March 3, 2015November 9, 2025 Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry, Parenting

The Love Connection To Adoption

Today, the church is making much of adoption! I praise the Lord for this trend! Nothing is more exciting than seeing God’s people driven by a love for God. True religion is not eating potluck dinners; it “is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). The church should seek out orphans, “with a deep concern for their well-being and a clear commitment to care for their needs” (Platt 2015, 82). One of the most beautiful demonstrations of the gospel is a parent lovingly adopting a child.

Are Adopted Kids Better?

But as we talk about adoption, our message can get muddle. At FBCE all the talk about adoption has caused some kids with biological parents to questions their parents’ love for them. These kids with biological parents know they were never chosen. And now, they can’t help but wonder if they are a little less loved and a little less wanted than their adopted brothers and sisters.

Understanding Love

To help our kids combat their doubts, we must keep adoption closely tied to love of God. In other words, we need to tell our kids that we are adopted into the family of God because God loved us. He demonstrated his love by selflessly dying on the cross for our sins. On the basis of his finished work, we are called his sons and daughters (I John 3:1). While adoption is a product of love, the cross is the greatest actualization of love. As defined by Christ, love is selflessness.

So are adopted kids loved more? No. True love is not tied exclusively to an adoption date or to a birthday date. It is tied to Christ. It is freely given by a parent to a kid and continues throughout their lives. As parents we love our biological kids who wake us up at three in the morning because we have been loved when we were trouble. As parents, we also love our adopted kids who were once helpless orphans because God loved us when we were helpless.

We love because he first loved us. – I John 4:19

What makes our kids distinctly our kids is our commitment to love them. Any child who has parents that lovingly sacrifices time, income, emotions, and health for them is loved and wanted. Love (and not legal or medical paperwork) is the bond that unites all mothers and fathers to their children.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. – 1 John 4:7

Works Cited

Platt, David. Counter Culture: a compassionate call to counter culture in a world of poverty, same-sex marriage, racism, sex slavery, immigration, persecution, abortion, orphans, and pornography. Carol Streem: Tyndale House, 2015.

February 10, 2015November 9, 2025 Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry, Parenting

Successful Failures

When we see kids getting drunk every weekend, fleeing church like the plague, and rocking out to obscenities, we naturally start to look for someone or something to blame. Was it the wrong crowd at school, or the tattooed kid next door, or all that secular media? Unfortunately, the answer actually might be in our house and church. It might be you and me.

The Church’s Failure

According to a recent study, those of us who attend church are almost indistinguishable from those who do not. During the typical week, Christians are almost as likely as non-Christians to gamble, gossip, hold a grudge, and sleep with someone other than their spouse. Sadly, Christians are slightly actually more likely than the unchurched, to lie and steal. Now admittedly, there is some good news. Christians are less likely to use profanity, get drunk (though almost 25% of Christians still do on a weekly basis) and seek out pornography (Barna & Kinnaman, p. 131). These stats indicate that our church people remarkably mirror the world. As David Platt laments,

We can’t fathom a Christian on the other side of the world believing that a wooden god can save them, but we have no problem believing that religion, money, possessions, food, fame, sex, sports, status, and success can satisfy (p. 23).

Our Successful Failure

So what does this have to with our kids? Parents have the greatest opportunity to influence their children. Whatever they
teach their kids, they will pick up. But as the stats above point out, many Christian parents are modeling the wrong message. They are successfully teaching their kids that living for Christ and true joy is synonymous with living for self. By living worldly lives, Christians may actually be the ones encouraging their kids to walk away from Christ.

But, troubled kids do typically reject one aspect of their parents’ lives. They skip church. No longer seeing the need for their parents’ Pharisaical attitudes or guilt complexes, many kids will often happily exchange the closed minded church pew for the open tolerance of the coffee shop. After all if you can be a good person without obeying Jesus, why get up early every Sunday and pretend the white robed dude is a big deal?

Overcoming the World

How do we fix our worldliness and in turn, help our kids understand the true Jesus of the Bible? We embrace as Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Costly Grace.” On Sunday morning, we teach that there is no salvation apart from repentance. We affirm that the grace of Christ calls us all to die to sins and to live obediently for Christ. We proclaim that salvation leads to transformation. The old things such as sexual immorality and lying will pass away. The new has come.

And during the week, we live the word. We sacrifice our selfish desires and wants, to care for the sick, to happily wash dishes, to selflessly love our families. We become doers of the word who love Christ more than life itself.

I fear that the many church people are worldly because they have never left the world. As David Platt writes,

People who claim to be Christians while their lives look no different from the rest of the world are clearly not Christians (p. 18).

If we want to encourage our kids to faith in Christ, some of us will need to embrace Christ for the first time. We can only faithfully model what we know and experienced.

Understanding Our Limits

Now with all this being said, we don’t need to develop a guilt complex every time our kids sin or walk away from God. According to God, no parent is ultimately responsible for their child’s salvation or theirs sins. The prophet Ezekiel writes,

The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father suffer for the iniquity of the son (18:20).

Godly parents raise kids who become drug addicts and drug addicts produce kids who become pastors. Thankfully, God saves kids from all kinds of homes irrespective of ones parents.

Yet, God has still specifically designed us parents to reach the next generation for Christ. (Read Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78.) And if our lifestyle is so worldly that our kids miss the beauty of the gospel, we will be held accountable. And even more frightening, we (like the trouble kids around us) may be speeding down the broad road to destruction.

Living For Jesus

Thankfully, the antidote for our sin problem is simple. We start guarding against worldliness. As we interact with the scriptures, we compare our lives against the life of Christ and repent when our lives fail to match up to Jesus’ life. (2 Cor. 13:5). And if we follow Jesus, we will be successful parents.

Works Cited

Barna, G., & Kinnaman, D. (2014). Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect with Them. Austin: Tyndale House.

Platt, D. (2013). Follow Me . Carol Stream: Tyndale House .

January 23, 2015January 26, 2015 Peter Witkowski Parenting

When The Helicopter Crashes

The recent news story of two kids (ten and six) walking to and from a park located near a mile from their Maryland home, has me and many other Americans rethinking their parenting. Are we too hands off? Will our kids get kidnaped by strange men in white vans? Or are we (like the Meitiv’s think) flying our parenting helicopters too low? And in the process of hovering, are we sucking our kids’ creativity, personality, and social skills right out of their souls? What’s the balance? Will child’s services be knocking on our door soon? Did our parenting helicopter just crash?

Although each parent’s specific approach to parenting will fluctuate within each community and each family, I have found the five biblical principles below to be a helpful matrix for evaluating my parenting style. None of us will be perfect parents, but through Christ we can be godly parents. We can keep flying. So here we go, Five Parenting Truths to Remember:

Five Truths

First, the world is fallen. According to the Bible, nature is groaning with pain (Rom 8:22). It’s inherently broken. Consequently, we will watch our kids will fall out of trees, get stung by bees, and will be scared of tornados. Physical pain and suffering has been transfused into the universe’s DNA. Regardless of how close we hover, our kids will still get sick. We cannot eliminate all pain. Only Christ can do that, and he will. Until that time, we should try to protect our kids from harmful situations and comfort them when they do suffer.
Second, our kids are sinners (Ps 51:5). Regardless of how low we fly or of how much scientific room we allow them, kids will make bad and foolish choices from time to time. As a kid, the cost reward analysis always led me (even when offered cash for a clean dental bill of health) to believe that the joy of excessive candy consumption was well worth a few painful cavities. We need to be careful not to provoke our children through our words, and actions. If we give a preschooler Mountain Dew at 9:30 PM and then tell her to go to bed a 10:00 PM, we’ve all but tilled and fertilized the ground for disastrous night. But as we parent our kids, we will encounter all kinds of difficult and unpleasant things. Our kids’ sins don’t necessarily mean we failed as parents or that the Jones’ view of parenting is superior.
Third, we are not God (Is. 55:8). We cannot and will not ever be able to perfectly protect our kids or anticipate their every need. We cannot ensure their continual happiness and contentment. We should lovingly and sacrificially care for them. And when struggles come their way, we help them think through things biblically. But God does the rest. He cares for their souls. He provides both us and our kids with all that we need on this earth (Ps 50:10). If God hasn’t given you the money to buy junior an Xbox 360, he may be disappointed, but he is not doomed to a life of crime. Comfort, peace, safety, clothing, and food are all things the ultimately come from above. God will provide.
Fourth, God gives us reasonable expectations. Past generations may have believed that failing to give your kids everything they wanted meant you were a neglectful parent. But God doesn’t. He tells us to prepare them for life and to point them to Jesus (Eph. 6:4). With much prayer, we can do this. We can teach them how to manage budget and the importance of obeying God. We can’t keep them from giving into foolish desires or from thinking that standing in swing with no hands is a good idea. But we can point them to the God of all wisdom.
Fifth, God gives wisdom. We are not alone! We serve the God of all wisdom. He created parents as a reflection of his character. Since God is the ultimately and perfect parent, he can teach us how to care for children. If we seek him through prayer and scripture, he will gives us the insights we need to loving care for our kids, regardless of their issues. Notice what James says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). Regardless of how ridiculous we feel, God will freely give us wisdom when we ask. God doesn’t judge us by the family down the street.

Whether you hover or fly a few thousand feet above, we all can parent with hope because we know the creator of the world. We can fly straight to the throne of grace!