Nine Years as a Guide?

The goal of our Faith Inkubation process is to bond a living cell into the body of Christ. If I can't do that with my own kid, I'm just "a travel agent handing out brochures to a place I've never been and will never go." (Brennan Manning Quotation)

Let me tell you a proud papa story:

I started my fifth year in the most important job in the church last night... as a small group confirmation guide to my own kid.

After three years with my daughter and five girls, Arlyce and I had the honor of taking our son and six boys through their first year of confirmation last year. (Arlyce still has hair, but it got greyer every Wednesday night last year.)

This week we started confirmation again, got the same boys back and are excited to do it again with a little more maturity in the group. I say "a little" because one of the boys grew 6 inches and facial hair over the summer,  the rest have only changed slightly on their way to becoming young men, and two of the boys are still rascals and are only there by the grace of God. We will love them rather than lecture them, stick with them through the growing process, try to teach them a little respect when the up-front talks are going on, and pull a Jacobian "I will not let you go unless you bless me" on them as they transition from Jacobs to Israels.

My most proud moment in a long time was walking into the church at 6:25 pm and seeing my 8th grade Joseph on stage banging on his guitar as part of the seven piece youth confirmation band.

If I could have written the script for my parenting when I was a new father, I would have written my son into a worship band with a lot of great Christian friends and role models, and I would have written my wife and myself as leaders of his small group with a group of boys who actually want us around. I just couldn't have dreamed it happening as early as 8th grade.

Well, it's happening, and I am profoundly thankful to have this honor to see him grow in the Lord, to see him take some leadership without any prodding, and to be his small group guide... as I say, "The most important job in the church."

The question in my mind this morning after is: "Why would any Christian parent NOT want to be their own child's faith guide?"

What does the future hold? Who knows? Will all the boys stick around? Will Arlyce still have hair in two years? Will Joseph stay in the band?

I can only tell you this:

I intend to finish as a guide with this group of junior high confirmation boys in 20 months, then begin our weekly small group "breakfast club" with the same boys-turned-to-men all the way through their graduation day.

We've done the small group guide thing for four years. My church can count on a volunteer dad for another five.