Central States Synod
816.861.6584

Contact Us

Legacy of Faith: Pass It On

What do you think the family above is doing? Any number of guesses could be right, but the writer is reminded of families clustering around the baptismal font while someone is claimed as God’s child. Do you notice the child in front? Many congregations invite youngsters to come closer, experiencing first hand the ritual that sometime in the past made them a child of God.

What is your family like? Can you count the members on one hand? Or is it loud and boisterous with birthday parties and graduations and weddings all the time? Perhaps your family is spread all over the country or even all over the world and you don’t see some of them very often. Or maybe you live or even work together, seeing one another every day. Perhaps the people you consider your family are not blood relations at all and you chose them to fulfill the role of family for you. All kinds of families make up our communities, our world, our lives.

Families of all kinds, nuclear families, extended families, chosen families, and church families, have exerted a definite influence upon you. Your choices, your actions, your very thoughts have been influenced by others you knew while you were growing up, people you have spent Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays with for years. Those people you have shared pews (or in our case, pew chairs) and Bible classes and parking lot spaces with have impacted you too. All of these influences helped to shape you into the precious child of God you are today.

Good stewards of family relationships work at it. They spend time with the people they love. They modify their behavior when they see it hurting those they care about. They pray for the people in their lives. That demonstrated caring is a legacy, a tradition they pass on to others. Examine your legacy today: what are you passing on?