A Family Resource List from the Next Gen Ministry

The Next Generation Team wants to do all we can to serve and support you as you labor to raise your kids to understand God's ways for life and godliness. Praise be to God for giving us the clear instruction of scripture, as it is the only sure foundation for us to build our life and families upon. With this in mind, we are compiling a resource list for parents based on two foundational principles.

1. Your walk with Jesus matters first. The best thing you can do for your marriage, your kids, and for your entire family is to pursue Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. When you're healthy in your relationship with your savior, you are most enabled (by the Holy Spirit) to lead, love, and influence those who are closest to you! The first list below provides a starting point if you are looking for direction on how to pursue Jesus more closely. Also, any pastor or director at our church would be eager to speak with you further about this! We are here for you!
2. Christian parents are called to diligently teach their children to understand Christian story, Christian belief, and Christian practice. This principle was written to reflect the call in scripture (Deut. 6:7-9) for parents to embrace God's call on them pointedly to be the predominant means by which children learn God's commands. Recognizing that this can feel overwhelming, we have crafted three "buckets" of understanding to give some direction for what this can look like in the home. Christian story, belief, and practice are foundational categories of understanding for all Christians. We hope the below resources are helpful to you!

This list is meant to provide reliable resources as a starting point! There are so many great books out there that it wouldn't be helpful or possible to list them all. There are so many great books out there that it wouldn't be helpful or possible to list them all. If you have benefitted from a family resource, I would love to to hear about it as I am continuously adding to a larger resource list.  

Resources

Some personal pursuit resources for parents:

• Mere Christianity, Lewis
• Praying the Bible, Whitney
• Christian Beliefs, Grudem 
• Gospel in Life, Keller (self directed study)
• The Common Rule, Earley

Christian Story:

• Old Story New, Mechowski
• Long Story Short, Mechowski
• The Biggest Story Bible, DeYoung
• The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses
• Kaleidoscope Kids Bible (Series)

Christian Belief:

• New City Catechism
• Apostles Creed, Matt Chandler
• Gospel Threads, Platt
• Gospel Catechism 

Christian Practice: 

• “Parents, Just go to church”
• “Now’s the Time: Resources for Family Devotions”
• “Lord, Teach us-and our kids-to pray”
• “Teaching children to pray: guiding principles”

Parenting Books:

• Parenting, Tripp
• Gospel-Powered Parenting, Farley
• Family Discipleship, Chandler, Griffin
• Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Tripp
• Give them Grace, Fitzpatrick, Thompson

Parenting Links:

• Rooted
• Axis