Did you know . . .
- The average age a person becomes a grandparent for the first time is 47.
- Most people who become grandparents, will be grandparents for 1/3 to 1/2 of their lives!
- There are more than 600 places in the Bible where God tells grandparents to pass on the faith to, "their children's children".
- Next to parents, grandparents have the most influence in the lives of a child - far, far more than a Sunday school teacher or children's ministry worker.
- Grandparents have a relationship - or at least can have - which they can build on to influence their grandchildren for Jesus.
- The most effective discipleship takes place in the context of a relationship.
- Discipleship is all about older generations passing faith on to younger generations.
- Most churches have ministry to parents - through high school, and sometimes college, and ministry to senior saints, but not ministry for new and young - not ready yet to retire - grandparents.
When you think about your grandchildren, it is important for us to understand when it comes to engaging them in God's Word and passing on a heritage of faith to them, the best place for this to take place is within the relationship of a grandparent and their grandchildren. While this is true, many, many of us do not know how to pass our faith on to our grandchildren. We do not know what God's Word says about the role we can have in passing our faith on to these children who mean so very much to us.
It is for these reasons a new movement is forming across the USA - the Legacy Coalition - Grandparenting that Matters! I am part of this movement (Senior Writer) and will be sharing much more with you in the coming months about what the Legacy Coalition is and how you, and your church, can be involved.