House of tiny tearaways
I have been watching the above TV programme on families who have children with severe bahavioural problems. One of the issues raised has been the lack of authority and discipline of the parents. Some of them give in to the demands of their children because they cannot bear to see their children upset or unhappy and some fail to take authority because they fear that their children will not love them if they make them do what they don't want to do. The result is some very unhappy and stressed out families.
Sadly it's not that difficult to see some parallels between the House of Tiny Tearaways and the Household of the Saints. Leadership is not easy and our hearts often want to comfort rather than chastise, entertain rather than educate and give rather than make any demands.
I wonder what William Booth would make of the "chummy" sytle of leadership most of us exercise in the church today.
Well I read this in the March/April 2003 edition of the Officer. It is from some fragmentary notes of Booths address taken at a staff council in 1893.
"There is not one of you in whose personal sorrows and struggles I do not feel and interest. I would like to go into them myself if I only had the time. I would like to go home to tea with each one of you and help you mothers nurse the baby and share your troubles. I cannot bear to see you suffer but I am unable to avoid it. I am determined to use you all to the utmost of God's work . I am going to get out of you all I can. A General is no good for his post who is not willing to see his soldiers suffer. And however good my plans may be they will involve not less but more hard work, sacrifice and discipline than in the past; but they will ensure, I believe with your hearty co-operation an abundant harvest of success."
Now if you think that the reaction of Booth's hearers to his determination to get out of them all he could was to walk out in indignation you would be wrong. An officer in the meeting wrote in response, "The above remarks occupied the first sitting of the Council. Needless to say that the stirring words of our beloved General moved us to tears and to a fresh consecration of ourselves to God and the war!
God bless
Carol
I have been watching the above TV programme on families who have children with severe bahavioural problems. One of the issues raised has been the lack of authority and discipline of the parents. Some of them give in to the demands of their children because they cannot bear to see their children upset or unhappy and some fail to take authority because they fear that their children will not love them if they make them do what they don't want to do. The result is some very unhappy and stressed out families.
Sadly it's not that difficult to see some parallels between the House of Tiny Tearaways and the Household of the Saints. Leadership is not easy and our hearts often want to comfort rather than chastise, entertain rather than educate and give rather than make any demands.
I wonder what William Booth would make of the "chummy" sytle of leadership most of us exercise in the church today.
Well I read this in the March/April 2003 edition of the Officer. It is from some fragmentary notes of Booths address taken at a staff council in 1893.
"There is not one of you in whose personal sorrows and struggles I do not feel and interest. I would like to go into them myself if I only had the time. I would like to go home to tea with each one of you and help you mothers nurse the baby and share your troubles. I cannot bear to see you suffer but I am unable to avoid it. I am determined to use you all to the utmost of God's work . I am going to get out of you all I can. A General is no good for his post who is not willing to see his soldiers suffer. And however good my plans may be they will involve not less but more hard work, sacrifice and discipline than in the past; but they will ensure, I believe with your hearty co-operation an abundant harvest of success."
Now if you think that the reaction of Booth's hearers to his determination to get out of them all he could was to walk out in indignation you would be wrong. An officer in the meeting wrote in response, "The above remarks occupied the first sitting of the Council. Needless to say that the stirring words of our beloved General moved us to tears and to a fresh consecration of ourselves to God and the war!
God bless
Carol
posted by Rehoboth at
1:16 PM
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