About This Blogspace

Growing up in the Episcopal church, I spoke the language of faith from birth. I have a seminary education and certainly felt comfortable raising my children as Christians. With years of experience as a professional Christian educator under my belt, I was sure that I was up to the challenge of sharing the Christian faith with my children.

So you can imagine my surprise one Palm Sunday when my then eight-year-old elder son piled into the car after Church and said, "Ok, Mom - So who's Hosanna anyway? I get the whole Father, Son and Holy Spirit thing, but just who is this Hosanna person and how come I haven't heard about him before?" Having processed around the Church that day with his palm branch, my son was sure that "Hosanna" was a previously un-named manifestation of the Holy Spirit that for some bizzare reason we had decided to sing about only on this particular Sunday. Rather chagrined, I explained that "Hosanna" is not a person, but rather a Hebrew word meaning "save now" or "please save." We sing it and say it on Palm Sunday to re-enact Jesus' entry into Jerusalem that final Passover before his crucifixion. He seemed satisfied with my answer, but I drove home wondering just what other bits of confusion about his faith he might be musing on - and I was considerably less impressed by my effectiveness in sharing my faith at home!

I share this story because I think all Christian parents - no matter how strong our faith or whether or not we were raised in the Church - have questions about sharing and teaching faith at home. Even if our children regularly attend Church School, they have questions they bring only to us. We want to answer them, but we are afraid we might say the wrong thing, or we don't have the "right" answer or we aren't sure about the answer ourselves. This is perfectly normal in the life of a Christian family.

I hope this blog can be a place for us to talk about our questions, to learn together about what it means to make a life of faith as a family and to share the joy and struggles of raising children in the faith. I will post weekly with information about the liturgical seasons, suggestions for activities and prayers to share at home and provide references to websites and books and other media that will help you and your family live a rich life of faith together at home. As you comment and respond, I will get a better sense of what your questions are, of the things that we need more information about and I will know how to better support you and help you support one another as we share the raising of our children in faith as families and as a Church community.

So welcome to this new adventure! Let's enjoy the journey together!

Faithfully.
Elizabeth