Cultivating Hearts of Worship

Real change occurs as we interact with and worship a God who alone has the power to transform hearts.

By: Brendon O’Dowd, head of school

I know parenting can sometimes feel like trying to manage the wind, leaving you with nothing but messy hair. As a covenant community, we are reading Paul Tripp’s book Parenting to help us step out of the “wind” and find calm through a renewed sense of purpose.

When we began reading this book, we learned that as parents we are not owners; rather, we are ambassadors who are not “motivated by a vision of what we want our children to be, but by the potential of what grace could cause our children to be” (p. 19). Chapter 11 continues this theme, calling us to live out our role as ambassadors by seeking to cultivate hearts of worship in our children. This moves them beyond mere behavior modification toward grace driven change, while also guarding against allowing “good things [to] become bad things in their heart because they become ruling things” (p. 162).

Priorities, goals, and even behaviors are motivated and directed by the heart, and the heart itself is shaped by worship. While we certainly desire our children to behave, our greater hope is that they would develop hearts that are attuned and sensitive to God’s Word and His work. Real change occurs as we interact with and worship a God who alone has the power to transform hearts.

As my wife and I reflect on our years of parenting young children, we recognize that a fundamental shift occurred when we asked ourselves an important question: Do we want our children to behave simply to make life easier for us and for them, or do we want to shepherd their hearts so they learn to trust the only One who can truly transform hearts and minds? My prayer is that God would give us all hearts of worship as we seek to faithfully shepherd the hearts of our children.