About the Book:
Parents often experience a “freak out” moment when they realize their children’s view of God will primarily come from what they learn at home.
Most parents spend more time helping their kids succeed at academics or athletics than infusing shared spiritual experiences into the rhythm of everyday family life.
While the idea of strategically passing down our faith can seem intimidating, the annual Rites of Passage Experiences contained in Pass It On make it easy for your family to celebrate milestones from kindergarten through high school graduation. Forever change the direction of your family’s spiritual legacy . . . starting now!
Purchase your own copy at David C. Cook.
About the Authors:
Jim Burns is president of HomeWord and executive director of the HomeWord Center for Youth and Family at Azusa Pacific University. He has more than 1.5 million resources in print and a radio broadcast heard on 800 stations a day. Jim resides in Southern California with his wife Cathy and their three daughters.
Connect with Jim on his website, Twitter, and Facebook.
Jeremy Lee is the founder of ParentMinistry.Net, a subscription-based service for children and youth ministry workers. He was on the writing team for the Simple Truth Bible from Group Publishing and the Ignite Study Bible from Thomas Nelson Publishers. Jeremy lives in Nashville with his wife and children.
Connect with Jeremy at his website, Twitter, and Facebook.
My Opinion:
One of my worries in regards to being a widowed mom is am I going to be able to pass on my husband and I’s faith single-handily. When Pass It On came up for review especially with the secondary title of “building a legacy of faith for your children through practical and memorable experiences”, I knew it was a book that I needed to read. I’ve always thought, even though we aren’t Jewish, that rites of passage for children are something that Christians should do – to recognize who their children are as they grow in their faith. Mr. Burns and Lee give parents the tools they need to be able to bless their children at whatever stage they are at and make it meaningful – even if the child rolls their eyes or deny wanting anything to do with a ceremony. My only issue with the book was the use of grade levels to determine where a child is at – as a home school family – my children don’t fit into the typical grades like if they were in school so one may be above, another below or another in between. The good thing is this book is flexible and if your ‘kindergarten’ aged child is more mature and seems to fit in the ‘first grade’ then use that.
So each grade has a different spiritual aspect attached to it, so second grade is “an invitation to the Bible”, the authors walk through what is going on in this child’s life and how it affects their faith, then they describe what a rite of passage could look like for that child (these passages don’t have to be huge to-do’s just gather the immediate family) and some ideas for gifts ranging from the cheap to the more expensive as well as Scripture. The authors then list what the average second grade child is like physically, emotionally, relational and spiritually – this will help parents better gauge where their child fits especially if the family doesn’t assign grade levels. I know it comes in handy for myself such as my 9 year old son who isn’t reading yet (not for lack of trying though) but is working at a fourth grade level in all other subjects.
Overall, I think this is a fantastic book and I know my oldest who is 13 will more than likely find it cheesy but I’d love to try to fit these into our lives especially as I try to strive to make our faith more strong and real in light of our new lives. The rites of passage aren’t bound in stone and each family can tweak as they need to for their family or for their child – but the authors do say if you do it for this child and the other children see it be prepared to do it for the next child and so on. I often find it hard to have one on one time with the children as we’re so busy and I’m only one person but the other positive about a rite of passage is letting the child know they are loved and cherished by both the Lord and myself even if the one on one attention is lacking. I will be referring back to this in the coming months and try to figure out how to implement this in our lives.
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