Please Pass the Faith

Are you interested in how children and youth grow in faith? Are you a young person with grandparents, or a parent or grandparent yourself? Do you work in an intergenerational setting as I do?

Please Pass the Faith is subtitled “The Art of Spiritual Grandparenting,” but this book is not only for grandparents.  At its core is a very helpful discussion of stages of faith development following the work of  the internationally renowned James W. Fowler. The book then goes on to offer many suggestions and practical examples on how to share your own faith story in the course of every day life and activities; how to make family holidays meaningful and spiritually significant; even stories about how to maintain relationships with young adults who may not choose faith in spite of our best efforts to pass it on to them.

I really appreciate the richness and wisdom of this book, although I confess I had initially expected less of Fowler and more discussion of Scripture on developing faith and passing it on between the generations. More reflection on biblical examples would have been helpful—e.g., Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. As the psalmist testifies:

O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come. (Psalm 71:17-18).

I’m not a grandparent, but I’m happy to recommend this book written by my friend, Elsie Rempel, who writes out of her experience in faith formation ministry and her personal experience as a mother and grandmother. It’s easy to read on your own, or as part of a small group or Sunday school class. Reflection and discussion questions are included.

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4 thoughts on “Please Pass the Faith

  1. April, this post comes to me at a perfect time in my life. Thanks for reviewing this book. I am going to check it out. Your post shows that reviews don’t have to be long to be helpful. In fact, you picked out such salient aspects of the book that I already know I could benefit from reading it. Let’s stay in touch.

  2. Thanks for your comment, Shirley – it means a lot to me! I’ve only recently started blogging and reading/commenting on other blogs, but am finding it a great way to connect with others, so definitely let’s keep in touch. All the best in your “spiritual grandparenting”!

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