This is the first installment of a multi-part blog series by CHA Head of School Joseph Torgerson, entitled "Courageous Parenting: Raising a Generation That Loves Courageously."
This year’s school theme, one of our Expected Student Outcomes, is Love Courageously. Our scriptural focus this year is on Philippians 2:1-11. We value this passage so much that our goal is that every student and every parent in the CHA community commit it to memory. Here’s the short version:
Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.
Have this mind among yourselves.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition.
Look to the interests of others.
Count others more significant than yourselves.
For a follower of Jesus, love is not about a feeling; it’s about sacrifice. Love is not defined by our own desires; it’s about putting the needs of others before ourselves. We don’t ambiguously declare that “love is love is love;” instead, we declare that love is courageous sacrifice; love is saying, “you before me;” love is my generous gift for your genuine good.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a parent. And if you’re like me, you’re immediately making the words above about yourself and starting to feel guilty. As a mom or dad, do I take the form of a servant? Do I, like Jesus, only look to the interests of my children and not my own needs? Do I love my children sacrificially, like Jesus?
This is good and healthy and valid, but as we consider our school theme with our parenting hats on this year, I want to shift the focus. Instead of going right to “Am I laying my life down enough for my kids?” I’d like our focus to instead be:
Am I parenting in such a way that my children are learning to lay down their lives as they courageously love others?
Sometimes that type of parenting is simply setting the example, courageously sacrificing our own interests for our kids. Making them dinner. Wiping their noses. Picking up the mess. They see our love and are inspired to do the same.
But perhaps more often than we realize, the truly loving—and often more difficult—thing to do as a parent is cultivating an environment in which our children learn to love courageously and sacrificially. And that’s often through hard knocks. One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to love courageously enough to let your children learn the needed lessons that will equip them to put others first. And the method for that, as a parent, is not often to “just sacrifice” or to “just do it for them.” In fact, this often has the opposite effect.
To put it another way, if every parent only “looked to the interests of” their children, as Paul writes, wouldn’t we just be raising spoiled brats?
I’m certain that wasn’t Paul’s intent or meaning here. And if we look to the life of Jesus, this is clearly not how he rolled. He let Peter sink for a bit in the Sea of Galilee—out of love. He reprimanded the Pharisees—out of love. He busted up the temple—out of love. He probably even gave Peter “the look,” or at least some form of it, when he betrayed him for the third time—out of love.
So how do we “love courageously” this year as parents—so that our children truly learn what sacrificial, courageous love means?
Stay tuned! This is Part 1 of a many-part series this year: Courageous Parenting.
—JT
Read the next post in the series
Joe Torgerson (M.Ed., University of Missouri, B.A., Bethel University) serves as Head of School at CHA. Drawing on nine years of high school humanities teaching in addition to nearly a decade of U.S. and international administrative leadership, Joe guides the school with a global perspective rooted in a lifelong commitment to Christian ministry. He is a husband, father of three, and an avid enthusiast of athletics, board games, music, and dim sum.
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