What Grow Christians Gave Me

I came to Grow Christians as a reader.

At the time, I was a couple of years into a strange and wonderful transition in my life, moving from a full-time parish priest to being the lead parent of very young children. I was discovering that the things I had learned in seminary about theology, scripture, liturgy, and the Saints did not necessarily come with instructions for how to talk about them with a four-year-old.

I knew how to preach a sermon. I knew how to lead a Bible study. I knew how to teach adults about the liturgical calendar. But how, exactly, do you explain Lent to a toddler? How do you make the stories of Scripture part of the ordinary rhythms of family life?

Grow Christians gave me language for those things, along with a few recipes and craft ideas, too.

It showed me that faith formation at home did not have to be elaborate or perfect. It could happen around the dinner table, in the car, while hiking in the woods near our house, or as part of our bedtime routine. It could be playful and messy and imperfect.

At some poitn in those early years of Grow Christians, Nurya Love Parish invited me to write. I began contributing quarterly, sharing some of what I was learning in my own family and ministry. Then a few years later, Nurya invited me to become the editor. And somehow, Grow Christians became part of my life for the better part of a decade.

One of the greatest gifts of this work has been the people. Grow Christians has allowed me to learn from people who were right in the thick of parenting and ministry themselves. Our writers have shared not only their wisdom, but their lives: the beautiful moments and the frustrating ones, the traditions that worked and the ones that fell flat, the questions they couldn’t answer, the faith that surprised them, and the faith that sometimes felt very far away. This honesty is what made Grow Christians feel like a real community.

^{The author’s daughter baptizes and seals a dog during a volunteer shift at their local animal shelter in 2019. Allison wrote about this experience for Grow Christians HERE.}

This is not a blog featuring posts from experts who figured out the secret to raising perfectly faithful children. We have always been people trying to live our faith as authentically as possible alongside children entrusted to our care. We were figuring it out in real time and then writing about it as if we were catching up with an old friend. And, I think, that honesty is why so many readers found a home here.

But all good things have a season.

After nearly a decade, our archives have become enormous. We have written about Saints and Feast Days and Advent traditions and Easter baskets and prayer and scripture and baptism and bedtime rituals. We have answered questions that families didn’t even know they had yet. We have an extraordinary library of posts and I think Grow Christians is a ministry that has become what it meant to be. Grow Christians has done its work. It has given families ideas and encouragement and permission to practice their faith in ordinary life. It has given writers a place to tell the truth about parenting and discipleship. And it has created a community that, for many of us, became much more than a website.

The archives will remain. The words are not disappearing. The wisdom shared here will still be available to families, clergy, and lay leaders looking for a way to talk about Saints with their children, mark a holy season, pray together, or simply figure out what Christian faith looks like on a Tuesday afternoon. And I hope that is one of the great gifts of this ending: Grow Christians doesn’t really have to go anywhere.

I am profoundly grateful that I got to be a reader, a writer, and eventually the editor of this extraordinary little corner of the Church. Mostly, though, I am grateful for all of you who made it what it became.

Thank you for trusting us with your stories. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your questions. Thank you for reminding one another that raising children in faith is not about getting everything right. It is about showing up, paying attention, telling the stories, practicing the traditions, asking the questions, and making room for God to surprise us.

What a gift it has been to grow Christians together. And what a gift it is to know that the growing will continue.