Honoring Grandparents

-Jonathan Lambeth, Elementary Principal

On the first Friday of each October, Faith Christian School sets aside time in the elementary grades to especially welcome and honor grandparents. This year, over 400 grandparents and other guests (“grand-friends”) joined us for a morning of celebration and building relationships. Why would a Christian school devote significant effort and resources for a day like this, and why would so many grandparents attend?

Roles of Grandparents

That second question is easy to answer, of course–love. Sincere, godly love of a grandparent for a grandchild is a blessing to see. Grandparents want to see their grandchildren as often as they can!  In today’s society, grandparents may be separated from grandchildren by many miles or by difficult circumstances or schedules.  Grandparents also appreciate that time seems to be passing more and more quickly.

At FCS, we routinely observe positive involvement of grandparents in their grandkids’ lives.  Grandparents volunteer, attend special programs regularly, pray for our school, support the school generously, and even occasionally join us on field trips. 

  Due to various circumstances, we even have families in which grandparents have lovingly taken up the mantle of raising their grandchildren in their own home.

“Spoiled” is usually not an attractive quality

Grandparents rightly desire to keep having an influence in their grandchildren’s lives.  But, grandparents must apply Biblical wisdom, faith, and love to avoid the cultural temptation to simply “spoil” a grandchild.  I regularly meet grandparents around FCS who are daily living out the gospel and helping their grandchildren grow in wisdom and in honoring God, especially by helping them honor and obey their parents and do right in school.  I am very thankful that I have seen this modeled in many ways for my own children, too.

Making Grandparents Day Special

Now the answer to why FCS would hold such an event becomes obvious—we love our grandparents and we want to show them how thankful we are for them!  Take a look at our Facebook page for pictures and videos from Grandparents Day, but here’s a description of what we did.

• Smiling student greeters and PTO volunteers welcomed grandparents, gave them helpful information, and registered them.
• Parents and PTO volunteers provided and served a huge spread of light breakfast foods, juice and coffee.
• The FCS High School Band performed outside for grandparents as they continued to arrive.
• Photography stations for portraits of grandparents and grandchildren were made available by LifeTouch in the Gym.
• Entertaining video clips from vintage TV shows were shown in the auditorium as grandparents awaited the elementary program.
• Kindergarten through 6th grade students presented an hour of choral and instrumental music, scripture verses, a thought-provoking skit, and a video about their grandparents.  All of these helped us “Soar to New Heights” in worship, fun, and honoring grandparents.  I could tell the grandparents thoroughly enjoyed it!  Our program was even live streamed on the internet.   Here’s what one grateful school mom said after viewing the program online—“I want to take a moment to tell you how much I appreciated the ability to watch the Grandparents Program via internet.  Having lost both my parents just shortly after my son was born, your comments about how important Grandparents are to our children really hits home with me.  Having my son at Faith has been a true blessing and I thank God daily (sometimes hourly) for all that He is doing through all of the staff at Faith.”
• Grandparents were then able to spend time with their grandchildren in the classrooms in an “open house” format.  Teachers prepared fun and interesting activities for guests to do with their grandchildren.

We look forward to this special day, and we hope all our guests can join us again next year.