Back when I still accessed The Forum on GFI's website, I often read posts from parents who used the term "likeminded" and expressed their gratitude at having found "likeminded" parents, i.e., other parents who are using the GFI materials. Eventually the Forum itself was closed to anyone who is not deemed "likeminded" by GFI staff. This has caused me to ponder the meaning of the word "likeminded", especially in a Biblical sense.
While I do not wish to minimize or make light of the serious differences of opinion and practice that all too often separate GFI families from other Christian parents, I cannot help but praise God for the diversity within the Body of Christ. How precious to contemplate that, in Christ, we as His followers can be "likeminded" with Christian parents everywhere--whether they "family bed" in tiny huts in Haiti...or practice responsive, extended breastfeeding in Africa...or "sling" in South America...or whether or not they adopt similar practices here in America. How precious to know that true and Biblical "likemindedness" comes not from sharing the same cultural parenting practices, implementing the same manmade system, quoting the same manuals, or following the same human leaders, but from bowing our knees to the same Risen Lord and serving Him as we minister to our children.
How wonderful it is, when we begin to focus on what is truly important, to discover "likemindedness" with fellow Believers quite different from us who none the less raise their children by God's leading and to His glory.
How tragic it is to use the term "likemindedness" in an narrow way that excludes other Believers!
I look forward with great longing and anticipation to that glorious day when worshiping the same Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be the only sort of "likemindedness" that will matter to those who are called by His name.
"Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5,6
To God be the glory,
Rebecca Prewett