What's Offensive?

Yesterday my wife was told that Catrina would not be able to sing "Jesus Loves Me" with her ventriloquist doll for the talent show. She had worked on a whole bit that included this song. I should tell you that originally she basically wanted to get up and simply share the gospel. My wife helped her figure out a little better way to tell people how much Jesus means to her. For the record neither my wife nor I suggested that she do this. We simply helped her prepare knowing that this might happen.

The final word is no in yet, as we have not heard from the principal. Still I am anticipating the phone call sometime today or maybe Monday. Evidently singing "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so" is offensive. I wonder if the same assertion would be made if it was sung, "Fred loves me so this I know for MySpace tells me so"? I know there are all kinds of assumptions because Jesus is a religious figure. Catrina is not asking them to ask Jesus into their heart or anything like that, she just wants to tell people how important Jesus is to her.

My guess is this will not be a huge issue and this will be settled quickly. I also am pretty sure that she will be allowed to do her bit. Never the less, this is one of those moments where daddy's earn all those hugs and kisses they get from their daughters.

Be an evangelist

Being a parent is hard enough, but passionately desiring to see your daughter and your son grow up to be servants of Christ is even harder. How do you handle a situation where your child is planning on doing something that will probably cause some waves, but it is a good thing to do?
My daughter is apparently an evangelist. Of this I am proud!! Still I am a little nervous. She is planning to tell people about Jesus at the school talent show using her ventriloquism. She was simply going to have her dummy (Carlos I think) tell everyone about Jesus. My wife is helping her do it in a more humorous way. Either way she is trying out for the talent show on Wednesday.
How do I handle this? I encourage her, and I get ready for battle. Satan can not be happy with this. To be honest, there is a part of me that hopes there will be a fight. I can't help but think that God would use that kind of a fight for His glory.
Well, let's just wait and see.

Child Dedication as a Paradigm for ministry

I don't know if I can remember all the child dedications I have seen or done for others. On those days the sanctuary is usually full with family and extended family. There is an energy in the room, almost as if a star had been born, the cameras are flashing people leaning out into the isles to take pictures of the beautiful baby. If your lucky the baby makes some noise (not the screaming kid kind) when it is held up for everyone to see. The energy is high!!

The ceremony itself is short and to the point. There is a passage read dealing with children and the importance of bringing the child up in a Godly manner. The parents are asked if they will bring the child up in a Godly way and then near the end of the ceremony the congregants and the extended family are asked if they will do the same. Of course everyone says they will, but we all know that will likely not happen.

Don't get me wrong, not every person in the room will be needed, but maybe, just maybe if we took that part of the ceremony a little more serious we would have a more significant impact on the students as they grow into adults. Emmy E. Werner from the University of California Davis did a study following a group of kids from a very poor area and found that the most significant predictor of resiliency for kids was the influence of an adult outside of the nuclear family.

This is not to downplay the significance of the nuclear family!! I would never do that; however, perhaps it is time for the church to operate as an extended family and take those child dedications seriously. This is not just a children's ministry or youth ministry thing, it is a church ministry thing.

Bikini Car Wash

A few weeks ago we (www.wechurch.com) had a free car wash for people in our community to get their cars washed. It was great, we had a good time and made some good connections in the community. The week before our car wash was an interesting week. I saw a few other car washes and talked to several people about the car wash we were going to do. Now, let me explain the title.

One week before our car wash I was driving to a local archery shop where I was unexpectedly and suddenly distracted by what at first glance appeared to be a topless girl waving a sign. It turned out she was not topless, but here and several other HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS were wearing bikinis. There was no shortage of cars to be washed and a fair amount of honking. For the record my car remained dirty. A couple days before our car wash I was inviting a guy at the pizza place I frequent to bring his car to get washed. After inviting him he asked if there would be girls wearing bikinis. So, whats the significance?

Let me see if I can make the significance clear. If my daughter was fully and modestly dressed at a car wash where the other girls were selling their bodies for a school fundraiser she would be removed from the car wash. Our culture has become so inundated with sex that parents (probably some of them claim to know Jesus) allow their daughters to parade around in bikinis next to a busy highway. Am I so naive that somehow I have missed this progression to an all out sex crazed world? No, for the most part I have seen this happen in most areas of life. I was naive enough to think that some parents actually cared about how their daughters were looked at.

What will this post accomplish? Probably not much. Still this is a call to any parent who calls themselves a Christian to begin protecting their children. This is a call to stand up to culture. This means standing up to coaches, other parents, and maybe even school boards. This means being willing to say what no one else will. This means being popular is insignificant and unimportant. I am of course assuming that the parents who read this have emotionally moved beyond the popularity contest of high school. I am also assuming that you are more concerned about teaching your kids to do what is right than you are about whether they have a date for their Senior Prom.

If you read this and think that I am some insane parent who has clearly gone off the deep end, you might be right. Even if that is true, it is impossible to read scripture and believe that kind of behavior is acceptable.

Kids only need one mom!!

This post is not about homosexuality, it is not even about moms. Instead it is about dads being dads.

I heard a statistic about the amount of time dads spend with there kids on a daily basis. Of course the statistic was used to show how dads in our society are horible at being parents. Time magazine published an article basically taking a shot at dads as well. According to this article human dads stink because they don't spend 90% of there time with the kids. If you think I am exagerating read the article. You might also want to notice how many of the researchers mentioned are male. All the research and statistics in the world will not help people to understand what being a dad is all about.

Being a dad is a lot more than spending time with the kids. Just think if dads spent 90% of their time with the kids someone else would have to go out and find a way to pay the bills. I guess if we did that then a bunch of male researches could get together and blast moms for not spending more time with the kids. Frankly I am sick of the immunization of the role of fatherhood.

I don't have the dad thing figured out, I am learning on the job. I mess up on a regular basis. Sometimes I am too nurturing (that is rarely the case, but it does occasionally happen), more often I am not nurturing enough. Still if both mom and dad were always comforting and never helped their kids develop things like toughness then we would end up with a bunch of really confused, wimpy, and even sissy kids. Don't get me wrong there is a balance, but the balance is different for mom and it should be. Real men cry, but they cry different than women and about different things. Real men may be "secure" in their "feminine" side, but I am more concerned about them being secure in their manly side. I honestly don't care if they are comfortable wearing pink or crying in public.

A good dad will spend time with the kids, but I am not sure how much. A good dad will more importantly show his kids what it is to have priorities right. Sometimes that may mean spending time doing things that take him away from the family. A good dad will not try to be mom. He will realize that mom can't teach some lessons to the kids as well as dad. He will also realize the reverse is true. Moms are not generally good at teaching their kids to be tough, they need help from dad. Moms may be in a better position to teach love and compassion, but they are probably not the best ones to teach their kids how to be appropriately competitive.

Dads, be a dad, and be a good one, but don't try to be mom!!

Honoring The Faithful

Memorial Day is around the corner and we should remember those who have fought for our country. Still there are others we should remember as well. We should remember those who have come before us spiritually. I want to take this post to honor one who has deeply impacted my life.

My Grandpa is the person who has influenced me spiritually as much as anyone. I have had the opportunity to be with him and my grandma (who has also influenced me greatly) this past week and still he challenges me and encourages me. It has been his love for God, his desire to handle God's word rightly, and honor God with his life that has inspired me.

G'pa & G'ma, I love you and I want you to know how much you have influenced me.

Flying With Kids

Not long ago I heard about a family that was asked to get off an airplane because they refused to make their kid behave. Recently my family and I flew to Florida for vacation and Council (a national event for the C&MA). I was a little nervous about how my 22 month old boy would do.

He runs everywhere he goes climbs everything he can (at about 18 months I found him sitting on the kitchen table once and on one other occasion celebrating his accent to the peak of Mt. Bunk Bed). He doesn't sit still (except for Jeff Gordan and the other Nascar drivers) and the thought of asking him to sit still on an airplane for 1 & 2 hours on the same day was rather frightening. I thought for sure we would be the next family to dawn a poster for bad parenting. Sometimes I feel bad for parents because America has created a culture where punishment (especially physical punishment) is frowned upon and sometimes viewed as abuse. In this same culture we expect kids to behave when in public. We expect parents who don't discipline to some how find a way to control their kids when they do go into public places. There is nothing more irritating than going to a nice dinner with your wife and having some spoiled little kid screaming at his parents because he doesn't like the macaroni and cheese.

Our kids are pretty well behaved (although we are still working on tantrums with the boy). Still I wasn't sure if I could get away with spanking my boy on an airplane if I needed to do so. Fortunately it all worked out well, even the extra half an hour we spent on the Ground in Chicago. No spankings, only a tiny bit of crying, and Joash (my boy) loved the take off and landing. Of course it helped that he slept almost the entire flight from Chicago to Orlando.

Don't Mess With a Woman

I don't intend to make light of the issue, but if you think words are not powerful, think again. A pastor's wife in Tennessee decided enough was enough. Her husband evidently criticized her too much. Evidently divorce was not an option, but murder was.

This is a tragic story and it should remind us of several things starting with how powerful our words are and ending with our need to be real and honest regarding the troubles we face.

Click on the title to read the story.

Am I Raising a Redneck?

I love to watch football, basketball, the UFC, and almost any other sporting event. My son on the other hand is different. I can't even get him to sit still long enough to watch anything. There are only a couple of exceptions. His favorite movie isn't Veggie Tales or Blues Clues ( he will usually only watch about half of one of those movies). He will watch a John Deer movie we have. It isn't animated, and it really isn't even a story. Actually it is basically a documentary about John Deer Tractors. Not only will he sit still long enough to watch it one time, he will watch it multiple times in a row. His second favorite movie is "Cars."

There is really only one other thing he will sit still and watch. It is what we were watching when this picture was taken. It is Nascar. This leads me to question what kind of kid I am raising. Am I raising a Redneck? I guess I don't know the answer for sure. I do know I have become a little bit of a Nascar fan myself.

Redneck or not raising my children has become not just a passion for me, it is almost an obsession. I find myself questioning conventional wisdom when it comes to raising kids. Even many things that come from good, godly people who have raised good, godly kids. I have an 8 year old daughter and 19 month old boy. Every day I fear for their future and wonder what risks I will have to take in order to help them become people after God's own heart? What hard lessons they will have to learn? How many times will I have to watch them be hurt so they can learn the lessons they need to learn?

I wonder if this is how God sees us sometimes?

My Daughter's First Quiet Time

Today was a landmark day for my daughter. She had her first quiet time. Since she was little we have been reading Bible stories to her. We have memorized scripture with her. We have been priming her and preparing her for a relationship with Christ since she was born. She put her faith in Christ at the age of 3. She loves God and she prays often. She has a pretty good understanding of who Jesus is and what the significance of his life and death is. Still, she cannot continue with a child's faith forever.

My goal as a parent is to prepare her to have a faith in Christ that is her own, a faith that is not dependant on her parents. She has a long ways to go and at the age of 8 she has a long time to get there.

I am not in a hurry, but today I gave her an "adult" Bible. In this Bible were some instructions about having a quiet time. She decided it was time for her to have her first quiet time. After about ten minutes I went to see how she was doing. I was promptly told to leave her alone. I guess Daddies little girl isn't as little as she used to be. I am not needed as much as I once was.

It was a proud day for this dad. I hope there will be many more!!