Winter Camp is ON!

Winter Camp is always one of my favorite weekends of the year. It's basically a HUGE weekend of fun, learning, and all-around zaniness.

This year, our theme was "HERO," and we're focusing on the "Power that God Gives." You see, because of what Jesus has done and the promises of God, we can live our everyday lives with some pretty awesome "Super-powers."

If your child is going to Winter Camp, here's what we'll be talking about all weekend...

• Friday PM - God gives me the POWER to be COURAGEOUS! (Joshua)
• Saturday AM - God gives me the POWER of His STRENGTH! (David's battle with Goliath)
• Saturday PM - God's POWER provided the SACRIFICE! (the Gospel)
• Sunday AM - God gives me the POWER to SERVE! (Jesus washes the disciples feet)

We're looking forward to an awesome time. Would you pray for us this weekend?

Throwback Thursday #3

For some who haven't been around here that long, this website is a few years old, and there are wonderful things that I'd like to put in front some of our "newbies" and remind some of the rest of you about. So, we're revisiting some early posts each week on Thursdays!


Original post below:

Interesting Research about Children and Church

After reading this article, I'm not sure what it all means for church leaders or for parents, but I do find this kind of research incredibly interesting. The thing with research is that it doesn't guarantee anything, but I did find the correlation between involvement at church as a young child/teenager and active faith in adulthood very interesting. What this article isn't saying is that your child is guaranteed to have an active faith as long as you bring them to church. It's far more complicated than that.

Childhood Experience Bearing Adult Fruit

"I don't have enough time..."

I don't know how often I'm tempted to say this each and every day. Wasn't one of the promises of technology that it would give us all this "extra time"? The crazy thing is that what was supposed to save us so much TIME (technology), hasn't worked. In fact, the opposite has happened. Technology may have made us busier and less prone to stress, etc.

There are still 24 hours in one day and 7 days in one week. I was reading a post the other day from a website I follow, and the author had a different way at looking at the "I don't have enough time in the day issue." The big takeaway for me was when he said...

"I've stopped saying, “I don’t have the time.” Instead, I started saying “I didn’t make the time.”

It's an interesting thought...read up!

How We Spend Our Days

Friday Fun (With a Point): Cosby Style

When it comes to classic American TV, it's hard to get any better than the "Cosby Show." If you lived through the 80's, you know you watched it and loved it. Here's an old clip from the very first episode. Enjoy!



It's an interesting interaction in this video that could happen in any of our homes. In fact, it might have already happened in yours.

So, here's the question...

How should parents balance "pushing our kids to their fullest potential" and "accepting them for who they are even if it's not what they're capable of?" There may be a danger at both of those extremes. Which end of the spectrum do you tend to lean toward?

Throwback Thursday #2

For some who haven't been around here that long, this website is a few years old, and there are wonderful things that I'd like to put in front some of our "newbies" and remind some of the rest of you about. So, we're revisiting some early posts each week on Thursdays!

Original post below:

Motivation or Morality...what are you teaching!

There is a difference between the two. You can concern yourself with whether or not your children obey, or you can do your best to help them learn the proper motivation for why obedience is important. I ran across this tidbit today...and it has me thinking!

"As a rule the decay of religion works out in the second generation as moral
rigidity, and in the third generation as the breakdown of all morality." -Emil
Brunner

Brunner makes a simple observation about families where parents try to teach children moral values without teaching them the proper motive behind those values (a love of God).

If Christian parents do not get to the hearts of their children and teach them why they should behave certain ways, they still might appear to succeed in morally training their children. It's true that their kids might appear to do and say godly things. But without those decisions being motivated by a genuine heart-love for Christ, all that's really happening is "moral rigidity." Kids are behaving in what appear to be Christlike manners and might even become legalistic about them, but Christ-honoring motivation is absent.

Fast-forward to when they have children.

That child-now-turned-parent has always behaved in relatively "moral" or "godly" ways, but their motivation was only to please mom or dad. Or maybe it was to impress others. Or maybe it was to try to earn some good standing with God....And they start to try to teach their own children to behave in similar ways morally. But their children see empty and groundless morality lived out in front of them week to week. They see mom and dad try to be "good," but why? And more importantly, why should they? Mom and dad never provide a reason other than "It's the right thing to do" or "It's what's best for you" or "Because I said so!" So this new generation--a generation that is not pointed to Christ or to love of God as the motivation for moral behavior--actually is where we see a "breakdown of all morality." They cast off the empty shell of morality they saw in their parents. ***

Sobering thoughts...be careful what you're teaching!

***Source LINK

"Modest is always hottest..."

One of our awesome parents was talking to their then 6th grade daughter last summer, and said something to her that she must have heard dozens of times. I could tell this by the eye roll that happened right after it. But the saying was new to me, so I picked it up and stowed it away for later use. Here's what she said... "Modest is always hottest." Now, what she was trying to communicate to her daughter was that there's something about modesty that is attractive.

I'm a man, and I don't have any daughters, and I am by no means an expert on this kind of stuff. However, one of the things I've noticed in the last 10 years of children's ministry, is just how much modesty is an issue for today's young ladies (from the time they're 5-6 years old and older). Then, I ran across this article the other day that was mentioned on another parenting website that I follow, and it made me start thinking about this issue again.

Sexualization of Young Girls

If "RedBook," a completely secular magazine, is pointing a finger at this problem...then maybe it's an even bigger issue than I even thought (and I know it's an issue).

Here are some other folks discussing the Modesty issue (if you're interested in this topic at all):

Is modesty an issue in the church today?
American Psycological Association Study on Sexualization of Young Girls
Secret Keeper Girl - great website for young girls about modesty
Girls Gone Skank - from another great website "Girls Gone Wise"


Parents of daughters, what's happening out there? How are you dealing with this? What conversations are you having? Have you had to say "absolutely not"...if so, to what? How does your faith/belief in the Word of God inform this issue in your home?

War of Words...

"Babies are so cute...but then they learn to TALK!"

A parent once said that to me, and I couldn't help but laugh "with them." There's something that happens when a kid learns the power of their words and then begins to use them in positive and negative ways. There's something about our mouths that cause disunity, conflict, disagreements, and utter chaos throughout our lives. James 3 talks about the power of our tongues/words.

In our families and marriages, words are so powerful. How we use them, where we use them, and what tones we communicate with have so much to do with the relational health of our marriages and families. With that in mind, I ran across a great article about attempting to win the "war of words."

Winning the War of Words

Give it a read, and let me know what you think!

Throwback Thursday

For some who haven't been around here that long, this website is a few years old, and there are wonderful things that I'd like to put in front some of our "newbies" and remind some of the rest of you about. So, we're revisiting some early posts each week on Thursdays!



Original post below:


There's a LION in your house!

One of the more famous depictions of Satan in the Bible is that of a lion who is seeking to kill and destroy. I've watched enough Discovery Channel to know what a lion is like when they are looking to eat. It's not pretty!

Well, I've got to tell you that the Lion may be in your house, and if you're not careful, you may be allowing the Lion to nip at your kids. I have one BIG question.

Do you have a filter on the computer that your kids use? I'm not asking you if you check where your kids have been on the internet after they've been there. I'm not asking you if you check the history. I'm not even asking if you try your best to monitor where they've been. I'm not asking you if you've looked at the security settings on your computer. I'm asking you if you've got a designated program on your computer that WILL BLOCK inappropriate materials from purposefully or inadvertently popping up on the computer screen.

Here's the facts. The average boy sees pornography for the first time by the time they are 10 years old. 10!!!

Please don't be naive! There are lots of good filters out there. Your child may not be old enough to stumble into anything on the computer they shouldn't yet...but it's coming!

The two programs mentioned below are GREAT options. They cost a little money, but when you have a LION in and around your house, you do what you have to do to protect your children!

BSecure
Safe Eyes

The "Obligatory" American Idol Post...

It's that time again...all over the United States, people have caught "Idol Fever" again. Personally, I don't watch the show. (It's not because I have anything against it, it's just another show that I don't have time for, and I probably watch too much TV as it is.) For the first few years, I did watch the first few weeks of American Idol each season. I never followed it all the way through, but I loved to watch the auditions and just laugh at all the folks who thought they were really good singers...but weren't. It was kind of a guilty pleasure.

One particular audition stuck out to me about 4 years ago. There was a mother with her daughter who was auditioning. And let's just put it this way...she was awful (I think Simon even said it himself.) Now, it wasn't the song she sang or the tough love criticism that she received that stuck out to me. It was the mom who I couldn't stop thinking about. The mom continued to go on and on about how her daughter was such a great singer...how she was better than Beyonce and Whitney Houston, etc. Anyone with functioning ears would disagree with her, but she was insistent and indignant. Flat out...her daughter wasn't even in the same zip code, state, country as those two ladies.

I've always wondered why her mother (who obviously cares about her daughter) never told her the truth in the most loving way possible? Can you really be "anything" you want to be like the old parenting adage says? This young lady had no shot at being a singer or winning American Idol. Why did this young girl have to hear the "hard truth" from three "judges" who don't know her and/or care about her and love her?

Here's where I"m going with this, and it's your though-provoking idea for the day:

• Should we tell kids they can be "anything" they want to be or should we tell them that they can be exactly what God created them to be?

If the latter of those two is true, at what age/stage do you start to have to tell your kids some hard truths (i.e. - maybe you're not cut out to be a professional singer, but that doesn't mean God doesn't want to hear your praise to him through song, etc.)?

What I'm not saying is that kids shouldn't have dreams or that you shouldn't be the best encourager on the face of the earth for your kid. And sometimes, for some kids, a little "adversity" is exactly what they need to motivate them to greatness. How does that factor in?

I'm really not trying to be a buzzkill, but these are the kinds of things I wonder about.

Parents, help me out...what do you think?

Husbands, Fathers, and Thermostats

As a child, one of the things I knew never to touch in my house was the thermostat. There was only one person or entity who had control over the temperature of the house and the electricity it would cost to achieve that temperature...and that person was my dad. Now, I don't remember being sweated out during the summer to save a few bucks. I don't remember having to run in place to keep warm during the winter. But one thing was for sure...my dad was on the frugal side and us kids didn't touch the thermostat.

I was reminded about that the other day, and just how true this phrase is... "Husbands/Fathers, set the temperature for the home." I think that's probably true for the actual thermostat (most men want control of that thing...just like the remote), but I KNOW it's true when it comes to the emotional and spiritual well-being of your family. Husbands/Fathers, you set the temperature.

They will follow your lead...good or bad...even when we don't want them to follow our lead...so rely on the power of the Spirit...and lead well!

Husbands/Fathers, what's the "temperature" in your home?

Attention: Moms and Dads - February Fun

Here's where we're going this month at church. I think these are incredibly helpful tools for you as a parent. These are the summary videos for what the kids of Firewheel will be learning about this month at church. Wouldn't it be helpful to know what we're learning about so that you can reinforce those things at home? The answer is "YES!!!!"


If you're a parent of an elementary student, this is your video for the month of February...

VIRTUE VIDEO: KINDNESS (February 2011) from Orange on Vimeo.

If you're a parent of a preschool child, here's the February video that talks about each of the Bible stories that will be used this month.

VISION VIDEO: FIRST LOOK (February 2011) from Orange on Vimeo.