Adventurous Parenting

Yesterday was a big day for a lot of campers, including my 8 year old son.  For many young boys and young girls yesterday was the beginning of a never before experienced adventure.  For many of them this is the longest they have been away from mom and dad without having a family member near by.  For others this is the first time spending a significant amount of time in a place that does not have a Wii or Xbox on every wall.  Through this adventure they will learn to trust, stretch, and explore in ways they never have before.  But more surprisingly yesterday it was the parents, in large part, that were as nervous as the notorious “cat on a hot tin roof.”  For many parents the idea of sending a kid to camp for a week is too far out of their comfort zone.  Many families in order to avoid this discomfort will never even consider the idea, as it would cause them much grief and many sleepless nights, while little Johnny or Susie is away.

But here is my concern.  We as parents can far too often model for our kids a lifestyle that is full of caution and restraint.  The idea of stepping out into an adventure or doing something that has not been done before is crippling.  Though all of these parents at one time themselves shoved off into the unchartered waters of parenthood the thought of encouraging their children to have an adventurous spirit is not even considered.  So the call to action:  Parents as we live our lives may we demonstrate to our children a desire to explore what God has surrounded us with.  His creation is wonderful and is intended to be explored.  God has told us that we are His and we know He is faithful so move out of your comfort zone and into His blessings.  When an opportunity to talk someone new arises jump on it.  When a chance to go somewhere you have never been comes up, go.  When an opportunity to live in a place where God’s blessing is needed everyday enjoy His provision.  

Whatever we do may our kids see us as Adventurers. 

What'd I forget

I believe that we can all identify with the feeling, or perhaps frustration, of walking into a room on a mission to retrieve something.  Only to arrive and discover that we have totally neglected to bring with us the ability to recall that which we were in route to.  It is at this moment that while simultaneously swallowing a humble pill we criticize ourselves in an effort to rattle from the fog that is our brain some slight recollection as to why we left the big comfy couch in the first place.  This time of memory stimulation and brain rattling is often limited to only this endeavor.  My provocation for writing this is that we have long forgotten the virtues that have made the church what it is today.  We have misplaced: honor, integrity, loyalty, purity, and gratitude.  These virtues have taken a back seat to such things as comfort, compromise, and ultimately confusion.  We allowed ourselves to slowly, albeit steadily, distance ourselves from such things that require sacrifice and discipline in their practice.  Over the course of the rest of our series, Forgotten Virtues, our hope is that we will be once again be exposed to the virtues that can once again build a backbone in our community that God can use to communicate His grace.  Join us for this series as we remember the “Forgotten Virtues.”  Together we will remember what we came here for.

Second Breath

As we look at the close of the 2nd chapter of Jonah we see that God has ordered the fish to “spit up Jonah on the beach.”  Following what may have been an amazing scene, Jonah receives his calling from the Lord for a second time.  It is at this point that Jonah hears God’s voice in a new a fresh way.  God once again calls him to, “go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message of judgment I have given you.”  This time Jonah obeys the call of God and makes his way to Nineveh.  Once Jonah makes it there we see that his ministry is successful.  Just like Jonah the city of Nineveh takes a step back and hears the call of the Lord.  They once again call on the mercies of the Lord.  The same mercies that they had turned their backs to while worshipping their false gods.  This process for the king and for many of us takes a stepping down, see verse 3:6, “When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes.”  When we once again place God on the throne of our hearts we are placing Him not only in the proper place of honor but we are also placing ourselves in the proper place of service.  God’s call on our lives is too important for us to be derailed by the entanglements of this life that we all struggle to overcome.  For this reason I believe that we all have the opportunity and the responsibility to be in close fellowship with one another so that God’s call is not neglected in our lives.  For Jonah it was a trip to Nineveh, for us it is a commitment to regular fellowship with other believers, it’s eating lunch with someone you need to be an encouragement to.  It’s going the extra mile when the first may have seemed to tough to complete in the first place.  This week may we hear God’s call on our lives with a new clarity and commitment and step down from the throne and place God back in His place of honor.

Fish Breath

        Jonah understood better than perhaps anyone we will every meet the value of a good Tic-Tac or stick of gum, when he found himself in the belly of the whale.  It is through this experience that we see Jonah begin his journey with God that would take him to the 120,000 people of Nineveh.  Jonah like many of us had attempted a course of action that was of his choosing and was hoping to have God’s blessing and provision.  We only see where in verse 7 of Jonah 2 that Jonah turns back his thoughts once again to the Lord that he begins to see the proverbial light of day or in his case breath of fresh air.  

All of us in our own way are either looking for the light of a new day of for the breath of fresh air that will once again fill our lungs with that which brings life and hope.  We too often however are seeking it in the things that Jonah calls false gods that cause us to turn our backs on all God’s mercies.  We must emulate Jonah’s course of action in that he offered sacrifices of worship and fulfilled all his vows, because he understood that his salvation came from the Lord.

And like Jonah we too can be spat upon the beach.

Arm's Length

We all love to hear stories and to hear about people and their life experience.  The practice of sitting around a table or a cup of coffee and sharing tales of ages past has been long enjoyed by our culture, but I wonder if we are missing out on another blessing .  The blessing of sharing in the stories of those we find in the Scriptures?  So often we are willing to put ourselves in the shoes of a family member or co-worker that has shared with us a story or experience, but rarely are we willing to share in the story and life experience of faithful followers that pre-date us.  

Often in my life that I realize that I have neglected to give God the recognition that He is my God and Father, but also the same God that parted the Red Sea, confronted David with his sin, and sent a whale to swallow Jonah.  The same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the same God of Steven, Matt, and Rebecca.  

As we enter the month of March we are beginning a four week journey through the book of Jonah and in this book my hope is that we will see how closely our stories align with the story of Jonah.  During this time we will see that just as God called Jonah to go to the people of Nineveh we too are called to the people of this great city.  That we need to be willing to do whatever it takes to make God’s call to all people to be heard and understood.  

Will you join in this story?

Public Mess

Public Mess

Over this past weekend our family enjoyed some time away to connect and make memories together.  Saturday evening as we were closing down the Magic Kingdom I noticed something that I remember seeing a number of years ago that I had forgotten about.  Now it isn’t anything special but it was just a reminder that somethings just can’t always be done in private or after the crowds have left.  As we were making our way out of the park, after midnight mind you because we’re cheap and we squeeze everything out of our ticket purchase, I noticed that the gas-powered vacuum cleaners were out in force making their way around the park.  Now this is something that some people might say should have happened after hours, but I believe that there is tremendous value in understanding that Disney knows that there is a lot to be done before opening again later that same morning.  So there they were in mass with engines going wide open making the park the place that we have all grown to love and enjoy.  This was a timely reminder that as we move forward as a church, here at Port Orange Christian Church, we cannot live our lives in private and behind the walls we put up.  We need to be living our life of faith and trust in the Lord out in the light of the community that we are called to serve.  We cannot just be Christians on the weekends or even just during the holidays.  We have to sweep up our messes and take out the trash often times in the full view of the people that we live beside.  The sooner we realize that we have messes to clean up and things to put in order the sooner we will be able to trust God with the dirty work and dirty parts of our life.  God make us clean.

For Real?

Okay, so I’m not very fancy right?  But this morning I was reminded of the fact that so often we are surrounded by people, things, and even terminology that can baffle us at times.  This morning in the coffee shop I hear names of coffee drinks, at least I think they are, that sound more like names of European race cars than they do drinks.  I am sitting next to a  young man that is studying from a book that is full of medical terms and procedures that I couldn’t begin to pronounce or understand.  All this reminds me that we know what we know and unless we are otherwise introduced to something new we will remain on the outside merely looking in.  

The church can have this same effect on so many people as they walk into a narthex or foyer of a church only then to proceed to the sanctuary or chapel.  Where they can far to often get lost in the stand, sit, & kneel of a traditional church service.  I find myself more and more trying to create an environment where people will feel welcome in our little cafe & auditorium.  So that when they are brave enough to drive into a new parking lot, walk through new doors, meet new people, and hopefully meet God a person like no one else they have ever met they will not be intimidated or turned off.  None of us will continue to frequent a place where we feel out of place, un-welcomed, or not on the same playing field.  Everybody wants to be an insider right away and though they may be difficult in a lot of settings it is not impossible in the church.

This Sunday no matter where you worship make an intentional effort to bridge that, familiar to you but scary to others, gap.