Today, I am not consumed by one particular thing that is burning for a post, but I do have some random thoughts that I wanted to share with the few of you who are my blogging community.
On Parenting:: After my teaching this past Sunday at The Springs and the prep leading up to it, I am more convinced than ever of our responsibility for the spiritual well-being of our children. Rhonda and I have been given the greatest privilege of shepherding our two kids in this adventure called life. I do not want to give away that privilege to anyone. Now, I might loan it out to some of you from time to time, but it is our responsibility. Everything we do as parents leads us to our end goal of raising children that have a heart bent toward Father. Some of this is not up to us, I realize, but we are atmospheric conductors when it comes to our children. We, as Christ-followers, create atmospheres for our children to experience and know Father. Our parenting should help our kids see Jesus. I am not just talking about taking them to church, either. I want them to see Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament, not necessarily the "Jesus" at the christian bookstores. I want them to see the man who befriended the unfriendly and unwanted. The man whose love covered a multitude of sins. The man who crossed social boundaries to offer acceptance to the unacceptable. If our kids are going to see that man, then I cannot be passive in this journey of faith, can I? Don't they need to see Jesus making a difference in my life as a husband, as a father, as a business person, as a pastor, as a friend, as me? Don't they need to see that my faith is every bit about Thursday as it is about Sunday? Don't they need to know that my Bible is a book I read, not just a screen I watch or a book I quote? Don't they...Don't they...? I am processing this.
On Baylor Football:: The Sagarin Football Rankings have the Bears ranked #66. We are the highest ranked team with 7 losses. Now some of you even laugh that I looked for that or see something positive in that, but I do. We have lost to six top 25 teams this year, and we lost a close game to Nebraska at their place who is ranked above us. This simply means that we beat teams we were "supposed" to beat and lost to the teams we were supposed to lose to. Eventually, we will have to do better than that and beat some teams we are not supposed to beat. However, in the Big XII South, only Texas Tech and Oklahoma State can say that they have done it this year. Oklahoma was "supposed to beat" Texas and didn't. Texas was "supposed to beat" Tech and didn't. A&M was "supposed to beat" Arkansas State, but didn't. This is a big plus for Baylor football, and when you've been as bad as we have for as long as we have, we find silver lining where we can - and we just might have the best Freshman quarterback in the conference and maybe the country. The future looks bright at Floyd Casey Stadium and it's been a long time since we can say that!
On Neighborhood Life:: Most of you know that we are committed to building our church through neighborhood life, rather than the traditional come-and-see model of church. In doing so, we place a lot of emphasis on our Neighborhood Tables, which are simply dinner groups designed to help people connect with other Christ-followers in their neighborhoods. I am extremely excited about the future of my current group. We have a great mix of people in our group and we are all coming to our group with an eye toward our neighborhoods in the future. When I talk about the group, I tend to talk about the positives so much that no one thinks I have negative issues - unless you are in my "inner circle" where I complain often! Sunday night was one of those nights that could have been a negative. Rhonda had made a huge pot of Chicken Fajita Soup for our group, but in the end no one was able to come and we sat down at the table alone, just the four of us. Garin even said, "Man mom, you made all this for nothing," to which Rhonda replied, "Not for nothing." You see, if the point of the night is to have a bible study, then it would have been a wasted night because no one showed up, but because the point of our Table is to share a meal with people we love, it couldn't be a waste...whether we had 15 people or just 4. We love that about what we do! Now, don't misunderstand me, I wish we would have had a full house, but the disappointment was not discouragement.
Okay, I hope that your days are filled with love and laughter. If something I wrote triggered something in you, let us know. If not, I'll keep posting as long as you keep reading and I'll get you some other day!
By the way, did any of you see Jack Bauer on Leno last night?
Posts
2 comments:
Sic Em Bears! The neat thing about rooting for a team that people don't expect much from is that when they play badly, it was expected, but if there happens to be a big game several fantastic plays, then it's AWESOME. I am looking forward to the future seasons and have already made my plans to take Dyl to his first 'homecoming'!
We have tried to go back for Homecoming every year since we moved down here and something just gets in the way every time. We loved taking Garin to the bonfire and parade when she was Dyl's age, though.
Post a Comment