JohnMark's surgery

Well, JohnMark's surgery was a success. He came through it well, though he is a little sore, but the doctor thought everything was taken care of. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and well wishes.
Following Him,
Steve, Amy, Abbi, Mackenzie, and JohnMark

Comments?

To everyone and anyone reading the blog:
Please feel free to leave any thoughts or comments about any of the posts. It would be great to get some feedback and maybe even some lively dialogue started.

Have fun.

A Point to Ponder on the Present Playstation Panic

Before I embark on this post, I should note that to a point this post is done, or overdone as the case may be, with an intentional note of sarcasm.

Does anyone else think that this whole "gotta wait in the freezing cold for three days to spend a month's worth of pay to have a video game" thing is out of control? I mean, I'm really not THAT old, but nobody was at the store three days before it opened to buy Pong, Nintendo or Frogger. They went to the store and bought it once the store was open. What has happened to our culture, and every other culture in the world, that we are so obsessed about giving ourselves carpal tunnel and bad eyesight? Let's get real!!

I was honestly embarrassed when I read the front page of the local newspaper this last week. On the front page was a picture of two guys who had been waiting at Target for two or three days to get a Playstation. As I read the caption of the photo I realized that not only did I know one of these guys, but he was a fellow student from Bible College and used to teach junior high at a Christian school. Is this what we are teaching our youth about leadership, priorities, time management and stewardship?

In Psalm 40 we are exhorted to redeem our time. We know that the Lord's return is imminent and that we are accountable for out use of the time we are given on this earth. Let's redeem the time for God's honor and glory and not waste it away on material things that will pass away.

Youth Activity Ideas

I'm always trying to think of new, and of course bigger and better, youth activities for our youth group at church. At youth activities we generally have 15-25 youth from grades 6-12. Any ideas would be great. Obviously the best ideas will be not only fun, but lend themselves to a Biblical principle or lesson.

Currently I'm thinking about doing something along the lines of Deal or No Deal. Is it just me or is that an AWESOME show!! But since my brain is wired a little different, like there was any question about that, the part of the show that really intrigues me is the mathematics in figuring out what the probability is of the different values and how they decide how much to offer for the case. All activity ideas are welcomed.

Please remember, comments should be about activities; not how my brain is wired :)

Grandparent parents?

I have recently been very confused with the way county human service agencies seem to handle it when parents are not qualified to raise their young children. Can anyone explain this? Parents raise their children, but, for lack of a better term, mess them up. Whether it be through lack of discipline or lack of nurturing, or what have you, the parents raise children who, as adults, are irresponsible, immoral, and sometimes even in trouble with the law. For whatever reason these adult children have such poor parenting skills that they go out and have children of their own, usually out of wedlock, and start raising the children with even less guidance than they have. So what does the county do? Give the children to the grandparents. Does it ever occur to the county that if the parents were incompetent at raising their own children that they may very well be just as incapable of raising their grandchildren? Add to this the fact that most of these grandchildren have a number of years of negative training already under their belts. Why would the county do this when they know they are just going to perpetuate dysfunctional people who will continue to produce dysfunctional families and children? Because it shows the validity of their existence. Am I saying social workers are bad or unnecessary? Absolutely not! For those of you who do not know, my full time employment would not exist if it was not for social workers placing youth with our shelter/group home. This may be for behavioral issues or for safety sake. But over and over I have seen social workers put youth in placement but neglect offering other services that might be helpful such as counseling, therapeutic as opposed to psychiatric, or skills worker who works on social skills, or even basic mentoring.

I work in a field that would definitely be associated with human services, even though I am not a social worker, but this is not the majority opinion of most people in the field. Our society is unwilling to call sin what it is. It is not a bad choice, a small mistake or a speed bump. Scripture refers to our sins as the rags used to wipe sores from leprosy. How's that for a picturesque thought? When we realize that sin is SIN and that we are responsible for our behaviors, we come a long way.

We also need to remember that while parents are not responsible for the individual actions taken and choices made by their children, we can not ignore that Scripture clearly holds anyone in a position of authority responsible for how they lead those under them. Pastors are clearly held accountable for their leadership of the sheep God has entrusted to them (Hebrews 13). By way of principle this would also apply to parents, teacher, youth workers, etc. Too many times I see parents not taking responsibility for themselves, but conversely making their children not only take responsibility for the children's actions, but also holding the youth responsible for the parent's life. This week I had two different young men sit in the office with me and tell me that they believed they were directly responsible for the divorce of their parents. These divorces occurred when these young men were still small children, but their mothers had drummed into them that the problems were their fault. Another youth told me that he held himself responsible for his father's alcoholism even though he had barely seen his father in years!

Without true direction from God's manual on life how do we expect to raise children to be anything other than lost and separated from the love and will of God? Can unsaved youth become moral "good" kids? Of course. There is only one problem here. God doesn't require that our youth are moral or good. He requires that they be holy and sinless. This is the only method of entry into his presence. We must be perfectly holy and sinless either in and of ourselves or by proxy through Christ's full atonement.

We are always perpetuating a system. Is our parenting perpetuating God's system or the worlds? Let's get back to His Word and perpetuate His system.