With apologies to Mark Driscoll, I am ripping off his fantastic application questions from his Ministry Idolatry talk at the Advance ’09 conference and rewriting them as challenges to us as parents. Does your joy change when your child’s behavior changes? Do you feel God’s approval of you depends on your skill as a parent?…

The Bible (part 1)

We have had a great semester in the Kids’ Community Group- eating together, playing crazy games, and talking about some pretty intense stuff in our sermon discussions. For the summer, the Kids’ Group will meet every week.  Instead of our bi-weekly home meeting, we will meet together during the teaching segment at our Big Ideas…

Facebook Friendships vs. Spiritual Friendships I have 678 Facebook “friends,” and Iʼll tell you what I love about those friendships:  most of them are extremely shallow.  I know how bad that sounds, but itʼs true.  As long as I have a few deep and meaningful relationships in my life, I prefer to keep the rest…

Growing in foolishness… This is how it seems for me.  As a parent, I am always bemoaning the overwhelming passions that my kids have for what they so desperately “need” at the moment.  Is keeping up with their online Webkinz animal in his or her “Webkinz World” (complete with fantasy house, furniture and food bought…

The RH Kids’ Community Group was discussing a recent Sunday’s sermon on Matthew 13:44, and they answered the questions, “What is the most valuable thing or person to you?  What do you think you need? What can you not live without?” See how much their answers mirror the answers you would have given.  These were…

Jonathan Dodson has some great suggestions for making simple, thoughtful changes to your life in order to build more relationships with non-Christians. As a teaser, here are the summary points.  But don’t stop here- read the whole article: Flee the Christian subculture. Save some gas, the planet, and some people. Be a regular. Be yourself….

Sports teams keep all kinds of statistics.  Goals, assists, home runs, strike outs, touchdowns, interceptions, etc…  In fact, there are “fantasy” leagues today that give the average fan a chance to obsess over these things. Churches keep statistics too.  Now, I havenʼt heard of any church fantasy leagues yet, but every church that I know…

I’ll let John Piper take a swing at answering this one: “If you’re used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won’t find that from what I’ve just described. I preach twice that long; I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful; and I am not relaxed. I am standing vigilantly…

So…”what did you get out of it“? Last night as we were discussing the sermon (Surrender to The Word of God) in our small group, I was struck by how often we ask this question.  In some instances it’s altogether appropriate.  For example, when used in reference to a business or legal agreement, reading a…