from 30K feet

Worship in Africa

Today we went to a church here in Accra, Ghana.  It was a powerful time of praise and worship. I was brought to tears at the thought of worshiping our awesome God halfway around the world with the believers in Ghana.

After lunch we went to the Children's Home associated with the church. It is all boys from age 3-14. We brought a new soccer ball and played with the boys. It was a blast!

It was great to sit and talk with them and hear their stories.

 

(that is their old soccer ball that was flat) My son, Jake, is the one...well you can figure it out. I was amazed to see how playing football with them made an instant connection.

 

God is in control

Myself and 9 others were on our way to Liberia for a mission trip however due to flight issues, we are now stuck in NYC. Right now I am in the Apple store in Manhattan typing this post.

Tomorrow we will have to go to the Ghana consulate to try to get visas for Ghana. We will either be stuck in New York for two more days or stuck in Ghana until Saturday where we can catch the next fight into Monrovia.

The bottom line is - God is still in control and we have seen it in many ways I will post about when I return on the 20th.

Launching new site

We have launched a new website for Fellowship Kids. Our goal was to create a place where we could communicate with parents and share what God is doing, all at a place with a fresh look and feel. It also gave us a place to use our new logo. We are early in the stages of it but I am excited about the possibilities.

 

We are four weeks into our summer program for our 3rd-5th graders using their Summer Journals. A parent suggested that we video tape the main teaching sessions so that kids could keep up with God's One Big Story if they missed for vacation.

So we were blessed with a gifted volunteer who taped it for us and we posted it on our website. It has been amazing how well it has worked. We even had a family from Ashville that asked us to send them a Summer Journal because they are following along with us online.

We hadn't even thought about reaching families outside our "four walls." Immeasurably more!

Reflection Mode

Have you ever had one of those days where you are in major reflection mode?

Well, today was that day for me. I really didn't want to work on any of the normal tasks but instead all I wanted to do was sit and talk and dream. I realized that if you get out of the habit of dreaming it can begin to feel foreign.

We went to lunch as a staff to enjoy some food and chat some about what the future might look like. We need to do it more often.

The Right Focus

I use the fitness room where we live during the week as I continue to rehab my torn achilles tendon. Every morning this kid is in there working out on the ancient equipment.

Now I have never been into the whole pumping iron thing but I have been in the gym enough to know this kid needs some help with the exercises he is doing. This morning as I ran on the elliptical machine, the only piece of equipment I am allowed to use, I began thinking about this kid as I watched him workout.

• This kid does not lack dedication. I only use the equipment a couple of times a week and he is always there at 5:50 am.

• He has the right resources. While the equipment is out dated, it still works. (plus he has some nice lifting gloves)

• He cares about progress because he is constantly checking out the development of his "guns"

• His goal is a little off. He obviously believes lifting the most plates instead of form is the key to success. 

Here is what I came away with.

You can have dedication, the right resources, and a focus on progress but if your process is messed up and you lose the attention to details, then you will struggle to get the results you are hoping for. It is true for pumping iron and it is true in our spiritual lives and ministry too.

Writing Curriculum for 2s/3s

As a team we began praying about the opportunity to write our own curriculum for our 2 and 3 year olds. We set the idea aside to see what God would do and he brought us Tiffany. She is a volunteer with a teaching background that has spent the last couple of years helping in this area by preparing material.

We began meeting every couple of weeks about two months ago. This morning we spent most of our time talking through the stories we would focus on and how they fit in God's One Big Story. Our conversation then turned to what happens from Sunday to Sunday.

We saw a great opportunity to develop material that parents could use to bridge the time between Sundays. We wrote down the following ideas about what that material might look like.

• Parent version of the lesson - so parents and kids are learning together
• Simple Bible verse
• Phrase that pays - Bible Truth
• Activities for families - simple, flexible and fit within average lifestyle
• link to other resources

I am excited about where God will take us through this process.

What are you praying for?

I don't listen to a lot of podcasts but one I try not to miss is Andy Stanley's Leadership Podcast. The April edition was titled The Principle of the Path. It communicates the very simple idea that the path we are on will determine our destination, not our hopes, dreams, intentions or even our prayers.

In other words, what we do everyday...day in and day out...will determine our destination.

Sherry and I used this question during our planning session a few weeks ago. As we talked about what we wanted to see happen in our lives and in the lives of our kids, we would ask, "What do we need to do in the everyday to get us there?"

I began thinking about how I pray in regards to the principle of the path. As I analyzed the things I bring before God, I saw that I pray a lot for the destination but not so much for the path that will get us their. Let me give you an example.

I regularly pray that God's word would be central to the lives of my kids. Not a bad prayer, really but how does that line up under the principle of the path?

Even though I am praying for the destination, I will need to teach, model and come along beside my kids to help make it happen. As I looked further, I realized Satan puts a lot stumbling blocks in my way from making that happen. (Sometimes Satan doesn't need to do anything at all because I am the stumbling block.)

What if I began praying about the day to day things that determine the path? 

• Lord, change my heart to make your word a priority. 

• Father, give me courage tonight as I try to teach my children about you.

• God, give me strength to set aside regular time to lead my family in studying your word.

Good Parent vs Great Parent

What kind of parent are you: good or great?

Most people when asked this question are willing to label themselves as a "pretty good" parent but they are reluctant to put themselves in the "great" category because when they analyze their child’s behavior it seems less than perfect. If this is the case, then you are probably measuring the wrong thing.  So what is the difference between a good parent and a great parent?  

A good parent is one that is involved in their child’s life.  They attend their child’s activities and get involved with their education and spiritual development.  A great parent is more than just involved, they are strategic.  A great parent knows their child, has goals for them and a plan to help the child achieve them. 

 

Making a Plan
 

While becoming a strategic parent may seem like an overwhelming task, it is not as difficult as you may think. Taking in consideration things like your child’s personality, their love language, strengths and weakness you can begin to set goals for them that you can focus on during the year.

 

Over the last five years, my wife Sherry and I have looked at each of our children and tried to set goals for them in various aspects of their lives. We home school our kids so it is necessary to set academic goals but we also look at the character, spiritual and relational parts of who they are. Ultimately we want them to become who God wants them to be.

 

We needed a way to talk about these goals and write them down so we created what we call our four quadrant grid for each of our kids. Download Strategic Parenting Planning Sheet

 

First, we talk about their strengths and weaknesses.  Then we write down their personality types, interests and their love language. As you talk and share about these things goals will naturally surface.

 

It is encouraging each year to look back over the previous years and see how each child has grown and developed.

Planning Getaway

Sherry and I had the privilege of getting away for a few days to do some planning for this coming year. My parents came down and stayed with the kids Thursday and Friday while we went to the lake. A family in our church graciously loaned us their lake house over these two days. This was absolutely the perfect setting for a couple of reasons.

·         We were only 45 minutes from home – we didn’t spend much of our time just driving.

·         It was quiet with no distractions – we were completely alone.

·         The house and location was stunning – we were surrounded by God’s creation…very inspiring!

·         It was free!

 

We spent our time talking through the different areas of our lives from our marriage to how to spend vacation time. We allowed ourselves to dream but also talked and planned through the everyday practical things too.  We started several years ago using a four quadrant worksheet to set goals for each of the kids. It was great to look back and see how they are progressing and set goals for the future too. Here are the topics we covered during our planning getaway.

·         Our relationship

·         Each of the children

·         Home schooling

·         The house

·         Evenings / discretionary time

·         Finances

·         Church

·         Vacations

It takes some planning to pull this kind of getaway off but it is completely worth it.  We took a lot of notes and worked through some issues we almost never have time to discuss.

 

Summer Content

I mentioned in a post called God's One Big Story back at the end of March that I was writing the material we planned to use for the 13 weeks of summer for our 3rd & 4th graders.

Carla asked if I would share the lessons. So here you go Carla, I hope it is helpful.

Download Summer Journal w notes page

Here are some things you might need to know.

Garage Time Notes - You will see that each week includes a Garage Time Notes page. The Garage is our large group setting where we will do worship and teaching. I want the kids to take notes by writing down key words and phrases so this page is included as the place to do that. 

Family Fusion - You will see a Family Fusion page at the end of each week. The kids should be able to do most of the other pages on their own but Family Fusion is designed to do together as a family. (hence the name)

If you download the document you will see that it only covers 8 weeks...so where is the rest of it?

Three reasons it is only 8 weeks.

1. We are using it as a booklet style piece and 50 pages is about the max our printer here at church will staple and fold without choking.
2. We will have the rising 6th graders with us until July 12 and then they will move up to the student ministries. No need to print any more than we need.
3. I don't have the last 5 weeks finished yet.