“All that matters is that they follow the Lord, that they live only for the Lord.” ------ Follow. Live only for.

Ann Voskamp has done it again.  Her writing always tugs at my heart strings.  Today's entry, the tug was a little harder.  I encourage you to read the whole entry - ( http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/09/where-in-world-in-all-this-world-is-god.html ).  But this portion really spoke to me because I struggle to keep this lesson in mind in raising my kids.  But tonight, I am reminded once again...

"  We ask them about dreams, do they have dreams for their children?


What are your dreams for your children when you live in a dump? What are your prayers? What is your hope in all this decaying mess? What is His house number? Is the tomb really empty?


I can’t imagine this either, how he’s going to answer. He’s a father living on a garbage heap.


His black eyes circle all of ours.


“It doesn’t matter to us what our children grow up to become or do.” His voice is gentle, certain. I lean forward, praying he will still dream. Please, still pray. Even if…

And he does and the most important of all and I didn’t see it coming.


“All that matters is that they follow the Lord, that they live only for the Lord.”


Where did all this flooding light come from?


My chin wobbles hard and I let’s go. It doesn’t matter what garbage heap you live on, we all recycle only this, this the only dream prayer of all the filthy ragged ones on this circling globe.  


Follow. Live only for.   "

Men's and Women's Brains and the NOTHING Box

They decided to kill the youth group...

I read this blog entry and watched the video posted - http://www.likeawarmcupofcoffee.com/home/2010/09/little-church-and-big-church/

This is the basic premise of the video -

“What we’re doing in youth groups, by and large, is sending kids to a small church. We have the big church in the sanctuary where the adults are, and the kids come throughout their life, junior high, high school, to a little church….here’s where I see the biggest disconnect: kid gets back from college, or back to their hometown, and they were never a part of “the” church, never a part of the body, now that they don’t have a youth group anymore they don’t have an identity…we’re setting them up for failure.  We want the students in our church to be the church now.  There is no JV, there is no subset of Christianity called “youth”… you’re going to be the church…we don’t want to be a church with youth ministry any longer, we want to be a youth-led church.”

I was pretty excited to see that it has been recognized that we are letting our youth down.  I have felt this way for years.  We never do anything as the church to encourage the youth to own their own faith.  We have programs and go through the motions but yet there is something missing. 

I like to see that this church body wants to do something different, to encourage the youth to be part of the "big" church but when he said they were going to do a student group on Mondays, how will this be different than youth group?  I don't think we should segregate and divide up the church family by age or gender or life circumstance.  We are a family and we need to operate like a family.  All ages need to be together to learn from, be encouraged by, to share hardships and celebrate the good times.  I know this is a difficult task in our cultures mega-churches but maybe we aren't meant to be mega-churches.  Maybe we are just suppose to be communities coming together to be family to each other. 

I wonder what our Heavenly Father thinks of these mega-churches and how we operate as His children?  Do you think that this is what He pictured for His children?  How He wants His money spent, how He wants us to spend our time?  Will He look at us and say "well done, good and faithful servant"?  I am not so sure He will.