Family

Elliana was throwing a fit while wearing this bib and I couldn’t help but snap the picture.

It is a great reminder. Consistency of message and life is crucial.  It is painfully obvious when they are not.

Even though your facebook profile, shirt, or bumper sticker says you are a follower of Christ, you still have to live it out.

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Your input is needed for this one.

The situation:

• News Flash: Santa is not real.
• The Scripture is clear.  We are not to lie or bear false witness. We are also told to let our yes be yes and our no be no

The Problem

How do you reconcile these two things when your 3 year old is asking very detailed question about Santa? I am not trying to be holier-than- thou or uber-spiritual.  Kari and I are just having a problem telling un-truths about Santa when we assure our girls all the time, “Mommy and Daddy always tell you the truth.”

What do you tell your kids?

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Mars Hill had a parenting conference with Tedd Tripp and have made all the audio and video of the sessions available for FREE at their site.

Kari and I have read Tedd’s book Shepherding a Child’s Heart and loved it.  We also went through it with our home team and had great discussion.

If you are in the middle of raising kids, this can be an excellent resource for you.

The sessions included are:

• Session 1: The Call to Formative Instruction
• Session 2: Giving Kids a Vision for God’s Glory
• Session 3: Helping Kids Understand Authority
• Session 4: Helping Kids Understand the Heart
• Session 5: Overview of Corrective Discipline

HT: JT

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To make a long story still long, but worth reading…

God has been really working on my own personal spiritual growth.  A couple weeks ago our Team (small group) decided to go through Richard Foster’s  Celebration of Discipline.  As I started reading the book again, God really started shining some light on my soul.  I have never been more consistent in my own personal worship time, but conviction upon conviction arose as I realized that I have not been actively pursuing disciplines and postures in my life to make sure that moment-by-moment I am following the King in obedience. The rule of the kingdom of God in our life was never meant to be isolated to a 30-60 minute window of time in the morning. But throughout all of life.  I have been reading all the spiritual formation stuff I can get my hands on, including Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of Disciplines.

In a very providential way, right before I left work on Monday I decided to go to the Renovare web site.  Renovare is the organization started by Richard Foster to aid people in their spiritual growth….all the heavy weights in this field are a part of his organization.  When I got to the site, I realized that they are having a conference in Houston this weekend.

Long story finally concluded… This weekend (Thursday-Saturday) Kari and I are going to Houston for a Renovare Conference.  I am pumped.  We are going to get away, be by ourselves.. without kids, stay in a swank hotel (thanks expedia for screwing up on our cruise and giving us a nice credit!) and go to a conference that will spur us on to our own spiritual growth.

Pray for us that God will give us a refreshing time away, but at the same time, that we would be challenged to grow in our walks with the Lord.

I don’t know if I will post about the conference while we are there, but expect some posts next week.  I will try to update twitter as we go through the conference.

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