Yesterday we began our challenge to raise $5000 for orphans. Marcel and Mya are SUPER excited to be apart of it and have decided that they can be responsible for raising $1000 all by themselves. We're hopeful to use this money for families within Roosevelt who want to adopt internationally.
We came up with the idea of getting 10 of their friends to join them in raising money for orphans. They have several ideas to help each of their friends raise $100. We ordered bracelets to sell, they are going to have a "wash your neighbor's windows" day, and an "orphan meal." All the details about that will be coming up soon. In the meantime, if you're kids would be interested in joining our group of 10, contact me. We will be having a party in a few weeks to kick things off (a sibling group within your home can all work together to raise $100).
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
A Challenge Now that You are Home
I have challenged 50 people to join me in doing something to get the message of orphan care out to people not currently involved in orphan care. Read about it and sign up to participate here (also, if you sign up you will be entered into a contest to win a great prize).
I will be updating on this blog as I try to do all 3 things I challenged 50 people to join me to do at least one of.
I will be updating on this blog as I try to do all 3 things I challenged 50 people to join me to do at least one of.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Tim Chester and Relaxing in Trinitarian Love
Tim Chester is a pastor of the Crowded House in Sheffield , England
Most of the other talks I have summarized and posted my thoughts, but for this one I’m just posting my notes (my blogging while listening skills are fading J). I tried to type as fast as possible, so it’s as close to “quotes” as I could do. After listening to Tim a few times this week (and reading You Can Change and using the Porterbook curriculum) I’ve decided that I’m going to read everything he’s written. This is good stuff people...read a taste of it below.
Tim Chester reminds us that the TRINITY is foundational to understanding why God adopted us.
Tim says if God wasn’t trinity then that would mean there was a time when God was not Father, not loving, not communicating…but for all eternity God was loving and communicating within the trinity.
God did not create us because he was deficient in himself. He did not need the world or need anything in the world. He created out of love because the very essence of God is LOVE.
Tim says, “God is not a ruler who becomes a father or who sometimes does fatherly-like things. No, first and foremost God is a God who loves us.”
God forgives us, but also does so much more. He loves you and adopts you and calls you his child.
Salvation is adoption because God is a Father. Before creation, God was not a frustrated ruler looking for someone to rule or a frustrated lover, looking for someone to love. No, God was a father who had been loving his son for all eternity.
--You cannot be claiming to be “god-like” if you are adopting out of need. That is not why God adopts us, so we should not adopt children to meet some human need for a child. If you adopt out of your emotional need to feel complete then you cannot love your child with the God-like love we have been loved with.
--What is true life? It is not having a child, but being a child of God.
God created us for his good out of the overflow of his love and glory. In eternity, the father and son share glory in the father’s presence.
God’s glory is God’s perfections pouring out of him, like the light radiating from the sun. Jesus reflects the glory of God. The light of God’s glory is perfectly reflected in the image or mirror of the Son.
On a sunny day, we never worry about the sun running out of light or heat. We know that light and heat will pour out of the sun without fail. In the same way, God’s love is like the sun, pouring forth his beams of love. Our job is to sit and enjoy the warmth and energy of the warm sun. We are to relax in Trinitarian love.
Your first job as a Christian is to do nothing except to soak in the light of God’s love.
We live in a cold, graceless world and our job is to step out into the warmth of God’s love and be filled from him.
It is for God’s great pleasure that he loves us, adopts us…THIS is true grace. He isn’t just being “nice” to us, but salvation comes out of the overflow of God’s love.
Jesus wants people to be where he is. Where is the son? At the Father’s side. And that is where he wants his people to live.
Jesus knows the father and makes him known to us.
The greatest unkindness you can do to God the Father is not to believe he loves you.
–John Owen
The WHOLE plan of salvation has as its goal your adoption by God.
Tim quoted from 1 John 4 and I thought it fitting to end this post with these great words from God our Father:
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.
(1 John 4:10-19 ESV)
Vermon Pierre on the gospel and trans-racial adoption
Just got to listen to my favorite preacher talk about race and trans-racial adoption (he's also pretty cute too ;)). Vermon is the lead pastor of our church in downtown Phoenix, Roosevelt Community Church, and we have a wonderfully diverse church of white, black, Asian, African, native, and Hispanic brothers and sisters in Christ.
I love hearing my husband talk about adoption and I love hearing him talk about race. Everything he said was right on. The session was taped and I will post the link once it is up on here because it is worth listening to every word.
Here are my favorite parts:
Some of the problems that happen when white parents adopt cross-ethnicity is the family emphasizing race too much or too little.
1. Families who talk too much about race.
-saying we want our kids to be "black" doesn't work. Black culture isn't monolithic. There are subcultures within the black culture so we need to make sure that we do not expose our kids to our one idea of black culture.
-sometimes the family views their white culture as negative for their children and so they over compensate based on, often, stereotypical views of what it means to "be black"
2. Families who talk too little about race
-there is a problem with divorcing your child completely from their culture. Your kids ARE your children, but they were not always your child. They have a story and they came from somewhere.
-the idea that your kids don't notice that the way they look is different from everyone around them is ignorant. Especially with the black/white reality...the history of racial separation was not that long ago.
-when your child from Korea gets adopted by your Idaho farming white family, she doesn't just become an Idaho white girl, but your family also becomes Korean. This is what Christ did with us...he became human so we could become righteousness.
If you adopt a child of a different race then your child WILL have tension. The tension is not a bad thing. It is nieve and ignorant to ignore that tension and it missed out on an opportunity to point your child to the gospel.
When we become believers we are placed IN Christ. We are not lost in Christ....but we are placed INto Christ. We do not become born into a people that makes my ethnicity insignificant. In Christ, our identities are redeemed and redeemed in a way that unites us to other people.
Many more great thoughts, but I can't post his manuscript, so just make sure you watch the video.
Here are his 4 take away points:
1. Know the theology of adoption. Knowing that God has adopted us to a family changes the way we see race. Revelation 7 paints a picture of every nation crying out to God from every tribe. When John lcoks at the multitudes of people he doesn't see one shade. He sees all sorts of different ethnicities. Ethnic designations remain in eternity, but all submitted under Christ.
We can help our children's identity issues by having a robust theology of salvation and how that relates to adoption.
2. Don't be afraid to talk to your children about race.
3. Your identity as a diverse family will be helped the more you are in diverse community.
4. Point out good historical role models from their racial/ethnic background AND their adoptive family background
5. Give your kids a gospel love for other cultures. Give your children Multi-cultural competency. They are citizens of heaven and that heavenly race is diverse.
I love hearing my husband talk about adoption and I love hearing him talk about race. Everything he said was right on. The session was taped and I will post the link once it is up on here because it is worth listening to every word.
Here are my favorite parts:
Some of the problems that happen when white parents adopt cross-ethnicity is the family emphasizing race too much or too little.
1. Families who talk too much about race.
-saying we want our kids to be "black" doesn't work. Black culture isn't monolithic. There are subcultures within the black culture so we need to make sure that we do not expose our kids to our one idea of black culture.
-sometimes the family views their white culture as negative for their children and so they over compensate based on, often, stereotypical views of what it means to "be black"
2. Families who talk too little about race
-there is a problem with divorcing your child completely from their culture. Your kids ARE your children, but they were not always your child. They have a story and they came from somewhere.
-the idea that your kids don't notice that the way they look is different from everyone around them is ignorant. Especially with the black/white reality...the history of racial separation was not that long ago.
-when your child from Korea gets adopted by your Idaho farming white family, she doesn't just become an Idaho white girl, but your family also becomes Korean. This is what Christ did with us...he became human so we could become righteousness.
If you adopt a child of a different race then your child WILL have tension. The tension is not a bad thing. It is nieve and ignorant to ignore that tension and it missed out on an opportunity to point your child to the gospel.
When we become believers we are placed IN Christ. We are not lost in Christ....but we are placed INto Christ. We do not become born into a people that makes my ethnicity insignificant. In Christ, our identities are redeemed and redeemed in a way that unites us to other people.
Many more great thoughts, but I can't post his manuscript, so just make sure you watch the video.
Here are his 4 take away points:
1. Know the theology of adoption. Knowing that God has adopted us to a family changes the way we see race. Revelation 7 paints a picture of every nation crying out to God from every tribe. When John lcoks at the multitudes of people he doesn't see one shade. He sees all sorts of different ethnicities. Ethnic designations remain in eternity, but all submitted under Christ.
We can help our children's identity issues by having a robust theology of salvation and how that relates to adoption.
2. Don't be afraid to talk to your children about race.
3. Your identity as a diverse family will be helped the more you are in diverse community.
4. Point out good historical role models from their racial/ethnic background AND their adoptive family background
5. Give your kids a gospel love for other cultures. Give your children Multi-cultural competency. They are citizens of heaven and that heavenly race is diverse.
Jeff Vanderstelt, the gospel, missional living, and adoption
Jeff Vanderstelt is the pastor of Soma Community church. This is my 7th or 8th time hearing Jeff speak on missional living & the gospel and I am struck by how relevant and meaningful his words are each time he speaks.
You can read a fuller summary of Jeff’s talk at ZachNielson’s blog and below are some of my take-aways and thoughts:
Jeff says that we are MOTIVATED to love because we were first loved and that we love in a SPECIFIC kind of way because of HOW God loved us.
We are a chosen people. If we don’t remember who we were before we were in Christ, we won’t appreciate who we are now in Christ. We will never care for the "least of these" like Jesus did until we realize that we were the least of these.
Who were we?
We are, by nature, children of wrath. We were sin. Enemies of God. Hated.
Who are we, because of the cross?
We are children of God, we are righteousness, friends of God, LOVED….in Christ.
This is part of why I love talking to my children about the reality that they were orphans, like ME, but if we believe in Christ then we are orphans no more… I don’t like using the word orphan to just describe a desperate physical state, because it is also a desperate spiritual state. It is vital that we remember who we were when we were spiritual orphans.
I was really moved by Jeff’s words to love like God because we understand and know God’s heart of love. For the nations to know God’s loving mercy, I need to know God’s heart for his people. Jeff says that knowing the heart of God’s love for you enables and empowers you to love people all around you like brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. Let’s show the world God’s great love for the fatherless.
Brilliant words on Race from Bryan Loritts
Bryan Loritts is a pastor in Memphis, TN and just spoke on “The Church as the Theater of Transracial Adoption”
Matthew 25:31-46
It is going to take me the rest of the weekend to craft my thoughts on Bryan Loritts talk (and stop crying when I think about the history of race in our country). I am so used to talking to white American’s about race and getting blank stares and lots of objections as to why the black/white thing doesn’t matter anymore. Brothers and sisters, it matters!
It was so good to sit in a room full of white reformed folk and hear Bryan BRING IT as he opened up the dusty history books and showed the rippling effects slavery has had in our country. Here is a small excerpt of my notes that still has me in tears…I’m quoting it as closely as I can remember…I’ll post his video here once it’s up:
The issue of fatherless, abortion, and orphans is our 21st century issue of slavery. NO ethnicity owns the market on fatherlessness and orphans. Black families are not the only families creating orphans…its everywhere. At the same time, people KNOW your American history. One of the things that slavery bequeathed to the 21st century today is the brokenness of African American history. The whole HISTORY of slavery was built on the division of separation of families. Almost every African American can trace their family back to a broken family. ORPHANS have been a part of the history of African Americans from day one in this country as a result of the injustices of what happened in American history.
Honestly, I am so tired of people who don’t want to talk about race and who don’t want to talk about the injustices that were threaded throughout our short 200 year history that has had devastating consequences. I’m tired of people acting like the reality of slavery and the rippling effects of racial discrimination that was everywhere even 30 years ago does not matter anymore. I’m tired of the explanation that we are all one color…we are and we’re not…lets appreciate the tension.
Maybe it is Americans, maybe it is western culture, or maybe it is just the post-modern generation, but I find that most people I speak to my age have no understanding of history, especially African American history. And this isn’t just my Caucasian friends, I am appalled that my black friends are clueless too.
BUT GOD, and this is the hope that we see in the church. The church SHOULD BE the theater for trans-racial adoption. When we look at the history of black and whites in America (or Native Americans! Or the Japanese during WW2, I can go on if you'd like...) there is NO reason that we should have families that look like mine. There should NOT be interracial marriages, there should not be trans-racial adoptions, BUT GOD... And the church should be a picture of restoration and healing...racial reconciliation in American can and SHOULD happen within our churches!
Alright, other great things Bryan
“Any Christ follower that does not question how they can care for the “least of these” is living a Christianity not compatible with the gospel.” He goes on to say that it does not mean we are SAVED because we care for the orphan, it means we consider the orphan BECAUSE we are saved.
He quoted Wayne Grudem, “The Bible is the transcript of the heart of God.” And says that there are 2000 verses that reflect God’s heart for the poor, widow, fatherless, and alien. How can we claim to have God’s heart if we don’t have his heart for that?
Bryan says that American Christianity sends the message that you can make all the $ you want, live in whatever zip code you want, send your kids to whatever school you want, and spend it how you want…. And still follow Jesus. But this isn’t the call to discipleship we see in scripture.
Donna Theonnes on REST for the Weary Mom....
Yesterday was such a rich day for me. T4A was kicked off with a pre-conference for adoptive and pre-adoptive mamas (about half of the women were waiting for their "babies" of all ages to come home).
Dr. Theonnes spoke about rest for the weary mom and her talk, in and of itself, brought me rest. First of all, I LOVE hearing women speak from God's word about God's word. I have to admit, I'm not big on women's ministry functions because sometimes they barely scratch God's word. I mean, I know these fellowship times are important, but I also know that God has gifted women with gifts and abilities to open up his word and bring it to bear in our lives and I think women need God's word more then anything else. Dr. Theonnes is one of those women he has gifted to speak from his word and help us apply it to all aspects of our life.
The topic of REST is something that is relevant and meaningful for every mother and woman. God's word powerfully speaks to us when we find ourselves weary or heavy laden. I love how Donna refreshed us with the gospel as she reminded us of the necessity for REST.
Donna spoke from Ephesians 2: Ever considered that a "how to mother" passage? I can say I never did before listening to Donna's talk, but I think I am beginning to realize how much of these passages that point us back to the gospel are really a "how to" for everything. How do you find rest? In the reality that we were dead BUT God.
Here are some of Donna's very practical and biblical points:
How Do you find Rest?
Rehearse the gospel. Remind yourself that your righteousness comes from JESUS, not you. You cannot prove your righteousness through your "mothering" or through your children's successes.
Establish boundaries. If we are rehearsing the gospel to ourselves constantly, then we will be able to set boundaries. We don't have to say "yes" to prove ourselves and we don't have to do everything. Our righteousness is not determined by being the best coach for our children's volleyball team, homeroom mom, all-star home school parent, and ministry leader at our church. God gives gifts to the church so that one of us doesn't have to do it all.
Satisfied with God's will. This gives us freedom from wanting something that isn't ours. God is in control of all aspects of our life which allows us to rest in where God has us.
Trust God with our children. Donna reminded us: "You are not the primary influence of your child's life." Jesus is. You have to be faithful to love your children like Jesus, but you can never change their heart. It is God's doing, not yours. This is not an excuse to be inactive, but a truth to rest.
Dr. Theonnes spoke about rest for the weary mom and her talk, in and of itself, brought me rest. First of all, I LOVE hearing women speak from God's word about God's word. I have to admit, I'm not big on women's ministry functions because sometimes they barely scratch God's word. I mean, I know these fellowship times are important, but I also know that God has gifted women with gifts and abilities to open up his word and bring it to bear in our lives and I think women need God's word more then anything else. Dr. Theonnes is one of those women he has gifted to speak from his word and help us apply it to all aspects of our life.
The topic of REST is something that is relevant and meaningful for every mother and woman. God's word powerfully speaks to us when we find ourselves weary or heavy laden. I love how Donna refreshed us with the gospel as she reminded us of the necessity for REST.
Donna spoke from Ephesians 2: Ever considered that a "how to mother" passage? I can say I never did before listening to Donna's talk, but I think I am beginning to realize how much of these passages that point us back to the gospel are really a "how to" for everything. How do you find rest? In the reality that we were dead BUT God.
Here are some of Donna's very practical and biblical points:
How Do you find Rest?
Rehearse the gospel. Remind yourself that your righteousness comes from JESUS, not you. You cannot prove your righteousness through your "mothering" or through your children's successes.
Establish boundaries. If we are rehearsing the gospel to ourselves constantly, then we will be able to set boundaries. We don't have to say "yes" to prove ourselves and we don't have to do everything. Our righteousness is not determined by being the best coach for our children's volleyball team, homeroom mom, all-star home school parent, and ministry leader at our church. God gives gifts to the church so that one of us doesn't have to do it all.
Satisfied with God's will. This gives us freedom from wanting something that isn't ours. God is in control of all aspects of our life which allows us to rest in where God has us.
Trust God with our children. Donna reminded us: "You are not the primary influence of your child's life." Jesus is. You have to be faithful to love your children like Jesus, but you can never change their heart. It is God's doing, not yours. This is not an excuse to be inactive, but a truth to rest.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Dan Cruver on God's Eternal Love
“God’s massive, cosmic story of adoption IS the real world” –Dan Cruver
Dan Cruver is the director of Together for Adoption and author of Reclaiming Adoption.
What does God really want from you?
Wow, isn’t this a question that I am sure every believer has questioned throughout their life.
Here are some verses to consider:
But does that “sum up” what God wants from us? Here are some other verses…
Is it one or the other? Absolutely NOT. Dan tells us that the question is a false question. It is NOT what does God want from you, but who is God. The answer? God is an eternal fountain.
Dan gives an incredible illustration of us trying to drink from Niagra Falls …he talks about how foolish it would be to think that we could try to diminish Niagara from our tiny, little mouths.
Dan says, “God is an eternal fountain of love that is, by nature, a giver….We can’t live the Christian life well, if we think of God as primarily wanting from us.”
What does this mean for us as we care for orphans? Here are Dan’s 4 main points:
1. There is a strong connection in this Psalm to what Scripture calls
Sonship. Sonship means that we are GIVEN all the rights and privileges of THE Son (Jesus!) through adoption (chew on that for a bit!!)
2. Drinking from the fountain of the Father’s lavish delight in us
actually empowers us to live on the razor sharp edge of the world’s
profound brokenness.
3. Orphans need Christians who feast on the abundance of God’s
house and whom God causes to drink from the river of his delights
(Psalm 36:8 ).
4. Christians who experience God the Giver are much better equipped
Who is the God who GIVES? Psalm 36:8 gives us that answer. Psalm 36 is talking about God’s steadfast love and tells us that we are able to drink from the river of God
We are given the river of God
Dan makes the point that this eternal river of God
[sidebar…what is going to follow is going to be tricky to explain in a blog post…Christians will get it because we’ve read, studied it for a while, but my dear friends who read my blog who are still questioning Christianity, I promise this isn’t freaky sci-fi stuff, it is such a beautiful truth once you understand it....we might need to grab a cup of coffee and talk more about this in person. I’ll post Dan’s video clip on this once it’s up on the website, because he explains it so beautifully!]
Ok, so how does God’s love flow eternally? Through the trinity. God is 3 persons, but 1 God. He has ALWAYS been 3 persons and ALWAYS will be 3 persons, but he is without a DOUBT 1 God (we see it everywhere in scripture). God has ALWAYS, for all eternity,even before creation, had this perfect love that was flowing between the Father and the Son.
And then God created! He made Adam and Eve and they drank from this perfect love, this fountain of living water! They communed perfectly with God almighty.
But they turned against God. Walked away from his eternal, perfect love. And the penalty for this was death. Because of this, humanities’ ability to participate in this great LOVE, to drink from this incredible fountain of LIFE has been severed. We are cut off. But GOD…who is RICH in mercy and steadfast love…made us ALIVE in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2 ).
What God did was sacrifice HIS son…he ruptured this perfect love that had flowed between himself and the Son for ALL eternity, SO THAT we could be brought back in to this family of God!
This is a precious, incredible truth. Like I said in my talk on Gospel Suffering yesterday, we do NOT understand God’s love for us, because we do NOT understand God’s love for his SON. OH, if only we knew the DEPTHS of God’s love for Jesus, we would be broken by the reality that he sacrificed that perfect flowing river of love in order to bring us, wretched sinners, into his eternal family. What a glorious God we serve!
Tullian on the Gospel and the Law
Tullian Tchividjian is a pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale
He spoke this afternoon on the law and the gospel. His talk came from Romans 7:7-8:4 His talk was about the Gospel and the Law...but it sparked wonderful thoughts about our adoption for me...here is my main thought after listening to his great message (followed by my general notes/thoughts from his sermon).
The LAW shows us the reality that we NEVER should have been adopted. Grace shows us that our adoption by God was ENTIRELY his work. And the finality of our adoption by God reminds us that it is God’s grace, not the law that KEEPS
Tullian reminded us this afternoon how easy it is to think that the goodness of a deed makes us “godly.” Even as Christians, we tend to drift toward thinking that God is concerned mostly with the fact that we obey (but the reality is, God also cares about WHY we obey).
He says, “Jesus demolishes ethical behavioralism, he smashes an external righteousness” Tullian went on to say that we are activists by nature and explains that the we naturally lean as humans is thinking God is lucky to have us. We naturally drift toward thinking we can earn favor with God through good works.
I spent some of my formative years as a child in a “sloppy agape” kind of church. We heard about God’s “agape” love all the time, but never about his law. If you are coming from a similar background, sometimes we think of the word “law” as a taboo Christian word. The word “law” seems like something for Jews or the Catholics, not something a grace-based Christian talked about.
Tullian spoke about the law in such a wonderful way. The “law” is far from being something Christians should know nothing about; rather, the “law” is actually good! It is a reflection of God’s perfect character. It is the law, Tullian says, that helps us to see God’s perfect nature. Romans shows us that it is because of the law that I even know I have lust, murderous thoughts, or a covetous heart. The law is a mirror to show me the darkness of my heart.
And that is where we draw the line in the sand. THAT is what the law does, but it is SO important to know what the law canNOT do:
The law CAN show us our hearts, but it canNOT cleans and regenerate our hearts.
The law CAN show us God’s perfect nature, but it canNOT make us like Christ.
The law CAN show us the depths of our sin, but it canNOT make us grow spiritually.
I also spent some of my formative years as a child in a more legalistic church background and this is where we get into trouble. If we are not aware of what the law canNOT do, then we will drift toward legalism. Tullian sums it up with one great word: “Slavery.” When we try to make the law do what it canNOT do we make ourselves slaves.
I agree with Tullian that we can be so quick to enslaving ourselves to the law, even though we have been made free from the law (Romans 8). This produces so many problems in the believers’ life and I see it in the women I counsel or talk to all the time. It produces pride when things are going well and it produces despair when life is hard. But it NEVER produces the gospel-centered life we are called to.
Tullian says, “You will NEVER, EVER find rescue for your weary soul by going INWARD to yourself.” He goes on to say that we KNOW that we only get INTO heaven by God, but we act like to “stay in” we have to look to ourselves. He gave a great example of Joel Osteen and Bob Jones. Bob Jones was the poster boy for Christian fundamentalism when I was a Christian and isn’t someone most Christians want to identify themselves with. Tullian talks about how they are BOTH equally legalistic, because BOTH of them are telling you one thing: do more, try harder. Of course, “one does it with a stick and one with a carrot”, but they both tell you…come do more.
“To say the law does not change us, it does NOT reduce the place the LAW has in our life.” The LAW is to show us the depths of our darkness. The law shows us that our greatest problem is not patience, but idolatry…not anger, but murder…not lust, but adultery. The “law shows us that our best is never good enough, it smashes our rose color glasses that we think of ourselves through….the law constantly reminds us how dependant we are on the gospel.”
Okay….I know this is getting to be a longer post, so I will try to wrap it up soon. ALL that is really good…how does this tie in with adoption? Just a few of my quick thoughts on how adoption ties this all together:
-Adoption SCREAMS of God’s grace… We are reminded in Romans 8:1 of the reality that we have “no condemnation” in Christ and then a few verses later we are told about some of the REALITIES of this work that Christ did for us (look back to Romans 7 to see what Paul was just talking about). So after we are told that Christ has done EVERYTHING for us to save us by grace, Paul shows us a fruit of that grace in Romans 8:14-17. We are told that we are given the spirit of adoption as sons of God! We are given the gift to be able to call God, “Abba Father!” We are told that we became heirs of Christ. All of Romans 8 wraps up with how NOTHING can separate us from God’s love.
Gospel-Centered Parenting
I am a big fan of Tim Chester. I love how he takes God’s word and brings it to bear in our every day life. I just sat through a workshop with Tim on parenting and having a gospel centered family and it was pure gold, worth the full price of the conference....and we're only 3 hours in. :)
Tim spoke of the purpose of parenting. I loved Tim’s definition of “gospel centered parenting”:
“Gospel centered parenting is missional parenting as we use our parenting and family to display the gospel story.”
This is a great picture of the purpose to our parenting. Our family is a stage in which we can re-enact the gospel story over and over for our children, our neighborhoods, our friends, and our extended family.
Something else I resonated with was Tim talking about the danger of taking parenting “techniques” that may or may not have worked for various parents and making them THE way to parent or raise your children.
He said, “parenting is an inexact science…in the rough and tumble of daily life it is tough."
In parenting methods and parenting books we are often given the impression that there IS an exact science to parenting. If you do A and B then you will get C as a result. Not only is this a pretty arrogant way to approach parenting, it is an unbiblical way. WE cannot produce godly children. WE did not write the plan for their life before the foundations of the earth were lain. But we CAN be faithful to God’s call to live out and speak the gospel of Jesus to our children all day, every day. Tim proposed that we align ourselves with the gospel and become gospel-centered parents. We want to share the gospel with our children over and over. To know how to do this, we need to have good parenting principals and then create methods for our own family out of an understanding of those principals (but not make those methods gospel truth for every family).
So what are some of the principals?
Here is the picture Tim has given us for being gospel centered in our parenting...these are highlights from his talk and I think vital to raising our children in the love and instruction of the Lord:
- The Main Goal is to model loving authority
- The aim of teaching our children that it is good to submit to us is that it is good, ultimately, to submit to God’s loving authority.
- We should parent our children in a way that models the good and loving authority of God in our life.
- The family unit is the place where a child learns that they do not live for themselves, but for others
- Selfish-parental rule fails in gospel centered parenting. Parent rule is to reflect God’s rule, which is not tyrannical, but loving and gracious. A parent centered family means everything revolves around the parents rule, desires, and wishes.
- At the same time, children ruling the family also fails in gospel centered parenting. In letting our children rule and run our home, they do not learn that it is good to live under God’s rule
- The Main hope is that your child will know and serve God
- We SAY that this is the most important thing to us, but do our daily or weekly lives reflect that reality
- What matters most to us is what ends up mattering to our children
- Is our hope for our children to see them grow up to be wealthy, well educated adults? Or is your hope to see them making choices and sacrifices to serve Christ. What do you want for your children?
- If you want your children to serve Christ in a radically, whole-hearted way, then model that in your everyday life. Expose them to costly ministry. Nothing, even good things, can be more important in our family then knowing and loving God or they become our idols.
- Call your children to treasure Christ in such a way that they are willing to sell and leave everything to gain and know Christ
- The main focus is your child’s heart.
- What is the reason why your child misbehaves? Behavior comes from the heart. True, food additives, ADD, etc can amplify these behaviors, but the cause is always the heart.
- What this means is that the GOAL is to change hearts not behavior. It is EASY to change behavior through all sorts of discipline techniques (good and bad), but what needs to happen is to change the heart.
- If your ways are to teach your children the ways of the Lord, then your discipline will be calm, clear, consistent, and concentrated on the motivation of their hearts.
- The GOAL is not control (that may be your agenda, but not God’s agenda), the GOAL is heart change.
- The main battleground is your heart.
- “What makes the difference between good parenting and bad parenting is what is going on in my heart” –Tim Chester
- Often, what skews our own discipline of our children is the idolatrous desires of our own heart. We want something specific and when we don’t get it (Jams 4:1), we fight.
- We need to be aware of our weaknesses and our sinful desires so that we can repent of our sin. When you notice yourself frustrated or angry, step back and ask yourself about what desires are driving you to feel frustrated and angry
- Involve your community and share life with a part of your Christian community so that they can see and point out what seems to be going on in your heart.
- The main theme is grace.
- Children are natural-born legalists, we have to teach them grace.
- Children are LITERALLY a grace, a gift from the Lord
- Good is great, therefore we do not have to be in control. God is glorious, so we do not have to fear others. God is good, so we don’t have to look elsewhere for satisfaction. God is gracious, so we don’t have to prove ourselves.
- We need to teach our children those above truths. Think about what it would look like in your life and in your children’s life if each of those truths are not believed by you and/or your children
- "That is why grace is so important. If you don’t get grace then parenting will crush you, because you will fail, but there is grace…both for you and your child"
The Church and Social Justice--Darrin Patrick
Over the next two days I will be posting my thoughts and reflections while at the Together for Adoption Conference If you want more of a specific outline of what the talks are about, check out some of the other live bloggers like Josh Reich's or others.
Darrin Patrick is a pastor of the Journey Church in Saint Louis
Darrin spoke about the tension of loving God and loving people.
Tension?
How can there be tension? That seems to be the last thing we think of when we hear the calling to “love God, love people” but if you have ever been involved in social justice issues, like orphan advocacy, then you can resonate with Darrin’s words. These two realities we are called to (love God and love people) do go hand in hand, but only if you look to God first. Only if we get the gospel right.
When we are involved in social justice, it is so easy to see the needs all around us and feel overwhelmed. In trying to meet people’s great physical needs, we can loose sight of the gospel. Darin spoke about Christ’s constant tension and reminded us that his main ministry was to preach the gospel, the good news. Darin said, ”Jesus was never so distracted by the needs of people that he failed to meet their biggest need.”
At the same time, those of us who are not involved in social justice, but spend a majority of day thinking through and talking about deep theological truths…we’re missing out on an implication of the gospel. When we think of the fact that Jesus’ main ministry was the word….we should not sigh a breath of relief that we can then sit back, inactive participants in trying to meet the desperate needs of those around us. Darrin reminds us of the common evangelistic question, “What happens if you die tonight?” and spoke about how while that question is desperately important, if you are poor and marginalized it is NOT all that matters. What also matters is, “What happens if I have to live tomorrow.” “Living” for those in desperate situations is a harder reality to face sometimes then death itself.
So the good news of Jesus is NOT orphan care, feeding the poor, or eradicating racial injustice. But it IS without a doubt an IMPLICATION of the gospel.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Pre-Conference for Adoptive Mamas
So what happens when you get a bunch of women in the room and start talking about Jesus and your children? Tears...
Today was so refreshing, encouraging, and uplifting. This morning Dr. Donna Thoennes spoke to us about "Gospel Rest" and it was such a relevant, applicable topic for every single mom!! (I'll post a summary of her talk sometime tomorrow)
We also had a great line up of ladies on two different panel discussions: Noel Piper, Julie Gumm, Kristen Howerton, Melody Liezau, and Dorthy Bode. It was great to see all the different perspectives from women, from different ages, who have each adopted through different means (international, domestic, fost/adopt), and literally from all over the world.
Each of these women are an inspiration and if you are looking for good things to read...check out their blogs.
The conference starts tomorrow! I still have to get all my kids packed up to stay the weekend at my aunt's house and finish preparing for my workshop tomorrow on "Raising Your Child to Care for the Orphan", but thanks to Donna's wise words, I'm going to "say no" to the pile of dishes in my sink and get to them on Sunday. :)
Check in throughout the weekend for summaries from the different speakers. First up tomorrow morning: Darrin Patrick
Today was so refreshing, encouraging, and uplifting. This morning Dr. Donna Thoennes spoke to us about "Gospel Rest" and it was such a relevant, applicable topic for every single mom!! (I'll post a summary of her talk sometime tomorrow)
We also had a great line up of ladies on two different panel discussions: Noel Piper, Julie Gumm, Kristen Howerton, Melody Liezau, and Dorthy Bode. It was great to see all the different perspectives from women, from different ages, who have each adopted through different means (international, domestic, fost/adopt), and literally from all over the world.
Each of these women are an inspiration and if you are looking for good things to read...check out their blogs.
The conference starts tomorrow! I still have to get all my kids packed up to stay the weekend at my aunt's house and finish preparing for my workshop tomorrow on "Raising Your Child to Care for the Orphan", but thanks to Donna's wise words, I'm going to "say no" to the pile of dishes in my sink and get to them on Sunday. :)
Check in throughout the weekend for summaries from the different speakers. First up tomorrow morning: Darrin Patrick
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Together for Adoption Conference THIS WEEK!!!
I am so excited for the T4A conference this week. I feel really honored to be able to be a part of this great ministry and I look forward to meeting families from all over the country who are passionate about orphan care and passionate about the gospel.
I will be one of the conferences "live bloggers" throughout the conference. So if you are unable to attend, I will be writing up a summary of the different sessions along with many of my own that I am sure will be inspired by our time in worship, prayer, and the word.
I am really looking forward to hearing from Donna Thoennes,Tim Chester, Darrin Patrick, Dan Cruver, Tullian Tchividjian, Bryan Loritts, and Jeff Vanderstalt.
If you are in Phoenix and have Friday/Saturday open still...register (special rate for Arizona residents)! It's not to late and it will be such an encouraging time to ALL believers, not just those who've adopted (promise...no guilt trip will be laid on you if you haven't adopted children...this conference is first and foremost about our adoption by God!)
I will be one of the conferences "live bloggers" throughout the conference. So if you are unable to attend, I will be writing up a summary of the different sessions along with many of my own that I am sure will be inspired by our time in worship, prayer, and the word.
I am really looking forward to hearing from Donna Thoennes,Tim Chester, Darrin Patrick, Dan Cruver, Tullian Tchividjian, Bryan Loritts, and Jeff Vanderstalt.
If you are in Phoenix and have Friday/Saturday open still...register (special rate for Arizona residents)! It's not to late and it will be such an encouraging time to ALL believers, not just those who've adopted (promise...no guilt trip will be laid on you if you haven't adopted children...this conference is first and foremost about our adoption by God!)
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