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Why We Go to Church on Vacation

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Today I found myself sitting down to make a list of all of the things that I’ll need to pack for our family of five for our upcoming vacation. We try to escape for a few days every summer, a chance for my pastor husband to get away, at least physically, from the demands of being everyone’s go-to guy when things get tough. I don’t think that it’s really possible for either of us to leave our dear church behind in our heads or hearts (nor do we want to), but it’s so nice and necessary to spend some time focusing on our little family having fun together.

Some years our vacation plans cause us to miss a Sunday at our church, and on those years we all get excited about choosing a church to visit while we’re away. Now, you may wonder why in the world a pastor’s family would look forward to going to church on vacation. Isn’t going to any church sort of like going to work? And the simple answer to that question is no. Church is not work. It’s our family, our support system, our place of worship, and our lifeline to the truth of God’s word. The church is not just a place we go–it’s who we are.

I remember when Chad and I were newlyweds. The first Sunday of our new life together rolled around, and he cheerfully hopped out of bed and informed me that we were going to church. I had a more lenient view of church attendance–I thought that it was no big deal to skip a Sunday here and there, especially in your first week of marriage. But, Chad set a precedent that morning that we have stuck to through the past twenty years. There is really and truly no place we would rather be than in God’s house on Sunday mornings, partly because God has used that faithfulness in worship to bless us in so many ways through the years that I couldn’t even begin to write them all down.

There are a few other reasons that we wouldn’t dare miss the opportunity to worship with our fellow believers on a vacation Sunday.

1. It’s encouraging.

It’s an encouragement to visit churches in other parts of the country while we travel. It gives us an opportunity to witness what God is doing in other places, and it reminds us that He is working in so many ways that we don’t see. Walking into a building and knowing that we have a deep connection with a bunch of strangers just because we all love the Lord is really uplifting and reminds us of the sweet fellowship of Heaven.

2. It sends a message to our children.

Something seems very wrong about being blessed beyond belief by a fun vacation and then flouting a chance to worship the One who provided it. When we make church attendance a priority all the time (even on vacation), we show our kids that worship is not all about a place or certain friends or familiarity, but it is about Jesus. It helps us to focus and to remind our kids that this is a way of life, not just a ritual or routine. Even when it might not be familiar or completely convenient, we are still going to find a church and honor our Savior on Sundays.

3. It’s fun.

We have a great time entering a church as guests and experiencing the way that another church does things. It sparks lively conversations afterward about what they are doing and how they’re doing it. Often it inspires us to come back home to our own church and institute some great idea that we got from a church on vacation. It’s fascinating to see how other awesome churches operate, and we always enjoy trying something different that’s out of our normal routine.

4. Where else would we be?

For our kids, it’s a no-brainer. If it’s Sunday, we’re at church, even when we’re away from home. They would be shocked and dismayed if a Sunday came and went and we spent it sleeping in or even lying on the beach, not because they are trying to be rule-following do-gooders, but because they have learned to love worship, and their very best memories of life have happened right inside church buildings. They have discovered, like we have, that inside the church we find hope, truth, and love. So, where else would we be on a Sunday?

God provides so many sweet opportunities to worship during our short time on earth, and His people have been such a source of joy and friendship and encouragement through the years. I’m grateful for that late May day back in 1999 when my brand new husband declared that on Sundays, we worship. It has made all the difference. When we vacation, we don’t want to take a break from being who we are. We’re grateful to be God’s children, and we enjoy being with our brothers and sisters worshiping Him, no matter where we may roam. I thank God for the privilege. May we never take it for granted.

Your Kids Do Think About You

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This morning I opened the door to my shower and turned the hot water all the way up. I stood there in my fuzzy robe, bleary-eyed and weary before the day had even really started and sighed deeply, wishing that I could go back to bed for a couple of hours. Then something undeniably cheery caught my eye from the corner of the steamy shower. It was three tiny bright yellow rubber ducks. Sawyer came across these ducks at some point in the past month or so, and since then every night when he takes a shower, he places them in some funny spot for me to find the next morning. Today they were perched atop three different bottles of soap and shampoo, facing each other as if they were conducting a board meeting. When I saw them I had to giggle a little bit. And wasn’t that Sawyer’s goal? To amuse me in some way? To brighten my morning with a cheerful little surprise?

Kids get the bad reputation of being completely self-focused. We tend to think of them as little creatures who think only of themselves and how they are affected by things. And there is no doubt that children do have the luxury of being a little bit self-centered at times. But as parents we should never make the mistake of believing that our kids don’t think about us. Actually, our children are constantly thinking about us, about how we react to things. About how we feel and what will make us happy or sad. Our kids are probably more in tune with our moods and wants and needs more than most people in our lives. And, as Sawyer’s ducks testify in their board meeting, our kids are often seeking ways to get our attention, meet our approval, or get a reaction from us.

As Christian parents, we should be especially aware of this way that our kids are tuned in to our actions and feelings. We can’t fool ourselves into thinking that our kids aren’t affected when we let our anger rule us. Or when we say something hurtful that can’t be unsaid. We can’t lull ourselves into believing that our kids don’t notice what we watch and listen to, what we say to our spouse or our friend, what we are posting on social media or how we react to those who are different from us. In many ways, my children are experts in who I am as a person. They know my favorite candy, which songs I’m most likely to belt out in the car, which colors I try to avoid because of my red hair. What would ever make me think that anything that I do escapes their notice? The truth is that every move I make informs them about who I am and what a Christian should be like, and they are watching me, always, to see what I will show them about following Christ.

It’s a terribly convicting thought because I know I am such a flawed example to them. Yet, I am an example nonetheless, and at this stage in their lives I am probably their most important example, apart from their dad. Sawyer’s ducks were a reminder to me: he is thinking about me. He cares how I interact with him and how I respond to him, both in fun and serious situations. He is watching me, considering me, wondering about me, and learning from me. Instead of assuming that our children are in their own world, wrapped up in kid things, we should stop and think about the many ways that they are showing us how perceptive they are of our attitudes and actions, and how often they are reaching out in their own ways for connection with us.

In all of this my prayer is that my own selfishness will be replaced by godliness. That when my kids watch me live this life, when they think about me and try to gauge my reactions, when they wonder how I feel or what I am thinking, that they will settle into a peaceful confidence. Their mother will not be perfect. But I pray they will see me seeking Christ and leaning on Him in the best times and the worst times.

With delight, Sawyer asked me if I liked the ducks. He smiled at me, and I wondered how much longer I will have the honor of being regularly on his mind. I reached out for a hug, and we grinned together about the three little ducks, discussing where they might turn up next. Just one flawed mother and her sweet son, learning each other and relying on the love of Christ when our own love proves imperfect. Tomorrow morning when I shuffle into my bathroom with a yawn, I expect I will again be surprised by three little yellow ducks. Maybe they will be standing on their heads. Maybe they will be marching up stairs made of shampoo bottles. I will smile in spite of the early hour because those little ducks will remind me once again that I sometimes occupy the thoughts of three children who have been entrusted to my care and discipleship. God’s mercies are new every morning, and so is the opportunity to show my kids what an authentic Christian life really looks like. They don’t need perfection. But they do need a Savior. And I am the mother who can point them to Him. What an honor. What a Savior.

Don’t Look Away

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I have been a part of my husband’s family for twenty years. I remember one night years ago before we all had kids, when Chad’s siblings and his parents and I were sitting around telling stories. Somehow a hilarious tale came up about some high school rebellion or other that had never been found out. As the story grew and she began to hear things she didn’t like, my sweet mother-in-law put her hands over her face and said with a laugh, “I don’t want to know about it!” She is a brilliant woman with multiple degrees, but when it came to this story, she enjoyed her blissful ignorance. She didn’t want to hear any more. She was happy to bury her head in the sand and go on believing that her boys were just as responsible and principled in high school as they are now.

It really doesn’t matter if Chad’s mom ever listens to that story or gets wise about some of the dumb stuff her kids did in high school. She isn’t raising them anymore. They turned out pretty great, and she can freely avoid the realities of those silly things that are now long past.

But those of us who are still in the trenches don’t get out so easy. We don’t get a bury-your-head-in-the-sand pass. We need to look up, look around, listen, and understand what is happening in the world around us.

A video is making its way around the internet that is part of a series called “Kids Meet…” This particular episode is titled “Kids Meet Someone Who’s Had an Abortion.” In the video, Amelia Bonow, the founder of #ShoutYourAbortion, sits down with kids to talk to them about how normal abortion is. She says it’s like “a crappy dentist appointment” where the doctor uses a straw to suck “the pregnancy” out. She also tells them that she feels that life begins at birth. For those who are pro-life, the video is disturbing. It revolves entirely around her feelings and sends the message to the kids who are speaking with her (and those who are watching on YouTube for Kids) that you are a mean person if you question someone’s feelings about a matter, even something as controversial and important as abortion.  She teaches the kids that the term pro-life is a misnomer and when one little boy says that he doesn’t believe that abortion should be a solution to what he calls “recklessness,” she tells him that even though her partner didn’t use a condom that she doesn’t qualify that as reckless, just a mistake.

As parents, it’s hard to face the reality that these are the kinds of “truths” that filmmakers and book writers, YouTubers and celebrities, teachers and politicians are diligently trying to teach our children. But the Bible is just another book on a shelf for most of the world. We MUST realize that the worldview that most influencers are promoting is directly opposed to what the Bible teaches. There was a time when what the culture was promoting pretty well lined up with the Bible. Parents in those days had the luxury of trusting the world at large to help them raise their children. We will not be able to coast through parenting that way. We will have to actively and consistently teach our kids how to process this world through a biblical lens, and the only way we can do that is if we look at and listen to exactly what our kids are being taught.

Over and over again as I shared this video with friends, they responded by saying they couldn’t watch the whole thing because they were too disgusted and disturbed. But, I would urge all of us: don’t look away. Watch and listen and show your kids and talk about it with them. Know what they are seeing on YouTube and Netflix. Know which websites they are frequenting. Follow Teen Vogue and see all of the ways that they are encouraging your kids to sin. Listen to the rhetoric that comes out of Hollywood and Washington. We can’t combat the wrong thinking that is being poured into our kids’ brains if we refuse to listen to it.

A few days ago, Amelia Bonow tweeted: “The ‘Kids Meet Someone Who Had An Abortion’ video now has over a million views. Huge thanks to the anti-choice mob for sharing widely & exposing tens of thousands of conservative women who’ve had abortions to the fresh, seductive idea that they don’t have to hate themselves.”

I like to think that the video has been shared so often because we, as parents, are waking up to the notion that our kids are being actively targeted and indoctrinated into a feelings-based worldview that completely discounts and directly opposes God’s way. But, it’s not enough to look and listen. Then we have to talk to our kids, often and with depth, and most importantly of all, we have to live out our faith in a way that shows them that God is real and that Jesus is so much better than anything the world has to offer.  Remember, the way is narrow and few find it. The majority of the voices out there are more in line with #ShoutYourAbortion than God’s word. Let’s raise our kids according to His word, eyes open, hearts tuned to His goodness, ears listening for the whispers of those who want to lead our children down the wide, easy path. Raising disciples in 2019 won’t be easy, but what an opportunity to bring glory to the Lord.

Count the Cost of Raising True Disciples (and Know That It’s Worth It)

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I want you to know something about training up children in the way they should go: it’s hard. It’s at the same time the greatest joy and a constant source of heartache. While you may see your child soaring spiritually, growing in the Lord every day, knowing Him more and loving Him more even while she becomes a woman in a culture that preaches every wrong thing at her all day long, you may also see that her circle of friends dwindles. That she searches and doesn’t find a like-minded soul to share her teenaged years with. You may look up and realize that your child is on the narrow path, and there isn’t a lot of foot traffic there, especially in junior high and high school. You may figure out that your child is interested in all of the things that the rest of her world is not. And, you will laugh at the brilliance and beauty of her spirit which is anchored to Christ. And you will wipe tears as you wonder where she will turn for friendship and companionship and close friends as her years go on.

In all of that, in all of the jumping for joy and the wringing of hands, we must remember that in the end it will all be worth it. In fact, it’s worth it now. It’s worth it to see your child discovering Christ, really seeing Him and learning to depend on Him.

The question is not whether our children can flourish on this path. It’s isn’t whether they can handle the possible rejections or the loneliness or the feelings that come with living as outsiders in a land that very much values insiders. They can. They can and will flourish. They can and will handle it. They can and will endure suffering, the kind that leaves them searching a crowd of high schoolers, looking for one sign of encouragement. For one hint of, “We’re waiting for you. Come and sit with us.” Our kids, with Jesus, can withstand this and so much more.

The real question is whether we as parents will have the strength and the courage to stick with this plan. To forget about popularity and temporary glories so we can point our kids to eternal things. The question is whether we will turn to our Savior, counting on Him to be enough for our children, to sustain them and us through tough teenage years and the trials of being different, the sometimes pain of choosing Christ above all. Will we falter when we see our kids suffering? Or will we remind them that in these hardships they are identifying with their Savior?

When we pray that our children will have tender hearts toward the things of God, when we pray that they will be radically devoted to Him, we must also be prepared for what that really means. And we must remind each other, over and over again: it’s worth it. He is worth it. We can rely on Him to see our children through as they blaze a path of faithfulness through a world that has been dulled by complacency and hopelessness. This is what we have been praying for. God give us the faith and the perseverance to see it through, even when our hearts break. Following Christ isn’t easy. But it’s worth it.

A Plea to Parents

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I have had a heavy burden lately for families. So many families are struggling, breaking apart, buckling under the weight of sin and pride and foolish independence and selfish love that turns out not to be love at all. And then there are the families where everything seems grand, where baseball and camping and dance classes crowd out the greatness of real communion with God’s people, where parents maintain a casual association with the church while their children learn and re-learn and truly believe that Jesus has no place in this oh-so-comfortable life.

More and more in all types of families I see parents who claim to be Christians yet don’t see the need or importance of doing all they can to make sure that their own precious children escape the clutches of hell and find victory over sin and death. It makes my heart pound, the sheer terror of it, that idea that I should receive forgiveness of sin and my children should face the terrible wrath of a holy God. It ought to terrify all of us, the idea of our loved ones living and dying without knowing the perfect love, mercy, and salvation of the Lord.

I implore you, parents. Examine yourself. If you do not feel a sense of urgency in the training and spiritual development of your children, if you do not provide them with a church family and teach them God’s word, if you do not feel utter devastation at the thought of them living without Christ and dying without hope, then you have no reason to feel assured of your own salvation. It’s possible that you were made to believe at some point in your past that you had a true encounter with Jesus, but you actually only had an emotional experience with no real repentance or faith in the Lord.

It is reasonable to deduce that a true follower of Christ could not and would not fail to teach her own children how to become Christians.

If your family’s life is ruled by the things of this world instead of the things of God, if you find yourself rarely or never engaging your children in spiritual conversations, if you have let other activities take precedence over church attendance, if your children see no real need or place for Jesus in your world, you need to stop right now and seek the Lord. You need to consider whether you really know Him and whether His Holy Spirit has changed your heart of stone to a heart of flesh. (Ez. 36:26) You need to remember that Jesus said that anyone who causes a little one to stumble would be better off with a millstone tied around his neck, drowned in some bottomless ocean. (Luke 17:2) You need to consider the words of Christ when He declared that the greatest commandment is Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. (Matt. 22:36-38)

“Christian” means something more than liking some of the things Jesus had to say. This faith is all-consuming and utterly transforming. If your faith is more like an occasional identifier than a life-altering relationship, then it is possible that you don’t really know Jesus at all. It’s possible that you are going to hell and you are dragging your children there with you.

Consider the condition of your soul.  Contemplate whether you are leading your children through the wide gate and down the broad the road that leads to destruction. Scripture tells us that the way is narrow that leads to life. Few find it. (Matt. 17:13-14) Have you? Will your children? Pray that today will be the day of salvation.

What He Holds

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When I was a kid, Vacation Bible School was the highlight of my summer. I still remember how the slightly watered-down KoolAid tasted when it washed down exactly two sandwich cookies from the local grocery store, each lovingly placed on a white napkin and eagerly gobbled up by children who were that special brand of midsummer morning starved.

I remember how much I looked forward to painting the red bricks on the outside of the church with water, the brilliant notion of some long ago Bible School director. The buckets and paint brushes and cool, cool water were a big part of my summertime dreams as a child.

This past week, in the grand tradition of many, many summers long past, our church was filled to the brim with excited children. When you are a grown-up,VBS is all at once the most fun thing you do all summer and also the most exhausting. In the famous words of then four year old Sawyer one final day of Vacation Bible School, when I am done with VBS, “my hair is tired.” I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a more perfect description of how one feels on that last day of a long week of over-the-top enthusiasm and  Holy Spirit-inspired patience. Maybe it’s the consecutive days of restraint that is really what so completely wears out a VBS worker.

This was Adelade’s first year to be a VBS volunteer. She effectively graduated from Vacation Bible School last year, after years of loving every second of it. It was sad for me, thinking about how quickly the time goes, about how she had passed a milestone that we could never really return to–the days when she would wake up with the sun, smiling before her eyes were even open, ecstatic in the first seconds of consciousness because she knew it was a VBS day.

This year I watched as her long and lean frame took the stage, helping lead the children as they sang and learned the motions to the fun music. For the most part I didn’t think much about it. Her enthusiasm was still off the charts. Her smile never waned. She was having great fun. But then in one, tiny mama moment, I stood at the back of the sanctuary, watching one of the more mischeivous boys from my class walk, no, run, no, tumble to the bathroom, and I was mesmerized by my first-born daughter, standing there at the front of the room. It was only a few seconds before the spell was broken by the tumbleweed of a boy who was barrelling toward the restroom. But, in those seconds I felt like I was seeing the beginnings of who Adelade really is and who she is to be.

The next day I sat with my rowdy little class and watched them listen intently while she taught them about the hope we have in Christ. She was so sincere, so true and sure as she spoke of the love of Jesus, and I found renewed hope in my Savior just by watching what He is doing in my dear little girl.

Thirteen years old. Vacation Bible looks different now. It looks like a lanky teenager and braces and teacher break room privileges for my own little Adelade. And as her faith and understanding grows, I’m learning that a merciful by-product is the growth of my own faith and understanding, just watching in awe while Jesus forms her into a girl after his own heart.

This week she managed to meet David Platt. When she spotted him in the hallway of a huge convention center, she gasped. She literally gasped. The president of the International Mission Board was standing right in front of her. So, she smiled up at him with that silver-bracketed precious grin that turns up at the corners. They talked about seventh grade and Secret Church, and she walked away encouraged.

And tonight she came through the door with red eyes, tears still flowing as she tried to explain things that words don’t quite have the capacity to express. She had prayed over young missionaries at their commissioning service, and all the while God was speaking to her own heart. The same David Platt who had been so kind to her yesterday was now on a big platform, speaking about calling and mission and the way that the Holy Spirit will sometimes grab you so tightly that you run out of vocabulary to describe what it feels like.

And in all of this she grows. She changes in ways that I never could have predicted back on those simple summer mornings when she awoke with a grin and a VBS song in her heart. And I change, too. I learn how much more she belongs to Christ than to me. I learn to bind my wandering heart to a Savior who calls little girls and makes them courageous Christ-followers. I learn to loosen my grip on my teary-eyed, God-gripped daughter, remembering once again that God’s hand is sufficient.  I will trust His hold on us. He is good, and He is working here.

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