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different kids.

Posted on by Wick

“He’s part of the smart and popular group.”  I heard a 5th grader describe his friend this past week.  Holy Smokes.  I don’t remember thinking about “popularity” in elementary school, although I’m sure it was there somewhere.  I remember coming to school and getting incredibly good at the art of twisting my hair so that it stood up without using any gel.  Throw a cape on my back, because I was super.

I remember some mornings, waiting out by the road for the bus to pick us up.  We’d easily get bored, and want to do something more fun.  I remember putting frogs in the mailbox for our postal worker to be surprised by.  (She wasn’t happy when she found baked frogs in the mailbox.  Ooops. Hot fall days.)  I remember playing Ninja Turtles. (I preferred Michaelangelo.)  I remember squatting down, pulling my coat down over my knees, while hobbling along the road trying to scare the cars driving by into thinking I was some sort of troll.  (Probably not the safest thing I’ve ever done along a highway.)

Looking back on who I was growing up, I think is part of the reason I was totally okay when we began our homeschooling journey.  Sure, a lot of homeschool kids can grow up a bit weird.  But look at me…public school kids can grow up pretty odd themselves.  My kids are certainly going to be unique in this world, scripture pretty much demands it.  But their uniqueness is not about simply wearing the moniker “Different”.  It’s so much bigger than that.

In fact, it’s too big to fit into an awesome sentence that I can make into bold text, and you can quote me on in some place that gets more internet traffic.  I want my kids to live authentic lives of experiencing all that God has created them for.  I fiveironfrenzypray over them daily that they would be filled with so much love, the world will be changed.  I believe it’s possible with all that I am (and the even more that I am not), and parent them that way.  Whether they go on to become missionaries in foreign lands, moms who raise the next generation to know the love of God, or a female-fronted version of Five Iron Frenzy.  In fact, if they could go on to become a female version of Five Iron Frenzy, at least for a little while, I’d be pretty excited.  One thing is for sure – they will be unique.  I pray they are unique even in the face of consumer-driven Christianity.  That they would ask questions, and push the envelope for how God’s Love can be shown, and how the Holiness of God can be lived.

So for now, we’ll continue to build the foundations of a life lived uniquely toward responding to God.  We aim to exercise those spiritual muscles on a regular basis.  To invite our children to respond to God with us on a regular basis.  To train them to listen to His voice.  To point out where some things in our world are broken, or don’t make sense.  To help their first reflex and knee-jerk reaction to be Love for God & others.  And above all of that, because we cannot guarantee what path they’ll take…..we pray.  God, use our family to make things different, as you are Different.  Amen.

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the 300 are ours.

Posted on by Wick

By now you might have already heard of the huge party that most of us weren’t invited to.  300 Teenagers in New York decided to break into an ex-NFL star’s giant home, and throw a party.  The party involved drugs, alcohol, destruction of property…and lots of selfies.

Because of all the “selfies” and social media posts, they were able to identify quite a few of the close to 300 partygoers.   The NFL star himself invited them to all come back and help clean up in order to avoid criminal charges.  Apparently only 4 of them did.  (pitiful hand-clap)  Then he took action by posting the pictures/tweets they shared publicly while on his property.  By simply seeing what was available online, with some help, he compiled a list of names, and is calling those teens to respond by giving to charity.300-logo3  Kudos for him realizing this whole situation could be used to do something much larger than recoup the damages.

This party reveals quite a bit about youth culture, and one of the most dangerous things seems to be the elevation of self over….well, everything. The pictures & tweets posted seem to be of young people living out all the cliche’d phrases we hear pumped out in horrible music and quoted in memes all over social media. “Night of my life!”, “Live in the moment!”, “Don’t Care!”, “Don’t judge!”, etc. The list could go on, including every aspect of life being a continuous unchallenged party.  Combined with mob-mentality bad judgement, the feeling of invinsibility continued even long after the party was busted up.

I’ve seen some responses that are blaming the parents. Certainly there’s some major blame there, whether it’s bad decisions or not being present. But we cannot support the culture of excess, parties, escape and consumption (of people and substances) the way many of us do; and innocently point a finger when an event like this happens. We cannot pretend to be surprised when all the bumper stickers, song lyrics, and cliche’s become the life choices of our younger generations. Even as the cops closed the party down, so many of these teens were sharing how glad they were to have been there. The elevation of “epic experiences” over making right decisions isn’t something confined to our youth.

Reading Titus chapter 2 gives us a great reminder to the ENTIRE community.  Whether older men, older women, younger men, or younger women…one thing we all have in common is the need for “self-control”.  To be “sober-minded”.  To have control or “reign” over ones desires/passions.  This was obviously big enough to write about several times throughout scripture, and one of the ways we know we’re bearing the “Fruit of the Spirit” is by the presence of self-control.  This isn’t a new thing, and it isn’t something we’ll solve in a week.  We must be making choices today about what we support, and see the connections between the life we’re living and the choices of the generations following in our footsteps.

How does your life reflect the call/challenge to practice self-control for the sake of those who are growing up in the world we’re shaping?

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remember that one time when it didn’t happen yet?

Posted on by Wick

(a blog post from 2006, before our first daughter arrived)

I was ready.

There I stood, pen and notebook in hand; every contraction from the past 4 hours written down on paper. All the signs were there. They had started at 6 minutes apart, and moved all the way to 2 minutes apart, and stayed consistent for the past 2 hours. All the signs were there. Time to move. We headed home, grabbed the bags that were already packed and by the door, called the doctor, and headed to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, they hooked Sarah up to the monitors and we saw that we were right; contractions every 2 minutes consistently. This is it. All the signs are there. Addison is coming.  She didn’t come that night. After contracting for 2 more hours, and being tested, the nurses told Sarah and I that perhaps this was a “false labor”. Addison was not coming when we thought. We would have to wait. We could wait there at the hospital, or go home on our own. But either way, we had to wait.  It was tempting to stay at the hospital. It was tempting to go home and sit on our hands, waiting for any more signs that Addison had decided to come. Unfortunately, all the experts say that’s one of the worst things you can do. So what do they recommend? Live your life as normal as possible. Remember Addison is coming, and allow your life to point towards that, but don’t give up living to worry about it. Continue to prepare for her.  As frustrating as this all was, it’s given me one stellar illustration for a sermon. And I’m gonna let it out here, so if I preach and use this…pretend you’ve never heard it.

It’s the year 2006 (okay, 2013 today). War is once again heated up in the Middle East (Syria this time). Leaders of Nations are rising and falling. Earthquakes, floods, and other large events are spreading suffering and destruction. All the signs are there. Funny, this sounds familiar.
The truth is, all the signs have been there time after time after time. From those who read Revelation as a timeline to Armegeddon, all the way to those who think Jesus is gonna come back in a limousine (not many people hopefully), people have been watching to try and figure out when God will usher in His Kingdom. 100AD, 1000AD, 2000AD, Nero, Hitler, the fall of Rome, the Soviet Union, the Y2K crisis, and many events in between these have been looked at before their occurance as “God’s return”. All the signs were there. Thoughts like these spark great living, but also dangerous living.

If Sarah and I had stayed at the hospital that night, fully expecting Addison’s arrival, we would still be there 3 days later. IMG_1766Instead, we went home, and lived our lives in continued preparation for her.
To hope and pray for God to usher all of creation into His Kingdom is an incredible thing. To forget to live this life because we hope He will come tomorrow is a misuse of all we’ve been given. As His creation, we have been in the birth pangs of the Coming Kingdom for centuries. We have had many “false labors”, and the truth is, we will probably have many more. Does that mean we go home, and forget that God is even coming? Not at all!!! It would have been easy to be so disappointed, that we went home, and pretended we weren’t even having a baby. But then what? Addison would’ve come anyway, and we wouldn’t have been ready at all.

Instead, we realize we’ve been given more time to prepare!!! Friends, we HAVE been given more time to prepare this world for the Coming Kingdom of God. Maybe days, maybe weeks, years, maybe even millennia. But that doesn’t negate the fact that God IS returning! He has given us that promise throughout scripture. We find just one of the many references in Acts chapter 3:

“…that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets…”

So here we are with a choice. What can we do to prepare for His arrival? What can you do this week? What can you do with your life? The answer is: LIVE IT. A statement I heard when I was in college put these things in a great perspective for me. If God doesn’t bring His completion until the year 10,000; the years we’re living right now will be seen as the “beginning” of Christianity. How are we affecting the world from that perspective? Are we? Or are we sitting at the hospital, doing nothing with our life, just hoping God will come tonight?