Discipling Morgan

Just passed the one year anniversary of Friday Discipleship Times with my oldest daughter, Morgan (I call these "Father Daughter Times"). What a great year. We've missed a few Fridays due to school stuff, vacations, etc.... but we've met about 40 times over the last year. Morgan has read the entire Gospel of John, part of Genesis, and now we're finishing Genesis and getting into the Psalms as well. She's also read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," "Prince Caspian," a biography of "Corrie Ten Boom," and now we've started a kid-version of "Pilgrim's Progress." In addition she has memorized scripture, created dozens of prayer lists for weekly prayer, and served many people with a "serve challenge" we do each week. But the greatest part for me is just being with my daughter and watching God move and work in her life.

I encourage all parents to disciple your children. I'm committing to do this with each of my kids - and having these one-on-one discipleship times when they turn 8. With four kids - that will be alot of time and energy - but so worth it!

Disappearing Generations

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the Church as a whole is increasingly blind to the reality that younger generations are largely "missing" from our local church communities. Certainly there are some pockets where this is not the case, but by and large the statistics demonstrate this reality. Much of the problem, in my opinion, lies in the fact that we are unwilling to do what it takes to connect with emerging generations. We want them to CONNECT WITH US ... but we are not making the effort to CONNECT WITH THEM. As a young pastor, I challenge my generation as well as older generations to wake up to the need around us. And I challenge us to pick up the missional mandate from Jesus to connect with these generations. We must be willing to change and to do whatever it takes to CONNECT WITH THEM. And we must seriously ask ourselves if we care enough to do something ...

Denominational Paralysis

Becoming more and more convinced that the Church suffers from denominational paralysis. In our efforts to maintain and grow the institution of the Church, we've largely lost the single focus of remaining Kingdom-driven for the purposes God calls us to in our world. Simply put - I feel like we're asleep. But while I believe this to be true, I don't believe simply complaining about it is the answer. I pray that God keeps me and so many others from this. Instead, we must seek God and the Kingdom together and pray that He will move the body as a whole to return to Him, and once again pick up His Kingdom-agenda for our lives.