Society's Moral Spiral

Okay, pardon me while I preach to some parents. This has built over the course of my child raising years, so it may sound a bit harsh, but I need to get it off of my chest.

Since when did it become okay to set the bar for our kids' moral behavior to be no higher than our own bad decisions at their age? I cannot tell you how many times over the years that I have heard parents say something like, "well I can't very well tell my kids they shouldn't do that when I did my share of it". Really? Your standard for your kids can't be any higher than your own bad decisions when you were their age?

We don't do this with anything else. I've never heard a parent say, I was not good at sports when I was a kid, so I can't encourage my kid to try out. I didn't get a scholarship when I went to college so why should I expect my kids to apply. It only seems to be an issue when it comes to moral decision making. I've heard statements like this concerning underage drinking, drug use, sex, and just basic disruptive behavior. Parents actually believe they can't instruct their kids not to do things that are illegal, dangerous, and immoral because they themselves were guilty of those things at some point, too.

Just because we survived some of our bad decisions, or we "turned out okay", doesn't mean those were good decisions, and more importantly, it should NEVER be where we look when determining and communicating expected behavior from our kids. I've heard some say it would be hypocritical to tell your kids they shouldn't, when you did. But that is only true if you still think the illegal, dangerous, immoral behavior was a good decision. If that is the case, then you have other issues. But if you believe it to be a bad decision, it is certainly not hypocritical to instruct your kids to avoid that type of behavior and similar decisions. Your kids may make the same bad decisions, but as a parent you should not let it happen because they didn't know better.

One other, sort of mathematical, note on this. If everyone believed and practiced this, then society would find itself in a spiral toward becoming a totally immoral society, with the next generations' moral standards lower than those of the previous generation. Some may say that is where we are now, but I do know quite a few parents who aren't afraid to set the standard for their kids behavior to be higher than what they themselves were able to achieve, and for that I am grateful.

Follow 2011

This past weekend our church, Elevation Church in Charlotte, had an incredible weekend. I was blessed to be a part of this. Words cannot express what it felt like to be a involved in such a movement of God. But this is a blog, so I will blog a few of my experiences. If the first couple of paragraphs of set up get too boring for you, just make sure you don’t miss paragraphs 5, 8,9,10, and the video link at the bottom, for the highlights.

My weekend began on Saturday morning when Teal and I went to the Blakeney campus to help set up for the weekend. Pastor Furtick was going to make an “altar call” for anyone who needed and wanted to be baptized, and my family had volunteered to assist. I was assigned to the men’s wet changing area; not a catchy name, but we assisted the men who had just been baptized change back into dry clothes. More importantly, we were there to celebrate with them as they began their new life in Christ! As a team, the wet changing area met together and prayed for the upcoming events of the weekend and the potential lives that would be forever changed. We discussed logistics and made plans, so that things would go as smoothly as possible.

Later, the entire campus did a walk-through so that each area would be able to better anticipate any issues that may come up. This is just an example of how the staff works to prevent any possible distractions that might hinder someone from experiencing God. Teal was one of the sample baptizees (my made up word), there were about 6 of them. During the middle of the run-through, the associate campus Pastor, Nick Dooley, stopped the entire process down and announced that the young man doing this run-through was actually not a run-through. He had given his life to Christ and was following Him in baptism. We all gathered around closely and had a huge celebration with him as he came up out of the water. I knew this weekend was going to be incredible!

Saturday afternoon Tate and I showed up at about 3:00 for the 5:00 pm Worship Experience. Teal and Tina were volunteering at the Matthews campus (wouldn’t want you to think they were heathens or anything). We helped the team make sure everything was set up in the wet changing area, and anywhere else we could find that we were needed. At about 4:00, I left and went inside the auditorium to begin my prayer team “duties”. I love doing this.

Skip ahead to the Worship Experience. Pastor Furtick is speaking and I’m in the VIP room praying. During this time I pray for the volunteers, staff, the people attending, and mostly intervening for Pastor Furtick as he speaks, that God will speak directly through him. Anyway, as I’m praying, I hear thunder. Uh-oh. I momentarily switch my prayers to weather, in my mind, rain would not be good. I picture the rest of the team outside scrambling to move bags, towels, etc. into the tent. Pray, Tim, pray. I begin my interceceding prayer again. More thunder, more weather prayer. Back to interceding. I hear a little rain, back to weather. Then, very clearly, in a still small voice which seemed so much louder than any thunder, God speaks to me, and if I may take the liberty of paraphrasing God, He says, “Shut up about the weather already, I got this!” Wow. God proceeded to take a moment to make it clear to me that he wanted a few extra minutes to convict some folks in the auditorium, and Pastor Furtick was going to stretch his sermon a bit.

So it was back to interceding. During the next 30 minutes or so, the bottom fell out of the sky outside. I mean hard, cats and dogs, buckets, all the other expressions for raining hard that I can’t think of right now. But I had no trouble focusing on my praying anymore, I was actually celebrating the rain and praying for the hearts and souls of those being convicted. As I heard Pastor winding down his message and delivering the invitation, I went outside to join the others in the wet changing area. It was still drizzling, most everyone was drenched, but the bags and towels were still dry.

We could hear Pastor deliver the invitation for those who wanted to be baptized to make their way outside. The rain had stopped, but I barely noticed. Again, I cannot describe the feeling of seeing droves of people pour out of the building; celebrating, crying, doing both at the same time! Some I knew, many I did not, of course, but they all had shared in the experience of being led by God to be baptized.

As the baptisms began, me and another man, Patrick, began to welcome the men who had just been baptized. Wow, what a privilege to be in this position. I am truly blessed! We celebrated, and we worked hard. Patrick was incredible as he pretty much gathered all the wet clothes, showed the men to the rooms, congratulated them, handed them plastic bags for anything wet they needed to take home, etc., while I spent most of the time congratulating and looking for their names on bags containing their dry clothes.

Flash forward to Sunday a.m.; similar routine to Saturday evening, but no rain. As the invitation began and people by the hundreds began streaming out of the building, Patrick stopped by. He said he would be back to help, but he had something to do first. So I had a little help, but I was basically manning the inside of the tent myself, as Patrick had done the night before. I am glad I had his example, because that was not an easy job, and it was HOT! Anyway, about 2/3 of the way through, Patrick arrives. He’s soaking wet. That thing he had to do was to be baptized! Wow! I gave my new friend a hug as tears streamed down my eyes. Also, he couldn’t get back out of the tent after changing, because he jumped right in and began assisting all the others who had been baptized.

Later that afternoon I received a text from a dear friend in our egroup (That’s elevation speak for small group). He is a new Christian and was texting me to let me know he and his wife had been baptized at the Matthews campus! This was by far the best news of the day! I wish I could have been there to see that, but on the other hand, I’ve already seen the evidence of his new life in Christ.

By the end of the day, Elevation Church had baptized over 1,400 individuals who followed Jesus in baptism. I’ve left out so, so many details and wonderful stories. There is a great video here, http://t.co/Q9nFLet, but even though it is an incredible video, it still doesn’t quite capture what it was like to experience this. If you would like to read about some other experiences, get on twitter and search #follow2011.

Oh, and one more thing, Elevation Church is doing this again next weekend! You should be there.

Look out!

I have the blogging urge again, and I tend to be long winded after being out for.... a year? Seriously? I'll try to do much better (but let's be honest, I probably won't).
Stay tuned.

The Praying Mantis

I love our backyard. It’s an undeserving love, because it requires a lot of my attention and care. I spent yesterday morning mowing it, which doesn’t make it so loveable. But in the process I saw 5 frogs (4 of which were very small), two butterflies, two baby lizards, several grasshoppers, our pet spider, and a praying mantis. What helped me pass the time while mowing was watching this mantis try to evade the lawn mower. He was in the header strip I had cut, but each time I would make a pass he would freeze so as to camouflage himself in the grass. Then after I would make the turn he would crawl like crazy trying to move out of harm’s way. He finally made it safely to the sidewalk and then crossed over to the patch of yard on the other side. Unfortunately for him, that was the next patch of yard on my mowing agenda. As I started on that patch, I actually had to go around him once. He had gone into “hiding”, even though I could see him just fine.

The comparison came to my mind about how we sometimes try to hide from God when we aren’t in His will. We somehow forget that He loves us, and that He has promised that He will protect us, not harm us. We do everything in our power to try to protect ourselves, all the while hoping God can’t see what we are doing. We try to hide our sin, we try to work hard and “crawl like crazy” to cover it up, we even “freeze” in our walk for Christ and put our lives on hold, trying to pretend being out of God’s will can’t hurt us. If we would just repent and show ourselves, God would make sure we are protected. I was reminded, partly because I’ve been reading Romans 8 out loud first thing every morning this week (thank you Pastor Furtick), of

Romans 8:38 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”

I’m not sure of the fate of the mantis. After avoiding him the one time, his camouflage worked and I never spotted him again, probably to his detriment. Thankfully, we are not able to hide from God, and He is always faithful to draw us back to His protection when we seek Him and stop hiding.

If you need a happy ending, the mantis was so grateful for my protection that he became a vegetarian and began eating grass. He converted all of his friends, and I never had to mow again. The end.

Congratulations

I danced with Cinderella.

Rehearsal day

It's Friday morning, rehearsal day. We woke up to rain and thunderstorms. The girls have gone off with Sean's mom and two nieces for manicures and pedicures. I went down for the complimentary cooked to order breakfast. Tate is still asleep. I just read Tad's facebook status, and he is in his first college class.
You should see this hotel room. It is a two room suite, typical Embassy Suites room if you've ever stayed there. It is wall to wall wedding stuff. Gift baskets (some made, some in process), attendants presents, decoarations menus, "candy bar" items, wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, tuxedos, oh, and of course beds and clothes for five people for over a week. There's not enough room for the maid to get in. Yesterday we just handed her about ten dirty towels and traded them for clean ones. It's been nice being togrther, the six of us, for this week.

Catching up

I had a feeling this blogging would be more than I could handle. Now I'm having to do it with my phone, which is pretty painful for me.
Tad got moved in on Sunday. On Monday the girls did wedding stuff and we guys went shopping. Tad needed a shelf/tv stand, a tv, and a router. We started at Ikea and got the shelf. Next we went to Best Buy, Target, and Walmart pricing tvs and routers; we got the router at Walmart. Then we snuck in Sams and found the tv on clearance. We convinced them to sell it to us even though we didn't have a membership. Technically they gave us a one day temporary membership. All of the shopping and going from store to store took almost an hour. When we walked out of Sams, Tate remarked, "This makes four stores we've been in and out of in record time today. (not Best Buy, the other four)
So we got that set up in Tad's room and walked the campus, then headed to Tina's cousin's house, where we set up camp for three days.