Christmas Season

This is the time of year for school Christmas programs and I am especially grateful that our children are able to attend Prince of Peace Christian School. They do a great job of focusing the students attention on the real meaning of Christmas...the birth of Jesus. This year I especially enjoyed both programs. Ethan was "Joseph" in the kindergarten program (Side note: I asked him if liked "Mary"...his answer, with a serious look on his face, "Dad, she's a girl" LOL). And Alanna and her best friend had a duet in the main program last night.

Every now and then people ask me how our family practices Christmas...so I thought I would share a few things we try to do:

1. At least once a day, we remind our children that the real meaning of Christmas is the birth of Jesus.
2. My wife (she does a great job with this) prepares a daily Advent calendar that our kids totally love. Each day there is a Scripture reading that explains who Jesus really is. Sometimes there is a little treat or activity planned as well. You can email her for ideas smilealways27@hotmail.com.
3. We make Christmas a fun time at our house. We play up Santa Clause, reindeer, elves, and of course presents.
4. We make Christmas a time of both giving and receiving. I think this year we are doing the Christmas Gift for Jesus offering at church and we are donating some gifts to Compassion Network. I think we make a mistake when we don't include our children in these decisions.
5. We create time for small simple things: seeing Christmas lights, the Bethlehem display at 1st Baptist Santa Clara, Christmas in the park, board games, etc...
6. We play lots and lots of Christmas music in the house and the car. Nothing like rocking out to "Santa Clause Is Coming To Town" with everyone playing an air guitar. Our personal favorite version is from the Lonestar Christmas CD.
7. We attend Christmas Eve services which really helps remind our children that Christmas is not about them.
8. We read the Christmas story (and act it out sometimes) before opening presents on Christmas morning.
9. We watch Christmas themed movies (you know the syrupy sweet, happily ever after movies) with the kids.
10. And if things get too crazy...we cancel our plans and go to bed early :)

I hope that gives you some ideas. Merry Christmas!

The True Legacy of Steve Jobs

Over the past week, the death of Steve Jobs has been all over the media. Rightfully so, he has been heralded as the most creative business leader since Walt Disney. There is no doubt that he was an incredibly creative genius. He refused to be trapped by the moorings of conventional wisdom and he doggedly pursued what he believed to be the best way forward. But in reading about his life, I was deeply disturbed by how shallow and superficial his life was. The media has far overblown his true influence and completely avoided the "dark side" of his life. His true legacy is: 1) Valuing earthly things over eternal things 2) Valuing products over people 3) Valuing personal fulfillment over relational fulfillment 4) Valuing the accumulation of wealth over generosity

In one of his final interviews, he provides this reasoning for authorizing a biography of his life. "I wanted my kids to know me," Mr Isaacson recalled Mr Jobs saying, in a posthumous tribute the biographer wrote for Time magazine. "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did."

I pray that when I die, my wife and kids write my biography because they knew me well. Instead of me having to write a biography so they can get to know me.

Here are a couple of links that tell the real story:

http://goo.gl/R7Vf3 - An article from gawker.com

http://goo.gl/vxrS8 - An article from the Independent

Great Time At CORE Tonight!

Got to hang out with the CORE kids tonight. We have a awesome group of teens at our church and tonight was a lot of fun. God is really doing some cool stuff through our youth ministry team. I constantly hear words of thanks from our parents. Great jobDrew, Cyanna, Brandon, Aja, Jon, and Sarah!

An interesting perspective on "cool" church

I came across this video recently and thought that it makes a very valid, interesting point. Especially the last line, "I just don't want the Lord to end up in this box."

What's the Purpose of Parenting?

JUST KIDDING?

Tomorrow at church I'll give a Biblical answer :)

What If Marriage Was Not Designed To Make Your Happy...

But instead designed to make you holy. So many people enter marriage and family life thinking that happiness will soon follow. But the statistics don't lie...the majority of new marriages end in divorce and of those marriages that do survive only a small percentage rate their marriage as "happy." What if God's primary purpose for your marriage and family life was not to make you happy? I know in our culture that sounds like blaspheme since everyone "deserves" to be happy. But maybe part of our problem is the perspective we carry into marriage, home, and parenting life.
My wife and I will starting a new series this Sunday that tackles this subject head on. Over our 11+ years of marriage we have not been exempt from struggles, problems, and difficulties that have tested our commitment to each other [most of the time I'm the primary source of testing instead of the one being tested :)]. Over those years we have been on a journey of spiritual growth and have been forced to look at things from a different perspective. A number of books by Gary Thomas (Sacred Marriage, Sacred Parenting, Sacred Influence) have been really beneficial for us on this journey. During this five week series we will be talking about the truths that have changed our way of looking at home and marriage. I hope you will join us.

Another Awesome Baptism Celebration

This past Sunday was a great way to end the summer! We had our summer ending Baptism and BBQ in the church courtyard. What made this baptism extra special is that Andrew (our youth pastor) was able to baptize two of the teens from the CORE program. I remember it was just about 3 years ago that a few of our church families stepped up their financial giving to allow us to hire Andrew full-time. This was a big stretch for our small church at the time but God has really blessed. These baptisms as well as previous ones were a direct result of time and energy that Andrew and all the volunteers in CORE have invested!