In our house, we call them God adventures. If you make following God your top priority, He often gives you big and little adventures to serve Him. It may be the neighbor next door, a ministry in another state or the people of another country. It is often through these adventures God sends your way that you can experience the most spiritual growth as you see God working and using you to reach others.
I think it is an important and godly concept to teach our children, so I was interested when offered the opportunity to review the book Outrageous: Awake to the Unexpected Adventures of Everyday Faith by Aaron Tredway.
Tredway played professional soccer. He is also a Christian. The book is about what happens when he combines the two and allows God to lead him to serve others and share his faith. Along the way Tredway has all sorts of adventures – many of them rather humorous.
This book doesn’t claim to be a Bible study or to deliver deep biblical truths. It is an entertaining way to get a glimpse of how God can work in the lives of Christians who are willing to develop and use the gifts God gave them to serve Him. Life for Tredway isn’t perfect, but one can’t deny the craziness of the journey is also part of the joy. It allowed him and now readers to see how God moves and uses people and events to place Christians where He wants them to teach others about Him.
Continue reading Raising Kids To Live An Outrageous Christian Life
Parenting is often learning by trial and error. Sometimes, we get it right the first time. Often, we learn months and even years later we should have done some things differently. The learning curve can be huge and the mistakes can have lasting impact on our kids.
When I meet someone who left the church during their teens and early twenties, I often ask what their parents could have done that might have kept them from leaving. Surprisingly, almost everyone mentions they wish they had seen that their parents’ faith made a difference in their lives in some way. The sad thing is those parents would probably be able to share multiple ways God touched their lives over the years. Yet, they never shared this with their kids. As a result, their children thought serving God was a waste of time.
Have you ever seen a celebrity apologize for something horrible? Sometimes they look more like a five year old being forced to apologize to a sibling! Or have you ever experienced someone who “apologizes” by saying “I’m sorry if I did anything that made you mad.”? Really? Apologies are meant to begin repairing relationships, but most apologies do more harm to the relationship than good.
Our daughter is in college now. We have taught her part of ministry is keeping up with current issues in the world. Whether you have a strong opinion on an issue or not, you need to understand how both sides feel. Many of the issues spill over into the views people have of God, Christianity or Christians. It may not be fair, but it’s just a fact of life.