A Father’s Day Toast!

Father’s Day is a special day, a time for fathers across the world to kick their feet up, sit back in their recliners, drink a beer and enjoy a day of being appreciated for all their work they do for their families day-in and day-out. After all, fatherhood is tough job that can bring even the manliest men crying and retreating out of the lives of their family. You’ve worked hard all day long in an attempt to provide your family with everything they need. You come home after a long day and pour yourself out teaching and loving your children. You give yourself fully to your wife and love her as Christ did for the Church. You lead your family through the ups and downs of life, taking the spiritual reigns of the house so that you can guide them closer and closer to Christ. It is a tough job and today you get to feel appreciated for all the work you’ve done. Here are some words to encourage you and get you through the tough times.

1. You are appreciated. You are so appreciated as a father and the work and love you give to your family. In a society where fatherless homes are more and more common, the simple fact that you are there is changing the lives of your family in a way that could never happen in your absence. When you add the fact that you are actively and passionately serving your family know that you are so loved and appreciated. You taking the time and energy to provide for your family and then serving them is having a bigger impact than you realize. It’s sending the message to your children and wife that you love them and believe in them and that changes lives. Never forget how appreciated you are to your family. We forget to say how we feel time to time, so allow me personally to say I appreciate you and am praying for you.

2. You are not alone. Sometimes as men we can struggle with pride and that’s a very dangerous thing. Pride stops us from asking for help, seeking guidance, and puffs us up to think we are invincible. There are a couple key people we need to continually remind ourselves that they are on our team and in our corner. Wife: She’s wonderful isn’t she? She would do anything for us and will love us and give us the same love and grace that Christ would. Don’t keep her in the dark. If you’re overwhelmed with things go to her, bring her up to speed on what’s going through your head. She will walk confidently beside you wherever you go and will help any way she can, let her help. Church: We are here for you! It seems weird sometimes like well what are you suppose to help me with? But we are, it’s our job to equip you and guide you when it comes to getting through the hard times. If you need help leading your family spiritually or struggling with something and in need of prayer or counseling we are here to get you through so that you can better reflect Christ. Jesus: Our wonderful Savior, Friend, Counselor, Healer, and Giver is with us and inside of us. He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell with us and you can trust that He will be there for you. Lean on Him and His ways and trust in His divine plan and it will prove to be enough time and time again. He is worth of your praise and will provide for you, whether it’s physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually He will never leave you hanging.

3. You are making a difference. If you are ever stuck in a rut wondering if you’re doing anything right know that you are. You were called to lead your family and through Christ you are being continually built up and empowered to do just that! We do need to also continually remind ourselves that the greatest thing we can do for our families is not providing, but loving. You are making a difference but never forget the primary responsibility to your family. Time will past and your children will forget the things you bought them but they will never forget the love you gave them and the time you invested in them. Your top priority in making a difference is loving them and putting them first, sometimes that means working and sometimes that means saying no to work to be with them. They will appreciate the time more than anything else. No matter what though, rest assured that you are in fact doing a great job in the chaos of life and you are making a wonderful difference.

So take a break! Enjoy some time to reflect on the last year and where God has brought your family and get ready for another exciting year ahead. Wherever you end up always remember those simple truths though: you are appreciated, you are not alone, and you are making a huge difference!

The Start of a New Day

Starting the Day off Right: Coffee

Is there anything better than that freshly brewed cup of coffee in the morning. You wake up early in the morning still tired from yesterday. Your feet hurt from being on them all day, your groggy, and you don’t have any motivation for this dreary dreary Monday. But then, you take a sip of that hot coffee in your favorite mug and suddenly you’re invincible. You can take on anything. No mountain is too tall for you to conquer after that first cup. Eventually though, that “pick-me up” fades off and the grogginess comes back stronger than before. We begin to crash hard; lucky for us we can have a second cup of coffee in that moment. So we delay the inevitable just a little longer.

Coffee, in itself, is a beautiful thing. It truly can spark us at a moment and give us the energy we need to complete a task that feels like otherwise we wouldn’t be able too. The problem, however, is that when used as our main source of energy it begins to dictate us. We become consumed with coffee as our source to get us through each day and to get us by day-to-day. We need to learn to monitor our intake so that we can best live.

Starting the Day off Right: Christ

Is there anything that Christ can’t do? Is there anything you can’t do when you’re mind is focused on His Kingdom? As you focus on His love you see: your ability to love sky-rockets, your patience in hard circumstances rises, your joy throughout the day increases, there’s a boost to your peace throughout your day, and you find unsaid kindness, gentleness, and faithfulness to those around you. How do we get to this point? It may not be as far away as you think. Your entire day can be effective from your mood, attitude, desires, everything in only fifteen minutes.

The Perfect Combination

Too often we let the first fifteen minutes after we step out of our bed dictate the flow of the day. We hit the snooze one to many times and next thing we know we are rushed all morning getting as we get ready. As we leave to drive to work still half putting make-up on or fixing our hair to get it right in our review mirror we never fully feel ourselves. We come into work hoping to slide our time card in at exactly the same minute we’re suppose to clock-in, barely getting it but giving us our first sigh of relief. How long after that does it take to recover though? We feel unprepared for the day and spend the whole day trying to play catch-up or consuming as much coffee as we can to drown out the grogginess and horrible beginning to our day. As we get home, emotionally drained from trying to survive all day we immediately have are forced with the reality that there is no free time. We come home to cook supper, entertain the children, help them with their homework, put them to bed, and try to maintain a clean house. We fall on our beds exhausted at the end of the day hoping for a better day tomorrow.All of that because one or two extra snoozes.

Let me paint a different picture though. We intentionally wake up fifteen minutes early, don’t get me wrong we are just as tired as yesterday, but in the scheme of the day sleeping fifteen extra minutes will neither make nor break our day. We drag our butts out of bed grab our Bible and head to the kitchen. As we sit at the table, we grab a cup of coffee we take a sip and we just made up the fifteen minutes of energy we were hoping to make by sleeping in. As we sip our coffee we read the Word; it’s all so good it’s hard to know where to read but we decide on Philippians 2 because that’s where the Spirit is leading us. We read about Christ Supremacy and how He lead and served us. We finish the chapter and take a couple of minutes just to sit in the presence of God as we finish our coffee and pray that we would begin to humble ourselves as Christ demonstrated through His life. We start to get ready for the day and we are right on schedule for a normal day. We spend our time preparing for the day and we can’t stop thinking about what Christ had revealed to us in our devotion. We get to work a couple of minutes early (we’re punctual people after all). We’re on top of our game today, morning started off right we strike up a conversation at the water cooler and begin to be intentional with one of our co-workers. It wasn’t planned and we didn’t really want to at the beginning but God seemed to call us to a higher standard and we’re intuned today. We come home and we are in a great mood! Our family may notice, they may not, but we don’t care, we’re excited to see how their days went. We spend our evenings pouring into them just like the night before and as we hit the bed exhausted at the end of the day we have full confidence that God can work through us the same way tomorrow.

Moving Forward in Life

The beginning of our day can affect every part of our day. That’s why it’s crucial to start it off the right way, by surrendering ourselves to God and His plan. As we open up our hearts and begin to truly listen to Him as we start our day He won’t disappoint us, He will answer, speak and lead us. I painted to very distinct (and different) days above now is that always going to be the case? Absolutely not. But it could be more days than not. The good news is whatever way we start our day, tomorrow will always be a new day and a fresh start. That’s the beauty of the Gospel and Jesus’s undeserved unfailing eternal grace. It awaits us every morning rain or shine, granting us the opportunity for a more loving, joy-filled, and peaceful life with Him. So start your day off right, wake up early, grab some coffee and give yourself fully to Christ who will never let you down and will always change your day.

An Encouraging Partnership

^{11 “}I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— ¹² that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” – Romans 1:11-12

Changing Perceptions

As I grew up I was surrounded by relationships and my confidence grew that I knew how every relationship should work. My own relationships were skewed due to the nature of sin and I saw a lot of confrontation. I soon thought every relationship was one big argument that never stopped. The day I realized that wasn’t true was a big day for me. Everything I had thought before was gone, relationships gained a whole new meaning and the possibilities of teamwork became endless.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt that way before, I hope not, but knowing the broken world we live in I’m guessing you have. I think we have that misperception with ministry partnership all the time. To often people in ministry try to shoulder the load of discipling the nations and to often congregations let it happen. A new light dawns now though, we can have clarity that maybe that isn’t the best way to raise our children into followers of Christ. So how should we interact together?

The Partnership

Romans 1:12 is a favorite verse of mine and my goal for every relationship I’m in: friends, coworkers, parents or significant others. Our relationships should be mutually encouraging! We should be building each other up, supporting one another, equipping one another, praying for one another, and standing by one another. We have the same goal and the reality is we need each other.

We need you as parents to be the spiritually leaders of your household because you can do so much more than we can. The time and relationship you have with your child is something we can never replicate and makes you the biggest influencer in their lives. However, you need us as a church to equip you and give your students and children the experience of fellowship and love. We are the Body of Christ and we need every member to play their part to push the Gospel forward.

What Does This Look Like?

I think being mutually encouraging starts by working together on tangible levels. I think an easy way to show this is by constantly asking about the other side of the partnership to the children. For example, after Sunday School or Youth Group after we have challenged and taught the children you can follow up with an intentional conversation at home after to help them digest and reflect upon it better. We can then be intentional with our time about asking about what’s going on in their lives to to reinforce everything you do as a family as well. Another big way I think we can work together is by being seen at each others playing fields. You need to be seen in the church working, whether as a small group leaders, a greeter, anything; we need to be seen outside the church going to children’s activities, games, recitals, anything! This helps show the importance and cooperation we have for one another and how church isn’t a segment of life. Rather it paints the picture that church and life go together like peanut butter and jelly!

If you are looking for an easy check-list of things you can be doing in our partnership, here’s a start!

• Pray for us and our ministry every night (This is even better if done as a family before meals!)
• Be intentional with your children! It’s easy after a long day to turn your mind off, take 15 minutes with your children to really inquire about what’s going on in their lives.
• Challenge your children. Don’t be afraid to ask them about their spiritual life. If they have hard questions try to answer them or work them out together, or let us know and we can help you answer them!
• Take time on a Sunday night to do a family devotion together or take time around the supper table to share how you’ve seen God work this week.
• Comment any other easy ways your family does this!

Those are just a couple of easy ideas that could change the dynamic of the house and show how important Christ is. As far as us, we will be trying to do our part.

• Teaching your children biblical truths to live by.
• Loving them and making our time together an environment where they can feel God’s love.
• Building Christ-centered relationships with the children.
• Giving you as parents, information that will encourage, support, and equip you.
• Feel free to comment any other ways that we can guide you!

So there you have it! A mutually encouraged relationship that’s been there all along, even though we might not have seen it. I look forward to encouraging each and every one of you in your families walk with Christ and I look forward to being encouraged by your faithfulness.