Road Trip
Double Commandments, Disability Discipleship, Dependent Prayer, and Late 1900's
Welcome to the first official newsletter of the summer!
Summer officially started last Friday, and it immediately felt like it. What had been a mild summer transformed overnight into skin melting heat and humidity here in Louisville. While the calendar just rolled over to summer, it feels like our summer break is flying by.
We committed to taking our kids on a milestone trip when they each turn ten years old. We whisked Mabel away to Universal Studios a few years back (she was in her Harry Potter era), and have a whole pile of stories full of fun, dodged disasters, and laughter. Porter turned ten last fall, but couldn’t land on where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do. Fast forward to this summer and he became obsessed with roller coasters, and decided he wanted to go to Cedar Point. Instead of flying solo he wanted his brother and sister to come too. He decided it would be too fun to leave them at home.
We’re nothing if not adaptable in this house, so we told him we’d make it happen this summer. The problem, we realized last week, is that with everyone going we’ve got to accommodate everyone’s schedules. So after realizing Mabel had camp and a baby sitting gig lined up for July, we came to the realization that this week was our last chance to make it happen without yanking them out of school to do it (frowned upon by school systems and grandparents). So our family travel agent (my wife) worked her magic to book a last minute trip for this roller coaster pilgrimage, and I’m wrapping up this newsletter as our minivan flies down the interstate toward Sandusky, Ohio.
One thing I’ve neglected to mention about this bone rattling, stomach churning adventure is that Annie and I have both apparently aged out of our ability to ride coasters. Our last trip to Kings Island found us both lamaze breathing after each ride, praying to God that we didn’t puke on a stranger (or ourselves). The spirit is willing, but boy is the flesh (and gag reflex) weak these days.
So what’s a dad to do, and what’s any of this got to do with a devotional newsletter??? Welp, to answer the first question, this dad is gonna double down on dramamine and ride until I pop. Fingers crossed. The second question is a little trickier. I wrote awhile back about wanting to build a “Perfect Boy Summer” to build a memorable summer for them. It doesn’t all have to be 400 foot roller coasters. Most of that perfect summer has been family reading time, splashing at the pool, exploring new video games, and relaxing on a beach. It didn’t cost me much to dig out my old copy of The Hobbit and read to them most afternoons, and I wasn’t involved much at all in them checking out new games.
There’s plenty we can do to draw near to our kids that doesn’t require much, outside of making time and being willing to say “yes” to whatever exciting, inane, or hysterical thing they ask you to do with them (or watch them do themselves). Our teenager is happy to spend time with us on her own terms and on her own schedule, and we’re grateful for that! But our boys are still at the age where they’re typically thrilled when we’re willing to plop down beside them to read, watch, play, or listen. It’s our presence that brings them joy. I don’t give a hoot about whatever upgrade he just made on his Roblox character, or how he organized his Pokemeon cards, but I’m happy to sit next to him and let him motormouth his way through it all.
The old people (our parents, grand parents, aunts, uncles, and sweet church ladies) tell you when you have kids that it’s gonna fly by, and you’ll miss it when it’s gone. I thought I knew better, and that it would last forever. Our parenting journey was gonna be different. Then I went to bed after singing a lullaby to a toddler in her crib and woke up the next day to find her grown up into a teenager. Folks, the olds were right, and I should’ve listened to their wisdom years ago. I can’t go back in time, but I can learn and adjust.
So, we soldier on northward to the roller coaster epicenter of the world. I can already feel the nausea setting in, but I’m gonna drive this middle-aged body ‘til the wheels fall off. Hopefully my kids will remember their old man riding the big hills with them. More likely, they’ll remember me hunkered over a trashcan while they laugh at me for puking yet again. And hopefully that’ll send them on a journey of loving their own kids and making a pile of memories with their own kids.
God is kind to give us children, and all the bumps and bruises that come with them. Here’s to road trips, gas station snacks, mini-van sing alongs, unexpected sunburns, and uncontrollable laughter. Hope your official kickoff to summer is a blast—whether you’re family is also on the road, or you’re making memories at home. See you next week (hopefully!).
Double Commandments (Devotional, Parenting)
Season two of Press Pause is officially LIVE!!! We kick things off with not one, but TWO commandments! Carve out ten minutes with your kiddos, fire up our first episode, and enjoy diving into the Ten Commandments together. We’ve made space for you to press pause and lean into an icebreaker question, dig into a passage, share a devo, and then pray together. You can listen at the link above, or find buttons that’ll take you to the pod on Apple or Spotify. We’re psyched to get this in your hands. Listen, download, and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.
Disability Discipleship (Kids Ministry, Parents)
“Churches can make that shift as well. When preachers, small group teachers, volunteers, youth ministry leaders, and fellow church members see the imago Dei in each person—remembering he or she was designed on purpose for a purpose, they are motivated to disciple him or her to the best of their ability.” Our friend, Sandra Peoples, has a piece up at Gospel-Centered Discipleship this week about how to build specific spiritual plans to care for kids and teens with special needs. Since there’s such a wide spectrum of what special needs kids and families are walking through, a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t likely to be the best solution for churches. Sandra offers a specific example of how to build a particular plan, and what that means for the leaders and volunteers who are implementing the plan each Sunday morning. She puts all this in the context of Jesus encountering a blind man and focusing on God’s design and purpose for his disability rather than his disciples trying to determine why this would happen to him. Great piece with lots of practical help for kids and family leaders thinking through how to encourage and care for special needs families in your church.
Dependent Prayer (Discipleship)
“Among all the unique features of life in the early church, one thing stands out—prayer. If we compare the lifestyle and activities of the early church to our contemporary churches, the single most stark difference will be in our prayer lives.” My pal, Jeremy Linneman, continues to drop monthly reflections on prayer over at For the Church. This time out he’s sharing some reflections on the value of prayer in the early church, and how prayer fueled the three decades of explosive growth as Christianity spread across the globe. If prayer played such a crucial role in the spread of the gospel then, why has that emphasis on prayer faded from the contemporary church? Jeremy argues that a shift in dependence is to blame. Rather than relying on the Spirit to lead and empower our work (in and out of the church), we’ve come to depend more on our own abilities, systems, and schemes. Jesus died to usher us in to life with God, so let’s not waste it by putting ourselves at the center of everything. Great piece offering encouragement to press into dependent prayer individually, and within our churches.
Late 1900’s
My kids have taken to asking us what life in the 1900’s was like, and it makes me irrationally angry every single time. This video basically nails it.