What's your take on "obediance"?

I received an email ad for a Christian parenting video. In the outline of key points was this: "Obedience - the cornerstone of good parenting."

I know what my generation of parents in the church thought about this. I'm curious to know how a new and upcoming generation of parents feels about this (and how grown children feel about this.)

How do you feel about a mother's role and a father's role? Do they have distinct and different roles?

Just curious. . . I think asking questions keeps us from making assumptions that may or may not be true.

Food for Thought

I have a pile of books that have been staring at me since mid summer. They're books by children's writers, not for children, but for "grown-up" childrens writers (a lovely oxymoron).

I've started The Invisible Child by Katherine Paterson. She's an award-winning children's writer and a woman who's faith profoundly influences her work. This book is a collection of her speeches. The first 24 pages are about wonder.

A quote she shared from Rachel Carson's book A Sense of Wonder: "It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood." Paterson says, "It is the kind of wonder that is drawn to the everyday, the ordinary, and sees in the broken seashell the link to the mystery out of which we are born."

She wonders if our facination with Harry Potter is because it feeds a generation starving for a sense of wonder. We may look to science, either the God-created or man-created world, to satisfy the wonder of curiosity or our facination with gadgets and mystery but we turn to story to explore the wonders of the meaning of life.

"Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders You have done . . . I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done." Ps 40:5 KJV Ps. 78:2-4 NAS

Be Still and Know

In our loud, fast paced, entertainment oriented, over-stimulated society, where do you find stillness and quiet? How do you share that with a child? How do you teach children to listen, not just to listen and obey but to listen and hear the things that you only hear in still quiet places ...

Learning from Childen : Paying attention

Focusing on God and prayer and worship is pretty challenging when you're little, full of energy, all your friends are around to play with, it 's boring, etc etc. It's hard work to focus and concentrate.

But I wonder. . . how often do I look like that to my heavenly Father? How often does He feel a parent's frustration with me, especially when I'm in a group?

Field Trips

This doesn't have to be a pastor-initiated suggestion or even a children's ministry initiated item.

If your pastor is doing a series on the vineyard parables, visit a vineyard! If he's talking about sheep, visit a sheep farm! Visit an art museum and see Egyptian art or take books out of the library...

Consider whether there's an appropriate field trip you can take with friends or family that ties into whatever Biblical story you're interacting with. Not only will it be a multi-sensory, hands-on experience but I'm guessing it will add a layer to your understanding of the passage and that God can show you things that you might never experience if you don't go.

Imagining isn't the same as inhaling the aroma of a sheep farm, running your fingers through their lanolin laced wool, being butted by a sheep, watching the vines wrap their little tendrils around a fence or sipping freshly pressed grape juice or tasting new wine and old.