Im sure it's no surprise, but MELTDOWN 2020 was the best ever! But seriously, Josh Griffin really connected with his message, Bethany Barr Phillips and her band led some amazing worship, and Tedashii got everybody, well most everybody, jumping.
The students have enoyed our past few Wednesday nights with the congregation in our Courageous Conversations. And the congregation has been enjoying their company too. Great to see the interactin bewteen generations.
February is looking like a pretty chill month ministry wise, but Lent will be kicking off at the end of the month so watch out!
Hope you will all join us Friday for our first installment of Messy Church, details below.
Leadership Team, we will be meeting this coming Sunday at 3 pm in the Cafe.
Our first ActivME Night of the year will be Feb 16, details below.
Our new Sunday night small groups format has been great thus far. Students and volunteers have been enjoying the time together and growth has already been seen. Wednesday nights this month will consist of a couple stand alone messages. The last Wednseday, Feb 26, will be Ash Wednseday and we will join with the congregation in worhsip that night.
Messy Church is a one-evening-a-month intergenerational program for children and families. Each month will take a look at a different Bible story or idea in a very hands-on way.
Join us as we take Monopoly to another level!
March 6 Messy Church
March 8 Leadership Meeting
March 18 no activities due to Spring Break
March 22 ActivME Night
March 28 Confirmation Retreat
When I was growing up and did something I knew that I should not do, my parents would spank me. My dad had an interesting spanking technique. I can remember him getting mad, deciding he was going to spank me, and then he'd say, "Douglas, go get me something to hit you with."
Today, this sounds funny. Back then, it sounded completely rational.
I eventually learned that the longer I took to get something for him to hit me with, the more he would cool off and the easier the spanking would be. Once I was tempted to return with a pillow, but it didn't seem like he would think it was funny.
Spanking a younger child may thwart inappropriate behavior, but there can be a high cost connected to it---emotionally, relationally, and physically. And when kids become teenagers, then what is the parent going to do (especially if the teenager is now bigger than the parent)?
Understand that discipline is unique to each situation. There's no one-way to handle each disciplinary situation, but just smacking a kid when he or she messes up may make a parent feel better for awhile, but there has to be a better, more effective method.
There is no one way to discipline children, but some ways are better than others.
Here are five questions Cathy and I tried to use when we had to discipline our teenagers:
1. What did you do?
2. Why was that behavior wrong?
3. How could you have handled it better?
4. Next time, what do you think you could do?
5. Should you repeat the wrong behavior, what would be a fair and natural consequence?
These questions gave us some cool down time and also helped us teach our kids to think about their actions. Sure, there were many times when it would have been a lot easier to simply scream at them, smack them, or send them to their bedrooms.
But healthy parenting requires parents to use wisdom, discernment, confidence, and often times, patience. So remind yourself over and over again of the goal of discipline: to teach teenagers responsibility for their own behavior. Then, when the moment for discipline arises, do your best to help both you and your teen to reach the goal.