Developing Gratitude & Generosity (Part 3 of 3)

This is a little thing that we learned from our Pastor in Washington DC, Mark Batterson. Its really simple, but I love the idea.

Every night as we are going through our nightly routine of reading a story, reading the Bible, praying and seeing some worship songs, we added one little thing to the end. We got a little calendar that we hung on their wall and its their “Thankful” calendar.

Every day, at the end of the day, we ask them what they are thankful for. We write it down on the calendar and then ask them why. Albeit this may be a small little act, we are hoping and praying that it produces big results. I am intentionally trying to hard wire them to think with a thankful heart every day. What we are trying to do is instill that every day, no matter what has happened, we want them to be thankful and have a heart of gratitude.

I am hoping that after years of doing this, when they are old and they lay on their bed at night after life has kicked them in the face that day, instead of the enemy sowing a seed of bitterness or ungratefulness in their heart, they will lay on their bed and thank God for the gifts He has given them that day.

Developing Gratitude & Generosity (Part 2 of 3)

In our never ending quest to raise kids who aren’t ungrateful little jokers we did something else this year on their birthday that was a little different.

I will tell you what we did in just a second but first, I have to tell you why. Our culture, in my opinion, feeds into the natural myopia and narcism that we are born with. We as parents have to fight the onslaught of self gratification and selfishness that our culture preaches and throws at us. Basically, our kids need to learn that life is not about them and does not revolve around them, its about Jesus and his purposes and making him known.

Our boys birthdays are only 4 days apart so in these younger years we have celebrated their birthdays together. We wanted to teach our boys that there are real problems around the world and that lots of little kids don’t have any toys and many don’t have any homes.

Instead of having everyone bring presents, we thought it would be neat for them to bring a cash donation and we would give it to the boys “brother” that we have sponsored through Compassion. We found a little boy that was the exact same age, to the day, of our oldest son Aiden. He lives in Rwanda and we call him I.T. His name is really hard to pronounce and so instead of butchering it like ignorant Americans, we gave him a cool nickname, I.T.

So through their birthday, their friends brought around $160 to give to the boys. They then have the privilege of giving ALL that money to I.T. and help him have a better life. It was a great way to teach the boys generosity. It helps instill gratitude because they realize they have been blessed with so much and so many people have so much less than us so we want to give what we have away. It is also a great way to connect with other families and show them that we are a little different, in a very non-weird way. We value certain things as a family that we want to instill into our children and we hope and pray that it gives us the chance and opportunity to sow a seed and be able to share the gospel with them later.

Before you think I’m a bad parent and I don’t get my kids gifts, we let the family give gifts and the friends help out I.T. Our goal and prayer for our kids is to have each one of them have a corresponding “sibling” that we sponsor through Compassion as they get older and that every year their birthday parties will be about giving away not getting on their own volition.

P.S. (Its also a great way of keeping the house free of a bunch of junk and toys they will never play with:)

Developing Gratitude & Generosity (Part 1 of 3)

Amy and I are working extra hard on trying to develop a culture of generosity and gratitude in our family. Because I believe that we are fallen as humans and we are born with the spiritual gift of complaining and ungratefulness, we are trying extra hard to counter that. None of these are necessarily time tested things that work, its just what we are doing to try and help out kids have a heart of gratitude. I’d love to hear your ideas of what you’ve done too!

Since we just had Christmas, and that’s one of the biggest tests to see if you’ve done good or not for the year, I’ll share what we do to try and be grateful. By the way, we batted about .500 for our kids attitudes on Christmas morning, we had some victories and a few defeats too.

Since Christmas is all about getting, we wanted to try and place the emphasis on giving. So instead of having a “get” pile of all the things we are “getting” for Christmas, we made “giving” piles and then we got to watch each other and celebrate the giving of gifts rather then the getting of presents.

Now admittedly, this is not a major change, but its a little tweak that we pray will result in a big paradigm shift. I want my kid to have the revelation that giving really is more exciting than receiving.

Some times its these little changes in course that down the road I hope and pray will turn into a different direction.

Health & Wealth On Earth

This is a fascinating video about how different nations around the world have progressed in age and wealth. Done in a very cool way. Enjoy.

Help Create A Movement!

I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by!

We spent an amazing year up at National Community Church learning, growing and preparing to do something that Amy and I have felt called to do and have been dreaming about for years! We are going to plant a church in the 2nd most unchurched city in America. Miami. Our church is called SouthCoast Church.

We have felt God leading us to Miami for a while now and cannot wait to get down there. We are actually moving this weekend! Its a little surreal that it is all happening right now.

If you don’t know, South Florida is an insanely expensive place to live, maybe that is the reason its so unchurched, pastors can’t afford to live there:) Despite the economic downturn it is still in a whole other stratosphere for cost of living.

We have been raising support for the month of September are about halfway from meeting our monthly financial goals. We are in need of people that are willing to join our partnership team and support us with monthly gifts. This could look like someone giving 500/m or 25/m, its really whatever works in your budget and whatever you feel God is calling you to do.

We would greatly appreciate anything that you give and we are so blessed by everyone who sows into what God is doing. If you would like to help us plant a church planting church and reach the 2nd most unchurched city in America than click here. All you need to do is click the ministry of a specific missionary box, choose our name, enter the frequency as monthly and put in the amount. It takes about 2 minutes.

If you haven’t seen it, you can watch our promo video right here. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at ross@southcoastchurch.tv. Thanks and God Bless!

Lasts

So this week we are only about 10 days away from moving out of DC. Its been incredible. I love DC. I love NCC. I am so glad we came up here. I am going to post some reflections on this last year soon, but we are busy moving and packing now so probably not going to spend a lot of time on the blog.

But I did want to share this. I’ve been reflecting a lot the last couple of weeks. Its weird when you go somewhere and almost every time now I say, “Wow this may be the last time I ever go here again.” I try and remember every moment. It reminds me of my wedding day where I prayed, “God, etch this moment  in my mind forever, don’t ever let me forget today and how amazing it is going to be.”

Whenever I am anticipating an amazing day, a momentous event in my life, I always pray a little prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to write that moment in my heart so that I will never forget it.

It works.

Aiden’s Strengths Finder Themes

So over the last couple of months I’ve been trying to pinpoint what Aiden’s, my four year old’s Strengths Finder themes are. If you haven’t read the book or taken the test, I would encourage you too. You can get it here. Its based on a study that Gallup did. They widdled down all strengths of a human down to 34 “themes” as they call them that they have found in people across the world.

He is getting to the age where I think they are starting to show. These below are my best guess at 4 years old. I may think differently in a few years, but its interesting watching my little boys grow into their God-given, hard wired personality. So this is where I think he is now. I heard there is a version for kids, but they can’t take it until they turn 12. At least I know one of his presents is when he turns 12.

I am going to list 7 because these are things that I see now, and I am not sure which ones are the strongest.

1. Woo – He is ridiculously outgoing, never met a stranger, he is rarely shy about anything to anyone.

2. Ideation – About 17 times a day, he says, “Hey I’ve got a good idea.” His brain is a little idea factory.

3. Strategic – He has already planned out where he is going to college, who he is going to go with and who he is going to marry.

4. Competition – EVERYTHING is a competition for him, eating, racing, running, everything. Definitely gets that from me:)

5. Empathy – He definitely has some strong relational themes, one being empathy, he is always so concerned about how other people are doing, and when they get sad, he gets sad. I love his little sensitive heart.

6. Significance - He LOVES to be the center of attention. The more people are in our house, the more he shows off. I love it!

7. Self – Assurance - He seems to be a pretty confident kid. Always includes others and hasn’t been too easily intimidated in most circumstances.

If you’ve been around Aiden at all, I would be interested to hear your thoughts, if you see these or others.

The Power Of Music

Being a musical person and an artist, I am partial to the arts. I have blogged in the past about the power of music. Here are two amazing examples of how music can change the mood of everything. Both of these videos are amazing!

Favor

I blogged on our NCC church wide reading plan the other day on this topic, but I thought it was worth reposting. I was assigned to talk about Ezra. I want to discuss two ways that I think we gain favor from the Lord.

Favor of the Lord is something many of us pray for and walk in at some level, but I want to propose to you why I think Ezra had so much favor with the king. King Artaxerxes basically gave him everything he wanted, he straight hooked him up.

In Ezra 7:6, it says that Ezra was a teacher well versed in the law of Moses…..the hand of the Lord his God was on him. It goes on to say letter that he was a man learned in matters concerning the commands and decrees of the Lord for Israel. Translation, Ezra had done his homework.

I think many times, we just pray for favor and say, “Oh God, I need your help, I need your favor, do for me what I cannot do for myself.” There is nothing wrong with that, but here is what I would propose. God is not going to give favor and exalt people who haven’t done the study in the quiet, secret place. Why? Because then we won’t know what the heck to do when we get that favor! But if its true that God is going to place us in places we don’t deserve to be in, than we better have done the preparation work beforehand so that we don’t make a fool of ourselves and more importantly God when we actually arrive in that place.

Here is my challenge, live intentionally. If you have a heart or desire for God to use you in a certain way, than don’t just pray for it. Pray for it and prepare for it. If you don’t prepare for it, you are not stewarding the prayer and my theory is that God will place the one who has done the preparation and taken it seriously, not the one who sounds spiritual and prays.

He will give favor to the one who prays AND prepares.

Jesus And Aliens

So recently I had someone stop by the blog and say that I was deceived in my blog about how we can use Toy Story 3 to share the gospel with our kids. They said that I was being set up for the great deception that involves aliens taking over everything. You can read our exchange.

I thought I would post my view on aliens since I was thinking about it. I have no biblical evidence, just pure conjecture of what they are or are not. Come on, who didn’t watch Unsolved Mysteries as a kid and were mesmerized by the alien stories? I always said that if I ever became President, my first question would be, “So, what’s the deal with Area 51?”

So here is my theology on aliens. If aliens are not real, which is what I would believe, I think they are manifestations of demonic spirits when people get “abducted”, I would probably say its an encounter with a demon, that has shown itself like an alien, Sounds crazy, its the best explanation I can think of.

Second if they are real, guess what, Jesus has dominion over aliens too! So we are good either way!