Parenthood - Part 2: The Second Child

My wife went back to work when my son was a little more than 4 months old. Up until this point, we had never even considered the option of her staying home with the children. My wife has always been a strong, independent woman (she plans to pick a fight with the Apostle Paul when she sees him in Heaven.) It never occurred to us that either one of us would want her to stay home from work.

Almost immediately, we realized our mistake. Going back to work was going to be very painful for her. Despite the fact that she loved her job. She loved being a first-grade teacher. She loved the kids, as if they were her own. But every day at work, she was missing valuable time at home with our son. Not to mention the fact that after giving 11o% every day at school, she simply had little energy left to expend while at home.

When she went back to work after the birth of our son, we also found out that she was pregnant again (she was craving chocolate milk - which was the telltale sign.) This changed everything. Having already made the mistake of sending her back to work after the birth of our son, we weren't about to repeat the mistake.

Prior to the birth of our son, there was no way we could know how important it would be for her to be there for them at all times. Its funny, because both of our own mother's were home for us when we were young children, but in the generational gap, the importance was lost.

Secondly, we couldn't burden Grandma with having to watch two children at once. During the first year of parenthood, we relied heavily upon Grandma, but it would have been unfair to her to expect her to keep up with the Irish twins - a full time job for three adults.

Thirdly, the expense of childcare/daycare/babysitting almost cancels out the benefit of a two-income home. Beyond cost, there are a variety of reasons why I don't want my children spending their formative years in the midst of 10 other children and one adult who may or may not be able to keep up with them all - if they are even trying.

It quickly became a non-decision to have my wife step-down from teaching a dozen children that belonged to someone else, and give all of her energy and time to raising our own children. If and when she returns to "work" remains to be seen.

To be continued.....

Parenthood - Part 1

When my wife and I turned 30, we decided that the time for parenthood was "now or never." Having been together for 12 years, we figured it was about high time that we added kids into the mix. We tried to get pregnant for almost 4 years. When we finally got pregnant, it was a short-lived excitement, as we lost him/her. We then immediately got pregnant again. Again, the excitement was short-lived as it turned out to be twins and one of them was lost in complications that almost took my wife's life. My son was truly a miracle baby. My wife lost a lot of blood, was hopped up on Morphine - a medical necessity, as she describes the pain as being worse than childbirth itself, and the surgery to save her were all factors that were supposed to bring the chances of survival for my son down to a sliver of hope.

We waited on pins and needles as each week passed and hope grew. When my son was finally born, the last thing we expected was that God would immediately give us another child. (We had forgotten that we had already spent 4 years praying for a child, and God was about to answer those prayers twofold). My wife became pregnant with our daughter almost immediately after the birth of our son. I'll admit that I was in shock for at least a couple of months.

One child is an earth shattering life change. But still, its not so bad. Its like he's our little sidekick that goes along wherever we go.

But the news of a second child changed everything. We started to seriously reevaluate everything about our life.

To be continued.......

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Roughly two thousand years ago, Jesus was born in a dumpy, rural, hick town, not unlike those today where guys change their own oil, think pro wrestling is real, find women who chew tobacco sexy, and eat a lot of Hot Pockets with their uncle-daddy. Jesus’ mom was a poor, unwed teenage girl who was mocked for claiming she conceived via the Holy Spirit. Most people thought she concocted a crazy story to cover the “fact” she was knocking boots with some guy in the backseat of a car at the prom. Jesus was adopted by a simple carpenter named Joseph and spent the first thirty years of his life in obscurity, swinging a hammer with his dad.

Around the age of thirty, Jesus began a public ministry that included preaching, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and befriending social misfits such as perverts, drunks, and thieves. Jesus’ ministry spanned only three short years before he was put to death for declaring himself to be God. He died by shameful crucifixion like tens of thousands of people before and after him.

At first glance, Jesus’ résumé is rather simple. He never traveled more than a few hundred miles from his home. He never held a political office, never wrote a book, never married, never had sex, never attended college, never visited a big city, and never won a poker tournament. He died both homeless and poor.

THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM VINTAGE JESUS BY MARK DRISCOLL.

(LAURA BOUGHT ME VINTAGE JESUS AND VINTAGE CHURCH FOR CHRISTMAS, FOR WHICH I AM GRATEFUL, BECAUSE I NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TO READ)

90% of churches don't bother with their Twitter/Facebook pages

from Justin Wise on Church Marketing Sucks:


Churches (and a lot of organizations) get swept up in the fad of social media without thinking through a long-term strategy. Someone on staff will get excited, grab a Twitter account or start a Facebook fan page, and then stall out. Once the “high” of getting the first few followers wears off, these social media become dormant and neglected communication channels.

In other churches, you’ll find an ambitious staff person who has taken the initiative for their church. They have started generating content on multiple social networks and are getting a great response. What happens next is someone higher up on the food chain will find out about it and want to control it. Or shut it down. Or turn it into an “info dump”, clogged with redundant church advertisements and announcements. Once that happens, social media fails to be social.

Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners

Here is a great article from this week's Rolling Stone: Courts helping banks screw over homeowners.


Here is the final paragraph of the article:


When you meet people who are losing their homes in this foreclosure crisis, they almost all have the same look of deep shame and anguish. Nowhere else on the planet is it such a crime to be down on your luck, even if you were put there by some of the world's richest banks, which continue to rake in record profits purely because they got a big fat handout from the government. That's why one banker CEO after another keeps going on TV to explain that despite their own deceptive loans and fraudulent paperwork, the real problem is these deadbeat homeowners who won't pay their bills. And that's why most people in this country are so ready to buy that explanation. Because in America, it's far more shameful to owe money than it is to steal it.

Church: According to Legacy

Here is an excerpt from Legacy Church that I liked:


Church (ekklesia) means a gathered and unified people. Legacy Church gathers around a King, not a building or time. I sure didn't grow up this way, so we "went" to church rather than "gathered" as the church. It seems like splitting hairs doesn't it.

Right now we meet in a pretty small place, but will grow to a bigger one, the whole time splitting off in smaller groups. During all of this we never stop being the church. Church is a lifestyle - a people continually on mission together. We might be eating together, working out together, meeting as men, as women. We might be worshipping, studying God's story to us, helping the disenfranchised, you get the picture. The whole time we are the church.

Legacy Church meets at 7905 Woodland Brae, Knoxville TN
Legacy Church meets at 5:30 PM on Sundays

South Florida Amber Alert: Hospitality and Kindness

I was speaking to my new neighbor today. She moved here from Puerto Rico last winter and bought the foreclosed, run-down house next door.

I told her that we were planning on leaving Sunny South Florida at some point for a destination further north. I explained that that were a myriad of reasons for our planned departure (hot weather, cost of living, over-stuffed schools), not the least of which is our aversion to the culture and people of South Florida.

People in South Florida are uncaring jerks, for the most part. Anyone who would deny this is either in denial, or they are in fact one of those jerks. We come from the Midwest (Detroit) where people are actually friendly, and more importantly, neighborly.

In the five and a half years that we've lived in our home, we have extended every effort to build good relationships with our neighbors. No one has returned the favor. With two kids under our roof, we simply no longer want to be "missionaries" to this uncaring culture.

My neighbor, from Puerto Rico, stated that she actually thought that this culture was indicative of the U.S. as a whole. I told her that she couldn't be more wrong. In the Midwest, people are friendly, conversational, and neighborly. We sense it the second we step foot off of the plane in Michigan.

She told me that, where she comes from, the neighbors ask each other for help, hang out together, and aren't afraid to ask for "eggs or milk" when they've run out.

I laughed. I can relate.

I've gone to my neighbors for these things and received looks as if I were some sort of alien. We've invited our neighbors into our home on many occasions. Our immediate neighbors have lived here for 25 years and they've never received such an invitation from any other neighbor in that time. The irony is that our immediate neighbors are the "nicest neighbors" we have - and they are the couple from Brooklyn who always seem like they're yelling. The bar has been lowered.

In Tennessee, my aunt knows everyone who lives in her neighborhood, after only living there a couple years. I count myself lucky because I know about a dozen of my neighbors. Most of my neighbors don't even know each other.

Here's what I don't understand. If South Florida is so full of the Hispanic Culture, why doesn't it have more of an impact on our hospitality to each other? You would think that the Melting Pot/Salad Bowl of South Florida would be a better place to live, but it isn't.

Being "Spirit-Led"

Can being "Spirit-Led" be learned behavior? If one where truly led by the Spirit, wouldn't it automatically be spontaneous, authentic, and unique to the individual?

I was raised in a Baptist environment where "charismatic" was almost a bad word. Upon arrival in South Florida, we begrudgingly became a part of the Southern Baptist Denomination, where "charismatic" was an unspoken bad word.

When I read through the Baptist Faith and Message, I definitely noticed the ill-will that it held toward charismatics. I noticed this same ill-will as I read through the commentary in my John Macarthur Study Bible.

As much as I had no background involving the charismatic lifestyle/worship (whatever you want to call it), I found some of these arguments against it to be weak and reeking of personal bias.

Personally, I'd give someone the benefit of the doubt when they claim to be led by the Spirit - to a point. I'd also say that I'm probably skeptical of these people as well. But this is the conundrum in which I find myself - I'm skeptical, but desiring my skepticism to be discounted.

From personal experience, I've come to believe that in many instances, this Spirit-Led behavior is learned from others, rather than spontaneously given from within. This is unfortunate.

We had a guy going to our church a few years back that would stand in the front row with his arms raised, or sometimes lay flat down on the ground (face down) during worship. Some others in the church complained about his "behavior" citing the usual "Baptist/Biblical" excuse of his behavior being distracting from worship. I disagreed with this criticism, and expressed that his behavior was actually uplifting for me and aided in my worship experience. I wished that I could be the one dancing, raising my hands, and laying on the ground - but the truth is that the Spirit wasn't leading me to do it.

I sometimes look around at the crowd at our Mega-church and wish that the crowd were more into it. I've been to churches where the crowd seems to be totally disassociated with the worship to which they're being led. It makes me sad. Its true that most people find it easier to worship at a sporting event or a concert than they do at church - a depressing fact.

On the other hand, I've been to churches where the congregation is totally into the worship experience. I give them the benefit of the doubt that the experience of most of the individuals is sincere and authentic, but sometimes I wonder. Is it sincere, authentic, and spontaneous, or is it really just learned behavior from those around them? This possibility (and a strong one I suspect) makes me sad as well.

We went to a church a couple years ago where the pastor "prodded" the people into speaking in tongues, and told them what to say if they faltered. This seemed totally inauthentic to me and it was really a downer.

We also went to another church where one of the singers pulled out a Bible and spit out lyrics on the fly right out of the Bible. At the time, I found this practice awe-inspiring, but I've since learned that this is also a trained behavior/skill called prophetic singing. How exactly can you train someone to "sing prophetically"?

This is exactly what I'm struggling with. I want to believe that the Holy Spirit is alive and well in our churches, our lives, our worship, etc. I don't want to be a Baptist Kill-Joy. As Mark Driscoll puts it, I'd at least like to be a Charismatic with a Seat Belt. But I really struggle with people who are not able to just be themselves. This goes for people on both sides of the fence really. One of the joys that I find in Jesus is the freedom to just be myself, regardless of what anyone else may think of me. This is a joy and a freedom that many Christ Followers miss out on.

When I was a teenager, I went on an outing with the youth group from my church. When the invitation was given at the end of the event, every single youth from our group went forward to answer the call to the invitation. I was left sitting alone with our group leader, Sandy Jelsomino. She leaned over and asked me if I was okay, if I wanted to respond to the invitation. I told her that I kind of did, but I was turned off by the fact that most of my school-mates weren't going forward because of a change of heart, but rather because that was the thing that was expected of them.

At the age of 12 or 13, I'd already declared myself as the anti-hero that I still am today, 20 years later. I refuse to toe the line when it comes to my relationship with God. I'm going to do what comes naturally to me, while still stretching my comfort zone and being open to being led by God's Spirit. I don't want to be a stodgy prude, but neither do I want to be an inauthentic "Spirit-Led" person who's simply going through the motions for which they've been trained.

Christianese

Thanks to the Urban Dictionary......

Christianese:

Christianese is the language spoken by Christians. It makes no sense to anyone unfamiliar with biblical texts, but earns you major points in the eyes of other Christians, because it means your words are holy.

Darrin Patrick