A little different take

I'm preaching next month on Sunday evening, May 17th and I have been debating on what to talk about.  Being a children's pastor and passionate about making my kids into fully committed disciples of Christ, I want to preach on a passage like Deuteronomy 6:4-9 - but that is what I preached on last time (not that people will remember that).

At the same time, I had a bit of a windfall from God while talking during our last Family Journey In Faith event for parents of 1 year olds.  We were talking about how we as parents see and sense tendencies in our children from an early age.  We then tend to follow these tendencies and get them involved in activities to enhance those.  For instance, if our children show athletic ability we get them involved in sports activities.  Or if our children show early signs of intelligence, we tend to see if there are advanced education programs we can get them involved in.  Those are all good things, not wrong in any way...

But here's the deal:  those tendencies only show one side of the picture.  God made us with multiple sides to our personalities and make-up:  physical, emotional, intellecual and spiritual.  Moreover, we are called to Love God with "all our heart and with all your mind and with all our soul and with all your strength."  But in our culture today, even with Christian families, we tend to focus on the 'strength' and 'mind' part of that verse.  We elevate athletic ability, music ability and intelligence over the heart and soul aspects, something I think we have backwards.

There is a lot more I can and hope to say on this topic, but I should reserve it for more blog posts later.  Keep coming back and see what develops.

Dean