Category: family

  • Paul’s Thougts of Christmas

    PaulPaul is 4. He is mostly into Power Rangers and otherwise lives in his own pretend world of karate chops, animals, adventures, and other play things. And while Paul rarely looks like he is paying attention in KidsTown he really learns a lot.

    Here are some things we talked about this morning:

    • When the advent calendar is over, it’s Christmas.
    • Christmas is about someone’s birthday, but not Santa’s.
    • Santa is just pretend, but Jesus is “for real.”
    • Christmas is Jesus’ birthday.
    • Why do we get presents on Jesus’ birthday? “I don’t know.” (He’s right, it makes no sense!)

  • Google Vernacular

    MeganMy daughter is 6. She’s pretty smart. I don’t know if she is the smartest kid in her class but I tell her she is all the time.

    Tonight she and I were talking and she told me something very cool.

    “When you want to find something on the computer, you google it.“

    I don’t know if a lot of people realize it, but Google has become so much more than a company we use to search the internet. When a company has gotten to the point in its brand identification that it is no longer a company, it’s a part of your vernacular… you’ve reached a plain reserved for a few companies in the world.

    Coke. Play-Doh. Frisbee. Ping Pong. Things like this are not just brands… they are nouns.

    Imagine this. Today’s 1st graders were born after 9-11-2001, may have never seen a house phone, and never used a computer without WiFi. And you don’t hear them say things like “Let’s see it on Yahoo.” or “Check it out on MSN.”

    It’s really all about Google. Pretty soon we will say “The Goog” just like Ted Nugent fans say “The Nuge.” Well, maybe not that far.

    We’ve come a long way from my first computer. It was a laptop, the Kaypro 2, and weighed about 90 pounds.  I was pretty young when my mom’s boyfriend hooked this thing up. I remember it had a state of the art 1200 baud dial-up external modem and we dialed into the bulletin boards at Notre Dame. (Not sure why) So, you can see I’ve had my hands in computers for a long time. I hope/pray that my kids grow up with the opportunity to embrace technology through play like I did.

  • the secret is out: we got a mac

    Yes, I really did drive my family to get a brand spanking new imac tonight.

    And I didn’t feel guilty doing it and I actually enjoyed the experience. Megan and Paul had a great time playing with the kids games for a while (great marketing job there!) and Kristen got to ask a lot of questions.

    Then the man took our money and they gave us a box. Yes, it is a 10 minute deal from the time you bring it home until you can use it. Maybe less.

    So far I like it a lot. It’s obviously a very well built thing. The keyboard rocks (my fav feature so far) and I love the big 20″ screen and the nice aluminum casing.

    Once it is set up, this one really is for Kristen. It has her name all over it and it even has a nice girlie picture on the display. But for the next 12 hours or so it’s going to be mine as I try to get all her data over. (9000 pictures, 30 gig of music)

    One tiny disappointment is that it didn’t have the newest operating system on it when we got it. Now I get to spend a couple hours playing with install that.

  • Daddy Brings Gifts

    It is really nice to be home. That isn’t profound. It’s just true.

    One little thing I do when I come home is that I try to bring a gift. My line of thinking is: If I have to be away from home, I want Megan and Paul to know that I missed them.

    I guess I wonder if I should feel guilty. Am I bribing my children to still love me despite the fact that I’ve left them for a week?

  • Paul’s First Goal

  • It’s officially cold in Romeo

    ThermometerAs the neurons connect this morning in my frontal lobes before morning coffee has been absorbed properly into my system, I looked at the thermometer. It currently reads 31.8 F outside.

    That’s butt cold in my book. I”m a big fan of winter in these parts… but I do enjoy a gradual decline over awakening my soul to the depths of January on November 2nd.

  • Halloween is for giving…

    My wife, Kristen, has a great post about our experience last night. (including a recipe!)

    Check it out here.

  • Pray for teachers today

    I just dropped off Megan at school. It’s going to be a crazy day as hundreds of sugar crazed kids try to sit still for some quality education today.

    This would have been a good day for teachers to have a personal day off.

    (more…)

  • “We celebrate Halloween”

    Power_rangers_040I noticed a couple of people were sharing what their kids were dressing up like for Halloween… so here are our kids. (Kristen has a full post about this.)

    As a person who didn’t grow up around evangelicalism I didn’t know that some folks didn’t celebrate Halloween until I was a in college. As a kid all I knew was that some people were home and didn’t give out candy and I just thought and said to my friends, "Jerks" as we walked by.

    Are people who don’t give out candy on Halloween jerks?
    As an adult I don’t think so. Now I know that people don’t give out candy for a few reasons, religious conviction being one of them.

    Why do we allow our kids to go out for Halloween?

    1. I grew up doing it. In college I always thought the arguments against it were pretty lame so I never bought into the evangelical idea that "Halloween is bad." if we should protect our kids from "evil" than we shouldn’t have had kids in the first place. The world is full of darkness and sin.
    2. We like interacting with our neighbors. We live in a backyard culture where only Halloween and bad weather bring people together. Seriously… other than Halloween the only time I’ve met some of my neighbors (more than next door) is when trees fall down.
    3. We restrict their costume choices. You may think that at 4 & 6 years old this is easy… but it leads to a good discussion of "good pretend" and "bad pretend."
    4. Our kids like candy. I can’t imagine the horror of being a small child and knowing all your friends got mountains of candy and you didn’t. And to do that "for Jesus." While we should suffer for the name of Christ, we need to pick our battles.

    Do you "endorse" Halloween by celebrating it?
    I would loosely say we celebrate Halloween. We’re just not one of those people who goes all out for any holiday. Just like we put out a few lights for Christmas, we put out a few pumpkins for Halloween. Here’s a summary of what we do and I would recommend this to anyone:

    1. Mommy takes the kids trick or treating. We always invite friends to go with the kids so that its a social night. For them they get to see bucketloads of neighbors they’d otherwise never meet or see.
    2. I stay home and hand out candy. My conviction is this… as a pastor to a dead and dying community (spiritually) if 300+ people are going to knock on my door I want to represent Jesus to them as best as I can. Romeo is a small town and people would know if I was "the jerk" on the block who didn’t turn on his light. In fact, we plan on setting up our Halloween table again this year. We’ll have a table with hot chocolate, apple cider, and coffee for parents and of course mountains of candy for the kids. As families from all over Armada, Almont, Bruce Township, and other rural areas come to my house… I want to welcome them and tell them about the kids ministry! This isn’t an endorsed thing that I do on behalf of the church. It’s a thing that I do and I’m pretty sure I would do if I weren’t a pastor at the church. In fact, I wish more families from the church would embrace Halloween as a ministry opportunity.

    What about Halloween Alternatives?
    At the core of who I am I always want to use the things in our culture for redemptive purposes, even the "bad" ones. Having an alternative Halloween activity isn’t bad, and in some communities it is extremely culturally relevant. But my observation is these alternative activities are really "culture avoidance" and not culturally relevant.

    As a student of the Bible I can imagine a very "proper" Jew like Paul feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable as he went to places like Corinth (a place that worshiped gods with temple prostitutes) or preaching in the agora of many places where vendors sold meet sacrificed to idols. He was likely sick to his stomach as he witnessed these things… and yet his job was to bring light into dark places. The implication of that verse is that we ought not to expect dark places (Halloween) to come to light (church)… but that we go to dark places for the purpose of bringing light.

  • Fall’s Arrival

    Yesterday was nearly perfect in Romeo. Temperatures in the 60-70s all day, Paul and I burned some leaves and other yard waste. We had the windows open. We wore shorts.

    That was yesterday. This morning the thermometer reads 48 and there is a solid drizzle. It was just a matter of time before Fall descended on us… as always there is a fair amount of denial that Fall will lead to Winter.

    This week we need to batten down the hatches and put all the summer yard stuff away in the back garage. It won’t be long now. S-N-O-W will arrive at least once before Thanksgiving. (Probably not stick!)