Two weeks in a row that I’ve not gone through my weekly schedule here. Maybe that little self-made fad is fading. Of course, I got thrown off schedule with the stabbing incident and all. (The victim seems to be recovering and the guy is in jail on $1 million dollars bond. He looked like a real winner to me.)

Tuesday: I took Megan to preschool this morning. It’s exciting because she is so excited about this step in life. She is in love with the water table that they play with. I have to send out a few e-mails today, but other than that it’s a quiet day. I do have to complete my homework for grad school and e-mail that in ASAP. I have all of the research done and only need to type it up and submit it. I started reading the book Dedication and Leadership last night and found it absolutely fascinating. (I am seriously thinking my thesis may have something to do with student leadership in the LDS.) At about 1:30 I have to be at RHS to pick up the golf team. We have our last league match with Ford II. I think we need to win this to hold second place in the league.

Wednesday: A big night for LF as we launch our monthly concert of prayer. The students came to practice last night and that went “just OK.” (They just don’t see the need to pick songs that everyone is comfortable with!) I have the day off from golf practice, I hope, and this is helping me get caught up with my real job.

Thursday: My major responsibility is to take the varsity golf team back to Forest-Akers West to capture the league championship. I’ll be gone all day with this.

Friday: Get ready for the homecoming game tailgate party & bonfire. Also, this is when everyone else will be setting up the India room for the missions conference this weekend. We want out room to win this year and it seems that people are going all out!

Saturday: I mostly have the day off. We just have missions conference to attend.

Sunday: More missions conference stuff followed by a parents meeting and a praise & worship time at the Wrobleski’s from 6-9.

Maybe I should stop doing this since it’s really depressing? No. I think it’s good. 🙂

Scott, you’ve turned into a welcome regular here. Thanks again for dropping by.

12:15 PM, Scott W. Somerville said…

I’m not expecting to change your position on homeschooling, so let’s consider how one can advance the Kingdom in public schools. If I understand your overall position, you are suggesting that Christian teachers should seek jobs in public schools, so that they can use their position of influence to try to convert the children in that classroom. Is that right?

I wrote back in the comment area…

At 9:42 AM, PA said…

I don’t know where that came from. But that’s not what I am saying at all. I’m saying that Christian parents should be involved in their local public schools. We have many teachers at our church who work for various public school districts. You can be salt and light and not present the gospel in every class. As far as I know, a teacher is able to share their faith if the student instigates the line of conversation.

The more I think about this the more I realize that this isn’t what I meant at all. Perhaps I am just that bad of a communicator? Here’s some new lines of thought.

• Is my position reflective on the word of God. (That homeschooling and separation from the world are wrong?)
• If my position is incorrect, am I willing to change my mind?
• Am I just being hard nosed and not seeing any good in something just because of my own personal experience?
• Are all children supposed to fit into the same types of institutions or are we as a society OK with having total an institutionalized lack of institution? (School is a creation of man, out know?)
• Are my assumptions based on known facts or just my observations of having been around these different types of education?
• Is this a battle worth fighting? Ultimately moms/dads are going to chose to do their own thing and I have to figure out how I can support them even when I think they are wrong.
• Does this boil down to a grey area or is this a sin issue?

A final observation is that my friend Scott merely asks questions and rarely answers ones that I ask. Is that because he assumes he is more important than I am or is it just that he thinks that my position is so stupid that it’s not worth responding to. (Of course, another possibility is that he finds truth in my positions?) I don’t know. And I have much else to do.

A scary incident here in Romeo.

I noticed on the SB Tribune website that eventually that link will go away. So I wanted to post it now.

MOOR OR LESS

By BILL MOOR

Tribune Columnist

I was driving my third-grade daughter and first-grade son home from school that snowy afternoon when I caught my fourth-grade son in midshove.

He and his buddy, Adam — or former buddy — were having a bit of an altercation right there in Leeper Park.

A push here. A swing there.

With both of them in their snow gear, they didn’t look as if they were doing much damage, but I pulled over anyway.

I grabbed both of them by the arms and yelled at them to knock it off. I don’t think I said anything noteworthy, but the froth from my mouth apparently got their attention.

I’m sure I was the last person they expected to land right in the middle of their little feud.

They both look embarrassed. They both walked home — heads down. As the years passed, they went their own ways, no longer close buddies but not adversaries, either.

When I drive by Leeper Park, I occasionally remember that little scene — just one of those hundreds of mental snapshots I keep from my kids’ formative years.

Adam McLane, my son Steve’s buddy back then, remembers it, too.

But what he remembers most was the following day — a Saturday afternoon.

I took Steve and Adam to the movie “Rocky IV.”

You know the movie. It’s when Rocky outboxes the Soviet wunderkind and then says to the Russian crowd: “If youz can change and I can change, then wez all can change.”

An end to the Cold War almost immediately.

I don’t think that the theme — spoken so eloquently by the Rockster — was why I took them to see that movie. Quite frankly, I didn’t even remember seeing it with them until Adam recently e-mailed me.

He is now an associate pastor of student ministries at a Baptist church in Romeo, Mich., with a wife and two children. He says he retells that little episode often to his church groups.

“That simple little lesson taught me an awful lot about forgiveness and grace and life.”

Maybe that’s what I wanted out of getting them together after their tiff. Or, who knows, maybe I just wanted to show them how punchy a person could get if he went through life banging ribs and butting heads like Rocky.

Adam did want to know if I could explain what was going through my mind back then and if I thought Steve also learned a lesson that day.

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I did tell him that it was probably my way of showing that I believed in both of them — that I wasn’t taking sides — and that if they quarreled again, they would be letting me down as well as themselves.

I’m sure I also didn’t want them to dwell on their bad blood — that the sooner people make up, the quicker feelings heal.

After the movie, I didn’t know if it helped or not. Just a few days ago, Adam told me it did.

So I called my son, Steve, and asked if he remembered the episode. He said that every time he sees a Rocky movie, he does. And even if he didn’t say so back then, he says he did learn some lesson, too.

Hmmm.

When I think back to those parenting days, I tend to remember the mistakes I made — of being too strict … or being too pushy … or being too flippant.

I think we all do that as parents.

We measure ourselves against Ward Cleaver of “Leave it to Beaver” or Jim Anderson of

“Father Knows Best,” and we come up wanting.

It is easy for us to remember the times when we think we could have done better as parents.

But then we occasionally are reminded that maybe we did a few things right, too.

Steve even mentions now that I wasn’t such a bad guy back then after all.

I told him if he continued to get mushy like that, I’d send Adam down to finish their fight.

Hard core readers of this blog will remember that back in June I posted a story about getting a fist fight with another boy in 4th grade. I like to tell this story and I’ve told it several times over the years. It’s a good story with a teachable twist.

After the fight happened my friend Steve’s dad did something odd to put us back together. He took us out to a movie, Rocky IV. I’ve often wondered why his dad did that and a few weeks ago I finally sent his dad an e-mail to ask him why he had done it.

He wrote, “I guess I figured if I forced you guys into a situation where you had to be civil to one another, and maybe even enjoy something together, that you would feel pretty foolish if you started fighting again. I also wanted you to know that I, as an adult, would be watching your relationship and that I had strong feelings about you getting along. Letting down yourselves by quarreling again would be one thing; letting me down, too, would be another.Maybe, too, I was trying to show you that I believed you both were good guys and that you should see the good in each other, too.”

That about summed it up for me. It was about what I had always thoguht he had meant by it. I know that I was secretly hoping that there was this extreme case of religious ferver that he had wanted to get a point across to me… yada yada yada. It just wasn’t the case and I’m cool with that.

But the story that ended back in 4th grade was resurrected. It turns out that Steve’s dad still writes for the South Bend Tribune, my hometown newspaper. Even stranger are two central facts. First of all, Steve’s dad wrote about this incident in an article in Sunday’s Tribune. Second, it’s been very cool to reconnect with Steve as we’ve exchanged a few e-mails about it last week.

After the story back in 4th grade, I can’t really remember if Steve and I remained friends. I do know that I moved away that summer and by the time we reconnected in middle school and high school homerooms, we were never close again. (I’m sure most people can identify with this type of “loss.”)

So it’s been intruiging that what was once “just a PA story” now has some more meaning to me. I have loved getting reconnected… even for a fleeting minute. They say you can never go home again, but in my memory… it’s good to chase down some of those lose ends.

We came back from Camp Michawana this afternoon, and I think we even got back a little early. No one seemed to complain.

I am completely exhausted. I even took a bit of an afternoon nap as we waited for the in-laws to bring Megan and Paul back home. (It’s incredible to have the in-laws so available.) I don’t normally take naps, but I guess it was a sign that I was more tired than I thought.

All-in-all I thought it was a fine weekend. Of course, the overwhelming reality that there will be hell to pay for losing so much money clouds my judgment, but the reality of it was that there wasn’t a lot wrong with the retreat.

Personally speaking, I think the weakest component was me. I wasn’t my best at teaching this weekend. I would call my personal performance “adequate.” I just didn’t have a ton to give. This is telling me clearly that I need to rest. And I need to rest bigtime to recharge. The big question is “when?”

I have another awful week ahead schedule-wise. I love helping with the golf team, but it has drained me. I’m ready for the season to be over… And we have almost 3 weeks left!

A highlight of the trip had to be the low-ropes elements. It clearly demonstrated to me where some of the problems are with LF and also some of the strengths. Also, it seemed that the participants were really willing to commit to changing LF and making it an inreaching ministry. We have a fantastic set of students right now and I look forward to this being a year where lives are changed.

Overall, the church is in a world of hurt. I don’t want to get into it, but you can feel the deflation. I just hope the leaders see it and respond before it’s too late.

Today is the day we leave and I still have about 100 things that I have to do. This is a case where I haven’t really procrastinated… there just haven’t been a lot of spare minutes.

I’ll be finallizing my 4 talks in the next hours and will be running around to get game stuff together as well as dropping our kids off at my in-laws for the weekend. That little 2 hour journey in the middle really screws things up. Life is just like that though.

I’m trying to be content with a bad retreat number. After all of our wrangling… we could only loop 10 students into this. We needed 20 to break even and I’ll be losing about $1000 overall. Great.

All I can say is that we played very well. But we still lost. The overall score was 156-156 and we lost when the 5th score card was counted. This was a tough way to lose a conference title. Very tough on the seniors. That said, of the four seniors two stepped up to the plate and two bowed out. D. Detmer was low man with a 35, followed by N. Stevens at 36.

On the JV side, they are now 6-1 in dual matches after whipping GPN 157-165. That’s right, our JV was 1 stroke away from beating both varsity teams! Some phenomonal scoring by the underclassmen leaves us excited about what’s to come in 2005 and beyond.

This is a poor written and even poorer argument in response to the dialogue I’ve now had with Scott twice. I appreciate where he is coming from, yet my position is not up for debate. I am against homeschooling and Christian schools for beleivers.

Scott, (sorry about accusing you to the recent influx of hits… I think it’s tied to something else.)

Again I thank you for the dialogue. Forgive me for summarizing but time is short. Your argument seems to stem from “I’ve given up because of what the supreme court did in 1990.”

To the individual Christian parent what happens on the supreme court level does not supercede God’s word. God commands all believers to besalkt and light in the world. Does this mean that you may have to put yourself in the way of a lawsuit or even jailtime? Perhaps. But I challenge any administrator to arrest a student or fire a teacher for expressions of opinion or religious ferver.

Annocdotally, when I lived in CA we had a small group of pastors who met weekly to “pray around a school” since they wouldn’t allow us on the campus to visit our students. We very obediently walked outside the schools property (on the sidewalk) and privately prayed for the needs of the students we knew as well as the teachers, administrators etc. About a month into doing this we were stopped by a security guard who told us that the principal was going to charge us with something and have us arrested. Do you know what we said… “go for it. Call the cops now. We will all gladly be arrested for praying.” Of course this broke the ice… we didn’t get arrested and after a few more months and some e-mails… we got a regular prayer request update from the principal.

I share that story to acknowledge that God is bigger than the supreme court. He is bigger than the school board and he is bigger than the ACLU. It is out responsibility as leaders and parents to model to our children that God is a part of the school. He is a part of our school day, everyday. There’s a bumper sticker on my office door that says “As long as there are tests, there will always be prayer in school!”

Here’s my point. On the macro “law level” of setting policy and re-interpreting laws to fit today’s culture, you areright… we don’t have many choices. But on the micro level, we are commanded and called to love God, love people and make disciples. There is room for peaceful cival disobedience. There is room for parents to legally get elected to school boards. There is room for school boards to institute policies that are friendly to religious expression without threatening minority positions. Since when is America ruled by the minority? How come such fundamental questions to American society are not left to the ballot but to judges?

As a parent and a believer. I believe your responsibility is to put your kids in the public school system. I presume either you or your spouse stays home to do this with your children. Would that ministry be better suited to extend to all the children in your kids class than reserved exclusively for your kids?

I am vehemently opposed to this desire to pull evangelicalism out of the public square and into private expression. To me… the issue boils down to that one fundamental question we all have to answer… who am I in Christ and why am I here on this earth. As parents, our mission is clear. If, as the Clinton book title so proudly says, it takesa village to raise a child… why is it that you don’t try to change YOUR village.

To me, the story about the 1990 ruling is a farce. I’m not worried about macro-legislation so much as I am worried about the kids right in front of me. I may not be able to change the lives of the millions of chilren in the public arena… but I can sure try to change the lives of those who live in my neighborhood. To hide my children in self-imposed exile for the sake of setting a standard is ill-advised at best and faithless at worse. Again, whose children are they? (Thankfully, we both agree that they aren’t the states!)

You said “Maybe we’re not as far apart on this as we might appear!”

We can respectfully disagree here. My position is that there is no room in Scripture to constitute seperation from the world. Your kids aren’t any better than anyone elses… put them in the nearest school to you.

I absolutely and vehemently think it is wrong to homeschool an adolescent… unless they have special needs. I have seen case after case after case of completely destroyed adolescents. Utterly clueless to the world and receiving a terrible home based education. As if all learning in high school was in books! Ha! I’ve been sugar-coating this… if I were the president, I would outlaw homeschooling beyond the 7th grade.

Last night I had to do some soul searching and some life changin’. I’m happy to be along for the ride on that.

So far today, I’ve really gotten a handle on getting past my frustration and actually dealing with the problems at hand. The reality is that I am blaming myself for a lot of the problems going on at the church when in fact only some of them are my fault. I can only fix what I can fix. But I am already starting to fix some of the broken things from my post below.

I had a great time today at the school. I purposefully sought out students on my list. I connected with them, and I listened to them. Some of my students are really hurting becasue of stuff LF (and me) have done to them. I can clearly see that I have a lot of work to do. More than that, I can see that all of our leadership team needs to “get back to basics” on the contact front. We’ve just let that slide and we’re paying for it now.

I’m really looking at this as a good “starting over” point. Maybe I even need to evaluate taking a step back from the equipping aspects of LF and get back into the building phase. Before I do that I’m going to have to chat with some gurus. This painful soulsearching may actually be a part of the maturation process for me as a leader and us as a group.