Sports Camp Ponderings

This week we tried our Mega Sports Camp off campus. It was a great week. Here at the church we are very limited on what we can do just because we don't have big fields. I found a park with fields for soccer and football. It has black tops for basketball. We put the cheerleaders in a clearing and brought mats for them (on the days it didn't rain) and had the preschoolers at picnic tables. It was a great event. The Texas heat was pretty good to us (a couple of the kids may not agree with that). The kids that came all seemed to have fun. It just makes me think. 

As a young Pastor, I was always trying to do stuff that got people on campus. I did and still do a fall festival. I do Easter egg hunts. I have done VBS and other events at church like concerts and such. The thing I was wondering was do people know what those things are?

I noticed as I tagged people in pictures and saw pictures on Facebook from the week that people asked what is VBS? I had people that came up from the neighborhood and ask what we were doing? We invited them to join us. I was very proud of members from our team that talked to people in the neighborhood. Do people in the Post Christian Era still know what we are doing as a church? 

Do they see the church as a refuge for hurting or just another building? I think we have to create events like the one we did this week where we are seen by people who don't know what we are doing. We go on mission trips and we go to other areas many times to help out, but the church is becoming a building that people see and not a place that people can come find peace. I think in the day we are in we have to create opportunities to represent the church outside of our church to reach the lost, even kids. It is sad but we are quickly coming to an age when kids won't know what Sunday School is or many of the church standards that were commonplace in our vocabularies. We have to do things outside to draw people inside. 

I don't like being told what to do...

My son Cooper was mowing the yard the other day.  This Summer it is exclusively his gig. I have let him help with sections in the past but mowing has been officially added to his list of chores. Bill or I will go out and watch him or check for some missed spots as he is mowing, but I am trying to let him learn how take care of the yard. The first week he was mowing, I watched him just go all over the yard making more turns than and curves than a trip going up the side of a mountain in Colorado. I looked at him and said, "Son, you have to mow straight or you are going to miss some sections". He quickly respond with, "Dad, I am not the kind of guy to go in a straight line".  I didn't know if I should laugh or if I should whip his behind. I just shook my head, chuckled, and told him he was gonna have to go back and fix his spots he misses because he doesn't go in a straight line. I think there is part of that in all of us though. We like to change who we are or go against the flow just because we don't want to be told what to do. 

The Washington Redskins may lose millions of dollars just because they won't change their name. (Thanks to the US Patent office revoking some of their patent.) Daniel Snyder, the Redskins owner, from what I can tell won't change mainly because he just doesn't want to be told what to do. He wants to make a point. He doesn't want to go in the straight line like everyone else. He is gonna have to pay some for that but he seems to think it is worth it. 

Honestly, I think Cooper comes by his dislike of going in straight lines honestly. I don't really like being told what to do. You just have to understand their are always consequences to not going with the flow. You have to work harder for one. It may cost you something. In Coop's case he had to go back over some spots he missed. In the Redskins case, I am already printing out Redskins Suck T-Shirts and don't have to worry about paying for the right to print them. (Just Kidding but I know someone has already started that)

The good thing about not going with the flow or doing it your way, you may end up finding a new better way to do something. You may make a stand for something whether it be good or bad. We do have to understand God has place spiritual authority over us to keep us going the right direction but we have to understand who that is and when that is applicable. David understood that Saul was in authority over him as king so he spared his life but you can't say that he did everything Saul asked him to do. He was more interested in what God had called him to do. 

As a parent, we need to understand the fine line between our kids being human and rebelling them trying to understand how things are supposed to be done. None of us really like being told what to do. Sometimes, we have to let them learn that straight lines are better.