Influences

So I’ve been experiencing something the past few years. It seems like the older I get, the more I catch myself in situations acting exactly like my dad. The good news is that I love my dad. He is a great follower of Jesus, husband, father, role model, and more. It’s that as I mature as a husband and father myself, I am beginning to pinpoint real ways he has had an influence on me.

This realization supports something that I have known for a long time. It’s a research-backed fact that we work to incorporate into our next generation ministries.

Parents are the #1 influence in the life of a child.

This fact may seem matter-of-fact, but it is so important to what we do. Since parents can be a positive influence on their children, we see it as vital that we work to effectively minister to and support parents.

To that end, I am excited to share not one, but two upcoming initiatives we are launching for parents of kids and teenagers!

The first initiative is a new Parents Chit Chat Cafe group meeting concurrent with Awana. From 6:00-7:15 pm each Wednesday, our very own Candace Jeancake will be leading relevant discussions in a relaxing, welcoming atmosphere in the Family Life Center, just inside from the playground.

Our second initiative is a series of free, live webinars about parenting in the unique phase your child(ren) are in today. Visit our website at ibcsav.com/phasewebinar for more information and to get signed up. The webinars we have scheduled are:

• Parenting in the Preschool Phase - Monday, November 6 from 8-9 pm
• Parenting in the Elementary Phase - Tuesday, November 7 from 8-9 pm
• Parenting in the Middle School Phase - Thursday, November 9 from 8-9 pm
• Parenting in the High School Phase - Friday, November 10 from 8-9 pm

And even if you aren’t able to join us live, we’ll have session recordings on our website too!

Our hope is that these two new initiatives will spark great conversations and lead to spiritual growth as we support parents in being positive influences in the lives of their kids!

Growing Things Change

It’s been about one month since Awana started back this year, and I am excited to be experiencing something I’ve known to be true:

Healthy things grow, and growing things change.

Two years ago we chose Awana as part of our discipleship strategy for the next generation. I am so proud of all of our volunteers who continue to make Awana better and better every week. In addition to adding a high school Bible study on Wednesday nights, we also launched a middle school component to Awana. We currently serve around 40 students each week, including many families that are new just in the past month!

As Awana continues to grow, we’ll continue to change to accommodate that growth. There are some key volunteer spots we need to fill, including lining up substitute leaders to fill in when someone is out of pocket. We are trusting God to provide those volunteers, and maybe he is leading you to step out and jump into one of those roles.

We continue to look forward to an amazing year sharing the love of Jesus with the next generation. We look forward to continued growth in the future, and we know that with God’s help, we’ll be ready when it comes!

More...

If you are a Star Trek fan like me, you are no doubt familiar with Spock’s maxim that, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…or the one.” It illustrates his sacrificial love for his friends. But that’s a spiritual metaphor for another day.

Spock’s maxim reminds me of a useful phrase about ministry, albeit somewhat inverted: “Do for some what you wish you could do for many.” It’s an important reminder for us today.

When ministry begins to make positive differences in people’s lives, it feels natural for us to want more.

More time.

More volunteers.

More resources.

We become confident that we could effectively serve “the many” if we simply had more.

And maybe we could.

But the reality is that God has already provided us with what he knows we need for today, even if it’s not our definition of more. Faithfulness to God is serving him with what we do have. It might not be as much as we want, but like the apostle Paul writes in Philippians 4:11-13, we can learn to be content in this circumstance. We might want more, but God has given us enough for today.

Using what we have today, we do for some what we wish we could do for many.