Remembering To Forget... Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Holiday meals were (let's be honest, still are) often met with joyful anticipation and dread in my family. I read an article this week on the Gospel Coalition site that dealt with the challenging moments and hardships of shared family meals. Especially, ones like Thanksgiving that have so much pressure and significance placed upon them. As the author of the article notes, often we rely on the traditions themselves to bind our tables in unity and love. Yet, that is a lot of pressure to place on a green bean casserole. She offers instead, that we should seek unity in Christ-like forgetfulness. She states,  

"Which is why days like Thanksgiving are not merely calls to remembrance but also calls to forgetfulness—no, not the forgetfulness of lost car keys or misplaced TV remotes, but the intentional forgetting of what has gone before, the setting aside of past offenses, the laying down of our claims to restitution for old wounds. We are called to a forgetful forgiveness of others—the kind our heavenly Father practices toward us—in which we decide not to remember. Though the record of our hurts may never fade from our consciousness, we consciously set it aside. It's a deliberate forgetfulness of the offenses of others and a studied forgetfulness of the sins of our own past—a refusal to let them continue to dictate the course of our decisions and reactions."

Looking back, maybe my family dinners could have used a large helping of remembering to forget. After all, grandma's impassioned appeals for everyone to just get along, never seemed to work. OK, who am I kidding? My Grandma never made the impassioned appeals, she was the troublemaker... ;)

You can read the whole article here.

Whoa!!! How did Google get a picture of my family's Thanksgiving dinner?!?

 

Living In and Out Generosity

Our most recent series in youth group was titled, "Wisdom". Bet you can't guess what it was about... Sorry, Ninjas is incorrect (Good guess though!). It was about wisdom. Specifically, divine wisdom.

As we looked into what wisdom was, what it means for our lives, and what our lives should look like if we are pursuing wisdom; we found out that wisdom calls us to be generous. Check it out in Proverbs 3. Yet, as we came to understand the type of generosity wisdom calls us to commit to; we saw it was selfless generosity. We weren't giving away our time, finances, or our kind words just to get praise and recognition. We were giving those things away because God was first generous to us. Generosity compelled by love and founded in wisdom is what Proverbs urges us with.

Kurt Johnson, wrote a neat piece on generosity recently over on the blog, morethandodgeball.com. Give it a read here. As we run into the holiday season, how can generosity help us slow down and engage in a meaningful spiritual activity with our kids?

Last Minute! Webinar with Walt Mueller

What are you up to tomorrow? Do you have an hour free? Say, 1-2 pm (2-3 EST) or 7-8 pm (8-9 EST). 

If you are free, and have $20, there is a CPYU webinar on  "Kids and Social Media". I have heard Walt Mueller speak in the past, and firmly believe it is worth $20! So, if you have the time, the $20, and an interest in the topic give him a listen. The great thing is it's a webinar... that means you can be present in your pj's and eat popcorn the entire time! 

Details are here.

Technology and Faith

Here are some stats from the Barna Group on how Millennials (18-29 yr olds) are using technology to pursue faith. What are the implications of this for our younger students? Say the 12-17 year olds.

How many of us as parents are adopting a digital format in pursuit to our faith? Personally, I use an ESV study Bible and the Glo Bible App on my iPad for most of my study now. I lean towards digital copies of books. And, love a good video illustration. But then again, at 27, I am firmly a Millennial son.

Do we lose something sacred, when our sacred text is in the digital format?
How do we encourage our students to find "true" quiet time
with God?
What are the benefits and challenging of having digital access to so many resources on faith?