Share 0 Who are the most influential leaders in your life? What made them such great leaders? I fear that our cultural understanding of leadership is going further and further astray from what true leadership is. We Americans seem to have a bizarre attraction to two types of leaders: celebrities and powerful communicators with bold, brash opinions. We judge leaders by the size of their platform. I was recently asked to speak to the Mom’s Matter group in our church about what healthy leadership in the home and beyond looks like. One of the comments by the leadership team that was made to me was that many moms believe they “don’t need to be or can’t be a leader because they are just moms.” I believe that’s an issue with men and women alike. The task of leadership feels daunting and we feel like we are unequal to the task, and so we shrink back from it. If leadership is influence, then every one of us is called to leadership. God has gifted you with influence. God has called and equipped you to influence your family. God has called and equipped you to influence your friends. God has called and equipped you to influence your church. You are called to lead. But the order of how we develop as leaders is important. We are called to lead our home first and that leadership is intended to cascade outward. Some are captivated by the possibility of leading “out there.” That can be a holy aspiration. But if we try to lead “out there” before we lead ourselves and our families first, then we have mixed up God’s order of what leadership was designed to be. The world gets leadership wrong. Our culture judges leadership by the size of the leaders’ platform. Scripture judges leadership starting with the home. If you can’t lead your family well, you cannot lead an organization well. If you can lead your family well, you can lead in whatever capacity God calls you. When Paul writes Timothy advice about choosing leaders for churches, he begins with the home. Paul explains, The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?[i] There are a few important things to note here. First, note Paul’s affirmation of the desire to lead in the church. Desiring to have your circle of influence grow is a “noble task” if your heart is right. But note then how Paul encourages Timothy to evaluate whether someone is up to the task: he tells Timothy to evaluate the potential leader’s home life. Is he a one-woman man? Does he open his home to outsiders? Do his children honor him? Male and female alike, the Bible exalts the importance of the home as our first place of leadership. What does that mean? There is no minimization of how difficult and important the task of loving your spouse is. There is no minimization of how difficult and important the task of fathering or mothering is.[ii] And, male and female alike, while our influence and leadership outside the home is never to take priority over the home, if you lead your home well, that godly leadership will naturally spill over into the rest of your life. If you’re not leading your home well, stop dreaming about leading an organization and devote yourself to leading and loving your home well. Whatever you think that will provide for you—respect, influence, power—those will all be empty if you are not respected by those closest to you. It is clear biblically that marriage is not a pre-requisite for leadership. If you aren’t married, I would maintain that these questions about home are still valid, if not differently applied. For singles, the question would be how well you lead and love your mom and dad, your sisters and brothers, your small group, your friends and roommates. On the flip side, if you are leading your home well, then don’t be closed off to God expanding your circle of leadership outside of your home. But how do you lead in your home well? www.thebeehive.live . Used by permission of the author.

WHY YOU SHOULD SEE “A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?” Russell Moore, in his charming article about Fred Rogers, pulls our heartstrings and reminds us how we should cherish those around us. His words inspire us not to see the sweater, but to hear his powerful Christian message: “This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of public television’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The milestone will bring with it a major book, a feature film (starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers), and even a U.S. postage stamp. When one considers all the ephemera of children’s programming, the ongoing cultural resonance of this show is staggering. Fifty years from now will anyone note the anniversary of Gumball or Clarence? I doubt it. So why does Mr. Rogers, even long after his death, still beckon us into his neighborhood? Fred Rogers, after all, is hardly the sort of person one would choose to “connect with the next generation.” He was a Presbyterian minister, of all things. Those cardigan sweaters and loafers would have seemed out-of-date in all fifty of the years since the first broadcast aired. Mister Rogers had no zaniness or charisma or celebrity pull that one would audition if one were looking for someone to speak to children. We are looking, ultimately, for the weight of the glory of the kingdom of the reigning Christ. But, sometimes, along the way, it’s good to be reminded that, despite all the brokenness and loneliness of a fallen world, it can be a beautiful day in the neighborhood. But that is why he persists in the public imagination. Mister Rogers was never “Fred.” He was Mister Rogers. He was a grown-up, and that’s exactly what children loved. That’s the part of Fred Rogers’s work that is probably the easiest to misunderstand. One can listen to the songs he sang… “It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive…” or “I like you just the way you are…” and assume that Rogers was a live-action version of a sappy self-esteem curriculum. Rogers, though, would talk to children about the darkest topics possible, addressing children’s fears directly, whether those fears were about being sucked down the drain in a bathtub or parents’ divorcing or the death of grandparents. He even helped children think through terrorist attacks and war, in a way that neither waved away the darkness of violence nor surrendered to fear or anger. When one listens to those old broadcasts, what is striking is that Rogers, while not startling children with graphic details inappropriate for them, deals honestly both with the children and the subject he’s addressing. There is reassurance, but it seems to be an earned reassurance—the reassurance of one who is a diplomat from the world of grown-ups. I think often of the account I read of a man who grew up in extreme neglect and abuse but found a few minutes of respite every day when he entered Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. “When he said, ‘I like you just the way you are,’ it was as though he was speaking directly to me.” Rogers transcends generational differences and media trends because he had a unique ability to break through the fourth wall of the screen, to seem to be actually talking to his audience, to actually almost see them. The idea of being seen, of being acknowledged, is almost universally recognized by early childhood development scholars as necessary for the healthy emotional and mental growth of a child. As a Christian, I think this need points not only to the foundations of nature, but beyond nature. At the baptism of Jesus, the Father’s voice announces, “You are My beloved Son, and with you I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Children were drawn to Rogers not because he was a spectacle; he wasn’t. They were drawn to him because an adult seemed to look over that glass divide and say to them that their value was not in their striving and doing and buying and consuming. “It’s you I like. It’s not the things you wear. It’s not the way you do your hair. But it’s you I like. The way you are right now. The way down deep inside you, not the things that hide you. Not your toys; they’re just beside you…But it’s you I like.” Sappy? Yes. Awkward? Kind of. Mister Rogers would probably plead guilty to all of that. But, for at least fifty years of children, he never seemed to be selling anything. In an era in which whirl is king, Fred Rogers provided a little vision of stability. He had the same house, the same mailman, the same puppets, and in his personal life, the same wife. In a world of fractured neighborhoods and splintered families, who can honestly say that we don’t need to see, somewhere, that such is possible? His program reminded us that we are not alone. He reminded us that no matter how we display and act tough, however much we “win,” that what we really want is to be known and to be loved. In 1997, Rogers received an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement. His acceptance speech went viral, and is widely viewed even now. What made it so was not some sort of explosive antic, but his request to the crowd to take ten seconds, in silence (“dead air” in television-speak) to think about the people in their lives, living or dead, who had believed in them, helped them along the way. Those ten seconds were filled with images of world-renowned celebrities wiping away tears. That, I think, is why Mister Rogers still matters. His program reminded us that we are not alone. He reminded us that no matter how we display and act tough, however much we “win,” that what we really want is to be known and to be loved. Mister Rogers never seemed to care whether people thought he was old-fashioned or irrelevant or not “edgy enough.” He remembered what it was like to be a child, but he had loved being a grown-up, and he knew we could too. We are looking, ultimately, for the weight of the glory of the kingdom of the reigning Christ. But, sometimes, along the way, it’s good to be reminded that, despite all the brokenness and loneliness of a fallen world, it can be a beautiful day in the neighborhood. www.russellmoore.com .

Any idea what the best outreach opportunity of the year at your church might be? You might think it’s an event you do, or perhaps it’s Easter. But whether Christmas has historically been your best opportunity to reach unchurched people or not, I believe it could be. You may think it’s far too early to start thinking about Christmas, but think again. Whenever I’ve shared these ideas about Christmas, people say “Hey, I wish you’d talked about this earlier.” So we are. So why can Christmas become your very best outreach event of the year? IT ONLY HAPPENS ONCE A YEAR THESE DAYS s our culture becomes more and more post-Christian, we’re seeing far fewer times when the holidays of the church and the holidays of culture sync. I remember about a decade ago hearing a Toronto DJ refer to Easter as “the first long weekend of summer” (in Canada Good Friday is a holiday and schools still take Easter Monday off…a relic from Colonial days). Good Friday and Easter were completely lost on him. It was simply time off. Christmas is completely different. Our culture still loves Christmas. Sure, the motives are commercial. But Christmas is the only time of year when you’ll hear malls belt out explicitly Christian songs like Charles Wesley’s “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing:” Veiled in flesh the Godhead see Hail the incarnate Deity Pleased with us in flesh to dwell Jesus, our Emmanuel If you follow a lot of Christians on social media leading up to Christmas, you probably have noticed how many people lament over the culture’s disregard of Christ. Well, you can see the obstacle. Or you can see the opportunity. I choose to see the opportunity. There are  so many connection points  with our culture you’ll miss if you only see the glass as half empty. his is no time for the church to be more cynical than the world, which still remembers something is different at Christmas, even if they’re not exactly sure what it is. Stop complaining about the world. Reach it instead. As the general population thinks less about the Christian faith, Christmas provides a unique opportunity to reach people who no longer ordinarily attend church. What’s surprising is that many churches don’t really leverage Christmas to make the impact it could. At Connexus Church, where I serve, our Christmas service wins hands-down every year for both overall attendance AND attendance by unchurched people. Although from a theological viewpoint, Christmas will never be bigger than Easter, when we think of it in practical terms, our Christmas outreach is always bigger than Easter simply because the culture is paying more attention. Our culture pauses for Christmas in a way it pauses for little else in the year. TV and film celebrate Christmas in all of its expressions. Almost everyone decorates their homes, businesses, and cities. On December 24th and 25th, the Western world comes as close to stopping as it ever does. I’m not sure there’s any better time than Christmas to connect with those of your friends and neighbors who rarely, if ever, go to church. Here are 11 ways to make Christmas your best outreach of the year. 1. DESIGN AN EVENT FOR YOUR COMMUNITY, NOT FOR YOUR MEMBERS So what’s the biggest mistake many churches make each Christmas? Simple. Too many churches hold a quiet Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service for members and leave it at that. Others will do little to nothing special. That makes Christmas the biggest missed opportunity of the year. Unchurched people want to celebrate Christmas. Why can’t your church help them? Here’s a hint: if you design your services with the community in mind, your members will love it too. Especially if their friends come and it changes their lives. 2. BRAND THE EVENT AROUND THE COMMUNITY, NOT YOUR CHURCH One of the best decisions we’ve made in the last few years is to take our church’s name off the main branding for our Christmas services. We simply use the names of the cities we’re in. So for Barrie, Ontario, we’re Christmas in Barrie. In Orillia, it’s Christmas Eve in Orillia etc. Sure, we let people know it’s hosted by a church, but people are looking for a place to celebrate and we want them to know we can host them and their family at an event designed for the city. We’re expanding our Christmas outreach this year into four cities that are within an hour of each other (which makes specific theming more difficult), so we’re using Christmas Eve in the City as a larger brand. 3. BUILD A SPECIAL WEBSITE If someone has to click through 15 pages of your website to find your Christmas services, they’ll probably give up. And even if you put it on the home page of your website, it’s still a church website. We started building custom sites a few years ago for our Christmas services and have been thrilled with the results. Again, people have Christmas on their mind, and when the site looks like Christmas and there are free tickets available (see below), it’s easier for people to say “I’m in.” Sites like this don’t have to be expensive. Get a teenager in your church to design one. Or, for a thousand dollars or so, you can have a basic site put together. Find an easy to remember URL (like ChristmasEveInTheCity.com or ChristmasInYourTown.com) that makes your site more findable, local and shareable. 4. EXPERIMENT WITH MULTIPLE SERVICE TIMES Not everyone can make it to your ‘one’ service. This year we’re doing 8 services over two days (the 23rd and 24th) in four cities. Yes, those are long work days for staff and volunteers, but you can reap a harvest all year long from that investment. We always offer more than one service time, because the reality is that different families have different needs. Young families seem to prefer earlier services so they can get their kids to bed early or have dinner together. Retail workers need a later service. This year at our broadcast location, our services will run at 1, 3, 5 and 7 p.m. At our three other locations, we’ve picked the middle to later service times. The reason? Providing multiple service times gives multiple families lots of opportunities to attend and to invite their friends. 5. STRETCH YOURSELF AND EXPERIMENT To be honest, pulling off Christmas services in four cities is going to stretch our team. But it’s a good way to test out new venues, new places and new communities in which you might one day have locations. Sometimes stretching yourself calls out the very best in people, challenges them to invite, and it can bring your church into communities in brand new ways in a season in which people are already looking for events to attend. Sounds like a great combination to me. 6. GIVE YOUR CONGREGATION INVITATION TOOLS Did you know that 82% of people would come to church if a trusted friend invited them? Yet in a typical year, only 2% of Christians invite a friend to church. Heartbreaking. Create some full-color cards with details on it which people can hand to their friends. Last year we tied candy canes to Instagram-like cards to make them easier to hand out to friends. This year we’re also doing business-size cards and some full-size posters. The posters pop up all over our cities in places like Starbucks, hockey arenas, community centres and more. It’s easier to invite a friend to something like Christmas than to a regular Sunday morning. 7. USE SOCIAL MEDIA Sure, maybe you don’t have the bandwidth to build fresh websites. Just do it for free using social media. Create a Facebook event or promoted posts. Use all your social media channels and get the word out. Encourage your people to share with their friends. They are your number one source when it comes to promotion because they’re already invested and engaged. This year we’re doing a Photo Booth at our campuses that will create some fun Instagram moments with dressed up kids and people holding a “Join us for Christmas Eve” signs. 8. DISTRIBUTE (FREE) TICKETS Why not ticket your Christmas services? Free tickets, of course, but tickets help create demand. They have also helped us manage fire code. Eventbrite is an inexpensive and easy solution. Plus, having tickets drive decisions and commitments to attend. 9. LOVE YOUR COMMUNITY This year, we’re attempting to give double the amount of money we normally give to our community partners like the local food bank, right before Christmas. We’re also participating in local Christmas parades and community events in ways that show our community that we’re for them and that God is for them. Love makes a pretty irresistible force when it’s unleashed on a city. And generosity makes an impression on unchurched people. 10. INVITE THEM BACK Every year, without hopefully sounding like a commercial, we invite people back for January. They get a card explaining the new series and dates, times and locations. Last year we even played the trailer for our January series during the services even though it was anything but “Christmassy.” Because our January series dealt with a felt-need (people don’t like their jobs and find life overwhelming at times), it created a huge buzz and many guests returned in January simply because they saw the trailer. I know inviting sounds basic, but you’re dealing with unchurched people. Think about it, you would never go to a party unless you knew you were invited. Unchurched people don’t know they’re invited unless you invite them. So invite them. 11. PLAN A CALL TO ACTION God’s grace is sovereign. We’ve had people commit their lives to Christ during volunteer events and during series about tithing. So God can do anything. But you need to do your part. Don’t let people walk away bored or with just a big warm fuzzy. Challenge them. People will leave mostly unchanged unless you create a different expectation. Almost every year, we give people an opportunity to surrender their lives to Jesus… and it’s amazing how many people do. And when we invite them back and offer them steps to take in the new year (like beginning Starting Point), Christmas starts a journey for them that often ends with them surrendering their lives to Christ. www.careynieuwhof.com . Used by permission.

Walk into most churches nowadays and you will likely hear a message of love, hope, encouragement, and identity. And all that is good and well. After decades of overly harsh messages, the pendulum has naturally swung to the other side—but have we swung it too far? Are we so set on being seeker-friendly that we neglect what it means to be a true friend to those walking through our doors? Now the mistake we made in previous decades was to tell the truth in ways that weren’t always loving. The answer to this is not to shrink back from speaking truth. It is to learn to speak the truth in love. Jesus was certainly a friend of sinners—and we should be too—but it’s time we reassess what being a friend actually looks like. I don’t know about you, but I, for one, expect my friends to tell me the truth. I don’t want them to bash me over the head with it, but I do want them to tell me the things I need to hear in a loving way. We’ve all been given truth without love at times. It doesn’t feel very good. Truth without love is mean—but love without truth is meaningless. We need both. And when we look at Jesus, we see these two qualities on full display. He is the God who so loved the world, the one who is Himself the very nature of love, yet He is also the truth (John 14:6). Consider the example of the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8. She is exposed in her sin and is surrounded by her self-righteous accusers who want to stone her. Most of us know the story. Jesus reaches down and writes something mysterious in the sand. Then he stands up and says to those condemning her, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” One by one, beginning with the older ones, her accusers begin to turn away. And then comes the moment of beautiful grace we’re all familiar with. Jesus turns to her and says, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She responds, “No one, sir.” And He says, “Then neither do I condemn you.” Simply awe-inspiring. What an amazing embodiment of love and grace and beauty all wrapped up into this potent moment. The God of eternity reached down into the dust of our existence and transformed it with a single touch. But if Jesus had the attitude of most churches today, that’s where the story would end. Thankfully, it doesn’t. His love for us extends well beyond that. As beautiful as the words “Then neither do I condemn you” are, His next words are equally charged with grace, love, and truth. He tells her, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” Why? Because He knows she’s been looking for life in places she can’t find it. Because He knows she’s been trying to drink from cracked, dry cisterns that can’t touch her thirst for more. Because He sees the broken ways of living she’s embraced, and is inviting her to leave them behind. Because His desire for her is that she run fully in the identity He created her for, and He knows she’s been living far below it. He sees the pain her choices have caused in her life and in the lives of others, and He has so much better things in store. Do you see this? This call is an invitation to more, and It’s breathtakingly BEAUTIFUL. You see, Jesus loves us where we are but he never leaves us where we are. He calls us into life. My question is, as a church, are we doing the same? When I look at the body of Christ at large, we are eerily silent on so many things that are wreaking havoc in people’s lives—things like greed, same-sex attraction, hypocrisy, gossip, self-identification, slander, moral relativism, gender confusion, abortion, pornography, and more. Is this what truly loving people equates to—silence? Would we rather risk leaving someone in bondage and shame than say something in love that may temporarily offend or discomfort them? Have we confused loving people unconditionally with giving blanket approval of their actions? Do we believe God’s Word still speaks to these things? It is not God’s Word that is silent on the controversial topics of our day—it’s us . And the hard truth is that we are not truly loving people the way Jesus did if we shy back from the truth in the name of love. Jesus never did. His love runs so much deeper than that. Beloved, let’s be like Jesus, full of compassion, yet uncompromising in truth. May we never cease to declare with boldness the unchanging, constant, unconditional, infinite, undeserved, adamant love of God—but let’s remember that love always calls us out of brokenness into something better. Let’s never forget that the same Jesus who says, “Neither do I condemn you” says, “Go and leave your life of sin.” He doesn’t just forgive our sins and remove our shame. He sets us free from sin’s tyrannical rule in our lives and invites us into life as He intended for us. God, in His adamant love for us, won’t settle for anything less. We shouldn’t either. www.messengerinternational.org . Used by permission.

A mother asked, “Where have you been?” Her little girl replied, “On my way home I met a friend who was crying because she had broken her doll.” “Oh,” said her mother, “then you stopped to help her fix the doll?” “No,” replied the little girl, “I stopped to help her cry.” Hurt and pain are inevitable. It’s not a matter of if we’re going to be hurt, but rather when and how we will deal with the pain . Pain takes many forms. It can be physical (a sprained ankle), social (exclusion from a group), or emotional (embarrassment, disappointment). Some hurts may be perceived as relatively minor—“I was embarrassed at lunch today when I spilled ketchup on my shirt.” Others are major—“My father abandoned me.” There’s only one antidote for hurt—comfort. Here are some practical suggestions on how to comfort other people. Learn to sense when someone is hurting and be willing and available to help her. We’re often unaware when people are hurting. Sometimes circumstances will give us a clue (physical illness, death of a loved one, divorce or separation, loss of a job), but often it’s not so apparent. So be discerning and learn to recognize when people are in need of comforting When you do sense that someone is hurting, are you willing to slow down and take the time to minister comfort or do you choose not to “go there”? You must be discerning, willing, and available. When someone is hurting, if possible, enter her physical world. While it is possible to comfort someone over the phone or in a letter, it is best done in person and preferably in the hurting person’s space. If your friend is hurting, instead of suggesting, “Susan, it sounds like we need to talk. Can you drop by my office this afternoon?” it’s better to offer, “Susan, it sounds like we need to talk. Can I come by your office this afternoon?” Enter her mental and emotional world. Humans live in at least three “worlds” simultaneously: physical, mental and emotional. While it’s easy to determine where someone is physically, it’s more difficult to determine where she is mentally and emotionally. But to comfort effectively it helps to understand what a person is thinking and feeling. Often, just asking directly – “How are you feeling? What are you thinking?” – is sufficient. At other times it takes more effort, particularly if the person is guarded and reticent to share. Listen. A good comforter must be a good listener. Let the one who is hurt do most of the talking; if you talk too much you’ll inevitably engage in unproductive responses. When someone needs comfort, avoid these unproductive responses. Advice/instruction – “Let me give you some steps of action to solve the problem.” Or, “Maybe next time that happens you should…” Logic/reasoning – “Let me analyze the situation and tell you why it happened.” Or, “I think the reason this happened was because…” Pep talk – “You’re a winner! You’ll make it through these tough times!” Or, “I’m sure tomorrow will be a better day.” Minimize – “Sure it hurts, but get it in perspective, there’s a lot going on that’s good.” Or, “Aren’t you being overly sensitive?” Anger – “That makes me so mad! They shouldn’t get away with that!” Or, “I’m so upset that you keep getting yourself hurt.” Martyr’s complex – “I had something similar happen to me.” Or, “After the kind of day I had, let me tell you what hurt really feels like.” Personal fear/anxiety – “I’m afraid that what has happened to you is going to affect my life too.” Silence/neglect – Not saying anything. Fix it – “I can’t believe that salesman talked to you like that. I’m calling the store right now and talking to his boss.” Or, “Sorry you had a flat tire on that lonely road. Tomorrow I’ll get a set of new tires.” Spiritualize – “Well, you know that God will work all of this out for your good.” While some of these responses may be appropriate to share after the hurting person has been comforted, they don’t work as the initial response. Learn the “vocabulary of comfort.” Often, we don’t know what to say to someone who is hurting because we’ve never developed an appropriate vocabulary. We don’t need to say a lot, a few choice sentences are sufficient. Here are some suggestions. I’m so sorry that you are hurting. It saddens me that you’re hurting. I love you and care for you. I’m committed to help you through this difficult time. It saddens me that you felt _________ (embarrassed, rejected, belittled). I know that must have hurt. I know that you’re hurting. I just wanted to come be with you. When speaking words of comfort, it’s also important that our tone of voice complement what is being said. Our speech should be warm, sincere and gentle. Use appropriate non-verbal gestures. A warm embrace or gentle touch can express comfort. Tears shed for someone else can convey love beyond words. Jess Moody says this about comfort, “Have you ever taken a real trip down inside the broken heart of a friend? To feel the sob of the soul – the raw, red crucible of emotional agony? To have this become almost as much yours as that of your soul-crushed neighbor? Then, to sit down with him – and silently weep? This is the beginning of compassion.” We continually come in contact with people who are hurting. Let’s minister grace and healing to them through the simple but effective gift of comfort. www.donmcminn.com . Original material from Dr. David Ferguson of www.greatcommandment.net.

“Thanksgiving is a posture of both mind and heart where we recognize how terribly fortunate we are, and how much we’ve been blessed despite the fact that we probably haven’t been the blessing that we should have been.” “Thanksgiving is coming to the life-altering understanding that truly precious things can’t be owned anyway. And the wonder of it all is not only realizing that we can’t own them, but it’s realizing that we don’t have to expend the energy in the maintenance of them in order to enjoy them.” “The longer I’ve walked with God the more I’ve realized that being thankful is vigorously celebrating what’s right in the world while anticipating that what’s wrong with it will soon follow suit.” “Thanksgiving reminds us that no matter what befalls us in life, we can take the charred remnants and we can reconstruct a life unimaginably richer than that from which the shards and pieces fell.” “With God, what’s possible will always be infinitely greater than what we believe to be probable. And we can be thankful that such a reality means that where we see a wall, God wishes to unveil a horizon.” “Thanksgiving is an attitude that must be rooted in the ‘gift of life’ if we ever hope to be thankful for the ‘gifts’ of life.” “Being thankful for something instantly grants that thing a depth it would not have had were I not thankful for it. And while I can certainly live without having had that kind of depth, in turn I will have died without ever having had any kind of life.” “I am thankful that I can be thankful, for if thankfulness did not exist my heart would be irretrievably imprisoned by the crazed twins of acquisition and possession, and my soul would exist as a forever slave to greed.” “Thanksgiving is not some formulaic action based on a tedious ledger that neatly tallies everything I have received so I can determine if being thankful is warranted or not. Rather, it’s appreciating the fact that I have already received the privilege of living life which in and of itself will fill the whole of my ledger for the whole of my life.” “I am most thankful for what I don’t have, for had my life’s wish list been filled in the manner I had chosen I would be steeped in meaningless trinkets verses bathed in God’s treasures.” “We recklessly attempt to disguise our ‘greed’ by dressing it in the garb of other nobler ideals such as ‘rights’ and ‘privileges.’ Yet, if we dare dress ‘greed’ in an authentic sense of thankfulness, greed will suffocate within the folds of that very clothing.” “To be thankful when my world lays in ashes long gone cold is to finally understand that ashes are the raw materials from which God shapes dreams infinitely grander than whatever the ashes were before they were ashes.” “Thankfully, what God does is always bigger than our ability to contain it.” “In my desperation, I have finally discovered that the only way that I can begin to fill the gaping hole within me is to be thankful for what’s there, and not angry for what’s not.” “Because thankfulness is the tonic that always cures the cancers of greed, envy and jealously, it should be taken in liberal doses daily.” “To savor the simple privilege that every day I have a sunrise to bathe in, a storehouse of opportunities to romp through, the thick wrap of relationships to keep me warm, a God who meticulously tends to every detail round about me, and it all costs me not a dime. What madness would keep me from being eternally thankful for all that?” “Thankfulness allows us to walk through a world inundated by opportunities and possessions, being slaves to neither.” www.craiglounsbrough.com . Used by permission.

Don’t be stingy with your stuffing. Don’t be tight with your tortilla casserole. Abigail, the consummate hostess, was the Martha Stewart of her day. She calmly faced an army of angry guests with grace. Abigail’s name means “Whose Father is Joy.” But her married name was “Whose Husband is a Beast.” She was gorgeous, wealthy and wise. However, like so many marriages that appear happy on the outside, they are nightmarish beneath the surface. Nabal, (the name means “fool”) was drunken and abusive. Young women of Abigail’s day did not have the luxury of choosing a mate. Her father probably chose Nabal for his beautiful daughter because he was filthy rich. But no amount of riches can replace kindness, respect or appreciation from a spouse. However, Abigail made lemon bars out of lemons. She remained faithful to Nabal and served him well. Her domestic domain ran like a well-oiled machine. I’m sure the servants loved her! Here’s how her story unfolds in 1 Samuel 25: “Then David moved down into the Desert of Paran. A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.” Sheep-shearing time was the Thanksgiving holiday in Bible days. Every hard worker feasted on the fruits (or mutton) of his labor. So it was customary for a landowner to reward those who protected his flock and shepherds from thieves and wolves. David and his men had faithfully served Nabal and his flocks. So David said, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name. Say to him: ‘Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours! “‘Now I hear that it is sheep-shearing time. When your shepherds were with us, we did not mistreat them, and the whole time they were at Carmel nothing of theirs was missing. Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’” Nabal’s answer to David was just plain mean. His soldier’s waited politely for their food and Nabal rudely replied: “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?” First of all, everybody knew who David was. He was a fierce, famous warrior. He called David a slave, when in reality he was King Saul’s son-in-law. And he offered him paltry turkey sandwiches and well water instead of lamb and wine. How insulting! How foolish! David was incensed. He brandished his sword and took four hundred men to destroy Nabal and his household! That’s what I call overkill…. David said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good. May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”? Abigail got wind of Nabal’s drunken, surly response. The servants who overheard David’s angry words raced to warn the mistress of the household. Wise Abigail was a quick thinker. She stared down the face of death and saved the day with roast mutton, bagels, raisin bread and figgy pudding for six hundred famished soldiers. And remember, in Abigail’s day, EVERYTHING was from scratch. The good wife was also ready to eat humble pie. We learn so much about this remarkable woman from her speech to David: “When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal. And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you. “Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live. Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel, my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember your servant.” Abigail’s religious witness and knowledge of Jewish history testify to an early training in a godly home, and acquaintance with the teachings of the prophets in Israel. Her plea before David also reveals her understanding of the events of her own world. Notice this phrase: “the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. “ Even Abigail knew the heroic tale of David’s victory over the giant Goliath with a sling and a stone. She also was deeply spiritual, and knew how to appeal to the “man after God’s own heart.” She reminded David that God’s was his strength and his destiny was to be king. She appealed to David to keep himself pure by showing mercy instead of vengeance. Wow! What a lady! Herbert Lockyear, author of All the Women of the Bible wrote: “We can never gauge the effect of our words and actions upon others. The intervention of Abigail in the nick of time teaches us that when we have wisdom to impart, faith to share, and help to offer, we must not hesitate to take any risk that may be involved.” Abigail returned and remained faithful to Nabal the Nasty. But God didn’t forget her kindness, nor did David. When Nabal sobered up and learned the consequences of his reckless behavior, he keeled over with a heart attack and bit the dust ten days later. David heard the news and immediately proposed. She became the wife of a king. This amazing lady is one of the few women in the Bible who is considered to be a type of Christ. She stood in the gap between God and sinful men. Abigail teaches us many lessons about serving others. 1. Be calm. Don’t be a “Martha” hostess. Martha of Bethany will always be remembered as an angry, anxious hostess, focused on the food and insensitive to her guests. She was mean to her sister Mary and mad in the kitchen. Think about it. She had Jesus as a dinner guest! 2. Be godly. If you spend time loving God, you will be gracious. Put first things first. Celebrations can be stressful. Be sensitive to your guests. Ask God to show you their emotional needs. The way to one’s heart is not through the stomach, it’s through the heart! 3. Be realistic. You will make mistakes. The kids will be boisterous, especially if they’re hyped up on sugar. Don’t expect perfection. Every family gathering has a few good eggs and a few bad apples. 4. Be generous. Send meals to the sick and elderly. Serve Thanksgiving dinner at a homeless shelter. The holidays should be a time for giving, not spending. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are not always about the food. I am a crummy cook. I’m so terrible that my daughters won’t even let me bring a Jello salad to dinner. Last year, I made frozen cranberry bars and I found them in my eldest daughter’s freezer two weeks later. She hid them from the guests!! But I do know how to make others feel welcome. We often invite guests to our celebration who live far away from home. One year we invited a soldier stationed nearby to come to our dinner and to visit our church. He started playing trumpet in the church orchestra. Chris married one of our violinists and now they have seven beautiful kids! Don’t be a Martha. Be an Abigail.

Children are like wet cement. If you’ve ever worked with wet cement or seen someone work with it, it does harden up pretty quickly and so it is with the personalities of our kids. If you want to put this to test in your life, here’s a suggestion around the dinner table. Parents, ask your son or daughter that’s a teenager to describe themselves as a little kid, and just sit back and listen. And listen to the adjectives that they use to describe their personality. And then ask yourself the question, “Did they not just name and enumerate the qualities that they now have at 15, 16, 17 years of age?” At age two, about 20 to 40% of your kid’s personality is already formed. That’s frightening. Three, 60%. Four, 80%. Five, nearly 100%. So we take this topic on today. And by the way, just for everyone’s enjoyment. I hate the question that Doug asked me today. It’s name the three. Let me tell you, it could be name the 17 things that are important to teach your child before they harden up, so to speak. 1. ESTABLISH YOUR AUTHORITY IN THE HOME WITH THAT CHILD THAT’S UNDER FIVE.   Well, what does that mean? It means you’re not their friend, you’re not their best buddy, you’re not their playmate. You’re mom, you’re dad. You come with a presence of love and acceptance and all the hugs and kisses and all those things. Please, I’m not taking anything out away. Do that as much as you want, but you have to learn as kids develop before your very eyes, what’s developmentally appropriate behavior and what isn’t. Some parents think that their two-year old is going to do everything they ask them to do in double time and salute them as well. It doesn’t work that way with two-year olds. The kid just begins to get powerful around age 18 months and that’s when he begins to, and she begins to look at life from behind their rose colored glasses, or at least their skewed blends, and they see life as, “My playground. I’m the center of the universe. I want. It’s mine.” And you’ll get the mine, all the way through the threes. So kids are very hedonistic. Do you let a 17-month old hit you or a 19-month old hit you? No you don’t. Well, what do you do, Leman? You hold their arms. You’re the adult. Act like an adult, “Honey, we don’t hit people.” So you’re always teaching. And this is three steps forward and two behind. Go back to my earlier statement. This isn’t the military. You don’t issue a dictate and the kids follow in. It takes training. And because different kids come into this world with different mindsets, sort of a build-in personality if you will genetically, you’ve got kids that come out of the womb strong-willed. They got a little bit more fight in them than the guy next to them. So is there an art form to all this? It is. But I think overall number one is establishing your authority. If you’re an authoritarian, you’ll crush your kid. You’ll tell them what to do, how to do it, and do it on a double. That’s the authoritarian model. Here’s the problem. All of us essentially grew up in an authoritarian environment. If you’re really a young mom today, you’re that 20 year old, 21, 22-year-old, maybe your home was not that authoritarian. My guess would be it would be more permissive, because we have certainly moved traditionally from our authoritarian stance to one of permissiveness. And so again, if you love your child, you’ll discipline them. That is a biblical concept. Well, how do you discipline a two year old? I mean, do you swat them on the bottom? I don’t think that’s good. I think you’re just going to make them a more powerful kid. But I think you give them the look, a look of disapproval, you pick them up, you may move them from the scene. Sometimes you put them in a little playpen, which reminds me of the old song “Don’t Fence Me In”. There’s something great about fencing in a kid quite frankly. There’s a time where a kid realizes, “Hey, wait, you’re way over bouncy. You need time just to settle down.” And so that’s part of the disciplinary process. But as kids get into the threes and the fours, trust me, they know what they’re doing. I mean, they’re setting you up. They’re playing you like a violin. So being an authority is always part of being loving and empathetic. So we’re not taking any of that away from you as a parent. We’re just saying you just can’t get frustrated. You’re the adult. You have to control your emotions. And kids will test your emotions and your patience and if you just strike out at your child, then you’re certainly going down the wrong path quickly. 2. LISTENING. Most of us as adults are not good listeners, and here I am saying that number two behind established authority is to teach kids to listen. Well, we train kids essentially in our society not to listen. How do we do that? Well, we do it by telling most kids at least three times when we ask a question. And we say, “Honey, would you do this?” Or it’s time to get ready or turn off the television or pick up your shoes or whatever the command might be. The kids sort of train us to say it three times. I’ve asked kids straight out how many times doe it take for mom or dad to get you to do something. Most kids will say three. One kid, I’ll never forget him, he said, “The first time is sort of a general alert. The second one is she raises the voice a little bit more and a third time, oh, you can see it in her eyes. She means business.” And so we try and kids do not to listen to us. It’s important that you get kids’ attention, that you look them in the eye, that you drop to the knees. If there’s a problem, you need to talk about it and you’re going to speak the truth in love. I know you’re talking to a two year old or three year old or a four year old, but again, keep in mind once a kid hits 18 months, they know what they’re doing. They engage in what we call purposive behavior. It serves a purpose in their life. It might be just as simple a mantra in the kid’s mind as, “I want things done the way I want things done.” Remember you’re training up a kid to realize that other people count in life. That’s why you say to a three year old, “Honey, thank you for sharing that with your little sister.” You know what I’m saying? This is not a one, two, three, here it is. This is an ongoing shaping of the child’s behavior, attitude, as they unfold through the developmental years. Most of us as adults are not good listeners, and here I am saying that number two behind established authority is to teach kids to listen. Well, we train kids essentially in our society not to listen. How do we do that? Well, we do it by telling most kids at least three times when we ask a question. And we say, “Honey, would you do this?” Or it’s time to get ready or turn off the television or pick up your shoes or whatever the command might be. The kids sort of train us to say it three times. I’ve asked kids straight out how many times doe it take for mom or dad to get you to do something. Most kids will say three. One kid, I’ll never forget him, he said, “The first time is sort of a general alert. The second one is she raises the voice a little bit more and a third time, oh, you can see it in her eyes. She means business.” And so we try and kids not to listen to us and what I’m saying is it’s important that you get kids’ attention, that you look them in the eye, that you drop to the knees. If there’s a problem, you need to talk about it and you’re going to speak the truth in love. I know you’re talking to a two year old or three year old or a four year old, but again, keep in mind once a kid hits 18 months, they know what they’re doing. They engage in what we call purposive behavior. It serves a purpose in their life. It might be just as simple a mantra in the kid’s mind as, “I want things done the way I want things done.” You’re training up a kid to realize that other people count in life. That’s why you say to a three year old, “Honey, thank you for sharing that with your little sister.” You know what I’m saying? This is not a one, two, three, here it is. This is an ongoing shaping of the child’s behavior, attitude, as they unfold through the developmental years. 3. LET YOUR YES BE YES AND YOUR NO BE NO. That reeks of consistency, and by the way, when we talked earlier about establishing authority, it’s really important and I hope it’s just super obvious that mom and dad must be on the same page. If you’re a single parent and listening to us, I would say make sure that you are extremely consistent with how you deal with your kids. And let your yes be yes and your no be no, I think helps number two and that is train kids to listen to you. I think when they know that when you say no, they’re not going to come by and bug you 14 times. They only come by and bug you 14 times when you waiver. When you say, “No, you are absolutely not doing that.” And then you cave in five hours later and give them permission to go to wherever they wanted to go and give them $20 for spending money to boot. Think before you engage in that yes or no. I think a great answer for kids these days, if you’re a parent is, “Honey, let me talk to dad or mom about that. Let me have some time to think about it. And in fact on that one I’d like to pray about it. So if I got back to you tomorrow, would that be good? Could we talk about it again?” Again, most kids will accept that because you’re being respectful, you’re listening to them, but don’t always feel like you have to pony up that yes or no immediately. Now again, I know kids are hedonistic. My granddaughter’s parents wouldn’t drive her to a fair they had on the other side of town, which was about a 45-minute drive. And both of them have very busy schedules, and it was a Sunday evening, schools the next day, and both of them said no. Well, what does granddaughter do? She gets on the phone. She tried to find grandma, but grandma wasn’t available. So she started with grandpa. She would always start with grandma first because grandma’s an easy touch. Grandpa’s not the easy touch that grandma is. And I just told her, I said, “Honey, I wish I could help you out, but honey I really can’t.” And then of course, eventually she got grandma and even grandma, old softhearted turned her down and said, “Honey, next week if you want me to take you someplace, I’d be glad to.” That’s the immediacy of kids thinking. As a parent, you’ve got to slow that down. You know that. You just can’t cave and try to attend to every need your kid has because what they need is not really a need. It’s what they want. There’s a difference of what you want and what you need. So that’s why God gave us parents. Some parents are thinking, well what’s wrong with promising a kid something, and give them something to look forward to? Well, there’s a lot of wrong with it for this reason. Is your car going to be working? Is it going to be raining? Does somebody have the flu in the family? I mean, don’t go there. You don’t have to promise kids things. You can always say, “Honey we’re going to take it a day at a time. We’ll see what the weekend brings. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to pull that off.” So don’t paint yourself in the corner, is what I’m saying? Three essential necessities we should have trained in our kids before they are five: Establish authority as a parent. Train them to listen to you Let your yes be yes and your no be no. www.birthorderguy.com . Listen to the podcast HERE .

Lysa TerKeurst shares the secret of wisdom in “Wisdom Together:” Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” James 3:13 (NIV) For all of their lives, my children have known a secret. When circumstances fall apart, there is a safe place. Their mom’s arms. More than a hug, this place beats with the gentle rhythm of a heart that feels what they feel. So they bring what they can’t bear to experience alone into this place. And we reconnect. So, when my daughter crawled into my arms at 3 a.m. several years ago, I knew. Trouble had found its way into her heart. A boy, whom she thought would handle her heart gently, didn’t. Her crush, crushed her. She felt it all so deeply. And while I could see it was all for the best, I hurt for her with her split-open heart, because she’s mine — my girl who couldn’t sleep, so she slipped into my bed to be near the rhythmic heartbeat she’s known since she was conceived. And in the quiet middle of the night, I held her. I brushed her long brown hair off her tear-streaked face. I kissed the wet salt on her cheeks. And I whispered, “I love you.” And she knew I was safe. Her safe place to run and find when the world got wild and cruel and heartbreakingly mean. The next morning, she showed me the source of her middle-of-the-night anguish: a text message from him. His words were from a heart entangled with immaturity and his own sources of hurt. He wasn’t a bad person. He was young. And sometimes young means incapable of handling situations the right way. I understand that. Age has given me that gift. But my young girl did not understand. She took the words like daggers to the heart. And cried. She handed me the phone. “Help me reply.” There we sat in the midst of poached eggs and toast crumbs, talking together, thinking together, replying together. Together is a really good word. Together is what we need when we hit tough patches in life. No matter what hard place we find ourselves in, feeling alone can make us vulnerable to bad decisions. Hard places can so easily make us want to default to our feelings rather than to wisdom as our guide. That’s not the best time to make a decision. Especially not alone. I suspect if you’re in a tough place, it probably feels more significant than a teenage heartbreak. I understand. I’ve been there. And I’ll probably be there again. And when we’re there, we have to be honest that we’re not in the place to make big decisions right then. Maybe we’re not even in the place to make decisions on simple requests from others. This doesn’t make you bad or incapable. It makes you smart. Smart enough to know to pause and take extra time when life takes on extenuating circumstances that are hard. In this pause from decisions, go to your safe place. When the world beats you down, open up your Bible. Let His sentences finish yours. Let truth walk before you like a guide on a dark path. And also go to someone in your sphere of influence whom you know is wise. How do we know whom to go to? The Bible makes it clear: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom” (James 3:13). Yes, let these wise people help you. Stand on top of their wisdom when you feel shaky with your own. When we can rise up on the wisdom of others and get a new view of our situations, our next steps seem a little clearer. Father, thank You for the help You surround me with — not only in Your Word, but also with the people You place in my life. Give me the wisdom to reach out for help when I need it. And make me aware of those around me who are hurting and could use Your hope. In Jesus’ Name, Amen https://lysaterkeurst.com/