Revitalize Your Church

A little girl, sitting on Grandpa's lap as he read her a bedtime story, asked  "Grandpa, did God make you?" "Yes, sweetheart," he answered, "God made me a long time ago." "Oh," she paused, "Grandpa, did God make me too?" "Yes, indeed, honey," he said, "God made you just a little while ago." "God's getting better at it, isn't he ?"

My good friend, Wendy Sanders, early childhood college professor and doctoral candidate at at Fuller Seminary recently posted the following on her new blog, Walking With Children: What we know from brain and psychology research, problem-solving is creative, memory is longer lasting and compassion is triggered by emotion and thought working together, not thought over emotion or emotion instead of thought. Damasio and Immordino Yang call it, "emotional thought." Mimi Michaelson did her doctoral research on adolescent moral exemplars who have developed far-reaching activities, such as what Ryan Hreljac did in building wells in Africa. She found each of the youth she interviewed had experienced a "trigger" incident--something that caught their attention. In my research on the processes of compassion within children, ages 6-11, I found that an emotional reaction triggered their recognition of the needs of others. In a way, re-writing my dissertation and re-thinking Micha...

Personality Set for Life By First Grade

"You get the children and the parents are pretty apt to follow." -- D. L. Moody

“You can't raise a child in a vacuum. All that carpet dust will clog up the kid's lungs.” -- Jacob M. Appel, American playwright, Arborophilia (2005) (photo from Flickr Twicepix)

To the delight of the children of our congregation, the new play structure is on the way. Special thanks to Bill Juen, Don Adams, Kurt Proctor, Pastor Jeremy Mavis and all the kids who worked hard to raise the funds for this special project. It is going to bless our whole community.

What does this say to the church?

A Child Shall Lead Them

Very early this morning, I was at the hospital with a dear couple who delivered a premature, stillborn baby. In their grief, they looked to me, for answers that made some kind of sense. I didn't know what to say. There are no words sufficient for such a heart wrenching experience. It was so sad. They asked me to baptize little LeAnn Marie. Surrounded by her loved ones, I held this precious infant in my arms, blessed her, baptized her and committed her into the loving arms of Jesus. She was so fragile . . . yet beautiful and definitely cherished. Please pray for LeAnn's mommy and daddy, as they walk the dark valley of grief. As I drove home a little while ago, the hymn, "Children of the Heavenly Father" came to my mind: Children of the heav’nly Father Safely in His bosom gather; Nestling bird nor star in Heaven Such a refuge e’er was given. God His own doth tend and nourish; In His holy courts they flourish; From all evil things He spares them; In His mighty arms...