We had two couples in our group do the baby dedication in the services that morning at church. It was nice – very cool slide show and I never want to underestimate the significance of those moments. But at life group, I wanted to do something a bit different.

We went around the room and each of us gave the parents a nugget that we thought would be helpful on their journey in raising their kids under the authority of Jesus. Here is what was said:

Enjoy the time with them. It will go by very fast.

Don’t ever be afraid to apologize to your kids when you’ve messed up. It won’t undermine your authority, they won’t take advantage of it. They forgive quickly, it shows them true humility, they’ll grow up respecting you more for it.

What would you add?

There are so many different ways to process all of this. Our culture’s current addiction to twitter and soundbites will not be helpful at all. The reality is that it isn’t going away. More and more states are passing laws that define marriage and these political wars are getting harsher and harsher.

Stating The Obvious
Let me get the obvious out of the way. As a Christ-follower, I can’t in anyway be faithful to the scriptures and condone homosexuality or gay marriage or civil unions. It is a sin. One man, one woman, for life is the scriptural standard for marriage.

However – and I had this argument with a local politician last month – I am not prepared to hang the future of the entire civilization on ‘family values.’ Making gay marriage illegal is NOT going to fix our country. It’s just a symptom of a larger problem – the insatiable selfishness of people. That is the sin problem killing our world. I’m fairly certain that no legislation will ever cure that.

Dual Citizenship
The larger point is this – as a Christ-follower, I have dual citizenship. In the Kingdom and in the USA. Sometimes they coexist peacefully, other times they do not.

As a citizen of the USA, I have the right and responsibility to vote and participate in government informed by my values. And I do so. In our system of government, I can vote, argue and challenge to get laws that confirm my understanding of truth and right. We chose this way over civil war. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the alternatives.

As a Christ-follower, I have another citizenship. One to the Kingdom. It’s not a democracy. There is one King. It’s here and I am already a part of it AND it is not yet fulfilled, not yet complete. I have no voice in what is right and wrong.

My Kingdom citizenship WILL prevail eventually, in the long run. It must prevail inside my own life. But I understand that more than likely, it will NOT prevail in the short-term. In fact, it will be persecuted and challenged. Jesus told us as much.

So while I will vote my conscious, my other citizenship tells me to expect persecution and hardship. Christ tells me to love my ‘enemies’ and be a blessing to those who curse me.

I do not want lying, cheating, or slander legal. I don’t approve of divorce or adultery or gossip or greed. However, I still hang out with ‘those’ kind of people. Some days, I am those kind of people. I still love them. ‘They’ still come to our church, worship in our church and serve. They are welcomed in our church.

Just as I can’t compromise the clarity of scriptures on issues such as homosexuality, I can’t compromise the clarity of scripture on how I am supposed to treat all people.

I will vote my beliefs as will the rest of the country. But we Christ-followers were told how the world would really come to know Jesus – and it wasn’t by how we vote.

OTA TELEVISION
I remember those days of snowing images and tin foil around the antenna. OTA (Over-The-Air) HD is nowhere near that bad these days as long as you are in range of a local television. We get all the local channels very clear with a simple HD antennae. We don’t watch a lot of television like this – live sporting events, weather – but it’s there and “free” after you have the antenna. COST: $20-40 for HD antenna.

APPLE TVs
We have 2 Apple TVs.

The 1st Generation model is white, big, noisy, and runs hot. I got mine on ebay for $40. It also has a 40 GB hard drive you can store movies, music, photos, or television shows on through iTunes. You can watch YouTube through it but it does NOT have Vimeo or Netflix. We jailbroke it – legal – and now it can pull media off of our family iMac.

The 2nd Generation model of Apple TV is the small, black box. It pretty much is a small box of awesomeness. Netflix, Vimeo, YouTube, MLB.com – all great but the coolest thing is AirPlay. If you have an iPhone or an iPad – pretty much anything you can get on your phone will “AirPlay” on the television. In the 3rd Gen model, there is a mirror mode with the iPad. We have one up at the church – what an incredible teaching tool. I can zoom up maps or pictures or video from an iPad to the whole room. $99 retail.

Roku LT
It’s pretty cool. It’s basically a clumsy Apple TV. It’s got Netflix, Pandora, and Northpoint church has a channel. And Life Church and Granger Community. Pretty awesome. It’s also got Plex and Playon that allows you to stream a lot of online TV stations and whatever else you have on you computer.

It’s cool but takes a while to setup. Have to go back and forth from computer to TV. Not well laid out but it works. $40-90 depending what model you get.

Overall, we haven’t missed it all that much.

Theism vs. Atheism
Hearing two people debate atheism versus theism. There is a huge part of me that wants to interrupt and join in. Think they are both getting distracted on points of ‘argument’ that really doesn’t matter at all.

Both want to point to people inside their perspective ‘camps’ as either good or bad examples of their belief system. This to me is utterly ridiculous. This is like pointing to an elementary school band trying to play Mozart and say – “That Mozart guy was terrible. Who would ever write this and call it music??”

If you are going to look at examples – look at ideal from both camps and compare/contrast from there. Truth is truth and all truth will win out eventually. Don’t need the straw man or ridiculous examples to make a point.

Parenting
I’ve got a couple of friends right now just going through the ringer with their kids. I have no idea what to say to them other than…”hold on.” I find myself going back to the Prodigal Son story so much. It’s a deep, profound story on so many levels, particularly if you put yourself in the place of the dad. He had to know that the decisions that his younger son was making were stupid, hurtful and deadly. Yet he wisely recognized, he couldn’t stop him. That boy had his mind made up and the only thing he could do as a dad was hang on and be there when it all came crashing in.

I wonder how many sleepless nights that dad experienced? Praying that the son would return, would be broken enough to return but not killed or forever lost? The older son didn’t get it because he probably didn’t have kids. One day, he would. Maybe.

Brazil
We leave shortly. I love mission trips. I think they are the best kind of trips to take. Even for lost students. I know a lot of churches make a huge deal of who they take on a trip – and they should on one level. We are representing more than just ourselves when we go on these trips. We stand as representatives of our country and our God. That’s why it may be more important to make sure the student (or adult) is responsible, mature, teachable, and trustworthy – more than just “saved.”

A ‘saved’ immature, selfish kid on a trip is worse than an atheist, mature responsible kid.

Not sure why this thought has popped in my head.

The plan was to fry some fish, make some homemade salsa and guacamole. I normally fry fish in corn meal and a “not-so-secret” mix of spices that include Creole seasoning, salt and pepper. My grandmother fried fish this way. It’s awesome. Even people that don’t like fish, like my fish.

And I wanted to try something different. Mistake 1.

We found a batter that was flour based. I put the grease on the grill, getting it hot and ready to fry.

Normally, I stand there and watch it. Yes, it’s slow and boring but it’s safe. My dad’s a fireman, some things just sort of stay with you.

Whatever made me run inside and try to finish up the batter for the fish, I don’t really know. I do know that it was taking forever. Batter was working, was too thick, wasn’t sticking — just not working – when Coop says – “Man – the grill is really going good.”

There is nothing but smoke coming out of the grill. I know what’s happened. The grease in the iron skillet on the grill is so hot that it is burning, more than likely when I open the lid there is going to be a fire ball….on my brand new back porch.

I run outside and kill the gas burner. (Good.)

I can feel the heat from the grill and see the flames. (Not good.)

Amy grabs a bowl to smother the fire. (Good.)

I open lid of grill to put lid on skillet. (Not good.)

Fire shoots up into the sky. (Cool looking, but overall – not good.)

I get the bowl over the skillet and smoke goes everywhere. (Good.)

I tell my son that no matter what happens, he is NOT to put water on a grease fire OR call Topeka Fire Department. I would never hear the end of this if the Chaplain had to call the FD to put out a fire.

Meanwhile, new batter recipe has hardened a bit. (Not good.)

We move iron skillet off to the side so that we can get Fry Daddy out to continue making dinner. In process of moving iron skillet, bowl is knocked off pan and grease is still so hot, it catches on fire again. (Not good.)

Amy comes out with a big iron lid. That snuffs out fire. (Good.)

We finally get to frying fish. (Good.)

Batter will not fry right for some reason. Fish is dried out, crispy mess if we fry batter right. Batter is dripping goo if we keep fish moist and white like it’s supposed to be. (Not good.)

We dump new batter recipe, go back to old way. (Good.)

Cooking fish has now taken us 3 times as long as normal. (Not good).

Good news — the fish was awesome…finally. And I’m not changing my fish recipe ever again.