eNews 07-04-2008

July 2, 2008

Hi Baysiders,

A lot of folks raised their hands this past Sunday to commit themselves to obeying God’s 4th Commandment to practice a Sabbath.  It means to rest, refresh, relax, stop, slow down, smell the roses, restore, chill out, kick back, and take some time for quiet!  How are you doing in thinking through and planning out your Sabbath rest?  Have you put it on the calendar and then scheduled it for each week?  We obey and please God when we have a regular Sabbath rest.  It includes our church, our family, and ourselves!

This week we’re continuing our series as we study how to honor our parents.

          “The Top Ten Principles for Better Living!”

                   Message and Commandment #5: Honoring our parents.

Parenting has got to be the most difficult job in the universe.  It involves taking responsibility for forming another human being into a fully responsible, fully functioning member of society.  If you over-parent you create resentment, if you under-parent you create insecurity, if you withhold you create bitterness and if you over indulge you create a spoiled brat!  Whew, it’s quite a chore to stay balanced.  And it changes from infancy to pre-school, grade school, adolescence, adulthood, and the golden years!  Obviously we can’t think through all these years in enormous detail but we will look at Biblical principles that will help every age group. 

Let me give you one example that helped Cindy and I in raising our kids when they were really young.  Someone said that the most difficult job in parenting pre-schoolers was to be able to distinguish between, “childhood inability and disobedience.” 

What does that mean? 

A 3-year-old at the dinner table accidently spills milk.  That is childhood inability that calls for a parent to come to that 3-year-olds aid.  That 3-year-old needs to feel that there are people in their family that encourage and help when there’s unintentional failure.  One of the reasons kids can be so critical of each other is because parents haven’t been understanding when they unintentionally fail.  If you as a parent are understanding and helpful when your kids fail, they’ll be more understanding and encouraging when people around them fail.

Now on the other hand when that rat of a 3-year-old picks up a glass of milk and pours it on the floor?  That calls for a quick, sure response of punishment.

We’ll talk about this more this Sunday!

73 people attended our first “Celebration Meeting,” as we voted our new constitution, budget, leadership and nominating committee into place.  We are now a fully functioning church!  If you’ve attended Class 101 and filled out the Membership Form and haven’t signed our Founding Members Book we invite you to do so.  It will be there on Sunday morning.  If you haven’t become a member, then we invite you to attend Class 101 this August and be a Founding Member of Bayside of Lincoln. 

Have a GREAT 4th of July, remembering to celebrate our enjoyment of freedom and liberty!

God bless,

Pastor Ed

Posted in eNews