Great time this Weekend as we enjoyed a 1st for our community as Pastor’s Eric and Kristen teamed up together to teach on the topic of cultivating joy in our home’s and leaving a legacy to our family, friends, and community. One things is for certain we will be doing this format again real soon. We received so many comments of the value of allowing Pastor Kristen a platform to minister in word.

The topic was rich and the challenge set as we discussed the importance of cultivating environments where Character, honesty and respect for authority are modeled.  Luke 6:46-49 challenges us to give careful attention to your foundation that your building on… The idea was stressed of the details and the little things in life that add u to make the big difference.

One of the way’s that is accomplished is to take advantage of the teaching opportunities that are all around us… just because we don’t always recognize the teaching moments that are there does not mean that they don’t exist. Gen 2:7 describes how God formed, breathed life and man became. It was the actions of One that caused another to become! Think about it… The actions of one cause another to become. What are my actions forming, breathing and creating in those who are close enough to observe them.  In our day and age there seams to be a serious lack of training going on… everybody just kind of has a hands off approach… Where are you intentionally forming, speaking words of life and witnessing one become?

It blew us away to learn that some stats say that the percentage of American homes that eat dinner every night while watching T.V. is nearly 70%. That means that we are allowing one of the best environments for creating community and family, forming and breathing words of life to be given over to Hollywood entertainment. Not to sound like a prude but if we’re not doing the training there then when are we doing it? Where do we discuss spirituality in out families, friends and acquaintances? Now I’m not advocating we go Bible Thumper here and shove it down someones throat… but where are we forming desire and cultivating hunger in our own lives , homes, communities? For those with children in the home or grown where do you talk about how to handle debt, How to handle money, Discuss conflict resolution, sex, drugs, life. Where are we consistently taking advantage of teaching moments.

One of the greatest lines I’ve recently read came out of a Sermon planning meeting and it was simply Complaints are to go up the chain and not down the authority chain. In other words we complain to those at the same level or higher in the authority structure never those that are under our authority. Good example is a wife that is frustrated with her husband should not complain to her children about their lazy dad… Or the dad does not complain to the children about mom not supporting him in a decision he has made. That is exposing our children to areas they are not mentally or socially able to process. It’s much better to take you frustrations to thoes that can actually do something about it, in doing so you protect the environment of your home and allow it to be a place of Joy and celebration because the proper authority in the home or business is intact and corrects can easily be made with out unnecessary strife and conflict through passive aggressive manipulation.

We ended by talking about how we model our faith for those that know us by the actions that we take. Instead of talking about your need of money do you talk about your faith in God that will supply all your needs. This is not a cop out for those that are unwilling to work and provide we know the Bible teaches work is Good and if you don’t work then that’s fine but you also then should not EAT! If work is unavailabel find away to serve in one of our ministries that are going on 7 day’s a week. However getting a 2nd and 3rd job, it is really getting more and more common, may not be the answer that your family needs you to be doing. Pray have faith and control your wants learn contentment and patience…

Psalms 103:1-4 “Ends by saying you redeem me from destruction… Casting Crowns has a song called “Slow Fade” we concluded this service with the video and realize it’s the importance of decisions that are the ingredients of a Home and a legacy of Joy.

Nehemiah 8 teaches us the JOY of the LORD is our Strength… May we live in Joy and Experience the strenght of our fathers supporting us in cultivating an home that glorifies him.

May we have the courage to live it!

Posted in Resources, Teaching Series