ReTHINK

Yesterday John and I spent the day in Raleigh at the ReTHINK conference. It was great time hearing about how the Word calls families to carry the responsibility of spiritual growth for their children. Many people believe that this lies on the shoulders of the youth pastor. We've been told so many times , "John could you get my child saved" or "my kid really needs to hear a pastor talk about responsibility or priorities".

This conference really emphasized what an important role the parents play in their childs spiritual growth. The family is to be an example of how we should be at church; loving others, being able to talk out differences, etc. However, because the family structure has fallen short of what God's word calls it to be, we see the impact on the church body often times through how they deal with one another.

One of the speakers talked about the importance of starting a childs spiritual development plan as soon as they are born. He challenged families to get in the word together, pray together and sing and worship together in their home setting from the time that your family begins. Doing this on a consistent basis begins to allow your kids to see the example. Only seeing parents be 'Sunday Christians' leaves students, especially as they get older, with a distorted view of how God calls us to live. This causes students to leave their faith or "graduate from their faith" as they graduate from High School.

There is a battle going on for the next generation. The only ones who truly can win are parents who partner with the church to grow their child spiritually ' so that they might not depart from it'.

While we were at the conference we had an awesome privilege to see Jon and Leigh Chasteen! We went to school together at Appalachian (GO MOUNTAINEERS!) and John and Jon played football together. They are serving at a church in Durham with their two beautiful kids.

Leigh and I both love to take pictures. We are laughing here because Leigh had picked out the background she wanted for our picture and we just needed someone to take it before the last speaker started. We were out near the parking lot and man in a suit was getting out of his car. Leigh grabbed him before he went in, asking him to take our picture. Noticing that he was in a suit the guys pointed out that it was Randy Stinson, our next speaker! He probably thought we wanted a picture with him but we really just needed him to press the button :) It was a really good laugh and I'm sure he didn't mind....so we told ourselves!

We had a good time together and they introduced us to a new place called Pei Wei. It was just like PF Chang's but the cheaper version of it. It was SUPER good and I'm sure we will go back together again!