Post Sunday June 14 2009

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

TRAINING UP… Whenever I hear the word training for some reason I always remember Rocky Balboa, waking up at the crack of dawn, drinking raw eggs, stumbling out into the cold streets of Philadelphia and slowly working up his legs into a full sprint and then into the gym for the rest of the day with Mickey. The training was meant to prepare him for the fight, prepare him in order to provide him the BEST opportunity to win. Same motions over and over again, working them, perfecting them.

The service yesterday was truly a joy for me yesterday. Crying babies in the back, young squirming children in the front, numerous adults in the middle with huge smiles on their faces. We witnessed a piece of the training that goes on at New Heights. We watched our 252 Vertical children’s ministers not simply teaching our children, but training them at the same time as well. The same repetitive messages running through the differing Bible stories, week in and week out, being worked out, fleshed out and beginning that process of perfecting them. Just like Rocky right Adrian? Well, sort of.

When we are talking about training up a child in the way he should go; we are talking about training them to live as God designed us to live. We can be so easily misled into thinking that training up our children in the way of God is to simply have them memorize the Lord’s Prayer and to recognize the Bible stories or maybe even memorize the order of the books of the Bible, but reality is God’s wisdom contained within this book is to teach us to LIVE. It certainly contains the truth of leading us to heaven, but contains an incredible amount of information about how to live.

THE WAY HE SHOULD GO… All of us realize that as we venture forth in life, we do not venture forth alone. We are always with others. Planes, Trains and Automobiles illustrates that beautifully with Steve Martin and the late John Candy. Steve Martin simply wanted to get home and didn’t want anyone slowing him down, but alas John Candy in all his ineptitude hounded him and Steve Martin finally realized the help he was able to offer. Our children need their parents to guide them in the way they should go. What better way to guide then with an unchanging God. He is always sure, always true. Fashions will change. Fads will change. TV will change. Leaders will change. Education will change. Best friends will change. God never changes. We must train up our children to be socially smart and “street smart,” but without an unchanging God, the life giver as their sure foundation, our children will wander from place to place, thing to thing and relationship to relationship without purpose or meaning, being socially smart and street smart are only used at their BEST when God is the foundation.

In order to do this we as parents must ourselves be sure we know where we are going! As adults in the church we must be prepared to give of ourselves each and every week whether we are serving in the children’s ministry or not. Our children see if we are talking to guests on a regular basis or remaining in our adult cliques. Are we serving or are we sitting? Part of training in the way he should go, is you and me actually going ourselves…

WHEN HE IS OLD HE WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT – Our children may wander when they get older, but if the sure foundation has been planted the likelihood that they see the emptiness of endless other pursuits is very high. Nicole and I were talking this morning about the fact that when we were dating others we both knew inside if this person was the “one” or not. When we met each other there was something different in what we saw in one another and that something different was the two decades of God that our parents had trained us up in. We both may have strayed from God, but both of us could not depart.

It is you and I Mom and Dad. The earliest memory I have is my Dad standing beside me in the hospital when I was about 4 years old after I cracked my head open and required stitches, I remember screaming and I remember him with his hand upon me as they wheeled me into the hospital. I remember hearing my Dad’s voice during my basketball games encouraging me to shoot. I remember seeing my Mom from the nurse’s office window in first grade when I had a dime stuck in my throat and she sprinted down the walk way of the school, burst into the nurse’s office and held me. My Mom sat next to me at Children’s Hospital as I sat, cried and held my 3 day old daughter Alex waiting for the doctors to diagnose her dislocated hips. I remember my Dad beating me at every sport, at every game of chess, pushing me not to quit, not to give up and I remember the smirk and nod of satisfaction when I finally beat him one on one in basketball and finally beat him at 18 holes of golf just a few short years ago. I’m actually glad he never let me win on purpose so I could really win on my own and know that I earned my manhood instead of it being charitably handed to me. I remember my Mom’s heartfelt approval of my choice of a wife and now she loves Nicole more than me! It wasn’t that she wanted a daughter in law; it was that she wanted me to make the right choice and she knew I had. They didn’t simply tell me to make wise choices, they lived a life that trained me to make wise choices. Now why would I want to depart from that?

Yesterday was very important New Heights…whether you have children or not……whether you are a child or not……

Questions to Ask Yourself

1. What kind of training for “life” did I receive when I was young? How am I putting that good training to best use and how have I learned from the bad training?

2. What kind of a trainer am I? How can I improve my training skills?

pastor e