All In For Families

Man, let me tell you, as I look back on

this last year twenty twenty four and I think about

the life of our church, I'm just so proud of

our church right now. You know, churches go through different

life cycles and sometimes we just have to stop and

appreciate and thank God for the thing that he's doing.

You know, so many ways I've seen this last year

that God has been leading us to be the hands

and feet of Christ.

From things like our pantry ministry.

We do a pantry every other week and we've had

over about a thousand family visits in our pantry this

last year in twenty twenty four.

It's just been incredible.

We've also seen God lead us to initiate new ministries

things like Repair Care and Celebrate Recovery, where we're stepping

into spaces.

As a church and truly serving in the way that

the Bible calls us to serve.

We're also seeing so much growth and various ministries from

kids and youth, so things like even our study groups,

we just continue to see and increase numbers. Our Latino ministry,

our Arabic ministry, just so much growth. And I don't

want to take a step further into this year without

just thanking God for the thing that he has been doing.

And so if you would pray with me real fast, God,

we thank you God. We reflect on twenty twenty four

and we reflect on the ways that you've provided, the

ways that you've been faithful, and God, we just want

to say thank you, Thank you so much. And God,

as we move into this next year, got to pray

that you would challenge us. I pray that Lord, you

would continue to lead us, that you would be our

lights and difficult circumstances.

God, we pray all of this in your great and

your mighty name.

Amen. This last week, like many of you, my family

and I we loaded up into the car and we

began an annual pilgrimage to go visit family for the holidays.

We had roughly a five and a half hour drive,

and as we drove through the nothingness that is central Illinois,

I began to be reminded and take note of a

road sign that is oftentimes forgotten. That is the mile

marker sign. Now, how many of you know what a.

Mile marker sign is? All right, awesome?

How many of you have no clue what a mile

marker sign is? Okay, some of you yes, young young

ones especially, Yeah, you know mile markers. Uh, there's something

that we used to use specifically to be able to navigate.

They would help us as distance signatures to a relative point,

usually a state line, you.

Begin to see the mile markers begin.

They used to help us correlate to the exits and

know when we need to exit or when the nearest

bathroom stop is, which is really important in a road trip. Right,

but noways we don't use mile marker signs as much.

We all have these things right, and these tell us

how much further we have to go and when our

exit is coming. In many ways, mile markers might not

seem that important anymore, but in the case of an emergency,

mile markers can still be very, very helpful. I discovered

this in my senior year of college when my now

wife Brooke and I we were driving back from Indianapolis

back to Anderson and it was a cold, wet winter day.

And I remember as we were driving down I sixty nine.

Oh, that's a terrible I sixty nine.

We were driving down I sixty nine on this cold,

wet winter day, and I began to get a little

bit sleepy, and I have this superpower. Some of you

might also have the superpower where if you want to

fall asleep, you can pretty much fall asleep anytime, anywhere.

And so I started to get a little bit dreary,

and I was in the passenger seat, and so I

started to nod off and fall asleep. It wasn't long

until I was jarred awake and we were no longer

facing tail lights. We were facing headlights. We were spinning

on I sixty nine in the midst of an accident.

And as we spun out into the median, we began

to take an assessment, made sure that we were okay,

that there were no injuries, and then we got out

of the car, and we began to realize very quickly

that the car was not in the best shape, and

that it was gonna need a tow truck, and that

we were gonna need to call emergency services. And so

what did we use whenever we called nine to one one?

We used the mile markers. The mile markers helped us

identify where we were when we called for our tow truck.

What did we use to identify where to go to

We use the mile markers. The mile markers were something

that we were able to use to communicate and be

able to identify to assess our situation. Mile markers can

still be helpful to navigate. New years are kind of

like mile markers in our lives. It's a moment where

we can stop and we can assess our situation. We

can look back on this last year and we can say,

how have things been, Where did we accomplish our goals?

How have we grown? But we can also begin to

look ahead. We can begin to prepare for the thing

that God has for us in the next season and

begin to calibrate our lives to take on the mission

that God has put before us. Mile markers can be helpful.

In the Old Testament, the Israelite people had a scripture

that was somewhat of a mile marker scripture. It helped

keep them on track and help them remain faithful to

God and the good and the bad circumstances in their lives.

It was called the Shima. Now, they didn't just wait

for the new year to recite the Shima. The ancient

Israelite people, in fact, would come together twice a day

and they would recite the Shima together, oftentimes as a family.

The father would gather his family around in the morning

and they would kneel in the central room, in the

central space, they would kneel and they would cover their eyes,

and they would recite the shima together. And in the

evenings they would do this once more. This was something

that was a foundation, a cornerstone for their families. As

the families grew, the father would go to his kids

and he would check in with them. He would say,

are you continuing to pray your shima? Is this something

that's continually central in your life? This morning, as we

initiate a new and we pass a mile mark on

our lives, I want to begin by going through the

shima together. It's in Deuteronomy chapter six, verses fourth or six.

It says, here, oh Israel, the Lord, our God, the

Lord is one love, the Lord your God. With all

your heart and with all your soul, and with all

your strength. These commandments that I give you today are

to be upon your hearts here, oh Israel. This word

here is translated shima. It's the word by which this

text gets its an abbreviated name, and the word here

would mean to receive sound in your ear, but it

means also something beyond that. It means to receive a sound,

to physically hear something, but it also means to obey.

You see, here was somewhat of a come When I

would say here to someone, it means to hear me,

but also to obey the thing that I'm asking you

to do. Now, we don't go around using this type

of terminology anymore, right, Like I wouldn't walk into my

home and say hear me a wife. That would be bad,

which you all probably know ahead of time. We don't

work into our workplaces and say hear me, oh boss,

also would probably go poorly. But this is a term

that they would have used to identify that something wasn't

just heard, but it's being followed through with.

Now we're working.

With this exact kind of thing with our oldest Everet

He's six. And I don't know if this is just

a common thing for six year olds or it's just

something we're working on with Everetts. But there's many times

where I'll give an instruction to my son Everett and

tell him to go do something, and I have to

stop and observe and make sure that the thing that

I said is getting acted upon, and if it doesn't,

I have to ask him again kindly, Everett, I asked

her to do this. Can you be sure to go

and to do this thing for me? Now, don't bump

the person next to you. But if you ever had

an instance where you say something and it wasn't fully heard,

and it definitely wasn't fully acted upon. God is speaking

to his people here, and he's saying, this is something

that you can't just step into and step out of.

This love that I'm calling you to, This obedience that

I'm calling you to, is an everyday thing. It's something

that can should consume you. It's something that should lead

you every day. It's something that should be acted upon.

Our faith is not something that we should be able

to step into and step out of. We don't have

a Sunday morning faith. We have in every day faith.

Following Jesus is an everyday practice, an every day thing.

But the shima continues, and I believe, unfortunately it only

gets more challenging as it goes. We're gonna pick back

up in verse six. Continue to read with me. It says,

these commandments that I give you today are to be

upon your hearts, impress them on your children, talk about

them when you sit at home, and when you walk

along the road, when you lie down, and when you

get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind

them on your foreheads, write them on your doorframes of

your houses, and on your gates. As I observe the

first half of the Shima, I think it's one thing

to to to look at how I can personally commit

myself to the Lord.

What does it look like for me to follow.

The ways of the Lord. But it's a whole nother step.

It's a whole nother challenge when we begin to look

at verses seven and eight and.

Nine of the Shima.

How do I not only lead myself in the ways

of the Lord, but how do I lead my family?

And if I were to be really honest with you

this morning, this is really difficult for me. It's really

difficult for me to understand how I can lead my

family in the midst of all that we have going on.

Me and my wife. We both work full time jobs.

We have to be flexible and we're trying to do

well in our careers. We also have two young boys,

six and three. We're consumed by various activities from church

to school, to sports and various things that we have

going on. We have family in town, which is a

blessing and another thing. We have family out of town,

which is a blessing and another thing. And you guys

can relate. Life feels like it's going one hundred miles

per hour, and oftentimes it feels like we're all one

big hot mess.

But here's what I know this morning.

I've been here for just slightly over three years, and

I've come to realize that me and my family, we're

not the only hot mess around here. Amen. I've come

to realize that we all resonate with this, and that

we all would agree. It is difficult to lead our

families in the way of the Lord, and all of

us are still navigating this journey of leading our families.

Some of us I have watched enter into a parenthood

over these last few years. It's been amazing to watch

young couples have their first or their second children. It's

been incredible to watch people journey into adult It's been

incredible to journey with parents through the preschool and elementary

years as we have been the last few years. It's

been incredible to work with our parents of preteen kids

as we've initiated and started a new ministry of the

four six. It's been a privilege and a blessing to

work alongside our parents of adolescents and teenagers in our

youth ministry. But I've also begun to detect, more so

in history than than almost ever before, that there's a

number of parents who are continuing the parent journey on

beyond high school graduation. We're seeing more twenty somethings living

in homes with their parents than we've ever seen before

in history. And parents don't end parenting at eighteen. The

parenting journey continues, and leading our families in the ways

of Christ continues. I'm even seeing grandparents stepping into the

roles of parenting, oftentimes.

Even within the body of our own church.

We are a network of families in this journey of

leading our families in the ways of Christ has not stopped.

But here's the thing.

We're called to bring the shima to life in our homes,

to parents in a Christ centered way because I believe this,

and this is our big idea this morning, is that

Christ is cultivated in homes.

Christ is cultivated in homes.

Christ may be planted at the church, Christ may be

planted out of camp or at a work camp or

a missions trip. Christ may be planted out a BBS

or through a message that we have here, but Christ

is cultivated in our homes. And this was God's design

from the beginning. God's design from the beginning was to

take residency in our hearts and to be glorified beyond

these walls you see as the church, we gather, we worship,

we unite, and we support and we encourage one another.

But our faith comes alive in the battlefield of our everyday.

Lives in our homes.

So how this morning can we encourage one another, How

can we spur one another on how can we continue

to be all in for families and the mission of

cultivating Christ in our homes? This morning, I want to

take a journey together and our family team, that's our

Kids Ministry and our Youth ministry teams have been meeting

together for over a year now, and as we've been

talking and meeting, we've been talking about how do we

continue to encourage and lead and guide the people of

our church to parents in a Christ centered way. And

as we've been talking, we've been facing all these different

various challenges that parents of today are identifying and are

wrestling with. I want to go through this morning just

three themes that I think are commonalities that we as

parents are wrestling with in modern society. And I think

everyone here can connect and relate and get something out

of these. But specifically I want to pour into it

and focus on these in the realm of parenting. But

I need you to understand something. This morning isn't about blame.

You see, parents are hyper criticized in today's world. If

a kid messed up thirty years ago, we would all

look at that kid and say, you did a really

dumb thing. That's on you. Nowadays, if a kid messes up,

we all look at the parents and say, what did

you do? You messed it up.

This morning isn't about blame. This isn't a criticism.

What I want to simply do is I want to

hold up the ways of God. I want to hold

up the structures and the family structures that we see

in scripture in the ways of God. And I want

to hold up the trends that we're seeing in parenting today.

And I want to look at where we're seeing incongruencies

and how we can continue.

To align ourselves with God.

And then I want to bring us back for how

we can recalibrate our hearts unto the Lord in the

parenting journey. And so these three things that I want

to focus in on are these that we oftentimes as

parents prioritize safety overgrowth, that we oftentimes prioritize entertainment over intentionality,

and that we oftentimes prioritize success over balance. Let's start

with the first one here, safety overgrowth. Now, when I

say safety here, what I'm specifically talking about is a

level of parenting that has mobilized into coddling. Safety that's

mobilized into coddling. As parents, our top priorities right now

are risk, adversity and pain avoidance. The volume on parental

oversight and current society is on full blast because the

world has proven itself dangerous and untrustworthy. World has proven

itself to be mean and cruel, and so what have

we done as parents. We've begun to put up safeguards,

safeguards for ourselves and now safeguards for our kids. We

put these safeguards in place out of a good heart,

but oftentimes they're prohibiting our kids from growth. Do you

remember playsets back in the day do you remember how

dangerous playsets used to be, like physically dangerous. I found

this ad for an old playset that was being sold

from just up the road. Ironically, it's literally manufactured and

sold out of Anderson, Indiana.

Look at how many.

Children are on that thing. I didn't actually count them,

but that's insane. And these were common. And you know,

these slides were tall, and they were steep, and they

only had like a two inch guardrail on the sides. Like,

these things were insane. But you know what the worst

part of these slides was they were made out of

middle and so in the summers, it was like you

were sliding down a lava slide, you know what I'm

talking about, Like you wore pants to the playground in

summer just so you didn't get third degree burns on

your legs. These things were incredibly painful, all right. What

I'm talking about here isn't the safety of the playgrounds,

although we see that transformation in our society over the

last fifty years.

What I'm talking about.

Here is that, in our heightened efforts to keep our

kids safe, we've robbed them from growth. My wife works

for a company here in the area, and she works

in an HR role, human resources role, and we talk

often about the.

Various things that happen in that role.

And she was talking about how oftentimes when young people

come in to interview nowadays, their.

Parents will come along with them.

And when I say that, I don't mean that people's

parents come along with them and drop them off. No

parents will walk in with them. That that's a common

occurrence in today's young people. She talked about an instance

a few months back where there was a young woman

who was applying for a position. As she was filling

out her application, she couldn't remember her birthday. Her comment

was that her mom normally remembered her birthday for her,

and so she had to call her mom to retrieve

her birth date to complete the application. This isn't something

that is made up. This is real life situations that

are happening in our world. And this starts young in

our children. This type of influence starts young.

And our children.

I remember when I was young, I had a pretty

free and wild childhood, and so I remember in summers

when when the sun came up, we would leave the

house and we'd go outside and we would play, and

we would play, and we would play all day, and

we wouldn't come back until it was dark. And I

remember when we came back, it wasn't even like dusk.

It wasn't like, oh, it looks like the sun's on

the horizon, and better go home. We would come back

when it was pitch black. We didn't have GPS trackers,

We didn't have anything to identify where we were. We

were just outside somewhere. If mom and Dad needed us,

what did they do?

They'd go out on the porch and they'd yell.

They'd yell for us somehow, I don't know if it

was by a miracle of the Lord, like that voice

would just echo through and just come right to us.

We knew it's time to go home. But this is

how things used to be. Statistics are starting to show

the significance of riskful play and brain development, that participation

in activities that hold some degree of personalized risk are

actually essential to self confidence and identity in young adults.

If we'd to do activities that hold some level of risk,

we begin to be aware of where to stop. If

we're not participating in things that involve some level of risk,

we don't know where to stop or where to start.

And so these riskful activities are actually essential to development.

Scripture says it this way.

In James chapter one, it says, consider it pure joy,

my brothers, whenever you face trials have many kinds, because

you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature.

And complete, not lacking anything.

You see, the early Church knew something that we still

know to be true today is that trials lead to maturity. Now, parents,

I'm not saying that you need to lock your kids

outside and make them play outside all day until it's dark.

That's not what I'm saying. It's not really about that.

But we do need to look for opportunities to allow

our kids to begin to possibly fail or to move

into a space where maybe they do get hurt, to

begin to learn and to grow, to focus more on

growth than safety. I caught myself just two weeks ago.

We were on a walk with my boys and there's

an area where the sidewalk is adjacent to some woods,

and there's a bush that was overgrown and was moving

into the walkway space. And I remember my youngest Hudson,

he's three. He was walking not paying attention. He's pretty clumsy,

and he was walking and he was gonna run into

the bush. And my initial reaction was to jump in

and Hudson, watch out, look where you're going. And he

stopped and he walked around the bush. But I looked

back at that like it was a small thing. But

should I have just let him run into the bush? Like,

what's the worst that can happen? Right, Like, he's gonna

bump into a bush, he's gonna trip, he's gonna fall,

maybe he scrapes his hand. It's not really that big

of a deal. He needs to learn to look in

front of himself when he's walking. That's important in life, right,

It's these little instances where our kids find themselves in

various circumstances and we're asserting ourselves to jump in that

Sometimes maybe we need to think about what's best for

their growth more than their safety. Safety is not a

bad thing, but safety has evolved into this coddling. And

let me tell you, I've worked with youth for twelve

plus years now, and as I look at youth grow

into young adults in their twenties, it is staggering the

difference of leadership and maturity in twenty year olds from

parents who allow their kids the space to fail or

to struggle, versus parents who micromanage the situations of their kids. Yes,

it's incredible. I want to encourage you to think about

your responses. How are we responding to kids and what

are we reinforcing? Are we reinforcing growth or safety? The

next thing I want to talk about this morning is

how we're prioritizing entertainment over intentionality.

Entertainment over intentionality.

We live in arguably the most entertainment centric society of

all time. The centerpiece of our entertainment is the cell phone.

The cell phone. A recent study found that the average

iPhone user touches his or her phone over two thousand,

four hundred and seventeen times a day.

This is totally an over two and a half hours.

We feel still busy, yet we're consumed with a number

of hours of entertainment on our phones. And here's the thing.

This isn't just a parenting thing. This is a society thing.

We are all struggling with this as a society, from

littles to the oldest. We're all on various different social

media platforms when we're finding that it's consuming our time

as a society. Instead of being intentional, we are consumed

with entertainment. This is the world that we're living in,

but in a parenting world, it takes on a specific

type of mode. You see an adolescence who have smartphones,

the statistics go up, and not by a little, the

statistics go up significantly. Teenagers who have iPhones are spending

over seven hours.

A day on their phones.

From two point five to seven plus hours a day

on their phones. The tech industry is in an arms

race for our attention as humanity, because they make money

off of our attention, so they're trying to entertain us.

They're trying to bring us in.

The human attention span has gone from over twelve seconds

to under eight seconds.

In the last twenty five years.

Our human brains are literally being rewired by the technologies

and the entertainments that we're incorporating ourselves with on a

daily basis. First John, chapter two says it this way.

For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh,

the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,

it comes not from the father, but from the world.

As a parent, it can be so easy, and I

know you relate. It can be so easy to mobilize

into entertainment over intentionality. I rarely give my best hours

to my kids. Right I come to work and I

put my hours in here, and I'm invested in the

things that God is doing here, and I get home

and oftentimes I'm exhausted, I'm worn out. And so it's

so easy to toss something at my kids to entertain them,

to buy the time so that I can recharge myself,

especially as an introvert, to toss a phone or maybe

to put on a show for them. It's so easy

to mobilize towards entertainment. But here's the thing that I've learned.

What's pleasing to my flesh is oftentimes not pleasing to

the Lord Amen. In fact, what's pleasing to my flesh

is oftentimes not even good for me, Because what we're

learning about the entertainment that we're engaging in is that

it oftentimes just leads to further feelings of isolation, anxiety, depression.

In fact, gen Z they're currently titling the Anxious Generation

because we have seen almost a double multiplication and the

reported anxiety in this generation over the last roughly twelve years.

The anxious generation. So what do we do? How do

we derail the entertainment train. We have to begin to

set boundaries. We have to begin to set boundaries, and

we have to begin to follow boundaries. And you might

feel like as a parent, parents, or a grandparent or

an aunt uncle, as we engage in this conversation, you might

feel like that's gonna make you stand out. Possibly it might.

They might be in a minority, right, kids, and how

many people at school have phones? Would you be in

a minority if you didn't have a phone, Yes, you would. Well,

what I'm beginning to learn is that there's families right

here in our church who are coming out and saying,

we're not gonna lead in this way, We're not gonna

parent in this way. We're gonna parent in a new way.

And they're coming around each other and they're supporting each

other in this because it takes community to stand strong,

to be intentional over entertainment focused. The last one I

want to focus on is our value of success over balance.

No one can deny that we live in a success

driven community.

Every person in.

This room, you have things in your mind, they're either

spoken or unspoken, that are measurements of success, and you

measure yourself to those things, and you measure the people

around you to those things, and all of those things

are a litmus test for what success looks like. Hear

me here. Valuing success is not a bad thing. But

it's when we try to fit Jesus and do our

standards of success like a puzzle rather than shape our

view of success around Jesus, that we get into some trouble.

You know, in ministry, we end up at a lot

of funerals. And when people stand up at a funeral

and they begin to think about or tell stories of someone,

they're not telling stories of that person's success. They're four

to one k their title. Those aren't the things that

are talked about at a funeral. The things that are

talked about at funerals how someone loved others, how they

loved their family, how they loved the Lord, and how

they were obedient and faithful to the things that God

had for them. We value success, but oftentimes at the end,

success is not what is valued. Success will exhaust you.

Pursuing success will leave you empty because we fill every

moment of our calendar, every moment of our day, to

meet the standards of maybe ourselves, or the standards that

we perceive other people to have of us, and we

continue to live in this hamster wheel, and it leaves

us tired rather than in balance. Now Jesus knew this,

and Jesus offered a different way for us. In Matthew

chapter eleven, he says, come to me, all of you

who are weary and burdens, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. For

I'm gentle and I'm humble in heart. You will find

rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and

my burden is lights. Wonder how many in this room

this morning relate with the feelings of being weary and burdens.

If the Lord has a different way for.

You, you can see who's yoke you're attached to, really

quickly by two things in your life, through your schedule

and through your budget. Whose yoke are you attached to?

Are you attached to the yoke of work? Are you

attached to the yoke of maybe a kid's activity.

Are you attached to.

The yoke of maybe a hobby in your life? Or

are we attached to the yoke of Christ? Have a

real truth for you, guys. After working in youth ministry

for a long time, I have seen abundantly more students

step away from participation and engagement in church because of

sports than I have anything else. It's these perspectives of

success that lead us away from the things that God

might have wards. And again, I'm not saying that sports

are bad, but we're starting to engage conversations with students,

real conversations of like, man, when is enough enough? And

how do we live in violence with the ways of

the Lord? Are you tired of pursuing success? Are you

tired of packing every minute of your day just to

meet the expectations of yourself or someone else? Want to

encourage you this morning to take the yolk of Jesus,

to live in balance and not to live in a

pursuit of success. All right, I just blew through three things,

three things that I think that we as parents might

be wrestling with, might be struggling right now. And what

I want to do now is I want to bring

our attention back to the Shama.

I want to bring our attention.

Back to how we can set our hearts, how we

can recalibrate our hearts.

This morning, look at the shima with me one more time.

Deuteronomy chapter six, verse six says this, These commandments that

I give you today are to be upon your what

your hearts, Impress them on your children, talk about them

when you sit at home, and when walk her along

the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.

Here's what I know. As a parent, we're not gonna

get it all right. As a parent, you're not gonna

get it all right. Those in this room who have

been through the parenting journey, and now you're seeing others

go through the parenting journey, you can probably attest you

didn't get it all right.

But what we can.

Do to cultivate Christ in our homes is that we

can recalibrate, and we can set our hearts on Christ.

We can set our hearts on Christ in the ways

of Christ. We can consecrate our hearts to cultivate Christ

to the best of our abilities, so that when we

don't get it right, that when we fall short, we

know that when we're not enough, Christ is enough. That

we know when we fall short, the Lord will not,

that the Lord will lead our kids, and that the

Lord will be our lights in the.

Dark places of this world.

Now. I want to talk to two audiences this morning. Parents,

I want to talk to you for a moment. First

and foremost, I just want to acknowledge. Man.

I know that it can feel overwhelming.

I know that right now, like this morning, you walk

in here and there's probably even a moment this morning

where you felt inadequate, where you felt like you didn't

have enough to do the thing. I want to acknowledge

that feeling. I want you to let you know that

the Lord is with you in this I always say

that our children are our strongest disciple ers, that the

Lord has given us, that the Lord is doing something

in your hearts and your minds and in your souls

through your children, and so I want to encourage you

this morning that the Lord is with you. I almost

want to say that we are with you.

That this church is.

A network of families who loves you and cares for you,

and we are with you. In fact, as we've been

meeting this last year as the family Team, one of

the things that we've been crafting and working on it

are these resources over here to my left and to

your right. And these resources are what we're calling all

in resources, and these are resources that span all the

way from birth to graduation in twelfth grade.

And I want to encourage you this morning to come

up and.

To grab these because these resources are fresh off the print.

Our team has been working on these. We've been word

crafting these, writing these, we've been putting these into print,

we've been hanging these, and this is something that we've

been working on for the last year. And what I

want you to know first and foremost is that these

resources are written from us to you. These are not

some generic resource that we bought from somewhere that we've

just shipped in like there are activities in these resources

that are language wise written for activities right here in

Central Indiana. These are things that are written for you

and to you. And so I want to encourage you

after service to come up and to grab one of these.

But the second thing I want to say about these

resources over here, Unlike a lot of parenting resources in

our world, these resources are bathed in scripture. There's scripture

on each one of these, and each one of these

are christ centered resources, all right. There's a lot of

good parenting advice out there that is apart from faith.

These are not these are tied into the Word, and

they're tied into our faith, and so I want to

encourage you after service to come grab one of these things.

But there's a second audience I want to talk to

this morning. I want to talk to those in the

room who maybe your grandparents, maybe you're an aunt or

an uncle, maybe you're just a friend in the pew.

This morning, I want to talk to everyone else in

this room, someone who's maybe not right in the weeds

right now of parenting.

And I want to encourage you this morning.

For those who are older, who are grandparents, I want

to speak to you first. I need you to know this.

Your role has not ended. Don't tap out, stay in

this journey. I know so many families in our church,

young families who are hungry for your mentorship, who are

hungry for your encouragement, who are hungry for your support.

And we've lived apart for my family for a long time.

There's been seasons in our lives where we're hungry for

just someone to come hang out with our kids for

a minute. Right Amen, listen, don't tap out. If you're

a grandparent in this room, you still have a role,

and I want to encourage you to continue to engage

for those in this room who don't have kids, You

have a role too. Step in, be a cheerleader, be

an encourager for the family. Don't think that that's something

that you're just going to get to in the future.

You have a role right now. Maybe your rule is

to get involved and to volunteer in our kids or

in our youth ministry. Want to brag on our youth

ministry team for just a minute, those who serve in

our youth ministries. We've got leaders who come in all

different shapes sizes. We've got leaders who have kids and

don't have kids. We've got leaders who are single and married.

We've got leaders who are old and young. It doesn't matter.

You can step in and serve right now. There are

places in our church to step in and to love

kids and to be all in for families.

Church.

This is gonna take all of us. It's not just

a challenge or a message for parents. This is a

message to all of us to be all in for families.

Because here's the thing. When our hearts are calibrated unto

the Lord, our world will look dynamically different. We will

parent in a different way. Our kids will be led

in a different way towards Christ. I think the mission

of God hangs on this and that's why I bring

it forward this morning. I want to challenge you, let's

cultivate Christ in our homes. As our worship team comes out,

I want to pray. I want to pray for us,

and maybe in this room this morning, you're in a

space where you don't know exactly what it looks like

to get all the things right. You don't know what

it looks like to say all the right things or

to lead all the right ways as a parent, And

that's okay.

I just want to take a moment.

I just want to challenge you to pray this morning.

You would commit your heart unto the Lord to lead

and to parents and be obedient to him in the

ways that He would have you.

Would you pray with me?

God? Got to thank you Lord for the kids, for

the families of this church. Got to thank you for

the thing that you're doing in our midst God.

I want to pray for parents right now. I want

to pray for their marriages.

God. I want to pray for people who feel like

right now they're at their ends, or maybe there's a

challenge with a kid and they don't know what to do.

They don't know what the next steps are. Got to

pray that we would first center our eyes on you

as we center our hearts of our families on you

as well. Got to pray for those this morning who

are thinking about are looking for ways to engage in

being all in for families here, Lord, would you lead

us for the grandparents in the room. Would you lead

us in encouraging for those without kids in the room,

would you lead us in supporting? Would we continue to

be a network of families who are honoring you from

sun up to sundown, from when we wake to when

we rest. God, we love you and pray this in

your name. Amen.

Pastor Roberts is going to come out and lead us

in a moment of communion.