Sunday, March 28, 2010

Sermon Notes

So today's sermon was labeled The Breakthrough Power of Fasting. This week (starting tomorrow), our church is doing a church wide fast in the hopes that people will really open themselves up to the idea that God can use them in great ways this Easter. This Sunday, along with Christmas Sunday is one of the few times that people feel an obligation to go to church and are openly willing to hear the words of what same may call "Jesus Freaks". It is an opportunity to really let the light shine or kindle the flame, if you will. Each person has chosen there on particular form of fasting. Some are doing a fast of everything but fluids, others are fasting from sugars or sweet dessert type foods, and some are steering clear of foods altogether and fasting from things such as technology. I personally, due to nursing a baby, will be participating in a fast from the computer for the next week. "Gasp", yes I realize that means I cannot obsessively check my facebook every 5 minutes or even to see if anyone has commented on this blog, LOL, but I am convinced that this experience will be powerful and I ask all of my brother's and sister's in Christ to truly consider fasting from something this week as well.

The heart of the sermon this morning was this "Fasting is simply a way to seek God by denying the physical in order to focus on the spiritual. The purpose of fasting is to draw closer to God. But when we draw close to God through fasting, we tap into a break through power that enables us to claim victory over areas that once knew only defeat." Here are some examples of the purposes of fasting: (look at Isaiah 58:6-8)

For Freedom from addictions (vs. 6)
To Solve Problems (vs. 6)
For Revival and Soul Winning (vs. 6)
To conquer Mental and Emotional Problems (vs. 6)
To Meet the PHysical Needs of Others (vs. 7)
For Insight in Decision Making (vs. 8)
For Health Reasons or Healing (vs. 8)
For a More Righteous Life (vs. 8)
To Protect us from the Evil One (vs. 8)

It is through fasting that we can become closer to the will of God, but this will only happen if we replace the time we spend eating, on the computer, watching tv, or whatever else we may choose to fast actively praying, meditating on the word, and seeking out God's will. We have the opportunity to do truly amazing things on individual level through fasting, however, think of just how much more of a difference we could make if each one of us chose to fast this week. If every church in your city, state, country, world chose to fast in order to seek out God's will I believe we would see a revolution. An uprising of our Christian youth to stand for what they believe in, unbelievers seeking out and accepting the truth, healing of illness, and even possibly the second coming of our Lord. What an amazing revolution that would be. Another thing that our pastor said today that really struck me and I will leave you all with to ponder and chew on a bit is that "All who are going to come to the Lord have not yet done so and this is the reason why the second coming has not yet happened. We still have a job to do." So how can we accomplish this?

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Radical Parenting

Ok, so last night I was watching show on discovery health labeled "Radical Parenting". The show went over the way that three families (maybe they did four, but I started about 15 minutes into the show) decided to raise their children. There was an attachment parenting family, a gender neutral family, and one I had never heard of until now: a non-schooler family.

With each of these parenting choices I could definitely see the pros and cons. The non-schoolers, having lacked any formal education may later on have a hard time going after a certain career choice that requires a college education. However, I believe that there is something to be said for self-directed learning. I am a person who has a formal and some what traditional education from high school on up through college, but my favorite part of my educational background are the days in which I was home schooled. Technically speaking, one could say that much of my college experience was similar as I attended online classes. While I had a set curriculum that I had to learn, I had the opportunity to spend more time in areas that I enjoyed. I also had a lot more free time to explore and learn from the world around me (this is the main way that non-schoolers learn). I believe I learned a lot from such experiences, but still see the need for a more structured curriculum as well. After watching this portion, however, I realized that I really would like to give my kids the opportunities that I had as a child through home schooling. Hopefully I will get to home school them.

The attachment parents are the group I felt most distant from, though I do like many attachment parenting techniques. I love baby wearing, but do not believe that it should be done 24/7 as this family did because I believe that infants need a chance to explore their environment. I also choose to nurse my children, however, I go more for a schedule that can be reconfigured to meet baby's needs and not an on demand approach. I also won't nurse my child until he or she is 4 or 5 as many attachment parents may do. Honestly with a schedule I do not think that a baby will have a problem weaning at a reasonable age (my daughter was done completely by her choice by 2 weeks after her first birthday. I was interested to see that this couple only offered food when baby was able to feed him or herself. Their children were never spoon fed, they were offered food and utensils and they either ate by using their hands or their utensils. Their youngest seemed very capable of feeding himself with a fork though he was only a year old. It seems that this method may have its benefits. Finally, within their methods, I was interested in their choice to use elimination communication. I have actually been researching this a bit on my own but was interested to see how they put this method into practice. The concept is that infants give us non-verbal cues that they have to go to the bathroom, but we often do not notice them. It also is based around the belief that we are "un-potty training" our kids to go in their pants (diaper) and then expect them to completely reverse what we taught them in a matter of a few months once they reach a certain age. The belief is that if we learn the non-verbal cues we will never have to potty train because it is all our children will ever know. I am seriously considering starting this up, but want to do a little bit more research into it in order to be sure I do it properly so as to not get discouraged.

The gender neutral group was in my opinion the least extreme couple. I thought for sure, in this day and age where shock value is of high priority, that discovery health would choose a family who took it to the extreme. While there were some things that they did that made my husband rather uncomfortable, overall I agree with much of what they were saying. I believe that it is important to separate chores in such a way that there is no such thing as a girl chore or a boy chore. There is no reason that boys can't do dishes and cook and girls can't mow the lawn or change the oil in the car. I also have no problem with boys playing with (by societal standards) girl toys or vice versa. Honestly, it seems to me that much of society has no problem with little girls playing with trucks, tools, and dirt, but the minute one of our little boys picks up a doll everyone has a heart attack. There is something wrong with this in my opinion. I am all for nurturing masculine features in my little boy and am sure that he will hunt and fish etc. (especially in this family), but I also am not about to tell him that he can't push his older sister's dolls in her play stroller. In fact I think it is great for all children to play with dolls and pretend home like environments. As a wife, I love to see my husband nurture and cuddle with our children, to play with them or just hold them. I think we all long to see our husbands have tender affection towards not only us, but also toward our children and yet more times than not little boys get told to put dolls down because they are girl toys while girls are encouraged to mimic diaper changing, feeding, putting to bed, and just general care for their baby dolls. How can we expect men to be affectionate and helpful if they are never given a chance to practice such tasks. Boys, in my opinion get screwed over in this area. Girls are allowed to be "tom boys" but boys aren't even allowed to look at a girl toy the wrong way without society having something to say about it. LOL.

It was just very interesting to see many different parenting techniques put to use and to realize the benefits that each can provide. It was also easy to see how each could be taken to the extreme and end up being more of a detriment than a help. I think that I will be attempting to incorporate a few techniques from each of these "radical" methods. Independent, masculine nurturers who are potty trained early due to elimination communication..... what do you think, is it possible?