Cutting the apron strings post #1

On July 22, I leave for camp. That's right, me. I haven't been since I was 12. I get to be the Camp Pastor at Camp Tekoa for a week. What a privilege it will be to serve those students.

The big deal about it is that Brooklyn also gets to go. She hasn't relished the idea of sleep away camp (I couldn't wait to get away from my parents). Even though her friend, Courtney, is also going, I will be there and she will be surrounded by people who care about her, she is still worried.

How do we create relationships with our children so they want to hang around us but give them the wings to want to have experiences that are totally safe in other environments where their parents aren't present?

I'm really glad I have this wonderful relationship with my daughter. I got to teach her how to shave her legs (I have a huge scar where I did my own when I was about her age), I get to cuddle on the couch with her and watch Survivor. Brooklyn's dad takes her 4 wheelin' and deer lookin' in the woods. We have a great relationship with our daughter, but I want her to have the other experiences. The experiences where she is safe, but has to make her own decisions and I'm not there to walk her through it.

Are we sheltering our children too much? We used to run all over the neighborhood after dark playing flashlight tag and not have to worry about someone grabbing us. We played ball in the street and walked to the corner store to pick up milk to drink for dinner. I walked home from school. We live in the same neighborhood, but I can't let Brooklyn out to play flashlight tag because we don't know all our neighbors, our street is too busy now for her to play ball in the street and there are no sidewalks to walk to school - or am I just sheltering her?

Camp will be a great way for her to be on her own (I'm intentionally going to stay away from her and let her have this adventure without me, but knowing I am close by). Hopefully next year she will want to go for a week without me - or do I really want her to?

Man, I need to cut some apron strings.

Evan Almighty

I'll admit I did have many apprehensions about this movie. After all, Brooklyn's nursery was Noah's Ark and I had a whole house of Noah's Ark stuff. I had read the book, the story books, the Bible, the other book, the children's book. I know the story.

But the secular world took our story, a Biblical story and did what we sometimes do on Sunday morning. They took a theme and twisted it to get an environmental, feel-good point across. Many churches do that on Sunday morning. Sometimes our object is emotion, sometimes it is look at the world, but we take a secular theme and usually twist the logo and use it to get our point across.

There were so many themes in this movie. I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it, but it covered the environment, time spent with family, power, husband/wife issues, God, God's sense of humor, regret, world changing, kindness and humility all in one movie. It was very touching.

This movie is getting some poor reviews. I wonder if people don't like to think about their humanity or their issues? I pray that God continues to use this movie to make people think.

Family Game Night

What story are you telling your child? Is it a story of running from place to place "spending" time with each other? Is it a story of dad in the bedroom watching the game, mom in the living room watching HGTV and the child or children in their room "cave" watching Nickelodeon?

Or are you telling them the family story? The story of picking a TV show together and watching it together or better yet an activity or game played together.

For the past three weeks (I only have Brooklyn every other weekend so this has spanned six weeks) we have initiated family game night. Brooklyn actually starts planning it on Monday and tries to figure out what we can do so everyone will participate. The first two weeks we played Boggle so Mike would join us. Mike likes word games. This Sunday we are considering geo-caching. It's an activity that will get us out of the house. We will have to use our brains, we will need to learn our area and hopefully we will laugh together.

If your child is spending a lot of time as a recluse in their room is it because you are spending too much time on the computer or watching only what you want to watch on the TV. I fear in the future when our kids don't visit and we are wondering why, we might think to the relationship we want and realize we should have built it when they were younger.

And building relationship doesn't mean it costs money. It could be tossing a frisbee or ball in the yard. It could be sitting on the porch at dusk talking about your day sharing a glass of tea or lemonade. You could just take a walk around the park or push your child on the slide.

Spend time together it is an investment that will pay off in huge dividends when you are old!

Fabulous Volunteer Friday

Thank you Stephanie, Paula, Allison, Amos & Sherrye. You guys could have taken the summer off but you chose to continue serving the families in our church and all the visitors that visit during the summer after moving to our area each Sunday morning in our preschool area. Thank you for loving our children, for telling them that God made them, God loves them, and Jesus wants to be their forever friend.

You guys are great and I appreciate you tremendously.

Worth Nothing!

I just found out according to Technorati that my blog is worth $0.00. http://bobfranquiz.typepad.com/bobfranquizcom/ blog is worth $49,114.98. How do you place value on blogs? Readership, comments, content, number of posts or just random? I'm not sure. Hopefully, I'll revalue next year (because I might need to insure my blog) and it will be at least worth $1 at that point!

The UPRISING

SAVE
THE
DATE

Pizza, bon fire, silly string fight, games, prizes, bingo, movies, popcorn, smores, breakfast, and more fun

Family Worship Experience

I've had the pleasure of working with our Worship Planning Team this past month as we prepare for July. In July, our elementary children will be worshiping in the Worship Center with their family. The sermons have been scripted to be family friendly. We are providing a Family Worship Experience Home Edition guide for parents to use with their children that reinforces the sermon they heard. There are activities, family bible reading suggestions, games, ideas for prayer time, and a family mission project included.

Please use these ideas and your own to reinforce the message learned on Sunday!