"Christianese"

Our church had VBS last week and when I got home Friday night, my soon to be 5 year old daughter had a big blue pool noodle (the theme was "divin in with Jesus") and my wife asked her to explain to me why she received said noodle. She stood there looking confused and said I don't remember why... my wife tried to prod her a little more before she whispered in her ear and then my daughter said "because I asked Jesus into my heart" I asked her what she thought that meant and she responded, as I expected with an shrug of her shoulders and an "I don't know."

This prompted some further thinking into the issue of salvation, particularly of children as I have been doing some reading (How to Bring Your Children to Christ ... and Keep Them There by Ray Comfort and Parents Concerns for their Unsaved Children by a Puritan author whose name escapes me at the moment) on the subject during the past couple of months and general thoughts over the past few years. I find myself having some very real questions about the "evangelizing" of children in particular the use of the term "ask Jesus into your heart" one of many terms that I refer to as "Christianese" or words/phrases that we hear thrown around a lot in Christian circles that I don't believe are biblical

First of all where do you find the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart" in the Bible, yet alone described or given as an answer for "how can I be saved or have eternal life."

Second of all, I know with all certainty that if given the opportunity and the gift to work with children that with the right words, music, dare I say 'bribes' (candy or pool noodles?) that I could get a whole roomful of 3,4,5,6,7 etc. etc. year olds to "ask Jesus into their hearts" I know this because I'm usually successful when working with groups of children this age to do what I want them to do including my own daughter. I can get her to agree to pretty much anything. Many people say, but the Bible says you have to have "faith like a child" but are children really capable of understanding and having the saving faith (along with the correct understanding of sin and the act of repentance the Bible talks about in regards to salvation) Or when the Bible says have "faith like a child" is it speaking in regards to having the unwavering trust and confidence a child places in their "father" to keep them safe from the monsters under the bed or the Tigers at the zoo. Read http://www.jonsplace.org/rel/faith.htm to learn more about this concept.

Third, I have worked with many teenagers in the "church"who clearly have no "fruit" or love or affection for things of Christ who when I express a concern to them or their parents inquiring about the condition of their soul and heart will cling to the fact that 'when they were 4, or 3 or 7' take your pick they said a prayer during VBS or Sunday School and asked Jesus into their hearts.

This question goes right to the root of how we "do church" and raise our children and I believe is serious enough to truly wrestle with. What age can a child understand the true gospel. (does the old baptist 'age of accountability' vary from child to child') The more I read and study, I truly believe that it is my role as a parent to continue to speak and model the "biblical" gospel of repentance and placing faith in Christ for salvation and not focus on getting my child to "say a sinners prayer or ask Jesus into her heart and leave the salvation up to God because after all Ephesians 2:8,9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."

Please post thoughts/comments. I would love to discuss with others. (note, I am not in any way trying to put down or knock our church's VBS program, just merely trying to promote discussion on what I believe is a serious topic)

Rental Car Envy and random things that make you go hmmm.

So it's 1:15 Monday morning CST and I am in a hotel in Houston, TX (well actually Humble as Bush Int'l airport is exactly in Houston) If anyone was wondering what it was going to take for me to post my 2nd entry to this blog after not posting for 4 months, well getting delayed by plane travel and not being able to sleep will do it. I was supposed to back in Ohio tonight or rather this morning sleeping on an air mattress at the Millers getting ready to head to work tomorrow but the weather had some other ideas.

I went to Baton Rouge this weekend for my Dale's wedding (Dale is my biological father for those of you that don't know) I took a 1/2 day on Friday and flew down Friday even to Houston, then onto New Orleans. In Houston we all got on the plane, then sat and sat (if you fly a lot you develop a good sense of when the wait is "not normal" and you just sit there waiting for the announcement to come) Sure enough... captain comes on and announces that the maintenance crew wants to change out one of the tires on the plane and then makes a bad joke about it being the fault of his co-pilot on the previous landing, then some other bad jokes about what we were going to be doing once we got airborne. I was not amused and neither were any of the other passengers. So they finally get the plane ready and we push away from the gate just as this huge thunderstorm opens up and starts dumping rain. So we're sitting on the tarmac and the engines stop and the captain announces that they're going to delay takeoffs for a while and we can feel free to use our cell phones and other portable electronic devices.

Random thing that makes you go hmmm #1: Speaking of portable electronic devices and their accepted "use" on flights, what is up with the safety cards in the seat pockets banning remote control vehicles.... is this a serious problem on airlines. I have always wondered this... the pictures with the circles and red lines through them are as follows no am/fm radios, no cell phones, no lighters and... no remote control vehicles. Were people back in the 70's bringing these things on planes and running them up and down the aisle??? I need answers!!!

#1.5: on portable electronic devices, why are IPODS banned during takeoff and landing? They don't emit any type of frequency that I know of but maybe some of you engineering types can help me out. Do they really pose a danger or are the airlines just behind the times? Anyhow, I figured out that if you have a window seat, which I almost always try to book; you can clip the IPOD into your pocket closest to the window, keep that earbud in and run the cord up behind your shoulder and the flight attendants are none the wiser and you can listen to music anytime you want. (FYI, so far none of my planes have crashed)

Speaking of music and to get to one of the subjects of my title, I had serious rental car envy this weekend. I had a Hyundai Sonata (sp?) that really wasn't anything super special except it had a dock for my IPOD, XM satellite radio and controls on the steering wheel to switch between the 2 and regular radio, volume controls and even a mute button to stop the noise if you need to talk on the phone or order at a drive through. I know for all of you who own newer vehicles no big deal right, but as for me and my 2003 Nissan Sentra, let's just say I know one feature that I definitely want on my next vehicle...

Random things that make you go hmmm... #2... this car or rather this 'traveling museum' as the handwritten cardboard written sign on the drivers side rear window proclaimed.

There are no words, so I won't even try.

Ok, so there was a wedding! I enjoyed seeing my grandparents, my Dad (Dale) who got married and my Uncle Glenn. The ceremony was very simple and thankfully short as I was roasting in my tux. (Here's some pics)

I met a bunch of random people that I'll probably never see again from Leda's family but I did get to meet her kids (Olivia, Sarah and Travis) which brings me to

Random things that make you go hmmm #3: Her oldest daughter Olivia is a little older than me and married to a guy who shares my birthday and grew up 2.5 hours away from me in Libby, Montana and went to a rival high school in Whitefish. (I know 2.5 hours is a long way for all of you who grew up in populated states that have over 1 million people) but Whitefish was the second closest division rival we had with the closest being a 2 hour drive and 2 of the 6 schools being 8 and 10 hours drives respectively. So for MT, that's practically like we were neighbors.

Well that's it... I'm finally wore out, I'll try not to let another 4 months past before I post again.