Archive for category Christian Living

My Overwhelming List of Things to Teach My Children

As parents of two wonderful children, my wife and I are deeply concerned with their education.  We made the decision to home-school them and as our little girl approaches her first year of formal teaching, we are scrambling to figure this out.  I wonder how many parents will relate to our current situation.

My lovely wife is handling 99% of the work in reading books on the subject, researching the best curriculum, buying the materials, and dragging me to home school conventions.  However, the education of my children is a primary concern on my heart and mind as well.  Over the past few months I have begun to consider what I want my children to know when they leave home.

Following are the results of my reading, research and thinking.  The sheer quantity of topics, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t get everything, might be overwhelming, but when you consider that much of it will be covered in the curriculum already and also that we have 10+ years to do it, the task becomes manageable.  I want my wife and I to return to this list at least every year and come up with goals to focus on for the upcoming months.

The first half, Topics for Parents to Teach, are the categories in learning that will rarely, if ever, be covered in school curriculum.  These are things that it will be the parent’s sole Read the rest of this entry »

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Being Open is Not a Good Idea

OK, I have a problem with being vulnerable.  Let me just get that out of the way.  I have an aversion to telling people my real weaknesses, even though I really want to.  I am not, as the saying goes, the son of a glass-maker; not very transparent by default.  There, I feel much better now…  Confession is good for the soul.

“Why are you writing about this subject then?”, you might wisely ask.  Well, the reason is that I recently learned, for the first time in my life the difference between “being open” and “being vulnerable.”  I realize now that I have been making excuses in my mind for not being vulnerable based on a misunderstanding of the difference between openness and vulnerability.

You see, I have always thought that being open is selfish.  It unloads something negative like bitterness or hurt on somebody else.  In return, they give you an apology, sympathy or compassion.  Either way, it usually feels good for the one being open, and not so good for the one who is being dumped on.  Think through these examples:

“Hi, I just wanted to tell you that you hurt me by not returning my phone call.” Read the rest of this entry »

Survey Results: Who Is My Brother?

A few weeks ago I posted a survey for the membership of the ICOC (International Churches of Christ), analyzing our beliefs on the touchy subject of “who is a Christian?”  A few weeks ago I posted the answer to the first question:  Do you believe only members of our churches are true Christians? Contrary to what some critics might have thought, the results (click here to see) show that the idea of us being the only true Christians has been overwhelmingly dismissed.

However, this really good news, is only half of the story.

If we have changed as a whole in our thinking, how are we rationalizing the difference in ICOC doctrine with the rest of evangelical Christianity?  The answers below should give a lot of clarity on where we stand… Read the rest of this entry »

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Survey Results: Are We the Only Christians?

The ICOC (International Churches of Christ) have been growing and changing in a major way over the past 10 years. One of the bigger things we have changed is no longer claiming to be the “one true church” (which we never officially did).  A few weeks ago I posted a survey is in order to reveal just how much our membership’s beliefs may have changed in this area.

The first question was the most basic and easy to answer (I think).  Do you believe only members of our churches are true Christians? This question is very relevant because it was what our church has been accused of over and over: thinking we are the only Christians. Read the rest of this entry »

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Survey for current ICOC church members

SurveyThis survey is intended for current members of any church in the International Churches of Christ. I am trying to get a pulse on where people are at, seven years after the major upheavals caused, in part by the Henry Kriete Letter. Please fill out the survey honestly – there is no way of tracing answers back to you… :)

The answers will be published in Read the rest of this entry »

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