Rick Nier...Woo!

I am more than halfway through the last year of dropping one of my children off at school. It's my eighth grade daughter, for anyone keeping track of my family.  See, next year she will be at the high school, and her brother will drive her. He says that it's not cool for seniors to drive their freshman sister to school, but I bet it's cooler than being dropped off by your mom in a minivan.  So rather than groan about this daily responsibility, I've been reminiscing about what the drop-off line used to look like, way back in elementary school. Once our children were about halfway through their elementary years, the drop-off line became a test of patience.  Do you know which group you do not want to get caught behind in the parent drop-off line at an elementary school? The kindergartners. These little ones are barely able to walk, but now we put them in the high-pressure situation of trying to unbuckle their seat-belt, grab their backpack (which might be as tall as they a...

The leadership had discussed, deliberated and decided. There had certainly been debate. People felt strongly on both sides.  ‘If we allow this to happen, everything we stand for will mean nothing.’ Honestly, both sides were saying it and both felt it was a matter of salvation. ‘Agree with me or I don’t know how you could possibly be a Christian.’ After all, all the facts support my view. If you choose to believe otherwise, it is only because of  your preconceived or ill-conceived view of matters. I cannot possibly be judged for considering you to be less intelligent, less caring, or less than Christ-like if you oppose my view.  That’s what everyone, on both sides of the argument, was saying. The issue at hand was, of course, circumcision. I’m sorry, did you assume I was talking about something else?   The Council in Jerusalem had just met. It’s recorded in Acts 15 if you’d like to review it. Everyone who was anyone was there and they made certain their voice was hear...

My kids are all teenagers now, but I can still recall the bedtime routines we had when they were younger. It was pretty much the same routines you have likely had. Brushing of the teeth, reading of books, last hugs and kisses, and mooing like cattle from the living room to the bedroom. via GIPHY What, you never did that last one? Hmmm, ok. I guess that’s a story for another post.  Now that my kids are 18, 16, and 13, the routines have changed. For instance, on nights without school, I’m the first to go to bed. But I digress. One routine has remained. And it happens because of my youngest child asking for it every night before she goes to bed.  Will You Pray With Me? It’s prayer. Every night she asks us to pray with her. Now I’m not saying she’s more spiritual than her siblings. She would say that, but I’m not saying that.  In fact, the manner in which she sometimes asks us to pray reveals it. Feels more like her ticket to sleep than an actual desire ...

Here is how some conversations with myself go.  Me: I should post a new article on my blog a couple of times each week. Also me: You haven’t posted an article in over a month! Me: This time could be different. I could be more focused. Sarcastic me: Yep, because that’s how life works.  Really Sarcastic Me: Please hurry because dozens of people are waiting on pins and needles to hear your thoughts.  The really sarcastic me can often be quite mean. And, to be honest, some conversations with myself are way worse than this one.  The truth is, I have no promises to myself, nor guarantees to you, on how often I am going to post. An honest review of my posts reveals too many that start with “Wow, it’s been a while since I posted...remember when I said I wanted to write?”  Here is what I am telling myself, while pushing the mean and sarcastic voices down. I have something to say. I have something to offer. Encouragement, hope, insight. S...

I have told a few people about my family’s word of the year. You know about this trend, no doubt. Equal parts resolution and trendy reminder to oneself of something you want to achieve. For my family, it came almost as a whim. We had chosen the word adventure the year before. It fit within the context of what we were going through.  Honestly, the adventure hasn’t ended, but I felt a need for us to grow in the place where this adventure had taken us.  Extra.   It was fun to me because of how my teenagers were using the word. Extra. If someone is doing anything they view as unnecessary or over the top, they are considered extra. You'll have no problem imagining that my kids see me as extra several times every day. If you want to see extra, come and watch a teenager react when you tell them something they don’t want to hear.  But we chose the word  extra . We said we wanted to engage in life more than we had before. We wanted to represent C...

Suffice it to say that in this technological age of streaming and DVRs, my kids have likely watched fewer commercials than when we were kids. They have seen ads. We all deal with ads, but when we're focused on trying to get past the ad, how much do we really pay attention? But we recently switched from Dish to YouTube TV, something I don't regret. While watching a show as it was being aired, my kids saw a political ad. Their shock at the shade being thrown made me wonder if they've never seen a political ad before. They laughed out loud as the smear campaign was played. Not in an amused way. No, it was the sort of nervous laughter that happens when you wonder if you really just heard what you think you heard. It's the recognition that these are things we hear in TV shows, but didn't realize that, in this case, Hollywood imitates real life. Are my children sheltered? Is that what happened? They go to public school. They remind me every day that I force them t...

I've been substitute teaching for a few weeks. I have made myself available to sub for all ages, K-12. Here a few things I've learned; Velcro should be mandatory for first graders. Middle schoolers will change their perspective when you tell them gym is better than math. Good point, teacher! High schoolers want a sub that is chill. I believe the working definition of chill is, someone who will let me text my friends instead of working on the assignment left by the teacher. Seriously, Velcro. Younger kids are ready to run, even before they know the rules. 4th graders can't seem to have enough detail, no matter how simple the game.  Me: Let's play tag. Them: What if an alien comes down while I am tagging a person, and the alien abducts that person, are they still it? A raised hand, in elementary school, doesn't mean they have a question. It probably means they want to answer the next question. Or it means they want to inform me how their regula...

Here you and I are, just starting our day with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, and people are out there making changes in the way we are governed. And there are other people out there studying the impact it makes on people.  So what changes and what impact are we talking about today? The impact made on high school students when states change the policies about same-sex marriages. You can read the article here for yourself , but here is a summary of their findings; This difference-in-differences analysis of representative data from 47 states found that same-sex marriage policies were associated with a 7% reduction in the proportion of all high school students reporting a suicide attempt within the past year. The effect was concentrated among adolescents who were sexual minorities. Translation: They asked adolescents who would identify as something other than heterosexual if they had attempted suicide before and after the legalization of same-sex marriages.  Please note, that w...

From time to time I will be posting a short teaching moment I had with the young children who attend our church preschool. This one involved a purposely mistaken drawing of my home. I say purpose;ly mistaken so you don't think I live in some weird world. So, I started coloring again. I was going to wait to show anyone, but I just couldn’t wait. I’m going to show you a picture of me at my house on a sunny day. Doesn’t this look good? What do you think? Am I a natural artist? These kids, who I've noticed struggle with staying in the lines, were quick to notice my mistakes. Of course, that was the point. It looks like I got a lot of things mixed up in my drawing. Sometimes we get things all mixed up in life. Do you ever fight with your brother or sister? Have you ever told your mom or dad no? Have you ever refused to share? Ever been grumpy? Did you know that sometimes even moms and dads get things mixed up? Even adults get angry, sometimes we fight and say things we should ...

I wear a few different hats at my church. That may be understating things, but suffice it to say I get to know a lot of different people in a lot of different age groups. One of the benefits is the relationships I build with multiple generations and the vantage point from which I can see where our church is at. On any given Sunday, I will have lots of different people that I would like to catch up with as several people that might seek out my attention. Yesterday was one of those days. But I should mention that one of the areas I oversee is that of children. And children will get your attention....ummm...whenever they can. I was leading in our worship service, which will involve leading the singing as well as calling ushers to collect the offering. This year in our church, we have children collecting change for missionaries. So while the ushers are collecting money in an organized fashion, we have about 20 kids running around the sanctuary, shaking people down for their loose c...

I'm looking at different children's curriculum resources for our children's ministry programs. It's not a task I enjoy. I sit on my youth ministry mountain and look down and make many assumptions about the things that happen in children's ministries. I have so very many thoughts while swimming through an ocean of options.  First of all, why are there so many options. Are you telling me children's classes are more than some kind of juice, a box of goldfish and a song with motions? Why do we even need a book to tell us how to do this? Should there really be crafts? If the church thinks this stuff is so important, they should invest in a hallway of refrigerators for all of this art to go on.  Why do all the advertisements for these resources show happy adults down on the floor with puppets and glue sticks and well-behaved children? If I used their curriculum, would my classrooms be magically transformed? Then we get to the curriculum itself. It...

Love does not always mean acceptance as the world thinks about love and acceptance. 'Just accept me and leave me be...' seems to be the mantra of this world. However, when we love someone, we often change our habits when we are around them. Consider a guy trying to attract a girl. Body spray will only get you so far. At some point he will have to move beyond one-liners and Chuck Norris jokes. Change must come. She may accept him, but he will have to make some choices along the way if he will show his love.  Consider how we adapt to family members. For those that smoke, they may take it to another room, even in the winter, to appease the family that doesn't. They do this to show love. The needs of others trump the desires of self.  Consider roommates. They may keep their music down or their dirty clothes contained. They do so because they have accepted this relationship. They continue to do so out of love, even if just a desire to love God through the loving act...

For all my friends in ministry, I couldn't say this any better myself. Who knows, maybe hearing it from someone else will help you understand it better. I got this from the  www.downloadyouthministry.com  blog. If you're in youth ministry, connect with the work they are doing over there. They have what they call the greatest deal in the history of youth ministry, and I'm apt to agree with them. Back to the article. Here's the teaser; the before and after of any ministry event is just as important as what happens during the event. If you volunteer in any ministry of my church, here's what I want you to understand. http://downloadyouthministry.com/real-ministry-15-minutes/

"I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!"  The words belong to St. Paul, in Romans 9:3, and quite honestly, I don't know that I've ever been willing to utter that phrase. To be even more honest, I read the verse recently and wondered what Paul was thinking. He said it in connection to his fellow Jews. He wrote that his grief was unending as he considered how many of his friends would die without knowing Jesus as Christ.  Yet I still wonder what Paul was thinking.  Consider it for a second. Aren't we continually told that God should be our focus? Aren't we taught that anything that comes first before God is an idol? Couldn't you read this and think, even for a second, that Paul values his fellow countrymen more than he does being with God? I think you could. However... Paul is surely more of a saint than I am. Paul, who had visions and dreams and saw things I can only imagine, was surely on to something here.  F...

"Why hasn't God made it better?" I was explaining Alzheimer's to my kids.  The question came from my 7-year old. At the moment, I'm glad I'm not God and don't have to answer. Of course, I don't want to be the person pointing a finger at the Almighty, asking Him when He intends to get around to this matter. I will admit, however, that it is a good question. My 7-year old is not the first person to ask the question and she won't be the last. Though an argument could be made that she is the cutest. And she asked it with pure sincerity.  Many people have taken more time than I have lived and more space than my silly blog to answer this question. I've taken the time to read some of those answers, as I'm sure you have. Some of the answers are questionable. Some of the answers are great and lead to deeper faith. Many of them could be much shorter, like that of my 10-year old son, "God makes good things out of hard roads....

The irony of writing a post directly to one person is not knowing if that one person will get the message. Case in point, today's post. I would give up all dozen readers to know that my wife still knows she is very much my Valentine. We do ministry together. It's not always pretty. We have 3 children which often feel like 6 or 7 children. Definitely not an easy task. Then we have to relate to each other. While we've gotten better at discussing problems (read: I've gotten better at not being a big stupid-head), after 16 years of marriage, we're still not perfect. But through it all, there is no other girl whose attention I'd rather have. There's no other lady that I want to impress and work out and work hard for than her. She is my love. She is my muse. She is the ear who listens to my rantings. She is my opus. And even though I can't sing a love song the way Bon Jovi believes it's supposed to be sung, I want her to know how I feel about her....

My family has attempted a family devotional time in various ways and at various times. With young children who have a zest for life, this can be a challenge. And by ‘zest’, I mean they often act like their goal in life is to accomplish the equal and opposite goals of their parents. And by ‘challenge’, I mean it might be a more productive use of my time to train an army of squirrels to herd kittens for no pay. My kids test this theory. Nevertheless, we try. Our latest endeavor involved an exercise in 1 Corinthians 13, the famed love chapter. I began by reading the first 3 verses, which talk about a life of love being nothing more than a resounding gong. The boy: What’s a gong or cymbal. Me: It’s a big round instrument that makes an annoying sound. The boy: Oh, you mean like this? The boy then proceeds to make clanging cymbals, which delights and amuses his sisters. We move ahead. I tell them Paul is talking about how our actions need to have a right motive, o...

File this one under: I don't know where she gets some of this stuff, but she's just so darn cute and you just know my wife already posted this on Facebook. (Yeah, my files are very  specific.) Out of nowhere my 6-year old told my wife (age undisclosed) that she, in fact, loved her more than ice cream. From the heart of a 6-year old, that's pretty big. I don't know if her Sunday School teacher has been talking about loving people more than things, but that sounds like right priorities to me. Perhaps thinking I might feel slighted, the next day she told me she would let her ice cream melt if I needed her. Which is funny, because if my kids called me for help, my answer might be, 'Can it wait until I finish my ice cream?' My hope in telling you all of this is simple. I hope you'll assume it was some amazing conversation that I had with my 6-year old that caused her to discover Christ-like love such as this. I kind of also hope you'll re-post this a...