Five Ways to Make Your Kids Hate Church

This is from http://theresurgence.com/2011/03/26/5-ways-to-make-your-kids-hate-church

1. Make sure your faith is only something you live out in public

Go to church... at least most of the time. Make sure you agree with what you hear the preacher say, and affirm on the way home what was said especially when it has to do with your kids obeying, but let it stop there. Don’t read your Bible at home. The pastor will say everything you need to hear on Sundays. Don’t engage your children in questions they have concerning Jesus and God. Live like you want to live during the week so that your kids can see that duplicity is ok.

2. Pray only in front of people

The only times you need to pray are when your family is over, holiday meals, when someone is sick, and when you want something. Besides that, don’t bother. Your kids will see you pray when other people are watching, no need to do it with them in private.

3. Focus on your morals

Make sure you insist your kids be honest with you. Let them know it is the right thing for them to do, but then feel free to lie in your own life and disregard the need to tell them and others the truth. Get very angry with your children when they say words that are “naughty” and “bad”, but post, read, watch, and say whatever you want on TV, Facebook, and Twitter. Make sure you focus on being a good person. Be ambiguous about what this means.

4. Give financially as long as it doesn’t impede your needs

Make a big deal out of giving at church. Stress the need to your children the value of tithing, while not giving sacrificially yourself. Allow them to see you spend a ton of money on what you want, while negating your command from Scripture to give sacrificially.

5. Make church community a priority... as long as there is nothing else you want to do

Hey, you are a church going family, right? I mean, that’s what you tell your friends and family anyways. Make sure you attend on Sundays. As long as you didn’t stay up too late Saturday night. Or your family isn’t having a big barbeque. Or the big game isn’t on. Or this week you just don’t feel like it. Or... I mean, you're a church-going family, so what’s the big deal?

Operation World

I want to share about an amazing resource I came across about a year ago. Operation World is the definitive prayer guide to every nation in the world. The book Operation World is the primary resource which gives limitless information on every single country. Information from economic status to challenges for pray. The website is also full of information and has several resources to guide your prayers for the nations. One of my favorite features is the pray today link which gives you a different country to pray for every day of the year. It has radically changed my prayer life and given me a clearer grasp of the nations. I could go on and on about how useful the book and website are but I will just mention a couple practical things.

It is a window to the nations for my family. Not only is it informative but it brings us as a family closer to the heart of God for the nations. During our family worship time we will open the book and read about the specific country listed for that day. As we watch the news and see world events unfold, we actual know about these countries and it opens our eyes even more to what and who we are praying for. It is amazing to see how this book has transformed our families heart for the lost in the past year.

It is a window to the nations for my youth. When everything they do seems to be self absorbed, from the games they play to the TV they watch, Operation World gives them a clearer sense of reality. There are 60 some prayer videos for different nations on the website that are extremely gripping and give you an actual look at the people of the world. I think it is beneficial for teens to not only hear about the nations but to see the nations with their own eyes. Each week we post one of these videos on our youth website and then every Wednesday night we take some time as a group to pray for that particular nation. As they hear, see, and pray, my hope is they will be broken for the nations and not only have a desire to pray but to go. We've only been doing this for about 6 months but I had longed to do this much earlier in my ministry. There just didn't seem to be any resources where if I wanted to know about a country, I could find the information in one place. There is information out there on different ministry websites but nothing like this and I would have to spend so much time looking for what I needed that it was overwhelming. Needless to say I was completely humbled when I came across this because it has everything you would want to know about the world.

So that's a little glimpse at what Operation World is and some ways I've found it beneficial to me, my family, and my ministry. Check out http://www.operationworld.org/ to find out more for yourself and see what God will do if we humble ourselves and pray and seek His face.

Here is the video we posted this week on Brazil. The video footage alone is overwhelming and should cause us to pray.