Winning Ways: “A Parent’s Lesson Plan”

What are the most common things parents say to their children?

Two family-life specialists surveyed hundreds of children and published the top three comments. Delmar Holbrook and his wife reported that the three most-said things were:

“I’m too tired.”
“We don’t have enough money.”
“Keep quiet.”

We can’t let those become our most memorable phrases when our kids think of what we’ve said to them! God has given us parents the responsibility to mold our kids into God-honoring adults—and we’ve only got about two decades to get the job done. As one writer said, the finger marks on the hallway wall get higher and higher and then, suddenly, they disappear.

We squander too many opportunities to teach our kids, but this Sunday we can recommit to that sacred task. This Father’s Day, June 15, I’m going to talk about the “lesson plan” we must follow as parents. Just as school teachers follow lesson plans to ensure that our kids get the curriculum they need to learn, parents have a lesson plan, too. In Proverbs 4:20-27, the wise father guides his son to . . .

. . . guard his heart from corruption
. . . discipline his mouth from irresponsible words
. . . fix his eyes on worthy goals, and
. . . set his feet on roads that won’t disappoint.

Join us this Sunday and recommit to teaching this “lesson plan” to your kids. If you don’t have kids, or your kids are all raised and gone, come to prayerfully support the parents who will be sitting around you!

Also, spread the word about our special study the following Sunday, June 22. It’s called “The Church of Oprah,” and we’ll conduct a biblical critique of Oprah Winfrey’s spiritual search.

The more research I do for this message, the more impressed I get with Oprah. She’s generous, informative, and inspiring. She’s honest about her frailties, from her childhood abuse to her struggles against weight gain to her spiritual search.

But she has chosen the wrong guides to help her on her spiritual search, most recently Eckhart Tolle. And, since she is incredibly influential, millions of women are getting the same bad advice.

The Bible can help us evaluate Tolle’s teaching. Our lesson on June 22 will help you develop discernment.

Join us this Sunday and the next at 9:30am or 10:45am!
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