When I was a boy I was told that three most important things to remember in life are:
#1 People are more important than things
#2 People are more important than things
#3 People are more important than things
Do you agree? I think you probably do. Then why do we go after the “things” so much? Why do we work so hard for stuff…material possessions? Why is it that the desire to be comfortable in this life drives us to be uncomfortable because of all the hours we work and time we miss with our families? What’s really important in life? People or things?
I think we’d all say: PEOPLE.
I try to practice what I preach, albeit not too well at times. One of the things I had promised Andrew that we would do is join a group called “Contenders.” It’s a group of dads and sons that seek to follow the Biblical admonition to be “contenders of the faith.” Clara and Pam are going to a group for moms and daughters called “Keepers of the Home.” It’s important to spend time with our kids. We all know that. And I thoroughly enjoy my time with my children.
Contenders meet twice per month on Monday nights. Here was our project for the first night:
See all of those tools lying there. That’s the project. Learn the tools by name and what they do and then use them. Here’s some other dads and sons…
Yep…people are more important than things.
Here’s another proof of that.
Recently our “Mentoring Sunday School Class” had an outing called, “Survivor” at the home of Mark and Kathy Eller (a wonderfully hospitable couple in our church). What is a mentoring class? Well, we take the concept from our Rite of Passage philosophy. What’s that? (We’re getting deeper and deeper aren’t we? :))
I wrote this book 2 1/2 years ago…
In the book I chronicle the fact that the church can come alongside families and encourage the family to teach and train their children in their homes in an intentional purposeful way. Jesus at the age of 12 said, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?” Thus, at age 12, Jesus was seeking the things of God. He set the example for all of our children. We push that at the church. We push that to the Dads. We push that to the moms. We don’t have a youth group or children’s church, or even a nursery. Everything we do is via the conduit of the family. We believe that’s Biblical.
One of the ways we seek to raise the bar for our young adults is to encourage them to take ownership of their faith. From the age of 12 and up, you can go to any Sunday School/Bible Study class in the church you desire. You can go with your parents to their class, or you can go to our “mentoring class.” The mentoring class is something we’ve taken from Titus 2, where Paul admonishes Titus to encourage the older to teach the younger. We have parents and other adults in the class along with our young adults. We don’t just have a room full of teenagers with one teacher trying to maintain order and keep everyone off their cell phones. No sir. We don’t have that problem. We’ve mixed adults with young adults. Isn’t that the way life is going to be. Since when do you work with peers who are all your same age or within 2-3 years of your same age? That’s not “REAL WORLD.”
So, we don’t spoon-feed our young adults. In fact we don’t even use the term “youth.” It has a negative connotation in many respects. So, “Young Adults” it is. Because that’s how we want them to see themselves. YOUNG ADULTS. So…get this…in the mentoring class they actually often teach the class. Yes, they are expected to learn the Scriptures well enough to teach them. Think about it. If they can do Algebra, Biology and Chemistry, they can certainly learn to teach from the Word of God.
So, back to “Survivor.” Annually, the mentoring class goes to this wonderful couple’s home on W. Kerr Scott Lake in Wilkesboro and the young adults have a blast competing against each other in bicycle races, swimming, canoeing and the like. But, here’s my favorite part…
See the man in the orange T-shirt? That’s Wayne Shepherd. He’s the teacher of the Mentoring class and he’s also the Principal of West Wilkes High School, where the majority of our young adults end up in high school. (We do have some at Wilkes Central High School and a few at North Wilkes High School and a bunch of homeschoolers.) Wayne has been leading the class in teaching from the books of Job, Ecclesiastes and even some of my Wednesday evening teaching on 1 Timothy. If they get the question right, they get a piece of candy and their team gets a point in the “Survivor” contest. Man are those young adults getting it and they are having fun in the meantime!
Yes, learning the Bible is fun and you learn it best when you have to study, prepare and then teach it! You know that if you’ve ever taught a Sunday School lesson or a Bible Study.
Did you see those smiles? Yep…people are more important than things.
All the family comes…not just “youth.”
More great pictures:
See the man in the green hat? That’s Mark Eller. He is our host.
The ladies were on the “red team.”
Guys are on the “blue team.”
The ladies won the doughnut passing contest…
The two-legged, one-blind-folded race was super!
Race those canoes!!!
First team with all team members to the dock win!!!
Okay…here’s another example of the joy of people versus things. It comes by way of some scenes from our annual Deacon/Staff dinner at our home this past Saturday. We had such a blast. I am so blessed to serve with such wonderful people.
This is one of my favorite pictures. That’s Ken Bryan. He gave me permission to show you this picture.
He’s on a diet. Can you tell. His wife, Renee said, “Are you kidding me?” 🙂 He told Renee and me that there was fruit on his plate. I counted two strawberries and one cherry. 🙂 Did I tell you about my plate? I didn’t, did I? I don’t plan on it. 🙂
Guilty as charged!
We had close to 50 people at our house! So, we had some tables set up in our garage.
Yes…I’ll say it again… People are more important than things.
I wrote a “Daily Devotion” this morning about this couple…
Don’t recognize them?
Maybe you recognize this good looking couple? 🙂 So let’s review. The three things about life that you must remember:
#1 People are more important than things
#2 People are more important than things
#3 People are more important than things
By the way…just so you’ll know. I’m going hurricane dodging. It’s that time of year. It’s time to head to the coast with the most. We’re off to the beach this Saturday. So, I’ll be signing off for about a week. I’ll miss you. I hope you miss me and mine. 🙂