I'm now the parent of a school-kid!

This morning Tim wore his school uniform for the first time. It's amazing how grown up a kid looks just by donning school clothes. We wandered over to Kindy together and settled Tim in - he was looking pretty serious as he learnt about where to put his lunch and hang his bag and so on, but he was also very excited to see his friends there. Some of the mums came to our house after dropping their kids of - sort of a support group!

It's such an interesting feeling having your child start school. I hope he has a great time, I hope he feels comfortable and enjoys learning and playing. I hope he gels with the teachers well. I hope nothing happens to bruise his confidence. I also hope he represents his family well!

I reckon one of the biggest challenges in parenting are the stages of letting go. Of not taking his teacher aside to explain how Tim learns and listens best, and what sort of correction he responds to best, and what he enjoys and what he struggles with....; but just to let them find their own way together. The natural protectiveness of the parent says "I need to be in control to keep my child safe. No-one else can do it like I can." When our kids are first in our care, that works fairly well. But from infancy on begins a process of gradually relinquishing that control. Failure to do so just stunts our children's and our own growth.

It's hard at times, but we just need to trust. Trust the babysitter (grandparents or whoever), trust the daycare staff, trust the teacher, trust the other kid's parents, trust the sports coach, the friends, the boy/girlfriend, the husband/wife, the in-laws... and of course, trust our children themselves.

Most of all, for those of us who are Christians, we trust God. After all, God loves our children even more than we are capable of. Hard to believe, but it's true!

Psalm 139 is a personal favourite of mine. It reminds us that God has been interested and involved with us even before we were born. He has a plan and a purpose for us, and uses even the dark, lonely and difficult experiences of life to shape us to be all that He intends us to be - if we will allow Him. As parents, we need to give God our blessing to shape our kids, and not try to protect them too much from the things that God will use to shape their character. At the same time, God has given us our role to protect them from things that will harm. It can be tough to discern the balance. My experience in youth ministry affirms that it just gets tougher as kids get older. As a father, my hope is that I will be a person who trusts, but also a person who knows when my kids need my protection.

Newsletters Galore!

I've added a link to the "Resources I find helpful" list, pointing to the subscription page for the Christianity Today newsletters. There's a whole bunch of free newsletters that you can subscribe to, which are well worth checking out. I get a lot out of the ones I receive each week, which are: Building Church Leaders, Leadership Weekly, Christian History Connection, CTWeekly, Today's Christian Weekly and Church Laughs. There's a whole stack of others targetted at particular audiences & themes, but I find that these give me a good variety of insight and info without getting overloaded.

Some of the newsletters keep me up to date with what's going on around the world, others challenge me as a Christian and as a Christian leader. They all provide me with good material for illustrations etc.

I'll let you know about some other resources I use bit-by-bit as the blog continues! I think it's so vital to be receiving good input from a variety of different sources and streams of Christianity - I know it's been valuable for me.

Drawing Near to God and Each Other

This sermon is basically Hebrews 10:19-25 unwrapped for people who aren't familiar with Jewish Temple worship. Some of the phrases in the passage really come to life when you know a little more about what was in the minds of the people who originally read this letter. I didn't write a manuscript for this one, just some notes to jog my memory. If you are interested, check out the audio version at: http://members.westnet.com.au/m.c.birch/

It's interesting how a lot of our worship material (lyrics in songs etc.) is drawn from the Old Testament, and relates a lot to the temple and how worship was conducted there. Knowing a bit more about that stuff can add some insights into how we worship today.