Michael Hart's blog

Faith at the Proving Grounds

Saturday Oct. 25th, 9:30am-Noon at AAC.

Free for AAC members, $10 for everyone else.

For more info, click here.

For next steps following the event, click here.

Here is this week's Get into the Story. Enjoy!

From 'Parenting for the Glory of God' by John Piper: Ninety-nine percent of the actions you perform that influence your children are unpremeditated actions. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of them every day. Your facial expressions; your posture; your tone of voice; your gestures; your responses to the dog and the weather and the slipping clutch and the dripping faucet and the late spouse and the TV news; and a hundred other spontaneous expressions of who you really are. Ninety-nine percent of the behavior that influences your child is unpremeditated.

Here is week 2 of 'Get Into the Story', a family devotional which follows our Sunday School Curriculum. Included are short daily lessons which will help get the family together each day for worship. If you're not sure how to begin family devotionals, or need a fresh start, 'Get into the Story' is a good place to start.

"Today 70% of church youth walk away from the church within one year of high school graduation." -YTN LiveAbove.com and it's partner, the Youth Transition Network, are two groups I'm sure we'll talk about year after year. Their goal is to connect graduating seniors with Christian groups on their new college campus or military base. Seniors, it's not too early to begin thinking about what will happen to your faith when you leave mommy and daddy for campus life.

In this post, Trevin Wax provides us with some helpful thoughts on praying with our children.

 

I've been thinking a lot about curriculum this summer. In fact, every curriculum we will use at AAC this fall is new, and includes one I wrote myself. I'm am rather picky about what we 'teach' our kids. Some of what has been written for children's religious education is really garbage. Many times the material isn't completely wrong in itself, but presents biblical texts to illustrate points which are irrelevant to that particular story. read more »

I am convinced that the best place for our younger children during the worship service is right next to us in the pew. But why not send them off to Children's Worship for as long as we can? Attached is a short booklet I put together outlining why I believe we should move towards including younger children in the entire worship service.

I don't know about anyone else, but I had a blast on this trip! Hope you all enjoy the photos.

Since before I started at All Angels' I have been reading a blog written by two twin teenage brothers, Alex and Brett Harris called The Rebelution. About the same time I started at AAC, they published a book called 'Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations.' Immediately I was interested. So, I ordered the book and we may do a series on it sometime. If any of you check it out, let me know what you think.  read more »