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All Access- Week 1- April 30

4/30/2017

There’s nothing better than an all-access pass. Whether it’s a backstage pass at a concert for your favorite band or a front row seat at the championship game for your favorite team, having all access makes a great experience even greater! Without an all-access pass there’s a limit to how close you can get—a hall you can’t walk down, a seat you can’t sit in, a rope you can’t cross. In other words, there’s something keeping you from truly getting up close and personal to the action. And at some point, most of us have probably felt the same way about God. Even though we show up at church, pray the prayers, and sing the songs, we feel like there’s something keeping us from getting as close to God as others seem to be. It’s as if we’re experiencing God from the cheap seats. But that’s not how God intended us to feel. In fact, God went out of His way to make sure that everyone could move past the barriers and get closer to Him. And as we’ll see this week, when we take hold of the all-access pass God’s offering us, there’s no longer anything holding us back from experiencing the greatest possible thing—a relationship with Him.

Share a high and a low from the past week.
How do you think most people would define being close to God?
What do you think keeps most people from feeling close to God?
When do you feel closest to God? When do you feel most distant?

Hebrews 10:19-20 NLT
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.

Why do you think God is more concerned with us being close than He is in us being perfect?
What are some good things that come as a result of being close to God?
What does it mean to be close to God, even when you don’t have it all together?
If you really believed that you had all access to God, what would you do differently?

We could not approach you, O God, were it not for the person of Jesus, Lord and Savior, Servant and Friend. His perfect love and life could have widened the gap between us and you, but instead he offered himself as the way to you, by living out the truth of your love and by gracing our lives with the gift of his life. Accept our prayers and praise, our spoken and unspoken words of thankfulness for being able to approach you, O God, through Jesus— the way, the truth and the life. May this time of worship increase our desire to live lives which honor and glorify you.
This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen

Mark the Cross of Christ on each others foreheads as a remembrance of your baptism and say these words...

"(Name) you are a beloved Child of God."

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Family Cue- All Access- April 2017

4/24/2017

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We're Teaching This

Have you ever been to a concert? Maybe you had tickets for great seats. Maybe you were in the nosebleeds. Either way, you probably noticed that everyone had the same goal in mind, to get as close as possible. There’s just something about being near the band or near the artist that makes a great concert even more fun. But there’s a limit, right? No matter how good your tickets are, you can only get so close. There’s a velvet rope you can’t cross, a hall you can’t walk down, or a security guard you can’t stroll right past because those areas are reserved for certain people...special people— people with an all-access pass.

Maybe you’ve felt the same way when it comes to God. Sure, you come to church and sing songs or listen, but there’s a limit to how close you can get. It’s almost like there’s a velvet rope around certain parts of our faith that tells us those parts are restricted to special people, to church-staff people, or to super-spiritual people. But what if that’s never what God intended?

In this series we’ll explore what the Resurrection of Jesus really meant—for real people like us. And, we’ll discover that, because of Easter, we have an all-access pass to Him and to the life He has for us.

Think About This- Carey Nieuwhof

You may have a toddler right now who won’t leave your side.

You know the kind. The kid who’s glued to your leg, velcroed to your arm, who wants you to read the same story again, and again, and again. It’s driving you nuts some days, isn’t it?

It’s hard to believe, but one day, they’re going to withdraw. Ask any parent who has middle schoolers. Or teenagers. It happens…they withdraw. And you know what happens to most parents? Most parents have no idea what to do. So they do this: When their kids withdraw, they withdraw.

Why wouldn’t you? I mean it kind of works like that in life, doesn’t it? When someone doesn’t want to be your friend anymore, you eventually give up and withdraw, which only makes sense. You can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t want to be your friend. Except that in this case, they’re you’re family. The dynamic isn’t as straightforward. So what do you do?

As a father of 2 sons, now 19 and 23, I can give you a few pointers. Now, I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve just been confused by it long enough and have enough scars to write a few hundred words on the subject.

Basically, if you’ve got a kid who thinks Minecraft is far more interesting than Mom, or a son who doesn’t want to watch movies with you but seems to want to watch anything and everything with their friends, what do you do?

1. Get over your hurt. Just admit it: It kind of hurts a little.
You pour your heart into your kids, get up at 5 a.m. to take them to practice, do homework with them on nights when your brain should have had a rest hours ago, fund everything, and suddenly they find you…uninteresting.
As much as that kind of stinks, you’re the parent. Get over it.
Your job isn’t to be their friend; it’s to be their parent.

2. Be around.
When my oldest started high school, he told me, “Hey dad…why can’t you just be like other dads and simply hang around more?” It was weird for me to hear that, because I was home a lot. But he was right. I was always busy. Being a driven person who loves what he does, I was always working on a new project or writing something new.

The penny dropped. So basically I just needed to hang around and do nothing or at least not be preoccupied? I didn’t know if I had a category for that. But I tried. I decided to hang around the house night after night with no particular agenda, just to see what happened.

The first night my oldest son went out after supper to hang out with friends and my other son was tied up with something else. I thought, well this is stupid. I wanted to go get busy with something. But my wife persisted. So I decided to give it more time.

And after a while, we started connecting much more. No agenda. Nothing pressing. Just by virtue of being in the same space in the same time repeatedly, we connected.

And I learned this: While being around is no guarantee anything relationally significant will happen, not being around is an absolute guarantee nothing relationally significant will happen. So be around.

3. Leverage the ordinary.
Your rhythm changes as your kids get older. Tucking your five-year-old into bed is an amazingly glorious ritual. Tucking your 15-year-old into bed every night is just weird. You lose a lot of the rhythms of childhood when your kids get older. And if you keep invading the space they spend with their friends, you lose major points.

But there are other opportunities. Meal times are a case in point.

Take the time to eat a meal together…not in the car… not standing at the kitchen breakfast bar sucking back a smoothie on your way out the door, but at a real table, with real chairs, with real forks and real knives. And chew your food. If you take 15-30 minutes to have dinner together and turn off all your devices, amazing things happen. Amazing things like conversations. No matter how busy our lives get, we always try to sit down together for five dinners a week. If you prioritize it, it can happen.

Another great opportunity is during your drive time. I know, you feel like a taxi service. So leverage that. Turn the music off…or up, depending on your mood. Don’t talk on the phone. Stop texting (especially if you’re driving), and talk. Conversations in the car can go deeper faster because you haven’t got the pressure of looking at each other.

So what happens when all this happens?

Well, you grow up. They grow up. And sometimes, they develop a habit of coming around.

I’m writing this after having lunch with my eldest son and his wife at a Mexican restaurant they found near their place in Toronto. He had called the day earlier and said, “Hey Dad, you and mom want to come down after church? We’d love to hang out with you guys.” My other son now calls and texts from a university out of town…even when he doesn’t need money. Imagine that. Just remember this. When your kids withdraw, don’t withdraw. It’s so worth the fight.

Try This

In this series, we’ve been talking about the idea of “all access”—the idea that we have all access to God, which gives us access to hope and purpose. But your teenager also needs to know they have an all-access pass to talk to you. That’s certainly easier when they’re younger. Bath time and bed time give you clear opportunities to talk. But as schedules get busier and the conversations become more complicated, it may be helpful to remind your son or daughter that they still have your attention.

This week, try texting them or writing a simple note to let them know you’re still available to them. It doesn’t have to be long or emotional.

Try something like this:
Hey, I heard you’ve been talking about “all access” at church. I know sometimes it may not feel like you have or need allaccess to me, but I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything, anytime. No pressure to start today. Just wanted you to know.

Honestly, you may not get a response. That’s okay. The goal is to simply re-give them permission to talk to you on their time and when they’re ready.

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All Access- Week 1- April 30

Family Cue- All Access- April 2017

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Think About This- Carey Nieuwhof

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First Lutheran Church

1000 Third Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, IA | 319.365.1494 | info@firstlutherancr.org | A congregation of the ELCA

All Access- Week 1- April 30

Family Cue- All Access- April 2017

We're Teaching This

​Think About This- Carey Nieuwhof

Try This

What is this?

Archives

Categories

First Lutheran Church

1000 Third Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, IA | 319.365.1494 | info@firstlutherancr.org | A congregation of the ELCA

Think About This- Carey Nieuwhof