While on the subject David Fitch offers another really interesting piece
download trailer park of terror dvd that may only serve to muddy the waters of understanding further!
Incarnation & Contextualisation
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Monthly Archives: July 2008
Boys & Biffo
Today Sam came home from school and was very upset.
Sam is 6 and one of the kindest, gentlest little kids you will ever meet. That’s not parental bias because I wouldn’t use similar words of Ellie!
He told us that another 6 year old boy at school had been hitting him in the ‘willy’ and wouldn’t stop. He had clearly hurt him and Sam was feeling scared and distressed as well as a bit ashamed. Sam didn’t run away because he was scared the boy would follow him and he didn’t tell a teacher because ‘you’re not allowed to dob’. He just copped a flogging.
For some reason he hasn’t learnt what is and isn’t appropriate to tell teachers about.
Its the first time something like this has happened so as a parent I have been feeling all sorts of reactions this evening. This post is me thinking out loud about how to help Sam respond to this.
He has a day off tomorrow as we never send him on Fridays (gets him in practice for high school) and I am taking him to McDonalds for brekky. I am not about to dwell on the issue because this stuff happens among boys, but by the same token I have been pondering how to help him in responding to dickheads like he encountered today. No doubt life will bring its fair share of challenges like this one.
There is a part of me that feels I should tell him to simply run away and tell a teacher and another part of me that wants to say ‘if you hit him really hard a couple of times then he will probably back off’.
(Sam hitting the health foods)
While I admire those who can choose not to retaliate I have a feeling that they do it from a sense of strength and inner worth that allows them to take a few hits and not feel like they are losers. This is the first time it has happened, so we are not in dangerous territory yet, but if this was to happen regularly and Sam felt powerless in himself to respond I wonder if it wouldn’t do more harm than good in the long run?
Maybe teaching Sam how to land a couple of hard blows would be the way to go?…
Teaching him to discriminate as to when to use them is another issue.
To be honest I doubt Sam could ever hit anybody, but you get the idea of what I am pondering. If Sam knows he is able to defend himself then maybe he is less likely to grow into a victim who simply takes a pounding any time someone feels the urge.
Maybe he can then choose to not to retaliate from a place of inner strength rather than because he is too scared and has no option.
I have a sense that there is something in a bloke that withers and dies if he regularly cops a flogging from other blokes and never stands up for himself. Its just a gut feeling but I see something of masculinity tied up in this.
Yet I am not comfortable with teaching my son how to hit someone either. Its the beginning of the end if we go that route.
Is there a third way?
Because it becomes a very sad old world if ‘survival of the fittest’ rules the pre-school playground and we’re giving boxing lessons to 5 year olds…
“Why I Don’t Believe in Incarnational Mission”
Here’s a post home movie movie
to get you thinking about how you see mission!
As one who writes the odd provocative post I also enjoy reading and engaging with others who do the same.
Read it and offer your thoughts
A Morning Chuckle
Has Another Pendulum Just Cracked the Ceiling?
As people we seem to do a good job of reacting to the absence of something with its excess and vice versa.
You may have heard of the Relevant church in Florida with the ’30 Day Sex challenge”. (ie you get the leg over every day for 30 days) As a teenager I think that would have been my idea of heaven. As a 44 year old married bloke with kids the world looks a bit different… I’m not sure I want to have sex as mandatory. Then it would become like washing the dishes… well you get the idea 🙂 Still if you’re going to pick an activity to be excessive about, it sounds like a lot more fun that 30 days of tithing.
Anyway here’s a link to the discussion going on around this topic.
One of the commenters quoted C.S. Lewis and summed it up well “Satan does not care which extreme you pick, as long as you pick one.”
What really worries me is when the pendulum swings back and we have “30 days of abstinence”….
Not in my church…
The Value of People in Your Home
One of the beauties of doing what I do with Forge is that we have regularly had wonderful people stay in our home.
Over the last week we have had Steve & Felicity Turner from Queensland and also Andrew Menzies from Melbourne. Andrew was only here a short while, but we had a great time together. He connected really well with Danelle and I and the kids. He even paid Sam ‘bed rent’ ($2.00/night) for giving up his room and Sam was stoked!
Steve & Felicity spent the week with us and apart from the great conversations we had, the kids again felt like someone else was interested in them and caring for them. Felicity took the kids out for lunch one day and they came back with toys and lollies and all sorts of gear. We had to check our kids didn’t take her for a ride! But she genuinely wanted to hang with the kids and give them some special stuff. Ellie and Sam thought the world of these guys who loved them, talked to them and had fun with them.
Danelle grew up in a house where there were always people coming and going – such is the nature of a pastor’s home in the Pilbara. But my own home was much quieter. We simply didn’t have any need for people to come and go like that. She found it a great experience as she got to meet a whole bunch of people who influenced her life and in many ways were part of her discipleship.
As we sat around one night eating pizza Ellie raised her question about the existence of God again. It was great for her to hear from Steve and Felicity their stories of how God has been there for them and to be able to see that its not just her oldies who are religious nut jobs, but that God showed up in other people’s lives also.
So this post is just a big vote for having quality people in your home on a regular basis. It is great fun for us, but it also helps our kids see God at work in other ways.
Married by the Retic Bloke
I went to do a job today and got chatting with the customer, a woman in her 20’s who is getting marrried shortly.
She was telling me about the various problems she has had with her wedding and it sounded like it was wearing her down. Out of curiosity I asked her how much the celebrant charged. She rolled her eyes.
‘$450.00 and he is hopeless.’ she said. ‘He has given us no guidance and never returns our calls.’ I liked her and wanted to help.
‘I do weddings’, I said…
Standing there in work boots and with blue glue on my hands it might have been a tad hard to believe. But after a short conversation I finished up agreeing to do her wedding on a Friday arvo, in a couple of weeks time.
The cost?
I was going to do it for free, but she insisted on paying so I told her I’d do it at normal retic rates. Might have to get out of the trakky daks though…download walled in movie
Creak Gone
It tool me several hours of detecting, but I traced the creak in the back of my car to the way the LPG tank had been installed. Basically after removing everything else this was all that was left!
So with 2 washers per bolt now padding things out the tank no longer rubs on the base of the car and the noise has gone…
Can’t tell you how pleased I am…
It funny how small things can really give you the irrits!
Join the Queue then Stay Where You Are….
Why We Should Get Rid of Christian Schools
I bumped into an old friend on the train on Monday.
He is a teacher in the government system and loves his work. I was also a teacher in the government system for quite a while and had a hoot. I loved the rough and ready nature of things and the earthy conversation in the staff room. I have also taught in a Christian school and while I found the people top quality, the ethos (of ‘no non-Christians’ allowed) had me seething. I describe that as the year I was a ‘teaching whore’ – only in it for the money and hated how dirty it made me feel…
Anyway… rant over… My friend was expressing his concern at the development of Christian schools and the significant impact it was having on the rest of the education system.
Basically the issue is that Christian schools are leeching all of the Christian teachers out of the state system and using them to staff their own ventures.
He is concerned that there are precious few Christians left in the state system. In fact he told me that his principal download bonneville dvd (not a Christian) is very worried at this trend and has expressed concern at the change in ethos in state schools as the Christian teachers have gone.
It began to dawn on me that unless a Christian teacher holds the strong conviction that we must remain in the state system it is almost inevitable that they will be lured into their own system.
Here’s the problem:
– There is a finite number of teachers in WA and a much smaller finite number of teachers who would call themselves Christian
– Christian schools must be staffed by card carrying Christians
– Christian schools are on the grow
– The government system is not very appealing in many places.
As Christian schools grow, if they wish to remain true to their ethos of staffing with only Christians, then sooner or later they will need to recruit from the government system. (Or they can compromise and staff with non-Christians)
Sooner or later if the $$$ are right and the working conditions are better than in state schools, it won’t be long before very few Christians are left in the government system.
I dunno about you, but I see this as a huge issue and one to get concerned about…
Your thoughts?…