Parents Academy: Lecture Hall

It’s time to share a deep, dark secret. 😀

Every week I listen to…

a theistic evolutionary podcast over at Reasons to Believe.

We don’t have a dishwasher, there are 7 people in our family, plus I take in some ironing for a bit of pocket money. All of these things go much faster when there’s something interesting to listen to. And, much as I love the Creation Today Show, they only have half-an-hour of new content a week. It takes me that long to do one day’s dishes! Add to that the scant half hour from Ravi Zacharias’ ministry and you still have 4 days of dishes (I let them pile up on Sundays) plus the ironing to fill.

So, I ran into the program Straight Thinking by Reasons to Believe. I wouldn’t still be listening if they made a big deal of God using evolution to “create” people, but they almost never mention it. Most of the time, the focus is on logic, Augustine, and other aspects of following Jesus we have in common.

The main speaker, Kenneth R. Samples, is a “teacher type” like me, so I just eat up all the brain exercise he throws around even when I occasionally disagree. The guy he talks with, Dr. David Rogstad, is gentle and soft-spoken making a good contrast. It is nice to see Christians of different viewpoints working and talking together in a godly fashion.

The podcast I just finished was so well put I encourage every parent to take an hour and listen. Oddly enough, the one mention of Evolution puts them on the same side as we are: Atheistic Evolution vs. Christianity. That made me smile!

Straight Thinking: Teaching Children The Faith

These are the points I most want us to catch:

• If you try to be the only godly influence in your child’s life, you are seriously limiting yourself. Here’s my analogy: Jesus doesn’t compare His people to lonely microbes, but to a human body. We need the community of believers. Use this to your kids’ advantage.
• Learn how to not be a Hypocrite. The podcast states this in a wandering way, but here’s my condensed version: be transparent. Your kids know you sin and make mistakes. Apologize and share your humanity with them. Let them watch you growing and struggling. Don’t try to look perfect, otherwise you just feed into the Adversary’s temptation for them to blow you off as two-faced.
• Being a good parent takes a lot of work.
• Pray. I think it’s a little humorous because Samples is a strong Calvinist, but the closing section of this talk makes him sound like he sure believes in free will!

It would be so nice if there was a magic book, talk, or truth we could share guaranteeing our children will choose Jesus and His life, but there isn’t. At the same time God give us great hope, so remember the time spent on your knees isn’t wasted, it’s vital.

Interestingly, I wrote a post on most of these things a few months ago from the Creation vs. Evolution viewpoint. It won’t take anything like an hour to read. 😀

As you can see, I don’t think a person must believe in 6 day Creation to be a true follower of Jesus! I look forward to hanging out with these guys after all of us have had our thinking truly straightened out in heaven!

Then John said, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to force demons out of someone. He is not one of us. So we told him to stop, because he does not belong to our group.”

Jesus said, “Don’t stop him. Whoever uses my name to do powerful things will not soon say bad things about me. Whoever is not against us is with us.  Mark 9:38-40 Easy-to-read Version