Ignite

This weekend Adam and I attended a Discipleship conference at our church. They brought in several speakers from all over the US and we enjoyed getting to know more of our church family. For some reason I felt as if the whole conference was geared towards discipling our own children, especially my boys. I know that was not intentional and definitely not the "focus" of the conference but everything I gleaned and wrote down was for my Big Man, my oldest son.

We already know that Goober has asked Jesus to be the Lord of his life, but we were failing him (and so many others) in helping him consistently learn and grow as a Christian. He does attend a christian school but it is absolutely the parents responsibility to be the best disciple, example, leader for their children. Now when I say we were failing I don't mean that we weren't speaking to his heart, teaching him to pray, reading the bible and centering our home around Christ. However, we weren't being as intentional as we could be and were somewhat denying Goober several growing opportunities.

Here are some notes I took down....writing things out and regurgitating them always helps.

**Goober needs to go on a mission trip with us and SOON...needs to see us putting our words into actions, needs to see those that truly hurt, needs to love on them
**Goober needs US to keep him away from too many stimuli....another reason we don't do anything electronic but the Wii.
**Goober needs to be a part of discussions where he can tell us how he thinks God would respond in different situations.
**Goober needs to see us in our "spot of service" at our church and find his own spot of service. He LOVES helping Adam greet on Sundays, so there is a start.
**Goober needs to see us giving generously and be expected to give his own money that he earns.
**Goober needs to write thank you notes to the leaders at our church....his sunday school teacher, our pastor and many others. He also needs to see Mommy and Daddy doing that too.

Basically we need to disciple him through our actions and words but also through intentional conversations at home. Being a disciple means "come, hang out with me, see how I live life, see how I love Jesus.....come with me on Sunday but also come along on Tuesday and Friday". It also questions "if you invited someone along to follow you, to be discipled by you..... would you have to change your everyday life or "act" in order to show them how you follow Christ?"

It really was a great conference and I am still digesting lots of things.