Sunday school is a cornerstone to helping our children know Christ more fully and walk in fellowship and obedience to him.  It is a shame to see them shutting it down: WSJ: Why Sunday Schools Are Closing.  My kids have Bible as part of their school education and they still learn a lot from their Sunday school classes.  It is the place where they become familiar with the Bible Stories and Bible facts.  As they get older, they should be able to take those truths and apply them to their lives.  At New Life, Laurie Burrows and our teachers are working hard to provide a robust Sunday morning schedule that will engage kids to know Christ fully.  Do you bring your kids?  Where will they learn the Bible if they will not learn Sunday mornings?

MP3 files and PDFs below from various parenting seminars hosted at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD:

Parenting Ages Infant to 5 (by Brian Chesemore)

• Training, Discipline, and the Rod | Outline (PDF)
• Biblical Principles of Parenting | Outline (PDF)

Parenting Ages 6 to 10 (by Kenneth Maresco)

Overall Outline (PDF)

• Biblical Principles of Parenting
• Shepherding Toward Conversion
  
• Shepherding Your Child’s Heart
  

Additional Resources:

• “Sowing Plan” (PDF)
• Plan to Overcome Complaining (PDF)

Parenting Ages 11 to 14 (by Greg Somerville)

Overall Outline (PDF)

• Changing Relationships
  
• Emerging Convictions in a Changing World
  
• Changing Bodies and Minds

Parenting Ages 15 to 18 (by Kenneth Maresco)

Overall Outline (PDF)

• God’s Role and Our Role
• A Teen’s Relationship with God
• The Importance of Relationships in a Teen’s Life
• Question and Answer Session

Parenting Ages 19 to 22 (by Bob Kauflin)

Overall Outline (PDF)

• Hopes and Goals
  
• Rules and Relationships
  
• College and Careers
  
• Question and Answer Session

HT: JT

Here are some absolutely chilling articles in the Washington Examiner about President Obama's Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren.  In a virtual war against the family, he has written about reducing population through compulsory sterilization, compulsory abortion, and removing tax benefits that encourage families to have children. 

When a person adopts a natuarlistic worldview and beings to think that humans are a cosmic accident and a problem to the planet, what course of action will they take to take care of the problem?  And this man is advising the president on his policies!  Yikes.  (Watch what you drink!)

Obama's science czar suggested compulsory abortion, sterilization

Obama's Science Czar: Traditional family is obsolete, punish large families

Zach Nielsen offers some good suggestions in helping your kids grow healthy in the midst of a pornographic society.

It appears that my favorite date place with Julie has closed.  Oh the sadness ... Oh the anger... I'm blaming all you Chipotle people!

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BAJA FRESH SAYS ADIOS

Baja Fresh Mexican Grill, a fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain, has closed its location in Central Park.

The location was under-performing, and the Cypress, Calif.-based chain has no immediate plans to open another one in this area, said spokeswoman Tiffany Avans.

--Cathy Jett

My Op/Ed piece was published on July 2 in our local paper, the Free Lance Star. 

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AS WE CELEBRATE the 233rd anniversary of America's independence, the Christian beliefs that make freedom possible are eroding as we reject our Christian heritage.

In April, while speaking in Turkey, President Obama claimed that while the United States has "a very large Christian population--we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." Also in April, the cover of Newsweek magazine announced "The Decline and Fall of Christian America," noting that fewer people now identify themselves as Christians.

What would make America a Christian nation? The answer is not found in statistics or in character, but in our form of government. The "ideals and values" Obama speaks about come from distinctively Christian principles. Without Christianity, our system of government would have proved impossible. And if our nation continues to see a weakening Christian faith, the pillars that support our treasured freedoms will crack under the weight of mounting social and economic pressures.

The Christian heritage of America can be seen in our most important documents, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In addition to overt references to God and our Creator, there are many subtle, but clear, examples of the Bible's influence in the very essence of the Declaration. The idea that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" is a direct result of Christian anthropology--that every person has equal worth, no matter their age, sex, or ethnicity, because each is created "in the image of God." The fact that we have 50 self-governing states that form a single United States is a testimony to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: one God who is eternally existent as three persons.

Taking their cue from Jesus himself, the founders of our nation knew that leadership is public service (Mark 10:42; John 13). Even America's system of representative self-government borrowed heavily from the biblical model, where churches selected their own elders for leadership. The founders knew that without true self-government, democracy becomes a sham, much like what we see in Iran with unelected religious leaders serving as the true electorate.

It is a hotly debated question as to whether our founders were more deist or Christian. But even the deists were immersed in Christian language and philosophy. Whether or not they were professing Christians, the education, language, and world view of each founder was inescapably saturated with Christian beliefs. Thomas Jefferson, a strong deist, received his early education from two Anglican ministers. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was a graduate of Presbyterian Princeton University, was an understudy of the Reverend John Witherspoon, and considered a career in theology before entering politics. Christian doctrine informed their thinking in establishing our nation on Christian principles. They had no other system to use.

Like America itself, the church has known marked failures from its core beliefs--but like America as a whole, Christians have worked hard to try to improve it. The Bible is the standard of truth for the church, and the church has had to change to adjust to biblical truths.

It was Christians who corrected the abuses of the crusades and the Inquisition. Christianity has been able to be self-critical and thus self-corrective when we are out of accord with the primary principles of biblical faith--faith, hope, and love. As a result, Christianity has produced the most just and free cultures to ever exist in our world.

We see the same process at work in our own nation. Though slavery left a horrible mark on American history, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were its death sentence. The existence of slavery was inconsistent with our own principles and had to disappear.

America is a great place to live because we are a nation whose laws require us to preserve the fundamental rights of each person. As a pastor, I am concerned for the souls of individuals that they would find eternal life through Jesus Christ. But the soul of our nation is vital as well. If our nation loses its soul to secularism, we will see our basic rights erode. We cannot possibly hold to the benefits of Christian systems when we deny the reality of Christian doctrine.

It is time for America's people to remember that our system of government depends on a living faith in Jesus Christ. It is vital for us as a people to turn back to that faith.

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Lot's of critical comments at the bottom of the web link (most of them are ad hominem).  This one was published in a letter to the editor.  My critics ignore the foundational principles that exist in our nation that can only have come from a Christian theology.  Why has no other Declaration or Constitution ever been written anywhere else that provided for so much freedom and liberty?  Where did they come from?  They didn't come from Islam, Eastern Mysticism, or paganism.  Only from Christianity.

In this article, Andrew Webb provides vital solutions to the epidemic of children who are leaving the church even before they get to college.  Do we want our own kids to have a vital walk with the Lord?  Do we want to see the kids at New Life faithfully following Jesus Christ?  Do we want to see the church grow.  I think Webb is spot on in his analysis.

Dr. Aquila, president of New Geneva Theological Seminary in Colorado Springs brings up some very important concerns about the looseness of language when churches talk about being "missional".  This is definitely an article worth reading.