Parents

Links

Plugged In Online - Offers great reviews of current movies from a Christian perspective.

John Newton Challenge - A devotion guide for families to do together over the next year.

World Changers- Official site for World Changers, sponsor of our 2009 mission trip to Chattanooga TN.

Homeword - a great site offering articles and answers to practical questions facing families today.  Great place to get Christian advice on parenting, marriage, and sibling relationships.

Support

How many times have you asked your student, "So what did you learn at church?" and got one of the following reponses: "stuff", "something about Jesus", or "I don't know"? Check back here each week for information and a summary of what that week's lesson was on throughout the fall, as well as a few follow-up/discussion starter questions you can use at home. As parents you are the most important factor in shaping your students spiritual development. Hopefully this will be a tool to help you in that.

What is success?  Or what does it mean to be succesful?  That was the question this week.  After spending a little bit of time talking about it there were alot of answers.  Most had to do with achieving something, or some status, or some goal.

We also saw a video about a guy who apparently had it all together.  He appeared very wealthy, and well, succesful.  He even spent most of the video talking about how succesful he was.  In reality though, through the video we saw he was scared to fail.  You can view a preview of the video here.

 It was obvious that while this guy looked succesful, he really wasn't.  So maybe what we achieve doesn't always mean we are a success.

In Mark 9:33-36 Jesus explains success to his disciples.  As they had traveled that day they had argued about who would be the greatest, or who would be the most succesful one day.  That may sound silly, but we are the same way.  Alot of us worry about what our lives will be like one day, or what we will achieve.  When they get to the house they are staying at, Jesus asks them what they had been arguing about.  No one wants to answer because, well they are a little embarrased to admit it.  But being Jesus He already knew the answer.  He calls them around and explains, whoever want to be first, must be last, and the servant of all.

Jesus tells them what success is.  Notice He doesn't say there is anything wrong with being first or desiring success.  He just redefines what it means to be successful.  And it is not based on what we achieve.  Success He says is being a servant.  That means a servant of God, and as a consequence, others.  Being great, or a success in God's eyes is measured not necessarily by how much we achieve, but by how faithful we are to what God has called us to.

This is really good news.  The truth is the world's standards of success are pretty much impossible to meet.  Most of us will never be rich enough, or good looking enough, or perfect enough, or athletic enough, or talented enough to be succesful by the world's standard.  Let's face it we won't all be movie stars, and Fortune 500 CEOs.  By the worlds standard most of us could be considered failures.  But not by God's standard.  Success before God is just in being faithful.  That may mean sharing your faith with your friend.  It may mean sharing with thousands, either way if we are obedient, then we are succesful.

Questions to ask your students:

• What do think of when you think of success?
• Where do you get that idea of success from?  Is it realistically attainable?
• Does the idea of being successful by serving and putting others first make sense to you?  Why or why not?

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