How then, should we pray?

Most adults, particularly those who have been Christians their entire lives, pretty much figure they have praying down-pat.  Maybe some are more formal, starting out with a "Dear heavenly Father", while other people are more casual.  For some reason, I think almost every 20-something girl leading prayer in a group starts off with, "Dear Jesus, we just come to you right now..."

But you know who really has prayer figured out?  Pre-schoolers.  On any given Sunday, my children's church kids range in age from 2 to 5.  Lately, they've all gotten more comfortable, and they all really want to pray.

Of course, it's normally, "Oh, I want to pray!" followed by 30 seconds of throat-clearing, and then something disjointed and totally unrelated to the lesson.  Pretty soon, everyone in the room wants a chance to get to say a prayer.

And I let them.  It may take up a few extra minutes we really don't have, but I'm never going to tell a child, "No, we don't have time for you to pray right now."

Read more »

I'm an ambulance-chaser.

First a bit of background: My husband generally picks my son up from daycare, as he gets off before I do. Today, due to circumstances at his work, I had to pick my son up. Both of our workplaces and my son's preschool are very close to our house. One main road takes me from my office, past my husband's workplace, past my house, and to my son's preschool. Okay, got it? Eh, close enough.

I had just pulled onto the main road off my office's campus when sirens interrupted my wailing along with the radio. (I was listening to Taylor Swift very loudly, and between her twang and my singing, didn't hear the sirens at first.) I pulled over to the side and, once the ambulance passed, got into the lane behind it.

Then it turned right. And I realized that it was heading down the road that leads to my husband's work. And my son's preschool.

Read more »

Sanitizing the Bible: When Christianity isn't baby-friendly

For those who may not be aware, the Bible is not PG. Not even PG-13. There are more than enough passages to warrant a solid R rating.

I'm not just referring to the obvious stuff either, like Song of Solomon, or the massacre of the innocents. There is some very depraved and raunchy stuff in the Bible. :cough: Lot's daughers :cough:

But you don't normally think about that stuff. Or, at least, I don't. Normally, when I remember things from the Bible, I just think of the books I really enjoy, like Galatians, or Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes. (A really cool and visual verse is Ecclesiastes 10:1, "Dead flies doth cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour, so doth a little folly ruin a reputation for wisdom and honour." The unnecessary "u"s should be indication that I learned it in the Old King James version.)

But a couple of months back, our church charged us with trying to read all the way through the Bible in a year. They even gave us handy little reading charts that break it up so you read about three chapters a day, two from Old Testament and one from New. (The idea is that you have the New Testament there to help you get through some of the really slow parts in the Old Testament. Can you imagine reading nothing but Leviticus for a month? I've tried to do it in the past, and it was mentally painful.)

It's always been a goal of mine to read through the whole Bible, so I joined a small group with two other women in my congregation and we meet once a week to hold each other accountable and discuss what we thought of that week's reading. I even started looking back through the toddler-friendly collection of Bible stories I got my son as an infant, figuring he's about to the age where he can enjoy it, and relate it back to the stories they're learning in class.

It was in comparing my adult, big-girl Bible and my son's "Bible" that I realized just how much they had to leave out. And, even worse, how much more they should have left out.

Read more »