Thursday, September 21, 2017

Trust Your Training

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)


I have a friend who is a bicycle training coach with Echelon Cycling. His teams always do well in the competitions they enter. His training is intense and disciplined. Just before each race he tells each team member, “Trust Your Training.”  He knows that at points in the race, there are factors that trigger adrenaline and competitive fervor and cause you to take off like a rabbit. But that doesn’t leave energy for the rest of the race… and as we know from the childhood classic The Tortoise and The Hare, the race doesn’t always go to the fastest. (With the possible exception of Usain Bolt).


There are times in parenting when we can lose sight of how to raise our kids to follow Christ and we are just trying to hang on to the end of the race. There were lots of times in our home with four children that the chaos was pretty extreme.  I remember when an unsuspecting neighbor, who was an only child, came to our house for the first time after school.  All he could do was stand frozen at the door with his eyes and mouth wide open as pandemonium ensued… it was loud... backpacks and shoes had been dropped like landmines from the door to the pantry, in spite of their mother’s instruction to put everything in their “cubbies.”  The tyranny of the urgent need to get a snack had reduced them to hypoglycemic little gremlins racing for the snack box.  Eventually some semblance of  order returned after they had been revived by fruit rollups ( at the time it was a “healthy snack choice” now, we are not sure).


As parents, my wife and I heard different messages about how best to parent our children according to the latest trend. There was always a plethora of material out there, some of it was good, but some of it was modified puppy training. If we expect Pavlovian responses in our kids when they are small we can’t be surprised if they dog us when they are teens. Parenting is about healthy relationships, not just behavior modification. Though our little angels definitely needed behavior modification, we hoped do it in the context of a loving relationship with Jesus.


When my son was in college, we were a little worried if we had done our job with this human being God had placed in our lives.  His mother asked him if he was behaving.  He said, “Mom, trust your parenting!” We took a little guarded optimism about not ruining them completely. By God’s grace they are all still “in the faith.”


Parenting can be treacherous and confusing. But in the end when you pray a lot, stay in His Word and love them well, you will train up your children in the way they should go and they will not depart from it.  

Friday, September 1, 2017

Falling In Love at UT.


In February 2013, The Torchbearer Magazine ran a story about Falling in Love at UT.  I submitted this article. You can see all the articles here.

Living only five minutes from UT, I was raised a Vol….When my college years came around, I went to another university for undergrad but later enrolled in UT seeking a master’s degree in communications. My faculty advisor required leveling classes in communications before I could begin the master’s program. I ended up in class with a great group of undergraduate communications students in the Alpha Epsilon Rho communications honors program. We had classes together, spent time writing stories and working “on the air” at WUTK. We traveled together to New York, Cincinnati, and other places to experience great broadcast entertainment and news outlets.
In one of those early classes, a beautiful blonde with big ’80s hair turned my head. After a couple of weeks in the program, I noticed Anita Grossmann and her friend Amy McLemore sitting on my row in a broadcast news class. This was my chance; I was going to talk to Anita. As class dismissed, I put my plan into motion. As the two girls walked past my desk, I stepped out between them. Anita didn’t notice that I was now walking right behind her. She asked Amy, without looking back, “When are we going to see that movie?” Without missing a beat, I replied, “I thought you’d never ask.” She turned around, startled to hear a male voice, and said something like, “I wasn’t talking to you.” But in spite of my awkward start, our conversation continued for the next several weeks.
Eventually, both of us were sent to cover the same news story for the class and it involved traveling across town. I eagerly volunteered to drive us. Our assignment was to cover an event called “Great Communication in Marriage.” Afterwards I took her to what used to be Grady’s Restaurant for dinner, and the rest, as we say, was history. I was in love. We went through some bumps and rattles those dating years—even survived a broken engagement—but we have been married for twenty-two wonderful years, and have four children, ages twelve to eighteen.
I am currently a pastor in Chattanooga, and Anita is a Christian communicator and full-time mom. We still make it back to Rocky Top, and the memories of friends, hanging out on Circle Park Drive, deejaying for WUTK, and yelling for our Vols flood our minds. Our kids, though they act bored with our stories, actually enjoy hearing of those great days “on a hallowed hill in Tennessee.” We both have unforgettable memories of our time at UT; it was great to be young and in love at UT!