End of summer letter to parents.

Dear Parents,

It is hard to believe that summer is rapidly ending and just as fast the ramp up to school, sports, and other activities. If your family is anything like mine, then you probably feel pretty frazzled and wondering what happened to the summer. All of the intentional things we wanted to do as a family seemed to got lost in the shuffle of vacations, travel, and activities with friends. It seems that every season brings with it its own unique challenges as we try to grow in our love and trust of Jesus.

But thankfully with the change of seasons comes an other gracious opportunity for a fresh start, and many of us need another reboot. For our family we are already locking down some of the extra activities, rediscovering family dinners, and jumping back in to the community and life of the church.

As you begin to think about the transitions ahead for your child and all the intentional work you are about to do in the next two weeks to get them set up for a successful school year I wanted to leave you with a thought.

It is obvious that you value school being a success for your child. You go clothes shopping so they will survive socially and because they are growing up and maturing and need clothes that will allow their outside lives to match their inside lives. You will be buying new school supplies because academics is important an a good start means good grades, and good grades opens all sorts of doors for the future.

And for you parents who have children entering middle school or high school for the first time, you will go to the campus early, scope it out, find the classrooms so your child will feel comfortable with their new surrounding.

We work really hard to make our children’s academic and social careers a success. We spend countless hours being anxious about their success and failures in these areas. As I look in the mirror, I need to be once again reminded that above their social success, their sporting success and even their academic success needs to be their success in faith.

Unlike those other areas, our children will get absolutely zero help and support from the people around them at school. And it is for this reason that I, as a parent, and you as a parent, must be just as much if not more proactive in helping our children find success in our community of faith here at MCC and in their personal walk with Jesus.

We can not be passive or think others will carry the ball for us. It is on us as parents if our kids are going to land at MCC and land in the student ministry.

Think of the strategy you use when your child gets a teacher they don’t like or the push back you get when they don’t want to wake up for school. Those complaints don’t matter because school is a non-negotiable.  Imagine the different kind of conversations you would be having with your children, the different battles you would have, the conversations that you would no longer entertain.  Imagine if your child’s spiritual development and community were a non-negotiable.

If the parents of MCC had this mindset for our student ministry program we would have a base of 45 middle schoolers and 60 high schoolers. That is not even counting friends and new people. Think of the impact we can have for Christ in the lives of your child and their friends if we really get after it this fall!

Ok, enough preaching We have a month until fall kick off. Let’s get our heads n the game and encourage each other towards a life in Christ that is the smell of perfume to our kids and to this world.

Blessings!