Voddie Baucham -Why your Family needs the church

Ok, I'm really enjoying Voddie Baucham's talks. He tells it like it is. He doesn't sugar coat. He's real.

He started this talk with the things to look for in a true church. Look for Biblical gospel, biblical officers, biblical ordinances, and biblical discipline. The biblical gospel is historic, God centered, Christ centered, cross centered, and grace centered. Biblical officers refers to elders, pastors and deacons. Biblical ordinances are both baptism and the Lord's supper. Biblical discipline is both formative (teaching) and corrective (confronting someone with their sin). The issues of what they wear and how they do music and if there is a youth program are all unimportant.

He then talked about why you need to be a member of a local church. Identification, edification, cooperation, accountability, submission and authority were all reasons given. He is passionate about this subject because he sees all over the country that homeschool families are leaving their local churches. But he posed a good question, how can you expect your children to submit to you as parent if you do not submit, as God instructed, to the local church?

early in his talk he brought up St Francis of Asisi. The man who said something like using words when necessary to share the gospel. You always have to use words. He likened it to the evening news not using words. You wouldn't know what happened if ey didn't use words.

I think Voddie Baucham is finished with his talks. It's too bad too, I really enjoy them.

NCHE conference day 2

Finally a chance to sit down! Two great speakers this morning. First Voddie Baucham. Educating our children with our grandchildren in mind. Lots of stuff that we are doing wrong to continue the movement, keep homeschooling strong. One thing he identified in me, my homeschool, is that the kids, at least my girls, don't have the vision to homeschool their own children. One reason I homeschool is to keep the kids from the stuff going on in the public schools. And according to him, that's not the reason to homeschool. The right resons to homeschool are that we are convinced by scripture, we understand our role as parents, we want to advance kingdom of God, and we want to bless kingdom of man. Whew! This is why I come to the conference every year. I need to be reminded of these things. By the end of the school year I am bogged down by test scores and getting the textbook finished and do they know what they should know by now. What I should be thinking of is do they know Jesus? Are they serving Jesus? Are they willing to share their faith in Jesus with others?

Then I went to hear Hal and Melanie Young talk about your son's battle for purity. I'm covering purity for my daughters as best I know how. There are lots of resources out there for girls. But there is little to help our sons. Hal and Melanie stand in that gap. They were fun to listen to. A serious topic which they covered very well. They shared a comment from their college age son that dating would be better than what goes on now. Hooking up without the date first. Ugh! Really? So, not what I want for my children. They told us practical ways to keep our sons pure. One was with covenant eyes.com. Rather than a filter which could filter too much or as a parent turn off the filter so I can find something and then forget to turn it back on, they use monitoring software. This sends email when something of question is viewed. Some of the statistics they shared were worrisome - boys as young as 9 running into problems online. Oh my! I need to get on this now! Then the girls and I had lunch and went to the book fair.

Technical issues

I'm loving my iPad for the conference but there are some problems when it comes to blogging on it. For one, the buttons to upload pictures don't work. I will try to remember to upload pictures when I get home. Another issue is that, though I make paragraphs when I type, they don't come through when the article posts. Again, I'll try to fix that when I get home. Sorry for both these issues. The paragraph thing may make it difficult to read. But in good news, I am loving my iPad! There is an app called "Notability" that I'm using to take notes on this year. I use it at home for sermon notes and meeting notes as well. No more spare pieces of paper to keep track of! You can use it with a stylus or with a finger or with a keyboard. I use the internal one, I haven't bought a wireless one. I've heard of homeschoolers using it for handwriting practice. I don't have a child that age anymore, so I'm not sure how that would work. Thanks dear for the Christmas present all over again!!

NCHE day 1 part 2

I got to the auditorium in time to hear Chuck Bently. I was even in time to hear the small speeches ahead of him.

Spencer (I can't remember his last name) is stepping down from the presidency of NCHE and was telling us to remain strong in our homeschooling, keep the NCHE strong and to get involved in a support network. Then Dr. Flood, who is in charge of DNPE, spoke for a minute. She was a refreshing voice. She told us that she is not the enemy. :-) She wants to helps us.

Then Chuck Bently got up to speak. He gave us 4 scenarios of what may happen in the future. Three of them were bad. Then he has studied famines and wars in the Bible and what he learned from them. we should save, serve God, end self reliance and serve others.

Then he went over the SALT plan. Save. Allocate assets. Liquidity. Truth. I'm going to need to buy his book. He sounds like he is in a place where John and I are trying to be. Planning for a coming crisis. There is more I need to know to be prepared.

Chuck Bently left us with a good thought - What if God had given me the ability to stand against currents of culture? Not just in terms of homeschooling. I'll need to think on that one.

NCHE conference day 1

It's been an interesting day so far. Busy busy morning getting everything done at home before leaving to get to Winston. Both daughters in the car with me. I "ordered" 80's music for the ride over. At one point we started listening to Sebatian from Little Mermaid sing "Under the Sea", but then back to 80's music we went. We got checked in. We're staying at Piedmont International University. I meant to take a picture and post it but I left the camera in the car since we were just dropping things off.

So far I've been to John Stonestreet's talk on the Coming Challenges to our Faith and the Bentley's talk on Decreasing Expenses, Increasing Income. Both were wonderful and I highly recommend both speakers.

Oops! Gotta go hear the Bentley's again. I'll be sitting in the back now!

Testing for later

I signed up to "live blog" at the homeschool conference, which I've never done before. But before I get there I need to see if I can blog from my iPad. I know it can be done, but I need to actually try to do it. :-). So this is really a nothing post. Just seeing if I can manage this thing. Thanks for understanding!

Hunger Games

I listened to a speech given by Sally Clarkson's daughter Joy a few months ago about why Christians should read and watch the popular books and shows. We are called to be in the world but not of the world. If we don't know what is popular, how can we engage the world? Also, when we read and watch popular media, we can identify themes as to why it is popular. Joy was much more eloquent than I am but I'm just trying to be quick about why I'm writing this.

Middle dd took me to see Hunger Games yesterday. I did enjoy the movie overall. There are places that were objectionable and I am very happy that I didn't take ds to see it. I think he would understand it, but well... The plot was objectionable. There is much reason to not see it. In fact when I heard the plot, I was wondering why I let my daughters read the books. (I was trusting other Christian moms who let their kids read it.)

Anyway, to my point. I have some idea why these books are popular and now the movie as well. Disclaimer: I have not read the books. I only have a vague idea of where they are going with the story from my daughters.

People want a hero and as heros go, Katniss is a great one. For someone who never got the Christ-figure stuff in high school, it is easily her. She loves on those who look to her for protection (Primrose and Rue and even Peta), as Christ does. She gives people jobs in their skill set, as Christ does. (Her mom to take care of Primrose and Rue to set the fires.) Katniss also gives her life for another. When Primrose is chosen in the Reaping, Katniss volunteers and pays the ransom for her. Just like Christ paid the ransom for us and our sins.

People today want a hero. Katniss could be that hero. We see her not only as a savior but we see people trying to bend her to the world. She is a good hero. Katniss is like us - trying to maintain who we are but also trying to make it in the world Haymitch and Cinna both coach her on what to say and do, how to get ahead. She follows their advice, but you can also tell that she doesn't go over the top to get on everyone's good side. She maintains her integrity.

I am looking forward to the rest of the story. I expect to see Katniss to continue to give of herself for others. I expect there will be trials and that Katniss at some point will fail. But she is human after all. I expect there to be a general feeling of district loyalty.

I may just have to sit down and read these books after all. :-)