Nathan Neighbors
Follower of Christ, Husband, Father, & Youth Pastor
Tonight social media is filled with images of the 15th Annual Florence Father-Daughter Dance sponsored by the YMCA. Yes, I’ll admit it, as a father of three boys, I’m jealous. This is one dance I’ll never get to attend, but I still play a vital role in what tonight is all about.
Dads, one day in the not too distant future your little girls will ask you if they can go to a dance with a boy other than you. Chances are it might even be with one of my sons. Treasure tonight. Make the most of the time you have with her now. Use these moments to help her understand how precious she is and how much you value her. More importantly, teach her how valued she is by The Lord. Give her a clear picture through your relationship with her of how a lady should be loved and respected.
Though I’ll never dance at the Father-Daughter, I’m raising three young men who will one day be asking your daughters to dance. If I’m being completely honestly – that scares me to death. I want them to grow up, but I worry if I will have prepared them well enough to be men of God who will honor your daughters and treat them like children of the Most High God?
As a Youth Pastor I see so many guys who don’t know what it means to be a man of God and so many girls who have never been taught that being treated with respect by boys is a non-negotiable. As we begin our new Bible study series with our teenagers on sexual purity this month, I wonder if I’m preparing my sons well at their ages to step into puberty, adolescence and dating.
So, I have a choice to make tonight. I can either go about life without the future in mind, or I can work now on helping develop and disciple my sons to be men of God that you would be proud to have invite your daughter to a dance or even one day marry.
But honestly, I need help. And…maybe you do too. If you’re a young dad in Florence (whether you’re an Ebenezer dad or not) would you be willing to meet with me? This town needs men of God who will stand up and lead their families to follow Christ. It needs to start with the dads. I’d like to start by inviting any dad who wants to meet together to contact me. I don’t know where this will lead, but I’d like to begin with sharing a meal together, then sharing life together and ultimately helping each other to be men of integrity who father well the next generation of men and women of this community. Who’s with me? Let’s make this night at the dance the first step of many as we prepare our children to live out the abundant life Christ has offered us all.
We’re one of the growing numbers of families who’ve cut the cable and stream all our TV programing through the internet to our television with Apple TV. We subscribe to Netflix & Hulu Plus. In addition, we will occasionally rent movies off of Apple TV. We love the flexibility and the lower costs, but there is a down side to unlimited programing and dozens of shows with hundreds of episodes at the click of a button – ADDICTION. I’ve experienced this addiction first hand. This fall I finally got around to watching LOST. This show isn’t even on the air anymore and began almost ten years ago, but I never watched it. I’m embarrassed to say that I finished all 121 episodes in just a few months.
With unlimited programming at our finger tips for just $7.99 per month there are many people out there who share accounts. I’d be willing to bet that for every paying customer there are probably 10 more sharing log-in codes. One would think that companies who sell these internet based television streaming services would want to crack down on it. But this week the CEO of HBO Go says just the opposite. Richard Plepler told BuzzFeed in a recent interview that sharing your log-in code, “…presents the brand to more and more people and gives them an opportunity, hopefully, to become addicted to it.” He went on to say, “What we’re in the business of is building addicts, building video addicts, and the way we do that is exposing our product and our shows and our brand to more and more people.”
It doesn’t surprise me that this is the mindset of media leaders, but it does cause me to step back and think. I’m one of those who has a tendency to be addicted. I have just enough OCD and addictive personality in the make up of who I am that I can get lost in media…both video and social.
At the end of my life do I want to be remembered as someone who Richard Plepler would call a TV addict? Or do I want my life to be remembered for more? What I really want is to be an addict of the Word of God. I want to be addicted to sharing my faith with others. I want to be addicted to my love relationship with Jesus. I want to be remembered as a man who was addicted to being a great husband, father, and pastor. TV Addict? …NO. Will I go out today and throw out the flat screen and cancel Netflix & Hulu Plus…no. I will keep media in perspective of the cross of Jesus Christ. May all forms of media become less in our lives and may Jesus increase.
Maybe you just climbed out from under the same rock I did, but there’s a fad going around called Loom Bands. Kids all across the country are taking what looks like the rubber bands we used to put on our braces and weaving them into cool bracelets, necklaces and other creative crafts. Up until a few months ago I was pretty oblivious to this new craze. Our middle child, Ellis is all about some loom bands (and any kind of bling for that matter). He took his allowance a few months ago and purchased his first kit. He has gotten the hang of it and can now make about five or six different kinds of bracelets.
The other night we were making another loom band when Ellis asked if he could start selling his creations. We talked about what he would do with the money and he decided he would make special blue and green bracelets for one of his friends. Some of our friends from church recently adopted a little boy named Maddox from South Korea. Maddox was diagnosed in March 2013 with Duchenne (pronounced dew-shin), a form of Muscular Dystrophy. Currently there is no cure for this disease, but there is HOPE.
God’s Word says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13 ESV) At seven years old, Ellis may not be able to find a cure for Duchenne, but he can loom bracelets to help his friend. Currently Ellis has made about 20 bracelets and is busy every afternoon after school making more. The bracelets are loomed in a blue and green pattern – blue for Maddox and green because it’s the Duchenne awareness color. Ellis is selling them for $2 or any amount you would like to donate. We’re supplying rubber bands so all money can go straight to help find a cure. All monies collected will go to The Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. The Parent Project MD is a research organization that the Daniel family supports who is working hard to find a cure for Maddox and thousands of other boys and girls like him. Pray for Maddox. Buy a bracelet. But more than anything, remember – that with God all things are possible. There is HOPE FOR MADDOX!
Click here to join the Facebook Community who is supporting Hope for Maddox.
Nathan Neighbors 