Wednesday of this week I had the opportunity to speak at the chapel service over at Mission Aviation Fellowship. As I looked out over the audience, I could not help but wonder how many of them had amazing missions stories to tell. Stories of daring airplane adventures as missionaries and doctors were flown into out of the way places. Stories of how the gospel first penetrated in to spiritually dark places around the world. And stories of the Word of the Lord being delivered to villages where the people would finally be able to read the New Testament in their own language. 

Being there reminded me that God is doing amazing things all over this world; and He isn't doing them one at a time. He is doing them simultaneously with people just like the ones I was looking at.  Before I left I was overcome by a sense of awe when I thought about missions. 

I am so glad to be part of a church that believes in missions, one that believes in praying, going and giving until the task is completed. A church that will never back down from answering the Lord's call, even when to answer His call requires a great personal sacrifice. 

So as I look forward...not only at 2012...but even beyond, I pray that we will experience missions to the "max." That we will give maximum effort and attention to the greatest cause any of us can know! That cause simply put, can be stated in the terms "to know Him and to make Him known".

Please mark down February 19 on your calendar. That day Phill Crust will present a missions call to our church to partner with him on a trip to Africa this fall. Don't miss hearing his presentation. 


Blessings,
Pastor Clint

Spanking causes long-term harm to children.  That is what the Canadian Medical Association Journal just announced in a study based on 20 years of published research.  They say spanking can cause long-term developmental damage, makes children more aggressive and antisocial, may reduce the brain's grey matter and may even lower a child's IQ.  They go on to say that there are no studies that show any long term positive outcomes from physical punishment.  In short, they say corporal punishment is archaic, harmful and wrong.

Yet, as I look at the Bible I see multiple times where it says just the opposite.

"He who spares the rod hates his son..." Proverbs 13:24

"Discipline your son, for in that there is hope..." Proverbs 19:18

"Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die."  Proverbs 23:13

"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him." Proverbs 22:15

So modern man's wisdom says that spanking is harmful.  God's wisdom says that to withhold spanking is harmful.  Is the Bible outdated and wrong on this?  I don't think so.  I must first say that there is a huge difference between hitting a child in anger and a parent who uses the "rod" as a calculated, lovingly administered punishment for wrong behavior.  The first is abuse, the second is done to correct.  To me, it seems easy to separate the two, but to modern man they view both the same.  They see no difference and that is a wrong assumption.

My biggest issue with their finding is how erroneous and even silly their conclusion is.  They say that spanking is not as widespread as it was 20 years ago.  Their study is based on research from the past 20 years.  Yet I see that there are more issues with children today including more examples of aggression than there were 20 or more years ago.  So as I see it, when there was more spanking(again done in a loving, Biblical way), children were better behaved and adjusted well into society.  When we have less spanking we have the growing issues of children committing violent crimes, trying to divorce from their parents, disrespecting authority, and the list goes on.

So maybe the Bible is right after all.  Not that I had any doubt.  This is just a fine example that we as a developed society continue to move away from Godly direction and principles and are left with what turns out to be the folly of man.  Let's be diligent to stand up for, and live by, what we know are the truths found in the Bible.  The world sure is not.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Rocky