Letting Kids Serve

One of my goals as a parent is to instill in my children a passion for helping and serving others. I'm intentional about doing that in a lot of ways.


For example, my son has a friend who had to have a number of surgeries when she was very young. On several occasions, when I was going into to DC to visit her and her parents at the hospital, I took Andrew with me. I wanted to let him see what serving others looked like and give him an opportunity to do it himself.

Yesterday we had a parent/teacher conference with Abbey's Kindergarten teacher. She said Abbey is doing great, excelling in some areas and right on track in others. That was great to hear, but what really thrilled my soul was when she described, without really knowing it, how Abbey was serving a couple of her classmates on a daily basis.

Two of the boys in her class have learning disabilities. One of them has Down syndrome. Abbey seems to have a God given sensitivity when it comes to kids her age who need special attention. The thing that really almost brought tears to my eyes was when her teacher said that Abbey was so helpful with the boys that she actually moved them so that they are sitting next to Abbey in class. She said Abbey had a great way of gently helping them stay on track without calling attention them.


I love watching my kids grow and seeing their spiritual formation develop right before my eyes. Can't wait to see what God has in store for them.

Great Pastors

I think the mark of a great pastor is one who is willing to help, support or encourage other pastors. That's something I strive to do. I've met pastors in the past that have the attitude that they are in competition with other churches and therefore other pastors. In Fairfax County, where I serve, there's about 1.6 million people, and the last stat I read said that about 75% of them are unchurched. So to be in competition with another church is silly. The harvest is truly plentiful.

I had a great meeting last week with Rod Stafford who pastors Fairfax Community Church. Rod is a great guy and was a huge help to me. He's incredibly genuine and I really appreciated his encouragement. I hope to get to know him better down the road.

I'm meeting in a couple of weeks with Ray Bearden at First Baptist Woodbridge. I've known Ray for about 10 years. I don't know him really well but he has a great reputation in our local network of churches.

The reason I'm meeting with these guys is to pick their brains a little about some of their best practices in church growth. When they became pastors of their churches, the churches were in similar places as our church is now - about the same size and wanting to impact their communities but needing to strategically plan and organize themselves to do that. And in my opinion they have both been successfully in leading their chruches to impacting their communities.

So I think I can learn from Rod and Ray. And I'm thankful that they are willing to be a part of our churches success.

Along the same note I just want to stop and take the time to thank some other pastors who have taken the time to mentor, encourage, support and teach me along the way:

-My dad, Charles Magnet (first and foremost), Rod Mooney, Rev. Harold, Art Turner, Bill Shoulta, Vernon Cole, My brother Chuck Magnet, Joe Gill, Steve Welch, Samford Beckett, Greg Loewer, Bob Felts, Rusty Coram, Rick Warren, Joe Long, Mark Batterson, Rich Hurst, and the ones that I'm sure I've forgotten.

Processing Yesterday

I usually try to keep my posts positive but I need to process yesterday's events and this is my best outlet.

I was driving back from taking our puppy to a dog park to let him run off some energy and socialize with other dogs. As we were driving home down Rt 29, in Centreville, VA, I noticed smoke coming over the treeline. It was a cold day but I knew the smoke was too thick and dark to simply be coming from a chimney.

About a mile down the road I could clearly see what I had feared; it was coming from the roof of a house. Rt. 29 is a very busy four lane road but at that point no one was around the house. I pulled into the neighbor's driveway and called 911. As I jumped out of my truck another guy was pulling in behind me. He ran to the house and I ran to the neighbor's house (which was very close) to alert them.

As we tried to get in the front door of the house we could see the second level was full of smoke and the flames were coming down the stairs. We began looking in the bottom floor windows to see if we could see anyone inside. By that time the backyard was already burning from the debris coming off the back of the house.

Just minutes after Fire and Rescue arrived the house erupted with flames and smoke. It was so intense they had to spray the houses on both sides to keep it from spreading, and at one point they were concerned that they might lose several houses in the neighborhood. It ended up being a two alarm fire that took 60 firefighters an hour to get under control.

An elderly gentleman was inside and died in the fire. Talking with the next door neighbor I learned that the man lived there with his daughter and son-in-law and that the man's wife had passed away a couple of months ago.

So, those events and that family are weighing heavy on my heart and mind.

Thank God for Snow

This past Sunday, the teaching was on the ways God speaks to us. One of the ways I said God speaks is through godly friends and family. And God doesn't just use them to guide us but to point us toward Him as well.

When Andrew, my 10 year old son, woke up this morning he was so excited to see the blanket of snow on the ground. I was upstairs but could here him, in his insistent voice, telling his mom they had to stop and thank God for the snow. "No Mom, we have to do it together, right now!" Wow!

Two things:

One, I'm glad we have a God who can use even 10 year olds to teach us. And two, the question that's guiding me today is "What have I overlooked in my life that I need to stop and thank God for?"

Inauguration

I'm at work today doing things that I can get done while still watching the Inauguration on TV. It's so exciting to be so close to history as it's being made. My office is 15.2 miles from the White House.

Worship Experience

As a pastor, it's great to be able to worship where, as the song goes, "nobody knows your name." I had the chance to do that this weekend while on vacation. We were still in the Fairfax area so we went over to Fairfax Community Church's Saturday night service. I loved the 5pm Sat. service.

Rod Stafford is a great speaker. It was the first time I had heard him or met him. Got a chance to talk with him for a little while after the service. When I mentioned where I pastored he said "you guys have a lot going on over there and are making some great changes aren't you?" Turns out his good friend Kevin Ford who runs the church consulting firm our church is working with had been talking with him about our church and some of the things we are doing. I hope to get with Rod in the future, I'm sure I can learn a lot from him and his success.

2009 Off to a Great Start

2009 is off to a great start. Had an awesome time this past week spending time with my parents and my family. I've already seen three movies this year, which is probably my total count for last year. I recommend Bedtime Stories. It was hilarious. The Spirit was OK but nothing spectacular (I was actually going to see Grand Torino but it was sold out.)

Andrew got the new Monopoly game. I felt really old playing it. The game no longer uses play money. Rather it uses an electronic banker and each player has a credit card with a $15 million line of credit. You can even pause the game an come back days later.

Looking forward to 2009 and all that it will bring.