sunday's scuds (6-17-07)

Currently at NewPointe, we're taking a couple of weeks in between series with "stand-alone" messages from Dwight. Yesterday's message: Elephant Wisdom. He looked at our responsibilities as adults as it relates to one of our greatest treasures: our kids. Here are the scuds:

• "Adolescence is a cultural invention of Western society."
• "The duration of adolescence lengthens with cultural and individual trauma."
• "The greatest trauma of all is abandonment."
• "Today, instead of parents worrying about their kids, kids worry about their parents."
• "Kids haven't changed...their needs haven't changed...mom and dad are the ones who've changed."

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
like a child. When I became a man, I put the childish ways behind me." 1
Corinthians 13:11

• "As parents, we tend to prioritize our needs ahead of the needs of those whose needs we are called to meet."
• "Our sacred treasure: Our young people. Our sacred responsibility: To guide them and assure safe passage."
• Adults, you need to come on Sundays and sit in one of these chairs and then you need to go serve our kids...because our kids are our sacred treasure."
• "When does a person become an adult? When he/she has the understanding, skills, and courage to willingly take responsibility for his/her life and choices and is able and willing to live interdependently with others in a wide community."
• "Our responsibility: lifelong intentional mentoring."
• "Jesus grew in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man...because he was mentored."
• "I'm calling every dad in here to invest in his kids. Because if you miss it with your kids--you missed it!"
• "Mom, if you've got a career and your kids don't make it, it wasn't worth it."

Dwight explained to us the phenomenon of orphaned elephants...fatherless bulls who need mentored...and how male elephants instinctively know when and how to mentor the abandoned within the herd. The technical term he used is musth.

He wrapped things up by challenging us and encouraging us to do two things, first be a mentor (like the elephant, find the person who's languishing and come along side them in a mentoring relationship). And secondly, find someone who's a couple of steps ahead of you and then humble yourself by asking to be mentored.

Bottom line: Be a mentor...and be mentored.