CK Blog

  Today marks the day we celebrate Fathers Day around our diverse country.  Unfortunately this day is a broken day for many.  For 15 years of my life it meant nothing to me.  My dad had died and I had no father figure.

Back then, this was a rarity.  Everybody seemed to have a dad, maybe not a great dad, but a dad. 

So I have no memories of my dad teaching me life and what it means to be a man.  I have no memories of my dad wrestling with me and overall just showing me who is boss.

I had no father and I paid for it… but I also benefited from it. Not having a dad meant that I didn’t have a bad example.  Anything I was to become in respect to being a dad was going to be new and raw.

That journey started when I was just 18 years old.  Nowhere near ready to be a dad, but ready or not the journey was starting.  My precious son was born to two scared to death teenagers.  This son was watching his mom and dad get their high school diploma when he was six months old.  This son was there the day his mom and dad became husband and wife.  This son was there when his mom and dad became Christians and were baptized.  He was there during some very formative years.  Who we were going to be was nowhere near defined.  This was the time frame when I thought $8 per hour was acceptable and $12 was awesome.  By the grace of God I knew it had to be different for him.  I knew that who I am will shape who he will become.  Today I am so proud of this son, to see him be so much more than I am.  Some dads may feel challenged by that fact, but the fact that he, at times, is a better man then me… makes me very proud.  That June, fathers day meant something to me for really the first time ever. 

Then just a year later our family of three had become a family of four.  My little girl was just newborn as we celebrated our second fathers day as a family.  What a daddy’s girl she has become.  She and I share a connection that I don’t share with any of my other children.  When I slip in a subtle joke she gets it. She and I then get to share a few seconds of shared laughter while the rest of the children are trying to catch up.  I love the “OK Daddy” replies I get when I ask her to do something.  She brings out the soft side in her big rough dad.  It is so humbling to see her excel at school as she does.  It just comes naturally to her and she barely has to try.  I can’t wait to see how she utilizes that gift as she enters womanhood.

Next we thought we were done adding to the specialness of this day when our second son was born.  In 2001 I was now the father of three children on fathers day.  They say if you have enough children you will eventually have yourself.  This one is it for me… and I LOVE IT!  If there is ever going to be one of our children suspended in school for fighting or brought home by the police for doing something stupid… its this one.  What I love about him is that, like me, one day ‘it’ will flip (and there is some thought that this may have happened late this school year).  All of those tendencies that make him the one that makes us earn our parenting stripes will be the same tendencies that put him on the moon!  He won’t be one that is satisfied with being a supporting cog in a system, he will want to be at the front of the line risking his life while doing it.  He will have such a passion for whatever he commits to that failure will just not be an option.  I can’t wait for that fire to come out of him. 

Now I thought I was done being a father to new children but plans changed and in 2005 there was yet another boy in the house.  Though I wasn’t ready to claim him as my own at this point.  I even remember telling my wife to leave him out of it for this year.  I was trying to protect my heart a bit because it was not a given that he would be ours.  That changed by time fathers day 2006 came around.  We were well on our way to adopting him and by this time the loving nature of this boy had broken any shield that I had around my heart.  It was around this time when the responsibility of being a father truly hit me.  There was no doubting by this point that my life would significantly impact the life’s of others, for good or bad.. I was going to significantly influences families for generations to come.  This son, is so special to me.  When I come home it is him that runs to me and gives me the biggest hugs and kisses.  I just love seeing his face light up as he runs to me.  I am so going to miss that when he becomes to cool to do that. 

Again, I kind of thought we were done.  Again I was wrong.  Today will be the first Sunday I celebrate as a father of five.  She and I are still working out what life will mean together but she is here.  More so than any of the others, my relationship with her will have a life changing impact.  All the others went through some trials with us as a family, but we were still a family.  This little girl was wondering in the desert basically alone. This is so new I can’t even post the picture I want to post.  I can’t wait until we get to see how she takes an opportunity that I never had and runs with it.  I never had a dad come in and claim me as my own, it was just me and my mom.  It will certainly be a wild ride ahead.

Now in this post I have focused on my children.  However one thing that really stuck out to me as I was looking for images for this post was all the other children that I have had deep interaction with all the years. Many of them fatherless children.  I know that as I see some of them now, we have a good interaction together and I’m sure some of the ones I saw in the pictures that I haven’t seen in a while… would remember me and we would have a moment of connection if we did see each other.  I know that as a dad in today’s culture I am important.  As a man in today's culture… you are important (if you’re a man of course).  We need a revolution of men in this country, because without it there will continue to be 1 Million plus abortions a year.  Without it, boys will continue to grow up to be cowardly men that run from their responsibilities as ‘men’.  So if your a man… be a man!  If you’re a father… be a better man!

Finally I close this post with an announcement.  This will serve as the last post on www.ckurl.com as it is now.  I am not sure what it will become moving forward, but it won’t be a blog as the current site is.  There will be a public aspect of it where I share thoughts like this.  However it will not be prominent.  I have no time table for this change, but to the folks that read this (the ones that comment and the ones that don’t)… thanks for sharing with me in my journey.  Today marks the end of this chapter and a beginning of another.  I’m not sure what words and thoughts will be in this next chapter, but one thing is certain… it will impact my family for generations to come because I’m a father to five precious children.  I am a father to three future dads.  I am a father to two girls who will pick their husband largely due to the way they see me treat them and their mom.  I’m going to fall short on occasion and that’s OK… because as I recently heard on Focus on the Family, “Some things are so important that they are worth doing badly.”  I don’t have this father thing figured out, but hopefully my children pick up the good and learn from the bad.

It’s a blessed life.

Couldn’t honor our flag on “Flag Day” any better than Johnny Cash.

Previously I discussed the list of requirements put in the Bible for Elders.

Now there are two lines of thoughts with this:

1. All are required to be met.

2. This is a best case list.  If a person has 19 of the 20, should that disqualify them?

Now I have previously admitted that I fit more into number one than two, and here is why.

The people (in my type of church at least) that take number two as their position only do it for a few of them, then there are the required ones in the list.  These same people who think that the requirement of having just one wife is up for debate about what that really means, would NEVER appoint a women Elder because of that same scripture.  I tend to take a very ‘legalistic’ view on these requirements because, as my friend put it, the purer your Eldership the purer your church. 

I want a church to be as close to being in line with the Bible as possible, and to me this is an easy part to get right. 

The argument to this is that by taking a strict view of this, you will disqualify many great leaders.  And I say, “Why?”  Just because a man isn’t qualified to be an Elder, what is stopping them from being a great leader of people?  Plus I think this puts it up to God to appoint Elders.

The ‘one wife’ scripture for example, there is a lot of this that is out of control of the man in the marriage. Someone could be the greatest husband and have their wife leave.    Then you have the ‘believing children’ scripture… this one will get a post of its own, but a person can be the greatest dad in the world and have their child walk away from the faith.  These are places that only God really has control over. 

Now the other caveat to this is that some will say, just because the person meets all the requirements doesn’t mean they should be an Elder.  I agree fully.  This, to me, is the starting point of a look for Elders and not the end.  You start here and you will get a very small list of qualified men.  Then you look at how these things played out.  Did his children believe because of his parenting, or just because they (on their own) became believers.  Did the man influence them to become believers in a great way?  Is his ‘one wife’ part of a functional and happy marriage?  Do you see teamwork in the marriage?  Or do you see two people that seem to have just stuck it out together?  To paraphrase a famous saying, the list of qualifications is not the end, it isn’t even the beginning of the end.  However it is the end of the beginning. 

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[Initially Written: 5.30.2009]

No real commentary on this post.  I just want to list the requirements of an Elder.  Will comment on them in later post.  But look over this list and think of the Elders in your church, how do they match up?

I will blatantly pull this from wikipedia, though I’ve added a few at the end.

• Blameless as a steward of God; above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6-7)

• Husband of one wife; a one-woman man (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:6)

• Temperate, sober, vigilant (1 Timothy 3:2)

• Sober-minded, prudent (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:8)

• Of good behavior; orderly, respectable (1 Timothy 3:2)

• Given to hospitality (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8)

• Apt to teach; able to teach; he can exhort believers and refute false teaching (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:9)

• Not given to wine (1 Timothy 3:3, Titus 1:7)

• Not violent, not pugnacious (1 Timothy 3:3, Titus 1:7)

• Patient, moderate, forbearing, gentle (1 Timothy 3:3)

• Not a brawler; uncontentious; not soon angry or quick tempered (1 Timothy 3:3, Titus 1:7)

• Not covetous; not a lover of money; not greedy of base gain (1 Timothy 3:3, Titus 1:7)

• Rules well his own house; his children are faithful, not accused of rebellion to God (1 Timothy 3:4, Titus 1:7)

• Not a novice; not a new convert (1 Timothy 3:6)

• Has a good report or reputation with outsiders (1 Timothy 3:7)

• Not self-willed (Titus 1:7)

• A lover of what is good (Titus 1:7)

• Just, fair (Titus 1:8)

• Holy, devout (Titus 1:8)

• Self-Controlled (Titus 1:8)

• Wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything (1 Timothy 3:11)

• Willing/desiring the role (1 Timothy 3:1)

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[Initially Written: 5.29.2009]

I’ve been wanting to do a series of post on this for a long time.  The new testament has a very defined leadership structure for Christian churches.  The human leaders of a church are its Elders. 

In my not-so-humble opinion the requirements of being an Elder are pretty well defined, with some ambiguities, but overall the main things are the plain things.

There are really two arguments for some of the scriptures I will discuss over this series of post.

1. This is just a ‘best case’ list, it isn’t a requirement that all are met, but they should be used as a general guideline.

2. This list is just the start.  If you are disqualified by the requirements laid out in the Bible, then there is no reason to move on to the next step.

Let me be very up front, I am more in the camp of number 2 than I am in the camp of number 1.  Several years ago I asked a retired minister friend of mine what he thought about this and he said something to me that has forever changed my viewpoint on this topic.

The purity of your Eldership will define the purity of your church.

Very profound statement.   Then those in camp number one are very inconsistent with that application, which I will of course cover in a later post.

I have been a member of three churches, the first two did not have Elders during my time at those churches.  The third church had three Elders upon my arriving.  I looked at them and at the very beginning I said this about one of them.

He is very young, and so are his children.  If I were king of the world, he’d not be an Elder because its unfair to his children and really he hasn’t been fully tested as a parent yet.

Let me be clear, there is a lot of personal opinion in that statement.  But I learned it from a very good friend, and now Elder of the Cincinnati Church of Christ.  When my family first joined the CCoC he and two other gentlemen were up for the Eldership, but he always seemed to delay the appointment.  In our conversations he has always pointed to his children as the reason for this.  They were all fairly young children and he didn’t want the pressure of their dad being an Elder to compound on what is already a difficult set of teen years.  One of the wisest decisions I’ve ever seen somebody make.  He is now an Elder, but when appointed all three of his children were college aged.  They had proven his personal leadership as worthwhile.  They were all committed Christians and trying to live the right life. 

So this is the perspective that will certainly guide my thoughts on the topics related to the requirements of an Elder.   The role of Elder in the church is so significant and so damaging if the wrong person is appointed.  Character flaws in the Eldership are not something to be ignored or white washed, their souls are on the line here and frankly so are the souls of the people they hurt and damage while being in that position.

I’ve personally seen the damage in my own family from an Elder with an unchecked character flaw from a person that really shouldn’t have been put in that position in the first place.  The damage in my family will likely persist for many years to come, so yes… this is personal to me and I won’t really hold back, its to important to hold back about.  This time it was my family.  Next time it just may be yours.

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[Initially Written: 5.25.2009]

In 1979 a British group called The Buggles released a song titled, “Video Killed the Radio Star”.  The music video for this song was the first video played on MTV at 12:10 AM August 1st, 1981 and then later the one millionth video on February 27, 2000.  MTV killed the below average looking musician.  Now, not only did you have to be able to sing you had to have the look as well.

I think the religious world is on the verge of the same dynamic.  Many large churches have started something new, satellite churches that have no actual minister.  What they have is a big screen that broadcast the sermon from the mother church. One church to pull this off was LifeChurch.TV.  They even took it to another level and let you experience church online.  I’ve never really explored their site to much, but the concept is growing. 

The reason I see this growing is two fold:

1. The pool of ministers that can preach a great sermon is pretty small.  I’ve been in church for nearly 12 years and the number of GREAT sermons I’ve heard is minimal.  One of those was at a conference, so I’m not sure it counts.

2. Due to the ability to hear sermons from all over the world the acceptance of subpar speakers is shrinking. People may first experience God’s message online from a dynamic speaker, such as Andy Stanley.  Then when they arrive in the church the minister gives a very basic message.  Now there is nothing stopping a church in Cincinnati from having church in their own location but listening/watching the sermon from Andy Stanley. 

So what you will start seeing is that very thing.  You will have local churches with a local leadership that make ‘church happen’, but then a message from a speaker that may in fact be from the other side of the country.  I think this is the next growth of denominations.  So along side the churches of Christ, the Baptist churches, the Catholic churches you will have ‘Northpoint – Cincinnati East’

Which I think would empower the local leadership to not get so wrapped up in the Sunday morning experience, as that will be covered by the mother church, and then focus on the church experience as a whole.  Small groups, outreach, and other community building activities.  It has the potential to remove a lot of the politics that fall around the church leadership structure.

So I wonder, will video kill the church minister?

As I mentioned in my previous blog our future daughter was officially told on Monday of our plans to adopt her.  For this event we had to make an album of our family (brothers, sisters, fun things, etc..).  Though page two had the picture in this post. 

Several times as she was reviewing the book with the case worker she went back to this page and pointed at me saying, “He really likes me.” 

One of those things that bring great joy and great awareness to you.  One thing this child has lacked in her life is a solid and healthy relationship with a man.  So I did take extra effort to have interaction with her when she was at our house.  I’m glad she noticed.

Being a father is a very humbling thing for me.  Statistics are astonishing about the role a dad plays in the future health of a person.  Boy’s learn how to be men by the example they get from their father.  Women learn how to pick good men by the way their father treats them.  It is a responsibility that society has made a joke out of, but the repercussions of a fatherless society are seen all around.

So yes girl.  I do really like you.  I have a great vision for your future and I can’t wait to see you live it. 

It was 11 years ago today that my world was blessed with my daughter.  I had my boy, but this was my girl.  Here we are 11 years later and the young women she has become amazes and amuses me.

She is certainly a daddies girl.  I cherish the times when she actually lets me sit down and hold her.  I love the ‘OK daddy’ I get at times when I ask her to do something, even if for the past 30 minutes her mom has been trying to get her to do the same thing! (Did I mention she amuses me?). 

The first 11 years has been  her journey from an infant to a pre-teen.  Developing her character.  The next 11 will be her journey to women hood.  At some point we’ll see her first boyfriend (God help him…). She’ll have her first school dance.  All the things that come with being a teenage girl.

God willing, she’ll come to personal faith in Jesus and I’ll baptize her.

Who knows, 11 years from now could bring her husband and child.  Its just humbling to know that my time with my baby girl is counting down. 

Happy birthday sissa, your daddy loves you very much!

It is now 6:51 PM on Sunday.  Just under 24 hours from now the social worker from our county will be sitting down with a little 9 year old girl and give her a book about our family.  She will confirm what this little 9 year old has known.  We want to adopt her.

In that book she will be introduced to my mom, my wife’s parents, my sisters and brothers, my wife’s sister and brother, and all the things we do as a family.  She will read a letter from me to her, welcoming her to our family. 

After this conversation the rest of her life starts.  No longer is she a foster child.  She will become a member of my family.  She will be my daughter.  It all starts tomorrow. 

What will go through her mind?  Will she let out a yell of joy?  Will she cry?  Will she just sit and reflect on what has happened? 

I can’t wait to embrace her for the first time.  In our last meeting I kept her at arms distance a bit.  I wasn’t able to give her a hug and kiss her on the top of her head, as I do with my daughter.  I wasn’t able to look her in the eye’s and let her know that I wanted her to be my daughter.  That all changes tomorrow. 

We get her for the first time on Friday, but it all starts on Monday.

Since I’m down to not blogging much, I figured I would at least try and make the post I do make have some quality.

We are getting very close to having our new daughter.  While anything can happen and derail the plans, chances are that the child has been picked and all that is left is working through the system.  My mind races at times about all that this means.  Growing up without a dad, I know the struggles that a person in a broken family has to go through.  But even then, I wasn’t abused and neglected.  I did without a lot, but I wasn’t beat down by people that should have protected me.  What we are doing for this little girl is rescuing her from that reality.  The change in her life circumstances will change so drastically that who and what she is today will not at all resemble who and what she can become if she chooses to take the opportunity given to her and run with it.

Then my mind races to all the people in my life over the years.  This process toward adopting this little girl started 5 or 6 years ago at our first church.  I remember sending out an email asking my closest friends what they thought about my family adopting a child.  To be honest, it was not a positive response in many ways.  Each made their own set of excuses about why we shouldn’t do it.  So we didn’t fully act on it at that point.  However God had other plans and he sent to us a little 5 month old boy that later became part of our family.  I do dare say that in spite of all the reasons a person could say no when he came to our life, we said yes… and it has been a complete blessing to my family.  All of those “no’s” never became an issue.  Though this even reminds me of a story nearly 9 years ago when my wife was pregnant with our third, and only planned, child.  A sweet old lady that was very close to our family went kind of crazy about how bad this was.  How we just couldn’t afford to have a third child and various other reasons why it was a bad idea.  Now lets be honest, that third child is our toughest parenting challenge… he is just like his dad!  But here we are nearly with a nearly 9 year old son who is doing just fine, and so is our family.  The relationship with that sweet old lady.. pretty much over.  I never fully understood this until my wife and I were going through our foster care training.  I’ll expand on this in a bit.

So let me take a bit of a side rant here first.  I don’t understand people.  When our friends share their dreams and ideas with us, we immediately go to why it can’t or shouldn’t happen.  What good does that do?  If it can’t our shouldn’t happen, it won’t.  But chances are you need to be a source of encouragement to your friend, not a source of why not.  It reminds me of a conversation I had with a good friend several years ago.  He spent several years in a job that he didn’t care for, making a pretty humble wage.  He had a job opportunity with great potential and a nice salary increase.  He asked me what I thought.  I had two choices, I could encourage him to do what he thought was right or tell him why I thought it was bad. I chose the negative, he chose the job and several years later… he was right.  I was wrong.   This situation has stuck with me for many years.

Back on topic.  I never understood why the relationship with that sweet old lady broke down as it did until we were in our training.  One of the classes we were required to take focused on the topic of public reaction to foster parents.  One of the BIG things that stuck out to many of the women in the class was the people that would say things like, “Do you really think this is a good idea?” or “Are you nuts?” and more.  The women took this as a personal insult.  “What do you think I’d do this without giving it great thought?”  So I’m sure, even though this lady had good intentions, by continuously second guessing a decision that my wife and I made after a lot of consideration, we must have felt pretty insulted.  Would you remain close to a person you felt was continuously insulting you?  There is a point where you really need to let your opinion drop and support your friends if you value the friendship.

I’ve been very thankful for my friends that have spoken encouragement into my family.  We certainly know the risk and concerns in what we are doing.   We don’t need anybody to rehash those with us.  But what I really value is the people in our lives that tell us how what we are doing is special and a great example for how to make a difference in the world.  I don’t need to hear them say that to know that its true, but it still feels great to hear it.

Though I will add, my general reply to people that have given negative thoughts is that if there is one thing I am willing to challenge God about, it is taking care of the fatherless.  I know the negatives, but I can’t imagine God would not protect my family when we are doing His work.

I’ll close with something I’ve heard several times, even today in an email from a mom of a child on my son’s baseball team.  Though the mom said it in an encouraging way:

You can’t save them all. 

This has generally been put with a negative spin about how even though we love and care about these orphans, we can’t save them all.  And I do agree, however what we can do is save the ones we have saved.  We saved a 5 month old from a life of hell.  Today he is one of the most loving and affectionate children you could ever meet.  We can’t save them all, but what we can do is save this 9 year old precious girl from a life of hell with her chances for a family and a stable future dwindling more and more every day.  So yeah, we can’t save them all… but we can save the two we are saving.  If we made decisions on the fact that we couldn’t fix it all… why would we ever do anything good?  You can’t save all the homeless, but you can save the ones in front of you that day while at the soup kitchen.  You can’t save all the children without a dad, but you can save the ones close to your family by ‘adopting’ them as your neighborhood child (more on this in a bit).  You can’t do it all by yourself, but that shouldn’t stop you from doing what you can do today.

I guess I’ll close by saying thank you.  As a young fatherless child I had many families that adopted me as one of their own.  While my mom was working second shift, they were feeding me and letting me hang out at their house allllll the time.  The Hubbard’s, the Pennington’s, the Bernau’s, the Richardson’s, and many more.  Thank you.  Many of you are still role models for me today and I value the time I had at your house greatly.