Perspective...

Perspective.  Is it gained or learned?

Here are the definitions:

Gain:  v. To obtain or secure (something desired, favorable, or profitable)

Learn: v. To gain or acquire knowledge or skill in something by study, experience, or being taught.

When it comes to something that matters the most, like God, family, or life lessons, gain is better than learn.  Now you may think that I am splitting hairs, but I believe that this fundamental difference could lead to a better way to help our kids understand the role of God and the family in their lives.  Let's start by taking the mindset of learning.

When kids learn something, by the definition above, they are taught by either reading or hearing something, experiencing something, or being specifically taught something by someone.  This is great for things like math, reading and other things that are important for development.  The problem comes during the processing part.  When we learn something either from being taught, by teachers or on our own, or by experience, we have just that, a lesson or an experience.  We have learned.  This is more surface level than the concept of gain.  When kids gain something, like wisdom, there is a sense of a deeper, core level, understanding.  

I am afraid that in churches we have settled for our kids learning about God.  We teach them, and they acquire knowledge.  They are taught that God is something to be studied.  The God they learn about through experience is boring.  They are taught that the miraculous and amazing stories that happened in the Old Testament are just that, stories.  They think of God as an impersonal entity that used to do really cool stuff, a long time ago.  So what do we need to do?

We need to teach kids, with God we gain something desired, something favorable, and something profitable.  God is not something to be studied.  The experiences with God are life changing and anything but boring.  We need to allow kids to wonder at the amazingness of God.  With the super hero resurgence of the last year, I am afraid the God in most churches is losing out to the Avengers in levels of excitement.  We need to remember that the God of the Old Testament who did all of those amazing things, is the God of today, who still wants to do amazing things.

We need to show kids that this God is exciting.  If God is not exciting in your life or church...the problem is you.  God is doing amazing things at my church.  People are growing in their relationships with Him.  Peoples lives are being changed, and I get to be a part of it.  I am gaining perspective on what God wants to do in this generation of millennials and their children.  We need to show them that God is not a science project, but is an actual being capable of rocking their world in the best way possible.  

There is a new product called Gain w/ Febreze.  Gain is a laundry detergent and it makes things clean.  Febreze is a product that makes things smell better.  I like the idea of this product.  It speaks to what we need to demonstrate for the next generation of people who are far from God.  Here is the lesson:  

We need to show people how to gain understanding when their life stinks.