It is that time again. School is here. Commitments have begun ramping up. We start signing up for one thing after another. Football practice. Chess club. The volleyball team. All of these come with demands and rules about what it means to belong to this group and these teams. The coach defines the terms. We take their threats seriously. I can’t miss a practice or I will be out. They use words like “mandatory” and “required”. We go to great links to raise money and fork out unheard amounts of our own money for equipment our kids need. Some choose to start all this around 3rd grade or earlier. The trend to sign our kids up for things is growing. On top of that, what these things require has increased. On top of school, now our kids have several practices a week on top of games. What does any of this have to do with God? What does it have to do with His church? 

Like all parents, I went to several open houses lately. As you walk the halls there are tables after tables of groups and organizations that want your children’s time. Cub Scouts, After school sport programs, bike clubs, etc.. And while these things are not sinful to be involved in, what do they do to to our time and our commitment to God? What do we teach our kids about what is important by our involvement? God wants your time. Your children’s time. Your families time. Are you giving it all away to someone else?

I have spent over 15 years now working with teens and their families in the church. I can not count how many times a teen or parent has told me that they can’t come to something the church has planned because they “have” something. But the truth is they choose something. This is a short post with one simple point. What would happen if God was not optional but everything else was? What if we starting treating the world’s options as optional? What if we first asked how much time would that leave for God and His church if I sign up for that? What would happen if we scheduled God & His church first and then fit in all our hobbies? What would happen if we viewed the things the world wants us to sign up for as optional instead of looking at God, his church, and His mission as optional? Does the world see how important God is to us when we skip worship to practice or play something? Or do they understand something different about what we think of God through where we spend our time? God worries about the fences we sit on; trying to claim to please Him while trying to please ourselves. Get off the fence. Come in the house. That kind of commitment would be something the world would see as important to us. That is why we are here; for the world around us to come to God through us.