As I’m typing this on my phone (those who know me are proud of me right now for learning to use technology) it’s the last night on the road tonight & we hit Atlanta tomorrow to start the next chapter of our lives together. We’ve tried to make the roadtrip as memorable as possible for the kids. I mean how many times do you ever move your whole family across the country? I think we’ve pretty much succeeded, only 6 movies in 3 days means we’ve been doing a lot of other stuff. There were stories read, laughter, and multiple cow sightings by the girls. There was the blimp we saw doing training moves just a few 100 ft off the ground, the horses sticking their heads out of the trailer as we passed by, picnics at the rest stops, Lincoln loved yelling at every tractor trailer we passed, and so on. There were tons of simple yet satisfying moments that happened on the trip that as a father I hope I never forget. And then there were the ones I do hope to forget. You know the ones if you’re a parent.
Father’s Day always provides a great opportunity to reflect on the kind of Father you had growing up and of course the kind of Father you would like to be yourself. In thinking about my Dad this weekend there were so many lessons that he taught me that came to mind, and fortunately, many things I still have to learn from my Dad. And while every father and man has their deficiencies to be sure, my dad has been an accelerant in my life and leadership by consistently allowing me to stand on his shoulders. Dad, I love you, and I’m so grateful that you’re in my life! So here are a handful of leadership principles that I learned from my Dad.
I can remember as a young teenager going to bed praying and weeping night after night, begging God for the opportunity to influence thousands of people for Him. From the time before those prayers were ever uttered until today, God has been shaping me, forming me through His Word, His People, His Spirit, and His Wisdom for this very moment. For this moment, this community of people, this church, this mission…this is what I was made for.
Cornerstone, I could not do what the Lord has placed in front of me to do without you. What the Lord has done in my life through you and during my time among you will be treasured. I’m honored to have served along side of you and will take with me the many friendships, memories, and incredible moments that we’ve shared together. Thank you for your kind words in this moment. They have breathed affirmation, empowerment, courage and life into me and I am grateful.
North Metro, I cannot tell you how honored, humbled and excited Lisa and I are to be a part of what God is doing among you. You have already embraced us through emails, phone messages, and direct messages and it is so good to feel your love and affirmation, even from across the country. I cannot wait to get there this summer and get into the thick of life with you, and what the Lord has in store for us together.
While there is so much that could be said about how the Lord moved each step of the way in this process of calling us to North Metro and bending our hearts towards one another; I’ll simply say out loud to the Lord thank you for Your kindness and both shaping in us and leading us to what You know is best.
In order to finish well where I currently am, my family and I won’t I won’t be making the move to North Metro until later this summer. So as a result, we decided to have a video put together to introduce ourselves to our new church family! Below is the video that was shown this weekend at North Metro, happy viewing!
BTW got to give a big shout out to Chris Loope for doing the video work, the guy is simply amazing!
Thanks to Pampered Chef and all of you, Holly McRae (Kate’s Mom) is going to receive a wonderful blessing! Trudy Maples, the Pampered Chef Representative for the party, donated all of her commission to the family, and all of the hostess benefits were donated to the family as well! As a result Holly is going to be able to stock her kitchen in preparation for Kate coming home and cooking meals for her family again. If you missed it and you’re wondering what in the world I’m talking about you can check out the story here.
I’m a typical guy I guess and I must confess that I don’t do much cooking other than a little mac and cheese out of the box for the kids. That’s best for everybody’s health in my family, trust me. So I suppose for some of us this may seem a bit trivial. But I can’t tell you how proud I am of all of you who participated and blessed the McRae family in this moment! I’m floored by your outpouring of love! Again, for all of you who are unfamiliar with Kate’s story and would like to follow along you can keep up on their blog here. Keep praying with us!
In his book Revolutionary Parenting, George Barna writes the following:
“Millions of parents have accepted the idea that they have to make a choice. They must either give up careers and self-fulfillment and spend a lot of time with their children, or spend limited but deeply enriching time with them while maintaining the same level of vocational involvement. Over the past 15 years, various studies have shown that this switch has diminished the impact of parents. And the lie about the choice involved has hurt both parents and children, leaving a large proportion of young adults feeling as if they were not adequately parented and a shockingly high number feeling that they lacked a father figure in their lives. In fact, when we asked young adults what they felt were the most significant mistakes that America’s parents have made, the second highest ranked mistake was not spending enough time with their children.”
“The typical American family registers less than 15 minutes of direct parent-child conversation each day.”
In today’s fast paced world most parents are stuck doing their best imitation of a taxi cab driver. They’re escorting their children from one event to the next, pounding down some fast food, chatting it up on their cell phone, and dropping french fries under the seats that will be petrified by the time the minivan gets cleaned 2 months later. There is the revolving door at home where things seem more like Grand Central Station than a home at times. And oh yea, all while mom and dad are trying to advance in their career and let’s not forget trying to carve out a little time for some romance. Things just don’t seem so romantic now after rattling off a list like that. At that breakneck pace, how relationally deep can anyone go with their kids? While we don’t always do this right by any stretch of the imagination, the following are some examples of what has worked well in the Alexander house.
