Out Of Bounds

When I was a kid, I can specifically remember riding my red bike with a black banana seat way outside of the boundaries that my parents had set for me.  My bike was notorious for eating up the pant legs of my favorite Toughskins® jeans.  Needless to say, one time when I was out of bounds, my pant legs jammed up in my bike chain and I couldn’t get them out.  A friendly stranger took the time to cut my pant leg out of the chain, load up my bike in her car, and drive me home.  My parents were obviously disappointed and I was in big trouble.  I was grounded for a whole week.  I wasn’t permitted to play outside with my friends or to watch television for the whole week.  As a first or second grader, it felt like I had been sent to maximum security prison.

Stories like these remind us that we were not perfect children.  We didn’t always make the right choices.  It’s helpful to remember this when we think about our own children.  They will make bad choices sometimes also.

Tell us about a time when you got in trouble as a kid and describe the consequences of your actions.  Leave your story in the comments.

Book Review: Raising A Modern-Day Knight by Robert Lewis

Two months ago, I picked up a copy of Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood by Robert Lewis at the Weekend to Remember FamilyLife marriage conference that Leanne and I attended in Hershey, PA.  During my vacation to Texas, I had a chance to finish reading the book, so I thought I would share my thoughts.

If you are a dad, you need to read this book!

How’s that for a statement?  The book is written as a guide and encouragement for fathers to help guide their son’s and son-in-law’s into authentic manhood.  In today’s world of gender equality, the title and subject matter of this book may seem old-fashioned and out of touch with the culture.  But when you open up the pages of this book and begin to uncover the teachings and truths developed by Lewis, you’ll discover a father who takes his role as a father seriously.

In Raising A Modern-Day Knight, Lewis shares his own journey of defining manhood with two other fathers.  He describes the method they used to ceremonially transform their boys to men.  Lewis gives practical tips and shows how dads like you and me can do the same thing for our boys.  He also gives hope and encouragement to fathers who may feel like it’s too late for them.

I finished reading this book encouraged, inspired, and motivated to take my role as a father more seriously.  I’m excited to return home this week where I can begin to develop my own strategy for being more intentional in working with other fathers to transform our boys into modern-day knights.

I highly recommend this book!  (This book gets 5 Stretch Marks out of 5.)

How are you being intentional in your parenting these days?  How were your parents intentional in raising you?  Give us some examples in the comments.

My Dad’s Morning Routine

This morning, I woke up in another part of the country to green grass, fully leaved trees, and warmer temperatures.  As I walked to the back door to get a glimpse of the sunshine, I saw my dad lying down on the back porch.

He laid there wearing his “exercise” clothes doing his daily calisthenics and having his daily time for prayer and meditation.  My dad could give you all the details of his routine which has been part of his daily morning ritual for the past several years.  (Here’s a link to his blog where he shares the details of his prayer time.)  The general gist of it includes stretching, abdominal exercises, and push ups.  Then it moves to a time of prayer when he faces different directions and prayers for his family, his church, his community, and the world.  My dad uses the Psalms as he moves through his exercises.  He has a method for reciting all 150 Psalms.  He used to do this when he went swimming.  Now, he recites the Psalms as he warms up on his mini-trampoline.

As I watch him out there practicing his sermon for Sunday and going through the rest of the routine.  I’m inspired.  I’m amused.  I’m intrigued.

Many of you may know that I’m a guy who thrives on routine, patterns, discipline, and schedule.  I can see where it came from.  My dad is a man of discipline.  My grandparents were both very disciplined.  My guess is that there was some type of routine in their families before them.

Okay, now the routine has gone a bit far.  My dad is singing.  If you’ve ever sat next to my dad in church, you know this isn’t a good thing.  Actually, it’s pretty neat to hear…in the privacy of my parents’ backyard, my dad finds oneness with God.  I’m certain that his singing is sweet, sweet music to the Creator.

As we prepare to visit my parents’ church tonight for their Maundy Thursday service (we don’t have this at our home church), I’m looking forward to a day together.  What a great way to start the day!

What’s something quirky about your parents?  What quirkiness or trait do you have that you can see came from your parents?

Book Review: Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date by Dennis Rainey

Last month, Leanne and I attended a FamilyLife Weekend to Remember event in Hershey, PA.  As you may recall from a few of my posts, this was a memorable and special weekend for us.  While we were there, we picked up several books to help us in our marriage and in our parenting.  One such resource was Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date (8 Steps To No Regrets) by FamilyLife co-founder and president Dennis Rainey.

Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date is a short book designed for father’s with daughters.  In this book, Rainey offers his perspective on how to approach the whole dating thing with your daughter and her potential dates.  Rainey recommends a process of interviewing each young man prior to permitting his daughter to go out with him.  This may sound old-fashioned and intimidating, but I think that Rainey is on to something.

Not only does this method protect the daughter from guy’s who might not match up with the family expectations for moral perspective, work ethic, and boundaries, Rainey’s interviewing process provides an opportunity to shape the lives of young men.  As part of the interview, Dennis Rainey asks each young man to use this method if and when their own daughter’s start to date.

Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date comes at a good time in my parenting path.  My daughter, Hannah, hasn’t started dating yet; however, at age 14, the whole dating thing isn’t too far off.  As a dad, I want to be prepared to protect my daughter and to help her find the right man.  Rainey’s book definitely gives me a lot to think about as I prepare for this time in my parenting journey.

I would recommend Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date to any parent with daughters.  You’ll find the book educational, encouraging, and thought-provoking.

When was your last interview?

Do you have any daughters?  If so, how have you handled the dating process or how do you plan to handle the dating process?

Raising The Bar

Last night, our middle school parents small group talked about raising the bar.  Our discussion centered on our responsibility to teach godly values and principles in our homes.  We shared our concerns for the lack of boundaries and growing pressures to “lower the bar” that surround our kids as they’re bombarded by falling standards that exist all around them – especially in the media world of television, music, and internet.

During our conversation, two scriptures helped bring focus to our conversation.  In Deuteronomy 6:1-9, God instructs the Israelites to talk to their kids about God and God’s commands morning, noon, and night.

These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

There are so many great ways to live this out in our families.  Praying with your kids at bedtime is a great place to start.  Taking them to church where they can hear more about God is a wonderful next step.  Parents worry that they don’t have the biblical knowledge to spiritually lead their kids, but there are some great resources out there to help.  Our family is currently using Fuel: Devotions to Ignite the Faith of Parents and Teens (Focus on the Family Books), a devotional by Joe White.  As we wrap up dinner together, we take turns reading from this book.  This gives us a time to talk about God’s Word and how it applies to our lives.  Finally, I would recommend leaning into other parents.  Being part of a small group like ours is a big help.  This group often acts as a sounding board for parents as we strive to become better parents while dealing with the joys and challenges of parenting.  It’s also a great idea to find parents who can be your example – perhaps they’re a few steps ahead of you in the parenting journal.

The second scripture that we talked about in our group came from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  In this passage, Paul instructs readers to put off the “old” things that represented our lives before knowing Christ, and he teaches us to focus on “new” things that point us in the right direction.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.  Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

As we talked about this scripture, we were all challenged to consider our role in helping our kids to live this out in light of the media that could come into our homes.  We were encouraged to post these words at our computers and by our TV remotes as a reminder to raise the bar on the things that enter our minds.

How do you raise the bar for your family?

W2R Take Home 2: Make Prayer A Priority In Our Marriage

Happy Leap Day!

To my friend Stretch Mark, Happy 12th Birthday!

Yesterday, I shared one of my big take homes from my Weekend To Remember (W2R) marriage conference experience.  I shared that I want to be an agent of encouragement in my marriage and in my family.

Today, I’ll share my second big take home for the W2R conference.  I want to make prayer a bigger priority in my marriage.  Leanne and I pray to together most nights at bedtime.  Although, this sometimes is missed when one or both of us is “too” tired.  If I’m honest, I often wait for Leanne to initiate our prayer time.  I could probably come up with all kinds of excuses for this, but I’ll save you (and me) the agony.

The W2R conference was a great reminder that I need to step up and lead in this way in our marriage.  One of the speakers, Bob Maddox, shared that he and his wife pray together twice a day.  If he’s on the road, he calls her at least twice a day to make sure this prayer time happens.  Bob takes responsibility for this.  When he shared this, I was definitely challenged.  And so we are praying together twice a day.  I pray with Leanne before I leave for the office in the morning, and we pray together at bedtime.  So far, it’s been three days in a row!

How could praying together twice a day make a difference in our family?

First, making prayer a priority puts our perspective and focus in the right place.  God has to come first in our lives.  Second, praying together gives us an opportunity to connect and to lift each other up.  There’s no question that we are in a busy stage of our parenting lives as we run our kids from activity to activity.  We need this time to slow down and to be together.  Third, praying together sets the tone for our family.  I’ve heard it said, the couple that prays together stays together.  We want our family to be cemented together.  And we want our family to put God first.  When we pray, our kids will know it.  They’ll see us putting God first.  This will have an impact on their lives.  Finally, prayer changes lives.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.  James 5:16

What’s your prayer life look like?  If you’re married, do you pray together?  What reasons could you add for praying together with your spouse?

W2R Take Home 1: I Want To Be An Encourager

Yesterday, we (Leanne and I) shared about our Weekend to Remember (W2R) experience at the FamilyLife marriage conference in Hershey, PA.  Conferences like this are great, but it can be easy to come away with a mountain top high that quickly fades as real life happens.

When I woke up early yesterday morning for an earlier than normal start, it was easy to become instantly tired and to feel worn out before the week had even started.  When I had a migraine headache yesterday at work, it was easy to quickly become frustrated and to feel like I was back to real life.  (I’ve been struggling with migraines over the past few weeks.)  When I came home from Isaac’s basketball game where we suffered a tough loss in the final four of the playoffs, it was easy to get down knowing that our hoops season was now over.

But throughout the day, I kept reminding myself of the great weekend I had just experienced.  I left the conference with a few take homes.

The first major take home for me was put into action last night when Isaac suffered defeat in his basketball game.  I want to be an agent of encouragement for my wife and kids.  I was pretty down after his game due to the outcome and due to a comment from one of his teammates.  I had the chance to express my pride and love for Isaac.  Isaac plays the basketball game with a positive attitude.  He doesn’t complain.  He has fun.  He does his best.  His game continues to show improvement.  I love to watch how he transforms throughout the season into a basketball loving machine.

As we talked about the discouraging remark by his teammate, we had the chance to discuss the power of encouragement.  We all have the opportunity to lift people up through our comments.  I want our family to live this way to each other, to our classmates, to our teammates, and to others.  As a dad, I believe it starts with me as I lead our family.  I want to be an agent of encouragement!

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.  I Thessalonians 5:11

How has encouragement transformed your life?  Are you an agent of encouragement or of discouragement?  What is one thing you can do today to encourage someone?

Quality – Starts With Me

Quality Week on The Stretched Blog continues with this 3rd post.  Go check out the past two days of discussion if you need to catch up.  You can catch up my clicking here or here.

As a dad and as a leader, I care about passing down and exemplifying quality to me kids and to me team.  I want them to respond with quality.

Unfortunately, I don’t always get it right at work or at home and neither do my kids or the members of my team.

I think it’s important to understand the benefits of doing things with quality and to recognize the downside of allowing our performance to be less than stellar.

You may know that our family currently has two dogs.  Iso is our forever doe.  He’s a lovable eight year old black lab who loves to lay around and sleep.  Irwin is our 17 week old seeing eye puppy.  He keeps us on our toes with his puppy teeth and puppy energy.  Hannah, our daughter, is responsible for taking care of Irwin which leaves our son, Isaac, to handle Iso.  (Are you confused with all the “I” names?)  Part of caring for Iso involves taking him outside and cleaning up the dog poop.  It’s not a glamorous job, but you can understand that it’s essential.

When Isaac takes Iso out, he’s supposed to clean up after the dog right away.  Obviously, there are major benefits to performing this task with quality.  The yard is clear of “landmines” and Isaac doesn’t have to mess with it later.

But what happens when his “job” performance lacks quality?  We end up with dog poop in the yard.  Someone steps in it and gets it in their shoes.  Then they track it in the house which leads to lots of extra cleanup and wasted time.  It also means that we have to be on Isaac more to make sure he’s doing his jobs correctly.  This isn’t fun for Isaac or for mom and dad.  Inevitably, Isaac has to spend more time cleaning up the yard, because he didn’t do it right the first time.

Suddenly, the lesson in quality starts to make more sense.  When it comes to quality, we want to do it right because we do it right – not because we do it twice.

As I ponder quality today, it may seem like I’m picking on my son.  This isn’t my intent.  These thoughts are a reminder to me that I must act with quality first – especially if I expect my team and my kids to make quality a priority.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Colossians 3:17

How have you been positively or negatively impacted by your attention or lack of attention to quality?  If you are a leader, how do you demonstrate the importance of quality to your team?

I Don’t Want to be a Pharisee

I don’t want to be a Pharisee!

In Matthew, Jesus speaks out warning against the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.  He calls them hypocrites and snakes.  He calls them out for saying one thing but doing another thing.  He scolds them for falsely teaching others – for taking the law out of context and missing the point of the law.

We don’t have Pharisees today, but we do have preachers, teachers, and lay people who do the very things for which Jesus accused the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.  I don’t want to be like that.

As a father, I find that this is the biggest area where I struggle with this.  I want to be the best example for my kids.  I want to teach them in words, and I want to lead by my actions.  Unfortunately, I don’t always get this right.  I fail.  I don’t follow through.  I lack consistency at times.  I tell them to watch what they eat while I grab a bowl of ice cream for myself.  I tell them to get a good nights sleep while I burn the candle at both ends.

God, may the thoughts in my heart and mind, the words of my mouth, and my actions please and honor you!

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Psalm 19:14

Are you a hypocrite?  Come clean.  What action can you take today to end your hypocrisy?

Stolpe Superbowl Scavenger Hunt

Our 1st Photo Stop of our Scavenger Hunt - PV Middle School West

On Saturday morning, our family was trying to pick a movie that we could all see together that night.  We couldn’t agree.  Leanne and I wanted to see Warhorse.  Hannah and Isaac didn’t want to see Warhorse.  Isaac wanted to see anything 3D.  Hannah didn’t offer any suggestions.  At the end of the discussion, I wasn’t real keen on spending a fair amount of money going to the theaters to see a movie that we didn’t all want to see.  So my brain started spinning…

Leanne and I wanted to make sure we had some quality family time.  How could we make this happen without breaking the bank?  For some reason, an idea popped in my head.  Why don’t we host a family scavenger hunt?  We could create a list that we could search for in our area.  We could invite other families to join in our fun.  And we could end the hunt with ice cream back at our house.  (Leanne says that my idea was just a plot to get ice cream.)

The idea seemed to interest everyone in the family, so we started calling around to some friends.  We even posted an invitation on Facebook.  A couple of families expressed interest initially, but the short notice was definitely a deterrent.  So…it was just us – The Stolpe Family.

The kids kept asking if we should just cancel the event.  Isaac was actually pretty grumpy as we piled in the car to start our scavenger hunt, but as the night went on our family began to have a fun time together.  We drove around within a 5-10 mile radius of our home gathering different items and taking family pictures at different locations.  We ended up at our local Dairy Queen where we enjoyed ice cream together (Leanne didn’t seem to mind the ice cream ending).  It was a fun night!  Next time, we’ll provide more notice, so other families can join in the fun.

Here are some of the items that were on our scavenger hunt list:

• Moccia’s Train Stop takeout menu
• 1971 penny
• Family Picture at Perkiomen Valley Middle School West
• Ortino’s takeout menu
• chopsticks
• Family Picture at Schwenksville Post Office
• Chinese restaurant takeout menu
• ketchup packet
• Family Picture at Schwenksville Elementary School
• Perkiomen Trail map

Did you do something fun this Superbowl weekend?  What creative family activities/ideas can you share to help the rest of the Stretched Community?