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I try not offending because I have learned from hard experience that Pro 18:19 A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. There was a Sister that took many years to get past an offending comment I had made.. Not everything that comes out of my mouth is Godly. We are going to offend as the scripture says but God forbid I do it on purpose.... As for sharing the Lord with folks ..share and then leave it to the Lord to touch the heart of the one you think may be offended... Mat 11:6 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. Mat 26:33 Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Mat 26:34 Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. We are all at risk of being offended too...... It is especially easy to offend on the Internet because folks don't see your face or really know you or your heart and may easily misconstrue what you are trying to say.. Boy it has happened to me so many times ....makes me sad .... and sometimes there is no reconcilliation and you end up stuck with someone offended by something you have said... Good post!

I understand what you're saying and I am not promoting that type of chrisitianity. However, we do need to realize that the world sees us as hypocrites and there is no reason to prove it to them. Before we open our mouths and mow people down, we need to be discerning. If you want to talk "biblically", who did Christ deal the most aggressively with? Who did Christ speak the truth to, but in love in a manner in which they would hear him? Question #1: A: those in the "know" religiously speaking, those who supposedly knew God.....Questions #2: A: the sinners I have read and LOVE the "Journals of Aggressive Chrisitianity" by Catherine Booth (co-founder of the Salvation Army. you can download a copy at armybarmy.com) and she denounces the wishy-washy, wanting to be cool-ness too, so that is not what I am saying we should be. But she does see the need for us to seek guidance from the Holy Spirit.

That is scary! Poor woman!

In the other thread I mentioned that there are different scenarios we need to consider. When speaking of our interactions with other christians, we need to keep Romans 14 in the back of our minds. That is one of the most special chapters to me. It has gotten me through some "disputeable matters" with my brothers and sisters and kept things in perspective many times! There is also the matter of offending those who are not christians. I do not think we do ourselves any favors by steamrolling through conversations with un-believers with an, "I don't care" or huffy attitude. I do think we need to be straightforward in our witness and show that we are firm in our stance, but we also must ask the Holy Spirit to guide our words so that a work may be done in the other person's heart. I don't like to perpetuate the belief that christians are so UNlike Christ. Sure, even with that, they may be offended and that's ok, but we need to upright in our actions and not be so intent on "we don't care" that we show someone we don't care for them. Know what I mean?

BCP=birth control pills? My doctor tried that to no avail. Please look into Botox. I was very skeptical about this and even made jokes about it, but I'll be darned if it didn't work. It's just amazing. I am most definitely a believer now. Yeah, birth control pills. A pretty high dose of estrogen, they aren't the low dose ones that are commonly used as actual birth control (I can't have any more kids, so I don't need birth control, per se) I will definately look into it! I hate taking pills! (mostly because I forget all the time, lol! I'm horrible at routine! )

Hmmm, I get migraines often (usually they are the worst in the spring (late february-early june)) I never heard of botox for migraines, I will look into it. I have some severe sensetivities to narcotics (vertigo, vomiting) so I usually don't take them, I just endure the migraines until it's gone. My doctor has been trying BCP and that has seemed to help quite a bit with the frequency of the migraines, but I will have to investigate the botox. Thanks for posting that!!

How can we spread the word, that well, if we are isolating our children when they can reach others kids for the LORD? This doesn't make a bit of sense. Children are not evangelists. They are very impressionable. I still believe that home schooling is the best way to go, and a private Christian school would be next. I wouldn't think of taking children the Lord place in my care and throwing them into the lions den known as the public school system and simply saying the Lord will protect them. Today, we have options, and I believe the the Lord gives us common sense to use them. That is how he will protect them. I don't think what you say makes alot of sense to me. I understand why you feel this way, but where is the faith in that? Why can't the Lord protect children in public schools when their parents have sent them there in faith? and I beg to disagree that children are not evangelists..............have you ever listened to them? They make some of the greatest evangelists because of their faith. I am not an advocate of any single form of educating (like I won't say public schools are the best or home schooling is the best or private schooling is best) I think it is up to the Lord to decide that and it is our job to trust Him in wherever He leads. This would be putting sacrifice before obedience. Proverbs 21:3 To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Also, Deuteronomy 6:16 Do not test the Lord your God... Sorry, I'm not sure what you're saying here? Are you saying that you think I'm putting sacrifice before obedience or are you echoing what I actually mean in that obedience to where the Lord leads you to educate your children is the most important?? The way this is worded makes it difficult to catch what you're saying (or I'm just not catching it...) Basically my point is that to send our children to public school on the basis of wanting them to evangelize is putting sacrifice before obedience. It is not a good reason to send children to public school. If you truly feel led by the Lord to put your children in public school, that is a different story, I believe God always blesses our desires to do what he wants us to do. We are commanded to train our children up in the way they should go. I obey this first and make sure I am not sacrificing this. As I read my bible, I see gazillions of scriptire supporting that the duty of child rearing is entrusted to the parents, not public schools. 35 hours a week in public school is just too much time away from the family in my humble opinion. If you read one of my previous posts, I said I prayed very long and hard about what to do with my children when it came time to "start school", and God told me to send them to public school because He needed us there. That is obedience. That is what was #1 in our decision. I'm not sacrificing anything either. God calls different people to different service and it is served out of obedience.

How can we spread the word, that well, if we are isolating our children when they can reach others kids for the LORD? This doesn't make a bit of sense. Children are not evangelists. They are very impressionable. I still believe that home schooling is the best way to go, and a private Christian school would be next. I wouldn't think of taking children the Lord place in my care and throwing them into the lions den known as the public school system and simply saying the Lord will protect them. Today, we have options, and I believe the the Lord gives us common sense to use them. That is how he will protect them. I don't think what you say makes alot of sense to me. I understand why you feel this way, but where is the faith in that? Why can't the Lord protect children in public schools when their parents have sent them there in faith? and I beg to disagree that children are not evangelists..............have you ever listened to them? They make some of the greatest evangelists because of their faith. I am not an advocate of any single form of educating (like I won't say public schools are the best or home schooling is the best or private schooling is best) I think it is up to the Lord to decide that and it is our job to trust Him in wherever He leads. This would be putting sacrifice before obedience. Proverbs 21:3 To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Also, Deuteronomy 6:16 Do not test the Lord your God... Sorry, I'm not sure what you're saying here? Are you saying that you think I'm putting sacrifice before obedience or are you echoing what I actually mean in that obedience to where the Lord leads you to educate your children is the most important?? The way this is worded makes it difficult to catch what you're saying (or I'm just not catching it...)

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!! GREAT POST!

I am not interested in my hypotheticals evangelizing anybody at 5 to10 years of age! First of all why not? and Secondly, there are teachers that need to hear the word of God demonstrated by a christian family in the school, there are other staff and administration that will hear of christians in their schools.............

How can we spread the word, that well, if we are isolating our children when they can reach others kids for the LORD? This doesn't make a bit of sense. Children are not evangelists. They are very impressionable. I still believe that home schooling is the best way to go, and a private Christian school would be next. I wouldn't think of taking children the Lord place in my care and throwing them into the lions den known as the public school system and simply saying the Lord will protect them. Today, we have options, and I believe the the Lord gives us common sense to use them. That is how he will protect them. I don't think what you say makes alot of sense to me. I understand why you feel this way, but where is the faith in that? Why can't the Lord protect children in public schools when their parents have sent them there in faith? and I beg to disagree that children are not evangelists..............have you ever listened to them? They make some of the greatest evangelists because of their faith. I am not an advocate of any single form of educating (like I won't say public schools are the best or home schooling is the best or private schooling is best) I think it is up to the Lord to decide that and it is our job to trust Him in wherever He leads.

Wow, It's been a LONG LONG time since I've been here and this topic is very important to me! I haven't read through all of it, but I wanted to comment here when I saw this remark......... About being a witness, yes, before my kids were old enough for school, I started to pray long and hard about what the Lord wanted me to do. I weighed all the options, homeschooling, private, public....and trusted the Lord to guide me. That is a piece we miss so much! The Lord directed us to be His vioce in our public schools. Sometimes that can be a darkest place in our communities and who will be the ones to brings His light? The Christian families He leads there are! Another point I think we VERY OFTEN miss in this whole topic is the fact that the responsibility of education lies withthe PARENTS and FAMILY NOT WITH THE SCHOOLS! Schools are intended to be a support, but much much too often we leave the entire responsibility up to them and that is where we fail our children. It is our job to not only ask questions and talk to teachers, but to teach them at home as well in spiritual/social areas, but ALSO academic areas! I went to public school my whole life and I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were very diligent with us and they took on primary role as educaters at home and school was the support system. I also have to say that the topic of evolution was never presented as "we come from apes", at least, not with that being the gospel truth, Darwinism was presented as a theory, but not really a favored theory. There were other issues that were posed in contrast with Christian lifestyle, but those were mostly not academic issues, but rather social issues or political issues. I welcomed those things too because it gave me a chance to exercise my right to voice the truth and to share God's word in a public school. And Yes, it IS a student's right to do that. (at least in the States, I can't speak for other countries) A teacher may not do that for fear of policies, but a student may. I did and it made me a stronger person. I would not trade that experience (no matter how difficlut it may have been going through it at times) for ANYTHING! I went through some trials by fire, but God used it to make me who I am and who He wants me to be.

My high schools were in St. Louis, MO (the west county...affluent area) and Madison, WI (surprisingly, one of the most liberal "democratic" cities in the entire US)

Wow, that is scary! I graduated high school in 1994 and I remember some aryian movement gaining popularity in my schools then (I went to 2 different high schools in different areas of the central US) and I remember thinking how weird it was that this was actually a "popular" thing to be involved in.

I don't believe wearing makeup to be a sin. Even if my motivation for wearing it is to attract some guy at a club and bring him home for the night (which it never is...this is rhetorical...) the sin is in my thoughts and heart, not in the application of blush and lipstick.