(This post was written by Matt Grimes, Middle School Ministry Pastor)

This past week I had the honor of speaking to our student ministry on the importance of community. We discovered that we are designed to live within community. God wired us  to live inside close relationships with others. The challenge with this design is that when we allow others to get close to us we give them the the ability to influence us. The reality is that we will become tomorrow the people we choose to surround ourselves with today. I challenged students to examine the friends in their lives and to see if they were pushing them closer to God or pulling them away from God.

Truth is that we as parent love this message when it is preached to our kids. We want them to be careful about the people that the surround themselves with. But when is the last time that we as parents applied this lesson to our own lives?  Who are you surrounding yourself with?  More importantly what are those relationship teaching our kids? 

Just as I told our students that we need friends who are wise, who love Jesus, and who love us, we as adults need to model those relationships for our kids. So who are you surrounding yourself with?