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The Influence of a Mother

From the Series: Influence
Speaker: Sue Aughtmon
Date: May 10, 2009

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Transcript

Happy Mother’s Day! Let’s give it up for our moms! We want to honor our moms this weekend; we have a little something for you. I have to share this. This is the best definition of a mom. I heard it a few years ago from Tony Campolo, he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. His wife during that season of life was a stay at home mom and occasionally they would go to faculty functions and she would always get asked what she did, and she would say, “I’m a full-time mom.” She would feel a little patronized by the intelligence, as if what she was doing wasn’t as important as what they were doing, so she decided she would redefine who she was as a mom. So at the next gathering when someone asked her what she did, she said, “I’m socializing two homosapiens in the dominate values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the prescribed utopia inherent in the escaton.” And then she asked, “What do you do?”

We love moms! And how appropriate that we wrap up our ‘Influence’ series on Mother’s Day because no one is more influential than our moms. If it weren’t for your mom, you wouldn’t be here. So, as we wrap things up this weekend, it is such a distinct joy and privilege to invite family to be back with us. It was five years ago that we sent Scott and Sue Aughtmon, and at that point, two kids, now three back to Palo Alto, California to plant a church. They were our first church planters in residence and it is such a joy to welcome them back. They are doing great things for the Lord there. Most recently, Sue wrote and published her first book, which I had the privilege of writing a forward for. It’s entitled All I Need is Jesus and Good Pair of Jeans. It is an awesome read. Guys, I know you’ve already gotten your gifts, but you can’t get too many gifts! So at all of our locations, we’ve got books on the way out, get it for your wives, it will be a huge blessing. It is such a joy to welcome Sue, let’s give her a big welcome.

(Sue)

I remember coming here in 2003, it’s so surreal to come back now because we were at Inner Harbor for the Leadership Summit and we were tossing around this idea of a coffeehouse called Ebenezers and to come back and look across from Union Station and see a coffeehouse named Ebenezers, that’s cool. I also bring greetings to you from Pathways Church, we couldn’t do what we’re doing without you and your support.

I’ve been having a good time thinking about influence since Mark asked me to speak on that subject, and I’ve had the thought both ways – who influences me and who do I influence? Both are happening simultaneously in our lives. People have great influence on our lives and we are also influencing the people that we are around. I know what influence means to me, you guys probably do too, but I thought I’d look it up in the dictionary so I could actually know what the definition is, and it is this: the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effect on the actions, behaviors, opinions, etc of others. So we are all influencers and we are all influencees. I can tell you that I see the effects of influence in my home on a regular basis, on a moment by moment basis, one of my three boys is using some type of influence on the other, either some high-pitched screeching, some blunt force, some head-butting. These aren’t things that I teach them – I promise you! It comes naturally. I can guarantee you that if you come to my home, we could do a full sociological study on influence. All it takes is one brother acting inappropriately for all the other boys to start acting inappropriately. Jack is 8, Will is 5 and Addison is 3. They are going to take me and my husband down. Back to the inappropriateness, about a month and a half ago, my niece Allison came out for her spring break to visit us, and the weather was gorgeous, it was like summer, so we decided to go to Stanford Campus. I don’t know if any of you have ever been there, it is a beautiful campus and they have amazing architecture all done in the California mission style, so we decided to take them to the chapel, which is stunning on the inside, but it was closed when we got there. So Scott had the brilliant idea to go to the Rodin Sculpture Gardens. I don’t know if you guys know about Rodin but he is an amazing artist. I didn’t even know there was a sculpture garden there and I was excited because my friend Kristin and my sister Jennie and I went to Paris about 12 years ago and went to the actual museum and we were enthralled with his work. The sculptures were so lifelike, we thought they were so amazing. I would really like to tell you that the Aughtmon family has a lot of culture but that would be a great untruth, we have no culture at all. My boys were very enthralled by Rodin’s sculptures and statues but only because they could not contain themselves in the presence of so much nakedness! It is very difficult to get young children to not stare at naked statues, well anyone really, we all stare at naked statues. There is so much to take in. But I could just see the great workings of influence coming into play when the oldest son decided it would be fun to start spanking the statues, so when he started, immediately the other two had to start spanking the statues, and I actually had to say out loud, “Stop spanking the statues!” That is not something I thought I would utter as a mother. It was a real low point in my mothering, and it was also a low point in my marriage because the boys convinced Scott that he should also spank the statues. At that point, I had to walk away. Sometimes you just have to walk away and pretend like you don’t know them.

But there is also some good influencing that goes on between my boys. Will and Addison share a room. When Jack turned 7, he came to me and asked for his own room so we gave him his own room, but Will and Addison share a room. We have a rule that as long as you stay in your bed, the door to the hallway with the light on stays open, but they like to get out of bed and play and jump around, so the door to their room is almost always closed. I don’t know if you guys remember being 3 and 5 but when your bedroom door is closed, it is very scary. There are large creatures that lurk in closets and corners that could reach out and grab you. So always, when we close the door, there is a general outcry. So the other night, Scott went to go close the door and Addison starts crying and Scott overhears Will comforting Addison. Will went over and put his arm around Addison and said, “Addy, you gotta let it go, God is with us all the time.” I thought that was wise influence of a five-year-old brother. And I love that Will said that because I think that’s the focus we have as Christ followers, that’s our main focus, that we point others toward Christ. That’s the way we are supposed to influence each other, by point others to Jesus. We are supposed to use our capacity or power to be a compelling force on or to produce the effect or the actions and behaviors and opinions of others to show them Jesus.

How do we compel others to the love of God? How do I use my small amount of power that I have to share the great power of God’s grace and love for me? I think a lot of times, we look at influence in terms of speech, like what we say or how we can get people to listen, and do our words carry weight, do we motivate people with our words? We all influence different people. My strongest influence is on these three little boys, that’s who I spend most of my time with, and I know that what comes out of my mouth needs to be flooded with grace and peace. I’m supposed to be showing them the love of Christ and the power of Jesus in how I treat them and how I bring them up and I know that as a mom, I have a really important role in teaching my kids to act responsibly. I want them to be contributing members of society and I try to use my words to influence them in this way. But I am not going to lie to you and stand up here and pretend that all the things I say to my kids have grace and peace. They often lack grace and peace. So, it’s not an excuse, but I say the same things over and over and over again, and I get real tired and when I’m real tired, there is no grace for anybody. Especially in our morning routine, it’s the same thing over and over, like a perpetual Groundhog Day and I’m the Bill Murray character. For instance, we Monday morning routine, our weekly routine – number one, wake up and put on my robe; number two, make peanut butter toast, number three, put on the coffee because we will not make it through the morning without the coffee; number four, wake up the children with a soft tender good morning; number five, check to see if the lunches are made and put them by the door; number six, wake up the children with a cheery hello and flip the light on; number seven, figure out why there are no clean socks in the house when you’ve been doing laundry for four consecutive days; number eight, yell at the children and shake them and say, “Get up already!” Number nine, clutch at the cup of coffee like it is the sweet nectar of heavenly light because it is; number ten, apologize to the children, “I’m very sorry that I get so angry in the mornings, but I was very kind the first couple of times I woke you up, why are you not up yet?” Number eleven, dress the toddler then pick up the toddler from his early morning tantrum because he does not like your underwear choice you’ve made for him, carry him to the breakfast table; number twelve, call the other half-dressed children to the kitchen table; number thirteen, tell them this is not a diner, I am not a short-order cook, there are no eggs or pancakes or frozen waffles, why do you think we’re having peanut butter toast? Number fourteen, search for socks; number fifteen, redress the toddler because he is wearing his peanut butter toast; number sixteen, refill the coffee cup; number seventeen, inspect the children, they are all alive, decide to let the crazy hair go; number eighteen, get in the toothbrush chant, “brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth;” number nineteen, make sure they children have backpacks, homework and lunches in hand; number twenty, check their breath at the door, unload the children of backpacks, homework and lunches and begin the toothbrush chant again, “brush your teeth, brush your teeth;” number twenty-one, reload the children with the backpacks the lunches and the homework; number twenty-two, load the van and pass the torch to the husband who will take the children to school, praise the Lord; number twenty-three, collapse on the couch amidst a pile of mismatched socks.

Monday morning routine complete, Tuesday morning, repeat.

I think a lot of times we try to influence the people around us with our words, but I think we need to look at our definition again because it says: the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force, not to say a compelling thing, but to actually be a compelling force, and I think this rings true in so many ways, because more than anything, the people around us are influenced by who we are and not what we say. I was just reading a book by Madeline Lingle, I love her, she is a fantastic writer, she has such lyrical ways of writing, she seems so poetic. It is a book about writing in syntax and dialogue and all these writings things, but more than that, it’s a book about life and mothering and working and all these things we do. And she doesn’t play around, she just gets straight to the point. In one part, she quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you are speaks so loudly over your head that I cannot hear what you say.” In response to that, she writes in this book, “I know with a sense of responsibility that hits me with a cold fist in the pit of my stomach that what I am is going to make much more difference to my own children and those I talk to and teach than anything I tell them. What I am is what makes the difference.”

I think this is so true. I spend a lot of my time carefully crafting words and thoughts because I really want to be profound to the people around me, ya know, to my kids or my girlfriends, I want to say the right things, but I think they are just watching who I am, they are watching how I respond in different situations, they are watching how I love the people that are in my life. I think influence has far less to do with what we say than how we live our lives. That’s not really anything new to those of us who follow Christ because we know that. We know that Jesus said all of these truly amazing things. We are still repeating them, still telling them to each other today – love one another, forgive your enemies, turn the other cheek, love your neighbor as yourself, but the power of these words comes because He lived them, He didn’t just say them, in Scripture, He is living out these words, and his acting on those words impacted all of humanity and all of creation. So it makes sense that if we want to be people who are seasoned with God’s grace and mercy, we have to live in the same way that Christ did. We should look at how he spent his life because that’s where we should get our pattern from. His life changed the course of history. We are sitting here, right now, talking about Him, and we never met Him personally in real life, but He has impacted our lives.

Also, in our culture, I think we feel like influence comes from the mass of people who know who we are or have heard what we say or have listened to us, and the more people hear what you say or believe what you think, the greater your influence is on the world around you. But Jesus looked at influence entirely differently than that. His culture was so different than our own. In my present day frame of mind, I’m thinking of Jesus now, He could do YouTube! He could have the best videos out there. You can imagine all of his miracles being all across the globe. I can’t watch YouTube that much because I neglect the children; I get caught up in it. Have you seen the treadmill one, where they all do the dance? I can’t watch that one because I keep pressing play over and over again. But I think what an amazing connecting ability Jesus would have had if He had the Internet, think of all the numbers of lives that could have been touched. But Jesus did the exact opposite. His realm of influence was a very small group of people. Robert E. Coleman from the Master Plan of Evangelism says, “Though He did what He could to help the multitudes, He had to devote Himself primarily to a few men rather than the masses in order that the masses could be saved, and this was the genius of his strategy.” That goes kind of against everything that we think, ya know? But this is what He did, in a very real way, He decided to invest Himself and influence just a small group of men to impact the entire history of our world. Instead of sending out a 3-minute email blast to massive amounts of people, He decided to spend massive amounts of time with a few people, 12 to be exact. I’m thinking that’s counter-intuitive, like, you want to reach the world, let’s tell the whole world. But in Mark 3:13, it says: Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those that He wanted and they came. He chose 12, designating them apostles that they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and to teach and to have authority to drive out demons. I think about that, He actually had more followers than that, He didn’t just start out with 12, by this time, He had a large following, He called them all and then whittled it down to 12 to invest in. He decides to spend His entire ministry with these 12 people, and what happens is that they don’t just get to hear what he says, they get to experience life with him, they get to see who He is, they get to know Him, they get to eat with Him, they get to go to parties with Him, they get to see Him heal people, and because this happens, they start to act like He does.

Have you ever noticed that when you hang out with someone, you start to act like them? I had this good friend when I was here in DC, her husband was on staff here too and she would come hang out with me every Tuesday and we would make salad and eat salad for lunch because we were trying to be good, but then two hours later, we’d be whipping out the scones and cookies because we were so hungry because we had salad for lunch, and we’d laugh together. When Scott would come home, he would know that she had been there because I started talking like her and I was a lot more sassy, and he thought I was sassy already so he wasn’t real appreciative of that. Sometimes she gave me fashion tips, and hair tips, and by being with her, I knew the things that she liked, I knew the books she read, I knew the shows she watched, I knew the phrases she used when she was talking. And this is what was happening as the disciples are hanging out with Jesus. They are walking up and down the countryside with Him, they are seeing what’s important to Him, they see when He takes Himself off to pray, they see how He values people, even people that they don’t really think are important, like women or children or lepers. He is paying attention to people that they would never pay attention to. Jesus is taking these 12 men and He is showing them how life is meant to be lived. With all his grace and integrity and healings and parties, He would take them along to all these different events and they are soaking it up. Now, they did not totally get it right all the time because they were not perfect, but the more time they spent with Him, the more they became like Him.

I think Jesus based his entire life on the two commandments that He tells his disciples, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and that you love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what He was doing, his natural flow of influence, because He was spending all this time with the Father, soaking up with Him, then turning around and spending the time with the disciples and they are becoming more like Him and more like the Father the more time they spend with Him. That’s what happens with us too. The more time we spend with the Lord, the more time we spend soaking Him up, we start to become like Him. So the people that we are spending time with, they get the effects of that, they get the influence of that. They may not have gotten it perfect, but He sends them out to do what He has done. He is healing people, He sends them out to heal people; He is teaching people, He sends them out to teach people; He is living out this life, He sends them out to live it, even while He is still on earth. So his image, his ways, his thoughts, the way He speaks, his love, his stories have been stamped on their lives because they have spent all this time with him. And then when Jesus goes back to heaven, the disciples do the same thing, they get a group of people who want to live like Jesus and they start living life together, and this was the early church. They ate together, they did miracles, they went to parties together, they spoke truth to each other. It’s the whole influence that is going from Father to Son and on down to all creation. So what’s happened is that the capacity or power of the person of Jesus Christ has been a compelling force on them and it has produced effects on their actions and on their behavior and opinions. So as they were influenced, they are in turn influencing the people around them.

I think we all bear the image of the One who created us. We all get to influence the people around us. The more time we spend with the Lord, the more we get to share that with people around us. I’ve been thinking about this in terms of my own life, who I am and who I’m called to influence. For me, my family has been my greatest influence, my mom and dad and my sisters and my brother and Scott and my kids. The other day, I was out gardening. I don’t really know what I’m doing but I like to put the little gardening gloves on because it makes me feel fancy and I just go out and move stuff in the dirt. My mom loves to garden. I’ve spent so much time with my mom out gardening and I think that that has rubbed off on me, so I was out gardening and Scott came out and he said, “Hey Momfo Jr.!” He calls my mom ‘Momfo’ and when he called me Momfo Jr – I loved it! He thinks I’m like my mom, and she is awesome! I love my mom and I hope that I’m like my mom, she shaped me into the woman that I’ve become. So for him to notice her fingerprints on my life, that’s so huge to me. She has influenced the way I love my kids, the way I love my husband, and apparently, how I love tomatoes. And then I think about who I spend my days influencing, and mostly it’s just three little boys. Some people might say that’s not enough, get out there and influence someone else, but I’m spending this massive amount of time with these three little guys who really love potty talk, a whole lot! And I’m like – really, is this what I get to do, is this how I’m investing my time that’s so precious to me, is this what I’m doing? I found this quote by G.K. Chesterton and I love it because it validates everything that I spend my time doing. He says,

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

I knew that I wasn’t being minute, deep down, I knew what I’m spending my life on is gigantic. These three guys that I hope are going to be all that God created them to be, and I get to be part of that, and you guys get to be part of the people that are in your lives, that what influence is.

I think influence may be played out in the minutia of our everyday lives, but how we spend our days, how we care about each other, how we love each other, how we speak truth to each other, that is gigantic. On a small scale, for those of us here who are moms – you guys are awesome! We know what we go through but we are influencing the astronauts, the writers, the mechanics, the janitors, the nurses, the high school teachers. We put a huge part of who we are into tomorrow, and we don’t get to see that for a long time, but we are getting to teach them how to love each other and how to forgive each other and how to cut their own pancakes and that is not something you can get through life without! You need that skill! And it takes a long time to teach that skill, we’re still working on that. But they are learning these things from us because of who we are, not because of what we say. They see what we do in and out throughout the day. They hear what we say, but mostly they are just watching who we are. We are getting to carry out the Great Commission one little person at a time. We get to lay that foundation in their life, so we have the opportunity to do the same thing that Jesus commanded the disciples to do, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

When we spend time with Jesus, in his Word or in prayer or when we are hanging out with other people who bear his image and are speaking truth to us, we get to become more like Him. We get to look more like Him, we get to sound more like Him, we start liking the same things He likes, our hearts begin to feel for the same things his heart feels for, and everyone around us gets a part of that when we become more like Jesus. They get to see that in us. It doesn’t matter who God has placed in our lives, they all get a piece of who we are and they all get to be influenced by us. It could be our bosses, our girlfriends, our spouses, our small group leaders, and our kids. Our kids really do know us and they really get to see who Jesus is by the way that we love them, so let’s just take a moment to feel that in each of us. If each of you would just have a glimpse of who you can be when you spend time with God in the small realm of the people that you have around you. It is of eternal value. Let’s bow our heads.

Lord Jesus, I thank You so much for this time tonight. I thank You for who You are because the only way we can be who You want us to be is by the power of your Holy Spirit living in us. We are so thankful for all that You have done for us, and I pray that You would seal all of these things in us, everything that has been learned in this series about influence, that those words would begin to marinate and begin to grow inside of us and when we realize that we have eternal influence on those around us, that we can change people by being more like You. I pray this tonight and I ask your blessing and your favor on these people here. In your Holy Name, Amen.

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