BULLETIN NOTES – AUGUST 27, 2000

Dear Members and Friends,

During the past 2 months (and for the next 5-6 weeks) I have been preaching a series of sermons about David. We have watched him be called from the shepherds field, play Goliath, defeat the Philistines, become a fierce battle commander, praise God with all his might, establish and expand his kingdom and be faced with devastating family problems.

In these sermons many family issues were touched on and perhaps many other issues were raised. One of the major areas that cause concern is how different each child can be. Often they are tempted to say to one of their children, “Why don’t you act like your brother/sister? Or they may say, “The other child(ren) never acted like this.” Did you know that birth order has much to do with the behavior of your children? During the next four weeks, I will share with you some basic characteristics of the First Born, the Only Child, the Middle Children, and the Last Born.

I pray that both parents and children alike will learn a little something about themselves from Dr. Kevin Leman’s, The New Birth Order Book.

~ Rev. Dr. Sharon Adams

Strength and Weaknesses of First Borns
Typical Traits	Strengths	Weaknesses
Leadership Ability	Take charge, know what to do	May undermine the initiative of those who lean on them too much or may come off as too overbearing or aggressive.
Aggressive	Command respect; others want to follow their unflinching leadership	Can run roughshod over others; may be insensitive and tend to be selfish; too focused on the goal and not enough on the feelings of others.
Compliant	Cooperative, easy to work with, good team leader	Can be taken advantage of, bullied, bluffed
Perfectionist	Always do things right and leave no stone unturned to do a thorough job	Tend to criticize themselves and/or others too much; never satisfied; may procrastinate because they fear they cannot do a “good enough job”
Organized	Have everything under control; always on top of things; tend to be on time and on schedule	May worry too much about order, process and rules and not be flexible when it’s needed; may show real impatience with anyone who is “disorganized” or not as meticulous; can be upset by surprises
Driver	Ambitious, enterprising, energetic, willing to sacrifice to be a success	Put themselves or those they work with under too much stress and pressure
List Maker	Set goals and reach them; tend to get more done in a day than others, planning the day is a must	May become boxed in, too busy with the to-do list to see the big picture and what needs to be done right now
Logical	Know as straight thinkers; can be counted on not to be compulsive or to go off half-cocked	May believe they’re always right and fail to pay attention to the more intuitive opinions of others
Scholarly	Tend to voracious readers and accumulators of information and facts; good problem solvers who think things through	May spend too much time gathering facts when there are other things that need to be done; may be so serious they fail to see the humor in situations when humor is desperately needed.