Developing a spiritually thriving child: the role of faithfulness

It's an age-old parenting mystery: how can two siblings raised in the same environment turn out to be so different? Of course, no two environments are truly the same; an oldest child's world is changed once the first little brother or sister comes into the world, and families are ever-adapting with successive babies. But still, you can pour virtually the same inputs into each child, yet they turn out as different products.

The question is: are you ok with that?

It's unnerving to think that you could pour your life and best efforts into your children with no guarantees that things will work out. Everyone takes advice - from books, from their own parents, from friends with same-aged kids, from mentors or speakers or "Nanny 911" - but in the end, not only could your particular expert be wrong, but even barring catastrophe, your kid could turn out very differently than you intended.

The question that faces every parent and youthworker and teacher and mentor at that point is a question of faithfulness: do you have what it takes to continue to do the right thing, even in the face of apparent failure or ineffectiveness?

The better part of this Fall, this space has been devoted a series called "Nine Things Your Child Needs to Spiritually Thrive." These nine assets are based on the work I've done with and observations I've made about kids and adolescents and their parents over 13 years. I believe if parents and churches and other caregivers are deliberate about building these nine factors into a child's life prior to - and continuing through - adolescence, a child will have the foundation they need to thrive spiritually. The "Nine Things" are not "biblical" in the sense that you'll find them systematically presented in the Bible as a template for parenting, nor outlined in 2 Parenting 5:1-10; yet what they accomplish is very biblical. They are means to an end, not an end in themselves. That end is the spiritual transformation - the salvation - of kids.

Too often we get caught up in evaluating kids' performance when we should be focused on our own faithfulness. This can work both ways. A kid fails to measure up ("I don't like your attitude", "You'll never get into college if you keep this up", "Your friends are losers") and we go into corrective management mode, attending to one derailment after another but ignoring the preventive maintenance. Short-term objectives win the day; long-term ones fall off the horizon. Ultimately, what does matter in raising a child? I would suggest that if a problem is unrelated to physical health, spiritual vitality, character development, or emotional maturation, it's minor. Sweat the big stuff, but let go of the little stuff. Or, a kid meets our expectations, but our objectives are misguided ("He's such a nice boy", but he has no character; "She said her memory verse!" but she has no idea what it means; "They got an A!" but their enthusiasm for learning was dulled in the process) and we think we're making progress, but it's just window dressing.

To be faithful is to formulate a plan and stick with it (keeping a promise to oneself). This is not an argument for staying with failed methods and practices, whether in ministry or parenting or education. Of course "training a child up in the way he should go" needs to be rooted firmly in realism, which sometimes necessitates changing strategy and making course corrections. But if anything, I'd say it's the church culture that's been inflexible and completely unwilling to reinvent itself. A statistic that shows 70% of churched youth walking away from the church by their early 20s is simply unacceptable. We are failing to transmit a legacy of faith to our kids. I'm all about reversing that trend, and it doesn't entail trying harder at what hasn't worked. It does involve looking very broadly at the factors that either support or detract from spiritual development and then doggedly pursuing those that give kids advantages. We'd fight for a free country and for the safety of our neighborhoods and to keep drugs away from kids and for adequate funding in our schools, and we're willing to keep the pressure on to achieve freedom, peace, safety, and prosperity. Why wouldn't we fight to establish the best spiritual climate possible too?

Faithfulness puts the onus on us - the adults who shepherd kids - to do the right thing, consistently...and to relax. What did the Apostle Paul say? "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. Therefore, neither he who plants or he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." (1 Corinthians 3:6-7) There's great freedom in that, and it's not freedom from responsibility, but freedom that comes from readjusting our focus: we are accountable to God for the way we've raised kids; not to the College Board or to their future employer or their future spouse or their bank. Kids become accountable to those things as we release them to adulthood; but we remain accountable to God, who will judge our faithfulness.

It's for this reason that I started with 9 inputs, rather than focusing on outputs. I realized that individuals live out their spirituality in different ways: one is evangelistic, another is a prayer warrior, another questions everything, another's faith is profoundly simple. If we begin by casting a mold of "what a young Christian looks like" the temptation is simply too great to engineer for that mold, in which case our ministry work is reduced to a series of inducements. But kids aren't parrots or dogs, they're human lives, and they will develop in individual and interesting ways if we continue to nurture them with healthy inputs.

What might we see from a spiritually thriving child? One would hope that they would begin to live worship as a lifestyle - that beyond Sunday singing, the way they speak and interact and their values would reflect the worth of God. We would hope to see a transformed heart for people, evidenced by an improvement in relationships. This is a natural progression from a well-developed Christian worldview: first a person begins to see others the way God sees them, then they proceed to treat others accordingly. We would hope to see the Fruits of the Spirit characterizing their lives (Galatians 5:22-23). We would see their values transformed - again a product of having internalized God's view on people and possessions. We would see them willingly engaged in acts of service, large and small. Their days would be governed by the ways they might be of help to others.

All of this proceeds from their salvation, a once and future encounter with grace, which is not the end destination of our efforts but rather the self-sustaining wellspring of spiritual vitality. In other words, we fortify the inputs that drive our kids toward salvation, and once they have it, salvation overflows into various outworkings - which then turn around and re-fortify the inputs, and the spiritual being grows and strengthens. You cannot jump straight to the outflow and circumvent the heart of it, which is salvation. You could - but all you would succeed in producing is religiosity! For instance, do we want to produce kids who are kind? Well, yes, we do - but we want that kindness to be the fruit of the spirit that's living inside of them, not some behavior we've externally manipulated. Do we want our kids to serve others? Yes - but with the heart of God, not out of guilt or compulsion or pride or because it will improve their college resume. Do we want them to sing worship songs? Well, yes, but at some point we have to concern ourselves with the motivation behind the singing or it's just noise.

The fact is, the world wants for its kids much of what we want - but they come from a totally different motivation. The world treats spirituality like an "add-on"; if it tames people, makes them altruistic and responsible, it must be a good thing. That can't be our position. We have to aim higher for our kids than just mild conduct or A-Z Bible knowledge or participation in social justice movements. Our priority must be the development in each kid we serve of a spiritual life, which is, first and foremost, a life: it grows and stagnates and has an individualized character and needs support and nourishment. The exact form the overflow will take is not for us to determine. We just need to be faithful with the "building into".

Likewise, we need to watch that the inputs themselves don't become idols. If they point away from, and not towards, salvation, they're detracting from, not contributing to, spiritual growth. Thus, we want kids to have Christian friends, but if the character of those relationships isn't edifying, no one benefits. We want kids to learn to pray, but just because someone can voice an eloquent prayer doesn't mean they're being led into deeper communion with God. We want kids to be emotionally healthy, but lacking other spiritual influence, they'll just grow up to be well-adjusted pagans.

Finally, I believe that the inputs drive kids toward one of three "levels", as illustrated in the diagram below. At the first level is exposure - the earliest encounters a kid has with the message and its carrier, which is usually a faith community. The next level in is affiliation and identification - a kid begins to feel like these ideas belong to them, and that they belong with the people who hold them. Many kids get stuck at this level: they're comfortable identifying themselves as Christians and would even say they agree with what's being taught. But they haven't reached the third level, which is where growth begins - the level of repentance and conversion. It's at this stage where a kid actually takes the dive and commits their life. At the second level, it's merely regarded as a good idea. Repentance, though, is more than intellectual assent. It's an act of the will to change and be changed.

May every kid we touch in 2008 be driven toward this conversion, and may we be faithful in the process of building in.

Holiday Bible Guide 2007

Before you buy your kid a Bible this Christmas - or anytime - here's some things you should know:

• There are more and more products coming out for older kids. There have always been Bible storybooks, but between there and teenage study bibles, the pickings were pretty slim. Not anymore. Below are some descriptions and samples of the products that are now out there.
• The best Bible translation is the one they will read. Even books of Bible stories are still ok at this age (and a particularly great example appears below). Students generally read less than they did a generation ago and therefore aren't as good at reading, less attuned to the written word. The Bible isn't boring, but sometimes the way we present it is. So - NIV, NLT, The Message, NCV - as long as your son or daughter can read it without getting bored or frustrated, it's the right translation.
• Many Bibles contain "extras" like reading plans, maps, devotional readings, basic theology, God's plan of salvation. It's important to check for what's included if those are important to you.

For more, see my article from April of this year, "Wanted: The Right Bible for Your Kid".

All of the Bibles and products featured here are available through Calvary Chapel Books and Gifts, located in room 105. Without further ado...

As the back of this New Testament Bible rightly notes, one reason we get bogged down in all-text Bibles is that we can't picture what we're reading. Now you don't have to - they've done it for you. Don't let the pinkish cover throw you - this is for boys and girls, and is new (they previously did a few NT books before releasing this compilation), containing the New Testament, verse by verse, laid out in panel/storyboard form. It is the ICB translation (International Children's Bible) so it's easy to read. I highly recommend this Bible for any kid, but especially those who need visuals for comprehension (which is most of us).



















The Picture Bible is another way to visually experience the Bible. Unlike The Illustrated Bible, it is not a translation. It selects key stories from the Old and New Testaments and presents them, but does not give a verse-by-verse treatment. It does, however, span both Old and New Testaments, whereas The Illustrated Bible is NT only. It's better than a kid's Bible storybook in that the stories are longer, more numerous, and the presentation is in panels.



















This is the Adventure Bible. It's a popular kids' study bible, published by Zondervan, with the full text of the Old and New Testaments, interspersed with lots of graphics, pullouts, and background information. The drawback is that it's an NIV translation, which I've become convinced is simply too difficult for most kids to understand. I know a lot of adults are committed to it because it is the translation of choice in the evangelical church, but what value comes from having kids read words they don't understand?

I'm much more a fan now of simpler translations, like the New Living Translation, the Contemporary English Version, the New Century Version, or the New International Reader's Version - which is actually a translation of a translation: they took the NIV and made it simpler, for people who were learning English or learning to read (3rd grade reading level).

This is a great NiRV Bible:

Not only is it an easy-to-read translation, but it's stocked with lots of simply drawn, but powerfully clear illustrations.

The "Pocket-Size" Bibles don't carry a lot of frills, but kids like them for their style. Here are some that are New Living Translation (a 5th grade reading level):


And some that are NIV:


Some do contain some of the "extras": topical reading lists, key memory verses, the plan of salvation; again, browse before you buy so you'll get what you want.

Last but not least are the Bible "zines", published by Tommy Nelson. Laid out and designed to look like popular magazines, these are a great fit for many kids. Lots of extras in these, as the covers attest to:












This is Magnify, a Bible zine designed just for kids. The one with the yellow cover has Old Testament stories (advantages: keeps it a readable size, no Song of Solomon; disadvantage: since it's selected passages, you're not getting a verse-by-verse treatment), while the other is a complete New Testament. There are lots of word puzzles, quizzes, sidebars, games, and secret words that can only be read with a special pair of red-lens glasses (included). The "kid" feel is unmistakable in these, though, so if your preteen has hit the point where they're sensitive about that, then they're ready for the next step up: Refuel for boys, Blossom for girls.

Again, these are New Testament-only Bibles, but very topical in their approach and a layout designed to grab attention:















Nearly every page has some feature designed to bring the Bible home. All of the "zines" have a very busy feel to them that would drive lots of adults crazy. But, although you may not favor reading that way, your kids very well might, and if it draws them into the Bible, so be it. The other drawback to these is that they're glossy softcovers, so their durability probably isn't great (just like a regular magazine). They might be more appropriate for home reading, with a hard-bound or leather-bound volume to take to church. Note that Refuel and Blossom are designed for middle-school students and older. It's certainly appropriate for any 6th grader; younger than that, some of the features may not be relevant. If you're not sure, have your son or daughter browse both Magnify and Refuel or Blossom and ask them which one they'd be more likely to read.

There's one other "zine" that, although it's not a Bible, I'm showing here because I know it hits home with pre-teen girls. A student I know read hers cover-to-cover.

With devotional features like "10 tips for surviving mean girls", "Quiz: R U a good friend?", "Thanking God for your bod", and "Do you fit in?" Between has keyed in on the central concerns of the 10-to-14-year-old set. There is not yet a companion volume for boys (although considering that boys mature a couple years later than girls, Refuel is probably appropriately targeted as the youngest age boys start to face up to serious life issues).

The Golden Compass: Dangerous or Merely Offensive?

I was 15 when The Last Temptation of Christ came out in theaters. That's the first time I can remember my normally staid Lutheran church getting too excited about anything. Petitions were circulated - I don't remember about what - people expressed the requisite shock and alarm, the film came out - and then it was over.

Next came The Da Vinci Code book and movie which in the end seemed only to solidify the beliefs people already held; skeptics of church authority and the Bible's legitimacy deepened their skepticism, while churchgoers learned a few things they never knew about early church history.

Now comes The Golden Compass. On its face, the threat seems distinct: the books of Philip Pullman, a children's novelist and self-professed atheist who hates Narnia and despises the Church, are being adapted for films. Are we as Christians about to go down the well-traveled road of alarm, or is this like nothing we've seen before? Is this a dangerous movie, or merely offensive?



The release of the first film of the His Dark Materials trilogy has been cloaked in so much intrigue you have to wonder if Pullman and the folks at New Line Cinema aren't reveling in the commotion. The Golden Compass is not a new story, but it's drawing fresh attention with the screen adaptation, which is due out December 7. A crop of rumors has been stirred up and each builds peoples' expectations - and ultimately the film's profit potential. God is killed in the movie/no, God isn't killed until the third book. The movie is critical of religion/no, the anti-religious content has been watered down. The movie reflects poor theology/the bad theology is only encountered once you read the books. The two main characters end up consummating their relationship/they only fall in love but the rest is an open question.

What is this movie actually like? I don't know - I haven't seen it, and I, like you, can only go on the reviews. Here are a couple:

From the Daily Telegraph: The Golden Compass: An epic grandeur that's hard to resist

From Christianity Today: Fear Not the Compass

And for a good review of the trilogy, see An Almost Christian Fantasy by Daniel Moloney

And if you want a good sense of the cyber-wrangling that's surfaced over the books alone: Amazon.com and scroll down the page.

What is the movie about? That's an easier question. A 12-year-old girl goes to the Arctic in search of her kidnapped friend, accompanied by her entourage, which includes an armored bear (it's fantasy), a band of warriors, a balloonist, and a witch. She also holds the golden compass, which is an alethiometer ("truth meter"), from which she gets her sense of direction (get it?). Central to the story is the concept of Dust, a particle naked to the human eye but attracted to adults. Ostensibly, dust is evidence of Original Sin; actually, it "confers consciousness, knowledge and wisdom", and the Church is therefore trying to destroy it.

OK...so should a Christian see this film, or what?

My answer to that relies on a couple of factors that lie outside of the plotline:

1. Pullman's stated intentions. He has stated that he hates the Narnia books, but his hatred seems to stem more from an aversion to the romantic way in which childhood is depicted than antagonism toward the books' spiritual themes (although there is that, too). In Pullman's world, we just keep getting better and better as we age and discover good and make the world a better place. Childhood is just the first phase, but fulfillment is to be found in adulthood.

Another frequently-quoted Pullman line is the "My books are about killing God" reference (original article here). He said that in 2003, in the context of expressing wonder that Harry Potter books were drawing all kinds of criticism from churches, while his novels were flying under the radar.

Frankly, I'm surprised that everyone's ferreted out these old quotes relating to his written works, when the motive for the film adaptation seems pretty obvious: to make lots of money. Pullman is first and foremost a storyteller.

2. The nature of the Pullman's beef with religion. When I finally got around to reading The DaVinci Code in 2005, it was with the goal of equipping myself to be able to address its errors by the time the film came out. What lay in the pages made that a little harder. Yes, there were historical and theological errors aplenty, but they were all entangled in Dan Brown's agenda to blow a hole in the armor of "The Church" - for him, the Catholic Church. Secret societies, the power to excommunicate, Gnostic Christian beliefs...this is not the stuff of the Church I'm a part of. After a while, I didn't feel very compelled to finish my study nor to defend what he was attacking.

I feel the same way about the straw man Pullman has constructed in his books. "As you look back over the history of the Christian church, it's a record of terrible infamy and cruelty and persecution and tyranny," he said in 2002. Though his grandfather was a minister and his early church experience was positive, he was turned off by history: the Inquisition, the English Civil Wars, the Salem Witch Trials, and other instances of religious power being abused. Of course, all of us have to come to terms with what Power has done in the name of Religion, but Pullman views religious corruption as automatic and endemic; the human failure to exercise power responsibly nullifies any truth the belief system may claim.

It gets to the point where you can find yourself agreeing with each of his objections, yet rejecting his verdict - that the Church is a fraud, and God an invention. Pullman sees nothing redeeming in the Church, and why should he? He has no use for God, or the Church; in his mind, God doesn't exist.

3. The amount of religious content in the film. Even its worst critics will allow that the movie goes easy on religion - according to the Telegraph review, "God" and "church" are words not even spoken in the film. The fear is that kids will be hooked on the movie, and then want to read the books - all three of them - and then detect the spiritual argument that lies between the lines and adhere to it. There's a lot of contingencies there, and it's quite possible that many kids - as it happened with one boy I know - would read the trilogy and just consider it a good story.

Why then, it may be asked, Pullman is hell-bent on destroying religious faith, wouldn't he be more blatant and outspoken about it? The question points to something about the faith of atheists vs. the faith of believers - there's a different level of allegiance in play. Most atheists don't lose a lot of sleep over what others believe - as long as they don't have to contend with it (as in politics or public schools). They're committed in their own minds but pretty indifferent toward the spiritual beliefs of others. Contrast this with the evangelical church, which sees itself entrusted with the mission to change every heart and every mind. So when Pullman says he wants to destroy Christianity, that he is the anti-Narnia, etc., he's really reacting against what he sees as a too-thoroughly dominant Christian worldview and his own limited experience with the Christian Church. He's primarily a storyteller, not a preacher, a politician, or even a philosopher. Please, can we not give this guy more credit and ascribe to him more power than he actually merits?

So, let's all take a deep breath. One movie alone is not going to derail a generation. Apart from whether he'll succeed in communicating an a-theistic message with this film (and presumably two more to come), I just can't see giving him my money to get his message out. Movies come and go. Fantasy's not my thing, anyhow. If it's yours, stay home Friday and rent Narnia, or Lord of the Rings. Or, go see The Golden Compass. Just don't be unaware that what lies underneath the storyline is an empty theology and the criticism of a Church that I don't represent and don't feel compelled to defend.

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part nine: Spiritual Disciplines

I read recently about A.J. Jacobs, who spent an entire year "living by the Bible" - literally obeying every command in the Old and New Testament - 800, by his count. Jacobs is not a Christian, he's a Jewish agnostic, and an editor at Esquire magazine. He did it, he says, not out of any spiritual interest but in an attempt to "understand a worldview shared by millions of Americans" (the article is here).

While I think Jacobs begins from a fatally flawed premise - that the Christian life is tantamount to ritualistically observing every command in the Bible, even OT ceremonial laws - it's interesting to read what benefits he says he gained from the experience. And it makes you wonder, if a disciplined life could do this for a man of no faith, what could it do for a believer?

Of prayer, Jacobs says, "It's sort of like moral weight training: You're forced to think about other people. And it trains your mind to be less selfish and to be more thoughtful, so in that sense I got really into it...I became an extreme thanker. I was thanking the elevator for coming on time."

On the virtues of moral restraint: "We talk a lot in this country about freedom of choice, but here I was experiencing some of the benefits of freedom from choice...Because the Bible will tell you, should I give 10 percent to the needy? Yes. Should I read this magazine about Lindsay Lohan? No. Should I lie to make things easier with my wife? No. So it was almost a lovely, paradoxically liberating feeling to have freedom from choice."

I am horribly undisciplined. While I accomplish a lot in a week, it comes in spurts. As I write this, my workweek is long since over, but this post, which has been swirling around in my brain the last several days, is just now taking shape on paper. If not for the desire to get the newsletter out on time, who knows how long I'd put it off? I love being disciplined when I can pull it off. It's amazing how much you can get done when you have a schedule and stick to it. But somehow, my laziness and lack of attention and obsessiveness get the better of me and my plans for a streamlined-life-of-Mark lay in a heap.

Part of this is a function of the multiple "circles" we all operate in nowadays. How many do you have? A work circle? A family circle? A friends circle? A recreational sports circle? A hobby circle? A part-time or vocational circle? Each has its own sets of demands and relationships which, while infusing our lives with meaning and value, are at the same time sucking that life out of us. And the internet (and free cell phone minutes after 9:00) haven't helped things. I can virtually (and actually) be in touch with my family every day. I can keep in touch with friends and happenings on the other side of the country. I can read my hometown newspaper. And every time I reach out in these ways, I become more fractured, fragmented, dividing my mind and attention, racing to keep up. Who am I? A son? A pastor? A student? A teacher? Thank God I'm all of those - but sometimes I just want to slow down and be me.

In the same way, our kids live fragmented, hurried lives. Want some numbers? A 2005 study found kids ages 8-18 spent an average of 6.5 hours a day consuming media. About half of that is spent with television. (The study, by the Kaiser Family Foundation, is here. Also see this story on the amount of time some parents spend playing video games with their kids.) The news isn't all bad - the study also found nearly half pick up a book in a typical day and about a third read a newspaper. And, we know that of the half who go online every day, many are logging on to websites and reading to satisfy their curiosity, which isn't a bad thing at all. But the point is, our kids, like us, are pulled in many different directions, and at a frenetic pace.

The value of spiritual discipline is that it slows us down just enough to begin to perceive some definition in the blur of life. For instance, the practice of reflection is itself a spiritual discipline; it also happens to be critical to thought and brain development: kids need to have time to think about their thinking in order to develop a useful, workable model of how the world works. Otherwise, life's just a blur. No apparent cause and effect - things just happen. Any parent knows that a young brain has a poor conception of time - "next week" to a 3-year-old could just as well mean next month or next year, because their brains haven't developed the sophistication to understand relative time (tomorrow vs. next Wednesday). Until they gain this ability, they won't easily wrap their minds around the concept of "eternity", which in turn affects their appreciation of "eternal life", eternal forgiveness, the eternal nature of God, etc. So certainly as we age, we naturally develop the ability to comprehend God at greater and greater depths. But can we actually aid kids in developing the ability, younger? I think we can. When we introduce spiritual discipline into kids' lives, we are helping them organize their thinking about God. We're also creating a space for spiritual interaction. Kids need to know that God sometimes speaks in the still, small voice, and how to wait for that.

In his classic Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster identifies twelve disciplines. Notice how many require us to deliberately resist the pace of life we're accustomed to:

• meditation
• prayer
• fasting
• study
• simplicity
• solitude
• submission
• service
• confession
• worship
• guidance
• celebration

The American evangelical church has been somewhat wary of spiritual disciplines. They're regarded as "religion" or "ritual" or "works", or we want to leave "room for the Spirit to move" so beyond telling new believers that they should go to church, read their Bible and pray, we don't do much to specifically instruct people on how to have a spiritual life. That caution is not unwarranted - many of us can tell stories about growing up in ritualistic churches that were, for us, lifeless. But we've probably gone too far in denying the power of corporate and individual rituals in enabling us to commune with God. As long as kids don't hear us to say that these practices create grace, we're on solid ground. Ritual brings comfort and regularity to kids' spiritual lives, and they need that. The how can never replace the what: kids should understand that the acts of worshiping, praying, celebrating, studying, and so on, are what matter; how they're conducted is of secondary importance.

But we can't leave the development of a spiritual life to chance. It's a wonderful thing when a life takes off spiritually, fueled by curiosity and zeal for God - the "spiritual high" times. Have we all been there? But what about the drier times? We've all been there. It's then that communion with God actually involves work, and knowing what to do when your will says no can help you outlast spiritual drought. Disciplines give kids the tools to be fighters, rather than victims, in a modern world that's too busy or apathetic for God.

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part eight: A Significant Relationship with an Older, Non-Parental Christian

Helping a teenager stay on balance spiritually is like holding a tabletop and trying to balance a marble at the middle. The slightest upset in the balance and the marble begins to roll. You tilt the table the other direction - but a bit too far, and the marble rolls past center, requiring another quick adjustment before the marble escapes off the edge.

If you have a pre-teen living in your house, get ready to grab hold of the table.

Adolescence brings a whirlwind of sudden change, biological and emotional, that can't help but have spiritual ramifications. In one sense, this is exciting - teenagers feel more deeply, and so the exhilaration of a summer camp or mission trip or some other "mountaintop experience" can spur them on to a deeper level of spiritual motivation than they've ever known. But the "me first" self-consciousness that develops can be a hindrance to spiritual life, especially when it comes to serving a God who asks them to deny self (a form of social suicide) and voluntarily accept last place. As a result, the whole commitment thing is elusive. Many teenagers reach a point of decision but as the winds of everyday life shift, the resolve doesn't stick, and they join the league of defeated strivers who feel they've failed in following Christ. (Orthey try again - at camps and rallies where a gospel invitation is given, you now see many more "rededicating their lives to Christ", a concept I find nowhere in the Bible, than making first-time decisions.

At the same time, you're holding this tabletop, trying to keep the marble steady, but lacking some of the access you enjoyed when they were younger. In "And Suddenly They're 13", David and Claudia Arp call parenting young teenagers "the art of hugging a cactus". They share less, they're more image-conscious, they want to believe they can make big decisions for themselves. Just when you've stablized the table, the marble seemingly rolls itself! But when your child has a significant relationship with an older Christian other than you, it's as if someone else has taken hold of the other side of the tabletop. A mentoring-type relationship is not only a help to them, it's a help to you.

Let me suggest three elements of a mentoring relationship that I believe are foundational:

1. The mentor is not a parent. I mean this in every sense - that the mentor is not expected to do the parenting; that they are also not a mouthpiece or a puppet for parents; and, that they are in fact not the child's parent, but another trusted adult. Why would you want someone from outside your family stepping in to that role? Isn't that stepping away from your job as the primary discipler of your child? No. As I wrote about last week, I believe partnership implies a relationship where each side plays a distinct role. It is not abdicating responsibility. An older mentor does not take the place of an active parent because they aren't being called upon to do parenting. Rather, they are a balancing and moderating influence in a child's life.

If nothing else, a like-minded mentor can send the message, "Hey, my parents aren't crazy after all - here's another grown up who thinks the way they do." Secondly, that person is a separate set of eyes and ears who has insight into your child's speech and actions away from home. If you want to get a clear picture of who your child really is, solicit honest feedback from any adult who deals with him or her - teachers, coaches, friends' parents, church volunteers. The more information you can gather, the better picture you get of not only their behavior, but their values, character, emotional maturity, social standing, creativity and flexibility - and all of this in turn affects how that kid needs to be discipled.

2. The mentoring relationship is intentional and purposeful. It seems like such a no-brainer, that parents would pull together a team of like-minded adults who are invested in the spiritual well-being of their kid and work together toward that goal. But unfortunately, few kids have mentors who are building into them in any meaningful way, much less spiritually. These relationships don't exist because parents don't seek them. Why? Often I think parents are content just to have adults in their kids' lives who are "positive role models", regardless of whether there's any spiritual component to the relationship. This is a serious error. An adult who only directs your child toward "health and happiness" is not pointing them in the direction of Christ. Of course we want health and happiness for our kids, but only as a means to an end: we should want emotional health, for instance, because lack of emotional growth can drag us down spiritually. But, it also needs to be recognized that God can break through our un-health and work in the midst of our un-happiness. This is a distinctly Christian principle - that suffering is a part of life, that God will use tragedy and sorrow to refine our character, that our momentary happiness is not the gauge of our well-being (in fact, contrast this with Romans 8:18). As much as we want kids to observe healthy adult role models, don't neglect the spiritual aspect of health.

3. Parents and the mentor must communicate. I have rarely had any success working with a kid where I did not have a meaningful relationship with his parents. I knew the parents and they knew me, and we communicated frequently about what we saw. This doesn't mean that the mentor is "used" by the parents to get information that isn't otherwise forthcoming. There is confidentiality in the relationship (with limits), but parents and the student both know that there's an open line of communication among the adults. Often that third party is in a position to influence the student to disclose information that really shouldn't be kept secret. Years ago, I became aware that a student I worked with had impregnated his girlfriend, then paid for her to have an abortion. My role once I found out was not to expose this to his parents, but to counsel him that that was exactly what he needed to do, rather than compound the mistake by trying to keep it a secret. A mentor can serve as a neutral third party, but even then, their role is to get problems out in the open, so that parents and kids resolve things directly, and not through triangulation.

Where does a parent go to find these relationships for their child? That's the $64,000 question. In our own ministry, we try to match up kids and leaders at an 8-to-1 ratio. That's clearly even too many for a leader to be deeply involved with all of them. Can another parent fill this role? Possibly, but one thing a mentoring relationship requires is lots of time, and what parent has an abundance of time to spare? We have a preconceived notion that a mentor is young, early 20s, single, "cooler" than the parents - but this severely limits the pool and it doesn't have to be the case. I think anyone with a willingness and an ability to relate to kids can be a mentor. The key is whether your kid feels an affinity and a willingness to trust that person. Only once in my life have I been called out of the blue by a parent asking me to mentor her son. More often, those relationships have grown organically through repeated encounters with kids and lots of time.

The best advice I can give to parents seeking a mentor for their son or daughter is to put them in situations where they have regular contact with older Christians and pray that a relationship will be forged. Do this early. Make your child "known" among his or her youth group leaders. Encourage your child's involvement in outside church events. And ask. Most people would be gratified to be asked to fill that role, but aren't going to assert themselves for fear of looking pushy or creepy. But don't ignore this piece - it's worth the investment. And your arms will get tired holding that tabletop alone.

Factor #8: Significant relationship with an older, non-parental Christian
Key Question: Is there another adult besides my spouse and me who is investing in my child, and how openly do I communicate with that person?

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part seven: A Spiritually Nourishing Home Environment

About a year ago, I found myself wishing we had about ten times as many small group leaders as we did. We had just begun using what are called "experiential games" to teach, and in an experiential game, the follow-up questions are key. You put a child through a game or exercise meant to simulate, say, trust or hopelessness or temptation, and then, while that experience is fresh in their minds, try to make it translate into a Biblical principle that kids will learn from. The right questions, asked in the right way, determine whether the game remains just a game or becomes a teachable moment.

Ah, the right questions, asked the right way. How many of us have learned important life lessons even in moments of defeat and despair, because we fortunately had someone wise alongside us to lead us to the pearls of wisdom that lay in the mess we'd made? That's when it occurred to me - we had all the leaders we needed. They were called parents.

This is when the HomePage, with its accompanying discussion questions, was born. I have long realized that regardless of how flashy or memorable or even dead-on accurate a lesson is, if it isn't rehearsed, it decays. The HomePage was intended to give kids one more chance to "get it", to recall and re-process information they'd been confronted with on a Sunday morning and to make it their own. Part of the purpose of the discussion questions we send home, both on paper and later by way of e-mail, is to make Sunday's lesson "stick". But the larger purpose is to get parents and kids into the habit of talking about God and life, because it is in so doing, I believe, that parents most effectively influence their child's spiritual development. Classroom lessons are a good thing, but they are always an imperfect fit. Only parents are in the unique position of drawing the teachable moments from their children's lives, and modeling the solutions through their own lives.

If home is where the real child comes out, then home is ultimately the best laboratory for life and learning. The parents of kids who thrive spiritually have decidedly not outsourced their child's spiritual development to a church, Christian school, or other religious club. That's not to say they don't use those things, but they employ them in partnership.

And what is partnership? Partnership doesn't mean we do each other's jobs, or that we rotate a week on, a week off. Rather, partnership means that parents and churches recognize that each is uniquely qualified to do what they do best. Church can bring families together, it can design creative teaching lessons, it can organize large events; parents, on the other hand, have presence during the more mundane activities of life, they have more ready access to a child's inner life, they are naturally in tune with their child's learning style and preferences. "Working together" means each entity acts on its strength. When partnership is in full force, there is no danger that one will take over the other's job - because that isn't possible.

So first and foremost, a spiritually nourishing home environment exists as the center of a child's spiritual development. But what actually happens there to foster spiritual growth? I would suggest four things:

1. God is talked about. Last June we survey 115 of our 5th and 6th graders and asked them, "If your parents talked with you about God, would it be strange and unusual, weird but not unusual, unusual but not weird, or normal and not weird at all?" 89 kids said it wouldn't be weird at all, that their families often talked about God. 19 said their parents don't talk with them about God, but they wouldn't mind if they did. Only 6 said either talking about God was uncomfortable in their family or it didn't happen. This is encouraging. It suggests that, at least among the group we surveyed, talking about spiritual things is as natural as talking about school, sports, hobbies, or television. My family almost never talked about God. We went to church all the time, but outside of some early experiences with sickness and death that prompted questions, we just never talked about God. Homes like this lend themselves to an unbalanced view of God: he's a troubleshooter or comforter in mourning, but not intimately involved in day-to-day life.

2. Kids are allowed to ask questions, even express doubt. This really is a matter of the quality of the dialogue you have about God. If you hope to gain insight on what a child thinks so that you can in turn shape that thinking, spiritual conversations must be a dialogue, not a monologue. God isn't threatened by our questions. He remains God. So parents shouldn't be threatened by questions they can't answer, or doubts that surface. "Wasn't it mean for God to let all those people drown in the flood? What about people before Jesus - did they miss out on heaven? Why did the Bible leave out all of those other gospels?" These are serious questions, and the fact that a kid would ask them means they are grappling with how to make God real and personal. Ask yourself: would I rather have my kid be honest about where they're at spiritually, or to just give me the answer I want to hear? Dignify your child by entertaining their honest thoughts in a non-judgmental way. Almost every kid will at some time doubt their own salvation. Nearly all will question whether Jesus is the exclusive road to salvation. When they do, will you respond by squelching the topic, or by empathizing with their struggle?

3. Christ is modeled. You are 24/7 Jesus with skin. Ouch - how's that for pressure?! Fortunately, we are called to be imitators of Christ's character in every way, and that includes humility. Or, as another pastor once said to me, Christians are called to be Christlike, but they are not expected to be "just like Christ", that is, perfect. So, spiritually nourishing parents get that they won't always be perfectly loving, perfectly patient, perfectly forgiving, and they allow for those weaknesses and own up to them to their kids. These parents apologize when necessary. In doing so, they demonstrate that the Christian life isn't a series of impossible rules or the pious pursuit of sainthood. It is the embodiment of Colossians 3:13: "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

4. Godliness is modeled. Godliness - what a great and misunderstood concept. Paul uses the word at least 10 times in his first letter to Timothy. It refers to a deep reverence for God, a respect that runs so deep that the life begins to be necessarily altered. Godliness is not "the rules", and parents who try to make an end-run around it - expecting godly conduct from their kids without going to the work of establishing a spiritual root - sometimes struggle to understand why insisting on proper behavior and good manners isn't enough. Spiritual transformation and behavior modification are not the same thing. Godly conduct is the fruit of an inner work. In your home, is anything "sacred"? Do you observe a Sabbath? Is your own life a picture of the pursuit of God? If your kids were asked to rank the value of God in your life, where would it fall? This is the much tougher work, and it can't be faked. In a spiritually nourishing home, God is special and central and honored.


Factor #7: A Spiritually Nourishing Home Environment
Key Question: Is my child's spiritually development centered around my home, and is my home a spiritually healthy one?

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part six: A Positive Church Experience

When I was in high school, I often had an exchange with my mom that went like this:

Me: "I think a person can be a Christian even if they don't go to church."

My mom: "That's ridiculous."

It turns out, what was ridiculous was the discussion itself. It was the wrong question.

The question isn't whether a person can be a Christian and thrive spiritually apart from a church; the question is whether the church can thrive without the participation of believers. The answer is an emphatic NO.

When we insist on church attendance for kids, we are demonstrating to them the importance of committing to something bigger than themselves. We are requiring them to abandon consumerist attitudes about church and asking them to give up some of themselves in order to become part of a body. Sometimes people need church; but always the church body needs people.

This notion of "joining" or committing to a church has become watered down in our modern culture of convenience. We treat church like a shopping mall - one-stop shopping for my family's needs, and open at convenient times, too. A church doesn't have to get very big before there develops a sense of "inside" and "outside". The "insiders" are involved in everything, are known, and make the church go. The "outsiders" are consumers. The show will go on, with or without them. The shame is that as churches grow and the amount of work taken on (or taken over) by paid staff increases, people feel less necessary.

Let me stop here and say that the perception that some people are more needed than others in churches is just that, a perception, and it is false. Most churches I know are begging for volunteers to share the ministry. It's a perennial problem. But beyond that, there are ministry frontiers in every workplace, school, and neighborhood in America that the Church, because of inherent institutional limitations, is unable to touch. What would be the impact on a society if every Jesus-believing adult decided to devote 5 hours a week to a ministry cause they felt called to and were gifted in and equipped for? Don't even get me started. The church is a force as well as a phenomenon. I think we forget that: in a church, you have gathered, every week, a group of people called and commissioned by the God of the universe to be impactful on the world they inhabit. How can we be passive or indifferent about that?

If it's your desire that your child be a world-changer and take seriously the mission of God's church, and I hope you do, then you must instill in your child an ethic about church in which they feel compelled to take part because they are necessary, special, and valued.

Necessary? How many kids feel necessary in church? How many view their place in the church as actors, rather than spectators. We (children's ministry professionals) are reaping what we've sown here. We have concocted such a great show, and every week we have to top ourselves, and kids quickly understand their role is to sit back and be wowed. Or, look at the way we teach. The material is so easy, so facile, few kids are ever challenged to think in church and therefore, few of them are affected beyond Monday by what they encountered that weekend. Or, we use incentives and prizes to get them to do things they aren't inclined to do, and in so doing send a strong message that, yes, we also recognize the thing itself has little value of its own.

This weekend David Batstone spoke in main service about uniting vocation (your calling) and profession (how you make a living). I pray that your son or daughter will find a calling in the church, that at least some of them will be led to full-time ministry careers in churches or on the mission field, but I don't know when that will happen. I do know that if they receive the call, it will likely be because they have been immersed in a culture of others serving God - in other words, the church - and that they are unlikely to ever feel called if they never caught that vision.
All of this is preface to the sixth quality shared by kids who thrive spiritually, and that is that they are part of a church where they've had a positive experience, they've identified and affiliated with it, and they are eager to assume God's role for them. We can't, after all, expect kids to identify with church and be loyal to it if their church experience has been negative. My advice to parents is do whatever it takes to make the experience a great one. Drive to events. Host things in your home. Serve with your child. Ask them which service is their favorite. You do not want to enter the teenage years struggling over whether or not they "have" to attend church. The parents I've seen who've been successful on this front have been firm: as long as you live in our house, church attendance is a non-negotiable. Within that dictum there is some flexibility. Some require attendance on weekends plus one other activity. Some will tailor the family's schedule to make alternate services work. Regardless, if it's the weekend, the family is in church.

What if your kid doesn't like your church? That's a tough one. Kids come up with lots of reasons for not wanting to go - it's boring, I don't know anybody, the music is bad, the teacher doesn't like me - and I have witnessed some real battles of the will right outside our classroom over whether or not a kid will stay. We all want to be able to go to church as a family, even if everyone splits up once they get there. So first, I would try diplomatically to resolve whatever is the issue that is causing your child to have a negative experience. If this can't be resolved, or if the child still insists (and particularly so for middle and high school students) I would counsel a long-term perspective. Realize that if a child expresses a positive feeling about any church, even if it's not yours, that's a good sign that they are assuming ownership of their faith. In other words, I would require that your kid is active in a church somewhere.

I was wrong about a lot of things when I was a teenager, and church was one of them. People not only need churches to grow spiritually strong, but strong churches need people.

Factor #6: A Positive Church Experience
Key Question: Does my child feel an identification with and an allegiance to his or her age group's ministry at their church?

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part five: Functional Self-Sufficiency

A fifth quality shared by kids who are strong in their faith through high school and beyond is one that seems so obvious, it's a wonder we miss it. Put simply, these kids own their faith. They're not living a borrowed faith or following blindly or out of obligation. They follow Jesus because they choose to. And exercising choice is a defining quality of their lives.

These kids are parented in such a way that they have a reasonable amount of control over decision making in their own lives. Their parents see their job as equipping their child to more and more assume responsibility for themselves - and to bear the consequences of bad decisions. The arrival of adulthood isn't jarring to either the kids or parents, because the transition has been years in the making. By the time this kid leaves high school, he or she is trained to be an adult.

Why does this matter? Let me come at it from three angles. First, if we are wanting kids to make the most significant decision that will change their lives - the decision for Christ - how can we expect them to do that if they have no practice or experience making decisions for themselves in other areas of their lives?

A second way of looking at it comes from a conversation I had with two high school sophomores a couple of years ago. One of the boys remarked, "I think becoming a Christian is one decision for Jesus, but living like a Christian is a million decisions for Jesus." Well put. When a kid's life is managed in such a way that their life isn't really theirs, how will they able to continue to answer the call of Christ to deny themselves? Christian living requires a continuous commitment of the will, which is nearly impossible for kids who are never otherwise allowed to exercise their will.

The third argument is that making good decisions is developed by practice. Think back to some of the worst decisions you've ever made. Did you deliberately ignore advice to the contrary, ignorant of right and wrong, or did you lack the foresight to evaluate the consequences of your actions? This is an essential component of learning from your mistakes - that there will be mistakes, but that with practice in making choices, a person gets better at making smart ones.

Possessing the skills to appropriately manage one's own life is what John Townsend and Henry Cloud call "functional self-sufficiency". It is marked by gradually greater degrees of autonomy as one learns to manage life for themselves . Obviously no one expects a baby to feed itself, or a toddler to prepare meals, or a kindergartener to enroll herself in school. But (hopefully) easily as obvious, there is an age beyond which "doing for" a child is no longer appropriate. The skill in parenting lies in offering appropriate support at appropriate times, knowing when to assert yourself on your child's behalf and when to let them fight their own battles.

This is a balancing act. Helping with homework is great - we want our kids to know when they're in over their heads, to ask for help. Doing your kid's science-fair project goes too far. What about all the gray in between? Should parents correct their child's homework, making them re-do it until it's exactly right? Should they drill with them before tests? Up until what age? Should they edit writing? How many times? Apart from the ethical question of parents doing homework is the strategic one: are kids well-served by not having to work through it themselves?

And schoolwork is only one example. When should a parent intervene in a friendship dispute and when should they let kids resolve it themselves, however imperfectly? Is it a parent's job to confront when the personality of their child and the teacher don't mesh? Should they approach the coach about playing time? Again, the answer depends much on the age of the child. Understand that the argument for letting kids develop functional self-sufficiency is not an argument for hands-off parenting, which is walking away from parental responsibilities. It is a call to reconsider the goal of parenting: is it to manage kids' lives, keeping them happy and out of trouble (a series of short-term objectives), or is it to prepare them over the long term to be well-adjusted, functional adults?

Parents are delighted when an infant learns to sit up or roll over. They're bemused when a two-year-old starts to insist on "doing it self!" This leads to parent-child tension once it becomes apparent that a toddler's desire for independence trumps their sense of time and urgency. As kids get older, their desire for autonomy can seem threatening - the obsession with privacy, the desire to challenge rules, the preference to spend time at friends' houses, the wish to have a car and get a job. Yet those desires are also the engine that drives kids on toward adulthood (come on, you really don't want them living at home when they're 30, right?) and as such, each presents a teaching opportunity. Each time a child successfully navigates a new challenge (I can do it myself!) they grow in maturity. And as shepherds interested in their spiritual welfare, eager to see them claim the promises of scripture for themselves, we should want that.

Factor #5: Functional Self-Sufficiency
Key Question: Are my parenting practices helping my child develop independence and the ability to make good decisions?

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part four: Emotional and Developmental Health

Some other pastors and I had an interesting discussion last week. At issue was how early in our teaching it is reasonable to expect kids to connect belief to action. For example, it's generally conceded that a very young child might be taught to say that hitting is wrong, but that won't stop them from acting impulsively when hitting or shoving seems to be to their advantage.

So, then, a question: if we recognize that natural development plays a role in dictating moral capacity - if we allow that very young children can't be held to the same standards as older children - wouldn't it stand to reason that lack of emotional development could be a hindrance to spiritual growth our whole lives?

A few years ago when I was at a church on the East Coast, a colleague there suggested to me that teenagers couldn't be fully devoted followers of Christ, by which he meant that they couldn't realize full spiritual maturity, because they hadn't lived enough life yet. At the time, I chafed at his assertion. But more and more, I appreciate it. He wasn't knocking teenagers or their ability to keep commitments or the sincerity of their devotion. Rather, what he was saying was that teenagers have not been tested, and therefore not been refined, in the ways that adults have, and their spiritual development was limited because of that.

We have fooled ourselves into believing that everyone grows up eventually. Outward appearances cause us to assume that every adult is a grown up, secure and confident and equipped to handle life the way a grown up should. And yes, as people age, they become more aware of the social cues and norms that say you shouldn't put your fist through a wall or ram someone with your car or have verbal fights in public or throw tantrums to get your way. And yet, most of us can recount instances where we've seen adults - grown-ups - behave in those very ways, because their emotions were too strong and they didn't know how else to channel it. The truth is that there's no emotional pituitary gland. People are either taught how to mature emotionally, and they do, or they aren't, and they don't.

A tragic reality of our times is that nutrition and child health have improved to the point that some girls are beginning puberty as early as 3rd grade, and boys as early as 5th grade, yet we know that the brain's impulse control center and judgment ability isn't fully formed until age 20! The result is an extended adolescence, truly a transition period of life, in which kids live in adult-like bodies but still think and act like children. This is the "Age of Opportunity" that Paul Tripp writes about. Yet, too many parents dread it and shrink from it. Why? I think the physical development of teenagers and the package that comes with it - the attitudes, the moods, the resistance, the obsession with vanity, the secrecy - scares a lot of parents. They're convinced that their child inhabits a world with a "Parents keep out!" sign on the door. At a time when they are needed most, they back away, afraid of asserting themselves for fear of alienating their child more, all the while wondering what happened to the loving, loyal little boy or girl they used to know? The price of this is that the emotional nurturance - one might call it the parenting - that kids need doesn't happen.

OK, we can agree that emotional and developmental health is important for kids, but what does it have to do with spiritual development? The answer is, plenty. First of all, we tend to filter our relationship with God through the lens of our own human relationships. The classic example is that of a person for whom the word "father" carries a negative association, perhaps because of abuse, abandonment, or separation. How does this person make sense of the concept of God as a Father, the love of the Father, the Father's forgiveness, and so on? Or, what about someone who was raised by parents who said, "I forgive you", but never really meant it - grudges were the relational bargaining chip in the family? How convinced will they be by the words of Psalm 103 - "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

Furthermore, the Bible calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds - "to become what we already are." Yet, in the "Already-Not Yet" state that is the Christian life, the "old man" stays with us - the old habits, the old thoughts, the old attitudes, the old hurts. How, exactly, this old self is "reckoned dead" is a complicated question with no clear answer. However - and this is my opinion - I do not believe the death of the old self is an automatic consequence of one's salvation. Some do believe that: if the sinful self that dogs you persists or manifests itself after you've received the Holy Spirit, your salvation is in question. I respectfully disagree. Nor do I believe that persistent growth issues - anger, lust, depression, anxiety, addiction - are necessarily the result of a spiritual problem. Henry Cloud writes in his excellent book How People Grow about many sincere Christians he has worked with who, despite spiritual rigor and discipline, still hit ceilings in their personal growth. In those cases, emotional issues held back spiritual development, not the other way around.

No, we are not paralyzed by our past experiences, but we are certainly shaped and limited by them, which is why the movement toward small groups in the American church is more than a fad, it's a very healthy change. When a group commits to "do life" together, people discover how to relate to one another and how to relate to God. Old hang-ups, hurts, emotional roadblocks, and unhealthy patterns are unearthed and dealt with. The New Testament letters, from which we derive almost all of our theology on spiritual growth, were written to groups and read out loud - hence the frequent references to "one another": confess your sins to one another, love one another, forgive one another. Is God concerned with my personal growth? Yes, but who I am matters most in the context of how I relate to other people. What good is a loving heart if I don't display that love to my neighbor? What good is it for me to love justice and then turn a blind eye to it?

When we're handicapped in our ability to have relationships, to handle conflict, to deal with negative feelings in a healthy way, to accept ourselves…these become spiritual problems down the road. On Thursday night, a class for dads called "Raising a Modern-Day Knight" begins. There are many parents of teenagers who needed this class years ago. Now, when relations with their sons are strained, they are grasping for solutions. Isn't it better to help than to heal? Do you have an emotionally healthy child, able to receive and enjoy the great plan that God has written for their life? Don't be resigned to the fact that they're soon growing up physically - give them something to be growing towards.

Factor #4: Emotional and Developmental Health
Key Question: Does my child face emotional or developmental issues that will lead to spiritual problems?

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part three: Cultivation of a Biblical Worldview

It's only fair that speakers and writers own up to their biases. Otherwise, you can be drawn in by someone who weaves a convincing argument but never details the full implications of their thinking, nor sheds light on what has shaped their thinking to this point. Writers who claim not to have biases are fooling themselves, and you.

So here is one of mine: I don't think we're doing all right in Children's Ministry (nationwide) when it comes to passing on our faith. Status quo is decidedly not ok.

How can we claim success when the statistics say that around 70% of kids raised in the evangelical church will leave the church once they reach college? And that although 80% of American adults identify themselves as Christians, only 3%, according to George Barna, hold a Biblical worldview? And no, it's not good enough that some of those who wander eventually come back, which has become a convenient excuse for some in the world of Christian Ed to do nothing ("We're laying the groundwork…" they say, an argument that betrays a bias: real spiritual maturity can only happen in adults. This fails to take kids seriously spiritually and sells them short.)

No, we - and by this I mean the Church at large - are failing. And ironically, one of the reasons we've failed is that we've tried too hard! Let me explain: In our zeal and determination to successfully pass on a body of faith, we have measured and quantified and systematized and programmed the delivery of Christian Education to the point that the heart of Christianity, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, gets lost. When did loving Jesus ever become the product of having systematic knowledge?

I see this all the time in browsing Christian websites and reading ministry magazines, curricula that promise "Your kids will grow!" and "Kids will be excited about their faith" and "Kids will develop a firm foundation." Yet any prepackaged curriculum - any pre-written lesson, for that matter - is inherently limited by the assumptions that it is built upon, namely, that the questions it is answering are the ones kids are asking.

We are facing that this Fall in our 4th-6th grade room. We've just launched into a series on God and school, touching on things like cheating, being a good sport, and handling school stress. How do we teach this in such a way as to not be handing down yet another version of THE LAW? The answer is to frame the series around the theme of spiritual growth - what it is, why someone would want it, and how walking in faith (at home and at school) will produce it. But - what if a kid doesn't desire spiritual growth? Will he hear anything in this series except what he's grown accustomed to hearing in the church - all the dos and don'ts? Probably not, and that's the limit of what education can accomplish. We can teach people's minds; we can influence them toward action; but we cannot capture their will.

I am convinced that the strongest force in the world to be tamed is the human will. It is truly renegade. Humility compels us to concede that whenever a person bends their stubborn will toward the Cross, there's more in play than just the apprehension of facts. God is at work in authentic churches; by contrast, there are seminaries and religious studies programs where knowledge is abundant but God is not at work.

What, then, is the role of education, especially for kids and especially in a group setting, where some are saved and on the path of discipleship, but many are not? What can be taught that is beneficial to both groups? What exactly are we trying to do, and what do kids need to possess here in order to be spiritually advantaged? I believe the best thing we can do in an educational setting, especially one that reaches a broad audience of kids, is to pass along a Biblical worldview. To an unbeliever, such a program demonstrates how a Christian thinks; to a believer, it not only demonstrates Christian thought, but trains believers on the way thoughts and ideas interface with actions. A solid Christian Ed program doesn't rest having just presented content, but goes a step further in challenging students - through projects, discussions, role plays, simulations - to envision applying that knowledge in a real-world context. And further, it brings accountability to past actions: did you act as Jesus would have acted?

When Christian Ed does its job, a Biblical worldview becomes so pervasive that it begins to "spill over" into thoughts, goals, aspirations, values, and judgments. This is the litmus test: not whether kids are acquiring knowledge and understanding, but is that understanding making any appreciable difference in the way they think, feel, and behave? Admittedly, what education alone can accomplish is limited. You can educate someone in the way of salvation, and you can show them models of how to live by faith, but all the knowledge in the world won't carry the ball across the goal line. Faith without works is dead, and so Christian teaching - even solid, comprehensive teaching - can only do so much to fortify and nourish a believer. You cannot ignore the importance of modeling, community, discipline, and the other elements I'll be writing about in coming weeks that are necessary for spiritual growth.

But, insofar as churches have been entrusted with the spiritual care of children and adults, we have to accept our share of responsibility for the exodus of young people from our ranks. It's time for us to shake our addiction to the appearance of success - right-sounding answers and memory verse ribbons - and ask the harder question of ourselves: is our teaching actually transforming the way these kids view their world?

Factor #3: The cultivation of a Biblical Worldview
Key Question: Are the goals and values my child articulates in line with godly purposes?

Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part two: Same-Age Christian Friendships

It's pretty well accepted that no kid who makes it through high school with his faith intact does so alone: Christian kids need Christian friends. It's also becoming accepted that spiritual growth happens in a community context. If you want to stunt a believer's growth, keep him far away from fellow believers. On the other hand, it's also quite apparent that the older a child becomes, the more they resent parental intrusion into their social lives.

Given this tension, what can a parent do to ensure that their child's social network includes some Christian friendships?

I have written many times in this space on the importance of Christian friendships. In short:

* I don't believe Christian kids should only have Christian friends. But they do need some.
* There is a difference between being "Christian buddies", the casual acquaintances that are kept at church but have no ties or bearing on the rest of a child's life, and being "Christian friends", where the relationship is actually edifying and holds influence over both children's behavior and character.
* It is one thing to know right from wrong; it is another to have the skills to act on one's moral convictions. A strong social network that shares your moral convictions is at least as important as the cognitive grasp of right and wrong.
* From surveys we've done, kids in our church generally have a handful of Christian buddies who they recognize here, but those attachments tend not to endure outside of church.
* And yes, given the size of our church, unless we are intentional about helping kids develop friendships in church, a kid really can come through our children's program and move on to junior high having developed few, if any, true friendships.

Kids are irked when parents try to engineer friendships. Why? Self-awareness is one reason. Already in fourth grade, kids are very aware of the social hierarchy of their school. They know that being friends with certain people will enhance their own status, while befriending others will hurt them. (Don't believe me? Think back to your own elementary school. How old were you when you started to notice that some kids were popular and others were shunned; that some were to be reckoned with and others to be dismissed? For me, this social awareness started to emerge in about 2nd or 3rd grade. By 4th grade, when I attended my first boy-girl preteen party, the lines between "in" and "out" were clearly drawn - and we invited accordingly.) There are kids who are either willing to risk their standing or oblivious to it and will "be friends with anyone", but such kids are rare.

[And I've sometimes wondered if we're setting an unrealistic expectation when we tell kids they should be friends with everyone, when we adults don't follow that mandate ourselves. Such an expectation usually springs from an observation drawn from our own, adult friendships, which is that they are mostly harmonious and that therefore, kids should also make an effort to get along with everybody. But this ignores the fact that we adults have the freedom to choose whom we associate with. We live, play, work, and relax with people of our own choosing - which tends to be folks who are just like us. Kids, by virtue of their attending a school, enjoy no such freedom. They are forced to interact daily with people who are very unlike themselves and don't have the luxury of excusing themselves or choosing alternate surroundings. Unlike a grown-up who can quit their job to get out from under a difficult boss or irritating co-workers, a child cannot divorce themselves from their teacher or classmates - though many have wanted to! Do we become better at handling difficult and different people as we get older? Probably. But I think the fact that social strife diminishes as we age reflects more the adult prerogative to choose one's environment than it does maturity.]

But the other reason kids jealously guard the power to make and break friendships is that this is one area of their lives that they almost exclusively control. Emotionally, they feel drawn to some kids and repelled by others, and they want the freedom to indulge those feelings and affiliate and play with those who make them feel good about themselves. When a parent or other adult tries to orchestrate a friendship irrespective of the child's affinities, it's as if the child is executing an obligation - even if the adult's matchmaking sprung from pure intentions. As a tennis coach, I saw this phenomenon among players well into high school. They would often rather have their close friend as their doubles partner than be paired with a better player who they weren't friends with. The social dynamic - will I enjoy myself? - outweighed the strategic - will we win?

So given a child's determination to choose her own friends-thank-you-very-much, what can a Christian parent do to influence those decisions so that their child won't reach high school without a supportive tribe around them?

First, start young. Fortunately, "friend" to a preteen roughly equates to "someone I do fun things with." (See my post from earlier this month, titled "Another Giant Leap: From Church buddies to Christian friends".) So a 10 or 11-year-old can join a new team or start at a new school and quickly make half a dozen friends (and they can just as quickly lose those friendships when the context changes). Because we value the development of friendships among our kids at church, we've gone "event heavy" on our schedule, with the hope that new friendships will be forged out of the crush of activity.

Which leads me to my second bit of advice: Involve your child in as many church-based activities as you can. Weekend attendance is important (I'm getting to that), but realize that one weekend service only exposes kids to a slice - and often the same slice - of kids. This is a huge church - nearly 700 different faces in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade came through our class last school year, from more than 70 elementary and middle schools. Is there a chance that the first time your kid comes to church they won't recognize anybody? Yes. Is it possible they won't really click with any peers at the service they attend? Possible, yes. Is it reasonable that among the hundreds of kids who call NCCC their church, your kid won't find anyone they have a kinship with? No, not very reasonable. But kids need to encounter each other and those encounters need to happen in social settings, outside of the educational environment that is Sunday mornings.

Third, we have always encouraged families to pick one service and stick with it. Why? Because otherwise, your child never gets accustomed to the other kids who they attend church with. In a given month, if you attend service at four different times, your child sees four different sets of leaders and kids, yet they never become a regular at any one of them. It's like sending your kid to a completely different church every week! We adults forget how intimidating it is to come to church alone, because most of us have the safety of a spouse to sit with even if the rest of the assembly is different. Regularity at one service also promotes the development of a relationship between your child and his or her small group leader. Your child becomes known, not just recognized.

Fourth, realize that inasmuch as the context of your child's life is constrained, you are the one who sets that context! As I wrote above, a kid doesn't get to pick their school, their neighborhood, their church, when the family is going over to Grandma's, what they'll study about in school, and any of a host of rather important life choices. Instead, you set the schedule and drive the taxi! How are you doing at investing your child's time? I urge you to sit down and inventory a typical week. How much time does your child spend in school? Doing homework? Watching TV? Outside? Playing organized sports? With you? Serving others? Resting? Doing something intentionally spiritually edifying? Recognize that you have determined, by your choices, what your child's time distribution looks like. Recognize further that you can adjust that distribution at any time, that you have the right (and it is your right) to blow the whistle and call time-out if you recognize that your kid's life has fallen out of balance. Kids don't enter iron-clad commitments, and while sometimes "sticking it out" does build character, if your kid is burning out because of overcommitment it's not only unhealthy but foolish for them to continue at that pace. What a shame if your child reaches high school - when demands on their time intensify even more - and lacks Christian friends because they (or you) simply couldn't find the time to invest when they were young!

[Let me add as a postscript to the above that if most of your child's friends are negative influences, then their involvement in whatever activity is creating a close association with kids like that isn't worth it. Regardless of the skill being developed, the most lasting imprint from a team or group experience will be on their character. If and when I have kids, I would never allow them to remain on a team with a coach who screams and swears - I don't care how great a teacher or motivator they are. The end simply doesn't justify the means.]

The last thing parents can do is to help extend church friendships beyond the walls of the church. Often it doesn't occur to kids that they should deepen a friendship with someone they know from church, especially if the geographical distance between homes is great. But this promotes the divide between "church life" and "the rest of life". We need to demonstrate, both by modeling it and by promoting it, that it's important to nurture Christian friendships. So, encourage your child to have someone over after church on Sunday, to bring them along on a roadtrip, to invite a church friend to their birthday party, to include them at a sleepover. These kinds of encounters bridge the church world and the real world and help kids to see that it's ok to carry the Christian label back to their everyday life.

Last winter I told the kids they should aim at developing seven Christian friendships by the time they reached seventh grade. It's still a good goal, and one I believe in, but I don't talk about it to the kids anymore because I quickly realized they don't, at this age, fully realize the importance or meaning of "Christian friend". You, however, do. And so perhaps the greatest contribution a parent can make toward developing this advantage is to be vigilant. Despite kids' wishes to keep parents at an arm's length when it comes to the social world, parents usually have pretty keen insight about who their kid hangs around with and the quality of their friendships. I would invite you to turn this analysis on your child spiritually: socially, is the groundwork being laid for a supportive cluster of Christian friends by the time your child reaches middle school? If not, what can you do to promote that?

Factor #2: Same-Age Christian Friendships
Key Question: Does my child have any Christian friends?