This is the 100th entry I've written for this blog. I launched Hitting Home in January 2007 along with our weekly e-newsletter as part of a better effort to get ministry information into the hands of parents. We've always known that take-home pages stand a small chance of making it into the hands of parents, and that it was long overdue that we moved our announcements into the digital age.
Initially I wanted to have a blog for "whatever" - whatever needed to be communicated that couldn't be adequately communicated on a flier or as part of a 10-second "Hello and how are you?" conversation during a weekend at church. But it soon occurred to me that promotional announcements have their place - it is in newsletters. Since then, I have tried not to use this blog merely to promote upcoming events. If people were going to click on my site, I wanted to respect their time and give them some "meat" to chew on.
Hopefully I've succeeded. I've long since stopped checking the number of page hits each week and precisely where they came from. Honestly, writing this blog is good for me even if no one reads it at all. It forces me to crystallize my thinking. It reminds me of what we stand for. It hones my method. It is occasionally a space for me to vent, though I try to keep the time-on-soapbox to a minimum. It brings me back to larger themes and visions, which are easy to discard when faced with the pragmatics of running a program from week to week. Most of all, it gives me a chance to communicate on topics of importance to parents.
I'm often asked whether I write everything appears on this blog. I do, except where otherwise noted. When I reprint material, I post a link to its original source. My ideas come from all around me - sometimes things I read (trends in religion or youth culture or parenting), sometimes just things I hear or impressions I've gathered. As to how much time it takes, if I'm focused, I can work through a piece in about an hour and a half. But, I have to be in the right mindset, and there's no telling when that will be. Yes, I have pulled over to the side of the road and jotted whole paragraphs on the back of an old envelope. It's not a matter of setting aside a couple of hours every Friday at 2:00 to be at my computer. Some people can write that way; I can't.
What you find in writing idea pieces is that you often return to recurring themes. The subject is just the gateway. For instance, in only one article, I cannot establish everything about the importance of involved parenting in spiritual nurture. But by revisiting the idea from time to time as new events unfold or new insights pop into my brain, it allows me to reframe the topic in new ways.
And so over time some distinct threads have emerged that regular readers of this blog will recognize. I hesitate somewhat to distill these because I don't want the blog to become a caricature of itself. Nor have I written by rotating among subjects; I simply address whatever's on the top of my mind, and that's how I've steadily had more than a dozen potential topics floating around my head without any conception of which will get written, or in what order.
Still, the benefits of summarizing are that someone wanting a clear sense of the message of Hitting Home might look here without having to read too much. One theme is that parents matter. They are the most willing, consistent, and persistent influences in a child's life, and they should learn how to exercise that influence, but be aware that it looks different in a teenager's life than in a child's.
Another recurring theme is the necessity and rightness of holding kids to high moral standards. When we beat ourselves up over our own moral failings and figure that we can't expect them to do what we didn't do, we A) miss the point, and B) almost certainly ensure that kids will slouch to the low expectations we've put out there. Pessimism is not good leadership, and we should never communicate, overtly or by implication, to kids that we expect they cannot behave morally.
Still another important idea for me is the importance of building the right context for your kid's life, a context that above all supports their spiritual growth and develops their character. This context includes non-negotiable weekly church attendance, exposes and acquaints kids to other Christian adults besides their parents, and strives to identify and cultivate relationships for kids in the Greater Christian Community, beyond the walls of the church. Good parents are diligent about this, and realistic about the fact that their own long association with a church or even Christian schooling is no guarantee that their child will develop some Christian friendships, so they are intentional in making that happen.
A fourth recurring theme is the importance of keeping spiritual growth and development at the fore, and avoiding the trap of driving kids to achieve hollow outward success. I've decided that if I could distribute one bumper sticker to every parent I know, it would read, "What good is it for your child to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit their soul?" I believe this is mostly unintentional, but the result of misplaced priorities. The longer we are involved with a church, the more important it becomes to keep an eye on this, because the newest and most exciting thing robs our attention. What's needed is to clean out - get rid of the excess, strip back to simplicity, refocus on what's important.
A fifth theme is the absolute necessity for churches to get their act together when it comes to the discipleship of kids. The inadequacy of church curriculum is truly sad. If any group of people should be interested and in tune with what science can tell us about how people learn, it ought to be churches. We - if we believe the message we preach - absolutely have the most to lose from bad teaching. Yet too-simple, teacher-focused, presentation-based lessons abound, and the result is ineffective discipleship. When was the last time your son or daughter came home really excited about something they'd learned in church, or were prompted there to really think about something? Exactly. By tying up every loose end for kids, answering every question, and packaging it with a nice bow we might think we're delivering them failsafe Truth. But the facts on the ground say otherwise.
Finally, a function of this blog has been to try to give you insight into what's going on in the minds of kids, based on what I hear and observe in our class and my interactions with them throughout the week. This relates to kid discipleship in that we can't hope to teach them effectively if we have no idea what they're thinking about. Kids - and by that I mean elementary-aged kids - have surprisingly deep thoughts and conversations with each other. While some of their battles may seem petty, it doesn't take much to realize that the seeds of future self-concept and industry and intimacy are being laid now. Their self-awareness is high, generally. We have such a chance to set the course of their development; but we have to take the time, and we have to listen.
If nothing else, I've wanted this blog to let you know that someone is thinking about your kid's spiritual development, and to invite you to do the same. An incomplete adult is a sad adult who will search - often fruitlessly - to supplement what's missing. If we can supply in their proper time the nurture, support, and skills that kids need, that's always a great investment.
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
