"Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matt. 25:40
Who are the least of us when it comes to children? Some people would say children themselves, because of their dependent status. But there are lots of benefits to being a kid, too. Some would say those who live in poverty, or AIDS orphans in Third World countries. Hard to argue with that. But what about right here, in Carlsbad-Encinitas-Oceanside USA? Who is it that's needing the care, the touch, the attention - crying out, if perhaps not audibly?
Turns out the hurting ones aren't so obvious because we see them every day. They are the kids who are privately grieving the loss of a parent or other family member or the break-up of their mom and dad's marriage. Too often that grief goes unprocessed.
Just this week CNN reported on a study showing the long-term negative health effects of divorce. These are important considerations - the stress of losing a spouse to divorce or death produces a 20 percent higher rate of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. But, at least those effects are measurable. Children, whose bodies are healthier, aren't likely to develop the same detrimental health conditions - and that can work against them.
A healthy body is only one reason kids will suffer in silence. Another factor that causes us to assume "they're doing ok" is the lack of outward emotional response when asked how they're feeling. But don't let that reticence fool you. "Good" or "ok" is more a sign of an under-developed emotional vocabulary than it is a true picture of how they're handling things. The truth is that kids usually don't know how they're doing. They don't have the life experience to know what is normal. They can vaguely sense when things are "good" or "not good", but in time, even the bad or wrong can become the norm, and then how will they answer the question?
Giving kids the emotional language to express pain is part of what a new program at NCCC, "Growing Seasons", is all about. We've known for some time that this is a hole in what we offer to children and families. It's good to be concerned about the kids touched by divorce and death in our midst - we have lots of them. It's better to identify them and come alongside, to tell them we care and offer to listen. But it's best to put together a structured, proven program run by trained facilitators who have a strategy for helping kids grow through grief.
That's where we need your help. Growing Seasons is now looking for its first class of adult facilitators. If you care about kids who are hurting, have a love for God and people, and can commit one night a week for a period of 10-12 weeks, you may be in a position to help grieving kids. The program is being run by Pam Douty of our counseling department and Kathy Dimoff, who recently retired after a career in school psychology. Pam and Kathy have explored a few programs and found Growing Seasons to be the best fit for our church. The groups, when they're launched, will be made up of no more than five kids, and have two adult facilitators per group. The program will serve kids ages four through 6th grade.
You will be equipped by the training to take kids through the course. And you'll be blessed as see kids begin to open up and process through the hurt, anger, disappointment, blame, and loss that's been buried inside. Our church's hope is to launch the first set of groups this fall, which means the time to recruit and train is now.
The second way in which you can help is by spreading the word once this program has launched. Of course, this program is open to any child, regardless of where or whether their family attends church. If you have a child who has experienced death or divorce, Growing Seasons may be right for them. Again, don't assume that because they look ok or say they're ok that they are ok. The ability to "bounce back" after disappointing or disadvantageous life events is called "resiliency", and we know some about how it develops, but we know that it's unevenly distributed across the human race. Grief isn't always sadness. It can displace as anger, aggression, withdrawal, fear, distractability and inattention, neediness, or moodiness. Pam Douty can help you decide if Growing Seasons would be appropriate for your child.
Who cares about hurting kids? Everyone should. But in dealing with a group that doesn't know its own emotions and may need special help to process them, caring doesn't go far enough. We owe it to kids to give them the very best - the very best listeners, the most understanding friends, the best-trained facilitators, and the best-informed helpers when it comes to helping kids get through (a better phrase than "get over") death and divorce. Loss hurts, but it shouldn't have to disable. We know how to help kids - are you willing?
To find out more about becoming a facilitator in the Growing Seasons program, contact Pam Douty at 760-929-0029 x314 or Kathy Dimoff, 760-942-3457.
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Not of This World
This week was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. I wasn't born when it happened, but of course anyone school-aged and older in 1969 can tell you exactly where they watched it and what they felt. But whatever electric thrill an average American felt, for the astronauts, it was that times 1000. And that's the paradox of transcendent experiences - when something is too great for words, how do you begin to tell about it?
The cover story in TIME Magazine told the story not only of the Apollo 11 astronauts, but of everyone who ever made an Apollo mission - just 24 in all - noting that their lives after space were not unlike what happens to any celebrity who's exhausted their 15 minutes of fame. Only for an astronaut, there was never really a chance that fame would be revived, at least not in the sphere of space. Another celebrity can get a book deal, a reality TV series, a movie role. But once you've been to the moon? There's really no topping that. The commander of Apollo 15, Dave Scott, told Time that when he returned from the moon, his neighbors threw him a barbecue. But being there didn't feel quite right: "I thought, 'What am I doing here?'"
Did Paul feel the same way, after he was given his vision of heaven that he describes in 2 Corinthians 12? Did Moses, after he spoke with God? The Bible says he had to wear a veil after those encounters because the rest of the Israelites were afraid to come near him. Yet the veil concealed what was really happening: the glory of Moses' face was actually fading. And 2 Corinthians 3 goes on to tell us that Moses' ministry (that is, the law) brought death - yet it brought so much glory; "how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!"
This business of radiant faces and fading glory has rich implications for ministry. First of all, the Old Testament should never be taught divorced from the New. The Old Testament alone is not the good news. In fact, Romans assures us that, standing alone, it is bad news! No one becomes righteous by observing the law - so only the assurance that "a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known" (3:21) begins to change things for us. The Law brings death, but the Spirit brings life. We are fooling ourselves if we think that by delivering kids the Law - even in entertaining or memorable ways - it will make them joyful subjects of the King. Yet it's easy to fall into this, by extracting some "do" principle from every Bible story we teach. Christianity is a religion of doing, of action - sometimes. But sometimes it's a religion of being. Sometimes it's a religion of encounter, of wonder, of experience. Sometimes we just get to receive.
Secondly, Moses first encountered God and then was a witness to the encounter. The experience was authentic and so profound, Moses didn't have to practice change, he was changed. He didn't do witness, he was the witness. I wonder if one reason American Christians are so lukewarm about sharing their faith is that we've reduced faith to its cognitive component and sharing it to an apologetic exercise; but that stops short of its fullness. "Sharing our faith" should be like telling about the time we climbed Mt. Everest, or skydived for the first time, or survived a plane crash. No kid is going to get excited to tell his friend about the Law of God. But what if they've actually encountered God? That could be a different story.
A third observation stems from the second: if we're going to be effective in transmitting the faith (read: a vibrant relationship, not just a set of propositions or rules), then we ourselves must get and stay immersed in our own encountering. I made that word up, but the tense is deliberate. I've seen too many kids listen to too many adults deliver testimonies of how they met the Lord ten or more years ago and be totally nonplussed. Kids live in the now, and where and how God is acting now should be more a part of our testimony anyhow.
Fourth and finally, however, we should be mindful that words will never do God justice. Books on theology are always doomed to fail: either they will be too short and too underwhelming that they don't do justice to all that God is, or they will be hopelessly complex in an attempt to nail down every characteristic and agency of God - putting God in a box, but missing. There has to be room for wonder and mystery and a humble acknowledgement of what we don't know. Our teaching should never leave Jesus in the past, but always invite kids to meet him in the present. Did the Israelites meet God through Moses? No, they saw God's glory reflected on his face. That itself was an invitation to repent, to obey, to enter a relationship with God through faith.
This is why Christianity cannot be inherited, nor can it be taught, exactly. In fact, so much great teaching doesn't break new ground as much as it puts into words what the hearer has experienced or is experiencing. We give kids words like "holiness" and "forgiveness" and "salvation" and "eternity" so that they can have language to attach to spiritual reality. Ultimately, we want kids to regard God as not just "bigger than" the Superbowl, or a fireworks show, or the ocean, or all the money in the world, but in fact "different from" all of those things, in a class of his own. We should strive to attach such reverence to spiritual things that when kids enter into them, they experience something other-worldly, and the rest of the world seems strange and ordinary. Maybe then, like the astronauts who visited the moon, they'd be compelled to return to it again and again.
The cover story in TIME Magazine told the story not only of the Apollo 11 astronauts, but of everyone who ever made an Apollo mission - just 24 in all - noting that their lives after space were not unlike what happens to any celebrity who's exhausted their 15 minutes of fame. Only for an astronaut, there was never really a chance that fame would be revived, at least not in the sphere of space. Another celebrity can get a book deal, a reality TV series, a movie role. But once you've been to the moon? There's really no topping that. The commander of Apollo 15, Dave Scott, told Time that when he returned from the moon, his neighbors threw him a barbecue. But being there didn't feel quite right: "I thought, 'What am I doing here?'"
Did Paul feel the same way, after he was given his vision of heaven that he describes in 2 Corinthians 12? Did Moses, after he spoke with God? The Bible says he had to wear a veil after those encounters because the rest of the Israelites were afraid to come near him. Yet the veil concealed what was really happening: the glory of Moses' face was actually fading. And 2 Corinthians 3 goes on to tell us that Moses' ministry (that is, the law) brought death - yet it brought so much glory; "how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!"
This business of radiant faces and fading glory has rich implications for ministry. First of all, the Old Testament should never be taught divorced from the New. The Old Testament alone is not the good news. In fact, Romans assures us that, standing alone, it is bad news! No one becomes righteous by observing the law - so only the assurance that "a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known" (3:21) begins to change things for us. The Law brings death, but the Spirit brings life. We are fooling ourselves if we think that by delivering kids the Law - even in entertaining or memorable ways - it will make them joyful subjects of the King. Yet it's easy to fall into this, by extracting some "do" principle from every Bible story we teach. Christianity is a religion of doing, of action - sometimes. But sometimes it's a religion of being. Sometimes it's a religion of encounter, of wonder, of experience. Sometimes we just get to receive.
Secondly, Moses first encountered God and then was a witness to the encounter. The experience was authentic and so profound, Moses didn't have to practice change, he was changed. He didn't do witness, he was the witness. I wonder if one reason American Christians are so lukewarm about sharing their faith is that we've reduced faith to its cognitive component and sharing it to an apologetic exercise; but that stops short of its fullness. "Sharing our faith" should be like telling about the time we climbed Mt. Everest, or skydived for the first time, or survived a plane crash. No kid is going to get excited to tell his friend about the Law of God. But what if they've actually encountered God? That could be a different story.
A third observation stems from the second: if we're going to be effective in transmitting the faith (read: a vibrant relationship, not just a set of propositions or rules), then we ourselves must get and stay immersed in our own encountering. I made that word up, but the tense is deliberate. I've seen too many kids listen to too many adults deliver testimonies of how they met the Lord ten or more years ago and be totally nonplussed. Kids live in the now, and where and how God is acting now should be more a part of our testimony anyhow.
Fourth and finally, however, we should be mindful that words will never do God justice. Books on theology are always doomed to fail: either they will be too short and too underwhelming that they don't do justice to all that God is, or they will be hopelessly complex in an attempt to nail down every characteristic and agency of God - putting God in a box, but missing. There has to be room for wonder and mystery and a humble acknowledgement of what we don't know. Our teaching should never leave Jesus in the past, but always invite kids to meet him in the present. Did the Israelites meet God through Moses? No, they saw God's glory reflected on his face. That itself was an invitation to repent, to obey, to enter a relationship with God through faith.
This is why Christianity cannot be inherited, nor can it be taught, exactly. In fact, so much great teaching doesn't break new ground as much as it puts into words what the hearer has experienced or is experiencing. We give kids words like "holiness" and "forgiveness" and "salvation" and "eternity" so that they can have language to attach to spiritual reality. Ultimately, we want kids to regard God as not just "bigger than" the Superbowl, or a fireworks show, or the ocean, or all the money in the world, but in fact "different from" all of those things, in a class of his own. We should strive to attach such reverence to spiritual things that when kids enter into them, they experience something other-worldly, and the rest of the world seems strange and ordinary. Maybe then, like the astronauts who visited the moon, they'd be compelled to return to it again and again.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Boys Make a Discovery
It started in a moment of boredom. The boys of Summer Camp Group 12 were milling around, hoping for another chance at the archery range, but weighing whether it was worth the wait. A trail leading straight up the mountain beckoned, as trails always do, and four of them eagerly answered the call. What started as a simple hike became an unplanned "mountaintop" experience, the pivotal event of these boys' week at camp. And if we care to notice, there's even something valuable for grown-ups who hope to guide spiritual growth, too.
The first thing the four pioneers noticed was the purity of the air, and the openness of the view once they'd reached the first plateau (you always feel like you've conquered something when you finally stand higher than anyone at the bottom). To their credit, they stayed within range of my voice, so that when it was time to come down, they immediately reappeared over the crest of the hill and made their descent.
As a camp counselor, you get used to hearing about everything a kid tells you "you have to see". I had forgotten how an insect can stop kids dead in their tracks, begging further inspection, or how any path but the most obvious one was of course the one they would choose, or the absolute indispensability of a walking stick to an 11-year-old (I understand that one boy smuggled one home on the bus). So when they told me I "had to climb" to where they'd been, I filed it away under one more marvel of nature that they'd soon forget.
But it turns out there was more than scenic beauty that had struck the boys up there. There were, they said, four trees that laid themselves out as the endpoints of a giant cross if viewed from above. They even saw at that time a cross-shaped cloud formation in the sky. One said he felt clean and pure up there (his words), like all his sins had been washed away - "even the sin of Adam"! Could we, they begged, hike up there as a group for our evening Bible study time?
The choice was mine. I could try to redirect or defer their obvious interest, I could commandeer the situation and try to control where it was heading, or I could come along and see what developed. Knowing it was futile to try to steer them away and barely able to keep up with them, I opted for the third choice. Up the hill we went, this time as a group, and each time we stopped to catch our breath and take in the view, it only fueled our desire to go higher and higher. When we finally reached the top, they were elated - elated at the view, elated that they'd all made it, and excited about the mysterious presence of God that seemed to be there. As I sat off at a distance, my lungs heaving and my legs aching, the boys decided the place demanded a memorial, and began to hunt around for materials to erect a cross. They busily scavenged for wood and rocks. Aside from some minor engineering advice and the muscle to lift rocks too heavy for the
m, this was their baby. One boy, after some arm-twisting, agreed to give up a length of rope he'd found earlier that day. Another would later haul a small cinder block all the way up the slope to serve as a base for the vertical post. Another built a small fire pit; when it was later pointed out that it wasn't a good idea to encourage fire-building in a forest, he was persuaded to convert it into an altar.
And so the construction process continued over two days, with the boys proudly augmenting their original design and finding materials at the bottom of the hill that ended up at the top. It was agreed that "Holy Mountain" should remain a secret until all the building was done, at which time they would happily share their discovery with the rest of the groups, which they did in a moving hike and ceremony Friday morning.
But an idyllic spot wasn't the only thing they had discovered. For in the process of building something special for God, of going to a place that was special and rich with his spirit, and of dealing with the inevitable conflicts that sprang up around design and construction, their hearts were opened. As the boys worked, I was able to read to them about Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai to meet with God, and how his face became radiant each time he did, so that the Israelites were afraid to approach him. We read about the people of Israel's generosity in giving of their own wealth and materials in order to build Solomon's temple. We read how when, after that temple had been destroyed and the people exiled, on their return they listened to Ezra read the Book of the Law and they wept because they realized their own disobedience. And whenever we climbed the hill, we began by reading Psalm 24:3-4, which says, "Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies."
I was moved that God was meeting these boys, here. If we deviated from the published curriculum, I'm sure that's forgiveable. These 10 and 11-year-olds were prompted to think about grace and presence and holiness in a way I'm convinced no printed workbook could have done. This is not a boast. I write this instead because the experience with them ratified my belief that kids can have thriving relationships with God now, that they can pray meaningfully for themselves and for each other, that they can be excited about the work of God in their lives, and especially, that we ought not believe that true faith cannot blossom until the crises of teenagerhood set in, as if the true Christian life is limited to battling adult-style temptations and restraining mature sin.
It has become fashionable for those of us in children's ministries to say that parents are responsible for the spiritual development of their kids, and that the church just plays a supporting role. But buried in that assertion is a questionable premise - two really: that parents can make spiritual development happen (they can't, any better than churches can), and conversely, that if parents do nothing, there won't be spiritual development. But this is a view of kids that reduces spirituality to something like subject matter. It is pretty true that unless a kid is introduced to the formal study of algebra, he or she won't learn algebra. Nonetheless, they will still interact with concepts like quantity and equality and balance and measurement, and so whether or not the word "algebra" is ever used, a student whose world is rich in concepts dealing with numbers will, in fact, be exposed to algebra.
What a mistake to think that kids' conceptions of God are limited to what we put before them! Kids think about all manner of things, and God is one of them. Even unchurched kids from irreligious families have thoughts about God and a personalized understanding of how he works (a theology). Kids do not come to churches as empty containers, waiting to be filled. They come as multi-dimensional human beings - already spiritual, already social, already cognitive, already moral, already physical. The job must be to come alongside what's already happening and to somehow shape that. But we can't know unless we spend time and observe; and we can't shape unless we have some idea of where we ought to take kids.
The value of camp, of course, is that life is shared for an extended period so that waking and going to sleep, playing, eating, studying, and navigating the normal crises of everyday life are shared. I can learn a lot about a kid by watching him suit up to climb the tree for the zipline or observing her join a game of Red Rover. Could it be that the real "work" of spiritual guidance is to get kids to see themselves, spiritually, for what and who they really are? And that is: loved by God; created for a reason (not by accident); marred by sin yet retaining that spark of the divine; considered worthy to die for; treasured by God and called to holiness; forgiven, cleansed, and set free. These are ideas that our kids can wrap themselves around and stake their lives upon. How do we get that truth inside of them? It does not come from lecturing. It is, rather, the fruit of discovering. Creating environments and experiences where kids just might become eager enough to seek it for themselves is the greatest gift we can give to them.
The boys of Group 12 came down the mountain Friday morning knowing that they may never lay eyes on their handiwork again. But by that time, it wasn't about keeping the find for themselves. I think I'm right in saying that their common desire was that other kids, years into the future, might somehow have a piece of something as neat as they'd experienced. My hope is similar, but a little different: it is that every parent and every youth leader who has been charged with the spiritual growth of kids gets to witness some time when the spirit of God runs ahead in front of you, so fast and so far you can't catch up, and so profoundly that you don't want to.
The first thing the four pioneers noticed was the purity of the air, and the openness of the view once they'd reached the first plateau (you always feel like you've conquered something when you finally stand higher than anyone at the bottom). To their credit, they stayed within range of my voice, so that when it was time to come down, they immediately reappeared over the crest of the hill and made their descent.
As a camp counselor, you get used to hearing about everything a kid tells you "you have to see". I had forgotten how an insect can stop kids dead in their tracks, begging further inspection, or how any path but the most obvious one was of course the one they would choose, or the absolute indispensability of a walking stick to an 11-year-old (I understand that one boy smuggled one home on the bus). So when they told me I "had to climb" to where they'd been, I filed it away under one more marvel of nature that they'd soon forget.
But it turns out there was more than scenic beauty that had struck the boys up there. There were, they said, four trees that laid themselves out as the endpoints of a giant cross if viewed from above. They even saw at that time a cross-shaped cloud formation in the sky. One said he felt clean and pure up there (his words), like all his sins had been washed away - "even the sin of Adam"! Could we, they begged, hike up there as a group for our evening Bible study time?
The choice was mine. I could try to redirect or defer their obvious interest, I could commandeer the situation and try to control where it was heading, or I could come along and see what developed. Knowing it was futile to try to steer them away and barely able to keep up with them, I opted for the third choice. Up the hill we went, this time as a group, and each time we stopped to catch our breath and take in the view, it only fueled our desire to go higher and higher. When we finally reached the top, they were elated - elated at the view, elated that they'd all made it, and excited about the mysterious presence of God that seemed to be there. As I sat off at a distance, my lungs heaving and my legs aching, the boys decided the place demanded a memorial, and began to hunt around for materials to erect a cross. They busily scavenged for wood and rocks. Aside from some minor engineering advice and the muscle to lift rocks too heavy for the
m, this was their baby. One boy, after some arm-twisting, agreed to give up a length of rope he'd found earlier that day. Another would later haul a small cinder block all the way up the slope to serve as a base for the vertical post. Another built a small fire pit; when it was later pointed out that it wasn't a good idea to encourage fire-building in a forest, he was persuaded to convert it into an altar.And so the construction process continued over two days, with the boys proudly augmenting their original design and finding materials at the bottom of the hill that ended up at the top. It was agreed that "Holy Mountain" should remain a secret until all the building was done, at which time they would happily share their discovery with the rest of the groups, which they did in a moving hike and ceremony Friday morning.
But an idyllic spot wasn't the only thing they had discovered. For in the process of building something special for God, of going to a place that was special and rich with his spirit, and of dealing with the inevitable conflicts that sprang up around design and construction, their hearts were opened. As the boys worked, I was able to read to them about Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai to meet with God, and how his face became radiant each time he did, so that the Israelites were afraid to approach him. We read about the people of Israel's generosity in giving of their own wealth and materials in order to build Solomon's temple. We read how when, after that temple had been destroyed and the people exiled, on their return they listened to Ezra read the Book of the Law and they wept because they realized their own disobedience. And whenever we climbed the hill, we began by reading Psalm 24:3-4, which says, "Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies."
I was moved that God was meeting these boys, here. If we deviated from the published curriculum, I'm sure that's forgiveable. These 10 and 11-year-olds were prompted to think about grace and presence and holiness in a way I'm convinced no printed workbook could have done. This is not a boast. I write this instead because the experience with them ratified my belief that kids can have thriving relationships with God now, that they can pray meaningfully for themselves and for each other, that they can be excited about the work of God in their lives, and especially, that we ought not believe that true faith cannot blossom until the crises of teenagerhood set in, as if the true Christian life is limited to battling adult-style temptations and restraining mature sin.
It has become fashionable for those of us in children's ministries to say that parents are responsible for the spiritual development of their kids, and that the church just plays a supporting role. But buried in that assertion is a questionable premise - two really: that parents can make spiritual development happen (they can't, any better than churches can), and conversely, that if parents do nothing, there won't be spiritual development. But this is a view of kids that reduces spirituality to something like subject matter. It is pretty true that unless a kid is introduced to the formal study of algebra, he or she won't learn algebra. Nonetheless, they will still interact with concepts like quantity and equality and balance and measurement, and so whether or not the word "algebra" is ever used, a student whose world is rich in concepts dealing with numbers will, in fact, be exposed to algebra.
What a mistake to think that kids' conceptions of God are limited to what we put before them! Kids think about all manner of things, and God is one of them. Even unchurched kids from irreligious families have thoughts about God and a personalized understanding of how he works (a theology). Kids do not come to churches as empty containers, waiting to be filled. They come as multi-dimensional human beings - already spiritual, already social, already cognitive, already moral, already physical. The job must be to come alongside what's already happening and to somehow shape that. But we can't know unless we spend time and observe; and we can't shape unless we have some idea of where we ought to take kids.
The value of camp, of course, is that life is shared for an extended period so that waking and going to sleep, playing, eating, studying, and navigating the normal crises of everyday life are shared. I can learn a lot about a kid by watching him suit up to climb the tree for the zipline or observing her join a game of Red Rover. Could it be that the real "work" of spiritual guidance is to get kids to see themselves, spiritually, for what and who they really are? And that is: loved by God; created for a reason (not by accident); marred by sin yet retaining that spark of the divine; considered worthy to die for; treasured by God and called to holiness; forgiven, cleansed, and set free. These are ideas that our kids can wrap themselves around and stake their lives upon. How do we get that truth inside of them? It does not come from lecturing. It is, rather, the fruit of discovering. Creating environments and experiences where kids just might become eager enough to seek it for themselves is the greatest gift we can give to them.
The boys of Group 12 came down the mountain Friday morning knowing that they may never lay eyes on their handiwork again. But by that time, it wasn't about keeping the find for themselves. I think I'm right in saying that their common desire was that other kids, years into the future, might somehow have a piece of something as neat as they'd experienced. My hope is similar, but a little different: it is that every parent and every youth leader who has been charged with the spiritual growth of kids gets to witness some time when the spirit of God runs ahead in front of you, so fast and so far you can't catch up, and so profoundly that you don't want to.
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