Let's Get This Ball...Spinning? part two

Last week I referred to a basketball spinning on someone's finger as a metaphor for the type of relationship we should want our kids to have with God. And I suggested that much of what we try to do - in ministering to kids and in parenting them - stops short of this ultimate goal. Everything we do, if we intend it to be spiritually nurturing, should either encourage kids to set the ball on their finger, or impart a little extra momentum to the ball if it's already spinning.

Truth is, there's some cool things happening with a spinning ball that, once understood, make for some helpful metaphors for understanding kids' spiritual lives:

1. To begin with, ask yourself this question: Is spinning a basketball on your finger easy, or hard? And the answer, of course, depends on how much practice you've had. Anyone who tries that trick for the first time finds it extremely challenging - particularly if you are young and lack coordination. Most people do not "succeed" when they first attempt it. However, the longer someone has worked at it, the more effortless it (apparently) becomes. People who are very good at this can do other things while spinning the ball: walking, talking, spinning a second ball with the other hand.

What we can learn: While it's not always true that those who have been Christians the longest make for the strongest Christians, there is some truth to the fact that the more practiced you become in spiritual habits and disciplines, the easier it is to keep them up. And why? Because they become habits. And habits, by definition, are things we don't need to think about or force ourselves to do, because they've become second nature. Hebrews 5:14 gives a good example of this when it refers to mature believers as those who, by constant use (that is, consistent righteous behavior), have trained themselves to recognize good from evil.

We do kids a favor when we teach them that a Christian life is just that, a life, and it is lifelong, and it is forever. To keep God and things of spiritual value from being crowded out of the picture takes vigilance. We are right to teach kids that salvation is a free gift of God, but we don't teach enough on the work (and it is work, at first) of following him, learning obedience, setting aside the time to be with him, making it a habit to ask (consciously at first, then subconsciously): "What would Jesus do?" The great thing is that the habit of following Jesus can be developed, and once developed, it works in our favor, because any habit - good or bad - is hard to break.

2. Which brings us to another feature of the spinning ball: inertia. Inertia refers to an object's tendency to remain either in motion, or at rest. Specifically, with a basketball, there is rotational inertia causing it to continue spinning round and round. When the ball loses its inertia, it slows and then quickly falls. There isn't a lot of in-between - no such thing as spinning at medium speed. The ball either spins fast, or it doesn't spin at all.

What we can learn: In the same way, our spiritual lives and those of kids tend to either be in motion and on-track, or lackluster and nearly dead. As one pastor I knew liked to say, "If you don't grow, you will go - away from the Lord." It's hard to operate on spiritual half-throttle. Either you are experiencing spiritual growth - palpable, radical growth - or you aren't. But one leap tends to build on another, and then another. The lesson, I think, is pretty clear: we should teach kids to seek the active work of God in their lives, and to expect it. No, life will not be spent on the mountain tops. Recognizing and participating in the work of God in your life is no shield against hard times. It is, however, the ongoing assent to the process of being shaped and formed and built into Christ's likeness - whether through victorious times or challenging ones.

3. Why that ball eventually slows brings us to another principle: the effect of friction. It cannot be totally avoided. Sooner or later, the contact between a finger and the ball slows the ball down, so that regardless of how much inertia it has at any given time, we can predict that the ball is on its way to stopping.

What we can learn: Friction operates in a way very similar to sin. Kids can grasp this: sin drags everything down. Even nice people sin. Even spiritual champions sin. Our tendencies, even in the spiritually strongest of us, will eventually be toward selfishness, greed, envy, and pride. "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" (1 Cor. 10:12) No matter how far we've advanced toward spiritual maturity, temptation and the world and the flesh are working against us. And they will win...but only kind of. That's where the power of the resurrection comes in. A Jesus who's been raised from the dead makes the eventual perfection and you and me possible. What can't be done now - a basketball that spins forever, a person who is perfect in all they say, think, and do - will happen one day because God's power over the grave signals the end for sin. Take away sin and eternal life becomes a reality. Take away friction and the ball spins forever. In the meantime, just as a strong finger, held perfectly straight, supports the ball's inertia, we do our best to minimize the amount of sin that we allow in our lives by keeping ourselves strong, sharp, and focused on the purpose of our lives.

4. To counteract friction, every spinning ball needs a little help to keep it going. This help takes the form of a push - but not just any push. If handled clumsily, the ball will come unbalanced and fly off the finger that's supporting it. Instead, the push needs to support the ball where its rotation appears to be weakening, and it needs to move in the same direction but at a slightly faster speed than the ball is already going.

What we can learn: Don Ratcliff has observed in his new book ChildFaith: Experiencing God and Spiritual Growth with your Children that we too often look for and listen to kids' programmed responses about God and pay little attention to their spontaneous ones. In other words, the questions they ask and comments they make that we haven't solicited often give us the best insight into a particular child's theology and spiritual vitality. Very often we don't teach to their interests because we are afraid we won't cover "the important material", when in fact what's "important" is whatever information speaks to things they're already thinking about.

The best spiritual nurture does not impose itself, but comes alongside what is already happening, helping kids to make sense of it (for example, giving them a spiritual vocabulary) and encouraging them to keep doing whatever it is they are doing that has been good for their spiritual growth. We need to be really careful that the help we give kids in their spiritual lives is just that - help - and that it is sensitive to what they've experienced of God and where God is trying to grow them. And, just as the push needs to be slightly faster than the ball is already rotating, we need to be great spiritual leaders and to put great spiritual leaders into our kids' lives.

5. It is one thing to talk about or to demonstrate how to spin a ball on someone's finger; it is entirely something else to get them to do it themselves. That is the product of practice - a lot of self-doing. If we think that hours and hours spent watching others spin the ball will make someone better at it, we're fooling ourselves. People need to grab the ball and go, and fail, and try again, and they may need encouragement to try it enough times to where it really sticks.

What we can learn: Strong Christianity is built by doing. We must give kids opportunities to live out the faith, because there is a point beyond which demonstration and explanation stalls. Ultimately, we can't practice Christianity for our kids, though we might be comforted to think so. They own their own faith. It is nurtured by what they do.

Unfortunately though, unless a robust understanding of what a Christian "does" and ought to do is held, we can quickly push kids into community service work that lacks any spiritual dimension. The fact is, as we live out our faith, some of the doing is inner and vertical - what might actually appear to outsiders as inaction. A person who wants to change the world but has no regard for spiritual things cannot make sense of Martin Luther's statement that whenever he faced a busy day, he was unable to make any progress unless he spent three hours in prayer. But a spiritually mature person begins to understand. Yet another dimension of our spirituality is the horizontal one - our relationships with one another. We "do" Christianity when we enter into relationships and strive to do them right, overcoming isolation and alienation and growing into real relationships. The third aspect involves our service to the rest of the world, but the value of that is cheapened if it is not accompanied by a heart for God and a heart for others.

So, a rounded approach to nurturing kids' spirituality is called for. There are no "just" answers, as in:

• "Kids just need to go to Mexico and serve at an orphanage. That will open their eyes to how much they have." Missions trips are important, yes; but they alone do not fuel sustained spiritual growth.
• "Kids just need to learn the Bible. Once they have the basics, that will get them ready for what they'll face as adults." Bible knowledge can contribute to spiritual maturity; but merely knowing lots of facts divorced from their contexts really does not produce kids who are devoted to God.
• "Kids just need to have a church that they love going to." As a professional in ministry, it's hard for me to disagree. But, allegiance to a church program alone does not yield spiritual maturity.

Kids need lots of things; there is no magic bullet. We do well to take this holistic view of what it is to be spiritually healthy, and to help kids attend to their personal relationship with God, their day-to-day relationships with family and friends, and their personal sense of calling and service.

6. The final thing a spinning ball does is attract a lot of attention! And while there may be recognition that the person holding the ball is responsible, peoples focus is generally drawn to the ball itself.

What we can learn: Ideally, when a kid is really growing spiritually and living out what they believe, people will be drawn to what they see. The overflow of a Christian life should leave a memorable footprint, as qualities like love, care, kindness, mercy, and gentleness impact the recipient long after the one who acted in that way is out of the picture: the gift outlasts the giver.

Can we create spiritual growth in kids? No, we can't create it, anymore than we can coax a basketball up onto someone's finger all by itself. Can we manage it for them, so that they live spiritual lives because of our fervor or our example? No - the best we can do is cast compelling vision by the way we live. And we can do more, by encouraging kids to develop the sorts of lifelong habits and practices that make their souls fertile ground for God's spirit. When we recognize that God is already at work, we are more likely to help in ways that actually are help, that compliment the work that is being done rather than disrupt it. I look forward to this year of ministry, and the many opportunities we will have together to impart a little extra spin to the ball, so that it might continue ever-more gracefully and forcefully, spurring our kids on to great outward acts of faith, and inspiring onlookers to want the same.

Let's Get This Ball...Spinning?

To the parents of new fourth graders, welcome. This is a blog where I bandy about ideas on ministry to children and adolescents, but specifically preteens. I have just completed ten weeks of coursework on the subject of family ministry, namely the consideration of how churches ought to help families become the most nurturing places they can be. The course involved lots and lots of reading, observation of other churches, consultation with fellow ministry professionals, exposure to multiple models of family programming, and development of curriculum. The byproduct, of course, was extended reflection on the unique role that families and churches each play in promoting the development of faith-filled kids, and what sort of balance actually constitutes partnership. And for me, now having reached the end, one question stands out: How can we get kids to initiate and maintain dynamic, personal relationships with God?

This question bedevils youth pastors and children's pastors, parents, Christian educators and, more and more, senior pastors, as we cope with the dismaying reality that between half and three-quarters of young people who are raised in the church will leave when they get to college. That fact motivates us all to do better by our kids and teenagers (even though we have slightly different reasons: ministry folks are alarmed by this statistic for what it says about their programming. Parents are alarmed because their kid could be in the 50-75% who walk away.).

The answer isn't simple. But one of the reasons we fail to make progress towards an answer is that we spend a lot of time seeking answers to the wrong questions. The question above - how can we get kids to initiate and maintain dynamic, personal relationships with God? - is the question. Here's why.

As Christians, we believe the hope of humanity lies in this thing called redemption, and that just as all things were created good, all things also groan under the yoke of sin, yearning for liberation and transformation back into their original design. "All things" includes people, of course, but also groups of people: families, marriages, communities, friendships, governments, cultures. So while we insist on the value of knowing a personal savior, we are not unaware that the very contexts people live in - their primary relationships - are sometimes themselves what is keeping an individual from knowing Christ and loving him fully.

So a Christian approach to the healing of humanity necessarily centers on personal redemption: Does this man or woman, boy or girl, believe in (trust in) the finished work of Jesus Christ - his death and resurrection - for the forgiveness of their sins? We long to see people reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19-20). Sometimes this new life will give them strength to endure or new resources to work through life challenges: a troubled marriage, strained friendships, the loss of a job, bad habits, personal unhealth. Other times, those are hurdles people need help clearing so that they may experience the goodness of God more fully.

Ultimately, we want people to experience (and re-experience, and re-experience...) reconciliation with God. To live in a state of grace. To walk by faith. All different ways of saying the same thing. In every case, the relationship with God - personal, intimate, and meaningful - is the inner engine that fuels the outward blessing.

So where - specifically when it comes to youth and children - are we falling short? Why, despite our best efforts and best intentions, do kids fall away from churches in droves once they get to college?

I'm going to suggest, this week and next, an answer by way of a metaphor: The ball keeps falling off the finger.

It's not that we're not caring. It's not that we don't have great intentions. It's that our efforts - in churches and in homes - inhabit the periphery of second- or third-tier issues and never connect those all the way to the target, which is inhabited by our central question: How can we get kids to initiate and maintain a dynamic, personal relationship with God?

We miss in two directions. Some church programs and Christian parenting books (and consequently, Christian parenting practices) focus on manufacturing good fruit. The unspoken message is: with the right amount of self-discipline you, too, can pretty much live the way God wants you to - a message which is decidedly not the gospel. The other misdirection is harder to detect: we either attack things that might stand in the way of kids' relationship with God, or we provide good, wholesome events and programs that point them in the direction of Christ, but we fail to carry the ball across the goal line. More specfically, we fail to make the hand-off so that kids can carry the ball across the goal line.

What do I mean? A few examples: Sunday schools abound with lessons on the importance of being nice, kind, generous, etc., to other people. But that's a little too simple. Any Christian perspective on "being good" must take into account the God who made us good, that our ability to do good comes from God, the purpose of being good, the potential of goodness to altar our character, and the importance of obedience to the good even when we don't feel like it. Ultimately, a lesson on goodness must equip and challenge kids to go out and do good, then to reflect and share how that experience impacted their relationship with a transcendent and all-good God. But that almost never happens. We stop at, "It's wrong to be mean to people."

Or we might educate parents on shielding their kids from violent or sexually explicit media content. We might put literature in your hands that teaches you how to use filtering software and to block certain TV programs, or we might recommend alternative sources of movies and music. Ultimately, though, if it fails to nurture kids' spiritual relationship with God (that is, if our kids don't enjoy and appreciate God more), all we've done is shield them from bad stuff. Not a wrong intention in and of itself, but incomplete - a peripheral issue - if our real desire is to see them in a life-giving relationship with God.

Some national youth and children's ministries have "worldview" in their crosshairs. They pump out product after product aimed at getting kids to adopt a worldview that believes in the concept of objective truth. But they aren't always careful or successful in leading kids through the "Now that..." step: Now that you understand that there is objective truth, how can we help you get closer to the One who gave it? Kids might become more morally discerning or morally dogmatic, but they aren't necessarily any closer to God.

Or, we might offer terrific church programming where everyone is safe and happy and the pizza shows up on time and the music is great and kids laugh and make new friends...but in the end, we haven't offered much that a secular youth-serving organization could have done. Our ministry has been guilty of that at times. Are we attentive to nurturing the seed that was planted? Honestly, no. It's all we can do to see an event through to its conclusion, and we're grateful when the last kid gets picked up. Don't get me wrong. I think care, programming, relationships, and a fun environment all matter. But properly understood, they are means to an end. And God is the end.

The answer, by the way, is not to be spiritually ham-handed. Kids see through that. They know when you're layering on spiritual language or practice that doesn't fit with the context or is inauthentic. Sometimes a fun bowling event or a fishing trip can be allowed to be just that. Often kids are more profoundly affected when adults simply "be church" rather than "have church".

By choice, I am an optimist. I do think the efforts families and churches make for the good of kids are all useful, and I don't want to see them go away. But could we be more complete in ensuring that we are always driving toward the ultimate goal? Yes, we could. A lot of it involves consciously driving ourselves back to the question that matters: Is this getting kids to initiate and maintain dynamic, personal relationships with God?

So here's the metaphor: a vibrant spiritual life, one that overflows into all other aspects of life, is like a basketball spinning on someone's finger. I myself am not very good at that trick. But when I do sometimes get it to work, it's amazing to me how effortless it is. Which is itself an illusion: there's a great deal of effort involved in getting the ball spinning and keeping it spinning, but it doesn't look like it. It just looks and feels amazing. Kind of like a vibrant spiritual life. Therefore, as we minister to kids and adolescents, I think our eye should be on getting, and keeping, that ball spinning. Spinning with such ease that a child's relationship with God becomes almost second-nature. Spinning with such force that its existence alters their habits, relationships, mindset, future plans, and affections.

But, the ball rarely spins and keeps spinning the first time the trick is tried. And it never keeps spinning wholly on its own. There are lots of false starts, and a constant need to supply the energy that will keep it going. So it is with kids as they develop a spiritual life. Every one of our attempts to "help" should have the ultimate aim of getting that ball spinning on their finger. Demonstration can be important, but for the most part, kids will benefit when we hand the ball to them and work with them on getting it to spin on their own finger.

I've written in this space before that kids are like diamonds: successful formation is the product of consistent heat and pressure over a long period of time. We might well ask ourselves: is our ministry to kids, in homes (through parenting) and in the church (through ministry programs), having the effect of getting that ball spinning?

(to be continued)