Hitting Home

(No) Surprise: Kids Need Time for Free Play

2011-10-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

What can parents and other caring adults do to promote social development in kids and ensure their future health and well-being? Those of us who work with kids spend hours considering this question. But the answer may be simple: quit trying, and let kids go play. As the saying goes, sometimes less is more.

Of course, it's not entirely as simple as that, but allowing kids to play freely is an important part of the equation. Sadly, it's also the element that's been crowded out as education reform and the uber-professionalization of youth sports have encroached on childhood. Free play - that is, activities that are freely chosen by kids and that have no time limits, no adult management, and whose starting and ending points depend solely on what a kid wants to do - stands in opposition to the way we've regimented kids' lives, all in the name of making things "better" for them by measuring and evaluating everything they do. This is progress?

The call for more free time for kids to play is not new. A Google search of "kids need free play" turned up articles from October 2006, January 2009, and October of 2010. And - get this - there's actually an organization called the "Alliance for Childhood", a major focus of which is advocating for kids' opportunity to have time to play. Really? There is actually a national organization whose mission is to see that your son or daughter be allowed to go outside and play tag? Yep - and the movement faces formidable opposition.

Not principled opposition, of course - what kind of Scrooge would actually come out and say that they were against kids getting to play together? The opposition instead rests in the very structure of kids' lives, and is rooted in the belief that compared to academics, music lessons, organized sports leagues, and club activities (and yes, even church activities can contribute), free time to simply play isn't that important.

The latest voice in the wilderness is a man named Peter Gray, a professor at Boston College, who's been studying the positive effects of play for years, but who recently garnered media attention for his paper linking the decline of free play with an increase in emotional and behavioral problems once kids grow up. Gray makes the case that when kids don't play, the skills of emotional regulation - how to get along, how to share, how to make decisions - don't get a workout. The eventual result is teenagers who have poor impulse control, underdeveloped social skills, and who suffer more anxiety and depression as a result. And Carlo Rotella, writing about Gray's research in the Boston Globe, points out that substituting adult-regulated activities doesn't cut it:

"The 'free' part matters. There's a deceptively big difference between being told by and adult to get in line to take your turn on the slide and learning from interaction with other kids, through trial and error and conflict and cooperation, that it's not OK to hog the slide."

I'll never forget when I substitute taught in a kindergarten classroom, and the lead teacher was guiding the kids through an art project. At one point, she demanded that all the kids fix their eyes on her, because "I'm going to show you how to make a spider." These were five year olds drawing. She no doubt thought she was helping. She wasn't. Little wonder that as I circulated through the room and suggested to a boy that he could draw a woman in a skirt, he looked at me and said, "I don't know how." What he was really saying was, "I don't want to get it wrong...so I'd rather not try."

Art projects aren't exactly free play (because they are solitary pursuits, not requiring the skills of interaction), but the point is that one thing preventing kids from doing their own thing is our fear that they might get it wrong. Put yourself in the shoes of an adult witnessing the dispute over the slide that Rotella describes above. If you saw one child budging the line, or stopping midway down the slide, or climbing up the wrong way so others couldn't take their turn, would you intervene, or let kids work it out? I'll admit it would be hard not to mediate, to think that they need my help in solving the problem, because what if they do it wrong? And what if there's a fight? And what if someone's feelings are hurt in the fight? To stay out of it is to risk that kids might not resolve things - at least not right away. Kid justice can be brutal.

Another factor keeping kids from interacting is that they have no place to play. Two of the greatest parental fears - that their child will be kidnapped or that they will be hit by a car - work against kids being able to be outside. Today's parenting generation grew up in the days of some high-profile abductions (like Adam Walsh and Polly Klaas) and were taught in schools (even in my midwestern hometown of 7,000) to fear strangers. Despite the fact that the probability of a child being kidnapped is quite low (about 1 in 347,000; there are between 100-150 stranger abductions in the U.S. each year, nowhere near a million a year, which was what we were told in the 1980s), that's no comfort to the family it does happen to. And with every missing child story now receiving national attention on cable news, it makes us all think: It could be us.

And there are other reasons kids don't play. Lack of time is certainly one. We're more mobile, which allows us to "spread out" our lives - but that also results in moms and dads spending hours each week toting kids from one scheduled activity to the next. Time spent consuming screen media also gobbles up time kids could be playing together. (I think it remains to be seen whether "social" media actually enhances kids' sociability or not. Part of me admires its ability to put people in touch with each other. And what are we doing online? We're communicating - which isn't all bad.) And schools have changed. Not only do they assign more homework, but things like recess and physical education have been pared back, and the teaching itself is different - more directed, more teacher-centered, and very outcomes-oriented.

You could make the argument, of course, that it's outcomes that matter most, and therefore there's nothing wrong with teaching kids how to hit a baseball (by enrolling them in a league), or how to do math (by hiring a private tutor), or how to play the guitar (at $50 a lesson). And there is nothing wrong with those things. Except to remember that the outcomes kids care about often relate to things adults find trivial. When I was 10, we spent a lot of time dreaming up improvements to my friend's fort in the loft of his garage, or pursuing ever-better "jumps" on our dirtbikes, or figuring out really clever places to hide when we played kick the can. Today those things matter nothing to me - I've got bigger fish to fry - but maybe there was something in the process of doing those things that mattered far more than the final product.

In the end, granting kids more freedom to play isn't an easy matter. We didn't get here because of some stated ideology that kids shouldn't play. We got here by building a society that believes in outcomes and status more than we do the intrinsic value of being a kid. Can you imagine getting out of bed and spending an entire day playing? I can't. But they can. And the adult priorities and responsibilities that keep us from living in that world will soon enough creep into their lives, pulling them away from a time in life they'll never recapture. Part of our job is to help them enjoy and embrace these years, which are some of the best of their life - they just don't know it. And, unbelievably, it appears one of the best things we can do is to leave them alone, to play.

Can Kids Outgrow God?

2011-08-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

During the last six years of overseeing 4th-6th grade ministry at NCCC, I’ve had the parallel experience of watching my nieces and nephews grow up from babies to preschool and elementary school-aged children. Through holiday visits, Skype, Facebook, and home videos I have been able to glimpse pieces of their faith development, and it’s been fascinating. I’ve observed prayers, Sunday school programs and songs, heard some Bible stories retold, and picked up some nuggets that reflect their young understanding of God’s big world and their place in it.

At the same time, I've witnessed each developmental stage and phase, and laughed with the rest of my family as the kids move from one obsession to the next. Blue, Dora, The Wiggles, Elmo, Spiderman, cowboys, and the Disney princesses have all had their day. But soon, each is eclipsed by the next favorite thing, and the old hero gets passed down to the next-youngest sibling. At their houses, Santa Claus is still alive and well at Christmas time. But this won’t last forever.

My hope, of course, is that their curiosity, interest, and affinity for God as they grow up will never go the way of Elmo. And that is my hope for your kid as well. It’s worth asking the question: Can kids outgrow God? Can he lose his currency, becoming yesterday’s news, just at the time when kids begin facing questions like, “Who am I?” and “What was I created for?” and “What am I worth?” Too many adults attempt to answer those questions with the very author of life shunted to the sidelines.

We dare not let that happen.

Does God live in storybooks?
I am a fan of Bible storybooks for young kids. Our family had one, and I still can recall “what Adam and Eve looked like,” and the fierceness of God’s wrath represented by a red sky, and the wily Jacob fooling his father into thinking he was Esau. Of course, those weren’t true pictures, but some artist’s rendering. But to me, they were “real." Young kids, being concrete thinkers, receive and store those early impressions and images for a long, long time. (When I was four, I thought our pastor and God were one and the same - probably the reason I still, without thinking, picture God having a red beard and not a gray one.) The downside to cartoonish representations, though, is that they can lead kids to believe that “Bible stories” and
“Bible characters” were fictional. This is a symptom of a larger phenomenon that kids face as they grow. Bible storybooks are not the problem (not even a problem).

The issue is this: are kids’ conceptions of God allowed and encouraged to grow as they do?

We – the churches that serve them and the families that raise them – hold the key to the answer. To the extent that we “create” their understanding of God by the stories we tell, the symbols we use, the holidays we celebrate, and the way we worship (and countless other ways), kids’ knowledge of God is largely dependent on us. I do not deny that young children think thoughts about God completely on their own, nor that they can enjoy an unmediated relationship with him without any help from us. But that relationship does not exist in a vacuum. It is always culturally conditioned by the expressed thoughts and attitudes of the adults (that is, the authority figures) who run their world.

And so, we are responsible, not only for creating a picture of God that is true in their minds as young children, but also for continuing to refine and update kids’ views of God as they grow. If we are diligent about giving them Jesus when they are young, but then back off as they grow older, we run the risk that as kids grow up, they’ll consider God “kiddie stuff”, a relic from early childhood.

We dare not let that happen.

A different approach
As a kid becomes a preteen (and there’s no defining criteria for that), their ability to think and reason abstractly will blossom. As it does, they reach a junction in the development of personal faith. The question usually takes a form like, “Is God really real?” but what they’re actually asking is “Is God relevant?” As the serpent tempted Eve – “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree?” – kids also want to know whether God belongs only to the simple world they’re growing out of, or if he has a place in the more complicated world of the future? And if so, what is it?

About this same time, kids come to realize that parents and other adults aren’t perfect, that grown-ups break promises, aren’t superhuman, and actually get away with doing a fair number of the things they tell their kids not to do. What does this knowledge do to a kid’s faith, when up until that time, the adults in their lives have been the embodiment of qualities like power and might and authority and love and right – all of the same attributes that are ascribed to God? It’s common and almost unavoidable for a young child to perceive of God as a human. The concept of God being beyond human – that he is spiritual and eternal and holy? That’s a new one for older kids to make sense of.

And here’s another change: older kids exercise more leadership over their own lives. Young children make very few meaningful decisions for themselves. But older elementary kids get much greater latitude to decide who they’ll be and how they’ll act and how they’ll spend their time. And this is good – it is the birth of autonomy, which will someday lead them into life as an adult, no longer dependent on parental oversight. (Some preteen ministry colleagues of mine refer to this necessary stage as “Letting Go of the Bike.”) But, one of the skills needed to handle autonomy is the ability to discern good leaders from bad leaders. “Who should I follow?” is a key developmental step – it is the art of self-leadership. Older kids and adolescents are bombarded with cues about “how to be”: social cues, academic cues, family cues, cultural cues, internal emotional cues. It’s bewildering. Obeying God is suddenly no longer as simple as just obeying Mom and Dad.

I believe that to minister (literally, to serve or to meet the needs of) this age group, we ought to encourage and allow kids to bring God out of the box, out from the packaging he resided in when they were young children, and to meet, experience, relate, and walk with him in a new way. I don’t dismiss childhood faith; but neither do I rest on it. Young kids, for instance, say some pretty cute things about God. But what 10-year-old wants to be known for the cute things he used to say when he was five?

So, can kids outgrow God? In an actual sense, no. Of course God is big enough for all of our lives, and is always several steps ahead of us. But in a practical sense, yes. If we’re not diligent to push kids to grow in their faith – just as we would encourage them at this age to grow in athletic potential or grow in knowledge or grow in new experiences – then their faith will be immature as they grow right past it. I can’t help but think of a 9th grade boy I once led in a high school small group. We had just met, but it was evident he was attending youth group in body only. As he explained, “I figure I pretty much know everything there is to know about God.” How wrong he was, and how sadly his life unfolded in the years that followed, when he reached the point of his greatest need, yet God wasn’t even on the radar screen.

I don’t know what exactly brought him to the point where he thought he “pretty much knew everything there was to know about God,” but I suspect the culprit may have been one of the following:

Church programs for kids that were boring
Church programs that too closely resembled school
Programming that mistook fervor (“Scream for Jesus!”) for spiritual depth
Adults who talked too much and listened too little
Music intended to glorify God but that was too childish to work
Too-simple, pat answers to his questions

We will not let that happen! Growth is God’s intention for us. And growth implies change. An acorn is destined to become a shoot. A shoot is destined to become a baby oak. A young oak, while pleasing to the eye, is not meant to stop there, but to become a mighty, tall tree. In the same way, the Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” All kids want to grow up. (Yes, I know: if only we could convince them how great it is to be a kid!) We owe it to them to introduce and re-introduce them to the God who’s big enough for the future.

A Royal Myth

2011-05-03T00:44:00.002-07:00

Quick question: If a couple lives together before they get married, does this increase or decrease the chance of later divorcing? If you said “increase”, you’re right: studies show that cohabitation does not ensure marital success, particularly if the reason for living together is to “test the waters” before marriage. Now, someone needs to tell Piers Morgan.

The CNN host, who took over Larry King’s timeslot, was interviewing actress Jane Seymour on the royal wedding of Wiliam and Kate last week when he made the observation that William’s parents were 13 years apart in age, and that because of Diana’s inexperience (read between the lines here), this doomed the relationship. Whereas, he continued, Kate and William faced a much brighter future because they’d lived together already. Times have changed, he observed, and this is for the better: William and Kate are protected from the buyer’s remorse that afflicted Williams’ dad.

It’s a nice theory for why Charles and Di didn’t work out, and it’s utterly false. That is, apart from that royal match that turned into a royal mess (and who will ever know precisely what went wrong?), cohabitation simply does not immunize couples against later difficulties in their marriage. The idea that “test driving” a relationship ensures a better marriage is a myth.

But it’s a persistent myth, in part because it’s easier to acquiesce to the culture than to be counter-cultural, and because beliefs help us organize our world. If we are determined to believe that humans are getting smarter and modernity is trending us toward greater happiness and peace, even in our relationships, then believing the myth of premarital cohabitation fits. As the thinking goes, of course it’s better for couples to live together before they get married – and that happens to be the way things are going anyhow.

We don’t believe them because they’re myths; we believe them because they work for us. And that’s unfortunate, because they cause us to buy into what will in fact make us less happy in our relationships.

Here are three other persistent myths that I think oppress families in their effort to raise mature, emotionally-socially-spiritually well adjusted kids:

“Parents and teenage kids are bound to be at odds.” This is another way of saying, “Parenting a teenager is war.” I wholeheartedly disagree, and the more families I meet where that isn’t the case, the more harmful I believe this myth is. Parents who buy it adopt a warlike stance, dreading their kids growing up (when they should be welcoming it and celebrating it) and expecting the worst from their kid because, after all, “teenagers are just a pain.” This line of reasoning has got to go. Kids – of all ages – need their parents. It’s just that as they get older, they need them in different ways. We intuitively grasp that preschoolers need not be parented as infants are, and that grade-schoolers can do more for themselves than when they were younger; why must burgeoning autonomy in the last part of childhood – adolescence – feared?

“Everyone is bound to rebel/Everyone will have a Prodigal Son experience.” Is this true? It certainly wouldn’t seem so from reading the New Testament, including the passage where that story appears. Luke 15 makes more of a statement about the Father – that his love will never be exhausted, that he rejoices when a sinner repents – than it does about us. And why would Paul and the other NT letter writers bother to exhort their recipients to grow, to persevere, to avoid sinful behavior, if straying from the Lord was the norm, even expected? That doesn’t wash, but this myth causes us to shrug when kids begin to make poor choices or surround themselves with bad influences. We can promote better alternatives for them, and we should believe the best in them. To do otherwise is a bad gamble.

“It’s really no big deal if kids leave the church after graduating high school – someday they’ll come back.” This one’s related to the previous one, but it’s demonstrably untrue. Those who walk away from their faith while in college – either because the seed was never planted while they were in our care or the plant never took root or because the world lured them away – are by and large not coming back to churches. Those who are usually do so after they’ve gotten married and had children. In the meantime, the critical formative years of late adolescence and early adulthood are shaped by the priorities and values of the secular world. Think of it: how many life-shaping decisions did you make between the ages of 18 and 28? And how many of those decisions would you have made differently if God had been in the picture? It won’t do for us to mortgage kids’ futures by adopting an “Eh,” stance when it comes to their spiritual growth. Being firmly rooted in the faith is an imperative for kids before they leave high school. No, we can’t force it and shouldn’t try. But if we’re not giving our best efforts to come alongside kids while we have the chance, we’re missing the golden opportunity.

The Apostle Paul didn’t shrug off the responsibility or urgency of nurturing those he’d led to Christ. To the church at Corinth, he wrote, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some,” to the Ephesians and the Colossians he urged, “Make the most of every opportunity.” You do not see him saying, “Now that you have Christ, I fully expect that you will abandon everything I’ve taught you, return to your former lives, and then maybe possibly come back to him in the end – so I’m not worried.” No – Paul believed that redemption was an all-consuming work and that growth and maturity should be expected.

What is our expectation when God is infused in the life of the family? The Bible teaches us to be realistic about humans’ potential – we are fallen and incomplete, after all – but not pessimistic. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” When parents believe rebellion and abandoning faith is a sure stop on their kid’s life journey, and when churches ratify these myths, we are aiming too low – a royal whiff.

A Royal Myth

2011-05-03T00:44:00.001-07:00

The CNN host, who took over Larry King’s timeslot, was interviewing actress Jane Seymour on the royal wedding of Wiliam and Kate last week when he made the observation that William’s parents were 13 years apart in age, and that because of Diana’s inexperience (read between the lines here), this doomed the relationship. Whereas, he continued, Kate and William faced a much brighter future because they’d lived together. Times have changed, he observed, and this is for the better: William and Kate are protected from the buyer’s remorse that afflicted Williams’ dad.

Here are three other persistent myths that I think oppress families in their effort to spiritually nurture kids:

“Parents and teenage kids are bound to be at odds.” This is another way of saying, “Parenting a teenager is war.” I wholeheartedly disagree, and the more families I meet where that isn’t the case, the more harmful I believe this myth is. Parents who buy it adopt a warlike stance, dreading their kids growing up (when they should be welcoming it and celebrating it) and expecting the worst from their kid because, after all, “teenagers are just a pain.” This line of reasoning has got to go. Kids – of all ages – need their parents. It’s just that as they get older, they need them in different ways. We intuitively grasp that preschoolers need not be parented as infants are, and that grade-schoolers can do more for themselves than when they were younger; why is burgeoning autonomy in the last part of childhood – adolescence – feared?

What is our expectation when God is infused in the life of the family? The Bible teaches us to be realistic about humans’ potential – we are fallen and incomplete, after all – but not pessimistic. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” When parents believe rebellion and faithlessness is a sure stop on their kid’s life journey, and when churches ratify these myths, we are aiming too low – a royal whiff.

Something New

2011-03-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

Next weekend we begin piloting something new in 4th-6th grade: an automated check-in system. The benefits to you will ultimately be a streamlined check-in process. The benefits to us will be better tracking of kids' attendance - and a streamlined check-in process. Our hope is that sometime in the not-too-distant future, long check-in lines (for all ages) will be a thing of the past.

To get the system off the ground, we're asking for your help. For starters, anytime you implement a new system - especially if it's technology-based - there are bound to be hiccups. This system will rely on our computers, network, and printers running as they should. While there's no reason to believe they won't, tech problems have a way of surfacing at the 11th hour.

Secondly, the easiest way kids & families will access the check-in system is by entering their phone number. We can also look up kids by last name, but phone number is far faster. So - does your kid know your phone number?

And which number? Good question. The answer is, whichever number(s) we have on file for you. Depending on when you first registered your child (which could have been many years ago!), we may have a home phone, cell phone, or both listed for you. Not to worry - we will have lists of all the kids cross-referenced with the phone number we have on file. But ultimately, the phone number will be the quickest way to check-in.

In the beginning, anyhow. Well down the road our hope is to allow you to use a barcode, like you might at the library or the gym, to check-in. Before we get there, we need to iron out any wrinkles in the system as it is.

Here's what the "new" check-in system will look like (and remember, this is only being implemented in 4th-6th grade to begin with; a full children's ministry rollout is a few months away):

1. Kids will arrive and give the check-in volunteer the last seven digits of their phone number.

2. A screen for your family will pop-up, showing any kids in 4th-6th grade.

3. The check-in volunteer will click next to the name of the kids checking in, and -

4. At the same time, the printer will spit out a fully printed nametag, containing the kid's name, the age group, and their small group number.

And that's it! Quick and efficient, the program also creates electronic records for us, so we can look back at individual attendance records and patterns. Currently we have a team of volunteers who takes the paper check-in packets from the weekends and enters the attendance into our database by hand. Needless to say, we are eager to find a quicker way to do that.

Next weekend, the automated system will be set up for 4th-6th graders in the lobby outside our room. If kids forget to come upstairs, they can still do paper check-in downstairs. Beginning the weekend of March 19-20, we hope to have the system fully implemented & operational upstairs.

Again, your patience with us during a period of change is much appreciated. We know that this upgrade will be a great thing in the long run.

Is It All a Race to Nowhere?

2010-12-19T22:46:00.000-08:00

If you've ever fought with your kid over homework, stressed about whether they'll get into a good college someday, or worried about the strain on one of your older children's health because of the demands of middle or high school, then you owe it to yourself to see a new documentary titled, "Race to Nowhere".

It remains to be seen if the film will become what it aims to be, which is a game-changer. Before that will happen, it needs to be a conversation starter. And it will give you a lot to think about.

Consider the following "nuggets" pulled from the film (I am quoting from some rough notes I took while watching it, so the transcription may not be exact):

"Everybody talks about getting their kid into the best school. There is no "best school"; what you should be looking for is the best match."
On college kids who had to check into stress clinics to recover from the performance stress at the end of academic terms: one college official cites parents who express shock - "How could this happen? They're a good kid." And he answers them, "No, they're a good performer. You never knew if they were a good kid."
On communities that pride themselves on high test scores at schools: "Community is not about boasting that all is right with the world. Community is like being family; it's being yourself."

"Race to Nowhere" was produced by Vicki Abeles, a mom from Northern California who observed the toll performance pressure was taking on her kids. After her 12-year-old daughter was rushed to the hospital with stress-related illness, she began to investigate what exactly was happening in schools to stress kids out - and more importantly, to question whether it was all worth it.

One of the most heartbreaking parts of the film is when her 3rd grade son testifies to the headaches and stomachaches he feels when he's "stressed out". Um, excuse me? Third-graders should not be "stressed out" - ever. To feel stress is to be aware that someone else is holding performance expectations over you. That's inappropriate enough for a kid of that age, but "stressed out" implies that the pressure has gone on long enough that the target of the stress - the kid - is starting to break down.

The examples in the film get more grim from there. You meet a girl who discovered she could stay up later (and "get so much done") if she didn't eat. She developed anorexia. After a stint at a clinic, she returned to her school, only to be asked by the principal to leave: her weight loss was making other students and teachers worried about her.

It all leads up to the story of 13-year-old Devon Marvin. The 8th grade honor roll student from Danville took her own life when the pressure got to be too much. She was pushed over the edge by a bad grade on a math test.

But it isn't just the effects of stress on students that this film addresses. "Race to Nowhere" also sheds light on high-stakes testing, the college entrance game, the loss of teacher creativity and flexibility (because their jobs have been narrowed to test preparation), the use of drugs by students to stay alert and to relax, and the prevalence of cheating. It barely touches on the industry of SAT test prep, which uses old exams to teach kids "strategies" for gaming the test, turning what should be a measure of student academic potential into another crude and cynical exercise in outperforming an exam. Also alluded to is the dismal reality that vast numbers of high school students admitted to Cal State schools end up needing to take remedial courses. In other words, despite their high test scores and impressive GPAs, they really aren't as smart or proficient as those measures seem to indicate.

And - most importantly - they don't love to learn. School becomes just a joyless enterprise. As one boy in the film describes it, he crams as much information into his brain as he can in preparation for a test, and then, "Two hours later - it's gone." And this causes idealistic young teachers to either harden and accommodate to what the system demands of them, or quit. As a former teacher who got tired of chasing down missing assignments and giving grades, I could identify with the young female teacher interviewed in the film, who became so disgusted with the lack of real learning that was happening that she decided to resign.

It isn't hard to understand why it's gotten to this. Simple economics and demographics paint a grim picture: the Baby Boomers had kids, and there were lots of them. But colleges only have so much room, so competition builds. As the next kid achieves a 4.2 GPA on the strength of his two Advanced Placement courses, your kid suddenly needs a 4.3 and three AP's in order to maintain an advantage. Meanwhile, every parent is keenly aware of the kind of income their kid will need to have in order to have a better life than they do. (And what parent doesn't want that?) The film doesn't go so far as to question whether kids will forever be able to live more affluently than their parents, but it begs the question.

In the end, "Race to Nowhere" is a call to reevaluation and redefinition: what do we mean when we say someone is a "good student" who attends a "good school" with "good teachers"? What should "good grades" represent? But most importantly, what is it all for? The film isn't balanced - and that's the point. The subtitle of "Race to Nowhere" is "The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture." Clearly, Director Abeles wants us to agree with her that all of this - the super-charged, achieve-at-any-cost, outperform-the-next-kid system that is American education - is damaging to kids and needs to be rethought.

The documentary is thought-provoking, but it stops just short of being compelling. Right now it is being screened at select showings across the country. Apparently a nationwide release is set for March, but the beauty of the early screenings has been that they are all sponsored by organizations which promise to facilitate dialogue sessions as part of the showing. The screening I attended was at Carrillo Elementary, and judging from parents' comments after the film, it was apparent that the movie struck a chord with most of them. But the overall thrust of the film, which is hinted at in the title, is muted and understated. So, for instance, our discussion group spent most of its time talking over whether kids should be given so much homework and pushed to be involved in after school clubs and sports. These are issues broached in the film, to be sure, but they are not the main point, which is that the seeds of over-achievement that are planted in elementary school end up leading...well, to nowhere.

And it is here that Christians should take note, first of all because some of us have unwittingly contributed to a high-stakes culture and not been counter-cultural enough, but also because "Race to Nowhere" can prompt some existential questions about, say, the purpose of life and the value of the mind and the importance of childhood and the meaning of "success". The film doesn't offer answers to any of those questions, from a Christian perspective or another other perspective, but if you take its message to its logical conclusion, those questions are where you end up.

Jesus said, "What good is it for you to gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit your soul?" We should still be asking that question today. And it shouldn't take dangerous threats to our kids' physical health, their self-concepts, and their sanity to get us there.

"Race to Nowhere" is currently showing at select screenings. An early December showing in Carlsbad sold out; another showing for January 6 has also sold out. But check www.racetonowhere.com/screenings for info on other scheduled screenings (for instance, Jan. 12 in Rancho Santa Fe; the film has also been shown in San Diego and Orange County), which continue to be added.

Families Matter

2010-09-05T19:44:00.001-07:00

Why hold a FallLaunch for parents on maximizing spiritual influence? Why offer a PG-13 class, equipping parents to guide a young adolescent? Why teach a five-week overview of the Bible for parents & kids to take together?

Simply, because if we care about kids, we have to.

More precisely, if we take seriously the responsibility we've been given to lead kids to faith and through faith, we have to pay attention to the facts about relative influence. "Relative influence" doesn't refer to the fact that families have more influence than churches - but it could! Because in a study by Search Institute, when teenagers were asked who had most influenced the faith they had, "parents" was the #1 response - ahead of church programs, youth ministers, or peers.

That's something to think about. But we need to do more than just think about it. We - churches and parents - need to consider the implications. Here's the truth: church programming is probably better than it's ever been for children and youth. There is a ton of published material out there for groups of all sizes, addressing every topic under the sun. Five years ago the amount of curriculum and devotional materials specifically for preteens was pretty sparse. No longer. Churches and what we do are important. But we are not enough.

Consider: A kid who came to church every weekend and attended our midweek program every single week would have about 111 hours invested at the church each year. By contrast, they spend over 1,000 hours in school per year, and - ready? - about 4 hours watching TV and more than 7.5 hours using all forms of electronic media on a typical day (for kids 8-18, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). So with packed schedules, how can parents possibly make a difference?

The answer is that parents set the context of a kid's whole life, and most importantly, they are the ones available when the opportunity for spiritual influence arises. One formal study of parent-child "God talks" found that discussion of spiritual matters was most likely to occur randomly, and not on the way to and from religious services or activities. It seems churches can do all they want to try to make spiritual dialogue happen inside their walls (and they sometimes succeed), but for the most part, kids will talk when they're good and ready! And those times tend to fall among the everyday experiences of life: in the car on the way to school, at mealtimes and bedtimes, while on vacation, during commercial breaks of TV shows, and so on. Families matter because parents are consistently there.

That's not to say that churches don't have a role. We have an important one. But it's wrong to think of kids as empty vessels, who will only think about the things we give them to think about and ask about the things we happen to be talking about. Kids' minds are always at work trying to make sense of the world they live in, and parents, by their proximity, are in perfect position to be the day-to-day leaders.

Imagine for a minute that you were going to tend to your kid's spiritual health the same way you tend to their physical health. What would that look like?

First, you'd recognize that kids are resilient. We don't have to be perfect in the way that we nurture, but we shouldn't be totally negligent, either. Somewhere between "whatever doesn't kill 'em, makes 'em stronger" and perfectionist parenting lies a happy medium, where we do our best with what we have and recognize that one person's efforts won't make or break a kid spiritually.

Still, that wouldn't keep you from bringing your child in for doctor's visits. It wouldn't stop you from giving your kid medicine and rest when they are sick. In the same way, we're right to expose kids to good church programming, to use the counseling and support group resources of a church when needed. It's good to make regular church attendance part of the routine of your family, and for your kid to become known by other kids and leaders.

But if you left the doctor's office and then returned to a steady diet of junk food, that'd be pretty counterproductive. Because you know and recognize that good health is in your hands, a product of the decisions you make day in and day out. You'd buy healthy foods and learn how to prepare healthy meals. You'd encourage your child to get adequate exercise, and rest. As best you could, you'd try to incorporate good health habits into the rhythm of your family's life. And you'd stay up on what promotes health, talking to others who care about what you care about, reading articles and books.

So it is with spiritual health. Our health - bodily and spiritually - depends on the decisions we make, which become habits. What are the habits parents should develop with their kids to promote a spiritually healthy family, and what's just a waste of time? How do we distinguish between spiritual growth and moral development? How do we get kids to want the things we want them to? In short, how do we nurture their hearts?

These questions are what we'll begin to tackle on Wednesday night at FallLaunch, a program which will be repeated in identical form on Sunday, September 19. We're buying dinner (lunch for the 19th) and we'll even care for your kids.

Everyone's time is limited. Let's spend it focusing on questions that matter, which ultimately are not "Which game should we play in class Sunday?" or "What's a new song the kids will like to sing?" The one that matters is, "Given the access and position a mom or dad holds, what can they do to really make a difference in nurturing faithful, faith-filled kids?"

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

2010-06-12T23:01:00.001-07:00

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?

2010-06-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

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)

Creating a Just World for Kids

2010-03-01T00:02:00.000-08:00

The concept of "quality time" was born in the 1970s, as a way to allow parents who wanted to "have it all" and "do it all" to balance family life, careers, and a full plate of individual interests. The idea was that if you didn't have a lot of time, at least you could make the time you have count. Later, detractors would note that you can't schedule a "quality" encounter, but that quality is a dynamic in a relationship that develops over time: quality may be a byproduct of quantity.

These considerations - are we spending enough time with kids, and is the time we spend valuable - are worthwhile. But I would suggest there is yet another way adults can invest their time that will inject quality into the context of their kids' lives - a gift that keeps on giving, if you will.

That gift is to be the dispenser and the ensurer of justice in their world. To back up a bit, one component of quality time - that is, the thing that actually makes quality time "quality" - is that it is redemptive. In other words, it is recovering lost value. It is replacing or reinstituting something of worth that is otherwise lacking. When we spend time with kids that is redemptive, they leave better off than they came in, because we've left them with something that lifts them or stretches them or grows them. To use a biblical metaphor, we've set their feet upon a rock, giving them a firm place to stand. (Psalm 40:2)

Justice is redemptive, because it restores an order and a fairness to a context where disorder and injustice are the norm. By establishing justice, we send a message that injustice, however rampant, will not be allowed to bully its way to the top, but that we're paying attention, noticing, and willing to exert correction whenever necessary. I'm convinced this is God's heart when it comes to injustice. He notices, he grieves, and he speaks, so as to remind the world that injustice does not reign, that it should never be accepted as the status quo. Unfortunately, we've sometimes been too busy or too apathetic to battle systemic, institutional sins like unjust power structures, or unjust treatment of prisoners, or racism, or torture. And the longer the church - God's agents of remedying injustice - is silent, the more injustice does become the norm.

What happens then is that the number of victims grows, because the doers of injustice believe they can act with impunity. Victims sometimes become oppressors themselves, because after all, if it's a dog-eat-dog world, you may as well exercise the advantage that you have. You may be thinking that I'm describing what happens in modern-day sex slavery, or exploitation of laborers, or caste classifications in India - and I am. But I'm also describing the world kids live in when adults unwisely retreat in the name of "teaching them to work things out for themselves."

If what constitutes "teaching them" is actually a constructive intervention, that's one thing. But if it's a refusal to act because the dispute seems downright trivial to us or we just don't care, we should bear in mind that such efforts toward self-mediated conflict resolution rarely result in justice. By refusing to intervene, we send a message that we really don't care about their social world (which is tacit permission to mistreat others), or that we are aware but we still expect them to put up with whatever unfairness is plaguing them because "life's not fair."

We can do better. Surely an attitude that injustice is an inevitable reality will produce kids who grow up to believe that - well - injustice is an inevitable reality, on whatever scale. The truth is that there are schools that have cut down bullying incidences, where teasing and put-downs are not acceptable, and in which it isn't good to be bad. This is accomplished not by meddling in kids' social interactions, but by the same means in which justice is established in the adult world: violators are brought to account, victims are given a voice, and the vision and value of establishing a just culture is reaffirmed.

As a kid who grew up on the receiving end of my share of mistreatment - and I dished out a good deal of it, too - there were times when I really wished an adult had taken notice and acted on our problems in getting along with each other. Instead, kid justice ruled. And kid justice is not justice. It rarely has in view the greater good or restoration for the victim, but is marked by retaliation and one-upsmanship. What's needed is a figure with enough common sense and authority to say, "No - this is how it's going to be." Some kids have the common sense. But few have the authority.

If we somehow establish justice among kids, we send a message that fair play and equal treatment of others ought to be the norm. They come to expect it, and to practice it. I used to believe it was best to turn away from kids' disputes and make them work it out on their own. It's too much of a bother and frankly, the things they quarrel about seem trivial. But I've changed. When we trivialize their concerns about fair treatment, we actually sanction injustice. Of course teasing and name-calling isn't as grave an injustice as slavery, and I don't mean to equate the two, but only to make the point that if we model a practice of inaction toward anyone's suffering but our own, we are teaching kids that to step outside of themselves and own someone else's injustice isn't worth the effort. Why would I bear someone else's problems when I've got enough of my own?

Remedying injustice wherever it happens is not a matter of becoming a party to the injustice. Rather, it entails bringing the offender to account, and empowering and restoring the victim. What does this look like, say, in the context of bullying? First of all, kids should be aware that bullying is not ok and won't be tolerated. This is more than a rule, it's a cultural expectation: using your influence to intimidate someone else is wrong. Secondly, all kids are taught assertiveness skills to speak up for themselves, first to the bully and secondly to an adult - who won't brush aside their concerns, but who will act out of a sense of duty. Third, while we would hope that empowering kids and communicating expectations would stem any harrassment, when bullying does happen, adults are willing to step in and address the problem directly. This usually means bringing the offender and the victim face-to-face, sometimes with a third-party peer, for mediation. These programs work and have been implemented successfully at schools. They work precisely because they are engineered by adult authority figures, and that communicates: "You've violated a norm, and we've noticed, and we're not going to let it stand, so here's our efforts to fix it."

Asking kids to keep problems to themselves when the problem is actually bigger than what they can handle is a terrible solution. We often fail to step in because a 10-year-old's problems seem so small: why can't they see that this isn't worth fighting about? But it is that lack of mature perspective that makes them unable to either rise above the conflict or work out an equitable solution. They need our help, not to do it for them, but to give them the perspective that they lack and the skills and - most importantly - the permission to face down an injustice and make wrong right. This is the gift that keeps on giving, because when they bring an expectation of fairness into all of their relationships, they are less likely to be bullied again and more importantly less likely to visit that torment on someone else.

It's easy to sit in an affluent American community and assent to the idea that injustice is wrong. The real test is whether we have the courage to look for it in the immediate contexts of our lives and fight it wherever it's found - even if that's in a place as seemingly insignificant as our kids' lives and their relationships with other kids.

Ready to Roll

2010-02-19T15:00:00.001-08:00

By Karen J. Lucas-Howard

“ROADTRIP!” I have it written on my calendar in pink ink. It begins March 3rd and I can’t wait to get started. My name is Karen Howard, and for the second consecutive spring, STEAM is hosting a six week workshop for moms and their 4th-6th grade daughters. During this workshop which is based on my workbook entitled, Just Who Do You Think You Are?, I will lead mother and daughter teams on a fun and exciting excursion through the town of YOUston. Using activities, puzzles, scriptures and conversation, daughters will discover more about themselves. Moms will discover more about their daughters, and both will discover more about God.

Girls who attended the workshop last year enjoyed learning about their own personal styles, personalities and how God sees them. Moms expressed that the time they spent with daughters in these sessions was invaluable… and fun. One mom described the experience as “priceless.” Another mom said that the class inspired conversations with her daughter that probably wouldn’t have taken place otherwise.

When completing the final workshop evaluation forms, all the moms agreed that we achieved the goals of the sessions: To encourage girls to explore their own personalities and thoughts; To encourage a growing relationship between girls and their moms; And to encourage a growing relationship between girls and God.

This workshop is a great tool for moms who want to build, strengthen, and grow a healthy Godly relationship with their daughters. For more information on how and why I came to write “Just Who Do You Think You Are?” click on the link below… and then sign up to join us!

To register: e-mail Joy Beidel in the 4th-6th grade ministry.

Article: "Just Who Do You Think You Are?" by Karen Lucas-Howard

An Update: Human Trafficking at the World Cup

2010-02-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I wrote about a proposal in South Africa to legalize prostitution during this year's World Cup, and the danger that posed for children and youth who might become pawns at the hands of sex traffickers, for whom such a move would be a financial boon ("A Great Evil that is About to Unfold", October 10, 2009). Now, Benjamin Skinner, who was a panelist at the Global Forum on Human Trafficking here last fall, has published this article in Time Magazine on sex trafficking and South Africa's weak resolve to stop it.

What's New at STEAM

2010-01-03T22:54:00.000-08:00

New Year - new session of STEAM. Kids are already back to school(!), which means we gear up for the SPRING session beginning this Wednesday. (Having returned from Christmas vacation in North Dakota, where my family lives and where it was 30 below the morning I flew back, I love referring to a January event as "Spring Session".)

Lots of the familiar electives will be offered again, and in addition, here's what's new this time around:

Scrapbooking for Remembrance. Remembrance is a common theme in the Old Testament: God commanded the Israelites to remember, and not to forget, his forgiveness and deliverance and provision. We, too, benefit from looking back - or we risk being dragged down in our everyday circumstances, losing perspective. So along with getting kids started on their own scrapbook album, this elective will explore journaling and other reflective practices that are helpful in a robust spiritual life.

The Great Dollars and $ense Challenge. Let's teach kids how to handle money! Let's teach them young the value of dollars and sense, how to save and budget, and how God regards money, which is often the king of this world. In this elective, we've hand-picked from the best financial education lessons we can find for kids and our interactive approach will challenge kids to be wise stewards of the money they now have and will one day have.

Missions Projects. This elective will put kids to work each week on a different project to aid local and oversees missions organizations. As kids work, they'll learn about people with needs and how we can meet those needs.

Model Building. Kids will work in pairs to construct a model of the Israelites' tabernacle, the "house" they built for God while they were wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus. The tabernacle was later built in a more permanent form as the temple, so kids will learn about the priests and their sacrificial duties, the division of the courtyards, the items in the sanctuary, and so on. Great for hands-on learners!

Sewing. This is another one of those electives that came to us - someone wanting to lead offered this as a suggestion, and we agreed. It is, as the name implies, an introduction to sewing, and how to take a project from the concept stages through to completion. Kids will learn how to operate a sewing machine. Because of equipment limitations, we can take a maximum of eight kids, and this elective is already half full.

Sign Language. We offered Sign only once before, and it will return the second six weeks of this session (March-April). Kids will learn the alphabet, numbers, and how to sign basic words and phrases, as well as some special religious signs. I think a course in sign language is great because it opens kids' eyes to the reality that there is a whole segment of society - the deaf community - who are shut out from communicating with everyone except those who can sign. This has a major impact, of course, on whether and how deaf people can attend church.

Juggling. Juggling makes its return, after debuting the second six weeks this fall. Juggling challenges kids' coordination and also teaches them to be patient, to be thankful for what they can do (rather than resentful about what they can't), and to celebrate new accomplishments with one another. We also teach kids how a simple juggling routine can be used to share the gospel.

You can see all of the midweek program electives at our website - click the tab that says "Midweek Program".

How Christian Camping Helps Kids

2009-11-14T23:26:00.001-08:00

Christian camps and retreat centers have not been unaffected by the recession. As families' disposal income drops, trips and camps often get cut. But Christian camps face another challenge - the generational job of convincing kids and parents that they're not just another activity among equals, vying for kids' time and parents' money. Camps aren't just a weekend's worth of fun - they're an investment. And it would be a shame to lose them, because I can't think of anything that's even a close second.

By "generational job", I'm referring to a much shorter period of time than 30 or even 20 years. I'm reminded every year that fully one-third of the kids we minister to in 4th-6th grade are brand-new at this, that camp is a developmental milestone most haven't yet crossed, and that we get to walk them through it. But first we have to get them there.

Take a few minutes to view this video, produced by Forest Home, on what they call "core essentials" - the philosophy from which they operate their programs. Then I'd like to suggest seven reasons why Christian camps offer something kids can't easily get elsewhere - not even in church.

Here's what happens at camp that you won't find anywhere else:

1. Kids get almost 48 hours unplugged. The loss of wide-open spaces and the hurried pace of modern life deprives us of, to borrow the phrase of one of my seminary professors, "our best apologetics partner". To see the dramatic rise of the mountains on either side of the camp, to leap across rocks in the creek, or to smell fresh air reestablishes our place in the created order, bringing us closer to our true selves. We were not meant to be enslaved by cell phones, computer screens, or even school textbooks. We are people who labor under the illusion that we've tamed nature. Wrong. Technology has tamed us. We need to be set free. This happens at camp.

2. Kids genuinely play. Some will say that kids these days have forgotten how to play, because they're too busy, too scheduled, too programmed. Don't you believe it. They may be busy and programmed, yes, but in an outdoor camp setting, the ability to make great fun from very little quickly re-emerges. This, again, is connecting us to our true selves. Play stimulates their imagination, requires compromise and conflict resolution, and invites them to approach other kids who it might not be "cool" to affiliate with in their schools. Play is a great leveler. This happens at camp.

3. Kids are surrounded by God, and godly influences. Adults sometimes focus solely on "the moment of decision" at camps, when a kid either does or doesn't respond to an invitation. This misses the point that a camp environment is itself evangelistic - all the time! From morning wake-up until "lights out" (quotation marks are deliberate), kids are in the presence of caring staff and counselors who want to see their experience maximized. The counselors who will be spending the weekend with your kid are not strangers - they are the small group leaders who give their time to serve our kids every weekend in Surge, and who want to deepen their relationships by investing a weekend of their time. Forest Home's staff is made up mostly of summer camp veterans who sacrifice ten weekends January-March to make winter camp happen. They wouldn't be there if they didn't love your kids. I have never seen a discipline or medical situation handled poorly at Forest Home. Instead, kids receive empathy and kindness. This happens at camp.

4. Questions get asked, and answered. We cover a lot of ground in our weekend program, but we are inevitably rushed, and one thing I regret is that we can't be more responsive to the immediate interests of all of the kids. But because the time at camp is so relationally intensive (kids are constantly in the presence of their leaders), it creates a great forum for informal conversation, or for a leader to follow up with someone who had more questions than the nightly small group time could accommodate. What better way to model that God doesn't live "in church", and that our learning and thinking and talking about him doesn't have to stay within the walls of a church, either? Instead, God-as-a-way-of-life can go on display, even if it's only for a couple of days. This happens at camp.

5. Kids get connected in a hurry. If your son or daughter attends weekend services every weekend for a year, they'll log about 65 hours of church time annually. If your family comes every other week, that's 32.5 hours annually. Our ministry is made up of kids from more than 75 schools. It is not uncommon for a student new to our ministry to be the only kid from his or her school in the classroom on a given Saturday or Sunday. Hard to run into kids you know? Yes. Hard to meet other kids? It can be - it depends on how regularly a new family attends and what other outside events they engage in.

In a camp weekend, we're talking about 48 hours of sustained interaction with other kids and leaders, making it all the more easier to return to church when camp's over. Kids relax when they don't have to worry about being knew, when they recognize other faces, when they themselves are know. This happens at camp.

6. Kids make memories. Think about the most outstanding events of your life. Were a number of them from before you were in high school? I hope so. Every kid deserves that pack of loyal childhood friends, the thrill of family vacations and amusement parks, the freedom of after-school play, the hilarity of stupid jokes, the raw adventure of pillow fights. Enough bad stuff will happen to them as they get older - let's let childhood be reserved for safety and successfully trying new things. Kids now in middle school still ask me, "Remember that time at Forest Home...?" I often don't. But no matter. The memory is theirs. Kids need those. This happens at camp.

7. It's the easiest thing in the world to invite your friend to. Let's face it: it's not always appealing to ask your friend to come to "Sunday school" (shudder; we don't use that terminology, but lots of people still do) or anything where the default model is "school". But an outdoor camp in the mountains where you get to sleep in bunks and play outside a lot? Yeah, kids will go for that. Four years ago, a couple of boys at our church invited their whole hockey team to camp. Today, most of those kids (now in high school) still attend our church. And research shows that kids who are comfortable sharing their faith, talking about what they believe (and this includes the openness to bring someone to the place they experience it all) are more likely to hold onto that faith when the going gets tough. And for a first-timer, a weekend at Forest Home puts a great impression in their mind, because it's church camp without being churchy. This, too, happens at camp.

And I haven't even mentioned the teaching. But that's because the cognitive benefits are harder to assess, and in any case, they shouldn't be separated from the overall experience. They will soon forget where they learned what they know; but they will long remember what they did at camp.

There are ways in which camps are very primitive places. But then, we're primitive people, aren't we? And every kid who's dirtied their jeans hiding in a muddy spot or windburned their nose or soaked their socks completely when snow got into their boots knows this is so. More and more, these things happen only at camp.

Will Your Kid Use Drugs?

2009-11-09T00:56:00.000-08:00

What's the news on kids and drugs? Is the battle being won or lost? What's working and what's not? These are questions that researchers into student drug use and wellness concern themselves with. But it's not the questions a parent is - or should be - asking. To them, the only question worth asking is, "Will my kid use drugs?"

As Fred Becker of the Becker Institute in Carlsbad notes, when it's your kid who is addicted, it doesn't matter if the statistics are one in ten or one in a thousand. Still, the trends matter, insofar as they create a culture that reaches into schools. Researchers from the University of Michigan, who have been studying teen drug use and attitudes for 34 years, make it a point to ask kids their perceptions of the risks and social acceptability attached to particular substances. In this way, they can often predict which drugs will be more widely used in just a few years. (For instance, the number of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students who believe ecstasy is a dangerous drug has declined, and sure enough, ecstasy use is on the rise.)

Actually, the overall news on kids and drugs is encouraging. Although use is not as low as 1992, the lowest point in the Monitoring the Future Survey's history, it continues a decline that started in 1998. And drug use among high school seniors is considerably lower than its high in 1979.

The problem with survey measures is that they report what's already happened, which may or may not be useful in stemming future use. And while the questions about perceived risk and social acceptability allow for some intriguing predictions, ultimately every parent's interest is not drug use in general, but drug use as it pertains to one individual - their son or daughter.

So what if we had another tool, one that reflected not what had already happened, but that gave us a good picture of the stuff kids were made of, so as to better predict who they'll become? Enter the work of the Search Institute. I have been aware of Search's framework for healthy child and adolescent development since the late '90s, when I was teaching high school and when our district looked at using their materials with an eye toward improving student wellness. Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere, because teachers (and I was one of them) tend to be provincial, well aware that the demands they make on students' time are not without competition. The only person with a holistic interest in your child's wellness is - and properly ought to be - you, the parent. Only parents are in a position, as the most willing, consistent, and persistent influences in a child's life, to see to it that kids are on a healthy path.

But what is that healthy path? More to the point of drug use, what do kids need to deter them from being substance abusers? Is it D.A.R.E.? Just Say No? Red Ribbons? Do they need to role play with us how to resist peer pressure? Do they need to be threatened with harsh punishments if they use drugs, and do they need to have their social activities closely monitored to ensure they're not falling under bad influences?

The beauty of the work that Search Institute has done is that it's not narrowly tailored to intercept problem behaviors, yet its effectiveness is remarkable in doing just that. To be clear: what Search has developed is descriptive, not predictive. Started in 1959 as Lutheran Youth Research, its founder was the far-sighted Merton Strommen, who convinced the Lutheran Church to commission a study of teenage attitudes and behaviors. Years later this ongoing effort would become the Search Institute, and its hallmark contribution to child and adolescent development is what's known as the 40 Developmental Assets.

The 40 Assets are experiences and qualities that kids possess (or lack), each of which contributes to healthy development. Think, "How do I give my kid what they need?" and you're on the right track. The assets are divided into two classes: internal assets and external assets. As the names suggest, the internal assets are related to the child him or herself - what do they believe, value, and think about - while the external assets relate to the support structure around the child. Each class of assets has four sub-categories, so that in discerning internal assets, for instance, consideration is given to their commitment to learning, having positive values, having a positive identity, and possessing social competencies. The four subcategories of external assets are support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, and the constructive use of time. Variations of the 40 Assets have been developed for adolescents, young children ages 3-5, those in grades K-3, and kids in middle childhood ages 8-12 (see that list here).

The assets and their effect on healthy development have been studied many times. It is nothing short of compelling to read Search's follow-up research and to see that there is an inverse relationship between the number of assets a kid possesses and his or her engagement in high-risk behavior. Some examples: nearly half of the adolescents who possessed ten or fewer assets reported either using alcohol three or more times in the previous month or having been drunk in the prior two weeks. What percentage of youth who had 31 or more assets did the same? Three percent. Among those with the fewest assets, 61 percent were involved in acts of violence three or more times in one year; seven percent of those having the most assets did the same. 32 percent of the kids with the fewest assets had been sexually active three or more times; three percent of the kids with the most assets had.

The relationship also bears out, but in the positive direction, when it comes to desirable qualities and behaviors. Those with 31 or more assets showed more leadership, took better care of their health, valued getting along with people of other racial and ethnic groups, and got higher grades in school, than kids with fewer assets did any of those things. (By the way, Search's studies also show the average sixth grader possessing 23 assets, and that number declines as kids get older.)

Again, it must be stressed that Developmental Assets are a descriptive measure: Search has isolated some qualities and practices thought to contribute to healthy development, and quantified them, and there is a relationship between the presence or absence of assets in a child and his or her healthy behavior. Assets don't predict drug use, or any other problem behavior. But the relationships Search has demonstrated are too strong to ignore.

Overall, I like Search's approach because it underscores that kids' development is a process that needs to be sustained. Periodic campaigns are insufficient to give kids what they need. The "best" kids (and I use that word deliberately) are those to whom positive practices have been applied consistently, and who are nurtured by people who are interested in them - every part of them. It is a sin that those institutions entrusted with nurturing kids' physical health, their intellects, their moral development, their artistic talents, and their spiritual lives have ended up in competition with one another, each vying for as much time as a family will afford them with scant regard for the child's whole development. Only parents have the clout to turn this ship, and I think the 40 Development Assets are a great game plan for fostering the kind of holistic environments and practices that truly benefit kids.

It's our choice whether to shake our heads in dismay every time some survey comes out documenting the waywardness of youth (the next installment of the University of Michigan study is due in December), or to act preemptively in establishing healthy life skills, attitudes, and supports in our youth and kids. Some people are naively confident that kids' drive to succeed will ultimately steer them away from self-destructive behaviors; the answer, it is thought, is to dangle enough motivation in front of them to turn them into success-driven robots. But others are overly pessimistic about human potential. Christians should be neither. We should harbor no illusions about the power of innate sin to drag us down, but we should honor those elements of our humanity that are capable of doing great good and yearning for redemption. The 40 Assets are an intelligent blueprint for identifying what successful kids have, and pointing us toward what we ought to give.

Kids Need Some Help with This One

2009-10-24T11:13:00.001-07:00

Kids are capable of a lot - much more than church programs have typically given them credit for. They can evaluate needs around the world and decide who they want to support. They can articulate reasons for what they believe, and they can entertain what-if scenarios when it comes to making decisions. But there is at least one circumstance they can't foresee, and they need our help.

That help is in developing a circle of Christian friends, in addition to whatever other peer groups they're a part of - neighborhood friends, soccer teams, scout troops, family friends, or whatever. Those affiliations are important, and natural, and help us develop a sense of "who am I" in a context of various others. But as a fifth-grade boy asked me four years ago, "What if your friends aren't Christians - but they're still good people?"

Good question. Relevant question. At age ten, there are very few kids who are thoroughly corrupted, so rotten and unprincipled that they ought to be avoided. Most kids can tell you stories that bear out the aphorism, "He/she is ok, once you get to know them." And this faith in human nature reigns during one of the best periods of our life - late childhood - when, if nothing has gone horribly wrong, we get a few years of ascribing the best to people, before the jadedness of adolescence (when we start to see that adults, too, are only human) sets in. So if I'm a kid who hangs around with good kids who don't pressure me to do wrong and whom I have fun with, why should it matter to me to carve out a friendship group at church?

The answer, it turns out, is pretty nuanced. Let me first say that I don't think it's helpful, as the fundamentalist world has tended to do, to sharply divide people into two "saved vs. unsaved" camps. Such thinking places an artificial emphasis on bringing people across the finish line ("they're saved!") while neglecting the important reality and work that is abiding in Christ, and the result is the moral crisis that the church finds itself in today, where "saved" folks don't live a whole lot differently than "unsaved" folks.

On the whole, the church should be marked by greater degrees of love and forgiveness and justice and charity than what we find outside the church; but this is not to say that those apart from the church are not capable of great moral good. The differences lie in: 1. what you hold to be the ultimate measure of what is good, 2. the motivation to do that good, and 3. the resources you draw upon to accomplish the good.

Where there is agreement among religions or between Christ followers and the secular world on what is good, we should celebrate this: humans agree on much of what constitutes right and fair and just. But those who claim "all religions teach basically the same thing" are far too focused on outcomes. To a Christian, who we are and who we are becoming matters every bit as much as what we do. And so, William Wilberforce, who fought to see slavery abolished in Great Britain, did a virtuous thing, but it is not to be considered greater virtue than those who spoke against slavery but did not live to see its demise, just because Wilberforce "won". And the pastor who faithfully serves a congregation of 50 with diligence and integrity is to be esteemed every bit as much (and maybe more) than a pastor over thousands.

Those who will appeal to the teachings of Jesus like "Love your neighbor as you love yourself" and "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", in fairness should also cite other injunctions like "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" or "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Do we teach kids to identify with Paul's claim that "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," or his counsel that "It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him"? These are the aspects of Christian life that we don't often emphasize, but they are the elements that, if pushed through, bring reward. If we don't teach them and model them, we condemn our kids to a colorless, ascetic Christianity, where they know what to do, but are ambivalent about why. This is a Pharisaic hell, and it's no wonder they flee from it once they get out from under our yolk. No one aspires to be moral and boring.

In short, Christians and non-Christians share many of the same goals and want the same things, but they are not equally committed to the ideals of self-denial, of suffering for Christ, or of accepting that it's worth going through hardship for the character it builds within us. These are elements of discipleship that we grow into and grow through, and - this is important - they are realized in community with other believers.

So to be honest, it isn't at all clear why a 10-year-old needs a group of Christian friends; but it's abundantly clear why a 15-year-old does. So maybe this one falls into the category of "Trust me, you just should", as in, "Why do I need to go to bed when I'm not tired?" or "Why should I stop after only one can of soda?" or "Why should I make it a habit to stretch before exercising?" And as with everything else that's worth doing even if it doesn't make sense, it takes a discipline that is outside ourselves to carry through.

This is where parents come in. You are the key to bridging the gap between sacred and secular so kids don't develop a world that is divided between "God's stuff" and the rest of life. Kids should know that their friends are welcome over at your house, on camping trips, on days at the beach, and yes, at church. Bringing friends along to church and church-sponsored events should be as natural as breathing. We have three of our biggest, most attractive events of the year coming up, and kids will have fun at them regardless of whether they bring someone they know or not. But that very truth can work against us: if kids are unsure about whether an event will be fun for them, it may scare them away from inviting someone from outside the church; on the other hand, if the fun factor is assured, they may not need the safety that having a familiar friend provides at a large event.

Fortunately, it's not an either/or, where we are either asking kids to set aside their own enjoyment or to tolerate something mediocre just because the church said you had to bring someone. With Harvest Party set for this Friday, it promises to be our biggest ever and we've paid special attention this year to the different needs of younger and older kids, and established some special areas for each. The second major event is our 4th-6th grade sleepover, Friday, December 11, and that's a run-up to our annual weekend away at Forest Home, January 15-17. When you encourage your son or daughter to be mindful of who they might bring along to each one of these, you are building a relational nest egg that they can tap into just a few years down the road, when peers surge ahead parents as the source of identification and everyday guidance.

Trust me when I tell you that kids who enter high school without any close Christian peers to walk the road with them, struggle. The black-white world of elementary school decision making gives way to infinite shades of gray. And the tendency - even among "good kids" - is not to "spur one another on to love and good deeds"; high school and middle school have a flattening effect, where kids are unwittingly thrown into a mini-adult rat race. It's no wonder that time with friends ends up taking the form of whatever-it-takes to blow off stress. Spurring one another on is a deliberate action, and it is entered into willingly.

Like I said - the answer to "What if your friends aren't Christians - but they're still good people?" is nuanced. We can't expect preteens to grasp all of this. But we can make them ready for the season when they'll need a group of like-minded peers to lean on. Then they'll thank us for it.

A great evil that is about to unfold

2009-10-10T01:32:00.000-07:00

In South Africa, preparations are being made for next year's World Cup, an event which most soccer-apathetic Americans pay little attention to, but to the rest of the world, it is the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the Final Four all rolled into one. Nearly half a million fans will come to South Africa to watch, to party, and to revel. And on the streets of Durban,
Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town, a great evil is about to unfold. Shame on the world if we let it happen.

In 2007, the police commissioner of South Africa first floated the idea of legalizing prostitution during the World Cup, so as to allow police to focus on more pressing matters. (Another unspoken motive is to match the standard of hospitality set by Germany in 2006, which also facilitated legal access to alcohol and prostitutes.) The proposal is still alive, even though church groups in South Africa and human rights groups condemned it. Now the president of the country, Jacob Zuma, has apparently repudiated the idea too.

Sigh of relief? Not so fast. We Americans, with an eye toward the integrity of our own criminal justice system, have a misplaced faith in the power of the law to make right. The truth is, the legal status of prostitution in South Africa could end up mattering little. Large sporting events (and even, I'm told, American political conventions) cause a spike in the sex trade. But forgive my euphemism. Let's say it this way: lots of people who travel great distances for once-in-a-lifetime events go to prostitutes as part of the experience. Especially when the event is held in a country full of desperately poor people, so the sex is plentiful and cheap. Simple economics suggest and history confirms that the demand for sex will be met. And many of those being shopped around to sex-seeking tourists will be minors - children.

So the lay of the land is this: tourists wealthy enough to travel by plane to South Africa will be flooding the country to watch an event known to be accompanied by revelry, and dealers in sex stand to make lots of money. That's the point. Whether South Africa makes it easy for the dealers by legalizing and "regulating" the practice, as Germany did in 2006, or whether they force it somewhat underground rests on what is done with the police commissioner's suggestion. But the practice wouldn't have to go very far underground, in any case. For one thing, South Africa has no laws on its books to combat human trafficking. It has signed something called the Palermo Protocol, but done nothing to implement that international agreement. As a result, its police have zero training in stopping a practice that isn't even technically illegal there. For another, South Africa has a violent crime problem, and protecting tourists' safety - not monitoring their leisure time - will be the goal of the 30,000 police officers who will staff the event.

This has become the pattern with international sporting events. The welfare of the native population takes a back seat to visitors' comfort and convenience and corporate profits. While I wouldn't accuse China of bending over backwards for visitors like me at last year's Olympics, my dollars carried a lot more clout than a Chinese citizenship card. They thought nothing of evicting scores of low-income tenants from their homes in order to construct marvelous-looking stadiums that now sit empty. Their pre-emption of political protest was over-the-top and efficient, and they were able to use the fear of terrorism as pretense for restricting everyone's rights. In the end, they put forward the "glorious China" they wanted everyone to see, while the reality behind the cameras was a lot uglier. But I digress.

In South Africa, not only are there millions of poor and hopeless in the rural townships, but let us not forget the tiny kingdom that lies to the northeast, Swaziland, which has the highest AIDS rate of any country in the world (42%) and consequently a huge population of kids who have no money, no parents, and no futures. Connect the dots: how much money would a pimp have to promise desperate young Swazi boys and girls to cross the border with him and enter the sex trade in South Africa?

Love soccer, hate soccer, boycott the World Cup and its sponsors, or watch - whatever. It's clear that we are marching toward a humanitarian disaster regardless of the decision South Africa makes on legalization just because of the culture surrounding the tournament. But the one thing you must do is pay attention. I was alarmed when I first heard of this almost two months ago, and everyone I've mentioned this to has been similarly incredulous and dismayed. There will be action campaigns around this issue that will formulate in the coming months. We must pay attention.

And we must do so because people are not for sale. To miss that is to miss the significance of the work of Creation. God made nature, yes, and the world is wonderful and beautiful and mysterious and we rightly cry foul when a beautiful work of nature is marred - BUT - humans? They are the crown jewels. The rest of creation was placed under our stewardship to care for and consume; it is only of people that the Bible says, "in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

Why don't we care? Why don't I care? Distance, the invisible nature of trafficking, our own apparent powerlessness to stop it have something to do with it. But it also has something to do with this: "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." No less a practitioner of evil than Joseph Stalin knew of what he spoke, responsible as he was for the deaths of millions of his countrymen whom he perceived to be disloyal. Evil has a way of benefiting from its scope - the more widespread its practice, the less powerful we feel to act to stop it (because it's "normal" or "everywhere").

But whether only one child is being sold into sex slavery or millions are, we have to care about human trafficking because these are real people. So, personalize it. Imagine an actual young person (12-20 years old) traded into slavery to perform sex acts on strangers being a real person. Imagine it is someone you know. Imagine it's your own child. How many times would they have to be "purchased" before you'd be so angry and heartbroken that you'd be ready to call every senator and every representative on Capitol Hill and storm the halls of Congress if you needed to in order to get justice for your son or daughter? Because everyone who is sold to perform sex acts for money is someone's son or someone's daughter. How many times would they need to be violated for their whole future to collapse into a black hole of trauma?

Yes, I believe in the power of God to renovate hearts, and I want to see hearts change and to celebrate the miracle of regeneration. When people begin to act rightly - toward themselves, each other, and God - on account of a contrite heart and a renewed spirit, and the change is willing, not coerced, it's an amazing thing. But I've been naïve. If it's not legitimate to use the force of power - economic, political, social, and even military - to restrain injustice, then it can't be legitimate to use power anywhere. Evil thrives on power imbalances. When we won't fight fire with fire, we get backed into a corner of humiliation and despair.

And yet, in the face of the existence of 27 million slaves and a world economic structure that facilitates exploitation and a sporting culture that normalizes cash for sex, I do not lose heart. I do not lose heart because as a Christian, I know that the light has come into the world and the darkness cannot overcome it. I know that the greatest evil of all, death, could not hold Jesus and so the promise of new life for the rest of us is very real. I know that if God is for us, no one can stand against us. And I know that evil hates the light, and will avoid it so as not to be exposed. But, as we live the truth - not just believe it in our heads or profess it with our mouths, but really live it - that people, all people, have intrinsic value and worth, the lie that certain people are commodities and can be used for the unjust enrichment of others will begin to erode. As we esteem everyone's life - not just biological life, but the whole experience and quality of life - we are teaching ourselves, over and over, that even nameless, faceless child laborers and prostitutes and migrant workers and domestics around the world do matter.

Regarding the dignity of all people (or, if it's helpful, "the dignity of each person") has to be step one in the formation of a justice orientation in our character. And the truth is contagious, even when it's inconvenient. Pay attention, because the exploitation of humans - all humans, but especially children - is so wrong that the more we consider it, the more it demands a response. You wouldn't allow your own child to be in such a situation, so how has this become a norm for millions? The unjust norm has there displaced the norm of justice. Love your own child who is safe and lives free from exploitation, yes, but know too that as you exhibit either concern or disregard for neighbors, strangers, and foreigners, you are building within kids either a love for justice and fair treatment for all, or an indifference toward those outside their personal sphere.

Am I my brother's keeper? The better question is, who is my brother? It's not that no one cares about individual children working as sex slaves. It's just that the enormity and anonymity of the practice alongside our modern culture's hyper-individualism and hedonism has produced the looming tragedy that is South Africa's World Cup. We need to pay attention to this, so that the whole world will pay attention, so that the injustice we wouldn't tolerate for one doesn't become the norm inflicted on the many. Remember that each sex worker sold during the World Cup will have a name, a home village, a mom and a dad, and a story. They don't lose any of that upon being exploited. Pray that they don't lose their future either.

The Incredible Influence of Dad

2009-09-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend finds me back home, in North Dakota, where my dad is being honored for his nearly 40 years of service as a coach at the local high school; sort of a big honor in a small town. About a year and a half ago, his career was similarly recognized at the state level. It was at that time that I wrote an essay called "The Incredible Influence of Dad", parts of which I've excerpted this week, below.

Of course the thing about Halls of Fame or honorary banquets or tributes or toasts or awards presentations is that they are momentary, and they are one-dimensional. If you want to know who a person really is, it can only be pieced together from the firsthand knowledge of those who've spent lots of time at their side. I suspect any kid whose parent has ever done anything noteworthy knows this: awards recognize what someone has done, but only begin to scratch the surface of who they are.

I recount this because I imagine there are parents reading this right now who are wrapped up in a rat race, gunning for some promotion or leveraging their own advancement or trying to cement a big deal or hoping to impress some power broker. Let me assure you: where you go professionally, as important as it is to you, won't matter nearly as much to your kids. They already know how great you are.

Dad decided early what he wanted to do with his life, and he followed through with a steadfastness that is rare and admirable. His three kids - myself and two sisters - have already proven unable to do what he did, which is to hold down the same position at the same school and do it well for 39 years. (We have each moved in and out of (and in one case, back into) education.) Teaching is tiring - physically and mentally. Coaching at any level is emotional. It helps to have a winning team, but Dad's teams didn't always win. They were occasionally great, often average, and sometimes terrible. The most we ever felt this was some weekend grumpiness now and then, but by Sunday night he'd bounce back to his normal self and when you heard him whistling and grading papers you knew all was well again. And when, in 2006, it was time to be done, he was done. There was nothing sentimental or magic to him about reaching the 40-year plateau.

I'm not one who happens to believe that we can fairly evaluate ourselves: who we think we are and who others perceive us to be are usually quite different, and the truth is usually closer to what others see (I find that we tend to be too harsh or too charitable towards ourselves). So as to how much of my dad I carry in me, you'd have to ask someone else. I can, however, readily recognize his influence on my sisters.

All three of us siblings are pretty pragmatic. That comes straight from Dad. If it didn't work, he'd try to fix it, and if he couldn't fix it, well, you'd have to live without it. "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission" was his motto, and it was rare that he couldn't get one or the other. His tastes are simple (so are each of ours) and he never displayed an appetite for wealth. He fought for the underdog. Wrestling sometimes attracted kids who were rough around the edges, and he welcomed the chance to give them something constructive to do - "Maybe this will change them," he'd say. When we played softball with the neighborhood kids, he developed a rotation system that constantly circulated players from batting to fielding and as a result there were no teams and no losers and no score - just fun, which was all anyone wanted. As the head of the teacher's union he advocated for fair pay, and in later years, when he himself was near the top of the salary scale, he pushed for pay increases to go to starting teachers rather than veterans, saying, "They need it more than we do." He felt strongly about that. My sisters have carried that seed of justice into their own lives. As the only boy in the family, I was the only one to wrestle for him (girls didn't wrestle, not in his world; he felt especially strongly about that!). While Mom ran the day-to-day operations of our house - the meals, the school shopping, the scheduling - and also much of the discipline, when Dad spoke up to discipline, you knew it was serious and that was it.

Men, especially great men, are driven by vision. They imagine what could be and set out to achieve or establish it. Sometimes the task takes precedence over the people involved, and the product is a damaging ambition. But it's also that doggedness in men that suits them to be good dads. Men - and dads - dream big. They're wired to lead and conquer. The effect of such vision on kids can be powerful. For my dad and I, this played out in the realm of academic science competitions, another passion of his that started 23 years ago and continues to this day. Spurred by what we saw at the national level, our creations got each year better and ever-more complex, and we did in fact win national awards for them. What I learned from this was to set my sights high, to seek out the best and then better it.

What would happen if every man pursued the future and the health and the reputation of his kids as doggedly as he pursued achievement in his own life? What if dads turned the power of their vision onto the direction of their sons and daughters? Some of us fear the answer, based on our experience with dads who vicariously lived through their kids, pushing them in directions and at speeds they didn't want to go. But what if, at the same time a dad was training his vision on the future of his kids, he was equipped with the qualities of empathy and compassion and tenderness - in a word, his humanity - so that he developed a keen sense of when to push and when to hold back? The answer is, you'd have a really great dad; but not only that, you'd have a really great kid.

We need more dads like that, and the church has a role in calling men to that level of responsibility. Honestly, we can imagine and build great cities, industrial plants, robotic technology, and space travel; can we not also cast a vision for kids that lifts them above despair, boredom, self-debasement, and a future as pawns in this consumerist melee?

Why We'll Walk

2009-09-06T00:27:00.000-07:00

Can a couple of hours in a parking lot gain kids empathy, a feeling of belonging, and provide some relief for the homeless in our area? We're betting on it.

During our work on Kids Games this summer, it came to our attention that homeless people spend a lot of time simply walking. They walk from one service provider to another, from wherever they happen to be camping out to less isolated places, and they walk because people don't want them hanging around, and so call the police in order to get them to move on. With that much walking, and having no place to launder clothes, a homeless man or woman can quickly wear through a pair of socks or shoes.

Part of the work of Oceanside's Bread of Life and Brother Benno's is to distribute clean, soft cotton socks. Socks are cheap, but an important commodity for people who spend most of the day walking outside. That's where the idea for our walk-a-thon was born.

Kids who take the challenge will agree to walk for two hours on Saturday morning, October 3. The walk will be held in our church parking lot, and kids will raise sponsorship money, which will then be used to buy new socks which Bread of Life and Benno's will distribute.

Here are three tangible reasons you should encourage your child's involvement:

1. ...because they walk. In 1995, Robert Wuthnow identified some factors of community service that either did or did not increase empathy in teenagers who were performing the service (his book was titled, "Learning to Care". What is important, Wuthnow said, is that kids personally identify with those who are suffering. It's not enough to care about them in the abstract. The best vehicle for growing compassion is direct contact with the recipient of your care. This is why so many families in our congregation believe in the power of having their kids serve with them during a meal at Bread of Life. Seeing the problem is very powerful. If they can also hear what's going on in the lives of homeless people, even better.

So what can we do with a walk-a-thon to create empathy? Granted, safety dictates that our environment be pretty artificial. College students and reporters have immersed themselves in the homeless experience by actually living as a homeless person for days or weeks, and their accounts make for moving reading. But we can give kids a small sense of how long (and maybe, how boring) it is to walk for two hours straight, and then extrapolate that out to what it must feel like to walk for hours a day, and for weeks at a time. Will this short time window transfer into long-term empathy? We'll see.

2. ...to make connections within our ministry. Pre-teens are entering a developmental time when they are crowd-conscious and increasingly aware of their place in crowds. "Who am I?" is less a question that is answered in terms of observable, personal characteristics, and more in relation to "how others see me" and "where I fit" among peers. Events like these, which are less formally structured than a Sunday morning program, help break down walls and give kids the shared experiences that they can refer back to as they carve out a sense of "us" at church. You want that. Camps, sleepovers, bowling outings, small groups - all of these are venues for a kid to loosen up and fit in.

3. ...because service is a habit that promotes spiritual growth. A recent study that appeared in The Journal of Youth Ministry examined whether performing acts of service led to greater participation in what the study called, "Christian faith practices", or whether kids who were already serious about their faith tended to be the ones who performed acts of service. The findings are promising: those who were involved in ministry to their communities did, in fact, tend to have more robust spiritual lives - they prayed, read the Bible, attended services, talked about what they believed, worked for justice, and so on. We tend to program with those practices in view, that if we can get kids to "do Christian things" it will propel them to tangible expressions of their faith. The National Study of Youth and Religion in 2003 found that 50% of churched teenagers had gone on a youth convention or retreat, but only 30% had engaged in church-sponsored missions or service work. It could be, though, that the effect of properly-structured service opportunities awakens something in teenagers (and all of us) that stokes spiritual development.

I hope you'll encourage your child to gather pledges and come out and walk with us on October 3. It's about helping the homeless, yes, but it's also about helping them.

How (and why) to Use the HomePage

2009-09-05T02:12:00.000-07:00

In the past several weeks, kids in 4th-6th grade have learned how worries are like balloons, how holiness is and isn't like fruit hanging from a tree, and how salvation is like the adoption of an orphan. They learned how Esther was "in the right place at the right time", and how Paul showed that God uses unlikely people to fulfill his plan. But I deliberately misuse the word "learned" here. We teachers are fond of talking about "what we've learned" when they really are referring to "what was said". The learning depends on how the message is received and what's done with it after it's been spoken. And that is where the little half-sheet called the HomePage comes in.

We started distributing the HomePage almost three years ago. As stated at the top of each one, its mission is to give parents a jumping-off point for spiritual discussions with their pre-teen, and to serve as a communications link between the 4th-6th grade ministry and the families that we serve." Which is a fancy way of saying the page is one side announcements, one side discussion fodder. Here are some suggestions on why and how to use it.

Why discuss? Why not just tell on a Sunday morning and leave it at that? To understand that, we have to understand how teaching and learning intersect. Many people think that to teach effectively, the transmission of true information is sufficient. Transmitting ideas and information that are true is important, but it is not sufficient, not if you want to achieve the kind of alleigance and buy-in that transforms learners into thinkers and doers. Even on a rote level, kids will not remember most of what they've heard unless it is rehearsed. Of course, we can and should do better than rote. As religious educators we are constantly touching on themes like what it means to be human, to encounter the divine, to give our own lives away, to experience redemption. This demands far more of kids than having them mimic things or nod in assent - it must reach into their every day existence where contradictions between what is known to be true and what is actually lived as though it were true are exposed and reckoned with.

Every good Bible teacher knows this - you don't just teach the Bible for the sake of knowing the facts of the stories; you teach it because you believe the text still speaks today, that its message has some claim on the lives of the hearers, and you want to help them unearth it. Bound up in the idea of a "living and active" word of God is its ability to gnaw at us, to challenge us, to carry with us away from the setting where we received it. Spiritual truth transforms because it endures. We can try to escape the idea that humans are fallen, but we keep running into the reality. We can harbor fantasies of self-redemption, but those fantasies continually crumble.

So we must get learners to ponder, to re-visit, to digest and process ideas that are new if they are to internalize them. "Discussion" carries a threatening connotation to some people because they fear it's an invitation to relativism: if we "discuss" the idea that Jesus is the only way to God, we're opening the door for competing understandings and "that's your truth" kinds of sentiment. But that's not the kind of discussion I'm endorsing. Christian discussion starts with truth and grapples with it, resolving discrepancies, understanding implications, acknowledging difficulties, compensating for our own unbelief. That's healthy, and if done well, facilitates the process of integrating truth into our being. We want people - children included - to be about the work of reconciling the "official theology" with their own, personal, "vernacular" (that is, their "walking around") theology.

How to do it. With this purpose in mind, then, you should approach spiritual dialogue with your kids as a chance both to hear their heart and to share yours. I like the prescription that appeared in Children's Ministry Magazine just this month, urging parents to have spiritual discussions ALOT with their kids: "A" stands for "Ask how your child feels about the topic", "L" stands for "Listen without interrupting", "O" stands for "Open your heart (and your Bible if you need to)", and "T" stands for "Talk about your thoughts and feelings on the subject - and how they're shaped by God's Word." This simple acronym reminds you to let kids speak first and to share with - not lecture to - them.

Resist the urge to turn spiritual discussions into quiz sessions. Kids are keen to understanding when adults are hunting for "just right" answers, and they'll give them if they know it will get them out from under the microscope. For another thing, I don't think spiritual growth comes from regurgitating volumes of facts. To simply quiz a child about content is frustrating for you and for them and in any case does not invite them to engage in the kind of processing that connects head and heart. To this end, most of the questions on the HomePage are open-ended. A parent doesn't have to have been present for the message in order to participate in the dialogue. (Although if your kid is totally lost, an outline is available most weekends at http://surgenotes.blogspot.com/).

Express interest, both in what your child is learning and in what they're saying about it. Scan over the half-sheet before you begin so you're familiar with the main idea and the direction of the discussion. What are your own thoughts on the subject at hand? What do you wonder about? What do you wish you know, but didn't? Don't feel that you have to have all the answers, but give your child instead a sense that adults, too, grapple with applying Christian truth to life. If the topic of the week is why we should love our enemies, yes, it's good for kids to know that Jesus said it and that it comes from the Sermon on the Mount. But how much more powerful for them to hear their mom or dad talk through how they've struggled to love someone who's difficult, and what they did to persevere through it? You want, with spiritual discussion, to establish a climate not of spiritual perfectionism (because we're not) but of honesty and openness, where children and adults alike can narrate the process of living out their faith.

You'll get the best results if you spiritually dialogue with your kids regularly - that is, at the same time and in the same place, and do it every week. It may take time for your kids to trust that they really can say anything and that you're not just checking up on them to reward whether they were listening or not. Keep in mind that often when adults ask kids questions it's so that they can judge them: "Is your homework done?" "Did you clean your room?" "Have you practiced piano today?" "What's the capital of Delaware?" I'm convinced this is why most kids aren't comfortable conversing with adults, because they take what's meant to be a conversation starter (like, "What did you do today?") as the beginning of a line of interrogation. There may be times when you'll use questions in that way; but not during spiritual talks. You can "warm your kids up" to dialogue by making it an informal practice to ask them what they think about all kinds of things. This will pave the way for sharing of the stuff that really matters later on.

A caution: the older kids get, the more reticent they are to share spiritual insights? Why is this? Researchers David Hay and Rebecca Nye believe it may have to do with how adults react. Hay and Nye, in their work with school-aged children, found it difficult to get older kids to trust them enough to talk about spiritual things. Not only does "Right!" tend to curttail what kids will offer up (because it puts them in quiz mode), but adult responses that are overly gratuitous or that value the "cuteness" of what a child says rather than dignifying it tend in the long run to discourage kids from opening up. In other words, take kids and their contributions seriously. I so valued a camp conversation I once had with a boy who told me he'd looked up to the sky and seen a face that looked like Satan's scowling, and then another face that looked like God's, smiling. Our natural skepticism can easily dismiss or challenge his perception - from "Yeah, right" to "How does he know what Satan and God look like?" - but for me it was a window into his soul and a gateway to discussing spiritual reality that we wouldn't otherwise have had.

Kid learners aren't adult learners, and our goal shouldn't necessarily be to make them into that. With development will come the ability to sit still for longer periods, to think in highly abstract ways, to relate a speaker's experiences to our own, to expand their vocabulary. Our job is to work with what we've got, and at this age (every age, really), revisiting what was taught and inviting kids to reprocess is vital. We can, and should, put lots of effort into teaching. But we should never assume that a lesson well-organized, well-illustrated, and well-delivered will equal well-learned. To discern that, we must get inside kids' heads to see if what we meant to communicate made it through in the translation. And there's only one way to find out.

Full Steam Ahead!

2009-08-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

A new year of our midweek program, STEAM, is about to begin. Once again this year we will meet form 6-7:30 Wednesday nights (the same time as the midweek program from age 4-3rd grade, KidZone) here at the church. in 90 minutes, kids get to "blow off STEAM" in a physical or art activity, and "take on STEAM" in an elective class. Here's what's up for electives this fall:

Beginner Guitar This class is for kids with some or no experience playing guitar. It will cover basic chords and rhythms in strumming. There is no charge, but you must bring a tuneable, acoustic guitar (no electrics) to the class. Class is for six weeks and then will be repeated with a different instructor the second six weeks, so kids are welcome to sign up for either or both sessions. We are limiting this class to 10, so pre-registration is highly recommended.

Acting Skills Workshop This is a non-competitive workshop on how to act. Projection, stage direction, using your body and developing characters will all be covered. This is a six-week class and will be repeated in identical form the second six weeks. There is no charge for this elective, but it is limited to 15 kids per session, so again pre-registration is advised.

PG-13 is a class designed for parents of older preteens who are just beginning or on the verge of adolescence. Answering a need to help sixth graders especially as they make the jump to middle school, this course will educate parents on how to adjust their parenting to give a young adolescent what he or she needs. The second 45 minutes, kids will be brought in to interact with their parents in exercises designed to stimulate conversations on values, friendships, communication, and conflict. For more information, pick up a separate PG-13 brochure and see last week's blog post. Cost is $30 per family (Mom or Dad or both may attend - and this is also an appropriate class for grandparents or others who are the primary guardians of a child). Offered only during the first six weeks.

The Gospel According to Mayberry Based on the same concept used in the adult Bible study called, "The Mayberry Bible Study", this is a Bible study adapted for kids that uses characters and scenes from The Andy Griffith Show. Episodes become modern-day parables and themes like friendship, honesty, and grace are drawn out and explored as they pertain to the characters' lives. A different study will happen each week. This is the elective to choose especially if you cannot make a six- or twelve-week commitment to any of the others, because the studies stand alone (rather than building on a previous week). No charge.

The Secret of Handling Money God's Way Wouldn't it have been great if someone had laid the groundwork for responsible money management with you before you got in over your head? Responsible spending, saving, and giving begins well before someone has lots of money, and that's the philosophy behind this study from Crown Financial Ministries. This is their adult course specially adapted for kids 8-12 years old. In it, kids follow the story of a group of friends who are saving money for summer camp, and a grandfather who helps them understand how to be stewards, rather than just consumers, of what God has given them. We've broken this 12-lesson study up into 24 bite-sized chunks. Lessons 1-3 will be offered weeks 1-6 this fall (and known as "Part 1"), while lessons 4-6 will happen weeks 7-12 this fall ("Part 2"), with lessons 7-12 being offered during the spring. Kids are welcome to sign up for any or all of Parts 1-4. There is a one-time fee of $15 for the book, which is used for all sessions.

Drawing Again this year we will offer the popular drawing elective, with a new instructional book, so kids who were in drawing last year are welcome to re-enroll this year. Using drawing to teach the Bible is deceptively simple: as kids focus on drawing the scene or character of the week, a story related to that is read aloud and discussed. And kids become quite good at what they're drawing! There is a one-time fee of $10 for materials.

Cooking In this class, kids make and bake and draw out spiritual lessons as they do so. Last year, for instance, they made pretzels and talked about how the forming process is like the idea that God is the potter, we are the clay. This class will be offered during the first six weeks and then repeated the second six weeks, so kids should sign up for one or the other. There is a $15 materials fee. Limited to 15 kids each session, so pre-registration is highly recommended.

Juggling Even kids with little coordination can learn to juggle, progressing from silk scarves to beanbags to tennis balls. Juggling improves eye-hand coordination and builds self-confidence - and draws a crowd. The difficulty of achieving "perfection" and the focus it requires makes for some great parallels about the gospel and walking in a saving relationship with God. $15 equipment fee, which includes a set of professional juggling beanbags that kids get to keep. This class is only offered during the second six weeks (October 28-December 9).

For parents during STEAM: Once again we will be offering some programs for parents as well during the 6-7:30 pm time window. In addition to PG-13, which is intended for parents of kids just entering or about to enter adolescence, a new class called "Positive Parenting" will be offered, in which parents will learn how to use language, encouragement, and positive reinforcement to promote desirable behaviors, and also how to discourage and eliminate negative ones. This class is designed to combat the tug-of-war and battle of wills between parents and kids and promote family harmony. It was launched successfully at a church in Orange County and now NCCC has been chosen as the program's first pilot site. Mothers and fathers are encouraged to attend together. Cost is $30 per person or $50 per couple for the six-week session (Sept. 16-Oct. 21).

Want to help at STEAM? In addition to hands-on help with the kids, we can always use more check-in and troubleshooting help, especially in the early weeks as kids don't always know where to go. Contact Joy Beidel if you want to help.

One more thing: Please keep your commitment to come to STEAM once you've signed up for an elective. Our program runs on the efforts of about 20 volunteers who generously give their time to invest in kids. Enrollment in some electives is limited, so if your child signs up but then doesn't come, they are taking a spot away from another child who could benefit. Please weigh this when signing up for electives.

Leading a Sixth Grader, Standing at the Side

2009-08-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

The amount of variation within the 4th-6th grade age range is pretty vast. The problem isn't that we're comprised of three grades, really: even if we were only charged with ministering to one grade there would still be a gulf between the most mature and the least mature in the bunch. That's the nature of this age range, and it explains why 4th graders and 6th graders can be friends, but also why an 11-year-old boy can be content to ride his bike around one day, be talking with his friends about girls the next day, and be asking to go to Legoland the day after that!

In talking to parents, however, it has been noted again and again that a real change happens once kids hit sixth grade. Much of this is due to the fact that some school districts (not all) send their sixth graders up to middle schools. The new challenges of managing relationships with several different teachers, being a really small fish in a big pond, and encountering units on world religions in social studies make sixth grade a bridge year for many students. It was out of this reality that our newest class, "PG-13", was born.

PG-13 will be offered this fall on Wednesday nights. Borrowing a page from the successful Mother-Daughter class that happened last spring, the first half of the class time will be spent with parents only, while the second half will bring parents and kids together for activities and dialogue meant to raise awareness and prepare parents and kids - as a team - to navigate the sometimes rocky road of adolescence.

PG-13 is not a class about puberty. It's more about the consequences of the package of changes that come with adolescence - changes in friendships, family dynamics, moods, and values and goals. Our hope is to give parents and kids a chance to get real with one another, as well as start the journey of adolescence out on the right foot.

We start with the premise that the prevailing, stereotypical model of parent-teenager relationships is deficient. But, it's little wonder - if you go into parenting an adolescent expecting that they're going to end up hating you, you're likely to get just that. Does teenagerhood bring stressors and issues into the family that weren't there when kids were sweet six- and seven-year-olds? Sure. But we refuse to believe the parent-child relationship is destined for war. In fact, we'd better not believe that. Parents remain, through their child's adolescence, the most willing, consistent, and persistent influences in a child's life. It's just that the way they exercise that influence has to change. That's because a major developmental task (think of it as the "work") of adolescence is for a child to develop their distinct, individual identity and to exercise greater and greater degrees of autonomy, gradually owning more of his or her own life. So at the same time as parents retain the position of authority and Influencer-In-Chief, the one subjected to that influence and authority is preparing to find their own way.

So a major focus of PG-13 is teaching parents the art of leading their kids from the side, so that more and more responsibility is given away yet parents and kids remain close enough that love and guidance are readily dispensed, and received. The other paradox parents of teenagers work under is this one: great numbers of teenagers complain that their parents "don't understand them", yet for the parents' part, "He/She won't talk to me!" We untangle this by exploring the changes - physical, social, emotional, moral, and spiritual - that are common to all adolescents, at the same time recognizing that development follows no strict timetable in any given individual. Here's where techniques to show love and invest specifically in your child (starting with the 45 minute parent/child time, but not ending there) will lead down the road of knowing your child and how they're wired. We'll teach you how to be an encourager. We'll talk about dealing with moods and attitudes, since both can rear their ugly heads ferociously and sometimes for the first time in early adolescence (leaving you to wonder, "What happened to my kid?"). We'll talk about peer pressure and the changing nature of friendships as kids get older and how to communicate with each other in a way that solves problems rather than escalating them.

What can be accomplished in six, 90-minute sessions? While we acknowledge that it's only a start, and there are far more resources and topics that we could delve into than we have time for - still, well-begun is half done. If all that happens is that parents find a sympathetic ear in other parents who are also a little apprehensive about the brave new world of parenting a middle schooler, we will have done some good. If, on top of that, we can equip parents with some insights that help them understand young adolescents in general and their own child in particular, and they begin to get a grasp of what it is to lead from the side, that's even better. If we succeed in building some experiences that lead to a closer, deeper relationship between you and your pre-teen - better still. But if we can turn out a class of parents who get what it is to exercise constructive influence, so that they actually look forward to parenting teenagers, parents who become evangelists for the idea that we can replace the worn-out parent-teen model of alienation and conflict with a model of warmth, support, and engagement - well, now we're talkin'.

And please don't think that PG-13 is only for parents who are wading into the waters of parenting an adolescent for the very first time. If your sixth grader is a middle child or the youngest, you just might have the answer or be the resource that someone else in the room needs. Everyone can benefit from insight on things like being an active listener, or learning your child's love language, or handling someone else's strong emotions. PG-13 is for veterans as well as novices.

It's also not restricted just to sixth graders, even though the class emerged from discussions pertaining to their experience. Any kid in fourth or fifth grade may benefit, too, and there's nothing in the class that should make you squeamish - it's more a question of relevancy, and generally speaking, a fourth or fifth grader doesn't live in the same social dynamic as a sixth grader (particularly at school).

One more note: unlike the Mother-Daughter class, this class can work with parents and kids of opposite genders. Ideally moms and dads would both attend, but if schedules don't allow that, it's perfectly appropriate for a mom and son to attend together, or a dad and his daughter.

In coming weeks I'll detail in this space the other fall offerings on Wednesday nights, including another class on parenting for which NCCC has been chosen as a pilot site. It's a class I know is going to bring great relief to many households. And for 4th-6th graders, STEAM is about to re-start (September 16) with a slate of neat electives, some returning from last year and others brand new.

As I complete my second full year at the church and my third summer, I remain convinced that churches' support of parents and their growth is the key to kids' spiritual growth. PG-13 won't meet every need, but we hope it's a step in the right direction, something that dispels fears of middle school, strengthens the bond between you and your growing-up child, gives parents and kids the skills to deal with new challenges, and gives parents hope and the confidence that they need not fear adolescence. Rather, we hope they'll embrace it as a singular opportunity to work with kids who want to be treated as adults, aren't yet, but soon will be.

Who Cares About Hurting Kids?

2009-07-31T23:38:00.000-07:00

"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.

Not of This World

2009-07-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

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 Boys Make a Discovery

2009-07-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

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 them, 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.

To the parents of a 6th grader

2009-06-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

This week I am going to lay out the best case I can for why, as your son or daughter heads into the brave new world of no-longer-children's ministry, they need to become deeply and meaningfully involved at the junior high level. When kids leave 6th grade, they turn a corner in their church life, so that regardless of their level of participation to this point, their involvement takes on a fresh imperative. My wish is that in two years, we'll be contemplating together how we might keep them involved as they transition to high school ministry.

But first, the task at hand. Your graduating 6th grader needs to stay active in church. There are a lot of reasons this might not happen.

One is the sense of "been there, done that" that sets in around middle school when young teens make it a point to leave childish things (Legos, Pokemon, public hugs from mom or dad) behind. Another is their growing desire to control and direct their own lives, including affiliations. Still another is the surefire way in which our culture conspires against teenagers to indoctrinate them into the apparently very grown-up ethos of "too much to do; too little time." Schools, sports teams, employers who like inexpensive labor, and a society that fears the delinquency that will surely break out if kids have too much free time all do their best to transform 12-year-olds into 22-year-olds who are hooked on adrenaline and dependent on caffeine, who are sleep deprived and irritable, who eat garbage and don't exercise enough - it's a real trap. There is too much to do. But, the pressure this creates to produce and turn inward rather than to engage in some spiritual community where you are invited to serve others and just be is formidable. Yet another reason kids "drop out" is because they genuinely don't know anyone, and who wants to feel out of place when you're 13?

So yes, a lot of reasons may stand between your son or daughter and a church in the next two years. But as it turns out, each of those constitute part of the case for you, as a parent, to ensure your son or daughter's future involvement. Here's why:

Early adolescence - roughly corresponding to 7th and 8th grades - is a time of profound change in kids, second probably only to the first two years of their lives, when they learn - well, everything. Neurologically, the brain is experiencing unprecedented development from birth-2, which makes proper stimulation and nurture essential. But, the brain changes that happen at puberty are no less important, and they are not a myth. It's too easy to look at an adolescent's moodiness or their inflated sense of self or their newfound boldness in challenging authority and chock it up to "hormones". What is happening instead is that they are transitioning into a whole new way of thinking - from concrete-style thought that has trouble handling abstractions, to analytical thinking that can problem-solve and theorize and make good, informed judgments about things.

What happens, though, if the religion they were taught as children - when they thought like children - isn't refreshed, if students don't get a chance to take apart and re-examine and even (gasp!) question what they know to be true? The answer is that religious knowledge stays where it was learned, in childhood. It's kid's stuff. So the first argument for the necessity of your son or daughter's involvement in junior high ministry is cognitive - their minds are ready for and need re-instruction in the faith, now that they're thinking differently.

Abstract thinking also allows us to pursue greater self-knowledge. The ability to see things from others' perspective is a wonderful gift, but in adolescence it gets morphed into a false belief that we are the center of everyone else's world and that they're all watching me! And who am I? The potential for an "identity crisis" grows. Not every adolescent faces full-scale crisis. But all of them have to answer the questions for themselves, of who I am, and what's unique about me, and what are my goals and values. "I" as an entity becomes so important because kids can see what happens to others who are admired or shunned; they want to emulate and appropriate as many of those "winner" qualities as they can.

Identity formation, then, is a second important reason to have your kid immersed in a junior high ministry. You want your kids, as they grapple with questions about who they are to have familiar contact with older Christians who've navigated those waters. Exposure to merely "good role models" isn't the same thing, and it isn't enough! In fact, much of what the culture values in the self-made man or the independent woman is contrary to what we ought to be growing toward: we are dependent beings, made in the image of God, under his authority, experiencing redemption from a fallen nature that is more than we can bear on our own.

And as kids seek out a positive identity, they will certainly look to the crowd to find some affiliation. Adolescent crowds and cliques offer safety against exposure. If I find a group of people who are all different in the way I'm different, or weak where I'm weak, or who dress the way I dress, at least I don't have to answer for myself alone. Socially, you want your adolescent to positively identify with others in their youth group: that's my crowd. That doesn't mean they withdraw from outside activities, but that there exists in their world a group of kids who are being taught to value what is "true...noble...right...pure...lovely...admirable...excellent or praiseworthy" (Phil. 4:8). Everyone is being nudged in the same direction. You want your son or daughter to jump into that current.

There you go - cognitively, personally (as a matter of identity formation), and socially, a 7th grader needs the support that a church youth group can offer. This is the first group of 6th graders who entered our program in 4th grade. Before that, we were just a 5th & 6th grade ministry. It has been a privilege to watch them grow up over three years' time. Sixth grade parents, thanks for your support of our program. I hope your family continues to place a priority on the spiritual development of your sons and daughters.

"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Mark 8:36

Into a Holding Pattern

2009-04-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is the end - for now - of weekly updates on this blog. I'll still write from time to time, but (for now) it won't be every single week. It's not that I'm out of ideas, but I need to turn my attention to a few other writing projects that are waiting in the wings, as well as focus a greater share of my attention on this summer's Kids Games.

This blog has met the fate of almost every blog (or website, or Facebook page) out there - you hit a point where you just can't keep updating it as frequently as you intended to, or want to. The archives are still here - plenty of stuff to chew on. Thanks for the many supportive comments that have been sent about this blog. As I said last week, it's worth it if only for my own sake, to crystallize my thinking and to communicate to you that we're serious about kids' spiritual development and wellness.

This blog turns 100

2009-04-04T23:58:00.001-07:00

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.

Mom According to the Kids

2009-03-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

There's a survey going around Facebook right now called "Mom According to the Kids" that's pretty funny. Moms interview their (usually young) children and record their answers to questions like, "How old is mom?" "What is her favorite thing to do?" and "What does your mom like most about your dad?" But not surprisingly, the answers tell us more about the child than they do about the parent.

What they tell us is that children, even young children, have an understanding of how the world works that they piece together through observation, speculation, and drawing conclusions, even if they're tenuous. How else would my three-year-old niece "know" that her mom's favorite food is ice cream, or that clapping makes mom happy, or that mom is really good at "doing calendars"? More precisely, who told her these things?

Chances are that she was told none of these things, and that fact has huge implications for us in education, particularly religious education, where our goal is to impart a version of the world and of life that has God as its source and its center. Only it turns out "impart" is a rotten word that reflects misunderstanding of what's really happening in a child's mind most of the time, so let's discard it. Rather, our job is to, first, recognize and understand the process of learning that's already occurring in a young mind, and, second, to attempt to shape and influence what's already going on.

A few years ago in a social studies classroom I had a young boy tell me he'd always thought Vietnam was in South America. Now, how did that get in his brain? The same way my niece "knew" that her mom had a bottle as a baby. Young brains (and old brains) are constantly making connections and drawing inferences, sometimes by our invitation, but usually not. If humans didn't do this, we wouldn't survive. We need a workable model of the world in order to function. As we get older, this understanding usually improves - that's wisdom. But we're constantly learning, fitting in new information to the understanding we already have, discarding old conclusions that no longer make sense.

Experts in moral development tell us the way to morally influence someone is not by first speaking (lecturing), but by first listening. Only when we understand the way someone is thinking about a moral issue can we step into the process and, by approximations, move them to a place of different thinking.

And yes, kids think about God. They draw conclusions - sometimes humorous - about what he looks like, where he lives, what he does, what he thinks of them, and why he acts. They develop expectations of what God will do, and ought to do. Our job - as parents, religious educators, and other caring adults - is certainly to give them a correct understanding of the world. But there again, "give" is a misnomer - it really doesn't work that way. Instead, we steer, we guide, we ask clarifying questions, we invite them to consider new information, we cause them to reflect - and understanding emerges.

This is not relativism, an attitude of "whatever you think is your truth" - it's the opposite! But if we think we will implant or transfer understanding directly into young minds, we've got another thing coming. You don't educate a young brain as you would program a computer. Great discipleship - and here I'm talking about the informal type, that arises unplanned in the course of life - begins by bringing forth the understanding (or misunderstanding) that's already there. This, I think, is why traditional courses in discipleship usually fail. Paper-and-pencil workbooks can contain "truth", but the truth fails to connect with where the student is at. And if discipleship fails at the earliest stages, people will never progress to later stages, when didactic methods (systematic approaches like reading books or listening to lectures) are more likely to be effective.

So what's the message? If you want to teach and want to influence, listen. You must listen, and do it in such a way as to draw out honest perceptions, assumptions, and conclusions. Get to know the values that drive your child's thinking. And remember that spiritual development is a lifelong process. And then join Facebook and complete "Mom According to the Kids". It's pretty hilarious.

The Lousiness of Short-Term Indicators

2009-03-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

Imagine you went to the doctor but no tests were performed. He didn't listen to your heart, didn't check your cholesterol, didn't order any bloodwork, and didn't ask any questions beyond "How are you feeling today?" And if you answered "ok", he sent you home?

He'd be doing a bit better if he treated whatever symptoms you had - a headache, a cough - by writing a prescription. But even that would make most of us feel cheated. When we go to the doctor, we want to find out what's wrong, so that the root of the problem can be uncovered and dealt with. "How are you feeling today?" is merely the gateway to deeper understanding.

Now, let's review what happened in the stock market last week, and then draw a parallel to parenting. The Dow Jones was down 7 points Monday, then shot up 270 points over the next two days, retreated 85 points on Thursday, before falling Friday 122 points. The key question is: is the economy doing better? And the answer is, you can't make a sane estimation of the stability of the economy by glancing at the Dow Jones one day. You can't really judge the health of something with a snapshot. Snapshots and indicators are reactive. And so it is with a kid, that you can't and shouldn't trust short-term, immediate indicators which give only a snapshot but do little to tell us what's really going on.

Consider as a somewhat absurd example height, something I obsessed over when I was in elementary school (because I didn't have any). It's obvious to adults, though it's not obvious to kids: how tall you are really doesn't matter, and there's not a single thing you can do about it anyhow. But it's a daily worry for kids who think they are either too short (always in the front row of the class picture) or too tall. We tell kids this doesn't matter because "It's what's on the inside that counts". But then we betray that by applying external measurements to our kids to determine "how they're doing".

Here are some of the measuring sticks applied against kids that you should be very wary of trusting:

Grades. Giving grades drove me out of public school teaching. What do they mean? If a kid brings home a D, we immediately assume "they need to work harder". But that, in turn, assumes that more concentration and more repetition is the answer. Yet if a kid genuinely doesn't understand, or in the case of math or science misunderstands the process required, then repetition is only going to perfect misunderstanding. A low grade can reflect a need to buckle down, but it can also be the result of boredom, poor teaching, distraction, poor eyesight, preoccupation with physical safety or home life, hunger, low intelligence, homework not turned in… Yet despite the myriad factors that are at play, one letter on a report card is supposed to mean something?

Happiness/Contentment. How many times have you heard parents say, "I just want him to be happy." But…really? How far will a parent go to keep a kid "happy"? And what is happiness? Is it a perpetual smile on the face? Some kids, once they reach adolescence, would be happy to never eat another family meal or go on another family trip. Or ever go to church. And some parents will respond in such a way as to give them just that, so as not to have to deal with the hassle that comes from insisting on anything. Happiness is a wickedly elusive goal, and what makes us happy today might bore us tomorrow and might harm us in the long-term. Therefore, whether a kid is "happy" is relatively meaningless. Happiness is not wellness.

This doesn't mean we condemn them to misery or ignore long-term sadness, which could be an indication of depression or other real need. It's just that a happy exterior may be the coping mechanism kids adopt that keeps us from seeing what's really the matter. The only way to really tell what someone is feeling is to ask them, and that assumes that you've established yourself as a safe, non-judgmental sounding board.

Manners. If kids are well-mannered because you want to teach them that other people have worth and the best way to honor them is to wait your turn, not interrupt, say please and thank you, and look someone in the eye when you speak to them, then yes, by all means manners are important. And no, you don't expect a very young child to be able to give you the rationale for good manners. Because mom and dad say so is enough. But ideally they will start to knowingly internalize those as they get older, so that a 10-year-old certainly knows why it's wrong to speak out of turn or to laugh at someone else's misfortune. BUT, if you are teaching manners because it will reflect well on you - "Wow, she did such a great job raising her kids" - that's pride. And kids are not raised to enhance parents' self-esteem. They're not trophies, or challenges to be mastered, or animals to be tamed. So when I see a kid with good manners, I admire the measure of self-control I see, but it tells me little about their spiritual wellness. "Polite" doesn't tell me how a kid is doing.

Irritation factor. Then there are parents who are all too ready to relate the latest thing their kid did that's causing the parent a headache. The problem with this is that irritation is a subjective measure, always from the perspective of the receiver. When I worked in group homes for kids in foster care, we were reminded that it's not against the rules to be irritating. Therefore, as a staff, the only thing you could control was your own reaction to whatever annoying thing they were doing. If you didn't or couldn't, you'd end up provoking an unnecessary confrontation, which usually meant hours spent repairing the damage. The best staff were those who could see annoyances for what they were - sometimes the product of a bad day, sometimes a provocation that would go away if annoyed, sometimes boredom that deserved to be attended to constructively, but never a reflection of the boy's worth. I failed at this many times, letting minor irritations that weren't rules violations get to me. If I find myself set off by kids' actions that are not dangerous nor harmful to them, but merely annoying, that says more about me than it does about them.

When we wonder "how is a kid doing?" that's a question loaded with future implications. What really matters, and what we're really assessing, is "what road are they on?" and "where are they headed?" - things mood and grades and manners tell us little about. A far more robust indicator of kids' wellness is something like the Search Institute's Developmental Assets Framework, because it gives a picture of not only where kids stand across multiple dimensions, it also is a tool for predicting future success and adjustment (and research supports this).

As we look at the wellness of kids, a long-term perspective is the best one to take. Trends, not short-term indicators, are the more relevant phenomena. They keep us from getting hooked on right behaviors and right answers and focus us more on motives and issues of character. What are this kid's values, affections, and beliefs? That will tell us far more about who they are becoming, and therefore "how they're doing today", than a glance at outward appearances.

What's the Story in Your Neighborhood?

2009-03-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

This week I was about to write about the troubling implications of a new survey that showed a decline in the number of Americans who identify themselves as Christians and an increase who call themselves non-religious. I was going to write about the challenge that posed for the American Church, and the likely shape of the future if trends continued. But then I read the survey. And it turns out the story reported isn't the full story.

There is a story here, in the fact that 75 percent of Americans call themselves "Christian", when in 1990 the figure was 86%. And in the fact that the number of people with "no religion" has nearly doubled in the last 18 years. It sets a tone reflected by the headlines: "Those With No Religion Fastest-Growing Tradition", "America Becoming Less Christian", and "Americans Becoming Less Religious".

But the unexplored and unexplained phenomenon in the American Religious Identification Survey is the fact that the decline in self-identifying Christians was much smaller from 2001 to 2008 than from 1992 to 2001. In the 2001 survey, self-identified Christians were 76.7 percent of the population, meaning that while the '90s saw a 9.5% decline, the last eight years saw only a .7% drop. Meanwhile, the number of self-identifying "non-religious" people climbed six full percentage points in the '90s (from 8.2% to 14.2%), but less than a percentage point since 2001 (it's now at 15%).

Does this mean we've lately seen a dramatic rise in either the number of Americans walking away from Christianity or from religion altogether? Hardly. If the trends of the '90s had continued, we would expect that by now only 2/3 of the country would call itself Christian, and that fully one-fifth would be irreligious. But that's not the picture at all.

The question, of course, is so what? Does a picture like this change the mandate of the Church at all? And the answer is, not really. Tactically these national snapshots inform the work of the church some, and the survey validates long-suspected trends that speak to the future of mainline denominations (which are losing members), the Catholic church (whose concentration has shifted from the Northeast to the American Southwest), and evangelical megachurches (they're popular, attended by more than 8 million people). And it is troubling, of course, that churches are failing to pass on the faith and the value of life in a religious community to later generations. Surveys like this one, which show the church losing ground, are convicting; they're never good news.

Yet in another sense, it doesn't change the work of the church at all. For one thing, it's rather callous for any church to regard its work as "done" the moment someone comes through the door, to adopt an attitude that as long as people self-identify as a kindred believer, we've done our jobs. The work of a church inside its walls is as important as the work outside its walls - in fact, they're two points on the same continuum. The Great Commission implies an ongoing work, not a once-for-all evangelistic invitation.

The second factor that limits the usefulness of the ARIS report at a local level is that it's a broad national snapshot and individual churches cannot, by themselves, reverse national trends. So the answer to the "so what?" question is, indeed, "so what?" Yes it's helpful to know that the public we're reaching out to is less religious than a generation ago, but the numbers aren't even high enough to say that "most" people are non-Christian or anti-religion, because that just isn't true. And even if it were true, courtesy would dictate that you appeal to someone on the basis of their individual need, knowing their personal story and circumstances, and not treat them as a generality constructed out of expectations of what's typical.

The real question - now and always - is: what's the story in your neighborhood? What are the needs of the people there? When they see and visit you, what effect does your Christian spirituality have on them? Does it attract, or repel - if it's even discernable? Is your life a silent testimony to the power of God? Are non-believing friends and neighbors more inclined toward attending a church because of you, or less? These are the relevant questions that ought to guide evangelism and outreach regardless of whether the percentage of Christians in your country is 90 percent or 9 percent.

And in another eight or nine years, when the survey is taken again, the numbers will show what the numbers will show. But do we really want to be in a position where we either threw up our hands or rested on our laurels because national averages showed we were doing our work pretty well or pretty poorly? The ARIS survey should make us neither glow with proud nor panic. It should only wake us up to the fact that we should not take for granted that our neighbor holds a theistic conception of the world. As if we needed reminding of that.

What Iran hopes to learn from Christians

2009-03-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Interest in the Christian faith is growing among scholars and leaders in a most unlikely place: Iran. Anyone at least my age remembers the swift change that came to that country in 1979, when Islamic radicals took over and Americans were taken hostage in the embassy in Tehran. Since then, the dominant image of Iran has been that of a place that's anti-American, anti-modernity, and certainly anti-Christian. But the Revolution, it turns out, is the very reason things are changing.

So says Sasan Tavassoli, an evangelical pastor in Iran (yes, in Iran). It's widely acknowledged within that country that the Revolution failed to deliver, and now Iran is considering its future in the community of nations. Part of this entails dialogue with Christian thinkers. More moderate Shiite clerics and academics are eager to learn from Christians, and as it turns out, one of their questions is a common theme on this blog: how do we pass the faith on to the next generation?

We Westerners are perhaps guilty of painting all of Islam with a broad brush, imagining that every young Muslim is schooled in a madrassah and taught to hate Western culture. But this is not so, and Tavassoli describes Iranians as descendants of the proud Persian tradition of tolerance for foreign religions (King Cyrus, who issued the decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem from exile, was Persian). So while Iran is certainly not multi-religious (being 98% Muslim), it is by no means a Saudi Arabia or a Somalia.

Another way of looking at this is that Iran could continue down a road of repression and strict observance of shari'a law, but it is in fact moving away. Tavassoli declares that this was never what the people supported in the first place, that the Islamic fundamentalists hijacked the 1979 revolution, and that Iran has been alarmed by the prediction of global conflict based on culture made at the turn of this century, desiring instead to position itself more moderately.

You may or may not buy Tavassoli's appraisal of Iran's political self-concept, but let's focus on the fact that we American Christians share at least one thing with Shiite Muslims in Iran: we're both concerned with propagating our faith in the midst of environments that value tolerance, free expression of ideas, and specifically do not value coercion or indoctrination in religious matters. They, like we, believe one's path to God must be freely chosen, not compelled. So how do you make kids choose right (if that isn't an oxymoron)?

To me, this is an issue of faith, of believing that God is bigger than seemingly hopeless circumstances; of recognizing that even during the last 30 years of an Islamic state in Iran, Muslims have been coming to Christ and that these conversions have been not the work of human evangelization, but as the result of dreams and visions. Tavassoli reports that one such dream, of the Virgin Mary asking for help, caused a government official to make an unsolicited offer of financial assistance to a Presbyterian church. It is recognizing that God works even through unintended consequences, such as when a Muslim writer is commissioned to do a Farsi translation of the New Testament and then has the chance to report to high government officials that in the course of his project, he had come to recognize many of his own misconceptions about Christianity.

It is because of the success and potency of the gospel in settings where the odds are stacked against it that we, in America, can take heart. I'll not deny that obstacles and threats to the free expression of religion exist in this country. But honesty demands that we acknowledge we are much freer than most and that most American Christians cannot claim to have experienced oppression or persecution that is really anything beyond scorn. If Jesus can break through a revolution led by Muslim extremists and preserve a remnant and a toehold in the middle of the Islamic world, should we have any reason to doubt that he will overcome any domestic threat here in the land of the free?

I further believe that there are specific reasons the hunger for Christian perspectives is surfacing, and they have to do with the veracity, reality, and uniqueness of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus - the real, actual Jesus attested to in the gospels - is a life that must be reckoned with. And so you have young Muslims wanting answers about the Jesus of the Bible, not just the Jesus of Muslim tradition. You have Muslims yearning to know the assurance of forgiveness. And you have people disillusioned by a revolution that promised them the world, but delivered only more uncertainty.

If we just show people - of all ages, in all cultures - God for who he really is, exemplified by the witness of creation, incarnate in Jesus Christ, I believe that's enough. The baggage that gets in the way is usually cultural - someone knew someone who was a Christian and they didn't like the effect of that. Yet, an intent gaze into the face of the true God is often convicting enough for people to set aside stacks of objections and to focus on what they know to be true.

Let's labor, then, to give kids this truth. Bring it to them in song, in spirit, in our teaching, our counsel, our own values. Let's so value God and the things of God that the inestimable worth of Jesus Christ is the unmistakable flavor of our zeal. A zealous desire for something less tends to yield that something less. But there is an incredible sufficiency in knowing Christ that transcends political or economic or cultural objectives. Iran is waking up to this, knowing that they were sold short on a revolution. To be sure, the country is anything but "open" as the word is normally used in Christian circles. But when the leaders of a nation that only one generation ago staked its future on the promise of Islam are rethinking that orientation, that's a huge open door for building faith - theirs and ours.

Affirm Them, Now!

2009-03-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

Here's the drill: Whatever you're doing (apparently, reading this), set it aside for a moment, go to your son or daughter, and speak a word of encouragement or affirmation. They need it, they're looking for it, and you're the best supplier of it. You yourself need a word of encouragement, and that's why you look forward to that time of the day when you can vent or debrief with your spouse, or get on the phone or sit over coffee with a trusted friend and hear, in not so many words: you're ok. So go affirm your child, and I'll be waiting here when you come back.

If that was at all difficult, let me suggest you pick up either David Stahl's Words Kids Need to Hear or The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell. The first book contains a couple of chapters on why encouraging words are necessary and specifically which encouraging words benefit kids (although the book isn't all about how to give praise), while Love Languages identifies words of affirmation as one of the five ways in which kids can feel loved.

These are times of high anxiety in our nation, but preteen and early teen years are always times of high anxiety when kids run up against the belief that they're not good enough. The message is rarely that blatant, but even the subtle forms are deadly: you should be more... you should have what I have... you obviously can't... you don't belong...

As kids fight through the wilderness of identity formation, they need lots of encouragement in the form of affirmation. What is it? For starters, affirmation is not praise. Praise is usually tied to performance: a good game played, a high grade achieved, an award garnered, a talent displayed. Praise is healthy and appropriate, but affirmation is altogether something different. Affirmation - well, affirms. It states what is. In a mirror-mirror-on-the-wall culture, affirmation is the antidote to narcissism. Far from engendering an exagerrated sense of one's importance (praise can do that), affirmation grounds us in what is true.

Secondly, there are many places we can draw information from about who we are and why we matter. Adolescents operate from an egocentric perspective and they assume everyone is thinking about and noticing them as much as they're noticing themselves. Life is lived in the fishbowl, so presentation is all-important. But, is the feedback we're receiving from those we encounter accurately perceived? Is it accurate at all?

Affirmation serves as the healthy counterweight to negative messages about self picked up in the culture: you don't look right... you really should be able to... you'll never... people don't like you... It can be exhausting to constantly refute that! But, there are a few good reasons why words of affirmation should rightly come from parents primarily.

Parents have the longest-standing relationship of anyone with their child, and by extension, they should be the ones who know their child the best. And, it is likely that apart from other family members (like siblings), they are the only ones who have a close relationship with the child who will still have a close relationship with them in ten years. Even best friends come and go. So during the time that your son or daughter is forging an identity, guess who the two long-term constants are in their life? Mom and Dad. What better messengers for truth? And, truth, safety, consolation - all of these are part of what makes home, home. We go home to escape the part of the world that demands our performance and that rewards our efforts to transcend who we really are. At home we can just be. And the message of affirmation is: who you are is ok.

If kids don't get that message from parents, either because the parent confuses praise with affirmation and doesn't want to inflate their ego, or because the parent struggles to be positive and find things to affirm, or because parents are just too busy to fill that need, kids will get that affirmation somewhere. Everyone lets down their guard sometime - no one can pose forever. And the "home" to which we return is the place of affirmation and acceptance.

I'm convinced this real self is the one God not only loves, but values. So the implications of affirmation for spiritual development are clear. We must affirm the nonperforming selves of kids if they are ever to believe that God loves that part of them. Otherwise the unbelievable love of God actually becomes that - not believed, while kids cast about for affirmation from the world, which is like hitting a moving target.

Make it a habit this year to offer regular, non-performance-based affirmation to your child. It won't spoil them, really. But starving them of affirmation just might.

Identity = Heart + Head

2009-02-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

If A.W. Tozer was correct when he said that the most important thing about someone is what they think about God, then what we think about ourselves in light of that has to be a close second. Closing the gap between what people know is true of Christians in general and what they proudly claim to be true about themselves is a chief task of youth ministry. What's at stake? Surprisingly, much more than just that kids feel good about themselves.

Not that having young people feel good about themselves isn't a worthy goal in itself. We adults have tended to minimize adolescent angst as either A. something we all went through so it's no big deal, B. too dramatic and messy to pay attention to, or C. something we'd rather forget. The adolescent identity struggle is messy, and yes, teenagers tend to make mountains out of mole hills. But the emotional tension and hurt experienced as kids strive to answer the question, "Who am I?" is very real, and if the pain is not attended to there can be short-term danger; if the conflict is not successfully resolved, there can be lifelong ramifications.

We rightly ensure that our infants and preschoolers have the most advantages we can marshall, because intuitively we know that wellness today lays the groundwork for wholeness tomorrow. It's just that identity formation is so - complex, that we often throw in the towel, distressed but not surprised about the choices kids make as they try to find their way.

But we'd better care, or we're going to have a heap of trouble on our hands, individually and collectively. Last week in this space Karen Lucas-Howard wrote about her response to the identity crisis she observed in her own daughters, how despite her best pareting efforts to expose them to only healthy influences, the cultural messages about beauty and significance were seeping in. Karen decided on an affirmative strategy: she wrote a book, designed for moms and daughters to work through together as they grapple with some tough questions about who God says girls really are. By what seems like sheer providence, we discovered Karen and her work late last year, and on March 4 her six-week class "Just Who Do You Think You Are?" will debut at our midweek program. When girls don't know who they are, the price is paid in eating disorders, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, low self-esteem, and body image issues that plague them well into adulthood.

This is reason enough to care that kids make a successful connection between what they've been taught in church and what they really believe in their hearts. But it goes deeper. I have long been convicted and motivated by the statistic that of kids who are active in church youth groups, fully two-thirds will walk away from the church by the time they are young adults. Now, the Barna Group has established that a majority of American kids who were raised in churches have left the church by the time they're 29. (And this should answer those who weren't worried about the post-high school exodus, who rationalized that "they'll come back when they're older". They're not coming back.) This finding needs to permeate and resonate within the entire church's consciousness - not just serve as an indictment of youth ministries.

When a majority of your church population has said no, I believe it's very hard for the Church to win them back; harder, perhaps than attracting those who have never believed. What is a church going to offer by way of teaching that they don't already know? A caring environment for kids - maybe, but families can stay home and have that. What will be the face of the American church shortly if the vast majority of adult attenders are new believers?

But the implications are broader than the national Church. Christianity Today notes in an editorial this month titled (ironically enough) "Who Do You Think You Are?", that ethnic conflict is flaring in areas of the world that also happen to be highly Christianized: Nigeria, Kenya (80% Christian), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (95%). How can this be? How can it be that "Christianity doesn't make a difference," according to Paul Robinson, a Wheaton College professor who was raised in the DRC? The answer boils down to identity. People have failed to internalize the Christian identity to the point that it trumps ethnic or national or political affiliations.

The implication for churches is huge: those that fail to push congregants across the finish line of fully embracing the Christian identity are failing in their work of discipleship. It shouldn't matter if failure means people are doing violence to each other or to one's self, it is a failure that damages the church's witness in the world and undersells the gospel. Churches (youth programs, especially) must go beyond transmitting a set of morals to young people and step into the much harder work of helping kids and teens develop a rich, thriving spirituality that has interior, interpersonal, and vocational dimensions. That's the point at which Christianity "sticks". And it's from there that we see real change.

Guest Blogger: "Just Who Do You Think You Are?"

2009-02-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

“Alright, young lady! Just Who Do You Think You Are?”
By Karen J. Lucas-Howard

Have you ever asked your daughter that question, with an annoyed facial expression and a disapproving tone because you thought that she had overstepped her bounds? I have. But, there came a time when I asked the same question in a different way—with a sincere interest in her answer and a hopeful curiosity as to whether she had been asking herself similar questions and had become acquainted with who she is – her personality, her likes and dislikes, her strengths and weaknesses.

When my two teenage daughters were pre-middle school and middle-school age, I spent a lot of time driving them and their friends to sports activities, school field trips, etc. My dual role as chauffeur and chaperone gave me the opportunity to be the “fly on the wall.” Barely noticed by the girls, I had a front row seat (literally) and felt privileged to be able to infiltrate this secret society without having to take on the giggling, shrieking and overly dramatic persona of the average pre-teen. The price of gasoline (much cheaper then, but would still be worth it today), plus the effort and physical energy it cost me to shuttle them here and there were small prices to pay for the chance to listen to their endless and unfiltered chatter.

The conversations went from simple to funny to interesting to impressive to weird (e.g. “Would you rather dip your head in a pot of boiling oil or wear your skin inside out?”) At any rate, I realized that there was a common thread in most of their discussions. These were all very good, sweet girls who came from families that cared about them and taught them good values and morals. Yet, even though they all went to church regularly and they all went to Christian school daily, their ideas were significantly influenced by the culture.

My husband and I monitored what our girls read, the music they listened to and the programs/movies they watched. However, it concerned me that even the seemingly “innocent” G-rated movies, Disney radio music, Nickelodeon TV shows and advertisements were constantly bombarding kids with wrong messages and blatantly trying to dictate their choices and their thinking.

The culture constantly defines and redefines “the new look”, “the new sound”, “what’s in”, and “what’s out”. Girls are distracted and stressed as they try to keep up with the changes, and they often pay little attention to whether or not they really like the new look, sound, etc.--setting themselves up for a life-long habit of blindly going with the flow. Even worse, many girls resign themselves to the fact that they are not worthy because they know they will never fit the profile of the culture’s description of ‘cool.’ The messages that kids absorb from society are many and often escalate into the realm of immoral and destructive.

I was determined to counter these messages, and as a mom I believed it was my responsibility to teach my girls to think for themselves! I wanted them to: 1) look for the message that’s being conveyed; 2) determine what their personal “true” feelings were; and 3) MOST IMPORTANTLY compare the message and their own thoughts to what God says about the issue—understanding that our ideals and behavior should correspond with God’s instructions!

For parents (especially moms) who want to begin or continue their own counter-culture campaign, I recently published "Just Who Do You Think You Are?", a bible study/activity book for girls 10 years old and up. In the book, three fictional girl guides take the reader on an adventurous tour of YOUston. Through fun activities, humor, and scriptures girls are encouraged to see:
a) their own hearts-- discover their personalities, opinions and interests;
b) the hearts of others—learn important principles that help them effectively relate to others;
c) most importantly, the heart of God--to understand a simple and practical definition of sin and God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, and that the Bible is an instruction manual that addresses every aspect of life.

I encourage each mom to take this initial journey with her daughter by completing this book as a team. Undoubtedly, moms will learn new things about their daughters, and I hope that the experience will give girls a chance to see their moms as mentors, allies and cheerleaders.

STEAM is sponsoring a 6-week workshop based on the book, “Just Who Do You Think You Are” for 4th-6th grade girls AND their moms. It begins Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 6pm. During the first 45 minutes, moms will have to chance to meet, socialize, and pray with other moms. Girls will join the class at 6:45 to work through the materials. For more information call Joy Beidel at (760) 579-4130 or e-mail joy@northcoastcalvary.org. Cost of the class is $15, and each pair who registers will get a copy of “Just Who Do You Think You Are”. You can also order additional copies at Amazon.com.

Oh, Michael; Oh, Us

2009-02-05T15:12:00.000-08:00

It took a little while for Michael Phelps' apology this week to register with me. At first I recalled his apology from 2004, when he was 19 and arrested for drunk driving. At that time, Phelps said, "I was taught that no matter how old you are you should always take responsibility for your actions, which I will do." This was after the 2004 Olympics, but still before Phelps became a household name.

Now, in 2009, after eight gold medals last summer and endorsement deals to the tune of multi-millions, Phelps is having to answer for misbehavior again. It's fair to ask: if it weren't for the commercial deals, would he still be apologizing? If it weren't for the continued exposure (in advertisements), would he still be in the spotlight? If it weren't for what the media created, would Michael Phelps be a role model at all?

It might be helpful to re-trace how Phelps got to this point. This was a kid who had trouble paying attention in school, who started swimming because it was an outlet for his boundless energy, who was phenomenal in the pool and signed on with a world-class coach, and the next thing you knew, he was in the Olympics.

But his 15 minutes of fame, largely television-driven, expired months ago. What's kept it alive is advertisers, who are now faced with a decision: is the potential bad press from a photo of Phelps smoking marijuana worth keeping him on as a spokesman? Kellogg's has decided it's not. They'll drop his endorsement deal at the end of February, saying “Michael’s most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg.” Others may follow.

Notice, please, that the quality or depth of his character is not the deciding factor, but rather the commercial risk of guilt by association. Advertisers deal in images, which we consume and which drive our behavior. Kids - and let's admit it, adults - get caught up in this because we're suckers for a good story. Michael Phelps did something extraordinary at the Olympics, for sure. But is that a reflection of his character?

His apology further muddles things. To say, "I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way" doesn't bring any moral clarity. Youthful? Well, isn't that to be expected from someone who is, um, youthful? Inappropriate? For a professional athlete? For a product endorser? For he himself? Or for everyone? It's not clear who he thinks he's let down.

Incidents like these should make us wary of lionizing anyone who has gained fame because of commercial endorsements. All that means is that they are worth money to the company who's employing their image. Companies don't do something for nothing - they are not rewarding Phelps for his accomplishment, for his personality, for his character, or for his athleticism. They are not, in fact, rewarding or honoring him at all. They are taking a calculated risk that whatever it costs to use his image will be recouped several times over. (In the same way, Denny's didn't really give me free breakfast on Tuesday because they thought I needed it...)

Kids need heroes, but adulation should be based on the things that really matter - character - not accomplishments and notoriety. It takes time to judge someone's character. The inner qualities that define a person emerge when we're tested, when we're pushed to be our best, and our worst. It's unfair to Michael Phelps or any celebrity to make them out as "heroes" (in a moral sense) when they're really being chosen for a singular ability or achievement. It makes me think of Charles Barkley's protest in 1993 that "I am not a role model".

Yet he was, and they are, these larger-than-life sports stars. They get built up as heroes, we dig deep to know more, and eventually they do something or we learn something that tarnishes the image. We may, at the end of the day, despair. Or give them a pass and say, "No one is perfect". Neither response, though, is adequate. Here are some practical thoughts on celebrities, heroes, and role models.

1. One of the problems is that our kids know few other adults than family members. They are familiar with the roles of teacher, coach, etc. and what is expected in the role, but they never really get to know the person behind the role, as someone with both positive and negative character traits. As a result, kids turn to media figures who they think they know - but the camera always lies. (Ever known a famous person? They're pretty...ordinary, except when it comes to the thing that made them famous, and they don't usually want to talk about that. Face it: everyone shops at Vons.) It's good for kids to have intergenerational relationships, because those relationships are long-term and actual, not idealized.

2. Find out who your kid's heroes are. This will initiate a great conversation about what kids value and the qualities they are growing towards.

3. Emphasize the role of grace in relationships. "Nobody's perfect" is often used as a cop-out, as in, "nobody's perfect...so don't expect too much of me." Instead, our attitude toward one another should be one of service and humility (and here you could draw in Philippians 2), so that when others let us down we are humbly able to forgive. Point out that grace is present in every relationship. Grace is not "giving up" on each other and expecting the worst, but it is willingly bearing with the worst when it happens - even when that's not deserved. Grace works like motor oil, facilitating repeated interaction without us wearing each other down. Humans must have grace from God to be in relationship with him.

4. Present Biblical heroes truthfully. There is a tendency in church curricula to present Bible characters as superheroes, and the teaching implication is clear: You should be like _______. The full story on any of these people is more nuanced, however. Moses struck the rock; David slept with Bathsheeba; Peter denied Jesus. The real teaching point is that you are these people because you possess a humanity, and the proper focus is on their interaction with God, which God initiates. The question for our kids is not "Can you act like this?" but "Are you available to God and what is he calling you to?"

5. In your own interactions with your kids, be sure to affirm character, not just accomplishment. Young kids need to have character qualities pointed out and named (e.g. "That was very generous when you let your friend have the last cookie"); older kids benefit when someone notices the way they go about a job, not just that the job got done.

We'll probably never move beyond the tendency to elevate the well-known to positions of moral leadership. But every time a Michael Phelps is photographed in a compromising position, a Christian Bale is recording cursing someone out on tape, or an O.J. Simpson is caught orchestrating a crime, it should serve as a big reality check. It should cause us to consider how they became famous, and what fame really honors. It should make us search our own hearts as to whether we value achievement over integrity. Proverbs 22 tells us, "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." Do we really believe that?

Kids Are Like Diamonds

2009-02-01T18:55:00.000-08:00

Parenting doesn't need to be extraordinary to be effective. But it needs to be present, and it needs to be consistent. When it's not, kids' development is impeded, which is one reason kids are like diamonds.

To say this is not to make a sentimental statement about the worth of children, but an observation about nurture. Just as diamonds are formed over years of constant heat and pressure, an adult is formed over the many years we call childhood and adolescence. To be sure, no one's upbringing is perfect. But the more we understand about adult wellness and adjustment, the more we can trace to formative experiences and environment: what didn't this person get that they needed while growing up?

Ponder it: humans really are amazing. More than mere animals, life for us is not just a matter of answering instincts. We are social and relational, blessed with intrinsic worth and charged with becoming all that we were made to be while at the same time not demeaning or devaluing others, who also were bear the image of God. We, unlike animals, possess this thing called "development", and it is multifaceted: physical, moral, cognitive, social, emotional, and of course, spiritual. In wild animals, only the physical is a given (and even that depends on regular access to adequate food supply). But human babies are born needing their mothers. And this dependency broadens to other caregivers so that influences are many and their effect pronounced.

The paradox is that while we humans develop in a social context, we are also resilient enough that if we miss what we ought to get in one place, we can often make up for it by drawing from another source. Put another way, it is what children possess in their development that matters more than how they get it.

Still, there is an aspect in which the more completely a child's developmental needs are met, the better equipped they are to handle the work of adulthood. And when we say "met", we are not talking about checking off a box, as a one-time obligation is fulfilled. Rather, we are talking about conditions that are persistent throughout childhood and adolescence, what we might refer to as the "character" of any given child's upbringing. And an important factor in character is consistency. If someone is consistently grumpy but occasionally has a good day, we would still say their overall demeanor is unhappy. So it is with kids. Periodic positive inputs are a great enhancement to development, but the real shaping depends on the quality of what they are consistently exposed to: is it warm, supportive, responsive, and so on.

In other words, kids are like diamonds. Singular, positive experiences are helpful, but they are no replacement for long-term, positive influence. We who provide care - parents, mentors, teachers, and other caregivers - don't have to be perfect, but we do need to make long-term commitments to kids' welfare and do the right thing for their development over and over again.

And here are some messages that represent the kind of support I think is best for our "diamonds-in-progress":
1. "I love you for who you are - it's not predicated on something you can do or something I hope you'll accomplish someday."
2. "I am here for you to talk to whenever you have questions or needs."
3. "I will not judge you when you start to question what you believe, because I recognize you are in a process of development."
4. "My job as a parent (or mentor, caregiver, or teacher) is to teach you to live just beyond yourself. That means while I will protect you, I'm also willing to let you fail or experience discomfort if it's for your ultimate good."

Kids who live within the consistency of this brand of nurture experience security and trust; those who receive inconsistent support or lack of support labor in insecurity and doubt. The best churches, schools, and families are those that are agile enough to "keep the pressure up" without being controlling or stifling. There are times when kids need more guidance than others. Truly, development is individual. Yet we know that without consistency - long-term, devoted application of ourselves and our attention - the diamond will not form.

I hope this year you'll avail yourself of something that keeps you motivated to stay the course of what's right for kids - a book, a seminar at the church, a supportive group of fellow parents. Because it doesn't take extraordinary parenting to give kids what they need. It does take commitment to do the right thing, faithfully, with adjustments and fix-its applied as needed. We're on the journey together. Don't quit!

Do we need a program to train kid leaders?

2009-01-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

This week's blog posting is not for everyone - because it's about a program that's not for everyone. For that reason, before we dive in to launch it, I'm asking for your help. Dedicating ministry time and resources to something that reaches a limited audience is not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, if the project is worthy, it can be a great idea. This may be one.

Last fall I was introduced to a program called "KidLead", which is leadership training designed especially for 10-to-13-year-olds. Its founder is Alan Nelson, who has been a pastor and is now taking his experience working with adult leaders and his doctorate in leadership to direct the effort to raise up kid leaders through KidLead. Why focus on kids? Quite simply, because Nelson believes that this is the age they are most pliable and teachable. The added benefit, of course, is that young leaders grow up to be older leaders. So if kids can be reached while they are young, it can alter the course their leadership impact will have forever.

It's the same thinking behind why we do children's ministry - that if kids can be reached before their spiritual and moral compass are "set", we can determine the course of their whole lives. But this leadership training program has an importance difference - it asks kids who apply to complete what's called a Social Influence Survey, a tool for assessing leadership traits and potential. The program then works with kids who show leadership potential to develop 16 important leadership qualities.

The benefit is that kids' leadership skills can be developed for the benefit of kids around them now, and the benefit of those who will be led by them in the future. Keep in mind that those who are naturally inclined to lead others will have an influence one way or another. But not every strong leader uses their leadership potential for constructive purposes. Nor does every kid who exerts social influence naturally develop into a good leader. Sometimes raw leadership qualities can manifest themselves as bossiness or create feelings of intolerance or superiority in the one possessing them. KidLead, then, is an effort to take God-given abilities and channel them into positive purposes.

Still, leadership training takes commitment, which is why I'm interested in hearing from those of you who have socially influential kids or are at least intrigued enough to know more. So I'm asking you to do two things:

The first is to visit the KidLead website: http://www.kidlead.org/. Read there about the philosophy of the program, see the outline of the curriculum, and read what parents and kids have said in support of the program. Of special interest on the website is this page, which gives you a concrete suggestion on how you, as a parent, can "coach" your child through a leadership task:

http://www.kidlead.com/kidlead_freeideas.htm

Secondly, if you like what you've seen, let me know and I'll keep you posted on Alan Nelson's next visit to NCCC, when I'd like to bring a team of interested parents together to learn more, and to explore whether our ministry is a good home for a project like this.

You may be able to tell that I'm impressed by the program design, and its potential - I can think of a number of kids in our program who would benefit. What do you think?

What kids are saying about STEAM

2009-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

One of most relevant questions in children's ministry right now is this: If we only have contact with kids for about an hour every week, and we are tasked with building something meaningful into them during that hour, is "school" the best model? After all, most kids spend plenty of time in a formal educational setting and the older they get, the more negative their attitude toward school becomes. So the question becomes, are we starting in a hole if our church programs for kids approximate school?

Yet, pragmatic and traditional factors usually steer churches into this mold. For one, grouping kids with same-age peers and teaching them all the same thing makes for an efficient use of space, whereas individualized learning necessitates kids spreading out and is resource-intensive. And, most parents expect that kids who spend time in church will learn something - and thus, church is expected to be somewhat "like school".

All of this to say that on weekends, our options for individually tailoring content or giving kids choices is pretty limited. As a teacher, I have to teach to the masses. Sometimes the subjects connect with a vast majority of kids, and sometimes they miss. But I remain convinced that kids learn best when they're learning something they want to learn, when the teaching is answering the questions they're already asking. There needs to be a flexibility in church programming to meet kids at the point of their curiosity, and to let them be who they want to be. This is the thinking behind STEAM.

STEAM started this fall and grew out of last year's midweek program, the Thursday Night Thing. Our Thursday night program was small groups-based, but still pretty uniform. Our move to the new property has allowed us to spread out and spread our wings. The difference has been fabulous. No more games in the parking lot dodging the Ralph's delivery truck. No more squeezing small groups into stairwells or under exterior building lights (although we still are quite creative when it comes to using space). STEAM is a program where individual interests and explored, gifts are exercised, and hopefully, kids grow closer to God and to one another.

Our spring session is about to begin (this Wednesday), so if you're not familiar with how the program works, here's a primer:

The first 45 minutes (6-6:45), kids go to one of three activities. They choose their activity when they arrive. Usually one or two are physical games, and there's always an arts and crafts project. This is where kids get to "blow off steam". At 6:45 we shift into electives, where kids "take on steam". And at 7:30, we go home. Fall was a 12-week session and Spring will also be 12 weeks, with a few more breaks in between for Easter and outreach nights. Once STEAM wraps up in late April, we'll have some group events (parks, beach, pools, etc.) to celebrate the end of the school year.

What are kids saying about STEAM? We asked some of our Junior Leadership Team kids to answer questions in writing about the program. Here's what they said:

“What are you allowed to do at STEAM?”
Bring a friend, pray, go to class, go to the bathroom, go to an activity.
Play
Have fun and learn about God
To play and have fun!!!
Play and always listen to your leaders
To be friends with everyone and hang out with friends
Go to the bathroom and sign in
To have fun and make new friends
Play games, do stuff
Ask important questions, pray to God, and even more
You are allowed to obey the rules.

“What are you not allowed to do?”
Fool around
Go on the stage
Not follow the rules and go crazy and attack the leaders
To hurt others, say mean things, or disobey the leaders
Hurt others
Tease the leaders
You are supposed to stay in the gym for when your parents come to pick you up, and you are not allowed to go to the bathroom during class.
To disobey the rules

“What’s different about STEAM than what happens here on the weekend?”
You have fun and wear yourself out
It’s the same thing I think because we play, go to small groups, and a snack, but the only thing that is different is that we do an activity first and everything is in a different order.
Here we play dodgeball
More running around
At STEAM we get to choose an elective
We have electives
Nothing
At STEAM you get to worship God and play kickball and other games and on the weekend you don’t
You do worship on the weekends
On the weekend you worship God and sing to him and STEAM you learn about things

“What happens when you’re on JOLT?”
You clean up at Sunday or Saturday service
We clean up
You do special stuff
You do lots of jobs to help the leaders during church
I get to lead people and be a leader
You help others
You are a leader and you do work at the church
You get to help put away and take out things on the weekend
I get to experience the feeling of a leader
Get free food
You help clean up and set up and greet new kids
You enslave yourselves and go to parties

And below are some descriptions of the electives we're offering for Spring Session. You can also download the entire registration brochure here.

The Young Peacemaker, part 2 (every week)
Principles of Biblical peacemaking in a course designed especially for kids. Kids will learn what to do when friends fight or siblings squabble, how to mediate, how to apologize and restore relationships. This is a proven program. You do not have to have taken Peacemakers in the fall to join the spring session. $15 materials fee if enrolling for the first time.

Stumped by the Bible: The Old Testament (Offered 1st 6 weeks and repeated 2nd 6 weeks)
What's the story on the Old Testament? Can your kid tell the difference between Solomon and Saul, the Exodus and the Fall? This is all about the OT's big story, its books, and who wrote them. $20 one-time materials fee (same book is used in the OT & NT classes).

Stumped by the Bible: The New Testament (Offered 1st 6 weeks and repeated 2nd 6 weeks)
What's the story on the New Testament? This class focuses on the growth of the church, especially the life of Paul, and the difference between NT history and letters. $20 one-time materials fee (same book is used in the OT & NT classes).

Sign Language (first six weeks)
This class will introduce kids to the Deaf culture and American Sign Language. Kids will learn words and phrases and how to sign a worship song. No charge.

Cooking (first six weeks)
Each week focuses on a different Bible event as kids make a dish or treat that will help them remember the story. $15 materials fee. Enrollment is limited.

Beginner Guitar (first six weeks)
Learn basic chords and strumming. No charge. A tuneable acoustic guitar is required.

Dramatics (first six weeks)
Become part of a team that will present dramas in the K/1 and 2nd-3rd grade classrooms in the spring. We will rehearse and stage on Wednesday nights. You must be available to perform February 25* and be motivated to perform on-stage. No charge. Enrollment is limited.
(* new date)

Drawing, part 2 (every week)
A continuation of our popular fall elective, but an all-new book (so fall students are welcome, as well as new students). $10 for book and materials.

Topical studies for pre-teens (every week)
Topics change each week: Following God as our shepherd, Showing Christian love to those around you, Setting priorities according to God's will, Fully and totally worshiping God, etc. Kids will be divided into small groups each week. No charge.

Just Who Do You Think You Are?
A class for Moms & Daughters (second six weeks)
Using the book "Just Who Do You Think You Are?" author Karen Howard will guide moms and daughters through the process of discovering a girl's true identity. What is beauty? How can a girl understand her own unique personality? How do you lead, and how do you responsibly follow? A powerful opportunity for moms to connect with their daughters and each other. $15 materials fee.

Stumped by the Bible: How to Read & Understand Your Bible (second six weeks)
This class "puts it all together" and teaches kids how to read and comprehend the various books of the Bible. Kids must have taken BOTH the OT and NT classes (in any order) to sign up for this one. Uses the same resource as the OT/NT classes.

Preview 2009: A New Year and Some New Ventures

2009-01-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

We are gearing up for a new ministry year, and this week I wanted to give you a preview of some really exciting things planned for 2009.

STEAM continues with more electives. Last fall we moved our midweek program to Wednesday night and changed the format. If you're not familiar with STEAM, the 90-minutes is broken into two 45-minute blocks. In the first, kids "blow off STEAM" by choosing a physical or artistic activity. In the second block, they go to a pre-chosen elective. Last fall there were five electives; this spring we are able to expand that number to 11! Each elective is led by a trained leader and we also need adults to play with kids and accompany them to electives.

Spring electives include: The Young Peacemaker 2, Stumped by the Bible (classes giving kids an overview of both the Old and New Testament) plus How to Read and Understand Your Bible, Sign Language, Cooking, Beginner Guitar, Drama, Drawing, Topical Studies for Pre-teens, and a class for moms and daughters on navigating self-image, esteem, and beauty issues (more on that class to follow).

For full registration info, be sure to pick up a STEAM Spring Session brochure at the church.

"Just Who Do You Think You Are?" moms and daughters class and retreat. We have long believed in promoting healthy parent-child relationships and are thrilled to be able to offer this during the second six weeks of the spring midweek session. Karen Howard, who attends NCCC, wrote a manual for her own daughters as they were entering adolescence on how to navigate issues of identity and image and not lose sight of what God thinks about them. Karen has since published her work and will be leading the class.

May 1-3, after the class has concluded, we are planning a weekend away for moms and daughters that builds on the themes of the class. You do not have to take the class to go on the retreat, but it sure helps.

Parenting 101 and Relationship 101 series. As we build into kids in the middle of the week, we plan to continue building into parents as well. Please join us for these 90-minute presentations during STEAM (6-7:30 pm) on Wednesdays. A new slate of speakers and topics begins January 14.

6 to 7 Project. Once again this spring we will make a concerted effort to get our sixth graders transitioned up to the Junior High ministry, with a variety of ministry events that are 6th grade-only. We believe a major factor in kids' continued involvement in church ministry is the existence of a peer group at church; simply put, kids don't like coming to church once they hit middle school if they don't know anyone else there. So all of the events in the 6 to 7 Project aim at helping kids forge friendships with other sixth graders, as well as getting acquainted with the Junior High Ministry staff.

Summer Camp. This one we are very excited about! We have found a location for summer camp that can accommodate lots of kids, has a good variety of outdoor activities, and that allows us to bring our own counselors so they can have a week to bond with the kids they work with. Mark your calendars now - camp will be July 6-10 (Monday-Friday) - and the price will make you smile. (Note: this camp is for kids who will be in 4th, 5th, or 6th grade next school year. Current 6th graders will be included in Junior High Summer Camp at Forest Home.)

Baptisms. We are planning two baptisms for kids this year. Each involves kids and parents going through our half-hour "Testing the Waters" class, reviewing home materials, and doing an interview with NCCC staff to ensure kids know the significance of the step they're taking.

Kids Games. Date is July 20-24. Kids Games returns - every year is now Kids Games. We expect another banner year. Do you coach a sport or think you'd like to lead an elective activity? Be on the lookout for head coach recruitment coming early in '09.

JOLT. We launched our JuniOr Leadership Team last fall, to help us keep up with the work it takes to set up and reconfigure our classroom as we transfer from play time to small group time to worship and teaching time. We also use this group of young leaders as a sounding board for programs and issues in the 4th-6th grade room. We have two trainings coming up in January - Saturday, Jan. 10 from 2-4 pm, and Wednesday, Jan. 28 from 3:30-5:30. Trainings beyond that will depend on our future need.

Do we need kid leadership training? I have been approached by the publisher of a leadership training curriculum designed specifically for pre-teens, to be offered in churches. It looks like a winner - what I need to know is whether there's a critical mass to make it go. I'll be writing more on this in the next couple of weeks.

Holiday Bible Guide 2008

2008-12-13T01:27:00.001-08:00

Once again this Christmas season, some reviews of Bibles for kids, and some info you should consider before purchasing a Bible for a kid.

As always, the Bible I most highly recommend for your son or daughter is the one they are willing to read. Put aside cosmetic considerations, whatever "extras" are included between the covers, or the particular translation and discover first whether this Bible will be read by them. Whatever factors are important to them - size, readability, extra features - should be your main criteria.

For that reason, don't give a Bible as a surprise, but enlist your child in picking one out. You'll know immediately, for instance, if the Bi

ble "zines" have topics of interest to them by how much time they spend browsing one. You'll get a sense for their tolerance of small type - for many kids, that's an immediate turn-off.

Since last year's writing, our Calvary Chapel Books and Gift store has relocated to the new building - and a makeshift presence in the main hallway. As a result, the number and variety of Bibles they keep stocked is limited. But, they are able to order anything in print (allow about a week for delivery). And, they appreciate feedback from customers on what kids are reading, as that helps them know what to order and stock. Here are some of the Bibles for kids that are now on the shelves there:

This is a classic devotional Bible for kids, by Zondervan. This appears to be a new cover design, but it's the same content. The Adventure Bible has lots of charts and sidebars and other helps for kids as they read.

Another NIV choice is the Discoverer's Bible:

Not as many textual notes as the above, but what it does have going for it is that it is in large print (12 point type). Don't underestimate this for the effect it has on readability for kids. Large type can increase the speed and fluency at which kids read. It also makes the text more accessible - if a kid opens a Bible and sees small print, reading through it may seem like a daunting challenge.

The only real features are a dictionary & concordance at the end, book introductions, and some full-page, full-color pictures. (But why didn't they place the pictures adjacent to the story it depicts in the Bible?? You'll see a picture here of David and Goliath, a story decidedly not in the book of Nehemiah.)

If type size is not an issue, and easy portability is, then the pocket-sized Bibles are a good choice. The key words are "thinline" and "slimline" and each refers to the thickness of the Bible (and, consequently, the size of the type). Not many extras here - portability and cover design are the main selling points.

The "Princess Bible" is similarly sized, but it is an ICB translation (International Children's Bible), simpler vocabulary and sentence structure than the NIV (which has an 11th grade reading level).

Another Bible targeted to girls, and with more features inside, is the FaithGirlz Bible. (Personally, I cringe when marketers intentionall

y use colloquial spellings for words in order to appear edgy to kids, but I digress.) FaithGirlz is all about helping girls discover an "Inner Beauty/Outward Faith."

At the front you'll find "The Faithgirlz Promise", which is to "Focus on my inner beauty/Remember that God loves me always/Love myself the way God made me/Look at others' gifts without jealousy/Treat other people the way I want to be treated/Love my neighbor/Forgive others when they sin against me/Love my

enemies/Seek God's will in all that I do/Focus on the inner beauty of others." Good stuff.

Here's a more boy-friendly pocket Bible - although there's nothing specific in it that's directed at either boys or girls. You're getting the cool "treasure chest" motif and the ICB translation. Includes a dictionary and some maps.

The FaithGirlz Bible and its devotional intent reminds me of the Bible "zines" that came out a few years ago, and are still available. These are targeted at various age groups - a link is here: BibleZines

"Magnify" is one example - aimed at older elementary kids, while Blossom hits preteen and young teenage girls.

The Bible we use in our classroom, and one of my favorites, is "The Illustrated Bible - New Testament", available from www.biblesplus.com. I like it for the wealth of diagrams and cartoons, and because it's NIrV (New International Reader's Version), a simplified version of the NIV.

And I'm still a fan of these, especially for kids who need pictures to aid comprehension. The Picture Bible does not contain the full text of the Bible, but it does depict key stories from the Old and New Testaments.

The Illustrated New Testament is the full Bible text, presented in panel form (think comic strip, but the pictures are very realistic). So far, they have only done the complete New Testament and selected books of the Old Testament (some individual NT books are also sold). A full list of available titles is here.

The Whys of Pre-Teen Ministry: Theology

2008-12-07T17:21:00.001-08:00

When kids know all the Bible stories, is there reason to keep coming back to church? Over the last three weeks I've argued that there are three critical things that should happen for a kid at church, apart from the acquisition of knowledge, and particularly during the preteen years. First, kids need to develop a sense of belonging - finding their group. Second, they need to claim their identity as a Christian, and they won't do that if they perceive there's any baggage that accompanies that. The third thing that needs to happen as kids reach the end of elementary school is the connecting of the dots into a coherent whole, the cobbling together of a workable theology.

By "theology" I mean a version of the world in light of what you believe about God. Everyone has a theology, whether they know it or not. Pressed to articulate, nearly everybody could explain their understanding of who God is, how we works, what he wants, and what he's done. Even an atheist - who would answer those questions in the negative - has their worldview informed by the fact of God.

A young child's theology is very simplistic - and necessarily so. It's enough for young children to know that God created everything, that he loves them, that he cares for them, that he sent Jesus to the world, and that God wants us to be in heaven with him someday. We don't weigh three-year-olds down with matters of election or transubstantiation or the problem of evil or the nature of the Trinity.

But as kids grow, and their capacity for thinking and reasoning changes, their theology grows too - sometimes in wildly inaccurate directions. A healthy theology acknowledges their own status as created beings, subservient to the will and direction of the master, and we would hope that as kids grow in faith, they would embrace the realization that God's love for them doesn't necessarily mean he'll give them everything they want, but he will always provide for their good". In short, you want kids to develop a "theology" that's not a "me-ology".

It's not automatic. If it was, adults living in a world full of evil would reason their way toward God. In fact just the opposite happens. Grown-ups see evil and injustice, perhaps even in their own lives, and they conclude that a loving God is improbable, if not impossible. It doesn't help when health-and-wealth preachers teach people to equate "blessedness" with the value of their accumulated possessions. People who grow up with an entitlement mindset don't tend to shed that easily. It figures that when things go sour, the God who supposedly pulls the strings gets the blame.

We can fight this by diligently forming a theology that is true in kids. One way is to constantly ask them what they believe. This not only dignifies them (because what kid doesn't enjoy being asked their opinion by a grown-up?) but it brings the theologizing into the open, where it can be shaped and challenged.

Psychologists speak of "Aha!" moments, when sudden insight comes to the mind of someone who is deep in problem-solving. I more often experience "Duh" moments in my learning, when I have all the information in front of me but can't see how it fits together or makes sense (usually when I'm doing my taxes) - and then all of a sudden the realization hits: "Duh".

I think thinking theologically is more a case of "Duh" learning than "Aha!" learning. Kids don't need a novel understanding of God and his ways, but a sensible one, based on things they know to be true. So they know the Old Testament stories, of Abraham and Isaac, of Moses, of Saul and David and Jonathan, perhaps of Queen Esther, but what does it mean to them? Can they pull out any themes? Can they spot any patterns in how God works among his people? Can they piece some of Jesus' warnings and NT promises about what awaits those who follow him, and verbally paint a picture of what a Christian can expect life to be like? Can they begin to grasp how God's forgiveness works and what it means to have God's Spirit living inside you?

Kids can do this. It's work, but it's worthwhile. And - whether we're intentional about it or not - it will happen anyhow. That's an arresting thought. Somewhere along the line in your child's development, at least once, they will draw the conclusion that either God cares about them, or that he doesn't give a rip. They will cast into the future and see themselves either following him, or not. They will decide to preserve their uniqueness and acquiesce to God's call on their life, or they will give in and slouch toward the culture's low expectations. All of this will depend on what they honestly think about God.

Church researcher George Barna opines that every decision we make is, at heart, a spiritual decision. It reflects a choice for God, or against him. (See more in Barna's book, Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions.) I think he might take that a bit far - some decisions are morally neutral, and others reflect a choice between good and better. But his point is well taken, especially as applied to the bigger decisions of life. And, as Barna recognizes, those decisions are informed by what we think about God. If we hate him, or even merely respect him, or grudgingly serve him, but we don't love him, we will not orient our lives in such a way as to glorify him.

And who wants to glorify God anyhow? No one. Left to our own devices, we are base, callous, and self-seeking. We fight for our own survival, and let every man fend for himself. It takes the invasion of God into our lives to turn that aircraft carrier, and gradually our eyes are opened ("Duh!") to the fact that we can live without ourselves in the center…and all will be ok. So the other way we can help kids fight the me-ology and embrace a theology is to give them tastes of what it is to "live beyond themselves." Living beyond yourself is having the experience of deliberately putting your own needs and comfort second so that others may be first, and in the process discovering…that it is really all ok. Of course, sometimes living beyond ourselves is not what we want to do, but we lean on God in faith and rather than strive, allow him to fuel our actions.

A warped theology is a tragic thing. Like the wrong prescription for eyeglasses, it causes a person to see God's hand in evil or misfortune. It can cause us to condemn all of the physical world, falsely believing that evil resides there. It withholds credit where credit is due, and fails to attach responsibility to its rightful source. Kids who think rightly about God enjoy the ancillary benefits of right thinking about themselves, their relationships, and their futures.

Not that any of this is easy. We are teaching kids to believe, and not just to know. That involves dialogue, lots of time and attention, and consistency. And ultimately, we will let them go. The first 18 years of a child's life is their time in harbor, when the ship is readied, fueled, inspected, systems tested, and is set on course. Eventually they depart to sail. When we help kids develop a strong theology we are showing them how to hold the map right side up and how to read it. And when kids possess strong navigational sense, we have every reason to be confident in their journeys.

The Whys of Preteen Ministry: Identity

2008-12-01T00:42:00.000-08:00

Is there any good reason for kids raised in the church to stay involved with church as they get older? Specifically, is there any reason why church involvement in the late elementary school years is important?

Two weeks ago I alluded to an alarming statistic regarding middle school students and the Bible. This is it: about 75% of them believe they know pretty much everything the Bible teaches - that there is basically nothing new to learn because they've heard all the stories. The Barna Institute discovered this in surveying churched kids.

If these kids attend churches where the programs are modeled after school classrooms and if we have emphasized above all else the accumulation of knowledge, that means the relevance of continuing to attend church is a question they are seriously beginning to wonder about themselves: Why should I continue to go when I already know all the stories?

In my last entry, I offered that during the late elementary years especially, kids need to develop a sense of belonging at church. They need to feel like they belong to the whole, as well as that they have a place within the whole - some sort of smaller group - to which they belong. Without this sense that I am needed there, kids will get over church in a hurry.

The second aspect of value that I see developed through continued church involvement is identity. Identity is related to belonging, in that if kids don't feel they belong, they are unlikely to take on the identifying characteristics of the members of the group.

Quite plainly, by the time your kid enters junior high, you want them to be able to state unabashedly "I am a Christian", and by that to mean not only that they assent to basic Christian doctrine and teachings, but that they see themselves as a Christian, distinct from being merely religious or spiritual or none of the above. Identity formation is crucial as kids head into the teenage years. As I wrote a few weeks ago in an essay on keeping kids drug-free, "good kid" is not an identity anyone embraces. No one wants to be defined in the negative, by the things they don't do. But if a kid can say in all honesty that their reason for living as they do is that they are in pursuit of a relationship with Christ, that has some traction, and that's where we want to bring kids to.

I am not advocating that our churches adopt a Christian nurture model, which rests on the idea that if we surround our kids with Christian culture and practices from birth, they will "grow up Christian" and never regard themselves as otherwise. I think there is great danger in having kids believe that Christianity is just a set of practices, or nothing more than a lifestyle, or that to be a Christian means primarily that you are present more often than not when the church body comes together. This is weak sauce and does not aspire to the great adventure of true Christian spirituality, which has a thriving personal dimension, not just a corporate one.

What I am talking about is paying attention to whether, by age 12, a kid has started to own their faith, which is not necessarily a product of how involved they are in the life of the church. Parents of regular churchgoing kids and occasional attending kids need to honestly assess within their own child whether that kid has any shame in being called "Christian". If there is resistance to that label, a clue could lie in studying what's going on with those outside the church.

It has been observed that the generation now coming of age wants to "belong before they'll believe." In other words, they are asking the questions, "Do I belong here?" and "Can I see myself being one of these people?" and "If I have to change to belong to this group, is it a change I can live with?" If the answer to any of those questions is "no", it's not likely that person will continue on the journey, but look for something that is more "them" and offers what they're looking for. Consumerist? Maybe. But much of this is a reaction to the perceived hypocrisy of churches that say one thing and do another, a suspicion of organized religion, and a protection against getting burned.

The Church would do well to sit up and take notice: it has a terrible image problem. And that has led people to "say yes to Jesus and no to the Church". Well, these are just discontented people who can't accept that the Bible teaches moral absolutes, you say. The Church is better off without them. Think again. In their landmark 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton found that "spiritual but not religious" - the supposed phenomenon where young people are trying out all kinds of new religions and fashioning together whatever makes sense and works for them - is largely a myth. By and large, the group studied (which is now entering young adulthood) refuses to cast judgment on spiritual seekers but they themselves are not embracing hybrid spirituality. Make no mistake - there is a large segment of society who desire God but have rejected church, rejected "Christian community", and resist wearing the Christian label.

This may be one of the biggest differences between moderns and postmoderns when it comes to ministry. For people my age and older, identification was assumed; what mattered in church was that you learned the Bible stories, the creeds, the verse of the week, and perhaps that your behavior conformed to what was expected of a Christian. Postmoderns need a different approach. There will be a time to teach them content, but they have an eye on the bigger picture: what's at the end of this road, who will I become, and who is with me? If they're not satisfied that the overall direction is genuine and worthwhile, they will not buy into the process of disciplemaking.

That's why it's imperative that we invest time in these kids as they grow and why they value hanging out and being together over formal instruction. Helping kids develop a Christian identity takes very little skill and there is practically no method, other than to be as authentic as possible and spend generous amounts of time. Our church model is built around that - the presence of numerous adult leaders in our class is not some divide-and-conquer crowd control strategy! The leaders in 4th-6th grade (and we are always looking to add to the team) are eager to share themselves with your kids, to model what it is to be a Christian. Regular, consistent contact is the best way to achieve that. Camps, where kids share the experience with an older counselor, are invaluable for it as well.

We want kids to wear the "Christian" descriptor proudly, not as a front, but in a way that penetrates their own consciousness. How can they develop that if they genuinely don't know any other Christians?

The Whys of Pre-teen Ministry: Belonging

2008-11-16T15:56:00.000-08:00

It's a paradox of youth and churches: the longer a kid is involved, the harder it often is to keep them motivated and interested. The same "senioritis" that infects 12th grade students often sets in as kids reach the end of their respective age-level ministries. Sixth graders can't wait to move up and out to junior high; 8th graders are anxious for high school; 11th and 12th graders, with nothing to move on to, will sometimes just get bored and drop out. Couple this with a troubling statistic about junior high students and the Bible, and the need to build a case for continued ministry involvement is apparent.

What keeps adults coming to church year after year is continued growth, or perhaps the way church relationships enrich their lives, or in times when they struggle, perhaps just a sense of obedience. For kids, it's different. Kids live in households, and don't drive, and largely don't keep their own schedules. Their presence in our churches is driven largely by some adult who perceives it to be necessary.

So, how necessary is it, once kids have learned the basics? Plenty.

For one, kids need continued church involvement because they are rapidly developing. While it's true that we continue to grow and change throughout our lives, we don't change as much as, say, between ages 8-16 - which is why no church puts third graders with high schoolers. Instead, we recognize that at different age levels, kids have distinct needs. As a result, ministry to one age level isn't more necessary than to another age level.

Secondly, f we measure "what we do" merely by "what is taught" - that is, the facts and stories transmitted - then a student could, in fact, get "done" with church. They would just have to master the material presented. But if we accept that churches ought to do more than just transmit content from teachers to students, then it is more accurate to say that kids can outgrow our ministries, but never be done with church.

What, then, is that "more" that we are delivering, beyond mastery of Bible content? What is the rationale for ministry at the preteen level that is developmentally geared and distinct from, say, first grade or junior high or college group? Why do we do preteen ministry as something for preteens, and not just as a version of elementary ministry with older kids?

This week I want to focus on one "why", which is Belonging. At this age, friendship groups become more a part of who kids are. The number and frequency of overnight stays increases, the number of teams and clubs to which a preteen belongs is greater than when they were younger, and they begin to carve out an identity apart from their parents. I'll write about identity formation, which is the second "why", next week, but for this week let's focus on the groups that will help define a child's self-concept. That is, if I'm on the soccer team, I am a soccer player. If I make the cast, I am an actress. If I belong to the boy scouts, I am a boy scout.

Think about your child's affiliations. To where and to what do they belong? Can you see how they derive a sense of identity from that? And have you witnessed that identity fade when the season or show or activity ends, when they aren't in contact with a particular set of kids anymore?

Now think about how kids come to belong. They sign up, usually. They might pay a registration cost or be issued a uniform. They are assigned a specific role. They are taught the rules, and the lingo. They get to know and become known by the others in that group. And in time, a __________ (football player, dancer, artist, skater, or whatever) is born.

When it comes to church, though, we are missing a few of the elements that would otherwise constitute belonging. There are no sign-ups - you just show up. And our church doesn't have formal membership. There's no fee to join (but would we value it more highly if there was?). And deliberately, there is not a special language or set of rituals that serve to separate insiders and outsiders. What remains, then, to belonging is the relational component: knowing others and being known.

Which is why it is so imperative that you do what you must to get your child to church every week. In my experience, there simply is no better way for kids to become known than regular exposure to their peers at church, weekend in and weekend out. We don't get drafted into churches for our skills or past accomplishments, so those can't accelerate our belonging. Church is just a place where we are expected and allowed to be. Being = belonging. When we fall out of the habit, or find other things to do, we lose closeness in our relationships at church. The group grows on without us.

A significant reason to have a distinct preteen ministry is to give kids an environment to belong in, and small groups to belong to. You want kids to say, by the start of their junior high years, that going to church feels like home. That is almost completely a function of the amount of time spent among peers at church. And, unlike the fatigue that settles in from hearing the same Bible stories over and over again, belonging works the other way - the more connected-in we feel, the more we desire to build and grow those relationships. We find that routinely as kids become comfortable in our classroom, their attentiveness slips. Why? Because suddenly the classroom is about more than hearing a Bible message and answering questions. It's still some of that, but it also becomes a place where kids know other kids, and are known by leaders. This is a good thing. People never outgrow that.

Free of Drugs, but Tethered to What? A Christian Perspective on Red Ribbon Week

2008-11-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

The week that ended October 31 was the annual "Red Ribbon Week", during which schools conduct anti-drug and violence programs and ask students to wear red ribbons symbolizing their desire to be "Drug Free". The observance has been around since 1986, which means it was born in the era of Just Say No and D.A.R.E. and other noble attempts to keep Generation X and the kids who followed them away from drugs. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about their effectiveness - that isn't the point of this essay. The point is to ask in all earnestness: the kids who remain drug free - who are they?

We know who the drug users are. Potheads. Stoners. Druggies. Dealers. Or, in some schools, the popular kids, the in crowd, the A-list, cool. There is an identity, sometimes desired, that attaches to drug use: an entire subculture has grown up around marijuana, that has its own music, clothing, magazines, slang, and even religion. There is an extent to which drug use can make somebodies out of nobodies, which in part explains its appeal. Despite popular anti-drug appeals, not every teenager who uses is addicted. Quite a few recreational users choose their habit because it is part of who they are.

No such identity awaits kids who carry through on a pledge to be "drug free". Many is the kid who willfully preserves him or herself into high school, only to find that an identity carved only in opposition to vices isn't much of one at all. We are perhaps too optimistic about the value of remaining "free" of things, be they drugs, or alcohol, or gang involvement, or sexual activity. "Virtue is its own reward," we are told, but is it? Virtuous teens are often lonely teens, because the number of like-minded peers is so few. Using drugs or alcohol in many communities that lack teen-friendly environments is a past-time, giving kids something to do. A college student, interviewed on the prevalence of binge drinking on campuses, spoke the truth when he observed that if a student didn't go to parties, they'd never meet anyone.

When I began working with kids 15 years ago, I was a "good choices" guy - my desire was to see kids make positive choices and pro-social contributions, and sports was the avenue by which I would lead them. People who promote "good choices" have great intentions. But there has to be something more for kids.

Drug Free? Yes - but for what? Motivational talks about setting goals or achieving your dreams typical accompany the "say no to drugs" message, the implication being that if kids fall into drug abuse, they'll never be the next Bill Gates, or Steven Spielberg, or Barack Obama; drugs destroy dreams. Which is good - as far as it goes. But here, a Christian mind must pause and ask if personal achievement and fulfillment - the plans of man - are really the destination, and the rationale for sobriety. We are obligated to help our kids answer the question, "If I stay drug-free, then what? What do I grow towards after I have resolved to keep myself away from?"

Of course, to a Christian the answer is obvious. We are created - destined if you will - for the glory of God, set on a course to be transformed and remade, set apart, cherished by God and privileged to have personal knowledge and experience of him. This does require the submission of our will and subsequently prompts us to marvel again and again that God debased and limited himself for us, so that we could enter a relationship where He is pleased to allow us to draw 100% of the benefit while he suffers all of the cost. That is truth worth living for, and to the extent that drugs mar our journey toward wholeness and realization of the godly intent, they are a great evil.

That is the message, and the contribution churches everywhere could make toward projecting a positive vision of kids' futures: say "no" to drugs at the same time as you are embracing "yes" to life, and life to the full. It is also a reason churches must resist, kicking and screaming, any attempt to equate our work with "character education". We are not character education, and we sell kids short in churches and in Christian schools when we stop at that. Our job is to promote the spiritual life - its personal, social, and vocational dimensions - and anything less than that will not do.

Christian parents likewise must aspire to more for their children than that they will be good. Kids don't want to be good, even less so as they get older. It really isn't until young adulthood that "goodness" (or we might also say "virtue") is valued at a peer level, and even then, virtuous people are often sneered at or looked down upon as suckers, too simple to know how to take advantage of the system, too pious to let loose and have a little fun. Good doesn't sell, nor should it. What's worth passing on is a version of life that has God at its core and the adventure of connecting with him as its purpose. Ask yourself: would I be satisfied if my child left home at 18 a moral person, but indifferent about God? I hope not.

So how's this for a parental ambition: pray tonight that your child will one day (sooner rather than later) consciously and willfully exist for the singular purpose of enjoying God. Then pray that God will use whatever is necessary to bring them to that point. I dare you. This is a goal for them that is astonishingly simple, dramatically bold, and that blows drug-free out of the water. It takes faith to pray like that. But even before that, it takes churches and parents who are united in vision, who believe they have a mandate to do more than keep kids cloistered and unstained. If we don't dream big dreams for our kids and communicate that to them, we may be surprised how quickly they'll regard our pleas for goodness as irrelevant.

Here Comes Camp!

2008-11-02T21:55:00.000-08:00

A highlight of the 4th-6th grade year is approaching. In late January we will once again trek up to the San Bernardino Mountains for a weekend of winter camp at Forest Home. Whether your child is one of our camp veterans or has never made the trip, or if your family is new to the church, I want to write this as an invitation to make an investment for your child that can pay dividends on many levels.

1. Camp experiences create memories. Last year, on the drive up, we were being goofy in the front of the bus, trying to keep the kids entertained on the 2+ hour bus ride, telling jokes and playing quiz games, when all of a sudden it became very quiet. It took me a few seconds to catch on - we had finally climbed to an elevation where the kids could see snow. This non-native Californian forgets every year what a big deal for these kids to see snow. Their faces reflect their amazement, and the fascination with snow never wears off the entire weekend, regardless of how dirty or wet they get.

Weather is just one of the reasons winter camp leaves a lasting imprint. For 48 hours, they get to exist in a kid-dominated (but still adult-structured) environment. Kids eat great food, sing fun songs, play lots of games, get to commandeer the bunk beds in their room, go on hikes, play outside, stay up late, and experience nature. It is an edifying experience and kids talk about it for months after they return.

Why is this a benefit? Because the week-to-week experience of church tends to blur. But camp is so different, so unique, that it can expose kids to God in a different environment than to what they've become accustomed. Just as kids' faith development is stunted if there is no "God talk" at home, but only in church, it helps kids to have a spiritual experience that's off their normal turf.

2. Camp builds and strengthens friendships. We have kids "meet" each other at camp who have been going to the same church and same class for literally years, yet never had the chance to develop a relationship. We have other kids who encounter kids who normally attend another service, and those kids hit it off with each other. Those relationships wouldn't otherwise happen.

When I was a school teacher, I reflected often how quickly a classroom became an "us". Just by virtue of kids' being in the same room day in and day out, they got to know each other - not just names, but personalities, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, natures and foibles. We enjoy no such luxury in church. Even though we do age groupings, we simply do not meet often enough or have enough informal time to let quality relationships develop. The average kid in our program comes to church about 2 times a month. In a year, that's about 35 hours with the other kids - as much time as they spend with their classmates in the first week of school. Or, in the first day and a half of camp. So, your child can spend as much time around church pals in one camp weekend as they would in nearly a year of coming to church. Sound like a good investment yet?

3. Camp provides opportunities for leaders and kids to bond. On top of time with other kids, leaders get a chance for incredible amounts of informal bonding time with kids. We are responsible for providing our own counselors at winter camp, and it's a responsibility we're glad to fill, as we believe that every kid needs a caring adult leader who is not their parent walking alongside them.

4. Camp is totally unplugged. Forest Home asks that kids leave iPods, video games and cell phones at home (and good luck getting cell phone reception up there anyhow), and the result is a tech-free weekend - for most kids, the first in a very long time. And you know what? Kids survive. They play. They talk. They make up games. They sing. And hopefully, they long for the next chance they'll have to escape modernity and re-enter a simpler environment.

5. Camp is unhurried. There's no practices to make, no homework to schedule, no drive-thru meals on the run to the next appointment. Camp has a schedule, but allows for ample free time too. It lets kids breathe.

6. Camp builds kids' confidence and autonomy. Some parents - and kids - worry that their son or daughter isn't ready for a weekend away. All I can do is refer to past experience, which shows that in nearly every case, kids come through with flying colors. This, in turn, increases their self-confidence and ability to make their own decisions. And you should want that. The way we train kids to make big decisions is to trust them to make little ones. The growing up process is filled with opportunities for parents to share and eventually hand over decision making. How will kids ever make a decision for Jesus when they have no experience managing any other aspect of their lives? They won't, and they can't. What they'll make instead is a decision that they think their caregivers want - but they don't own it. We bless our kids when we give them the space and opportunity to make decisions. Camp does that beautifully.

The nuts and bolts: Camp is January 30-February 1. We leave at 2:30 on Friday, which may necessitate taking your child out of school early that day. Please do this, as a timely arrival at camp is a must, and the later we leave, the more traffic we encounter as we travel north.

Camp costs $160, which includes lodging and meals, transportation, and t-shirt. Scholarships are available if you have a financial need. An $80 deposit is due when you sign up. Please discuss financial arrangements with us, the earlier the better. And if you would like to send a child to camp, please call us about donating to our scholarship fund.

Kids are housed either 7 or 9 to a cabin, with a leader from NCCC (most are leaders in our weekend or midweek programs). They are housed with other kids from our church and you can indicate a roommate preference on the sign-up form.

Camp will fill. We have had a waiting list the last three years, so make arrangements early and get your paperwork in. Once we have filled our spots (92), we can ask the camp if they will release more, however this is not guaranteed and last year we did have kids on the waiting list who didn't get to go. Camp paperwork is available in our classroom and at the church on the weekdays.

How to Monitor Media Content, and Why You Should

2008-10-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

This week, by request, I am passing along a number of websites you can visit to help you stay current (that is, ahead of - if you want celebrity news, read People) on what's "out there" for kids to see and hear.

My niece, soon to be 3, sings this song she picked up at church: "Oh be careful, little eyes, what you see - Oh be careful, little eyes, what you see - For the Father up above is looking down in love - Oh be careful, little eyes, what you see." Of course, no three-year-old understands what that really means, how to train their eyes to shield their minds from harmful things. Instead, three-year-olds notice everything (fortunately, they don't comprehend it all). So her parents get the job of discerning what Molly's "little eyes" see, particularly during the times when her attention is captivated by electronic media.

Parents and other caregivers should be concerned about what is being taken in by their kids when they sit in front of screens - movie screens, TV screens, and computer screens. Not alarmed - concerned, as in, taking ownership of responsibility: "What my kids see is my concern." At a young age, there is a very real danger of screen media consumption stunting brain development. But for kids who are a little older (and even big people!), we are still right to be vigilant about what is being watched, because of its enduring impact.

Remember that every movie, song, show, poem, or whatever, contains a message. The message is bigger than the individual words spoken or images shown. The message is a statement about things that are real, true, beautiful, valuable, and so on. It is the message communicated through a piece of media that leaves an imprint, and that should concern us most. What are shows, movies, and music teaching our kids about family life, about honorable character qualities, about attitudes worth emulating, about who is good, about the meaning of life? What general view of the world is being communicated - safe? scary? basically having its act together? broken and in need of redemption? What, in short, is the "take away" from what they've seen and heard?

I'm now going to suggest a profound way to know: Ask Them! Develop the habit of asking one simple follow up question, the goal of which is to unearth the message as it was perceived by your child. The question is, "What did you learn about ___________ from that movie?" (or TV show, or CD, etc.) This is important: kids take away lots of different messages after they've sat through a presentation. Trust me - I know! Oftentimes what you intend for them to "get" is not what sunk in and stuck. So you have to ask the question, or you will end up trying to fight a problem that isn't there or remedy a misunderstanding that doesn't exist or you will miss the wrong impression that was formed.

Once you know, you begin to combat or confront these misperceptions. One Christian author, who I can't recall, plays "Spot the Lie" with his kids, where they watch a show or movie together and try to identify the lie that is perpetuated. Sometimes your response needs to be to ensure that the message stops getting through - that there is no reinforcement of the false idea. That's where the websites I suggest can help, because they give you heads up on content.

But make no mistake - it is ideas, not instances, that are far more dangerous to kids in terms of their lasting impact. Remember the Superbowl halftime show with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake and the "wardrobe malfunction", the partial nudity broadcast live to the world? I was doing high school ministry at the time and watched that game in the company of about a dozen high school boys. What was striking to me is that few of them were even paying attention - they were eating, wrestling, visiting - and that those who "saw it" were as confused as the rest of us, sort of like a "what just happened?" response. And then, it was over. Only it wasn't. More than four years later, the $550,000 indecency fine on CBS is still being fought over in court. Meanwhile, teens were regularly gathering between 2003 and 2007 to watch "The O.C." on Fox - a truly horrible show in terms of the message it communicated, but which never drew indecency fines and was never condemned in the way the halftime show was, apparently because they steered clear of exposing a breast for three seconds. Ridiculous. (And don't forget MTV's follow-up, "The Real O.C.", which was a reality-based series, further ensuring your kids that teenage TV life constitutes normal.)

It's been said that "art imitates life". But I'm not so sure. I think much of what is created for screens, that is necessarily dramatic and graphic and eye-catching and of course edited to 44 minutes, is a crude construction of reality - and it leaves behind a version of life that we, in turn, imitate. California has long been a cauldron of national culture. But now the nation is shrinking. What is broadcast via MTV and E! and even Disney is quickly and eagerly absorbed by the rest of the country, and then copied. We are creatures of habit and creatures of imitation. We learn to dress, talk, and react based on what we see. Don't underestimate the modeling influence that television and movie characters have. Raise your sights above the particular words they speak - those are the details - and discern the broader picture that is painted. Is it edifying? Is it admirable? Is it true?

I would urge you to use the websites below not primarily as a means of censorship, but to raise your own awareness, and, as with any resource I recommend, to equip you to open a dialogue with your kids about what they're watching. Don't assume that just because the only movies your kids watch are PG or free of offensive language they are free from the negative effects of media. Use television shows and movies to help kids understand the world. Learning and growth doesn't happen by keeping kids in the dark. It comes by processing through with them, at age-appropriate times, the issues of life.

Where to Find Info on Movies

Christian Film Producers
www.christianmovies.com
www.christianfilms.com
www.christiancinema.com

Reviews/Content Advisories:
Focus on the Family is at www.pluggedinonline.com

Also, the Internet Movie Database has a “Content Advisory for Parents” (under Additional Details) for most films: www.imbd.com

Dove Foundation gives its “seal of approval” to movies that meet its criteria. This tends to be more thematic-based than content-based (in other words, one or two swear words won’t automatically disqualify a movie if it has a wholesome message): www.dove.org

Dove’s reviews are here: www.christiancinema.com

Hollywood Jesus: www.hollywoodjesus.com

And: www.christianitytoday.com/movies

Another review site is www.screenit.com but it’s a subscription service. With all the free ones, why would you pay? I guess there’s no way to know until you actually put down the money.

Teaching Guides
www.teachwithmovies.org is a subscription site, $12/year for unlimited learning guides based on 285 movies.

http://www.christiancritic.com has some study guides as well as movie synopses

http://www.connieneal.com/discussion.htm TONS of questions meant to help kids explore spiritual themes and discuss the content of Harry Potter

Here are some discussion activities that can be used with clips of movies (if you don’t have time or don’t want to show the whole thing): www.thesource4ym.com/videoclips/

A Moving Target?

2008-10-19T08:17:00.001-07:00

In another week, I'll make my first face-to-face meeting with a dozen other children's ministry professionals who have embarked on an educational journey together. We are all members of a cohort assembled by Bethel Seminary-San Diego, in pursuit of not only our master's degrees, but I'd like to think some truly innovative ideas about how to minister to kids better.

Anytime I have the chance to interface with others who think about and practice children's ministry, it provokes introspection - both healthy and overly critical, I suppose. But just when I think I have this monster called ministry figured out, I encounter something that throws me for a loop or makes me wonder if the "progress" we're making with kids is really what it seems to be.

Our program naturally involves a lot of reading about ministry models and the assessment of spiritual progress, and every book is a humbling reminder that there is more than one way to skin this cat, but also provokes a reassessment of what we are working towards. Frankly, there are a lot of opinions about the ultimate goal of children's ministry, and not all of them complement each other, and not all of them are correct. By "ultimate goal" I mean what we hope to see in kids at the end of all of our efforts, not the week-to-week goals (a smooth running program), year-to-year goals (that participation will build), community building goals (that kids will make friends), or instructional goals (that kids will learn X, Y, and Z).

It's become fashionable and strategic recently for children's ministries (like churches) to develop mission statements. In our ministry, we have one too: our passion is to have the biggest dreams, the best discipleship, and the most care. But language is limiting. What does that mean? Absent constant clarification and re-explanation, those just become words on a page. Now, there's some truth to the observation that you can tell a ministry's values simply by observing what it does - and that's why we've also developed these values and distinctives. They are our guideposts to define the boundaries. If, in delivering ministry, we stay within those markers, it should keep us on course for the ultimate goal. But what is that? If the ultimate objective remains fuzzy, then assessment becomes really difficult.

How many times to we hear of churches that want to turn people into "fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ"? Or who encourage kids to "follow Christ" or "live in obedience to God" or "develop a biblical worldview"? Yet each of those descriptors, while partially helpful, fail to capture the totality of what we would hope for our kids. On the other hand, it's easy to get hooked on specific outward behaviors - do they speak, act, dress, or comport themselves as a Christian should? - when in reality, Christian maturity and growth is more than the sum of its parts. A vital, growing Christian is not just the accumulation of a set of behaviors.

The other limiting factor is that no ministry undertaking meets the ultimate goal perfectly. Small groups, retreats, music, midweek programs - all of them establish supports for kids' spiritual growth, but none is "just" what kids need in their entirety. That's why I put little stock in any approach to child development, parenting, or ministry that involves the word "just". We are sometimes told that you "just need to teach kids to respect their parents" or "just give kids consequences" or that kids "just need to learn responsibility" or "just need to spend time with their parents." We "just need to listen" to this speaker or "just read this book". The answer is never to "just" do this or that because ministry happens among people and people are organic and constantly changing. Thus, the lesson I used six months ago that went over like gangbusters may not work in another three years. (In fact, sometimes what work on a Saturday night bombs the next morning!) Camp experiences are singular and won't minister to everyone in the same way. Evangelistic crusades bring some to conversion and spiritual decisions, but not everyone.

So the target may, in fact, appear to be moving. But in reality, I think it's not dissimilar to the re-aiming that happens anytime you shoot an arrow. Because regardless of how good the last shot was, or how good it felt, you have to lower the bow, re-focus, and calmly take another shot. There is no such thing as "merely" repeating what was done before.

Above all, we need to acknowledge that spiritual growth doesn't exactly happen because of what we (parents and churches) do to a kid; rather, when spiritual growth is happening, it's the work of God in a life. Sometimes our best work is to notice and come alongside the process that's already happening, and to be patient with that process. Exhorting kids to diligent human effort is giving them religion. But a spiritual life is just that - a life. It is dynamic and changing, and implies a transcendent relationship with a higher power, with kids reaching out to God and God reaching out to them, and the change that happens in kids as a result of that.

How do we keep after this elusive target? We need to try different things. We need to operate on many fronts. We need to be working to build the greater Christian community so that kids are fortified in every environment - in their homes, among school friends, in their neighborhoods, on their teams, and of course, at their churches. We need to be sensitive to kids' questions and listen to their insights. We need to make conversation about spiritual things as natural as talking about what we saw on TV or YouTube yesterday. And we must be willing to constantly revisit and reframe the goal, lest we fall into a pattern of "just" doing this or that. What a shame if kids spent 18 years under our diligent watch, only to come away no personal relationship with God, no sense of his calling on their lives, no desire to know him, no real understanding of how he works. What if, at the end of all we've done, our kids don't need God? Will we be ok with that?

Questions from Kids

2008-10-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

What do kids think about? What do they believe? What motivates them?

Kids are tough nuts to crack sometimes. Maybe they don't believe we'll take them seriously, or maybe they think their questions are silly or unimportant, or maybe they think they have something about the world figured out that they don't. And sometimes they just aren't articulate enough or don't have the right emotional language to express what they're feeling and where they're stuck.

If you believe as I do that great teaching answers the questions kids are already asking, then it's important that we know where kids are coming from, that we give them a space to think and ask questions without being judged, and that we pay attention to what they're asking. Because the question they ask isn't always the real question, as evidenced by the questions we've been collecting over the last few weeks.

We've invited kids to write out questions that really trouble them and submit them anonymously, with the added provision that if they want a personal response they can leave their e-mail address or phone number. Here are just some of the questions:

Do animals go to heaven?
How do you know Jesus is real?
Is it wrong to comfort your friends when they did something wrong, but they're sorry?
Who created hell?
Why can't God destroy Satan and sin?
Is Satan a person/who created him?
Who are God's angels and who created them? Who are the devil's demons and who created them?
Can God still talk to us?
Why do people get depressed?
Do dogs and cats and dinosaurs go to heaven?
What is forever?
What is it like in heaven?
Why did God choose Mary to have Jesus?
Why did God go to hell?
I once read in the Bible: Temptation is not a sin. If it was, Jesus would have sinned. What does that mean?
What does it mean exactly to fear God?
How can I get a friend that is cool and popular that I am nervous to talk to?
Why is Jesus Christ outlawed in other countries?
Who causes people to sin?
Why does God allow evil things on earth?

These questions will form the basis for weekend messages for the next several weeks - or who knows, maybe months!

What conclusions, if any, can we draw from questions like these? Several, I think:

1. Kids are curious about existential realities, like Where did God come from? and Why did he create the earth? Their minds are trying to get hold of abstract ideas like eternity and substance.

2. Kids are starting to face the question of evil: if God is good and loving, why is there evil in the world? This is a major stumbling block for people of faith. As one who is now working his way through the book, The Shack, I am well aware that just as personal circumstances can cause different people to approach this question differently, the same circumstances mean people will answer the question differently, too.

3. Pre-teen kids are perceptive to things they've heard or read in their Bibles that don't exactly make sense. For instance, the question about God going down into hell - as a kid, I was forced to memorize the Apostle's Creed and the line about Jesus "descend[ing] into hell...on the third day he rose again", and so I just sort of accepted it as true without really thinking about where we got that belief and why it was significant. I don't think a question like that reflects doubt, but a desire to reconcile what seems not to make much sense.

4. Related to that, kids are curious as to why God has acted in the way he has. Most kids will accept at face value a statement like, "God is all-powerful", because I said it and I'm an adult and they trust me. But the working out of that belief takes some wrestling: Why is there still sin? Why is there Satan? Why does God let a bad thing happen?

5. Kids have a desire and a need to understand what motivates other people, and how they think. How can people adhere to other religions? Why would they be angry at Christians or ban the religion altogether? We ignore discussing these things at our peril. Kids of this age are beginning to understand that the world doesn't revolve around them and their needs and that the world is full of differences, some God-ordained, some that are the result of sinful choices. When kids meet others with different spiritual convictions but who are still "good people", there is some dissonance that happens. Kids need an organizing structure for seeing the world, particularly when encountering people who think and believe differently than they do.

6. Kids by and large are not crying out for character or life-skill instruction. Their questions are deep and meaningful.

And not easily answerable. But they present a huge opportunity, because oftentimes the question that gets asked isn't the one that needs to be answered. Instead, if you can re-frame someone's understanding of the world - who God is, how he interacts with mankind, what our obligations are towards one another - the questions answer themselves.

This will be a great journey, and I invite you to follow it at our newest blog site, http://surgenotes.blogspot.com, where outlines of all the weekend messages will be posted from now on.

Music, kids, and worship

2008-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Music plays a prominent role in our classroom. I love the energy that builds as kids and leaders join with one voice, as they move together, as they smile and laugh and shout and celebrate. And because of this, I'm always on the lookout (or maybe, "listenout"?) for the song that'll be the next big hit in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. I've imported songs I learned in Egypt and China, songs from camps, songs I remember from grade school, and even penned a few of my own. Kids naturally go for something raucous. Repetitive is good - fewer words to learn - and easy-to-remember movements help them engage, too.

But is all this worship? Yes. And no.

There is a growing segment of sincere people in children's and youth ministry who would say that we ought to be steering kids away from the high-energy, the simple, and even the silly, because it's not worship. To them, learning to stand quietly, to focus your attention, to close your eyes or lift your hands - these are the things we should be teaching students in order to usher them into God's presence during worship time. Dancing, shouting, "I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N" - these are distractions, they say, and are actually impediments to kids experiencing God in church.

So where do we go with this? Should Sunday Schools and youth groups jettison "I've Got a River of Life" in favor of the more contemporary, contemplative, or theologically rich material that one would find in adult worship services? In short, have we dumbed-down worship instead of holding up a high standard, and are all the "fun songs" really doing kids a disservice?

I have to say no. I think songs that invite participation are of great value in ministry, that they are not "not worship", and that kids learn and benefit plenty from them. Here's why:

1. Worship is more than just singing. Any adult worship leader or pastor will tell you that teaching people about worship (and this often starts with the musicians they oversee) means taking them beyond the idea that "worship"="the music part of the service." The Church needs its understanding of the concept of worship expanded. We are teaching kids how to worship when we teach them about giving, or when we teach them to serve, or how to spend time alone with God. It's wrong to compartmentalize.

2. Beware outward appearances. Related to this, worship leaders are not choir directors. Our job is not necessarily to elicit loud singing. Nor hands in the air. Nor any other outward posture of worship. John Piper, speaking of youth ministries, once noted, "You can get hands in the air in a minute with the right crescendo." A worship leader's work is part of the larger work of the church to get hearers to give it all to God - in other words, discipleship.

3. Music provides one more pathway to the brain. Words set to music are more likely to be repeated outside of class (which is how I know we've done our jobs), and more likely to be considered and pondered over…which is the very reflection that needs to happen if kids are going to internalize new ideas. I can give a toy for memorizing John 14:6, and the verse will probably be forgotten soon after the trinket is in hand; or, I can embed "I am the way, the truth, and the life" in a song, and it's likely to be rehearsed over and over without any outside coercion needed on my part.

4. Music has huge affective appeal. We forget that much of what is "learned" in church is not what is said by us, but what is felt by them. This is certainly true of adults, who are drawn to or repelled by churches for any number of factors relating to the church's aesthetics or their own experience (too big/too small, too warm or cold in the sanctuary, too loud/not loud enough, music too stodgy/too edgy, people friendly/unfriendly, parking easy/difficult). Why wouldn't it be true for kids? Kids form all kinds of attitudes about church - and God - from their experience there. These are attitudes we can't teach, but we can influence. When we insist on making them sing songs that have words they don't understand (such as hymns) or that are written by an adult about an adult's mature spiritual relationship with Christ, that's a real turn off to kids. It suggests that they are a problem and need to change in order to fit in at church. We don't need to compromise - ever - the truths of the faith, but we can package them in music that is attractive to kids. That's just smart ministry. Maybe one day they'll grow to like "our" music - but maybe not. That shouldn't be our goal.

5. Singing together loudly (and moving together) is a corporate experience. I've seen many boys who are image-conscious let loose during worship time because there's safety in numbers. It only takes a handful to stubbornly remain seated and the energy of the whole room evaporates. But conversely, it only takes a few responsive boys and girls and suddenly everyone's into it. And a kid thinks, "Hey! I'm a small part of something really big and exciting here!" - which mimics a pretty healthy Christian worldview, doesn't it? By making worship times that are fun, memorable, and even sometimes goofy, we get a chance to lift kids out of their own skin. So much of adult worship these days is moody and introspective. I need that, sometimes. But worship (as noted above) isn't all about me. It isn't a prayer-therapy session set to music. It's a call to abandon self and take up the cause of Christ. Some of the people who have their eyes closed during worship actually need to open them and become aware of the body that they're a part of.

A classroom without music is a pretty joyless place. What a shame though, if we start to see Sunday school classrooms with music that are joyless. Insisting on a particular style or posture for worship robs kids of the bigger vision of worship that we in churches need to be cultivating from birth - that God is really big, really exciting, really wonderful, and really worth our energy to celebrate him, no matter how the song is written.

Kids and the Art of Game-Playing

2008-09-28T09:00:00.002-07:00

I enjoyed this article from slate.com on kids and rules when it comes to games. As the author points out, some kids take rules very seriously, while others are too quick to compromise. As a result, the completion of a game is nowhere near a certainty, even when the rules are clearly understood by both sides. A good lesson for life, too?

"No One Likes a Cheater" by Emily Bazelon

The Culture Gets it Wrong on Teenage Sex, revisited

2008-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

The revelation that vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin's teenage daughter is pregnant has given us all another opportunity to collectively (choose one): wring our hands, tsk-tsk, question abstinence-only education policies, cast aspersions on Bristol's parenting, or cast about for silver linings ("Good for her that at least she's having the baby..."). Unfortunately it hasn't produced any sort of dialogue that would be helpful in answering the question that looms large: why did this happen to a girl from a family like that, and what does that mean for other well-meaning parents who believe their kids should abstain from pre-marital sex? Instead, it has cast a cloud of gloom over those who would hold that abstinence is not only possible, but wise, in favor of the conventional wisdom that teens just won't, and all we can do is accept that and arm them with birth control. Which is nonsense.

Several months ago I highlighted a column by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post in which she expressed her belief that teenage abstinence was just a hopeless fantasy (my words, not hers). Marcus is the mother of two girls, ages 11 and 13, and her pessimism emerged afresh two weeks ago when it was revealed that Bristol Palin, the daughter of the abstinence-supporting governor, was pregnant by her boyfriend.

Now I am probably one of about five people in California who ever reads Ruth Marcus' column, so it's not as if I think she has the country in her sway. Nor do I think she's particularly bent on forcing this issue. She's expressing her opinion, which is her job, and I'm sure she's a caring mother and sincerely believes she can't expect her daughters to save sex for marriage. I just happen to think she's wrong, very wrong, on an important cultural issue. And as I believe her ideas are representative of the prevailing cultural wisdom, I highlight them and comment on them.

In early September, Marcus wrote about "The Lesson of Bristol Palin", which she takes to be that even parents who believe in abstinence for their kids can end up with a pregnant daughter. Fair enough. But Marcus cites a statistic that more than 60% of U.S. high school seniors have had sex and concludes that efforts to promote abstinence - in schools and in families - are pretty much futile.

Marcus apparently believes that abstinence education is widespread and being taught well - two highly debatable assumptions. (Effective education is never just a one-time or one-way message.) But the saddest, most cynical part of the piece is when she writes:

Being a teenager means taking stupid risks. The best, most attentive parenting and the best, most comprehensive sex education won't stop teenagers from doing dumb things. The most we as parents can hope for is to insulate our children, as best we can, from the consequences of their own stupidity.

Really? Is that the approach that teaches kids responsible decision making? I'm sure she doesn't think that's cynical, but when you expect the worst from someone and offer that the proper role of a teenager's parent is to mop up their messes, you can't set the bar much lower than that.

And where does this "stupidity" come from? We know that not every teenager is given to abusing drugs. Not every one of them drinks. Even though the law allows you to drop out of school at 16, most kids finish high school and go on to college. It's not every kid who's a delinquent. So what's the difference between kids who make redeeming choices for themselves and those who don't? Researchers, like those at the Search Institute, have a good grasp on this. Unfortunately the everyday world isn't aware of what researchers know so we retreat to a position of defeatism and cynicism: "Being a teenager means taking stupid risks." (Read what Search has discovered about assets and risk behavior patterns; Marcus' assertion has no basis.)

Marcus says she'll be delivering an "admittedly muddled message" to her girls when they talk about what to take away from Bristol Palin: "Wait, please. But whenever you choose to have sex, at some distant moment, don't do it without contraception."

The important question isn't whether Sarah Palin has been a bad parent. The question is whether there's anything beyond "Wait, please" that can help delay teenage sexual activity? Good news: there is. But I'm not sure Marcus has any idea.

Nor am I sure that she holds teenage sex to be a bad thing, as long as it doesn't result in pregnancy, HIV, or another disease. There's a casualness about the role of sex in a relationship that is a little jarring. Do we seriously think that young teenagers - or old ones, for that matter - ought to be sexually active, and that their emotional development is barely affected by it? That's where the pro-abstinence side I think could make a strong argument, and shake off the perception that they are just anti-sex and pro-ignorance. But they, too, have failed to put forth a constructive solution.

At the heart of this - on both sides - is plainly a reluctance to discuss relationships and sex often and authentically enough to be helpful to kids. One of the best curriculums I've seen on the subject, for instance, asks kids to think about and process through the worst sexual mistake they've ever made. Few parents are comfortable going there. But make no mistake - kids talk about sex to one another. Who's hooking up with whom is standard Monday-morning hallway chatter in high schools, and even pre-teens are aware that sex is a component of certain teenage and adult relationships, though they remain ignorant of the complexities and dynamics.

We in the church world fail to sell the value of abstinence because we oversimplify it, telling them they "just" need to do this or that. The truth is that a direct "here's what to do" works for some kids; but not for most. We've failed to appreciate that "just say no" really is just too hard in many cases - so kids dismiss us. Our failure to grasp their need to know why? and what if? and what about? ends up with us failing the credibility test, and that perception is crucial if you want your advice to be taken seriously. Kids want to know that we've been there, that we empathize with where they are today. You've made mistakes and learned lessons? Great, but don't expect that your seasoned understanding will simply transfer. A postmodern precept is that one person's experience is not necessarily prescriptive for everyone. That happens to be true here.

And who can sell good behavior anyhow? What adolescent wants to be "good", or would tout their "goodness" to others? Talking about everything you haven't done yet doesn't make you very exciting. Instead, it's much easier to work toward something than keep yourself away. That's why "purity" became the buzzword in Christian circles over "abstinence". "Purity" describes something you possess; "abstinent" merely denotes what you haven't done.

Two authors who get this are the husband-wife team of Eric and Leslie Ludy. Their book, Teaching True Love to a Sex-at-13 Generation has some good things to say about the need to teach sex in a context of relational wholeness. Kids and teenagers need to see themselves not just as they are in the present - hormonally charged, heavily influenced by peers - but who they someday will be, including the kind of husband or wife, father and mother they see themselves becoming. And the Ludys draw a bright-line distinction between "innocence" and "purity" which should be a help to parents who struggle with whether it's right to introduce the subject of sex if their 11-year-old is still blissfully unaware. (It is.)

No, the lesson of Bristol Palin is not that we should expect every teenager to be sexually active. The lesson is that what we're doing now to educate kids about healthy sexual values is not working. Marcus seems to believe that the answer is to abandon all but the clinical parts of sexual education, so that kids stay "protected". That's a strange prescription, one that in the end stifles dialogue rather than promoting it, and makes kids vulnerable rather than protecting them.

Being a Spiritual Leader at Home

2008-09-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

I could probably do a dozen dodgeball nights, where we invite kids, who hopefully invite their friends, where we'll hopefully meet them and be able to invite them to come to church, or at least show them that church is a non-threatening place. Then, it would take a while for the kid to get comfortable at church, to find a service and a leader and friends they liked, and a while longer for a leader to become invested in that child's life, to the point that they knew them beyond casually. Only then might we have won the access and right to speak into their lives, to have overt spiritual impact.

I could do all that; or I could spend one evening training the people who are the most willing, consistent, persistent influences in a child's life. Now you tell me: which is the better investment?

That reality helps explain why we're pouring into parents this fall. It has long been a goal to use our midweek program in part to free up parents specifically for this type of training. Whenever you train parents, what to do with the kids is always an issue, making Sunday morning classes tricky. Our Wednesday night series, Parenting 101, kicked off last Wednesday with a talk by Bill Farrell that left parents buzzing.

So when Tim Smith told us he could train parents and kids together, it was an idea we couldn't refuse. This Friday night, around tables in the Family Center, with dinner provided, Tim will show you how to have a family time that is spiritually nourishing. We'll bring the food, the materials, Tim, and the fun. You just bring the family.

Beyond the obvious goal of teaching parents how to do a family time, one of the goals of an event like this is to motivate them that they should and can. Many parents feel inadequate for the task of spiritual leadership. Maybe they were raised in non-Christian homes, or as part of churchgoing families that didn't speak of spiritual things in the home. Others feel that not having been discipled themselves, they wouldn't know what to do. Or, some may have tried family Bible studies or working through devotional books with their kids but been frustrated by the results.

If any of the above fit you, and it's kept you from attempting home-based spiritual instruction, let me offer this word of encouragement: you are a spiritual leader in your kids' eyes whether you feel like one or not. Your attitude toward spiritual things, spoken or unspoken, has not gone unnoticed. Your kids know what you value. Anything that comes out of your mouth regarding spiritual things will be given great weight because ordinarily parents' beliefs and values are given deference no matter what the subject. I'm convinced this is why political beliefs tend to stay stable within families through generations - it isn't because kids have been exposed to formalized, systematic indoctrination, but because little comments here and there, attitudes, and preferences are picked up and pieced together, and the parent's worldview gets adopted by the child.

Maybe an analogy would help. I was raised in a family of teachers. My dad taught high school and my mom taught 4th grade. Because of this, I automatically gave anyone who wore the label "teacher" a certain degree of respect, well into college. Teachers, in my mind, were always right, always competent, and always hardworking. How surprised was I to later hear my parents candidly assess former colleagues! It never dawned on me that they could have improved: in my eyes, they were all equally qualified and skilled.

In the same way, unless you have horribly mismanaged your parental authority, your kids hold what you say and do in high regard. "My mom says" or "My dad told me" carries great rhetorical force in Kid World - a decided argument ender. This is for no other reason than that you are Mom or Dad. (Savor this now, before they turn old enough to know everything!)

Every church's message to parents must be, "You can do it!" and in the same breath, "We can't!" Homes and churches are totally different spheres of influence. Yet, if we are properly concerned about the spiritual care and development of kids, those spheres should overlap just enough that we can lend some of our expertise on teaching and spiritual nurture to you. They will overlap Friday night, and we are eager to see you there.

All About Our New Midweek Program

2008-09-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the lowdown on our 2008-09 midweek program, which moves to Wednesdays, 6-7:30 pm, and begins September 10.

The new program is called "STEAM". Any student in grades 4-6 is welcome to come. The night will consist of two parts: activities and electives. During the first 45 minutes, from 6-6:45, we will "blow off steam" with a variety of games and fun activities. We will have access (most weeks) to the gymnasium as well as the outdoor yard. Games might include soccer, basketball, kickball, dodgeball, competitive handball, ultimate frisbee, etc. We will also set aside an area for an arts & crafts project for those kids who don't want a highly physical activity.

Midway through the night (at 6:45), kids will transition to their elective. This is where we "gain steam". Kids are divided and will go to different rooms depending on the elective they are in. Some electives are series, like the Young Peacemaker or Stumped by the Bible, and a child registered for one of these would go to that elective every week until it finishes.

How do I pre-register for an elective? There is a registration form and you can download this from our website. The form explains how many weeks each elective meets, the dates, and the cost of materials (which is small). www.northcoastcalvary.org/steam

Is it necessary to pre-register? It may be. It does help us plan by having ordered enough materials. Theoretically the rooms we use can only hold so many, but practically speaking, space should not be a problem.

How do I know where to go each night? When you arrive, you and your child will go straight to check-in, which is in the church's main lobby, outside the sanctuary/gymnasium. Everyone must check in. Because of the size of our campus and its openness, it is important for us to know who has come and what they are signed up for. Please help us with this - always check in. At check-in, a child will be allowed to choose their activity for the night (this is the first 45 minutes). We will give you a colored wristband depending on what you choose. We will also write on your wristband where to go at transition time (6:45) for your elective. Obviously if you've pre-registered for an elective, that is where you'll go every week.

What electives are being offered? For the Fall session, five of them. They are The Young Peacemaker, a class about using Biblical principles to resolve conflict (see last week's post); Stumped by the Bible: Old Testament, a six-week overview of the Old Testament; Stumped by the Bible: New Testament, the NT compliment; How to Draw Bible Good, Bad, and Ugly Guys, in which kids will learn how to sketch different characters from the Bible and at the same time hear the stories involving those characters; and Topical Studies for Pre-Teens, which will be a simple Bible study on some character issue common to 4th-6th graders. The topic will change each week.

Kids can "drop-in" to the drawing elective once without needing to purchase the book. After that, the book is $10. Kids not pre-assigned to an elective will have a chance to choose one at check-in for that night. The Young Peacemaker and Stumped by the Bible electives have start dates (see the registration form) and kids will not be allowed to "jump in" once they've already begun. So, look over the list of electives offered and be sure you're getting your child into the one they want. (The Old Testament elective will be offered twice during Fall, and we do anticipate offering The Young Peacemaker again in the Spring.)

Do you need help? We do - we need registration help each week as well as people to serve as guides with kids (similar to a guide's role at Kids Games) and lead indoor & outdoor activities.

But…

We also hope you'll look at the Parenting 101 series being offered in conjunction with Marriage & Family Ministry and take advantage of the classes and workshops there. Jeff Reinke, Bill & Pam Farrell, and Dr. Achibald Hart will speak on the first three Wednesdays during the kids' midweek program (6-7:30 pm) - and that's just September! As we know that time spent at home is proportionally greater than time spent in church, we believe that parents have the greatest opportunity for spiritual influence over their kids. But, we recognize that many parents, while eager to fulfill that responsibility, feel inadequate or don't know where to begin. So Wednesday nights are also about you.

And, to underscore our belief in the importance of a spiritually nourishing home environment, we've invited back Tim Smith to do a hands-on training with moms and dads and kids, on Friday, September 19. Tim is the author of The Danger of Raising Nice Kids and spoke at NCCC a year ago. In the training on September 19, he will show you how to lead a spiritually beneficial family time. We'll supply the meal, the place (our auditorium) and Tim - you just bring your family. $5/person, with a $25 maximum for families.

So that's some of what we've laid out for families to begin this school year. We hope Wednesdays will become a night of spiritual enrichment for the whole family. Full STEAM ahead!

Teaching Kids to Make Peace

2008-08-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1)

If the above verses are true, and Christians believe them, then churches should be the most peaceful places in the world, right? There should be no infighting, no factions, no gossip or hurt feelings. Churches should never split and no one should ever feel manipulated or abused. Moreover, those who go to churches should experience far less conflict in their lives than everyone else - fewer divorces, less sibling rivalry, fewer arguments with spouses, less hassle at work.

So, where's the disconnect? If you're not already laughing to yourself because you know how absurd this is, consider that many people who weren't raised in churches or don't go to church do conceive of churches in this way, as places where the normal conflicts, heartaches, and frustrations most of us experience in dealing with others simply don't exist.

That's a fantasy, of course, and nowhere do I see scripture promising that a body of people grounded in Jesus will be delivered from conflict. What can happen, though, is that when Biblical principles are diligently applied to group life, the severity and intensity of conflicts can be greatly lessened. Put another way, we can be taught to work through conflict in a way that salvages the dignity of everyone involved. But it is taught, not innate.

I get impatient with people who expect that in churches, every potential conflict needs to be backed away from, that we should all just "play nice" because it's wrong to advocate for what you need. For a long time I held this avoidance mindset, and in some ways I still do. But the result isn't peace. The result is frustration, as you and I ignore issues and pretend there's no conflict, all to preserve a peaceful veneer. And similarly, I get frustrated with any non-believer who would play the "Christian card", suggesting that I should always be the first to back down and accept mistreatment "because you're religious."

No. Being a doormat is not making peace, it's - being a doormat. And sometimes I wonder how kids like it when we tell them to just "forgive and forget" or "turn the other cheek" or "say you're sorry" but we don't help them work through what is making them mad or sad or frustrated. Do we unwittingly communicate that to be a Christian is to be passive, to accept abuse? Or, do they end up dismissing our counsel as nice-sounding, but totally impractical?

I am surprised again and again how many kids will say that cheating in a game isn't wrong if someone cheated against them first, or that revenge is justified, or (this one from boys, usually) that hitting is ok if needed to demonstrate to someone the intensity of your displeasure (and I'm astounded how many will cite Jesus in the temple in defense of acting in anger!). But maybe I shouldn't be surprised. When we don't give kids tools to deal with conflict, the emotion behind the problem will boil to the surface eventually. Kids are just speaking what they know to be true: it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and kids who don't fight fire with fire will get taken advantage of. Kids quickly learn, at home and at school: you have to be willing to fight.

But can we teach them a better way? What if we could start with the gospel and teach kids the skills to resolve conflicts peacefully? What if we could teach them how to get along with their siblings (not just exhort them to "be nice")? To persevere through friendship squabbles so they didn't have a different best friend every week? What if they were equipped to mediate between peers? To deal with bullying? What if a core of kids was trained well enough to take this into schools and train others?

Would you be for it? (Some of you were on board as soon as I mentioned sibling rivalry.) There is a program put out by Peacemaker Ministries (www.peacemaker.net) whose goal it is to teach people the skills of Biblical conflict resolution. It's been adapted for kids and for teens, too, and the elementary-level version, for grades 3-7, will be a part of our midweek program this fall.

From the Peacemaker perspective, learning to live with one another - in families, in marriages, in friendships, and in workplaces - is the essence of the gospel. Consider this from Dr. Alfred Poirier, chairman of the board at Peacemaker: "The gospel is not just an entrance door and an exit door: ‘Christ’s death…got me into the kingdom, and when I die I will go to heaven.’ The gospel also concerns what happens in between, in a minute-by-minute, moment-by-moment living dynamic. At its core, the gospel is about reconciliation—not only with God, but also with one another."

And what I especially like about the Peacemaker program is the theology it brings to teaching conflict resolution. The president of Peacemaker Ministries, Ken Sande, said in an interview with byFaith magazine, “The longer I have been involved in peacemaking, the more I have realized the focus must be on the gospel and not on the ‘shoulds.’ Our focus must be on what God has already done for us—forgiving us for our sins, freeing us from the bondage of sin, and empowering us through the power of Christ to live out the gospel in a practical, everyday manner." Sande's insight deserves to be read again: "The focus must be on the gospel and not on the 'shoulds'." When we tell people - kids, adults, whoever - to do something, like forgive, make peace, love one another, but we don't teach them how, we haven't really taught them anything.

The Young Peacemaker will be an elective for kids this fall. (More on the format of our new midweek program and its electives next week.) It does require a commitment. The series is 12 weeks and obviously one week builds on the next. But for a 12-week commitment and $15 materials fee, your kid will learn skills and principles that will follow them for life.

For more on the necessity of teaching peacemaking, start here with Peacemaking: A Key to Socializing Children, an article by Ken Sande. From there, you can explore the rest of the Peacemaker website.

Gordon Fee on Why Christians Read their Bibles Poorly

2008-08-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

This week, I want to point out an article on a subject of great importance: the use of the Bible and how Christians have become such poor Bible readers. Gordon Fee is a renowned scholar of the New Testament, helped translate the New International Version and Today's New International Version, and authored (along with Douglas Stuart) the handy and readable, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and How to Read the Bible, Book by Book.

This address by Fee was first given at the Undergraduate Bible/Theology Conference in 2005, and I wholeheartedly agree:

"Why Christians Read Their Bibles Poorly" by Gordon Fee

The Good News at El Camino Creek

2008-08-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

While I'm away this month, I've asked some others to write in this space. This week's entry is by Karen Madeira, a mom of two boys who took on the job of leading an after-school club at her boys' public elementary school. At the start of the year I wrote about a HUGE opportunity to reach kids right in their own schools. These clubs are slowly being established in schools across North County. All I can say is, if we're going to stand around and bemoan the fact that "They took God out of the public schools" yet not act on this opportunity - shame on us!

If the Good News Club parent volunteers had a nickel for every time we heard “You can’t teach Jesus at a public school!”… Oh, but we can! Thanks to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, the Child Evangelism Fellowship’s Good News Clubs are allowed to meet at public schools after hours just as any other community group can. Many parents are unaware of this law or the opportunity to reach un-churched children through this program.

Child Evangelism Fellowship is a Bible-centered organization started in 1937 whose mission is to reach children around the world with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. C.E.F.’s Good News Club is a worldwide, after-school program recently started at El Camino Creek Elementary School. In early 2008 several E.C.C. moms had heard a GNC was in full swing at nearby Mission Estancia Elementary. It soon became apparent our campus of over 900+ kids needed a GNC of our own. Under the leadership of Lynda Wennerstrom (a NCCC mom) and with the help of many parent volunteers, the GNC was launched for one six-week session
in May 2008.

The program offers games, music, snacks, and Bible stories one hour each week for six-week sessions throughout the school year. E.C.C. is blessed to have many parents willing to help, as well as area church leaders willing to lead the prayer and Bible story time. NCCC’s 4th-6th grade pastor Mark Friestad, as well as D.J. Bosler and Zach Beck of Coastline Community Church are a few who have presented relevant and entertaining Bible lessons. This brief but powerful exposure to scripture may be the only times many of these children will hear the Word of God!

Because the program is free to all participating students, many un-churched kids show up simply because a classmate has invited them, or their parents view it as convenient, no-cost childcare. They may have no idea of the eternal impact the GNC may have on their child! In fact, on the last day of GNC at E.C.C. about six children raised their hands proclaiming they were asking Jesus into their hearts! Isn’t that what we as believers are here for? To share the Good News of our Lord and Savior, and who better to start with than children?

If your child’s elementary school doesn’t yet have a GNC, begin now praying for one. Ask God how you can help reach kids through this dynamic opportunity. For more information on Child Evangelism Fellowship or the Good News Club, visit www.cefonline.com, or www.goodnewsclub.us . If you have any questions about the GNC at E.C.C., contact Karen Madeira at kkmade@mac.com.

Helping kids who get left behind

2008-08-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

While I'm away, I've invited some others to contribute to this blog. This week, an article by Christine Kollar about her family's involvement in ChildHelp USA. Since moving to California in 2005 and working in the foster care system, I've developed an awareness and a heart for any kid who is in crisis or at-risk because of a unstable home environment. The church has a role to play, reaching out and reaching in. Some of these kids are in our classrooms every weekend. Some are in our communities, but they are invisible: the private nature of our lives and "don't ask-don't tell" ethic keeps us an arm's length from other people's family details.

I write frequently about the importance of a church's ministry to pre-teens; obviously, as a pastor to that age group I believe in it. But I want to challenge the church to raise its own awareness about kids in crisis who may never come through our doors and who are not necessarily living in Third World countries, but right here in California.

“We don’t know how good we have it. We forget to record our favorite TV shows on Tivo and it’s a crisis. These children are abused, neglected, and forsaken, until they are even on the verge of death. I don’t think anyone ever died over Tivo. I feel I’ve made a difference in a child’s life who has absolutely no one."

- A quote from my 15 year old daughter.

“All Who Enter Will Find Love” is the sign posted above the ChildHelp rescue village. ChildHelp is a village for severely abused children located in Banning, CA. There are multiple locations throughout the U.S. and the world as well. A few months ago I made my first visit to the ChildHelp rescue village. I had some idea of what it might be like but I had no idea that I would be so overwhelmed with love for a 13-year-old boy who stole the heart of my family and myself.

My family and I (husband, 15-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, and 8-year-old son) visited on a Sunday in April during their spring festival. The room was like a warehouse/gymnasium. There was food, games and dollar store prizes. We had been assigned a 13-year-old boy, “John”, as our “special friend” for the day. As John came to meet us he had such excitement on his face. He was one of the lucky ones; there were about 40 other children that day who wouldn’t have a special friend for the day. John came up and greeted us with a grateful hug. We sat down with him for about 20 minutes, getting to know each other, and then he lead the way to show us around. We played games, laughed, talked, ate and just enjoyed each other's company. As the day progressed John didn’t leave our side. It was then that I realized that this was divine intervention.

As my family continued to hang out with John, I decided to take a tour of the village and find out more about the surroundings. I was filled with joy to find out that the first and most important place in the village was a tiny beautiful chapel. I spoke with the pastor who has such a passion for these children. He told me that aside from safety from their parents, the very purpose of the village is to put each child on a spiritual journey of healing, hope, and above all, love. These children have only seen beatings, fear, threats, sexual abuse, and many have come in on death's bed and this village is the first time that they have seen the face of love. I was overwhelmed with sadness to know that this was the life that John had lived, and in the next moment I was filled with humility to know that God can actually use me to make a huge impact on John’s life forever.

We now talk to him on the phone and encourage him weekly. As I said, he is 13 years old, but he is only in the 3rd grade (due to abuse and neglect). He thrives on encouragement and being reminded that God loves him. The blessings that my husband and I have received from that day are indescribable and yet pale in comparison to the blessings that my children received. It opened their eyes to the true blessings that they have.

There are still many children at the village hoping for a “special friend”. The commitment is $50 per year, 3 or 4 visits per year, and a weekly or monthly phone call of encouragement, and above all else the commitment to pray for the child.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

There are over 3 million reports of abuse in the U.S. each year. To find out more about ChildHelp log on to www.childhelp.org.

Mind the Wind

2008-08-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

We have a lot more at our new building. More space. More families. More time on Sunday morning. And more wind, which got me thinking the other day about the problems kids face and how we measure "ok".

Because we're at a higher elevation now, on a plateau and without the windbreak of I-5 at our back, we suddenly feel a lot more wind than we did before. And so it was that on a Saturday morning, as our facilities crew was setting out tables in advance of Saturday evening's all-church BBQ, the wind started playing games. The guys would cover each round table with a red tablecloth, and minutes later a gust of wind would blow it off. The tablecloth was replaced, and straightened, and left just so - and then the wind kicked up just enough to throw it off again. A heavy centerpiece? Nope, the edges of the tablecloth still blew up and settled on the tabletop. Finally the crew settled it the only way possible - they recognized the wind's persistence, folded up the coverings, set them in the middle of the table, and dealt with it later.

There are many ways you could read this as a metaphor - like your kids' ability to push your button at just the right time, again and again. Or it could be used to illustrate the idea, "Don't sweat the small stuff" - don't feel you have react to every issue, let kids handle the small ones and step in when kids are stuck or about to get hurt or ask for your help. But what I saw in the tables was kids, as they develop and grow, and our well-meaning but often misguided penchant for treating symptoms rather than causes, over and over, and reacting far later than we should.

I once arranged a parenting class for a particular age group. I'll never forget the woman who called asking if we were planning anything for parents of older kids - their family really needed it. When I reminded her she had a son in the target age group for the upcoming class, she said, "Yes, but he's doing ok."

When we react, we rarely catch up. How many times have I heard from people I'm trying to recruit to work with kids in our ministry that they'd rather work with junior high or senior high aged kids "because that's when they're really faced with tough decisions"? Trust me, I respect the importance of junior high and high school ministry. I've worked in both, and yes, that age kid needs guidance too. But it's because of my experience with older kids that I know the seeds of wisdom are sown in a child long before the teen years are hit. In the same way, we know that the spiritual maturity and dedication of parents is a good predictor of the eventual spiritual maturity of the child: we reproduce what we are, not necessarily what we want.

The human will is incredibly strong, and teenage kids don't suddenly decide the type of person they want to be, and they don't make that decision in a vacuum. A strong Christian leader can guide, encourage, and even strongly suggest, but ultimately if a kid has no spiritual reservoir from which to draw, their decisions and lives are going to end up looking pretty much like the rest of the world's.

I first experienced this several years ago with a kid I knew and worked with whom I'll call Allen. Allen was being raised by his mom and had a winsome personality. But he was also grieving the loss of his dad, had some behavioral issues, didn't choose the best friends, and didn't have any particular passion. He, like many kids, was "good" and "ok", but all that was holding that together, it seems, was lack of opportunity. In high school he began experimenting, first with alcohol, then with drugs, and eventually was sent away for rehab.

But I remember the first time Allen was caught and the pep talk I gave him, which was lame in retrospect, about how surprised I was that he'd done that and how I hoped he'd make better choices and that I believed in him. Looking back, the problem wasn't that Allen didn't want to do better but that he couldn't do better - he was a broken kid and didn't have the resources to change. Which is not to excuse him from responsibility - not at all. To the contrary, Allen reaped what was sown - but the answer wasn't offering him pep talks or incentives or guilt trips to "turn him good". It was Allen's need to be rescued from his circumstances. (This, incidentally, is why the world's message that kids just need to "try harder" or be rewarded into making good decisions runs counter to the Bible's message that we are lost to sin.)

Sometimes our view of sin is just too small. The havoc of sin on the world is more than the sum total of every cross word, broken promise, mean thought, or hurtful act. The world itself is broken and under curse. Even people with hearts of gold - even children - are tainted by this environmentally. They are born into a fallen world, and the effects of sin are all around. Others disappoint us. We have to put up with rude people. We don't get our way. Joy fades.

Which brings us back to the tablecloths. The problem wasn't the tablecloths themselves - that is, it was a problem that they were blowing around and wouldn't stay in place, yes, but the root of the problem was that the wind was just strong and persistent enough to make the job of keeping them down pretty impossible. Now consider the problems that manifest themselves in kids' lives in adolescence and beyond - eating disorders, pornography addiction, sexual abuse, alcohol abuse, marrying too young, indebtedness, materialism, self-centeredness, spiritual backsliding and/or abandonment of their faith, isolation and depression, vanity, hopelessness - and recognize that there is a wind blowing behind each one of them.

So, boys who view pornography become men who suffer for it. Girls who have impossible thinness presented to them as the very definition of "beauty" come to believe it. Kids who are fed a steady diet of conflict and drama among adults internalize that as the way to resolve problems. Children who have no boundaries grow up disrespectful and always expecting their way; and, conversely, those who are babied and overly managed never learn to make responsible decisions for themselves. These are the prevailing conditions we call "culture" and they handicap the healthy development of kids.

So what is a parent to do? Remaining mindful of the fact that the wind won't stop blowing completely, when your child is in the pre-teen years, you should be fighting like mad to build up and strengthen your child's store of spiritual assets. Last year I wrote and spoke about Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually - that series begins here. But the wrong thing to do is to throw up your hands and say, "That's just the world we live in." Wrong. You can't always change culture. But as a parent, you can choose culture.

Try to get a handle on how your child is influenced (and a better word might be shaped). Each source has its own culture - a set of assumptions and values and norms. Your home and family have a culture. Friendship groups have cultures. Schools have cultures. Ideally they're nurturing. Sometimes they're coercive and stifling. Movies and TV create a culture (who can't remember wishing that some TV mom or dad was their parent?). Getting a handle of what your child believes - about themselves, about God, about the way the world works - can be huge in understanding emerging behaviors or stemming problem ones. (Take, for instance: "Why is my daughter so upset?" The fact that her boyfriend recently broke up with her might help explain why; but knowing that she holds the belief that to be someone in middle school, you have to have a boyfriend helps explain the intensity of her feelings.)

We continue to believe that parents hold the far greater potential to influence kids than church programs do. Parents remain the most willing, consistent, and persistent factors in a child's development. There are four programs planned in September specifically for you, and specifically designed to help you nurture kids' spiritual reserves. Beginning September 10, when our midweek program resumes (moving to Wednesday nights this fall), we plan to once again offer parent programs and classes in partnership with the church's Marriage and Family Ministry. Come and learn from Jeff Reinke on 7 Ways to Love Your Child the first Wednesday. Bill & Pam Farrell and Archibald Hart will speak in the weeks to follow. And, on September 19 (a Friday night), we're bringing Tim Smith back down to the church to teach you how to lead a family time of devotions. It's a nice sounding concept, but how many people know at all how to proceed? Tim will walk you through it, with your kids and a meal right there that night. All of these are a bargain - the Wednesday seminars are free, and the Tim Smith program is a flat fee for your whole family (with dinner included).

It's easy to recognize when things are "not OK" with a kid. "OK" is not necessarily the absence of troubling signs or bad behavior. True "OK" is an internal state, difficult to measure. Recognizing where the wind is coming from and how hard it's blowing is a skill, and it is key to restoring kids' spiritual and emotional wellness.

Parents: The Engine of Invitation

2008-07-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

The premier outreach event for our church, Kids Games, is coming in a week. Let me assure you, we do have room for your child still and it is not too late to register (but, the sooner the better). We are limited only theoretically by space and practically by the number of leaders; with Aviara Middle School as our venue and 163 people enlisted to help, we are in good shape.

So - we have a job for you: invite.

First, of course, register your own child. You can still do this by phone at 760-579-4161 or in person at the church between 9:30-1:30. While there are some electives full, many more remain available and we do place a priority on getting kids with their friends. That's part of the beauty of Kids Games - it gives kids common activities to share, the axis of kid friendship, and weaves spiritual lessons into those experiences, all while kids are under the wing of a caring adult leader.

Second, have your child bring a friend. Kids Games is about as non-threatening as it gets. And parents are the engine of invitation. I do believe kids are capable of deep, meaningful spiritual experiences, but most lack the maturity to view the world through a spiritual lens. As a result, kids don't always get why they should invite friends to church.

But we do. Parents grasp spiritual needs and spiritual health, and I've met some parents at this church who are very, very good about having their kids be intentional inviters. Some of them shrug off this acumen, and just lay credit on their own son or daughter, but I know better. And I can see the effect that these parents' hearts has on their kids: after a while, the kids start to "get it", that we don't just invite others to church because church is fun and cool and neat, but because people are spiritual and they need God. Constantly asking your child, "Who else can we bring with you?" is a great way to make them other-minded. After a while, bringing a friend along becomes second nature. And, as kids grow older, they're less likely to feel embarrassed about their own church affiliation and identity as a "churched kid" because everyone they know is aware of it. AND - the best thing - it keeps churches from becoming closed clubs.

How's your kid at inviting? Very likely the answer is related to how strongly you encourage it. I'm often asked whether some upcoming event or another is ok to bring friends to. The answer is nearly always yes. We do almost nothing that an unchurched child would feel uncomfortable attending, and that's by design.

See you - and your kid's friend - at Kids Games.