Some other pastors and I had an interesting discussion last week. At issue was how early in our teaching it is reasonable to expect kids to connect belief to action. For example, it's generally conceded that a very young child might be taught to say that hitting is wrong, but that won't stop them from acting impulsively when hitting or shoving seems to be to their advantage.
So, then, a question: if we recognize that natural development plays a role in dictating moral capacity - if we allow that very young children can't be held to the same standards as older children - wouldn't it stand to reason that lack of emotional development could be a hindrance to spiritual growth our whole lives?
A few years ago when I was at a church on the East Coast, a colleague there suggested to me that teenagers couldn't be fully devoted followers of Christ, by which he meant that they couldn't realize full spiritual maturity, because they hadn't lived enough life yet. At the time, I chafed at his assertion. But more and more, I appreciate it. He wasn't knocking teenagers or their ability to keep commitments or the sincerity of their devotion. Rather, what he was saying was that teenagers have not been tested, and therefore not been refined, in the ways that adults have, and their spiritual development was limited because of that.
We have fooled ourselves into believing that everyone grows up eventually. Outward appearances cause us to assume that every adult is a grown up, secure and confident and equipped to handle life the way a grown up should. And yes, as people age, they become more aware of the social cues and norms that say you shouldn't put your fist through a wall or ram someone with your car or have verbal fights in public or throw tantrums to get your way. And yet, most of us can recount instances where we've seen adults - grown-ups - behave in those very ways, because their emotions were too strong and they didn't know how else to channel it. The truth is that there's no emotional pituitary gland. People are either taught how to mature emotionally, and they do, or they aren't, and they don't.
A tragic reality of our times is that nutrition and child health have improved to the point that some girls are beginning puberty as early as 3rd grade, and boys as early as 5th grade, yet we know that the brain's impulse control center and judgment ability isn't fully formed until age 20! The result is an extended adolescence, truly a transition period of life, in which kids live in adult-like bodies but still think and act like children. This is the "Age of Opportunity" that Paul Tripp writes about. Yet, too many parents dread it and shrink from it. Why? I think the physical development of teenagers and the package that comes with it - the attitudes, the moods, the resistance, the obsession with vanity, the secrecy - scares a lot of parents. They're convinced that their child inhabits a world with a "Parents keep out!" sign on the door. At a time when they are needed most, they back away, afraid of asserting themselves for fear of alienating their child more, all the while wondering what happened to the loving, loyal little boy or girl they used to know? The price of this is that the emotional nurturance - one might call it the parenting - that kids need doesn't happen.
OK, we can agree that emotional and developmental health is important for kids, but what does it have to do with spiritual development? The answer is, plenty. First of all, we tend to filter our relationship with God through the lens of our own human relationships. The classic example is that of a person for whom the word "father" carries a negative association, perhaps because of abuse, abandonment, or separation. How does this person make sense of the concept of God as a Father, the love of the Father, the Father's forgiveness, and so on? Or, what about someone who was raised by parents who said, "I forgive you", but never really meant it - grudges were the relational bargaining chip in the family? How convinced will they be by the words of Psalm 103 - "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."
Furthermore, the Bible calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds - "to become what we already are." Yet, in the "Already-Not Yet" state that is the Christian life, the "old man" stays with us - the old habits, the old thoughts, the old attitudes, the old hurts. How, exactly, this old self is "reckoned dead" is a complicated question with no clear answer. However - and this is my opinion - I do not believe the death of the old self is an automatic consequence of one's salvation. Some do believe that: if the sinful self that dogs you persists or manifests itself after you've received the Holy Spirit, your salvation is in question. I respectfully disagree. Nor do I believe that persistent growth issues - anger, lust, depression, anxiety, addiction - are necessarily the result of a spiritual problem. Henry Cloud writes in his excellent book How People Grow about many sincere Christians he has worked with who, despite spiritual rigor and discipline, still hit ceilings in their personal growth. In those cases, emotional issues held back spiritual development, not the other way around.
No, we are not paralyzed by our past experiences, but we are certainly shaped and limited by them, which is why the movement toward small groups in the American church is more than a fad, it's a very healthy change. When a group commits to "do life" together, people discover how to relate to one another and how to relate to God. Old hang-ups, hurts, emotional roadblocks, and unhealthy patterns are unearthed and dealt with. The New Testament letters, from which we derive almost all of our theology on spiritual growth, were written to groups and read out loud - hence the frequent references to "one another": confess your sins to one another, love one another, forgive one another. Is God concerned with my personal growth? Yes, but who I am matters most in the context of how I relate to other people. What good is a loving heart if I don't display that love to my neighbor? What good is it for me to love justice and then turn a blind eye to it?
When we're handicapped in our ability to have relationships, to handle conflict, to deal with negative feelings in a healthy way, to accept ourselves…these become spiritual problems down the road. On Thursday night, a class for dads called "Raising a Modern-Day Knight" begins. There are many parents of teenagers who needed this class years ago. Now, when relations with their sons are strained, they are grasping for solutions. Isn't it better to help than to heal? Do you have an emotionally healthy child, able to receive and enjoy the great plan that God has written for their life? Don't be resigned to the fact that they're soon growing up physically - give them something to be growing towards.
Factor #4: Emotional and Developmental Health
Key Question: Does my child face emotional or developmental issues that will lead to spiritual problems?
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part three: Cultivation of a Biblical Worldview
It's only fair that speakers and writers own up to their biases. Otherwise, you can be drawn in by someone who weaves a convincing argument but never details the full implications of their thinking, nor sheds light on what has shaped their thinking to this point. Writers who claim not to have biases are fooling themselves, and you.
So here is one of mine: I don't think we're doing all right in Children's Ministry (nationwide) when it comes to passing on our faith. Status quo is decidedly not ok.
How can we claim success when the statistics say that around 70% of kids raised in the evangelical church will leave the church once they reach college? And that although 80% of American adults identify themselves as Christians, only 3%, according to George Barna, hold a Biblical worldview? And no, it's not good enough that some of those who wander eventually come back, which has become a convenient excuse for some in the world of Christian Ed to do nothing ("We're laying the groundwork…" they say, an argument that betrays a bias: real spiritual maturity can only happen in adults. This fails to take kids seriously spiritually and sells them short.)
No, we - and by this I mean the Church at large - are failing. And ironically, one of the reasons we've failed is that we've tried too hard! Let me explain: In our zeal and determination to successfully pass on a body of faith, we have measured and quantified and systematized and programmed the delivery of Christian Education to the point that the heart of Christianity, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, gets lost. When did loving Jesus ever become the product of having systematic knowledge?
I see this all the time in browsing Christian websites and reading ministry magazines, curricula that promise "Your kids will grow!" and "Kids will be excited about their faith" and "Kids will develop a firm foundation." Yet any prepackaged curriculum - any pre-written lesson, for that matter - is inherently limited by the assumptions that it is built upon, namely, that the questions it is answering are the ones kids are asking.
We are facing that this Fall in our 4th-6th grade room. We've just launched into a series on God and school, touching on things like cheating, being a good sport, and handling school stress. How do we teach this in such a way as to not be handing down yet another version of THE LAW? The answer is to frame the series around the theme of spiritual growth - what it is, why someone would want it, and how walking in faith (at home and at school) will produce it. But - what if a kid doesn't desire spiritual growth? Will he hear anything in this series except what he's grown accustomed to hearing in the church - all the dos and don'ts? Probably not, and that's the limit of what education can accomplish. We can teach people's minds; we can influence them toward action; but we cannot capture their will.
I am convinced that the strongest force in the world to be tamed is the human will. It is truly renegade. Humility compels us to concede that whenever a person bends their stubborn will toward the Cross, there's more in play than just the apprehension of facts. God is at work in authentic churches; by contrast, there are seminaries and religious studies programs where knowledge is abundant but God is not at work.
What, then, is the role of education, especially for kids and especially in a group setting, where some are saved and on the path of discipleship, but many are not? What can be taught that is beneficial to both groups? What exactly are we trying to do, and what do kids need to possess here in order to be spiritually advantaged? I believe the best thing we can do in an educational setting, especially one that reaches a broad audience of kids, is to pass along a Biblical worldview. To an unbeliever, such a program demonstrates how a Christian thinks; to a believer, it not only demonstrates Christian thought, but trains believers on the way thoughts and ideas interface with actions. A solid Christian Ed program doesn't rest having just presented content, but goes a step further in challenging students - through projects, discussions, role plays, simulations - to envision applying that knowledge in a real-world context. And further, it brings accountability to past actions: did you act as Jesus would have acted?
When Christian Ed does its job, a Biblical worldview becomes so pervasive that it begins to "spill over" into thoughts, goals, aspirations, values, and judgments. This is the litmus test: not whether kids are acquiring knowledge and understanding, but is that understanding making any appreciable difference in the way they think, feel, and behave? Admittedly, what education alone can accomplish is limited. You can educate someone in the way of salvation, and you can show them models of how to live by faith, but all the knowledge in the world won't carry the ball across the goal line. Faith without works is dead, and so Christian teaching - even solid, comprehensive teaching - can only do so much to fortify and nourish a believer. You cannot ignore the importance of modeling, community, discipline, and the other elements I'll be writing about in coming weeks that are necessary for spiritual growth.
But, insofar as churches have been entrusted with the spiritual care of children and adults, we have to accept our share of responsibility for the exodus of young people from our ranks. It's time for us to shake our addiction to the appearance of success - right-sounding answers and memory verse ribbons - and ask the harder question of ourselves: is our teaching actually transforming the way these kids view their world?
Factor #3: The cultivation of a Biblical Worldview
Key Question: Are the goals and values my child articulates in line with godly purposes?
So here is one of mine: I don't think we're doing all right in Children's Ministry (nationwide) when it comes to passing on our faith. Status quo is decidedly not ok.
How can we claim success when the statistics say that around 70% of kids raised in the evangelical church will leave the church once they reach college? And that although 80% of American adults identify themselves as Christians, only 3%, according to George Barna, hold a Biblical worldview? And no, it's not good enough that some of those who wander eventually come back, which has become a convenient excuse for some in the world of Christian Ed to do nothing ("We're laying the groundwork…" they say, an argument that betrays a bias: real spiritual maturity can only happen in adults. This fails to take kids seriously spiritually and sells them short.)
No, we - and by this I mean the Church at large - are failing. And ironically, one of the reasons we've failed is that we've tried too hard! Let me explain: In our zeal and determination to successfully pass on a body of faith, we have measured and quantified and systematized and programmed the delivery of Christian Education to the point that the heart of Christianity, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, gets lost. When did loving Jesus ever become the product of having systematic knowledge?
I see this all the time in browsing Christian websites and reading ministry magazines, curricula that promise "Your kids will grow!" and "Kids will be excited about their faith" and "Kids will develop a firm foundation." Yet any prepackaged curriculum - any pre-written lesson, for that matter - is inherently limited by the assumptions that it is built upon, namely, that the questions it is answering are the ones kids are asking.
We are facing that this Fall in our 4th-6th grade room. We've just launched into a series on God and school, touching on things like cheating, being a good sport, and handling school stress. How do we teach this in such a way as to not be handing down yet another version of THE LAW? The answer is to frame the series around the theme of spiritual growth - what it is, why someone would want it, and how walking in faith (at home and at school) will produce it. But - what if a kid doesn't desire spiritual growth? Will he hear anything in this series except what he's grown accustomed to hearing in the church - all the dos and don'ts? Probably not, and that's the limit of what education can accomplish. We can teach people's minds; we can influence them toward action; but we cannot capture their will.
I am convinced that the strongest force in the world to be tamed is the human will. It is truly renegade. Humility compels us to concede that whenever a person bends their stubborn will toward the Cross, there's more in play than just the apprehension of facts. God is at work in authentic churches; by contrast, there are seminaries and religious studies programs where knowledge is abundant but God is not at work.
What, then, is the role of education, especially for kids and especially in a group setting, where some are saved and on the path of discipleship, but many are not? What can be taught that is beneficial to both groups? What exactly are we trying to do, and what do kids need to possess here in order to be spiritually advantaged? I believe the best thing we can do in an educational setting, especially one that reaches a broad audience of kids, is to pass along a Biblical worldview. To an unbeliever, such a program demonstrates how a Christian thinks; to a believer, it not only demonstrates Christian thought, but trains believers on the way thoughts and ideas interface with actions. A solid Christian Ed program doesn't rest having just presented content, but goes a step further in challenging students - through projects, discussions, role plays, simulations - to envision applying that knowledge in a real-world context. And further, it brings accountability to past actions: did you act as Jesus would have acted?
When Christian Ed does its job, a Biblical worldview becomes so pervasive that it begins to "spill over" into thoughts, goals, aspirations, values, and judgments. This is the litmus test: not whether kids are acquiring knowledge and understanding, but is that understanding making any appreciable difference in the way they think, feel, and behave? Admittedly, what education alone can accomplish is limited. You can educate someone in the way of salvation, and you can show them models of how to live by faith, but all the knowledge in the world won't carry the ball across the goal line. Faith without works is dead, and so Christian teaching - even solid, comprehensive teaching - can only do so much to fortify and nourish a believer. You cannot ignore the importance of modeling, community, discipline, and the other elements I'll be writing about in coming weeks that are necessary for spiritual growth.
But, insofar as churches have been entrusted with the spiritual care of children and adults, we have to accept our share of responsibility for the exodus of young people from our ranks. It's time for us to shake our addiction to the appearance of success - right-sounding answers and memory verse ribbons - and ask the harder question of ourselves: is our teaching actually transforming the way these kids view their world?
Factor #3: The cultivation of a Biblical Worldview
Key Question: Are the goals and values my child articulates in line with godly purposes?
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually, part two: Same-Age Christian Friendships
It's pretty well accepted that no kid who makes it through high school with his faith intact does so alone: Christian kids need Christian friends. It's also becoming accepted that spiritual growth happens in a community context. If you want to stunt a believer's growth, keep him far away from fellow believers. On the other hand, it's also quite apparent that the older a child becomes, the more they resent parental intrusion into their social lives.
Given this tension, what can a parent do to ensure that their child's social network includes some Christian friendships?
I have written many times in this space on the importance of Christian friendships. In short:
* I don't believe Christian kids should only have Christian friends. But they do need some.
* There is a difference between being "Christian buddies", the casual acquaintances that are kept at church but have no ties or bearing on the rest of a child's life, and being "Christian friends", where the relationship is actually edifying and holds influence over both children's behavior and character.
* It is one thing to know right from wrong; it is another to have the skills to act on one's moral convictions. A strong social network that shares your moral convictions is at least as important as the cognitive grasp of right and wrong.
* From surveys we've done, kids in our church generally have a handful of Christian buddies who they recognize here, but those attachments tend not to endure outside of church.
* And yes, given the size of our church, unless we are intentional about helping kids develop friendships in church, a kid really can come through our children's program and move on to junior high having developed few, if any, true friendships.
Kids are irked when parents try to engineer friendships. Why? Self-awareness is one reason. Already in fourth grade, kids are very aware of the social hierarchy of their school. They know that being friends with certain people will enhance their own status, while befriending others will hurt them. (Don't believe me? Think back to your own elementary school. How old were you when you started to notice that some kids were popular and others were shunned; that some were to be reckoned with and others to be dismissed? For me, this social awareness started to emerge in about 2nd or 3rd grade. By 4th grade, when I attended my first boy-girl preteen party, the lines between "in" and "out" were clearly drawn - and we invited accordingly.) There are kids who are either willing to risk their standing or oblivious to it and will "be friends with anyone", but such kids are rare.
[And I've sometimes wondered if we're setting an unrealistic expectation when we tell kids they should be friends with everyone, when we adults don't follow that mandate ourselves. Such an expectation usually springs from an observation drawn from our own, adult friendships, which is that they are mostly harmonious and that therefore, kids should also make an effort to get along with everybody. But this ignores the fact that we adults have the freedom to choose whom we associate with. We live, play, work, and relax with people of our own choosing - which tends to be folks who are just like us. Kids, by virtue of their attending a school, enjoy no such freedom. They are forced to interact daily with people who are very unlike themselves and don't have the luxury of excusing themselves or choosing alternate surroundings. Unlike a grown-up who can quit their job to get out from under a difficult boss or irritating co-workers, a child cannot divorce themselves from their teacher or classmates - though many have wanted to! Do we become better at handling difficult and different people as we get older? Probably. But I think the fact that social strife diminishes as we age reflects more the adult prerogative to choose one's environment than it does maturity.]
But the other reason kids jealously guard the power to make and break friendships is that this is one area of their lives that they almost exclusively control. Emotionally, they feel drawn to some kids and repelled by others, and they want the freedom to indulge those feelings and affiliate and play with those who make them feel good about themselves. When a parent or other adult tries to orchestrate a friendship irrespective of the child's affinities, it's as if the child is executing an obligation - even if the adult's matchmaking sprung from pure intentions. As a tennis coach, I saw this phenomenon among players well into high school. They would often rather have their close friend as their doubles partner than be paired with a better player who they weren't friends with. The social dynamic - will I enjoy myself? - outweighed the strategic - will we win?
So given a child's determination to choose her own friends-thank-you-very-much, what can a Christian parent do to influence those decisions so that their child won't reach high school without a supportive tribe around them?
First, start young. Fortunately, "friend" to a preteen roughly equates to "someone I do fun things with." (See my post from earlier this month, titled "Another Giant Leap: From Church buddies to Christian friends".) So a 10 or 11-year-old can join a new team or start at a new school and quickly make half a dozen friends (and they can just as quickly lose those friendships when the context changes). Because we value the development of friendships among our kids at church, we've gone "event heavy" on our schedule, with the hope that new friendships will be forged out of the crush of activity.
Which leads me to my second bit of advice: Involve your child in as many church-based activities as you can. Weekend attendance is important (I'm getting to that), but realize that one weekend service only exposes kids to a slice - and often the same slice - of kids. This is a huge church - nearly 700 different faces in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade came through our class last school year, from more than 70 elementary and middle schools. Is there a chance that the first time your kid comes to church they won't recognize anybody? Yes. Is it possible they won't really click with any peers at the service they attend? Possible, yes. Is it reasonable that among the hundreds of kids who call NCCC their church, your kid won't find anyone they have a kinship with? No, not very reasonable. But kids need to encounter each other and those encounters need to happen in social settings, outside of the educational environment that is Sunday mornings.
Third, we have always encouraged families to pick one service and stick with it. Why? Because otherwise, your child never gets accustomed to the other kids who they attend church with. In a given month, if you attend service at four different times, your child sees four different sets of leaders and kids, yet they never become a regular at any one of them. It's like sending your kid to a completely different church every week! We adults forget how intimidating it is to come to church alone, because most of us have the safety of a spouse to sit with even if the rest of the assembly is different. Regularity at one service also promotes the development of a relationship between your child and his or her small group leader. Your child becomes known, not just recognized.
Fourth, realize that inasmuch as the context of your child's life is constrained, you are the one who sets that context! As I wrote above, a kid doesn't get to pick their school, their neighborhood, their church, when the family is going over to Grandma's, what they'll study about in school, and any of a host of rather important life choices. Instead, you set the schedule and drive the taxi! How are you doing at investing your child's time? I urge you to sit down and inventory a typical week. How much time does your child spend in school? Doing homework? Watching TV? Outside? Playing organized sports? With you? Serving others? Resting? Doing something intentionally spiritually edifying? Recognize that you have determined, by your choices, what your child's time distribution looks like. Recognize further that you can adjust that distribution at any time, that you have the right (and it is your right) to blow the whistle and call time-out if you recognize that your kid's life has fallen out of balance. Kids don't enter iron-clad commitments, and while sometimes "sticking it out" does build character, if your kid is burning out because of overcommitment it's not only unhealthy but foolish for them to continue at that pace. What a shame if your child reaches high school - when demands on their time intensify even more - and lacks Christian friends because they (or you) simply couldn't find the time to invest when they were young!
[Let me add as a postscript to the above that if most of your child's friends are negative influences, then their involvement in whatever activity is creating a close association with kids like that isn't worth it. Regardless of the skill being developed, the most lasting imprint from a team or group experience will be on their character. If and when I have kids, I would never allow them to remain on a team with a coach who screams and swears - I don't care how great a teacher or motivator they are. The end simply doesn't justify the means.]
The last thing parents can do is to help extend church friendships beyond the walls of the church. Often it doesn't occur to kids that they should deepen a friendship with someone they know from church, especially if the geographical distance between homes is great. But this promotes the divide between "church life" and "the rest of life". We need to demonstrate, both by modeling it and by promoting it, that it's important to nurture Christian friendships. So, encourage your child to have someone over after church on Sunday, to bring them along on a roadtrip, to invite a church friend to their birthday party, to include them at a sleepover. These kinds of encounters bridge the church world and the real world and help kids to see that it's ok to carry the Christian label back to their everyday life.
Last winter I told the kids they should aim at developing seven Christian friendships by the time they reached seventh grade. It's still a good goal, and one I believe in, but I don't talk about it to the kids anymore because I quickly realized they don't, at this age, fully realize the importance or meaning of "Christian friend". You, however, do. And so perhaps the greatest contribution a parent can make toward developing this advantage is to be vigilant. Despite kids' wishes to keep parents at an arm's length when it comes to the social world, parents usually have pretty keen insight about who their kid hangs around with and the quality of their friendships. I would invite you to turn this analysis on your child spiritually: socially, is the groundwork being laid for a supportive cluster of Christian friends by the time your child reaches middle school? If not, what can you do to promote that?
Factor #2: Same-Age Christian Friendships
Key Question: Does my child have any Christian friends?
Given this tension, what can a parent do to ensure that their child's social network includes some Christian friendships?
I have written many times in this space on the importance of Christian friendships. In short:
* I don't believe Christian kids should only have Christian friends. But they do need some.
* There is a difference between being "Christian buddies", the casual acquaintances that are kept at church but have no ties or bearing on the rest of a child's life, and being "Christian friends", where the relationship is actually edifying and holds influence over both children's behavior and character.
* It is one thing to know right from wrong; it is another to have the skills to act on one's moral convictions. A strong social network that shares your moral convictions is at least as important as the cognitive grasp of right and wrong.
* From surveys we've done, kids in our church generally have a handful of Christian buddies who they recognize here, but those attachments tend not to endure outside of church.
* And yes, given the size of our church, unless we are intentional about helping kids develop friendships in church, a kid really can come through our children's program and move on to junior high having developed few, if any, true friendships.
Kids are irked when parents try to engineer friendships. Why? Self-awareness is one reason. Already in fourth grade, kids are very aware of the social hierarchy of their school. They know that being friends with certain people will enhance their own status, while befriending others will hurt them. (Don't believe me? Think back to your own elementary school. How old were you when you started to notice that some kids were popular and others were shunned; that some were to be reckoned with and others to be dismissed? For me, this social awareness started to emerge in about 2nd or 3rd grade. By 4th grade, when I attended my first boy-girl preteen party, the lines between "in" and "out" were clearly drawn - and we invited accordingly.) There are kids who are either willing to risk their standing or oblivious to it and will "be friends with anyone", but such kids are rare.
[And I've sometimes wondered if we're setting an unrealistic expectation when we tell kids they should be friends with everyone, when we adults don't follow that mandate ourselves. Such an expectation usually springs from an observation drawn from our own, adult friendships, which is that they are mostly harmonious and that therefore, kids should also make an effort to get along with everybody. But this ignores the fact that we adults have the freedom to choose whom we associate with. We live, play, work, and relax with people of our own choosing - which tends to be folks who are just like us. Kids, by virtue of their attending a school, enjoy no such freedom. They are forced to interact daily with people who are very unlike themselves and don't have the luxury of excusing themselves or choosing alternate surroundings. Unlike a grown-up who can quit their job to get out from under a difficult boss or irritating co-workers, a child cannot divorce themselves from their teacher or classmates - though many have wanted to! Do we become better at handling difficult and different people as we get older? Probably. But I think the fact that social strife diminishes as we age reflects more the adult prerogative to choose one's environment than it does maturity.]
But the other reason kids jealously guard the power to make and break friendships is that this is one area of their lives that they almost exclusively control. Emotionally, they feel drawn to some kids and repelled by others, and they want the freedom to indulge those feelings and affiliate and play with those who make them feel good about themselves. When a parent or other adult tries to orchestrate a friendship irrespective of the child's affinities, it's as if the child is executing an obligation - even if the adult's matchmaking sprung from pure intentions. As a tennis coach, I saw this phenomenon among players well into high school. They would often rather have their close friend as their doubles partner than be paired with a better player who they weren't friends with. The social dynamic - will I enjoy myself? - outweighed the strategic - will we win?
So given a child's determination to choose her own friends-thank-you-very-much, what can a Christian parent do to influence those decisions so that their child won't reach high school without a supportive tribe around them?
First, start young. Fortunately, "friend" to a preteen roughly equates to "someone I do fun things with." (See my post from earlier this month, titled "Another Giant Leap: From Church buddies to Christian friends".) So a 10 or 11-year-old can join a new team or start at a new school and quickly make half a dozen friends (and they can just as quickly lose those friendships when the context changes). Because we value the development of friendships among our kids at church, we've gone "event heavy" on our schedule, with the hope that new friendships will be forged out of the crush of activity.
Which leads me to my second bit of advice: Involve your child in as many church-based activities as you can. Weekend attendance is important (I'm getting to that), but realize that one weekend service only exposes kids to a slice - and often the same slice - of kids. This is a huge church - nearly 700 different faces in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade came through our class last school year, from more than 70 elementary and middle schools. Is there a chance that the first time your kid comes to church they won't recognize anybody? Yes. Is it possible they won't really click with any peers at the service they attend? Possible, yes. Is it reasonable that among the hundreds of kids who call NCCC their church, your kid won't find anyone they have a kinship with? No, not very reasonable. But kids need to encounter each other and those encounters need to happen in social settings, outside of the educational environment that is Sunday mornings.
Third, we have always encouraged families to pick one service and stick with it. Why? Because otherwise, your child never gets accustomed to the other kids who they attend church with. In a given month, if you attend service at four different times, your child sees four different sets of leaders and kids, yet they never become a regular at any one of them. It's like sending your kid to a completely different church every week! We adults forget how intimidating it is to come to church alone, because most of us have the safety of a spouse to sit with even if the rest of the assembly is different. Regularity at one service also promotes the development of a relationship between your child and his or her small group leader. Your child becomes known, not just recognized.
Fourth, realize that inasmuch as the context of your child's life is constrained, you are the one who sets that context! As I wrote above, a kid doesn't get to pick their school, their neighborhood, their church, when the family is going over to Grandma's, what they'll study about in school, and any of a host of rather important life choices. Instead, you set the schedule and drive the taxi! How are you doing at investing your child's time? I urge you to sit down and inventory a typical week. How much time does your child spend in school? Doing homework? Watching TV? Outside? Playing organized sports? With you? Serving others? Resting? Doing something intentionally spiritually edifying? Recognize that you have determined, by your choices, what your child's time distribution looks like. Recognize further that you can adjust that distribution at any time, that you have the right (and it is your right) to blow the whistle and call time-out if you recognize that your kid's life has fallen out of balance. Kids don't enter iron-clad commitments, and while sometimes "sticking it out" does build character, if your kid is burning out because of overcommitment it's not only unhealthy but foolish for them to continue at that pace. What a shame if your child reaches high school - when demands on their time intensify even more - and lacks Christian friends because they (or you) simply couldn't find the time to invest when they were young!
[Let me add as a postscript to the above that if most of your child's friends are negative influences, then their involvement in whatever activity is creating a close association with kids like that isn't worth it. Regardless of the skill being developed, the most lasting imprint from a team or group experience will be on their character. If and when I have kids, I would never allow them to remain on a team with a coach who screams and swears - I don't care how great a teacher or motivator they are. The end simply doesn't justify the means.]
The last thing parents can do is to help extend church friendships beyond the walls of the church. Often it doesn't occur to kids that they should deepen a friendship with someone they know from church, especially if the geographical distance between homes is great. But this promotes the divide between "church life" and "the rest of life". We need to demonstrate, both by modeling it and by promoting it, that it's important to nurture Christian friendships. So, encourage your child to have someone over after church on Sunday, to bring them along on a roadtrip, to invite a church friend to their birthday party, to include them at a sleepover. These kinds of encounters bridge the church world and the real world and help kids to see that it's ok to carry the Christian label back to their everyday life.
Last winter I told the kids they should aim at developing seven Christian friendships by the time they reached seventh grade. It's still a good goal, and one I believe in, but I don't talk about it to the kids anymore because I quickly realized they don't, at this age, fully realize the importance or meaning of "Christian friend". You, however, do. And so perhaps the greatest contribution a parent can make toward developing this advantage is to be vigilant. Despite kids' wishes to keep parents at an arm's length when it comes to the social world, parents usually have pretty keen insight about who their kid hangs around with and the quality of their friendships. I would invite you to turn this analysis on your child spiritually: socially, is the groundwork being laid for a supportive cluster of Christian friends by the time your child reaches middle school? If not, what can you do to promote that?
Factor #2: Same-Age Christian Friendships
Key Question: Does my child have any Christian friends?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Nine Things Your Child Needs, part one: Intentional Intercessory Prayer
When I've asked parents of spiritually thriving kids what their secret is, more often than not, they've first answered: "PRAYER". And more often than not, they've said it with a sigh and a chuckle, as if to say, "It wasn't anything we did - God's just come through...and we sure needed it!"
Of course they have done other things, whether they realize it or not, which becomes apparent the deeper you dig. And of course - as also becomes apparent - they have prayed. Which makes prayer a good place to start.
We're reminded of the incredible parable in Luke 18 where a widow keeps coming to the town judge, asking for relief from her enemies. The hard-hearted judge refuses at first because he had no concern for her, or for justice. Yet, eventually, he gives in to her persistent pleading and grants what she asks, so that she'll go away and stop asking! Jesus continues:
"Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Often, parables are open to a wide range of interpretation, but not here; Luke himself lays out the purpose at the start of the story: "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up..." The parable should not be read to mean that God is like the unjust judge - either that he is reckless in his concern for people or that he answers prayer just because he's tired of hearing us ask and wants us to go away!
Rather, Jesus' point is that if the mind of a callous judge who does not fear God can be changed by persistence, and that persistence is the product of faith, then shouldn't we hold at least as strong a faith in approaching the God of the universe, who will deliver justice according to his promise? The parable, it turns out, is about us, not God, and Jesus ends with the stinger: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" In other words, do you really believe the promises of God, and do you believe Him to be who He says He is? Because if you do, you will pray!
Viewed in this way, it becomes clear that the parable isn't teaching that prayer produces anything, but that it is an expression of faith. The widow asked because she hoped - perhaps without reason - that the judge would grant her request; if we "pray and not give up" it is because we have not lost faith.
When he comes back, will Jesus find that faith in you? In me?
The call to pray for our kids, then, cannot be de-linked from submission to the idea that God knows what he's doing. Sometimes parents accept that resignedly - "God knows what he's doing, but I have no idea" - and they lose heart in prayer because what they're asking for isn't apparently going to happen anytime soon. It takes a spiritually discerning person to see your child through spiritual eyes - particularly when it seems your child is making decisions that would set them at odds with God's will for them. You have to keep returning to the "faith bedrock" that is the foundation of praying for anyone:
1. Each person is accountable to God for the life they've lived in the body (Romans 14:12, 2 Cor. 5:10, Hebrews 4:13, 1 Peter 4:5)
2. God has called them out of darkness, into his light (1 Peter 2:9)
3. God's revelation has been unmistakeable (Romans 1)
4. God is patient with people, wanting their repentance and not their destruction (2 Peter 3:9)
5. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation - bringing God to people to people to God (2 Cor. 5:18-19)
6. Suffering is a part of the Christian life (Phil. 1:29, Romans 8:18-39)
Kids need regular prayer intercession on their behalf because it will keep you grounded! Sadly, God doesn't promise that every child will answer his call. Nor does he promise that every prodigal will return. But he does assure us that he is at work - not aloof, not preoccupied, not ignorant or unaware, not uncaring. Your child has learning difficulties and hates school? God is at work. Your child is socially ostracized? God is at work. Your child is destroying the peace in your home? God is at work. Your child struggles to keep up athletically with her more gifted peers? God is at work. Your child is hedonistic and self-indulgent? God is at work.
Not only does prayer need to be regular for kids, but the prayer burden also needs to be shared. This is scary to some people - a stranger (or sometimes worse, a friend) is being brought in on the "family business". Will they gossip? Will they judge? Will they take the request seriously? But I would submit that having others pray for your child's needs - spiritually, emotional, and material - is an essential component of surrendering those needs to God. When we "keep things just between God and us", it's a way of hanging onto worries, resolving to diligently work through them, rather than giving them over. The fear of not wanting to bother someone else with "your" problems can also keep people from asking for prayer. But, every prayer intercessor I've ever known would be honored to be asked - that's why they do what they do!
At North Coast Calvary Chapel, a prayer tent is staffed during all of the weekend services. A prayer team also meets at the church during the day on Fridays. Our pastoral staff prays together weekly. There is a prayer gathering for NCCC and the community on Monday nights, and another an hour before weekend services (5:00 Saturday and 7 am Sunday). Two prayer intercessors have specifically told me since summer that they desire to pray for elementary-aged students. How can they pray for you? How can we pray for each other?
Factor #1: Intentional Intercessory Prayer
Key Question: How many other people are praying for my child's spiritual, emotional, and material well-being?
Of course they have done other things, whether they realize it or not, which becomes apparent the deeper you dig. And of course - as also becomes apparent - they have prayed. Which makes prayer a good place to start.
We're reminded of the incredible parable in Luke 18 where a widow keeps coming to the town judge, asking for relief from her enemies. The hard-hearted judge refuses at first because he had no concern for her, or for justice. Yet, eventually, he gives in to her persistent pleading and grants what she asks, so that she'll go away and stop asking! Jesus continues:
"Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Often, parables are open to a wide range of interpretation, but not here; Luke himself lays out the purpose at the start of the story: "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up..." The parable should not be read to mean that God is like the unjust judge - either that he is reckless in his concern for people or that he answers prayer just because he's tired of hearing us ask and wants us to go away!
Rather, Jesus' point is that if the mind of a callous judge who does not fear God can be changed by persistence, and that persistence is the product of faith, then shouldn't we hold at least as strong a faith in approaching the God of the universe, who will deliver justice according to his promise? The parable, it turns out, is about us, not God, and Jesus ends with the stinger: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" In other words, do you really believe the promises of God, and do you believe Him to be who He says He is? Because if you do, you will pray!
Viewed in this way, it becomes clear that the parable isn't teaching that prayer produces anything, but that it is an expression of faith. The widow asked because she hoped - perhaps without reason - that the judge would grant her request; if we "pray and not give up" it is because we have not lost faith.
When he comes back, will Jesus find that faith in you? In me?
The call to pray for our kids, then, cannot be de-linked from submission to the idea that God knows what he's doing. Sometimes parents accept that resignedly - "God knows what he's doing, but I have no idea" - and they lose heart in prayer because what they're asking for isn't apparently going to happen anytime soon. It takes a spiritually discerning person to see your child through spiritual eyes - particularly when it seems your child is making decisions that would set them at odds with God's will for them. You have to keep returning to the "faith bedrock" that is the foundation of praying for anyone:
1. Each person is accountable to God for the life they've lived in the body (Romans 14:12, 2 Cor. 5:10, Hebrews 4:13, 1 Peter 4:5)
2. God has called them out of darkness, into his light (1 Peter 2:9)
3. God's revelation has been unmistakeable (Romans 1)
4. God is patient with people, wanting their repentance and not their destruction (2 Peter 3:9)
5. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation - bringing God to people to people to God (2 Cor. 5:18-19)
6. Suffering is a part of the Christian life (Phil. 1:29, Romans 8:18-39)
Kids need regular prayer intercession on their behalf because it will keep you grounded! Sadly, God doesn't promise that every child will answer his call. Nor does he promise that every prodigal will return. But he does assure us that he is at work - not aloof, not preoccupied, not ignorant or unaware, not uncaring. Your child has learning difficulties and hates school? God is at work. Your child is socially ostracized? God is at work. Your child is destroying the peace in your home? God is at work. Your child struggles to keep up athletically with her more gifted peers? God is at work. Your child is hedonistic and self-indulgent? God is at work.
Not only does prayer need to be regular for kids, but the prayer burden also needs to be shared. This is scary to some people - a stranger (or sometimes worse, a friend) is being brought in on the "family business". Will they gossip? Will they judge? Will they take the request seriously? But I would submit that having others pray for your child's needs - spiritually, emotional, and material - is an essential component of surrendering those needs to God. When we "keep things just between God and us", it's a way of hanging onto worries, resolving to diligently work through them, rather than giving them over. The fear of not wanting to bother someone else with "your" problems can also keep people from asking for prayer. But, every prayer intercessor I've ever known would be honored to be asked - that's why they do what they do!
At North Coast Calvary Chapel, a prayer tent is staffed during all of the weekend services. A prayer team also meets at the church during the day on Fridays. Our pastoral staff prays together weekly. There is a prayer gathering for NCCC and the community on Monday nights, and another an hour before weekend services (5:00 Saturday and 7 am Sunday). Two prayer intercessors have specifically told me since summer that they desire to pray for elementary-aged students. How can they pray for you? How can we pray for each other?
Factor #1: Intentional Intercessory Prayer
Key Question: How many other people are praying for my child's spiritual, emotional, and material well-being?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Nine Things Your Child Needs to Thrive Spiritually
What does it take to raise kids who love God and remain in love with him the rest of their lives?
That is the question we as Christian educators and parents need to keep returning to, and it's the question I set out to answer last Spring. Lacking an overall vision, our programming and parenting can just be a series of reactive enterprises - responding to this crisis, counteracting this trend, repairing that breach. It contributes to the disgraceful statistic that around 70% of active churchgoing teenagers walks away from the church once they reach college. So I began asking questions: when a student is able to defy the statistic and maintain a vital spiritual life beyond high school - why? What are the factors at work? And equally as important, when students fail to keep their faith - why not?
I'll admit that even addressing a question like this reflects a bias towards ministry. Can God accomplish anything? Yes, but he has given us the charge to minister, the "ministry of reconciliation", as 2 Corinthians 5 puts it. He wants to share the work with us. To believe that ministry and the efforts of the local church matter isn't unfaithful. Knowing what God wants you to do and not doing it - that's unfaithful. We should absolutely work, as I wrote a few weeks ago, to give our kids every spiritual advantage.
My unscientific sample was kids I'd worked with over the last 14 years, in ministry contexts and non-ministry contexts, as well as the kids I now work with in 4th-6th grade. What is it about kids who are spiritually strong? What do they have in their lives that has pushed and is pushing them toward the path that leads to Christ, and ultimately to their salvation and transformation? And among kids who were raised in the church but have faltered in their faith, what went wrong?
When I began to answer this question, I started in the wrong place. I first tried to depict what a transformed child looks like - what do they know, what do they say, what do they do - in short, how does a truly transformed child live out his or her faith? But as I mulled that over I realized it was the wrong question, because there is no one answer. Focusing on behaviors is a tricky thing, and a trap that can produce kids who are empty shells with pleasing exteriors and rotten or vacant interiors. (See my post last week on Tim Smith's book, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids.") It simply becomes too easy, and too tempting, to try to engineer the end product by whatever means (usually rewards and punishments) and lose sight of the more important question, which is, what is this kid made of? What is the fabric of his being? Apart from her present context, what does she really believe, and how will her behavior conform because of it?
The truth is, the way Christianity gets lived out is as different and individualized as the people who adhere to the faith. One person is comfortable evangelizing to total strangers; another wouldn't think of it, but is skilled at forging the relational context (the pre-evangelism) needed to loosen the soil so that the message can later be received. One person loves to sing worship songs; another can't wait for the music to stop, but is first in line when it comes to volunteering. Some are artists, some intellectuals, others athletes, still others business-saavy. God never promises nor intends salvation to be a personality transplant. We remain who we are, fearfully and wonderfully made, and Christ is invited in to transform on his timetable and on his terms: "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).
The one common element in those who are being transformed is that they have received Christ into their lives by faith. Yet faith is an intangible - I can only recognize its presence by the outward expressions, or fruit. So if we only are focused on the end product, we're stuck. Instead, we might ask what it is about kids who are evidently saved - who've professed Christ and whose lives demonstrate the handprint of transformation - what got them there? What common factors incline a young person toward the heart of God? What can we do to place kids in the position to be influenced for Christ, that they might become influencers for Christ?
Over the next nine weeks I'll be detailing here what I believe are nine factors a parent can build into their child's life to help them thrive spiritually. This is a synopsis of the presentation I gave on September 13. Are there only nine factors? No, there may be 99, or 909. My intent was not to develop a formula or recipe for engineering a young Christian. Rather, I want to give you a practical way to evaluate the spiritual advantages your child does or does not possess. These nine factors have also become a guide for me in ministry, some tangible "sub goals" we can partner with families on in pursuit of the real goal.
One note: the tendency of many youth ministries has been to identify one or two critical factors and seize on those at the expense of others: Christian kids should only date other Christians; they can't drink or smoke; they need to be in a small group; they must remain morally pure; they need to commit entire books (usually New Testament letters) to memory; they need to become skilled in apologetics; and so on. What often happens is that in a well-meaning attempt to guard kids against faith derailment, attaining the critical factor itself becomes the goal. Any youth pastor can tell you about kids who've made it through 12th grade and not only have they not been sexually active, but they haven't done much of anything else, either. They've avoided the "bad stuff", but there's no passion for Christ, no hunger for the word, no desire to give themselves away. They're content with morality and have passed the test, but they're far from exhibiting transformation. Is this what we want?
The nine factors I'll share with you aren't that kind of checklist. That's defensive Christianity, and it's full of law. I've deliberately tried to write the nine items in constructive language, and to offer parents a question or two that will help them evaluate whether their child possesses that advantage, and some tips on how they might build that into their child's life.
That is the question we as Christian educators and parents need to keep returning to, and it's the question I set out to answer last Spring. Lacking an overall vision, our programming and parenting can just be a series of reactive enterprises - responding to this crisis, counteracting this trend, repairing that breach. It contributes to the disgraceful statistic that around 70% of active churchgoing teenagers walks away from the church once they reach college. So I began asking questions: when a student is able to defy the statistic and maintain a vital spiritual life beyond high school - why? What are the factors at work? And equally as important, when students fail to keep their faith - why not?
I'll admit that even addressing a question like this reflects a bias towards ministry. Can God accomplish anything? Yes, but he has given us the charge to minister, the "ministry of reconciliation", as 2 Corinthians 5 puts it. He wants to share the work with us. To believe that ministry and the efforts of the local church matter isn't unfaithful. Knowing what God wants you to do and not doing it - that's unfaithful. We should absolutely work, as I wrote a few weeks ago, to give our kids every spiritual advantage.
My unscientific sample was kids I'd worked with over the last 14 years, in ministry contexts and non-ministry contexts, as well as the kids I now work with in 4th-6th grade. What is it about kids who are spiritually strong? What do they have in their lives that has pushed and is pushing them toward the path that leads to Christ, and ultimately to their salvation and transformation? And among kids who were raised in the church but have faltered in their faith, what went wrong?
When I began to answer this question, I started in the wrong place. I first tried to depict what a transformed child looks like - what do they know, what do they say, what do they do - in short, how does a truly transformed child live out his or her faith? But as I mulled that over I realized it was the wrong question, because there is no one answer. Focusing on behaviors is a tricky thing, and a trap that can produce kids who are empty shells with pleasing exteriors and rotten or vacant interiors. (See my post last week on Tim Smith's book, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids.") It simply becomes too easy, and too tempting, to try to engineer the end product by whatever means (usually rewards and punishments) and lose sight of the more important question, which is, what is this kid made of? What is the fabric of his being? Apart from her present context, what does she really believe, and how will her behavior conform because of it?
The truth is, the way Christianity gets lived out is as different and individualized as the people who adhere to the faith. One person is comfortable evangelizing to total strangers; another wouldn't think of it, but is skilled at forging the relational context (the pre-evangelism) needed to loosen the soil so that the message can later be received. One person loves to sing worship songs; another can't wait for the music to stop, but is first in line when it comes to volunteering. Some are artists, some intellectuals, others athletes, still others business-saavy. God never promises nor intends salvation to be a personality transplant. We remain who we are, fearfully and wonderfully made, and Christ is invited in to transform on his timetable and on his terms: "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).
The one common element in those who are being transformed is that they have received Christ into their lives by faith. Yet faith is an intangible - I can only recognize its presence by the outward expressions, or fruit. So if we only are focused on the end product, we're stuck. Instead, we might ask what it is about kids who are evidently saved - who've professed Christ and whose lives demonstrate the handprint of transformation - what got them there? What common factors incline a young person toward the heart of God? What can we do to place kids in the position to be influenced for Christ, that they might become influencers for Christ?
Over the next nine weeks I'll be detailing here what I believe are nine factors a parent can build into their child's life to help them thrive spiritually. This is a synopsis of the presentation I gave on September 13. Are there only nine factors? No, there may be 99, or 909. My intent was not to develop a formula or recipe for engineering a young Christian. Rather, I want to give you a practical way to evaluate the spiritual advantages your child does or does not possess. These nine factors have also become a guide for me in ministry, some tangible "sub goals" we can partner with families on in pursuit of the real goal.
One note: the tendency of many youth ministries has been to identify one or two critical factors and seize on those at the expense of others: Christian kids should only date other Christians; they can't drink or smoke; they need to be in a small group; they must remain morally pure; they need to commit entire books (usually New Testament letters) to memory; they need to become skilled in apologetics; and so on. What often happens is that in a well-meaning attempt to guard kids against faith derailment, attaining the critical factor itself becomes the goal. Any youth pastor can tell you about kids who've made it through 12th grade and not only have they not been sexually active, but they haven't done much of anything else, either. They've avoided the "bad stuff", but there's no passion for Christ, no hunger for the word, no desire to give themselves away. They're content with morality and have passed the test, but they're far from exhibiting transformation. Is this what we want?
The nine factors I'll share with you aren't that kind of checklist. That's defensive Christianity, and it's full of law. I've deliberately tried to write the nine items in constructive language, and to offer parents a question or two that will help them evaluate whether their child possesses that advantage, and some tips on how they might build that into their child's life.
Monday, September 10, 2007
The Danger of Raising Nice Kids
There are some books you read that are such a challenge to your thinking that they take a while to digest. For me, I can only read these books in bites - take a portion, mull it over, then dive back in once I've come to terms with it.
But there are other books that you can sail through because the author puts into words things you already believe but have never seen articulated. For me, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids" by Tim Smith is one of those books.
It would be easy based on the title of his book to read into his message that nice kids themselves are dangerous or something to be avoided, that teaching manners and proper behavior are somehow not worthwhile. But that's not his point at all. The danger of raising nice kids is what often gets sacrificed in the course of engineering a pleasant exterior - the character that lies beneath. When we constantly harp on speech, dress, posture, facial expression, unquestioning obedience, grades, and a host of other performance measures, we - often unwittingly - communicate to our kids that that's all we care about, that as long as they front well (for our sake or for theirs) that's what matters. And, parents - often unwittingly - end up believing that outward appearances are also the goal, and their parenting becomes skewed towards it.
The result, Smith says, is a generation of Christian kids who have it together on the outside but lack character on the inside. They're not selfless, kind, compassionate, loving, authentic - they're only nice. They lack the equipment needed to change their world - which is the subtitle of Smith's book - "Preparing our children to change their world". That really ought to be the main title, since Smith spends more time on solutions than he does diagnosing the problem, but a title like that is bland and it also doesn't direct people's attention to the root of the problem: parenting for outward appearances.
In an age where hypocrisy and inauthenticity drive people away from the church, we desperately need to populate the church with a generation that is the polar opposite of that. Our kids need to practice what they preach - compassion, justice, mercy - and not just mouth those things while living lives that are virtually indistinguishable from those of their non-Christian peers. And Smith would argue that our kids are unable to walk the walk not because of willful disobedience or apathy, but because we haven't given them the skills to be people of character.
By and large, I think the church has gotten character education wrong. We methodically impart the difference between right and wrong; we exhort kids to make right choices (and indeed, "sin management" is the dominant theme if not the driving philosophy in most youth groups); but we abandon them on the playing field. We're the passionate coach who's high on motivation but neglects to teach the game. It's not just knowledge and attitude that drives character development, it's also skills. Without the skills to act according to morals and convictions, a child's knowledge and desire to do right stalls out. And skills, of course, are developed by practice. So, the book is full of chapters like"Showing Empathy", "Demonstrating Compassion", "Developing Discernment", "Courageously Setting Boundaries", as well as practical advice on how to listen, how to admit mistakes and be authetic yourself, how to develop vision and goals for your parenting, and how to impart consequences for misbehavior.
Smith's book is not a how-to manual - it's better than that. It challenges parents to re-examine both their methods - "What are we doing?" - but also their motivation - "Why are we parenting like this?" Moreover, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids" points toward a revolution that needs to take place in Christian parenting: that parents would not view discipleship as an element of their parenting, but rather to regard parenting as an aspect of their discipleship. One view regards church and faith as a value-added entity: church is a fail-safe positive influence in competition with other priorities and activities, and the more exposure we can afford, within the constraints of everyday life, the better. This view over time outsources discipleship, placing church activity at the center of a child's spiritual development. The second view, that parenting is an aspect of discipleship, rights that imbalance. It brings every moment, every action, every situation into the realm of discipleship. There's no "God time" and then "the rest of life"; your child is being trained as a disciple of Christ 24/7. Your parenting, and all it entails - disciplining, monitoring, counseling, mentoring, affirming - is a purposeful part of that discipleship.
Tim Smith is delivering a message that's long overdue. We are privileged to have him visiting us at the end of the month. I hope you will make plans to join us Friday night, September 28, to hear him speak. Whether this is a book that will challenge you and take some time to assimilate, or one you will read and eagerly agree with, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids" is worth a careful, thoughtful read. For those who want to dig deeper into the book, we're hosting a discussion group beginning September 20 and running Thursday nights from 6-7:30, during Coast Kids and the 4th-6th grade midweek program. (Your kids don't have to be involved in either of those programs for you to attend.) Led by Kathleen Sanders, this four-week series will unpack the vision of Smith's book, and best of all, after you've met together twice (the 20th and 27th), Smith himself will speak the very next night.
His appearance and all of the follow-up associated with the book spring from a conviction that is shared by our Children's and Marriage and Family Ministries that the home must be the center of spiritual development, and that whatever a church can do to make the home environment work is worthwhile. The book is available from our church bookstore or at this website.
But there are other books that you can sail through because the author puts into words things you already believe but have never seen articulated. For me, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids" by Tim Smith is one of those books.
It would be easy based on the title of his book to read into his message that nice kids themselves are dangerous or something to be avoided, that teaching manners and proper behavior are somehow not worthwhile. But that's not his point at all. The danger of raising nice kids is what often gets sacrificed in the course of engineering a pleasant exterior - the character that lies beneath. When we constantly harp on speech, dress, posture, facial expression, unquestioning obedience, grades, and a host of other performance measures, we - often unwittingly - communicate to our kids that that's all we care about, that as long as they front well (for our sake or for theirs) that's what matters. And, parents - often unwittingly - end up believing that outward appearances are also the goal, and their parenting becomes skewed towards it.
The result, Smith says, is a generation of Christian kids who have it together on the outside but lack character on the inside. They're not selfless, kind, compassionate, loving, authentic - they're only nice. They lack the equipment needed to change their world - which is the subtitle of Smith's book - "Preparing our children to change their world". That really ought to be the main title, since Smith spends more time on solutions than he does diagnosing the problem, but a title like that is bland and it also doesn't direct people's attention to the root of the problem: parenting for outward appearances.
In an age where hypocrisy and inauthenticity drive people away from the church, we desperately need to populate the church with a generation that is the polar opposite of that. Our kids need to practice what they preach - compassion, justice, mercy - and not just mouth those things while living lives that are virtually indistinguishable from those of their non-Christian peers. And Smith would argue that our kids are unable to walk the walk not because of willful disobedience or apathy, but because we haven't given them the skills to be people of character.
By and large, I think the church has gotten character education wrong. We methodically impart the difference between right and wrong; we exhort kids to make right choices (and indeed, "sin management" is the dominant theme if not the driving philosophy in most youth groups); but we abandon them on the playing field. We're the passionate coach who's high on motivation but neglects to teach the game. It's not just knowledge and attitude that drives character development, it's also skills. Without the skills to act according to morals and convictions, a child's knowledge and desire to do right stalls out. And skills, of course, are developed by practice. So, the book is full of chapters like"Showing Empathy", "Demonstrating Compassion", "Developing Discernment", "Courageously Setting Boundaries", as well as practical advice on how to listen, how to admit mistakes and be authetic yourself, how to develop vision and goals for your parenting, and how to impart consequences for misbehavior.
Smith's book is not a how-to manual - it's better than that. It challenges parents to re-examine both their methods - "What are we doing?" - but also their motivation - "Why are we parenting like this?" Moreover, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids" points toward a revolution that needs to take place in Christian parenting: that parents would not view discipleship as an element of their parenting, but rather to regard parenting as an aspect of their discipleship. One view regards church and faith as a value-added entity: church is a fail-safe positive influence in competition with other priorities and activities, and the more exposure we can afford, within the constraints of everyday life, the better. This view over time outsources discipleship, placing church activity at the center of a child's spiritual development. The second view, that parenting is an aspect of discipleship, rights that imbalance. It brings every moment, every action, every situation into the realm of discipleship. There's no "God time" and then "the rest of life"; your child is being trained as a disciple of Christ 24/7. Your parenting, and all it entails - disciplining, monitoring, counseling, mentoring, affirming - is a purposeful part of that discipleship.
Tim Smith is delivering a message that's long overdue. We are privileged to have him visiting us at the end of the month. I hope you will make plans to join us Friday night, September 28, to hear him speak. Whether this is a book that will challenge you and take some time to assimilate, or one you will read and eagerly agree with, "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids" is worth a careful, thoughtful read. For those who want to dig deeper into the book, we're hosting a discussion group beginning September 20 and running Thursday nights from 6-7:30, during Coast Kids and the 4th-6th grade midweek program. (Your kids don't have to be involved in either of those programs for you to attend.) Led by Kathleen Sanders, this four-week series will unpack the vision of Smith's book, and best of all, after you've met together twice (the 20th and 27th), Smith himself will speak the very next night.
His appearance and all of the follow-up associated with the book spring from a conviction that is shared by our Children's and Marriage and Family Ministries that the home must be the center of spiritual development, and that whatever a church can do to make the home environment work is worthwhile. The book is available from our church bookstore or at this website.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Another Giant Leap: From Church Buddies to Christian Friends
At the close of the 1986 movie "Stand by Me", Richard Dreyfuss, portraying the novelist and narrator, writes, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve....does anyone?" As I watched that movie again this weekend I was struck by that line, a poignant testament to the great significance shared friendship experiences can have on who we become.
I've been thinking about friends recently in the context of church and how most of us adults come and go every week, recognizing many faces but actually knowing and being known by few. If authenticity and community are goals in the church body, we might ask how we're doing at helping kids make the giant leap from church buddies to Christian friends?
About a month ago I reported in this space on a survey we'd done in our class among our 5th and 6th graders. We asked "How many kids at this church would you say you know, as in, you recognize them and know their name and would talk to them at church?" Four said no one, six reported one person, and the numbers were pretty evenly distributed from there:
10 - I know two kids
11 - I know three kids
12 - Know four kids
14 - Know five kids
5 - Know six kids
6 - Know seven kids
32 - Know more than seven kids
That last number is surprising - but encouraging. It means kids are beginning to recognize one another and affiliate with each other - a huge step in a ministry with more than 60 schools represented.
Then we asked, "How many kids at this church would you say you are close friends with - not only would you hang out with them at church, but you would call them and invite them over to your house or to do something?"
This time, 21 said no one, 19 responded "one", 20 answered "two", and 17 reported having three people they considered friends. The rest of the choices garnered a handful of responses:
6 - Four kids at church I would consider my friend
8 - Five kids
1 - Six kids
2 - Seven kids
5 - More than seven kids
Childhood friendships are a curious thing. Different in character and intensity than adult friendships, they nonetheless can be surprisingly enduring. Kids naturally seek friendship - we all do - and adults who withdraw and isolate usually do so after attempts at friendship have resulted in hurt or rejection. Because of this, friends are naturally in on a lot of "firsts" - first sleepover, first new bike, first days of school, first crush, first heartbreak, first grounding. They also expand our world. Through them we get a window into how another family operates (and which of us didn't at one time wish so-and-so's parent was our parent?). We meet their friends, we try their hobbies, we travel with them. When I was in second grade I got to visit the state capitol where my friend's grandpa was a legislator, an experience I never would have otherwise had.
But, kid friendships are also fragile. As any parent knows, "best" friendships can turn over frequently, sometimes due to reasons that are mysterious or trivial. For boys especially, friends are people you do things with, and so friendships revolve around common activity. Kids who play on the same soccer team or like the same video game or go to the same camp can become close friends - as long as the environment is maintained. Take away the activity - the season ends, tastes change - and kids move on.
I would suggest that two important elements in forming and maintaining friendships at this age are regularity of contact and the significance of shared experience. That is to say, kids attach easily to those they regularly encounter - and, by contrast, drift away from those whose paths don't often cross theirs. Kids won't always make the extra effort - even if it's small - to stay in touch or maintain old friendships. That's why a pair of kids who are nearly inseparable in 4th grade may stop considering themselves friends in 5th grade when they find themselves in different classrooms. To an adult, this wouldn't be a friendship-ending event; the solution is obvious: keep the relationship going on the weekends or after school. But a kid will accept this separation as somewhat natural - "she's in a different class this year" - and resolve herself to nurture the relationships she does have going forward. There isn't any ill feeling involved - the kids haven't become enemies - they just aren't friends like they used to be because the common experience is lost.
As for the significance of the experience, what they've done with someone becomes central to that other person's identity. Listen to how kids describe others they know and would consider friends: "We ride bike together", "We went mini-golfing", "His dad took us out on his boat", "We went to Six Flags with each other". You might ask, is this really friendship? If there are no emotional ties deeper than a positive memory about a singular experience, what kind of friendship is that? And the answer is, it's not friendship in the adult sense, which can be nurtured by a half-hour conversation over coffee. Adults are content to be together, while kids want to do together. Take note the next time families get together for dinner: the table time, with meal, desert, coffee, and conversation is cherished by the adults; the kids can't wait to go play.
As this relates to church life, I think we should do everything we can to help kids develop lasting Christian friendships, with the understanding that at this age, friendships revolve around shared experiences. The things you and I might associate with close friendship - honesty, sharing, transparency, accountability, empathy - may not develop in earnest until kids have reached junior or senior high. Because "being friends" is built around shared experience, we've built a lot of events into the calendar this year - about one a month, in addition to weekend and midweek programs.
But what happens at church is only the launching pad. We don't have the time nor can we offer the variety of experiences to cement those relationships. Without the cement of regular contact and significant shared experiences, kids remain only church buddies. They need to be in each other's homes, at each other's birthday parties, meeting each other's parents, having special days on the other's turf, for real friendship to take root.
I'll never forget the how disappointed I was around age 12 when I realized that one of my best friends and I liked different sports. Heading into junior high, I knew that meant our friendship was endangered. And I was right. Different sports meant different crowds. But, I also remember the satisfaction at reconnecting with this friend years later when we were both mature enough to sustain a friendship at a level above "doing the same things together". That's the kind of friendship you grow into. We'd do well to surround kids with lots of Church buddies now so that friendships can blossom when they're ready for that.
I've been thinking about friends recently in the context of church and how most of us adults come and go every week, recognizing many faces but actually knowing and being known by few. If authenticity and community are goals in the church body, we might ask how we're doing at helping kids make the giant leap from church buddies to Christian friends?
About a month ago I reported in this space on a survey we'd done in our class among our 5th and 6th graders. We asked "How many kids at this church would you say you know, as in, you recognize them and know their name and would talk to them at church?" Four said no one, six reported one person, and the numbers were pretty evenly distributed from there:
10 - I know two kids
11 - I know three kids
12 - Know four kids
14 - Know five kids
5 - Know six kids
6 - Know seven kids
32 - Know more than seven kids
That last number is surprising - but encouraging. It means kids are beginning to recognize one another and affiliate with each other - a huge step in a ministry with more than 60 schools represented.
Then we asked, "How many kids at this church would you say you are close friends with - not only would you hang out with them at church, but you would call them and invite them over to your house or to do something?"
This time, 21 said no one, 19 responded "one", 20 answered "two", and 17 reported having three people they considered friends. The rest of the choices garnered a handful of responses:
6 - Four kids at church I would consider my friend
8 - Five kids
1 - Six kids
2 - Seven kids
5 - More than seven kids
Childhood friendships are a curious thing. Different in character and intensity than adult friendships, they nonetheless can be surprisingly enduring. Kids naturally seek friendship - we all do - and adults who withdraw and isolate usually do so after attempts at friendship have resulted in hurt or rejection. Because of this, friends are naturally in on a lot of "firsts" - first sleepover, first new bike, first days of school, first crush, first heartbreak, first grounding. They also expand our world. Through them we get a window into how another family operates (and which of us didn't at one time wish so-and-so's parent was our parent?). We meet their friends, we try their hobbies, we travel with them. When I was in second grade I got to visit the state capitol where my friend's grandpa was a legislator, an experience I never would have otherwise had.
But, kid friendships are also fragile. As any parent knows, "best" friendships can turn over frequently, sometimes due to reasons that are mysterious or trivial. For boys especially, friends are people you do things with, and so friendships revolve around common activity. Kids who play on the same soccer team or like the same video game or go to the same camp can become close friends - as long as the environment is maintained. Take away the activity - the season ends, tastes change - and kids move on.
I would suggest that two important elements in forming and maintaining friendships at this age are regularity of contact and the significance of shared experience. That is to say, kids attach easily to those they regularly encounter - and, by contrast, drift away from those whose paths don't often cross theirs. Kids won't always make the extra effort - even if it's small - to stay in touch or maintain old friendships. That's why a pair of kids who are nearly inseparable in 4th grade may stop considering themselves friends in 5th grade when they find themselves in different classrooms. To an adult, this wouldn't be a friendship-ending event; the solution is obvious: keep the relationship going on the weekends or after school. But a kid will accept this separation as somewhat natural - "she's in a different class this year" - and resolve herself to nurture the relationships she does have going forward. There isn't any ill feeling involved - the kids haven't become enemies - they just aren't friends like they used to be because the common experience is lost.
As for the significance of the experience, what they've done with someone becomes central to that other person's identity. Listen to how kids describe others they know and would consider friends: "We ride bike together", "We went mini-golfing", "His dad took us out on his boat", "We went to Six Flags with each other". You might ask, is this really friendship? If there are no emotional ties deeper than a positive memory about a singular experience, what kind of friendship is that? And the answer is, it's not friendship in the adult sense, which can be nurtured by a half-hour conversation over coffee. Adults are content to be together, while kids want to do together. Take note the next time families get together for dinner: the table time, with meal, desert, coffee, and conversation is cherished by the adults; the kids can't wait to go play.
As this relates to church life, I think we should do everything we can to help kids develop lasting Christian friendships, with the understanding that at this age, friendships revolve around shared experiences. The things you and I might associate with close friendship - honesty, sharing, transparency, accountability, empathy - may not develop in earnest until kids have reached junior or senior high. Because "being friends" is built around shared experience, we've built a lot of events into the calendar this year - about one a month, in addition to weekend and midweek programs.
But what happens at church is only the launching pad. We don't have the time nor can we offer the variety of experiences to cement those relationships. Without the cement of regular contact and significant shared experiences, kids remain only church buddies. They need to be in each other's homes, at each other's birthday parties, meeting each other's parents, having special days on the other's turf, for real friendship to take root.
I'll never forget the how disappointed I was around age 12 when I realized that one of my best friends and I liked different sports. Heading into junior high, I knew that meant our friendship was endangered. And I was right. Different sports meant different crowds. But, I also remember the satisfaction at reconnecting with this friend years later when we were both mature enough to sustain a friendship at a level above "doing the same things together". That's the kind of friendship you grow into. We'd do well to surround kids with lots of Church buddies now so that friendships can blossom when they're ready for that.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
One Giant Leap: From Knowing to Believing
A church isn't exactly the most difficult place to teach. Most of the people there - adults and kids - are basically like-minded. There are no tests, and so none of the outsmarting-the-teacher games that go on in schools. People are good-natured and will laugh at your jokes. Nonetheless, a church may be the most difficult place to teach effectively. That's because in church we're not teaching merely for people to know, we're teaching for them to believe.
As a classroom teacher (which I was for two years out of college), you learn many tricks for "getting students to learn", if you can call it that. The reality is, you're getting them to perform - to recall or recite or regurgitate something they've heard or read back to you on a test. This is the standard drill: you speak, they hear, you ask, they give it back, they forget, everyone moves on. And classroom teachers possess the power of the grading pen to compel the kind of output they want.
As a young teacher I fell into this power trap. Thinking I would "help" my students learn a list of economics terms, I told them I'd give them as many tries as they needed, but they had to get all of the answers right. It seemed like a sound strategy; but as some students reached their fifth and sixth attempts, it dawned on me that they couldn't possibly be understanding the meaning of the words (there were only about 20) and yet failing repeatedly to identify their definitions. I also soon realized that it was possible for clever students to look for one or two distinctive words in the definitions and simply match those to the right words. Technically, these students weren't "learning" the words either, so much as they were outsmarting the test.
I retell that story here because experiences like that have shaped my thinking about good teaching and learning and have driven me away from a definition of learning that equates it with merely the acquisition of facts. Anyone who's honest would admit that learning (used here as synonymous with "understanding" or "comprehending" or "catching on" or "getting it") is more than exhibiting a particular outward behavior; specifically, we can't conclude that someone has learned something just because they say the correct answer. The question is whether they know what that correct answer means.
On top of all of that is the fact that we are not just teaching for people to know, but for them to believe. That is to say, it's not enough that a kid comes through our program knowing the facts of Jesus' life and death - that's only the start. We would hope - in fact, we'd be derelict to settle for anything less - that he feels some sort of allegiance and obligation because of what he knows: in a word, that he would believe.
As a result, the work of good Christian Education goes beyond getting kids to give right answers. The best teachers know how to probe for understanding and how to ask follow-up questions to create a personalization and contextualization for the person answering. The question isn't "what does the Bible say" - anyone who can read can tell you that, whether they belive it or not. The question is, what does the Bible mean and what are you going to do about it? These are the questions we should be challenging kids with as we help them make the giant leap from knowing to believing. And "help" is the right word. It's not dishonoring a kid's accomplishment to ask her to explain the Bible verse she just recited, or to ask a boy what he means when he says Jesus is his savior. Rewarding pat answers because they sound just right actually does kids a disservice, sending the message that depth and understanding aren't really important in faith, but appearances are.
I witnessed a master at this - my old supervisor in children's ministry in Virginia - when I visited her camp in West Virginia this summer. On the camp's closing day, a boy proudly reported to her that he'd prayed to receive Christ. Did she high-five him? Hug him? Shower him with praise? Hardly! Instead, she subjected him to 10 minutes of grilling about the meaning of his decision. A critic may have upbraided her for raining on the kid's parade. But what she was doing was helping him analyze and ultimately solidify his commitment. He's better off for it.
Where does feeling factor in to all of this? Could we just make kids want Jesus by playing on their emotions - fear of death, guilt over sin, sorrow about the passion story? Frankly, yes, and history shows us that emotion-driven decisions make for shallow conversions. I'm not a fan of exploiting emotions (on either end of the spectrum: exhiliration about eternal life or fear of hell) to bring young people to a point of spiritual decision. To me, it's self-defeating: we coax them into "making a decision" at an emotionally charged moment of their life, then turn around and in our discipleship (assuming they receive any) teach them how to make life decisions by prayer, contemplation, counsel of other believers - anything but emotion!
And yet, emotion has its place in church. Without it, our educational programs especially become dry and dull. The enthusiasm of a teacher opens the door for understanding; without it, the message hardly stands a chance (yes, 18th Century preacher Jonathan Edwards, who read his manuscripts word-for-word with no inflection, would be the exception). In our room, the decor, the music, the equipment, the activity level - all are intended to send a positive message: you're welcome here! We have fun! We enjoy Jesus!
So it's entirely appropriate to communicate emotion as well as knowledge. Belief, in my opinion, springs from some unknown combination of the two: we know, and we also feel compelled to commit ourselves to what is true. I know my pickup is blue; I believe Jesus is the savior of the world. Emotion unaccompanied by knowledge winds up producing allegiance to the community, rather than to any set of particular beliefs. This, I believe, is another reason so many active youth group members walk away from church once they reach college: they were in love with the particular fellowship of their home church, but not necessarily committed to the belief system.
We're always looking at better ways to teach. Often we fail. Knowledge gets communicated, but it doesn't stick - there's no belief there. But on the occasions when belief is the product of our efforts, it's powerful. And it reminds us why teaching in the "difficult" environment of a church is infinitely worth it.
As a classroom teacher (which I was for two years out of college), you learn many tricks for "getting students to learn", if you can call it that. The reality is, you're getting them to perform - to recall or recite or regurgitate something they've heard or read back to you on a test. This is the standard drill: you speak, they hear, you ask, they give it back, they forget, everyone moves on. And classroom teachers possess the power of the grading pen to compel the kind of output they want.
As a young teacher I fell into this power trap. Thinking I would "help" my students learn a list of economics terms, I told them I'd give them as many tries as they needed, but they had to get all of the answers right. It seemed like a sound strategy; but as some students reached their fifth and sixth attempts, it dawned on me that they couldn't possibly be understanding the meaning of the words (there were only about 20) and yet failing repeatedly to identify their definitions. I also soon realized that it was possible for clever students to look for one or two distinctive words in the definitions and simply match those to the right words. Technically, these students weren't "learning" the words either, so much as they were outsmarting the test.
I retell that story here because experiences like that have shaped my thinking about good teaching and learning and have driven me away from a definition of learning that equates it with merely the acquisition of facts. Anyone who's honest would admit that learning (used here as synonymous with "understanding" or "comprehending" or "catching on" or "getting it") is more than exhibiting a particular outward behavior; specifically, we can't conclude that someone has learned something just because they say the correct answer. The question is whether they know what that correct answer means.
On top of all of that is the fact that we are not just teaching for people to know, but for them to believe. That is to say, it's not enough that a kid comes through our program knowing the facts of Jesus' life and death - that's only the start. We would hope - in fact, we'd be derelict to settle for anything less - that he feels some sort of allegiance and obligation because of what he knows: in a word, that he would believe.
As a result, the work of good Christian Education goes beyond getting kids to give right answers. The best teachers know how to probe for understanding and how to ask follow-up questions to create a personalization and contextualization for the person answering. The question isn't "what does the Bible say" - anyone who can read can tell you that, whether they belive it or not. The question is, what does the Bible mean and what are you going to do about it? These are the questions we should be challenging kids with as we help them make the giant leap from knowing to believing. And "help" is the right word. It's not dishonoring a kid's accomplishment to ask her to explain the Bible verse she just recited, or to ask a boy what he means when he says Jesus is his savior. Rewarding pat answers because they sound just right actually does kids a disservice, sending the message that depth and understanding aren't really important in faith, but appearances are.
I witnessed a master at this - my old supervisor in children's ministry in Virginia - when I visited her camp in West Virginia this summer. On the camp's closing day, a boy proudly reported to her that he'd prayed to receive Christ. Did she high-five him? Hug him? Shower him with praise? Hardly! Instead, she subjected him to 10 minutes of grilling about the meaning of his decision. A critic may have upbraided her for raining on the kid's parade. But what she was doing was helping him analyze and ultimately solidify his commitment. He's better off for it.
Where does feeling factor in to all of this? Could we just make kids want Jesus by playing on their emotions - fear of death, guilt over sin, sorrow about the passion story? Frankly, yes, and history shows us that emotion-driven decisions make for shallow conversions. I'm not a fan of exploiting emotions (on either end of the spectrum: exhiliration about eternal life or fear of hell) to bring young people to a point of spiritual decision. To me, it's self-defeating: we coax them into "making a decision" at an emotionally charged moment of their life, then turn around and in our discipleship (assuming they receive any) teach them how to make life decisions by prayer, contemplation, counsel of other believers - anything but emotion!
And yet, emotion has its place in church. Without it, our educational programs especially become dry and dull. The enthusiasm of a teacher opens the door for understanding; without it, the message hardly stands a chance (yes, 18th Century preacher Jonathan Edwards, who read his manuscripts word-for-word with no inflection, would be the exception). In our room, the decor, the music, the equipment, the activity level - all are intended to send a positive message: you're welcome here! We have fun! We enjoy Jesus!
So it's entirely appropriate to communicate emotion as well as knowledge. Belief, in my opinion, springs from some unknown combination of the two: we know, and we also feel compelled to commit ourselves to what is true. I know my pickup is blue; I believe Jesus is the savior of the world. Emotion unaccompanied by knowledge winds up producing allegiance to the community, rather than to any set of particular beliefs. This, I believe, is another reason so many active youth group members walk away from church once they reach college: they were in love with the particular fellowship of their home church, but not necessarily committed to the belief system.
We're always looking at better ways to teach. Often we fail. Knowledge gets communicated, but it doesn't stick - there's no belief there. But on the occasions when belief is the product of our efforts, it's powerful. And it reminds us why teaching in the "difficult" environment of a church is infinitely worth it.
Friday, August 17, 2007
I'd Choose You Any Day
If I could have one wish in ministry, it wouldn't be for more equipment, or double the number of leaders (although we could use that), or for a flashier room or unlimited event budget. I would wish that every parent would take their child's spiritual potential seriously.
To put it another way: given the choice between you and me, I'd choose you any day. That's because you, the parent, creates and sustains this special environment known as "home". Home holds a unique and powerful position in the life of a child. It is the foundation of their universe. School assumes an important role the older they get - the center of academic, social, and athletic life - but even into adolescence, when the time spent at home and with family diminishes, home remains a sanctuary. The rules of the home delineate acceptable and unacceptable, the routines define normal and abnormal. Home is, ideally, a place of absolute safety, unconditional love, a constructive and helpful environment.
But I'm not Pollyanna-ish enough to believe that every home is a utopia. You are stressed, overscheduled, under financial strain, underappreciated, at wit's end dealing with misbehaviors - in a word, human. The fact that many parents are breathing a sigh of relief as school restarts is less an indication of parental inadequacy than it is a reflection of the fact that parents never get a break. You just have to press on, through holidays and birthdays and school programs and teacher conferences and sports and lessons and next year's summer vacation, and before you know it, your kid is in middle school and knocking on the door of 13. I truly believe that most parents do the best they can. There just isn't time for a massive re-evaluation and re-tooling of your parenting practices once you become one. You just sort of...do it. I also believe that, lacking deliberate effort to the contrary, most of us will end up parenting the same way we were parented. Sometimes this is conscious - "My mom and dad did x, and I turned out ok" - and sometimes it's not, such as when we unwittingly fall back on shaming and guilting as methods of disciplining, despite our distaste for shame as children.
So as good as I want our upper elementary ministry to be - and we continue to strive to improve it - I want even more for you to be a success as a parent. As I said, I think it's rare that someone carries through with an overhaul of their parenting. TV shows like SuperNanny and Wife Swap prove that old habits die hard: even when change is obviously needed, the advice is only grudgingly accepted, and you get the sense by the end of the episode that nothing really is going to change. But people can change - I've seen it. Parents pick up bits of wisdom that, judiciously exercised, make a huge difference in their outlook. Moms and dads learn to communicate differently, and in the process, painful verbal sparring with children decreases.
The most effective change I've seen comes when parents meet other parents who are navigating the same issues. There is an unspoken brotherhood between parents of incorrigible teens, or of children with special needs, or of angry, violent kids (usually boys). Books are great; understanding in the flesh is ten times as great. Sometimes this parent can lend advice that unlocks a solution for that parent. Sometimes they can recommend a resource. Sometimes they can only commiserate - and that's enough.
There is untapped potential in bringing parents together. We're about to find out how much. This Fall we plan to offer programs for parents that run alongside our new Thursday night midweek program. So while we minister to 4th-6th grade kids (an important program), just down the hall we'll also be building into 4th-6th grade parents (the really important program). (I'm toying with calling it "ParentCare" - what do you think?)
This all kicks off September 13. I'll be speaking that night on "The Nine Things Your Kid Needs to Thrive Spiritually." But more importantly, it'll be a chance to put faces with names, meet parents who have kids in your child's grade and at your child's school, and put heads together about how we can help each other build strong homes & families. On September 28, in conjunction of with Marriage and Family Ministry, we are bringing in a speaker named Tim Smith. A discussion group on his book "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids: Preparing Our Children to Change Their World" will run Thursdays beginning September 20. Beyond that, the popular "Raising a Modern Day Knight" series for dads will be offered again this October. Into 2008, we hope to offer similar workshops for moms of boys and dads of girls, too.
We have big dreams. But they're all driven by the reality that success in church programming rises and falls on the spiritual foundation laid in the home. Better than a thousand dodgeball games or 20 summer camps or 500 raucous duct tape nights, you are the key to your child's spiritual health. You set the context of their whole life. Yep - I'd choose you any day.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Why I Believe in the Church
I think Christian kids should get involved in Boy Scouts. And local theater troupes. And dance and Little League and Junior Lifeguards and orchestra and every other club under the sun. But above all this, I think Christians should be involved in church.
And that's for one simple reason: the church works.
I've just returned from a camp put on for 3rd-5th graders last week in West Virginia. Now in its seventh summer, the sponsoring church plans and programs and staffs the entire week on its own. Most of the leadership staff are parents, but most of the counselors are high school students, which means after seven years that the camp is starting to re-cycle some of its original campers as counselors.
And this is creating a culture of "give-back" ministry in that church that is really something to admire. Here's a common sentiment expressed to me by a 5th grade boy who just finished his fourth and final year at camp: "Next year I'm going to junior high camp, and then I'll go to senior high camp, and then I'm going to be a counselor at Camp Quest." One counselor, also a former camper, shared his mock frustration midway through the week: "I want to get upset with them, but then I look at all four of my kids and think, 'Each one of them is exactly like me!'"
The value of this is that it creates a localized mission field where young kids are eager to be cared for and older kids look forward to providing it. Not only does the camp fill every year, but perhaps more encouraging, there's a waiting list and interview process for counselors; not everyone who volunteers is chosen. The younger kids return from the week in awe and their teenage mentors spend the next year larger-than-life and proud to be recognized back home by their former charges.
I'm a big believer in the church and in ministry. I think we should use the church to leverage whatever spiritual advantages we can, especially for kids. As I wrote last week, Christian kids don't exist in a vacuum. They either have a group of Christian friends with which to affiliate themselves, or they will gradually shed their identification with the church. But for kids, it's not enough to just "be" together; they want to "do" together. When the church is doing what it should, it is bringing people together to meet each other's needs - in other words, facilitating ministry. It's not just maintaining a physical space where people gather to sing and hear a nice speaker. Coming together isn't sufficient; the church needs to create reasons and opportunities to meet. When that happens, people are mutually edified, they're cared for, they're strengthened in their faith, they're reaffirmed as part of the family…and, there's a reason to grow. As long as I remain a child - always receiving, never charged with giving - there's no urgency to my spiritual development, because pretty much all I'm expected to do is show up. Give me a problem to solve or a team to lead or person to guide, though, and I'm obliged to get my act together. That, I think, is the essence of what Ephesians 4 means, especially v. 16: "From [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."
"Being part of the church" today means something different than it did in the New Testament. Then, it was primarily an identification - you belonged to the church because you were among those who believed Christ was the Messiah. Today "joining a church" is more like selecting and joining a health club or buying a new car: we find the one with all the features that we want and that feels right, and when our choice gets old we move on to another. This consumerist approach obscures the reality, which is that every believer "belongs" to the Church regardless of where, or how often, they may physically frequent one.
So let's live like it! Stewardship experts often speculate what the Church could do if everyone who attended, tithed. But how much richer would our lives be if we were all meaningfully engaged in ministry?
And that's for one simple reason: the church works.
I've just returned from a camp put on for 3rd-5th graders last week in West Virginia. Now in its seventh summer, the sponsoring church plans and programs and staffs the entire week on its own. Most of the leadership staff are parents, but most of the counselors are high school students, which means after seven years that the camp is starting to re-cycle some of its original campers as counselors.
And this is creating a culture of "give-back" ministry in that church that is really something to admire. Here's a common sentiment expressed to me by a 5th grade boy who just finished his fourth and final year at camp: "Next year I'm going to junior high camp, and then I'll go to senior high camp, and then I'm going to be a counselor at Camp Quest." One counselor, also a former camper, shared his mock frustration midway through the week: "I want to get upset with them, but then I look at all four of my kids and think, 'Each one of them is exactly like me!'"
The value of this is that it creates a localized mission field where young kids are eager to be cared for and older kids look forward to providing it. Not only does the camp fill every year, but perhaps more encouraging, there's a waiting list and interview process for counselors; not everyone who volunteers is chosen. The younger kids return from the week in awe and their teenage mentors spend the next year larger-than-life and proud to be recognized back home by their former charges.
I'm a big believer in the church and in ministry. I think we should use the church to leverage whatever spiritual advantages we can, especially for kids. As I wrote last week, Christian kids don't exist in a vacuum. They either have a group of Christian friends with which to affiliate themselves, or they will gradually shed their identification with the church. But for kids, it's not enough to just "be" together; they want to "do" together. When the church is doing what it should, it is bringing people together to meet each other's needs - in other words, facilitating ministry. It's not just maintaining a physical space where people gather to sing and hear a nice speaker. Coming together isn't sufficient; the church needs to create reasons and opportunities to meet. When that happens, people are mutually edified, they're cared for, they're strengthened in their faith, they're reaffirmed as part of the family…and, there's a reason to grow. As long as I remain a child - always receiving, never charged with giving - there's no urgency to my spiritual development, because pretty much all I'm expected to do is show up. Give me a problem to solve or a team to lead or person to guide, though, and I'm obliged to get my act together. That, I think, is the essence of what Ephesians 4 means, especially v. 16: "From [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."
"Being part of the church" today means something different than it did in the New Testament. Then, it was primarily an identification - you belonged to the church because you were among those who believed Christ was the Messiah. Today "joining a church" is more like selecting and joining a health club or buying a new car: we find the one with all the features that we want and that feels right, and when our choice gets old we move on to another. This consumerist approach obscures the reality, which is that every believer "belongs" to the Church regardless of where, or how often, they may physically frequent one.
So let's live like it! Stewardship experts often speculate what the Church could do if everyone who attended, tithed. But how much richer would our lives be if we were all meaningfully engaged in ministry?
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