Music, kids, and worship

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

But is all this worship? Yes. And no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kids and the Art of Game-Playing

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

"No One Likes a Cheater" by Emily Bazelon

The Culture Gets it Wrong on Teenage Sex, revisited

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being a Spiritual Leader at Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All About Our New Midweek Program

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

But…

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

 

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

 

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

Teaching Kids to Make Peace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordon Fee on Why Christians Read their Bibles Poorly

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

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

"Why Christians Read Their Bibles Poorly" by Gordon Fee

The Good News at El Camino Creek

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



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

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

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

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

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

Helping kids who get left behind

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

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


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

- A quote from my 15 year old daughter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mind the Wind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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