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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's Get This Ball...Spinning?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(to be continued)

Creating a Just World for Kids

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ready to Roll

By Karen J. Lucas-Howard

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Update: Human Trafficking at the World Cup

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

What's New at STEAM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Christian Camping Helps Kids

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will Your Kid Use Drugs?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kids Need Some Help with This One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A great evil that is about to unfold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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