It's Time to Talk About This: Depression, Suicide, and the Church

When I read that Rick Warren’s 27-year-old son had died, my mind immediately raced ahead because, well, 27-year-old people don’t just die. And when the rest of the statement confirmed that he had committed suicide, my mind jumped ahead again: “I’ll bet he struggled with depression.”

Right again, and how did I know? Because this script – person with a longstanding struggle that few people know about ends up taking their own life, to the shock of many who say they “never saw it coming” – is all-too-common. And because most people who commit suicide are, at the time of the act, depressed. Which means that the potential for this to continue shattering the dreams of so many families is great, in light of the fact that about 1 in 10 American adults have some kind of depressive disorder in any given year – 18.8 million people.

I’m one of them. Beginning with a terrible night in September 2004, when I had a panic attack that lasted more than four hours followed by five weird days of Xanax-induced fog, I sank into a depression that kept me tight in its grip for about the next six months. And it has really never left. Although the worst has passed for me, I still take my medicine, every day. I “live with” depression and, well, it sucks, because you wish you could get over it, the way you get over a cold: you feel it coming, you suffer through the worst of it, and then you start to feel better. Depression doesn’t work like that. The onset is often sudden, almost violent, and just when you think you’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel, the flame goes out. After a few cycles of that, you learn not to get your hopes up. Hopelessness then breeds helplessness, and the long-term price of untreated depression is usually schizophrenia or death.

I’d wager that every depressed person has at least thought about suicide, because you begin to believe that nothing short of dying is going to deliver you from that personal hell. That’s why I was particularly moved by the chilling anecdote in Rick Warren’s letter that when Matthew was 17, he said, “Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?”

What keeps many people from acting on those thoughts is the fear of Hell, which points out a peculiar paradox when it comes to Christians and depression. You’d think this is a good thing, that it deters Christian believers from taking their own lives. The eternal fate of Christians who end their lives is a thorny theological issue and I won't try to answer it here (as if I have the answer). But let's just say the whole prospect sets you up between a rock and a hard place. The choice is between hell on earth, or hell in Hell? Great.

And what’s worse is you feel that you can’t talk about it. For all kinds of reasons, mental illness is taboo. It’s dark and, well, depressing. And that points to another paradox that exists in the church: the very things that will help depressed people get better – bringing it into the light, addressing it honestly and openly, getting people connected with treatment providers, surrounding them with people who can offer support and hope that life can be “normal” again – are the things that, for various reasons, don’t easily happen in church culture. They should, and they could – but they don’t.

I felt bad even bringing up what happened to Matthew Warren with some co-workers on Sunday morning, like I was raining on the Happy Parade. I apologized for doing so. Can you understand why someone who is depressed would feel even more inhibited about talking about their own issue? So instead, you withdraw. You isolate. You hold back from the very relationships and connections that could make you well. And you know it – but at the same time you feel powerless to act on your own behalf.

Depression robs you of your sense of self-empowerment. You feel like you’re inhabiting an empty shell. Like a cloud of discouragement and hopelessness is following you everywhere, and it always will. (Those commercials that say, “Depression hurts”? They’re dead-on.) Like the life has been sucked out of you. You lose the motivation to eat, to work, or to go anywhere. You become fearful and indecisive. You spend mornings agonizing over which shirt to where, or you stare endlessly at a restaurant menu before giving up and having nothing. You make plans to go somewhere and do something and then, predictably, back out because you’re not feeling up to it.

“Why don’t you just snap out of it?” No one was ever cruel enough to state it that directly, but that pretty much sums up a lot of the well-meaning advice and “encouragement” you get from other people. What’s doubly frustrating is that a depressed person asks themselves that very question, and gets no easy answer. It seems like fixing your problem should be simple, right? Go do something fun, go to a party, make yourself laugh. Look on the bright side. Get over it. But then you try, and fail. So you eventually fail to try. Or worse, things get better for a while, and you feel like, “All right – I’ve got this. I’m turning a corner…it’s gonna be over,” and then the sadistic hand of depression slaps you back down again.

Don’t get me wrong. There is recovery from depression. You can go from major depression to low-grade depression or even no depression; there is hope. But almost nobody gets better without help. And people don’t know how to help. And because of the nature of the disease, the depressed person will often reject offers of help. In fact, maintaining a friendship with someone going through depression is extremely challenging, because they’ll say they don’t want or need your help when actually, it’s exactly what they need. But it can’t be forced. Sometimes when you ask, “What can I do?” and the answer comes back, “Nothing,” that truly is the answer, for that day.

Unwavering support helps. Being patient and not forcing advice helps. Talk therapy helps. Medicine helps. And to Christians who criticize the use of psychotropic drugs as somehow unspiritual – because depression is all in your mind, and after all, Christ promises to renew our minds, doesn’t he? – I would urge you to slow down and reconsider that. Jesus made lame people walk. Yet it would be shockingly inappropriate to go up to a person in a wheelchair in one of our churches and tell them that if they had enough faith, they wouldn’t be in a wheelchair. Jesus gave sight to the blind. Yet we would never think of telling a blind person if they prayed more, they’d be able to see again. But people with depression hear these things all the time. And it does not help. It makes them feel guilty and responsible for what’s happened to them, driving them into an introspective spiral of How did this happen?/What did I do wrong?/Why can’t I be different?/Will it always be like this?

Yes, there are often identifiable events that trigger depressive episodes, and yes, understanding those circumstances and a person’s response to them is part of the therapeutic process. Depressed people are often plagued with self-defeating ways of thinking. But it cannot be ignored that depression affects (or is caused by, sometimes both) the chemistry in your brain. It is sickness, not just sadness. Everyone gets sad. Not everyone has altered levels of serotonin that need adjustment. So while it’s tempting to know what caused someone’s depression because that will help you jump to the solution, it’s just not that simple. Leave that to a therapist to help untangle. In the meantime, many – no, most – people with depression benefit from medication. It restores them to a level of functionality, so that they can think and do the things they ought to do to get well. Drugs will prop you up, albeit artificially – they’re not a cure, but they are part of the package of answers. (And a frustrating part, I might add. Some drugs work for a while, and then they don’t. Some actually induce thoughts of suicide – which is not an argument for abandoning medication, but for close monitoring of it.)

So who cares what caused it? Because even for disorders that are someone’s “own fault”, like obesity or heart disease or lung cancer caused by smoking, we don’t go around blaming them for their condition. Justified or not, what good would it do? To me, the very fact of disease and the presence of behaviors that enable it is evidence that something is very wrong with the human condition. In my religion we would call that sin, which is rightly viewed not just as individual transgressions, but more broadly as the brokenness (literally, the “not-working-ness”) that has beset us all. Bodies shouldn’t get cancer. It’s an abnormality. Knees shouldn’t blow out. Memories shouldn’t be stolen by dementia. And, people shouldn’t get depressed.

So if mental illness is part of the package of a fallen humanity, why doesn’t the church in America help? Because it ought to. But Matthew Warren’s suicide shines the spotlight on the fact that this is largely a hidden epidemic. Somehow we just can’t talk about mental illnesses – our own, or a family member’s – openly, the way we would acknowledge cancer or diabetes or a broken leg. I have to think that not wanting to bring people down has something to do with that. So does the fact that people just don’t know how to appropriately help. Unless you’ve been there, you don’t really get it. But I also sense the reluctance has something to do with not wanting to unleash something the church can’t deal with: that if you acknowledge it you somehow normalize it, and then people lose their motivation to change.

My response to that is that it already is normal; the breadth of this problem is huge. This reality is not shocking once you’ve experienced depression; suddenly, you become adept at picking out people in crowds who appear anxious, or you hear someone’s story and think, “I’ll bet there’s a family history of depression.” You’re usually right. The question is whether the church will face this head-on or if mental and emotional wellness will become one more thing that people have to go outside the church to find, because Jesus apparently doesn’t care about such things.

Secondly, the pressures of conformity and silence are not causing depressed people to change. As I mentioned above, getting out of the rut of depression means balancing out brain chemicals and overcoming ingrained patterns of thinking, and is not a matter of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. So if you think that giving people roles to play – like that of a hyper-spiritual, joy-of-the-Lord, only-heaven-matters cheerleader – is “curing” their depression, it’s not. They’re not changing; they’re acting.

But theologically, there is a fundamental misunderstanding the American church has adopted, that withdrawing love is the way to change behavior. Give that any amount of thought, and it fails. The way to change someone is to hang in there with them, giving them enough space to grow and to fail while knowing that you haven’t rejected them. I think we step away because it’s easier, like giving a child a time-out is easier than talking them through misbehavior: you stay over there until you can act decently, and then you can come back. What a horribly untenable position for the church in this day and age, and how contrary this is to the gospel! Instead, the plague of depression is a perfect metaphor for someone in need of salvation: you’re in over your head, you know what you ought to do but can’t do it (Romans 7:19), and you need the help of some outside source – first to do something for you, but then to do something with you. That second part – the walking it out – we’re not so good at. In the church we’re impatient. We want deliverance, healing, answers, victory! Getting into the mechanics of other people’s problems is messy. It’s hard for us to accept that some people who are depressed will always be depressed on some level; they will need constant, faithful support; they will not be cured.

Even now I struggle to see a redemptive purpose in anyone going through depression. It gives you empathy for others experiencing the same thing – but even then, for what? Some suffering makes us stronger, or more resilient, or softer, or more appreciative. Depression just beats you up.

It’s a little easier to see something redemptive for the people who have to deal with depression in a family member or close friend. I suppose you learn your own limits pretty quickly. It tests your patience over the long haul. I hope it teaches you that the solution is so much bigger than one person’s efforts, so that when things end tragically as they did with Matthew Warren, you don’t blame yourself. But I fear that’s not the case. I think there’s a lot of self-blame, and a conspiracy of silence in society and in churches doesn’t do anything to alleviate that. Let me encourage you that your efforts do count. And ultimately, you can’t make anyone get help, and even some who get very good help don’t get a whole lot better. But you feel alone when you battle this, and anyone reading this who has depression or deals with someone who does knows exactly what I’m talking about. Let’s unveil this thing, somehow, so that we all can be reassured that’s not the case. Statistics about how common depression is are one thing; meeting actual people who deal with it is another, and it immediately puts the scope of the problem into perspective.
And if you don’t know anyone with depression – think again. You probably know them quite well; you just don’t know that about them. Are you caring enough to listen; are you safe enough to tell?

How Christian Camping Helps Kids

If I could pick one experience for your son or daughter to have that would benefit them spiritually and personally, it would be a trip to camp. (If I were picking the one consistent, long-term factor to benefit them, it would be a great relationship with you.) I've often said that we can do accomplish more ministry in a weekend at camp than we can in six months of Sunday mornings.

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, to borrow the phrase of one of my seminary professors, of "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 at 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, 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 give eight 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? 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 easier to return to church when camp's over. Kids relax when they don't have to worry about being new, 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. The heavy stuff of life will come; kidhood is for safely and successfully trying new things. Our middle school and high school students 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" 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. Seven years ago, a couple of boys at our church invited their whole hockey team to camp. Today, many 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. 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.

Kids Need Choices

I think my favorite moment at our New Year’s Eve event (well, besides witnessing normally reserved kids get down with “Just Dance” on Wii) was when we handed each kid $9 and said, “You have a decision to make.” And the next five minutes was filled with something we don’t see often enough: kids having to think meaningfully about how to allocate scarce resources among unlimited needs.

And it was my favorite because kids learned powerful lessons in doing that, both about what they could do, and also what they couldn’t do. They learned this by having to exercise choices, something that is often sorely lacking in kids’ lives. We have so sanitized their world in the name of being a “child-friendly” society that I wonder if we’ve stunted their development by not making them – or allowing them to – do things for themselves.

The exercise in making donations was part of “A New Year for a New World” where we told the kids that 25% of their $40 registration would be given away. We gathered the kids and showed them four short videos about organizations and people they could give their money to, and then released them to do it. And when you’re 10, deciding whether the group that drills clean water wells should get 3 of your dollars or 4 of your dollars is an important decision.

Making decisions is a developmental imperative. I think it’s important for spiritual development as well. Here’s why. In the evangelical church especially, we are decision-focused: we want kids to make a decision to follow Jesus. Or, as an astute 15-year-old once said to me, “I think becoming a Christian is one decision for Jesus; but living as a Christian is like a million decisions for Jesus.” But here’s the key: how can we expect kids to make (the one decision) and stick with a decision for Jesus (the million decisions) if they are unaccustomed to and unpracticed at making decisions in every other area of their lives?

While we don’t deny that God works in the hearts of those who receive him, Christians should not be so naïve as to believe that continued obedience is simply a given. Look how the disciples struggled. Look at how often Paul had to exhort the new believers to “Stand firm” and to obey. People – kids included – will either make strong decisions on their own, or they will remain at the mercy of other people to make decisions for them. And in my experience, it’s the kids who can’t make decisions (because they’re over-managed and aren’t allowed to) who are most susceptible to peer pressure as teenagers. And why not? They’ve always looked to someone else to define their identity, to tell them what to do, to tell them what to value and what to think.

Strong decision making grows out of the opportunity to make meaningful decisions. Give kids choices – in every sphere of life. If they get good at making decisions where the outcome doesn’t matter much, chances are that they’ll also make decisions when the outcome matters a lot.

And you might be wondering, “What about the other dollar?” They gave away nine that night, but the tenth dollar went home with them. We simply told them they could use it to spend it on themselves, or to give it away, or to use it to make more money. The decision was up to them. And that’s a good thing.

A New Year for A New World

I always looked forward to the start of a new school year when I was a kid. To me, being in a new grade, in a new classroom, with a different set of kids than I was with the year before was a chance for a "new start". I remember thinking, "Maybe this year will be different than last year." I don't know exactly what difference I was looking for, but a fresh page of life seems to brim with possibilities.

That's kind of how we feel at the start of a new year, isn't it? Some of us will arrive at the end of 2012 and be sorry to see it go. Others of us have been ready to put this particular year behind us for some time. Whatever the case, this January 1 like every January 1 will carry a sense of "new beginnings" with it.

And then? Haha - after a few weeks, the joke's on us! Once we discover that a new year hasn't magically strengthened our willpower, that we still have the same bad habits and hindrances and burdens and tendencies (because wherever you go, there you are - still) and the year may be new, but much remains the same.

That's because many of us live life as if it were luck: "Maybe I'll win the lottery", "Maybe I'll meet the love of my life", "Maybe I'll land the perfect job/buy the perfect house/discover the secret to happiness" and we ignore the fact that Christians, of all people, should not be creatures of fate.

Christians do stuff. (I know, profound.) Sin and heartache and exploitation and destructiveness are on the move, so we need to be on the move against it. And what did Jesus say? That the gates of hell would not prevail against His church.

I've been thinking a lot about efforts to change the world lately, as we gear up for a first-time event with our 4th-6th graders called "A New Year for a New World" on New Year's Eve. Is there something distinctive about Christian efforts at world change? Is there something that makes Christ necessary in all of it? Or can any well-intentioned person make the same impact? After all, it's the Holiday Season, and for every recent story of tragedy or of a family who can't afford Christmas, we're bound to hear one about someone who stepped up to make things happy for them.

But that's the problem with these headline-grabbing relief efforts - they're short-term, and they're focused on restoring happiness. Sometimes I wonder if it's our happiness that's really in view. As in, "Oh, I can't bear to see those poor people suffering...let me do something for them," and then we pitch in until our own feelings of discomfort go away. Don't get me wrong. People were wonderfully generous after Hurricane Katrina, and Sandy, and the earthquake in Haiti and the Tsunami in Japan. But those natural disasters have become so common (to say nothing of man-made tragedies like school shootings) we can barely keep them straight. (Remember what happened in Joplin? I didn't. Look it up.) And the Red Cross, among other organizations, does wonderful long-term recovery work at disaster sites.

But I think back to benefit dinners or concerts that have been held for people I know who got sick or injured, all the time and money and attention that got poured into a single event, and then I reflect on the fact that that person is still sick. No one gets out of the woods because of one benefit event. Meanwhile, our collective consciousness has moved on, in part because we can't stand to dwell on suffering, in part because our brains can only remember so much.

I think what God furnishes to these efforts to help the world is this. First, he elevates and has elevated and will continue to elevate the status of human beings so that we bother to notice suffering and want to help at all. Christianity (and yes, I'm partisan) really doesn't get enough credit for the impact it has had historically on human rights and dignity. The influence of Christianity helped end two particularly heinous practices that had become accepted in the Roman Empire - infanticide and child sexual abuse, established the first orphanages and hospitals, advocated for the end of slavery and more humane treatment of the mentally ill, and promoted widespread education of the populace at government expense. We take these things for granted now. Then articles like this one jolt me back into consciousness and remind me we have a long way to go.

And then, after we've convinced that we should care, he gives us the resources to care. It's one thing to drop a quarter into a panhandler's cup. It's another thing to take the time to get to know them. It's still another thing to have the perseverance and the resourcefulness and the patience to walk alongside him to better his life. A few people I know seem to have what it takes. Most of us don't.

And so what God can furnish to us (can furnish) is the promise to make us like him. And the benefit of that is that God is a giving God. He gave us the world - he didn't have to. He gave you your life - but he didn't have to. He made the earth habitable, with just the right mixture of gases in the air and tolerable temperature extremes. When we mistreated each other, he gave us another chance. When he came to earth as a person himself, we mistreated him. Again, he gave us mercy. When the power of death was dismantled, he then gave us an invitation. And he gives his Spirit, his power and nature, to those who believe in him. He gives and gives and gives. We just give - and then we need a break. A one-time act of kindness is good, and I'll take it; but a revolution of kindness is built by faithfulness, one brick at a time.

On New Year's Eve, we won't change the world. Shame on us if we communicate that "because of this night, everything is different" and the work is done. If kids don't leave feeling motivated to keep giving of themselves, we will have fallen short. All we can hope to accomplish in 16 hours is to get the ball rolling, to excite kids' spirits and awaken their imaginations to what if? And of course, at some point, we all top out in kindness. We all top out in generosity. We all top out in patience. It's at that point that we need inspiration, and we need help.

The promise of a new world is grounded in God, who in Revelation 21 tells John that he is making everything new. The hope of the world now is to bring a taste of that future into the present. That's the essence of the kingdom of God. The transposition that brings the end of the story into the middle yields some pretty radical ripple effects. It is by those effects alone that we can say another year has any hope of being "new". Otherwise it's just the same old.

The Words When There Are No Words

On Wednesday, when “that terrible thing in Oregon” was mentioned in conversation, someone else asked, “What happened in Oregon?” They hadn’t heard about the gunman who opened fire at a shopping mall outside Portland, killing two people. What’s sad is that in another week or two, lots of us will struggle to remember “what happened in Oregon?” because our attention has already been torn away, to another horrible and unfathomable shooting.

I’m referring, of course, to what happened Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut: 20 kids and 7 adults murdered in a shooting rampage that lasted only a few minutes and has no readily apparent motive. The blogosphere and social media sites exploded around 10 a.m., with more than a few of the reactions reflecting the sentiment that, “There are no words.”

That’s understandable, coming from a nation worn out by what happened twice this week, and in September in Minneapolis, and in August at Texas A&M, and in July at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and on two separate occasions this year in Wisconsin, to name a few. But, like many conclusions we grasp at when tension runs high, it’s wrong.

It turns out that there are words, plenty of them. And those words will heal us.

Words make the abstract concrete, assigning some meaning to what are otherwise just nebulous feelings. I used words like "horrible" and "unfathomable" in the first paragraph of this post, and they are clues as to how I'm processing this. Notice that, sadly, I didn't use the word "shocking". Apparently I've come to accept that "these things happen", and I hate that that's the case.

We all try to make sense of the world we live in. Kids do this too. Confusion is unsettling; clarity, comforting. Words have to be spoken at a time like this, because it’s not as if the jumble of feelings will just iron themselves out. It doesn’t work that way.

I’ve never understood people who try to prescribe or preempt what we are and aren’t allowed to express in the wake of a tragic death. It’s usually "out of respect for the families", which is noble, but the truth is that death is death, and both its finality and the way it comes unlocks certain things in each of us that otherwise aren’t acknowledged. Words need to flow freely at a time like this, to bring the inside out. Sometimes the words are imprecise, but every attempt at verbalization brings us closer to a realization of what we're dealing with. Sometimes the words are raw, because they reflect the torment raging inside of us.

Two years ago, the thing-that’s-not-supposed-to-happen-here happened here, in Carlsbad, California. Friday’s incident reawakened feelings of panic in parents who had been a part of that. Everyone at that time felt lucky that no one had been killed. How lucky did they feel on Friday, faced with the reminder that what they went through could have been so much worse? (I’ll answer that: extremely lucky.) And there were lots of words spoken back then, many of them redundant, some of them over-the-top, but all of them valid.

President Obama spoke Friday after the shooting, reacting “not as a president, but as a parent.” He was applauded by some for keeping his remarks constrained to the human side of the tragedy and derided by others. Frankly, his obligatory words as mourner-in-chief matter little to me. School officials spoke, and they said about what we expected they would. Pastors will be called on to conduct funerals, and they’ll summon as best they can words of comfort. They’ll try to lend perspective and offer hope.

But the best words at this time come from you and me. People need to get their words out there, and they need to do it now, while thoughts and emotions are fresh. It is healthy. We’ve all been trained a little too well to play nice, to not speak things that will bring upset to other people. The price of that, though, is unprocessed grief that corrodes the soul. Even if inelegantly stated, words are the vehicle that shed light in dark places. They are our coping mechanism.

Does God have anything to say about an event like this? Yes, he does. But let's not forget that God's communication with the world tends to be more global than situation-specific. In the book of Job, he simply lets Job and his friends rail on and on until they run out of steam. And then God speaks. He's not obligated to take the podium within hours of a school shooting. His "reaction" is less a reaction than a reiteration of foundational truths about himself, humankind, sin, and the prospect of redemption. Ultimately, he expressed himself through the Incarnation - "The Word became flesh and lived among us" - and all who were confused about the nature of God needed to wonder no more. That grand articulation is the reason we have Christmas.

I know I said earlier that words need to flow freely at a time like this, but spiritual platitudes meant to "help" are probably the least effective words that can be spoken right now. Christians believe God is true, and if God is forever, then truth is forever too. I think that's one reason we feel compelled to find words, even when it seems there are none, because deep down we can't and won't accept that something so awful can exist for no reason at all.

Someday, long in the future, the parents of 20 kids who died Friday will be able to say, “In 2012, something terrible happened to me and to my child. I couldn’t make sense of it then, and I can’t make sense of it now, but it’s part of my story. And I accept that.” When they can speak those words and mean them, it will mark a great step toward healing.

"There are no words"? But there are. And we'll find them.

The Half-Man becomes a Full-On Christian

Don’t watch Two and a Half Men, the actor who plays the youngest character implored via video this week, despite the fact that us watching the show has made him a multi-millionaire – just not a household name. Ironically, Angus Jones may  be one of those stars whose name was hardly known until he was no longer a star. And we should stop watching because Two and a Half Men is filth, and no one who calls themselves a Christian can be on a show like that, and television is a tool of Satan to distract people from God.

The long-term effects of Jones’ diatribe are unclear – Will he lose his job? Will people actually quit watching? – but the short-term effects are quite clear, and predictable. Jones is being lambasted as a hypocrite, people who’ve never paid attention to the show are intrigued, and every controversial statement Jones’ pastor has ever made on anything is being laid bare for the world to lampoon.

Angus, why?

Why do Christians who gain a platform in the entertainment world (or in this case, someone who has a platform and becomes a Christian) do this? Answers range from “He really believes it” (in which case, why doesn’t he just quit the show?) to “He can’t hold back – let the chips fall where they may.” He’s not the only believer in the entertainment industry, and saying no gracefully to compromising or offensive material is a perennial issue for Christians in Hollywood. I can imagine it makes many of them sad to see this. After trying to establish Christians as people of character and conviction, Jones undercuts them in one interview, feeding the stereotype that Christians are maniacal and judgmental, holier-than-thou.

Now, it is true that Jones’ videotaped testimony was not meant for public consumption. So when he says, “Please stop watching it,” he’s appealing to a closed group – the Christians who are sitting through his hour long testimony. But really? Is he the only 19-year-old on the planet who’s unaware of how easily videos can be posted to the Internet? It’s pretty hard to believe – impossible, in fact – that he didn’t expect the whole world to see this.

Jones has (or at least, he had) a sphere of influence. In my estimation, he blew it. There will be some die-hards who defend what he said and think he did exactly the right thing in launching a full-scale frontal assault on his own show. They’ll call it courageous and say it’s about time Christians crusade against Hollywood.

Are they wrong? Well, tactically, yes. And that’s where your kid comes in. Your kids have a sphere of influence. They, too, are being asked to consume questionable or objectionable media material. Let’s estimate it happens, oh, daily. They pass it on (or not) via likes or shares on Facebook, by downloading and posting and pinning…when they talk about a video “going viral”, kids are often the engines of that, the “carriers” of the virus, facilitating the outbreak.

This is opportunity city. In fact, ask your kids, right now: If a friend were to send you a video that’s inappropriate, what would you do? (And I’m not talking about pornography; that one’s pretty clear-cut. I’m talking about scenes with innuendo, music videos or lyrics that are suggestive, dialogue that normalizes or jokes about marital unfaithfulness or premarital sex – in other words, the stuff people watch.) Then, ask them the more interesting questions: How would you know if something was inappropriate? and What makes some things appropriate or inappropriate? This could open up a fruitful dialogue about why, exactly, the things we see and hear affect the way we think and feel. (Really - go ahead and ask them; I’ll be waiting here when you get back.)

It’s rare to find a kid who would launch into a lecture of his friends about why a particular piece of media is inappropriate or “filthy” and why no one who calls themselves a good Christian would ever watch it or take part in it. And it turns out that instinct is correct! If Christians start speaking like aliens, people will soon regard us as – well – aliens. It’s the classic “in-the-world-but-not-of-it” dilemma. Are we called apart? Yes. Are we the salt of the earth and light of the world? Yes.

But what sometimes gets lost is that life is not about media choices. The substance of my life does not equate to the media choices I make. The significance of life is wrapped up in its design. Just as a table was meant to be a table, and its worth can be judged by its success or failure at that, human worth is entwined with the imago Dei, the image of God. And that means we always reflect the image of God – but each to a greater or lesser degree. Can you make someone care about that? I don’t know. But until they do, they won’t care much about the thoughts and ideas they take in. Or they will care, but it’ll be a misplaced concern because they think life is about scoring 100% on the naughty/nice exam rather than about growth and maturing and purpose and relationships and sanctification and knowing the heart and will of God.

So in a way, Angus got it right. But his execution was tone deaf. I didn’t know who he was before, and I’ve only watched Two and a Half Men a handful of times. I don’t need him to tell me that the content of the show is good, bad, or indifferent. He’s not a role model to me one way or the other. His rant only drew my attention to him: What was he thinking would come of this? We know that friendship influence – person-to-person, sustained, because-I-care-about-you – is what builds up and sticks when you’re trying to make positive change. But some future star saw what Jones modeled for them. And they too will abuse the platform they’ve been given, looking foolish and out of touch by going on the negative.

This Kid’s Got Talent. HIS talent.

Ethan Bortnick is an amazingly talented piano player. At eleven years old, he has played a worldwide concert tour, been on Oprah, and starred in a movie that will be released next year (oh yeah - he wrote all the music for that, too). He holds the Guinness World Record for youngest solo musician to headline a tour, an achievement that - his website boasts - beats out Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder.

So why am I not excited for this kid?

I’m not excited because behind all of his charm and stupefying skill I’m pretty sure there’s a machine, and the machine is run by a monster called profit. I mean, it’s possible that all of this was his idea. It’s possible that after he started composing music at age 5, he began to dream of opportunities for worldwide exposure and the advancement of his career. It’s possible that he woke up one day and said, “You know what? I need a website. And a publicist. And Twitter.” That’s all possible. But I doubt it.

What’s more likely is that there’s an army of adults behind this seeing dollar signs. Which is not to denigrate his ability. He’s a phenom – watch 30 seconds of him on YouTube and you’ll know that. He’s a phenom; but must he be a superstar? That’s the question that nags at me anytime I see an ultra-talented kid thrust into the limelight.

It even occurs to me from time to time when I encounter a moderately talented kid who locks onto a specialized interest at a young age. I get the benefits. It gives them a goal to achieve, it teaches them self-discipline and the value of practice, it “keeps them out of trouble” (as if idle, unstructured time in a kid’s life necessarily equates with “trouble”). It furnishes an identity and a ready friendship group to relate to. I get that. But I wonder, what’s the cost?

In Ethan’s case, his publicity machine – ahem, team – seems bent on convincing us that he’s “just a normal kid”, who “plays videogames until they call his name and he runs on stage”, who loves his parents and school and his friends, etc. etc. Yep, pretty normal – except for the part about appearing on Good Morning America and recording albums and writing film scores and meeting Elton John. Where is this headed? Lindsay Lohan was a pretty cute kid, too. So was Gary Coleman. And the Brady Bunch kids, many of whom battled drugs and alcohol and depression through their adult years. Show business is notoriously hard on child stars. (Macauley Culkin, anyone? Miley Cyrus? Cory Haim? The list goes on.) Which could be why Bortnick’s public persona stresses his “everyday kid” side (apart from the Guinness World Record thing, of course). I have a feeling the adults behind him want to assure us that he’s above corruption. No doubt they want to believe it themselves, as anyone whose train is hitched to this star stands to make out big.

I’m not predicting that early stardom will hinder his growth into healthy adulthood, and I’m not wishing for that. But is that even the point? Isn’t the bigger issue this matter of him achieving super-stardom on levels that are absolutely inaccessible to 11-year-olds? I mean, the kid’s got talent. And he can play Vegas and with Beyonce and on Oprah…but should he? When does kid-sized exuberance  cross over into adult-sized ambition, reaching the point where it’s ripe for exploitation and no longer about him?

Because the kid’s got talent; but it’s his talent. And with that comes the right to say no, something that’s very hard to do when sponsors and venues and promoters and fans are depending on you for output. Even if Team Bortnick is somehow able to keep him above the pressure and away from the business end of things, the fact remains that him producing and continuing to produce is the key to the whole enterprise. And that’s a little scary.

Just yesterday on ESPN, Sportscenter was showing clips of a nine-year-old girl who is dominating her (mostly all-boy) tackle football league in Utah. But...why? What is it in us that holds almost morbid fascination for extraordinary ability in kids? If this is an instinct (because “dog bites man” isn’t news, but “man bites dog” is), fine. But why must we publicize it? Because before we know it, USC will be recruiting her and we’ll all be locked into a decade-long reality TV-fest of “Sam’s Road to the Heisman”. Unbelievable.

Individual agency – the ability to exercise self-direction and be acknowledged as an autonomous being – presupposes choices. If kids aren’t able to say no, either because they aren’t given permission to, or because no is actually impossible, then we as adults aren't respecting them and we aren't taking them seriously. They’re not living lives so much as they are living out scripts dictated to them by grownups.

What if Ethan said no? Unlikely as it is, what if tomorrow he decided all the concerts, all the fundraising, all the recording were over, and he was done? Could he just go outside and play? No doubt some people would answer, “But kids need to be taught to keep commitments – that’s part of being a responsible grown up.” Yes, they need to keep their commitments – the ones they make and choose. Force your kid to play out the football season? You bet – assuming they knew what they were getting into at the start and freely chose it. Make them persevere through music lessons or other challenging skill-based activities? Up to a certain level of proficiency, sure.

But kids need exposure to lots of different activities. They need to try lots of things, some of which they’ll excel at and others of which they won’t. And since time is limited, that means they need to have the freedom to stop doing some things in order to take up other things. Because it’s not likely that, like Ethan Bortnick, they’ll sit down at the piano at age 3 and play Mozart by ear, launching them on a fast track to fame. Come to think of it, thank God for that.

It's Time to Talk

We must be the most over-communicated-to people in history. Remember the early days of the Internet, when "I've got e-mail" was spoken with awe? Now it's usually accompanied by a groan. Nearly every day, I'm checking three e-mail accounts, two voicemail accounts, and a text-to-email thing from Google - plus Facebook. I sometimes value vacations just because it means I'll have less information coming at me.

With no shortage of information, who decides what gets our attention? We do...sort of. But are we as in control as we think we are? I ask this today (Friday) as I've been evicted from my office because we're getting new carpeting. The phones are unplugged and I'm working in the hallway - and yet every time I hear another phone ring, my instinct is to drop what I'm doing and answer it.

In other words, there is a conditioning process that determines what gets our attention, so that over and above all the noise coming at us, there are some messages that have a way of getting noticed. That's why you can rest assured that when it comes to kids and the Internet, two types of messages are getting through: messages about friends (i.e., social networking) and messages about sex (because as the old advertising saying goes, "sex sells").

The best defense against this - sometimes the only defense - is a good offense. It's called a "filter". Filters can be external or internal. When it comes to kids and the Internet, we need to develop both. Filters work by recognizing threats and mounting defenses against them. When it comes to your standard Internet browser filter, that process is relatively automatic: certain words trigger the defense, and the block goes into place ("This page is unavailable"). The goal in developing your kid's internal filter is this: first to develop that as a conscious process, and then, for the conscious process to become unconscious.

In order for it to happen consciously, kids need to know there is a danger, and recognize the danger, and know why it's a danger. And then they need the skill of redirection - do I turn it off? Ignore it? Click away? Tell someone?

For instance, when a kid encounters a threatening or bullying message on Facebook, they have a choice: do I respond? And if so, how? When they receive an e-mail from a stranger, do they delete it? Report it? Do they label it as spam? Do they even know how to do that? What if they receive a strange link, in an e-mail with an intriguing or suggestive subject line? What's the right thing to do?

Can kids really do this? The answer is, they'd better! Because automated Internet filters will always be imperfect. They'll either shut out legitimate content, or they'll miss things they should catch. The only sure-fire method for blocking harmful Internet content is to not be on the Internet at all. And I don't know many families who are willing to go there! And would that even solve the problem? The Internet is in schools, in libraries...and on their friends' handheld devices.

So while I endorse the use of filtering software and technological restrictions by parents, I cannot recommend that your precautions end there. The "second line" needs to be developed, and that's the defense that resides inside of them. Think it's as simple as knowing "good" from "bad"? For a young child, that's probably enough. But as a kid's understanding of the world grows in sophistication, their understanding of how to fight needs to keep pace. Those elements, again, are knowing there is a danger, recognizing the danger, and knowing why a particular thing is a danger.

Danger to what? Danger to our ability to grow toward God-ordained maturity; danger to our ability to grow into real people. Real people understand who they are, who God is, the difference is between us and God, and consequently, our need for him. A warped view of sexuality, an unhealthy dependence on technology, and the inability to navigate problems in relationships all threaten our journey toward becoming real, healthy people. And all of these things can come from misuse of the Internet.

So, it's time to talk. We have some experts coming in to talk to you, so that you can in turn talk to your kids. "The Online Sexual Minefield: Keeping Your Kids Safe" is up first, next Wednesday night (Nov. 7) at 7 pm. Cory Anderson and Treina Nash, both licensed marriage and family therapists, bring back their helpful and informative presentation on your kids, sex, and the Internet. It's totally free of charge, we'll care for you 4th-6th grade kids (junior high and high school groups meet on-campus that night), and you'll walk away with a ton of information.

The second event will be the first Wednesday in December. On the 5th, we're hosting a training event on how to use "Passport to Purity," which is a kit put out by Family Life. The CDs and journals are meant to help parents construct a fun, meaningful weekend with their preteen and initiate all kinds of conversations about growing up. And it works! The night will be led by moms and dads who've used the material, who can guide you and encourage you on carrying on the program with your son or daughter. Pre-ordering the kits is optional, you can do that here. But, you are also welcome to just come to the night to see what it's all about, free of charge.

I'm glad for technology (obviously; I blog). But it's created a need for all of us to become just a little smarter than the tools we use. We want to make you aware, so you can help your kids be aware. And remember that constructing the filter is a process - it's not one conversation but many. The events November 7 and December 5 are meant to start you in the right direction.

Spiritual Growth Marker #3: Allegiance

We’ve probably all been a situation where we reach the point where our heart’s not in it. Regardless of our technical skill or experience, the excitement isn’t there. It happens among talented young athletes and among seasoned professionals, and no amount of coaxing can re-light the fire.

This intangible is called allegiance, and while it’s probably the best direct measure of spiritual growth, it’s also the hardest to measure precisely, and the hardest to stimulate.

The Bible makes clear that our connection with God is not based on begrudging servitude, but on allegiance. It’s a heart issue:

“You shall have no other Gods before me.” – Exodus 20:3

“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” – Deuteronomy 6:5

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” – Deuteronomy 30:6

“The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” – Isaiah 29:13

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. - Joel 2:12-13

“The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” – Matthew 12:34

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:13

God demands loyalty. What’s striking is how many times the command to love God “with all your heart” appears in Deuteronomy, which is a book of the Law! The Law of Moses outlined the Israelites’ duties to God, yet at its core, the Law was meant to produce inward – not outward – transformation.

How do you make this happen? It can be hard enough to maintain our own spiritual enthusiasm. How would we stimulate that in kids? First, the difficulty of this task should prompt us to go slowly and with the appreciation that ultimately, you can’t. You cannot directly steer someone’s heart, any more than you can get someone to fall in love with you or force someone to love baseball. All you can do is try to win them.

So it begins with this: do we believe God is winsome? Do we believe God is actively in pursuit of all people? Is our conception of “following God” basically moralism, where we walk the straight-and-narrow because that’s what God wants? Or is it an adventure, keeping up with the God who’s active?

Kids will never fall in love with rules. Neither will adults. “Goodness is its own reward”? Sometimes. But the overwhelming message of life is that life’s not fair; therefore, grab every advantage you can, because you don’t want to end up with the short end of the stick. The Christian life is not “living according to biblical principles.” That reduces Christianity to just one more ethical system in which we’ve been given the rules and we strive our best to live them out, and when we fail, we try harder. I doubt anyone who lives that way can develop much allegiance to God, because that’s a relationship fueled by guilt and obligation.

No, the only God people can develop a deep allegiance for is the God of yesterday, today and forever. We need to appreciate what he’s done in history, yes, because it is the roadmap of his character. We need to look forward to his return. But we need to follow the God of now.

That’s why teaching kids Bible stories isn’t enough. It familiarizes them with the God of then, but doesn’t necessarily build loyalty for the God of now. I can admire Martin Luther King or Abraham Lincoln, but day in and day out, would I be loyal to them? Am I thinking about what they would have me do and who they would have me be? The closest I can come is allegiance to the ideals of those historical figures – but ideals are static.

“What did Jesus do?” is only useful insofar as it helps me answer the question, “What would Jesus do?” Still better is, “What is Jesus doing?” We need to talk about what God is up to, because apart from an acknowledgement or awareness of that, God just becomes a character in a storybook. I find that more often than not, Christian kids lack the language to do that. They know generally that God wants them to “be good”, but beyond that have a hard time identifying specifically putting their finger on how God is working or might work in their lives. We can overdo God-talk in a way that turns kids off, and it’s wrong to speak of God’s activity as if our comfort and convenience were his reason for being.

The key is to teach kids to recognize what in accordance with his character as revealed in Scripture God is still doing, today, in them. That’s something they can get excited about, as they see their own lives in a line with all of humanity as characters in a salvation story. God is doing different things in everyone, but ultimately he’s doing the same thing: accomplishing the reconciliation of the whole world to himself.

The Christian life is lived in union with Christ. There is a supernatural element to it. By definition, a spiritual life cannot be lived in the flesh or just by our own willpower. If what we’re teaching is a code of ethics that could be followed by anyone – Christian or non-Christian – then by what right do we call it Christianity? Allegiance will develop when kids are convinced that God is not far off, but is right there with them – guiding them, strengthening them, providing for them, correcting and shaping them. Leading kids to know this sort of God is hard work. But ultimately, it’s the only kind of God I can have allegiance to.

Spiritual Growth Marker #2: Network

If we in Surge host an event for 4th, 5th and 6th graders, the 4th and 5th graders will want to know, "What are we going to do there?" If it sounds fun, they'll come. But 6th graders will ask, "Who else is going to be there?"

That difference points to the importance of network. Last week I wrote about identity as one marker of spiritual growth. As kids grow in their appreciation of what it means for someone to identify as a Christian, it’s both a sign that they are growing spiritually and a good indication that their growth will continue. Likewise, the development of a network of friends at church indicates both growth and the likelihood of future growth.

In a way, network is an extension of the concept of identity, and that’s why its importance is really hard to overstate. We tend to associate ourselves not only with those who are like-minded, but with those who match the profile of how we perceive ourselves. We will become like those we hang out with.

When kids are young, their primary influences are Mom and Dad. Lots of time is readily spent among family members, and that’s why we tend almost unthinkingly to absorb the values and worldview of our parents. But as kids grow up, the peer group takes the place of the nuclear family in shaping identity. Are there exceptions? Are there families where time spent among friends doesn’t come to monopolize an older teenager’s life? Yes – but they are rare.

(A strong qualification is in order here. It’s often asserted that when it comes to influencing decisions, peers take the place of parents during the teenage years. Don’t buy it. Support for that is shaky. Years ago, Search Institute found that teenagers said they were still more likely to turn to parents for advice on serious issues, or if they were in trouble, or if they needed to make a big decision, than they were likely to turn to peers. Maybe the best that can be said is that teenagers tend to consciously turn to friends for guidance, and on matters that affect their day-to-day conduct but that are relatively minor in the vast scheme of things. Parental influence, having been in place since birth, continues to unconsciously shape us, and is considered more valuable when it comes to the big issues of life. That’s provided, of course, that parents haven’t entirely retreated and remain available and willing to be consulted. As kids grow up, they still need their parents; they just need them in a different way.)

Does this mean, then, that kids should only have Christian friends? Emphatically, no. Christians are supposed to be salt and light to the world, and kids absolutely can be this influence to their friends. Raising kids entirely away from the influence of the world is nearly impossible, and even if it were possible, it wouldn’t be a great idea, because a world that’s entirely sanitized is a world that perceives no need for Jesus. The kids I’ve known who have the most zeal for impacting their friends are neither those who’ve been ruthlessly sheltered nor those who’ve been surrendered entirely to worldly influences. Instead, these world-changers are wise, having both an appreciation of the depths of the world’s need for God and the optimism that God is more than able to solve the world’s problems.

So here is the generalization – and admittedly, it’s a generalization: As teenagers, your kids will likely adopt the values and outlook of those they spend the most time with.

There are many candidates for that role, and each resides in separate circles I call networks. We all have networks of affiliations across the many spheres of our lives. You have a work network, a family network, and a neighborhood network. Your kids have a school network (or, if they’re in a middle school that switches classes, a separate network in each class), sports team networks, after-school friend networks, club networks, etc. Sometimes, we ourselves are the only common denominator among our various networks. Imagine you threw a party, inviting everyone you knew, and everyone showed up. Some of us would have lots of overlap, so that the people we work with and play with, for instance, would already know each other and have plenty to talk about. But I suspect for most of us, that would be a very busy party, as we worked to make introductions among the disparate spheres who knew nothing about each other.

The hope, for your kid’s sake, would be 1) that they develop a network of church friends, and 2) that those friends would become some of their closest friends. How do we make this happen? Time! Not just time spent at services and events, but time spent together. I am convinced that one of the best intangibles that can come out of  a kid’s involvement in a preteen ministry is the development of a supportive friend network. We make a mistake if we think this “just happens.” It doesn’t, any more than you’ve become friends with the person who sits four rows ahead of you, whose face you recognize but whom you don't know. Friendships develop intentionally, and sometimes at this age kids don’t yet have the social skills to make friendship sticky. To them, a friend is someone who likes to do the same stuff as you; friendships built around taking a mutual interest in one another requires more maturity.

So we must make big church small, and we must teach and encourage kids to develop friendships. On the whole, I think a large church is a great advantage, because the chance that everyone can find their niche is better. But the danger does exist that we’ll remain a bunch of islands (our 4^th-6^th grade ministry is made up of kids from about 75 different public, private and home schools). Ask your son or daughter: who do they know? Who are they getting to know? And model this yourself – how strong is your own network within the church?

Even if kids have just one good friend at church, that can make all the difference as they age into junior high and high school ministry. Ideally, we all as Christians would have a core of close friends to lean on when we’re going through the tough stuff. That adolescence involves more than its share of tough stuff – at least in the perception of those going through it – is all the more reason that building and strengthening that network is vital when kids are preteens.