When I was a kid (I started school in 1978), it was common to hear, “You can be anything you want to be.” It was encouraging, and it was the natural outworking of a distinctly 20th century American philosophy. Our grandparents had weathered the Great Depression and won World War II. Our parents had fought communism and for the rights of blacks and women. And now, the world was our oyster. The modern version of the American Dream lay straight ahead, and we could choose our path. We were, in the words of the quintessential ‘70s anthem for kids “Free to Be You and Me.”
The problem is, it was a myth.
More and more I have become convinced that we don’t do kids any favors when we tell them they can be “anything”. The intention is noble – we want them to work hard, to believe in themselves, and to exceed everyone’s expectations. And we want them to persevere. We think of Michael Jordan, who was "cut" from his high school basketball team (he wasn’t, but it makes a good story), and look what happened because he didn’t give up?
But the fact that Jordan stuck it out through a year of junior varsity and went on to be the greatest basketball player ever doesn’t prove that “you can be anything you want to be.” Instead, it’s an argument for the dirty little secret that cuts against the grain of all our wishful thinking: we thrive in our giftedness.
Because remember Jordan the professional baseball player? The one who led the White Sox to a World Series championship, proving that with hard work, an athlete can be good at any sport? Of course you don’t, because Jordan’s baseball career, sandwiched between his stints in the NBA, was not memorable. It wasn’t wrong – he probably had a lot of fun, and he’s Michael Jordan, so he gets to pretty much call the shots on anything he wants – but Jordan belonged in the NBA.
And that’s what identity is all about: Belonging. Like it or not, we are defined and shaped by the crowd around us. There have been self-made men and pioneers and guys like Richard Proenneke, but they are extreme exceptions.
The truth is that for most of us, “be anything” is not liberating, it is crippling. When you can be “anything”, it means that you are, in fact, nothing until you become whatever it is you choose to be. And to a certain set of over-achievers, it even communicates that you ought to be everything. Most of us are not destined to become everything, but a few things. There’s no shame in that. And the ideas of “calling” and “skill set” and “giftedness” are having a renaissance. I say, it’s about time.
What does it mean, then, for your kid to be rich in Identity? Three things, corresponding to the past, the present, and the future:
The first is for them to live in the acknowledgement that they are created beings. As such, they are dependent. And they have no rights. Sound harsh? I don’t mean rights in the American political sense, but rights in the sense of a deserved birthright of destiny. Lots of people live under this myth: I deserve a happy life, to make lots of money, to have the family I want, to live where I want, on and on. Truly grateful people recognize that they’re not independent, and not reaping an endless supply of deserved benefits. It all comes from God. How would it change the way you prayed to God if you started by acknowledging, "I have no rights"? How would it change the way you live?
The second aspect of being rich in identity is intrapersonal awareness. Kids rich in identity know themselves, and this means knowing not only what they are, but knowing and coming to peace with what they aren’t. This is hard when you’re young, because you live under everyone else’s expectations. Discovering who you are and what you’re good at entails a lot of trial and error, but we've pretty much eliminated failure as a component of upbringing. There are dead ends and false starts. It takes a mature kid to say not just, “I don’t like that,” but “I’m not cut out for that.” And certainly, we don’t want to give kids permission to give up too easily. What might not appeal to them at one age might end up being what they love to do and are good at a few years down the road.
But that’s the thing about giftedness: we don’t choose it, we discover it. It is revealed as it develops in us, and yes, lessons and tutors and mentors and exposure can shape that to some degree, but as Muff Potter sings in the musical Tom Sawyer, “A man’s gonna be what he’s born to be.” So somehow, without slotting kids too soon or rigidly tracking them in school, we need to help them discover that they have a design, which has suited them for certain things and limited them from other things (which, amazingly, other people might be perfectly suited for). The KidUnique program that just wrapped up at our church was all about this: What draws your child? What makes them come alive? How can you encourage that? Those are questions some adults have never considered for themselves.
I’ve found that for kids, labels are not particularly helpful and can be debilitating. So adults really get into knowing that they are INTJ and not ESFP, and reading the descriptions of each. Kids just know how they feel. They know if a certain kind of work or style of working or environment or group of people feels right. They know the difference between engaging in an activity that’s boring and one they hope will never end. All we have to do is teach them to pay attention to this and then be reflective and try to put words to it: what was happening that really made you come alive? When else have you felt this way? etc. Then rather than intimating that they be “well-rounded” (i.e., good at everything), we let them lean into those strengths.
To acknowledge that they are created, dependent beings is to acknowledge something God has already done, in the past. To discover the design He’s put in you is an ongoing work, in the now. The final aspect of identity pertains to where they’re going. It is to experience and bring redemption.
Kids rich in identity understand that their purpose in the world isn’t related to short-term things like pleasing adult authority figures. It is future-focused and other-focused, and for that reason, purpose shapes every major life decision. God does things on purpose. Our job is to pick up that ball and run with it. We experience redemption as we live in his forgiveness. We are new creatures. We then bring this gospel of newness to the rest of the world, in the context of the personhood we’ve been given by God. We are the message. A person living as though they’re unredeemed is a poor billboard for redemption.
Cassie Carstens, the South African pastor, trainer, and author of The World Needs a Father will be out in February, says kids need to have a handle on their identities by age 11. Much later than that, and the storms of adolescent life will batter them from one pole to the next. A preteen understanding who they are is incredibly counter-cultural. To make it happen, we have to open the world to them and relax the perimeter of protectiveness much sooner than we are accustomed to, and sooner than many would like. But Carstens says the window of opportunity for kids to apprehend the state of the world and their place in it is really narrow. If we wait until they’re teenagers, chances are they will have already bought into so many of the world’s values ("It’s all about me"..."Safety and comfort are the highest goals"..."School achievement is paramount to life success"..."Money buys happiness") that there’s no bringing them back.
Think of that: Your 11-year-old’s ability to be used by God for the rest of their lives hinges largely on the self-perception they’ve honed up until this point. How are we doing at giving kids opportunities to understand the world, and as a part of that, themselves? If the church of now wants to be an effective church in 30 years, maybe making kids rich in their identities while still young is the best investment we can make.
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
Making Kids R.I.C.H. - The "R" is for Relationships
Last week I wrote about the importance of making your kids rich – in the right ways. One of the ways we in affluent areas nonetheless experience poverty is in the area of relationships. Relationships are the “R” in R.I.C.H.
Kids lack the relationships they need for many reasons, but first, the big picture: Why are relationships good and necessary? One reason is simply social development. We are social creatures and can’t develop in isolation. We can’t learn to communicate, work out conflicts, or work collaboratively all on our own. “But my kid has two parents. We’re enough.” If you and your spouse embody every imaginable personality type in the rest of the world, then yes. But of course, the world is filled with a variety of people, and exposure to those different types – the easy-to-get-along with and the not-so-easy – is an advantage. We need to learn how to get along.
But another reason is that there is a hole in us, an incompleteness, that was meant to be filled by relationships. God looked at Adam and said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” and he created Eve. Marital partnerships are an obvious model of the way two people compliment one another. But it’s not only in marriage that we experience this sense of completeness, and I would suggest that if a person hasn’t experienced the benefits of deep friendship as a child or teenager, they will struggle in forming the intimate relationships as a young adult that will lead to marriage. Why do I say that? Because one way or another, we are going to get that relationship need met. Unfortunately, there are counterfeit ways to try to meet the need for validation. People may turn to drugs, the Internet, overwork, overeating, or become depressed and withdrawn. The trouble is, these somewhat satisfy, but they keep people wanting.
So why do kids lack the relationships they should have? You can probably guess a few of the reasons right off:
Let's focus on two sorts of relationships your kids need to grow up healthy and well. The first is peer relationships. Every parent wants their kid to get along well – not necessarily to be popular, but to be well-liked and have lots of friends. And it’s a special kind of pain to see your child struggle here, because there is so little you can do directly. (And sometimes, kids don't want you to. When one researcher asked a group of 7th graders what role parents should play in their social lives, a boy answered, "You parents should have no role in your social life.")
But I would suggest that the nature of friendship in the preteen years makes a shift, from revolving around things we do to revolving around who we are. When kids are very young, friendship shows itself in “parallel play” - each kid playing on his/her own, not really interacting with the other, but still considered “playing together”. As kids approach school age, they engage in more interactive, imaginative play (“house”, “school”, “store”, etc.). Play eventually evolves to hobbies and interests, and then, around 5th or 6th grade, friendship gets rooted in identity: I am friends with people who are like me. Middle school kids “hang out”, and their hanging out may be centered around an activity, but it’s really more about bonding with others who reflect who I see myself as. In so doing, I am affirmed that I belong, that “this is who I am.”
If your child struggles with friendships, let me encourage you to keep trying. (Remarkably, this article just came into my inbox this morning.) Get them involved in lots of things. The law of averages is on your side, that if they’re exposed to enough different kids, they’re going to find some they click with. They need this, because as kids move through adolescence, they begin to reach outside of the nuclear family to get their social & emotional needs met. You did it, and so did I. And it can be painful for parents. It creates stress on a family. But it is necessary. It is part of God’s design. You weren’t meant to be everything they need relationally, forever. Yet if they’re not practiced in relationships, they get caught in a bind – they sense their need, but can’t get it met. They’re vulnerable to the counterfeit substitutes mentioned above.
The second type of relationships your kid needs are called developmental relationships. These are relationships with someone older who cares and invests themselves in your kid. The Search Institute has identified four components of an adult-to-kid relationship that makes it “developmental” in nature:
A study called the National Promises Study found that 33% of kids don’t have an adequate level of caring adults, even if you count the adults in their own families. It found only 18% of kids got the right mix (a “balanced diet”, if you will) of positive family support & communication balanced with boundaries and high parental expectations. Just 22% of the kids surveyed experienced both a caring school climate and high teacher expectations/school boundaries. And in relationships with adults in the community (non-school, non-parent), only 15% of the kids could be considered “rich” in the level of support they were getting from adults. (It was in a presentation on developmental relationships from Search that I first heard the phrase “rich in relationships”, and it really caught my attention; it’s where I got the idea of the "Making Kids R.I.C.H." acronym.)
If you think about it, our relationship with God resembles a developmental relationship. God is invested in us. He has affections for us. We are not just products in his eyes. He is personal, and relates to us personally. The longer we walk with God, the deeper we go with him. And there is an element of empowerment. God’s goal is that we be released – not to declare our independence and break free of him – but that we “grow up”, which is to say that our relationship with him gets to a point where it’s not just “Me & Jesus” but “Me & Jesus & the rest of the whole world”.
Here are some recommendations Search makes by way of ensuring that your child develops the developmental relationships they need:
“R” stands for making kids rich in “Relationships”.
“I” is for “Identity”. Read about that next week.
Kids lack the relationships they need for many reasons, but first, the big picture: Why are relationships good and necessary? One reason is simply social development. We are social creatures and can’t develop in isolation. We can’t learn to communicate, work out conflicts, or work collaboratively all on our own. “But my kid has two parents. We’re enough.” If you and your spouse embody every imaginable personality type in the rest of the world, then yes. But of course, the world is filled with a variety of people, and exposure to those different types – the easy-to-get-along with and the not-so-easy – is an advantage. We need to learn how to get along.
But another reason is that there is a hole in us, an incompleteness, that was meant to be filled by relationships. God looked at Adam and said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” and he created Eve. Marital partnerships are an obvious model of the way two people compliment one another. But it’s not only in marriage that we experience this sense of completeness, and I would suggest that if a person hasn’t experienced the benefits of deep friendship as a child or teenager, they will struggle in forming the intimate relationships as a young adult that will lead to marriage. Why do I say that? Because one way or another, we are going to get that relationship need met. Unfortunately, there are counterfeit ways to try to meet the need for validation. People may turn to drugs, the Internet, overwork, overeating, or become depressed and withdrawn. The trouble is, these somewhat satisfy, but they keep people wanting.
So why do kids lack the relationships they should have? You can probably guess a few of the reasons right off:
- We’re really, really busy, and relationships take time to develop.
- Neighborhoods don’t work the way they used to. “Going to a friend’s house” has been replaced by arranged “play dates”.
- We’re more mobile, and that means kids are sometimes growing up far away from extended family. The absence of grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles and cousins really does make a difference, because who’s taking their place? (An iPad?)
- “Stranger Danger” scared the devil out of my generation, convincing us that anyone whose name we didn’t know could be (probably) an imminent threat to be avoided. And we’ve never fully recovered.
Let's focus on two sorts of relationships your kids need to grow up healthy and well. The first is peer relationships. Every parent wants their kid to get along well – not necessarily to be popular, but to be well-liked and have lots of friends. And it’s a special kind of pain to see your child struggle here, because there is so little you can do directly. (And sometimes, kids don't want you to. When one researcher asked a group of 7th graders what role parents should play in their social lives, a boy answered, "You parents should have no role in your social life.")
But I would suggest that the nature of friendship in the preteen years makes a shift, from revolving around things we do to revolving around who we are. When kids are very young, friendship shows itself in “parallel play” - each kid playing on his/her own, not really interacting with the other, but still considered “playing together”. As kids approach school age, they engage in more interactive, imaginative play (“house”, “school”, “store”, etc.). Play eventually evolves to hobbies and interests, and then, around 5th or 6th grade, friendship gets rooted in identity: I am friends with people who are like me. Middle school kids “hang out”, and their hanging out may be centered around an activity, but it’s really more about bonding with others who reflect who I see myself as. In so doing, I am affirmed that I belong, that “this is who I am.”
If your child struggles with friendships, let me encourage you to keep trying. (Remarkably, this article just came into my inbox this morning.) Get them involved in lots of things. The law of averages is on your side, that if they’re exposed to enough different kids, they’re going to find some they click with. They need this, because as kids move through adolescence, they begin to reach outside of the nuclear family to get their social & emotional needs met. You did it, and so did I. And it can be painful for parents. It creates stress on a family. But it is necessary. It is part of God’s design. You weren’t meant to be everything they need relationally, forever. Yet if they’re not practiced in relationships, they get caught in a bind – they sense their need, but can’t get it met. They’re vulnerable to the counterfeit substitutes mentioned above.
The second type of relationships your kid needs are called developmental relationships. These are relationships with someone older who cares and invests themselves in your kid. The Search Institute has identified four components of an adult-to-kid relationship that makes it “developmental” in nature:
- There is an emotional attachment between adult & kid, not just a transactional arrangement (where the relationship is based on the kid doing something or producing something – taking a test, checking out a book, buying something at the store).
- There is two-way influence. The adult seeks to influence the kid, but first, they are learning from them, and that helps shape the kind of guidance and influence that is offered. (This would be in contrast, say, to putting kids through a class or seminar on life skills, which is not entirely bad, but classes tend be static, while relationships are dynamic.)
- They become increasingly complex. It becomes deeper and more meaningful over time. People themselves change over time. If our involvement with someone doesn’t grow as they grow, we only have a surface relationship with them.
- There is a shifting balance of power. Kids gain more and more ownership and direction over their own lives within the context of our influence.
A study called the National Promises Study found that 33% of kids don’t have an adequate level of caring adults, even if you count the adults in their own families. It found only 18% of kids got the right mix (a “balanced diet”, if you will) of positive family support & communication balanced with boundaries and high parental expectations. Just 22% of the kids surveyed experienced both a caring school climate and high teacher expectations/school boundaries. And in relationships with adults in the community (non-school, non-parent), only 15% of the kids could be considered “rich” in the level of support they were getting from adults. (It was in a presentation on developmental relationships from Search that I first heard the phrase “rich in relationships”, and it really caught my attention; it’s where I got the idea of the "Making Kids R.I.C.H." acronym.)
If you think about it, our relationship with God resembles a developmental relationship. God is invested in us. He has affections for us. We are not just products in his eyes. He is personal, and relates to us personally. The longer we walk with God, the deeper we go with him. And there is an element of empowerment. God’s goal is that we be released – not to declare our independence and break free of him – but that we “grow up”, which is to say that our relationship with him gets to a point where it’s not just “Me & Jesus” but “Me & Jesus & the rest of the whole world”.
Here are some recommendations Search makes by way of ensuring that your child develops the developmental relationships they need:
- Be on top of the relationships your kid already has with teachers and coaches and evaluate: does this person like, respect, and treat my child fairly? If not, it may be a sign that this adult has more of a transactional relationship in mind than a developmental one. They may honestly feel that knowing your kid personally and caring is too much work or “not my job”.
- Notice whether your kid is pushed to achieve beyond where they are currently, by teachers and leaders of after-school activities. We don’t do kids any favors by not challenging them. (And, we don’t do them any favors when we push them too hard, which is also a sign of insensitivity.)
- Look for teachers who promote the love of learning and mastery of skills, not just high achievement and winning.
- Do you see energy and excitement in the people who work with your kids? That’s a sign that the relationship is developmentally significant.
- Ask other adults you respect and trust to watch our for, mentor, and spend time with your child.
“R” stands for making kids rich in “Relationships”.
“I” is for “Identity”. Read about that next week.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
I Want Your Kid to be R.I.C.H.
This week at our church, Stuart Briscoe made this comment to a group of pastors (as close as I can recall the wording): "The amount of unmobilized resources in our pews is the biggest scandal in the church." Week after week, people are "fed" in churches - but very little of tangible change in the world comes of it. (Briscoe also said - and I've got this one down exactly, "When all is said and done, more is usually said than done.")
There are many reasons why Christians are held back from living out the gospel in a way that impacts the kingdom of God. Churches themselves sometimes get in the way. But I think much of the reason is something I alluded to last week: many adult Christians are hindered by priorities, habits, and liabilities that keep them in bondage. These are holes we've dug for ourselves, and we're so preoccupied by the tyranny of the urgent we cannot extricate ourselves and live from a place where we can be all God wants - and needs - us to be.
It isn't that we don't care or can't see the problems in the world. It's that we feel already overburdened with our own lives. Or, we may be giving in to the belief that the world's problems are so big, why even try? These forces of apathy and powerlessness derive from what the Apostle John calls "the world", making for an odd paradox: the very world we're trying to impact and redeem is itself full of an inertia that makes such change unlikely.
What's needed is a new dose of youthful optimism. You and I had it before it was eclipsed by "the world". But your kids are full of that optimism now. How much of that optimism, the wholehearted belief that in God "all things are possible", carries into adulthood depends a lot on how rich we make them as kids.
Did I say rich? Well, yes, I did. Because Jesus used the same term. In scolding a young man who wanted to make a power play against his own brother to get inheritance money, Jesus warned that "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." He told him this parable:
A man had a good crop and saw an opportunity to get rich. He made plans: he'd build bigger storehouses, cash in, and live an easy life. But God delivers a whopper: "This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" And Jesus concludes: "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Being "rich toward God" is the game-changer! It's why the kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It's why many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. It's why those who are humble will be exalted, yet those who are exalted will be made low. "Rich toward God" is a concept that stands in opposition to much of what the world values for us - and for our kids.
We're visiting the concept of "rich toward God" right now with our 4th-6th graders. It's clear that it is the antidote to the type of living Jesus warns against: in other words, there were things the man in the parable should have set his sights on, places his thoughts should have defaulted to, that would have revealed a right heart. What were they, and how do we get them? That's something we want kids to wrestle with. They will make up their own minds whether being "rich toward God" is a worthy goal. We can only lead them there; we can't choose it for them. It's their life.
But, your preteen kid isn't fully autonomous yet either. Parents still exercise a vast amount of control over kids' environments and activities. So I want to suggest four aspects of this "being rich" that we might strive for in the lives of your kids. Or perhaps I should say, "being R.I.C.H.", because I've distilled the four into a nifty little acronym:
R stands for Relationships. I want your kid to be rich in relationships: same-age, family, and with older supportive adults.
I stands for Identity. I want kids to know who they are. Part of this includes acknowledging and accepting who they aren't, as well as the fact that God does everything on purpose. Who they are is a purposeful design; how they live ought to be filled with purpose-filled intent.
C stands for Christ. I want them to know, acknowledge, believe, understand, get, embody (etc.) who Christ is. The Christian faith is not Jesus-optional! Something about his life, death, and work on our behalf absolutely matters. Without it, we are absolutely adrift. How many of our kids get that?
Finally, H stands for Heart and Hands experiences. We learn best by doing. Life changes life. Words might change life a little. Beliefs alter life more. Those beliefs are shaped by life. So if kids can see (that is, experience) redemption and transformation in action, they are more likely to adopt life patterns that continue to have transformative effect on the people around them. (Or, to put it more simply, people who are in the habit of serving others, serve others. Pick your favorite.)
I believe R.I.C.H. kids are the kind of kids who grow into adults who change the world. They are the type I wrote about last week: God-centered, Spirit-filled, truth-founded, mission-minded, others-focused, and purpose-driven. In the coming weeks, I'll detail why I think making your kid R.I.C.H. in each of these four areas is essential.
But one more thing: one of the ways people become rich - at anything - is by investing. Investing is always an act of faith. Not a blind gamble, but far from an airtight guarantee. There's always a cost, and sometimes we get the return we want, but sometimes not. Kids' spiritual training is also an investment. It's why we must absolutely measure progress over the long term. It's also why we must be faithful: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let me suggest that any investment in making your kid R.I.C.H. - in relationships, identity, Christ, or heart & hands experiences - is worthwhile.
There are many reasons why Christians are held back from living out the gospel in a way that impacts the kingdom of God. Churches themselves sometimes get in the way. But I think much of the reason is something I alluded to last week: many adult Christians are hindered by priorities, habits, and liabilities that keep them in bondage. These are holes we've dug for ourselves, and we're so preoccupied by the tyranny of the urgent we cannot extricate ourselves and live from a place where we can be all God wants - and needs - us to be.
It isn't that we don't care or can't see the problems in the world. It's that we feel already overburdened with our own lives. Or, we may be giving in to the belief that the world's problems are so big, why even try? These forces of apathy and powerlessness derive from what the Apostle John calls "the world", making for an odd paradox: the very world we're trying to impact and redeem is itself full of an inertia that makes such change unlikely.
What's needed is a new dose of youthful optimism. You and I had it before it was eclipsed by "the world". But your kids are full of that optimism now. How much of that optimism, the wholehearted belief that in God "all things are possible", carries into adulthood depends a lot on how rich we make them as kids.
Did I say rich? Well, yes, I did. Because Jesus used the same term. In scolding a young man who wanted to make a power play against his own brother to get inheritance money, Jesus warned that "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." He told him this parable:
A man had a good crop and saw an opportunity to get rich. He made plans: he'd build bigger storehouses, cash in, and live an easy life. But God delivers a whopper: "This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" And Jesus concludes: "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Being "rich toward God" is the game-changer! It's why the kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It's why many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. It's why those who are humble will be exalted, yet those who are exalted will be made low. "Rich toward God" is a concept that stands in opposition to much of what the world values for us - and for our kids.
We're visiting the concept of "rich toward God" right now with our 4th-6th graders. It's clear that it is the antidote to the type of living Jesus warns against: in other words, there were things the man in the parable should have set his sights on, places his thoughts should have defaulted to, that would have revealed a right heart. What were they, and how do we get them? That's something we want kids to wrestle with. They will make up their own minds whether being "rich toward God" is a worthy goal. We can only lead them there; we can't choose it for them. It's their life.
But, your preteen kid isn't fully autonomous yet either. Parents still exercise a vast amount of control over kids' environments and activities. So I want to suggest four aspects of this "being rich" that we might strive for in the lives of your kids. Or perhaps I should say, "being R.I.C.H.", because I've distilled the four into a nifty little acronym:
R stands for Relationships. I want your kid to be rich in relationships: same-age, family, and with older supportive adults.
I stands for Identity. I want kids to know who they are. Part of this includes acknowledging and accepting who they aren't, as well as the fact that God does everything on purpose. Who they are is a purposeful design; how they live ought to be filled with purpose-filled intent.
C stands for Christ. I want them to know, acknowledge, believe, understand, get, embody (etc.) who Christ is. The Christian faith is not Jesus-optional! Something about his life, death, and work on our behalf absolutely matters. Without it, we are absolutely adrift. How many of our kids get that?
Finally, H stands for Heart and Hands experiences. We learn best by doing. Life changes life. Words might change life a little. Beliefs alter life more. Those beliefs are shaped by life. So if kids can see (that is, experience) redemption and transformation in action, they are more likely to adopt life patterns that continue to have transformative effect on the people around them. (Or, to put it more simply, people who are in the habit of serving others, serve others. Pick your favorite.)
I believe R.I.C.H. kids are the kind of kids who grow into adults who change the world. They are the type I wrote about last week: God-centered, Spirit-filled, truth-founded, mission-minded, others-focused, and purpose-driven. In the coming weeks, I'll detail why I think making your kid R.I.C.H. in each of these four areas is essential.
But one more thing: one of the ways people become rich - at anything - is by investing. Investing is always an act of faith. Not a blind gamble, but far from an airtight guarantee. There's always a cost, and sometimes we get the return we want, but sometimes not. Kids' spiritual training is also an investment. It's why we must absolutely measure progress over the long term. It's also why we must be faithful: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let me suggest that any investment in making your kid R.I.C.H. - in relationships, identity, Christ, or heart & hands experiences - is worthwhile.
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Purpose of Surge
Six years ago I scrawled out a question that was nagging me and has been nagging me ever since: What's the best tangible benefit a kid can take away from their involvement in our weekend programs? Is it some nugget of truth? Is it a warm feeling toward church? Is it a chance to serve others?
It turns out the answer is something that sounds about as cliched as they come: it's God. The answer is always "God" in church, isn't it?
So that's the task. How do we get these kids to God, and get God to these kids? Not information about God - that's relatively easy. No, the scores of young people who are walking away from churches that raised them are not lacking knowledge about God. Many of them think there's nothing left to learn (an inevitable consequence of us making church too much like school, because after all, school is something you eventually finish and then move on from) and that they have a handle on God: he's ancient, he's static, and he's pretty much irrelevant to now.
Once we acknowledge that second-hand experience does not substitute for first-hand experience, the objective is plain and simple: encountering God. Achieving that objective is not so simple! And that's the paradox. We believe in a God who is everywhere and can do anything, yet we're directly opposed by cultural messages that claim God isn't anywhere and can't do anything.
Exposing that lie does not happen by skillful argumentation. It's not the product of logical proofs or flashy showmanship. God can use all of those things, but it isn't really until he breaks through all of our machinations to touch an individual human soul that a person really encounters God.
To me, that's the short-term goal: kids meeting God, often, again and again. It might be in our room, or it might be in the quietness of their own bedroom at home. It might be in a moment of adversity, or at a camp, or standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. It might be in the midst of family, surrounded by people who love them, or in the loneliest moment of their life. But God is there, and they meet him.
We've even distilled this into a snappy little "Driving Purpose Statement": The purpose of Surge is to come alongside the work God is already doing in each 4th, 5th, and 6th grader and create some "spiritual momentum" by continually putting them in God's path.
There are a few assumptions baked into that sentence above. One is that God is already at work. Kids don't come to us empty, because God and talk about God and ideas about God are not absent from the world. So since we don't start from scratch, it follows that the product of what we do isn't something we create! The point is to expose and name and try to understand what's already there, namely, the spiritual reality that undergirds all of our lives.
Another assumption is that God is at work specifically in each kid. For some, he is around and about them, in their world, but he has not been acknowledged or received. For others, he has been received, but is in competition with a host of other influences and interests for the title of "master".
A third is the simple belief that meeting God personally always changes us. And one of the most significant changes is that our desire to know him and capacity to "get" him grows more and more. It's not uncommon for kids at this age to go through a period of fascination with God. They suddenly have lots of questions, and they're into reading the Bible or other Christian literature. What's happening? They're meeting him - in a way we can't engineer, we can only nurture. When this interest wanes, its usually because we didn't feed it, or because we pushed too hard. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way of what God is trying to do!
What does a God encounter look like? Well, you know it when you see it. For one thing, it's pretty personal. Kids are gaining insights and acting in ways that show you they've connected with something beyond themselves. For another, it's unpredictable - you really can't manufacture it. But if that's the case, then what's the point of church? What can church do? As the statement above says, we can "put them in God's path."
That's how I see our weekend ministry, our midweek ministry, our camps, our outreach events (like KidsGames)...all of them are "teeing up" potential God encounters, and building the infrastructure for continued God encounters years down the road. That doesn't mean everything we do is stained glass and pipe organs (come to think of it, none of what we do is stained glass and pipe organs). In fact, you can see how that might stand in the way of people meeting God. So a lot of what we do might not look incredibly "churchy". It may even be - gasp - fun! But that's ok, because God and fun are not mutually exclusive. I don't want kids growing up thinking that all God stuff is gloomy and sad and serious, that if fun or smiling or laughter is involved, God can't be in it. Do you?
But there's a longer-term goal associated with Surge, too. It is that one day we might see a generation of adult Christians who are unhindered in their worship of God: not weighed down by debt, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, materialism, isolation, workaholism, narcissism, etc. In a word, a generation that is free. "It is for freedom that you have been set free," the Apostle Paul tells us, but how many of us take that freedom - our salvation - and yet live in lives of bondage that we cannot or will not extract ourselves from? The better way is to live in fellowship with God - God in us, us in God - and be so deeply invested in that relationship that our lives grow rock-solid: God-centered, Spirit-filled, truth-founded, mission-minded, others-focused, and purpose-driven.
That's what we must ultimately train them for. Such lives do not come about overnight. And they will not happen unless kids start to meet Him.
It turns out the answer is something that sounds about as cliched as they come: it's God. The answer is always "God" in church, isn't it?
So that's the task. How do we get these kids to God, and get God to these kids? Not information about God - that's relatively easy. No, the scores of young people who are walking away from churches that raised them are not lacking knowledge about God. Many of them think there's nothing left to learn (an inevitable consequence of us making church too much like school, because after all, school is something you eventually finish and then move on from) and that they have a handle on God: he's ancient, he's static, and he's pretty much irrelevant to now.
Once we acknowledge that second-hand experience does not substitute for first-hand experience, the objective is plain and simple: encountering God. Achieving that objective is not so simple! And that's the paradox. We believe in a God who is everywhere and can do anything, yet we're directly opposed by cultural messages that claim God isn't anywhere and can't do anything.
Exposing that lie does not happen by skillful argumentation. It's not the product of logical proofs or flashy showmanship. God can use all of those things, but it isn't really until he breaks through all of our machinations to touch an individual human soul that a person really encounters God.
To me, that's the short-term goal: kids meeting God, often, again and again. It might be in our room, or it might be in the quietness of their own bedroom at home. It might be in a moment of adversity, or at a camp, or standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. It might be in the midst of family, surrounded by people who love them, or in the loneliest moment of their life. But God is there, and they meet him.
We've even distilled this into a snappy little "Driving Purpose Statement": The purpose of Surge is to come alongside the work God is already doing in each 4th, 5th, and 6th grader and create some "spiritual momentum" by continually putting them in God's path.
There are a few assumptions baked into that sentence above. One is that God is already at work. Kids don't come to us empty, because God and talk about God and ideas about God are not absent from the world. So since we don't start from scratch, it follows that the product of what we do isn't something we create! The point is to expose and name and try to understand what's already there, namely, the spiritual reality that undergirds all of our lives.
Another assumption is that God is at work specifically in each kid. For some, he is around and about them, in their world, but he has not been acknowledged or received. For others, he has been received, but is in competition with a host of other influences and interests for the title of "master".
A third is the simple belief that meeting God personally always changes us. And one of the most significant changes is that our desire to know him and capacity to "get" him grows more and more. It's not uncommon for kids at this age to go through a period of fascination with God. They suddenly have lots of questions, and they're into reading the Bible or other Christian literature. What's happening? They're meeting him - in a way we can't engineer, we can only nurture. When this interest wanes, its usually because we didn't feed it, or because we pushed too hard. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way of what God is trying to do!
What does a God encounter look like? Well, you know it when you see it. For one thing, it's pretty personal. Kids are gaining insights and acting in ways that show you they've connected with something beyond themselves. For another, it's unpredictable - you really can't manufacture it. But if that's the case, then what's the point of church? What can church do? As the statement above says, we can "put them in God's path."
That's how I see our weekend ministry, our midweek ministry, our camps, our outreach events (like KidsGames)...all of them are "teeing up" potential God encounters, and building the infrastructure for continued God encounters years down the road. That doesn't mean everything we do is stained glass and pipe organs (come to think of it, none of what we do is stained glass and pipe organs). In fact, you can see how that might stand in the way of people meeting God. So a lot of what we do might not look incredibly "churchy". It may even be - gasp - fun! But that's ok, because God and fun are not mutually exclusive. I don't want kids growing up thinking that all God stuff is gloomy and sad and serious, that if fun or smiling or laughter is involved, God can't be in it. Do you?
But there's a longer-term goal associated with Surge, too. It is that one day we might see a generation of adult Christians who are unhindered in their worship of God: not weighed down by debt, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, materialism, isolation, workaholism, narcissism, etc. In a word, a generation that is free. "It is for freedom that you have been set free," the Apostle Paul tells us, but how many of us take that freedom - our salvation - and yet live in lives of bondage that we cannot or will not extract ourselves from? The better way is to live in fellowship with God - God in us, us in God - and be so deeply invested in that relationship that our lives grow rock-solid: God-centered, Spirit-filled, truth-founded, mission-minded, others-focused, and purpose-driven.
That's what we must ultimately train them for. Such lives do not come about overnight. And they will not happen unless kids start to meet Him.
Friday, October 11, 2013
The Continuing Need to Build Up Girls
Friday of this week marked the 2nd annual "International Day of the Girl." The United Nations created this day to focus attention on the rights and challenges of girls around the globe. This year's emphasis is ensuring that girls everywhere can get an education. While the stated purposes of the day may seem a little foreign to us (after all, American girls are now outperforming boys in school - being more likely to complete college, among other things), I think there's plenty here to be encouraged by - and challenged.
For one thing, the effect of education on a woman's future and opportunities is staggering. We may have lost sight of this in the U.S., where women have made rapid gains in the last 100 years, and where we take for granted that, at least in theory, girls should have all of the educational and career opportunities that boys do. But worldwide, of the 880 million illiterate adults, two-thirds are women. In Nigeria, despite its oil wealth, many girls receive only six months of school for their entire lifetimes. In areas of the Horn of Africa, girls don't go to school for fear of being abducted and forced to marry.
Again, concerns like these aren't even on the radar screen of most Americans. But let's peel back national identities and try to examine this from a purely human point of view. Otherwise we get mired down in arguments about "equal rights" and "equal pay" and "special rights" and "gender bias, all of which distract us from the truths, which are:
So there are cultural pressures that work to marginalize women and girls, pressures that must be curbed with intentionality. And as soon as we relax those efforts, women and girls are in danger of losing the ground they've gained. [Alert: If you think I'm saying women can't achieve things by hard work, relax - that's not my point at all. Nor am I making any kind of point about women with careers vs. wives & mothers. Here again, it's helpful to broaden our focus beyond the United States: there's a vast difference between a poor woman in sub-Saharan Africa who has no access to education or career options and a woman in a developed nation who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom.]
You and I might call that package of pressures "sin" - part of our collective fallen condition. After all, being female is not itself a sin. God "created them male and female", the Bible says in Genesis 1:26. And historically, Christianity has done as much - I daresay more - than any other movement to dignify and raise the status of women. So it's part of our tradition to stand by and stand up for people who the world puts down. "Many who are last will be first, and the first will be last" in the Kingdom of God, and "whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be made great."
So as standard-bearers of that tradition, we are bound to continue to uphold and protect the dignity of women, by advocating for the health, education, and opportunity of girls worldwide. In our culture, of course, girls face obstacles of a different sort. They are pressured to accept unrealistic body image ideals, pressured to become sexualized too young, pressured not to appear too smart in school, pressured to not pursue certain careers that are male-dominated. We dignify them when we create environments and bring alongside mentors who allow these girls to be who they really are - rather than silently conforming to who the culture says they ought to be.
Our high school ministry at North Coast Calvary Chapel runs an event every other year called "Unveiling". It's a conference for high school-aged girls that aims to "unveil" the lies our culture tells girls about what they are and can and should become. This year's event is November 15-16. If you have a daughter that age or know a teenage girl, send her. It only costs $39. Meanwhile, as we work with girls in 4th, 5th and 6th grades, girls who are just embarking on the journey of adolescence, the job before us is to launch them into middle school with both eyes open, hopefully to keep them from buying those lies in the first place. But we're fighting: fighting culture that wants to define them, fighting inertia that says, "we'll never change it", and fighting a short-sighted vision that expects girls to suffer, rather than thrive.
For one thing, the effect of education on a woman's future and opportunities is staggering. We may have lost sight of this in the U.S., where women have made rapid gains in the last 100 years, and where we take for granted that, at least in theory, girls should have all of the educational and career opportunities that boys do. But worldwide, of the 880 million illiterate adults, two-thirds are women. In Nigeria, despite its oil wealth, many girls receive only six months of school for their entire lifetimes. In areas of the Horn of Africa, girls don't go to school for fear of being abducted and forced to marry.
Again, concerns like these aren't even on the radar screen of most Americans. But let's peel back national identities and try to examine this from a purely human point of view. Otherwise we get mired down in arguments about "equal rights" and "equal pay" and "special rights" and "gender bias, all of which distract us from the truths, which are:
- Education makes women better parents. A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five.
- The World Bank says an extra year of education nets a 20% increase in earnings as an adult.
- There are 31 million girl children who are of school age who are not attending school.
- Girls who are educated end up having fewer children, lower rates of HIV and rates of AIDS transmission to their children, and healthier children.
So there are cultural pressures that work to marginalize women and girls, pressures that must be curbed with intentionality. And as soon as we relax those efforts, women and girls are in danger of losing the ground they've gained. [Alert: If you think I'm saying women can't achieve things by hard work, relax - that's not my point at all. Nor am I making any kind of point about women with careers vs. wives & mothers. Here again, it's helpful to broaden our focus beyond the United States: there's a vast difference between a poor woman in sub-Saharan Africa who has no access to education or career options and a woman in a developed nation who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom.]
You and I might call that package of pressures "sin" - part of our collective fallen condition. After all, being female is not itself a sin. God "created them male and female", the Bible says in Genesis 1:26. And historically, Christianity has done as much - I daresay more - than any other movement to dignify and raise the status of women. So it's part of our tradition to stand by and stand up for people who the world puts down. "Many who are last will be first, and the first will be last" in the Kingdom of God, and "whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be made great."
So as standard-bearers of that tradition, we are bound to continue to uphold and protect the dignity of women, by advocating for the health, education, and opportunity of girls worldwide. In our culture, of course, girls face obstacles of a different sort. They are pressured to accept unrealistic body image ideals, pressured to become sexualized too young, pressured not to appear too smart in school, pressured to not pursue certain careers that are male-dominated. We dignify them when we create environments and bring alongside mentors who allow these girls to be who they really are - rather than silently conforming to who the culture says they ought to be.
Our high school ministry at North Coast Calvary Chapel runs an event every other year called "Unveiling". It's a conference for high school-aged girls that aims to "unveil" the lies our culture tells girls about what they are and can and should become. This year's event is November 15-16. If you have a daughter that age or know a teenage girl, send her. It only costs $39. Meanwhile, as we work with girls in 4th, 5th and 6th grades, girls who are just embarking on the journey of adolescence, the job before us is to launch them into middle school with both eyes open, hopefully to keep them from buying those lies in the first place. But we're fighting: fighting culture that wants to define them, fighting inertia that says, "we'll never change it", and fighting a short-sighted vision that expects girls to suffer, rather than thrive.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Why I Really Hope to See You this Wednesday
Wednesday night begins year #2 of something special at our church. We're certainly not the first ones to do a family night, but the event known as "The Harbor" has taken on a life and character all its own. In a nutshell, it's a night where we try to pull together our very best resources - classes & support groups for parents, relationally rich and interesting activities for kids (not just "school"), and an atmosphere that feels like, "We're all in this together." That's The Harbor. And you can be a part of this.
No, you don't need "one more thing." None of us do. But that's why we've designed The Harbor as we have. We meet for six weeks in the fall, six weeks in the winter, and six weeks in the spring. Six weeks of our best - and then time for you to digest and put into practice what you've learned and - hopefully - to keep new friendships going with other families you've met.
After all, the real adventure is out on the seas; the harbor is just where boats go when the captain needs a safe place to rest. That's what we've designed The Harbor to be. You can eat dinner with us, you can drop off your kids, and you can be real about the parenting struggles you have trying to raise 21st-century kids.
Here are seven quick reasons I think you should check out The Harbor (and it's not too late):
1. It helps to make a big church small. In 4th-6th grade, we have kids from 67+ public, private, and home schools. Simply put, your kids need to make some friends at church, because it's not likely that most of their friends from school are among their peers at church. And when kids come to church all alone, they end up feeling all alone until they get to know other kids. Camps help with this. So do small groups. The Harbor is one more way to achieve some familiarity, as kids work and play side-by-side.
2. Our kid program people are really fired up. After last year (our first in this format), we discovered some things that worked well, and others that needed fixing. One thing we found about the 4th-6th grade program was that it wasn't very "sticky". The content was good and kids enjoyed it, but there wasn't much compelling them to come back the next week. This year's is designed to have more of a team feel to it - again, making big church small.
3. KidUnique. It's the class I'm sitting in on, and this program looks great. Maybe you have a kid who's so different from you, or one you don't know how to motivate. Or, maybe they're just like you - and that can be part of the problem, because it's hard to see where you end and they begin. KidUnique is a method and a process for discovering a kid's unique design so that you can support and encourage them as they grow. And it's being taught by two of my favorite people, Julie and Charlie Capps, whom I've known since I started at the church eight years ago. Julie has been in touch with the creator of the program and he's endorsed her plans for the class. I think this one is going to be very popular.
4. Single & Parenting. Last year, we finally got a group for single moms off the ground. Sorely needed, and Susan Kolonay proved to be just the right leader. This year, we're able (because of a new curriculum) to offer a group for dads, too. Brett Bieber will lead that one. It's fun to see both of them so motivated to bring the ministry to single parents.
5. Captivating. Linda Stewart brought this study to my attention last spring, while she and her husband were leading another class. It's a John Eldredge book (Wild at Heart) co-written with his wife Staci. Similar to Wild at Heart, it's a book about discovering true identity. It's for women only, but the added benefit is that whatever moms learn can be passed on to their daughters.
6. Raising a Modern-Day Knight. We're forming a nucleus of really dedicated dads who are intentional about raising their sons. This summer I got invited to an 18th birthday dinner for a kid whose dad did the program about six years ago. The dad has been following it ever since, with rites of passage at 13, 16, and now 18. How cool to see the steps he'd taken, and how healthy their relationship is. RMDK's influence stretches well beyond the six weeks of the class; as such, it's well-worth the $30 investment.
7. Marriage from the Heart workshop. Jeff Reinke from Marriage & Family has put together a team of all-stars who will be presenting on different weeks about connecting on a heart level. Forgiveness, conflict, communication, and understanding your spouse's heart are just some of the topics to be covered. The facilitators can all share from their personal experiences how they've made it work.
Finally, let me encourage you that there's a lot at The Harbor that's of general interest. It isn't necessarily a "church program" - The Harbor is for anybody. We want to be good neighbors, and one of the ways we do that is by sharing the wealth of resources that we have. So pull in to The Harbor - there's a place for you here, too.
No, you don't need "one more thing." None of us do. But that's why we've designed The Harbor as we have. We meet for six weeks in the fall, six weeks in the winter, and six weeks in the spring. Six weeks of our best - and then time for you to digest and put into practice what you've learned and - hopefully - to keep new friendships going with other families you've met.
After all, the real adventure is out on the seas; the harbor is just where boats go when the captain needs a safe place to rest. That's what we've designed The Harbor to be. You can eat dinner with us, you can drop off your kids, and you can be real about the parenting struggles you have trying to raise 21st-century kids.
Here are seven quick reasons I think you should check out The Harbor (and it's not too late):
1. It helps to make a big church small. In 4th-6th grade, we have kids from 67+ public, private, and home schools. Simply put, your kids need to make some friends at church, because it's not likely that most of their friends from school are among their peers at church. And when kids come to church all alone, they end up feeling all alone until they get to know other kids. Camps help with this. So do small groups. The Harbor is one more way to achieve some familiarity, as kids work and play side-by-side.
2. Our kid program people are really fired up. After last year (our first in this format), we discovered some things that worked well, and others that needed fixing. One thing we found about the 4th-6th grade program was that it wasn't very "sticky". The content was good and kids enjoyed it, but there wasn't much compelling them to come back the next week. This year's is designed to have more of a team feel to it - again, making big church small.
3. KidUnique. It's the class I'm sitting in on, and this program looks great. Maybe you have a kid who's so different from you, or one you don't know how to motivate. Or, maybe they're just like you - and that can be part of the problem, because it's hard to see where you end and they begin. KidUnique is a method and a process for discovering a kid's unique design so that you can support and encourage them as they grow. And it's being taught by two of my favorite people, Julie and Charlie Capps, whom I've known since I started at the church eight years ago. Julie has been in touch with the creator of the program and he's endorsed her plans for the class. I think this one is going to be very popular.
4. Single & Parenting. Last year, we finally got a group for single moms off the ground. Sorely needed, and Susan Kolonay proved to be just the right leader. This year, we're able (because of a new curriculum) to offer a group for dads, too. Brett Bieber will lead that one. It's fun to see both of them so motivated to bring the ministry to single parents.
5. Captivating. Linda Stewart brought this study to my attention last spring, while she and her husband were leading another class. It's a John Eldredge book (Wild at Heart) co-written with his wife Staci. Similar to Wild at Heart, it's a book about discovering true identity. It's for women only, but the added benefit is that whatever moms learn can be passed on to their daughters.
6. Raising a Modern-Day Knight. We're forming a nucleus of really dedicated dads who are intentional about raising their sons. This summer I got invited to an 18th birthday dinner for a kid whose dad did the program about six years ago. The dad has been following it ever since, with rites of passage at 13, 16, and now 18. How cool to see the steps he'd taken, and how healthy their relationship is. RMDK's influence stretches well beyond the six weeks of the class; as such, it's well-worth the $30 investment.
7. Marriage from the Heart workshop. Jeff Reinke from Marriage & Family has put together a team of all-stars who will be presenting on different weeks about connecting on a heart level. Forgiveness, conflict, communication, and understanding your spouse's heart are just some of the topics to be covered. The facilitators can all share from their personal experiences how they've made it work.
Finally, let me encourage you that there's a lot at The Harbor that's of general interest. It isn't necessarily a "church program" - The Harbor is for anybody. We want to be good neighbors, and one of the ways we do that is by sharing the wealth of resources that we have. So pull in to The Harbor - there's a place for you here, too.
Friday, September 6, 2013
What I'm Reading - New stuff about familiar subjects
Once again this week, I figured why put my words down when I could just share with you some of what I've been reading? So here they are:
FYI (if you're a teenage girl) - an open letter from a mom who's taking proactive steps to shield her sons from provocative social media pics.
The six ways we talk about a teenage girl's age - the subtitle of this piece tells it all: "The idea that a teen can be 'older than her chronological age' puts young girls in danger."
It's been observed by a few of us on staff that every preteen/teenage issue these days is tied to sex, technology, or some combination of the two. In response, we are working on a calendar of public events for this school year that will talk about those issues, from various angles. I'd like to think if we do it once, and do it well, we won't have to do it again. Sadly, that's a fantasy. The tech is here to stay; the sex has been with us since the dawn of time, but we do seem to be living in an age that celebrates experimentation and indulgence, regardless of the long-term cost.
There are signs of hope: More and more articles (like the one above about language that justifies and condones teenage illicit sexual activity) are cropping up, and not necessarily on Christian websites. There seems to be a collective sense that some socially agreed-upon boundaries, elusive as they may be, are needed.
That unfortunately makes your kids the Guinea Pig Generation. Their kids will grow up with better social conventions regarding the use of technology, particularly in self-expression. For now, it's the Wild, Wild West.
[I hope to see you Wednesday night as Mark & Jan Foreman share on parenting. And look into The Harbor, our Wednesday night program that kicks off September 18, for more info on classes and groups that help families raise their 21st-century kid.]
FYI (if you're a teenage girl) - an open letter from a mom who's taking proactive steps to shield her sons from provocative social media pics.
The six ways we talk about a teenage girl's age - the subtitle of this piece tells it all: "The idea that a teen can be 'older than her chronological age' puts young girls in danger."
It's been observed by a few of us on staff that every preteen/teenage issue these days is tied to sex, technology, or some combination of the two. In response, we are working on a calendar of public events for this school year that will talk about those issues, from various angles. I'd like to think if we do it once, and do it well, we won't have to do it again. Sadly, that's a fantasy. The tech is here to stay; the sex has been with us since the dawn of time, but we do seem to be living in an age that celebrates experimentation and indulgence, regardless of the long-term cost.
There are signs of hope: More and more articles (like the one above about language that justifies and condones teenage illicit sexual activity) are cropping up, and not necessarily on Christian websites. There seems to be a collective sense that some socially agreed-upon boundaries, elusive as they may be, are needed.
That unfortunately makes your kids the Guinea Pig Generation. Their kids will grow up with better social conventions regarding the use of technology, particularly in self-expression. For now, it's the Wild, Wild West.
[I hope to see you Wednesday night as Mark & Jan Foreman share on parenting. And look into The Harbor, our Wednesday night program that kicks off September 18, for more info on classes and groups that help families raise their 21st-century kid.]
Friday, August 30, 2013
The Bad News and the Good News About Miley...and all that
Given the amount of ink spilled this week on Miley Cyrus' graphic attempt to put the Hannah Montana image behind her forever, I didn't feel particularly compelled to add my voice to the mix. And I feel that, as with most flash-in-the-pan pop-culture moments, the real implications aren't always immediately clear.
Instead, I'll just let you read what I've been reading.
Bad song lyrics: suggestions for addressing the music your kids are listening to
This one's not specific to Miley Cyrus, but it's more globally related to the whole issue of kids in a hyper-sexualized culture:
Three Things You Don't Know About Your Children and Sex
And parents, do you know about www.commonsensemedia.org? This site is a treasure trove of information on video games, movies, tv shows, apps, websites, and games. Definitely worth your time.
Instead, I'll just let you read what I've been reading.
Bad song lyrics: suggestions for addressing the music your kids are listening to
This one's not specific to Miley Cyrus, but it's more globally related to the whole issue of kids in a hyper-sexualized culture:
Three Things You Don't Know About Your Children and Sex
And parents, do you know about www.commonsensemedia.org? This site is a treasure trove of information on video games, movies, tv shows, apps, websites, and games. Definitely worth your time.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Here's to your ordinary kid
The British royal baby came into the world this week. He
will live a life unlike any child, ever. From the moment he was conceived – not
born, but conceived – little George has been a celebrity. And while most of us
dream of fame and might fantasize about being royalty, the lesson for us is
actually the opposite: as you watch this child’s life unfold, rejoice in your
ordinariness.
On Tuesday morning, as the world waited for him to emerge
from the hospital, one commentator noted that when the baby’s father, Prince
William, left the hospital, there were exactly two television cameras outside.
This baby came out to a crowd full of would-be Internet journalists, each armed
with an iPhone. Poor kid. We can only hope and expect that every royal baby
burp and diaper change will soon become mundane, and the little prince will be
given at least a couple years of non-attention in the public eye.
But that’s not likely. And why? Why such intense interest in this particular child, when millions of
babies are born every day? William and Kate made some perfunctory remarks about
the baby’s looks and hair and their own excitement, but as Kate said, “any
family” would know what they were feeling.
On CNN, one commentator suggested that this birth – and this
life – was special because it stands in opposition to so much going on in the
world right now: child disease, abuse, genocide, crime. But that assumes two
things. One is that this child will lead a model life – in fact, an
extraordinary life – exempted from personal heartache, tragedy, and dysfunction
and untouched by the brokenness of others. In other words, that he’ll live a
truly fantasy life.
The other assumption is that all of the rest of us live in a
world pretty close to the dismal one described by that CNN commentator. And
that isn’t quite right, either. New births, first steps, first words, and a
child’s discovery of the world around them is part of our everyday world – and
these things are every bit as miraculous and wonder-filled as when they happen
to someone whose name begins with “Prince”.
The disadvantage this prince will suffer is that the idyllic
expectations of the whole world for childhood will be upon him. The
perfectibility myth that our kids labor under (the one that never quite pans
out) will be magnified in him. Consider that, years from now, when stories hit
the Internet about the little prince failing a spelling test, or getting a
black eye, or arguing with his siblings, or not taking his college studies
seriously – events so common to our shared broken experience it’s amazing that
they can ever be considered “news”.
Meanwhile, you and your kids live comparatively ordinary
lives. And you can be thankful for that. No photographers will be waiting in
your driveway when you leave tomorrow. No one will be holding your kid under a
microscope, examining every move. Kids are not royalty: not princes, not
princesses. Why anyone would wish that on a kid is beyond me.
Today, be thankful for your very ordinary kid. Celebrate the
ordinary but profound things they do. Take heart in the fact that not everything is hopeless – and you
didn’t need a royal baby’s birth to prove it. At the same time, make every
effort to take them down off the pedestal reserved for royalty. Kids need room
to live and to grow, to make mistakes and to learn life lessons. They don’t
need us to be anxiously fixated on their growth, as the popular press will
surely be fixated on George. They just need us to be faithful.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Can Kids Outgrow God?
(originally posted August 2011)
During the last eight years of overseeing 4th-6th grade ministry at NCCC, I’ve had the parallel experience of watching my nieces and nephews grow up from babies to preschool and elementary school-aged kids. Through holiday visits, Skype, Facebook, and home videos I have been able to glimpse pieces of their faith development, and it’s been fascinating. I’ve observed prayers, Sunday school programs and songs, heard some Bible stories retold, and picked up some nuggets that reflect their young understanding of God’s big world and their place in it.
At the same time, I've witnessed each developmental stage and phase, and laughed with the rest of my family as the kids move from one obsession to the next. Blue, Dora, The Wiggles, Elmo, Spiderman, cowboys, and the Disney princesses have all had their day. But soon, each is eclipsed by the next favorite thing, and the old hero gets passed down to the next-youngest sibling. At their houses, Santa Claus is still alive and well at Christmas time. But this won’t last forever.
My hope, of course, is that their curiosity, interest, and affinity for God as they grow up will never go the way of Elmo. And that is my hope for your kid as well. It’s worth asking the question: Can kids outgrow God? Can he lose his currency, becoming yesterday’s news, just at the time when kids begin facing questions like, “Who am I?” and “What was I created for?” and “What am I worth?” Too many adults attempt to answer those questions with the very author of life shunted to the sidelines.
We dare not let that happen.
Does God live in storybooks?
I am a fan of Bible storybooks for young kids. Our family had one, and I still can recall “what Adam and Eve looked like,” and the fierceness of God’s wrath represented by a red sky, and the wily Jacob fooling his father into thinking he was Esau. Of course, those weren’t true pictures, but some artist’s rendering. But to me, they were “real." Young kids, being concrete thinkers, receive and store those early impressions and images for a long, long time. (When I was four, I thought our pastor and God were one and the same - probably the reason I still, without thinking, picture God having a red beard and not a gray one.) The downside to cartoonish representations, though, is that they can lead kids to believe that “Bible stories” and “Bible characters” were fictional. This is a symptom of a larger phenomenon that kids face as they grow. Bible storybooks are not the problem (not even a problem).
The issue is this: are kids’ conceptions of God allowed and encouraged to grow as they do?
We – the churches that serve them and the families that raise them – hold the key to the answer. To the extent that we “create” their understanding of God by the stories we tell, the symbols we use, the holidays we celebrate, and the way we worship (and countless other ways), kids’ knowledge of God is largely dependent on us. I do not deny that young children think thoughts about God completely on their own, nor that they can enjoy an unmediated relationship with him without any help from us. But that relationship does not exist in a vacuum. It is always culturally conditioned by the expressed thoughts and attitudes of the adults (that is, the authority figures) who run their world.
And so, we are responsible, not only for creating a picture of God that is true in their minds as young children, but also for continuing to refine and update kids’ views of God as they grow. If we are diligent about giving them Jesus when they are young, but then back off as they grow older, we run the risk that as kids grow up, they’ll consider God “kiddie stuff”, a relic from early childhood.
We dare not let that happen.
A different approach
As a kid becomes a preteen (and there’s no defining criteria for that), their ability to think and reason abstractly will blossom. As it does, they reach a junction in the development of personal faith. The question usually takes a form like, “Is God really real?” but what they’re actually asking is “Is God relevant?” As the serpent tempted Eve – “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree?” – kids also want to know whether God belongs only to the simple world they’re growing out of, or if he has a place in the more complicated world of the future? And if so, what is it?
About this same time, kids come to realize that parents and other adults aren’t perfect, that grown-ups break promises, aren’t superhuman, and actually get away with doing a fair number of the things they tell their kids not to do. What does this knowledge do to a kid’s faith, when up until that time, the adults in their lives have been the embodiment of qualities like power and might and authority and love and right – all of the same attributes that are ascribed to God? It’s common and almost unavoidable for a young child to perceive of God as a human. The concept of God being beyond human – that he is spiritual and eternal and holy? That’s a new one for older kids to make sense of.
And here’s another change: older kids exercise more leadership over their own lives. Young children make very few meaningful decisions for themselves. But older elementary kids get much greater latitude to decide who they’ll be and how they’ll act and how they’ll spend their time. And this is good – it is the birth of autonomy, which will someday lead them into life as an adult, no longer dependent on parental oversight. (Some preteen ministry colleagues of mine refer to this necessary stage as “Letting Go of the Bike.”) But, one of the skills needed to handle autonomy is the ability to discern good leaders from bad leaders. “Who should I follow?” is a key developmental step – it is the art of self-leadership. Older kids and adolescents are bombarded with cues about “how to be”: social cues, academic cues, family cues, cultural cues, internal emotional cues. It’s bewildering. Obeying God is suddenly no longer as simple as just obeying Mom and Dad.
I believe that to minister (literally, to serve or to meet the needs of) this age group, we ought to encourage and allow kids to bring God out of the box, out from the packaging he resided in when they were young children, and to meet, experience, relate, and walk with him in a new way. I don’t dismiss childhood faith; but neither do I rest on it. Young kids, for instance, say some pretty cute things about God. But what 10-year-old wants to be known for the cute things he used to say when he was five?
So, can kids outgrow God? In an actual sense, no. Of course God is big enough for all of our lives, and is always several steps ahead of us. But in a practical sense, yes. If we’re not diligent to push kids to grow in their faith – just as we would encourage them at this age to grow in athletic potential or grow in knowledge or grow in new experiences – then their faith will be immature as they grow right past it. I can’t help but think of a 9th grade boy I once led in a high school small group. We had just met, but it was evident he was attending youth group in body only. As he explained, “I figure I pretty much know everything there is to know about God.” How wrong he was, and how sadly his life unfolded in the years that followed, when he reached the point of his greatest need, yet God wasn’t even on the radar screen.
I don’t know what exactly brought him to the point where he thought he “pretty much knew everything there was to know about God,” but I suspect the culprit may have been one of the following:
During the last eight years of overseeing 4th-6th grade ministry at NCCC, I’ve had the parallel experience of watching my nieces and nephews grow up from babies to preschool and elementary school-aged kids. Through holiday visits, Skype, Facebook, and home videos I have been able to glimpse pieces of their faith development, and it’s been fascinating. I’ve observed prayers, Sunday school programs and songs, heard some Bible stories retold, and picked up some nuggets that reflect their young understanding of God’s big world and their place in it.
At the same time, I've witnessed each developmental stage and phase, and laughed with the rest of my family as the kids move from one obsession to the next. Blue, Dora, The Wiggles, Elmo, Spiderman, cowboys, and the Disney princesses have all had their day. But soon, each is eclipsed by the next favorite thing, and the old hero gets passed down to the next-youngest sibling. At their houses, Santa Claus is still alive and well at Christmas time. But this won’t last forever.
My hope, of course, is that their curiosity, interest, and affinity for God as they grow up will never go the way of Elmo. And that is my hope for your kid as well. It’s worth asking the question: Can kids outgrow God? Can he lose his currency, becoming yesterday’s news, just at the time when kids begin facing questions like, “Who am I?” and “What was I created for?” and “What am I worth?” Too many adults attempt to answer those questions with the very author of life shunted to the sidelines.
We dare not let that happen.
Does God live in storybooks?
I am a fan of Bible storybooks for young kids. Our family had one, and I still can recall “what Adam and Eve looked like,” and the fierceness of God’s wrath represented by a red sky, and the wily Jacob fooling his father into thinking he was Esau. Of course, those weren’t true pictures, but some artist’s rendering. But to me, they were “real." Young kids, being concrete thinkers, receive and store those early impressions and images for a long, long time. (When I was four, I thought our pastor and God were one and the same - probably the reason I still, without thinking, picture God having a red beard and not a gray one.) The downside to cartoonish representations, though, is that they can lead kids to believe that “Bible stories” and “Bible characters” were fictional. This is a symptom of a larger phenomenon that kids face as they grow. Bible storybooks are not the problem (not even a problem).
The issue is this: are kids’ conceptions of God allowed and encouraged to grow as they do?
We – the churches that serve them and the families that raise them – hold the key to the answer. To the extent that we “create” their understanding of God by the stories we tell, the symbols we use, the holidays we celebrate, and the way we worship (and countless other ways), kids’ knowledge of God is largely dependent on us. I do not deny that young children think thoughts about God completely on their own, nor that they can enjoy an unmediated relationship with him without any help from us. But that relationship does not exist in a vacuum. It is always culturally conditioned by the expressed thoughts and attitudes of the adults (that is, the authority figures) who run their world.
And so, we are responsible, not only for creating a picture of God that is true in their minds as young children, but also for continuing to refine and update kids’ views of God as they grow. If we are diligent about giving them Jesus when they are young, but then back off as they grow older, we run the risk that as kids grow up, they’ll consider God “kiddie stuff”, a relic from early childhood.
We dare not let that happen.
A different approach
As a kid becomes a preteen (and there’s no defining criteria for that), their ability to think and reason abstractly will blossom. As it does, they reach a junction in the development of personal faith. The question usually takes a form like, “Is God really real?” but what they’re actually asking is “Is God relevant?” As the serpent tempted Eve – “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree?” – kids also want to know whether God belongs only to the simple world they’re growing out of, or if he has a place in the more complicated world of the future? And if so, what is it?
About this same time, kids come to realize that parents and other adults aren’t perfect, that grown-ups break promises, aren’t superhuman, and actually get away with doing a fair number of the things they tell their kids not to do. What does this knowledge do to a kid’s faith, when up until that time, the adults in their lives have been the embodiment of qualities like power and might and authority and love and right – all of the same attributes that are ascribed to God? It’s common and almost unavoidable for a young child to perceive of God as a human. The concept of God being beyond human – that he is spiritual and eternal and holy? That’s a new one for older kids to make sense of.
And here’s another change: older kids exercise more leadership over their own lives. Young children make very few meaningful decisions for themselves. But older elementary kids get much greater latitude to decide who they’ll be and how they’ll act and how they’ll spend their time. And this is good – it is the birth of autonomy, which will someday lead them into life as an adult, no longer dependent on parental oversight. (Some preteen ministry colleagues of mine refer to this necessary stage as “Letting Go of the Bike.”) But, one of the skills needed to handle autonomy is the ability to discern good leaders from bad leaders. “Who should I follow?” is a key developmental step – it is the art of self-leadership. Older kids and adolescents are bombarded with cues about “how to be”: social cues, academic cues, family cues, cultural cues, internal emotional cues. It’s bewildering. Obeying God is suddenly no longer as simple as just obeying Mom and Dad.
I believe that to minister (literally, to serve or to meet the needs of) this age group, we ought to encourage and allow kids to bring God out of the box, out from the packaging he resided in when they were young children, and to meet, experience, relate, and walk with him in a new way. I don’t dismiss childhood faith; but neither do I rest on it. Young kids, for instance, say some pretty cute things about God. But what 10-year-old wants to be known for the cute things he used to say when he was five?
So, can kids outgrow God? In an actual sense, no. Of course God is big enough for all of our lives, and is always several steps ahead of us. But in a practical sense, yes. If we’re not diligent to push kids to grow in their faith – just as we would encourage them at this age to grow in athletic potential or grow in knowledge or grow in new experiences – then their faith will be immature as they grow right past it. I can’t help but think of a 9th grade boy I once led in a high school small group. We had just met, but it was evident he was attending youth group in body only. As he explained, “I figure I pretty much know everything there is to know about God.” How wrong he was, and how sadly his life unfolded in the years that followed, when he reached the point of his greatest need, yet God wasn’t even on the radar screen.
I don’t know what exactly brought him to the point where he thought he “pretty much knew everything there was to know about God,” but I suspect the culprit may have been one of the following:
- Church programs for kids that were boring
- Church programs that too closely resembled school
- Programming that mistook fervor (“Scream for Jesus!”) for spiritual depth
- Adults who talked too much and listened too little
- Music intended to glorify God but that was too childish to work
- Too-simple, pat answers to his questions
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