Meet Joan Stevenson, Elementary Department Leader

“Children are at the very center of life in the kingdom of God.” These words from Mark 10:8 (The Message) changed my life recently. I see life with God as an adventure. I want to be in the middle of the action, not missing one thing God has for me. So as I sat one morning with Jesus, contemplating stepping back onto staff with our Children’s Ministry, these words spoke to me. 

My husband and I have called NCCC home since 1997. I ran our junior high ministry from 1997-2003 until my son was born. Since that time, my husband and I have served in every age and grade of our awesome Children’s Ministry. For the past two years I have also had the privilege of being part of our Kids Games Team. 

I love our Kindergarten – Third Grade children and their families. These kids have the most incredible insights into who God is and their relationship with them. They are not just the future of the church. They are the church!  You should step in and see worship. You should see them lean in to soak up all they can of the Bible in our large group teaching time. You should hear their responses in small group time. This is truly the “very center of life in the kingdom of God”. 

I look forward to meeting you and I invite you come check out what is happening in our Kindergarten – Third Grade classes. Step into the action of Promiseland!

Who's On Your Kid's Team?

See also Part 1 of this series: A Big Job Ahead,
and Part 2: It's God's Work.

"Let's stay away from those kids until they're 18 before we begin winning their hearts and minds" ...said no marketer, ever.

A number of years ago, the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child" re-entered public consciousness. Unfortunately, because of who the speaker was, the comment became a lightning rod for criticism and the phrase got tainted with political meaning. But call it what you will - a village, a team, a tribe - your kid needs one, and here's why.

As the "ecology" described by John Westerhoff (the interdependent network of institutions that propagated and nurtured Christian belief and values) eroded, what took its place was not nothing. Every society of every time period is governed by values. Today, we value choice, individualism, convenience, speed, quality...things which work against Christian spirituality and growth. And you don't have to consciously choose those values - just by living in 21st-century America, you absorb them!

This pic does not represent the culture we live in...

The point is, our lives are lived in the river of culture, not the lake. A lake is calm and peaceful. You can bob endlessly or float lazily on your air raft and never really go anywhere. But a river has current. Just trying to stay in one place takes effort. And moving upstream? It'll wear you out.

...But this one does!

Meanwhile, let's not forget that there's a team - no, an army - of people wanting your kid to buy into American consumer culture. The marketers have not taken a hands-off approach to your kid. Hollywood has a vested interest in winning your their hearts and minds at a very young age. Those who dictate style and fashion are not shy about telling your son or daughter what's stylish and fashionable. People who traffic - in sex, in drugs, in culture - are not conspiring to stay away from kids. Their very existence depends on getting your kid hooked.

Who's helping you paddle upstream? Who's in the village surrounding your kid? By "village" I mean the network of supportive adults and influences that are alongside you and your kid.

Is Miley Cyrus in the picture? Do you think she's working for your kid, or against them? How about the professional athlete your kid looks up to? The older kids at the skate park? Other kids' parents? Teachers? Coaches? They might be paddling your direction, or they might be shoving your kid into the current. But they're not neutral.

That's why you can't do it alone. And let me be clear what "it" is. In the past few years, it's become trendy for churches to assert that "parents should be the primary disciplers of their kids." Some have even gone so far as to advocate abolishing church youth and children's programs, claiming that scripture only supports "family-integrated" churches. It's a bogus distinction, because this is God's work. We don't own it - not parents, not churches. God's work, in the lives of God's kids. We are merely tending, not creating.

And an important part of the tending is creating an atmosphere (or environment, or village, or world - choose your favorite) that fosters growth by inclining your kid in the direction of God. Culture creation is a team sport. (Unless you are the exception. Great. But that doesn't mean someone else doesn't need you to be on their support team for their kid.) Who's on your kid's team?

It's God's Work

Ever been here? You've been put in charge of the details of an event or project. Shortly before it's due, the boss shows up and takes over. Your plan gets modified. Heavily. The whole thing, while in line with the boss' vision, looks quite different than what you'd laid you. Now, you feel A) annoyed (Why did I do all that work?), or B) relieved (This is gonna turn out great!).

By today's management standards, what I described above would not be a "best practice". It might just be a recipe for deflating morale! Good leadership means letting people take ownership of their work.

But who "owns" the work of kids' spiritual growth?

I think the Bible is really clear: it's God. (The answer is always "God" in church, right?) Consider what Paul said when the Christians in Corinth were fighting over their allegiance to Apollos, to Peter, and to Paul. Rather than lobbying for the "favorite pastor" award, Paul corrected them sharply - even going so far as to say that their quarrel revealed their worldliness. If they'd been seeing things as they actually were, they'd know that Paul, Apollos, Peter, and others were nothing but servants. Only God deserved the credit - because only God makes spiritual growth happen:

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)

What implications are there for us? If we're seeing with spiritual eyes, we recognize clearly that you and I and programs and curriculum and amazing camps and kid devotionals are only messengers and servants...but only God makes things grow.

The work of kids' spiritual growth is God's work. We just participate in it.

How? Last week I wrote about the particular "ecology" identified by John Westerhoff that supported Christianity and Christian spirituality, a cluster of institutions that included schools, schools, families, popular media, Sunday schools, and churches. A century ago, this ecology created a society that was very conducive to Christian thought and practice. Put simply, a person living then was constantly subjected to Christianizing influences.

To be sure, there were plenty of "cultural Christians" back then - people who embraced "Christian values" because it was all they knew. And while it may be tempting to accept that for your kid ("At least they have good morals and know right from wrong"), don't do it! Christianity that is only cultural and not personal lacks the power to transform. It claims the name, but underwhelms in its intensity.

Still, the "planting" and "watering" that Paul talks about is the work of ministry. Whether you are a parent, a ministry professional, a teacher, a mentor, or whoever - that is what we do: we create stable environments where things can grow. But - God makes them grow.

So we win when God wins, if our goals and priorities are aligned with his. If they're not, we need to check ourselves. Because to argue against what God is trying to do is foolish at best, and destructive at worst. "The wind blows wherever it pleases," Jesus said. "You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

I'm very wary of publishers who forecast the results we can expect to see in kids as a result of using their curriculum. That is not for a publisher to say. That takes the work from God and makes it our work. Instead, curriculum is secondary to the environment we establish - the ecology that will either support or diminish our kids' spiritual growth.

(Note: Establishing a healthy ecology and putting kids in a "Christian bubble" are two very different things. For one thing, people who've tried will tell you - there is no bubble. You cannot hide entirely from the culture; don't try. We are keeping kids in a bubble when we shun involvement with the larger culture, whereas salt-and-light Christianity would have us engaging with that culture.)

We all know well-meaning Christian parents who pushed too hard - and their kids rejected Christianity. We've all sat through sermons that were long on gee-whiz Bible details, but left us dry and unmotivated to live it out. Maybe you know kids, as I do, who know lots and lots about the content of the Bible...and they also have zero personal desire to read it. Those are not victories!

When the ecology works right, it succeeds in fostering attitudes that incline kids toward God. It doesn't magically grow a Christian. It can't. Because that's God's work.

Greetings from our new 4th-6th Grade Director, James Walton

Hey Parents,

Wanted to first let you all know how excited and passionate I am about being able to pour into the lives of your fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. As I enter into this ministry and seek God's heart for vision, direction and strategy on how to impact your kids, I want to first take the opportunity to introduce myself on a more personal note.

Most of you may know who I am through my famous mother Debbie Walton, and rightfully so. I would not be the man I am today without her influence and example in my life. However, God has particularly done a unique work in my life beyond the influence of North Coast Calvary Chapel.

I grew up in the church, with great examples and love in my life, but I did not find a personal love and devotion for my Savior until after I graduated high school in 2009. The summer after graduating I took a flight down to Chile, South America, and joined a school with a missions organization named "Youth with a Mission" (YWAM). The Lord really took hold of my heart in the first week and began a discipleship process in my life. I spent the next three months receiving great teaching from passionate and committed missionaries and then putting into practice everything that I had learned in the following two months.

Over the next four years I would spend about half the year ministering and serving with YWAM and the other half serving as an intern in the sport ministry here at North Coast Calvary. Between both ministries I have served in about seven different countries (USA, Mexico, Egypt, England, Chile, Argentina, Peru) and have had the privilege to see God move in different ways in each of them. I continued studying with YWAM through their "University of the Nations," where I completed a leadership training school and the school of the fundamentals of biblical counseling.

One of the aspects of this new opportunity to serve that excites me is the role I will have of imparting a lifestyle of discipleship to the hearts of your kids. I hope that through my own personal experiences and lifestyle, they will take to a deeper relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thanks for your support and prayers and I look forward to serving with you in the discipleship of your kids.

A Big Job Ahead

What does it take to "go into all the world and preach the gospel" when the corner of the world where you are is diverse and pluralistic, and the people are busy, transient, and subject to a constant stream of marketers who want their time and attention?

That's a big job, and it calls for a big effort.

This business of disciple-making in Christianity has never been an easy one, even when times were simpler and there was a lot less for people to do. If you believe - as I do - that God is real and that spiritual forces exist, it's understandable why. Every living thing - God included - has wants, and so the matter of what will capture someone's heart-and-mind allegiance comes down to a contest.

As significant figures in the lives of kids - parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, coaches, teachers, mentors, and ministry workers - what's our role? How can we work most effectively and faithfully? Those are some questions I hope to explore in this space in the weeks to come.

But there are some really key things we need to acknowledge, beyond that disciple-making is hard. They are specific to our culture, and they're truths some people don't want to confront.

The first is that just bringing kids to church isn't enough. Church programming, while really, really important, cannot take the place of a loving home environment, and it cannot supply the well-rounded package of support needed to produce full-orbed disciples. Instead, kids must be intentionally trained, and that training needs to happen not just in church, but at home, in school, on the soccer field - everywhere.

Secondly, there are kids in our culture who will never, ever set foot in a church, yet we are called to reach them, too. If we don't, churches become clubs, catering to their own. It's true that church is not a store. We're not open 24 hours for people's convenience; we don't have drive-thru windows. But if we don't stay mindful of who's "out there", in a few generations, there's no one left. I don't know if you've ever been a part of a dying church, but it's a real thing, and it's painful. Our church right now is healthy and growing, which is great, but America is full of emptying churches that were thriving half a century ago. The perpetuation of a church is never a sure thing.

So, here's the catch: a couple of generations ago, all a church needed to do was its share. Everyone went to church, so if this church and that church and the one down the street each did programs for kids: ta-da! Every kid was being reached.

But we live in a different time. And it calls for a different strategy, both inside the church and outside its walls.

The great Christian Educator John Westerhoff wrote that American churches used to belong to a special "ecology" of institutions, each interacting with the others, that supported spiritual development. This ecology consisted of:
1. Homogeneous communities (everyone thinks and acts like us)
2. Stable nuclear families
3. Public schools (which started the day with prayer and Bible reading)
4. Popular media (popular magazines were often from religious publishers, while stories from the Bible served as the subject for many Hollywood films)
5. Sunday schools (which were an important weekly ritual)
6. Churches (which were hubs of intergenerational social activities)

What's happened to this ecology? Communities grew diverse; family makeup changed. Schools did away with religious rituals; the number and variety of entertainment choices for families exploded. And as we became more mobile and busier, church attendance declined. Sunday schools (children's ministries) were left to shoulder the burden all alone.

To put it another way, what kids received when they went to church used to be the icing on the cake. All week long kids would take in a steady diet of Christian history, symbols, and thought. Church teaching merely reinforced agreed-upon social values. Now though, children's ministry programs are often relied on to accomplish what it used to take a cluster of institutions to do.

What can we do to rebuild that ecology? Is it even possible? Desirable? More next week.

Knowing Brazil

Have I told you about my trip to Brazil?

Let's have coffee sometime so I can tell you all about it. I'll tell you about the cities I visited, the food, the people I encountered, and the sites of Rio de Janeiro. And when we're done, you'll understand Brazil the way I do, and it'll save you a trip. It will be just as if you were with me.

Except that you won't understand Brazil the way I do, just as I don't understand Brazil the way someone who was raised there does. Being told about something is a far cry from experiencing it. That's obvious. So why do we teach the Bible this way?

It happens on two levels. One is when we, as teachers, study and digest the material so thoroughly in our preparation that we spoon-feed kids the "main point" or the "lesson" of every story. The other is when we teach at the level of story - focusing too much on details about the characters (such as that Lydia of Acts 16 sold purple cloth) or the setting (the temple was overlaid with gold) - and never raise things to the level of God, which is to say the consistency of his will and his character.

We like knowing that kids "got it", and that's why quizzing is so common in ministry to kids. But the Bible doesn't work like that. A friend from Georgia recently observed (at our conference in Brazil) that we read for two reasons: to be informed, or to be entertained. But the Bible stands alone in that its purpose is neither to inform, nor to entertain, but to lead us into relationship with God. Big difference. God is the main character in the Bible - not humans. So to reduce every Bible passage to a "lesson" (and ignore those that don't easily fit our teaching scheme) about what we should do - the fundamental essence of character education - cheapens the Bible and minimizes God.

Instead, the Bible is like rich, healthy food, and its truths are the nutrients. You and I can each consume an apple, but how the apple is digested and how it works to nourish and strengthen either of us is a bit different. You and I would benefit from eating that apple. But would the benefit look exactly the same? No.

When we teach the Bible in an overly academic way, we sacrifice the real prize for something less. And it's easy to fall into that trap: Kids are learning the Bible. Well, yes - and no. What if the product of good Bible teaching isn't a large store of knowledge, but a healthy attitude towards the Bible, a curiosity and a willingness to know more? Maybe we'd tell less and invite kids to experience God more.

So while you might want to hear about my trip to Brazil, and I'd like to tell you, my real hope is that you would someday see it for yourself. Any account of my trip that encourages you to do that is worthwhile; any account that bores you or that shares so much it diminishes your drive to go there is counterproductive.

What Surge is All About

Originally posted as "The Purpose of Surge", October 2013

Seven years ago, as I was sifting through a mountain of details, I had a moment of what I'd call Big Picture Insight. Only the insight was a question, which I scribbled down and which gnawed away at me in the years to come. The question was, simply, "What's the best tangible benefit a kid can take away from their involvement in our weekend programs?"

Is it some nugget of truth? The ability to express and defend their faith? The books of the Bible, memorized? Is it a warm feeling toward church? Same-age relationships? Is it a chance to serve others?

It turns out the answer is something that sounds about as cliched as it can be: 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. Scores of young people are walking away from churches with lots of knowledge about God. Many of them think they have a handle on God: he's ancient, he's static, and he's pretty much irrelevant to now. (When we make church too much like school, it's inevitable that kids will at some point feel "done" because after all, school is something you eventually finish and then move on.)

No, the objective has to be nothing less than kids encountering God. And we want it to happen often, again and again. It might be in our room, or in the quietness of their own bedrooms at home. It might be in a moment of adversity, or at a camp, or standing in Yosemite. It might be in the midst of family, surrounded by people who love them, or in the loneliest moment of their lives. But God is there, and they meet him.

But how do we get kids to God, and God to kids?

First, we need to recognize and affirm that God is alive. And as such, he is active. Do we really believe in a God who is everywhere and can do anything? Because the modern cultural narrative is that God isn't anywhere and can't do anything, or at most, that God is somewhere and will hopefully act when we want him to.

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 reaches beyond our efforts to touch an individual human soul that a person really encounters God. God is working specifically to reach your kid right now. He is trying all sorts of ways and using all sorts of things.

Secondly, we need to find where God is, and take kids there. I'll never forget the first time I saw a dad teaching his daughter to surf. This North Dakota boy just assumed surfing was learned the hard way, by trial and error, but that day at the beach, I saw exactly what the dad was doing. He was waist-deep in the water, holding the back of the surfboard, guiding his daughter into the wave - and then letting go and letting the wave do the work of carrying her. Because, really, how could it work any other way? If the dad held on too long, or kept her away from the waves, or pushed the board all the way to shore, or never let go, we wouldn't really say the girl had surfed, would we?

Now think about God and your kid. God is always at work. We don't create anything. What we do is steer kids into "the wave" and let it carry them. "Spiritual" growth comes from the Spirit. If God's not in a God encounter, it isn't a God encounter. And He will do the work, if we let him. And that's the purpose of Surge: 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.

What does a God encounter look like? Well, you know it when you see it. For one thing, it's pretty personal. You'll see kids gain insights and act in ways that show you they've connected with something beyond themselves. For another, it's unpredictable - you really can't manufacture it. 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 get into reading the Bible or other Christian literature. What's happening? They're meeting him, in a way we can't engineer, but we can only nurture. Nurture doesn't mean ignore, but it means we don't push too hard and we don't try to control it (the wave is the wave; it will do what it will) . Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way of what God is trying to do!

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), things that would actually stand in the way of people meeting God. A lot of what we do might not look incredibly "churchy". It may even be fun! But that's ok, because God and fun are not mutually exclusive. I don't want kids growing up thinking that all of God's stuff is gloomy and sad and serious. Nor do I want them to think 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, I want to see a generation that is free. "It is for freedom that you have been set free," the Apostle Paul writes, but how many of us have that freedom - our salvation - and still live under burdens that we cannot or will not shed? 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 kids for. Lives like that do not come about overnight. And they will not happen unless kids start to meet Him.

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:

• 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

We will not let that happen! Growth is God’s intention for us. And growth implies change. An acorn is destined to become a shoot. A shoot is destined to become a baby oak. A young oak, while pleasing to the eye, is not meant to stop there, but to become a mighty, tall tree. In the same way, the Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” All kids want to grow up. (Yes, I know: if only we could convince them how great it is to be a kid!) We owe it to them to introduce and re-introduce them to the God who’s big enough for the future.

Marijuana: Not Safe for Kids. Too bad they think otherwise.

A tidal wave is hitting this country when it comes to acceptance of the use of marijuana. It's been driven by arguments for its medicinal use, but the effect has not only been more tolerance of marijuana as medicine, but a full-scale rejection of America's War on Drugs.

But don't be fooled: Marijuana is not neutral or harmless when it comes to kids.

Thanks to the excellent Tween Us blog from the Chicago Tribune for the heads up on this. If you're not regularly receiving their updates, subscribe.
 

What I liked and didn’t like about "Heaven Is for Real"

Why a Christianity that’s overly-focused on heaven misses the point 

Heaven Is for Real is a well-done movie. By that, I don’t mean it is “epic” or grip-your-seat exciting, but that it does what it sets out to do: it brings to the screen pretty faithfully something that actually happened. What’s more, the story is about a religious experience, which makes it a “Christian movie”, and those aren’t easy. Christian movies, while dealing with something inherently un-believeable (because it’s supernatural) nonetheless have to be believable. And, because they deal with Christian subject matter, they have to be biblically faithful. And with Heaven Is for Real, that’s the rub.

When movie making began, people made a lot of Bible movies. It's one reason we "know" that Moses looked like Charlton Heston, for instance. Of course, there was invented dialogue, because most Bible accounts don't give enough detail for a full movie script, and the special effects were schlocky, but the mission of these movies was clear: to bring to life a story from the Bible.

Those were the days, though, when Bible literacy was much more widespread than it is today. There was a market for Christian-themed movies simply because most of the people in the movie market were Christians. We can't imagine a Hollywood studio taking on the story of Esther today, or Ruth, or the prophet Jeremiah. Jesus proves a good subject for a blockbuster now and then, but the rest of the characters aren't widely-enough known to draw a crowd.

So now, Christian movies largely get watched by Christians, on Christian TV channels and through direct distribution on DVD at Christian bookstores. And let's be honest, Christians can be pretty brutal critics. Because we love the Bible and are loyal to the truth it contains, we're sensitive about anything that threatens to compromise the accuracy of the stories that get retold. This is the unique challenge of bringing the Bible to the screen: cast your movie with compelling characters and write contemporary-sounding dialogue and you just might grip a non-Christian who is captured by the story, but you'll run the risk of being savaged on Christian blogs for being unfaithful to scripture. We have a certain loyalty even to folk elements of Christianity that are not specified in the Bible, so Jesus has to be born in a stable and not a cave and there have to be three wisemen (the Bible doesn't actually say how many) and all of Jesus' miracles have to "look" like we'd imagined them to look or we're unhappy.

But what do we do with a movie like Heaven Is For Real?

When there is no Biblical plumbline against which to measure it, how do we begin to talk about a movie like this to people who will ask the inevitable questions like, "Did he really go to heaven?" and "Is that what heaven is like?"

The answer, unsatisfying as it is, is "We don't know."

It's unsatisfying because Christians are answer people and the Bible is our answer source, but when it comes to this little boy's experience, the Bible neither confirms nor refutes what he saw. And how can it? There's no book of the Bible called "Heaven", no description of near-death experiences, no counsel for us on what we'll see and do. Much of heaven is left to our imagination, and we've imagined some things that we'll fiercely defend as true. But whether they are our not, they don't answer people's question: Is that what it's like?

Some people have made an industry of heaven. Randy Alcorn and Mitch Albom wrote books about it. Highway to Heaven and, later, Touched by an Angel played on our curiosity about angels. Akiane Kramarik paints about it. But any medium ultimately falls short in its ability to depict heaven because all of them are inadequate for describing the most important thing about heaven: God.

Do I want people to believe in heaven? Yes I do. But I fear that movies like Heaven Is For Real and the dialogue it sparks drive people into an unhelpful speculation about heaven, a "how-good-is-it-gonna-be-for-me?" wondering, that makes them the focus. We speak of people dying and going to their "eternal reward", like heaven is the ultimate retirement village. Of course, being in heaven is rewarding, but the reward is not the things in heaven. It is God.

Movies like Heaven Is For Real can drive us to the Bible in a vain attempt to answer questions like "Who will we see there?" and "How old will we be there?" and "What will we do there?" when in reality, we are not the most important thing in heaven.

So here's a thought: Maybe the presence of God, in heaven, will be such a game-changer for us that the rest of the stuff won't matter.

The minutiae of life seems to matter now - because we're not currently experiencing the fullness of the presence of God. But you know those moments in life - a near-car accident, a benign biopsy, being separated from your kid in a crowd, the death of someone close to you - where everyday problems shrink into the background and you chill way out because you've been given a glimpse of what's really important? Now imagine heaven being and endless string of those moments.

Are there streets of gold in heaven? Maybe. Or maybe Revelation depicts streets of gold because that communicates "ultimate value" to our limited human minds, which apart from God cannot fathom the value that he, alone, actually has. The point is, if we pursue heaven for the things we believe are there or the feelings we imagine it will produce in us, we are banking our eternal hope on those things. We are loving what we imagine is in heaven instead of loving heaven for what it is about, which is God. And that's idolatry.

I want to believe with all my heart that Colton Burpo went to heaven, because if he did, it ratifies the existence of heaven. And it supports the idea that even kids can experience God. But any sort of speculation on the nature of heaven that doesn't circle back to being speculation on the nature of God is misguided.

Furthermore, when we focus on heaven, we are focusing on something "out there" and in the future. But to focus on God forces us to recognize that He - and His goodness, and His presence - exist in the now. The point of your life is not to die so that you can get to heaven. The point of your life is to experience the richness of God even in this fallen world, bursting forth in the most desperate circumstances, bringing light into darkness. That is redemption, and the miracle of God-in-us/us-in-God is what fuels our passion for more of the One who brings redemption (as opposed to passion for a self-indulgent heaven of our own imagining).

Last weekend, a 4th grade boy asked in our class, "Why will we be happy forever in heaven?" I think the answer is hinted at in Revelation 5. Not only will Jesus be in heaven, but our awareness of His sacrifice and His greatness will be so strong that it will dwarf any other consideration or care. The question is, what if (somehow) a person got to heaven and knew nothing of Jesus? And the answer is, they'd have nothing to celebrate! By extension then, the more our Christianity is bound up in Christ, the more we experience in this life what we will ultimately experience in heaven. But the more our Christianity revolves around security and creature comfort in this world, the further from truth of heaven we stray.

It's natural to wonder about the afterlife, about God's ways, about the time-before-there-was-time. But whatever Colton Burpo's experience was, or anyone who's had a near-death experience, we can be sure that if they were in heaven, they would have been encountering the fullness of God. Since we now see through a glass darkly, but then we will see face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12), it means any description or depiction of heaven this side of heaven will fall short.