Pages:
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ...28 29 30 NextThe headlines have been as grim as the details: “Haiti waits in ruins for international aid,” “Bodies lining Haiti’s roadsides,” and worse. But as we pray, watch, give toward relief efforts, and wonder how to else respond to this week’s tragedy (I daresay some of you are getting on planes and boats in hands-on response), one line in Wednesday night’s L.A. Times update caught my attention: “As darkness fell on Haiti’s capital tonight, crowds gathered in the streets…Their lives turned upside down by Tuesday’s devastating magnitude 7 earthquake, many survivors broke out into communal song…”
I don’t know what they were singing, but it’s striking to think about. Earlier Wednesday I was at a memorial service here at Fuller for my colleague Ruth Vuong, our Dean of Students who tragically died last week. At that service, in the midst of our grief and questioning, we did the same: together, we sang our lament. We sang because it’s what we do when we gather to remember, feel, and express something beyond us—in this case lamenting the sting of death in our community.
So as we respond in tangible and intangible ways to our sisters and brothers in Haiti facing unspeakable loss, may we also join in their song with songs of our own that express the questions and pain alongside the hope for God’s presence and power. As we sing in solidarity with the poor and devastated, may our God move us to deeper response. Here’s one to start:
Out of the depths we cry to you, Lord;
Lord, hear our voices.
Let your ears be attentive to our cry for mercy.
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
And in his word I put my hope.
Psalm 130:1-2, 5
Recently Christianity Today posted the online version of this month’s cover story, “The Myth of the Perfect Parent: Why the best parenting techniques don’t produce Christian children” by Leslie Leyland Fields, author of Parenting Is Your Highest Calling: And Eight Other Myths That Trap Us in Worry and Guilt
. I haven’t checked on much of the research and parenting book sources Fields uses to support her writing, but she makes a great presentation for why we need to lay off parents (and for those of us who parent, give ourselves a break) when it comes to raising kids who ultimately follow Jesus into adulthood.
Plenty of research does point to the importance of parents in kids’ faith development, like Christian Smith and the National Study of Youth and Religion team’s data. To paraphrase something Smith said in a panel here at Fuller, when it comes to the faith of their kids, parents basically get what they are. The faith of parents tends to be the strongest predictor of faith of kids.
Yet, that can—and does—create all kinds of unnecessary anxiety for parents. Most of us walk around thinking that there’s some long list of things we can and should do that will result in our kids growing up to love, follow, and serve Jesus too. Fields calls this “spiritual determinism”—the Christianized cultural myth that good Christian parenting produces godly children. But it just doesn’t (necessarily) work that way.
Here’s a great quote from the end of her article:
It is faith rather than formula, grace rather than guarantees, steadfastness rather than success that bridges the gap between our own parenting efforts, and what, by God’s grace, our children grow up to become.
What do you think? How can we help parents be intentional while also freeing them from the pressure to, well, be God?
Stress is a top health concern for U.S. teens between 9th and 12th grade.
That statement accompanies a recent release from the American Psychological Association (APA) about the results of their “Stress in America Survey,” which targeted both adults and youth. Of the 1,206 youth who participated, kids report being more stressed than ever. But what’s worse, parents don’t seem to know about their kids’ stress or its impact. Kids are more likely to say they are worried about family finances and school pressure than parents know, and kids report having more physical symptoms of stress than parents know.
The bottom line, according to this survey: close to half of U.S. teens (13-17) were more stressed this year and showed more physical signs of stress. Yet less than 1/3 of parents are aware of the increase in stress or symptoms. Perhaps it’s because parental stress is also on the rise and has even more physical manifestations, making parents somewhat oblivious to their kids’ issues.
Either way, perhaps right up there with drugs and sex we should be equally concerned about the impact of stress on students in our ministries. Which leads to a few check-in questions:
- Are we aware of how stressed students actually feel, and what the sources of their worry tend to be?
- Are we aware of the physical impact of stress on students?
- Are we helping parents become more aware of their kids’ stress?
- Do we consider teenage stress legitimate or not as “real” as adult stressors (in other words, do we write off their anxieties or fail to affirm how real they are in kids’ lives?)
- How much does our ministry contribute to students’ stress levels?
- Do we over-program and/or raise expectations for participation in ways that make youth ministry another stressor in kids’ and families’ lives?
- Do we make youth group more about performance and expectation or encounter with the living God?
- Are we creating space for downtime in kids’ lives?
- Are we equipping students to recognize and counteract the impact of stress?
To be fair, those questions probably aren’t best answered with a yes or no but on a continuum. But perhaps this list can be a starting point for evaluating with your team how well you are noticing, responding to, and maybe even contributing to stress in the lives of the kids you love and serve.
By now it’s public: Tic Long is back at Youth Specialties (YS) as the Executive Director of Youth Specialties. You can read more about it on the YS website or on Tic’s blog.
I’ve known Tic since I was a high school student since he was friends with my youth pastor and our church in San Diego would periodically host YS events.
When I think about Tic, I think about a question he asked me about my family when he and I had lunch together a few years ago. The question related to a struggle I had when I was in college TWENTY YEARS AGO. I had basically forgotten about the struggle but Tic hadn’t, and he wanted to know what had happened in the last twenty years.
That’s my iconic moment for how much Tic cares about people, youth workers, and students.
Welcome back, Tic. I can’t wait to see what God has for YS and for all of us in this next chapter.
On Tuesday we had a lunch at Fuller with a handful of local youth workers to talk about the types of resources high school seniors need, especially given our College Transition Project research. One of the youth pastors said that he’s trying to take advantage of youth group graduates being home for winter break by grabbing some one on one time with them. When he’s with them, he tries to ask them a few important questions, namely:
What have you done that you are you proud of so far in college?
What do you wish you could do differently?
Are you being who you want to be?
I love how thoughtful this youth worker is being, and I applaud the direct and thoughtful questions he’s asking college students.
OK, I know everyone and their brother is coming up with a list of trends for the year and/or decade. But I have known about the process for this list from First Fruit and think it’s quite solid. They’ve come up with Ten Global Trends after interviewing over 100 researchers and world leaders. If you care about the world (and I know you do), check out the list.
What trends do you think are most important? What’s missing from the list?
All three of my kids—and I for that matter—were sick in December. When my kids were sick, I both prayed for them, and got them the blankets, 7-up, and crackers that would make them feel better. I tried to help them spiritually, as well as in other ways.
That reminds me of justice. When we see others who have needs, should we choose between prayer OR helping them in tangible ways? No, we ideally do both.
One of my favorite quotes about justice is from Nicholas Wolterstorff from Yale who writes, “The state of shalom is the state of flourishing in all dimensions of one’s existence: in one’s relation to God, in one’s relation to one’s fellow human beings, in one’s relation to nature, and in one’s relation to oneself. Evidently justice has something to do with the fact that God’s love for each and every one of God’s human creatures takes the form of God desiring the shalom of each and every one.”
Note that it’s a holistic flourishing, not either a spiritual OR a physical/emotional/social flourishing.
Every New Decision Has a Justice Price Tag…
That’s the theme in Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices
, a very practical book by Julie Clawson with the appropriate subtitle of “the global impact of our daily choices”.
Julie Clawson makes a number of great points, like:
- Our local, everyday choices reverberate around the globe.
- Acting justly makes life more complicated. It means we start thinking about how we shop, dress, and drive.
- Sometimes the way to start is not to try to overhaul our lives but to tweak them. The reason? A few people might be up for the overhaul but most run away, panicked and overwhelmed.
She then gives practical steps for living justly in a number of areas, ranging from coffee and chocolate to waste and debt.
My favorite idea is one she got from Brian McLaren—that just like we have “nutrition facts” on food products, we should have “ethical facts” on all products. Just as a nutrition label tells us what we are about to eat, the ethics label would tell us about the history of what we are about to purchase or consumer. Were the workers paid fair wages? Are they being treated humanely? Were hazardous pesticides and chemicals used on this product? Was it grown in sustainable ways?
Great idea. Maybe not super feasible, but still a great idea.
Last week, my kids’ school did a show on the “Lights of December,” which highlighted how lights are an important part of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Winter Solstice. (Of course, my 9 year-old and 7 year-old were adorable singers. They were quick to tell their buddies where to stand and where to go when the show ended. Wonder where they get that from?) It was a good reminder to me of how important light is, and how beautiful it is, especially this time of year.
So may the lights – candlelight, Christmas lights, regular lights – that surround you remind you of the true hope and light of the world: Jesus Christ.
We at FYI will be closed until the new year. We can’t wait to journey with you in 2010 and see what the new year holds.
Pages:
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ...28 29 30 Next
