Monday, March 31, 2014

More than enjoyably frustrating...


I often say that middle school is one of the most enjoyably frustrating age groups one can possibly minster to. They are easily enjoyable because middle schoolers know how to have fun. They are like professional kids. They’ve been perfecting the art of having a good time for many years and they bring that special energy with them wherever they go. Because of this childlike innocence, they are also very trusting. They respond well to consistency. You don’t have to pretend to be cool in the ways that are sometimes necessary with older students. Simply be present, be yourself, and you will find acceptance from most middle school-aged children. That’s the enjoyable part. However, trying to reach this group can be a challenge.

Some weeks they seem interested in understanding biblical concepts, they listen well, and appear to be pondering spiritual things in a way that makes you believe their generation just might change the world. Then there are the other weeks… The ones that feel like I’m talking to disinterested toddlers and I question whether or not I am fit to pastor such a crew. To say it simply, there is a lot of seed planting and watering, but not a lot of harvesting. To lead this group, one must truly live by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Over the last couple of months, we have spent time in our weekly programs addressing the topic of purity for life with our students. We have also had time to equip and collaborate with middle school parents in hopes of teaming together to help position our children for success in this area. Since we challenged all of our Wired parents to intentionally engage their children, my wife and I decided we should probably try it too. So, we created some purposeful conversations with our oldest child concerning the topic of purity. We tried to talk with our fifth grader about how this is part of his lifelong pursuit of Christ. We attempted to dialogue in a way that will hopefully encourage Brooks to be open with us, as he matures. But as I consider the effectiveness of our efforts, whether it be with our middle school students or our three children at home, I keep arriving at the same conclusion: only time will tell, and there’s no promise we’ll get to know before our time is up…

The impact of our parenting and ministry to middle school students may not be evident by the time our children enter high school. Truly, we may not even be aware of our influence by their graduation ceremony. Sure there are some ways we can evaluate ourselves to see if we are structuring an environment for success. We can toil and strive to prepare them for the road ahead. We can plead before the Lord each day that He might make Himself known to our children. We know some of the ingredients, some of the vehicles, some of the instruments that God often works through to bring knowledge and understanding. Yet on the whole, the type of investment we make in our children is one that requires great patience and faithfulness.

Now as a parent, this truth helps me seek to stay engaged with our children. It encourages me to live out an authentic, transparent faith for my sake. Sure my wife and children will see my faith play out in the years ahead but I’ve not primarily been called to walk this life just for them. That is, I’m not trying to manage my exterior to persuade them or anyone else. I’m called to seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and trust that He will take care of the rest (Matthew 6:33). As a pastor, this reliance upon God allows me to teach without fear – to be faithfully obedient to present biblical truth as often as I get a chance. I don’t have to worry with being trendy or compelling (that’s a BIG relief), but rather strive to be sincere and available. This is another reminder that I (as a parent and a preacher) must be willing to address the difficult topics – sexuality, suffering, salvation by grace through faith, and the like.

While this may satisfy our desire for instant gratification, it does remind us that we are called to a lifelong commitment. Our faithful longevity will continue to be a big part of ministry even after our kiddos have left the house and the youth group has moved on to their next phase of life. How we trust in trying times, how we repent after failure, how we treasure Christ in seasons of plenty, will all speak much more powerfully than our most impassioned sermons. And since our children’s coming to faith is ultimately out of our hands anyway, it requires that we be dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to do that very precious work that only He can do. There is no to do list that can guarantee safety and favor. I wish there were. There is not some formula that promises our desired results. How nice that would be! However, we have not been left to passively sit on our hands either.

Let’s be obedient to that which has been made clear to us in scripture. Let’s pursue Christ and embrace this blessed call to parent and guide students whether we are allowed to witness harvest time or not. That is, if we never see our children basking in the fullness of Christ, will we continue to seek Him? If we never see the fruit of our labor, is He still enough? Do we truly believe that He is our only hope – both for our children and ourselves? Do we pray like that? Do we live like that? (Quick confession. We don't always pray like that and live according to our beliefs. My wife and I fall short in this area quite a bit.) Fruition of faith will take time in our children, but may we not find rest in that fact alone. Instead may our impatient powerlessness press us into the One who holds all of time in His hands. May we learn to entrust our kids to His care, fully aware that He actually knows and loves them more than us. This is far beyond enjoyably frustrating. This is comfort for our longing souls.


matt@nbchurch.info     Twitter: @FattMowler     Facebook: TheFattMowler

Friday, March 28, 2014

How to Raise Perfectly Selfish or Selfless Children (2)

Josh in Mexico on a Youth Mision Trip

Two weeks ago I started a blog theme that asked the question, “Which way is the right way to raise our children?” I would like to recommend that you read the blog post about starting with the Gospel in raising your children.

God can guide us through the travails of raising children in a chaotic culture and transform our characters through the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16-17).

I promised two weeks ago that I would attempt to bring some proven experience and a fresh perspective about how to raise children into adulthood the right way.

Last week, and today, we will examine a proven method for addressing selfishness though acts of service.

Like their parents, children are not naturally born with a inclination to serve. In fact, we naturally come into this world learning, “The people in my life are here to serve me.”
Jill in Mexico on a Youth Mission Trip

  • So what needs to be done to intentionally direct ourselves and our children away from selfishness?
  • Is there anything we can do to lead our families to become servants like Jesus?
  • We need to do more than just fill our children’s minds with lots of data about God and the Bible.
  • We need to give them opportunities to express what the bible is teaching.
  • We need to match their/our experiences of faith with practical actions.
  • We need to match knowledge that they’re learning about value, character, and honor and integrity with the honor and privilege of working out their faith (Philippians 2:12-13).
  • We need to be intentional about this because we will always fight the temptation to make our children into "head-and-not-heart" Christians.
Michelle Anthony in her book, “Spiritual Parenting" recommends that parents work at creating an ”Environment of Service.” She recommends that we make the following changes to create this environment of service.
  1. Teach your children to ask the question, "What needs to be done?" How would things change in your home if each parent and child would learn to, first intentionally, then instinctively walk into any room, situation, or relationship and ask, “What needs to be done?”
  2. Use the phrase “acts of service” rather than chores. Chores are defined as routine or minor duties or tasks. Dr. Michelle Anthony says, “Chores could lead children to see serving others as an obligatory chore when they’re out in the world.
  3. Make a big deal out of acts of service. You may want to get into a habit of asking one another over dinner, “How did you serve your family today?” On the occasion that your family has served one another (no matter how small the act of service), this will be a great time of learning how to express gratitude and receive appreciation. On the occasion that your family has no stories of recent “acts of service,” this question not answered, will become an opportunity to remind each another of the ways you need the help of one other members of your family.
  4. Model and then explain your own acts of service As parents, you must first have to recognize your own tendencies:
    • Are you setting the example of being willing to do “acts of service?”
    • Does the majority of certain household responsibilities fall on only one person?
    • Do you prefer to act alone when you are doing acts of service because help slows you down or doesn’t “do it” right?
    As parents, we train our children to understand that God has asked us to be servants. We train our children with this knowledge, and then we model it by calling it out every time we do it.

    As parents, we reinforce this heart posture through repetition. We tell and show our children in every situation what it means to be a servant. So often we’re great models of service, but our children don’t know it. We are faithfully and dutifully serving as responsible adults.But our children don’t always what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. In order to bring clarity to this, we must call attention to it.

    As our children get older, we won’t need to be asking, “What needs to be done?” as much. They’ll be asking themselves the question. They will walk into a situation and go straight to what needs to be done. It’s a posture of their hearts and of their spirits. God’s plan is to bring them to a place where they depend on His Spirit to give them the answer to the question, “What needs to be done?” (Hebrews 11:32-40)

    As foreign as the environment of service sound’s in this culture, it must be cultivated in our families. Our families need an understanding of who God is and what His Kingdom is all about. Our children will need the environment of service to train their hearts upward and outward. They don’t need to settle for the fruit of selfishness. Spiritual Parenting

Mark 8:34-35; Romans 12:1-3; Philippians 2:3-4; Romans 12:4-8

Dr. Phil Sallee, Pastor
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Thursday, March 27, 2014

Communication, Communication, Communication

One thing I have always emphasized in leading our staff at New Beginnings is "Communication, Communication, Communication." Successful leadership always involves effective communication. This mantra can be used in any type of relationship, not just employer to employee or as in the example below from Tim Elmore, coach to player. It could include husband-wife, parent-child, sibling-sibling, friend-friend, Father-son or Father-daughter as in God the Father.

I have noticed over my 30 years of leading, including being a Captain of our high school baseball team for two years, that generally, when there are problems on a team, or an organization or in a relationship, no matter what type, it centers around a communication breakdown. In a relationship there is usually a cause or purpose for the relationship. For example, there was more than one purpose for the first human to human relationship. One of those was that God created Eve because it was not good for Adam to be alone. God, the Creator of Adam and Eve, then communicated his instructions to Adam and Eve regarding the rules of the Garden. Satan enters the picture and communicates a different message to Eve. Eve then decides to make up her own mind based on "another source" of information. She could have instead gone back to the "direct source", but she did not. Eve then communicates with Adam a different message from what God had originally instructed and Adam believes Eve instead of going back to God himself to verify His instructions.

Now we have the beginning of a messy communication breakdown, or what I also like to quote from the movie "Cool Hand Luke", "What we have here, is a failure to communicate." A couple of mistakes made here for Adam and Eve. They both failed to clarify the instructions, but they also failed to understand the purpose and the "cause" of their relationship with each other as well as with their Creator.

  • How much would it have taken for Eve or Adam to go back to God and verify His original instructions before taking action?
  • Was Adam supposed to be a leader in this relationship between Adam and Eve, or the follower?
  • Maybe IF they would have reminded themselves who was the true "leader" in each relationship they would have not had this breakdown.
Suffice it to say this communication breakdown and the many more that would follow had a dramatic impact on the history of the world as we know it.

My challenge for you is to evaluate all of your relationships, including your spiritual relationships with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. How would you rate your communication level? Do you understand the purpose or "cause" of the relationship? How can you begin to improve your communication in both giving and receiving information? If you decide to invest more time and effort, you might be amazed at how your relationships improve over time

.   Terry Langenberg
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One Secret to Bridging the Gap with Team Members

As many of you know, I enjoy spending time every March working with some pro baseball teams, who partner with us at Growing Leaders and use Habitudes® as anchors to teach life principles to their minor league players. Each time, I’ve been able to meet some stellar coaches and managers of these young men. This month, Billy Boughey (our athletic program director) and I met coach Billy Horton, and he offered to write a blog on a simple reminder he got about connecting with his youngest players. Enjoy it below.
“I am entering my 3rd year as a minor league hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants. In my first season, our big league team won the World Series, and the organization rewarded all of the staff with World Series rings. Last year, the team that I was the hitting coach for won the championship in the Arizona League. Two seasons, two rings. It goes without saying that I have been blessed with good fortune and a wonderful job.
photo credit: afagen via photopin cc
photo credit: afagen via photopin cc
In my playing days, my work ethic was better than my talent, and I was always looking for ways to improve my craft. In my year of coaching with the Giants, we had a good ballclub and a lot of the players got better. However, there was a big disconnect between myself and the Latin players. The biggest chasm between us was verbal communication. I had taken Spanish class in high school and college, but over the past twenty years I have not used it on a regular basis. I was at a crossroad. I knew I had to lead the way if we were to connect. It became clear I needed to re-learn the language to better coach them.
“I started by learning what I call “Base-ish”- Baseball Spanish. I learned how to communicate our batting practice routine in Spanish and then moved on to body parts that are used in the hitter’s swing mechanics. I asked the players a lot of questions and they were more than happy to help me. According to a report I read recently, 25% of the players in pro baseball last year were Latin American. If I want to be able to communicate with my whole team, learning their language is very important. I could tell every player noticed the simple effort I put in to learn, not just lead. I believe life-long learners become life-long leaders.
“The funny thing is that when I first started down this road, it was for job security. I wanted to make myself more valuable to the organization. What it turned into was a bridge between me and the players. I showed them effort in learning their language, and they appreciated that. They saw I cared about them, and our relationships grew.
I’m convinced as a leader I needed to show the men that I was entrusted with, that I was willing to take the first step towards improving our communication. They in turn trusted me and were willing to make adjustments in their game. By me realizing what I needed to do on my end to improve communication, the players met me half way. I continue to observe each year—the best leaders are confident, competent, humble, and they lead by example.”
In addition to his coaching job with the San Francisco Giants, Billy Horton is the founder of the youth baseball organization Cactus Athletic Camps and the author of “7 Day Fast”. You can learn more about him by going to www.billyhorton.info

HabitudesForAthletesWant to prepare athletes for excellence in sports and life? Check out Habitudes for Athletes.

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© 2013 Tim Elmore
Growing Leaders 270 Scientific Drive NW Suite 10 Atlanta, Ga 30092 USA
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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Cell Phone & Social Media 101

This week I was bombarded with, for lack of a better word, TONS of articles regarding cell-phones and social networks... Though these are two topics we have covered before (10 Apps You Should Be Aware of & Darn Technology Distracting Us from Each other) with the amount of articles posted this week I thought I would do a brief Cellphone & Social Media 101!!  

Cell Phone 101Technology is neutral... It by itself is not bad or good!

Texting
-       “The average teenager texts 4,000 texts a month” (Group Publishing)
-    "78% of all teens have a cell phone" (Just over half are smart phones)
-       “31% of teen phone users deflect conversations by faking calls” (Denver Post)
-       As of 2011, AT&T was the only company who would print out text messages upon request.  However, because of the 2006 Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act parents can get a print out of your son/daughter’s phone if court ordered.
-       “Over half of 11 to 14 year olds say they have been in a dating relationship…But dating to tweens isn’t what adults think: relationships are fleeting but all consuming” “Tweens date in packs but expect their boyfriend/girlfriend to be monogamous…firing over 300 texts back and forth each day…breaking up is most commonly done via a text” (Homeword)

Sexting
-       Sext messages created by minors = child pornography.  Taking nude, sexually explicit, pictures of a minor, even if it is of yourself, is a felony and then sending those pictures to others is a second felony.  All recipients of that sext message can also be found guilty of a felony (even if they didn't want to receive it) because it is possession of child pornography.  Being convicted of possession or distribution of child pornography can get you on a sex offender list which will stay with you for LIFE and affect your ability to live where you want to, getting into college and getting a job. 
-      “39% of all teens have sent a sexually suggestive text” (Parents Guide...Cell Phones)
-       “48% of teens say they have received such messages" (sexually suggestive or nude)

Apps & Internet accessibility (2013, Apple announced 60,000,000,000 apps downloaded)
-       Top ‘Apps’ (Applications):
o   Social Media: Facebook (#1 Free app), Twitter, Instagram, Vine, etc.
o   Streaming: Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, etc.
o   Games: Candy Crush Saga, Flappy Bird, Clash of Clans, Bike Race, etc.
- Angry Birds (most profitable game ever…downloaded over 2 billion times)
o   Very Concerned: Omegle, SnapChat, Whisper, Kik, Tinder, etc. (Click here for more)

5 Tips for Managing Cell Phone Usage with Your Teen:
-       Talk together as a family about when it is or isn't appropriate to use the cell phone (no cell phone after 9pm, no cell phone until your homework is completed, etc.)
-       Make your child responsible of the phone and helping out with the bill (All of it, some of it, just the texting, chores for it, etc.).  Go over the bill with them.
o   Pre-pay or pay as you go, Like Kajeet
-       Take it away if they are failing in school or not following through with rules you set! Let them have it back when they show progress!
o   Agree on a “Phone Contract”, See: Should I SMASH My Kid’s Phone
-       Have a “charging station” or centralized location for all cell-phones (and ipods).  Have mandatory charging times during family times, dinner, bedtime, etc.
-       Be the example of healthy cell phone use.  Show them what you want to see in regards to how, when and where to use your cell phone.  If you have it out at dinner they will!

Parental Controls
-       AT&T, SprintVerizon & T-Mobile
-   "Bless them with blackouts... 
Set limits; you are the parent. There should be times of day, and especially night, when the internet, text messaging and other media is unaccessible. Your kids may complain, but it is a gift to give them downtime and remove the possibility of being connected." (Guard and Guide Your Children Online)
*Lots of cool ideas for Cellphone Safety


Social Media 101What the school & mall was to kids of the 60s-90s is what the Internet is to the millennial!
The Bigs 
-       Facebook (1,110,000,000 “Friends” as of March 2013)
-       Twitter (300 billion Tweets Sent as of October 2013)
-       Instagram (55 million Pictures shared each day)
-       Myspace (Making a comeback after essentially being purchased by Justin Timberlake)
*"88% of teens have seen someone be mean/cruel on a social networking site" (UKnowKids)

Top 3 Websites in the world…
-       Google (Around 13 Billion searches a month… Estimated to be worth over $270 billion)
-       Facebook (Around 45% of internet users visit facebook)
-       YouTube (Purchased by Google for $1.65 billion)
o   More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
o   YouTube reaches more U.S. Adults aged 18-34 than any cable network
o   100 Hours of video are uploaded every minute
o   Top Videos
- #1 most viewed: ‘Gangnam Style’ by PSY (1,915,156,692 views)
 First video uploaded “Me at the zoo”, April 23rd 2005 (13 million views)

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly…

-       Some say all this technology & media stimuli, creates a heightened awareness to culture & better ability to multi-task!!  (Everything Bad is Good for You’ by Johnson)

-       “Tweens that spend waking hours switching between social networks & texting are more likely to develop social problems” (Standford University: Dev. Psychology)
-       Signs of addiction (Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery):
o   Preoccupation with ______________
o   Increased use of ______________
o   Repeated, unsuccessful efforts to control ______________ use
o   Restlessness, moodiness, depression when cutting down on ______________
o   Online longer than originally intended
o   Jeopardized or risked loss of significant relationships
o   Lies to family members or others to conceal use of ______________
o   Use ______________ to escape and relive problems
**Netaddiction.net 

Tips for Parents with Social Media…
-       Have an agreement in regards to knowing passwords and what networks they are in
-       Privacy Settings must be used (25% of Facebook users don’t bother)
-       Develop rules for what can and should be posted online (pictures, location, etc.)
-       Computer in a centralized location in the home (this is hard with iphones & laptops)
-       Discuss Online dangers (See: Wiredsafety.org and TheDemandProject.org)




“Most young adults are over-exposed to information earlier than ready and under-exposed to real life situations later than they were or should be ready” - Tim Elmore (Artificial Maturity)


3 Things we can do starting RIGHT NOW...
Be the example you want to see!!  
Discuss helpful boundaries!!
Empower them to make positive choices!!


Here's just TEN of the articles sent to me and/or posted this week (if interested):
Secret social media apps teens don't want you to know they are using



May Your Spirit protect us from ourselves and the evil one... May we be the example to others and our kids that You ask us to be... May we become experts at discussing ideas and choices with students so they could learn... May we empower the next generation to change the world for the better... May we be so blessed to see Your Calling be caught by our children... May we make more of You and less of ourselves!! 

The Bergs


**Follow Jeff (Family Pastor of High School), also known as "surgeberg" on: FacebookTwitter & Instagram