Parenting Help

Parents:

   Here are two great resources that will probably become a daily habit for some of you. They are both from the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (www.cpyu.org):

1.     Walt Mueller’s Blog:

http://learningmylines.blogspot.com/

2.     Parenting articles:

http://www.cpyu.org/Page.aspx?id=76948

Social Networking Deviance

I don't think half of you should read the following list. But if you're having issues of trust with your kids over their social networking; if you're finding abbreviations in their texting and Facebook stuff, you might want to check it out. Be forewarned. It's a bit rough. It's also a sad commentary on reality.

http://www.netlingo.com/top50/acronyms-for-parents.php

Is Dating Dead?

It just keeps coming. The decline of dating and what, if anything, is replacing it. Check out USA Today’s front page from a while back:

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20110331/wire/110339901?p=all&tc=pgall

There is a lot to digest, including some seemingly contradictory facts. More hookups? More virgins? Huh?

The decline of dating, coupled (no pun intended) with the rise in social networking has most of us scrambling to keep up. The key is to understand how gender is eroding and what kind of risks to help our kids take. If you search under ‘dating’ in our backlog, you’ll get plenty to chew on.

'Occupation' Talks with our Kids

Here is a good discussion starter for you and your high school student. The younger ones might roll their eyes, but once talking, I think you’ll pick up some momentum.  I suspect that we’ll all have to work extra hard at ‘occupation’ type talks since these kinds of choices are being delayed on the adolescent scene.

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A PROFESSION

Taken from Life on the Edge, by James Dobson

1. It must be something you genuinely like to do. This choice requires you to identify your own strengths, weaknesses and interests. (Some excellent psychometric tests are available to help with

this need.)

2. It must be something you have the ability to do. You might want to be an attorney but lack the talent to do the academic work and pass the bar examination.

3. It must be something you can earn a living by doing. You might want to be an artist, but if people don’t buy your paintings, you could starve while sitting at your easel.

4. It must be something you are permitted to do. You might make a wonderful physician and could handle the training but can’t gain entrance to medical school. I went through a PhD program in graduate school with a fellow student who was washed out after seven years of class work. He made it to the last big exam before his professors told him, “You’re out.”

5. It must be something that brings cultural affirmation. In other words, most people need people need to feel some measure of respect from their contemporaries for what they do. This is one reason women have found it difficult to stay home and raise their children.

6. Most importantly for the genuine believer, it must be something that you feel God approves of. How do you determine the will of God about so personal a decision? That is a critical matter we’ll discuss presently.

Kindness and respect

Last week a student said she really enjoys one of our leaders. Why? “Because he doesn’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

We asked what she meant.

“When I don’t know something, he doesn’t look at me like there’s something wrong with me. He doesn’t skrinch his eyebrows and say, ‘you don’t know that?’ He just smiles and says, ‘Oh, OK, let me show you.’ And he’s friendly about it. I feel like I matter. He treats me like he respects me.”

It’s so easy to joke about everything, or to treat students like kids. But it’s so nice to be treated with honor. Proverbs 3:3-4 reads, “Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man.”

The Time Factor

We had a student who never smiled. Ever. A barrier or an opportunity? If our goal is “a smile by the end of today’s session!” we’ll be disappointed. Most things take time. Seeds to trees, babies to adults, first pages to finished novels. A frowning student in September can be a healthier person by April. Love is patient. Dish it out liberally — and give it time.

Now we have a student who is quietly and gradually coming off the rails. Withdrawing from meaningful conversation, cooling spiritually, and making troubling choices. We’ve begun praying for him. Specific prayers for hedges around his life and the warming in his heart. He may not be a new man this Sunday, but we’re optimistic about this summer.

Keep at it.

What kind of church attracts students?

The most recent edition of Immerse, a bimonthly journal for youthworkers, features a thoughtful piece* on churches that attract and retain students. The author, Christy Lang, cites several research papers and presents findings both surprising and useful. Here’s a sample of her article:

Drawing on developmental theory, Lytch notes that adolescents have particular needs for forging identities, adopting worldviews and developing skills for living in an adult world. Given those needs, she says, particular kinds of opportunities for church involvement are especially important. She writes, “When teens are attracted to churches, they are attracted because the churches engage them in intense states of self-transcendence uniting emotional and cognitive processes. Churches ‘catch’ them on three hooks: a sense of belonging, a sense of meaning, and opportunities to develop competence.”**

Three key concepts here for youth are belonging (understanding themselves as accepted members of the community); sense of meaning (hearing faith articulated in relation to their lived experience and having opportunities to express faith); and competence (developing skills in church that relate to skills they need in the rest of life, so that church isn’t something to leave behind in childhood).

Busy youth workers don’t need to create busier calendars. Focusing on belonging, believing and competence enables youth workers to address the places where youth are most likely—and most longing—to connect to their communities of faith. As we do this, we must consider theologically what it means for church to be a place where belonging, believing and competence are done faithfully.

This type of insight doesn't lend itself to a quick new program. She’s describing a culture. Yet, culture is servant to the astute.

*Communities of Disciples: Why the Kind of Church We Are Makes a Difference, by Christy Lang, appears in the March/April 2011 issue of Immerse: A Journal of Faith, Life, and Youth Ministry

**Carol Lytch, Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004

A “lordship salvation” exercise

Ever heard of the “lordship salvation” controversy? Here’s a simplified version: Some believe if you’ve prayed a prayer of salvation you are a Christian. Others believe if your life shows no sign of following Jesus Christ, you’re not a Christian.

Wherever you fall on the “lordship salvation” spectrum, here’s an exercise* to get your students thinking about their own relationship to Jesus Christ.

Pick three students to stand up front. The student on the left represents a person who is following Jesus Christ. (Use your own anecdotes to describe what that looks like.) The student on the right has zero interest in Jesus Christ. Doesn’t believe at all. The student in the middle prayed a prayer of salvation when he was eight. Now he’s seventeen and not walking with Jesus.

Step 1 — Break everyone into small groups and ask each group to decide whether the guy in the middle is a Christian or not. Don’t let them just give opinions — make them defend their positions biblically.

Step 2 — This one is more intense — weigh it carefully before taking it on. Ask everyone to line up behind one of the three students up front. Whichever one best describes where they’re at. Then say something like this: “What if the middle guy is not a true biblical category? What if there is no such thing as a ‘lukewarm’ Christian?” Then remove the middle guy and ask those lined up behind him to pick one of the other two lines.

Both of these exercises will get your group thinking about their personal faith. Just be aware that it could get messy.

* Thanks, Kevin!

A Student’s Perspective / Prayer

Our group recently did a ski retreat. While snowboarding, one of our freshmen guys got seriously hurt. He ruptured his spleen, and the doctors said it was bad — stage four out of five stages of danger. He wasn’t expected to recover without surgery, and even then, the doctors were worried. So worried they medevacked him by helicopter to the nearest big city.

We, however, had a powerful weapon. As soon as the student body learned about his condition we started praying. Not just three-second prayers, either. Groups of us clustered around the ski lodge and prayed for up to half an hour. Dedicating his safety to Christ, we prayed for our friend, pleading for his recovery and health.

The next morning, after at least half a dozen more prayer times, we heard from his mom. The doctors were stunned. Not only was he recovering at record speed, he hadn’t needed surgery and the internal bleeding was only nominally affecting him. They couldn’t figure out why he was getting better so fast.

But we knew.

The Weekend of Grace

There’s a stretch of I-90 that weaves through Gary, IN, like a luge. Two lanes, tight curves, concrete barriers, and changing pavement levels. Toss in some rain, darkness, and steel mill stacks blowing orange flame and you’re running an Xtreme Sporting Event.

Veteran commuters do it in their sleep. They toss their cars through those curves at 70 mph mere inches from trailer trucks, barricades, and the car in front.

But try it some morning in a four-ton Ford Excursion. Whoa! That’s like driving a blimp. Suddenly everything is all lurching and white knuckles. You somehow get through it and hopefully nobody died.

That’s what it’s like to mix outside your comfortable social circles. Throw a fifty-year-old into a cluster of freshmen and watch him sweat. Or, make a sophomore listen to a clumsy adult monolog and it’s like throwing the communication circuit breaker. All systems down.

Which is why we need grace. We’re all trying, and we all love each other. Grace is the padding that says, “It’s OK. I like that you care and I think you’re great.”

There’s a new weekend coming. Let it be the Weekend of Grace.