The idol of acceptance and popularity

Way too many Christians put popularity ahead of their obedience to Christ. This is absolutely evident in the number of youth who walk away from their faith when they no longer fit in a youth group. It is equally evident in the fact that youth groups are often, maybe even in my church, a place that youth feel more popular. I know this is often the goal of church leaders and parents. They hope that youth group is a place where the young Christians can find acceptance with their peers.

That doesn't seem too wrong. We want our children to be accepted by Christian peers rather than be lost in the wrong crowd. The problem is that when that is the goal of youth group, the real purpose of the church is lost. The only valid purpose of the church is to hold one another up as we glorify God and spread his light to the world.

Glorifying God is not popular.

I have a challenge that hit me this week. Name one person in the Bible that God told to become popular and through politics of the day quietly bit by bit, with great sensitivity to the will of others develop a popular and comfortable community that glorifies God.

I can't think of one. The closest I can come up with is Esther. Her challenge from Mordecia was to gain political power to save the people of Israel. While this could be seen as a move to become political for a godly goal, the fact is that Esther didn't do what was popular. She stuck her neck out in great risk of becoming unpopular with the king. The fact that it worked was a blessing from God because of her obedience.

Of course in 1 Kings 12, the elders of Israel advised Rehoboam to lighten the tax load on the people after Solomon's expensive reign. One might interpret this as a step to make him more popular, but you'll see as that text progresses that the issue of seeking popularity is the downfall of Rehoboam. He was seeking to be popular among his peers. The elder's goal was less about popularity and more about wisdom of the moment.

As a follower of Christ and leader in a church, my goal cannot be about popularity. My goal is about obedience. Both my personal obedience to Christ and teaching others to be obedient. Church growth should be a natural outcome as more people obey Christ, but I cannot confuse the idol of acceptance with obedience in faith.

How to improve your adolescent's grades by one letter in just 15 minutes

Give them more sleep.

Ashley Merryman demonstrates that more sleep will improve your adolescent's grades, make them happier people and make them safer drivers. So when are parents going to start pushing school boards to adjust the school calendar? Maybe it should be a priority.

Are you making your kids want to live with you forever?

It may be that your lifestyle is stunting the maturity of your children in such a way that they won't have the drive to move out of your home. A recent article in Psychology Today says that the trend for children to live with their parents later is attributable to our affluent lifestyle. Stephen Mason writes

It means that the tide of hormones that hits pubescent kids, the tide that causes them to want to fly from the nest provided by their parents, has been greatly attenuated by the economics of America in the 21st Century. The rights of passage and the periods of apprenticeship that have always been a part of the teen years and of growing up, have been largely replaced by an additional decade of utter dependence.

Parents, when it comes to preparing for college, Relax!

Tim Clydesdale, a sociology professor at the College of NJ who has spoken to parents at our church, sent me this article today. It is great and deserves notice by parents.

In the article Jay Matthews of the Washington Post echos a statement that Clydesdale made at Grace Point last May. That is, the quality of school you attend doesn't greatly predict your future. The implication for parents and school administrators should be relax. I've had way too many discussions with parents about what they are putting their children through in order to get them to the best college. Pushing them into the highest level courses, extra tutoring when they struggle to get A's in those classes, adding multiple demanding extra curricular, and many other tricks that they thing will help to build their child's resume. None of these things is wrong in moderation and in the right manner, but what I witness is too many youth who are over stressed and, worse yet, have their identity wrapped up in their success.

I followed Mr. Matthews' example and thought of a few people that I've greatly admired over the last 15 years and looked up their colleges. In my list are people I've worked for, studied under, enjoyed their music, recognized their accomplishment as overcomers, read their books and follow their blogs.  The colleges represented on this list are as follows (in particular order): 2 at Michigan, Friends University, California San Diego, Reed College, Stanford, Wheaton and Augustana. Of those, two did not receive degrees. One only audited classes and another left to start his career.

So my challenge to parents, as well as school leaders, is to help children understand their real value. Ultimately that is in a relationship to Jesus Christ, but even within that relationship you children, all of them, have something unique that they need to develop. A university may be a part of that, but not likely the tell-tale part of what they can accomplish. Education is important, but education can come in so many different ways. Build a great relationship with your children. Help them to develop other relationships with mentors who will provide guidance. Provide for your children opportunities to experience things bigger or different than them. Foster their spirits. These will help your children to succeed much more than stretching them to a point that they end up in schools that don't really help them in the end.

Life After Home Audio

Sunday Evening we had the pleasure to host Dr. Tim Clydesdale at Grace Point.  Tim, author of The First Year Out and professor of sociology at the College of New Jersey, came to share his research on the experience of first year college student. I had the pleasure of interviewing him.  The event was records and is available on the Grace Point website .


Listen now .

Things to never tell a child: #5 You're better safe than sorry

I don't think parents too often actually sit a child down and tell them that you're better safe than sorry. I can remember hearing this in the past, as in during my childhood, but I don't think it was a message given by my parents. It was probably something I picked up in my 1.5 years of Cub Scouts or with the ultraconservative Jr. High football coach who bravely lead my team to a zero win season. "Better safe than sorry, Men."

Here's the thing, while I don't have evidence that parents use these words when talking to their children, I do think that Christian parents and the churches of America teach this all the time.

That's why we live in the suburbs by the way. That's why we pay high house prices to live in school districts that are free of the riff raff, gangs and drugs of the inner-city.

In my children's high schools each child is allow 1.5 electives in their course schedule. One day in two they have either gym or health. The other day they can learn art or philosophy or music or something. Now they have another option to take those courses if they desire, but few do. Why? Because you'll be better safe than sorry. Therefore, every school administer, teacher and course book recommends that they take at least 3 years of foreign language.

Now I'm not against foreign languages. I wish I would have learned more. But I can tell you, those courses I took in high school didn't teach me one lick how to communicate to people of other languages. I don't think my kids will be better off either. Both of them are taking German anyhow. The fact is, everyone I've ever known who I'd need to talk to who spoke German, spoke English too.

I'm not against learning German. I'm against the better safe than sorry mentality that directs artistic kids or kids with a scientific bent into the same course schedule. "Why?" I asked the school counselor once. "Because you never know if you are going to apply for a school that demands 3 or 4 years of foreign language for applicants." Hmm. I looked it up, and very few schools actually make that demand. Very few.

Now the church lives this way too. People lived that way in Jesus' day. He called them Pharisees and teachers of the Law. These were people who were so afraid of breaking the Law of God that they made their own laws to protect it.

We do similar things in a different way. We expect that our children should go to college because otherwise there will be closed doors. We send them on safe mission trips to safe regions of the world so that they can have a good experience. We work extra hours in our jobs because we want our kids to have every economic advantage. We tell them to be good strong Christians, but don't act weird. Make sure that you fit into the church group. No weird clothes or strange music that people don't get. We offer program after program so that no child (or adult) will feel left out. We offer services with every kinds of music so that everyone feels they have a place.

Why? Because, we’re better safe than sorry. Don't burn any bridges.

I'm not sure that Jesus lived this way. He burned bridges. Not every bridge, but the safe ones. Not the bridges to the marginalized, but the bridges to the mainstream. He didn't mind making those "religious" people feel left out.

He wasn't safe. No, his behavior cost him his life.

That's drastic. Do we want to put our children in a place where their lives will be in danger? Of course not, but their lives will be shallow unless we allow them to push those limit.

Stef showed me a video this morning where Francis Chan gave a silly analogy of Christians as gymnasts who plays it safe . It’s silly because no Olympic gymnast would cling to a balance beam like he does in this video. In the same way, Christians can't cling to their faith in such a safe way as to not risk "loosing" it. It's God's job to protect the hearts of our children. The Holy Spirit is responsible for working these things into their hearts. All we can do as parents is teach our children is teach to trust, or teach them to fear.

I hope that I'm teaching my children to trust God. That's faith. Fear is a lack of faith. To not have faith is to be an unbeliever. I hope my kids are learning to be believers.

Bono has a line on U2's latest album, No Line on the Horizon. He says, "Stop helping God across the street like a little old lady." It took me a bit to understand this line, but he's talking about being religious folks who are trying to make religion safe rather than a matter of faith.

So, I want parents, teachers and mentors to consider this. Are you helping God across the street or are you helping the children in your life to develop a faith that allows for real risk? If you are then stop!  Take them out of the "better safe than sorry classes and help them to discover faith by trial.

Faith isn’t safe, but, in the end, faith is the only real thing we can have. In the end to live a safe life is to be sorry if we don’t allow our children to develop this real, active faith that is not afraid.

Things to never tell a child: #4 Grandma will be waiting for us in heaven

This is a difficult one.  It comes out when people are grieving.  They miss Grandma.  They're longing for a chance to talk to her one more time.  But don't say it to a child.  A child thinks in concrete terms and if you paint heave to look like Grandma's house, their image of and purpose for heaven will fall short of that which God has in store.

I don't like too talk too much about heaven.  Heaven is out there.  We talk about it all the time.  Our hope is that some day we will all live together in heaven.

Or is it?

Our hope is that we can please God.  Our reward is that God will bring us into his presence.  Grandma is a wonderful part of our life on earth, but our reward isn't about recreating our relationships from earth in a new place.  The afterlife is about God.  (Actually, this life is about God, too.)  At any rate, it is not good for children to miss that point and the central point of this life or the next.

Of course, when I use Grandma in this post, it could just as easily be any person of a dear relationship.

Don't think that we should not assume that Grandma will be in heaven.  That's possible as far as we mean by heaven in the presence of God for eternity.  In that picture, Grandma may visit us.  But we can't assume that.  The thing is, we don't really know what the afterlife has in store for us.  We know a bit about it, but we don't know much.

What do we know?
We know that God will be the center of it.
We know that it is a city which implies that there will be people there--lots of people.
We know that there will be other spiritual creatures there.
We know that our Lord is preparing a place for us--and he's coming back to take us there.
We know that there will be no death or pain or crying.
We know that it is a reward for those who are righteous in Christ.

Instead of painting a false or assumed picture for a child, help them to understand the known things of the afterlife.  Tell him that Jesus loves Grandma very much and she is happy with him.  Some day we can be there to.

I hope that we get to see Grandma in heaven.  What a special reunion it would be.  But, as special as it may be, I just might run right by Grandma on my way to the King.  I hope Grandma isn't offended. If she's thinking about it at all, she'll probably be happier for my reunion with my Savior.

I don't know what that will be like, but I know that this life and the next is about God first.  God's arms will be and are open, waiting for me.

I can't wait.  But I will wait.

Every dad of a daughter, young or old, needs to read this

I remember these days.  I was in seminary studying on my couch and breaking to play Barbies, talk about squirpers (don't ask) or reading while my hair was pulled until hair clips and bows stayed put.  I'm miss these days.

http://www.shaungroves.com/shlog/entry/before_the_game_changes/

The First Year Out

I just finished reading The First Year Out  by Tim Clydesdale .  Clydesdale is a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey.  This book is the result of a research project he had completed with high school graduates.  He meet the subjects while in their senior year at a New Jersey high school and followed them through the first year after graduations.

This book represents wonderful research in an important area. It tends to read a bit like a research book, I guess, since that's what it is. Not really ready for a mom or dad to pick up as they prepare for jr. to go off to college. Still, I really like the information Clydesdale presents. His implications for parents may have made the whole book worthwhile for me...(reworded)

1. parents should partner with their children in the post-high school planning process.
2. look beyond college. The career that follows will be a much bigger part of their life and the "best" college isn't always what is right for the right career path.
1. many children need a year off to evaluate what is right. Give it too them. I particularly like the idea of volunteering. In the church, I could come up with a million ways to make that worthwhile.
3. While parents are partners in the planning process, the child must make the final call. No more, "mom wants me to be a ____, so I'm going to be."
   

That's good advice for students. I wish Clydesdale would have given better help for the church. I'll be working on trying to apply what he deems a spiritual lockbox and how we can help students avoid setting their faith aside for a period after high school.