Children’s Ministry and Culture

I feel like I’m the last guy to read Blue Like Jazz and I did so this past Wednesday. Not that I’m a fast reader, but I read steadily and it only took about 5 hours. It was my first Christian read since Larry’s Divine Intention but I liked the tone well enough to offer some comments that might inform the minister to children.

First, I’ve not read many Christian books with words like “crap” and “beer” given center stage so it took some getting used to. I constantly had to wonder is this a before conversion thing? I was hoping it was not put there to feel like I was being set up with a morality tale. It didn’t feel like he wrote crap or typed his thoughts under the influence of beer however (Christopher Hitchens, on the other hand, is often so difficult to read PRECISELY because of his drinking).

It was also interesting to hear Don write about how often he CHANGED his behavior because either his friends pointed out some flaw or he just perceived an inconsistency in what he did based on what he read of Jesus in scripture. I think this is remarkable enough, or maybe it reveals in my mind how infrequently writers who are Christians or speakers who are Christians rarely if ever comment on their changes of mind and behavior directly. Refreshing!

I was also refreshed and reminded of the very direct effect of early children’s ministry training that, in Miller’s case, while it might have been rigid or clenched and legalistic (he calls it “Republican” and “Wealthy”) is nonetheless very important throughout this memoir. Important in the sense that it is for him a reference point!

I also love how his faith made him, with the help–often as he strongly resists–of his friends, DO something! The Confession Booth at Reed College (anyone reminded of Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons?) was AMAZING and just floored me. The generation he embodies, the culture he inhabits, is very “Uptown” as my eldest son would say, very “Northwest” and highly ambiguous socially. I love this combination and it gives a fresh look at scripture that we all need!

What I found wierd was his chapter on tithing (it felt like a “God Bless America” comment at the end of a presidential speech–forced, typical yet really out of place in a book on “Christian spirituality”–which, by the way, is a GREAT phrase he distinguishes from “Christianity”). But I think he did that to please his pastor (he also feels very sensitive about the CHURCH as an institution and I felt his editor at Thomas Nelson and he were having a tug-of-war with this institution in especially chapter 13, so I felt that I didn’t hear what Don REALLY felt).

Community, friendship and change; these were the stuff that I found remarkable in their insight and very helpful for those of us in ministry who teach and train and yet need to be reminded of the community we keep. His reflection of the household (Testerhome) of men he had to interact with was priceless with reflection and candor.

Ok, I had to post SOMETHING because at 2:30 am I woke up in a strange hotel (welcome to my world–worrying about the alarm, whether it will go off at 6am or not) and can’t get back to sleep! I’m speaking at 8:30 this morning and my mind keeps rehearsing my topic “Giving Kids A Faith That Grows”!!!

During my Spring break I sat down with Scot McKnight’s A Community Called Atonement as part of my preparation to worship on Easter.

I’m only halfway through the book, but I’m enjoying it thoroughly. Atonement theory (what exactly was the nature of Jesus’ saving work?) has been a source of much heated debate in recent years. Are we to understand atonement as primarily as sacrifice, or ranson, or as Victor Christus?

McKnight’s answer is “yes.” All of these metaphors, and more, are welcome and necessary. Scot writes that he’d never use just one club in his golf bag. Each are necessary to understand Jesus’ saving work.

What does this have to do with children’s ministry?

I’ve been challenged to make sure that I’m more intentional at helping children more fully understand “all of his benefits”, as the Psalmist wrote.

I grew up in a faith tradition that emphasized God’s wrath toward sinners, and that the cross satisfied that wrath (The sacrifice metaphor). This is a great foundation– it’s true, and wonderful, and a cause for praise. But it’s not the whole story.

If I stop there my faith becomes individualistic, and so will the faith of those I teach. Jesus died for my sin and God is no longer angry. A impacting as that is, I’m telling a finished story. I’m describing salvation a moment and not as abundant life. And I’ve told a story that ends the moment the child says the sinner’s prayer.  

But atonement is also communal and a quality of life. Paul teaches that God’s business is reconciling all people groups to himself. Atonement involves engaging social injustice and systemic evil.

McKnight’s book reminded me that the “BridgeKids” name of my children’s ministry is an atonement metaphor. We help children “build friendship bridges to God, the church, and the world.”

McKnight’s book invited me to move back into my own metaphor and to lead parents and children from it.

I’m reading the rough draft of a new book Turbocharged: 100 Simple Secrets to Successful Children’s Ministry by Dale Hudson, Director of Central Kidz, Grades 1 – 5 at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas www.cfmteamonline.com ) and Scott Werner, LIFEKids Pastor, at Life Church in Edmond, OK (check out 8300 kids at his VBS article here .  

These two guys are pretty up front with children’s ministries (Dale’s wife led Bruce Berry to the lord years ago) that are on the cutting edge and highly entertaining yet relevant to their culture. I’m writing an endorsement so I read the book this morning but I’ve got to share one chapter (51 titled “Don’t Be A Bubble Boy”) that is just a superb example of two people who are not just DOING ministry and spinning wheels but ABSORBED BY MINISTRY to children!  It is instructive for our blog here since it touches on culture and how to view it. The book comes out in June and you can preorder it here 

One Exerpt:

Some Christ-followers pull away from the culture and place themselves inside a “Christian bubble.” They think the more you are out of touch with the culture, the more godly you are. They might pop out of the bubble occasionally to quote a Bible verse to someone on the outside, but they hastily retreat back inside. Jesus definitely wasn’t in the bubble. The Bible says he ate with “tax collectors and other sinners.” He didn’t pull away from those who needed God’s truth the most. Rather, he hung out with them. He ate with them. He went to their homes. He got involved in their lives. He was right in the middle of the culture of his day. The “religious” people didn’t like it. You could hear their shouts coming from inside the bubble as they called him “the friend of sinners.” What a great thing to be called! We are called to reach the culture in which we live. We must meet people where they are. But it’s hard to build relationships outside the bubble…if you’re never outside of the bubble.

If you don’t know about people’s music, entertainment, styles, and tastes, then it will be hard to connect with them. They will look at you as you sit inside the bubble, and say, “That’s weird. I want no part of that.” The same principle applies to children’s ministry.

We have to get outside our little “bubble” songs, “bubble” DVDs, and “bubble” books, and know the culture that kids live in today. As I stated in another chapter, missionaries spend lots of time learning the culture of the people they are trying to reach. We are missionaries to children. We must know what’s going on in their culture. We have to speak their cultural language if we want them to listen to us. So how do you get outside the bubble and connect with kid culture? Here are some ways to burst out of the bubble: 

Read magazines. Here are some key magazines that will keep you in touch with kid culture.

·                      Nickelodeon

·                      American Girl

·                      Kidscreen (a must-have—order from www.kidscreen.com )

·                      Sports Illustrated Kids

·                      Boys’ Life

·                      Discovery Girls

·                      Girls’ Life

·                      Children’s Ministry Magazine (especially the “Keeping Current WithKids” section)

Regularly check out children’s TV programming. Here are the big four to watch.

·                      Disney Channel

·                      Nickelodeon

·                      Cartoon Network

·                      MTV (for preteens—like it or not, a lot watch it) 

Watch movies kids like. Find out what kids are watching at the box office and on DVD. Ask kids on a regular basis what their favorite movies are. Take time to watch them. You can also check out www.fandango.com or www.pluggedinonline.com  to see what’s currently playing and get reviews. 

Know what video games kids are playing. Ask kids to tell you about their favorite games and why they like them. Go by the video game store and ask the sales clerk what the most popular games are for kids. Read reviews about the games. Rent the games and check them out if you have a game system. 

Know their music. Music is a great refl ection of culture. Ask kids what’s on their iPod. See what’s at the top of the billboard charts. Ask kids who their favorite singers are. 

Know their favorite Web sites. Ask kids where they spend time on the Web, then check out the sites. Find out what Internet game sites they frequent. 

Regularly walk through the toy aisles. Look at the newest toys. Keep abreast of what kids are clamoring for. 

Have kids focus groups. Talk with groups of kids and ask what’s “cool” right now. Make the group as diverse as possible to get the best answers. Instead of avoiding the culture, look at it as something that can help you connect kids to Jesus. Be a student of kid culture, and use it as a vehicle to reach out to them. And when culture collides with God’s truth, use it as an opportunity to show what God’s Word says about the subject. We want kids to be out in the culture when they grow up so they can reach people. So if you’re in the Christian bubble…burst out! Get out there and learn all you can about kid culture. That’s where Jesus wants you…outside the bubble!

Dale writes:

Keith, thanks for the write up about the book on Children’s Ministry and Culture.  Couple of clarifications. Scott is not at Life Church now.  He left to do consulting and is opening a chain of childcare centers. The author info. clarifies that he is the former cp at Life Church.

My wife was the one who found Bruce’s website. It was Dr. Ronnie Floyd who actually led him to Christ while he was building Toon Town in Springdale and I had the privilege of baptizing he and his wife Vivian.

Thanks. Dale

Yesterday I sat down and read “The New Breed: Understanding and Equipping the 21st Century Volunteer” by Janathan McKee and Thomas W. McKee.  Next to Jim Wideman’s “Volunteers That Stick” this might be the best book on volunteer managament I’ve ever read.

“The New Breed” described in the book are the two generation with the most decretionary time to offer– The Millenials (which they label Gen @) and the Retiring Boomers. Xers, like myself, are time starved with the demands of parenting.

The McKee’s spend a good portion of the book looking at the generational traits of these two available groups and develop helpful tips to shape your ministry and recruiting pitches to appeal to these largely untapped people groups.

The book made me reflect on my recruiting strategies. In children’s ministry, I tend to target parents to be teachers. And that is proper. But it’s not the 50’s anymore and there are fewer-and-fewer stay home moms to recruit. I need to be more intentional at reaching out to these two other groups all well. 

Everyone should know one great youth worker. I happen to have an office next to one. Jason posted this video of Rick Warren on the Colbert Report. Give it a view before reading on:

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=148506&is_large=true

Colbert said that most people’s vision of God was that of Donkey Kong throwing barrels down on people trying to reach the next level.

Funny stuff. But if the book unChristian is to be believed, then he’s not quite right. Still funny but not right.

I just cracked unChristian last night. Written by Davide Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian explores the attitudes of “outsiders” between the ages of 16-29. Kinnaman might correct Colbert and say that it is the Church who plays the role of Donkey Kong and stand between the common person and God. Says Kinneman:

“When outsiders claim that we are unChristian, it is a reflection of this jumbled (and predominantly negative) set of perceptions. When they see Christians not acting like Jesus , they quickly conclude that the group deserves the unChristian label. Like a corrupted computer file or a bad photocopy, Christianity, they say, is not longer in pure form, and so they reject it.” (page 29)

The outsiders six basic criticisms of Christianity are that we are 1) hypocritical; 2) Too focused on getting converts; 3) Antihomosexual; 4) Sheltered; 5) Too political; and 6) Judgmental.

This information becomes a challenge for the childrens minister when he or she recalls that the bulk of those being studied are those twenty-somethings– parents who would otherwise be filling our children’s ministries. Past church growth surveys indicated that teens left the church when they graduate from high school but often come back when when they start having children. The data in unChristian would indicate that this is becoming less true (Why would a parent subject their children to a group of people defined by those six negative traits).

How do you react to this information? How can your ministry respond to this challenge?

If you’re a professional level member of Kidology.org you can view the report by clicking here: http://www.kidology.org/zones/zone_post.asp?post_id=4419

Thanks for the kind words, Spencer.

I have to say, after reading today Group’s Emergency Response Handbook for Children’s Ministry what an amazing job our own Larry Shallenberger did! You can see in Google Books some of the content (http://books.google.com/books?id=B0C19xEq078C&pg=PA160&dq=group%27s+emergency+response+handbook&sig=6Am23PU6MLVx0X43pn_455GJIc4#PPA7,M1)

His contribution to this must-have resource is in the chapter on “Abuse: Supporting Children Who Are Suffering” (Chapter 1), “Depression: Supporting Children In The Darkness” (Chapter 5) and “Tragic Personal Loss: Supporting Children and Families Struck by Tragedy” (Chapter 12). Larry has given some extremely helpful “Ministry Tips” that will give many on the front lines of ministry compassionate and effective tools!

Good Job Larry!

I met D. Michael Lindsay a few years ago when he and George Gallup, Jr. were doing a book signing for Group Publishing at the Anaheim location of Christian Booksellers’ Convention. They had just finished The Gallup Guide: Reality Check for 21^st Century Churches . Michael did most of the research for this book while at Oxford with his tutor Alister McGrath (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mcgrath/ ) and I was really impressed by his earnest depth and intellectual insight. He and his wife, Rebecca, were also kind not to comment on my driving skills that day on the Southern California freeways. Ah but I digress.

Well, he has his PhD (from Princeton) and is Professor of Sociology at Rice University and has an amazing new book out from Oxford University Press called Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite and it is full of 360 in-depth interviews with American evangelical leaders from every walk of life, but who he calls “move-the-dial” Christians in commanding positions within our society. They are NOT into the bombast or placard-bearing Christianity. They are “subtler and quieter, but frankly higher-ranking and more powerful.” 

There is a very good interview of Dr. Lindsay by Tim Stafford, senior writer at Christianity Today that is full of great observations! Much of the soggy, foggy and flabby Christianity I find in so many sermons, taught in Sunday school and even demonstrated by clearly ineffective children’s ministries is disheartening. What is promising is that our faith doesn’t have to be imprecise or tendentious!

I hope you’ve noticed that Larry and I have hinted at our desire for a more rigorous faith and practice within Children’s Ministry. Sometimes we are rolling a heavy boulder uphill. For instance, witness the strong reaction against our view that edutainment can produce a deeply feeble Christian child; or our vocal support for LESS memory work and MORE application of scripture; or our desire to do away with inane rewards that DEMOTIVATE children but reward our myth-of-the-strongest within Christianity! Ok, I’m digressing again!

Notice what Dr. Lindsay has to say and see if you don’t find yourself nodding in agreement:

 “It’s a very elite group, but it’s not really about class sensibility—it’s more about an orientation to the world. They read Christianity Today, but they also read The New York Times. They might go to a Christian rock concert, but they also go to the symphony. And they have a broadmindedness that goes alongside their faith.” 

“They might go to a regular congregation, but their faith is broader, or at least espouses a greater appreciation for pluralism and diversity.” 

“…local church involvement is not the principal source of spiritual solidarity.” 

“I found hundreds of leaders who are far more committed to being involved in a particular small group or in parachurch ministry than they are to being involved in their local church.” 

“They get impatient with what they consider incompetence [in church]. They go to a committee meeting that may be poorly run, and they can’t stand to waste so much time getting so little accomplished. They realize that for some committee members, just being there is a high point of the week, a real source of stimulation. But for them it’s mostly a waste of time. So they engage elsewhere, where things are run with a higher degree of professionalism. I was also surprised to find many who feel considerable tension with their pastor.” 

What a great observation of most of our committees, church services and local church culture! I’ll spare you the observation of what  he calls “sub cultural consumption” with it’s Christian Radio, Christian Bookstore and Thomas Kinkade artwork view of culture—decidedly myopic! I love the illustration! Some great stuff from a Sociologist who is a wonderful example of “the strenuous life” and a Christ lover!

Let’s keep fighting for a strong faith that honors Christ with a “mind awake” to use CS Lewis’ phrase!

James Wood is a new professor at Harvard who has been known for some time as a critic for The New Republic and The Guardian. He says, “I’m generally in favor of reading a bit less and knowing it deeply” (”The Critical View” in The Harvard Crimson, 10/27/2003, or here (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349548).

I first heard of him the other day when I read one of his reviews of a new translation of the book of Psalms in The New Yorker (where he is also staff writer) http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/10/01/071001crbo_books_wood. It is a great review of Robert Alter’s “The Book of Psalms” (Norton) yet the REVIEW was so well written that it led me to discover more about it’s author.

James Wood writes with an involvement in the text that resonates with me. He reads with an “aesthetic” judgement rather than a “literary critical” judgement. For instance, when you read a book, does it feel right or does it seem forced? Is that an intent of the writer (to shock, to deaden or to anger) or it just carelessness (at midly worse) or cynicism (playing with the reader).

I am a strong fan of the direct use of the Bible in Children’s Ministry for the simple reason that doing so provides a basis for making “aesthetic judgments” while reading in general and truth-gathering in particular. Such was the upbringing of James Wood in his native England. Read the review and relish his love of truth and then call back the times we’ve TOLD children what is in the bible instead of letting them devour it themselves.

By the way, read James Wood’s discussion of the new Psalm 23 translation by Alter and prepare to be enriched by it’s brilliance. Alas, James Woods, as one post points out vividly, fell away from God at the age of 15 (http://www.powells.com/review/2006_12_14.html)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21017939/

A new book, “The Social Skills Improvement System—Classwide Intervention Program,” agrues that children who have aquired basic social skills are better equipped for academic achievement in the classroom.

 Eight thousand teachers were interviewed in a 2006 survey. According to these teachers the top-ten social skills that children need to success in school are: