Are You In or Are You Out? Part 2: Colouring In Between the Lines

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by bondidwhat)

Yesterday, I threw out the question of how to determine whether someone is “in” or someone is “out” for conversation. How do we know if someone is actually saved, or not? Go ahead! Take a few minutes and answer that question. What would you write down?

Here are some things I come up with:

 

• put faith in Christ
• talks to God (prays)
• goes to church or is part of some faith community
• reads the Bible
• follows God’s ways or laws
• seeks out ways to grow closer to God

I’m sure you probably came up up with similar things… maybe more, maybe less, maybe rewording some of the stuff…

When we come up with a list to define salvation, that is called a Bounded Set. You have a set definition or criteria for what it means to be a Christ-follower, and as long as you stay within the bounds of that set of criteria then you are “in.” Another way to put is if you were to draw a box that represents being a Christian, as long as you colour in between the lines then you are “in.” The term Bounded Set is borrowed from mathematics.

Most of us evaluate someone being a Christ follower using a Bounded Set mentality. It is nice, clean and easy. Then we use those criteria to help children understand what it means to surrender their lives to Christ.

I’m not going to say a Bounded Set paradigm is wrong. I do think it is incomplete, though. I also think that it can lead to legalism and spiritual pride.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at a hybrid of two approaches that I think offer us a more complete way of understanding whether someone is “in” or “out.”

What do you think?

Do you agree or disagree that a Bounded Set framework is incomplete?

How would you explain whether someone is “in” or “out?”

 

Are You In or Are You Out? Part 1

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by alana jonez)

I really hate spiders. OK, it’s more than just hate… I’m terrified of them. Today, I found a dead one in one of the ethernet ports of a wireless router and had to clean out the port because it was freaking me out. This post has nothing to do with spiders, though. I was looking for a picture in Flickr with the keywords “peace with God” and the above picture stood out to me… for more than just the spider comment (BTW, I used to think I wanted to go to Australia… this is the second spider I’ve heard about in Australia that I would rather not encounter!)

One of the biggest challenges, I think, in ministering to kids is trying to explain salvation… more specifically, how do you know if you are “in” or how do you know if someone else is “in?”

[If you are a fan of the television show 24 and have not seen the season finale, then you might want to skip the next paragraph to avoid any kind of spoiler.]

In the season finale of 24, the show’s main character Jack Bauer is supposedly on his deathbed. Now, Jack is known for taking any measures necessary to get information that he needs to save the world, even if it means torturing or killing someone. Being close to death, Jack sincerely is searching to make peace with God and seek God’s forgiveness. He calls upon an imam (a Muslim cleric) to confess to and seek God’s mercy. Is Jack “in” or is he “out” when he stands before God?

C.S. Lewis posed a similar situation in his book The Last Battle. At the end of the story, there is a young Calormene who has faithfully followed the false god Tash rather than Aslan yet finds himself in Aslan’s country (heaven). Aslan answers the confused young man by saying, “all service done unto Tash has been done unto me.” Lewis implies a measure of grace to those who are sincerely searching out God yet find him through non-Christian avenues.

I’m not suggesting that all paths lead to God, which is a Universalist mindset. I am simply asking that we take a look at the criteria we teach kids when it comes to salvation and what it means to be “at peace with God.”

Over the next few posts, I want to take a look at how we evaluate whether someone is in or out and how I think we can help kids have a greater understanding of what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Christ.

How would you evaluate if someone is “in?”

How do you present the idea of salvation to a child?

If the kids you minister to were asked to describe someone who follows God, what would their descriptions be? What would your description be?

Belonging Before Believing

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by jimforest)

If you don’t know who Eric Bryant is, then you really need to check out his blog and read his book, Peppermint-Filled Pinatas. Eric is one of the Navigators (executive staff) at Mosaic in Los Angeles and a really nice guy. (I had the privilege of meeting with and talking with him when I was down in L.A. in February for The Idea Camp.)

Recently I read an article of Eric’s that was posted on CatalystSpace.com entitled “The Suicidal Missionary.”

I wanted to share some quotes that really resonated with me:

“Rather than being exclusive and judgmental, we have to work that much harder to become inclusive and loving. We cannot show the world God’s love if we do not truly love the people in our world.“

“One of the most important changes we can make to overcome [being seen as judgemental] would be to create communities in which people are allowed to belong before they have to believe.”

“As followers of Jesus, we have been ‘set apart’ and ‘sent out.’ We are ‘set apart’ in our behavior, and ‘sent out’ in our relationships.”

So many times our default in church world is to try and fix people before they have crossed the line of faith and have given control of their lives over to God. We try and get people to see the wrong they are doing and expect people to believe the things we believe before we allow them to belong to our communities of faith. We put up hurdles to people building relationships and being a part of the community simply because they haven’t crossed the line of belief (or whatever other artificial stipulations we have). We turn church into a club with membership requirements, which if not met means exclusion from the benefits of being part of the club.

I think this happens because all too often we mix up being a part of the church community with being a citizen of the Kingdom of God. Only God can determine who is a citizen of the Kingdom. It is our job as citizens of the Kingdom to welcome people from all walks of life and at all points of their spiritual journeys into our communities.

Doing that, though, takes risk. It takes willingness to struggle through the mess. It takes an unconditional love for people that goes beyond our preconceived ideas of what it means to be a part of a faith community.

What does that mean for those of us in children’s and family ministry?

That means we need to be ministering to families that don’t fit our molds: families going through divorce, single parent families, families with unmarried parents, families with two dads or two moms, families with rough edges… It means helping all families to belong and connect and feel like they are part of the community as much as the families who’ve been at church forever. It means befriending those families. It means helping those families communicate faith to their children. It means pointing them to Christ. It means planting seeds, watering seeds and allowing God to do the growing. It means being there when they cross that line of faith and encouraging them, equipping them and empowering them to find out what it means to continue following Christ.

For some of us, that means rethinking how we do church and how we process volunteer participation so that those who are still on a spiritual journey to be involved somehow yet in significant ways. For others of us, it means recasting vision for those already in church to make the church a place where people can belong before believing.

How would you describe your church? How does it do on allowing people to “belong before believing?”

Are there areas for those who have not “crossed the line of faith” to volunteer and be involved in at your church? In what areas and why?

Do you even agree with the notion of people belonging before believing?

In Love with Being in Love with God

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by susan_d_p)

My first years as a children’s pastor, I was part of a denomination that put a high value on emotional experiences with God. It was the same denomination I grew up in. I remember going to camps and retreats and knowing that “God moved” if there were a lot of people at the altar crying. When I became the one in charge of our district camp, I toned down the emotionality of things and even dared to have a different perspective on certain denominational distinctives. From some reactions I got, you’d think I was denying the deity of Christ.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think emotional experiences are wrong. I think they have their place. In fact, I think that some emotional experiences with God are a part of a vital and dynamic relationship with God. I take issue when the “experience” of God trumps an ongoing relational awareness of God regardless of experiences.

I think Scot McKnight states it rather well in this Out of Ur post a couple of weeks ago. It is entitled “Spritual Eroticism.” Here is a quote from the post:

“Friends of mine today worry about consumerization or commoditization in the church. I offer a slightly different analysis of what might be the same thing: for many, Sunday services have become the experience of courtly love. Some folks love church, and what they mean by ‘loving church’ is that they love the experience they get when they go to church. They prefer to attend churches that foster the titillation of courtly-love worship and courtly-love fellowship and courtly-love feelings.”

McKnight goes on to say that some people are more in love with experiencing God than they are God himself.

So what do we do when we introduce kids and families (and anyone else for that matter) to God? Do we completely strip experience out? I don’t think so. How do we, then, teach and show by example a healthy view of expereince? Again, I think McKnight says it well,

“Those who know the Beloved and desire nothing but the glory of that Beloved may well know the experience, but they are so enthralled with the Face of the Beloved they forget where they are and dwell in the presence of God with but one thought: God deserves praise, God is worthy of praise.”

One thing that we do with the kids at church is remind them that worshipping God is simply “paying attention only to God.” (I took that definition from Teaching Kids Authentic Worship by Kathleen Chapman.) We try and focus everything back on God. When we worship, it’s about focusing on God. When we pray, it’s about talking to God. When we sing, it’s about singing to God. We try and help kids to realize that in order to best follow God, there is one thing we need to know “love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” and “love your neighbour as yourself.”

How do you teach kids in your family and church how to love God more than the experience?

If you are from a more experiential church, how do you help kids realize that a relationship with God is not dependent on the experiences?

Pink? Blue? What to Do?

[Author's Note: The title banner for the official International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) website has pictures of gay couples kissing, so if that bothers you, you may not want to click the links to that site.]

Earlier this week, I stopped in to my kids’ school to pick them up early and noticed a poster on the office window. I couldn’t find a pic of it on the internet. The poster highlighted an event called “Boys Wear Pink, Girls Wear Blue Day” in observance of the IDAHO. This event was an initiative by the diversity committee at the Lakehead Public School District where we live. Since the official date for the IDAHO is today (Sunday, May 17 2009) the school district held the Boys Wear Pink, Girls Wear Blue Day this past Friday (May 15).

When I saw the poster my mind immediately raced to all the controversy I had heard about surrounding The Day of Silence on April 17, which was a day students across the US were asked to be silent for one day in protest of anti-GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) bullying, name-calling and harassment in schools. There were a Christian organizations encouraging parents to call schools and even keep their children home from school that day. There was even a Day of Truth proposed to happen on the following Monday to counter The Day of Silence. Other Christian organizations like Campus Crusade offered a modified approach to The Day of Silence:

As part of the “Golden Rule Initiative,” students will pass out cards throughout the day vowing to live in the manner of Christ’s teaching to “Do to others as you would have them do to you” in reference to the passage from Scripture. The cards will ask, “What are you going to do to end the silence?” In other words, what will you do to help secure a safe environment for GLBT identified students?

Back to the poster at my kids’ school… To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to react. I agree that homophobia is wrong. It is wrong to single out any social group and treat them with disrespect through name-calling, bullying and harassment. I support bringing awareness to issues like homophobia as much as I support bringing awareness to religious discrimination, racism, or other forms of discrimination. On the other hand, I do not affirm that a homosexual lifestyle is within God’s plans for relationships. Do I, as a parent, allow my child to participate in an event like this? Or do I not?

I then read this post on Scot McKnight’s blog. I also thought back to the posts a while back on Elemental Children’s Ministry about what to do if a gay person wanted to volunteer in children’s ministry here and here.

My wife and I came to the conclusion that we would not discourage our children from participating in dressing pink or blue for that day. We also came to the conclusion, though, that we would sit down with them and make sure they understood that by doing so they were standing against treating people living out a GLBT lifestyle in a manner that goes against the command to “love your neighbour as yourself.” It wasn’t an endorsement of the lifestyle.

There was something, though, that still bugged me about the event.

Schools awarded classes with the most participation with a pizza party!

I went through two feelings.

First, I felt offended for the organizers of IDAHO. From the literature on their website, they take the issue of homophobia seriously and are working at bringing awareness all over the world to stop discrimination and violence towards the GLBT community. To turn participation of the event into a competition for a pizza party, in my mind, devalues what the event stands for. The prize overshadows the priniciple.

Second, I felt offended for those kids and families who chose not to participate because to participate would violate their personal beliefs. While I don’t agree that participation in an event like this is akin to validation of the GLBT lifestyle, I do understand that there are people who do think so and respect their right to do so. By making participation in the event a competition, then those kids who don’t participate are singled out and labelled as homophobic at the worst or the reason their class didn’t win a pizza party at the least. Either way those who don’t participate are discriminated against, in a way.

Shame on the Lakehead Public School Board.

In the end, my kids knew nothing about the event (they are in grades 2 and 3) so we didn’t have to deal directly with them participating or not. I am glad, though, for having gone through the experience of having to think through and live out how my family is to live out a missional faith within our context.

What would you have done in that situation?

Do you agree that participating in events that speak out against homophobia is not the same as endorsing homosexuality?

What are your thoughts on the school board turning the event into a competition?

Going to Church vs. Going to the Apple Store

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by barjack)

Yesterday as I was walking to work, I was listening to MacBreak Weekly. (Just a side note: It’s not a safe podcast to listen to because it makes you want to buy stuff you don’t have money for!) I was listening to episode 140. Leo and his cohorts were talking about Apple Stores and how, more often than not, they are usually full while other branded computer stores are empty. Their assessment was that Apple has done an amazing job of making the Apple Store THE place for those part of the Apple culture to go to; it is an extension of the Apple culture. It is also useful. It has a Genius Bar (in-store, live support), free internet access (I know other stores have this, too), a learning theatre, associates who are there “to answer any questions you might have,” and you can play with all the computers easily and without being harassed.

What caught me was the statement that the stores have become an extension of Apple culture. It’s not where Apple culture happens or originates. It’s part of the culture: a place to physically interact with others who are a part of the Apple culture or checking out the Apple culture. It’s also a place that enhances your experience of the Apple culture by providing “expert” help by way of helping you with any Apple problems, helping you expand your usage of Apple products, and helping you find out how to use Apple products in the real world.

Now, before I get accused of using Elemental Children’s Ministry to advertise for Apple (I’m not getting paid, but if anyone at Apple reads this and appreciates my endorsements, I wouldn’t mind an iPod Touch arriving in my mailbox), I started thinking about church (the institution and the building) and Christian culture. For too long, the church building has been viewed as the centre of Christian culture. You come to get your fill of Christianity, and then you go out and maybe bring that culture with you. Even if you did bring your Christianity with you and shared that with others, they had to come to the church building in order to be inducted into Christian culture.

Before I go on, I know that I have railed on evangelical Christian culture in previous posts. My criticisms have been focused on the tendency of evangelicalism to set up artificial hurdles that someone who is seeking out Christ need jump over before being “in the club.” My use of “Christian culture” in this post has to do with the greater culture surrounding those who have chosen to surrender their lives to Christ and follow him, whatever that might look like. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program…

We are bombarded with statistics showing 20-somethings walking out church doors and not coming back. The Church is seen as irrelevant and even toxic to society. This is because the church (building/institution) has been wrongly equated with the Church (the greater global community of those who follow Christ). What if we rightly return the centre of Christian culture back on Christ? That would mean being a Christian isn’t restricted by geographical location or vocation or context. Christianity becomes a part of who Christians are. Then church (the building/institution) becomes an extension of Christian culture rather than the hub. It become a place Christ followers come to meet other Christ followers or those checking out God. It becomes a place to hear from those who are farther along on the spiritual journey. It becomes a place where you know you can receive help when problems arise. It becomes a place where you can find ways to engage in the greater mission of God.

Just a thought. I’m not saying that we have to be like Apple. I’m not even saying I’m right… it just made me stop and wonder.

What do you think? Can the institution of church be renewed and reimagined? Or do we need to just drop the institution?

Children's Ministry in a Missional Paradigm: Spiritual Outcomes

This is a picture of me with a group of Grade 3 kids at one of our services. Fun group of kids!

It’s these faces as well as the faces of the many other kids I’ve had the privilege of influencing since getting involved in children’s ministry as a 15 year old trying to get out of “big church” that prompt me to try and take a different look at children’s ministry – children’s ministry in a missional paradigm. We’ve looked at a few definitions of the word “missional” here, here and here. We’ve also looked at some scriptures to serve as the backdrop to what a statement articulating missional children’s ministry might look like.

What I’d like to consider now are some outcomes that result from a missionally driven children’s ministry. Most of us are familiar with educational outcomes. That isn’t what I’m looking at. I’m not looking for a list of knowledge that kids should know. I’m looking for some spiritual outcomes. In other words, what are some overarching themes that allow for each culture to use and flesh out for their own context.

Here are four outcomes that I think embody a missional understanding of what we are hoping kids to leave children’s ministry with:

• Know who God is
  
• Know how much God loves them
  
• Know how to best follow God to have an amazing life
  
• Know how they can change the world around them as they follow God

These proposed spiritual outcomes need to be fleshed out a bit, but these are an answer as to the “what” of children’s ministry in a missional paradigm.

What would you add?

Would you change anything? If so, what?

What are your spiritual outcomes that you are aiming for in your children’s ministry?

Backup, Backup, Backup!

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by Steven Combs)

I’ve always known it’s important to backup regularly and often. Ever since Leopard came out with Time Machine, it’s made it easy for me to do just that without having to think about it.

A couple of days ago, something weird happened with my hard drive, and I had to reinstall Leopard after wiping my hard drive clean… Yes, you read that right… wiped the hard drive clean!

Thankfully, I’ve allowed Time Machine to backup my computer. It does an hourly backup in the background as long as you have your backup drive hooked up. After reinstalling Leopard, all I had to do was click on a bubble that said to restore my computer from a Time Machine backup, and viola! I’m back!

I can hear all you PC devotees making mock gasping sounds saying things like “I thought Macs were perfect! What do you mean you had a problem?” I will be the first to admit that Macs aren’t perfect. I just like using them. But how many PC’s come with a backup utility that makes it so easy to restore all your data after having to wipe your hard drive clean?

The moral of the story here: Backup, Backup, Backup and often! You never know when you will need it.

About Drinking "Grape Juice"

//

Last week, I saw this tweet from Out of Ur:

With a title like that, who wouldn’t check it out? You can check out the blog post here. The blog post linked to a LeadershipJounal.net article entitled “Trouble Brewing.”

[UPDATE ON MAY 15, 2009 - Here is a follow up post on Out of Ur about the LeadershipJournal.net article.]

Now, I don’t know what your view on alcohol is. It isn’t my intention to change your mind or make you agree with my point of view. I am simply asking you to maybe struggle through your views on drinking and how to communicate with the kids and families you minister to.

Up until a few years ago, I did not drink. I grew up with the expectation that most of us who grew up in evangelical homes that it was not right/good for us to drink. It’s not that drinking was a sin, but a “good” Christian didn’t drink. As I got older, I continued to abstain from alcohol because the only reason I had to drink was to not break the rule against it. I wasn’t one to break a rule just because.

I was taken aback, sort of like O’Brien in the Out of Ur blog post, when upon moving to Canada I was offered wine, beer and other drinks at the homes of those from my church. It wasn’t that I thought they were doing something wrong; I hadn’t been in a culture of Christians where alcohol wasn’t something that was abstained from.

In the coming months after self evaluation and counsel and prayer, I came to the conclusion, as did my wife, that continuing to follow the “no drinking rule” would be disingenuous for me since it was just that… a rule. I never was taught nor even believed that drinking was a sin. Drunkenness was wrong, but I was never taught that the Bible spoke against drinking that did not end up as drunkenness. I was simply taught is was something “we” didn’t do. For the longest time “we” didn’t so I had no issue with the rule. Now, that I lived in a culture that did not have the same hang ups that my previous culture did, I felt that it would be Pharisaical to hold onto that “no drinking rule” I grew up with.

Do I drink now? Yes. I’ve discovered that I can enjoy alcohol in moderation… something that I was given the impression wasn’t possible. Do I flaunt my new-found freedom? I think that is the wrong question. The better question is, “Do I continue to live a holistically surrendered life to Christ?” The answer to that is, “Yes.”

What do I teach my own children about alcohol? They know that, just like everything else in life, too much of it isn’t a good thing because you loose self control. They know that there are people who do get addicted to it. They also know that it is possible to be responsible and drink in moderation.

Again, if you do not drink, I am not asking you to start drinking or even agree that moderation is better than completely abstaining from alcohol. What I am asking, though, is that you consider taking more than a simple “just say no” approach to alcohol. You need to have better reasons than “we just don’t” or “it’s the right thing to do” or “you could end up getting drunk and become an alcoholic.”

Most of all, we need to learn discernment… and we need to pass that on to our children. There are many issues out there that we as Christians come out on different sides and neither side is more right than the other. We need to give our own children and the children and families we minister to the tools and filters they need to hear from God do what God is asking them to do.

What do you do with the issue of drinking? What is your church’s official stance? Your denomination’s stance?

If you are in a church that officially abstains from alcohol, what do you do with parishioners who do not abstain?

Do you agree it’s more important to teach discernment about issues like alcohol over teaching a set of rules?

 

Are You a Part of the VBSeratti?

As I was reading through my Bloglines subscriptions, I ran across this post from the Stuff Christians Like blog. Before you read any further, click on the picture above and read the blog post. I thought it was hilarious!

Did you read it? No? Well, go read it! You miss the entire reason for my blog post if you don’t!

Read it? OK, good. Just thought I’d post something fun for today. I’ll be back with a zinger of a post tomorrow.

If you have never heard of Stuff Christians Like, you need to stop what you are doing (yes, even if you are busy… that is unless your wife is giving birth right now… what are you doing even reading this?!?) and go read the plethora of posts there. Then subsribe to the blog via Bloglines or Google Reader or some other newsreader so you can get all the Stuff Christians Like blog goodness. John Acuff is a talented and funny writer who gets the humour in what we do in church world and isn’t afraid to laugh at himself. He even has a book coming out soon, from Zondervan, based on all the funny stuff on Stuff Christians Like.

BTW, his comment about glitter reminded me of Demetri Martin and the video below (note: this is a PG/PG-13 rated video for language… just so you don’t watch it with your little kiddos or you senior pastor… and, oh yeah, the glitter comment is about 7 minutes into the video but the whole thing is funny):

So what are you doing for VBS or day camp or other summer programming?

What are you recruiting strategies for your summer programming?