student ministry | leadership | parenting | life
We just launched a new teaching series in Lifeline called Selfie. It’s all about who we are. To kick things off, we made a video about how to take great selfies. I won’t lie to you. It’s pretty funny. Enjoy.
Selfie: Selfie 101 from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
Elisa Talmage absolutely rocked this teaching. Among other things, she did a great job describing how ridiculous it is that we compare ourselves to models on magazine covers. I’ll probably make my daughters watch this video tomorrow.
Awkward: Lies About Sexuality – Body Image from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
Here’s a video teaching from our Awkward Series. It was originally part of a longer video including a few other teachers from our team. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
Awkward: Lies About Sexuality – Pornography from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
Six years ago today, my first little girl emerged into the world. No other experience has transformed me like becoming a dad. A seismic shift occurred in my heart at each delivery room experience. I know there is something spiritual about parenthood because my heart exploded with love each time a slimy, blue tinted alien was handed to me. It’s spiritual because newborns aren’t exactly cute when they first emerge into the world. They are slimy, smell nasty, have misshapen heads, look like they just arrived from an MMA bout, and scream like you just forcibly yanked them out of 9 months of cozy darkness. And yet, each time I laid eyes on my newborn baby I knew I would do anything to provide for and protect this child. I instantly knew that if necessary, I would sacrifice my very life and that I would never, ever, stop loving this little helpless baby.
I believe this natural flood of love is something that God puts in us. It’s because we are a little like him. We are imperfect to be sure, but the love of our heavenly Father is gifted to us when we become parents. Parents are granted a particular blessing because we get to experience a unique expression of God’s heart as we feel the immediate surge of unconditional love that accompanies laying eyes on our children for the first time. I truly believe this is a glimpse into how God feels about me and you.
Let me explain by telling you what I didn’t do when I became a parent. As my little one slept in the hospital nursery, you know that room where they keep all the babies in those plastic little tubs? That special little room that offers you your last full night of sleep for 18 years. I didn’t walk up to that glass wall separating big people from all the babies, survey all the babies and say:
No way. That would never happen. You don’t compare your baby. You simply love your baby. You treasure that little one because he is yours. You celebrate all the little unique things about your baby.
With ourselves and the people in our lives, we determine value and worth based on comparison.
We rank our value by looking around and comparing. But, isn’t it interesting that we don’t do the same thing with our babies? We simply love–purely and unconditionally. It’s like pulling back the curtains on God’s love for me and for you . The flood of love that overwhelms parents during the first few moments of parenthood is a glimpse into God’s heart for us.
What if God loves you and me as fiercely and purely as a new parent? To whom does God compare you? Does God say, “I wish Aaron were more like Jon?” No way. I think God would say, “If only you could see you through My eyes.” What if instead of comparing us to other people, God celebrates our uniqueness? We spend so much energy comparing ourselves to everyone else—wishing we were different We’re always wishing we were more talented, more skinny, more wealthy, more beautiful, more athletic, more smart, more, more, more. If God could get our attention, I think he would say: “Stop comparing. I don’t compare you. Why should you? I made you like this and I like you. If only you could see you through My eyes.”
I don’t know about you, but if I could get my mind and my heart around this reality, I would live differently.
I have a confession. I’m not a big fan of PDA. If I see you at the mall kissing on your significant other I will judge you and throw up a little in my mind. I’m sorry. It might be that I’m significantly Dutch and we’re a reserved kind of folk. Or, maybe I’m just weird or maybe you are for kissing at the mall. Gross. I don’t know, but either way, please don’t get too affectionate around me. We can’t be friends if you do.
I’ve recently discovered that my issues with PDA don’t apply to my kids. What I mean is that every time I give my wife a hug or a kiss my kids make a huge deal about it. “Ahhh! Sick! Daddy kissed Mommy!” They freak out and act like they are throwing up every time. Being affectionate with my wife feels like I’m that weird kid from elementary school who catches frogs and shoves them in your face.
It didn’t take me long to realize that my kids aren’t actually grossed out by affection. The, “Daddy, kiss Mommy again!” was a dead giveaway. I remember reading somewhere that showing affection in front of your kids is good for them. I’ve experienced this firsthand. I get the sense that seeing tangible expressions of their parents’ love brings a sort of steadiness to my kids. Children build their lives upon what they see in their parents and there is something about knowing your parents love each other that makes everything feel right.
The other night, as we were tucking our kids into bed, they began asking questions about when Katie and I met in college. They were curious about the details of who we were back then and they couldn’t really get their minds around the idea that there was a time when we weren’t together.
As it turns out, when we were dating in college, I wrote my then girlfriend Katie a children’s book. It is the story of how we met, fell in love and started dating. Yes, it is terribly cheesy and the illustrations are a disaster, but she loved it and it probably sealed the deal for our then future marriage.
Anyway, my kids were asking so many questions about our early days that my wife dug the book out of her secret box and brought it to the kids. We read a couple chapters and they were enthralled. It was like they were Harry Potter discovering magic. There were a few moments of controversy though. “Wait! Mommy, you had a different boyfriend before Daddy?!?” It was like we opened up a new world that they never knew existed. They nearly went into revolt when the time came to put the book away and go to sleep.
The whole episode taught me something. Kids need concrete examples. They need to know that their parents love each other because it builds a sort of trust and strength in them. I’m learning that being affectionate and telling our story to our kids is very good for them. I guess I’d better get over my Dutchness, but can we all agree to ease up on the PDA? Disgusting.
photo credited to @Doug88888 via Flickr
I did a little reading in March. In an effort to cut back spending I actually cancelled my audible.com account for a while…GASP! In case you were wondering, audible.com is part of why I am able to read so many books. I always listen to books on my drive to and from work.
Anyway, now I’m getting my books from the local library which is forcing me to make my reading choices based on what’s available. It’s been a good exercise for me. Here’s what I read this month and what I thought about the books.
I love Gaffigan’s comedic material so I thought I would check out his book. While he is a much better stand-up comic than writer I still laughed my way through this book and actually thought he had great insights on the wild adventure of parenting. If you have kids, and a lot of them, this book is a riot.
I kept hearing from friends that I needed to read this book so I finally picked it up. There’s no doubt that Steven D. Levitt is a genius and I love the way he approaches difficult questions. The style of the book reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell who is one of my favorites. I was engaged from start to finish.
Sigh…yes, I actually read this. What can I say? I wanted to know what the hype is all about. This isn’t my first foray into the genre of “adolescent girl thriller” either. I hesitate to admit that I loved the Hunger Games. Anyway, about Divergent...the story is gripping from start to finish. I couldn’t put it down and it made a flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix feel like 5 minutes. With that said, the book has this nasty habit of getting steamy in a physically juvenile kind of way that made me repeatedly look around and make sure no one noticed that I was reading the book. In spite of that, I loved it and I’m sort of embarrassed to tell you that I’m almost done with the second book in the series.
This man was born in a secret North Korean prison camp and escaped to China, South Korea and then the United States. He is the only known person to be born in a North Korean camp and escape. It’s an incredible story and terribly heartbreaking. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are brutally mistreated in government camps. This isn’t 1943 Nazi Germany. This isn’t the Soviet Gulag. This is 2014 and it’s slavery and worse. Everyone needs to read this book.
Melissa was the quietest girl in my group. She had dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. Once her grandma, who picked her up and brought her to our church each week, pulled me aside in the hallway and asked, “Could you keep a special eye on Melissa? Things are really rough at home right now.”
Melissa wasn’t one of the girls who would run up and give me a hug when I walked in the room. She wasn’t bouncing up and down, just dying to tell me about the prank they had just played on the boys. Melissa would just give me a shy smile. She hung back. She didn’t say much during our discussion and prayer time.
But in her eyes I saw a hunger for more. She was hurting. She was looking for hope.
By spring, the girls in my group had earned enough points (by memorizing verses, doing their quiet time sheets, and attending regularly) for a party at my house. We decided to have an Orange Party—which meant we would wear orange clothes, eat orange food, and do an orange scavenger hunt in my neighborhood.
After an orange-filled afternoon, I pulled the girls into a huddle on the floor in my basement, and told them the story of Jesus dying on the cross and rising again. It wasn’t the first time I had told it. It wasn’t the first time they had heard it. But for two girls, it was the first time the story overlapped with their stories.
Melissa was one of those girls. I remember the sweet intensity of her prayer, as she asked Jesus to save her from her sin and be her Lord. And I remember her smile afterward—those big blue eyes sparkling.
I moved away shortly after this, and I didn’t hear from Melissa for about fifteen years. Then, last summer, she sent me a message via facebook.
Melissa was a young mom now. Life hadn’t been easy. She was expecting her third baby, and she wasn’t married. And even though she hadn’t made the best choices, she wanted to come back to God. She was reaching out to me because she knew I could help. And it’s been my great delight to do so!
As we’ve reconnected, I’ve silently wondered why Melissa thought to reach out to me. We live in different states now. We probably wouldn’t have recognized each other on the street. And there probably are Christians whose paths cross with Melissa’s.
I’ve thought about several other girls, too, who have reconnected with me over the years. One girl was in my cabin at a summer camp. Eight years after I led her to Jesus at camp, she was struggling with suicidal thoughts. So she looked up my address and wrote me a letter, asking me to pray.
Another girl contacted me via facebook, just after she got married. She said that she had just packed the little book mark I gave her in middle school. The bookmark’s glow-in-the-dark cross didn’t glow anymore, but it had been on her nightstand for years, reminding her of the things I had taught her about God. She said, “If you hadn’t been there… I really think my life could have gone another way.” She just wanted to write and say thanks.
To each of these girls, I somehow represented a time that their eyes were opened to Jesus. I’m the one who got to put their hands in His.
This is what youth ministry is all about! Putting their hands in His. We only have a few moments to walk with them. Pretty soon, they’ll be walking away from our church, our youth ministry, our influence. Will they walk with Jesus?
lf we never ask that question, I doubt whether mentoring will truly happen. If we don’t dream about who are kids are becoming and where they are going in life, we’ll be content to eat orange food, wear orange clothes, and call it a day of youth ministry.
But on the other hand, true mentoring casts a long shadow. When we care enough to cross over into our kids’ lives, we can make a difference that extends into the coming decades and ultimately crosses into eternity. We can bring little blue eyed girls like Melissa with us to heaven.
A few weekends ago was our snow camp. We took 11 charter buses to Timberwolf Lake Camp. Our staff and volunteers pulled together to put on an amazing camp. I’m very proud of the Lifeline team. Here are some highlights.
Snow Camp 2014 RECAP from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
We themed our camp around the Olympics and it was pretty awesome. Here’s one of your hosts, “Rob Costas.”
And here’s our torch relay video…
Snow Camp Intro | Torch Relay from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
No one wants to crash morally. No one sets a goal of bringing sexual baggage into their marriage. It’s usually a gradual process that begins with wandering down a path we shouldn’t be on. Check it out.
Awkward: Wandering from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
What’s the first step in building faith in a student or a child? Is it presenting the Gospel? Is it getting them in the Bible? Is it mentoring them? What is it? Recently, I spent a few hours with Chap Clark in a SYMC breakout session and he helped refine what I view as the foundation of discipleship.
TRUST
What does it mean to be a mature disciple of Jesus? The simple answer is that I’m mature when I trust Jesus with everything. I trust Him with my money. I trust Him with my media choices. I trust Him in the way I treat my wife. Personally, I think maturity is as simple as trust.
If this is true, teaching another person to follow Jesus is as simple as teaching them to trust Jesus in every area of their life, one step at a time.
Because of this, the foundation of discipleship is trust. How do children and adolescents learn this? How do they decide to trust someone they can’t see? They subconsciously decide whether Jesus is trustworthy based on how the people of Jesus treat them.
SAFE
So, what’s the first step in building faith in another person? It’s safety. As a parent, forging a safe relationship is crucial to faith development. In children’s ministry, creating and maintaining a safe environment is paramount. As a small group leader or youth worker, using safe language is foundational.
How do I know this is true? This reality is best illustrated with fathers. What’s your relationship with your dad like? If your dad is a safe and trustworthy person I would bet you’ve learned to trust Jesus. If your dad was a cruel person, I imagine there is a good chance you struggle with accepting the goodness of God. If your dad was never quite satisfied with your accomplishments or talents there is a good chance you never feel good enough for God. You constantly wrestle with whether or not God likes you. If your dad was absent or abandoned your family, you probably have moments in which you wonder whether or not God truly cares or if He is there at all. We learn about Jesus from the people who profess to follow Jesus
What does it mean to be safe? Safety is communicated in the way we talk to kids, particularly when they fail. Safety is communicated in the way we joke around with kids. Is it funny for everyone or is it biting? Safety is communicated by the look on our face like when a kid confesses a failure. Safety is communicating in the way we talk about people we disagree with.
POWER
If you are a parent, small group leader or youth worker, you are in a position of tremendous power. You are teaching children and adolescents what God is like. But, it isn’t your bible stories, sermons and programs as much as it is your words, your reactions and attitudes. Will they learn to trust God? Do they trust you? Until they develop abstract thinking skills, the question is as simple as that. Safety is our number one priority.
photo credited to Adrian Ruiz via Flickr
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