CyberTsunami

Book Review: Is God Calling Me?

As a student worker, I often have conversations with students about whether God may be calling them into the ministry. This is a nebulous, and therefore, difficult question. Jeff Iorg, president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, CA

tackles the question of God's call much like a conversation with a youth or young adult.

The two recurring themes in the idea of “call” according to Iorg is that it brings new information and new responsibility. He relates the various uses of the word “call” in the English language and shows how they mostly fit these themes. Iorg's his own definition of call is

a profound impression from God that establishes parameters for your life and can be altered only by a subsequent, superseding impression from God. [8]

The second chapter discusses three different kinds of call by God.

Universal Call to Service and Growth – God calls every believer to serve in the Kingdom and to grow as a disciple.

General Call to Ministry Leadership – Iorg does not like the term “vocational Christian service” as a bivocational call is equally valid. Nor does he like “full time Christian service” as all Christians are called to serve full-time. He prefers the term “ministry leadership.”

A Specific Call to a Ministry Assignment – Iorg begs the question a little here. He says that some may ask if ministry assignments are not just jobs like any other. He says “no,” but doesn’t say why. In short, this idea of call is simply like the call of a pastor to serve in a local church.

Chapter three lines out three ways that God calls someone: through sudden experiences (crisis), through reasoned decisions (contemplation), and through the prompting of others (community). Iorg illustrates each of these with examples of his own experience of calling.

Next, Iorg describes the kind of person God calls using examples from the lineage of Jesus in Matthew. God's call includes people who are unexpected, immoral, anonymous, and inconsistent. Of course this is not the checklist God uses to call people. Iorg simply is trying to expand the field of choices.

How one discerns God's call is difficult to define. Most called people say they "just know it." Iorg makes a brief attempt in chapter five. One can discern the call through inner peace, confirmation by others (particularly spiritual leaders and family members), effectiveness in ministry (not necessarily success in everything), and joy in the ministry (particularly when working with people).

In chapter six, Iorg states that a real call gives one confidence, perseverance, authority, and humility. Confidence comes from the fact that God is with one in the process and he would not choose someone who could not do the job. Perseverance comes because the call supersedes any adverse circumstances. Finally, God’s call leads to humility. The best line is “your ministry is a received ministry, not an achieved
ministry.” [83] (italics mine)

The last two chapters addresses to calls that Iorg believes stand out: missions and senior pastor. He doesn't really expand the understanding of the calls. He spends more time instilling a sense of importance, purpose, and seriousness in these to calls.

Summary Evaluation
Iorg has done a decent job of trying to clarify some of the nebulous aspects of God's calling. In the long run, he really doesn't help one do a better job of answering the question "Is God Calling Me?" I'm not sure anyone really can. Many times Iorg's arguments seem to be more experiential rather than Biblical. They aren't unBiblical, they just draw more from his own experiences rather than on chapter and verse. Still, he provides clarity on some issues of calling and provides the reader with a decent platform from which to begin evaluating the question, "Is God Calling Me?"

Maximum Impact Parenting (part two)

In my last post, we looked at four times of the day when parents can make forge a strong emotional connection with their teens. These emotional connections are crucial for a student to develop skills that will keep them out of “at risk” behavior.” These times are identical to the times for teaching lined out in Deuteronomy 6:7. Here is the whole passage.

Hear, O

Israel

: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts^{. 7} Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Now we look at…

III – Three Places to Cherish God’s Word

In Your Heart

You probably know about phylacteries. I even remember making them out of ribbon and small matchboxes in VBS. One phylactery was intricately bound on the left arm and it contained four scripture passages including the one from Deuteronomy above. They tied it on the left arm in such a way that it brought the scripture up against the heart. Jewish rabbis created this ceremony to help the people concentrate on God. For today, if reminds us that the heart is the place to start. If your heart isn’t in it or if it isn’t really in your heart, you’ll never be able to pass anything on to the next generation. This is true for student ministers and for parents.

I believe with all my heart that churches need to invest in parents to help them become the primary spiritual educator of their children. It starts with helping parents grow spiritually and that starts with God’s Word.

In Your Head

The phylactery was also worn on the forehead symbolizing thinking about the Lord and His Word. For us today, it means that we have to be growing in our knowledge of the Lord and His Word. Here, again, we go back the parent’s responsibility to be disciples. It also says to me that parents must be intentional and thoughtful in how they impress God’s commands on their children. Yes, the spiritual life is often more “caught, than taught,” but it still has to be taught.

Churches would do well to help parents find ways to teach at home whether through formal curricula, follow up pieces to church based small groups, or intentional classes. As mentioned in the last post, family devotionals are a good way to start.

In Your Home

Verse 9 refers to the mezuzah. These are little boxes that the Israelites put on their doorposts with the same Scripture passages. It symbolizes that the home is to be a place where the Lord is honored, cherished, worshiped, and where His Word is studied.

One application that parents can get from the mezuzah is that the home environment should speak of the Lord and His commandments even when the parents aren’t around. I’m well aware of this issue now. With a 15 year old and a 16 year old (both starting to drive), the times that they are away from adult supervision will only grow and grow over the next years. These teen years are perhaps my last times to make a major spiritual impact in their lives. I don’t want to miss it and I don’t want parents in your church to miss it either.

Maximum Impact Parenting

Since this is Fathers’ Day weekend, I want to give a little encouragement to parents from one of my favorite passages.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. – Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Everyone probably knows verse 4-5. It’s called the Shema and it is the most holy passage in the Old Testament. Some Jewish communities read it as the first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Verses 6-9 are the verses that should really connect with parents.

Verse 6 – Put these commandments in your heart

There is an old saying in student ministry (and I am an old student minister).

 You cannot affirm what a parent denies.

We have always known that students seldom rise spiritually above the level of their parents. If the relationship with Jesus isn’t real to the parent, their children most likely won’t stick with it for their whole life. Sure there are lots of exceptions to this, but they are exceptions.

Two years ago, my wife and I attend a parenting conference by Richard Ross called Turning Hearts. Out of that conference, my wife decided to start having her own devotional time every morning in the kitchen. Not only has it changed her ministry and life, but now my children know that every morning they can find their mother meeting with God. They know how important it is to her and it does affect them positively.

If you are a student minister or volunteer, this means that you may help your students more by spending some time with their parents in helping them to mature spiritually and helping them to give spiritual input into the lives of their children. I don’t have a scientific study to back this up, but I have heard that four minutes that a student spends with parents is worth an hour with their youth minister.

Verse 7 – Four Times to Connect with Your Kids

It’s interesting to me that God says to teach your children, not teach your congregation, or community, or youth group. This is addressed to parents.

Now this is the part of the verse that really impresses me. First, you need to know that the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health conducted in 1994 throughb2002 made an amazing finding.

The #1 thing that keeps kids out of at risk behavior is a strong emotional connection (a heart connection) with their parents.

They also discovered that there are four times of the day when parents have a window to maximize their emotional connection. These times map perfectly to verse 7.

Dinner Time – when you sit at home

In the Old Testament, dinner was designated as a time to talk about the Lord and for families to bond together. Even network TV has recognized the importance of the family table. Commercials suggest that families should eat dinner together at least four times a week. Sadly, most families aren’t doing this any more. Are your families eating dinner together at least 4 nights a week? If not, you need to be encouraging this with parents and even facilitating it.

This is something that has always been important to my family. Unfortunately, church has been one of the biggest hindrances to our family dinner time. Nights when the youth group has an activity have been tough nights to eat dinner together. I have questioned whether the time spent at the church as been worth the time lost with my own teens.

After School – when you walk along the road

God is telling parents to talk about the Lord and His commandments throughout the day. Today, after school is the first time that parents can relate to their students after they have walked along the road. In my own family we quickly learned that the parent who picks up the kids at school is the one who gets to hear all about the day. It really is a prime time for parents to listen to and understand their children.

Unfortunately, we still live in a latch-key kid society. So many parents work late hours. Here in California, many families must have dual incomes to be able to afford a house. I’m not sure if the increase standard of living is worth the spiritual toll it can take on children.

Again, in my family, we tried to work around this. When my children were young, my wife did not work outside the home. Yes, it was tough, both financially and socially. There were some dark times. Even now, with teenagers in the house, my wife works only part time.

My oldest child starts college this year. If he were not going to college in town, I’m not sure that we could have afforded it, but I am willing to say to my children, “Having a parent more available to you as you were growing up is worth far more than you being able to attend the expensive college out of town.”

If you think that is drastic, you should know that I have advised two income families to move to a cheaper town if that is the only way that the parents can cut back on work enough to be with their kids after school.

Bed Time – when you lie down

My kids always want to talk at bedtime? I used to see that as just a ploy to stay up. Shouldn’t we see it as a blessing? Take time to listen to them then. Have family devotions together before bedtime. Help drive the conversation to the things of the Lord.

We have always tried to have family devotions. Sometimes it has been just a quick prayer time together. Fortunately there are several resources available to help. Josh McDowell and LifeWay Christian Resources have free family devotion ideas online. My family has also tried a family Bible reading time where we just read our Bibles for 10 minutes and talk about what we read. Sometimes these discussions ran for an hour. When our church went through The Purpose Driven Life, we had our children read the book with us daily and discussed it together. We have also prayed for missionaries and the persecuted church. On Saturday night, we always pray for our local church staff and ministries. We have even let the kids lead.

When They Get Up – when you get up

Think about a typical school morning. Does it honor the Lord or is there a lot of yelling, rushing, and complaining? I have a friend who wakes up his 17 year old son by just holding him and blessing him. How would it change your students if their mornings started with a strong family connection and their parents prayed for them and their day? I travel a lot in my job as a church health consultant, yet I will drive home at 2 a.m. if I can just so I can be there with my family in the morning. I don’t want to miss that connection.

Next: Three Places that Parents Should Cherish God’s Word.

Tsunami Student Conference Update

Plans are fully underway for the 2008 Tsunami Student Conference in San Jose on December 29-31. Here are the quick update details.

Theme: More Than Enough
Theme Verse: Philippians 4:11 -- I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. (HCSB)
Focus: to help students find their contentment and meaning in Christ above all else. He is More Than Enough.

M.C. -- Bob Smiley -- we had such a fantastic response from Bob last year that we invited him back for another round as the M.C. and comedian. Check him out at www.bobsmiley.com.

Main Speaker -- Chris Simning -- you won't believe this guy's testimony. 

Born with a nearly imperceptible case of cerebral palsy, Chris Simning was stricken with an extremely rare muscle and nerve disease in the eighth grade. Four years confined to a wheelchair, and unable to care for himself, Chris experienced a miraculous healing that allowed him to finish his undergraduate degree from college as well as earn a Master’s degree from in Clinical Psychology. After many summers of service in Christian camping, Chris has accepted the call to speak full-time. His passion for telling his story ignites him further to speak on how God brings healing to the wounded of heart even in the worst circumstances. Chris’ first hand experience with the pain of life compels him to seek the provision of God. His zeal for the Bible, and his humorous personality, endear him to people of all ages.

We are still in negotiations for other speakers and bands. The web site will be up and running as www.studentwave.com as soon as logo development is finished.

Making Sunday School Family Friendly, part 3

Last week, I dealt we the problem of how the Sunday School or small group ministry of many churches can work against families. While there are many good reasons for having classes that are focused on one life phase, I believe that churches have a responsibility to help families grow, worship, and minster together. Here are my final three suggestions.

Use Coordinated Bible Study Materials

Even when the adults are separated from their kids, the church can help parents initiate spiritual dialogue at home by simply using coordinated Bible study materials. This way, parents can do more than simply ask, “How was Bible study today?” To which the usual reply is, “Fine.” For this approach to work, parents must be encouraged and expected to initiate the dialogue.

Provide Parents with Follow-Up Materials

Whether or not a church uses coordinated materials, it can still encourage parents to talk with their kids about spiritual things by providing follow-up materials. Current LifeWay Christian Resources materials do provide a weekly family devotional in the member book of the Life Truths (for Parents) series. Since many adults do not use “quarterlies,” a church would do well to emphasize these materials and even write additional materials for family discussions, family devotions, or simple “table talk” at dinner.

Churches could provide occasional training sessions for parents to help them improve their spiritual communication with their children. A simple commentary on a Bible passage can help a parent seem like a spiritual giant during family devotions. These training sessions will also help keep up the expectation that parents are the primary spiritual educators. Remember, the church is fighting a culture of “professional spiritual education” that the church helped create in the first place.

Encourage Home Devotions

Sadly, most families, even ministers’ families, seldom have family devotions. First, most families don’t even realize it is a job of the parent. Second, many parents don’t have personal devotions, so the thought of family devotions doesn’t even occur to them. Third, few parents have any idea how to lead a family devotion. Churches must counter this by raising the expectation of family devotions, training parents to lead them, and holding families accountable. Expectations need to be raised among the students and children as well as the parents. A great resource for family devotions with teens is available at http://www.lifeway.com/heartconnex. Heartconnex provides one-page family devotions twice a week, delivered directly to a parent’s email inbox.

Whatever track a church decides to take, the key, as mentioned before, is to raise the expectation that parents will be the primary spiritual educator, provide parents with tools to educate, and find ways for current church programs, like Sunday School or small groups, to facilitate family spiritual communication.

Resources

Hemphill, Ken and Richard Ross. Parenting with Kingdom Purpose.Nashville: Broadman & Holman. 2005.

Devries, Mark. Family Based Youth Ministry. Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press. 1994.

Erwin, Pamela. The Family Powered Church. Loveland, CO: Group Books. 2000

Freudenburg, Ben. The Family Friendly Church. Loveland, CO: Group Books. 1998

Making Sunday School/Small Groups Family Friendly

Yesterday's post ended with the question, "how can a church turn something as large as Sunday School into a family friendly environment?" Here are my first three suggestion.

Age Grade Sunday School According to Kids’ Ages

Parents naturally tend to gather with people who have children the same age as theirs rather than with people their own age. Since many churches don’t really enforce age graded classes anyway (how many 40s classes are full of 50+ aged people?), age grading by kid’s ages is much more organic. By stating that a class is organized in this way, the leaders have the freedom to make applications to the lesson that help parents communicate faith to their kids. Leaders can also adjust schedules of fellowships, outreach events, or ministry projects to fit the unique schedules of families with children or teens. This also solves the tension of fellowships that are either “with or without kids.” This arrangement also allows for greater peer accountability for parents to be their kid’s primary discipler.

Consider Multi-generational Classes

Some churches have even offered an option for multi-generational classes. Some have run the full spectrum from preschoolers through senior adults. At this time there is not a major publisher that offers curriculum for this arrangement, so churches must create their own curriculum, which often creates other problems, so use this suggestion with care. However, with the right leader, this does have the potential to be a meaningful experience for many families.

Provide Intergenerational Experiences

If the suggestion above is too radical, consider simply providing intergenerational experiences. These could include fellowships, short-term classes, service projects, even mission trips. Students usually take mission trips with the “youth group.” This is reinforced by the myriad youth mission trip providers. Most of the work students do could easily be done by adults (with a little prodding). Local ministry projects are even more easily done with intergenerational groups.

For churches that provide separate worship services for students, this is even a more pressing issue. Without these kinds of experiences, students never get to share the Christian life with their parents at church. Students need to see their parents worshipping. They need to be able to express their devotion with their parents. Because students usually don’t interact with adults, other than youth group leaders who are often in their early twenties, they don’t learn how to be adults in the church. This could be a contributing factor to the high church drop-out rate after high school graduation.

Making Sunday School Family Friendly

Someone once said, “The temperature of our churches is set by the thermostats of our homes.” Yet few churches have a strategy for strengthening families. Surprisingly, many churches do not even think through how existing programs might hurt families instead of help them. One of the most common activities, Sunday School, usually separates families. Visit almost any church and ask a leader which way people go for Sunday School and the adults, children, students, and preschoolers we all go in different directions. Churches using home groups or other offsite groups are often in a worse situation. Parents go to their small group on one night while students go to theirs on another. The result is that families are separated for a long time on twice as many occasions. Yet, with a few simple changes Sunday School and small groups can become an asset to healthy families and therefore, to healthy churches.

The Problem

Student ministry is only about sixty years old, yet over the years, churches have helped create a culture in which parents have abdicated the role of spiritual development of their kids to the church. Richard Ross, the founder of the True Love Waits movement, says that if one asks the typical Christian parent if they teach their student algebra, they will respond, “No, I pay taxes and with those taxes the government builds schools and hires professionals to do that job better than I could.” In a similar fashion, if asked if they teach their student faith, they will respond, “No, I pay tithes and with those tithes the church builds super-cool youth rooms and hires professionals to do that better than I could.” George Barna puts it this way: "Unfortunately, no matter how hard a church tries, it is incapable of bringing a child to complete spiritual maturity: that is the job of the family.” [Click here to link to the quote.] He also says, “Teenagers rarely embrace Christianity if their family has treated faith as a Sunday morning experience … the family … must have worship experiences, pray together about significant personal needs, study the meaning of Scriptures together, and serve others.” [Real Teens. p. 149, see link in sidebar]

A recent comprehensive study by the University of North Carolina also confirms that “teenagers seldom vary very far from the religious beliefs of their parents. Only 11% say their religious beliefs are very different from their father’s and only 6% say their beliefs are very different from their mother’s.” [Christian Smith, Soul Searching, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 35] Multiple studies have reached the conclusion that parents are at least twice as effective in leading students to faith in Christ as even the church is.

So, how can a church turn something as large as Sunday School into a family friendly environment?

More later....

Book Review: They Like Jesus, but Not the Church

        Kimball, Dan. They Like Jesus, but Not the Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervon. 2007

                BV4529.2K542007                               271 pages

Dan Kimball is the former youth pastor of Santa Cruz Bible Church and pastors Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz as a church plant of Santa Cruz Bible.

I like Dan Kimball. I’ve never really met him, but I have heard him speak on a couple of occasions and found him to be reasonable, well researched, and humble. So it is no surprise that I liked this book. His premise is partly summed up in the penultimate chapter where he uses the old “bridge” illustration where man is separated from God by a chasm of sin. He believes the church has created a second chasm before the one of sin. It is the chasm of Christianity and the Christian subculture. Until people can deal with their perception of Christians and Christian culture, they cannot deal with the chasm of sin. The book is about understanding how that chasm has helped the unchurched develop misperceptions of the church.

Kimball’s research conversations were mainly with younger generations. This is not surprising since that is where his ministry heart is and what his church naturally reaches. He believes that the misperceptions cross generational and geographic borders.

The first part of the book chronicles Kimball’s journey from living in the Christian bubble to actively interacting with the unchurched, listening to them and befriending them.

The second part addresses six misperceptions that he has heard most. Each comprises a chapter. At the end of each chapter, Kimball provides an alternate perception that he suggests Christians communicate to the unchurched.

·        The church is an organized religion with a political agenda should be replaced with “the church is

·        The church is judgmental and negative should be replaced with “the church is a positive agent of change, loving others as Jesus would.”

·        The church is dominated by males and oppresses females should be replaced with “the church holds women in the highest respect and includes them in the leadership of the church.”

·        The church is homophobic should be replaced with “the church is a loving a welcoming community.”

·        The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong should be replaced with “the church is respectful of others people’s belief and faiths.”

·        The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally should be replaced with “the church holds beliefs with humility and strives to be thoughtful theologians.”

Kimball does not provide defenses for Christians to explain their church’s theological position. He does that in companion book, I Like Jesus, but Not the Church and on the web at www.theylikejesus.com.  

The final part sums up what emerging generations think the church should be like. Kimball is quick to point out that churches should not change who they are to fit another person’s perception, but some adjustments can usually be made without violating a church’s DNA. He also admits that the Jesus that most of the unchurched like is not really the Biblical Jesus, but rather the pop culture Jesus. This doesn’t bother Kimball. The pop culture Jesus at least gives Christians a starting place to begin to point to the Biblical Jesus.

If the reader gets changed at all by this book, it should probably be in his or her answer to these questions Kimball poses.

·        Do we ever weep as Jesus did for those who reject him? Or do we weep only at the emotional solo that someone sings in a church meeting about how much we are loved?”

·        Am I numb or neutral to people outside the church?

·        Do I intercede daily for people outside the church?

·        Who as I praying for now who is not a Christian?

·        When is the last time I had coffee or dinner or gone to a movie and just hung out with someone who is not a Christian?

I know that my answers changed.

A Personal Brag

I seldom use this blog as a personal forum, but I just need to brag. My son, who is graduating from University Hight School in Fresno this week, has been participating in the Academic Decathalon Small School virtual nationals. Without a long explanation, a small group is under 650. UHS has under 400, yet it ranked as the 36th best high school in the nation regardless of size among ALL public and private high schools.

The Academic Decathalon nationals were last weekend, and UHS defended their title as the national small school champions. They actually scored better than the national medium school (under 1,300) winners. My son, Ryan, had the highest score in the nation for his own division. He brought home medals in 5 of the 8 divisions for the competition.

I'm just a proud dad. As I said, he graduates this week and will soon start driving (he is just 16), so pray for me and let me know if you have any advice.

Book Review: Christ-Centered Coaching

Coaching is one of the new buzz words. My office (the Healthy Church Group) has started coaching groups for pastors to help them with strategic envisioning. What we call coaching is vastly different from what Jane Creswell calls Christ Centered Coaching. For her Christ Centered coaching is.

• Finding answers, not providing them.
• a vehicle for moving one forward.
• focuses on identifying and strengthening strengths.

The Benefits of Christ Centered Coaching revolve around:

•  Orienting around Strengths
•  Clarity/Focus
•  Confidence
•  Learning
•  Intentional Progress
•  Coaching Others
•  God Sized Goals

She unpacks these benefits and the main chapters of the rest of the book. Each chapter starts with a real life example of a Christian leader in a coaching situation. Creswell says that the example are all aggregate examples taken from her own experience. Each chapter ends with tips for coaches and for those being coached. Most are excellent, practical suggestions. A few seem to be unrelated to the chapter that they close.

Creswell also makes use of an abundance of Scripture. While it is great to be Biblically based, many of the Scripture references border on prooftexting.

In spite of some awkward writing and marginal Biblical interpretation, the book is probably the best contemporary work on coaching for the mass Christian leadership market. Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary uses the book as a text in its D.Min program in coaching.

Jane Creswell is the founder of the IBM Coaches Network and a master certified coach from the International Coach Foundation. She works closely with George Bullard.