The Gift of Presence

Teenagers make adults anxious.

When we look at them, we see that they are fidgety. They are sweaty. They don't sit still and they fiddle with things. They sometimes seem to have little sense of what is going on outside of their immediate vicinity.

Adults make teenagers anxious.

When they look at us, they see that we have no friends, no passions, and we are always stressed out. We sometimes are so concerned with monitoring everything else that we seem to have little sense of what is going on in our immediate vicinity.

Teens are about energy and movement. They have emotions to express that are very important to them. They want to live, and sometimes adults seem to be doing anything but living. Adults are often about maintaining the status quo. We want children to "Liten!" "Behave!" "Be still!" and "Stop talking!" We want them to soothe our fears that they will turn out rotten. We want to know that they will not get themselves in trouble. We want assurance that they will not embarrass us.

The sum of all of these anxieties is that we are prevented from being present with teens. Most teens experience adults as either absent or lecturing. What if we were able to completely set aside our agenda and simply be with young people? How would we treat teens if we weren't trying to convince them of something or impart some lesson or ingrain in them some morsel of our wisdom? The truth is, teens learn from adults' example far more than their words anyway! What would it be like if we just made ourselves available to sit and listen?

Consider this quote from a youth volunteer:

"When I first started working with youth, I felt I had to ask them a lot of questions, make jokes and make them feel good. Now I plop down next to them and sigh and ask, "How are you?" Whether theri response is just a word or a five minute dialogue, I can sit with them knowing my full attention to them in that five seconds or five minutes is enough."

Our teens are not fully mature. They need adults to help them through the maturation process. However, we need to deprogram ourselves from thinking of them as projects that need managing rather than people who need our company and sometimes, our undivided attention.

Next week, I'll share some thoughts on being present with God. Before we can truly be present with anyone else, it is important to open ourselves up to him.

Creating A Better Culture, Part 2

This will be my last post (at least for now) on the topic of extended adolescence. Thanks to all who have read and commented. I hope you found this research helpful. If you have any questions or want some sites to check out, let me know. Here are tips two and three for creating a culture in our homes and youth groups that will encourage our teens to grow into fruitful adults in the kingdom of God.

2. Our teens are isolated from the adult world. They spend the vast majority of their time with people their age- non-adults living in adolescence. They go to school, where adults are outnumbered (and whose influence is often subdued). They hang out with friends, who are all their age. They may go to church, but even there they interact primarily with teens their age, or maybe a youth minister or teacher. Often our goal for teens' interaction is that they hang out with "good kids" as opposed to teens who might be a bad influence on them. This is great, but it is not enough for teens to only hang around other teens, no matter how good an influence those other teens may be. Teens need to spend time with adults.

Teens should spend time with adults because they need to see what adulthood looks like. They need to see what it is like to have responsibility. They need to see what life should look like for them in the future. If they never see adults operating as adults, how can they come to know what is involved in growing out of adolescence?

I have noticed that our church's small groups have missed an opportunity to get our teens around adults. Most of our teens have gravitated to one or two small groups that have a high concentration of teenagers, which is understandable, because teens enjoy being together. However, I think small groups would be a great place for our teens to interact with adults. When I have brought up the possibility of making our teens go with their parents to small groups instead of congregating at a single "teen" small group, I have met resistance. The common argument is "but teens think adults are boring." Although I can't argue with that (I think adults are boring sometimes, too), I don't think it is a valid reason to further quarantine teens, since they are already estranged enough from adult culture. What if our teens not only attended a small group, but also participated? I think it would be highly formative and it would mature them a lot, even if they were bored sometimes.

3. Instead of raising a "child," raise and adult. The experts say that our vocabulary matters. By using certain words in lieu of others, our mindset begins to change. For example, instead of referring to young people as "kids," try calling them "teens" or "young adults." It may start to change your paradigm. Consider this one: often parents see their job as "raising good children." But is that really what parents want? No. Parents want to raise good adults! Ten years from now, what will it matter that your 24 year old was a "good child?" What you want ten years from now is a child who grew into a good adult. So you might change your vocabulary from "raising children" to "raising adults." Or, you might start thinking of your teenager as an "apprentice adult," since that is really what you would like her to be.

Thanks for reading. Next week, I'm planning to start a series on being present with our teens. I'll offer a quote as a preview: "Teens are in more need of your presence than your knowledge."

Creating A Better Culture

This post picks up where I left off last week, concluding that extended adolescence is not a biological phenomenon, but a cultural behavior we have taught our young people. The bad news is that the culture to which we have all contributed is to blame for our youth's perpetual immaturity. The good news is that since it is cultural learned behavior, we can make intentional choices that will alter the culture of our homes and churches so that our young people can grow into fruitful adults in the kingdom of God. In this post, I will discuss the first of a few deliberate ways ways we can alter our home and church culture for the better.

1. Our culture has taught us that the best parent is the one whose child gets in the least amount of trouble and is the best behaved. If we think about this, we can see that it is not true at all, but when the rubber meets the road, we typically try to control children because that is the best way to "parent" them. In the context of extended adolescence and its causes, this is clearly problematic. The more we control, the less meaningful responsibility young people have, which teaches them to be adolescent, not adult.

One writer gives the illustration of a puppy in a yard and a puppy in a park. If a dog owner lets her puppy run free in a park, the dog wil run and run and possibly never come back again. It's just more freedom than is healthy for a puppy. However, a leash is too resrictive. A puppy on a leash will never damage anything and he will never be run down by a truck. However, he will never be ready for life in the park. A better solution, the writer suggests, is to put the puppy in the fenced-in yard. Sure, he will dig up some roses and he might chew up the hose, but he probably won't do any major damage to himself or anything else. In the meantime, the puppy grows in a realtively safe environment and is growing capable of handling the freedom of the park.

Research has proven that teenagers need and want boundaries. It is counter-intuitive to imagine teenagers wanting boundaries, but studies show that they are happier and more successful socially and academically when they have clear boundaries set before them. These boundaries, however, need to be loose enough that there is freedom for them to make bad choices that result in natural consequences. Another lie we have been made to believe is that only a bad parent allows their children to suffer consequences. When our teens make mistakes with serious consequences, we often see parents taking the brunt of the blow. Is this preparing them to be adults? Often as an adult we make decisions that result in negative consequences. Sometimes the consequences are disprportionate to the crime, but alas, the price must always be paid in full. To deprive teens of such an experience is to take away ameaningful learning opportunity that can be significantly formative.

The main idea is that our culture, at home and in our youth groups, should be one in which teens are protected from themselves, but where they are free to make their own decisions for better or worse. When they are for the worse, we have to fight our inclination to save them, since, in doing so, we will deprive them in the long run.

Next we will unpack two more tips for establishing a healthy culture for teens.

Extended Adolescence

I’ve done some research lately on Extended Adolescence and I’d like to share some of the things people are saying about the culture in which our teenagers are growing up. Much of this is a summary of work done by Mark Yaconelli and Mark Oestreicher.

All you have to do is take a retrospective glance and you’ll see that Americans are “kids” longer now that they were 50, 20 or even 10 years ago. The attitudes and actions we associate with adolescence (rebellion, moodiness, lack of other-awareness) can be seen not just in teenagers, but well into the twenties and even thirties in some cases. And the upper range of adolescence is growing all the time. In the 1970s, research concluded that adolescence began at 12 and ended at 18. This is why 18 is the age of “adulthood” at which Americans can vote, join the military and marry without parental consent. Now, forty years later, adolescence begins (on average) at age 10 and ends (on average) at age 30. Some researchers suggest that eventually there will be no upper limit to the age of adolescence. Instead it will be a “lifestyle choice” that some make to never grow into full adulthood.

What researchers are learning is that adolescence is not a physiological phenomenon (related to puberty), but a cultural phenomenon. In other words, young people act this way because that is how we are telling them they should act. Want evidence? Look to the past. Your grandparents were adults who handled major responsibility at the same age that your children have to be coaxed out of bed every morning to go to school. We didn’t change that much biologically in three generations. It’s cultural. Also, a look at world cultures will reveal that extended adolescence only occurs in first world cultures that are influenced by American media. What this means is our young people are not “late bloomers,” they are just being told that they are children when in truth they are not.

So why has this happened? Others have made many suggestions that can be boiled down to three:

1. We have systematically isolated youth from the adult world.
Teenagers have very little regular interaction with adults, other than those who are paid to be with them in their culture. Classrooms are full of teens and teen culture. Youth groups are often seen as a separate church for young people.

2. We removed responsibility and expectation.
Adulthood is characterized by responsibility and expectation. In the name of protecting our teens, we often soften the consequences of their actions and provide them with lowered expectations. This teaches them that they are children, and they act accordingly.

3. We removed on-ramps to adulthood and inter-generational relationships.
The presence of adult relationships provides an opportunity for teens to see adulthood firsthand and learn by example how to accept meaningful responsibility and consequences.

This post is bunches of gloom, but there is good news- since extended adolescence is NOT biological, but cultural, we can change it. We can choose the culture in which our families will live. We can choose the culture we want for our youth group. In subsequent posts, I’ll discuss ways we can change our culture and help our teens grow into the fruitful adults God wants them to be.

If You are in the CoC, Your Brain is About to Explode

I just finished a paper about Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. You know those guys. The ones who led the Restoration Movement. You know, our claim to fame in the church of Christ. You know.

But what you didn't know MAY SHOCK YOU!

Though they teamed up to lead the same movement, AC and BWS were as different as Cher and Willie Nelson. Their personalities were different, their worldviews were different and their lifestyles were different. A lot of learned folk say this is why there was an eventual split in the Movement in 1906 that resulted in two groups being formed: the Christian Church and the Church of Christ. My paper was about one of the many differences between these two ancient manfolks: Their radically different views of the millennium.

Have you thought about what you believe about the "millennium" talked about in Revelation? Maybe you've read those Left Behind books. Maybe you've never heard of this millenni-thing. What do you think about life after death? Straight to heaven or hell? I don't know. But I know what AC and BWS thought.

Campbell was of the opinion that before Jesus returned to earth, there would be a 1,000 year period characterized by peace, justice, good weather, easy farming and general warm and fuzziness in which everyone in the world would be a Christian. He wrote that this Millennium would start because of human efforts. He thought his Restoration Movement could be the spark that started the 1,000 year period. He thought that all of the advances in technology made in his lifetime were indicative that human progress was reaching the pinnacle of greatness that would usher in the Millennium. That's why he came out with a journal called Millennial Harbinger, which means, "Bringer of the Millennium."

Stone, however, was convinced that Jesus could come at any time, and that only the return of Jesus would start the 1,000 years of peace and plenty. He carried a worldview that was a little more pessimistic toward humanity than Campbell's. Stone looked around and saw slavery, poverty, arguing among Christians and other social ills that led him to believe that the world was crumbling and had been dying since it was born. To Stone, humanity would not be the bringer of the millennium, but God alone.

Each of these guys lived a totally different lifestyle that probably contributed to the way they interpreted Revelation. Of course AC would be optimistic about the world- he was rich (when he died, his estate was worth the equivalent of $20 million today) and popular and important. Barty had every reason to be Eyore, since he was poor, unknown and had given his everything to the promotion of the Movement and the end of Slavery, only to see nothing come of it.

As the story goes, everyone eventually sided with Campbell's view and persecuted people who followed Stone's view. Then, when the Civil War came and the country started going to poo, they left AC's theory behind as well. As a result, today the Christian Churches and the Churches of Christ are not POSTmillennial (like Campbell) or PREmillennial (like Stonesie), but Amillennial (meaning, the wast majority of churches in these fellowships don't believe in a literal millennium). Most people in these fellowships see the second coming, judgment, the destruction of earth and assignment in heaven or hell all happening at one single millisecond (not a biblical conclusion).

To conclude, neither Stone nor Campbell thought that one's view of the millennium should be a test of fellowship. They didn't think this was such an important issue that it is worth arguing over and neither should you. However, you should take the time, as a Christian, to develop your own eschatology, that is, your view of last things, or what happens at the end of time. If you roll Romans and Thessalonians and Revelation and Peter Jesus together, you may be surprised about what they are all saying about the end.

If you have more interest in the millennial views of Stone and Campbell (you shouldn't), and would like to learn more (why?!) you can read some of the work done by Richard Hughes (don't!). Or if you want to read my 25 page paper (you don't) just leave me your email address (you are insane) and I'll send you a copy.

Pictured above: Barton W. Stone with spectacles hidden in his windblown hair, Alexander Campbell, probably the scariest father in-law ever, and the cover to the Backstreet Boys 1999 chart-topping album, Millennium which featured the #1 hit, "Larger Than Life," which is ironic because AC's eyebrows were larger than life.

That's the Power of The Home Depot

You might not have known that I work part-time at The Home Depot. I started working there at the end of August. I've never worked in retail before, and I'm enjoying it. I realized last week that it had been almost two months since my last post, so I promised myself a week ago that I would blog about whatever might happen the following week. I now fulfill that promise.

I work in flooring. Mostly, I talk to people all day about how to lay tile, how much it will cost them to carpet their house, what they should use to clean their laminate and why they should never put solid wood down in the kitchen. This past week, I did all of those things, but the noteworthy experiences happened outside department 23.

On Monday, a customer needed help finding picture hangers, so I took her to hardware and pointed them out. Then, as I made my way back to the flooring department, another customer reached up and touched my elbow. I stopped and she whispered in my ear, "You might want to watch that guy over there. He's acting drunk and reeks of beer." I thanked her and walked over to the man at the end of the aisle. I asked if he needed any help finding anything and he responded with a "No, thanks," that smelled like a warm draft from a pit of vipers writhing in crude oil.

I went around the corner and told Jack, the department head of hardware. Jack is the human version of a lawn gnome. Note that I did not say he looks like the human version of a lawn gnome. I said he is the human version of a lawn gnome. Four foot something with a huge gray beard, always wearing a Home Depot hat. Glasses. Gnome. Anyway, I told him about the guy and when he peeked around the corner at him, he saw the guy shoving drill bits down his pants.

Yes, we got thiefed. Since we'd be fired if we tried to stop the guy, all we could do is watch him and wait for a manager to come. No one came in time. He just walked out with drawers full of merch and we had to just watch him go. Thiefed.

The next big event happened on Tuesday. I went over to the kitchen and bath area because I heard someone raising their voice. It turned out to be a customer arguing with Kathy in kitchens about what product to use on a piece of granite. He somehow came into possession of a two inch thick slab of granite that he'd been using as a turntable. He was not satisfied, however with the inconsistency between the polished look of the top of the granite and the unpolished cut around the edges of the slab. Kathy told the man he should buy a granite polish to make the sides look right. He as convinced he needed to "make the sides wet," as evidenced by his repeated action of licking the side of one of our sample pieces of granite.

Kathy was getting nowhere, so I brought the man over to the flooring department and tried to explain to him that he needed to buy the polish. In the middle of my spiel, he saw a $20 bottle of sealer and became fixated on it, convinced it was he product he needed. And he kept licking the sample granite.

Finally, he said he knew he was right and he was going to buy the $20 sealer. "Ok," I said. Then he started to open it. I told him if he opened it, he would have o buy it, because we couldn't sell an opened hazardous material. He nodded really hard and said he just wanted to show me that he was right. You know what happened. He opened it. He was wrong. Then he put it back on the shelf and left. And he took the granite sample. Thiefed.

Finally, on Wednesday I was cornered by a lady on a Hover-Round who had just bought two cans of paint for her daughter's house. She started talking and just wouldn't stop. I learned she was 85 years old with a boyfriend who was a nice guy, but not as fun as the man she dated thirty years ago who took her fishing in the ocean, but that guy turned out to be a little scary, which reminded her of her traumatic childhood in which she was thrown in the cellar by her om's boyfriend and left for hours and hours and hours and hours all by herself for hours and hours and hours and now this post is starting to resemble our thirty minute conversation so I'll stop here.

My week at The Home Depot.

Discipleship

In an earlier post about balancing Knowledge and Obedience, I stated that following Jesus should be about obedience and not about knowledge. I also said the phrase "Obedience Based Discipleship" is a misnomer that can be misleading. This post will clarify that statement. It might all go down smoother if you re-read the post, called "Balance" before you read this post.

Those whose eyes have been opened to the power of radical obedience to God's word have a generally similar experience. They are immediately awed at the simplicity of putting God's word into immediate, measurable action. They quickly see improvement in their walk with God as they devote themselves to studying with a mind to obey. They also have an eagerness to share this discovery with others. Then comes a feeling of frustration because many of the people they tell either don't get it or pick it apart until they find enough faults to dismiss it.

For example, I recently spoke in chapel at Harding Grad. I presented the ideas in the "Balance" blog and an accompanying application of Matthew 7. Afterward, a faculty member politely noted that what I said sounded a tad legalistic. I was not surprised. I had heard it before. My internal response was, "What I said was no more legalistic than what Jesus said."

When we are communicating to other nonbelievers about obedience, they hear (rightly) that Christianity holds a high standard. When they make an acquaintance of Jesus in the context of his demands of obedience, they understand him (correctly) as someone who gives much and expects much. However, when we are communicating with believers about obedience, a red flag is lifted at the sheer mention of the o-word. Phrases flash through their minds like, "saved by grace through faith." To base discipleship on obedience, in their minds, is to strive to save oneself by works.

To their credit, there are some pitfalls to the obedience based mindset. For all its strength, it can be a slippery slope to some unbiblical attitudes.

1. Pride. I have seen this in others and been guilty of it myself. When we have this life-changing epiphany and realize that measurable obedience should replace a premium on knowledge, there can be a tendency to look down upon the "uninitiated." I'm not talking about lost people, but people beside us in the pews and in our Bible classes. We can forget that we were once where they are. We shake our heads sometimes because they have not arrived. We forget that although we may be a little further down the road, we also have not yet arrived.

2. Legalism. When the pendulum swings away from knowledge and toward obedience, the momentum can carry it too far. By legalism, I am referring to earning salvation and favor from God as well as making a false idol out of literal obedience. We have to remember that God loves the obedient and the disobedient. We are obedient not because we want to earn his love, but because we want to show our love and because he commanded it.

3. Weakening Scriptural Mastery. That sounds ridiculous, but I couldn't think of a better way of wording it. Often there are trade-offs when we do something a certain way. Before I began studying the Bible with a mind to obey, I studied for facts, facts, and more facts. My Bible time was about quantity, not quality. I considered volume a measure of success (hence the "read the Bible in a year" programs). After I changed my study approach, however, my sights narrowed significantly. Determined to obey everything I learned, it became more and more critical to read in small chunks. If I read five chapters, for example, I could never keep up with my obedience to all of the imperatives. As a result, I focused more on small sections of Scripture. Over time, this had a negative affect on my familiarity with the whole of the Bible. The trade-off of quality over quantity has its drawbacks.

The above warnings do not discredit Obedience Based Discipleship. Until I am introduced to a more biblical way to live, I will not change. As I disciple nonbelievers, I will continue to emphasize, as Jesus did, that obedience is not an option. We do the lost no favors when we make Christianity look easier than it really is. The above is simply a caution for anyone, including myself, who would attempt to place a premium on obedience.

On to the misnomer. I mentioned that the word "obedience" can be a turn-off to some believers because to them it reeks of legalism. Upon realizing this, I toyed with a few other names for it. "Faith Based Discipleship." "Discipleship of Faithfulness." "Radical Discipleship." In the end, though, they all sounded a little redundant. So, from now on, when I share with my fellow believers this way of life I am so passionate about, I will call it what it should have been called all along...

Discipleship.