Are You Playing for Keeps With Your Love?

          As a freshman in college I recall the first time that my understanding of the word “Love” was challenged.  We were sitting at the Dean of Students house watching a DVD that our Resident Director had selected.  This DVD was a part of our Bible Study for the evening but I can still recall the layout of the room, who was there, and most importantly the content of the discussion that followed.  This evening forever altered my understanding of love and the use of that special word.

            In order to gain a better understanding of this theme I need to back up a few years to my high school days.  I realized very quickly the impact that saying “I love you” could have on the heart of a young lady.  I rapidly understood that if you say these three simple words, a young ladies heart would melt and she would typically trust you completely.  (Now keep in mind that this is solely based on my experience as I know there are exceptions to this thought).  I moved through relationships with the thought that saying, “I love you” to a girl would convince her that I really cared and make our relationship last longer. During high school I found myself bouncing from one relationship to the next uttering the phrase, “I love you” to whichever girl I was dating at the time.  However, this “love” always seemed to fade and slip into the background and the relationship would end leaving me looking for the next girl I could date. 

            Now fast-forward back to that night during my freshman year of college where my understanding of the word “love” changed completely.  That night I realized that the reason that my understanding of “love” was so unimportant is because of the shallow nature that it held.  Instead of truly understanding the depth of what “love” really meant, I was using the same word for how I felt about another person as how I felt about a restaurant or a prized possession.  In one breath I could tell someone that I loved them and then with the next say I love that place or thing without missing a beat.  My understanding of love was shallow and incomplete.  I needed to redefine what “love” really meant to me and stop the rampant misuse of the word that I was allowing to run my life.

            Since that evening I came to realize that love is so much more than a word to be thrown around.  Love is defined as a “profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person,” which is only a part of the definition to me.  While the definition of this word may reflect a thoughtful fondness towards someone else how we fulfill this affection/fondness towards someone is where the “rubber meets the road” especially in parenting our children.

A clear picture of this was painted for me when I read the book Playing for Keeps by Reggie Joiner & Kristin Ivy.  In the chapter devoted to this them they illustrate that love over time equals worth.  Reflecting upon my life this is extremely evident as those people who have said they love me (and shown it) over time validates me as a person.  Our self-worth and value is impacted greatly by the response, care, and attention that we get from other people which is why the concept of “love” carries so much weight.  To say and show that you love someone gives them the assurance that their “worth” is intact.  However, as a parent I coming to terms that there is another step in this process of letting someone know that you love them.  As parents we often times believe that since we know we love our children, and we tell them that we love them, they should understand that we love them.  However, their subconscious reaction is … prove it!

So how do we “prove it” to our children?  It’s really a simple formula of three things, show up, know them, and never run away.  “It’s really pretty simple.  When we show up and make rules, we prove to them we care.  When they break the rules and we show up anyway, we prove to them we still care.  We prove to them they have worth, and we are committed to them even when it’s difficult, inconvenient, and messy” (p. 63). 

So as you think about your own life and the impact that you can have on your children remember to love them over time.  Show up at your children’s events and be the loudest cheerleader that they have, even if it embarrasses them, because they will know that you love them.  Know them by being involved in their lives, however taxing this may be.  Find out about their likes and dislikes.  Participate in those things even if they make your skin crawl to show them that you love them.  Finally, never run away.  There will be times as a parent where things are difficult, inconvenient, and messy but sticking with our children during those moments conveys the depth of our love for them.  The lives of our children/students are extremely important so we need to be intentional about investing our love into their lives so we can cultivate their self-worth that they will carry forever.

We look forward to partnering with you and sharing in this discussion as we seek to impact the next generation with the combined influence of parents and the church!

Are You Playing for Keeps With Your Time?

          As I recall moments from my childhood there are a few memories that stand out to me as silly things that I engaged in, which included playing a game called “Pogs.”  Pogs were small thin cardboard collectibles that you would compete against your friends for by using a slammer that would turn them over and make them your possession.  I remember the competitive streaks that would emerge as my friends and I would play against one another to see who could acquire the most new Pogs for our collections.  There were times that it became “heated” as tempers flared as we played for these seemingly worthless pieces of cardboard, but one thing remained certain we were “playing for keeps” every time.

            As I have thought about that silly game that consumed a couple of years of life, I realized that there are several similarities to what I do today in youth ministry.  (So maybe my time spent throwing a slammer wasn’t a waste after all!)  I realized that as I sought to play for keeps with winning Pogs, the same is true with ministry. 

·         I desire to “play for keeps” with the hearts and minds of the next generation as I desire for them to grow and mature into young men/women who walk in God’s path. 

·         “Playing for keeps” usually happens with something important or meaningful and what is more meaningful than the lives/hearts of an entire generation? 

·         Finally, once you have won something for the first time/or again that is meaningful you desire to nurture and care for it, which is what we desire to do with hearts that have been won for God.

Although there is a strong connection in my mind between Pogs and ministry the reason that I believe this game was so impactful to me was because of the time that we spent playing the game, together with friends.  You see, I once had a college professor give me an assignment to help me better understand my use of time.  For one week, we were to journal about how we were spending our time in hourly installments.  At the end of the week, I was tasked with writing a paper about how I could more effectively utilize my time.  Needless to say as a college freshman I found several “wasted” hours.  The professor’s comments back to me have forever changed my life.  He said, “We are all given the same amount of time each day and week, but it is our choice what we do with it.”  Basically, he was telling us that there are no excuses for not achieving what we set out to do in regards to the use of our time if our priorities are set where they need to be. 

Taking this into consideration there are two primary reasons that our time is so important to me.  First, we invest our time into the things that we feel are important or the relationships that we consider important.  Second, time is a valuable resource that we can use however we wish but we cannot save it or recycle it.  We can only use the time that we have been given each day and week.  In other words, our time is very important because how we utilize our time leaves a legacy or creates history that we can be remembered by.

So as you think about your own life and the impact that you can have on your children remember to guard your time.  The time you invest in the life of your child/student has an impact upon their future, so as parents, we must be willing to count down the amount of influence that we have remaining with our students before they graduate, measure out how to most effectively utilize the time we have left, and mark up the accomplishments that we have achieved with our students through our devoted time.  The lives of our children/students are extremely important so we need to be intentional about investing our time into their lives so we can create a lasting history that will impact their lives forever.

We look forward to partnering with you and sharing in this discussion as we seek to impact the next generation with the combined influence of parents and the church!

Are You Playing for Keeps?

          A couple of weeks ago I was blessed to attending a conference that I have fallen in love with over the past couple of years.  The conference was the Orange Conference which focuses on developing a family ministry that connects children, youth, and college students under one umbrella while seeking to partner with parents to have a greater impact on the next generation.  This conference and their materials have been truly life-changing to me personally, the way I parent and the issues that we tackle with our students during our weekly gatherings.

            As I attended the conference this year I had an understanding of what to expect in my mind however that was quickly altered following the opening session on Wednesday evening.  During that session they revealed the theme for the conference and the underlying message behind it.  For some reason this particular theme began to pull at my heartstrings and caused me to think about the way I parent and equip the parents of the students I am blessed to work with. 

            The theme for the conference was Focus which zeroed in on the impact that we can have in the life of a student.  The theme was based out of an experiment that North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia decided to do a few years ago.  They gave parents a jar of 936 marbles representing the weeks of influence that we have with a child from the time they are born until they graduate high school.  They challenged their parents to remove the necessary number of marbles to get to the age of their child representing the number of weeks that they had left to influence their children.  A few months later they sat down with the parents and discussed how this experiment had altered the way they parented their children.  Rather than fixating upon the few weeks that they had left many of them reflected upon how they had been more intentional with their children/students because they now had an understanding of the brevity of time that they really have to impact their child.  These parents made statements such as,

“When you see how much time you have left …

·         …you tend to get serious about the time you have left

·         … you tend to make the most of what matters most

·         … you tend to value what matters most

·         … you value what happens over time

·         … you tend to be more present for a few

As we expanded upon this over the course of the conference we discussed the thought there are six things that every child/student needs from us.  They need time, love, words, stories, tribes, and fun. 

·         A child/student needs time in order to create history

·         A child/student needs love in order to prove their worth

·         A child/student needs words in order to provide direction

·         A child/student needs stories in order to see perspective

·         A child/student needs tribes in order to create a sense of belonging

·         A child/student needs fun in order to create connection

As we journey together over the next year we will explore how we can "play for keeps" with the time of influence we have left with our children/students.  (If you can’t wait to see how much time you have left with your own child there is an app which is available for I Phones by searching “Orange Legacy” which will let you know the number of weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds you have left).  We will also be looking at the fact that what we do every week matters in the development of our students as well as how to invest their lives through time, love, words, stories, tribes, and fun.   

We look forward to partnering with you and sharing in this discussion as we seek to impact the next generation with the combined influence of parents and the church!

What Have You Learned From Others?

          This past week our students concluded their series entitled We.  Here is a snapshot of this series, “In following Christ, there is one truth that most of us forget--we were never meant to do this alone. We need other people. It's critical not just because we need friends, but also because in community we understand more about who God is. We see how He is working in other people's lives. We learn things that God has taught them, and we get an opportunity to love and serve others. The WE series helps us discover the "WHY" behind community--why we need it, why we should pursue it--and why it's more than just what you do every week after a communicator speaks.”

Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The third week’s discussion question reads as follows, What have you learned about God from other people in your life?

                I once sat in a college classroom where a professor led a discussion about how God reveals Himself to people each day.  We discussed this topic for several classes looking at how God demonstrates His love to us through creation (nature), conscience (mind), and circumstances (situations).  There are several ways that God makes known His presence to us as these three highlight just a snapshot of the revelation of God that we can see each day.  For me personally, I wrestled with these thoughts as a college student who couldn’t totally comprehend, nor can I now completely, how God utilizes these various means to communicate about His character to us as His children. 

            After thinking it I realized that many people can find/experience God in nature.  How many times have you simply been alone in the woods, looking up at the stars in the sky, or simply laid in the grass and experienced God?  For me, I remember being a child who would climb our television antenna and lay on the roof for hours.  Why?  Because there was peace and calm up there that allowed me to relax and feel as though there wasn’t a care in the world.  Secondly, is the area of our mind.  God created our minds as a complex set of several components that enables us to think and reason unlike other mammals.  As a student, I realized the need for my brain to be stretched and to have my thinking challenged.  This is simply another way that God manifests Himself to us as we study and learn more about Him. 

            Finally, we got to the issue of circumstances/situations, which for me was the most evident as a college student.  I often times could see how God was working in the lives of other people through their actions, words, and responses to the issues that they faced.  I always longed for God to work in my life in the same manner, helping me to grow spiritually, only to discover that He already was.  It took just a small amount of time for me to stop and look at my life and see the way that God has used other people in my life to further my understanding of His love for me.  There were pastors who poured into my life to see me grow as a Christian.  There were youth workers who saw gifts in me that I didn’t even know that I had and challenged me to develop them.  There were professors who helped me understand the working of the Holy Spirit in my life through the gaining of knowledge.  There were students who challenged me to become a better youth pastor so they could grow in their faith more.  There were parents who longed for resources to impact their students in a deeper way for God’s Kingdom.  God has been working in my life for a long time and through several situations, but I had never stopped to see how or where God was working.

            As you look at your own life today, what have you learned about God from other people in your life?  For me, I have been challenged by others to look for God more every day.  Personally, I have learned about God’s love from other people through their extension of forgiveness to me.  I have learned about grace from other people who love me despite my shortcomings.  I have learned to trust God when other people trust me and confide in me.  The list could go on with the number of things that I have learned about God from other people.  So as you examine your own life, what have you learned about God from other people in your life?

Hurt or Lonely … Which One Would You Choose?

          This past week our students continued in our series entitled We.  Here is a snapshot of this series, “In following Christ, there is one truth that most of us forget--we were never meant to do this alone. We need other people. It's critical not just because we need friends, but also because in community we understand more about who God is. We see how He is working in other people's lives. We learn things that God has taught them, and we get an opportunity to love and serve others. The WE series helps us discover the "WHY" behind community--why we need it, why we should pursue it--and why it's more than just what you do every week after a communicator speaks.”

Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The second week’s discussion question reads as follows, Share a time when you were hurt by someone.  Then share a time when you felt lonely and really needed other people around.  After some time and perspective, which one was worse?  Why?

Community is one of those things that is ingrained in the fiber of our souls.  We all long to be connected to other people who really know us and don’t simply know about us.  We desire to be connected to them in a way that allows us to be genuine and authentic without the fear of judgment.  For me personally, there have been two men that I have experienced true community with and understood that a desire from deep in my soul was being fulfilled when we met, talked, and prayed together.  However, as you can imagine experiencing community in its truest form often times means that things can get messy.  In community you really see that “the rubber meets the road” as you get involved in the grit of the lives of others.  Author Heather Zempel writes in her book Community is Messy, “Sometimes people talk about community like it’s some kinda lovey-dovey, touch-feely part of Christ-centered living.  Perhaps it’s just me, but I think community is hard.  Maybe I’m just a hard person to have community with, but my experience point to the difficult truth that community is messy.  And discipleship is hard.  If we want to experience them, we pay a significant price.  A price that could cost us our blood, sweat, and spit” (p. 11).  Heather hits the nail directly on the head that community is hard and messy.  As we seek to develop true community and live into it challenges are sure to be lurking around the corner. 

For me, community has always been especially challenging because you trust someone else with the deepest, darkest places of your heart with the hope that their support will help through your challenging situation.  Trusting others has always been a difficult thing for me because of the number of times that I have felt hurt or even betrayed by someone else that I shared my heart with.  (Please keep in mind I’m not talking about teenage heartbreak here!)  There has been a few times where I have shared my heart with others with the hope that their words, prayers, and encouragement could help me through the situation I was facing only to have it turn around and blow up in my face.  These occurrences have often times caused me to back into a corner with the thought that I will never trust anyone again.  While neither of these outcomes is ideal, being hurt or being alone, I have tried to find the lesson that I could/should be learning through these experiences.

If you were hurt that means that you trusted someone else enough to open your heart to them with the thought that they could help you and you could help them as well.  Although you were hurt, it could be a growth opportunity for you, even though it probably does not feel like one, because you can learn what to share, when to share, and how to share your heart with others more effectively.  What I have found is that in those moments at least I had someone who could hurt me, rather than being totally isolated and alone. 

In the moments of being alone that I have experienced I have often felt isolated and as though there was something aching in my soul, which deep down was the desire for community.  We are created to be known by other people, supported by others, and lifted up by others so when we find ourselves in those moments of loneliness, we are not living into the desire for community that God created in our souls.

So while neither of these situations is ideal, I would choose being hurt over being alone every time because that means that I trusted someone else with my heart, feelings, and thoughts.  As you look at your own life which of the two would you choose experiencing community with the possibility that you could get hurt or being isolated without anyone to lean on or help you up when you fall?