Tag: family

Restoring the childhood we stole from kids

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As a society we are pontificating about how to stop school violence. The focus is on shootings at the moment, but there are other forms of harm that are rampant in our schools. In these ‘debates’ the question is often given, “What are your solutions?!” The reality is there is a cost of stealing the soul of childhood from our kids. Shootings, bullying, drug abuse, etc. are symptoms of soul robbery. I humbly recommend the following to help restore childhood. I admit this is very boy focus, as that is where the biggest issues exist.

More art. More play.
As both of these dropped over the course of the last 30 years, look at what also increased. True, this could be correlation not causation, but I doubt that. Art & play help kids process, socialize, and learn. It’s a big part in how they learn to interact with the world they live in. Maybe if we stopped robbing what is the soul of being kids, they may not be maladjusted adults. Over the last 27 years I’ve seen a massive drop in kids abilities for imaginative play and also a drop in their ability to get along with their peers. Art gets increasingly dropped as it’s viewed as non-essential, but it’s a huge part in how we process and communicate. Art is very essential to being human.

Change the narrative on marriages. Champion fatherhood.
The break down of family is a significant contributor to mental health and violence. We are reaping the costs of a coupe generations of broken families and fatherless homes. We need a fresh narrative on marriage that sees its joys and delights. That it can be done, healthy, and amazing. We need dads who are passionate about their families. And we need to view both of those things as good, ideal even. Children are a reflection of us. If they’re more violent, bullying, and destructive, we need to do a better job modeling.

End organized sports for kids. Allow sparing.
Back in the sandlot days kids had to figure out the rules and how to manage play. They created games and had to figure out how to play well together. Yes fights and arguments often happened. Failure is part of learning. What free play allowed was learning interpersonal dynamics. Sparing was a concept used in the summer camp world. It’s play where boys rough house. Dodge ball and other like games were part of this. Yes, it was a dominance and honor thing. Yes fights broke out and people got hurt. But we learned from failure and it helped teach how to manage anger, frustration, aggression, etc. Overly programmed overly protective aspects robbed kids of essential life lessons.

Allow danger. Build steps to manhood.
I remember reading an article that raised the question if we are protecting out kids too much. That they’re losing the ability to weigh the consequences of their actions by not engaging in dangerous endeavors. No one is arguing for negligence, but learning how to manage danger is important. Robbing people of failure can lead to robbing them of success. There was a time when kids could openly play with guns, like cops and robbers. In this kids are processing aspects of justice, human interaction, problem solving, etc. As danger and gun play has decreased, looked at what has also increased. Steps to manhood is another critical need. Many cultures have ceremony that signifies the end of childhood and start of adulthood. Part of this was the understanding that one must mature and become a man. (yes, we need this for women as well.) The cost of the egalitarianism movement is that we sacrificed manhood and have too many boys who can shave. Or worse, they’re aimless not knowing what to do.We are discovering that is dangerous for society.

Let kids be kids
All the above relate to things that have wrecked the soul of childhood. All the things above lead to discussions on how we can bring it back. They are not immediate solutions, but they will have immediate impact. If we followed through on them years ago they’d be in place now. We cannot be shocked by todays outcomes after we’ve essentially robbed kids of their childhood. Let them chase butterflies, get muddy. Let dads culturally be heroes again. Let romance be a husband and wife walking hand in hand in the sunset years of their life. Let kids be kids.

Book Review: The Emotionally Secure Couple by Joe Martino

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Change is possible. One of the biggest changes we need is the courage to engage in conflict rather than run from it, only to have an explosion. In the entirety of my ministry, conflict resolution, or peacemaking, is the most often used skill set used. I discovered the norm for most people is naivety on how to fight clean. If only there was a book that deals with this topic well, is positive, and gives hope. Joe does a masterful job laying out a philosophy and tools to help us engage in conflict.

Layout
“The Emotionally Secure Couple: The Key to Everything You Want in a Healthy Relationship” would be best read in order for the first reading. While one can go back and use the book as a reference guide later, each chapter does an excellent job of building to the next. The foundation is built well in the first 13 chapters. Chapters 14 through 22 give you the tools to live out a productive, healthy, and loving way to address inevitable conflicts. Make no mistake, even the foundational chapters are practical in nature. When we change how we think and process things, ultimately our actions will change.

A thing that is great about the book is exercises are given to help make the point of a chapter. Many books I’ve read have these (dreaded) discussion questions at the end of the chapter. Joe hits you with helpful questions or activities in the middle of the chapter. It is refreshing and honestly takes the sting out of books that give questions at the end. This also helps do something that is challenging for a book, it makes you feel like you’re getting a counseling session from the author.

Engagement
Engagement is a word used often throughout the book. Don’t run. Don’t explode. (Joe uses different terms that challenge the way we view conflict.) Rather than becoming defensive or shutting down, the push in the book is how by engaging we not only resolve the issue, but we actually help the other person become better. Fighting does not have to be messy, it can actually be a time of growth and building a stronger safer marriage. This is different than thinking win-win. It is intentionally helping the other person know they are valued, heard, and secure.

Emotional Equity
“When we build relational equity, we create a space where bad things can happen but not define the relationship. We create space for a fight to occur and no one has to pay. We move back to a time where differences are celebrated.” Often people hear the term “emotional bank account” for this concept, but that is a little simplistic. It is more knowing the person you love to the extent that when there is an issue, it is safe to be dealt with by both. The book invests significant time explaining emotional equity, but also demonstrating how by fighting clean you actually build on this. This concept is the keystone to the book. The philosophy and the practical tools all hinge on building emotional equity in a marriage.

Hope
“It is my belief that any couple can come back from anything. They simply need to learn how to build the most important ingredient into their relationship and answer some basic questions every day.” The book doesn’t come from a perspective of fixing you, but rather equipping you. The power of choice is real and too often ignored. Choice is critical to the book. While there is trauma we may face and need help processing, it does not have to define the decisions we make moving forward. While Joe often challenges conventional wisdom, the challenge actually brings more hope to us rather than slavery to whatever.
“When you engage them by obviously seeking to better understand what exactly it is that they are saying and the emotions that are driving those words, you are telling them by your actions how much you actually love them.”

Intentional
“Being intentional is the lynchpin that holds everything else together when you are working on building your relationship.“ While this is one of the rules of conflict resolution, it is truly the bottom line of the book. We get out of a relationship what we put into it. If we want our relationships to grow, we must choose to use skills that will build the other up while we are and or frustrated.

Usage
While many of my ministry minded people may not like the lack of Bible directly referenced in the book, it is there. The book is not a theology of conflict resolution or marriage. There are plenty of other sources out there. But when applying Peter’s instruction to “Love your wife in an understanding manner,” this book unpacks how to do that. I would highly suggest that while teaching on marriage to use this book to make the love aspect happen.

In pre-marriage counseling one of my key aims is to equip couples to fight clean. This book will be the cornerstone to making that happen. The other aims is to connect them to a counselor for key issues that need to be processed, financial planning, and planning the wedding. Wedding planning often allows couples to immediately practice the conflict resolution skills they’re learning.

Read for your own marriage. No marriage is perfect, and often those of us who help others can struggle to take care of our own family. Read the book. Do the exercises. Fight cleaner than you already are. The approach to the book is refreshing. Too often, especially in church contexts, we go to the honor, love, authority issues in marriage conflict. This neglects when the writer of the Song of Songs says: ‘This is my lover and my friend, in me he finds peace.’

The bottom line:
“The Emotionally Secure Couple: The Key to Everything You Want in a Healthy Relationship” is a must read because it changes the way we view conflict in relationships. It is more than conflict can be good. Joe gives a clear pathway to how you can make it good. This work seeks to change the perception of marriage. In doing so this book is not a shot across the bow, it’s a direct hit. We would be wise to engage and be intentional about changing the narrative around marriage. “The Emotionally Secure Couple: The Key to Everything You Want in a Healthy Relationship” shows us how.

Faith & Family

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DSC_0286Faith & Family is the foundation to our society and the solution for our society. Undermining these two critical areas will open wide the door to evil. In times of tragedy there is a resurgence in the valuing of faith and family, but there is seldom sustaining action to support them. This foundation needs to be reinforced.

Secularism
I believe there should be no state church. Marriage of church and state proves disastrous. For the church, this became clearly evident in the dark ages. That said, complete removal of religious influence in the public square has not helped our society. In and of itself its a promotion of a religious view. What is lost by this push is the reality of the human soul. Quickly the value of life, morality and civility fall away. Secularism created in our country a narcissistic view of a person with no moral foundation and no purpose. The push to be oneself or pursue one’s dreams leaves a gaping hole in a person’s soul.

Life
Secularism lead to a devaluing of life. While not popular to say, millions of innocent lives are ended each year. As a society we don’t mourn these losses, though we do debate to what extent such loss should be allowed. Millions of marriages, kids, ideas, art, dreams, etc are never given the light of day. A majority of these ended lives are for connivence. Single percent issues (worthy of its own debate) are being used to excuse 98% of atrocities. Either life is precious or it is not. Let us be honest, secularism lead us to value our own connivence more than life.

War on manhood
For at least two decades a war on manhood exists. While the news of late talked of a war on womanhood, I’d submit the opposite is true. We have undermined the role of men in our society and even paint being a man as problematic more than helpful. In the name of equality we undermine, subvert and destroy what is most critical, most needed and most lacking in our society: dads. Look at the crime statistics in relation to fatherless homes.

Privacy laws
Privacy undermines prudence which undermines parenting. It is increasingly difficult for parents to get information about their children, and yet they’re still responsible for them. From medical issues, to even school issues, the issue of privacy as a right isn’t protecting our children. It isn’t protecting marriages either. When we cannot make the wise choice because of privacy law, there is a problem. Further, such undermines the trust that is essential for healthy relationships and healthy families.

Faith
People are seeking their purpose in life. Post-modernism, which I submit is beginning to decline, left society with no bearings. The fruit of both secularism and post-modernism left us bankrupt. We think we’ve evolved given the easy access to technology, yet we’re backwards in our ability to relate to one another. Faith is the glue that holds a society together for faith speaks to the soul and to the conscience. This is something that government and education cannot do. It is also why marriage of church and state should be prevented, but not to the exclusion of religions from the public square. We must deal with our soul.

Family
We need a resurgence in fatherhood. This includes healthy marriages. Most people don’t learn well stressed. Given the raging sea that is many families, is it a wonder we have an education problem? Dad’s provide the bearings and the foundation needed for success. Are there exceptions to this? Yes. But the exception is not the rule. Again, just look at crime statistics in relation to fatherless homes. I’d submit if there was a resurgence of healthy marriages and dads society will greatly change.

A solution
The foundation of faith and family is the solution to our society. This is hard for society to take for this solution requires submission, servanthood, love, endurance, wisdom, responsibility, and moral absolutes. This solution is hard because it requires work, it is messy, and it isn’t easy. It means a debate between what our laws state and what is truly beneficial & prudent for families. It means sacrificing our connivence at the altar of peace. The irony is it’s what we really want but we don’t want what comes with this solution. Faith and family have nothing to do with guns, yet it’s the crux of why we’re seeing the rise of evil in our country.

Book Review: Dream House by Barry Bandara

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“In many ways, our families are in a battle- a battle of priorities. If we don’t take the time to account for all the movement of our family now and then, we can easily become overwhelmed with all that we have to do.” p. 70

Pastor Barry Bandara gives us an excellent blueprint for developing our own “Dream House.” The book is humorous, insightful and usable. Often books on parenting place a massive guilt burden on parents. Make no mistake about it, there are times when you will say ouch. Overwhelming, you’ll walk away saying “I can do this!” We need more resources that are refreshingly humorous while also giving clearly communicated wisdom.

Overview
Taking from the three best sources possible: God’s Word, wisdom from others and his own failures & success, Barry takes us through the various “rooms” of our dream house and how it relates to family. Along with each chapter and at the end, Barry also shares resources he and his wife found helpful. The metaphor and the warmth of his writing keep the principles understandable and approachable. (Some books I’ve read you almost need a PhD to understand them!)

The big win
Dream House is written by a man who practices what he preaches. I’ve had the privilege to serve with Pastor Barry and to see him as a father. He practices what he preaches. I’m a better husband and father because of his ministry. Often with family resources we ask: will this work? The answer is yes.

The book
What is helpful is the book gives us principles and not programs to add in our homes. Dream House gives you what needs to be done, how it can be done, as well as other resources to do it. This leaves the book highly adaptable for different family contexts. The questions at the end of each chapter are also helpful to figure out how to apply what was said in your own family.

Marriage counseling
Pastor Barry presents a 10 year rule in his book. The idea is to think 10 years down the road. If your child is 2 how do I want them to act when they are 12, and so on. Dream House is a book I’d highly recommend for marriage counseling. It gives a blue print of raising a healthy family and many of the needed principles need to start before kids. You may think “we’re just getting married,” but kids are not that far off.

The bottom line:
Dream House is an excellent resource on leading your family well. It’s written with a warmth and practicality often lacking. I’m looking forward to using Dream House in my own ministry and my own family.

We have a dad problem, not a debt problem

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“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” ~Apostle Paul

Our society has a dad problem. Not a debt problem. Not a… name the issue… problem. We have a dad problem. If you look at crime statistics, school statistics, you name it, you’ll likely be able to trace it to a dad issue.

Why a dad not a man problem?
I think THE crucial aim of a dad is to develop his boy into a man, and to model for his daughter what a great man is. This involves being a man himself. This involves character. This involves being a romancer of his wife. This even involves showing how to get back up from failure. If I had to target one area to win the war on manhood, I’d start with dads.

Father doesn’t mean dad
The ability to cause a life to happen doesn’t make you a dad. Let’s define what a dad is: A dad is a responsible man who defends, disciplines, develops and loves on people. I say people because you can’t be one person at work and another at home. Consistency matters if we’re to develop our kids to be solid adults. Kids pick up on hypocrisy quickly.

The war on manhood
Our society lost what it means to become a man. This came from three things: 1) A consequence of an egalitarian view of the family instead of a complementarian view. 2) Men have abdicated their responsibility of being a man. 3) It takes good dads to to have good dads. Dad’s are the key to turning this around.

The example
If we want a model of what it means to be a man, Jesus is the best place to start. 1) Jesus stayed on mission. He pointed people to God. That’s how He rolled. 2) Jesus patiently pushed, taught and comfortable people. The disciples were a crazy bunch of dudes who often lacked faith and were about themselves. After Jesus rose from the dead, the 12 men acted as selfless servants. 3) Jesus defended people. Jesus sacrificially defended people. A man’s job is to take the hits for others.

The bottom line
Want to solve our debt problem, crime problem, poor problem, etc? Open the door to develop solid dads. Character, principle, compassion, romance, creativity, productivity and joy starts with dad.. For my Christian friends, great dads is the start to great theology.

PS… Thanks, Dad!

Why not Wednesday? Expanding the mission in hard times…

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For success to happen God needs to show up. But the vessels that carry God’s presence is people. In challenging times we can focus on what we lack, or we can embrace constraints by being creative. In being creative you need to get back to basics. The key for expanding the mission is people.

The Y factor
Early on in my ministry I attended “The Leadership Summit” put on by Willow Creek. Bill Hybels discussed what he called “The Y Factor.” You can read about it here. In dealing with a resource crunch, a member on his team wrote X (paid staff) + Y (volunteers) = Z (bearing fruit). Their focus was to double Y.

Y>X= expanding the mission
Expanding on that idea, the Y factor should be exponential. Truthfully, our “volunteers” support the church, serve in it, and more importantly, they’re the missionaries in all parts of our community. The church reaches its missions best when Y (volunteer staff) is greater than X (paid staff). Paid staff is important and vital- think of them as the coaching and support teams. But, paid staff are not the players- that’s the members. The better our members are equipped and mobilized, the greater our ministry impact.

Church is family
Pastor Mark Driscoll describes church as family. Church is extended family. You can hear him describe this here. There are no consumers in church. (At least, there shouldn’t be.) There are two kinds of people: family and guests. One of the marks of being in the Spirit is hospitality. One of the marks of being dialed into God is love. We’re family, and we should be an inviting one.

Free people up to serve
I blogged about a conversation I had with Pastor Pasma, found here. In that conversation he walked me through significant ministries that developed at the church I grew up in- powered by the people. He invested much time in the conversation talking about how to free people up to serve. “Staff to meet essentials… work to free people to serve.” Pastor pointedly stated how the people serving in the church is the truest mark of health and growth.

The Bottom line:
The church is people. The church success rests on people. Church growth is about people. While in hard, difficult or crazy times, the solution is your people. God’s power is evident in three things: Prayer. Bible. People. Loving God gives us a foundation for expanding the mission. Loving people gives us the means to make it happen.

A few of my favorite things…

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The past few months I’ve been reflecting on thankfulness. I’m not Oprah bashing…Well… Maybe…So, in the spirit of the holidays, here is a few of my favorite things in no particular order:

The Coffee Shoppe Experience
This is a simple pleasure that a lady must enjoy to marry me. Kelly passed the test with flying colors! It’s simple. A bistro table, favorite warm beverage, and someone to enjoy a good conversation with. For a few dollars, a priceless experience. It works for discussing life, romancing, strategic planning, dreaming, discussing theology, and listening to jazz music.

Classic Classical Compositions
The most thorough enjoyment of music is classical. Like any genre, there is great compositions, good compositions, and the rest. Classical music is best listened to live, and best with a friend, followed or preceded by a coffee shoppe experience. The most brilliant thing about classical music is how much can be said by saying nothing at all.

The Bible
Good for multiple things, it’s main focus is on describing who God is and who we are in light of that. Many describe the Bible in many analogies. I like none of them. The Bible stands on its own, and without it we’d lack a fuller knowledge of who God is. To engage in a relationship with God, the Bible is essential. Not as a legalistic endeavor, an archeological dig, or some self-help guru gig. It’s a fine balance of devotion and study. The Bible is like a spouse. It takes fine tuned listening, observing and study for the purpose of knowing and engaging, not for sordid gain.

The Moleskin
Pen on paper will likely not go away. There is something about the immediacy of drafting ideas on paper that a technological device just cannot match. The Moleskin is a simple device to capture whims, ideas, dreams quotes, and recipes.

The Sunday Drive
Hop in the car, and just drive for driving’s sake. This is also a good time to enjoy oldies music, or depending on the road traveled and car driven- the symphony of the car engine. It is also a good time for conversation with a friend or romance with a mate. While some may prefer walking, driving requires horsepower, and I’m a guy. Fall and spring are the best seasons for the drive.

Writing
I think this one is self-explanatory.

Playtime
My boyz take me on many adventures, and I do the same for them. The joy of having children is you get to rediscover much of life that you knew but forgot. It speaks to why undervaluing children is so dangerous. They allow us to see the world with fresh eyes with the added benefit of the wisdom and experience we’ve hopefully gained. Children are just as good teachers as anyone.

BBQ
Ribs, steak, ribs, chicken, ribs, pork, ribs, beef briquette, more ribs… Enjoying BBQ requires people. It’s not a solo experience, it’s a fun one. BBQ involves conversation, messiness, artery clogging goodness. Well, the artery business can be avoided, but you get my point. Did I mention ribs? Yeah, those are best.

The bottom line:
My favorite things in life center on this: People and God. Without them, nothing else really matters. Eat, drink and enjoy the fruit of your labor, for this too is a gift from God.

Happy Thanksgiving!