The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Preaching: One Way Street?

Here's an interesting tidbit to ponder as you prepare for worship today:

Time spent on the internet just passed time spent watching television among American teenagers.

What does this mean?

For one thing, teens (and future adults) prefer active interaction and personal relationships to passive soaking in of information. They even prefer interaction to entertainment.

They want a voice.

Those places and activities that do not give them a voice will be ignored and abandoned.

So, what does this mean for worship? For Christian education? For preaching?

Maybe their gifts, their talents, their art, and even their opinions need to be designed into the fabric.

Would you dare believe that God has something worth saying being sent to a child, a grandma, a teenager? And believing this, would you dare adjust the sacred cow of the sermon to include the priesthood of all believers?

Would you dare break in the middle of your sermon today (or 7 1/2 minutes in, if you were preaching a brain-friendly sermon) and pair them up to wrestle with a question? Would you dare put the two into groups of four to look up different verses and see what God has to say to the question, then have someone from each group report to the whole group? Would you dare record their insights and answers on newsprint and on your internet site so they could show their sleep-in family members and email the link to their college students in Kansas and grandma in Sun City?

What if you only preach 2/3 of the sermon today and the people of God preach the other 1/3? Would you get fired? Or would the people who no longer prefer a one-way-street communication medium get fired up?

The one-way-street communication media are being abandoned by our children. They want their voice to be heard. This is the group who can't think of life without a cell phone link to their friends. This is a generation that prefers instant messaging and chat rooms to television.

The one-way-street communication media are being abandoned.

So are the one-way-street churches.

Maybe this is the morning to rethink the one-way-street of preaching.

Welcome Angie!

Angie Witmer is here tonight on her way over to Holy Love Lutheran in Aurora for a day's FINK training.

Buzz on over if you can!

We had a marvelous FSSU in Stillwater. Ben Hoogland received his final training before joining us as coordinator of FSS. He'll be doing a masters in marriage and family therapy and running the stones at the same time.

He Qi and family are doing fine. Their son starts Stillwater High School next week.

Rick Barron is preparing to wrap his new 40 foot roadie music show Winnebago in He Qi art and travel the country.

Julia from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco is fired up to have He Qi and FINK out in the spring to FINKify the entire diocese.

That the news of the day. Angie and I will work on the UCC ten theme set during her free time this weekend.

We'll keep you posted.

Rich

Quote of the Day: Never put a period where God has put a comma!

New Blog & the Russians

Hey Folks,

My buddy Dana Hanson is on the blog wagon.

Check him out at http://www.transformationleaders.blogspot.com/

Dana is doing great work with writing our senior high apologetics materials that we tested this summer at Renaissance.

In other news, Arlyce and I decided that Thursdays would be "date day" for the year. We'll try to get all our work done by 11:30, then alternate planning a (cheap) date. Manchurian Candidate was the matinee - I'd give it four stars. Denzeil did a fantastic Oscar nominee performance. Wait and see.

Today I also received a call from my literary agent. It seems my old Gulf War anti-war novel Unfinished Business has some interest from a publishing company in Ukraine. They're interested in Russian rights for five former Soviet Republics. I hope to know if it'll sell within a couple weeks.

Go figure.

Dosvedonia!

Rich

A Mountain Walk

So I'm walking up a mountain trail on a day with no watch, no schedule, no responsibilities, and no one waiting for me to do something for them.

And I'm thinking about the future of the church.

And I come upon some fresh bear scat (not pictured) and then this.

Anyone care to comment?

Rich

A Quote for the Day

Muriel  Rukeyser  The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

Arvada Presbyterian & the DNR Order

I just had a nice lunch on the deck with Holliy Inglis and Dave Kimble, partners and friends from Arvada Presbyterian Church. We enjoyed a couple burgers and a couple hours wondering out loud about the future of the mainline after the death of the mainline.

The question for lunch today was this: If you knew your planet was dying and you only had a limited amount of space on a limited number of rocket ships to rescue a piece of your past and ship it off the planet, what would you choose to send?

A little bit of everything? The healtiest of the healthy? The organization and structures.

Another metaphors bantered about was that of building a house. It is a lot easier to build a new house (provided you have the materials) than remodel an old one.

Is the mainline worth remodeling? Or does something entirely new need to be built? Again, if you knew your house was about to collapse, what would you take from it to include in your new house?

Holly, a Quaker by origin, has a dry wit and great sense of humor. When asked what she thought of the mainline, Holly suggested a "Do Not Resusitate" order ought to be quietly written.

So, there are two questions for the day. If you have the time and interest in jotting a paragraph on your thoughts and send it my way, I'd be much obliged.

Rich

Bible Camp Downer

Hey Mike,

Bible Camp can be the best fire-started around. Hopefully, our churches aren’t fire extinguishers.

When camp is designed to be a living encounter with the living Christ – God in nature, God in flesh, God in Spirit – there’s nothing like it.

If it is simply a spiritual baby-sitting service and seeing Jesus new and anew isn’t the focus, you might as well send them to tennis camp or space camp.

We’ve got materials that can be easily adopted for a camp setting. The themes of the Apostles’ Creed (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Church, Forgiveness/Resurrection) come to mind off hand.

But it won’t be the materials alone that will do the trick. The staff must all be on the same page. They are to be the love of Christ incarnate, always pointing away from themselves to Jesus.

That’s my two cents for the day.

By the way, I’m blogging this to see if others had the same “holy disturbance” this summer.

Blessings,

Rich

Hi,
I've just returned home from a week at camp helping to comfort and counsel 60 kids 3rd grade through 5th with 20 other staff. I wanted to write you because the Holy Spirit has given me a Holy disturbance concerning the programming at the camp. While the adults raved over it, it would seem no one was bothering to listen to the kids. When asked what the best part of camp was most never even mentioned the program and if they did it was way down on the list. For most the program was like a daily dose of medicine; good for you but not really wanted. And this disturbs me simply because my relationship with Christ is the greatest adventure ever and for some reason this idea is being lost to a new generation of campers. You seem to be on the same strange wavelength as I am and I wondered if some of the Faith Incubator material could be adopted to a 5 day camp for kids this age.

Thank you,

Mike

P.S. I had a strange idea during quiet time at camp... Deep 'Fied Faith-Clogging the arteries of a sin sick soul! ('Fied refers to glorified, magnified, justified, sanctified and testified)I'm not sure if this is the work of the Holy Spirit or the camp food! Ha Ha!

13 or Bust

Here’ s food for devos at council some time soon. It’s Barna’s latest: “In essence, the researcher noted, what you believe by the time you are 13 is what you will die believing.”

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=153

FINK Senior High Future

Hey Folks,

Just back from Phoenix. I didn't bring my power chord, so I toted a computer around without being able to do anything with it, least of all keep the blog up.

Ah, the post-40 brain!

Anyway, I had interesting conversations with David Olson of Prepare/Enrich about possibly creating a premarriage, or newlywed faith stepping stone along the lines of their keep themes. I also spent two lunches at Joy Company, talking about helping them get into Bible Song Sunday School (they've had five Christian Ed. Directors in six years) and maybe training their new confirmation person when he accepts the call.

Here's an email I sent today responding to a question about where our senior high experiment is currently:

Hi Lynda,

Great to hear from you. We're glad you're interested in the senior high experiment that we've undertaken and wondering how it might help your church.

First of all, we are currently in the process of working to integrate all the systems FINK does. We had no plan to create the senior high component until Columbine High came along and Christ Lutheran in Highlands Ranch called. They had a girl shot and paralyzed, and wanted a seamless connection between their FINK junior high program and what they would do in senior high.

We built a system first, and wanted people to test it before heading off on recreating curriculum that good folks like Group and Youth Specialties already had. We worked on the system for five years, and this summer tested what will become our three-year senior high offering - an apologetics course on "Why God?" "Why Jesus?" and "Why the Bible?"

The Confirmation Stone: Kickoff to Sr. High Ministry

As you know, we want to redefine youth ministry as youth doing ministry, rather than youth doing programs. We wanted to turn junior high small groups into senior high small groups. To that end, we launched two years worth of FINKtanks on the "confirmation as ordination" question. The result of those FINKtanks and work by test churches now shows up in our new Confirmation Faith Stepping Stone http://www.faithsteppingstones.com/stones/FSS07.htm

The first two lessons focus on what you believe and what promises you are making on confirmation day. The third lesson outlines how to grow your junior high small groups into senior high small group ministries and initiates the groups. Done by the book, lesson 3 calls you to build "Ministries of Sacred Service" (M.O.S.S. for short - kinda grows on you, doesn’t it?) Small groups of about-to-be-confirmed friends covenant to start a new small group ministry of their choice - having looked at their gifts and passions as a group, and the needs of the church. They literally choose a ministry, go to the church council or elders, and demand a letter of call (which we include in the materials for members of the stone). We are thrilled and excited about how churches will use this. Of course, it's all just 8 years of field research, thinking and theory until a few hundred churches try it this year and give us their feedback. Then we'll know what worked, what didn't work, and how we're going to make it better. Tweaking it for a couple years, we'll have something in our hands that's the best method out their married to the best materials.

A word about structure: The whole Senior High system is built around the key "every night in every home" component.

Step I: Nightly Home Huddle
Once a night, young people share Highs & Lows, a verse of Scripture, discussion, prayer and blessing with their parents. The Scripture chosen can correlate with our new apologetics courses, with what the Head to the Heart or GIFT sessions are covering, or with any themes you choose. The most important thing here is the process of communication and bringing God into the close of every day. Tying it to Sunday's theme is an added benefit. (It lets you kick something off in church that is continued seven nights a week. 7/8s of your youth and family ministry happens at home!)

Step II: Weekly Small Group
Once a week, young people meet with an adult Guide for a Breakfast Club, dinner meeting, or other off site get together. This is done apart from Sunday School. As mentioned earlier, are currently designing a three-year curriculum called Y3 that will include this weekly component in the shape of a student planning calendar with a weekly devotion. The first year ("Why God?") will contain nine weeks of origin of the universe, nine weeks of origin of life, nine weeks of the origin of the human brain, and nine weeks of the origin of the soul. We will give clean, clear apologetic arguments (and questions) for young minds to wrestle with in order to prepare them for venturing out into the world with confidence in the God of the Bible. The second and third years of weekly materials, "Why Jesus?" and "Why the Bible?" will do the same. In all, they'll have 36 weeks of challenging, informative, stimulating discussion and research to help them solidify their Christian faith each year for four years. That's the good news. The bad news is, it isn't ready yet. The initial materials for this were tested this summer at Renaissance, and will be tweaked over the fall. That doesn't help you right now, but know that it's on the way. We recommend you find something from Group of Youth Specialties right now to tide you over for this weekly piece.

Step III: Monthly Communion
Once a month, young people share a late night candlelight communion service at church. (Adults are welcome, but young people do the speaking and music.) This is programmed in the FINK way, with an opening, presentation time, small group, and quiet prayerful closing. Again, these materials aren't ready yet, but the structure is in place and you can use your own best stuff this year.

Step IV: Quarterly Adult Education
Once a quarter, young people plan and teach an apologetics adult forum based on what they've been studying in small group. This is where the Y3 courses will kick in. Youth will study them piece by piece over the nine weeks in their weekly small group, then teach an adult forum on the tenth week. We will have complete PowerPoints for their teaching, plus handouts for the adults. (Kids teaching adults - don't you love it?) We know from experience that you have to be teaching the subject in order to truly understand it. We also know form Bill Glasser that "in the quality school, everyone is the teacher." The quicker we get the kids teaching, the quicker they gain the confidence that will hold them out into the world.

Step V: Annual Infection
Once a year, the youth group committing to this must "infect" another youth group by staging a retreat or lock-in with another church. This is the trickiest piece of our system. Again, you don't know something until you teach it. We want to send them out knowing more than the material. We want them to know they have a powerful message to share of our amazing God. We wont' just talk about evangelism. We'll get them doing it to enliven and engage another church that can grow into evangelists, too.

Well, there's a structure, and the future of our curriculum. We want to equip young leaders to go out into the world ready to defend their faith, and interested in sticking around Christian community.

You are welcome to get started with the five steps right away. The curriculum will not be available this year, so you'll want to either hunt for something from your favorite publisher, or use the Head to the Heart themes and discuss them on a more mature level with your high schoolers.

Finally, I would encourage you to seriously consider the Confirmation Faith Stepping Stone and its "confirmation as ordination" strategy to turn all the kids being confirmed this year into M.O.S.S. (Ministry Of Sacred Service) agents.

Blessings on top of blessings,

Rev. Rich Melheim

What I'm Learning Today

This may be more than you want to know, but here’s what I'm learning from my reading today that will inform our new Bible Song Sunday School, and future updates and rewrites of our existing stuff. It's all about why music and movement work as the best memorization tool:

The brain loves patterns. It loves to search for, store, and retrieve patterns. Music is all about patterns. Karaoke letters flashed on a screen are patterns. Art is made up of patterns. Sign language and movement added to the sign are additional, powerful patterns. The gatekeeper for your attention in the brain is called the thalamus. It decides whether or not the information you are receiving is worth paying attention to and sending into long term memory. If the thalamus is only getting a little stimulus and a few patterns – words spoken in a dull tone – it won’t bother to open the gates. If it if being bombarded by enough unique, fun, original, or shocking patterns from enough sources – a sensual bombardment of sight, sound, motion, emotion and meaning – it will have no choice but to send the information through to long term memory. When the song and sign are done again and again, the synapses (nerve endings) get more and more efficient in recognizing the whole experience as a pattern it can recall and relive over and over again. (Here's the freaky thing: Even by closing your eyes and visualizing the song and signing, your brain will retrieve the pattern from your memory bank and begin to reinforce it.)

Now, what happens when you add music, movement, art and meaning to a Bible verse song?

The melody of the song activates the right brain. Patterns are recognized. Harmony and rhythm, which are basically math, activate more of the left brain. Those two parts of the brain start talking to one another and creating more solid patterns. Measuring beats activates the cerebellum. A third part of the brain joins the action. Adding color and movement on the FINK karaoke slides activate the visual cortex. All these areas of the brain reach out to each other and create a multi-layered neural highway of connections and patterns. Connecting sign language and body movement to all this creates an additional myriad of complex connections and patterns from other areas of the body and brain. Further, singing involves moving the diaphragm, and signing involves a whole array of muscles. Moving your body oxygenates the blood and pumps glucose to the feed the brain and send the glucose that will create the glial cells to “glue” the verse in place. The motor cortex in your frontal lobe connects to the internal gyroscope in the bones behind your ear, which connects to your somatic sensory cortex in the parietal love which registers the location of your arms and hands in space. (Okay, that is more than you want to know.)

Suffice it to say, “Teach Bible with music and movement – and teach it before age 12 – and you’ll cement God’s Word into patterns that you can recall the rest of your life.”

So, what does this mean? We've got to rethink, redesign, and redirect all of our FINK churches to use the movement and music together at the core of everything they do.

That's all.