The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Davey's Not the Same

One of my "kids" died yesterday.

I remember a crazy night on a play trip back in the 80s when I was a long-haired youth pastor with a scraggly beard and a Norwegian Afro and David Holland was a sophomore sitting in his wheel chair working our sound/lights. 120 kids, two weeks on the road, early mornings, late nights, lots of love and laughs and fun, and lots of depth of thought, care, prayer and meaning.

In the middle of a dark sanctuary after a very long day, Matt Holland (the brother in the children's book "Mickey's Not the Same") picks up David and about six guys join him. They hoist him onto their shoulders like a huge log (he was pretty big by then) and start carrying him out of the room. Someone stubbed their toe in the dark, the lifters shifted weight, almost dropping Dave, and there, in that space and sacred moment, one of the lifters whispered... a small profanity! David burst out with a huge gasped "Haaaaaaaw" and the whole assembly joined him.

There is no such thing as sacred and secular. Holy and profane. Sanctuary and world. Insiders and outsiders. Gifted and non-gifted. Half and whole. When you are One in love, one in mission, one in friendship, one in care, all is sacred. All is holy. All is sanctuary. All are insiders. All are gifted. All are whole.

David, what joy you brought to your world. Matt and Eric would not be the men they are today if not for you.

What joy your memory brings. What depth your depth called forth. What friendships your friendship spawned.

What life your life still gives.

Giving Up on Parental Participation?

I recently read a blog saying that “Parents are not interested in being an active part of their kids' Christian education," and all but giving up on trying to get them on board for the adolescent confirmation ministry years.

This is a huge challenge for the church… but one that I think can be solved by simply reframing what confirmation is based on our expectations of what we are trying to accomplish. I’m doing my doctorate at the moment with Len Sweet and company. My dissertation is on “the meaning of meaning in family ministry in a post-Gutenberg Neo-Google world.” As part of my research, I’ve done about 90 video interviews with philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, neurologists, educators, pastors, parents, teens, children and even a couple of movie producers. My book “the meaning of meaning” won’t be out until spring 2013, but let me give you a glimpse into the section on the future of children, youth and family ministry I envision.

Meaningful Adolescent (confirmation) Ministry

I’ve been in youth ministry for 30 years as an ordained pastor, and the deeper I’ve gotten into this, the more I’m seeing the need for a major paradigm shift. To put it simply, we’ve got to stop doing confirmation ministry for parents, and start doing it with parents. We’ve got to stop trying to do confirmation ministry one day a week starting it in adolescence, and start doing it every night in every home – starting at baptism. How’s that for a paradigm shift? If you want to be really radical (ie, Latin for “of the root”) you would start when a family comes in for a baptism and simply tell parents that you want to help them keep the promise they make to God on baptism day. The way you can help them is to give them a few simple faith practices to do nightly with their child, and then call them to incorporate them into the bedtime routine. What I see as the core of faith incubation – the FAITH 5 (Faith Acts In The Home) http://www.faithink.com/Inkubators/f5.asp

If this is the beginning of the confirmation process, and it is followed through to the doorstep of adolescence, the “getting the parents on board” will be no problem at all. That’s the long-view. Now let’s talk about the short term. What to do with a parent who drops their kid off at confirmation and expects you to give them some magical “religious fix” in an hour a week that will miraculously transform them into a confirmed mature Christian… without their participation.

PARENTUS ABSCOUNDICUS

Put as simply as possible, I would turn into a real bear and start telling people if they want their kid there, they will be there with them. Sounds harsh? Let me explain. Better yet, let me reframe. How can the church expect to take a kid full of adolescent hormones who gets off a bus with a Mountain Dew and a Twinkie in hand at the end of a long school day and expect to teach them ANYTHING in 52 minutes that won’t be undone by hormones, schedules, media and God knows what during the other 10, 028 minutes that week. We’re idiots to think we can get much of anything substantial done. A systems thinker would NEVER attempt to fix a broken system by ignoring the most important component of the system. Parents have been, are and always will be the most important part of the faith incubation/formation system.

If I were back in the parish, I would simply refuse to play the afterschool babysitting game we call confirmation ever again. Putting one poor pastor or teacher in a room filled with hormonal adolescents is neither good nor salutatory. Neither is it kind nor smart. Jesus already paid for your sins. You shouldn’t have to.

THE QUESTION
The number one question that one must ask about confirmation is: “What are we trying to accomplish here?” (Begin with the end in sight.) If the answer is to do information instead of faith formation, we might as well cancel the show. If you insist on sitting them down on a hard chair, giving them a cold lecture, and watching them walk out the door on confirmation day singing “Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye” for the closing hymn on confirmation day, you are guilty of a tremendous malfeasance and waste of two of God’s most precious assets – youth and time.

If the answer to the “what are we trying to accomplish” question is to create passionate and grounded disciples of Jesus Christ who know the faith, practice the faith, and live in the love and grace of God as God touches the world through them, then that’s something worth investing in. It’s also a goal worth considering building a team around, and taking a long, hard look at finding the most effective means, the most dedicated people, and the most effective times to apply the most effective means and dedicated people.

LEARNING LANGUAGE

The most effective way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the culture of that language. A class one hour a week is just not going to do it. The most effective way to learn the language of faith is to immerse the child in a culture of faith. And the best place to do that? The home. The best time? Neurology would tell you it’s not Sunday morning at 9 am or Wednesday night at 7. It’s bedtime. If discipleship is to be the result, then discipleship must be modeled by the primary caregivers every night. They say “you can’t be what you can’t see.” The most important thing a systems thinker can do is to bring the parents on board as early as possible and call them to do and be what they first promised God they’d do and be when they brought that child to the font.

GETTING THE KID DONE vs GETTING THE DISCIPLE STARTED
If parents just want their kid to go to a class and get some catechism, I’d invite them to consider finding another church where they can get the kid “done” in six weeks. Harsh? Keep reading. If, however, the parents’ deep desire and dream is to keep their family together in a world that could tear them apart, and they’re open to partnering with the church as allies in that process, I’d tell them you’d be honored.

Tell them that you will make their dream your personal goal, prayer and priority. You will do everything in your power to keep the arteries of caring, open, prayerful communication open every night of their teen’s life at the core of your program. I’d then tell them that your system starts with parents committing to take the faith journey WITH their teens. I would create a blessing service where parents and kids covenant to going through the confirmation years together by…

1. Committing to being with you weekly (or bi-weekly) as you unveil key themes that can help them in their family life. (Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, Creed, Sacraments, Life of Jesus, etc.)

2. Committing to being in worship together whenever they are in town, and to setting aside Sabbath time together when they are our of town

3. (And here’s the clincher paradigm shifter) Committing to a short nightly check-in where they share their highs and lows, review the key scripture or catechism theme, try to relate/apply the verse of Bible story to their highs and lows, pray a short prayer for one another and bless one another before turning the lights out on the day.

Finally, I’d let them know that you will PERSONALLY commit to helping them keep their relationship strong, but any parent who didn’t want to do this with their kid would need to tell you WHICH adult (sponsor, godparent, friend) they want checking in with their teen each night for the next two or three years. NOT having a mentor will NOT be an option in your program.

SETTING THE BAR HIGH
My favorite church doing this really well is First Lutheran in West Fargo, ND. There is no drop off Sunday School or Confirmation program at this church any longer. Parents expect to attend with their kids. Amy Kippen, director of Family Faith Formation, has 71% of her dads there every week.

“Wherever you set the bar, that’s where the bulk of your people will be three years from now,” says Amy. “If you say, ‘just drop off the kids and we’ll teach them for you,’ most of the parents will be happy to do just that. We tend to settle for the least common denominator, so if the expectations are low, we’ll be happy to meet them.” If you say, “Please come for the opening each week, because that’s where we unveil the theme for your nightly check-in and we want you to all be on the same page,” three years from now, every parent will be coming in for the opening. If you say “Please come in for the opening AND the closing, because we’ll be ending with a special prayer and blessing that you can use each week,” most of your parents will be there for both three years from today. If you say, “As long as you’re here for the opening and closing, you might as well stay for the teaching time so you know what your kid is learning,” that’s where most people will be three years from today. Set the bar high and stick to it, and you’ll get what you stick to.

THE FORMULA: MEM + MDP + MET = MFM

So here’s the vision and formula for maximum family ministry with maximum parental participation.

Most Effective Means (teaching with multiple intelligences in mind at church and worship) + Most Dedicated People (parents would take a bullet for their kids…. Who are you going to find more dedicated than that?) + Most Effective Time (the neurology of sleep suggests that the last five minutes of the day are the most effective time for the human brain to learn something… something that their brains will go over and over during a good night’s sleep as the brain searches to make meaning of new material by connecting it with old knowledge) = Maximum Faith Meaning.

Or Maximum Family Ministry.

Or a confirmation program that is more process than program, more parental than professional, and more powerful than any 52 minute religious “quick fix” you could apply to any hormonally challenged adolescent who gets off the bus with a Mountain Dew and a Twinkie in their hand expecting you to teach them something. 

In “Almost Christian” Kendra Creasy Dean tells us we’re losing 90% of our kids. If implementing such a program in your church caused such a problem that 80% of the families left the church but you were able to plug the remaining 20% faithful to grow into incubators of faith and midwives of true young disciples, you’d still be a tremendous success.

You'd go from keeping 10% to keeping 20%.

That's 100% improvement.

Blessings and courage to you as you think and dream, conspire and gather co-conspirators, try and fail, and try again WITH the parents at the core of your new family ministry model.

Confirmation With No Class

The adolescent brain is starved for meaningful touch, meaningful interaction, meaningful bonds, meaningful challenges, a meaningful touch.

This morning a pastor posted a question about starting confirmation this fall in a new unfinished space. She was wondering if she should get rid of the tables/chairs and put bean bags on the floor to change the class mentality. Here's what I posted:

If I may be so bold, here's my 2 cents: Forget the bean bags. And forget the word "class". Sit on the floor twice a month and invest the other two weeks a month in small groups doing service and fellowship on the theme. When you're together, have some theme related music, then some theme related games, then a big circle holding hands or locking arms for opening prayer. Then have: 1. Someone share a faith story on the theme, 2. Someone share a visual image/prop/analogy on the theme, 3. You do a little Bible teaching on the theme. Then break into small groups to share highs and lows, highlight the key scripture in their bibles, talk about how the scripture relates to their highs and lows, pray for one another's highs and lows, and bless one another. Then come back for a mellow closing where they lie on the floor with soft music and candles for a poetic prayer journey. Then break out the bread and wine (hey, you're a lutheran), then end with another big circle locking arms and praying the Lord's Prayer and benediction. Then have everyone bless and hug at least 6 other people before they walk out the door.

As I said above, get rid of "class." It has little meaning. Create a warm, learning, relevant, personal (ie small groups doing highs and lows) WORSHIP community that goes out in servanthood and fellowship the other two times a month and they'll not only want to be there, they'll bring their friends. You'll be known as the church with no class.

And you'll absolutely love it.

To a Pastor who wrote on Facebook that she caught two confirmation kids having "flaming sex" in the balcony....

Rich Melheim Start a Bible study for the confirmation students on Song of Solomon "passion fierce as the grave, it's flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame..." And then remind them the first command God gives in the Bible is "be fruitful and multiply" and then remind them that God invented sex and hormones and nerve endings concentrated in certain places (don't you just love God!) and then remind them Jesus said "The two shall be one, and whatever God joins together, no one should tear apart" and then remind them Paul said, "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful" and then remind them that they are precious, precious, precious to God, to you, to the church, and then.... what I'm doing here is trying to keep them in relationship, in theological dialogue, in the church where they can hopefully remain and grow and mature and still be a part of the people of God in spite of the fact that they are young and human and hormonal). If we only had a little more passion in the church, maybe we'd have a future. SIDEBAR: Since Lutherans don't have much of theology of adult conversion, maybe we should encourage this?

The OWLS (Old, Wise, Lutherans)

A fun idea and link to photos from my buddy Scott Ness:

Hey Rich,

Hope the summer is grand! Just spent a week with high schoolers at our annual leadership academy. Equipping them with faith skills to share stories, articulate faith, and name the people that have had an impact on their life. High of the week, without a doubt, was when we had 11 of our OWLs--older, wiser Lutherans, join us for an afternoon of faith interviews. High schoolers interviewing the older folks. They laughed together and cried together. Then they prayed together and had those who witnessed it crying together. Awesome and amazing. God's blessings in a huge way! Hoping that it is a way to bring down some of the barriers on Sunday morning so that the two sunday school classes can partner together every once in awhile. You can see some of the pictures and a few other stories here: http://www.stjohnsgc.org/Ministries/CampHub/AcademyatWitt2011/tabid/140/Default.aspx

Autumn Training Day 2

The Head to the Heart Youth & Family Ministry day went great yesterday. So great that the folks from FAITH in West Fargo (above with the Aussies) decided to skip church tonight and stay a third day! (And they're in charge of church tonight!) They're making a video with the Aussies and sending it home to be the teacher in their absence.

The Head to the Heart Day started with Aussie Peter Eckerman, coordinator of Faith Inkubators Australia, sharing some photos of a light house that had to be moved in Australia. He turned it into a wonderful metaphor for the church needing to move with the changing world. I came in next and gave everyone an overview of the FAITH 5 as it applies to teenagers. (Dont' give up! Somebody has to be the parent in your house!) After that, FINK Monty Lysne was in top form with his humor, charm and practical approach to making confirmation ministry fun, vibrant and effective. Two surprise guests - Tracy Lysne and Pete Erickson - stopped in to enjoy some of the fun. Tracy taught and shared resources on how to create meaningful monthly "huddles" with your leadership teams. The insights from the day included:

INSIGHT #1: KEEP THE KIDS

Faith Inkubators began in the Lutheran church with a series of articles and videos under the title "Conformation (sic!) is Dead" . Seventeen years ago the Lutherans had the highest percentage of junior high youth and the lowest percentage of senior high youth among the top six protestant denominations. We began searching, designing, testing, tweaking and experimenting with models of ministry that stopped the attrition. Keeping kids is still in our mission statement for Head to the Heart. Someone suggested we change it from "keep" to "disciple." This makes sense. However, I wondered out loud about the etmology of the word "keep." I wondered if the "keep" wasn't the safest, strongest place in the castle to "keep" something secure. Here's what I found.

The chief tower, also called the {keep}; a massive tower in ancient castles, forming the strongest part of the fortifications. 

Keep \Keep\ (k[=e]p), verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Kept} (k[e^]pt); p. pr. & vb. n. {Keeping}.] [OE. k[=e]pen, AS. c[=e]pan to keep, regard, desire, await, take, betake; cf. AS. copenere lover, OE. copnien to desire.]
1. To care; to desire. [Obs.]

I kepe not of armes for to yelp [boast]. --Chaucer.

2. To hold; to restrain from departure or removal; not to let go of; to retain in one's power or possession; not to lose; to retain; to detain.

If we lose the field, We can not keep the town. --Shak.

That I may know what keeps me here with you. --Dryden.

If we would weigh and keep in our minds what we are considering, that would instruct us. --Locke.

3. To cause to remain in a given situation or condition; to maintain unchanged; to hold or preserve in any state or tenor.

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal. --Milton.

So, maybe to "keep kids" isn't such a bad word after all?

INSIGHT #2: CARE FOR THE ADULT VOLUNTEERS

You should be spending AT LEAST 1/3 of your youth budget on parents. That goes for your budget of money AND your budget of time. Lavish them with love. Lavish them with care and attention. Take them out as a group once a month and get ROCKY with them. Put as much energy and creativity into them as you would a big kid's youth group, because that's what they are. Just big kids, with all the challenges, fears, problems and needs that kids have. The church can either become just one more thing on an already too-crowded priority list, or it can become their essential partner and friend helping them survive adolescence.

INSIGHT #3: YOUTH MINISTRY AS YOUTH DOING MINISTRY

You can either choose to be a program director for kids who don't have time for one more program, or a ministry director calling youth and families to DOING minsitry rather than doing programs. If you call families to "every night in every home" faith incubation - and practice the FAITH 5 at church each week so they have a regulary on-going experience and reminder to do it - you have a chance to make the shift. You'll see your youth and family ministry as ministry, not programs. 7/8 of your ministry will go on off site. Instead of artificial small groups, the MAIN small group ministry in your church will happen in homes "when you lie down and when you rise." Every parent in your church will be on your youth staff. And the youth will be ministers in their own homes.

Brennan Manning once said: "If you aren't doing this in your own home, you're just a travel agent handing out brochures to a place you've never been."

NOTE: Today we move to Faith Stepping Stones Parenting and Family Ministry - 8 key steps to bless the child, gift the family and call parents to the promise from cradle to graduation. I'll get you a report on the key insights tomorrow morning.

Confirmation beyond the Womb

If you were designing Christian education as a neurologist, you wouldn't focus on INFORMATION during adolescence.

A brain-based design would front-load all of the Bible Stories into songs, lullabies, games and prayers that would be taught to the child AND their parents on Sunday - one a week - and shared both in education and worship to equip the parent to take them home every night. The Bible work would be done LONG BEFORE adolescence. (The child's brain is twice as efficient at processing information before adolescence.) All the ground work would be laid while the child's brain is connecting the neural pathways that will be in place for life - in the first five years - and then the same stories and songs would be taught, retaught, sung, resung, acted and arted, re-acted and re-arted, until they are woven into the fabric of the child's neurological, psychological, sociological and theological life-tapestry. All the theological foundations, all the Bible stories are taught with the arts all along - so they stick. All that work is done before the hormones start to rage, so the child has something to which they can return on the other side of adolescence. (You can't come back to a place you've never been!)

Then in adolescence - and I say this knowing I've spent the last 15 years designing confirmation curriculum - rather than merely teaching doctrine in a confirmation classroom - we put them into small groups to run 'em, love 'em, run 'em, love 'em, serve-serve-serve with friends and bond them one cell at a time into the body of Christ.

On confirmation day they are ordained (ie, set aside for ministry) along with their friends into a specifically chosen ministry of the church, and the day after confirmation they start that ministry.

No one is confirmed without a chosen ministry. If they aren't ready to name and claim a ministry, we graciously invite them to opt out of the parade and the charade of making empty confirmation promises just to get a party and a check from Aunt Nellie.

The Greatest Loser (the church)

Jillian is helping people lose up to 50% of their body weight on "The Greatest Loser."

Good for her, but I'm not impressed.

The mainline church is losing 96% of it's kids in the 18-29 age range.

Ought to be a prize for that, dontcha think?

For any Christian educator who gives a rip, that slap-in-the-faith ought to be enough to start an urgent systemic search for a better way of doing faith education. (Not a search for a better workbook.)

SYSTEMS RETHINKING

By systemic, I mean looking at ALL of the pieces, ALL of the influences, ALL of the ways we teach, ALL of our allies and adversaries. Everything.

For starters, I ask a serious question: How could any systems' thinker with half a brain ignore the MOST IMPORTANT piece of the system and hope to fix the system?

The most important piece of the Christian education/faith incubation system is whomever is tucking the child in bed each night. Period.

Since the brain literally replays the significant events of the day over and over thousands of times during sleep, and since the last five minutes of the night become the lens through which the entire day's events are shaped and colored, the most important Christian educator of all is the parent. And the most important time for Christian education is five minutes before the brain's 8 hours of reflection, information processing, and long-term storage operations.

CONFORMATION (sic!) AT ADOLESCENCE? (What, are you kidding me?)

Which brings me to a slightly less serious but more consequential question:

What demon in hell decided she'd convince the church to do confirmation with adolescents?

Could anyone have picked a WORSE time, neurologically, psychologically and sociologically?

The human brain doesn't go through it's final major phase or rewiring until LATE in the teen years.

We need to concentrate on retaining the kid during the trauma of adolescence, not just the information. To do that, we've got to stop the "doctrine dump" during the massive brain and social rewiring time we label adolescence and concentrate on lavishing love during those years.

We need to retain the kid, not just the information. To do that, we've got to dump the "class" mentality and concentrate on building a "community" mentality. Since friends mean everything to teens, we need to build the joy, the mission, the energy, the fun, and the aptitude for hanging with God's people during the naively "I want to change the world but I can't today because I have a zit on my nose" hormonal years.

We need to concentrate less on workbooks and more on loving 'em and running 'em and building one focus as systems thinkers and one message in their minds between 9 and 16. That focus, as far as I'm concerned, if to make the church their family. That message, as far as I'm concerned is: "I LOVE THIS CHURCH! I LOVE GOD'S PEOPLE! I WANT TO BE AROUND THESE GOD'S PEOPLE! THEY CARE ABOUT ME. THEY KNOW ME. THEY DO SOMETHING FOR THE WORLD!"

Tomorrow I'll blog on how an amateur neurologist would design confirmation.

Starting with prenatal faith education.

From Losing 50% of their Confirmands to Keeping 57 out of 60 in Three Years

Here's today's blog from John LaMunyon at one of our best FINK churches in the great northwest.

http://salishtransplant.wordpress.com

How did they go from losing 50% of their confirmands three years ago to keeping all but 3 out of 60 kids?

Ask John.

Hearing is more than a function of the ears

Here's a letter from yesterday. We hear this a lot from people starting our Faith Inkubators stuff. Some folks just haven't made the switch from a teacher/student/aural lecture/class model to a guide/guest/multi-dimensional/community learning model:

Rich,

Our program is going pretty well.  I had one of our junior guides ask if she could teach a lesson this week!  Yeah!!  Of course she will.  We still have a couple leaders that just aren't buying into the powerpoint......maybe next year they'll do something else.  :)   Most of us love it.

Thank you, Mark

Here's my response:

Mark,

Remember that the powerpoint is the tool and servant of the teacher, not the other way around.

Commend your leaders who haven’t bought into powerpoint for knowing something very important: The love and care of a real human being (in small group time) is a thousand times more effective than anything one could put on the screen.

Then tell them:

1. 2005 was a watershed year in the history of human technology. It was the year our teens crossed-over from the tv generation to the internet generation by spending more time on the net than with tv. Our churches haven’t even entered the tv generation (one-way delivery of material from teacher/entertainer to student/spectator) and our children have already left it.

2. According to microbiologist John Medina in “Brain Rules”, if one understands the basic neurology of learning,  vision trumps all other senses. A lesson with visuals will be remembered 65% better 78 hours later than a lesson without. Since our kids are growing up in an image-driven society, those visuals must be engaging, bright, and connected to something that matters to them (i.e. Their highs and lows) or they don’t have the sticky power. Isn't that what you want as a teacher? A message/lesson that sticks? You are only trying to be the best, wisest, careful steward of the teaching time possible. You are trying to open the kid before you open the book. And if you’re going to have maximum attention AND retention of the important things you’re teaching, you CANNOT with any neurological integrity argue that sitting in a chair listening to a lecture is good stewardship of the teaching time.

We are more than our ears. So much more. And the WORD to the post-television generation is the same living WORD that it was to the pre-television generation. Yes, faith comes from hearing, but the more I learn about the human mind, the more I know that we hear with more than our ears. 

We hear with our eyes. We hear with our bodies. We hear with our hearts.

Let's head to the heart.

Rich