The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Work Smarter Not Martyr

The other word for "martyr" is "dead". If you don't like that word, maybe you need a different way of doing ministry.

Way back in the last millennium - I think it was around 1984 - I was three years into youth ministry and I was burning out.

90 hour weeks. Trips, camps, classes, parties, turf time... I was trying to do too much to often with too many people and always feeling like I couldn't do enough, so I decided to use a week of my continuing ed to attend a Youth Specialties conference in El Cajon. One of the workshop leaders, I think it was Les Christi, suggested that "to do more ministry more often more effectively with more kids, you need more help."

Then he talked about budgeting, and said something brilliant: "You should be spending 1/3 of your youth budget on adults."

I took that advice home, and took it to mean both money AND time. (Your only non-renewable currency).

Kidnap them in a Winnebago at midnight in their pajamas and take them out for pizza. Bring them to concerts, coffee and Colorado camping. Treat your adults like a "big kids youth group" and build the kind of fun, fellowship, and (in those days) 'brotherhood' that builds a real team. Then you can spread the ministry out and reach more kids.

One person can only do so much.

It's the end of the school year. Summer schedules are about to kick in. What could you do this week that will build your team for next fall? What memories can you create with the adults you have - and the ones you'll be targeting for your team next fall - that will start building the kind of team that you want and grow them into a tight group of committed friends?

Do something spectacular this summer with the volunteers you value. I don't think the book of Acts would have ended the same way if Jesus hadn't gone fishing with his friends. You need to perk your peeps, feed the fold, nurture the nurturers, guide the guides, care for the caregivers, foster the friendships and let them see your heart, your passion, your care. Then invite them to join you in reaching kids for Jesus.

Work smarter, not martyr.

Cement and Adolescence

I just found out my first boss died this month. I was 16, in between my sophomore and junior year, when I went to work for Morrell Larson's construction company. Morrell 's son Brian and I spent our high school summers pouring cement, tearing down buildings, shingling roofs, getting up at 5:30 to be on the job at 6, listening to KFYR in Bismark, and talking about girls, life, girls, music, Vietnam, cars, our futures after high school and girls. (Did I mention girls?)

Of all the practical lessons Morrell taught me, the most important lessons had to do with cement. Somehow over the years it became a metaphor for me, my parenting, and my work with parents and adolescents. Here's the core of Morrell's practical philosophy on cementology, and the Melheimian spin on how it applies to parenting:

“You’d better be awake and on the job. You want to have all the right tools you need clean and ready to go. Anticipate problems. You better have the forms in place before the truck gets there. Once it starts pouring, you've got to scramble, concentrate and give 110%. Take a good break after a good piece of work. You only have a short time to smooth things out. If you’ve got a big job, you’ll want to have a big team helping you. In the long run, it’s much cheaper to have too much help in place than too little. When things go wrong (and they will), don’t wast any time looking for blame – look for solutions. Expect to get a little dirty along the way. Don’t forget to clean up when you’re done.”

“And remember boys,” he’d say to us in his Old World Norwegian brogue, “…the longer it sets, the harder it gets."

Then longer it sets, the harder it gets.

So, what does this mean for parenting adolescents you might ask? Run this past anyone you know who works with cement and happens to have a teenager. See if they don't agree:

1. You’d better be awake, ready and on the job early.
2. You'd better have the right tools ready to go. (Regular communication. Consistency. Teamwork. Fun. Respect.)
3. You'd better and a good team in place (Multiple redundant support systems at church, in the family, in the neighborhood, at school).
4. You’d better have the right forms in place before adolescence. (Family rituals. Nightly faith practices like highs & lows, scripture, talk, prayer, blessing. A handful of completely inviolable rules. Healthy mechanism to deal with conflict.)
5. When you hit the problem times, blame doesn’t serve any good purpose. Look for solutions as quick as you can.
6. Once the truck gets there and it starts pouring (or the pituitary kicks in and the hormones start going nuts), you only have a short time to smooth things out. You'd better concentrate and work at 110%.
7. Take a good break AFTER a good piece of work.
8. Expect to get a little dirty along the way. It’s all part of the job.
9. Don’t forget to clean up. (i.e. confession and absolution every night when it is needed.)

10. “And remember parents… the longer it sets, the harder it gets.” (The longer you let an unresolved conflict go unresolved, the harder it gets to smooth things out.)

One lesson that was never spoken but that was always lived was Morrell's smile. He had a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face that made you think he really might like you. That's a lesson (and practice) every parent needs to intentionally, consistently add to their parenting arsenal.)

They buried Morrell the first week in March 2007 at a ripe old age of 87. We buried Brian, his son and my construction buddy, in 1976, at a ripe old age of 18.

Thanks, Morrell. You taught me a lot about cement.

And a lot more.

(PS. Say "hi" to Brian for me.)

 

FINKmania Quiz Bowl Live

Care to see what the online FINKmania Quiz Bowl games are going to look like?

90 games on 90 themes to go with our journal themes will be online this week.

Go to FINKlinks on the lower left column of our home page of www.faithink.com, and type in one of the following four-digit codes:

LL01 through LL15  for the thirty Living Lutheran Themes
LS01 through LS15 for the thirty Living Scripture Themes
LF01 through LF15 for the thirty Living Faith Themes.

Type your name, choose an avatar, and play away by pressing your assigned button and choosing the right answers.

I'd love some feedback!

Guess the Reformer

We're working on some new stuff for a future living journal for a new denomination. Can you guess the denomination by the pictures? (Inks by our buddy Sherwin Schwartzrock, who did our Luther comic)

Monty's Mistress

My buddy Monty just started his own blog called "The Heart of the Matter" to give tips and advice  directly to our thousands of Head to the Heart friends and others in youth ministry who just want to do a better job of connecting with kids and parents. I sent him this note:

Monty, looks good.

Just so you know, a blog is a demanding mistress who will always manage to make you feel guilty for not paying enough attention to her.

She will tear up your furnature and poop on your floor if you’re gone too long.

Oh, wait. That’s a dog.

Okay, a blog is a dog.

A female dog.

Rich

 

Nine Years as a Guide?

The goal of our Faith Inkubation process is to bond a living cell into the body of Christ. If I can't do that with my own kid, I'm just "a travel agent handing out brochures to a place I've never been and will never go." (Brennan Manning Quotation)

Let me tell you a proud papa story:

I started my fifth year in the most important job in the church last night... as a small group confirmation guide to my own kid.

After three years with my daughter and five girls, Arlyce and I had the honor of taking our son and six boys through their first year of confirmation last year. (Arlyce still has hair, but it got greyer every Wednesday night last year.)

This week we started confirmation again, got the same boys back and are excited to do it again with a little more maturity in the group. I say "a little" because one of the boys grew 6 inches and facial hair over the summer,  the rest have only changed slightly on their way to becoming young men, and two of the boys are still rascals and are only there by the grace of God. We will love them rather than lecture them, stick with them through the growing process, try to teach them a little respect when the up-front talks are going on, and pull a Jacobian "I will not let you go unless you bless me" on them as they transition from Jacobs to Israels.

My most proud moment in a long time was walking into the church at 6:25 pm and seeing my 8th grade Joseph on stage banging on his guitar as part of the seven piece youth confirmation band.

If I could have written the script for my parenting when I was a new father, I would have written my son into a worship band with a lot of great Christian friends and role models, and I would have written my wife and myself as leaders of his small group with a group of boys who actually want us around. I just couldn't have dreamed it happening as early as 8th grade.

Well, it's happening, and I am profoundly thankful to have this honor to see him grow in the Lord, to see him take some leadership without any prodding, and to be his small group guide... as I say, "The most important job in the church."

The question in my mind this morning after is: "Why would any Christian parent NOT want to be their own child's faith guide?"

What does the future hold? Who knows? Will all the boys stick around? Will Arlyce still have hair in two years? Will Joseph stay in the band?

I can only tell you this:

I intend to finish as a guide with this group of junior high confirmation boys in 20 months, then begin our weekly small group "breakfast club" with the same boys-turned-to-men all the way through their graduation day.

We've done the small group guide thing for four years. My church can count on a volunteer dad for another five.

Lake Recording

We had a marvelous day at the lake studio of our crackerjack engineer, Todd Ernster, yesterday. CEO Brad Lynch had just written a final song for our new New Testament confirmation themeset on the book of Acts and needed to lay it down quickly so Todd could do his magic and we could have it out next week. The kids came along to do some tubing on the Lake. Todd and Karen were gracious hosts, and we even got Kathryn, Joseph and Jesse into the studio. We wrote a rought "Saul, Why Do You Persecute Me" on the spot and they did the vocals. Here's a couple shots of the youngest members of the FINK music guild and a rough of something new for fall.

Who Should Teach Your Kids?

Who should be in charge of Christian education for your kids?

If you are a Lutheran, you might find this surprising:

“The head of every family has the duty of training and teaching his children and servants, or of having them taught. In his house he is like a minister or bishop over his household, and he has the command to supervise what they learn and to be responsible for them.”

Regarding

Sunday

Schools

and confirmation classes taught to your kids by people other than the parents, Luther also says:

“But you have no right to do this outside your own household and to force yourself upon other households or upon your neighbors.”

- Martin Luther, “The Sermon on the Mount,” Luther’s Works, Vol. 21 [

Saint Louis

: Concordia Publishing House, 1956], pp. 7-8)

Living Yearbooks

Living Stuff for Parents & Kids

Well, here's what I've been pulling 16 hour days on for the last month (and what I'll be pulling 16 hour days on for the next month before flying off to Australia to do a major league walk about).

As some of you know, I've spent the last 15 years trying to find ways to make confirmation more fun, interesting and effective.

I came home from my sabbatical with another long term goal. I intend to spend/invest the next 15 years trying to find ways to pull parents back into the faith incubation equation every night in every home and create systems, training, and resources that aim at that goal.

The first piece of this - something I'm rather proud of if I may say so myself - was launched yesterday at www.faithink.com and it's rather spectacularly beautiful. The next piece of this - our answer to brain-based Sunday School based on 15 years of trial & error research, will be unveiled in a month or so. (I know I can't use spectacular twice in a paragraph, but I'm gonna anyway). And it's going to be spectacular.

Can we engineer a social transformation that kills off 225 years of Sunday School drop off kids (a system that was created for spiritual orphans and is now enabling them?) Can we call an end to spiritual mercanaries as primary faith teachers for all of our kids and recruit, train, motivate and nurture parents? Can we mentor the mentors? Shepherd the shepherds? Equip the equipers?

Could there be a day when a majority of parents are talking with their own kids about God, reading the Bible, praying, and blessing their own children every night - taking on the role of primary faith mentor, teacher, role model and guide - in every home?

The three humble attempts above (did I mention spectacular) are the first of many resources designed to get straight into the home and begin the process with junior high. But, as anyone with half a brain tied behind their back knows, starting anything at junior high is stupid.

The next 8 humble attempt that we'll show off this summer will make the whole thing longer, later, and much, much earlier.

Enough of the infomercial. Take a look at the three if you've got a time, and let me know if you think they have a snowballs chance in h-e-double hockey sticks, or a snowball's chance in North Dakota.

7/8 Offsite Minsitry

Rich, I’ve heard you use the sentence "7/8 of your youth ministry happens off site in a FINK church" before, and I always wondered where this fraction came from. I suspect others have wondered the same. Brad

Every night in every home = 7
Every week in every church = 1

In a true FINK church, the church isn't doing the job for the parents. The church is simply there to get you started with a FINK theme on Wednesday (or Sunday) by kicking it off and giving you a great frame of reference.

Or a great frame of reverence.

The real work that is to be done by parent who commit to nightly “FINK FIVE” Home Huddles and do their:
1.  Highs & lows
2. Scripture
3. Talk
4. Prayer
5. Blessing with their own kids.

I spent the last 15 years trying to find ways to transform confirmation from information to faith formation through group formation.

I intend to invest the next 15 years trying to find ways to bring it on home.

Our new mission statement is “faith incubation every night in every home.”

If you're a true FINK,  you should be rattleing this off the top of you head to every parent you meet.  The shift that we are proposing will be from must doing FINK just at church to enlisting parents as primary faith incubators seven nights a week.