Disclaimer

I am neither employed by nor do I speak for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, its administration nor agencies. I'm just one Adventist guy with a studied opinion - more of a watchman on the walls than a voice crying in the wilderness.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Shut-Ins: The Lost Tribe of Adventists



 When we do surveys asking what religion people are, we find that there are usually a lot more people who say they are Adventist than there are who come to church each Sabbath. Mostly we assume that's because people just don't want to come to church because they're too busy or someone's offended them or (my favorite) "I like to worship out in nature." 

I think there's another reason for the miscount. I think a lot of Adventists don't come to church anymore because they've gotten too old. I know because it's happened to me. Through a series of unfortunate events, my wife and I became isolated from our church and the church forgot we'd ever been there. 

For one reason and another, seniors are much more likely to find themselves without transportation and therefore, without a way to get themselves to church. In East Texas, my old stomping grounds, we did a survey that showed that one in five East Texans didn't have a reliable way to get to town to go to the doctor or get groceries. Many are virtual prisoners in their own homes. The other missing group is children. They don't drive cars. They are totally dependent on older people to drive them around.

These church members are too often forgotten by their own churches. I found that out when my wife and I moved up here to Washington State. We found a nice little church and, though my wife wasn't able to attend regularly, I started to. Unfortunately about a year later, I lost my ride and next thing I knew, we'd disappeared from my church's radar screen. I got a ride about two years later and everyone was surprised to see me. Most thought I'd gone back to Texas.

I've seen what happens when a church goes looking for its lost older members. Pastor extraordinaire, Ron Halvorsen Sr. breezed into my home town of Keene, Texas and began actively looking for lost members. He somehow managed to find something like 9 school buses, find drivers for them and create a maintenance and fuel fund.  We had about 800 coming to church (it's an SDA college town) and about 40 coming to prayer meeting in the youth chapel every week. Pastor Ron went out looking for children and old people and sent buses out into the surrounding counting collecting those who had been missing services.

The board balked at the cost of manning the buses, the liability issues and even the playing of guitars onboard during the rides.  But Pastor Ron, with the enthusiastic support of the congregation ignored the good old boys who thought they ran the church, and before we realized what was happening we had better than 2000 people in two and three daily services and 900 people at PRAYER MEETING! Can you imagine that?

We started youth prayer meetings for the kids, run by the kids and aimed at the kids. Kids came, often accompanied by parents and grandparents. The bus singalongs got more than a little rowdy and it wasn't just the youngsters. If you think Grandma has forgotten how to do "If You're Happy and You Know It" You've got another thing coming. It was a truly joyful noise unto the Lord.

I know, because me and my guitar were on those buses. Every Adventist Church, particularly in North America and Europe needs to go through their membership lists and find out who is missing. Once they find who and where those folk are, they need to go get them. A big yellow school bus is great for that. If some of your seniors have mobility issues, I can show you how to address that with a portable ramp you can run up to the rear exit door.

And you don't have to limit the use of the church bus to shut-in transportation to Sabbath services. If the kids are having a program at your school, go pick up folk and pack the audience with appreciative fans. If you've got a food bank in your church, USE IT!  Every month about social security check time, run around and pick up your non-driving or physically impaired members and take them to Walmart, the mall or to your church food bank. Organize trips to the park or to church recreational activities. If you hear about a free clinic going on in your city, get out the buses and go get people. Jesus said, "Go ye therefore into all the world..." If you can't be globe-hopping, you should at least explore the corner of your world. Besides those big buses running around town on Sabbath with the name of your church on it are a powerful witness, not to mention advertisement, for your local congregation.


It can be good for your church budget too. Seniors control the majority of the wealth in this country, but they don't donate to causes they don't participate in in some way. Make them active participants in the life of your church and you will see more money coming into the church coffers if that's what you're worried about.

Actually, if running a couple of buses to pick up non-attending members will, perhaps, minister to what St. Paul called "the widows and the orphans", then let nothing stand in your way. It's time we "come rejoicing" before the Lord and get to bringing in those lonely and isolated sheaves still standing out in the field with no way to get home. Gleaning the fields for left behind fruit is an ancient tradition with God's people.

© 2017 by Tom King



Saturday, October 21, 2017

Pathfinders: How to Effectively Praise





      “Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they be discouraged.” Colossians 3:21

The modern world embraces self-esteem as the end-all/be-all of child-rearing goals. Convinced that poor self-esteem is the cause behind our children's rebellion and misbehavior, a generation of parents have poured praise on their children and have succeeded in producing a crop of what many observers have called "precious snowflakes" - spoiled bratty kids who expect the world to heap approval on them as a right rather than something one earns.

As youth leaders, we have a solemn responsibility to guide children toward responsible adulthood. We are called to walk the narrow line between lifting up children's spirits and indulging their worst impulses.  So do we do that by giving everyone a participation trophy and eliminating any recognition of hard work and effort so some kids don't feel inferior and have their self-esteem damaged?

I used to work with emotionally disturbed, mentally ill and abused kids. Many of them were seriously damaged. Most had virtually no self-confidence or self-esteem. My primary job there as a recreation therapist, a vocational counselor and equestrian therapist was to help build up the ability of children whose spirits had been crushed. These kids were like abused animals, lashing out at everything and everyone that got close to them.

It was at this time I found a wonderful book by a psychologist named "Haim Ginott" called "Between Teacher and Child".  He also wrote a companion book for parents called "Between Parent and Child." The new version was updated by his daughter and I haven't read it, but his earlier book was really a departure from the loosey-goosey and ultimately disastrous child-rearing philosophy of Dr. Spock.  Ginott talks about how to:
  • Discipline without threats, bribes, sarcasm, and punishment
  • Criticize without demeaning, praise without judging, and express anger without hurting
  • Acknowledge rather than argue with children's feelings, perceptions, and opinions
  • Respond so that children will learn to trust and develop self-confidence
One of Ginott's most powerful techniques for engaging children is a simple principle for praising a child effectively. Too often we think we can praise kids by telling them things like "You are a great musician" when they bang out a song on the piano. We hang their crayon artwork on the fridge and proclaim, "You are a great artist!"  We praise a good grade on a test by telling them they are "...so smart!"  And we do surprising damage to our children by doing so.

How? When we label children great artists and students and musicians, we judge them, something even Scripture tells us we are told not to do. The exhortation, "Judge not that ye be judged" doesn't just apply to negative judgment. "Praise, done lazily by applying labels, is ineffective at best and damaging at worst. You don't full kids. If you tell a child he is a good boy, he knows better. He knows you are a liar because he knows what ungood things he sometimes does.

A teacher once decided she was going to change her unruly class's behavior by building their self-esteem.  She walked into her classroom and started her class by telling her kids she knew it was going to be a "great day" because all the children in her classroom were all "good boys and girls". The classroom erupted. It was the worst day she'd had in her career.

So why would that happen? It's because when we lazily label a child a good something or other, we tell the child we expect that they will always be good at whatever it is we are praising them for. Many times, children will try to prove you are wrong. Then they don't always have to meet the perfect standards you evidently expect of them.  God showed us that with the children of Israel who thought they'd show God they were good enough to please Him.

When we praise children (and adults for that matter), says Ginott, we should avoid labels and instead tell the child what you like about what they have done. Even better, tell them how what they have done pleases you. Kids want to please grownups. The secret is to give them praise so that they know how to please you. They don't know. Targeted praise like this is like catnip to tabby cat. Once children know what gets them your approval, they will repeat this behavior over and over.

Let me tell you a true story that illustrates the power of targeted praise. This is one of the first times I tried Ginott's targeted praise technique. I worked with emotionally disturbed children who were really messed up. Most had concurrent diagnoses of mental illness, abuse, neglect and developmental disability. We were experimenting with an art therapy program. We later hired an artist to run it, but at first I did the art classes.


There was this one little girl who had a history of abuse and neglect. She didn't trust anyone and had difficulty bonding with adults in particular. During her first art therapy class, she was fascinated with the marker pens. She worked at her table for quite a while. I saw her jump up after a while and come to me with her paper in her hand. She presented me with a picture that was light blue on the top half and dark blue on the bottom half.

I was stumped as to how to praise the little girl. You don't use empty praise like "You're a great artist." (I'd just finished Dr. Ginott's book so I knew that kids don't fall for that). So I told her, "Hmmm. It's a shade of light blue and on the bottom it's a darker blue. I like those colors."

She immediately jumped to my aid. "That's the sky," she said pointing to the light blue, "And that's the water," she explained proudly.

"Oh," I sighed, relieved to know what the painting was about, "You have done a seascape." The little girl lit up like a Christmas tree and dashed off to do another picture. The next picture was the same blue on blue with a little green pyramid shaped thing in the boundary between the two blue spaces.

"An island!" I said, hopefully. She gave me a big grin and dashed off again. The next one had a little house on it. The one after that had a palm tree. Then the house gained a chimney, then the sky gained a cloud and the sun. Every time I mentioned the new addition, it remained in the next picture. If I forgot to mention the new addition - the bird she added or a window on the house, it got left out the next thing. The little girl is now 40 years old and lists me as her Father on Facebook.

Another of my helpers had a similar, but opposite experience with an young autistic boy in the class. The boy struggled to make a very detailed and actually quite stunning picture. When he showed it to his counselor, the counselor went for the easy praise. "You're a really wonderful artist, Chris," he said holding up the picture for everyone to see. Horrified, Christ snatched the picture back, crumpled it into a ball and threw away the evidence. He refused to do any more pictures. That one picture was evidence that he was a "great artist" and Chris knew that he wasn't always able to do work that was that good. So he shied away from even trying lest his counselor find out he wasn't a "wonderful" artist. 

You may not always see an immediate reaction from your kids when you use empty praise like that. Emotionally disturbed kids react much more quickly and demonstrably than normal kids do. Tell a regular kid that he or she is a great baseball player or a brilliant mathematician and they may smile at the praise, but they soon figure out you're blowing them off with the easy compliment.

Empty praise tells a child nothing about what pleases you. If he cleans his room and you tell him he's a "good boy", it says nothing about what he did right.  Try these techniques when you praise and you'll tell the child what he or she is doing that pleases you. Remember the child want to please you. When you give only empty praise and the only time you are specific is when he is doing something wrong, the the only thing the child learns is how to disappoint you. Try this:
  1. Find specific things that the child does that please you.
  2. Tell the child how what he or she has done pleases you.
  3. Tell the child how what he or she has done helps you.
  4. Show the child you appreciate what he or she has done.
  5. Avoid telling the child what you think he or she is. 
  6.  


When you are working with your Pathfinders, remember to keep your eyes open. Know what they are doing, especially when they don't think you are watching. When you let them know specifically what they did and why it was a good thing,  and what it meant to you, it's a very powerful thing. It lets the child know how to get your approval.  Most of the reason we get into trouble with kids is we aren't very good about telling them in detail what we want from them.  Oh, we're very good at telling them what they do wrong, which may be why they repeat that sort of behavior more frequently than they do the kind of behavior we want.

Instead of "Good job!" tell a kid "Wow, this floor really shines!" (if the floor really does shine). Show them something that they did well, let them know it pleases you, and they will repeat it. Don't tell a kid, "You're a great helper!"  Instead tell them, "Thanks, that really helped me get done with my work." The child then understands why you are pleased with them. You made it personal. 

If you're on a camping trip, pick out a group that did a good job pitching their tent. Walk around it, looking at the tent pegs, the tent poles and how they stowed their gear. Comment on everything they did right. Mention if the pegs are driven in at the proper angle, if the poles are set squarely and secured, or if the inside of the tent looks neat. Before you know it other kids will ask you to look at their tents too. Make the same kinds of observations with all of your kids and pretty soon you'll have a crackerjack tent pitching crew as they compete to draw your praise for their work. And each time you praise a specific thing, you teach them what they did right. The others will watch and learn.

This way you don't have to teach by criticizing. You teach by praising. I've seen too many Pathfinder "leaders" who thought they were drill sergeants and who treated the kids as if they were a part of some kind of a paramilitary organization. The point of summer camp and Pathfinders is to teach kids practical and social skills by having fun. Robert Rider, president of the Oklahoma Conference taught me that you can save more young souls by showing kindness, by paying attention and by remembering what your job is, than you can by by barking orders.

I took those lessons with me to my later work as a teacher, as a recreation therapist with emotionally disturbed and mentally ill children, and as a community organizer working with bipartisan groups to help people in need. Our jobs as youth and Pathfinder leaders is to lead, not drive. We show kids the way, with kindness, humor and clear signals. We mark the trail for our young people to follow. We let natural consequences teach for us when they stray and we welcome them back when they return to us, even if they are a little battered for having gone off track.

God says that he will be our children's teacher (Isa. 54:13). Our job is to go before them and show by example what mere words can never teach.  Jesus said let your words be well chosen. He didn't lecture. He told stories and let his listeners draw their conclusions. We all learn like children for most of our lives. Children want to know what to do that will please us. Let's show them by telling them we notice when they do the right thing.

© 2017 by Tom King

   

Friday, October 13, 2017

Youth Ministry: Backyard Ball Field Marker

Homemade line marker.
Acts 17:26 says - From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

Boundaries are important, especially in working with kids. Kids need boundaries. If their boundaries are not clearly marked, they will push those boundaries until you absolute define what those boundaries are. This need for boundaries extends to children's play.

Here's a handy little device for making soccer fields, baseball, football and even grass tennis courts in your backyard or your church school playground for the kids. Let me just say this. A lot of people dismiss going to the trouble of marking a ball field for kids games. I think they are mistaken.

The first thing God did when he was ready to build a nation out of the rabble that came out of Egypt was to write down the rules and build a temple. The temple was the playing field on which the Hebrew people worked out their salvation with fear and trembling. The boundaries and layout of the temple was the field upon which the Children of Israel played out the plan of salvation.

I'm here to tell you that marking out the boundaries of a playing field and putting on a striped referee's shirt makes a difference in how the kids approach obeying the rules. The lines define the boundaries of the game. With lines the arguments over whether the ball or a runner were out of bounds are vastly reduced.

I worked with emotionally disturbed kids and found that my taking the time to mark out the lines on our playing fields changed the attitude of children who played on them. The well-marked boundaries not only helped make games easier to officiate, they also made the kids feel like our games were real games and that they had been admitted to a special place as privileged participants. The boundaries said, "You are important enough for us to have taken the time to make the playing field look professional.

I've been a Pathfinder leader, a recreation therapist, a PE teacher and youth leader working with a wide array of kids. I'm here to tell you. Mark your ball fields. It makes a difference.

You can buy field markers or make your own. The link below is to my article on building a simple homemade line marker.

http://howdyyadewit.blogspot.com/2011/02/make-your-backyard-ball-field-look.html#.WeGQHjtdpeM

© 2017 by Tom King

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The Devil's Labelmaker



I struggled with the subject for this week's blog. This week Annual Council was busily debating whether or not to make Adventist church officers sign a loyalty oath promising to obey the 790 page General Conference Working Policy. The documentation was not provided until the actual meeting to hold a vote on the issue began. No one had a chance to look at the documents in advance before the meeting. Fortunately, the delegates put off the decision, sending it back to committee for another year.

In reading about the ongoing church debate, I've heard all kind of labels for various factions that supposedly are at war over this issue. I've discovered that I don't fit into any one of these discreet groups. I have beliefs I share with some persons and some beliefs that I don't share with the exact same persons. I'm still an Adventist church member. Labels can be divisive. Labels are also a great way to sow disunity.

I've discovered that some ministers and other church figures I respect are considered part of groups with which I have differences of opinion. I'm not sure I wanted to know that. Some of the articles bunched people like HMS Richards Sr. in with people like Robert Brimsmead and Desmond Ford. Adventist historians seem to have taken a real beating in terms of being dismissed from their positions over the year. That's a technique that political movements use to forward their movement - deleting or obscuring history that conflicts with the political narrative. George Orwell talked about it in his book "1984". For some reason whenever those in authority feel challenged, they want to make sure that the historians who document it are on their side.

It's not an accident that Adventist historian George Knight is in the spotlight right now. As I watch the debates, read the stories and academic papers and watch the videos, I see moving in the background something very sinister. I've always been good at stepping back and seeing the flaws in the background against which the action in the foreground takes place.

There's something sinister in the background that's been there a long time. It's a snake in a tree. It's whispering, "Just a little more power and you can make things perfect."  It's the basic theme of "You can be like gods."  It's happening in politics. It's happening in our church. It's everywhere - the flip side of the Great Controversy.  The opposite of His Grace will save you and set you free. We have the snake selling the opposite message - Your knowledge will allow you to make the world what you want it to be. It's the old narrative.

With church people it's the idea that you have to believe just the right thing. If you can just get your theology, your behavior right, or have some special knowledge or practice that you perform and you can make sure that God has to let you into heaven, then there's no need to rely on God's mercy and Grace.

In the political realm it's if you just have the right political system, then you can create heaven on Earth - no need for God. All you have to do is get the laws right and get the right human leaders in place, you can create a human God-free utopia.

When Satan starts using these kinds of techniques, watch for a concentration of power. Power is what Satan craves. It always goes back to power and the need to have it. That's what the Great Controversy was all about in the first place. Lucifer had a better system than God. 

It's important that we reject the labels the Prince of Darkness sees to tag us with.

© 2017 by Tom King