“The Hope of the Local Church”
A good friend of mine and of SpringHill’s, Ron Nobles, in making a case for ministry to young people made this statement “As Bill Hybels says, ‘the local church is the hope of the world’, if this is true then the hope of the local church are young people.” This reality is what pushed SpringHill and the Willow Creek Association (http://www.willowcreek.com/) to join together in pursuit of understanding the key’s to the spiritual development of late elementary age kids (4th thru 6th graders) much like the WCA Reveal study did for understanding the spiritual development of adults. In partnership with the WCA last summer we surveyed over 800 4th thru 6th graders in our Michigan overnight camp. This was followed by the “slicing and dicing” of the analysts of the WCA of all the data we collected from these 800 plus campers.
Here are the major findings (none of which are surprising if we allow the Scriptures, church history and common sense to direct our steps):
1. What is the key to the spiritual development of kids? Engaging in Spiritual practices especially prayer and Scripture reading.
2. What is the key to kids engaging in spiritual practices? Their parents!
3. What is the key to parents being effective as the spiritual mentors to their children? Spiritual Maturity
4. What is the key to the spiritual maturity of parents? Engage in spiritual practices.
So implications of these results and open questions yet to pursue?
1. We, the local church and para church ministries, need to help parents grow spiritually by helping them develop the spiritual practices that lead to spiritual maturity. (This is much simpler and more fruitful for the kids and parents than training parents to be Bible teachers, theologians, etc.)
2. How do church and para church ministries help encourage kids in their spiritual practices when they do not have role models at home? How does this follow-up happen effectively? This is an incredible opportunity to make a long- term, history changing, eternal impact on the lives of people and the entire world.
3. Can this follow-up with kids lead to impacting their parents in their spiritual growth? Here is what one SpringHill parent said that leads us to believe this can be done. “The counselors really tried to get to know each child personally & make them feel included. Our son developed a deep interest in God that we have been very neglectful in. We will take this lead and all begin to put God first again. Thanks.”
Ron is absolutely correct, from a strategic long-term standpoint there is nothing more important to the local church than the spiritual development of young people. The great news is that the most effective way to impact young people is to impact their parents. Impact their parents and in the end you impact the local church today and into the future. With the local church strong and healthy than the local church can be “the hope of the world.”
“When Love and Skill Come Together Expect a Masterpiece.”
Christina and I after her Spring Dance Recital English poet John Ruskin once said “When love and skill come together expect a masterpiece.” I experienced a masterpiece tonight by my daughter, Christina, and the members of her dance company, Company Dance Traverse. Over the years of watching my daughter dance it has been amazing to see her grow and develop into an incredible ballerina.
Christina, absolutely loves to dance. On our way home from the recital somehow Christina and I ended talking about what life will be like in the new heaven and new earth. I asked her what she thinks she will be doing in our eternal home and she said ” I hope I can dance all the time.” When you equate something with our eternal home you must really love it.
Now add to her love for ballet, the incredible hours over years and years that Christina has put into her dance and the result was seen tonight. It was a masterpiece. Without the practice there would be no skill and with no love Christina would never had practiced all those hours. It really does take both love and skill if you want to produce a masterpiece. Christina understands this because she lives it.
We all Need a Friend Like Terry Prisk
Terry at our regular meeting spot, the Cracker Barrel Yesterday had lunch with my friend Terry Prisk at our regular spot, Cracker Barrel (I know it’s not a very exciting place but it’s a convenient half way spot for us). Let me tell you a bit about Terry. He is the Senior and Founding Pastor of The River – http://www.therivercc.net/ in Hartland, MI, a very dynamic church making a positive impact in that community. Terry has also spent much of his life speaking to students and others and has spoken at SpringHill for at least 30 years. He is one of the most dynamic speakers I have ever heard and through his teaching and coaching has made an incredible impact on SpringHill and the students he has spoken too over the years.
It’s not a stretch to say that Terry has spoken to more people at SpringHill than anyone in its history. There is no one even close. Easily over 20,000 people, maybe even 30,000. But more importantly God has used him to transform the lives of 1000’s of these people. There are people all over the world who will tell you that one of the most significant times in their lives was listening to Terry speak at SpringHill. If you wear a SpringHill shirt on your next trip chances are someone will stop you and tell you they’ve been to SpringHill and more likely heard Terry speak. It’s quite a record, one that will probably stand for a long time at SpringHill.
But let me tell you why I really appreciate him, why I love him like a brother (for a brother he is), and why having a friend like him makes me (and if you can find one, makes you) a better person with each interaction. Here is my reasons I love Terry and thus why he is the measure of what a great friend should be.
1. He is always learning, never satisfied with his contributions to the Kingdom or his influence on the lives of people, thus he inspires the same out of me.
2. He is brutally honest without being judgemental. He tells you what you need to hear and does it in a way that makes you very thankful. I need that honesty.
3. He has a driven passion to help others know and grow in their relationship with Christ and is willing to take great risks to see that this happens and reminds me why I do what I do, keeping me focused.
4. He is a devoted husband and father and the proof is seeing his kids and meeting his wife, I hope and pray my kids turn out like his.
5. He’d run through walls for his friends and for just about anybody that needs a hole in a wall, reminding me of the kind of friend I need to be.
6. And finally, I love anyone who can stare down big game and come out with the victory (see one of his take downs below), makes me a more courageous person just being with him. By the way he loves to hunt and I love to fish, which are two versions of the same sport.
If you can find a friend like Terry keep him or her, if you haven’t got one, go and find one, do whatever it takes, it will enrich your life and make you grow and become more the person you were created to be. Terry has done that for me and I am forever thankful.
They don't have these Michigan Lemonade out of Lemons, or Making a Useless Thing Beautiful
Our neighbor's stump turned into a flower-pot. My wife Denise and I took our morning run together. It was one of those incredible spring days in northern Michigan, the kind of days where you think Heaven might be a bit like this. We had been reflecting on the beauty of the day as we ran, taking in the smells, sights and sounds of a spring morning when as we ran by our neighbor’s home (a full half mile down from us) where we noticed this stump in their yard that they had turned into a flower-pot. Denise immediately said to me, “now that’s turning lemons into lemonade”. And all of the sudden an old clique turned into real life. Our neighbors, for whatever reason had chosen not to spend either the time, effort or money to remove this stump from their yard and instead left it. In a large yard, in the country, it’s a reasonable decision. Yet they went the next step and not only kept it but redeemed it. They took something useless and made it beautiful And on this incredible spring morning, it seemed to fit right into the surroundings we where fortunate to run in.
How often do organizations we are a part of have stumps, useless things, that we may not have planted and at the same time are too costly to remove? In any organization we inherit stumps, those parts of the organization, be it products, programs, services, assets, reputations or even people you just need to live with. The question is can we make them into something more beautiful. Just because we need to live with them doesn’t mean we can’t improve them until the time when removal makes more sense. Our job as leaders is to have the wisdom to know when to make the investment to remove a stump (and believe me it is an investment) or leave it alone and just improve it (which requires an investment as well but usually not as big) by making it more useful, effective or beautiful.
So here’s to the stumps we live with may they all be as beautiful as our neighbor’s stump on this incredible spring morning.
Oh Those Weeds in My Garden
I’ve spent 2 hours this morning weeding my flower beds and kitchen garden. Two hours! How did my garden get to be just a mess on May 22? Well I haven’t tended to it all spring and without attention – weeding, turning the soil, etc. those pesky weeds just kept growing. Growing so much that before I started this morning all I saw, when I looked at my garden, was weeds – no beautiful flowers (they are there), no pure black dirt (it’s there and the weeds love it). The weeds became the central theme of my garden. As I sweated, pulled, was bit by mosquitos, I realize maybe my garden had something to tell me.
It was then that I reflected on why the Scriptures so often use farming and gardening as metaphors for our lives. As I was pulling those weeds I thought about the parallel between my garden and my life:First, my life is to be a garden, Christ’s garden, something that continues to grow and become more beautiful and fruitful each day, each season, each year.
Second, as in every garden, it will always need to be tended if it is to continue grow and become what it was created to be.
Thirdly, tending includes weeding. There will always be weeds in my garden and my life so I will never stop weeding. So I better start enjoying it for what it is.
Fourthly, the longer the weeds are allowed to grow, the deeper the roots and the harder it is to pull them out and to do it without damaging the good plants.
Finally, gardening is a process not a job with an end point, likewise our lives are a garden that is never completed and the joy of it is working it and seeing it develop and grow.
As I was pulling weeds I also began asking myself the some “weedy”questions about myself, questions we can all probably ask ourselves:
1. Do I have weeds (and by weeds I mean anything that is getting in the way of what my life could truly be, what God created it to be) in my life that need to be pulled? Answer – yes
2. Have I been pulling them out on a regular basis or have I left them to grow and spread as I did with my garden? Answer- I hope not but I better double-check (I can do this best by asking my wife Denise, she sees and lives with my pesky weeds and is honest to tell me what and where they are).
3. What and when I am going to go after those weeds in my life before they become the theme of who I am? Answer – I better start right now.
When I was finished pulling weeds I realized the two hours was much more productive than I had planned.
