Viewing Material: "58: The Film"

About a month ago, I attended a screening of "58: The Film." Based on Isaiah 58, it is a documentary about the global Church in action in some of the world's poorest places. The film is part of a global initiative to end extreme poverty by connecting thousands of churches with thousands of local projects around the world.

The film was very difficult to watch; by the end I was traumatized by the awful situations and suffering. Just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, they did. An 8-months pregnant mother of four in famished, rural Kenya, whose husband has left the family, walks miles every day with her eldest daughter collecting sticks and twigs that can be sold as firewood; the daughter is too young to carry them so the mother does. Some people have left the village for the city, hoping for better living conditions; there they face raw sewage flowing outside their front doors and rampant drug and alcohol abuse by adults and children alike. In India, a man works all day, every day in a rock quarry. He has sold himself into slavery because of his mounting debts, but he will never be able to pay them off. Elsewhere in India, cash-strapped parents sell their daughters to sex traffickers to work as prostitutes. Amidst all of the brokenness, the film highlights how the Church is coming alongside those in these desperate situations. An organization teaches the wife and daughter of the enslaved Indian man job skills so they will not fall into slavery themselves. International Justice Mission rescues young girls from brothels and works with local governments to prosecute the traffickers.

Fortunately there was a group discussion afterward, because I needed others to help me process my thoughts. My initial thought was "Why am I here?" working with this population, who are far better off than the people depicted in the film. Then I was reminded that I am here because I have been called to be here, and I should not feel guilty about that. Still, the point of the film is to inspire and show us, the Church, how we can partner with those on the front lines in the developing world and make a real impact. I was personally inspired by a church in Queens, NY highlighted in the film. The youth pastor there has helped to ignite a passion in members of the youth group, who are poor themselves, for the hungry overseas. One day a week they fast and pray for those who are worse off than them. It was very timely for me because that week in Discipleship, I introduced the idea of tithing (giving 10% of your income to the Church) to our 8th and 9th grade boys. They thought it was crazy, and I probably did too when I was their age. But it got me thinking: we do a lot of fundraising activities during the summer for our program. What if I showed 58: to the boys and helped them get passionate about one of these issues or geographic regions, and then challenged them to tithe 10% of everything we raise to one of the organizations highlighted in the film? I told two of them about the film a few weeks ago and they want to see it, so I am excited to share it with them this spring.

You can watch the film for free here, and learn more about the 58: movement at live58.org.

Training Up Leaders

One of my goals as 5/8 Club Coordinator is to have at least one former 5/8 participant serve as a volunteer leader with the group. I've managed to do that for the last four years, and in fact have had two at a time for most of that span. This effort is consistent with the ministry's goal of developing indigenous leadership in the community, but also has practical implications. Who can relate better to the boys in 5/8, or tell me how we could do things better, than young men from the community who have come through the program themselves? I have the opportunity to take these young men under my wing and teach them how to be effective leaders.

It's also important that the boys in our community have positive male role models to look up to, and that these role models come from similar backgrounds and look like themselves. I now have a problem where almost every 8th grader who graduates out of 5/8 wants to be a volunteer leader, and I can't use all of them! As I mentioned in my last post, we are making efforts to plug the boys in as tutors at our Johnson Elementary tutoring program. For those boys who are 10th grade and above, are mature and responsible, and have a love for Jesus, I have a few spots for them as 5/8 leaders. Most serve for multiple years, like Bryan, who served for three years as a high school student and one in college, and Martell, who has served for the last three years. This year I added Paul, an 11th grader who shined in his internship at the Boys and Girls Club this summer and approached me about leading back in September. Paul shows up at my house on Mondays just before it's time to pick up dinner for 5/8, and I use the car ride to Trinity (our meeting place) as a chance to prepare him for the evening and quiz him about what he is supposed to do. He helps lead the 5th and 6th graders during the meeting and helps me clean up afterwards. On the car ride home, I ask him how the evening went, what he did well, and what he could have done better. He is growing into the role, and his commitment to the group is admirable.

As I did with all my leaders, I gave Paul a sheet of the expectations I have for 5/8 leaders, in the form of the acronym DISCIPLE (see below). Unlike my other leaders, I challenged Paul to memorize what each letter stood for. For several weeks I quizzed him, and he couldn't remember a single one! In fact, he often would guess negative words that were the opposite of traits I was looking for (e.g. "selfish" instead of "selfless"). Last week when I asked him, he managed to name two. He wanted to make a bet that if he learned them all in a week, I would have to buy him Chinese food. I thought there was no chance. To my surprise, he listed them off on Monday, two days before the deadline! It would appear that not only does he take his volunteer position, but also his Chinese food, very seriously.

DISCIPLE

DEPENDABLE – Your commitment to each other and the boys is very important. Not only does it show you care, but it helps ensure the health and success of the program. Just as the boys are expected to attend every meeting, so are you.
INVESTING – Being a 5/8 leader requires more than just showing up. Always come to meetings prepared for your roles. Make parent contacts and spend time with the boys outside of our Monday night meetings.
SELFLESS – Put the feelings and needs of the boys and other leaders above your own. Participate and perform tasks even when you don’t feel like it.
COMPOSED – Don’t take it personally when dealing with an unruly child. Be fair and equitable towards all kids. It’s ok to get upset but don’t let that affect your judgment or the standards of how we deal with the boys.
INFLUENTIAL – Recognize that your relationship with the boys gives you a unique opportunity to speak into their lives and help them make good decisions.
PRAYERFUL – Our work requires us to come to our knees in prayer for the boys, their families, and ourselves.
LOVING – Love the boys, not because they love you but because Christ loves you. Be patient and forgiving with them as Christ is with us.
EXAMPLE – Let the way you live your life in and outside of the program be one that positively reflects the Kingdom and how we want the boys to live.

Heroes

This spring I created a logic model for the 5/8 Club that outlines our inputs, activities, outputs, and expected outcomes to guide the program.  Among the outcomes (or goals) are the boys developing ethics of positive leadership and service to others (intermediate term) and becoming Christian leaders who give back to their community (long term).  Towards these ends, Richard and I are making a concerted effort to prepare our teenage boys to serve as volunteers in Abundant Life's 1st-4th grade tutoring program.  Because we want them to take this seriously, and because we only want those serving who will actually benefit the program, we came up with the acronym HEROES to explain the qualities we are looking for and the standards we are setting for volunteer service.  While it may be too much to expect these boys to be true heroes at 15 or 16 years of age, my hope is that we are adequately preparing them to be just that someday for their families and their community.

HEROES

HELPFUL – You are respectful toward the school staff, tutoring staff, other tutors, and children, follow instructions from the tutoring staff, and are patient with your tutee. The tutoring program is better because you are a part of it.
ENGAGED – When you are at tutoring you are focused on connecting with your tutee and helping him learn.
RELIABLE – You can always be counted on to be at tutoring when you are supposed to and will let Dylan know ahead of time when you are unable to attend.
ON TIME – You are where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there.
EXAMPLE FOR OTHERS – You are a role model for the children in how you speak and act, not only at tutoring but also in the community.
SELFLESS – You put the feelings and needs of your tutee above your own. You participate and perform tasks even when you don’t feel like it.

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Pt. 8

Last year, Richard, my partner in ministry, had this exchange with one of the 5/8 boys.
Richard: How old are you?
8th grader: 15.
Richard: When do you turn 16?
8th grader: My next birthday.

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Pt. 7

Last Thursday, we went fishing at a private pond for our weekly 5/8 Summer Program field trip. In our group of ten, five of the boys had never fished before and others were not very experienced. Our host, E.N., showed some of them that the best way to hold onto (certain) fish is to put your thumb in their mouths just past their teeth and pinch. When Devin caught an 11.75-inch bass and was unsure how to grab it, I yelled from a distance, "Stick your thumb in it's mouth!" K'Jawn, who was near me, said, "Eww! He has to stick his tongue in it's mouth?"

(God's) Image is Everything

While on a recent vacation in Miami, I was struck by a billboard I saw on the way from the airport to our condo. “Because image matters,” was the tagline; what it was selling, I don’t remember. Seeing such a billboard in Miami probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I was dismayed nonetheless, because it was exactly the type of cultural myth that I have been preaching against this year in 5/8 Club.

Back in April, I knocked on the door of a 6th grader to give him a ride to 5/8. He told me he couldn’t come, and I asked why. While laughing, he said, “I was arrested on Saturday for fighting.” I asked him to explain to me why it was funny, which he did a poor job of. He invited me in to talk to his father. While sitting on the couch, I listened as his father explained all the heartache and trouble that he has been putting him and his mother through. His father said he could come to 5/8, but only if I personally transport him there and back and call him when I drop him off. I agreed.

On the way to the meeting, this boy proudly asked the other two boys in the car if they had heard about his fight. I told them not to talk about it. I had been planning on teaching the life skills lesson from our conflict resolution curriculum that evening, but decided I wanted to more directly address this boy’s attitude and others like it: one that takes pride in being feared, in rejecting authority, in acting apathetic towards life and the people who care about you. I knew that this kid didn’t think his arrest was funny; he just wanted others to think that he thinks it’s funny. Sadly, he will sabotage his own well-being to uphold the image that he wants others to have of him.

During that night’s lesson, I reminded the boys of two verses I’ve tried to impress on them this year: that everyone is created in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27), and that the only thing worth boasting about is one’s understanding of the Lord (Jeremiah 9:23-24). As clear as I could, I explained to them that put-downs are pointless because we all have equal value in Him. It doesn’t matter what other people think of them (good or bad); the only one they should be concerned about pleasing is the Lord. I’m hopeful that the boys can grasp these truths at a young age so they can live in harmony with their peers and experience the freedom that comes from knowing that “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Pt. 6

Last year during circle time of a 5/8 meeting, someone brought up the topic of jellyfish. I said, "You know, if you get stung by a jellyfish you're supposed to pee on it." One of the 5th graders quizzically asked, "Pee on the jellyfish?"

Love Always Protects

At 5/8 last night, one of the boys excitedly came up to me. "I did what you told me to do!" he said. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. "I apologized." Suddenly I remembered. "I'm proud of you," I told him.

The previous week over dinner at Discipleship Group, the boys were arguing about something that had happened that day. One of them had asked out a girl he was interested in after making a bet, she said yes, another of the boys told someone, it made its way back to the girl, and she changed her answer, all in a span of about 40 minutes. Coincidentally I had planned a lesson on 1 Corinthians 13 for that night, so I used the story as an example. "Love is kind… It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking… It always protects, always trusts…." I wasn’t trying to shame or embarrass him. I just wanted all of the boys to know what the Bible says true love is, lest they think it is for their gain and/or they act in unloving ways.

I talked to the boy more after the meeting. After apologizing, he asked the young lady if she would consider going out with him again. She said she would think about it. I reminded him of 1 Corinthians 13. I could tell he felt much better about the situation, and hopefully not just because she may give him another chance, but because he honored her by attempting to make things right.

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Pt. 5

This afternoon I was walking toward my house, and I saw a large dog running around our back yard. Because we recently got chickens, I knew this could be bad. I also saw two of the 5/8 boys walking up to our front door. They banged on the door furiously, and when my roommate answered, they yelled, "A wolf is attacking the chickens! A wolf is attacking the chickens!" My confused roommate came outside to see what I was seeing. Alas, it was not a wolf but a huskie. The dog did "get" one of the chickens, as in got on top of it and evidently gnawed its leg, but it survived minus a batch of feathers. Once the "wolf" was led away by its owners and we established the chickens were fine, we had a good laugh.

Go to the People

My church homegroup is almost through reading "When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor... and Yourself" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, a book I highly recommend. A recent chapter questioned the increasingly popular church trend of short-term mission (STM) trips, which Americans spent $1.6 billion on in 2006 alone. While certainly not calling for the end of such trips, the authors point out the harm STMs can cause and introduce good practices to follow when planning and embarking on them. They also identify STMs as a stewardship issue:

"Spending $20,000 to $40,000 for ten to twenty people to be on location for two weeks or less is not uncommon. The money spent on a single STM team for a one- to two-week experience would be sufficient to support more than a dozen far more effective indigenous workers for an entire year (173)."

In the next chapter, the authors talk about doing missions in your own backyard (Christian Community Development, the type of work that my employer, Abundant Life, does). Even though he lived before Jesus walked the earth, Lao Tzu wrote a poem that really embodies the principles of Christian Community Development:

"Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have
But of the best leaders
When their task is done
The people will remark 'We have done it ourselves.'"

Kids Say the Darndest Things, Pt. 4

At Discipleship Group tonight, one of the passages we studied was John 13:34-35: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Because two of the boys were messing with each other while it was being read aloud and couldn't summarize the passage, we read it aloud a second time. I then asked another one of the boys to summarize. His response: "Love a disciple."

Thou Shalt Not Confuse the Bible and the Constitution

In discipleship group last week, I asked at the beginning of our bible study what we talked about the previous week. I then held up ten fingers to give one of the eighth grade boys a hint. He excitedly shouted, "The Ten Amendments!" Surprisingly, the Bill of Rights had not come up during the previous week's lesson.

He then proceeded to summarize the story of Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea; only in his version, it was the Romans who were chasing after them and were washed away by the water. I'm glad his retention is pretty strong, even if the details are slightly mixed up!

Table for Two

A few weeks ago, one of my 8^th graders took me out to dinner.  I guess technically I took him because I drove, but he paid.  Granted, it was only a few bucks, but I suppose some might question why I would let a kid whose family isn’t wealthy buy me dinner.  The reasons are two-fold.

First, I value generosity.  I try to be generous myself, and I appreciate it in others.  By accepting his dinner invitation, I gave him a chance to practice generosity.  God set an example for us in ultimate generosity in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  Not only so, but he also made us heirs who will share in his glory (Romans 8:17).  As Ed Welch puts it in his book, When People are Big and God is Small, "It's one thing to release a person from prison, but it is something else to deluge that same person with all the riches imaginable" (127).  If only we would be so generous with one another!

Second, I wanted to give him a chance to materially contribute.  People in Christian community development fail when they don’t expect anything of those they are ministering too.  In his book, A Quiet Revolution, John Perkins says dependence is “the hard, seemingly impenetrable reality behind poverty” (133).  Too often I see a sense of entitlement among the youth I work with – an attitude that I owe them something.  Not only is this not the case, but it would make for a very unhealthy relationship.

As for dinner, we spent some quality time chatting over tacos.  We talked about music and video games, about how his parents might move to Petersburg and he would either go with them or move in with his sister.  I asked him what his favorite restaurant was and he said Riverside Lunch, where his dad takes him about once a month.  Maybe we’ll go there next time… but I’ll pay.  

Taking It To Heart

In the spring of 2010, we took the 5/8 5^th and 6^th graders on a field trip to a farm where one of the 5/8 leaders lived.  The boys played manhunt while I prepared dinner, and then we ate outside.  After dinner, the boys resumed playing.  Two of the 5^th graders started play fighting; I yelled from the porch where I was still eating for them to stop.  Unfortunately, one of the boys’ swings accidentally hit the other boy in the nose, and he started bleeding.  The boy who got hit became visibly upset and approached the boy who hit him with clenched fists.  I was ready to run to separate them, but I didn’t have to; a sixth grader stepped between them and quelled the incident.  That semester, we were studying the Sermon on the Mount during our Monday night meetings, and we had just gone over “Blessed are the peacemakers” a few weeks earlier.  I made sure to praise the peacekeeper in front of the rest of the group before we headed home that evening.

Also that night, we made a bonfire and sat around it making s’mores.  We started talking about one of the 5/8 leader’s upcoming wedding, and one of the boys made a crude remark.  Before I responded with “That’s inappropriate” (my standard response in such situations), a 6^th grader said it for me.

While I recognize that these two 6^th graders may not have responded in the same exemplary way without our supervision, I was still proud of them for showing positive leadership by helping to police the group and encouraging their peers to do what was right.  For me, their actions affirm that by our modeling how to respond to conflict and/or inappropriate behavior in a constructive manner, they will practice it themselves, and hopefully carry it with them beyond the boundaries of the club.