God's Reflection in Pet Affection

We started up the car to take our cat to the vet. By accident or by providence the USB-drive was still connected to the car audio system. The next track played:

How great the father’s love for us

We were on our way to have Timmy put down. He’d suffered a catastrophic kidney failure and was being poisoned by his own body.

How vast beyond all measure

My mind went back to Graham’s 2007 Theology of Children’s Ministry Conference talk “Will my dog go to heaven?” I remembered too something that C.S. Lewis once wrote. In The Four Loves he wondered if the affection we feel for our pets is a reflection of one of the dimensions of God’s love for us.

That he should send his only son

Having a pet does give you opportunity to learn what it means to be responsible, considerate and accommodating. We knew not to leave meat or corn cobs out on the kitchen bench, for this would have been a temptation more than Tim could bear (1Cor .10:13). If ever anything was knocked over or tipped out, if Tim was sick or coughed up a fur ball, we knew that we had to clear up after him, for he was not able to do it for himself (Eph. 2:5). He would trust us to feed him every morning and every evening of his life and to provide him a home to feel safe in and a place to belong (Matt. 6:33).

The Bible tells the story of God’s love for and commitment to the human race. Within the story we are made aware that this is just one part of a much bigger story in which God is reconciling the whole of the created order to himself. We see glimpses of this from time to time (Gen. 6:19; Ps. 148:7-13; Mk. 16:15; Col. 1:20). But few details are provided.

As we look back over Tim’s life we recognise and appreciate the part that he’s played in our family. He slept on James’s bed to keep him company through the night when James was anxious. He had a knack of sensing who was feeling down and sitting with them, or on them. He would sit down and listen as we read bed-time stories to the children. He would join us on walks from the house and wait for us at the boundary of his ‘territory’ to welcome us back. He was always available to play and you could tell him absolutely anything and know for certain that he wasn’t going to gossip to others.

Within that bigger story we do not know what part a goldfish called Dorothy or a dog called Lassie or a kangaroo called Skippy might have been called to play. But Tim has not only given us an opportunity to see in our care for him a pale reflection of God’s love for us. He has also reminded us again and again what friendship entails.

Even if you have no time for hermit crabs, guinea pigs or dogs, perhaps when you next talk to a child who has lost a pet, it might be worthwhile finding out how God has been at work in them, through their involvement with their friend.

To make this wretch his treasure.

Sabbatical with Balaam #6: The Power of Words

I don’t know how many times I chanted, 'sticks and stones may break my bones but names with never hurt me' as a child, or thought it as an adult. I don’t know how many times I’ve found it to be true. I suspect the first number is bigger than I’d like to admit and the second number is zero.

Words hurt. They can leave an indelible mark on the way we see ourselves and the way we relate to others. James knew the problem all too well. He wrote to his fellow Christians, “out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” In another part of the Roman world the problem was not so much that Christians were dishing it out, but that they were on the receiving end. Guess what? It’s got something to do with Balaam!

Balaam turns up in the Bible in Numbers 22-24. I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit recently. But his name also appears in Revelation 2 in a letter, or rather part of a letter, that John wrote to the Christians in Pergamum in the west of what is now Turkey. It seems that the Christians there were facing persecution. It was not an easy place to live, so much so that it is identified as “where Satan has his throne” (Rev. 2:13). Satan, of course, comes from a word meaning “to accuse”. Satan is “the accuser”. The accusation being levelled at the Christian community in Pergamum was that they were corrupt and a corrupting influence on those around them. The name that was being used against them was that they were modern-day Balaams. It seems that 'Balaam' was a derogatory term used to put others down, and to write them off as an individual. Other documents from around the same time indicate that a Balaam was someone who was boastful and proud and led others astray.

Through John, Jesus invites the Christians in Pergamum to consider to what extent the accusation is true. If there is any truth in the accusation then he reassures them that there is a way forward. “Repent” (Rev 2:16). It’s not always easy, and certainly not the first thing that crosses my mind, but in every put-down there is an opportunity to examine yourself and see if there is a home-truth that needs your attention. It takes courage. It takes character. But if we do it and if we do see something within our behaviour or the way we relate to others that does cause offence, particularly a proud of boastful attitude, then there is a way forward. Repent.

Recognise that this sort of thing is out of place for a person who has been saved by grace. Admitting faults should not be impossible for us. We were not saved by being perfect ourselves. And that is not the message that we want to suggest to others through our attitudes towards them. We were saved because we needed saving. We were saved by someone who was perfect. That’s the truth that we want to shine out.

But then there is still the hurt, isn’t there? You’ve recognised that it wasn’t deserved or it wasn’t entirely deserved. You’ve repented. But it still hurts. No doubt the Christians in Pergamum would be the same. Jesus knew that. Every time they heared the term ‘Balaam’ then they remembered that this is what they had been called. The pain and the hurt come back. Jesus knows this too and he gives them a way forward. He gives a new name, his own name, his own pet name to each and every Christian he has called. "I will also give to him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it" (Rev 2:17).

The names people call you do hurt. But did you know that Jesus has a new name for you, the nickname that he will call you, a pet name that describes who you really are? And he is faithful and true.

Teaching our Children God-Esteem

Recently I have been reflecting on the issue of self-esteem. I find myself drawn in two different directions.

Firstly, when talking to people about how they feel about themselves I feel that they must understand themselves in the light of Jesus revelation. That they are made in the image of God, they are part of God’s precious creation that he has pronounced to be “good”. Secondly, they have been important enough to God to send Jesus to die for them, more precious than jewels. Jesus has taken away a Christian’s sin & guilt, they should feel liberated from the old sinful self. They are spotless and blameless.

I have really emphasised our worth in Jesus eyes, that we should feel happy and at peace as a child of God. This is the message of grace.

Because of this emphasis on grace, when my daughter recently was convicted of her sin and wept over her failure before God I felt really uncomfortable. She was a child, she should feel happy and good about herself. I wanted to say to her, don’t worry about that, God forgives you, it doesn’t matter too much. I wondered later on how much my thinking about self-esteem was shaped by the bible and how much was shaped by a culture that emphasises the right to be happy over everything else, the cult of self-esteem.

Meanwhile, I was studying the Evangelical revivals of the 18th century and the response of children. There are many stories of children coming under real repentance and terrible conviction of their sin and their condemnation before God. Do I emphasise God’s grace so much, especially to children that it becomes cheap grace rather than a costly grace that takes away the punishment for our real wickedness and evil. How do we speak to children about their rebellion against God? To Christian children about being both sinners yet justified? Are we encouraging them to continue with repentant hearts, in the ongoing struggle with the sinful nature?

Ian Fry at the Theology of Youth Ministry conference said a wonderful thing that has helped me in thinking about these issues. "We want to hold up to children not a mirror (as the world does) but a window." Their life’s goal should not be their own happiness, but the honour and glory of their heavenly Father who made them. This is the way to genuine lasting joy.

Sabbatical with Balaam #2

It’s good to set aside time to think. I’m enjoying it and have been find it enormously refreshing. Whatever love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength means, it has something to do with dwelling on, thinking about, listening to, trying as best you can to understand and make sense of who God is and what he has done.

"What he has done"? A memorable phrase, this time from earlier on in the story, goes - God replied to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." It’s a phrase that has left people puzzling ever since. But one thing does seem clear. In this announcement God indicates to Moses that he will be known through what he will do. And this, of course, will be entirely consistent with all that he always has been. Numbers takes the story past Exodus and tells us more of what God did and said and thought. From it we are meant to understand who God is.

"As best as I can"? Well when the Old Testament talks about the heart it has in mind, not so much our emotional centre, as the centre of our thinking. This is the place where we make decisions, resolutions and commitments.

It’s good to set aside time to think. I’m still in Numbers. I’m still thinking about Balaam, donkeys, messenger-angels swords and so on. It’s a weird passage but it was included in the book of Numbers and so my hunch is that the author / complier of Numbers didn’t find it nearly as odd or weird as I do. And so I’m focussing a lot of my attention, at the moment, trying to understand what the world, or rather what a small part of the Near East looked like around the time that people first began to use iron implements.

Iron had been known about for some time. But it was known to be soft, easily corroded and of little practical use. That was until people learnt to combine it with other elements, and until new technologies allowed furnaces to be much hotter than had previously been possible (cf. Deut 4:20). This useless element became a prized substance and a key ingredient in economic and military success and domination (cf. Josh 17:16; 1Sam 13:19).

So what was it like living at the end of the Bronze Age?
What sort of technologies did they have?
How big were the cities?
How effective was communication?
How efficient was agriculture?
Who were the key players within village communities?
What sort of government did they have and who made the decisions?

These are the sorts of questions I am trying to find answers to. Not simply to amass trivia that is hardly likely to come up in anyone’s Bible Trivia Quiz. I’m trying to find answers to these questions that I might better understand what is going on in Numbers 22-24. I’m convinced that these chapters are profitable for for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness. I just don’t have much experience of that profit yet. But with persistence, perseverance and with God’s help I will do.

How do adolescents grow into healthy adults?

Developmental Psychology in relation to adolescence talks a lot about identity formation—how a young person gains their ‘sense of self’. Much of the adolescent years are given to what psychologists call ‘mirroring’—looking to other people to reflect back to us a ‘self’ that we then come to accpet as our own. Will a young person see others viewing them as sociable and productive, or as useless and disruptive? We come to an understanding of who we are by seeing ourselves through the ways that others see us, and the way they present ‘me’ back to me. Out of this process we develop ‘my identity’.

Significant in this process is that of ‘the adult guarantor’. Kenda Dean and Richard Foster describe the adult guarantor as ‘an adult who believes in you before there is any good reason to do so’ (The Godbearing Life, 1998, p.85). They note that having a positive adult guarantor has a more positive impact on youth development than any other youth ministry delivery system.

Chap Clark in his book Hurt: Inside the world of today’s teenagers (2004) goes further to recognise that today’s young people need more than just one adult advocate. No one adult is able to give all the support needed because there are so many demands on adolescent needs today (intellectual, sexual, social, educational, economic etc). Even the best mentors leave, so we need more than one adult to stand for each young person. In addition, there are often so many negative voices surrounding young people, that in the face of multiple negative voices we need multiple supporters delivering the same message for our young people to develop a positive self image.

So where will these adult guarantors come from? Well how about the church? Jesus said that anyone who has left brothers or sisters or mother or father or children for him and the gospel will not fail to receive a hundred brothers, sisters, mothers, children in this present age (Mark 10:29-30). His promise is fulfilled in the church, the household of the living God (1 Tim 3:15).

As the Family of families, our churches are rare inter-generational communities where young people looking to establish their identity in the world can be connected with various adults who can speak words of love and value. For those in broken families, those who’s families have abandoned them as they have embraced Christ, as well as those who face the normal embarassment of their own parents, the church community would seem to be the ideal developmental resource!

So is our message to be, ‘Come to Christ, it will help your adolescent’s identity formation!’? It hardly sounds like the biblical gospel to me! Not only would this be a poor exchange (the gospel of grace for the pottage of developmental psychology), neither can the church community ever be for any young person all that they need, no matter how age inclusive and connected we are.

Ultimately, the role of the adult guarantor, ‘the one who believes in us before there is any good reason to do so’ can only be fulfilled by God. It is God who will never leave us nor forsake us; the multiple needs of developing adolescents are met by the relational unity of Father, Son and Spirit; and the constant negative voices from outside are met by the indwelling voice of the
Spirit.

It’s with this realisation that we find the heart of the task of Christian ministry with teenagers: To mediate the YES of the Trinity that comes in Christ to everyone, including our young people.

Our YES to teenagers will open a door for them to hear God’s YES to them. We’re called to love teenagers with an evangelistic love – not reducing our relationship with them as simply a means to an end, or a clever evangelistic tool. But to love others as Christ has loved us. This will call us to stand with them and for them, and to call them to the new kingdom life that has been opened up to us all through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

With this aim in mind the insights of developmental psychology can point us to recognising the value of connecting young people to adults in the Christian family. One youth leader is able to be one voice mediating the love of God to teenagers; but just as we’ve recognised the extra value of having a leadership team to work together as a community of love mediating the love of God to teenagers, there are also great opportunities for the whole church family to take a part in this task.

The importance of relationships between teenagers and other adult members of a church community was emphasised through a landmark research project on the religious and spiritual lives of American adolescents undertaken from 2001-2005 (the National Survey of Youth and Religion, results published by Christian Smith (2005). Soul Searching: The religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. Oxford/New York: OUP). One of their conclusions was the following:

Another important general way religious congregations may better engage youth is through simple, ordinary adult relationships with teenagers. Adults other than family members and youth ministers could be intentionally encouraged to make better efforts to learn teens’ names, to strike up conversations with teens, to ask them meaningful questions, to be vulnerable themselves to youth in various ways, to show some interest in them, to help connect them to jobs and internships, to make themselves available in times of trouble and crisis, to work toward becoming models and partners in love and concern and sacrifice. This would no doubt resound positively in broader areas of youth religious belief, commitment and practice and in youth outcomes more generally. (p.269).

Are there ways that we can encourage ‘simple, ordinary adult relationships’ between the teenagers in our youth ministries and other adults in the congregation? When it comes to work experience work, can you draw up a list of work experience opportunities with congregation members? Spending a week with a Christian plumber or accountant will not only provide a week’s experience of plumbing or accounting, but also a taste of the issues that a Christian faces in the demands of Monday to Friday working life. On top of that there’s the opportunity for at least one adult in the congregation to know the name of one of the members of the youth group. Who knows whether or not the relationship develops into a lasting deep commitment to each others’ welfare. But whatever develops, the more we are able to develop these connections, the more opportunites for fruitful relationships will exist.

Here is one of the means of grace given to us by God so that together we’d grow in understanding who we are – our common identity as the people of God called together by his grace in Christ. If we can see the adults in our congregations as gifts from God for the spiritual development of the young people, we might also help the adults see the young people as God’s gift also to them.

Surprised by God!!

Recently I was invited to Moore College for my final interview for Ordination. I have to admit that I had butterflies in my stomach as I waited, with my husband Graham, to be asked in. We were the last interview for the day and had no idea what to expect. The three people interviewing us were warm and welcoming and did everything they could to make us feel at ease. They were interested in us as a couple and took time to learn about our journey of faith and the opportunities that we have in ministry.

As I had previously mentioned I was feeling anxious, although I don’t think this was apparent to the others in the room. However, as I re-lived the interview in my mind, I recognised that I had become more extroverted and had ‘lots to say’. I shared my desire to see Children’s Ministry valued by our churches, to have men and women of all ages taking up the opportunity to be trained and for ministry with children to be recognised as a viable and sustainable career move. Ordination into Children’s Ministry is one way in which I believe people will be encouraged to think long term about ministry with children.

The biggest challenge, however, during the interview was when they asked: “What’s in it for you”?

"Well, what IS in it for me", I thought? I remember replying that I hoped to join the network of ministers within the diocese, to have the support of the Anglican Church, for opportunities to teach the gospel and to be ‘a voice for children’. These are all true and yet I found that I was left feeling as if I had missed something.

Later I tossed and turned, praying, thinking, wondering, examining my motives and asking yet again. Why am I doing this? What is in it for me? SHOULD there even be anything in it for me? As I considered this question I came to the realisation that there is something in it for me. In fact there are many things that benefit me directly from this experience.

Firstly, in order to be ordained, I have embarked on further study. Without the need to do this I would have found it difficult to find the motivation to complete an extra eight subjects for the Advanced Diploma. How sad it would have been to miss out on Andy’s subject on Families and Jim’s teaching of Isaiah.

Secondly, I have been forced to move out of my comfort zone. Writing and presenting my paper, ‘Look at me. I’m a Princess!’ was challenging. I’ve always enjoyed the practical teaching components of my work and struggled to do the critical theological reflection that must stand alongside this. God in his kindness has placed me in an environment that continually encourages me to stop and think. This has not only benefited my ministry but also my personal and spiritual life. It is my hope that being ordained will continue to provide opportunities for rigorous theological reflection on all areas of my ministry.

Lastly, I have been given the opportunity to ‘live the dream’. Many years ago a handful of Children’s Ministers met in St. Andrews House to ‘dream, dreams’. As we shared our vision it was very much with the thought that we would not benefit ourselves but others, particularly our children in the future might benefit from the strategies implemented. The decision by the diocese to ordain Children’s Ministers brings to fruition one of these dreams.
So there you go – although it shouldn’t come as a surprise, God was working things out for my benefit as I sought to benefit others, without me even realising it!

Isn’t our God wonderful in that as we work for him and the building of his kingdom, he is simultaneously working in our hearts and building us to be the people he wants us to be!

It just goes to show that the “what’s in it for me” question does not have to be self-centred but rather can give God glory as we see what he is doing in our OWN lives through our ministry as well as in the lives of those we minister to!

Any thoughts?