Change, for the Better....

It’s been an interesting few weeks. Our kidzone program at church is starting up for the school year, My son moved up a grade, My little girl started school, and my college students are requesting changes to the program. Wow! Where do I start?!

So, if you are new to the blog “Kidzone” may not sound familiar. This is a program at our church where children and parents come together to learn bible stories, virtues, sing songs, and laugh. We do a LOT of laughing. There are also skits, where actors present a story in a way that is memorable. Our annual program started again last Sunday, and I am really looking forward to this year.

One of the major changes this year is that our youth group is going to be more involved in our “family time” program (kidzone). I am really excited about this change. And from some of the discussions within the youth group, they are excited as well. But it is not only them that are excited. My kids look forward to it. This is how we, as a congregation, have decided to educate our children about God’s Word and how to live their lives 7 days a week. The actors, media operators, and volunteers look forward to it as well.

School officially started for us this week. The first day of school is always a hard one for any parent. Michelle and I are involved in a home school co-op. This means that 3 days a week our children attend a school with a small class room setting, and the other days Michelle primarily teaches them through a lesson plan generated by the classroom teacher. This year, I plan to teach my son music, along with some shop skills such as wood working, and possible small engine repair. I am not real sure what that is going to look like yet, but I do have a plan. Change, it’s a coming….

My little girl started school this year! Many of you can relate, I know. There is something special about the bond between a dad and his little girl. It’s different from the relationship between his son. The son relationship is more on the lines of friend and possible cohort (depending on the act of sneakiness), mixed in with mentor, teacher, instructor. The relationship with a daughter is more, body guard, protector…. She is my little princess, even though she wants to go as fast as possible on jetskis, “fixes” her bike when daddy is in the garage, and can drop kick you like nobody’s business. She still loves pink, prefers skirts over shorts, and is not afraid to tell you if your blouse matches your shoes or not! She is “daddy’s little princess”. God is good. He knows how to combine the specific personalities with the right individuals. These are His creations. God bless them.

My College students are growing up to. We are starting our third year of college ministry at Farragut! At the beginning, we had 6 college students. We now have over twenty young adults attached to our group on a regular basis. Our focus is quite simple: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make you paths straight.” – Prov. 3:5-7. Instead of focusing on bible study time, Michelle and I pushed our group of young adults to serve more. Formally, we had one official bible study each week. We also set up multiple serving opportunities for them. It was up to them which one they did on a regular basis. Over the months it clicked. We have a couple of ministry areas that are not managed by us anymore, but by the college members. I think this is awesome! It shows the growth of maturity and responsibility that we try to foster within them.

However, recently they asked for something that, on the surface, went against my main philosophy. I personally don’t believe in having formal classes on Sunday mornings for college students. I would prefer to have those in my ministry serve on Sundays. Some disagreed. And it was out this particular group that some came to us and asked if we could provide a formal class on Sunday mornings. We told them to go for it, but that we would be doing our thing in Kidzone. The college students that serve in Kidzone were concerned that this “separation” would have the opportunity to create different “tribes” within our group. And it was at this point that we had to address a topic that Michelle and I have been avoiding for a year now.

Our ministry is approaching a time where we are going to have to multiply our group during formal bible study times. We have noticed that the discussions are not that deep recently. Many of the young adults speak in generalities, and not necessarily about personal struggles. We have ideas that we are speaking of, but nothing has been formalized as of yet. This previous Sunday evening was a great time of openness, where many of the young adults shared their feelings, concerns, and desires for the group. They are growing. Maturing. Most importantly they are changing in front of each other.

Change is hard. It’s hard for many if not all of us. I have been fortunate to be some type of change agent in most of my jobs. By that doesn’t make it easy for me. And in my present role as college minister, it is even more difficult. I have to somehow attract young adults into our group, make them feel welcome and accepting, and then push them out into the adult “programs” of “big” church. It’s hard; really hard. I mess up sometimes. I lose track of young adults on the fray. I assume my way is the best way, without giving theirs a chance to resonate. I am constantly trying to new approaches to reach them….

We left Sunday evening with changes to implement. They (the young adults) would be responsible for the formal class on Sunday mornings. I would be responsible for the time we are together on Sunday evenings. Once Kidzone was over on Sunday mornings, we would go to the class they were teaching. We are going to break up into small groups on Sunday nights with the intention to go deeper within the group. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Turning My Brain Off

Michelle and the kids finally got home last night. Every year, Michelle takes them down to her moms to spend the week there. The last few years this has not affected me too much, as I would be in China. However this year, I “had to fend for myself” for a week. It’s amazing how much I just turn off in my head when she is around. I’ll give you a few examples.

Grocery Store

Friday I went to the grocery store to get food for the week. Let me caveat that by saying I pretty much knew I had my weekend and week full for dinners and lunches, because I was going to be eating out with others to discuss business or hangout with college students. But for some reason, come Friday afternoon, I felt like I needed to go to the grocery store. Once I get there, it’s like I draw blank:

“What do I buy? I know I need to eat but what do I eat? Michelle cooks. What does she cook? I don’t cook. I grill. What would I grill? STEAK! Oh, wait I need jetski oil. I can do that! I have done that before. Jetski oil, steaks….. what else?”

By the time it was all said and done, I had spent almost as much as what Michelle would spend in a month for all of us! By the way, I haven’t eaten half of it.

Boat Safety

That evening, I took my jetskis out on the lake to do a test for in the morning. I had some teens planning to ride them, and I wanted to make sure they were riding ok before in the morning. I back the skis down into the water, and notice a LOT of gas floating on the surface. My initial thought was that someone previously had just emptied out their boat before loading it on to their trailer. As a jetski owner, this should have triggered an alarm, an alarm that normally would have been present with my wife and kids around….

I climb on top of one of the skis and begin to try to start the jetski. All of the sudden, a huge detonation comes out of the hull of the ski! This explosion blew the front lid open, shooting the storage compartment 3 feet up in the air! At the same time, a fire ball comes out of from under the seat singing the hairs on my legs. Turns out the gas floating in the lake was from my ski. It had a gas leak, and thanks to the ridiculously hot weather recently, there was a massive amount of gas fumes under the seat, waiting to be ignited.

Cleaning

On the way home on Sunday, our realtor called saying she had a showing. I get home and start looking around for floor cleaner. Turns out, glass cleaner does NOT clean ceramic floor tile! Where does all “that stuff” come from that I sweep off the hardwood floors? It’s only been me here for a few days! How does Michelle arrange the pillows on our bed so they look so “Ethan Allen” like? Do I leave lights on or off? Closet doors open or closed?

Cooking

I finally got around to cooking pizza. Slightly more conscious of my lack of attentiveness to certain tasks, I read the directions for the frozen pizza, and followed it to tee! I was so excited: preheat oven to 450 degrees. Check. Unwrap pizza from box. Already did that. Set on middle rack. We only have 2! Uh…. I’ll set it on the top and hope for the best. I come back in exactly 11 minutes, and the pizza is looking awesome. It’s got that brownish color to it that I love so much. I open the door, reach my hand into the oven, and am a milli second away from grabbing the thing WITH MY BARE HANDS, when a little voice in my head says, “hot.” It doesn’t scream at me like,” HEY! Idiot! Stop before you burn your fingers off!” It very politely and calmly says, “hot.” Thankfully, I listened.

These are only a few examples of how my brain seems to turn off when Michelle is around. There were others, like looking for Q-tips, pillows to sleep on, ceiling fan noise, door for the mailbox, etc. that I am not going to get into. The experience really showed how much I just seemed to have turned over to her. I wonder if she has similar experiences like these?

Liars

This summer, Michelle and I have been teaching a series to our college group on relationships. We have a great group of young adults that are mixed together from backgrounds such as financial, social, spiritual, and also personal maturity. Its been an absolute blessing to spend time with them. Not only do we teach them, but they teach us as well.

Sunday night one of them was scheduled to teach, but a lesson that I started in the morning went long, and we decided to carry it over. I talked about lying. Specifically, I played a clip from Radio Lab, titled "Deception". Its a documentary about lying, pathological liars, and the science behind lying. The clip that I played was about a con-woman who had gotten into the life of a friend of the producer. The phrase that I focused on was, "...and he has never had any close friends since...."

Think about that for a minute....

Imagine that where you are in this world right now, you would not ever develop a new intimate relationship! The only "serious" relationships you will have, are those that you presently have, for the rest of your life! As you can imagine this didn't sit very well with early 20s. They have their entire life ahead of them! And that was the point: Don't lie!

I know you might find this hard to believe, but I come across a little, let's say, harsh periodically. I have been called blunt. Emotionless. Unsympathetic. Its very rare that those that know me ask me how their new hairdos look. My reason for this, is that I do everything I can to not lie to people. And what amazes me sometimes is how difficult it is! Some people just don't want to be told the truth. They have an answer in their head, and that is what they want to hear. When they don't hear "that", they get their feelings hurt. And what I find absolutely fascinating is that something as simple as an opinion about a dress can have SERIOUS ramifications later! But the truth is, I am no different. As blunt and honest as I am, I also find myself asking people opinions when I already have the answer in my head.

On the other side of the coin, we don't want to hurt peoples' feelings. As one of our young adults mentioned Sunday night,"I understand I am not telling the ACTUAL truth, but it is just a white lie, and I don't want to hurt their feelings." And its that type of perception that is completely misunderstood. The effects of lying on a relationship are sum totals of many lies. The more lies I tell, the more you don't trust me. I keep telling you over and over that, "you look great in that dress", and eventually you catch me one time. You aren't impacted by that one lie! All the rest come with it!

My own personal opinion is that lying has its roots somewhere with the fear of confrontation. I am definitely no psychologist, but that seems to be rather obvious. "If I can get out of this immediate situation, then maybe I can regroup later to defend my actions!" Or more than likely, I will avoid you like the plague from now on, because I don't want to to talk about this particular topic!

Towards the end of the radiolab podcast, the hosts interview a guy who studies lying. He gives the "professional definition of lying", talks about how bluffing in poker is not lying, due to the fact that all competitors know that part of the game is bluffing, and he also talked about a fascinating experiment he did a few years back: He didn't lie for an entire year!

Imagine that for a minute.

"Honey, do I look fat in this dress?"
"Do you like my hair cut?"
"Would you like to come over? I am having a party tonight."
"What did you think of my presentation?"

In this year, as he put it, he learned how to speak eloquently so as to do the least harm on some one's feelings. The cliffnotes version is: avoid answering directly, but be honest. It is actually possible to answer someone without hurting their feelings. You have to KNOW them. By that, I mean you have to have a pretty good idea of how they will react to the news. He talks about how difficult it was to choose his words carefully. He says it was literally exhausting sometimes.

And that is my point: its easier to lie. If we just tell them what they want to hear, they won't be disappointed.

But is that really true?

If we just go over for a few minutes, be fashionably late, speak to 5 people, agree on the hand signals with the spouse to get us out of there, and then politely leave after the 2nd person who leaves, then they will be happy when they talk to us about their party on Monday. Even though we never wanted to go in the first place.

If we invite 40 people into our home when it can only accommodate 20, because some of those 20 have relationships with a select few that we don't want to associate with, but if they found out about our party and were not invited they would have their feelings hurt. So, we over invite people with the thought that they will be in our home and we may not actually have to speak to them because there are so many people at our party!

Whew! Its exhausting!

I think we just need to be honest. We need to spend some energy and choose our words carefully. We also need to NOT have high expectations of what we want to hear. It goes both ways. Again, relationships are two way streets. Let's treat them that way.