Pastor B Fall, Oakwood, Parent Cue

SERVING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

SERVING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

One thing I love about the Fall here at Oakwood is that our Church finds ways to Intentionally Engage our community in amazing ways.

Think about it,  Fall Festival transforms our parking lot into a safe place for our community to enjoy fun entertainment, LOTS OF CANDY, and sense the love of Jesus through our church as we SERVE OTHERS.  Right after that, OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD gets us into gear to serve someone in another country as a family by filling up one little shoebox.  Heart of Hope, December 6, leads us to pack a grocery bag or two, invite families in our community to dinner and give their children the ability to have a Christmas when they may be able to afford it.

All these events give you and your Middle School Student an opportunity to serve, and it makes a BIG DIFFERENCE!

Brooklyn Lyndsey puts it this way in her Serving Through the Phases E-Single:

“BECAUSE WHEN YOU GIVE A MIDDLE SCHOOLER THE OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE, YOU ARE HELPING
THEM TO ANSWER THE MOST TERRIFYING QUESTIONS THEY ARE FACING.”

Here are some thoughts about serving in the Middle School Phase…

AFFIRM THEIR GIFTS WHILE HELPING THEM TO SEE THE WORLD
DIFFERENTLY .
Service can be a significant tool in the life of a middle schooler—a
powerful tool that too often gets overlooked. Because when you
give a middle schooler the opportunity to serve, you’re helping
them to answer the most terrifying questions they’re facing. And
those questions are:

  1. Where do I fit in? (Where we all fit in—helping others and
    showing God’s love.)
  2. What can I offer? (You can offer a warm meal, a friendship, a
    reprieve.)
  3. Why do I matter? (Because you’re making a difference in the
    world and you show off God’s heart like no one else does.)

Service forces a middle schooler to look through a window instead
of a mirror. It gives them a break from the all-consuming woes of
their own life (and to a middle schooler, they are all-consuming!) to
focus on someone else—on a world much bigger than the halls of
their middle school.

Check out Serving through the phases by Brooklyn Lyndsey

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Pastor B Parent Cue

Adam McClane on Why You Should Delete SnapChat

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Why You Should Delete SnapChat (click here for full blog)

I’ve been engaged in various forms of social media since AOL chat rooms in 1994. And I’ve never seen a more dangerous application targeting teenagers, specifically girls, than SnapChat.

The premise of SnapChat is simple. You take a picture, send it to a friend, and they can only see it for up to 10 seconds before it’s deleted.

And that’s where the lie begins.

I want to be blunt. My goal for this post is to motivate you to delete SnapChat from your phone.

Reason #1 – SnapChat is built on a lie

In my book, A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media, I share three rules about social media which lead me to the conclusion that SnapChat isn’t to be trusted:

Rule #1 – Everything posted online is public

I wrote about this in depth here.

The central premise of SnapChat is that what you are sending is private. That’s a lie. There is a very real risk that everything you share with any app or on any website will become public. One day, every image you post online may  become associated with your name. When you post something online you give up the ability to control where that image goes. So even if you aren’t using your real name to post with SnapChat, that “private image” may one day pop up in a Google Search of your name.

The same is true of anywhere you post something online. You always must know that what you are posting could become public.

Rule #2 – There’s no such thing as anonymity online, only perceived anonymity.

Any time your device connects to the internet it associates 100% of your activity with your device. (Every device has a unique identifier, like a finger print. When you buy it and register it that transaction is linked to you and everything you do with it is ultimately pointing back to you.)

Every site, every image you upload/download, every search, every call… everything is associated with that device. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Even if you delete it. Even if you use a proxy server. Even if… E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.

The content isn’t always saved, but the activity itself most definitely is.

With SnapChat, the perception that your account is anonymous… meaning it is using a pseudonym [An account name] and not your real name, makes it easy to think that you are disassociating what you send on SnapChat from “the real you.”

Pure and simple. Perceived anonymity is dangerous. And SnapChat uses that to their advantage to get you to trust it. Over time you’ll begin to think that if you’re using a fake name, what you send can’t be tracked back to you.

But that’s not how the internet works at all.

SnapChat knows who you are, where you are, and they store it all. (They are legally bound to.) Even though their marketing copy says they don’t… their terms of service say that they do store it AND they have the right to sell that information as an asset to the company which they can sell. (See Usage Data on their terms of service. Also look at the language in their privacy policy: “We cannot guarantee that deletion always occurs within a particular timeframe.” This is important because when you create an account you are legally agreeing to these terms even though it’s exactly opposite of the marketing.)

Rule #3 There’s no such thing as online privacy, only perceived online privacy

Read On by clicking here

Pastor B Oakwood, Parent Cue, Students

Pray for your School

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What if prayer in your school went from scarce to abundant and God was invited into the building, what could happen. Imagine if  this wasn’t just your school, but the school down the street, across town and the entire country.

The partners of the Campus Alliance are extending a Call For Prayer inviting churches, youth groups and ministry organizations across America to fervently pray for every high school and middle school student and campus.

Prayer is vital in bringing Gods presence and power to the lives of over 25 million students throughout our nation. It can literally change the spiritual atmosphere at a campus. Through prayer God opens hearts, brings blessing to a school and removes the spiritual blindness that keeps students from seeing and understanding the gospel message. Prayer is often the only thing that will change things and advance the Kingdom of God.

The GOAL – every school and student is prayed for asking God to bring his truth, blessings and love to their campus and personal lives. If every church and youth ministry in every community joins in this nationwide call for prayer, an entire generation will be covered.

What can each of us do?

1. Every local church, youth group and campus ministry mobilize a dynamic school prayer effort. 

  • Identify the schools that your church and youth group will pray for on a regular basis this school year.
  • Gather info about the schools including the names of administrators, teachers and students. One way to do this is obtain a copy of the most recent school year book, or visit with students and teachers from the school. This will help you map the campus for prayer. Youth groups can easily list both adults and students at their school for whom they will pray.
  • Pray for your schools at your worship services, youth group, small groups, youth network meetings, etc.
  • Students claim your campus and mobilize your friends to pray for your school. Form prayer triplets at school. Plan to participate at See You At The Pole.
  • Mothers – join a Moms In Prayer group.
  • Youth Leaders organize prayer for every school through your network of youth ministries in your community.
  • Everyone, make prayer for schools a personal daily discipline. Even as you drive by a school consider it a prayer zone and lift up the school in prayer.

2. Schedule a Sunday in your church and youth group to pray for schools.

Three Sunday opportunities are coming this fall that you can use to mobilize prayer and ministry for local schools:

3. Go to www.everyschool.com and ADOPT the school(s) in your area.

By adopting your school you are joining a national movement to pray for and reach out at every campus.

4. Spread the word through social media.

Through your Facebook page, texting, emails and websites invite friends to join the movement and pray for their school. Direct people to everyschool.com and encourage them to adopt their school.

We believe the time is now for transforming prayer to be raised over our schools and we are asking you to join in this courageous call for prayer.

The Campus Alliance is a coalition of more than 50 national church denominations and youth ministry organizations working together to serve schools and share the gospel of Jesus with every student in our nation.

* Quote from D.L. Moody, American Evangelist 1837-1899lets_pray_for_every_school

Pastor B Oakwood, Parent Cue

Technology and Kids: Facing Your Fears

Technology and Kids: Facing your Fears

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Millions of smart phones, tablet computers and other portable devices are being sold every month (sometimes even in a single weekend), and more and more are making their way into the hands of our sons and daughters.

A lot of this is catching us parents off guard as we try to figure out what to do with it. On the one hand, there’s the innocence and education value of some pretty amazing apps. And then there’s the fear in every parent’s heart that happens when their eight-year-old starts asking for a smart phone.

For some of us, there’s a temptation to go drastic and disconnect the Wi-Fi, banish phones and Facebook, and decide our children simply won’t have access to any of it. While you could possibly ban technology in your home, you wouldn’t be able to ban it at school, or from your kids’ friends. They can access it anywhere!

So, what do you do?

Well, limits are a great thing. And there should be limits and rules on almost anything our kids use, from cars to TV, to cell phones and internet. And the limits will vary depending on your beliefs, your family culture, and frankly, the personalities of your individual kids.

But you are probably discovering what your kids are discovering:

Externally imposed limits don’t carry the power of internally owned values.

Most of us resist externally imposed rules. That’s why you pushed against bedtime when you were a kid or finishing your plate because your dad insisted. There’s something inside all of us that pushes back against rules we didn’t make up.

So, what has power in our kids’ lives? The same thing that has power in your life as an adult. Internally owned values do. While laws are necessary, most of us are not swayed in our failure to murder by a law: We are motivated by our belief that it is wrong to kill someone. That’s the power of an internally owned value. It’s your character that determines how you live.

And that’s why, even in kids, it’s so important to develop character early. Because character corrects what technology reveals.

It’s easier than ever to venture into great things and questionable things online. Character keeps you moving toward what’s good and avoiding what’s bad.

So, how do you teach the character needed to handle technology in a responsible way?

1. Start the conversation early. Begin talking about life online before they need the conversation so that the dialogue is there when they need the conversation. Starting a dialogue young (even before your kids are online themselves) about what’s good and what’s bad is a way of normalizing the conversation about character.

2. Be honest about the good and the bad. Sometimes we’re so afraid of what could go wrong that we paint a very negative picture. Our kids will figure out pretty quickly that there is good and bad online. When we are honest with them, it makes the dialogue easier. Being overdramatic never helps honest dialogue.

3. Teach them that their choices have long-term implications. Help your kids to see the choices they make today impact the kind of person they’ll become tomorrow. If you can help your kids see what’s so easy to miss (that our choices today impact our life tomorrow), they’ll thank you for it later.

4. Connect the dots between what and why. Parents are legendary for telling kids what to do. I wish we would become legendary at explaining why. Your kids can’t often connect the dots about why their choices are so important. That’s where you can help so much. When you explain why pornography is bad, or why gossip or bullying is damaging, or why self-control is such a valuable skill to develop, you just helped your kids become far more motivated to do what’s best and avoid what’s not. When you understand why, you become motivated to do what.

Our kids are going to make mistakes. But it’s character that corrects what technology reveals, because internally owned values carry much more power than externally imposed limits (even though limits are important).

What are you learning about limits, character, technology and kids?

Pastor B Parent Cue, Summer

Parent Cue: Surviving Ezzy by Holly Crawshaw

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I was the perfect mother. I mean, anyone could be—if they just read the books like I did and maintained a schedule like I did. If they had boundaries with their children. If they stood their ground . . . If they would just work the system, they could be perfect like me, too.

I had the parenting thing all figured out.

That’s what I thought after I had my first child, Lilah. She was, by all accounts, perfection. She slept through the night at six weeks. She took several long naps throughout the day. She would smile at strangers. Use her manners. Perform on cue.

I was the perfect mother.

Until I had my second child, Ezzy.

Ezzy has lived most of her life in a state of constant need.
Ezzy was never full.
Ezzy loathed sleep.
Ezzy shoved her face in my neck if anyone tried to talk to her.
Ezzy would permanently affix herself to my hip, if possible.
Ezzy was the complete opposite of her sister.

Ezzy made a liar out of me. The truth was out: I was a terrible mother.

When Ezzy turned two, she started crawling out of her crib and running around our house in the middle of the night. We spanked. We redirected. We locked doors. We cried. We begged. We pleaded.

But nothing worked. She didn’t sleep and we didn’t sleep. And it made everyone miserable.

I remember one night about three months into Ezzy’s sleepless season, I had just put her back to bed for the third or fourth time that night, and I was at a breaking point. I felt raw and empty. I had read about a hundred blogs, consulted books, called and texted friends, but no one had the magic password that would make my child SLEEP.

As I listened to my baby cry for me in her room, tears slipped down my face. Why won’t she sleep? I screamed internally. What am I doing wrong, here? Why can’t I get this right?

And somewhere in between sobs as I paced in front of her door, it hit me.

I was going about this all wrong. Not just the sleeping issue, but parenting in general. Because the truth is, parenting isn’t something you get right or wrong. Parenting isn’t a math problem or an English essay. Parenting isn’t a popularity contest or a war of wills.

Parenting is a relationship.

Parenting isn’t something you get right or wrong… Parenting is a relationship.

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As I sat in the dark hallway crying, all the wonderful things about our Ezzy flooded my mind.

Ezzy has an incredible sense of humor.
Ezzy is truly brilliant.
Ezzy’s voice is so precious and sweet—it melts everyone who hears it.
Ezzy has charm for days and days and days.
Ezzy is passionate.
Ezzy is loving, tucking in her babies every night, and kissing them on the cheek.
And, after a painful miscarriage, Ezzy is the baby I had prayed and prayed for.

It’s easy to get on Instagram and Facebook, and start handing out grades.

Another vacation without kids? F.
Dressing your kids in matching Easter dresses? B+.
An elaborate Pinterest project? A.
Dinner out again? C.

And, in turn, we grade ourselves, too—each challenge we face with our kids deducting points from some cosmic parenting score.

This way of thinking is so destructive. We are not any other parent. If our child needed another parent more than they needed us, God would have given our children that parent.

You are uniquely wired to meet your child’s needs. And those needs you can’t meet? Those needs are reserved for their heavenly Father.

Does Ezzy sleep? Some nights. Some nights she doesn’t. But it doesn’t feel like failure anymore—it feels like a phase. A phase in the most important relationship your child will ever have.

Pastor B Culture, Oakwood, Parent Cue

YouTube You Can Use Volume 5, Issue 24

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Volume 5, Issue 24

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Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGSNEhXEu_s

Topics:

Compassion, Guard Your Heart

Bible:

Proverbs 4:23

Discussion Starter:

“Ladies and gentleman, Fear the Rabbi!”

These aren’t exactly the words you’d expect to hear during the introductions of a mixed martial arts fight. But Rabbi Yossi Eilfort wanted to show his congregation that physical fitness is important.

The physical preparation for the fight was important. But pay careful attention to the rabbi’s words as he prepared his heart for the fight.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” How are you guarding your heart?

3 Questions:

1. Would you rather fight a rabbi or a kindergarten teacher?
2. The rabbi said he was careful not to hurt his opponent, is there a way to fight with compassion?
3. Name 3 things worth fighting for.

Chew on this:

How do you decide is your fight is from God?

Pastor B Culture, My Life, Oakwood, Parent Cue, Students

#becausehelivesican Make It Personal

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So I was driving the kids to school today and had a great time with the change of my morning routine.  It was a great time to practice what I believe and turn a change of routine into something relationally impactful, since the kids usually track with Mommy most of the time.  We were playing fun music and on time, which is another personal time management best :).  On the way, I took the circle downtown, and in the midst of the change, my autopilot self took the wheel and I took the wrong direction as if I were heading to Oakwood. When my real mind took charge, I said, “Oh No!” really loud.  Then we turned it into a fun game… guess what Dad forgot this time.  Katie was the quickest and realized we were on a little different track, and Noah shortly followed as he saw the ducks at the park.  No worries, we made a small adjustment and headed to school, thankfully making it on time.  Score one for Dad, even with the small adventure.

My thought was, how does this relate to our celebration this Easter Weekend?  Do I tell myself to seize the moment and then go into autopilot instead?  So many times, we can intentionally seize the moment and yet, our routine nature gets the best of us.  Holidays are great for the very fact that they have a sense of tradition mixed with family memories all in one moment.  I think that is the same for Easter every year.  We need the tradition of remembering and celebration of the resurrection that Easter brings, but there is also this internal fight to keep the heart in check.  The ole self check up with Jesus is good around this time.  It’s kind of like this…  “Hey Jesus, since you are resurrected again, are we cool?”  Why the internal struggle anyway? It think it is because when we truly follow Christ, he makes it personal.  This religious tradition that the world sees millions to billions of Christians participate in and flesh out in various denominations is actually an expression of a Holy God not giving up on the relationship that he started with Humanity at the beginning of creation.

That’s why I have personally been compelled to focus on Galatians 2:20 for the past few weeks.

“20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  “

Paul saw this same struggle with tradition and relationship on his own personal journey.  Being a man brought up in the tradition of Jewish Law, he was in the Passover routine every Easter.  He also had the Spiritual Wisdom to understand that most people struggled with this very tension.  That is why the axis of Galatians, and possibly Paul’s life mantra had to be more than routine.  He had to personally be crucified with Christ and then find out what true resurrection living was all about.  Because Christ lives, we can live in the same power by faith.  We can look back on this journey to the Cross and say that HE LOVED ME.  We can call this Friday “good”  because HE GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.
When we make the Easter Holiday personal, we can easily fill in the blank with this phrase:


BECAUSE HE LIVES I CAN ___________________________.  

Where do you need to be crucified with Christ?  How do you need to sense the love of Jesus this Easter?  How does it feel to remember that Jesus gave himself for YOU, personally.  Your sin, your quirks, your talents, your wrong turns, your personal human nature.

 Lets practice the presence of Christ this Easter Holiday by making it personal in the midst of the egg hunts, television specials, family fun, and time off.  By making it personal, we might find the joy of denying ourselves and truly living in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pastor B Oakwood, Parent Cue

Parent Cue: Once Upon A Time Xp3 Series

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Think About This:

What was your teenager’s favorite story when he or she was little? And how many times did you read that story to them? A hundred? A thousand? Sometimes as parents of older children, we are tempted to look back nostalgically at storytime and think, those were the days, assuming they’re long-gone. But in the book, Losing Your Marbles: Playing for Keeps, Reggie Joiner explains that the power of stories, especially stories over time, may make storytelling a practice that is too important to abandon.

Experts have analyzed, theorized, and evangelized about the power of story. Everyone seems to agree. It’s as if our minds are hardwired to engage in the way information fits together in the context of
a narrative. One specialist in this area puts it this way: If you ever need a little more proof that God exists, consider the magical,
mystical,
imaginative, compelling way
 kids, teenagers—and everyone else for that matter—connect to stories. It seems obvious that God created your imagination; then created stories to ignite it. Have you ever considered that without imagination, you can’t . . .

see past what you already know?
care how someone else feels?
hope beyond your present situation?

… That’s what the gift of imagination and story does for a child or teenager.
 It enables them to think their way into other people’s lives.
  It compels them to feel the sentiments of other people’s emotions. It invites them to venture into other people’s places.

Maybe that’s why research actually indicates the more stories you read to a child over time, the greater their empathy. Because stories have the potential to make you feel what someone else feels. Stories can collectively work to build a child’s emotional,
relational,
and moral intelligence.

Think about what happens when a child imagines . . .
fighting Smaug, the dragon, with Bilbo on the Lonely mountain, joining Annemarie in the Danish Resistance during WWII, 
traveling with Lucy through a mysterious wardrobe into a frozen land.

They see more. They care more. They hope more.

Try This

A good story doesn’t have to be found in a children’s book. This week, try enjoying a story that your student is already interested in by going to…

 See a movie together.

It doesn’t have to be a spiritual or “family” movie. It doesn’t have to have a G-rating. It doesn’t even have to have some great moral to the story. Just see a movie your student is interested in and then, on the ride home or while enjoying a snack after the show, ask them one question:

Which character in the movie do you identify with most?

Really listen to the answer. Don’t correct them if you disagree. Just use this as a time to learn about your student and enjoy hearing where they think they fit in the story.

 

Get connected to a wider community of parents at www.orangeparents.org.