Pastor B Fall, Parent Cue

Who is Generation Z? by Tim Elmore

Parents,

Dr. Tim Elmore is a leading authority on how to understand the next generation and prepare tomorrow’s leaders today. He is a best-selling author, international speaker, and president of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit that helps develop emerging leaders under the philosophy that each child is born with leadership qualities. I had the privilege to hear from him and wanted to connect you with his insights as well.

  Here is a taste of what his leadership blog produces about the next generation:

What do you make of a person who describes his or her life this way:

  • I spend the equivalent of a full-time job on three to five screens each day.
  • I made my best friends through Tumblr and Instagram.
  • I binge watch YouTube and Netflix.
  • I am not totally sure about my sexual identity.
  • I don’t identify with an ethnic race, but with the human race.
  • I don’t remember a world before social media.

photo credit: The cousins play so well together via photopin (license)

 

This new breed of people makes up a population called “Generation Z.” They’re the ones following Millennials (aka Generation Y) who have dominated our culture over the last decade. They now make up the youngest and largest percentage of the workforce, and Generation Z trails right behind them. They’re the new kids on the block, the teenagers. They’ve grown up in a post-9/11 culture, filled with wars, terrorism, economic recession, racial unrest, sexual-identity expansion, and lots of uncertainty. They’re extremely post-modern. If Millennials are slackers, these new kids are hackers. They know life is hard, and they plan to make their own way. Here’s a glimpse of the contrast between Gen Y and Gen Z:

Generation Y Generation Z
Alias: Millennials or Digitals Alias: Hackers or Homelanders
Born: 1983 – 2000 Born: 2001- 2018
Grew up in a time of expansion Grew up in a time of recession
Norm for teen connection: texting Norm for teen connection: social media
First tech gadget: iPod First tech gadget: iPhone
Naive and nurtured Savvy and cynical
Facebook/Instagram Snapchat/Whispr
Goal with social media: garner shares Goal with social media: disappear
Music: Lady Gaga / Bruno Mars Music: Taylor Swift / Lorde
Style: Narcissistic, I am awesome Style: Gritty, I will survive
Perspective: Optimism Perspective: Pragmatism
Shaping events: Fall of Iron Curtain; Columbine; Dot.com era; iPod Shaping events: 9/11 terrorist attacks; economic recession; iPhone

I spoke to Hannah, a fifteen-year-old who’s in her sophomore year of high school. She is a prototype of this new mindset—and gladly embraces her “people.”

She told me, “I gave up my older brother’s optimism a long time ago. I am a realist. I am a pragmatist.” (Pretty elaborate words for a fifteen-year old, don’t you think?) “My brother did a lot of stupid things and posted a bunch of them on Facebook. Now, he can’t get a job. I guess you could say I learned from him. I mean, I don’t drink at parties because… you know… someone might post their pics of me and I’d get in trouble. Maybe lose my chance to get the job I want.”

Such is the savvy spirit of Generation Z. A report by marketing firm Sparks and Honey says, “Their cohort places heavy emphasis on being ‘mature and in control.’”

They’re hackers, figuring out what to do by watching the mistakes of others. They buckle up in the car more often than Millennials did; they don’t drink or smoke as much. And they know life is tough.

Insights to Know How to Lead Them Well

The following are thoughts that could spark conversation with your colleagues about how to lead these kids from Generation Z well:

  1. While Millennials tended to look more like Baby Boomers as teens, Generation Z tends to look more like Generation X. Not ironically, these generations are their parents. We must balance the positive and negative impact of mom and dad.
  1. While Millennials want to “stay forever young,” Generation Z wants to be mature and figure out how to succeed in life. We must capitalize on this interest to grow up and be wise. Share insights on how to save and make money, as well as plan for the future.
  1. While Millennials are optimistic, Generation Z can border on pessimistic at times. Certainly, more of them are pragmatic and realistic. We will need to offer hope and vision to a generation who grew up watching unemployment and global conflict.
  1. While Millennials were into “today” and “me,” Generation Z has learned a little about life from Millennials’ shortsidedness and are thinking about the future. We must leverage this perspective and help them think long-term and big-picture.

What do you think? Have you witnessed any of these trends in Generation Z?

Click here for the Tim Elmore Blog

Pastor B Fall, Oakwood, Parent Cue

Parent Cue: Wired

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Your student is changing fast. Chances are this isn’t a surprise. Their classes are changing. Their friends are changing. Their bodies are definitely changing. But one change you may not see as quickly are the changes that are happening in your student’s brain. As our students approach puberty, their brains are being physically rewired to function less like a child and more like an adult. New connections are forming. Old ones are collapsing. Parts of the brain are being reorganized. And with all of that activity, it’s no surprise that they may experience occasional “outages” or glitches in their judgment, their memory, and their emotional control. That means…
your straight-A scholar may suddenly forget their homework.
your sweet, quiet child may now have teenage emotional outbursts.
your reasonable, responsible student may have a few mindboggling lapses in judgment.
When that happens, our first reaction may be to panic and wonder, What went wrong here? But, most of the time, nothing is really wrong. Our students’ brains are simply under construction.
In their book, Teen Stages, authors Ken and Elizabeth Mellor describe this as a “cognitive rebirth” beginning around age 13 and continues into young adulthood. That means during middle school and high school, your student may show some behaviors reminding you a lot of their toddler and early elementary years. And…it’s perfectly normal.
While no two children are the same, and development is surely going to look different and take different amounts of time for each one, it may be helpful to look at the stages Mellor outlines to see where your student fits and what may be coming next.
As you check out the table below, find which descriptions best match your student and read to see what maybe coming in the next year. No matter what phase of rewiring your student is in, it’s important to remember that it’s only a phase. Enjoy them exactly as they are today and know that you play a key role, even during the later stages, in guiding them toward what’s next.

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ParentCue_Wired_XP3MS-2

TRY THIS

Sometimes the scariest thing about our students’ wiring is that it comes from us. It’s tempting to focus all our attention on the traits in our students that make us cringe—especially when we know they learned it from us. But those aren’t the only traits we’ve passed down. If you think about it, there are also some pretty great things in your students’ wiring that came from you.
This week, take notice of one positive trait in your student that they inherited from you. (This can be something you can do as a step parent, adoptive parent or foster parent as well. Genetics may be responsible for some traits, but observation and learned behavior play an important role, too!)
Maybe you’re both good at math. Maybe your son is starting to show some of your great conversational skills. Or maybe your daughter is wired to be competitive, just like you. No matter what it is, pay attention to the positive traits passed on to your student. Then, copy the section below. Fill it out and leave it somewhere for your student this week.

DEAR
ONE THING I’VE NOTICED ABOUT YOU LATELY IS THAT YOU’RE…

 

THAT’S A GREAT TRAIT TO HAVE AND IT’S ONE THAT HAS HELPED ME OVER AND OVER. I’M PROUD OF THE PERSON YOU’RE BECOMING.
LOVE,

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

Snapchat

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 Uncategorized

See You At the Pole Campus Prayer Guide

See You At the Pole is THIS WEDNESDAY!

Pastor B's avatarParent Resources

everyschool.com campus prayer guide link

Prayer is priority when it comes to campus ministry and outreach. Students, youth leaders, parents, everyone can get involved. A team of praying people will have a significant influence at your school. Below are specific ways to pray.

Pray for students:

The campus is made up of a tapestry of many different students, all of whom have the need to experience the truth of Jesus Christ and be loved unconditionally. Christian students on campus are in a strategic position to communicate this love and truth. Here is how to pray for students:

PRAY…

  • strategic position

    for the safety of the students and faculty at the school.

  • that Christian students will be strengthened in their faith and confidence in Christ, and serve as campus missionaries.
  • that students who have emotional, physical or family needs will be ministered to by the Christians at school.
  • that everyone on campus would have…

View original post 244 more words

Pastor B Oakwood, Parent Cue, Students

Pray for your School

lets_pray_for_every_school

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

by

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 Culture, Students

YouTubeYouCanUse

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Volume 5, Issue 37

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Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6_dJDPgac0

Topics:

Parents, Honoring Your Parents

Bible:

Exodus 20:12

Discussion Starter:

One of the 10 Commandments goes like this, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” It’s important to remember that there’s not an asterisk in that commandment but there is a condition.

In other words, it doesn’t say “Honor your father and your mother unless they tell bad jokes.” Or “Honor your father and your mother unless they are annoying.” In fact, it’s not as if God didn’t know that parents might sometimes be annoying to their children or full of bad jokes when He gave that commandment to Moses.

Why? Because ultimately honoring your parents isn’t about their behavior towards you, that’s usually out of your control. Instead it’s about your attitude towards them.

3 Questions:

  1. Who tells the worst jokes in your life?
  2. Is there are parent or adult in your life you find it hard to honor?
  3. If you could eliminate one of the 10 Commandments, which would it be?

Chew on this:

Is there a difference between honoring your parents and respecting their authority?

 

Pastor B Uncategorized

When Life Drags You Down

SoulFuel

When Life Drags You Down

I hate it when life drags me down—don’t you?  The day can start off so very swimmingly, and then within minutes…

…a parent yells at you
…a friend texts with bad news
…you feel a cold coming on
…the car breaks down
…the weather stinks

And before you know it, what seemed like a day that would be a walk in the park turns into a sluggish journey through the muck.

Perhaps that’s what the lads from One Direction were thinking about when they wrote the song Drag Me Down. Check out these lyrics:

We all long for someone to pick us up when we’ve been dragged down.

All my life
You stood by me
When no one else was ever behind me
All these lights
They can’t blind me
With your love, nobody can drag me down

This song was released with zero pre-marketing, and yet it still hit #1 like a bullet. Although much of the song’s success is due to the power of the 1D fandom (as in they would all download a recording of the boys brushing their teeth—right?), there is a common connection that we all have with the need for someone to pick us up when we have been dragged down.

The problem, though, is the fact that everyone on the planet is often in a state of being dragged down themselves, therefore we are depending on the dragged down to drag us up, even though they are in a state of draggedness—what a drag!

So while the song is a very complimentary shout out to whoever is helping Harry, Liam, Louis and Niall out of the grind and strain and drudgery of their circumstances, perhaps there is another source of hope and strength to which we could turn when life drags us down?

My advice would be to ask the person in the Bible who was pretty much dragged as low as any human being could get.  His name is David—who you may know as King David. But did you know he was also pauper David, hunted David and heartbroken David? He hung out with disgusting and dirty sheep, and he reigned as the monarch of Israel.  He was a skilled warrior, but he knew defeat and despair.

And on top of all his life experiences, he was a songwriter who composed a range of poetic refrains that ranged from an overjoyed heart, to music that reflected a heart that had been dragged down into the pit.

You could say that David’s psalms were all pointed one direction!

But the common theme to all his songs was his constant and abiding faith in the God who would never leave Him or forsake him.

You could say that David’s psalms were all pointed one direction!

And here is one of the songs he wrote while under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that I turn to when life drags me down:

I look to the mountains;
where will my help come from?
My help will come from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let you fall;
your protector is always awake.
The protector of Israel
never dozes or sleeps.
The Lordwill guard you;
he is by your side to protect you.
The sun will not hurt you during the day,
nor the moon during the night.
The Lord will protect you from all danger;
he will keep you safe.
He will protect you as you come and go
now and forever (Psalm 121:1-8, GNT).

What an amazing reminder of this truth from God’s word! Not even the strength of the mighty mountains compares with the power and might of God in our lives, so why would we trust in any single person when the Creator of the universe stands ready to help us?

When Life Drags You Down

I like One Direction’s contention that at the heart of giving them strength is the love of another person. Love is like an all powerful magnet that pulls us out of the yuck and muck of life’s ever changing circumstances, but there is no love on earth that matches the love from the God who made heaven and earth.

So the next time life drags you down, lift your eyes out of your circumstances and remember these encouraging instructions:

Now stay focused on Jesus, who designed and perfected our faith. He endured the cross and ignored the shame of that death because He focused on the joy that was set before Him; and now He is seated beside God on the throne, a place of honor (Hebrews 12:2, The Voice).

With Your love, Jesus, nothing can drag us down!

Flashpoint: Ignite Into Action

When life drags you down this week, look up to Jesus, who loves us with an everlasting love!

Accelerant: Fuel for THE Cause

Pray: Jesus, thank You even for the times when life drags us down, because it is then we are reminded of Your great love for us. Please give us opportunities to help others out of life’s pits as well.

Read: Jeremiah 31:3.
Long ago the Lord said to Israel:
“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself…”

Get:  Fearless…Unleashing God’s Fierce Love In Your World. Start you new school year off right with the Fearless student devotional. These 28 days of daily devos in the book of Ephesians are designed to help you grow in your understanding of God’s love, and help you unpack how you can unleash that love in your own world.