You're Invited!

To my friends and ministry colleagues in the Chicago-Milwaukee-Rockford areas:

     As a fellow church leader, I know how important it is to find the right opportunities to engage a church body in the local community for the sake of the gospel. 

     Having been both a public school teacher and a pastor, I can think of few mission fields with as much potential impact as local public schools, but few church leaders that I talk with are aware that the doors of the schools in their community are often wide open. My passion is to help churches reach kids in a local public school with the Word of God, leading them into a life-transforming relationship with Jesus.

     Would reaching your local community through its youth fit with the vision and resources you have established at your church? For over 10 years Crossroads Kids Club has successfully established Bible-based clubs inside of public elementary and middle schools and would love the opportunity to see if this outreach might be a fit for your church. 

     I would like to invite you, along with any other interested members of your congregation or staff team, to join me for a free lunch event designed to help you learn more about the amazing opportunity to share the gospel inside of public schools. Please join me:

• Schaumburg, Illinois: April 11, 2012, noon–1 p.m.
  (Details & registration)
• Rockford, Illinois: April 12, 2012, noon–1 p.m.
  (Details & registration)
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin: May 8, 2012, noon–1 p.m.
  (Details & registration)

     I look forward to meeting you soon!

"Thank you, God, for Crossroads [Kids] Club"

     On Saturday, a woman who has volunteered as a Crossroads Kids Club site director for about eight years handed me three-and-a-half typed pages. At the top of the first page was a title: "God is Working through Crossroads Kids Club." I have to say that receiving a document with this title is pretty energizing because normally the things people share with ministry leaders are all the things that need improvement. As a side note, I think we should stop more often and thank the Lord for what he is doing and celebrate his goodness. One of the things she shared in these pages was that one child had prayed, "Thank you, God, for Crossroads Club." (Hence the title of this post.) Here are just a few more stories:

• E*** attended club for several weeks in September and then one day he came and asked, "Do I have to come to Crossroads today? I want to go to my friend's house to play, and this is the only day I can go." When he learned that each student was going to receive a Bible that particular day, he changed his mind and exclaimed, "We're getting Bibles?! Then I'm staying!" He put down his backpack in the corner, and he stayed. Such hunger for God's Word! E***'s sister and her best friend also came to know Jesus as Savior this year!
  
• In September, a little girl said, "My mom said [that] she'd tell me about God when I got older, so I went on the Internet to find out about God." A few months later, this girl shared that she was very scared because her family regularly watched horror movies. She would go to her room or the basement to escape, but she could still hear the screams from the movies. We gave her a Bible with passages about having peace and overcoming fear highlighted. The next week after giving her this Bible, she came back and reported that her mom was reading the Bible! Since the mother is more proficient in Spanish, we gave her a bilingual edition of the Bible. The mom sent a nice note in appreciation, and the family has stopped watching the horror movies.
  
• God is changing lives. D*** received Christ as his Savior a few months ago, and God is at work. When his friends are goofing around I have noticed how he tries to continue to listen and be respectful. T*** also received Christ as his Savior. He volunteers to pray and is able to answer review questions with proficiency. He commented, "I learned that God is all powerful and there's no one stronger than God."  At this one club, there are eight children who have shown fruit from receiving Christ this school year.

"Objective-less" Lesson Planning

     Last Saturday, Crossroads hosted author and curriculum developer, Michael Novelli, to present a workshop on "Bible Storying." Michael did a fabulous job presenting the what and the why of Bible Storying, and I would highly recommend his book, Shaped by the Story.
     In reflecting on what Michael shared, I realized that his way of "lesson planning" is counter to everything I learned as an education major in college because it does not presume to craft an objective or an application. My professors emphasized the importance of starting the process of planning a learning experience with a specific, measurable, and behaviorally-articulated objective. The key question was not what students will know, but what will they do with what they know. So, an objective could be stated something like this: "Students will demonstrate knowledge of the state capitals by writing each capital city's name on a map of the 50 United States." (Notice the behavioral demonstration of learning.)
     Michael's methods shatter this paradigm. He used flying a kite as a metaphor for Bible Storying. I have been thinking about this quite a bit. A kite needs the wind to get off the ground. Once it is airborne, we do not really control the kite. Sometimes it takes a dive into some wires or a tree. Other times it spins round and round. However, when we have the string in hand, we can choose to let out string, take string in, or move our arms or location in order to impact the flight and behavior of the kite. In other words, lesson planning is more like constructing a kite that will catch the wind of the Holy Spirit who will lift it up and apply it differently to each student. My job is hold the string (work on the environment) in order that the kite might soar (as opposed to crash or get tangled up in some trees). I like that metaphor very much. It is very freeing and I think describes a healthy relationship between the curriculum, the teacher, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

What do you think?

Praise Report!

     This past Tuesday, I received an e-mail from Teresa Wawro who leads a Crossroads Kids Club site in Elgin, Illinois. She wrote to tell me about some great news from their club. I want to share it with you here. To give some context, Teresa is a teacher at Westminster Christian School. "Señora" is the Spanish teacher at the school. Also, "R—" is a child who had been coming regularly and had been very challenging to work with. Here's what Teresa shared:

     Today, we had three of our club members accept the Lord! These are three of our Spanish speaking students, and Señora was finally able to come. It was the most attentive and quiet they had been since coming. I was sitting near their small group, and I could tell that they were asking a lot of good questions, and then Señora started praying with them. It was such a God moment! I knew what they were praying [even] without knowing the words, and I just started praying along with them. It was awesome. Then they asked to take their Bibles home because they did not have one in their home.
     In other news, R— came out of Science Club today to give me a hug and tell me that he misses us, and he is coming back next week. I have to say that missed him, so that is good news, too.

One Thing I Learned from PBIS

     Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop that my local school district hosted for community partners. The subject was PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention System). There are many, many things I could write about PBIS, but I will focus on two key ideas that are very applicable in an after-school club setting.

     First, the approach presupposes that one of the main reasons that children act inappropriately is that they do not know how to behave. The answer to ignorance is to teach, not punish. What this means is that is is imperative to spend lots of time explaining and demonstrating to the group what is and what is not appropriate and expected for each part of the club time. For example, running may be appropriate during game time but not any other time. Have you ever said this to the children? Have you explained why? Teach, teach, and re-teach what you expect from them. The vast majority of kids will get on board, and many behavior problems will disappear just by clearly teaching what you expect.
     Second, coach. When a child is still not acting in the appropriate way(s), then you can help that child to pay attention to his or her behavior using a coaching sheet like this one. Using this intervention, you would have the child check in with a "coach" for about 30 seconds at the beginning of club. The coach will remind the child of the expectations during each part of club and give the child their coaching sheet. After large group, the large group teacher will circle a number on the sheet. After small group, the small group leader will circle a number, and so on. At the end of club, the child checks back in with the coach who will review the coaching sheet with the child and make some comments or suggestions. It can be as simple as, "Looks like we had a pretty good day today except during small group. What happened there? [Student answers.] What can you do differently next week? [Student answers.] Great! Next week you have a new opportunity. I am so glad you are here and are part of Crossroads!" The coach should be spending no more than 30-60 seconds with each child at the beginning and at the end. It is very quick and just helps the child to remember the expectations and to get and give feedback on his or her meeting (or failing to meet) of those expectations. It empowers the child to behave appropriately and focuses on the positives. Try it out!

More Than Just a Name

     Last Thursday, I visited one of the Crossroads Kids Club sites in Elgin, Illinois. The site director told me that they had begun using name tags to indicate which children were supposed to be dismissed to walk home and which ones were to be held for parent pick-up. I think the names of one group were written in blue and the names of the other group were in red.
     I think that name tags can be used for lots of different organizational/administrative purposes beyond just communicating a name. You could indicate food allergies, small group assignment, birthday, and lots of other information that would be nice to know at a glance. This can be accomplished with the color of the name tag, the color of the ink, a symbol or a sticker on the name tag, or many other ways. The point? You can focus more on relationships and less on organizing the kids and checking your list.

An Invitation

     By means of the video below, I would like to introduce you to my dad, John Armstrong, and to something he is working on. I would also like to invite you to join him (and me!) at Wheaton College on March 26, 2012, for the event he describes in the video.


Untitled from Jake Mater on Vimeo.

Missional Numbers

     This afternoon I am presenting to a group of youth pastors. In preparation I was looking at some numbers that I found astounding. 33% of children in my home state (Illinois) live in single parent homes. 3.5% of kids in Illinois are being raised by a foster parent or a grandparent, and nationwide 1 out of 44 kids has a parent in prison. Many absentee parents.
     On top of this, 48.1% of public school children in Illinois in 2011 came from low income households. Many poor children.

     Finally, across the nation, only 55% of all children are non-Hispanic white children. In Illinois, nearly 25% of the children are Latino, and in Chicagoland, more than 79% of the Latinos are of Mexican origin. Multi-ethnic and foreign-born children. 

      So what?

     I believe that throughout Scripture, God reveals that he has a special compassion for those who are vulnerable: children, the poor, orphans, widows, foreigners. It turns out that when we go into a public school and love on the kids there, we are ministering to kids who very likely fall into multiple categories of vulnerability. What I mean to say is that they could be orphans, poor, and foreign-born all at the same time. God is passionate about sharing his love with the children in our public schools—all of them—but I believe he calls his Church to take a special interest in the most vulnerable people in a society. In our society, these people are in our public schools.
     Now consider this: according to Barna research, children between the ages of 5–13 are more than FIVE TIMES as likely to respond to the gospel as people at any age from 5 years on up! On top of this, in Mexico, about 5% of the population is evangelical. In the U.S., 28% of Latinos (most of whom are Mexican) are evangelicals! What this means that the gospel is making huge progress among Latino immigrants across the United States. So, to reach out to children in our schools (and Latino children in particular) is to reach out to a group that is extremely likely to respond to the gospel and that is also close to the heart of God.Why would we not want to do that?

The Spirit of Unity

"Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:3–6, NIV). 

     It is amazing how quickly division creeps into ministry. In fact, I believe that division is one of Satan's most effective tools for derailing the work of the gospel. In Jesus' prayer in John 17, he indicates that when his followers are united the world will know who Jesus is (verses 23 and 24). In other words, our unity is our primary evangelistic method. Jesus said, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35, NIV). Our love and our unity are what reveals Jesus to the world.
     The somewhat counter-intuitive thing is that sometimes we have to fight for unity. When someone is a part of your ministry team and they are pushing an agenda counter to the calling of the group, I suggest that the group first pray and seek to understand if this person's concerns are prophetic and from the Lord. If they are not, then it is important for the team leader to confront the person who is bringing disunity. Of course, this must be done with gentleness and love, but disunity cannot be tolerated or the evangelistic effectiveness of the ministry will be undermined.

What strategies have you used to deal with disunity?

Best Practices in Mentoring Youth

     On Tuesday I had a great opportunity to participate in a workshop that our township government hosted: “Best Practices in Youth Mentoring.” The presenter was a Ph.D. in social work who shared some highlights from research about mentoring.
     A few things she shared stood out to me. First, the measurable outcomes of school-based mentoring programs do not carry over from one school year to the next with one exception: reduced absenteeism. Two positive attitudes (the belief that an adult cares and the desire to attend college) also carried over. Beyond that, all the benefits of mentoring were erased by three months into a new school year. This is a staggering finding for those involved in school-based mentoring that only takes place during the school year. The implication is that a mentoring relationship needs to continue year round for it to be effective. As well, in communities with failing schools, she shared that sometimes parents are less-than-enthusiastic about a school-based mentoring program because they are skeptical of anything closely associated with the school.
     A second very significant point regards the age at which a mentoring relationship is most helpful to young people. It turns out that this is different for boys and girls. The key time frame for boys is during their elementary school years. For girls, the optimal time for a mentoring relationship is actually early adolescence (middle school).
     And a final point that struck me as very significant is that if a mentoring relationship lasts fewer than six months, it can actually harm the child rather than help. So, fostering longer-term relationships that last through the summer months as well as the school year is key. 
      Mentoring is becoming increasingly popular, and many schools are very interested in having caring adults mentor youth. This is a positive development as people change best in the context of caring and accepting relationships. Also, mentoring youth in a school is a great way for us to show local schools that we care about them and the kids at the school. However, I think it is important that we pay attention to what research is showing are best practices, and I found this workshop particularly helpful in that regard.

Are you involved in mentoring youth or children? What does it look like in your context?

Proclaiming the Good News in Word AND Deed

     Monday, I met with a friend of mine from Nigeria. He is involved with a ministry to African church leaders and he tries to help them see that the gospel compels them to care for practical needs. He told me about church leaders who see street kids and have no desire to help because they do not view caring for these kids as central to the gospel. "Our job is to preach the gospel," is their attitude. He and I share a concern that this is not healthy—the gospel we preach leads us to practical acts of compassion and care for those around us.

     I shared with my friend that I have found that in the United States, we have gone to the opposite extreme. Most church leaders seem much more interested in serving the community and meeting "practical" needs than they do in proclaiming the hope of Jesus. I believe that just as faith and works go together, so also proclamation of God's truth must accompany service in his name. Romans 10:14–15 says: "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" (NIV). So, let's bring Good News to people with our actions and our words! We need to care about the practical needs of people around us and bear verbal witness for Jesus. In this way, we are living like Jesus who healed the sick and preached good news.