|
In recent weeks, I've been sharing some thoughts about how we make faith "sticky" for our kids (or for any of us, really). You can read the three previous articles here, here, and here, but here's a quick summary:
I have a friend Jen who is an experienced Director of Faith Formation (so fancy) who I ran into a few months ago at a swim lesson for our kids. We talked about family ministry and she shared with me four generally-agreed-upon touchpoints that make the faith we share with our kids stick with them for their whole life. You could consider this a checklist, though each one is complex:
- a regular Sunday routine
- summer church camp
- a transformative journey
- campus ministry
The idea is, if our kids have these in their experiential tool box, they are significantly more likely to be part of spiritual community later in life, but they're also significantly more likely to be those compassionate, resilient people reaching out to others as Jesus did.
I'll share more about these four topics in future emails, but for now, maybe notice how each of these showed up in your own life--what was your Sunday routine growing up? It doesn't have to be the same now, but what was it like? Did you go to camp? Or on a mission trip or pilgrimage? What was it like? Were you part of campus ministry? What did you know about it from others if you didn't?
A Transformative Journey
The idea of a transformative journey is that it takes you out of your normal life and opens your heart to people and situations you hadn't encountered before. Like the Jesuits might say, it's a way of seeing what God is doing with more of God's children.
For my 15-year-old, that was Clark Montessori's 8th grade trip to Andros in the Bahamas. Andros is one of the larger islands and the eastern side has many tourist destinations. That is not the part the students go. The entire 8th grade goes to the western side which is a national park and a bit of a wilderness. They learn about ecosystems, they make art, they meet local folk and learn about their history, their government, and how they sustain their lives. Blu will tell you with tears in their eyes that it was the most powerful thing they've ever done--the connections among the students, the learning how to care for themselves in a different world, the exploration of a part of God's creation they couldn't have imagined. It broke them open.
When I was youth minister at Redeemer, we took an annual mission trip to Navajoland at the border of Arizona and Utah. To fall asleep under the Milky Way of stars and to wake up to massive mesas and glorious blue sky will show you the face of God in a way that can't simply be described.
Years ago I took students on a pilgrimage to Dachau concentration camp. Walking through the gate that says "work will set you free" broke my heart. Walking though the gate at the back of the camp into the Carmelite convent that was built just over the wall less than 20 years after the camp was liberated made me weep with awe and relief. And I knew I wasn't the first, nor the last. And I knew that God had wept on that ground as well.
Each time I drive into Hocking Hills, it feels like coming home, no matter that I've never actually lived there. It feels familiar, it feels like something will shift within me.
I expect folk from St. Tim's who have been to the Holy Land with Roger or to El Hogar or on ASP would say similar things.
When we talk about a transformative journey, in terms of "sticky faith," what we mean is simply a trip to a place that changes you--it could be a mission trip or pilgrimage with a church group, it could be a school trip or even a vacation. The point is that somehow, you come back different because you've seen or experienced something you didn't expect, something that dramatically shifted how you see the world and your place in it.
I wonder what those journeys are for you? Have you told the stories of them to your kids? If your kids are quite small, a shortened or simplified version could work, naming where you went, something you saw that was powerful, and how it affected you. If your kids are older, you could go into more detail, perhaps describing more of the pain of the transformation or asking them if they've experienced anything like that in their lives.
* * *
So how to share the faith we have, how to help our kids navigate a dangerous world with compassion? I'm going to muse about these things in the coming weeks here, but if you ever want to just come chat or go have a bourbon and rant about it, please message me! As Cole Arthur Riley writes, "Together we won't get lost in despair."
| 
