RAD Group Update
Rad groups have completed the Not a Fan focus and will not meet on Sunday, November 25th. Each group will meet the following Sunday, December 2nd and spend three weeks digging deeper into the teaching and focus of the new Wednesday night series (see below). This will create the perfect opportunity for additional students to join a RAD Group if they missed out on the Not a Fan series. Students will be able to sign up on Sunday or next Wednesday.
COLLIDE Update
Students planning to participate in the COLLIDE show in March will want to join the crew in the Core this Sunday at 5pm. COLLIDE leadership will reveal additional details about the show and also give students an opportunity to schedule audition times over the next couple of weeks. It is important that students remember that all acts of the show must relate to the HERO theme.
No Youth Worship Tonight, but new series starts next week!
Rad groups have completed the Not a Fan focus and will not meet on Sunday, November 25th. Each group will meet the following Sunday, December 2nd and spend three weeks digging deeper into the teaching and focus of the new Wednesday night series (see below). This will create the perfect opportunity for additional students to join a RAD Group if they missed out on the Not a Fan series. Students will be able to sign up on Sunday or next Wednesday.
COLLIDE Update
Students planning to participate in the COLLIDE show in March will want to join the crew in the Core this Sunday at 5pm. COLLIDE leadership will reveal additional details about the show and also give students an opportunity to schedule audition times over the next couple of weeks. It is important that students remember that all acts of the show must relate to the HERO theme.
No Youth Worship Tonight, but new series starts next week!
As the SSM kicks off a new series, spend some time reading about what students will be focusing on and participating in during the next month. The Christmas season always brings a great amount of energy and excitment. As you read on, notice below the two goals for you as parents of teenagers involved in the SSM over the next several weeks.
1.
Be a Student of What They are Learning
For
2000 years, Christians have gathered all over the world to celebrate the birth
of Christ, and not just as a historical event, but as a powerful reminder that
God doesn’t give up on his promises and as God’s children, we always have hope.
The Christmas story began with the nation of Israel, a group of people that had
good reason to lose hope—they hadn’t heard a word from God in hundreds of
years. To the poets, prophets, and priests, it seemed as if God might have
turned His back on them. The thrilling nature of the Christmas story is that
God didn’t turn His back, and although He had been silent, He had not been
still. A baby was coming. God was putting skin on and moving into the neighborhood.
Hope crashed into the silence.
2.
Be a Student of Your Student
Our kids are desensitized. Maybe that is a
sweeping generalization, but let’s be honest: how many times have you heard
people talk about the selfishness and lack of empathy in the upcoming
generation? To be completely fair, this is probably a label that every
generation tends to give the one coming up on their heels. But—whether we like
it or not—there is a growing body of research which suggests that our young
people today are lacking in empathy and sensitivity. Whether because of the
media barrage of violence, sexuality and not-so-real reality television shows
or simply because of a general lack of education and intergenerational
connectivity, more and more people are writing about this next generation’s
deficit in empathetic abilities.
An article in Psychology Today (June 5th, 2010) puts it this way:
"Earlier this week, Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, released her results on a study analyzing and comparing empathy among college students over the last 30 years. The results? The 'biggest drop in empathy' in recent history. She writes, 'College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago.' In related survey research, psychologist Jean Twenge has labeled the current generation of young people the ‘iGeneration,’ or 'Generation Me.' In her books she describes how young people today ‘take it for granted that the self comes first,’ and has labeled this time a 'narcissism epidemic,' stating that we are ‘living in the age of entitlement.’ Konrath and O'Brien link the self-absorption and lack of empathy together, calling the current generation ‘one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history... It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluing of others.’ See Article
These
are obviously scary words to read for those of us working with and raising the
next generation. But we don’t have to let research like this have the final
word! Our job as parents is to foster the values of empathy, listening, putting
others first and caring for others that we want to see in our kids for years to
come. And a great way to start is to find something that gets your student
excited and then channel that excitement into an avenue to serve and help
others. Here are some practical questions to ask your student to get thinking
about where they might want to give of themselves:
Taken from Focus on the Family - "What really drives you?"
- "What's the most fun you've ever had helping someone else?"
- "What dreams do you think God has given you?"
- "What can you do that most people can't?"
- "What ability would you most like to develop? Why?"
The answers to these questions can be the springboard for helping you and your student determine where they can put their talent and interests to work for others. And remember, just because your student isn't excited by any and every project that comes along doesn't mean they aren't empathetic and it doesn't mean they aren't a great kid! You just may need to dig a bit more and get a bit more creative in figuring out what really ignites them to serve and see outside of themselves.
So, in order to give not only your student, but your entire family a chance to put yourselves in someone else's shoes and give back in a tangible way, we are inviting you and your family to participate in our H2GO! Initiative. Over the course of the next four weeks, you and your family will be taking some time to learn what it's like for many people in the world to go without clean drinking water. Using the following week-by-week action points, encourage your student to take some time and walk a bit in someone else's shoes. Encourage their ability to empathize and celebrate the changes you see in them as they learn to change their perspective and get a wider view of what life looks like for others who don't have the everyday luxuries we take for granted--like clean drinking water.
3.
Action Point
Water.
We drink it. We bathe in it. We wash our clothes with it. We water our lawns
with it. Can you imagine your life without water? Can your student imagine his or
her life without water?
There
are many kids around the world who don’t have to imagine. They live it. More
than one billion people in the world don’t have access to clean water.
We
want to help people living in these conditions to not only imagine life with
clean water, but equip them to get it.
This
Christmas season, we’re excited to partner with Compassion International’s
Water of Life project with our own H2GO! initiative. As part of Compassion
International’s holistic child development, this trusted organization has
created an initiative that addresses one of the most basic needs of
children—clean water. In their Water of
Life project, Compassion is going into Uganda and other countries to help
families attain this most vital need. For just $79, Compassion can provide a
water filtering system with a reusable filter that will give one family a
million gallons of fresh water! (That’s 50+ years of water from the same
container.) The cost of a system also covers distribution and hands-on
education to help a family make the most effective use of their new filter.
This
H2GO! Parent CUE will help you—as a family—begin to understand the difficulties
a family faces when trying to obtain clean drinking water. This Parent CUE
presents your family with the opportunity to spend time each week of this
series exploring some of the hardships a Ugandan family faces without clean
water.
Along
with the following activities, as a family, you will decide how you will want
to get involved in raising funds for clean water.
Before
you present the H2GO! challenge to your family, be sure to read through the
activities below. The goal of the challenge is for your kids (and you) to
understand the hardships associated with a lack of clean drinking water. The
idea is for your family to participate in one activity a week. Over the course
of the month of December, the SSM will be collecting
donations towards the Water of Life Project at their weekly meetings. As a
family, over the course of the next couple of weeks, talk about how you will
want to raise or pull together some funds to contribute to H2GO! In addition,
along with the suggestions below, get creative to find ways to challenge your
family to raise funds while experiencing the impact that clean water—and a lack
of it—has on a family on a day-in-day-out basis.
Week
1: Watch. Sit down as a family and
watch the Water of Life video to see how Compassion’s Water of Life solves the
urgent need to provide safe drinking water for children (http://water.compassion.com/about-water-of-life/
… Go to “Downloadable Resources” at the bottom of the page and download the
four-minute video.) After
you watch the video, take a few minutes to answer the following questions.
·
What
are you usually doing at 6 am in the morning?
·
List
the various ways your family uses water. What if you had to use the same water
for all of these uses?
·
If
you had to walk a long distance to get your water, how do you think it would
change the way you use water?
·
If
you had to spend two hours of every day getting water to drink, how would that
change your day? What would have to be taken off your schedule?
·
If
you had to give up one thing that you use water for every day, what would it
be?
·
Why
do you think it’s important to provide clean water for one family? How will
clean water impact them and their community?
Week
2: Water only. Nix the coffee, sodas
and juice and choose to drink ONLY water for the next 24 hours. You may even wish
to do this for a longer period of time and put the money that your family would
spend on drinks towards H2GO!
Week
3: Muddy Water. Place a bottle of
filthy water by every faucet in the house as a reminder of how difficult it is
for many people to get water. Then, next
to it, place a pad of paper with a pen or pencil. For one day, every time
someone turns on the faucet, have them make a tally mark on the pad. Then
decide together as a family how much money you want each tally mark to
represent—a nickel, a dime, a dollar? At the end of your chosen day, sit
together as a family and count out the tally marks from the various faucets in
your house, multiply that by the amount you chose and give that money to your
student to take to youth group and give towards H2GO! this week.
