Raising Modern-Day Josephs

Jack Eggar is Awana President/CEO. Jack and his wife, Dona, serve in their church's Awana ministry and co-wrote the book Shaping Your Family's Faith.

Excerpted from chapter seven of Larry Fowler's new book, Raising a Modern-Day Joseph.

"That’s not FAIR!"

Daniel Nott is an executive director for Awana. His love for kids extends to his involvement as an Awana leader, small-group teacher and summer camp volunteer at his church. His four children have all participated in Awana.

Six-year-old Jeff was not his usual, bouncy self when he arrived home after playing at the Johnson’s house. Instead he marched in the door, flopped down on the couch, crossed his arms and let out a huge sigh.

"What’s up? Did you have a good time with Andrew?"

"Luke played with us," he sputtered.

"Three-year-old little brothers don’t always share, do they?" I asked my sullen son.

"He played OK, but when his dad told him to go in the house, Luke used really, really, really bad words. I mean really bad. He used God’s name in a really bad way." Jeff obviously was having problems describing exactly how bad these words were.

"Did he get in trouble?" I asked.

"Nah, I don’t think so."

Later that night we were at the community ballpark when we overheard Mr. Johnson talking to some other men.

"Yeah, you should’ve heard the little guy today!" Andrew’s dad bragged. "He let out a string of words you wouldn’t believe. I mean, that kid has a mouth on him!"

"Wonder who he takes after?" One man laughed and slapped Mr. Johnson on the shoulder.

I still remember that day.

It was an example of a parent who (although he said he believed in God) certainly wasn’t teaching respect for God to his children.

The first Master Life Thread (a godly quality found in the life of Joseph of the Old Testament) is respect. I didn’t know Andrew’s dad well, but I know he willingly brought his kids to Sunday school and Awana. He obviously had some interest in his kids knowing about God.

But he was teaching something very different – disrespect.

Respect for God is more than singing a praise song or admiring a plant God created. Respect is basic to our faith. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding. To Him belongs eternal praise." (Psalms 111:10)

If we don’t have respect for God Himself, we’ll have no reason to respect His Word. A lack of respect for His Word will result in a lack of assurance that His Word is true. A lack of assurance that His Word is true will result in a lack of obedience to His commands. Respect is crucial.

Our children need to understand who God is. They need to fear Him and have a complete trust in what He says.

Here are concepts focusing on respect that we can teach even young children:

• God is Creator. (Genesis 1:1)

• God knows all. (Psalm 147:5)

• God is everywhere. (Psalm 139:7-10)

• God is different from us. (Psalm 90:2)

• God is holy. (Psalm 77:13)

• God is love. (John 3:16)

Yes, that’s a lifetime of curriculum.

But remember – the best teaching comes from the way we live our lives.

Excerpted from chapter six of Larry Fowler's new book, Raising a Modern-Day Joseph.

I love my GPS system. I splurged and got one for the many times I’m driving in a rental car in an unfamiliar city. I hook it up and use it any time I have even a question about how to get where I’m going.

Daniel Nott is an executive director for Awana. His love for kids extends to his involvement as an Awana leader, small-group teacher and summer camp volunteer at his church. His four children have all participated in Awana.

I’m from a family of six children. My father was not in the picture. My mother raised us. We were fortunate that she had encountered Jesus and accepted Him during our childhood.

Mom is my hero. I saw her praying for us, reading the Bible and taking us to church nearly as often as the doors were open.

All six of us grew up in that environment. As Psalm 139 tells us, we were uniquely created, and yet we all were subject to the same model, behavior and actions of a Christian worldview.

Yet, today, not all of us follow the Lord or recognize His gift of grace.

Here’s my point: We as parents and leaders have to put away our foolish notions of an easy solution to raising modern-day Josephs. We also need to stop trying to promote or utilize gimmicky formulas or acronyms that will be the answer.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not turning my back on God-given wisdom from Scripture, books like Raising a Modern-Day Joseph and my time in prayer. I am just going to hold loosely the method while focusing on the end result, a child who prevails in a faith walk in a hostile, sin-filled world.

So what should we do? Pray, seek counsel and then pick a plan of action. Do something. The enemy of progress is too much contemplation.

Here are my favorite suggestions from chapter 6 of Raising a Modern-Day Joseph:

I am a fan of manageable chunks of time and focus. I am easily distracted and discouraged. Having a regular checkpoint with accountability and encouragement is a good fit for me.

I like what Pastor Rob Rienow is doing at Wheaton (Illinois) Bible Church. The church’s objective for family ministry states, "Our children's, student and adult ministries all seek to encourage families to grow closer to each other and closer to Christ." Rob understands that it takes real focus and integration of everyone to impart spiritual wisdom to our children.

My generation doesn’t like ceremonial events. Maybe we consider them too old-fashioned. I think this part is critical. Make a big deal out of taking a commitment to be intentional in our child’s life. It will communicate value, intent and a starting point to our kids and other families observing. Come on – light a torch or something.

The easiest way to ensure this failing is to do it alone. You must create a community to walk this journey together. Hold each other accountable. Encourage one another.

Anything worth doing is worth celebrating. We need to know when we’ve achieved something. Make sure to celebrate progress, great and small. Hold up those families who commit to this effort.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say again: Take the first step. Don’t stay on the sidelines. You as a parent and leader have an eternity at stake. Make the first move for your family or community.

Let me know how it goes. I’m praying for you.

We loved our kids and we liked sports, so you would think watching our son’s high school soccer games would’ve been a highlight of the week. Right?

Wrong.

When Jeff entered high school, he transferred from a public school to a small Christian high school. Jeff’s first year at the school corresponded with the school’s first year having a soccer team.

Of course, when you’re on a sports team, the goal is to do just that – score goals.

The coach knew little about coaching soccer.

The boys knew little about playing soccer.

Week after week, we stood on the sidelines watching the team get creamed. Literally. Not only didn’t they win any games, they didn’t score any goals. None. Absolutely zero – during the entire soccer season.

Time crawled as the wind whipped across the Wisconsin prairie, freezing most of us into unmoving zombies. Occasionally, you’d see parents take a warm-up break in their cars. Then, once again, they’d struggle out to the sidelines to cheer on their sons.

The team had a goal – they wanted to score. But without a plan in place, the kids faltered, stumbled and were easily sidetracked by tired bodies, cold wind and overwhelming opponents. Without a plan, the goal wasn’t reached.

We have a goal – we want our children to grow into adults who exemplify the qualities of the Old Testament Joseph. But it’s not enough to have a goal. We also need a plan to REACH that goal. Otherwise, we falter, stumble and are often sidetracked by fatigue, jobs and all the other stuff that takes up time in our lives.

As parents who know Christ as Savior, we have a goal set before us in Philippians 3:14 – the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

We also have a responsibility to train our children so that they desire to strive toward that same goal. Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).

That plan involves intentionally teaching our children. The plan involves intentionally studying and applying God’s Word to our lives so our children see that working toward the mark of the high calling of God is a worthy pursuit.

Our desire at Awana is to provide resources for parents who want to be intentional about spiritually guiding their children toward the goal of becoming modern-day Josephs. That’s why we’ve established our HomeBase program. Check out the HomeBase Web site. Take advantage of the resources offered.

Oh, by the way, even if up till now you’ve had a goal but neglected the plan, you can start TODAY.

Even that soccer team got its act together, and by the time Jeff and his teammates were seniors, they were a formidable force.

Jack Eggar is Awana President/CEO. He and his wife, Dona, have four grown children following Christ. Jack and Dona also serve in their church's Awana ministry and co-wrote the book Shaping Your Family's Faith.

In my pastoral years, I often asked people completing membership classes to write out their personal testimonies. When one came back to me titled, "Washing Dishes for Jesus," I must admit that I couldn’t see the connection – until I read it.

My friend had chosen that phrase to describe his youthful church experience, claiming he had washed more dishes by the time he was 12 years old than most men wash in a lifetime. It seems the "church supper" was a regular, recurring event as he grew up, and his "momma" used dishes to teach him a thing or two about responsibility and service.

But that’s not all he learned from his mother. She went to church, and so did he. The family she ruled was not a democracy; it was a dictatorship. He did not get a vote, and intemperate objections occasionally got him a "whuppin." (He’s a Southerner. "Spanking" is not in his lexicon.)

Considering how much time he spent in church, washing dishes was not all he learned how to do. From the time he could toddle around in diapers (no Pampers, either), he was learning about Jesus.

And he was taught from the Bible. Scripture memory and incessant "sword drills" (speed races to find verses in the Bible) were constants in his life. So were Vacation Bible School, revivals and Wednesday night prayer meetings.

But it didn’t stop there. By the time he was 15, he had read the Bible from cover to cover – twice. He didn’t want to, but Momma gave no quarter. Reading the Bible was a nightly event, and 9 p.m. was still bedtime.

Then he "grew up" and went off to college. In his words, he "got distracted and took a sabbatical from church for a few years." Then came "married with children," and his Christian wife waited patiently. Eventually, all that training from Momma surfaced again. He reverted to the experience of his youth, raising two sons in a church-going, God-ruled home. There is no escape from Momma.

I’m sure you see the point of my story. We are dedicated to the proposition of raising modern-day Josephs. Momma, you are a core player. Your son may not like it, and he will almost certainly resist you, but I urge you to stand your ground. Your child may stray, but he will never forget, and he will come home.

My friend’s mother died several years ago. Of her, he says, "Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, and my momma is sitting purty close to Jesus." No child can say more of his mother. What will your child say about you? Wait until he’s a thirty-something before you ask, and you will like the answer.

Daniel Nott is an executive director for Awana. His love for kids extends to his involvement as an Awana leader, small-group teacher and summer camp volunteer at his church. His four children have all participated in Awana.

I am blessed to attend a church that is committed to the gospel, dedicated to God’s Word and its absolute relevance and necessity in our lives and has a great perspective on what role our children’s and youth ministry areas play alongside the parent. Having said that, I am pretty certain they do not discuss integration, and I know there is no common target, such as Modern-Day Joseph.

They are not alone, by the way.

Based on the time I spend understanding the state of the U.S. church, I feel confident that the idea of integrating ministry across children, youth and parents is almost non-existent. Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean church leaders are uninterested in the spiritual well-being of their flocks. To the contrary, it would appear that more effort is being invested in this area than ever before in history.

Islands unto themselves

The problem is that each segment (children, youth, adults) is trying to find its own solutions. Have you ever had a problem where you thought, “If I could just get everyone together, we could …”? That is a simple solution that seems to fit here.

Don’t believe me? Do an audit of your church. Look at the purpose statements written for each ministry area. Ask your senior pastor what is the church’s goal with the youth and how often the different areas plan together. Then ask each leader of the ministry area to see if that is consistent with his or her view.

Check out what transition process is taken when a child moves from one age group to another. Locate the lesson plans for each age group in your church on a given Sunday, or if your church does annual plans, find those.

Then sit down and evaluate what you’ve learned. Would you be confident in the end result of a child who spent his years at your church? Don’t allow your skepticism about statistics to miss truth.

What you can do about it

I am a parent. I am a children’s and youth leader. I am a leader at a global ministry. I am also living in exactly the same reality that I described in my last paragraph. Now what do I do about it?

This is the big “aha” moment that I’d love parents to get. They do have a larger control over their child’s destiny than they think. Who are pastors, elders, deacons and trustees? They are parents, most likely. You as a parent have a significant voice to be used.

Let me suggest a couple of easy steps you can do.

1. Pray and ask for God’s wisdom and discernment.

2. Conduct an investigation.

• I’ve written some ideas above. If you need a church evaluation tool, you can find one here.
• Use the book Raising a Modern Day Joseph and the study questions as good starting points.

3. Jump in – do something!

• Start a home-based discipleship process for your kids.
  • Integrate with what is happening currently in your church.
• Serve in children’s and/or youth ministry.
• Support your efforts by stepping into a leadership role to better influence the direction of your church.

4. Pray a lot more. This is tough stuff. No magic formulas here.

What I did about it

So what am I doing? I decided to meet with our children’s pastor. The result? I’m going to launch the HomeBase ministry within our church this year. My goals are to reach into the path of our parents and find ways to engage them in this dialogue. It’s not much, but I decided to jump in and do something.

How about you? What first step could you take? I’m praying for you.

Excerpted from chapter five of Larry Fowler's new book, Raising a Modern-Day Joseph.

Have you ever driven through the heartlands of America and marveled over the straightness of the crop rows as you sail past them on the interstate? How does a farmer get those rows so straight when he plants his fields?

With today’s modern technology, tractors come equipped with GPS guidance systems to keep the rows straight. But before that, the farmer would pick out an object on the far side of the field, like a tree, and keep his eyes on it until he reached it. His row would be as straight as his ability to focus squarely on the tree. You could even tell if he looked away by a wiggle in his otherwise straight row.

In plowing the soil for the spiritual life development of a young person, there are way too many wiggles. We’re not focused clearly enough or constantly enough on the end result.

In some churches, we haven’t correctly identified the tree on the far side. Our vision and purpose statements say nothing about what we want our children to be when parents release their control — when those who were under our care and watchful eye are independent in the world.

Sometimes we have a vision statement for children’s and youth ministry, but no one knows what it is. The tree is identified, but no one pays attention to it.

I know of one church that painted its mission statement on the wall of the main hallway in its children’s ministry area. But when visiting, I asked several teachers if they could remember what it said. None could.

Sometimes a church will have a recognized mission statement for its children’s and youth ministry, but it addresses what leaders and teachers do, not how they want the children to turn out. They’ve identified a tree, but it’s the wrong one.

For example, many vision statements read something like this: "We desire to nurture a love for God in our children through a caring, safe environment and through devoted, trained teachers so children grow in their relationship to Christ." Statements like this are more about the activity of the workers or the process of growth in the child than about what we want to see as the finished product.

Here’s a better one: "We’ll grow our youth to know Jesus Christ, respect God’s authority, apply God’s wisdom, respond with grace, desire to follow God’s destiny for their lives, and perceive all circumstances as under the sovereignty of God."

In some churches, there is one vision statement for children’s ministry and another for youth ministry, and rarely is there collaboration. It’s like a farmer who picks an object halfway across his field and goes to it, then picks out another object on the other side of the field to go the rest of the way. It might line up; then again, it might not.

Sometimes the people in children’s ministry have their act together with their direction and plans, then hand off kids to a youth ministry that wanders all over the place. The youth ministry isn’t building on the foundation laid earlier.

In other churches, the youth workers are the ones with savvy, and they have their vision clear. But they’re very unhappy with what’s being produced in the younger-age ministries before they get them. They wonder, "What kind of foundation are the children’s workers building in the early years? Do they even have an idea?"

And in some churches, neither the youth nor children’s ministries have a stated vision. They haven’t identified any objects at all on the far side of their field.

It’s simply crazy to focus only on the process without a vision for the result. It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without ever seeing the picture, building a house without a blueprint, going on a vacation without ever determining your destination — or plowing a field while looking down at your feet the whole time.

Having no clear destination is crazy, but we do it in ministry all the time. It’s actually fun and challenging as a game, but raising our kids is no game. To approach such a serious endeavor with no vision, no target, is foolishness at best.

I remember the time my pastor dad received a phone call from a church family. (We’ll call them Family A.) They wanted to get together to talk to him about a problem.

Upon meeting, my dad heard a tirade about how our church hadn’t done enough for their children – and now their three kids were walking away from the Lord. I remember my dad agonizing over their accusation. This was not a church that ignored young people or put kids at the bottom of the priority list. My dad loved kids and often taught kids both in Sunday school and Awana – not only in our church but in area-wide events. He often visited the church youth group, which was large, active and focused on the right things.

But then Dad thought about another family in our church. (We’ll call them Family B.) Their three kids were the same age as the kids in Family A. The children in both families were instructed by the same Sunday school teachers, Awana leaders and youth workers. They had studied the same curriculum, gone through the same handbooks and attended the same youth retreats.

While the children in Family A were making bad life decisions, the older two children in Family B were heading toward full-time mission work, and the third was in seminary.

The parents in Family A attended church sporadically, didn’t serve in any capacity and didn’t care whether or not their children were missing church for sports activities. As teens, the kids were encouraged to participate in youth group if they wanted to, but you never saw the parents assist the youth leaders or open their home for an activity.

The parents in Family B regularly attended church even though it meant that Dad had to go straight from his train ride from work to Wednesday night Bible study. They regularly opened their home for youth activities and had missionaries over for dinner. They taught their children God’s Word and made sure their kids attended a Bible-believing church that supported what the parents were teaching at home. The children made friends with other kids from church, and the parents consistently focused on Christ and modeled Him in their lives.

Now, as their children stepped into adulthood – they did so with their eyes trained on the Lord.

Parents teach and the church backs up that teaching.

Parents serve and the church provides a place for the family to serve together.

Parents set priorities and the church encourages those priorities.

Parents make friends at church and their children become friends with the children of their parents’ friends.

Let’s get our churches and homes on the same page, for the sake of our kids’ lives and futures.

Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Excerpted from chapter four ("A Clear Target") of Larry Fowler's new book, Raising a Modern-Day Joseph.

I was sitting on an airplane beside a young father. (I’ll call him John.) John’s career is enabling young Internet start-up companies to be successful. His company was recently purchased by Yahoo, and he was returning from their headquarters.

I asked John, "So what’s your strength?"

Daniel Nott is executive director of Ministry Resources for Awana. Daniel’s love for kids extends to his involvement in his church's youth and children’s ministries. He is an Awana leader, small-group teacher and summer camp volunteer. His four children have all participated in Awana.

I am the youngest of six children. My mother raised us alone. My father, an alcoholic, was distant and died when I was 10.

Jack Eggar is Awana President/CEO. He and his wife, Dona, have four grown children who follow the Lord. Jack and Dona also serve in their church's Awana ministry and co-wrote the book Shaping Your Family's Faith.

August 8, 2008 was no ordinary day as the world stood captivated by the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Lost in the furor, the country of Georgia, a former Soviet republic, seized the moment to rein in a truant province within its borders.

The cauldron that precipitated the crisis has seethed since 1992 when the Soviet Union collapsed and Georgia gained independence. South Ossetia has long demanded independence from Georgia and unification with its sister country, North Ossetia, under the aegis of Russian communism. Georgia, the “legal owner” of South Ossetia, would have none of it. Troops were sent in to restore and maintain order.

On August 7, nobody had ever heard of South Ossetia. On August 9, a day after Russia invaded Georgia in retaliation, everybody had heard about South Ossetia. It was a crisis that nobody saw coming, least of all those who instigated it. As I write, diplomats worldwide are scrambling to restore order and civility, but the effects will last for generations. And when the fear and outrage wane, no one outside the arena will remember or care.

A more serious crisis among us

My analogy of the crisis that no one saw coming exists in another realm, too: Christianity. There is an enormous crisis. We have been overtaken, and sadly, many leaders and pastors among us are unaware and unconcerned. Even worse, some, like those who precipitated the crisis in Georgia, are eagerly fomenting the crisis. A few among us are alarmed. We are sounding the call to spiritual arms, and we will remain in the arena.

The unmistakable signs of the crisis Christianity faces are all around us. I recently watched six theology professors agree that Jesus’ appearance after His crucifixion was a spiritual or emotional event. The disciples, according to their logic, must have put peyote in their Seder matzo bread, resulting in a mass hallucination.

We have all come into contact with “Christian” churches and denominations who have allowed, even encouraged, corruption of orthodox Christianity. People who depend on the Church for teaching and instruction are being led away from Christ, taught that He was nothing more than the Mother Teresa of His time.

Even well-intentioned efforts by sincere people misinform. We all remember the “WWJD” fad. Jesus was defined in terms of what He did – feed the hungry, heal the sick and lame, comfort the poor. He was never defined in terms of who He was. He was God incarnate. He was not a social activist.

The corruption of Christianity is real. It is upon us, and it will affect generations.

The victims of the crisis

Children are the greatest victims of the crisis in Christianity. You have seen most of these statistics before. By the time they leave high school, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of the kids who graduate will also leave the church. Among children who were reared in church-going, nominally Christian homes, only 10 to 15 percent possess a biblical worldview. Among self-defined evangelical Christians, four out of five admit their biblical knowledge is inadequate.

The combination of lack of Bible knowledge and misinformation sanctioned by “Christian” institutions has created a socially conscious, theologically unconscious generation. And, just as the political and diplomatic effects of the crisis in South Ossetia will impact future generations, the legacy of diseased Christianity is being passed from parent to child in our homes and churches.

If we take a dim view, Christianity is dying. We, of course, know that will not happen, but it is fair to say that true, biblical Christianity has always been only one generation away from extinction.

There is a doctor in the house – several, in fact

Five years ago George Barna’s Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions turned a spotlight on the issues facing contemporary parents and their children. Awana has also stepped to the forefront in confronting the issue, and our nearly 60-year history of reaching out to children has been phenomenally successful.

In an independent national study of Awana alumni, results showed that only 1.8 percent of the surveyed group (children with six or more years in Awana who had won awards for attendance, Scripture knowledge and participation) dropped out of church as adults, compared with 70 to 90 percent of all children who were church attendees. Nearly 93 percent attend church weekly or more often. Over 94 percent understand that the Bible is the source of truth compared with 58 percent of all Americans. Awana alumni are almost four times as likely to read the Bible several times each week.

And of overriding, supreme importance, those former “clubbers,” almost to a person, credit their parents for their persistence in sustaining their Awana experience.

So a crisis that nobody saw coming has enveloped Christianity. It is real and pervasive, but there is a solution. After all, there is no problem beyond God’s ability. God has chosen us – the church volunteers, parents and leaders of Awana – to treat this critical disease. We have statistical, empirical proof that there is a cure for this disease. We have the means, the skills and the understanding.

Let us get about His business.