Crash
June 28, 2008
The Gathering meets this Monday night at the Underground at 6:00 and then goes to do some mini-golfing at Cool Crest in Independence. $6 is what it costs for 18-holes of sheer fun, plus whatever you want to bring for drinks. We won’t be back until 8:30 on this particular night, so please take note of that.
The (Buzz) – Buya info
June 28, 2008
No Plunge Tonight! It’s a 5th Sunday, which means there’ll be nothing going on, have fun with your fam at home!
Girls HangTime – Wed 25th, 4:30-5:45 in the Underground – “Hey Boo Boo, how ’bout some picanic baskets?” This week for girls hang, bring your own food for a picnic! (ants not included) Erin Talley will be gone this week, so Ricki Logan will be in charge. Her phone number is 816-898-4140 and her email is rickileelogan@hotmail.com.
Guys HangTime – Thurs 26th, 3:00-5:00 in the Underground – Just some good ole fashioned goofing around and haning out: Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, any games you want to bring in (except Mature rated). Justin Talley won’t be there, but Colin Moran will be in charge. His email is cmo816@gmail.com and his phone number is 816-582-4454.
Buya:Am Craft Supplies – We’re doing some beadwork next Sunday morning, so if you want to bring in some stuff you’ve been working on or want to learn how to do it, this is your chance.
Family Devo
June 21, 2008
Tomorrow night at Fusion we will be talking about the highs and lows of life. We’re going to create several different stations allowing our students to be interactive with prayer, journaling, scripture reading, and some other spiritual activities.
We want to open up that internal dynamic where we, as humans, always try to live in the highs and always try to forget the lows. But that’s never been what God’s about. Our God is a God who is always present and always has a purpose whether it be a high moment or a low moment. Highs feel so good and lows feel so bad, we forget that God has planned both and that both are meant to draw us nearer to Him.
King Solomon expresses this dynamic in his poem in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. He says, “There is a time for everything…” But we don’t normally agree with him, do we? We’ve got all kinds of time for the high points in our life, the cool and awesome feeling things that lift us up and make us feel like life is great. But when the low points get here….whatever. We peace out from the lows. We want to do whatever we can to just get through them. Rarely do we have the concious thought that maybe it’s ok to spend time in the low spots. Maybe the lows are actually better to me and my spiritual journey than the highs could ever be? Maybe God isn’t as concerned with how good I feel but how dependent I am on Him? If that’s the case, then shouldn’t I be willing to lay prostrate before Him asking Him to do what He wills in the lows of my life?
Take the time to ask yourself and your family, together:
“What are the highs and lows in my life right now? What might God be wanting me to understand, see, or at least surrender in?”
“What is there to celebrate right now that God has put in my life? Why should I/we be thankful to Him for it?”
In regard to the previous Cultural Radar post:
“What self-image do I/we have of myself/ourselves? Am I happy with the way I look? What does God want me to understand about my physical appearence and how does God see me? What does that mean? Why does that make a difference to me?”
God is present in everything so that we can come to know Him in everything, and by coming to know Him in everything that happens or that we do, we learn to trust Him and His outcomes.
Cultural Radar
June 21, 2008
What if, instead of remembering people by their names or even their faces, you only remembered them by how hot their abs were or if their outfit had matching colors? I mean actually think about it. What if that was the reality you lived in? Or maybe it is your reality. It just happens that I was able to hear a conversation like this while I was writing what’s listed below. Here are some “did-you-knows.”
2 out of 5 first through third grade girls want to be thinner.
Half of 9-10 year old girls feel better about themselves when they diet.
More than half of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies.
1 out of 5 young women practice some form of disordered eating including dieting, purging and binge-eating.
These statistics come right out of Walt Mueller’s feature article in CPYU’s quarterly journal. If you’re a parent with a girl or boy in school (not just 6th-12th grade even), I wonder what these statistics make you think? I’ve had to ask myself what they make me think. I think that overall, these statistics depress me more than anything else.
It’s easy to get mad at first, but who is there to be mad at? If you’re the parent of a young woman, it may be easy to get mad at the ad agencies and commercials for giving your daughter a 20% chance of developing an eating disorder. But did you also know that now, in the onslaught of image manufacturing, that 10%-15% of young men are likely to develop eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia do to poorly perceived self-image? We’re almost to the point that one out of EVERY five students has an eating disorder that will most likely lead to not only physical damage (such as stomach ulcers, back problems, oral lesions, etc.), but heart/soul damage (like worthlessness, aloneness).
Does it bring a helpless feeling? That’s definitely a part of what I feel when I really sit down and think about the world that adolescents are taking in through their eyes. On average, an individual views over 3,000 commercials/ads (Story of Stuff). Out of those 3,000 messages that are received, how many communicate to our students, “You will only be accepted if you are sexually attractive. It doesn’t matter who you are on the inside because nobody cares about who you are on the inside. If you ever even want to think about being loved, you better get the right clothes, show off the right body, and become perfect.” How many of those 3,000 messages how many communicate, “You are special, you are accepted just the way you are, you don’t have to live up to anybody else’s standards.”
I want to keep this short enough that you’ll go read the article yourself, but I can’t help but try and draw some attention to the self-image culture that will continually need to be on our radar screen as a faith community. We will never be able to stop fighting the battle of communicating to our students how absolutely WRONG TV commercials and magazine ads and clothing companies are in the way we are to think about our images and the images of each other. But where do we start in trying to help our students develop a positive self-image of themselves that won’t dissolve when they’re told to their face that they’re not attractive enough?
Start by taking $5, go down to your local convenience store, and buy any fashion magazine off the shelf, or borrow one from your daughter. If you have only sons, do the same thing. Read the magazine from front to back and ask yourself, “What influence will this have on my son or daughter? What’s my role as a parent in this? What’s at least one thing I can do to try and enter into my child’s life and how attractive they think they are?”
It’s summer: the pools are full and swimsuits are out. Right now is one of the most self-concious times for our young women. They are constantly evaluating themselves as they stand right next to their other friends wondering if they look better or worse. Summer is equally destructive to our young men as their views of what a woman should look like are constantly being altered by media, ads, TV shows, and friends. It’s a viscious cycle. Young men and young women are getting torn apart inside without knowing how to properly deal with the issue of self-image. How can we collectively develop a secure, positive self-image that is not dependent on sex-appeal in our students?
Buya Pool Party and Bonfire
June 19, 2008
Friday night July 11th marks the next Buya event. Buya will travel to my parents’ house in Plattsburg, MO to swim and make some smores. It’s 20 miles north of Liberty. Please be at the Underground by 6:00pm and we will travel to our destination. We will have the students back at 10:30 for pickup. Cost for this event is $5. We will provide dinner and stuff for smores with this money. If you know you want to go or your student wants to go, email me for the permission slip. I will also put the permission slip up on this website once I get back from Mexico.
I need an RSVP to make sure we can get everyone out there. Do so by either commenting to this post or by emailing me directly at justin@shoalcreek.org. If you’re a parent willing to drive (which we will definitely need) and help get more students to the event, do the same. I will contact you with details when we get closer. Thanks!