samwise the brave

there’s a great quote from this movie…”when you see a great teacher…you are seeing a work of art.” i’ll admit i’m married to a teacher and i may have a bais, but i know the heart of my bride melinda and she indeed is a work of art.(so glad she received the 2010 teacher of the year and you can read about her amazing program here). but there is a larger crisis that we are in the midst of and this movie, coming out this fall may help to spread some much need conversation.

i talk to many parents and so many of them feel trapped in trying to provide a good education for their children. and i know the issues here in the rural area not as difficult as those in the metro centers, yet the whole system is a mess.  I was shocked by this statistic…

26% of this year’s graduates will not graduate with a regular diploma in 4 years.   Dropouts from the class of 2008 will cost the state of Ohio $9.8 billion in lost wages over their lifetime.

there’s a lot here even this week i sat with one mom who just doesn’t know where to turn.  her child, who has some learning disabilities and has gotten pulled into the court system because of a episode at school just shrugged her shoulders and said it just her lot in life.  for her and her family she says the american dream has disappeared.   waiting for superman looks like a great start to  public discourse.  visit their website and make your pledge to see the movie.  follow them on twitter , check them out on facebook too so you can keep informed.  edmund burke said awhile ago…All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women ) do nothing.  well…what something can you do?

ready to be who you are? we ask for liberty…liberty by law…until lambs become lions… looks great!

don miller @ story 2009/chicago

one of the good guys in “netosphere” is Chris Brogan.  He’s a keen mind and a great view of life lived large.  recently he picked up a copy of don miller’s book (which i’ve not read…yet) and offered this review… A Million Miles in a Thousand Years last year at  story don was a speaker.  i was grateful for his part in the conversation.  the whole day was filled with some great things to push through.  A reminder that our lives matter and that the “story” of our lives have great weight in the world if we can only see it that way.

i’m grateful for chris’s post to remind…that there is a larger story that our lives are playing a part in.  even today in a conversation with our elementary volunteers i reminded us that our “tweeners” (4th & 5th graders) are ready to live out their part in the Story.  And its one of the reasons that these students get bored with our program.  they’ve sat long enough, now they want to know their lives can make an impact.    check out brogan’s video and if you’ve not read miller’s work…probably pick up a copy soon.  also ben arment has another great conference planned for story 2010…stay tuned.

am spending a couple of amazing hours with about 30 great and good hearted Kingdom workers at Skyview Ranch over the next couple of days.  we began yesterday  walking through our observations from Barbara Strauch’s work: The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries about the Teenage Brain Tell Us about Our Kids .

mark (marko) oestreicher

this  gathering is the second “conversations” that joel daniel harris has invited those of us in attendance into. last year we worked through Mark Ostreicher’s Youth Ministry 3.0. This year Joel invited Marko to join us a sojourner.  the first day was amazing and very good.  I’m grateful for Joel Daniel’ s heart to engage our minds in this rigorous way.  An am grateful too to be part of amazing conversation with Marko’s keen intellect and most importantly his heart for the adolescent…particularly the jr high school student.

A couple of observations from day one. One revelation we pushed through early on is the idea that “adolescence” is a modern construct.

the duration of adolescence has grown.  in 1904, adolescence was thought to begin at age 14.5 and end around age 16.  By the 1970′s it had grown to 13-18 and in 2010 adolescence it thought to start around age 11 and end 27.  there’s some fun dialogue with some some of our fellow attenders as they are close to that upper age.
interesting stuff

• the role of risk-taking
• nurture vs nature
• the quantity of change
• do we need to rethink age/grade boundaries
• partnering with parents and other voices
• the role of failure
• exuberance
• gender difference
• message the church sends kids/integration
• what’s fair to expect
• acquiesce, push or other
• hard-wiring stuff

with Valentine’s Day around the corner…thought this would be a good time to post this book review.
Love & War: Find the Marriage you’ve Dreamed of

I confess i’m biased to anything john eldredge writes. i’m grateful for his open and honest engagement of issues that are critical to understanding our journey, as men and women through the Story. so now we’ve a book co-authored by John and his delightful bride Stasi looking at the institution of marriage. and Its a definite winner. The book is their sharing in authentic, open and transparent ways about this larger “love story” we a?ll live in…they write:

We live in a love story, set in the midst of war. Love is our destiny, and all hell is set against it. Really it explains so much. We wake each morning and fin that we have to fight our way back to all that is true: we have to fight off the thousands of reasons to settle for less than the life we were created for. Our bodies awaken but then our hearts and souls must awaken too, so that we might play our part in the Grand Affair. And God has made our hearts in such a way that nothing awakens us quite like some great mission which is ours alone to fulfill. Thus the power of fairy tales, all of which turn on this awakening in the heart of the boy and girl.

This book is an excellent read. There is something here that is deep and good. Stasi and John are transparent beyond measure and their risking vulnerability is a huge encouragement to the reader. The reminder of how hard life can be and particularly the difficulty of loving another person in the context of marriage is very real.

Walking through their own struggles and pointing some practical remedies on loving our spouses well. One helpful insight is in the area of spiritual warfare…a reminder that we truly do live in a world that is at “war” and that there is more afoot than what we see.

Along with the book is soon to be released dvd based study. There’s also a useful website that offers a weekly podcast and other information . The Q&A from the book tour (which begins its second leg this weekend) offers some great insights.

Personally, i’ve seen the end result of the honesty of John’s and Staci’s writing in the lives of literally dozens of men and women who are better understanding their walk as Christ followers.

Love & War is book that you’ll want to re-read a couple of times. Much like the Eldredge’s earlier efforts…Wild at Heart, Captivating, et.al. you’ll learn something new each time.

While reading Love and War this week I used a question that is quoted in the book from C.S. Lewis with a couple young men in an at-risk group i lead. That question was “would you rather have Eros or Compansionship?” I was pleasantly surprised by the response that the young men, after pondering it…said “companionship.”  Although “eros” was something the liked…there’s was something deeper they needed.  Both young men come from circumstances where their place in the story was begun out of “eros”. They realize the deeper disconnect that exists when we get the family thing out of order (i.e.sex – pregnancy – marriage).

I need to remind you that Love & War was graciously provided for review by Waterbrook Multmonah. You can purchase the book via their website here.

Yep… Get it…Buy it…Read it…Live it! Definitely A+.