What is YOUR plan for this next school year to move closer to the center?

The holy habits listed around the target are the most impactful holy habits which grow our love and faith as followers of Jesus. Practiced by the saints who came before us, we have amazing tools today easily accessible to practice every single one.

Mark where YOU think YOU are around the target in practice. No judgement here, just a realistic place from which to start.

Then choose one area/holy habit to make the move closer to the bullseye over the next school year. Moving one step closer to the bullseye is reasonable and realistic and achievable.

What next? Make a plan to take a class, read a book or two or more, grow a deeper relationship with a colleague skilled in that area, subscribe to a podcast with that specialty, wake up or go to bed an hour earlier to make margin, and stick it out until the end of May 2023. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at your movement over time because following Jesus is a lifetime journey, one intentional season at a time.

Elisabeth George, A Woman After God’s Own Heart, calls it ‘building a faith file.’ 

Ken Willard, Stride, calls it ‘creating a discipleship pathway for yourself.’

My volunteer/servant-leader team goes through this exercise every year as part of our Taco ‘Bout, Chill & Chat, or Winter Pasta-bilities Dinner. They don’t turn it in. Each leader keeps it for themselves as a reminder they are on their own discipleship journey and get to choose how it will go. This year we’re using Top Gun vocabulary since it’s part of our church’s Basic Training fall campaign.

Top Gun Training Officers are always better than their students because they practice their skills more. What skill will you take to the next level this school year? Share this as part of your team training, but this is also about you as a child of God growing in your own Jesus muscles as a way to beat the Devil who will be at you like fleas on an unprotected, unprepared dog. (I’m from the South and we like using dogs in our expressions for emphasis.) Remember you are a child of God, not His employee.

May 2023 will be here eventually, short of the Rapture. We’ll get closer every day we wake up. Thank you, Lord! Let us not look back and hope we just float into a robust faith and trust in Jesus when life hits us hard. Be ready. Be prepared. Join the holy habits of the saints who have gone before us with the tools the Lord and the Body of Christ has provided today.

How can I help?

How can we help each other? 

Tell someone, so you can celebrate together. Jesus never sent out His disciples one at a time, but rather, two, three, or seventy.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7

I was just out of college when the OG came out. I was driving a 1970 VW bug and it sounded just like that jet. Loud. So of course, I adjusted and checked every knob on the dashboard as if I was indeed a Top Gun Pilot. Today I’m a bit older and my SUV doesn’t make as much noise, but listening to the consultants and people involved in the making of the sequel, I recognize some parallels which have challenged me in my own Top Gun life with Jesus.

Goal – Training Officers and the littles we serve to take the next, best step to love Jesus with their whole heart for their whole lives.

The dogfights are practiced in F18s because it’s the only adaptable aircraft with two seats.

• Jesus never sent out His disciples one at a time, but two, three, and seventy. Ministry is meant to be shared. Who’s my Goose? Who’s my Maverick?

The commander of a team of pilots chooses the one to attend Top Gun, typically one per year.

• The parents of the kids we serve are their commanders. They have chosen their children to participate in my local church ministry for a whole host of reasons. I am in partnership with these disciple-makers to support the local church AND the home. How will I support these commanders and their team of pilots, ‘as they go’?

It is a pilot’s learned and practiced skills which bring them home, not better technology. 

• We have lots of great technology to share faith formation experiences, but it’s the relationships through shared experiences over time which model and grow a robust faith in Jesus when the dogfighting of life begins.

Dave Berke was a Training Officer for Top Gun and a consultant for the movie Maverick.  He was inspired as a 13 year old to fly jets and fly them on and off carriers. A 14 year old who watches the film today could be a Top Gun pilot within the next 10 years. 

• When Titus 2 men and women tell their stories, littles and bigs are inspired to take their next best step to following Jesus. When our kids see a Christian life modeled and lived out well, they know what that looks like, sounds like, acts like, lives like, and feels like and they see it as achievable and possible.

G-loc is gravity-induced loss-of-consciousness. G-loc is real and dangerous. BUT a pilot can physiologically condition specific muscle groups and practice various breathing techniques to prevent it. The harm comes when a pilot is surprised and not prepared for it.

• Life surprises us often with loss, disappointment, anger, despair, hurt, injury, diagnosis for ourselves and those we love. It’s important to lead our families to be prepared for troubles through the practice of holy habits of worship and praising the Lord, not forsaking gathering together, and trusting the One and Only to turn all things to good for those who love Him. Don’t be shy about it.

There are 7 categories of jobs on an aircraft carrier that are categorized by the color shirts the people wear. With many people working together, the shirts are a big help to keep up with what’s going on. 

• Elisabeth Eliott was a missionary to the tribes of Ecuador alongside her husband, Jim, who was killed by the very tribesmen he was trying to reach for Jesus. She writes in “Discipline: The Glad Surrender” ‘A sense of place is important for a Christian. We are people under authority at all times, owing honor and respect to a king or a president, to parents, to master, teacher, husband or boss, to ministers and elders and bishops, and of course always and most important, to Christ.’ (p. 86-87) Different situations will call me to wear shirts of many colors. All are important and are to be served out ‘as unto the Lord.’ Lord, let me ‘not settle for mediocrity, indifference, or a tolerable adequacy.’ (Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, p. 170)

Training Officers are always significantly better than the best students. Why? Because they practice more.

• As I prepare the ministry calendar for the families I serve, what does it look like for me and my fellow Top Gun training officers (servant leaders) when it comes to the holy habits of worship, study, prayer, giving, and service? When I share at this year’s Taco ‘Bout, our leaders will be marking for themselves the target they wish to reach this year from Stride: Creating A Discipleship Pathway For Your Church by Mike Schreiner and Ken Willard. If you don’t know your target, you’re just flying a plane.

Why am I even thinking about this? Our church will be operating in a Basic Training campaign in the sermon series about the Apostle’s Creed and a fall kick-off event. The children’s ministry team will be kicking it up a notch with a fall theme of Top Gun Sunday Training, Training Officer volunteers, a content deep-dive into the 10 Commandments for CLUB345, Prayer for the new K2 Club, and more.

“So the soldiers took up their positions.” Joshua 8:13

Summer programming is dedicated to Sunday morning small groups, Special Sundays (National Ice Cream Day is July 17, so we have reserved an ice cream truck for after services), and onramp family events like the Tall Small Archery Party. With the weekly Thursday drive-ins in June, July extends an invitation to ‘come on in’ beyond a Sunday and here are a few reasons why:
– New families want to experience life and faith together.
– Current families want to bump elbows with new families.
– Faith formation experiences outside Sundays says we honor your profession and family which calls one or more parents to work on Sundays (retail, medical, hospitality, law enforcement fields, etc.)

Coming from “What’s in my hand?”, our staff includes a great dad who is an archery coach for a private school, Shaun Nguyen. Coach Shaun began his interest in archery on a mission trip almost ten years ago. He applied for a grant to purchase all the equipment and his team now competes. I invited him to ‘set the table’ for smalls with their talls who love them as part of our Soul Food Summer campaign.

Promotional: Tall/Small Archery Party is for children kindergarten and older (small) with an adult who loves them (tall) on Thursday, July 7, 6-7:30pm in the Gym.  Register online. Sponsored by McEachern Kids

We set out snacks which ended up ‘for the road’ because they didn’t want to stop.

We used a QR code on a stand-up sign for check-in rather than a paper sign-in and it was fantastic. For anyone who had not signed in at the June drive-ins, we now could capture their information all inputted by the tall. Smalls wrote name tags for themselves and their tall, which gave everyone something to do as we waited to enter the gym enmasse to begin the teaching piece.

Coach Shaun took 15-20 minutes to introduce himself, teach vocabulary, equipment, and safety. With mom/day/grand right there, each little had their own personal coach when it was time to hit the line with their equipment.

Littles AND bigs took turns learning together, using only fingertips to pull back the strings, chatting, and encouraging one another. With an element of danger, everyone was paying lots of attention and the frowns of “I can’t do it” soon transitioned to hearing the thud of hitting the target. They stayed and talked each other through it. Just like families do.

At 7:05pm, we stopped for a 10-minute break and I shared a younger version of the sin talk, we prayed, and hit the line again with Coach Shaun attaching balloons to the targets this time.

Next time we’ll go until 8pm since we went a little long. We sent them on their way with a blessing and two gifts: (1) a child’s book on The Lord’s Prayer, and (2) faith conversation cards to share at their tables as they continue to enjoy a Soul Food Summer wherever they are.

This was one of the best events and we hit the target on all goals, all levels of hospitality, and with 11 families, we had lots of elbow-bumping to make new friends. Follow-up is the roll-out of a new Sunday school curriculum which has a fantastic parenting piece families can access on their phones, National Ice Cream Sunday for a free ice cream truck after church, and a Tall Small Paint Party on the last Thursday of the July.

“For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, “Peace be within you.” Psalm 122:8

Amber O’Neal Johnston is an author, blogger, and world-school mom. A world-school mom is a mom who practices homeschooling with the world as her classroom, specifically the cultures and people of the world.  I had the pleasure of meeting her at our Exploring Homeschool special event in April. She opened a brand new box filled with her brand new book that evening. I purchased two then and have purchased multiple copies for colleagues and friends since.

A Place To Belong: Celebrating Diversity and Kinship in the Home and Beyond offers amazing insight for those of us in ministry with children and families specifically to set the table of ‘belonging’ for today’s families in a family of faith. The five pillars of practice on which our ministry with children and families stands are Worship, Grow, Serve, Belong, and Tell. 

“Every child longs for a place to belong. A place where cultural awareness, self-acceptance, celebration, and kinship are the norm. And this natural yearning for affiliation and attachment is best satisfied within the context of home and family life. Home is where lifelong attitudes are rooted and affirmed, where children learn the values that will inform how they move through the world.” p. xvi

Amber writes about curating a diverse library of books, exploring culturally-rich art and media, and significant, life-giving history. Reading her words through a children’s ministry lens, how can we ‘set the table’ for belonging for all children in the local church? Here are a few ideas I’ve implemented….

Speak and teach that our identity and worth comes from the God who created us as His image-bearers in the world. The first books of Genesis matter because it sets the tone for every child’s value no matter how they feel in the moment. God knew them before they were born and He sent His one and only son Jesus to invite every child into the family of God through faith and trust in Jesus. “I do hope that my children always feel magnificent in their skin. Not because they’re convinced that they are somehow more special than others, but because they embrace their differences while recognizing that we’re better together.” p.8

“Given the opportunity to be themselves in a safe space, people will gladly show you all of who they are.” p. 19 We are a Safe Sanctuary church. We annually evaluate and consider the best practices and systems possible in our local context to provide spaces safe from harm. We are beginning the evaluation process of teaching, training platforms, and considerations this fall to implement next spring which will be the 25th anniversary of what the United Methodist Church knows as Safe Sanctuary. When was the last time your church pulled out the Safe Sanctuary guidelines? Who will sit at that table to discuss best practices to reduce the risk of harm in your local church now?

I want to make resources and conversations easily accessible to parents so they become the ‘askable parent’  for their kids. “Our goal, as parents, should be to become our children’s number one go-to person when they aren’t sure how to process things or when they want to know more about something they’ve heard or noticed.” p. 27 We recognize that kids need a safe space for working through their private thoughts aloud. We’ve secured a new Sunday morning curriculum which includes a major parenting piece from a Biblical worldview to encourage all kinds of conversations for families wherever they are because we all know we typically can’t schedule those sacred, pivotal conversations.

“Children who spend all their time gazing at themselves in the mirror risk entering adulthood with an incomplete view of the world and an overdeveloped sense of self.” p. 73 One of the given standards for living as a Christian is to live as ‘I am no longer my own’. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” Paul’s audience had a reputation for claiming spiritual superiority over one another, suing one another in public courts, disrespecting the communal meal, and accepting all kinds of misbehavior unbecoming of one who follows Jesus. Each Sunday this summer, we’ve invited Titus 2 men and women in our local church (bigs who have been following Jesus longer than the littles) to tell their story of their dependence on God and their prayer habits. I also take time to frequently speak of biographies I’m reading of real people doing remarkable things for Jesus in weekly large group and the children’s moment.

Amber’s writing was easy to hear in most places, but difficult in others. I was ready for it and grateful for her tenderness. Want to learn what belonging could look like and what it doesn’t look like? Read the book or listen on Audible.

Christian education for how to live as a family AND how to live as the set-apart family of faith in Jesus will have the most profound impact when practiced at tables, with art pads and pencils, among a variety of people and cultures as well as in the community of those where we can relax and not have to work so hard. Moms and dads, grandparents, and the local church are commissioned to go and make disciples of Jesus and we are better together, intentionally setting the table for belonging in an anxious, fearful, awkward world desperate for authentic connection.

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  Revelation 7:9a