I get extremely caught up trying to “achieve” God’s plan for my life–as if that’s even possible. I feel like if it isn’t in my hands and I’m not doing everything in my power to attain it, God’s plan will never come. Having read that, I’m sure you can imagine how I felt when I read the above passage of scripture. If I’m so busy trying to get things done in my life then I’m forgetting what He’s done in the past, and therefore, I won’t release my future into His hands.

When I speak, I’m constantly talking about perspective. It’s my firm belief that all of the commands God has given us are beneficial to us. Most of these commands help us by changing our perspective. For example, worshiping in song with our church family shifts our focus from being on ourselves to the collective and helps our hearts and minds prepare to hear from the word. Or, take praying, for another example. When we pray, Jesus told us to start with praise and worship, we begin by declaring that God is awesome. This changes our perspective and increases our resolve to bring our petitions before our God who created everything. It’s pretty awesome that God knew we’d need these things. He knew it so well He “commanded” us to do this stuff.

Isaiah 46:8-11 reminds us that God is in control. I feel like He was trying to shift our perspective. He’s saying, “Hey! Stop looking at your abilities. You’ve got me up here watching out for your future. Shouldn’t you trust me? Remember what I did last time?” If our perspective can change from How can I get to God’s plan to I can’t wait to see God bring about His plan, we can avoid some mega stress and worry.

In the last two verses, we’re assured that His plans are good. We may not be good. What we’ve done to His world may not be good. What we do to each-other surely isn’t good, but He is and has got it under control. He’s an awesome God who has plans and will see His plans come to pass no matter how much we try to screw it up. So stop worrying. Quit stressing out about being in His will and just live according to His word. When you do that, you’ll see His plan come in His time. That sounds pretty good to me.

I originally became very discouraged when the summer would come. I’d plan events and park outings and special sermon series to entice students to come. I once even set up a couple of nice comfy chairs and said students who brought a friend could sit in them. Nothing worked. Finally, discouraged and honestly annoyed, I decided to settle in to building relationships with this small group of students. I turned the summer into a time to ‘Strengthen the Core.” I made the sermon series deeper. I had our worship guy learn new songs. I even built in some new discussion times and discipleship. I decided we were going to take advantage of the quality students that came during the summer.

When summer ended and school kicked back up, those students moved into the new year with a greater understanding of the word and a stronger resolve to work together to live for Christ. It was a pretty awesome thing to see.

We did this for a couple of summers and were very excited about the results. I became more and more intentional with our summer events and worked to build camaraderie and unity in our group. It even went so far that at our last summer camp the teams banded together and decided there was no winner. As the chants of “brown team, brown team, brown team” went up, I stood amazed at what the last couple of summers had established in our group.

Then, the hammer fell. When we returned from that very camp, we found our youth room being gutted to move the sound equipment to a new location for services. I was quickly made aware that someone was buying our church building, and we had to be out. It was an answer to prayer. A momentum destroying answer to prayer. Over the next five months our church would become nomadic. We would move from building to building even using two locations for one service time for a while. Our attendance didn’t rebound in the fall like usual. In fact, we even lost a few of the fringe students that had started to come that summer. It was quite the blow.

Now we are settled in to a new location. We’ve been there for almost six months, and things are good. We’ve gained back a few of those we had lost but not the majority. Just for description sake I’ll share that a year ago we had around eighty teenagers coming to our services and took thirty to fifty to camps and retreats. We now run between twenty five and thirty and our spring retreat boasted an attendance of thirteen strong.

Here’s the deal though. Where a lot of people might see failure and despair. I’ve seen success. Who do you think those twenty five to thirty students are that we see every week? That’s right, it’s those we invested in through the last two summers. It’s the core, that remnant of students that feel like they belong here enough to stick around even when we didn’t know where tomorrow night’s service may be held.

I encourage you youth minister to strengthen your core. Use this summer to build relationships with the most committed students in your group. They may or may not be the popular ones but they’re the ones that’ll stick with you through whatever may happen. They are the core. Build your group around them and watch what God builds from there!

So many parents just want to be liked by their kids. They want to be on the top five of their buddy list. It’s kind of a new concept, the cool parent. The symptoms of the “cool parent” are obvious:

 1. They look and act like a teenager.

These parents like to dress like their teen and listen to the same music. Worst of all they like to always say yes to any idea that may sound like fun. Anything that everyone else is doing is a must. You may hear this parent using improper English even though they know the real usage. You may also see them wearing toms, skinny jeans, and a graphic tea. They look pretty “legit.” They’re bumpin’ the latest music and watching MTV reality shows. AWESOME!

 2. They are popular.

The “cool parent” wants their kid’s friends to want to hang out at their house. Not so they can keep an eye on things, but so they’ll be considered a cool parent. Maybe the liquor cabinet is unlocked every now and then on purpose. “They’re going to do it anyway. Better it be in our house where we can keep an eye on them, right?” That’s at least what they say, but the reality is they’re breaking the law to look cool to their kids. It’s illegal, it’s irresponsible, it’s straight up bad parenting.

 3. With popularity comes reputation.

 The “cool parent” has a reputation with the teens as well as with the other parents. Maybe they’re the envy of the other parents. “If only my daughter and my relationship could be that good.” Or perhaps they are despised “Why can’t you be more like Kevin’s mom. She’s cool!” That’ll cause some dissension between parents and their kid’s right?

If you fit any of these descriptions, you may be a “cool parent.” If you are, I have bad news for you. You may not be a parent at all! Oops, did I actually say that? Oh snap, it’s on like Donkey Kong up in here. (See, I told you I knew teen culture.)

You’re not cool!

My own mom still laughs about the times I would ask her not to embarrass me when friends were coming over. She wasn’t intentionally embarrassing me, but she would always do something that mortified me. It wasn’t her fault though; it was my perception of her that was to blame. She was my mom, not a friend. All of my friends loved her, and that bothered me. Not because I didn’t love her but because SHE’S MY MOM. My mom is not cool! She’s the lady that gives me a curfew and gets mad when my laundry isn’t done. She’s the person who makes me drive my little brother to everything I do so he doesn’t feel left out. No matter what my mom did, she wasn’t ever going to be cool. Looking back on that, I think it’s how it should be.

We have to be ok with telling our kids “no.” I remember walking out of a store once with our middle daughter screaming her head off because she didn’t get some toy she wanted. When we got in the car I muttered, “How embarrassing,” to which my wife replied “I’m not embarrassed. We won! She didn’t get what she wanted. We carried out a screaming girl because we didn’t just give in.” She was right, we did the right thing, not the “cool” thing. Cool says “Sure honey, anything you want.” Right says, “NO, we can’t afford that right now.” Cool puts it on the credit card so my kid won’t cry anymore. I chose to do the right thing. not the cool thing. How about you?

Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, “We see,” your guilt remains. (John 9:41 ESV)

While reading John 9 for sermon prep I was totally assaulted by the last verse. I couldn’t believe how offended I was after I read it. I felt frustrated that I hadn’t thought about the principle Jesus was sharing and I felt disgusted with myself when I realized how “guilty I’d become.

This verse falls at the end of one of the most popular stories of Christ healing someone. He had healed the blind man with some dirt and some spit. Gross! Then the blind guy runs off to celebrate his healing, and all he gets is a bunch of faithless doubters telling him his healer can’t be legit, he must be a sinner. The guy’s biggest critics were the people in the church (at that time, the pharisees, today probably we ministers.)

These pharisees were the ones who would check out everyone and make sure their blessing or healing was truly from God. They should be excited about a guy who was born blind being healed right? No, of course not. They were too distracted by the fact that Jesus had “plowed the earth” in order to heal him. The letter of the law had become so important that Jesus’ simple act of gathering dirt to spit on made him a sinner.

This sounds so crazy to us doesn’t it? “Picking up some dirt, a sin? Come on, seriously? As crazy as it sounds we are as guilty of this as the pharisees in this story. No, we don’t freak out about the Sabbath, but we are so quick to judge that we often ignore what God is doing. We will see people doing their best to live for God, and instead of being excited that they have made the decision, we wonder when they’re going to clean up their life. Yes, we are called to “make disciples,” but we aren’t called to expect those new to salvation to miraculously change every behavior. Like the pharisees, we’re so caught up with what’s “unbecoming” for Christians that we let their smoking, cursing, or the fact that they watch rated R movies keep us from celebrating their new-found salvation.

My advice to the church…STOP IT! Our job is to extend God’s love and let His grace eventually change them. Let’s love people and celebrate the decision they’ve made. Then maybe people will actually become disciples instead of feeling like they have to change everything they’ve done wrong first.

Secondly, fellow believers, verse 41 reminds us that we are the ones who are blind because we miss the miracle of salvation because we’re waiting on a miracle of sanctification, which scripture tells us is a process. Let’s open our eyes and see Christ for who He is! Our salvation, our redeemer, the righteousness of all who believe.

3. Parents Love to Plan

And last and most obvious is the fact that parents have their child’s future figured out before they’re out of diapers. One good strong toss of the baseball, and they’re in tee-ball a year before all of their friends. One drawing that almost looks like a horse, and we put them on the three year waiting list for that art class studio downtown. Our kids are, whether we like it or not, another of our attempts to further our success. We want our kid to be and do better than the other kids. There is nothing wrong with this. As long as we learn to let go when it’s time.

My son was always very timid when he was younger. We’d take him to play with other kids, and he’d usually end up in a corner by himself somewhere. At the playgrounds he wouldn’t ride the swings or go down the slide. He seemed to be very cautious and borderline fearful. He didn’t even like some movies and tv shows that other kids enjoyed. If it got too intense, he was begging for us to turn it off.

We aren’t super over-reactive parents (Some people may disagree with that statement and probably with good reason), but we were maybe a little bit concerned about our son for a while. Especially me. I wanted him to be the kid standing on top of the playground equipment conquering his fear and striking fear into the hearts of every other child at the park. Instead, I had to go down slides with my almost four year old son on my lap–not even the big winding slide. We had to go down the smallest slide on the entire playground. I was concerned and maybe a little embarrassed, but there was nothing to worry about. I just had plans for my son that didn’t come to pass. I knew what little boys were like. My boy was different so I panicked. I now realize that my son is extra analytically. He pays more attention to detail than his mother and I combined. It’s incredible. He didn’t want to play with other kids because they didn’t do it right. He didn’t want to go down the slide because he couldn’t analyze that the fun to risk ratio made it worth it to him at his age. It’s ridiculous. It’s more ridiculous that I let my plans cause me to think something was wrong with my son. Since he wasn’t what I thought a little boy should be, he must be broken right?

Remember that parents have figured out what their kid will be like and what they’ll do. They have colleges and careers picked out far in advance. These students you’re ministering to have ideas of what they want to be but they’re often clouded and bogged down by pressure from everywhere. When you’re trying to plan for the future of your students remember that their choices are almost never their own.

This past weekend we honored the graduating class of 2013. These were the very students who started “The Freeway” with me. It was with mixed emotions that I shared with them some memories and some prayers I had for them over the past six or more years. I’m proud of many of them and excited to see their futures blossom. I was also sad to think of those I didn’t see there anymore. Some who just didn’t make it through the storm our church had been through. Some who have gone on with their families to different churches. Some who were following a different path and have maybe left “The Freeway.” The one thread they all share is that the choices they’ve made to this point were influenced highly by their family and their home life.

Youth Pastor: Don’t let the decisions of your students allow you to question the dream you had for your ministry. Don’t forget the influence the parents will have on the future of your students. Use the time you have with students to minister to their families as well.

Parent: Remember to use your influence to further the dream of your student. Don’t be like me and let your expectations of what they should be like keep you from seeing who they really are. They’re unique, made in the image of God, and they’ll make you proud if you let them know you believe in them.

Congratulations to all of our and your graduates, and of course, thanks for reading!

I know the song: “I know who holds the future and I know who holds my hand.” It’s true that God is in control of our future but the future of the students you minister to is shaped by the parents more than by anyone. I see three ways parents help determine the future of their student.

1. Family Cycles or Schemes

A few years ago, I attended a wonderful seminar called “The Ancient Paths” in which we were taught about being delivered from some of the things in our lives that separated us from God or kept us from fully accepting His righteousness. In this seminar, they spoke of the cyclic way that generations of families tend to live. If your mom gave birth to you out of wedlock, you are most likely to give birth out of wedlock. If your father was an alcoholic, you’re likely to have a drinking problem. The list goes on. It is too obvious to ignore, but until these few sessions, I hadn’t heard it explained.

The speaker called it the “Schemes of the Enemy.” He shared how Satan doesn’t exist everywhere at once, he isn’t an all knowing god. He’s a created being like any other angel or you and I. He shared that the devil only took one third of the angels with him to hell so his resources aren’t unlimited. The way the enemy fights against the will and plan of God for mankind is by setting up schemes and letting them play out. Like the proverbial snowball effect, we live our lives as echos of the ones living before us, repeating decisions and living life in the only way we know how. The only way we’ve seen it lived.

These schemes or cycles that families live in are some of the hardest things to break. As a youth minister, how many students have you tried to help only to have them repeat the mistakes of their parents. We must encourage them to break the cycle. Help them see the scheme of Satan for what it really is and make better choices.

2. Parenting Methods and Styles

When my three year old daughter loses her mind because she doesn’t get her way it’s often comical. I don’t laugh though. I bite my lip and resist. I do this because I know that even though a three year old jumping up and down crying because she wanted a brownie instead of a carrot is hilarious and kind of cute. When a thirteen year old responds that way to not being able to go to that party, it’s not cute. It’s a problem. So instead of laughing, I train my child for the future. I tell her to go to her room until she can calm down and then she can come talk to me like “a person.” After a few minutes of screaming in her room, she usually chills out, comes out, and we talk it out. She still has to eat the carrot though.

No, I’m not a perfect parent and I slip up, but my point is that parents must raise their children for the future. We have to think ahead. Predict what the behavior they’re exhibiting now will lead them to later. A defiant five year old becomes a defiant fifteen year old if it’s not handled along the way. Parents shape and mold the attitude their child will have some day by what they let them get away with. It’s something I see more and more after almost eight years of ministry. Some of the crazy kids I saw in kids church years ago are now in my youth services. Half of them are awesome, and I love having them, and the other half, well, they shouldn’t have been given so many brownies when they were three.

(To be continued Wednesday in Mid-Week Ministry)

I was ready to blow you away with some new information and statistics about parents and such but then my wife wrote an amazing post on her blog so I’m going to link to that and let you enjoy…here goes:

http://www.inatickle.com/outwit-outlast-outplay/

The best parenting advice we have ever received.

The following is content I posted a couple of years ago. I am posting it again to begin a thought process for our Wednesday posts themed “Mid-Week Ministry.”The plan is to post something every week that can be helpful and encouraging for youth ministers who want to do things differently when ministering to teens and their families.

Countering the Culture (February 2011)

I’ve been involved in some part of youth ministry for the past 6 years. I have learned a lot. I learned some great ways to minister, I’ve learned a few things to never try again. I’ve learned from my mistakes and from others’ mistakes. I’ve even learned a few things from reading or listening to other ministers or students. There is something, however, that I am beginning to figure out on my own. I had been leaning toward this concept for a while when I stumbled upon the perfect terminology for it while reading “When Kid’s Hurt” by Chap Clark and Steve Rabey.

In a chapter about teen stress buried in one of the little sub content boxes was the sentence: “Youth ministry should be counter-cultural.” That was it! That was the concept I had been developing my ministry into–Counter-cultural youth ministry. Maybe I’m just behind but I had never heard that before. All I ever read or hear is how your ministry should be relevant to the culture, you should minister to teens in the same way society gets their messages across to them. I understood that concept, and for years, I ministered that way. It wasn’t until I saw the downfalls of this concept that I began looking for something else.

Downfalls to relevancy.

First of all, I noticed how far behind the church always is when it comes to relevancy. The church, youth ministry included, is always reactive to culture. What this means is they are constantly trying to keep up. Just listen to popular Christian music. It’s no coincidence that the most popular christian songs this year sound like the popular secular music of last year. The church is always playing catch up! Teens see this, not as relevant, but as lame. They don’t want to go to a ministry that’s always trying to keep up. They want something fresh, real, and true.

The second and worst downfall that I’ve seen to ministries trying to be culturally relevant can be summed up in one phrase: “Relevancy for the sake of relevancy is simply a lie.” When ministries research pop culture to stay relevant they are just looking for ways to lie to their students about what they’re into. Just because you play “Boom Boom Pow” before your services doesn’t make you relevant. It makes you a faker. Teenagers see right through the facade. They don’t see a cool ministry, they see a ministry trying to copy society. I submit that they are not interested in that at all.

The last and perhaps most devastating downfall is the shallowness of it all. When your main goal is to be relevant, the true goal gets lost in all of that extra effort. It’s my opinion that teenagers don’t need more of what they get in society. They need something they can’t get anywhere else. They need truth, and they need it wrapped, not in relevancy, but in love, acceptance, and more truth.

What does counter-cultural ministry look like?

To be truly counter-cultural in your ministry, you must remember a few things:

1. Teens are busy.

The culture of teens is now a busy busy rollercoaster. They are always on the move. Always going. They are never slowing down to rest or reflect on who they are or what they were put on the planet for.

A ministry that approaches services as a non stop, high impact, entertainment extravaganza are just furthering this area of teen culture. I believe that if we allow time to slow down and be less concerned with the non-stop excitement of our services, we will see students begin to develop a deeper understanding of who God is and who they are called to be.

You can slow down in many ways, one of the ways we’ve done is splitting our worship into two sets. It provides a focus on the faster “praise” songs and then some time in between for announcements and welcome from me then a separate focus on the slower “worship” set. This separation puts a pause in the action long enough for students to hear from me and do their “huddle groups” (small group time we do during every service.)

2. Teens are dependent on media.

I don’t have to say anything to prove this fact. We see it all around us every day. They’ve even coined phrases for it. You can’t just say tv time anymore, there are too many options so parents now are encouraged to limit “screen time.” With media getting more and more available it seems that youth ministries have become as media dependent as the teens they are ministering to. Services are packed full of videos and every event teens do is on youtube. Music is loud, lobbies are loaded with video games and computers for browsing the internet. Teens step out of a media craving culture into more of the same. This seemed like a good idea a few years ago but I personally saw it stunt the growth of one of our main goals in our ministry. The goal of connection.

When students are focused on media, they see no room or time for connection to each other, the ministry, or much less God. Students come because they can play XBox or browse youtube and then once service begins they act crazy and can’t listen because you aren’t presenting worship or the sermon in small two minute segments.

Just last weekend we removed our game-room and replaced it with ten couches for lounging, connection, and relationship building. I’m excited to see the reaction of our students, but most of all the strengthening of relationships within our ministry. Then, hopefully once students come into service, they are wound down from their media intensive lives so that they can listen to an actual human play music or speak to them without going through media withdrawals.

3. Society tells parents to stay out of the teens’ way.

“Teenagers need their privacy. They need to be left alone to make mistakes and be loved from a distance.” This is the cry of much of our society. Parents are told that every negative behavior teens are into is just a part of growing up and that it’s best to just let them develop and learn from it.

A counter-culture youth ministry will do the oposite of this. The focus of this ministry will be to involve the parents in as much of the ministry as possible. Put them into prayer times and altar services. Let them know what events are coming up so they can get involved or at least attend. Tell them about fundraising so they can get on board and help their student accomplish their goal.

One of my strongest beliefs is that the parent is (or at least should be) the biggest influence on a teens life. As a ministry, we should be encouraging that influence, not fighting against it.

Be Counter-Cultural.

You can consider this a rant, an opinion, an interesting concept, or a challenge. Either way I encourage you to take a look at how you do ministry. There are so many things wrong with this society that we’ve tried to be relevant to. I fear that too much relevancy to society will make us irrelevant to changing lives. So, find out what you do that counters the culture and do more of it. Look at what you do that is just for the sake of relevancy and see how you can convert it to a true, counter-cultural ministry tool.

It is my firm belief that if we minister with the purpose of countering the culture we will see students who are far from God become whole in Christ.

Welcome to Mom and Dad Monday:

Advice comes from everywhere. You read books, blogs, magazines, Facebook posts, and whatever else you can get your hands on. You get ideas and tips from your friends, from your parents, and from your spouses parents. You get advice for anything: recipes, car repair, home remedies, even big stuff like your spirituality. We live in a culture inundated with advice, and we soak it all in. Until it comes to raising our children.

Why is parenting our sacred cow? We resist the temptation to tell people that their baby isn’t that cute when they’re born. You know you’ve done it, you walk into the hospital room and see that alien monkey hybrid wrapped in a blanket and think “Holy Lord, what sin did they commit to have a baby that looks like that?” But you SAY, “Bless your heart…he’s so…little.” It doesn’t stop there. when that kid is a terror and pokes your kid in the eye you think, “If you’d spank your child every now and then, he wouldn’t do crap like that.” But you SAY, “Oh geez, kids are kids, you know.” And laugh it off. Then when they’re teens, you tell your kids to stay away from their kids not realizing they’re probably saying the same thing about your teens to theirs.

Parents DO NOT like advice. We all have ideas of how other people’s kids should behave and would behave if you had “just 24 hours with them.” But we wouldn’t mention it to those parents for a thousand bucks. That’s the right decision too. Most parents aren’t ready to hear what they need to do to help their child behave better. Can you blame them? Of course not. When that baby was born those parents were filled with all the hope and expectation in the world. Now that their kid is behaving like something out of Planet of the Apes they don’t know what to do. They’re lost, stuck, sunk, and frustrated all at the same time. A parent struggling to control their kid is one of the saddest people you could ever meet.

All this frustration and almost no desire to get help. I have proof. As a youth minister, I’ve tried to involve parents in many ways–one of which is a parent conference. We were even able to bring in a pretty well known (locally) family ministries speaker. Our attendance was abysmal. When we hold meetings before events, I struggle to get half of the parents of students who have signed up to attend those meetings. It’s a really strange pattern, the ones who need help the most very rarely seek it out. And when they do seek it out, the advice they receive is often rejected or excuses are made.

On this, the first installment of Mom and Dad Monday, I’d like to challenge all of us to begin taking advice when it comes to our kids. No, everyone doesn’t know your kids like you do and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe an eye that sees what they’re doing and not why can help you see that something has to be done. Is it possible that we are blinded by our love for our children? Could we maybe be making excuses for our kids because when they are having trouble it feels to us like our own failure? Maybe it does feel this way but the truth is that wisdom comes from council. People who know what they’re doing, have been there before, or have a different or new perspective on your kids can help in so many ways. Let’s decide to listen. Let’s take advice. Let’s become better parents.

What parenting advice have you received that has helped you?

Do you have someone you go to for advice? If so, who?

Answer in the comments below, and we’ll see you on Wednesday!

Actually, I think the problem is that we don’t ask. We often get caught up with the idea that youth group is a place for students to be away from the parents. I don’t think that should be the case. If you read the last few posts of my blog, you understand how I firmly believe that God’s plan is for parents to be the major spiritual influence in the lives of their kids. If they’re going to be that, why wouldn’t they be involved in the places their kids are being ministered to? Well, I firmly believe they should be.

I haven’t always felt this way, in fact there was a time when I preferred young adults as leaders in my ministry. But now being almost 30 years old and having children of my own, I see the importance of the parental influence in the student ministry I’m in charge of. How else will I know what’s going on in students lives? How else will parents know what’s going on in the ministry? I can try to have meetings, I can try to put calendars and bulletins in their hands, but is that enough? In my experience, it is not.

There are always things that need to be done. I’m recently in the process of developing jobs for the leaders in our ministry. I will create new jobs to get parents involved. I will call up parents when we need to paint. I will call a mom when it’s time to fold booklets. I’m not ashamed anymore. I need to spend time with parents just as much as I need to with their kid. In fact, according to part 3 of my last series of posts. It’s the most important thing I can do. I can use those opportunities to share the heart behind our ministry and get them to buy in with the vision. It’s amazing what parents will make their kids do if they believe in it. No joke, they’ll force their kid to be at your next event if they truly believe it’s going to benefit them. How will they know the value of your event if they aren’t invested in it? What better way to increase your ministries credibility than spending one on one time with them working for the ministry together?

Parent, this is a win win situation! Yes, the youth pastor is going to rope you in to “buying in” to their ministry but is that a bad thing? I submit that it is not. You need to know the guy/girl who is ministering to your teen. It is so easy to know what your student should benefit from in youth services if you have a relationship with the guy who leads them. You go to your parent/teacher conferences and open houses and coaches meetings, right? If it’s important to get to know the people teaching and coaching your kid, how much more important is it to know the one who is ministering to them for at least that one hour a week? I’ll tell you, it’s SUPER important. Get involved! You’ll be glad you did.

Youth Pastor: How do you involve parents? Have you seen your ministry benefit from it?

Parent: What do you do to help your teen/child’s minister? Are you involved with your teenager’s youth group or your child’s kid’s church or class? What benefits have YOU seen?

Answer in the comments below and check back for Monday’s post.