Tag: expectations

  • Teenagers are incapable… until they aren’t

    Gabrielle Douglas is 16 years old. This week she won 2 gold medals at the London Olympic games. She will be a junior in high school this year.

    Missy Franklin is 17 years old. She also won 2 gold medals in London and owns 2 world records. She’s entering her senior year in high school.

    If you want to see a few more stories about teenagers in the Olympics, The New York Times has a page dedicated to the endeavor.

    The Capability vs. Expectations Gap

    As a lover of teenagers universal and an often observer of their amazing capabilities— I enjoy the irony that America will celebrate Gabby and Missy’s victories as if they were their own daughters…

    • We acknowledge their physical prowess.
    • We acknowledge their dedication.
    • We admire the grace at which they handle their athletic events and the pressure of the world stage.
    • We admire the maturity in their handling sudden fame.

    We each easily attribute downright adult descriptions on teenage Olympiads. 

    This is ironic because from a societal perspective we don’t expect teenagers to be capable of such adult-like qualities. I mean… they can’t possibly be adults at 15-16-17, can they?

    3 examples of this irony…

    Raise expectations, friends. Most teenagers can do just about everything you can do… maybe better than you can. Let’s not just celebrate teenagers who hoist gold medals, let’s celebrate the capabilities of the teenagers in our lives.

    And let’s kill agism, OK? Let’s judge people by what they can do instead.

    Discover what their coaches know: When you expect someone’s very best, you’ll get it. When you expect nothing, you’ll get it.  

  • 4 Ways We Hold High School Students Back

    Photo by Megan Ann via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    In reading Robert Epstein’s book, Teen 2.0, the one thing that fundamentally shifted my thinking is that adults lament about childish behavior while simultaneously funding and celebrating it.

    Politely, Epstein says we have infantalized our youth. Maybe we need to take it a step further? We treat our young like pets.

    4 Quick Examples to Illustrate that Point

    1. We spend bagillions of dollars on the Rule of Law and Regulation of Teenagers: In the last 40 years we have created an immense amount of laws aimed at regulating behavior of those under 18. We force them to go to school. We regulate where they can go when school is out. We regulate when they can be out. We tell them what they can wear. Who they can be with. What they can ingest or not ingest. Epstein did a study comparing inmates to high school students and found that men in prison have more freedoms. But magically, despite 18 years old not being a significant number in physical or emotional development, we have decided that those over 18 can do whatever they want.
    2. We Celebrate Low Expectations: We have removed adult expectations from high school students. They can’t be bothered to even get out of bed in the summer, right? Forget the fact that physically high school students are near the pinnacle of their strength and can outwork their parents. Forget the fact that the adolescent brain is mostly ready to tackle adulthood, ever seen what happens when a teenage son asks his mom to help him with his physics homework? And forget the fact that teenagers can do amazing things. (Like say, discover a cancer treatment for a high school science fair) Instead of ramping up expectations for them, in our wealth, we remove expectations of productivity. We even limit the ability to have expectations of our high school students. Instead, we slyly whine about our teenage children at home and what they won’t do. Or a post-college student who has moved home but can’t find the right job.
    3. We have an unlimited spending appetite for teenage sexuality: Think of how many billions of dollars are spent annually preventing teen pregnancy? BILLIONS! But not nearly as many billions as are spent celebrating adolescent sex in advertising, television, movies, etc. Our culture has an obsession with adolescent sexuality. It’s taboo. And that taboo drives our spending on both prevention and celebration. Since we’ve labeled high school students as children, this forces a label that their sexual activities as irresponsible. Meanwhile everything in pop culture celebrates adolescent virility and fertility. (Television, music, news media, movies, etc.) Physically, the average 16 year old is completely ready for sex. But if that 16 year old wants to have a serious, long-term relationship? Oh heck no! We need to prevent it. We argue that they aren’t emotionally ready for a sexual relationship. (Hypocritically, we were but deny that even happened. And our great-grandparents married at 16 and had our grandparents at 19. Today’s teen pregnancy tragedy was yesterday’s normal sexual expectation.) Meanwhile, our Christian constructions argue for waiting until marriage… something which we’ve delayed almost 10 years on average in just 100 years! The average first marriage for a woman in the U.S. is now 26.5 years old.
    4. We Spend a Lot Keeping Teenagers Out of the Workplace: Up until the Great Depression most adolescents didn’t finish high school and entered the trades, farming, or a factory to work full-time. For the most part that is now illegal. We’ve regulated the types of and length of employment adolescents can participate in. We’ve created a false expectation that every student should go to college. (A notion our economy cannot support.) But we’ve created a multi-trillion dollar industry called compulsory high school we can’t bear to let go of or adjust in all of its disfunction. Instead, we now expect that students won’t go to work, earn money for their families, or otherwise contribute because they will perpetually get education for things they don’t want to study. We expect them to consume. And we’ve created industries around entertaining them so they have something to do while not working or not learning. (Sports, video games, summer school, camps, etc.)

    Is it no wonder why this period of adolescence has extended from 4-5 years in the 1940s to 13-14 years today? 

    Maybe it is time we reverse this trend? Maybe we need to start by getting out of the way and allowing adolescents to become adults?

  • Let Grace be our language

    Is grace enough for you?

    Maybe I’m a cynic but I don’t think grace is a hallmark of a lot of Christians. We’re too busy having unrealistic expectations for one another and then wallowing in the disappointment of failed relationships.

    I’m too busy judging you for judging me for grace!

    Let’s get past this oddity of evangelical culture and descend into the heart of what we believe.

    We’re all perfectly imperfect. We need to expect imperfection from the people around us while individually, through the power of Jesus, trying to make our live more like Jesus. Not to celebrate it. But build it into our expectations for one another.

    I sin. I am messy. I hate things about my nature. Loathe even. I sadden myself with my sinfulness. Sometimes I disgust myself.

    Failure is a part of our walk with Christ. Some would say it is the beginning of our walk with Jesus. It’s part of being a leader. It’s part of maturing. It’s part of learning.

    You simply cannot walk with Jesus in a state of false perception of yourself, your mess, and your unique ability to do the wrong thing at the wrong moment.

    Think about it like this…

    The whole reason God created Eve was not for a sin bringing playmate. It was because the Father looked at his creation and said, “Its not good for man to be alone.”

    There is no more alone place than in a broken relationship. Conversely, there is little more powerful on this world than a grace-filled relationship with two people.

    Here’s my encouragement

    Every day you are given the choice between grace and judgement. In all things, chose grace.

  • Haiti Expectations and Fears

    Last night, Kristen and I collapsed into bed. We have finally finished the physical preparations for our trip to Haiti. And now, as we laid in bed, our hearts began to sink into the reality that we are doing our first missions trip together as a couple. (Well, not including co-leading youth group trips)

    I’m kind of a mish-mash of emotions and thoughts.

    Expectations

    • I’m expecting to see some progress. Recent reports of debris clearing. And even just that people are burning the garbage… good signs.
    • I’m expecting to be in awe of the machine that Adventures in Missions has put together. My first trip in February, AIM had only been on site for a few days and they had already started work on setting things up to bring in teams to help with relief efforts. It’s a miracle, in my opinion, that they can host trips so soon… much less the 50+ people who will be on site next week. This thing is going to be like an iceberg, we’re only going to see the part above the water.
    • I’m expecting to see pockets of despair. Back in February, it was all joy and hope. But 5 months later– and not a significant change in things–and I’m expecting people are going to be very impatient. Based on Phil’s reports… tensions are right below the surface. Fortunately, it seems as though we’ll be doing most of our work in the same neighborhood day after day. That will go a long way from us being a target.
    • I’m expecting God to open my eyes to new things. I’m hardly an expert at relief work. And I’m definitely not an expert at all things Haiti. Let’s be honest… I’m a dude with a keyboard and a camera who tells stories.
    • I’m expecting to serve and work. Last time was kind of a survey deal where we saw a lot, met a lot of people, and helped out in spots. This isn’t the same type of trip. I’m hoping to grunt it out.
    • I’m expecting to see Kristen in her element. A missionary kid with a degree in international missions on a short-term missions trip.
    • I’m expecting for this trip to feel out of control. Not in a dangerous way. Just in an uncomfortable way.
    • I’m expecting to have my worldview rocked… some more. Earlier this week I shared in a Facebook message that at some point this Spring I had to “turn off Haiti” so I could get back to life. I don’t know what God has in store for me this time. But I’m getting ready.
    • I’m expecting our team to be fun. It’s kind of nuts that most of these people have never met. All along I just kind of depended on God to orchestrate who would go. Let me tell you, I was not able to talk anyone into this trip! The people who are going all want to go… bad!

    Fears

    It was one thing to walk into the last trip completely blind. This time I have some sense of what I’m walking into… that brought about a lot of fear.

    • I’m afraid of the heat. The only other time I can think of being in this type of heat was the summer of 1995 in Chicago. I tend to dehydrate easily, so I’ll be drinking water and Gatorade constantly. (Daily heat index to hover at 115 F)
    • I’m afraid of leading this team. It’s one thing for me to go with a group. I’m super nervous about having put this group together. If it sucks it feels like its on me.
    • I’m afraid of feeling so helpless… again. The issues in Haiti are so big that they are overwhelming. I know logically I need to just look at what we are doing and not think about the bigger picture. But you can’t help seeing the bigger picture and not feeling compelled to do something.
    • I’m afraid I’m going to feel like some sort of sick tourist. It was a little different last time as I was going to tell stories. I still want to capture stories. I just have to figure out a way to do it without sensationalizing anything.
    • For some reason, I’m freaked out to have Kristen on this trip. I wouldn’t label this trip as “risk taking.” But it is definitely not risk aversion.
    • I’m afraid I’ll lose my patience. When I get tired I get cranky. Gosh, I hope I can keep it together.

    Let’s face it. I’ve got a lot of fears and a lot of expectations.

    In fact, a big thing I’m thinking about over the next 2 days is… lower your expectations.

    My prayer for the week has been… Lord, allow us to step into your river of mercy and be the hands and feet of Jesus.

  • Realistic Expectations for Church Staff

    realistic-expectation

    Most of my adult life I have been on church staff. But the last 13 months I have not worked at a church and it has provided me with a wealth of insights into what I thought people expected out of me versus what I expected out of myself. I think people working at churches have unrealistic expectations for their churches just like the people in the pews have unrealistic expectations for what their church staff should be doing.

    With that in mind, here are some of my realistic expectations of my church staff: (Please note I lump all staff together as equals.)

    – Remind me of the churches vision. Let’s face it, it’s hard out there raising a family and earning a living. That makes it very easy to forget what the church is all about. My default vision for the church is always going to be “meet MY needs.” If the churches vision isn’t about my default, I depend and expect the staff to remind me what it is. In our church’s case I need to hear and see tangible manifestations of the church’s vision… bridging cultures, bridging hearts.

    – Teach me from where you are in your walk with Jesus. We live in an age where Christians have access to the very best communicators of biblical truth on the planet with a single click of the mouse. Consequently, I think church staff feel compared to these other ministries all the time. But I don’t expect my church staff to be John Piper, Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, or any of the others. Those are all great leaders and I am thankful for them… but I expect my church staff to lead me locally right from the pages of what God is doing in their lives. Jesus didn’t select those people to be here in my neighborhood! But He did select this staff for this time– and I know Jesus is smart enough to place the right people in the right places.

    – Be professional. I know church staff feel an all encompassing, mind-swirling, burdening pressure to be all things to all people. The dumbest thing you can do as church staff is to buy into that lie. It’ll cost you joy and sanity! I don’t expect church staff to meet my every whim. I don’t even expect the staff to “be my friend.” Their role in my life is to be a spiritual leader– if the friendship thing happens that is fine– but it’s not an expectation I have. And I never expect their families to be at an event, or even Sunday morning worship. I do expect the staff to be prepared, to lead their ministries effectively, to be on time, to be courteous, and to represent the church to the community.

    – Set the pace. I am always leery when I see church staff buy into the now, NOW, NOW!!! mode. I just don’t think that is a sustainable pace. Very few churches in this world can sustain exponential growth. Moreover, I expect that each church has a “right size” when we should stop thinking about growing and start thinking about planting. I mourn the satellite movement. It’s as if they got the idea they should plant but don’t have the nerve to cut the strings from the communicator… as if the lead communicator is the reason 4,000 people show up to church!

    – Lead movements, not programs. It’s easy to focus on a tanglible program as a church staff. “This week I am leading VBS” or “This week I am taking students on a short-term ministry project.” While those are great, I don’t give a rip if they happen or not. If my church staff told me they were killing children’s Sunday School because it wasn’t helping them bridge cultures and hearts with City Heights… I’d be cool with that. The reason is that I have an expectation that the church will focus on a Gospel-driven movement in my community. Programs can be the enemy of people movements.

    – Remain biblically qualified. When I look at 1 Timothy 3 I don’t see anything unrealistic. I expect those things to be boundaries. Don’t whore around. Don’t be a sloppy drunk. Don’t blow money. Don’t cause trouble. Don’t be a hot head. Be a decent teacher. Be respectable and have an open heart.

    With all of that said, I think it becomes clear what our role is as the body. My job is to keep my expectations reasonable. And when my expectations aren’t met, my job is to go back and check my expectations against what is reasonable. As I look over this list I kept saying to myself, “This list needs someone to be the gatekeeper!” Each church needs a person who knows the staff intimately enough to help them establish boundaries. The church needs that same person to be an advocate for the staff to the church at-large, as well. It’s almost as if Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, knew what he was talking about.

    What are expectations you have for church staff that are different from my list? If you are on church staff, is my list helpful or harmful to you?