The Best Thing You Can Do for the World’s Children

Christianity Today has published one of the most startling landmark articles in many years. If you read nothing else about helping children this year, this rather lengthy article should be on the top of the list.

Let me summarize this long study. Dr. Bruce Wydick is an Economics professor at the University of San Francisco. In this article, he tells the story of several graduate students who have completed a five-year study looking into the effectiveness of child sponsorship programs in the Developing World. You can read the entire study here.

As I read this, several details stood out strongly:

• These graduate students sought to study a number of agencies who provide money through sponsors. Only one organization agreed to be studied: Compassion International. That tells me several things. First, they are probably the only organization of this kind that keep their own records and were therefore comfortable with being studied. Second, the other organizations showed antipathy toward the idea of being studied, which means they are more afraid of their funding drying up (if the studies are not favorable) than they are in making sure they are being effective.
• The study concluded that children who receive sponsorship are up to 80% more likely to go to college and graduate than unsponsored children.
• Children who are sponsored are shown to have significantly better viewpoints on what they want to do for a living when they grow up. They also show higher levels of contentment in life and less pessimism about the future.
• Sponsored children have lower rates of suicide, depression and violence done against them.
• Sponsored children with unsponsored siblings are more than three times more likely to grow up to be the family’s primary bread-winner.

This study has been scrutinized by over a dozen universities since it was produced and each of them has ratified the methodology used. This means that at least as far as Compassion International in concerned, one of the best ways you can change the Developing World is to sponsor a child on a monthly basis. Nothing that we have yet seen even comes close.

What I Want My Sabbatical To Look Like

I have told many professionals I have counseled they should take a sabbatical about every 7-10 years. That is not only good psychological advice, it is great career advice. Anyone involved in helping people or educational endeavors gets stale and routine because of working with people so much.

Yet in all of my advice-giving, I have never taken a sabbatical. Shame on me.

Even this one was “forced” upon me by a superior and by my board. They saw some tell-tale signs of exhaustion that I had missed. Fortunately, I had a year to plan this trip with my wife; and in doing so, I have read many books and articles on the subject.

One of the first things every book said is to know WHY you are going on sabbatical. There are many possible reasons, and each person should establish theirs. Here are the most common possibilities:

• Rest
• Academic pursuit
• Writing
• Traveling and site-seeing
• Preparing for retirement
• Preparing for a change in career/job focus
• Spiritual pursuits
• Fun
• Reconnecting with family and friends

According to the magazine “Fast Company”, over 25% of companies in America now allow employees to take a sabbatical. Non-profit organizations allow over 35% of their workers to take a sabbatical of 3-6 months duration. Since this is becoming a common trend, I suspect that many people will be considering it in the years to come.

For my wife and I, we really have several goals during this time. For Kathy, she wants to finish up the research part of her Master’s Degree in Public Health Nursing. For me, I have been working on a book for the better part of two years. I have finished the rough draft, but now I need to get it ready to send in to a publisher. There is much to do. Each of us has dedicated two hours of every week-day during sabbatical to pursue these endeavors.

But there are four other goals I have for this time away. I have spent a year thinking about these things and these are the four that keep coming to the forefront.

1. Spiritual Growth: In helping other people to find a depth of discovery about God, I have run out of new paths to walk in my spirit. I want to find some fresh ways to stay in relationship with the God I love and serve. I have a number of

books that will help me do this. A friend of mine lent me a mini-guitar, small enough to fit into our gear, so I will use music to help me find this path. Jesus is waiting to spend time with me and both of us would be disappointed if I missed this opportunity.

2. Rest: Dr. William Dement in his book “The Promise of Sleep” says that each ten  year period we develop a sleep debt of several months. He teaches that we can only bring true health to our bodies if we get caught up. Kathy and I intend to get more than 8 hours a night. In fact, the first few days we have rented a room on California’s north coast. The room has no television or phone. We may not even get dressed.

3. Reading: Each of us has found a half dozen books to read that will feed our minds, hearts, emotions, passions and sense of humor. I can’t speak for Kathy’s list, but mine is an eclectic mix of authors and topics that will surely send me flying in all directions. (One of our stops along the way is Portland, OR…and we will be spending an entire day at Powell’s Books. I am sure I’ll blog from that humungous book store).

4. Travel/Service: We will be moving around a lot during this time. And part of what we want to do is serve. We won’t be doing counseling/nursing/pastoring per se, but even if we help someone by making a meal for them, that will feed the service part of our being. Combined with rest and spiritual development, this will be an essential part of our growth.

Pray for us as we launch into the unknown reaches our own limitations.

Pat Rob’s best Driscoll Imitation

There are many different ways to become well-known in this world. But for a preacher, the number of acceptable means to get your name in the public eye is smaller than with other people.

Or at least, it should be.

But there is a growing coterie of preachers/bible teachers/”evangelists” who have chosen a tried-and-true formula for notoriety. The number who do this is always small and always annoying to true followers of Christ.

The formula looks like this:

1. Make outrageous statements based on marginal Christian beliefs that owe more to popular opinion than the Bible.

2. Make even more outrageous statements to back up the first ones.

3. When cornered by the press, claim  you were taken out of context, or that the current culture of morality can’t accept the truth, or even that you meant something completely different.

A century ago, Aimee  Semple McPherson did this. Oral Roberts also practiced the same approach. Mark Driscoll is well on his way to eclipsing both of them for bombasticity.

But we should not forget Pat Robertson, whose 700 Club gave him ample visibility to make unwise statements. Just the other day he made another of his monumental blunders. You can read about it here:

In the program, Robertson is responding to a letter from a woman whose husband has had an affair. Here’s a short excerpt from the article:

Robertson responded to a woman identified as Ivy during Wednesday’s episode of “The 700 Club.” Ivy wrote, “We have gone to counseling, but I just can’t seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again?

Robertson’s co-host began to answer the letter when the one-time Republican presidential hopeful interjected with the “secret” to getting past the cheating.

“Stop talking about the cheating. He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man. O.K.,” Robertson said.

Robertson, in true misogynistic fashion lays covert blame on the wife. He tells her, ““Males have a tendency to wander a little bit, and what you want to do it make the home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander.”

So Pat R. is essentially saying, “This is just the way men are”, and “if you don’t make the home a perfect place to come to, you can expect him to act this way.” Implicitely, this makes it her fault.

He has unleashed a firestorm of criticism and just gives those who are leaving churches another justification for doing so.

This debacle underscores the dangers of having any Christian superstar preachers and teachers. It is better to be taught by those who aren’t looking for the spotlight and who count the ability to communicate with gentleness, love and Truth as more important than the motto “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right.”

20 Signs You Have OLD Geek Cred

Because you need to know there is a world of difference between the geek cred of the baby boomers and that of today’s generations, here is a list that shows you were there before the Internet exploded.

1. You Grokked before you could flirt. In fact, you still grok and can’t flirt
2. You punched cards to compile a computer program
3. You could make pictures using just x’s and o’s on a Telex printout
4. You can identify the difference between the sound a 2400 baud and a 14400 baud modem made.
5. You still own a 2400 baud modem somewhere in a closet
6. You completed a Rubik’s Cube without taking it apart or reading a book on how to do it
7. Some of your fingerprints are missing due to excessive amounts of airplane glue on the fingers during airplane construction all-nighters.
8. You’ve read LOTR more than 10 times before anyone had seen any of the movies.
9. You were in love with one of the following sci-fi heroines: Galadriel, Mennolly, Eowyn, Kahlan Amnell or Meg Murry.

10. You have used both an abacus and a slide rule

11. You can play and win at Go, Pente, Chess, and Axis and Allies.

12. You know what a Heathkit is and have put one together and found out they were missing some of the parts. Extra bonus credit if you had the missing parts lying around from other kits. Ultimate bonus if you made the extra parts.

13. You played Pong and thought it was the beginning of the Revolution. You were right.

14. You knew Radio Shack when it was Tandy and had more leather goods than electronic. You bought both.

15. Your first computer had less than 16K of motherboard memory.

16. You know that a 1K segment of memory does not have 1,000 bytes but rather 1024. And you know why.

17. You can count in hexadecimal.

18. You wanted to be a Tarnsman and enter Gor through some secret door. Alternatively, you wanted all the girls from Gor to enter your world through some secret door. Heck, you wanted any secret door.

19. Your parents would get nervous when you entered the room with a screwdriver in your hands. Bonus points if they instantly protected the television set.

20. You can recite the mnemonic for remembering the order of colors in any resistor. (e.g Bright Boys Rave Over Young Girls But Veto Getting Wed)

Solving Procrastination Today (Not Tomorrow)

I am distractible, impulsive, mildly lazy, and…..something else (I had it in my mind, but I thought about something I wanted to say later and then forgot it). Did I say distractible?

These qualities/handicaps are a perfect storm when it comes to procrastination. Not only do I secretly want to postpone everything until after I finish playing Scrabble online, I also can’t remember what it was I felt so passionate about five minutes before. In addition, in the middle of doing one thing, I get ideas about a half dozen  delicious activities while trying to avoid putting off something that is less delectable.

Do you see my problem? Do you relate to my problem? Of course you do. David Glenn, writing about surveys among post-graduate students (yes, those guys and gals who have actually proven they know how to work without watching re-runs of Lost as the hours tick closer to deadlines), says that 60% of these good students practice regular procrastination. In addition, the majority experience some level of self-loathing because of it.

This has got to stop. In my meanderings through 40 years of being in the work-force, I have actually learned to stay on task and complete necessary assignments. Years ago, I wallowed in self-loathing a lot, but now I rarely ever do it. I actually have learned how not to procrastinate – even with my personal proclivities in that direction.

Here’s how I do it. You may find better ways to handle yours, but at least you can start with mine. With procrastinators, a starting place is always a helpful place.

Six Ways to Avoid Procrastination

1. Do things as soon as you think about them. This one idea changed everything for me. I have so many things whiz through my mind like Space Invaders. I used to get annoyed at how whimsy my brain was – until I learned some of the ‘shooting star’ thoughts were actually things I had been avoiding. For instance: I was typing this article and realized (for the fiftieth time) that my screen is getting pretty gross with dust and fingerprints. I took that moment of personal disgust to propel myself out of the chair to find the cleaner and clean it off. Then, since I had the cleaner, I did the same thing to my tablet and smart phone. I had been putting off cleaning all three. This is what can happen if you leverage your distractedness and use it to approach a task you’ve been avoiding.

Yesterday in the grocery store, I saw some place-mats that looked perfect for the dining room table. In examining their price, I saw the word “Mat” and thought of a friend named Matt. I was supposed to call him and set up a lunch. So on the spot in the grocery store, I called. If I had left it until I was finished shopping, 3200 ideas would have already traveled through my mind, rubbing Matt off the face of this earth.

2. Understand why we don’t want to do certain things. Anything you have been consistently putting off is usually something you don’t want to do in the first place. The next time you put it off, ask yourself why you don’t want to do this. Then imagine what is the worst thing that could happen if you finish the task. Usually, it is our vague sense of impending problems that get in the way of doing work; and this procrastination actually cause more problems.

I normally don’t like talking on the phone. I like to see a person’s face and read their body language so I can catch the bigger picture. So I often procrastinate making phone calls. Recently, I asked myself what would be the worst thing that could happen if I did mis-read what they were saying. When that didn’t feel too onerous, I found it was easier to make the call.

3. Do things that have to be done a little at a time. At least half of the jobs I put off until later are huge. I get easily daunted by things that are going to take several hours to complete. This includes many household chores, some writing assignments and most errands that involve driving downtown.

But in particular, getting ready for major meetings often takes at least two hours. Unfortunately, setting aside strategy thinking causes me to miss some prime preparation thoughts; ideas that would have aided me if I had done them sooner. To prevent my lazy mind from taking over, I break the large tasks down into stages. Then I complete as much of the task as I can in a short period of time. The accomplishment of part of the goal makes it easier at a later point to come back to it.

This winter, I was building a retaining wall in the back yard for a new garden. It was so big in my mind that I literally put it off for a year. To overcome this, I considered the steps I would have to take to get it done. There were several dozen. But once I started to check off the completed items, I realized I was more than half done in so much less time than I feared.

4. Do unpleasant tasks at the same time every day. If there are items that have to be done regularly, get into a habit of doing them: a) early in the day b) at the same time every day. This is a type of behavioral conditioning and it works. Anything we do at the same time every day gets put into a mental place that brings a sense of satisfaction. There is even a payoff reward our brain gives us when we complete something that is done every day.

5. Do a bunch of tasks you’ve been putting off one right after another. The idea here is to get on a roll and when you get that sense of accomplishment, jump immediately into another one of your tasks that has lurked like a mocking sailor. For me, it has to do with phone calls again. Once I break the cell phone barrier and make the call, I ask myself what other calls need to be made. Since I always make lists of people I have to contact, one glance tells me who to call. When I have already called one person, the next person gets easier. At some point, our brain says “resistance is futile” and stops giving such a hard time.

6. Know how to keep lists. The best way to keep a list is to have it close to you at all times. I prefer an online list-maker called Wunderlist. It is free, available for every device and is the easiest program to use. And I look at it on average about a dozen times a day. It is always open on my computer, phone and tablet. And, when great ideas go through my head, I just pop it onto one of my lists and forget about it…until I read that list.

So what item is hanging over your head? Stop wallowing and put some of this into practice.

Adoption As An Evangelical Problem?

Adoption As An Evangelical Problem?

Ed Stetzer helps to address a problem that may not be a problem. To summarize:

1. According to writer Kathryn Joyce, some adoption agencies use their auspices to traffic third-world children.

2. Evangelicals adopt children overseas more than the average population.

3. Joyce sees connections between those two items; others do not.

Read it yourself and be informed.

A Look at Suicide: An Outsider’s View

By age 12, I thought about a lot of morbid things and, regrettably, these included thoughts of suicide. I was both depressed and full of anxiety, and the thought of ending my life gave me a sense of power over events and a promise of relief from my inner turmoils. I even made a few plans on how to do it, though I never carried any of them out.

By age 13, I never thought about suicide again. I was fortunate. Many are not.

From Roger Establet, and his book “Suicide: The Hidden Side of Modernity” I learned I would have fit into the prototypical suicide demographic had I gone ahead with it. I was male (men commit suicide 4 times as often as females), I was young, and I had an alcoholic parent. The only demographic I didn’t fit was the birth order: More suicidal males are the youngest among the siblings. I am the oldest.

Three weeks ago, one of my childhood friends contacted me and let me know his youngest son had taken his life. Two weeks ago, I had lunch with a college friend who told me one of our professors had taken his life after finding out he had cancer. This past weekend, one of America’s best-known pastors announced to their congregation that his son had committed suicide.

This horrific subject of suicide rears its head in the forefront of my brain again.

One of my closest colleagues experienced the agony of his son’s suicide ten years ago. The last time we talked, it was just as painful as year one.

In the 33 years I have been a counselor, two of my clients took their own lives. The first was a 42 year old woman with a lifetime history of depression and suicide attempts. The second was a 27 year old man who had kicked a cocaine habit, but was arrested for possession a year later in a bizarre circumstance. Out of shame for how this would look to his family and friends, he hung himself in jail.

Both suicides made me want to give up counseling. Even though I resisted this thought, both lives convinced me I needed to understand as much about suicide as I can. Yet, I found very few helpful resources on the subject. There is good reason for this.

Only the dead know what really happened inside of them. And they aren’t talking. If we could just ask them to describe the downward cycle right before they ended it all, we might know how to prevent this.

Yet no one wants to talk about suicide. Very few people feel they can ask the questions that niggle at our brains. Even fewer will allow their emotions to surface when we discuss why and how someone took their lives. Why is that? Do we all fear somehow by talking about it we will dishonor the person or their family?

Perhaps we all fear the power that suicide vainly offers us to end all our miseries. And we all have some misery at some time.

I was asked many years ago to officiate at the funeral of a police officer who had shot himself. I had actually been called on the scene of his death as the police arrived, primarily to support the mom and step-daughter who were part of our church community. The step-daughter and the man had been fighting. He excused himself, went upstairs, took his service revolver and ended his life.

In preparation for the funeral, I met with his family. He and his four brothers were all police officers. This was the second brother who had taken his life. I asked their permission to get direct and serious with everyone at the funeral. I looked the other three brothers in the eye during my homily and told them how selfish the act of suicide is and can be. I wasn’t being unsympathetic; I was trying to prevent a third suicide.

Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point” highlights a sociological study done in Micronesia in the 1970s. Suicide on that tiny chain of islands was almost non-existent before a particular date. After that date, for ten years, Micronesia had the highest teen suicide rate of any country in the world. Then, just as quickly as it started, suicide was rare again. As Gladwell studied the statistics, he found that near the beginning of the epidemic, two very prominent young men had committed suicide. This led to a rash of copycat behavior and many young people died copying these examples.

One of the things that Gladwell concluded is that suicide is one of life’s most difficult decisions; but unfortunately, it gets easier to make if people you know have done it.

In 1995, in Kalispell, Montana, 18 teens made a suicide pact with each other. They had a crazy notion they would die and then haunt each other’s funerals and get even with their enemies. Anyone who broke the pact would be haunted for the rest of their lives. Four of the students actually took their lives and then one of the still-living students spilled the beans to her parents. The entire town was shaken to the core. Pastors, counselors, social workers and teachers were brought in from a great distance to counsel every student at that high school of 1800. We were trying to prevent an epidemic.

Some of my colleagues interviewed the surviving girls who signed the pact. Strangely, these girls did not have a bad life. They were not depressed or particularly angst-filled (at least, not more than any other teen). They had signed the pact because they wanted to be part of something esoteric and supernatural. They were toying with eternity and knowing that others were joining them made death less scary. Unfortunately, the real death of four friends struck them with an emotional punch. They couldn’t go through with it.

But they still had contemplated it. And that is the danger of suicide in a culture: Once one person takes that route, it gets marginally easier for others to do the same. That is why I preached the message I did at the police officer’s funeral.

However, here is my point. Suicide comes in flavors and it would be good for us outsiders to understand that as we intelligently discuss it. To be helpful for your understanding of this real tragedy of people taking their own lives, let me give some reality checks about what may be happening inside a person who ends their lives.

1. Not all Suicide Is for the same reason. This excellent article from Psychology Today lists the six reasons people attempt suicide. To summarize, they come down to these:

• Depression
• Psychosis
• Impulsive behavior
• A cry for help
• A philosophical desire to die
• They made a mistake (as in, they didn’t intend for their action  to end their lives).

2. Not all self-destructive behavior is suicidal behavior. For instance, a girl who cuts herself with a razor blade may not be trying to kill herself. More likely, she is cutting herself to relieve stress by triggering endorphins when the pain starts. People sometimes like to hurt themselves to relieve a sense of shame also.

3. Mental illness is not a spiritual disorder or a sin problem. It is a malformation of the brain. We would never say a Down Syndrome child has a sin problem. They have a misjoined chromozomal pattern. Yet when a man has a Limbic system that has been malformed since birth, causing him to have depression and suicidal thoughts every day, we often associate this with a lack of faith or bad behavior. It is revealing how many times the family of suicidal men describe their lost loved ones as kind, thoughtful and moral. This is not the profile of a sin-obsessed person.

4. Some suicides are copycats. Having said that, the best thing for someone who is contemplating suicide, being spurred on by another person’s example, is to talk about it. Once it comes out of their minds and into the arena of discussion, it will sound differently to them.

5. Never call their bluff. If a person says they are thinking about suicide, it may be a call for attention. But it may not. Even the most skilled professionals are unable to tell the difference between a serious cry for help and a call for attention. If someone tells you they are thinking about suicide, ask them if they are willing to go to a professional for help. If they aren’t, ask them if they want to talk about it. NEVER, EVER say “Go ahead.”

6. Some suicide is rooted in selfishness; some is not. There is no way as an outsider to tell the difference. I suggest you don’t try.

7. Suicide is almost never the result of someone else’s actions. Romeo and Juliet aside, most people are not driven to suicide; it is completely their choice. It is a decision of course, but there are always alternatives. If you are one of that tragic group of people whose friends or family members have taken their lives, you may be tested by the thoughts of what you could have done to prevent it. Or, conversely, you may wonder if you were one of the causes. If you are even thinking that, it means you are not one of the causes.

8. Remember, you don’t see the world the way they see it. If you could see the world through the eyes of someone with psychosis, suicide may make sense. If mental illness had caused you to construct a psychological world where you are the superhero and your death would save hundreds of people, it looks noble, not meaningless. To wit: Do not try and evaluate someone who kills themselves. We do not have their internal point of view. Grieve for them certainly and find a way to move on. You will never fully understand.