For instance, last Sunday the person clicking through the song lyrics and scriptures during the morning service at my church was either high, unable to read, a high schooler, or all three. Sometimes the words never appeared. Sometimes they appeared late. Sometimes we were treated to the chorus during the verses. Eventually I just sang with my eyes closed, which had the double advantage of keeping me sane AND making me seem super spiritual.

To be fair, this rarely happens, and I found out later it’s because the team recently switched systems and is still working out the bugs. But that’s my point—I found that out because I made a beeline to one of our staff people after the service and offered to help.

So, a few weeks ago I wrote a post questioning the NACC’s current mission and calling for “an overhaul of messaging methods and branding.” I can’t fix the mission part, but I already spend hours creating blogs, email updates and social media for other organizations. When Ben Cachiaras, this year’s president, asked me to do the same thing for the NACC I was more than willing.

The 2010 convention has a really strong program, but not enough people know about it. A few months of me sending emails won’t reach everyone or convince everyone, but it’s a good start at spreading the word and, yes, being constructive instead of just constructively critical. (Full disclosure: I am being paid a little bit.)

So over the next week I’ll be developing a weekly eblast that will not only promote the convention but will link to resources: articles, blogs, and videos by the 2010 main speakers and workshop presenters. We’ll also be sharing some of this info via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I may organize a blog tour in April.

I’m willing to help, but we need you, too. Join our Facebook page and invite your friends. Follow us on Twitter and retweet our stuff. Subscribe to the YouTube page and pass along a video you find interesting. Leave your blog URL in the comments if you’d be willing to write something about the convention on your blog this spring (I’ll even send you sample copy!). And email me (jen@seejenwrite.com) if you want to be added to the weekly email list.

The NACC still needs to address some bigger issues, in my opinion, but I’m willing to help this much, this year. Are you?

This video by Christian comedian Tim Hawkins pokes fun at the homeschooling stereotypes—some, I’ll admit, that I share.

But while I have my own opinions, I don’t have my own kids, so I decided it was fair to hear from those who do.

I talked to four families, two who homeschool and two who don’t. Here’s a summary:


Pro
Although one of the generalizations often made about homeschooled kids is their lack of social adeptness, Byron Davis lists “socialization” as one of the top reasons he and his wife are teaching their son at home.

“My son, who’s 8, interacts with other kids every day, kids of different ages as well as adults,” he says. “We find he’s more comfortable working with older people than other kids his age are.”

Chris Smith agrees that his two first-graders receive plenty of interaction with other kids in the homeschool co-op he and his wife help lead at Englewood Christian Church. Several adults share teaching duties for the ten students ranging from 1st-6th grade.

“I don’t think the socialization objection is valid,” he says. “If people are teaching just their one or two children, just at their home, it may be more of an issue. A co-op is different, and most of the kids are also involved in other activities outside our school, like sports and art programs.”

Chris points out that he and his wife also intentionally engage with the families and kids in their urban neighborhood; this environment leads to the social growth of their children but has poor-quality schools that, in part, influenced their decision to homeschool.


Another common stereotype is homeschooled kids are isolated and sheltered from the world—and their parents want it that way because of the evil forces permeating our public schools.

Chris acknowledges this attitude does drive some parents. “Some of the homeschool agenda is driven from fear of what’s ‘out there,’” he says.

“But the bottom line is if we are in Christ, there is nothing to fear. That shouldn’t be the reason Christian parents choose to homeschool.”

Byron agrees. “We wanted to help our son develop a biblical worldview that is not afraid or sheltered from differing opinions, but is comfortable in thinking differently.”

Byron also says homeschooling can actually avoid this isolation from the “real world” because of its inherent flexibility for excursions out into that world. His son currently takes courses from college professors, studies music with a graduate student, learns about art from a professional artist and practices his Spanish with a native speaker.


That sounds WAY more fun than my school experience.

I love to learn and read but I hated school: every movement dictated by a bell or the precious hall pass, the EARLY mornings, the worksheets. Some of the homeschool critics point out this routine is preparation for the world of work, which is true but sad (and probably a major reason why I now work for myself, at home. Hmmm.)


Anyway, Byron and Chris believe homeschooling allows for better formation—both intellectual and spiritual.

“I think it instills a love for learning and supports creativity,” says Byron. “It also reinforces the value of lateral thinking, not just the linear sequential thinking so often taught. And I see homeschooling as an integral part of discipling my son. I love leveraging teachable moments.”

Chris focused on an even broader perspective.

“We think a lot of the educational process is formation into consumerism or nationalism,” he says. “We want our kids to be formed primarily by the church and the authentic community we find there.”


Not so pro
I label it this, instead of “con,” because most of these folks were fairly supportive of homeschooling done well.

But “done well” is huge.

“The homeschooling group in our church had strong leaders,” says Maribeth Pippenger, who worked as a teacher in the public schools for many years. “When parents decided to homeschool, one woman—who successfully taught all six of her own kids—would really challenge them to consider the huge time commitment and the work required. Not every parent is homeschool material, and that’s okay.”


Another friend, who requested anonymity “because I like being friends with my in-laws” chooses not to homeschool his four kids and questions not the subject matter homeschooling might teach, but the work ethic and attitude.

“I don’t always like work, but I still have to go,” he says. “I learned early on that sometimes you have to do things you don’t feel like doing. I’m not saying all homeschooling parents operate this way, but you’re not doing a kid any favors if he doesn’t learn self-discipline.”

Maribeth is even more direct. “Often these kids buckle under deadlines and competition,” she says. “They’re not used to either one.”


Both interviewees also mentioned the fear issue. Although both Maribeth and her husband Milt, who served as a school superintendent, tried to build relationships with the homeschooling families in their community, some parents did perpetuate the stereotype of isolation in response to a public school “agenda.”

“Some homeschoolers at our church looked at public schools as the enemy, and some families wouldn’t speak to me or Milt because we fraternized with the enemy,” Maribeth says. “We always approached our work as a mission field. Do not shoot the soldiers who are down in the trenches trying to be part of the solution!”

“No matter where kids go to school, eventually they are going to be exposed to other ideas and lifestyles,” says my anonymous friend. “My kids aren’t going to live at my house forever. I’d rather have them learn these things while I still have the influence as a parent to help them process their thoughts and choose Christian responses.”

“And I always liked having Christian kids in my classroom,” Maribeth says. “I wasn’t allowed to talk about my faith, but I taught art, much of which uses the Bible as subject matter. It was great to ask the class if they understood a piece and hear one of the kids share the whole biblical story.”


They also point out the public schools just do some things better. “I always told homeschoolers, ‘you are tax payers and you are entitled to bring your kids to school for anything you can’t do at home,’” says Milt. “Often they took advantage of higher level math classes, instrumental music or driver’s ed.”

“And there will always be public schools to help with therapy and learning enrichment for special needs children,” Maribeth says. “Now that we have a grandson of our own who needs that extra help, we are so grateful it’s there.”


My opinion
So after all this input from parents and educators, you really just want to know what the childless freelance writer thinks, right??

I think it depends on the specific parent and specific child.

I think parents must honestly evaluate their own ability to plan and present lessons, week after week after week. I think parents must honestly consider the personality and learning style of their child.

I think the decision must be made as an intentional part of a larger value system, as Bryon and Chris demonstrate, not as a reaction to perceived “evil” in the public schools.

I think parents who homeschool must not believe this one choice will protect their children from other influences.

I think parents on both sides of the issue should attempt to understand and even help each other.

I think both should involve their kids in a good youth group at church and other non-academic activities.

And I think that, while I may have benefited from kindergarten and first grade at home, my mom and I would have killed each other (love you, mom). Instead I went to public school, excelled academically, participated in extracurriculars, dated, and went to a top-rated college where I kept my faith. In other words, turned out just fine. And last year I stopped asking for a hall pass to visit the bathroom.

<====  Really?

Why just one small section of my hair is naturally wavy.

Voluntarily checking carry-on luggage.

Most of what my neighbors do.

Dry-clean-only pajamas.

Sororities. So with enough votes she’s your lifelong “sister”—without them she’s a nobody?

Couples who sit side-by-side instead of across from each other at restaurants.

Long nails, real or fake. How do these women get anything done?

Buying expensive baby clothes.

How men are brave enough to storm the beaches of Normandy with a canteen and a bowie knife but can’t initiate a ten minute conversation to break up with a girlfriend.

Enjoying winter.


Yes, there’s more.

Maybe (probably) I offended more than one of you, and that’s okay. It’s never the goal of any post, but why would anyone read a blog they always agree with?

(A brief reminder: the opinions in this blog are solely mine, NOT necessarily those of Christian Standard or Standard Publishing.)


I worked on staff at the NACC for five conventions (1998-2002) with two managing directors and two executive directors. Since then I’ve served as a Continuation Committee and Executive Committee member and planned last year’s “conference within a conference” for women. I also write for CS, of course, plus manage our “denomination’s” online directory and news site at CCToday.com.

So, I kinda know this movement, and I really know the NACC. If I offended you with my statement, at least I’m informed enough to make it.


The plain truth is that attendance at, financial support for and interest in the NACC continue to drop off. I could spend this whole post exploring the various reasons why (less institutional loyalty throughout our culture, growth of specialized and niche events, an “uncool” reputation) but I’m more interested in thinking about whether it matters, and what can be done.

Most of my cooler, hipper friends will say it doesn’t matter. I’ve written about this before—because there are so many other events offering amazing resources and access to the preeminent Christian leaders of our time, they ask, why do we need another one?

It’s true; the broader evangelical world offers tons of events, podcasts, videos, books, networks and relationships to help our ministries. Why should we care about this network, about these relationships?


It matters because everyone needs a tribe. I read Andy Stanley and listen to Tim Keller and watch Rob Bell and follow Carlos Whittaker but none of those guys took me aside last month to hear my story and offer encouragement and mentoring. It was someone in “our” churches who has known and worked with me for years, someone who had a history with me.

On a broader scale, the same is true for all of us who affiliate, however loosely, with the Restoration Movement. Without long-term teamwork and relationship, organizations like Christian Missionary Fellowship, Orchard Group, Church Development Fund and our colleges—not to mention many of our individual churches—would be less effective (or non-existent), and the kingdom would be smaller for it.


So connections matter, and for some of us that connection is found in the independent Christian churches. Great. But that happens all year long, and would happen even if the NACC died tomorrow. We really don’t need a convention with big speakers and exhibit halls and Babyland to work together.

Because it’s really not about the event, it’s about the mission.

And that’s what needs to change. Getting together for the sake of getting together isn’t enough.


The convention’s current decline happened not because people don’t attend conferences, but because this conference no longer has a clearly-defined mission.

Is it for leaders or entire families? If leaders, vocational, volunteer or both? It’s “the connecting place” but to what end? Who’s connecting? Why is it valuable? How are the connections different from the other ways people are already working together?

It’s a hard truth and those are tough questions, but they offer hope: if the NACC can identify its unique mission, if it can connect us while celebrating our independence, if it can become indispensable in helping us plant churches and bring the Gospel to Nairobi and educate a new generation of leaders, it will thrive. If it doesn’t, it not only will die, it probably should.


Ben Cachiaras, Senior Pastor at Mountain Christian Church and president of the 2010 convention, gets this and has planned this year’s convention with a focus on going “BEYOND.” Francis Chan, Rick Warren, Gene Appel, Brian Jones, and many others will push us to move out of our comfort zones and think more deeply about evangelism, discipleship, racial and justice issues and our own calling. (You can read more, including a great interview with Ben, on the CS site.)

Say what you will about the NACC, this is as strong a lineup as any conference out there. But it’s just one year.

One of the convention’s systemic problems is the lack of continuity caused by annual changes in executive and board leadership. To reverse the convention’s decline, we need a multi-year leadership team committed to one easily-articulated mission, an overhaul of messaging methods and branding, and the money that (in theory) follows mission to pull it off.


“Keeping up with [Jesus] means leaving certain things behind,” Ben wrote about his 2010 theme. “And those who dare follow him quickly discover Jesus always takes you to new places.” Some people who love the movement need to leave behind their outdated cynicism about the NACC and give this year a chance. But the convention itself must leave behind old glory days to discover a new identity. If it does, the results could be beyond exciting.

The real issue is climate change, and the current weather craziness could just as easily be proof of it as it could be proof against it. I don’t know and you don’t either because there is evidence both ways. But I know this—”global warming” doesn’t mean you never feel cold.

And I’m tired of it being a political issue instead of a scientific debate.

And I’m tired of the Christian/conservative kneejerk dismissal of it. (For the record, I’m tired of those on the other side, too.) Why is the prospect that we might actually be harming our world so threatening to these groups? No one’s blaming them for it.

That is all. (Although you can read more here.)

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone……….

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Neil Clark Warren must be laughing all the way to the bank. Millions of people have subscribed (at $20-$50 a month) to his online dating service, eHarmony, since its launch in 2000. In 2006, the site announced over 16,000 eHarmony couples had already married, and hundreds more hopefuls join the site each day. Users are attracted to the Christian branding (Warren initially marketed the site through Focus on the Family) and patented “personality profile” which allegedly matches you to singles with whom you share sociability, energy levels, intellect, and other characteristics.

This weekend I’m in Colorado for the wedding of one of my closest friends, who met her soon-to-be-husband online, and in the past couple of weeks I’ve reconnected with several other friends who met their spouses through online dating services. Online dating seems to have lost its stigma (although several of those friends still hesitate to tell others they met through a website), but I remain skeptical.

Time magazine recently named eHarmony one of its 5 worst websites; “Our main beef with this online dating site is its power to cause utter despair,” they wrote. I experienced more disbelief than despair; one match was most passionate about, and I quote, “Wielding the sword of truth against the powers and principalities of darkness” (yikes). Another claimed to routinely fall asleep in the shower (how is one question; why he chose to reveal that to a total stranger is another). I “talked” to a variety of others, including one I dated for several months before realizing we were actually spectacularly incompatible. Thanks, Neil Clark.

Perhaps despair IS more like it—this is who I’m most compatible with in “29 different dimensions”? What does that say about me??

Whether it’s Match.com, Yahoo Personals, or eHarmony, I’m glad my dear friends are finding love online. But I don’t plan on trying it again. Maybe it’s pride—I’d still rather tell my grandkids a meet cute story than a met online one—or maybe it’s just dating fatigue.


“I’m terrible at matching my clothes,” said one of my eHarmony matches. “This is kind of a last-ditch effort at finding someone,” said a second. “I really like to give high-fives,” shared yet another. Even The Committee seems successful compared to this.

Every page was a poem—no wonder the book appeared on dozens of “best of 2009″ lists last month. But what struck me most was her experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. As she gets sober and commits to daily meetings, Karr encounters a corps of unlikely comrades: a well-known musician who brings homemade cookies. A black man with tattoos from the Khe Sanh Combat Base in Vietnam. A classics professor. Hookers and bankers. Rich women in Chanel suits and mechanics picking at the grease under their fingernails and still-drunk lawyers and a young man with schizophrenia who once attended a meeting wearing a helmet made of tinfoil.

Karr joined the group after hitting bottom—ending a professional appearance by drinking martinis and wine and chartreuse until blacking out, then trying to drive home until a concrete road divider stops her progress and shoots her out of the moving car.


“A moment of deep self-loathing makes not drinking seem your only conceivable option,” she writes. “But I know that day how swiftly such moments pass, how cunning, baffling, and powerful my own logic can be….for the first time, the disease idea isn’t just metaphorical.”


Although every person at AA can tell a similar—or much worse—story, each one is welcomed, valued, listened to. Jack, the schizophrenic, created his tinfoil hat because he was “convinced his girlfriend was beaming messages to him through the radio,” Karr writes. “It’s a tribute to the radical equality of the room that I never overheard anybody challenge the reasoning.”

This radical equality permeates the group because everyone acknowledges their lives “have become unmanageable” and they cannot successfully and sanely live life without help from each other and a Higher Power. There is no pretense about being more together or less sick than anyone else. The meetings and the community and the prayer save their lives.

And so I was deeply moved by Karr’s experience and deeply convicted about the different experience to be found in many churches—places that, after all, should have the corner on the Higher Power.

We do not admit our lives are unmanageable; in fact we usually find our faults both manageable and excusable. We do not pray and admit our past wrongs and make amends with the desperation of an addict out of better options. We do not find it impossible to go on without submitting our will in complete humility.

Because most of us have not hit bottom in our addiction to sin.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe your church accepts anger and skepticism and even hostility toward the Higher Power. Maybe your members regularly take a moral inventory and confess “the exact nature of their wrongs” and “defects of character” to one another. Maybe they daily help each other fight the disease of our fallen natures. Maybe Jack and his aluminum helmet would fit right in.

If so, I haven’t been to your church. But I’d like to, because my name’s Jen, and I’m a sinaholic.

Most Christians are guilty of this; with every good intention we give our skeptic friend a book on theology or apologetics and believe it will change his mind. I’ve done it.

These books serve a purpose, but only at the right time and only after earning the right to share your perspective. And that can take months or years of showing up and shutting up and simply loving the person without strings attached.

Whether or not you watch the two movies discussed below, consider some ways you can listen instead of lecture in your relationships with unbelievers. One of my non-negotiables is I won’t foist a book on someone without first offering to read and discuss one of her choosing—in effect, giving the other person first dibs at the “here’s your problem” interaction. The results are always interesting……

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The God Who Wasn’t There, a new documentary directed by a former Christian, “irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed” says Newsweek. The film includes interviews with Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others.

You’re probably more aware of this one; Entertainment Weekly called comedian Bill Maher’s Religulous “a blasphemous detonation of all things holy and scriptural.”

A few friendly wagers:

While watching these trailers, at least ten of you inwardly bristled and began running through your mental filing cabinet of apologetic arguments. (Bonus points if “liar, lunatic or Lord” crossed your mind.)

At least seven of you thought something like, “Maher protests too much about the foolishness of religion. It’s like he’s trying to push away what he knows in his heart must be true.”

Most of you felt angry, offended, or embarrassed.

None of you rushed to add these films to your Netflix queue.

I’m really not picking on you—after a long day of work who wants to watch two hours of someone mocking your most cherished beliefs? Even though Maher does occasionally make me laugh out loud (“no one powerful enough to cause nuclear war should be overly eager for the Rapture”), neither movie will offer a relaxing and fun experience for those of us who believe in Christ.

But we need to watch them anyway. Because here’s another bet: at some point you have purchased a Christian book—The Case for Christ, perhaps, or Mere Christianity, or Keller’s Reason for God—and foisted it on your skeptic friend/neighbor/coworker/relative. You knew if they would just read it with an open heart it would change everything. You imagined them studying it, maybe with a highlighter, and coming to realize the foolishness of their doubts and disbelief. You glowed with the thrill of evangelism.

Did you ever consider how your friend or family member felt about that book?

My guess is they read part of it (if they opened it at all) or skimmed a few chapters so they could fake their way through a conversation with you later. They may have considered buying you a copy of The God Delusion. Despite your good intentions, they probably resented your gift as much as you resent Religulous.

Which is ironic, because ultimately the movie is less an attack on God than “the vain, deluded things human beings say and do in His name,” EW writes. American evangelicals’ tendency to stubbornly lecture instead of calmly listen invites the very critiques in these movies. Watching one of them won’t immediately change that, but thoughtfully attempting to understand the frustrations and doubts of unbelievers can. There are worse places to start than an open DVD drive and a closed mouth.

I get that it’s easy for someone without kids to be judgmental, but really I’m not forming opinions about your parenting. Raise your child as you see fit…..but when Junior throws a fit, please remove him quickly from the auditorium.

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No matter how much I want to be there, and no matter how convinced I am that the rest of the world adores my three children ages two through five, I will never bring them to a Good Friday service and allow them to cry, talk, and loudly announce they “have to potty” while the minister dramatically reads Matthew 26.

There are just some things you don’t get to do if you have small children, and I promise to remember that after mine arrive, even if every other parent in this country does not.

I will not take them to movie theaters to see anything that is not animated (and maybe not even those until they’re school-aged), I will not lug them to Disneyland and force them to miss their naptime and then punish them for being cranky in the Happiest Place on Earth, all while annoying hundreds of other people by running my stroller into their ankles, and I will not take them to weddings since there is at least a 50% chance the bride and groom will only do this once and do not want the primary memory to be a baby crying.

If there is a nursery, I will review the safety practices in place and then leave my child there during the church service, as hard as it might be to accept that the tot will be able to handle an entire hour out of my presence (and might even enjoy it). If for some reason I must keep the child with me during the service, I will step outside the instant the inevitable crying/ whining/ whimpering/ screeching/ squealing starts, rather than expecting the kid to suddenly be quiet because I look at him sternly or move him from one side of my lap to the other.

This is my promise to you all.

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So far in my career, I’ve worked for half a dozen men, many of them hard-driving and lacking the warm fuzzy gene. In volunteer and freelance assignments I’ve worked with at least a dozen more. I’ve gotten along famously with all of them.

In that same time span, I’ve worked directly for one woman and alongside a couple others. These relationships are the only serious professional conflicts I’ve experienced.

Sometimes only a member of the group is permitted to generalize about its members or talk honestly about its failures, so I’ll share something a man would be tarred and feathered for saying—women in leadership do not play well together.

I’m not sure why. Does the salary disparity and glass ceiling still experienced by modern career women allow only the most politically-skilled or aggressive to find success—and then inevitably cause conflict when they start managing others?

Is it generational? I’m sure the women before me had more to prove than my friends and I do today. It could be threatening, infuriating, or both to see my generation climbing the ladder without quite as many male feet stomping us back down.

Or is it culturally learned behavior? For millennia women without muscle or means have been taught to find our power more covertly, from the relatively innocuous (“Honey, just let him think it was his idea”) to the more damaging (you remember Delilah, right?). Although the workplace’s job descriptions and more blatant power structure theoretically eliminate the need for such power games, do we still play them instinctively?

Or is it the mothering instinct? My experiences with women in leadership over me were positive as long as they could be framed as adult/child relationships, with these women teaching me or directing my work. When I wanted to relate as adult/adult—still respecting their authority, but with my own strengths and ideas—things took a turn for the worse.

Or maybe it’s just me—I am, after all, the constant among these situations, so perhaps the log in my own eye is divisiveness and insubordination. Except that no one else seems to think so, and a lot of other women I know—when pressed—will admit to having the same experiences.

In fact, when the guys are in another room, my girlfriends and I discuss these issues. In a way, we’re searching for answers to determine our own options. If only the pushy or manipulative woman can succeed in corporate America (or the corporate megachurch), that means we can either achieve our goals or like who we are. It seems an unnecessary choice.

There are wonderful women leading out there, too, several of whom I consider friends as well as colleagues. But it is interesting that my heartburn and headaches can all be traced back to women. Ladies, this is bad branding for all of us. Our mothers and grandmothers worked hard for appreciation and respect in the workplace. We can’t blow it now that we have some corner offices.