Overparenting

John Vandervelde - Program Director

Time Magazine is one of my favorite publications to read, not because I agree with everything they write but because I enjoy reading about the topics they cover.  It helps me learn about our culture and what is going on in the world.  The articles are often very well written as well.  I've been a regular subscriber to Time for over 5 years.  

The cover story on this week's edition is, "Can These Parents be Saved: The Backlash Against Overparenting."  I loved the article.  It was challenging and encouraging to me as a parent and as a person working in adventure ministry with kids.  As I read I kept agreeing with what was written and asking myself, "Do I do that with my kids?" or saying to myself, "Man, I need to let go a little bit."

The article is full of interesting statistics and comments about how we as a society are too controlling and too overprotective of our kids.  We need to learn to let our kids go, let them fail, let them struggle, and let them solve their own problems because that is how real development happens.  The growing problem of overparenting has more of a significant impact on our kids and our society than we can imagine. 

You can pick up a copy of Time for about $3 or you can just read the article by following this link: "The Backlash Against Overparenting".  I encourage you to read it today.  

NOTE:  Due to the Thanksgiving holiday we will be taking a break from updating the blog.  There will be no new posts Wednesday, Thursday or Friday this week.  We will resume our regular posting schedule on Monday, November 30.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

What are you doing here? - by Jackie Ribbe

By: Jackie Ribbe

This familiar question God posed to Elijah in 1 Kings 19 has been one that has taken significant meaning to our family while we are here in South Carolina.  When we first came to Columbia in August, my answer to this question was that we were here for Rob to do research for his PHD dissertation, and for our family to have a new experience.  It didn’t take long to realize that my answer would soon look very different!

It is a very unique opportunity to be taken from all you know as familiar and placed in a temporary setting that holds very few pre-conceptions of who you are or what you do.  Yes, people knew we were from the north as soon as we spoke a sentence!  Some knew we worked at a camp or were from Wheaton College.  But in general our identity was basically unknown.  Not only did people not know us, but our familiar way of doing things also changed….school was different, some of the food was different, our closest friends were a thousand miles away and even our style of worship at church changed.  In the midst of this, I began to see that I was not just what “Three Lakes” made me to be.  Here I wasn’t a director’s wife, a church secretary, a Northwoods girl, a Bible study leader, or a close friend.  This left me with the pending question of “who am I really?”

As God often does when he’s trying to teach me something, everything in my life seemed to point to the same topic….songs on the radio, Bible study readings, sermons, retreat themes, etc.  IDENTITY.  When most of what I know is stripped away, what is left?  God in his kind and gracious way began to lead me through a time of self reflection and prioritization.  Then he blasted me with the greatness of himself!  What I am learning during this sabbatical in SC is that my identity begins with knowing who God is, who he created me to be and then living into that.  Wow!  I am made in God’s image plus crafted into a one-of-a-kind unique creation!  What is even more amazing is that I can be that anywhere!  I don’t need my comfortable house, peaceful landscape, familiar community or predictable lifestyle to be what God created me to be.

My challenges to those reading this are:  Who are you in God’s presence?  Who does God know you to be?  What have you let define your identity?  Then remember that our calling may be a temporary thing, but our intrinsic value to God never changes or ends--that is our true identity!

What am I doing here?  I am being invited into the presence of God. It is here that I will stay.  It is here that I am really known!

The Ribbe Family in South Carolina.

You can follow the Ribbe Family on their South Carolina adventure at: http://ribbesinsouthcarolina.blogspot.com

"The Forgotten Ways"

John Vandervelde - Program Director

Today I'm going to take a minute to recommend a book to you that is having an impact not only on my life but also on the ministry of HoneyRock.  In 2007 Alan Hirsch wrote the book called The Forgotten Ways and it has risen in popularity over the two years it has been in print.  The book is about reactivating the missional church, and Hirsch calls it a "call for complete reorientation of the mission of the church." 

I enjoy reading books about culture and the church; these books are very prevalent today.  Hirsch's book is unlike any other book I've read on this topic.  It begins with a detailed look at the sickness of our culture--consumerism--and explains how that sickness has crept into the church and Christian ministries.  Hirsch calls the church to rid itself of this sickness and return to what he calls "Apostolic Genius" which is basically the way Jesus and the early Christ followers did church. 

Hirsch identifies 6 things that make up this apostolic genius:

1. Jesus is Lord: Jesus must be at the center of our lives and our churches: not "me" at the center but Jesus.


2. Disciple Making: Disciple making must be the core of every action of the church.  Disciple making is the life-long task of becoming more like Christ. 


3. Missional-Incarnational Impulse: remarkable movements have a thrust to seed and embed the gospel in other cultures and people groups. 


4. Apostolic Environment: Hirsch explains the type of leadership and ministry required to sustain growth and impact. 


5. Organic Systems: Phenomenal Jesus movements grow because they do not have centralized institutions to block growth through control.  Remarkable Jesus movements have the feel of a movement, structures of a network, and spread like a virus. 


6. Communitas not Community: the most vigorous forms of community are those that come together in the context of some shared ordeal or those that define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves.  Hirsch explains that powerful missional communities have the motto "me for the community and the community for the world"  instead of the motto "community for me." 

We spent a significant amount time discussing this book at our staff off-site meeting yesterday.  It proved helpful in inspiring us to be a ministry that battles against consumerism and the entitlement mentality that has taken over our culture and our Christian institutions.  We want to be a ministry and a community that has a mission outside of ourselves. 

I encourage you to pick up a copy today.  You can do so by clicking this link:  "The Forgotten Ways" by Alan Hirsch. 

Have a great weekend!  

HoneyRock Adventure Trips by Craig Miller

Craig Miller--Program Team/Southwoods Office

This fall semester has seen a flurry of activities on
Wheaton’s campus in the form of the HoneyRock Adventure Trips. During September
and October, we took students waterskiing at the Rock River, whitewater
kayaking up in Wausau, WI,
canoeing and camping on the Mississippi River, and rock climbing at Devil’s Lake, WI.  Dan and I also led regular mountain biking
trips on Wednesdays and Thursdays at a nearby forest preserve in Cook County.

Our purpose behind these trips is to provide students with a
chance to have HoneyRock-type experiences, which reflect our core values of
enthusiastic involvement, authentic community, purposeful challenge, and
experience in nature. The shared experiences of overcoming challenge, whether
running a rapid in a kayak, conquering a 60 ft. cliff, or making it through a
formidable section of bike trail unscathed, create a common bond and sense of
confidence that are what HoneyRock is all about.

But as I’ve lead these trips, I’ve come to see them more and
more as unique opportunities to create space for reflection, another one of our
core values.  I’ve found the time spent
together in the vans back and forth from these adventures to be a great
opportunity to get a window into what God is doing in the lives of students and
to ask questions that will spur them to reflect on their relationship with
Christ.   

One such conversation occurred recently as I was driving
back to campus late one Saturday night. 
I was chatting with the student riding “shotgun” and she was sharing a
little of her background.  We got to
talking about our families and I listened as this student shared some difficult
things in her relationship with her parents. 
When I suggested she should intentionally sit down with her parents and
talk about some of these things, she paused hesitantly, but admitted that would
probably be a good idea.  By the end of
the conversation, she had decided on a creative plan to spend some time with
her parents the next time she was home.

I'm always so grateful for the times when God grants me the chance to see how He uses my words to effect change in students' lives, though certainly not all of my conversations go that way.  But I'm reminded that the important thing is being faithful to speak the truth in love, whatever the outcome.  The Heavenly Father uses our words and our actions as seeds and He is the one who makes them grow.  In Colossians 4:6 we are encouraged to "let [our] conversation be full of grace, seasoned with salt."  Are we willing to be used by him and let our words be words of life to someone today?

 
Pictured below are Wheaton College students participating in HoneyRock Fall Adventure Trips. 

Preparing Students for Mission - by Rick Masters

Rick Masters - Adventure Ministry Program Manager

In scripture, I see a character building program that God is actively involved in.  For example, God places people in solitude (David), under a teacher (Paul), or in difficulty (Joseph) to prepare them for the next phase of life, ministry, role or choices the person will make.   Now maybe it’s less of a program than I’ve stated but it's interesting to see the following decisions and roles these people faced.  Similarly for us, we cannot (and maybe God will not) move us forward until we have these transitional, preparation experiences.  Some are more foundational then others. I believe the ultimate preparation is of the heart, will and mind centering our identity, strength, success and joy in God.

The Graduate Assistantship Program here at HoneyRock is one of those foundational experiences designed to give students this opportunity.  They will both study and experience first-hand the practice and theory of outdoor ministry and the character it takes to partake and lead in it.  It’s an “all hands on deck” experience hosting and serving various groups or retreats while setting up all the programming for both the individual and the collective group to experience Jesus on many levels.  Meanwhile students also are discovering and facing their own gifts and fears as they serve.  It’s a dynamic process that combines experience, evaluation, learning and encouragement as a means of “character formation” and preparation for what God may use them in next.

I hope our time with students helps them leave our ministry with the foundations to make wise and holy choices; to love and fully engage themselves in God’s mission around the world at any level, difficulty, or time in culture.  I want them to become servants who will be actively engaging in other people’s lives--not needing a desk, or title or role but are fully involved in mission. 

Prayer Items:

1)  This years Graduate Program Assistants (GPAs) will arrive on November 30.  We will welcome: Micah, Candida, Bridget, Mary Elise, Ami, Matt, Steve, and Luis who will be here learning and working for 9 months.  Join with us in praying for this group.

2)  Tomorrow (Thursday November 19) we have a 1/2 day off-site meeting.  We will be looking at the summer evaluations and working to make improvements for 2010.  Pray that we have a productive time.

Rick Masters

Thankfulness - by Becki Henderson

Becki Henderson - Administrative Assistant

Psalm 68:6a (Amplified Bible)

^“God places the solitary in families and gives
the desolate a home in which to dwell…”

Among the many blessings God has poured out on me, one that
I am continually thankful for is my living situation.  I have had the privilege of living in a
lovely apartment with a wonderful family since I returned from Africa four years ago. 
I spent almost a year homeschooling two missionary girls in a village in
Central African Republic.  My house here is three and half miles from
HoneyRock (the perfect distance) and comes complete with my own kitchen and
living room and bedroom all to myself, but love and laughter and fun if I go up
the stairs to spend time with Brach and Cheryl and their three beautiful
children (and one more on the way.)  It
also has a washer and dryer right there, and after living in the rain forest
for nearly a year, I still do not take for granted a machine that washes my
clothes, and a separate machine that dries them and makes them fluffy!  Clothes and towels will dry on a line if you
hang them in the African sun, but it takes a machine to make them fluff!  I missed that while I was in Africa.

So today I am thankful for the family I live with.  Who do you live with?  Your parents, your spouse, your children,
your grandparents, your roommates?  Are
you thankful for them?  Take a moment to
tell them that you’re glad you get to live with them.  And thank God for the home (and electric
appliances!) He has provided for you.