Growing in Wisdom and Stature

Proverbs 22:6
Luke 2:41-52
Seventh Sunday of Easter 2010

For most of my adult life, I have considered successful parenting to be little more than a crapshoot. It starts as a roll of the dice in the gene pool, and out comes a baby. Sometimes it’s 7 or 11 on the very first roll, and you win. But sometimes it’s 2, 3, or 12, and you “crap out.” (That’s technical terminology for losing on your come-out roll, so don’t get upset with me for thinking I just said something ugly. I didn’t. It’s a technical term.) Sometimes there’s not an immediate win or loss but you just keep on rolling: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. You just keep on rolling with no winning or losing either one. That’s pretty much how I’ve looked at successful parenting for most of my adult life. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose; other times you just keep on rolling. It's a crapshoot.

How do you bring up a man instead of a monster? I was reminded of that line from Columbia native Debra Lynn Hooks’ wonderful little book titled Bringing Up Mommy as I read this week about George Huguely IV, a fourth-year at the University of Virginia who was given every evident advantage an American family can offer its children, only to murder Yeardley Love, his ex-girlfriend, while he was in a drunken stupor. I understand that in legal terms he’s innocent until proven guilty, but George Huguely IV had a long and public track record of being a drunken and violent monster before he was ever accused of being a murderer. How do you bring up a man instead of a monster? How do you bring up a woman instead of a witch? Because I’m a parent of boys, I haven’t worried over the second one as much; but if I had a daughter, I’d spend half my time worrying about monsters like George Huguely IV and the other half trying to hide every broomstick in town.

Recently, though, I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve come to think of successful parenting less as a game of chance played by individual parents and families and more as a bell-curve exercise lived out in communities. The famous biblical proverb, “Bring children up in the way they should go, and when they are grown they will never depart from it,” is a description of a bell-curve probability within a community, not prescription for individual, fail-safe parenting. There’s no such thing as “fail-safe” parenting.

We’ve all heard the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Nowhere in the Bible is that proverb any better illustrated than in this morning’s gospel lesson. The parents of Jesus leave Jerusalem for home assuming that their preteen son is in the company of family, friends and neighbors who had traveled together from Nazareth for the annual Passover festival. A day’s journey later, they realize that he is nowhere to be found among the villagers from Nazareth, and they rush back to Jerusalem to find him “in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). What mother or father among us has not at least thought the question that Mary asks in v 48: “Child, why have you treated us like this?” And what parent hasn’t heard back some variation or another on what sounds like a typical preteen, self-possessed, smart-aleck answer, “Don’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?” Like he thinks he’s some kind of son of God or something! It takes family, friends and neighbors, travel, teachers and temple, and an individual sense of calling or mission: that’s the gospel take on the African proverb. The proverb is true enough. “It takes a village to raise a child.” But villages also raise idiots . . . and witches and monsters, as well as daughters and sons of God.

On each end of the bell curve, there are outliers. There are outliers of unexplainable success: “How did this child from that family turn out so well?” There are also outliers of inexplicable failure: “How did that child from this family turn out so poorly?” But in the main, in the main body of the bell curve, it turns out that there is an accumulation of odds that can turn the table toward bringing up men instead of monsters and women instead of witches. You have one way of describing those odds in front of you this morning. Some of you will recognize it from the Rev. Mary Carol Anderson’s sermon in the Friday evening worship of the South Carolina Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly three weeks ago. Mary Carol grew up in this congregation, was ordained to the ministry by this congregation, and now serves as Associate Minister in Student Ministries at First Baptist Church Aiken. I’ve learned a number of things from listening to Mary Carol over the years, and this is one of them.

Since it was founded in 1990, Search Institute has studied more than 2.2 million children and young people and their behaviors. And what Search Institute has found is that there are statistically reliable outcomes based on 40 different inputs or “developmental assets,” as they call them, in the course of bringing up children and youth. What if I told you that together, as a community committed to bringing up men instead of monsters and women instead of witches, we could significantly reduce the likelihood that our youngsters would engage in high-risk behavior such as problem alcohol use, violence, illicit drug use, and sexual activity?
(http://www.search-institute.org/research/assets/assetpower) Would you be interested? Every one of us would. Search Institute data show that we could reduce those behaviors to single-digit incidences—3%, 6%, 1%, 3%—if we could maximize our children’s and young people’s engagement in the developmental assets you have in your hand this morning. In addition to contributing to the avoidance of negative behavior, these 40 developmental assets correlate with positive attitudes and behaviors such as exhibiting leadership, maintaining good health, valuing diversity and succeeding in school. Now, remember, there are no guarantees in life except death and taxes—and the Internal Revenue Service if you try to avoid the latter of those two inevitabilities. There are always outliers in success and in failure, but we can turn the odds in our children’s favor.

Search Institute research shows that with the accumulation of 31 or more of these 40 assets there is a statistical “tipping point,” if you will, toward the avoidance of high-risk behavior and the promotion of positive behavior. (http://www.search-institute.org/research/assets/asset-levels) Unfortunately, their data also show that only 8% of children and youth reach the number of 31 or more that tips them statistically in the right direction. But we can do better than 8%. We can do a lot better than 8%. In fact, we are already doing better than that. I came back from Mary Carol’s sermon that Friday evening all fired up about Search Institute research, only to find that our Children’s Ministry and our Youth Ministry have known about Search Institute for years. And our staff actually employs criteria grounded in Search Institute research as one of the factors they take into account in planning and implementing the ministry they do with our children and our youth. I was thrilled to hear it. Sometimes I’m the last to know. But I want us to do more. I want our entire congregation to know what we are doing with our children and youth and how as we try to bring up daughters and sons of God instead of witches and monsters. And just as importantly, I want our young people to know what they are doing and how to grow up as sons and daughters of God instead of as monsters and witches.

So this morning’s sermon comes with a homework assignment. What I want you to do this week is to take this insert home with you. Adults, here is your assignment. I want you to sit down and identify which of these assets you can see that each of your children or your grandchildren or your First Baptist children has available to them as they are growing up. Mark them and count them up. And then begin to identify which assets they don’t have that you might be able to help bring to bear in their lives to get them to 31 or more. And then I want you to look at how you can do just that in your family and in your neighborhood and right here in your church. Children and youth, I want you to sit down and mark on this page which of these assets you have available to you now, and then I want you to look at which ones you don’t have that you could add to your assets either by your own effort or by involving people you know in the effort with you to get to 31 or more. Sit down with your parents or your grandparents or your minister or your teacher and talk about which ones you do and don’t have and about what you can do together to cultivate ones you don’t have.

At Search Institute's website (http://www.search-institute.org/), each of the 40 developmental assets is accompanied by a link to a pull-down menu titled “Take Action” that suggests practical things you can do to cultivate that asset in your children, your grandchildren, your church children or yourself. For example, for asset #9, “Service to Others,” the menu offers the following five ideas. Idea 1: “Together with your kids, do something for someone else, whether it’s making a financial contribution, baking cookies, or helping someone out.” Idea 2: “Make and send cards to hospitalized children, nursing home residents, or people in the military.” Idea 3: “Organize a community or neighborhood ‘closet cleaning day.’ Deliver everything you collect to a shelter or a thrift store.” Idea 4: “Provide foster care for a pet through an animal shelter or for a friend or neighbor who is out of town or ill.” Idea 5: “Organize or participate together in a fundraiser such as a walk or run.” And in case you want or need other suggestions, the menu refers you to an entire book of them.

You know what I saw as I looked through that list? What I saw is that my children, who have grown up in this congregation across twenty years, have participated in four out of five of those empowerment activities—or a variation on them—through the children’s, youth, and missions ministries of First Baptist Greenville. It’s not just the case that developmental asset #19 is “Religious Community: Young person spends one or more hours per week in activities in a religious institution.” Notice, by the way, that the asset says “spends one or more hours per week.” Not one or two a month. Not one or two a fall or winter or spring or summer. That’s not an asset. That’s a dalliance. The research suggests that it rises to the level of an asset when it reaches “one or more hours [or times] a week.” And in the case of this church, it’s more than just the “religious community” asset. When Bev and I brought our boys to this church—to Sunday School, choir, children’s activities, youth activities, sports activities, and missions activities—First Baptist Greenville was delivering additional developmental assets to our boys, helping us in our effort to bring up men instead of monsters. It is our responsibility as parents to get them here, whether they want to come or not. But when we exercise our parental responsibility, when we behave like grown-ups instead of teenagers ourselves, the ministries of First Baptist Greenville are delivering multiple developmental assets to our children. What I saw was a picture of Search Institute research at work and the gospel picture at work of family, friends and neighbors, travel, teachers and temple, and an individual sense of calling or mission all cultivating together—all becoming together—daughters and sons of God.

So, all those years I had it wrong. It’s not a crap-shoot at all. It’s true that there are outliers—inexplicable failures and unexplainable successes. But it is just as true that there is a bell-curve exercise, a body of work in the body of Christ that brings to bear the best of human understanding and the best of divine wisdom on bringing up sons and daughters, daughters and sons of God.

Research has also shown that one of the recurring occasions that families and communities have for cultivating developmental assets is mealtime. Wouldn’t you know it? The Bible beat the researchers to the punch on that one too. There is at the table always an opportunity for cultivating relationships and understanding and wisdom. It is to the Table of the Lord we now come with a commitment in hand to deepen our relationships and our understanding and our wisdom for bringing up sons and daughters of God: family, friends and neighbors, travel, teachers and temple, and an individual sense of calling or mission. Welcome to the Table of the Lord where we are all nourished and sustained to grow in wisdom and stature.


This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.