Restarting the 7:14 challenge

William Hyung called and told me I wasn't a very good singer.  Ouch.

Richard Nixon called and told me I wasn't very honest.  Double ouch.

A former KGB agent said America was "godless."  Triple ouch.

The first two statements are not true.  The third one is.  However, all three statements have something in common- when you receive criticism from those kinds of sources, you're seriously in bad shape.

Yes, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent and brutal dictator, looks at America and says, "Wow, you guys are really screwed up."  When someone like that calls us out, we know we've got a problem.  I would imagine that Putin watched the Grammys this past week, because honestly, after hearing about what went on, I think I agree with him.

However, I'm not willing to accept it.

Last year, I did something in the month of February called the 7:14 challenge.  I set my alarm for 7:14 AM and 7:14 PM, and twice a day, I prayed through 2 Chronicles 7:14- "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

I am restarting that challenge, and I'm asking you to do the same thing.  It's a very simple challenge:

1) Set your alarms for 7:14 in the morning and evening.
2) Every day for a month, stop what you are doing at that time and pray through 2 Chronicles 7:14.
3)  Pray that our nation will humble itself before God.  If you want to know what it means for our nation to humble itself, watch the Grammys and pray that our nation does the exact opposite.
4)  Pray that America would become a nation of prayer.
5)  Pray that America would become a nation that seeks the face of God.
6)  Pray that America would turn from its wicked ways.  I don't think I need to elaborate.
7)  Pray that God will hear us.
8)  Pray that God will forgive our sins.
9)  Pray that God will heal our land.

Visualize in your mind what God's healing would look like- abortion clinics shuttered, political corruption called out and punished, schools becoming places of learning instead of places of strife and disrespect, families staying together, the scourge of drug addiction gone, debts erased, child abusers and pedophiles brought to justice, the surveillance state diminished, and the list goes on.

Then pray that vision.  Pray that America would repent and that a great revival, similar to the First and Second Great Awakenings, would occur here.  We desperately need it.  

Who is up for the challenge for February?  This guy is.  Who else? 

Sunday morning is for worship only

I was talking with a friend of mine who asked me to hold him accountable for a number of things in his life, among them being church attendance.  He gave me permission to call him out when he missed on Sunday morning.

He missed this past Sunday morning.

I called him up.  "Hey man, I missed you on Sunday.  Everything okay?"

"Yeah," he said.  "I had a ton of laundry to do.  I worked all day Saturday and didn't have any time to get all my stuff done."

Hmmm.  This conversation was not moving in a good direction, because I could feel the hardcore coach in me rising up.  I've always hated excuses and justifications, in both sports AND faith.

"Yeah, that sounds pretty rough," I said.  "Sunday morning is a great time for doing stuff you could do any other time of the day.  Or week.  Or month."

"I know, I know, I was being bad," he said dismissively.

"Really?"  I said.  "Don't give me that crap.  You told me to hold you accountable on this, so I'm going to.  Let me ask you a question- how many hours are there in one week?"

He thought for a minute.  "168."

"Yep.  You get to worship God with your church family for just one of those per week.  1/168th of your week to unplug from the rat race, get alone with your church family, and worship the God who gave everything for you."

"You only have 52 of those per year, " I continued, "so this is what I need you to do."

"What?"  he said.

"I need you to adopt a 'Sunday is for worship only' mentality.  It's not a day where you wake up and decide if worship is one of many things you could possibly do that day.  I need you to start thinking of it as a sacred time- a time that is off-limits to everything else.  I need you to start thinking of it like you would a UK basketball game."

"A UK basketball game?" he asked.

"Yep.  I see you on Twitter a few days before each game posting your expectations, opinions, thoughts, etc about the Big Blue Nation.  You're bought in.  You're committed.  I would imagine that if you work the entire day before a UK basketball game and had laundry to do, you wouldn't do laundry instead of watch the game.  Why?  Because several days, maybe weeks, in advance, you decided.  You spent the days before the game preparing to watch it."

"You need to do the same thing with Sunday morning worship.  Decide in advance that Sunday morning is for worship only.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets in the way.  Worship is not one option among many for Sunday morning.  It is THE option.  If you are a Christian, worship with your church family should be one of the top two or three priorities in your life.  Nothing- laundry, sports, laziness, family gatherings, work around the home- gets your Sunday morning."

I realize this is revolutionary.  I mean, totally revolutionary.  I have never been challenged in my life to prioritize Sunday morning as for worship only.  I have never been challenged to prepare myself in upcoming days for Sunday morning worship.  I've never even given it a thought.

However, I'm challenging the Body of Christ to give Sunday morning over to God.  And never take it back.

I'm calling the Body of Christ, people who call themselves Christians, to unapologetically and ruthlessly guard Sunday morning.  But I'm also going to challenge you to step it up even further.

1)  Consecrate Saturday evening/night for preparation.  Pray for your pastor.  He needs it. 

2)  Also, pray for non-Christian people who are struggling.  Pray that they would find their way to your church.  Then invite them.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to be powerful at your church the next day.

3)  Confess your sins and ask for forgiveness before you leave for church.  Enter the church body as a pure and forgiven person- don't bring unconfessed sin into the church gathering.

4)  Get to church early.  Don't fly into the church parking lot on two wheels twenty minutes late.  Get to the church twenty minutes EARLY.  Spend time before the service praying over each seat- pray for the person who will be sitting there.  Pray for the words of Scripture to comfort and challenge.  Pray that the worship time would move them.  Pray for your pastors, for the volunteers, for the children that will be there.

5)  Parents, pray for your children.  Pray that they would encounter God in a real and relevant way during their time at the church gathering.

6)  Use the bathroom before church.  You have one hour of worship- don't miss any of it by having to leave in the middle.

7)  Expect the miraculous to happen.  Have we so belittled the power of God that we no longer expect miracles when we are together?  Expect that a drug-addicted person will experience freedom during that hour.  Expect that a struggling marriage will be healed during that hour.  Expect a nonbeliever to submit his or her life to Christ during that hour.  Is anything too hard for God to accomplish?

Seen through this lens, Sunday morning takes on an entirely new shape and form.  Definitely not something that you would miss so you could do a load of laundry.

Another Financial Lesson for My Kids

One of the greatest blessings my parents ever bestowed upon me was their teaching on how to manage finances.  I have continued to do the same for my kids.  So far, my kids have learned:

-the concept of the financial floor (click here to learn about it)
-the value of paying cash
-how to be patient and not make impulse buys

This past week I added another one.  They started a business.

Yes.  My kids started a business.  We decided to call it Kiblercorp. 

From the time my kids were born, we have always made them save.  Whenever they got money for birthday or Christmas or anything else, the standing rule was they had to save at least half of it.  Yes- mean ogre parents made their children take half of what they received and save it.  (My kids don't have bills to pay, they don't have a mortgage to pay; there is absolutely NOTHING they need, and therefore to let them frivolously spend it on passing whims would be the dumbest thing in the world).

Because of this mean, ogreish tendency that my wife and I impose on our children- making them save half of all their money- my children have accumulated quite sizeable amounts of cash.  We originally had savings accounts at the bank for them, but with the interest rates these days, they are pretty much worthless.  So what should we do?

Well, looking at research showing the amount of debt that college students incur, paying it off well into their thirties, coupled with the need for at least 20% of the price of the home in a down payment to avoid mortgage insurance, coupled with the fact that car insurance, baby needs, and all those things are hitting young people, we decided that we needed to put that money to work now so that when my children are ready to buy their first home (or whatever) they will have it covered.

So, I got my kids together and told them that I was going to teach them about investing and business.  I asked each of my children how much money they had in savings.  Then, they pooled all of their money together and gave it to me, and I took it down to my investment person and bought a mutual fund.

My oldest daughter, because of the amount she "bought in" to the business, is 39% owner.  My son and other daughter own the other 61%.  Therefore, when the fund makes money, they will divide the profits by the percent of ownership they have in Kiblercorp.

My only stipulation is that, while the money is totally theirs, I have to approve all withdrawals.  I am hoping they leave it alone for many, many years and that they will use it for their first homes.

I recommend that parents do something similar with their childrens' finances.  Get them saving now.  If they get money for birthday or Christmas or even for a job they earn, make them save at least half if not 75%.  Set up a mutual fund or stock for them and put that money to work.  Believe me, one of the best gifts you can give your children is financial independence. 

I also believe that financial responsibility is a spiritual issue.  How we manage God's money is incredibly important.  We are not to waste it or use it frivolously.  We are to use it wisely, soberly, and with good judgment, not indulging every whim and impulse we happen to have at the moment.  Teaching our children this lesson will set them up for success later on in life.  Failure to do so will set them up for crippling failure and a lifetime of slavery to debt. 

If any of you have done creative things to teach your children about finances, I would love to hear about them.

The Real Reason for Poverty

I would like to make a controversial statement:  The lack of money is not the reason for poverty.

Um, Dave- you smoking something?  Isn't the definition of poverty exactly that?  No money?

Yes.  But lack of money is the RESULT of poverty, not the reason.  Poverty is a condition, one which results in not having any money.  See, if poverty could be cured by simply giving people money, poverty would have been wiped out a long time ago.  Ever since LBJ announced his famous "War on Poverty" fifty years ago, we've been throwing money at it at astounding rates.  I read a figure that said we have spent $16 trillion dollars combating poverty, and the rates are about the same as they were when this war began.

Money is not the solution to poverty.  So, what is?

The solution is simple:  look at what causes poverty and do the exact opposite.

Huh?

Yes.  There are three things in life that are almost surefire guarantees of poverty.  So, the solution to poverty is to do the exact opposite, and that will lead you to prosperity.  Here are the three things that cause poverty:

1)  Dropping out of school.  People who fail to finish high school have extremely limited employment options.  They are far more likely to live in poverty, engage in crime (which leads to incarceration, further diminishing job prospects), rely on public assistance, etc.  To truly combat poverty, we need to increase high school graduation rates.  Parents need to be held accountable for allowing their children to drop out.  Students need to know the true consequences of dropping out of school.  Until we do this, we will always have poverty.

2)  Having children outside of marriage.  Marriage is belittled and criticized and mocked in today's society, but in reality, married people prosper much more financially than single people do.  Children who are born outside of wedlock (now making up 42% of American births) have a 63% poverty rate.  Run that by me again?  Yes, 63% of children born to unwed mothers live in poverty. 

Want to eliminate poverty?  Commit to Biblical sexuality- celibacy before marriage, fidelity within marriage.  Yes, it's that simple.  Wait until you are married to have children.  Oh, by the way, Biblical sexuality would also eliminate the AIDS virus, STD's, etc, but that is another story.

3)  Unemployment.  This is a complicated issue, because there are two sides to this coin.  One side says, "If there are no jobs, how can we get one?"  That's a legitimate statement.  Sometimes there are no jobs to be found.  Other times, however, people just don't want to work.  They are lazy, unmotivated, and waiting around for someone to take care of them.  The people that truly want to find a job eventually do.  Their poverty is short-lived, if at all.  It's the second category that poverty will overtake.

When these three issues are present, throwing money at it won't help.  As long as people are dropping out of high school, having children outside of marriage, and refusing to work, there will be poverty.  Plain and simple.  So, to eliminate poverty, we need the time-tested, age-old formula that will always lead to prosperity.

1) Stay in school.
2) Wait until you are married to have children.
3) Find a job and KEEP that job.

That's it.  There is your solution to poverty.  That is the path to prosperity.  It always has been and always will be.  The extent to which a society emphasizes those three things will determine its poverty levels.  When those things are no longer emphasized or occur in lessening degrees, we will see rampant rise in poverty. 

When we've been fighting a war for 50 years and we haven't seen any results, it might be time to change strategies.  Social programs, welfare, etc have been around for 50 years.  They haven't changed a thing.  Poverty rates are where they were before we started those things.  Maybe its time we start looking at the three things that will put everyone on a path to prosperity.

Or, we can just keep throwing money at it.  It doesn't solve anything, but it makes us all feel better.

The not-so-obvious responsbilities of fatherhood

I am passionate about fatherhood.

I love my children, and I love being a father.  I never knew that I could enjoy something so much.  I love watching my kids grow, develop, learn, fail, make mistakes, learn from them, pick themselves up after a defeat, succeed, get in trouble, cause me to pull my hair out, and everything else that goes along with fatherhood.

I want to be the very best father that I can be. 

There are all kinds of things fathers can do to make sure their children are the best version of themselves.  We can be consistent.  We can be loving.  We can be disciplinarians.  We can teach.  We can be present in all aspects of the child's life.  We can nurture, challenge, set the example, and do all of these things to help our children grow and develop into self-sufficient, confident adults.

However, the first responsibility- and might I add the most important responsibility- of fatherhood has nothing to do with the children.  It has to do with the father himself.

I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to make this amazing frozen fruit salad.  She would take orange juice, strawberries, bananas, and mandarin oranges and pour them into metal molds.  Then she would stick them in the freezer, and a few hours later we would enjoy them.  Unfortunately, one day I dropped one of the metal molds.  When I picked it up, it was dented.

From that point forward, one of the four frozen fruit salads was deformed.  It became a source of shame at the dinner table to be the one with the "dented" frozen fruit salad.  From that point forward, the metal mold would produce dented, deformed reproductions of itself.  It wasn't the fruit salad's fault.  It was the flaw in the mold that kept its "offspring" from turning out right.

In the same way, all of us fathers are flawed.  We are "dented molds" because of our sin.  None of us are perfect, and therefore we can try the best techniques, the best strategies, the best everything of fatherhood, and yet we will fail in our efforts.  The problem isn't the techniques- the problem is that the mold is dented.

Fatherhood's first responsibility, therefore, is to work within ourselves to make sure we are whole.  The only chance we as fathers have is to place ourselves in the hands of God, allow Him to fix the dents, forgive us of our sin, and cleanse us of the toxic lines of thinking and emotional reactions and relational brokenness that so many of us carry. 

If we do that, we can parent from a position of wholeness instead of a position of brokenness.

Society is tough on dads.  Many of us aren't worth squat.  I get that. 

However, a lot of dads are truly doing the best they can.  They have been wounded, broken, abandoned, criticized, and yet continue to love their children and want what is best for them.  Their efforts, however, are based on a flawed foundation.  Their first responsibility is to themselves- to make their lives whole, to fix the brokenness within themselves.  Then, and only then, will they be able to father their children successfully.

This is probably the most neglected responsibility of fatherhood.  We have too many images of the perfect dad down the street who gets his kids everything, who works 60 hours a week and yet has time to be at every sports event, play, school function, and church gathering.  We see our kids' friends coming over with the latest and greatest gadget, and we put our efforts into providing our children with things, providing our children with time, etc.

What we need to do is step back, invest in our own healing, and then begin to parent from a position of strength.

I have seen this played out in my own life.  Times that I have invested in myself- studying God's word, soaking in the wisdom of Proverbs, marveling at the example of Jesus, being challenged by the commitment of the early Christians- those are the times I do my best parenting.  Those are the times I respond appropriately to situations that I would have previously handled very poorly.  Those are the times I can more easily hear the Spirit's guidance for how to handle a hormonal teenage daughter, a child who forgot (again) to do something I asked, etc. 

The problem is- it is not urgent to invest in yourself.  Nothing screams for that attention.  It is far more tempting to run around putting out fires than it is to intentionally stop "parenting" and invest in making yourself a better person, and therefore a better parent.

Fathers, your first responsibility is to yourself.  Commit to fathering out of a position of wholeness rather than brokenness.  I leave you with my favorite example of parenting:

I was on a plane getting ready to take off.  The flight attendant was going through the boring "here's how to put on your seat belt" speech, and it got to the part that said, "If there is a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling.  If you are traveling with small children, first put the mask on yourself, then place the mask on your child."

I thought, "How horrible! If the parent cared about his kid, he should put the mask on the kid first!"  But then I realized something.  In that situation, the masks represented life.  If the father, out of a sense of responsibility and duty, tried to save his kid first, they would both die.  The father has to make sure, in that instance, that he has enough oxygen, and when that is in place, he can then save his kids.

The same is true of fatherhood today.  If you try to "save" your kids without saving yourself, you AND the kid go down.  If you parent out of brokenness, both your life and the lives of your children will be ruined.  However, if you first take care of yourself, dealing with your issues and faults, then you will parent out of wholeness and strength, and the lives of both you and your children will be good.

Dear Teachers, there are still a few of us out there.

Dear Teachers:

I have been reading over the last several years about the struggles of teaching.  I've been reading about the internal conflict that many of you feel between your love for the kids, your difficulties with their parents, and having to work within a system that sets you up to fail.

I am not a teacher.  However, I am a parent.  I am writing this to let you know that there are still some parents out there that think what you do is important, and so I am writing to you to encourage you to let you know how I see things.

1)  I want you to have high standards in the classroom.  I don't want you lowering expectations of my child so that he or she gets A's.  If my child gets a good grade, I want it to be because he or she worked hard for it, not because you made it easy for him or her.

2)  You will never see my in your office complaining about a grade.  I will never ask you to change my kids' grades.  They earn what they earn, and if they failed to learn the material, it's their fault.  You may have done a great job.  You may have done a terrible job.  But that's life.  My kids have to learn how to overcome challenges.  If you are not presenting the material well, I want my children to figure out ways to succeed in spite of your shortcomings.  If they have to spend more time studying because you don't teach well, so be it.  I want my children to know that their success is not going to come easy and they can't rely on the perfect set of circumstances in order to succeed.

3)  I hate that you are being forced into an assembly-line production role.  Teaching is not a rote position that can be done automatically.  As a parent, I understand that you need to have freedom and that true teaching takes creativity.  I understand that if you love your subject, you will want to teach it in a passionate way that is not possible with these standardized, measurable objectives being imposed on you.  I understand that you are doing the best you can while being forced into a mold that you didn't know existed when you got your 4-year teaching degree in college.

4)  I know that not all kids will learn.  All kids CAN learn, but not all kids WILL learn.  You are not responsible for the success or failure of every child in your classroom.  I would like to see the school system shift the majority of the responsibility for learning back onto the students themselves.  This whole "No Child Left Behind" nonsense looked good on paper, but it just doesn't work in the real world.  No matter how good a teacher you are, some kids just won't work, won't get it, won't learn, and won't care.  I don't think the school system should hold you responsible for the grades or performance of such a student.

5)  I believe in true education, which is more than just the acquisition of knowledge.  Believe it or not, there are some parents out there who think education is more than rote memorization and regurgitation for a test.  I believe that the goal of education is to train the child to love learning.  I am a lifelong learner, and I believe there are very few things in life more satisfying than learning and mastering something new.  I want you to teach my children to love learning, not to memorize and perform for a test.  My children's education will last much longer than their twelve years in school and whatever college and graduate programs they enter.  Please help me teach my child to love learning.  That's what is important to me.

I am sorry that you have to put up with administrators who tell you that children aren't allowed to fail.  Why an administration would want to cripple a child in this way is beyond me.  Most of what we learn in life is from failure, and by not allowing them to fail, we are stunting their growth. 

I am sorry that you have to put up with parents who blame you for their child's lack of respect, lack of discipline, lack of effort, and lack of learning.  These parents are blaming you for things they should be taking care of in the home, and it is making you miserable.  I apologize.

I am sorry that you are not able to pass on a love of learning to your students- rather, you have to teach them how to take a test.  I hope that somewhere in the teaching for the test, you are able to inculcate a love of learning and a passion for knowledge.  Please continue to try.

Teachers, there are still some of us out there.  I know that a lot of us have chosen to home school, or taken other education options for our kids.  However, not all of us have.  Some of us still think that what you are doing is the best option for our children, and we support you.  We need good people leading America's classrooms.  Please do your best work and please do not apologize for giving our children a true education- teaching them to love learning and to become lifelong learners. 

I just wanted you to know that there are still some of us out there.