How to stop bullying

I read a lot about bullying these days.  I believe it is getting worse even from when I was a kid.  I was one of eleven boys on my street growing up, and as a pudgy/fat kid who was two years younger than the average kid on the street, you can imagine what that was like.

I got bullied.

I was mocked, ridiculed, harassed, even physically beaten some times.  It was done by people older and bigger than me.  Honestly, it was a living hell for quite some time.  See, bullies do more than just abuse you.  They diminish your sense of self-worth.  They take away your dignity.  They make you feel unsafe and stressed.  You worry that the people around you believe all the things that the bullies are saying. 

I did all the things that the grownups told me to do.  I "ignored" it.  I "walked away."  I "went and got an adult." 

All of those things were interpreted by the bullies as weakness, and like a pack of wild dogs who smelled blood, they moved in for the kill all that much more. 

Finally, at age ten, during a particularly vicious episode where I was being called "lard-ass" and laughed at, I finally snapped.  I didn't ignore it, I didn't walk away, and I didn't go get an adult.  I charged at the head mocker, balling my hand into a fist, and hit him square in the mouth so hard that it knocked a tooth loose and sent him flying back about ten feet.  The boys who had been laughing at me stopped and stared, their jaws dropping.  I jumped on top of the bully and hit him four times more in the face, hitting his nose so hard that blood flew out of it like a popped balloon.

The eerie silence that followed was very disconcerting.  Honestly, I was scared.  Not of the bully or the other guys on the street.  I was scared of what my parents would say.  I was scared that his parents would come over and tell my parents what happened.  I had never hit anyone before in my life.

The bully slowly got up.  He was crying, holding his nose and his mouth.  He limped home and we didn't see him for a few days.

From that point forward, no one so much as said a word to me.  I was never bullied again.  In other words, in one instant my life went from a living hell to one of acceptance and peace. 

My experiences have taught me one thing:  the only way to rid our society of bullying is to empower the victim.  Sadly, it seems all of our efforts are put in the wrong place.

Our school efforts are aimed at the bullies.  Adults knock themselves out trying to get bullies to stop, telling the bullies to see their victims as "people with feelings," to "be tolerant and understand."  Yeah, good luck with that.  There will always be bullies as long as there is an imbalance of power between individuals.

This is a universal law that is true of both people AND nations.

For example, why didn't the Soviet Union nuke us back in the sixties, seventies, and eighties?  Was it because they saw Americans as "people," were "tolerant," and "understood" us?  Nope.  It's because they knew that the second they launched, we would launch and they would be nuked back into the stone age.  In other words, there was a balance of power between the two nations, and therefore there was peace.

Bullying will only stop when there is a balance of power between students.  So how do we get that?

First, our schools can stop punishing students for standing up to bullies.  Yes, I said it.  My children come home and tell me that if they are hit, they are not allowed to hit back or defend themselves, or they too will get suspended along with the instigator.  What kind of foolishness is that?  Punish the victim twice?  He gets bullied, and then gets suspended?  Bullies know this very well.  They know their victims will not fight back because they fear the punishment of the school system.

Our school systems need to let victims of bullying know that it is okay to stand up for themselves, using physical force if necessary.  After all, isn't the right to self-defense one of our protected rights in this nation?  If someone came up to me in a store and physically threatened me, would I be out of line to defend myself?  Why not in a school?

Second, schools can start publicly shaming bullies.  Yes, I am calling for public humiliation of bullies.  Bullies love to humiliate their victims- that is their bread and butter.  It is a very appropriate punishment for them, therefore, to feel the weight of humiliation themselves.  Bullies should be made to clean the bathrooms during class changes, where everyone can see them mopping the floor and cleaning toilets.  They should be made to clean out garbage cans and wash out dumpsters behind the school at recess time or some other very visible time of the day when everyone can see them.  They should be made to serve lunch to students with a sign around their necks saying, "I am a bully.  How may I serve you?" 

They should be made to do the household chores of their victims- mowing their grass, washing their car, cleaning their windows, dusting their furniture.  Yes, they should be made to serve their victims in a very public and embarrassing way.  Like I said before, bullies thrive on humiliating and embarrassing their victims.  The only way they can know what they are doing to their victims is to experience it for themselves.

This is how we solve the problem of bullying.  Unfortunately, the politically correct crowd will say that those things are too harsh, too hard on the child, too damaging to their fragile little personalities.  Tough.  You don't want those punishments?  Don't bully.  It's time we allow the bullies to feel the weight of their actions.  Stop punishing the victim and start empowering them.  Start humiliating the bullies and believe me, they will stop.

Or, we could continue our current policies.  Sadly, current policies aren't working and never will.

Why we have problems . . . . . and what we can do to change them

We all have problems.

This society we live in has problems.

Sometimes problems just happen.  You're driving down the street and you're hit by another car.  You trip and fall in front of the executives you're trying to impress or the job interviewer you were hoping to dazzle.  Your kid comes home with an "F" on his report card and doesn't really seem to care.

Those aren't the kind of problems I'm talking about.  I'm talking about something else entirely.

I'm talking about the problems that are of our own doing.  I'm talking about the kind of problems that if you were honest with yourself, the only person to blame is the one looking at you in the mirror in the morning.

For example:
-You're in credit card debt up to your ears, not because you don't have a job, but because you can't fathom not having what everyone else has.

-You're overweight, not because of a medical condition, but because you can't control your appetite.

-You are friendless, not because you don't want friends, but because you are incredibly selfish and rude.

-You have a terrible history with ex's because you have no boundaries with people and will always date the one most likely to use you and break your heart.

-You have addictions to drugs or alcohol, not because you don't know better, but because you love the high or because you believe they help you cope.

In other words, we have problems because of our actions and our actions alone. Human beings, even with their amazing ability to learn and grow and mature, have within them the unique desire to self-destruct.  We all make our lives harder on purpose.  We do things that are stupid, that have terrible consequences, that ruin our lives, that destroy our character . . . .  and the sad thing is, we KNOW it will happen yet we do it anyway.  Why?

Is there anyone who doesn't know that smoking kills you in an incredibly painful, messy, awful way?  Yet we see people smoking all the time.

Is there anyone who doesn't know that spending too much will ruin your financial situation and set you up for financial slavery, paying off debt until you are 90?  Yet we see people doing it every day.

Is there anyone who doesn't know that eating unhealthy meals, getting too little exercise, and not taking care of yourself leads to obesity, heart disease, unhealthy body image, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and eventually a pretty nasty death?  Yet more than one-third of Americans are overweight and/or obese.

We all know these things.  Knowledge isn't the problem.  Then what is it?

The answer is simple:  we have problems because we love what causes the problems more than we love the solution to those problems.

Huh?

Let me explain.  We have an AIDS epidemic in America.  We all know what the solution is- it isn't rocket science.  The solution is that everyone commits to Biblical sexuality- wait until marriage to have sex and then have sex with only that person for the rest of your life.  Stop shooting up intravenous drugs as well, and AIDS is gone in one generation, as are all other sexually transmitted diseases.

If it's that simple, why is there still an AIDS epidemic?  Simple- because people love the cause of AIDS- promiscuous sex and shooting up drugs- more than they love the solution.  Therefore, regardless of the knowledge, people continue to cause the AIDS crisis.

We have a financial debt epidemic in America.  The average household has more than $15,000 in credit card debt alone.  We know what the solution is- pay cash and if you can't afford it, don't buy it.  That's pretty simple.  However, the satisfaction of immediate gratification, coupled with having what everyone else has, is so powerful that people will continue to do it, regardless of the consequences.  We love the cause of the problem more than the solution to the problem.

I'm not saying we love the problem.  We don't.  We actually hate the problems.  We just love the CAUSE of the problem.  And because we continue to love what causes us problems, we will always have them.

That is, until we decide to love the solution more than the cause.

I know people who were in debt up to their eyeballs that began loving financial discipline more than spending.  Because they loved the solution more than the cause, they got out of debt.  I know people who were overweight that began loving a healthy body weight more than they loved food.  Because they loved the solution more than the cause, they got their weight under control.

The same is true of any problem- you have the problem because deep down, you love what causes that problem more than the solution to it.  As long as you are in this state, you will always have problems no matter what steps you take, no matter what program you enter, no matter how many people you ask to "hold you accountable," etc.  Until your heart changes, your problems won't change.

I have found that God does far more for us that forgive sins.  My experience with God is that when He gets hold of your life, He does a miracle in you.  He literally changes what you love.

He changes your love for what causes problems.  He changes your love for self-destruction.  He changes your love for the things that eventually destroy you.

He changes your heart so that you begin to love the solutions more than the causes, and your life changes.  You begin to love Biblical sexuality and despise promiscuity.  You begin to love kind words and healing touches and despise insults and gossip.  You begin to love financial discipline and despise immature impulse spending.  You begin to love wisdom and despise foolishness.

Because your heart is inclined to the solutions to problems, your life changes for the better.  Radically.

You become the best version of you possible.  You become a person who doesn't have to spend a lot of time digging yourself out of holes you've created by your own stupidity.  You become a person who, instead of fighting every day in emergency stress mode wondering how you will make it through the day with all this crap coming at you, has time to invest in good things.  You move out of crisis mode and into the mode where you are in the driver's seat, determining how you spend your day, how you spend your time, etc.  You can do this because you aren't constantly mired by problems of your own doing.

You become the person you were meant to be.

Allow God to invade your heart- to change your love for the cause of your problems.  Ask Him to change your heart so that you love the solutions to your problems more than the causes of your problems.  Whatever you love- that is what you will do, no matter how dumb of self-destructive they may be.

Start today- it's never the wrong time to do the right thing.

Christians aren't losing the culture war . . . and never will

I read a study by somebody somewhere that interviewed pastors on the culture war in America.  Most of the evangelical pastors and a majority of mainline denomination pastors say that Christians are "losing" the culture war or have already lost it.

I disagree.

Because there is no way for a Christian to lose a culture war.

Because we aren't fighting a culture war.  And you can't lose a war you don't fight.

People who think that Christians actually can lose a culture war are only thinking from an American Christian point of view.  It is truly important to think from the perspective of the ENTIRETY of the Christian faith- beginning in Jerusalem after Jesus had been crucified and risen, a substantial minority, persecuted, thrown to the lions, spreading to every continent and every nation on earth, etc. 

When you look at Christians from that point of view, you answer the culture war quite differently.

Now, do I mean that America won't change into a godless, secular, anything-goes kind of society?  No.  That's definitely happening and most likely will continue to happen.  What I am saying is that that is not a loss for Christianity.

What I am saying is that Christians, true Christians, really don't care what the culture around them says.  We have a remarkable indifference to cultural trends, popular movements, anti-Christian laws, and government policies that restrict faith and free speech.  In other words, Christians never ask permission to be Christians.

That is why Christians will never lose a culture war. 

The Christian doesn't really care if the government takes away the right to freedom of religion.  We didn't ask permission from the government to be Christians anyway.  The right to freedom of religion doesn't come from government; it comes from God.  Therefore, we don't really care about laws prohibiting our faith expressions or our beliefs.  Weren't all the heroes of the Bible arrested and thrown in jail?  Jesus, Paul, Peter, John- every one of them spent time in jail and/or were executed for their faith.  If these are the heroes we look up to, shouldn't we be willing to do the same?

That's why Christians will never lose a culture war.

My friends in other countries, especially Muslim and Hindu countries where Christianity is viciously repressed and persecuted, continue to practice their faith regardless of what the culture says.  They aren't waiting around for government or society to tell them it's okay.  They, like all other Christians, practice their faith regardless.

So when I hear people saying that laws are being passed or policies are being implemented that take away the rights of Christians or challenge Judeo-Christian traditions, I'm not too concerned.  The only people that laws and policies would affect are people who are half-heartedly committed and are looking for comfort more than Christ.

The only way Christians lose the culture war is if we individually decide to no longer follow Christ.  We lose the culture war when people look at Jesus, look at the world, and choose the world.  Other than that, no amount of law or policy or cultural degrading can or will defeat a Christian.  This world isn't our home anyway.

After all- all they can do is kill us.  Then we go to heaven. 

In other words, we can't lose.

So I invite you to join me in chilling out, stop worrying about "losing the culture war," and instead look at the amazing opportunities that God is bringing us in America right now.  Our society now looks exactly like the society that Christianity was born into- and the Church was so successful that it changed the entire culture and the entire world simply through the testimony and dedication of its earliest leaders.  If you had to bet on which would be around in 2014- the Church or the Roman Empire- most of us would have bet on the mighty powerful Empire, not on the ragtag bunch of believers who were constantly getting thrown in jail and killed.  But the Church was so successful in that culture that we now name our kids John and Paul and our dogs Nero and Brutus.

Lose the culture war?  I don't think so.

Criticizing the Millenial Generation?

I have never heard so much about a generation as I have about the Millenials.  How they vote, what their values are, what their religious preferences are, their obsession/competency with technology, etc.  It seems like we as a society are obsessed with their every move, their every path, and their every action.

I wonder why this is so.  Is it America's perpetual fascination with youth, or is it something altogether different?

I've also noticed that they have to be the most criticized generation in history.

Now, to be fair, every generation criticizes the generation behind it.  I am a GenXer, and we caught no small amount of flack from the Baby Boomers- we were slackers, we were rebellious, we were lazy and unmotivated, we teased our hair up with hairspray and listened to Van Halen, then we switched to baggy flannel shirts and listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and the "music these days" was horrible and awful.

I believe similar things were said about the Baby Boomers by the Greatest Generation- don't even get me started about my grandparents' opinions on the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Elvis Presley.

So, every generation views the one behind it as immature, lazy, and stupid.  We get that.  And to a certain degree, they are correct.  Compared to mature adults with decades of life experience, the younger generations ARE immature and stupid.  Everyone is immature and stupid until life deals them a few blows and they accumulate years of wisdom and experience.  Human beings have an amazing ability to learn from mistakes and grow to maturity, but it takes time.  I am a much different person at age 39 than I was at age 14, having had the experiences of graduating high school and college and grad school, getting married and raising children, owning a home and making major mistakes and learning from them.  Astronomically different now than I was as a teenager or even as a young twentysomething.  It is also easy, from my 39-year-old viewpoint, to romanticize my teenage years and twentysomething years as being more noble, more trustworthy, more grounded, etc than I actually was.

So, that being the case, I return to the criticism of the Millenial generation and I ask myself if this is a good thing for the church.

One thing I have learned recently is that the people of the Millenial generation are well aware of the criticism being lobbed their way.  They know they have been branded as spoiled, lazy, entitled, and immature.  And for good reason.  Many of them ARE spoiled, lazy, entitled, and immature.  Most of the time, stereotypes exist for a reason.  However, like I said before, those same words were used to describe MY generation and the generation before me.  So, are we really doing any favors to the Millenials in our churches by constantly pointing that out?

I remember the first time someone told me that they were glad I was part of the church.

I was fifteen years old.  I was pretty much a punk kid- I had a big black curly-haired mullet (straight out of the late 80s, baby!) and strutted around like I was something big and bad.  For some reason, I liked church.  I liked the old people, I liked the stories, and I absolutely LOVED the music.  We didn't go to church that often, so even though I was a punk and had a bad attitude, there was always something I liked about church.

One day at church, the youth minister looked at me and told me he was glad I was there.  Then he asked me if I wanted to play bass guitar in the youth praise band.  I believe his exact words were, "You belong here."

I really don't know why he said that.  I wasn't a Christian and I sure didn't look like someone who would belong in a church.  I wonder if that youth minister was nervous talking with me that day.  If I was in his shoes, I probably would have been.

Fast-forward thirty-four years, and here I am as a pastor and church planter and missionary.  I wasn't criticized into the church- I was encouraged into the church.  I am very thankful for that.

I am very thankful that there was a place for me in the church.  He didn't invite me to come and sit in a chair or in a pew.  That probably wouldn't have interested me at all.  He invited me to be a part of something- something living and organic, something life-giving and fun.  He invited me to PARTICIPATE, not observe.

So, people in the church, how can we do this for the Millenials?  How do we take people from a generation that this country has decided is spoiled, entitled, immature, and lazy and redirect them to be PARTICIPANTS in our churches?  Is our attitude towards them encouraging or discouraging them from being a part of the Body of Christ?  Sure, they don't look like us, they don't act like us, but is that necessarily a bad thing?  I say that is a potentially GOOD thing.

Whatever it is we do, we certainly won't win the younger generation by criticizing them.  Look for the young people out there who are ready to break the mold- ready to rise above the cesspool of culture and are looking for a connection with God.  Take a risk on a young person.  It might have more Kingdom results than you ever could have imagined.

Why Jesus is Unsettling to me

Jesus is my personal hero.  I have never in my life been so inspired, so challenged, and so confused by anyone else in history.  I guess that goes without saying- I mean, He's the Son of God, right?  I wouldn't think the Son of God would be anything less.

It's not Jesus' difficult teachings that unsettle me.  Teachings like "Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you," "Anyone who doesn't give up everything he has cannot be My disciple," etc are incredibly difficult to follow, but at least I feel like I engage those teachings.  Those teachings aren't what unsettle me about Jesus.

What unsettles me about Jesus is this:  He completely destroys "living a good life" as the way of life for the Christian.

Huh?

Yes.  He does.  And He does it boldly.

I cannot get past the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25.  In the parable, Jesus separates the righteous from the unrighteous and sends one group to heaven and the other to hell.  His criteria for righteousness?

Was His criteria raising a good family?  Being comfortable?  Being kind and loving to those around you?  Living with integrity and morality and following the Ten Commandments?  Was it being forgiving and faithful?

No.

His criteria were "I was hungry and you fed Me, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was sick and in prison and you came to visit Me."

I am 39 years old, and it wasn't until six months ago that I ever visited anyone in prison.  Even though that's what Jesus said to do.  Even though that was one of the very criteria Jesus used to separate the sheep and the goats.  I would imagine that the vast majority of Christians have never visited anyone in prison or visited a stranger in the hospital.  Now, to be fair, there are a good number who do, and I would imagine that the other things Jesus says about feeding the hungry and giving water to the thirsty many Christians do, although it might not be as often as we would like it to be.  Many Christians provide for orphans in the form of sponsorship and adoption and all that.

But here is the thing- I never visited anyone in prison because I never GO to prison.  It's out of my way.  It's not a part of my daily life.  It's so far away from my life that I, along with most other Christians, could be born, live for 90 years, and die without ever crossing paths with a prison.

And that's the problem.  In this parable, Jesus is saying that He is found in places where we would normally not go, and there are eternal consequences for not going where we would normally not go.

In this parable, notice that Jesus doesn't mention other things about the unrighteous.  I would imagine that the unrighteous weren't murderers or thieves.  They may have lived very decent lives.  They probably went on vacation with their families.  They probably lived with at least a decent degree of integrity.  They were probably good parents, raising their children to succeed in school, establishing a solid home based on morals and integrity.  They probably volunteered for the PTO and coached sports and spent quality time with the family.

But they ended up in hell.

That's why Jesus is so unsettling to me.  He completely destroys the option of "living a good life."

In this parable, He states that heaven will be filled with people who did what was abnormal.  Hell will be filled with people who did what was normal.  And that is unsettling to me.

It is abnormal to visit a prison. Not many do it.  It is abnormal to allow a stranger into your home.  Not many do it.  It is abnormal to spend resources giving water to the thirsty and food to the hungry, clothing for the naked and love for the unlovable.  That doesn't fit in with what is "normal" in America.

Yet, the abnormal is what Jesus seems to prize.  The normal doesn't interest Him in the slightest.

And that is why Jesus is unsettling to me. 

See, in my innermost being, I would simply like to just live a good life, raise a family, be happily married, earn a living, and then die old and full of years.  That really sounds attractive to me.  That really sounds lovely.  And it really sounds like that is the path that will get me labelled as a "goat" and send me straight to hell.

And that is why Jesus is unsettling to me.

I think it is time that the Church begins to re-think what it is we are here to do.  We aren't here to live a Christianized version of the American dream, playing it safe in our structured communities and keeping to ourselves.  We have to re-think what it means to even be a Christian.  There was a time when the label "Christian" was an automatic death sentence to anyone who claimed it.  It is that way many places in the world today.  Can we honestly call ourselves "Christians" if we are not actively seeking Him out in the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the naked, the incarcerated, the orphan, the widow?

I think that the main point Jesus is making in this parable is Christians, true Christians, have an unsettling passion to be with Jesus- to find Him at all costs.  Jesus never said He was found in a church or Bible study or conference, as wonderful as those things are.  He has told us where to find Him.  He's waiting there for us.  Sadly, the first 38 years of my life Jesus was waiting in prison for me to come see Him, and I didn't do it.  He is waiting in hospitals and nursing homes for us to visit Him, and many of us never will.  He is waiting in the orphan child who needs parents or at least sponsorship for physical needs.

And that is why Jesus is unsettling to me.  He has destroyed the option of "living a good life."  No longer can I content myself with simply being married, having a home, raising "good kids," planning for retirement, going to church, listening to Christian music, and having friends.  It's not that there is anything wrong with any of that.  It's just simply what is being omitted from that life that will ensure an eternity in hell, according to Matthew 25.

And that's why Jesus is unsettling to me.  I hope He's unsettling to you as well.