Healthy children...

I saw a great post from Tim Elmore on raising healthy, well rounded kids who are ready to be strong contributors.  Check out a post on 'soft skills' that are critical to healthy, whole person living and giving God our best.

Wheat Ridge supports many creative projects that focus on supporting young people. Here's one in Chicagoland.

What's different?

I visit in lots of churches over the course of a year.  Some are growing and lively, and others... not so much.  What's the difference?  I've often wondered about that.  I don't think it has anything to do with age of the members or size of the congregation (and all the churches I visit have Christ at the center).  There are many possible factors, my observations are not scientific and I don't want to over simplify, but here are some thoughts about what I see:

For one thing, I think it has to do with orientation - is the orientation internal or external; is the congregation caring for itself or is it caring for others? The congregations that focus out and care for others seem to be healthier.  They don't wait for people to come to them, they go out and work among the people in their neighborhood; they know their neighbors and their neighbors' needs.

And is the focus on the past or on the present and future?  When the focus is on the past, it is easy to think that the good days seem to be gone. It is important to live in the present and to have a strong hope for the future.

I spoke with one Pastor of a growing church, and one that is engaged in their community in many ways, and he said "we didn't invent any of these things we are doing... the opportunities came to us - and God provided all we needed in order to do them." I'm guessing every community has needs, and opportunities to meet those needs. Some see them and others don't.  Perhaps it is as simple as: the ones who saw the opportunities were looking for them.

Wheat Ridge can be one of the ways that God provides what is needed, and can provide help when congregations want to focus out and get active in the present. Check out their grants and other resources.  And check out how you can help us with our granting ministry.

Parenting resources...

Three excellent resources for negotiating parenting in the 21st Century. (It was tough enough 2000 years ago!)

First, Dr David Walsh has some excellent posts on parenting - this one is on negotiating with teens.

Second, Search Institute (they received a grant from Wheat Ridge back in their start up days) has great resources, one of which is called Parent Further. The recent post on 'grit' is worth the time to read. It helps us get a handle on what we as parents want our kids to excel at for success in the future... academics is not at the top of the list.

Third, Dr Tim Elmore on Three Mistakes We Make With Kids - and how to correct them... 

Check them all out...

The Conversation...

More from Alban Institute, this time from Jim Wind, President.  It is a column about 'conversations we fail to have' from their Congregations magazine.

Dying is often different today than it was 2000 years ago... Still final, still hard to face - but today there is often so much medical intervention just prior to death that the end (that is, the last few weeks, or days or hours) is often not what people want because it robs them of the chance for closure.  Medical machinery can sustain 'life' for a long time, but is the extension worth it?  Jim contends that the church can help people have 'the conversation' about these things.

And there are certainly more people facing those end times at an older age when, without some advanced preparation and planning, medical intervention is more likely.

Wheat Ridge is supporting a wide variety of projects focused on older adults (search for 'older adults' under the 'Topical Areas' tab).

Being the Church Today...

Here is another Organization/publication I have come to enjoy.  There are a wide variety of authors who speak to a wide variety of church 'issues'...

This one speaks about being the church today.  Here are a few sentences to give you a taste:
"As mainline Protestants, we are still working through our fixation with numerical decline. We used to be the popular kid in class, but now—not so much. One response to this changing circumstance has been the creation of an unrealis­tic mental picture: once we were a great and glorious church, but now we are doomed to the dustbin of history. This fanci­ful delusion keeps us from seeing the ministry right in front of us. This Camelot-like dream diverts us from both the joys and the challenges of being the church today. We have roman­ticized our triumphs. We have confused our former popular­ity and status in the culture with being the church of Jesus Christ. We pine for the glories of our misremembered past."

The author, Steve Willis, speaks about the small congregation but I think what he says applies to churches of any size.  The church in any century needs to be careful about what we use to measure 'success'.  

More from Steve: 
"The small-church lament is that things are not as they should be. And that lament has a long, important tradition in the life of covenant people. Angry protestations about declining mem­bership rolls and budgets do not offer a prophetic word to the church. But paying closer attention to people and places and speaking out about who people are and what they are created for carry the potential for genuine transformation."
  
Hopefully that is the lament of all churches.  And "paying closer attention to people" often gets us to what Wheat Ridge wants to help congregations do: engage their community with health and human care ministries in the name of Jesus. Check out how we can help and what others are doing.

Food, Faith and Community...

I have always appreciated the Church Health Reader out of the Church Health Center in Memphis.

Check out their Summer Issue on Food, Faith and Community - it explores:
- What is healthy eating?
- Mindful eating
- Serving one another with Grace before meals.
- Entering the fry-free zone...
and more.

Stability and Creativity - you need them both

I came across an interesting article from a helpful organization - Alban Institute.  The article is titled: "The Pastor and the Healthy Church".  What I found most interesting was the tension between the need for stability in a congregation - 'we've been here before and we can handle this situation' - that needs to be balanced with creativity - 'a willingness to risk failure in order to move forward'.

Those two can seem to be at cross purposes but both are necessary. Stability allows for creativity and creativity keeps the stable from becoming stagnant.

Wheat Ridge Ministries works with congregations who are stable risk-takers!  Check out some of the grants we've given to see the creative work happening around the country and the world. And then check out the grants that might help you fund the new venture your congregation is thinking about.