The Future of the Church (and Volleyball)

Volleyball is the most amazing sport I have ever played. The better I got at it, the higher the level of play I was in, the more I loved it. It never lost its shine, as they say.

In the beginning, volleyball is about getting the ball over the net. Picture the 3 or 4 year old standing by the net trying to toss the ball over. Success!

My son, Ethan, at 10 years old, could finally serve the ball from behind the line and get it over the net. Success!

My first coaching gig at a small school, I taught girls who had never played the game. Ouch! Then, finally the ball would go over the net. Success!

In the beginning, volleyball is a lot like ping pong. The ball bounces all over the place until someone hopefully pushes it over the net (before the third hit).

After playing for awhile, something strange happens. The goal is no longer to simply hit the ball over the net. You are trained not to return the ball, at least, not until the third hit.

Bump, Set, Spike.


The better you are at volleyball, the more you rely on your team.
The more important who your teammates are.
The more important communication is.
The more important trust is.

It sounds a lot like church to me.

There are plenty of buildings that are called churches. There are plenty of groups of people that call themselves members of a church.

Some of them are focused on putting the ball over the net. They haven't learned to care for their teammates, to communicate and trust.

But, some places are different.

Church was designed by God to be a place for the love of God to be see-able, touch-able, taste-able.

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Like volleyball, the better you get at it, the more you will love it and value it. It will never lose its shine. Never.

Home church for us has been that kind of church. There is love.

Here's 3 ways you can tell you are part of a church:

1 - No Place to Hide

My 14 year old, Katie, said yesterday that she likes our home church, "You don't have to be perfect. You can just be yourself."

When you know everyone in church, there is no place to hide. When everyone in church fits in a home, life is intimate and shared. Everything is visible. You can either run away or be seen. You can't stay in the church without being known.

Being known, being loved, being accepted for who you are. Welcome to church.

Sin, too, is easy to see. So, we learn quickly not to try to hide it, but to confess it and look for support and guidance and grace. Confronting sin is a natural part of our own introspection and relationships with one another.

2 - Everything is Shared

It is easy to rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve because you know every single person from the infant to the eldest. The infant's first words or first steps to the oldest person learning a new hobby are celebrated together. Love lost and hope dashed are mourned together.

In church, you are not forgotten. Your pain is everyone's pain. Your victory is everyone's victory. Everything is shared.

Giving and generosity flow from the growing relationships. When one person or family has a need, the whole church feels it. And, the giving flows outside the church, too. As you feel God's love and see how he provides for you through the church, there is less anxiety about providing for yourself and hording what you have. You are free to give to any one as they have need.

The church frees you to love and share and give.

3 - Equality Among Members

All members are valuable. Not for what they have to offer the church, but for who they are as people created in God's image.

There is no place for politics in the church, no place for personal agendas, no place for power plays, no place for divisiveness or gossip. There are no winners or losers. No competition.

All people in the church are there because they choose to be and want to be a part of the church. Jesus lifted up the littlest child and told the adults to learn from her, to have faith like her. Paul told a young man, Timothy, to set an example for others in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Those who are older are asked to train those who are younger.

Everyone in the church is a gift to the church and can only fully blossom if they are fully engaged in and fully embraced by the church.

Relationships are the Key

The key to it all is our relationships with one another. It comes back to volleyball. The members of our church are important, communication is important and trust is important.

If you don't like the people in your church, can't communicate with them or don't trust them, then you are not part of a church. But you can be. God wants you to be.

Keep looking. Don't give up.

This is the only future for the church. The only way that will make the church relevant for this generation. There is no other plan. Be the church.

3 Relationships Parents Should Promote and Why

My 11 year old son, Ethan, was at pitching boot camp the other day preparing for the upcoming baseball season, and I overheard a pitching coach telling a young pitcher to keep his hands on his chest when preparing to deliver the ball. Sometimes pitchers, like this young man, raise their hands above their heads like the one in the picture as part of their wind up. He went on to explain that, back in the day, pitchers wore long sleeves and used this upward movement to get their long sleeves out of the way and give their arms full range of movement. Why do kids still do it today? Because that’s what they thought they were supposed to do.

As parents, what are we supposed to do?

What is our role in our children’s lives?

Too often, we just follow the example of those who raised us or, determined not to repeat their mistakes, we follow some other example. But do we really know why we do what we do?

The 3 Relationships Parents Should Promote for Their Children and Why:

1 - Be their Provider

As parents our primary role is to provide security and stability for our children. This includes lots of things including each of the layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shown below. Of course, the top level, self-actualization, is up to them, but we can certainly help give them a strong foundation to build it upon.

As parents, we also make and enforce boundaries – some of which are important and good and others which are fear-based, overly constrictive, dangerously lax, obsolete or even just plain wrong. We are fallible and though we try our best, we often fail to set healthy boundaries for our children.

In a nut-shell, that is our primary role as parents. Daunting, isn’t it?

There is more. And, here is both an added responsibility and an added support system. We have the responsibility to introduce our children to other significant adults and provide an environment where they can development meaningful friendships. These relationships play different roles in our children’s lives, but they are both essential to their development.

2 - Help them Find Supportive Adults.

At about 7 years old, children start to see themselves as something more than just a member of their immediate family. They begin to let other people in and accept them as members of their inner circle of trust.

Adults that are not in the home can be in that inner circle. And this can provide tremendous support to parents. Significant adults in a child’s life can be grandparents, teachers, coaches, spiritual leaders, etc.

Ideally they will share the same primary values and beliefs. As the children see that adults they trust agree on the main things, they will feel more secure and confident about their core beliefs.

They will also begin to notice differences among their parents and these significant adults. Differences of opinion on certain behaviors like diet and exercise, political views, choice of entertainment, views on wealth and prosperity, ways of relating to others, and any number of other differences. These differences create space for the child to test their own individuality within the confines of the larger sense of security and well-being that the values and beliefs held by their role models provide.

They learn that they can grow up to be different and still be true to their core beliefs.

Even as toddlers, children need to test their boundaries and distinguish themselves as individuals. They long to be one of a kind! And, they are. Their uniqueness begins to take shape at a very early age. 

As agonizing as it is, our children need to say, “No!” when we tell them to eat their green beans or brush their teeth. This is a crucial step in forming their identity.

3 - Help them Develop Meaningful Friendships.

During adolescence, our children begin to identify with their peers and look to them for support and a sense of belonging. They long for the approval found in fulfilling others’ expectations. They still draw their security and stability from their family, but friends give them a sense of adventure and are will to take risks with them in their mutual search for identity.

These peers offer our children the courage to explore. All parents are wrong sometimes, our boundaries are too loose or too tight, our motivations are screwed up by our own insecurities and misplaced fears. At this age, our children want to know which of our boundaries are good and right, which are stupid and overbearing, and which are ones that they will choose for themselves.

In a sense, they want to figure out what boundaries they would set for themselves and try them on like a costume. The consequences of this can sometimes be harmful emotionally (like when our son or daughter gets their heart broken because they started dating too early), physically (like when they ride their bike over a homemade ramp that you told them wasn’t safe), spiritually (when they entrust their soul to someone who abuses their trust), or even fatally (when they participate in some life-threatening activity like cutting, car surfing, huffing, or any alcohol or drug use).

Faced with these realities, of course, as parents we want to protect our children. That’s what giving them security is all about.

Rather than trying to find a safe balance, a compromise or middle ground, we actually need to push both extremes, live in the tension. We need to let them express themselves, experiment with different boundaries, take risks and experience the consequences of their actions. And we need to protect them from themselves and their own lack of ability to evaluate risks.

Recent research on teenage brains confirms what we all have known, teenagers are bad at evaluating risks. They make dumb choices that can be disastrous. This research suggests that they actually do stop and evaluate the risk before doing something, but they are less afraid of the unknown than their adult counterparts.

This is vital for survival and thriving, since the adolescent has to face numerous unknowns in order to move out into the world and become an individual. But, it brings with it a limited ability to accurately gauge the risks involved in facing the unknown. 

Makes sense, doesn't it? Why else would teens be the most likely to start smoking, to begin having sex, to be converted to Christianity (or any religion)? Teens are less afraid of facing the unknown because so much of life is unknown to them.

We need to let them take all kinds of risks and reap the consequences good and bad. We also need to protect them from those risks that just aren’t worth it. We need to be that part of their brain that says, "No, not this time. That risk is just too great."

In the examples given before, maybe we say yes to the dating heartbreak but protect them from physical and sexual intimacy, maybe we allow them to scrape their knees on the bike ramp but move the ramp to the grass to prevent broken bones, and maybe we allow them to participate in other spiritual experiences and listen to and help them process their mixed reactions to them. And, definitely, we shield them from taking life-threatening risks all together.

Peers help our children to take appropriate risks, to press against the boundaries and find out where we have gone too far or been too lax. As much as possible we want to encourage these peer relationships with those who share similar core beliefs and values, but who they choose as friends is ultimately up to them. We can set appropriate boundaries to help them take risk in a controlled environment.

Throughout their lives, our children will be experiencing God and finding their own identity amidst a world that would gladly shape and morph them into its constantly changing image of enlightenment and happiness. These three interpersonal relationships provide a community of people to travel that road with them to act as guides, load bearers, travel companions, and comic relief.

The mutual dependence of these relationships cannot be over emphasized. In all three relationships (with parents, significant adults and peers), our children must perceive that they are responsible for their own thoughts, feelings, actions and the consequences of each and responsible to those with whom they are journeying. Each of us has times when we are the guide and others follow and when we are the load bearer carrying more than our share.

Our children need us to provide the basics and also to help them create mutually beneficial relationships that will support them along their life’s journey.

By the grace of God, we can do that.

Follow Your Bliss: Making Your Life Worth Living

Lately, I keep hearing the phrase, “Follow Your Bliss.” I think it will be one of our Family Rules. Mostly people just seem to use it to mean, “Do what makes you happy.” But, it stems from the work of Joseph Campbell. He described a way of living that flows from the core of your being, awakens your complete awareness (your consciousness) and flows toward what gives you bliss and rapture.

His statement, “follow your bliss,” encapsulates this whole notion.

He realized that he may never truly know if he had a proper consciousness or a proper sense of his being, but he felt sure that he knew what would bring him bliss. And, if he could follow that path toward his bliss, he felt sure that he would find both a proper consciousness and a proper being.

“If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time,” p. 150.

The Bible speaks similarly of the importance of following our deepest longings our greatest desires. We are to put off the sin that so easily entangles us and mires us in lies and bogs us down with false promises of happiness.

As we are setting aside the sin, we are told to focus on the prize that is before us. The One that we are longing for. The One that satisfies above all else. The One for which we were created. The One that offers us bliss and is able to deliver. The One and Only One who can provide what is promised. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Joseph Campbell continues,“In the Middle Ages, a favorite image that occurs in many, many contexts is the wheel of fortune. There's the hub of the wheel, and there is the revolving rim of the wheel. For example, if you are attached to the rim of the wheel of fortune, you will be either above going down or at the bottom coming up. But if you are at the hub, you are in the same place all the time. That is the sense of the marriage vow—I take you in health or sickness, in wealth or poverty: going up or going down. But I take you as my center, and you are my bliss, not the wealth that you might bring me, not the social prestige, but you. That is following your bliss,” p.147.

Campbell uses marriage as a symbol to explain following your bliss. Paul uses this image as well in 2 Corinthians 11. He desires that his readers be pure in their devotion to Christ. He desires that we be pure, undistracted, undefiled, giving our full attention to Christ.

Simply put, we get easily distracted. We have so many immoral choices that when we overcome those desires and begin to live moral lives, we tend to think that we have arrived. We begin to believe that this life's goal is to sin less. But, this is just a means to an end. Sinlessness is our of our reach. And, sinning less only provides an opportunity for living from the core of our being with complete awareness (consciousness) of our true bliss, the One who has called us, loved us, died for us, and has been resurrected, giving us a confident hope for eternal life.

If we sin less today than yesterday, we must not think that we have arrived at some end. We must continue to journey toward our true bliss with all that we are. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus quoting Moses described the path to our true bliss as, "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’"

There are desires in our hearts other than following Jesus, and these may or may not be leading us toward our true bliss. We can recognize it in others more easily than we can in our own lives.

The boy who bullies other children like his father bullies him. The girl with an unaffectionate father looking for a boyfriend to meet that need. The man who drinks just a beer or two each day to calm his nerves, so that he can keep it together for his family. The recently divorced woman who starts going to the gym, wearing low-cut blouses and high slit skirts.

The desires and needs are real, but they have substituted a lie for the truth and have settled for less than true bliss.

But then there are passions and desires that stem from the core of who we are: a love for art or nature, a need to fix or build something, an eye for beauty or style, a knack for numbers or problem solving, an ease of conversation that allows someone to strike of a conversation. This book and website might help you find what your strengths are.

These are expressions of our true self peaking through.

We can choose to stifle them, ignoring our design, or we can choose to embrace them, to recognize of a bit of our true selves that has been revealed.

Follow your bliss.

For Parents: When asked how parents could help their children follow their bliss, Joseph Campbell answered thoughtfully, “You have to know your child and be attentive to the child.” The best way to do this is through youth centered conversations.

Joseph Campbell quotes are from The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers

Our Family Rules! and Our Family Rules.

"Our Family Rules!" My oldest daughter, Anna, said the other day that she has the best family ever. This is especially encouraging since this has been a tough year and a half for us. In the past 18 months, I secluded myself for an extra few hundred hours (on top of regular work hours) while I was writing my doctoral dissertation, I graduated with my doctorate of ministry degree, I lost my job, our family left the only church any of of us have ever really known, we started a home church and our children changed schools majorly disrupting their social lives. Only a few of those friendships have withstood this upheaval, so they are still in the transition time of building new friendships.

I'm glad that she feels our family has been the rock that it needed to be to offer her the security and confidence to go through this difficult time.

But, that's not what I am writing about today. Today, I want to tell you about our family rules. As in The 10 Commandments of the Zirilli family.

It was suggested that it might help bring some sanity to our home to have some set of basic rules, guidelines for our lives. A reminder to us as parents and to our children what life in the Zirilli home is all about. So I decided that we should have a family meeting to discuss what our family rules should be.

As you might imagine, I was really excited about the awesome potential!

I explained that if we had a set of rules that was constant, it would be easier for everyone to follow the rules and discipline would be more cut and dry. "Sounds great doesn't it!"

Our kids hated the idea and immediately shot it down. Katie, my very practical 14 year old declared, "It will just give us more random stuff to get in trouble for. No thank you."

I was taken aback. I guess I approached that subject all wrong! So, I dropped it and tried to figure out what God was saying and if my enthusiasm was off or my delivery.

Then, I found these pictures online and decided to try again, with a more positive spin.

 

Traditional Porch design by Chicago Interior Designer Your Favorite Room By Cathy Zaeske

Contemporary Living Room design by Los Angeles Interior Designer Jill Wolff Interior Design

"What do you think about doing something like this."

Katie pipes up, "Can we paint on the wall? ... Then, I'm in!"

"But what do you think about the idea?" Not satisfied with their enthusiastic response, I wanted to put a damper on it right away. (Why do I do that?!?)

So now, we just need some time to think it over and keep throwing out ideas and mulling them over. In a couple of months, we will hopefully have our list, our design layout, and then we can paint.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Does anyone else have Family Rules? What do you wish were your family rules? Katie's first suggestion was, "We do whatever we want."

Tonight’s Family Time

Tonight’s Family Time

Katie, my teenage daughter, has a special gift. When she was little and we would have the teens over, which during school months was usually once a week for pasta night, Katie would attach herself to one of the teen girls. She would sit with them on their lap, take them up to her room to play Barbie or build houses out of books, and sit next to them at dinner. She would be completely focused, totally devoted to that one teen.

Fortunately, Katie has an adorable smile and deep, delicious dimples. That teen probably left feeling truly loved and valued. Katie’s day would have been vastly different if that teen hadn’t shown up that day. They felt important because they were important to her.

Katie is grown now, but continues to have that ability to totally focus on someone else. She can spend hours with a baby, carrying them, feeding them, and even changing diapers. She sets aside whatever other things she may be interested in and absorbs herself in the life of that one child. She makes them smile and they feel loved and valued.

I pointed out how Katie and Anna had both done that with Brady on Sunday, the one and a half year old who is part of our home church. They had each at times, walked with him, played with him, gone upstairs and back down with him, and loved him. They set aside whatever else they may have wanted to do and focused on him. Ethan and Ryan did something similar with Ethan W., Brady’s 5 year old brother. Ryan left with a cut lip from the sword and Ethan with a headache from where his head hit the tile, but that's just because boys are different from girls.

I told them how important it is to give someone our whole self, to really give someone our full attention and show someone that we really care.

“That’s why I like being the host, instead of the guest,” added Katie. When prompted, she added, “When you’re the host, you are supposed to do whatever your guest wants, so I like that. But, when I am the guest, I don’t care what we do. I just want to do whatever they want. So, in the beginning it is harder, more awkward, to be a guest.”

Anna agreed but then remembered a girl from her old school that was very talkative but never seemed to say anything. She added, “Some people, it’s hard to do that with. There was a girl last year that I tried to give her my attention when I could and just listen and focus on her. But, sometimes I had to say, ‘No. I can’t talk now,’ or else I couldn’t deal with her. I remember making a conscious decision at times to listen to her and just give her my full attention. Other times I couldn’t.” And, she smiled, “One time, we got into this talk about heaven and horses in heaven and it was really good. Really good! Who would have thought that I could have a conversation like that with her? But, we did!”

Ethan piped up, “Yeah, some people it is really hard to do that with. Definitely.”

I told them about one of the best memories I have growing up. When I was in my late teens, my great grandmother came to New York for a visit from her home state of West Virginia. I would usually see her once a year when we would go down to visit her, but it was rare for her to come to New York. This trip was different though because she was suffering with Alzheimer’s. She was reverting, so it seemed, back to her childhood. She kept asking if she could go home now and wondered what time it was. She was referring to her childhood home from over 80 years earlier. And, the more she asked the more agitated and anxious she would become if someone didn’t answer her.

She wasn’t able to do much, but she enjoyed simple puzzles. So, I set her up next to the dining room table and there we sat doing puzzle after puzzle. I just sat and talked with her and helped her find pieces and answered her questions. I gave her my undivided attention. I listened, and I learned to love her as she was. I gave her my full attention for a few hours and 25 years later I still remember it.

“You’re good at that,” Ethan said.

“What?” I wondered what he was referring to.

“You’re good at that, listening to people and making them feel important.”

“Thank you.” That meant a lot coming from Ethan who I had spent many hours with, lying next to him in his bed and listening to him. I guess he understood what I was doing and why. It was making a difference.

“But,” I reminded them, “remember Ethan’s warning." Recalling something he had said a couple of months earlier. "If we always focus on what other people want and never take care of ourselves and what we want, we’ll become miserable and then we won’t be any good to anybody.”

We all shook our heads in agreement and I ended our time together with a prayer asking God for the ability to be present with people and listen and love them by being focused on them.

Many times our devotions don’t seem to tap into anything profound and sometimes I wonder if we are just wasting time, but then we have talks like this and I remember how important it is to just make opportunities, not try to force anything, and let the Spirit lead when He will.

Giving someone our full attention can change a person's day or, maybe you've heard the stories, even save a life. Show someone true love, listen to them and give them your undivided attention.

(Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, why not think of someone that you could call or visit? Pray and ask God if there is someone that you know that may not have anyone special to spend Valentine's Day with and give them your full attention even if it is just for a little while.)