See You At The Pole has been around more than 25 years now and deserves thoughtful consideration - does this still work? Is it still a good idea? I recently read an article from back in 2008 that strongly said "no, it's outlived its usefulness." I have encouraged students to participate in See You At The Pole for the last twenty years and I recently had to ask myself, why am I still doing that? Here are five reasons why I think it still matters.
See You At The Pole, when done well, helps our students to remember several important things - 1) The body of Christ is bigger than our own congregation/denomination. We don't often encourage our students to do anything with believers from other churches, but when students pray with students from other churches in their community, it's a reminder that they are not the only believers in their school - they need that encouragement! It's a reminder to students that the family of God is bigger than they realized in their own community, let alone the world. And there's a lot of learning, growing, encouragement, and kingdom work that can come from that! 2) We live in a big world and God cares about that world. We generally do "God stuff" with our students at church, unless it's a mission trip where we go somewhere else, but what about the world right around us? I believe See You At The Pole is valuable because it reminds us that the world is bigger than our own little bubble. Our community, let alone the world, is bigger than our own four walls. There are people out there not connected with our church or any church and God cares about them! At one time, the church was the center of our communities. Over time, schools have taken the place of the church as the center of community - just go to a Friday night football game or a spring musical. Praying at school matters because that's where the people are and it's a reminder that our faith is not meant to be kept to ourselves. We are blessed by God to be a blessing to others. See You At The Pole should be a reminder to students to love and serve those we are praying for. 3) God loves the people around them and He wants to show His love through them. By attending public school, students are surrounded by others with different beliefs, attitudes, convictions - and that's a good thing. What a great place to apply the commands of Jesus such as "Love your neighbor", "be salt and light", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (paraphrased). It's easy to be a Christian at church. Anyone can do that. But if students can be like Jesus at school, that's a good indication that their faith is genuine. See You At The Pole should be a reminder that God's love for them is meant to be shared, it's meant to be given away! Students should be encouraged to pray for their fellow students at SYATP and follow that up with loving, serving, and blessing them, especially those who are different from them. 4) We can't separate the sacred and the secular. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 Paul says "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (NIV). I believe we have a tendency to compartmentalize spiritual activities and "other" activities. But we shouldn't - EVERYTHING we do should be done for God's glory including academics, sports, friendships, leadership, music, art, language, etc! When students pray at their flagpoles, it should be a reminder that everything they do it that school building has spiritual importance (just as much as at Church) and should be done to the glory of God. 5) It illustrates publicly something we desperately need But why do kids have to stand outside the school around a flagpole? Why is a public display necessary? Well, we certainly can do a lot of praying privately behind closed doors. However, I don't remember a time when people were more desperate for answers for the confusion, fear, and turmoil in our world today. Things in our country and around the world have gotten pretty crazy to say the least. I think that the public display of humble, quiet prayer gives people a glimpse of hope in the midst of the multiplicity of tragedies we've seen in recent years. What are people supposed to do in these times? I think teenagers in our country need to see with their own eyes people who have a source of hope that's bigger than the problems we face. In years past we used to use phrases like "take a stand for Christ", "be bold about your faith", "set your school on fire" and so on when we talked about See You At The Pole. While these were helpful at that time, I think some better ways of expressing it now might be "show God's love to your school", "be a blessing because God has blessed you", "don't just tell, but BE good news in your school". However we encourage it, I believe that students who follow Jesus still need concrete, tangible ways to help them remember that following Jesus is an all-the-time, everywhere kind of thing. We take Him with us wherever we go, even to school. For that reason I'll keep encouraging students to go to See You At The Pole.
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A few days ago, my son and daughter (pictured above) asked to make an American Flag. Why? I'm still not sure, but it caused me to ask myself, what am I going to teach my children about America and the American flag? What does it mean? What does it mean to be an American? To be honest it's gotten pretty confusing lately. All of the major events since the turn of the century (wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, social change, economic trouble, racial strife, etc.) have left my head spinning.
I grew up in the 80's when being a Christian meant being a patriotic republican in many circles. The pendulum has really swung the other way as far as that goes and left me struggling with what do I teach my kids about being a Christian and an American. Long story short, here's where I've landed for now. Many people have done infinitely better research and writing on this subject than I could ever could, but I believe that whatever else America might be, the most important thing that makes America America is this line from the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,..." Coming out of the monarchies of Europe (England in particular), this one concept had to be the most revolutionary thing about the American Revolution - all men, not just the rich, not just the powerful, not just the royal, not just the [fill in the blank], are created equal. Every life has intrinsic value that no one can take away or diminish because every person has been made in the image of God. And governments exist to protect and provide benefit for the people it rules over. That's quite different from the centuries (millennia really) of empires and kingdoms built on the work, sweat, and blood of everyday people who existed to benefit those who ruled over them. Now we all know it has taken a long time for this great, revolutionary idea to be applied to all Americans. In 1963, almost 200 years later, Dr. Martin Luther King rightfully reminded us that the promise of the Declaration of Independence had not yet been applied to all Americans, especially African Americans, in his "I have a dream" speech. He reminded us that it was time, way past time, to apply that great revolutionary truth to all the citizens of this country. Whatever else America is, this is what America can and should be - it should be a place where everyone has value, dignity, and worth, not because the government grants it, but because we are all made by God. It's why we fought WW II. It's why we believed communism was wrong. It's why we are a generous country. It's an idea that's worth dying for and I believe its why thousands upon thousands have made the supreme sacrifice for this nation. There are many problems in our country, of course, but I believe most of them can be solved by coming back to this one great truth that our founders fathers wrote that day back in 1776. |
WHO I AM
I'm a follower of Jesus, husband to my lovely wife Judy, father of Evangelina, Micah, Josiah, and Jeremiah, missionary to the northeast United States and advocate for all things youth ministry. WHAT I DO
I am the northeast regional coordinator for the National Network of Youth Ministries. I've worked for the last 24 years as the co-executive director of Teens For Christ, a ministry that equips teenagers to share their faith in their schools. I also served on staff at Cherry Tree Alliance Church for 15 years as youth pastor and family life pastor. My Websites
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