How to raise your children as world changers:Intro

being a parent of young children can be one of the toughest things in the world.

for some parents, more often than not it can be more a matter of survival than thriving and any hope of finding creative ways to raise your little people into being the world changers you hope that will be one day is often replaced by just trying to make it to the end of the day without killing any of them.

which is where this series comes in. i am not a parent myself, but i have heard some inspirational stories recently of some parents doing some things, which in some cases are very simple and in others took a more invested amount of involvement, which are likely to teach their children great lessons about living life well and ultimately will change the world. the idea is for me to collect a whole bunch of these ideas to hopefully inspire those who maybe don’t have the time or inclination to sit down and try and imagine them for themselves.

the hope is that you will find an idea, or ideas, that might work for you or that these stories might spark a different idea for you to try with your family.

let me say that i think being a parent is one of the most important ‘jobs’ in the world. it is so crucial and important and because there is no test you have to take to become one or manual to read that shows you how it will all play once you have one, must rank as one of the most scary things you can do in life, in terms  of worrying that you will get it wrong.

which is why learning from those who have walked the journey can be a powerful thing…

THE PARENT, THE CHILD AND THE PAID-FOR-RESTAURANT-BILL LOTTERY

I heard the story of when my bossman and his wife Meeghan went out for a meal with their young son, Justice. After the meal was done, they turned to Justice and said he could look around the restaurant and pick any family he wanted and they would pay for that family’s meal. So essentially they were the ones doing the good deed, but by inviting Justice to make the choice it suddenly started to feel like his good deed. So he picked a family and they went to the front and paid for their bill and the other family’s meal. Then the hardest part happened when they took Justice out without being able to watch the family receive the gift [a further lesson in terms of doing something good in secret].

‘There are a lot of times that people get to thank us or times we get to witness the impact of our sharing. This was a moment that it wasn’t necessary and perhaps more important for us not to need or receive.’ [Meeghan]

Simple, yet profound, because that is going to be a story that sticks with him. And because, more importantly, he was a part of it.

That is what this series is all about – as a parent, what creative life lesson have you been able to teach your child, or what practice do you do as a family that you feel will help them grow up to think differently and be different from the herd, in a world changing way?

Meet Sally and Cayden

Meet Julie, Eli and the gang

Meet Bruce, Gemma, Emily and Mikaela

Meet cousin David and the members of his clan

Meet Candi, Noah and Tyla

Meet Three Manns and a little Goat

Meet Nigel and Trish and their five kids who moved into a dangerous area in Hillbrow, South Africa

Meet Lara, Chris and their daughters who also moved into a dangerous area in Philadelphia, Americaland

Meet Lisa and her children Hailey, Noah and Isaiah who also moved into a dangerous area in San Francisco, Americaland

Meet Dalene Reyburn and read the letter she writes to her two boys to see them grow up as world changers

Meet Ro, Ad and Aaléyah and hear about the time they gave Jesus a shark!

A very worthwhile addition to this list is a reading of this letter from Magda Pecsenye to her sons about stopping rape [Excellent read for any parent!]

Look forward to sharing and hearing some more stories.

[If you have one you would like to share please email it to brettfish@hotmail.com – I won’t necessarily use them all, but it will be great to have a whole bunch to choose from]

Brett and Val in Oakland, California…

well i thought everyone who was interested had an idea of what we are doing next but having explained our next moves three times to people in the last few days i figured it wouldn’t hurt having another explanation up – for those of you who have heard this, you can skip this one…

from June 2011 to Dec 2012 the beautiful Val [tbV] and i were working and living with the Simple Way in Kensington, Philadelphia, Americaland as part of their residency program – living in the local community and working full-time for the non-profit. i was involved with Hospitality and email communications and Val dealt with special projects [food distribution, after-school program, scholarships for students etc] and emergency services [people arriving at the door about to be evicted from their home, people in need of drug counselling or legal aid etc]. our boss was a man named Darin Petersen, hence the term ‘bossman’.

we arrived back in South Africa 1 Jan for a time of refreshment and recovery and also connection with family and friends [and improv stage and hockey field and beach!] with the idea of staying for about a month and a half to two months and then moving on to Oakland, California [just across from San Francisco] where we will be working with Darin again, but with a different non-profit which has been called Relational Tithe and which is in the future going to be called Common Change. This is a collaborative giving program looking at trying to emulate the church of Acts 2 in terms of economics and really focus on connecting resources to those in need through the avenue of relationship.

‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’ [Acts 2.42-47]

Val and i have been part of Relational Tithe as group members for eight to ten months now and have seen it have such a transformative and life-changing effect in many peoples lives and so when we were invited to be a part of it for the next 18 months it was something we seriously considered and then jumped at.

How it works is that if you join you become part of a group of 12 to 15 people who all tithe into the group general fund. Then at any point anyone in the group can advocate a need for someone who is in one degree of separation from themselves [so someone you know personally who has a need] and the group is invited to ask questions and try to collectively figure out the best way to meet the need well and then after some time the need is met [this might be with money or resources or through someone having a connection or other creative means]. What we really enjoy about RT is that the need is met through relationship – so we are not just throwing money at something but empowering someone within the group to walk alongside a friend of theirs and connect them with some resources as they do so.

So that is what we are going to be joining. tbV has left already as there is a Justice Conference that she is attending in Philly first and then she will be heading to Oakland where i will be looking to meet up with her later. One of the realities of the next journey for us, is that while CC will be providing accommodation for us, we have had to find money to get there and also for our month to month living expenses and so we have been inviting people to journey with us in different ways – following our journey and staying in contact, praying for us, contributing towards the roughly $1000 or R9000 we think we will be needing to live month to month for 18 months.

if you’d like to hear more or want to be connected in any way simply email me at brettfish@hotmail.com and we can chat or i can add you to our newsletter list.

[what Brett and Val are going to be doing within Relational Tithe/Common Change as they head to Oakland]

the simple away

Wow! 19 months flew by, just like… well 570 days, really.

June last year, after about four months of weekly Skype calls with our present and to be future bossman Darin Petersen, the beautiful Val [tbV] and i arrived in Kensington, Philadelphia, Americaland to live and work at the Simple Way non-profit as part of the first batch of an internship program [which was later upgraded to a residency program when they saw our skills, or something]…

[a fun fact is that i was born and raised in an area called Kensington in Johannesburg, South Africa, the country and so in one sense it was a return to my roots but not really]

We joined Erica [aka Amy Winehouse meets activism], Aaron Condo…n [aka Monkman, master, my lord] and Beth [aka Beth or the Doodler, or quite possible milkwoman, altho we never called her that] who was doing a shorter three month internship and we became known as ‘The Village People’ [the house we stayed in was called the Village House, we did the YMCA a lot less than you would probably imagine]. The first internationals to be invited to be part of the program, so quite a bit of a risk really. Shane Claiborne and his new bride Katie Jo lived a few houses down the road, Darin and his wife Meeghan and their kids Just Ice [as i called him, because i wanted to give him a little space] and Madix… and then a handful more people who lived in other places but worked with us in the office… and later Sueihn Lee and Dan Brearley were added as Erica, Aaron and Beth [twice] moved on…

This is the passage that indirectly got me there, that i had been wrestling with when i chanced upon Shane’s book, ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ 6 years before, which resonated with a lot of my struggles with how church looked like now compared to then – ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’

and tonite we fly out… season over… back to South Africa to hang out with friends and family and watch some live cricket dressed as a Hobbit and hopefully get some hockeying and improv in and meet my new nephew Joshua and get to see if i was telling lies about South Africa mayonnaise for the last 19 months and have some braais and my mom’s secret birthday dessert she makes for me once a year and possibly pool party and hopefully get my dreads touched up and get some rest and relaxation and reflection and more…

before a new season begins. which will be with the same boss, different no-profit [Relational Tithe, or as it is about to be more commonly known Common Change] but the absolute same task of following Jesus [or trying to] and seeking to be a part of His kingdom growing here as it is in heaven.

and so the big question i guess, as we enter one of those reflectful times of both the end of a life season and the end of a calendar year [sorry Mayans, the Romans were right!] is how was the time? Good, bad or ugly? A combination of all, perhaps? Was the way simple?

i guess you will have to take me out for coffee [or a rack of Spur Ribs with extra basting] when we get home and you can ask that in person…

i can tell you it wasn’t easy. well, not all the time, some parts were really easy. Val and i love Kensington. we absolutely love Philly. we love so many of the people we got to meet and hang out and do life with.

i can tell you we would definitely make the same decision to do it all again – good, bad and ugly.

but it is time to go. and so later today i think we will.

i do still very much love Jesus and am hungry to see His kingdom come.

after years and years of loving Him [or trying to] and serving Him [ditto] i have found that His way, although simple in concept, is very rarely simple when you actually try to actively live it out. [fortunately He never leaves you to do it alone…]

so a new year, a new location, a new mission…
but still the continuing overall theme of ‘Love God, Love people… and all the rest is commentary!