Month: May 2018

When It Comes to Parenting, I want the Guarantee

/ Christina Embree / Leave a comment

I had a fight with my daughter the other night. She was sure I was being unfair. I was sure she was overreacting. She cried. I got frustrated. She went to her room. I wondered, “Am I doing this all wrong? How am I messing this up so bad? What kind of a parent am I?  What is she going to think about me when she grows up?”

My son blurted out a word that, well, he didn’t hear from me. I tried not to react with shock and awe but I failed. The confusion in his eyes and the tears that came later when he told me he didn’t like it when I got mad at him broke my heart. “Why didn’t I handle that better?  What is he going to remember about this? What kind of a parent am I?”

Here I am, a blogger about discipleship, a minister in a faith community, a student of ministry focused on children, youth and family, and … a mom who wonders every day, “Am I getting this right?”

friendship-831522_1920 (1)I want the guarantee.

I want to know that if I do all the “right” things my kids are going to grow up to be lovers of God and lovers of others.

I want to know that I’ve equipped them with the tools to have healthy relationships, make wise decisions, and live lives of consequence. I want to make sure that with each interaction, I am pointing them to Christ and showing them love and creating space for them to be uniquely them.

But, oh, the moments, like the ones above, they happen and my heart clenches and I wonder, “What kind of parent am I?”

I’m an imperfect one. I’m not always going to get it right. And sometimes, even when I do get it right, it’s not going to matter because the right thing doesn’t always feel great to the child on the receiving end.

And there are no guarantees, except the only one that matters.

That God loves these children more than me.

That He is perfect.

That He is big enough to reveal Himself to them in spite or maybe even because of my failings.

That eventually, it won’t be me who decides for them what their faith will look like… it will be between the two of them.

And that is my guarantee.

That while I (and my husband) do have the greatest influence on them and that it is our great responsibility and joy to raise them by loving God and loving others in front of them and giving them the opportunity to meet God through His body, His creation, His Word and this family, ultimately, the only guarantee we have is that God will never stop pursuing them and loving them and never failing them.

We are called to “impress these things” upon the hearts of our children, the things of God, the things of our faith.

We are called to talk about them when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we rise and when we lie down.

We are called to “praise” God’s works and declare His might acts to generations to come.

We are called to love our children and not provoke them and we are called blessed if we have the chance to serve as parents to the next generation.

We are not called to be perfect.

We are called to be parents.

So, by the grace of God, let us live a life worthy of the calling we’ve received and rest in the guarantee that our God loves our children infinitely more than we can imagine and He will pursue their hearts.

For more information about

Check out to ReFocus Ministry or “like” our Facebook page. Join our conversation at theReFocus Family and Intergen Ministry group on Facebook.

About this Blog

EmbreeFam2017

Refocus Ministry was started by Christina Embree, wife to Pastor Luke, mom to three wonderful kids, and church planter at Plowshares BIC. With years of experience in family ministry and children’s ministry, she is passionate about seeing churches partnering with families to encourage faith formation at home and equipping parents to disciple their kids in the faith. She recently graduated with a Masters of Arts in Ministry focusing on Family, Youth and Children’s Ministry at Wesley Seminary, she also blogs at www.refocusministry.org and is a contributing blogger at D6 Family, ChurchLeaders.com, and Seedbed

*The advertisements at the bottom of this page are chosen by WordPress, not by ReFocus Ministry, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the author. 

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Family or Church? The question of Summertime

/ Christina Embree / Leave a comment

Last day of school!!!

Ours was Friday; I bet yours is soon or you’ve already had it.  The official start to summer is here.  Summer vacation means sleeping in, sunny days, water sports, sandy beaches, campfires, parades, and plenty of time with family and friends.

It also means that church attendance in the United States plummets.

Like seriously takes a nosedive.  Attendance becomes sporadic and spotty.  When school lets out for the summer, it seems like church does too.  The response of the church has been to cut programming (no Wednesday nights for the summer anyone?) and plan “fun events” like picnics and Vacation Bible School.

As a parent, I get it.  All year long our calendar is held captive by the school calendar that informs when we can go away and for how long.  Seeing extended family is difficult when you have two days to travel.  And spending quality time together can suffer.  So planning vacations and day trips during the summer months makes sense.

As a minister, I’ve dreaded it.  It’s hard.  You develop relationships with kids and you have really cool things going like small groups and prayer teams and discipleship, and then, you don’t see them but off and on for weeks.  And then there is Vacation Bible School; don’t even get me started on that.  The sheer amount of time and effort that is put into pulling off a “successful” VBS event takes all the energy you have, so the regular programming starts to suffer.

I’ve seen so many posts recently from children’s pastors around the country utterly discouraged by this attendance reality and frustrated and what seems like a lack of commitment and concern.  On the other hand, I’ve seen equally as many posts from parents excited about the cool things they have planned this summer to do as a family and the memories they are looking forward to making.

So who’s right?  What’s more important?  Family or church?

And therein, I believe, lies the problem.  Because of the “way” we do church (Sunday morning, Wednesday night and/or separate ministries for the family members), if someone misses one of these times, it leaves a gap; a sizable gap.  But families who want to spend these summer months together don’t want to come to a place where once again they are separated and unable to be with each other.

So it becomes a choice – do I want to be with my family OR do I want to go to church?

Ugh.  Those choices kinda stink.

What ends up happening then is that when the opportunity arises by default of the summer school schedule to spend that quantity of quality time together, the choice becomes clear –family.  And when the default schedule makes finding that quantity of quality time together more difficult – church.

choosefamily

(Hemera Technologies/Getty Images)

But I don’t think either of those reflect God’s heart for family or for church.

In fact, I think that it creates a tension where the two are opposed to each other rather than being in partnership with one another.  Where there should be mutual edification, there is instead unhealthy competition.

And let me be clear, this also takes place with sports, especially travel ball, and academics, especially academic teams, and friends, especially non-churchgoing friends.

And I don’t have all the answers, but I do know this.

Church isn’t supposed to be a building or a program or a set time in the week.  And family isn’t supposed to be vacations and softball games and straight As on report cards. 

Those things might be a part of what church and family are, but they are not supposed to define them.

The Bible is clear that what brings us together isn’t things and it isn’t programs and it isn’t activities.  What unites us is the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6:17) and what holds us together is love (John 14:34-35). We are not supposed to make a habit of skipping out on our times of meeting with other believers, but we are supposed to be encouraging on another all the more (Heb. 10:25).  We (ministers explicitly) are also encouraged to ensure our homes are in order before taking care of the church and to love, honor, respect, and obey within our families (I Tim. 3:5).

It sounds to me like “church” looks less like meeting on Sunday and more like being in relationship with one another in and outside of a building and all week long, not just on Sunday.

It also looks like we are committed to one another in love and service so we strive to be together and not make a habit of letting things come between us, even good things and fun things and “family” things.

Ultimately I think it means we adopt of philosophy of “church” that is less about “ME” and more about “WE” – that we view the decisions we make not out of a cost-benefit analysis about what works best for us, but rather from a Kingdom mindset of what is best for Him.  Sometimes, this may mean you take your family on vacation.  Sometimes, it may mean you skip a game.  Sometimes it may mean that you meet outside of a building or on a different night.  Sometimes it may mean you cancel a program.

But IF it is about the kingdom of God and not about what works best with our schedules or our plans, it will bear fruit.  It will grow God’s kingdom in our families, our churches and our communities.

It won’t send a message that “church” is a choice that we can take or leave but that “church” is a life we choose to live in relationship with others.  And it won’t send a message that family is somehow less spiritual or less important but that family is an extension of the church in the broader community and in the home.

It’s not supposed to be a competition.

And whether we’ve made it that or the pace of modern world has made it that, I think it’s up to us, each and every one, to step back and see if we’ve adopted that mindset in any way.  Families, are you being the church in loving relationships, committed to the “WE” of God’s kingdom in the choices you make?  Ministers, are you supporting the family in partnering relationship, committed to the “WE” of God’s kingdom in the ministry you serve?

It can’t be about one or the other.  It has to be about ONE and no other.

“Be very careful then how you live – not as unwise, but as wise…understand what the Lord’s will is.” Eph 5:15,17

This article was first published on ReFocus, May 28, 2015. 

For more information about

Check out to ReFocus Ministry or “like” our Facebook page. Join our conversation at theReFocus Family and Intergen Ministry group on Facebook.

About this Blog

EmbreeFam2017

Refocus Ministry was started by Christina Embree, wife to Pastor Luke, mom to three wonderful kids, and family minister at Nicholasville UMC. She is passionate about seeing churches partnering with families to encourage faith formation at home and equipping parents to disciple their kids in the faith. She recently graduated with a Masters of Arts in Ministry focusing on Family, Youth and Children’s Ministry at Wesley Seminary, she also blogs at www.refocusministry.org and is a contributing blogger at D6 Family and  Seedbed

The Way We Do the Things We Do

/ Christina Embree / 1 Comment

In his book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, author Stephen Chbosky wrote, “We accept the love we think we deserve.”  I’ve seen this posted as inspirational memes and quotes on people’s walls for years but it wasn’t until I started really digging into generational discipleship that I saw how this concept plays out in ministry, especially in intergenerational relationships within the community of faith.

We all know that communication is more than just words.  Communication takes many forms, from verbal to nonverbal, intentional to non-intentional, systemic to institutional. The way we do the things we do speaks volumes. The words we use pale in comparison to the actions we take and the method by which we take them.

In my last few years of observing how we go about discipleship in church, hearing the verbal communication of welcome and community and observing the nonverbal communication like methods and actions, it’s becoming clearer to me that one reason the church is losing the rising generations is due in part to the fact that they only accept the love they’ve been told they deserve.

Stripped of our words, what do our churches often communicate to the generations who attend?

  1. My Space, Your Space – If we look at most church buildings, we will tend to find wings that are set apart by age, often down hallways or even separated by floors, much like school buildings or nursing homes in society. The common space, the sanctuary, can be a place where all ages gather but in many cases that doesn’t happen frequently.
  2. My Service, Your Service – A lot of churches have at least two if not more services and often those services look and sound different (contemporary, traditional, blended, etc.). Frequently these services become equally age segregated simply by the fact that they are intended to reach specific age groups or worship preferences.
  3. My Time, Your Time – When describing worship experiences, often people will say it is their time in the week to connect with God, to be renewed and refreshed, to have a personal experience. Distractions and discomfort is often minimized during the service time to allow for that so that even when we are together, we are essentially alone, but occupying the same space.
  4. My Church, Your Church – Having served on two church staffs and having consulted and coached with many more, this is something that repeatedly comes up, namely, the idea that within a church there may be two or more distinct faith communities based on age, likes/dislikes, and preferences and that people in these groups don’t even know the people in the other groups. One church I worked with once described their church as “Five Churches under one roof.”
So what does this have to do with accepting the love we think we deserve?

Well, if we say things like, “We welcome all ages into our community” but the proceed to navigate the children to one area, the youth to another, the adults to yet another, and the seniors to another, that verbal communication becomes muddied. It is difficult to enter a space that isn’t “ours” even if we hear that we are welcome.

be-quiet-in-churchIf we say, “All ages are members of our church community” but the youngest members never or rarely see or hear from the pastor or other adult leaders in the church or just other adults in the church except children’s ministry volunteers, do they feel truly part of the congregation?

Conversely, if the older members of the congregation never or rarely get to interact with or build relationships the younger generations, can either accept love, advice, encouragement or even just friendship from the other?

We use a lot of words to indicate unity and cohesion, but often our nonverbal communication speaks to separation and division, which, in turn, often falls along generational lines.  And that makes it very hard for each generation to accept love and friendship from the other because it doesn’t feel “right”.

I wonder what would happen if instead we embraced the uncomfortable.

If we sang some songs we don’t necessarily love.

If we allowed for some distraction and discomfort during our corporate worship time.

If we intermingled with generations who say and do things we don’t understand.

If we prioritized relationships with the whole body over the comfort of those we know best.

I mean, it would be uncomfortable to be sure. But, as a friend of mine who attends a church who is working to become intentionally unsegregated on Sunday mornings shared, maybe that is the point.

Maybe it’s not supposed to be comfortable. Maybe it is supposed to take work, to challenge us to grow beyond what feels good, to be surrounded by a much bigger world that doesn’t look and act and sound like us. Maybe there is room for both times of corporate worship and times of age-appropriate teaching. Maybe an either/or way of doing church isn’t the only way of doing church.

And maybe, if we can find time and space for the both/and, the generations who are following ours may not agree with everything we say and do but they will accept the love of the Church and the Lord because they know they are truly a part of the church, the community, the body of Christ.

I think at the very least these are ideas worth exploring, even if the questions we ask and conclusions we land on make us a just little bit uncomfortable.

For more information about

Check out to ReFocus Ministry or “like” our Facebook page. Join our conversation at theReFocus Family and Intergen Ministry group on Facebook.

About this Blog

EmbreeFam2017

Refocus Ministry was started by Christina Embree, wife to Pastor Luke, mom to three wonderful kids, and church planter at Plowshares BIC. With years of experience in family ministry and children’s ministry, she is passionate about seeing churches partnering with families to encourage faith formation at home and equipping parents to disciple their kids in the faith. She recently graduated with a Masters of Arts in Ministry focusing on Family, Youth and Children’s Ministry at Wesley Seminary, she also blogs at www.refocusministry.org and is a contributing blogger at D6 Family, ChurchLeaders.com, and Seedbed

*The advertisements at the bottom of this page are chosen by WordPress, not by ReFocus Ministry, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the author. 

“Just Because We Don’t Like It Doesn’t Mean It’s Not True”

/ Christina Embree / 1 Comment

My family recently watched Avengers Infinity Wars (don’t worry, there are no spoilers in this post). At the end, some of us were unhappy with the way things had ended in the movie and have spent considerable time coming up with alternate endings or spinning theories about what “actually” happened. At one point as I was offering just such an explanation, and a really good one at that, my youngest piped up with this nugget, “Just because we don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

His words stuck with me for two reasons; one, because he probably heard that from me and two, because he’s absolutely right. Often times, when we are faced with a truth that we don’t like, we try to find alternative ways of facing the facts.

If the truth makes us uncomfortable, we try to find a comfortable option to face that truth with. If the truth doesn’t fit within our expectations, desires or opinion, we find ways to explain it away or simply say it doesn’t work for us. 

face-2031963_1920The nature of this blog is often to share uncomfortable truths and offer ways for us to embrace those truths even if it means we have to consider implementing change or doing things that we find less comfortable than others.

In the case of this particular blog, the facts we often look at and consider surround the idea that more and more of the members of the rising generations are walking away from the Protestant church and increasingly labeling themselves as “unaffiliated” with religion.  And we ask questions about why that is and what we can do about it.

And often the answers presented involved uncomfortable things; things that require us to change how we are currently operating and the approach we are currently taking.

Things like:

Inviting and welcoming children and youth into places of corporate worship as active participants not passive observers

Creating space for meaningful interactions between generations with the intentional focus of fostering relationships that lead to mentorship and discipleship.

Involving children and youth in the decisions, leadership and activities of the church in a way that affirms that they are full-fledged members of the body of Christ.

Redefining church, not as a place we go to on Sunday, but as a people and a way of life that is who are are every day of the week and therefore we join into each others lives on ball fields and ballet recitals and dinner tables and coffee dates and just being a people that fills that intrinsic, God-given need for community.

But these things require something of us. They require change and intentionality.

They require that we accept the truth that something has to change and we begin to try uncomfortable things.

It means that we may not always get the Sunday morning experience we are used to and/or we desire. It means we may need to get creative about when and where we have our intimate and undistracted times of worship. It may mean that throughout the week instead of just hunkering down and living our life, we open up our doors and our schedule to invite others in or to go to where they are.

It might mean sitting on hard bleachers in the cold just to cheer on that kid from church that sits in the pew in front of you and just can’t believe you came to her game.

It could mean not going out to our favorite after-church restaurant but instead inviting that new family over to our house for lunch.

It could mean that instead of passing the offering plate and dropping in a check and feeling as though we’ve given enough to the church, we also raise our hand and volunteer for that after-school program or that to be a prayer partner for that young person.

It might even mean that on Sunday morning our worship is accentuated with the cries of an infant, the squirms of a three-year-old, the laughter of a fifth grader, the fidgeting of a fifteen-year-old and the questioning look of a seventeen-year-old and instead of seeing those things as distractions, viewing them as opportunities to face the truth head on; that loneliness and being “unaffiliated” are real things for this generation and if being with a faith community on Sunday morning and hearing one’s name spoken each week with love and welcome can combat it, then it’s worth whatever discomfort one might face.

We can no longer offer alternative explanations to the very real truths about the rising generations. As much as we might like to just continue on as we always have, the reality is, if we do, these truths will become more and more the experience for our children and youth. But if we are willing to face these truths head on, in our church and in our lives, and do uncomfortable things in order to address them, then it is possible that those whose lives we intersect with might just experience a different truth.

As for the Avengers, well, I still have my theories about that one…

For more information about

Check out to ReFocus Ministry or “like” our Facebook page. Join our conversation at theReFocus Family and Intergen Ministry group on Facebook.

About this Blog

EmbreeFam2017

Refocus Ministry was started by Christina Embree, wife to Pastor Luke, mom to three wonderful kids, and church planter at Plowshares BIC. With years of experience in family ministry and children’s ministry, she is passionate about seeing churches partnering with families to encourage faith formation at home and equipping parents to disciple their kids in the faith. She recently graduated with a Masters of Arts in Ministry focusing on Family, Youth and Children’s Ministry at Wesley Seminary, she also blogs at www.refocusministry.org and is a contributing blogger at D6 Family, ChurchLeaders.com, and Seedbed

*The advertisements at the bottom of this page are chosen by WordPress, not by ReFocus Ministry, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the author. 

The Loneliest Generation and the Church’s Role

/ Christina Embree / Leave a comment

If you’ve been on social media at all lately, it’s likely that you’ve seen a story about a recent loneliness survey done by Cigna (a global health service company) that reveals Generation Z is the loneliest generation currently alive around the globe. This came as a surprise to many people who naturally assumed that the oldest generation would be the ones who experienced the greatest loneliness, not young vibrant 18-22 year olds that boast huge followings on social media and are seemingly always surrounded by people.

And that’s not all. It’s not even that the 18-22 year olds are lonely; it’s that they join nearly half of all of America in saying that they are lonely.

“The survey of more than 20,000 U.S. adults ages 18 years and older revealed:

  • Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone (46 percent) or left out (47 percent).
  • One in four Americans (27 percent) rarely or never feel as though there are people who really understand them.
  • Two in five Americans sometimes or always feel that their relationships are not meaningful (43 percent) and that they are isolated from others (43 percent).
  • One in five people report they rarely or never feel close to people (20 percent) or feel like there are people they can talk to (18 percent).
  • Americans who live with others are less likely to be lonely (average loneliness score of 43.5) compared to those who live alone (46.4). However, this does not apply to single parents/guardians (average loneliness score of 48.2) – even though they live with children, they are more likely to be lonely.
  • Only around half of Americans (53 percent) have meaningful in-person social interactions, such as having an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family, on a daily basis.
  • Generation Z (adults ages 18-22) is the loneliest generation and claims to be in worse health than older generations.
  • Social media use alone is not a predictor of loneliness; respondents defined as very heavy users of social media have a loneliness score (43.5) that is not markedly different from the score of those who never use social media (41.7).” SOURCE

person-409127_1920A couple of years ago, Pew Research released a survey that showed religious affiliation in America and it was revealed that the largest drop in church membership and attendance was in Protestant Christian churches and the greatest gain (so where those people went) was in the category of Unaffiliated, not associating with a religion or religious community.

I cannot help but see the similarities of these two surveys.

If you look up the definition for “unaffiliated” you’ll read things like, “not associated with another or others” and “not connected” and ” not a part of.” Another word for those things is “lonely” or “alone.”  If we look at the multiple studies that have been done on why there’s been a decline in the attendance of 18-29 year olds in church, they put it this way; “We don’t belong.”  

There’s a sense that there simply is not place for them any more.  

They had a place a kids in the children’s department and they had a place as youth in the youth department but as high-school graduates, they are met with a way of worship with which they are unfamiliar, a group of people they have little to no relationship with, and a myriad of other opportunities outside the church building walls that are screaming, “You BELONG Here!”

They are…Unaffiliated…Lonely

It’s not that suddenly 18-29 year olds don’t associate with religion.  44% of the Muslims surveyed were Millennials!

It’s not that 18-29 year olds don’t believe in God.  Of all the survey respondents who identified as Unaffiliated or “religious nones” only 3.1 % identified themselves as atheist.

It’s that they do not belong. They don’t feel a part of the community.  They feel alone.

And I think we, the church, must take some of the blame for that.  

Over time, we’ve created a place where we inhibit relationships and stifle community by segregating generations and dividing up spaces based on age.

We make it difficult forge a deep sense of community by limiting our interactions making the church fit within certain hours and places instead of recognizing the church is a people not a place.

We label certain things as “worship” and make attendance at those events indicative of what a “Christian” is instead of recognizing that all of life is worship and inviting people to worship is inviting them into our lives.

We’ve created a lonely place, especially for those who “graduate” from our specialized children’s and youth programs into our larger corporate gatherings where they’ve never had a meaningful conversation, built a single intergenerational relationship, or experienced a heartfelt interaction with other older members of the congregation.

It’s never been their church. It’s been their parent’s church and their grandparent’s church.  “Big” church, adult church, but not their church. 

And they feel unaffiliated. Lonely.

If we are going to reach the loneliest generation, it’s not going to be through worship styles or coffee shops. It’s going to be through community.

It’s going to be through an intentional movement toward intergenerational relationships forged through time spent together, not just inside the walls of a church building, but time spent in life being the church. It’s going to have to be “on purpose” not simply by accident or by chance.

We will need to create and cultivate the space necessary for these types of connections to be made and we will need to recognize that community is more than just people being in the same space or building together; it is a place where people feel understood and not isolated, a place where they can feel close to people because there are people for them to talk to, a place where “meaningful in-person social interactions, such as having an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family, happen on a daily basis.”

The loneliest generation needs the church to be the Church.

The Fellowship of the Believers (Acts 2:42-47 NIV)

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. 

For more information about

Check out to ReFocus Ministry or “like” our Facebook page. Join our conversation at theReFocus Family and Intergen Ministry group on Facebook.

About this Blog

EmbreeFam2017

Refocus Ministry was started by Christina Embree, wife to Pastor Luke, mom to three wonderful kids, and church planter at Plowshares BIC. With years of experience in family ministry and children’s ministry, she is passionate about seeing churches partnering with families to encourage faith formation at home and equipping parents to disciple their kids in the faith. She recently graduated with a Masters of Arts in Ministry focusing on Family, Youth and Children’s Ministry at Wesley Seminary, she also blogs at www.refocusministry.org and is a contributing blogger at D6 Family, ChurchLeaders.com, and Seedbed

*The advertisements at the bottom of this page are chosen by WordPress, not by ReFocus Ministry, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the author.