Mike King

Bullying! How We Should Respond?

 “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” Jesus Christ

One of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced in my four decades of youth ministry was to serve as a Pallbearer for the funeral of one of a 13-year-old boy in my youth group.  Paul was the victim of repeated bullying by a large group of peers that tragically left Paul with the mistaken conclusion that his reality was too unbearable and he chose to end his own life.  This happened nearly 30 years ago.  Unfortunately, bullying has gotten much worse in the last ten years.

Right now the movie documentary Bully, along with several highly publicized  cases involving tragic results because of bullying among teenagers, has created a heightened awareness of the frightening dynamic of this issue in our culture.

Working with adolescents, we regularly hear stories of young people who everyday have to deal with being bullied.  Everyday, hundreds of thousands of young people have to deal with the fear of attending school where they know they will be bullied.  It’s estimated that an average of more than 150,000 young people stay home from school everyday to avoid being bullied.  Most of the time this occurs without parents being aware that it’s happening to their child. 

Bullying involves acts of repetitive negative behavior of a person or persons toward another person or persons that is aggressive and intimidating in nature.  Bullying can take the forms of emotional, verbal, and/or physical abuse.  Bullying can be a one-on-one issue but most often it involves a collaborative group engaged in peer abuse directed at one or more individuals.

Research reveals that young people who are regularly bullied face an increased risk of mental health issues.  Depression, anxiety, lack of motivation, despair, helplessness, and suicidal thoughts prevail among those who are dealing with being perpetually bullied. In addition to thinking about harming themselves, some begin to fanaticize about hurting their tormenters.  According to a report by the Secret Service, two-thirds of students who participated in school shootings were victims of bullying at school that had reached the level of self-described “torment.”

Mona O’Moore of the Anti-Bullying Centre at Trinity College in Dublin, has written, "There is a growing body of research which indicates that individuals, whether child or adult, who are persistently subjected to abusive behavior are at risk of stress related illness which can sometimes lead to suicide."

In addition to aggressive and physical actions that intimidate and harm the victims of bullying there are new forms of bullying that have emerged through social media.  This type of Cyber-bullying attempts to socially isolate the victim by spreading rumors, name calling, threatening, criticizing, manipulating, ostracizing, etc. through a variety of social medias, including Facebook, Twitter, and whatever new social media tools emerged last week, along with those that will surface this week.

According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, One in five teenagers are harassed regularly online. Almost one-half of all teenagers have experienced some form of online harassment. More than one-third (37%) of teens admit to using social networking sites to victimize and harass their peers.

Before we, as adults, rest in the idea that we have moved beyond the ability to bully, let me suggest that we may not engage in the overt bullying actions of adolescents but we must ask ourselves if we have not just adopted more sophisticated forms of bullying – gossip, character assassination, ostracizing, sabotaging, and exclusionary behavior toward others.

When Jesus was asked what it means to truly be his follower he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself” Luke 10:27.  He then tells one of the best-known stories called the parable of the Good Samaritan in order to explain and explore the heart of what it means to be a genuine follower of Christ.  In this parable Jesus commends the man who comes to the rescue and takes care of a victim of extreme bullying.  We must stand up for those who are being bullied. Christians must speak up.  We have to take action concerning this issue

What is Youthfront doing about this issue?

• Teaching young people to treat all people with respect and the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.
• Teaching young people the Golden Rule taught by Jesus, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” Matthew 7:12
• Teaching and mentoring young people the importance of defending and standing up for the marginalized victims of bullying.

What can parents do?

• Talk to your kids about bullying.
• Go see the movie Bully with your age appropriate kids.
• Educate yourself on your kid’s world, their friends and the social environments they spend time in.
• Be appropriately curious of your kid’s social media world.

I believe that we have a window of opportunity created by this movie Bully and the media’s attention on this issue to double down our effort to radically alter the reality of bullying in our culture.  This, I believe is something that the followers of Jesus and God’s church must passionately engage in.  We must do this for our kids.

Resources                                                                                                                                          The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, www.cpyu.org                                                          Wikipedia

Something to Eat Arrives in Port Mombasa

We received confirmation last night that our container of food (approximately 280,000 meals) has arrived in Port Mombasa!  This Something to Eat initiative to provide food for people suffering from the effects of starvation in the famine zone of the Horn of Africa was a demonstration of compassion by young people from Wichita, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; Spokane, Washington; Tucson, Arizona and Palo Alto, California. 

A big Youthfront thank you for the collaborative effort by wonderful Something to Eat partners involving churches and organizations such as Future Profits, Northern California Urban Development, Generation Alive and The Jeremy Affeldt Foundation.

275,000 Meals Headed to the Horn of Africa

Last week we loaded a full shipping container of food (approximately 275,000 meals) into a truck to begin the journey to Kenya.  The food will be delivered to those who are tragically affected by the famine and civil wars that are happening in the Horn of Africa.  The meals were made possible through Youthfront's Something to Eat initiative in partnership with Jeremy Affeldt's Generation Alive (Spokane, WA) and Future Profits (Palo Alto, CA).  The article below was written by Youthfront staff member Austin Averill who directs our Something to Eat initiative.

 

On a bitter cold winter morning, I was more excited to wake up at four and head to work than I have ever been in my life. On this particular morning, I left the harsh Midwest weather behind with my co-workers Ray Zuercher and Mike King, President of Youthfront, to meet up with San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt, Founder of Generation Alive, in Palo Alto, California. Why, might you ask, would a logistics guru, president of a non-profit organization, recent college graduate, and professional baseball player meet in “The Golden State?” I can think of no better reason than to facilitate a Something to Eat packaging event.

The next day, approximately 300 students flooded through the doors of Sequoia High School’s gymna- sium to package as many Something to Eat meals as possible. “Packing a meal” means measuring rice, soy protein, dried vegetables and a nutrient dense vitamin powder, pouring it all into a bag, and sealing it up. These meals then get packed into a box, which get stacked onto a pallet, which gets basically shrink- wrapped, then is shipped away to feed malnourished orphans. The meals from this particular event went to Kenya, though Youthfront sends meals to various places domestically and abroad.

However, orphans aren’t the only ones who get fed as the result of a Something to Eat event. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the spiritual formation aspect of meal packaging is just as important as the orphans we feed.

The youth who give up a Saturday in order to provide starving people with something to eat do so because they are hungry for justice. They recognize that something is wrong in the world and long to be a part of a solution. Something to Eat provides them with the opportunity to connect others’ physical hunger with their own spiritual hunger, with the hunger for justice and righteousness and the hunger to make the world more complete and more whole, more like the way that God intended.

The kids at Sequoia High were given “something to eat” in a different way every 30 minutes, at which point we paused the packaging for a moment of silence, as well as a short lesson about social justice, world hunger, and how we can have an effect on bringing redemption to this world.

In response to the Horn of Africa’s war and drought-induced famine, the students of Sequoia High raised several thousand dollars which allowed them to package nearly 130,000 meals to send another shipment to the needy.

These students by no means know wealth – and many of them are all too familiar with just the opposite of it. Yet they recognized that there are others in the world who are not only hungry, but who have it even worse than they do. This is what motivated those some might call “the least of these” to dedicate themselves to making the world a better place for someone else. They spread the word about the event, raised money for the raw materials that go into making a meal, and spent an entire Saturday wearing hair nets and packaging meals. THAT is why we do what we do at Youthfront – not for justice alone, but to see young people changed, liberated, transformed for the Kingdom of God.

I was hungry... you gave me something to eat

Should we always give to those who ask us for money?

The lastest Slant33 post is out.  Fellow Youthfront staffer Kurt Rietema, along with Kara Powell and yours truly respond to this statement ->For the sake of our own formation, we should always give to those who ask us for money.

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Spokane, Generation Alive, and Youthfront's Feed the Hunger

On Friday we left San Diego for Spokane.  We stayed with our friends Jeremy and Larisa Affeldt.  The Affeldt’s founded Generation Alive, which partners with Youthfront through our Feed the Hunger Initiative.  On Saturday several hundred young people assembled 75,000 meals for the food pantries in the Spokane area.  Topher and April Philgreen (Youthfront staff) came also to help with all the logistics during the packaging event.  It was a great day.  We came home Sunday night to 10 + inches more snow than when we left KC last Tuesday.

  

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ONE YEAR LATER! 

With sadness and anger, Americans watched the media reports during the one year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake – corruption is rampant, more than a billion dollars in relief aid was raised but most of it hasn’t reached the people in need yet, 800,000 people are still living in temporary camps, a cholera epidemic has led to thousands more deaths and 90% of the rubble remains untouched. 

There are some bright spots. ABC Nightline News Reporter Terry Moran on location in Haiti declared, “Faith based organizations can work quickly and efficiently… they can cut through red tape and make things happen for the people of Haiti.”  I believe that faith-based organizations can make a life saving difference in obedience to God’s Mission of restoration for the world.

ONE YEAR AGO!

Last year, a day after the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, our phones at Youthfront began ringing.  Churches, youth pastors, parents, and teenagers were calling to talk about what we could do to respond to the emerging news of a devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, our neighbor South of Florida.  That day we canceled everything on the schedule and assembled as a staff to pray together and discern what our response would be. 

It became clear to us that our new program Feed the Hunger was a natural way for us to respond.  Within a couple of weeks after the earthquake, more than 8,000 people (mostly youth, representing more than 100 churches) came together to package more than 500,000 meals for the people suffering in Haiti.

One of our biggest concerns was to find a reliable partner on the ground in Haiti.  Unfortunately, in crises times like Haiti is experiencing, there are many challenges and much corruption that prevents help and resources from getting to those in need.  We chose to partner with Global Orphan Project. Global Orphan Project has more than 20 orphanages in Haiti.  We chose the right partner. In a story called “The Lost Children of Haiti” produced by 60 Minutes on CBS, our partner Global Orphan Project was featured as an example of the right way to help in Haiti.

To make sure the first shipment of 285,000 meals made it through the red tape we had Youthfront staff travel to Haiti to receive the container of food and walk it through the delivery process to insure the meals got to the orphanages. I recently had lunch with Joe Knittig, CEO of Global  Orphan Project and Alan Dietrich, Director of Global Operations. They told me how the hot, nutritional meals provided by Youthfront were making a huge difference. I was moved to tears as they described how they could see the results of better nutrition in the physical improvement of the children (skin, nails, etc.) and in the mental alertness and energy levels.

I am blown away by the compassion and obedience to God demonstrated by young people involved in Youthfront.  They are taking Jesus’ response to the question about the “greatest commandment” seriously.  Matthew 22:37-40 records Jesus’ description of the greatest commandment, “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. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Seeing the devastation in Haiti grieves my heart, but it also causes me to look at my immediate surroundings with fresh eyes. In spite of an economy that has spiraled in recent years, I am aware of our great material blessings. We live in one of the richest countries in the world, not too far removed from one of the richest moments in history. We sometimes take for granted that a cell phone, computer, TV and iPod are part of daily life. The majority of us still have food on the table, gas in our cars, and heat in our houses. It’s not our collective good fortune that troubles me; it’s our lack of generosity throughout our country and our world that I find troubling as a follower of Christ.

We need $6,000 right now to cover the cost of sending 285,000 more meals that are sitting in a shipping container here at Youthfront ready to go to our orphans in Haiti.  Let me know if you can help us get the food on its way.

100,000 Feed the Hunger meals to be packaged in Spokane

Generation Alive is in the final week of mobilizing Spokane, Washington to package 100,000 Feed the Hunger meals.  Generation Alive is a youth organization started by Jeremy Affeldt.  Generation Alive is a partner with Youthfront in our Feed the Hunger Initiative.  In the process of working to provide food for those who are hungry, Feed the Hunger also shapes young people to engage in God's work of restoration fueling spiritual hunger through Christian Formation.

If you're in the Spokane area get involved in blessing your neighbor who is in need of food, this is what human beings fully alive in Christ do.