A New Hope

For those that don’t know I work with an assembly company that goes around the country “Inspiring a Culture of Character” in schools (k-12). We do assemblies, parents’ meetings, student leader meetings, and teacher meetings (my favorite) to help schools develop a culture of character that serves as the foundation for their academic, relational, and community success. My job has been as a presenter in the assemblies.

I get up with a partner and do a well thought out presentation on the importance of character (i.e. being respectful, responsible, etc.). This entails more than just disseminating information to an audience of elementary, jr. high, or senior high students. I have to win their attention, earn their respect, and show them how much I care for them within the first 10 minutes of them filing into the show. Yeah, no pressure. But, with the grace of God, and my charming personality, the kids buy in. They pay attention and most of them catch what we’re trying to say. We have our bad days but our great days outweigh them all. Today was one of the latter.

My buddy, Todd, and I went out to a pretty remote part of Arizona to do a small town school of roughly 70 students. I have to preface this by stating Todd and I are part of a team that focuses solely on k-6th grades. It’s built around the theme of him and I being cadets taking on the last day of training which entails finding and understanding the Six Pillars of Character. We pass we are in the “Power 6 Unit.” We fail, we suck at life. Pretty simple. There is a lot of schlap stick humor geared towards the kiddies but we do throw in some subtle jokes and allusions to keep, if anyone, us amused. Well, today the principal asked if it was ok if the jr. high kids watched along with the rest of the school. That’s always an ify because jr. high kids don’t always take too kindly to the “kiddy” stuff. We acquiesced nonetheless. Why not? If anything these kids will have the language of the Six Pillars beat in their heads, reinforcing something that’s good.

It was a rough start to the assembly. Todd and I are used to a rambunctious crowd due to it being young kids getting to go to an assembly coupled with our number one crowd control: THE ALMIGHT JOLLY RANCHER! That one inch cube of refined sugar can get a kid to shut their hole and smile like an angel like no other! It really is a God send. To quote McIntyre; “Kids’ll go to war for candy.” No joke. Well, we were notified, literally, two minutes before the show that there is a “no candy” policy at the school. They basically should’ve told us they were cutting off our balls. As always we improvised: we offered no incentive. Yay us. Not the start we were hoping for. Add the jr. high kids that are too cool for school and we become the two biggest tools on campus. We pressed on. There was one redeeming factor that gave us hope. We had two guys that were loud, obnoxious, and on our side: River and Daniel. Without them the jr. high section would’ve been hurtin’. If anything they made me smile.

We get through the assembly and the kids were happy. We weren’t pelted with expletives or batteries so it was a good day. We say “bye” to the kids and we tore down our equipment. As we’re tearing down the principal offered to give us caf lunch (chicken nuggets!). Our response: “!#$@# yeah!” Ok, maybe not THAT emphatic but we were stoked. C’mon, CHICKEN FREAKIN’ NUGGETS! Does it get any better than that? EXACTLY. As always, when we get a free lunch we also get to hang with the kids which is always fun. I sat with a few of the elementary kids but then they left me for recess. Jerks. But the jr. high kids came in. Of course there were a few good ones that wouldn’t leave me hanging and kept me company.

Our hanging out started off like any other lunch time conversation but then it took an interesting turn. I forgot how we got on the subject but I think a couple of the kids were talking about wanting to kick the crap out of one of the other kids. Oh those little rascals! I then asked them what were the problems on campus. They gave me fighting, gossip, back stabbing, etc. Then I asked if they wanted to know how to curb this and to my surprise they said “yes.” This is where the cool stuff started to happen.

What proceeded to happen is the stuff I live for! I started to explain how having good or bad character can dramatically affect their relationships: the very thing that may be most important in their lives right now. I can’t recall all the details but I remember just seeing their faces and their eyes telling me they were not only getting it but they were hungry for it! They were asked great questions and made some pretty profound statements. Daniel really stood out to me. He told me about his desire to be a good guy on his way to holiday in LA. He wanted to be nicer/more caring and started off by just greeting random people with a “hi.” How awesome is that?! A 12/13 year old kid wanting to be more caring and starting in freakin’ LA! He was unpleasantly surprised when one of my fellow Los Angelinos gave him the bird. Yep, those are my peeps. Sorry Daniel. What I wish I could’ve told Daniel was that the person that told him he was “number one” must’ve thought he was being a punk kid. Really, how many of us can say that we wouldn’t be thrown off when a young man like Daniel would genuinely be saying “hi” to us? Yeah, the guy/gal probably thought Daniel was just trying to be a jerk and, being in LA, Daniel got a pretty typical response.

I really wanted to hit home the importance of doing what’s right will benefit them no matter how tough it may be. I wanted them to know that it starts with them and when they start to see the fruit of it (i.e. success in school, relationships, etc.) then others will not only jump on board but will follow them! They start to do what’s right today they become tomorrow’s leaders! To see them catch that got me pumped! Effin-a Cotton! I had to leave but it took everything within me to get myself out of there. Those kids were freakin’ awesome!

Todd and I headed back home but we made sure we prayed for them and the school as a whole before we left the campus. It’s times like these that reiterate the importance of Big Mouth and how God is using us. We’re here to show the next generation the importance of righteousness and justice and with that salvation is close at hand (Is. 56:1). I want this country to go from glory to glory, strength to strength, faith to faith and it can’t happen with hooligans and eff-ups running around. I’m not too worried though. With the vision God has given me and the men He’s placed in my life our country and the next generation will NOT go to hell in a hand basket, there will be NO rapture, and we will not fall like Rome! NO! We will renew our covenant with God and will continue to be the country that leads the world because of God’s Spirit that is on us and leading us (Is. 60:1-3)!

(Yes, I know this was a freakin’ long post. So sue me!)