Day 1

Over the next 14 days we will explore how to inspire a happy and giving spirit in youth today.  This resource will cost you one minute of your time every day.  The tips in this resource will not only add to your personal awareness, they will also help to inspire generosity within your community.  

We welcome your feedback.  Please feel free to comment and add your knowledge to the base that feeds all of us.

What do generous youth look like? Perhaps our first instinct with this question is to make a wish-list, to think of that high-performing youth who is out there fundraising for the latest cause, someone who shows up at church every Sunday and cheerfully volunteers. But let’s stop right there: this doesn’t really describe most of the youth we know – who usually have to be dragged out of bed on Sunday morning, or pulled away from their IPods with various enticements. Ask parents what they want most for their kids, and you get a pretty short list: happiness, confidence and good character. All the ingredients of a giving spirit. So that’s where we should start. Not with what youth will be doing for us (and for the church), but how we will give our youth those ingredients to becoming giving, and other-centre people.

Church attendance is a viable form of character education that significantly reduces the percentage of children who suffer from bullying and depression in today’s society while promoting a positive climate for development. Geared toward youth and young adults of every age, the stories of our sacred text are a form of character education that is designed to emphasize the importance of empathy, manners and character values to young children in order to help them prepare for their future.

According to 2014 statistics gathered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 83 percent of girls and 79 percent of boys have reported being bullied, either online or in school. Attendance and graduation rates suffer as a result, as violent and dangerous conditions are not conducive to learning. Roughly 160,000 teens reportedly skip school every day because of bullying, while 1 in 10 teens drop out of school strictly because of repeated bullying.

Bullying prevention programs, (and church attendance is considered one of them) have been known to decrease bullying in schools by up to 25 percent, yet bullying is still at an all-time high. The church that you are a part of has the potential to change the landscape of bullying prevention and education. Instead of teaching children how to just recognize the signs of bullying and report it properly, Christian education is intended to facilitate positive relationships through empathy, team building activities and character values.

We are living in an age where tragedies like school shootings and student suicides have become something we’re used to hearing about. Perhaps the most disturbing part is that it no longer surprises us when we hear about these occurrences. Our reactive approaches and strategies haven’t worked, and the societal change will only be found when we can cultivate the hearts and minds of our children from a young age.  Church matters!