I have no specific curriculum for the Point Guards. I want to teach girls how to grow in faith. Part of letting someone learn from you is by letting them watch you. That means my faith has to be growing during this process, too. They need to watch my faith grow so they know how their own can grow. This is an idea that makes me uneasy, but they need to know that I haven’t arrived just because I am an adult. Faith must continue to grow our whole lives long. It is never fully matured. That is a lesson in itself.
Even though there is no set curriculum for the Point Guards, there is STRUCTURE for our special evenings together. That keeps some consistency for the girls (and for me). The curriculum comes together as I pray and follow the Holy Spirit each month. It’s a matter of faith, at this point.
POINT GUARDS STRUCTURE:
A. Dinner & Conversation
B. Report from Last Month
C. Faith Story
D. Faith Challenge
E. Prayer Requests
F. Clean Up
A. DINNER & CONVERSATION
Hospitality is not my spiritual gift, but I dream about having it. In my mind, I wear a ruffled apron and can bake a towering cake to accompany a pork roast and mouth-watering sides. What happens in my dining room in real life is burnt or too cold to be served. On top of that, I always sit down to the table so exhausted that I would rather take a nap than try to have a conversation.
With the Point Guards, I had WANTED to teach the girls many things, including how to be hospitable. I had hoped that that would include my homemade everything. But I decided to allow myself room for imperfection. I would rather show them a woman who is willing to die trying to live by the Bible than a woman who is willing to die trying to live by Better Homes and Gardens. So I decided I would prepare a lovely place setting each month, because that is something I enjoy and can do well. If I have to buy pre-made food to put on that table from time to time, so be it.
That first meeting, we ate a purchased fajita meal from Rosa’s Cafe. I didn’t even boil water for the sweet tea. I bought that, too. Then I didn’t even have time or energy to set the table like I’d planned. Guess what? We survived. The important thing was that we were together.
This is what I am telling myself these days: Maybe people don’t even want to come over to a perfect house to eat a perfect meal. Maybe that wouldn’t feel homey at all. And feeling at home in someone else’s home is the point of hospitality. If you are thinking about having people over, start where you are. Not where you will be when your desk is cleaned off. Not where you will be when you actually try to make one of those recipes you have been watching on the Food Network (talking to myself, here … talking to myself …) When it comes to hospitality, the thing to do is just to do it.
(If you are looking for a resource to help you become more hospitable, even toward your own family, I like this one to start off. Then, this one is my super-fav!)
The Point Guards and I used that first January night to get to know one another. Both girls attend different churches and different high schools. Their commonality was being friends with me … and being high school freshmen. I knew both of their families very well, but the girls did not know each other. I can’t say the conversation was easy because there were only two girls. I had invited a table full of girls, but that is not how it came together in the end.
Here it is important to stop and consider invitations for a moment. An invitation is only a question. It is not a command. When you send an invitation, the recipient can choose their own answer to the question, and sometimes their answer will be no. The challenge is to accept it. People have all kinds of reasons for declining an invitation, none of which have to be explained to the hostess. I used to get my feelings hurt when someone declined an invitation. One time, I designed beautiful brunch invitations. They were lovely, the prettiest I have ever made! I put them in the mail and started creating a centerpiece, even though we were three weeks out. I arranged the place settings. I planned the menu. Then every person declined. When I got the final email saying no, I stood there looking at the perfectly prepared dining room table with tears in my eyes. Then I started putting away the dishes.
WHY DIDN’T I CALL SOMEONE ELSE?! WHY DIDN’T I START OVER AND SEND OUT ANOTHER ROUND OF THOSE CHARMING INVITATIONS?!
A no used to bruise me. This was because I was not confident in saying my own no when I needed to. I used to expect other people to say yes every time because I expected myself to say yes every time. Now I finally have the strength to graciously decline an invitation, and I have learned that not all of the times I decline are because I am not interested. There are all kinds of reasons I choose to decline. When someone declines your invitation, it does not always mean they don’t want to come. But they don’t have to explain that to you if they don’t want to. Just honor their no. You will survive. Keep going. Don’t be so disappointed about the people who said no that you forget to celebrate the people who said yes.
One more thing about invitations. Sometimes we create a guest list based on what we know about the guests, and then God re-creates the guest list based on what He knows about the guests.
You can let God have control of who says yes and who says no to your invitations; He loves a good dinner party (Read Luke 14:16-24, just for fun).
B. REPORT FROM LAST MONTH
There was no report from last month, because this was our first time to meet.
C. FAITH STORY
I prayed about which story to tell the girls, and felt this was the perfect one to begin:
When I was in 7th grade, I had one of my first faith-building experiences. I would babysit almost every weekend, and back then, I was making $2.50-$4 an hour. A five-hour Saturday night would bring in a whopping $15. Sometimes, the parents would round up to $20, just to be nice. That was the most I ever made in any weekend. Then one Sunday at church, they announced that there would be a special mission collection the following week, and the ministers encouraged us to pray about an amount to give. I was only 13, but I felt deeply moved to give to global missions. I went home and prayed, “I don’t have much, Lord, but I want to use what I have to spread Your fame around the world. I commit to give EVERYTHING I earn from babysitting this week to the missions collection next Sunday.” I was thinking it might be about $30, if I was lucky. That would be an exorbitant amount for me. Well, you can guess what happened. Immediately the calls started pouring in. No one, not even my parents, knew of my prayer commitment to God. I accepted last-minute babysitting jobs almost every night of that week. Then that Sunday, I put $80 in the collection plate, and when I did, I knew-knew-knew-knew-knew something I had never known in quite that way before: God rewards steps of faith.
D. FAITH CHALLENGE
I printed the monthly task on bright pink paper and put it in an envelope. Never underestimate the simple joy of opening an envelope. In our current youth culture, letters and invitations are digital. Envelopes are a vintage pleasure. Use them; they’re cheap. I had hidden the envelopes in encyclopedias (talk about vintage!), one in the T book and one in the M book for the girls’ names. The Point Guards flipped through the encyclopedias and found their envelopes, and their smiles grew. Oh, the excitement as they tore into the envelopes! They pulled out the task, along with some cash. (Look, DO NOT feel you must spend a lot of money to host a group like this. You don’t have to give them anything but your time. I just felt like money was an important addition to this task.) You can read the task in detail in the photo above, but the gist of it was that they needed to use the money to buy a “symbol of their faith” that they could explain to us the following month.
E. PRAYER REQUESTS
An important part of our year together was going to be praying for each other. I did not picture prayer happening at the Point Guards meetings, but I am committed to praying for the girls on my own.
F. CLEAN UP
I am a school teacher forever, I guess. I think it is healthy for young people to push in their chairs and put away their supplies and wipe off their desks when they leave a classroom. So at my home, the girls and I at least took our plates to the kitchen and rinsed them. It wasn’t a boot camp situation, or anything. But young people really do appreciate pitching in, and sometimes a gentle invitation to join the clean up is welcomed. When I was in high school, I remember feeling so stupid when I was just standing around, not knowing what to do at someone’s house. I preferred when they would ask, “Will you please put the silverware in the sink?” It gave me something to do with my nervous hands.
The first Point Guards meeting was a delight in every way. It spoke of all the wonderful things that were to come. I went to bed that night too excited to sleep. I couldn’t wait to see what the girls would bring to symbolize their faith. But I couldn’t be too distracted with curiosity about how they would handle the task, because I had just one month to complete the task myself.