In This Issue: Raising Global Kids: Passing on a World-wide Worldview
Missions Catalyst is a free, weekly electronic digest of mission news and resources designed to inspire and equip Christians worldwide for global ministry. Use it to fuel your prayers, find tips and opportunities, and stay in touch with how God is building his kingdom all over the world. Please forward it freely!
Practical Mobilization by Shane Bennett is published once a month.
Raising Global Kids: Passing on a World-wide Worldview
By Shane Bennett
Some of the coolest people I’ve ever met told me about their retirement plan: “We hope that our kids (they had six at the time) will live in different places all around the world. We’ll spend our retirement visiting them, spending some weeks with one, then moving on to the next.”
That idea may sound wonderful to you, or just the opposite of wonderful. But I’m guessing that as world Christians most of us want our kids (if we have them, or dream we will someday) to grow up, if not actually residing globally, at least having a global mindset.
I love watching Jesus in the Gospels as he works relentlessly to expand the cultural horizons of his disciples. He creatively and persistently teaches and trains them that his kingdom intentions go far beyond Israel. Eventually the lessons sink in. The foundation for Peter’s visit to Cornelius in Acts 10 may have been laid when he joined Jesus for the Samaritan-village sleep-over in John 4.
As I watch Jesus build cross-cultural kingdom realities into his disciples, I wonder about my own disciples, particularly the five little animals Ann and I call our children. I want to raise nice kids, but more than just nice kids. What is my responsibility to them in helping them develop a world-wide worldview? How do I wisely carry out that responsibility?
In short, how do I raise global kids?
I’m thinking about this a lot lately, maybe in part because we recently moved to rural Indiana. You can find us on Google Earth (just search 47340!) but otherwise our region doesn’t seem particularly connected to the rest of the planet. It was easier to feel “global” when we lived near Amsterdam, a city home to many more nationalities.
It’s going to take some work for our kids to grow up with more than a Hoosier view of life. Here’s my first stab at defining what being a global kid would look like.
- A global kid lives for a global expansion of God’s kingdom. I pray that God fills my kids with a strong sense of purpose.
- A global kid delights in the God-designed diversity of the planet. Difference is celebrated and savored, not feared.
- A global kid understands that different people think differently. Many of her basic assumptions are not shared by many other cultures.
- A global kid views her own culture with some objectivity. She understands some of the perspective others have of her culture.
- A global kid has good cross-cultural skills. He can flow in a variety of cultures and can build friendships with people of different backgrounds.
What can you do to raise them that way? Let me take a shot at an approach to raising global kids. I think we need to provide ample education, experience, and example.
1. Education
Maybe this indicates just how American I am, but my mind easily drifts toward how to get the right information to my kids. This may be some of the easiest stuff to put into practice. A quick Google search of “kids mission” returns more than three million hits. Here are three of my favorite links:
- Ethnic Harvest has a section of cool links for educating and exposing kids to the world.
- This OM New Zealand page provides learning activities about different parts of the world.
- Desiring God has a great list of ideas. I particularly like number six, about taking risks as a family: “Volunteer at a rescue mission; house a single mother; move to the inner-city.” Pick your point of buy in!
- The Perspectives curriculum family offers strong, solid education in global world view. Bring older kids to class with you, or check out Outside the Lines for the younger ones.
- One of the best ways to inspire kids for God’s work around the planet is by reading them missionary biographies. Our kids have enjoyed the Christian Heroes: Then & Now series.
- What about helping them get their tongues wrapped around another language or two? The uber-cool family I mentioned above once shared their plan to have the top 20 languages in the world each spoken by someone in their family. It was a rare treat to sit at their dinner table while kids aged 5 to 15 shouted, “I’ve got Mandarin. I’ve got Urdu. I’m learning French.”
2. Experience
Surely most major life lessons are “caught” rather than “taught.” The most significant part of our kids’ global development was certainly the three years we lived outside the U.S. and among Dutch, Turks, Berbers, Brits, and Pakistanis. The stresses, joys, and countless seemingly insignificant encounters and connections indelibly stamped our children. They are who they are because of those experiences.
Since many of us cannot (and some will not) live outside our own culture, how can we capture the power of those experiences close to home? Here are some possibilities:
- Watch movies set in other cultures, listen to music from other places, go to cultural festivals, and develop a taste for food from another ethnic group. Push for something a little edgier than Mexican or Italian!
- Identify with the way other people live by eating simple food for an entire week. Rice and beans would be good.
- Become a “friendship family” or sponsor for an international student at a nearby university. The quickest way to navigate this is to search the school’s site for “international programs,” then make a phone call.
- Connect with a like-minded church (or help your church become like minded). Kids will tend to become global kids if they hang out with other global kids.
- Pick up a copy of the book Do Hard Things by teenaged twins Alex and Brett Harris. Do Hard Things challenges kids to make the most of their teen years, dispelling the myth that this is a life stage in which to enjoy the privileges of adulthood, shunning the responsibilities. The mentality promoted by this book will help us turn out kids ready to live years in challenging situations for the sake of God’s kingdom.
3. Example
Finally, maybe the primary we can raise global kids is by example. For good or ill, our kids will largely become what we are.
- With this in mind, I want to be quick to confess my own xenophobia when it springs up.
- I want to discuss issues like the upcoming U.S. presidential election with global issues like foreign policy and immigration in mind.
- I want to pray for the world with my kids, and actively give to global causes and friends in cross cultural work.
If I love the world and devote myself to God’s purposes for it, I can hope that my kids, to a significant degree, will follow suit.
Conclusion
This brings up the dark side of raising global kids. Do it well and your children just might ended up raising your grandchildren in Morocco or Mozambique. I suppose all raising of kids involves potential pain and sacrifice. Moving overseas often feels like a great adventure, but waving goodbye to the kids at the airport can feel like a death.
Such sacrifice is well known and understood by our Father. He is our great example in this regard.
I would deeply appreciate your comments, corrections, shuffling, and suggestions regarding defining the goal of raising global kids and the steps to doing so. Please send along your thoughts, stories, and experiences.
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.