In schools there's the problem of maintaining discipline. On TV there are reality shows with the "militant nanny". Parents are worried more and more that children are seriously spinning out of control.

Kids In Crisis, Part 2 w/Ross Wright

Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. What parent hasn’t worried about their child being out of control? And I’m not just speaking of the “Terrible Twos”. I’m talking about children becoming “Loose cannon” preteens, kids becoming teenagers and older. There’s too much evidence that more and more kids are seriously spinning out of control. Well, we’re going to talk about that in the next few minutes as we’re joined by . He’s a friend of mine who has spent a career working in psychiatric wards and for the last number of years has been the founder and executive director in Colorado of a remarkably successful Christian foster care agency. So don’t go away, for an important next few minutes called “Kids in Crisis”. And then, before we begin, have you started the Bible in 90 days with me? I’m on day 4 and I have just completed the book of Genesis. And after we talk to Ross Wright, we’re going to be talking about child raising from the book of Genesis. And if you’ve thought about thought about doing the 90 day Bible with me it’s still not too late, 12 pages a day and I’ll tell you more about how to do it later on. Or if you want a sneak preview, you can go to haventoday.org or you can give us a call at 1-800-654-2836. We’ve got a Bible in large print that tells you where to start and where to stop every day and we also have the Bible reading plan itself that you can download from our website, haventoday.org. And now, let’s turn our eyes in another direction as we sing, “How Great is Our God?”

Song: How Great is Our God?
Performed by:

This is Haven Today and we’re talking about “Kids In Crisis” and on with us for another day is my friend Ross Wright from Colorado Springs. He’s the director of Hope and Home which is a foster care agency and Ross, welcome back!
RW: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
CW: We’ve been friends for, I don’t know, 6 or 7 years now. We get to see each other a couple of times a year at a leadership meeting and sometimes we even get to sit by each other. I wanted to have you on because by the time kids get to you it’s beyond crisis point. For the families it’s beyond just, you know, shouting or yelling at each other. You see things that no one else gets to see.
RW: Unfortunately, that’s true.
CM: That’s right and it’s not something you want to see, but it is your calling. We talked yesterday a little bit about a method of how we can do a better job of raising our kids, hopefully, then lead our kids to faith in Christ. Think back with me. You’ve had a lot of kids that you’ve worked with through the years. What’s one of the toughest cases that you’ve ever seen where you’ve actually seen hope and help come into that kid’s life?
RW: Probably the case that comes to mind immediately was a young girl that came to us from Lake County, Indiana. And she had just been what they call “Rushed into the G”.
CM: And what does all that mean?
RW: That means she was initiated into one of the gangs in Lake County, Indiana. And the way that you get initiated into a gang is you’re forced to submit sexually to every member of that gang, male and female and then you’re forced to take a gun into a crowded environment and fire that gun into somebody’s body.
CM: this is how you prove that you’re worthy of being a member of a gang?
RW : And then the gang owns you.
CM: Wow.
RW: And this young girl, at the age of 15 years old went into a concert environment and fired a gun, point blank range, right into the chest of an adult male. And she was arrested for this and she was sent to our treatment center for us to work with her while she was awaiting trial.
CM: She was a juvenile?
RW: She was a juvenile, she was 15 years old.
CM: OK.
RW: And at this point she felt like her entire life was owned by the “G”, the gang. And she had been rushed into this gang, those were her brothers and those are the ones she was loyal to. and she had a hardened heart like you wouldn’t believe for a 15 year old girl. And she came to our treatment center and she was absolutely a hard and tough kid. She wouldn’t hesitate to hit somebody. She at one point threatened to do some serious bodily injury to my wife who was there at the treatment center. She was a tough, tough kid. And over time we started working with her. And one of the things that we worked with her on was we wanted to see her set some goals for herself and let her be part of the treatment program. We ended up with a student council. We made her the president of the student council.
CM: She was a natural born leader too I guess.
RW: We took advantage of her leadership skills –
CM: A leader for bad at the onset I guess.
RW: But she took to that position. She liked being a leader and she started her own group of kids trying to do a better job and trying to improve themselves and she started having rules about what people would wear and she’s a tough kid but she’s a smart kid and we started working with her. And as we worked with her, one of the things that we realized was that nobody was going to change her. She was the only one that was going to change her. And through an awful lot of love, an awful lot of support and an awful lot of techniques that we talk about in my book, we were able to get her to see the change that needed to happen. And one of the greatest moments of my life was about 3 months later we had a talent show and she was in that talent show wearing a full length, frilly dress and she was singing, Acapella, the song “Amazing Grace”. She had given her life over to a different “G”. “G” meant a different thing to her. She had given her entire life over to Christ.
Cm: What do you think happened? What do you think the Lord used with her that made the difference?
RW: Well, probably the most important thing was for her to realize that no amount of gangs, no amount of friends were going to ultimately be there for her. The only person that was going to be there wasn’t a person at all. It was her Savior Jesus Christ. And when she realized that life ends, that friends disappear, that ultimately you can count on one thing and one thing only and that is the true love of Jesus Christ.
CM: Even the gang won’t be there for you in the long run.
RW: Even the gang.
CM: Wow. You see a lot of kids come through. How bad is the problem from your end today? Is it growing? Are more kids having to be sent into foster care? I know single parent homes are on the rise. Kinship care is also becoming more of the norm. What’s happening?
RW: Unfortunately we’re seeing more and more kids coming into foster care than we’ve ever seen and we have fewer and fewer foster parents. And the simple reality is that there are more and more traps and dangers for children than there ever have been. Methamphetamines have become an epidemic in our country. Drug abuse has become an epidemic. Alcohol has become pandemic with children in our society. Kids in Jr. High are getting drunk, they’re getting stoned. These are real problems with real kids today. And these parents are not bad people. That’s real important to realize. These are not bad kids. These are sad kids in tough situations and parents are trying as hard as they can. The problem is we just don’t have the tools, we don’t have the training that we need to take on these really tough situations and really tough kids.
CM: You see it when kids come to you because they’ve been taken away from their parents but these issues are in upper class neighborhoods, they’re everywhere.
RW: They’re everywhere. In fact, we had 4 kids come to us 2 days ago and they didn’t come because they were abused or neglected, they came because their mother was killed by their father. Domestic violence reaches into every single aspect of our society. It does not pay any attention to economics. It does not pay attention to demographics. It pervades our society. It’s epidemic.
Cm: In case anybody missed yesterday, and they can go back and hear it online, you have 4 suggestions, 4 steps for a parent to really do a better job as a parent. Want to go through those 4 again for us?
RW: they’re really simple and they’re outlined well in my book “Kids in Crisis”. The 4 steps are, 1). Show kids that you love them. You got to show them. You’ve got to show them every day. The second one is really lay down structure. Create the structure in your home, have rules, have boundaries, understand the importance of them and stick to them. Number 3, create avenues of achievement that comes out of that sense of being loved, that comes out of those rules. Make kids successful, find ways and make them successful and once their successful, reward them, reward them reward them. Four simple steps.
CM: You had a change in your own life that really led you in the direction of what you’re doing today. You were out there in the secular melee of running a children’s home, running a psychiatric hospital but something happened to you in a church service on a Sunday morning. Would you mind sharing that with me, with us?
RW: oh, I’d love to. I was sitting in the balcony of First Presbyterian Church here in Colorado Springs, CO and I was listening to John Stephens when suddenly I felt the building shake and I felt the air leave my lungs and I thought, “Oh my gosh! All these years of being overweight and having high blood pressure and high cholesterol and all the things my doctor gets on me about, gives medication for is finally taking its toll. I’m having some sort of a heart attack or a stroke.” And I felt terrified, I felt paralyzed. Then suddenly I realized I was OK and the room got quiet. You couldn’t hear the rustling of papers, you couldn’t hear kids, you couldn’t hear anything. All I could hear was the sermon and I just focused on it. And suddenly there was an overwhelming presence in that room and I knew that somebody else was in there, somebody greater than me. It was a scary feeling, Charles. And the sermon was simply on a topic that has been preached on thousands of times. It was very simply the burning bush.
CM: In Exodus, yes.
RW: And John Stephens was standing at the pulpit, he had his hand outreached and he was saying, “The miracle, the miracle of the burning bush was not the burning bush. It was Moses. It was a change that was going on inside of Moses. That was the miracle.” And suddenly the room broke free. I could breathe fine. I’m looking around, I’m jabbing my wife going, “What the heck was that?” She’s going, “Shh! Shh!” And I realized that –
CM: Bridget is still listening!
RW: I’m thinking I’m the only one who experienced this so the very next day I get on the internet.
CM: well, you knew something had happened to you.
RW: Something had happened and it was the most unreal, most surrealistic moment of my life. And I got a hold of the minister the next day, I emailed him, I said, “I’ve got to talk to you right away.” And I said, “What was that?” He said, “Ross, it was pretty simple. That was the Holy Spirit at work.” And I looked at him and I said, “Why? Why did that happen?” I thought, this was real. This was real. This was not my imagination.
CM: More than any
RW: This was real
CM: thing with God had ever been real for you in your life.
RW: Ever. And I said, “Why? Why did this happen with me?” And John Stephens looked at me and said very simply, “I don’t know but you will.” And as the years have gone by I’ve come to know what that moment was about. That was a defining moment for me in my life that spoke to me and said, “Ross, the change that happened for Moses was inside of Moses. The miracle of the burning bush was not the burning bush. It was Moses, that Moses changed. And that my purpose in life was to help children and help families to find that kind of a change, for them to change. And the purpose of my life has become to help people change themselves. Nobody likes to be changed. People like to change but they don’t like to be changed. So what I started to realize, and the reason I wrote this book was we have to create the opportunity for people to change themselves.
CM: Ross Wright, thank you for being with me here on Haven Today.
RW: Thank you.
CM: Ross Wright, thank you for being with us here on Haven Today, “Kids in Crisis” that’s the name of Ross’s book where he speaks from his longtime experience in helping kids who are spinning out of control. Let’s just pray for a minute, would you? Join me as we pray for our children.
Lord Jesus we come to you now asking for your guidance in raising children. I ask for the power of Christ to be at work in all of us, that we will take every opportunity to encourage and to be spiritually sensitive to this great need, the great longing that exists in all of us to have relationship with you as our Lord and Savior. There’s so many children without parents, without any kind of family stability in their world. I rpay for them, that they will find relationship in not only a family setting but also the more heavenly family. I pray for kids that live in family settings, that you would be stirring hearts and leave parents, grandparents and children to find safety in Jesus Christ. We need peace in our hearts and peace in our homes and if we’re ever going to see peace outside the home and in the world in which we live. Lord Jesus, come back quickly, but before that come into the hearts of parents as well as kids. And I pray this now in the name of Jesus, amen.
This is Haven Today and we’re reading the Bible in 90 days. I hope you’ve started with me or are getting ready to start. You know, in Genesis there is the story of God’s Garden and then there is the picture of two gardens in the Bible. In the first garden there is the fall and then in the second garden there is the triumph. Now think about that with me for a moment. There is an obvious contrast between the first Adam in the Garden of Eden and what the Bible calls the second Adam, Jesus. And I want you to think about the second garden as well, the Garden of Gethsemane, before the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross. The first contrast is between the good that stretched out before our first parents in Eden and the evil that lay before Christ. Adam and Eve had entered Eden at the peak of God’s creative activity. Theirs was a world that God declared to be good. He had made our first parents vice-regents over the world, giving them dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the livestock over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground. Moreover, he had blessed them. Here’s what it says in Genesis 1:28-30, “Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give them every green plant for food.” Adam and Eve had all this before them without even a suggestion of a lessening of God’s great favor. Yet they turned from this overwhelming and delightful prospect and they sinned. That’s when sin came into the world and it’s what every human being is born into. Now by contrast, Jesus faced what Adam and Eve couldn’t even begin to conceive. First, he was facing physical death in what is probably the most prolonged and excruciating form known to humanity of death. Second, spiritual death from which even his divinely motivated soul shrank in deep horror. The full measure of what was before God is seen in this great agony, bloody sweat and heartbreaking prayer, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me?” Nevertheless, Jesus didn’t turn from this suffering but rather embraced it willingly and he did so for our salvation. The second contrast between Adam and Eve’s conduct in the Garden of Eden and Christ’s conduct in the Garden of Gethsemane is that our first parents spent their time talking to Satan while Jesus spent his time talking with God the Father. The need for prayer was very much on Christ’s mind for all his actions seemed geared to meeting it. He left Jerusalem to pray. He separated himself from the larger number of his disciples admonishing them to pray. And then he himself earnestly prayed, returning to pray twice after interrupting himself to encourage the disciples in their own praying vigil. Jesus clearly felt the need for prayer but Adam and Eve, though on the brink of that sin which would condemn the entire human race and cast them out of the garden did not pray, rather they seemed oblivious to the danger as they blindly went along with Satan. Now there was a third contrast between Adam and Eve on the one hand and the Lord Jesus Chrsit on the other. it’s pretty obvious, they fell, while he conquered. How soon did they fall, well almost instantly it would appear. Satan presented his argument and right away they ate the forbidden fruit. Jesus, on the other hand wrestled in prayer and only prevailed at the very end. By their sin Adam and Eve plunged the entire race into misery. They fell and they carried their descendents, you and me, over the cliff of sin into destruction. On the other hand, Jesus stood firm. He didn’t sin, nor did he shrink from the work before him as a result of which, he brought salvation to all who will ever call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. In Adam, all were lost but Jesus could say in John 17:12, “None has been lost.” One more thing about the great story that’s all about Jesus, one writer has put it this way, “Sin, death and judgment flowed from the act of Adam. Righteousness, life and kingship flow from the cross of Christ. The sin of Adam was a stone cast into a pool which sent ripples into every inlet. The cross of Christ was the Rock of Ages cast into the ocean of the love of God. And it’s the destiny of all who are in Christ to be carried on the swell of his majestic love and life and power both now and forevermore.” This is Haven Today and the program is called “Kids in Crisis”, part 2 and I want to thank Ross Wright for joining us again today from Colorado Springs. And thank you as well for letting me share a little bit more out of my readings in the Book of Genesis. I’m heading on, I’m in Exodus now but the Bible in 90 days is there and it’s something that you can do along with me. You don’t have to be on the dame day’s reading as I am. So let me just tell you a few things that are important. First, we have Ross Wright’s Book “Kids in Crisis”. You can get that from us as a thank you for your gift to Haven Today which helps us tell the great story all over the world as well as where you’re listening right now. And when you do get in touch would you mind letting us know where you’re listening, what station you’re tuning into. We also have the large print, NIV hardback Bible that shows you with markers at the top of the page where you start and stop every day. It’s got a little checklist on the dust jacket as well as on the inside of the Bible so that you can check off every day’s reading. We also have ‘The Essential Bible Companion” now this is not to take the place of reading the Bible through in less than 3 months with me but if you’d like just a little more background after you’ve done your reading, the “Essential Bible Companion” is for you. It contains photographs, charts, timelines, a couple of pages on every book of the Bible plus some other resources for you. It’s in full color and it’s something that you’d want to have in your library anyway. “The Essential Bible Companion”. We also have a kit for churches and small groups and we’ve got a link to Ted Cooper – he’s the 90 Day Bible man – and his ministry is out there to help large groups, especially churches, but groups and small groups of any kind to be able to complete the Bible, he’s there as a resource. We’ve linked his website there on our website, haventoday.org. So would you get in touch with us and if you want to use your own version of the Bible you can just go ahead and download the Bible reading plan. Contact us at haventoday.org, that’s one word, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org. Now you can also call us and if you don’t have the internet you can ask and we will send you, with no obligation, a copy of the Bible reading plan “The Bible in 90 Days” and you can check it off as you do it with me. Just call us, toll free in North America, at 1-800-654-2836, that’s 1-800-654-2836. And if it’s a little easier for you just remember 1-800-65-HAVEN. I’m Charles Morris. I want to thank you for joining me. Would you come back again tomorrow? We’re going to look at another passage of Genesis we’ll look at it more intensely and we’ll do it together here on Haven Today.