In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the nation's poverty rate hit 15.1 percent, the highest since 1993. These tough economic times have caused many young adults to stay in their parents' homes, or to move back into them. Many could not remain sheltered or fed without parental support, since over 45 percent have incomes below the poverty line. Among young people ages 16 to 29, a full 45 percent are out of work.

Our Methodist sisters and brothers at Wesley Theological Seminary do a very good job of making sure we Presbyterian students get a fair shake. They offer classes in reform theology, Greek, Hebrew, and, of course Presbyterian Polity. As a Master's of Divinity Student at Wesley, I am currently taking the Presbyterian Polity class. At the outset of the class, I was a bit worried. After all, I did not come to Presbyterianism until well into my adulthood, and I assumed the class would most likely be filled with well-read "cradle Presbyterians." Also, the Book of Order frightened me. Of course I had used it before, but only to look up various rules and guidelines for worship services. I had visions my polity classmates and I having to memorize and recite entire legalistic portions of it by chapter, verse, and section .

A few weeks ago, I presented a paper at an educational roundtable put on by the Reformed Institute of Metropolitan Washington. The paper was entitled, The Family as Learning Community: How the Church Can Help and in it I gave several suggestions for how our churches might facilitate families in their spiritual growth as followers of Jesus. But the main idea I latched on to, and that I will now share with every individual and couple with whom I do pre-baptismal counseling, is that nurturing a child in faith, (or an adult for that matter) takes what Malcolm Gladwell calls concerned cultivation.

My great-grandfather, Andrew, came over to this country in the 1880s or early 1890s with his older brother from Denmark for economic reasons. According to family memories, Andrew was a very head-strong teenager (and man) and it appears that the two brothers fought and so my great-grandfather struck out on his own, traveling to the West. For most of the rest of his life, he told everyone including his wife and children, that he was an orphan from Brooklyn, New York.