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b v / / £ TfTW®|®BE h ( *~*<42r®l v ,. -. .W . <w ~.'? - x. -•' A' *. k «$ t " WE’S PROPOSING & CONSTITUTIONAL MW BANNING WT?” Young boys definitely are different Are boys different? You bet ter believe it! It is often a mind altering discovery for adults who are seldom around young children. For those teachers and parents of both boys and girls this is a known fact. Last week we had the pleas ure of having our 4-year-old nephew for a few days. Even the “man of the house" had for gotten how aggressive, ener getic. and enthusiastic a young boy can be. After a few hours he began to remember days gone by when our sons were just as vibrant, busy, and into every thing possible. 1 was prompted to reread several chapters of Dr. James Dobson's book “Bringing Up Boys". I found many passages that were familiar, one of which was by Plato written 2.300 years ago: "Os all the animals, the boy is the most unmanage able." "Mother use to say" is now commonplace in my vocabu lary. She would say "boys will be boys" or. “that is what boys do!" All of the answers didn't fit as I would lament my futile attempt to make our boys sit quietly through just one meal. Ethics & Reli Checking out the church numbers I’m a numbers guy. who finds publications like the new “Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 2004” absolutely fascinating. Pub lished annually by The National Council of Churches, it provides a quick snapshot of the major denominations with their histories, current leader ship. seminaries and financial data for 59 denominations. Os course, the largest is The Catholic Church (which is no longer called the Roman Catholic Church) with 66.4 million members, an increase of 1.1 million in 2002 over 2001. However. Catholics count baptized infants as members while the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Pro testant denomination with 16.2 million (up 1.2 percent), only counts those making an adult profession of faith. On the other hand. Southern Baptist data includes 5.1 million “non-resident members.” Who are they? Other than college students and soldiers who are away, they are people who have left. Southern Baptists are really a denomi nation of 11.2 million, of whom 5.8 million worship on Sunday and 4.1 million attend Sunday School, according to SBC statistician Cliff Tharp. By contrast, only a third of Catholics attend Mass on any given Sunday, 22 million, according to experts at Catholic University. That number is down, due to the Catholic scandal, the priest shortage and due to the clos ing of 3,300 churches since 1996, a 15 percent decline, while the number of Catholics grew by 5 million in those years, mostly from immigra tion. (Last week Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley asked Catholics to face the reality that declining atten dance will force him to shutter scores of the archdiocese’s 357 churches.) There is a lot of air and P" 4 fjr Julianne j Boling SSnSBEKSM As they snickered and squirmed their way around the food they didn't like I bemoaned the fact that they would soon die of star vation. They didn’t! Boys are quite different from the little girl who will sit in a restaurant and not want to see what is over the booth wall and converse with the other patrons. The young girl will talk with her doll and cuddle it to her breast as the little boy runs his car along the railing between the booths and ask the man if he has a truck.. Boys have three questions to answer where toys are con cerned. Will it come apart? Will it make noise? What makes it work? Once these questions are explored he w ill move on to the next exciting adventure of get ting in the dog crate w ith the dog captured inside with him. Boys can disappear and can remain quieter than a mouse as ion Mike wishful thinking in the figures of African American denomi nations. The Yearbook reports that the National Baptist Convention, USA. Inc. has 5 million members, but does not say how many pastors the church has. 1 called its Nashville headquarters to ask some questions. An operator answered the phone but as the only staff person present, sug gested 1 call the NBC's presi dent, a pastor in New Orleans. He was unavailable. Is it merely coincidence that the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the National Missionary Baptist Convention and the Progres sive National Baptist Conven tion each have 2.5 million members? And that none gained or lost a member in years? I don't think so. Neither wants the real num bers to be known. A founda tion offered a grant several years ago to enable black denominations to develop county-hy-county data. They refused. Two other broad trends can be seen in the Yearbook num bers. Evangelical and Pen tecostal denominations are growing. The Assemblies of God, for example, with 2,687,000 members grew a healthy 2.3 percent in 2002. And it has maintained that growth for three decades. There were only 1.5 million Assemblies members in 1970. Seventh Day Adventists grew from 700,000 to 1,048,000 in those years. In fact there are millions of evangelicals in new independ ent congregations which are not even reported in the Yearbook. The World Christ ian Encyclopedia lists church- adults go wild looking in all nooks and crannies for them. They are amazed when found that the adults are angry instead of laughing joyously because the lost one has been found. In distinguishing the differ ence between boys and girls one should keep in mind that boys are much more curious about handles, machinery, and engines of all kinds. They want to see how much water will come out of a faucet, how many times a commode can be flushed without breaking the handle, and how many times they can pull a mower string before they are exhausted. Little boys have heroes. They are not obsessive, only possessive. They want all the Ninja Turtle figures, all the Power Rangers, and all of the paraphernalia that goes with them. Once the collection is complete they will move on to another hero figure. Dobson writes: "So buckle your seat belts! There is a lot of interesting ground you will cover with boys." Enjoy the ride. 1 did! Cumming resident Julianne Boling writes a weekly column. es with 78 million members, many of which did not exist 30 years ago. For example there are 700,000 in 3,000 new “seeker churches" pat terned on the Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago. By contrast, mainline Protestant denominations are shrinking with the exception of the American Baptists who grew 2.9 percent in 2002 after years of declines. The United Methodist Church plunged from 11.5 million members in 1965 to only 8.2 million in 2002. The Presbyterian Church (USA) plummeted 42 percent in those years and The Episcopal Church fell by a third. What explains those trends? Diane Knippers, a conser vative Episcopalian who runs the Institute for Religion & Democracy explains: “The evangelical community is inorc confident about the truth of the Christian faith and its goals while the mainline churches all too often are slip ping into a vague spirituality or political activism. By contrast the evangelical churches have a focus on out reach, evangelism and inviting people to church." Prof. Nancy Ammerman of Boston University differs: “Part of the answer is that mainline churches keep track of their numbers and notice when their members leave, because national dues are apportioned based on mem bership figures. There is a financial incentive to decline, not to pad your rolls. In evangelical churches there is an opposite incentive. If you had 200 members last year, baptized 10 and 15 joined the church, you say you have 225, and you don't pay attention to 40 who moved away and did not bother to tell you.” Sadly, church numbers cannot be taken at face value. Many are not credible. Mike McManus is a nation ally syndicated columnist. On the verge of ‘old cussedness’ After dinner and dropping our youngest off at the movies on a Friday night, we decided that the evening was young. What could we do? All of our children were with friends and it was just the two of us. The list is long. A romantic evening at home, shopping at the mall, maybe even a movie for our selves. We decided to go to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart on a Friday evening brings out a different lot of folks and here we were among them. There were the usual outdoorsmen buying fish ing or turkey hunting gear. We blended in with grocery shop pers and browsers as I wanted to just pick up a few things. Shaving and winter had taken a toll on my tired face. I was looking for a magic ointment that I saw advertised on televi sion. I looked and looked with out success and my wise better half offered to help. She asked the name of this mystery potion. I told her the name was Nineveh. She looked at me with a quizzical look. “Nineveh is where Jonah was running from when he was swallowed by a whale." I realized that the real name of my quest was Nivea. I told her I only looked like a w hale as she laughed at my sen ior moment. We promptly found my quest and she smirked as I checked out. This year brings me to the half century mark. There is something about your 40s that makes you aware that your years are numbered. Fifty is another transition. One fast food place in town kept offering me the senior discount. Finally 1 had enough. I told the young lady behind the counter that I didn't want any senior discount and 1 would absolutely not accept it. She looked at me funny as I paid more than she required. She probably won dered who had spit in my chick en soup. The events preceding my induction into being an old cuss were plentiful this weekend. As I sat in front of a movie on 9 JASPER - Headquarters 9 I m^ 515 Crescentw I I Jasper. GA 30143 IKTIZ’ * "SEH 1 (678)454 2265 li/llNlx. !™l 9 (800)872 7941 „ , „ „ Fax (678) 454 2299 People You Know ...People You Trust I 18 month CD -i I I MARBLE HILL I 90 Steve Tate Road CCCI/ A 1 Marble Hill. GA 30148 2.55 % AnUUUI 1, 4 Percentage Yield I I Fax (678) 454 2339 d condition below $50,000 in your 9 Crescent Bank checking account I CARTERSVILLE * 9 880 Joe Frank Harris Parkway I ■ ■ P.O. Box 1120 2.70% Annual I Cartersville, GA 30120 (678)4542340 Percentage Yield I Fax 454 2 condition over $50,000 in your I Crescent Bank checking account 1 TOWNE LAKE I 4475 Towne lake Parkway £d HlOHth CD 1 I I Woodstock, GA 30189 I (678) 454 2300 ■ Fax (678) 454 2310 2.60% AntlUal I I canton Percentage Yield I 170 Riverstone Parkway condition below $50,000 in your I Canton, GA 30114 Crescent Bank checking account 9 I (678)454 2370 I Fax (678) 454 2399 | 1 I 2.85% Annual I ■ Cumming Percentage Yield I IcuXgXo condition over $50,000 in your I I (678) 454 2320 Crescent Bank checking account I Fax I t=j rote H9H9KSSSSH wwvvcrcscentliank.coin FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Sunday, M»rch 21, 2004 - Phlll » Bettis W Saturday night, a rerun of “Chariots of Fire,” my son asked me what movie I was watching. He asked again with no response from old Dad. Finally, in desperation he blared, “Dad I am going into an illegal trade and maybe 1 will join the circus and forget col lege.” My hearing finally kicked in enough to know that 1 was being laughed at by my son and his girlfriend. Getting out of our family vehicle at church on Sunday, the bright morning sunlight revealed that 1 had blue socks on with black pants. It looked awful. I hoped that no one would see my fashion faux pas as 1 walked through the church yard. Vision and hearing lapses aside, 1 feel the years piling on. My patience is as short as my temper. My waist is larger and hair grows places it shouldn’t and grows thinner where it should be growing. Winter seems longer but for some rea son time seems to fly by. 1 am more interested in documen taries on television than some steamy reality show. I dream of retirement and doing what 1 want to do when I want to do it. I look for shoes that are com fortable and pants with expand able waists. Learning to be an old cuss requires some work. I think about those that have gone on before that left wonderful lega cies of old cussdom. When I was a teenager working in a grocery store sacking groceries, there was always some old guy wanting something that was so mispronounced that we had no idea what they wanted. One fel low came in each Saturday wanting fish “fill-its." We finally figured it out. Some old cusses would wear an awful combina tion of stripes and plaids. Some might have a “comb-over.” Others would talk about the good old days when the roads were dirt, the cotton fields were hot and endless and how the younger generation had no idea of how hard life could be. I tell my children of my days digging ditches, driving nails, hauling Sheetrock and how cold the winters were, and how good the people were here once upon a time. I think it is a rite of pas sage to judge the current gener ation and reminisce of the “good old days.” Realizing that becoming an old cuss is quickly becoming reality for me, I have deter mined that 1 will not go easy into that night. I need some workouts in the gym and to per haps pay a bit more attention. I am taking vitamins and watch ing what 1 eat a bit more. Being an old cuss is an attitude, and I am trying to make mine more positive. I am trying to tolerate my children’s music choices. They gave me a "Coldplay” album for Christmas that I have at least listened to. I have bought new jeans and even let my hair grow a bit longer on occasion. Perhaps I can delay my entry into old cussdom a few years by hanging around young folks. There are plenty that come to the house and they seem to like me. I joke with them and talk about what is going on in their lives. Their energy is infectious and I need all of that I can get. My sense of humor is a bit different, but we all share an occasional laugh together. I will not ride Harleys this summer and I will not go to a rock concert. I will remember what it was like to be young when life was like a big picnic table spread before us. I will remember that first car and prom night and being able to run through green fields on a clear spring air. But that was when I could find my sneakers. Phill Bettis is a native of Forsyth County who writes an occassional column. PAGE 11A