Can You Keep Your Kids from “Running Away” from God after Graduation?

“Make sure you shut the door!” This phrase is uttered a few dozen times a day in my home. With the warmer Spring weather we have children coming in and out of the house all the time. We also have a dog. She is an extremely curious, 1 year-old Boxer (fawn) named Bristol, who very much enjoys being outside. If the door is left open, or allowed to close slowly, Bristol will seize her opportunity to run out the door and then she’s off. She runs down the alley, through the neighborhood, off to experience the freedom of self-discovery. We have been told by neighbors that she sometimes just joins their family on their walk or goes into their yard to play. She seizes her opportunity.

 

However, there are times when she doesn’t run. Actually there is only one time. This is when someone with authority is standing in front of the door or close enough to catch her quickly. In this case she just sits there waiting for us to get distracted or leave our post. She is most certainly restrained by the law and not trained by grace.   Continue at Erik Raymond

5 Dangers to Avoid in Parenting

“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” (Col. 3:21)

It is tempting to blame children for our family problems. But Scripture does not allow us to do this. Children bear the responsibility to obey their parents. But God commands parents to raise their children with godly nurture, being careful not to frustrate them. Inestimable damage is done by parents who provoke their children, and cause them to become discouraged.

While specifically addressing fathers in Colossians 3:21, God is speaking to both parents. The word translated, “fathers” is elsewhere used to mean “parents” (Heb. 11:23). Additionally, fathers are spoken to as covenant heads of the families. Fathers are to see that neither parent provokes the children. Fathers cannot stand idly by if their children are being provoked by their mothers.

What Does it Mean to Provoke?    Continue at  William Boekestein

Sneering at Parents, Hiding Behind “Science” — The Emergency Contraception Controversy

Looking for evidence that our society is losing its mind? Just look at the controversy over so-called “emergency contraceptives” and a federal judge’s effort to make these drugs available, over the counter, to girls of any age.

 

Last month, Judge Edward Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York handed down an order forcing the Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraceptives, sometimes called the “morning-after pill,” available without a doctor’s prescription or parental permission to girls without any restriction on age.

Judge Korman’s order would open the door for girls as young as 10 or 11 to obtain the morning-after pill without any involvement by either a doctor or a parent. That same girl, of course, could not be given an aspirin in a school clinic without parental permission, much less a simple antibiotic like penicillin. Nevertheless, this federal judge ruled that girls and women of any age must be allowed over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptives.   Continue at Al Mohler


See also:

 The Birds, The Bees, and The Plan B

Famous German Homeschool Family, Persecuted for their Beliefs, Visits AiG

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog post about a Christian family—originally from Germany—that had been attempting to home educate their children in their homeland. The family had asked for asylum in America because of the persecution they were facing in Germany (which included fines and possible imprisonment). A judge in Tennessee granted them asylum, but the Obama Administration has challenged the asylum ruling. In Romeike v. Holder, oral arguments were heard in a U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Tuesday about the Romeike family’s asylum request. While in the area, the Romeikes, including their six children, toured the Creation Museum on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Not only is the Obama Administration threatening to send the family back to Germany, where they may even face the loss of custody of their children, but what should also concern Americans is the possible precedent their case might set in the USA. For instance, lawyers with the U.S. Attorney General’s office implied during the oral arguments on Tuesday that the government can deny the liberty of parents to direct the educational upbringing of their children. While U.S. courts have generally been favorable to parents in regard to how they want to educate their children, including in their religious training, this current administration apparently wants to chip away at the rights that Americans currently have in home education. I blogged about this threat in a recent post.   Continue at Ken Ham

FactChecker: Are Your Kids Likely to Lose Their Faith?

A handful of Christian authors have created a bit of a cottage industry peddling the scary news that the odds are not good that our young people stay strong in their faith into adulthood. Untrue.

There are important, effective, and relatively simple things parents and Christian workers can do to substantially increase the likelihood our young people will retain a thriving faith into and through their adult years. This is revealed in very strong, sophisticated research from some of the leading sociologists of youth and religion in the world.

Influencers of Faith

 

In the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), noted Notre Dame professor Christian Smith and his team found:

• There are relatively simple factors that "powerfully shape" faith that remains strong through life.
• The biggest influencing factor is the faith of parents themselves and the practices they employ with their teenagers.
• These practices are simpler than many parents might imagine.

Increasing the likelihood of enduring faith in our young people is not limited to super-spiritual parents. In fact, the more "regular" and human you are the better. The factors, listed by the power of their influence, are:   Continue at Glenn T. Stanton

A Day for Hatred

Today is a day for hatred.

As I write this article, the death count stands at 20 children. Twenty. Twenty babies who got on a bus or walked out a door or stepped out of a car at the drop-off curb and are never coming home.

Father in heaven, their lunchboxes still hold uneaten sandwiches, unread love notes scrawled on napkins.

For 20 families, the worst fear a parent can know was waiting at the other end of a phone line today. Eleven days before Christmas, no less. Those children and teachers who survived will carry in their heads sights and sounds that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

And what comfort is there to offer them? What words are there to speak? A parent takes every measure possible to protect a child, though we know full well the world is not safe. But this?

There is no spin to put on a story like this. Yes, we will hear stories of heroism begin to emerge over the next hours, and they are stories we will need to hear. But there is no way to soften the blow.

Nor should we want to.

As a mother watching someone else's horror play out on a screen, I want to feel this to the core of my being. I want it to inform my thoughts and actions in a way that leaves me changed. Because on days like today we learn just how broken sin has left us, just how bleak is our landscape without a Savior.

Days like today give us no choice but to hate. They leave us only with a choice of where that hatred will land: Will we hate God, or will we hate sin?   Continue at Jen Wilkin

Preaching Self-Denial to a Culture Consumed with Self-Love

We live in a culture of self-love, to put it simply, a culture that is consumed with self-love, ego-building, self-esteem, feeling good about yourself, thinking you’re important, thinking you’re valuable, thinking you’re a hero, thinking you’ve achieved something, thinking you’re worthy of honor. We’re drowning in awards for everything imaginable and unimaginable.

Parents are consumed with boosting the egos of their children with every imaginable means, as well as boosting their own sense of self-value. This is the generation of self-lovers.

And just by way of reminder, in 2 Timothy chapter 3 the apostle Paul classified “love of self” as a sin. In fact, a dominating sin. In one of his familiar lists of iniquities, there are numbers of them in his letters, he begins the list of iniquities in 2 Timothy chapter 3 with “lovers of self,” and then “lovers of money,” and then goes through the rest of his list. This describes deceivers, unbelievers, those outside the Kingdom of God, those who do not know the truth. Self-love is at the top of the list in terms of normal human attitude. Sinners are consumed with pride. They’re consumed with themselves. We have made that into THE prominent, dominant virtue in our society.  Continue at Eric T. Young

The Parent as Youth Pastor

It’s no secret anymore, youth ministry is in a state of crisis. Polls of recent years report over and over the dire percentages of youth who leave the church after high school. Whatever the exact percentage actually is, what seems clear enough is that more young people are choosing to leave the church than choosing to stay. ^[2] The million dollar question is, of course, “Why is this happening?” And while there are certainly multiple factors involved in this mass exodus, I believe that a primary contributing factor is the loss of emphasis on the central role of the parent in the spiritual nurture of their children. Much of the youth ministry done in recent decades seems to have forgotten that parents are commanded to be, and by God’s design will necessarily be, the primary youth pastors for their children—for better or for worse. And when the central role of the parents is neglected, a major deviation from God’s design for youth ministry has taken place that can only be harmful for youth in the long term.

In order to start righting the ship, churches must first of all re-embrace the responsibility given to parents by God to be the front line “youth pastor” for their children. In the Old Testament, the priests had the general responsibility to teach all of the people the Word of God, but parents were given a special responsibility to teach their children. Moses commanded the people of Israel “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut 6:6-9). The same principal is in the New Testament. Pastors have the general responsibility to preach and teach God’s word to God’s people (including the youth), but the only command regarding the training and discipling of children is given directly to parents: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).   Continue at Mark Devries

Hey Teen, get Ready for the Real World

There used to be a time when teenagers didn’t exist.

Children went from boyhood to manhood with no teenhood dividing the two.

If you are over sixty years old, you may remember the days when there were no teenagers.

If you are between forty and sixty perhaps your parents or grandparents told you what life was like when teenagers did not exist.

My grandmother most certainly told me.

She was perplexed and saddened when I became part of this new and growing demographic called teenagers.

She was not sad because she missed out on something special. She was sad because I was missing out on something special. She was gathering the eggs and milking the cows before school and then went into the fields after she came home from school and worked until dark.

She did not know there were teen years until I came along. We were on the cutting edge of this new demographic. We had movies and video games. We also invented rock and roll. Pot, now called weed, was soon to follow and fornication (premarital sex) was the right-of-passage that validated manhood.

Most teenagers are unaware how they became a self-absorbed demographic.^[1] They are not familiar with their short-lived heritage. Most of them believe how they live is how things have always been and should be.

Teen, if this is how you think, then I’ve got some bad news for you. Your life was never meant to be the way I’ve described. If it is, then get ready. You’re in for the challenge of a lifetime. If you haven’t discerned this by now, be prepared. Shortly after your high school graduation, you will be introduced to what you should have been introduced to years earlier.^[2]

Last week I wrote the first part of this series, which I titled What to do after your parents blow it – 1.0. This week I want to finish that article, hopefully giving a biblical perspective on how the new teen demo should see and respond to life.

In both articles I’m interacting with Charles J. Sykes, and his rules for life. Based on how Sykes wrote his rules, it appears he did not have Christ or the Bible in mind. So I’m going to take what he said and tweak it a bit to fit a Biblio-centric framework–though what he said is tweetable.

I hope my interaction will provide a modicum of biblical wisdom and motivation for teenagers. Here are his first five rules, which I covered in the aforementioned article:   Continue at Rick Thomas

Explosive Study on Children of Homosexual Parents

In the debate over gay marriage in our country, one of the chief bones of contention has to do with the effects that gay marriages have on child-rearing. There have been many studies in the past showing that children of intact biological families fare better than those of single or cohabitating families. But there have not been very many studies showing how children of homosexuals fare. Indeed in 2008, Robert George et al. observed that,

The current research on children reared by them is inconclusive and underdeveloped—we do not yet have any large, long-term, longitudinal studies that can tell us much about how children are affected by being raised in a same-sex household.

Enter Mark Regnerus and a team of researchers who just published an important study to help fill this gap. 

Recently published in the journal Social Science Research, the study surveys 3,000 U.S. adults ages 18-39 about factors such as income, relational stability, mental health, and history of sexual abuse. The results of this study are explosive for a number of reasons, but here is Regnerus’ summary:   Continue at Denny Burk

Youth Ministry's Tendency Toward Legalism

Editors' Note: Everyone has an opinion about youth ministry. Parents, pastors, and the youth themselves have expectations and demands that don't always overlap. But the rash of dire statistics about the ineffectiveness of youth ministry has prompted rethinking in these ranks. So we devote one day per week this month to exploring several issues in youth ministry, including its history, problems, and biblical mandate. The Gospel Coalition thanks Cameron Cole and the leadership team of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry for their help in compiling this series. Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, will host their 2012 conference from August 9 to 11. Speakers Ray Ortlund, Timothy George, and Mary Willson will expound on the conference theme, "Adopted: The Beauty of Grace."

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I have walked for ten years with Allen, who was my closest Christian friend in high school. During our senior year we were "on fire" for God and set out to walk with Christ throughout college. After our freshman year, I watched my poor friend weep often about why he did not experience Christ in a real way. His youth ministry had sold him a message that faithful obedience before God would yield an experiential intimacy and spiritual euphoria, which he failed to encounter. In spite of tireless religious striving, Allen felt as if his pursuits resulted in a tumbling spiral into a deep, dark void.

Not surprisingly, Allen became disenchanted with Christianity and the church. Only after ten years of courageous waiting and honest reflection has he been able to re-engage church without resentment and wounding. He synopsizes his youth ministry's message with a story, which his youth pastor used to tell kids. The story basically involved a sad man, sitting in a corner, disappointed and hurt by his children, who he wished would come pay attention to him.  Continue at Cameron Cole

 

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MTD: Not Just a Problem with Youth Ministry

Editors' Note: Everyone has an opinion about youth ministry. Parents, pastors, and the youth themselves have expectations and demands that don't always overlap. But the rash of dire statistics about the ineffectiveness of youth ministry has prompted rethinking in these ranks. So we devote one day per week this month to exploring several issues in youth ministry, including its history, problems, and biblical mandate. The Gospel Coalition thanks Cameron Cole and the leadership team of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry for their help in compiling this series. Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, will host their 2012 conference from August 9 to 11. Speakers Ray Ortlund, Timothy George, and Mary Willson will expound on the conference theme, "Adopted: The Beauty of Grace."

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That a youth ministry "teaches the Bible" does not necessarily mean it teaches the gospel. Many mistake the gospel with moralism---being a good person, reading your Bible, or opening the door for the elderly in order to earn God's favor. But the gospel is altogether different.

This is a problem across the youth ministry landscape. It's not because teenagers and youth leaders have misunderstood the church's teaching of historical-confessional, gospel-infused Christianity. It's a problem in youth ministry wherever the American church has not preached Christ crucified and has catered to a pragmatic, entertainment-driven, and numbers-oriented model of church growth.  Continue at Brian H. Cosby

Kids of Lesbians More Likely To Be Gay

The Baptist Press reports on some recent studies about children of lesbian parents. The bottom line is this:

The research shows that 64 percent of children raised in lesbian households consider having homosexual relationships, compared to 17 percent raised by heterosexual parents.

The article goes on to show that males differ from females in their response to being raised by same-sex parents. Here’s an excerpt:

According to a study published late last year in the Archive of Sexual Behavior, girls raised by lesbian mothers are seven times more likely to consider a same-sex encounter, and twice as likely to identify as lesbian or bisexual than those raised by heterosexual parents. They are also seven times more likely to use “the “morning after” pill.

“We already know that girls who grow up without fathers are more likely to be sexually adventurous, and it has a lot to do with being fatherless,” Stanton explained. “Two lesbians can be the most loving moms in the world, but they can’t give a girl the kind of positive attention and other-gendered affirmation she needs from a dad.”

While girls raised by lesbians tend to be much more sexually experimental than their peers, boys tend to be more sexually reticent.  Continue at Denny Burk

Kiddies Menu: Children at the Lord’s Supper

If you are a young, single, seminoid dude who loves theoretical theological debates on blogs, I’d like to share a tidbit of coaching corner sagacity a mentor of mine graciously offered me: It’s ok to have the topic of pedo-communion on your radar screen, just don’t follow it off course. Focus your energy on completing your education, getting a job, staying pure, and finding a godly lady who will consent to marry you. At some point after that God will give you nine months’ warning to sort out your views on which age children can partake in the Lord’s Supper. Til then, get back to work.

But for parents of precocious pre-pubescent Protestants, your church will expect you to have given this some forethought before letting your kid’s appetite near the Lord’s Table.

Footnote: Protestants call it a table, not an altar, we call it the supper, not the Mass, an ordinance, not a sacrament, and the bread, not the eucharist. Why this distinction? Because we are not re-sacrificing anyone. Anyway, I digress.

First, some churches practice “closed communion” which means that only members can take communion. In this case it is simple: according to the church’s membership process and definition, is the child a member or not? Case closed.

Other churches practice “open communion” which means that anyone who professes to be a believer in good standing with their local church may participate in communion with your church.

Verses used to support this include 1 Corinthians 11:28-29 where Paul adjured each one to examine himself and determine his own worthiness to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Well and good, but when it comes to children, are we really to leave it up to the individual child to determine his/her spiritual fitness?  Continue at Clint Archer

Small Children at Worship Services – Why Are They Present?

There certainly is no Bible verse which tells us when children should begin attending worship services. The customary age at which parents begin to take their children into meetings varies from church to church. It may properly vary among members of the same church, though it tends to follow a pattern because of church decisions touching the nursery, etc. The practice of local churches in this matter comes under the statement made in our Confession of Faith: Chapter I, section 6, paragraph 2:

“We acknowledge that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of churches, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed..”

In our church, parents usually begin to bring their children into our services at the age of two. Our nursery offers to keep children only under two years of age. That policy is not without reasons; though again, it must be emphasized that it is a matter of judgment on the basis of general prudence and general rules of God’s Word.

It is our judgment that children who are two-years-old are usually mature enough to understand when their parents tell them to be quiet and to sit reasonably still for one hour. Furthermore, by the time a child is two, his parents should have progressed far enough in their training of children to be able to enforce such basic orders, which their child can understand. Though teaching this behavior to children may not be easy, it is not unreasonable. It has been done by parents of children with many different character make-ups. Your child is not that unique!  Continue at Walter Chantry

The Emergence of Digital Childhood — Is This Really Wise?

The easiest way to infuriate the young is to lean into nostalgia. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to be nostalgic for a childhood in which the basic equipment for elementary school was pretty much limited to notebooks, pencils, and an occasional ruler. Those days are long gone.

Verizon Wireless recently released a national survey of parents. The study revealed that the average age at which parents give their children their first cell phone is 11.6. Do sixth graders really need a cell phone?

Well, hold on. The same survey indicated that ten percent of parents give their children a cell phone between the ages of 7 and 9. A recent Nielsen Company study indicated that the average age for a first phone in many families may be as low as 9.7.

 Most parents said that safety is their concern. But how many 7-9 year-olds are waiting on the curb at the mall for mom to pick them up? Maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that question. In reality, few second-graders need a cell phone for safety in that sense. Something else is going on here, and the net result is that children are being pushed into the digital world at ever-earlier ages.  Keep Reading >>>

The Salvation of the ‘Little Ones’: Do Infants who Die Go to Heaven?

The death of an infant or young child is profoundly heartbreaking – perhaps the greatest grief a parent is called to bear. For Christian parents, there is the sure knowledge that our sovereign and merciful God is in control, but there is also a pressing question: Is our baby in heaven?

 This is a natural and unavoidable question, calling for our most careful and faithful biblical study and theological reflection. The unspeakable anguish of a parent's heart demands our honest and humble searching of the Scriptures.

Some are quick to answer this question out of sentimentality. Of course infants go to heaven, they argue, for how could God refuse a precious little one? The Universalist has a quick answer, for he believes that everyone will go to heaven. 

Some persons may simply suggest that elect infants go to heaven, while the non-elect do not, and must suffer endless punishment. Each of these easy answers is unsatisfactory.

Mere sentimentalism ignores the Bible’s teaching which bears on the issue. We have no right to establish doctrine on the basis of what we hope may be true. We must draw our answers from what the Bible reveals to be true.  Keep Reading >>>

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Related Posts

• In the Shadow of Death–The Little Ones Are Safe With Jesus
• More Than One Way to Heaven?
• Salvation through Christ Alone? — A Moment of Decision
• All Roads Lead to Heaven? — Kathleen Parker Does Theology (Audio)
• Dutch to Sanction Euthanasia of Infants — ‘Guidelines’ to Be Established

In the Danger Zone: Raising Our Children in the Age of the Screen

We are now the people of the screen. We are surrounded by screens, monitors, and other flickering devices, and each demands our attention. What began with the television has now spread to a host of other technologies. Our minds are increasingly shaped, entertained, informed, stimulated, and perhaps even altered by the Age of the Screen — and so are the minds of our children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, meeting this week in Boston, has been concerned about the effects of exposure to screens on children. Over a decade ago, the academy proposed that pediatricians should ask questions about screen exposure when conducting routine medical exams and evaluations. This just week, the groups adopted a new set of guidelines, calling upon parents to put severe limits on the exposure of young children to television.

Parents should pay close attention to the group’s statement, released as “Media Use by Children Younger than Two Years.” According to the AAP, 90 percent of parents reported that their children under the age of two “watch some form of electronic media.” These children watch, parents reported, an average of one to two hours of television a day. A considerable number of parents indicated their belief that television is “very important for healthy development,” and leave the television on virtually all waking hours.     Keep Reading>>>

The Idolization of Children Is the Hatred of Them

Permanent, irresponsible adolescence permeates modern Western society, from those adults who spend more hours in the day on Xbox than they do talking to loved ones, through to those for whom the failure of a sports team is grounds for serious depression and even, in extreme cases, thoughts of suicide. At least in the West we live in a world where the battle simply for survival is, by and large, over, or at least not imminent: few of us do not know when and whence our next meal is coming; there are no famines in Britain and America as there have been in Africa; and ethnic cleansing is not something that many of us experience on a daily basis. We have plenty of material possessions and do not struggle in the way that even our grandparents may have had to do in the twenties and thirties. Yet we live in a world where anxiety levels are high, where suicide is not that uncommon, and where the national bill for anti-depressants is awe-inspiring.

Why is this the case? Mohler suggests, and I think he is right, that the coddling and over-protection of children has created a generation many of whose members have no sense of proportion, no ability to take responsibility for themselves, and no capacity for handling set-backs and contradictions. Just look at the blog world, where all kinds of crazy, extremist rhetoric is used about absolute trivia. Then just reflect on emails you have probably received, how rude and abrupt and extreme people are prepared to be electronically, compared to how sycophantic and spineless they often are face to face. The virtual world is a mirror of reality: a place where everyone demands to be heard on anything they want to speak about, yet where nobody has to take responsibility or face the consequences of their actions.   Read it all HERE

Family First in Youth Discipleship and Evangelism

As a high school pastor, I am constantly thinking, praying, and talking with others about how we can teach young people the Bible and encourage them to be disciples of Jesus Christ. I look back with thankfulness on my high school years and the men who contributed in significant ways to my spiritual growth through discipleship, coaching, and pastoring. There is a place for a well-run youth ministry in the context of the local church, as I will seek to articulate in part two of this article, coming soon. But there is a primary sphere where evangelism and discipleship of young people must occur. It is the context of the family, the Christian home. Christian parents—not youth pastors—have the primary role, responsibility, and calling to evangelize and disciple their children.

The Biblical Pattern

Throughout biblical history, the family unit is the primary mechanism used by God to spread the saving knowledge of him. God’s servant Moses, after instructing God’s people concerning the God’s identity and the people’s call to love him and keep his Word, turned immediately to instruct the parents of the community regarding their responsibility to their children:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deut. 6:6-7).   Keep Reading...

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