Archives For Family Matters

Thoughts and help for the relationships that mean the most to you.

The Most Dangerous Thing to Give a Teenage Boy

April 15, 2013 — 4 Comments

9.13.12If you’re a parent with a son still living at home, then you need to read this. The most dangerous thing you can give your son is unfiltered internet access. I know you know there’s some bad stuff on the internet (primarily porn), but it’s worse and more pervasive than you think. Roughly 25% of all internet searches are porn related, and the average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old.

When you were growing up, access to pornography was limited to purchasing dirty magazines at a gas station or watching adult themed movies. Now, any child with an iphone has unfiltered access to pornography that will severely warp his view of sexuality. Pornography will erode his future intimacy with his wife could enslave him for years to come. You don’t want that for your son.

I’m not saying that you need to become Amish and throw away all technology. I’m just saying you need to be smart.

  • Realize there are parental controls on most smart phones. Use them.
  • Realize there are ways to get around a lot of parental controls on most smart phones. Just because you blocked Safari, it doesn’t mean they don’t have internet access. Many other ‘safe’ apps (like Google or even CNN) have internet browsers built in. Don’t think blocking Safari has you in the clear.
  • Most internet browsers now have ‘private browsing,’ allowing you to surf with no trail. So, just because their search history is clean, it doesn’t mean they haven’t been viewing porn.
  • Use internet filters. One of my favorites is www.x3watch.com. More than a filter, it’s an accountability program that will notify you by email every time a questionable site is viewed.
  • Have that awkward conversation with them. If they’re going to struggle with pornography, deal with it now. That’s what parents are supposed to do. As awkward as the conversation will be, I guarantee you he’ll thank you when he’s walking down the aisle, free from the chains that enslave too many married men.

Parents, don’t let your teenage boy become another victim of the pornography industry. If you have a teenage boy, he’s looked at porn. His level of exposure and his possibility for addiction will depend on your willingness to roll up your sleeves and fight for your son’s purity. So fight.

QUESTION: What other suggestions would you give parents who have teenage boys when it comes to internet access?

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The Biggest Lie Women Tell Themselves

March 27, 2013 — 2 Comments

3.27.13Earlier this week I ran into this lie again, one that too many women have fallen for. I had a conversation with a young lady who had gone through a difficult marriage and a terrible divorce. As she was recounting her actions and discussing where she went wrong, I heard the lie come out.

Here’s the biggest lie that women tell themselves when it comes to relationships: “I’ll fix him.” She said she knew that he wasn’t that good of a guy when she married him, but she figured she could fix him once they got married. My response (in a gentle yet mocking manner) was, “So, how’d that work out for you?” She laughed as she saw the fallacy of the lie that propelled her into a doomed marriage.

Marriage does change you, and spouses can and should have a strong influence on their mates, but this idea that a mature woman can quickly and single handedly ‘fix’ a immature man is ludicrous. Like it or not, men are who they are. Some are so stubborn, so set in their ways, that only God can change their hearts.

Ladies, a word of warning: If you’re dating someone that you’re thinking about marrying, and if he’s got more flaws than not, don’t delude yourself into thinking that you’ll be able to ‘fix him’ once he walks down the aisle. You’re stuck with what you’ve got. Better to know that on the front end.

Be careful who you marry. If they still act like they’re in high school, throw them back and let them grow up a little bit. God-fearing, wife-honoring men are hard to come by, but they’re worth the wait.

QUESTION: Is there a bigger lie that women tell themselves when it comes to relationships?

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Why You Shouldn’t Raise ‘Good’ Kids (How to Raise Amazing Teenagers While They are Still Toddlers – Part 4)

January 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

12.17.12If your goal in parenting is to raise ‘good’ kids, then your bar is way too low. The world wants ‘good’ kids. As a Christian parent, what makes you any different? I had too many conversations as a youth pastor with parents of teenagers, where they would describe their goal in parenting: they wanted their kids to be ‘good’ kids. By ‘good’ kids, they meant that they wanted their teens to be well behaved, get good grades, get a college education, find a nice spouse, settle down and chase the American dream.

Is that really what we want for our kids? If our kids turn out like the rest of the world, have we really done our job as Christian parents? A third tension that parents face today is raising good kids vs. godly kids. Everyone wants to raise a good kid. For Christian parents, our bar is set much higher. We are to raise godly kids. There’s a subtle but unmistakable difference between the two: good kids are raised to be like the world, godly kids are raised to change the world.

This mindset becomes critical for parents, especially as you direct and manage your kid’s time. A few years ago I was at a church when a Sunday School teacher came up to me and told me that she wasn’t going to be able to teach Sunday School anymore. More than that, she said her family would be dropping out of church for awhile. Why? Because, in her own words, “My 6th grade daughter just made Select Soccer. It’s a traveling league with games on Sundays, and that’s our priority right now.” My heart broke, not because I’m a legalist or think church attendance is mandatory, but because the message that 6th grader was being raised with: church is important, as long as you don’t have anything else going on.

If you want to raise a godly kid, not just a ‘good’ kid, that will mean saying ‘no’ to a lot of ‘good’ opportunities. But remember, your goal is not to raise a kid that will just succeed in this world. Your goal is to raise a kid that will change it through the power of Christ.

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How to Make Sure Your Kid Doesn’t Turn Out to Be a Punk (How to Raise Amazing Teenagers While They are Still Toddlers – Part 3)

January 16, 2013 — 1 Comment

1.16.13You never want to have THAT teenager. You know, the one with the attitude, the permanent scowl, the complete disrespect for all authority (I know I just described around 68% of all teenagers). I’m not just talking about an occasional bad attitude. I’m talking about ‘punk’ kids (that’s the technical term). I worked with punk kids as a youth pastor. I know I’m supposed to like everyone, but I didn’t like them. They were punks. I was happy to see them walk across that graduation stage and become the college pastor’s problem. (They usually took care of the problem themselves and dropped out of church while in college).

Obviously there are several factors that lead to your toddler turning into a punk as a teenager, but here’s one that was common in all the punks I had the “privilege” of working with: they were spoiled rotten. They’d always had everything handed to them. Everything. This leads to the second tension that parents face when raising kids in today’s society:

2. Spoiling vs. Serving. I know you love your kids. That’s not a bad thing. Spoiling them is. I know you may have had a rough childhood and want the best for your kid, but spoiling them only feeds their sense of entitlement and natural narcissism. This will only get worse over time. These are the teenagers who disrespect all authority, including their parents. They’ve grown up hearing that they’re the center of the universe, and after awhile they began to believe it. These are the punk kids.

The solution is to teach your child to serve others at an early age. Better yet, serve alongside them as you serve others together. When my oldest child was just three I took him down to the city bus station. Some of our high schoolers were going down there to hand out bottles of water to the local homeless population that tended to congregate there. My son handed out bottled water right alongside me and the high schoolers. Why? Because I want his earliest memories to be of him serving other people. Serving is how you break the sense of entitlement.

Be intentional. Find a way to serve WITH your child. Don’t just serve your child.

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How to Kill Your Child’s Spirit (How to Raise Amazing Teenagers While They are Still Toddlers – Part 2)

January 15, 2013 — 1 Comment

1.15.13Here’s how you can easily kill your child’s spirit, their sense of adventure. It’s real simple: just overprotect your child. Shield them from anything potentially harmful. Don’t let them try anything new, they might fail. Don’t let them do anything remotely dangerous, they may get hurt. Don’t let them do anything on their own, that’s your job. Don’t believe this is happening? Here’s what research is showing about today’s teenagers:

 

  • A large percentage struggle with obesity.
  • A large percentage find it difficult to fulfill commitments.
  • A large percentage wrestle with depression after eighteen years old.
  • A large percentage discover life is hard to cope with after leaving home.

Yesterday we looked at the two things that prove to be trump cards when raising your kids. Today we’ll begin to look at three tensions that you have to manage as a parent raising kids in today’s culture:

1. Overprotection vs. Sense of Adventure. We live in a day and age when our kids are overprotected. Think about it:

  • You grew up jumping on a trampoline with no net. Today that would constitute a call to child services.
  • You grew up when a seat belt was your mother’s arm bracing you against the seat. Today, you put your kid in a five point harness worthy of NASCAR.
  • You grew up riding your bike, plain and simple. Today kids can’t ride their bikes without full kevlar body armor used by the soldiers in Iraq.
  • You grew up spending hours outside exploring the world around you. Today you’re afraid to let your kids out of your sight. Better for them to stay inside and watch tv, where you can see them.

Here’s the downside of overprotecting your kid: you can steal their sense of adventure and kill their spirit. I worked with too many teenagers who were scared of their own shadow, who were afraid to try anything new, who were convinced that if they did something they would do it wrong. Why? Because all they heard growing up was how dangerous the world was.

Don’t steal your child’s natural sense of adventure. You have to find the balance between protecting them and nurturing their God-given sense of adventure. It starts young. Let them jump off stuff. Throw them in the air. Let them try new things. Let them do something a little risky. They’re born with a natural sense of adventure. All you have to do is keep from stealing it from them.

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How To Raise Amazing Teenagers While They are Still Toddlers – Part 1

January 14, 2013 — 1 Comment

1.14.13

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of youth as a youth pastor. In that time, I saw everything: from teens you’d want your kids to be to teens who were a train wreck waiting to happen. Church attendance wasn’t the deciding factor, because they all were active in church. While there are many aspects of parenting, two aspects always come to the top for me. Here are the two best ways to raise amazing teenagers while they are still toddlers:

1. Make your marriage your first priority. The way to raise a great kid isn’t to make the kid your first priority. It’s to make your marriage your first priority and let parenting flow from that. Why? Because that’s how God designed it. Marriage trumps almost anything else in parenting. You can do a lot of things right, but if your marriage is struggling, your kid will struggle.

I saw a huge disparity between the kids from a broken home and kids from a strong marriage. Both sides could get in trouble, but the kids from a broken home had so much more baggage to deal with, it wasn’t really fair. Girls without dad figures struggled the worst, leading to too many ‘bad guy boyfriends’ while teenagers. If there are cracks in your marriage, work on them now, so that your child has a strong parental marriage to lean on when they’re teenagers.

2. Live an authentic faith. You can’t fake it. One of the most important longitudinal studies on passing faith from one generation to another summarized their conclusions in one simple statement: You get what you are. Kids who tend to develop a vibrant, lasting faith do so because they saw the vibrant, real-world faith of their parents. If you want your kids to grow up in the faith, you’ve got to have a real growing faith as well.

Treating the church as a spiritual drop-off service doesn’t work. You can’t expect the church to instill strong spirituality in your child one hour a week if you’re not living a strong faith out the other 167 hours during the week. Do you want a child that follows after Christ as a teen? Live out an authentic faith of your own, and your teenager will naturally follow.

Tomorrow I’ll share three tensions that all parents must manage when raising kids in today’s culture.

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The Prayer Every Parent Should Pray

January 7, 2013 — Leave a comment

1.7.13In the book of Nehemiah, we see an incredible story of a man determined to accomplish his God-given task, no matter what the obstacles. With the audacious goal of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem (a wall that had been a rubble for the past 100 years), Nehemiah faced opposition on every side from his enemies.

In Nehemiah 6, we catch a glimpse of his focus and determination that led him to accomplish in fifty-two days what had not been accomplished for a century. Towards the end of the project, when the wall was almost completed, Sanballat and other enemies of Nehemiah tried to distract him by getting him down off of his wall. His response should become our prayer:

1 When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates— 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.”

But they were scheming to harm me; 3 so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” 4 Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer. Nehemiah 6:1-4

Parents, your children are your wall. They are your great work. You have been given an incredible gift and responsibility from God: to nurture and care for precious souls and to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Don’t let anything distract you from that great work. If you have children in your house, you need to speak this truth as a prayer over them every night after they go to sleep: “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.”

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To All the Single Ladies Out There

December 10, 2012 — 2 Comments

12.10.12Being a youth pastor for ten years, I’ve got a lot of “daughters” that I view as practically my own. Some are married but many are still single. As a protective dad, here are seven things I wish I could say to all of them (inspired by Perry Noble and his blogs on the same subject):

1. You’re a princess. I don’t mean this in the spoiled-rotten, get-whatever-I-want sense, but in the sense that God sent Jesus to die for you. As a follower of Christ, you’re now a daughter of the King. You’re a princess. If you ever doubt you’re self-worth, remember that the King of Kings died for you. That makes you awesome.

2. Since you’re a princess, wait for a prince. Set your standards high ladies. If almost anyone meets your requirements for a boyfriend, then your standards are too low. Remember, you’re worth the wait. Don’t give yourself away until your prince comes.

3. If a guy asks you to compromise your purity, he’s not a prince. He’s a pig. Your prince will honor you and respect you as a daughter of the King. If anyone ever pressures you to give up your purity for a relationship, then he doesn’t respect you. He just wants your body. He’ll use you and discard you. Don’t be fooled!

4. Just because you screwed up doesn’t make you a screw up. Some of you are reading this and you’ve already messed up sexually. That doesn’t mean that you’re unworthy or no longer valuable. It just means you made a mistake. God still loves you and is pursuing you with a relentless love and overwhelming grace.

5. “I’m lonely” or “I’m getting older” are never good excuses to settle for the next guy that comes along. Wait for God’s timing. It will always be longer than you want, but it will always be worth it. Trust me.

6. If you’re not happy single, you’ll never be happy married. Find your contentment in Christ. As awesome as your husband will one day be, he’ll never satisfy you as Christ will. If you find your contentment in Christ now, then you’ll be content in your marriage. But if you look for your husband to provide the happiness that only Christ can provide, then you’ll be sorely disappointed.

7. Purity starts now. Wherever you are in your purity journey, make this the day that you renew your purity to God. If you’re in a sexual relationship, get out of it. It’s not God’s best for you. Renew your purity to God and watch Him do amazing things in you.

Praying for all of you!

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7 Awesome Things to Pray for Your Spouse

December 3, 2012 — Leave a comment

MEDION DIGITAL CAMERAHopefully all of us pray for our spouse. Too often though, they’re prayers that don’t mean much. Prayers like, “Keep him safe on his road trip” (Is he wearing his seat belt?), or “God, please help her realize that she’s wrong and I’m right.” (Good luck with that).

When we pray for our spouse, let’s pray prayers that mean something. Here’s how you can pray for your spouse this week:

MONDAY: Pray that you would see your spouse the way that God sees them. Instead of looking at your spouse through the lens of their faults or your last fight, pray that God would open your eyes to see them the way that God sees them: as a son or daughter of the King.

TUESDAY: Pray that God would bless your spouse. You have not because you ask not. Instead of always praying that God would bless you, pray that God would bless someone else. Your spouse is a great place to start. Pray that God would bless them mightily.

WEDNESDAY: Pray that God would overwhelm your spouse with His love and mercy. If I know anything about your spouse, it’s that they need to be overwhelmed with God’s love and mercy. You can never get too much love or mercy. Perhaps they’re in a place where they don’t think they deserve any. Pray that God would overwhelm them with His love and mercy.

THURSDAY: Pray that God would place strong Christians around your spouse. You know by now that if your spouse needs to hear a truth, sometimes it can’t come from you. Pray that God would place strong Christians around your spouse to be that voice of truth.

FRIDAY: Pray that God would help your spouse discover the joy of serving others. “It’s more blessed to give than to receive,” as the Bible says. Pray that God would help your spouse discover this monumental joy firsthand.

SATURDAY: Pray that God would remove the distractions from your spouse’s life. Too often we allow the clutter of life to obscure our relationship with God. Pray that God would remove distractions and allow your spouse to see Him clearly.

SUNDAY: Pray that God would make His Word come alive to your spouse. As your spouse is sitting in church (hint, hint), pray that God would make His Word come alive and speak to the heart of your spouse.

Pray these prayers for seven days, and see what God does in your spouse’s heart (and yours)!

 

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What Marriage Looks Like When You Don’t Give Up

November 26, 2012 — 1 Comment

Do you want to see a beautiful picture of what a marriage looks like when you don’t give up? Watch this video that we made to close out our “I Want a New Marriage” series.

 

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