Where in the Word do I find that?

Where in the Word do I find that? This phrase was heard a few weeks ago when I was talking about parenting, discipline, issues on youth and Youth Ministry and how God's word is our answer to everything. The crazy thing about the Bible is that the information that we need is found in the pages but we have to open it, read it, apply it, and become scholars so to speak of it.

Several years ago the movie "Thirteen" was about a young lady coming of age from being a little girl to becoming a teen. The movie was controversial but looking at it from a Youth Pastor or Parental view, it was and is very enlightening. Children grow up so quickly and sometimes they want to be a young adult before they are ready spiritually, physically (although their bodies may 'show' they are ready), mentally, and emotionally.

Paul Tripp in his book "Age of Opportunity" says that in the first seven chapters of Proverbs that there is a biblical perspective on the struggles facing our students and this generation of cultural teens.

1. Adolescents have no hunger for wisdom or correction. He let's face it they think they are right and much wiser than they really are, and most believe they know MORE than their parents.
2. They have a tendency towards legalism. They tend to emphasize the letter of the law rather than the spirit. Teens trend to push at the fences you have in place and tell you that they are still in the yard.
3. They have a tendency to be unwise in their choice of companions. Let's face it there are some students that your child should NOT hang out with. Your student and their friends are good kids but when they get together, trouble. My wife's grand father used to say this along these lines. "When you have a boy you got a boy, when you have 2 boys, you have half a boy; when you have 3 boys, you have nothing but trouble!" Some good church kids just can not be together without being in trouble.
4. Our culture is a sex charged culture and your students are right in the middle of it being tempted with these new feelings that they have not had before. What do you do with them when you used to not feel this way?
5. Students do not live with eternity in mind. Students live in the now. They want instant gratification. They are micro-wave than a slow cooker. They want what they want and they want it now.
6. They tend to lack a heart of awareness of what they really need or want. Students are wondering about the big wild world that is just outside their doors and how they will function in it.

Add together all of this and you will start to see what the students are struggling with in their lives. They don't fear self-destruction, or risky behavior to fit in or belong. If there are problems in the home, their place of safety, or conflict that is not healthy or talked about; they will find someone to meet their emotional, spiritual, and acceptance needs.

Too many times we move our kids, students and youth to the margins and do not give them an outlet to express themselves. They will find a way to express themselves. If they do not have a chance to share their stories of life they will ramp it up in destructive behavior of some kind. This includes 'good church kids' as well.

I believe that we have to give students responsibilities along with consequences for not being responsible for the things we both have agreed to. You have to allow them to fail, to grow, to expand, to be safe and yet not back down when the conflict comes. Read the Bible as a family, as unit, allow them to lead, to read, to pray and share their hearts in a safe environment. Talk to your student and not at them. Make sure you continue to have places of conversation without judgement when you can.

Read the Bible as a parent in Deuteronomy 6 for your mandate and then read the first seven chapters of Proverbs to better understand your student. Do this and you won't have to ask, "Where in the Word do I find that?"

ETSOYC 31-37

I Dare You To Step Over This Line!

"I dare you to step over this line!" is usually what someone hears between a couple of guys right before a fight breaks out. However, I think that the same words may be spoken by adolescents to their parents, when it comes to being a teen. Teens are different in case you haven't noticed. It's amazing what they think, or not, say or shouldn't say, or do, and you guessed it they shouldn't have done it. Raising a teen into adulthood can be a crazy ride! BUT we can't avoid it so let's learn about our kids before they get into this crazy time called adolescence!

The term adolescence is a relative new term being coined about 100 years ago in our culture. Back in the day a person went from being a kid into adulthood situations and grew up fast and were men and women. Why else do you hear stories from grand parents of them leaving home at 13 or 14 and striking out on their own? But now we have to look at what we are dealing with today.

Adolescence is about a time of transitions and changes. It is that transitional phase of life that connects childhood to adulthood. It is during this time frame that the students are going through the fastest time of change in their lives. They will be changing all kinds of ways, and all at the same time. There are the hormonal issues, neurological, emotional, social, and prayerfully spiritual. These all come at the same time and are like getting a drink not from a water fountain but from a fire hydrant!

So that being said, what are you to expect? There are several things that Dr. John Townsend has listed in his book, "Boundaries with Teens".

• Adolescence is normal and it is helpful to your child.
• Preparation for adulthood. Teens need a time to process in which to let go of parental dependence and move into adult independence; and it can't be done overnight or wait until they are 18 and moving away to college. Teens are under the control of authority until they are ready to take ownership of their lives. Eccl. 4:9-10.
• Dependence versus independence; students want independence but need parental input, even when the think they don't
• Badness versus Goodness; sometimes they will vacillate between doing bad and doing good. Star Wars reference, "follow the force!" the good side of the force, let go!
• Emotional versus Reason; do they know right from wrong? Probably so as you have taught them and then they feel they should do something diametrically opposite of what you have taught them.
• Internal barometer versus External Social Realities, self explanatory.
• Family values versus friends; "us versus them" mentality to a teen.

So what should the healthy adolescence look like?

• Make connection with your teen. Them may seem withdrawn from you, and they might be, but YOU maintain that connection; you're the parent.
• Responsibility. I am a firm believer that you allow them less supervision in areas that you can so they can be successful. Celebrate those things with more responsibility in steps.
• Accepting reality, that is your student is not living in the video land, TV land, or other things such as perfectionism; remember this is real life and we have issues and skinned knees.
• Messing up is normal and not everything is a crises!
• Healthy is looking to the outside to their friends, and the outside world than being home with mom and dad all the time. Stay connected with them though.
• They make friends with other GOOD kids. Parents you may not approve 100% of their friends, but as long as they are NOT dragging your kids into crises, pick and choose here.
• Developing good values is important to them in morals, ethics, and spiritual beliefs. You may not agree with all the parameters they have but you can agree with the foundation.
• Challenging parents is normal and it is healthy. They are speaking their minds, maturing, exercising their own thought processes.

What are we trying to say? Well being a teen is not without issues, it wasn't without issues when you were a teen. Parent so you will not go crazy let me say this, let go of your need to have the perfect teen. Do this for your sanity and for the fact there are NO perfect teens. They are human beings, little models of you, and they will have to learn their own way and you can help them do that.

I know that during these crazy times your teen will drive you crazy to a degree, you will not understand them but remember it is necessary for them to exercise who they are, within your parameters, so they will be solid adults. So here's the fight for the next few years of parenting your teen, "I Dare You To Step Over This Line!"

BWT 69-73

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! That's what everyone said on the 25th of December this last year and most people really meant it. I guess I really meant it too but I said it with a heavy heart. Why you might ask, well you see my baby brother went home to be with Christ on the 25th of December of 2011 after, I guess, a lengthy illness.

His name is Kenny and he was 44 years of age. He leaves behind not only the mother who raised us, Dorothy is 80 years young and weighs about 90 pounds (maybe); his wife of 19 years and a son, Braden who is only 12 years old. Kenny was my baby brother. Baby is a loose term when you are grown men. Kenny was a big man weighing in at well over 350 pounds and at times in his life weighed even more than that. BUT before you start thinking it had something to do with his weight, Nada!

Kenny suffered from "polymyositis" a connective tissue disease that slowly kept him from being able to move his legs, shoulders, and even motor control of his arms. He also was diagnosed with an inoperative melanoma tumor in his abdomen around October.

I watched his wife Leanna care for and love her husband in a story book kind of way. She took a leave of absence from her job where she didn't get paid while away to care for her family. I saw her help him get up to a standing position so he could walk months before the only thing he could do was lay there. She cared for him like, well; she demonstrated love like I had never seen before. If you or anyone you know that is married, could have half of what I saw, they will be lucky people.

The last few weeks of Kenny's life I was able to spend many hours with him. I had weeks of vacation so I went to the hospital and sat with her and him for days. Sula, my wife, stayed with us as well. We laughed, we cried, we talked about the elephant in the room: the going home of Kenny. We didn't want to talk about it because it seemed like a dream, a bad dream, but still a dream.

Was it hard? YES! I don't want to try to "spiritualize" it or say that we don't hurt because we know where Kenny is; yes we know where he is BUT we still grieve. I watched him tell his son that he was given only a week to live and then to have his 'little boy' lay across his daddy's chest and all of us cry and wail. Kenny gave the father to son talk about you can be whatever you want to be, you can accomplish whatever you put your mind to, be a good and honest/honorable man.

When I was asked to do his funeral, I agreed to do "whatever you want me to do" and then I asked him if I could cry, and his response was, "certainly." Kenny was my baby brother but he taught me oh so much.

When the doctor gave him the grim news, holding his hand and Leanna's hand, he asked Kenny if he could get anything for him. Kenny thought for a minute and said, "A clean bill of health would be nice!" The doctor laughed and so did everyone in the room because Kenny was thinking about everyone else and how they felt.

I survived the funeral experience with several tears pushed back, frogs in my throat, and times of extra prayer for strength. I used the text Proverbs 18:24 that reads, "A man of too many friends comes to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. It was a fitting verse to use for two reasons, 1. It was the same text used at our father's funeral some 27 years before. 2. Because, although Kenny and I were not biological brothers, he was my baby brother.

Kenny wanted me to share the good news of Jesus Christ at his funeral and I was able to do that without any problem. To tell family and friends that there is one that is closer than a brother and that is Christ.

Selfishly I did not want Kenny to die on Christmas day, but God had other plans. His headstone will always have the Christmas date on it. People will look at it may think how sad because he died on Christmas day. I thought that at first, I prayed it wouldn't happen, but it did. Then I thought about Christmas, the birthday of Jesus and how my baby brother really got the best Christmas present of all; he celebrated Christmas 2011 WITH Jesus himself! How cool was it for him to say to Jesus, "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas!"