Nov
20
Nota bene. 11.20.07
Filed Under Christian Living, Culture, Current Events, Ethics, Family, Men, Nota Bene, The Church, Youth Ministry | Leave a Comment
I’m borrowing Joe’s Nota Bene category to post a link to piece written last week by John Piper about a phenomenon sociologists are calling adultolescence–the postponement of adulthood into the late twenties or even into the thirties. I have always defined adulthood as paying your own freight and taking responsibility for providing for yourself and your dependents (if you have any). Piper offers a 15-point strategy by which the Church should respond to this sociological trend in his piece entitled A Church-Based hope for ‘Adultolescence.’
Mar
27
Facebook for my student?
Filed Under Christian Living, Family, Uncategorized, Youth Ministry | 1 Comment
Parents ask me semi-regularly whether or not they should let their children have a facebook page. In the end this is a decision that parents need to make not based on what other families are doing but rather as what is the best option for their own students. I offer the following remarks as an aid for you to make the best decision for your children.
- The history of facebook. For an excellent overview of facebook, you can take a look at this wikipedia entry.
- It is no small thing. You probably know from your child’s incessant nagging that facebook is not an insignificant fad amongst high-school and college aged students. The current numbers read like this:
- # of Users: 18 million
- # of Page Views Per Month: 30 billion
- # of Pictures Hosted: Over 1 billion
- # of Facebook employees: 200
- Approximate 2006 Revenue: $50 million
- The advent of social networking services provides child predators ample opportunities to contact children they would not have been able to contact without the aid of the Internet. It is important to note that facebook, as a specific on-line social networking service, has several options for their users to choose from in terms of how information about them is shared. Any parent with a child on facebook should review the privacy options available and particularly should review what privacy options their child have enabled on their account. You cannot be too careful. Personal information such as addresses and phone numbers should not be shared outside of your child’s immediate network of friends or not at all. Remember that facebook is designed, in part, to create relationships between people who have not met in person and may never meet in person.
- Facebook is fun. The number of hours that students spend on facebook don’t lie. It is downright fun. You can post silly pictures of yourself. You can talk to friends you haven’t seen in years. You can share inside jokes with your good buddy. You can encourage someone after a sports win or cheer someone up after a bad grade on a test. We, as a nation, and students as a demographic, obviously are not at a loss for something to say. Facebook provides a venue for you to say whatever you want.
- Give facebook a testdrive. Facebook is organized into networks which may be designated by school, job, or geography. Anyone can get a facebook page. If you are a parent, and curious, why not start a facebook page of your own? You can try it out. You can look at all the bells and whistles. Who knows, you may like it. And if you don’t like it, you can always delete your account.
- Two Major Warnings. In addition to the obvious threat of on-line predators, you should be concerned about the following to issues on facebook.
- A lightning rod for sin. Facebook can serve to polarize thoughts in your children that you would rather them not have encouraged. Often, a student will post something derogatory about another student, a teacher, or parents in general. That post then serves as a lightening rod for further derogatory comments. On-line bulletin boards, forums, social networking services, and blogs can serve to enhance sinful attitudes toward others and authority.
- A potty mouth has a potty keyboard. Facebook is only as clean as the members page that you are on. General filth, especially in language, can and does abound on facebook. This is another reason to beware what your student is posting and where they are going.
- There is no such thing as privacy. Personally (and theologically) I don’t believe in privacy for children. If you’re child is going to have a facebook, a myspace, a cell phone, etc, then you should know who they are contacting. Know your child’s facebook password and keep up with their usage. Make spot checks when they are on the computer. If you insist on knowing where they are when they are at a friends house on Friday night, you should insist on knowing where they are on-line.
- You’re child will probably eventually have one. If trends continue, facebook and sites like it will be around for a good long while. If you decide to allow your student to have a facebook site, see it as an opportunity to teach them on-line etiquette, godly conversation, and how to protect themselves from on-line predators and identity fraud. Apparently, these are lessons they will need to learn eventually. Better they learn them from you than their freshman roommate.
- Out of the heart the facebook speaks. As a former youth minister, I’ve seen some really good facebook pages and some very disappointing facebook pages. Students have impressed me and surprised me. What is the determining factor? The determining factor is what is in a student’s heart. They will write about and comment in line with their relationship to Jesus Christ. Plain and simple, facebook will reveal sides of your child you haven’t seen. This may be very encouraging to you or very discouraging to you. But certainly, either way, it should be an opportunity for more conversation with your student and more prayer with your God.
These are just some suggestions. Maybe you were wondering if I had a facebook page. I do. I keep up with college friends. I find out who is getting married and which couples are having babies. It has helped me keep up with former students from my youth ministry who have gone off to college.
Remember though, in the end it is your decision. You have to make it for your student and then you have to take parental responsibility over your decision. Pray about it. Gather all the facts. Talk to parents whose children already have facebook pages. And in all things labor to the glory of God.
Mar
14
The Real Problem with Our Children
Filed Under Books, Christian Living, Family, Reading, Youth Ministry | Leave a Comment
I’m thoroughly enjoying our Men’s Book Study on J.C. Ryle’s book, Holiness. This week we discussed Ryle’s first chapter entitled, Sin. The whole chapter is a tour de force on the subject of the heinousness of sin. In the middle of the chapter, Ryle pauses to discuss original sin and uses the following illustration:
The fairest babe, that has entered life this year and become the sunbeam of a family, is not, as its mother perhaps fondly calls it, a little ‘angel’, or a little ‘innocent’, but a little ’sinner’. Alas! As it lies smiling and crowing in its cradle, that little creature carries in its heart the seeds of every kind of wickedness! Only watch it carefully, as it grows in stature and its mind develops, and you will soon detect in it an incessant tendency to that which is bad, and a backwardness to that which is good. You will see in it the buds and germs of deceit, evil temper, selfishness, self-will, obstinacy, greediness, envy, jealousy, passion, which, if indulged and let alone, will shoot up with painful rapidity. Who taught the child these things? Where did he learn them? The Bible alone can answer these questions! Of all the foolish things that parents can say about their children there is none worse than the common saying: ‘My son has a good heart at the bottom. He is not what he ought to be, but he has fallen into bad hands. Public schools are bad places. The tutors neglect the boys. Yet he has a good heart at the bottom.’ The truth, unhappily, is diametrically the other way. The first cause of all sin lies in the natural corruption of the boy’s own heart, and not in the school.
Our only hope, for ourselves and our children, is in Jesus Christ.
Nov
14
Real Sex–a review
Filed Under Christian Living, Ethics, Family, Resources, Youth Ministry | Leave a Comment
‘About 65% of America’s teens have sex by the time they finish high school….A 2002 study the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 41% of American women aged fifteen to forty-five have, at some point, cohabited with a man. According to the 2000 census, the number of unmarried couples living together has increased tenfold between 1960 and 2000, and 72% between 1990 and 2000. Fifty-two percent of American women have sex before turning eighteen, and 75% have sex before they get married. According to a 2002 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, over a quarter of fifteen-to seventeen-year old girls say that sexual intercourse is ‘almost always’ or ‘most of the time’ part of a ‘casual relationship.’
If your internet filter let you get this far, let me suggest that you read the book from which I derived this information: Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity by Lauren F. Winner (Brazos Press, 2005). Dr. Winner speaks to the issue of chastity (which C.S. Lewis called ‘the most unpopular of the Christian virtues’) with a great deal of theological awareness, exegetical skill, wisdom, wit and healthy candor. Real Sex is an insightful exploration of the role of sexuality in the world-view of those under the age of 40.
Winner begins with personal testimony of her conversion during graduate school and the rather awkward transformation of her personal sexual ethics as a young disciple of Christ. She intelligently argues the case for the biblical view of sex (’Without a robust account of the Christian vision of sex within marriage, the Christian insistence that unmarried folks refrain from sex just doesn’t make any sense’ [25]) and reasons wisely about why sheer determination or abstinence programs like ‘True Love Waits’ are such monumental failures.
The most intriguing and insightful chapter is ‘Communal Sex: Or, Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night’, in which she calls on Christians to reject the destructive lie of the culture that ‘it’s nobody’s business’ and embrace the vision of a community of believers who speak frankly and biblically about sexual sin and ‘the realities of chastity, about the thrills and tediums of married sex, about the rich meanings inherent in being sexual persons who live in bodies…to ask the church to serve as narrator, reminding ourselves who we are, and why we do what we do’ (60).
The remaining chapters speak about matters such as sanctification (’Conforming Your Body to the Arc of the Gospel’), singleness, sex and idolatry in our hearts and culture, and repentance. A couple of other notes about the book: the edition linked above also contains a discussion guide (Invite me to that Sunday School class or small group!). Also,on more than one occasion she credits some wisdom from one of our RUF campus ministers–Rev. Greg Thompson, formerly at the University of Virginia (Do not become puffed up at the mention of UVa, Joe and Hallie!). Adults and teenagers need to reckon with the message of this book.
Oct
20
I got to see the tail end of the KHS homecoming parade today. It was great to see so many of our covenant children scattered throughout the parade. I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’s words that the very gates of hell would not stand up to the onslaught of His kingdom. And there they were, the soldiers of Christ, with instrument in hand, football jerseys on, riding on floats, and cheering from the sidewalk. It may have looked like a typical seen from any other homecoming parade but through the eyes of faith, something amazing was happening. It happens everyday in every corner of Attala county wherever God’s people are. But today it was a high school parade. And amidst the cheers of fans I thought I heard another kind of noise. The faint sound of a panicked voice almost drowned out by the crowd. The screeches of the Evil One himself as he tried woefully to slap some spackle on the crumbling masonry of the gates of his kingdom as they fell down around him. Onward Christian soldiers…
Aug
16
Youth Director’s Debut
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This is my first of many blogs (I hope). Today, I want to express my thanks for you hospitality and give you an update on the status of our ministries to the youth and children. First, Camille and I cannot tell you enough how thankful we are to be here, living and working among you. We know that we are loved because of your commitment to pray for us and your gracious hospitality. We thank God for you, and we are praying for you as well.
Second, I have throughly enjoyed getting to know the youth over the last month. They are a great bunch who are genuinely excited about participating in the life of the church. On Wednesday nights, we have just concluded a study on the book of James. During our Youth Fellowship, on Sunday nights, we take time to review and discuss the Sunday evening sermon. My hope is that our youth will learn how to listen to sermons better, and, therefore, appreciate the preaching of God’s Word even more.
Our trip to Memphis was a success. The 26 students and four chaperones had a great time. The BBQ was wonderful, the Zoo was fun, and the Redbirds were victorious. Trips like this one help to grow the bonds of friendship among the youth and help me to know them better. Thank you, FPC, for giving us the opportunity to go.
Finally, I want to give an update on recuitment for Children’s ministry activities on Sunday and Wednesday nights. Currently, four of you have expressed an interest in taking part in these ministries. We need six more volunteers to maximize the affectiveness of our children’s ministry programs and to minimize the burden of responsibility on our leaders. Remember, each class needs two leaders to share the load of weekly planning and teaching. Let me know if you are willing to volunteer by calling me at the church or emailing me at carroll@fpckosciusko.org.
Please, continue to pray that our youth and children would “grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18a). Pray that He would use you and me to that end.