O fathers and mothers, the ruin of your children or their salvation will, under God, very much depend upon you. The gracious Spirit may use you for their conversion, or Satan may employ you as the instruments of their destruction. Which is it like to be?  

C. H. Spurgeon was a 19th century theologian, pastor, father, and fellow cigar smoker.

This is a huge opportunity for him, and I’d appreciate it if you’d take a few seconds to click the following link and vote for him.  Time is running out.  The deadline is March 13.  He’s currently in 4th place.  Please vote now and help him get to the top!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR NICK POTTER (A.K.A EDIFY)
Make sure your volume is down or you may get a speaker-full of rap when you get there!

Check out some of his demos below.

Churched kids and teens spend six of seven days each week hearing other people say how judgmental Christianity is, and that the Bible should be taboo.

Churches use outdated methods of Sunday School, rotating the same Bible stories year-in and year-out without relating the morals to daily living. When kids want to know why someone like Gabrielle Giffords was shot, they don’t need another lesson on Noah’s Ark.

Teens can only eat so much pizza at church social events before they see through this thinly veiled attempt at keeping them occupied and out of trouble.

Those surveyed say there aren’t enough good reasons given for holding Bible beliefs other than “the preacher says so…” or “your parents say so.”

Sometimes kids are routinely kept out of “grown-up church.” From infancy to four years old, they’re in nursery. Then they get “children’s church” with a short Bible lesson, crafts and refreshments. For teens, a separate youth service geared to “their” music. By eighteen, they’ve never been expected to sit through a whole Sunday service. It’s culture shock.

Young people can see that the Church in general hasn’t yet been able to conquer racial reconciliation, domestic abuse and the rampant church divorce rate…sometimes in their own families.

Older generations won’t blend a moderate amount of contemporary music with traditional hymns, to show young people that newer ideas are respected.

Or, the Church feels pressured to impress their younger members with new technological avenues. So they discard all the old hymns that were written out of peoples’ struggles with life, pride and suffering. Thus, the newer generations don’t hear about how God can help them through hard times.

Parents are expecting the church to teach what may fall within their own responsibility.

But then, young parents raised in the last twenty years have themselves grown up under the new pop psychology of never receiving or deserving any discipline or criticism. They’ve seen church become irrelevant. Now, as parents, they’re hesitant to make (or even ask) their kids to go to church or develop a backbone in faith.

Lastly, everyone’s too busy for church. There are too many other attractions in life.

Sheryl Young, a free-lance writer and a Yahoo! contributing writer of faith issues says that some churches are trying to address these problems with new programs and ministries. But, she says that some churches “will find it such a daunting task that they just throw up their hands, ” which she says is maybe the right thing to do in this situation.  “Maybe it’s time to do just that — throw hands up and pray, rather than create more programs — and leave the rest up to God.”

Sources: “Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith …and How to Bring Them Back,” (Drew Dyck, Moody Publishing, Oct 2010), “Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it” (Ken Ham & Britt Beemer, Todd Hillard, New Leaf, Aug 2009); “The Last Christian Generation” (McDowell, Green Key, 2006); and Lifeway Christian Resource Surveys from 2007 and 2010.

Dr. Tim Kimmel’s Grace-Based Parenting is one of the most influential books I’ve read on parenting.  His premise is that parents need to create a grace-based home environment and parent their children the same way God parents them.  Since first picking the book up 5 years ago, I’ve read it twice, taught a class on it, and interviewed him for a radio show I used to host.

Here’s a small portion of that interview.  I found his words to be most helpful in my parenting, and hopefully you will too.

When I generalize a lot of parenting models, one thing that I often see in Christian homes is fear. I see a lot of fear-based parenting. The average parent that is steeped in fear-based parenting would be the last one to admit it, but fear is exactly what drives the decisions they make. They see the world system and how wicked it is, and they see Satan and how sinister he is, and then they see their kids and how vulnerable they are. Based on those three factors, they make their strategy for parenting based on fear.

However, there’s one thing that trumps all three of those fears and that is the fact that God is mighty. God is awesome, and when our focus is on Him and we let Him set the agenda, it often changes the way we go about what we do. We don’t hide as much. There is also evangelical behavior modification and I see this a lot; it’s where we’re trying to get the kids to act a certain way, know certain things, and look a certain way.

Our job isn’t to get our kids to behave right, our job is to get their character right. In fact, we don’t need to worry about their behavior so much; when you get their character right, the right behavior will follow. You can get a kid behaving right, but their heart may not be where it needs to be.

There is a lot of image-control parenting where parents are basically trying to meet a standard set by the people around them. Parents want their kids to do certain things, say certain things, and act a certain way so that they look good.

Then there’s also high-control parenting where parents leverage the strength of their personalities against their children’s weaknesses in order to get them to meet their selfish agendas, which is often the parents’ own insecurities.

The balance between throwing our kids to the wolves and hiding them from the world is grace-based parenting. The problem is that many of the systems that we have created to protect our children actually substitute for the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They actually negate the kid’s need for the Bible. It doesn’t mean they don’t learn the Bible and know it, they just don’t need the Bible. This creates a spiritual anemia; it’s what happens when you preoccupy yourself with raising a safe kid. I think a lot of parents have that as their main goal; they want to raise a safe Christian kid.

According to an article in yesterday’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, this kind of texting is considered “multitasking” by many teens today and should not be considered offensive by the rest of us.

“I can survive without responding to texts, (but) I simply don’t see the necessity of not answering,” one young person was quoted as saying.  The article revealed that some professors and school administrators were stunned that students couldn’t understand why texting during class, or in the middle of a face-to-face conversation, would be considered disrespectful.

Another student said, “One of the most important things we want to get across to professors is that we’re not ignoring them when we’re texting.  We’re still listening. We’re still taking notes. We’re just doing something urgent.”  But not all students agree.  One young person said, “I think it’s disrespectful.  It’s distracting to other students if you hear clicking. It disrupts the whole class.”

So, what’s do you think is acceptable?  Are we “old farts” making too big of a deal out of this, or are we on to something?  When is it appropriate to text and when is it not?

If you haven’t read the first post, you should do so before reading this.

1. We have been there, we have done that, and once you mature, you will see we were right.

2. If you are out with us in public and being rude and/or insolent, we are just as embarrassed to be seen with you as you are to be seen with us. If “discipline” is out of the question, then so is us paying for dinner and your new piercing.

3. Of course you may come and go as you please, as long as your rent money has been paid, you are doing your own laundry, and you don’t mind us blowing an airhorn in your ear to get you up for school the next day.

4. Grounding isn’t for your benefit. It is for ours. Nothing makes us happier than to see a disrespectful teen try to live her life while disconnected from all technology. You know you hate it.

5. When you tell us about your life, any little snippet, we are listening. It is our parental duty to try to offer advice due to reason #1. We know you won’t take it but it’s the only way we will be able to later say “I told you so”.

6. If we allow you to eat whatever you want, what kind of parents would we be? Eat your veggies, you need energy to keep up that cold facade.

7. Reverse psychology is not a last resort, it is just one of many techniques we use to try to raise valuable, independent members of society. We are not trying to gain your respect. We are trying to raise someone we can have respect for.

8. Don’t worry, we won’t ask you who your friends are anymore. Now we will just check your Facebook page and text your friends and their moms. For your wellbeing and our mental health, we need to know where you are and who you are with. If you narrow our options for obtaining information, we will adapt, and you won’t like it.

9. Nagging makes you laugh at us? Good, we are glad to give you a chuckle. Sure much of what we do is stupid-funny to you. We thought the same way about our own parents.

However, if you did as asked the first time, nagging would not be an issue. Totally your call.

10. If we waited for you to suggest “quality time” we wouldn’t have any until you are old, raising your own kids, and finally realizing how much you love and enjoy them and want to spend as much time as possible with them before they too go off to start their own lives.

We know your future is a hard concept to grasp, that’s why we are thinking about it for you. We are trying to “work with you here” and one day you will realize it and then we will gladly accept your apologies.

I am sick and tired of adults thinking they know teenagers when really they don’t. You would think that maybe they would because they were teenagers once, but that is never the case.

So for every parent out there, here is some free advice from a disgruntled teen.

1. You think you know, but you don’t. Seriously, we don’t tell you half the stuff we do, say or think. Then the stuff we do tell you, we only tell you half the truth, and even that is watered down to the bare minimum.

2. Do not use “discipline” on us in public. I use the word discipline very loosely. I seriously don’t believe you can discipline teenagers, it has never worked for me. However we will never want to be out in public with you if you feel the need to correct everything we do and say. Worry about the more important things.

3. When we say we are going, we’re going. Don’t tell us we can’t go. Whether it be to a party, the mall, a friend’s house, unless you have a legitimate reason, like a family member died, we are going to find a way to go. Sneaking out would be one way. So if you say no, and we sneak out and for some reason we get in trouble… we aren’t going to call you.

4. Grounding … really. Grounding is the stupidest thing you could ever do to a teenager. I used to get grounded every day, and guess what: we don’t care. We aren’t going to act any different because you take away our phone privileges for a week. It doesn’t work.

5. Listen. Every parent I know has the tendency when we are talking to tell us what we are doing wrong. We don’t care what you think we are doing wrong. We are just telling you what’s happening.

When you interrupt us to tell us to tell us how to handle the situation, you are losing the small amount of communication we are giving you. We aren’t going to take your advice, we are going to do it our own way anyway.

6. Don’t tell us we need to eat better. Do you seriously think we care? We obviously know when we can’t walk up the stairs without getting out of breath, we don’t need you to tell us. We are going to eat what we want. We aren’t going to throw a salad into our diet just because you tell us to. If anything you’re making it worse.

7. Reverse psychology, big no no. You think we aren’t smart enough to see when you are trying to trick us into doing something, but we are. Your reverse psychology doesn’t work. It makes you look stupid because we know that your using it as a last resort. Say what you mean, most of the time it doesn’t work, but we don’t lose a bucket load of respect for you.

8. Don’t ask us who our friends are. If we are in high school most likely you don’t know more than half our friends. However, if we go to hang out with those friends, do not interrogate us because here is what you will hear: Who are they? A friend. How do you know them? School. Are they nice? Sure. Who are their parents? How am I supposed to know. Do you know any of their friends? I don’t know. How is that for a conversation? Basically, don’t do it.

Don’t nag us. Sure you think nagging us makes us do stuff. But seriously it doesn’t. You know why we don’t do it? We like to make you mad. It’s fun to us. We act like you’re annoying us, but in our heads we are laughing at you, and when you walk away, we are smirking and holding in an even bigger laugh.

10. Do not ask us to have “quality time”. You think family time is a good thing, and it is. Only when we want it. If you want it, we don’t. I know it’s a hard concept to grasp, but work with me here okay.

So, how would you respond to this girl?  In my next post, I’ll show you what one mom wrote in response.  It’s good stuff!

What she did the other night was something she’s done hundreds of times before, but in light of her request, it struck me that I should share it with others through my blog.  What did she do, you ask?  She made us laugh.  Hard.

As long as I can remember, Alexis has been funny.  We have video of her doing and saying funny things as early as before she turned two.  We’ve often thought that we’d be $10,000 richer if we would have sent some of her stuff to America’s Funniest Home Videos.

She’s a master at remembering funny lines from movies and TV shows and pulling them out at the perfect time for maximum effect and laughter.  The other night at the table, she rattled off a routine she had seen on YouTube from a recent Saturday Night Live episode.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but one of the cast members plays a character named, Judy Grimes, an incredibly nervous travel agent invited to give travel tips on SNL’s news segment called Weekend Update.  Judy is so nervous that – even though she talks a lot – she never gives an travel tips.  Instead, she rattles off frenzied monologues that change direction every time she says “just kidding”.  (Check out the video below to see her in action!)

Without so much as a thought, Alexis perfectly rattled off a portion of Judy’s frenzied monologue at the table the other night…and we roared!  (If you’re lucky, maybe she’ll do it for you.)  Later on that evening, I got to thinking about how much laughter and fun Alexis brings to our home on a daily basis.  She is truly a blessing, and one of the ways she regularly blesses us is with her wonderful sense of humor.

I’m not kidding.

Back in the early 80′s, the camp was started by a few youth pastors from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio who had no denominational summer camps to take their kids to each summer.  These friends formed an organization called Evangelical Youth Fellowship (EYF) and decided to hold their own youth camp each summer at a rented facility.

In 1984, they moved to Camp Mack near Warsaw, Indiana where the summer camp was held for the next 14 years.  I attended Camp Mack until I graduated high school in 1988 and then attended there as a camp counselor a couple of times while I was in college.

It was at Camp Mack in 1990 that a youth pastor from Dayton, Ohio named Tony Plummer pulled me aside and challenged me to pursue full-time ministry after I graduated from college.  He had observed me all week long interacting with the students and felt compelled to challenge me to change my major from mass communication (radio broadcasting) to Christian Education (youth ministry).  I was pretty offended at his boldness at first, but after a while, I realized that the Lord had used Tony to affirm an eventual ministry call of my life.

That interaction with Tony proved to be more than just a one week event in my life as I was called by FairCreek Church in Dayton, Ohio (Tony’s church) in 1994 to come serve as their youth pastor.  Tony had moved into an associate pastor role at the church, and I was brought in to continue his work in youth ministry.  One month after I arrived at FairCreek Church, I found myself at Camp Mack once again – but this time I was a youth pastor leading my own group of kids.

In 1996, the baton of leadership for EYF was handed to me as the “old guard” – those who started the organization in the early 80′s – were all leaving youth ministry one by one.  From 1996-1999, I served as the president of EYF, and in 1998, I – along with a new crop of youth pastors – moved the camp from Camp Mack to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  It was at this point that the camp transitioned from less of a “church youth camp” to more more of a “summer youth conference,” and it was at this point that the number of churches involved in EYF and the number of students attending the conference each summer began to really grow.

When I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1999, in addition to leaving my church in Dayton, I also left my post as president of EYF.  But, in 2001, I was asked to come back as a main session speaker.  The conference had been moved from Miami University to Taylor University in Indiana, and when I arrived that summer to speak, I discovered that the conference was as strong as ever.

In 2005, I was back in Ohio and was asked by my home church to go to the conference as a leader.  The conference had moved once again to its current location at Kenyon College, and I discovered when I arrived that many of the youth leaders and youth pastors serving the kids that week were alumni of past summer conferences themselves.

And then this year, I was asked to come back as a main session speaker once again.  Including mid-high students, high school students, and leaders, there are nearly 500 people in attendance.  There’s an incredible praise band that plays at each main session and the lights, video, and sound during these sessions are top-notch.  Students from all over the Midwest have come together to enjoy a week of friendship, worship, and to be challenged by God’s Word…and it all started nearly 30 years ago.

I’m blessed to be a part of EYF’s summer youth conference once again this year, and I’m blown away by the longevity of it.  For almost three decades, God has used this summer camp experience to impact the lives of thousands of students, and I’m one of the fortunate ones who continues to be impacted by it as an adult.

Do you have any EYF memories you’d like to share?  Some experiences aren’t appropriate for sharing here, so keep it clean (especially you Lacy boys)!