Archive for 'Parents'
Helping our kids deal with lies
Posted on 12. Jul, 2011 by Kenny.
So, yesterday I posted about a talk I did at our second day of camp. It was a talk about the lies we believe about ourselves that are not true. Here is the post for you to read. Below I have posted a handful of index cards that 8-12 year olds wrote. Just a few anonymous cards that communicate powerful lies. These are the cards that punched me in the gut. We collected about 800 cards with lies just like these. Disgusting, isn’t it.
I didn’t really anticipate how this message was going to affect me. I didn’t realize that the hundreds of kids who walk in and out of my church every single day are holding on to some rotten lives that are weighing them down.… Read the rest
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Mothers Day: To mourn an absence
Posted on 03. May, 2011 by Kenny.
Last summer I was sitting in a doctor’s office in Florida while on vacation. Titus had been really sick. In one of the magazines was an article highlighting several exempts from a book my Laura Bush. She wrote about struggles with infertility. I’d like to quote the exerpt:
George and I had hoped that I would be pregnant by the end of his congressional run. Then we hoped it would be by the time his father announced his presidential run, then by the presidential primaries, the convention, the general election. But each milestone came and went. The calendar advanced, and there was no baby. The English language lacks the words “to mourn an absence.” For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not.
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A Baptism Story
Posted on 19. Apr, 2011 by Kenny.
I’m really excited about something that happen last week. Yesterday I wrote about our successful baptism service from Sunday. Well, there’s a really beautiful story woven in there as well. Let me tell you about a little 7 year old named Brynn. I became friends with Brynn’s family 3 years ago when I first moved to Austin. They’re very involved at Gateway and a week ago, Brynn and her mom showed up for the baptism class. Little Brynn had fully given her heart to Jesus a while back and she wanted to give her heart to Jesus. She was very attentive the whole class through and even at the end of the class, she came up and asked me if she did good.… Read the rest
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Guest post at Epic Parent Blog
Posted on 18. Feb, 2011 by Kenny.
I had the distinct pleasure of guest posting on Chris Spradlin’s (Sprad’s) blog, epicparent.tv. Click here to read my post. I linked over to Sprad’s blog several weeks ago when writing about talking to your kids about sex. In addition to information I learned from a service at my church (Gateway), it was Sprad’s series on sex talks that inspired my series. He’s putting some good stuff out there. One of my favorites is his post on creative discipline. It’s an honor to be included on his “guest post Friday,” joining ministry greats like Scott Williams, Craig Groeschel and Gina McClain.
So, I wrote a short post (well, as short as I could muster up) about parents partnering with their Children’s Ministry.… Read the rest
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Pornography, Sex and Children’s Ministry: Want to help?
Posted on 27. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
Okay, this is my last post on this series. For the past two weeks I’ve written a great deal about the problem of pornography and sex that is affecting kids while they’re in our children’s ministries. For the most part, we’re not doing anything about it. However, maybe we can change that. When I say we, I mean you and me and others.
As I shared in my last post, I’m creating a plan for my church to deal with this issue, to prepare kids to make commitments to purity. The plan I’m going to design will be a comprehensive approach from 3-4 years old until they’re teenagers ready to make a commitment to purity. What this plan looks like, I’m not sure.… Read the rest
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Pornography, Sex and Children’s Ministry: What I’m going to do about it
Posted on 27. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
So, I’ve been writing about this stuff for two weeks now and I think I’ve said most all of what I need to say. So in the end, I’m left with the questions, “So what? What do I do with all this information? What happens next?” In reality, you’re left with the same question by the way. If you’ve been reading all of this you have one of several responses.
- Disagree with what I’ve written and change nothing.
- Agree, but not really do anything about it… just lest that elephant in the room remain.
- Agree and actually do something about it.
So, I’ve written all of the posts these last two weeks because I needed to sort out my thoughts, gather more information and ultimately make some decisions.… Read the rest
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Pornography statistics
Posted on 27. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
I’m at the end of my two week series of sex, porn and children’s ministry and I want to cram in a few last bits of information. A friend of mine who heard about this series sent me some links to share. She’s continuing to track down some additional resources, but she remember when studying marketing in college a few years ago she learned how the porn industry strategically marketed toward 11-17 year olds knowing that they were the largest user base and that if they got hooked (addicted) as a teenager, they’d be a customer for life. She remember reading how the porn industry used school textbooks to learn what kids would be searching for when working on projects to optimize search results so that kids would likely stumble across their content.… Read the rest
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Two great articles on sexuality
Posted on 26. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
Since I didn’t realize that Children’s Ministry Magazine had a great article on this important topic, I figured I’d search their site to see if there were any more. Yes, two great articles!
Click here for their article on how children understand sexuality at different points of their development. It would be a great resource for parents to understand what their kids know, what kinds of questions their kids are going to be asking and how to deal with those questions. Excellent information.
The second article I found was directed toward ministry leaders. It deals with how to tackle difficult conversations and situation involving a variety of sexual topics. Everything from engaging a family of same sex parents, working with children who have gender identity issues and encountering kids who are engaging in conversations about sexuality.… Read the rest
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The church and sex ed
Posted on 26. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
As I was writing this series about sex and Chidlren’s Ministry last week and this week, I didn’t even realize that Children’s Ministry Magazine published a pretty significant article on this very topic in their November/December 2010 issue called sexual purity. If you subscribe to the magazine, be sure to check it out (begins on page 62). There was a lot of great information in this article. One interesting quote was from a study saying that”
“Teenagers are more likely to abtsain from sexual intercourse before the age of 18 if their parents hold strong religious beliefs and explain them to their children and attend church together regularly.”
Good to know.
However, I was very intrigued by the direction the article took.… Read the rest
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Being prepared for difficult questions
Posted on 25. Jan, 2011 by Kenny.
Okay, I promise, I’m getting close to wrapping up this series on sex and children’s ministry. In this post I wanted to address two other topics that again, should be addressed from the home, but the church should probably equip parents to be ready to answer. The two topics I’m thinking about are pornography and gender confusion.
When it comes to pornography, most parents aren’t having the conversation. To be honest, I feel that there are many parents out there who aren’t having the conversation because they’re not 100% convinced that it’s wrong, but just a part of growing up. Because most parents aren’t talking about it and if they do, it’s in a reactionary way, kids never get a context of what it is, why they shouldn’t seek it out and how destructive it really is.… Read the rest
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