DAY 31 : GRACE

 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

- John 1:14  {ESV}

Charles Wesley, on the one year anniversary of his conversion penned the great hymn “Oh For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” In one of the final verses, he described grace: “Harlots and publicans and thieves, in holy triumph join! Saved is the sinner that believes, from crimes as great as mine.” Charles Wesley understood grace. He understood that when God entered the world in Christ, unmerited favor, unwarranted love, undeserved mercy, and unending grace came with him.

God forgives a debt we cannot repay, he loves us as rebels, he pursues us as we flee, and revives our lifeless hearts. God does not work on a system of merit. God’s grace is the truth of God. If this is true, then why do we as parents treat our kids with a system of merit? Why do we make our kids earn our favor through their accomplishments, their talents, and their behavior? As a parent, I understand how easy it is to judge our children according to what they do, but that’s not the way God treats his kids. He treats his children with grace, not fairness. Today, thank God for the grace he gave us in Christ and ask him how to show that grace to your family.

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 ~ Resource of the Day ~

Grace Based Parenting

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This is the last day of our 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children Challenge.

Read all of our 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children posts by clicking here.

We’ve also created a calendar (two color options) that you can download and print to keep at your desk, on your fridge or wherever you’ll see it and be reminded to pray.

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Click here to download 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children {Option 1}

Click here to download 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children {Option 2}

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Stay tuned tomorrow for a 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children Challenge recap and more info about the 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children Spanish Edition!

DAY 27 :MASTER

 “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

- Joshua 24:15  {ESV}

I’ve always found it easy to read Old Testament passages about idol worship and false gods and think that it’s an Old Testament problem. Most of us don’t wake up every morning and sacrifice an animal to a hand carved statue in our backyard. But the truth is, idol worship is just as prevalent in 21^st century America as it was at the time of Joshua. Instead of sacrificing animals to wooden objects, we sacrifice our families at the altar of wealth, success, and beauty.

Whether we realize it or not, there is a master of our home. There is no escaping the God given drive in all of us to serve something. I think Bob Dylan said it well when he wrote, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yeah, you’re gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Today, let God be your master and pray that he would be the master of your home. Pray that your children would serve him and him alone, and that your whole family would turn from the myriad of 21^st century idols constantly creeping into our living rooms, distracting us from our true king.

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 ~ Resource of the Day ~

Raising Kids for True Greatness

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This is Day 27 of our 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children Challenge.

Please be sure to follow along this month as we encourage parents to be intentional about praying for their children. Read all of our 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children posts by clicking here.

We’ve also created a calendar (two color options) that you can download and print to keep at your desk, on your fridge or wherever you’ll see it and be reminded to pray.

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Click here to download 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children {Option 1}

Click here to download 31 Days of Prayer for Your Children {Option 2}

In all likelihood, parenting has always been challenging. Whether you are a postmodern parent raising kids in the 21^st century, a renaissance parent raising children in the 16^th century, a first century parent with first century kids, or a cave parent with cave kids, I’m convinced many of the challenges of parenting are the same. Babies have always cried all night, toddlers have always ran around like crazy, children have always needed to be trained to behave, and teenagers have always taxed their parent’s patience.

So when I say that this generation of parents especially needs to have grace, I’m not discounting the fact that all that have gone before them needed it as well. I say we are in exceptional need of grace not because of the timeless parenting challenges, but because of the unique ones. The biggest thing we as postmodern parents are facing that past generations did not deal with is the pervasive distrust of authority and knowledge claims outside an individual’s experience. I wrote more about this in my series three things parents need to know about postmodernism.

Basically our culture doesn’t trust what people say unless they can experience it. They don’t believe in a Jesus who doesn’t work and show himself in their lives. They don’t trust a morality that doesn’t factor in the individual’s happiness and predilections. They don’t believe a system they can’t feel and verify through their own interaction.

This is a problem. It is a problem for those parents who desperately want their children to know the Jesus they know, live according to the standards seen in the Bible, and maintain a biblical worldview informed by an active faith in God.

What makes it worse, is that our gut reaction as parents is to see these issues and tighten down on our kids, become more forceful about our own beliefs, separate more rigidly from the antithetical culture, and rid our homes of margin for doubt and mistakes.

Let me make this clear, doing these things will not conquer the culture. You do not quiet the shouts of a world screaming against God by screaming back louder. You cannot expect to build our children’s confidence in the authority of Scripture and the presence of Jesus in our lives by bullying them with it. It is the bullying by people in power with knowledge they claimed was right that led to the postmodern condition in the first place.

The only recourse we have in fighting against the zeitgeist of doubt, distrust, and disillusionment is the grace of the gospel. Our children, more than ever before, need to know they can be forgiven, redeemed, and reconciled to God regardless of their merit, despite their doubts, and in spite of their sin. They need to know that Jesus’ love does not require they understand him fully or be fully convinced of every moral command made in the Bible. They need to know they are justified because of who Christ is and the gracious gift extended through his death and resurrection.

We don’t need to worry that our kids have a hard time trusting Christ at first, He is more than capable of earning their trust by interacting with them. We don’t need to fear when they struggle with the morality of the Bible, the Holy Spirit can and will change their hearts. What we do need to worry about is whether or not we’re treating them in a way that shows God’s grace or hides it.

We, the postmodern parents need grace, we need to treat our children the way God treats His. Parenting children in a postmodern culture is extraordinarily challenging, but it’s impossible without an atmosphere of grace that allows our children to experience the redemptive power of the gospel.

For more help in how to create an atmosphere of grace in your home, buy, read, and tell your friends about Grace Based Parenting.

I stopped playing soccer when I was six because I didn’t like getting kicked in the shins. This is a fact I am not necessarily proud of, but I unfortunately cannot change my past. I really enjoyed the sport, but the thought of playing hurt week in and week out was too much for me to handle. So I quit.

When I think of the world in which our kids are being raised, I think of that story. The postmodern generation is getting kicked in the shins. They are playing a perpetual game of pre-school soccer, only, unlike me, they can’t quit when they get hurt.

The postmodern generation is a hurting generation. With divorce rates higher than ever before, the failed promise that modern science would actually make life better, the fragmented community caused by the monolithic spread of technology, and the inability to trust authority, the cards are stacked against our children.

They hurt because they are being raised in a broken home, or at least have close friends in broken homes. They hurt because the progress of science and technology has only served to make the violence and evil done to others more efficient. They hurt because the institutions people used to be able to cling to, like the church, have lost credibility in the public eye. Our kids are wounded and injured and it’s not their fault.

During my years working with youth, I was shocked by this fact. I would see the pain played out in harmful relationships, self-inflicted pain, and emotional abuse. They would take their hurt out on every one they could, especially their parents. At first I just dismissed the postmodern generation as a bunch of spoiled brats who were too self-involved to become anything significant in the future. But then I realized the ‘why’ of the situation.

Our kids rebel, they are self involved, they are dismissive, distant, and at times harmful because deep down inside, they are deeply hurt. What’s worse is that instead of addressing the hurt underlying the bad behavior, our initial reaction is to only address the bad behavior and further drive the pain home.

This is one of the reasons I love the ministry of Young Life. At Young Life, nobody cares if the kids are screw-ups, rebels, or misfits. They love them and mend the hurt in their lives with Christ before they address any of the other behavioral problems.

First and foremost, our children need compassion. If we want to reclaim this generation for Christ, to change the ebbing tide away from Christianity postmodernism has brought, we need to start with compassion. Our children are getting kicked in the shins on a daily basis, and if we want to have any place in walking them through childhood and adolescence, we need to see the hurt and address it before anything else.

This is why the sinners and outcast of Israel sought out Jesus. For the first time in their lives, they met a man who saw the hurt before their sin, who gave them love without their obedience. You can be your child’s shin guards against the constant kicks of an unforgiving culture. If we can be like that to our kids, if we can show the same love, grace, compassion, and understanding Jesus showed the disenfranchised of first century Israel, healing will begin in the hearts of our children.

Are your kids hurting? How can you address the hurt in their lives this week? How does your church care for the pain of the postmodern generation?

For more information on how to address rebellion with grace, check out Tim Kimmel’s book Why Christian Kids Rebel.

Vintage is so in right now.

As a kind-of-hipster parent, I have even caught myself buying vintage toys for my son. Whether it’s the old wooden blocks, the classic jack-in-the-box, or a good old fashioned rubber ducky, I tend to be more inclined to get him something if there is a bit of nostalgia attached to it. I know he’s 1 ½ right now, but I think he appreciates the nostalgia as well.

This might surprise you, but the vintage movement—the desire for something old, pre-modern, pre-bigger, better, flashier—is not merely a fad. It’s not just some hipster trend. The desire for a return to pre-modern things is an important element of understanding raising kids in a postmodern world.

As I communicated in my first postmodern parent post, the postmodern world is characterized by a rejection of the modern movement (amongst other things). It’s not just because rejecting things is cool. The culture we live in has lost faith in modern culture’s ability to do what it promises. Included in this modern rejection are a lot of the current church trends.

I’m going to suggest something that might seem counterintuitive to many parents. If we want to connect our children’s hearts to God, if we want to cultivate a long term, life-directing relationship with Christ in our children, older is better.

Let me explain. For the last 20 years or so, the trend has been to isolate youth culture within a youth group setting for church, to make youth groups feel like Miley Cyrus concerts, and do everything we can to make sure they are doing the things Christians do. Given the amount of time and money spent on trying to reach children, most church leaders now are being met with overwhelming disappointment in the results.

Recent studies, such as Fuller’s Youth Institutes Sticky Faith, have explored this phenomenon and come back with the same suggestion. Older is better. There is a postmodern push for pre-modern religion that we as parents need to take seriously.

Here are three things I think can help us use vintage faith to form our children into lasting disciples of Christ:

1. Small is the New Big – Our kids don’t want church to be a rock concert. They don’t want to be a nameless face in a large crowd. One of the most significant things we as parents can do to help instill lasting faith in our children is to incorporate them into a smaller community of believers. This doesn’t mean we need to leave our mega churches, it just means we need to be at a church that values breaking the discipleship process into smaller group settings. Our postmodern kids want to be known by the people leading them and know those they are growing with.
2. A Clear Gospel Basis – When being a Christian means accomplishing a to do list, the postmodern generation loses interest. Behaviorism is subtle. There is the obvious legalistic religion—don’t’ smoke, don’t chew, don’t go with girls who do—but there is also the spiritual discipline legalism. Read your bible, go to church, pray, serve. All of these things are hopefully things our children will do, but if that is how Christianity is defined they will lose interest. When our children asks us what it means to be a Christian, don’t answer, “Being a Christian means I try to follow Christ in how I act. I read my Bible and pray. I serve in church and give of my time to others.” Instead, answer them, “I’m a Christian because God loved me enough to send his only Son to die a sinner’s death on the cross and conquer death through his resurrection.” The focus needs to be placed back on Christ and away from our response to Him.
3. Intergenerational Spirituality – Probably one of the most significant and surprising findings by studies like Sticky Faith is the importance of intergenerational spirituality for the long-term spiritual health of our children. The modern push to create an alternative youth religious culture to meet the direct needs of children might be the very thing pushing them away from the faith as they get older. Postmodern children need to see faith working in older people. They don’t care if the truth of the Bible is consistent or logical, they just want to know that it works. Because of that, we as parents need to work hard to involve our children in the religious life of multiple generations. Have them meet with some of your Christian friends, let them observe you in community group, make it a point for them to come to “Big Church” as well as go to their youth groups.

Our children need a vintage faith. They need church practices with nostalgia attached to them. So while we’re considering the 1940’s style Lincoln logs for our children, let’s be sure and throw in some old time religion while we’re at it.

It rained all weekend here in Dallas. This is good news for the drought, but bad news for my one year old son. After the third day of non-stop, chilling rain, my son resorted to just standing beside the backdoor windows staring.

I felt sorry for him. So I decided to pick him up and tell him about the rain. I told him that every time he sees rain it should remind him of God’s grace. In Matthew 5:45, Jesus reminds his disciples that God causes the rain to fall for both the just and the unjust. God blesses people with the ability to live and thrive, regardless of whether or not they deserve it.

I held Kyler for a minute with his hand against the cold pane, watching the rain in silence. I knew he wasn’t old enough to understand what I told him, but it was a needed reminder. God gives us constants. Despite how quickly culture shifts and flows, there are things that don’t change. There is the same ancient grace in every new raindrop drawing us to remember the merciful God ruling over it all.

In the Postmodern Parent column this year, I’ve attempted to tackle some of the new issues facing us as parents in light of the post-everything world we call home. I hope to continue to do this in future posts, but I think it’s important we keep in mind God’s constants. We need to hold on to those things that don’t change, that won’t change, regardless of how different everything seems around us.

I was reminded of this over the Thanksgiving break as my wife and family took my son and two nieces to the Phoenix Zoo. I grew up going to the Phoenix Zoo, so it has always been the image my mind conjured up when I think about zoos (which is more frequent than you might assume). The place in particular my mind imagines is the lion and tiger exhibit.

As I walked up to the exhibit at the end of the day, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia. I found myself picking up a very tired but curious Kyler to show him the Tiger sunning himself, beginning stories with, “When I was your age…” Once again, he didn’t fully appreciate the significance. To him, it was just a zoo with animals he only recently discovered existed. But for me, it was more.

One of the greatest issues facing the church today in America is the issue of children leaving the church when they get to age 18. According to a Barna survey, only 20% of teenagers involved in church activity as teenagers remain involved as twentysomethings.

Despite millions of dollars spent by churches on youth programs, the backdoor has never been wider for our kids to leave the church once out of our direct care.

This is not a fact to be taken lightly. Although, the postmodern generation is increasingly spiritually curious, it is being turned off from the church. As a parent, this especially breaks my heart because I know how much I long to have my son follow Christ his whole life.

Postmodernism and Mr. T

One of the most important characteristics of postmodern thought can be summed up by Mr. T: “I Pity the Fool!” The postmodern generation does not suffer fools. It doesn’t tolerate things that are fake, inauthentic, and impractical. I actually think this is a good thing about the upcoming generation.

Unfortunately, this has had a direct effect on how many of our teenagers are leaving the faith. Many of the reasons given by twentysomethings for leaving the faith is because of hypocrisy, a lack of genuine care, and a lack of authenticity in the way church culture operates. Our kids won’t tolerate fools!

David Kinnaman offers this insight into the problem, “Much of the ministry to teenagers in America needs an overhaul – not because churches fail to attract significant numbers of young people, but because so much of those efforts are not creating a sustainable faith beyond high school. There are certainly effective youth ministries across the country, but the levels of disengagement among twentysomethings suggest that youth ministry fails too often at discipleship and faith formation. A new standard for viable youth ministry should be – not the number of attenders, the sophistication of the events, or the ‘cool’ factor of the youth group – but whether teens have the commitment, passion and resources to pursue Christ intentionally and whole- heartedly after they leave the youth ministry nest.”

So What Can Parents Do?

I am both discouraged and encouraged by this issue. I’m discouraged because when people walk away from the church, they usually give up on Christ because of the church’s association with him. However, I’m encouraged because I think this generation is much better positioned to embrace an authentic faith in Christ without the distractions of Gospel-less religion. They may be running from the church, but they are not necessarily running from Christ.

Since we, the parents, are the best bet in keeping our kids from running through the great backdoor when they get to college, I thought I’d share a few tips on how to keep kids from leaving the faith.

1. Riskily Serve Regularly – As Kinnaman pointed out, we need to be giving our kids the “resources to pursue Christ intentionally and whole- heartedly after they leave the youth ministry nest.” Regularly serving in a way that costs something is the best antidote to spiritual apathy. When we do God’s work for those in need, God works in us. We need to be doing this in our own life and encouraging our kids to do this as well.
2. Pick Better Churches – If your church youth group is more concerned with it’s size, programming, and “awesomeness”, you might need to pick a better church. Make sure the youth staff at your church measures success by depth, not breadth. Pick a church that expects you to be involved in your kid’s spiritual growth. Any church that tells you, “Don’t worry, we’ll take it from here,” is lying to you.
3. Allow Doubt – Our children need to be able to voice spiritual doubt to their parents without a negative reaction. If college is the first time they feel safe to question their faith, they run a much greater risk of walking away from it altogether. Faith is not the absence of doubt. In fact, working through doubt is almost always necessary for developing faith. If we walk through that process with our kids, we can gently point them to Christ while sympathizing with their struggle.
4. Recognize Inevitable Hypocrisy – Nobody is perfect, Christians included. Our kids don’t expect it. However, if we don’t recognize those moments we mess up, and apologize to our children, then our kids will think there is a Christian expectation of perfection and thus assume hypocrisy. The church is only filled with hypocrites if the expectation is perfection. If we own our mistakes and recognize the inevitable hypocrisy of claiming Christ but still sinning, then we as parents can help develop a more realistic and grace-based expectation of Christianity into our kids.

Yes, you read the title correctly. For those of you who may not be familiar with the term frienemy, Urban Dictionary defines it as “someone who is a friend, but at times becomes your enemy.” If you have teenagers, use it in front of them and you will be guaranteed to impress them with how cool you are. Also, tell them you are Team Jacob…

As strange as it may sound, I’m so glad teenagers invented this word. It perfectly describes the relationship between parents and technology. Technology is our friend. It has connected us to the rest of the world in a way unimaginable 100 years ago. It enables us to stay in touch with family, even see them through things like Skype or FaceTime. Technology has opened up doors for sharing the gospel, developing believers, and strengthening church community. Technology is our friend.

But, at times, it’s also our enemy, especially when it comes to our kids. The Internet is an incredible research tool, but it is also easy access to hundreds of thousands of pornographic websites. Computers and cell phones are a great way for our children to connect with friends and family members, but they can also foster cyber bullying. When used in moderation, video games can be a lot of fun, but in excess can become addictions that breed laziness in our children.

The question is: What should we do with our frienemy? Technology is our friend, but it can also be our enemy. What is the best way to handle technology in our home?

What not to do:

• Ban it – Technology is dangerous, but it is not going anywhere. Banning technology in our homes would be like banning weapons in Boot Camp. It may make Boot Camp a bit safer, but it doesn’t prepare you for war. The home is the perfect place for your children to learn the friendly side of technology and how it can help them thrive in the technological world around them. The Internet is not going away. Banning technology is only going to make kids more susceptible to its danger once they’re out of the home and on their own.
• Do Nothing – Technology is incredibly helpful, but it is also dangerous. It would be wrong to give soldiers in boot camp a bunch of guns without any oversight, instruction, or restrictions. In the same way, giving our children unlimited access to technology without any oversight is a recipe for disaster. This stuff is dangerous if not used properly. To do nothing when it comes to technology in our homes is tantamount to inviting Satan into our living room and saying, “Make yourself comfortable.” We cannot afford to be naive.

What to do:

• Set Age Appropriate Boundaries. So much of the “enemy” side of technology can be avoided by well-thought through boundaries. If we are worried about our younger kids getting addicted to TV, then set aside a time during the day when they can watch it, and then turn it off the rest of the time. If we are worried how Internet access might tempt our teenager, then keep the computer in the living room instead of his bedroom. Boundaries will help children develop a healthy attitude towards technology while guarding against the traps of their immaturity.
• Model Appropriate Use. One of the best ways to handle the “frienemy” that is technology in our homes is by showing our kids appropriate ways to use it. Our children are watching us and how we use our cell phones, TV, and computers, so we have the opportunity to teach them by showing.
• Talk About the Potential Dangers. A conversation can go a long way. Ask your kids about temptations? Talk with them about what they think they can handle and be willing to point out blind spots they might have. Our children may be more natural with technology, but we still have them beat in experience and wisdom.

Technology doesn’t need to be a frienemy in our homes. By setting appropriate boundaries, modeling appropriate use, and talking about potential dangers, technology can become a huge asset in building strengthening our families in a postmodern world.

For more information about Technology and your Children see Dr. Kimmel’s post – Kids and Technology.  Be sure to also read a recent newsletter article and Little House on the Freeway (available in book and audio form).

It was a rainy day outside of Chancellorsville, Virginia. I had just turned thirteen. To my left across the train tracks was a non-descript 19^th century home where a man died 134 years before. The man’s name was Stonewall Jackson, and despite his being a general for the Confederacy, he was respected by all to be one of the best General’s America has ever produced.

My dad and I were in our car soaking wet. After having ran out to peer through the windows of the General’s final resting place, we now sat in the car with the rain pouring around us reading Jeff Shaara’s chapter on Jackson’s death. I was a Civil War buff growing up, so I had read about his death before. But this was different. This was a moment that someone writes into stories, and I was living it.

Every child is writing his or her story. The school they go to, the friends they have, the hobbies they maintain will all be a part of the legacy they leave. As parent’s, we have a role in writing their story. My dad could have brought me an article to read about the battle of Chancellorsville and Stonewall Jackson’s tragic fate, and I may have remembered the facts just fine. But instead he helped me live the history. Instead of the knowledge being the boring part that always gets glossed over, it became one of those moments in a movie you rewind and watch over and over again.

Our children’s generation is in need of a better story. Their generation is desperate for faith to be an adventure not a statement, for values to mean more than a catch phrase, and for education to be more than a series of books, tests and papers. I am no expert and this is merely a ventured guess, but I think one of the most glaring problems facing the youth of today when it comes to religion and Christian values is boredom.

Our kids are bored with the story we are helping them write. The religious interactions we provide are often times cliché, the means of learning trite, and the Bible we present has no more depth than the felt board Bible Studies presented in Sunday school. So how do we change? How can we help our children write a better story that will draw them closer to God’s heart? Here are a few things you as a parent can write into your child’s life to help cure the pervasive boredom of this generation.

1. Risky Adventures

One of the most important elements of a good story is the presence of risk. Indiana Jones would not be a good story if instead of finding treasure in the Amazon with stones rolling at him he just analyzed the treasures in the museum. This may seem counterintuitive to your role as a parent, but its important to allow some danger into the life of your child. I’m not suggesting you let your kids run around with knives. What I mean is that by protecting them from any and all scenarios through which they could get hurt, we are hurting them more by making their story boring, especially when it comes to faith.

When I was 17, I traveled to India for two weeks with a Missions organization by myself. People thought my parents were crazy for letting me go. There were risks in traveling, dangers in the area I was going, and the chance that things could go catastrophically wrong. But on that trip I learned about faith, human need, poverty, and courage in a way I had never learned before. I preached my first sermon in India and felt a call into ministry that helped dictate my life’s direction. As risky as that trip was for me, the greater risk would have been not going and missing out on an adventure that changed my life and deepened my faith. To write a better story for our kids, we need to encourage risky adventures.

2. Serve Together Consistently

The usual M. O. for spiritual training as a family is go to church together on Sundays, AWANA or Youth Group during the week, and maybe family Bible studies on Saturday morning. These are all good things, but I’m going to suggest these are not enough. As Christians, we can’t truly experience God’s passions unless we are consistently expending ourselves for the sake of others.

It’s great that our kids memorize Scripture, but if they don’t see how it is lived out in a way that costs something it will have a difficult time connecting. Volunteer once a month with an inner-city ministry together, go on a short term missions trip as a family, cook meals for refugees and immigrants in your cities, give up things you’re family wants to help hurting friends.  Consistently serving together as a family will help the Bible come alive to kids and enrich the spiritual story being written into their lives.

3. Seek out Opportunities to Experience Knowledge

My wife and I live in Dallas. As our son Kyler gets older, I could easily pull up a website or get a book teaching him about Kennedy’s assassination. We could probably find the Zapruder film online and watch that together. That would be sufficient, but it wouldn’t be best. It would be better for me to put him in the car, drive him twenty minutes to Dealy Plaza, and show him where it happened. Kyler could stand where Lee Harvey Oswald stood in the Book Depository Building and look onto the street at the two subtle stripes painted to commemorate where Kennedy was shot.

The same goes for faith. If we really want a child to learn, whether they are young or teenagers, we need to do everything we can to help them experience the truths we’re trying to teach. I may have remembered that Stonewall Jackson died in a little bungalow outside of Chancellorsville, but after the experience, it’s a fact I will never forget. A good story is full of experiences that shape character. As parents we have the privilege of building those unique experiences into our kids and healing the boredom brought on by the predictable serial novels of Christianity lulling our children to sleep.

In my first post, I discussed how to teach your kids values in a world of pluralism. As parents, we are facing very new and unique challenges as the world becomes increasingly more postmodern. Part of the challenge is that our kids are growing up in a culture we often don’t understand. The way we learned growing up isn’t necessarily the way they learn things. Our sympathies aren’t necessarily theirs.

Although we are speaking the same language, our words may often get lost in cultural translation. I know that if I were to sit down for dinner with my wife and ask her how her day was in English and her respond in Arabic, it would be difficult to communicate. The same can be true with our kids. As parents, we owe it to ourselves to do all that we can to learn the language of our kids, so, in this series, I am going to cover what I feel are three big aspects of the language of postmodern culture that we as parents should know to communicate well with our kids.

Here is the first point that we discussed in Part 1

1. “Because I Said So!” Really Won’t Work-

2. The Online World is a an Extension of their Social World-

3. Heightened Sensitivity to Minority Groups

 I personally can’t stand reality TV. I think the walls of hell will be covered with screens playing re-runs of Real Housewives of Atlanta and Sister Wives. But that’s just me. Despite my entertainment preferences, the rise of reality TV is a great example of an important trend in postmodern culture. Granted, a lot of reality TV is just another manifestation of an oversexed entertainment industry catering to an oversexed culture that has existed since forever. However, with the rise of shows like Sister Wives, Pawn Stars, Little People Big World, and Dirty Jobs, the voices that were once silent in pop culture now have both a voice and a platform.

The postmodern generation, because of the oppressive tendencies of those in power in previous years, has in many ways gone to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum in elevating the oppressed and misunderstood minority. Many of the Reality TV shows on air today are great examples of this. Implied in these shows is the message that we need to not only see the different approach to life these people may have, but also respect it.

So what does this mean for us as parents? Our children are surrounded by a culture with a hyper-sensitivity to minority groups. This sensitivity doesn’t only extend to issues like race, but to sexuality issues, environmental issues, and political issues. Although this sensitivity can be taken too far and there is a definite balance that we as parents need to help maintain, thistendency is good news.

When your kids come home from school wanting to recycle more or help raise funds to save endangered seals in Alaska, don’t immediately call them a “Tree-hugging Liberal”, and schedule an impromptu hunting trip. Recognize the compassion growing in them. When our kids come home wanting to invite their friend with two dads over so they can be friends and better understand them, don’t immediately enroll them in a monastery or convent. Recognize the compassion growing in them.

The sensitivity to minorities might be driven by humanistic and self-serving impulses in our culture, but they can be driven by Christ in our kids. It was Jesus who gave a voice to the blind men, the lepers, the prostitutes and demon possessed. When our kids show compassion towards the marginalized, even with environmental issues, we can show them that they are following the example of Jesus. By doing so, not only do we take advantage of great opportunities to teach our children about Jesus, but we also participate in redeeming a postmodern world for Jesus!