Category: Family

A Dad’s Prayer

Dear Father,

May my kids never have to wonder if they are special.  Please enable me to love them so thoroughly and lavishly that they never feel the need to seek love in wrong or unhealthy places.  I pray that they would understand that they have been created beautiful, gifted and unique. 

You have repeatedly revealed to me how influential friends can be.  Please help my kids to find and choose good friends—friend who will lead them toward you instead of away.  I pray that they would find great peace and joy in friendships.  

I confess that I am particularly worried about boys.  There are so few quality boys and men in our culture.  Please bring a few good ones into my kids’ lives and protect them from the ones who would use them or lead them down destructive paths.

Wisdom is a rare commodity.  Like Solomon, I ask for it but in this case, not for me but rather for my kids.  May they become skilled in reading people’s intentions.  Give my children the ability to foresee how decisions will impact their future and may they possess the wisdom to choose the best paths.

In the midst of a busy life full of distractions, remind and help me to engage my kids.  I want to put them first.  Remind me to put down my phone and leave my work at the office.  May the way that I engage my kids always remind them of how valuable and important they are to me and by extension, You.

You have made each of my 4 kids incredibly unique. Teach me to become a student of my kids.  I want to help them discover who You have made them to be.  I want to dream for them and help them run after the purposes You have for them.  Reveal to me and then to them their passions and gifts.  I want nothing more than for my kids to live in that sweet spot of who You’ve made them to be combined with the mission You are pursuing in the world.    

I want to pray that You would keep my kid safe, but there is something I desire much more than safety.  I want their lives to matter.  Build into them a passionate and reckless faith.  Place a burning in their heart for injustice.  May the troubles of this world break their hearts to the degree that they can’t sit by and watch.  I want my kids to jump in and get messy.  And yet, my father’s heart pleads with You to protect them as they battle the injustice of this world.

Lastly, I pray that You would keep me close and devoted to my wife.  I desperately want a healthy family for my children.  I pray that our marriage would always be a source of strength and peace for my kids.  May they never have to wonder if we love each other or if we will stay together.

Your Son,

Aaron

Influencing Boys Toward Greatness | Leadership

I can’t remember the last male character on TV who was a leader.  OK, take out every super hero/Jack Bauer type character.  If a man isn’t single handedly saving the world he is a sally—see every sitcom husband ever.

Let me make a clarification.  By leadership I do not mean dominance.  There are plenty of guys out there who know how to get what they want through dominance and abuse.  The leadership I’m talking about is others first.  It’s the kind of leadership that draws out the best in others.  It empowers others to become who God made them to be and rallies people around the mission of Christ in the world.

When I think of my sons, this is what I want.  I want my boys to grow into men who inspire, empower and lead the way.  So, how do you get there?  How do you teach a boy to become a leader modeled after Jesus?

LEADERSHIP IS CAUGHT NOT TAUGHT

Nearly everything in our culture teaches boys to be selfish.  “It’s all about you.”  “Have it your way.”  “Wear this and women will want you.”

If we want our boys to become others focused leaders, we have to understand that we’re going against the flow of culture.  They won’t become the leaders we want them to be without first seeing it.  Specifically, they need to see us doing it.  The boys in your youth ministry and in your family will lead exactly how they see you leading.  Be the leader you want your boys to be.

One of the best ways to do model others first leadership is through volunteering.  Volunteer together with your son.  Encourage the boys in your youth group to serve in the children’s ministry.  Take your family on mission trips.  Serve together and they will catch others first leadership.

TEACH HIM TO LEAD IN RELATIONSHIPS

To be frank, many guys in our culture approach relationships asking a simple question:  “What can I get out of this?”  For the record, that’s called exploitation.  Great men don’t exploit women.  They empower and liberate.

At the risk of offending everyone in the universe, I believe that great men lead in relationships.  Before you start writing that hate comment just hear me out.  I think men ought to protect women by taking the lead on physical boundaries.  Unfortunately, many guys are out to get what they can in relationships and many girls are lonely enough that they will trade purity for perceived intimacy.

The world needs men who are more interested in protecting women and bringing the best out in them than getting what they can.   My dream is that my daughters would date guys who are man enough to be upfront about their physical and emotional boundaries and that they would lead the way in maintaining these boundaries.

We need to train the boys in our families and youth ministries to respect women by leading them.  Their role is to protect women, not take advantage of them.  Help boys clearly define their physical boundaries and then help them learn how to communicate and maintain these boundaries with girls.

Also, help them understand how powerfully their words can impact a woman.  Teach him to be careful with his words.  Again, the goal is to protect and empower women—no to get what you can from them.  That’s exploitation.

Great men lead.  They don’t dominant or exploit.  They put others first and empower the people around them.  To influence boys toward greatness, we must learn to lead in the same way.

 

 

Influencing Boys Toward Greatness | Purpose

Many of the young men I’ve talked with lately are all feeling the same crippling emotion:  aimlessness.  I believe that most of this generation’s men are lost.  They don’t know what their purpose is in life.

Great men know what they are about.  They know why God put them on this earth.  They have a sense of destiny and direction.

Today, I’m finishing up a week of blogging about raising great boys.  If we want boys to lead significant lives, they must know their purpose —they must know what God made they to do.  So, how in the world do you help a boy figure this out?  You must uncover it with him.

BOYS NEED TO BE TOLD

When God created Adam, He placed him in the garden, told him who he was and why he was on the earth.  He gave him a name and a job.  I’m almost certain that without being told, Adam would have been thoroughly confused about what he was supposed to be doing.  “I didn’t know what else to do so I invented the tropical fish tank…”

Like Adam, boys need to be told who they are and why they are here.  It’s just not in our nature as humans to figure this stuff out on our own.  As a parent or youth worker, it’s your privilege and duty to become a student of the boys under your care and to help them uncover their wiring, gifting, passions and ultimately, purpose.

EXPERIMENT

No one expects you to be able to diagnose a boy’s life passion and purpose overnight.  These things are like science experiments.  You develop a hypothesis and you test it.  Most of the time your hypothesis is wrong but it moves you one step closer to the truth.

As boys progress through life, let them experiment.  Push them to try all kinds of stuff.  Somewhere along the line a boy will experience something that awakens something buried deep within him.  He will light up.  Take note:  these experiences probably have something to do with his wiring, gifting, passions and purpose.

MISSION

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that life is most meaningful when our passions and gifts are aligned with what God is doing in the world.  It’s crucially important that we as parents and youth workers help our boys understand the compelling and life altering mission of the Church.  It’s vital that our boys understand what God’s mission is in the world and how we can join in.

When a man finds himself at the intersection of his passions, purpose and the mission of God in the world, he will find life and meaning—and more of it than he ever imagined was possible.

EXIT THE MATRIX

We need to be honest for a second, rich and meaningful lives are not easy to come by.  In fact, it is hard to live a life of purpose.  There is always immense opposition within and outside of us, pushing us to accept mediocrity.  This is part of the reason that boys find video games so compelling.  Without a whole lot of actual work, he can be the hero.  He can create, battle evil, save the girl, or even conquer the world.

The temptation so many young men fall into is retreating into false worlds where they can live rich and meaningful lives of purpose while accepting mediocre or worse in their real lives.

Look, I love video games.  I really do.  However, far too many guys are OBSESSED with video games—playing them for hours and hours every day.  Meanwhile the real world is suffering.  The church needs young men who will run after Jesus and partner with him in bringing heaven to earth every day.

If you are a parent, build boundaries around video games and help your son uncover who God created him to be and what he is calling him to do in this world.  If you are a youth worker, model boundaries with video games.  If you are a young man, unplug and dive into the Kingdom.  There is so much work to be done.  There is far too much injustice on this broken planet for us to keep shooting each other over and over on the same Black Ops maps night after night.

We need to help boys build boundaries around video games so that they don’t overtake and ultimately replace their lives.  Like most everything, video games can be used in a healthy way but it is difficult, especially for a young teenage boy, to find the balance.

 

 

Lessons on Porn from the British

 

Apparently the leaders of the British government have had enough of pornography.  David Cameron, the Prime Minister of gave a speech recently in which he announced that pornography is “corroding childhood.”  He announced that “family-friendly filters would be automatically selected for all new [Internet] customers by the end of the year – although they could choose to switch them off.   And millions of existing computer users would be contacted by their internet providers and told they must decide whether to use or not use ‘family-friendly filters’ to restrict adult material.”

If you’d like to read an article that describes this in detail, click here.

What I appreciate about Cameron’s speech is not that his measures will stop people from viewing pornography because people who want to watch porn will find a way.  What I appreciate is that he is willing to call pornography wrong.  He took a stand to protect the children of his nation.

Secondly, I do believe that Cameron’s initiatives could push back how early children see pornography.  Based on the testimonies of students and volunteers that I’ve interacted with, most people’s first contact with pornography happens unintentionally and almost always through the Internet.

With that said, we as parents and youth workers need to come to terms with the fact that kids will see pornography.  The latest statistics that I’ve seen reveal that 98% of boys have seen pornography by age 18.  More and more kids are introduced to pornography while in elementary school.  So what do we do?  How to do help our children navigate this?  Here are a few thoughts:

CHANGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS

First, we need to come to terms with the fact that our children will see pornography.  The age where we could keep them from the destructive influence of porn is gone.  Now, we must learn to help them navigate a culture in which sex is pervasive.

This doesn’t mean that we simply surrender.  In fact, it means that we must be even more vigilant.  The first step is to help our elementary age children understand that pornography is wrong. And, if they run into it we want them to talk to us about it.  We want our children to process their introduction to porn with us, not friends or the Internet.

 

MONITOR YOUR KIDS

Watch what your kids are doing online.  Set up filters when they are young to protect them.  And when they are older, use X3watch.  This is a tool that will email you (or any accountability partner) any sketchy sites that your child visited.  It is an accountability tool.  In my opinion, accountability is better than filters because your child will learn to navigate around filters.   X3watch can lead to conversations between you and your child, which is exactly what your child will need.

 

 

 

PORNOGRAPHY IS A DRUG

One of the ways you can help our kids is by explaining the dangers of pornography.  We need to stop simply saying, “Don’t do it because it is wrong.”  Kids aren’t dumb.  They need to understand for themselves why it is dangerous.  This video does a nice job of explaining how pornography affects the brain in the way drugs do.

PUBLIC SCREENS

Computers are relatively easy to monitor.  Just keep the computer in a public space in your home.  Smart phones and tablets are a different story.  It is alarming that kids can access pornography anywhere at any time from a device they keep in their pocket.

When setting up boundaries, don’t forget about mobile devices.  A good rule is to require that your kids’ phones be charged in a public place overnight.  Keep all screens in public places.  Also, consider putting X3watch on mobile devices as well.

COMPASSION NOT ANGER

The way we respond to our kids when they confess to looking at porn or when we receive an email from X3watch that reveals what our kids have been looking at will determine whether or not our kids will trust us with accountability and honesty in the future.  Respond with compassion and help rather than anger and disappointment.

Especially for teenage boys, pornography is overpowering.  They need help navigating our over-sexualized culture rather than a guilt trip.  Help them set up boundaries.  Yes, consequences are still important but make them constructive.

The stories I hear of students overcoming pornography always involve them coming clean with their parents (particularly their dads) and their parents responding with compassion, love and healthy consequences and boundaries.

 

 

4 Things Great Dads Do

I loved seeing all the tweets, posts and pictures about fathers yesterday.  The question I was mulling over yesterday afternoon was this:  What exactly makes for a great father?  Here’s what I came up with:

1.       LOVE YOUR WIFE

Nowhere in our culture do we see healthy marriages—not on TV, not in movies, rarely at your kid’s friend’s house.  Good marriages are a lost art.  Please understand that you are probably the only chance your kids have at seeing a good marriage.  Put your love on display.  Treasure your wife, take her out, take her on vacation, kiss her in front of your kids and talk about her with your kids like she is the queen of the world.

It’s never too late to start doing this.  It doesn’t matter if it’s your first or fourteenth marriage or if you’re divorced and single.  Even the way you talk about your ex-wife is important.  Teach your children to value women for more than just their bodies.

2.       A GREAT DAD MODELS FAITH

Kids learn by watching.  Unfortunately, in many families, faith is something that only happens on Sunday morning.  If you want your kids to develop a faith that permeates every aspect of their life then you need to live out that kind of faith in front of them.

Deuteronomy  6 is a great template for how to live out faith in your home:

6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Translation:  talk about your faith all the time!  Let your kids see how it affects your decisions, the way you talk, how you handle your money and what media you engage with.  The truth is that your kids will most likely end up with the same faith you have.  Will you be happy with the result?

3.       A GREAT DAD INVESTS IN HIS KIDS

Kids need attention.  I’m talking about 2 year olds and 20 year olds. One of the greatest mistakes I see dads making is not spending time enough with their kids.  Dads are too busy.

There is no greater investment that you can make.  No one, upon their death bed has ever said, “I spent way too much time with my kids.”  At the end, nearly every person wishes they had invested more in what matters.

Fathers, your kids crave your attention, affection, and words.  If you give to them liberally as they are growing up you are very likely to have a close relationship with them as they grow older.  Work can wait.  Your kids won’t.

4.       A GREAT DAD HOLDS THE LINE

Kids don’t naturally make good decisions.  They are fallen creatures who are bent towards selfishness and destructive habits.  I see too many tired dads giving up on boundaries as their kids get older.  Please don’t.  Believe it or not, kids want boundaries and they will grow up to be better people because of them.  Hold the line.  Don’t give up.  Your kids need your authority in their lives.