Youth Culture Today with Walt Mueller

All this week we’re looking at what it means for us as Christian parents to entrust our children to God. To entrust your children to God is to teach them doctrine. Our children and teens are seeking answers to two basic developmental questions: “Who am I?” and “What do I believe” Thanks to smartphones and social media, culture is catechizing our kids around the clock. While they turn to their devices to make sense of life in the world, we must lead them into the life-giving Word of God, which is the only source of Truth. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 reminds us that we are to be intentional about constantly and diligently teaching them God’s Word, showing them how it speaks to all of life. Our approach is to be multi-sensory as we talk, sit, walk, lie down, and rise up with God’s Word on our lips and our lives. We teach sound doctrine by enlisting the tools of age-appropriate Catechisms, family devotions, and the everyday teachable moments that offer opportunities to pass on the truths of God’s Word.

All this week we’re looking at what it means for us as Christian parents to entrust our children to God. One of the most important things to remember is that to entrust your children to God is to tend to yourself. I love Tedd Tripp’s definition of parenting as “shepherding the hearts of your children in the ways of God’s wisdom.” It follows that the only way we can effectively nurture our children in the ways of God’s wisdom is to be constantly nurturing ourselves. The Apostle Paul’s words to the Colossians tell us that “therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving”. We can only lead our children to where we are. If you want your children to walk the road of discipleship and to love Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, we have to do the same ourselves. Take stock of your life, and ask God to show you where change is needed.

My fourteen-year-old self had gone to bed at my usual 9pm time. Two hours later, I woke up to use the bathroom. While walking undetected past my parents darkened room, I not only heard my dad whispering, but I heard him whispering my name. It was at that unforgettable moment that I learned that my parents’ bedtime routine included intercession on behalf of their three children. I had been blessed with parents whose only stated hope for me was that I would grow up to love, follow, and serve Jesus Christ. As Christian parents, our hope for our children should be the same. The good news is that parents always exercise the greatest influence on the spiritual lives of their children. God has established the home as the primary arena for spiritual nurture. This influence is effectively exercised as we entrust our children to God, which includes certain responsibilities that He has entrusted to us. Listen in all this week as we talk about how to entrust our children to God.

There’s some new data on teenagers and vaping that deserves our attention. Published in the journal Pediatrics, the data looks at trends in vaping behaviors among our eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders. Near daily vaping was admitted by one-point-seven percent of eighth graders, four-point-two percent of tenth graders, and almost eight percent of twelfth graders. When asked why they vape, the three top reasons are these: to relax and relieve stress was number one, cited by over seventy percent of those kids who vaped daily. Second on the list was experimentation, and coming in at third was vaping to relieve boredom. Other reasons cited include the taste, feeling good, convenience, and to have a good time. Parents, be aware that there are numerous health issues related to vaping. It is not safe. Take the time to raise your awareness of the consequences of vaping, warn your kids, and direct them to the Lord who promises to minister to them in their stress and anxiety.

A recent article in the UK’s “Daily Telegraph” newspaper is reporting on an online behavior happening over the pond that it is very reasonable to assume is happening here in the United States at the same or a very similar rate. Researchers in the U.K. have found that the majority of children on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat are lying about their age and date of birth in order to appear older and bypass age restrictions in order to get on the platforms. In fact, most children have never been asked by the platforms to prove or verify their age when signing up. The survey of children between the ages of eight and seventeen found that fifty-eight percent of kids on TikTok, fifty-two percent of kids on Instagram, and fifty-six percent of kids on SnapChat had a false date of birth on their profile to make them appear older. Parents, these age limits are there to protect our kids, and we must teach them to honor them. In addition, the Lord calls all of us to tell the truth and not bear false witness.

One of the most beautiful and telling aspects of the Genesis Creation narrative relates to the importance of relationships. In Genesis one twenty-six we read these words, “Then God said, ‘Let US make man in OUR image.” The God who created human beings as the crowning point of creation is a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And out of that divine relationship comes the creation of those who God said later in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Relationships are a key part of our humanity. We are made for them, and it is reasonable to assume that without them, our flourishing and well-being are undermined. Because of that, it’s not surprising that scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that teens who spend time alone in their rooms, even while relating to others online, are actually isolated in ways that lead to excessive worry, feeling unsafe, and lonely. Your kids need flesh and blood social interaction. They’ve been made for it.

As Christian parents, we are called to raise our kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We must be doing what we can to lead them into an adulthood that is spiritually, emotionally, relationally, intellectually, AND physically healthy. Their physical health depends greatly on how we teach them to steward their God-given bodies during their childhood and teenage years. One aspect of this that’s related to today’s youth culture regards caffeine intake. Are you aware, for example, that your local quickmart drink coolers are filled with aggressively marketed caffeine-infused energy drinks that appeal to teens? And, are you aware that ER visits due to eating or drinking too much caffeine have doubled among middle school kids, and almost doubled for our high schoolers between 2017 and 2023? Parents, we need to educate our kids on God-honoring matters of health and on the dangers of caffeine intake, along with setting borders and boundaries for their consumption.

I recently read through a report on teens and screens from the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at the University of California. I want you to hear these important words from the reports introduction: “An alarming proportion of today’s adolescents are facing unprecedented mental health challenges, and they are inundated with storytelling media that exerts a powerful influence. Media is more present than ever before, with many estimates indicating that youth spend up to nine hours on screens outside of school. Screens and the internet touch every aspect of a young person’s life – school, communication with friends, and leisure activities. Adolescents learn from these images and messages; thus, storytellers can and should be mindful of the social-emotional influence they have on the next generation.” Parents, are you listening? We have a responsibility to not only set limits, but to help our kids to bring God glory by thinking critically and Christianly about all the media they consume.

I recently read through the report on teens and media from the University of California and found some thought-provoking data. The report is titled “Reality Bites: Teens and Screens 2024.” There’s some good news coming from the survey regarding what our kids think about friendship and sexuality. In 2023, over fifty percent of adolescents desired content that focused on platonic relationships and friendships In 2024, that number had increased to over sixty-three percent! In 2023, just over forty-seven percent of adolescents said that sex and sexual content are not needed to advance the plot of TV shows and/or movies. In 2024 that number increased to over sixty-two percent. We can assume that our kids are longing for relationships, and the content they seek reflects that desire. Parents, lets go out of our way to teach our kids about developing healthy relationships with friends, about living out God’s good design for sex and sexuality, and for glorifying God in all things.

With the New Year upon us and resolutions being made here, there, and everywhere, let me suggest a parenting and family priority that all of us can institute in our homes with our kids. In the past, I’ve shared some of the data regarding the decline in reading among children and teens, much of that occasioned by time spent doing other things like scrolling through their phones or playing video games. You’ve also heard that there are negative outcomes related to reading less, including a decline in critical thinking skills, knowledge retention, and comprehension. New data from UNESCO reports that nearly half of kids ages twelve to fifteen globally cannot read with comprehension. They are unable to connect main ideas, understand the author’s intentions, or draw reasoned conclusions. Of course, this includes kids who do and do not attend school. Reading develops our God-given minds. Reading our Bibles grows us. Facilitate more reading for your kids in 2025!

A blessed and happy New Year to you! 2024 is now in the past and we look forward with great expectation and perhaps a bit of trepidation to 2025. Today is a perfect day for you to sit with your kids and talk about the days in which we live, the reasonable expectations we must have, and where to find our hope. I’ve gotten into the habit of using each and every New Year’s Day to pause and pray. I thank the Lord for another year. I ask his blessing on my family. I ask Him to protect us from harm and to provide for our well-being. And, because our world is filled with brokenness, there will be unexpected bumps in the road during the coming year. I ask the Lord to prepare me to handle whatever may come. Perhaps today you can share these words from Psalm thirty-three with your family: Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

“Be sure to look them in the eye and say please and thank you.” If you grew up in home like mine, you constantly heard those words from your mother as she was training you to be kind and polite in social situations. I learned that lesson well and hope that we were successful in passing it on to our own kids. New research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has found that when family members show appreciation and gratitude to each other through saying “thank you”, relationships are strengthened and mental health improves. For married couples, showing gratitude to your partner improves relationship satisfaction and mental health. When a child expresses thanks to a parent, parenting stress is actually reduced. As Christian parents, we want to be sure to teach our kids that all good things come from God, including the gift of salvation. Point them to I Chronicles 16:34: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

I recently read through the report on teens and media from the University of California and found some thought-provoking data. The report is titled “Reality Bites: Teens and Screens 2024.” As I was reading through the survey there was one bit of data that caused me to pause, and I want to pass it on to you. This question was asked to the ten to twenty-four year olds who participated in the survey: “At what age did you start using social media?” Now remember that the major social media platforms require users to be at least thirteen years old to create an account. The reason for this is compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Remember too, that there is growing movement to keep kids off social media until the age of sixteen. So, how did respondents answer the question regarding when they started using social media? Fifty-one- point-five percent, over half, started using social media under the age of thirteen, with many at or under age ten. Parents, what about your kids?

It’s been said that when it comes to fashion and style, what goes around comes around. And, in one of the most mind-boggling recent fashion trends, today’s teens are proving this to be true. In a recent article in of all places Country Living Magazine, writer Katie Bowley throws this headline at us: “Cracker Barrel’s Grandma Sweatshirts Are The Newest Gen Z Trend.” Yes, you heard that right. Teenagers are heading to the Cracker Barrel gift shops and buying those sweatshirts embroidered with nature scenes and animals which arepopular with older. Thanks to promotion of the trend through TikTok videos hawking the sweatshirts as stylish for the younger set, Cracker Barrell has seen a seven-hundred percent increase in sales of the sweatshirts since the early fall. This sounds very similar to what happened a couple of years ago when the old school Stanley water bottles suddenly became stylish. This is a refreshing trend, as the sweatshirts are costing our kids the relatively low price of thirty dollars.

One of the best tools at your disposal for tracking changes in youth culture is the dictionary. That’s right, the dictionary. I say this because the rate of cultural change is now so fast that those who publish dictionaries are constantly removing words deemed irrelevant and no longer usable, while adding words that reflect cultural change. Earlier this month, the folks at the Oxford Dictionary actually named one of these new words, brain rot, as the word of the year for 2024. Oxford defines brain rot as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material, usually online content, considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” The word was chosen to reflect what our consumption of excessive amounts of low-quality online content is doing to our brains, our relationships, and our lives. Parents, stop your constant scrolling and teach your kids to do the same. Let’s promote heart for God flourishing.

Since today is the day that we celebrate Christmas, I thought I would take some time to share one of my favorite Christmas scriptures. In the Gospel of Luke, we are told that eight days after his birth, Jesus was brought by Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem to be circumcised. While there, they took Jesus into the temple where an upright man by the name of Simeon took the infant in his arms. God had promised Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ with his own eyes. As he looks upon the Messiah, Simeon says, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” I can only imagine the joy that Simeon felt. This Christmas, our desire for you and your family is that you will all rejoice with great satisfaction in the coming of your Savior. Have a very blessed Christmas!

Some of my greatest and most treasured childhood memories revolve around Christmas eve. In our house, Christmas eve was a time of great anticipation. Yes, we would be opening presents the next morning so there was certainly plenty of excitement about what would show up under the tree. The house always smelled great as my mom would be already working on preparing our Christmas feast by baking cookies and pies. We would play with the train set that only appeared in our house during the month of December. All of those memories are wonderful. But what I remember most about Christmas Eve was going to our church for the annual Christmas Eve service. It was there that we were once again reminded of the story of God’s incredible gift of salvation through his son, Jesus Christ. As you gather to celebrate Christmas, remember that your kids are bombarded by all kinds of life-shaping stories in today’s youth culture. Take time to tell them the one story that matters.

In just two days we’ll be gathering with family and friends to celebrate Christmas. This is the day when we celebrate the amazing grace of God in the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer. I’m assuming that most of us will benefit from the reminders to not allow all the distractions of the season to keep us from understanding and truly celebrating the Incarnation. I know that I need to hear those reminders. And based on some recent research from the folks at Lifeway, we increasingly need to think about celebrating Christmas by gathering with others in our local churches to worship the God who became man. Lifeway has found that while nine out of ten Americans do something to celebrate Christmas, less than half now plan to attend church to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Forty-seven percent say they typically attend church, forty-eight percent say they do not, and five percent are unsure if they will. Make sure you and your family gathers with others to worship the newborn King.

Today, we’re concluding our look at marketing’s influence on our kids. One result of the marketing push is that we’ve got a culture of kids locked into consumer debt. The message they get from advertising is that life is about consumption, and whether it’s their money or a credit card company’s money they are borrowing, they are entitled to spend whenever the urge hits them. Many of today’s kids will be buried deep in consumer debt long before they marry and start a family. Advertising and the materialism it fosters steers us away from the one true God and towards idols. They steer us away from Jesus Christ, the one and only source of redemption, to the false promises of other “messiahs” and redeemers. Today’s marketing blitz encourages our teens to create, pursue, and worship false gods, all the while leaving our kids more and more empty. Parents, what are you doing to point your kids to the cross?

Today we’re continuing to look at marketing’s powerful influence on children and teens. The glut of advertising to kids can lead them to understand life in economic terms. Each and every one of us, including our kids, has been created by God, for God, and to be in a relationship with God, living His will and His way under his reign. But advertising consistently sends the message that “it’s all about you.” Consequently our kids get it all wrong regarding who should reside at the center of their worldview and who should be in control of their lives. In addition, marketing’s materialistic messages have led to the virtue of compassion being replaced by competition. God calls us to self-sacrificing lives of compassion. The message of today’s market-driven world is the exact opposite. Instead of looking out for others, we are to look out for number one. In this kind of world we are most concerned about our selves. And that’s a shame.

Today we’re continuing our look at how marketing influences children and teens. As materialism takes root and grows, kids become more impulsive, buying without evaluating or thinking about the difference between wants and needs. Kids wind up wanting to acquire products they really don’t need, but they want them for the perceived emotional and quality of life benefits they promise. Marketing has also influenced kids to work more in order to have more. Those who have jobs are working longer hours, making it difficult to stay involved in other activities including church youth groups, school activities, service projects, and family time. While some kids work to save money for future educational needs, a growing number are working long hours in order to fund and sustain large luxury items including cars, audio systems, and cell phones. Parents, are your kids working for the right reasons?

Today, we’re continuing our look at how marketing influences our children and teens. As I’ve studied teen marketing over the years, it’s clear that there are short and long-term effects and results of advertising. Parents must think about how these results and effects square up to who our kids should be as followers of Christ. One result is that materialism is becoming more deeply embedded in our teenagers’ lives. Because they are being marketed to with increasing frequency and depth, vulnerable kids find it easier to believe advertising’s messages and promises. They define themselves by their possessions, seeking happiness, satisfaction, meaning, and redemption in the accumulation of things. Kids buy into a live to consume rather than a consume to live mentality. Talk with your kids about marketing’s messages, and how these messages agree or disagree with what Jesus has to say about money and materialism.

Take a look around and you’ll quickly notice that advertising is everywhere. It’s especially pervasive in the lives our teenagers, who are, by the way, the most targeted market segment in the world. Consequently, marketing functions as a map that sits unfolded in the laps of vulnerable teens who are looking to find their way from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood. Advertising’s 24/7 presence takes advantage of the fact that more and more kids are growing up in broken families, thus making them more hungry for the guidance and direction that they aren’t getting at home. Marketing is telling our kids what to think, what to value, what to believe, what to worship, and how to spend their money and lives. Listen in over the next few days as we look at how marketing’s shaping our kids, along with a Christian response.

Several decades ago, media and communication theorist Marshal McLuhan was warning us that the technological tools we create and embrace have long-term effects that are not always positive. He said, “first we shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.” Now that the smartphone has been present in our culture and lives for over seventeen years, we are seeing how our lives and relationships are changing. A college professor named Brandon McDaniel coined a term that describes one such negative effect. The term is technoference. Simply stated, technoference occurs when our attention to screens disrupts our personal communication or time spent with others, including our family and friends. We constantly check our screens when we are in the presence of others or in conversation with others. Recent surveys tell us that more and more kids are complaining about the technoference that comes when parents spend too much time on their phones. Do you need to change your habits?

Russell Kirk was a twentieth century social critic who back in 1992 said something very important regarding the changes taking place in culture as it slides further and further into secularism, and what needs to take place. Kirk said, “If a culture is to survive and flourish, it must not be severed from the religious vision out of which it arose. The high necessity of reflective man and women, then, is to labor for the restoration of religious teachings as a credible body of doctrine. America as we know it cannot survive without biblical Christianity. The rights we cherish, the freedoms we enjoy, the ideals we all love together – all are rooted in and sustained by the tradition of the Bible. Christianity is the electric current of our national life. Turn it off, and the light will fade.” Parents and youth workers, it begins with all of us studying and knowing the truths of God’s Word. Then, we must be committed to teaching and telling the truth to our kids, all the time!

Parents, are you aware that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning parents, educators, caregivers, teens, and children about the growing tide of online dangers that they say may lead to the solicitation and enticement of minors to engage in sexual acts. Known as “sextortion”, this danger involves a perpetrator coercing a minor to create and send sexually explicit material. If the perpetrator gets the sexually explicit material, they will then threaten to release those pictures online unless the victim produces more of the same, or unless the victim sends a payment often in gift cards, wire transfers, mobile payment services, or cryptocurrency. Sextortion victims are most often males between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, but anyone of any age or gender can become a victim. Parents, teach your kids to never engage in online communication with someone they don’t know, and teach them God’s good design for the sacred gift of their sexuality.

Our friends over at the First Things Journal recently passed on some interesting words from Gen Z writer, Freya India, that she had posted on her Substack online newsletter. Her take on Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, is insightful. “It’s hard to put this into words but I think, in some ways, what we actually want is to be humbled. People say we crave belonging and connection, but what if we also crave commandments? What if we are desperate to be delivered from something? To be at the mercy of something? I think we underestimate how hard it is for young people today to feel their way through life with out moral guardrails and guidance, to follow the whims and wishes of our ego and be affirmed by adults every step of the way. I’m not sure that’s actual freedom. And if it is, I’m not sure freedom is what anyone of us actually wants.” India’s words help us understand that our kids are longing for redemption. And the answer is found only in following Jesus Christ.

Because we have been made for relationships, it’s important that our kids develop healthy friendships where they learn how to relate to others, how to play together, and how to solve conflicts. The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health recently asked the parents of six to twelve year old children about their children’s friendships. Nineteen percent of parents report that their child either has no friends or not enough friends. In addition, seventy-one percent of parents say that they’ve taken action over the course of the last year to help their child make new friends, including setting up playdates and befriending other parents. There is an epidemic of loneliness among today’s emerging generations, and we need to do what we can to encourage them into positive friendships, especially with those who will encourage them to grow in their relationships to the Lord. Parents, Proverbs tells us that he who walks with the wise, grows wise.

I recently read an article in Scientific American by Melinda Wenner Moyer, all about the role of unstructured play in setting kids on a course for healthy child development. Moyer cites the story of twenty-five year old Charles Whitman, who back in 1966 climbed to the top of tower on the campus of the University of Texas and proceeded to shoot forty-six people, killing seventeen. The killing sparked an effort to understand why anyone would do such a thing. Mental health professionals interviewed Whitman along with twenty-six other convicted Texas murderers. Most of the killers had two things in common: they grew up in abusive families, and they never played as children. The takeaway here is not that playing as a child will prevent one from engaging in criminal behavior. Rather, further studies since then have confirmed that letting kids engage in free, imaginative play is a crucial factor in health social, emotional, and cognitive development. Parents, let your children play!

C.S. Lewis once said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pains.” Those words capture a truth that the Scriptures put forth from Genesis to Revelation. It seems that whenever God would do his greatest work in the lives of those he loved, he would bring about great spiritual growth and increased faith through the gift of pain. In today’s world, we are taught to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. In addition, we’ve been led to believe that if we are experiencing the pain of difficulty and difficult times, God must be absent. But the Bible teaches us the exact opposite. God is present in our sufferings. How is it that we miss this truth so easily? As parents, there will be times of great hearthache, pain, and difficulty. Never forget that these are the times where God is parenting us, where he is doing great work, and where he is nurturing us into people who are totally dependent on him and on nothing else. Consider it all joy when you experience God’s love in pain.

I’ve been reading with great interest some articles in Salvo magazine that have been written by Dr. Bruce Woodall. In his encounters with young patients who are questioning their sexuality and gender, Dr. Woodall carefully and compassionately addresses their questions and confusion by pointing them to God’s good design for sex and gender. He writes, “I am concerned that youth are receiving a cultural message that sexual attraction is purely a subjective and private feeling experience that can legitimately go any direction, rather than something rooted in the created order and made for the purpose of procreation as possible only in the union of an XX female and XY male. Such thinking opens the door not only to dangerous sexual experimentation, but to a failure in developing the strength of character necessary for impulse control, setting youth on a path that can lead to a life lost in hedonistic nihilism or sexual addictions.” Parents, we need to tell our kids the truth.

From time to time I tell you about the power that marketing has over our kids. Marketing not only peddles products, but it also sells and promotes a world view. Yes, marketing shapes the way that our kids look at and live life. But our kids aren’t the only targets that marketing so effectively hits. Marketing also shapes us adults. It’s for that reason that I want to sound a warning that relates to one message marketing so effectively is sending to us as parents. That message is this: don’t grow old. It seems that we’re listening as we older folks have become obsessed over our appearance, our clothing, our complexions, our body shapes, and more. We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to stop something that just can’t be stopped. Ultimately, this is idolatry. And in the process, we’re teaching our kids to grow up to worship the idol of youthfulness as well. Parents, consider what it is that you worship, and the message you’re sending to your kids about what’s most important in life.

Today I want to talk to you about how my beliefs have changed over the years regarding high school graduates and higher education. When I graduated from high school, I lived in a culture where it was assumed that the next step for anyone who hoped to be responsible was to go immediately on to college, and then to graduate in four years. But a changing culture, economic realities, college debt, and a more clear understanding of work and calling have led me to a new understanding of what happens after high school. We no longer live in a one size fits all higher ed environment. I believe that far too many of our kids head straight off to college with no idea regarding their giftedness and calling. Parents, maybe we should require our kids to hold off from college enrollment. Pray with them regarding their giftedness and calling. Then, send them in the right direction, to the right place, at the right time in order to prepare them for a lifetime of service to God.

Inhalants are a class of drugs which are easy to obtain, inexpensive, and popular, especially among younger teenagers who have difficulty obtaining alcohol and other drugs. They’re one of the most widely used classes of drugs among our middle school kids, and even those who are younger will experiment with them. Known for years as “huffing” and now known as “chroming”, sniffing common household products like solvents and cleaners is extremely dangerous. Not surprisingly, there’s been an uptick in the practice thanks to the presence of social media. Researchers looked at over one hundred chroming videos, many of them on TikTok, which have garnered over twenty five million views. We need to warn our kids about the dangers of inhalant use, letting them know that dizziness, brain damage, addiction, and even death can occur. Parents, we’ve been given the high calling and privilege of teaching our kids to steward their bodies to God’s glory. Warn them about the dangers of substance abuse.

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving. Many of us have gathered to enjoy a day filled with conversation, an abundance of food, and perhaps some football. If you’re like me, many of these long-held holiday traditions could wind up filling the day so full that we actually forget to pause and give thanks to God for His many blessings. This year, I’ve resolved to spend some time alone to pause and give thanks to God. I encourage you to do the same. I’m going to go outside and look around. I am grateful for my eyesight and for the all the beautiful things he put in the world for me to see. I will thank God for the people he has placed in my life. I will thank him for the luxuries of life that I tend to take for granted as if I deserve them. Finally, I am going to thank God for the difficulties of life. Perhaps your circumstances have you focused on your difficulties. If so, give thanks. It is through difficulties that God leads us to a deeper faith and dependence on Him.

Precocious puberty, also known as early puberty, takes place when a child’s body begins to change into an adult body too soon. In today’s world, puberty usually begins for girls around age eight, and around age nine for our boys. In recent years, there has also been research showing that in general, our kids are reaching puberty at earlier and earlier ages. There have been lots of different theories put forward regarding what’s causing this. Researchers tell us that one factor which triggers early puberty in girls are the fragrance producing chemicals that are in the commercial beauty and skin-care products that flood the market, and that have become especially popular among pre-teen and younger girls in recent years. Research indicates these fragrances have the potential to stimulate parts of the brain that trigger early puberty, risks of psychological problems, heart disease, and breast cancer associated with early puberty. Parents, keep an eye on the products your kids are using.

As a baby boomer, I’m part of a generation that believed that adulthood began at age eighteen, which usually coincided with the time a teenager graduated from high school and went into the work force or off to college. For generation z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – there’s the belief that adulthood doesn’t begin until sometime around the ages of twenty-seven to thirty. Researchers found that only eleven percent of Gen Z-ers say they feel like adults. One reason for this is that they don’t have the financial stability they believe they need to be considered adults, including being able to pay all their own bills, contributing to a retirement account, and having a life insurance policy. In fact, forty percent of those surveyed don’t think they’ll ever be financially stable. Perhaps we need to be more intentional about raising our kids to take on responsibility, coddling them less, requiring them to learn the value of work, and teaching them principles of biblical stewardship.

Here’s an interesting strategy to consider as you think about how to lead the teenagers you know away from a culturally-influenced self-centered lifestyle, to a God-centered lifestyle: pray for crisis to enter their lives. Self-centeredness with no room for God plays and advances well in a youth culture that feeds the beast of self-absorption from a deep well of luxury and wealth. Sometimes it’s not until the well runs dry through poverty, want, or crisis that our kids understand their thirst for what it really is – a longing not after self, but after God. While our kids might not see it as such, it’s a blessing when the clay feet on which a self-centered lifestyle is built crumble to dust. Sadly, that’s oftentimes what it takes for them to reach out to their heavenly Father. As John Stott reminds us about the prodigal son, “he had to ‘come to himself’ by acknowledging his self-centeredness, before he could ‘come to his father.’” While we hate to see our kids hurt, sometimes that hurt helps!

All this week we’ve been looking at David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock’s book Faith for Exiles, and the five ministry practices churches and families must pursue to lead kids into life-long faith. The research done by Kinnaman and Matlock indicates that in order to form a lasting faith, we must curb the cultural tendency toward entitlement and self-centeredness by getting our kids engaged in counter-cultural mission. This does not mean that we need to be sure they get involved in a missions trip once or twice a year. Sure, those experiences can be valuable for our kids. But engaging in countercultural mission means living as a faithful presence wherever we are, by trusting God’s power and living differently from cultural norms. This means that we bloom for God as His ambassador wherever we are planted. We need to teach our kids to play to his glory, study to his glory, conduct themselves in relationships to his glory, and live every moment to his glory. Let’s pray that our kids grow to embrace and live the faith!

All this week we’re looking at David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock’s book Faith for Exiles, and the five ministry practices churches and families must pursue to lead kids into life-long faith. The research done by Kinnaman and Matlock indicates that in order to form a lasting faith, we must ground and motivate our kids through training for vocational discipleship. This means that they know and live out God’s calling on their lives, especially in the arena of work while conforming their ambitions to God’s purposes. In today’s world, the culture teaches our kids to pursue work and vocation as a passport to privilege. Rather than seeing work as a way to serve God and further His kingdom, our work is about making money, pursuing fame, and building up the kingdom of me, myself, and I. One of the key opportunities facing the twenty-first-century church is to help kids learn that they have been made for something, and that something is a life where faith is integrated into their work.

All this week we’re looking at David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock’s book Faith for Exiles, and the five ministry practices churches and families must pursue to lead kids into life-long faith. The research done by Kinnaman and Matlock indicates that in order to form a lasting faith, we must work to create a church and family culture where rather than separating the generations, meaningful intergenerational relationships are formed with fellow believers who live and model a deep faith in Jesus Christ. Our culture is marked by isolation and mistrust between different generations. Some specific ways to make this happen include starting a mentoring program at your church where an older believer is paired with a young person. Our worship services should be inter-generational rather than generationally-segmented. And our homes should be places where our kids are exposed to older Christians as we practice hospitality. Endeavor to give your kids the gift of sitting under the wisdom of those who are older.

All this week we’re looking at David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock’s book Faith for Exiles, and the five ministry practices churches and families must pursue to lead kids into life-long faith. The research done by Kinnaman and Matlock indicates that in order to form a lasting faith, we must lead our kids into developing the muscles of cultural discernment. Exercising cultural discernment means that we all must take part in a robust learning community that seeks, under the authority of the Bible, to wisely navigate today’s rapidly changing culture. This means that we must develop their ability to compare the beliefs, values, customs, and creations of the world we live in with those of the world we belong to, which is the Kingdom of God. And once that comparison has been made, we need to anchor our lives to the theological, ethical, and moral norms of God’s Kingdom. Parents, in order to lead your kids into living counter-culturally to the glory of God, you must be doing the same.

With so many of our young adults graduating from high school and walking away from the faith, what can we do to lead them to embrace a lasting faith? All this week we’re going to look at David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock’s book Faith for Exiles, and the five ministry practices churches and families must pursue to lead kids into life-long faith. The research done by Kinnaman and Matlock indicates that in order to form a lasting faith, we must lead our kids into experiencing intimacy with Jesus. This is best done by clearing what they call the religious clutter that so easily sidetracks us. We’ve been complicit in presenting a Jesus to compete at the same level as our other affinities and affiliations. In addition we’ve expected way too little from our kids. They are more willing to be challenged than the church is willing to challenge them. And, parents must be living a life of spiritual vitality where they give everything they have and are over to Jesus. Let’s lead our kids into a deep and lasting faith.

Concentrate hard as I tell you about a new word that’s appeared in the always changing lexicon regarding sexuality and gender in today’s world. The word is “allocishet.” It’s spelled A-l-l-o-c-i-s-h-e-t. It’s actually a combination of three words. Allo, which means other describes those people who experience romantic attractions to others. Cis is short for cisgender, which indicates a person whose gender identity aligns with his or her biological sex. Het is short for heterosexual, which indicates someone who is attracted to the opposite sex. Combine cis and het and you have a word describing someone who is not LGBTQ+. The word allocishet describes what used to be seen as someone normal because they lived into their biological gender as a heterosexual. According to the current cultural narrative, anyone who is allocishet is seen as an oppressor. We need to teach our kids it’s a label used negatively for those who embrace God’s good design for sex and gender.

One of my own kids favorite events during their elementary school years was the annual book fair. A section of the cafeteria would be set up with a huge display put on by the folks at Scholastic Books. On their website, Scholastic Books tells us that just last year alone, twenty-eight million kids attended school book fairs, and that one hundred million books got into kids’ hands from the fair. If you click around on the Scholastic Books website you’ll soon discover that the company is now promoting a “read with pride” campaign, as they are, and I quote, “proud to celebrate LGBTQIA+ stories with new and award winning books for kids and teens!” Scroll down the page and you will learn about pride-themed books for young adults, for kids ages eight to twelve, and for readers as young as three to five. Our kids are forming their beliefs and behaviors all through their childhood and teen years. And with so many voices teaching them about sex and gender, it’s imperative that we teach them God’s design.

Imagine a factory where the workers come in for eight hour shifts. At the end of each shift, a whistle blows to signal that it’s time to pack up and go home. It’s eight hours of work and then time to punch out. There’s a new and different working trend among young adults that’s been labeled as “grind culture” or “hustle culture.” Works days are marked by a work hard and don’t go home mentality, all in an effort to increase production and climb the ladder. The World Health Organization reports that four hundred and eighty-eight million people around the world are putting in more than fifty five hours a week at work. As Christians, we are to work as unto the Lord. We are to be hard workers who pursue excellence. But if the motivating factor to our hard work is about bringing glory to something or someone other than God, then we are engaging in idolatry. Teach your children to see work as an act of worship, without sacrificing time with family, and time with the Lord.

Today, I want to talk about a research finding that might make your kids angry, but it might also help your kids perform better in school. A study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that a student’s cognitive performance may be improved if they walk to school, rather than be driven to school in a car or on the bus. It seems that God has wired our bodies in such a way that teenagers who engage in physical activity early in the morning wind up stimulating their brains in ways that contribute to increased cognitive performance during the school day. And because adolescent females are typically less active than their male peers, that early morning walk is especially helpful to our girls. While researchers do say that there are actually a multiplicity of factors that could be at work here, one thing is sure: this research reminds us that God made us as integrated beings. To be balanced, our kids need to get enough exercise. Make sure your kids are active and not dormant.

Last month, a bipartisan group of attorney generals from the District of Columbia and thirteen states came together to file lawsuits against TikTok, a social media platform popular among kids which they say was designed to be addictive to young users, and which harms the mental health of the developing young people who use it. At issue is the algorithm TikTok uses to customize which video content is sent to a user’s feed, all based on the user’s past preferences. This not only takes kids down into seemingly endless rabbitholes where they watch and watch and watch, but the suit alleges this leads to addiction. California attorney general Rob Banta says, “TikTok cultivates social media addiction to boost corporate profits. TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content.” Parents- do you know who can and should create healthy boundaries? It’s you!

How easy it would be if adolescence were an overnight phenomena. But the process of moving from childhood to adulthood takes time. In today’s world, the assumption that the adolescent years cease and a teen becomes an adult at the age of 18 is no longer valid. New discoveries regarding the human brain, along with a host of cultural forces, like later marriage, extended college education, massive debt, living at home, and delayed maturity have fueled things like extended adolescence and emerging adulthood. Some are even wondering if adolescence extends to the age of 30! This process can be grueling and frustrating for those parents who desperately want to see their kids make good choices on the road to adulthood, and arrive at the destination sooner rather than later. The tables turn and we become the ones asking over and over, “Are we there yet?!?” Remember, God is at work and the process may take some time. Be patient with your children as God is at work in their lives.

If you remember back to your own adolescent years, you probably remember how your emotions were at times like a roller-coaster. One minute you were happy. The next minute you were sad. Sure it differs from person to person and day to day, but those of us who work with or are raising kids know that teenagers can be up and down. A new survey from the Gallup organization has looked at the emotions of today’s ten to eighteen year olds, specifically asking them about the emotions they felt during the prior day. Overall, ninety-four percent say they had experienced happy emotions at some point during the prior day. Forty-five percent said they had felt stress. Thirty-eight percent report feeling anxiety, and twenty-three percent experienced sadness. Not surprisingly, these percentages were all higher for our girls than for our boys. Parents, be aware that your kids are experiencing a spectrum of emotions, and before giving them guidance and direction, take time to listen and to understand.