Once in a while I pull a post from my coaching blog I feel addresses an issue of import for any dealing with youth and their lives here's one that has hit close to home.
My daughter started Jr. High and I’m fired up. Every Dad worth his salt, parents his daughters different than His sons. Our sons are our warriors; scraps, bruises, stitches, etc… are all part of the package and we want them to excel! Our daughters awaken in us that desire to champion, protect, and love. We want them to excel but our hearts view it in a whole different manner. If you have daughters you know what I mean. All this has been simmering in my “pot” for a while and I do believe I feel a boil coming on!
I, some time ago, turned over the reins of our local Youth ministry to a capable young couple I thoroughly love and know they love God; I am grossly aware of generational and cultural differences when it comes to vision and execution for students today. Some of it certainly has to do with style, but some it is far more intertwined with our world’s moral decay; what we have tolerated, become desensitized to and what we have bought into. Two areas stand out right now, though I know there are more. The first area that should be no surprise: sexuality!
This horse has been rode, beat, killed and resurrected until it looks like the old nag in the stable no one wants to saddle. As a father I’m ‘gonna’ not only put a saddle on it, but give it it’s head and watch it as it unleashes a fury of speed, fire and power likened only to Sam Elliot’s steed in “Ghost Rider” making its last ride. This is a ride with one mission; my daughter’s heart and purity!

I have noticed for some time an unwitting pension for those dealing with youth to not only accept our cultures view of the awakening of sexuality, but assist it! I’m not saying the encourage gross immorality, but in conversation, teaching and activities there runs a theme akin to the “coarse joking”, innuendo and lack of decorum the world displays in this area. All of this fuels the process of sexualizing our kids including My Daughter! Every TV show, every song, movie and media ad aimed at our kids, specifically our daughters displays kids, 8,9, 10, etc… as sexually active and knowing. Let me back track a moment. When I use the term “sexuality” I am not limiting it to the act of intercourse. I am speaking of the entire gamut from the first thought and look that says; “hey, interesting”, the first touch, holding hands, hugging, caressing, a kiss, making out, etc… , all the way to the act intended as the ultimate doorway for intimacy, giving yourself to another fully! It’s all part of the package and the world in it’s search for answers and fulfillment, not knowing, hearing or accepting the voice of the creator, has constructed it’s own view. There are no longer protective standards for contact and relationships. Students are driven to be physical with each other; hug, wrestle with each other while horsing around, sit on one another’s laps, lay and lounge with each other, to enter relationships, couple up, be in love; date etc… all as a part of growing up normally. As individuals charged with assisting parents in rearing “fully devoted followers of Christ”, (can someone please come up with a new mantra?) even if the parents aren’t crying foul, we should! Where in all of scripture do you find support for accepting such a view of student sexuality and “dating”? Where do you find any notion from a Christian worldview that it’s good, healthy, innocent, or remotely wise for students from 12 to 14 to couple up as defined by today’s standards? Society with great care used to hold special events under the watchful glare of leaders sharing a strong biblical moral base simply to introduce students to the opposite sex, not to mention all the modeling of appropriate behavior; the judgment and ostracizing of any who would ignore the boundaries. Today there are still events, some in the church, yet as I have said the underlying assumption is kids will fool around, be curious, explore there sexuality, cross moral lines and “fall in love”.
I will be candid. I believe the problem is not with simply the culture but our own lives. Like so many areas of truth, if we really became radical about following the heart of Christ it would convict our own lives and behaviors. Is it possible that those in Youth ministry, many of them still kids themselves, savor with a nostalgic view their own experiences sexually, their own discovery and interaction with the opposite sex. That memory of a time in the bleachers at the game, or in the car when things became heated; God for the moment was only a Sunday school lesson left in the basement of the church and the overpowering effect of our raging hormones, glazing our eyes, rapid, shallowed, shortened breaths as we inhaled the essence of a lovers lips, is a thing to treasure, instead of being rejected as a moral failure, of moving us farther away from personally finding the true fulfillment we were longing for.
I know I said I would address two things and if sexuality was the horse in “Ghost Rider”, than the premature push of “dating” relationships is the saddle. They are so closely related they go hand in hand. Sons and daughters encouraged by leadership or lack of, are fed a steady diet filled with the false assumption; “you need to be a couple and if not, there is something wrong with you. After all this is the norm!” Really?!
Youth Pastors, Directors, Student Pastors, and the parents who should hold them accountable; would you take a moment and become again students of the Master. Look into the heart and word of our Father; discover His desire for our sons and daughters. Can you honestly say as you look at what is going on around the lives of our students; we are giving them God’s best when it comes to this part of their being? Their response to it; well that’s another matter. For your part; open the scriptures and shine it’s light on this area. Take time to express it not in the guttural terms of the day even if they are anatomically correct. My daughter doesn’t need to be cajoled into a world of premature “sexuality” and dating. Between “The Secret life of an American Teenager and “the Kids Choice Awards”, (so many to choose so little space.) the world would have her jump in all too quickly. In her movement from child to adult, which is inevitable, help me teach her what it means to chase God, having relationships with boys that are pure. Right now they truly are still “boys and girls”. Help our students to embrace and enjoy it, as you, with the aid of the Holy Spirit reveal God and His love to them.
Well my pot has boiled over and the contents spilled out. Unfortunately as my daughter continues this journey and the world ply’s it’s trade, even worse, someone under the guise of ministry reinforces this ungodly position, it will refill and spill out again. In fact the next thing on the menu found in my jungle already steeped in the iron pot? Missionary! Missionary dating that is! So throw some more wood on the fire, stoke the pot. Lets get this water rolling!
Let me provoke you to read anything on dating and relationships by J. Budziszewski. You can dig in a web sight titled “boundless.org” or google him he writes on the collegiate level but will give you a great understanding of culture; where sex, relationships and dating are and where they need to be.
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