Christmas Traditions

Christmas time offers a chance to do a lot of things. One of them is go broke. That happens a lot. It offers us a chance to get out of work for a couple of days. that's a good thing. It also offers us a chance to strengthen our bond as families. A lot of time when students are out of school for long periods of time they tend to start to, how should I say, annoy adults. It works vice versa as well. I want to talk about family traditions at Christmas. You know those wacky things that only your family does at during the holidays. My in-laws have a number of traditions at multiple holidays. I want to highlight two of them here. One thing that we do every year is opening one present on Christmas Eve. You've probably heard of that one before. The truth is that we know what we are getting every Christmas eve. A new pair of Pajama pants. Traditionally the kids would get the pj pants and would wear them to bed. Then they would wake up and have Christmas morning in their new pjs. The first time I heard of this I was terrified for the following reasons...



I love the faces that the dad makes. Priceless. Luckily, I never had to wear a bunny costume although it's not too late for this year.

Secondly, before the family comes downstairs to open up gifts, we gather at the top of the stairs and pray. We thank God for what the day means to us and to not forget. I'm the pastor of the group but I'm also probably the most eager to get downstairs to open stuff. This tradition helps to re-focus me at an important time. It's really awesome.

As parents, your (and soon to be mine) primary purpose is to raise your children to be able to function in the world as an adult. As a Christian parent, your purpose is to spiritually prepare your child for life on their own. Family traditions are a good way to pass along strong spiritual truths to your kids.

My wife grew up with these traditions and now we eagerly wait to pass them along to our kids. We look forward to teach our family the importance behind these holidays. Traditions can really help that. So until next time, Merry Christmas. I look forward to serving with you in the new year!

Jon

Jumping into your Child's Culture

It can be scary. It can be frightening. It can downright horrifying. I'm talking about the culture of teenagers. Youth culture can be a pretty intimidating. Sometimes I watch MTV and think, man 10 years ago it wasn't this bad. There are a lot of things in youth culture that can catch us off guard. When this happens our first instinct is to panic. To give a personal example, my mom caught a glimpse of Madonna's video for the song "Like A Prayer" that came out in 1989. We had just gotten cable in 1988 and when my mom saw this video she swore she was going to block MTV so that we couldn't watch such filth. Granted, Madonna tends to to take it to the extreme what ever she is doing so my mom's fear was probably warranted. The problem came when my sister and I were confused as to why my mom would feel this way. Why block a channel over 1 video?

I think a lot of times we see something that culture says and we over react. We don't want our kids to see/hear/do the things that are being suggested through different media and so our first instinct is to cut it off. Like with my sister and I, the problem comes through when teenagers don't understand why we take these positions.

I'm not saying that there aren't things that shouldn't be blocked. There are. Adult channels/websites should always be blocked as an example. What I am saying is that we should have a different panic response.

Earlier this year, the musical artist Pink came out with a song called "So What". This song includes lyrics like "I've got a brand new attitude, I'm going to wear it tonight. I want to get in trouble. I'm going to start a fight. So What...." When watching the video you see Pink going around town causing general mayhem. As someone who is concerned about what kids are doing, this got me scared. Oh man. This is a bad song. Some kid is going to see this and go off...

But let's stop and read more lyrics. They include:
"I just lost my husband, I don't know where he went"
"I'm gonna drink my money, I'm not gonna pay his rent."
"you weren't there. you never were. You want it all, but that's not fair."
"I gave you life. I gave my all. You weren't there. You let me fall"

Knowing a bit of cultural background you can start to put the pieces together. In real life Pink had proposed and gotten married to a guy. They stayed married until the guy walked out on her. The result you get is Pink writing a song that is obviously an outlet for the pain that she felt as a result of being left by someone she loved.

At this point the song goes from a horrible piece of music, to a chance to talk to your teenager about how to grieve. You can talk to them about acceptable ways to deal with the feeling of being stabbed in the back by someone they loved. By jumping into the culture of teenagers and doing a tiny bit of research we open up a great way to discuss Biblical issues with them in a context that they understand.

A great website for this is www.cpyu.org. It's called the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding. It was started by a guy named Walt Mueller who specializes in today's popular culture. It is a website that should be bookmarked in your browser and should be checked every couple of weeks.

Check it out. Read about Twilight which is a book series that a ton of teenage girls are getting into right now.

www.cpyu.org

Until next time,
Happy parenting.

jon

Welcome

If you are here, there is a good chance that you are a parent of a teenager. Just know something right away. We're praying for you. The teenage years are tough. Adolescence is a time between the care free ways of childhood and the full responsibility of being an adult. It is a huge and holy calling to raise a teenager. That's what we're here for. We are here to be involved in your lives. That doesn't mean that we are only involved in the lives of your teenagers. It also means that we are involved in your lives. The youth ministry at Huguenot Road is here to come alongside you in helping grow your teens toward a growing and transforming relationship with God. This blog is one aspect of that. We'll use this blog to give you information on the ministry, to give you ideas as a parent, and to offer any help that you may need. Save this website as a favorite in your browser and check back every couple of weeks for an update. It is our pleasure to work with you in this noble calling. Here's to you, parents. You are awesome.

jon