a local church offered to bless some of the kids that we serve just because they could. lots of fun. in between some great pizza, some cool presents our young friends mixed it up with some fun games...like decorate a christmas tree, saucer slide and and santa's beard. yep...worth the watch.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Divorce and children
Divorce doesn't have to destroy the kids Experts say high-profile messy divorces may actually be contributing something positive. By showing what not to do, they're raising awareness that more can be done to protect the kids.
Click here to read the article.
Click here to read the article.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Bratty or behavior disorder? Help for parents
Researchers offer clues on where ‘terrible twos’ end and real trouble begins...go here to learn more...
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Birth Control in MIddle Schools
Here is an interesting article I found on birth control being offered in a middle school in Maine, possibly without a parent's consent. It is an interesting debate that will likely increase, but the issue of middle school children engaging in sexual activity is something we all should be talking about -- because it is happening more than anyone would like to know and more than the kids will admit. Not all risky sexual activity involves just intercourse, so this only deals with one aspect of the issue. I hope this will encourage parents to talk to their kids about sex so they learn to set and keep their own limits. To read the article, click here.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
An interesting article came to me about teen girls and the increase in suicidality in this particular age group over the past several years. This is a huge issue and concern, one that probably has several factors resulting in the increase. Nevertheless, it is important as parents, adults, and friends of teen girls to watch for the signs and intervene when we see they are struggling. To read the article, click here . For more info on red flags to watch for regarding suicide, go here or contact your local mental health board.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The State of the U.S. Family
Check out the newsletter by Abstinence Till Marriage (ATM) -click here. There is an interesting article about "Families Endangered?" and the state of the family in the United States. It brings up some interesting thoughts and issues about how children do when living in different types of family environments. As I tell children with whom I work, you are not statistics -- you decide for yourself how you will live your life. Statistics simply let you know what your risks are based on where you come from and the choices you make.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
pot, the teen brain & free newsletter
This article showed up earlier this week. It is well worth the time...and that reminds me to suggest you sign up for their bi-weekly email.
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Monday, August 6, 2007
Beautiful Disaster
You can watch the video for this song by going here.
This was a song that was played for me recently, and it really hits on some of the struggles young girls are having right now, especially during teenage years. The song struck a chord with me, and hopefully it will you too. Below are the lyrics so you can hear the song for yourself:
This was a song that was played for me recently, and it really hits on some of the struggles young girls are having right now, especially during teenage years. The song struck a chord with me, and hopefully it will you too. Below are the lyrics so you can hear the song for yourself:
She loves her mama's lemonade, Hates the sounds that goodbyes make. She prays one day she'll find someone to need her. She swears that there's no difference, Between the lies and complements. It's all the same if everybody leaves her. And every magazine tells her she's not good enough, The pictures that she sees make her cry.
And she would change everything, everything just ask her. Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster, And she needs someone to take her home.
She's giving boys what they want, tries to act so nonchalant, Afraid they'll see that she's lost her direction. She never stays the same for long, Assuming that she'll get it wrong. Perfect only in her imperfection. She's not a drama queen, She doesn't want to feel this way, only seventeen but tired.
She would change everything for happy ever after. Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster, But she just needs someone to take her home.
Cuz she's just the way she is, but no ones told her that's ok. And she would change everything, everything just ask her. Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster, And she would change everything for happy ever after. Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster, But she just needs someone to take her home And just needs someone to take her home.
Monday, July 23, 2007
myspace/facebook: which site...
Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace is an essay that just came on the radar screen. this is must reading for anyone who works with youth. its all about the shifting use of myspace and facebook by teenagers.
the essay suggests that the shift is happening along class lines. myspace is becoming the networking tool of choice for what she calls “subaltern teens”, and facebook is becoming the networking tool of choice for what she calls “hegemonic teens”:
The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.
MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.
the essay suggests that the shift is happening along class lines. myspace is becoming the networking tool of choice for what she calls “subaltern teens”, and facebook is becoming the networking tool of choice for what she calls “hegemonic teens”:
The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.
MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.
Over the last six months, I’ve noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That’s only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it’s not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Who goes where gets kinda sticky… probably because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.
People often ask me if I’m worried about teens today. The answer is yes, but it’s not because of social network sites. With the hegemonic teens, I’m very worried about the stress that they’re under, the lack of mobility and healthy opportunities for play and socialization, and the hyper-scheduling and surveillance. I’m worried about their unrealistic expectations for becoming rich and famous, their lack of work ethic after being pampered for so long, and the lack of opportunities that many of them have to even be economically stable let alone better off than their parents. I’m worried about how locking teens indoors coupled with a fast food/junk food advertising machine has resulted in a decrease in health levels across the board which will just get messy as they are increasingly unable to afford health insurance. When it comes to ostracized teens, I’m worried about the reasons why society has ostracized them and how they will react to ongoing criticism from hegemonic peers. I cringe every time I hear of another Columbine, another Virgina Tech, another site of horror when an outcast teen lashes back at the hegemonic values of society.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Even Evangelical Teens Do It...
this article popped up awhile ago...but is worth re-visiting. From Slate ~ Even Evangelical Teens Do It-How religious beliefs do, and don't, influence sexual behavior...
The results play out in the usual 19th-century way. When evangelical parents say they talk to their kids about sex, they mean the morals, not the mechanics. In a quiz on pregnancy and health risks associated with sex, evangelicals scored very low. Evangelical teens don't accept themselves as people who will have sex until they've already had it. As a result, abstinence pledgers are considerably less likely than nonpledgers to use birth control the first time they have sex. "It just sort of happened," one girl told the researchers, in what could be a motto for this generation of evangelical teens.Its all based on a book entitled Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers by Mark Regnerus. Go here to read the rest of the story
New Twists on Not-So-New Issues for Girls
Yesterday Erin was talking about this very subject while I was working on installing a new printer at the office. And then this morning this came across the inbox. It is an interesting article by Kara Powell and Brad Griffin from the Center for Youth & Family at Fuller Seminary.
While it may seem to some that adolescence hasn't changed much for girls in recent years, research and media trends indicate at least three areas they've identified as needing our renewed attention as youth workers. In this article they share ideas for responding to three "mores" that bring new twists to some perhaps-familiar issues: more sexy, more pressure, and more violence.Go here to read the whole article.
Friday, June 22, 2007
a "wow" interveiw
I hope you enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having "wealth" from the book sales.
This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Life" author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
People ask me, what is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Life" author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
People ask me, what is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
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