Passive Parenting

The following is from a blog that I follow by James Emery White. I find that his writings are usually right on target. This is one that all parents need to read...

The average child between the age of 8-18 “now spends practically every waking minute – except for the time in school – using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device” according to a study that didn’t receive the wide discussion it deserved when released in 2010 by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Specifically, they spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices. And that doesn’t count the 1.5 hours spent texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cell phones.

And because they multi-task (for example, surfing the net while listening to their iPod), they manage cramming nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.

The study also found that heavy media use is associated with behavior problems, poor grades and obesity. According to the study, the “heaviest media users were also more likely to report that they were bored or sad, or that they got into trouble, did not get along well with their parents and were not happy at school.”

Despite the alarming amount of time being spent with media, and the negatives associated with its heavy use, Dr. Michael Rich (a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Boston who directs the Center on Media and Child Health) said that it was time to stop arguing over whether it was good or bad and accept it as part of children’s environment.

I’m sorry. Excuse me?

Thank goodness for the simple sanity of Victoria Rideout, a Kaiser vice president and lead author of the study, who said that although it has become harder for parents to control what their children do, they can still have an effect.

“They can still make rules and it still makes a difference.”

Precisely.

An increasing number of parents today seem to throw up their hands in defeat in the face of their cultural surroundings as if they are powerless to do anything about their child’s friends, education and use of media.

Let’s call it what it is: passive parenting.

A passive parent is someone who sees what needs to be addressed, sees what needs to be attended, and doesn’t attend to it. “Giving in” and “going along” becomes paramount to their thinking.

“You’re wearing that? Well, I guess everyone is.”

“You want to watch what? Well, if everyone is.”

“You want to do what? Well, if the others are.”

In truth, they are abdicating their role. They are not doing what they are called to do as a parent. The assumption with parenting is simple: your children are immature and need your maturity. Yet some parents are more eager to be liked, or accepted by their kids, than they are to be parents to their kids.

So instead of being active, they’re passive.

Let me state what I hope is obvious: seven and a half hours a day with media is wrong. No parent should allow it. Force them (yes, I said “force”) to read, to use their imagination, to get outside and play with a dog or participate in a sport.

I know, that means becoming an active parent.

But unless I’m mistaken, that’s what parenting is about.

James Emery White


Sources

Tamar Lewin, “Children Awake? Then They’re Probably Online,” The New York Times, Wednesday, January 20, 2010, p. A1 and A3. Greg Toppo, “Kids’ digital day: Almost 8 hours,” USA Today, Wednesday, January 20, 2010, p. 1A.

Matt Richtel, “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction,” The New York Times, Sunday, November 21, 2010, p. A1 and A20.

Editor’s Note

To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log-on to www.churchandculture.org where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world.

Meet Tagg Wolverton, our Sr. Youth Pastor & family!

Tagg & Susan; Graeme (10 years old, 5th grade); Olivia (8 years old, 3rd grade); Anna (12 years old, 7th grade); Ben (14 years old, 8th grade).

God has shown tremendous favor to Gateway by sending us Tagg Wolverton as our next Senior Youth Pastor. For the past several months your search team has diligently prayed and sought God’s man for GBC. God’s Spirit made us of one mind, heart and spirit. It was a blessing to me to work with this team: Linda Gee, Kris Corley, Renee Goodman, Larry Wagner, Joel Baker, Nick Stoia, Jeff Douglas and Ronald Flynn.

Tagg and his family will be with us this Sunday and then will begin his new position the week of February 21st. Here are a few facts about Tagg:

Ministry Experience
• Most recently served with Greater Europe Missions in the Netherlands. He was the Youth Ministry Team Leader and directed the Youth Ministry Development.
• Served 11 years at Brookwood Church in Greenville, SC as the Minister to Students. His responsibilities included middle school through college students. The ministry grew from 11 students to over 450 students.
• Served as the Worship Leader and Associate Pastor of Springbrook Baptist Church, Anderson SC.
• Served as the College Minister at First Baptist Church, Arlington, TX.
• Since 2004 has served as a mentor for Purpose Driven Youth Ministry.
• Served on the Programming Staff for Centrifuge Summer Camps.

Education
• Is in the process of finishing his PhD from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
• Has both a Masters of Theology and a Research Masters in Theology from Vrije Universiteit.
• Has a Masters of Divinity with Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, TX
• Has a Bachelor of Science from Auburn University, Auburn, AL

Tagg’s interest includes music, fly fishing, reading and snow skiing.

I want to say a big thanks to Dr. David Olshine of CIU for serving as our interim director for our student ministry and as a consultant for our search team.

I also want to give a HUGE – WE ARE INCREDABLY PROUD OF YOU to Amanda Brown, our female youth director. She has been amazing during the interim period. We love you Amanda… you have a special place in our heart! Our students love you!!

Send Tagg and his family a big Gateway welcome email to info@taggwolverton.com

Course Correction

Back in my flying days, part of the pre-flight routine was to make sure my instruments were properly calibrated. If I was making a cross-country flight, I was particularly interested in my directional indicator being correct. On a long flight, it was important to occasionally re-adjust the directional indicator or I would find myself off-course and… well, lost.

Gateway is on a journey. Our journey is for a life-time. Because of the long-distant journey, we must make sure we are on the right course. We must regularly double check our directional indicator. Just a few degrees of course can have devastating effects. There have been moments that we as a church have gotten off course. That is why this past Sunday I took the time to calibrate our church’s compass.

As part of this course correction, we are returning to who we really are as a church. We are body of believers who love God and love people. We love to see God change lives. In fact, this past Sunday we reminded ourselves why we even exist.

Gateway exists to glorify God by equipping people to become passionately committed to Christ.

There are several initiatives we are taking this year. We are going to focus on a few basic, yet crucial areas. I want to lead us to become…

• People of Prayer
• People of the Book
• People with Purpose
• People with Passion

Jesus made it clear what the most important commands were – Loving God with all your being and loving others as yourself. He also gave us his Great Commission – make disciples.

As your pastor, it is my passion that as a church body, we will have a great commitment to the great commandments and the great commission with great passion. When we do this, God will grow Gateway into a Great Church. We must do our part and He will bring the growth!

Do you need some motivation? Then constantly think about the 35,000 un-churched and de-churched people who are within a five mile radius of Gateway. God certainly thinks about them. He thinks about them constantly. And so must we!

Susan Bailey Law

Yesterday I made a sad trip to Charlotte’s Presbyterian Hospital. As I pulled into the parking garage I could feel the weight in my heart growing. Walking down the hallway to the hospice unit, I prayed that God would help to keep my emotions in check and that He would give me the words to share. I was getting ready to say goodbye to one of the sweetest souls I have ever known. Susan Bailey Law was in my youth group at First Baptist in Charlotte. Mary and I loved her and her family. Her parents, Martha and Bill worked in the youth ministry; her brother Brian is one of the smartest guys I have every known; and her sister Dana always made us laugh. Susan was one of those special individuals whom everyone easily loved. She was one of a kind. Susan and her husband Jerel served the Lord together. For the past several years they have served as church planters north of Charlotte. God blessed them with three wonderful children.

I had the honor of praying for Susan and with the family yesterday afternoon. This morning at 5:30, Susan looked directly into the eyes of her Lord and Savior. I envy her.

But what about Jerel who has lost his best friend? What about the three children who will face life without their mother? What about Martha and Bill who will now bury a second child. Their first born died when he was just a year old. What about Brian and Dana? What about a church family who is grieving? What about a host of friends – all of whom were praying for a healing? Holding on to your faith when God does not make sense is a challenge. The death of such a young wife with three young children in such a loving marriage is one of the greatest challenges a husband could ever face. The death of a child is one of the greatest if not the greatest challenge a parent could ever face. The death of one with so much life ahead, is like putting the period in the middle of a sentence, it does not make any sense. It does not belong.

When I conducted the funeral service for my wife’s grandmother, she was 101 years old. We celebrated her life. Her death was a natural next step as she moved into God’s heaven. It made sense.

Through 35 years of ministry, I have walked with many people through experiences and sorrows that were not easily understood. Examples of inexplicable sorrows and difficulties could fill the shelves of the world’s largest library. Almost every person could contribute illustrations of his or her own. In a world were innocent people suffer, we are challenged in our faith.

I have watched individuals deal with cancer, kidney failure, heart disease, cerebral palsy, down’s syndrome, divorce, rape, loneliness, rejection, depression, failure, death, these and thousands of other sources of human suffering produce inevitable questions of the soul. “Why would God permit this to happen?” “If God is so loving, why did He not stop this?” It has been my observation that the Lord does not typically rush in to explain everything to us.

The Lord says in Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

The simple truth is we lack the capacity to grasp God’s infinite mind or the way He intervenes in our lives. It is okay to say, “I don’t know or I don’t understand… this makes no sense.” But we can also say, “I am willing to trust God in spite of my lack of knowledge and understanding. In spite of my pain, I am willing to trust God.”

In spite of the pain, we can celebrate Susan’s life… celebrate a life that was fully lived.

We read in Romans 11:33–36, “Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.”

We see in the Bible that there are times when God brought healing, such as the blind man, the cripple, the lepers; He even raised Lazarus from the dead. We also read in scripture when he does not heal, or rather heals in a different way, such as Paul’s thorn in the flesh. God saved Daniel from the lion’s den, but did not save Paul from the executioner’s ax. God saved Noah and his family from the flood, but did not save Steven from the stones of his enemy’s. God saved David from King Saul’s attempts to kill David, but did not heal David’s new born son.

We read in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” The truth of this passage is that we will not have the total picture until we meet God in his kingdom. We must learn to accept partial understanding now, knowing we will have full understanding in his kingdom. I have always thought that my first word in heaven would probably something like, “Oh.”

So, let us then focus on what we do know and what we can understand. The Bible tells us that each person has an appointed time… to be born, to die.

Psalm 139:16 says, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Not many people know their time, but Susan did. She fought hard, prayed long and increased her faith. She was prepared for God to answer her prayer in a different way. There were many promises in scripture for her to hold to…

Romans 8:38–39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God used Susan among her friends and family. She showed us how to live while facing death. Did she want to live? Absolutely. Did she want to leave her husband and three precious children? No way. Was she ready to face death? Without a doubt!

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” We are not prohibited from trying to understand. We are specifically told not to lean on our ability to make the pieces fit. “Leaning” refers to the panicky demand for answers, throwing faith to the wind if a satisfactory response cannot be produced. It is pressing God to explain himself or else. That is when everything starts to unravel.

I cannot explain why such a deplorable disease such as cancer even exists. I do not have tidy answers that will satisfy. I have no airtight explanations. I reject simplistic theology that suggest, “God must have needed Susan in heaven.” Nonsense! A loving Father does not tear the heart out of a loving husband for selfish purposes. God does not remove a loving mother from her three children because he needs her in heaven. We must acknowledge that we have been given too few facts to explain all the heartache in this imperfect, fallen world. The understanding will have to await the coming of the sovereign Lord who promises to set straight all accounts and end all injustice.

Jesus said, in John 10:10, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

Satan hates us because we are the crowning achievement of God’s creation. Satan hates anything God loves. He is out to destroy us. He hates marriages, because God invented them. He hates families because they are God’s design. But Jesus’ purpose is to give us a full and abundant life. He is not talking about material possession. He is talking about purpose and meaning… a reason to get out of bed in the morning… a reason to live this one life we have to the fullest.

God desires a personal relationship with you. You can have that full and meaningful life through Jesus Christ and only through Jesus Christ. If Susan could speak to us, she would tell us, “It is all true… everything the Bible says about God, Jesus, heaven… it is all true.”

“If anyone calls on the name of the Lord and believes that he was raised from the dead they shall be saved.” Christ’s resurrection is what sealed the deal for me. Just last year I was standing in the Garden Tomb area in Jerusalem… where Jesus was buried. I looked inside the tomb… it was still empty.

God’s proclamation is true; God’s presence is real; God’s purpose is pure. You can live your life to survive. You can live your life for success. Or you can choose to live your life at the highest level - significance. Susan chose to be significant.

To those of us left behind, God can mend our broken hearts… but we have to give him all the pieces.

Meet the Boyd Family!

Today, Greg Boyd is heading to Gateway. His family will follow sometime at the end of the year. It has been a long journey searching the man that God has for Gateway. It has been a journey of faith for us as well as Greg. Over the past two years we have interviewed many individuals, but for one reason or another God would shut the door. Then one day recently, Bill Jones (a long time member of Gateway and President of CIU) called me, he said he had a name to share with me for our Adult and Family LIFE pastor. That one phone call began the journey that led to this day.

Meet Greg’s family: Josh (13), Breanna (12), Megan (16), Patty and Greg

Here are a few facts about Greg:

• Born in Clovis, New Mexico
• Has a B.A. from Auburn University (okay, so you may have to wait until after Saturday’s game to decide if you like him or not.)
• At Auburn, he was President of Fellowship of Christian Athletes; active in Crusade for Christ; lettered in Cross Country and on the Track team
• Has a Master of Divinity Degree from Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary
• Has a Doctor of Ministry Degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
• Has served and ministered as a Church planter; Youth Pastor; Senior Pastor; Pastor of Spiritual Development
• Enjoys riding his motorcycle and jogging
• His favorite quote: “You do what you believe. Everything else is just religious talk.” – Peter Lord

Be on the lookout for Greg this Sunday!

Ask Yourself

I have two questions for you to consider:

• Are you tired of living like someone who does not know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior?

• Are you desperate for the Holy Spirit and His power to be unleashed in your life?

“Do not stifle (grieve) the Holy Spirit.” 1 Thess. 5:19 (NLT)

How’s Your Heart?

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Prov. 4:23

The Bible tells us that God searches our heart. He examines our secret motives. He examines the “why” behind our actions. If that is true, and it is, then I must invest the time and energy necessary in order to accurately examine my heart, my motives.

First Samuel 16:7 states “the Lord looks at the heart.” The Hebrew concept of the heart embodied four areas of: emotions, will, intellect and desires.

• Emotions = joy, sorrow, fear, hate, love, all kinds of feelings
• Will = deliberately choosing or deciding upon a course of action
• Intellect = to know and understand, to think
• Desires = to wish or long for

All four are wrapped up in your heart.

Jesus states “For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.” (Matt. 12:34-35)

The BIG QUESTION: “What are you storing in the vault of your heart?”

It seems to me that the key to the heart is the will. In other words you deliberately choose and decide upon a course of action.

Look at these verses:

(1 Chron. 16:11) “Search for the Lord and his strength; continually seek him” – Searching is act of the will.

(1 Chron. 22:19) “Seek the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.” – Seeking is an act of the will.

(2 Chron. 7:14) “Seek my face and turn from your wicked ways.” – Seeking and turning, an act of the will.

(2 Chron. 12:14) “He was an evil king for he did not seek the Lord.” – To not seek the Lord is an act of the will and leads to evil.

(Ps. 10:4) “The proud are too wicked to seek God.” – Choosing to not seek the Lord leads to pride which is the source of multiple sins.

(Ps. 14:2) “The truly wise seek him.” – Choosing to seek the Lord leads to wisdom.

(Matt. 6:33) “Seek the Kingdom above all else, live righteously and he will give you everything you need.” – Again, it is a choice to seek and to live in a manner that allows God to bless us and work through us.

Once you make a decision of the will, then the passion and emotions will follow.

My Prayer: “Lord as I choose to seek you, let my passion and desire become a laser-beam focus on you. Show me your ways. Show me your heart. Let my choices and actions reflect the decision of my will to seek you. As I seek you, let the manner in which I spend my time, talent and treasure honor you above all else.”