10-22-21 This Week in Faith

/

Dates to Remember

  • Faith’s Fall Festival is THIS Sunday from 5-7PM. I hope your family can be there and that you invite a family to join us. There is food, prizes, games, candy, and more…and it’s all free.

  • No High School this Sunday because of the Fall Festival. Come volunteer and have fun with us.

  • Corn Maze at Washington Farms for middle and high schoolers Friday, October 29 from 7-10PM. Admission is $17 and we’ll hang out and have fun together for the night.

  • Faith Explored, a class for those interested in becoming a member at Faith, is October 30 from 9AM-2PM. For middle schoolers and older who are not yet communing members but want to take the next step and find out more.

—————————————

Evangelizing GenZ

Have you ever talked to your kids about something important and thought they understood, only to hear them later describe what you said very differently than what you meant? I think this can happen as we talk to them about the gospel as well. Because of the changing cultural messages around them, it is easy for them to make assumptions about Jesus and his word that just aren’t true. This is why it’s so important for us to talk to our kids often about Jesus. It will help them see him better and it will help us know if they are rightly understanding who he is and what he is done. This is a short but helpful article about some of the misunderstandings teenagers today can have about the gospel and what we can do to make sure we are communicating with them clearly about the savior and the salvation that we desperately long for them to know. 

Click here to read the article by Mike McGarry.

Helping Your Child with Lying

Lying is one of those things we deal with in all of our children. Our sinful nature gives us an instinct of hiding the truth to avoid punishment or others thinking poorly of us. And it can be hurtful to us as parents when we discover that our kids have been dishonest. So how do we respond in a way that builds a relationship with our kids instead of breaking it down. And how do we point them to the good news of Jesus in the midst of our kids’ deception. This article has some good, practical ideas for laying the groundwork ahead of time to deal with lying, and then responding well when it actually happens. Celebrating when our kids tell the truth, and asking them questions that get to the heart of why we lie are a couple of places to start. Even for our younger kids, this is a gospel-centered approach to respond to our kids’ sin on the whole, but especially in response to lying.

Click here to read the article from Good News for Little Hearts.

Keeping Kids Off Porn

It is inevitable that our kids will see inappropriate material online. How we prepare them for that moment will affect the kind of impact that moment has on them. This is a pretty comprehensive look at the things we can do to help our kids navigate the sexualized world we live in, especially in regards to pornography. Kids are being exposed to pornography at an earlier and earlier age, and what they are seeing is more and more damaging. Parents have a big responsibility to protect them from and help them navigate through the technologies that we give them access to. This starts young but it changes as our kids get older. I know in our house, we’re trying to figure out the best ways for our oversight and engagement around these issues to change as our kids get older. There is some great insight in this article, as well as lots of recommendations for conversations and resources that will be important for us to have as we help guide our kids.

*One of the resources they mention is the book Good Pictures, Bad Pictures which teaches kids what pornography is and what to do if you see it in an age-appropriate way. I have copies of that book, for ages 8 and up, as well as copies of the Jr. edition for ages 3-7, in my office if you would like to borrow one to read with your kids. It is a really helpful book that has been used by a number of families in our church. 

Click here to read the article by Alyssa ElHage.

PODCAST: Ask the Experts- Helping Our Kids Love the Local Church

I pray for my kids often that they will grow to love the church. All of our kids go through seasons of being bored with church or disinterested, maybe even hostile to it. This is a great conversation about what we can do to help our kids learn to love the church in general, and our church in particular. They also talk about what we can do to help each other’s kids feel welcome in the church. There is also encouragement for single parents and for those whose kids are strongly against coming to church. I got a lot from this episode and I think it is 30 minutes that’s well worth your time.

Click here to listen to this interview with Megan Hill online.

Click here to listen to this interview with Megan Hill through Apple Podcasts.