2-5-21 This Week in Faith
/The Mix 2021- This is an incredible weekend for middle and high school students, and their friends as we join churches from across the city to worship Jesus and get to know him better. While the weekend will look pretty different for us this year, it’s still something students won’t want to miss. CLICK HERE for all the info and to sign up. [Also us this link to invite a friend]
February Memory for Kids
We have been choosing our memory verses from different CD’s produced by Seeds Family Worship. The music is a great way for kids [and parents] to get Scripture stuck in their heads. Getting God’s Word into the heads and hearts of our kids is one of the most valuable things we can do for them. This year, we are using their CD I Believe. They are also producing an online family devotional for these verses that you can find HERE. If you don’t already do family devotions, this might be a great place to start.
If you would like an I Believe CD, or a code to download the album for FREE, find me or Stephanie Atkinson this Sunday at church. We’d love to give your family one!
Scripture Memory- John 1:14
New City Catechism- Question 33 and Question 34
STUDENT MINISTRY SCHEDULE
Student Ministry Small Groups
Join us for our winter series based on the book, My Tech-Wise Life.
Middle School- Wednesdays from 6:00-7:45 at Faith [in the Plaza]
High School- Sundays from 6:00-8:00 at Faith [in the Plaza]
*With the colder weather, we are going inside for part of each night so be sure to bring a mask.
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What to Do When Your Teenager Shuts You Out
It can be hard to know what to do when we feel like our kids are struggling. This is particularly true when they act like they don’t want any help from us. In those moments, I can vacillate between being overbearing or totally disconnecting. This article does a good job of helping us evaluate whether our kids’ alone time is healthy or not, and how to step into the fray if we need to. They also provide some good questions to help our kids think through their own mental health, and to ask them how we can best help.
Click here for the article from Axis.
The 7-Minute Conversation Challenge
Sherry Turkle and Andy Crouch are two of my favorite people to listen to when it comes to technology, and this article quotes them both! The 7-minute rule is something Sherry Turkle discovered in her research- the it usually takes about 7 minutes for a conversation to get to any level of depth. But what typically happens is that we short circuit the process by going to our phones or other distractions before we can push through to the 7 minute mark. Those minutes can be awkward, and yet the payoff of the quality conversation they can produce are worth the wait.
This article challenges us to take advantage of 2 places for meaningful conversation with our kids: the dinner table and the car. There are a lot of helpful tips here for conversation with kids of all ages. I really appreciate the goal she lays out for us for conversation with our kids, and the road she offers to get there.
Click here to read the article by Anna Sutherland.
Porn in the Digital Age: New Research Reveals 10 Trends
This week in student ministry we are talking about how technological makes it easier for us to keep secrets from those who care about us. And this isn’t good. And pornography is one of those secrets that students are often able to keep from those who can actually help them most to fight the battle. While this article is a few years old [sorry it makes the title a little deceiving], its research gives a lot of insight into the presence and effects of pornography on students. These survey results and graphs might be a helpful place to go for help in having conversations with your kids about pornography. There are also some great books out there that can help as well [like Good Pictures, Bad Pictures].
Click here to read the article from Barna.
VIDEO: The Key to Understanding Why Parenting is Hard
Do you ever find parenting difficult? Haha- of course you do! And there’s a reason for that. In this short video, Paul Tripp reminds us that we’re not alone because there’s a fundamental reason why parenting is hard. But there’s also hope!
