"Santa" or "No-Santa"? That is the question...

I have a new son...this will be his first Christmas. Now, he is much too young to even acknowledge or even grasp the idea of Santa Clause, but the other day, I couldn't help but think about something. How am I going to handle the issue of Santa Clause?

My first thought was..."there doesn't seem to be any harm in a mysterious, gift-giver at Christmas"?

Immediately, my mind went another direction... "if I have to have a conversation one day with my son about how Santa Clause doesn't exist, will he immediately turn to me, call me on my deception, and ask me if Jesus is real, too."


One of the questions that Christians have had to answer for themselves is whether or not they choose to celebrate Christmas with the idea of Santa Clause. There's a wide range of opinion on the matter.

There's the "everything goes/it's all good/accept it all" crowd. Santa Clause is absolutely fine all the time...in fact, if you asked our kids, they would probably think we talk about Santa more than Jesus crowd.

Or, there's the the crowd that likes to point out that if you rearrange the letters in "S-A-N-T-A" you can spell "S-A-T-A-N." All joking aside, there are very genuine believers in Jesus who choose to keep Santa completely out of their families' celebration of Christmas. There are two very different sides to this coin.


Regardless of what side of the fence you lean toward, I would ask you to consider and give careful thought about how you choose to use the idea of Santa in your home, with your children, and in your celebration of Christmas (the celebration of the "Word becoming Flesh" - John 1). Here are 5 different people giving five different viewpoints about how Christians should handle the issue of Santa Clause.

Down with Santa - Thabiti Anyabwile
What We Tell Our Kids about Santa - Mark Driscoll
Thinking About Santa - Noel Piper
Santa, Strategically - Jennifer Wilkin
Santa Christ? - Sinclair Ferguson


As you can read, there is plenty of discussion about proper ways to include or not to include the idea of Santa in a Christian celebration of Christmas.

• Your thoughts?
• How have you handled this in your home?
• Have any of your thoughts been tweeked/changed after reading some of these articles?
• Do you think there is a potential danger in blindly accepting the very commercial idea of Santa?
• If you have incorporated Santa into your Christmas celebration, did you think critically about that choice or was it more of "that's what we did in my family growing up" thing and so we didn't give it much thought?

Merry Christmas...hope you forgive me if I sent you into an internal debate that you're not sure you had time for...

Children and the Gospel (Part 4 of 4)

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take on a couple of different topics that will require some length. So, I'll break it into "bite-size" chunks!


Children and the Gospel! (Part 4)

“Saying the prayer”

One of the things that often accompanies kids and salvation is “the prayer.” We absolutely have to remember that saying some words or praying to God isn’t what saves us. It is the belief/faith behind that prayer that saves us. A child or adult can have a saving faith in Christ without praying.

However, for children and adults a prayer is often a useful tool to help someone verbalize the faith decision they may have just made. If you decide to use a prayer to help someone you’re leading to Christ, make it a point to help them understand that it wasn’t saying the right words in a prayer that makes them okay with God. The “Sinner’s Prayer” isn’t some magical combination that opens up the secret door. 9 right, 13 left, 23 right…bingo, I’m in! Sometimes it can be treated flippantly, and I’ve seen it done. “Just get them through the prayer.” That’s selling the gospel really short.

Please hear me. Don’t be afraid to use a “prayer” as a tool with your kids, but always come back with instruction that lets a child/adult know that they are in right standing with God because of one thing, and one thing alone, faith.

Adequate vs. Best

God can use anything to bring people to a saving knowledge of Him. I’ve seen the most incoherent rambling about Christ wreck people and lead them to the Savior. I’ve also seen the most polished, well-thought-out gospel presentation move no one to repentance.

However, I do think we have a duty as followers of Jesus Christ to make the gospel as plain and as understandable as we possibly can, especially for children. Many of our attempts at sharing the gospel may only lead to more confusion. There’s an adequate/good way…and there’s a better/best way. Why not shoot for the best?

***Please see the other attached documents for a more in-depth discussion of some helpful hints***

What should I do?

Talk about the gospel truth, especially to the children in your life.

Talk about the difference the gospel has made in your life.

Have a plan for sharing the gospel to your children. Not so that they can go to heaven and you can have peace, but because you love them and want them to have the most abundant, best life (eternal life discussion from above).

Pray every day that the Holy Spirit would open the eyes of your children and others to the truth of the gospel, and that they would have a train wreck with the grace of God.

Don’t manipulate kids or pressure them to make a decision. They better own it for themselves, or it’s going to cause more heartache in the end.

Remember that this is all in God’s hands. Do your best, and trust God that he’ll bring about the result He desires at the time He desires.

Well, that's it...we'll start up a new topic in a few days!

Children and the Gospel (Part 3 of 4)

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take on a couple of different topics that will require some length. So, I'll break it into "bite-size" chunks!


Children and the Gospel! (Part 3)

Is there an age?

Many people tend to believe that there’s a general age range that a child should be in before they can really make a decision for themselves to trust Christ as their Savior. Some call it the “age of accountability,” or they use some other term. The general idea is that a child doesn’t have the cognitive development to make a life-long, faith decision for themselves until a particular age.

I’ll just put it this way. The “average” three year old isn’t going to make a thought-out, long-lasting decision to trust Christ as Savior. I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen…I’m just saying it’s not normal. They can begin to learn the concepts, and they should be taught them continually in hopes that a basic worldview would begin to be shaped.

I don’t know where that age is. I really don’t. Over the last seven years of ministering to children, though, I have become extremely adept at deciphering between a kid who has come to a decision for themselves and a kid who got pressured into making a saying a prayer or verbalizing something about Jesus so that his/her parents could relax knowing that their child was “in the club.” Please hear my heart. Present the gospel every time you feel the Spirit lead you to do so, but please don’t pressure your kids or force them there. Trust me…it’s just going to be harder for you later.

There’s one common issue that I’ll address. A number of kids will come to faith at an early age 6-9. They make a decision, trust Christ, they may even be baptized. However, that child gets to be 12 or 13, goes to church camp, and hears the gospel preached and wonders if they need to “re-up” with Jesus. Either one of two things is happening in this situation. Either, they are realizing that they may have just performed an act or empty ritual without the necessary faith behind it or they learned some new facet of what the gospel means and they are attempting to rectify that with their previous understanding.

When I made my decision to trust Christ, I was a young boy. Now, as a man, I understand much more about the decision I was making that day and what it meant. Just because I understand more now, does not mean that I didn’t have faith back then. In fact, in may have been greater faith, because I chose to trust Christ without understanding all the details.

It’s sometimes really hard to know what to do in these kinds of situations. Do your best to be encouraging and not over-dramatic.

Fire insurance or life with Christ?

So often, we treat a faith decision in Christ as “fire insurance.” I said the prayer. I walked the aisle. I signed the card. I got baptized…I’m in. Then some live the rest of their life doing whatever they want, because they can pull the “imaginary membership card” or their “get out of hell free” card out of their wallet so that they can avoid the bad place. The gospel is so much more than that. It’s so much more than where we’re going to go when we die. If we’re sharing the gospel with someone, and all we talk about is heaven or hell, we may have, inadvertently, turned the gospel message into “fire insurance.” What a tragedy!

Instead, what we receive for trusting Christ is eternal life. That idea is much bigger than, “I get to go to heaven and get to avoid hell.” Can you see how that kind of thinking quickly turns into doing this because of something I get…what’s in it for me…self-centered?

Eternal life, our gift from God, is much bigger than escaping hell (a very real place).

John 17:3 – This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Eternal life is more than “fire insurance.” Eternal life is the privilege of knowing God through his Son, Jesus Christ and having a relationship with the Almighty. Heaven and Hell are real places, and they ought to be a part of any discussion of salvation. But let us remember that eternal life is bigger than that, and when we say “you don’t want to go to hell, do you?” we may be selling the gospel very short. We may be missing the point!

Last chunk of this topic is coming up in a couple of days!

Children and the Gospel (Part 2 of 4)

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take on a couple of different topics that will require some length. So, I'll break it into "bite-size" chunks!


Children and the Gospel! (Part 2)

What the Bible says/doesn’t say

Ephesians 2:8-9 – For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

John 20:30-31 - Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, ⁾the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

John 5:24 – Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

Romans Road – Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:9

The only thing…let me repeat that…the ONLY thing that is required is faith/trust/belief in Christ. Nothing else. Not a prayer, not baptism, not going to church. By grace alone, and by faith alone are we saved.

The Gospel is Simple

There’s a reason, Jesus told his disciples that they had to become like children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. The gospel is simple. It’s really simple.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 – Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Belief in something bigger than yourself that you can’t quite understand is much easier for a child. It just is. You don’t have to make it harder than it is. It’s really simple.

- Do you believe that you’re a sinner and that’s there’s nothing about you worthy enough for God?

- Do you believe that what you earn for your sin is separation from God, death?

- Do you believe that Jesus died (took your penalty) for your sin so that you could have a relationship with God?

- Do you believe that he rose again to show his power over death?

Kids have an amazing ability to believe in Christ. We should in no way hinder that remarkable ability.

The gospel is very simple, but it is also very counter-cultural, especially in the U.S. There’s always one verse that comes to mind when I think about that reality.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18

We are half way through...stay tuned!

Children and the Gospel (Part 1 of 4)

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take on a couple of different topics that will require some length. So, I'll break it into "bite-size" chunks!


Children and the Gospel! (Part 1)

Disclaimer:

Please note that I will probably use a good bit of generalization. I may, in fact, lean on a stereotype or two. If your experience was the exception, please don’t blindly disregard the rest. I’m using generalizations/stereotypes because they only get to be generalizations or stereotypes because they’re true a lot of the time. I’ll do my best to be frank when needed, in hopes that as a Christian community we can begin to talk about the simple truth of the gospel in the most effective way for children. Not just for the short-term peace we may achieve, but for the long-term benefit of the children to whom we parent and/or minister.

The gospel is the most simple, yet complex, life-encompassing idea. Praise be to God!

My Story

I grew up in the South. I was the kid who was always at church. My parents made it a point to bring me on almost every Sunday and Wednesday. I was so “entrenched” that I dressed up like Moses for one church Halloween party when I was about 3 or 4 (great picture by the way…it’s amazing how much a fake beard can annoy a child). I grew up hearing the truth of Jesus Christ from a very early age.

In fact, I had a grandmother (a wonderful servant of the Lord) who made it a point to share the simple truth of the gospel to each of her grandchildren until they came to know the Lord. To this day, I’m prayed for every day by my grandmother, and there’s no telling how the Lord has used those prayers.

Here’s the thing…I’m in my grandmother’s den early one morning, and I “get” the gospel for the first time. It just clicks, and my grandmother asks me if I’d like to trust Christ as my Savior. I did want to do that. So, when we got back to my home church, I walked down the aisle and got baptized, like a good Southern Baptist kid. For the next 10 years or so, I continued to grow in the faith (not without a few hiccups along the way), and never really had a time where the truth of the gospel and Jesus Christ didn’t make the most sense to me. God was extremely gracious to me.

It wasn’t as easy for some of the other children I grew up with in the church. They were “good church kids” who shook the pastor’s hand, said something about Jesus, got baptized, but then years later they realized they did it for all the wrong reasons, questioned their faith, and traveled some uneasy paths.

I don’t really know the difference between those two scenarios. My gut tells me there was an unspoken (or maybe spoken in some situations) pressure to “go down the aisle.” Many kids may have done that before they were really ready.

This scenario played out in a lot of churches in the last 20-30 years. Some of you may have had similar experiences. It really brings up a lot of questions.

What do we do? Do we wait to share the gospel at a particular age? Can really young children really make a genuine decision to trust Christ? When will they be ready? How do you know if it’s genuine or not? What happens if they question their faith later?

The more and more I think about this subject, the more I realize this idea of children and the gospel may be the most simple, yet complicated situation to navigate as a parent/volunteer.

Stay tuned...there's more coming!

Birds and Bees...HELP! (Part 4 of 4)

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take on a couple of different topics that will require some length. So, I'll break it into "bite-size" chunks!


Birds and Bees...HELP! (Part 4)

You’re the Examples

I’m sure you know this already, but children pick up all kinds of things from their parents. Some of it will be good, and some may be not so helpful. My loving, pastoral suggestion is to model the kinds of behaviors you’d like to see in your children, and don’t be surprised at all if your children do the same things you do. Let’s this be one of those good kind of warnings…it starts with you parents.

Some helpful hints:

1. Dad’s take your daughters out on dates. Always tell them how beautiful they are and that you love them. If they are used to hearing that, it won’t be such a shocking thing when some 15 or 16 year old boy tells them that for the first time, and suddenly their whisked away into this “teenage-love-induced coma.”

2. Internet safety - Kids are becoming savvier with computers. Some of you could probably say that you 12 year old knows more about the computer than you do. For that reason, internet safety is critical. If you don’t already have some kind of monitoring/blocking device for your computer, I would recommend you do that immediately, especially if your kids use the internet at your home. All it takes is one misstep, one wrong click, or one pop-up from a website, and your precious children’s minds are given something their not ready to deal with and something that could stay with them for a lifetime. If you don’t already have an internet filter, I would recommend a great on for you. I actually use it on myself and an accountability partner of mine has the password to that I can’t tamper with it. B-Safe Online ( http://www.bsafehome.com/). This is a great filter. It costs about $50 a year, but that investment should be nothing when you think of all the dangers that are lurking on the internet that your children could get caught in.

3. Don’t allow things in your home (TV, internet, magazines, etc.) that could contradict what you’re attempting to teach your children. You’re not going to be able to do this fully (unless you become Amish), but we diligent in policing your home for these things. Again, ask yourself some hard questions.

Good Scriptures to Use:

- Genesis 1/2

- 1 Peter 5:8-9

- 1 Peter 3:3-4

- 1 Corinthians 10:13 (for older kids)

- Hebrews 13:4

- 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (may take a require a little instruction)

- James 4:7

- Psalm 139

- Job 31:1 (especially as boys get hormones)

- Plenty of others that I could mention, but don’t want to take up the room.

Resources

Mini-disclaimer: Please remember the disclaimer from the resources question. Make it a practice to always read stuff for yourself and know what’s in a book before you give it to your children. Some of the following resources, I have read personally, and others I have not.

1. Preparing Your Son for Every Man’s Battle/Preparing Your Daughter for Every Woman’s Battle – these are some great resources for parents. Half of the book is for parents to read, and the last half is stuff that you and your son/daughter can read together. If you haven’t ready the adult versions of these books for yourself (Every Man’s Battle/Every Woman’s Battle), you should.

2. God’s Design for Sex Series – I have not personally read these, but I know of some parents that use them. Everything I’ve heard has been extremely positive. This series have four different books that are gauged for different stages of a kid’s life.

That's it...we'll start up a new topic in a few days. Hope it's been helpful!

Birds and Bees...HELP! (Part 3 of 4)

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take on a couple of different topics that will require some length. So, I'll break it into "bite-size" chunks!


Birds and Bees...HELP! (Part 3)

When to Have the Talk

We’ve all seen the TV shows where the parents have to sit down and have “THE TALK.” I’m just not sure that’s the best way handle the sex issue with kids. There may in fact be one time, early in adolescence, where different ideas/concepts/etc. are talked about in an in-depth and lengthy discussion, but laying a healthy framework for sexuality is essential for kids, and that happens “as you go” (Deut. 6:6-7).

It really is a lifelong process! Just like investment, the earlier you begin the better!

There are plenty of times in the preschool/elementary years where the “differences” between boys and girls will need to be discussed. There may even be questions about “where babies come from.” As they get to the end of this range, there may be other questions. It’s really amazing what kids will come to you with if you have a relationship where they feel safe to ask questions. I really don’t think there are right and wrong answers for these questions. I would however, charge you to do two things:

- Don’t avoid those situations. If you avoid it, they’ll just avoid you later on in life when they have a question about something important.

- Answer their questions in an age-appropriate way that is comfortable to you.

I know I keep repeating myself, but one big key is teachable moments. When you can use everyday occurrences to teach your children about God and how’s he has made the world to work, discipleship gets much easier.

Boys and Girls…They are different if you haven’t noticed!

Little boys and little girls are going to have different issues to deal with as they grow up. Here are a few that I see being key issues for the individual sexes as they grow.

Girls

- Modesty – teaching little girls to dress modestly is key. I know how difficult it is to find clothes that are fashionable and modest. There aren’t a lot of options out there. This is just another example of the world attempting to communicate something to your children. Teaching young ladies to be modest is critical. I’m not talking about ankle length skirts, and loose fitting sweaters at all times, but I wouldn’t put my daughter (if the Lord chooses to bless me with children) in some of the things I’ve seen…even at church. Time to stir the pot: If mom doesn’t dress with modesty, how can we expect young girls to dress modestly? There is a way to be fashionable, cool, without “prudish”? Ask yourself the hard questions. Your 4 year olds and 7 year olds are forming life-long habits and worldview shaping thoughts right now.

- Beauty – All little girls want to be beautiful, and they want to be treated as such. Teach your young ladies the real meaning of beauty. 1 Peter 3:3-4 are verses that every little girl should memorize deep in their hearts.

Boys

- Eyes – one of the best things you can learn as a young man is to learn how to “bounce” your eyes. Teach young boys good eye contact skills. If they’ve learned to always look someone in the eye when they’re talking, it may keep them from looking “other places” as they get older.

- Self-control – this is foundational for any kind of success in life, and especially in the world they are going to grow up in. Help your young men learn to control themselves. Model it for them. Reward and appreciate them when they show self-control.

Come back for the last one...later this week!