Establishing Family Standards

Establishing standards for our family, and keeping them consistently is getting more and more difficult.

Listen - now more than ever, I get the grace message. If I've said it once in the last 12 months, I've said it 20 times..."Where the Bible speaks boldly and with authority, speak boldly and with authority...otherwise, shut up". (I give Brent credit for bringing this to my attention, but it is a GREAT principle).

I also understand the NEED to engage our culture...where the culture is.

I also have a principle I've used since my Navy days..."Rules are for fools." In other words...THINK!

Now about my children...and said standards...

We're entering uncharted waters (for us)...and all of our peers (even those we really respect) are all over the board when it comes to standards for their family...

So, my wife and I pray about it, talk about it, discuss the desired results, talk to our kids...and move forward...

Then comes certain events...

Homecoming. Made a little easier for us because the Homecoming "Dance" at our Christian School, is really a dinner - no DJ, no dance floor, no means to set up an environment that would attract dancing. But the "after parties"...now these are a totally different story...in this case hosted by the rowdier in the grade,

so we say..."No Go!" After some push back from them, they oblige, and when you fast forward a week, they are glad that we didn't let them go, because several attendees are grounded for their transgressions.

Dating. No need to expound here...just suffices to say that we are further to the right than most.

And, "Where are you going and who with?" We're not very aligned with culture here either. They can come up with 3 or 4 good kids from our youth group whose parents aren't near as, well, restrictive.

Some of my friends warn me about...

"they'll go crazy in college...I've seen it man."

or

"we went to parties, we turned out fine...aren't we hypocrites if we don't let them go"

Again, I'm on a different axis....

And now with a major push in the Church to Engage the Culture...you can only imagine the smart argument from a teen who is actually listening in church. "Dad, shouldn't we be engaging our culture too?"

So here we are.

Holding strong to my standards...imagining Paul with Timothy (at 14 or 15) and knowing deep down inside that Paul wasn't setting Timothy up for failure,

so Timothy could learn, or
Paul wouldn't feel like a hypocrite, or
Timothy wouldn't rebel when he turned 19.

I just wish there were more New Testament examples of teenagers in the Bible.

So we stay the course while plowing through these years...trying to develop children who have a heart for Jesus.