Through music, speakers and drama thousands of teens heard about Christ’s life, love, and interaction with his disciples; Christ’s sacrifice and what it demands of their lives; how to maintain pure relationships (split gender specific session); how to make God’s word a lifeline for their own life; how to live their faith with conviction and love; what it really means to honor their parents.
This year they also had a separate session for parents. Very informative! Ron Luce, founder of Teen Mania Ministries, asked us questions - Are you parenting by convience? Do you have a culture dashboard for your home? Who owns your child's heart? He also talked a bit about one of his books, Re-Create. “The purpose of Re-Create is to equip parents on how to build a culture in their home so strong and defining that it pulls the hearts of the kids toward the family and keeps them safe from a culture bent on deception.”
We are extremely busy hear at the Odiorne household so, I won’t get on my soapbox yet but it’s coming . . . . . I just want to leave you with a bit of information . . .
Check out the lyrics for the song “Candy Shop“ by 50 cent. "Candy Shop" performed well in the United States, becoming 50 Cent's third number one single. When writing the song, 50 Cent stated: "I attempted to be as sexual as possible, from a male perspective, without being vulgar or obscene". When I was looking up info for this, I found that Madonna also has a song about candy - lucky us!
Just recently, a 23yr. old young man decapitated his 5yr. old sister after stabbing his 17yr. old sister to death.
The following is from Planned Parenthood's website: Abortion is a safe and legal way for women to choose to end pregnancy. There are two kinds of abortion in the U.S. — in-clinic abortion and the abortion pill. Abortions are very common. In fact, more than 1 out of 3 women in the U.S. have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old. If you are trying to decide if abortion is the right choice for you, you probably have many things to think about. Learning the facts about abortion may help you in making your decision. You may also want to learn more about parenting and adoption.
This information may not be surprising to some of you. I know that many of you support great causes that deal with these issues and more. And I thank you and greatly appreciate you!
My cause in writing this is children. Not just my children but all children. For some time, our family has been moving away from “the world” and what “the world” says we need and what “the world” says is cool and so on. I just took some time today to check in on “the world” and what we’re missing - nothing.
So, who owns your child’s heart? That’s who they will go to for advice. Whoever owns your child's heart has the most influence over them. Is it you? Is it their friends? Is it music? You can and should set limits, you can and should be taking them to church but the key is having that right relationship with them so they value and understand what you are teaching them and why.
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6
