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Help Teenagers Strive for Moral Purity Thanks to pop singers, purity rings have become a hot trend. Many young people are publicly announcing their intentions to abstain from sex until marriage. For some kids, these rings mean even more. About his purity ring, Syracuse University freshman Stephen Chang says, “It also means that I won’t drink, smoke, or date in such a way that leads to unnecessary sexual pressure. It’s a symbol of me saying that I want to live a life that’s more pleasing to God.” Maintaining a pure, God-pleasing lifestyle in a mixed up world is tough. Kids are tempted to enjoy immediate pleasure rather than wait for long-term rewards. As parents, you play a vital role in your teenagers’ moral decision-making. Not only do kids look to you as examples, but they want you to listen and be available to talk. Surveys show that kids crave moral information from their parents. Research also shows that kids whose parents had talked with them about tough topics were more likely to turn to their parents first in difficult situations. Kids crave control over their lives, and the quest for purity is one area they can control. It’s also an area where kids can assert their individuality, think for themselves, and not follow the crowd. So encourage your teenagers to make a commitment to a morally pure lifestyle. Even if you don’t give them a purity ring, you can let them know that Jesus, who died to make them pure, expects sexual integrity from his children. Just as importantly, when we mess up, Jesus offers forgiveness and the chance to renew our commitment to live for him. The book Guy Talk, Girl Talk, a small-group resource from SimplyYouthMinistry.com, offers these three reasons why purity is more than not having sex: 1. It’s about purity of your heart. Every commitment begins in the heart. Purity is about resisting the world’s way of doing things. The challenge is to make a commitment that guards your heart, mind, and body from anything that would contaminate you with the sin of the world. 2. It’s about purity of your mind. Our thoughts and what we put in our minds can be just as damaging as what we do with our bodies. Think about the magazines you read, the movies you watch, and the songs you listen to. What messages are they sending? Purity isn’t about avoiding “the world” but about making daily decisions that maintain the purity of your mind and prevent it from being contaminated. 3. It’s about purity of your motives. When your heart and mind are pure, the results are actions motivated by purity. Wrong motives are about fulfilling only your own selfish desires, such as instant gratification or approval from others.   PulsePulsePulsePulsePulsePulsePulse Contrary to what’s seen in the media, not all teenagers engage in premarital sex. Consider these stats from a variety of online sources: * More than half (52%) of high school students have never had sexual intercourse. * 87% of teenagers don’t think it’s embarrassing for kids to say they’re virgins. * Of teenagers who have had sexual intercourse, 63% say they wish they had waited. * 82% of teenagers desire to have one marriage partner for life. * When the Barna Group asked 1,000 U.S. parents about the most important outcomes of raising their kids, the top answer (39%) was “getting a good education.” Only 4% answered “helping to establish appropriate moral values.”   Great Questions ...to Ask Your Kids  Use these discussion starters to help kids open up about purity and sex:  1. What comes to mind when you hear the word “purity”?  What are some ways, besides sexual abstinence, that people can stay pure? 2. How much control do you have over your own purity? 3. What are the biggest temptations that can thwart a pure lifestyle? What are some ways to resist them? 4. How do you think God views sex? How does your view compare to God’s?.  5. What are the pros and cons of making a public commitment to purity? Do you want to take that step? Why or why not?   GOD AND YOUR FAMILY Pray that: 1. God will give your teenagers the desire and self-control to be morally pure in all aspects of their lives. 2. Your teenagers will make a commitment to stay sexually pure until marriage. 3. God will help you truly listen to your teenagers and give you opportunities to connect with them about important topics. 4. God will strengthen you to be an example of purity for your family and for everyone you encounter.   VERSE OF THE MONTH “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.” (2 Timothy 2:22) God offers great advice for fleeing impure temptations: Run! But he also provides Christlike alternatives that offer more joy, as well as eternal rewards. A great way to avoid facing temptations in the first place is to hang out with other people striving for purity. When you’re surrounded by Christians who provide support and accountability, it’s easier to keep your commitment to stay pure.   What’s Up With Kids Youth and family expert Jim Burns tells of an insightful premarital counseling session with two former members of his youth group: I was intrigued and pleased that they had waited to have sexual intercourse&ldots;and asked how they had chosen sexual integrity when most of their generation had not. Their answer was insightful. Both of them mentioned three issues. First, their parents had talked openly and freely about sex education. Second, when they were in youth group, they had taken a sexual purity pledge very seriously. Third, they added that they did have a strong sex drive and it hadn’t been easy to wait, but they both had made a decision to practice the spiritual discipline of sexual abstinence. The wedding was a joyous occasion and since I knew both sets of parents, I made it a point to thank them for the incredible start they gave this young couple on their road to sexual integrity. The parents laughed and said it wasn’t always easy. In fact it was downright uncomfortable at times. I know you would agree with me that the results were well worth it. This couple proved what authorities have known for years: Sex is better in marriage. Sex is better with couples who have a spiritual connection, and sex isn’t better if you cohabitate. Give your kids a biblical foundation and challenge them to live by this Purity Code: “In honor of God, my family, and my future spouse, I will commit my life to sexual purity.” This involves honoring God with your body, renewing your mind for good, turning your eyes from worthless things, and guarding your heart above all else.   FilmWatch Movie: Confessions of a Shopaholic (releases Feb. 13)                 Genre: Comedy Rating: PG (for some mild language and thematic elements) Synopsis: Despite mounting debt, New Yorker Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) lives out her passion for shopping every day. She dreams of working for a favorite fashion magazine but instead writes a financial-advice column. Rebecca goes through extreme, funny adventures to hide her inexperience and reach her ultimate dream job. Discussion Questions: How important to you is financial success? Would you be happy working in a career that pays little money? Why or why not? What’s your dream job? What steps are you taking right now to achieve it? While trying to reach an important goal, would you be willing to compromise your integrity? to go into massive debt? to sacrifice friends or relationships? Explain.   Push Back From wardrobe coordination to time management few middle schoolers know the day-to-day skills that'll help them succeed. Two-income families single-parent families and blended families are all busy and it seems more and more like middle schoolers today don’t learn basic life skills at home anymore.I’ve seen kids come to UMYF in the strangest combination of clothes. I’ve seen makeup gobbed on their faces.  And tall, lanky kids trying to act like disrespectful adults because they think it’s “cool”. After 8 years of watching youth, I finally get it. Every young teenager struggles through an awkward phase of "life-skill ignorance." And as I watch kids move on to high school, get into fashion makeup and strong peer relationships I wonder how the church can help. Are we giving them the acceptance, the attention they need to not resort to physical, sexual, or other destructive behavior? (After all God is interested in helping Christian teenagers become "perfect and complete lacking in nothing" - James 1:4). Are we pushing back against the cheap influences that shape our kids minds? Jesus was a subversive, over and over he prodded the people of his time to think differently about the "givens" in their culture. His intention was to spur his followers to engage their cultural "truths," not run from them or pretend they didn’t exist. He often started his push-back sessions by saying, "You have heard it said..." He'd proceed to re-state a commonly accepted cultural "truth" ("You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy") then push back with a kingdom-of-God Truth ("But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."). We're moving in the spirit of Jesus when we teach kids to slow down and think, when we show them how to pinpoint the accepted "truths" in their world at school and compare it to kingdom-of-God Truths. Are these “truths” growth inhibiting inward looking? Or, are they for the glory of others and God Himself?  The key is to slow down, pay attention to the messages, then push back the way Jesus did. You don’t even have to have a real conversation with them. Just take advantage of the few words they utter in your direction and listen. Watch the way thing happen around them. Get the whole picture and wait for a moment to push back and show them the truth.