Today is Anabel’s birthday. Hard to believe she’s seven already! By the way, we’re having our first slumber party tonight. Pray for us.

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The following is an excerpt from the Introduction of my new book, Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World. The book, co-authored with Dr. Kenneth Boa, is published by Tyndale Publishing and has a foreword by Chuck Colson. If you are interested in reading an excerpt, request an electronic copy in the comment section of this blog. You may invite John to come to your church to conduct a parenting seminar. You will also soon be able to purchase an autographed copy of the book from our online store.

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We’ve intentionally avoided techniques and gimmicks for making your children behave better. We have tried not to get bogged down in external measures that can produce a false sense of success for parents. This is not a book about how our children ought to behave, but about how we ought to live as their parents.

We built this book on a foundation laid by researchers and theologians, experts in the fields of psychology and education, such as Hal Runkel, Kevin Leman, Alfie Kohn, Ray Guarendi, Tim Kimmel, Edward Hallowell, and many others. We read a lot of books during the process of writing this one to be sure that our opinions were sound.

One of the biggest flaws we’ve found in many parenting books (especially Christian parenting books) is the myth of technique. Often the impression is given that we can control our children with the proper technique. This usually comes from misreading Proverbs 22:6: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” The truth is that you cannot really control your children.

If your goal is to make your children behave in a certain way or to force them to be a certain kind of person, you may or may not achieve that goal. Kids grow up to be adults with minds of their own. You may do everything right and still see your kids walk away from their faith when they get older. Despite what you may have been led to believe, they may not come back. If your definition of successful parenting is having faithful children who make you proud and turn your friends green with envy, you may be setting yourself up for a rude awakening.

The truth is that you can’t control your kids or their choices. The only person you can really control is yourself, and most of us struggle with that. What if we took Gary Thomas’s advice? He says, “The ultimate issue is no longer how proud my children make me, but how faithful I’ve been to discharge the duties God has given me.” Focusing on our God-given responsibilities as parents changes our definition of success.

Parenting our kids requires gifts and skills that we don’t have. Only God has what it takes to raise children properly, and he calls us to parent in partnership with him because he knows that it will make us rely more on him. As we are invited to draw closer to him each step of the way, parenting becomes a spiritually formative activity. We need to raise children as much as they need us to raise them.

Jeff Sandstrom, a Dove Award-winning music producer, grew up going to camp every summer. A Christian organization near his home in upstate New York hosted a summer camp for boys, designed to train them to be Christian leaders. In that time and place, being a Christian leader meant knowing how to lead congregational singing, stand in front of an audience, and preach.

One of the main events each summer was for these young boys to memorize prewritten, three-minute sermonettes and recite them for the rest of the camp on parent-visitation day. There were hundreds of these mini-homilies — with titles such as “Why Ivory Soap Floats” and “What Christ Did for Sinful Men” — and whoever could recite the most sermonettes verbatim, would gain admittance to the Hall of Fame.

Jeff Sandstrom desperately wanted his name in the Hall of Fame. His father was an associate pastor at their church. He led worship and the youth group, and the Sandstrom family was a pillar of the congregation. As a pastor’s son, there was some pressure on Jeff to act in certain ways and to know certain things. Everyone just knew that Jeff would leave camp that summer as the newest member of the Hall of Fame.

They did not expect Timmy Tollison to be as good as he proved to be.*

Timmy was a memorizing machine. It quickly became clear to everyone at the camp that he was better than Jeff at reciting the sermonettes. He was likely going to be admitted into the Hall of Fame first and steal all of Jeff’s thunder.

This is how it came about that on a muggy summer morning in the early 1980s, Jeff Sandstrom prayed, “Dear Jesus, please do not let Timmy Tollison remember ‘What Christ Did for Sinful Men.’”

It’s a good thing we grow out of that kind of behavior, isn’t it?

The July 19, 1996, issue of USA Today carried a story from Dadeville, Alabama, about a Bible-quoting contest gone wrong. Gabel Taylor and another man began an informal match to see who could quote the most Bible verses. Eventually, as in all such contests, one man bested the other. Thirty-eight-year-old Gabel Taylor was the victor. The other man, whose name was not revealed in the news article, got a gun and shot and killed Gabel Taylor.

Beyond making us laugh or wince, these two stories illustrate how important it is to define success properly for our children.

In this book, we’re going to talk about how we as parents should live. We’re not going to talk very much about how children ought to behave, although there will be some of that. Instead, we’re going to cut straight to the heart of the matter and help you understand why it’s more important to focus on what’s happening inside your child than on what your child is doing.

Our goal is to help you train your children to think about and see the world in a certain way, and we firmly believe that their behavior will adjust itself accordingly. We are convinced that people usually act as they do because of what they believe. We’re also convinced that parents who are overly concerned with external results (i.e., behavior) can turn out a lot of false positives — children who look great on the outside but whose insides are corrupt; children who do the right thing only until no one is looking. We may think that our children are on the right track because they attend church and know their memory verses, but the truth about a person’s character eventually reveals itself, often with devastating results. Ask Gabel Taylor’s family.

*Timmy Tollison is not the boy’s real name. We have changed the name to protect the innocent. Jeff Sandstrom’s name has not been changed, because he told us we could use his story, and he was not innocent. 

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The above comes from the Introduction of my new book, Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World. The book, co-authored with Dr. Kenneth Boa, is published by Tyndale Publishing and has a foreword by Chuck Colson. If you are interested in reading an excerpt, request an electronic copy in the comment section of this blog. You may invite John to come to your church to conduct a parenting seminar. You will also soon be able to purchase an autographed copy of the book from our online store.

I returned from my eventful trip to California last night and found 100 copies of my new book (Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World) waiting for me. The back says I should charge $13.99, but you can get them for less at Amazon.com. I think I’ll charge $12.00.

Who wants one?

This weekend I went to northern California. Rick Hazelip, Jeff Sandstrom and I flew into San Francisco, rented a car and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Santa Rosa.

The weather was near-perfect. The scenery was more than two eyes could take in. The sights, sounds and tastes were so overwhelming that we found ourselves praying on a near-continuous basis: “Thank you God for this!”

The one black eye came early. As we were getting settled in the hotel, I went out to the rental car to retrieve my briefcase so I could check my email. On my way back into the hotel, I was hurrying to catch the elevator. An older gentleman was holding it for me. I reached into my pocket for my room key, and the keys to the rental car slipped out, slid across the floor toward the elevator and fell down the two-inch-gap between the hotel floor and the elevator — falling down the elevator shaft!

The older gentleman and I both watched the keys, following them with our eyes as they slid across the floor and then down the gap. It was almost as if we were hypnotized by them or stunned into disbelief that such large keys could fit in such a tiny space. After they fell and were gone from sight, he looked up at me and said, “That’s the most unluckiest thing I ever saw.”

Fitting words.

I went straight to the front desk and was told that it’s against the law for anyone other than the “elevator people” to go down there and there’s no way they’re coming out for this. I did look down the gap with a flashlight later and saw credit cards, earrings, wrist watches. Apparently, this has happened before. The “elevator people” don’t come out to look for lost items.

So, the next call was to the rental car company. They sent a locksmith who opened the car (so I could get my suitcase and rental car contract). But they could not cut a key that would start the engine. Modern technology has allowed car manufacturers to insert some kind of computer chip into each key. When you insert the key into the ignition, the ignition switch asks the key a question. If the key doesn’t answer correctly, you can turn on the electricity in the car (radio, air vents, windshield wipers, etc.), but you cannot get the engine to turn over.

This was turning into a most unluckiest thing.

The next call was back to the rental car company who sent a tow-truck. I got to ride all the way back to the airport with the tow driver, a nice man named Mike or Joe or Stan or something like that. We talked about his troubled marriage most of the ride.

Back at the rental car company, I got to endure the “Oh-you’re-that-guy-who-lost-the-keys” routine for about 20 minutes. I got to tell the “most unluckiest thing I ever saw” story about five times. “Hey, Louise, you gotta hear this guy’s story. I never heard nothing like it before. Go on, Mr. Turner, tell her.”

Finally, on my way back to Santa Rosa, the fog had rolled in and was so thick I was across the bridge before I even knew I was on it! I met up with the guys and my sister and brother-in-law for a late dinner (especially for those of us on Eastern Standard Time). But the food we enjoyed and the conversations we had that night were so wonderful.

I learned that it’s possible to be unlucky and blessed at the same time.

One of the things I talked with Mike/Joe/Stan the tow-truck driver about was the idea of happiness. He said his current relationship with his wife (she’s not really his wife, but they’ve been together for a long time and he refers to her as his wife) is frustrating at times. They have a good time together, but she came with baggage in the form of two failed marriages and four kids. He wonders if he’s missing out on something by staying in his current relationship. He wonders what it would be like to be with a woman who doesn’t have that kind of past or those kind of responsibilities. He wonders what it would be like to have kids of his own. He was looking for someone to give him permission to get out.

He had talked to his dad, and his dad told him to just “do what makes you happy.”

I said, “With all due respect, that’s terrible advice. I’m sure your father’s a fine man, and he means well. But you can’t just ‘do whatever makes you happy’. Life doesn’t work like that.”

Mike/Joe/Stan looked at me like I was an alien.

I continued, “There’s got to be something deeper than happy. I’m not very happy right now because of the day I’ve had. Circumstances change. Someone could run a red light right now [we were on 19th Avenue by this time], and ram into your truck. You wouldn’t be happy anymore, right? Happiness allows other people too much control. Happiness isn’t internally regulated. It’s dependent upon too many other things that are out of my control.”

He was nodding his head and seemed to be understanding what I was saying, so I continued.

“There’s such a thing as joy, and joy doesn’t come and go based on the circumstances. Joy is often experienced “in spite of” bad things that happen. A lot of times I find myself experiencing joy as a result of showing integrity. When I do what I said I was going to do — even though it got hard. When I don’t turn away from difficulties. When I keep a promise. When I tell the truth even though it would be easier to lie. Those things bring me joy — in spite of how things turn out. When I know I did the right thing I can look at myself in the mirror and know.”

By this time we were at the airport and had to say goodbye. I have no way of knowing whether Mike/Joe/Stan will stay in his “marriage” or not. But I do know that it’s possible to be unlucky and experience joy at the same time.

Derek Jeter hit .508 during his Senior year at Kalamazoo Central High School and was named the 1992 High School Player-of-the-Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association.

Someone wins that award every single year. Not everyone goes on to become the cornerstone of one of the most successful teams in Major League Baseball. A sure-fire, can’t-miss, first-ballot Hall of Famer according to nearly everyone, Derek Jeter has a lifetime average of .316, won two gold gloves and has more hits than anyone else in MLB over the last 10 years (1996-2005 hit total: 1,924). It’s hard to believe he’s already a 10-year veteran!

Here are the sports questions for this weekend:

Is there a doubt in anyone’s mind that Jeter is one of the top five shortstops of all time?

If you could choose between Jeter and Cal Ripken, Jr. (in his prime), who would you choose and why?

Besides Jeter and Ripken, who else rounds out the top five shortstops of all time?

I believe (and there’s some research out there to back this up) that every parent knows that when it comes to shaping the morals, values and ethics of our kids, it should be the parents driving that bus. I also believe that most parents feel overwhelmed and undermined as to how to go about doing it. In the absence of a plan, they most often turn to the only experts they know and trust: the church.

Most of the people who read this blog will attend church somewhere this weekend. You are thoughtful Christian people for the most part; many of you are thoughtful Christian parents. You take your kids to church, to a youth group or to Sunday School, and you expect them to learn something there that will help shape their faith and character.

That’s fine insofar as it goes. But I want you to hear this: the church can’t raise your kids.

It’s not supposed to, and it has done a terribly ineffective job when it has tried.

I love the fact that churches are getting more and more intentional about providing good, quality programming for children. It ought to be innovative and inspiring. It ought to rival the best Disney and Nickelodeon and PBS have to offer in terms marrying creativity and educational content. Churches ought to increase the percentage of their budget that goes to children’s programming, even if it means cutting some long-standing programs that benefit adults.

But I’ll say it again: the church can’t raise your kids.

I say it because something really tragic has happened over the course of the last several decades. While we were busy developing innovative programming for children, we somehow convinced parents that it would probably be in their best interests to leave the faith development of their kids to experts like us.

Somehow, though I don’t think we did this intentionally, the faith development of children has largely become church-centered and home-supported.

Church is where kids go to learn about God and faith and morals and all that stuff. Families support those churches financially and by making sure the kids are there as often as possible. As long as parents have their children at church frequently enough, they feel like they’re doing their part to shape the faith and character of those children.

There are lots of reasons why this has happened; none of them are good enough. It hasn’t worked. It won’t work. I can’t work.

God has not set it up to work. God established the family to be the primary unit of faith development. Families may come together to form a church, and that church can support what’s going on in those families. But the faith development of kids is supposed to be home-based and church-supported.

I have looked all through the Bible and have not found one verse that tells churches how to raise kids. God put those kids into a family — under your leadership — and he calls you to do the heavy lifting. Raise your own kids. Stop relying so much on the church to do something God hasn’t called or equipped it to do.

Beginning next week, we’re going to talk more about how to develop a plan. I’m not going to give you a plan. I’ll give you suggestions, but this is something I would never presume to tell you how to do. You know your kids. Anyone who ever tells you that all children should be treated the same way is wrong. Anyone who offers you the false hope of “one-size-fits-all” parenting should be dismissed. Kids aren’t animals, and kids aren’t computers. They have minds of their own and the ability to make their own decisions and choices. You must tailor your parenting to suit the personalities of both you and your child. Failure to do this is failure to honor your child and failure to honor the God who creates us uniquely.

For now, here’s the thing I want you to remember: the church can’t raise your kids.

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These ideas reflect the tone of my new book, Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World. The book, co-authored with Dr. Kenneth Boa, is published by Tyndale Publishing and has a foreword by Chuck Colson. If you are interested in reading an excerpt, request an electronic copy in the comment section of this blog. You may invite John to come to your church to conduct a parenting seminar. You will also soon be able to purchase an autographed copy of the book from our online store.

Seven-and-a-half years ago, my wife went into a drugstore and purchased one of those “tests”. You know…the kind you don’t really mind “studying” for. The kind that tells you whether or not your life will be completely changed for the rest of your days.

It’s hard to believe my oldest daughter will be seven next Friday.

We’re readers in our family, so my wife and I read every book we could get our hands on. We read the classics and the newest authors. We read Christians and non-Christians. We read women and men. We read doctors and pastors and stay-at-home moms. We read books we loved and still have. We read a few books that we hated and eventually used as kindling.

Note: I would never advocate book burning on a mass scale. But I do practice it every so often in the safety and privacy of my own home.

Perhaps the best thing we read is this: We are not raising children; we are raising adults.

This is basically a variation on the Stephen Covey theme: “Begin with the end in mind”.

As much as dads may joke about wanting to keep our daughters locked in the basement until they’re 30, we don’t mean it. We should probably stop joking like that — at least when they’re around. I don’t want to keep my children trapped in infancy. I want them to grow up and be strong, compassionate, grateful, responsible, wise, courageous, self-aware women of faith, discretion and discernment.

But hear this: It is not enough to have good intentions for your children. That’s nice and all, but it’s insufficient. Nor is it enough to feel passionately about your children. Intentions and strong feelings are good; don’t get me wrong. But they are not enough.

You must have a plan.

You must take the time to think about what kind of adults you want your children to grow up and become. Then you must think through a strategy that will set them up for success.

Clearly, your plan must be flexible and elastic. It must take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your child. You will need to adjust and be willing to re-examine your methods from time to time. You must constantly check yourself to make sure you are not living vacariously through your children or attempting to fulfill your own ambitions and dreams by living through your kids. You will need to accept your children as they are and not as you wish they were. There must be freedom and cooperation, and as your children grow older (and wiser) you will need to let go of control in order to maintain long-term influence.

But none of this will happen automatically. Parenting — helping children grow into adulthood — is too important to be left to chance. Raising adults requires intentionality.

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These ideas reflect the tone of my new book, Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World. The book, co-authored with Dr. Kenneth Boa, is published by Tyndale Publishing and has a foreword by Chuck Colson. If you are interested in reading an excerpt, request an electronic copy in the comment section of this blog. You may invite John to come to your church to conduct a parenting seminar. You will also soon be able to purchase an autographed copy of the book from our online store.

Lots of folks responded to yesterday’s post about having “The Talk” with your kids. Some left comments. Even more sent email. Clearly, this is a hot topic (pun intended).

In terms of resources and suggestions, I’ll say a few of things. First, it’s important to talk to your kids about sex and sexuality. If it’s awkward, get over it, be a grown up and talk about it anyway. They will hear about this from someone. Please make sure it’s from you first. If you think it’s going to be awkward now, imagine how awkward it will be when you have to go through and correct all the misinformation your children are likely to receive!

The other night someone told me that they were eight years old when a slightly older kid said babies come out of your bottom! This older child had apparently seen his mother giving birth but had not really gotten a good look at everything that was going on. From his perspective, babies came out of your bottom, and that’s what he told everyone. The person who told me this said they were scared to go to the bathroom for several weeks for fear that a baby might come out! Please talk to your children before they hear crazy stories like that!

I have a book coming out soon on the topic of parenting. It’s called Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World. (If you’re interested in reading the introduction and first chapter, leave me a comment, and I’ll email it to you.) That book has more to do with how parents can help their children learn to think, feel and act in God-honoring ways. It’s less about behavior modification and more about instilling certain values in our children and teaching them to think about themselves and their place in this world as part of God’s unfolding plan.

I am offering seminars for churches based on the material in the book. Part of those seminars will include a session on how to have “The Talk”. Several churches have already expressed interest in hosting a seminar as an outreach for their community. If you’re interested in doing something like that, leave me a comment or shoot me an email.

In terms of good books for you to use, I recommend a series called God’s Design for Sex by Stan & Brenna Jones. Stan’s the chair of the psychology department at Wheaton University and is a licensed, practicing clinical psychologist. They’ve also written a book called How & When to Tell Your Kids About Sex: A Lifelong Approach to Shaping Your Child’s Character.

I really advocate making sex part of your ongoing conversation with your kids. It’s too important to limit it to just one marathon session. It’s okay to take things a little at a time. However, most experts are now saying that sometime between the ages of 8-11 you should have a significant talk about the “plumbing”. Personally, I would err on the early side of that — especially with girls, since they seem to be hitting puberty a little earlier than previous generations.

Apparently, there was a preacher on NBC’s Today Show over the weekend. His name is Joe Beam, and I’ve met Joe on several occasions. He’s a friend of my father’s from way back, and his publisher sent me an email letting me know that Joe was going to be on the program. Even so, I managed to forget about it and failed to see the show — which has caused quite a stir — especially among Christians.

See, Joe talked about sex. There’s an article on MSNBC’s website if you’d like to read about it. It’s titled: “One Preacher’s Message: Have Hotter Sex“.

Apparently, there are Christians who do not believe things like this should be discussed in public. It’s not polite, and there might be kids watching. We shouldn’t mention things like “s-e-x” in a place where just anyone could hear. We certainly shouldn’t be graphic about it or talk about if it’s okay to put our “naughty parts” in someone’s “dirty place”. Won’t somebody think of the children?!

Well, I am thinking of the children. And that’s why I think we should talk about sex more in public.

It’s no secret that Christians get hot and bothered when the topic of conversation turns to sex. Even the mention of certain body parts and nerve endings makes church folks nervous. The church has historically had a difficult time maintaining a God-honoring view of sex and sexuality.

Augustine equated sexual intercourse with transmission of original sin and was probably the first to suggest that sex for any purpose other than procreation was sinful. Jerome said that a husband who was too passionate a lover with his own wife was the same as an adulterer.

Through the years, the church issued proclamations forbidding sex on Sundays (it’s the Lord’s Day, after all), Saturdays (that’s when Jesus was dead and in the tomb), Fridays (that’s when Jesus died) and Thursdays (that’s when he was arrested). Then they said you shouldn’t have sex during the 40 days of Lent. Then they said you shouldn’t have sex during the 40 days of Advent. Of course, they said, you shouldn’t have sex when a woman was menstruating. By the time all was said and done, one historian has pointed out that you were only eligible to have sex 44 days per year.

The church even commissioned a painter (called “Daniel the Trouserer”) to paint clothes on all the nudes of the Sistene Chapel.

The topic of sex can make people who seem very normal turn all squeamish and weird. And this is made even worse when these people have kids.

And this is why I spent about 90 minutes with a group of parents Sunday afternoon talking about body parts and nerve endings. We talked about more than that, because sexuality involves more than that. We talked about handling our emotions, and we talked about appropriate levels of freedom and privacy. But we also talked about body parts and nerve endings. We even talked some about…uhhh…self-exploration.

It was difficult for me to talk about this stuff that openly. But I managed. And the people were gracious and kind. We all laughed a lot. We laughed at ourselves mostly. And at some of my friends who have been kind (and naive) enough to share their stories with me. I changed names to protect the innocent. But it was a healthy thing to do, and I applaud the church for asking me to guide them in this process.

How many of you have had “the talk” with your kids? How many of you ever had “the talk” with your parents? Anyone want to share your experience here? You can post anonymously if it helps.