Good morning parents!

Last night the high schoolers ate some pizza, worshiped, prayed, and spent some time talking about intimacy and singleness!

After snacking and catching up, we gathered for worship and Eli led us through a few throwback songs, we took prayer requests and prayed for one another! If you would like to pray with us, you can find a running list of our prayer requests here!

After prayer, I spent some time setting up our video about singleness and intimacy. I grew up in a small (like 60 people small) reformed church in Hudsonville, and one of the things that was culturally assumed was marriage. People would make jokes and play matchmaker with perfectly neutral intentions, but that actually began to shape what I thought a Christian’s life should look like. I began thinking that the “peak” of Christian life was owning a home, having a Christian wife and (at least) 2 Christian kids, and a good Christian dog. Singleness seemed to be a negative statement about a person's worth or desirability, and it was clear that the highest levels of intimacy (specifically physical intimacy) were only available to me in the covenant of marriage.

Paul's words to the Corinthians about singleness seemed like a nice suggestion, but never a true replacement for what I felt marriage would bring. The video did a great job of making it clear that our worth and our capacity for intimacy is not based on another person's desire - even in a marriage relationship. Our culture tends to uphold marriage as a kind of uber-good, where we perceive that things will be better or easier, or we will be more fulfilled if we get married. This is certainly true for some people, but it is not the only path towards those things.

After that we spent some time trying to define intimacy, and show that marriage is not the only avenue towards it. Our modern concept of friendship and sharing in one another's lives is kind of stunted, and the hyper-individualism of our society makes it hard to imagine finding meaningful intimacy outside of marriage. Instead of thinking that marriage is option 1 and singleness is option 2, I simply encouraged students to pursue Jesus first.

Next week we are tackling a heavy topic in the form of porn and masturbation. I am especially passionate about making sure that our students understand the way that pornography affects the brain and the damage it causes to relationships. Beyond that, it is the primary driver behind sex trafficking and I hope to talk about all of these things as bluntly as possible without making it terribly awkward.

I would strongly encourage you to check out the mentor video if you have access to the curriculum, and the parent page for next week can be found HERE!

Praying for all of you as we continue to engage this topic!

Have a wonderful week!!

Happy March! This year is flying by!

Last night in high school we ate some pizza, discovered that the downstairs microwave won't pop popcorn, and talked about God’s design for sex and marriage!

After eating some pizza, we gathered for prayer requests and prayer. If you would like to see our prayer requests and pray with us, you can do so HERE!

After that we dove back into our Christian Sexuality series to talk about God’s design for sex and marriage!

The video for this week talked about sex as a “whole person” experience - physical, emotional, and spiritual. It is a good gift from God designed for procreation, pleasure, and to bond people within the covenant of marriage. It’s important that we make the distinction that God designed sex as a good thing, because especially within Christian culture, our students may hear a message that says “sex is bad.” When they hear that message, (from you as parents, the church in general, or even their peers) it becomes very jarring when over the course of a single wedding day that message completely reverses and sex is suddenly great!

There is also a risk in allowing students to feel like marriage is the only option for intimacy in life. I worry that our students already base a part of their self-worth on how “desirable” they perceive themselves, and view marriage as the chief end of desire. We took some time to describe the depth of “choosing love,” which is not contingent on emotional infatuation. I am more in love with Dynelle today than I ever have been, because each day we “choose” each other, and try to put the other first. This is not an easy task, because people are not always easy to love. This is a kind of love that is not often represented in Hollywood films or Disney movies. “Prince Charmings” and "happily ever afters" don't exist, but that’s not a bad thing! The kind of love that is displayed in those stories is so much cheaper than the kind that is born out of God’s design. When you invite someone to join you in the crucible of life, in your deepest highs and lows, it is far more beautiful than the cheap, untested, and circumstance-dependent kind that is often seen in the media.

This is obviously a huge topic, and we didn’t fully flesh out all the things we wanted to. Over the course of our next few conversations I’m sure that the topic of marriage will continue to crop up, especially as we talk about singleness next week.

I’ve also offered your students the opportunity to write down any questions and stick them in a Question Box. I want to offer an anonymous and low-pressure way for them to ask questions they might have about anything we're talking about. We haven’t had any questions thus far, so I will bring some examples of past questions next week to continue encouraging them to use that resource.

Speaking of next week, we will be talking about singleness and intimacy! You can find the parent guide for that HERE, and if you have access to the course material I would encourage you to watch the mentor video before next Sunday!  

I’m praying for you guys, and I hope that this series has generated some great conversation at home!

Thanks for stopping by!