By guest blogger, Shannon Bond.

Love is very misunderstood. Most teenagers understand love as a feeling, identifying it with the emotions. When a relationship feels good, teenagers feel like they are “in love.” These relationships are lacking in commitment and sacrificial love. Teenagers need help understanding the different dimensions of love and their proper expression.

Both the Greek and Hebrew languages have multiple words translated into English as “love.” The Greek words are agape, phileo, storgeo, and eros. The Hebrew words are raya, ahava, and dod. Both phileo and raya portray a friendship type of love. Both agape and ahava portray a deeper, self-sacrificing love of commitment. Both eros and dod portray erotic, sexual love. In the Nooma short film entitled “Flame,” pastor and author Rob Bell says,

We have our raya flame. We have our ahava flame. And we have our dod flame. One flame burning all by itself will never be as hot as all the flames burning together. I mean, we were created for all the flames to burn as one. When you separate the flames, it can never really satisfy. It’s like your living outside how God wired you to live.

Teenagers, much like the rest of society, are quick to jump straight into eros/dod without including agape/ahava or phileo/raya. The emotional damage from this type of sexual activity is deep and slow to heal. Nonetheless, media messages bombard teens with “Everyone is doing it. It’s a natural part of growing up.” The messages have an underlying assertion that teens who are not having sex are abnormal.

Youth workers and parents combat this lie by explaining the biblical words for love and their appropriate expression in the lives of their teenagers. Teenagers do not understand how all three of the “flames” of love burn together as one. They need mature adults to model this for them and mentor them as they develop friendship love and experience the emotional fulfillment it brings. Foster writes, “Loving does not need to be genital to be intimate, and the capacity to love is vital to our sexuality. And so the single person should develop many relationships that are wholesome and caring.” Furthermore, he states, “The single person’s sexuality is expressed in the need to experience emotional fulfillment. The decision to reserve genital sex for marriage is not a decision to remain emotionally unfulfilled. Warm, satisfying friendships are legitimate ways single people can express their sexuality.” Teenagers have to be taught how to have healthy friendships. It is natural for friendships with people of the opposite sex to have an erotic dimension. Teenagers need to learn that they need not act on those feelings.

Furthermore, youth workers and parents combat this lie by teaching and mentoring teenagers in knowing when it is appropriate to make a deeper, more meaningful commitment in a relationship. Deeper commitments bring couples closer to eros, so students need help to establish and to commit to following biblical boundaries for their relationship. Despite all of the media messages pressuring teenagers to have sex, teenagers need to be taught and reminded that not everyone is having sex — plus, God does not intend for them to outside the bond of marriage.

Citations

• Rob Bell, Flame. Disc 2, Nooma, DVD (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).
• Richard J. Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex, and Power (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1985), 115.

Read the other posts in this “Teaching Teen Sexuality” series.

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Shannon Bond is in his first year as the youth minister at First Baptist Church in Bangs, TX. He is married to the former Stephanie DeBoom of Copperas Cove, TX and has three children: Raegan (6-year-old daughter), Sydnie (4-year-old daughter), and Joey (2-year-old son). He is a student at Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, TX. Before becoming a youth minister, Shannon spent 13 years as a teacher and coach.

By guest blogger, Shannon Bond.

One of the most misunderstood areas of our sexuality concerns the mind. Foster writes, “Although all lust involves sexual fantasy, not all sexual fantasies lead to lust. How do we know the difference?” In answering the question, Foster notes, “Lust is an untamed, inordinate sexual passion to possess, and this is a very different thing from the usual erotic awareness experienced in sexual fantasy.” Sexual fantasy is a natural part of sexuality that needs redemption and submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ. When teens do not know the difference between lust and healthy sexual fantasy, guilt sets in and they feel as if they will never experience victory in this area. Then they ask God, “Why did you make me this way? Why did you give me these desires and then tell me to wait?” Giving in to temptation is not far off now.

Youth workers and parents combat this lie by helping teens to realize that sexual fantasy is a normal part of their development. Foster says, “Sometimes sexual fantasies signify a longing for intimacy; at other times, they express attraction toward a beautiful and winsome person.” Under the lordship of Christ, sexual fantasy allows teenagers to use their imagination in a positive way, glorifying God and honoring their future mate. When teenagers think that every sexual thought is sin, guilt becomes overwhelming. They deem themselves incurable sexual addicts who are without hope.

Two actions will prove helpful in this area. First, teens have to understand that temptation is not sin. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (NIV). This realization can be very freeing for teens. Second, teens have to understand the role of temptation in the life of the believer. Teens often feel as if God has stacked the deck against them. Youth workers who can explain how temptation fits into the sovereignty of God and His good plan for His people will help teens immensely.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). “All things” must apply to temptation or we deny the sovereignty of God. Just as God used sinful people to crucify Christ, producing something good, He can use temptation in the life of the believer to produce something good.

For believers, salvation is “already, but not yet.” In other words, we are already saved (justified), but we are not completely saved (glorified). God uses temptation to produce growth in Christlikeness during our lifelong journey of justification. According to Hull and Mascarella, “To live as Jesus Lived, we must train ourselves to follow God into temptation, because in God’s skillful hands even temptation is transformational.” In similar fashion, as sexual beings, teenage sexuality is “already, but not yet.” They are sexual beings, but the ultimate realization of their sexuality, the sexual relationship between a husband and wife, has not yet happened. In the meantime, God can use sexual temptation to promote mature development in teenagers, both as Christians and as sexual beings. Teenagers need mentors who can lead the way in this area, both in the area of overcoming temptation and in understanding its role in the transformation of the believer.

Citations

• Richard J. Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex, and Power (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1985), 120, 121.
• Bill Hull and Paul Mascarella, Live as Jesus Lived: Transformed Character, Book 2 of Experience the Life: Making the Jesus Way a Habit (Richardson, Texas: Biblical Studies Press, 2007), 31.

Read the other posts in this “Teaching Teen Sexuality” series.

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Shannon Bond is in his first year as the youth minister at First Baptist Church in Bangs, TX. He is married to the former Stephanie DeBoom of Copperas Cove, TX and has three children: Raegan (6-year-old daughter), Sydnie (4-year-old daughter), and Joey (2-year-old son). He is a student at Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, TX. Before becoming a youth minister, Shannon spent 13 years as a teacher and coach.

By guest blogger, Shannon Bond.

A biblically grounded sexuality redeems the physical body. Because of misinformation and a lack of instruction and guidance, students lack a biblical image of their bodies. Parents often feel as if they lack the skills and vocabulary to talk to their own children about sexuality. As the children enter puberty and their body starts the maturation process, many of them believe lies about their bodies.

One lie is that personal body image is an indicator of one’s development as a sexual being. The student whose body matures at a faster rate — who looks more like the girl in Seventeen magazine or the guy in the music video — is the one who is elevated to the status of “hottie” or “stud.” Students who do not develop as quickly feel inferior and may take drastic steps to correct their body image. Girls are particularly prone to eating disorders when they feel that their body image does not measure up to the “standard.” Guys may avoid taking showers in gym class for fear of being ridiculed for being less developed.

Another lie that students believe is that some of the changes that are happening to their bodies are dirty. Boys who have nocturnal emissions may think such thoughts. Girls may think that their period is disgusting and gross. These natural occurrences have the possibility of wreaking havoc on a student. The enemy is quick to pounce on these opportunities at tearing down student’s self-image. Poor self-image leads many students down a path of self-destruction, as they look for anyone who will make them feel good about how they look.

Youth workers and parents combat these lies by explaining God’s view of the body and its beauty. Psalm 139:13-14 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (NIV). Youth workers who personalize and contextualize these verses for students will do much to correct distorted body images. Furthermore, girls in particular require teaching and mentoring in inner beauty. Proverbs 31:30 says, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (NIV). First Peter 3:3-5 says,
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful (NIV).”

Therefore, teenagers are encouraged to see their beauty as both internal and external, within a biblical concept. Helping girls in particular to see the lies behind the media messages about beauty will help girls to build a solid self-image.

For teenagers, especially girls, who feel physically unattractive, reassuring hugs gives positive examples of healthy touching, which conveys a sense of worth to them. It also helps them to distinguish between healthy, loving touching and unhealthy, possessive touching. Richard Foster writes, “Singles should welcome the touch, the hug, the warm embrace. These are essential ingredients in our human sexuality, and it is not wise to cut ourselves off from them.” A problem arises when a teenager cannot distinguish between healthy and unhealthy touching. When self-image is low, unhealthy touching can lead teenagers to seek worth in a relationship that initially promises to give it, only to find that it steals it instead.

Furthermore, youth workers and parents combat these lies by explaining that the natural maturation process is just a part of becoming an adult man or woman. Instead of hiding in embarrassment, teens can celebrate that God’s gift is growing and maturing in them. Stephen Arterburn writes, “Nocturnal emissions kick in naturally in response to your normal, natural sperm buildup. This means that the fixed part of your sex drive will more or less be taken care of by God’s natural relief valve.” Yet, this occurrence can be quite disconcerting to a young boy. A weekend mother/daughter or father/son retreat can be a good way for mothers and fathers to talk to and reassure their daughters and sons during this time of transition into adulthood. Reassuring teens that natural physical development is a good thing can help keep a positive self-image intact, is good for developing the parent/child relationship, and is helpful in helping them in their journey into adulthood. Bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs serve a similar purpose for Jewish teenagers.

In addition, teens will need help understanding how their body reacts to sexual stimuli. Boys need help recognizing how visually driven they are and need help developing tools for avoiding lustful thoughts and actions. Girls need help recognizing how touching makes them react sexually and emotionally. Both need help understanding that these feelings and urges are natural and need not be repressed, but taken captive to the will of God.

Citations:

• Richard J. Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex, and Power (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1985), 154.
• Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker, with Mike Yorkey, Every Young Man’s Battle: Strategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Water Brook Press, 2002), 130.

Read the other posts in this “Teaching Teen Sexuality” series.

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Shannon Bond is in his first year as the youth minister at First Baptist Church in Bangs, TX. He is married to the former Stephanie DeBoom of Copperas Cove, TX and has three children: Raegan (6-year-old daughter), Sydnie (4-year-old daughter), and Joey (2-year-old son). He is a student at Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, TX. Before becoming a youth minister, Shannon spent 13 years as a teacher and coach.

By guest blogger, Shannon Bond.

What would a biblically grounded sexuality look like? First, a biblically grounded sexuality redeems gender. God created men and women to be different physically, emotionally, and psychologically. He created them to complement and complete each other. However, there are those who purport the lie that gender is not important to one’s sexuality. According to Scott Davis:

Maleness and femaleness are no longer seen as precious aspects of our beings, inestimable gifts from God to His creations, but are now the incidental leftovers of blind evolutionary processes. All that remain are odd gender stereotypes and sexual organs that can be manipulated for pleasure. [Scott Davis, "From Pimp to Pure via Youth Ministry," Youth Worker Journal, September 4, 2007, http://www.youthworker.com/11553168 (accessed May 21, 2008).]

This line of thinking opens the door to all types of aberrant sexual behaviors.

Those who do not practice heterosexuality justify their behaviors in two ways. One way is to say that God does not exist. Without an objective moral authority, people are free to go wherever their ideas of love and pleasure take them. Another way is to say that the biblical passages concerning aberrant sexual behaviors have been misinterpreted or taken out of context. For example, some assert that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their inhospitality. Others say that when Paul referred to homosexuality, he was not condemning the practice as is practiced today within loving, committed relationships. Instead, Paul was condemning pederasty or homosexual prostitution. These verses, they assert, would not apply to those who are born homosexual.

Youth workers and parents combat this lie by unashamedly declaring what the Bible says about gender. Christians believe that God exists and that He reveals Himself personally through Scripture. Christians believe in God’s goodness and that He wants the best for all of humanity. Therefore, what God has to say about gender in the Bible is the definitive standard. According to the Bible, gender is a part of the gift of sexuality, intended to be discovered through relationships, through love, and ultimately, through heterosexual sexual intercourse in a marriage relationship. The Bible is clear about the heterosexual marriage relationship as the highest realization of human love and sexual expression. Youth workers will do well, though, to act with sensitivity toward those struggling with their sexual identity.

Furthermore, youth workers combat this lie by reinforcing the goodness of gender outside of sexual activity by declaring that it is okay for boys to act like boys and for girls to act like girls. Organized “Girls Only” or “Guys Only” events where activities are gender specific (without trying to reinforce gender stereotypes) are wonderful ways of reinforcing positive ideas about gender and sexuality. Positive adult role models will add to the experience.

Read the other posts in this “Teaching Teen Sexuality” series.

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Shannon Bond is in his first year as the youth minister at First Baptist Church in Bangs, TX. He is married to the former Stephanie DeBoom of Copperas Cove, TX and has three children: Raegan (6-year-old daughter), Sydnie (4-year-old daughter), and Joey (2-year-old son). He is a student at Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, TX. Before becoming a youth minister, Shannon spent 13 years as a teacher and coach.

By guest blogger, Shannon Bond.

Josh began attending church not long after he was born. For sixteen years, he has been a member of the same church. He has a close-knit group of friends, many of them members of that particular church. As a group, they went through AWANA together, started middle school and high school together, went on numerous youth trips and to many camps together, and sat through the “sex talk” many times since they started youth group together as seventh graders. Josh and his friends know the risks and potential consequences of sexual activity before marriage: sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, emotional pain, guilt, and a bad reputation, to name just a few. During a weekend event emphasizing abstinence, Josh pledged to wait until marriage to become sexually active. He understands the risks of sexual activity and the rewards of abstinence until marriage. Yet, he feels as though he is a dam that is about to break. The pressures — from his own sexual urges and drives, from a sex-saturated society, and from the attractive girls making advances at him — make the “wait until marriage” defense seem weak and powerless against the never-ending onslaught. Some of his peers offer masturbation as a solution, which he tries, only to have guilt flood over him. Others chide him for his vow of purity, saying, “Everyone is doing it. You are missing all of the fun.” At a party just before his seventeenth birthday, Josh has oral sex with a girl. “After all,” he says, “it is not really sex.” Now his pledge of abstinence seems worthless. After years of saying “no,” Josh’s compartmentalized and dualistic understanding of his sexuality has not helped him find the parts of his sexuality that he can say “yes” to. Consequently, he is finding it increasingly difficult to say “no.”

Although Josh is a fictitious character, his story, sadly, is true for many teenagers raised in the church. Despite the best efforts of youth workers and parents, Christian teens are sexually active. What are the church and the family to do? Giving up is not an option. Although teens attend church for any number of reasons, many of them attend because they seek direction for their lives. What direction does the church give teens concerning their sexuality? Current approaches to teaching sexuality may need to be re-examined and re-focused in order to be more holistic.

The purpose of this blog series is to discuss how teens may develop as sexual beings without becoming sexually active. If this purpose is achieved, whether on Tim’s blog or in other circles of influence, the goal of such a discussion is to provide a framework from which youth workers and parents may teach and mentor teens so that they arrive at the marriage altar having understood and embraced their God-given sexuality while having practiced abstinence.

We’ll begin by defining sexuality. Next, we’ll give attention to the various components of sexuality, exposing lies distorting the perceptions and understandings of these components and replacing those lies with biblical truth and spiritually empowered application appropriate to teenagers. Finally, it will address whether an approach of this nature is realistic and applicable in both the church and family settings.

Read the other posts in this “Teaching Teen Sexuality” series.

—————————————————————————–

Shannon Bond is in his first year as the youth minister at First Baptist Church in Bangs, TX. He is married to the former Stephanie DeBoom of Copperas Cove, TX and has three children: Raegan (6-year-old daughter), Sydnie (4-year-old daughter), and Joey (2-year-old son). He is a student at Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, TX. Before becoming a youth minister, Shannon spent 13 years as a teacher and coach.

We’ve all heard the dilemma about the missing 20-something-year-olds from our churches: students graduate high school, go on to college and don’t seem to connect to a local church until their 30s when they’re starting to have kids of their own. There’s a lot of theories flying around about why this is happening, but here’s one that makes some sense to me:

In the ’70s and ’80s youth workers started telling their church’s leadership, “Hey, we need to get these kids involved in the church, but we have to change church a little in order for them to connect because right now it’s just for adults.” The church leaders considered this and promptly replied, “No, we’ve been doing church a lot longer than you have and we know how it works best.” So, in an attempt to keep the kids in church, youth leaders started having their own little Bible studies instead of sending kids to hear the sermon.

A bit later we said, “Hey, here are some kids who can play instruments and lead worship in church, but it’s not the piano or organ.” Again the leaders said, “No, we like our music exactly the way it is. We’re not going to change it.” So again, youth leaders responded by forming their own worship bands and eventually started having their own worship services, essentially creating a mini-church within the larger church, both of which were grossly disconnected from each other.

Throughout this time teenagers continued to develop relationships with only their youth group peers and adult leaders, and by the time graduation came around they knew no one in the “big church” and had little to no attraction to it because they had spent all their time in the mini youth church.

Fast forward to the end of a student’s first year of college. He returns home, goes back to church, pops in on “youth church” because that’s where he is known and feels comfortable, but quickly realizes he doesn’t belong there anymore. However, he doesn’t feel connected to anything else in the church, so he drops out altogether.

I realize this is a gross over-simplification, but the point is clear: Youth ministry must abandon this “mini youth church” approach and purposefully integrate teenagers into the life of the body as a whole. No more “Youth Sundays” — youth are to be involved every Sunday. No more having youth service during the main church service. No more church leaders who are too stubborn and too comfortable to accept change. No more delegating responsibility and leadership roles only to adults. No more adding 20-something programs that do nothing more than continue to segregate the body.

It won’t solve all our problems, but our fundamental approach to giving students ownership must change nevertheless. Otherwise, we die and pass on a church system that is incredibly broken, disconnected and outdated.

There’s been a lot of hype over this movie, especially among conservatives who felt like they would finally have a voice on the big screen. Normally I’m not a huge fan of ban-wagon stuff, whether it’s Narnia or even Passion of the Christ, but at the St. Louis National Youth Workers Convention last year my wife won a free screening of the movie for our church and community. Since our church didn’t feel comfortable blindly slapping its stamp of approval on the film (and rightly so), Dana and I drove two hours tonight to see Expelled at the closest movie theater playing it.

The first half of the film was dreadfully boring. Walking into the theater I already knew that Ben Stein’s quest was to expose the “behind the scenes” censorship of Intelligent Design in the academic world, but in the beginning I seriously had a difficult time trying to figure out what his point was and where he was going with it. The arguments were less than compelling, Ben Stein was not funny, and the constant little TV clips from the ’40s started to get on my nerves. If I had been watching it on DVD at home, I probably would’ve turned it off and found something more interesting to do.

It wasn’t until half-way through the film when Ben Stein started making the connection between Darwinism and German Nazis that I started paying attention to the film, mostly because some emotion was finally pricked as Ben Stein, a Jew, toured the concentration camps. From that point on the movie seemed to flow with a sense of direction and interviews that were actually intriguing. Richard Dawkins’ perspective was fascinating as he clearly tied religion and worldview to the position one takes on science, specifically human origin. Religion and science cannot be two different categories.

Dana and I decided that for the price of free, it’s worth bringing to our community for a screening since it’s not playing anywhere close. We’ll target mostly high school and college students in our community while intentionally keeping our church’s name off the event.

For your purposes in youth ministry, don’t expect the movie to convert all your students to Intelligent Design, nor to even turn them off to evolution as a science. It may help spark some discussion in your group, though, so be prepared to respond accordingly.

The Internet is changing the definition of friendship.

Because of my blog, I tend to have a lot of people who I don’t know and have never met request to be my friend on Facebook. Like everyone else, I blindly accept pretty much anyone. My wife gets it, too, on Virb.com. A couple days ago she said, “Look at this person who requested my friendship.” The way she said it sparked something in me I hadn’t thought of before: the Internet is changing our definition of friendship. A person we’ve never met, never talked to and have never heard of instantly becomes a friend just by clicking the “Accept” button. In real life this person would be called a stranger. If you talk a time or two they become an acquaintance and if you intentionally hang out together maybe then they’d be considered a friend. Not so online.

I wonder what kind of ramifications this will have on the “Myspace generation.” We already know that the Internet has completely altered teenagers’ perspective of community and now possibly on the individual level of friendship, too.

I don’t really have any answers here, just something I’ve been thinking about.

[tags]Facebook, Virb[/tags]

In case you missed it, two weeks ago I posted that I will be teaching a parent workshop on November 6 about Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Instant Messenger, World of Warcraft and various other popular Internet hang-outs for teenagers. There’s been enough response from you guys saying you’d like to participate in something like this that some of my youth staff and myself decided to stream the event LIVE online for anyone in the general public who wishes to participate. Here’s the direct link to where you can watch it on Ustream.tv. You’ll have to register for the site in order to take part in the chat room next to the live feed, which might be worth it since I plan to take a couple questions from Internet viewers. After general questions are answered, we plan to cut the feed in order to give privacy to our parents who may wish to ask more personal questions about their kids.

The workshop starts at 7:00 PM central time on Tuesday, November 6, 2007. If you can’t make time for the live event, Ustream.tv will also archive the video, so you can watch it later at that same address.

Here’s my tentative general outline for the meeting so far. Any input, suggestions, comments or ideas?

Overview

• Teen usage of the Internet
• Misconceptions
• Sexual victimization
• Cyber bullying
• How home life affects Internet life
• Statistics

Introduction to social networking sites

• What is a social networking site?
• MySpace demo
• Facebook demo
• Deviant Art demo

Introduction to media sites

• How broadband has changed the Internet
• YouTube demo
• Flickr demo

Introduction to Instant Messenger

• What is Instant Messenger?
• AIM demo
• MSN demo
• Yahoo! demo
• Trillian demo

Introduction to blogs

• What is a blog?
• Facebook/MySpace
• Live Journal demo
• Xanga demo
• Blogger/Wordpress demo

Introduction to MMORPGs

• What is an MMORPG?
• Why are they so addicting?
• What is the spiritual influence?
• What’s good about them? What’s bad about them?
• How much time is too much?
• World of Warcraft demo

Potential upcoming social sites

• Twitter demo
• Virb demo
• Ustream.tv demo

What happened to email?

• Why kids don’t use email to communicate with each other.
• How kids communicate now and why: PM, SMS, IM

Tips for the home: What should we do with this info?

• Strategic computer placement
• Communicate with your teen
• Learn from your kids
• Search Google
• Learn from their history
• Your relationship makes all the difference
• Shoulder surfing
• A better solution than monitoring software
• Join your kids!

General Q&A for Tim and a panel of students

Specific family Q&A (cut the live feed)

Here’s the promo video I made that will run in church services and be sent around online in various ways. Feel free to share it with others and tell people to watch the event on Ustream.tv on November 6 at 7:00 PM central time.

Dove released another video for their “Campaign for Beauty” addressing the distorted perception our culture pushes of what beauty is all about. See previous videos here and here.

Here’s the video (may not be viewable in RSS readers or email):

Ypulse has a great response to this on what the industry can do to stop this onslaught.

(ht to Ypulse)