HealingLives with Corey Gilbert

Episode 296 - Dr. Gilbert @ the BSE Conference, Vancouver, WA - August 2022

Episode 296 - Dr. Gilbert @ the BSE Conference, Vancouver, WA - August 2022

Presentation @ the 

"Biblical Sexual Ethics & Integrity Conference for Parents" 

Vancouver, WA

August 2022

 

Episode 296's video link: https://youtu.be/LtE7gsZ0UAU  

 

 

Welcome to HealingLives with Corey Gilbert, a podcast sponsored by the healing live center, discover how to love and lead your family well and biblically God created sex marriage and the family for our stewardship growth and benefit my heart and passion is to teach, train, educate and disciple christians that want strong marriages and families. The HealingLives Center has been serving Christians since the year 2000. Its mission is to be a center for sex, trauma and marriage education and transformation, where we offer counseling, coaching courses and speaking services to you, your church or ministry check us out at HealingLives.com.

I had the honor of this past year to present at a conference entitled the Biblical sexual Ethics and integrity Conference for parents. The subtitle was inspiring and equipping parents to wrestle with and live out a biblical sexual ethic model, sexual integrity and grow the parent child connection by a host of the conference was Julia Garrison. Um you'll see here in her in the beginning um and her links to her work is might make level paths dot org, there'll be links in the description. Um so here is my presentation, so some of you, um most of you wouldn't know this actually not some, most of you would not know this uh that this conference was actually gonna be last spring. Um I was gearing up for it uh and the name of that conference again, I love long titles, I don't just the name of that conference was going to be going beyond the sex talk, how to disciple your child sexuality. Okay, A mouthful, right? But that was the whole thing, right? It was like, it was catchy, I had sex in it. Okay. Yeah, so that was gonna be the title. I had all graphics done, I was about to launch it and um, a week before launching and promoting uh, schedules changed and it was put on pause now, like any of you, you might think does God not want me to do this? That was one of the things that went through my mind, right, was like, okay, does this mean I shouldn't do it? Like, you know, you're kind of wrestling with that and in the middle of wrestling with that. Um, I decided I need to re look at this and one of the things that I was re looking at is I want a psychologist. I want, I want someone who's familiar with human and child development with human sexuality, who has, who has a different view or a different look on this, not just biblical, but also with the human development piece. Um I, I know there's a lot of stuff out there about the psychology field and it's been used in negative ways, but did you know the root word is soul care, right? Like it was something that was ours before it got changed. Okay, so it, it's a good thing. Um it can be a good thing, I should say it that way. I wanted someone who had strong biblical ethic and who had life experience. So not only the psychology background in the human development, but also the biblical ethic and the life experience. I wanted a professional who was well seasoned and working in the trenches of human suffering. That was really important to me and with parents, fears also really important to me, someone who got the context while knowing hope was alive. So I started asking around how many of you know that God's a provider. Soon after I caught wind of the name. Dr Cory Gilbert, a psychology professor at Corbin University. So I googled it and of course I'm scrolling his page and I see PhD in family psychology. I see over 22 years devoted to counseling individuals, couples and families struggling with past abuse, especially in the areas of trauma, adultery, struggles with sex, sexuality and gender identity. If my mouth wasn't open at this point, I was like, oh I see published books, workbooks uh specifically on teaching parents went right to amazon ordered it. It's out there um about biblical sexual ethics and being uh spiritual authorities in their home. He's even the founder of the healing live center, which is focused on sex trauma and marriage education and training. Then this is a big dramatic pause. Then I see his newest book and take a guess of what it's called, going beyond the talk, a teen and preteen guide. So I'm all fired up at this point. Um and so after I dug a bit deeper, listened to some things, I was like, this is this is the guy. So I reached out and eagerly waited his response. Uh, he wrote back in capital letters. Absolutely. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome an answer to my prayer and a devoted and godly expert in the area of biblical sexual ethics. Dr Cory Gilbert set the bar high right there. Okay, I am so honored to be here. Um, this is, this is what I love to do, which is also sounds weird. Um some of my favorite counseling is actually with abuse and trauma and adultery. Why? Because God's the Redeemer and it's all about that. Why would I teach classes at Corbin about trauma and human sexuality? When I know when I get to certain topics, I'm gonna lose half the class because it hits them in their heart because God's there restore, there's a reason for it. Without it. I would, I would go be a truck driver or something. It's always been my backup job. It's not, it's not logical actually to even talk about this stuff yet. As I, as I left college and actually rewind there, I went to college to be in music, but I found out you have to have talent. That was a hard one. My junior year. They sat me down and said, you're not graduating, you're not good enough. I cried, they cried, it was a moment. Um and I had to switch my major and I was like, I'm not gonna major in spanish. I grew up in south America, not gonna major in my dojo mech. Actually, that was my, I might do that one, so art, I love art, love and stuff like that. And so then I just decided to try this christian counseling class, one class changed my whole life, my heart and desire is ministry, my heart's desire is to serve. And I never realized that I would be doing that um that I'll be switching from this passion of music into counseling into these in the areas that were to come. I'm glad, doesn't, God doesn't give us a preview, God glad that God kind of goes, you know what, I'm gonna give you this little piece because you're not gonna unnecessary like what's around the corner and we'll get to that in a little bit. But um today, as we kind of go through this definitely as Julia said, pay attention to yourself because some of this is, can be difficult, but today, what I really want to focus on is scripture, the foundation. Why are in the world are we talking about this? What do we stand on? Um the QR code here, it's here and it's also throughout the slides, just so you can grab it if you need it, but it will have the handouts and the videos and all this stuff on that page after in a few weeks in a few days. Um just so you can grab it later. But um this is what we talked about. We get to talk about sex, it's supposed to be redemptive and I bet you half or more of us, it's not necessarily how it feels inside your hearts, especially in your experiences, young people, glad you're here. We need to be able to talk about this in a way that's redemptive. There's a lot of um stuff inside of us that's actually messed up and twisted that we need to actually reexamine think through um really, really important. This is a quote that I heard from Preston Sprinkle and just really hit me said people of faith who are navigating gender identity issues. Are our people not careful, we're talking about them. No, you and I are struggling. Every single one of us is actually wrestling with something. It just may not be that piece. We're all questioning things about who God is and why he did this or why he did that. And especially after the last few years we went through, there's so many questions we have but I love that statement. They are our people. So hold on to that as we kinda walk through some stuff that's not gonna necessarily feel good. Always. This is where I'm from Temuco Chile Chile. No um I grew up in Chile grew up in the Chilean school system, the private schools missionary family missionary kid. Um so I came to America at 17 years old. I'm not liking this country because my grandmother had died right before he came to visit not knowing the culture. I mean your culture in chile was all I knew even though when I looked in the mirror I realized oh wait I'm not like them. Um but until I looked in the mirror I didn't, I wasn't treated different white redhead with a very different culture is beautiful actually, that's what I knew and I actually being someone who kind of stood out when I moved to the United States, I didn't realize that I was actually trying to stand out And didn't know why I was doing that. This is what I looked like in 92 and 93. Um mullets are awesome and I was on a mission trip to Dominican republic and a missionary there, she said cory you're doing everything you can to stand out because you grew up your whole life standing out and now you're nobody and I was like oh shoot called it and I had to kind of re examine myself but everything I liked with pink and purple and girly and I mean I crochet and I cross stitch and I do art and I um music major not realizing that in all of that. There's also certain assumptions that I just was clueless about because of cultural things, not realizing what friends were saying about me when I was actually after seminary, even I was getting new glasses and I put a purple tint to the, to the lens. It was kinda cool not realizing what I was saying, what people were interpreting from that were for a couple years later, some friends were like, yeah, we thought you were gay but really didn't say anything. I never really had girlfriends and um, so what does that mean? Well what's sad is we're constantly sending messages. Everything. We do everything, we say how we dress, everything sends a message. Even if we aren't quite clued into what that means. Um, this was me. This is me now. It's funny cause I actually, I motorcycles became a piece for me to leave where I was before. Um, I grabbed onto a pride for the wrong reason. Even I didn't want to be known as that person. And so I grabbed onto this identity. I, well the first part was I moved to America and all of a sudden there's no public transportation so I need my freedom. Got a job at Mcdonald's. So I'm making 4 25 an hour and I'm rolling in the dough. So I need freedom. And so I bought a motorcycle and that became me. Well that's just the beginning of that where it's like, that's not necessarily who I am, There's so many layers, but the world then was so different and as laura talked about last night if I were born today and being a teenager today, I worry where I would be today because of the pressures from our culture and the questions being asked by our teams that should not be being asked, which we'll talk about today. Um I had better pipes on that one. So yeah, I laugh when I'm next to a Tesla because I make them rattle a little as I go by. But um, so there's parts of me that came out that I didn't know exist and here's the coolest thing. I'm this kind of more girly girl inside and I meet this amazing woman And I have the best day of my life when I married my, my bride Kelly 19 years ago and she is such a guy inside Legal field, like analytical, her version of counseling is a two x four across the head get over it, I'm like, that's why you do your thing and I'll do my thing. Like, um and I meet this woman who I still can't believe I've been online by the way, equally yoked dot com. 10 months later we were married, I was walking with a cane at the time and doctors said I would never have a job and I would never work, I have Crohn's and I was just dying inside my body was um decaying. I was on high doses of predniSONE and other stuff and I was a mess. What's interesting is when we got married um in those 10 months, I've been in the hospital three times and my wife and her mom had talked about in marrying him. You will probably take care of him the rest of your life. Are you willing to do that? She's been a stay at home mom in the last 14 years to our kids and home schools, our kids. Well I work 2-4 jobs because God is awesome. That story didn't play out. We actually through lots of stress and struggle as a couple found other answers and got help outside of medicine and I've learned to take care of myself and I ride a Harley and I go backpacking and I go snowboarding and I do stuff I never thought I could do because God is incredible. And every time I even get on my bike, it's just from reminder of I'm not in a wheelchair. We spent our first year of marriage with a handicapped sticker and shopping for one of those motorized carts because that's what we thought we were kind of into. And um God is a redeemer. Does he always, does he fix everything? No, I actually, my own stuff started flaring up two weeks ago, Why? We started back meetings at Corbin and getting ready for school year as the stress goes up. Things go downhill every time about november, it gets worse and then depression sets in when my college students leave me in december and it hits me again in May. Um I'm human, but I'm gonna actually fight what happens with these three guys. I also couldn't have kids is what we thought too. And I married someone who was like, I don't know if I really want kids, but it's okay if we have kids. And so when she found out she was pregnant the first time, she was kind of mad because she had already given her heart kind of gone, no, we're not gonna open that door. And um so it's just kind of neat to have, I call my experiments. They would normally be here with me right now. But um my my wife's grandfather just passed away. So they're dealing with all that. But um these guys make me who I am, I only wanted daughters by the way. And so then we found out we were having a son and I cried and I was depressed for two weeks. I don't know what to do with a boy. And then we found out we're having a second sun, God, what are you doing to me? And then I had my little girl who's just my doll. I love her to death. If she had been born first, I would be a horrible dad because she would have me wrapped around her finger and she does not have me wrapped on her finger and I look at that and realized that even some of those things of who I was and who God gave me his two sons. it forced me into things that I never would have actually honestly tried and to see how Moldable and shape a ball we are that um all my shirts say Harley on them mainly because my wife was like stop complaining about the prices on at the store because they're crazy and they're all from Ebay, but it was a change from my previous clothing, if you will. Why? Because I loved her and realize that it's so funny how easy some of these decisions are to change, but why don't we? Because we dig our heels in and we actually kind of claim some identity if you will and if we're not careful, it's one that's actually us at the center which we're gonna talk about. So the topic or the more pictures you, my kids, yes, loved doing adventures with them. Um what I want to do today is this, I'm gonna walk through this. Um these are the old slides actually, Oops, okay, we'll do this anyway, create order disorder. This is the model of kind of how I'm thinking about this and we're gonna look at a lot of scripture. I'm a college professor. So, good luck keeping up again. The slides will be online. But um, we're gonna look at this kind of 33 pieces, so create order disorder and then who you are, how does this fit in with you um which is really, really, really important. So the first passage of scripture and we're looking at a created order. We're gonna go back to genesis Genesis 1 27. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them male and female. He created them. This is the foundation. We start with that God created us male and female. And there is no other alternatives to that. That's how we're made. And we're gonna look again further at that. But there's another cool thing about the order of this. He created man. But there's something that some of us do. It's called work. But if we're not careful, we put it in the wrong order. Work did not come after the fall, work came before the fall. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Remember that that actually you are meant to work. I look at this word retirement and I laugh. It's one thing to retire from a job to start something new or to go invest in something different. But how many quit living? They lose themselves or they watch jeopardy reruns I guess. I don't know. Um They lose themselves, you were called to something greater than just punching a clock in death and taxes to work. Work. Work beautiful thing. So put it in the right order. But then God even did something more incredible than creating man. He actually created this incredible person called woman. The Lord um Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. The model of even marriage that we're gonna get to later starts right here and society right now basically has been saying and emphasizing even marriage is just a societal contract, it's a societal construct. It's like look at the bible, go look at the bible, no, it's not, it's from design prior to even the fall, we haven't gotten gotten to that yet. So the man gave names to all the livestock. Can you imagine that? I think about what God did to Adam, He goes, I'm gonna have you try to figure out if any of these are like you in my mind, I picture this taking days and maybe weeks if not years of Adam every day going, nope, not like me, nope, not like me, God, I'm in perfect communion with you and I still have a void, this is pre fall, remember that? How incredible I feel like it was God kind of emphasizing I'm gonna make someone that's gonna be so incredible, that's gonna be a helpmate and fit with you in a way that is gonna blow your mind. Adam found no suitable helper helper. Um and then he created marriage. The man said this has been a bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and she shall be called, wow man, she was taken out of man, This is the design, this is the start, this is the foundation, this is why a man will leave his father and mother and he has united to his wife and they become one flesh still in the pre fall. The design is beautiful what the created order is beautiful and we have to say it two sexually different people. A marriage between two men and a marriage between two women is not a marriage, I don't care what you do. Society wise you can have contracts but nothing is sealed in heaven and nothing is sealed on earth. A wedding, a same sex wedding by the way is an expensive party. Think of it that way changes kind of how you feel about it because nothing is sealed in heaven, nothing is hell on earth and someone who comes to christ and there they find themselves in that space, do I leave my husband or leave my wife, they're not your husband or wife. We have to honor God and are now now the messy part gets kids that's another and it's sad to say I hear it all the time and counseling how many all my kids are resilient. Yeah, they actually kinda are but they're still gonna be harmed by your decisions actually. Even your decisions to move across town to switch schools to leave that church and go somewhere else. Our decisions actually do cause damage and or character maybe but it's life and it's part of us teaching our Children how to handle that. And so sometimes the delusion of our kids are resilient. They'll be fine. No, they're gonna be hurt, they're gonna be harmed. So lean into that and love them and expect that all of our decisions do. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. Do you know what that's like? I would like to say that we actually don't know what that's like. We feel shame even now we feel shame. We don't, we can't even comprehend prior to the fall what that feels like to have actually have no shame. And then God didn't stop there. He brought them together. They felt no shame. And then now enters the picture of Children procreation Proverbs 17 6 children's Children are a crowned the aged and parents are the pride of their Children. It's sad to me to think of how we even think about Children nowadays. They're a nuisance. They're, they're a problem. They're, they're a little messy and dirty and loud and actually, no, you were called to be parents in the sense of how we're designed, it doesn't mean we all get to be, there's trends right now and some couples who they come together and they want kids and then they found out one of them can't. And so they divorce because, well you deserve to have Children? No, you do not. I deserve hell actually. And so what do I do with that? How do I lean into my spouse now that we've discovered that we can't have Children And yes, there might be other ways we can try if you can afford some of that. But we lean into that new us just like you can't, you can't, there's no guarantee when you get married that that person is gonna be healthier a year later or two years later, Laura laura story that beautiful song blessings her husband ends up in a brain is a brain tumor injury and wakes up. I don't even remember her accident. It's amazing to think about. We don't have any guarantee. I know part of what shaped me as a young boy was watching my mom have cancer and how my dad loved my mom. That was a young boy. We were living in Costa rica at the time. But then at 8 18, so 10 years later at 18 I watched my parents navigate through it again and watch. My dad loved my mom and shapes us. But also think about how many of us don't have that shaping from our family. We didn't get good examples of how to love how to surrender how to sacrifice. And so we really do learn how to be about ourselves. So what do we do here? We have this created order? Well, there's the disorder. Where does disorder come in? Well, it comes in with one word and it's sin senators the picture and it all goes downhill. We're in trouble. That's where we're at now. If you think of the things getting in the way that sin the places where we get stuck at Sin Genesis 3 6-7, then the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom. She took some and ate it and noticed he was hanging out right next to her. She also gave some to her husband who by the way, was given the command and was given the instruction and he was silent. Um, and he ate it in the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked and they went to Kmart sending her the picture and everything changed. There's an awareness they got what they wanted they see and they actually also now have to grieve, have to hurt that to face. But here's the word that I think comes into the picture at this point when Senators the picture, this next word is where you and I actually tend to struggle. It's actually blame 3 12. The man said the woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it dude punk right there And what are we doing now all the time. We want to find blame for everything. It's always someone else's fault that this that or the other happened. And it's actually no, I I own my reactions and I own who I am and I own how I handle all this, even the insanity of the last two years. But we want to blame. And what's so hard is there some stuff that has happened that we have very clear blame? Some of the processes that I walk young people through that when I worked at college and stuff, that age 20s is hard step where I actually looked through. So sexual abuse, I looked through what has happened to them when they were younger and I go, who was supposed to be your protector? Mom and dad. And I go, did they? No. So where should the shame be? This is scary. This is actually kind of scary shame on them for not protecting you. And I go, well hold on, don't stay there. You even land. If you stay there for even a few more minutes, you're gonna actually just spiral Why do I say that? Why? Because you're carrying a shame that you can't bear, that's actually not yours. And when I put it in the right place, I can enter the most beautiful place. And it's called forgiveness. But if I don't tell the truth, I can't forgive. And a lot of places I find people stuck is they haven't told the truth. They're still carrying a lie. And then fighting with a lie over and over and over and over for years. And when they tell the truth, they can go and I forgive and they feel very different towards even their their parent shame on the person that harmed me. Why not to get angry and get mad And and actually now seek vengeance is to then be free. I'm so tired of that controlling me and I can be free when I put truth capital t truth in place. But a lot of us are living and playing with and dancing around in our unconscious lots and lots of lies. We're trying to make sense of things we can't make sense of and trying to believe things that are not true. Now here's what happened with blame here in the garden at this point in time. Help the helper fail. Eve, here's how she failed to the woman. He said, I will make your your pains and childbearing very severe with painful labor. You will give birth to Children and your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you the consequences of who she was supposed to be with her with her husband at the time. But this is a scary one. Leadership failed for Adam. He was meant to be someone who actually was leading his wife and he did not, he failed here to Adam he said because you listen to your wife and ate fruit from the tree which I commanded. You must not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you through painful toil. You will eat food from it, holidays, your life. And if you think of the picture of this, it's one of your work is going to turn into something that can actually be somewhat of a burden. It's gonna be hard to be difficult. You're gonna be stressing, it's gonna be something that's different than the way I designed it to be which all of us can probably attest to what were we supposed to be? Adam was supposed to be that that partner with his wife and she was supposed to be a partner with her husband in design. Where do we find the working of this out Now for all of us in our marriage relationship, there's this back and forth and kind of pull of helper and leadership and what does this mean? Um questions I asked Premera couples all the time. I'm like, so what does it mean to be head of the house? And then I watched the husband or the boy, the guy who's getting married dig a grave. I'm supposed to make all the decisions. I was like, okay, I'm not sure where you got that one. Well from the church sometimes, but what does it mean to be the head of the house husbands? What does the require the the burden placed on you? It is you're gonna partner with this person who is so different than you has such a different way to see the world and you are responsible for her and your kids at judgment day. That's what it means. That should make you shake in your boots. It's not telling her what to do. It's not her obeying and you spouting off stuff. Absolutely not. You're partnering and what an incredible relationship when you actually really are linking arms and making decisions together and wrestling together and seeing things different but actually coming to agreements. That is not easy. That's what a lot of us counselors are spending a lot of time helping people do and it is so beautiful from this, these leadership and and helpmate fails. What comes what comes is this man will struggle with and return to the earth but The one We have pain and childbirth and struggle with man. Now again pause and look at society and look at marriages and look at families. This is exactly what's happening. There's a constant wrestling and struggling between who's gonna be in charge. Like what do we do some for some families as if mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy and we actually almost think that's a good term, a good phrase or a good thing and it's like no, this is unhealthy actually I would say it's downward unbiblical as a partner, their husbands that walk in the house and they don't even know what to do anymore because it's like this isn't their territory, it's hers and the kids and their they feel like an absolute outsider because of a lack of this, What was designed in marriage was broken through sin. And so we have a lot of working this out. So how do we apply this to us? What do you look about you? And I'm gonna I'm looking at this through the lens if you got the created order disorder and then then you there's a certain word I'm gonna get to in a little bit as to what it means for you and me when it comes to all of this mess was what it seems like. But also the beauty in the book I wrote. Um I can't say that for parents. There's this chapter I put in there that my wife was like you need to delete that chapter. That's just but it was the one on the neuroscience side. So all of the way that God made our chemistry and our neurobiology and hormones. And it's fascinating because it shows a perfect design of husband and wife male and female coming together and how we're meant to be by design. Yet for so many of us we just don't understand how that how they can think this way or how they can act this way or why are they so emotional or why are they so heartless or why are they so this or that and we gets lost. But yet again God's design is perfect and sin enters the picture, we lose each other. I had a client recently. He just said you know what When I'm gone to work, we should just expect when I come home that we're gonna have to get back on the same page because when I'm gone out during these, you know, 8 to 10 hours a day, of course we're not on the same page yet. The assumption was before were always supposed to be on the same page. It's like, so what needs to happen is you come home and there's a committee meeting, we get back on the same page every day. Yeah. What is the average that couples talk per week, anybody know? Yeah. It's just actually a handful of minutes per week. Sometimes I've seen some studies that say maybe an hour total a week kind of terrifying. Think of all the little exchanges. And it adds up to just a little bit of time and you're supposed to know me with that. No, you're not gonna know me. It's it takes intentionality. It takes investment. Yet we're so busy. So I want to kind of switch gears with this and look at it through the lens of gender and sexuality. Then so psalms 1 39 30 13 for you created my innermost being you knit me together in my mother's womb. There's a design from the beginning from the beginning of when you were conceived, we know that a baby in utero experiences the world, you adopt a child from this the day they're born and they have trauma based off what happened inside that mom in her life chemically and then also around her we know that that's not even a question. Yeah we still have questions about where life begins which I think is such an interesting, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, how many of us don't believe that through our actions, every one of us can actually probably list some things we don't like about ourselves and God's up there going, I made you, you're dissing me. I haven't talked to a woman in my office ever who hasn't had a list of what they don't like about themselves breaks my heart. That's not what it's about having the perfect body or having the perfect mind or having degrees or having status or having the perfect person on your arm isn't gonna make it. Remember this lady that I was a single lady that lived next to in Kansas, she was so excited she brought me down to the garage because she had the first ford um escape the only one in the state just so proud of this thing and I just laughed was like there'll be like 1000 of them in like two weeks but we do that plus it was a ford escape anyway. Like we get all excited about. I have, I've had Hondas and Yamaha's and Kawasaki's and different bikes and Finally finally finally sold sold the one I had and I got a Harley that one you saw and I remember after a few weeks I was kind of depressed because you realize it's just a stupid bike and I missed my Honda because it started this year and it was very humbling. It is, it doesn't matter what you get of stuff. It's amazing how many of us have vacations and then we have to have a vacation from the vacation after the vacation because it was so exhausting. American version of vacations is just whack to me. Just, you're so exhausted and you have to go back to work and you're worse off than you were before and in debt. Um, do I believe that I am fearfully wonderfully made my life and my actions will show that this is still that foundation of even who we are that were either living from or we are making my own path Colossians 3, 5 put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry and think about any of these lists here in in other passages, a list of these things and sometimes we look at it and we can, we just go right into one and we obsess, we don't see the other two or three that are pointing right at us and we need to deal with. Um, but they're also not exhaustive trying to call out something and say, hey, these are some of the things they need to think about to consider. We don't think this way put to death, we're in a place in our culture where it's, don't you tell me what to do first of all? But also, if I claim this is who I am, well, it's that word identity. This is who I am. This is not how God designed us to be. And we actually have losses there. Well, here's two of those areas, the actually idea of attraction and desires. I think we put these in the wrong place Galatians 519 when you follow the desires of your simple nature, the results are very clear. There's a list against sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling jealousy, Alberts finger, selfish ambitions, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other sins like these. This is what comes from this. Well, right now we have in our culture, attraction has become such a big deal. When I met my wife, I was not attracted to her at all. Why? Because in my mind, she didn't fit what I actually saw as attractive. What's really funny about that is I grew up in a different culture, even though I may look this way again, I was attracted to me was not a white redhead. Just to put it bluntly there. And what's funny is our kids are, there was actually bets when we had our first kids that's gonna be a redhead and he's a little blonde, but um, like that's not what was attracted to me. And I remember the day when I actually, it was like something came over me of, oh my gosh, this woman is amazing and it was so much bigger than just physical beauty. It's who she was, it was her character. It's what she stood for, what she believed in, her christ her God, all of who she was and how big of a deal that is attraction to me is that I'm gonna put it this way, it's bad data. Just to put it kind of in a weird way, but to stand out, it's bad data who you're attracted to great and it changes and it morphs and it it turns into all sorts of stuff. It actually has actually a short shelf life because then I get bored with you and I want something different. Same for your desires. Your desires are fickle, you're fickle. I'm fickle. Kind of scares me a little. How in the world do you last beyond a few years of marriage then? It's that's another whole question. I'm at 19 years of marriage and it's like we're just getting started. It's such a cool thing to see that now and go, wow, it's like we're just just getting going We're at that stage where Miley is 12, so we're like six years in six years, they're all gone and we'll move and like not even give them our address. Just kidding. Like what are they gonna do? Where are they gonna be? I don't know and just how excited us because the executive team, we get to actually decide where we go what we do even though that doesn't always work out that way. I have a sister who's in and out of living on the streets and doing stuff in texas and she's a mess because of choices doesn't always work out that we wanted to work out. It's scary. I remember my kids when they were eight or nine, I would tell them I hate that you have free will. You don't have free will. I hate that you actually have free will. You don't have free will. As in you can walk around the corner and do something that totally is against what we've taught you and that's on you. I will feel it and I will feel responsible for it. But that is on you. You go to a friend's house what you do all these things. The way that we handle our attraction and desires are critical because we want to fit in and we want to be cared, love, we want to be a part of something. It's actually scary what this looks like at times Galatians 5 22 with the Holy spirit produces this kind of this kind of fruit. This is the other side of that coin. Who are we supposed to be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self control. There is no law against these things. This is who we're meant to be. Don't go look on facebook because everyone else is, everyone's yelling at someone or mad at something and it's probably a space that none of us should actually hang out by the way. Really, really careful with that. What am I attracted to? What are my desires? How much are those shaped by what I've done that I would that sin? How many marriages are impacted by pornography? Yet a lot of sex therapists, most sex therapists would encourage you to look at porn to spice up your sex life. No, no, no, no, no. When I went to my post doc work was in sex therapy, I went back to the Institute for Sexual Wholeness in Atlanta. The only place you can get this training from a biblical worldview, from a godly Godly men and women that that went and did some of the other gross training and we're protecting us from having to do that. I'm so thankful for them. Um, that one of the founders doug Rose and I just passed away a few months ago. I just love him, wrote the book celebration of sex, kind of one of the pioneer books in this area. Um kind of giving a biblical view of sexuality, Who you are is not your desires and who you are not your attractions. That's a really important thing for us to remember because if you're not careful even as a married man, it's easy to look around and be attracted? And the word I like to think about there is, and it's laughable. So what do we do instead? We play mind games and we're like, oh, they're not really attractive and we tell ourselves lies, thinking that's gonna protect us. When really what that actually does is I put it into the darkness and into secrecy. I started and we'll talk about this more this afternoon. But I started with my sons, even when I would see see someone see a girl that I know they noticed, I would point her out so that it moves moves out of their unconscious to the conscious and go, we'll talk about her later. And so then later when their car in the car, I'm like, okay, what's your story? You start talking through who she is and why she's a value and why when he, when my son looked and glanced, what did you do with it? Did you file it away for later or were you a man of integrity? These are conversations I was having with them when they were 5678, not teenagers. Now they're teenagers. Now to be blunt. I ask them every few weeks, So what are your masturbation practices? They don't, they're not honest with me anymore. They were before. Um, but we have the little dialogues that are incredible. Just them going, knowing I'm gonna ask this. They've got to kind of have a reckoning there, what does it do? It moves it out of their unconscious to the conscious and they have to take their thoughts captive. What kind of man are you gonna be? What kind of man are you gonna be? This is a constant. We talk about pornography in our house, almost every meal comes up somehow. I remember the day my daughter realized penis vagina, Like we're all sitting at the table, she's she's 11 at the time and her eyes just like got big and it's just like we all bust out laughing And she kind of put that together, why are we even talking about it since she was one and they'll catch on when they as they get older and as they put pieces together. No pun intended. Um and they they wrestle it out and they're either doing it internally or we are creating the environment for them to do it externally Galatians 5 24, those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their simple nature to his cross and crucify them. There. I need to start there sometimes for some of us where do I need to actually what I need to die to what needs work versus what we tend to do, which is distract distract distract, go, go, go, go, go, go, go why we have a self centered bent. I believe that we are incapable of having relationships, Why you think you're right about everything you believe, just to put it simple, you wouldn't believe what you believe if you didn't think it was right? So the only way to be in a relationship is to find an absolute cookie cutter of yourself and then you get canceled out because when there's two of the same, they fade into oblivion. So what did God do? He designed marriage to be between a man and a woman and two very different people who have very different upbringings and different world views and different, which also means the more different you are in other areas, the more struggles you're gonna have and the more similarities, like I used to, I used to jokingly say I'm only gonna marry a southern baptist girl because I grew up southern baptist. Um and then it was funny when I met my wife through this dating service thing, it had under her name, methodist, and I'm like, I'm gonna marry a methodist, methodist, like jolly, she has challenged me and grown me in ways that God is so incredible why she sees the world different, her dad's a pastor and and being able to come into that with her and where was actually a lot of her own trauma was from southern baptist kids in school, telling her she's going to hell because she wasn't southern, like so then she married one, like, okay, so we've got some growing to do God is incredible and even those pieces of how he opens that door for us to come together. We have a self centered bent, which means we can't do relationships. So how do we do him? It's dying to self, it's learning to withhold being right to be in a relationship, which is really, really difficult, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility, value others above yourselves. We know these passages, but it's like we get lost in the day to day facebook fights and other craziness and we lose each other, we get really stressed out over money, we get stressed out over, you know, life and drama. When I work with couples, uh work with a lot of couples where kids are either transitioning or something's happening with their teens. The first thing I do is I look at the mom and dad and I'm like, how's your marriage? Because one of the first things that I see is on the chopping block is they're about to divorce because they don't handle it the same. How do you be a unified, even though you're not handling the same and I don't want you to expect the other person to be like you, that's not the goal, but how does your perspective add value to me? And how does mine add it to you and how do we work together? And yes, at times we have to come down to a decision that is gonna be difficult. I'm on the deacon board at our church, one of the most beautiful things that has been, I'm one of the young guys to the most beautiful things about the last 2.5 years. I don't speak almost ever in there. I listen and I learn, but to watch this group of men never leave a meeting without being unified. Has taught me so much, especially as we were wrestling, do we stay open and defy the governor's orders And us going to coming to 100% agreement. We are to be incarnation, we have to be in the body as a body of christ, I think of so many friends of mine and even family who have been lost because of a shutting down and because of other support groups shutting down and it was like if I go here I might die, what if I go here, I might die. And so which one do I do? And many are back in their addiction because they had the lack of support, we have to be incarnation all this is so beautiful to even now be um, be together now. One of the things that feeds into this bent nous is, we actually have language is a really important thing, how we talk about things how we understand. And I actually kind of like this the first time I saw this is the gingerbread person. Um, if you haven't seen it, it's quite fascinating how complicated we are honestly for me from years before, I'm like, I didn't see it as complicated. But as I kind of saw these parts parsed out, I'm like, actually I can see that that we have the identity and attraction and sex and expression. And there's even what I was actually sexually attracted to and also romantically attracted to these different parts actually helped me kind of wrestle with more layers, I guess you could say of myself. I like that at first at first gender identity. This one starts has started to worry me more than ever in the last few years. Actually, I heard a person finally say what I've been thinking for a while and afraid to say sometimes is what we've, what's happened with gender identity is basically, it's given permission for narcissism. It's back to that self centered thing. It's all about me versus God has a design that is perfect. And what do I do with that? How do I wrestle with that? Because it doesn't get rid of the actual wrestling. But if I don't have a foundation to stand on, I'm up to my own devices where I end up and I actually end up somewhere based off culture or based off friends or based off online chat forums are based off anything. But the biblical is why it is important gender expression. When I met my wife, I show up to our, it was our second date, second or third date and I'm wearing my purple suede coat. Love that coat and she's so embarrassed to be in public with me. I didn't know this at one point. She was like, are you hot? I'm like, I am, She's like, I'll be glad to carry your coat for you. I'm like, what a nice girl. And I never saw the coat again. She stuffed it in the bag and hit it. And I remember actually previous relationships where I was like this coat, I'm gonna die in this coat. I love this coat because that identity pieces like this is who I am not realizing. Kind of I was standing on something I didn't really want to stand on but also realizing, you know what? It's actually quite easy to change in our, in our history. What's happened is up until when gay marriage was voted in as legal. Everything. And all the conversations was born this way born this way born this way. Thanks lady gaga. That's what it was. Until two weeks after the vote. It was all about fluidity as we heard last night. It's only validity in one direction. But it's it's scary what we're giving to everyone to wrestle with. I wrestled with who I was. I wrestled with understanding why I wasn't like all the other guys and all that. I did wrestle with that. But I'm not asking questions like are being asked today. That's what this is actually opened up, which is scary, really, really scary, what's doing what it's doing. But it's also this piece here that sexually attracted to versus romantically attracted to? What does that mean? If I if I boil things down to the kind of base level, we have this sexual attraction and that we would eliminate all sorts of people because we're not sexually attracted them. We would have this pool of the kinds of things we're attracted to. And I say things on purpose because they're not people, we turn it into something very animalistic, even versus even romantically attracted to. There's a desire to get to know you their desire to have relationship. There's a desire to even nurture that there's something different there. What's funny for me is I am like this hopeless romantic and I married the most unromantic human being on the planet, man. It's hard to know how to love her. God's up there just laughing. And I do believe that, that he's just going, yeah, and the rest of your life, you get to learn to pursue her and whatever like you would naturally do isn't easy. It's kind of like the love languages. If you've seen the love language is the five love languages, it's interesting to see how many, which is most couples I've seen. You don't have the same ones or if they are the same. They're a different dialect, why it means you gotta work at it. My wife's bottom two at the very bottom or words of affirmation in touch. So what am I talked to, which means like if I put my arm around her at church, she's more like get off. But she puts her arm around me, I melt. But I also know that she consciously chose to do this, going, I know cory will like this, so I'm gonna put my arm around him. It was not an act of kind of out of the unconscious, it was a conscious choice when she complements me and she says something I know that it actually took effort and it was thought through. She's an internal processor. One thing that I missed about like today, normally she would be here with me and at the end of this I will go to her and she'd give me a list of what to fix next for next time. Um Like my power points are the wrong ones. And so I'm kind of going, whoa! Um but she's great at that. But what's the other side of that equation I have to receive. It doesn't always work when we were editing my book. So the first one I wrote, I hired a person that actually I would send stuff to them every week. And the number one rule is don't show any of it to your wife Because she'll shut you down tomorrow, which has happened in the past. So 70,000 words later, I hand it to her and she was like, oh my gosh, this is so bad. She's an english lit person. Everything was in passive voice just don't even know what that means. But in spanish everything is reversed the way that the order of it. So everything I wrote was sounds right to me. But she had literally we had to go sentence by sentence and and I remember at one point just having to go, okay any change he gives me, I just submit to because I'm dumb. It was so humbling and it was good for our marriage. Ironically some of the hard things too when I've been hospitalized were hard but they were good for our marriage. The times when we struggled with kids were hard but they were good for our marriage which is really really important. And how do you lean into growing as a couple now? What this has done with our with our culture, society conversations is you've probably seen these the L. G. B. T. Q. Q I A. Plus letters. It's created a mess when it comes to even what's going on culturally, L. G. B. Is actually fighting against T. Right now. I don't want to be a part of that. The experiments you're doing on Children are not okay. There's some that are saying that and hopefully more and more voices will come. It's interesting to think about that sexual identity is. And attractions are coming back to that word bad data, careful where we place these things because what we've done cultural is we've put those front and center as my identity and who I am and in that I lose actually who I am. The marriage is between two sexually different people period. And that's the design from the beginning and where are we at now? We're in the disordered space. We're in the sin space. What is every man or woman, boy or girl who's actually struggling with their gender identity or struggling with gender dysphoria or trying to figure themselves out if they want to be seen, they want to be known and they want to belong. What's really scary about that belonged one is there's now pushes in some schools being gay or lesbian is so old school and so outdated. It's all about trans. That is horrifying. Where is it gonna go next? What's gonna happen next? Now one of the tools that I use to think through and help someone think through where they're at and who they are and how complicated this applies to every one of us in this room is actually this one right here. These six things are parts of who you are. You have your intention, you have your biological sex, you have your gender identity, how you see yourself their persistence and direction, attraction, volition, your behavior and then your value values, your values of framework. If you think of a pie chart, you would make these parts of the pie different sizes based off how much of these, what mattered more and what mattered less. It's neat to think about that because if you did this now and you did this even a few months from now it would change, it would morph it would, it's not kind of set in stone because it's actually very subjective. But when you start thinking about that, you realize for some people for some teens especially they realize you know, their values are actually pretty strong. That keeps them where they're at or their biological sex is even though they feel and how these other parts of themselves and the goal of this is to kind of make it a little more complicated if you will. But at the same time kind of actually pull back a little so you can kind of see it from a different lens and realize I choose who I am, what do I do, who I who I hang out with, how I present myself all of it. That values peace. Am I standing on a biblical foundation? Yes or no. Am I choosing to honor you Lord? Or am I choosing actually a very different god if you will. And I haven't heard very many people speak this way or talk this way, but it is exactly that. And and I'm gonna kind of pit them against each other for a second. If we're not careful, it's either or I am choosing you Lord or I am choosing this as my God I think if you think of it that way, it changes a lot of our conversations because what we're also hearing and some of the conversations and different books and authors is it's also about, well you can be gay christian and then there's a fight about no, you can't use the words gay christian. All these different side a side b all these different kinds of conversations which is for for most of us were kind of going, well you lost me back there For the person in the middle of it. No, they're wrestling and trying to figure themselves out. Go to Facebook and click on gender. I think they're in the 90s now there's 90 something gender options. I can't tell you what 90% of them are. Um, but even if you pick the same word and pull four people that would say that's them, they would give you different definitions. So it's not about that, It's about you and I are trying to wrestle with who am I? We've always been that way by the way that's ever since sin into the world. We're trying to wrestle with who am I. And I think this is actually a really important tool now going back to the gender red person gender identity is a piece of the whole how I see myself is it congruent with my biological sex. Now the research kind of shows this is becoming those that identify as queer or basically non binary is growing by leaps and bounds in our culture. And many of the researchers are even saying it's very much more all around the social contagion piece. And what do you do with that? Actually to me? Great, that's good data. That doesn't tell me how to help, how to love, how to lead, how to guide. Um, some families that I know have actually shut off the internet to the house and they have locked things down, but that's only worked and the ones that I know where the child or the team has been like, I'm hurting and I help and I want you to do this for me. That's where I've seen beautiful things happen. What if they don't want to, I've seen this with husbands and wives even and grown grown siblings where they're wrestling and they're hurting and they're asking questions well, think about this term or this this um phrase, sex is sex is my right. So the conclusion here is that the authority of that, of that of their own experience or intuition. So my foundation of who I am or what I what I um identify as is up to me, which right there, I already kind of go, I don't trust myself on most most things, my emotions especially. So we're already in trouble. But then we have these parts that were supposed to show up separately. But sorry, God has made me and therefore made the desires I have is that foundational, everything God makes is good and therefore my desires are good and then good desires deserve to be and even ought to be fulfilled. It's just scary to think about some of the belief systems that are out there that are actually pushing for claimant grab on, this is who you are now. For me growing up, even the idea of that I'm male was understood understandable. That was not a question, but the working of that out is very difficult for some of us for lots of us. What is the biggest factor there comparison? Uh, Apple, the Apple products added the, the uh screen time feature a few years ago, shareholders of Apple demanded that they do that for one specific purpose. Girls are killing themselves at a higher rate because of social media, that was the purpose. Why did they not say guys too? Because they're doing other stuff which we're gonna talk about a minute. Girls are killing themselves, this is scary what's happening. And us as parents and we talk about this morning this afternoon, us as parents if we're not careful, were left in the dust at what they're facing because a lot of this is the kind of stuff that they believe now part of our job is to help them articulate it at times. So we're having to help wrestle through some of that, help them articulate it. Others have it very well articulated and we're left kind of mouth open and not sure what to do here are the messages that they're receiving from their friends. It used to be tolerance, then it became acceptance. Then celebration. Now it's participation. Think about that. Think about culturally we're at it's not tolerance anymore. That's actually so not even that, that's still seen as subpar. It's even not acceptance. And even celebration is not good enough. And then what do you do as a parent or a sibling of someone who's saying, well, you don't love me. We need to be careful about even how that has been hijacked the term love because the definition of love is kind of where we're gonna end up look at today because loving someone is very different than just accepting whatever they are, whatever they're doing or whoever they are. If we're actually sticking to a biblical view of that. Another quote from Preston Sprinkle, he said we need to create safe spaces where young people can open up, be heard receive godly wisdom and learn about God's expensive vision for what it means to be male and female. Where should that be our homes and our churches. Our church is actually meant to be on the front lines of some of these kinds of places and it should be also also be one of the safest places to come wrestle. But if you think of what culture and others are saying. Um Another study was, was that three of people that that leave the church left because of the theology, 97% of those that left the church left because they felt absolutely unloved and unheard and unaccepted as a person, not because of lifestyle stuff. We've made it and others have made it all about the theology. So we need to change our theology. No, we need to stand on a biblical foundation of truth unapologetically but also not with a big huge bible that were hitting people with a place where people can wrestle and ask questions. Um and not be okay. At first I was at a church one time that just visiting and the associate pastor was preaching and he made the comment. Everyone should be a part of celebrate recovery and I wanted to jump up and go, you there's something true about it. Why celebrate recovery isn't about once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Kind of like a it's a let's look at the beatitudes. Who am I to be in christ. He is a very different lens where you can have a table of an alcoholic and a mother dealing with our team and someone whose spouse just left all at the same table because you're not focused on your problem or where you're stuck. We're focused on who you are in christ very different. Do I still need some space to probably work those other pieces out. Yes. Do I sometimes need some serious help. Yes. But um yeah, we need community to get to as well. People of faith who navigate gender identity issues are our people, these are our sons or daughters are best friends. Sometimes our moms, our dads, but where we're going and our culture is kind of scary what's happening with our teenagers and the questions about who I am, something I want you to hear. I'm just gonna kind of plant the seed right now to kind of think about. I spent the last summer wrestling through nancy Pierce's book, loved my body. Really important work. I've read it over and over and over and over the summer. I read it a while back. Um, probably best protestant look at the theology of the body, which the only other one I know of is um, Christopher West wrote it. But from john paul, the second's teachings incredible. Beautiful, redemptive. But she finally helped me see where, how did we get here? And it's this split and it's a split between human, human being human and being a person. How do we get away with abortion? Well, it's a human, but it's not a person where the ethics is saying, well, there'll be a person when I say they are. And some ethicists are saying, by the way, that's around age 12 when they can do algebra. What are the implications there that if you're not a person I can offer you, I can end you, I can kill you. Well that just goes for abortion. It goes for infanticide, which is we're gonna start wrestling and fighting within our culture more than ever. It starts with euthanasia or continue with euthanasia. Or if you are downs or if you are, um, any kind of mental incapacity. But it goes into gender identity and it goes into homosexuality and it goes into um, transgender as well. But how do we end up accepting is when we actually make a duality out of it? There's something my body is a piece of material. It's expendable from the person. How do I have sex with whoever I want to have sex with? And I'm actually living the lie of culture of my body is expendable and we see the research actually shows how many do it and try to and it's empty on the sex part with anyone. How many of those that have transitioned are de transitioning. What I want to start seeing is more lawsuits to these doctors and counselors sue the life out of them. That's to me the next step because it is utter abuse. That's where we're at this duality. If we're not careful, what scares me is you and I actually have elements of belief in this most likely why? Because my body is sinful. We talked about this in the church. And so the body is almost of the devil and then my spirit is of God. So we start talking this way in church and we're careful. We've just done the exact same split that has led to our culture accepting all these things that are absolutely not okay. When I start putting that together, my mind goes okay, I can start understanding why if someone believes what they believe, but we need to put this back together as a whole. Well, here's the coolest part think of when scripture, I think of when Christianity entered the picture in history, Christianity entered the picture in history at a time when men especially you had your wife, she was to make a baby babies with that our boys to carry on the name. That was it. And then you had sex with your concubines and with your slaves, male and female. What did the bible come and do? What does Christianity come and do it. Come came and said, husbands love your wives as christ loved the church Christianity came in and raised the bar in a society that was more debased than we are now. Or maybe we're kind of close to it. Where's the answer? Here is Christianity. Where is the answer? It's christ Where's the answer? It's jesus, where's the answer? It's surrender to all these things. I don't know about you? I start getting kind of excited because we live in a time where we're gonna see jesus work if you haven't already. I have in my own life over and over and over and over and over. Have you heard of the maps this is the new term that we have to learn now. And I guess the letters will be added at some point. Minor attracted person. It's called pedophile, but we can't say that because that's too mean. We have to find they found a term that's acceptable. That can be palatable because it needs to be part of that protected class. This is where we're at. And it started a number of years ago and I've been speaking about this for four or five years. This is the next step. Well it is, there's a ted talk that started it and there's been multiple smart psychology people yikes. Um sometimes I don't want to be associated with them that have actually gone, well we need to someone's attractions to kids, that's not their choice. We have to actually protect them and they're not endorsing pedophilia. But then in the end they are. But no, we're not. Yeah, it's kinda it's scary, it's horrifying what's actually happening. But another one that's happening here in the northwest more than across the country is this one polyamory. As I was writing my second book, the one that's for teens, we were about to go to publish and my wife was like, we've got to add another chapter and so kind of at the last minute we stuck this chapter on polyamory, why I had read this article on Preston sprinkles website, the camera who was written by but he was actually saying how most christians could not tell you if they were asked why marriage between one man and one woman from scripture. Why when it was written back in a culture that was polygamists and polyamorous and you name it, everything went. And so that's why I wrote that chapter in that book. It's like you need to be able to answer that question. Why why did God have a design that was actually perfect and a husband and wife, why does polyamory not work basic step to do? Which is careful with this. But go to Youtube and type in polyamory testimonies and you'll watch the video after video after video of people explaining why they have found the answer to life so much easier to take care of kids when you have four or five of us. That's true. But every story I've ever heard of anyone from their own mouth has shown why this doesn't work, jealousy sets in turf wars territory scary. Actually kind of actually need to see what's been happening with those crazy, like the way they do these tv shows, these reality shows with the polygamy groups and some of them have been blowing up to pieces. It's kind of nice to see. But why do those women actually end up in those places? It's all they know, it's all they know. And so being able to actually help free. That's important to realize that God actually actually has more for you. He's got something much more beautiful, where are we losing our kids and some of this stuff online peers, how many christians I know in christian homes I've sat in and they're like, we know their friends, we do this and we do that. Where's their computer in the room? How much time are they on their always where have you lost them? You literally opened your front door and had all of those unknown people walk into your living room, sit down, set up camp and just indoctrinate through chat rooms through discord channels, through headsets. It's tough. It is a nightmare actually in some ways, how do we navigate this stuff? How do we, what do we do? And that's, that's the question that many of you are asking. Um, and for simple answer is some of that those cars need to be cut the harder, harder thing is once you've opened the door, it really is hard to shut it. So one of my was kinda mentioned last night, one of my ways of doing that, which will hopefully talk more about this afternoon is you partner with your son or your daughter. It's a relationship with them, not a top down in the end, us, you are the parent, but when you can partner, it's negotiating and it's back and forth and it's gonna be a lot, it's gonna go a lot better versus them just being told, but be careful who you allow that coach, that's that team, you may have invited a horrible influence into their life, but it's a good thing, know who they are coached by matters who they are taught by matters and I'm kind of biased about being at Corbin University in Salem um where they go to school matters, they're going to become like their teacher. So if they go sit under someone who believes a very different ethic, don't be surprised when they graduate and ditch everything that you taught them. So that's a big deal. Um and what you, how you do this now, I mentioned earlier how we're losing girls, remember what, what it was social media in comparison. We're losing boys in a different area. Here's the list from different research, porn, excessive video game play And absent fathers of the top three porn, excessive video game playing absent fathers. Richard Richard, Is that Richard Zimbardo dr Zimbardo, he came up with in his recent studies on this and I added these three other ones that are actually really important to think about, We have a skill lys group of kids growing up, you get a flat tire on the side of the road, you better know how to fix it. Call electrician to change an outlet, really learn how to fix it was a great Youtube channel. Some dad is making all these videos on how to do basic things like we should know how to do that. It's like if you didn't have a dad watch these, but they're so great and we've, I fix everything. I can, I love tinkering and fixing and love cars and how stuff and Um, but now it's my daughter, she's 12, so helping her learn how to fix Alice, we do American heritage girls with her and so she's been learning the home repair badge and things like that. So much fun cause man it feels good when you can do it. Remember when I was really sick and I was stuck at home and I tore my motorcycle engine apart in the garage just everywhere and then I put it back together. What's the best thing besides not the best thing is when you have extra parts left over. But the best thing is when you started up that first time I did that when we had wiring problems in our house that actually almost burned it down and I was able to go to the breaker and figure it out and figure it out. And it was horrifying what was about to happen. I love that we have a skill us, we have an irresponsible society. They opened a chick fil a and Salem I can't even eat there. But um they opened it up, they hired 150 employees and my son was gonna apply and his, one of his other Boy Scout friends already got in and I was like, oh and then they said no, they already had their 150 I said I'll give it two weeks what happened two weeks later, half the staff's already quit. Why? Because they actually have to work. Really, I don't get paid just to be on your roster. Like, so it's scary what's happening and social media, I mean, I don't know what to say. Social media should be an absolute no. And how do you, what do you do with that? What do you do once that they already have it? That's a hard one. Really, really difficult. I watched, I love watching my older son watch their friends and their phones and their relationship with their phones and go, I don't want anything to do with social media. That was actually been the easier one. Our Middle one is gonna be another whole case. We named him blaze and he's got bread hair and he's psycho and he's gonna be another whole experiment careful. You name your kids too. Um, excessive video game play is also, it's not video games, having your house void. The video games isn't gonna save your kid. But it's my relationship with that, that thing, there's a study that showed that if a 15 year old 15 to, I think it was 30 in that what 15 years, the amount of time a boy spends on video games, they could have mastered an art, but it became a cellist at the highest level, became an artist at the highest level. The amount of time is horrifying. I have a really hard time not getting sarcastic, that's our spiritual gift in our family. When my son goes, I finally won and I finally got this and this and this on the game. I'm just like you do, I had to really have a hard time not being sarcastic because it doesn't build a bridge. That's some of those areas I have to work in learning from last night. But um this is what's happening and this is why this matters. This is why you studying and you preparing yourself? The first book I wrote, I can't say that is the title, it's meant to be a walkthrough of gender and sexuality from a Biblical worldview. Looking at scripture to help you understand what you believe, why? Because half of this stuff you haven't thought about then I can now teach my kids the problem. So I wrote this book, I'm so excited and I was at a homeschool conference and I watched mom after mom walk right past my table and not give me the common day, why they're holding a little one. And in their minds is I'll get to that when they're 15 and I'm like, no, you mothers and fathers of one year olds and two year old and three year olds, you're the one I'm actually wanting this for. So then I get into my session where I speak and then we sell tons of books. But um this is for the one, the when your kids, 123, I would say your parenting is done when they leave the single digits. That's scary to think about the parenting is, you know it, if you don't morph with them, you just get against them and teenage years are very different. They don't have to be a nightmare. Um they definitely can be difficult. So we have a created order, we have a disorder. And what is it that I must do? What do I need to do here? Who is it that I'm innocent called to do called to be in all of my relationships really. But then this plays out very much so in marriage and even in this relationship with my kids is this word surrender? We don't like that word that you're called to give up the right to be right, You're called to be in relationship with people that you may be strongly disagree with and you surrender. You don't quit. It actually turns into this other word. I love this word service. It's serving other people investing in other people. I'm calling you up to something greater to my son, to my daughter, to my best friend and my coworker. You've got a life that you've got and we're in relationship and maybe things aren't working too well. I'm calling you to something greater, which is really, really important. So a question that tends to come up right here in, this is, so then how do I live with people messed up others that have a different worldview. How do I live with people with a different worldview? Well, here's the passage that comes to my mind for us to kind of lean in on. I thought I fixed that says flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteous righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments. And it says on facebook too, just in case you didn't know that, because you know they produce quarrels and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone able to teach. That's an interesting piece there. What are they supposed to be able to teach? And then it says, not resentful opponents must be gently instructed. We actually are called to actually call people to something better in the hope that God will grant them repentance, not you, that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of truth, of the truth and that they will come to their senses. I love the wording of that and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will. That is our instruction. How do I live with people? It's hard, it's difficult, but I am called to speak carefully gently. But truthfully as we talked about it last night, you kinda have to earn it to with people. It's not something you just have. Therefore as God's chosen people? Holy and dearly loved clothe yourself with these things, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. This is who we're meant to be now thinking of even as a church, what are we supposed to do? What is the model of church? And you may have seen this before and I just really love this is that we have this model here to be a redemptive voice of we want you to behave first then to believe in christ and then you can come be a part of our fellowship, straighten yourself up first, then you can be a part of our fellowship or what if it was actually this one come be apart and at some point you might come to believe as the holy spirit works in you. But I can't guarantee that that's not what it's about. But you're actually the goal is for you to become, it changes how we do ministry. It changes how we have relationships. It changes everything of how we this isn't about being right, this is about christ and this is about heaven or hell, but not because someone's trans or because someone is gay or because someone is having an affair because someone's sleeping with their girlfriend or boyfriend. So kind of what I wanna focus in on to wrap this up and kind of land, this is looking at a biblical sexual ethic and why it matters that that's kind of title at different ages. So what do we need to, to think about when it comes to kids. You were designed male or female with a purpose. It's interesting how we have to really emphasize that more than ever. Now we need to your, your born male for a reason. I didn't have that planted in me. I didn't, I really, I wrestled. I'm, my dad is a former Nasa physicist who became a missionary. Like he takes these pro, you know, profiles about like personality. He needs zero affirmation from people and zero, I don't know how my wife, my mom and him have made it 50 something years of marriage like he is so not needing you at all And he had the most emotional basket case of a son. I cried everything. My wife laughs at how much I cry whenever. Every time I watch cars at the end, when he goes back and doesn't win and goes and pushes the old guy through. I cry every time. So you're made male or female for a purpose and that purpose as was mentioned even yesterday I became a shrink. This is my 23rd year of being a counselor. Thank God he made me the way I mean he made me, I spent a lot of years hating God for the way he made me and it's so cool to see that God knew exactly what he was doing. I don't like sports, don't have time for sports. Have them have a body for one either. But Um, after my 15th cast in high school, I got into other things. Um, but I've learned to do other things too that I've actually learned that hobbies, you know, my hobby is more work. That's awesome. I get to serve more people. And when I actually gave myself permission for that, I got to serve more people. It's kind of cool. But our kids, this is the time to plant those seeds of being kind to those that are different. We were skiing in, um, who do a few years ago, my sons and I, and we came up to, it was the last day of the season, so it's hot and the snows, it's kind of, you know, at the end, there are people like jumping off the top and with parachutes and doing all sorts of stupid things. But my sons were noticing there's a lot of girls wearing um, sports bras. And so my loud mouth middle son walked up to some girl and was like to some guy and girl, why is she wearing that? Like, oh gosh! And the guy's like, cause she's hot, He's confused which 1? Hot Hot. Hot Hot. So we had to talk. I was like displays first. All shut up. Don't go there. But he was judging. He was like, she shouldn't be wearing that. It's not allowed. I was like, you don't have to say what she wears. Okay. We have some more teaching to do to my sons. Okay. Okay. Then a girl comes flying by topless big girl too. Big girl was that blaze, luckily didn't see this. So he had gone because that would've been hilarious. My older had oldest son. So I just took off after my oldest son got to the bottom of the ski slope, caught up with him and I'm like, and he's just kind of like, I was like, so first time he's like, I was like, how was it? He's like, I'm not gonna answer that question. I've always asked was, who's gonna show my kid porn first, me or him or me or someone else. I'm not gonna open it up and say, hey, let's look. But what that did is it opened up a conversation that we got to talk again. Like I said earlier about her story, why would she do that? Why why what's going on with her? Maybe her relationship with mom or dad or we made it up. We didn't get to ask her. Um, that'd be awkward. But um, it's, it led for for months and months and months of conversation and me realizing I had failed about telling them about, you don't have a say in what someone else does or doesn't wear. You don't, you can't do that. You can't dictate that and we need to be full of grace and how we teach this when they're younger as they, as we prepare them for teens. Stand strong in your beliefs and convictions. This is the hardest season to stand strong on anything social pressure, peer pressure is to fit in somewhere in some crowd even better be an example, be someone that stands out because you stood on something. The irony is that's actually a much better foundation. If you stand on anything that's different than everybody else. The sad thing is just becoming more on just being, um, accepting an affirmative and celebrating and um, be a leader in Biblical living. Have the conversations where when a friend whips out a phone and opens up something that's unacceptable, they're the ones saying, hey guys, we don't do that when someone cracks a joke, there's a person that says, hey, we don't talk like that here and boy, do we need some reining in that? They don't joke around with the gay word. I hated it back when I was a kid, not realizing how much it was, how painful it was back then. We don't go there now be kind the way you are, who you are in relationship really, really matters. Single adults. You need a community period. I believe we would have better marriages if we learn to do single life better in community with other males and females, Both having healthy, appropriate touch and conversations and intimacy and friendship and depth. Not you should go it alone. I used to tell my college students, it makes me sad how many of them would graduate and go get an apartment alone. Now I tell him, ha ha prices are so high, you can't. So, so maybe you'll actually have roommates, which is iron sharpens iron because it's, that's tough. You're meant for community. We have seen that more than ever. The last few years you were meant for community. I have close friends who have died. Obviously not from Covid from other reasons, but Covid did them in older individuals who basically said, I'm not living the way they're telling me to live. I would rather die and be a part of my kids and my grandkids lives. I was like, good for you. I'm proud of you. Which is hard. This is difficult. Have high expectations. I teach a marital premarital counseling class at Corbin. And one of the comments at the end every time is I had these standards for who I was gonna marry and because of your class, I have higher standards. I was like, yes, that's part of my goal. You raise that bar to where it almost seems like it's impossible that God could ever bring someone like that in your life. Not because you're focusing on the physical because you're focusing on their heart who they are. You would never settle for anything less live on mission with a vision. So, so important from those that are those of us that are married, be all in for your partner. They are your calling to love them to protect them to make them the best version of themselves to point them to christ you are to be their biggest champion hurt together. You may not be hurting. My daughter came in my office last night yesterday afternoon in tears because kelly's grandfather passed away a few days ago or a day ago. And she's like, is mom okay? I was like, she's okay now. But when she gets to Georgia around family, she's gonna fall apart. What do I do? I just, I just hugged her. It was so beautiful. But it was like, you love her and you shut up. Nothing. There's no words you need to say because she's like, what do I do? It's all of us. What do I do? Nothing just be just be wife. That last night was like, she's struggling and because they're going together grieve together. You ought to be best friends from too many couples. I hear the husband say they're married to some foreign alien. No, that's gross. By the way, someone you have sex with, you don't know that's disgusting. But that's not okay. This should be the person, you know, at the deepest levels. You know what their dreams are. You know what their passions are. You know, them teach and lead your Children intentionally. That's what this is all about. We have to go there. My wife two weeks ago took Miley out and did passport two purity with her. You know, we kind of have that anti purity culture thing. I love tools like that. Um I did it with my boys and they're both dying. I went and redid it a few weeks ago with my middle son because yeah, I didn't quite land and it was beautiful. It was hours of conversation about girls and about dating and about all this stuff with them committing at the end that I'll tell you when you're ready as a parent, which is kind of the model of it. Our rule of thumb at home is you can start dating when you're a junior or senior in college by the way, not because that's when they're gonna wait too. But it's the expectation. Stop trying to think because of pressure around you that you have to. But if you meet someone we're gonna have to steward that but careful with the pressure And so we our oldest has been more squirrely on that. That's been a fun experiment if you're widowed or single again, community is critical and your life's not over. You have so much to give if you're widowed or single again, you are now in a place of serving the body of christ and serving others in a way that you know, you probably never could before even because you're not as divided, How to serve others, how to be an example. One of the things that I was talking to a client of mine in the 70s. He's a professor and I was like, you know what? I actually wonder if we should change the age where we allow a person to be like a full professor at the university, but also senior pastor of a church and say basically you have to be 60 or 70 or up. I was like, you know what that would change. We've devalued the wisdom of the older generation having a church where we have intergenerational relationships are so critical and so lost at times and so widows and single again, we need you, we need you on the front lines of loving our teens having hard conversations. Part of the reason I even do Boy Scouts is we have a christian troop and it's dads that have been curated since for me that I trust them with my son and they trust me with their son and the single parents, we tell the moms and guess what? You're not invited. It's just dad's, it's under our men's ministry at church and it's dad's mentoring sons. And we get to partner with single moms and say I get to take your son and have these adventures and teach them love that We need that Number one priority. Here is the long game. And I mean biblically to the foundation is to scripture as we talked about today. Know your theology and beliefs live ordered thriving community, be an example and be patient. What is the long game? Your son or daughter might not get it Now the person you love your best friend may not get it now. You're not the holy spirit and you live life with them and you hurt with them and you're there and what happens is their life will fall apart. Promise just like yours probably has as well and then you're there, you're available. It's just so, so important live the long game there. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be hard. You wanna give up that live that long game. By the way, the long game is Biblical love loving someone by saying it's just acceptance is the cheapest, most frail foundation you can ever stand on. That is not love. Biblical love is actually full of limits and full of calling to and dying too. And it's it's difficult marrying well is the phrase I love to use because you very well you have someone that's your best friend and that you allow them. You invite them to speak in your life. I don't like it when my wife corrects me. My first thought is defensive because I'm human. My second thought is I'm so glad she feels safe enough to come to me. That's so glad because that's the test. You don't know sometimes what kind of environment you created or who you are until some someone won't come to you when you find out later Romans 1 24-32. Therefore God gave them over in their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. I don't like that first part gave them over. Stop it. God will you just be my puppeteer and make me obey? And he's like, nope, I love you so much. You choose. Oh I hate that because as parents sometimes we want to do that with our kids we want to control. No, that's not gonna turn out too well. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator. It was forever praised. Amen because of this. God gave them over to shameful lusts. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do these are such things deserve death. They not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. So what we're seeing in our culture and what we're seeing our families who approve of stuff in an attempt to love, I get the heart behind it. It's wrong. That's not love holding to a standard. But even being silent is better than than some of the stuff that I've seen from families where they believe they're supposed to clothe themselves in rainbows to be loving or be okay with the boyfriend and girlfriend sleeping over and that's their version of a long game. Like no keep strong and hard fast on those standards. Um because people of faith who are navigating generating issues are our people. This is our sons and our daughters. Our brothers and sisters and our friends who they're struggling play that long game, engage in difficult relationship. This is what we're meant to do. This is what the church is meant to do. One of the things that bugs me about church, but also about counselors is you have office hours. So when I look at the community over here church and look at the community over here, if you think of Rosaria butterfield, any of her writing incredible story. Most of her friends when she came to christ and others, they all went back to to the other the other culture. Why? Because of that office hours thing Josiah talks about when she was three a.m. If you struggled, you knew which house to go to. You get a hot meal and a bed because they were such community that I think it puts church to shame. Church shouldn't be a place of office hours. Do we need boundaries? You know, especially those in ministry. Yeah, that's really important. But it's ministry isn't office hours. Ministry is really, really tough. I hate when I hear young, especially young youth pastors like man, my youth ministry is going great. And I'm like, then you are not safe because if you were doing youth ministry, you would know so much muck about your kids, you'd be hurting so much. I want to quit. That's youth ministry and you go back and you do it again because you love these kids. But for a lot of people in youth Ministry, they don't know their kids because they don't trust you. Same for us as parents. At times we need to initiate these conversations. They may not come to us actually, most likely they won't come to us. We need to initiate again with our family. We talk about this all the time. Um, lately, the other conversation has been about marijuana and that book Tell Your Children by Berenson just having that conversation. Why is the door that once it's opened, it works. Why wouldn't you do it? So we need to talk to what the boundaries should be. Um alcohol money, there's so many areas. So my my labor of love has been this over the last few years. Um, I work at Regent University as well and do chair of dissertations and it's been really neat. I when I did my dissertation, I had a brand new baby born right at the very end of that. And I remember looking at that going, you're supposed to go publish and I won't be a dad or publish. I want to be a dad. So about 15 years later when I finally did this at a different season of life and that was my, my journey there because I wanted to be a dad that was actually present with my kids. Um again, the first ones for moms and dads. The second one, I've actually had a lot of families that do it as a as a family. And like almost like a bible study at night And it walks through scripture helps you think? My favorite review of that second was an 18 year old who said thank you for giving me like in a sense, the data to think about in scripture, but you didn't tell me what to believe. That's so, so important. We're leading you up to it. The Holy Spirit does the work, God does the work not us in that sense, but we have to take those steps. And so the um QR code there, that is again, they're gonna be linked to the power point here and then um also videos and stuff for this. But anything I can do for you, that's my heart is this kind of stuff and helping families. Um let me pray for wrap up here. Thank you so much that you called us to be in the position that we're in, whether it's in ministry, whether it's in um as a mom or a dad, as a brother or sister friend to someone in need, which is all of us got to just help us do that. Well, help us think through some of the stuff that we talked about today, um, to really choose to lean on your word, what you're telling us to do, what you're calling us to do is men and women that love you Lord for us not to be other people's Holy spirit, but to draw people to to you to the cross to to repentance. But do that in relationship. God, thank you for each person here and the influences they have, the others that are not even here, that will be impacted by how they live and the choices they make. Um and how they talk and I just I think you it's also kind of scary to think about that, how others are always watching. Maybe may we reflect you Lord maybe reflect your heart, maybe be redemptive people that draw again others to you. Thank you for this time as we continue on today and look into um the age appropriate stuff even later today and I just I just pray for an equipping today that um extends literally generations in jesus name. We pray Amen. Yeah, I can only speak for myself, but I came in a little like and dr Gilbert, once you start speaking, I was like ready to learn, there was something about the way that you presented that I felt like everything there was just I could receive it. So thank you so much. That was amazing.

Thank you for tuning in to the HealingLives with Corey Gilbert podcast. It has been an honor to serve if you are struggling have questions or in need Dr Gilbert offers a free consultation for new clients. Check us out at Healinglives.com to book a call. If this has been helpful to you, please share it, leave a review and help us get the word out so that we can see lives changed marriage is transformed and more people come into our life changing relationship with Jesus Christ. The HealingLives Center offers online courses, programs, books intensive and other services to help you live biblically and well, discover more resources on Youtube and Dr Gilbert's Healing Marriage Facebook group, The Healing Marriage.

Episode 295 - Session 3 Age Appropriate Conversations - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

Episode 295 - Session 3 Age Appropriate Conversations - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

 

Episode 295's video link: https://youtu.be/-1gIvvaeUmY  

 

https://www.oceanetwork.org/ 

 

Welcome to healing Lives with Cory Gilbert, a podcast sponsored by the healing Lives center, discover how to love and lead your family well and biblically God created sex marriage and the family for our stewardship growth and benefit my heart and passion is to teach, train educate and disciple christians that want straw long marriages and families. The healing Life center has been serving christians since the year 2000. Its mission is to be a center for sex, trauma and marriage education and transformation where we offer counseling, coaching courses and speaking services to you, your church or ministry. Check us out at Healing lives dot com moms and dads, this is for you. This is a recording of a session I did at the home school conference in june 2022 in Albany Oregon, the ocean homeschool conference and this is session three age appropriate conversations. Alright welcome, welcome. So this session a little different than what we've done before today um the agent conversation we're gonna really literally focus on birth to 56 to 10, what do we talk about how and some of those kind of things so hopefully a very practical application QR code years to access the handouts that'll be later, they're not on there right now and then the record the video recording as well and some other stuff as I continue to do that. So welcome, welcome now, let me start with the story, these are my two boys of years ago Alex and blaze. Um most of us when we, when we go somewhere we tend to have an expectation about what's going to happen at a location. So I love to go skiing, this is who do one of our favorite places to go. It's the last day of the season. Um People were doing some crazy stuff, There's a few up top jumping off with hang gliders and doing some crazy stuff. People wearing um interesting clothes and outfits. Well there was a number of girls wearing um sports bras and my son was like, they're supposed to be wearing those, it's like wear whatever they want business, little kid. Um And so then he went up to one of the guys and said why is she wearing that? Because he's got no filter and he said because she's hot, he's like, so which one is it hot temperature or Anyway, so we went on the day or continued today and then all of a sudden down comes the girls topless, I'm like, oh great, this is gonna be fun, luckily Blaze was nowhere to be found. He did not see this because he would have had a heyday with that one. Instead it was Alex. So I chased after Alex and I get to the bottom of the slope and there's Alex just wide eyed because this was not a small young, small young lady, old lady was not a young lady um she was quite large and she had flown right past him so that I passed her back to him and it's like, so the first time he's like, yes, like how did you like it? I'm not gonna say that cancer. That just totally embarrassed just a horrible moment. He's just shocked. It's not what you expect if you think of what we do as parents, everything we're trying to do is trying to protect them from certain things. Did not expect to go skiing, that they have to have these conversations and what we're gonna see today is actually most everything that's gonna happen is gonna be almost happen outside of our purview or our ability to control, which is why we must be earlier rather than late. A lot of times what I'm seeing is most often we're airing on the side of too late. Even to this point to the point of that our Children will believe almost whatever they hear first. It's just scary to think about. So a number of years ago actually, it was two years ago, California mandated that all kindergartens have to teach all 15 genders. I'm not sure where they got 15 from because Facebook has 75-90 something and they're in California. So they haven't talked. I don't know if they haven't caught up yet, but parents are freaking out because if you live there, you kind of have to have six jobs to live. So you can't have a stay at home mom very easily or dad. So what do you do and then here's what I hear from parents? Well my child is too young for me to teach them but I'm gonna send them to school and they are so not too young for them, them whoever them is but they are too young to know. We need to reverse that. We need to be the ones if they're walking into that school or in that any situation we have prepared them um for what's what's next, Our experience influences our parenting, all of our experiences, do everything that we've been through for some of us, the reason why we actually homeschool, homeschool because of something that happened to us, things that actually harmed us and if we don't deal with those things we actually tend to pass that on in other ways of either over protection or other um setups that actually hurt that child as well. So we're literally today gonna talk through, what does God say about you and what does God say about others in the boundaries. Kind of looking at you and others in terms of these age appropriate conversations. Now I know some of you may not like movies may not like um you enjoy, I love movies, I love going to the movies, I love tv shows and you can't watch one nowadays, something it's really frustrating, so either inappropriate or something just downright wrong and almost everything and you have to make a decision as a family. So what do I do with that? How do I navigate that? I can either avoid it all all completely or there's lots of conversations that after we had the first time that we were watching The Voice. I love that tv show and these two kids get up to sing together and it was a guy and a girl except there were twin girls and one had transitioned and my son's like what we pause and have a conversation. Well, a number of years ago I took my kids to see this movie ready player one great movie. Really interesting movie. Um I have a I think it was like a 10 year old, eight year old and a six year old something around that age range two boys and a girl, like kids were watching this movie set in the future and basically people escape the crazy world they live in through VR so not too far away now where there another lovely Oculus, but there's this one scene that came in came on there that it's just like uncomfortable wasn't bad, but I'm uncomfortable as a dad sitting next to my two sons and my daughter. So after this was over, we get home, I asked them so separately, tell me about what you liked about this movie. And so this was the scene here is when she was there in the VR Personas and she's dressed in this really tight form dress really pretty well. My oldest son, he was just uncomfortable kind of like me. He was very aware that um and this is not, I'm not sure what to do with this, no place to put this in my head. Um My other son, there's a VR suits that they wear actually do pressure points on the body. So if you get hit somewhere you feel it in your body. So he just loved the scene with the guy kicked in the crotch and he got hurt through the R. And he just looked so funny. Just that was his, that's all he could think about. But my daughter was like, oh, what a beautiful dress. She just thought that was such a pretty dress. And to see all three of our kids are going to face these questions and these things at different ages when we talk as a family about these topics, we actually, we have a tend to have a room full of different age groups. You can't, you could, I guess if you have all sorts of time, segregate out, we're gonna talk to this age group here in the States group, then you have to keep notes by the way, records like a committee to know which kid if you talk to. What about No, we don't do that. What we do is we actually have conversations and the older kids tend to be the focus and the younger ones are kind of, there kind of like, even for today, when they're younger and they don't understand what's going on. They tend to just not understand what's going on. Like I really, we air on the other side, we're on the side of protecting them from versus preparing because when they're ready, they'll finally have a file folder to stick that information and it's like, it just kind of sits there waiting and they're not ready when I deal with kids who've been been sexually abused and I'm talking to the parents usually at this point it's preparing them for when their brain finally catches up to what actually happened to them physically. And when they finally come to an awareness, it's like, oh that's what that was. Oh, and then there's a 22 pathways, one of just going downhill introversion or acting out like crazy. It's like, it'd be nice to find either one of those and find a third alternative to what's gonna potentially happen. And so when we have these kinds of things, you and I all, we're all trying to navigate and decide what's the right thing I should do and what's, what's the wrong thing there, You can talk to our kids, you can talk to kelly and I so many examples where I can tell you, I probably do that different. We could all probably commit straight on the things that we would say, I would do different. But one thing I would say is critical is for you and I to see that a key responsibility is sex ed for our kids. It's way more than just sex ed is the whole idea of who you are, how you were made, how God made you the stuff we talked about earlier today. What does this include? This is what I why I wrote this. I can't say that book is really focusing on this is our responsibility. We need to learn about basic human sexuality, just how do things work. And most of us never learn this stuff I never did. And I got into this as I saw client after client not knowing what to do. And so I just kept studying and studying and studying and learning, saying for trauma, I don't have a history of trauma, became a passion because of so many clients with so much pain. And I'm going, I've got to learn to help and digging in and you each have your different areas of gifting and interest, but how can we come together as well and raise great Children. That actually key as an adult love the Lord in terms of who they are, we need to become a confident parent. But how do we do that is through knowledge is learning, we need to learn. So this, I can't say that book is actually about that. How do I as a parent know what I believe and then how do I then teach that age appropriate level, you know, a theology of Sex brain and sex brain and love theology of marriage, one of my favorite chapters in the book. My wife wanted me to delete. Um she was my editor is the one on the brain on sex and the brain of love. It's all these neuro, the neuroscience stuff, all the neurotransmitters and the hormones and it's like all of nerdy. Um and what does it show? It shows a beautiful design by incredible creator. That's what I love about that, why we do what we do is for a reason and because of the design when we understand it, it's like, oh, that makes sense why we do that example. Um we tend to say men are pigs when it comes to dating our affairs like acting out well yeah, more men in the past long time in the past would have affairs and less women accept who they were, they having it with another whole subject until the Industrial revolution happened as the woman left the farmhouse and she started going out to the workforce. The adultery rates for the wives increased as well. The truth is, we're all a mess. You need to be careful with some of these stereotypes even use um I have clients who have, he's had the affairs of clients where she has like it's an equal opportunity employer here. We need to understand how were made and then a belief system and that's a really important thing now for you and I and the point of this is either I do or someone else does you've got to make that decision. What I am seeing in my practice is the decision has been made. I'm gonna let the school, I'm gonna let the internet, I'm gonna let porn, I'm gonna let friends, I'm gonna let everyone else go there because my kids not a teenager yet, Like actually when your kid turns 11 or 12, we're pretty much done parenting. If you didn't know that In the way that you think of parenting. If you don't pivot at that 11 or 12 age you're now fighting against basically current. Sometimes if you don't change the way you approach them because you're releasing them little by little and they know it all. If you didn't know that they know it all. So you have to prepare them for that stage. And so when you prepare them it's in the single digits, it's gonna be when they're younger. So let's look through these these ages. So what does God say about you and I'm going to put this into two categories you and others. Um here, so birth to five, we're gonna kind of use that as the first category two of our kiddos. We like to cover the blood in the beginning. What do we talk to our kids about? They need to understand basic Anatomy. Basic Anatomy. And here's the piece without basic anatomy correct body part vocabulary. Why is this important? It's more important for later when there's trauma and the vocabulary has been taught, it's much easier to cut as much as understood when there's not the vocabulary, they're so much more gets actually missed as an adult because we don't understand what they're saying. My daughter one time was saying, my bottom hurts, my bottom hurts, my bottom hurts holding her front. She didn't have a word for it. And then my wife goes, why didn't know what to call it? It's a Volvo, you say vagina, but that's the inside. We need to know what to call it. And we get embarrassed by these words and said, no, we need to teach them at one and two. This is how you're made. This is a beautiful part of how you're made. And then there are boundaries around that. This is an interesting one. Be sure not to stereotype what is boy or girl but emphasized they are a boy or girl. A lot of our young people are growing up going, there's something broken with me because I'm not doing what other boys do or other girls do or because I like this, there's something wrong with me and because our culture is so good. It's saying then therefore you must be something you're not because there's no one, no man is trans, transition to a woman and no woman has transitioned to man that's impossible. Um, we don't, we aren't, we are a male or female by birth that can have very different ways to express who we are and how we live that out and that they were loved by God and their family. These are the key kind of foundations about them that we actually start with, Not when they're 6, 7, 8. This is the beginning now in that birth to five, what are some other key parts of this about others, recognizing that others and their bodies are different. You're gonna start helping them notice that you're gonna use shows and movies use friends, you're gonna use each other, but how, how to recognize that there's a difference there and then begin teaching of appropriate touch towards and from others. This is when the seeds are planted on this before age five. Why at 87 by age seven, they're full identity is in place, the full personality is replaced, which is crazy to think about by age seven. This is mark. This season is marked by curiosity and exploration, curiosity, exploration. This is what this is about. They're not broken when they're curious and exploring yet. I feel like what we do is we tend to think that interactions trying to correct them when it's like, no, they're being to there being four, there being five, so understanding what's even normal and appropriate. So this is just the beginning. This is the one I feel like you miss a lot, but the next one is where I feel like you missed the most. So this is that window where you're building a foundation as a mom and dad, as a leader as a parent for what needs to happen in 6-10. This is probably the most important category or space or time frame and in your child's development. So what happens here? More descriptive anatomy? You're upping the game about what kind of the way we talk about bodies understand the body. Um, we had a conversation recently where we're talking about, um, was it, um, circumcision, circumcision, circumcision. And so it was actually fun, pull out the anatomy book and here's what it is. You know, we didn't disrobe. We didn't do anything inappropriate. We used resources we have and talk through what is it why? And then talk about, hey, there's a debate about it and on and on and on. Your planting seeds. Some of you can probably give more data than others about what you've researched to learn about some of these things, depending on your field of expertise or passions or interests. This is a season where we're actually really gonna be talking about sexual identity and was noticed we aren't even an adolescent yet. We are not an adolescent ship. We're talking here about a foundation. We hear from young people at a time. I've always felt different since I was single digits. That's a very normal part of see people's story. Okay, so we need to go back there and talk about. So what is it that came out there And what we're really seeing is a lot of our struggle and sexual identity and Jordan Peterson recently really said it? Well, he said it's personality. We need to stop calling it, what they're calling it or what the culture is calling it, Its personality. I am a love, I crochet, cross stitch. I love music. I have a bachelor's of music, I'm very much that artsy kind of world and in the end I'm still the guy, I'm still the guy just like a woman who loves to hunt and loves to fish and loves to mud and love all that kind of stuff isn't because she likes that. Maybe she's in the wrong body. We need to be really careful because our culture is pushing something that is downright harmful. So how do we engage in that? We have to catch this earlier? We need to go into this other really, really hard conversation at this age. The N word, We need to talk about masturbation and how we actually talk about it really is important. If it's this is bad, this is simple. You're going to hell, I promise you, your kid will suffer, suffer in silence and they will not talk to you versus it. Being a conversation. I actually asked my sons about what their masturbation practices every few weeks or so. Do they answer me no, they did when they were younger, but what do they tell, what do I do by asking the question, It actually moves it out of their unconscious to the conscious and they have to decide, do I take my thoughts captive? Do I steward this or I just do something passively as a habit, it gives them a chance to steward something that really just tends to fly under the radar by asking these questions. You need a theology of this as part of what I have in my book, is both of them, Is this how do I talk through this? Really? How? It's a controversially tense topic. When I started teaching in Georgia, I had um the counselor was on stage doing Q and A the students, I'm like second year teacher and the question of masturbation came up and the counselor actually said this from stage in front of 1000 students, Oh ask dr Gilbert about that, he's an expert at that. So I had a lot of students going backward, which you're an expert in. Thanks. That's really embarrassing way. I think I was 30 actually 30 31. So it's like, wow, this is really not good. We need to know how to talk through this. And one of the kind of a simple summary of the way I talk through this is we need to stop, just say, hey, this is sin, stock your hand, move on, we need to help you Stuart what's happening in your head heart and the fantasy and when I engage in this practice and I actually growing closer to who I'm fantasizing about getting further away and when I start consciously thinking about this, I'm getting further away and now I have a choice. Do I want to get closer to this person or further away? And now I actually have the choice and I tend to hear from most of the guys and girls I talked to actually don't want to do it as much anymore. Like I actually, in stewarding now have choice now where it felt like it was some beast within that couldn't couldn't control. That's because it was in the unconscious and I just had it. And a lot of what's happening for us is just having the same for even pornography. This is a stage of talking about dignity and modesty. You each of your families are gonna outline what does that mean for your son or your daughter, how you dress and how you present yourself? My daughter gotta pack a whole bunch of hand me down clothes at one point and my wife pulls out this sports bra and she's like, so is this gonna be what what's the rule or a home and underclothes only or she can wear this around the house, which is fine when they're little. We're also planting seeds as they grow up. And so my comment was that under clothes and it becomes we set the tone. So do you, I feel like we don't tend to do it thoughtfully. We just kind of let it happen, but this is that stage prior to the fight later on about whether something is inappropriate or not. You're, you're planning seeds as to what our home expects if you will. And then it's a dialogue as they get older, especially past this age. Um, this is a time of negotiating back and forth as they have their own personality and opinion and you're wanting to relate to them. You have the veto card as a parent. But how do I draw them to their own? Um, not to believe what you believe exactly, but to think through what they're doing pornography, The average age that a kid sees porn is in the single digits. We don't wait til they're 10, 11, 12 to start talking about this. Now, many of our families, maybe that's not the case because of the way we've set up media at home or access to stuff. Great. It's gonna happen at some someplace. And actually most of the time it's somewhere outside the, the tight rained web of control that you've created as a parent, It's sitting in the hallway at youth group at church or at the pastor's house or somewhere. You never would have guessed that somebody pulls out a device and start looking at something and you need to have helped them think through that when that happens, their immediate response is, hey, we don't do that. It's not curiosity. It's not intensity, curiosity apparently discussed in the first time for many boys and girls, but then curiosity tends to trumpet help them see that no, we don't treat people that way. We have a boundary. Why you've already prepped them Talking through. This is something that is a misuse of people. Now, one of the places we're going in our culture with this is, I don't know if you've heard of ethically sourced pornography. So welcome to, I guess it's like free range chickens. I don't know. So it's not people who have been trafficked or abused or, but this is scary trying to normalize what even secular culture is saying. You know what, this is a health hazard. This is a bad thing for our world. Even secular researchers are saying this is a bad idea as they just keep getting pushed more and more and more and more. It's just normalized even and among our kids in the circle of friends that they have in ours, all of our kids, some of those kids because of where they have or haven't had these conversations. It's very much either normal if not pushed. So that's something we have to be preparing them for to think through to steward, even though we would really wish to say they're not old enough, they're not, you're not, we shouldn't have to deal with this, but it's the world we live in. So we need to prep them. Another one is periods and what dreams prep. It blows our mind. The amount of women I've talked to who they thought they were dying. No young lady should come to that age and think they're dying. They should have had conversations to know what's coming next, how my wife's in the bathroom on her period and my daughter is going, what is she doing? And my son is standing right there and it's, well, she's having her period and that's explaining what it's what happens and why and God's design and they go, they go through, they have the reactions, but it becomes something that's just a normal part, not an assault on myself. Whereas I've heard from so many. I literally found myself somewhere thinking I'm dying. That's not okay. Wet dreams. The young young men need to know what this is and have been explained and talked through it and helping normalize that. So they're prepared for what's going to happen. And they're also not messed up with that gender. You are a boy or a girl doesn't matter how many of you under your onesie doesn't mean your onesie. It doesn't matter if you want to dress a certain way. It doesn't matter what you wanna do. I love putting on my grandmother's house, the high heels and all that stuff with my million female cousins that whatever they did to dress me up as a little kid. That doesn't mean you're not a boy or a girl means you're playing a game. So be careful. But yet what I see is these families who have changed the decor of their home and their kids bedroom bought new clothes, bought toys and it's like that kid didn't have a job, mom and dad did that and they cater to something that's a lie. And now we got even a bigger problem we had before to be really careful to guide and lead them even though it sounds and feels unloving. We need to talk to each of our sons and daughters and how you are fearfully wonderfully made and how you live that out. It's gonna be different than maybe someone else because we're constantly comparison comparing. We begin this stage talking about sexual reproduction as well, how late out there, there's actually a box set and I'll have a link on my blog and my blog got messed up. So to redo it, but there's a box set of what we have, the books we had on our shelf, age appropriate kind of little picture book. It's a great set where the kids who just pulled off the shelf, start talking about it. Really, really good. And sometimes we would go find the book and pull up, pull off the shelf and talk to our kids. Remember the first time Alex came up asked a question, we pulled the book out actually, kelly said Corey Help and we pulled the book out, read it and he's like, okay, off the plane, like, but then the next time he asked the same question and he's like, oh like it's like it finally landed, you're, you're wanting to be ahead of that curve, not behind that curve where he said maybe asking questions where you shouldn't or google or Alexa or somewhere else. Um and the important thing about this stage is personality of sevens don't have age seven who they are and here's the even creepier thing. What is going to change that personality after the age of seven? Drama, trauma careful what you pray for and actually sometimes that is what we need to pray for. We need to pray for our son or daughter. Be broken to get it. I'd rather than break here to come to christ than to live a life apart from you. So it's like we should be careful what you pray for but be intentional by, by seven years old. Some parents are still trying to find sleep like it's an elusive thing and they're trying to, it's just survival, which is why we need one another. We need our churches, we need family relationships. We're not supposed to do this alone now the same stage. What about others? We need to be planting the seeds at this stage. What this whole boyfriend girlfriend thing is. What are your rules? What is your parameters for this when our kids were that young? Our conversation was you could start dating when you're a junior or senior in college at that age, they're like whatever. They don't know what that even means. And then our oldest gets 12, 13. He starts liking girls. And it's like okay, passport purity. What did that actually at nine did that with him. And we have these conversations and then he starts being interested in girls. And so how do you handle that? Well he knows it's not a rule but you can't it's careful expecting you have to and then when you do start actually being serious with someone and we're all going to differ on what that age should be. What's next? What are the boundaries? Can you only do? Only spend time at someone's house. You know? Can you go out by yourself when they turn 16 and they can drive what is it? You're planting these seeds? Not at 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 you're doing it and then single digits. So that when you get here you're having less of a battle because we are having for many of us our adolescent years or a battle of the will or because I'm the parent card between careful of. So at this point you need to be planting the seeds of what is our family's expectations of boyfriend girlfriend. That's a note that here the boundaries or this seems to be done. Um I if you have a daughter already ready to have my a r. table and tell the young man. Alright put it back together and see how that goes over. She's 11. So not there yet. Another one that we actually need to talk about the masturbation piece but from the others. What about other people? It's not just a personal thing and we need to externalize this that when you do this yourself, how did this impact? Because I kind of mentioned earlier other people in relationships and so this comes up here on the others because it's a boundary to need to see that my choice actually impacts how I relate to other people. I say I want to get closer to him or her. What I'm doing is actually making me go further and further away my heart. So when I'm aware that I'm more in control if you will trauma and abuse. Another really, really important area we talked about in the beginning an earlier age that we actually prepped in terms of vocabulary. It's for this every time my kids stayed with a babysitter when they left and I would tell my these were students in Georgia, they were students of mine. And so they knew that because I would say this in class that when they left I would ask my sons and daughter about anyone touch you didn't change your diaper? Did anyone at these earlier ages. I wasn't looking for them to tell me the truth. I knew that was far fetched. I was looking for them to change the way they were answering me because then I know something happened one day I came home. We came home and our lovely amazing babysitter was like freaked out. He's like your son, I deleted it already, but your son took my phone and took a picture of his penis. What in the world. So sometimes your kids would just be nuts but intended on that work. Anyway, she deleted the pictures supposedly. Um, that's gonna happen. You wanna prep even like my babysitters, our college students, they knew that I was gonna do that. It wasn't something covert, kind of like the teddy bear cam. It wasn't that they know and we have cameras around our house mainly aimed at screens so I can pull my phone out and check and see what's on the screen in our house. And that's what we've given us freedom to. We're here without our kids, which is kind of nice pornography is another one that also applies. What about others And these stages were preparing for what we also don't want to ever have to happen. I'd love for you never look at pornography. I'd love for you never have trauma. I would love for you to never be abused. But the reality is that many will we want to prepare them to not freeze. Fight flight is great. We don't want freeze. So we want to be able to prepare them by teaching some of these skills, which is really important When it comes to pornography. We Wanna teach about where, where this stuff is coming from and the human trafficking and things like that. Oh, they're too young. No, they're not when at this age they start connecting the little boys and little girls just like me gets Dolan off the I-5 corridor right here from parking lots along this. They start seeing the world a little different. You're not there to scare them and you be careful. Every kid's got a different sensitivity level. But helping them see that this is a world that we need to be smart to be wise to do things in twos to be in groups to be careful with that. How do I be a friend? What does that look like? This is again that stage where they're learning and they're, they're relating who first to mom and dad, who else siblings. And then it goes, it gets the circle gets bigger and bigger. We moved here to Oregon from Georgia. We realized like our kids, their whole world was that one little house in Georgia that we lived in. It's kind of neat and weird to think about their whole world was that house church, but they were so little. There's not much else that they did and to see that they not only drove across country, which we've done tons of times since, but their world was expanding and that's what we want. We want the world to expand. We want more control over it probably than um, than not. But another really important part of this section is they are under authority. This is so critical that these young men and young women actually really call them boys and girls that are rioting and throwing chairs through windows in Portland and Seattle places. They need spankings first of all, but they need parenting. What's missing is no, we don't do that basic stuff that shows where we have failed culturally where we can go, hey, we can really do a really good job of this. Um that they are under authority. All authority, how they treat a police officer, any anyone, their teachers, even a teacher, They disagree with how they treat authority And then it starts at home mom and dad that's a biblical mandate. This um stage is marked by experimentation and pushing of boundaries yet. We haven't even gotten down to lessons yet. So think about that. Those that have raised kids know very much what I'm talking about. Many of us, my mom and dad, we wouldn't even have these talks until after these ages. This is this ain't Kansas no more. It is time to really be intentional and prepare and protect, prepare them for what they're gonna face sometimes right around the corner. I've talked to young women who in their own parents house. Um, around the corner from mom and dad as in feet around the corner they were assaulted by your neighbor friend. This isn't they went to some far off place or was it some scary dark dark alley. It was right there in front of, around the corner from someone who thought they were, you can't be all eyes all there all the time protecting them. So at a young age we want to prepare them to be to make decisions, to make judgment calls even though in the end we would say, oh they're not ready. I agree yet. It's kind of funny to watch how they actually do step up and they do, which is really cool. Now we get into age 11-17. So now this is when we actually might start maybe thinking of considering having the talk uh and your kid goes so long and what do you want? What do you want to know? They're ready to tell us about sexting. We haven't heard of that before. Or mom, have you seen Tiktok and they're completely addicted to all sorts of crazy stuff and we're clueless if we haven't been monitoring those things and trying to stay on top of what our kids are facing. When I wrote this book to I I put micro conversations through the whole thing. I love that phrase and then I realized later a lot of them are conversations, There are many lectures so careful to not expect a dialogue. A lot of parents I talked to. This is why I kind of came to my mind was they they say well I try to engage and they would engage. Don't let that stop you. You telling them the truth or teaching them something. And they have zero response doesn't mean it didn't land. So plant the seeds, plant the seeds, have those little mini lecture conversations. If they talk, that's a bonus. Most of our kids when something goes wrong, they're probably not going to talk to us if yours is a kid that came to you and expressed someone touched me or someone did this, your anomaly. That's not normal that the kid goes and tells mom or dad. So be thankful for that. We need to prepare them to go talk to someone. Um, they might find they have a better relationship with their youth pastor or their small group leader in the youth group or their coach and you want to be able to curate and know who those people are when our, one of our sons at one point fessed up to having seen pornography. Um, he did it in a small group of church and what does most of his small group leader do, he said, so are you gonna tell them or am I? And it went up to change their, the youth pastor and the youth pastor to us. And he already told us. Um, but it was awesome. We're like, thank you those, thank you, thank you for loving our son enough to not just go, okay, this is private. Now we're gonna keep it, which is what I'm hearing from so many groups. Youth groups Now this age right here 11-17, this is the age you want to hang on for dear life. It shouldn't be. This is a young adult in a sense. But then five minutes later they're crying too. So it's kind of this maybe it's just bipolar, I don't know, were all diagnosed bipolar in this stage. Um, there's a really good book that talks about this stage of being the age of opportunity trip, maybe not such a great concept. This should be the time when you're building a relationship with them and helping them expand their tools and their experiences and their their set of skills and what they can do. This is a time of identity, but it's not just the sexual part. Who am I? How do I dress? How do I present myself? How tough am I? How sweet am I? How strong am I? How you name it? These are different struggles that our our teens are struggling with and trying to figure out that they are fearfully and wonderfully made to understand the bible and what it says and then how that applies to God did not make a mistake and put you in the wrong body at all. So what you gonna do with that very different message than what he's what he or she has been given elsewhere. That as a body, your body is a temple, as a believer. Every sin you commit is outside your body. You know what I just said? You're not a mistake. You're not trapped in their own body, but you have a personality. This is how God made you. What are you gonna do with that? And I feel like especially the last two years, there's so many young people who have no clue. I didn't take the next step because stuff has been stolen from them, ripped from them, taken from them more. I believe the pandemic is starting now. It's mental health, shake some bias there, look at the data, it's terrifying suicide. The amount of a s that never should have shut down because it was a choice between I'm going to die of Covid, I'm gonna die of my addiction and they died of their addiction. Like this is what's happened. We know that. How are we gonna fix that? It starts a lot with our home, but also then prepping our kids to maybe sometimes be the person someone else leans on, especially in this stage of life, which is really difficult. And we're continuing to develop that understanding of sexual reproduction. What does it mean when we talk about sex, it's all fun and games in a lot of the way it's sold and talked about every bit of it. It's all fun. It's like, no, sex is meant to make a baby every time by the way, every time we have intercourse. Now, thank goodness. It doesn't. We have a lot of babies, but the design is so then it blows my mind how many people are scratching their heads. I don't know how he got pregnant. So we need to be able to talk about this the way that the number one thing that comes out of this is a baby design but other benefits is it's supposed to be a fun time, supposed to be a good thing. It's supposed to be a beautiful thing and it has boundaries. It has a context. There's a place for this outside of that. It's actually I brace my heart to think of how many wonder how many kids they have or wonder what is happening. What scares me even more guys and girls, this is not an equal opportunity employer here. What is the most feared STD? Mhm. Hey, this is the first one that comes up is number nine on the list for eight other ones that are worse. Which is like that one cause it's hip and popular. Just kidding babies. Number one is babies. We treat them like they're just some accident. Oops, I have a script, scratch your itch. What's scary is some of those top ones media and things like that have zero symptoms. And when you finally find out when you're trying to have kids when you're married. If you have it more than once and again, this is women, your potential, your potential for being able to have a baby goes into like the 20% and a radical hysterectomy is next. This is not fair. So then I would say, guys, this is on men to step up and be the man and actually never, ever, ever, ever put a woman in that kind of position. Mhm. It's on them. And biblically, that's actually exactly the design of marriage. But the ownership of this is on the men. What actually is the reality? The man pushes and pushes and pushes and who's having to constantly say no and say no and say no. It's horrifying. So how we teach this, what kind of man are you gonna be is really, really critical? How do you refrain from sexual immorality? Does that look like temptation? Hey, that's normal desire. Yeah, that's, that's there no matter what age you are. How do you manage social media? There's a really easy way to manage social media by the way. It's called not having it. Um I used to get Corbin, I would always create a facebook group with our freshmen coming in. It's been actually really cool. The amount of freshmen coming in don't have facebook mainly to mom and dad around there. But um, it's changing. But what's scary is they're moving to probably worse places with Snapchat and Tiktok basically some of the most popular and what's happening. We're losing our kids. Actually, some of you are lost to your relationship with your phone is a little more intimate than your spouse. So just saying, we need to be careful and we're not always the best example of that. So managing social media what you do or don't do what you do and don't post some of you need to stop commenting on other people's stuff because you're just starting a fire and stop it and go play with the kids or something, go do something different. But we have become the example and we need to talk through this with them because at some point you're gonna have to probably let them have something. When is that? Well, here's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a lot of homeschool families who is boundary boundary boundary there, 18. Alright, leave the house and now it's everything is available. I don't have mom and dad now so I can get a phone. Never had a phone before. Now I can get social media I never had before. Now I get and they're going crash in the brain because everything is fair game. We need to be careful how we navigate this to help them make decisions within our purview. So then we then take away those, they're actually making wise decisions. So how you manage that's really difficult. Who are their idols and who influences them. Really, really important. A lot of it, whether it's a movie star or whether it's a Tiktok performer or a youtuber. Um These these people are important. What do they represent? What are they teaching dating courting further defined boundaries at this point. What does that look like? The session I did before. We talked through kind of a design about? And again we have pornography. This doesn't change. This is something to steward and to understand the effects. And this stage is marked by experimentation and identity Erickson stages of development from psychobabble stuff. This is the stage of identity formation. What it is neat to see that way back when was still identified as that and we're still kind of in the same space although We create adolescence and that goes to what 17, 18, 19 maybe? Or does it go to 30? Like that's even changed where you think of a few generations ago, how many were married at 14 and running the household? And it was normal, It wasn't like an overburdened thing. So we've changed a lot and need to adapt to those changes. And there's some expectations to you probably can expect more out of your 12-13 year old than you realize chores that kind of stuff starts at home. How are you treating others? This is again how how did they live this out? What does the bible say not mom and dad and social media. So getting them back to the bible. What that what it says, deepening their identity? Are you kind respectable, respectful? What is your work ethic is being played out? How do you love and talk to have relationships with men and women who are L. G. B. T. Q. I. Plus something we never even conceived of when we were kids. How do you love? How do you? And love is not endorsed. Love has not become a ally. Love is not um, put a flag in front of your house, Love is not all these things that have become love is saying, I love you so much, I'm calling you to a higher basically level, but here's what scripture says and your life will be way better here, which is really important to be aware of decisions that cannot be unmade, supposedly our prefrontal cortex isn't developed till What age? 25. How many knuckleheaded stuff have we done in high school and college? It's like, that's scary where you go to school matters the kind of parties you do or don't go to matter the kind of relationships you make matter and there are some decisions you can make that you can't unmake and so being able to really intentional curating your life, being careful that and you're helping them do that maintain integrity of your convictions and what God is saying, we need to know God's word. This is really, really critical now today from this, I spent less time on scripture. I did more of that earlier in the two sessions today because today was more of these topics. What do we say, what we talk about? Um this is what we're seeing more of, this is the norm. My wife and I were at a restaurant not too long ago and we looked over and there was six or eight college students and they had a stack of iphones on the end of the table. It's awesome. There was one girl who was orchestrating this. So it shows you can, you can influence your friends when they went to the bathroom, she passed out all the phones because one of them makes a noise and they all look at them and they check their phones and they won. The last person came back from the bathroom that she's given back piled up on the end. Like we need friends like that, that's a leader of and they're leading in the right direction that too many of us are not present. And they've even shown research that your phone, if it's just sitting out in front of you, you're showing you're not present, it's more important than you are put it away. You know, you could also do what my wife doesn't just lose it all the time. But what do we do with this? So we can kind of give you three words and then kind of some list to kind of finish this here. Um put this together a couple years ago thinking about these the, I guess plan that I would want for you for your kids. The first is a vision. If we don't we don't have where we wanna go, it's kind of hard to make decisions today. We just kind of weakened kind of just going halfway and I want to focus in on a vision for growth and maturity. So what are those things that need to be given to our sons and daughters to help them navigate? They will make their decisions. But I want to plant these, It's a biblical picture of masculinity and femininity. What are their spousal standards, sexual boundaries And you know, this is one narrow path, there's lots of other ones. So I'm not talking about how you're gonna manage money or all that other stuff. This is really critical as the area. I spend most of my time in. What does it look like to be a man to be a woman, to be a husband, to be a wife. What do you expect? What are your absolutes? We would not do. And then where do we get this from? And this is where you and I come in as moms and dads, we develop a code at home. What does that? Family code in our home come look like? We need to have rites of passage, significant tasks, logical consequences into trace deposits are home needs to be a place where we actually helped celebrate the milestones that our kids are going through. We're one of the few countries that doesn't have some really serious you are now no longer a boy, you're a man, you're now no longer a girl, you're a woman. I remember being in seminary walking down the hall of the girls dorm. I was an electrician there and you're supposed to yell what man in the hall. And I was like boy on the whole, I didn't even say the word man because I was like, oh, I don't know. There needs to be logical consequences. Some of you are too soft, toughen up. There needs to be some natural consequences. Call the cops maybe, but maybe preferably you handle some things first now just let things happen. There needs to be things that they do. There needs to be actually Grace. Our pastor mentioned recently how we've done a really good job of moving more towards grace. We've also gotten away from obedience and years and years and years ago when he started, it was all about obedience and not a lot of grace pendulum and be careful with that. I don't know why I put this in here, but I thought it was really cool. Your son hates us. We won't let him play football, but we like his brain. So he decided to karate now and he's gonna say, so play in college. We'll see. And then the 3rd 1, cause what does this look like finding a cause to fight for, how are you going to impact or going or we're going to impact others for the better. It's really cool to look at a young person who knows they want to be a doctor, I wanna be this or want to be that. That's such a cool, it's so also cool to see how many don't become that. Um because God has a different plan. My goal was to be a missionary and go back to south America and work in the music and you have to have talent. So I didn't know that. I tried to go that direction. Um and I had passion and I see how God used that to turn corners and take me to the next step. The next step. You need to help your child find that. And it may not be you who's doing a lot of that navigating maybe actually other people you're curating, you're bringing into the fold if you will and you want to be the one that helps do that. Not kind of just whatever happens or whatever group they end up at. Um this also goes for us, Why are you doing what you're doing? Some of you have jobs, you hate some of you have jobs you hate but you love the job because it provides the money to do this stuff you love and you have a good balance there. Some of you just hate your job and your life and everything else. That's a problem. Like you created it. I see couples, it's like we hate each other. It's like great, you created this marriage blame who you, hey, how are we gonna fix this? We need to change our tactics and learn that. I can choose to love you or I can choose not to. That scares me. It scares me, I have that free will I choose to love you or I choose not to. This passage really hit me years ago and just keep coming back to the what is our call and then we're going to raise our sons hours to do teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect self control. Likewise teach the older women reverend in the way they live and then they can train the young women to love their husbands and Children and to be self controlled and pure, similarly encourage young men to be self controlled, live self controlled, upright and Godly lives in this present age. I think I sense a theme in that and I need to actually be in control of myself, not others do and I just react or I just am own have take responsibility become the young man, young woman that you choose to be and that's again when you get that vision and you have reasons to actually gets a lot easier to make decisions and to become the man or woman that God calls you to do and I just threw that in there because it's a cool picture now I did this session earlier but this is a created this seminar less sex dating and marriage and it goes through these four areas and it's for this purpose, it's about seven hours long, but it's looking at dating and then looking at questions to ask and things we talked about earlier. But then a picture of, so let me paint a picture of what marriage could be like and when I get that locked in, I actually look at my decisions today and realized I'm settling for playing with play doh versus actually having something amazing. I actually wait. I need to have a reason to and a lot of times we do is try to scare kids with pictures of stds in health class or you might get pregnant. But when you know everything and you're immune to any consequences. Adolescence then doesn't land. But when you develop a vision for yourself, it's funny how my decisions today, I own them And I'm actually a little more protective of that. And this last one, the number one area that we can predict the future marriages outcome, which is scary, John Gottman says with a 94% accuracy is how you handle conflict and they're learning it from us first by the way. So we're the first examples of that and so helping teach them how to engage in debate, engage in conflicts and disagree, but also be respectful and B is a critical skill to help them grow up into the mainland and that they, we want them to be. So the statement again that I'll keep saying either I do or someone else does just actually scary to think about or the weights on us are you gonna make mistakes? We all are actually. We get that out of the way. We can realize that I can choose to make the mistakes and give my kids probably the best gift I can give them. Say I'm sorry and ask ask for forgiveness and be teachable. We don't want to be some parent that seems to have it all together and the kid looks at and goes well, I can't be like them to forget everything. Them and their god, they show fallibility were much more real for them to actually listen to and watch because they are watching 12, that's my son blaze. Thank you very much. Thanks for having.

Thank you for tuning in to the HealingLives with Corey Gilbert podcast. It has been an honor to serve if you're struggling have questions or in need. Dr Gilbert offers a free consultation for new clients. Check us out at healing lives dot com to book a call. If this has been helpful to you, please share it, leave a review and help us get the word out so that we can see lives changed marriage is transformed and more people come into our life changing relationship with Jesus christ. The HealingLives Center offers online courses, programs, books intensive and other services to help you live biblically and well discover more resources on Youtube. And then Dr Gilbert's healing marriage facebook group, the Healing Marriage.

Episode 294 - Session 2 Love Sex Dating and Marriage for Teens - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

Episode 294 - Session 2 Love Sex Dating and Marriage for Teens - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

 

Episode 294's video link: https://youtu.be/GMHLnvOL0jQ 

 

https://www.oceanetwork.org/

 

Welcome to HealingLives with Corey Gilbert, a podcast sponsored by the HealingLives Center, discover how to love and lead your family well and biblically God created sex marriage and the family for our stewardship growth and benefit my heart and passion is to teach, train educate and disciple christians that want strong marriages and families. The HealingLives Center has been serving christians since the year 2000. Its mission is to be a center for sex, trauma and marriage education and transformation, where we offer counseling, coaching courses and speaking services to you, your church or ministry. Check us out at HealingLives.com.

Today's session is geared towards teens and pre teens, so parents that are listening listen away, but this is for your teen or preteen. Um this is a recording of a seminar that I did Session two at the ocean homeschool conference in june 2022 in Albany Oregon called love sex dating and marriage for teens. Welcome Okay, so this QR code here will take you to the power point later. You wanna it's also the same one on the cards. Um and also the recordings and stuff like that and other things will have to be kind of for this conference. Mr reminder there, but let me start with kind of the elephant in the room in the sense of the title Love sex dating and marriage is kind of in the wrong order. If you haven't noticed, I had a lot of people over there has had this title for a long time. Um and they're like that's the wrong order. I know it sounds better that way. It's also the way we're doing things nowadays. It's messed up. So one of the goals today is to give you a framework that's different. Many of us have heard the word dating and heard the recording, but half of us use it in different ways than others. And so what do we do kind of talk to that? Um this website here, you can actually this, I have a seven hour version of this course. We're gonna cram into this next hour where I really talk through the book of world view and picture of marriage and dating to do this. Well, because I really do believe my heart's passion is that you marry. Well that you actually find someone that your partner, your best friend for life and that you want to do life with and this isn't something you want to come into with collateral damage galore. So how to do that. So teens I'm really gonna be talking to you by the way. So those in the room that are teens, you're my audience. The rest are just here because they thought they had to whatever. So, I'm gonna be talking to you mostly because to me again, this is such a passionate, important thing. Even the let's talk about sex part. Sex is the draw in some sense, but it's not the most important piece of this puzzle when it comes to marriage. I have a classy one that I have icing on the cakes. The sexual part should be a really good part of the US. It's not the most important part. But when I see a client see a couple struggling and they're struggling in their sex life, it's because it's the most important part of that moment. It becomes a deal breaker, which is heartbreaking that we let something so small in some sense, but so precious, hurt us harmless. Um, when you do this, by the way, when you do this whole marriage thing, this is what happens. It's pretty awesome. Best day of my life. I still can't believe it. We're in 19 years. So we're just barely getting started um, incredible what happens. But when this happens then this happens, they start coming like awesome. I think we have kids because the health issues I've had and it's been amazing to see these three experiments is what I call them grow up and realize that they have free will and I don't like that. I just don't. It's like I remind them, you don't have hate the free will you make your own decisions. Every one of your teams are gonna make your own decisions and you're gonna make decisions that are gonna have an impact on your life forever. So the picture for today is this one we're gonna talk about this bridge. Um, and I take this weird looking bridge because I was like, this is kind of what dating is like, it's a roller coaster type thing, but we're gonna go from connecting and friendship and what's the goal is to take someone across that bridge to covenant in marriage. That's the goal. I hope otherwise you're in the wrong place. Um and how many people do you want to go across that bridge and I hope it's just one and there's some steps in between. They want to talk about, we use again this, we're dating and courtship. Many of us want this, we want to, you know, the castle, we want the fracturing of kind of relationships. We want the love story and what's crazy is I know for my wife and I, we met I was in the hospital three times in our 10 months of dating. It was not some amazing story in that sense. We met online, which is kind of fun. She didn't like that part sharing that part of it um equally dot com that works. Uh but then we got married in 11 months of marriage. I ended up in the hospital and doctor said, I wasn't gonna make it, it's not what you signed up for. Some of you have been through that parents, you've been through stuff where it's like, this isn't what I signed up for. Exactly, Welcome to marriage, it's not. So we need to be careful about what Hollywood sells us and oh my gosh love songs are terrifying. That's all I used to listen to. So I realized how messed up they are. So I want to start with this in peace. This covenant marriage. What does that look like? We think of the beauty and purpose of marriage. We needed to go to scripture. What does the bible say about marriage? Give honor to marriage and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery. There is a standard and a definition of what marriage should be like and what we should come into it with and that should guide us sexually. Should guide us. Relations should put in boundaries. We can spend a lot of time right there and we'll we will come back to that. The man who finds a wife finds a treasure. He receives favor from the Lord. There's something beautiful about that. I honestly don't believe I'd be alive today if I had not married her, my wife um where she's sitting. But because of the stuff we've been through health issues and other things has been incredible to have someone so steadfast um in my my life it's better to live alone in the corner of an addict. A Tik. Anyway, then with a wholesome wife. And how many actually the phrase I use is how many didn't marry very well. So don't raise your hands. You don't want to be someone who doesn't very well like I found out later. I remember I had just one uncle and he was holding this bottle of what looked like you're into me. But it was alcohol and telling my dad, don't you ever trust that woman of yours? And he died an alcoholic then went to his funeral. His wife died an alcoholic. Kids were running from the law. They stole their kids from foster care. Just this horrible I found after his death he was a clinical psychologist and he married this very, very, very, very hurt woman that destroyed him in his whole life. And it's like who we marry actually matters. A worthy wife is a crown for her husband, but a disgraceful woman is like cancer in his bones. So true. Don't team up with those who are unbelievers, don't be unequally yoked. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light be live in darkness? This is a critical, the bible is telling us what to do and what not to do, which is kind of important that maybe listen to her husband's this means love your wives just as christ loved the church and gave up his life for her. That's our calling men, which we should shake in our boots. The gravity and the weight of that. Haven't you read the scriptures? He replied, They record at the beginning. God made them male and female. And he said uh and he said, this explains why a man leaves his father and mother is the process and joins his wife and two are united into one since they're no longer two, but one let no one split apart. What God has joined together. Design is beautiful, it's covenant, it's coming together, it's not a contract, it's not just kind of we'll do this until something better comes along, or if things get rough, then we'll reevaluate. And I hear this from a lot of Christians, we gave it a good shot. It was a good run 10, 20 years or two or three. No, it's till death. Do us part. It's this that's just the beginning. And the thing is what I see is people preparing for this more than for what's next. And what's next is what you need preparing for. You need to take a Dave Ramsey money class, we did two or three times, it took us a while for it to take and still hasn't fully taken it hard. Um and you need to actually understand about sexuality and understand about that piece of the puzzle. Um You're gonna have two different worlds that are coming together in marriage. What is another critical piece of marriage? It's procreation just f y i babies were meant to come into this world in the context of a mom and dad in a covenant relationship, not outside of that. If we actually got this in order, right? We wouldn't be talking about and we have been pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure sex is about pleasure. Pleasure. So we put it in our teen years and it's normal because procreation is almost an accident. It's fixable, which is heartbreaking because not design at all. It's meant to be for appropriation for pleasure. Yes. It's actually meant to be a beautiful thing and a great thing for protection, the sexual relationship, the covenant of marriage protects us from ourselves actually, and committing and honoring that commitment, it's partnership, it's companionship, it's someone to journey with and do life with its perseverance. That's what this is. In terms of what it's meant to be, that I hope you teams want. I want you to paint a picture and the longer class that I do on this, I really help you paint that picture. I want that so bad. I choose to not do certain things today. I choose to have boundaries today. So this connecting stage, This is all of our friendships, all of our relationships. Guys, girls doesn't matter who everyone we know and there's gonna be a few of these people they're gonna walk into that will take that step onto that bridge to go across towards towards marriage. And we'll talk about that in a second. But this first piece here, connecting what is this? We need to figure out who am I, the first step for you is figure out who you are, what you will and won't do what you want, what's your what's your goal? If you're not careful, it's purely hormonal, that's it. That's the only thing driving this question and this word attraction? It's purely attraction. Whatever. I think whoever I think is attractive in the moment, whether it's a guy or a girl or both or neither or and we then define that in a sexual or I'm gay or bi or heterosexual. It's so interesting and sad because we've almost taken it down to the lowest level possible. That breaks God's heart. Now, I want to give you a tool one that I actually used. That really helped me. And it's interesting to think some of you will not like it maybe, but I actually really like this this this book came out by Neil Clark Warren years ago called two days or less. I hated that title. Like how in the world can you know if someone's worth pursuing in two days or less later? He really re released his date or soul mate. And I was like, I don't like the word soul mates, I still don't like your title, but I like this book and I'm gonna give you the summary of kind of what I did with it. And when I started teaching, ironically, before I met my wife, um I was using this, I was applying this and talking about it and applying it. So it starts off with this this this is a list of the 25 most popular must haves this is your shopping list. What are the things that you would put on a list that you would not settle for not being on that list. And when you start realizing is for many of us we start filling in that blank the silhouette. No pun intended. Um the kind of girl or kind of guy I would be attracted to and I'm not talking about that, talk about who they are, what they represent, what they're willing to fight for. And so you start doing this, you start realizing there are some absolute non negotiables for you and so his his pushes in two dates. You should be able to find the answer to these these 10 things. You should be able to know which ironic. My wife found my list with other girls names right at the top. That was a fun conversation. So the rules here for this is to decide on what your, you would rank as your top 10 And they must be absolute like one of the ones that I had on my top my list, top 10 was actually that she had to like motorcycles. And then I realized that's not actually a dealbreaker had to realize that I need to take that off the list. And I still married someone who at least lets me ride one. But as long as I have life insurance, this becomes your shopping list of what you will not settle less for my wife and I don't drink. Never had a sip of alcohol that wasn't even on my list. But I realized how important that was to me because as a counselor, I've seen so much devastation. That one thing is it evil? No, just like money is not evil, what we do with it matters. I know I'm an awesome addict. I don't do things halfway. Like if you, your monster's the monster drinks eliminate t ones, I get them by the caseload from amazon every month, I would be an amazing alcoholic. I don't do things halfway that scares me to where I've never had a sip of alcohol to this day, except Michael. That's terrible. So, um, what about the other side of this? Top 10, Top 20 Top 10, 25 or any others Can't stand? What are those? Absolutely no way. And when you start thinking through this, by the way, teams, If you're dating someone or interest in someone, you can't do this list because you're gonna only make it fit, then you have to be completely unattached and single and be okay to really, truly, how do I know what I will not settle less for. I remember these different periods of my life where I would reevaluate that list and realized no, I was putting some person on this and I need to know that's not really true and what do I what am I looking for for a best friend, a partner, a life journey, er not just someone that you sleep with, someone you almost even tolerate because what's sad to me is the couples, I see many times, they just tolerate each other. They put up with each other and it's like, that's not it. Now, here are some really important list here. Seven things that are really important to be at least similar on no park or spiritual harmony, your faith and where that lies is critical. Your desire for verbal intimacy and ability to be intimate. Really important in terms of that level of that. And what does that look like? And when there's a mismatch here, there seems to be more stress. Is it doable? Absolutely. It's just gonna be a lot more difficult. It's just like two people marrying from two very different cultures like countries that's harder. This means not do, it's just gonna take a lot more work um level of energy level of ambition, expectations about roles, interest, personal habits. These become areas. When you think about it, you start realizing, I haven't really thought about it, but there are some pretty major preferences and or absolute deal breakers that are important to me. This is really, this is again for you guys teams, especially for you to think through what would I not settle this for? I would put this in such a high standard. That then in evaluating, I don't, you're a no, I don't care what I feel towards you like. And this is interesting if you found out that this guy or girl you liked was married, you should have a boundary there. But it's amazing how I've heard this from even some corbin students at one point, years ago they were like, yeah, this guy, this girl is dating some married guy. I'm like what she likes and shows their ethics, shows their moral. That actually shows a lot about their story and probably past trauma and so many other areas that God help. And so I've had conversations with the friend. How do you help point them to the cross doesn't mean they'll go, it's also not your job that's christ to do his work. How do you discern good character? How do you help someone or help know where a person's, I'm gonna give you some kind of ways to evaluate this further behavior in stressful conditions, reputation with others, talking to others and then obedient to authority. This is men and women. This is not her, This is our, can they listen to their boss? Are they respectful talk to their friends? Remember that one of the times Kelly and I were dating, we sat down with a couple and we actually asked the question about, we're kind of considering about marriage and their response mattered prior to her more than anyone else. And when they erupted excited. She, I guess she was okay. I guess I will. Um and it matters if there's a, if you're hearing rumors and in a day and age where we can look online and look people up that's important. Actually. Dad does it all the time with hiring people. It's like you need to use these resources for a reason. So how do you know when it's time to a good, good age or a good time to begin crossing that bridge? And the truth is that there's no magical age. It's an attitude or an attribute of the heart. Now, what I tell my kids is it's junior or senior year of college and they laugh and we have issues with our oldest, lots of issues with our oldest, 1916. Um, he likes to rescue people like his dad. So that's not a good characteristic necessary. But I say junior year of college. Why? Because the culture is pressuring 13, 14, 15, you're not okay if you're not dating someone, do you wanna date someone or you want to marry? You wanna just play or do you want to actually have the brass ring? Have the great relationship without all this baggage, you're gonna have to decide. 16, 17, 18. My personal belief is the day you start dating, you're now dealing with either a wedding or marriage or a baby within two years or less. So 16, okay. If you're getting married at 18, that's great. And some, some of our kids might, if you meet someone that this is the one that's a different trajectory than, hey, when we're in college, I have a colleague of Corbin, she'll run down the hall sometimes just fake tears, but mourning the loss of another girl because she's a biology teacher and she's like another one met some guy no longer going to be a doctor. And so funny. She's morning. It's like, and it's interesting because of many that don't go on to become a doctor there is because they, Someone guy and girl actually, ironically most of the girls. And so some of the trajectory of where you wanna go might be changed by who you meet and when you meet them, whether it's high school or college or beyond or as an adult, so this matters. And yes, some of our kids are more mature. A younger age by the way, the prefrontal cortex isn't brain development. Maybe it's 25. Um, well when you are willing to stay single rather than compromise your convictions. That's, if you're just wanting someone, you've probably met or been around people that have always had a boyfriend or girlfriend didn't get a single for a while. You know, you need to and others. And maybe moms and dads can even attested this went from living in mom and dad's house to straight to married and that's a, that's a struggle sometimes. Does everyone need to have that single time? No, no, no, no, but be careful with that prescription just like no one has to go to college and no one has to do this that or the other, but Biblically we need to go back to scripture. What does it say we need to do? So this middle stage is where I want to spend some time now coupling, that's what this middle stage is called coupling. We're gonna go from connecting lots of people, guys and girls to this. I'm gonna start pairing up heading towards marriage. Now what I see is I see couples all the time. We have no intention to head towards marriage dating to 34 years and was like, goodness gracious. And the longer you're dating, by the way, you're also probably being physically active, physically, sexually active. I've had a couple that I'm blown away six or seven years dating and still virgins and like you are a rare breed, bless you. Um, that's why this is not a long journey. We meet someone, we date for a long time and then we engaged for a long time. This is actually when I'm ready, it could be a rather short, My wife and I actually, we're late twenties. Um, 10 months from the day I met her to our wedding, it was a shorter, she owns her own house. We were in different life stages to, it's different when you're um in high school or in college, Even crazy kids think about this, this journey across this bridge, think about the idea of a backpack. Those backpacks were kind of heavy man after a few days carrying those backpacks. They were really heavy and then this really stressed my wife out. I think she says he's a little close. I don't know, I'm the dad, he falls to learn a just kidding. I was stressed a little bit of a fast water. But this is what happens for many of us in marriage. We're going across this, this is what we're walking into marriage with. Many of us are walking into marriage with a load of trauma, a load of hurt. That's that's what I wanted to help you prevent some of it. You can't, you've had things happen to you when you're a kid. That's a whole different story. There's things that happen to us. I want to help prevent some of the stuff that's actually your choices you're gonna make could make that actually could change your life because this stage here, you're going through these three stages. So and a couple in considering confirming committee and you'll recognize and I like these because first of all, it's like a good sermon that all seas so really good. But it's different than this dating courtship words and I'll get to that in a second. This process here. Look at the first one, considering this is still a connecting friendship, but this is where your prayerfully considering a person to go further than that separately. So talking to friends, talking to family, but also together. Again, another thing, I don't see we kind of like each other, let's hang out. There's not an intentionality with it and a lot of time is wasted. A lot of hurt happens during that stage. So this is an intentional heading towards covenant marriage. That's again a critical piece. So once a person has been considering the coupling, dating or dating process starts, the goal of a great date is to build respect for one another. That's another whole different anomaly from our world of Did you shave your legs today or did you prepare for sex basically, Which is a heartbreaking instruction from friends. Oftentimes, that's beyond biblical. It's not okay at all. A great date is not sending around entertainment alone. It's about quality time what you do this, what you do on these dates are important, how you spend time with this person is really important. And in a safe environment, we're gonna go meet up at a party and I'm gonna be in a place where I don't have a car. I don't have a way to get out or a place that I don't know goodness gracious. No. When I'm kelly, the first time we had talked for a week on email and phone and then she gave me her address. So show up at her house an hour early because I'm earliest early stalker. And the first thing I did was chew her out. Don't you ever, I never thought I'd see her again. Don't you ever get some strange guy, your address to single women living in the house. No, meet in a neutral location. So we went to cracker barrel had a great date took her home, shook hands and she thought we'd never see each other again. She said yes to a second date. Just to be nice because yeah, I mean yes, I told her my life story on the first date, I'm dying, I have health issues, I was walking with a cane, I have a mess, marry me not, I've got tons of death. Let me show you this. So many of us use this vocabulary, dating courtship and I want to give you kind of a way to think about these and then we're gonna get back to this other model which I like dating is observation, courtship is depth, meant to go deeper. Some of us have a model. Even if you don't do this alone, you go with people, there's different versions of what courtship could look like dating is no strings attached. The courtship is vulnerability, dating is actually we're on this, you know this time together, quality time, but you're not getting into these deep, deep conversations yet. What I see is a lot of people I just met you when recording tomorrow, If you go by these definitions we jumped way too far into the conversations, it's not um not ready for for that dating is time allotment versus purposeful. We're trying to head somewhere you're gonna date for dating sake. There is no goal. Courting is actually a picture of marriage ought to be at least dating isn't in itself. Courtship is moving towards marriage or I like this one, dating is marketing and courtship is the clothes like that, dating is actually one or more people in courtship is exclusive. Can you imagine you could go out with one person friday night, another saturday night, another sunday night, if you're actually not touching, you're not sharing the, that's what dating should be. I don't see that in our world anymore. You should be able to speak in more to college students. You should be able to go to the dining hall with a friend and not the whole place say, hey, they're dating now because you sat together and that's what happens in school is what happens college carefully. Think, spend time in your safe environment. But dating is just one or more people. Both of these ought to be filled with respect, but a bad date can cost you time money and be annoyance. A bad courtship can cost you a little piece of your soul. That's why we need to be careful what we're getting into. Why are we spending time with this person and spending time with this person? What do others have to say about them? Have I talked to others? Have I hold my committee that I have over here that I put together to help protect myself from myself, which, by the way, some of you need because you're attracted to the wrong people. Like some of you ladies, you're attracted to the kind of guy that no one would want you to bring home guys? You're trying to the wrong kind of girl? Usually because of heart hurt, trauma or things that have happened to us. We need to be able to have people we come to and say, hey, do you see something that I don't see and trust them enough to do what we would do as a break up if they said, I think this is not healthy. The problem is that you and I think we should just have this all together, we should know, I should just, I'm in charge of my life. Good luck with that, that thankful even a marriage, how much you then together, navigate through decisions as a team, you need that now as a single person, I believe that we would have better marriages if we did single life better, there wasn't all this hooking up and all this shacking up and all the other kind of stuff that we end up doing and over sharing and overly evolved, but you need good male friendships and female friendships, both all of you, which by the way, may be scary. Look at your moms and dads, some of them need that. Two dads are the worst who don't have male friendships, men, you need that something somewhere. Um three questions to ask at this stage, have you or do you have quiet time? What's your relationship with God? Are you involved in your christian church and bible believing church and then do you desire to pursue the same type of spiritual life ministry? Now, this is obviously for a believer. If you're not a believer then what you wanna do, but speaking to christians, this is really, really, really, really important. What is their relationship with God? What is the relationship with the church? What is their desire if they want to go on mission field and you want to build a business here in America, you got a problem if you're someone that is at the church every single time the doors are open and this person is kind of this hit or miss gonna have some major contention when it comes to, what should we do, how should we do, do life together and then, So this is that coupling stage. Considering we're just now, still considering now we're gonna move into this confirming stage, if someone passes those tests, if you will, they move into this confirming this is the engaged to be engaged, we're talking marriage, this is where I consider pre engagement counseling. Premarital counseling is a great idea, it works a lot better pre engagement by the way, because once you put that ring on it, there's only one thing I'm focused on the big party, I call it that day. I'm sorry. First, a bubble of it. Um no, I want to be so sure that you're the person, I want to spend the rest of my life with that. I really strongly strongly endorsed the pre engagement counseling at this point. This is also a stage is confirming stage where you're gonna do something really difficult, something that's very much debated and we probably, if we were to talk about it would not all agree. This is the airing of your dirty laundry. What does that mean? This is where you start telling people about your past, this person about your past, Not people, sorry. Um how many people do you want to cross that bridge where you've had to tell them your story? Hopefully, it's one at this point of this this journey, you're basically telling them the people you've been physically involved with the mistakes, you've made, things that you've done other areas of your life that maybe you got caught in this or you never told anyone this. This is a scary part of this journey. Why I don't want anyone to walk into my wife's life and tell her something. I haven't already told her. 5, 10 2030. Didn't matter how long. Now details. No highlights. Yes. Like newspaper article titles, you've shared that and there's gonna need to be questions and this is an area of critical area if they can't forgive you for you sharing with them about what you've done with or to another. They will not forgive you when you heard them period if they are unforgiving of your past run because they're not gonna forgive you when you hurt them. Not if when you hurt them, this is a really critical step that could be here in this, confirming your considering stage, right here on the edge, not okay, we're engaged. And now we're talking, I had this one couple where they were two weeks before the wedding and there were doing the last session of premarital and for some reason I asked a question, I said, so you're a virgin right to the guy? He goes, Well, no, they've been dating three years when they started dating. He lied to her because by omission she asked he lied because they're not really that committed yet. And then he just never fixed the lie. And now they're weeks away and all of a sudden she just dies in front of me. So I looked at him and said, get up, I'll deal with you later. I got up close to her and I was like, okay, you have a decision to make you hate him right now. You want to hurt him right now? Yes, me too. Let's do it together. I want you in two weeks to walk down that aisle. So sure that he's the man that you wanna spend your life with without a shadow of a doubt and not be wishy washy if you walk down that aisle, wishy washy, you're gonna doubt yourself the rest of your life. And I watched her calm and go, I choose I want to hurt him right now. And that decision was made. It was so critical to then pivot to choosing him being a forgiving, forgiving person which also shows us we can forgive pretty quick. We choose to the emotions catch up later. We want to do it the other way around. We want our emotions to be in line, then we'll forgive. Yeah, good luck with that. Not gonna work that way. This is a critical stage. One that doesn't get talked about enough. I don't believe which by the way for some of us would be nice to not have anything to share. Wouldn't that be great. I assume every couple is dating is having sex because I'm a counselor and see too much of the unhealthy stuff so I'm blown away when I see couples who are dating living together while aren't actually have boundaries and keeping those beautiful, it can be done this stage here now to continue this, you're continuing to evaluate your using wisdom here wasn't properly evaluate their character, standard herbal brightness um personality. What you see is what you get this is who you marry. They never change which we all change but they never change yes, yes or no versus this is my project, don't marry a project. My wife and I we got married what was scary as I found out she was talking to her mom while I'm in the hospital and her mom was saying, if you marry Corey, you're going to actually take care of him the rest of your life and work the rest of your life because the doctors were saying, I've never had a job and I've never worked um humbling to me. She said yes And she's been a stay at home mom for the last 14 years. So we need to evaluate with what we got if that had been our life. Okay, that's it. We don't know. The future holds. Another key is conflict resolution. Number one thing that we can actually look at prior to the wedding and predict the outcome of marriage is how you handle conflict number one thing. So pre marital pre engagement counseling, That's what I do. This is what we look at. How do you handle conflict? And that's a key area that if you it's a constant struggle, it's only gonna be worse than marriage when you're living together in the end, it should be easy and negotiable. It should be. It's always know we get into those, those seasons. You need to have the same standard of moral uprightness of your values. Need to line up. That's back to you in that faith piece which is really critical and this ties into communication. There needs to be sensitivity, honesty again, who we are, the ability to communicate, speaking up and telling them how you feel. But here's a really, really critical about the communication at this stage. Always give her an out and yes guys, I'm talking to you always give her an out. Let me give you an example of this. I use this actually with kelly. I was teaching this class by the way when we were dating kind of fun teaching this 12 week song of Solomon class, which I'm speaking for like three hours and then we're walking around this pond afterwards talking about what I just said. Um and so then I actually use this in the book of romance Tommy nelson, he states that I strongly encourage every young man who was in a dating relationship to say to a young woman after four or five days. This says, I don't know if you're the person god has for me to marry, but I want you to know that you're the type of woman I would enjoy spending my life with, I like being with you and I'm open to seeing if this relationship goes somewhere, if you want to back out of our relationship right now and that's all right. You owe me nothing but honesty. I said that to her multiple times. I don't want someone just to settle for me or to feel trapped now she's married, thank you. But there's another side of this too. If you discover after a few days that a young woman is not the type of person you want, don't just text her, be honest about your feelings and forthright about your intentions, but what do I see? I've been dating to three years with no absolutely no intent to be married and mess them around the body parts that they're not supposed to be playing with and they don't have clear boundaries. This is a problem. This is why this is so important to talk about by the way this conversation. So parents, this conversation starts when they're single digits, you're playing the seeds of what even dating looks like before 10 because then they know it all 10, 11, 12 when they know it all you're done. That's scary. I know, but anyway, when they know it all, you're not gonna listen to you. So you're planting the seeds early and then you're helping shape the guys that getting guardrails. Um be careful not to share too much. Too fast too soon. That's why this journey across the bridge is important. Hands careful, they bind. Don't kiss until you're willing to be responsible for their heart. This is not normal to hear. I don't understand why kissing seems to be something we can do with everybody dating wise, but a prostitute will say I'll do everything but that kissing is bonding. So think about that. Maybe there's some of the stuff making out isn't a great idea. We're gonna rev the engine up and get everything all sexually excited and go see you can I know it's meant to lead to the next step and the next step, the next step. So careful with these boundaries. They start now dating. So that actually, then in marriage, one of my boundaries gonna be in marriage. And really I work with too many affairs. Too much adultery, ironically one of my favorite areas to counseling and to see God do absolute miracles and families and keep families together. I love it. It's just heartbreaking. She walks me to come in the door, sometimes go straight to bed and go to sleep because I'm so exhausted and then a few weeks later, need to see what God does and I love that too much of a good thing. Those resentment. What happens with the physical and sharing too much is this bonding, but it's too premature careful with that. You're building towards a wedding. That's still just the beginning because there should be an excitement regarding the future. There should be if I have a picture of what the future is gonna be, I get excited about the marriage, I'm gonna have the relationship, going to have the adventures we're gonna have together. Um we didn't have a lot of excitement about the future. It was kind of, I don't know what the word is, it was scary because our doctors were not telling us good things, but it was wild to kind of go over linking arms together. We're doing whatever is next together. And then to see what did come was incredible why now we get to the committing stage here. This is a short engagement, Not 2, 3 years sometimes not six or 8 months short engagement. Get the bridal magazines. Look at the list of all you have to do for the wedding and you can cut that down to a quarter or less than what they say because it's all marketing. I'm a certified wedding planner. I did that before I met her. I was desperate. What I learned is this whole industry is whacked. No. And if you met someone, you can have an incredible wedding. You didn't have to cost you a fortune. It's just just the beginning of an incredible life together. Let me give you this is a really interesting, so Shaunti Feldhahn researcher, She actually had this question. She said, What's the divorce rate? Which is what you hear 50%, Where's that from? And she's like, I can't find the roots of that number. And so you start researching and she said, it's never been 50%. It was a made up number decades ago, which means people like me have actually scared couples and others, half of you are going to divorce. Good luck. No wonder we have such fear of marriage now. And she found that at the height of and she's got parameters that includes takes out widows. Um and even if you're living together, those that get married, it's been maybe in the 30, But there are some key factors that if these are in place that drops down to the teens. The teens now, I remember about probably 10 years ago, um hearing that, but in the church is like 60 plus percent. All made up. Not true. And that needs to be an encouragement, makes me mad. That needs to be an encouragement. There is hope to build an incredible marriage. So, let me give you some of these predictors of a healthy marriage that she found in this research. I love what she does. She's a Harvard trained researcher, solid believer. Just love her. Her work number. Not these aren't in order in terms of numbers, but one of them was church actively involved in the church. That's that changes the door straight, lowers the door straight relationship with the bible reading the bible together separate. How you see God's word lowers that divorce rate do not live together. All the data shows living together increases the divorce rate. You're more likely not to make it. Even secular research says, yeah, living together is not a good idea yet. That is on the rise right now. Especially if you think of what the cost of rent is, It just makes sense. We should move in together. No, we should get married tomorrow and then move in together, move the wedding up. And I've seen that I've seen couples who are like, we've met premarital and they come back a week later a few weeks later and like, yeah, we move the wedding up good if you know this is the person stop playing games move forward already if they're not run So crazy people. This is an interesting one though. This one was getting married after 24 actually decreases the divorce rate why Cortex development. There's some important factors by 245 you tend to know more where you're heading. Like when I met Kelly, she owned her own house, she had a great job. She wasn't trying to figure herself out. I was a mess, but I was in counseling practice and I was established, I was working on my doctorate at the time and we're in a different stage than high school or even college. We were trying to figure that out. So the divorce rate increases if you get married before the age of 24. But there's another interesting piece and some other research that has shown That getting right after 24 you're also walking with a lot more baggage. So you be careful with some of this, this isn't, you have to wait till after 24. I really, if you meet someone that you're now this is the person and you're in high school again, a wedding needs to happen and shorter years than longer. Not now you have to wait until after grad school and I see this with families. I've had couples come in my living room and make that call where he's gonna call the dad, but not to ask for her hand in marriage, but you tell him and has gone every which way possible wrong. It's usually because it's a very unhealthy dad, very unbiblical, ungodly dad, but he's going to follow that. It's so hard. It's messy. And at the weddings too. Another factor is first marriage, ironically, by the way, she also found second marriages aren't quite as like 70% of divorce rate. If you know, actually it's thirties, 40%. 2nd marriages can make it to um, you just have more baggage really sad, but you have less chance community of supportive friends and mentors who you have in your life. The key people I hear in stories is coaches, teachers and youth pastors. Also seeing those same three of the ones that hurt people. So it's hard to know who you put your kids around, you send them to. So and so group who that coaches or who that leader is actually matters. I've seen friends of ours put kids in scout groups that have a horrible leader and have abuse happening among the boys. Um, that's the leadership part of, I'm a scout master and our boy Scout troop. Part of the selling point to me is this is about building a band of brothers for our sons, but also for us dads, I need mine and those become fine. Those are the guys I call in a heartbeat. Um, the dads that I do scouts with, here's the last one she found was early is not the last, but um, college education, college education drops the divorce rate and I'm biased. I'm a college professor. Actually think it's important. Um, is it the only piece? No, look at all that I think one of the most important things here is a person of faith that shows that a person of faith through their actions can absolutely change the future when it comes to this process of connecting coupling covenant ng and changes the future of our kids and our ability to do this well. And I like that. I go from connecting. I have friends to pairing up and I don't want a lot of people crossing this bridge to covenant marriage, which is actually meant to be one person for life. There shouldn't be a second chance, praise God for grace, but there's, it's not meant to be, what I tell my college students all the time is be careful. You don't have a divorce card in your back pocket. Kind of like the red and yellow card, soccer. Then when things get tough, you're like, oh man, I gotta stick it out and you're gonna stick it out. But if you have that card, you will play it, there will be something you'll go through that will be hard that you want to play on out. Remember the day I was sick, I was 100 and £1015 stuck in bed. We had an old house built in 18 93. We were restoring two toddlers and she's has our third baby and no showers. I haven't finished the shower yet, so there's a claw foot tub. I tried so hard and um, she had a crisis moment. So she's in the laundry room, she's doing something and she's like, you know what if I left Corey, no one would fault me. And then the next thought was that stupid, then not do it all alone and she was done with it. Problem is she comes around the corner and tells me this and I'm mortified my wife because I was, I felt like an absolute loser because I could not do anything. My kids have memories of my kids trying to pull me off the couch to play and then crying and crying and I can't um, that's the beginning. That's part of why it's been amazing to go backpacking and do the things snow skiing and snowboarding and things I never thought I could do because we've actually created a different life than we thought we had kind of in the beginning and there's been stages, so we connect this, the couples that I work with who have gone through affairs and come out to the other side tend to have really strong marriages. Beautiful marriages that I actually envy. I'm not gonna go that route and then one day I realized we've been that route trauma hard times creates a bond and that's actually what's scary and sad some of your parents, you've been through that, you know what it's like teens preteens in some sense. I don't wish it on you, but that's what's gonna have to happen. What are the hard things you're gonna go to, it's gonna make you into the man or woman that God's gonna use, not only out there another jobs or the kind of stuff, but inside as a husband, as a wife, as a mom and a dad, as I look back at that season and it blows my mind where we've come from, how we've come from that and where we're at in our journey, May you marry? Well, as to me, the most important piece of this, May you marry well, a best friend, a person that you would be so proud to show is yours to do life with. You don't know what's around the corner because for us it could have gone very different. I could still be in bed, I could still be stuck. We would have a very different life. And so evaluating that future and evaluating these things go back to those top 10 must have can't stand, it's kind of cheesy actually, but it's not when you really think, through I want to use wisdom and God I don't know the kind of women that I was attracted to or I wanted to date or all opposite her. It's so funny to think about that And then I meet her through this dating thing and it's like she don't want my age. It was really and she actually emailed me first, which after all would remind her she's the one that made the first move it. And then 10 months later we're walking down the aisle. She's walking just beautiful. But that's just the beginning. This is still just gets us into the marriage. We haven't even really spent that time. So then what is marriage? That's that's where the rubber meets the road. How do we do life? You teens by the way? You're watching your moms and dads and hopefully others, hopefully others in your church or others around you. You're watching other parents evaluating I would love to have a wife like that. A husband like that. I'd love to be someone like that. The more people you can kind of have in your circle you're watching helps you evaluate because you're not your mom and dad. But if you're not careful, you'll become your mom and dad. So have these people in your life, get involved. If you're involved in some kind of support, watch your coach, watch different people and consciously do this. You're doing this unconsciously. You're taking in all this stuff unconsciously. I want you to do this consciously very intentionally go, you know what the way he treated her, the way she treated him. Yes, I want that put that away. Follow it away. What that's gonna do is protect you from yourself because you're your worst enemy because you're gonna want to settle for something else and not have the most amazing relationship that God would actually want for you. I don't mean perfect and I don't mean easy in the end life will happen. But best friends that when I look back at that time with my wife, it was hard but we don't have ill feelings through that because we were journeying, journeying through that together as a team which now makes decisions today a lot, a lot easier to make as a team, which is really important. So if you need anything from me, you can go there. Thank you so much for coming. This leaks to this power point. I'll have it up later today and then video stuff as well. And it's been an honor to come and be a part of the blessings.

 

Thank you for tuning in to the HealingLives with Corey Gilbert podcast. It has been an honor to serve if you're struggling have questions or in need. Dr Gilbert offers a free consultation for new clients. Check us out at healing lives dot com to book a call. If this has been helpful to you, please share it, leave a review and help us get the word out so that we can see lives changed marriage is transformed and more people come into our life changing relationship with Jesus christ. The HealingLives Center offers online courses, programs, books intensive and other services to help you live biblically and well, discover more resources on Youtube. And in Dr Gilbert's healing marriage facebook group, The Healing Marriage.

Episode 293 - Session 1 Framing the Gender & LGBTQIA Conversation - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

Episode 293 - Session 1 Framing the Gender & LGBTQIA Conversation - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

 

Episode 293's video Link: https://youtu.be/o1Fmex7o6fU  

 

https://www.oceanetwork.org/ 

 

Welcome to HealingLives with Corey Gilbert, a podcast sponsored by the HealingLives Center, discover how to love and lead your family well and biblically God created sex marriage and the family for our stewardship growth and benefit my heart and passion is to teach, train, educate and disciple christians that want strong marriages and families. The Healing Lives Center has been serving Christians since the year 2000. Its mission is to be a center for sex, trauma and marriage education and transformation, where we offer counseling, coaching courses and speaking services to you, your church or ministry check us out at HealingLives.com today

 

I invite you to listen in on session one from the ocean homeschool conference um delivered in Albany Oregon in june 2022. This one's entitled framing the gender and L G B T Q I a conversation, Thank you thank you. So this QR code here is the same one on those cards. It's gonna be a link to the power points and the videos of this um, everything today. So if you want to even just take that and you can also sign up that way too. So it's either way, hopefully that's helpful for you. Um let's pray to start this really important topic. Dear God, thank you so much for who you are and that you actually called us to be men and women that honor you learn. I just pray for this next hour. We will honor you with everything said and done and I just pray that each of us as parents and our families and our kiddos can learn to honor you with when it comes to their sexuality, their gender who you call them to be blessed this time as you pray. Amen. Alright. So yes, we're gonna talk about sex, that's part of it. But what I'm gonna start with when it comes to this topic is my story. I'm gonna start with kind of where I went where I was and where I come from just a little bit as we enter this topic. But the beginning thing that I want us to think about going into a very difficult topic right here. The people of faith christians who are navigating gender identity issues are our people, they're not some other people, they're not them or those, it's our people, we need to be careful with how we talk about this. So I'm gonna attempt to do the same today as we kind of talked about it. Very difficult subject now. Who am I? I grew up in chile missionary kid um grew up in as a in the Chilean schools. But I was an interesting young man, let's just say um let me show you a few pictures which will help you kind of see where that comes from. Um this is me when we came back to United States in 1992. Um I want a mission trip and someone said to me a missionary said to me, you know what you grew up in a country where you're a redhead white guy stood out like a sore thumb and you came to America and you're a nobody, you did everything you could to stand out and did a really good job of it. I love my pink suit coat and my purple coat and anything I could, my mullet. Um, those are awesome if you need to come back. But and then I even, I wanted my freedom. I came to America and it's like you have to have mommy take you everywhere. And so I bought a motorcycle, didn't even know how to write one. Um, I wanted my freedom. My mom had to take me to Mcdonald's which is where I worked. I hated that. So 18 and I still can't go on my own. So that became my story. What scares me is, where would I be today with what I was actually going through internally Because I had questions about who I was, my identity and one of the key areas was, I wasn't like all the other guys. I didn't like the stuff that guys liked. I didn't talk about politics, couldn't stand sports. There's only one sport in South America, which is soccer. So I played that and after 15 casts I decided I was being called elsewhere when I became a musician and got into music. But then I went to college and found out he had talent. So my junior, so much passion. My junior year, my professor sat me down and said you're not graduating. Um you need to find a new major and my life fell apart And got rebuilt as I took 11 elected city council in class and I realized that as a young man, I watched people some key missionaries. I loved have affairs and be kicked off the field and destroyed. I can understand it. And it led to the journey of where I am today and what I've done for the last 22 years which is really neat to see how God does. That's why I love teaching at university and helping guide because I don't know where you're gonna go. And they didn't know that for me, but they helped at least point me in the direction. Um to figure out who I am, which then became get a real, real bike. Um Yeah, and it's loud and that's the whole point. It's supposed to be. I know I need the mole is my wife. I think vito's that one half the time. Maybe my son will get there. He's got long hair now. But the best part of where I finally started making sense was here the best day of my life. I met this weird, crazy woman that didn't think like other women, she's from the legal field and she's got a brain that's got the boxes, the whole spaghetti and waffles. I have the spaghetti, my brains all, I'm a mess. I mean emotional, I tried everything. They still laugh at me when we watch cards because I cried at the end and my wife just points and laughs and now the kids, what do they do? Point and laugh And it's shaped it shaped me. It worries me about where I would be today if I was a teenager today in our country and our society and our school system, I believe they'll be pushing me to do things that are life altering, if not forever altering. Because I did have a question, I didn't fit in. I didn't make sense. This is our school, our picture for our church directory to do this. And as well, this is a couple years after we moved to Oregon and then they grow up. I don't know if you notice that they do grow up and that little guy blaze on the far side is taller than me now and they have their weird personalities by the way. These are called my experiments yourself. These are our experiments. Mhm Yeah, he's got the main right there. What we do with our kids. I am not an outdoorsy person and for some reason my dad was, he's a boy scout and didn't do that with me. And now I do that. I'm in my 10th 11th year with my son's doing Boy Scouts going and doing stuff I never would have chosen. I like to go, let's go inside, let's play dolls duty. And God gave me two sons that has led me into a very different story by choice. And I would even say by God's ordination, their divine intervention, if you will. Today, we're gonna talk about a very difficult subject, but I wanna talk about it in kind of three pieces. We're gonna look at the created order and then when they get disordered. And what about you? What about me? What about myself in this context, in this world, with these people around us that are struggling that are truly asking hard questions. So starting with this creative order, where do we wanna land? We're gonna start, we want to start with scripture. So, a big part of what I want to do today is kinda lay that framework, the groundwork. Um I go into further depth on this and on my Youtube channel, have a podcast. Um I've got books and all that goes further depth. Can't do that obviously in an hour, but today, I felt like the most important thing for us to start with the scripture. So, let's look at that beginning, in the very beginning of genesis, starting with man. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, He created them male and female. He created them. This is the foundation. And one of things that I really like about this foundation is there's this area that we have a question about sometimes and it's actually this area of work, where does it fit in the, in this story of the story line. It's not a curse after the fall it was actually part of the garden were called to work. What baffles me is Adam walked the garden in perfect harmony and community with christ with God and still was missing something. He worked works not a curse. We need to make sure kids understand that too even though they act like that. So Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and take care of it. And then he did something really really curious. So Lord God said it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. What did he do to get to this point? It's a really cool step. He said you know what Adam I'm gonna have you name all the animals. So you can be reminded that none of them are like you even though all of our researchers today seem to compare this to every animal under the sun. No and I can't imagine day after day naming these animals and how long that might have taken going God, none of these are like me. And then when it was like whoa man beautiful and he created Eve a man said this is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman. What an incredible design. There is a perfect design. But then he took it a step further. He created marriage. That's why a man leaves his father and mother and is united. His wife and they become one flesh. This is the beginning of this marriage is not a social construction as we like to hear or don't like to hear our culture talk about. And the most important piece is it's too sexually different people. There is no other design. All other designs fall flat. They don't work, they don't bring the two parts. They're supposed to be brought together to make a baby which is part of the design. If you will. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. What's sad to me is we feel shame. We know shame even in marriage there's still shame and that breaks my heart because it isn't the created order as God actually intended for it to be. And then he took it another step further. He goes this is how we're going to babies. Procreation Children in the world in the context of marriage. But where did this all fall apart? Well we know the word where does disorder enter it. It came through sin. This is where things got scary hairy if you will Where they look like Genesis three. We like to blame by the way. So when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom. She took some innate. It just gave some to her husband who was with her. That's a very important point and he ate it and the eyes of both of them were open and they ran to Kmart. Um I found close. But it's so crazy think about this. The first thing that happens after this is blame the man said the woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. And this is where everything falls apart and there's two fails. Helper fail. Eve what happened to the woman? He said, I will make you pains and childbearing very severe with painful labor. You will give birth to Children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. That's her consequence if you will from this sin. And then leadership failed for Adam. He was the one that had been told what to do and what not to do. And he was present and he did not step up to the kind of man that he was actually meant to be. And so the academy said, because you listen to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded. You must not eat from it, cursed is the ground, you will work, You will toil the land. So what is the final piece of this? There's two big pieces. If the man will struggle with and return to the earth and then to for the woman, the woman will have pain and childbirth and struggle with man. Her desire will be to rule over him. There's an order and its disorder when it comes to the consequences. So then what do we do with this? You, you and me? Well, you and I struggle and stress about some key areas in our life? What are the areas that I spent a lot of time talking about? Is gender and sexuality. In an area that we wrestle with? What does it mean? Some of the foundational verses to think about. You were created in my innermost being. You were knit together in my mother's womb. How appropriate. In our current debate and conversation right now, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. And what are we to do? This is a scary assignment to every single one of us who you are to put to death, therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. We here's our assignment already. You and I have things inside of us that are not God's perfect design. We must put it to death. So we now have to kind of outline that. What does that mean? What are those things? We actually have to take care of one of those areas that I hear a lot is this idea of attraction and desires whatever you're attracted to or whoever you're attracted to is now your definition of who you are. And it's like that's sad to me because actually, the phrase I use is that bad data, attraction into conversation, attraction doesn't keep a marriage relationship going. Which is why we see a lot of people attracted and then re attracted and then re attract. It's a serial monogamy, if you will. But it's not it doesn't continue long term. It's not the way it's meant to be. And we have put so much weight on attraction. It's scary when you follow the desires of the sinful nature. The results are very clear. This is what we're getting for. Many of our Children were getting. This is what some of us have received sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling jealousy, outbursts of anger. And it's on and on. And what's scary is these lists by the way the list in scripture think of them this way they're not exhaustive. So they take every one of us out, we like to focus in on the maybe the homosexuality piece or some of the fact no, every single one of us fails. It's the that's the point. It's not meant to be some exhaustive list. And our attractions and desires, I believe are bad data. They're important information, but they don't, again, they don't sustain. But the holy spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, there is no law against the this is who we're meant to be the design? If we're not that we're not who we're supposed to be. And if you think of our current world right now, this is where we're falling apart. We're not who we're supposed to be in our marriage with our kids. I'm sure you've had maybe moments in the last day and a half of lack of patients with your kids just saying, and it reveals right there our need for a savior. I need for the cross. For those who belong to christ jesus, have nailed the passions and desires of their simple nature of the cross and crucify them there. That is our command. So, we think of our desires and our identity. A lot of what we're dealing with right now is we're actually not nailing them to the cross. Were actually labeling them as our identity, who I am. That should scare us right there. What is it we are self sad event. I believe that there's no way a single friendship or relationship, let alone a marriage can work Why you all think you're right? And so do I. So what does marriage take a relationship? It takes me actually laying aside my right to be right and actually listening to you and being in a relationship with you. It's dying to self in so many ways that we don't think of it that way. The only way a relationship works when I stopped taking myself so seriously. where's our culture, the exact opposite? Take yourself so seriously that you must force others to to what pronouns call you things names, Identity endorse If you don't love me, we've actually hijacked love because love, by the way, is not any of those things, Love is actually calling you to a higher place, higher level of higher standard. Now, you may have seen this for some of you. If you haven't seen this, it's gonna be important to think through. It. Might be might be too short here to understand it or think through it right now. You can come back to this some other time. But there's this explanation of who we are that's been put together, which is really helpful or maybe not the gender red person. It takes what is typically quite simple. It makes it really complicated. You're not just your gender, you are because that gender word has been hijacked as well. You are your identity, your attraction, your sex and your expression. There's all sorts of different parts of who you are. And when you start parsing that out, it's like, okay, like what I said about myself, I was I'm male. I know I'm male, but my expression of that was very different. I didn't understand that, What have we done. We've actually turned that into identity versus personality versus part of just who I am, The zeroing out here on the identity expression and sex many of us, especially parents, older parents, your body's just like blown going why is it so complicated? We've made this complicated because it fits the narrative where we're going to help you understand that you may feel this way and because you feel this way that is who you are and therefore you need to run with it. And if you don't run with it, there's a consequence. Another key area is this one right here, are you sexually attracted to or romantically attracted to? What are those things that define me sexually attracted to? Almost call that more animalistic just cause I'm sexually attracted to someone or something or some screen or some magazine, I guess that's old school now, but versus romantically attracted to a desire to build a relationship with, which by the way, even romantically is kind of because even that doesn't sustain it has a shelf life as all of us can say if you're married, whatever started it off didn't keep it going. I had to find new skill. I have this hopeless romantic and I married a very non romantic human being. Everything I knew I could could try to do, she doesn't work with her. It's like, okay, what what's God's sense of humor in that? It makes me work harder, very frustrating. I think that's part of God's design is really cool now we have from this and part of this and the storyline here of this is we have these letters L. G. B. T. Q I A Plus and this is growing actually lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. And there's a push against those first three against the transgender because that's going too far. And then Q can be questioning or queer intersects a sexual except first of all marriages between two sexually different people period. There is no other combination. We're looking at God's word that's, there isn't anything else. But what about this idea of sexual identity and attractions? Because this is where we're spending a lot of time and energy is. But what I'm attracted to or who I'm attracted to define me, how I call myself my identity, which actually, if I really think about this deeply and my identity, I'd be in christ what I actually find, even when I talk to college students oftentimes they can't define that I talk to adults, They can't, what does it mean to have my identity in christ be a carpenter and we know, So that's an important one Now. This t take out that t right now transgender, we have a lot of questions about what's going on in our culture. It comes to the transgender ideology movement, so many that are hurting in my work in my life, my career. Um to me this is one of those areas where we must spend more time learning and understanding what research says, which by the way, a lot of research is quite new and it's all over the map. And you basically look at who funded the research and you can kind of guess where it came from in terms of the results. It's really scary, just like we're asking questions. Can a man and a man and a woman, a woman raised Children together? Yes, they can. Single parents have been doing it a long time to, but what's the design husband and a wife and Children? One of these we tell our single moms that come to our boy scout troop is your son is so welcome here. We want to be men in your son's life and you're not welcome because it's just dad's going on the camp outs and the bones are like, thank you because it's community. And I'm also there for another reason because I want my sons to have other dads because I'm done dad and they'll be jealous at times that I'm talking to one of the other boys because they wanted my attention. And it's like how do you build community? A lot of reasons why you and I have created a community when it comes to homeschooling and if you're not involved in a co op, find go up, get involved in a group with another group of people that you need that just as a support system and by the way, they're off law, do they all have their stories? They all have their journeys. But this piece of this right here. There's a tool that I use to help understand how did we get here in terms of defining ourselves, that's really been helpful for me. I use with clients a lot. It's this one right here. These are six things that actually influence who I am and what makes me who I am from your values to your behaviors, to your biological sex, to your activities. I know many young men and young women who really didn't have a struggle with their identity or sexual identity until they were assaulted or until they were in a situation where they had a oral sex experience the same sex and all of a sudden there like I don't know what to think about that and now they're different. Just your curiosity. Thanks to what's your name? Katy Perry. I mean all our culture. Um young young ladies that I've talked to are like, you know what I've been with a guy but I haven't tried the other side yet. I'll try that. Then I'll tell you who I am. That's what being pushed in our culture right now. What I'm hearing from teenagers is gay, lesbian, bisexual. That's so old school should scare us. Trans is the new in thing cool thing. Why? Because you're now in a really separate group and what is our, what are we looking for in that age? What did you and I look for in that age identity to belong to be seen. There's another one up there to be seen to be known and to belong. That's what we want in our teens, our kids are struggling to figure that out. But when it comes to these pieces, if you think of your values and your faith in christ and that value piece is so big, it influences how I make decisions. There's a current debate and conversation even about can I call myself a gay christian and I love this and I think it's really important because there are many that are saying absolutely yes, this is who I am, but I choose to be celebrating this is and others are going, no, you can't call yourself that because by calling yourself that that's your new idol and you're denouncing christ? It's really complicated. This is also why we can't, I can't get up there and just tell you, here's all the answers. It's let's talk one on one. Let's actually talk through some of this stuff because it's really complicated and different families land in different places. How do you love your son or daughter who is struggling. I bet you if we talk to anyone here or friends that are wrestling through that, they've all landed in different places on how to do that. We're good at judging. So be careful with that. How do I how do I draw them to the cross now? One of the things that's changed for me has been, I absolutely have believed that if your son or daughter is struggling, you do everything you can to keep them in a relationship and call them whatever you wanna call them, that they want to be called to keep the relationship long term. What we've actually started seeing is those that are de transitioning, which by the way, are so many are actually coming back to moms and dads are going, why did you partner was a lie just to try to make me happy. The data shows that actually if you don't help your child who says they're another gender transition, their their suicide rate goes up Actually. The data also shows that if they transition within the next 4-6 years, the suicide rate goes up. Don't let your child hold you hostage because that's actually not loving them. We think it is in the moment The other day I was skiing with my a few months ago, skiing with my daughter her first time out there. I felt like a bad parent, why she's in tears. My beautiful 11 year old because this ski boots her and it's cold and I don't like this and I'm not getting it and I just felt like a bad dad by pushing her and kind of being a little mean, almost crying a couple of times myself trying. We went, she went back to mom, I went back to the boys and had a blast and it was getting dark okay last try. Got her out there and she's crying and she's struggling and all of a sudden she's going and she's proud? And she went over and over and over and over. She said she was going to go twice. It's like into the night in the dark. I didn't feel like a bad dad at that point, but I did in the moment. Why? Because you and I are programmed to love our Children. And if you're not careful, that means give them whatever they want, make them happy. That's not it. It's not this this is not it. Think about this right here. Sex is my right. This is a belief system that a lot of people have right now. But let's read this part right here. It's actually scary. This is the foundation of what's gonna come next, proponents of this view conclude that this authority is that of their own experience or intuition, their own sense of inner rightness. Just pause there and think about you. You've met you your own sense of inner rightness. Have you ever wanted things that you know, are bad for you? Maybe the coffee in your hand. Have you ever wanted a person that attracted some of you by the way dating? You don't need to have the choice of who you date because you have a bad radar. You attract the wrong kind of people, you need a committee that it runs through. But this gets worse. So the foundation is your own sense of inter rightness, which already scares me for myself. I don't want that. God, can you just put the strings on and make me be a puppet and do what you want me to do is what I want to say? And God goes, no, I love you so much. You have your you have free will, which is scary. I don't like it sometimes. So this proponent of this says God has made me and therefore made the desires I have. Um it gets worse to everything. God makes is good and therefore my desires are good and the guitars, good desires deserve to be and even ought to be fulfilled. Every single one of us has a theology, a belief system and we hang onto that belief system because the problem here is every single one of these points are false. The premise is false, which makes the whole conversation kind of irrelevant ironically. There are some really important books that we read in the last few years about gay marriage and about homosexuality, about this conversation that start off on premises that are actually downright unbiblical, which means the whole findings of this. These these resources are pointless. It's important to be careful what we're bringing in what is happening in our culture and our with our kids. We used to have this word tolerance. Remember that word a long, long time ago. That's so cool. It's gone way past that word tolerance. It's gone from tolerance to acceptance from acceptance to celebration and celebration to participation. What month is this? Pride Month, I dare you go to the month of or go to go to the bible app, type in pride and just read the verses. They all condemn us except to say you should be proud of who your savior is, you should be proud of what he's done for you, not who you want to go get in bed with or any other stuff that makes me scared. Actually, how even that word has been hijacked. I almost feel bad. So I was saying I'm proud of you to my students or to my kids because this word has been abused. That's where we're at. Preston Sprinkle has his quote here. He says, we need to create safe spaces, which I don't like that phrase, but I understand it where young people can open up, be heard, receive Godly wisdom and learn about God's expansive vision for what it means to be male and female. Key Frasier receive Godly wisdom. That's not what's happening. The teenagers that I talked to are receiving more information and teaching and indoctrination, if you will through Tiktok through online games, through online chat rooms, through discord channels, through those places in your own living room, in your, in their bedroom sometimes, but in your own houses as if you've actually invited all those people into your living room for a party and said here, teach my child and then they wonder where did I go wrong? Where did I miss it? How did my child dot dot dot dot dot. It's scary. What's happening? Because people of faith who are navigating generated issues are people, these are our sons or daughters or sisters or brothers. Some of their moms and dads who are really wrestling. They're asking hard questions. They're trying to figure out this really difficult conversation about what does it mean to be mean? Which by the way, it's interesting to think about if you haven't seen that, what is a woman documentary? It's so good. Jordan Peterson made a very simple comment that just was like, yes, thank you. He's like, this identity question is not about identity. It's what's your personality? It's that simple. We've, it's been turned into gender identity has to phrase most of us have here here. They don't hear personality. You know, we all have a personality. You were born male or female and you have a personality and how you play that out to be very different than someone else. I'm not gonna be this athletic person and be this kind of jock personality. That might be my stereotype of masculinity. Um, but someone else might be. Now, let me make this a little messier. Mhm. You heard of what that is matt. The next letters that are gonna have to be added Okay, minor attracted persons. And it's been very carefully labeled, it's not a woman or a man. We've got persons minor attracted. This has been coming for two or three years I've been talking about for about four or five years where pedophilia is going to be normalized. Still not okay. But it's slow progression as we continue. I have students at Corbin that when they get engaged, if they're from Portland, their friends disown them, why would you ever settle for just one person? Why is this is the north was polyamory is three or more people. It's a husband and wife that are married where she has a girlfriend on the side. But it's all okay. It's the open marriage. It's four or 56 people that live in a house. They're not all sexually involved. But there's this weird combination of this. Um go, this is dangerous. I do go to Youtube and type in polyamory testimonies. I have never heard of testimony from their own words. In their own, in their words that said this work in their own testimony. They show how this does not work. But we're trying to find the next cool thing the way I can be happy and we're not finding it. They're not finding it serial monogamy might be that that may be what we're settling for. I might stay faithful to one person, but it's one after the other. Not God's perfect design. When I said a minute ago online peers where I've been seeing the biggest downfall when it comes to our kids in discord channels in different places. What is it, what else is influencing our Children when it comes to some of these um just questions they have, but also how they're actually going forward in life. So these, what's stunning their growth. These are really important. These are based off research. Um, and yet they give us an assignment in the sense as to how to protect our kids, how to prepare them and how to um, eventually, supposedly launch them, which I think should be the goal that you go and make disciples. Yes, go um, excessive video game play is one of them. It's not video games, its excessive video game play. It's when I will choose my video games over a real person, it's when that world is more important to me than real people. But this is where we're losing so many of our young men, usually for young women as well. Not surprisingly porn, more young men in their 20's has ever had erectile dysfunction than ever before. The young man I talked to, they they meet this girl, they get married, they're so excited to be married. And then I get a call a week or two later and it's like he doesn't work because he's been looking at porn that's so graphic that they can't actually perform in marriage if you will. It's heartbreaking, pornography is destroying our young people, destroying marriages, destroying adults. This is getting every level of society and has normalized a couple of states have actually seen it as a health crisis outlawed it. Seeing it as an actual problem secular, which should tell us something, but we obviously don't listen absent fathers. This isn't just dads that are gone, this is dad's, that could be there, but they're not there. They're absolute human, an absolute influence the role of the father. We do a great job of emphasizing mothers, We do Mother's day with father's, you stink. Like we need to be careful of fathers play one of the most critical roles. James Dobson actually mentions that about 888 at 18 months That child switches away from mom to dad in terms of what he's looking at boys and girls. So when our kids hit 18 months, my wife was like, all right, I'm done not so fast. Um, but absent fathers, you think of those who have gone into schools and shut up. It's been predominantly boys that actually have an absent father situation. Um, video games are a big influence, porn is a big influence. Um, many actually, I think all the one have been involved in the in cell group, you know, the N. S. L. I N C E L involuntary celibate. So they're mad at the world because they're a virgin and they believe the world owes them a girl. So there's just this anger and violence inside that then comes out and it's a growing group um, across the world, across America some more that are influencing us is irresponsibility. if your kids are chores. Hello, they have to work to live there. They need to work, they need to learn that work is a good thing. Um, we have it where it's basically here the basic stuff just to live here and then here we tried the whole like chart on the wall and you can earn money and they just don't do it like, so you don't have money. It's kind of simple but no allowance thing kind of the Dave Ramsey commission mentality. Um, and then now it's been to see our old is getting a job and actually making real money and okay, you have to pay insurance and tires and it's kind of fun. I know Welcome to the real world which leads to how skill listening this. There's a Youtube channel that dad created. It's basically like here's how to fix things. Why? Because how many of us didn't learn this from our dads, how important it is that we actually know how to do some basic things like fix the faucet. So we need to be, this is the area that's actually in decline in our country in terms of what you know, is it micro is pushing about the trades, We need people that have skills and the one that's absolutely destroying our girls for sure. Social media, the book coddling of the american mind great research basically the, the author said I would not trust my teenager with the smartphone unless I would trust them with a pistol first, which one is more dangerous. The smartphone, but he wasn't talking about the smartphone just as it is steve jobs was excited to create a device that had a camera and music and phone. He would be appalled as to what has become where it's a device created to keep you there. If you post on facebook and it links on facebook, they hide that stuff. Why they want to keep you scrolling, They want to keep you lost. They want to keep you and what are we seeing? We're losing girls, especially from comparison instagram and other places. We're losing boys more from games and lack of just responsibility. This is this is horrifying. So what do I need to do? What is my call in this? Almost insanity if you will where we're out it's actually not a word you probably think of. It's actually surrendered a lot of what's happening in our cultures. Were fighting for my right for this and fighting from a right for that and fighting to be heard. And it's the opposite of what relationships are all about relationships are about me giving up that and actually it's about service. What do our friends need from us, us to serve them to love them to listen to them to be a friend, not agree with what they say, not we actually have determined as loving is not actually loving, lying to a person is not loving them walking alongside saying, you know, I disagree. But man do I love you? That's way more biblical, if you will. And so how do I live with others from a different world view? Well, let me go straight to scripture for that really, really important assignment for us. How do I love second timothy to flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, Faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord to a Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments. There's a part of your assignment right there. Stop posting on facebook and acting like uh can't say that word. Um because you know, they produce quarrels. That's not what we're called to do. Fight pick fights And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone able to teach. Not resentful able to teach by the way it means, you know, the scripture and you know truth. That's another place that many of us need to start opponents must be gently instructed, which by the way. Oftentimes they're not receptive. So you have to wait. You might have to be waiting a long time to in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to knowledge of the truth. God, not you you don't convert people. God does it and that they will come to their senses. It's a good way to put it and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will. I believe what's going on in our culture is satanic. The assault on our Children is satanic and it breaks my heart because there are so many that are now later going, I was duped and please don't fall for this. I believe there are people that are involved, medical doctors, counselors, teachers that are going to be held accountable for what they're doing in this science experiment with Children. It was sad to me as I talked to the parents, you go, I don't know what to do, I've lost my child and yes, you have and you pray and you spend time on your knees and you wait for their life to fall to pieces because by the way, if your child goes and chops the rest off and cuts things off and takes hormones and no matter what they do to their body, God still looks at them the same so they can go all the way the goal is that by the time they, before they die they surrender their lives to christ that's the goal you and I get focused as a homeschool parent on teaching them stuff. My family makes me feel dumb when I look at our rooms full of latin, it's like I just feel anyway, the timeline goodness gracious and classic conversations. It's like, I just don't know history at all and the kids can just pull it out of anywhere, It's so cool, more important than any of that is their faith, but they know christ that they actually want to live for him, not because you want them to live for him, which scares me for my own kids, my kids have to make their own decision, I can't make them. And that's scary as a parent, therefore, as God's chosen people Holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. This is who we're supposed to be, who were called to be. You see men and women that actually honor him by being someone that's actually willing to be that safe place. And again, I don't like that phrase. We all should be a safe place, but safe place has been hijacked as well and turned into a place where certain things cannot ever be talked about in the sense as in they talked about but there's never actual conversation, actually dialogue back and forth debate. So may you be a place where you are debating, but you're debating from scripture from God's work carefully gently Now think of this model. The last thing I wanted to kind of lay out here was this model how we do church, how we do um draw someone in who may not actually be a believer. And it's this one right here, we have this model of behavior first, I want you to grow up, step you know, face who you are, then you can believe and then you can become a part of us. What if it was actually a different story? What if it was actually come be a part of us in the process of being a part of us. You come to faith in christ and you become, that's who we actually need to be, our churches, our homes, our families, We don't need to protect our kids from the world in a sense, we are choosing to, in some ways we need to prepare them for what's actually in our world when it comes to gender and identity and questions. Um, they need to know how to pay bills. They need to know how there's so many other areas we need to talk about. This is the area I talk about. Um, these, I wrote this book for parents. Um, I can't say that. And what it was was me realizing I didn't have this. My wife didn't have this, we didn't have this. How do you go beyond the talk? How do you talk about these topics from, from a biblical worldview And it has a workbook that goes with it. But then I was like, okay, great. What I'm seeing here at this homeschool conference, I'm out there at the table and I see family after family walked by and I know what they're thinking my kids not Latina, I don't need to worry about this yet. It's like, no, this is written for the zero and one and two and three year old and four year old and a five year old year old, seven year old and not 890 and 10. You're almost done. We're gonna have a session at 2:00 about that at 10. Your parenting is done by seven by the way. They're who they are is set in stone. Your personality. I had a mom recently actually say this. She said, I wish I hadn't listened to other moms who said just enjoy these young kids age because now she's got teenagers that are out of control and she doesn't know what to do. She didn't plant seeds when they were younger and listening at that age, she's trying to set rules as to their team and their new for them. So then I wrote this one going beyond the top. This is the one for the parents and I can't do this here and you hand this to them and actually have them talk through the read through this themselves. And it's got a workbook at the back of each chapter. And my favorite review of this was a teenager, an 18 year old who said, um, this didn't tell me what to believe this. Help me think through what to believe. Didn't force it down you. It's not my heart, my heart is to send you to the cross to help you not to cross. That sounds really bad too. To the cross. How do you see christ and what he's done for you and God's called you to be as a man and as a woman that he's got a perfect design for who you are and who you can become. I am a guy that um, if I chose to even still to this day, I would make choices that are different than what I do now. Everything I owned a Harley just cause that's me now. But um, my glasses, I went in and got glasses a few months ago and my wife wasn't there, which is probably a bad idea sometimes because I buy the ones that are all like colorful and years ago I had a purple tint to my lens and didn't realize that people were asking questions because that I have no clue. I just love all of that. I don't have any purple and pink shirts anymore and why? Because I realized I like that. But I also don't have to, I can make choices and civilizing, wow, I actually choose who I want to become. And so then I go to the Harley stores and see these and if you've ever been, you see the price and you go, these are often Ebay. So you learn how to get my wife, my wife's idea, find them online cheap and we're all doing that in the way that we present ourselves the cars, we drive the houses we buy, we're all creating a world that says something, your persona, same thing from the hats we wear to the glasses, to jewelry, to clothes. We're saying something. So how do we actually be intentional about that? Met this young man at a conference. He was incredible guy. The most effeminate loud, obnoxious person I've ever met. Everything he wore was very girly, had a purse, uh, sit down in L. A. So you can get a picture. Um, and we were at dinner together, him and a bunch of us business people and he was talking about his son and then his ex wife divorced and his trauma and his story and how he is gonna be whoever he wants to be. And I remember just kind of that shift, realizing this is an incredible young man who's lost, not a believer but who's trying to figure out who he wants to be is making very loud choices that from the outside people automatically judge. And when you get to know him, this guy is brilliant. He, he affords all his stuff, he has to make a lot of money. Um, and he was a really neat young man. Again, the part missing is faith in christ Well that changes clothing, Probably not. Maybe so I don't know, it's not the point. We need to be careful when we get hung up on these kind of things because our goal in terms of as parents is to plant seeds in our Children that then grow, who's gonna grow those other people. I love being a college professor where I get to talk to college students and continue the work that moms and dads have done sometimes. I'm also the first person a kid walks into my office and says, I never told anyone this, but mhm Speaking of a safe place, one of the universities I used to talk about our teach at when I got there the second year, they actually made the comment. Um well we never had gay people here until Dr Gilbert showed up. It's like that makes me so heartbreakingly sad. You were not safe to talk about any anything. And all of a sudden I'm here and we're talking about it. That's that's that's an indictment. So our families need to be a place to talk through this to talk through preparing them for the world. We live in, I love movies, you can't watch them without something in there. At least two conversations. I love tv shows, you can watch them without something. So do we just not talk about it? Do we avoid them? Each of you has to make that decision. But the goal is that we actually lead our Children well because they are going to make the decision not us, they have to make the decisions for what's next um back to this QR code. This thing is on your newspaper. There is also the same one here. This is for you. I'm gonna on here, we'll have this slideshow video and other resources there and I'll keep putting more there. This is for this conference um that helps you help serve you in fact do anything. That's been an honor. And thanks for having me today.

Thank you for tuning into the HealingLives with Corey Gilbert podcast. It has been an honor to serve if you're struggling have questions or in need. Dr Gilbert offers a free consultation for new clients, Check us out at healing lives dot com to book a call. If this has been helpful to you, please share it, leave a review and help us get the word out so that we can see lives changed marriage is transformed and more people come into our life changing relationship with jesus christ. The HealingLives Center offers online courses, programs, books intensive and other services to help you live biblically and well discover more resources on Youtube. And Dr Gilbert's Healing Marriage facebook group, the Healing Marriage.

Episode 292 - Holy Noticing - An Introduction

Episode 292 - Holy Noticing - An Introduction

 

Here is the link to order the book "Holy Noticing": https://amzn.to/3BYld6n

 

Episode 292's Video link: https://youtu.be/P57NYO-wSXY 

 

Episode 291 - A Conversation with my 12 year old daughter Mylie on Abortion

Episode 291 - A Conversation with my 12 year old daughter Mylie on Abortion

 

Link to Episode 291's Video:         https://youtu.be/-QaNF9XD0Uw 

 

 

Episode 290 - A Conversation with my daughter Mylie on AHG - American Heritage Girls

Episode 290 - A Conversation with my daughter Mylie on AHG - American Heritage Girls

 

A link to Episode 290's Video:         https://youtu.be/jDGNWE8DF7Q  

 

https://americanheritagegirls.org/

 

 

 

 

Episode 289 - A Conversation with Dr. Bill Seynard from the Gospel-App on Parenting Teens Well - With Neuroscience, Attachment Theory, and the Gospel

Episode 289 - A Conversation with Dr. Bill Seynard from the Gospel-App on Parenting Teens Well - With Neuroscience, Attachment Theory, and the Gospel 

 

YouTube Link:             https://youtu.be/YCDn42V5Ddg 

 

ABOUT:

Dr. Bill Senyard is an experienced pastor, discipler, church revitalization specialist, lecturer and conference speaker with over 30 years as a local church pastor. He is the author of twelve books and two on-line experiential paths to help people who struggle with identity, relationships,  shame, addiction, loneliness and forgiveness.
Want to connect? https://calendly.com/drbillsenyard/connect-with-bill

 

 

GO TO:

https://gospel-app.com/paths/good-enough-parent/ 

Good Enough Parent (GEP) is a unique on-line evidence-based experiential journey/course designed to help frustrated and beat-up Christian parents of teens and tweens who struggle with feeling that they are just not good enough. It is totally FREE. Participants will get 15 short (10 minute) video tips-- one-a-day for 15 days. Each tip is immersed in the Gospel and enhanced by the latest in neuroscience and attachment theory. There is nothing like it out there.

Check it out, www.goodenoughparent.online