Wed. Night Impact

Happy Valentine's Day. Last night, I spoke about dating, since it was so close to Valentine's Day. Jerry did a great job with worship, and the kids really seemed to respond well to the praise music. Jerry made a contest between the boys and girls to see who could get more people here next week. Morgan represents the girls and Chase represents the boys. Whichever group has the most people come next week, their representative gets to throw a pie in the other's face. It should be fun.
So, back to dating. I started by talking about how easy dating use to be in the past. Cavemen just beat the girl they liked with a club and drug her back to the cave. Not very complicated. Then parents started arranging marriages for their children. In the pioneer days, you dated people who were close to you and in your same age bracket because of lack of options. Now it gets complicated because there are so many options and so much pressure on kids to date.
I told them to do 3 things if they are going to date. First, guard your heart (Proverbs 4:23). I told them that whoever they are with now, they probably aren't going to marry. That means somebody is going to break up with the other and it will cause heartbreak. Don't keep putting yourself into situations where you're going to continually get your heart broken. Instead, just be friends and go and do group stuff together. Middle school kids are so young, and don't need to worry about all the junk that goes on in relationships like that.
Second, I said they have to honor God. If you are going to date, make sure that it honors God. Are you both growing closer to God within your relationship. Or is it becoming a distraction between you and God. If it's the second, then you don't really need to be dating yet. Also, stand up for what you believe. If you don't think it's ok to kiss, then don't let your boyfriend/girlfriend pressure you into it. don't let your friends pressure you into it. It's ok to stand up for your beliefs.
And the third thing I told them was to make sure they honor their parents. If their parents say don't date until your sixteen, then you better not date until you're sixteen. Don't go behind your parents back. Don't try to get away with something. Just honor your parents and have that standard set.
If you disagree with me on any of the points I would love to hear about it. Parker is about 10 years away from even thinking about girls as anything more than something to push against a wall, so I may see this all very differently when he is older. I just want kids who are thinking about dating to do it responsibly and make sure that they honor God through it.