Plugged-in Parents Newsletter (November 2014) by Immanuel Baptist Church

NOVEMBER 2014

PLUGGED IN A MONTHLY PUBLICATIONTO HELP PARENTS BETTER PLUG INTOTHE SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT OFTHEIR STUDENT

November Issue THIS MONTH

‣

HOME 22:6 PARENT ROUNDTABLE (WEDNESDAYS AT 6 PM)

‣ ‣ ‣ ‣

GO CONFERENCE (11/19-23) OCC PACKING PARTY (11/22) GIRL’S MINISTRY (11/23) CHURCH THANKSGIVING DINNER/ LORD’S SUPPER (11/23)

COMING SOON

‣ ‣ ‣

BE THANKFUL—GOD IS GOOD 1. God is good because He gives us free and amazing gifts! Do we deserve God’s kindness, mercy, and forgiveness? No. But God loves us and gives us these three free gifts! This is a reason to be thankful! 2. God is good because He loves us unconditionally! His love comes with no strings attached. He loves us not for what we’ve done but for who we are. This is a core truth about God, and a reason to be thankful! 3. God is good because He offers us life forever. He offers us life to the full–here and now (see John 10:10,) and someday, life in heaven. This too is a great reason to be thankful! (FROM DOUG FIELDS) A publication of IBC Student Ministr y.  www.ibclrstudents.org © 2014

THE GATHERING (12/17) GIRL’S MINISTRY (12/21) DISCIPLE NOW (1/16-18)

PR AY ER FOR MY TEEN SETTING LIMITS AND LETTING GO

ENGAGE  200,00 MORE REASONS TO DELETE SNAPCHAT

EQUIP

10 THOUGHTS ON USING CONSEQUENCES

STUDENT MINISTRY STAFF

Matt Hubbard

Melissa Sponer

Ross Spigner

Amanda Beach

Lead Student Pastor

Girls Ministry Associate

Middle School Pastor

Ministry Assistant

FAVORITE THING TO DO AFTER EATING THANKSGIVING MEAL:    NAP DURING THE COWBOY GAME.

FAVORITE THING TO DO AFTER EATING THANKSGIVING MEAL:    PRETEND THAT I’M ACTUALLY INTO FOOTBALL (ONLY DAY OF THE YEAR).

FAVORITE THING TO DO AFTER EATING THANKSGIVING MEAL:    WATCH FOOTBALL (KEEP UP WITH FANTASY FOOTBALL TEAM) AND PLAY CARDS.

FAVORITE THING TO DO AFTER EATING THANKSGIVING MEAL:    GO THROUGH BLACK FRIDAY SALES PAPERS.

From Our Heart This month our student ministry was featured in the Fall Edition of Southwestern News (click here), the quarterly magazine for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I was made aware back in the summer that they wanted to come interview myself, a number of our students, and many of our parents and adult volunteers. Southwestern even sent a photographer to catch some pictures and footage of our students at Mission Arlington while another communications team member joined us for our HS float trip. I had not heard anything else from Southwestern until a former professor reached out to me a few weeks ago. He mentioned to me that he had read the article about IBCLR Students and was touched. Up to this point, I had no idea whether we had “made the cut” or not. I was even more shocked by what approach the writer took. I was blessed beyond measure to read what former students, both from Immanuel and former student ministries I was a part of, were doing long after there days in student ministry. I was blown away by how impactful their student ministry days were on the young men and women they became and are becoming in their 20-somethings. Most of you have heard me say repeatedly that I believe the real litmus test of how successful our student ministry is not the number of student baptisms or GO trip involvement, but what students do with their faith when they are in college, getting married, starting families, growing their careers, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I do desire students to come to Jesus, go on GO Trips, etc., but we are focused on transformation and often that true transformation does not come to light until YEARS later. This I believe is the most challenging task of student pastors, children’s ministers, preschool ministers, etc.—patience. I see the same challenge for parents. We all want immediate results. We want instant success. However, I think all of us would rather have long-term faith transformation than immediate, short-term behavioral modification. Hang in there! Keep to the task of making disciples in your home. It is very likely that the impact you make on your son and daughter won’t truly be revealed until years later when all of sudden they begin to their spouse spiritually because of what they saw you do. They begin to pray with their children because you prayed with them. Be patient. Your devotion to the Lord and making disciples in your home WILL pay off. It’s been God’s plan from the beginning! A publication of IBC Student Ministr y.  www.ibclrstudents.org © 2014 A publication of IBC Student Ministr y.

ILY TOP FAM BLOGS Y R T S MINI )

ren to Child y r t is (Min Kumer 1. Tony titute th Ins u o Y r 2. Fulle McLane 3. Adam 4. Walt

r (Cente Mueller

y 5. Mar

) tanding

s h Under nt-Yout

re for Pa

ise) Gone W ls ir G ( Kassian

PR AYER FOR MY TEEN This is an excerpt on Setting Limits and Letting Go in “31 Days of Prayer for My Teen” by Susan Alexander Yates (Baker Books). SO OFTEN IT SEEMS THAT EVERY ISSUE WITH OUR TEEN TURNS INTO A MAJOR DEBATE. THINGS AREN’T AS BLACK-AND-WHITE AS THEY WERE WHEN SHE WAS LITTLE . IT WAS SO MUCH SIMPLER WHEN SHE WAS TWO AND THREW A TEMPER TANTRUM. THEN WE WON THE BATTLE. NOW HER ARGUMENTS ARE SO MUCH SMARTER. HOW DO I SET LIMITS AND YET LET GO AT THE SAME TIME? LOR D, TODAY I’M HE AR ING, “WHY CAN’T YOU TRUST ME? YOU JUST DON’T UNDER STAND. EVERYONE ELSE GETS TO …” LOR D, SHE’S R IGHT. I DON’T ALWAYS TRUST HER, BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T HAVE THE WISDOM OR E XPER IENCE YET. I DON’T UNDER STAND EVERYTHING. AND YES, SOME OF HER FR IENDS GET TO…. BUT I’M NOT HER FR IEND’S PARENT, I’M HER S. AND SHE IS MY RESPONSIBILITY. YOU HAVE GIVEN HER TO ME TO R AISE. (SOMETIMES I WONDER IF YOU WERE THINK ING CLEAR LY WHEN YOU DID THAT, LOR D!) I K NOW I HAVE TO SET LIMITS AND YET BEGIN TO LET GO. IT’S SO HAR D. SHE DOESN’T LIK E ME AT THESE TIMES. I K NOW I’M NOT RUNNING FOR THE MOST POPULAR PARENT IN TOWN . BUT TODAY, I FEEL LIK E THE WOR ST! I REALIZE THAT I HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT WHAT SHE THINK S OF ME NOW IS NOT NEAR LY AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT SHE’LL THINK OF ME TEN YEAR S FROM NOW. EVEN C. S. LEWIS SAID, “BEING BROUGHT UP, NO MAT TER HOW GR ACIOUSLY DONE, IS BOUND TO OFFEND.” FATHER, YOU HAVE GIVEN ME THIS PARTICULAR CHILD. YOU HAVE PROMISED THAT YOU WILL GIVE ME WHAT I NEED TO R AISE HER.* LOR D, I K NOW SHE WILL BE MORE LIK ELY TO WANT TO OBEY YOU IF I HAVE TAUGHT HER TO OBEY ME. THE LOVE AND HUGS I GIVE HER ARE IMPORTANT, BUT YOU LOVE HER EVEN MORE THAN I DO.* PLEASE SHOW ME THE AREAS IN WHICH I NEED TO BE FIR M AND THE ARE AS IN WHICH I NEED TO BEGIN TO LET GO.* THANK YOU THAT LOVE AND DISCIPLINE ARE NOT OPPOSITES BUT PARTNER S AND THAT EVEN THOUGH DISCIPLINE IS PAINF UL AT THE MOMENT, IT IS FOR OUR OWN GOOD AND WILL RESULT IN R IGHTEOUSNESS AND PE ACE.*

NO DISCIPLINE SEEMS PLEASANT AT THE TIME, BUT PAINFUL. LATER ON, HOWEVER, IT PRODUCES A HARVEST OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY IT. HEBREWS 12:11 SCRIPTURE REFERENCES (IN ORDER OF STARRED REFERENCES IN PRAYER): 1 THESSALONIANS 5:24; EXODUS 34:6; PROVERS 19:18 AND 23:12; HEBREWS 12:11

www.vimeo .com/

www.faceb ook.com/

www.twitter .com/

www.insta gram.com/

2014 / November 1

MS/HS Fall Retreat

Oct 31- Nov 2

Shepherd

of the Ozarks

DNOW Registartion Opens

MS/HS Fall Retreat

Oct 31- Nov 2

Shepherd

of the Ozarks

MS / HS worship/meal

Parent Roundtable MS / HS worship/meal

12 Parent Roundtable

Go Conference

Offices Closed for Thanksgiving

Go Conference

22 OCC Packing Party 10am

Girls Ministry Event 12-2

Go Conference

Thanksgiving Dinner and Service 5pm

No student activities 27

Offices Closed for Thanksgiving

COMING SOON

December 1 December 17 December 24 December 25 December 31 January 1 January 16-18

Champions Football Banquet The Gathering Christmas Eve Candlelight Service (Church Offices Closed) Christmas Day (Church Offices Closed) New Year’s Eve (Church Offices Closed) New Year’s Day (Church Offices Closed DNOW

Keep your eyes and ears open for Sunday School class Christmas parties!

ENGAGE

200,000 MORE REASONS TO DELETE SNAPCHAT Since news of this broke on Friday I’ve received at least 50 texts, emails, and other messages about it.

I’m a little torn. I don’t want to say “I told you so.” More like– “NO!!! I tried to warn people.”

More than 4 million people have read my post, “Why you should delete Snapchat.” The PDF of that post has been downloaded 45,000 times. It’s been taught as an example of a persuasive argument in just about every state in the United States.

But here we are. My eﬀorts weren’t enough.

Somewhere, in the ether of the internet, are 200,000 images posted online without permission. That’s on top of the countless number of Tumblr blogs and other websites dedicated to sharing captured Snaps.

The facts of what I wrote about Snapchat in August 2013 haven’t changed

Snapchat is built on a lie that digital images disappear. They don’t. Once you take a picture with your device and send it to another person you’ve given up control of that image. It might get deleted. Once you send it via text, email, or upload it to an app… you lose control.

You think you’re anonymous online, but you aren’t. Whether it’s Snapchat or Yik Yak or an online forum, everything you post online points directly back to you. Everything. That happens at the device level with metadata. It happens with your ISP or mobile provider. And it happens with app developers at the server level. The only one who doesn’t know who everyone is on an anonymous app are the actual users. And, as we’re about to learn with the Snapchat leak, facial recognition is a double-edged sword.

Snapchat was created as a safe way to sext. In the past year since the January 2013 uproar, Snapchat has done a very good job navigating further and further away from it’s genesis story of a safe sexting app. I’ve acknowledged that publicly. They introduced some new features, they’ve said all the right things in the press, they’ve educated users, and– even for me– they truly have done a good job trying to pivot Snapchat from the salacious history, which indeed fueled the initial popularity, to something better and more mature. But they can’t get away from their history or the subset of users who use the app as a safe way to sext. As Mitt Romney learned in 2012… you can’t “Shake the Etch-a-Sketch” and just tell a new story sometimes. If they were serious about getting rid of the subset of users who sext with the app they would invest a few million dollars to develop a feature that detected nudity and blocked it. (ala facial recognition in Facebook or iPhoto.)

The Snapchat leaders seem more interested in blaming others than blaming their app. When they settled with the FCC, it was a misunderstanding and they didn’t own responsibility. When user names and passwords were leaked, it wasn’t their incompetence as developers– it was unscrupulous people wanting access to an unlimited treasure trove of private data. And in this latest leak, it’s not the fact that Snapchat has an open unofficial API that even an untrained developer can crack into within a few minutes then build and release iOS and/or Android apps on the official marketplace— it’s these 3rd parties who are to blame. We all know people like this. Whether it’s entitlement or immaturity or arrogance, they can’t simply admit that their leadership failed, that Snapchat is bigger than they are capable of leading, or that their skills as a developer are not up to snuff. Instead they play the “Hey, I’m just a kid, I make mistakes” card. Snapchat is valued at anywhere from $2 billion to $10 billion. (Though with existing and pending litigation I A publication of IBC Student Ministr y.  www.ibclrstudents.org © 2014

can’t see it.) Isn’t it time for the leadership at Snapchat to be held responsible? Shouldn’t the board, likely full of VC investors, make a decision to remove the founders and put in place someone capable of finishing the job? Surely, if the eventual goal of Snapchat is to sell it to Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, or whoever wants it– the maximum value of Snapchat will never be achieved with a bumbling leadership team who can’t publicly own failure. Duh.

If anything, what I wrote in August 2013 has been validated time and again. Which only leads me to the same conclusion: Delete the app.

Do not trust an app built like this. And do not trust people like this.

There are white hats and black hats in this world, Snapchat wears a black hat.

Beyond “I Told You So”

Right now, nearly every hour, a story is coming out blaming Snapchat for this leak. And they are 100% to blame. No doubt many will join me in calling the Snapchat board to remove Snapchat’s founders for their incompetence.

But, emotionally, I’m just not interested in “I told you so” any more than I truly care about who is the CEO of an app people should just delete.

Just like there wasn’t anything in it for me when I wrote the original post in August 2013, I am not somehow filled with pride that this has happened and I was right all along. (If you didn’t know, I wrote the post in response to requests from a group of moms at a seminar. I couldn’t answer their question about Snapchat suﬃciently on the fly, I told them to watch my blog and I’d write some reasons you should delete it.)

So here’s what I’m feeling about the Snapchat leak:

I feel terrible for the people who will now pay a penalty for their lack of understanding on how the internet works. Yes, we should hold Snapchat responsible. And I believe that the FBI will hold those who have leaked images of minors will be arrested for distribution of child pornography.

For those who have had images leaked, I hope they seek and get justice. What was done to them was wrong, it’s against the law, and the perpetrators may have had a good reason (to expose Snapchat’s vulnerability) but that’s not reason enough to violate the law.

I hope the public learns from this leak. For those who will have images posted, I hope they’ve learned that no matter what is promised, anything shared online is ultimately public. Take solace in knowing you aren’t alone. But make a correction in your behavior, as well, so that it never happens to you again.

As a Christian, I believe all humans are ultimately fallible. This isn’t about Snapchat– it’s about us. (Ourselves and the people we thought we trusted.) We make mistakes, people we trust betray us, and we all live in a space between blaming ourselves and blaming others for a lot of stuﬀ. (Not just this leak) This is what we do as humans. While we all have good in us, as we’re made in the image of God, we also have evil in us. Last week I wrote about a new research study about teenagers and sexting. In talking about this with some friends I came to this conclusion: 100% of us are susceptible to sexting. The reason many haven’t is that the opportunity hasn’t arisen in our lives. The hormones of sex and the dopamine rewards of our inborn reward system are simply stronger than us. We all need Jesus. We need his strength to resist. We need forgiveness when we mess up. And we need His hope (and the actions of His people) for freeing the world of sexual exploitation. But I don’t see myself any better than those who have leaked images or had images leaked. And neither should you.

Let’s not forget that the leak is about sexual exploitation and the power of shame in our society. In the coming

days it’ll be easy to throw people under the bus and blame them for taking these images. But there’s a big diﬀerence between exchanging these images with someone you trust (or are flirting with) and having them published, perhaps with their usernames or real names. Trust me, those aﬀected will feel terrible enough as it is. Let’s not forget that the release of these images is illegal. (Do I even need to say it… DON’T LOOK AT THEM!)

McLane Creative.Kristen and Adam have been married 17 years and live in the San Diego neighborhood of Rolando with their rowdy children,Megan,Paul,and Jackson.

EQUIP

10 THOUGHTS ON USING CONSEQUENCES Consequences are a necessary tool in any parent’s discipline toolkit! Parents use consequences to teach teenagers to become responsible for their actions and to make good choices in their lives. Here are some of my thoughts on using consequences:

1.Consequences should not be used (or communicated) as punishment. Consequences will fail if they are presented as such.

2.Parents who use consequences as a tool to force kids into being obedient have goals that are both too small and short-term.

3.Remember the goal: Teaching teenagers responsibility for their own behavior.

These aren’t 200,000 images. These are 200,000 people. That’s a lot of hurting people out there. Ugh, my heart hurts.

I’ve got more work to do. One thing that’s become clear over the past year is that there aren’t a lot of people actually trying to educate teenagers about social media in a useful way. Scaring them doesn’t work. Instead, I’ve found that helping them understand how basic principles of social media play out in the real world as well as creating some common language with the adults in their lives really, really helps. In so many ways– I’m sick of talking about social media. But I also don’t feel like I can stop because the need is so great.

BY ADAM MCL ANE,Adam McLane is a Partner atThe Youth Cartel and Principal at

4.Teenagers learn best when they experience the consequences of their behavior. Consequences hold teenagers accountable for their actions.

5. When teenagers experience consequences, parents are freed from threatening, screaming, yelling, spanking, nagging, and complaining. Actions–in this case, applying consequences–speak louder than words ever will.

6. As often as possible, incorporate natural consequences. These are the unavoidable results of one’s actions. A teenager not eating lunch because she forgot lunch money is a natural consequence. Burning your hand is a natural consequence of touching a hot pan.

7. At times, employing logical consequences can be useful. Although contrived, these relate logically to the behavior. They are constructed because the natural consequences are not immediate enough for the teenager to learn to be responsible. A teenager’s grades may have a huge natural consequence — for better or for worse — when he or she graduates from high school. But the natural consequence is delayed and may not teach a kid to act responsibly regarding schoolwork in the here and now. A logical consequence such as a reward for good grades or taking away privileges for poor grades, are examples of using logical consequences.

8. Logical consequences might be logical to the parent, but illogical to a teenager. Consequences must be logical to your teenager, if they are to be eﬀective.

‣

9. Using consequences never means that parents quit supporting and guiding their teenagers and leaving them to navigate life completely on their own. A study from the University of New Hampshire found that permissive parents, those who are non-demanding and set few or no boundaries for their children, produce children who are the least self-reliant and self-controlled of all parenting styles.

10. Hints for using consequences:

‣ Decide if the behavior is worth battling over.

‣ Present consequences as choice. Choices within limits provide teenagers with opportunities to learn to make good decisions because they make the decision. (“Either come home at dinnertime, or miss eating.” “Either drive the speed limit, or I will drive.” “You can either feed your dog or we will give it away.”)

‣

Consistently follow through if your teenager has chosen the consequences.

Administer Faceb the consequence in a friendly, ook rather than hostile, punitive manner. There is no need for nagging or lecturing.

Include your teenager Instagr in creating the consequences. am Creating consequences are something you do with your teenagers, not to them.

Separate your teenager from Twitter her behavior. One way: focus your attention back to positive things soon after the consequences are given.

Never give a consequential choice to your teenager that you cannot follow through on, such as, “Either change your attitude or find another place to live.”

BY DOUG FIELDS IS THE SENIOR DIRECTOR OF HOMEWORD CENTER FOR YOUTH AND FAMILY. HE TEACHES YOUTH MINISTRY AT AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSIT Y IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WHERE HE RESIDES WITH HIS WIFE AND THREE CHILDREN.

501 N. SHACKLEFORD RD.

LITTLE ROCK, AR 72211

O | 501.376.3071

WEB | WWW.IBCLRSTUDENTS.ORG