These stories have left me very concerned that the world is moving faster than many parents are prepared for.

If this has happened to you and your child, please know that Jesus can and will restore that child’s innocence when you pray! Talk with your child and work through all of their questions. Then pray with them, and for them, and you will be amazed at how easily Jesus can wipe their little soul clean for a new start. The last thing you should do is start down a self-accusational road that makes you feel condemned and keeps you from ministering effectively to your child.

So, I want to address this in as helpful way as I can. I don’t normally write blog posts that are this long or this detailed, but I really believe this is an important and timely issue. If you have young children, or have friends that do, please take the time to read through this and pass it on.

Don’t Feed the Monster that is Hunting Your Child’s Innocence

The porn industry is incomprehensibly big. The ease and anonymity of the internet allows us to consume pornography without any of the social consequences of former generations. The sex trade is a booming business and at the end of the day it exists because we want it to exist.

So, before we talk about keeping your kids safe, I want to give you a few resources that will help you keep your heart clean.

• If you need some info on how to deal with a porn problem Biblically, or if you are not convinced that pornography is a problem for the Christian life, read “Porn Again Christian”. You can read it online, or download it as a pdf. Really good stuff. It’s written primarily to men, but frankly, if you are a woman that struggles with this it will benefit you as well.
• FREE Accountability software, X3 Watch. It doesn’t filter your internet, just reports any and all suspect traffic from your computer to the email address of your choice. It’s like having your best friend, or spouse, looking at your screen all the time. I recommend this to people all the time – works great. It’s FREE too.
• Get support, help, encouragement, information and more at the awesome web ministry xxxchurch.com
• Confess your problem to a trusted friend or spouse. Maintain an open relationship with that person so that you have a place to go when you stumble. It gets easier with time as your heart changes, I promise! Don’t let shame and fear keep you from freedom.

Do It Now, Don’t Wait

The first thing that has to change is that you have to confront any naivete you have, and most of us have it to some degree. Understand this: the porn industry, doesn’t care that your child is too young for sex. The younger the better. Stop assuming that your child will not encounter hard core and disturbing pornography unless they go looking for it. This has not been true for a very long time.

This is not about you not trusting your little ones. It’s about you not trusting the porn industry. Your children may complain, and you may have to get into some tricky conversations. You will have to decide what to say, when. But, if the villagers continue to complain, I suggest you introduce them to the brick wall that is your wise parental will. Whatever you do, don’t sacrifice their long term innocence on the altar of their short term convenience.

Start With Common Sense:

1. Get every child-accessed computer in the house out in the open. Your children should never, ever be allowed to use a computer in privacy. If there are computers that you want to keep behind closed doors then password protect them and do not give your children the password. Require them to use a public computer, in a public area of your home. This will provide implicit accountability, and it will allow you to very easily monitor their computer usage without being overbearing or annoying. It will also teach them early that privacy is not a right in your home. It is a privilege that comes with age and trust and can be revoked at any time.
2. Talk to your children about internet safety. You are the parent so you should trust your instincts about what to say at what age. But all children, regardless of age, should at least know that there are bad people out there and that not everyone they meet online, and not every website, is good. They should know never to give anyone their name, address, etc.
3. For younger children, any time he/she wants to visit a new website they have not visited before, they should ask your permission first. Then you visit the site to check it out before giving the green light. (don’t just trust the web address of the site – in the scheme of things, it means very little)
4. Don’t be afraid to restrict social media access until your child is ready for it. Surviving the social media insanity takes a certain amount of emotional maturity. Make them wait until they can handle it.

Software Solutions:

There are basically two routes to go here. The first of which is that you can purchase software that you install on every computer in the house. You would then have to configure them to block unwanted content at each computer and portable device. The problem with these is that if you have multiple computers you have to keep up with them all. For novice computer users, this can be a pain. These programs are also notoriously easy to bypass, so for your older children this may not be a great solution.

I like SafeEyes for this, but there are others.

Though I don’t think these programs are the best option, they are far better than nothing. If this is all you can manage, go for it. Lots of people use it and are very happy (especially if they are not dealing with more than one computer or internet device in the house).

The second option is a proxy filter. This redirects your internet traffic through a 3rd party service that filters your web traffic. The advantage here is that you can configure your home’s wireless router to feed all of your internet traffic through the filter regardless of what device or computer is accessing it. It’s a web filter for your entire home, setup and configured once and in one place. This means that smart phones, tablets, etc will also be filtered. And once it is setup, you can manage your filter settings from a convenient web interface.

In my opinion, this is a much better option.

Of course, these services can also be bypassed by an enterprising child, but it is much harder to do and makes browsing much more inconvenient for them if they try. There is no perfect web filter, but in my opinion this is as close as it gets.

The clear winner in this category is OpenDNS. It’s free for personal use too, so there’s no reason not to try it. I use the “OpenDNS Home” service (FREE) and have no complaints. OpenDNS provides pretty good instructions as you go along, even specific to your brand of router, but if you need more step by step details try this.

I should also mention that many newer wireless routers have some basic parental controls included. Often, these options are not obvious if you don’t know about them. You can typically do things like:

• filter by a set of keywords
• block specific websites
• have internet access shut down at specific times of day (night-time, homework time, etc)
• block specific types of media like video, chat, etc.

Some routers even allow you to set these options for specific computers in your home network. None of these router features can fully protect your home, but they are handy as a second tier of protection in addition to something like SafeEyes or OpenDNS. Check your router settings or user manual to see if these additional features are available in your hardware.

What Works for You?

I’m very curious about other parents, and what they have done that has worked well for their families. Have you come up with any solutions that I have not mentioned here?

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

This is an excerpt taken from Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, (there was no annual Thanksgiving Day, but rather each president traditionally declared one each year).  I am thankful for many things, but what I am most grateful for is that God has extended me mercy beyond my wildest imaginations or expectations.

Happy Thanksgiving!

… now get off your computer and go talk to a human.

It doesn’t take long for us to lose our grip on why we are running so hard and so fast.  Our priorities get jumbled.  Massive chunks of time fall out of our hands and then, if we’re so blessed, we wake up one day and realize that we’ve missed many of the things that make life beautiful.  We’ve spent our most precious resources on the least precious demands and there is no way to get that time back.

Hard work is a noble thing.  But if you don’t stop running long enough to remember why you are running then the day will come when you wake up to the fact that you have burned the important things to the ground in the process.

When was the last time you stopped and disconnected?

Really.  Stopped.

I’m not talking about vacation.  I’m talking about putting everything down and looking your kids in the eye when they talk to you.  I’m talking about stopping for coffee with a dear friend for 30 minutes to look them in the eye as you get reminded of who you are.  I’m talking about turning the radio off in the car and talking to Jesus because He is your reason for living.

When are you going to STOP today?

Watch the video that inspired this post.

Scott Stratten is a social media guru, author, public speaker, and all around nice guy.  In this talk, he tells a very personal story of how he “kept going” until he was forced to stop and the lessons he learned along the way.  Moving stuff.

They saw no reason why they should be limited by gravity and human physical limitations.  All they needed to overcome physics were beach towels.  They came running up to me, towels in hand, and asked me to secure the towels around their necks.  They had already tried stuffing the towels in their collars, but the towels-turned-capes kept falling out.  And we all know that a superhero cannot have his cape falling out in mid flight.

The kids then spent the entire rest of the afternoon running with lightning speed back and forth across the yard.  I kid you not, they believed they were flying.  They kept yelling into the house, “Look, Dad!  We’re flying!”

Reality?  Reality is that they weren’t really flying.  It was more like skipping added to jumping with some uncoordinated arm flailing mixed in for effect.  No flying.  But I had a blast watching them try, and I was really impressed with the attempt.  I would never have the guts to try such a thing.  Not in a million years.

Isn’t this how it is with God?

Faith is the one thing that we can do to please God.  Nothing else will.  It moves mountains because it moves God.  I think faith is tied to our imagination – our willingness to dream divine dreams about what might be possible with God.  But it doesn’t end with imagination.  We’ve got to move.  We have to put the cape on, get out in the yard and flap our arms like idiots.  It’s not really faith until someone is running around like a fool with a cape in the front yard.

What I think we forget is that even when we are only getting 2 inches above the ground, our Father is delighting in the game.  What’s different, however, is that with God He comes out in the yard with us and actually makes us fly — not as superheroes with all the power, but as the laughing children of a Father that uses the universe like a plaything.

Even when we look around and realize that we aren’t flying the way we dreamed, we are still bringing our Father joy and glory which is reason enough to keep flapping in the wind.

Let me explain.  I’m a pastor.  It’s who I am, but it’s also what I do.  This also means that there isn’t a clear line drawn between what I do, who I am, and my relationship with God.  They are all happening at the same time, most of the time.  That’s a great blessing, but it can also get a little weird at times.

It becomes easy to begin thinking that what I do (and how well I do it), and my relationship with God are the same.  That’s not good.  My approval rating with God begins to rise and fall based on how well I preached, counseled, or led this week.

But, I’m sitting here looking at the beach and not doing any ministry outside of loving my family.  And you know what?  I think that Jesus loves me the same.

I think one of the reasons that God ordained the need for rest from the moment of creation is, in part, to remind us that we are more than what we do. We are objects of mercy.  Objects of His relentless love.

When we forget that, we forget ourselves.

I’ve also noticed a general trend to sanitize some of the more intense areas of scripture for the kids.  Sin gets minimized.  The price paid for sin gets minimized.  Christ’s suffering on the cross, etc.  The result is that our kids get moralistic tales, sort of a Hebrew version of Aesop’s Fables.  We lose Jesus as the Hero, Rescuer and King of humanity.

And if you do find one that has decent content, it’s written like a textbook and the only thing your kids learn from it is that the Bible is boring and is for adults only.  That’s not exactly what we are going for here!

Recently Heather’s sister recommended a Bible they have been using with their kids.  It’s called, “The Jesus Storybook Bible“.  We picked it up and read some of it together in the Barnes & Noble and it nearly brought me to tears in the isle.  It’s written by Sally Lloyd-Jones and it is masterful.  She has a beautiful instinct for how “each story whispers His name” from Genesis to Revelation.  It is so doctrinally rich, I call it a commentary for kids.  I’m not kidding.  It really does read that way.  She has a whimsical way of focussing each story onto Jesus and bringing out the essential elements of the story that will build a solid doctrinal understanding.

But, don’t let the word “doctrinal” and “commentary” fool you.  Her writing is beautiful and captivating for both the kids and the parent.  It’s not sing songy like so many others, but it has a wonderful whimsy and rhythm to it that is a lot of fun.

The illustrations are increadible as well.  They were created by Jago, and they really match the playful and rich writing of Lloyd-Jones.

This is a real gem!  I recommend anyone getting it, even if only for yourself. You might have to read it in private for fear of what your friends will think of an adult reading a children’s Bible, but I think it’s a worthy price to pay.  ;-)  I find myself picking it up all the time and reading it.  I usually keep reading after my kids have gone to bed because it really is that well done.

“I would urge not just families with young children to get this book, but every Christian–from pew warmers, to ministry leaders, seminarians and even theologians! Sally Lloyd-Jones has captured the heart of what it means to find Christ in all the scriptures, and has made clear even to little children that all God’s revelation has been about Jesus from the beginning–a truth not all that commonly recognized even among the very learned.” ~ Dr. Timothy Keller

Here’s a link to an excerpt from the book along with the illustrations.

CALL YOUR MOM TODAY. She’s earned it.