Several of my youth worker friends are reporting that many kids in their youth groups are feeling increased loneliness. The data supports this growing widespread epidemic of loneliness. God has made us for relationships, and when the pressures of life, the breakdown of the family, over-scheduling, and increased time focused on screens combine, it's a perfect storm resulting in feeling alone. Sadly, Common Sense Media reports that three in four teenagers are now using AI for companionship. And, in an effort to find emotional and mental health support, many are relying on non-human chatbots to counsel and guide them through their struggles. Common Sense Media has issued this stern warning: “Teens should not use AI chatbots for mental health or emotional support. AI chatbots are not safe and reliable for these purposes.” Parents, our kids need real flesh and blood relationships, starting with you. That is the first step in stemming the tide of teen loneliness.

Parents, today I want to encourage you to have your family attend a church where the adults, teenagers, and children all worship together rather than going their separate ways when they walk into the building. By doing this, they will be afforded the opportunity to see the faith modeled by other adults. Writer Steve Garber knows the valuable role the inter-generational Christian community plays in the spiritual awakening, growth, and nurture of kids. He writes, “For individuals to flourish they need to be part of a community of character. Community is the context for the growth of convictions and character. What we believe about life and the world become plausible as we see it lived out all around us.” Parents, your kids need to experience the full breadth and depth of the larger body of Christ. God will use your church and wide diversity of members, young and old alike, to celebrate and affirm all that you are teaching them as you nurture them in the home. 

One of the slang terms you might hear male teenagers use these days is “homiesexual.” We all know that a homie is someone who is a close friend. The term homiesexual can be used in a variety of ways, and it’s always helpful to ask just what a person means when they say it. One of the most common definitions applies the term to male friendships that are deep and intimate in emotional ways. Sometimes these friendships defy traditional masculine gender roles, as the homies hug and cuddle without any homosexual feelings or inclinations. In other contexts, the term could refer to a homosexual attraction to or relationship with someone who is a friend. It’s always a good thing to ask for clarification when the term is used because of the full spectrum of meanings. We are reminded once again of our need to dig into God’s Word to help our kids come to an understanding of the gender binary, and the purpose and place of sex, which is in the context of a heterosexual, monogamous, covenantal marriage.

In his book Against The Machine, writer and thinker Paul Kingsnorth contends that thanks to digital technology and advances in AI, we are moving into a world that is governed by Algorithm’s and AI, rather than by God-imaging humanity. In essence, we are letting the machine guide and direct our lives. I want to encourage you to take note of the four values the Machine is promoting. First, there’s a reliance on science rather than faith in God’s revelation to define the nature of reality. Second, the highest good that’s promoted is to serve and advance one’s self, rather than living a life of sacrificial selfless Christ-like love. Third, sex is seen as primary to what we do, with the pursuit of my own pleasure as foundational to my identity. And finally, there’s the screen, which serves to attract our undivided attention, distracting us from reality and thereby undermining our humanity. Will we allow ourselves and our children to become slaves to the machine, or followers of Jesus Christ?

Now that all of my children have moved out of adolescence, I’m realizing they didn’t come equipped with a switch or button that could be tripped or pushed to make them accept, embrace, and believe everything we told them about faith and life. Instead, I needed to allow them to grow just as I was allowed to grow. Our kids intellectual, physical, and spiritual development are all ongoing processes. They don’t happen instantaneously or overnight. Our role is to consistently model and speak truth into their lives. Then we must allow the Holy Spirit to do the work that only he can do. We serve to guide and direct. God’s Spirit works to bring about change and growth at just the right time, and does so over the course of time. We can’t do what only God can do. Always remember they’re in process. Prayerfully expect God to open their eyes at just the right time, a time that may, in fact, be pretty far down the road. In the meantime, be faithfully growing and living out your faith before their watchful eyes.

I was recently going through some old family photos from back when I was an elementary-aged boy. I came upon one picture that brought back memories of certain summer days that I just didn’t like at all. There I was, sitting in front of a flower bed with a bucket by my side as I was making my way across the front of the house pulling weeds. I was glancing at the camera as my dad snapped the shutter, and truth be told, my glance was really a glare. There were two arguments I remember having regularly with my parents. One came when they instructed me to do my chores, including weeding. The other came when they told me to do my homework. In today’s world, those parent-child arguments still exist, but there’s a new number one argument at the top of the list. Can you guess what it is? It’s over screen time. As parents, we need to nurture our children from a young age into limits on screen time. Christian discipleship includes navigating our devices to God’s glory.

Blaise Pascal described a universal hole in the soul as a Godshaped vacuum. Alister McGrath describes Pascal’s model as “a God-shaped emptiness within us, which only God can fill. We may try to fill it in other ways and with other things. Yet one of the few certainties of life is that nothing in this world satisfies our longing for something that is ultimately beyond this world.” Teenagers are no different from anyone else. Their great need is to have this God-shaped emptiness filled by God. If you listen and look closely, you’ll see and hear that their music, films, social media, and very lives are crying out for spiritual wholeness. Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of teenagers. I can’t remember a single one who didn’t exhibit this thirst for God. Each of us can look directly into the eyes of the teenagers we know and love and be certain this is their reality, too. Even when they don’t recognize it as such, we can rest in the assurance their hunger is for heaven. 

The folks at Defend Young Minds have released some new data telling us that social media is now the most common way that kids are exposed to porn. Six out of ten minors now say they were exposed to porn by accident on social media. This is up from almost four out of ten in 2023. Thirteen is the average age of first exposure, with reports of first exposure even at six years old. And the four most common social media sources for exposure are X, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. The report also states that even if your kids are not searching for sexual content, the algorithms will deliver it to them. Defend Young Minds tells us that the best way to protect your kids from pornography, predators, and other harmful content is to, in their words, delay, delay, and delay your kids access to social media. In addition, we need to teach our kids that pornography is a form of sexual immorality, which takes God’s good design for sex, and destroys it through encouragement to sin.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is all the buzz right now. It’s come on the scene quickly, and so many are enamored with what it can do. For those of us who have engaged with AI through the growing number of apps that are out there, we are generating songs, videos, images, and even text in literally a split second, and what we see is so amazing that it can draw us in just as quickly as it responds to our prompts. Dartmouth University professor Scott Anthony has been watching his students to discern what they’re feeling about a future saturated with AI. In an article in Fortune Magazine, titled “They’ll lose their humanity: the professor says he’s surprised just how scared his Gen Z students are of AI”, Anthony says he’s noticing that his students fear losing their critical thinking skills to the AI Machine. The late media philosopher Marshall McLuhan saw this coming. He said this, “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” Parents, exercise caution in how you embrace AI in your life and home. 

Raising children in the Christian faith is not an easy job. In fact, the more intentional we are about pointing our kids to Christ and equipping them to live to His glory, the more we become a threat to the enemy of God and his kingdom of darkness. Spiritual oppression, opposition, and trials will come. Satan does not like what intentional Christian parents are doing. I was thinking about this recently while reading James one, two to three: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for your know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” Notice that James does not say “if you meet trials.” Rather, he says “when you meet trials.” Family turmoil and difficult situations with kids are realities for all Christian parents. We are told to “count it all joy” when we face these trials. The joy we are to feel is not happiness, but the assurance that God will use these things for our good and His glory. Parents, God is at work parenting you, while you parent your kids.