Decision should be up to youths

Jesse Brinson, youth director, Midwest Student Ministries, 998 N. 1771 Road:

No. I think parents should help teenagers make righteous decisions, but the decisions are ultimately the teenager’s responsibility. Decision-making is important for everyone, but much more so in the lives of teenagers. Parents/adults are experiencing the consequences of the decisions they made as teenagers. And teenagers have already experienced a few consequences of their decisions, but it often takes more than a week or a year to know the true effects of some decisions.

My two oldest boys are 14 and 18 years old. My wife and I get tired of pulling our hair out trying to get them to do what’s right. So we decided to help them understand their purpose and destiny in God. This is something they chose and they want to pursue. After setting some goals, we talk about decision making. Then, we help them apply some of their decisions to the overall goal, seeing if it will help or hinder the outcome.

A friend gave me a book, “Losing Control and Liking It” by Tim Sanford. I would like to sum up the first section for you. Sanford gives three rules to help your teenager make decisions. Rule one: You live and die by your own choices. Galatians 6:7 says what you sow you will reap. That’s good news for teenagers, who are eager to sow on their own.

But, then comes rule two: You can choose smart or stupid. How many stupid decisions do you wish you could take back? My list of stupid decisions goes down the street and around the corner.

Rule three: There’s always somebody or something whose job is to make your life miserable when you choose stupid. Many times we, as parents, are able to step in and make our children’s lives miserable, if life hasn’t already penalizing them for doing something stupid.

Yes, at times I wish I could strap a baby leash on the boys or place a bridle in their mouth, but it still won’t cage their free will … and God gave them that.

— Send e-mail to Jesse Brinson at jesse@midweststudent.com.

Wisdom about faith may come later in life

The Rev. Josh Longbottom, associate pastor, Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.

“As long as you’re under my roof, you’ll be going to my church” is what my dad told me when I said I wanted to be Unitarian instead of a member of the United Church of Christ. Imagine what he would have said if I told him wasn’t interested in spirituality at all?

I did everything I could to get out of church. I staged fights about the meaning of life and used every catchphrase I had learned from my friends about the evils of organized religion. I threw tantrums like a child in the grocery store who wants a Kit-Kat every time Sunday morning came around.

In Sunday school, I came up with the most obtuse questions I could and then went after my poor Sunday school teachers like they should be able to prove every tenant of their faith in a laboratory setting.

I was the kind of problem child only a pastor’s kid can be.

One day I got a phone call from an elder asking me to be a deacon. I said “no way” and went to tell my father how ridiculous the request was. He said, “Son, you either fight to change the way things are or you walk away.”

Fifteen minutes later I called the elder back and became a deacon.

The moral of the story: Listen to your children well and then trick them well! They don’t know how to set the direction of their lives with wisdom until they are 40, just like it took you that long to figure something out for yourself as well.

Everything I needed to survive college I learned in Sunday school. I had no idea until I was about 30, and those are the facts.

— Send e-mail to Josh Longbottom at joshlongbottom@sunflower.com.