With the release of our new Biblical Worldview curriculum on Rooted Reservoir, we wanted to offer a few sources that will hopefully begin fruitful conversations with your teen about engaging in the culture and our world with God’s Word. Our hope is that parents will engage the curriculum in their private study and then use the content with their teenagers at home. We need not fear the culture; rather, we need to familiarize ourselves with false narratives and lead our children to the truth found in Scripture.
Just like the curriculum, Rooted hopes to equip you with conceptual tools to teach your child how to assess the world through a Christian lens. We know this is no easy task! We hope these resources will encourage both you and your child of the firm truth of God’s Word in an ever-shifting world.
Helping Teenagers Address the Hurdle of Religious Pluralism- Stephen Yates (While this is geared towards youth pastors, we think it offers a helpful word for parents as well)
Religious pluralism doesn’t have to be a youth ministry [or parenting!] boogeyman. Addressing the personal, as well as the rational, concerns of our students communicates that we, and the God we serve, love them and their friends, and want them to experience a beautiful, deep, and true faith in every corner of their lives.
Answering Our Teenagers’ Hard Questions About Culture
However, much about our culture is deeply troubling, and parents often don’t know how to respond wisely. Most of us were not fortunate enough to go to seminary; how is a regular mom or dad going to learn to speak biblically about the pressing issues of our time? Enter the work of Rebecca McLaughlin, a wife, a mother, and the author of three books every parent should know about.
Rooted Recommends: Four Articles For Parents About Engaging the Culture
Parent, apologist, writer, and speaker Natasha Crain (Christianmomthoughts.com) has released a series of articles that will be helpful to parents discipling their teens in this time of social turmoil.
How Parents Can Use Brett McCracken’s Wisdom Pyramid
[McCracken’s] premise is simple. Noting that the sheer amount of information available to us is overwhelming and unhealthy, McCracken suggests that we approach information consumption like we do food consumption.The Wisdom Pyramid suggests we take the “nutritional” value of each information source and build a pyramid, with the most important sources building the foundation of our information intake. The sources he lists, from order of most important to least, include:
Brett McCracken on “The Wisdom Pyramid:Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World”
In this episode, author Brett McCracken shares that newest book, “The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World,” was written with his own children in mind. Youth ministers will themselves be encouraged, but will also find answers to some pressing questions such as, “How is our social-media age disproportionately impacting young people?”, “How can I help teenagers grow in wisdom?”, and, “How can I explain to parents what’s really going on as their teen interacts on social media?”
A Gift for Your Graduate: Michael Kruger’s Surviving Religion 101
Dr. Kruger wrote Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College as a series of letters to his daughter, Emma, as she embarked on her college career at UNC Chapel Hill. Drawing from his own experience as a Christian student whose worldview was challenged by a persuasive atheistic professor, Kruger understands the complex challenges college students face. He tackles tough issues with grace, compassion, and unwavering commitment to biblical truth. He writes as a dad who loves his daughter dearly, as a committed Christian who has wrestled personally with all these issues, and as a prominent biblical scholar.
Parenting the Social Activist Teenager
We parents would do well not to let this passion catch us off guard. By virtue of their youth and inexperience, teenagers are uniquely susceptible to disinformation and unbiblical worldviews. We must keep in step with what our kids are learning, even if their explorations and opinions make us uncomfortable. Sometimes their responses to the issues of the day are insightful, even profound; sometimes they may be poorly informed or highly emotional.When that happens, we are wise to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry,” because in that moment we are teaching them the seemingly lost art of communicating respectfully over controversial subjects (Jas 1:9).
