Peter Witkowski Parenting

Is your kid a Christian or a Materialist?

piggy bank blogIs your kid a giver? I don’t mean do they give 10% of their allowance to the church and put 10% of their $5.00 income into savings. That’s a great habit. But, the Christian is called to do more. We called to be free will givers, givers who regularly exceed their tithe to meet the needs of others. Do our kids have this heart within them?  Do we?

Why So Much Financial Debt?

I fear the answer for many of us is “no.” The average American household carries around $204, 992.00 in debt. Over $15,000 of that amount is credit card debt. This number is astronomical when compared to our average income.  The average American household salary is $55,192. If people stopped spending and devoted every dime to paying off debt, it would take the average family 3 years and 8 months to get right side up.

I mention these stats not to shame anyone but to remind us all that American culture is not about giving. It’s about materialism i.e. stuff.  The world says that joy is attained via trips to the Bahamas, kitchen remodels, and HD T.V.’s hung on the wall. And so, we Americans spend ourselves into debt, seeking meaning, hope, and value in the stuff of life.

Our kids’ world is no different. Instead of trips to the beach, stainless steal appliances and 90” T.V.’s, our kids find their value in vacations to Disney World, the newest Bratz Dolls, and the latest edition Madden. Because they come into the world as fallen sinners, kids have innate desire to like stuff. And not too surprisingly, our kids our great at encouraging us parents to buy things. According to Canadian researchers, kids directly influence everything from which cereal goes in the pantry to which software Dad puts on the computer. The natural kid excels at coveting stuff. But what about the biblical kid? What about the kid who claims to be a Christian? What should she live for?

Why So Much Giving?

The scriptures say that that the Christian kid is one who gives freely to others. Instead of using his limited income to fill his barn-like toy chest with stuff, he buys his classmate a new coat. The Christian kid counters the culture by living out the truth that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). We read in 2 Corinthians 9:6-8

 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

                Our kids can tithe and save up money to fund well budgeted trips, Playstations, and concert tickets without doing anything to advance their own spiritual life and the proclamation of the gospel. The rich, younger lived for the law and missed Christ. The transformational grace of Christ should move us beyond budgeting to giving. We may not all be cheerful givers now, but this God’s plan for his children.  “God is able to make all grace abound to you.”

To be a Christian is to be a person who excitedly gives from heart as they are able. For our kids this may mean they joyfully give a classmate a pencil or send $5.00 to a missionary.  For us we may 4896996561_541b024452_obuy a homeless man a meal or donate a car to charity. The amount may vary but the heart attitude is always the same. We give generously and freely seeking to expand our faith by glorifying God through serving others.


But what if this is not our experience? What do we do when our kids struggle with giving? What happens if you struggle with giving? How do you become a cheerful giver? Let me offer 4 insights from Paul that have helped my heart.

What Do We Remember?

  1. Remember what giving is not. Giving is not an element of salvation. Giving is not to be done, “reluctantly or under compulsion” (7). No one needs to give to earn God’s favor. Nor do with give to earn the praise of our fellow men or to earn a deacon nomination. We are fully saved by the work of God on the cross apart from human effort. Giving is not a work of the law. It is an act of Grace. We don’t have to give to earn favor with God.
  2. Remember What Giving is: Giving is an act of faith. We give to reap bountifully. We give as much as we are able because we desire to grow in our faith and because we desire God to bless our lives. Many Christians have both depressed spiritual and physical lives because they don’t give. We can’t grow if we are unwilling to sow. If we our unwilling to submit our wallets to God, we cannot expect him to bless with more money. He will not encourage us to develop habits that lead us away from the throne room of heaven.
  3. Remember What God Gave: Ultimately, we are generous givers because everything we have was given to us. Giving in cyclical. We give because we have been giving things. If we have a pencil or a million dollars, we have it because God gave it to us. When we give things to others, we are handing over things that were given to us from God through other people. We aren’t giving our stuff away, we are giving away God’s stuff. Most importantly, the greatest thing we have and the only thing we can take with us after death, our salvation, is a free gift from God. God gave us the most awesome gift ever. He became poor so that we could live more abundantly (2 Cor. 8:9). If we get this truth, how can we not give?  
  4. Remember Who Gets the Glory: Often when people think of giving they think of the people getting the stuff. Biblically, this is slightly off base. Yes, we give to others because we care about people and their needs. But ultimately, we give so that God will be praised. Our giving is not based on the quality of the need. We give so that others will look at us and praise God for his work.

Giving is not a natural impulse. But it is a divine mandate. If we will stay at the foot of the cross and plead with God to change our hearts, we can and should be confident that we will become givers. Until that point, we keep reminding ourselves about the above for points.

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/25444930@N02/4877821682″>Babe</a&gt; via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

Peter Witkowski Parenting

Should Christians Play Sports: 3 Crucial Questions

Blog Kids sports 3My helmet shattered. Just moments before, life had looked very promising. The bases were loaded and the scoreboard had a big fat 0 in the out column. Being the cleanup hitter, I couldn’t wait to take my turn in the batter’s box. Full of enthusiasm, I cranked the first hittable pitch I saw as high as humanly possible. But unfortunately for me, the outfield fence was located several feet behind second base. To make matters worse, all three runners ran for some inexplicable reason. A catch and two glove pops later, the inning was over. Tripple play. I found myself walking back to the dugout in a disgusted rage.

I mention the story because sports have become a huge stumbling block to many parents and their kids. Now, sports are not bad. Competition is not evil. We don’t need to take down the scoreboards and force everyone into our “Non Competitive Soccer League” where everyone is a winner! Yay us! (And oh don’t forget everyone is also a losers. Yay, logic!)  And, moving on.

There is no virtue in skipping sports. Neither is there virtue in playing sports. For Christians the value of sports rises and falls with our attitudes.  Specifically, do we use sports to praise God or to praise ourselves? In I Corinthians 10:13 Paul says it this way.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

 The thing in question is not the activity but the player’s heart. Is God gloried on the football field or is Jim playing so that people will praise him? Does he play so people see Jesus or so that Sally’s mom will tell his mom that everyone thinks him a stud?

In my case, the answer was often, “I play for me.” I smashed my helmet all those years ago because I wanted sports to be my platform for worship. I wanted people to leave every game thinking I was the hero, the stud, the “it” guy. And so the bats flew, fights erupted, and a coach’s lectures was never far away. When I failed on the field and failed to collect my weekly dose of worship, I got mad.  By God’s grace I eventually stepped away from baseball for a time during college, realizing that my self-worship needed to stop. Below I want to offer three test for determining how we are playing sports. Are sports a platform for God or for us? Here we go.

How Do You Treat Others?

Sports (even tennis and golf) require you to interact with other people. Do we use sports to talk about Christ, to encourage others (a kind word to an opponent or a ref should very much be in the Blog Kids SportsChristian’s vocabulary) and to celebrate their success? “How cool is it that Sally got the start today.  Sure, I hoped to play, but I’m so excited for her; she’s going to do great!” Do you encourage the kid who fumbled the game away, do you support the coach who has a losing team? 

Or do you always whine when you don’t get to start? “Um…coach don’t you realize how good I am. Why don’t you make Joe second string?” Do we tell our parents how evil our teammates are because they don’t talk about us enough or play us enough, or chant for us enough? Do we get mad and shout at players who drop the ball, miss the kick, or fail to land the jump?

The Bible tells us to “Count others as more significant than yourselves.” (Phil 2:3). Do we? Or do we count ourselves as being more significant than everyone else and chew out the second baseman that dropped fly ball?

What Happens Win You Lose?

Mom, Dad, kids, Grand dad, we are going to lose. We will strike out. We will fumble the ball on the last play, we will miss the gaming winning shot, and we will fall off the balance beam. We will lose. When we do, what happens? Do we smash our helmets? Are we mad because no one will praise us? Has our life ended, because we’ve been reminded that we are actually kind of ordinary (or maybe just plain bad at sports)? Do we think about cheating to make sure we never have to suffer another horrific loss and the taunts of our neighbors?

Or, are we content? Can we go celebrate with the other team? Can we come home and be happy because we know that Jesus is Lord and that no game can ruin our faith?  What happens when we Blog Kids sports 2lose?

In one of the most quoted sports’ verses of all times, Philippians 4:13, we read, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Most people assume this verse says that God is going to take the 3rd string QB and make him the starter who goes on to excel at college before wining a super bowl ring. Most think, Paul is saying that strikeout sally will become home run sally one day and star on the USA softball team. But while the context of the verse does talk about the good days, the passage also mentions being “brought low” (4:12).  Paul is saying that we can never play and be joyful. We can never win a game and be content. We can be the strikeout kid and have joy because we have Jesus! We can do all things, including losing for Jesus! Do you?

What Happens Win You Win?

Winning isn’t everything. But, it sure is nice to win. And there is nothing wrong with competing well for a chance at victory. But how do we respond when we win? Do we boast in God for giving us the talent? Do we praise our coaches and teammates for their help and support?

Or do we talk about our hit, our catch, our corner shot? Is our celebration all me, me, and I? Or are our comments about Jesus?

Friends, we are to boast. But our boasts are always to be in Jesus (Jeremiah 9:23-24)! Every success we have is a gift from God. Why are people great and then inexplicably horrible? Why do dunces become MVPs and MVPs become dunces so quickly? They answer is God. He gives every skill to you. He places you in the winning teams. We do nothing alone.   

Do you belief this? Who do we boast about when we win? 

What Should We Do?

Sports don’t have to pull us or our kids away from Christ. God designed athletics to be good. And, my hope is that all Christians will play sports for the glory of God.

 But being sinners, we are prone to mess up God’s design. I can bear witness to this fact over and over again. If we continually mistreat overs, whine when we lose, and brag when we win, it’s time to step away from sports. It’s time to refocus our lives on Christ.

”And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” – Mathew 5:30

Peter Witkowski Apologetics, Discipleship, Evangelism, Parenting

The Forgotten Culture War

When you hear the term “Culture War” what pops into your mind? Gay activists yelling on the steps of the Supreme Court, Christians praying in front of abortion clinics, or perhaps politicians arguing for the removal of a nativity set? Typically, we don’t think about little Johnny lying to his mom. But, we should.

A World of Lies

Every cultural and spiritual battle is ultimately a battle of truth. Think back to Genesis 3. The snake deceived Adam and Eve. Lying blogSin arrives via the snake’s lie that God is not good. And sin continues to spread via the lie.

We get angry when we pick up another loss in fantasy Football or when our spouse forgets to empty the dishwasher, because we think victory or an empty dishwasher will bring true happiness. For that moment, we believe a lie.

And we spread lies because we don’t want to insult grandma’s cooking or because we don’t want to suffer the penalties that come with embezzling from our boss. We believe that lying will helps us avoid consequences. But it doesn’t because the perfect Judge sees everything and will hold us accountable when he returns.

Not too surprisingly our world which is ruled by the father of lies, Satan, is dominate by liars. Some researchers estimate that 1 in 5 adults are habitual liars. And this is not a new trend for these grownups.  Around 90% of people master the art of deception by the time they turn 4. It turns out that the little white lie is not so little after all. It’s a plague that infests our culture.

Why Kids Lie

As parents, pastors, and lay leaders, we should not be surprised to see kids lie. It happens all the time because most kids are living a lie. Many kids live for good grades, for softball championships, or for having tons of friends. They believe that something other than God can will make them happy. As the apostle Paul wrote, they as are all unrepentant sinners controlled by “deceitful desires” (Eph. 22).

Kids living for a lie will quite naturally be liars. They will lie about report cards and about breaking the lamp. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. When kids have corrupt deceptive hearts, lies will pour out of their mouths. That’s all they know to do.

The solution is truth. First, we have to begin telling the truth. Many kids keep lying long after 4 because their parents lie. “Honey, tell Grandma I’m in the shower.” We have to be faithful truth tellers in our everyday life. Jesus is, “the way the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). To follow him we must proclaim the truth. We must tell others that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and we must take grandma’s phone call.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. – Eph. 4:25

Next, we have to confront our kid’s lies. Their lies are not cute or insignificant. They may be bizarre. I had a young family member once tell numerous people that Shamu ate him. Please don’t start punishing kids for being fanciful, but do help them understand that such stories are not true. Even at an early age, kids can learn that truth resides in God and cannot be made up. Reality cannot be remade on a preschooler’s whim.  And that which is unnatural cannot be made natural by the Supreme Court. We need to help our kids understand the limits of imagination when confronted with God’s reality.

And lastly, we must discipline our kids for deliberate lies. I lied all the time as a kid, including doctoring my 6th grade math report card for an entire semester. Needless to say my parents were surprised to see that my standardize test ranking was in the 60th percentile. Yeah, turns out all those A’s were not so real after all. I spent the next several summers doing summer school. And as I wrestled with my punishment, I was acutely aware that I was sinner. By punishing me for my lies, my parents took on the lies that were controlling my heart. They showed me that true life and happiness is not found in escaping school work. It’s found in Christ.

By confronting a child’s lie, we can reach past their verbal message to the core of their heart. By championing truth in our homes, we show our kids that they need the savior of truth.

If we want our kids to embrace what the scriptures say about sex, abortion, and money management, we have to affirm truth in our lives and homes. Only truth of Christ can overcome lies of the snake.