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.

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Peter Witkowski Parenting

Counter Culture Kids: Obey Your Parents

Obeying your parentsIn his recently released book – Counter Culture, David Platt challenged the church to engage all of culture with the transforming grace of the gospel. He realizes that many of us can easily address one or two issues (say poverty or abortion). But as a Christian, we are called to do more. We are called to embrace all aspects of Christian living (not just the ones that come easily to us.) To be faithful, we have to cling to our gospel boogie boards and paddle against every fallen aspect of the cultural stream. We have to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and daily follow Jesus.

And I believe, we should call our kids to do the same. We should expect our kids’ to live lives radically transformed by the gospel. We should call our kids to counter the culture. And the main way our kids do this is by obeying us (their parents).

In II Timothy 3:1-5, we read that one of the signs of the end times is that people will be “disobedient to their parents.” And it doesn’t take much looking to find disobedient kids all around us. We all know the smart kid at gymnastics, the son who argues with his dad during the baseball game, and the daughter who lies to her mom on her way home from school.  We also don’t have to visit many stores to find a mom frantically screaming as her kid races down the grocery aisle. Disobedient kids are everywhere. counter culture

And, the kids who continually disobey their mom or Dad is not just a little messed up or confused. They are lost and standing in judgement. To love someone in authority, you must obey them. The apostle John also said no one can love God and hate their family. Disobedient kids don’t have an issue with their Dad, they have an issue with their heavenly father. Judgement is not far away.

To be a loving parent, we must call our kids to obey us as we seek to follow Christ. We must call them demonstrate their love for Jesus through their actions in the home. Our kid’s spiritual wellbeing depends on it. Their testimony depends on it.

God is not just interested in whether or not kids fold their clothes or take out the trash. He calls children to obey their parents, because such obedience leads to long fulfilled lives (Eph. 5). God designed parents to teach, disciple and train their kids (Deut. 6). Parents (not pastors) have the greatest opportunity to teach about managing money, about people skills, and about eternal life during the typical day.  And as kids listen to their parents, they acquire the skills needed to excel at life, and they get the knowledge necessary to embrace heavenly obedience.  As expected, God’s plan works. A large majority of Christians embrace Christ as children.

When our kids throw their toy across the room in anger, we can’t excuse their action as cute nor can we ignore it. That little person’s behavior is separating them from Christ. To be a loving parent, we must call our kids to obey us (And of course, we must be obedient to Christ. Hypocritical parenting never helped anyone) and then discipline and restore our kids when they fall short of our commands. As we do this, we point our unredeemed kids to Christ and remind our believing kids to value Christ above all us. Obedience is a big deal.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Target, Transgender, and the Sexual Revolution for Kids

Transgender BlogTarget’s decision to remove gender-based signage is the latest attempt to make our kids’ lives more balanced i.e. gender neutral.  The retail giant is following the example of TLC who recently replaced the Duggars with I AM Jazz. And TLC is following the lead of several state legislatures who passed laws that permit kids to pick their sports’ teams and restrooms based upon one’s gender expression. And as a recent serious of blogs by the Huffington Post further reveals that the sexual revolution has zeroed in our kids via the transgender debate.

Now, the arrival of the transgender debate into our grade schools while shocking is not totally unanticipated. Studies have shown (and all the articles and T.V. specials on transgender kids I’ve watched indicate) that many of the kids who struggle with the gender identity come from dysfunctional families. Their fathers have either physically or emotionally abandon the family. And their moms (either because of necessity or because of their temperament) are strong (even at times overbearing) leaders in the home. These kids have never seen a man biblically sacrifice for his family. Nor have they seen a woman bionically encourage her husband to lead. They don’t know that men are generally strong and aggressive and that women are generally more nurturing and introspective. The growing number of broken and dysfunctional homes has opened the door for the transgender discussion. In short, our kids are confused about how to express their gender because their parents and grandparents are confused.

And, our culture welcomes the confusion. America has increasingly made sexual freedom the apex of civilization. The freedom to express one’s sexual preference has even begun to trump the freedom of religion and the freedom of the press. Up till now, kids had no way to be included in the sexual revolution. Grade-schoolers can’t meaningfully declare themselves to be heterosexual or homosexual. But they can grasp what it means to a boy or what it means to be a girl. By saying they want to switch genders, kids can instantly become defined by sexuality well before puberty. Our culture welcomes such declarations. Transgender kids are given their own reality T.V shows, are praised in blogasphere, and catered to by Target. Secular society wants everyone including kids to defined by their sexual choices.

As Christians parents and grandparents, we shouldn’t fear #JazzHands and the transgender revolution that is descending upon our kids. But, we need to be ready to talk about it. Our kids will have questions. Thankfully, the Bible has a lot to say about gender.

What the Bible Says:

The Bible clearly states that God assigns gender and not humanity. We ready in Genesis that God created people male and female (5:2). And Jesus reaffirms Genesis saying, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4). Gender and sexual expression are determined by God from the beginning of time. My wife is a woman and I am a man because we were biologically created by God to be a woman and a man. Everything from our hormones, to our blood cells, to our sexual organs declares that my wife and I are uniquely female and male. We didn’t choose our gender identity. We were created with it.

And this inheritance is a beautiful thing. Both males and females are created in the image of God. Both are uniquely valuable. According to the scriptures, no one needs to change their gender to find meaning and love. Rather the opposite is true. We find happiness by expressing the gender God has given us. The more we follow God’s principles as outlined in the bible, the happier we become.

For a boy to choose to be a girl or for a girl to choose to be a boy, they must reject God’s design for their life. They must, as Bruce Jenner did, declare God to be a mistaken creator who carelessly sticks women in men’s bodies. To be transgender is to ultimately say that you are wiser than God. It is an expression of pride that separates men and women and boys and girls from the love of Jesus Christ.

How To Respond:

First we must not over react. A boy who loves to cook spaghetti is not necessarily a girl at heart. Nor should we think that a girl who has a killer three-point-shot is really a boy in disguise. Because both genders were created by God to enjoy his world, both boys and girls can have similar interests. Yes, men were designed to lead the family. And women were designed to nurture. And the bodies of little boys and girls are different. But such distinctions of purpose do not make all sports masculine or all artistic expressions feminine. Ultimately for the Christian, our humanity and purpose is not derived from our sexuality but rather from God’s character. God created the arts, the sciences, and the physical world. We should fully expect members of both genders to enjoy math, oil painting, and football within their masculine and feminine paradigms.

Second, we need to love transgender kids. We should not minimize their connection with the opposite sex. Their feelings are real. And we must treat them with respect and sympathy. We too were once hopelessly lost in sins.  

But love also demands that we declare the truth of the gospel.  We can only find salvation and joy by overcoming our natural, sinful feelings through the power of the cross. When we encounter Jesus, the porn addict becomes pure, the liar tells the truth, and the boy who wants to be a girl embraces biblical masculinity. The most loving thing we can do for a transgender child is to call them to repent.

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life  – John 13:24-25

Lastly and most importantly, we need to follow the gospel. Kids are confused about sexuality because previous generations have abandoned God’s plan for the family. Men have failed to lead. Women have failed to follow. Both men and women have removed sex from the safety of marriage. In so doing, they’ve haphazardly shattered numerous marriages via divorce. The best and only way to combat our culture’s view of sexuality is to embrace the biblical view of marriage, sex, and family. Only once we (Christians) embrace Christ commands for the family, can we expect our kids to understand and embrace God design for gender.