RECENT BLOG POSTS

Miley Truly “Can’t Be Tamed”

Posted on: 05/6/10 12:13 PM | by Jonathan McKee

I think Miley wants to make it clear:

I can’t be tamed
I can’t be saved
I can’t be blamed…

Her brand new video speaks it loudly- she doesn’t want to be Hannah Montana anymore. She wants to be Britney, Gaga, or Aguilera.

If you haven’t already bailed out of the Miley-Fan-Club by now… I think you should watch the video. I think you’ll agree with my previous forcast that her days as a positive role model for young girls are over. Check it out for yourself:

The secular media is even asking, ‘Is the Miley Video Too Sexy?”

What do you think?

This Sunday my Youth Culture Window article will go into much greater detail.

(ht to Dizzy)

Posted in Entertainment Media, Jonathan's Rant, Music, Sexuality, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Speaking on YouTube

Posted on: 05/4/10 11:15 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Tonight I spoke locally to a youth group near my house. The youth pastor is a friend and had done me a favor, speaking and endorsing our ministry at one our THE SOURCE fund-raising dinners- I owed him. So I spoke to his group tonight about communicating with God, the same talk that we just released on the newest episode of our podcast.

We also have a video excerpt of this talk posted on our YouTube page.

Click here for that video.

I love that Matthew 6 passage. So much in there. I could do a 6 week series on that passage. Fun stuff!

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10 Ways NOT to Share Your Faith

Posted on: 05/3/10 10:04 AM | by Jonathan McKee

If you’ve ever hung out with Greg Stier, you’ll walk away uplifted and spurred on to share your faith with others.

Greg is the founder of Dare2Share, an amazing ministry that equips young people to share their faith in Jesus with others. We’ve had Greg on several of our podcasts discussing evangelism– the do’s and don’ts- always a hilarious, yet empowering dialogue (I actually always end up playing those particular podcast episodes to my kids for family devotions and discussing them. My kids find him both hilarious and inspiring).

Greg has a hilarious entry on his blog today: 10 Ways NOT to Share Your Faith.

Here’s the first few:

10 Ways NOT to Share Your Faith
1. Stand on the corner and scream “REPENT!” at others. If it didn’t work for Jeremiah the prophet, it won’t work for you.
2. Break into a public high school and shove gospel tracts into the lockers. Trust me on this. I’ve done it…seriously.
3. Wear a “Ready to die…ask me why” T-Shirt. I’ve done this too. It’s not effective, but it did scare people.
4. Go into a bookstore and secretly slip gospel tracts into all of the New Age/Witchcraft books. Have I done this? Maybe…okay, yes.

The whole list here.

These are even funnier when you’ve listened to him get transparent in some of his articles (Does Street Evangelism Work?) and on our podcast (especially this episode), because when you know his past, you discover that he used to use these methods. God has been transforming him, keeping his spirit led boldness, but slowly morphing his methodology to be more compassionate, loving and intentional about caring for people more than just a “conversion.”

Greg’s an amazing guy.

Posted in Evangelism, Faith, Humor | | Leave A Comment

Shopping for my Girls

Posted on: 04/30/10 8:09 AM | by Jonathan McKee

I went shopping with my girls last night. Both my girls have hit growth spurts recently, and my wife Lori went through the girl’s closets earlier this week, getting rid of old clothes that are too small. Wednesday she warned me, “The girls need some clothes.”

So last night, I went with them to some outlets near our house.

Have you shopped for tween and teen girl clothes lately?

Alyssa is 14 and likes short shorts. So last night was full of a lot of, “Are you kidding me?!!!” from me when Alyssa would hold up a pair of shorts that contained less cotton than you’d find in the top of a bottle of Tylenol. We had some good conversations and I tried to “pick my battles.” When the night was done she was really happy with what she walked away with.

Ashley is 12 and she’s only 76 pounds, which makes it really hard to find clothes for her. She doesn’t starve herself… she’s just teeny like her mother. Shopping for her is difficult. She wants to wear teenage clothing, but only fits in “kids” clothes. We were excited when we found some retro Star Wars and IronMan t-shirts at Gap Kids (yes… shirts for little boys. But my Ash looked pretty dang cool rockin her Ironman shirt this morning!)

I don’t know how many parents go out shopping with their kids, but it’s a good experience to learn where trends are at and to dialogue about modesty, etc. Plus it was just a fun night together laughing and joking around.

Some stores are recognizing concerns from parents and are seeking to provide “mom-approved” clothes, stores like J.C. Penny. This article talks a little about that- here’s a snippet:

In 2009, JCPenney talked to tweens and moms about their shopping habits and style tastes. While tweens initiate shopping trips and select apparel items themselves, moms continue to join them on shopping trips and have a final say in the purchase. JCPenney confirmed through its research that tweens desired the latest fashion trends — with color, embellishments and comfort highlighted as important factors — while moms noted that apparel should not feature edgy slogans and should offer layering components to make the items age-appropriate and adhere to school dress code requirements.

It’s hard for today’s girls to dress modest in a hoochified world.

Tonight Lori and I are hosting the jr. high girls at our house for a discussion on self Esteem, modesty and purity (I’ll be using a ton of research- and showing them this). We’ll be spending a little bit of time talking about what girls wear and how it affects guys. Should be a good time. If you have a moment, pray for this time.

Posted in Parenting, Personal, Sexuality, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Parental Guidance on Movies Makes a Difference

Posted on: 04/28/10 12:48 PM | by Jonathan McKee

A new study from Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) reveals that monitoring our kids’ media choices actually pays off! Imagine that.

James Sargent, a professor of pediatrics at DMS, also principal investigator in the study contends, “The research to date suggests that keeping kids from R-rated movies can help keep them from drinking, smoking, and doing a lot of other things that parents don’t want them to do.”

That pretty well sums it up.

The researchers talk specifically about the affect of adult content, noting that “PG-13 movies as well as many TV shows frequently portray drinking and other adult situations.” The study is fascinating. I encourage you to take a peek.

The question is: will parents listen to this warning?

In my article titled, “Dad, can I download this song?” I introduced two extremes in parenting styles: Sally SoWhat, who doesn’t monitor what her kids watch or listen to at all, and Shirley Shoebox who locks her kids in a dungeon without any exposure to the real world, releasing them at age 18. Neither are healthy.

Many people don’t want to be Shirley Shoebox, so much so, that they retreat to the polar opposite end of the spectrum, becoming very much like Sally SoWhat, a very “hands-off” parenting style. The sad fact is, most of these parents are in the dark as to what media messages are actually bombarding their kids daily; furthermore, they don’t realize the negative impact these messages can have.

In this new study, DMS partnered with the University of Oregon and the University of Michigan and studied 4,655 fifth through eighth graders, talking with 2,406 of the group. The researchers found a link between exposure to R-rated movies and the likelihood of drinking alcohol, as well as becoming more prone to ‘sensation seeking’ and risk taking.

Add to that the fact that this R-rated content is only a click away. Bottom line: Parents need to involved in their kids lives, having conversations about media, and monitoring what they watch. That’s what the experts are saying. The DMS study concluded by actually quoting the October 2009 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) study, recommending that children watch no more than one to two hours of “quality” media each day.

If you missed that AAP music and lyrics report, I strongly encourage you to take a peek at that as well– I summarized some of those findings in our Youth Culture Window article the week the study was released. That report confirmed that lyrics have become more explicit in references to sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and violence. Furthermore, the authors gave numerous examples of the correlation between media exposure and negative behaviors. The report gave particular attention to the effect of music videos. Frequent watching of music videos has been related to:

an increased risk of developing beliefs in false stereotypes and an increased perceived importance of appearance and weight in adolescent girls
an increased probability that they would engage in violence, a greater acceptance of the use of violence, and a greater acceptance of the use of violence against women
an increased acceptance of date rape
permissive sexual behaviors
more accepting of premarital sex (specifically with those watching MTV)
increased risky behaviors
alcohol use

Parents… are you listening?

Posted in Entertainment Media, Jonathan's Rant, Movies, Music, Parenting, Sexuality, TV, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Convicted Rappers Speaking at Schools

Posted on: 04/26/10 9:10 AM | by Jonathan McKee

What have we become?

That was my question when I first learned that rapper T.I. was speaking at middle schools as part of his community service. Apparently I’m not alone in my disapproval. Yahoo News gives us a glimpse:

T.I.’s March 5 visit to Woodland Middle School in Stockbridge, Georgia has outraged parents..

Tom Myers, the father of four girls in the Henry County School System, said that if he knew the rapper and convicted felon was going to appear at his daughters’ school, he would have kept them home that day..

Myers shared with WSBTV a complaint letter he emailed to Oatts. “In the future, if T.I. or any other convicted felon needs to perform community service, ask for parental permission to allow our children to be exposed to these questionable individuals,” he wrote..

I touched on this in my blog last March when T.I.’s sentence (he was facing up to 20 years) was reduced to just one year and a day if he did community service hours by speaking to young people about gangs and violence. (Side note: he was out by Christmas. That’s a pretty quick year.)

Have Adults Given Up?
When are our school systems going to wake up and realize that we’re not helping our kids by allowing this kind of influence?

Let me be very clear. We– adults— are the gatekeepers. We have control who speaks to our kids. We have control who our kids listen to and purchase. We have control what music is played at our schools.

Last Friday night my 12-year-old, Ashley, had a track meet that took place at the local high school. Music was blaring in the ears of all the parents in the bleachers. When we were taking our seat, I Gotta Feeling was playing. Then, no joke, the next song was from Eminem, then the next song from Lil Wayne. You can’t imagine how relieved I was when a Bon Jovi song came on (I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to hear Bon Jovi before. But, heck, I’d take anything at the moment!). Was an adult in charge of this track meet? Why were we all be subjected to foul-mouthed perverts when all we wanted to do was see our kids run track?

Have we just given up? Are we– adults— supposed to just give up and, not only tell our kids that this music is okay, but play it for them! Are we–adults— supposed to keep giving these individuals awards and elevating them to “hero” status?

Are we so bankrupt on positive role models that we need to book morally bankrupt rappers to come and speak at our schools?

Did T.I. have a major life-style change that qualified him to come and speak to our young people? Or does our federal court system think anyone who gets busted is qualified to be a role model to our young people today? (“And our next speaker, Charles Manson! He got busted too. Let him speak!”)

I can’t help but wonder if some of these adult decision makers don’t know all the information. Have they ever looked at T.I.’s content?

A quick search of T.I.’s albums will give you a glimpse of his true message to young people, the one they’re putting into their ears at the rate of 2 hours and 19 minutes per day, anyway. I encourage you to Google some of his lyrics. Songs like, “I’m Chillin’ With My B*tch.”

I ain’t hangin’with my niggaz, pullin’ no triggaz
I’ll be back to the trap, but for now
i’m chillin’ with my b*tch today
i’m chillin’ with my b*tch today

I ain’t hangin’ with my partners, I’m out eatin’ lobster
I’m on some grown man sh*t, ya dig
i’m chillin’ with my b*tch today
i’m chillin’ with my b*tch today

Well. Isn’t that special.

Or how about a song off the same album as his recent hit, “Whatever You Like” that I talked about in my March blog. This song is called “Porn Star,” about a girl he meets and solicits sex from. Take a peek at the lyrics:

Hey would you..stay
Could you..play with it, with your tongue just a..little
You such a sexy individual physical and mental
And if it’s sentimental shouldn’t rules bend a little
Hey let me start at the top stop in the middle use a popsicle
Make you shiver giggle when it tickle
I could talk to you dirty if you’d like that (bad girl)
I finish once, hit a blunt, start right back
I know you told me you a good girl
But shawty you’s grown woman not a little girl
You could blame it on the patron or the champagne
But sometimes being bad could be a good thing

[Chorus]
Oh yeah sitting here (I’m looking at you like, “Damn”)
We sippin’ on patron, something’s on my mind (you wanna leave with me tonight)
It’s been killing me all night long, and I wonder(listen shawty let me tell you what I’m thinking ‘bout)
Oh girl I wonder (for real shawty let me tell you what im thinking ‘bout)
It’s the end of the night, and I’m thinking you might
Wanna leave the bar, park the car, turn into a porn star

By the way. If you’re offended by the above lyrics. Good! You should be. That’s why I posted them for you. Because apparently we adults have no idea who our kids are listening to. When T.I.’s song Whatever You Like hit the charts in 2008, this album sold like hotcakes in 08 and 09, and this content is what kids across the nation were listening to.

And now they’re listening to him at their school assemblies.

Hmmmmmm.

(ht to David R. Smith for the Yahoo article)

Posted in Entertainment Media, Jonathan's Rant, Music, Parenting, Sexuality, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Neck Deep in Manure

Posted on: 04/23/10 8:57 AM | by Jonathan McKee

I’ve always got my eyes on the news looking for illustrations or discussion starters. This headline definitely caught my eye:

Police Find Suspect Neck-deep in Liquid Manure Pit

Apparently a man wanted on meth charges was hiding from the police and thought, “They’ll never find me in here!”

(I pause for laughter)

How would you like to be the cops who had to pull him out and cuff him! (the article says he became combative and had to be shocked twice with a stun gun!)

Funny that someone would resist being pulled from manure.

Hmmmmm. Neck-deep in manure… sounds crazy…but our kids hide in it every day. Just look at the top songs on iTunes and Billboard (I gave you a peek at the top 10 last week). That’s a high concentration of crap. And according to the January Kaiser report, our kids average 2 hours and 19 minutes of music per day.

Music has always been a means of escape for people. Teenagers often turn to music when feeling down or depressed. Research shows that music can release chemicals in the brain that triggers certain memories or make you feel better. This is the point of Miley’s hit song, Party in the USA. A girl is feeling bad and insecure, but then, according to the song’s lyrics, “the Britney song was on” or “the Jay Z song was on…” and “I know I’m gonna be okay.” (We actually wrote a Music Discussion starter using this song)

Miley’s song has some truth. Music does give a temporary thrill. The Bible talks about David using music to soothe Saul’s temper. I love music. And Miley’s song is probably pretty true to this culture, naming two artists that are very popular (Britney and Jay Z). It’s just too bad that the lyrics coming out of both of these artists are pure crap.

Do you know what your kids are immersing themselves in?

Posted in Humor, Jonathan's Rant, Music, News, Sexuality | | Leave A Comment

Text Messaging Use Rising Still

Posted on: 04/21/10 7:58 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Teen girls 14-17 are the leaders of the pack, averaging 100 messages a day. That’s an average. Think about that for a second. That is not some extreme example of one kid who texts 3,000 texts a month. That’s the average!

The Pew Internet and Life Project came out with a brand new study just yesterday with some of these updated numbers. It seems that every time we turn around a new report is released on text messaging, texing-and-driving, or sexting. David, in this week’s Youth Culture Window article, focused on the problem of sexting, sharing some personal experience helping kids and educators in his own community deal with the problem.

This new Pew study gives a pretty good summary of just how popular texting is at the moment, and who’s doing it:

Here’s a snippet:

31% of teens send and receive more than 100 messages per day, or more than 3,000 messages a month.
15% of teens who are texters send more than 200 texts a day, or more than 6,000 texts a month.
Boys typically send and receive 30 texts a day; girls typically send and receive 80 messages per day.
Older girls who text are the most active, with 14-17 year-old girls typically sending 100 or more messages a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month.
While many teens are avid texters, a notable minority are not. One-fifth of teen texters (22%) send and receive just 1-10 texts a day, or 30-300 a month.

The report goes into further detail about some of the struggles parents have with their kids and cell phones, calling cell phones a “mixed blessing.” Cell phones make their lives safer and more convenient, yet also provide new tensions.

Click here to download the whole study.

Posted in Entertainment Media, Parenting, Sexuality, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Kids Burning Themselves on YouTube

Posted on: 04/20/10 10:43 AM | by Jonathan McKee

It’s funny when small sub-cultures get air time (and am I only furthering it by reporting about it?)

So let me preclude this blog by saying, “This isn’t mainstream!” In other words, I don’t think your kids or their friends are probably doing this. From what I hear, this is a very small crowd of kids. But thanks to YouTube, the buzz is out and your kids and their friends might have at least heard, “Hey… did you hear about those kids that are lighting themselves on fire on YouTube?”

Yeah. It’s really as dumb as it sounds. It’s like MTV’s Jackass, but for real.

YouTube has a bunch of videos of kids lighting themselves on fire with comments like, “This is (name) being lit on fire. Only the cool kids light themselves on fire these days!”

I’ve seen a few articles on the subject, not much yet.

I don’t know what’s worse, the random videos of kids lighting themselves on fire, or videos like this one from this guy who teaches people how to “safely” light themselves on fire. (click here if you don’t see the embedded video below)

Here’s my thoughts on this one: have conversations with your kids about what they’re watching.

In my house, I don’t even need to start these conversations. My daughter came up to me yesterday and asked me, “Dad, have you see the Hot Kool-Aid video on YouTube? It’s hilarious!” (She saw it at school). I told her I hadn’t. She said, “You gotta see it!”

So we went home and she showed it to me. It was pretty funny (I know some of you are going to search that one now). 🙂 We sat and chatted a little bit about the funniest videos she’d seen lately.

I find that if parents are open with their kids and listen, then most kids will be fairly transparent about what they are watching. After a fun conversation like the one I had with my daughter, parents could ask questions like, “What are some of the weirdest things you’ve seen on YouTube lately?” (notice I don’t walk right up to my kids and ask that. I start light, with questions like, “What’s the funniest video you’ve seen?” Break the ice with your kid first.) If kids share about some weird things they’ve seen, ask them, “What did you think of that?” or “Do you know anyone who does that?”

Sometimes kids won’t share everything. That’s why when my daughter was gone I actually looked up some of the recent searches she did lately as well. My kids know that I can search their history, their cell phones, etc. at any time.

As parents, we just need to be involved in our kids lives. Keep having conversations.

(ht to Todd Pearage)

Posted in Entertainment Media, Family, Movies, Parenting, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Guess Where I Grew Up

Posted on: 04/18/10 9:10 PM | by Jonathan McKee

This past weekend on a speaking trip I had a little extra time Sunday morning to drive up to the small, one-high-school-town I lived in 30 years ago as a kid. What a reminiscent little jaunt!

Hmmmm. Maybe I’ll have a little contest seeing if you can guess where this town is (better keep reading).

I stopped by my little elementary school, the house I lived in back then (see pic to right), and the church that my dad pastored at the time. It’s crazy how nostalgic this small town is for me. I only lived there three years (from age 7 to 10). But I have such strong memories of riding my little bike with the big banana seat around the neighborhoods (yeah… it was rockin!), walking home from school with my brother (remember when kids walked home from school?), climbing a tree in my backyard, playing football with my dad and brother on the front grass…

Good times!

I drove around the town in my rental car taking it all in. I couldn’t believe how many of the little streets I remembered, although it was strange driving a car instead of peddling a bike. I drove by several of my friends’ houses—my 8 and 9-year-old friends from 30-years ago—wondering if their parents still lived there. I even saw the edge of the creepy-looking woods where my buddy Mark Krouse and I got lost for about 30 minutes—it felt like a day!

As I pulled up to my school a nice memory popped in my head. You see, my mom or dad used to pick up my brother Thom and I from school when the weather was bad during the winter. I saw the spot where they usually parked our little brown family car, a 1976 Volkswagen Dasher. One particular Friday after school my brother and I arrived at the car to find both my mom and dad in the car with a couple suitcases in the back.

Thom and I were no dummies… we almost never traveled those days. So we immediately wondered what was going on. My parents tried to play it off. “Oh, really? Are there suitcases back there? Hmmmmm.”

I don’t even remember how far the drive was, but probably within an hour or so we pulled up to a little motel called the LampLighter(funny that I remember the name). I don’t know where it was or even remember what the rooms looked like. I just remember walking through the snow covered parking lot into the little motel lobby… and seeing the indoor pool! This was paradise for Thom and I! My parents’ little surprise trip to the LampLighter was the highlight of our year. (In retrospect… I think the place was probably just a rinkydink little motel. But we didn’t care. We were swimming in the middle of winter!)

It’s amazing what you can remember when you take time to look around your childhood stomping ground.

Random Contest Idea: I can’t remember if I’ve ever blogged or written about this little town. I know I’ve mentioned it speaking. So let’s see if any of you will be able to figure out where it is. Here’s the pic I shot of the church from my phone. This is the church I attended when I was 7 through 10 years old! My dad was the pastor there for 3 years. (If no one gets the answer by noon on Monday Pacific Time, I’ll add a hint in the comments.)

THE CONTEST: I’ll give a copy of any one of my books (your choice) to the first person who uses the comment section below to tell me where this church this is (what city, etc.). (one guess per person)

I’ll give you a quick hint to start. It’s not even half an hour from this thing!

Good luck!

Posted in Parenting, Personal, Travel | | Leave A Comment