Epuip Parents

The Following is a post from my friends blog again.  Respond.

The Drunk Life

Freshman 40's (The Drink Kind!)

I don't know if you caught the article in the USA TODAY last week on the amount of deaths of freshman in college due to binge drinking. It was enlightening, scary, sad, disturbing and made myself as a youth pastor ask the question, "How do we prepare students for the alcohol drenched lifestyle they are walking into at college.". I know that many students in high school drink (The problem isn’t limited to college campuses. By the time teenagers graduate from high school, 66 percent are regular drinkers and 40 percent are frequent binge drinkers),but in many ways it is different in college where there is less accountability, nowhere to really hide from it, and is an acceptable part of everyday life. For the youth pastors and parents who read this blog how do you prepare your students to go off to college and not be caught up in this lifestyle? Maybe it is the example the parent sets? I had a kid in my Sunday school class two weeks ago who had to pick his parents up at the bar the night before because they were to drunk to drive home, and they go to church every week. There is a major disconnect there! I have included some excerpts from the article below:

"A USA TODAY analysis of 620 deaths of four-year college and university students since Jan. 1, 2000, finds that freshmen are uniquely vulnerable. They account for more than one-third of undergraduate deaths in the study, although they are only 24% of the undergraduates at those institutions, according to National Center for Education Statistics data analyzed by the American Council on Education for USA TODAY"

The dominant finding is that freshmen emerge as the class most likely to make a fatal mistake:

• Freshmen die at higher rates from illness, accounting for 40% of undergraduate deaths from natural causes.

• They're more likely to take their own lives; they account for 40% of all undergraduate suicides.

• They represent half of all undergraduate deaths from falls from windows, balconies and rooftops.

• More of them die on school property; 47% of the undergraduates who die on campus are freshmen. This statistic has proven the most surprising, and disturbing, to analysts, experts and parents who imagine the campus to be idyllic. And safe.

"Tucker Brown, 21, a junior at the University of Georgia in Athens and vice president of the student government association, says the sudden freedom college brings has an effect. "I think naturally you come to college, you don't have your parents there anymore, you know you can go crazy," he said during a USA TODAY roundtable discussion in December on college drinking. "Not that you've been waiting to go crazy, but now it is an option, especially for those people who were on a tight leash."

• Jonathan Thielen, 19, of Fridley, Minn., fell off a bunk bed in a University of Minnesota dorm early on Feb. 17, 2001, after a night of drinking, according to university police reports. Thielen began vomiting but told friends he was OK, the reports said. They helped him lie on the floor with his head on a pillow. "I assumed he was fine," the report quotes a student as saying, "because other friends of mine had fallen out of the bunk before." The report quotes another student as saying Thielen threw up a couple of more times, "but then he was sleeping OK. He was snoring rather loud." When students awoke the next morning, Thielen was dead of what the county medical examiner said were "traumatic head injuries due to fall."

A really sad story is Sammantha Spady's. She was the all american girl, with all the academic credentials, cheerleader, blah , blah, blah. It is just sad. A straight A student who failed at life. Her story is HERE and HERE.

I recommend that you also pick up a book that I have begun reading it is called Binge.

It peels back some of the layers on all this.

Be careful out there, and I am looking forward to your responses on how we can face this epidemic amongst our college and high school students.

shalom,

mark

Freshman 40's (The Drink Kind!)

I don't know if you caught the article in the USA TODAY last week on the amount of deaths of freshman in college due to binge drinking. It was enlightening, scary, sad, disturbing and made myself as a youth pastor ask the question, "How do we prepare students for the alcohol drenched lifestyle they are walking into at college.". I know that many students in high school drink (The problem isn’t limited to college campuses. By the time teenagers graduate from high school, 66 percent are regular drinkers and 40 percent are frequent binge drinkers),but in many ways it is different in college where there is less accountability, nowhere to really hide from it, and is an acceptable part of everyday life. For the youth pastors and parents who read this blog how do you prepare your students to go off to college and not be caught up in this lifestyle? Maybe it is the example the parent sets? I had a kid in my Sunday school class two weeks ago who had to pick his parents up at the bar the night before because they were to drunk to drive home, and they go to church every week. There is a major disconnect there! I have included some excerpts from the article below:

"A USA TODAY analysis of 620 deaths of four-year college and university students since Jan. 1, 2000, finds that freshmen are uniquely vulnerable. They account for more than one-third of undergraduate deaths in the study, although they are only 24% of the undergraduates at those institutions, according to National Center for Education Statistics data analyzed by the American Council on Education for USA TODAY"

The dominant finding is that freshmen emerge as the class most likely to make a fatal mistake:

• Freshmen die at higher rates from illness, accounting for 40% of undergraduate deaths from natural causes.

• They're more likely to take their own lives; they account for 40% of all undergraduate suicides.

• They represent half of all undergraduate deaths from falls from windows, balconies and rooftops.

• More of them die on school property; 47% of the undergraduates who die on campus are freshmen. This statistic has proven the most surprising, and disturbing, to analysts, experts and parents who imagine the campus to be idyllic. And safe.

"Tucker Brown, 21, a junior at the University of Georgia in Athens and vice president of the student government association, says the sudden freedom college brings has an effect. "I think naturally you come to college, you don't have your parents there anymore, you know you can go crazy," he said during a USA TODAY roundtable discussion in December on college drinking. "Not that you've been waiting to go crazy, but now it is an option, especially for those people who were on a tight leash."

• Jonathan Thielen, 19, of Fridley, Minn., fell off a bunk bed in a University of Minnesota dorm early on Feb. 17, 2001, after a night of drinking, according to university police reports. Thielen began vomiting but told friends he was OK, the reports said. They helped him lie on the floor with his head on a pillow. "I assumed he was fine," the report quotes a student as saying, "because other friends of mine had fallen out of the bunk before." The report quotes another student as saying Thielen threw up a couple of more times, "but then he was sleeping OK. He was snoring rather loud." When students awoke the next morning, Thielen was dead of what the county medical examiner said were "traumatic head injuries due to fall."

A really sad story is Sammantha Spady's. She was the all american girl, with all the academic credentials, cheerleader, blah , blah, blah. It is just sad. A straight A student who failed at life. Her story is HERE and HERE.

I recommend that you also pick up a book that I have begun reading it is called Binge.

It peels back some of the layers on all this.

Be careful out there, and I am looking forward to your responses on how we can face this epidemic amongst our college and high school students.

shalom,

mark

I don't know if you caught the article in the USA TODAY last week on the amount of deaths of freshman in college due to binge drinking. It was enlightening, scary, sad, disturbing and made myself as a youth pastor ask the question, "How do we prepare students for the alcohol drenched lifestyle they are walking into at college.". I know that many students in high school drink (The problem isn’t limited to college campuses. By the time teenagers graduate from high school, 66 percent are regular drinkers and 40 percent are frequent binge drinkers),but in many ways it is different in college where there is less accountability, nowhere to really hide from it, and is an acceptable part of everyday life. For the youth pastors and parents who read this blog how do you prepare your students to go off to college and not be caught up in this lifestyle? Maybe it is the example the parent sets? I had a kid in my Sunday school class two weeks ago who had to pick his parents up at the bar the night before because they were to drunk to drive home, and they go to church every week. There is a major disconnect there! I have included some excerpts from the article below:

"A USA TODAY analysis of 620 deaths of four-year college and university students since Jan. 1, 2000, finds that freshmen are uniquely vulnerable. They account for more than one-third of undergraduate deaths in the study, although they are only 24% of the undergraduates at those institutions, according to National Center for Education Statistics data analyzed by the American Council on Education for USA TODAY"

The dominant finding is that freshmen emerge as the class most likely to make a fatal mistake:

• Freshmen die at higher rates from illness, accounting for 40% of undergraduate deaths from natural causes.

• They're more likely to take their own lives; they account for 40% of all undergraduate suicides.

• They represent half of all undergraduate deaths from falls from windows, balconies and rooftops.

• More of them die on school property; 47% of the undergraduates who die on campus are freshmen. This statistic has proven the most surprising, and disturbing, to analysts, experts and parents who imagine the campus to be idyllic. And safe.

"Tucker Brown, 21, a junior at the University of Georgia in Athens and vice president of the student government association, says the sudden freedom college brings has an effect. "I think naturally you come to college, you don't have your parents there anymore, you know you can go crazy," he said during a USA TODAY roundtable discussion in December on college drinking. "Not that you've been waiting to go crazy, but now it is an option, especially for those people who were on a tight leash."

• Jonathan Thielen, 19, of Fridley, Minn., fell off a bunk bed in a University of Minnesota dorm early on Feb. 17, 2001, after a night of drinking, according to university police reports. Thielen began vomiting but told friends he was OK, the reports said. They helped him lie on the floor with his head on a pillow. "I assumed he was fine," the report quotes a student as saying, "because other friends of mine had fallen out of the bunk before." The report quotes another student as saying Thielen threw up a couple of more times, "but then he was sleeping OK. He was snoring rather loud." When students awoke the next morning, Thielen was dead of what the county medical examiner said were "traumatic head injuries due to fall."

A really sad story is Sammantha Spady's. She was the all american girl, with all the academic credentials, cheerleader, blah , blah, blah. It is just sad. A straight A student who failed at life. Her story is HERE and HERE.

I recommend that you also pick up a book that I have begun reading it is called Binge.

It peels back some of the layers on all this.

Be careful out there, and I am looking forward to your responses on how we can face this epidemic amongst our college and high school students.

shalom,

mark

Teens and Church

Taken from my friend and fellow Youth Pastor, Mark Helsel.  Thought this might get us started.  Alex

Parent Post #3-Teens and Church

When you read this post you might discount it and believe that I am too biased to speak on this subject but I believe I have valid points to make regardless of being a youth pastor full-time and let me say that I don't care what church your student is going to just as long as they are going. So here are my thoughts:

1. Why is church and youth group optional for teens? Is school optional? Can your student say to you well I don't feel like going to school today so I'm not going? Yet we allow our students to do this with church and youth group. I have neve understood this. The scripture says that "physical training is of some value but spiritual training is better". Yet we make sure that are kids never miss a practice for whatever sport they are in or school commitment but let them

miss

church

and youth group on a whim? What message does that send to the student? I believe it says to them church just isn't that important and that lesson will last with them a lifetime.

2. In our denomination we have students confirmed. Yet confirmation becomes a joke if we as parents do not hold up the vow that we made and that our student made. Part of the confirmation vow is that they will support the church through their attendance, giving and service. Maybe our lack of commitment to church comes from a warped view of church. Your student is called to give to the church, and give to others. They are not there for themselves! They can't give and encourage others if they are not here! I don't think God will forget the vow we made and they made even if we so easily forget.

3. Some parents do not want to fight with their student so they just give in and let their teen do whatever they want. I fought with my dad every week about going to youth group and to church, I lost everytime. He refused to lose and unless I wanted to do anything else that week I went to youth group and to church.

4. Some parents GROUND their kids from youth group when their grades are not what the parent wants them to be. Why not ground them from sports or band. Why church? What is the message you send with that?

5. Many teens don't come to youth on Sunday night because that is the night when they catch up on homework. Again what message are you sending by letting them skip out on church in order to do homework? They didn't have to skip going out to the movies Friday or their soccer game on Saturday?

Remember that our teens will be leading the

church

of

Jesus Christ

in just a matter of years. If we have spent their entire adolescence teaching them that everything else comes first than we are in bad shape! Let me also say that when I was in High School my church was boring and my youth group stunk,. Your students are offered a vibrant program and a exciting church, one that I wish I would have had.

So what would I do with my unborn son (Parker) if he was a teen.

1. Church and youth group would never be optional. If he didn't want to go to the youth group at our church or church that is fine as long as he was going to a church that was following Jesus Christ.

2.  Sports and school activities including homework would never crowd out his attendance @ group and church.

3.  We will constantly teach him his responsibilities to the church and to fellow believers as a member of Christ's family.

4.  The priorities in our house will be God/Family/Friends/ everything else. That is non negotiable.

Hope this was helpful and I am looking forward to your feedback.

In jesus,

Mark