View at your Grandchild’s Culture (Part 2)

Entertainment:  Entertainment vies for the souls of our grandchildren in the movies, television, music, and video games, ask your grandchildren about the movies they are watching and talk about them. These types of entertainment aren’t all bad. However, it is vital that grandchildren are taught how to evaluate them.

Affluence & commercialism:  Our grandchildren are exposed to and influenced by a world of affluence, commercialism, and entitlement by our media today. Our goal should be to not shower them with material wealth but teach them to work and earn the things they want. Expose them to children living in poverty to familiarize them with how others are surviving. The Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Shoebox project is an excellent way for them to participate in helping children less fortunate. Help them to discover that money isn’t going to bring them long-term happiness.

Sexual Orientation: The Gay and Lesbian Movement is an issue of our time. Our children are exposed to it at an early age in their families and in school. Homosexuality attempts to exchange their God-identity with self-identify. It’s important that we dialogue on this issue with our grandchildren to influence them with the Biblical view. We must teach the truth and engage with grace.

Racial Tension:  Christians must be cautious not to get absorbed in the racial views of our culture. Our origin as God’s image-bearers outweighs our ethnic backgrounds. Don’t let the worldview control your conversations about racial issues. God has created all people in His image; we just have different colors of skin.

Witchcraft: Wicca is among the fast-growing religions. Wicca has effectively repackaged witchcraft for millennial consumption. Wicca’s website is one of the most visited religious sites on the Internet. All forms of witchcraft are strictly forbidden in the Bible as being tied to the occult and the work and the world of the evil one. “Let no one among you who practices sorcery engage in witchcraft or cast spells. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.”  (Deut. 18:10-12) Regretfully culture has made witchcraft mainstream. Talk with your grandchildren and their parents about this subject so they will be able to recognize the witchcraft often placed subtly in some movies and music. (This information was taken from Crosswalk.com, written by Dr. James Emery White, 02-19-2019)

Daniel’s story

Daniel was taken from his home country in Judah to captivity into Babylon, a very ungodly environment. Daniel was to be trained to serve in the king’s palace. He resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. King Darius made a decree that no one could pray to anyone other than him for 30 days. Daniel went to his room and prayed three times a day facing Jerusalem, giving thanks and praying as he always did to his God. He did not allow the worldly king to transform him into the pattern of Babylon. As a result, Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den. God closed the mouths of the lions, and he was brought out without any wounds because Daniel trusted God. King Darius acknowledged that the God of Daniel was a living God.

Shortly before Jesus was arrested, He prays for his disciples asking God to protect them, and I believe it is for us, too. “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.” John 17:15 (NLT)

So, grandparents, there is an urgency to pray intentionally for the physical, emotional, and spiritual protection as our grandchildren and their parents navigate our world today. The greatest long-lasting gift we can give your children and your grandchildren is an intentional praying grandparent.

Study Guide for A Look at our Grandchildren’s Culture

For personal reflection or group discussion

1.    Have you listened to your grandchildren visiting with their friends or cousins the same age?

2.    Have you asked your grandchildren how their friends feel about gender identity, marijuana, pornography, and other cultural issues?

3.    Ask your grandchildren how they think about cultural issues.

4.    Have you asked them if they have answers for when they are confronted with cultural issues?

5.    Have you talked with your grandchildren about the racial tensions in school or their community?

6.    Have you asked your older grandchildren how you can pray for them or asked the parents of the younger ones how you can pray for them?

7.    Tell your grandchildren that you are daily praying for their protection physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, protect our grandchildren from:

•    Becoming addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, pornography, or other forms of additions.

•    Being taught in the lie that Jesus is nothing more than a good teacher. 

•    Being lured into “It must be okay if everyone else is doing it.”

•    Wandering aimlessly without a purpose in life.

•    The enemy’s traps, and when necessary, protect them from themselves.

•    Being charmed and intertwined in witchcraft, divination, magic, the world of fascinations, and the occult.    In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 New Living Translation (NLT)

Information found on John Stonestreet & Brett Kunkle, A Practical Guide to Culture, David C. Cook Publisher, 2017

A View of our Grandchild’s Culture is a chapter taken from the Revised and Expanded edition of Grandparenting with a Purpose: Effective Ways to Pray for your Grandchildren, written by Lillian Penner, Co-prayer Director for Christian Grandparenting Network.