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| Let's stop doing relationships like the world. It's time to be the peculiar people that God has called us to be. |
"Camp
is not a time to develop dating relationships." The echo of this phrase
still rings in my ears. It is a constant refrain during our pre-camp
training of our Junior Counselor guys and it is the cold water thrown on
them when we see their hormones causing a convenient adolescent
dementia throughout the summer. Honestly there's not a whole lot of
interaction with girls during the summer, but that just makes the girls
we do encounter all the more interesting when they make their brief
appearance on the camp stage.
In
all candidness, this phrase should be applied gratuitously to every
context in which our young men and women find themselves during the teen
years. Premature dating relationships are one of the biggest
distractions and sources of problems with which I see the young men I
disciple tangling. Dating prior to their readiness to physically,
spiritually, and emotionally provide for a woman is unhelpful to their
fight for purity and is totally unfair to the young ladies whose hearts
It's unfortunate that Joshua Harris' book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"
is so controversial in Christian circles. In this book he takes a noble
crack at dismantling the contemporary approach to relationships that
Christians have adopted from the world and offers an alternative vision.
Should this vision be adopted wholesale without discernment of
particular situations? ... of course not. But I dare say that his vision
is far closer to the Biblical vision of relationships than what 99% of
Christians are embracing today. Pick the book up, read it with open
ears, ask yourself the hard questions, and where it finds it's footing
in Biblical principles be prepared to reject the burdensome baggage that
the world has so cunningly convinced us we should bear along with them.
| Josh Harris on "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" |
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