SHIFT - Week 5

Once upon a time boy meets girl. Boy notices that girl smells really good, is nice, has the right shape, and is beautiful. So boy invites girl out on this thing called a date. Girl accepts. Boy takes girl to a restaurant and girl orders very expensive meal. Boy panics but pays anyway. Boy takes girl to the movies. Because boy is so nice and giving her attention, girl let’s boy put his arm around her at the movies. After the movies girl invites boy over to her house because she know her parents are not home. Boy accepts invitation. Boy and girl sit on the couch and look into each other’s eyes. Boy kisses girl. Boy and girl both getting excited, both are feeling good, both are thinking this feels so right. Boy and girl begin to touch each other only where married couples should touch each other and boy and girl end up having sex.

After a few months, boy is not really interested in girl (been there done that) and finds another girl. Breaks girls heart. Girl finds another boy. And repeats the same process over and over and over again in the thing called dating. One day boy meets “special girl” and girl meets “special boy”. And they get married, but after a few months they start having problems. Find themselves… divorce. Their lives and hearts are a broken mess. They look at their lives and ask “what happened.” The answer is they just did what they had practiced their whole life.

I believe that the way our culture dates is destructive, defective, and rehearsal for divorce. Here is why it's not working... (resource Joshua Harris: I Kissed Dating Goodbye)

7 Habits of Highly Defective Dating

• Intimacy without commitment
• Skips the friendship stage
• Mistakes physical intimacy for love
• Isolates couple from other vital relationships
• Distracts young people from the primary role of preparing for the future
• Causes discontentment with God's gift of being single
• Creates a fake environment

Here's why courtship works. Please don't get hung up on terms... when I talk about courtship I'm talking about dating with purpose. Courting is the process of discovering if this is the person you will marry. It's the journey between friendship and marriage.

• Your standards are extremely high
• You have the same values
• You talk about these values before you begin the relationship
• You talk about boundaries before you begin the relationship
• You start to get to know each other in groups
• You discover each other hearts... not their bodies
• You always have a plan
• You have input and help of your parents and pastors

Because dating begins in the heart and because our hearts are the center of our relationship with Christ... I encourage AND challenge young people NOT to date during their middle and high school years and to wait to begin the courtship process until God leads... this will probably be during college or 20 something years.

So what do you do now?? Change the culture and set the example!

1 Timothy 4:12 says “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity”

• Every relationship is an opportunity to model the love of Christ
• Recognize that being single is a gift from God
• Know that intimacy is the reward of commitment
• Avoid situations that could compromise your purity

Will we continue to live our way… or God’s way? Matt. 6:33 says "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need."

Check out http://www.mylifepointe.com/audio-and-video-teachings-from-olathe-lifepointe-church-SURGE.aspx for the full audio of this teach and also an incredible story from one of our SURGE leaders.