Elevate is a retreat designed to be a milestone in the life of a middle school student in their development as a follower of Christ.  One of the biggest things that students struggle with is purity. Elevate was created to help begin the journey of laying the foundation of Biblical-based purity with your student.  However, this journey and the conversations between parents and students about purity and relationships does not begin at the retreat, they begin now.

This lengthy blog will talk more about the retreat, our upcoming survey, and much more but let’s begin with a story.

A while ago I was sitting in my living room, watching TV when I heard a scream come from the basement.  I ran down the stairs expecting to see my mother on a chair, holding a broom, swatting away at some sort of rodent.  Instead I came downstairs to find my mother holding a box of photos.  The box was soggy and the pictures were badly damaged.  My mother, who is a professional photographer and avid scrapbooker, was very upset at the damage and loss of these precious, cherished memories.  What had happened was that one of the pipes had developed a small crack in it, one that was not there when we first moved in,  and one that we had no idea existed.

This story makes me think about our students and the need to have conversations with them about purity and relationships. The students are like the box of photos in the story; precious and cherished.  The crack in pipe is the lies and misunderstandings about purity and relationships that our students hear on a daily basis whether through TV shows, movies, the internet, friends at school, friends at church, and the thousand other voices that are out there. To not be vigilant about the potential “cracks in the pipe” severely raises the risks of your student forming a damaged foundation and understanding of purity and relationships.  Some may be tempted to shy away from this with the mentality that “this will never happen with my student.”  For that I would say to learn from the mistakes of my family and the lesson we learned from our water-damaged basement.  That regardless of how well you think the house may be built, there is value in protecting your most prized, precious, and cherished belongings. This for me is where the analogy breaks down because we know that children are far more precious and cherished than a box of photos and because the lies they come across about purity and relationships is far more dangerous than a damaged pipe.

Our desire with administering the survey is to do just that, to be vigilant and aware of the specific trials our students are going through and the misconceptions of relationships and purity they encounter everyday.  A few years ago Steve Zarrilli administered a similar survey on a Sunday morning to the 108 middle school students in attendance.  I, myself, found the results rather eye-opening. Here are a few of the results from that survey:

• 84% said they talk about relationships with the opposite sex @ least on a monthly basis
• 82% said they hear/say disrespectful or inappropriate comments about the opposite sex consistently (dirty jokes, physical appearance comments, etc)
• 75% said they talk about the physical appearance of the opposite sex often
• 50% said they talk often about kissing the opposite sex with their friends
• 33% said they talk about physical contact beyond kissing/sex with their friend
• If current statistics continue in our group, by the time they are at the end of 8th grade then 2 out of 3 will have held hands, 1 out of 3 will have kissed (made out), and 1 out of 15 will have had sex.
  

The survey we will be administering is based off of this survey and is a collaboration of our WSM staff.  Taking a survey of our students is beneficial for them, for leaders, and ultimately for parents.  A survey of our students gives us insight into their understanding and exposure to these issues.  Having this insight into what they are hearing from other students at their school, sports teams, and even church allows us to better communicate God’s truths on purity and relationships.

If these talks are not taking place then their primary source of information on these topics become their peers and their culture.  Therefore their understanding, their foundation, of relationships and purity becomes defined by these influences.

The questions on the survey in regards to the students thoughts on their parents is to not bring into question the parenting of their parents but to serve as a litmus test of our students.  It is not to justify the opinion and idea that it’s “weird to talk to my parents about that stuff” but to combat that lie by teaching them that it is not only a good thing but a necessary and Biblical thing for these conversations to be occurring between them and their parents.

With all that said, we will be administering the survey as is on Wednesday, April 20th. If you do not want your student to take the survey then that is completely fine.  All we ask is that your student is still allowed to attend that night.  Regardless of if you allow them to take the survey or not, please use it as an opportunity to create discussion in regards to purity and relationships.  The best way for us to come against the idea that the students will feel alienated for not taking the survey is for us to communicate with them.  We and our small group leaders will let it be known, several times, that it is okay to not take the survey and that no one should feel left out for not taking it.  We will also not be allowing any visitors that night to take the survey and will have them fill out the visitor’s information card while the other students are filling out the survey.  We will also communicate it to the students that the survey is to remain anonymous and is not to be talked about amongst one another and that, that behavior will not be tolerated.  There will in actuality be very little time for those types of conversations to pop up on that night as we will go right from taking the survey into small group discussion and from there they will be dismiss right to you.  We will create an atmosphere of respect for the content of the survey and one in which no one will feel out of place for not taking it.  Once the survey results have been compiled we will make them all available to you.

This is all meant to encourage and equip families to begin having discussions in the home about Biblical purity and relationships with their middle school student.  We hope that many of you will join us this fall for our first ever Elevate retreat!  The retreat is a family retreat meaning that one parent must attend with their student.  Also, the retreat will only be for those who are in 7th and 8th grade that year.  The retreat will be at Gull Lake on October 8th-9th and the cost per person is $99.  While we are there we will have several different elements ranging from gender specific workshops to parent specific workshops to times of worship all together.  This is going to be an amazing time and something we look forward to doing every two years in Oasis. You will not want to miss out on this opportunity!

If you have a desire to go on the retreat then please let us know because as a requirement for the retreat we are asking each parent that is going to read a book.  If you have a guy student that is going the book is “Sex is not the Problem, Lust is” by Joshua Harris.  This is a great book for any man and is one that we have used for several years for our summer, guy’s book study.  If you have a girl student that is going the book is “Five Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter”.  Another great book that will equip you to have these conversations with your student.  The costs for the books are $10 and we want to give them to you as soon as possible to give you time to read them.

The purpose of having you read these books is that we hope they will spark a conversation between you and your student.  You read the book and then best decide what topics to tackle with your student whether it be having them read a certain chapter of the book or even the whole book, that is up to you.  We have resources that go along with the book that we can happily give you if you’re looking for some questions or discussion guides to go through with them.  If you’re a single mom with a son or a single dad with a daughter and would like Ravae and I to be a part of that conversation with your student then we would love to get together with you and talk more about that.  That goes for anyone, let us know how we can best equip and encourage to have these conversations about what God’s Word says about purity and relationships.

We are so excited to see what God is going to do in the lives of our students and families through the Elevate milestone.