I believe that God created man in His own image and that He has a perfect design and purpose for each of us. As a Christ-follower, a parent, and an educator, I’m grateful for the great work that Dr. Jeff Myers and Dr. Kathy Koch are doing to equip people to have conversations about a person’s God-given design. Their most recent work Raising Gender-Confident Kids is a great resource and can really help guide conversations towards hope and encouragement.
Thank you Summit Ministries for the free copy of the book…I quickly gave it away after reading! I highlighted several things while reading this book and have posted those notes below…
- In our experience, for nearly all children, gender confusion is a question of “Who am I?” rather than “Who do I want to be intimate with?” We don’t want anything to distract from this book’s key question: How can we help boys and girls be confident in how God designed them as male or female? p. xi
- So many of today’s parents don’t have close family or friends to confide in, or they choose not to be vulnerable with them. p. 13
- When we had questions growing up, we asked an adult. Today, children ask Google. p. 23
- 5 Core Needs and their defining questions
- Security: Who can I trust?
- Identity: Who am I?
- Belonging: Who wants me?
- Purpose: Why am I alive?
- Competence: What do I do well? p. 30
- We live in a world of confusion. When it comes to gender, our culture teaches children to celebrate their confusion rather than to seek clarity. p. 45
- How to develop a biblical worldview around these issues…
- Who am I? You are made in the image of God, male or female, on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose.
- What am I worth? You are worth the life of Jesus, who gave Himself to redeem you.
- Why do I feel broken? You feel broken because sin has affected every part of creation, including your understanding of who you are and why you’re here.
- Can I be whole again? By putting your faith in Jesus, you can be born all over again and get a fresh start. You can see the whole world clearly because you trust God.
- What do I do when my feelings don’t match God’s truth? You can patiently trust God anyway, knowing that he is making you stronger every day. p. 47
- Five Ways a Biblical Worldview Offers Gender Confidence
- It gives a foundation.
- It gives dignity based on God’s design.
- It connects right belief and right behavior.
- It harnesses emotions to serve the truth.
- It meets children’s core needs. p. 49
- Gender confident children stop asking, “Who do I feel like today?” and start asking, “Who did God create me to be?” p. 50
- Without a biblical worldview, the group beneath them will shake. With it, they will stand strong, anchored in truth, secure in design, and confident in their Creator. p. 58
- The categories of male and female have created purposes. They aren’t just roles that people play. p. 60
- Guiding Boys to Become Confident Men by Using the Core Needs
- History’s greatest explorers have been men. For millenia, men have fought for truth and stood against injustice. We think of missionaries like Jim Eliot, who, with four colleagues, gave his life trying to reach out to a remote tribe in South America. Eliot wrote in his diary, “He is no fool to give what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” p. 76
- Boys need the strong guiding influence of older men to rise to maturity. Observing our students at Summit Minsitries, we can instantly tell which ones have a masculinizing relationship with their fathers. They ahve an assured bearing. They make eye contact. They put others first. p. 77
- Action entails risk. Boys must learn to approach the world with curiousity rather than fear, especially when they’re tempted to fear other people. As J.C. Ryle put it, the fear of man is the most thankless of vices. No one admires a man who flees risk. “The world always respects thsoe the most, who act boldly for God,” he says. p. 80
- Young men need to feel important and needed. p. 81
- A real man is known by how he treats others. A godly man is known by how this reflects Jesus’ self-sacrifice. p. 82
- Here are the three characteristics of warriors that all boys can embrace:
- A warrior owns the battle space.
- A warrior is full-time.
- A warrior controls his power. p. 84
- Guiding Girls to Become Confident Women by Using the Eight Smarts
- We start this chapter with a settled conviction: gender confidence rises on the shoulders of identity confidence. When a teenage girl can name how God wired her and why that wiring matters, she stands steady in her own skin. p. 89
- Most boys may find their identity in competence, what they can do. But in our experience, girls make sense of who they are by where they belong. p. 90
- When girls are seen in their smarts and secure in their core needs, identity confidence stops feeling like a riddle and starts feeling like a slow inhale of cool mountain air: natural, God-breathed, steady. p. 91
- The 8 Great Smarts
- Word Smart: Girls related with words
- Logic Smart: Girls relate with questions
- Picture Smart: Girls relate with visuals and colors
- Music Smart: Girls relate with sounds, rhythms, and melodies
- Body Smart: Girls relate with movement, action, and touch
- Nature Smart: Girls relate in nature and think in patterns
- People Smart: Girls relate with people
- Self Smart: Girls relate with reflection, quiet, and peace. p. 100
- Our task as parents is simply to hold the lantern while she discovers how her gifts reflect God’s character and extend His gospel. Once she sees that her very design participates in heaven’s story, nothing in culture can convince her otherwise. p. 102
- Children need to borrow your faith as they develop their own. p. 121
- Prayer guide for parents
- Sunday-Pray that their minds will be sharpened John 17:17, Colossians 2:8, 2 Timothy 2:24-26
- Monday-Pray that they will have hope 1 Peter 1:3, Romans 15:13
- Tuesday-Pray that they will acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ Matthew 28:18
- Wednesday-Pray for persistence in the face of trials 1 Peter 1:7
- Thursday-Pray for hearts to be pure Matthew 5:8
- Friday-Pray that they’ll love God more Deuteronomy 6
- Saturday-Pray that they’ll be people of compassion and grace Ephesians 4:32, Romans 6:14, 1 John 3:2 p. 123
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