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Mary Pipher, the author of Reviving Ophelia says children need both and control (limits) and affection (grace). ?These two dimensions interact to produce different outcomes for teenagers. Low-control and low-acceptance parents produce teens with a variety of problems including delinquency and chemical dependency. Parents who are high in control and low in acceptance (authoritarian parents) have children who are socially inadequate and lacking in confidence. Parents who are low in control and high in acceptance (indulgent parents) have teenagers with high impulsivity, low responsibility and low independence. Parents who are high in control and high in acceptance (strict but loving parents) have teenagers who are independent, socially responsible and confident. According to this research, the ideal family is one in which the message children receive from parents is: ?We love you, but you must do as we say.? [Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. [New York: Grosset/Putnam. 1994. p 83.]
There is a popular children’s show on the Disney Channel called Out of the Box. The theme song is one of those songs that, once you’ve heard it, sticks in your mind all day. It ends with the words, “Out of the box, it’s really up to you what comes out of the box.”
In the business world the new catch phrase is “thinking outside the box.” It is a challenge to go beyond the ordinary and do something extraordinary.
The church today is stuck in the box. Our focus has shifted from people to pews, from saving souls to Sunday assemblies. Today when you mention Christianity most people immediately think of the worship assembly. As long as we continue with this mentality we are stuck in the box without hope of growing beyond.
A prank that’s as old as most of us here today is to call up a store and ask, “Yes, do you have Prince Albert in a box?” When the clerk answers in the affirmative then you respond, “Well, you’d bet...
