Buyer Beware: What is your daughter downloading on her Smartphone or Tablet?

Have you heard the latest?  Growing as fast as Angry Birds, a new IPhone App called Top Girl is catching fire around the nation.  The name itself may cause you pause, but the content and action should cause you to ban it from your household.

Here is the description of this girl targeted app from the ITunes store:

  

Are you addicted to shopping? Do you dream of being a supermodel? Love to date guys? Become the TOP GIRL!

 Do gigs, shop, dress, go clubbing, and flirt with HOT guys! Create FABULOUS outfits and have fun with your new boyfriend. Kiss him, buy him gifts, and go on exciting dates! Capture and save photos of all your special moments together!

 Features:

    - GET THE PERFECT LOOK with 600+ unique shoes, purses, accessories & clothes!

    - FLIRT WITH & DATE 250+ hot guys of your choice!

    - STRUT YOUR STUFF and kick off a blazing hot modeling career!

    - GO OUT & PARTY at over 20 fabulous parties and clubs!

    - JET SET from LA to NYC!

Players get to shop and pick out their own fashions before doing modeling jobs, working, and finding a boyfriend at a club, but the player can't get into a club or keep a boyfriend if they are not dressed "hot" enough.

Stereotyping girls into fashion crazed, boy obsessed and promiscuous avatars is of no advantage to today’s young women.  Yet the app is selling like gangbusters.   Where is the Healthy Media 

Commission on this one?  Why has it been strangely silent in the media?

It is a buyer beware on this one and serves as a grave warning to all parents to consider these tips, compiled by Cyber Safe Family, to consider when buying apps:

·         Have a parent account: Have a "parent" account for apps on iTunes. Do not share the password with kids. When they want an app, they must ask you to type in the password.

·         Try app first: If you are not familiar with the app, try it out before agreeing to download it for your kids. Find out how players move ahead in the game.

·         Know privacy features: Find out what private information is shared with other users.

We know the adversary can use bright pink colors and cute illustrations to attract our daughters and then indoctrinate them with ideas that are far from the tenants of our faith.  Protect your daughter and be aware, helping her to be the top girl in God’s eyes. 

Father God, help me to be a discerning parent.  Grant me the time and resource to thoroughly investigate my children’s media choices.  Create in me a hunger for righteousness and a disgust for that which is not of You.  Protect Your sons and daughters from the adversary and help me to share my concerns with other parents in a loving, respectful manner.  It is in the name of your Son that we pray, Amen.

Until next time,

Patti

A Lenten Visit to Haiti

Hi Friends,

Today's blog is dedicated to the beautiful children of Haiti and to our Father who loves each of us so much they He sacrificed His one and only Son so that all of us can have eternal life.  

And now the account of Jody Token's( AHG's Public Relations Coordinator) wonderful adventure to Maison des Enfants de Dieu (Home of the Children of God) in Port- a- Prince, Haiti:

 Port-a-Prince is barely an hour-and-a-half from Miami. How can something so stricken by poverty and devastation be so close? Let me just say, despite the history of the Haitian nation, God is an ever-present force in Haiti and in the end, Jesus will overcome, just as promised in Revelation 12, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.  And people like you and me are the hands and feet of this promise.

I traveled to an orphanage in Port-a-Prince in Creole. Maison is home to over 80 children, most of whom have been abandoned since the earthquake in January, 2010, either by loss of parents, or by birth parents that cannot care for them. The stateside organization which manages the orphanage is called For His Glory Outreach http://www.forhisgloryoutreach.org/.

There is a school for the children from preschool through fourth grade. The school is taught in English to help prepare children for their adoptive families. The house is clean and filled with the love of nannies and caretakers that have a great heart for the children. The orphanage ministers to the people in Haiti by employing local Haitian men and women to care for the children and to teach in the school. Every day at noon, the nannies in the nursery would burst into an amazing time of prayer and worship. I sat at their feet with a baby on my lap and soaked in the sound of intercession.

The way these children hugged is beyond the hug even of my own children. I’ve never been hugged like this. I can still feel their embrace. I’ve spent the last few days crying and remembering this hug.

My youngest daughter asked if she could have a little sister (so that she didn’t have to be the youngest anymore. I came home empty-handed, only because most of the children have adoptive parents waiting for them. However, the paperwork sits in a pile in a Haitian government building. A typical adoption takes two to five years in Haiti. 

This breaks my heart.

Yet, a spirit of overwhelming joy exists in this orphanage. Their eyes and smiles are bright. Their words reflect a deep love and trust in Jesus.

I have included a link to a simple video from my trip. In this instance, a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Every face you see, I had the privilege of looking into their eyes. I hugged and held each child. I shared the love of Jesus and prayed over them. Jesus looked back into my eyes and smiled at me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRznXR01sY0&context=C4d49accADvjVQa1PpcFNYsxur-RL00s0gt1GzRhQaw2nujiNj-sk=

I pray that every follower of Jesus will take the time to go out beyond their walls of comfort to pour out the love of Jesus. This is not a casual suggestion. This is a Biblical mandate.  It’s our response compelled by the love of Jesus.

Once we receive the “Christ-died-for-me-while-I-was-still-a-sinner” kind of forgiveness, we should be moved to action. Scripture reveals the appropriate response many times throughout the Old and New Testament. My favorite New Testament Scripture is James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

For HIS glory, Jody

Jody thank you for being His hands and feet.  

Until next time, lenten blessings to you,

Patti 

A Valentine's Day Commission

Dear Friends,

It seems like another distasteful attack on Christianity occurred a few nights ago on the Grammy Awards telecast.  I did not view it myself and feel uncomfortable commenting but from what I heard it was very disturbing.  So I went in search of a commentary as I felt the issue is one we continue to confront in media and with pop icon wannabes:

Jiana West of the St. Louis Christian Living Examiner wrote a blog about this incident.  What do you think of her analysis?

" Last night was the 2012 Grammy Awards. One thing you can bet on while viewing music ceremonies such as these is a very strange performance that will have people talking to the next day.

Singer/rapper Nicki Minaj got on-stage last night and delivered a bizarre and controversial show that some have called “blasphemous” and many more have just called plain awful. Indeed, while I found the show incredibly distasteful and creepy, I also found it utterly terrible in its execution. I couldn't decide whether to be offended by the imagery or the performance itself. Religious or not, many viewer comments regarding Nicki Minaj’s set were negative or just outright confused.

The Big Red Flag for the lunacy that was about to ensue later in the evening was Nicki Minaj showing up on the red carpet accompanied by a man dressed up like the Pope. Uh oh.

Towards the end of the show, she opened her performance with a video that depicted a priest being led up to a room to “exorcise” the demon out of her. She launched into her song, “Roman Holiday”, chained to a wall while scantily-clad dancers jumped about below her. Then she sang a medley of “O Come All Ye Faithful”, complete with a robe-wearing choir, before reverting back to her song and beginning to levitate above the stage.

Minaj has always been quite the character. She has always seemed like a Lady Gaga-wannabe in some respects, with her weird costumes and persona. In the past she has claimed that, when she’s on-stage, she has different personalities and alter-egos, ,one of which is "roman Zolanski" whom we saw being “exorcised” last night and is the one she refers to the most in her songs. There is, perhaps, some symbolism here. But make no mistake, this is not an example of controversial “art” by a brilliant and talented artist trying to say something. There was nothing tasteful or artful about
anything she did.  

Now the religious community, especially the Catholic Church, is outraged by Nicki Minaj’s act. This, of course, is just what many “artists” today want, which is attention and to have people talking about them. Minaj completely succeeded on that front but she also highlighted a hard-to-deny fact: Christianity, in this country, has become a joke. It’s something to be mocked and mimicked but the minute someone says anything disparaging about Islam, or Lowe’s pulls their commercials during a show about a Muslim family,  the P.C. police are on the patrol and boycotts ensue. While I disagreed with Lowe’s making a show of pulling their ads during the program, “All-American Muslim”, the hypocrisy shamelessly displayed in the media is most tickling to observe. After all, if Minaj had drawn a picture of Mohammad or something equally offensive in Islamic tradition it would be a whooole new ball of wax then, wouldn’t it, America?

So how should Christians respond to this kind of behavior? How should we react when our God is mocked and publicly made fun of and no one blinks an eye? Or even in our personal lives, when people make disparaging remarks about the way we live, which in many cases may be the complete opposite of what society encourages? Our reaction shouldn’t be surprise, that’s for sure. Biblically, we are told that this will happen and Christians are encouraged to consider it a good thing when we have to deal with things like this because of Christ.

1 Peter 4: 12-19: 'Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.'

To clarify, barely-talented singers getting up on-stage and mocking religion can’t be compared to what Christians in other parts of the world have to endure on a daily basis. You have to admit that in America, Christians have got it pretty darn good. We are free to worship openly in large, comfy churches made especially for that purpose. Seriously, you think the government in China would let Christians  build multi-million dollar complexes that seated 40,000? We don't have to meet in secret. We can hand out Bibles and tracts in public without fear of being arrested.

Christians in this country freak out because the Ten Commandments are taken down in court houses or because our kids can’t pray in schools, but the reality is, this isn’t persecution. If you want to know the truth of it, if Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga and the treatment of Tim Tebow are examples of the things that make us the most upset, we’re doing all right for ourselves.

Why are we so shocked when our increasingly dark culture makes fun of Christians or throws a finger up to our God? Sure, it’s annoying but issuing long statements and whatnot condemning their actions as if it’s actually going to do something just seems like a waste to me. John Piper once spoke on the subject of persecution and he said something that I’ll never forget: “What makes you think that Christians have a right for anything?!” He’s right. We're lucky we can do the things we do in this country right now.

Christians don't belong here. This nation isn’t Christian. This world isn’t God’s kingdom. The Bible makes it clear that Satan is the ruler of this time. The early Christians were heavily persecuted: stoned, murdered, tortured, crucified. But the Gospel still spread like wildfire in that culture. Today there are Christians in some parts of the world who suffer because of their faith in Christ but Christianity is still doing well.

Christians in this country have been spoiled and softened, and I do include myself in that. We still have much power. Our politicians coddle and pander to us because there are a lot of religious people in this country but best believe if the roles were reversed—if atheists were in the majority—our leaders would cater to them just as well. We’re used to people babying us, so when people in the entertainment industry, or non-religious people, come along and challenge our comfort, we throw a hissy fit about it. We shouldn’t because the more secular our society becomes, the more we’re going to see things like this. The tough skin needs to start developing very soon.

While I find it difficult to honestly say I hope that Christians in this country endure the kind of hardship that our other brothers and sisters have, I also can’t say that if it did happen it wouldn’t be for the best. Maybe we need that kick in the pants. I don’t anticipate it happening in my lifetime, but I imagine that if Christianity did become the leper that it is in some other countries, people might be more inspired to look at Jesus and Christians might be more inspired to spread the Gospel. Regardless of Christians' successes and failures throughout history, and the attempts to mock and stamp Him out, it must really irritate certain people that more than two thousand years later Christ is still a force to be reckoned with and He always will be. So run and tell that.

I’m sure God appreciates our anger at the fact that people try to make a joke out of Him, and our good-natured attempts to defend Him in moments like this, but we should also remind ourselves that this is to be expected in a world like this. We should also be reminded that when all is said and done, God still has the last laugh."

I think Jiana has this one spot on.  On this Valentine's Day, rather than cursing the darkness, let's light a candle and share Christ's love with another in a tangible way and teach your American Heritage Girl to do the same.

Until Next Time,
Patti