Go ahead... do it.
Okay, so now that you did, I want to analyze how you looked at your fingernails. Scientific studies have shown that the majority of men will look at their nails by holding their hands palm up and curling their fingers so the nails show. Women, on the other hand (pun intended), holds their hands palm down and fingers straight out. Did you look at your nails the "correct" way for your gender?
I don't know much about the science behind it, but I do believe there is some truth to it. It does seem to work that way most of the time.
Here is another one: Think about how you carry a stack of books. If you're a dude, chances are you carry your books in one hand, pressed against your side. Girls carry their books in front of them, with two hands wrapped around them. One of my college professors first brought this to my attention as he explained that the way we carry books is handed down from our ancestors. My professor said men carry books like our ancestors carried their weapons and women carry books like our female ancestors carried their babies.
Once again, I am not sure how much of a part biology plays in this phenomenon. More than anything, I think how we carry our books is a learned behavior.
Over the last ten months or so I have learned many lessons about ministry and developing adolescent faith. Those lessons have been the result of first-hand experience and academic study at Lipscomb University in a pair of youth ministry classes with Dr. Surdacki and Dr. Fraze. One of the most important lessons I learned was how important parents are in developing faith.
From hobbies to behaviors, we learn much about life from our parents. Last summer I had dinner with a couple of my high school classmates. As we were sitting across the table from one another, I began to notice how much they each looked like their fathers. But, it wasn't just looks. they sounded like them too.
One of those former classmates was telling me about how he was volunteering at our high school by coaching the junior varsity baseball team. His dad was a high school baseball coach. I know they talked a lot about baseball when we were growing up and my friend's dad even helped coach some of our teams. The point is, it was a learned behavior. His dad loves baseball and now he loves baseball.
The go to verse here is Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."
How about Deuteronomy 6:4-7:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.In Almost Christian, Kenda Creasy Dean writes about this passage, explaining that, "The law called upon Jewish parents to show their children godliness—to teach them, talk to them, embody for them their own delight in the Lord, 24/7." I believe Christian parents have that same responsibility. Parents have a major influence on the lives of their children. Dean concludes, "in the end, awakening faith does not depend on how hard we press young people to love God, but on how much we show them that we do."***
When I started writing this post (about a month ago), we had just wrapped up our Senior Sunday as we honored the graduates in the Monrovia Youth Group. On that Sunday morning, we showed the following video. It was a great reminder of the impact a strong family has on the life of a teen.
