Does it really matter if a YOUTH PASTOR dates & marries a GIRL in his youth group? After all, an age difference of 23 and 17 isn't that big a deal, right? It's illegal for a youth pastor to have sexual contact with a girl or boy in the youth group. Most of us know...
With thanks to Zonderkidz for sponsoring this post. When my girls were small, one of their biggest pet peeves with church was that they always did the same Bible stories. Whenever they went to summer camp, it would inevitably be: Daniel and the Lions’ Den David and...
Swimming in regular clothing increases the risk of drowning. Seriously–it’s not safe. Both my daughters were lifeguards as teens, and I still remember the training exercises they had to do when they jumped into the pool in normal clothing and then had to rescue...
Are girls allowed to say a firm no to a boy? That seems like a ridiculous question, doesn’t it? Of course girls are allowed! But back up the truck, because this doesn’t seem to be what’s being taught to girls in evangelical circles, and I want to explore today WHY...
I grew up believing God was chronically disappointed in me. I knew He loved me, absolutely. But I also pictured God kind of like a self-help magazine cover: 7 Ways You Could be More Disciplined; 4 Ways You Could Be Getting More Things Done; 3 Ways You Could Stop...
One of the things we're passionate about on this blog is making sure the self-help and relationship advice in the evangelical world is healthy. Over the last few years, our team has surveyed over 32,000 people, measuring how certain teachings common in the evangelical...
Lies Young Women Believe is a dangerous book to use in teen girls' book studies. Yet it is still frequently used! Last season we took a look at Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth's book Lies Women Believe, and showed how it was harmful. Many people then asked us to tackle Lies...
Do teen girls have a sex drive? I’m desperately hoping that you answer, “Of course!” Now, obviously not all teen girls will be sexual (asexuals do make up a small part of the population). But the idea that teen girls are somehow not sexual, while teen boys are...
Getting married to have sex is a really, really bad idea. Unfortunately, though, there are many hard-line patriarchal teachers, as well as many young people, who are adamantly saying that this is God’s design. When your sexual desires are too strong, you should just...
Today I want to talk about another aspect of purity culture: Its affect on overweight girls. I received an Instagram message recently from a woman telling her story, and it was so interesting I thought it deserved its own post so we could think about it and talk about...
We know that parenting is the biggest responsibility we will ever have. But we've been told such different things about the nature of that responsibility. If you grew up in an evangelical church, chances are you were told that a parent's job is to teach them to obey,...
Welcome to a new season on the Bare Marriage blog! We're about to begin a new series, starting tomorrow, on obligation sex--how to understand it and get over it. But before we do that, I received this great article by Dr. Camden Morgante (known as Dr. Camden around...
Can discipline and kindness go together? Today on the Bare Marriage podcast we're joined by one of our favourite people, Wendy Snyder, a parenting coach with Fresh Start Family. She helps parents learn how firm kindness works--how we can connect with our kids through...
What if our advice actually triggers the behaviour we want to prevent? One of my favourite places on the internet is our private Patreon Facebook group, where the people who support us financially hang out. For just $5 a month people can join our Patreon group, and in...
Let's use a real-life example of purity culture double standards: Brio Magazine Yesterday on the podcast Rebecca and I read excerpts from old copies of Focus on the Family's Brio magazine, aimed at teen girls 12-16. We wanted you to hear first hand what purity culture...