Draft: Christian Youth Issues

Top Five:
1. Peer Pressure (Alcohol,Smoking,Others)
2. Negative Social Media Influence
3. Computer Addiction
4. Rock and Wordly Music
5. Ungodly Dating
Breakdown into Definition, Negative effects, How to fight/conquer such issue

Peer Pressure:
(look for a video) Has 2 types
1. Positive Peer Pressure
2. Negative Peer Pressure
Definition:
Pressure: the feeling that you are being pushed toward making a certain choice
good or bad
Peer: is someone in your own age group
Peer pressure: the feeling that someone your own age is pushing you toward making a certain
choice, good or bad

TWO Types:
1. Positive Peer Pressure: PP
Your friends may talk you into going to church to help them hand out Gospel tracts or food for
people in need, or perhaps go to a church camp. This is positive peer pressure, and is good.
2. Negative Peer Pressure: PP
If you give in to your friends you may feel guilty or even get into trouble and you are afraid that if
you refuse to give in, you will lose their friendship or respect.

Negative Peer Pressure Scenarios:

Further divided in to two types:
Spoken Vs Unspoken
Spoken
Scene one: Three girls in this scene; Girl 1 and 2 are on the left side and appear to be friends.
Girl 3 reading a book
Girl 1 to Girl 3: Hey come Drink with Us
Girl 2 to Girl 3: Yeah, Itll be more fun than sitting in the library. Dont be a loser and sit here
reading.
Unspoken:
Group of Three kids wearing sunglasses and looks so so cool.
The girl w/o sunglasses imagines herself in a thought bubble wearing sunglasses and standing
with other kids

You friend calls you at home and asks you if you've studied for tomorrow's
exam. When you say that you want to study, your friend invites you over and say
exam is easy, all of us didnt study, and you end up not studying

Your friends have started wearing low cut shirts and miniskirts to school. You
don't feel comfortable showing so much skin but you don't want to look like the
odd one out. (same thing with hip hops, emo styles,)

You're at the mall with your friends and they ask you to take something from
one of the stores without paying for it.

Your friends ask you to skip class.

You're hanging out with your friends and they are all drinking. You start
thinking about trying it since they all seem to be having a good time.

Imagine you are in a relationship in which your boyfriend/girlfriend doesn't

treat you well, your friend tries to talk you into breaking up with him/her./ all of
your friends are having unbeliever boyfriends and they are enticing you to have
one as well.

Effects of Peer Pressure:

Negative peer pressure might:

Lower school attendance

Drop grades

Impact ability to get into college

Change group of friends

Effects to ones Family

Increase distance from family members

Result in less time spent at home

Increase negative behaviors/attitude

Hurt communication

To ones Spiritual Life?

you will lose your closeness to God

- Can further lead into Christian Identity Crisis, Low Self

Esteem and Isolation
How to Combat Peer Pressure:
TAKE A STAND!
When you take a stand for whats right, you are taking a stand for God, and Gods
side is always the winning side.
1. Know what you believe in; Learn to Say No!

2. Always Pray and Study Your Bible

3. Be with Christian Friends; there is strength in numbers
4. Don't associate with people who swear all the time, drink/do drugs, have dirty
minds
5. Avoid Situations; Have Courage
James 4:7 submit yourselves to God,resist the Devil and He will flee from You.

SOCIAL MEDIA, Computer Addiction AND ME PLUS A SELFIE

Social Media Definition:
computer-mediated tools that allow people to create, share or exchange information, ideas,
and pictures/videos invirtual communities and networks.

Benefits of Social Media to Christianity/ Young People

1. Easy Communication with Family and Friends
2. Can be used as a tool to get information about current events, important
happenings and emergency disaster tool
3. An Avenue to Share Christ; Productive Mission Field

4. Strengthen Christian Relationships:

Your small group only meets once a week, but relationships and
conversations can continue every day through Facebook. This allows
for deepening relationships, knowledge of prayer requests, and
even encouragement throughout the week.
Small groups and whole ministries can use social media for
communication, as well. Organize your next training event, group
outreach project, or small group sign up day. The bonus is that

people can then share the event with their friends, widening the
church's reach.
As a church leader, you can use social media to virtually collaborate
with leaders around the world. I like to follow small-group pastors
and leaders to learn about new resources and methods.

However, there is a Problem: ADDICTION! (Includes Computer as well)

Social Media Addiction is the intense dependence and use of various social
media/network. Persistent use, passionate acquisition, uncontrolled use, all
constitutes social media addiction.
You are addicted to Social media when you:
1. LOVE IT!
2. When it takes the bulk of your time and resources daily
(Basic needs are neglected;3 died so far of non-stop gaming for 2 days or more)
3. Begins to dictate your lifestyle and set the course for your existence
5. Unable to fall asleep until very late at night (people with a delayed
sleep-wake rhythm)
6. Develops Narcissism (excessive self-love and preoccupation

with self) inherent in self-oriented sites (rely on social media sites

primarily to promote ourselves or draw attention to ourselves) SELFIE!
Short discussion about Selfie:

Selfie Exposes the basic Human Desire; feel noticed, appreciated

and recognized

(93 million selfies taken per day; Ages 18-24 ;Western Countries;
almost 50-50 ratio for men and women have taken selfies;Facebook
Getting 48% , source: Stylecaster.com,)
(79% of employees who quit their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as
a key reason for leaving; forbes.com)

7. Relationships with others begin to Wither.

8. When it takes Gods place and time and stands a god in your life
(No time for Personal Quiet time; church is becoming a meeting place for social
media or games)
9. Sin, Sin and Sin (Pornography, sexual immorality other sexual aggressive
contents)
(No time for Personal Quiet time; church is becoming a meeting place for social
media or games)
Additional Statistics:
1. 13.7% find it difficult to stay offline for several days.
2. 12.3% felt the need to cut back on internet usage.
3. 8.7% attempted to hide their internet usage from friends and family.
4. 5.9% felt their relationship suffered due to their internet use.
5. Gender Disparities
Men: Addicted to games, porn, and online gaming.
Women: Addicted to chatting, instant messaging, eBay, and online shopping.
6. Usage Based on Age
18-29 years old: 93%
30-49 years old: 81%
50-64 years old: 70%
65 and older: 38%

How to Fight Social Media and Computer addiction plus Selfie?

1. Understand That Youre Being Played/ Acknowledge

Your Addiction

2. Focus.

Limit the number of social networks you use to only those most
relevant to your work and personal life. For example, in the past Ive
regularly used LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for work and Pluck for
personal use.
3. Use a schedule. Schedule your use of social media.
4. Delete extra people from your friend list, the more the people, the more vast your
news feed, and the more time you spend checking things out while you could be
engaging in a useful activity
5. Think about the useful things you could be doing instead of wasting time on these
sites. You could: Learn a new language, play an instrument, socialize physically and not
virtually, get fit and exercise, learn a new recipe, take the dog out, date an attractive guy/girl,
do yoga, read a book or even pursue a fun hobby.
6. Be Earthly Relevant

Yet Heavenly Conscious; Let God be your only

Addiction; Maintain Your Identity as Christians even Online;
Let Your Passion first be for God (Ps 69:9) and not

the social media.

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of

God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

Always Remember:
When God created man to desire companionship, he didn't take a rib and turn it into a Wi-fi
signal. He took Adam's rib and turned it into a living, breathing creature who could hug, touch,
comfort, and even intuit emotion in its fellow inhabitants.

God's intentions for humans call us to be purposeful about preserving face-to-face relationships
and stopping virtual addictions before they start.