This Christmas novelty song was written by John Rox and performed by the ten year old Gayla Peevey in 1953.
Peevey was a regional child star of the Oklahoma City area. When released nationally by Columbia Records, the song shot to the top of the charts and the city zoo acquired a baby hippo named Matilda.
A popular legend holds that this 1953 hit had been recorded as a fund-raiser to bring the city zoo a hippo; but in a 2007 radio interview with Detroit-based WNIC radio station, Peevey clarified that the song was not originally recorded as a fundraiser. Instead, a local promoter picked up on the popularity of the song and Peevey’s local roots, and launched a campaign to present her with an actual hippopotamus on Christmas.
The campaign succeeded, and she was presented with an actual hippopotamus, which she donated to the city zoo. The hippopotamus lived for nearly 50 years.
Gayla Peevey later recorded as Jamie Horton, scoring the Billboard Hot 100 charter “My Little Marine” in 1960.
This Christmas, Jesus wants to give you more than you desire.
Hey Middle School Parents, have you talked to your son or daughter about the importance of the Virginity of Mary?
This is the Christmas season, why is Pastor Brandon posting something like this to make my life as a parent EVEN MORE AWKWARD?
1. Here’s the deal, we are saturated with a culture that speaks out against this train of thought. If the issue of purity is not brought to the attention of your middle schooler, they may not consider how important it is to God.
2. God’s word points this out, so we should as well.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Luke 1:32-34 ESV http://bible.com/59/luk.1.32-34.ESV
Consider John Piper’s words on The Virginity of Mary
The virginity of Mary is important for two reasons.
1. She Is Sexually Pure
a) It means that she’s sexually pure. She has not slept with her fiancé, or any other man. That would have been fornication, and God abominates fornication.
Of course, not every woman in Jesus’ lineage is so clean. There was Bathsheba the adulteress and Tamar who seduced her father-in-law. These things can be forgiven, as many of you have discovered. But don’t overlook the importance of Mary. When God chose a mother for his Son, he chose a virgin. Virginity before marriage is important because the recipient of God’s best gifts ought to be pure.
2. She Wasn’t Pregnant Already
Mary’s virginity is also important because it meant she wasn’t pregnant. God aimed to make known that the conception of Jesus in the womb of a woman was owing to no man. So he chose a virgin. And a virgin conceived a child whose Father was God and not man.
In a world of sexting, sexual promiscuity, and curiosity, God’s Word points to a different standard. A standard that allowed Jesus Christ to enter as the greatest gift to humanity.
Purity is the perfect package for the gift of our Savior to our world.
Okay parents, AWKWARD Christmas Challenge: Talk about the importance of the virginity of Mary.
(Go ahead and catch them off guard with it like they spring crazy, awkward questions on you!)
After ministering to Middle School Students for a decade, I am now on the parent side, along with you, asking how I can speak Godly Wisdom into my own two children before they enter Middle School, so that I might be focused and equipped to hand them over to the loving Father in this phase of life. With all the messages our culture is speaking on the issue of sex and dating, this short Parent Guide is a simple tool for you to use in preparing for a conversation with your preteen or growing teenager. Mark Oestreicher is a Middle School expert, and Joel Mayward is a fresh voice, as both take steps to give you a brief theology on sexuality, reveal cultural myths, as well a church myths, and give specific helps for each gender, setting boundaries, and dealing with personal sexual issues. This book is a great springboard into diving in deeper on certain issues and pointing me in the right direction to face the truth in our modern day culture.
Description
Helping your child make wise choices about sex and dating requires more than just one chat. It’s about building bridges of ongoing dialogue throughout the teenage years.
But youth workers Mark Oestreicher and Joel Mayward realize many parents don’t feel comfortable or prepared to have these kinds of conversations. That’s why they wrote A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Sex and Dating—to equip you to initiate healthy, honest discussions with your teenager. This book will also help you understand some of the relevant trends and issues in today’s youth culture.
Your role as a parent is to do more than provide your teenager with information about sex and dating. You have the opportunity and the calling to help your child live wisely and honor God in this sometimes tricky, occasionally awkward, and always vital area of life.
The space between expectation and reality in relationships can be difficult for middle schoolers to understand. Often, the only idea of what a relationship should look like for someone their age comes from what our culture and media portrays, not from their personal experience.
Romans 12:1-2
BOTTOM LINE
God’s design for sex is better than the world’s design for sex.
MORNING TIME
Talk with your student about expectations they have for both themselves and others. Help them see the difference between realistic and unrealistic expectations, and talk with them about healthy ways to respond when their expectations aren’t met.
REMEMBER THIS:
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
PHILIPPIANS 4:6 NLT
little girl spraying a car with a water hose in a sunny afternoon, rubber hose, pour water on over
My guess is that in your house—like my house—there’s a constant tension between rules and relationships.
Your nine-year-old is supposed to help wash the car, but instead decides that riding his bike is a far more important to the functioning of the universe than cleaning your dirty minivan.
How do you respond?
On the one hand, you need . . .
rules—boundaries, guidelines and limits that make life work and shape character.
On the other hand, you need. . .
relationships—love for each other, respect and even some basic kindness.
But rules and relationships always seem to be in tension with each other, don’t they?
Clamp down too hard on the rules, and the relationship suffers. Or work hard on relationship and the temptation is to slack off on the rules.
To make matters more confusing, in most families, one parent tends to be the relationship parent and the other tends to be the rules parent.
If you’re like me, a rules guy, you are tempted to ground your nine-year-old for life, pull all video gaming privileges and be angry enough that most observers would assume you discovered your son had joined a street gang, not failed to pick up a sponge.
If you’re more the relationship type, you’ll abandon your bucket in the driveway, get on your bike and go have a picnic in a green field with your new found best friend while gentle music plays in the background and your rules-loving spouse drives the car to the junkyard in protest.
Left unchecked. . .
The rules parent thinks the relationship parent is a left-leaning hippie type left over from the sixties who thinks love can solve every problem.
The relationship parent becomes convinced they have married someone who should probably quit family to become a drill sergeant, robot or warlord.
As the Middle School Pastor, here at Oakwood, I have seen many moves of God and have been thankful for lives changed. This Weekend, my thoughts were “THIS NEVER GETS OLD!” The ultimate treasure for the Kingdom of God is one more life turning to Jesus Christ. The ultimate joy here on Earth is to see students that came through the Oakwood Student Ministry return as leaders to invest back into the next group. The excitement for the upcoming days is to see what steps each student takes as they follow the Lord and walk in His ways.
We saw over 500 students sign up this year. 55 of those students made the decision to follow Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. With the help of over 50 small group leaders and almost 400 volunteers, students heard from the Speaker, gave over 12,000 cans and food items to our Local Salvation Army, built long lasting relationships, and ended with a celebration service on Sunday to see 44 baptized. God is SO GOOD! Thanks to all that served to extend the Kingdom of God!
MORNING TIME
Parent Resources 