Tim Lane Handouts

Dr Lane will be lecturing from this handout.  Please print it out on your own if you can before you come so that the church can save on printing costs.  Thanks!

New How People Change 6-10 Compatibility Mode

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A Smorgasbord of Parenting Resources

I recently asked a good friend and pastor whom I respect and admire tremendously what resources he used to parent his children, and he sent me this great list. I normally don’t post personal correspondences, but I thought this was just too helpful. So, I’ve removed all personal preferences. I hope that some of these resources may help some of you. Also, feel free to post things that have been helpful in your own parenting!”

1 – Tedd Tripp (not his brother Paul David) has written two books that he has also made into a dvd series.
• Shepherding your child’s heart – http://www.amazon.com/Shepherding-Childs-Heart-Tedd-Tripp/dp/0966378601/ref=pd_sim_b_5
• Instructing your child’s heart – http://www.amazon.com/Instructing-Childs-Heart-Tedd-Tripp/dp/0981540007/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Here are some youtube vids that would be helpful to watch:
•
•
We have both the books and the DVD series in our church library.

2 – Paul David Tripp has also written a book that is helpful. It is aimed at parenting teens but I think every young parent should read it so they can know where they should be going
• Age of Opportunity – http://www.amazon.com/Age-Opportunity-Biblical-Parenting-Resources/dp/0875526055/ref=pd_sim_b_6
• youtube link –

Also, this is the other book I was telling you about:

3 – Tim Kimmel has written Grace Based Parenting. Really good stuff.
• Grace Based Parenting – http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Based-Parenting-Dr-Tim-Kimmel/dp/0849905486
• youtube link –
• Video Series – http://www.familymatters.net/grace-based_parenting/Video_Study/index.asp (look at the video on this page. Kimmel is a little bit ‘marketing’ cheesy).

Now, GBP is not as reformed as I would like it. It is a little too “rock and roll” – in other words, Tim Kimmel is a bit cheesy. Watch the video above and you’ll see what I mean. But, that said, he has some really great things to say, especially in the area of practical application. For that reason, my wife liked Kimmel. It had the practical app – 1,2,3,s that she found helpful. It was Dobson-like in its practicality, but coming from a grace perspective.

So, we took Tripp’s stuff as our base line (that stuff is pure bedrock. Foundational, Biblical, reformed, grace, beautiful stuff). Then we used some of Kimmel’s stuff to fill in the blanks. We also prayerfully thought through how this worked for us. In other words, ultimately we are the parenting instruments that God is going to use. We are different than Tripp or Kimmel. We are unique. So what is the unique way that God would apply the truth of his Word to our particular lives. It wouldn’t look exactly the same as Tedd Tripp. For one thing, I don’t have a cool mustache like that. I mean, if I were a kid and my dad had that mustache, I’d do whatever he said. But, I don’t have that. So, we have to go with what God gives us.

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Is Jesus My Therapist or My Redeemer?

If you are frustrated in your Christian life, if you can’t seem to find any happiness or peace in the Gospel, if you keep falling into the same things over and over again, I want you to read this book.  How People Change is a book about just that, how people change.  It is a much needed diagnostic in an age where the church tends to run after every gimmick that claims it can solve all of our problems.  Paul Tripp and Tim Lane return to the old truths of the gospel that changed lives for centuries before Freud came on the stage and reapplies them to our current age.  Here’s an excerpt of some of their wisdom…

“But is Jesus my therapist or my Redeemer?  If he is my therapist, then he meets my needs as I define them.  If he is my Redeemer, he defines my true needs and addresses them in ways far more glorious than I could have anticipated.”

Or a more substantive one…

“The gospel gap in many of our lives doesn’t stay empty either.  If we do not live with a gospel-shaped, Christ-confident, and change-committed Christianity, that hole will get filled with other things.  These things may seem plausible and even biblical, but they will be missing the identity-provision-process core that is meant to fill every believer.

I like the term Paul uses for these counterfeits in 2 Corinthians 10:5.  He calls them ‘pretensions.’  Not every lie is a pretense.  A pretense is a plausible lie.  I could tell you that I was a female Olympic gymnast.  That would be a lie, but it would not be a pretense because it would lack plausibility.  But if I dressed in a suit and stood in front of an office with a briefcase and a set of architectural drawings, I could probably fool you into thinking I was  building contractor.

The most dangerous pretensions are those that masquerade as true Christianity but are missing the… core of the Gospel.  They have their roots int he truth, but they are incomplete.  The result is a Christianity that is mere externalism.  Whenever we are missing the message of Christ’s indwelling work to progressively transform us, the hole will be filled by a Christian lifestyle that focuses more on externals than on the heart.  I believe that a war for the heart of Christianity is raging all around us, seeking to draw us away from its true core toward the externals.

What sorts of Christian externals tend to fill the gospel gap?  They are all things that are part of the normal Christian life; each tends to attract us at different times and in different ways.  Look for yourself in these descriptions.  Is it possible that you have a gap in your gospel and that it has been filled in ways you didn’t realize?

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