Overcoming the Culture

Drendra Keesee, family, Happy Life, marriage, Parenting, The Laundry Moms, The New Vintage Family

Overcoming the Culture

by Drenda Keesee

A friend was in a jewelry store when he overheard a couple talking to the sales clerk. The young lady noticed a necklace with a pendant hanging on it in the glass encasing. The pendant was a cross, and there was a figurine man hanging on the cross. “That’s strange,” she said. “Who is the little man on that cross?”

Many Christians think that everyone has heard of Jesus Christ…

…but that’s not true. Only twenty percent of American families attend church on any given week in the United States.

Twenty percent.

So where are these families learning about life?

Where are these children learning to know right from wrong?

If they aren’t learning from God, you can be sure they are being taught something somewhere.

I’ve discovered that many parents do not even know what is happening in their own home. Their children are being attacked with unbelievable amounts of perverse images and ideas.

So few parents are aware of the internet content being fed to their children or what their children are exposed to when they hang out with friends. A video game might be rated “T” for a couple of curse words in it, but when a child plays that level over and over, those “few” curse words multiply into an entire vocabulary. I can’t begin to explore all that technology has made available, but I’ll give you one snapshot. One of the Grand Theft Auto video games was originally banned in Australia for containing extreme graphic violence and sexual content, but that game grossed $300 million in the United States.

So what does that say about our culture? Another of the Grand Theft Auto games contains a torture scene where the player chooses the method of torture to inflict (electrocution, water boarding, removing teeth, or beating with a heavy wrench) to extract information from a person. After choosing the type of torture, the player has to execute the torture on the victim. This game series also allows the player to explicitly rape and kill innocent women and rewards them with pornography throughout the game. That game has broken seven world records since its release in 2013, including best-selling video game and fastest video game to gross $1 billion.

The worst part is, although the game is rated “M” for mature, the game series is popular with children as young as nine years old. We live in a tsunami of media persuasion and perversion.

It’s like a giant wave that is smashing against the younger generations beyond their ability to cope and steady themselves.

•Eleven years old is the average age of a child’s first exposure to Internet porn.

•The average American child will have seen 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders on television by the age of 18.

•The average American child between the ages of 2–17 spends 19 hours and 40 minutes watching TV a week.

•The average parent only spends 38 minutes a week in meaningful conversation with their child.

•70% of television shows include sexual content, averaging

about 5 sex scenes per hour.

So let me ask you who, or what, is really training your child? Who are you allowing to tell your children what life is all about? Are they being taught right or wrong? My intention is not to condemn anyone or to paint a picture of a crumbling culture that can’t change. My point is that we need change, desperately, and change can only happen when enough people realize that we need it and are willing to stand for it. The problems in the family system are more than skin deep—they are a reflection of where the culture is as a whole. And whether you’re experiencing these issues in your family or not, none of us can turn a blind eye to the new level of corruption trying to invade the nation.

The good news is that God has given us the ability to overcome. Our children don’t have to fall prey to the traps of the enemy. “For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13).

God is on your side, and you don’t have to go into this battle alone. As we move forward, pray that God helps you see what areas you need to focus on changing. Let the principles sink in and effect real change in you, your family, and the culture around you—because we are living in perilous times that call for change.

~Drenda

ps…Are you looking for a good church? Be sure and listen on Saturday evening or catch the 3 services on Sunday for Faith Life Church!

*Excerpt from “The New Vintage Family” by Drenda Keesee

Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional, and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.

A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.

Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.

Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary and Drenda.

Through their own life experiences, the Keesee’s have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.

That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.

She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then the irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.

Gary and Drenda pastor Faith Life Church at The Now Center in New Albany, Ohio, and also are the CEOs of Forward Financial Group.