You're Welcome to Date My Daughter IF..‪.‬

Are you a desperate daughter eager to convince your overly protective (but very LOVING...) dad to let you date that “someone special”? Are you a desperate dad, terrified that your daughter is growing up, wondering how to help her make wise decisions as she manages those dangerous years until she gets married? Wondering how to have “that conversation” to establish an “understanding” with those hormone-crazed teen boys, to help keep your daughter safe, yourself not arrested for being overly protective, and those boys in one piece (last part is optional...)? “You're Welcome to Date My Daughter IF...” is a little hand-book that grew out of just those kinds of worries. It started as a personal journey that became a powerful Bible Study dealing with sexuality as one of the crowning gifts of God's creation-- when preserved as the treasure of marriage. Parents, pastors and church leaders who once could count on social and community support outside the church walls to be allies in preserving purity and decency for their daughters now find themselves like salmon fighting their way upstream against powerful cultural currents. Even within many churches, those eager to support traditional sexual values preserving sexual expression for marriage are fighting a counter-cultural battle, not to mention the blatant attacks on purity from all corners of society and the ever-intrusive digital media in which we all constantly swim. Finding honest, forthright (and affordable) tools that parents and churches can both use without apology for content, that is effective, orthodox and even fun to use, is almost as miraculous as Jesus feeding the multitudes. This book was written to help fill this gap and need. Written first from a dad's perspective, but also from the perspective of a pastor that remembers all too well the power and pervasiveness of teen hormones, it is hoped that this can not only be a personal resource for families, but a tool that can be used in group settings and bible studies as well. Youth groups, parents groups, men's groups, even around which to build new short term outreach groups for families in the community sharing these concerns, all might find the format (and great price!) of this handbook to be very attractive, useful and user-friendly, both for church folk, and for the not-so-churchy type. This handbook and Bible study is built around personal stories and an the all-too-familiar acquaintance with the power of teen hormones recalled in vivid and sometimes embarrassing detail. It is brutal honesty about sexuality and biblical wisdom, a helpful reminder to parents who might think “their children” too innocent for such deceptive hormonal drives, and teens who might think they can pretend with themselves and their parents to the “innocence” of their own behavior and intentions. A great resource for teens, for families, for men's ministries (it might be too direct for our ladies!) for other church or youth groups, and as outreach tools for those churches daring enough to be honest about sexuality. Written by an Army Chaplain while deployed and worried about his two precious teenagers, Rev. Lewis has been married for 25 years to his “summer fling” that didn't quite turn out that way, and has served churches and ministries beyond the local church for 20 years. He is completing a PhD in Cultural Foundations in Education.