A lonely mom only wanted one gift. It was something too hard for her family to offer.

While I can leverage a modicum of control over what my girls see and hear in our home, I cannot control what other children are exposed to or the images that will shape their brains and behavior. Children can recite hyper-sexualized song lyrics, rehearse sexually explicit film dialogue, and even swap porn back and forth like trading cards via social media and their smart phones.

Family worship is not meant to be some kind of guilt inducing torture established by divine decree. Rather, it is a means of grace. It is a gift from God to His children. It's not a weight. It's not a burden. It's not a box that we have to check, nor is it a merit badge we have to earn. It's a gift. A gift that is accompanied by many blessings

If you really give it some thought, you could list a multitude of statements, and questions that are pretty inevitable while raising children, but who really stops to think about that stuff before it happens? Well today, I did, and here's what I've come up with (feel free to add the ones you dread most).

I see a lot of teenagers for sports physicals. When I do, the actual physical exam only takes about 5 minutes. Most of the visit is conversation about the things that are most likely to threaten the health of an adolescent- sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking and depression. Here are some principles my wife and I used as our kids were growing up, rules that worked well as we tried to raise children with values and who loved God.

As more people move into cities, natural resources decline, climate change heats up, and the "sharing economy" continues to pick up steam, our notions of family will continue to shift. Dragon Rouge, a design and innovation firm in London, has come up with a vision of what family will look like in 2030--and how brands can respond to these future changes.

A new report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) suggests that declining percentages of homeschool families are motivated primarily by religious conviction.

Christians aren't the only ones who are deeply concerned about the hyper-sexualized milieu in which our children find themselves. Martin Daubney, an ex-editor of a racy magazine, used to be an advocate of porn, justifying it with the argument that "it'll enhance a couple's sex life." However, he had a change of heart once his son was born. Daubney, the host of a British documentary entitled "Porn on the Brain", recently wrote about the experience he had visiting a sex education class.

Having been married for 19 years and being the father of four kids, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a man at home. Here are five simple but effective things that I strive to live out every day.

Katy Perry. Rick Warren. Anne Graham Lotz. Franklin Graham. The Jonas Brothers. Frank Schaeffer. Jessica Simpson. All of these names, disparate though they may seem, have something in common: They are all pastors kids. When it comes to the children of the clergy, stereotypes abound.