Sissy Goff - Modern Parents, Vintage Values, Revised and Updated: Instilling Character in Todays Kids

Praise for Modern Parents, Vintage Values

Melissa and Sissy are women who have spent a lifetime caring for adolescents and their parents. Their ministry is unquestionably one of the premier bridge-building tools between teens and their families. Their life passion is to see young men and women grow up in the maturity of Jesus Christ.

Dan B. Allender, PhD, author, professor, speaker, and founder of the Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology

This is it! The book Ive been waiting for as a mom! Modern Parents, Vintage Values answers every question Ive thought about as a concerned and invested parent, giving practical and biblical solutions to each situation. Raising three children in todays technology-driven world isnt an easy task. Teaching and maintaining the values I was taught as a child is even harder. But today, my life just got a little easier. I need two copies of this book. One for my nightstand and one for my purse.

Candace Cameron Bure, actress, author of Kind Is the New Classy, Reshaping It All, Staying Stylish, Authentic Living, Unwavering Faith, Dancing Through Life , and Balancing It All

Modern Parents, Vintage Values is a treasure of a resource and I recommend it to anyone with children. We need to know what theyre up against! Thank you, Melissa and Sissy, for being beacons for us mommies who want to know what were up against.

Angie Smith, speaker and bestselling author of I Will Carry You, Chasing God, What Women Fear, Seamless, and forthcoming Woven

Like an ice-cold glass of lemonade taken from your rocker on a scorching hot summer day, this book refreshes a parents heart and gives them permission to return to what God meant us to spend our time doing all along: instill virtues into our children. Youll love the practical ideas! I did.

Dannah Gresh, author of And the Bride Wore White, Secret Keeper Girl, Get Lost, What Are You Waiting For? , and coauthor of The Secret Keeper Girl Series, Lies Young Women Believe , and Lies Girls Believe

Copyright 2020 by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-0877-0127-1

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: 649

Subject Heading: CHARACTER \ CHILD REARING \ VALUES

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Also used: New American Standard Bible ( nasb ), the Lockman Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995; used by permission.

Also used: The Message, the New Testament in Contemporary English, 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson, published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Also used: New King James Version ( nkjv ), copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Also used: English Standard Version ( esv ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

It is the Publishers goal to minimize disruption caused by technical errors or invalid websites. While all links are active at the time of publication, because of the dynamic nature of the internet, some web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed and may no longer be valid. B&H Publishing Group bears no responsibility for the continuity or content of the external site, nor for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.

Cover design by Faceout Studio, Tim Green. Cover images RichVintage/getty images.

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This book is written in honor of the vintage characters whose stories have influenced ours: Margaret Trevathan, Robbie Stamps, Otie Trevathan, Hedy Patterson, Robert Goff, Marian Goff, and Dorothy Goff. It is also written in memory of our treasured friends, Noel and Molasses.

Foreword

Recently my husband and I took a short day-trip to a quaint small town about an hours drive from our home base in the big city. We had lunch at a little caf known for its peach tea and meringue pies and then made our way to the antique shops on the town square. While strolling through one antique shop in particular, I couldnt help but be transported back in time. It was a bit surreal to see some of the familiar mementos of my past covered with a light layer of dust and staring back at me from an antique store shelf. Vintage Barbies, Pet Rocks, AM/FM transistor radios, and even a Partridge Family record album! (Proud member of the David Cassidy fan club here.) In spite of my pleas, my husband refused to allow me to rescue the poor Felix the Cat wall clock and hang it in our bedroom in a last-ditch effort to return it back to its glory days. Never mind that I always found it a bit unnerving that Felixs eyes creepily shifted back and forth with each and every tick-tock and seemed to follow me wherever I went. On second thought, hes better off on the wall in the store!

On another aisle we found a shelf filled with old rotary dial phones. (If you are under the age of thirty and reading this, you may have to Google it to get an idea of what Im talking about.) Of course, I couldnt resist the urge to put my finger in the zero and give it a sample dial. Oh, the patience it took to dial a number filled with 9s and 0s! Your family was on the cutting edge of technology if it was among the first to get the push button model when it released. As I stood there looking at the phones, I thought about my kids, armed with touch screen smart phones that keep them connected around the clock to friends, family, and the World Wide Web. I found myself wishing for simpler times when phones were tethered to living room walls and moms and dads were the great and mighty gatekeepers to all things incoming. It seemed annoying at the time to share a single phone line, but now as a parent, I can certainly see the value.

As I read through the manuscript of Modern Parent, Vintage Values, I thought about my visit to the antique store. While vintage mementos from my past were worth only a fraction of their original price, the vintage values many of us were raised with have become rare and priceless qualities among todays youth. Values like kindness, compassion, integrity, responsibility, patience, gratitude, confidence, and forgiveness are timeless for every generation. Sissy and Melissa do an outstanding job of unpacking these vintage values from the old cedar chest and bringing them back to life.

Ive had the amazing privilege of doing many events with Sissy and Melissa. Over the years weve served on a dozen or so Q&A panels for parents, and when the tough questions come, I often defer to them. They have shared their gift of relevant insight and wisdom with both young people and their parents for many years. Their wisdom is always encouraging and filled with hope. Most important, they are faithful to point parents right back to Scripture and the Author of all things of eternal value, vintage or otherwise.

Its time parents get back to the business of teaching their children the timeless, vintage values laid forth in Gods Word. Several decades from now, antique stores will be filled with Nintendo Wii game consoles, iPhones, Justin Bieber posters, and Hannah Montana lunch pailscast aside as vintage, valueless junk. I dont know about you, but I want to leave my children a legacy of vintage values that stand the test of time... long after that creepy Felix the Cat clock ticks its last and final tick-tock.

Vicki Courtney

Dear Reader,

You are the only you this world will ever know. These words are the beginning to one of our favorite quotes of Dan Allenders that we use often when speaking to kids and parents alike. You are the only you. You are also the only mom, or dad, or Papa, Aunt Robbie, or godmother your child will ever know. And you will impact the life and heart of that child in ways that no one else ever will.