Comments on: Evangelical Anxieties 7: Our Children

By: Sadielouwho

Sadielouwho — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:38:33 +0000

Good work and I look forward to a revision but clearly, none is needed! I like this post just fine. Particularly,
>>4) Christian history teaches us that our calling to make disciples must extend to our children, and discipleship today calls for intentional, intelligent, interaction with and influence of culture.

By: Histrion (Jay H)

Histrion (Jay H) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:57:26 +0000

Oh, and thanks for bringing Kent Hovind to my attention — I didn’t recognize the name, but I think I remember the Dinosaur Adventure Land thing. If I ever do have kids, I hope I can teach them to reject worldviews like Hovind’s without being too uncharitable towards the people that hold them. That’s something I personally struggle with.

By: Histrion (Jay H)

Histrion (Jay H) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:51:41 +0000

Keeping the highway metaphor going: the question that nobody seems to be asking is, “Knowing how congested that intersection is, why doesn’t anyone follow the recommendation of the Matthew 19/I Corinthians 7 Highway Commission and just take an alternate route?”

By: totemtotemple

totemtotemple — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:01:26 +0000

Michael:

The article is fine as it is. You can always write ‘part II’ later on.

I really believe in some cases why the ‘youth church’ craze has grown via the presenters of the ‘goatee gospel’ is that:

(1): Maybe the parents do not think that they can adequately raise their children with true Christian values and therefore rely on the children’s church to do the raising.

(2): Maybe the parents have admitted defeat already and are relying on the children’s church as the great last hope.

I was raised in one of those youth groups where all you could do was ‘think about what you couldn’t do’ (aka ‘pente-protectionalism’). It was to the extreme of renting out the roller rink (or the bowling alley) meant that only Christian music was played, the ‘objectionable’ pinball machines and video games were unplugged, and the fifty-cent coin dispensers on the pool tables were slid in and locked (pool was a game people gambled on). What happened when these kids turned eighteen? They left and did ‘the things they couldn’t do’ both out of spite and also out of a feeling that they had to ‘make up’ lost time of their life.

Some are twenty years later still doing ‘the things they couldn’t do’ feeling that they still haven’t made up the lost time. I recently ran into one of my fellow youth at Wal-Mart (we both kinda did not want to see each other because of the ‘fear of flashbacks’) and him and his ‘new wife’ (either #2 or #3) are deeply into the Jimmy Buffet ‘parrothead’ culture where the weekend means ‘party’ and they live only to make it to the weekend to party. Some are creating childhood number 2 feeling childhood number 1 never existed. Some made gross mistakes and eventually wised up over the years with the stigmatas of multiple unwanted pregnancies, divorce, permament revocation of driver licenses, alcohol/drug addiction rehab, death of the sibling due to the sibling trying to make up for lost time, etc.

All we can do is to truely train up a child in the ways of the Lord and he will not depart from them and trust that the child will become a mature Christian.

By: Heather

Heather — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:07:36 +0000

Great post!
One thing about #7: my husband and I visited a church this past Sunday made up entirely of twenty-somethings. Entirely. First time I felt old in a church! It reminded me of a generation that grew up in the environment you described in #7, and now they don’t know how to be a part of a larger church (larger meaning variety of ages, not number of people). They did nothing wrong, per se. They just couldn’t seem to move on. Because of this, they will miss a lot of the riches of things like being mentored and mentoring kids.

By: justpeachy607

justpeachy607 — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:02:51 +0000

Amish Option Exhibit A: My upbringing as a homeschooled Amish-Menno minister’s daughter actually backfired when I took a serious interest in Anabaptism and the way we–as a denomination/culture–didn’t live it. And years later, in spite of being sheltered from TV and movies in my formative years, I’m a card-carrying Democrat. How much lower can you go?