So, the other day I am delving into Youth culture. I watch a video by Lady Ga Ga, kind of like Marylyn Manson meets Madonna – unique but strange. Then I view Katy Perry’s Firework video. She is a great singer, I like her energy in interviews, but I know that she has made some really bad choices. For one the guy she is married to is …. Well let me say unique. The song that propelled her to stardom was “I kissed a girl” which talks about a young lady’s exploration of lesbianism. Katy is still exploring her world and its complex realities. Then upon reading her bio I find that she is the daughter of not one minister but two ministers. I also discover that she had a Christian music career under her real name Katy Hudson. I listen to some of the cuts, same voice different message. Her music label went under and she became Katy Perry who kissed a girl and now has fireworks exploding out of her chest. So, Pb, where are you going with this? Let me ask a question. How does a girl who grew up in a Christian home and church now spend her young adult life promoting choices that are completely against everything she was brought up to believe? More importantly, why do we see this trend, although not as dramatically, repeat it in our churches today? I am not looking for someone to blame I am looking for some way to get around this trend.
It isn’t something new. Colonial and early America saw the same trends. One generation was Biblically sound and then the next fell out of church. Since the Church was the government they put rules on the populous making them attend church. This filled up the pews but did nothing for the hearts. People were willing to go through the ritual but had no relationship with Christ. Society’s morality plummeted as church became an empty exercise. How did they change it? They didn’t. God brought a revival called the “Great Awakening” that changed churches through changing people. So what do we who live in this century need to be doing with an increasing lost generation? Do we need to look for a great awakening to end the apathy of our churches and re-salt our society? What can we be doing?
It seems to me to be a waste of time, teaching and resources to spend so much time in our kids lives from the Nursery through High School, just to see them run away from the church when the reach college level. This is going to have to be a joint effort of God instructing and us doing. We have to evaluate not only the church but the home as well. If we say one thing and they see another in the home what good is it to teach them. Permissiveness and the desire of Christian parents to be “friends” instead of mentors is a large part of the problem. I don’t think this idea can be solved in one blog; I just want to put the question out there and see if it evokes any responses. Let me know what you think.
