Losing Our Children
The 5th grade public school teacher that sat on the couch across from me baffled me with her descriptions of the unruly, chaotic nature of her classroom. She told me of 5th grade boys who routinely call her the "b" word. She spoke to me of her constantly having to ask students not to text or use their hand-held devices during her period of instruction. Worst of all, she relayed to me that when these disciplinary problems are addressed with parents, they often take their kid's side and act as if the teacher is the problem.
Add to this the teacher's obvious frustration with the overwhelming amount of red-tape type work the school system itself requires of her (which means that much less time she gets to spend actually teaching children), and friends you have a system in centrifugal decay.
We are losing our children. But apprently it started at least a generation ago (though historically it goes back several generations). When parents try to defend a child's rudeness and crudeness, this can only mean the parent has been lost, which explains why their child is also lost.
I use the term "lost" here in a somewhat secular, common-sense way. Basic civility. Respect for teachers and adults. Use of dignified language. The ability to show common courtesy to authority figures and other human beings. These things are lost in America. Don't believe me? Have a sit down over some coffee with a public school teacher.
Or, better yet, join me on an evening jog past the day care center. I typically jog past them around the time when parents are picking them up, which means the children are on the playground outside. I can only describe the scene I jog past several times a week as utter insanity. Kids screaming, crying, fighting, talking back to teachers, fussing, and generally being defiant. All of this readily discerned by a jogger passing by 50 yards away! And yet, Christian parents continue to funnel their children into these centers of chaos. If this is socializing children, no thanks!
Another parent recently informed me of a classroom discussion in her daughter's middle school. The teacher asked students to tell the class of someone they thought made a significant contribution to the United States. Almost every single student listed a cultural-pop icon, with names like Lady GaGa and Kobe Bryant making the cut. The daughter of the parent telling me this story at least had the gumption to say Theodore Roosevelt. He was a truly significant leader and president, regardless of your political persuasions. I forgot to ask this parent if Jesus Christ was named by any students. I think I already know the answer to that question.
Sickening. We are losing our children.
Worst of all, so many of our children, and their parents, are spiritually lost. And yes, this is true even of those who fill church pews on Sunday. Don't believe me? Ask Jesus (Matt 7:21-23). Spiritual lostness lies at the core of all other lostness.
Our children in our churches can send texts one-handed and blindfolded in a matter of seconds. They can execute Trigonometry problems by the tender age of 12. Yet, we Christian parents and pastors and teachers somehow think it is too much to expect our children to know the gospel backwards and forwards?!
Our children are lost. Time and time again I survey the knowledge of teens in church, only to find that most of them cannot give a decent presentation of the basic gospel message. I assume their parents cannot either. But their names are on our rolls and they have been drenched in our baptismal waters.
We must wake up, Christians! We must wake up. If we do not, we will reap as the parents of old did:
"And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers [they died]. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel" (Judges 2:10).
If we and our children have all things, but do not know, love and live the gospel, we will perish forever. So, what is the gospel? What is it that we must be teaching our children above all things? To that we turn in future posts.
by Keith McWhorter