17 Out of 18

“I have seen encouraging signs these days,” the 8th grade science teacher commented to her students.  “A few years ago, I thought society was going down the toilet quickly.  But, today I see kids involved in youth groups and other activities, and I see them making healthy decisions.”

I was struck by the teacher’s words.  I had been invited to speak to these middle schoolers on behalf of True Life Choices, an Abstinence Education program.  And, due to the fact that this was not a private Christian school, I anticipated resistance to my message.

At the close of the program, though, I offered the teens a chance to take my challenge—a challenge not only to abstain until marriage but also to set boundaries in order to aid them in keeping the goal of purity.  With their heads down on their desks and their eyes closed, I invited the teens to raise their hands to receive abstinence pledge cards.  Out of the eighteen students, seventeen took the challenge.

Whether or not the teens remain true to their pledge, I was surprised by the vast majority decision in favor of purity.  While I’d like to chalk their pledges up to my instructional merit and the strength of the material, I can’t help but believe many of them had already been cultivated in an environment of maturity and purity.

And, this brings me back to the comment by the teacher that teenagers are, on a whole, improving—that they are making wise decisions and rejecting impure aspects of our culture—and that this is due to their involvement in, among activities, church youth groups.

The goal of a youth group is to give you teens the tools you need to defend your faith and challenge others.  But, what you do with this is up to you.  Church youth groups cannot always follow you into the schools, to your sporting events, to your extracurricular activities.

Youth groups may be a catalyst for improvement, but this change will only be effective if you do something with it.

What are you doing to influence your generation?  Is the 8th grade Science teacher correct?  Are you teenagers better today than my generation was ten years ago?  If so, is that because you are more proactive, that you are refusing to lower your standards in situations when we children of the 80s chose to embrace compromise?

Make a list of the ways in which you have influenced those around you—friends, peers, siblings, etc.  Include negative and positive examples.  Conclude this exercise with two ways in which you would like to positively influence your generation in the future.

Post your list as a comment on this blog and/or bring it Wednesday night.  (If you do, something just might be waiting for you Underground in return.)

This entry was posted on 3. March 2008 at 21:06 and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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