I’ve been reading Craig Groeschel’s blog lately and he has been talking about this upcoming generation. Obviously as a youth pastor that struck an interest in me immediately. One of the things he said about this generation is that they view the world as gray. What is true for you may not be true for me…and so on.
Along this same line of thought, one of the things that I have heard a lot about this generation is that they have no respect. They disrespect their parents. They have no respect for authority. They don’t respect other people’s property. They don’t respect themselves or anyone else.
Having been involved with youth ministry for a number of years, I’m not sure that this is really all that new. In fact, I’d say that every “next” generation has dealt with the respect issue. But, this is what I think is different. In prior generations the disrepect came as a result of rebellion. Today, I believe that much of the absence of respect that we see in our teens has come as a result of no one showing them anything else.
They lack respect because they have not been taught it. Worse yet it has not been demonstrated. We have to demonstrate through our own actions a respect for ourselves, for others, and for property. And, even more importantly we have to demonstrate a respect for God.
I think the message that we parents need to hear is that we cannot expect the church to do this. We cannot expect our school system to do this. We cannot expect our society to do this. Our churches only have these young people for a couple of hours a week (at most). Our schools only have them for about 7 hours a day and only 5 days a week…except of course for every other week when there is a holiday or some other excuse for school to be cancelled. And if your expecting society to take care of it, you better think again. Internet web hosts, the movie industry, the music industry, and television all have agendas, but it isn’t to teach your kids respect.
It is up to us, by the grace of God to instill Godly character in our children.
