43 Sermon Illustrations on Teenagers

DEAR ABBY: I heard about teen-age rebellion, but I never experienced it until suddenly Joe, seventeen, and Betsy, fifteen, let me know they were old enough to do as they pleased. Life became one constant battle about hair, clothes, late hours, and poor grades. Taking away privileges and cutting allowances didn't faze them. After I was told for the fiftieth time that they were old enough to do as they pleased, I saw the light.

I told them that by their reasoning I was also “old enough to do as I pleased.” Then I sat down with a book, put my feet up, and relaxed. When they asked when dinner would be ready, I told them that whenever it pleased them they could make their own dinner. I then made myself a salad and a hamburger and continued to read my book, ignoring them.

For five days I never cooked, cleaned, washed nor ironed for them. Only for myself. When they asked what was wrong with me, I told them I was “old enough to do as I pleased, too,” and it pleased me to think of no one but myself.

They finally got the point. Life is now restored to normal, and now we all live by the rules in this house. This may not work for everyone but it worked for me.

________

Source: Weekend Encounter, by Dick Innes, Copyright (c) ACTS International, 2004, http://www.actsweb.org

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Six things kids want - and desperately need - from Mom and Dad.

1. Keep cool.

2. Show us who's boss.

3. Remember who you are.

4. Talk about God. (used 1/26/92)

5. Call our bluff.

6. Be honest with us. #1277

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“Are you still a virgin?”

I posed the question a few days ago to a teenager of my acquaintance. The kid grimaced in discomfort, made the face of someone about to confess a mortal sin and replied, “Yes. Please don’t tell anybody.”

I found the attitude and the answer troubling. Granted, teenagers - especially boys - have never found virginity an easy cross to bear. But... ‘please don’t tell anybody’? Isn’t that something you say when you’re confessing shameful behavior? Wasn’t there once a time when a kid could admit to chastity without feeling as though it was a character defect? Is this really what we fought the sexual revolution for?

You remember the sexual revolution, don’t you? Rallying cry of the sybaritic ‘60s and sensual ‘70s, a jihad waged by the hedonistic young (and not so young) who happily dropped both inhibitions and underwear in the crusade to overthrow the old order. Not that the old order wasn’t in dire need of overthrowing, characterized as it was by dual standards, sexual repression, closed minds and open hypocrisy.

But listening to my young friend, you have to wonder if the new order is, on balance, all that much better.

That’s always the problem with revolutions, of course. It’s difficult to make the transition from the fiery emotion of shoving aside the old to the hard work of shaping the new.

In the case of the sexual revolution, our failure to make that transition - or even really to try - has left us with a society that preaches from two sides of the same mouth, praising abstinence while at the same time lifting lust. Nothing wrong with a little lust between consenting adults, mined you. But the issue is not adults. It’s children. It’s the things children are told, allowed to see or just exposed to by dint of living in this sex-addled age. True, parents are limited in their power to control access. But the fact is, many of us don’t even use the power we do have.

Which is why, from a tarted-up little beauty queen to the latest buttocks- grinding hot mama on the MTV video, kids are increasingly the fuel for and targets of a mass-media machine that presents sex as a consequence-free encounter between nodding acquaintances. In the age of AIDS, this is not simply irresponsible and stupid. It is downright abhorrent.

We have swung from repression to obsession in the space of a generation. Yet this is where the revolution has left us. Freedom without responsibility. Indeed, consider recent news stories about the HIV-positive crack dealer in New York State who is accused of having had sex with up to 75 young women and adolescent girls in the 14 months after his diagnosis. Most observers seem rightly repulsed at the thought of this man, in singer Pat Benatar’s memorable phrase, using sex as a weapon. But you know the part that also stops me?

Seventy-five women and girls. Fourteen months.

Those are numbers that ought to trouble us, even absent the specter of AIDS. Numbers that almost certainly point to exceedingly casual relationships and, in some cases I’ll bet, no relationship at all beyond that which can be forged while rutting around beneath the sheets.

This is freedom?

[Heavens], no.

This is suicide, a death of the spirit, a killing of self-worth, a slow slide on a shallow curve. Until we reach the upside-down place where the kid who holds out for something more is the one who feels shameful and wrong.

We have swung from repression to obsession in the space of a generation. Now we need to swing back. Not, certainly, to the days of ignorance, silence, and “if you do it, you’ll go blind.” But to some midpoint, at least, which, allows space for a child to be a child, a place that respects that special moment in life and guards it against the pressures that push children toward experiences for which they are physically and emotionally unready.

The revolution never made that place. Instead it left adolescent virgins feeling the need to apologize for their innocence.

Which tells me that the makers of revolution fought for freedom without truly understanding it. Because freedom is not pressure, apology, or the fear of being ostracized. Freedom is the right to make your own decision. It is the right to say yes.

And also, the right to say no.

________

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

More than two-thirds of children born to American teenagers today are born out of wedlock, and the rising teen birthrate is creating a new zeal to promote the familiar message of sexual abstinence before marriage.

Organizers of a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) abstinence campaign hope some healthy peer pressure can help turn the tide.

“There was a girl here in Nashville who got up in front of a group and gave testimony that she thought she was the only virgin in her high school,” says Jimmy Hester, who developed the program with Richard Ross at the SBC. “She’d had that feeling until she said something about this, and others rallied around her to say, ‘I believe the same thing.’ It’s that support from their peers that’s really making a difference in their lives.”

The roots of the current program were planted five years ago when the SBC’S Sunday School Board prepared a curriculum for Christian sex education and began hearing from parents and teenagers seeking denominational guidance on abstinence. From their interest grew True Love Waits, a campaign to promote biblical sexuality and premarital abstinence for teens. “Parents were hearing messages -- whether it be safe sex messages or whatever -- that they just didn’t believe were true to their faith,” says Hester.

The program quickly grew beyond its SBC origins, even though organizers had not planned to take it outside the denomination for at least a year after its April 1993 unveiling. “Well, it didn’t take 48 hours before that started happening,” says Hester, “and the momentum since then has been unbelievable.”

At the SBC annual convention in Orlando, Florida, last month, more than 102,000 signed chastity cards were placed in the lawn outside the meeting site.

That momentum will receive a major boost July 29 when as many as 500,000 signed abstinence pledges will be displayed on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. Also featured will be a concert by contemporary Christian musicians such as DeGarmo & Key, Steven Curtis Chapman, the Newsboys, and DC Talk, some of whom also contributed songs to a True Love Waits compact disk recently released on the Genevox label.

WORLDWIDE CRUSADE

Though press coverage of the campaign has been largely positive, one sign of broad support was its adoption by Roman Catholics in the United States. Len Wenke, executive director of the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry, says True Love Waits is “a new way of sharing an old message for us.”

Through Wenke’s group, the True Love Waits message is being made available to diocesan leaders, who can choose to use it in the nation’s 23,000 parishes and reach millions of Catholic youth.

Also adopting True Love Waits are the Wesleyan Church, Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Church of God, and Youth for Christ. True Love Waits, which already has been translated into four languages, “really has become a worldwide movement,” says Hester.

Covenant cards from the Washington, D.C, event will join cards from around the world at a 1995 Baptist World Alliance meeting in Buenos Aires.

________

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctjul94mrw4T80585619

A youth culture expert who visited Littleton, Colo., after the Columbine High School tragedy said adults need to recognize much teenager behavior stems from cries for help.

"The attitudes and behaviors we see aren't aimed at adults," said Walt Mueller. "They are cries for attention, affection, love, understanding, relationship and truth." What kids are looking for -- truth and stability in their lives."

A crucial mistake many Christians make is to "demonize" music, movies, video games and other things attractive to teens, Mueller said. When that happens, people become critical and aren't motivated to help, he said. "We try to take a balanced, biblical approach," said Mueller. "We want the church to be like the Good Samaritan, to go over and minister to them and meet their needs. Teens may act like they don't want us involved in their lives, but they desperately do."

Mueller listed four primary factors he sees as cries for help and practical steps adults can take:

1) CHANGING FAMILIES.

Many young people's lives are marred by brokenness and divorce, he

said.

He challenged fathers to examine their schedules, adjust them to

make time for their children and show an interest in their

activities and lives.

He also encouraged couples to evaluate the health of their

marriage and pay attention to each other before "it's too late."

2) MUSIC AND MEDIA.

This is the most powerful force filling the void left by those who

fail to be diligent parents, Mueller said.

In reality, the youthful attraction to these influences is a

search for meaning and direction, he said. Teens are seeking to

answer questions about personal identity, God and the future.

This is why parents must give their children time and listen

carefully, he said. "If we're not there to understand and direct

them to truthful answers, they will seek them from music and

media."

Teens' two major complaints are parents don't listen and don't

understand, said Mueller, the father of four children ages 6 to

15. They interpret that as rejection, which becomes resentment

and then rebellion, he said.

3) A CRISIS OF CHARACTER, expressed through MORAL RELATIVISM.

Many act as if there are no standards of right and wrong or

acceptable behavior, Mueller said. But that is really a cry for a

sense of truth, he said.

Parents need to grasp the importance of demonstrating truth

through their daily relationships, he said. "They shouldn't just

tell them right and wrong, but live it out for them. The best

approach is to live by biblical standards of right and wrong."

4) THE CRY OF HOPELESSNESS.

While this may sound foreboding, it's actually good news because

children aren't finding the answers to problems from non-Christian

sources, Mueller said.

Yet, if parents and others in the church don't deliberately and

aggressively reach out to kids, they won't have the answers, he

said.

"Fear and insecurity has a lot to do with it," he said of the

actions of killers Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold. "It's a combination of a lot of things. It's not gun

control, media or music. It's all of these.

"I was saddened but not the least bit surprised," Mueller said of

the attack that shocked the nation. "It's only a matter of time

before it happens again."

Among factors he cited as creating a tough world for young people:

-- Daily, some 3,000 children see their parents' marriage end in divorce.

-- Tonight, 40 percent of the children will go to bed in a home without a

father.

-- Pressures, challenges and choices not known by previous generations.

For example, by the time they graduate, 80 percent of boys and 70

percent of girls will have had sexual intercourse. Each year, more

than 1 million girls in the United States become pregnant and more

than 2.5 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases occur among

adolescents.

-- Rates of substance abuse are skyrocketing. More than 80 percent of

today's graduating seniors have used alcohol, 42 percent smoked

marijuana and 52 percent used illicit drugs, Mueller said.

-- Suicide rates among American high school students have quadrupled in the

last four decades.

The Internet website for the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding is www.cpyu.org.

Why did the Pilgrims really come to America? Most of us think we know the answer: They came seeking religious freedom. Well, yes they did, in part. But they also came because their teenagers were giving them fits.

This forgotten aspect of Pilgrim lore is a wonderful lesson for us this Thanksgiving -- especially for Christian parents.

The story begins in 1608, a time when the Church of England was the established state church. Christians who objected to aspects of the official church were called Separatists, and they were often thrown into prison for worshipping in their own way.

Determined to worship as they saw fit, a group of these Separatists escaped to Holland in the spring of 1608, including 17-year-old William Bradford, who was to pen a famous journal of their adventures. But after a dozen years of living among the Dutch, these Separatists were becoming desperate: It was proving difficult to make a living in Holland. As Bradford recounts in his journal, many of them found it difficult to endure the "great and continual labors" and were getting old before their time. Fellow Separatists still in England, observing their backbreaking trials, actually preferred prison in England to liberty in Holland.

Most lamentable of all, Bradford writes, many of their children were losing their faith. They were influenced by the "great licentiousness of youth in that countrie," and were being drawn away by evil examples. Some of these kids were even leaving their families and living dissolute lives, Bradford records, "to the great greefe of their parents and dishonor of God."

It seemed clear to the Separatists that they needed to seek religious freedom in a land that not only offered an easier living, but also would not corrupt their children. After much prayer, they began to plan their historic journey to America.

The story of the Pilgrims illustrates the fact that parents have always had to contend with cultural influences tempting their children away from faithful obedience to God. In the seventeenth century, those temptations likely took the form of saloons and prostitutes. Today's kids are surrounded by a culture that celebrates recreational sex, drug use, and total rebellion against God's laws.

Now, we don't have the luxury of packing up our kids and moving to another country -- assuming we could find one free of temptations. Still, we have to do everything we can to keep the corrosive forces of American culture from eating away at the character of our youth. We can do that by limiting their exposure to immoral films, music, video games, and television programs when they're young. And then, when they're older, we need to help them understand the worldview implicit in these products. We must teach them that the culture war is a cosmic struggle between the Christian worldview and the various secular and spiritual worldviews arrayed against it.

This Thanksgiving, when your kids are devouring their pumpkin pie, point out that the Pilgrims did not come to America just to find religious freedom: They already had that in Holland. The Pilgrims embarked on that dangerous journey to an unexplored continent for another important reason, as well.

They came for the sake of their kids.

___________________________

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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A book called “Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self” has celebrities reaching back in time to give advice to themselves.

The author Stephen King tells his 16-year-old self: “It’s simple, really, just five words: STAY AWAY FROM RECREATIONAL DRUGS.”

Alice Cooper, the bat-eating bad-boy of my generation: “Trashy girls are excitin’ for about 5 minutes. Keep your eye out for a really good lookin’ church girl. Then you’ll have the best of both worlds.”

William Shattner of Star Trek fame sounds the most like Solomon: “Live in the moment. Enjoy those feelings of inadequacy. Live in your youth, because it passes too quickly.”

________

"Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self", edited by Joseph Galliano (Atria: 2011).

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5947]

A deeply ingrained culture has developed on American college campuses that promotes the drinking of alcoholic beverages, with thousands of deaths, injuries, sexual assaults and health problems among the results each year, according to a new report.

The study, commissioned by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, found the following results were true on a yearly average:

• 1,400 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related injuries.

• 500,000 students are accidentally injured while under the influence of alcohol.

• More than 600,000 college students are assaulted by other students who have been drinking.

• More than 70,000 students are sexually assaulted or date-raped by people who have been drinking.

• More than 100,000 students say they were too drunk to know if they willingly had sexual relations.

• 2.1 million students drive under the influence of alcohol.

• 31 percent of students qualify for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and 6 percent for alcohol dependence.

• More than 150,000 students report a health problem related to drinking alcohol.

• About 25 percent say they have academic problems stemming from alcohol use.

“The consequences of excessive drinking are far too common on many college campuses nationwide, and efforts to reduce high-risk drinking and its related problems have largely failed,” task force co-chair Mark Goldman of the University of South Florida said in a written release.

The study, based on data from a variety of sources, reports students who drink the most include first-year students, males, whites, athletes and fraternity and sorority members. Students who drink the least are found at religious schools, two-year institutions, commuter schools and historically black schools, according to the report.

Although recent studies show the percentage of college students who abstain from alcohol has increased from 15 to 19 percent between 1993 and 1999, binge drinking has become a concern, according to the report. About 40 percent of students binge drink. Binge drinking is defined as consuming at least five drinks in a row for men and at least four in a row for women. About 20 percent of students say they have binged more than three times in the last two weeks, according to the report.

The NIAAA report, released April 9, came two weeks after another study revealed there had been a significant increase in binge drinking at schools for women. Between 1993 and 2001, students who binge drink at women’s colleges grew from about 24 to 32 percent, according to a report from the Harvard School of Public Health. There was a 20 percent decrease in abstainers at these schools. There also was a sharp rise in frequent binge drinkers from 5 to 12 percent, the study reported.

The NIAAA report recommended prevention efforts that focus on at-risk students, the student population overall, and the college and surrounding community. Among strategies that are effective or show promise, according to the report, are enforcement of minimum drinking-age laws, limitations on the number of alcohol retail outlets near campus, the expansion of alcohol-free dormitories and the reinstatement of Friday classes and tests.

The report, titled “A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges,” may be accessed at www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov.

I just realized that while children are dogs — loyal and affectionate — teenagers are cats. It’s so easy to be a dog owner. You feed it, train it, boss it around. It puts its head on your knee and gazes at you as if you were a Rembrandt painting. It bounds indoors with enthusiasm when you call it. Then, around age 13, your adoring little puppy turns into a big old cat. When you tell it to come inside, it looks amazed, as if wondering who died and made you king. Instead of dogging your footsteps, it disappears. You won’t see it again until it gets hungry — then it pauses on its sprint through the kitchen long enough to turn its nose up at whatever you’re serving. When you reach out to ruffle its head, in that old affectionate gesture, it twists away from you, then gives you a blank stare, as if trying to remember where it has seen you before. — Adair Lara

On Tuesday of last week, Charles "Andy" Williams, fifteen, walked out of the bathroom in his Santee, California high school with a smile on his face and a .22 in his hand. Within a few minutes, two kids were dead and another thirteen were wounded.

But this was only the most recent in a series of seemingly inexplicable shootings in American high schools. As with the shootings in Littleton, Paducah, and Ashland, people are asking how this could have happened.

Hours after the shooting we learned that Williams had been the object of the kind of bullying and harassment that is typical in American high schools. Classmates told reporters that he'd been called a "dork," a "freak," and a "nerd."

If you're wondering "Where were the adults?" it's clear you don't know how most American teenagers are growing up today. American teenagers operate in what has been called a "parallel culture" that operates free of adult interference.

As Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, wrote in the New York Times, American high schools are the site of something unique in American society: "a gang in which individuals of the same age group define each other's world." This definition includes the imposition of standards that have no relationship to what's needed for success in the real world.

Instead of stepping in and challenging the false values, which are being imposed by elite cliques, or even challenging the kind of cruelty endured by kids like Andy Williams, teachers and administrators adopt a hands-off approach. It's called "non-directed teaching," and kids are allowed to follow their own rules wherever it may take them.

And where do they get these rules? From themselves, with help from the corporations who covet their business. Teenagers are a 150-billion dollar per year market! Companies study today's teenagers to see what they want, and then programmers present kids with an often cruder and more sexualized version of themselves -- always stressing that kids should make their own decisions.

Kids then imitate this "version of themselves," and the result is what NYU professor Douglas Rushkoff calls a "feedback loop." This loop, which is completely adult-free, both validates and shapes teenagers' ideas about right and wrong, what's important and what isn't.

So we've got American kids operating from an artificial set of rules unrelated to real life; they're going to schools where adults don't question those rules, watching media that validates those rules, and being wooed by advertisers who tell them how insightful they really are. Worst of all, their parents are complicit in the creation of the parallel culture.

Whether it's because of a lack of time, or a desire not to "repress" their children, American parents have adopted a hands-off approach to parenting. Instead of direct supervision they get what's called "guilt money" -- money given in lieu of real parental involvement. The lack of supervision and the money reinforce the parallel culture. It's created a creature I call the "autonomous teenager."

Well, the autonomous teenager has got to go if we're to avoid horrors like Santee. What we've forgotten is that we are still dealing with children here. And children need adult supervision. Until we remember the seemingly obvious, we are destined to continue asking ourselves "how this could have happened," and never getting the right answer.

For further reference:

Botstein, Leon. "Let Teen-Agers Try Adulthood." New York Times, 17 May 1999.

Rosenfeld, Megan. "'Merchants of Cool,' Hot on Teens' Trail." Washington Post, 27 February 2001.

_________________________

Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Prom night is here again. A time for music, refreshments, decorations, and corsages. It means floor-length gowns for girls, tuxedos and ruffled shirts for guys. The school prom is a much- anticipated event, where couples can dance, and everyone wants to be with that "special someone" when the soft music begins.

It's a time of transition -- a time of growing up, remembering the past, and looking forward to the future. But prom nights have changed since you and I were kids -- especially with the advent of the "gay prom" on high school campuses this year.

Yes, that's right. Gay proms -- girls with girls, and guys with guys, snuggling and moving their bodies to the music. And events like these are being promoted all across the nation. One gay prom on Long Island this spring promises to draw as many as 150 gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students. Similar events are being planned for Seattle, Cleveland, and New Orleans.

"These proms are establishing that there is a gay community in high school," says Kathleen C. Miller, a member of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The group helped sponsor the first gay prom in St. Petersburg, Florida, last spring.

Some parents object to their sons and daughters attending gay proms, but many have expressed understanding and support. They "view the special proms as an opportunity for their gay children to embrace identities in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago," says Miller.

Gary A. Vegliante, mayor of West Hampton Dunes, New York, says he's "uncomfortable with the idea of gay sex." He believes "gay proms should not take place." "But," he says in almost the same breath, "he could understand why these two [proms] were needed."

Those who attend the Sayville, New York, prom on June 8th will pay $30 a ticket, and join about 150 gay and lesbian students dancing to the theme, "Free to Be." They'll see guys in dresses and girls in tuxedos. Bisexual student Michael Valverde, eighteen, says he's looking forward to it. "To me," he says, "this prom means everyone is accepted. No matter who you are, it is the kind of person you are inside who you can be at this prom."

According to the New York Times, "The proms are a reflection both of the growth in gay identity and the response to it, at a time when gay issues are pervading the culture in a way that they did not in the past."

The leader of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network claims gay proms are an indictment of society, pointing out how we have failed in the past to recognize gays. But Father John Harvey, who heads a spiritual support group for homosexuals in Manhattan (called Courage) says, "It is the sign of the decadence of our culture." And he's right.

Without moral guidance, and without bold resistance from Christian parents and other defenders of biblical morality within the culture, gay proms won't be just a curiosity in the headlines; they'll be a regular occurrence, and one more indication of what happens to a nation that gives up on virtue and moral responsibility.

If we love our kids, we won't let that happen.

For further reference:

Baker, Al. "With Pride and Corsages, Gay Proms Reach Suburbs." New York Times, 23 April 2001.

_____________________

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Rev. Claunch recently heard of a survey that asked teenage girls what interested them most. "I sat smugly and said, 'I know that. It's boys,'" he recalled. He found out he was decidedly wrong. The majority of teenage girls answered that witchcraft interested them most. The fastest-growing religion among teenagers is Wicca (the religion of witchcraft).

One pro-witchcraft website said one reason interest has risen was television shows like, "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch," "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," and "Charmed." Though none of them portray witchcraft as it truly is, the website said they at least created interest. The recent Harry Potter phenomenon is another example of this trend. The occult is shown as fun, powerful and interesting.

They're everywhere.

They roam the streets of massive cities and the muddy roads of countless villages. Searching, wandering, alone and in packs, they seek a place to call their own in a world full of dying traditions and bewildering change. Many are hungry and ill-educated. Some are rich and bored. All yearn for God, whether they know it or not.

More than a fourth of the world's 6.3 billion people were between the ages of 10 and 24 when the 21st century began -- “the largest group ever to enter adulthood,” according to the Population Reference Bureau. “The actions of these young people -- 86 percent of whom live in less-developed countries -- will shape the size, health and prosperity of the world's future population.”

Their future looks bright in some respects. They are the “healthiest, most educated and most urbanized” of any generation in history, a PRB report stated. However, hundreds of millions remain in poverty, cut off from education and opportunities for advancement. About half of all people infected with the HIV/AIDS virus are under age 25, the World Health Organization reports. Up to two-thirds of all rape victims are age 15 or younger.

Physical and economic progress is crucial for the world's young people. But it won't count for much if they remain spiritually adrift:

• Communism is long gone in the Czech Republic, but the legacy of atheism and the influence of modern European secularism overshadow a generation of youth who don't know what to do with the freedoms their parents craved. School officials confront soaring drug and alcohol abuse among students with no moral guidance, reports Mission Network News. “They are seeing a population of young people somewhat out of control,” a mission worker says.

• A Westerner trekking through the Himalayas in Nepal came across a tiny village where he met a 15-year-old girl. Living in such isolation, the girl said her dream was to have a true friend. The trekker told her that Jesus would be such a friend. But she has no Bible or local church to give that truth meaning.

• In Pakistan, a Christian worker befriended two “modern and Westernized” young teachers. “They profess Islam, but say they are searching for peace ... but they've never known anyone to really find it,” the worker recounted. “I said, 'I've got peace.’ They looked at me in shock [and] responded, 'No way! You've really got peace? How'd you get it? Where'd you find it?'“ They listened intently as the worker explained.

• Rodrigo, a former gang member in Brazil, smuggled guns as a teen. “My life was full of violence, drinking and sex,” he says. He went to church once and encountered a woman who said that she and others were praying for him. “It touched something inside of me,” Rodrigo says. “I continued to live my life but gradually the parties, fighting and girls did not satisfy me anymore. Later I was attacked by a group of guys and ended up in the hospital. The [church] women were praying for my life to be spared. I didn't know why they cared so much about me. I finally understood how God's love works: I did not have to be 'someone' to be important, for God to care for me. It was a group of ladies who got on their knees and prayed for my life.”

How many Rodrigos around the world would respond to Jesus if someone prayed for them? “There are millions of students around the world who do not know Christ,” says Davis, a student mobilization consultant for the International Mission Board. “Statistics have proven over and over again that if a kid doesn't come to know Christ by the age of 18, the chance of his coming to know Christ is reduced dramatically throughout the rest if his life. The best person to reach a teenager is another teenager. The best person to reach a college student is another college student.”

How that plays out varies from country to country and culture to culture. But it must begin in prayer.

“We know there's not been any movement of God of any significance that has not been preceded by people praying,” Davis noted -- including the student-led revival and mission movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. “So we need to call our students to pray.”

The Rodrigos of the world are waiting.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

Each child is unique. American children and teenagers are all over the map in terms of religious experience. A few are devoid of anything that looks like personal faith while others have passionate devotion. Trying to lump them all together is simply a mistake.

Parents' greatest fear may be that their children will enter some awful rebellious period and reject the faith. That fear is mostly unfounded. Contrary to popular thinking, children generally do not become teenagers who are alienated from the church or its ministers and members.

Researchers report that more than 80 percent of teens say they believe in God, and two-thirds describe Him as involved in people's lives; 71 percent of teens say they feel “very close” or “somewhat close” to Him. Among teens who describe themselves as religious, only 5 percent report having had a number of doubts about their faith in the previous year, while 70 percent of church-going teens say their congregations are a “very good” or “fairly good” place to talk about serious life issues.

Popular media portrays older children and teenagers as people who reject parents and faith as fast as they pierce body parts. Teenagers in movies view the church as a dinosaur and the faith of their parents as an emotional crutch. The only religious children and teenagers on the small or large screen are strange and unpleasant people.

This unfortunate portrayal flies in the face of the facts. Most U.S. children become teens who embrace fairly conventional, traditional beliefs about religion and the supernatural. They are not stampeding to abandon the church or the faith they grew up with.

By the time they reach young adulthood, the great majority of children will have a faith very similar to their parents. Of course there are exceptions, but not many. Most parents who want to know where their kids are headed religiously just need to look in the mirror. According to one study, only 6 percent of teens regard their religious beliefs as very different from their mothers' and 11 percent different from their fathers'.

The question is, is this good news or bad news?

Nearly all children become teenagers who are profoundly individualistic. They simply do not realize the influence their parents and their church have in shaping their faith. They really do believe they are crafting a faith all on their own.

Actually, children and teens are just exhibiting typical American individualism, that they are distinct from all others and must freely choose their own religion.

Parents grew up with Frank Sinatra singing, “I did it my way.” Now their children have come to believe the same thing.

They tend to believe the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when He is needed to resolve a problem.

If children grow up to believe that God primarily exists to make them happy and if children usually adopt the faith of their parents, then parents need to ask hard questions about their own convictions.

Parents' greatest fear should not be that children will enter some awful, rebellious period and reject the faith.

The greatest danger is that they will imitate that large body of adult Christians whose faith stays in the background of their lives and who believe God exists primarily to make them happy.

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As Janet Kornblum of USA TODAY remarks, America's teenagers are growing up “with a mouse in one hand and a remote control in the other.” The generation Microsoft founder Bill Gates calls “Generation E” has never known a time when information was not instantly accessible on the internet, or when communication was not available at warp speed through instant-messaging, e-mail, and Internet websites.

Make no mistake -- teenagers are wired and highly active online. According to the TEENAGE LIFE ONLINE report released by THE PEW INTERNET AND AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT, over seventeen million teenagers use the Internet. According to the report, that represents 73 percent of all teenagers. “Teenagers' use of the Internet plays a major role in their relationships with their friends, their families, and their schools,” the report explains.

All this leads to new opportunities, and to new dangers. One of the latest challenges faced by parents is the development of teenage blogging. Taking advantage of Internet websites such as MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, and XANGA, many teenagers and college students are creating personal blogs, which are essentially online diaries accessible to the public. As Kornblum explains, these teenagers “now pour out their hearts, minds, and angst in personal online diaries.”

She also describes the problem this way: “And anyone with a connection -- including would-be predators -- can have a front-row view of this once-secretive teenage passion play.”

Kornblum is correct. Teenagers are using blogs in unprecedented numbers. What was once communicated through phone conversations is now handled by instant-messaging. The content once secreted in the pages of hand-written diaries is now out for public consumption, and often with intimate details and personal information.

Paul Saffo of the INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE in Menlo Park, California explains, “This is the new way kids interact. Fifty years ago, they borrowed their parents' phones or made their own phones out of string and Dixie cups. Today they have their own cell phones, and they have their own computer accounts and Web pages, and they have their own blogs. It's part of life in the cyber age.”

The Pew study estimates that at least four million teenagers now blog. These numbers do not even include pages found at some of the most popular Internet sites where young people are posting personal information and putting up personal Web pages.

Most observers agree that girls dominate blogging, even as in previous generations girls were far more likely than boys to keep personal diaries. Far too many parents are unaware of the dangers that lurk on the Internet.

Others are keeping a watchful eye on their children and their blogs. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL recently reported that increasing numbers of parents have resorted to “spying” on their teenagers by visiting their blogs. Reporter Kevin J. Delaney took a look at this issue through the lens of one mother and her teenage daughter. This mother discovered that the daughter had lied about going to a high school football game with friends. By reading the girl's blog, this mom discovered that her daughter had actually gotten into the car of a boy the mother did not even know and had gone to an ice-cream shop without permission.

Her daughter quickly figured out that her mother had traced her activities through her online diary and blog. Since then, this mom has attempted to use software programs to snoop on her daughter's Internet use and the revelations of her personal life. According to Delaney, the mom spends approximately thirty minutes a day monitoring her daughter's activities on and off the Internet.

“If my daughter had a diary in her room, I would not read it. But what she posts on the Internet is posted to the entire world,” the mother reported. Amazingly, some claim that teenagers' blogs should be off-limits to parents. As Janet Kornblum reports, “Experts are divided about whether and how parents should treat the journals -- especially when it comes to teens over 13.” Some argue that, since the material is published in public view, there should be no assumption of privacy. Others, Kornblum reports, “argue that reading journals is no different from eavesdropping on their kids.”

This debate tells us a great deal about how American culture has shifted authority from parents to teenagers. How can a concerned and loving parent NOT follow their teenagers' online activities? No doubt, it's a dangerous world out there. Furthermore, Christian parents should be very suspicious about any claims to “privacy” on the part of their teenage children.

The emergence of teenage blogs has created problems, not only for parents, but for high schools and colleges. Officials at NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY brought charges against several underage students when a residential advisor found on their Facebook blogs a picture of them drinking. “There is no reasonable expectation of privacy,” said Paul Cousins, director of the office of student conduct at the university. “So I have no concerns about any university becoming aware of an issue via Facebook and then following up on those concerns.”

In some cases, online blogging has led to real danger. Taylor Behl, a seventeen-year-old freshman at VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY was murdered this fall. Though officials are not certain whether her online activities had any direct relation to her death, Behl had used MySpace and similar sites and had posted intimate details and personal information. Pam Lepley, a spokeswoman for the university, told reporter Alorie Gilbert of NEWS.COM, “In the course of the investigation it became very apparent to university officials just how much information she had put out about herself online. She and thousands of other people her age put out these Web pages and may not know how vulnerable it could make them.” Lepley further explained, “In their own minds, they're sitting in their dorm room or at home, and they have a sense of privacy -- and they really don't have it at all.”

Furthermore, parents are often shocked by what they find at their kids' blogs. As one report summarizes: “Teens complain about parents and homework, using language that will make Tony Soprano blush. They share daily dramas, post songs from the latest bands, display pictures of themselves, sometimes wearing next to nothing or taking bong hits. They write angst-ridden poetry, detail supposed sexual exploits and complain about each other or offer support. But mostly they simply relay the details of their everyday lives.”

Some school officials have discovered further grounds for concern. Vauhini Vara of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL reports that school principals now monitor many blogs. In this report, Vara told of one sixteen-year-old girl at Paramus High School in Paramus, New Jersey who was suspended after teasing a classmate during school and implying he was homosexual. At home, even during her suspension, she posted some comments on her blog, including a post in which she heaped further scorn upon the boy. The school considered these comments to constitute harassing behavior, and the girl was suspended for three more days. The girl's parents have complained to school officials. “It's inappropriate that they're telling my daughter how to behave when she's not at school,” said her father. “It was such a violation of the First Amendment.” Once again, this development indicates how the pattern of authority has been radically changed. Many parents now fight for their children's “right” to harass fellow students, to criticize school officials, and to make virtually unrestricted comments online.

Christian parents must see the fallacy in this argument and the danger in forfeiting their parental responsibility. This generation of teenagers desperately needs parents who will reassert their authority and fulfill their responsibility to protect, monitor, and supervise their children.

Responsible Christian parents will establish clear boundaries and rules for their childrens' use of the Internet. There should be absolutely no expectation of privacy when it comes to what their teenagers are doing and writing on the Internet. The stakes are simply too high.

A sixteen-year-old girl in Port Washington, New York was molested by a man who had tracked her down because she had listed personal information on her MySpace profile. Many teenagers claim to understand the danger. One seventeen-year-old girl retorted, “I watch Oprah. I know what happens.” Maybe so -- but maybe not.

Parents would do well to limit all Internet access by teenagers. In general, teenagers are spending far too much time online and less time engaging in interaction with friends, parents, siblings, and other family members. To a great extent, the emergence of an online teen community means that teenagers now have a new and powerful mechanism for retreating into an adolescent-only world, cut off from adult contact and supervision.

This is neither healthy nor safe, and parents who neglect to protect their children online are putting their teens at risk. Teenagers with unrestricted access to the computer and the Internet are as vulnerable as adolescents who would be given an automobile with unrestricted access and virtually limitless speed. In reality, the situation is even worse, for there is no adequate police force on the Internet. It's a dangerous world out there and America's parents need to act before these dangers hit close to home.

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According to a study conducted by the Barna Group called “Teens and the Supernatural,” three out of every 10 teenagers have played the Ouija board, had their palms read, and eight out of 10 have read horoscopes.

Maybe these numbers do not shock you. But while these activities may seem innocuous, below the surface there lurks an extremely dangerous and powerful world — something Scripture refers to as “the powers of darkness.”

Take, for example, the Ouija board, a game young people have played for decades. Manufactured by Parker Brothers, the game combines numbers and letters around a pointer that mysteriously indicates answers to questions players ask. Even Parker Brothers cannot explain how the pointer moves. That’s because the game taps into spiritual forces outside the realm of human control.

Another “pastime” with dark undertones is horoscope reading.

According to one survey, 29 percent of Christian teens said they did not see anything wrong with it. Eighteen percent said they read horoscopes, but do not think it really predicts the future. And another 8 percent said they read it, but feel guilty about it.

Just like the Ouija board, the horoscope can also be dangerous — a dangerous first step into the world of the occult. One woman, Barbara Gardner, writing in Today’s Christian Woman, explained how reading horoscopes sucked her into a dangerous pattern that led to astral projection — also known as “out of body experience” — palm reading, and fortune-telling. She ultimately attributed the breakup of two of her marriages to her obsession with occult activity.

And the list goes on, from seemingly innocent activities like yoga (which is steeped in Eastern mysticism) and playing video games with demonic themes, to more obviously sinister things like communicating with spirit guides. Beyond that, many popular films, TV shows, and books have minimized the seriousness of dabbling in the occult, movies and shows like Goosebumps and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No wonder many kids find the spiritual world harmless at best, or deeply intriguing at worst.

A representative of the Barna Group said: “Teens give the supernatural world the same treatment as any other aspect of their lives. They cut and paste supernatural experiences and perspectives from a variety of sources ... Most of all, they are motivated by their desire to find out what works for them and what feels right.”

The Barna report also indicates that the teens who feel like their lives have spun out of control are the ones most likely to dabble in the occult. But instead of gaining control, they are relinquishing control to powers more terrifying than they can imagine.

Far from being harmless activities, Ouija boards, palm-reading, and horoscopes are really gateways into a world that is Satanic at its core, and directly opposed to God’s commands.

There is a reason that Isaiah 8:19 says, “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God?” And if you really want to know what God thinks of all those who tell fortunes or who inquire of the dead, read Deuteronomy 18.

So, parents, be alert when it comes to your children and the occult. Talk with your kids honestly about it. And always, always point them to the source of true power and love and acceptance — Jesus Christ Himself.

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Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

The University of Minnesota School of Health recently published a study documenting how teenagers who have a television in their bedroom are more likely to have unhealthy lifestyles: from poor eating habits, to bad grades, to less time spent with the family.

The results of the study are by no means surprising.

Increasingly we live in an entertainment-saturated culture, and teens like any first-adopters of new trends, live in the forefront of societal shifts. Thanks to television, movies, text-messaging, virtual gaming, chat rooms, and websites like Facebook, entertainment and diversion are always just a click away for teens these days. And while teens do need some “down time” to escape the pressures of school or even work, something is wrong when “down time” becomes “all the time.”

While entertainment is not necessarily a bad thing, it is by its very nature something that draws our attention from one thing to another. Unfortunately, most of the entertainment teens are exposed to today does not divert them from the frivolous to the noble, but the other way around.

Take for instance, a controversial Internet video game that has soared in popularity in Britain since its release earlier this year. The “Miss Bimbo” game is marketed to teenage girls. In this virtual world, players are given a virtual character to care for. They then purchase diet pills, breast enhancements, plastic surgery, and other treatments to make their doll look good. In the game’s own description, the object is to have the “hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world.”

While other games may not be quite as in your face as that, they are doing their own damage. Some studies say as many as 10 to 14 percent of families have someone who has become so obsessed with video games, Facebook, and other computer-based pastimes that their virtual lives are damaging their real lives.

And here is what should really concern Christian parents, as author Dick Staub of The Culturally Savvy Christian points out: “When diversion becomes a way of life, we avoid the very issues to which we should be most attentive. We are diverted from the grim, unpleasant truth that our lives lack meaning without God . . .”

And have no doubt: Teens are looking for meaning. Probe a little while, and you will see. The culture is telling them that entertainment and self-gratification are ends in and of themselves. That is why it is so important for parents, grandparents, Sunday-school teachers, and adult friends to help teens wrestle with the important questions in life — and point them to where they can find the right answers.

Even more importantly, perhaps, Christian adults need to model a lifestyle that is countercultural. Do our entertainment habits sink to the lowest common denominator of mindless entertainment, or are they tempered, molded, and informed by our Christian worldview? Do we live to serve others, or do we live to serve ourselves and our own appetites? Remember: Our teens are watching us.

And remember, also, that character is not taught; it is learned when we see good role models to follow.

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Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Jay Leno was the star of “The Tonight Show” for 22 years. The comedian was famously forced off the show in January 2010 and hastily re-hired two months later after his replacement bombed in the role. This time, the transition has been much more positive. After leaving the show last Thursday, Jay immediately went back on the road as a traveling comedian. As he told the LA Times, “I’ve always been a stand-up comedian that had a day job.”

Transitions can be tough. After Satya Nadella was promoted to succeed Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft last week, critics are already claiming that the company should have brought in an outsider to shake things up. J.C. Penney recently ousted CEO Ron Johnson 17 months after hiring him, returning his predecessor to the job.

Why are young people leaving religion

Corporate transitions, while important, are temporal. Faith transitions are eternal. Here the numbers are frightening: 7 in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30 who went to church regularly in high school have quit attending by age 23. The Barna Group says that 6 in 10 young people leave church permanently or for an extended period starting at age 15. Young adults complain about the church’s intolerance and irrelevance. But there’s another factor at work as well.

Dr. Vern Bengtson is a pastor’s son and social work professor at the University of Southern California. After studying 350 families for 40 years across four generations, he learned much about the transmission of faith from parents to children. His major conclusion: to continue in the faith, children must be bonded emotionally with their parents, especially their father. “Fervent faith cannot compensate for a distant dad,” he discovered.

If we want our children to love Jesus, we must do more than pass on religious rules and responsibilities. After studying parents whose children followed them in the faith, Dr. Bengtson concluded that we need “the kind of passion these parents had for wanting their children to achieve the peace and the joy and the hope and the inspiration they had found for themselves.”

Be passionate about your Father and your children, and they will want the faith they see in you. New York Times columnist David Brooks recently quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal.... To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

Tragically, Heschel notes that for many of us, “faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion.”

The psalmist could sing to God: “All my springs are in you” (Psalm 87:7). Is your faith an heirloom or a living fountain today?

In a viral post back in July, entrepreneur Robert Sterling described what many people feel

There is something deeply unwell in our society right now. ... I’m sure social media, economic malaise, Covid lockdowns, fentanyl, and every other reason we hear about factor into it.

Yet, all these reasons, he continued, “in aggregate, still feel insufficient.” Something “metaphysical,” seems to have shifted.

A Breakpoint commentary in April described the mental health crisis of American teens, especially teenage girls. As The New York Times reported, “Nearly three in five teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021 ... and one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide.” Boys aren’t doing much better, with so-called “deaths of despair” at an all-time high among the male population.

This widespread mental instability has culturewide consequences. In a recent documentary, filmmaker Christopher Rufo diagnosed what he calls our “Cluster B Society.” The rise of “woke” ideology and cancel culture, he argued, corresponds with the explosion of psychopathologies like narcissism and borderline personality disorder. These “disorders of the self,” Rufo explains, wreck relationships and lead to profound social dysfunction. When they become “formalized and entrenched” in “human resource departments, government policies, cultural institutions, and civil rights law,” they lead to precisely the kinds of extremism and emotional instability that infects politics today, especially among the young.

What is this “metaphysical shift,” this feature of modern society, that is driving so many people into despair? Writing for the Institute for Family Studies, University of Virginia sociologist Joseph Davis argues that our mental health crisis is the end of a long process that began well before the iPhone, social media, or fentanyl. The seeds of despair and derangement, he thinks, were sown when people stopped looking to timeless institutions and transcendent realities to give their lives meaning, and instead turned inward for answers.

Davis cites Jennifer Breheny Wallace, who in her book Never Enough notes that even successful and privileged young people often say they feel “utterly vacant inside.” The reason they are looking inward for meaning is because they’ve been taught for decades now, by everyone from Disney and Oprah to pop stars and professors, to reject external sources of meaning like God, family, or country. “Their truth” is found within, while external sources of authority are oppressive and stifle authentic individuality.

As a result, Davis argues, “the public frameworks that gave life direction and meaning — prescribed roles, rites of passage, compelling life scripts, stable occupational trajectories — continue to fade away.” That’s why, as he puts it,

We feel empty, inadequate, and adrift because we have been thrown back on ourselves, forced to face the challenge — at younger and younger ages — of trying to establish an identity, make commitments, live with conviction, desire life, and find meaning without the very sources that make these things possible in the first place.

As theologian Carl Trueman demonstrated in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, the idea that life’s greatest meaning comes from within and from there we express our authentic identity is a recent development. Our ancestors looked beyond self, to external sources of authority. In our culture of expressive individualists, many people are finding themselves, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, unchained from a sun.

Writing of the death of God in his famous Parable of the Madman, Nietzsche accurately predicted the chaos to come but also noted that people in his day could not realize the implications of doing away with fixed, transcendent meaning. “I have come too early,” says the Madman. “This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men.”

Perhaps today, in the ruins of the institutions, traditions, churches, families, and cultures once tied to belief in an unchanging God, Nietzsche’s prophecy has come true. We are adrift with only ourselves as gods. If the statistics are accurate, more and more people are finding this intolerable.

We were never meant to invent meaning for ourselves. The demands of our hyper-individualistic society feel unbearable because they’re unreasonable. We put the weight of defining the world on our shoulders, and it’s heavier than we ever imagined. The self is not big enough to define the truth.

This means that solving our mental health crisis will take much more than cutbacks on social media or crackdowns on opioids (though these are good ideas). It will take a return to older, less individualistic sources of identity and a willingness to stop treating “be yourself” or “you do you” as some kind of profound wisdom.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. To help us share Breakpoint with others, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.

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Copyright (c) 2023 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Any parent of a teen-ager could probably tell you his kid doesn't feel the least bit awkward about dishing out advice. Moms and Dads likely bear the brunt of questionable counsel from their pubescent offspring daily.

But young people do have good advice rolling around in their noggins, and much of it is godly, according to the editor of "Living with Teenagers," a magazine for parents of adolescents produced by the Baptist Sunday School Board. That's why the team that edits the periodical gave 16 teens a chance to offer advice formally to parents through articles in the November issue.

"We think good teen-agers get sold short, and they think so too," said the magazine's editor in chief, Ellen Oldacre. "That's why we dedicated an entire issue for teen-agers to give their parents some godly advice.

"We know a lot of parents pick up this magazine every month, and we thought parents might hear advice differently if it came from a teenager they don't live with."

Oldacre acknowledged the concept of allowing teens to write the copy for the entire November issue was risky.

"It was a risk, but they did better than many of my adult writers. Every one of them sent their articles back on time," she said. "One even sent a revised version two weeks later right on deadline. He said he had reworked it and felt it was more God-led. Of course, I used it.

"Another girl was just precious. She wrote us a cover letter that asked us to please check for grammatical errors," Oldacre said.

"I've had dealings with countless writers, both amateur and professional, but I have never encountered the level of conscientiousness I found in these teens," Oldacre wrote in the issue's editor's column.

"They were prompt, prepared, insightful and honest. They are far wiser than their years and demonstrate a deep spiritual commitment to their Lord, their families and others. They are seeking to understand themselves and their parents and honestly share what they are learning." Oldacre expects the fall issue of "Living with Teenagers," written entirely by young people, to become an annual event. The 1995 edition is designed like a high school annual, she said.

The issue includes articles about family time together, conversation between adults and teens, embarrassing things parents do, how parents hurt their teens' feelings and understanding change. One teen, Lisa Marie Angotti, a senior and member of Bellevue Baptist Church, suburban Memphis, Tenn., wrote about the health struggles she and her family have encountered after she contracted Lyme disease. An active child, Angotti recounts how the first awareness she had health problems came when she was riding her bicycle as a 12-year-old.

"Our first clue was in December when one evening riding my bike up the driveway I had a sharp pain in my knees. I wondered how I'd hurt them, never realizing I was about to embark on a journey that would change the course of my life forever," she wrote. "By the end of December, a throbbing headache and crippling joint pain had become part of my existence. By January 1991, I was bedridden with unbearable pain, what I termed knives' that migrated from joint to joint." Angotti goes on to tell about the constant love and care her parents have given her since she became sick.

"When the troubles come, we must trust that God is binding our family close together with unbreakable bonds of love," she wrote.

"Unbreakable, because love never fails."

In a separate story, Nora Frost, a sophomore and member of First Baptist Church, San Antonio, Texas, writes about how families with teens can manage to have fun together.

"Family quality time was easy to do when children were small," she wrote. "The zoo and swimming were fun 10 years ago, but now school, sports, friends, hobbies and studying the opposite sex take away a big chunk of time for most teenagers."

In her advice story, Frost suggested parents get their teens' input for family outings.

"Start by having dinner, all together, (yes -- this can be achieved) and ask for various suggestions for family outings and for possible dates on which the activities may be done. Keep in mind, though, the activities don't necessarily have to be done outside the home. Remember, the key to family activities is to spend time together and enjoy each other, so spring cleaning does not count," she wrote.

"Family time is an important time for bonding," she continued. "It provides fun and family entertainment. With family bondings, parents and teens learn to appreciate each other and hopefully stop taking one another for granted."

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Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press

Last Wednesday, March 7, Charles Andrew Williams, fifteen, was arraigned after witnesses claimed he killed two people and wounded thirteen others in the Santee, California, school shooting. Then, within two days, eight new cases erupted in schools nationwide!

Gunfire erupted in the lunchroom of Bishop Neumann High School, a Catholic school in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a girl was arrested. In Twentynine Palms, California, police arrested two students and seized a rifle.

Later, police arrested a seventeen-year-old junior at Western High School in Las Vegas for carrying a high- powered handgun. At Elmhurst High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a sixteen-year-old was taken into custody after police found a semi-automatic in his school locker. And police arrested two teens in Perris, California, for threatening violence.

In city after city, school violence is sending shock waves through the nation. Police made students open lockers and walk through metal detectors after they discovered a threatening note in a teacher's mailbox at Bryant High School, in Arkansas.

A student carrying a gun was arrested at Kentwood High School in Covington, Washington. And teachers found a threatening message on a restroom wall in Slidell, Louisiana. Many students stayed home the following day.

"[W]hat we're beginning to see is what we call a contagion effect related to the school shooting in California," says Jim Copple of the National Crime Prevention Council. What we're looking at, he suggests, is a string of copy-cat killers! But how is this possible?

Since the Columbine shooting in April 1991, there have been twenty-two shootings in America's schools! In just two years, thirty-nine kids have died! Jim Axelrod of CBN News reports, "Children are increasingly the victims and perpetrators in America's highest-profile shootings." And Jim Copple adds, "The culture is beginning to normalize around this. And we dare not accept it."

He's right. But I have to ask: Doesn't anyone see that this is precisely where today's value-neutral schools and culture have brought us? Amidst the cries for tougher gun laws, surely somebody must see that there's a bigger issue here. The root problem, of course, is sin. We're seeing a lack of individual responsibility and a failure to cultivate conscience.

Conscience, remember, is cultivated by the most basic structure of society, the family. Discipline is learned in families, but too many American families have failed. Just look at the statistics. Even in the toughest ghettoes, only 10 percent of kids from intact families get into trouble; but 90 percent of those from broken families do. Unless we rebuild families, school shootings may well become the norm.

Even in middle-class homes -- a subject I'll talk more about tomorrow -- kids don't get proper discipline. They don't consider themselves part of a family but rather of a separate teenage culture. And that's a real problem.

To build discernment in young people, we have to love them, take an interest in them, teach them that their lives have meaning, and teach them right from wrong. That's how change happens, not by laws from outside but by a change of heart, from the inside.

For further reference:

"Another School Shooting." Associated Press, 7 March 2001.

"Students Gather Outside the School." Associated Press, 7 March 2001.

"Threats All Over." Associated Press, 7 March 2001.

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Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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