test sermon post
Archive for May, 2009
All around the world, as we speak, Christians are being persecuted for their faith. Right now, two women named Marzieh and Maryam are being held in a notorious Iranian prison simply for being Christians and speaking of their faith. Recently in India, some pastors were attacked and beaten by members of the Sikh religion. China continues to systematically arrest and torture Christians. While the liberal media does nothing to bring attention to these issues, Christians can call attention to these issues. The task seems overwhelming however since there are so many things that call for our attention. There are so many challenges that we are facing that it is easy to simply feel overwhlemed and powerless. Worse than feeling powerless though is feeling indifferent. This feeling of indifference should not be. Most Christians feel that they are too weak to do anything significant. That is not the case though.
The pastor is to be the leader but the pastor cannot do everything. He depends on lay leaders within the church to take initiative and plan ways to call attention to the various issues facing the church today, like persecution or pro-choice agenda. Every Christian has something that they feel strongly about and so can encourage and mobilize others to join in the task. For example, at the local Methodist church, there is a woman who cares strongly for children in crisis. She organizes and works with the local churches to promote adoption and foster care. She herself has been a foster parent to nearly 20 children over the years. The church needs individuals like this who want to mobilize the church for a good cause such as ministry to persecuted Christians, prison ministry, anti-abortion strategy and awareness, foster parenting issues, children’s ministries, food pantry ministry, etc. There are many things the church can be doing. But one person can not do everything. If God has burdened or gifted you with a desire to see God’s Kingdom advance in the world, then let your pastor know so that he can help you to exercise your gifts or abilities to minister to those in need here or around the world. God gave the church pastors for the “equipping of the saints” for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11).
Msnbc has a fascinating article on current trends among children born to Generation X parents. You can find it here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30585984/
The article, while fascinating, comes as no surprise. It is still somewhat shocking to see how rude children are, but should we be shocked given the emphasis on developing a child’s self-esteem? We believe that a child’s self-esteem is the most important factor that a parent can develop. Anything that comes between a child’s self-esteem development must be removed (by force if necessary).
The article offers many helpful insights into parenting today. A Grandmother is mortified that her grandchild relentlessly insults his mother in public with no response from the mother at all. A child trips a woman in a restaurant and then brags about it to his mother with no correction from the mother. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
What or who are we to blame for these types of incidents? The article believes that the cause of little Johnny’s narcissism is due to Generation X’s fixation on “attachment parenting.” This parenting method has something to do with seeking to be so close to our children that we are instilling in them that the world revolves around them. The article quotes Dr. Phillipa Gordon, a pediatrician, as stating that parents are “ferociously advocating” for their children, meaning that parents often respond with hostility to anyone or thing that is perceived to be an obstacle to their children’s perceived success.
The reason behind the behavior of these Generation X parents is that they are seeking to make up for what happened to them as children, the article concludes. One commentator explains the reasoning as,
“Our parents, the Boomers, didn’t pay so much attention to us — they were getting divorced and working and respecting independence, so they left us a lot of times to Scooby Doo,” says Calhoun. “But we’re going a bit far in the other direction and paying so much attention that we’re picking up on every blip in our kids’ whims.”
Dr. Susan Linn from Harvard Medical School has some insightful thoughts in that she claims this bad behavior is conditioned by video games and television shows that are popular today. Generation X parents who felt neglected by their parents are seeking to over-correct their perceived abandonment by doing what they can to ensure that their kid’s self-esteem is in no way hindered. Couple this with a relentless bombardment of violence-oriented cartoons, video games, etc. and you have a recipe for disaster.
One key ingredient is missing from the article however. That is human depravity. Since we are all children of Adam, we have inherited his DNA. We are all the born with a sin nature. Sin is the family trait we get from our first parents. So we do not have to teach our children to be bad. They already are. We simply encourage them in their natural, sinful direction. But we can also encourage them in the proper way. And that is the task of the Christian parent. To show children that they are not to follow the world’s way of living and instead to follow God’s way of living. These two paths are mutually exclusive; they cannot be the same. The Christian parent has the privilege of instilling in their children the God-centeredness of God, instead of self-centered behavior. When children begin to see that God is the center of the universe and that they are not, their behavior is going to be increasingly more like God and well-pleasing to Him. Ultimately, our goal is to teach our children that God is the loving ruler of the world and that he made the world and that he is worthy to be followed and obeyed. Our goal as Christian parents is to bring our children to Christ. The reason why Generation X parents have failed is because they themselves are self-centered, rather than God-centered.