"Our kids have grown up in boxes; sheltered homes, sheltered schools, sheltered colleges"
** Edited to remove the quote that was taken down and the accompanying encouragement **
Carry on :D
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
At least I haven’t been called a “cold hearted snake” yet … ! :)
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
At least we do not have the Wicked Witch of the West here!
Susan R = Dorothy
If I only had a brain…I could come up with something witty to add here.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Tyler is correct that the article was too shallow, or at least too short, to be substantive. Tackling this concept is tough, especially in three paragraphs. Chip is also correct. The real issue is Christian sub-culture. And to that, I can agree with Olson. This affects our children because it affects us. When we live and breathe too much church/parachurch air, we lose a sense of the real world. (By that I mean institutional gathering - not Christ’s real body) When we don’t function in the real world, we rarely live lives of faith because it takes little faith to operate in the sub-culture. When we don’t live lives of faith, our children pick up on that. Then they leave the sub-culture. And we wonder why. Maybe this is what Olson is trying to say?
Fred Moritz, one of my Seminary professors, said once, “Brethren, we’re called to separation, not isolation.” Olson may well be warning against this, and if he is, I understand and agree.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
My son invited me to watch M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” a few years ago. When the movie reached it’s climax i looked across the room to see him looking at me. All he said was, “We used to live there, didn’t we?”
It may not be a box, but for me it was a village. Anything outside the village was dangerous. The culture of the village was to make the residents distrustful and fearful of anything from outside and often misinformation was used to strengthen those fears. My favorite line in the movie is when Ivy meets someone from outside the village and says, “You have kindness in your voice. I did not expect that.”
In a side note, as a longtime Christian school administrator, I remember hearing leaders saying that they were proud of sheltering their student bodies and referring to their schools as greenhouses. I had a number of students over the years admit that they didn’t have any “unsaved” friends.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
I chose to post in a VERY blunt manner in hopes of making a point. When a person interjects opinion and bias into a discussion, the desired outcome is to win at all costs. This only causes harm, and does not edify the body. Would any of you stand up in the middle of church and castigate you spouse because of a disagreement? Like I said, blunt! So far I have been ridiculed and sent a threating email. I ask you is this is Christ like, and emblematic of what you what SI to be?
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
[James Benner]I chose to post in a VERY blunt manner in hopes of making a point. When a person interjects opinion and bias into a discussion, the desired outcome is to win at all costs. This only causes harm, and does not edify the body. Would any of you stand up in the middle of church and castigate you spouse because of a disagreement? Like I said, blunt! So far I have been ridiculed and sent a threating email. I ask you is this is Christ like, and emblematic of what you what SI to be?
Who has ridiculed you? Go public with it? I did send you a PM. Is this the threatening email? Go public with it (I still have it in my S/I inbox).
Honestly you come across as a pouting prima donna.
Even when Christians ‘evangelize’, it is often at arm’s length. Cold calling, street preaching, and passing out tracts is still ‘in the box’ to me.
Kids who attend public schools can remain inside their Christian bubble if they choose, just as other cliques refuse to acknowledge others not of their socio-economic class or ethnicity or belief system, remaining distant and aloof.
It isn’t the physical proximity of the unsaved/unchurched, but how we interact with them that defines, IMO, whether or not we live an in-the-box sheltered life.
When discussing children and their need to be a Christian witness, I think parents should be careful to make sure kids understand that they themselves must be converted. Christianity isn’t something that children obtain by heredity or osmosis. Too many church kids make shallow and impulsive professions when they are young, and because of our firm stand on eternal security, we refuse to entertain the idea that they weren’t truly converted. We encourage them to be junior missionaries, when the person that needs saving is them.
If a parent believes that their child is emotionally, mentally, and spiritually mature enough to truly evangelize and disciple, then they can feel confident in helping their child find appropriate opportunities, be that in their community, local organizations, school, place of employment, etc…
Hi all,
I did not read the article, but read all of the comments. 3 of my 4 kids are in public school and my other will be there soon. It was not always that way. Our oldest is a Freshman at the local community college and graduated from public high school. Our older son is now a freshman at the public school. My younger daughter is at a Christian School that my wife teaches at ( the two older ones graduated from the 8th grade there as weel). My youngest has autism and we have no choice but to put him in public school. We also homeschooled until our oldest went into 4th grade. So I think I have a pretty good understanding of these issues.
We were dragged kicking and screaming into the public school. Neither my wife nor I ever attended one. But now looking back, we are grateful for God’s path - make no mistake about it, it is God’s path. A few above have said that all 3 choices are legitimate and I would agree. But I can tell you that our interaction would be no where near where it was, unless my kids were in public school. Less than a month ago, I had the privilege of preaching the funeral of a 15 year old boy who was accidently killed (that boy was a close friend of my son). There were 2500 people at the visitation, and 650-700 people at the funeral. God allowed me to give the Gospel to that large of a group, and I have less than 50 that come on a Sunday Morning. God be glorified.
Now to the issue at hand. I used to be in an environment, where I did not interact much with the lost. There are many of our fellow pastors who don’t. We all know that is true. There have been times when even when we interacted, it was at great arms length. We all have to work against that. I believe that can and should be done no matter how we choose to educate our kids for God’s glory.
Roger Carlson, Pastor Berean Baptist Church
See [Find a Club Near You} in upper right
I got the idea of joining from Dr. James Maxwell (former President of Faith Baptist Bible College). He is a Toastmaster
- The clubs are small because they are supposed to split when they get to 40.
- The club of which I am a member has about 15-20 in attendance. All are IT or project management people at my company
- They meet once a week at the noon hour
- I joined in June of ‘13. I am working through the 1st book called “Competent Communicator”. There are 11 speech challenges. The speeches are 5-7 min long
- The first one is “Icebreaker”. I was able to share my testimony
- Near Christmas time I had a speech entitled “Why I don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, and Santa Claus; but why I believe in Jesus”
- My last speech challenge was called a persuasive speech. My speech title was “Don’t be a Scrooge”. I spoke on giving and that we are motivated to give to improve the human condition and that men are made in the image and likeness of God. I used a PowerPoint slide set and had several Bible verses in it, one being Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”.
- My next speech has a theme of “International”. I am not planning any Gospel reference for this one. (This next Tuesday)
- My May speech (which I am working on now) is to be an “Inspirational” speech. I intend to speak on the Christian answer to racism (building on the image of God introduced previously)
- Note: Our Toastmasters club meets at work. It is a [my company - which is a major financial institution] sponsored event and the sell-same pays my dues. How great is that!
I’ve:
- Met new people
- Learned some speaking tricks (like how to say something in 7 minutes!)
- Plus it is fun (we had a Christmas (they called it “a Holiday”) party
I finally read the piece. I don’t think it is a straw man for, at least part of the Fundamentalism that I grew up with. It has taken years for our church to get away from that. The bubble is real in many churches and needs to stop. Yes, we need to guard against wordliness, but we also need to be aware of isolation in our lives.
Roger Carlson, Pastor Berean Baptist Church
It really isn’t a simple issue. Trade offs in all directions. The “box” strategy was being vehemently criticized when I was a kid under the label “sheltering” or using variants of a greenhouse analogy. Mainly at the time, the criticism was aimed at the whole idea of a Christian day school. So two perspectives clashed: a. the best way to prepare Christian young people to hold to deep convictions and live holy lives in this world = to raise them in a protected environment. b. the best way to prepare them is to expose them strategically. In their most extreme forms the two strategies are quite distinct. As you moderate them, they blur in to eachother. So the role of the Christian school—it can play a part in moderate versions of either strategy.
What I’ve observed:
- Lots of kids grow up with the box strategy and eventually turn out just fine and no longer living in an isolated way from unbelievers and their “world”
- Lots of kids grow up with the box strategy and collapse as soon as external constraints are removed
- Lots of kids grow up with the “strategic exposure” strategy and eventually find that there is really no difference between their way of life and that of the unbelieving world
- Lots of kids grow up with the “strategic exposure” strategy and turn out just fine
My conclusion: either approach can be tweaked to the point that it is somewhere in the middle. And either approach, even in its extreme forms, can be implemented poorly or effectively.
And both approaches can fail even if carried out pretty much flawlessly, because people are not mechanical devices that can be assured to “turn out right” if we just get solid quality control assurance in the factory. There is no way to mass produce faithful disciples out of children.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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