34 Sermon Illustrations on Teenager

Joseph Simon III was sentenced to 30 years, with 15 mandatory, for killing his friend Richard Van Ness, Jr. in Roxbury, New Jersey, on November 27, 1992. He pleaded guilty. The crime occurred after a party where there had been much drinking, and rumors say Van Ness ridiculed Simon for being homosexual. After shooting Van Ness through the stomach with a hunting rifle (the bullet passed through the house), he was left to suffer for several hours while those at the party debated what to do. His body was placed in a car and driven off a remote road where it was found the next day. [Ledgewood Baptist Church is in Roxbury, an affluent suburban community.]

I was a rotten teenager. Not your average spoiled, know-it-all, not-going-to-clean-my-room, getting-an-attitude-because-I'm-15 teenager. No, I was a manipulative, lying, acid-tongued monster, who realized early on that I could make things go my way with just a few minor adjustments. The writers for today's hottest soap opera could not have created a worse "villainess." A few nasty comments here, a lie or two there, maybe an evil glare for a finishing touch, and things would be grand. Or so I thought.

For the most part, and on the outside, I was a good kid. A giggly, pug-nose tomboy who liked to play sports and who thrived on competition (a nice way of saying: somewhat pushy and demanding). Which is probably why most people allowed me to squeak by using what I now call "bulldozer behavior tactics," with no regard for anyone I felt to be of value. For a while, anyway.

Since I was perceptive enough to get some people to bend my way, it amazes me how long it took to realize how I was hurting so many others. Not only did I succeed in pushing away many of my closest friends by trying to control them; I also managed to sabotage, time and time again, the most precious relationship in my life: my relationship with my mother.

Even today, almost 10 years since the birth of the new me, my former behavior astonishes me each time I reach into my memories. Hurtful comments that cut and stung the people I cared most about. Acts of confusion and anger that seemed to rule my every move -- all to make sure that things went my way.

My mother, who gave birth to me at age 38 against her doctor's wishes, would cry to me, "I waited so long for you, please don't push me away. I want to help you!"

I would reply with my best face of stone, "I didn't ask for you! I never wanted you to care about me! Leave me alone and forget I ever lived!"

My mother began to believe I really meant it. My actions proved nothing less.

I was mean and manipulative, trying to get my way at any cost. Like many young girls in high school, the boys whom I knew were off limits were always the first ones I had to date. Sneaking out of the house at all hours of the night just to prove I could do it. Juggling complex lies that were always on the verge of blowing up in my face. Finding any way to draw attention to myself while simultaneously trying to be invisible.

Ironically, I wish I could say I had been heavy into drugs during that period of my life, swallowing mind-altering pills and smoking things that changed my personality, thus accounting for the terrible, razor-sharp words that came flying from my mouth. However, that was not the case. My only addiction was hatred; my only high was inflicting pain.

But then I asked myself why. Why the need to hurt? And why the people I cared about the most? Why the need for all the lies? Why the attacks on my mother? I would drive myself mad with all the why's until one day, it all exploded in a suicidal rage.

Lying awake the following night at the "resort" (my pet name for the hospital), after an unsuccessful, gutless attempt to jump from a vehicle moving at 80 miles per hour, one thing stood out more than my Keds with no shoe laces. I didn't want to die.

And I did not want to inflict any more pain on people to cover up what I was truly trying to hide myself: self-hatred. Self-hatred unleashed on everyone else.

I saw my mother's pained face for the first time in years -- warm, tired brown eyes filled with nothing but thanks for her daughter's new lease on life and love for the child she waited 38 years to bear.

My first encounter with unconditional love. What a powerful feeling.

Despite all the lies I had told her, she still loved me. I cried on her lap for hours one afternoon and asked why she still loved me after all the horrible things I did to her. She just looked down at me, brushed the hair out of my face and said frankly, "I don't know."

A kind of smile penetrated her tears as the lines in her tested face told me all that I needed to know. I was her daughter, but more important, she was my mother. Not every rotten child is so lucky. Not every mother can be pushed to the limits I explored time and time again, and venture back with feelings of love.

Unconditional love is the most precious gift we can give. Being forgiven for the past is the most precious gift we can receive. I dare not say we could experience this pure love twice in one lifetime.

I was one of the lucky ones. I know that. I want to extend the gift my mother gave me to all the "rotten teenagers" in the world who are confused.

It's okay to feel pain, to need help, to feel love -- just feel it without hiding. Come out from under the protective covers, from behind the rigid walls and the suffocating personas, and take a breath of life.

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By Sarah J. Vogt from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Kimberly Kirberger

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"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

-- attributed to Mark Twain, Reader's Digest, September 1937

*

I was holding a notice from my 13-year-old son's school announcing a meeting to preview the new course in sexuality. Parents could examine the curriculum and take part in an actual lesson presented exactly as it would be given to the students.

When I arrived at the school, I was surprised to discover only about a dozen parents there. As we waited for the presentation, I thumbed through page after page of instructions in the prevention of pregnancy or disease. I found abstinence mentioned only in passing. When the teacher arrived with the school nurse, she asked if there were any questions. I asked why abstinence did not play a noticeable part in the educational material.

What happened next was shocking. There was a great deal of laughter, and someone suggested that if I thought abstinence had any merit, I should go back to burying my head in the sand. The teacher and the nurse said nothing as I drowned in a sea of embarrassment. My mind had gone blank, and I could think of nothing to say. The teacher explained to me that the job of the school was to teach “facts,” and the home was responsible for moral training.

I sat in silence for the next 20 minutes as the sexuality course was explained. The other parents seemed to give their unqualified support to the materials.

At the break time, the teacher announced that there were donuts in the back of the room and requested that everyone put on a name tag and mingle with each other. Everyone moved to the back of the room. As I watched them affixing their name tags and shaking hands, I sat deep in thought. I was ashamed that I had not been able to convince them to include a serious discussion of abstinence in the educational materials. I uttered a silent prayer for guidance.

My thoughts were interrupted by the teacher's hand on my shoulder.

“Won't you join the others, Mr. Layton?” The nurse smiled sweetly at me. “The donuts are good.”

“Thank you, no,” I replied.

“Well, then, how about a name tag? I'm sure the others would like to meet you.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” I replied.

“Won't you please join them?” she coaxed.

Then I heard a still, small voice whisper, “Don't go.” The message in my head was unmistakable: “Don't go!”

“I'll just wait here,” I said.

When the class was called back to order, the teacher looked around the long table and thanked everyone for putting on name tags. She ignored me. Then she said, “Now we're going to give you the same lesson we'll be giving your children. Everyone please peel off your name tags and look at the back of the tag.”

I watched in silence as the tags came off. “Now then, I drew a tiny flower on the back of one of the tags. Who has it, please?” the teacher asked.

The gentleman across from me held it up. “Here it is!”

“All right,” she said. “The flower represents disease. Do you recall with whom you shook hands?” He pointed to a couple of people. “Very good,” she replied. “The handshake in this case represents intimacy. So the two people you had contact with now have the disease.” There was laughter and joking among the parents.

The teacher continued, “And whom did the two of you shake hands with?” The point was well taken, and she explained how this lesson would show students how quickly disease is spread. She concluded by saying, “Since we all shook hands, we all have the disease.”

It was then that I heard the still, small voice again. “Speak now,” it said, “but be humble.” I wryly noted the latter admonition, then rose from my chair. I apologized for any upset I might have caused earlier, congratulated the teacher on an excellent lesson that would impress the youth, and concluded by saying I had only one small point I wished to make. “Not all of us were infected with the disease,” I said. “One of us ... abstained."

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #4830]

Mean girls. What's so new about that? Mean girls have been around forever. Suddenly, there is a media blitz covering something as ancient as human nature -- something all women have had to endure.

Most of the media frenzy is due to the publication of "Queen Bees & Wannabes" written by Rosalind Wiseman, a 33-year-old author and president of the nonprofit Empower program. Wiseman has effectively labeled the hierarchy that exists among girls from around age 10 through high school. Like any good diagnostician, Wiseman has accurately recognized and named a problem that generations of girls have endured. Her expert diagnosis merely confirms its existence.

Wiseman's book happens to come along at a time when my daughter is experiencing certain trials of her own with mean girls. I'm reliving some painful personal memories as I watch her wade into the turbulent waters of adolescence, where the mean girls are circling like sharks. I am all too familiar with their mode of operation. They smell the blood of insecurity and awkwardness, seeking prey that is obviously weakened from coping with a changing body and an unwelcome discomfiture. Their menu varies like a seaside restaurant offering the "catch of the day." They head toward their current target with alarming speed, intent upon sinking their teeth into the tender flesh of budding self-awareness.

Remembering this, I try to head the sharks off before they get too close to my daughter. Unfortunately, the advice I have to offer is tainted with bitterness for the mean girls that visited the beach of my youth. My husband cautions me, "You are getting too involved in this." I realize then that I am obsessed with rescue. I am the coast guard. I am Richard Dreyfuss, consumed with ridding my family's previously calm waters of this invasion by the mean girls.

The experts can offer plenty of sound, reasonable advice on how to deal with the mean girls. However, I found one Expert whose advice is utterly radical, and strangely enough, His seems to have the best chance of actually creating change. His counsel has not been in demand by the media, but it has been sought many times by mothers on their knees. This Expert is Jesus Christ. What does He have to say about mean girls?

-- "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44). When I approached my daughter with this idea, she was totally open to it. She wants to pray for her friends. It is such a comfort to take a problem that seems so big to the One who you know is so much bigger. As we pray together, God has revealed that I am continuing to build my relationship with my daughter. We are not only mothers and children, but we are sisters in Christ. We are approaching her teen years together as prayer partners. What a blessing.

-- "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Ephesians 4:29). We have committed this verse to memory. We used it in a role-playing exercise where I encouraged my children to think about what someone else may need to hear. For example, did someone just fail a test? What would be an encouraging thing to say to her? Remember, if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all!

-- "Don't show favoritism" (James 2:1). Teach your children not to show favoritism to people because of how they are dressed or how attractive they are. They can miss out on some of the greatest friendships ever by judging people based on first impressions.

As I have been thinking about all this lately, God brought a specific memory to my mind of one mean girl in particular. There was a girl in my fifth grade class, Michelle, who was a little awkward and tended to be shy. She tried hard, but for all her perseverance, she always got left out. One day, she called another girl in our class and asked for her help. She explained that she wanted and needed a friend. But the mean girl she called refused to be her friend. "I just don't like you," she said. "I don't want to be your friend." Then as Michelle began to cry, this awful, mean girl hung up on her. Guess who the mean girl was? Right. I am so sorry, Michelle. I really am.

It might not hurt us as grown women to do a self-check every once in a while, and see if any of that "mean-girlness" is surfacing in our lives today. Am I loving and praying for my enemies? Am I careful to watch my speech? Am I showing favoritism when I should instead be showing the open arms of Jesus Christ? I'd say most of us have been on both sides of what is now called "relational aggression." A mean-girl self-check is not a bad idea.

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Teenage girls who have close relationships with their mothers wait longer to have sex for the first time, researchers reported Wednesday.

Their findings also indicate girls are less likely to have sex when their moms strongly disapprove, suggesting that mothers matter more than they might sometimes believe.

"We need to be more tuned in to what's happening in our children's lives," said the study's author, Dr. Robert Blum, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Adolescent Health and Development. "Otherwise, how can we give them clear, effective messages about how to deal with the choices they will inevitably face?"

The same impact was not found for mothers and sons, and researchers concluded that other influences, such as friends, simply may be stronger for boys.

Talking about birth control did not appear to have any effect on teens' sexual behavior.

The study is based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a massive federal investigation of teen behavior. This research examined interviews with 2,006 teens ages 14-15 who said they were virgins. The same teens were interviewed a year later, and 10.8 percent of the boys and 15.8 percent of the girls had had sex by the second interview.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota examined extensive interviews with their mothers (fathers were not interviewed) to try to determine what made the difference between those who became sexually active and those who stayed virgins.

They found little to explain why some boys began having sex and others didn't. But they said several factors made a difference for girls.

Specifically, the study released Wednesday found that mothers whose daughters were still virgins shared several qualities:

They strongly disapproved of their daughters having sex.

They were satisfied with their relationship with their daughters.

They frequently talked with the parents of their daughters' friends.

These mothers also more likely to have a college degree.

"Parents say they talk until they're blue in the face and their kids still don't listen," Blum said. "Kids will pay attention to their parents' values on sex. But talk alone does not get the message through."

Other factors made no difference in teen sex, including how religious the mothers were, how often they talked about sex, how uncomfortable they were talking about sex and whether they recommended that their daughters use a specific kind of birth control.

The study was published Wednesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health. A second study published in 2000, which also used data from the adolescent survey, found similar results.

The 2000 study, which examined eighth- to 11th-graders, suggested that teens don't always know that their mothers disapprove of sex. Among mothers who strongly disapprove, 30 percent of their teen daughters and 45 percent of their teen sons guessed otherwise. "While most mothers disapprove of their sons or daughters being sexually active, their kids don't always get the message," researchers wrote in their summary.

When teens do realize that their mothers disapprove of sex, they are less likely to have it. In addition, younger teens are more likely to realize that their mothers' disapprove when they feel close to their moms.

The knowledge gap goes both ways. Many mothers don't realize their kids are already having sex. Half of the parents of sexually active teens said their child was not having sex.

"Parents and especially mothers should be aware of the role they play in influencing their adolescent daughter's sexual behaviors," researchers concluded. "Parents need to be clear about their values and then clearly articulate them to their children and adolescents."

09/04/02 09:40 EDT

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.

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Do you have a "mook" living under your roof? Or do you have a "midriff" among your family members? You may, but if these expressions are unfamiliar to you, you're not alone.

The expressions, and the characters they describe, are the creation of what a recent Frontline documentary on PBS called "the Merchants of Cool." The merchants include the media, soft drink, and apparel companies that vie for the business of America's teenagers.

Teenage consumers represent a "$150 billion dream" to such companies -- a staggering number. As one person interviewed said, "teens run today's economy." Even if that's an exaggeration, it is an indication of how eager advertisers and media companies are to capture the attention and business of our kids.

How do they do it? One MTV executive told PBS, "[We need to know] more about them; know more about their lives; know more about ... what they want ... [and] what they don't want."

Well, one thing kids seem to want is an "adult-free universe." So much so that depicting adults -- or at least adults in charge -- is considered incompatible with creating proper consumers.

This competition is not only affecting these companies' bottom line, but it's shaping our kids, and our culture as well. As Mark Crispin-Miller of New York University told Frontline, "[Advertisers and programmers] are going to do whatever they think works fastest and with the most people, which means that they will drag standards down."

Which brings us back to mooks and midriffs. The "mook" is a character created to appeal to adolescent males. He's characterized by "infantile, boorish behavior," and is trapped in a state of "perpetual adolescence." Mooks are a staple on MTV and shows like South Park.

The "midriff" is a "highly-sexualized, world-weary sophisticate" who manages to retain a bit of the little girl. She's a central character on virtually every show on the WB Network and, especially, music videos.

Kids, especially girls, are emulating these characters. And that, in turn, encourages producers to give us more mooks and midriffs that more and more kids will want to imitate.

Arresting this trend, if not reversing it, requires understanding that the main problem is the fact that our kids have become targets. When advertisers treat thirteen-year-olds like autonomous consumers, chances are the kids are going to feel autonomous in other ways as well. Giving them "what they want" invariably means validating their opinions and impulses -- whether or not those impulses are good for them.

But it's not enough to complain about the objectionable content of television programming directed at teens. We have to get in between the advertisers and the kids -- and talk directly to kids. You see, if advertisers can bypass parents, this junk is going to continue. And to get our kids' attention, the "merchants of cool" will go for an ever-lower lowest common denominator.

Unfortunately, the main reason the "merchants of cool" get away with this is because of the "hands-off" approach of many parents today. But in light of the recent school shootings, our culture knows it needs something better. And we Christians, who know that parenting is a "hands-on" activity, ought to be in a great position to show them how it's done -- and to make every home a "mook-free" environment.

For further reference:

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

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

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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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"72% of the youth that grow up in the church or enter the church during their adolescence leave the church before the age of 18."

-- American Baptist missionary David Reed, on the need to retain young people in the church.

Twelve years ago, Viacom's MTV network put a group of young people in a controlled and easily manipulated environment and turned on the cameras. They called it THE REAL WORLD. The success of THE REAL WORLD inspired reality TV imitations around the world, especially within the Viacom family.

The latest version, premiering this week on Viacom's UPN network, takes the idea to new depths. This time, Viacom is more than an instigator-slash-peeping-Tom. It's the serpent in the garden.

The show is called AMISH IN THE CITY. It's an adaptation of an Amish ritual called RUMSPRINGA. Prior to adulthood, many Amish teenagers go through a period during which they are allowed to engage in activities normally forbidden to them. They can date, go to parties, or go to the movies.

The ritual both tests their commitment to the Amish way of life and ensures that their decision whether or not to remain Amish is an informed one. Remarkably, ninety percent of those who undertake the ritual elect to remain Amish.

In AMISH IN THE CITY, five Amish 16-year-olds are placed in a big city and exposed to temptations that far exceed those normally associated with RUMSPRINGA. Dating and going to parties is one thing; “hooking up” and the hedonism that's standard fare on Viacom is quite another.

Of course, the idea is for at least a few of the kids to succumb to temptation. It makes for “better television” and, not coincidentally, a bigger audience. All of which makes Viacom's claim that it tends to treat “the Amish and their beliefs” with “the utmost respect and decency” true rubbish.

Viacom executive Les Moonves was more honest when he told journalists that Viacom was doing AMISH because it couldn't do BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. The reference was to an abandoned Viacom project to move a poor Appalachian family into a California mansion and then invite America to laugh at their blunders.

Moonves believes he can get away with mocking this group for ratings because, as he said, “the Amish don't have as good a lobbying group” as Appalachians.

Probably not, but they do have their fellow Christians. We need to join our voices with those of Pennsylvania's senators. In a letter to Moonves, Senators Santorum (R) and Specter (R) said that it's “hard to imagine” anyone singling out a group of Native American teenagers and then “making ... light of their attempt to define their personal and religious identity.”

They're right, but this is Viacom, the company that gave you the vulgar display at this year's Superbowl halftime show. Even before the infamous “wardrobe malfunction,” Viacom had proved that, when it comes to ratings, it has no sense of decency or shame.

You've undoubtedly noticed my repeated use of the word VIACOM. That's because even if you don't watch MTV or UPN, chances are you do watch one of its networks, such as CBS. In protesting AMISH IN THE CITY, we need to make it clear that we will hold the entire company, and not just UPN, responsible.

After all, if Viacom chooses to spread its corruptive ideas throughout all its networks, it is only fair that blame be equally distributed.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• John H. Fund, “Earth to Moonves,” American Spectator, 20 July 2004.

• Robert Rhodes, “Appalachian advocates take aim at Amish reality show,” Mennonite Weekly Review, 8 March 2004.

• “Ad Protest Targets Amish Reality Show,” Tolerance.org, 21 May 2004. (This page includes contact information for Viacom and Leslie Moonves.)

• Ronnie Polaneczky, “The reality of this show is its crudity,” Philadelphia Daily News, 28 July 2004.

• Robert Bianco, “'Amish in the City' wrongs a rite,” USA Today, 27 July 2004.

• Rob Moll, “Amish in the City: Has Reality TV Gone Too Far?“ Christianity Today, 21 January 2004.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040210, “TV Unplugged: Solving the Entertainment Dilemma.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040203, “Only a Matter of Time: Why the Superbowl Incident Isn't Surprising.”

• John Fischer, “Shiver Me Timbers(lake),” BreakPoint Online, 17 February 2004.

• Thomas Hibbs, Shows about Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld (Spence, 1999).

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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Breaking news: A study, published in the journal Pediatrics, shows that the more sexual content teenagers watch on television, the earlier they'll become sexually active.

No surprise. Most of us knew that. After all, we've been complaining for years about sex on TV and its effect on kids. But this time there are a couple of new and important twists to the story.

First, according to its authors, this study carefully controlled for other factors that might have influenced teen sexual activity. Previous studies had shown more sexual activity among teens who viewed more sexual content, but they could not demonstrate, as this does, an actual cause-and-effect relationship.

Second, the researchers discovered, “Exposure to TV that included only talk about sex was associated with the same risks as exposure to TV that depicted sexual behavior.”

This is significant, mainly because of the reason behind it. As the study explains, “TV may create the illusion that sex is more central to daily life than it truly is and may promote sexual initiation as a result, a process known as media cultivation. ... Social learning theory posits that information is gleaned from what others say about a behavior as well as what they do, because both indicate social approval or disapproval of the activity in question.”

It sounds very much like the old adage “everybody's doing it” that all parents know so well. But this goes a little deeper.

It's true that human beings take our cues about what to think and how to behave from the culture around us. The trouble is that our culture now has very few moral restraints. Fewer families and schools are teaching that sex is anything more than a recreational activity to be engaged in “safely” — like riding a motorcycle. And even many churches, I believe, are falling down on the job.

Without clear moral standards and careful guidance, teens are left with only the vaguest idea of what sex is really all about. Enter the media, which care far less about setting a good example than about reaping a profit. They know that “sex sells.”

So if you're fifteen or sixteen years old, and your main source of sexual information tells you that people are constantly either having sex or talking about having sex, why would you see any reason to hold out for something better? How would you even know that there is something better? Even when a TV character gets pregnant or catches a sexually transmitted disease, abstinence until marriage is very rarely presented as an option. The person usually goes right back out and repeats the behavior, only a little more carefully the next time.

The authors of the study do not express much hope that the media will ever clean up their act. I'm not quite as pessimistic as that, because I think the media respond to pressure. It's going to take a lot of time, however, and effort by parents willing to say, “No, you can't watch that.” And when the ratings start dropping, those shows go off the air. But until that day comes, parents and churches need to teach a standard of sexual restraint consistently, clearly, and often. If we don't want our kids thinking that “everybody does it,” we have to teach them. No one else will. And we have to demonstrate through our words and examples that “everybody's doing it” is no longer “cool.”

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Collins, et al., “Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behavior,” Pediatrics 114, No. 3, 3 September 2004. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required.)

• Michael Conlon, “Study Links TV to Teen Sexual Activity,” Reuters, 7 September 2004.

• Brent Bozell, “Sex and the TV-watching teen,” Townhall.com,10 September 2004.

• Cassandra Spratling, “Abstinence: The strength to say no,” Detroit Free Press, 27 August 2004.

• “Crackdown urged on sexual imagery,” Telegraph (London), 7 September 2004.

• Kate O'Hare, “'7th Heaven' Sons Return to Tackle Sex and Parenthood,” Zap2it.com, 20 August 2004.

• Alessandra Stanley, “When Creators of 'Quality Television' Try the Opposite Approach,” New York Times, 3 June 2004. (Archived articles; costs $2.95 to retrieve.)

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040506, “With Friends Like These: A Not-So-Funny Legacy.”

• “Health Appeals Not Appealing,”Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, July 2004. (This study addresses what methods are and are not effective in encouraging abstinence among teens.)

• Robert E. Rector, et al., “Sexually Active Teenagers Are More Likely to Be Depressed and to Attempt Suicide,” Heritage Foundation, 3 June 2003.

• Salynn Boyles, “Many Teens Want to Have Babies,” WebMD, 23 July 2004.

• Anthony Esolen, “Our Peculiar Institution: the New Slavery,” Crisis, 2 September 2004.

• Roberto Rivera, “Imaginary Day: The Slavery of Promiscuity,” BreakPoint Online, 30 September 2004.

• Charles Colson, Answers to Your Kids' Questions (Tyndale, 2000).

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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

There are some communities that tragically seem to miss something in their communing. A support group can be a place where a person can delve deeper into the behavior that isolates them. Websites are reportedly linking strangers together who are, in turn, simultaneously committing suicide. Moreover, the sheer number of online confessionals reveals the need for a community where one can be real about plaguing guilt, failures, and offenses. Members express a need for the fellow humanness of a flawed community, and at the same time a need to remain, in some ways, inhuman — unknown, nameless, faceless.

Brandon's is a name and a story to pause over. The 21-year-old died in the privacy of a chat room full of people who watched by web-cam as he killed himself with drugs and alcohol. Their conversation was disquieting, left behind in a hauntingly silent script. Voices cheered him to pass out on screen. Brandon responded with his phone number. “Call if I look dead,” he said. But even after he passed out, they spoke as if he was something less than real. “He's dead,” said someone. “Happy trails,” said another. “Should I call 911?” “No!” they agreed in unison.

After this tragedy, columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote in shock of Brandon's story and what seemed to be the telltale signs of yet another failed community: the virtual community. The very community, he reminded, we were promised at “the dawn of the Internet Age, the one that would link all humankind in brotherhood, sisterhood, enlightenment.”(1) Such connectedness clearly failed Brandon. Even if his friends had called for help, they didn't know his real name.

Beneath the promises of our successfully linked world, a poignant undertow of despair is noticeably emerging. We are living in a lonely world, in a very needy world, and the need for true community and meaningful connectedness has never been more piercingly heard and severely felt. When the diaries of the famed atheist, Madeline Murray O'Hare were auctioned off several years ago, they found three times punctuated in her journals the words: “Will somebody somewhere please love me? Will somebody somewhere please love me?”

What heart is not stirred at those words? Our longing for meaningful connections is real, and it is a longing that runs deeper than any one area of our lives. We are looking for connections of the heart, soul, and mind.

The same teacher who said the greatest commandment on earth is to love God with all of our strength and our being, once held a child in front of him and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:2-5).

Little children love readily with all of themselves. Perhaps their connections and unity are most genuine because the mind has not yet been deterred by suspicion, disappointment, and pride. Their hearts grasp something about communing we often do not. G.K. Chesterton, who said he learned more by watching children than any philosophy book, once observed that children have in their ownership the obscure idea of loyalty even to a thing. The child who has gone to bed without his toy does not only feel that he is sad without it. He also feels in some transcendental way that the toy is sad without him.

Christ urges us to see that those who will be like children, like men and women aware that the love we seek also seeks us, will find the kingdom of God. The very community we long for is governed by one who longs for us to be there. His pursuit of our hearts, minds, and souls is the reality that brings meaning into every area of life.

The most meaningful connection we can understand is the connection between the living God and his created children. If He is the shepherd willing to leave the flock to go out searching for the one who has strayed, there is nowhere we can flee from his presence; there is never a time we won't belong. The arms of Christ were out-stretched with you in mind. There is no greater love, no greater connection.

________

1. Detroit Free Press, “Another link to connect us doesn't work.” Feb. 12, 2003.

________

Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

First, the good news: American teenagers are more religious than many adults seem to think.

And now the bad news: American teenagers are less religious than many adults seem to think.

Are you confused? Well, it's not quite as confusing as it sounds, that is, if you read the book SOUL SEARCHING: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. The authors did an impressive amount of research, surveying and interviewing teenagers and their parents across the country. And they do a remarkable job of clearing up adult misconceptions about teenage spirituality.

For instance, adults tend to think of teenagers as rebellious. As a matter of fact, according to Smith and Denton, “about three in four religious teens in the United States consider their own religious beliefs somewhat or very similar to their parents'.... U.S. teens lean strongly toward similarity with their parents in religious belief.” A large majority of teens consider religion very important to them and believe that religion is a positive influence in the world.

Well, those are encouraging findings, but the worrisome part comes when the researchers start examining specific details of teens' religious beliefs. They talked to Christian kids who attend church every week but can't explain who Jesus is. Take Heather, whose mother teaches religious doctrine at their Catholic church. The fifteen-year-old told an interviewer: “I don't really get the whole thing about how, well, with the Catholics, how God is Jesus and Jesus is God, I don't understand that.” And Heather's not the exception to the rule.

In fact, the survey results show that many religious teens just don't get the point of religion. They unknowingly subscribe to a philosophy that Smith and Denton call “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Instead of learning the basic tenets of their religion, teens are simply absorbing a belief that if you try to be good all the time, you'll be happy — and being happy is what life's all about. This philosophy, the authors suggest, “is colonizing many historical religious traditions and ... converting believers in the old faiths to its alternative religious vision of divinely underwritten personal happiness and interpersonal niceness.”

But before we start pointing fingers at teens, Smith and Denton tell us, we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves. Teenagers aren't getting this vague, consumer-based version of religion out of nowhere. The authors remind us that adults preach at teenagers about defying authority, spending too much money, watching too much TV, being sexually irresponsible, and more — and yet adults engage in these practices to a far greater extent than teens do. “We often say one thing but do something else,” Smith and Denton remind us — and that includes the religious among us. Teens who compartmentalize their faith, or just don't take time to understand it, are a natural result of adults who do the same things.

SOUL SEARCHING is an invaluable book for understanding the religious lives of teenagers, and learning about how we can reach out to them. But even more important, it's a much-needed reminder that the kids we're so concerned about are in many ways simply reflections of us.

________

Copyright (c) 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

Kareem Elnahal is a young man with brains and guts. He also has a grasp of life’s most important questions -– something his elders seem to lack.

Elnahal graduated in June as the top senior at Mainland Regional High School in Linwood, N.J., an institution ranked among America’s best high schools by Newsweek magazine. He’s headed for Princeton University in the fall. His future looks bright.

In his valedictorian’s address at the commencement ceremony, however, Elnahal didn’t exactly blow kisses to his teachers. Instead, he lambasted the school for offering an educational experience devoid of meaning.

“[T]he education we have received here is not only incomplete, it is entirely hollow,” Elnahal told a stunned audience, according to a report by Cybercast News Service. “Ladies and gentlemen, the spirit of intellectual thought is lost. I know how highly this community values learning, and I urge you all to re-evaluate what it means to be educated....

“Is there a creator? And if so, should we look to [Him] for guidance? These are often dismissed as questions of religion, but religion is not something opposed to rationality. It simply seeks to answer such questions through faith.”

School administrators were not amused, but many of his fellow graduates apparently agreed with Elnahal. They reportedly stood and applauded his words.

“I felt like the most important questions were not asked,” Elnahal later told Cybercast News Service, reflecting on his high school years. “Things like ethics, things that defined who we are, were ignored. So in that way I thought it was hollow.”

Hollow. If there’s a better word to describe the state of public education, I can’t think of it.

But this isn’t another attack on public schools; many teachers do the best they can in the face of a relentless tide of secularism and enforced “diversity.” This is a plea for listening to young people such as Kareem Elnahal.

I don’t know whether Elnahal is a religious believer or an agnostic seeker of truth. But he’s asking the fundamental questions most teens and young adults eventually ask as they search for meaningful ways to live. Classical education, whether public or private, once encouraged them to find the answers in a spirit of enlightened inquiry. Such inquiry is now considered off-limits, at least in the public sphere. Secularists have undermined the whole idea of education as the pursuit of truth; relativists deny objective truth even exists.

Students like Elnahal have the gumption to seek answers to the big questions anyway. More power to them.

Christians, meanwhile, have a different challenge as they approach the education of children and teens. In evangelical schools and churches, truth is readily available in its purest form. Biblical teaching and preaching are abundant.

The disconnect comes in application.

Today’s young people want to believe truth. But they tend to act on what they personally experience -- and what they see acted out in the lives of their parents and other leaders -- not what they “hear about” or read.

“Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers” is a fascinating book published last year by Oxford University Press. It explores the inner lives of more than 3,000 U.S. teens, ages 13-17, who were studied by the National Study of Youth and Religion. More than 250 were interviewed in-depth by coauthor Christian Smith and a research team at the University of North Carolina.

The study confirmed some good news: In contrast to the notoriously rebellious baby boomers, most American teens today believe in God, listen to their parents (even if they pretend not to) and willingly adopt their parents’ religious views. Three out of four religious teens surveyed said they held beliefs that mirrored their parents’ faith. Half attend religious services at least twice a month, although two in three said belonging to a congregation was not essential to being religious or spiritual.

The bad news is the same as the good: Teens adopt beliefs and habits that mirror their parents’. If mom and dad practice a shallow faith with few demands, as many American Christians do, the kids follow suit.

“God functions for most teenagers as a combination cosmic therapist and divine butler,” Smith explained to the Los Angeles Times. “God isn’t part of history or everyday life; He is distant until you need Him to solve a problem or make you feel better.”

Does the word “hollow” come to mind?

Evangelical Protestant young people trail only Mormon teens in being the “most engaged” in practicing their beliefs, according to the national study. But the day-to-day treatment of God as “cosmic therapist and divine butler,” rather than Savior and Lord, accurately describes far too many evangelical youth -– and parents -- regardless of what we claim to believe.

The antidote to watered-down, passive faith? The Apostle James has a no-nonsense prescription: “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, ‘You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works’” (James 2:17-18, NASB).

Don’t just teach the faith to your children; model it. Don’t tell them how to serve others; show them. Don’t just talk about missions and ministry during family devotion times or Sunday School; take your children with you to share Jesus with lost people on your street and in your community. Take a family mission trip across cultural lines, or across the ocean.

That’s the only kind of faith people will follow –- beginning with your own kids.

A few years ago I got a note from Sam Rangel, an eighth-grade teacher in Corona, California. He distributed some of my commentaries on “What I’ve Learned” to his students and asked them to write down what they’d learned over the past year or in their lives.

Here’s the world of growing wisdom from the 13-year-old perspective:

I’ve learned that work comes first; fool around later.

I’ve learned that being popular isn’t everything.

I’ve learned that being pretty on the inside is better than being pretty on the outside.

I’ve learned that not everything in life is fair.

I’ve learned that all people want is someone to listen to them.

I’ve learned that girls seem to fight with their friends a lot, but almost never with their enemies.

I’ve learned that it takes a long time to make a friendship and a fraction of a second to destroy it.

I’ve learned that your imagination is as important as your knowledge.

I’ve learned that to say no to someone is not wrong.

I’ve learned that by following others, you aren’t following yourself.

I’ve learned that the harder it is to do something, the stronger it makes us.

I’ve learned that I am responsible for me.

I’ve learned to give everybody a second chance.

I’ve learned that teenagers will do dumb things.

I’ve learned that if you respect your elders, they will respect you.

I’ve learned that words do hurt people more than sticks and stones.

I’ve learned that when I come to a fork in the road, I should ask for help.

I’ve learned that the easy way is not the best way.

________

Copyright 2007 Josephson Institute of Ethics

Speaking as a physician, I have no doubt that teens need to be thoroughly educated about sex: why and how to avoid it when it’s of no benefit to their physical or emotional well-being (virtually always) and how to maximally protect themselves if they do get sexually involved (all too often).

At a public-health level, there is no such thing as virginity-only teaching — if only because it doesn’t serve close to half of all teens, who are already sexually active. Actually, it’s a wonder it’s not more. We live in an anything-goes society in which SEX AND THE CITY has become a cultural icon, half of 18-year-olds using social network sites like MySpace clutter them with the joy of risky behaviors that include sex and DRUG ABUSE, and grown-ups seem to be more worried about what the kids are divulging than what they are doing.

I happen to share the views of WALL STREET JOURNAL columnist William McGurn when he opines that everything that’s popular on television, in the movies, or on the Internet encourages “children to grow up as quickly as possible while adults remain locked in perpetual adolescence.” I’m convinced, however, that most parents, whatever their own background or personal maturity, still WANT THEIR OWN HIGH -SCHOOLERS TO BE ABSTINENT.

Encouraging abstinence — maintained or regained — should be the goal of all teens. In fact, by the measure of recent sexual behavior, rather than virginity, close to 70 percent of high school students are abstinent. And many teens who are not currently abstinent are succumbing to peer pressure, real or virtual. (A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that a third of sexually active teens were not so sure about it, and roughly a quarter said they were doing “something sexual they didn’t really want to do.”)

High school abstinence is associated with better physical and mental health across socioeconomic groups, no matter how much you torture the statistics. Teens themselves will tell you that they have stayed away from sexual intercourse because of their OWN FEAR OF PREGNANCY (which new data suggest is on the rise, with teen births up in 26 states) and sexually transmitted diseases, not because they’re weird or antisex. And there is plenty of evidence that being able to make an abstinence decision is linked to less depression and suicidal thinking.

Kids who can make ABSTINENCE DECISIONS DO BETTER IN SCHOOL, too, even when the comparison group was matched for social background and the desire to pursue education. Abstinent teens are far more likely to attend and graduate from college than those who are sexually active, based on an analysis of the NIH-supported National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health by Robert Rector and Kirk Johnson, researchers at the Heritage Foundation. Seems obvious: less distraction and more time to study.

But maybe it’s more. The researchers identified eight personality and behavioral traits that were associated with both abstinence and academic achievement — traits that to some extent may be inborn but can also be TAUGHT AND REINFORCED REGULARLY AT HOME and at school:

1. Future orientation, with a focus on long-term goals

2. Willingness to postpone current pleasures for larger future rewards

3. Perseverance, as in the ability to stick to a task or commitment

4. A belief that current behavior can positively affect the future

5. Impulse control, including ability to control emotions and desires

6. Resistance to peer influence

7. Respect for parental and social values

8. Sense of self-worth and personal dignity

The right kind of sex education of our young is really about more than sex. It’s about raising the kind of people we all want to be.

Joani Barlow’s parents divorced when she was in the fifth grade, leaving her “lost and confused. Nobody really explained anything to me. I didn’t know why. I just knew that my family was breaking up,” with her and an older brother adjusting to the strains of joint custody.

Her Grandfather Barlow died several years later. Her dog had to be put down. And she was coping with rigorous exams at school.

“I felt like I needed to pray, which is so random because I wasn’t raised as a Christian,” she recounted. “But I just knew that I wanted to pray. I needed to be comforted by something other than myself. So I started praying.”

Before long, “I began feeling a call to go to church.” A friend named Nathan “had always invited me to go (to Grace Church in Des Moines, Iowa), and I had always refused. When I went up to him and said, ‘I really want to go to church,’ he was super surprised.

“So I started going to the youth group on Wednesday nights” in February 2021, her junior year of high school. “And I loved church, I loved the worship, I thought it was a lot of fun.

“But I didn’t, you know, have a relationship with Christ yet.”

She attended her first Sunday service the following April. “And I liked it. But I was in some bad relationships, and I felt that was really holding me back from a relationship with Christ.”

Needing answers

At a youth campout, Barlow told the church’s youth intern and Nathan that she had “a bunch of questions, and I really need them answered. Is there any time we can sit down to talk? So, we met at 11 p.m. after all the activities were done.”

She asked, among various things, about the Big Bang Theory taught in her science classes and its compatibility with faith.

Before long, she began comparing herself to people she had come to know at church “and how they seemed so amazing. So (the intern and Nathan) asked me, What’s holding you back from having a relationship with God? I told them I was in relationships that I shouldn’t be in, and I didn’t feel like God would love me because of it.

“And they were like, You are so incredibly wrong. God loves you and is calling you exactly how you are. You do not have to change for Him, you do not have to be better for Him. You don’t have to fix those relationships yourself because God loves you and wants to help you and guide you through them.

“That was mind-shattering for me,” she said. “It’s not my own power, it’s God.

“And then they asked me if I wanted to put my faith in Jesus.

“And I said, Absolutely. So between 11:44 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. on June 7, that’s when I put my faith in Jesus.

“I was basically saying, God, I understand that your Son died on the cross for me and you raised Him from the dead. I asked for His forgiveness for everything that had happened before and for the relationships I was in.”

Not a ‘little prayer’

“It wasn’t like a little prayer that somebody prays and then they don’t actually believe it,” she said. “I can’t say that I truly believed it 10 minutes before. But I knew that I genuinely believed it then.” A few minutes later at that night’s campfire, “everybody was super excited for me,” clapping and some welling up with tears of joy.

Her new birth in 2021 left her feeling “relieved, knowing that it was no longer my fight alone, but that God was with me through it.” In the following days and weeks, “I felt so much clarity. I started feeling new convictions. I stopped cussing and got out of the bad relationship I was in with my boyfriend. God showed me what relationships I should be in with friends and how I needed a strong foundation at church.”

Yet there was a problem – “I kept pushing aside forgiveness. I didn’t want to think about it because I knew it would lead to thinking about my dad. And I didn’t want to do that. So for six months probably, I was choosing not to forgive him. And it really weighed down on me.”

The trauma of the divorce several years earlier carried on. “For about a year, it had been just me and my brother comforting my mom. It was really hard and sad.”

But “out of the blue, my mom said, ‘You need to forgive your father. Your relationship with him is not OK. You should not be so angry toward him.’ She was the last person I expected to say this,” having suffered through the divorce and her ex-husband’s remarriage.

Barlow soon began encountering the necessity of forgiveness in sermons and, at a student conference in Des Moines, she heard the story of someone who had been brutally raped at the age of 15. The survivor turned to Christ a few years later and subsequently came to a point in her heart to forgive the rapist. The following day, the man was apprehended, and the survivor asked her husband, who is a pastor, to visit the man in jail, to relay her forgiveness and to tell him about Jesus.

‘Beautiful’ forgiveness

“What an act of forgiveness,” Barlow said. “The man who could have had a hold on her for the rest of her life, she forgave him, and then asked for him to know Jesus. I thought that was so beautiful, and it really helped me understand that I needed to forgive my father.”

It was as if Jesus was saying, “I don’t want to hear about your unforgiveness,” because He forgave those who crucified Him though he was the perfect Son of God. “Oh, my goodness, who am I to not forgive my dad? I was not raped. I was not murdered, though I’m not trying to downplay what I went through.” But it underscored to her the New Testament passage Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.”

“It was super-awkward” when Barlow met her dad and grandmother for lunch, since, at one point, they hadn’t spoken for two years. “Seeing him, I knew that I had forgiven him. I didn’t have this weight and dread on my shoulders. He was just another person who needs the love of Jesus Christ. I don’t deserve it. And he doesn’t deserve it. And nobody else deserves it. But Christ gave it to us anyway.”

And, now, “he knows that I go to church and that I’m passionate about it.” After her new birth, she lost a number of friends “because I was a completely different person than before. They said I was taking Jesus way too seriously.” She said her mother, who holds a Ph.D. in literacy and education, remains apprehensive whether her earnestness will endure, and her brother is puzzled why she goes to church so often.

‘Next step of obedience’

For her baptism, she waited until a Bible camp, wanting it to be “at a beautiful place, something that I would truly remember and be really happy it happened there.” She hadn’t realized, though, that 200 kids would be watching, many of whom might be searching for faith and might be helped by a witness that “I do love the Lord and this is my next step of obedience. I thought it was really cool that God gave me the opportunity to do it there and do it very publicly in front of so many people.”

New birth has stirred Barlow to be vigilant amid the sway of contemporary culture. “Before I was a Christian, I wasn’t convicted about certain things,” such as her love of reality TV dating shows. Now, she tells herself, “I can’t watch this ... because they’re doing a lot of things that are not OK in a Christian relationship or not God-honoring.”

Contemporary Christian music has become a mainstay instead of popular secular music. “I would have listened to them before I was a Christian. It wouldn’t have been a big deal and I would have been singing the lyrics. The songs want you to cuss. They want you to think about sex before marriage. And they’re even talking about murdering.” Such songs, she said, can leave a believer “with ideas that don’t help their faith.”

Her friendships in church have prepared her for her freshman year at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, Barlow said. “They’ve helped pull me up and, through them, I’m able to help pull other people up because I have a good foundation. ... They’ve helped me grow closer to God on a daily basis – their passion for Christ, their knowledge and just showing me that we can have so much joy and so much love, and just have a bunch of fun doing things that glorify God.”

Joani Barlow’s parents divorced when she was in the fifth grade, leaving her “lost and confused. Nobody really explained anything to me. I didn’t know why. I just knew that my family was breaking up,” with her and an older brother adjusting to the strains of joint custody.

Her Grandfather Barlow died several years later. Her dog had to be put down. And she was coping with rigorous exams at school.

“I felt like I needed to pray, which is so random because I wasn’t raised as a Christian,” she recounted. “But I just knew that I wanted to pray. I needed to be comforted by something other than myself. So I started praying.”

Before long, “I began feeling a call to go to church.” A friend named Nathan “had always invited me to go (to Grace Church in Des Moines, Iowa), and I had always refused. When I went up to him and said, ‘I really want to go to church,’ he was super surprised.

“So I started going to the youth group on Wednesday nights” in February 2021, her junior year of high school. “And I loved church, I loved the worship, I thought it was a lot of fun.

“But I didn’t, you know, have a relationship with Christ yet.”

She attended her first Sunday service the following April. “And I liked it. But I was in some bad relationships, and I felt that was really holding me back from a relationship with Christ.”

Needing answers

At a youth campout, Barlow told the church’s youth intern and Nathan that she had “a bunch of questions, and I really need them answered. Is there any time we can sit down to talk? So, we met at 11 p.m. after all the activities were done.”

She asked, among various things, about the Big Bang Theory taught in her science classes and its compatibility with faith.

Before long, she began comparing herself to people she had come to know at church “and how they seemed so amazing. So (the intern and Nathan) asked me, What’s holding you back from having a relationship with God? I told them I was in relationships that I shouldn’t be in, and I didn’t feel like God would love me because of it.

“And they were like, You are so incredibly wrong. God loves you and is calling you exactly how you are. You do not have to change for Him, you do not have to be better for Him. You don’t have to fix those relationships yourself because God loves you and wants to help you and guide you through them.

“That was mind-shattering for me,” she said. “It’s not my own power, it’s God.

“And then they asked me if I wanted to put my faith in Jesus.

“And I said, Absolutely. So between 11:44 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. on June 7, that’s when I put my faith in Jesus.

“I was basically saying, God, I understand that your Son died on the cross for me and you raised Him from the dead. I asked for His forgiveness for everything that had happened before and for the relationships I was in.”

Not a ‘little prayer’

“It wasn’t like a little prayer that somebody prays and then they don’t actually believe it,” she said. “I can’t say that I truly believed it 10 minutes before. But I knew that I genuinely believed it then.” A few minutes later at that night’s campfire, “everybody was super excited for me,” clapping and some welling up with tears of joy.

Her new birth in 2021 left her feeling “relieved, knowing that it was no longer my fight alone, but that God was with me through it.” In the following days and weeks, “I felt so much clarity. I started feeling new convictions. I stopped cussing and got out of the bad relationship I was in with my boyfriend. God showed me what relationships I should be in with friends and how I needed a strong foundation at church.”

Yet there was a problem – “I kept pushing aside forgiveness. I didn’t want to think about it because I knew it would lead to thinking about my dad. And I didn’t want to do that. So for six months probably, I was choosing not to forgive him. And it really weighed down on me.”

The trauma of the divorce several years earlier carried on. “For about a year, it had been just me and my brother comforting my mom. It was really hard and sad.”

But “out of the blue, my mom said, ‘You need to forgive your father. Your relationship with him is not OK. You should not be so angry toward him.’ She was the last person I expected to say this,” having suffered through the divorce and her ex-husband’s remarriage.

Barlow soon began encountering the necessity of forgiveness in sermons and, at a student conference in Des Moines, she heard the story of someone who had been brutally raped at the age of 15. The survivor turned to Christ a few years later and subsequently came to a point in her heart to forgive the rapist. The following day, the man was apprehended, and the survivor asked her husband, who is a pastor, to visit the man in jail, to relay her forgiveness and to tell him about Jesus.

‘Beautiful’ forgiveness

“What an act of forgiveness,” Barlow said. “The man who could have had a hold on her for the rest of her life, she forgave him, and then asked for him to know Jesus. I thought that was so beautiful, and it really helped me understand that I needed to forgive my father.”

It was as if Jesus was saying, “I don’t want to hear about your unforgiveness,” because He forgave those who crucified Him though he was the perfect Son of God. “Oh, my goodness, who am I to not forgive my dad? I was not raped. I was not murdered, though I’m not trying to downplay what I went through.” But it underscored to her the New Testament passage Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.”

“It was super-awkward” when Barlow met her dad and grandmother for lunch, since, at one point, they hadn’t spoken for two years. “Seeing him, I knew that I had forgiven him. I didn’t have this weight and dread on my shoulders. He was just another person who needs the love of Jesus Christ. I don’t deserve it. And he doesn’t deserve it. And nobody else deserves it. But Christ gave it to us anyway.”

And, now, “he knows that I go to church and that I’m passionate about it.” After her new birth, she lost a number of friends “because I was a completely different person than before. They said I was taking Jesus way too seriously.” She said her mother, who holds a Ph.D. in literacy and education, remains apprehensive whether her earnestness will endure, and her brother is puzzled why she goes to church so often.

‘Next step of obedience’

For her baptism, she waited until a Bible camp, wanting it to be “at a beautiful place, something that I would truly remember and be really happy it happened there.” She hadn’t realized, though, that 200 kids would be watching, many of whom might be searching for faith and might be helped by a witness that “I do love the Lord and this is my next step of obedience. I thought it was really cool that God gave me the opportunity to do it there and do it very publicly in front of so many people.”

New birth has stirred Barlow to be vigilant amid the sway of contemporary culture. “Before I was a Christian, I wasn’t convicted about certain things,” such as her love of reality TV dating shows. Now, she tells herself, “I can’t watch this ... because they’re doing a lot of things that are not OK in a Christian relationship or not God-honoring.”

Contemporary Christian music has become a mainstay instead of popular secular music. “I would have listened to them before I was a Christian. It wouldn’t have been a big deal and I would have been singing the lyrics. The songs want you to cuss. They want you to think about sex before marriage. And they’re even talking about murdering.” Such songs, she said, can leave a believer “with ideas that don’t help their faith.”

Her friendships in church have prepared her for her freshman year at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, Barlow said. “They’ve helped pull me up and, through them, I’m able to help pull other people up because I have a good foundation. ... They’ve helped me grow closer to God on a daily basis – their passion for Christ, their knowledge and just showing me that we can have so much joy and so much love, and just have a bunch of fun doing things that glorify God.”