Ok, judge me. Call me super-spiritual, or legalistic, or out of touch with today’s cultural norms, or overly sensitive, or whatever… but my heart feels… saddened.
Strange. Maybe it’s because I am getting older, or perhaps because as a Dad I just see things differently now, but my actual reactions were diametrically opposed from what I thought they would be…
Standing in a surging sea of teenagers, moments after Transformers 2 credits rolled, I feel an overwhelming realization of the cultural war I am up against.
How do I combat this kind of cultural message to our students? How can my one voice even make a difference?
Inundated with a billion dollar culture of music, values, and media that I can’t even begin to touch. In one night hundreds of thousands of young lives across the nation were exposed to Hollywood’s message.
I just feel … Grieved. I don’t know how else to explain it. As my boys cheered from the entrance of the scantily clad heroine… How do I make a difference? What do I do compared with this? Something has become dislodged in my spirit…
How do we prevail against this? How do we be in the world, but not like it? How do we set a higher standard when we are sucked into the world’s lowering standards?
Can we impact it more than IT impacts us? Maybe these are just the mad musings of a spiritual leader no longer on the cultural cusp of trendiness.
Standing in the cacophony hugging, macking, and high fiving teens, sharing their favorite moments of the movie, I just felt out of place. How do we allow God to breakthrough to deeper transforming things, and go beyond a superficial, gone in a moment reactions of a cultural influence like this?
Where does God fit in all of this? How do I fit in to all of this? How can I even begin to stem this tide, much less overcome it with good? Am I pedaling positive feelings or authentic life change?
I feel as if the cultural war is being waged in epic proportions all around me and all I brought is a penknife; that the culture influences by the dump truck full and all I have is a small snow shovel.
Am I overreacting? What would Jesus do? Oh I wish I knew. Curse the darkness or light a candle? How do we instill convictions??? How do I connect people to spiritual transformation; life change with Jesus, and not just give them kudos for using “fudge” instead of the actual F word.
What does it mean to be more like Jesus? How do we engage the darkness without embracing and becoming like it? How are we as Christians called to stand out and be different? Will He recognize us when He comes? Will our cause clear?
I don’t want to overreact, but I just witnessed a cultural phenomenon that I somehow cannot shake. How do I equip young Christian leaders to lead, instead of linger; to influence, and not just be influenced?
