As I mentioned in All Blogs yesterday, this weekend we will be teaching (via my favorite media, discussion) the question “how should a man treat a woman?” in my Sunday School class. I believe we shouldn’t teach students rules… But virtues. “How should a Christian adolescent treat adolescent females?”
Yesterday I bombed my two co-teachers with thoughts. I was expecting them to help me continue the dialogue and come up with good thoughts about how to best talk about this vital subject.
Instead what I got was ignorance. Both fired back, “The first thing we need to do is separate the middle schoolers out of this… They aren’t ready to talk about this.”
That sound was the crashing of two worlds. We have the world where my students live. A place where sex is degraded, girls are to be treated like objects instead of respected, all under the so-called rights of freedom. On the other hand, we have teachers (parents) who have no idea what their kids lives are like on a day-to-day basis.
The biggest critic of this series has a daughter who has been devastated by a boy in our youth group. He probably hasn’t really talked to his daughter about relationship since she was in middle school. It’s sad that she will talk openly with me but has no outlet to talk to dad. My prayer is that these communication lines will be repaired and that this parent will face reality. I love both of them dearly and know they love each other. But they live in different worlds with different expectations.
These are the joys of being a pastor. I’m stuck between old-world ideals and real world reality.
Leave a Reply