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The Emergence of Marketing Strategies
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
This might be one of the biggest reasons our culture has perpetuated the myth of adolescence…because they are easy to sell to. And so the sixth ingredient in the rise of adolescence was the emergence of age-targeted marketing strategies. Whether it is because companies figured out that peer pressure marketing works or because most teenagers aren’t paying the electric bill, and therefore their income is disposable, adolescence is big business.
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The Evolving Popularity of Psychology (Part 2)
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The most obvious and direct way that psychology has helped to establish the idea of adolescence is by it’s blatant claim to objective conclusions regarding teenagers. Scientifically “proven” claims about adolescence are sold to us by the truckload. Professional psychologists deliver their findings as facts. Anyone who challenges these “facts” without a PhD in the field is passed off as a simpleton.
Psychology has hijacked our thoughts about the possibility of a mature teenager.
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The Evolving Popularity of Psychology (Part 1)
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The fifth ingredient in the dominant belief in adolescence is the evolution of popular psychology. Of course, psychology is simply “the study of mental life.” It is a field concerned with mental processes and behavior looking at the emotional and behavioral characteristics of an individual or group. It introduces itself as science, attempting to observe, identify, describe, investigate, and make categorical conclusions on human phenomena.
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The Establishment of a Juvenile Justice System
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The fourth ingredient to the growth of adolescence is the creation of the juvenile justice system. This was developed to segregate younger lawbreakers from older ones and produced a different system of record keeping, a different standard for the punishment and probation for “juveniles.” Just as teenagers were no longer expected to be responsible to support themselves, they were no longer held responsible for their criminal acts, despite the fact that for thousands of years prior the legal system treated teenagers as adults.
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The Expression of Parental Wishfulness
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The third ingredient in the rise of adolescence is the expression of parental wishfulness. Teenagers are not the only ones who pursue an extension of their immaturity, since they could not pursue it without permission. Many parents themselves are heavily to blame for the current state of adolescent immaturity in our culture whether they intended to promote it or not. Consider the following.
Most parents hope that their kids will have it easier than they did.
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The Endorsement of Compulsory Education
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
Following on the heels of the new child labor laws is this second ingredient, the endorsement of compulsory education. While state sponsored schools cannot take credit for originating education, they did develop a system to organize it for the masses. After all, now that most teens didn’t have a job they needed something constructive to do. Why not educate them?
While in many ways this was and is an admirable goal, there are a few problems built into the design.
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The Enactment of Child Labor Laws
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
The first ingredient to mention in the growth of adolescence was the enacting (or passing) of child labor laws. Obviously, these were laws that made it illegal to employ persons below certain ages. Additional laws limited the hours or pay for young people. Though there were advantages of this legislation, it ultimately served to lengthen the period of childhood since early teenagers, for example, could no longer work full time.
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The Growth of Adolescence
Series | Lies Every Teen Believes
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Reformation and the Reformers in preparation for the 05SR. Of course, one of the Reformation’s biggest characters (in every sense of the word) was Martin Luther. Here is a quote of his that I think is appropriate as we continue our series on adolescence. Luther said:
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.
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A Community of Diversity
Series | Church
It has been a while since my last blog on the distinctive traits of New Testament churches, and to get us back into that discussion I’d like to point out something that up till now has only been hinted at in previous entries. What I want us to dwell on today is that NT churches presumed and promoted reciprocal diversity.
Now don’t get intimidated by the words here.
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Always the Bridesmaid, Never the Bride
My props go again to Mijah (Micah James) for today’s blog.
Wednesday night he shared with me the new solo project by Derek Webb, “She Must and Shall Go Free,” an entire cd dedicated to the Bride of Christ, the Church/church. On this album Webb does some hard-hitting, right-between-the-eyes talking to the church. Some of the songs made me downright uncomfortable, and I think that’s the point. You can check out the whole thing for yourself.
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Church - The Teen Edition?
Series | Church
Thanks to Micah Lugg for today’s weblog title. As we were on our way to Starbucks this morning he was describing some of his reaction to my earlier blogs on segregation, specifically the self-defeating segregation of students, and he commented in jest that “it’s like, church: the teen edition.”
By the way, for all three of you blog readers out there, you might also want to check out M.
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An Example of Self-Defeating Segregation
Series | Church
If you haven’t read the weblog from 05/07 you should do that before reading today’s entry. The bottom line of that entry was to question the prevailing pattern of dividing up (or away) certain groups in (or from) the church. Let me consider just one example that is close to my heart–student ministries.
There are a few (I believe illegitimate) reasons some people–both the students and the older generation–in the church have argued for separating the youth into their own group.
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Leaders of the Flock - What (else)?
Series | Church
It is always beneficial for us when our vision is in line with God’s vision. By using the word vision I am not referring to some supernatural dream from God, but rather to the target and scope of our work. And God’s revealed target for His shepherds is an open letter challenge to any and every specialized ministry.
The vision of a New Testament leader should include the entirety of, and diversity in, the Body.
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Leaders of the Flock - What?
Series | Church
Yesterday we took a brief look at some of the implications of who New Testament shepherds are and where they do their work. Today I’d like to quickly consider one distinctive of what biblical leaders do.
Shepherds in the church have a distinct kind of work–it is spiritual, eternal work. Leading the church is not the same as managing a business, coaching a team, building a network of friendships, or securing good public relations with the community.
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Leaders of the Flock - Who? and Where?
Series | Church
We are back again to consider the distinctive traits of New Testament churches, and today I’d like to consider the fact that local churches always had leaders who were spiritually gifted and qualified, who were identified with individual local churches, and whose charge included the entire flock.
In the New Testament leaders are identified as elders (also addressed as pastors, overseers, and shepherds) as well as deacons in local churches.
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The Chosen Chanel
Series | Church
If you’ve been in “Big Church” on Sunday mornings during the last couple of months you know that Pastor Z is in a series about the church. Hopefully God’s Spirit is illuminating the truth of the Word to your mind and helping the fact sink into your heart that the church is God’s chosen channel in this period of redemptive history.
Since the church takes precedence in God’s plan, and since “repetition is the mother of learning,” I thought I would take a series of weblogs and recap some of the distinguishing traits of New Testament churches.
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Eagerness vs. Necessity
As a preacher it is a regular occurrence for me to hear criticism. Actually, I am amazed that I don’t get more disapproving comments from my teaching, and am quite thankful to God that He has permitted so much positive fruit. But still there are occurrences of strong disagreement or subtle challenges to the content or approach of any given message.
Perhaps one of the most common “suggestions” that a preacher gets is to “focus on what we agree on” and stop focusing on disagreements.
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The Battle over Surface Earth
Yesterday was a monumental day in my life. Although there was no parade and no fireworks, it was an absolutely great day.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I mowed my own yard with my own, brand-new mower! I’ve mowed a lot of times before, but both of the above details made this occasion truly historic.
First, I have never “owned” a yard. I’ve mowed my dad’s yard many times. I’ve mowed neighbors’ lawns; I’ve mowed strangers’ lawns.
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Scoffer Sensitive Services
Off and on for the last twelve years or so I have been reading the “proverb of the day.” When I was in high school my youth pastor pointed out to me that there are 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs which easily associate with the 31 days in most months (on the other months that are shorter than 31 days you just have to read a bunch of chapters on the last day!
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The Ugliness of Unthankfulness
I thought that I might be able to skip over this thought in my head, but providence apparently had another idea. The thought came up yesterday while Mo and Maggie and I were out driving around, doing a little shopping for our remodeling efforts at the house. And we were, of course, all packed into the little cab of our truck so that we would have room in the bed of the truck for all of our large purchases.
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It's About Time
Well, my first post was more than a few days ago, and I really do have a lot of things that are going through my mind that I want to write about. It just seems like there are other things which always take priority…like preparing and preaching sermons, preparing for and teaching Bible class, preparing for and teaching Greek II, etc., etc. But rest assured that the wheels are turning and soon there must needs be things written!
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Welcome to the Blog
Well, it seems like everyone who is anyone on the internet has their own weblog, so I thought it might be fun to include some of my own rantings and ravings every once in a while. I guess we’ll have to see how it goes, but for now, enjoy them while they last!