I listen to a lot of theological, social, and political commentary on my iPod. One theme I keep hearing, especially among Christian commentators, is that today’s kids aren’t expected to “grow up” the same way they used to be. There are two trends I’ve seen in our culture, or at least highlighted by commentators, but I’ve never seen the two trends discussed together as related topics.

The first tend I keep hearing about is for men to continue being boys even into physical and chronological adulthood. You can blame it on a lack of fathers. You can blame it on video games. You can blame it on poor discipline. Blame it on whatever you want, but we’re being told that more and more twenty-something males are taking on less and less responsibility. We’re told they all stay indoors and play their PlayStation 3’s, watch Family Guy DVDs, and get pizza delivery to their homes (read: mom’s basement) all day.

I don’t know if this is true nationwide or not. I do see a lot of twenty-something’s in my area who are just slackers, but that may just be human nature. When many of my peers, especially those from high school, find out that I’ll be 25 next month, have been married for almost four years, have two kids, and am a bi- (or soon, tri-) vocational pastor, I get the same blank stare I see in the catatonic psychiatric patients in the IMHU at the local hospital. And I’m not an overachiever. Any of you who read this blog and know me personally know that I have a bad tendency to be a slacker.

The second tend I hear about, is for girls to be hyper-sexualized into incredibly young “women.” Now that 8-year olds are buying (they have more money than me?!) makeup, and shopping for bras and thongs at Victoria’s Secret, we have an entire generation of single-digit “women”. Barbie is one thing, but the culture and message presented by the newer doll toys for these kids is amazing. Take a look at the Bratz line, and then tell me Princess Barbie isn’t a wholesome toy for our post-post-post-postmodern (which iteration are we now?) culture. There are one or two little girls in my church who fit into this category. It breaks my heart. They are boy crazy even before puberty, using appearance and flirtation to get attention.

So, combine the two trends together, and what do you get? Start with thirty-year-old women who have been “adult” for twenty years and have the spiritual, emotional, and even physical scars from decades of trying to get male attention. Then add thirty-year-old men who are just waking up from their pre-teen years, who have been emotionally disconnected and disinterested in any meaningful pursuits, except that of spiritual, emotional, and physical pleasure. Mix in a theoretical fifteen-year social development gap, and bake for a year and a half. Recipe yields one nuclear-level relationship meltdown, two people who have significantly different priorities and values fail to integrate into one cohesive unit.

Clearly, there is considerable room for debate in these issues, and some may not even agree with the statement that women are “growing up too quick” and men are “growing up too slow”. However, I think there may be some truth to those statements, and the implications are interesting, and scary.

When I was in Bible College, multiple guys failed out because they were busy playing Halo to go to class, sleep, or eat. Some of those same guys got married to very career- and ministry-oriented women. As with any marriage, as two become one, stress and tension ensued. I don’t know if any of these folks have divorced, but statistics show that the church doesn’t do any better than the world in the realm of marital success, so I am sure the juvenile habits have caused issues in some of those marriages.

Maybe I’m wrong, but if these social trends are true, in a general sense, is it any wonder so many relationships, and marriages in particular, end in failure?

Will the church stand up to redeem and reform the roles of boys and girls, men and women, in culture? (And I’m not even talking about gender roles as it applies to offices in the church, headship, and all the rest, though that may well be the next related topic one would address).

And if all history moves in pendulum swings, from one extreme to another, will my son Elijah, and my daughter Moriah, be part of a more socially conservative generation that will over-stress gender roles to the point of oppression, and become puritanical in regards to entertainment?

I hope not. Redemption is great, but over-reaction may be worse than what we have now.

I’ve registered for the Pastor’s Conference to be held on Tuesday, April 22nd at Davis College. Are any of you planning to attend? I’d love to meet up with old friends, or make some new ones.

I’m especially interested in seeing and interacting with the college’s new president, Dr. Dino Pedrone, who was scheduled as the “guest speaker” before his presidency was announced.

While we were at the tobyMac concert, I was involved in two conversations I thought were amusing.

In the first conversation, I found out that I’m a celebrity. I had shaved my head a day or two before, and was wearing a ball cap. My goatee is two or three inches long, and apparently, some event staff people thought I was Bart Millard of MercyMe. I had to explain to them, in all seriousness, that I am not the guy who sings “I Can Only Imagine.” They told me they could have gotten me backstage if I wanted to. Nice, eh? Maybe I should have said I wanted to go backstage anyway…

In the second conversation, I was invited to apply to be a student at Davis College, again. I was with two of my high school students, looking at the merchandise tables. One of the tables had literature from Davis, so I picked up a view book, and started looking for pictures of people I know. I saw Will Hall, Naaman Pallo, and a few others from my Davis days. The guy standing at the table asked, “Are you interested in going to Bible College?” “Absolutely not.” I replied. “Oh…Never mind.” I jokingly told him that I graduated from the school twice already, and didn’t think I wanted to do it again. He continued the conversation, asking if I enjoyed the school. I told him that I enjoyed it some days, and loathed it others; that I loved and hated my time there, and that I think that’s okay. He just stared at me, like I had eight heads.

Oh well. I thought they were amusing, anyway.

Following Calvin and Mandy, I too took the Book Quiz. My response: Huh?

You’re Brave New World!

by Aldous Huxley
With an uncanny ability for predicting the future, you are a true psychic. You can see how the world will change and illuminate the fears of future generations. In the world to come, you see the influence of the media, genetic science, drugs, and class warfare. And while all this might make you happy, you claim the right to be unhappy. While pregnancy might seem painful, test tube babies scare you most. You are obsessed with the word “pneumatic”.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Last weekend, I and the other youth leaders at North Country Fellowship, had the pleasure of taking a group of teens to Elmira, NY in order to check out the Boomin’ Beyond Measure tour, with tobyMac, Jeremy Camp, and Matthew West. Due to a severe winter storm that hit most of New York, it took us five-and-a-half hours to get to First Arena (it usually would take three), and after the concert, it took us another forty-five minutes to get to the homes we planned to stay at overnight. The church we intended to worship with had canceled their services for the next day, so I led an impromptu service in the living room of the house we had gathered at, and after a big lunch, we headed back to Carthage, with clear skies and dry roads almost the whole way.

I have to admit, tobyMac isn’t my kind of music. I’ve never before enjoyed his artistic style (though I don’t dislike hip-hop), or his attitude in his performances. I didn’t like dcTalk much either, so I guess it’s a carryover from that. Regardless, the live show was pretty good; especially the last song (no, not just because it was over), the old dcTalk hit “Jesus Freak”. Having listened to dcTalk when that album was new (and before I was a Christian), that was a lot of fun. Jeremy Camp’s set was my favorite of the three artists, and this is despite the fact that he was ill with some sort of respiratory infection, and coughed up a lung in between each song. Matthew West was decent as well. He served as a nice mellow introduction to the two headliners.

The best part of the concert, for me, was watching the youth from my church eat it all up. For many of them, it was their first concert, and I believe that most of them consider tobyMac their favorite artist. It was a great night for them, and one I doubt they will quickly forget.

I think it was a great time of community building and friendship. I took Calvin’s advice, and outlawed all digital gadgets during the trip, so the teens wouldn’t be texting their friends and spaced-out in their own little musical world. Good advice; it worked like a charm.