Tuesday 20 January 2004

What kind of opportunity is there for the next generation?

I've had a number of threads running through my mind for a while, which are starting to coalesce into a theme.

100 years ago people were good, law abiding, polite and respectable. Huge generalisation, I know, but as my mother observed, people were like sheep and would do what they were told whether by the guv'nor or the law. It was expected, and apart from criminals or those that were odd, you conformed.

Then came WWII.

My mother was a little girl during the war years - a 'latchkey kid' as they were called. Father was in the army (as a cook - he was a pacifist) and her mother worked in central London. She got a view on life that opened her eyes to many things, and in the 50s became a young communist, and was (I suspect) quite wild in her beliefs, politics and expectations. She had grown up in a brethren congregation, and was far too much her own person to just shut up and put up. And although she is very circumspect about her church background, I know she rocked the boat at times there too.

Fast forward 20 years.

I had a loving family life, growing up in London with far more freedom than children would or could be allowed today. At 16 I became a committed Christian and embarked on a life of 'radical Christianity at any price'. Since we were part of a Baptist church at the time (very respectable, no obvious space for God) I had a perfect opportunity and target to rebel against. Sure I caused some headaches (I do regret some of it now, especially the 'black and white' harshness) but it was a great training ground. OK, lets rebel by trying to know God better and be like him!

And so we now wind forward another 20 years.

I am now a little 'respectable' (only a very little though ;-) and part of a somewhat turbulent but established church. My son had his 16th Birthday on Saturday last week, and my daughter is 14.5. My mother saw a corrupt society full of inequality and rebelled, wanting righteousness to prevail. I saw a corrupted structure that seemed like an empty powerless shell, and rebelled, wanting to know God at work in my life. My children are now in the place that we wanted to be, where we're trying to work out radical Christianity. The UK is a 'nanny state' where true poverty is rare and people are protected in myriad ways. My problem is; in what manner can they rebel positively? I can see lots of opportunities for negative rebellion, but I want to stir them to go further than me, to be more radical, to change and lead and pursue God.

How can I make them break out of their comfort zones and become disruptive and difficult individuals, determined to get closer to Him?

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