Did you miss Jennie Conyers' sermon at the WMU Kick-Off on Wednesday, August 24? Her reflections on the importance of prayer for our schools, students, teachers, staff, administration, and families are important, meaningful words for our community. Please take the time to read her message and allow it to impact your prayer life.
By All Means Pray
By: Jennie Conyers
Pray for our schools. Pray for the students, the teachers, the support staff, the administration, the parents and guardians. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the problems facing our schools but I speak from firsthand experience as a volunteer and a parent. I have witnessed and experienced a lot of the issues found at our schools.
Schools are simply a reflection of our society. There was a time when cultural tendencies were much more closely aligned with Christian values – Today not so much.
I recall a youth program at a church where a young girl is dancing across the stage. Then a figure in white appears. It’s Jesus! Jesus is in step with the girl. Then other figures begin to appear. Boy with a rose. Someone with a bottle. Someone with a needle. I begin to get it. These are temptations our kids face: Sex, Alcohol, Drugs. I watch and realize there are many more temptations ( I called them demons) facing the youth of today than I ever had to deal with growing up. I cried.
One temptation that I was familiar with was the mirror. Over the years there has been a severe shift from virtue to vanity. 1st Samuel 16:7 says “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him, The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” My mom always told me “Pretty is as pretty does”. If you do pretty you are pretty – simple. There is EXTREME pressure to fit into today’s NARROW definition of beauty. Only 2 percent of girls describe themselves as beautiful. By the age of 13, 53 percent of American girls are unhappy with their bodies. By age 17, 78 percent are dissatisfied with themselves. 58 percent describe themselves in negative terms with words that include disgusting and ugly. Nearly 4 out of 10 girls engage in unhealthy eating habits, such as anorexia or bulimia. 20 percent of college girls binge and purge on a regular basis.
This is having an impact on our youngest children. We have kindergartners coming home saying, “I’m not pretty.” A girl on the playground told me so. By 1st grade it's “I’m fat.” Elementary grade school girls want hair highlights, fake nails, and want to know when they can go to the tanning bed. My experience is with girls since I have daughters. But the same pressures hold true for the guys. If it’s not all about looks for them, It’s about Brand Status and having Shoe Game.
Our kids are all jockeying for a position in whatever group they happen to be a part of:
The Popular Kids
Jocks
Geeks
Nerds
Emo
Goth
Wanna B’s
Creeps
Gamers
Red Necks
Teacher Pets
The Stoners
The Pressure to fit in is also pressure to be unaccepting of others.
By All Means Pray.
Just to make this more complicated throw in technology and social media:
Snap Chat
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Google Hangout
Pinterest
Facebook (which is for old people by the way)
Now we have kids who feel the pressure of being “LIKED” in a virtual world that is a TRUE REALITY for them. I recognize there is a lot of good to come from the internet and I find it comforting to know that God knew about it before he even created the world! I find this tech stuff completely overwhelming. The sad fact is that kids have committed suicide for not getting enough “LIKES”. They have been shunned and bullied in this tech world. I admit kids were picked on and made fun of when I was in school. Mean is not new. Now every child is fair game. And speaking of suicide – today was SCHS Suicide Prevention Training Day. This is mandated training for students on awareness and prevention of suicide. I cannot imagine this training when I was in school! I know and understand the value of this today. When you hear a Dr. tell you your child is not suicidal but thinks about suicide a lot, it drives home the need for awareness.
By All Means Pray.
Mental Illness, Depression, Anxiety, I can’t help but feel that part of the problem stems from a culture that is pressure on our children to hurry up and grow up. What parent hasn’t heard:
I’m the only on in my class who doesn’t have ______________ ( fill in the blank.)
I’m the only one in my class who doesn’t get to ____________( fill in the blank.)
Our children are exposed to the world in advertising, TV shows, movies, music, internet. No wonder we have kids self-harming. Hurting themselves because they lack coping skills. I have personal experience in this area also. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for Youth Ministers like Tim Schindler, friends like Logan Fendley and prayer warriors like Ms. Edna Taylor!
By All Means Pray.
I must say that on top of coping skills there is a lack of judgement. I contribute this to the fact that their frontal lobe is still mushy. In any case, when our children use poor judgement while on the Internet – there are in some cases where these mistakes will impact them negatively – for the rest of their lives!
By All Means Pray.
Our Children are having children. This is not news. I would be amiss if I didn’t include the fact that in our promiscuous culture we live in 1 in 4 teen girls have a sexually transmitted disease. 40 percent of sexually active girls have a STD. If our girls have them so do our boys.
By All Means Pray.
Just recently there were reports on the local news that KY children have the highest percentage of jailed parents in the US. 135,000 of the state’s children have had a parent incarcerated. That’s 13 percent nearly double the national average of 7 percent. There was also a report for the need of foster parents and the rise in grandparents raising grandparents due to the drug epidemic we face.
By All Means Pray.
We are all familiar with the hunger problem our community faces. We are partners with Garth School in the Backpack Ministry. We support Feed the Hungry and have our own Ministry of Light. Just one more issue our schools face.
By All Means Pray.
A lot of the stats I used came from Vicki Courtney’s study, 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughters. I would like to share a passage from that study.
I am always amazed by the extreme focus many parents place on academics or extracurricular activities. Mom and Dad will take time off work to shuttle their daughters all over town (and out of town) for school or club sports, but when it comes to setting their alarms for church forget it. Parents are exhausted by pouring their energy into things that won’t matter for eternity and are left with little time to disciple their kids.
It’s no surprise that most of our Christian kids are behaving just like the rest of the world. Most of us are claiming Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it,” but the truth is, little training goes on.
OUCH! Vicki’s words not mine.
By All Means Pray.
These issues are real. They are real for students, they are real for families, they are real for teachers. Teachers are expected to make lesson plans, teach, do personal development and much more with limited resources and funding. They are also tasked to deal with the problems of their students. I cannot express my appreciation and admiration for our teachers enough. I believe they are amazing people. It truly takes a village.
By All Means Pray.
Many changes and decisions face the leadership of our schools. We have a new Superintendent, many new Principals and upcoming elections for the Board of Education.
By All Means Pray
We have Hope in the Author of Salvation and all things good. Through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, Jesus, God provided us a means for rejecting evil and choosing God. As Vicki Courtney put it – “We cannot make our children walk in God’s way, we can help them build a foundation based on God’s Truths.” Protecting and nurturing our children is a team effort. Our children are against tremendous pressure of the world. Please pray that our children will seek God whole heartedly and will find lasting security in the One True God.
By All Means Pray.
FYI just in case you were wondering – Jesus never left that girl on stage even when she tried to push Him away or ignore Him. No matter what temptation she faced – He was there. He keeps His Promises. He will NEVER leave or forsake us.
By All Means Pray.