The Insurgents

I am giving a talk to a bunch of youth about peer pressure in a month or two, and that is something I have a problem with. Not youth. Peer Pressure. Man do I think it is overrated. Yes it is there, yes it is a concern, but I think that it is a symptom, and you can't just treat the symptom. The fish rots from the head so they say. According to George Barna, parents list peer pressure as the biggest challenge facing their kids today, while 'challenges to their faith' and 'value development' was at the bottom of the list.

Isn't that backwards? If values were developed, and students trained to overcome challenges to their faith, wouldn't peer pressure be less of an issue? Studies show that like minded kids hang out together. So, if your kid is hanging with a bad crowd, you may have a bad kid, not a good kid being unduly influenced.

But there is pressure. I do not want to belittle that. The world is out to sell you something, and it has a slick presentation, and it wants to get you early.

We are the Insurgents. We have the truth, that there is something better, something they don't want you to know about or experience. And they will do everything they can to shut you up. Satan doesn't play around. It isn't a game. He doesn't just want to make your kid wind up in detention, he wants them beaten and bloody, dying and alone. And he seduces our minds.

He tells the young women that they are valuable only for their bodies, but they must meet impossible standards. He tells young men that they must be powerful, and that power comes from intelligence, money or force. He tells them that sex is free, greed and consumerism is good, and that having every whim or desire met is a noble goal. There is a war going on for our minds. But there is hope. We are the insurgents. We will not be conformed to this world, and have been transformed by the renewing of our minds.