After I posted an article on prayer last week, four young adults responded with comments that showed an unusual degree of honesty. If you have not read their responses, I strongly urge you to do so. Those responses, and conversations with other young people with whom I have spoken in recent days, have confirmed my suspicions that (a) members of this generation want to relate to God, and (b) they know that prayer must play a key role in this relationship, but (c) effective prayer is difficult and elusive. When Christians are asked, “Is prayer essential?” the answer is a resounding, “Yes.” But when it comes to the practice of prayer – how to actually do it – the evangelical community seems befuddled and bewildered. It is not an exaggeration to say that Christian prayer is in a state of crisis.
You are currently browsing jls’s articles.
Tags: Prayer
Yes, you guessed it. I’m talking about prayer.
Every Christian I know says that prayer is essential. They pray every day. At least they claim that they do. Or they admit that they should. Prayer is, after all, our lifeline to God. But how often are these people actually doing it? And when they do, what are they experiencing? Are they worrying, daydreaming, or fantasizing? Rattling off long lists of requests? Arguing with God? Enjoying an ecstatic, out-of-body experience? Groveling on an ash heap, filled with a sense of personal failure and shame?
When people pray, are they actually thinking about God? About themselves? People they love, people they hate, people they have never met? Are they orbiting the globe, praying for the nations? Are they praying in a very generic way, saying “God bless everyone and everything, Amen”?
Tags: Prayer
Dating on campus is officially dead.
But dating served a real purpose. Criticize it all you want, but in its heyday, it was the socially accepted pathway to American marriage. Dating allowed young men and women to explore the possibility of a life together without diving headlong into a unbridled sexual passion. The rules of dating were understood. Yes, the rules were sometimes broken. But they were strategically placed like guardrails along a highway which keep inexperienced drivers from careening off the road into a ditch.
In the last article, we mentioned a report about attitudes and behaviors of American college women regarding their relationships with men. The practice of hooking up — a sexual encounter with no expectation of commitment — has become widespread.
Not everyone is hooking up. In fact, most college women are not. But the practice and acceptance of hooking up (whatever that means, and the vagueness is often deliberate) has profoundly impacted the social climate.
The book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, written by Joshua Harris in 1997, has been a source of lively debate among Christians in America. Harris makes a case that young people should exercise great caution in dating, and consider giving it up altogether, until they are ready to seriously consider marriage.
Whatever position you might take on this, the debate might just be moot.
Recent Comments