[This op-ed was originally published at The Christian Post.]
I was that kid. You know the one. The one who studied her Bible until it fell apart. The one who got up at the crack of dawn to do devotions and get to school an hour early to walk around her campus and pray for revival. The one who genuinely loved Jesus with all her heart and couldn't wait to tell everyone about him—even passing out gospel tracts to the drug dealers, goths, and drag queens on Hollywood Boulevard. The one who was "on fire for God."
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[This week I had the honor of writing a guest post for one of my favorite blogs, christianmomthoughts.com by Natasha Crain. Be sure and subscribe to her blog for great parenting advice on how to teach apologetics to your kids!] As a worship leader and as a parent, I have a deep desire to help equip my kids to approach God with genuine worship that is insulated from the secular influence of the culture they are growing up in. This is no easy task. To secularize something means to remove anything from it that has to do with God or religion. It’s no secret that our society is becoming more and more secularized by the day. American secularism, in particular, is very “me” focused. Everywhere our kids turn, they are met with messages like, “Follow your heart!” and “Believe in yourself!” and “You can be anything you want to be!” With God removed from the picture, these messages can be very enticing. Such messages are focused on self-examination and self-affirmation, resulting in an experienced-based understanding of reality. Good doesn’t get defined by what God says is good, it becomes defined by what feels good. In other words, if it feels good to me, it is good. The attitudes and influences of secularism can even creep into our kids’ worship, so as parents, we need to be vigilant in helping them understand that our worship should be God-centered, not “me”-centered. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a very emotive worshiper. Connecting our emotions with God’s truth is a beautiful thing, and I want my kids to experience all the benefits of worshiping God. However, it’s vital that we first define worship correctly: Christian worship seeks to glorify God, while secularized worship seeks to glorify our experience of worshiping God. Read more at christianmomthoughts.com |
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