Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath
I'm finding myself overwhelmed by the human devestation brought by Hurricane Katrina and am experiencing feelings akin to those experienced after 9/11/01. And I want to help but know that the most I can do is pray (which I have and which I hope God is hearing) and contribute to some disaster relief (which I haven't yet but intend to). I just can't imagine the horrors those people in Louisiana and Mississippi are going through.
But in saying all that there is something about all this that disturbs me. This is something that disturbs me when ever tragedy strikes Americans anywhere. We seem to live in a culture where it is not "OK" to have bad things happen (sometimes for no explicit reason) or where it is not "OK" to endure any kind of suffering. There always has to be someone to blame - someone who's fault it is for the suffering and the pain. A quick perusal of the cable TV channels last night and a brief period of watching C-Span this morning showed me this perspective is alive and well in the midst of this tragedy. It's the mayor's fault; It's FEMA's fault; It's the weather forcasters fault; It's the Republicans (or insert Democrat's fault) - somebody has to be blamed because we should be able to prevent horror and suffering in this country -- afterall, this is America. But the truth is that horror and suffering are a part of living on this planet, a part of living in the bent world we live in. But because those of us who live in the affluent western world are fortunate to escape much of the suffering and horror of the rest of the world we think something is wrong, someone is to blame when we do find ourselves experiencing it.
Now you may be asking - "What does this rant have to do with Children's Ministry." Well, I think this idea that experiencing suffering, sadness, difficutly is bad gets taught to our children in churches when we equate following Jesus and living in the kingdom of God with life in a giant Disneyland -- when all we tell children is that following Jesus is fun and that's why you should do it. "Your life will better if you follow Jesus (often interpreted as we'll have the American Dream life if we follow Jesus)" is what we tell children. But, you know what, sometimes life isn't better when we follow Jesus - sometimes following Jesus is (as a woman told me once from her hospital bed) "damn hard." I don't think God became human and then died a humilating, painful death simply so we could have fun and never have anything bad happen to us. But I think sometimes our actions and how we teach our children reflect that very bad theology.
But in saying all that there is something about all this that disturbs me. This is something that disturbs me when ever tragedy strikes Americans anywhere. We seem to live in a culture where it is not "OK" to have bad things happen (sometimes for no explicit reason) or where it is not "OK" to endure any kind of suffering. There always has to be someone to blame - someone who's fault it is for the suffering and the pain. A quick perusal of the cable TV channels last night and a brief period of watching C-Span this morning showed me this perspective is alive and well in the midst of this tragedy. It's the mayor's fault; It's FEMA's fault; It's the weather forcasters fault; It's the Republicans (or insert Democrat's fault) - somebody has to be blamed because we should be able to prevent horror and suffering in this country -- afterall, this is America. But the truth is that horror and suffering are a part of living on this planet, a part of living in the bent world we live in. But because those of us who live in the affluent western world are fortunate to escape much of the suffering and horror of the rest of the world we think something is wrong, someone is to blame when we do find ourselves experiencing it.
Now you may be asking - "What does this rant have to do with Children's Ministry." Well, I think this idea that experiencing suffering, sadness, difficutly is bad gets taught to our children in churches when we equate following Jesus and living in the kingdom of God with life in a giant Disneyland -- when all we tell children is that following Jesus is fun and that's why you should do it. "Your life will better if you follow Jesus (often interpreted as we'll have the American Dream life if we follow Jesus)" is what we tell children. But, you know what, sometimes life isn't better when we follow Jesus - sometimes following Jesus is (as a woman told me once from her hospital bed) "damn hard." I don't think God became human and then died a humilating, painful death simply so we could have fun and never have anything bad happen to us. But I think sometimes our actions and how we teach our children reflect that very bad theology.
3 Comments:
I couldn't agree more. This "ideology" furthers explains why so many people, as young adults or somewhat older, leave the church.... once they face a hardship, out they go. They have never learned that life is hard, but that God will comfort us and lead us through. We can say those words to kids, but we are afraid to let them experience it.
You know, though, this is more than just churchwide. Many people still sugarcoat bad things from their children, because they're afraid to expose the kids to such terrible things. While I believe there is a way to expose children to bad things (catastrophe, death, etc.), I think this fear stems from an unwillingness to enter into a conversation with the children about these things.
I was listening to Andy Stanley from North Point Church in Alpharetta, GA. It was a sermon from a few weeks ago about clarity and urgency. He basically said that for something to get done, we first need clarity of mission, then we feel an urgency to complete the mission. However, without clarity there is no urgency. Okay..... in an affluent country like ours, we get very busy "fuzzying up" the clarity, and then we do nothing. So, we pretend that catastrophes are bad to think about... or, worse yet, that the people involved "deserved" it because they did something wrong. Why? Because we're afraid to admit that this all might happen to us. And if we don't admit it might happen to us, where do we put God in our lives???
Okay, my own rant could go on for a lot longer, and I apologize....
I couldn't agree more. This "ideology" furthers explains why so many people, as young adults or somewhat older, leave the church.... once they face a hardship, out they go. They have never learned that life is hard, but that God will comfort us and lead us through. We can say those words to kids, but we are afraid to let them experience it.
You know, though, this is more than just churchwide. Many people still sugarcoat bad things from their children, because they're afraid to expose the kids to such terrible things. While I believe there is a way to expose children to bad things (catastrophe, death, etc.), I think this fear stems from an unwillingness to enter into a conversation with the children about these things.
I was listening to Andy Stanley from North Point Church in Alpharetta, GA. It was a sermon from a few weeks ago about clarity and urgency. He basically said that for something to get done, we first need clarity of mission, then we feel an urgency to complete the mission. However, without clarity there is no urgency. Okay..... in an affluent country like ours, we get very busy "fuzzying up" the clarity, and then we do nothing. So, we pretend that catastrophes are bad to think about... or, worse yet, that the people involved "deserved" it because they did something wrong. Why? Because we're afraid to admit that this all might happen to us. And if we don't admit it might happen to us, where do we put God in our lives???
Okay, my own rant could go on for a lot longer, and I apologize....
I couldn't agree
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