My position as President of the school board for a charter school in urban KC gives me a window on the world of at-riskedness.
AN EXPERIENTIAL EXEGESIS OF AT-RISKEDNESS
1. We are a nation with children (35 percent of our population is under 25)
2. Too many of our children are growing up without a father in the home (the 2000 census says 31 percent)
3. Kids raising kids, and kids who raise themselves are susceptible to gangs, AIDS, premarital parenthood, and at-risk of failing school
The thing that is obvious is the reason Satan and his world system has gotten into our kids’ heads is because Christians have gotten out of being overt testimonies to God’s grace in our place. The church has stopped being the church in the community. This is a shame, because God knows you’re not loving him if you are not living for him. So what can we say about setting the stage for the next generation?
1. The public policies of a church can have ill personal consequences for a community
2. We need people in church who know the Master to offer a key to the community that will open doors out of their dysfunction
Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, also wrote another story most people have never heard of. It's a story about a padlock, just an ordinary padlock, except that it was alive. It had long thin arms and was always nervous and running in every direction like a chicken with its head cut off.
So padlock, with arms flailing, comes upon another character who stops the nervous padlock and inquires, What is wrong with you? Why are you always so unhappy and running around like you have no purpose nor idea what you're doing? Waving his thin arms over his head, the padlock replies, "I'm looking for the key to unlock myself."
Is that not the predicament of so many children in our community, who find themselves locked-up by life? They are looking for a key to unlock their hopes, their dreams, and aspirations. We’ve got to make our lives a testimony as well as making our words a witness, so that we can engage our community in a taste for God’s grace. When we do not,
3. The personal crises of parents eventuate in an identity crisis for their kids
2 Cor 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Not, all things are new (not past tense), but all things are become new over time as Bible principles are applied. This is the hope in walking with God. There is hope in an un-grieved Holy Ghost. The church needs to be involved in passing on an identity based in an image: the Lord Jesus.
