We’ve had yet another school shooting this week. Some people, like the American Family Association, say we’d have fewer shootings if we had God back in the schools. School life would be better, the reasoning goes, if we had God, or prayer, in our schools. In my part of the world, Young Life and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes have such a large presence in schools that I don’t think you can make a credible claim that God isn’t in the schools. But schools definitely interfere with a church’s youth ministry.
Schools make demands on our kids like never before. Maybe we need prayer in schools because students don’t have time for church. Students today are more overcommitted, over-homeworked, and over-AP-classed than ever before. And the pressure to have the right college resume is constant. I was in the corporate world for 30 years before entering the ministry and did a lot of hiring. Five years after you graduate, where you went to college just isn’t that important.
My first Christmas after arriving at a new church, I suggested the youth group carol to homebound church members. The students were uneasy. They kept saying they didn’t have musical skill, weren’t talented singers, that singing wasn’t something they did often. That surprised me; I thought everyone caroled. Besides, the people you visit don’t care how well you sing, they’re just happy you’re there. It didn’t hit me until later – the standard of perfection is so high that students can’t sing for the fun of it. Everything has to be professional quality.
This isn’t the student’s idea. Just as millennials didn’t invent participation trophies, today’s students are approaching life as they’ve been taught. They have to do it all and do it at the highest level. If you aren’t taking at least four AP classes, something is wrong. If you don’t spend 12 hours a day at school, something is wrong. If you haven’t graduated with enough college credit to cover your freshman year, something is wrong. Everyone expects you to be overwhelmed and overcommitted. We are completely bought in to this culture. Nothing has been taken from us – we handed it over. We don’t need to worry about keeping God out of schools while schools are keeping kids out of church.
We see a lot in the news about teenage anxiety, depression, and suicide.
- Houston Chronicle – Texas must confront a growing threat at high schools: suicide.
- With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit
- How Do I Know If My Adolescent Child Has ‘Teen Angst’ or Depression?
Is it possible a little less time in school and a little more in church would help?
The Feral Deacon 