Today, we’re finishing up this series to help students build biblical filters to discern the influence of culture into their lives.
TAKE A PERSONAL LIFE INVENTORY
To help our students continue down the path of biblical discernment, encourage them to examine the condition of their own life. Warning lights only work when we notice them. If your students can identify a specific problem in their lives, they might be more motivated to create discernment filters. While there are many ways to do this, here are a few examples of some inventory-type questions:
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Click here to check out a small group / sunday school resource to help your
students filter their media choices.
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..| Am I excited about where my life is headed? If everything remained the same, what would be my regrets, if any?
..| What 3 things and/or influences (not people) are having the biggest impact in my life right now?
..| In my free time, what do I spend most of that time thinking about?
..| Where do my values seem to come from?
Dissatisfaction with our lives often points back to values and choices that don’t reflect God’s design. We can help students to ask questions that help them see their “spiritual poverty” and prepare them to be positioned to make significant changes.
LIMIT THE INTAKE
Inevitability, “filtering” culture may require one to turn it off completely. We need to encourage our students to occasionally disconnect so culture’s influence is minimized. This may mean changing some friends, avoiding certain movies, using an internet filter, or giving up damaging music and television shows. Limiting the intake works best when it’s a personal decision and not imposed by a youth leader (although it can be encouraged).
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Click here to check out a small group / sunday school resource to help your
students filter their media choices.
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In our opinion, total withdrawal from culture may sound good, but it isn’t a great option for most Christians. We still live “in the world” even though our citizenship is in heaven. As ambassadors for Jesus, our light can shine in the midst of a dark culture. Damaging implications can appear when we retreat to a holy huddle of Christian sub-culture isolation. Being cocooned and comfortably numb to the world isolates our needed light from those living in darkness. When we retreat and hide, we develop and nurture an unhealthy and unholy attitude of self righteousness and judgment.
There’s no question that it’s difficult to find the balance here and it requires incredible wisdom and spiritual discernment! This isn’t easy for teenagers or adults. We are so grateful that God has chosen you to help your students find their way and we are thrilled that you said “yes” to this wild adventure of pointing teenagers to Jesus. Thanks for doing what you do!