Observation

One of my favorite summer time activities is sitting around a campfire. Spending time in the great outdoors on a warm summer evening with friends around a campfire. Love it!

In Sunday School yesterday with our middle schoolers I built a campfire, well kind of. As the class began I proceeded to build a campfire right in the middle of the room that we were in. As I broke apart sticks for kindling and neatly arranged them with the large sticks I talked about how nice campfires are. I had students share their favorite campfire stories, memories, food prepared over the fire, etc. All the while I was continuing to build the fire, ignoring their comments and wonderings as to whether or not I was really going to light the fire.

After it was all build I proceeded to pull out a book of matches and lit one. This of course got all the students excited. "Are you really going to light it?" they began to ask. Several chanted "light it, light it!" while others were screaming, "No, don't!" it was quite fun. Finally as I lowered a lit match to the wood and "came to my senses" I announced to the class that I wasn't really going to light the fire. Some were disappointed, others were relieved!

I then continued by reviewing where we have been on subsequent Sunday mornings. Recently we have been going through a series from 1 Corinthians. Yesterday we were in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, which deals with sexual immorality. We had a great discussion.

We discussed how just as a campfire as wonderful as it is, would be very dangerous and destructive outside of it's proper context. Sex is the same way. We had a very open and good discussion. That is what I found rather intriguing. It is quite plain to see that youth culture has changed in many dramatic ways over the years, some changes positive, other not so. I realized another big change yesterday morning.

Discussing the subject of sex with middle schoolers has always been rather fun to me in the past, frankly because they are so uncomfortable discussing the topic, especially in church. That was not the case at all yesterday! There were no giggles, know silly comments, or smirks, conversely it was a very mature and open discussion. I found that quite interesting. I am not quite sure what to attribute that to. I suppose the media has a lot to do with it. Sex is now so common place in movies, TV, music, and print, that it has been reduced down to just another common place topic. How sad.

What God has given to us as a very sacred, and beautiful gift to be shared between two married people, the world has reduced down to an activity that can be freely participated in, and very few people think twice about it. While many of my students have strong convictions about the issue of sex and purity, to which I am very thankful, it still is an issue that is no longer embarrassing or uncomfortable for them to discuss. Interesting.