Young Adults & Marriage - Part 9

Transcription

Announcer: Hard work and a vision aren’t enough. Your teenagers need hope from your Christian community.

Michael Pearl:  They need a vision, and they need to be working, and they need hope—hope that something will come of this. It can't be fake. They've got to see the steps; they've got to be real steps. What I've been suggesting to homeschool, Christian parents is that if not now, in the very near future, there's going to be a movement to create community, culture. There's going to have to be if the Christian church is going to survive in America.

The church as such is dead. These mega-churches, they're not churches. They are clubs, community clubs, but they're not churches. If the church, if the gospel of Jesus Christ, if the righteousness is going to survive, then we're going to have to create new social culture. You say, "How do you do that?"

The Amish did it by going backwards, staying backwards. I don't fault them for it. I hate to see them lose that; I'm glad for it. I don't want the people in the community to stop using the horses and buggies and their kerosene lanterns. I don't want to see them get a radio. I don't want to see them start getting a VCR and watching The Sound of Music. They don't need that.

What I want to see them do is stay right where they are and keep the young people where they are, because they form a reminder to the rest of the world that life can be simple, and plain, and hardworking, and honest, and productive. And they marry within their circle. I don't like to see them marry outside of their circle and lose that.

I do all I can to contribute to the continuation of their society. Now, that doesn't mean that everything is righteous and wonderful about it; it's not, any more than any other group is, but they stand a far better chance of keeping the young people emotionally stable, sound, and good citizens, and productive members of the community, a far better chance. They may lose one out of ten, whereas the Christian church loses nine out of ten of the young people to the world in some way.

There has to be a way to create a Christian culture that provides all of the needs for a growing young person. In other words, a pool of spouse possibilities. A pool of people to have a young person to work. If you lived here, I'd hate to see you just turn your boy over to a carpenter to go to work just because he's a carpenter. He's a 16-year-old boy, "Okay, off you can go." No telling what would happen.

He needs to be a Christian carpenter that you know personally, that you know is not going to have the radio turned on to rap music during the day while they're working, that's not going to stop off for a beer on the way home, and is not going to be talking about who he knocked up the night before.

You're going to need to have somebody you can trust to hire your daughter to work as a secretary in a financial enterprise or insurance company or someplace else, so she can go down part of the time, and work, and learn a little bit, and make some money.

You're going to need to have a Christian circle that is tight, that is protected and guarded. You're really going to need to live close together. The ideal thing would be to buy a cove with all the houses on the thing, a dead-end street; 15 houses and every one of them belong to Christian families.

Then, you're going to have two or three you'd want to kick out all of the time, but that would provide a contrast or learning experience for the kids. In that context, you'll have games, and activities, and Sunday socials, Sunday feeds.

The country life that used to be was more sanctifying than the church ever is today, just the old-fashioned family living in the same area, friends that you've known all your life, where every parent is watching every kid and every kid's responsible to every parent.

If some kid gets out of line, any parent in the community says, "I'm going to tell your momma. You straighten it out, boy," and the boy straightens it out because that's an authority figure. We're going to have to recreate the 1920s in the country. Maybe up to 1950s, that country life.

It doesn't have to be country, it can be right in the middle of a city, a big old apartment building, but it's got to be that kind of a culture where friends are trusted, work together, play together, eat together, worship together, and help one another, and lift one another up, that provides a circle.

Then, there will be another such circle six miles away and you get together, all of you, at the zoo for a big get-together or in a place like this and everybody comes together for one weekend and all the young people get to meet each other, and play games, and keep parents watching them real careful.

Let them meet and then families come and meet new acquaintances because your son likes that girl. Listen, you can't wait until their 19 or 20 years old, ready to get married to do this because they start picking when they're 16. You've got to start way before they're ready to get married.

It's amazing. You think, "Oh, they're just doing all right," and all of a sudden, they're ready to go, man, they're ready to get married. They've fallen in love. It may take them a couple of years to get old enough to get married, but they're 17 and 16, they're in love, and they'll wait around. Just as soon as they feel like they're old enough, they'll want to get married, so you've got to have that system set up a long time before they're ready to get married.

I found this out: kids always pick their spouse of the kids they're around, that they socialize with. If you have a very small circle, your kid is probably going to marry in that small circle or else they're just going to bust out and flee somewhere and look in a bigger pond.

Create a circle that provides a possible reservoir for a spouse, and opportunity for a business, and work, and a social life, so that they have hope, so they have a vision, and so they have something to do to keep them all working and busy and so they have outlets. They can scream as kids, laugh, play, run, go boating, fishing, volleyball, baseball, softball, get together and cook and eat and have a social life, like they used to in the old days.

Announcer: Thanks for listening. We hope this helps or encourages you in some way today. As always, remember to check out our ever-changing specials.