NextGenKent

Reaction To:  Clark , Chap. Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today’sTeenagers. 2011 (288pp). To take to heart the challenge to be a youth advocate once reading Clark’s findings about today’s youth is rather a natural response. Adults who want to be effective in reaching out to this generation need to consider Clark’s presuppositions—today, not many are “getting it”—not the church, the schools, youth workers or parents. What IS going on inside the world of today’s teenagers? I am still in the process of re-wiring my mental thought processes to Clark’s ‘underworld’ schemata but frankly it is taking a while—he states in his update to his first edition, “It isn’t getting any better,” and that is the ‘why’ for this second edition. This is yet another book which speaks to the elongation of adolescence but doesn’t give a complete definition (explicitly) of what a healthy ‘normal’ teenager looks like today. One could glean implicitly from what Clark speaks against though. Clark repor...

What if teens today are living out their lives in a somewhat Matrix existence? A false reality where the "adult world" that is seen and lived in by adults is participated in by their sending a 'surrogate avatar' out into it everyday while their 'real body' is kept in an underground world. This makes sense. The world the next generation has been handed by adults of the past 2-3 generations has not been a very safe one at all. What is seen on the outside is never the "real"--it hasn't been the real in the former generations for decades! All that is cared about is the self--and we have become very adept at self-preservation. But I wonder if this isn't just a deception of the Enemy? If we are creating a lifestyle of fake-living, how can the next generation be real? They would be cast to the sidelines until they wised up on how to live with us--in a fake, covered up manner. But learned they have! 2 nd life living among our teens is n...

A reaction to, EMPOWER YOUR KIDS TO BE ADULTS by Dr. Donald Joy. The practice and art of initiating children in adulthood has been lost in our society. Did we give up those ancient practices or is the need for initiation so hard-wired into us that it comes out in other venues? How can we regain, redeem, reclaim and remember what we have lost so that we can turn the tide on the perpetual adolescent celebrated in our society and launch youth into adulthood with God’s glory? Unlike any other book, Don Joy’s, Empower Your Kids To Be Adults , will help you on your journey by asking the right questions and developing an approach for your home and church to battle against “the world, the flesh and the devil.” Kids want to become adults—better stated, they want to become just like the god-like beings taking care of them, namely their parents. Dr. Joy believes we have missed the implanted “Creator-markers” in our children and therefore leave them to journey into the abyss of adolescence...