NextGenKent

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...

REACTION TO:  Chap Clark, Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers   (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011) 264pp.                 I resonated with so much that is in this book—personally and professionally. It isn’t hard to want to take to heart the challenge to be a youth advocate once reading Clark’s findings about today’s youth. 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.         ...