If You Haven't Done the Research...

If, for some reason, you doubt that there is any redeeming value in young people today, I urge you to check it out for yourself and not just take someone’s word for it. Check out an upper level, college prep class at the public school. Volunteer at a high school cross country meet this fall (or just attend one). Check out a JROTC program. Ask someone in scouting about the latest Eagle Scout and his project.
And check out this URL http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/pages/ sometime. PBS has a show called “From the Top at Carnegie Hall” that features young people performing a wide variety of music on a wide variety of instruments. Watch any episode and you’ll be amazed, gratified, and pleased with how these young people have ordered themselves with discipline, grace, and use of ability and talent. You may not appreciate music as some do, but you’ll certainly appreciate the message of the show.
My wife and I had the privilege of chaperoning a part of our youth group on two trips to help other churches conduct a vacation Bible school. There were fourteen or fifteen youth and several of us sponsors who traveled to Minnesota and also to Central Kansas for these projects. The young people overall behaved quite well and worked hard to see that the experience of those attending was as it should be and we reached our goal of providing good religious education to the kids.
No, not all youth are of this caliber. But then, not all adults are of a high caliber either. All too often we hear the bad news and haven’t a clue what is happening that is good and decent and right. And all too often it is due to our own laziness in accepting what someone else (FOX, MSNBC) wants us to know rather than finding out for ourselves. If you haven’t done the research (Listening to cable news is NOT doing research), don’t express the opinion.