10-5-11

Dear Family of faith,
It's been a fun evening around the church. Today was Wayne Raymond's 62nd birthday and his last day at school. He is officially retired now from teaching, so the choir had a surprise party for him after rehearsal tonight. Wayne began as our church's Music Director when Rev. Dr. Dan Horn was the pastor back in 1990. We have been so blessed to have him and Sherrie (and their girls) with our congregation all these years. The Hernando County Schools are losing one of their best, but we get to "keep" him!
Speaking of schools, recently I have become aware of three of our own youth who are struggling to stay in school-- not so much because the requirements are too demanding, but more likely because they don't see how education will help them in their future. When I was young, I had one thing going for me-- hope-- hope for a good job if I got an education, hope for a happy life, hope for a world that seemed to be getting better with new inventions and technologies and new breakthroughs in medicine. What I sense lacking in today's youth is this sense of hope and promise...and I regret that maybe we adults are to blame. For sure, the connectedness of the world especially among the youth through Ipad and twitter and the web have contributed to their gloom because they hear about every tragedy and uprising, every disaster and riot in the world. Yet how many times do we find ourselves talking in front of our kids about how things were "better in the good old days?"
And how often do we talk about how bad the economy is and how we are struggling to get by and how we don't know how anybody is going to make it in today's world? All of these comments can't but add to the sense of futility and desperation that our youth feel. We need to think more about encouraging the next generation and giving them dreams.
Nobody will care about doing well in school or even staying in school if they think it's worthless. We know things can be tough, but they were tougher eighty years ago and things got better. As Christians we can affirm that with God, life is always full of promise, and tomorrow always holds hope for us. If you know any kids who are having a tough time, listen to them, affirm them, and help them to believe in the God of hope.