In, not of

I've been considering what Jesus meant when he said that we are to be in the world, but not of the world. Last week, Ga'Hoole Girl went to Junior High group at church - one of her favorite events of the week. They played a game where they put a card on their forehead that had a name that they were supposed to guess. Ga'Hoole Girl couldn't guess the person on her card because it was someone from American Idol, and we watch very little TV so she hadn't even heard of the person. It wasn't earth-shattering or anything, but the event has gotten me to think about how we relate to "the world" as Christians. This was a Christian event, and my daughter felt out of place because of how we structure our lives.

Mr. Math Teacher and I have been very clear to try to be part of our culture. We don't want to get so involved in the Christian subculture that we are no longer able to impact the rest of the world for Christ. To that end, we read Harry Potter, watch some popular movies, etc. We have not often been accused of being overly protective of our children in this regard - in fact, we are considered rather "liberal" about such things in our homeschool group. But, we rarely watch network TV. For one thing, we don't have much time. We spend our evenings reading, playing, or other such things. But, we also limit our kids' TV exposure because of the advertising. We enjoy watching Packer games, but Mr. Math Teacher and I are quite often having to talk to the kids about the commercials that they see. Not only does the advertising by it's nature encourage consumerism, but many of the commercials are just horribly sexual or have other negative aspects. But, even in "Christian" groups, it appears that we are not as "in touch" with the culture as we thought.

We aren't concerned enough about this to start watching TV every night or anything drastic like that. This incident, though, has gotten me and Mr. Math Teacher to again raise our awareness about how involved in our culture we need to allow and encourage our children to be. I have no interest in raising children who can't or won't interact with people who are different from them (i.e. public schooled, non-Christian, etc.). But, we have to balance that with encouraging Godly influences on their lives. Where is the balance? It appears that this is something that we have to re-evaluate regularly. [Deep sigh]