How does this make us feel? Are we surprised by these statements? The previous statements were written by David Chadwell and appeared on the first page of our bulletin this past week.

As I read David's article, I was amazed at the timing of his thoughts about our involvement as the church in "the real world" that we face today and wanted to share his thoughts with you. The rest of his article talks about the importance of our church family spending quality time talking and sharing with one another in order to know each other better. Thus, the reason for our family meetings and why they are so important to our family here.

When the elders asked me to speak some time ago, I knew right off what I would like to talk about. As you drove up this morning, you probably saw our signs outside for our 6th annual CROSSWALK Youth Rally that will take place here in September. It will be the 3rd year for us to host the rally here at West-Ark.

I have been working with Marshall Brown, Jason Harriman, and the other board members of CROSSWALK since early March. After praying together about the direction of this year's rally, we decided to spend a weekend focused on a great problem facing our young people and the church today -- our involvement in "The Real World."

Part of the reason we chose to speak to our teens about "the real world" is because of a very popular show that teens like to watch on MTV called "The Real World." This is a show that selects 8 young people, male and female, that will live together in the same house in some incredible location, and they are sent out into "the real world" to see what life is like.

Obviously, there are thousands of young people that apply for the available spots on the show. Their lives are basically broadcast on television 24 hours a day, and we get to see what the so-called "real world" is like for a young person today.

As you can imagine, the producers are geniuses as they fit together personalities that will obviously clash after time. The show is filled with anger, fights, personality conflicts, sex, disappointments, and a lack of respect for everyone and everything. But guess what? It sells! It is very popular among today's youth culture, even today's Christian youth culture. So much so that MTV has now aired a nightly teenage soap opera called, "MTV Undressed." You wouldn't believe what this program has to offer our young people. And these images are constant reminders to our teens of what "the real world" is like. I hope we see that unless we spend our time and our lives teaching our children what "the real world" really is, they will be forced to believe what their culture teaches them it is.

I hope we as the church realize something this morning: "Satan is good at what he does." He will make things look good, smell good, sound good and feel good. And he knows if he can keep us busy enough and keep us around sin enough, it will begin to look O.K. to us. After all, this is the real world man. Everybody's doing it!

He's so good at it, he's even got adults in the church fooled by it. We can justify anything we want to do: never being home, both parents working and gone all the time, our habits and hobbies and the need for some "me" time, our involvement with PTAs, school boards, local organizations, etc. And all of this in the name of our families and our children, saying the reason we spend so much time involved in these activities away from home is to make things better for them.

Satan is so good at keeping us busy with these "great things" to do in today's world, that we don't even slow down long enough to realize that our homes are falling apart while we're gone doing all of these "great things." It is my prayer that you can lay aside your comfort zone this morning and hear what I'm saying.

I hope to present to you one or two ways that Satan has us totally fooled in today's "real world." And I hope we will see enough to recognize his lies and take control of our families in the name of Jesus Christ.

I used to be told that time flies when you're having fun. Now I realize that time simply flies. In January, I will begin my 10th year working with youth and families here at West-Ark. Throughout the years, I've started looking forward to each June when a new group of 7th graders come into the group.

The reason is this: each year indicates another year that I've gotten older and a little more out of touch with the reality of what goes on in the world of a teenager today. I always look forward to learning what is really happening to our young people at school, at work, and especially at home and during their free time.

Trends used to change among teens every year or two when I was in high school. That is no longer the case. Things change in today's world by the month. Everything is computers, games, and virtual reality. Whether it's clothes, cars, music, language, movies, etc. What's "in" now will be "out" six months from now.

What I am about to share with you is simply for the purpose of bringing some of us up to speed in regard to the reality of a teen's life in our "real world." And how it should redirect most of us as the parents and adults that are responsible for providing these environments for our children.

I recently sat in on a new class that started early in the summer. The teacher was presenting the beginning of a new course on a survey of the Old Testament. As he began taking the teens through the book of Genesis, he came to the story of Cain and Abel. To start a healthy class discussion, he asked for a volunteer to tell everyone what happened in the story of Cain and Abel. There was absolute silence! I thought to myself, this is natural. It's a new class and these kids don't really know their teacher. He's probably going to have to ask someone to get them to start talking.

And after a few seconds, he did. To make a long story short, let me tell you that he asked four different young people that responded, "I don't know," before he found one young lady that could tell him that Cain and Abel were brothers and that Cain killed Abel because of his anger and jealousy.

The following week in the same class, the teacher began talking about 4 key people that God would use to fulfill his promises to his people. He said, they are Abraham, Isaac, _______, and _______. He wanted to see if they could finish the list. Again, there was absolute silence. After going around the room to see if anyone had the answers, he completed the next part for them: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and ________. Again, there was no response.

Let me give you another example. Two weeks ago, I talked with 45 of our young people during a devotional about what our world will be like 50 years from now. I placed them into 5 different groups and asked them to look back to the 1950's to realize how much things have changed since then. I gave them 3 or 4 categories to think about and here are some of their responses.

In the area of TV and movies, how do you think things will be different 50 years from now? This was the most common answer: sex, sex, and more sex. "Sex will be everywhere. You'll be able to watch it on just about any channel at anytime during the day. Also, any type of language will be allowed at anytime." Here's another response that has stuck with me: "The rated R movies of today will be the rated G movies of the future." What do you think? Is this really possible? You better believe it! Do you remember not too long ago when men and women weren't even permitted to be shown sitting on the same bed on television.

The question that I was most interested in involved the future of the church. I asked them to discuss how they think things will be different in the church 50 years from now. I was amazed at their answers. "The church will not be anything like it is today. We won't meet on Sunday nights and probably not on Wednesday nights. Everyone will be too busy! We'll do a lot of meeting together outside of the building: at homes, the lake, a park, etc." And once again, one group's response really stuck out to me: "We won't even have to physically go to church anymore. Everything will be computerized. You'll be able to log-on to your church on the computer and do everything right there in your home; read the class material, read the sermon, take communion, worship, etc., then you simply log-off."

As this reality has continued to settle inside of me over the past few months, I've been asking myself a lot of tough questions. It's been a real eye-opener! What are we teaching our children? Why don't they know such simple truths from the Word of God? Do our families ever sit down together and talk about scripture? Do our families ever simply sit down and talk? Do we read stories to our children anymore? Or, is everything just left up to the Bible class teacher, the youth minister, the preacher? Is it their job to do that for us since we're so busy?

Then, the reality of "the real world" began to settle in: meetings, business trips, work, work, and more work, recreation, going to the lake, vacations, little league, practice, CD's, radios, TV's, movies, cars, four wheelers, jet skis, e-mails, faxes, logging-on, computers, computers, and more computers. The reality of "the real world" had answered my questions for me.

May I suggest some things to us this morning, and will you take the time to consider them in the midst of your busy schedules. May I suggest that one of Satan's greatest tools against us involves our time. We can make a huge difference in this world for the cause of Christ! The battle is not over! It is not time to throw in the towel!

However, we must take control of our lives and keep them away from Satan and this world of his. We cannot remained trapped by all he has to offer. I believe a place to start involves what we call quality time today.

Many times today our "quality time" together has been replaced with going together to games and movies. Good quality time together means making sure you're off work in time for your son's big game or taking a couple of hours off to go to the matinee. Let's look at how "the real world" has made us buy in to this concept.

Do you ever discuss anything with your children when you're watching them play their game? Do you get to discuss spiritual things with them when they're out there on the field or court? Do you ever drive there together and spend quality time talking with them about things that really matter in life when they usually have their minds on the game, getting there early for practice and warm-ups, and staying late for team meetings? Are you consistent in your walk of faith, or do you teach them that it's o.k. to skip things that really matter in order to make it to practice or a game. Is this really quality time together? How about the movies? How much time do we spend talking, sharing, and really getting to know each other when we're at a movie? Are we able to find out what the real issues are in children's lives when we're watching a movie together? How often do we give up or ignore what we really believe and are trying to teach our children about "real life" when we take them and watch with them the content of today's movies? Is this really quality time? The "real world" tells us it is.

David and I spent some time this week talking about what we often confuse as "good quality time" together. He shared this with me. In our His Needs/Her Needs class that so many of you have been in, you have been taught to spend a certain number of good quality hours together each week in order to maintain a healthy relationship with one another. The author of the book, His Needs/Her Needs, suggests that it takes 15 hours a week of intimate, quality time together to achieve closeness in your relationship. You have learned that things like movies, etc. are not considered quality time. Quality time is defined as taking a walk, eating a meal together, having a good conversation with just the two of you. It involves something that the two of you do together in which talking and sharing takes place.

How are we doing in our marriages with our 15 hours a week of quality time together amidst the lifestyles the "real world" has to offer us? How about our children? Do we spend 15 quality hours a week with them? How about 5 hours? Maybe 1?

As we look at the overall picture of life in today's world, we should feel a huge since of urgency to try to change things. Perhaps, God has opened some eyes this morning and knocked on the doors of some hearts. Once again, Satan is good at what he does to us. He's so good, we don't even think he's doing anything to us. This is simply how life is in "the real world." Right? I disagree!

It's time for the church to stand up for what we claim to believe in! It's time for us to be noticed for a different way of life from those in the world around us! It's time for us to put aside the old form of life and walk with the new! And this will only happen when we place our faith in Jesus Christ and learn to walk as He walked. He was in the world, yet refused to be part of the world!

I John 2:15-17
I John 2:25-27
I John 5:11-13