Neighborhood Ministries

Parents have a big influence on children but society may have a lot of influence too if they aren’t firmly grounded in their beliefs. America was founded on Christian principles. Though there have been times during America’s expanding west that there have been areas without churches and their influence, the churches moved into those areas and tamed them through teaching Christian values. In the mid 20th Century, a vast majority of Americans either were active in church or at least had some connection to one. The church taught the values to the parents who lived it out in their everyday life.  They voted for politicians and school board members that supported Christian values and read newspapers and listened to radio and TV stations that supported Christian values. The politicians  enacted laws on Christian principles and school board members hired teachers and enacted policies based on Christian values or they got voted out. Those radio and TV stations that didn’t support Christian values often died out due to lack of support. As  a result, many people who had no church connection held Christian values at least in theory. However, the churches no longer teach Christian values and the parents no longer teach their kids. As a result they don’t vote in politicians and school board members that support Christian values, they vote in politicians that feed their selfish greed. They also listen to radio and TV stations that don’t hold Christian values and don’t support stations that do. As a result, an increasing number of people don’t hold Christian values even if they attend church.  The result has been growing crime and violence. Many politicians claim the government can solve it but the fact is, the government has been responsible for much of the problem because of the politicians voted in. In addition, the schools have helped create the problem because of the school board members voted in. The radio and TV stations have also added to the problem because people support them. As society becomes more corrupt, the schools and media corrupt many of those growing up in Christian oriented homes.

Many today say we are inherently good and that it is society that corrupts us but all we have to do is look at a baby and we can see that we are inherently selfish. We have to learn to control our selfish desires. Our parents have to set rules to control us and enforce them. We all see kids whose parents didn’t teach them  to control themselves and their selfish desires.  But we have to learn to move beyond obeying to avoid punishment to where we can control ourselves when our parents aren’t around. Our parents won’t always be around. If children don’t learn to obey basic rules as a child, they will not obey society’s rules as an adult and there aren’t enough police to be everywhere. We are seeing an increase in crime and violence because children are not learning to control their selfish nature as kids due to the breakdown of the family.