Latest story from Sal's days as a substitute teacher:
Today, I subbed for a high school math teacher. First hour was a class full of students who were all taking Algebra 1. For the second time. So they were rather less than enthused about the subject, and I had to keep getting after them.
Fifteen minutes or so into class, one girl in the front row pipes up, "Do you go to church?"
Me, bewildered: "Yes, why?"
Girl, snottily: "You seem like one of those really churchy people."
Me: ...
Still not sure if it was the cross necklace or the request for polite behavior that did it.
It makes me sad, though, that she associated Christianity with someone telling her to behave. I just finished reading unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons (they're connected to Barna, a group which researches issues connected to Christianity), which talks about some of the assumptions that nonChristians in their teens and twenties think about Christians--that they're judgmental, anti-homosexual, hypocritical, too political and sheltered, among other things. Some of this is because that the Christian message is, in fact, difficult to accept (sin and things like that are never popular), but more of it is because as Christians, we really are acting this way a lot of the time. The book really made me think about how I come across to people, and I would hope that people wouldn't associate those characteristics with me.
So it makes me sad that this girl probably looked at me and thought, "Oh, another one of those Christians" today.
About Me
- Sally
- I delight in quirkiness, interesting books, fresh produce, and old hymns. Contrary to what some have thought, I am not a vagabond. I am a deeply rooted, often-transplanted, small tree.
2 comments:
Don't feel too badly, though. You have to take what high schools students say with bags of salt. Some of them just say whatever they think will get under your skin, and sometimes their idea of meaness is an adult telling them to do what is in their best interest anyway. I do understand what you mean, though.
Since I'm in the Bible Belt, my students ask me if I go to church and when I say yes, they seem pleased.
---Lacy
i've always thought you were one of the cool Christians - you don't try to hide it or anything, but you don't try to force your beliefs on other people. and you've thought about what you believe, which makes all the difference.
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