Agents of Change

I seem to keep having a theme threading its way throughout my life at the moment.  It started to peek into my thoughts a little while back, but it seems to be constantly with me right now. My head is rather full of big thoughts that run around inside and bash about with no forum to put them somewhere useful.

Over our Work Break I was challenged again with two different things that fall somewhere into the category of being agents of change.  One was more of a personal nature, but the other was about the wider community I live in.  And all of it comes on the heels of some posts over at Outward Looking about how evangelicals seek to change the world.

1. Before the Industrial revolution our families were an economic unit where work was manual, done at home and passed on to children. Post-revolution factories were built and people went 'out' to work.  Family and work became separate.
   This challenged me to consider what I do pass on to my children, if work is no longer one of those things.  What we do somewhat defines us, no matter what that may be.  If that is the case, we gain some of our identity from our work.  In the past, there was also a sense of certainty of what we would do in the future.  None of the "what would you like to be when you grow up" kind of questions we ask our children today.  And nowhere near the choices available now.
   How do our children gain their sense of identity, the certainty for the future?  How do I pass on the stories of what makes us who we, as a family, are if we no longer do it as a natural part of life?  How do I counter a culture where mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety are sky high?
2. At school, we are constantly being encouraged to be 'counter-cultural'.  I felt overwhelmed at the enormity of trying to engage and motivate a generation of children who are victims of the death of The story (God's story) and Our story (human history), and are instead focused only on the My story (self) part of the equation.
   So how does one counter a culture based on self?
   One of the 10 steps shared with us on Monday seems to have piqued my interest.  The idea of the Salon Movement.  The speaker shared the example of the French Revolution.  She said that the whole Revolution had begun in salons, where women had gotten together and chatted.  As they spent time chatting, things began to happen in all different places.  Of course, that all ended in bloodshed.  However the point the speaker was wanting us to hear is that small groups can change our culture.

As you can see, lots of questions and lots of thinking.  None of that probably even makes a whole lot of sense ~ now you know what it's like inside my head!

What I am wondering is this:  why does this keep coming up?!  When a theme keeps recurring like this I begin to wonder what it is that God wants me to notice and I begin to question how He wants me to act upon whatever it is.  We've been asked to meet with our Pastor this week.  Perhaps the two are related.  Perhaps they're not!