Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
It often feels good to write - provided I am in the mood, when it goes well and if I’m not striving to meet a deadline. More often than not it can be hard work; 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. I write mainly because I am a Christian and I want to communicate that faith. I particularly want to help children encounter Christianity in a straightforward and non-threatening way in a spiritually impoverished world. Children, and all of us, can easily become saturated with the world’s beliefs. As a Christian parents Deirdre and I tried to show and teach an alternative way to our son from an early age. Other relatives and friends can do this too. It is not a matter of brainwashing children. The world is continually brain-washing us all. It isn’t wise to ‘let them grow up and then make a choice’. Choices made in childhood shape our adult choices. I strongly recommend including children in our regular church life, saying family prayers and - particularly - doing daily Bible reading notes with age appropriate activities. I recall my mother saying ‘But they don’t understand’. I replied that we told our very young son not to pick up dead flies from the windowsill because ‘they are covered in germs’. He didn’t know what germs were but he still got the idea that the consequences could be unpleasant.
I know of several children who were challenged over their beliefs by their peers at Primary school. In the early Secondary school years Christian ‘newbies’ can be significantly bullied. I know of a girl from a Christian family who was bullied so much she gave up her faith. I know of another girl from a Christian family who decided ‘prayer doesn’t work so I don’t believe in God’.
These kids weren’t brainwashed into Christian faith, they were persecuted out of it! Everyone comes to a time, as a child or adult, when they have to make their own choice to go the world’s way or God’s way. Many people from Christian homes, myself included, go the world’s way for a while before realising we have been seduced.
We all need, at some point, to turn around and turn to God. We have to do it through Jesus, who said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Light. No-one comes to the Father except through me’. Through him we receive the forgiveness we need for our worldly un-Godliness. Then we are not left struggling, half in and half out of the world’s sucking quicksand. God with Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to live in us, to support and guide us.
Truly we have special powers! Disguised as mere mortals we become God’s agents in the world.
<< Next Archive Previous >>