The Making of a Gang Member Pt. 4

I have been highlighting the factors that produce gang members. The Scripture I used at the end of my blog spoke about God turning back the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children back to their fathers. I believe that this is one of the solutions to the whole 'gang mentality' problem. In Genesis 2 God brought man and woman together and they became husband and wife; the two becomes one flesh. He told them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. The idea of marriage was that a man and a woman was to come together as husband and wife and have children. It was to be a lifelong relationship of only one man to one woman. When children were born to them, both father and mother had certain responsibilities to their children, the man to give guidance and discipline, and the woman to give sustenance and comfort. But when the father is missing physically and emotionally, then the children are hurt emotionally.
I remember the "barrel children" of the 1970s. Many mothers and fathers left to go to the United States, leaving their children in the care of aunts and uncles, grandparents and other relatives.This separation of parents and children were made presumably to secure the financial welfare of their children. Many of these youngsters had the latest of clothes, gadgets, trips to the US and Canada, and many other material benefits. However, the things that they need most, the love, care, guidance and discipline of their parents, were sadly lacking. The relatives (which was most usually a elderly grandmother) were unable or unwilling to care for these children. A lot of them grew up not having the supervision, care, instructions in how to become a functioning adult, so a whole generation of children and teenagers grew up 'wild and free,' left to do whatever they desired. These people then had children of their own. Not knowing how to nurture their own children because of the lack of parenting in their own lives, their children in turn became just like them, sometimes even worse. The third generation had children earlier; these have an 'attitude' of violence, where their parents' words seem not to make sense at all to them. They have tempers that trip at the slightest provocation, they think school and church as 'boring!' and are more hedonistic than anyone else
Fathers and mothers need to draw close to their childrne again, to teach them and model for them proper values and morals. But how can you teach and model something.that you don't have?
This is where salvation comes in. The last part of this topic tomorrow.


"Children, obey your parents for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the  nurture and admonition of the Lord." Proverbs 6: 1 - 4 (KJV)