Yesterday my son's band kid go home played at the Surf and Skate Fest at Asbury Park. When he got home from the gig at around 11 PM Christine and I spent some time talking to him about his day's experiences. Surf and Skate is a 3 day festival of music built around the surfing, skating and BMXing youth culture of our area. One of the features is a battle of the bands put on by East Coast Concerts in which local bands play and the top rated bands over several nights get to play at the fest with all these well known bands. (I have never heard of any of these bands, but the kids around here love them). Anyway, Rob's band got one of the coveted spots. They reportedly had a good gig. They are going to get reviewed by a zine and two radio stations talked to them about playing some of their songs. I was happy for him. I am not happy with certain elements of the scene my son is into, in particular, the bands all have foul mouths. But there are some aspects that are quite alright. The music he plays is fun stuff the kids like to dance to, not the dark stuff I know some of the kids are into. That's a good thing. A lot of the kids in the scene are what Rob calls "straight edge", which means they don't smoke, drink, or do promiscuous sex. Rob claims to be "straight edge" and he has never given me a reason not to believe him.

Anyway, as I was reading through the program he brought home last night, I was struck again by what a mission field the kids of today are. There are so many different sub-cultures that are kids find themselves in. The sad thing is that I think being a church kid might be just another youth sub-culture that is in its own little bubble. The particular sub-culture my son occupies seems to have a spirituality, and an inner longing, however I don't know to many people who have figured out how to tap into that spirituality and point the kids to Christ. I think what is needed is another Jesus Revolution, like what took place among the hippies in the 70's. If a person called to the mission field of today's youth could figure out how to cross the cultural divide and bring Jesus to these kids, we could have a revival on our hands.