Tulsa World: Founder to speak about home culture

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Founder to speak about home culture
He says the media is shaping young people's lives.

TEEN TARGETS
Ron Luce: "We have a media- driven culture."

By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer
Published: 11/21/2009 2:25 AM
Last Modified: 11/21/2009 5:36 AM

American teenagers are being kidnapped and brainwashed by an electronic culture with values their parents would never accept, says a man who has probably preached to more teens than anyone else in America.

Ron Luce, founder of Teen Mania and its huge teen gatherings, Acquire the Fire, has been preaching to young people for 23 years.

When he and his wife started the ministry in Tulsa, he was a recent graduate of Oral Roberts University.

Now based in Texas, the ministry has done 35 Acquire the Fire events a year for 20 years, speaking to 3 million teens.

Luce said the world has changed radically in the last two decades.

"We have a media-driven culture," he said in a phone interview this week.

Most parents have little idea how music, the Internet, video games and movies are shaping the young generation, he said.

"We have people in Hollywood and people in record companies shaping the values of our kids. Parents are trying to do the right thing, and all of a sudden their kid comes home one day and says, 'I think I'm pregnant,' or, 'Hey, what's wrong with being gay?'

"Parents say, 'How could you possibly be thinking that?' It's because the culture has been insidious at shaping the kids right in our houses. It's really brainwashing and kidnapping our kids, and pretty soon they become someone we don't even know."

Most parents underestimate the power of just one song to radically change a child's outlook, he said.

For example, he says, after the highly popular Katy Perry song, "I Kissed a Girl," became popular, 12- and 13-year-old girls at slumber parties across the country experimented with that behavior.

He said young people are lonelier than ever, with more pseudo friends on Facebook than ever before, but they are losing the ability to have face-to-face friends and to work things out with them.

"We see them by the thousands," he said of young people who are lonely and broken. "I call them culture zombies."

Alarmed by what he is seeing, Luce said, he has launched a new initiative to teach parents how to build a culture in their homes that will be stronger than the culture trying to deceive their kids.

He will speak on that subject Sunday night at Victory Christian Center. While he is in Tulsa, he will run a half-marathon in the Route 66 Marathon with his two daughters, both students at ORU.

RON LUCE

Founder of Acquire the Fire

When: 6 p.m. Sunday

Where: Victory Christian Center, 7700 S. Lewis Ave.

Bill Sherman 581-8398
bill.sherman@tulsaworld.com By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer

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	Report Comment out here in the middle, Sand Springs (11/21/2009 8:13:55 AM) I have never met or heard of a youth evangelist who did not say that they had preached to more teenagers than anyone else. When you're an evangelist, its all about the big numbers.
	Report Comment true2form, Grand Lake (11/21/2009 9:32:31 AM) So, I guess he thinks it's ok for parents to turn the kids over to him and let him do the brainwashing?
	Report Comment Few Clothes, America (11/21/2009 1:50:18 PM) Regardless of the numbers, he is correct about the media taking over the children. It's taken over most of the adults in North America also.
	Report Comment Elusive, Owasso (11/22/2009 1:49:26 AM) Kids see too many things to warp their minds.
	Report Comment godless, Tulsa (11/22/2009 1:39:35 PM) "Don't let the media and hollywood brainwash your children. Let me do it instead."
	Report Comment faisamm, (11/23/2009 9:15:23 AM) I agree with him, media and the internet is truly brainwashing our kids.
	Report Comment Basil, Tulsa (11/23/2009 11:14:32 AM) Media violence and sexuality de-sensitize us over time, if we aren't vigilant in the struggle to protect our hearts from its effects. It's not just teens who are at risk, but all of us.

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