CHURCHES CAN HELP TEENS BATTLE DRUGS

The Sun Herald invites South Mississippi's clergy to offer their insight on
issues currently in the news.

This week's question: If religious differences fuel the problems in the
Middle East, can religious commonalities calm them?

Meanwhile, here are the responses to last week's question: What role can
churches, synagogues, temples and other houses of worship play in combating
the problems of teen-age alcohol abuse?

- - From Richard J. Shropshire, Ph.D., director of The Barnabas Center, a
D'Iberville Christian counseling ministry. He is an ordained Southern
Baptist minister.

The condition that makes a child most vulnerable to drug or alcohol abuse
or any other aberrant behavior is a lack of connectedness. Teens need to be
a part of healthy relationships, and if those relationships do not exist in
the home or in the church, peer pressure and the need to belong will cause
that teen to be susceptible to undesirable behaviors.

The church has a powerful tool in the knowledge that God, through Jesus
Christ, has provided a relationship of family with each individual who
accepts the grace gift of His salvation. This means that each child of God
has a place of complete acceptance and unconditional love; has an eternal
identity and purpose.

But also, parents need to be taught (that teaching best accomplished by the
church) that they will not pass on their values to the next generation if
that generation has no sense of connectedness with them.

Skills of active listening, empathy, acceptance, appreciation and
demonstrative affection, as well as accountability, are necessary tools to
provide an atmosphere in which our children are much less likely to engage
in destructive behavior.

Please send responses to this week's question to From the Pulpit, The Sun
Herald Newsroom, P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi, MS 39535-4567; or to
kbergeron@sunherald.com. Responses should be 180 words or less. Answers
should be received no later than Tuesday morning. Please include your name
and daytime phone number.