Where are they now?

I never thought I’d hear myself saying this but, ‘my how times have changed’. I often catch myself watching or reading certain news items or tabloids about the new generation of ‘celebrity’ and the following they have. I hear commentators talk about the influence they have and my jaw drops.
It seems in this day and age anyone can be a celebrity, and for all the wrong reasons. They are then glorified to positions of stature and looked to for leadership on how to live, how to party, what to wear and who to hang out with. It seems the mentors, teachers and leaders of old are few and far between and society has very easily replaced them with celebrity ‘wanna be’s’.
It’s just so hard to fathom what good leadership and mentoring used to be like and how we can continue to duplicate it. When Jesus was a boy he would have sat at the feet of the great mentors and teachers of his day, and like any Jewish boy would have strived with great ambition to be one of those teachers. Someone who taught the law of society, the law which was to bring harmony to community living and bring out the best in each person, a law which each person was expected to meditate upon day and night.
The Rabbi would pick out the best of the best to continue on as his disciples, to follow in the footsteps of the Rabbi and know and understand every aspect of his teaching so that they may one day be like him.
Every single child of the day had a mentor, a teacher, a leader who would invest in them and build them up to one day take on that mantle. Sadly it seems that mentors and teachers like this are becoming thin on the ground. A position which was once vied for and considered a position of great honor, is now considered a burden or an imposition. With the relinquishing of the honor to influence our younger generation with the teachings about God, faith, justice and community living – the vacant spaces have been left to whoever wants to be the next big thing for their own personal gratification. Society has let this happen and young people will let them be their leaders.
Where are they now? Where are those leaders and mentors who would consider the great honor of teaching the next generation of people who will one day be influencers and world changers?
Next time we has a call out for Kidzone leaders, boy’s brigade leaders, youth leaders and the like, I would hope with great expectation that a number of people among us would put up our hands and say, ‘I would consider it an honor’.
I thank those all people who invested themselves in me during my developmental years because without them I would not be a leader.

Shalom
Mark Riessen