When I was a boy, my parents took us to church, or sent us, at least three times a week. My father often worked away from home, so Mom kept the faith, at home. I just got used to the idea that women are religious, and men support them.

That was an older generation, and probably most other people my age had the same experience. I had some good friends, two boys, in my neighborhood, and their mother was searching for something to believe. At least that’s what I was told.

One day, someone knocked on her door to talk about God. Those people were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they convinced the mother of my friends to join them. I still remember trying to sleep, on a Saturday morning, when someone knocked on the front door of our house.

I knew what was going to happen after that. My sleep time was over. My religious mother would open the door, and a team of Jehovah’s Witnesses would be there to speak to her. That team included my friends’ mother. I didn’t usually see what happened, but I’m sure my mother would get her large black Bible, and open it. 

And then the religious arguments would start. I remember hearing Bible passages read out loud, and the words were shouted. Believe me, I could not sleep through that.

And I didn’t get to sleep in on so many Saturday mornings. For Christians like me, women like our mothers and grandmothers kept us on the straight and narrow, or at least they tried.

But wait. As I was writing this, I heard some loud shouting, in my neighborhood. I thought maybe there was an argument that might grow into a fight, and I was concerned. Someone went outside to check, and the report is that a woman was shouting something.

To my friend, it sounded like a religious or political meeting. The shouting was probably in a foreign language, and a woman was doing the shouting. So apparently, even in immigrant families, there is a cultural role for women and religion in homes and families.

You might have noticed a story, in the news recently, that young men are becoming the religious ones, at least in the U.S.A.

Here is one example:

READ: What a new Gallup poll shows about young men’s religious revival

So, why is this important?

This trend is being tracked by people who are experts with statistics, and they are interested because people are not following the rules of their culture. “Religion” has roles for people in families, in our common culture, and it seems that young men are breaking the rules.

Apparently, they are thinking for themselves.

As a boy and a young man, I could have just fit into my role in the family. That was easy, and I could say that I was a Christian because I fit in with the group. I was one of them, so I could say that I was a Christian.

As I grew older and became a young man, one of the biggest struggles in my life was to grow up, and become me. In my spiritual life, I had to find truth that could change my life. It wasn’t enough for me to obey instructions from older people, I wanted something that belonged to me. I wanted to find my own way in life.

If I say, now, that I am writing as a Christian, I mean I am writing as someone who made his own decision to follow Jesus. I am not conforming to the group. Many of my friends stopped believing, or pretending to believe the group thinking, when the older generation lost its influence in their lives.

That happened to me, but I still remember that cold winter day, when I was waiting at a bus stop, to go to my high school. I was stressed about an important exam that I had to write, and I was afraid that I might not get a good passing grade. I was bothered about this, as I waited in the cold. 

For some reason, I decided to do something for myself. I stood at that bus stop, and I prayed. I asked God to help me with that exam, and with my life. There was no religious ceremony, and no one sang a hymn. There were no angel voices, just the growl of the diesel engine, on a city bus.

I just prayed, and I believed God, and I meant it.

If you are wondering, I passed that exam, and my life moved on to other important things.

Now, my parents and grandparents are all gone, and I am left alone, to relate to God, or not.

There is a story in the Bible that I have always found to be strange. Jesus was speaking to people, and religion was an important part of their culture. In that cultural mix, Jesus, as a religious teacher, was sometimes very popular. In the cultural context, people really liked him.

Some people told Jesus how they wanted to follow him, and one man asked for a delay. He had to go to a funeral:

Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” (Matthew : 21 and 22)

Those have always been strange to me. Dead people don’t bury other dead people.

Now, I think I understand. Jesus was inviting a man to have an experience like mine, at the bus stop on that cold winter day. The man was invited to make his own personal decision about Jesus. He was also invited to step out of his popular culture, and to think for himself.

Jesus was not something to fit into all the other routines. He was something completely separate and new; the beginning of a new life.

I hope we can all learn this lesson. Each one of us is called, and each one has to make a personal decision.

I think that is why so many young men are stepping outside of the rules of their popular culture, and they seem to be thinking for themselves.