TODAY'S CHURCH

–The McKenna Kondratiuk story

What would you do if you were put in a situation that compromised your values or contradicted what your parents had instructed you? What if you were instructed by an authority to engage in this compromise? I hope you (or your children) would do what McKenna Kondratuik did.

McKenna is a 7th grader (12 years old) at a middle school here in Mansfield, TX. Her class was “killing time” while the 8th graders were wrapping up a standardized test, when her teacher announced that the class would be viewing the critically acclaimed and ever so popular movie “Twilight”. Twilight is an action thriller based upon the Stephenie Meyer novel about a young girl who falls in love with a vampire. Click (http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0004361.cfm or http://www.screenit.com/movies/2008/twilight.html) to learn more about the contents of this movie, but McKenna was pretty sure that her parents didn’t want her to see this particular movie.

Well who says that technology is a bad thing all the time? McKenna quickly texted her mom to get consent before settling for the teachers authorization to view the movie. A quick response from her mother confirmed her suspicion that she did not need to “sit through” this film. As her teacher put in the movie, McKenna stood to her feet and walked to the front of the classroom in front of 29 other 7th graders and said “I'm not supposed to watch this.”

I asked McKenna if she thought she would have been punished by her parents for having watched the video. “I’m really not sure”, she said thoughtfully. But the fact is McKenna did not want to disappoint them was motivation enough to take a stand. She never really thought that she was being a leader that day; she just thought she was doing the right thing. Sometimes leadership is born when only one person takes a stand to do what is right. That day 15 other kids also left the room because McKenna had the courage to take a stand. Half of the class was thinking “maybe this is something I should not be watching…” but nobody else moved until she had first risked everything.

McKenna wants to honor her parents because it is something she values as a Christian. She knows that is one of the ways she can glorify God with her life. Bottom line is that is why she did what she did. So many times you read about kids because of poor decisions that they have made and the headlines reflect consequences of those negative behaviors. Today I wanted to pay a tribute to one kid who stands out for superlative reasons. I pray she represents many others you know.