I’m a hypocrite. There I was on a Saturday night, exhausted from a weekend of kids’ theatre performances and no curriculum prepared for Sunday morning. I had two choices: stay up all night and write a thoughtful introduction to Proverbs or show up fifteen minutes before the 9:00 a.m. service and pop in a video. Although one of my favorite soapboxes is the peril of using movies in Sunday school, fatigue won out over righteous indignation and our elementary schoolers spent that Sunday watching the “Jesus” film for kids (which is basically a shorter version of the “Jesus” film with spliced in scenes of kids saying things like, “Who are all these people?” and “What’s going on now?”)
The kids’ reaction to the video was amazing. Their eyes glazed over and they stared at the screen, quietly munching their popcorn. They didn’t throw clay at the walls or grab my shoes or punch their siblings or attempt to crawl out of the room every five seconds when they thought I wasn’t looking. They were remarkably well behaved. I left church that afternoon with conflicting emotions – frustrated that I chose to go against my convictions and show a video and thrilled that my classes were so delightfully calm after a crazy weekend.
Using video as a teaching tool is a growing children’s ministry trend and I can definitely see the appeal. The kids are quiet, they’re entertained, they pay attention, and they probably remember a good chunk of what they see. Some proponents of this method argue that they’re simply adapting their teaching style to meet the needs of a generation raised on video games and Sponge Bob.
However, I think relying on multimedia to teach kids the Bible can be dangerous. Not only does it reinforce kids’ already incredibly short attention spans (if they can’t learn to sit and listen to a ten minute story, how will they be able to sit and read their Bibles for ten minutes?), I believe it also makes the Bible seem less credible. If a child’s primary biblical instruction is packaged like a Saturday morning cartoon, I wonder if that child will grow up thinking that the Bible is simply a book of fun stories. Plus, I think there is educational benefit in kids interacting with biblical concepts through discussion, art, and games as opposed to passively receiving information through a video.
This leads me to my question. When should the church change its methods to keep up with cultural trends and when should it ignore those trends? For instance, I think that church websites are a great idea. We’re an increasingly web based society and I believe that the ability to download sermons, check out a church calendar, and read a statement of faith online can be a wonderful evangelistic tool and a practical help to a congregation. On the other hand, I don’t want to follow our culture and show videos in Sunday school (except on occasions when the children’s director did not budget her time well and has no lesson prepared.) What should be the church's criteria for embracing or ignoring cultural trends?
I’d love to hear your opinions on this issue. In the meantime, I’d better finish up my lesson on the Psalms so my kids don’t end up watching my old copy of “The Flying House” on Sunday.
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6 comments:
In the words of Doug Grouthius, TV rots your brain. I think there are some fundamental problems with watching a lot of TV. It dulls your intellect and makes you passive. Moreover, I can think of lots of better ways to spend time. For these reasons, perhaps the church shouldn't cater to the culture in this case. I suppose occasional multi-media isn't so bad, but, I think all of the sensory overload has helped to make kids ostensibly incapable of pondering spiritual things. I really think kids today have a harder time staying on subject in conversations, and I think TV has a part to play in it.
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I don't think there's a strict right and wrong in this situation, but perhaps one could ask oneself, "What would they get out of a video that they wouldn't get from some other form of teaching?" Video is not always appropriate, but I think that has less to do with its destructive aspects than its, well, inappropriateness. For example, I think reading is great, but I wouldn't teach by handing everyone a copy of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
Heh. One of my ideas for the name of our children's ministry was "Children in the Hands of an Angry God Kids' Ministry." People didn't really embrace that one for some reason.
Yeah, you're probably right Toph. TV just makes me angry.
Certainly one of the issues that could be too easily overlooked here is the issue of content itself. The bottom line is that most videos I see are used more because they are videos and less because they have great content. Maybe one of the ways to look at this is to say that video could and/or should be used insofar as (1) it really does have excellent content, (2) it utilizes the medium in a way that regular story-telling/preaching couldn't (e.g. Rob Bell's "Nooma" videos, which, whatever else there is to say about them, are effective in their thought-provoking presentation and style), and (3) we don't used them every week or close to it.
There is certainly more to it than that, but I think there are at least those standards to apply to the video if it is deemed that video is usable at all.
Yep.
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