Media is TV and big screen movies right? And video games, music, news? How many times in one day do you encounter, meaning watch/listen/read, various pieces of media?
I know that my day is completely surrounded by and infused with media of all kinds. Even when I'm working I am connected to media with my smartphone, either indirectly with people sending me SMS or emails about things or directly on Facebook or anything else on the web, and when I'm off there is almost no time when I'm apart from it. Other than the Saturday night when I hang out with friends, which 80 percent of the time isn't an exception either, I am doing something that directly involves media.
So what is my point?
Anyone that was born within 10 years from me in either direction relates completely with that. Yes we have people more or less "obsessed" with it all but generally speaking this generation (and even more so the next!) is COMPLETELY engrossed with media. Hollywood knows that. The people who created Facebook knows that. Even tobacco companies knew that YEARS ago. When someone wants to reach the new generations with an idea, a mindset, a product, or a lifestyle, they portray it in a relevant way through various forms of media.
Much of what they portray to us is not exactly what we as christians want our teens to hear. I would even say that the power media has over influencing youth is dangerously scary. Regardless of what they are taught at home by their parents what they are taught through media is what they go to first. All of their friends are into it and all they are talking about is the newest thing. No kid is going to "play it safe" and listen to their parents when they are surrounded. This is obviously a problem and when media is used in the wrong way with the wrong hands it is a destructive machine.
Anything crafted in and by the world is, though, right?
Isn't that why as the Church and Body of Christ we have for so long tried to stand apart from the common culture and the ways of the media industries? We see something being used destructively and hate it so much that we run as far away from it as possible.
Even at a cost it seems.
As a 21 year old having only been saved since 17 I want to explain to you how this mindset, although meant for good, is something we as a Church in 2010 are doing very wrong.
I would go so far as to say that restricting our methods and mindsets of reaching youth as much as we have for so long now is as bad as when they accused Christ of doing wrong when we was hanging out with the tax collectors. They thought there must be a better way to reach them. Or at least, a way that would be less incriminating. If they hung out with tax collectors, never compromising God's will and glory in what they were doing, their image to everyone else would have been ruined. They would have been thrown out of their circles. I believe the way we restrict the media we use in our ministry is going along the same lines.
What did we say the teens were completely surrounded and infused with? That thing that shapes their worldviews and choices in life?
Why have we let ourselves think that cheesy christian films and the typical "youth group cookout night" are going to penetrate the walls of our teen's hearts and make them desire to know more about Christ?
DON'T get me wrong. I am in NO way saying that youth group events similar to that at which the gospel is clearly presented will not reach our teens. God's word does not return void and His Holy Spirit is the only one who will really change hearts. I was saved at a youth group "family time" meeting.
What I AM saying is that we have an extremely powerful tool called media to reach our teens with the best news of all and we have thrown it out the window because we don't want to look like the world. In our cheesy christian films everything happens the way we want it to and all the people come to know Christ in a very predictable way that makes it look like a joke to teens. When they watch a film that is so crafted not to come even close to worldly things we can tell instantly that it isn't realistic.
If something doesn't seem realistic in this world where a teen has the real truth about nearly anything at their fingertips on their smartphones they will immediately dismiss it. It won't even have a chance and the message it tries to convey will never come close to being heard or understood.
Have you ever watched a christian film and was so sucked into it that you couldn't even tell the difference between it and the latest Hollywood suspense film?
I didn't think so. Even people that aren't in this generation can tell. So why are we expecting it to reach our teens who RIGHT NOW are looking to the media they ingest to mold their lifestyles??
I want to talk to you about RELEVANT MEDIA in the ministry. You have no idea how excited I have been and how big the passion in me has grown about bringing our youth media that is realistic, believable, and good enough that it doesn't stand in the bottom of the barrel next to Hollywood films. Oh, and big events that are fun for the teens, very low to no cost, that will be a huge medium to present this media to them.
Over the next couple weeks I am going to post ideas, dreams, and practical steps I want to start on. I would LOVE to hear your input. Just Facebook me or email me!
Nrlevasseur@gmail.com
What we have to realize is that media is not evil. It can be used for evil because of our depraved state, but so can the Bible. Satan used the Bible too, so let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the best analogies I have heard/thought up is this:
Media is the LANGUAGE of today's youth.
Obviously, no language or dialect has any morality. So think about how you would go and minister to people in a foreign country. What is your prime concern if not, how do we speak the language? We would take careful time to learn the language, and we would probably have horrible accents. And being raised in this language since birth, this generation can spot an accent or incorrect phrase on a dime.
So here's the proposition. Let's learn the language. Yeah, we're going to have a stupid accent at first, but the goal, just as in language, is to become so proficient at it that our accents are unnoticeable.
The answer to ministering in a foreign land can no longer be "Teach them English, and then witness to them", and so the analogy holds, that we cannot teach the world to look at our own Christian film language and expect them to respond. They would ridicule it.
They already do.