on May 9, 2006 by pat in christianity, Comments (9)
Whatever it takes
There has been ongoing discussion about where children should go during church services. There are some who believe that the children should remain with the rest of the adults while others believe they should attend sunday school meetings that are adapted for their age group. Now there is a third category where an entire church services is dedicated just for children.
It’s appropriately called Kidz Church. Click on the video to see what exactly they do when they make the statement: “whatever it takes to reach the kids.”
They really do whatever-it-takes to bring in children into “church.”
(HT: Frank Turk)
D-Dub
May 10, 2006 @ 9:16 am
That video was pretty wild. However, think about this: Are the churches that are still using Flannelgraphs, and story time, and play time – are they essentially doing the same thing, except without the technology? In other words, when you boil our “children’s church” down – are we not doing the same thing, only on a much lesser scale?
I say this because our children’s church has play time, craft time, story time, and then a message, too. This Kidz Church does a similar program, only they have multimedia. Can we say that our approach is “more spiritual” than theirs because we’re using flannel graphs and not video?
Hmmmmmm…….Not sure how I feel about this yet.
patrick
May 10, 2006 @ 9:40 am
I thought about that too since our church does old-tech teaching tools. Yes, the multimedia extravaganza is a mere tool to “convey the truth.” Some Christians apply the following non-sensical principle when it comes to ministry:
Old ways == spiritual, better, purer
New ways == unspiritual, sold out
That may apply in some contexts but it is by no means an all encompassing principle, and I don’t think it applies in this case.
My concern is that could the Gospel possibly be lost in the midst of the Nikolodean-style of teaching? That is to say could the truth be lost in minimizing the message to bright lights, drama, fireworks etc. By lost I mean, the bad news is never presented so the good news is never placed in the right context where the kids see the true love of Christ instead of that love expressed through a garb of pizzazz and flash.
I admit I may be over-reacting. Here’s why red-flags go up for me. Big lights, confetti, Nikelodean style of postmodern outreach tends to lean more towards a pragmatic philosophy than a biblical philosophy. Instead of “what does the bible say how we teach” people do “whatever works we’ll do.” Yes, we have to be honest to say something in ministry is working and something is not working, but is it a good rule-of-thumb to always lean and say; “it’s working” == “it must be good.”
does that all make sense?
D-Dub
May 10, 2006 @ 10:47 am
Old ways == spiritual, better, purer
New ways == unspiritual, sold out
That’s exactly what I was referring to.
Yes – I was playing “devil’s advocate” for a second. But it does help to raise discussion about the nature of our own children’s program.
Obviously, the Nikelodean thing is ridiculous – how could that possibly become a standard? They only can pull that stunt off because they are a mega-church. But the real world will never come close to that kinda stuff. It’s just an example of the excessive nature of American culture, and the dumbing down of our children to the “video age.”
I don’t agree that we should take advantage of the trend of video = instead we ought to interest our children more in books, etc.
Honestly if Jesus walked in there, would he not bring the whips and overturn the tables?
patrick
May 10, 2006 @ 11:23 am
You’re right it’s definitely good to discuss this issue with children’s ministry.
That’s a scary thought! Some might answer that and say he looks at the heart. They may even compare it with how Jesus rebuked the clean Pharisees who outwardly looked spiritual but were rotten inside.
But in another context, Jesus said that it would be better for a man to hang a millstone around his neck than to cause one of the little ones to stumble!
Things like this — are they causing our little ones to stumble?
D-Dub
May 10, 2006 @ 3:22 pm
Good point – are we causing these little ones to stumble? Scary thought indeed.
patrick
May 10, 2006 @ 3:46 pm
You know I find that many times I post blog entries that are under-developed thoughts. Thinking them through here in the meta brings out more than I originally expected.
I think I like blogging more for the conversation aspect of it then, “hey look at my cool entry.” Does that make me Emergent
D-Dub
May 11, 2006 @ 10:43 am
LOL! We went to the home base of the Emergent Church, remember? That was actually a good experience, cuz we saw it first hand.
patrick
May 11, 2006 @ 10:46 am
That’s right! How can I forget!
Jonny Bravo gaves us a pretty strong impression of the Emerging Church.