Children’s Ministry and Culture

I’m writing a piece for Children’s Ministry Magazine and on how our teaching methods unintentionally promote wrong attitudes toward scripture. I’m wrestling with the issue of one-point learning. 

The benefits of one-point learning are undeniable. By teaching less, the child retains more. We focus the child’s attention on one ascpect of God’s character and one way that who God is should inspire life-change.

But what if all of those ”one-points” (A child can take in 1-3 one-points a week depending on church, multiply that by 40-52 weeks a year of attendance, x’s a whole childhood of Sunday School Attendance) contribute to an atomized view of Scripture. What if we’re repacking scripture as a morality-tale-of-the-week instead of presenting one long story of salvation that invites a child participation in it?

How can we make sure that these one-points add up to make a greater constellation (salvation history), instead promoting an atomized view of the Bible?

I’m not abandoning the one-point teaching technique. But something must be added.   

 Edit: After a few days of mulling and a few emails with Dr. Wright of Children Evangelism Fellowship, I was able to finally clarify my thought. The issue isn’t the use of “the point”, but when the point is crafted. The application should be one of the last stages of the hermeneutic process. When we start with the point (topical teaching, also not a bad thing) we need to be careful not to commandeer a passage for our own purposes. Thanks to Dr. Wright and Keith. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23075944/

This story reports that children are more energized by this presidential election than past ones. However, the article provides no research to support this claim. What is notable, however, is that the Obama Campaign’s website has a KIDS FOR OBAMA page with advice for how to throw a children’s party to support Obama. Apparently, Obama’s campaign understands the power of youthful idealism, and the investment (and recruiting) that a parent would have to make to pull such a party off.

There’s a lot of writers with time on their hands. According to Reuters some are trying their hand at writing children’s books. One good children’s book, or say the next Harry Potter franchise, might make up for the increase in “reality” tv on the scales of justice.

I saw the Golden Compass Movie on Sunday with my children’s church leader, Bill Mason. My impressions of the movie was that it was average at best. The lackluster reciepts this weekend reflect this. Contrary to movie reviewer Jeffrey Overstreet (whom I respect deeply), I thought that much of the anti-religious themes had been successfully scrubbed away.

Yes, the terms like “heretic” and “Magestarium” were used. Yes, they have theological meaning. However, the Golden Compass book made references to the Vacitan, directly referenced Genesis 3 in a negative light, and attempted to debunk the doctrine of original sin. None of those references made the movie. A child would need to have an unusually detailed knowledge of Catholic theology to pick up on Pullman’s antagonism toward religion. 

I will say that I have no idea how New Line Cinema will be able to edit out the anti-religious plot twists that await in the next two books. I do believe that New Line Cinema’s bottom line is making money and not making truth claims. I suspect that the necessary edits have already been worked out for the next two film installments. A movie studio is not driven by ideologues, but by capitalists.

I say it again, I’m not defending these books. The books don’t require a rocket scientist to decode their meaning. Neitchze, anyone?

My beef is that the church’s reponse validates Pullman’s critique that the church supresses critical thought.  Here’s a story for you. A parent told me that his daughter’s Christian school teacher told the children that the movie was bad, so bad that if you watched it that you would be bad also.

A child asked the teacher why this was. The teacher’s response was that the movie was simply too bad to talk about.

Which is exactly one of the points that Pullman is making: Christians are afraid of critical thought.

I blogged on the Willowcreek Conspiracy Conference blog to talk about why we need to care about taking the time to understand our culture.

Kids learn best by doing hands-on and practical discovery learning.

It’s become almost axiomatic that if you want to interest kids in science, their first exposures should be heavy on fun.

Or phun, as a door sign for a “Phun Physics” seminar trumpeted Tuesday at the third annual Science and Nature Conference.

More than 400 area third- through eighth-graders converged upon the St. Peter Community Center and Bethany Lutheran Church across the street to receive primers on the vagaries of, for example, wildlife population dynamics.

Read more about it here (http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_297002141.html?keyword=topstory). Group Publishing is using science experiements to teach biblical truth in their 2008 VBS Power Lab (www.groupvbs.com).

You’ve got to visit www.wired.com/wiredlivinghome to see the latest in automation, gadgets, gear and appliances that make for a modern “green” home!

Yesterday at the North American Professors of Christian Education annual conference in San Jose, CA our keynote speaker was Kevin Compton, a Venture Capitalist, co owner of the San Jose Sharks and one of the key founders of Netscape (http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/99/LOIW.html)

As a VC (that’s what they are called) he is in a unique position to evaluate future trends and he made a stunning statement given the context (brick and mortar professors). He stated that what will count in the future is only the PROFESSOR since anyone, anywhere, anytime can take their course online. The final point he made was that in the future we will all CONTINUALLY LEARN and that degrees will become less and less important! We will, in effect, cherry pick our learning based on our interests! What this presumes is a student that is curious (they are with their ipod, their facebook–the new killer ap for Kevin–and their social interactions) and motivated!

James Wood is a new professor at Harvard who has been known for some time as a critic for The New Republic and The Guardian. He says, “I’m generally in favor of reading a bit less and knowing it deeply” (”The Critical View” in The Harvard Crimson, 10/27/2003, or here (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349548).

I first heard of him the other day when I read one of his reviews of a new translation of the book of Psalms in The New Yorker (where he is also staff writer) http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/10/01/071001crbo_books_wood. It is a great review of Robert Alter’s “The Book of Psalms” (Norton) yet the REVIEW was so well written that it led me to discover more about it’s author.

James Wood writes with an involvement in the text that resonates with me. He reads with an “aesthetic” judgement rather than a “literary critical” judgement. For instance, when you read a book, does it feel right or does it seem forced? Is that an intent of the writer (to shock, to deaden or to anger) or it just carelessness (at midly worse) or cynicism (playing with the reader).

I am a strong fan of the direct use of the Bible in Children’s Ministry for the simple reason that doing so provides a basis for making “aesthetic judgments” while reading in general and truth-gathering in particular. Such was the upbringing of James Wood in his native England. Read the review and relish his love of truth and then call back the times we’ve TOLD children what is in the bible instead of letting them devour it themselves.

By the way, read James Wood’s discussion of the new Psalm 23 translation by Alter and prepare to be enriched by it’s brilliance. Alas, James Woods, as one post points out vividly, fell away from God at the age of 15 (http://www.powells.com/review/2006_12_14.html)

There is an interesting article today in the Wall Street Journal that illustrates the tendency of some ads to do well and others to wear people’s patience. It illustrates well, I think, a principle for Children’s Ministries when we try to get our message across about our mission, our programs or even our priorities. We have to get creative to stave off “ad fatigue” by doing the following:

HOW TO KEEP ADS FRESH

• Engage the audience’s emotions

• Don’t overuse verbal assertions

• Spread a campaign across multiple media

• Avoid cluttered markets–like the Sunday bulletin

Source: Frank M. Bass, et al., “Wearout Effects of Different Advertising Themes,” Marketing Science

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/books/07cnd-lengle.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

L’Engle, most famous for her “A Wrinkle in Time” series, written for juvenile readers passed away last night at the age of 89.

L’Engle’s writings were amongst the first novels I had read as a child. A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door both captured my imagination by day and night (oh, the nightmares and vivid dreams these books caused).

A Wrinkle in Time won the Newbury Award in 1963.

I rediscovered her as an adult with Walking on Water, a concise handbook on being a steward of God’s creative gifts. CCM song writer, Nichole Nordemon, attributed overcoming writer’s block to reading this book, and eventually wrote the foreward to a updated edition.

Today L’Engle is resting in the arms of the author of creativity.