My generation is highly visual.
1. We use our eyes as our dominant sense, as our ears tend to be full of iPod.
2. For the same reason, our eyes are all the more important for communication, be it with Internet chat, or seeing a friend or acquaintance in the street.
My generation is also over stimulated.
1. Video games and Cinema experience are designed to engage many senses, and technology is growing in this area.
2. I read somewhere recently that young people tend to watch TV and use the internet at the same time. This is now the norm.
3. In order to catch our full attention, much entertainment or information must have that Cinema experience.
4. Making the effort to sit down and read a book has become much more difficult in my life time, as the internet has grown. This, I would argue, is because the internet provides the opportunity for a 'deeper' engagement through video/audio and graphical/text based information all at once.
Some questions:
1. What does this mean for the preacher? Does he adapt these growing mediums? Or does he provide an alternative to the trend?
2. What does this mean for the worker charged with Pastoral care? Must something change to allow proper relationships to develop?
3. What does this mean for leaders of praise and worship in our church? (recognising that this is broader than music, I in fact am intending to ask this more as a focus on singing praises to God)
4. What does this mean for the evangelist? What mediums should they be using to spread the good news?
5. How can we encourage our young people* to spend the time in the Bible, with full attention?
6. How can we encourage our young people* to spend time in prayer, with a proper focus on God?
*yes, I am 'young people', and I struggle with these.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I agree that we're incredibly visual, and highly stimulated in that area also. Sound is an interesting one. In some ways, we're much less conscious of the role of sound (try watching TV without sound, or notice the lack of music in an old B&W film) despite it being present in lots of places.
Hey man, found your post via Jolly. Great questions!
I'm 27 and I feel like I'm on the cusp of the multimedia generation. It annoys me when my husband (25) watches tv and uses the internet or watches dvds and plays games on his iPod. But I am still pretty comfortable with a fairly rich multimedia experience.
Just a question: do you think the rich multimedia experience is actually 'deeper' engagement? Or is it just broader?
I'm not sure whether it's just me being fuddy duddy, but I feel like sitting down and doing one thing at a time actually allows for truly deeper engagement - a more focused and reflective type of thinking. But hey... I might just be getting old!
Appreciate reading your blog.
I'm 'old' by your standards! My kids are uni students! (not in Tassie)
Your points 5 and 6 are excellent to think on and a challenge for most, whatever the age.
Can only say never give up thinking on the gospel and the riches and wisdom in Christ and pray for self control
Always find Titus 2:11-15 a help here.
And go for MTS!
Hey Michael, you're right. Whenever I see a film, AW will always ask me about the music, because he never notices it! It plays such a passive role, that I'd suggest it affects us far more subconsciously than consciously.
and Hi Bron, thanks for the comment! I should have used "deeper" not 'deeper' and clarified. When I said 'deeper' I was using it in a sense of irony. I find my use of the internet to have a greater percentage of shallowness, than my time spent in books.
And I wouldn't consider you a fuddy duddy, the ability to do that is something I crave to be able to do more. And I suspect I'm not the only one.
Anonymous - thanks for the encouragement! I hope I haven't made you feel old :-/ You're right when you say points 5 and 6 are a challenge across the board.. and thanks for the Titus passage, my post was devoid of scripture in this instance, so it is very welcome!
Hey cool thoughts pal :D
Got me thinking man.
I read quite a bit of Tozer, he was totally against "the great god entertainment".
How do you aim at the sort of young person you're talking about without just entertaining them?
Got me thinking.
Stating the obvious, but whatever the answer's, there has to be alot of heart and God has to be working.
Got me praying man.
Ah ok, yeah I get what you mean. You could say that a rich media experience is very immersive (in a passive sort of way). It's like, you're being engaged rather than choosing to focus.
I think that if we do have a style of preaching which relies on people focusing then we need to be even more aware of what we're asking of people. And that should drive us to pray even more!
There are some videos floating around the internet with John Piper speaking and they have music and images overlaid. I reckon they're pretty powerful. Could be an example of the rich media experience done well from a Christian pov.
Post a Comment