According to research conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation:
- 83% of children under the age of six average two hours per day using some form of screen media
- Roughly 33% of kids under the age of six have a TV in their bedroom
- 43% of the kids have used a computer
- 27% of the kids use a computer several times a week or more
Today’s generations of kids are presenting children’s ministry with an unprecedented tech-savvy and media-hyped generation. On the one hand, screen media has had many negative influences on children of all ages. I am amazed at the cultural differences between the middle school students I teach today and the middle school culture that I grew up in. At the same time, screen media has opened a whole new world of possibilities to preach the Gospel. And if executed properly, these possibilities can communicate more clearly and more effectively than flannel graphs or traditional Bible stories.
Special thanks to the Convergence Culture Consortium for highlighting the research.
I think it’s time for Christian thinkers and writers to give more than the obligatory head-nod to the deliterious effects of television. On children especially. Television is a medium with its own agenda, and Christians may have to face the possibility that that agenda may not be congruent with the agenda of the Kingdom of God. Screen media hasn’t opened any new possibilities for preaching the gospel that weren’t brought abrout by the printing press and the telegraph.
Maybe I don’t share the hate for the flannel graphs because I didn’t grow up with them. And anyone who suggests that screen media can increase the effectiveness of the preaching of the gospel hasn’t heard much good preaching. Good preaching creates images in the imagination; it doesn’t beam them at the senses. Good preaching forms a people of faith; screen media forms an audience of consumers.
I want more Christians to regard screen media with a little more criticism and understanding of the biases and agenda of the medium.
Rocky,
Yes, there are many negative aspects to much of television’s programming. However, you cannot ignore the countless people who have accepted Christ as their Savior through Christian programming. Screen media can be far more effective than the printing press or traditional methods if done properly. In fact, the Internet has already been used to effectively reach people with the gospel who had previously not heard the message because of the restrictions of their culture.
Also, renowned 83 year-old church consultant Lyle Schaller says
“People can hear in 15 seconds what it takes us 2 minutes to say. So, if we want to effectively communicate to our audience, our preaching and teaching needs to always use multiple channels of communications.”
I believe a church should use whatever medium will most effectively reach their audience whether it is stained glass, flannel graphs, the printing press, or television.
-Kent
Lyle Schaller quote courtesy of: http://daveferguson.typepad.com/daveferguson/2006/06/what_lyle_schal.html
I don’t think “effectiveness” is a helpful way to talk about this. Anyone who looks beyond the surface of television will what your Marshall McLuhans and your Neil Postmans and your Walter Ongs have seen: the medium is the message. The message about Christ that people receive through a 15 second television clip is so hopelessly conditioned by the medium as to be toothless. I want us to look more critically at the constraints of the medium and ask a lot more seriously, “when the message of the gospel is shared through the medium of television, what is the message exactly?”