Listening
Friday, November 30th, 2007Always being interested in how today’s church reaches teens and young adults, I found this article from the Nashville Scene interesting. (Fair warning: The Nashville Scene is a free alternative weekly newspaper in Nashville so some of the advertisements on the site may offend your sensibilities and the writer’s style is decidedly from a non-Christian angle).
In the movie Saved!, a satire of evangelical teens at a Christian high school, there’s a scene that brilliantly captures just how lame most efforts are to spin Christianity as hip and relevant for kids. “Let’s get our Christ on!” chirps Pastor Skip, an enthusiastic cheerleader for God played by Martin Donovan, somersaulting onstage during a pep rally for the Big Guy Upstairs. “Let’s kick it Jesus-style!”
For all his hangin’-with-my-homies shtick, the rappin’ pastor might as well be wearing a hemp necklace and a backwards ball cap, straddling a turned-around chair to drop some knowledge on the kids—a kind of cheeseball dorkery anyone who ’s ever been to a Young Life meeting knows all too well. It’s even more painfully evident in the music industry, where Christian rock bands have typically been regarded by the secular world with a sneer. After all, rock ’n’ roll—torchbearer of all things dark, dirty and wayward—is the devil’s music, and everyone knows he writes better hooks.
But across the country, churches, outreach centers and youth groups are looking for ways to meet teens on their level. They hope to make Christianity more palatable by portraying it as edgy—as cool as the video games and rock bands vying for their attention.
Read the rest here.
But I have an idea of a project to do next spring, with proceeds going to the orphanage.
