Previously at The Hub (Tuesday 4/8/08)
Steve kicked off our new series called, The Culturally Savvy Christian, last night at The Hub. Just in case you missed it, here’s the recap.
Before the recap check out Craig’s latest entry to his blog that discusses this very topic from his point of view at craigersmind.blogspot.com.
The night started with a short clip done by an outside party recapping a past episode of the popular “reality” TV show The Hills. It was hilarious and a great lead into the topic of culturally savvy Christians.
Following the clip, Steve stepped up and gave us a visual demonstration of the way our society has created a cultural soup with our attraction to technology, celebrities and bright shiny lights. He started by blending, yes blending, a toy cell phone that represented our attraction to technology. He then added the front cover of a popular magazine featuring Britney Spears that represented our attraction to the celebrity lifestyle. Finally, Steve added a glow stick to the mix, despite our apprehension that it would actually crack when blended. The glow stick cracked and with focused eyes and lots of oohs and ahhs, Steve supported his final point that we are attracted to the bright, shiny lights of our society.
That, of course, was just the beginning. Steve walked us through the next segment by defining some terms that we use frequently, like entertainment and amusement and how at the very heart of these words is the avoidance of thought and creativity.
Finally, we looked at three different ways Christianity responds to the world around us. We cocoon ourselves off from society by blocking out the “bad things”, we fight against society through protests or political arenas or we mirror society by taking what society has created and giving it a Christian spin. Thanks to Nick, Megan and Mike for acting out these differences.
Next week Jeremiah will take us further down the rabbit hole as we continue discussing, The Culturally Savvy Christian.
As a confessed, pop culture addict, this series hits close to home. Like Craig, I use TV to disconnect from the world. I unwind by watching “other people’s drama” as I like to call it. I remember at the end of finals week a few friends and I went to watch Mean Girls at the theater for the sole purpose of doing something that did not involve thought. Now, I don’t think that TV is evil or that relaxing our mind is necessarily bad. What is bad is the way entertainment consumes us and causes us to settle for something less than what God has planned.
The entertainment industry has caught many us by the throat and in an effort to breathe, in an effort to think again, we must release its grip.
I just purchased this book. I cannot wait to start reading it. But I will say that to me the sad thing about how technology impacts us is that it distracts us from the Great Commission. TV causes what is called a low information action ratio. This means that repetitious TV watching subconsciously trains us to take in information and not do anything with it. Perhaps this can explain why so many come to church (or the HUB), hear amazing sermons like last weeks message, and don’t make any subsequent changes in their lives other than, watching more television, playing more video games, and dating new people.