Soul Shepherds.com: Children's Ministry for a Changing World

Edutainment

Yesterday I read the article in the latest Children's Ministry magazine about edutainment. Over all I thought the article presented a fairly balanced view of the topic. But there were a few things in the article I need to take issue with. First, I'm not sure I would equate the use of good teaching learning methodology with "edutainment." While there is a sense that good teaching is entertaining I like to think of it more as something that engages students rather than entertains them. Not all engagement can necessarily be called entertaining. Second, (and this is one of the real problems I have with entertainment, attractional based children's ministries)I am usually appalled at the amount of money spent on creating and maintaining these entertaining environments. When I think of the needs around the world and I see churches spending all this money in this way I just think something about our priorities is out of whack. Third, one of the children's pastors interviewed said something about how all of this was OK because they weren't selling anything. Of course, they're selling something. They're selling God and Jesus to these kids in a way that hardly reflects (at leastin my opinion) the values Jesus reflects in the Gospels. Which brings me to my harshest criticism of this trend - what the medium (because the medium is the message and often speaks louder than the content)teaches these kids about what it means to love God and follow Jesus.
I think we do a diservice to the kids who come through the doors of our church when we teach them that being a person of faith, a follower of Jesus is all about noise, technology, glitz, hype, fun, craziness, prizes, and games.

33 Comments:

Blogger The JadedCM said...

I blogged about this exact same subject about a month ago after reading that issue in Children's Ministry Magazine. Feel free to follow the link to my blog to see what I had to say.

Personally, I am quite against the Edutainment model. I am more concerned seeing disciples of Christ in the Children's Ministries that flashy lights and a big sound system.

July 29, 2005 12:00 PM  
Anonymous Jamie Arpin-Ricci said...

Excellent analysis. I will be sending people to the site and this post. How can we bridge the gao to introduce well intentioned, but fully "devoted" edutainment leaders in our churches? Any suggestions?

July 31, 2005 11:54 PM  
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