July 02, 2014
Let Me Entertain You
When my grandkids visit and
there is a lull in family time they like to play video games on our cellphones.
I have to admit that the games come in handy if I have other things I need to
do like fix lunch or return phone calls. Recently during a worship service I
watched three children entertaining themselves on video games and I had mixed
emotions. I wondered if this was any different than my generation giving
children something to do to keep them busy during a sermon — books to read;
pencil and paper to draw with; crayons and coloring books. I sought an answer
from two reliable sources, 11 year-old David and 8 year-old Lydia. Both kids
agreed that there is a difference and viewed playing video games during worship
as a problem. David said, “There are so many games to play you would never even
look up to hear anything that was being said. You need to listen to at least some of the sermon!” Paul reminds us,
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s
will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom 12:2 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----How many generations have been given gadgets to keep themselves occupied during worship service? I wasn’t there, but I can hardly imagine my grandparents being that way with their kids in the 30’s and 40’s and before. Until a century ago people took church even more seriously. I would be surprised if their kids were given trinkets to play with during the sermon when dad could wind up in the stockade for snoozing.
-----One of the more immutable aspects of human nature is emulation. It is built right into the core of what we are. Everyone operates with a certain degree of personal idiosyncrasies, but to varying degrees, everyone is also terrified of being different. It’s what makes culture. So, when culture begins turning away from God, there is big trouble brewing.
-----Do you think the kids are really going to get anything out of the sermon? Even I rarely get much out of one. I am more information oriented than most, and sermons are usually directed towards effecting the congregation’s pathos rather their data banks. Kids miss the pathos delivered because they don’t know many of its delivering concepts. I miss the pathos because I’m looking for new concepts. I would play like the kids but for the importance of respect and honor. Our culture has no heart nor mind to pay either of these to Lord, what little of them it has left anyway.
-----But these are what kids can at least take home from a sermon. Respect and honor is why I sit through what bores me stiff. The doing of them breeds more of them. I think it is not at all damaging to tell a child over and over that there are times for doing nothing more than showing respect and honor, and during the sermon is one of the greater of those times. I think it even beneficial to apply the loving discipline appropriate for exuding respect and honor in the worship service. Imagine if everyone did this until it were the emulated behavior instead of Crayons and cell-phones.
-----Then again, our grandparents and their parents and grandparents did that, and we are still here like this. So, inspire in the kids a little personal differentiation from the culture to “…outdo one another in showing honor…“ and to “…take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” (Rom 12:10b, 17b)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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