Marrying Godly Play

For two years now I’ve been playing with these gold-wrapped boxes full of felt and crudely laminated paper figures. I sit in a circle with preschoolers and we skip our way through a cat-and-mouse liturgy of wondering and storytelling. Some of the time we use a 2” x 4” wooden sandbox. We fill it with unpainted wooden figures and march them through the Hebrew Bible narratives of exodus, law-giving, worship, exile, and return. A few rocks and some yarn are our only tools.

This is Young Children and Worship, product of the late Sonja Stewart in collaboration with Jerome Berryman. Berryman is an Episcopal Priest responsible for Godly Play, a Montessori-based program of children’s faith formation modeled after Sophia Cavalletti’s Catechesis of The Good Shepherd. Got that? Montessori, Cavaletti, Berryman, Stewart.

I spent several hours last weekend receiving the Godly Play core training. Come fall, our church’s Children and Family Ministries Director and I will pilot a weeks-long experiment in establishing Godly Play as our primary childrens’ Sunday School curriculum. I was in love with the method before the training; now I’m marrying it.

Godly Play is a multimedia experience. Only, in contrast to traditional Protestant childrens’ curriculum, books are not among the media of instruction. Not even the Bible. That’s because, while the content is thoroughly “Biblical”– bible stories make up the lion’s share of what’s presented–those wooden figures and felt underlays replace the text. The storyteller never looks at a book; the whole story is presented from memory, and the manipulation of the figures equals the storyteller’s words in importance. It’s magic (check out the demonstration below).

Are any of you using this? What’s your experience been like? Are you married to it? Flirting with it? Has anyone divorced it?

Postcard+Email+Text+Letter=Get A Life

My students know about upcoming youth group meetings and special events. Of all the teens not participating, not one of them claims ignorance.

They know about the youth ministry. They’re choosing not to participate. And my shotgun publicity strategy is succeeding only in giving them more and more opportunities to choose against the church, to say, “no,” by deleting the unread email or tossing the postcard in the driveway trashcan.

Doesn’t all this communication reek of desperation, anyway? I mean, if something’s worth going to, I’ll find my way to it; I don’t need a letter, a postcard, an email, and a text message to tell me to go. One of those will suffice, and I may not even need that. It’s as the web-conditioned news consumer told Jeff Jarvis in What Would Google Do? “If the news is important enough, it will find me.”

Perhaps the more formal communication I receive about something, the less important I’ll deem it to be. And don’t kid yourself: texts are just as formal as a piece of mail, especially when they’re sent by a youth leader to a student. At least, they’d better be. If they’re not formal, they’re creepy.

The kids who come to the weekly youth group like what’s happening there. They’re coming, postcard or not. The ones who don’t come have other things they’d rather be doing. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is the realization that my nonstop communication with these non-attenders, apart from being hopelessly ineffective, is most likely intrusive and counterproductive. Each week I invite them to repeat a ritual: pull the neon-colored postcard out of the mailbox, glance at it for just a moment, and decide for the the 33rd time since September, “Nope. Not for me.”

Youth Ministry, Media, and Go Karts

Here’s a sample, representative event that your standard issue Associate Pastor for Youth needs to plan and promote: Youth Night at Boomers. It’s a fundraiser, held at a local mini-golf/go Kart/ arcade joint, to benefit a local nonprofit.

Our AP begins, about six weeks out from the event date, to publicize and recruit.

She writes about it in the monthly church newsletter for two consecutive months
She sends a postcard in the mail to every middle and high school student on the church’s rolls (about 30)
She sends an email to all of those students, as well as to their parents, about it
She puts it on the monthly calendar that gets mailed to every student, as well as emailed and posted on the church’s website
She talks about it at youth group gatherings for two weeks before the event date, asking for a show of hands: who’s coming?
The week of the event, she posts the event on Facebook and sends it to the youth group’s facebook group
The day of the event she sends text messages to students reminding them of the time, location, and cost of the event.

Five students come.

Five.

This is not a lament about a lack of student commitment. Maybe the event was garbage. I mean, you can publicize the death out of a belly-button-lint-collecting party, and nobody’s going to come. No, this is an open inquiry about the sheer number of media our Associate Pastor is employing to promote the youth ministry to her students.

New communication technologies don’t replace old ones. Our AP is not texting students instead of sending a monthly calendar in the mail. The Facebook group has not supplanted the weekly email. Instead, basic competence now requires that our AP employ the newest media to connect with teens on top of the face-to-face, telephone, and mail media she’s been using for years.

And with no apparent change in participation.

What to do?

Sin Boldly: What Would Google Do? pt. 5

We are ashamed to make mistakes–as well we should be, yes? It’s our job to get things right, right? So when we make mistakes, our instinct is to shrink into a ball and wish them away. Correcting errors, though necessary is embarrassing.

This from What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis, the book I’ve been exploring here, here, here, and here.

Churches hate making mistakes. Pastors hate making mistakes. Mistakes in business mean you’re a bad business person. Mistakes in church mean you’re a bad person person.

One of What Would Google Do?’s key contentions is that, “Corrections do not diminish credibility.”

In other words, in the Google age, the maxim really is true : “It’s easier [and better!] to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”

Churches rarely say they’ve been wrong. The pull of traditional Christianity is toward stasis and consistency, so that to change one’s mind is not encouraged. Liberal and conservative churches alike spend a lot of energy defending the rightness of the way things are right now.

So we want to have all of the i’s dotted and t’s crossed on a program before we take it public. We won’t announce a new small group until we know we have the people to support it. We poll our membership before taking a public stance on something controversial.

We understand our church programs and activities as products that will be judged against every other product in the church marketplace. Worse, their success or failure will reflect on our merit as believing people. We need to put out high quality products.

“Today, on the internet,” Jarvis insists, “The process is the product.”

So, I want my church to help college and post-college students make meaningful connections. The product could be a “young singles group.” There’s a ton of unanswered questions about who will lead it, what it will actually do, how much time it would require, and on and on and on. And of course, there is a very real chance that it could fail.

But why not start the process of making some of those connections, open up to the world about what we’re trying to do, and, if it is to fail, help it to fail magnificently.

Won’t that be more credible in the end?

Youth Ministry as Media Literacy

Douglas Rushkoff recently inspired me to teach media literacy to my youth group. It’s a subject I’ve paid much attention to as a layperson but not one I’ve ever formally “taught.” In looking for materials, I found this curriculum by the Center for Media Literacy. The first installment was last night.

It’s got 25 sessions in it, five dedicated to each “Key Question” is addresses. That makes for simple lessons with very specific objectives. Last night’s: define “media,” “mass media,” and “media text,” and explore the difference between one-way and two-way communication.

My kids are crazy-smart, so they get this stuff pretty easily. Maybe too easily. I was prodding them at the end of the night, “Are you guys interested in this, or should we do something else?” A few said they liked it; that’s enough for me. Next week, deconstructing advertising.

Addendum: Here’s one of the questions I tacked onto the lesson: if the Bible is a media text, is it one-way or two-way?

Addendum 2: I also asked kids to name the one-way media of communication the church uses vs. the two-way media. They identified the worship bulletin as an interesting case study: there are two-way elements in it (call to worship, unison prayers), but it’s a printed text that participants can’t change. So it’s a one-way medium, right?

Right?

The Apple Church Is Just That Good: What Would Google Do? pt. 4

So I’ve been hearing these rumors about an iPad . . .

Another Apple product launch, another cultural phenomenon. Cupertino’s lovers love it. Their haters hate it. It’s success is indisputable. When was the last time a consumer product captured the cultural imagination like this?

Oh yeah, the iPhone.

Apple is the anti-Google, and their reign over all things networked really has no serious challenger. So why wasn’t this event called, “Theology after Apple?” Why not, “What Would Apple Do?”

In fact, Apple is the only anti-Google Jeff Jarvis could come up with. Not even God, he insists, is “immune from the power and influence of Google.” Evidence? How about open-Source Judaism, inspired by Douglas Rushkoff’s Nothing Sacred (“wasn’t the Talmud the world’s first wiki?”)?

No, only Apple seems to be exempt from the consequences of refusal to collaborate, to design platforms, open up, eschew advertising, and think distributed in the post-Google world. Jarvis ticks off the offenses:

Apple is the opposite of collaborative.

Apple still spends a fortune in advertising.

Apple is the farthest thing from transparent.

Apple abhors openness.

So why, if such Google-intransigence has buried entire industries, does Apple get a pass? Why does the brand still kill its competition? For Jarvis it’s simple: “It’s just that good. It’s vision is strong and its products even better.”

You’ve been to the Apple church, right? Impeccably manicured grounds; stirring worship aided by professional sound and lighting technicians; clear, concise, simple sermons with easy-to-use life application; unequivocally “Biblical” theology; a lifestyle niche small group ministry; slick branded merchandise, from Bibles to bumper stickers; youth recreation facilities to make Leslie Knope green with envy.

The Apple church is just that good. It’s has a clear vision articulated by a revered and unchallenged executive. Its products are simply excellent.

That’s a straw man of a setup, I know. You’re meant to start pointing out the Apple church’s flaws. But, like Apple, it doesn’t care about its detractors. It’s thriving, and the future is bright. And for those of us trying, from within Emergent or mainline Protestant or Catholic traditions to get our heads around a “Googley” church, the success of Apple church is an unsettling counterpoint.

God Complex Radio and Landon Whitsitt

Thanks to Landon Whitsitt for guest posting last week. Be sure to keep track of Landon’s ongoing book project, where he’ll be working out his understanding of open source technologies and how churches can (no: must!) use them.

Also thanks to Landon for the opportunity to be part of the most recent episode of God Complex Radio with the actor, theologian, and poet, Callid Keefe-Perry. Be sure to subscribe to the GCR feed, so you don’t miss any episodes. Ever.

The Church is as the Church does

If there is one drum I bang, it’s the need to see as many people using open source technologies as possible. There are two reasons for this.

First, churches are broke. I don’t know about you…yes, I do. Your church doesn’t have any more money than mine does. I bet those of you tasked with some form of leadership in your congregation sit around like our leaders do, and bemoan/worry/fret/blame/what-have-you about the state of finances. You’re not exactly sure how it was you got in the mess your in, and wonder why you need to buy a new copy of Microsoft Office every other month.

Well, the first piece of good news I have for you is not actually from me, but from “Internet Evangelist” Steve Knight: You don’t need to worry about paying for your IT tools any longer. Churches can move themselves into the internet age with an amazing lack of difficulty.

Check out Steve’s talk at last month’s Theology After Google event, “Just as I am Without One Fee” (which Rocky and I voted the best title of the entire event).

For those of us that grew up in the Charismatic/Evangelical world, his big tent revival speech cadence was a joy to behold.

So, that’s number one. Here’s where it gets fun.

The second reason churches should invest themselves into open source technology is because the church is as the church does. Here’s the claim: Our experience of being required to pay for/earn anything of beneficial value, affects our understanding of how we come to receive and benefit from the grace and peace of God in Christ.

Think about it. We get inundated with messages all the time that if we haven’t paid for it (whatever “it” is), we don’t really have any right to enjoy it. Organizations (corporations in particular) are set up on the notion that we will abide by this basic tenet of economic that when some don’t they are called “pirates” and accused of violating a particular ethical/moral code.

I have no interest in this post to debate piracy, but I want to point out how this is simply our reality. Can you see, then, how this would infect (yes, infect) our understanding of the Gospel? If you want to claim the benefit of the things of God then you need to prove that you have “paid” for them. Somehow, we have perverted the things of God into economic transactions.

What if, however, we had as our standard an economy that claimed that items have value when given not bought? What if our churches understood that we have “freely received” and so we should “freely give”?

To be sure, switching all churches over to open source software is a lofty dream. There are many reasons people would give for why it can’t or shouldn’t be done. But the church is as the church does, and when we subject ourselves to a world in which we are required to “pay for value” that can’t help but inform our proclamation of the Gospel.

Landon Whitsitt is a radio producer and author. He is allergic to watermelon, and can make you the best scrambled eggs you’ve ever had in your life.

Introducing Landon Whitsitt

Introducing YoRocko.com’s first guest poster: Landon Whitsitt.

Landon will be posting here over the next several days.

Pastor, radio producer, blogger, musician, author, bearer of a rockin’ new tattoo, and close personal friend of 16 years, Landon knows more things about more subjects than anyone I know. He’s a careful thinker who tries out new things with a shocking lack of reservation. That is the quality I envy most.

Be sure to check out Landon’s posts over the next week.

Douglas Rushkoff, Prophet of Our Era

This one’s been killing me for a few days.

I love me some Douglas Rushkoff. From this documentary to this media primer, and from this comic to this economics text, Rushkoff’s stuff influences my thinking about our culture and the church’s relationship to it as much as anything I read or watch or listen to. It never fails.

Rushkoff addressed the SXSW interactive festival a couple of weeks ago. The above video contains clips from that talk. Watch the thing. Here are some money quotes, though:

“We are attempting to operate our society on obsolete code.”

“If you are not a programmer, you are one of the programmed. It’s that simple.”

“And now we get the computer. Do we get a nation of programmers? No, we get a nation of bloggers. We write in the box that Google gives us.”

“Text gave us Judaism. The printing press gave us protestantism. What does this one [the computer] give us?”

For churches, what does this one give us? That seems to have been the question driving Theology After Google, and it’s the itch I’m scratching while reading What Would Google Do?

As for an answer? I can’t say for certain, but I’m a bit worried.

The early evidence suggests that this one gives churches Facebook pages, populated by comments like, “What should we use this Facebook page for?” This one gives churches online giving. This one gives churches websites that are either miserable because they don’t understand the web and so function as online marquees or stellar because they do understand the web and so can manipulate traffic through Search Engine Optimization.

Program or be programmed: that’s Rushkoff’s maxim. How do churches program? Somebody please tell me. I don’t have any positive answers or illustrations or examples.

Maybe start with the negative questions first: how do churches avoid being programmed by the technology? How do churches learn the biases of the media the culture is using? How do churches help people (inside the church and out) understand those biases as well?

I’ve toyed with the idea of a media literacy unit for the church youth. Rushkoff makes that notion suddenly feel urgent.