Permanent Value

(Jeremy and Jonathan eating nachos after church today) I was reading Sam's blog again, and her most recent entry really hit home today.

"The following is a quote from an interesting article 'Understanding Culture' from The Home School Digest magazine:

'Popular culture, since it is designed to be replaced periodically, and since it is built on a principle of planned obsolescence, i.e. there's always a new popular recording, or novel, or tv show- popular culture is designed to be ephemeral and fleeting and , if we have a steady diet of only popular culture, I think we tend to develop a taste for the novel, that is for the new things, as opposed to those permanent things. Parents ought to be cultivating in their children a love for those things which are of permanent value. Now particular artifacts of popular culture can do that, but I think that, as a system, popular culture tends to give priority and preference to new things. It's a problem for Christians, to become thoroughly identified with popular culture because we're giving greater credence to the idea that new things, and new ideas, are always better and old, permanent ideas are something to be suspicious of.'"

We helped out in Children's Church today. It was good, and Greg and I enjoyed it. They do a lot to make it exciting and keep the kids interested. But that bothers me a little. Since I've taken a liking to old school Calvinism, it does seem like the church tries too hard to entertain people. Church isn't about entertainment. I don't want my kids to feel like they are entitled to being entertained. At Children's Church they do this sing along and quiz time to this hip kids video. It's called Kidmo. They are well made and very "today". We're building a new children's church building to match this Kidmo theme with a big stage, lights, electronics, and puppets. I think it's going to be something like Chuck E Cheese. I don't know what to think of that. It's not that I'm completely opposed to that, but if it were up to me, I would choose to exercise a little more restraint with the design.

I dated a ministerial student in college who grew up in a very hip, trendy church in a suburb of Fort Worth. He grew up in a big house with a pool and a tennis court. He had all these "God Rocks" bumper stickers on his car. He was studying to be a youth minister, and he would change lyrics to current songs on the radio to entertain the kids at the church he worked with. He was funny and witty... and very "all about him". We were in downtown Fort Worth, and he was finished with his soda, so at the next red light, he just opened the door and set it in the street. He had these bumper stickers about being a "Rad Christian" on his car, and he just littered in front of many people who might not have known Christ. I think his focus and priorities were a bit skewed having been so well entertained growing up and being so entertaining.

It's not that I am so worried about this that we'll change churches. It's a great church. I just think we'll need to remind the boys that they don't need to be entertained all the time, and that it's not all about them. I don't want them to grow up with a sense of entitlement.

• "Parents ought to be cultivating in their children a love for those things which are of permanent value. (snip) It's a problem for Christians, to become thoroughly identified with popular culture because we're giving greater credence to the idea that new things, and new ideas, are always better and old, permanent ideas are something to be suspicious of."