The fine line between "relevant" and "Christian" as told by the New York Times.
Thou Shall Not Kill...Except in Video Games
Perhaps more than any "ministry area", youth ministry strives to be on the cutting edge. By getting the kids in the doors with Halo, are we sacrificing content for "community"? Has fellowship become our golden calf?
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3 comments:
We don't play it at church.
One the other hand isn't Halo just Space Invaders with better graphics?
There is a lot of hypocricy with parents who allow some Teen games that are much more violent and will not allow Halo because of the mature rating even though it is less so.
Fellowship has always been the golden calf of youth ministry. Now that you know that you can do something about it. And I don't mean looking for a "Christianized" version of Halo at your local Christian bookstore. (That is even worse)
There are numerous ways to create fun community events (messy games anyone?) without sitting in front of a screen, regardless of the rating.
However, when no one is looking of course, I prefer killing clones in Starwars Battlefront. That is good stuff!
so what about guitar hero then? while guitar hero does not include killing people, it does include "666" in the background and a song that says "Shout at the Devil"
wouldn't playing guitar hero be more subversive in terms of creating an anti-Christian worldview?
i just stick to playing sports games - and make frequent use of the "taunt" feature :)
I think the larger question is how do we lead young people in how to interact with their culture while remaining wise to it's subversive tactics?
If Jesus is our model (and I don't know why he wouldn't be) we must interact with the culture and at times use the messages of the culture (good and bad) as a framework to discuss the gospel. Otherwise, like the Amish we choose an era of life and stick with that one framework to live in separately from the culture.
That approach will work in youth ministry about 5 minutes.
I wouldn't worry about Guitar hero too much. I would steer kids from songs that you thought were questionable. Also, I would honor parents by giving them more than enough information up front in order to choose if they wish for their child not to participate.
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