VeggieTales: Light-Hearted Teaching or Flawed Theology?

If you've been keeping up, you know I help out with Route 56 (a 5th and 6th grade transitional ministry) at my church. My wonderful boyfriend teaches and it's honestly pretty high up there on my list of favorite things to do to hang out with crazy awkward kids and hear his wisdom and teaching every week. Recently, we started a series on Jonah (to mirror the Jonah series in "big church" that their parents are hearing). It's been awesome so far and you should totally check out JD's wisdom on the book and listen to the sermons.

Starting the series, I recollected on my Sunday School days, remembering felt boards with Jonah in a whale, running from God, and then turning back to God to happily witness to the people of Nineveh. I was surprised by my own flawed memory of the story, however. Maybe I was never taught it correctly, or maybe I remembered it incorrectly - either way, I had some details wrong, specifically regarding the sailors, Jonah's time in the belly of the big fish, and how Jonah really felt about the Ninevites. All that to say, I didn't have the story 100% correct going into this series.

That being said, I was floored by the way our 5th and 6th graders responded when they heard we were learning about Jonah. Let's just say nearly all of them had seen the Veggie Tales version of the story. Not only had they seen it, but when we asked them details about the story, they regurgitated facts like "Jonah was just a veggie" and "The Ninevites were mean people because they slapped each other with fish all the time." Wait. What? Yes. Those are direct quotes. And they were eerily stated with Biblical weight. They genuinely thought that was true! Nowhere in the Bible are those things stated. Yes, for sure we know that the Ninevites were crazy mean people, but slapping people with fish? Really? 

Some of the students were particularly curious about what Jonah did while he was in the belly of the big fish. "How did he eat?" "Did it smell bad?" "Was he actually in the stomach?" "Did he, like, eat the other fish that the bigger fish had already eaten?" "How could he even see because it would've been dark?" (The questions 5th & 6th graders can come up with really are quite astonishing.) Finally one student put everyone's questions to rest by stating, in Veggie Tale style, that Jonah saw because there were angels in the belly of the fish, which made it light, and he ate from the ship that the big fish had previously eaten.

...Seriously? 

Okay, I'm not blaming the kids for remembering crazy things from the only source they know about Jonah. I'm not necessarily blaming the parents either. I mean they probably gave the babysitter instructions to let the kids watch it while they went out for date night. Totally understandable. I've thought about a few years down the road when I have kids, would I rather them watch an outlandish Barbie movie about fairies or Veggie Tales? Probs the latter. 

So, here's my beef: kids are detail-oriented. They don't remember the big picture or the general message from something. Our 5th and 6th graders can't recall the lesson we learned two weeks ago, but they can remember the obscure nickname they gave a student in the middle of August. So when kids watch things like Veggie Tales, they remember small details that are seemingly harmless, not the general Bible story. Also, kids have a hard time distinguishing fiction from reality. It would seem logical that a child would understand that Jonah didn't choose being a veggie for his occupation, but when asked what Jonah did, all they can remember is that he was "just a veggie." Personally, some of my friends who grew up watching Veggie Tales still to this day, as college students, have a hard time remembering if details of the Bible stories they watched were fact or fiction.

Real talk: I think Veggie Tales is super clever and catchy. Let's be real, the songs are awesome. And I'm still undecided on if I'll let my kids watch them or not. If kids are allowed to watch Veggie Tales (and other Biblically based things), they need to be told what the Bible actually says about what they're viewing. Kids aren't going to remember that Jonah angrily fled God's presence and that God pursued him, which is a huge display of the Gospel. They are going to remember details which may or may not be in line with Scripture. Students need to be set straight on Biblical details so that they can later form solid theology fully based on Scripture.

Thankful Things: Part I

Praise the Lord it's almost Thanksgiving. This girl needs a break. All this paper writing is slowly ebbing away my motivation. So instead of writing final papers, I thought I'd take a break and write a quintessential Thanksgiving blog post about things I'm thankful for.

(To even out the former complaint about school...) Even though UNC wasn't my first choice, I am so so thankful I ended up here. Academically it's not been easy, but I've learned a lot, both in  & out of the classroom. I've gotten some pretty great opportunities like being a TA and doing research that I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. And if I hadn't come to Carolina, I wouldn't have ended up at the Summit.

I'm indescribably thankful for the Summit Church for a ton of reasons. Through the Summit, I've learned what the Gospel really is and seen what it looks like to live out the Gospel on a daily basis. The City Project was completely instrumental in helping me learn these things. I've also gotten to be a part of solid community through TCP and my awesome women's small group! 

I'm also super thankful for the wonderful Summit staff and their wives. It's been such a blessing to get to network with and glean knowledge from them, especially when it means getting to play with their cute kids or having a home cooked meal :)

And I met this man through the Summit, which has been indescribably wonderful, fun-filled, and sanctifying.

It's been so wonderful helping lead Route 56. I'm so thankful for this crucial ministry within the church and feel so blessed that I get to help out with it. 5th and 6th graders are crazy and hysterical, immature and mature, awkward and cool, deep and shallow all at the same time.

I'm so thankful for the things God has allowed me to experience in the past few months. God constantly put himself on display in Kenya. He is ultimate source of beauty. For realz. 

I'm so thankful for how God is growing my heart for the nations. I pray that this process only continues throughout my life.

Why I Love 5th & 6th Graders (Part II)

6 reasons I love 5th and 6th graders: 

1) They think I'm cool even though I'm super nerdy.

2) They let me take bathroom pictures. Sans judgment.

3) They love hugs and pats on the back, just like me.

4) They can be talked into doing just about anything, like eating a doughnut off a string or consuming baby food and guessing what flavor it is.

 

5) They wake up at 6 a.m., alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic.

6) They genuinely care about and for other people (even if they don't know how to express it). And they laugh at my jokes.

Why I Love 5th & 6th Graders (Part I)

The most normative picture taken at the Route56 Fall Retreat

I love 5th and 6th graders. In my opinion, they comprise the most diverse age group ever. Everything about them is ALL over the place, from maturity, what they like, what vocabulary they use, their train of thought, their spiritual growth. This craziness not only varies from student to student, but from minute to minute. Seriously one minute a student will be talking about how the Gospel affects their life, then asking prayer for Peaches, their grandma's cat (and to thank God for making Peaches, both the cat and the delicious fruit). (True story.)

As far as my own experience and knowledge goes, I think the Summit is pretty unique in having a separate ministry for 5th and 6th grade students. Most churches omit this age group, leaving 5th graders in elementary ministries while 6th graders long to be a part of their church youth group but often aren't allowed to join until 7th grade. Some more progressive churches do allow 6th graders to move up to youth group, but often this fails too because they're not ready to be a part of that institution yet. This is such a sad reality in the church today. The secular world is devouring this age group while the church idly sits back and lets them sit in limbo for a few years because, if we're honest, they're awkward (or at least that's the stereotype). While the church is debating over whether 6th grade Johnny should be allowed to play on the youth group basketball team, advertising agencies and the porn industry are showing Johnny what it's like to be older, to be a "teenager." Marketers know if consumers start buying and using their products late in elementary school and early in middle school, they'll have them hooked for life. Marketing agencies aren't the only ones with this knowledge, the pornography industry knows this full well. The average age a child sees porn today is 11. Eleven. Let that sink in. If nothing else, that fact alone should scare the church into caring for this unique age group.

At the Summit, we call Route56 a "transitional ministry." We try to care for 5th and 6th grade students (and their parents) during a crazy time of transition and change in their lives. The church as a whole needs to address this age group too. If you're hesitant about working with 5th and 6th graders, I hear ya. I was skeptical too. But if the church doesn't care for these students and preach the Gospel to them in word and deed, they will find solace and purpose and identity in other things, worldly things that are seeking to devour them.

From Flannelgraphs to Gospel Facts

I grew up in a conservative home and an equally conservative Southern Baptist church. I was indoctrinated with Biblical principles from a very young age. I thank the Lord that he allowed me such an upbringing and love how my seemingly mundane testimony (grew up in the church, saved at an early age, baptized soon after, etc.) puts God's faithfulness on display. Like many of my friends, I learned oodles of Bible stories in church. If I was lucky, my Sunday School teacher would bring the aesthetically pleasing flannelgraph, circa 1994, to visually display such stories. The point of these stories was typically morality or, if the teacher was going super spiritual, to learn a specific facet of God's character. I knew that God sent Jesus to die for my sins on the cross and then Jesus rose on the 3rd day so that I could live with Jesus in heaven forever, but that was just another flannelgraph reserved for Easter, not a weekly concept that was visited. The Gospel provoked a one-time decision, not a lifestyle.

Enter how in the world this relates to anything...

Over the summer, I interned at the Summit with Route 56, a really unique transitional ministry for 5th and 6th graders. Fifth and sixth graders are probably the most awkward, most awesome, mature, yet simultaneously immature, group of people on the planet. I love them. I'll save why I chose to work with Route 56 for a later time, but will highlight an interesting dynamic I and the other R56 leaders have noticed.

Unlike how I and many other people my age grew up in the church, kids today, especially in Gospel-centered, urban churches like the one I go to are indoctrinated with the Gospel every time they walk through the doors. They can clearly articulate the Gospel. They know there is nothing they can do to earn salvation. They know that nothing they have done in the past and nothing they will do in the future can make God love them less or more. They know that the Gospel is the impetus behind good deeds. They know the Gospel brings them back into right relationship with God. And while it is awesome that they know the Gospel, it seems to be just head knowledge. It doesn't really change how they live. It's not heart knowledge.

I know that it's not my responsibility to make head knowledge of the Gospel seep into the precious hearts of 5th and 6th graders. That's the Holy Spirit's job, thank goodness, and something that even if I wanted to, I couldn't do. But it is my job to be a catalyst for the transition from head knowledge to heart knowledge.

Don't get me wrong, the Gospel is undoubtedly the most important thing we could ever teach or convey to younger children and students. If we expect students to simply retain the Gospel as a string of facts, we might as well use a flannelgraph. If we desire for facts to become the ultimate source of life and salvation, our lives must boast the Gospel as much as our mouths.