The Other Side of the Coin: On Creativity, the Internet and Facebook

This post is a response to these two posts:

• http://tonymorganlive.com/2011/01/21/church-trends-josh-griffin/
• http://thepadre10.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/a-new-facebook-attitude/

I’ll get right to the point. I hate that Facebook is replacing the larger internet in most people’s lives.

The internet is an incredible place. Huge innovation, shared technology, community, design, art, typography, video, interactive technology, information preservation, the list goes on. Facebook is a pretty poor example of all of these things, with the exception (perhaps) of community. But even that’s up for grabs. My brother in law said it well when he said “I feel like Facebook is designed for me to go judge people.” Healthy community? Maybe. Maybe not.

For years, the youth culture was driving the innovation, the wild west frontier of the internet. But now a lot of kids don’t even really know how to go to other websites besides Facebook. It seems to me that the youth culture in which I grew up, creativity and artistry of all kinds were encouraged and praised, and the internet was a huge part of that. But at some point our culture has stopped taking joy in the potential of kids’ creativity. It’s no longer encouraged. In fact, quite the opposite.

Even art in schools like music programs are primarily oriented around kids learning to recite pre-written music and follow complex marching formations. It seems like now our culture only praises children for being “good,” following the “rules,” regurgitating data, obeying orders, and the like. Not that any of those things are bad in and of themselves. In fact, they’re often necessary in order to progress to creation. But I feel like we aren’t truly teaching our kids to be creative. We’re teaching them to take standardized tests so that we can grade their performance and shuffle them off to a school or program that suits their output quality.

I see very little encouragement for kids to be truly creative, and I see a whole lot of walled gardens like Facebook that make our kids consumers, not creators. I see a whole generation of kids being herded into consumerism, with their fire of creativity, joy, and drive to challenge the status quo all but dowsed in busyness and controls adults put on them.

Creativity challenges everything. It’s dangerous. When youth are creative, most adults respond with fear. Probably because it reduces their control, but more so because it challenges their comfort. Our God is a creator. He put his image in us. When the youth culture falls in love with Jesus, and gets creative, you better believe it gets dangerous and uncomfortable.

Facebook is just a symptom of a larger problem. And the internet is a symbol of a greater frontier.

How can we encourage, teach, and exhort sanctified creativity in our kids? And maybe more importantly, are we willing to deal with the consequences if we do?

What kids want

First, I read this article. So in order to understand this post, I recommend reading it too.

All done? Good. Here are my thoughts:

Sometimes I think we’ve got it all wrong on what kids really want. For some reason (another blog post for another time) we think kids want a show, a spectacle, a wow-factor. But I submit that what kids really want, really deep down, is to meet God.

Maybe it’s because I work in a relatively small church with a relatively small youth group, and because we are physically and monetarily unable to put on a show, that this seems clear to me. The lights, the throbbing subwoofers, the wildly creative interactive elements, the mesmerizing and sometimes motion-sickness-inducing video lyric backgrounds, the hip worship leader with the swooping v-neck, the dynamic, powerful, passionate guest speaker, the smokey haze, the veritable frenzy of “good” worship, ALL… THE… STUFF…

It isn’t what kids want.

They want to meet God. And sometimes it feels like in all our planning and preparation we forgot to invite him. It’s almost like we secretly think that he’ll see our show, and be so impressed that he’ll have to come. I mean who wouldn’t want to see a giant banner fall from the sky with our show’s logo glittering on it? Even God would want to see that. ‘Cause it’s cool. And it’s what the kids want, right? It’s what they see on MTV. We’re speaking their language. We’re meeting them where they are. We’re like Paul on Mars Hill reciting the poetry of our culture. Right?

I know this sounds like I’m pooping on the big youth conferences. I’m not. I promise. Okay maybe a little bit. But I have good friends who work on that kind of stuff. I know they’re not stupid godless people. They’re doing the best they can with what they’ve got. And they do love and invite God. I’ve been to my fair share of those big events. And for the most part, they’re really really great. All I’m saying is that we need to remember what kids really want. Heck, who cares what they want! What they really need is to meet God. And meeting God has pretty much nothing to do with the show.

That’s why a group of thousands of kids can walk away from a huge conference that turned into little more than an unplugged campfire session saying it was the best thing ever.

And frankly, God doesn’t need our help. In fact, sometimes, I think we get in the way. We’re trying to introduce kids to the God who scattered the stars, spun the atom, knit our bodies, parted the Red Sea, chose thieves, prostitutes, and murderers, humbled himself in humanity, bore the burden of mankind’s past, present, and future sin, gave himself up to suffer and die, defeated death like it was nothing, set in motion a glorious collaborative plan for creation’s redemption… meeting that God is the biggest “wow-factor” in the universe.

On Reaching Your Potential

There’s been some talk around me lately about reaching potential. Honestly, it’s used a lot of the time to inflict a guilt trip on the person “not reaching their potential.” Which is lame. All this talk got me thinking about what potential is, means, and how to “reach” it. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Do what God wants, the best you can, with what he’s given you, in the place he’s put you.

Do what God wants…

Know the Bible. This means just doing what God makes clear in the Bible that we’re all supposed to do.

The best you can…

Don’t be lazy. Sheesh…

With what he’s given you…

“Know thyself.” In other words, what are your personal gifts? Passions? Hobbies? Knowledge? Expertise? And more concretely, what are the physical resources God has made available to you? Money? House? Dog? Couch? Xbox? Church building? Car? Business? Use everything!

In the place he’s put you.

Know the Bible. “Place” = circumstances, job, geographic location, church community, friends, family, financial situation, etc. This one kind of ties back in with the first one. God doesn’t usually give specific instructions about what he wants us to do or where he wants us to go. This means that for most people, we could change it to say “wherever you are.” For some people, they need to change their place to be more in line with scriptures.

So in my opinion, if you want to reach your potential, try doing what God wants, the best you can, with what he’s given you, in the place he’s put you. I don’t see how you could fail.

Why I tailgate student drivers

What’s the deal with the “Student Driver” stickers on cars? Seriously. I think they’re defeating the entire point of being a student driver. What are the stickers supposed to be doing? Influencing the way people drive around this car? I understand the need for this kind of branding with things like handicapped drivers or a vehicle carrying a volatile combustive substance, but student drivers? Think about it.

It creates a false sense of security for the inexperienced, eager to learn, and presumably young driving trainee. Driver’s Ed is all about learning from experience. It isn’t simply the mechanics of driving a car that we’re trying to teach. You don’t drive a car in a trafficless vacuum. (Though driving a car in the near-vacuum of early Sunday morning or Christmas day is a real treat.) If the drivers around the trainee’s car alter their driving habits, then the student driver will be completely unprepared for their first foray into the wacky world of driving in an unmarked vehicle. In other words, student drivers are living in a fantasy land. A land where, at first, driving is scary and uncertain, but after a little while it becomes clear that everyone just seems so darn nice!

The real world of driving is a dark and depressing place, where humans are reduced to their basest survival instincts. A place where in the blink of a turn signal, a joyride can turn into a desperate fight for survival. In this dank abyss, God-given human urges for compassion, goodwill, and even simple smiling are forcibly replaced with a sense of bitter impatience bordering on psychosis, instantly vehement murderous anger, and the genuine belief that I can text, adjust the radio, eat a Big Mac, and merge into your lane all at the same time. This is the nightmarish landscape we’ve shielded our young people from with these seemingly innocuous stickers, and they will undoubtedly pay the price. Ladies and gentlemen, this is why I believe that the “Student Driver” stickers are counter-productive.

Now that you’re aware of the problem, ask yourself, “What can I do to help?” When you see those tell-tale “Student Driver” stickers, what are you going to do about it? It might be laying on your horn, cutting them off, blocking them out, gesturing maniacally at them as you speed past, or any number of other culturally accepted driving survival skills. Our young drivers need us to stop sheltering them, and start teaching them.

I’m not an awful driver. I try to stay within the speed limit, use my blinker, only steer with my knee when absolutely necessary, and all that other safe stuff. But I simply cannot sit back and let this travel travesty continue to happen. Someone has to take responsibility to shape our moldable young minds. Someone has to shatter this blissful, yet deadly, fantasy that is student driving. Someone has to do something. This is why, in the spirit of truly teaching by experience, I totally tailgate student drivers.

Let’s make our streets and highways a better place. Together.

An Open Letter to Michael Bay and Transformers

Dear Michael Bay and Transformers,

I just saw your latest movie, and I have some constructive criticisms. In order to make this simple, I’ll split my comments into three sections: what you’ve got going for you, what’s total crap, and what to do about it.

The Simple Service Initiative

I’m sure North Point people are sick of hearing about The Simple Service Initiative. If you’re one of those people, move along now, there’s nothing new to see here.