A Guideline For Improving Your Students’ Cultural Discernment
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With the media blitzkrieg surrounding MTV’s new TV show “Skins,” we’ve received a few notes and emails from youth workers wondering how to address this issue with their students.
In light of this, I thought it would be beneficial to offer a sort of guideline for addressing any cultural element with your students, whether it be a movie, TV show, song, website . . . really, any cultural entity that offers a perspective contrary to God’s standards.
The goal here is pretty simple: improving your students’ cultural discernment.
This is just a guideline, but I think it’s flexible enough to allow for adaptation to a variety of subjects and settings.
I’d love to hear what you think is missing, or anything that strikes you as particularly helpful (or, particularly un-helpful!).
1. Gauge your group’s level of exposure.
Consider this your fieldwork, gathering insight through conversations with students and through over-hearing conversations between students. See if the particular issue is something your students are aware of. I think there’s a fine line between checking to see if a certain song or movie is on students’ radars, and possibly alerting them to something they might not have otherwise watched or listened to. I know as I work with students, I’m always trying to be aware of this element. You know your students best, and if you think they have been exposed to something, you have to address it. (At least, that’s my belief.)
2. Establish a baseline.
Scripture is the only measure we have of how we are to conduct ourselves from a moral and ethical viewpoint. The Bible contains the moral standards of God’s Kingdom. And as Christ-followers, we are called to more or less act as citizens of God’s Kingdom! So, you must establish that God’s Word is literally the standard by which your students are to conduct themselves.
3. Note where the particular entity deviates from God’s standard.
How does the song, or movie, or TV show conflict with Scripture? Does it defy God’s standard for sex? Does it go against the idea of honoring our bodies as the temple of God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20)? Does it go against the idea that all people are treasured and valuable because they are made in God’s image? Isolate the main reason(s) the particular cultural element goes against God’s Word by reading specific passages from Scripture, and, where possible, supporting it with multiple passages.
4. Create an atmosphere of critique.
I ate lunch the other day with a veteran youth pastor. He made a great point about MTV’s “Skins” and shows like it. He said the worst is that teenagers are simply being exploited. They are the butt of the joke. In the case of “Skins” and many of MTV’s other offerings, a denigrating view of teenagers is pedaled to generate ratings and buzz, to push the envelope for what is shocking in our culture. You can help students see that this is simply not acceptable, or beneficial. Ask how students feel being manipulated and used. Don’t just teach, engage! If students have watched the particular show, or heard the song, have them bring to light other instances where the show might violate some aspect of Scripture. (Keep in mind point number 1 here as you make sure the discussion stays within acceptable boundaries.) The goal is to help create students who are critics of culture, discerning exactly where and how culture violates God’s standards, and choosing to engage with it based on those grounds.
5. End with an emphasis on holiness.
1 Peter 1:15-16 makes such a clear case that as children of God, we are called to emulate holiness in all we do. To me, the pursuit of holiness is the aim of helping students develop “handles” for how to live in and engage with culture.
Again, this is not a rigid set of rules by any means, but a good guideline with which to negotiate dealing with a cultural element your students may find themselves interacting with.
Teach students how engage culture with Engage, a 4-lesson study on impacting their world for Christ.
Andy Blanks is the co-founder of youthministry360. Andy has worked in youth ministry for 12 years, almost exclusively writing, designing, and developing curriculum. Andy is a volunteer youth leader with his church’s youth group, leading a small group and speaking and teaching whenever he gets the chance. He is a teacher at heart and loves to challenge teenagers and youth workers alike through his writing and speaking.
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I think this is a good article. I would also add that leaders and teachers need to live out the kind of life/relationship with God that we’re trying to pass on to teens. Too often I hear adults and parents getting upset about what teens are watching or even doing, but in some ways the show probably reflects a growing number of teens who are doing these things because of boredom and lack of purpose in their lives. So, I would want to remind teens of what they should want to live for, rather than just tell them about all the things they should avoid. For me it’s gotta be both. This article does a great job of teaching discernment, because a show like this is deceitful because it pretends to portray “real” life for teens (and in the end nothing matters but your friendships. Let’s keep inspiring teens to live real life as servants of the True and Living God.