Dr. Garry Williams begins a series of posts on ‘The World in the Church’ by considering how our distracted culture influences how we worship, and the nee for us to practice meditating on Scripture.
Dr. Garry Williams begins a series of posts on ‘The World in the Church’ by considering how our distracted culture influences how we worship, and the nee for us to practice meditating on Scripture.
Managed to read this article to the end… But only as procrastination from reading a book. Thanks DT. Very persuasive and fitting, not entirely convinced that using media in the middle of a sermon would always have potential to distract but clearly concentration and evaluation habits amongst children and adults alike are atrocious. Missed a main symptom that people are more used to being spoon fed conclusions without the hard labours of being walked through the argument so they are content with brevity over completeness (for want of a better word). J
Thanks James – I think you are right that the use of media isn’t a ‘to be avoided it all costs’ option, but media, especially visual media ought to be used with an understanding of all that its use entails. That does mean not only thinking through ‘how does this help get the point I’m trying to make right now across,’ but also ‘what expectations is this setting for the future’. I would want to agree with Garry’s point below:
“We have to be teachers not only of the content of revelation, but also of its prescribed form. Being faithful pastors will involve challenging the way people think as well as what they think.”
Garry mentions that we need to do this explicitly in our teaching, which was certainly something I needed to be reminded of. I think even within fairly solid evangelical churches we’re in danger of a high degree of biblically illiteracy, not because we don’t have access to a vast array of Bible’s in all shapes and sizes, but because we’re not intentionally equipping ourselves to be able to receive revelation in the form God has given it.