Ministers use high-tech tools to capture attention of media-savvy children_41904

Posted: 4/16/04

Ministers use high-tech tools to capture
attention of media-savvy children

By Barbara Neff

Religion News Service

GRAYSLAKE, Ill. (RNS)– Six years ago, Dan Huffman abandoned his lucrative career as a software development consultant to become a full-time youth minister.

“I don't have any formal religious training,” he said, “but I believe that when God calls you, he will equip you.”

For Huffman, part of that equipment turned out to be his computer science background.

Huffman, the pastor of children's ministries at The Chapel, a non-denominational church in Grayslake, Ill., belongs to a growing group of youth ministers using technology and other innovations to attract today's multimedia-savvy kids to biblical teachings.

The ministers rely on tools like PowerPoint, videos, rock music and interactive exercises to make their lessons relevant to kids.

“The messages don't change, but the methods do,” said Dale Hudson, children's minister at First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark. “Churches can't teach in the way they did in the 1950s or 1960s.”

Both Hudson and Huffman instituted dramatic changes to the existing Sunday school programs when they took over their churches' youth and children's ministries.

Huffman recalled watching three fifth-grade boys sit with their arms crossed over their chests as their teacher stood in front of the classroom singing a hymn.

“I knew this wasn't working, so I looked to see who was communicating well with kids,” he said.

Hudson said his church also fell short of connecting culturally with the children before he moved to a fast-paced “Nickelodeon style” that incorporates high-energy, sloppy games and numerous visual devices, broadcast on large screens with music and graphics.

“You have to let kids be kids,” he said. “We make church a fun, exciting place.”

Hudson's program, which serves 600 children in first through fifth grades each week, takes place on elaborate sets known as Toon Town and Space 45. He said the children's worship program was held in a chapel also used for funerals when he started in Springdale.

“The first radical thing we did was change the environment,” Hudson said.

Searching the Internet, Hudson connected with Bruce Barry, a set designer who previously worked for Universal Studios, Busch Gardens and the Rain Forest Cafe.

“You can't stick kids in a room with beige walls,” Hudson said. “We tried to look through the eyes of a child when we created our rooms.”

Huffman's program, called The Great Adventure, currently operates in a theater-in-the-round at the local high school, serving about 400 kids in two sessions every Sunday. He said the move from a classroom to the theater meant he could do more elaborate teaching.

Huffman had heard that children have an attention span of one minute for each year of age but knew they watched television for long periods of time.

“I kept coming back to 'Sesame Street,'” he said. “It moved fast and kept the kids' attention, and it always had a common thread, like the letter E and the number 9, with everything revolved around that theme.”

Huffman breaks each week's lesson into segments of no longer than five minutes. A recent lesson, which focused on jealousy, played out in a diner, with a cash register, high chrome stools lined up at a counter and a video screen.

Minutes before about 200 kids poured down the aisles to their plastic-molded seats, several adults and fifth-grade children squeezed in more rehearsal for the puppet show segments.

“I don't want any dead space,” directed Huffman, dressed in blue jeans and a striped rugby shirt.

The 45-minute lesson included scenes in a continuing puppet story, broken up by video clips, interactive time when the children offered personal experiences with jealousy, a Bible teaching, a rollicking worship song and a lesson review game.

This is not your father's Sunday school, but Huffman and Hudson said they've encountered little resistance to their ideas.

“Every once in awhile, you may have an extremely conservative family, but 99 percent of the people love the changes, and you have to program for where the majority of people are,” Hudson said.

Still, the new approaches are not without their critics, who complain that the methods emphasize entertainment over education and say popular culture has no place in a ministry.

Huffman agrees that the teaching is the key component of the children's ministry but said the kids won't come back if they don't enjoy the lessons.

"Why do they make Gummi Bear vitamins these days?" Huffman asked. "Critics say you're just making them attractive to kids. Well, yeah–the end result is they're getting their vitamins." Similarly, the new children's ministry programs teach God's word to kids in the most digestible way, he said. "We do have a lot of fun, but we don't compromise the message."

The Chapel and First Baptist both appear to be thriving, with construction under way for new facilities.

The Chapel is building a $9 million permanent facility, including an interactive children's area called Adventure Avenue that uses the entire lower level.

“The children's facility will look like Main Street U.S.A. at Disney World,” Huffman said.

Hudson declined to predict how his children's ministry would look in five years.

“That'll be dictated by the culture,” he said.

“This culture is so fluid that we just take it year by year. Our message won't change, but the methods are up for grabs.”