Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

10 March, 2008   comments: (0) Today's Pragmatism   Gross and Outrageous Youthgroup Activities Do you know if your child has ever played "Bedpan" Relay? Or been asked to lick peanut butter out of someone's armpit? Or been dared to drink what someone has chewed up and spit out? Has your daughter been introduced to a game of "Christian Strip" or a game of "feeling" the legs of five guys when blindfolded to see if she can identify which legs belong to whom? Even though these objectionable games are out of character for Christians, they are being used by some undiscerning youth group leaders with teens. This page is excerpted from a website that had, up until recently, promoted an eye opening book by Cathy Mickels. While the website is no longer online, the book is still for sale on Amazon.com and contains an important reminder for parents that I recommend reading. After recently seeing the demise of the career of a youth pastor at one of our country's largest megachurches due to this pastor's highly questionable moral behavior presumably with one of his students, I felt that it was time to resound this call for parents to stay in touch with what's going on in the church activities that their kids attend. As you are about to read, some of it is sexually concerning, some of it is unsafe, and much of it is just out of place at church and reflects the modern mood of pragmatic church entertainment. --Jim When writing Spiritual Junk Food: The Dumbing Down of Christian Youth, we came across a website that lists games that the founder of the site calls "sick and twisted" (Note: These are his words, not ours, even though we would agree that that is exactly what they are). Because we thought the "sick and twisted" games were on the fringe and not mainstream, we didn't take them seriously, nor the founder of the site. However, recently we found out that at least two of the major ministries for youth have links on their websites to [this] listing of inappropriate games for youth. The founder of the "sick and twisted" game site is described as bringing "cutting edge" resources to youth workers. According to his own website, he "trains and equips thousands of workers each month" through speaking engagements and his website's free resources. His website gets "about 3 quarters of a million hits a month" and he sends out an "email newsletter to over 11,000 youth workers---a number that grows by about 50 to 100 subscribers a week." It appears that these games are being more widely used than we ever anticipated. We were made aware of the possible impact of the website upon other youth workers when we recently read about a law suit filed against a church by parents of teens who participated in an activity similar to the one listed on the game sight titled the Human Blender. The Human Blender, described on the site in question as a "disgusting" skit, involves a person on staff (the Human Blender) chewing up a "creative" mixture of food, then spiting it out into a cup for another staff member to drink. "Disgusting" is an accurate description, but to that description we would also add the words risky and unhealthy. In the church where a variation of this gross-out game was played, the teens who drank a mixture of dog food, salsa, sauerkraut, sardines, potted meat, eggnog and cottage cheese, first chewed by a church employee and then spit out, developed bacterial strep and had to be tested for other communicable diseases including hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV. Human Blender (along with the Bedpan Relay, and licking peanut butter out of someone's armpit) has been removed from the above mentioned website. Apparently, however, the founder of the site did so only because of outside pressure--- mainly from a radio talk show host whose program is broadcast nation wide. If the founder of the site truly had a change of heart and understood the moral confusion, and in some cases the emotional abuse being inflicted upon teens playing these games, he would have removed all the objectionable games from his site, not just a few of them. For example, other unacceptable games include Butt Charades, Foot to Ear, and Kiss the Wench. In Butt Charades, cut up slips of paper with words on them are put into a bag. After teams are formed, a volunteer from each team pulls a word out of the bag and tries to get the others on the team to guess the word by spelling it with his/her butt. Comments following the activity are: "Try to keep it clean. We don't want to have any dirty butts." Foot to Ear is described as "kind of like musical chairs. . . but much, much better." The following is the game's instructions: "Have the girls stand in a circle. Now have the guys stand outside of the circle of girls, each guy next to one girl, his partner for the game. Have the inner circle (girls) walk clockwise when the music begins and the outer circle (guys) walk counter-clockwise. When the music stops the leader will yell out two body parts (e.g. "foot to ear"). The girl's part is always first (ladies first) and the guy's is second. When the music stops and the leader yells the body parts the partners need to run straight to each other and put those designated body parts together (e.g. the girl would run to the guy and put her foot on his ear). Great game . . . just think before you yell body parts (e.g. don't yell "chest to head")" These games focusing on body parts are ill considered. If we want to teach our Christian teens a clear message on moral and physical purity, we must not confuse that message by playing games that titillate the flesh. Would you want your daughter or son to play Kiss the Wench? Read the game's directions to find out: ". . . a guys team and a girls team line up parallel, facing each other. Number them off so each person has a counterpart. Start with a girl in the middle, "the wench" (no chauvinism implied). When a number is called, 12 for example, guy number 12 is to try to run out and kiss "the wench". Meanwhile, girl number 12 is to try to kiss "the dude" before he can kiss "the wench". The loser stays in the middle and becomes the new wench or dude. Continue game calling numbers and they continue to be the first to kiss the opposite sex, whether in the middle or the person called." Like the games just mentioned, far too many of the games being used in youth groups involve touch. Intimate touching gives teens permission to act in a manner outside of normal and acceptable behavior. Acknowledging that touch games are very powerful, Dr. W. R. Coulson, Ph.D., Ed.D., warns: "Sometimes participation in one [touch games] can cause a person's body to get so far beyond his head that he can't take responsibility for what happens." Dr. Coulson explains that "a game can give permission for one to do what he might have longed to do, but could not take responsibility for." Can you imagine the uproar from parents if these games were being played in the public school? Why is not there the same outrage when these games take place in the church? Perhaps one reason is that parents are unaware what is taking place in their child's youth group. Another reason may be that leaders in the church have bought the lie that we have to make church relevant to the generation today, forgetting (or not believing) that the Bible is relevant for all people, for all time, for all situations. It is often argued by youth leaders that gimmicks such as outrageous games are necessary to draw teens to youth group. But are they really? We cannot imagine the apostle Paul using these games to attract an audience to hear him preach. To use gross games and outrageous activities to get youth to youth group meetings implies a lack of faith in the work of the Holy Spirit, and a faulty reliance on the wisdom of man. The previously mentioned games are bad enough, but other games on this questionable site could also be considered sacrilegious. "Sanctuary Softball" and "Seafood Catch" are two examples. "Sanctuary Softball" is a modified game of softball played in the sanctuary using a nerf ball or a fabric ball. The bases are located in places that require the youth to weave themselves through the pews, with the home plate being at the altar. The "Seafood Catch" is a game in which small minnows are released in the church baptistery. Teens are challenged to get in and try to catch them (extra points are given for eating them after they're caught). Lobsters, crabs or a greased watermelon can also be added. Gene Veith in the August 24 edition of WORLD magazine addressed this current youth group fad in an article titled "Stupid Church Tricks." He points out the dangers of "following the church-growth principle of giving people what they like as a way to entice them into the kingdom" especially when considering that many "adolescents are amused by bodily functions and crude behavior." Youth are learning, but not what they should be learning. As one person observed: "Our youth are learning how to belch, but they are not learning the Bible?" --Excerpted from the book's former promotional website. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.923   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism