Getting the message to young people

[Kouyate42]

Uh, Kouyate42, you wouldn’t happen to be a Level 42 fan, would you?

I’m a MASSIVE Level 42 fan!

<<The mines were shutting down, factories were shutting down, entire communities were losing their collective identities.>>

Reminds me of that Billy Joel song, “Allentown.”

At the end of the day, people have to be properly catechized from the beginning. Put a Bible in the living room. Say a blessing before meals. Stopping kids from listening to secular music is only going to make them like secular music more.

I know in the UK, 50 years ago hymns were sung in schools, children studied Scripture and didn’t do trendy ‘religious education’ classes which taught everything but the faith of this country, religious celebrations such as Easter were actually celebrated as religious festivals and were not hjacked by companies to sell more stuff. People actually bothered to make the Bible part of their lives. It’s not hard!

And on the point of secular music, there is some excellent music out there in the secular world, but it’s often overshadowed by the worst stuff. I have a rule when it comes to secular music. It’s Phillipians 4:8:

''Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

There’s plenty of secular music out there which fits this rule and I choose that.

I’m also reminded of a priest I met who instead of giving evangelical talks on long Bible passages, chose short clips from well-known TV shows, films and even music, and used them to introduce people to Christian concepts from something they already knew- their favorite TV, films and music. Some of his choices included Father Ted (for obvious reasons!), The Simpsons (for talks on family, friendship), Harry Potter (the battle for good and evil), The Flintstones (evolution and creationism) and even stuff like Law And Order (for talks on judgement!). It seemed to work pretty well actually.