The last several posts have been about the role that story and the transcendentals play in education and spiritual formation. Up to this point, most of what I’ve written may seem too theoretical, so I’m doing a series of posts that will provide real examples of how one can go about teaching or incorporating some of this into your own lives or educational settings.
This post I will give an example from the Sunday School class that my wife and I teach. One caveat: we serve in a mission, so our class is only a few children, and most of them are siblings. What I will go over may not translate well to a larger class, especially if there is only one teacher. The basic idea can still be applied.
I proposed the idea of doing two or three classes on engaging with pop culture, they loved this idea. So I asked them each to give me one song, show, or movie that we can easily review. I let them mull this over for a couple of weeks before deciding. In the mean time we discussed the grand story of God by starting in the beginning with Genesis. I reminded them that everyone is created in the image and likeness of God and that humanity fell and was exiled from Eden. And because of this everyone is journeying to return to Eden. The Old Testament is part of the grand story of God working to bring about our return, which was fulfilled by Christ. What we call mythology, the early Church Fathers recognized as containing some truth, and because Christ is the Word of God, the Truth, all truth is God’s truth no matter where it is found. I was able to sneak in the idea of St Justin Martyr’s spermatikos logos into a Sunday school class. The Fathers were able to read Homer (and he was the only one I mentioned since most young teens have at least heard the name) through the lens of Christ.
Then we transitioned to current culture–I mentioned Star Wars as an example. What does this mean for books and movies and music that are “outside” the Church. Can one find truth? How does one engage?
They settled on a song each, both of which are fairly recent. One was a Justin Bieber song and the other Harry Styles song.
I provided four questions for them to ponder while listening to the songs that they chose. I would do the same thing, and we planned to discuss it the following Sunday (we did not actually listen to them together).
- What do you think this song means?
- What does this song mean to you?
- What does this song say about God?
- What does this song say about the human condition?
Of course, these questions can be asked of not just songs but books, movies, and shows. It was very challenging for them. Especially the third and fourth questions. Most everything is saying something about God, even if isn’t saying much or anything, that nothing is still something. If we truly believe that in the beginning God spoke all things into existence, that the Logos was made man, then all language points back to Him. All we say is a response, one form or another, to His Word. When we begin to see the world like this, then we see that we are in constant dialog, and not all of it is good. A lot of what we see in the world is evil, in this evil man is attempting to find Eden, unfortunately our attempts are usually Babel. Yet in the attempts we see the struggle of the human condition. A longing to find peace and healing in a world that is perpetually trying to disturb and wound. For all the issues with pop culture, it is still a good way to survey the beliefs of the culture. The Church must wrestle with this in order to communicate the gospel to this generation.
Bieber’s song was a great opportunity to discuss relationships and communication, and how the song provided a poor example of a relationship. Styles’ song sparked a conversation about suffering and death and hope. It was a rewarding time.
The following Sunday, in order to wrap up this series, I wanted to present them with beauty. Most pop music is not beautiful. Unless one is presented with beauty then one has no standard. So I read two poems to them and then, unprepared, we discussed each using the same four questions. The first poem was an Emily Dickinson–I wanted to read from a female poet since they’re both girls. And the other poem is personal favorite of mine, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” by Gerard Manly Hopkins. Besides discussing the above questions, I drew their attention to the difference in rhythm between the poems and the sound of beauty as they were read aloud, especially Hopkins. It was a bit of a stretch for them but I believe that it was rewarding. One of them loved Hopkins so much that I let her borrow my book. So it goes to show that there is a need for this type of teaching in church education. Not everyone will find poetry fascinating, but there may be one or two that are opened to a whole new world.
With the more theologically minded, I recommend the theological poetry of Sts Gregory the Theologian and Ephrem the Syrian. I discussed them briefly in the last post.
The next few posts I will provide examples of how one can incorporate storytelling and the mythic into teaching.
