TV Shows and The Power of God Part Duh
Posted by Tommy Woodard on April 7, 2008
Thanks, Ed! I, too, had a life-changing TV moment. However, mine took place when I was a young youth pastor watching The Simpsons in the back room of the parsonage where my wife and I lived. (I was in the back room so no one would know I was watching such a tawdry show!) Lisa and Homer are talking and she says, “It’s not our fault our generation has short attention spans, Dad. We watch an appalling amount of TV.” In his infinite wisdom, Homer replies, “Don’t you ever, ever talk that way about television!” In that instant, every moment of TV I had watched in my life was justified! (With the exception of the two episodes of Charles in Charge I had watched with my sister.)
The whole purpose of this book is not to say that kids watch too much TV. That’s just crazy talk—you can’t watch too much TV! If that were possible, would they make TiVos that can record up to 300 hours of high-definition shows? I think not! The point of this book is summed up by the following quote from one of our great philosophers: “When will I learn? The answers to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle, they’re on TV!” —Homer (the guy from Springfield, not the guy from Greece) I was a youth minister for 12 years and constantly used the Videos That Teach books. It was always a great way to find just the right movie clip to help bring home my message; I only wish there had been a tool like TV Shows That Teach at the time to help me out. The simple truth is that teenag- ers and young adults may see one movie a week at the most, but they’ll watch around 15 hours of TV each week. This is their world—teenagers are influenced by the style, fashions, words, and actions of the people they see on TV. But I didn’t see the value of TV at first; in fact, I was constantly try- ing to get my kids to watch less TV instead of seeing this medium as a great teaching tool. When I’m not a Skit Guy, I’m a teaching pastor at a church that’s constantly trying to come up with creative ways to share the truth of the Scriptures. We actually did an entire teaching series using clips from My Name is Earl, which is just one of the creative ways you can use this book. Each video clip works well on its own, but you can also do an entire teaching series based on one of the many shows we’ve researched and fleshed out into studies. In fact, we’ve made sure every clip from any given show is from the same season. That way you don’t have to find a bunch of different seasons to put your clips together. (In other words, if you decide to purchase the series on DVD, then you’ll be sure to have five clips you can use from that show.) You may ask, "I thought you guys did skits…? " We do do skits. (he-he, I said "do-do") That’s why we’re called The Skit Guys. And we wouldn’t write a book without letting you know about skits you can use. That’s why with each TV show clip we break down into studies you’ll also find our sugges- tions for skits that you, your students, or your congregation can perform to further illustrate the message you’re trying to communicate. We may also suggest one of our videos to go along with your teaching. All of our skits and videos we suggest can be downloaded from www.skitguys.com or at www.ysunderground.com. (Please overlook the fact that this is a shameless plug for our Web site. And if you’re keeping count, that brings the shameless-plug count to two!) We hope you find something that moves you and allows you to see God in the world around us. God is all around- we just have to look. Tommy Woodard click here to see TV SHOWS THAT TEACH (shameless plug number 3)
Comments
sara July 7, 2008 at 8:50 p.m.
i think about tht wen im watching movies and the more i think about wat they say they seem 2 try 2 not draw attention 2 God, but they do piont out diffrent religions and they have people worshiping nature. so a lot of religions displayed on t.v. are not usually christian. o.. they also have those catholic churches and stuff, but im baptist so thts y i point tht out.
love,
sara litke 13 yrs.
Heather Boyd April 11, 2008 at 5 p.m.
Tommy:
I haven't seen you in ages, but it is great to see that you and Eddie are spreading your skits throughout the country! We were all so lucky to have you as our youth minister! Thank you for all the memories, lessons, and laughs!
(I have met so many people that were our "rivals" at Sonday's Camp! A few from Texarkana and a few from Woodway!)