It basically went along the lines of how we’ve gone, originally, from a word-of-mouth culture with no media, where the story was the main thing. Then we moved into print, where the written word was the thing. Then we moved into broadcast, where sounds and pictures and TVs and movies and radio were the things, and now we’re in the interactive age, where the web and all that implies is the thing.

The most interesting point was that most of our parents were raised in the broadcast age, and with that comes an expectation to be entertained: TV shows entertain, radio entertains, and even churches “entertain” in the sense that one person speaks, a few people sing, but it’s all done on a stage and the crowd sits and watches.

But that won’t interest people in the very near future. We are starting to expect to interact. And as long as churches or schools or anything else demands more of a “broadcast generation” approach (show up and we’ll show you something) over an interactive approach (here’s a topic – what do you think?), we’ll be beating a dead horse, cuz kids aren’t thinking in those terms any more.

It basically went along the lines of how we’ve gone, originally, from a word-of-mouth culture with no media, where the story was the main thing. Then we moved into print, where the written word was the thing. Then we moved into broadcast, where sounds and pictures and TVs and movies and radio were the things, and now we’re in the interactive age, where the web and all that implies is the thing.

The most interesting point was that most of our parents were raised in the broadcast age, and with that comes an expectation to be entertained: TV shows entertain, radio entertains, and even churches “entertain” in the sense that one person speaks, a few people sing, but it’s all done on a stage and the crowd sits and watches.

But that won’t interest people in the very near future. We are starting to expect to interact. And as long as churches or schools or anything else demands more of a “broadcast generation” approach (show up and we’ll show you something) over an interactive approach (here’s a topic – what do you think?), we’ll be beating a dead horse, cuz kids aren’t thinking in those terms any more.