a blog by Christ follower Wesley Fryer @pocketshare @wfryer
In his post “If Dr. King Had One Tweet To Share…” Scott Williams offered a challenge to postulate what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s tweet would be at this stage in our collective history. This was my response (exactly 140 characters btw.)
Maintain your focus on HIM, do not lose hope, we struggle together with HIS support for goals bigger than all of us -Love WILL overcome hate.
photo credit: James Willamor
By Shelly and Wesley Fryer
28 December 2008
This past Christmas our family was blessed by “the power of we.†No, we are not talking about a Nintendo “Wii†console game system. Rather, we are speaking of the power which grandparents and grandchildren, living life as connected, extended family members, have to love, to share, and to grow together.
Some of the writers of Psalms and Proverbs addressed the importance and role of grandparents in our families. Psalm 71:9 states, “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone.†Proverbs 16:31 reads, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life.†Living as we do in the early twenty-first century, many of us are separated by space and time from our grandparents, or as grandparents ourselves we are separated from our grandchildren. While grandparents and grandchildren may not be able to be physically connected like extended families living under the same roof were in decades past, there are different ways grandparents can remain connected to grandchildren for mutual benefit.
Time is a finite commodity which we have to use and give each day, but which we can never get back. We can spend time, we can waste time, and we can invest our time. Time grandparents spend investing in the lives of their grandchildren is never wasted.
Time is often perceived differently for the very young and the very old. For grandparents, time may be passing by very quickly. For children (especially when waiting for Christmas to arrive) time can pass very slowly. The “power of we†for grandparents and grandchildren begins with TIME. Because of different perceptions of time, grandparents and grandchildren seem to have greater powers. These include:
1. The power to listen.
2. The power to love.
3. The power to experience joy together playing simple games.
Reading together and cuddling together, grandparents and grandchildren can exemplify the love, the peace, the joy, and the hope represented by the candles of the Advent wreath. Saying those three simple words, “I love you,†grandchildren and grandparents edify and build up each other in powerful ways which are likely to leave indelible marks upon the heart.
Grandparents are people of extraordinary importance in our lives. Yet unfortunately, many of us may underestimate how valuable they (or we) are to the present generation and to the generations to come. Where does a child’s perception of a “father’s love†or a “mother’s love†come from? Here in Oklahoma, we have more grandparents raising grandchildren than any other state in the U.S. In many cases, it is the grandparents who are the caregivers, responsible for the health, welfare, and ethical development of their children’s children.
If grandparents and grandchildren are geographically separated in your family, or you are a grandparent living apart from your grandchildren, new technologies can provide opportunities for interaction and sharing. The free software program Skype (www.skype.com) permits anyone to videoconference using a computer, a webcam, a microphone, and a high-speed Internet connection. These “video phone calls†are free to make if you already have the previously mentioned equipment: No “per minute†charges are assessed. In addition to video phone calls, the website “Grandparent Games†(www.grandparentgames.com) offers grandparents and young grandchildren a website to interact, play, and talk together online. The website Grandparents.com (www.grandparents.com) offers more helpful suggestions and resources for grandparents to use to better connect with children and grandchildren.
We live in fast-paced times, when family dinners together may be few and far between. Time seems to be in short supply, yet the truth is we all have twenty-four hours each day. How are we investing those heartbeats together? Over the past Christmas holidays, we watched our own grandparents invest their time with grandchildren in different ways, and the “payoff†for each was very positive. As we consider our resolutions for the new year, let’s resolve to learn from these examples of grandparents and grandchildren.
May our homes and families reflect the words of the prophet Zechariah (8:4-5) who wrote, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.’â€
[THIS POST WAS WRITTEN AS AN ARTICLE FOR THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF OUR CHURCH IN EDMOND, OKLAHOMA. FEEL FREE TO COPY OR REPRINT THIS AS DESIRED.]
This morning someone at our church asked for a DVD copy of the preschool Christmas video their daughter had “read” in, and I told them I could burn a DVD but it was also on YouTube. They then told me they had just seen the video “Stethescope” on YouTube, and showed it to their own preschool kids. The video was great, but the “related videos” were not. (I mobile blogged this from my iPhone so I could not initially paste the YouTube video embed code now, but have added it below.)
As you can see from the iPhone YouTube screenshots at the bottom of this post, some the “related videos” are not likely to be ones parents will want to show to their preschoolers.
This is one “dark side” of YouTube related videos. It highlights the importance of emphasizing “ethical clicking” online, which is an important part of both digital citizenship and digital discipline. It also underscores why YouTube is not a great destination for young children. Totlol is a better choice:
Totlol is a video website designed specifically for children. It is community moderated. It is constantly growing. It is powered by YouTube.
Of course videos like “Stethescope” are not likely to be on Totlol, but perhaps that is OK. As my wife commented when I told her about this, when showing young children YouTube sites, it’s important for parents to be in control / driving the mouse. Totlol, on the other hand, is a “safe” online video destination which appears to be fine to turn your kids loose on… Even young preschoolers.
I’m not asserting that we should or can keep older children off YouTube. I think we need to help our children develop good decision making skills both offline and online, and ethical clicking is a part of that skill set. I’m not sure what age we need to start discussing these issues with children, but it likely needs to be pretty young as kids are getting online. I have not enabled any parental controls on my iPhone or our family iTouch for YouTube content, but this situation has me wondering if I should.
I cross posted our preschool Christmas message video to GodTube, and I think I will embed that version rather than the YouTube one on our church website. I think it is good and important to have Chistian-themed videos on YouTube because they can reach a wider audience. Situations like this also highlight our ongoing need for digital dialog.
This December I helped my wife at our church record four different preschool students (ages 4 and 5) read the Christmas story from the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. Since these kids can’t read, I told them what to say in short phrases, and then edited out my own voice from the draft recordings we made.
Shelly took photos of all the preschoolers dressed up in their Nativity scene and Christmas story costumes, and today edited together the photos (in iMovie HD6) using the combined and edited Audacity file I created for her from the childrens’ recordings. Her final video is going to be shown Christmas Eve at our church’s 5 pm family service.
This was Shelly’s first iMovie to create by herself from start to finish. I’m quite proud of her! 🙂
I’m not sure which production I think is better, this one which is completely in the voices of the preschoolers, or last year’s video production which was a combination of her voice with the preschoolers. We certainly put more hours into last year’s video. I do love hearing scripture through the voices of children!
When I was recording these verses, read by children, I got “goose bumps” several times. Reading God’s Word and hearing God’s Word read aloud can be a powerful experience.
May God richly bless you and your family this holiday season, wherever you may be on our planet. What a blessing that God sent his only Son into our world to redeem us and allow us to know him intimately. Through the voices and perspectives of our children, I think we can learn a great deal about how we are best-advised to both approach the throne of God as well as the challenges of our everyday lives: With a simple and pure faith.
Technorati Tags:
christmas, story, preschool, 2008, church, video, youtube
Last December, I helped my wife record and produce this preschool Christmas program for our church in Edmond, Oklahoma. The video was shown at a family church gathering prior to Christmas, but not at any of the actual services in the sanctuary prior to Christmas or on Christmas Eve. The video is 6 minutes and 58 seconds long.
Since these were preschool students, it would have been impossible for them to perform this program “live” in front of an audience. By recording these segments in pieces, however, we were able to create a complete Christmas program which featured these young stars.
I have also uploaded this video to GodTube. (It is still awaiting admin approval.)
Technorati Tags:
christmas, program, preschool, edmond, oklahoma, presbyterian, video, digitalstorytelling, story
My wife, Shelly, found this YouTube video today (“The Christmas Story”) which gives some amazing background information about Charles Shultz, CBS, and his “Charlie Brown’s Christmas” special from 1968. It also includes Bible readings of Luke’s version of the Christmas story.
Shelly is working on a digital version of the Christmas story (narrated by preschool children) this year, and really likes the background sound effects in this story.
Here is a one minute and eighteen second clip of Linus’ Christmas Monologue from a “Charlie Brown’s Christmas.”
I showed Shelly how to create an account on YouTube and create a Christmas video playlist, so she can more readily share videos with me and others in the future.
She also discovered “Christmas Nativity Morph (Luke 2:4-14)” on GodTube. Very interesting and different effect to make static images more dynamic and visually interesting.
Technorati Tags:
christmas, youtube, video, story, christian, jesus, bible
Matt Craven’s 4 year old son does an AMAZING job retelling the entire birth story of Jesus Christ in this 2 minute and 46 second YouTube video.
Wow! Retelling is a fantastic way of assessing comprenhension, and also a great way to cultivate oral communication skills. Great job, son of Matt! 🙂
Thanks to my wonderful wife for sharing this video with me tonight!
This evening for the 3rd year, the Childrens’ Ministries department at our church hosted an evening advent night for families of caroling, eating and fellowship. This is a short (49 second) video of our group caroling at one of the houses just across the street from our church.
This year we met at 4 pm and ventured out to start caroling BEFORE we ate chili and enjoyed hot chocolate! This worked a lot better for several reasons. First of all, it was not dark so we could actually read the words in our caroling songbooks! Second of all, it was great to come back after getting cold walking around the neighborhood and enjoy some hot food and drinks!
We had a good turnout for this event and it was a lot of fun for those who came, especially all the kids. I really enjoy holiday caroling and it is wonderful to share this tradition with our church family. I also think it is important to share the spirit and joy of Christmas in this way with the families as well as students who are living in our church neighborhood. Several of the people we sang to really seemed to enjoy and appreciate this outreach experience. I certainly enjoyed it, and know our kids did too!
Technorati Tags:
carol, caroling, christmas, oklahoma, edmond, presbyterian, sing, singing
when we don´t get what we deserve that´s a real good thing
when we get what we don´t deserve that´s a real good thing
Those are the words to the Newsboys song Real Good Thing. It speaks to the amazing gift of God’s grace.
I’ve just finished listening to Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. It’s a wonderful listen or read, whatever you choose. The final chapter deals with God’s unfair love. To anyone who hasn’t experience grace, the idea that’ God’s love is somehow unfair seems ludicrous. But as scripture declares,
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Cor. 1:27
God’s grace and love does not match the world’s logic. As Yaconelli describes in the book, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the fact that those that began work late in the day received the same as those who began in the morning just doesn’t seem right. Our world would never stand for this unfairness.
But as I continue to have God’s grace lavished upon me I can only see myself as a beneficiary of the unfairness. My mind is constantly influenced by the ways of the world and often forget this amazing gift that I’ve been given.
God’s grace is extremely difficult to explain and harder to understand. But I’m so glad he’s given it to me. That’s a real good thing.
Today during my five hour car drive up to Kansas, I listened to a WGBH Forum Network podcast on the NOVA documentary The Bible’s Buried Secrets which aired this past week. As with several other NOVA specials in the past, this documentary is available entirely online for viewing, along with extra features which did not make it into the two hour TV documentary. Since I was not able to see this on November 18th, I’m going to be glad to watch the special sometime on my own schedule with members of my family at home in upcoming weeks.
One of the quotations which stood out most in the podcast for me was the following statement:
You can’t really inquire when you are dealing with fundamentalists.
This comment was made with respect to Christian fundamentalists, who the speaker (I think it was Dr. Lawrence E. Stager, professor, archaeology of Israel, Harvard) remembered from his childhood growing up in the midwestern United States. He was making a point that it is useless to try and suggest people should seek for the truth / inquire for more information and insight when those people are Christian “fundamentalists.”
I think it is VERY unfortunate when Christ-followers project the impression that they “know all the answers” and have all the mysteries of the world figured out. I am not a relativist or an adherent to postmodern philosophies, and I do believe in both the existence of Truth (what one of my college philosophy instructors used to call “Big T Truth”) and that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I certainly would NOT consider myself “a fundamentalist,” however, if that definition means someone who is not continuing to search for understanding and truth, and acknowledging the limits of human understanding of divine mysteries.
I’m looking forward to watching this NOVA special in its entirety and discussing the multitude of issues it raises. I think Christians should be “seekers” of truth their entire lives, no matter how old or young they are. Based on the conversations in this WGBH Forum podcast, I think our family will have a lot to discuss after seeing it.
My thinking during this podcast was highly colored by the fact I’ve almost finished reading “How to Watch TV News: Revised Edition” by Neil Postman and Steve Powers. Certainly the idea that documentary news like this program is created and designed primarily with the goal of attracting viewers rather than pursuing the truth (which is a point made by Postman and Powers) comes through in the podcast discussion. The sharp time limits imposed by production budgets as well as the producer’s perceptions of what “trailer park America” wants and can cognitively handle were also discussed by the panelists in this podcast.
Often I think people get into trouble when they portray a group of people as having monolithic beliefs and perceptions, when in reality there is actually a great deal of diversity in beliefs, perceptions, as well as customs among members of that group. While I consider myself “a believer” in God and and his Son, Jesus Christ, I also very much consider myself “a seeker” for truth and increased understanding of many topics and issues, including Biblical archeology. I don’t feel threatened in the slightest by the suggestion that as humans, we should inquire more deeply for truth and knowledge, in the context of Biblical history or any other subject. It seems almost unbelievable that Galileo faced persecution and the threat of death by the Catholic Church in the 1500’s when he challenged its heliocentric view of the universe. I do not view the advances of science as correlating to zero-sum losses in the realms of faith and religion. I think it is wonderful to have opportunities to be appropriately challenged to think critically about what I believe and why I believe those things, and I suspect this NOVA special will provide more opportunities to “grapple” with ideas of both faith and history.
Technorati Tags:
bible, faith, nova, archeology