At last month’s Summit, Chanon Ross (Director of the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Seminary) talked about the concept of spectacle as it relates to adolescent culture, literature, and ultimately faith development.
Spectacle isn’t something I’d really thought about before Chanon’s talk. I won’t steal his thunder, you can watch it for yourself.
Of course, I had heard the word “spectacle.” And when he used the example of the power of spectacle in Roman culture I was very familiar with the concept from my latin classes back in high school. (Yeah, I was that kind of nerd in high school.) But I’d never really thought about the value of spectacle in our culture, specifically it’s importance to adolescence. But really… now I’m seeing it all over.
“OMG. Did you see _____?”
When I think about the things that have really exploded in the past few years I see spectacle. Remember KONY 2012? That was kind of ridiculous. It had an unbelievable “Did you see ____?” factor. But even on a smaller scale, spend any time on a middle or high school campus and you’ll hear the latest spectacle. “Did you see what ___ did? Check it out… here’s the video.”
Popular YouTube videos, something on TV, a concert everyone has to go to, a fight after school, Homecoming, break ups, the new video game, on and on. It never really ends.
Youth Group as Spectacle
When I think about the times in my youth ministry where things exploded there was spectacle.
- Some of our best “gotta be there” times came when we went through our gross out phase. I think we had a high school student puke 5-6 weeks in a row playing a stage game. I’m not really saying that I’d do that again– long live the 1990s– but dang, you had to be there to see it.
- At multiple points the “gotta be there” factor was through the roof because one student came to faith and absolutely lit their campus on fire with the Good News, literally telling anyone who would listen.
- One thing Brian does really well at Encounter is fostering a little spectacle on his retreats. I mean, they basically sent a water heater to space this year in the desert. Of course high school guys want to go next year… you can always make something go boom a little bigger.
I’m not saying you’ve got to get kids to puke on stage to get them to show up or blow things up in the desert or preach your face off until someone important on campus gets on fire for Jesus. If I’m completely honest, so many of those times where things just EXPLODED, and we had amazing responses to something we did… they were spectacle… but we didn’t really know what we were doing. It was kind of accidentally spectacular. (You know, the Holy Spirit, and all.)
But what I’m saying is that there’s something to spectacle in youth group. If things are flat, if there’s no “gotta be there” factor, then– quite frankly– I’m not so sure students are going to show up and they definitely aren’t going to be quick to drag their friends.
The counterpoint: If you heard my talk at The Summit I pointed out that entertainment has a depreciating return over the long haul. And it’s totally true. The problem of spectacle is that you have to ramp it up. Just like Rome had to go from one gladiator fight per day to one per week to… within a few decades… needing HUNDREDS of gladiators to draw a crowd… spectacle is a short-term motivator.
It’s not the answer. But sometimes a little spectacle goes a long, long way.
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