I'm afraid my age is showing. When I used the picture of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo as an illustration I got blank stares from the teenagers down front. When I asked them if they knew who Mr. Magoo was they shrugged their shoulders. Another cultural icon gone forever. When I asked a couple of college students after the sermon about my statement, "I'm afraid at times the church is having an affair with Madison Avenue" they told me they didn't know what Madison Avenue was. Wikipedia reports, "The term 'Madison Avenue' is often used metonymously for advertising, and Madison Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after the explosive growth in this area in the 1920s." Alas, a cartoon character from the 60's and a metonymy made popular in the 20's perhaps don't communicate to the younger generation in this new millennium. Hopefully, the scriptures (written in the 50's - that's not the 1950's but the real 50's!) were more relevant and timely than the illustrations.
On another note several asked about my son Jeremy and his move to Dallas. He and Adrienne left Saturday and he will begin classes at Baylor Dental School this fall.
5 comments:
Ha! I understand your frustration completely! I used to quote Radar from M*A*S*H all the time but gave it up when I realized no one knew what I was talking about. I suppose if you had spoken about Manga, none of the adults would have known what you were talking about either.
The skill of communicating across generations is valuable and for that I say, thank God for Eugene Peterson!
Manga?
LOL! I was a little confused by the Madison Avenue reference myself, although I gleaned the meaning from the context. Perhaps you need to spend more time with the younger generation so you can get some new ideas. :)
Andreia - we love M*A*S*H too! The highest compliment anyone ever paid me was when my boss said I was like Radar. :)
I'm with you on this one. I too, was a bit confused with the Madison Avenue example, but was able to make the connection through context.
One of the hardest tasks in preaching is trying to connect with up to 4 different generations.
I remember preaching in Italy and having the local missionary read over my transcript to see if the examples I used would make sense and connect with the Italians. There are so many things that don't translate across language, age, cultural, gender and socio-economic boundaries.
I feel for you man!
Grace and Peace!
In case you haven't googled it yet, here is a link.
I don't understand the fascination but if someone would do Bible stories in anime, a lot of little boys and young men would watch them.
Amanda~ my favorite Radar quote of all time:
"Permission to throw up, sir?"
If only my kids would use it!
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