Rather than ban secular entertainment for my kids, I'm trying this
Even though I'm no stick-in-the-mud when it comes to popular (“secular”) music, admittedly I had some religious guilt as we sat first row mezzanine waiting for the concert to begin.
With the kind of frenzy only a teenage girl can possess, my daughter has a slightly manic obsession with the band Twenty One Pilots. Besides the occasional choice words and schoolboy obsession with themselves, I have to admit I rather like their music too. It's hip, fun, imaginative, and man, that drummer.
The concert was a gift for my daughter’s thirteenth birthday, but instead of being excited about this experience for her, questions about my mothering indiscretions besieged my mind:
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"Is this really how I should be ushering my daughter into her teenage years?"
"Will this lead her away from Jesus?"
"Does Jesus mind that we're here?"
"Are we doing anything wrong?"
I began to take inventory as I sat there in the dark, shrouded by lights and beats and video images, thinking about another wildly popular British band my kids introduced me to called The 1975. Instantly hooked by their sound, I decided to find out more about who they were. That’s when I came across an interview of their lead singer, Matt Healy, who said:
“I want salvation just as much as the next person; I envy the faithful. If there’s anybody who’s actually got some good evidence on all this God sh--, give it to me, ‘cuz now’s the time I will eat it up.”
The entertainment industry could easily be considered the most influential pillar of culture in the world today. Its arms reach wide across such areas as politics, business, religion, education, and the family. Those who have risen to the top carry easily a weight of presence in any field of their choosing: think Oprah Winfrey’s effect on Barack Obama’s candidacy in the presidential campaign of 2008, the significance of which has been studied scrupulously for years.
Not only does Hollywood have enormous influence over culture at large—often prophesying where it will go even—but it disciples generations of young people every day through its endorsements or denouncements of social movements, thought systems, politicians, products, mental health issues, religious beliefs, and life values, just to name a few.
As I thought about the music discipling my daughter and the artists behind it, I had two choices: to turn my back on the industry and forbid its influence in our home or face it head on and teach my kids to call upon what God could do.
I love the arts and this generation of youth too much to choose anything but the latter.
Soon after the concert, I excitedly announced to my family over dinner one evening my plans to change the world right there from our dining room table.
That garnered some funny looks, but I get those all the time.
Explaining that I had no desire for our family to turn our backs on Hollywood and the arts—with the understanding, of course, that I wasn’t referring to sexually explicit or immoral expressions of music, art, or film—I challenged us all to rotate evenings, bringing an artist of any genre whom we saw God’s hand on, and we would pray for them. We could pray over general categories, specific artists, movies, songs, whatever.
The point was that we weren’t going to duck our Christian heads in the sand but were going to watch and pray, not because we saw something bad, but because we saw the potential for something phenomenal. More than forbidding the arts, I wanted to drive a stake in them.
Our first round draft picks—two of which you could easily guess—were: The 1975, Twenty One Pilots, Abby Lee Miller (from the reality TV show “Dance Moms”), Andrew Lloyd Webber and Broadway as a whole, and Marina and the Diamonds (a Welsh singer and songwriter; the irony of the 1904 Welsh Revival not lost on me).
We prayed that God would visit them each uniquely; that He would show them that He’s real. We thanked Him for their talents and prophesied salvation. We prayed that the effects of their artistic expression would draw people to God for generations to come, and that they would withstand the persecution that would surely come as they shook the gates of hell. And we vowed to stand at the gates of entertainment to celebrate with God on the mountain He had created.
Every day it seems we are watching exciting things happening in Hollywood: Kanye West’s Sunday Services are popping up in cities across the US (if you have not yet seen one of these, search for them on YouTube—they are incredible); Justin Bieber is leading worship intermittently at his local church; Kim Kardashian recently appeared on The View testifying about her husband’s salvation through Jesus Christ, just to name a few.
Yes, this is exactly how I want to lead my children into their teenage years, driving a stake on the mountain of creativity and celebration, “so that all the peoples of the earth might know. . .” (Joshua 4:24).
Stacey March lives in Culpeper, Virginia, with her husband and three children. She holds a Master of Human Services Counseling & Executive Leadership from Liberty University and a Master of Music from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Connect with Stacey on Facebook and Instagram @stacey_march3
