Imagine yourself sitting in a chair at a long table. Around this table are a group of energetic, somewhat strange, yet all particularly talented people. And to your right, at the head of the table, is an older fellow who is clearly starting a meeting.

You’ve been waiting for this very meeting for a whole year. You’ve done your research. You’ve spent countless hours developing the model. You’re also positive you’ve got all the resources together to make a groundbreaking success. Sleepless nights, who knows how many cups of coffee, and all for this one presentation. You make it or you break it. Your heart is thumping as his mouth opens.

“Ahem. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. Please present your ideas for the new shows for this year’s MTV Fall Lineup. We will pare down to the top 4.”

All this, for a TV show?

It is amazing how much effort a giant like MTV will pour into its fall lineup in any given year. And for good reason: That one TV show will be accessible in over 300 million homes internationally, and, if it’s a hit, will most likely be watched in at least half of them. And also most likely watched by the adolescents of the house or younger. Just playing conservatively, let’s say only one tenth of those households actually watch that show. 30 million homes. And, to avoid playing to type, let’s say that only 2/3’s of those watching that show are adolescent or younger. 20 million young people whose lives are indelibly touched by the messages that get discussed in the board room above. To put it simply, if you have or know a child at the age of 18, there’s probably at least a 50% chance that they’ve watched MTV and liked it.

We’ve all heard this before. It’s not “Generation X” or “Generation Y;” we may as well call it “Generation MTV” for the sheer amount of influence that one company has upon the youth of the society. And how do they do it?

They entertain. It’s that simple

Well, no, it’s not that simple. They channel a great power for the purpose of entertainment. That power is found in the arts and the media.

It is no secret that the arts, visual, musical, media based, even the very aesthetics of a home, all of these have an immediate impact upon those exposed to it. No one needs to write a blog about how a movie can make someone cry, how a song can change a room’s mood, or how a book can inspire a world to action (anyone who has pre-ordered the last Harry Potter book will tell you it’s compelling). This is common knowledge. But I don’t think anyone quite knows the sheer power that is in art like MTV does.

MTV intimately knows the power of visually based art. They know the power of music. They know how much pull a TV has on any person around it, and they know how to use it. In the art of making subconscious inroads into a person’s mental fortress, MTV has found the skeleton key. And unlike a Church that is concerned for the fully conscious conversion of the sinner to Christ, they are not afraid to use its subconscious influence to their own ends.

Make no mistake, this is not a post about why to fear MTV. There is enough material on that, I could read for ages and never finish. This, rather, is about why I believe it is crucial that we, the Church, enter into the arena of the arts and the media and use them as a platform to speak the truth: up front, real, and unashamed.

I want to tell you about a friend of mine named John. His name is not really John, but he is real, he is my friend, and he played a lot of video games as an adolescent growing up. He still plays a lot of them, I think. What struck me about John, however, was how intimately the games that he played touched his life. When he looked for love in an opposite sex relationship, he looked for it the way that he found it in the stories that he followed: pure, unadulterated, destined, heroic, and all that jazz. It isn’t hard to envision the conversations we had about why it wasn’t happening.

What is more, when he told of his opinions about spirituality, they sounded quite familiar. I played many video games myself growing up (and am quite happy about that, to those of you who would denounce it; this is not a post about why to fear video games either), and I recognized immediately that he had shaped his worldview based on the virtual realities that he had experienced in video games! When I asked him directly if this was the case, he was unashamed to tell me yes.

While you may find this strange, and some might dare to try to label this as “pathetic,” I suspect that the views of the majority of society are not as far from the influence of the media it views as it thinks. My friend John had the honesty to tell me that he got his ideas of spirituality and life and death from video games. You, friend, probably wouldn’t admit that your idea of what a relationship should be came from the movie you watched ten years ago when you started liking boys/girls. At least, not at first. (Titanic, anybody?)

So what? What’s the big deal? So what if my ideas of what happens after death are shaped by legends, old wife’s tales, movies, and the Real World? Well, for a Christian, “So what” is everything. As a Christian, I understand that my ideas, my beliefs, and my understanding of who God is are vitally important to life. And, as Christians, we are witnessing a movement that is gripping the minds of nearly every person in almost every society and, like a tractor beam from a UFO (fictitious, but you know what one is. Why is that?), pulling them away from the truth of God.

We are standing on the sidelines as the children of a generation are spiritually subverted under our noses.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

This command from the third chapter of Colossians was written to the church. Here, and elsewhere, there is a clear call to the Christian to infuse the Word of God into everything. Our teaching to one another. Our admonishments. Our psalms. Our hymns. Our songs. The arts, on the whole, are, for the Christian, to carry the weight of the Word of God. I am convinced that we cannot, must not, abandon the power of the arts in displaying to the nations just how powerful God is. His influence is bigger than something as small as MTV, and that power can be partially displayed through the arts that He himself created.

There is a great debate on the use of mass media for the evangelization of society with the good news. While we are debating, however, society is already being evangelized by a different kind of news. What I hope is that we, as the Church, move out, and move quickly. We must weigh the issues. We must be conscientious. We must not compromise.

BOO YAGs come in many different forms. One of mine is a powerful, mainstream, unadulterated Gospel witness in interactive media before the commercialism of society engulfs it. You can ask me what that means in person.

To default on being a positive influence in the arts and media is to lose our voice to a generation and to give up on countless opportunities to share the Gospel of Truth to them. I believe that one of God’s callings to the Church today is to use the power of the arts and media to speak to a generation that doesn’t know how to listen otherwise.

So get your thinking caps on, because if you are in the church, then you’re in God’s board room. And His question to us is this: How do you plan on getting My message out through the media to this generation and obey Me completely in the process?