I had a fun text conversation with David Blanchard the other day, recounting some memories from the mission trip to Mexico we took some 15 years ago. This chat was inspired by the news that one of the older men who came along on that trip, Dean Moore, recently died. Dean was a bit of a buzzkill on our trip because of his adamant demand that discussion or consumption of media entertainment of any kind would not be tolerated. So you’ve got a group of six 18-20 year olds and you tell them they can’t talk about any secular music, television, movies, books, celebrities, etc. at all. We discovered pretty quickly that we didn’t have a whole lot to talk about once you took our pop culture away. All of our conversations tended to naturally include some sort of movie quote or book reference or something and so Dean would constantly be hollering at us to clean up our conversation. We thought he was such an out-of-touch old man.

I don’t know, now I think Dean was kind of on to something. I think art- including movies, songs, literature- speaks to one’s soul more effectively than we realize. This was proven to me many years ago when I took a foreign film class and we were assigned a Palestinian film called Paradise Now to watch. The movie is about two men planning a suicide attack on Israel- and when you read the synopsis you think that’s terrible and what horrible characters for a movie!! And then you watch it, and even if you’d consider yourself as a relatively Pro-Israel person, by the end you find yourself sympathizing with and cheering for these guys. Why? Because art speaks a different language than reason. I found it frightening- but that’s the whole reason why my instructor assigned the movie. To teach a lesson about the importance of the things we view. The music we listen to, the stuff we watch, the things we read- it changes us. So, put some thought into what media you consume (or what your kids are consuming)- it’s more serious than any of us would like to admit.

But then if any of you have been to FUEL you know the power that music can have on the kids that are there. I know for many people, they met Christ during a worship service at FUEL. For many, that was the start of their relationship. Kids that otherwise have no interest, or are even opposed to faith find themselves at the foot of the cross after a week of music. It’s a beautiful thing. I cried last year at the thought of the kids that would miss the opportunity because of the pandemic- lives may have been lost because they missed an opportunity to be away from bad influence and submersed in the goodness of God. Why? Because Godly art speaks a different language than the troubles of the world.

And you can find that the Bible often instructs us to “speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:1” or to “...teach and admonish one another with all the wisdom through psalms hymns and songs from the Spirit... (Colossians 3:16” My guess is because God knows the effect music and poetry can have on us- it can teach us in ways that are easy to remember. It can heal a broken heart when spoken words aren’t enough. Singing a song, good and loud, comes naturally when you’re full of joy.

So, my guess is that Dean Moore knew all this when he put a hard ban on all media. We were on a mission trip, for goodness sake, and our focus should have been on the job at hand. And also, our conversations got pretty deep when the unnecessary stuff was forced out- we could probably all use a few more honest, real, heart-to-hearts with our peers. It might be life changing, or heart changing if we put a ban on media in our own lives- even just temporarily. We kids would have been wise to take his advice to heart sooner- I wish I did.