When I was growing up, there was a good chance that many of the kids at your school saw the same program on TV. I remember how we would discuss our shared experiences of watching a show the next day at school. Some events, like the Beatles’ legendary appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (you can look it up on YouTube) or ABC’s broadcast of the miniseries Roots (Google it), seemed to capture the attention of the entire nation.
We all watched similar content because there were only three major broadcast networks and a handful of local channels that offered syndicated programs. That’s all changed. Now, the closest we get to a universal viewing experience is during the Super Bowl, and some people only tune in for the halftime show.
The rise of the internet and streaming services has split the programming atom. We have formed our own social groups based on shared entertainment preferences, and these groups tend to be quite small. Unfortunately, we don’t engage much with those outside of our “tribes.”
For decades, and lasting up to my early adulthood, churches and denominations often operated in isolation. For instance, Methodists rarely collaborated with Baptists, and the Church of Christ maintained a distance from Presbyterians, and so forth. Ironically, in today’s world, churches are starting to communicate and cooperate more with each other than many other social groups do.
These shifts in shared cultural experiences have been described and even predicted (see Robert Putman’s Bowling Alone.) These changes in shared cultural experiences have a significant impact on the outreach and evangelism of churches, altering the way churches interact with culture. It’s vital to keep this in mind the next time your church plans outreach to the community, as it’s a matter of adapting to the changing times and staying relevant.
I’m Mark Edge; thanks for reading.
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You can purchase Mark’s new book Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied World here:https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mark+edge&crid=3B1BM6W3LHOG0&sprefix=%2Caps%2C137&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_2_0_recent