"Teenage Dream" at the Ballpark?

“I love good surprises, especially when they involve tickets to a MLB play-off game! Baseball is one of those sports that can be very boring to watch on TV, but nothing comes close to describing the energy exuding from a ballpark during the playoffs. Peanuts, Cracker Jacks, $11 hotdogs, and free foam fingers add to the nervous excitement of several thousand crazy fans awaiting the first pitch. As the old song goes...”root, root, root, for the home team, if they don’t win its a shame, ‘cause its one, two, three strikes your out at the old ball game!”

Unfortunately, it was one of those nights for the home team, where they fought a good fight but came up short. However, losing the game took nothing away from the amazing time we had enjoying the festivities. Every break between innings was filled with a song during which the crowd would get up and start dancing around. From “Cotton-Eyed Joe”, to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”, and then the wonderful classic “Teenage Dream.” Yes, that’s right! “Teenage Dream” filled the space between the third and fourth inning.

All the fans got up to dance like they always do, and we sat back and watched them all sing the lyrics:

“We drove to Cali, and got drunk on the beach. Got a motel and built a fort out of sheets. I finally found you, my missing puzzle piece, I’m complete. Let’s go all the way tonight, no regrets, just love. We will dance, until we die. You and I will be young forever. You make me feel like I’m living a Teenage Dream. The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep. Let’s run away and don’t ever look back...”

Somehow, Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” is related to Major League Baseball, I am just not quite smart enough to figure it out! It’s amazing though, how the messages of our culture invade almost everything we do. “Teenage Dream” is still holding strong at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, and it’s success simply translates into greater and greater influence.

We all want to live a “dream”; whether its businessmen and women pursuing the “dream” job, families pursuing the American “dream”, or teenagers looking for what it means to make the most of middle school, high school, or college. Our culture has an answer for us when it comes to living the “dream”. For the business world you need to make as much money as possible. For families they need to have the biggest house on the block, at least one car for each family member, and a swimming pool. And the dream life for students, well Katy Perry just defined it: drinking, sex, and a relationship with someone who makes you feel ‘complete’.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every though to the obedience of Christ.”

Are you taking every thought and idea captive? Are you thinking about what you hear in a sermon at church, see in a movie, and listen to on your iPod, or are you simply consuming the message passively? Ideas are powerful, even when they are simply played over the loudspeaker at a baseball game...

2009 Mash-up

Yesterday we sent out our e-newsletter with this video featured. We'd like to get your feedback on it. What things stood out to you about this video? What are some good ways to think about the lyrics, images, ideas within the top songs, music videos and artists in 2009? What do you think the 2010 mash-up will look like? How should we respond? Let's discuss!

Grey's Anatomy and Human Doing

Title: “What a Difference a Day Makes”
TV Show: Grey’s Anatomy
Company: ABC Studios
Location: Season Five, Episode 22 (7:18-8:00, 24:31-26:49)
Target Audience: College age students and 20 somethings
Cultural Impact: This show raises questions of life and death, identity, and often encourages love and sexuality however/with whomever as long as it makes you happy.

Growing up we’re always taught that what we do is important. Our actions and accomplishments make us who we are. Every day our culture undermines our worth, value, and significance as unique human beings unless we’re doing something important with our lives – whatever that means. Grey’s Anatomy sends this message to us through its doctors, patients, and frequent emphasis on being a “human doing” rather than a “human being.”

In episode 22 of Season 5 – “What a Difference a Day Makes” – we’re introduced to a girl named Becca. She arrives in the trauma unit of the ER after she was in a car accident with eight of her friends. They were on their way to their college graduation. As the doctors of Seattle Grace Hospital assess the damage and attempt to start treating her wounds, she realizes what she is missing. Her college graduation means everything to her. As the Valedictorian, she had a speech to give. Becca feels like she NEEDS to graduate from college. College was her life. School was her life. All she ever did was school. For someone whose life has been centered on her academics and schooling, college graduation day is the ultimate goal.

As elementary school, middle school, and high school students, we constantly look to the day way off in the distant future when all our hard work will pay off. We long to be a college graduate, a “grown up.” For Becca, that day was within her reach, yet she couldn’t grasp it from her stretcher in Trauma Room #2. Nearly in tears, Becca tells the doctors, “Today is the day my life’s supposed to start!” If graduation from college marks the beginning of life, what was the meaning of all the years before that?

It’s so tempting to base our worth and identity in the things that we’re good at – the things that consume our time and give us reputation and esteem in the eyes of others. We depend on those things, as Becca did, to give our life meaning. When people asked her, “Who are you?” her first response would probably be, “I’m Becca. I’m the class Valedictorian and soon-to-be college graduate.” That was her life. But we saw that when that foundation she had built for herself was suddenly ripped away, she was left with an identity crisis.

If I could give Becca advice I would encourage her to remember that she still has worth and value even if she can’t give her speech and can’t graduate. She was created intentionally, uniquely by God and that in itself gives her value.

Maybe Becca was on to something when she said “Today is the day my life’s supposed to start.” If she is willing to let go of her need to base her identity in her abilities, accomplishments, and actions, maybe she truly can start living – really living in the confidence that she matters not because of WHAT SHE DOES but WHO SHE IS.

By: Kristin¹

Notes

1. Kristin was a student at the Focus Leadership Institute (FLI) this past 2009 fall semester and will be going back to finish up her schooling at Corban College in Salem, OR. We miss her tons as she was an awesome intern for Axis in the FLI Practicum. Every semester, several FLI students are able to spend 96 hours as interns with AXiS and travel all around the country with us ministering to students.