{"id":4830,"date":"2013-08-13T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T17:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=4830"},"modified":"2013-08-13T10:00:49","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T17:00:49","slug":"daves-dibble-entertainment-bar-is-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/daves-dibble-entertainment-bar-is-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave&#8217;s Dibble: Entertainment Bar is Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"<style><!--\np.padding {padding-left:.5cm;}\n--><\/style>\n<p><center><em>Line illustration courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Dibble_%28PSF%29.png\" target=\"_blank\">Pearson Scott Foresman\/Wikipedia<\/a>. Photos courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Television\" target=\"_blank\">Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Dave&#8217;s Dibble<\/strong><br \/>\n[dib\u2022ble] <em>n<\/em>: a tool for poking holes in the ground<br \/>\nA Christ-follower\u2019s attempt to poke a few holes in the souls of readers so that God may plant and grow seeds that lead to spiritual maturity and ecstatic joy!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Entertainment Bar is Rising<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Christian psychologist, priest, and spiritual father <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Henri_Nouwen\" target=\"_blank\">Henri Nouwen<\/a> wrote, \u201cWhen our good plans are interrupted by poor weather, our peace of mind by inner turmoil, our hope for peace by a new war, our desire for a stable government by a constant changing of the guards, and our desire for immortality by real death, we are tempted to give in to a paralyzing boredom or to strike back in destructive bitterness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I must admit that I dislike the word \u201cboredom.\u201d I especially disliked it coming from my children when they were teenagers. I\u2019ve observed that what would have excited me &#8211; to no end &#8211; when I was a teen can be very boring to today\u2019s teenager. For example, I remember being thrilled to get a wrecked 1962 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ford_Falcon_%28North_America%29\" target=\"_blank\">Ford Falcon<\/a> in my senior year in high school! I fixed it up and it became my pride and joy. Have you seen the nice cars and trucks in our high school parking lots, lately?<\/p>\n<p><!--more How do we fulfill the spiritual needs of our children? (more)--><\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, parents&nbsp;feel pressure&nbsp;to provide lots of experiences for&nbsp;their kids. There are so many good activities and things from which to choose today! But in exposing our children to so many options, we may be inadvertently creating a kind of immunity in our kids, thereby raising the level of excitement needed to conquer their boredom. Today it simply takes more novelty and excitement to keep kids interested. The entertainment bar keeps going up.<\/p>\n<p>How do you think this is affecting the spiritual lives of our children?&nbsp; I think about the negative effects of our consumeristic, entertainment-driven culture on our children.&nbsp; Recently a TV ad featured several young people following their dreams to play sports, dance, or sing on a stage.&nbsp; In every case, the passions people followed were about entertaining others.&nbsp; I guess it is hard to pitch an ad to get people to join the Peace Corps or build a Habitat for Humanity home.<\/p>\n<p>And this is why the world needs to hear the voice of God through us, the Church!&nbsp; But this voice must be heard by each would-be-disciple of Jesus and ACTED&nbsp;if the gospel message&nbsp;is going to&nbsp;be welcomed by others.<\/p>\n<p>What can you do to keep the entertainment bar from rising in your life?<\/p>\n<p><center><em>This installment of Dave\u2019s Dibble can be found on Beckett\u2019s blog page, <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/dibble_august\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/dibble_august<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<em> The Rev. Dave Beckett serves as the superintendent of the Alaska United Methodist Conference.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/channels\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Channels 64, August 2013\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Channels64_Cover.jpg?w=696\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\">\n<p class=\"padding\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/channels\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>DOWNLOAD Channels 64, August 2013!<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\nTrayvon Martin\/George Zimmerman reactions \u2022 Mission u \u2022 5 Columns of Mission Churches \u2022 UMVIMs needed through September 2013 \u2022 My Life as a Conference Treasurer \u2022 Step By Step &#8211; Ministry in Haiti \u2022 The Twitter Effect @ #pnwac13 \u2022 Salmon Creek UMC&#8217;s Meal-in-a-Peel \u2022 The Inland Northwest P.E.T. Project \u2022 Campus Connection: Campus Ministries in the PNW \u2022 Musings: Change the UMC, Change the World \u2022 Dave&#8217;s Dibble: Entertainment Bar is Rising \u2022 Adapting to Lead: A Message from our Bishop \u2022 Nurturing Elders &amp; Others: Community Conversations explore end-of-life \u2022 To subscribe to our print or web editions, e-mail <a href=\"mailto:channels@pnwumc.org?Subject=Re: Sign me up for Channels!\">Channels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Line illustration courtesy of Pearson Scott Foresman\/Wikipedia. Photos courtesy of Wikipedia. Dave&#8217;s Dibble [dib\u2022ble] n: a tool for poking holes in the ground A Christ-follower\u2019s attempt to poke a few holes in the souls of readers so that God may plant and grow seeds that lead to spiritual maturity and ecstatic joy! Entertainment Bar is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":4834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/INSIGHTS_DavesDibble.jpg?fit=600%2C308&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-1fU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4830"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4841,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions\/4841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}