Tomorrow I will meet with Rev. Kate Epperly, the UCC’s Minister for Family and Children’s Ministries.
She is interested in German/European church websites for children. In order to get additional input and to make sure I do not overlook any important websites, I posed a question in the Facebook group “Church and Social Media” – thank you for all your comments.
Of course I had mentioned:
- kirche-entdecken.de (“discover the church”) and
- konfiweb.de (confirmands’ web)
in my post to the group.
- global-gang.de: was mentioned to me, along with other websites
- game.calvin.de: I had virtually forgotten about the EKD’s online games (but Calvin was the last one: www.ekd.de/spiele/spiele.html)
I will also mention the children’s church in the Finish Habbo Hotel community tomorrow. I like the idea of building a church in an existing community rather than building a new Christian community.
I was surprised and challenged when I received a private message by a member of the Facebook group and I was pointed out that all the graphics used in these websites follow a certain cartoon like approach of presenting the church. I was asked: Can’t we present the church with another imagery that conveys the spiritual dimension, that shows that church is more than a cartoon strip?
Are children capable of understanding other aesthetics than cartoons? Probably, we must distinguish between elementary school children and teenagers.
But I was given a link to a photo blog of a thirteen year old boy whose hobby is to take pictures of churches. I was impressed.
What visual language do we need to really reach out to children and youths?
I am wondering…..
