Henry Drummond once said, “If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fiber, nor beauty of Spiritual growth”. This quote seems to hit the nail on the head when it comes to spiritual formation. Just like we need to exercise our physical muscles, we need to exercise our spiritual muscles as well. Children are a gift from the Lord and we need to do our part to not only help them along on their spiritual journey, but we also need to be setting a good example in how we live too.
Back in January, the featured website of the month was Adventure Bible. This website offers great resources for getting kids engaged in the Bible and learning about what the Bible says. This month, the website feature is RightNow Media. RightNow Media is a great tool, not just for kids, but for people of all ages and it that can help us along in our spiritual growth.
The slogan on the RightNow Media homepage is, “Say hello to the streaming library of Bible study videos that inspire faith every day of the week”. This sounds great. However, this slogan doesn’t capture all the things that are available through RightNow Media. To be sure, this website does have hundreds upon hundreds of video Bible studies for people in all walks of life, but there are other features as well.
First, let’s focus on the Bible study aspect. After logging into your account, the homepage pops up. Along the left side of the screen are a couple dozen options, including ‘new and popular’, ‘marriage’, ‘youth’, ‘men’ and ‘women’. Clicking on one of those options will bring you to a new page with hundreds of Bible study videos. Some videos are stand alones and some videos are part of a series. While these video Bible studies might not be engaging for children under the age of 13, there are many studies about parenting or being a leader that would be beneficial for the adults. When we better ourselves and learn more about who God intends us to be, the better we can be with the children in our lives. So the video Bible study section of RightNow media is definitely geared towards teenagers and adults.
Now let’s focus on the parts of RightNow media that are great for kids. Along the top of the website there is a bold icon that says ‘kids’. Clicking on this icon brings you to a page that contains over 2,000 videos to teach kids about the Bible, integrity and Biblical principles. Some of these videos include VeggieTales, Paws & Tales, and Adventures in Odyssey. These shows are geared towards kids and aim to teach them about Godly principles. Now, we all know that too much screen time is not good for kids, so I’m not endorsing binge watching these shows. But when we do give kids screen time, why not make it a show that builds character and teaches about God?
Along with full-length movies and shows, there are shorter video clips geared towards teens and children. I don’t know about you, but I love using funny clips or engaging videos as a hook in my lessons. For example, if I was going to teach a lesson on friendship, showing a short video about someone being a good friend (or not being a good friend) can be a great way to generate discussion and capture the students’ attention. Having access to video clips through RightNow media is great.
RightNow media is designed for larger corporations like schools and churches to pay a monthly subscription fee that gives everyone in the corporation access to the site. There are instructions on the RightNow Media login page for how to set up an account. Does your school or church have an account? What are your favorite videos?
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