By Tim Taylor March 22, 2022 - Recently I received an email from a young Mom whom I've often seen God use her and her family like a prophetic sign. Her name is Sarah Church. Yes, you heard that right! That's Mrs. Church. She shared about children and the values that are being shared by many TV programs today and the steps they took to counter the ungodly message which kept being repeated. Her email ends with a testimony of how her young son James began to crave God's word. I will say in advance, thank you Mrs. Church! I pray, let the real Church arise in the power of Jesus Christ. I believe her actions in one sense are like a prophetic act and a message to the Church at large, I submit for your prayerful consideration. Here's her email.
As you know, I home educate my six-year-old, James. We used to watch PBS Kids often for the “educational” shows. (To be fair, they did help with letters and counting.) But we started to notice a lot of evil concepts creeping into the shows.
Sesame Street alone taught that it's okay for little boys to dress up like princesses and ballerinas. They also featured a man singing a song while wearing a formal ballgown. Many episodes are trying to normalize gender identity confusion and homosexuality.
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood features a song that teaches children “if you can’t get what you want, stomp three times to help yourself feel better”. (We had a long conversation about why stomping at your mama when you’re unhappy does not display good survival instincts.) Many episodes exalt feeling happy and don’t worry about disrespecting authority to maintain your happiness.
And overall, every PBS Kids show upholds the message that childhood is all about having magical adventures and adults-only exist to facilitate your fun. It took an embarrassingly long time for me to realize that this was unacceptable indoctrination of my children.
(Stick with me. There’s a point to this email.)
As you know, I home educate my six-year-old, James. We used to watch PBS Kids often for the “educational” shows. (To be fair, they did help with letters and counting.) But we started to notice a lot of evil concepts creeping into the shows.
Sesame Street alone taught that it's okay for little boys to dress up like princesses and ballerinas. They also featured a man singing a song while wearing a formal ballgown. Many episodes are trying to normalize gender identity confusion and homosexuality.
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood features a song that teaches children “if you can’t get what you want, stomp three times to help yourself feel better”. (We had a long conversation about why stomping at your mama when you’re unhappy does not display good survival instincts.) Many episodes exalt feeling happy and don’t worry about disrespecting authority to maintain your happiness.
And overall, every PBS Kids show upholds the message that childhood is all about having magical adventures and adults-only exist to facilitate your fun. It took an embarrassingly long time for me to realize that this was unacceptable indoctrination of my children.
(Stick with me. There’s a point to this email.)
We found a Christian streaming service where all the kid's shows are Biblically based. On PBS Kids there are outright secular shows and some that are fairly “neutral” on their worldview. These shows, however, are all focused on God.
When we stopped watching PBS Kids and started watching only Biblical tv shows, we noticed an enormous difference in our house.
For starters, being submerged in a Biblical worldview made it much more obvious just how toxic the other stuff had been. The more subtle indoctrination in PBS shows began to stand out when we saw show after show of people displaying Godly character despite their circumstances or using scripture to solve problems.
The biggest difference we saw was that James started craving scripture. At the end of our Bible lessons for school, he now requests extra stories. He’ll say something like “Can we read about David and Goliath?” and we’ll read the story out of the Bible. Then he’ll say, “Oh! So THAT’S how it happened!”
Sorry for the long email but we’ve finally come to the point.
I believe the American church has been kinda lazy, especially about entertainment. We roll our eyes at the lesbian couple included in the background but keep watching the program anyway. Meanwhile, lots of other evil stuff is sneaking past our mental filters and taking root.
However, I believe that God is creating a craving for scripture! Just like I saw with James, when we unplug from the secular stuff and get fully refocused on the Lord, we will crave scripture and time spent in the Word of God. This is encouraging to me because it proves the scripture “seek and you will find” but also fulfills the prayers I and others have prayed on the KLI call to pray for the nation - that people would love to read the Word again.
I noticed this difference in James last week, and then to confirm my observation, my dad announced this weekend that he wanted to start a family bible study on Zoom with my sister and I and our husbands. God is calling His people back to His word. He is reaching for His wandering sheep that are blindly wandering off. He is faithfully fulfilling the prayers of His people as we cry out for our nation.
Sorry for the very longwinded email. I don’t get out much.
Sarah
End of her email. I asked Sarah about the service she was using and the programs they liked and she replied.
The streaming service is RightNow Media. We get access for free through our church. Many churches around the country also provide access to their congregation members.
Shows that have helped in particular are:
When we stopped watching PBS Kids and started watching only Biblical tv shows, we noticed an enormous difference in our house.
For starters, being submerged in a Biblical worldview made it much more obvious just how toxic the other stuff had been. The more subtle indoctrination in PBS shows began to stand out when we saw show after show of people displaying Godly character despite their circumstances or using scripture to solve problems.
The biggest difference we saw was that James started craving scripture. At the end of our Bible lessons for school, he now requests extra stories. He’ll say something like “Can we read about David and Goliath?” and we’ll read the story out of the Bible. Then he’ll say, “Oh! So THAT’S how it happened!”
Sorry for the long email but we’ve finally come to the point.
I believe the American church has been kinda lazy, especially about entertainment. We roll our eyes at the lesbian couple included in the background but keep watching the program anyway. Meanwhile, lots of other evil stuff is sneaking past our mental filters and taking root.
However, I believe that God is creating a craving for scripture! Just like I saw with James, when we unplug from the secular stuff and get fully refocused on the Lord, we will crave scripture and time spent in the Word of God. This is encouraging to me because it proves the scripture “seek and you will find” but also fulfills the prayers I and others have prayed on the KLI call to pray for the nation - that people would love to read the Word again.
I noticed this difference in James last week, and then to confirm my observation, my dad announced this weekend that he wanted to start a family bible study on Zoom with my sister and I and our husbands. God is calling His people back to His word. He is reaching for His wandering sheep that are blindly wandering off. He is faithfully fulfilling the prayers of His people as we cry out for our nation.
Sorry for the very longwinded email. I don’t get out much.
Sarah
End of her email. I asked Sarah about the service she was using and the programs they liked and she replied.
The streaming service is RightNow Media. We get access for free through our church. Many churches around the country also provide access to their congregation members.
Shows that have helped in particular are:
- SuperBook: kids from the future are sent back in time to learn lessons from the Bible and how to apply those bible stories to modern-day problems. The first three seasons are free on Amazon Prime Video
- BibleMan: a group of superheroes who fight spiritual attacks with the power of scripture and the armor of God. You can watch it on Minno: https://www.gominno.com/whats-on/
- Owlegories: a classroom of young owls are sent out into the world to discover how things in creation reveal characteristics of God. A show geared toward younger kids and full of owl puns. Available on Minno
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