Angry Birds and Apologetics!!!
Let’s use the popular game, “Angry Birds”, and apply it to apologetics! It’s possible!
1 Peter 3:15
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
What in the world are you talking about? How can you put “Angry birds” and “Apologetics” in the same sentence? Let me try and explain.
Let’s start with apologetics, what is it? My simple definition of apologetics is this: being ready and able to tell other people how Jesus has radically transformed my life and what the Bible says about God’s offer of salvation.
The purpose of apologetics is not to judge people or argue with them, but to explain God’s truth in a loving way that they can understand.
Here’s comes Angry Birds! It’s a video game franchise that was first released in December 2009. Since it’s release over 12 million copies have been sold on Apple’s iTune Store alone. It’s now expanded into almost every other game system you can think of and has become the highest downloaded “freemium” game of all time! Man, talk about successful!
The basic concept is that you use a sling shot to launch a certain number of flightless birds at various structures that pigs are sitting on. Your goal is to get rid of the pigs by destroying those structures. If there are any pigs left after you use your birds, you lose! It may sound silly, but I’ve been told it can be quite addicting!
So, how does it tie into Apologetics? Let me see if I can connect the two.
But, before I do that let me clarify something, I’m not saying the lost are “pigs” and Christians are flightless “birds”! It’s an illustration, don’t lose it because of the cartoon images!
That being said, let’s imagine that you take the following “angry bird” approach to evangelism . . .
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
What in the world are you talking about? How can you put “Angry birds” and “Apologetics” in the same sentence? Let me try and explain.
Let’s start with apologetics, what is it? My simple definition of apologetics is this: being ready and able to tell other people how Jesus has radically transformed my life and what the Bible says about God’s offer of salvation.
The purpose of apologetics is not to judge people or argue with them, but to explain God’s truth in a loving way that they can understand.
Here’s comes Angry Birds! It’s a video game franchise that was first released in December 2009. Since it’s release over 12 million copies have been sold on Apple’s iTune Store alone. It’s now expanded into almost every other game system you can think of and has become the highest downloaded “freemium” game of all time! Man, talk about successful!
The basic concept is that you use a sling shot to launch a certain number of flightless birds at various structures that pigs are sitting on. Your goal is to get rid of the pigs by destroying those structures. If there are any pigs left after you use your birds, you lose! It may sound silly, but I’ve been told it can be quite addicting!
So, how does it tie into Apologetics? Let me see if I can connect the two.
But, before I do that let me clarify something, I’m not saying the lost are “pigs” and Christians are flightless “birds”! It’s an illustration, don’t lose it because of the cartoon images!
That being said, let’s imagine that you take the following “angry bird” approach to evangelism . . .
Yep, you heard it right, the “cartoon pigs” that are used for illustrative purposes are just going to laugh at you!!!
I hear you asking, “What evangelistic approach are you saying is being represented in this video Carl?”
That’s a great question, may I suggest that this tactic represents a very popular evangelistic approach that is a commonly used in the church today. And that is . . .
I hear you asking, “What evangelistic approach are you saying is being represented in this video Carl?”
That’s a great question, may I suggest that this tactic represents a very popular evangelistic approach that is a commonly used in the church today. And that is . . .
I’ve stated many times in the past that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!”, while it may be true, is not connecting with many in the culture because they’ve been “inoculated” from understanding it.
What I mean by is that the hours that they’ve spent in school, on TV, playing video games etc. have taught them a way of thinking that keeps them from understanding this message. Let me illustrate:
“God” – They don’t know who “God” is, there’s thousands of them being proclaimed in the culture and they’re all supposedly value. Don’t be so intolerant and claim there’s only one true God and one way to get to Him.
“Love” – Hmmmm! Do you really think this culture knows what “love” is? Consider this, the hours that they spend in school, in front of TV, listening to music and playing video games teaches them that “love” is “sex!” Sorry, that not “love”, that’s “lust!” Also, if you don’t know God, you can’t know “love!”
“Wonderful Plan” – Wonderful plan! Yeah, right! They can’t see that because they’ve had millions of years of death and suffering ie. evolution, jammed down their throats ever since they were old enough to watch Bob the Builder or Sesame Street. This foundation doesn’t allow them to see a God of love or “wonderful plan!”
So, what is my alternative? How about we engage the culture, and in doing so we figure out what the real issues are that keep them from listening to the Gospel. Once we’ve engaged them and discovered what the real issue is, we deal with it! Think of it like this . . .
What I mean by is that the hours that they’ve spent in school, on TV, playing video games etc. have taught them a way of thinking that keeps them from understanding this message. Let me illustrate:
“God” – They don’t know who “God” is, there’s thousands of them being proclaimed in the culture and they’re all supposedly value. Don’t be so intolerant and claim there’s only one true God and one way to get to Him.
“Love” – Hmmmm! Do you really think this culture knows what “love” is? Consider this, the hours that they spend in school, in front of TV, listening to music and playing video games teaches them that “love” is “sex!” Sorry, that not “love”, that’s “lust!” Also, if you don’t know God, you can’t know “love!”
“Wonderful Plan” – Wonderful plan! Yeah, right! They can’t see that because they’ve had millions of years of death and suffering ie. evolution, jammed down their throats ever since they were old enough to watch Bob the Builder or Sesame Street. This foundation doesn’t allow them to see a God of love or “wonderful plan!”
So, what is my alternative? How about we engage the culture, and in doing so we figure out what the real issues are that keep them from listening to the Gospel. Once we’ve engaged them and discovered what the real issue is, we deal with it! Think of it like this . . .
It seems to me that when we deal with what the real issues are that we are showing that their foundation really isn’t as solid as what they may have been led to believe. It is also the approach that the Lord has laid out for us in His Word.
Those are just my “Random Thoughts!”
Stay bold,
Carl Kerby
Those are just my “Random Thoughts!”
Stay bold,
Carl Kerby
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