Buddy Up

This week I’ve been processing an article that has me thinking about the way people consume media content among the Yawo.

When I think back to my time living there, I remember lots of faces crammed around a small screen on a phone. Or listening in a group to something on the radio or on someone’s phone.

I think the Yawo tend to watch or listen to media as a group!

People watch media in groups!!!

Maybe because I come from the West, I picture my own practices or those around me who watch a show on their phone, TV or computer by themselves. They binge watch a series while eating ice cream and chips.

But in a society like the Yawo, this would probably be pretty weird to not be sharing the experience as a group.

This article cautions against counting “professions of faith” as so many older-school ministries like doing, even still. But rather to think of how many shared what they are learning from the scriptures with their friends or family members. This is certainly more the New Testament Acts model.

Movements to Jesus are accelerated when a group comes to faith while processing things of God together. So strategies should line up with expecting that media will be consumed, shared and hopefully processed with others. 

Would you agree, or disagree, based on your own experience?

Questions for discussion:

• Do you think the Yawo consume media as a group?

• How would watching or listening to something as a group change the way a message should be delivered?