S2Ep36 - Awareness Media, What's The Point?
Summary: Gregg Garner, Jeff Sherrod, and Laurie Kagay, all professors at The Institute for GOD, discuss the point of awareness media — both the consumption of it and the creation of it. If we are made in the image of God, and God sees and hears the suffering of people and thus responds, what should his people do, especially when we are now aware of more than ever before?
[00:00:06.32] - Jeff Sherrod
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to College Conversations. I'm your host, Jeff Sherrod. I am joined today by the president of the Institute for God, Gregg Garner, and the VP of Marketing enrollment, and Professor Laurie Kagay. In this episode, we're talking about media consumption, specifically the kind of media consumption that focuses on awareness of human tragedy around the world. And so sometimes this can happen through documentaries, even podcasts, docu series, exposes. Really, it's all around us at this point, and we're asking a couple questions. First, how do we consume this kind of information? Like, are we always responsible to take in everything that we hear? And second of all, once we have heard it, what are we supposed to do with it? Especially if we're not in a place that we think that we can do anything about it. I think this is a really relevant topic. And having a biblical framework for how to evaluate the messages that come to us, especially when we want to do something about it, it's really relevant. I hope you guys enjoy the show. All right, so a couple statements I wanted to read that have been real impactful for me was. And Gregg, I learned these from, or I heard you say them first. And this was from a teaching in John chapter, and Jesus washes the disciples feet. And it was, see a need, meet a need. That was real impactful. Like, you don't have to wait for something crazy. You can just recognize there's a need and you can meet it. Another one is awareness means that you have some culpability. Like God opens your eyes to something and therefore he wants you to do something about it. In light of that, I kind of wanted to talk about awareness media and how that has. How that positions us and what we're supposed to do. This is a hot topic in light of all this. I know that, like, you know, I maybe I think I was trying to think back on, like, what was the first mainline documentary I've ever seen. I think it was Bowling for Combine. I think that was the first one I ever saw. And then I think it was Inconvenient Truth, maybe after that. But those were like, you know, like real well produced.
[00:02:13.74] - Laurie Kagay
think you gotta put Invisible Children in there, probably, right?
[00:02:15.87] - Jeff Sherrod
Invisible Children, Yeah, that was a big one. And, you know, maybe there was at that time, this was like early 2000s, where they. Every couple years was kind of a major one. And it felt like it kind of dominated the public discourse for a while.
[00:02:30.13] - Gregg Garner
At least amongst intelligentsia.
[00:02:31.90] - Jeff Sherrod
That's right. And then it seems like now you can find awareness about every single thing. There's so much documentaries, there's so many. There's so much human tragedy I could explore, you know, like, if I. If I wanted to. And so, so many podcasts and so.
[00:02:53.24] - Laurie Kagay
Many series and so many documentaries and so many.
[00:02:56.15] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, and we've talked. We've talked a little bit before.
[00:02:58.27] - Gregg Garner
The market is saturated, for sure.
[00:02:59.81] - Jeff Sherrod
Right. We talked a little bit before about the difference between, like, curate it and aggregate it. And I, you know, like, in terms of media, it used to be curated. People were making decisions about what kind of things we people would be exposed to. And now it's like we're just gathering everything together into one. So, yeah, I guess I just wanted to. Let me just ask a question and we'll kind of maybe kick it off that way. Let's say that you're hearing there's someone invites you over, like, hey, I have a documentary, and it is about women slaves in Kazakhstan. And are you like, all right, from you now, maybe you can do something about that. But for me, I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do about that. Shall we just say, I don't know what I would do about that. I'm not even going to watch it. You know, I guess that's what I'm starting to think. Like, when does it become, like, when.
[00:03:49.37] - Laurie Kagay
Is awareness good and when is it, like, it's just too much?
[00:03:54.44] - Jeff Sherrod
I walk away and I don't know what else to do. I don't know, maybe that's.
[00:03:59.02] - Laurie Kagay
You don't want to make people, like, unaware of, you know, who's good at this stuff?
[00:04:02.55] - Gregg Garner
Older people. You ever watch older people? When I was younger, I used to look at certain older people, like, gosh, they have no compassion. That's kind of where I went with it.
[00:04:11.90] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:04:12.13] - Gregg Garner
As I'm getting older, I realized they. They recognize it's not that they don't have any compassion. So they recognize they have limited energy, limited capacity, limited opportunity. Limited resources.
[00:04:23.43] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:04:23.87] - Gregg Garner
And so they. They have to direct those things towards that which they are responsible for.
[00:04:32.75] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:04:33.14] - Gregg Garner
Their own kids, their grandkids, their community networks. Now, this isn't to make you close your eyes and your hands to what's going on the world. But we got to remember, when the Bible was written, there was no Instagram.
[00:04:46.57] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:04:46.93] - Gregg Garner
You. There was an X so that you could just see your feed fill with world events and direct videos of tragedy from all kinds of scenarios. Those things just didn't exist. So, again, an anachronistic consideration puts us in a hard place and I think this is why for a lot of people who, who get really, like, inspired by becoming aware of. Of certain needs, now want to do something about it. I've rarely seen anybody, like, focus and hone in on, like, a specific demographic, people, group and region. They, they, they just keep talking about the cause at large.
[00:05:31.75] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:05:32.66] - Gregg Garner
And even they want to raise funds for it to meet the cause. But there's. It's like less about actually doing something that fixes the problem. It sometimes even perpetuates the problem.
[00:05:46.04] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:05:46.69] - Gregg Garner
But it, it's. I mean, gosh, half of our developing world curriculum seems to have scholarly, published works about the detrimental impact of this has been.
[00:05:59.98] - Jeff Sherrod
This has been like Bill Easterly's life work is to describe this phenomenon where aid going to the developing world has had a net negative impact, you know, instead of a positive impact. Yeah.
[00:06:12.55] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:06:14.54] - Jeff Sherrod
So, yeah, I think that.
[00:06:16.13] - Gregg Garner
I mean, we can't tell anybody what to do. No.
[00:06:19.12] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. They're gonna watch by their eyes.
[00:06:20.07] - Gregg Garner
I know that for me, personally, if you asked me to come do that, I'd be like, I can't.
[00:06:25.93] - Jeff Sherrod
Too busy.
[00:06:27.23] - Gregg Garner
Not just because I'm too busy, but I just can't. Like, I'm not going to introduce to myself another scenario, situation, problem that is going to pool on my heart and mind and make me like, God's word is not going to disciple us into voyeurism.
[00:06:49.19] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:06:49.62] - Gregg Garner
We're not gonna, all of a sudden.
[00:06:51.07] - Jeff Sherrod
It'S a great way of saying it.
[00:06:51.88] - Gregg Garner
Become the kind of people that are just looking into various aquariums of the world and, and just being entertained by what's happening. Like, we, we are learning ministry from the incarnational God.
[00:07:08.56] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:07:09.06] - Gregg Garner
Who. Who came to his own. Like, so God does not do ministry from a distance.
[00:07:17.89] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:07:18.32] - Gregg Garner
Even though for some people, they, they feel like God's like that. But our Christian claim is that God wants to reside among us, that God wants to even be within us. So, like, if someone invited me to that, I, I'd. It's not that I'm upset about the invitation or anything. It's. It's. I can do nothing about it and I don't want to be introduced to it because I'll have to become responsible to some degree. And if I don't, that'll nag at me and that'll be unhealthy for me. Plus, I recognize how unnatural it is to have such broad exposure to things that are happening outside the context of my proximity to the degree it has no impact on me.
[00:08:02.18] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:08:03.02] - Gregg Garner
And just to introduce that to Me and I see it in our. A lot of our kids who come to the institute have like a desire to be admissions. Right. And so a lot of them have confused God's Great Commission mandate for the travel bug. And they, they just want to go to all the different places in the world and see it all. But it can, It's. It's really irresponsible at a certain point because the. God's people in the world, they're not. It's not an exhibit. They're not a part of a zoo.
[00:08:36.23] - Laurie Kagay
Right.
[00:08:36.57] - Gregg Garner
That God has. You don't pay your missions tickets so that you can go look at the people at that slum or the widows in that area or the orphans in that house. It's not like that.
[00:08:49.21] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:08:49.61] - Gregg Garner
Like if you are introduced to these situations, they're. They're like, okay, first John 3, 16, 17 says that if you see a brother or sister as in need of material things and you don't respond to them with those resources, it asks the question, how can the love of God even be in you? So I guess for people obviously traveling somewhere and seeing stuff is like an elevated awareness compared to seeing a documentary. But you're seeing. The Bible tells us that God saw, that he heard and that he knew when it came to the situation of Israel in Egypt. And so then God did something about it and he sent Moses to tell Pharaoh, let his people go, he was going to rescue them. So God's salvation was the resultant action of having those types of context to see, to hear, and to know. So if we are to engage our sensory capacities, notice it's just seen here. Notice it wasn't touch, taste, smell. Seeing here can be done from a distance. Like we can literally see millions of miles, like those stars out there, millions of miles away. We can see very far. And even we can hear the sonic boom of something from very far away. Right. Can't smell stuff from too far away. Definitely can't touch things. Right, Right. So. And our taste tastes very close. So the, the sensory capacities that are chosen. I know people want to make an anthropomorphic argument here, but that's pretty pedantic. The, the. The communication is helpful to us in that as we image God, the sensory capacity that we deploy is one that could be done from a distance. So it doesn't. The awareness of the situation does not necessitate proximity. Is my argument making sense?
[00:10:56.76] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:10:57.03] - Gregg Garner
I'll say it another way. So if all I need to do is see and hear about something, for me to now become knowledgeable about what's going on. And then to know that God saw, heard, was knowledgeable about the suffering so that he acted. Shouldn't I created an image of God wanting to follow God, following Jesus, have the same mode of response. So I can see and hear through a documentary.
[00:11:24.12] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:11:24.67] - Gregg Garner
It does not require me to be on the ground. Like I said, it's an elevated experience when you're in proximity. Like, it's less harder because now your other senses are engaged. Right. Now you will smell, now you will taste.
[00:11:35.75] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:11:36.32] - Gregg Garner
I wrote this song some years ago based on this concept. The whole awareness thing.
[00:11:40.82] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:11:43.72] - Gregg Garner
You know how, like, when you have lyrics, they're hard to remember unless you sing them. Like, I have this one line. Your home bomb. Can you imagine? Sister raped. How could this happen? And now there's talks of genocide. Society's all in a panic. A mother cries because of images too graphic. And then I go on to send a check, support a child. You've done your part. Now you can smile. Get back to your American dreaming. Or. Or it's too much. So change the channel. Watch the show where weight loss is a battle. It's so sad. They've had too many calories. Like, I'm just trying to deal with all of the awareness stuff that's on there. And then the chorus goes from a distance, you can't feel it. You can choose to close your eyes, but when you're in it, you can taste it. So I'm trying to engage, like, the sensory capacity that happens with proximity. But according to that Exodus text, the senses that God uses to become responsible are the ones that we can practice even through documentary. So, no, I don't want to go to your showing. At this point in my life, I have enough things to be responsible for.
[00:13:01.37] - Laurie Kagay
Right.
[00:13:01.91] - Jeff Sherrod
How do you think about. I mean, you know, like, Karl Bart's like, you know, read the Bible with Bible in one hand, newspaper print on the other one. You know, I think that that's a statement we've kind of adopted.
[00:13:11.66] - Gregg Garner
I didn't even know Karl Bart said that until right now.
[00:13:14.19] - Jeff Sherrod
Maybe someone else said it. I think that he also said it. Maybe he took it from someone else.
[00:13:18.03] - Gregg Garner
Well, in the same way that I didn't coin see a need me to need that. I know that for me, I learned that concept from the Bible itself. Like when. When you read Habakkuk. His responsibility is to be this watchman, and God wants to help him hear his word while watching what it is that's happening in the world.
[00:13:42.50] - Jeff Sherrod
That's where I got it from.
[00:13:44.34] - Gregg Garner
So, like, the prophetic task requires a person paying attention to current events. But notice again, that's something he could watch from a tower. That means that it's in his proximity to. It's. It's something you can see again or he can hear. It might be from a distance, but it's engaging those senses. So, like, I don't know what Karl Bart did to actually address any of the issues that he identified outside of writing theological works. I don't know.
[00:14:16.53] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:14:17.02] - Gregg Garner
And I'm not implying that he didn't do anything. I just don't know what he did. But if you're going to be a person who responds to things the way that Jesus did, the way that God instructs us to, it seems that once you've seen and heard and you come to know, you gotta act.
[00:14:35.35] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. But when you're reading the news and maybe you come across something, I don't know how to respond. What would I do? You know, there's so many things that you can read in the news.
[00:14:45.64] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:14:46.00] - Jeff Sherrod
About things you would have no idea how to respond to. Is that. Is that like, should that response.
[00:14:52.64] - Gregg Garner
Some of the unhealthiest people I know watch the news all the time. Read the news all the time. And you could everybody on your. I don't care. Send your comments, put on YouTube. It's all good. Like you can feel.
[00:15:04.09] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:04.50] - Gregg Garner
You could be so mad at me for saying that, that making that observation. But it's not good for you and it's not good for you because so often you cannot do anything about it.
[00:15:15.38] - Jeff Sherrod
Right?
[00:15:15.75] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:15:16.34] - Gregg Garner
And so often it doesn't even impact the world that you would live in or have anything to do. You're introducing to yourself. You know, I'm always saying that the world's always catching up to God. Right. God knows that what we see has an impact on us. God knows that what we hear has an impact on us. The technology to see and hear things from such great distances or outside of even our time did not exist in the days of writing the Bible. So now we have to make some interpretive moves to make sense of all that. Like, whatever's going on in these other places, if I'm not part of that place, working in that place, have people in that place that I'm responsible for. Why am I a better person if I use my time to see and hear all that's going on? So. And like I said, I think part of the mental and health that exists in a lot of these folks is that they're just inundated. Having been created in God. You see, you hear, you know, you should save.
[00:16:27.82] - Laurie Kagay
You're supposed to have a response, but.
[00:16:30.00] - Gregg Garner
Now you can't have any response. So you move into modes of fear and helplessness and anxiety. And it's not healthy. We weren't created for that. So I don't know, I'd encourage you maybe change the filter on your news stories, which is. Yeah.
[00:16:46.37] - Laurie Kagay
Some of what they're saying about this, like Gen Z being the most anxious generation because they have the biggest access to things.
[00:16:54.07] - Gregg Garner
Do you remember when the war in Ukraine broke out? Do you remember when our students. Our students took it?
[00:16:58.36] - Jeff Sherrod
Oh, yeah. They were like, very like, what do we do? They were anxious. They reported that they were anxious about it. Thinking about it.
[00:17:05.61] - Gregg Garner
I was like, but they were seeing live video feeds on Tick tock of people in Ukraine.
[00:17:10.90] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:17:11.52] - Gregg Garner
Highlighting the tragedy. And, and it, I mean, I think we have to admit as well, it, it's comes from a culture of privilege that you automatically move to a savior mentality where you're like, I'm gonna. What do we do about this? Where if you've ever had conversations with people who are sobered into the reality of their limited circumstances, they don't have those responses. They will just. I've often just seen them shake their head and go, that's sad.
[00:17:44.60] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:17:45.80] - Gregg Garner
They're not asking, what do we do?
[00:17:47.58] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:17:48.33] - Gregg Garner
So there's also the cultural element to how all this works. And if you come from a culture of privilege, you're. You're more apt, it would seem to think something can be done. And a lot of the problems that people are even these days posting as an awareness campaign are often fabricated.
[00:18:08.15] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, I think that's another point that I wanted to talk about is like, you just hear something sad and it's just, you just imagine it must be true. There's no like fact checking or is this real because someone's making money off an awareness campaign?
[00:18:20.85] - Gregg Garner
Take the Invisible Children campaign. Right. I think it came out maybe 2003 or 4. Around then. Right.
[00:18:27.43] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:18:29.75] - Gregg Garner
We started going to Uganda in 04 and in 05, I really wanted to figure out what was going on with these invisible children. There was the. If you don't know the story of the Invisible Children, it's an organization that wanted to label this group of kids that were abducted as child soldiers by the Lord's Resistance army led by a guy named Joseph Kony, who was inspired by a movement created by this prophetess named Alice Lucuena. And one of their beliefs Was that by being a part of that army, you become immune to bullets and. And resurrection is available to you even in the real moment. And they, they would abduct these kids from their homes, literally ripping them out of their homes and then giving them machine guns at 8 years old and using brainwashing tactics, and they would fight their territorial wars for them. In 2006, because of where we were located in Uganda, we were near army barracks, like a historical army barracks for the country. And we met a guy who was a higher up in the army. And I'll just never forget his response to us about. Because I just asked him, I said, what do you think about Joseph Kony and the lra? And it's like in our country, it's getting a lot of momentum because at that point, the Invisible Children organization was.
[00:19:43.06] - Jeff Sherrod
Like, I mean, it was everywhere.
[00:19:44.16] - Gregg Garner
Yeah, yeah. And he laughs. The guy laughing goes, they're just little thugs. He's like, there's nothing. There's no big deal. I'm like, but people are. He goes, oh, no, that's sensationalized. That's. And then I'm just thinking, this can't be the case today. As a matter of fact, if you're to go to Gulu, where they're saying all that is happening. Gulu is arguably one of the more developed places in East Africa. Some as a result of some of the dollars that came, but most of it just as a result of the. It being a strategic location for the development of that part of the country and the, the fact that people had opportunity there. Because you, you don't have opportunity for development unless you have peace.
[00:20:32.34] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, right.
[00:20:33.91] - Gregg Garner
Even, even, even King David knows this.
[00:20:36.89] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, right.
[00:20:37.55] - Gregg Garner
He's like, hey, I'm trying. Time to build stuff because we got peace. But the development that's taken place there didn't just happen yesterday. This has like been 20 years.
[00:20:46.21] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:20:46.50] - Gregg Garner
Which would have been during the reign of terror of Joseph Kony. I mean, do you remember the Kill Kony campaign?
[00:20:51.35] - Laurie Kagay
I think that was like, yeah, 2011, Coney 2012.
[00:20:54.96] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:20:55.88] - Laurie Kagay
It was like one of the most viral videos of all time. And their thing was to make Kony famous. But I also remember them. They showed the viewings in Uganda and people were like stoning the people presenting the documentaries. You're like, why would you do this?
[00:21:10.56] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:21:11.05] - Laurie Kagay
Why are you promoting this? Like, it, it was like a total backfire of the thing. But it's, it's very interesting scenario as far as awareness campaigns go, because even that organization is kind of.
[00:21:21.55] - Gregg Garner
And see the what people's response there, that, that sense of having felt insulted.
[00:21:25.98] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:21:26.42] - Gregg Garner
Is. Is I think, part of the phenomena of awareness campaigns that make a person emotionally attached to a cause by having watched a video when they themselves have no actual connection. The scenario, like, I'll. I'll never forget. And you probably only get this anecdote of a story here if you knew my life story. But I'll never forget having someone ask me, and even my dad was in the room too, and asking us, what do we even know about human trafficking? And why do we think we can talk about it at all? Because we're not women. And it was. We just kind of went silent and didn't know how to respond because that's been so much part of. Of our life story and our narrative related to the story connected to my mother. So it's. People get that confidence.
[00:22:16.36] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:22:16.78] - Gregg Garner
They watch documentary, all of a sudden they're an expert. Yeah. They know all the facts and everything. And it's like it could become really insensitive. So much so that the very people you're trying to make aware are like throwing rocks at you because you're trying to ruin their country.
[00:22:29.82] - Laurie Kagay
Right.
[00:22:30.20] - Gregg Garner
Yeah. It's crazy.
[00:22:31.53] - Jeff Sherrod
So if. I mean, because we do around here, you know, we. We have people do photography and storytelling and documentaries. So if someone were just asking you, like, what's the point of awareness? Like, what's the. What would. Maybe some criteria. I don't know, maybe. I know I'm putting you on the spot, but what would you say, like, people in those professions that are trying to do this in a holy way, like, how can they do this appropriately?
[00:22:53.40] - Gregg Garner
Yeah. So I've. I've wrestled with this for this question for a long time. I'll go back. Have you guys ever seen the. It was a Pulitzer Prize winning photo that was taken in Sudan.
[00:23:02.94] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:23:03.42] - Gregg Garner
And it has these. These vultures in frame that are scavengers. And if. And you look a little closer and you realize they're not all vultures. Some of them are actually kids.
[00:23:13.06] - Jeff Sherrod
I have seen that.
[00:23:14.01] - Gregg Garner
And they're just starving to death. And the vultures are actually pecking at some dead kids. Yeah, it won. It won an award. The photographer, from what I remember, ends up committing suicide some months later after receiving the award. Like that, to me. And I don't need to explain it, just sit with it for a second. Like that's where all that can go.
[00:23:37.54] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:23:38.00] - Gregg Garner
Like, it didn't change the situation. It didn't help anybody. It introduced people to the horrors of this kind of violence and suffering. The Bible will teach us that there are some things that are. Are so outrageous because they sit outside the scope of anything God ever intended that we shouldn't even talk about it.
[00:24:07.26] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:24:09.19] - Gregg Garner
But I don't think we're using that as a check anymore.
[00:24:12.15] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, I think you're right.
[00:24:13.31] - Gregg Garner
I think we're like, the more sensational it is, the more it'll sell, the more.
[00:24:17.40] - Jeff Sherrod
I mean, Laurie and I were talking before the podcast about just the explosion of true crime, you know, everywhere. It's just like, you can't. And it's. It's true crime, you know, so it's not like you have to kind of, like, think, all right, this actually happened, you know, which is pretty crazy. And then this is like the most popular shows, most popular podcast, and people are just.
[00:24:37.27] - Gregg Garner
People are eating it up. Christians are eating it up.
[00:24:40.75] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:24:41.08] - Gregg Garner
And it's not a good diet. It's not a good diet. It's. It's not. Philippians 4. 8. You know, whatsoever is good. Whatsoever is noble. Whatsoever's of good report. Like, think on these things.
[00:24:54.56] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:24:55.24] - Gregg Garner
Like, that's the expectation there. But we're not. We're, like, going, hey, let's watch the next episode of how to Train a Murderer, or whatever they're called. That's probably an old one, I think.
[00:25:07.30] - Jeff Sherrod
How do you train dragon?
[00:25:08.42] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:25:09.05] - Jeff Sherrod
How to get away with murder.
[00:25:11.49] - Gregg Garner
No, that's another movie thing.
[00:25:12.97] - Laurie Kagay
There was something.
[00:25:13.68] - Gregg Garner
It's something like how to. How to be a mass murderer. I don't know what it was, but you guys get what I'm saying?
[00:25:17.88] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:25:18.31] - Gregg Garner
Like, it's. It's just like if. If. If you. If we're not. First of all, all preachers out there, Bible teachers have to teach God's word. You teach God's word, you're going to give people what it is that they need to filter out the noise.
[00:25:31.05] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:25:31.51] - Gregg Garner
If you don't do that and you're just a relevant person responding to the awareness campaigns and using them as launch pads for your own agenda, it's just going to contribute to the. The unhealth that characterizes so many people in the world who are anxious and afraid and. And not being able to experience life in the way God intended it because of things they shouldn't have seen and stuff they shouldn't have heard. Yeah, it's. It's. Do you guys ever have that friend who just gives too many details?
[00:26:04.00] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:26:04.47] - Jeff Sherrod
Oh, yeah.
[00:26:05.22] - Gregg Garner
You know, I don't know anybody who. Who is, like, really excited about the. The over Amount of details that the person's giving.
[00:26:15.22] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:26:15.50] - Gregg Garner
But once you hear them, you can't unhear them.
[00:26:17.24] - Laurie Kagay
Right, Right.
[00:26:18.46] - Gregg Garner
I've gotten to the place with friends like that, I either just walk away or I go, hey, listen, that's too much. Just too much. This is. Back it up. I'm so thankful that most people have that sensitivity towards kids.
[00:26:28.51] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:29.48] - Gregg Garner
But it's changing. It's changing. And kids algorithms, because they're on social media too, are being attached to some of these big things. And it's so sad because the kids are. Are getting the statistics related to things that are scary to them. School shootings, abductions, kidnappings. Like it's, it's, it's now feeding their psyche. Not with what's of good report, not with what's true.
[00:26:57.21] - Laurie Kagay
Right.
[00:26:57.56] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:26:58.55] - Gregg Garner
But with what's tragic and painful. So, yeah. These awareness campaigns, you have to have an ethic. I think I told you that I actually met with a documentary crew in Delhi around 2000, probably 9 or 10. And this documentary crew had been following these slum kids for three years at that point. And I had lunch with one of the guys, and they were American and British, so it was like a team of them. And one of the guys was just telling me how he's. He's just fatigued by the whole experience. He came in there, he's a Christian. He's not. He wasn't at that point.
[00:27:44.59] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:27:45.59] - Gregg Garner
It says just too much to see. And then he ends up telling me a story how one of the kids. Because one of their rules in the documentary was not to interfere, just to let everything transpire. And one of the kids that was the interest of the documentary died, and he died of sickness and starvation. And the documentary guy watched it, and because he had the rules of not doing anything, not only did he record it, but he experienced it.
[00:28:15.42] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:28:15.88] - Gregg Garner
And now it messed with his faith.
[00:28:17.34] - Jeff Sherrod
Oh, yeah.
[00:28:18.22] - Gregg Garner
Mess with his, his mental state. He was a wreck. But I just sat there dumbfounded. Like how, how no one should even be in the situation.
[00:28:31.50] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:28:32.60] - Gregg Garner
But that's the kind of culture, the awareness documentary kind of thing seems to be producing because it makes money.
[00:28:40.01] - Jeff Sherrod
Is that, Is that what it comes down to, is they don't make money.
[00:28:42.54] - Gregg Garner
Anymore, do they, Chris? But that's, It's. I'm sure money had a lot to do with it, but it's also reputation.
[00:28:51.42] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:28:52.21] - Gregg Garner
Getting out there, being the first to say something about something. I don't, I don't know the. There. We. We have to be more conscious of what it is that we are seeing and hearing.
[00:29:08.27] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:09.05] - Gregg Garner
And the more. What I mean by that is not like becoming aware of what you're seeing, hearing. That's just advancing the awareness. Cause I'm saying, becoming more conscious about what we should be looking at, what we should be listening to. Because to feed off of a diet of tragedy and violence and pain, which if you turn on the news, we're not getting good news.
[00:29:32.03] - Jeff Sherrod
No.
[00:29:33.74] - Gregg Garner
The guy Jim on the Office. What's his name again?
[00:29:37.52] - Jeff Sherrod
John Krasinski.
[00:29:38.31] - Gregg Garner
Yeah, Krasinski. Yeah. He's married to Emily Blunt. And during COVID I don't know if you guys remember this, he tried to do his own little show called Good News.
[00:29:45.25] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:29:45.52] - Gregg Garner
Because he was just tired of all the bad news. So he did. I thought that was a really cool effort on his part that, you know, it's not going on anymore. Nobody's doing good news anymore. And when you look at stories, they're about scandal, right? Like exposure.
[00:30:00.95] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:30:02.24] - Gregg Garner
Like the cult phenomenon. Exposing the cults. Bringing people into just more things to make them afraid. When God. God's given us a gift in life and the world can be beautiful.
[00:30:13.64] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:30:14.30] - Gregg Garner
And I don't know. I think. I think people just need to develop their consciousness to the degree. And that's going to come by learning God's word. So you have that filter that helps you to just say, I'm not going to. I don't need to see that. I don't need to hear that.
[00:30:29.42] - Jeff Sherrod
Right. Just a question. I know one of our values around here is that. And it's in our mission statement. We want students to become globally conscious. If a student's hearing that, like, how do I do that? And at the same time, you know, not. Well, maybe I'll just start with a question. If you are helping students to understand, what does it mean to be globally conscious in a short way? How would you help them understand?
[00:30:50.69] - Gregg Garner
The first thing is to identify the cultural disposition that they're probably in by default, which, you know, kids have. Like, I remember, uh, I was in kindergarten and I got in a little feud with my mom. So I told her, I'm running away. She. She helped me pack my bag and then said, go. And so I was in California and I left.
[00:31:15.58] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:31:15.98] - Gregg Garner
And I was going out to see the whole world, Right. And I just walked on the sidewalk in California, and I passed by places I'd seen before, and I got to new places. Then I started realizing some of the places were familiar again. And I came right back to my house because in California, they're blocked.
[00:31:30.69] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:31:30.96] - Gregg Garner
And I went around the block, but as a five year old, I went around the world. Like I experienced so much life and, and it was just like my world opened up so big, I wasn't just playing with Johnny Garcia next to the door. Daniel Hardwick like it was now there's a big world out there. So part. The first element of global consciousness is helping people to understand that remember this is all theological.
[00:31:54.44] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah, Right.
[00:31:55.39] - Gregg Garner
That when God created the heavens and the earth, and then as at the apex of that creation, created the human beings, he gave the human beings the command to be fruitful, multiply, and then subdue the earth and fill it. That the Chapter 11 story of Babel where everybody's gathered to one place, is the counter narrative to that command in the first chapter. And so God has to confuse that project to get them from just piling on top of each other in this major city and to help them spread out and have dominion on the earth. So global consciousness starts with the biblical awareness of a big world that God created. That then you. Because before 11 you have chapter 10 with the table of nations that God's having. But then by the time you get to 12, God wants Abraham to start a new nation of faith that requires him to have, have to move away from his nation that he came from and his kin in his father's house so that this new nation would be associated with the name of God. But then he says the whole purpose of it is so that that family could become a blessing to all the families of the earth. So the global consciousness there is again culminating for us in like John 3:16, that God so loved the world he gave us, son. So like expanding a person to think beyond their, their family, to think beyond their, the institutions of the culture they live in and then beyond their own national agendas. That's, that's global consciousness. This is not to say be mean to your family or be mean to your institutions, your country. That's just immature. It's, it's saying like you, you, you have to recognize that God doesn't have preferred nation status with any nation out there.
[00:33:43.98] - Laurie Kagay
Right.
[00:33:44.30] - Gregg Garner
Like God, God is, is, is not any of our national citizens. Like, he's, he's not American, he's not Filipino, he's not African. God is God.
[00:33:53.76] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:33:54.17] - Gregg Garner
And that all of us are God's kids. So the global consciousness is initially related to the theological position that God has to say his, his family is going to bless all the families of the earth.
[00:34:08.11] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:34:08.55] - Gregg Garner
Now when you go to The New Testament and Jesus gives us the great commission to make disciples in that. Like being a blessing to these families of the earth includes teaching them even. Even the things that Jesus has commanded us, the way in which we're supposed to live life. The. The way that I think a modern person sometimes takes that, even when they hear global consciousness, is that now you as an individual, are to become responsible for everyone around the world rather than recognizing that God is talking to all of his kids who are all over the world and helping them to understand what their responsibility is within the world that they live in. Now, some of us, the world that we live in might just be a local community in the state where we're at, and you're being a blessing there. But now, does that meet the criteria of making disciples of other nations? It doesn't. So now you got to figure out how you can be involved with that, given not everybody's going to do what we do, but they can be involved and they can develop their consciousness about what's happening around the world. I love it when I go visit small churches and they have this missionary family that they're supporting, maybe Papua New guinea, and the whole congregation, if that's your people that you're connected with and you're working with, you should start learning about Papua New Guinea.
[00:35:21.71] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:35:22.01] - Gregg Garner
You should start, like. And then it could sow seeds. And some of the kids in there, like, one day I'm gonna go help out those missionaries in Papua New Guinea. But, like, if all of a sudden you. You start playing what I would call, like, risk with the map in. In your church lobby, where you're just, like, putting all the places where your church is traveled.
[00:35:38.96] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:35:39.48] - Gregg Garner
There's to me, an irresponsibility in that. Like, what. What change you're making. Except that for a lot of people, the spoken word of the gospel is the. The intended.
[00:35:48.30] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. That's the end result.
[00:35:49.59] - Gregg Garner
Which, by the way, is going to lead to conversion, not discipleship.
[00:35:53.51] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:35:53.92] - Gregg Garner
And discipleship is a continuous effort. So anyways, when our students are hearing about global consciousness, it's. It's becoming conscious to the mind of Christ.
[00:36:04.30] - Jeff Sherrod
That's right.
[00:36:04.86] - Gregg Garner
That has a global agenda.
[00:36:07.00] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. It's theological and. And there is a. It would be a big misconception, I think, because I've watched a ton of documentaries, that I become globally conscious.
[00:36:15.03] - Gregg Garner
Nothing to do with the. The documentary awareness.
[00:36:19.94] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. Or like, I know what's happening. Well, I listen to Al Jazeera, you know, like.
[00:36:23.34] - Gregg Garner
Yeah, that's not globally conscious. Has everything to do with getting the mind of Christ and recognizing that there's Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And what is our role within all of that? And how can we responsibly see and hear so that we know and then can bring about the salvation of God?
[00:36:42.61] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. Lauren, let me just ask you to finish it up here. I know that you do a lot of marketing, and that includes photography. When you're including pictures of people around the world. What kind of criteria are you using when you're selecting pictures to, you know, promote? I know that we work in places where they can have instances of poverty and tragedy.
[00:37:02.80] - Laurie Kagay
I mean, I think Gregg trained me, so I think that he's a photographer himself, and he trained me to be someone who looks at photos. And, like, I don't think our. He's trained even a lot of photographers in the midst of our organization to catch moments. I think we have a standard of what's a photo that's dignifying. That's probably one of the, I would say, like, characteristics that we do that maybe others don't where they may. Like, a photo can be striking and not dehumanizing. Like, a photo can be striking because it's beautiful, that it captures a moment of true connection between two people. And so I think the best photographers I probably know are people awakened to that spirit of God to find what's beautiful and true and noble and right. I think Gregg's demonstrated that. Well, I've seen him train other photographers in the same. And while some. I think we do have some photos that are, you know, they tell a story even in the sad things. You know, I know, you know, you see people in the developing world carrying a load that's too. That animals should normally carry or, you know, that don't have the proper attire at the work site. And I think, you know, you're in those scenarios, and cameras sometimes catch it for us. They can also be educational things to make students like, hey, this, you know, to bring some awareness in that way. But I don't think we've. I think we draw a line when it's like, you love your neighbor as yourself, and that neighbor may live far from you, but would you like that photo of you looking in that way?
[00:38:54.34] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. Posted on.
[00:38:55.59] - Laurie Kagay
Posted all over the Internet when phones.
[00:38:59.34] - Gregg Garner
And cameras started becoming the same thing. And we would take teams and they would want to break out their cameras, right? Like, all of a sudden, Instagram comes out, everybody wants to post their pictures. Facebook people want to post pictures. They want to Take pictures. Our team, as you guys know, our organization doesn't allow you to bring your cameras. And we have professional photographers who are trained in the way that Laurie is saying so that we get the right kind of pictures. But there was a window period there where I would have certain teams and I would allow some team members who claim to be photojournalists or whatever to go out and take pictures. And it would be very interesting that they would often not only want to take pictures of what would be considered an undignifying posture of somebody or situation, but they would also try to make it artful. And I ended up writing a song at that time. I never finished it, but it went something along the lines of, I don't want to make art of your pain. I don't want to make beautiful your suffering. And it resolves with, I put my camera away today. I see that happen too much. And I think that there needs to be a discussion in the community at large as to what is healthy and acceptable. But Laurie's right. There's actual people on the other side. And it's become such an issue that now if you're in the developing world, when you bring out a camera, people get mad.
[00:40:24.40] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, right.
[00:40:25.05] - Gregg Garner
They'll actually shake their fist at you, yell at you, because it's like, would you want someone taking a picture of you without asking, no permission?
[00:40:32.63] - Jeff Sherrod
Like, and sometimes these cameras that people can take out are like big cameras.
[00:40:36.30] - Laurie Kagay
Well. And taking the picture and then profiting off of that picture by just whatever distribution they're doing.
[00:40:41.84] - Gregg Garner
And they know that, too. Like, they'll come and they'll say, are you going to give me money for what you're making for that photo? Like, I had a conversation some years ago with a Maasai woman in Kenya because people were taking her picture. And I went. I went over to her and I said, how do you feel about people taking your picture? She goes, $1. I said, I'm asking. I didn't know she could speak English. Turns out she speaks English perfectly. But that was her answer. Her answer was, I feel like you need to give me $1. And so she goes on to explain to me, you're going to make money off of the way that I look and the way that I'm just am. And if you're gonna do that and you want me to be a part of that, then you need to give me a share in the income.
[00:41:26.40] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:41:26.76] - Gregg Garner
And my price is $1 today. I think you guys know that's been kind of the skirt around for, like, Collegiate athletes to get paid, like the licensing related to image and likeness. So it's interesting that when you have a developed quote fingers, economy and world, they can create laws that protect the image and likeness of someone, so much so that even a college has to pay for that person if it's going to create an income for the college.
[00:42:00.51] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:42:01.23] - Gregg Garner
We just don't apply that same consideration to people in. In the developing world. And then, you know, the rules are different too, when it comes to photojournalism and what becomes newsworthy and what it is that people feel like the public responsibility to post. But I think it just also because the lack of what we talked about earlier, lack of curation and just mass aggregation, now you just have the oversaturation that leads to so much noise. You know, you get hit enough times, you go numb.
[00:42:30.76] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, right.
[00:42:31.42] - Gregg Garner
And I think that's what's happened to some people. Just people are like the desensitization off of certain images just aren't there. So, like, when Laurie's talking about, like, the nuance of someone being at a work site with improper equipment, people don't see that anymore.
[00:42:47.19] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:42:47.46] - Gregg Garner
They want to see you bleeding at the work site.
[00:42:49.42] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:42:49.69] - Gregg Garner
Then they're like, oh, yeah, that's a hard situation. But when they see no construction site with no helmet, no knee pads, no shoes, denim or shoes, they don't feel any of that. They're just like, it's a poor person.
[00:43:02.63] - Jeff Sherrod
Especially if someone's smiling and they just discount the whole thing. No suffering possible.
[00:43:06.92] - Gregg Garner
Yeah, yeah. So what they want to see is someone naked, bleeding and in pain and. Oh, yeah, that's. Yeah, yeah. Which, yeah, it's so much, so much to say.
[00:43:19.40] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, there is a lot to say about this. I think that, you know, like, we, We. We're supposed to be storytellers. And so, you know, one of the ways that we can do that is through photography and videography and making documentaries. I think it's an important format. I know you've been involved in all of those, and so I know that.
[00:43:36.40] - Gregg Garner
Chris and I were just talking yesterday how we want to do some very. Like, we have a lot of projects in mind, things that we want to do, but we definitely have our theology guiding the ethics.
[00:43:46.40] - Jeff Sherrod
That's right. That's right.
[00:43:47.36] - Gregg Garner
And what it is that we're doing.
[00:43:48.19] - Jeff Sherrod
And it's not just like, you're not starting, and I think this is important. You're not just starting with the skill. Like, I am a technical. I have all the technical skills, and now I can do the Task. Like when you get involved in telling the people story, especially about development and development of people, you got to have like a.
[00:44:06.19] - Gregg Garner
That's why it applies across the board. Right. Like. Like if you're gonna go to school, to college to get trained in a profession, be ready to just advance the ethics and the way of the profession.
[00:44:18.15] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:44:18.59] - Gregg Garner
Because you didn't take enough time to really learn God's word and learn what God wanted so that you could actually be a transformative agent within that industry.
[00:44:28.53] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:44:28.92] - Gregg Garner
But I'm thankful for the Bible school movement because when people go to Bible school and they learn God's word and then they enter into a various career, like, that's exactly what Chris did. Chris went to Bible school and then entered into film. His theology is now informing how he practices that technical skill and that art. And it's gonna. It's gonna lead to more dignified products. Not just dignified based upon like a cultural ethic.
[00:44:56.73] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:44:57.17] - Gregg Garner
But based upon. Again, because the cultural ethic, the goalpost will move.
[00:45:00.96] - Jeff Sherrod
Right, Right.
[00:45:01.84] - Gregg Garner
Or the pendulum will swing. But Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. There's gonna be like a consistency for a person who's theologically educated.
[00:45:11.26] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:11.90] - Gregg Garner
Biblically educated. Let me be more specific.
[00:45:14.03] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, I think, I think that's super helpful. You know, I. I liked a few of the advice you're giving. One of it is just like, cut out some of the media that you're getting. I mean, we've said that a few times. But it's important as. And you're not. I know that sometimes people, like, I just see it. But you can take control of the things that you see, especially when it's like true crime. You can just choose to just, I don't know, stop. Just stop. Right.
[00:45:40.01] - Gregg Garner
What good is it to you or anyone else to watch that? If you're gonna watch it, can you just admit it's entertainment for me? And I like being scared or paranoid or like, just. But. But don't act like it's not having an impact.
[00:45:59.48] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:45:59.98] - Gregg Garner
That to me is like. Yeah, that there's. There's some. There's a disconnect if you think it's not impacting you in some way.
[00:46:08.73] - Laurie Kagay
Yeah.
[00:46:09.19] - Jeff Sherrod
I heard someone say they just like thinking about the psychology of it all. And I was like, but you're taking the most aberrant cases, you know, and then like. And then, you know, like, these are not mass murdering is not happening like this.
[00:46:21.46] - Gregg Garner
People know who do that, though, all of a sudden start seeing mass murders and just regular people Right. Next thing you know, they have an Instagram account where they're, like, identifying narcissistic tendencies that lead to serial killing.
[00:46:33.65] - Jeff Sherrod
Right.
[00:46:34.07] - Gregg Garner
And now it's, it's like real easy stuff. Like, they, they, they're influential. They're. They're convincing. They.
[00:46:44.55] - Laurie Kagay
They have charisma, have.
[00:46:46.44] - Gregg Garner
They're intelligent. Right, Right. Just like these very broad traits that just, like, now fit their, their documentary degree they got on how to identify a murderer. Maybe that's what it was called. Not identify.
[00:47:03.71] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, we got full circle. We came around here at the end. I appreciate you guys hanging out for this conversation of College Conversations. We look forward to having you guys back with us next week. See you then. Thanks for joining us on College Conversations. Hope you guys enjoyed the show. As always. It means the world to us. When you, like, subscribe, you tell your friends and your loved ones about this show. If you haven't yet, head over to Apple Podcast, Podcast or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to it. You'll be notified anytime a new episode comes out. Also, head over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel. Let other people know about the work that we're doing. As always, let us know about any comments that you have, things that you want to talk about, things that you appreciate. We really do appreciate hearing from the audience. Until next time, we'll see you guys on College Conversations.