From children's pastor Larry Schallenberger:
I’m reading Andy Crouch’s book Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. I’m just a few chapters into it and already think that this book might be among my ‘08 favorites.
I’ll be posting some gems from this books over the next few days. This is must read material for any pastor or parent serious about understanding and creating culture. Here are five diagnostic questions that Crouch offers us as we attempt to understand a cultural artifact: 
- What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?
- What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be?
- What does this cultural artifact make possible?
- What does this cultural artifact make impossible or very difficult?
- What new culture is created in response to this artifact?
Questions three and four remind me of Marshall McLuhan’s “extensions and amputations” that we discussed elsewhere on this blog.
If you take Andy’s four questions and apply them to artifacts to kids’ culture you’ll gain interesting results. Try running these artifacts through the questions and you’re understanding of kid culture will immediately expand:
- An Ipod
- Webkinz
- A local soccer league
- Chuck-E-Cheese
- Standardized tests