Westfield London is about to get a £20-million attraction aimed at children, giving them the chance to experience adult life in miniature. They’ll be able to try out jobs, earn credits and spend those on food and entertainment. It sounds like lots of fun, and in the first of two articles, I will consider aspects of KidZania in light of the gospel and the way we approach children’s ministry. The second will explore what we can learn about KidZania’s view on children and how this can be used positively in church.
It seems impossible to watch television at the moment without some reference to the economy. In London, you only need to take a short walk in the City to be reminded that we are home to the full financial spectrum. At Christmas, Archbishop Justin Welby reminded us about the dangers of consumerism. Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, gives a stark warning that capitalism, in its current form, will only serve to increase wealth inequality.
So, how is this connected to children’s ministry in London?’ I recently stumbled upon this article about KidZania and I think it is worth reflecting on.
KidZania is a mini city where children can choose to ‘try out’ adult professions, getting paid in ‘KidZos’ that they can spend on food, go-karting or gifts. Parents are banned – they can either shop in the huge shopping centre that’s handily next door (Westfield in this case) or watch from the spectator’s gallery. Delve deeper and you’ll see there are corporate tie-ins with companies such as McDonald’s, DHL and Renault, all offering children mini versions of their own businesses. It’s also not cheap at £28 per child.
Its creators promote KidZania as a miniature reflection of life, letting children do what they love: imitating adults. However, I think that this is only mimicking a certain aspect of life that is in conflict with the life and teachings of Christ. Work and rest are definitely biblical, but if that’s all we are about then the future is bleak. There has to be more to life than earning credit from large corporations only to give it back to them in order to entertain us. This life being normalised by KidZania is by nature a closed loop. There is no room for ‘other’, and if there is, it’s only ultimately to increase individual gain. It doesn’t take long for my cynical nature to imagine KidZania enjoying a mini Black Friday scrum to get discount KidZos.
The question that KidZania asks of its participants is ‘When will you be content?’ The whole setup is designed to get the children to do more, in order to get more (and so that parents can shop more). There is a conflict with an important New Testament challenge that asks how we as Christians learn to love more. Owning material things is not incompatible with Christianity, but what do we make of a culture that seems to imply that it’s okay if things start owning us?
Leading a church’s ministry to children, I have the privilege of shaping most of the culture that children encounter in our church. However, what about the culture outside our churches, that we have very little control over? What gospel-shaped space are we to create and share with children that will give them the tools to deal with the pressures of external cultures such as that promoted by KidZania?
At the start of the Book of Daniel, we learn that Daniel and his friends have been taken to Babylon to work for a king who had captured and pillaged Jerusalem. Upon arrival the young men were thrown into an alien culture and two things happened, they were given new names and new food. Interestingly they took the names without disagreement but decided to refuse the food. Essentially they said, ‘We will let you change our names, but we will not compromise on what we eat, as that will rob us of too much of our identity.’
As children’s ministers we are involved in the process of children being conformed to the image of Christ, and our children will find themselves in foreign environments, such as KidZania. So in the church environment you create for children what are the things that you will not compromise on? What is the culture that you want a child to experience in your church? It’s my guess that if your answer is something along the lines of unconditional love and generosity of spirit towards children, then whatever culture they find themselves in, be it KidZania or school or the playground, they will probably take those ideals with them.
Tim Broadbent is Children’s and Youth Minister at St Mary’s Islington.
Image: Kidzania Tokyo by J Lippold, used under Creative Commons licence.