Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California has tried his hand at a new skill. In an effort to help children remember the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) recommendations for containing the spread of the coronavirus, the megachurch pastor penned some rhyming prose he put to music. The “Quarantine S.H.A.K.E.” was made into a dance video with the help of the Saddleback Kids ministry team.
“Nobody is going to remember all 5 [CDC recommendations], especially little kids. It needs to be memorable and fun! So, since I often create acrostics as memory devices (like our P.E.A.C.E. plan, or our S.H.A.P.E. profile) I created an acrostic for 5 WAYS TO S.H.A.K.E. THE VIRUS,” Warren wrote in the video’s description.
S.H.A.K.E. is an acrostic that summarizes the CDC’s recommendations in easy-to-remember lines:
Stay at home
Hand wash often
Avoid your mouth
Keep your distance
Elbow cough
The song also includes a catchy chorus that reminds kids why they are being asked to do these things: “Save the human race/ When we do the quarantine Shake”.
Warren explains that the idea for the song and the video came after the national director of the CDC asked him to help spread the word about their recommendations. Warren writes:
Bob Redfield, the national director of the CDC, is a very close friend of Kay and me. We’ve traveled together, worked on the AIDS pandemic together, and when I asked for his help in creating a church-based community health care program for Rwanda, Bob invented the process that we used to train 6,000 Rwandans serving through their churches. That program is now being copied elsewhere.
At the beginning of the COVID 19 crisis, Bob called and asked me to use my channels to pastors to help get out the correct information to churches everywhere. I did that, but I also started thinking about a fun way to spread the message to kids.
Warren acknowledged how odd it is that he came up with the song. “I doubt that anyone would guess that a pastor wrote this!” He also said that Saddleback Kids is planning a contest for kids, schools, and church youth groups to record and share their own version of the Quarantine S.H.A.K.E.
The contest Saddleback’s children’s ministry is facilitating is not far outside some of the other initiatives the ministry has taken on recently. Last week the group announced a trick shot challenge on their Instagram page. The challenge asked kids to film their best trick shots and send them in to Saddleback. Over the weekend, Children’s Pastor Kurt Johnston announced the Quarantine S.H.A.K.E. challenge in a Saddleback Kids Church Online video. Saddleback Kids are encouraging those interested to make their own videos and upload them to social media using the hashtag #TheQuarantineShake.
