Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

PASTOR'S PENS 2009

January 18th “Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.”  Robert Bresson                 An extensive new research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those who consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing. Those sound like the very things that are part of the life of a healthy church member. God wants us to be faithfully in His Word and faithfull spending time with His people in community.                 This time of year many of us start new diets, . Can I suggest a diet you might not have considered? How about a media diet? A recent study from Nielsen Media Research highlights that one of our culture’s greatest problems is how much time we watch TV. But it’s not just TV, it’s also the Internet and video games. All media outlets have the potential of being problematic in that we too easily use up our valuable time with them.                 Did you know that the average home now contains more television sets than people? While the typical household accommodates only 2.55 people, it has  2.73 televisions. 50% of all homes have three or more TV’s and only 19% contain just one. In 1975, by contrast 57% of households owned only one television and just 11% contained three or more. All these new television sets in bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, saunas and exercise rooms have led to a vast increase in the amount of television each individual regularly views. As recently as 1996, the average person watched 3 hours, 59 minutes a day – an already excessive number that increased to a staggering 4 hours, 35 minutes a day a decade later. That represents an increase of some 10% – or more than four additional hours per week – in just ten years.                 Most believers make a major blunder when it comes to the media. Most are very concerned about what is on TV, the content of video games or what’s coming over the Internet, BUT what they fail to see that as large of a problem if not larger, is the fact that the TV and Internet are even on. While the message is a problem, so is the medium. All of these media outlets degrade communication, creativity, attentiveness, engagement or other significant indicators that you are, in fact, fully alive and an image-bearer of God.                 Watching a game or even the news can be just as damaging to your relationships and ability to think, as the content of what you watch. Some folk actually believed that when the TV was first invented, it would enhance family relationships because it would bring the family together. Several decades later we now know that while sometimes TV does bring family together into the same room, it does not bring them together. TV is a monologue with the TV being the only one communicating.                 Currently at Grace, we’re focusing on God’s plan for this day, the local church, in our new sermon series, The Essential Church. Being a media addict greatly hinders having a healthy relationship with your Heavenly Father, your church family, not to mention your marriage and family.                 While most of us think nothing of watching several hours of TV, surfing the net or playing video games...we can’t seem to find time in our “busy” lives to read God’s Word or to pray. We’ll rationalize that we just don’t have time to spend with the Lord, yet we find time for these other media outlets. We also convince ourselves that we’ve worked hard and deserve the break. While there is a legitimate need for relaxation and down times, media outlets are often not the best choice. If most of us would spend half an hour more with the Lord and half an hour less with some media outlet, the spiritual significance and difference would be staggering.                 Then, we convince ourselves we don’t have time for Sunday School, an ABF or some other Bible study. Somehow though we find time to watch our favorite program. It’s sad how many believers convince themselves that they don’t have enough time to be involved in a ministry or some other place of serving the Lord but media time seems to always make it into our schedule.                 So after an hour or two absorbed in some media outlet, do you quit and feel more refreshed, that you learned something that was life changing, that you accomplished something that is going to count for eternity? I doubt it. Or, are you like me...you watch some silly show, about 10 minutes into it you wonder if it is going to improve but by then, you’re caught up in the plot. So, you convince yourself to see how it ends...and then you’re a tad irritated that the whole thing was so silly, such a waste of time.                 Now I’m not suggesting that we pitch our TVs, or computers or video games. We do though need to make sure that these entertainment tools serve us, rather than us being enslaved to them. So set some time limits or boundaries, and then stick to the boundaries. Come up, too, with some healthy replacements. Linger at the table and just talk with your family instead of rushing off to watch your favorite show. Find a book to read that will stretch you spiritually. Get involved with a Bible study and some area of service. Ask the Lord to direct you to the place where your gifts would be most wisely used.                 Someday we’ll give an account to our Lord on how we invested this life that He entrusted to each of us. Let’s seek to obey Him and live out, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).