Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts

Monday, November 24, 2014

Questioning Entertainment: Center on God

Our entertainment habits should help us become more like Christ.  That's what it means to love God with all your mind.

The scripture tells us that we need to Center on God, Connect in Relationship, and Change our World. (See John 15.)

As you seek to Center on God through your entertainment choices, here are some key questions to ask yourself.  Bring these to God in prayer, and let him lead you.

  • What is this (book, movie, TV show, video game, blog, etc.) doing to my soul?


  • How is this helping me love God with all my mind?


  • How do I feel during and after engaging with this content?


  • What/whom does this content glorify?

Just thinking about these questions will help you consider the impact your entertainment may have on your mind.  It's worth thinking about.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Entertaining Thoughts

To love God with all your mind, you have to surrender your entertainment choices to Jesus.  That's not easy. It may take a long time.  It may be a process.  But Jesus certainly cares about what you put in your mind.

I'm camping out on entertainment because I keep seeing television commercials from cable and satellite companies who claim that they make your life better.  They improve your life by allowing you to watch a crime drama during a wedding reception or watch a ball game during  backyard family time.  Really?  Life is better when you can be distracted anywhere?  That's like putting a refrigerator in every room in the house.  And in your car, and in the backyard.

What is entertainment?  One way to define it is:  Passively consuming or engaging with content for fun.  This would include video games, binge watching, Facebook, Twitter, internet, cable TV, hand-held devices, smart phones, books, movies, magazines, etc.

There can be great value in entertainment.  It can provide encouragement, education, relaxation, catharsis, fellowship, laughter, relaxation, diversion.

There are also great dangers in entertainment, including addiction, loss of time, isolation, obsession with narrow topic.  Sometimes it reduces stillness; threatens time with family, self, and God; damages relationships.  And the content can be harmful to your soul—ungodly world views, porn, celebration of evil.

Like any powerful tool, entertainment can be used for great good or great destruction.  Like fire, it must be handled very carefully.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Entertainment and the Great Commandment

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  (Mark 12:29-30)  This commandment gets me every time.  It reminds me of how far I fall short of God's ideal.

For a lot of Christ's followers, we seem to ignore this commandment with our entertainment choices.  "Uh, Lord, I'm going to see this movie...hope you don't mind...uh, well, we'll talk about it later."  It's as though we know that the movie or TV show is spiritual poison, but we are willing to deal with the consequences.  Our entertainment choices are off limits for discussion, even with God.  We want to love God with all our minds, but entertainment doesn't really count, does it?

This inward tension--between what we know is right and what we do--hinders our spiritual lives.

I don't want to set some artificial guidelines about movie ratings, or how much nudity is okay, or how many f-bombs are permissible.  It would be way too easy to create some man-made yardstick and hold it up to every book or movie.

I think Jesus wants to get to our hearts.  He wants us to be in constant communication with him, even in the movies.  He wants us to bring these choices to him.  He wrestles with sin in this world.  He has a sense of humor.  He enjoys irony.  He likes good stories.

Would you dare to let Jesus in on your entertainment choices?  He's not a killjoy.  He might even help you enjoy your entertainment more.  Maybe that show is not really spiritual poison, if you see it through his eyes.

Love him with all your mind.