Personal Change
Who's Influencing You?
The statistics are sobering. The average American family watches TV and surfs the Internet an average of 4-5 hours per day, and children less than two years old are now watching TV daily. By the time the average teenager is 18, they've been exposed to as many as 100,000 beer commercials alone, not even counting the violence, coarse language, and sexual innuendo that typifies prime time TV.
The flood continues. The Census Bureau reports that teenagers will spend the equivalent of 5-1/2 months next year listening to digital music players, working on computers, and watching TV. And as entertainment moves to cell phones, it will only get worse.
Which makes me wonder, in our media-driven culture, who's influencing you? Most people would agree that influence comes from the things we spend time doing. So how much time are you really spending each day pursuing things that will last, versus being entertained? We wonder why people of faith aren't making more of an impact in the culture, when the answer is clearly, how we're spending our time.
Somewhere along the line, the church substituted "events" for "discipleship." Flip through the pages of a typical Christian magazine or watching Christian TV, and you'll find plenty of major Christian "events." I love events myself. But events don't make disciples. Relationship does.
Re-think how much you use the media, and then prioritize the media in the context of your priorities. Media is ultimately about influence, and clearly, what we choose to expose ourselves to, will have the dominant power in our lives. Because the truth is - at the end of your life, how important will it be that you never missed an episode of Oprah?
You drive cars, watch TV, read books, and shop in stores. All are "things of this world." Myspace and other digital media are no different - it's how you use them (and how much) that counts. Use myspace.com - just don't let it use you... :-)
Reminds me of the scene in "The Devil Wears Prada" where - forgive me, I forget the names of the characters - her cell phone goes off, she excuses herself to answer it, and he says, "You know, the one whose cell phone you answer? That's who you're in a relationship with!"
Just recently I went back to my country, Peru, to celebrate my little cousin's 15th birthday. It was such a blessing to be around my family and relatives that I have not seen in years. I was able to share the Gospel with so many of them. But, the reason why they were willing to listen to me was because we did have a relationship. My younger cousins, all of them have a myspace.com account. And they say that they keep in touch with each other through it. I was surprised and I felt left out. Man, I can really impact my cousins lives through this source that God has allowed to be created for the glory of Christ. I don't want to give in to the things that I can be exposed on myspace. But, it would be such a blessed opportinuty to be a part of this with my cousins.
How can I engage myself into these sights, but without submitting to the things of this world? This is where the challenge is.