Challenging Times

Twelve years of your life goes on watching television. It shapes how you live and what you think. As Christians, we need to think through how it’s influencing us,“ and how we can use it positively.

‘Facing the Challenge of Television’ is a new course for home groups and cell groups, from Focus Radio. In eight fifty minute sessions, it covers:

• Creating our world
• Stealing our lives
• Causing ‘Truth Decay’
• Distorting reality
• Junk food for the soul
• Pollution for the imagination
• Fuel for our prayers
• Points of contact for the Good News

The course is available as a digital download from www.facingthechallenge.org/television.htm
For a limited time only, it is available for the special introductory price of £9.99. This includes the Leaders’ Guide and worksheet masters for group members.

You can also ‘try before you buy’ by downloading a sample session from
www.facingthechallenge.org/stealing.pdf.

The introduction to the Leaders’ Guide is also available as a free download from
www.facingthechallenge.org/tvcourseintro.pdf

This recent book by Aric Sigman is subtitled ‘How television is damaging our lives – and what we can do about it.’ It’s a ‘must read’ for anyone who is serious about understanding our culture.

On average we spend four hours a day in front of the television – more than anything else we do except work and sleep. By the age of six, a child has already spent a whole year watching television.

But there’s a growing body of evidence that television affects our physical, psychological and social health in damaging ways. It’s one of the main causes of obesity (a child burns fewer calories watching television than he does just sitting doing nothing). It makes us overweight, prone to diabetes, heart attacks and cancer.

Television harms the way a young child’s brain develops, damages their learning abilities and hinders their educational progress; It has been directly linked to the possibility of a child developing ADHD.

Television is responsible for half of all violent crime. Countries like Bhutan have seen a sudden rise in violent crime when television is first introduced.

Television causes depression. Sigman says that ‘If someone were to design an instrument specifically to work against the things that sustain and improve our society’s happiness, nothing could be more effective than the television set.’

Television tells us what to think. It’s increasingly being used as an instrument of social control and engineering. He says: ‘Today, we are enlightened by the most effective vehicle for social engineering ever envisaged. Our views and attitudes towards everything from domestic violence, drug abuse, divorce and single motherhood to immigration and racial groups are carefully manipulated by decisions taken behind the screen.’

What can we do? Sigman’s basic message is clear: if you want to be healthier and happier, cut down the amount of television you watch: ‘There’s nothing to be lost by watching less television but a great deal to be lost by continuing to watch as much as we do.’

For more information, or to buy the book from Amazon.