Paul’s words are a call to hand over my check lists, my grumpy tirades, and my opinion of your entertainment choices and to submit every decision to the scrutiny of God most holy.

3 Wise Filters that Will Improve Your Entertainment Choices

Posted on by Michele Morin

Greasy fingers met in a communal popcorn bowl, and laughter overpowered the details of dialogue: “Hey, somebody rewind! I missed that line!” It was family movie night, and the flickering image on the screen played second fiddle to the allure of an extended bed time. With cold pizza congealing at room temperature on the coffee table, we were entertained by stories that fed our imaginations and showed up in the kids’ make believe long after the credits rolled.

Raising kids pre-internet was a dreamy business compared with the challenges young parents navigate in 2019. In the days of VHS, long before Andy Crouch’s wise and urgent tweets about “putting technology in its place,” we managed tech by setting a kitchen timer for games of Oregon Trail (played on a clunky desktop computer) and by reserving screen time for Disney movies watched en masse on Friday nights.

Colossians 3 offers three tests—three wise filters for my entertainment choices to help me to embrace the positive without falling into the trap of making entertainment into an idol that interferes with godly priorities and habits of holiness. I’m writing about Paul’s insights for the June Redbud Post, and I invite you to join me over there, where the theme is Entertainment Exhaustion. Whether you use your free time to read a book, play a game, or watch a movie with your family, you are called to bring every activity into connection with Jesus. It’s my sincere hope that the offerings you find over on the Redbud Post will both encourage and inspire you today.

Giving thanks to God,

 

 

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Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash

Published by Michele Morin

Michele Morin is a Bible teacher, writer, reader, and gardener committed to the truth that women can become confident Christ-followers and students of God's Word. She has been married to an unreasonably patient husband for thirty-plus years, and together they have four sons, four daughters-in-love, and six adorable grandchildren. Michele loves hot tea and well-crafted sentences, poems that stop her in her tracks, and days at the ocean with the whole family. She laments biblical illiteracy and advocates for the prudent use of “little minutes.” She blogs at Living Our Days, and you can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

25 thoughts on “3 Wise Filters that Will Improve Your Entertainment Choices”

  1. These are good, Scriptural principles, Michele. Too often we want someone to give us exact boundary lines (or others want to give everyone else boundary lines) instead of each of us spreading these choices before the Lord for His direction.

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  2. I remember the old VHS from my childhood, complete with the remote control on a wire and of course the clunky old computers. Family movie nights are great and I loved the line about the greasy fingers meeting in the popcorn bowl. It sounds just like my house now on movie night.

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  4. Thank you for sharing this link up in Grace & Truth. Test #1 is a HUGE one for me. I’ve had incredible night terrors all of my life, and I can’t even listen to something that sounds violent. I avoid it all or the night terrors and overall anxiety is just crazy. Thank you for sharing this!

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  5. I, like you, raised kids in pre-always-connected days. I can remember family movie nights too, but our movies were rented from the video store (back when video stores existed). We had more control over the content they viewed then, but the filters you describe sound valuable. Heading over to read the full post now.

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  8. Thanks Michele! Headed over to read the rest of the post. I too am SO glad to have raised my kiddos in the pre-internet era. The challenges now are mind-blowing, and it just keeps getting worse. Thanks for this, and thanks for linking up at InstaEncouragements!

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  12. I wish my kids would make wiser choices about how they spend their time. We have the rule no screens after teatime and they mooch about refusing to enjoy themselves! Thanks for linking up with #globalblogging

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  13. Thanks for sharing with the #DreamTeam
    This whole technology thing is a minefield. Our children need to be great with tech in today’s world, but we also of course want them to get off the screens. We have distinct limits for the amount of time they can have on a screen and all homework etc… must be done first!

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