The Witness magazine – Summer ’25 has dropped!
When I was a teenager in the Dulin’s Grove youth group, we had a Sunday night lesson titled “Garbage In, Garbage Out.” I’m pretty sure we even made little craft trash cans to help us remember the idea that what we take in through our eyes and ears has a real impact on our thoughts and actions. Twenty-some years later, I still agree: Christians are not immune to the influence of secular entertainment. If we were, Jesus wouldn’t have cautioned us in Matthew 6 that “the eye is the lamp of the body” and if our eyes are unhealthy, our whole body will be full of darkness. What we watch and absorb matters.
Today, entertainment is more accessible and more integrated than ever. Our phones serve as lifelines, helping us answer calls, return emails, keep up with family, buy tickets to school games and reorder dog food. But just a swipe or two away lies an endless feed of custom-tailored reels, streaming movies and social updates designed to hold our attention. Entertainment is no longer something we seek out at a set time and place; it’s something we absorb in scattered moments throughout the day — more like a rabbit at a drip water feeder than a person sitting down for a thoughtful, two-hour film.
Because entertainment has become such a massive part of our daily lives, it’s important as believers that we not only recognize its influence, but regularly hold our habits up to the light of Scripture. In this issue, feature writer Josh Cheney challenges us to examine whether our entertainment choices are drawing us closer to Christ or quietly pulling us away. His article offers a helpful, biblical framework, not a checklist, for thinking through what we watch, read and listen to with discernment.
Matt Broadway’s piece, “Why Christians Should Be the Best Storytellers,” reminds us that we serve a creative God and are called to reflect that creativity with excellence. Drawing from the parables of Jesus, the craft of Lewis and Tolkien and the theological weight behind beauty, this article makes a compelling case for Christians to pursue storytelling that is both truthful and well told.
Finally, we’re reaching back to 1979 to bring you a beautiful article from our archives titled “Is There a Cure for Loneliness?” by Fred Thurston. Though written decades ago, his words feel quite timely for today. I hope his piece will remind you as it did me that even in today’s hurried and entertained world, we can choose to resist passivity and thoughtfully reclaim our zest for living.
