No, It’s Not ‘Just a Show’: Guarding Your Heart in Modern Media

In the comments of last weeks episode of The Recap, one of the commenters, my awesome Cousin Cynthia, said she attends Echo Church in Sunnyvale California. One of the blessings of that ministry is the ability to discuss sermons with people and open the word together. So I watched as Pastor Filipe Santos preached on sheep responding to the voice of their Shepherd and the many false shepherds that can try to lead the sheep away, and instantly my mind went back to a moment a year ago when, like the prodigal son, I came to my senses in the pig pen I was living in, and it was seriously like God just slammed the brakes on my whole life.

I was working on a script for a video on Green Lantern Rebirth and Rylan was sitting on my floor looking at a picture of Marvel characters and, like any proud nerd dad, I asked, probably a little too excited, “Buddy, who’s that?”

“Spider‑Man.”

“And that one?”

“Captain America.”

“What about him?”

“That’s Wolverine. He’s got claws.”

He knew every Marvel hero on sight… and I beamed… like my heart legit grew three sizes in that moment. He could tell you which ninja turtle wore which color, who the Red Ranger was, and sing at full Rylan volumne half the theme songs from the ’90s cartoons I grew up on. But when I asked, “What is the gospel?” he just stared at me, blank. No category. No story. Nothing, just empty space where Jesus should have been.

I remember that moment like a punch to the gut. It was as if the Lord gently put His hand on my shoulder and said, “Look at what you’re discipling him into…” I had poured so much of my own heart into comics, movies, and pop culture that my son was being carefully catechized by my media, while I was barely catechizing him in Christ. The stories I loved had quietly taken center stage. That was the crack in the dam.

Something had to give.

Stories That Train Our Hearts

We like to call it “just entertainment.” Just a movie. Just a show. Just a comic run to unwind after work. In our heads, it’s background noise. But in our hearts, it’s more like discipleship.

Movies, TV and media teach us what the “good life” looks like, who gets celebrated, and who is disposable. They teach us what bodies are for and what they’re worth...whether a person is an image bearer or just a prop to be posed, used, or killed for the sake of the plot. They teach us how conflict is “supposed” to be handled: forgiveness and patience, or revenge and domination, and usually it’s the second one because that looks cooler on screen or duotone.

You can feel it if you pause long enough. The more you live in a world of stories where every female costume is basically painted on and every conflict is solved by a cool fight scene, the less weird that feels. The more you watch shows where murder is a puzzle to solve and adultery is “complicated drama” instead of tragedy, the less tragic it seems. Little sermonettes, accumulating, moving the goalposts of what shocks you, what makes you laugh, what you quietly enjoy, almost without you noticing it.

As a dad, I see this up close. When my son starts quoting a line from a show that has toilet humor or violence, and I realize… yeah, he didn’t learn that tone in Sunday school. He picked it up from a cartoon I wrote off as “harmless.” That’s when it hits: stories aren’t neutral. They are liturgy for the imagination, like tiny worship services for our brains.

A Covenant With Our Eyes (In 4K)

Job says, “I have made a covenant with my eyes, how then could I gaze at a virgin?” That’s not Job inventing a clever mental trick to look without feeling anything. It’s a promise not to dwell on what stirs up desires that don’t belong. It’s a line in the sand: my eyes are not free agents, they’re under covenant, like they signed a contract or something.

Job didn’t have Netflix auto‑play. No Instagram explore page. No “top 10 brutal moments” compilations. No “strong female character” who turns out to mean … emotionally dead plus a wardrobe that would get my daughter sent home from school. When we talk about lust and objectification, the spotlight usually falls on how women are framed for the male gaze. That’s real, and it matters. But in the last decade or so, there’s been a quiet shift too: a lot of male leads now look less like ordinary guys and more like action figures. Chiseled abs, boulder shoulders, zero body fat. The camera doesn’t just linger… it tracks his physique in slow motion, and it is absolutely courting the female gaze.

That means both men and women are being discipled to see bodies...their own and each other’s...as products to sculpt, consume, and rate rather than temples and image bearers. It’s not just that we are tempted to look wrongly, it’s that the whole machine is training us to believe we only matter if we look like this, which is honestly exhausting.

And it’s not just about bare skin on a screen. It’s how it sets an example that worth is measured in exposed muscle and curves. It’s how the joke that only lands because someone’s dignity gets undercut. The edit that invites you to feel a little thrill at a death, not grief for an image bearer of God. The way cruelty becomes the punchline, and contempt becomes the default tone.

Here’s what’s important if you feel that watching certain things starts to tug your desires sideways, or makes prayer feel harder, or leaves you more cynical, more numb, less compassionate...that is not proof that you’re weak. That’s proof that your conscience still works, like the check engine light that won’t shut up.

In our house, there have been nights where Tiff and I hit pause, look at each other, and one of us says, “Yeah… that’s enough of that.” Sometimes it’s subtle… we recently watched a few episodes of a reality show and I notice I’m snappier with the kids, more sarcastic, lots of judgement and jokes… I’m less patient. Sometimes it’s more obvious. Either way, that internal alarm is mercy. It may mean your personal covenant with your eyes has to be stricter than the people around you. That’s okay. Covenants are personal.

When “Discernment” Becomes a Loophole

In Christian circles, “discernment” sometimes functions like a free pass. As long as you can dissect the show, not indulge in the sin on screen, you think you’re safe. “I’m just watching for entertainment. I’m just here so I can ‘engage culture’. I’m grown and all things are permissible right?”

Here’s the problem… your heart doesn’t care what label you slap on it.

Just because you can sit on the couch and articulate a biblical sexual ethic with your mouth doesn’t mean your imagination isn’t happily drinking in every shot that was designed to provoke lust. Sure you can “condemn” violence as a problem in society, all the while your body enjoys the adrenaline rush of stylized brutality. Truth is you can call out dehumanizing language online while slowly adopting the same sarcasm and contempt at the dinner table.

Discernment is good. The Bible calls for it. But discernment is a tool, not a shield. It helps you name what a story is doing, it doesn’t magically keep that story from doing it to you. Sometimes the most discerning thing is to reach for the remote and turn it off, even if everybody else is still raving about it.

I’ve had moments where one of the kids has wandered into the room and I’ve realized...too late...that Tiff and I had no business watching that scene even by ourself, let alone with little eyes and ears nearby. That fatherly shame is real.

But it can also be a turning point. A moment to say “Okay, we’re not doing this anymore. This is a line.”

Ask Better Questions, Set Real Boundaries

How do I know what to watch? Part of the answer is learning to ask better questions. Instead of only asking, “Is this technically sinful?”, ask yourself if after you watch this, do I find it easier or harder to pray? Does this make holiness look beautiful, or does it make sin look normal, funny, or glamorous? Does this help me see people as image bearers, or as objects...bodies to desire, enemies to fear, NPCs to crush? And most sincerely would I watch this if Jesus were physically sitting on the couch next to me? And if my answer is “no,” what do I think is actually different about right now?

Those kinds of questions don’t leave a lot of room to hide. They expose whether I’m hunting for loopholes or actually wanting to please Christ, which is kind of uncomfortable but also really needed.

And because modern media is so visual, so fast, and so saturated with what most tempts us, vague intentions aren’t enough. You need real, concrete lines. Lines like:

· No nudity. Not “tasteful.” Not “brief.” Just no.
· No shows, comics, or streams where the ongoing “hook” is sexualized imagery, even if I could technically look away at certain moments.
· No content where cruelty and murder are framed as the primary enjoyment for the audience.
· Limits on how many hours a week I pour into screens so that entertainment never, as a pattern, outruns Scripture, prayer, or actual people in my home and church.

Will that rule out a lot of what’s popular? Yes. That might be the mercy of it.

I’ve had seasons where the kids know Daddy’s “no” button is strong. Sometimes that means they’re “out of the loop” at school. They haven’t seen the same shows or played the same games. It stings. I’ll be honest...I’ve felt it too. There’s a subtle pressure, especially in ministry, to “stay relevant” by staying current on the latest streaming phenomenon.

But relevance is not the same thing as holiness.

Jesus did not call pastors or dads or podcasters to be walking encyclopedias of the latest dark, edgy content. He called us to be shaped by His Word, filled with His Spirit, and willing to look strange.

If obedience to Christ means your media diet is smaller, simpler, and a whole lot less “impressive,” that’s a good trade.

When You Can’t Find Anything to Watch

Some of you are here… I am often here… you scroll and scroll and feel that you can’t find anything to watch that doesn’t glorify sex, violence, and the human form. You feel isolated because everyone else seems fine.

But if the dominant mood of our media world really is cynicism, sensuality, and spectacle, then it would be weird not to feel squeezed by it. Feeling out‑of‑place may be a sign that the Spirit is softening you, not hardening you.

In that kind of landscape, there are at least a few faithful paths:

1. Shrink your media world.
Decide, for a season...or maybe longer...that you’re just going to consume far less.
– More books, fewer shows.
– More older films and series with different sensibilities.
– More music, conversations, walks, Legos on the living room floor, and even silence.
The modern assumption that you must always have something new to watch is not a Christian assumption.

2. Let others go ahead of you.
You don’t have to personally watch every show your people watch. You can listen. You can read summaries and reviews. You can ask, “What do you love about it? What does it say about life, about people?” You can shepherd hearts without dragging your own eyes through every scene.

3. Turn discomfort into teaching.
You can say out loud, to your kids or your church or your friends, “There are things my conscience will not let me watch. Here’s why. Here’s the Scripture shaping that.” In a world where the only celebrated virtue is tolerance, that kind of gentle honesty can be startlingly powerful.

As a dad, I’ve had to tell my kids, “Yeah, we’re not going to watch that. Not because Daddy hates all things non Christian, but because Daddy wants to guard his heart and yours. Jesus matters more than being caught up on what everybody else is talking about.” They don’t always love that answer in the moment, but those conversations are seeds.

From Fan to Witness

If you have deep roots in something, it’s natural to want to stick around there. Honestly, it’s part of the air you breathe. For some of us, this isn’t just entertainment, it’s where our friendships live. It’s where we’ve served and created and connected.

For me, this didn’t stay theoretical. For a few years I was the host of a comic book and pop culture channel, Nerdtastic News. I loved it. Wednesdays meant new comic day, streams, live chats, laughing with people who spoke the same nerd language I did. Pop culture was my playground and my pulpit. But over time, I realized that staying “current” meant constantly pumping my eyes full of the very images and themes I would’ve told my youth kids to be careful with. The more I tried to keep up, the more my own soul felt wrung out and hollow… in less than 2 years I stopped telling people the gospel at the end of my live streams and I could regularly be seen using foul language and joking about the very things that my Savior died to deliver us from.

There came a point where I had to make a painful call to step back from the firehose.

I didn’t shut the door on comics and movies immediately, but I did severely narrow my diet. Fewer new shows. Fewer “you have to cover this” events. More Scripture. More actual people. More time in the Word and with my kids instead of scrolling for the next thing to react to. From the outside, it probably looked like I was losing momentum as a creator. From the inside, it felt like God was giving me my imagination back and I came back home to my church… and soon I left it completely, like stepping off a roller coaster that had gone way too long.

Maybe you’re not supposed to leave it entirely. But your posture might have to change...from “fan who keeps up with everything” to “witness who walks carefully.”

That might look like choosing to highlight and recommend stories that are actually good, true, and beautiful, even if they’re not trending. Using whatever platform you have...podcast, blog, youth group, car rides with your kids...to help believers name what media is doing to them, without shaming them, but also without pretending everything is fine and finally being ruthlessly honest in your own life about what you can and can’t handle, and inviting others into that honesty.

You are not responsible for saving the entertainment industry. You are not called to win a culture war by yourself. You are called to be faithful with your own eyes, your own heart, and the little flock God has put in your living room and your church.

If that faithfulness puts you out of step with modern media, you might be closer to the narrow road than you realize.

A Word of Gospel Hope

If you’re reading this with a knot in your stomach because you can think of a dozen times you’ve blown it...times you didn’t guard your eyes, times you let your kids watch what you shouldn’t have, times you clicked “next episode” when you knew you shouldn’t...hear this: shame is not the end of the story.

Jesus went to the cross for people with wandering eyes and compromised playlists and inconsistent parenting. He died for dads who have put spiritual Twinkies in front of their kids while they feast on the Word. He shed His blood for moms who feel trapped between “I don’t want to be legalistic” and “I don’t want to grieve the Spirit.”

On the cross, He took the full weight of every moment we’ve loved darkness more than light, every time we’ve let ourselves be discipled by the world’s stories instead of God’s. He rose again to give us new hearts, new desires, and new power to say “no” to ungodliness and “yes” to Him.

So if the Spirit is pressing on you right now, don’t just resolve to “try harder” with your media choices. Run to Christ. Confess specifically. Ask for a clean heart and new habits. Ask for courage to be weird in the eyes of the world and even in the eyes of some Christians.

Then, by His grace, make a fresh covenant with your eyes. Not as a way to earn God’s love, but because in Christ you already have it. Your Father is not rolling His eyes at you for caring too much about what you watch. He delights to see His children fight for purity.

And as you walk this out...fumbling, repenting, trying again...remember the truest, most beautiful story you live under is not the one on any screen. It’s the story of a Savior who loved you, gave Himself for you, and is even now shaping you, scene by scene, into His likeness.

© 2026 Wyanett Evangelical Free Church