Let’s create an imaginary churchgoer named Sophia. Sophia loves her pastor’s sermons and her entire church’s corporate worship service. She faithfully attends every Sunday, goes to the Sunday school class offered before service, and even attends a midweek Bible study. 

How much time a week is Sophia spending with her church community? 

Let’s estimate that her church service is about an hour and a half.

Her Sunday school class runs for about 45 minutes.

Her Bible study lasts about an hour.

Altogether, Sophia spends about 3 hours and 15 minutes a week in an environment where she is being positively formed by Christian content and community.

Let’s also say that Sophia is faithful in her Bible reading and prayer, spending on average about 20 minutes a day in her devotions. If we add that up for the week (3.5 hours), then Sophia is averaging about just under 7 hours of direct consumption of Christian content and community.

But this is also assuming that Sophia is attending church, small group, and Sunday school every week, and reading her Bible every day. In 2022, only about 1 in 5 Americans attended a church service every week. In 2022, only 10% of Americans claimed to read their Bible daily. If Sophia is in the more typical rhythm of American Christianity, then her 7 hours a week drops to less than 1 hour.

What Else Is Forming You?

Now, let’s do some more math. Let’s say that Sophia is also a typical American in other content consumption patterns. That would mean that every week Sophia consumes…

27 hours of music

17.5 hours of television (either cable or streaming)

17.5 hours of social media

9 hours of listening to podcasts

5.3 hours of watching YouTube

4 hours of video games

2.3 hours of reading

So, if Sophia is getting about 7 hours of sleep a night, then for the remaining 119 waking hours she has in a week, she is spending 82.5 of those hours consuming content. Of course, these are all just averages and some may be overlapping, like scrolling social media while listening to a podcast. And not all should be weighted with the same significance—listening to background music while you work may seem fairly inconsequential compared to other media.

But when we stack that mountain of content up against the less-than-an-hour a week of Bible consumption Sophia is getting—even if she is at the 7-hours-a-week high-mark—then we see clearly what has the most influence over Sophia. The sheer volume of content that the typical American consumes on a weekly basis dramatically dwarfs the regular diet of Bible reading, prayer, and church attendance. Which means that Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify—not the church—are the real forces of discipleship for most today.

If this feels a little exaggerated or doesn’t ring true for you, then consider what your weekly rhythms of consumption look like. How much time in this past week did you spend intaking the Bible, and how much time did you spend elsewhere?

What Can We Do?

If you noticed that you were rapidly gaining weight, constantly short of breath, and lagging in physical energy, any doctor would ask you: what’s your diet look like? So too, if you notice that your faith feels tepid, that you lack much zeal or vitality in your relationship with the Lord, have you considered what your content diet consists of? 

I don’t think God intends us to listen to sermons or read our Bibles 24/7. But, at a bare minimum, if we live in an “attention economy” and have infinite content always at our disposal, then we must be thinking about the impact of all this consumption on our souls—both in considering the volume of spiritually positive and negative calories we are taking in.

Consider a couple of passages:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. – Ps 1:1-2

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. – Phil 4:8

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. – Rom 12:2

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. – Rom 10:17

What you think about, meditate on, fill your mind with matters. If we want to see our faith increase, then we must fill our minds and hearts with the faith-arising Word of God.

Now You Know

I’ll write another article on this soon that gets as practical as it gets for recommending ways to pursue a healthier diet of consumption, looking at three basic categories of consumption, and some simple shifts that anyone can make. 

But for now, I just want to make you aware of this crisis. Consider what your own consumption diet looks like over the past week and ask yourself: “Am I on a trajectory that leads to greater faith, hope, and love of God…or less?” Consider these two passages—usually applied to the friends we make—but thinking in light of the digital media we consume:

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. – Prof 13:20

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” – 1 Cor 15:33

If Paul needed to preface that proverb with “Do not be deceived,” that is because we are prone to being deceived! We assume that we can spend time with bad company and not be affected by it. But don’t be tricked. Glut yourself with trashy shows, mindless games, and doom scrolling, and you’ll find yourself changing, cooling, drifting. Don’t be fooled.