[Timothy Turner] explains how TV watching and preaching are diameterically opposed to one another – one is visual, the other is rational; one invovles the yes, the other invovles the ears; one creates passive watchers, the othr requires active hearers. Thurner explains how TV fosters idelness and passivity by providing information that requires no response, whereas preaching seeks to generate some kind of change. If you are not careful, watching TV will turn you into a lazy listener who just sits there on the couch and takes in information and doesn’t have to do anything with it. Typically people tune in to TV to tune out. They disengage their brain and expect to be entertained and amused. The fast-paced images and sound bites have shortened people’s attention spans and created a passive spectator mentality where people are viewers rather than hearers and doers. After watching TV and going to the movies an surfing the Internet all week long, you come to church and have to sit and listen to a lengthy sermon that requires a great deal of concentration and exertion you aren’t used to. You’re expected to go from being a passive viewer to an aggressive listener literally overnight.
Ken Ramey, Expository Listening, 42 (speaking of Timothy Turner’s book Preaching to Programmed People: Effective Communication in a Media-Saturated Society).
