Sermon Illustration: How’s Your Soul?

To kick off a 3-week series called “Being Present with God,” I wanted to begin by bringing up the obvious: we spend a lot of time watching a screen. The point of the first sermon, using Psalm 46, was to turn it all off and remember who our God is.

To set the stage, I started by listing 5 or 6 current events from the past week. This established the reality that we are bombarded with messages constantly. Messages that push us to our devices to know more. Following that, I proceeded to spout off facts. Facts about how often the average American is looking at a screen.

The average American. . .

– Checks email 105 times a week.

– Checks their phone 322 times a week.

– Depending on age, sends anywhere between 30-60 texts a day.

– Checks Facebook over 100 times a day, where they spend close to an hour a day. This equates to 25 days a year on Facebook.

– Watches 40 hours of TV a week. This equals 68 days a year.

– Between Facebook and TV, at the rates mentioned above, after 40 years spend a total of 11 years behind a screen.

**These facts, by the way, were found from a Google search and input by other preachers in our BBC preaching team meeting.

The point of starting this way was NOT to condemn the use of media and technology. Not. At. All. There is a time and place for it. After I presented all of the current events and media stats I simply asked the question, “How’s Your Soul?” The point was to get the congregation thinking if the use and time of all this information was helping the state of their soul. Of course, we all know the answer: No. We think one more check of email will help us relax. We think if we scroll again, we will find something great. What we really need, more than anything else, is to pause and remind our souls who our God is and how He treats His people.