How Most Christians Feel About Christian TV
A rather interesting article appeared last Thursday in Christian Today, one that touches on how most Christians feel about Christian TV. According to the article, Pastor David Wright, chief executive of DoersTV.com, polled his channel’s more than 100,000 Facebook fans to ask how they felt about Christian TV, and according to him, 90 percent of the feedback was negative. Pastor Wright said he was shocked to discover that the majority of the Christians who responded hate Christian TV and do not watch it. That’s pretty strong language. Some of the reasons they gave were:
• Too much begging for money and fund-raising
• Boring and a lack of quality programming
• Lack of integrity of Christian leaders being broadcast
Perhaps the findings are not representative of the Christian community at large. On the other hand, DoersTV.com is a free Christian TV network online. Since the network caters to the Christian community, it’s reasonable to assume that most of those who responded to the poll are pro-Christian. Furthermore, being a preacher of the gospel, I also have heard a number of Christians express similar views.
My point is that those of us who belong to the Christian community and who provide Christian programming via TV, radio, and the internet should not disregard the feedback that Pastor Wright received. On the contrary, I think we should view the responses as a customer satisfaction report of sorts.
If we are serious about making an impact on the community we serve, we must be able to receive constructive criticism from that community, and address the issues at hand. All successful businesses seriously do that. Just a few months ago, my family and I went to one of our favorite family restaurants, but this time the service was unusually bad. When I asked to speak to the manager, he was more than willing to come to my table and hear my complaint and to do what he could to retain me as a customer. Similarly, as Christian leaders, we too must heed what our listeners and viewers are saying about our product; if we don’t, we won’t remain relevant.
This is not to say that we must abandon biblical truth to please people. That would be a serious disservice. We must remain true to the biblical message. But this we can do without going overboard with the financial appeals; this we can do and still provide dynamic and high quality programming; and this we must do with the utmost integrity.
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