Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

By PurposelyReligion & Spirituality Christianity Education Parenting Kids & Family

Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland episodes

May 09, 2023172. Five Parent Questions
I've received a lot of amazing parent questions this past wee. In today's episode we address five parent questions:
How can we share the Gospel in a digital world?
How can we make YouTube more safe?
How do kids get around parental controls?
Comment on AI
Is limiting tech time building it up in my child’s mind?
Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3pukJSc
39 min
May 02, 2023171. Three Types of Helpful Tech
Today we're going to discuss three types of helpful tech:
Hedge Tech
Growth Tech
Purposeful Tech
With each of these we'll discuss specific examples, how they might fit into our daily family life, and we'll discuss the benefits even some of the high-end tech, like AI, has to offer our families in daily life.

Resources mentioned:
Gryphone Router
Bark Home
Circle
Canopy
Ad Block
Gabb Phone
Bark Phone
Bark (accountability)
covenant eyes (accountability)
board games
Nintendo Switch (because of solid Parental Controls)
Aro phone box
Show Notes: https://bit.ly/40XKxTA
31 min
April 25, 2023 170. Does Tech Help Us Love God Well?
This episode almost didn't happen. I rewrote it three times. I had to fully record it twice. I pray it'll be useful.

I want to talk about whether our tech is helping us love God well, but at the heart of that conversation is a discussion about failure. God loves to use failure to achieve his purposes. He starts in 3:15 and hasn't looked back. He isn't scared by it, but he also isn't ok with it. If God could just ignore failure Jesus wouldn't be necessary. Instead God does something else: He uses failure.

This matters in talking tech because most of our Drool Tech is aimed at getting around failure. Games give fail-proof adventures, social media gives fail-proof connections, and pornography gives fail-proof intimacy (no one has ever been turned down by porn). Yet that stuff can't bring us hope or peace, and some of it brings death to the very things we're hoping to nurture.

Today's conversation looks at failure, how God uses it, and how we can use tech from hope and not for hope. It's ambitious, and I pray I pull it off.
44 min
April 18, 2023169. Nerd Dads Raising Kids (An Interview With Justin Pavey)
Justin Pavey returns to the show for a third time to talk all things parenting, digital, and raising kids in a nerdy house with Jesus at the center. Today we discuss how we handle kids and video games, how we determine limits with tech, parenting children well in a nerd world, and determining time limits.

Want more of Justin? Check out:
episode 5 & episode 101

Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4162n7P
55 min
April 11, 2023 168. What Tech Will Be Here When Jesus Returns?
He is risen! In light of Easter, let’s think about our eschatology of our technology. When Jesus returns, what tech will still be here?

Today I want to take a step back from the daily hustle and bustle of building hedges, gauging tech safety, and assessing tech health and instead what to simple ask: Are we using our tech on purpose, or for purpose?

Show Notes: http://bit.ly/3KvU6mJ
42 min
April 04, 2023 167. What If The Hedge Isn't Enough?
What happens when our child wants to make a mistake?

We've talked extensively about how to build a hedge around your network, devices, and family. We've talked about how to assess tech health, how to decide what tech to adopt, and how to remove and replace. But now we need to go one step further, into the unthinkable: Our child is making poor choices despite our best efforts.

Now what?

Today we're going to talk about how we can lovingly step into our child's life and understand, engage, and respond to breaches of trust while keeping the focus on loving, teaching, and raising our children up in the way they should go.

Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3MapZ6v
45 min
March 28, 2023 166. Making School Devices Safe
How do I set boundaries on school devices?

I was asked this question at every talk I gave this week. You’ve got an educational device. It’s not optional. So how do you help make it safe?

Today we'll walk through how to build a hedge around your network, devices, and family, and what it looks like to apply these steps to our school devices, home school tech, and houses with older siblings.

Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3z5PONk
29 min
March 21, 2023165. Should My Child Use TikTok?
Do our children need social media? It might be the wrong question. There's lots of stuff we don't need but we still enjoy, and as loving parents we want to give them good gifts. So when your child asks for social media, or a smartphone (which is almost always a sideways request for social media), what do we say?

Today we'll dive into this conversation looking specifically at TikTok as our example. In our discussion we'll answer four questions about TikTok, and social media in general:
Do we have a hedge?
Is it tech safe?
Does it fit our family expectations?
Does it support my child's purpose?
39 min
March 14, 2023 164. Can I Glorify God in Tech?
What if I work in tech?

There are quite a few of you. You work at Meta, Apple, Valve, Alphabet, and Microsoft. You work in engineering and design and retail and administration. You design user interfaces and cloud computing systems and Tool Tech and Drool Tech.

Today I want to address what it means to be someone who is gifted with the time, talent and opportunity to work in the tech world. What does it mean to be a Christian in the tech space?

You’re in this space, and you’re there to be salt and light.

Show Notes:
37 min
March 07, 2023163. Should My Child Play Roblox?
I get asked about Roblox more than any other game right now. It makes sense. The game has 200 million monthly players and something like 75% of boys aged 9-12 in the US play this game.

I've decided to take this question and make it the ultimate opportunity to walk through what we've been talking about for the last few weeks. Today we apply the "Adopting New Tech" model and walk through the conversation as it applies to a world-leading video game.

Today we'll answer:
Is it safe?
Does it fit your family expectations (both for tech and for games)?
Is it a good fit for your child?
Show Notes: http://bit.ly/3yhJimj
28 min

About Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

From the publisher's feed

Gospel Tech is a resource for parents who are feeling outpaced and overwhelmed as they raise children in a tech world.

Our goal: Equip parents with the tools, resources, and confidence they…

need to raise kids who love God and use tech.

Gospel Tech’s mission is to equip families to love God and use tech. We want to empower parents to:

Talk about healthy tech
Communicate the Gospel
Connect the hope of the Gospel to their everyday tech lives

Introduction to Gospel Tech
Three years ago I (Nathan) started Gospel Tech as a ministry to help connect the Gospel to the daily tech lives of families in practical ways. As a middle school teacher I saw a need for intentional, Gospel-focused conversations about tech. Tech was creating more distraction than inspiration in the classroom, and I saw the need for more than just new habits—there was a desperate need for new hearts.

Gospel Tech bridges the gap between scary tech conversations and the hope of the Gospel. With engaging stories and practical applications I bring Gospel-centered tech solutions families can apply in everyday life.

Gospel Tech Resources Beyond The Podcast

The Parent Tech Workshops: A two-part series addressing:
- How should we handle Tech’s Big 3 (smartphones, gaming, pornography)?
- How do we make tech safe at home? (two types of tech, tech health, and building tech trust)

Youth Talks:
- The Tech Talk: Use the best tech on purpose, not for purpose.
- The Hope Talk: A conversation about our goals, purpose, and how making a mistake doesn’t make us a mistake.

The Family Tech Framework: A two-hour workshop where families leave with the words to say and the plan in place for healthy tech at home and in daily life.
- Part 1: Talk It Out: Parents learn key points of discussing healthful tech.
- Part 2: Walk It Out: Families work together to create a Family Tech Framework customized to their needs, goals, and season of life.

At the end of the day our children aren't problems to fix, they're people to love. We need to point them to the purpose and hope available in Christ, in the work he's already done to make them new and to call them on to good works, and then use tech from that hope. This is why I love to say that in Christ we use tech on purpose, not for purpose.

That's the goal of Gospel Tech. Thanks for letting me be on this journey of parenting with you.

-Nathan Sutherland