Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

Pornography is real and it is hurting the minds of our children.

7/10 tweens and 8/10 teens will encounter nudity or content of a sexual nature online (Bark, January 2021). So what can we do? A lot! There is great hope for this conversation and very practical, loving steps we can take to help our children know what love is, what God says about their bodies and sex, and how to handle pornography when they run into it.

There is a lot of new tech out there. As parents, we often ask: Should my child use _________ (insert new amazing device)?

To help us answer this question we often want data, research, and public opinion. Is it worth it? Should they have it? While this question spans the breadth of all tech, ranging from VR to e-readers, we’re going to focus today’s conversation specifically on video games.

The conversation is actually much simpler than it seems, because our goal isn’t to get the most distraction in a day, but the most true joy in each moment.

Welcome to Week #1 of the Gospel Tech Crash Course!

Each week this summer we’re going to address the most-asked questions from families, starting this week: Why do we need the Gospel in our tech conversations? The Gospel is more than just “good information”, it’s Good News, and in today’s conversation we’ll look at how that Good News changes even the way we use our tech.

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to the conversation!

Over the last few weeks we’ve talked a lot about what we should do to have an intentional summer full of healthful fun and healthy tech. This week Anna and I talk about what these plans and fun look like in our own lives. As always, Anna brings the fire, and we get to walk out how this conversation isn’t about being perfect but being intentional with the time and opportunities we’re given.

We cover three points specifically:

1. At the end of this summer, I want my summer to have been ____________.
2. Make a plan: analog adventure, play a game together, make a meal, use tech together (watch, play, listen)
3. Three steps for intentional, safe tech at home

Resources mentioned:

- Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt https://www.thecoddling.com
- iGen, Jean Twenge, http://www.jeantwenge.com/igen-book-by-dr-jean-twenge/
- Dopamine Nation (*viewer discretion—some anecdotes are troubling) https://www.annalembke.com/dopamine-nation

We are called to disciple our children in the way they should go, but how? Today we're going to address what discipleship looks like in a tech world, and how we can all do it starting wherever we are today.
Guiding verses today:
Deuteronomy 6:4-9: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[fn] 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
verses to encourage us as we love our kiddos as parents, journeying with them and pointing them to God’s purpose for them (also known as discipline)

Proverbs 3:11-12: “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, or the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”
Hebrews 12:6: “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Jesus in talking about the vines John 15:2: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
Revelation 3:19: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”

Helpful Tech for Discipleship:

awesome children’s Bible: The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd Jones
audio book: The Jesus Storybook Bible
devotional to do with kids: Indescribable, by Louie Giglio
Bible content and lessons: The Bible Project
great overviews like how to read the bible
insights on books that can be tough to understand, like Psalms
helpful guides for reading the New Testament

If you use Veggie Tales, use their stuff from before 2012. Dreamworks acquired Big Ideas (the company that creates Veggie Tales) that year and their more recent stuff has just been cartoons starring vegetables.

This past week I received a message from a concerned parent: "How can I keep the internet safe for my children at home?" She shared that a family friend recently disclosed a long-running struggle with pornography, and she was overwhelmed both by the potential dangers online but also by the sheer volume of potential solutions. Which options are best? How many do we need? How much is "safe enough" to go online, and where does online accountability slip into online spying?
These are all amazing questions and it made me realize we need an episode that puts all of this in a single spot for parents. So, here it is! Today we're going to talk about how to make the internet safe at home.
Resources referenced in the episode:

Circle - wifi / home network
Gryphon - wifi / home network
Bark - personal devices
Covenant Eyes - image accountability
Gospel Tech Small Group Course - support for talking out tech with your family, and then walking it out in your daily journey

We’ve been talking deeply about what it looks like to prep for summer, to live life intentionally in light of the Gospel, and today we’re going to talk about five ways to apply all that great info in our summer prep and plans. This is because today I’ve got five activities we can all do, immediately or in the future, to help us walk out this conversation on tech and keep it thoroughly rooted in the hope we have in Christ.
Some sweet and gentle reminders to point you back to Christ and the Gospel in this season of grief, anger, confusion, and doubt:

Ann Voskamp
Eugene Cho
Jennie Allen
Jackie Hill Perry
Tim Keller
Oceans Never Fill (read “A Poem to Fix What is Broken”)

That board game list (because I can’t resist):
ages 3-4: Animal Upon Animal (Hadley loves it!), Hoot Owl Hoot
ages 5-7: Sleeping Queens, Outfoxed, Labyrinth (our kiddos love the Pokemon version!)
ages 8-10: Sushi Go, Carcassonne, Clank!
ages 11-12: Wingspan, Dixit, Kingsburg
ages 13+: Superfight, Codenames, Anomia
The cooking with kids resource I mentioned: Raddish Kids
A great resource for your family as you make a plan for your priorities with Lome.
#summer
#familytech
#raisingkids
#analogadventures
#encouragement

Today is a unique episode: I couldn’t fall asleep because this podcast was burning a hole in my brain. That’s never happened before. In fact, I had another conversation all queued up, and I bumped it to a future week. Today’s podcast is here as an encouragement, as a public sharing of the reminder I very much needed from the Lord, and that I get to share with you: That our faith in Christ doesn’t save us from hurt and pain, it actually allows us to be more present in it and through it. Our call isn’t to safety, or to comfort, but to serving our God and King in whatever garden he should choose to cast us into (Luke 13:19).
In a tech world this means keeping certain truths in front of us, and prayerfully attending to how we address this life’s hardships with our children, with our spouses, and with the wide waiting world online and outside our front door that we are called to each day.
Resources
Verses referenced in this episode:
John 1:11 — Jesus came for all of us broken folks
Luke 5:31 — he didn’t come for the ones who look the best in a lineup
Revelation 2:1-18 — we are called to faithfulness, no matter the situation
Ephesians 2:1-10 — we’re saved for the world, not from it
John 15:1-10 — being connected to the vine determines our fruit (not our effort)
Matthew 22:37-40 — Jesus gives two commandments that encompass the entire OT.
Matthew 28:19 — Jesus gives his third commandment: go and make disciples.
1 John 4:19 - we love because he first loved us
Romans 5:8 - because he died for us before we ever asked for it
Rev. 19:11-15 — yet all of this grace and hope doesn’t mean we’re ok with sin. Jesus isn’t, and neither are we!

Summer time is amazing because it’s a break from the norm. Even though workdays continue at the same old pace, the weather changes, our kiddos are out and about, and there is a sense of freedom in the air that just doesn’t exist at any other time of year (except, maybe for Christmas break).
The last thing we want is to let our summer fall victim to an endless list of “to dos” or to a series of unplanned show binges, social media trends, or gaming distractions. Let’s take control and have a plan.
Today we’ll talk through the three steps to take control of our tech this summer:

Prep your priorities
Talk it out
Walk it out

Chris McKenna is a former CPA with Ernst and Young, turned youth pastor, turned family tech specialist and youth advocate. As you will hear in our conversation today, Chris has a passion for seeing young people use tech well and a nearly limitless knowledge of what it takes to keep safe and healthy for our kids. 

Resources:

the article on routers: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Routers
a great article on putting parental controls on all devices: Parental Control for Every Digital Device
the Protect App — more than 500 lessons, bilingual. A great way to start these conversations
follow Chris and the PYE team on Facebook and Instagram
you can find more great resources on the Protect Young Eyes website


Quotable Quips From Chris McKenna: 

“Delay is the Way” (19:00)
“Raising healthy youth isn’t a NO tech strategy, it’s a SLOW tech strategy”
“It’s fine if you’ve said “no”, but educate them as if you’ve said “yes”
Families need a Digital Trust Framework: 5 attributes in families whose kids use tech well. ALL families, whether “no, slow, or go”, are healthier with tech when they do these five things:


copy me

co-play: “tech is a WE activity, not a ME activity”. 
curiosity
conversation

coaching






"No matter your tech battle, you’ll lose that fight if you do it on your own."