Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

Arrogance is so common place sometimes we begin to admire it rather than hate it.
We consider it confidence, or swagger, or some sort of independent mindedness marking one as exceptional. The crazy part about arrogance is that’s exactly what the arrogant person is thinking too.
Let’s be clear: Arrogance is not a trait of the Holy Spirit - God is not arrogant, therefore someone who believes the Gospel cannot be arrogant.
The Gospel eliminates arrogance for three reasons:

Proves We Need A Savior
Demands Faith in Action
Clearly Defines the Difference Between Conviction and Condemnation

When we use tech we apply these same truths. We recognize our need, shine the light of the Gospel on our lives and tech use, and don’t use our own brokenness as an excuse to not address the curable diagnosis of sin. We lovingly, consistently, Biblically, point ourselves back to Jesus and let his goodness overwhelm all the excuses and lies they’ve put up for why we're “fine”. Whenever we let ourselves slide there is almost always arrogance/damaged pride involved.
Having this part of our Gospel Filter in place allows us to better love in our tech use as well as our daily lives.

What do the ancient Persians, long-distance running, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ all have in common? Technology! And more specifically the Gospel Filter that we're starting to talk about today. 
We talk a lot about Gospel Tech, but what is the Gospel? And if I understand what the Gospel is, why does it impact my tech? In the words of a particularly savvy sophomore I recently spoke with: What does God have to do with my tech?
Its a common question and one that, without a solid answer, none of the rest of our conversations really matter. Yes, we can come up with some clever solutions to common problems, but all we're really doing is pulling the leaves off a weed - it doesn't change the actual condition of our tech use or our hearts that drive that tech use. 
This Gospel Filter miniseries is intended to help us flesh-out the conversation about what the gospel is and why it matters in making our tech decisions. My hope is to encourage parents to be able to reflect on their own faith, tech use, and conversations with God so that they can prayer, work, and walk together in conversation with their children to better love God and use tech.

The smart phone conversation starts early in families these days, and once it starts it seems to go on forever. My six year old son came home from kindergarten earlier this year and asked when he'd get a smart phone like his buddy in class. Anna and I also get this question a lot from parents who want to do the right thing, and believe they have the right answer, but want to make sure they're not being reactionary or simply "old fashioned".
So we made an episode to help with that! Today we're going to answer the question "When should my child get a smart phone?"
And, spoiler alert, our answer is when they're 16 or 17. No really. There are very few reasons it's beneficial before then and there are lots of reasons it should wait. We'd actually argue it should be even later in life (the brain is developing into the our mid-20s and we've seen plenty of adults who've build up some terrible habits), but we also understand this is the real world and parents need to be prepared to raise kids who are healthy and whole, loving God and using tech, not simply sheltered and ignorant of the real hope and dangers out there.
In this episode we'll cover seven reasons to not give a smart phone before age 16:

focus
bullies
happiness
pornography
overstimulating tech
sleep
strangers (creepers and just outside influences)


If you want to read more of the research you can check out:
.Removing smart phones can increase test scores. Beland, Murphy, 2015: eprints.lse.ac.uk/62574/
.Smart phones can cause brain drain. Ward, Duke et al, 2017: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/691462
.Use of entertainment technology has a “robust negative impact” on gpa. Jacobsen and Forste, 2011: DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0135

This episode is designed to help us as parents remember our role and recall important parenting truths. We address four lies we believe as parents about the tech our children use. When our children struggle with tech use, when they are way out of hand and we can see that things have gone from bad to worse, we often find ourselves paralyzed by one of these four lies:

I'm not enough to help in this problem. 
It's too late. The damage is already done. 
It's my fault. I messed them up.
If I step in now, I'll lose my kid. 

These four lies are powerful because they bring up all the parental shame that isn't ours to bear. Yes, we are broken people and not at all perfect parents, and yet we are the very people that God has given these children to carry the Gospel to their broken hearts. God doesn't call us to super-human effort to raise our children, he calls us to Holy Spirit powered faithfulness. This means we prayerfully and repeatedly pursue our children, despite our flaws, and we model what it means to be a repentant, loving, and determined pursuer of our kiddos. God never gives up on us, and we pass that same tenacious love along to our children.
This means we silence the shame that comes from these four lies. We are the front lines of loving our children well, and recognizing these lies for what they are enables us to better love our kids and helps us walk this journey as we work to love God and use tech.

Today we get the opportunity to talk with my friend, and pastor (@gospellifechurch), Rob Mayer about what it looks like to apply the gospel to our daily tech lives. We'll cover the bases on our own hearts, raising our families in a tech world, and even doing our ministries with and through tech. This conversation is an encouragement to keep our focus on how we can best love God and use tech.

Tech makes promises it can't keep. It promises:

You’ll get rich quick
You’ll be happy
You’ll have a purpose
You’ll be famous
You’ll be wanted
You’ll be in charge
You’ll be anonymous

We believe these lies in little ways every day. Maybe it's going to my phone one extra time when I could have just been quiet, or even done something more productive. Maybe it's feeling great when I gain followers online or, conversely, terrible when someone posts something I disagree with or even directly against me. 
We must connect these lies with the truth of the Gospel so we can love God and use tech.

Pornography is a topic we don't even like to admit is a thing. There's so much shame, guilt and confusion (along with a healthy slice of denial) in the area of sex and pornography that we often just don't want to address the topic with our kids. Today we get a chance to talk with Greta Eskridge of Ma and Pa Modern (@maandpamodern) about her work to help families address pornography early in healthy, safe ways that keep parents as a resource and God's design for each of us as the focus. Greta is passionate about helping parents protect their kids from the devastating effects of pornography and she loves to travel the country sharing her message of joyful, connected parenting. We'll talk about how to address it, work through some helpful resources, and discuss ways we can better prepare, not just protect, our young people. 

A little about Greta! Greta's a nature lover, book reader, and coffee drinker. She is a home schooling mom of 4, wife of 21 years to her husband Aaron, and an author and speaker. Greta’s first book, Adventuring Together, releases July of 2020 with Thomas Nelson (which is going to be an amazing source for working out those Analog Adventures!) 
 Greta would love to connect with you on her blog at www.gretaeskridge.com and on her Instagram feed. You’ll find her there @maandpamodern.
Resources referenced in the podcast:

Good Picture, Bad Picture, by Kristen Jenson
The Tech-Wise Family, by Andy Crouch
How To Talk To Your Kids About Pornography, by Dina Alexander
Greta on Instagram: @maandpamodern
Geta's website: GretaEskridge.com

Today we get to talk about intentionally pursuing our children and what that looks like when we are often competing with tech for  time (either our own tech use or the tech use of our children). 
Often the default setting is to turn to tech when we are fatigued (individually and as we parent). We aren’t going to say that there isn’t ever a place for tech (in our own lives, for our kids to use, or even communal use); it’s often the easiest choice for us or to hand over to our children. But it’s not always the choice that allows for deeper relational roots to grow and for real discipleship opportunities to occur.
We're going to specifically challenge the notion that if they’re quiet and occupied, then we’re all good.
This is a conversation that seems to come up more during quarantine than regular life, but since this is a new normal for awhile it's all the more imporant to inentionally talk about how we can pursue our kids.

Today we're going to talk about the lie of anonymity. It's one of the most painful lies we believe in Drool Tech today. We are invited to believe we can be whoever we want, say whatever we like, do whatever we feel, and see only what we desire.

We can be whoever we want because there's no tether to reality.
We can say whatever we like because there is nothing too inane or profane to shout on the internet.
We can do whatever we feel because our desire to do it is what makes it right (and it'll never be tracked back to us anyway, so no one gets hurt, right?)
We see only what we desire because entire corporations focus on making sure that's the case. Customized algorithms for information, friends, streams, feeds, and results is a trillion dollar business. But if they fall short you can always train the system by blocking the outliers.

Understanding this well matters.
Let’s root this in scripture and then I’ll share some of my own experience with accountability software and give some recommendations.
Why do we (and especially our children) need accountability:
.There are no secrets. (Luke 12:3)
.God never leaves us nor forsakes us. (Hebrews 13:5)
.In fact, He remains faithful even when we are faithless. (2 Timothy 2:12-13)
Anonymity is the enemy of love. You can't fully love someone you don't fully know. God both fully knows us, and loves us anyway (Romans 5:8).
Let's fight to be known, and reflect that even in our tech use.

It's easy to find ourselves using our phones when we don't need to be. My personal favorite is finding myself swiping through social media when I'm supposed to be heading up to bed. What are the odds what I see on there will actually help me sleep? 
So to help us make better tech choices we're going to talk today about how we make our smart phone into a dumb phone. We'll also talk a little about how to have the smart-phone conversation with our kiddos (spoiler alert: No individual devices before 10th birthday, and no smart phones before 16). 
We'll address four ways we can make a dumb phone:
1) set our phone to grayscale
2) turn off all notifications
3) take email off our phones
4) remove all social media apps