Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. Or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m.. If you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online at Madison Church. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our sermons podcast, madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
Welcome to our Analog faith in Digital Babylon class tonight.
This is week eleven, I do believe, and that means we've got one more week after this, and we will conclude our study for this quarter. If you're with us online, thank you so much for joining us. As always, be sure to drop a comment there if you've got something to add to the conversation. Mr. David Tennyson is watching over that for us tonight, and we'll make sure that your voice gets heard. Grab my attention and we'll incorporate your thoughts into the conversation as well. Thank you for being with us. I'm not going to lie, last week when we talked about virtual reality, I had low expectations. In fact, the last two weeks I thought might be the least engaging weeks of this class. We talked about AI and VR, and somehow virtual reality church became the most engaging topic we've had as far as in class discussion, and that was really intriguing to me. Folks, still coming on in. We got plenty of seats up front. As always, I won't bite, but I can't promise that I won't accidentally have a little saliva headed your way. So now that we've started off class with a really uncomfortable word, we'll keep going. But we talked about virtual reality church. I think what was interesting about that one was I don't know if you noticed this, but there was a little bit of a shift in who commented the most. There was a lot of younger generations, my generation, no younger generations that had a lot to say and a lot of feelings, a lot of thoughts and even some experience with this idea of virtual reality church. And older generations seemed to be less of the voices as opposed to some of the other classes. I just thought that was a really interesting dynamic. I think what made it so compelling is that it really challenged us to ask the question, what is the church? What does it truly mean to gather? Can we do that virtually? What can be done virtually and be a shared experience? What cannot be done virtually as a shared experience? And that sort of thing. So it's a really interesting conversation. And if you missed out on that, I would encourage you to go back and watch it from last week. It was very, very beneficial. I was very encouraged by it and some great thoughts were shared.
I've tried really hard this quarter to not make this exclusively a parenting class, because when you say parenting class, then anyone who's not a parent feels excluded. And that has been my effort, I hope, or my aim, I hope that that's been the case. To me, the conversations we've been having really are for everyone. And that's one of the reasons why we started talking about different generations, is because everyone is a part of these topics, a part of these challenges and these spiritual realities that we're facing. But it would also be a little bit remiss if we went through an entire quarter with a class on technology and we didn't give some specific resources for families, for parents. Tonight we're going to begin with some of those. This is not an exhaustive list, but this will at least give you some places to begin if you don't know where to start. But if you're not a parent, please still listen, because I think these are applicable for all of us. These digital technologies are finding their ways into our lives, sometimes very subtly, that we don't realize until too late that they have a control of us either through an addiction or through changing some of our thought processes, changing even the way our brain is wired. And so tonight we're going to go through a few of those before we go any further, farther, farther, further before we keep going. All right. When it comes to phones, if you're a parent and you're considering the idea of getting a phone for your child, there are three big ones that are commonly referred to and examined. The New York Times has a list of about twelve that they recommend. So I would give you three places to start. Pinwheel is one. This is the one I actually know the least about. It's one that was kind of new to me, but they have multiple sizes. These look very similar to a true smartphone, and they really are on some level. But they have fewer opportunities for children to wander into places online or into apps without your knowing, without you knowing about it. And so Pinwheel is a good place to at least look into. One of the ones that I'm most familiar with would be the Bark phone. And Bark Technologies is one we're going to talk about in a couple of different places tonight. The best phone for kids, they say, powered by Bark's parental controls. I've followed Bark online on social media for probably, I don't know, five or six years now. They have some really good research and content, and so at a minimum, no matter what your age or life situation, I would recommend finding them on Instagram they put out some interesting stats from time to time, but their website is a treasure trove of resources, and we'll come back to that here in just a moment. But they have their own phone. Starts at $49 a month. Looks a lot like a normal smartphone there, and it's one that gets a lot of high ratings. So it's one that I've heard of several people that have it. Our kids right now are too young. Our oldest is about to be nine, and so they don't have any devices of their own that are mobile devices. So we're not disclaimer. I'm not actively parenting a teenager. So there are those of you in this room that may have more experience. By all means, please raise your hand and share that. If you have something that has worked really well or something that you've tried that you felt like didn't work very well, that's also very helpful.
All righty, our next one is Gabphone. This is another one that I've read a fair amount about and it seems to be a pretty good company. And they definitely have their own exhaustive list of ways to lock down a phone. Each of these websites are going to tell you that their phone is the best. And so really, it's a matter of as a parent you going through or as just as an independent thinker, comparing their features, which ones work best for your family based off the age of your child, based off of even your own needs as an individual. More and more flip phones are becoming available again, which is just super, right? Feels like it's 2006 all over again. So you can go to Verizon, at and T Mobile, all the major carriers, everyone's offering flip phones. You can get a phone that is just wait for it a telephone. It is still possible. And that's one of the things that we've talked about in this class, is that because we have access to certain things, sometimes we are the ones that have to put in a guardrail. And that guardrail may be that my phone is just a phone. Because if you're like me, my phone is a computer first, it's a calendar first, it's a telephone probably last. I use the phone feature the least. I use texting, I use the internet. I use all these other things.
If those things are distracting me and getting in the way of what I need to be as a Christian or what I need to be doing as a productive human in society, then taking away all the other features is one really easy way to manage that. If distractions are a big deal in your world because of your phone, one very simple solution turn everything to grayscale. We've talked about the mapping of the brain. We've talked about how social media platforms and even mapping technologies are hiring more PhDs that deal with the brain than actually deal with technology because they want to create something that impacts how we think and how we engage. So they know that our brain and our actions respond more to color. That's why stop signs are large and red. Red communicates urgency. Red says, hey, look at me. Look at me. Gray says mayberry, right?
Grayscale, black and white. There's no urgency. And everything is the same. So there's no color in color theory, there's a hierarchy of colors. And so you look here first and here second, that sort of thing. It's all grayscale. Everything's just shadows. So that one simple trick of making your phone grayscale. Eliminates the urgency of messages. When you look down there, it's not a little red circle with a number. It's just a grayscale number. And it's out of sight, out of mind in some ways is the way that folks will companies will play off of that. A few parent resources to look at here.
I'm going to go through these a little bit quickly before we get into our actual textual study tonight. Common sense media. You've heard me reference them probably multiple times throughout this course. As you go through and do your own online research, you will probably see a survey specifically from 2019 and a little bit more recent research. But Common Sense Media has done a lot of comprehensive research on technology and specifically adolescents. And so people not in a Christian context, but people just in a worldly context are referencing their research and their materials. So they're becoming more prominent. It's also a great place to go if you want to find reviews for movies. They tell you how much sexual content, how much adult language, how much this or that. They break down video games, I don't think.
Yep, books. Look at there. Right there, number three. TV, movies, games, podcasts, apps, and YouTube. So they have a lot of different resources. And if you go up here to the top to Parent Tips and Frequently Asked Questions, it'll break it down based off the platform. So if you need to know as a parent what is TikTok all about, then you can start here. And there are several, several articles that tell you what TikTok is. They tell you some of the positives, some of the negatives. They allow you to be an informed parent or an informed consumer. This is not exclusively for parents. It's called common sense media.
It's not that common. Unfortunately, these days, what's common is convenience and ease of access.
As adults, if we get in the habit of our first response to something is ease of access, well, that builds in a really dangerous pattern. Remember how Jesus described the Broadway that leads to destruction? Easy access.
It's an easy way because there are many who find it. And so it's just to go with the flow. In fact, if we do nothing, that's the direction that we float. If you're in the ocean, at the beach, you go out into the water and you do nothing. You just sit there in your inner tube. In about ten minutes you are not going to be where you started. Because with zero effort you will be pushed along by the current of the water. With zero effort, with zero wisdom, with zero insight, with zero paying attention, we will be pushed along by the current of society and of the world. And it is in direct opposition to kingdom living. So it's something that we need to be wise of. So they have a topic age platform. I like this because it gives you different information based off of the life stage of your child or of your own life stage and also breaks down into different platforms. So that's a really good vast array of resources there on common sense media. Bark Technologies, as I mentioned before, is one that I followed for a long time. When our kids get old enough into the teenage years to start introducing some of this technology, bark will probably be the first place we go. The software that we will put on any kind of device that they have, it's very robust. There are tons of resources. If you go over here in the top bar, over to resources, even if you don't pay for any of their products. They have a blog, they have several articles that are really, really good. And as I mentioned before, they also are doing more and more of research and publishing. Learned this today when I went here. Skibidi toilets has something to do with an army of toilets you might hear. So you know, that's a thing.
Okay, back in my day we just called it the army of toilets. But it's good to know now. There's a very helpful thing term out there. I didn't know that. That's cool, but now I know that I don't know if it's actually cool or not. All right. Circle is another software that you can use to put on your kids phones or your kids devices. I have a friend that has a Circle device. He hasn't used it extensively, but he said having it made him feel better. So that wasn't as helpful as I wanted it to be. But I did put that one on here just as something to consider.
Also, that's the wrong button.
That's the right button. The next one here is Opal. So this same friend does have this on his device. This is an app that will actually shut down or limit your access to other devices or other apps on your phone. So if Instagram is really just taking up all your time throughout the workday, you can use an app like Opal. And what it will do is it'll shut off your access. You won't have access to Instagram until 05:30 p.m. Or whatever time you set. So you can build in again some guardrails to your day to keep your attention also on your phone, especially if you have iPhone I believe Android as well. But you can go and change the do not disturb. You can change the focus. You can change it to where you don't have access to any of your other apps unless you actually go in and dig for them. Keep in mind, ease of access is typically what causes the most harm. Put as many levels of friction between you and the dependency that you're trying to break.
Put a lot of hurdles. If you struggle with lustful content, do everything you can to not just put it away, but to put hurdles to get to it.
If you struggle with that, then you get one of these apps, something like Covenant Eyes, which I forgot to put that website up there. Covenant Eyes will, if there's any objectional, content. It'll actually send a message to people that you have asked to be an accountability partner with you. So that person would get an email with an image that's kind of fractaled out or Googled out said questionable content. If I receive that as an accountability partner, I can send a text message real quick. Hey, budy, I just got a message. Everything good? You doing all right? This is a way to build in accountability, to build in friction. Yes, sir. Tom.
That is opal. So Opal So, and there are a couple others that I saw online as well. Opal was one that was fairly common. Again, just go to the Apple website, set up your device for a child with family sharing on iPhone. This will walk you through some of the parameters that you can set as a parent. Same thing is possible for Android or for Google. Google families is their families Google. And there's a host of information there of how to go and find your specific device and to put in the parameters that you are comfortable with that you feel like are appropriate for your family. Humanetech.com is another great website. I would highly recommend everyone spend some time on Humanetech.com. Org. These are the guys that put together the documentary The Social Dilemma. I've also got a more recent lecture on the AI dilemma that's worth your time listening to as well. They have some fantastic research.
One of the main guys behind this, Tristan Harris, he is the fellow that he left Google. He was a Google ethicist. That was his role, was to try to identify these ethical parameters and didn't really like where it was going. Left the company to stay in the industry, but to become not a whistleblower, but to become someone that says, hey, this is bad, these things are not healthy for us. He's got a partner that does the podcast with him, who is the guy that ASA I forget how to pronounce his last name, but he's actually the guy, the programmer software guy that created the Infinite Scroll. So it's a really interesting pairing of these two guys that are now trying to use their powers for good under resources here you've got the Social Dilemma which if you have not seen it, I would recommend you watching that. Your undivided attention is the podcast that these two do. They have blog posts with lots of articles and then they have a youth toolkit and a Take control toolkit. So if you have a child, this is a good place to start. I would recommend parents going through this first and then walking through it with their kids for any age, for any person, any life stage.
This particular take control is very helpful. I want to scroll to the bottom, sorry to make you dizzy, towards the bottom of this page under Additional Resources they have some really clever extensions that you can put on your computer. I have this one, this distraction free YouTube if you use Chrome, this is an extension in Chrome that will block out all of the suggested videos in YouTube. So if you get a link somebody says hey, this is a really funny video of a water skiing squirrel, you have to watch this. I get that, absolutely. Why would I not click boom. I now don't have the entire internet's recommendations of other water skiing small animals or rodents or mammals for that matter. I have nothing there. You can change it to where it would only be suggested videos from that particular channel or you can set it to where there's just nothing there. So if YouTube becomes your rabbit hole that you look up and now it's been 6 hours later and you're still on YouTube watching things like water skiing squirrels, that's not a healthy place for anyone to be download and install this extension and it will put in a guardrail there to keep that noise away. This one would be really helpful. Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator we do have an election cycle coming up so I would recommend you consider this one might be helpful to get rid of some of the noise in your life as well. Removes Facebook Newsfeed blurs out sidebars notifications It becomes kind of a ghost town on Facebook. You get to go see the things that you want and only those things. It's very very helpful. There's several more on here as well that I'll let you go and take some time to look through. They've got some other focus recommendations but these are folks that helped build this industry that are now trying to make things right and trying to help us pump the brakes on some of this. Thorn is another one we mentioned earlier. This is a group that Ashton Kutcher is a part of that they work specifically with child sex trafficking and they have quite a few resources as well.
There's some video stuff on here and just kind of learning a little bit more about specifically sexting and the underbelly specifically of how digital our children on digital devices can lead to something that is much much more sinister and dangerous. And then just for funsies in recent news wrong one. Got to open the tab first. A couple of recent headlines that you may have seen. Had someone that sent this link to me about 45 minutes ago want to raise a happy, successful kids? Wait as long as possible to give them a phone, says a Yale expert. Yale known for Christian morality.
No, this is how we know it's true. When the world says, hey, this is not good even for us, right?
So imagine if someone in a very secular role is saying, hey, this is dangerous, how bad this could be. Spiritually technology is all around this. I'm not an anti tech guy. I'm using technology all in this class, right, strapped to me.
However, when technology controls us and when technology forms us, when technology is louder and more present in our life than the Spirit of God, we are in trouble as spiritual people. That's an identity crisis. That's a place that we cannot live. That's a place that we cannot sustain. It's a place we cannot raise children. This article was published October 23, two days ago. This one today. You've probably seen this in the news. Meta sued by states claiming Instagram and Facebook fueled youth mental health crisis. I think we're up to like 40 or 41 states now that have joined in this lawsuit against social media companies because it's so bad and they had so much knowledge of what they were doing. If it sounds familiar, it's because it's the new verse of Big Tobacco and the rounds and rounds of lawsuits and the generations of people that we lost too soon because they were dealing with something that was highly addictive, that was way more powerful than anybody was willing to accept. And we did nothing about it except embrace it for a really, really long time. Keep in mind the Surgeon General in 1964 1st published hey, there's some danger with all these nicotine related products.
1964.
Within the last decade, you can no longer find a smoking section in a restaurant. It's a long time to adapt to things that we already know are bad. If we're relying on legislation to help us guide our children to heaven, we will not arrive at our destination.
We cannot rely on the worldly parameters that are set to keep us safe.
Our government makes laws based off the whole of the people, the common good.
God has created salvation in Christ for every specific soul on the planet ever. Those are two very, very different approaches to safety and salvation.
If we're only and exclusively which means the same thing, but if we are exclusively tuned into what we can and can't do from a civil liberty standpoint, we are going to miss out on the freedom and the liberty that is found in Christ. And that is the liberty that we are concerned with. That is the liberty that we are trying to bring to the rest of the world. Everything else is essentially inconsequential, right? That is our focus. That is what the gospel teaches us.
So now that we've done that, let's hop into a Bible study, shall we? Analog faith in digital Babylon. There we go. Real quick, if you haven't already, I put those up on previous slides, but Amazon Book list, I've updated that a little bit after class. If you're here in the Echo Room with us, you can come up here and see some of these books. This is, again, not an exhaustive list, but this list has quite a few of the resources that I've used for research for this class, as well as a couple of others that I haven't fully read yet. I kind of rank them in priority of ones that I would highly recommend or ones that I've had the most time reading.
YouTube playlist has various Ted talks, interviews. There's a lot on AI. There's a lot specifically on sexual addiction and things like that from worldly professionals. The YouTube Playlist is less spiritual in content. Amazon booklist has a mixture of those. And as I've said in the past, this is a little bit like me recommending you get the burger at a restaurant. I'm not necessarily endorsing the entire menu or the entire physical restaurant itself, but I found value in the burger. I have found value in the things, the items that are on these two lists. So if you didn't get those before and you want to get them after, feel free to come find me.
One way I've get. A lot of parents in particular have asked, well, how do I talk to my kids about social media?
The approach that I think will be effective? And again, full disclosure, our kids are eight, about to be nine. That's our oldest. So we haven't dipped into in our minds, we're not close to the social media world for them to have their own presence on there. They still dabble in social media because they see their parents on it, because their friends are on it, because their friends friends are on it, because their friends have older siblings that are on it. So they're aware.
How do we teach our kids to drive? Well, the government says you have to be at least 16 in this state. You have to read some literature and then show competence of that literature. Take a test, read the book, take a test. You have to have supervised time in the vehicle, behind the wheel, chaperone's time. You are incrementally given more freedom as you show competence and as you show responsibility. That sounds like a pretty good approach to social media to me.
I think that we should require our kids to do some reading. One book in particular, screens and teens that talks about the addictive nature of screens, not just social media. Why would we not let them read this literature that explains what's going on? It's going to give you, as a parent, more validity.
It's going to show that you know what you're talking about, because otherwise they're going to find what they want to find and do what they want to do. What we're trying to do is to point them into a spiritual direction so that as they grow older, they will grow up in the nurturing admonition. That's a relationship based growth. We want them to desire holiness and spiritual things. We don't want them to just submit to do this and don't do that. There's a huge difference between those two, and there are probably many in this room that grew up being taught about God from the God says, do this, don't do that.
When you're told, don't do something, what's the first thing you want to do? That right. And what's the first response to that? Why?
We should have a response to the why. And it's not just because God said so.
Well, why did God say so? Why did God say that it's a man and a woman that are husband and wife and that's the context for sex. Well, it's because anything outside of that is unholy. Because it's meant to grow a relationship. It's meant to deepen a relationship. It's because it's meant to be in a setting that involves vulnerability. It involves intimacy. It's because there's a spiritual element to it. That's a great question. Let's sit down and let's talk about let's see what the Bible says about it. That's our response to these questions. We don't run from them. We're not intimidated by them. You know what? You're not intimidated by things that you've really thought about. You hear coaches talk about it all the time. Are you guys nervous about the upcoming game or you think that's a good team? No, we prepared. We trust our preparation. And as a parent, the sad reality is we're never going to be fully prepared for everything that comes our way. But here's a heads up. Your kids are going to wonder about sex.
That's not a secret.
That's coming down the pipe, if it hasn't already. So we can prepare for some of these big things. Your kids are going to be exposed to technology. That's not a shocker. We can prepare for some of these things. We can examine the scriptures from a critical angle to see how it applies to that. Yes, ma'am.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: What if you believe that your child maturity is better to become Christian?
[00:25:43] Speaker A: What if you believe what if you believe your child is if they believe.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: They'Re ready to be baptized?
Does that change your thought to any of this?
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Sorry, let me clarify. I'm not saying 16 as a hard, fast number.
In my mind, I should know my kid the best, right? Part of my role as a parent, I've recently learned this is not just to show them what to do or how to live, but to learn them, because they are constantly changing in so. Many ways. So when my kid shows responsibility, then, okay, I'm going to give you a little bit more freedom. And when you get to a point where you went beyond where that freedom, where that line should be, I'm going to pull that freedom back until you learn that parameter. Personally, when it comes to social media, the brain is a big part of it and the research is telling us that that brain is forming later, not sooner. And you just saw it on a Yale professor saying, as long as possible, I don't think you can wait too long to give kids access to social media. I don't think the benefit is there. I would go so far and I know there are a lot of educators in here. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.
I'm not a fan of devices in classrooms. I don't think that the academic value equals all of the other detriment. I don't think it's actually an advantage because if they're doing this, especially in elementary school, for the activities they're doing, that's not a cognitive developmental have to.
If you look at other parts of the world and their academic standards, their testing scores, without those devices they're a little bit more analog countries.
The evidence is not there. If it is, I haven't seen it. And I've talked to a few educators I've shared with you, a friend of ours that she is a vice principal at one of our local middle schools. She says we're actively trying to get them out. She said the handwriting doesn't exist anymore. It's atrocious. They don't pay attention. The drama does not end. It increases, fights increase. There's no redeeming value to children having that. So our children as an eleven and twelve year old, they understand what we've taught them scripturally. There is still some life maturity that has to happen. And I would in my experience and experience in ten years of youth ministry what I've seen and just being around teenagers in particular and adolescents, those that are baptized at 910, 1112 years old, even 16 years old at some point in the near, not some point in the future, usually around late high school, college age, they come back and they have a conversation that sounds something like this what did I really know?
My recommendation is anytime someone gets baptized, especially someone young, you write down what you understand about God, what you understand about sin, what you understand about salvation. Why did you choose to, why is this something you had to do? What does it mean? You put that in writing and give that to mom and dad, or you put it somewhere safe so that five, six years down the road, when you start asking those questions, you can read in your own handwriting exactly what you believed. And that will either convict you that, hey, I knew I knew what the Bible said, or it'll convict you. I really didn't know. So I don't know if that fully answers your question.
The exact age for allowing kids to have social media, I don't think it exists. There are a lot of parents that will not let their kids get a driver's license at 16 because their kid is not ready. Because if you can't walk down the hall focusing on your direction and you're doing this, I don't want you to behind the wheel personally. Right. And if my kid has not shown an ability to exist distraction free and they have a phone before they can drive, I don't know. Those two don't mix. If you can't do one, then you can't do the other, in my mind. But that's a parent to parent, household to household decision. You know your kid, you know your teenager, you know your adolescent. And those of you that are not parents that maybe perhaps one day will be. Remember, part of your job is to learn your child. Part of your role as a husband or as a wife is to learn your spouse. Right. Part of what we do in our relationship with God is we learn God each step of the way. I don't like the idea of looking at scripture as a textbook or as definitely not a list of do's and don'ts. It's not even a history book.
I look at scripture as God's journal. To us, it's insight into who our creator is. It's insight in what he desires for our lives. It's insight in how he has related to his people over the span of time.
And yeah, there's history there, but it's more of a family history than it is just this picture in a textbook somewhere. Right. I learned history differently growing up. I'm trying to be better now as an adult in how I see history.
Any other comments?
To me, the driver's license approach works because it's incremental. It's a lot like the sex talk, which should never be just a talk. It's a series of conversations all along the way. Right now, with an eight, six, a four, and a little over a one year old, we're getting questions like heavy from our four year old. So and so has a tablet. I want one. I want an iPad. What's an iPad? Well, I can play this game. Okay, what else is an iPad? Well, I don't know.
It's going to be a while, buddy, before you get a device. And that's just the comment that we come back with over and over again. And sometimes that suffices. Other times. Like well, why? Well, because they're not really designed at this stage of your life to make you better long term. They're designed to addict you. And addiction means that you can't focus on anything else. You know how, like, when Bluey's on, you don't ever hear Mommy and Daddy. This goes to another level.
Sometimes we unplug the TV because Dad's dramatic and he thinks that works. I don't know that it does.
But there's a conversation on a four year old level that's a little bit different than on the eight year old level. It's on the eight year old level. I say, well, tell me somebody that has a device that uses it a lot. Okay, so and so. All right. Have you noticed anything about them? Yeah, they don't actually make eye contact. Interesting. Why do you think that is? I can have more of a conversation with my older kid than I can my younger. And parenting like multiple life stages at the same time? Is it's like riding two roller coasters simultaneously, going in different directions? It's wild. I don't even know how that works, but I don't know how parenting works either.
But listen to what I'm saying here, okay? Don't do what I say. Do what I do. Do I say, Anyway, I shouldn't be allowed to have a microphone. My point is let Lori Ann talk.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: We heard the Bark founder do a lecture one time, and he said that his approach to letting his children have technology was to start analog when they're early teens and start needing a phone, and then incrementally add not social media, but Internet access slowly.
Because his thought was, let them have it under his roof so he can train them to know how to use it. And then he said, you start out with the approach of, I'm giving you this device so that you can create something or serve with it. And so you train them how to use it to serve and create first, and then add it as they go to that when they're 18. You don't just say, here's a smartphone and good luck. So that's kind of what he said.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: That's a great point. I have a list of questions here that I would recommend, and I probably should have put these on the slide if they were that important, but it goes along with that. If your kid asks for a device, if they ask for an app, some kind of technology, something that you ultimately don't want them to have at that time, or you want them to learn to think more critically about it, first question is, why do you want this app? Why do you want this device? Why do you want this game? What is your purpose? What is its purpose in your life? Is it just entertainment? Is it because all my buddies are on there? It's because I feel like I'm missing out. Their answer will probably give you insight into where they are emotionally and intellectually, and that will arm you to ask more questions and you can dig a little deeper with them. Another really good question for all of us to ask is, how does this make you more like Jesus?
If you really want this app, how does this make you more like Jesus? Are you more caring? More loving? Are you more kind? Are you more truthful?
Do the apps that we have on our phones as adults make us more caring, more loving, more kind, more happy, more effective in ministry.
Have you seen other people misuse this type of technology? If so, how? What's something that you saw someone abuse it? What does that look like? What are some of the dangers that you could see somebody running into with this? How would you guard against those dangers?
How can you use this technology? To your point, how can you use this technology for good or to teach others about Jesus?
Part of our aim in teaching the next generation is to get them to see spiritually, which becomes more and more difficult as we'll get to as we get into the two passages we're going to look at tonight. And then the last one is, is this helping you cultivate the fruits of the spirit in Galatians five? And if they don't know what the glute, the Clutes the glutes of the spirit. There you go.
I don't know what those are either, but sounds fantastic.
The fruits of the spirit while you're working on your glutes, if they don't know what those are, well, now you've got a Bible study. If they don't know where those are found, now you've got a Bible study. These are all entry points for these conversations. And the beauty of that is that every one of these questions give you access to making it give you the opportunity to make it a spiritual context.
And I want my kids to look at devices. I want them to look at our home. I want them to look at our car. I want them to look at our friendships through a spiritual lens. I want them to see all of life. There's not church and then school and then ball and then this.
There's faith and then these are the parts of my life. So start using that language now. Show that responsibility and respect to other people. Now. Be truthful now in how you use social media. If you're on your phone and your kids are in close proximity, every now and then, there's probably a teachable moment, but the other teachable moment is, are they seeing this part of your face more? They're seeing this part of your face. The teachable moments are for us as well. And I think keeping an open mind to that, being very receptive to your own habits is huge, because they will eventually do to some degree what we say, but they will always do what we did.
They'll always repeat the behavior, usually before they repeat the command, because the command is used only when it's used in a court of law against us as a parent. It's true. All right, driver's license approach. Jeremiah, chapter 29. I put this into Chat GPT to say, hey, what should I talk about tonight? And it said, you should go back and listen to Mike Baker's lesson from the end of Summer series. This past summer. I said, that's a good idea. And it said, yeah, it is.
It didn't really happen. But I did remember his lesson, and I did think that it was a fantastic lesson. I would encourage each of you to go back and to listen to it as well. In Jeremiah, chapter 29, we Have God's people I had my page marker here. There we go. We have God's people that have just traveled was it 900 miles, mike, I think over a course of about four months.
And this is Jeremiah's letter to Israel, the exiles here. And he says, these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exile. Skip down to verse four for me. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply here and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you. Do not listen to your dreams, the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie. They are prophesying to you. My name I do not send them, declares the Lord.
Did you hear what he said?
You live in the midst of a culture that is not Godly.
Most likely, they're intense at this time. They just recently moved into the neighborhood. What did he tell them to do? He said, Build a house, plant a garden, live here, pray for this city to the point that Lorianne touched on from the Creator of Bark. We have to teach our children to live in this world in which we live. We are not called to be monks. We're not called to a life of monastic seclusion.
We have to teach them how to think. We have to incrementally give them things that they can handle. And when they show that they can't handle it, then we pull back.
It's a constant series of adjustments, and this is where it's applicable to all of us. Because when we realize that we can't handle something, we have to have the awareness and the maturity and the wisdom to pull back. We have to have the relationship with other people in this room and in this building and in other places to say, hey, I'm in a bad place.
Technology or lustful content or whatever gossip has a presence in my life that it does not need to. And I need your help in following up with that, because I need accountability because I've obviously shown that I can't do it on my own. That's a pretty common theme throughout the life of God's people, is you can't do it on your own. What did Israel do when they left the Ark out of the equation? When they went into battle? They lost.
And the reality is there was bloodshed and there was death when God was not present.
Why do we think that life would be any different for us, spiritually speaking, when we try to make ourselves live alone, isolated, because we're embarrassed or afraid or because we've been hurt?
Do not be a person that hurts other people with intimate details of their life. Be a person that is trustworthy. Be a person that they can come to and build confidence that there's someone else that has their back and that wants for them spiritually what God wants for them. That's how Christians speak, and that's how we relate to each other. The one thing that Jesus said that will be the defining mark of his people is the love that they have for one another. That's how people will discern God's people from not God's people.
And we've hit on that a lot in this class because it's so important. I don't think we can talk about that enough. We've had some great conversations in here. They can't stay here. They have to leave this place, and they have to go into our homes. They have to go into our offices. We have to be in each other's lives. And sometimes your social media post will give me a little bit more insight into where you are right now. Oh, I think they're frustrated.
Where's that water skiing squirrel? That's not the right response. Oh, I think they're frustrated. Hey, Ma'am, you doing okay?
Text message. Hey, can we grab lunch?
See my public post as an invitation to be a part of my life. That's really what they are. I share pictures of my kids and some of their successes because I want to share that, hey, my kid did something great, and I want you all to know about it. A little bit selfish, but also I want you a part of my life. If I didn't, I'd make it private, right? So if someone posts something public, take that as an invitation. Be assertive.
Be a brother or sister in Christ. The last passage we're going to look at in the last few minutes, and I hate that we don't have longer here, but Deuteronomy, chapter six, a passage that many are probably familiar with. Here. O Israel, verse four. The Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Listen to this version you shall love the devices that are in your life with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. You must depend on them. And these devices that you have today shall be on your heart, informing your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children. Only your children will text quicker than you. You shall talk of them when you sit down in your house because your phone is right there at all times. And when you walk, by the way, your phone is there with you. And when you lie down, your phone is the last thing you look at. And when you rise, your phone is the first thing you look at. It shall be bound as a sign on your hand or in your pocket.
It shall be frontlets between your eyes because your eyes will be fixed on them and not in the pole that you are going to walk in front of. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You get the point, right?
The words of God are supposed to be the things that we rise up and we go to sleep, the things that culminate our day, the things that are the common thread. Unfortunately, our devices oftentimes have a greater presence than the word of God and the words of God and the living out of those words. Our devices have become idols in a lot of unhealthy ways and that's something for each one of us to examine on a regular basis. I don't know if you ever thought about this, but technology might even be a part of that self examination that takes place during the Lord's Supper on Sunday.
If our devices are a part of every aspect of our life, then that's probably not leading us to the Godliness that it should.
My encouragement to you throughout this whole class is to think deeper about the place that technology has in your life. That's essentially an element of what God is saying here to Israel. Think deeply about God, his words, and that is what is to form you and that is what you are to show to the next generation and the next generation fathers and their sons and their son sons. This is a generational impact, either for good and for Godliness or not.
Those are really the options and I think it is that simple. Although life feels very complex, I hope that the resources that we've talked about tonight and throughout this class will help arm you no matter what your life situation is. I hope that as a result of this class and some of the stats we've shared and some of the comments that people have made. I hope that's encouraged you to go and talk to somebody in this room that you don't talk to on a regular basis. If it hasn't yet, then we're missing out. If any Bible class you're in at this building does not lead you then to a deeper relationship or a conversation with someone outside your usual social circle social circle? Easy for you to say, then you're not doing it right. Just to be quite frank, you're not doing church right.
If we refuse to step out of our comfort zone and to limit the ease of access we have and step out of our comfort zone to increase our comfort with people that may be uncomfortable at first, we're not doing it right.
Now, more than ever, it takes the village to raise all of us, I would say, not just children. And we're part of something incredibly special.
We cannot take that for granted. We cannot make it common. It's exactly what Satan tried to do in the garden, and it's what he's been doing ever since. Bow with me and we'll be closed. Father, we thank you very much for the opportunity to gather in your name tonight. We thank you for those that are in this class, those that are watching this class, and those that will be a part of this conversation in the future by watching it online.
God, we ask that you would help us to be wise to be discerning in the technology that we put in our lives and in the lives of the next generation. Help us to be disciplined. Help us to be focused on eternity and on the gospel more than anything that is temporary in this life, especially as election season will ramp up on the horizon. Help us as Christians to speak words of grace, words of peace, words of patience, and words of truth. Help us to do that in person, in every interaction we have as well as online. Help us to never fan the flames of gossip or unrighteousness in any capacity, whether in a digital space or an analog space. We thank you for allowing us to live in the times that we do. Help us to practice discernment and to be able to leverage these new technologies in effective ways to glorify you and to grow your kingdom. We love you, and we thank you again for our time together tonight. In Christ's name. Amen. Love you guys. Have a great week.
