While nerds are great at lots of things, we can struggle being present, knowing our limits with tech use, and generally submitting to God's kingdom and not our own. It is easy, in Tolkien's words, to move from Escaping to a better Reality towards Deserting the call God has put on our lives. The problem, at the end of the day, isn't that we haven't made a good enough reality yet, but that our world is broken and needs the great Restorer.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/47BNX4U
Nerds are amazing at experiencing wonder, seeing past the mundane into the Reality God has made, and avoiding the typical traps that come with pursuing purpose in the daily grind. Today we'll celebrate how God has made nerds, and how you as a parents can celebrate your child, your own nerdiness, or maybe even grow in the area of faithful imagination.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4h99rJE
Sometimes the hardest part of healthy screen time is knowing what to do instead. So how do we know if our child has too much screen time, and what can we do instead? There are three questions we need to ask, and then four activities we can use to quickly point our children back to analog adventures. 1. Are screens babysitting? 2. Does my child content with screen time? 3. Is tech a consistent battle for our family?The average school-aged child has six "blocks" of discretionary time a day. We will look at four possible analog adventures: books, board games, art, and baking.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4nNUQWC
Have you quit praying? Think about the last week: What happened when you saw that last horrible news article, or video on SM, or had someone at work tell you about another heart-rending tragedy. What did you do? If you're anything like me, you didn't pray. You might've shrugged, or cried a little, or made a snarky remark (also more like me than the other two)--but if you're like me, you didn't pray. Our lack of prayer shows we are forgetting just who it is we serve. We serve a God who is:A good fatherCreator God of everythingCalling us to kingdom workWe pray to see His will be done and His kingdom come. Let us not give up in doing what is good, but instead to pray without ceasing, even if it means we pray about our lack of desire to pray.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4pS7m8R
There are three unique struggles on social media thanks to the advent of AI:Bots and the Dead InternetSo much p*rnProblems with Reality RetentionThere are three steps we can take today:Step 1: Get internet out of the bedroom.Step 2: Get your family hedges setup — start talking about this!Ask your child: Have they seen AI generated content? How can they tell what is real and what is fake?For younger children: Let’s play a game called “real” v. “story”. .Elsa and Frozen, Vacation we went on as a familyStep 3: Get off the internet. If you’re under the age of 16 you don’t need SM. If you’re under 15, you don’t need a smartphone.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4pCrZWn
There are mean people online. Three steps to take to help ensure we handle mean people well are:Assume others are intelligentAttack ideas, not peopleRemember the Gospel: We were all once sinners (Ephesians 2:4) — now we’re saints, by grace.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3JZr8ie
Few people go online looking to change their minds. Most want validation or escape. With this in mind, we must be intentional with our social media interactions. Today we'll discuss three ground rules for dealing with mean people online, and give practical examples we can look to for how to do online conversations and ministry well. Three ministries who use social media well as an outlet for gospel hope are:Tim Barnett, Red Pen LogicBrady Cone, Calibrate MinistriesThe Bible ProjectShow Notes: https://bit.ly/3VcSYtT
It's hard to make good friends. Today we'll discuss three questions we can discuss with our children to help them build healthy, and helpful, friends online and in real life.Are we of equal value?2. Does this person make me a priority?3. Is the person the point (or is it a shared activity)?Show Notes: https://bit.ly/45XlupG
Can we use social media well, or is the fact it's designed to take our time, focus, and money make it more harmful than helpful? We'll cover there dangers, three blessings, and how we can remember to not gain the world but lose our soul.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4neMQxh
God gives us clear statements of what is expected of our behavior both online and offline. Today we'll look at what God requires of our words, minds, focus, and content.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/45uelwM
In America we have rules for helmets on a bike, licenses for a car, and permits for a gun, but we don't have any real standards about children and social media. We need a clear way to know when our children are ready, what to say when they're not ready, and a simple way to assess if social media is going well once they've started to use it.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4mEKUxx
Social media is inherently unsafe: It is designed for maximal engagement, with feeds drawn from live users on a global network, with a viewing rate far beyond what children will experience in nature (the average TikTok video is viewed for 5 seconds).Today we'll look at the age, limits, and boundaries we can lovingly put around our children to get the best chance of healthy results when using social media.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3Jwa8ji
We need to treat our tech like we treat our food: With a high priority on quality, an awareness of what causes us to crash, and a plan for making it happen in the trenches of real life. Our tech will benefit from a similar focus. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4o27CRO
Summer is a time when we can make space for what is most important. Specifically, we can go low(er) tech, make God's Word a priority, and make time for fun at the pace of real life.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3TVhFu9
Hey friends, just a quick heads-up that today’s conversation touches on some mature and important topics, so you might want to pop in some earbuds or wait for a quiet moment alone. Using the best tech well means using it to see God's kingdom come, and His will be done. But how do we do this when it comes to topics that are politically charged and high stakes, like abortion? Today we talk with Roland Warren, the President and CEO of Care Net, about how to live out Christ's mission that we are to live life abundantly. We'll take the time to discuss the Dobb's Decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, the changing landscape with the Plan B pill, and why good laws are important but are secondary to the change that will make them matter.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4nW6bo5
Having fun at the pace of real life is a skill these days. It takes practice, flexibility, and the creativity to say yes as often as possible.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/407qPr1
It's easy for Summer to get busy, and then for good things to crowd out the best things. Today we discuss setting summer priorities, and Cal Newport's encouragement that: 1. We must limit ourselves to a max of three priorities 2. We delegate, or relegate, non-priorities (even awesome ones) 3. Plan a max of 1 priority event each day In doing this we allow ourselves the space to faithfully act on what God has called us to do, and leave space and bandwidth to be present for all God has for us this summer.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4nwpG6m
Summer break is amazing for students, but not for their learning. Research shows us that more than half of students lose up to 40% of their proficiency in reading and math over the summer months. Today we'll talk about why this happens, and what we can do to intentionally and consistently help our students keep their learning edge through the school-free months.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/45SsjsK
Our children are creative. They create from a young age as they design, draw, sing, and play their way through new experiences. Sometimes tech builds on these beautiful creative moments, and sometimes, as Jake Weidmann points out, they simply exist within the confines of other peoples' creative endeavors. Today we'll talk with Jake Weidmann, husband, Christ-follower, and master Penman, about his lifelong journey of following Jesus through the gifts and creativity he's been given.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3SDv4X8
Walking in freedom from pornography doesn't simply mean having better rules, it means having a better focus on who, and whose, we are. Today we'll put a bow on this five-part conversation and look at how we:1. Remove and replace2. Remember our identity3. Live in VictoryShow Notes: https://bit.ly/43V6pTf