Christmas is officially on the way, so how do we ensure that our tech at home is safe and maximize the opportunity for fun, sharing, and engagement? In today’s conversation we’ll discuss how to build a hedge around our tech, create clear expectations, and be present in tech to ensure we use it in hope and for God’s glory and our good.
Transcription:
Purposely. Your life. God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Gospel Tech podcast. My name is Nathan Sutherland, and this podcast is dedicated to helping families love God and use tech. Today we are talking about how we can make tech safe for this holiday season. We just finished Thanksgiving. We’re heading into Christmas, and as we look at the extra time at home, first of all for those of us that aren’t already homeschooling, our kids are gonna be around more. What does that mean? What do we do when people visit? How do we make sure that the general technology, not even just the new technology, but the stuff we’ve got, how do we make sure it’s safe and how can we do so in a loving, intentional way and really get a parenting win out of this?
This conversation is intended to be encouraging for you. It’s intended to equip you with specific steps you can take, and to help you reflect on what you’re already doing, cuz maybe it’s already great and there’s no reason to worry. And if there are some things that are concerning, it’ll give you practical, meaningful things you can do today.
[00:01:00] So, that’s where we’re headed today. Specifically, we’re gonna talk about building a hedge, having clear expectations and make sure that we communicate those and then being present in that technology. So, with no further ado, let’s get this conversation started.
Welcome to the Gospel Tech Podcast, a resource for parents who feel overwhelmed and outpaced as they raise healthy youth in a tech world. As an educator, parent, and tech user, I want to equip parents with the tools, resources, and confidence they need to raise kids who love God and use tech.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of making this podcast possible. Thank you for listening, for sharing, and for reviewing. I had someone the other day ask me, are people actually reviewing the podcast? And you are. And it’s amazing. Thank you! So, people are finding us when you review. It does two things; one, It makes so it, so more people can find us when they go searching for new content, or even just when they look at their [00:02:00] suggested list. We pop up higher because you’re reviewing it shows an engaged audience and that matters to the algorithm. And then the second is when they go, well, alright that this showed up, but is it worth listening to?
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And that again helps people find it. So, thanks for being a part of it. Shout out to Iowa, who for the past couple weeks has been spreading the news about gospel tech. So, thanks Iowa. We are grateful for you guys and gals and are just so pleased and blessed to be able to be a part of this ministry that’s helping your family talk about technology understand the gospel and connect the gospel to your daily tech life.
So, yay! For today’s conversation, we are going to be talking about how to make tech safe at home. And the first step we’re gonna do is talk about building that hedge. When we’ve talked about this in previous [00:03:00] episodes, the idea of building a hedge is we’re not attempting to build an impenetrable fortress, because if our goal with technology is to make sure our children never make mistakes, We’re gonna be so sorely disappointed, first of all.
Second, our expectations are gonna be way out of whack. And third, we are going to, at some point, crush our children with our hopes and dreams, because we’re not looking to the hope of the gospel. The gospel says we’re gonna make mistakes. The gospel says, not only are we gonna make mistakes, we’re gonna make ’em on purpose.
That’s the bad news of the gospel, because without that bad news, we don’t need a gospel. The gospel kind of becomes a plan B, like, The gospel’s for people that can’t do it on their own, so there’s like this fallback plan. And so, you could either be awesome or you’ve got the gospel there for you. And that’s not the hope of the gospel. That’s not the truth of the Bible. That is self-reliance, self-righteousness, and a really, really good way to be stressed out, anxious, depressed, and angry. Instead, the gospel says our kids, and we, need a savior. Our hearts are sick and we’re gonna look [00:04:00] for things to try to make our hearts feel better other than God, and none of them will fulfill us.
So, when we talk about building a hedge, it’s not build a wall tall enough that your kid will never make a mistake, cuz they’re gonna make a mistake somewhere. However, in a digital world, mistakes can happen really fast, and some of those mistakes can be really scary and really hurtful and just really confusing. And so, what we’re doing is we’re putting some distance between our kid and that mistake. Some of us have said, Hey, you know, For us, video games are important for our family. All right, so how do we give video games and put a hedge between our kids and some of those really harmful mistakes? Some of us said, Hey, shows really important for our, our family or streaming podcasts or music or whatever you’re watching. Shows just regularly through television or having smartphones or whatever your thing is for your family, you have some form of technology you’re engaging. How do we make that safe? The hedge is the answer splits into two parts.
First part of your hedge for your family, it’s going to be building a hedge around your network is the first thing. So, an intentional [00:05:00] space so your kids can engage what you want them to engage, but there’s still accountability. There are still safety mechanisms built in, and you are still being a part of their tech journey. You’re letting them go there and you’re helping them make the positive decisions as they go there. And you’re helping them process the poor decisions, because that’s really what parenting is. That’s raising them up in the way they should go.
You don’t, there’s no, how to say this well… it’s not about having good enough rules to stop them. And that’s what I was trying to say with that wall analogy, and I hope that came through. But the idea being if good enough rules was all we needed, the Old Testament would’ve fixed all our problems, cuz God gave us the perfect law and then walked out very specifically how to perfectly worship him, and how to perfectly fear him, and how to perfectly love our neighbor. And we don’t do it. We just don’t. And we haven’t. And that’s why God sent Jesus to not only fulfill the law on our behalf. So, we get that righteousness from that. But then to actually show us what it looks like to live it out and to give us a Holy Spirit. Then allows us to start doing the things we’ve never had the power to do.
God in dwells us now as [00:06:00] Christians, as followers of Christ. The spirit of God comes in and our life isn’t our own. We now live in Christ. And that’s a really important thing about our kids in tech because our network, let’s say, so our WiFi network, that’s the part where you’re not getting cell service, so things like iPads, smart TVs, any video game console, kindles, anything that doesn’t have a specific cell plan… these things are on your WiFi. So, we’re gonna put something on that WiFi that allows a buffer. So, I personally in my home use the Gryphon router. Other people, if they have a router they really like, you can use something like BARK at Home or The Circle. And the idea is you’re gonna be able to set parental controls.
So, sometimes even just Comcast devices or something, Verizon devices have these, but you can set like a time limit. You can whitelist some websites, but also set blocks on other websites. And so, what I really like about my router is one really simple one honestly, is that it puts YouTube defaults to restricted mode, which means no comments show up. Which I really appreciate because I don’t need my nine-year-old seeing the comments under that YouTube video he just watched. The video was [00:07:00] fine, but sometimes comments are the Wild West, and there’s some explanations that I just don’t wanna tackle because I’m, I’m monitoring the content itself. But it’s so hard to monitor that next thing. So, Gryphon allows you to do that. It actually gives a, a bunch of categories. So, you can put like, always restricted on certain categories. So just even like mature content. So, if a YouTube that categorizes, mature content, pops up, it’s restricted. He can request access. Goes right to my phone. I can clear it from there, but it’s just another layer other than just having like a, a kid’s YouTube account, or something like that. It’s just one more step that helps bring the whole internet into accountability and into expectations so that even if I’m, you know, cooking facing the other direction, something pops up on the screen. It’s just that next option that I’ll probably catch it, or another option for me to catch it.
So, when we talk about building around a network the, the hedge needs to be a buffer. It needs to have to do with your wireless internet. If you have internet without your plug. If your phone being plugged into a wall and without cell service, you have WiFi and the Gryphon router or something like that is great. Circle is [00:08:00] another one I mentioned and BARK at Home. These are three different resources that can be great for this. The whole idea being you can set time limits. You can set limitations on the type of content you can access, and also the devices that join your network have to follow your family expectations. Meaning friend shows up with an Xbox friend, shows up with an iPad; those are beholden to your family expectations. They’re logging into your WiFi. You’ll be able to see what they did. You can actually see by device the search. It does take, I will say this cuz I, I just had this conversation with a friend who also got a Gryphon router, it’s network security. So, it takes I would say 30 minutes to an hour once you get it, to make sure you find all the devices, put names on them, and make it clear. If you want help with that, there’s an i’ll include in the, in the bottom, but there’s a great, protect young eyes how to for that. And also, Gryphon is amazing on their tech support, both through chat and through phone. So, protect your network.
But some of you’re like, yeah, okay. But my friends, my, my son’s friend, let’s say, comes over with a [00:09:00] smartphone. What do I do now? And that’s where the second part of the hedge comes in. So, first thing we gotta do is protect the hedge. But when the cousin comes over, when the school friend comes over and they’ve got their own internet, they don’t need your wireless, the, the great router doesn’t help you at that point. Cause the thing’s not going through your router. It’s going straight to the interwebs of the sky. So, they’re pinging off cell towers and drawing in their own signal. So, in that case, we need parental controls for our kids and for the devices available in our home. This can be as simple as setting up, like the family Network plan and family network controls. I have another great protect Young Eyes resource for that where Chris McKenna, a former Ernst & Young CPA, just, he drills it down and line by line. It’s amazing. I was making my own resources in this specific one and I was like, oh, this guy love spreadsheets, clearly. I’m just gonna send people here. So, I’ll send you what I use now for my personal network and device setups. iPhone and iPad and that kind of stuff. So, he does a great job there.
The second thing you can do is you can add an additional program. I personally really like Bark [00:10:00] because it isn’t just focused on images. So, it’s not just looking for, well, did they run into pornography? Cause I’d say Pornography’s probably a third of what our kids are dealing with on the internet. The rest of it is content that’s just disturbing and difficult. Content about suicide and about depression and about self-harm. Content about substance abuse and unhealthy lifestyle choices that, that are damaging to young people and adults alike. So, it brings it up. It also focuses on social interactions. So, text messages, social media, DM’s and what’s happening is not simply monitoring and giving you to their journal, but instead is monitoring keywords and key phrases and then kicking a bark, right? It, it shouts out to the parent and says, Hey, this thing just occurred. Wanna let you know. And that’s a chance for you to get that parenting win. Where now you approach your child in love building on the relationship you already had when you gave them that device, when you allowed them to go into the space and to follow up on that.
Now, when you gave them that device, you said, Hey, I, I know this device is safe for you. I not only know this device is safe for you, I know it lines up with our family [00:11:00] expectations and I know that you are trustworthy with this, right? Luke 16:10 says that when we’re trustworthy with little, we can be trusted with much. Our child has earned this. Their schoolwork, their friendships, their family interactions, their personal accountability their growth spiritually. Like they’ve done this, and then something happens. Maybe they did it, maybe someone else did it. But that’s our chance now to come in and have that conversation cause the point isn’t never make a mistake.
The point is, all right, a mistake has been made by you or someone else. What do we do now? How do we grow through this? That is what your child needs. Spiritually, as someone who loves Jesus and can now guide them in it, and just as a kid with a parent. They need someone to be there and help them process whatever just occurred. And something like Bark can be amazing for that. I personally use Covenant Eyes for image-based safety. So, Covenant Eyes is a really cool accountability piece is always someone else looking at my screen even when I’m all by myself. I really like that new feature of Covenant Eyes. It is only image based though it doesn’t look for bullying and stuff like that, cuz I’m past that stage where [00:12:00] I have to work, I, I guess I should have someone check on whether I’m bullying anyone. But it’s not one that we have, I, I use Covenant Eyes, personally.
So, those are two ways to protect your network and your devices. And when it comes to those third-party people, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends from school, I strongly encourage families to say, you’re here to be a part of this family. You’re here to hang out with us and be present with us. So, our family, when we’re home, we don’t use our smart devices. Families I wanna challenge you on this cuz I, I get some pushback on this with people thinking that I’m saying something that I’m not. I’m not saying don’t have smart phones. I do say delay the smartphone for your children as long as you can, because we’re actually seeing a lot of kids, college-aged kids go to dumb phones, cuz they realize smartphones don’t actually develop their their goals and their personal direction they want to go.
They actually realize it was part of wanting to belong. And since they don’t have to belong in college, they’re just accomplishing their own goals, they, they drop it. I would actually say delay on a smartphone. But before that, I would say when you come home, the whole point of a [00:13:00] smartphone is to be connected, and to be safe when you’re not at home.
It’s got a gps, it’s got your, you know, communication, your contacts. It’s got your information you need with your calendar, but now you’re home; so, it goes in a drawer or a box or a shelf or wherever. You can go out of line of sight. I would encourage you to do this. We have a drawer, drop it in there and encourage your children’s friends to drop it in there. Cuz if that child walks into a room that you’re not in with that smartphone, the entire internet just walked into that room with them. And it’s just not reasonable to expect a developing brain to always make good choices with that. So, Please find a, a system for your family. This is part of building a family tech framework, is to have those expectations.
So, when we talk about building a hedge, we have a hedge around our network. We put something in place that allows us to manage time and content and see what’s happening on the wireless internet that we are providing our family through Smart TVs and through Xbox and PlayStations and through Kindle readers and through old iPhones that don’t have cell service anymore. All that will show up on the internet.
I had a mom at the last talk I [00:14:00] gave, come up and go, I can actually tell when my son has found another device or brought one home from school because it pings up on the network. Right, which is amazing. Like that’s, that’s the conversation. She goes in and starts having, she was specifically talking, in her case, she has multiple children she’s fostering to adopt, and they’re all middle school and higher aged.
And so, it’s a conversation she had up front, and this is simply allowing one more layer of communication. It’s not about going and now having an argument and winning and saying, Hey, I saw this device pop up. Like I know that there’s one else, one other one going on. Like, let’s talk about what’s happening. Let’s talk about why we have these rules, and it just provides that other chance.
So, that’s what we’re doing on the network side and on the device side. Have something like Bark. have something like Covenant Eyes that allows those devices to be accountable even when they’re not at home. There’s still another set of eyes seeing it, and there’s another just yeah, another set of eyes seeing it, and the knowledge that we’re removing the lie of anonymity the internet can sometimes give us.
So, those are the first things we can do. The second thing we can do to make tech safe this holiday season, [00:15:00] I guess this Christmas season really now as we’re heading into this month of December, is we need to have clear expectations in three areas at least. We need clear expectations for content. Our children need to know what is appropriate and what to do when something inappropriate comes us up. And I’m not just talking about pornography. Talking about when someone is mean. When they watch a movie and they like, man, it was funny. It just was mean, and it wasn’t great. What do I do now? Like, do I leave the room? Yes. You’d leave the room son or daughter. Who do I tell? They need to know. They, not just like, well, tell someone who cares about, you’d be like, call mom. Call dad. Text mom. Text dad. We’re not gonna be mad at you. Right. This is, this is the party out that you need to give your kids. If you’re ever somewhere and you realize it’s getting out of hand, you thought it would be funny, you thought it’d be okay. It’s not okay. It’s not funny, and you need out… like they need to know who to call. They need to know that they’re not just gonna get grounded like that. They, that someone’s gotta come and help them. They need to know what their lifeline looks like. Please make sure you’ve said it for content.
What do you do? You look [00:16:00] away. You tell mom or dad, or aunt or uncle, and you say, Mom or dad, when I was in the location at whatever the time was I saw, or I experienced, or I searched or whatever happened, and they need to be able to fill in those three blanks. The time, the location, and whatever occurred. Say the words out loud, clearly. And that way you know how to appropriately respond and support. And maybe it’s apologize, or whatever happens, but you need to be preparing your children for the content side. They need to know the locations when, where technology can be used. So, can tech be used in the bedroom? Can it be used in public spaces only? Can it be used in the car? Can it be used at the dinner table? I would strongly encourage you in a home setting, only public locations. There’s no added benefit to it being in the bedroom. I understand some like school Zoom calls happen. Feel free to talk through why a tool tech example of creating through a relationship in a, in a Zoom call will be different than constantly having a slow drip of technology in the background as you’re trying to [00:17:00] work or sleep. Or the danger of being lonely and tired, and unobserved on technology use and good choices online, like late at night in a bedroom by yourself.
So, that would be the location piece. And the final one is time. How long and what times do you have a, again, the hedge on the network helps with this, but knowing what time of day technology’s available. How long it can be used for. So, we’re gonna have our game in music time for 30 minutes or for an hour after dinner before bed. Maybe that’s your time. Maybe there’s a time mid-morning. Maybe there’s like a, for homeschool families, there’s a break in the middle of the day where you’re doing kind of a digital recess thing while younger sibling takes a nap. But you need to have times established when we’re talking about safe tech over Christmas.
If you do not establish a time, you will get busy. You’ll be doing your work, you’ll have something going on, someone will get sick, and it just happens. And four hours later you realize that your older child has been really quiet the last few hours, and that technology went in a direction you didn’t intend it. Doesn’t mean anything bad happened, but without a [00:18:00] plan, this stuff happens. It just creeps and we find ways to just kind of slip into it. So, those are all part of a family tech framework. If you go to gospeltechworkshop.com, I help you make a family tech framework, which is really just how do we talk about tech, and then how do we walk that out?
So, the first part is how do we understand tool and drool tech? How do we know if tech is healthy? And the second part is how do we make expectations in these six areas? I had things like safety to that. How do you deal with bullies and strangers, but those three are critical for our Christmastime healthy Tech.
And the third and final is to be present. And I would simply start this with, again, the assumption that we’ve assumed, or we’ve, excuse me, assessed that the tech is safe. We believe that it fits our family expectations. Using something like a Philippians 4:8, that this is true and noble and lovely and pure.
So, we, we have that down. We know that this fits our child’s purpose. That we can say, yeah, this leaves me more of my child. I see more good fruit coming outta them when they use this tech than when they don’t. So, we’re [00:19:00] already there. Then at that point, I need to be a part of the process. So, three steps that I try to do with my own children that I actually love doing when I meet new kids is just kind of establishing this process. And then I encourage every single parent to jump in with, especially if you’re a parent that doesn’t really get it. Meaning, ah, man, that, that sounded weird. What I meant by that was you don’t understand why someone would be attracted to this. So, when I said I do, I love doing this at schools when I go and talk is, I love asking kids like, all right, what?
I’ll ask ’em Fist to five, fist being zero, five being the highest score of five. So, the best. How do you feel about social media? How do you feel about video games? And you’ll see in the room, all sorts of scores. I basically just focus on my zeros and ones and my fours and fives. Like, all right, so I saw some fives on video games. Why do you love them zeros and ones, why do you hate them? And then just start asking, I wanna start learning what, what makes you tick? And what I learned in one of my more recent talks with kids, there was an entire room of kids that use Pinterest. Let that sink in. [00:20:00] The entire room was like, absolutely, we use Pinterest.
And I was like, why? Like, do you use it in a browser? And a girl in the front’s like, that’s for moms. And I was like, well, I guess I thought all of Pinterest was for moms. Like, what do you guys do on Pinterest? And they do everything on Pinterest. They have all of their hobbies and all of their interest, and they use it like a social network. And they only apparently use it through the app because apparently the browser’s for moms. But those are things I did not know prior to a couple weeks ago. Finding this out with a bunch of kids. And those are the kinds of questions I want parents to be able to figure out. You don’t have to know all the answers. There’s no way you will, because it keeps changing. I thought I knew it. I taught middle school. Like just the same age group for 10 years, and I don’t even know all the information on that group, because a couple years later it’s all changed. Like they’re all using Pinterest now, apparently. Who knew?
So, we simply ask what, what is going on? If it’s a game, ask them what is the level, like. What’s challenging? What, what is happening? What do they like about [00:21:00] the game? The second thing we then, Oh, and by the way, you can do that with music or anything else that you don’t understand. You don’t know why this would be cool, why anyone would want this thing, start with those questions because they have answers. They may not be the answers you like or expect, but they have them.
The second thing is to learn from your kid; make yourself the student. Come in humble and ask if they could show you how does this level work? How does this artist, whatever, excite, like, what’s the most exciting song here? Could we, could I hear it? Like, show, show me what’s awesome about this. And simply asking them what makes them excited or what makes their friends excited. I like the friend’s question because it stops our children from feeling so defensive. I’ll do that again when I talk with groups of young people, is just ask what, what are your friends into? What are your friends watching for shows? And they’re more than happy to tell you what all of their friends do and whether it’s a good or bad decision. But they kind of climb up when you start asking them direct questions. And it does come across as more accusatory when you ask them specifically, they start feeling like they need to plead the fifth.
So, learning directly from ’em. [00:22:00] Specifically asking them to show you how to do things or if they would teach you how to enjoy it. How to do that thing for an exam. I keep coming back to video games because that’s kind of my wheelhouse, but it would work in social media. How do you make a post? How do you edit? I see this person add a text. How do, how do you do that? Where does the music come from in this video? Like, are they playing it like separately or is that something they added later? Asking those questions, assuming your child is into this social media, and that you’ve cleared it for them to use, then you’re not breaking any rules. You’re not being immoral by being a part of it, you’re actually being present and you’re earning rapport and that’s really, really powerful.
And the third thing is to do this activity together. Play the game together, watch the show together, listen to the music together. Be invested in it with them. And that is gonna be really important when we talk about keeping tech safe. It’s gonna inform you. So, that when you hear things, you can start to hear words that you haven’t heard before and be like, wait a minute, you told me about that one thing, but what’s that step? Right? Like, what’s happened in there? And now you can come at it from a place of curious, where you’re not accusing them of anything cuz you just, you learned the one thing and you [00:23:00] heard something new, and then you get all the parenting of like, did they act weird Now? Like, is this something concerning? Is it just your kid? Or is this actually like a bigger thing? Part of the actual app, and it’s maybe another layer you’re discovering. Those are the ways you can equip yourself. To ask, to learn and then to play.
And the second part of being present is just to talk, talk, talk about it. You need to make sure your kids know, for example, they need to know what porn is. Pornography for a young child is simply people not wearing clothes, being unkind with their bodies. If you see anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, Say No. Look away. Come tell mom and dad. That’s what we’ve told our kids. It’s directly out of good picture. No excuse me. Good picture. Bad picture. It’s a wonderful short little book.
It’s tasteful, but intentional in addressing pornography. Our kids need to know what it is. The internet will try to teach them. Satan loves nothing more than throwing confusion into something beautiful like sex. And it, the earlier it is introduced, the more it messes up a psyche of a young person. I’m not [00:24:00] trying to freak you out with that. I’m trying to be very clear with why saying the word pornography to your child is valuable. You’re not going to normalize it, because it’s not normal. You will give your child a proper understanding of it. To the point where my middle child actually came back a few days ago and told me, he brought me a, where’s Waldo? Cuz there’s a beach scene where some people aren’t fully clothed, and he’s like, dad, I saw this and this made me uncomfortable. Great. That’s awesome. Like, and that’s because he knows that word. I don’t, I’m not flippant with it. I don’t go I won’t say all the things I don’t do. I will say we are intentional to describe pornography as something that’s against God’s design for sex.
For a young child, we didn’t start with that definition. We started with, it’s people who aren’t wearing clothes, who are being unkind with their bodies. Frankly, as it develops into adults, we need to move beyond that idea, that it’s just naked people and it’s the idea of anything we use for selfish gratification of sexual desires or sexual lust, that it doesn’t even have to be [00:25:00] naked people. That as adults we can turn to things that are unhealthy for us because of our situations and our hearts, and they make us dissatisfied, and they turn our eyes away from God and towards ourselves. And we’re stealing from someone else’s image of godliness that someone else who’s made in God’s image, and we are stealing that for our gratification. That’s pornography for us. But we don’t have to get there with our kids. We just have to make sure they know what porn is. Then we need to know what what to do about it.
Okay, so this is the second part we’re talking, right? So, your kids should know who to say what to say. That’s the mom and dad when I was on the bus or at lunch or in the hall or with Johnny or whatever the thing is, I saw, or I searched or I looked at whatever the thing is. Okay, that needs to happen, and then you need to know how you’re going to know if that happens. So, you need to know that there’s some kind of accountability built in on whatever their devices is. This is about you being present. You can be present digitally if you can’t be present [00:26:00] physically. And always having a second set of eyes on devices is a loving, intentional way to go about life. We’re not, we’re not designed for anonymity. We’re not designed for complete solitude. And that’s true in the ever-connected digital spaces. We’re not supposed to go there alone.
So, that is what I would encourage every family to do this Christmas season. My hope is in hearing that when you think, all right, what am I gonna do? The family’s gonna come over. We’re gonna, we’re gonna have, you know, more phones and more tablets and more devices. Or we’re going over to their house, and they have different standards than us, which by the way, is the second conversation we’re tackling next week. So, to tease that out, but like, what are we gonna do?
All right, here’s what we can do in our house. We can build that hedge around our network and our devices. We can make sure we have these conversations. They don’t have to be scary; they don’t have to be long. But we have to talk about content like Galatians 5:22 for, for what’s developing in our hearts. Or Philippians 4:8 for what we’re viewing.
We know location. We need to talk about time. We just need to make sure there’s some expectation there and we need to be present in it. We need to ask, [00:27:00] learn, and play, and we need to make sure we’ve talked about it a lot. More than once, more than three times. Our kids need to start to ingest this and to know it’s coming, not out of our fear of all the bad stuff out there, but out of our hope in the gospel that child of mine, you need God to have joy. You need God to experience ongoing hope because you need new heart. And once you have a new heart, by God’s grace, because you’ve put your faith in him, you’re gonna be called the good works, some of them involving the digital space. Like many of you listening to this right now through the internet, you can use the space for God’s glory, but only to the extent that he gives it to you. You don’t get his gifts run into the space and hope God uses it. So, we’re gonna use it wisely. We’re gonna use it well. We’re gonna make sure that you understand what’s dangerous, who you can tell about it and what to expect. That you’re never alone out there in that space.
So, I hope this is encouraging to you. If it was, would you think of sharing it with somebody today? Send it in a text, send it an email, send ’em to our website. Would you send in your questions? Reach out to me, [email protected]. Or you can check out us on social [00:28:00] media at Love God use Tech on Instagram and Facebook. And would you join us next week as we continue this conversation about how we can love God and use tech?
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