Latest / KCMS Spirit 105.3 / Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland - What is Gospel Tech?
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Purposely. Your life, God's purpose. Listen at Purposely.com. Gospel Tech
- 0:08Speaker 1: FAQs with Nathan Sutherland and Mark Holland.
- 0:13Speaker 2: Okay, and welcome to our first episode of Gospel Tech FAQs,
- 0:18Speaker 2: at least that's what we're calling it as we record
- 0:20Speaker 2: a few of our first episodes. Mark, joined by Nathan Sutherland.
- 0:25Speaker 2: He's the Gospel Tech guy. Of course, a longer show
- 0:27Speaker 2: that's been around for a while with Krista Media and Purposely.
- 0:31Speaker 2: I thought this is a subject matter that would work
- 0:34Speaker 2: well in smaller chunks for the KCIS listening audience and
- 0:39Speaker 2: online audience as we FAQ, frequently asked questions that Nathan
- 0:43Speaker 2: gets in his line of work. And first, though, for
- 0:47Speaker 2: this very first inaugural episode, Nathan, I wanted to get
- 0:51Speaker 2: to know you a little bit. Tell us more about
- 0:53Speaker 2: your heart behind Gospel Tech. What is Gospel Tech? The
- 0:57Speaker 2: liner is Love God, Use Tech, and Use Tech Well
- 1:00Speaker 2: is your expanded saying now, but tell us a little
- 1:04Speaker 2: bit about yourself.
- 1:05Speaker 3: Yeah, Mark, thanks for having me on.
- 1:08Speaker 4: Gospel Tech is a ministry that was born out of
- 1:10Speaker 4: my 10 years of public school teaching where I realized, man,
- 1:14Speaker 4: these kids are made by God. They have amazing purpose,
- 1:17Speaker 4: and some of them are getting distracted from that purpose
- 1:19Speaker 4: by their technology, but it's not universal and across the board.
- 1:22Speaker 4: I can't just say, So never own a phone or
- 1:26Speaker 4: never play.
- 1:26Speaker 3: A video game. Instead, we have to get to these
- 1:28Speaker 3: heart issues.
- 1:29Speaker 4: So gospel tech is really about raising kids who love
- 1:31Speaker 4: God first, who know their identity, who understand what it
- 1:35Speaker 4: means to be a new creation, a redeemed sinner, which
- 1:37Speaker 4: we call a saint, and then use the best tech
- 1:40Speaker 4: from that. Basically, use all the tech that makes you
- 1:42Speaker 4: look like Jesus, none of the tech that distracts you
- 1:45Speaker 4: from it. And I get this firsthand. with my own
- 1:48Speaker 4: three kids who are 12, 10, and 6. And a
- 1:51Speaker 4: very humbling reminder that this is a difficult and important
- 1:54Speaker 4: conversation because there's a lot of hope to be had
- 1:57Speaker 4: in using tech that does, in fact, improve our gifts
- 2:00Speaker 4: and our opportunities.
- 2:02Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right in the.
- 2:02Speaker 2: Middle of it with those ages and kids and parents
- 2:05Speaker 2: these days. I see a lot of times parents almost
- 2:08Speaker 2: use tech, use gadgets as a way to kind of
- 2:11Speaker 2: babysit kids and kind of keep them occupied so that
- 2:14Speaker 2: They're not quite so demanding. And that's something you probably
- 2:18Speaker 2: are concerned about as a parent and as somebody who's
- 2:21Speaker 2: concerned about tech.
- 2:22Speaker 4: Yeah, it's something I'm both concerned about and empathetic with.
- 2:25Speaker 4: I understand that we need to make a meal and
- 2:27Speaker 4: have a conversation and take a shower every once in
- 2:30Speaker 4: a while. And so I do understand why we do it.
- 2:33Speaker 4: And that desire to constantly go back to it, it's
- 2:37Speaker 4: a slippery slope. It's very easy to return to. And yes, screens,
- 2:41Speaker 4: especially for young brains, kids under two, They should really
- 2:44Speaker 4: never be looking at a screen. It is overstimulating for them.
- 2:48Speaker 4: We learned this with baby Einstein. The fact that they're
- 2:50Speaker 4: focused for long times isn't because they're in flow and
- 2:53Speaker 4: deep learning. It's because they're intensely distracted and their minds
- 2:56Speaker 4: are erupting with stimulation. And that is negative for a
- 3:01Speaker 4: developing brain.
- 3:02Speaker 3: So what do we do?
- 3:03Speaker 4: We give them real-world toys and real-world fun. And we
- 3:06Speaker 4: give them a chance to be a little bored. It
- 3:08Speaker 4: is okay to take a two-year-old, put him or her
- 3:10Speaker 4: in a safe place. and have them play with blocks
- 3:12Speaker 4: without our eye contact. Yes, put them inside of some
- 3:16Speaker 4: kind of a safe corral where they can't get to
- 3:20Speaker 4: outlets and tablecloths, but give them the opportunity to play
- 3:23Speaker 4: on their own.
- 3:24Speaker 3: So that is our alternative.
- 3:25Speaker 4: And yes, as we see now, I have an interesting opportunity,
- 3:29Speaker 4: an amazing opportunity.
- 3:29Speaker 3: To teach sixth grade this year. There were a series
- 3:32Speaker 3: of events.
- 3:32Speaker 4: A teacher had to step away last minute. I'm finishing
- 3:34Speaker 4: the school year and watching these young people. I could,
- 3:37Speaker 4: by the end of the first week, tell you which
- 3:38Speaker 4: child goes home and spends endless hours on unfettered internet.
- 3:43Speaker 4: It just changes their attitude. It changes their vocabulary. It
- 3:46Speaker 4: changes the way they engage hard work of like writing
- 3:48Speaker 4: a five paragraph essay.
- 3:50Speaker 3: And it's not bad.
- 3:51Speaker 4: They're not broken, but they just don't have the mental
- 3:54Speaker 4: muscle in many cases to do the hard lift of
- 3:58Speaker 4: long focus that isn't incredibly stimulating. Yes, Fortnite is engaging,
- 4:02Speaker 4: so you can spend hours on it. And We want
- 4:05Speaker 4: to make sure that we can also do the heavy
- 4:07Speaker 4: lift of listening to others, of thinking our own thoughts,
- 4:10Speaker 4: of expressing ourselves, and doing the work of accurately understanding
- 4:13Speaker 4: God's Word and the people God gave us.
- 4:15Speaker 2: Yeah, kids, grandkids, adults are kind of alarmed, I think,
- 4:19Speaker 2: by how much tech is part of their world. You're right,
- 4:22Speaker 2: very distracted, very little attention span. So a lot of
- 4:26Speaker 2: these things are addressed in your wonderful resources, GospelTech.org. Uh,
- 4:31Speaker 2: now we, we air the gospel tech program, long form
- 4:34Speaker 2: program on KCIS on Saturday mornings at eight, but also
- 4:37Speaker 2: you have quite a YouTube, quite an online presence. You've
- 4:40Speaker 2: been making these shows for a number of years, right?
- 4:44Speaker 3: We have been.
- 4:44Speaker 4: Yep.
- 4:45Speaker 3: So it's at love. God use tech.
- 4:47Speaker 4: You can find us on YouTube and other resources like
- 4:50Speaker 4: Instagram and Facebook.
- 4:51Speaker 2: Okay. Well, we'll look for your resources. We'll look for
- 4:54Speaker 2: this feature continuing on KCIS air.com. But we do encourage
- 4:58Speaker 2: you to, again, check out Nathan Sutherland's Gospel Tech program
- 5:02Speaker 2: on our media network called purposely.com. Thanks to you, Nathan,
- 5:08Speaker 2: for helping us with this first episode.
- 5:11Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited for it. Thank you, Mark.
- 5:14Speaker 1: You can hear the Gospel Tech long-form program with Nathan
- 5:17Speaker 1: Sutherland at purposely.com and Saturday mornings at 8 on KCIS.