Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

You can parent a smartphone well. This episode will help. Before you start, ensure that this tech is safe (enough) for your child, that your child is ready, and then keep an eye out for good fruit coming from it. After that, parenting a smartphone comes down to building hedges around your family, the device, and remembering that your network hedge doesn't effect a smartphone. Show Notes: https://b...

I've had several conversations with people recently where they've asked about how Anna and I started this ministry. As we look at a new year, and new resolutions, I want to talk through what it looks like for us to follow where God leads in 2026.  Show Notes: 

Happy almost-New Year! You, the listener, have been an amazing blessing to me and to this ministry this year, and I want to share a bit of what God has been doing and where we are headed this next year.

I love Christmas because it is one of the few remaining buttresses of Christian virtue left in America. Everyone in America understands the idea of lavish gifts, of the frailty of gifts alone to make the recipient happy, and how beautiful it is to give a good gift to someone you love. Today we remember how Christmas fulfills a promise of God, and how it is one of three Advents God has promised to...

Grace is key to parenting tech well, and to overcoming unhealthy tech habits. Grace is costly, grace overcomes wrath / judgement at mistakes (specifically God's wrath at sin), and grace demands a response. By understanding God's idea of grace we can better apply it to ourselves and to our children when parenting tech. Show Notes: 

The good news of the Gospel applies even to our tech lives. Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son is a beautiful reminder that in tech, as in life, there are three types of people: rebels, self-righteous, and saints. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4ptaQ1a 

We are new creations in Christ, and that means we will use tech differently. The question is, which tech needs to be redeemed, and which needs to be removed? Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3LSF1Qk 

We fail a lot as parents. God doesn't call us to be perfect, but to be faithful. Through intentional repentance, confession, and prayer God can overcome the mistakes we make and even use our brokenness to bring his kingdom. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/43DdLvo 

In Christ we are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), and that must change the way we parent our children. We must speak gently, act rightly, be generous with our time, energy, and resources, and think of our children the way God thinks of us. This is an act of the will, for sure, but it's only truly possible through the active working of God's Holy Spirit giving us the heart and will to love as he calls...

As we look towards Christmas and the greatest gift God gave us in his Son, we need to think intentionally about how we can give our children the best gifts. Namely, we want to give the egg, not the scorpion (Luke 11:11). Today we continue our conversation about Analog Adventures this Christmas, and get into how these this Christmas can be a time to focus on fun at the pace of real life.  Show Note...

Giving good gifts is a gift and responsibility as a parent (Just see Luke 11:11). This Christmas we can give our children amazing gifts that inspire, encourage, and equip them to have fun at the pace of real life. That's right, we're talking Analog Adventures! Over the next two weeks we'll discuss Board Games, Art, Competitive Fun, Books, and STEM. Show Notes: https://bit.ly/3X7gpFN 

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...

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 consisten...

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 pra...

There are three unique struggles on social media thanks to the advent of AI: Bots and the Dead Internet So much p*rn Problems with Reality Retention There 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...

There are mean people online. Three steps to take to help ensure we handle mean people well are: Assume others are intelligent Attack ideas, not people Remember 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 gosp...

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 soci...

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