Is technology preventing you from living the life God desires for you and your family? Andy Crouch shares three key decisions your family can make to put technology in its proper place.
Choosing character
This means that we develop wisdom and courage together as a family.
“We don’t start by setting limits, rules, and regulations about what we can or cannot use, but we start with deciding what do we want family to be about.”
Andy and his wife realized that they wanted family to form them into the people they were meant to be, especially in the areas of wisdom and courage.
“There’s nothing like living with other people in the intensity of family relationships to develop wisdom and the courage to act on what’s really true. It’s not just a place where we consume, or a leisure environment, this is a place where we are all being formed in character.”
Shaping space
We want to create more than we consume. This means that we fill the center of our home with things that reward skill and active engagement.
“How can we make the place when we spend the most time, the most creative space in the house? It’s going to look different for different families, but finding ways for everyone to walk into that place where you spend the most time, and say, this is about us and not me, it’s about creation instead of consuming, I think it creates an inviting environment for a family to thrive.”
Structuring time
Resist the urge to let technology set the agenda and instead set the agenda as a family,
“The problem with all of these devices is they’re all meant to be on all the time. However, human beings aren’t made that way. We are not designed to be on all the time. We need a deep rhythm of work and sleep.”
While screens aren’t bad, we must achieve balance and ensure that our technology is working for us and not the other way around.
Andy Crouch is an author, speaker, musician, and dad, whose work helps readers think about culture, creativity, and the gospel. In addition to his books The Tech-Wise Family, Culture Making, Playing God, and Strong and Weak, his work has been featured in Time, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Lecrae’s 2014 single “Non-Fiction.” He was executive editor of Christianity Today from 2012 to 2016 and is now senior strategist for communication at the John Templeton Foundation. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania.
Key Scripture: John 21:18
Featured Songs: Trust in You – Lauren Daigle; Glorious – Passion; He is With Us – Love & the Outcome
The tech-wise family
