Speaker 0:04

Really, having children is a bet on the future. It's sort of a hope barometer of a culture.

Speaker 1 0:11

Eight hours a day engaging with entertainment-oriented media. That is your whole life.

Speaker 0:20

It's pretty remarkable to think that you could start a revolution by just reclaiming your dinner table.

Speaker 1 0:31

Five threats America faces that are hiding in plain sight, including in your own home. Welcome to Abundant. Conversations about the life everyone's looking for and what's getting in the way. I'm Dan Jarvis, joined by my good friend Dell Fasenfeld, who also happens to be a licensed family therapist. And Dell, that means today's episode is going to keep you busy. America just turned 250, and everybody's arguing about the threats that are loud and political, the elections, the wars, the border. But today I wanted to look at the quiet threats that are within us, I suppose, inside, a little bit deeper, cultural threats. And we thought we could do it as a countdown today. And uh so I have five selected, and I think you'll agree with them as we go, but I wanted to pick your brain on from a therapeutic perspective, do you see these how do you see these playing out and what should we do?

Speaker 1:27

Yeah, I always love talking to you, Dan, so I'm looking forward to seeing what's under the under the cover, so to speak.

Speaker 1 1:32

So okay. Well, here we go with threat number five. Over-reliance on technology to educate. Now, we've talked about this a little bit over the years together, that I remember we did a series in our church a while ago about the harms of smartphones and the what it meant that the world was going digital and things are getting so easy that your brain doesn't have to work on it anymore. Seems like that's a real problem, not just in our daily lives, but in the education space as well. I'd be interested to know what you think about this. Like, are we actually getting smarter as a country or the opposite?

Speaker 2:11

Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, the education system, you know, was built to educate masses of kids. And, you know, it's been great to provide education to a lot of people who never had access to schooling, but it was never designed to educate a kid, right? So I mean, I think first of all, when we thought when we think about innovation in education, we're still largely running on models that were patterned after the assembly line, right? And uh, you know, sometimes can lean a little bit towards behavior mod than actual learning. That's no criticism, obviously, of the great teachers and all, you know, all the people that are totally involved in the school systems. But I do think that the whole advent of technology and of the smartphone in particular has completely changed the game. Um, you know, even educators are grappling with that. So I think as we uh, you know, just think about whether you know kids are actually learning the welfare of our kids overall, their mental health, all the factors and the uh the impact of these smartphones that you know, really we're only 10 or 15 years into the smartphone experiment, and we really don't know what's gonna happen to these kids who have grown up uh from the get-go with the screen.

Speaker 1 3:20

I've read multiple studies, and I'm not going to cite them here. Like if you know you want to look it up, you can, but it seems like the the world is coming to the conclusion that more screen time equals less learning, at least in certain categories. So initially the push was like, hey, we've got all these innovative tools, let's fill the schools with them. So every kid is getting a computer, and there's you know, everything's digital, and there's all these automated learning experiences and testing, and textbooks aren't paper and all that, and that now we're finding out that that's not necessarily all working so well. I feel like I've experienced that personally because I would watch my own kids go to school and watch how they were handling assignments and how they were just finding, I mean, what any kid would do. You find the easiest way to get something done. And so between the internet just general searching, and then you throw in a little AI, and pretty soon you really haven't done any mental work. And you might even argue the person hasn't really learned anything, but they're able to check mark the assignment and move on.

Speaker 4:26

That's right. I mean, AI has absolutely broke the model, right? Because so like in my in my daughter's colleges now, they're they're actually debating whether in your freshman and sophomore years at least, all writing, all exams, everything will be with pen and pencil. Because there's just absolutely no way to monitor effectively or to um sort of uh you know guide the learning process when AI is per is as pervasive and powerful as it is. So I mean there it's just raising all new questions about what are what are our goals in education? I mean, all the way down to where, you know, my kids are also asking, Dad, why do I need to learn, you know, algebra? The computers, even if I were to be an engineer, are going to do all the math. So it just raises brand new questions that we've never really asked before and forces us to really define what is education and what's our goal.

Speaker 1 5:17

There is actually a reason to tell your child about why they need to learn algebra. I don't know if you know this, but it's so that we can beat the Russians in the space race to the moon. That's why I actually read this whole article about that. That the whole premise of like algebra, geometry, algebra two in high school was because in like the 1950s, America realized we need scientists to beat the Russians in the space race, and we're still riding on that chassis, even though it's hopelessly outdated. And you're right. So why would we say it's a threat to America? Like our series here is America's future, and thinking about what do things look like down the line. How does this threaten the spirit of our country, the trajectory of our country?

Speaker 6:18

I think we're grappling with all the secondary impact of a lot of things that we don't fully yet understand. What we do know about kids today is that they are learning to be more anxious somehow. And they are they are uh learning how to not have as many face-to-face interpersonal relationships, and they are losing some of the skills that in the past we never really quantified. But I think everybody who runs a business or is trying to do anything um pro-social realizes are absolutely necessary in order for there to be any kind of like sustainability or productivity. And so I think people are really getting worried about the kids. And I know as a therapist, I'm seeing that uh front row seat where, you know, so many kids have attention issues, have anxiety issues, and have um the inability to make human connections.

Speaker 1 7:15

Yeah, and that goes way beyond education, right? Actually leads to the fourth threat we have listed, the counting down threat number four, technology outpacing wisdom. And the premise that we would be spending four hours a day, six hours a day, maybe eight hours a day, I think that's the latest stat on teens, eight hours a day engaging with entertainment-oriented media, that is your whole life. That's right. I mean, that's that's all of your thinking. If you think like who are you gonna be, or or from a Christian frame, you know, what is discipling you? I don't know what there's no other force near pure competitor to that. Like if some if if eight hours a day of entertainment media, how does that impact the future?

Speaker 8:02

Yeah, I was just talking to uh a guy this morning who works with teenagers. He that's his specialty, he works with adolescents and runs a lot of volunteer programs and every year, and he was just talking about the phenomenon now of getting whole groups of volunteers. You know, these are great kids that want to do some summer service, so he's trying to organize them and give them that opportunity. But he just said they're so dependent because of their relationship with their phone on external stimulation that they have almost no ability to have any kind of like self-awareness that is not being driven from the outside in. I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing the, you know, this generation being called the anxious generation is they they literally don't know how to self-regulate at all because they're so you they're so accustomed to all of their uh stimulation coming from the outside, from the phone, it's it's it's all triggered through entertainment or access to something that kind of provides that stimulation externally. They don't know, they don't know how to do it internally. And if you can't, if you can't actually regulate from the inside out, then you're going to be controlled from the outside in and you become very reactive.

Speaker 1 9:12

So what scares me about that is that it's not just entertainment. Like the algorithms that are driving those eight hours a day of engagement are agenda-driven algorithms. Part of it is a profit agenda by the companies that are providing those services, Meta or Alphabet or other companies like that. But part of it could be a political or moral agenda to kind of steer you to think a certain way, or it can kind of send you down a rabbit hole of once you've liked one thing, now it's going to show you more things like that, and pretty soon that's all you see. It's a scary thought to think about. I mean, maybe all of us think we're immune because we think, well, I can control it or I know what's going on, but I suspect that we're all being shaped. How could we not be?

Speaker 9:58

I mean, yeah, and I think, I think, you know, um, I think collectively we are beginning to wake up to the negative impacts, you know, not just the positive ones of all this technology. And I think some of us are getting pretty panicked. And one of the one of the things that we that that would be easy to do or to think that we could do when we get panicked like that, is basically just to say, well, we just need to get rid of it. But you know, if you've if you've ever tried to like live a day uh in the modern era, like it's pretty it's pretty dysfunctional almost to just chuck your technology. I think the better answer is that we've actually got to do exactly what this heading said is that is that wisdom has to keep pace, you know, with our technology. And I'm I'm I'm curious what you think you know the wisdom might even look like, because I think that's what we really have to discover as parents, uh as humans, as adults.

Speaker 1 10:49

Well, I mean part of it would be personal, and then obviously if you are caring for kids in your life, that's another dynamic where you're also thinking about the brain development cycle and how if you flood a young brain with technology and external stimulation, you may keep them quiet and entertain them for that moment. And in that sense, you're checking the box so that you can do your own thing, I guess, but you also might be literally wiring them to not have they may not have the abilities, like you were mentioning before, you know, that suddenly the socialization is different, the ability to proact in the world is different, your ability to withstand boredom or stress is different. If it's personal, to me, the some of the practical elements would be setting your own boundaries with some wisdom. I think that there's a proverb that I like in this regard. It's uh 423, guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. And I think, what would it look like to guard my heart while engaging with social media? I don't know that I do a very good job, honestly. And I'm very hyper aware of it because I have a ministry position and I feel like I'm held accountable in multiple categories. I think, wow, that I'm struggling. What does it look like for people that are not particularly tuned into this? I have no idea. I just would say there's a huge warning signal flashing there. For parenting, everybody has to come to their own conclusion. Personally, I wouldn't hit hand a kid a smartphone until at least after eighth grade, just from a developmental perspective, before we even talk about moral formation or discipleship, that would make it even stronger to me that the longer you can wait to give a child at least a young childhood of being relatively screen-free or heavily monitored screens. But yeah, I I don't know that there's a right answer in it in a culture that's just completely saturated by all this.

Speaker 12:50

Yeah, we don't, we definitely, when you're reading that proverb, I we definitely don't want to hand our hearts to an algorithm. I mean, I think I we'd think we'd say, oh, that that's not wisdom. I do think, Dan, the thing as a therapist, I would say there is a really emerging consensus, even from the brain science, that young brains aren't the same as adult brains. And so really understanding developmentally how to um build a young brain and then to gradate in the experience of technology uh at developmentally appropriate times is something that I think every parent and wise adult as we're thinking about social policy needs to be thinking about. And uh there's some of that emerging even at the social policy level, public policy level, where they're beginning to recognize that these phones are not the best thing really to structural.

Speaker 1 13:35

So this isn't just a threat to America, this is a threat to the whole world.

Speaker 13:38

Yeah, and the data is coming in on that. I think the other thing I would say, um, just from the wisdom frame as we're thinking about this, is uh, you know, and one way to think about technology and the stimulation it provides is almost like the accelerator on our car. And we're handing all of our, all of us, you know, we're handing our kids, but all of us have an accelerator with us in our pockets with our cell phones that we just need to understand is hypercharging um our nervous system. You know, it's our sympathetic nervous system, which is like the accelerator. And what we're not necessarily uh explicitly realizing is if you have something that can go fast, you really need to know how to use your brakes. Being able to not only engage technology, but have effective ways and intentional ways of disengaging, of actually being able to put it down, shut it off, cultivate the quiet, you know, uh to know that uh there is a time that you actually need to build in the skill of not being stimulated is gonna be really, really important if we're gonna like tamp down our anxiety and our overstimulation, learn how to think, learn how to build kind of a quality of being human that we've actually gotta have to survive unless the machines are just gonna gonna win.

Speaker 1 14:54

Kind of reminds me of Jurassic Park, you know, when the when the guy Ian or Ethan or something something when he's like we we all of you scientists, you were so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn't stop and wonder if you should. And like we can do a lot of things here. They might not be healthy. Heard a really provocative quote from somebody. I don't know that I can disagree with it. I don't I don't know. I mean, again, this is like when you you don't want to critique other people's parenting generally, because you don't know what they're facing, but somebody asked, um, what age is the right age to give my kid his own smartphone? And the guy answered, What age do you want him to see porn? And I thought, wow, I I don't like that, but I don't know if I can disagree with it either.

Speaker 15:42

Yeah, so just a lot of wisdom that we need. Yeah. You know, as we govern our own lives and then help others learn how to live with technology with wisdom.

Speaker 1 15:49

Right. So threat number three to American culture, loneliness and despair. You've addressed this many times in in our church that people are facing an epidemic of loneliness. You've even said that the government has listed that, or various governments around the world have like noted that. Like it's kind of like right next to smoking or alcoholism or something would be loneliness as a societal problem. So talk to us about that.

Speaker 16:15

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just um one of the phenomenons of the modern world that everything in communal is actually going away at once. I mean, it's it's hard to even like fully quantify all the reasons for why that is, but you know, the bowling alleys are emptying out, the pews are emptying out, the the sports leagues, people don't have dinner together on any kind of regular basis anymore. You know, people are really, really lonely. And the stats on loneliness are, you know, we you called it an epidemic, and they are absolutely staggering. And the younger that you are, the more likely that you are to purport to be lonely to be more lonely. So this is getting worse as we get down uh into the younger generations, and it's absolutely something that is feeding every other kind of health crisis that we have in America. That's why the former Surgeon General of the US actually left his post during you know during the Obama administration and actually went and uh wrote a book called Together on Community, because he came to believe as a Surgeon General, looking at all the health statistics, that the primary driver of of all health crises in America was loneliness itself. And you have some stats, you know, um, we have a few of them right in front of us that, you know, being lonely is uh more detrimental to your health than smoking. I mean, that's staggering to think about. Being lonely and disconnected is the primary um driver of whether you're going to be hap happy, let alone healthy.

Speaker 1 17:49

I look at this issue, this threat, and I think this is one of the reasons I'm genuinely glad to be in church ministry. I know not every church is like this, but our church genuinely feels like a family to me. I hope it feels that way to everyone who attends. And I feel like church is an is an antidote to loneliness if you engage with it fully. I mean, obviously people could come watch other people do things and go home and still be very lonely and not connect. But where in American culture can you find non-commercial relationships where there's no selling? It's not, I'm not only your friend because yeah, you might pay for something. Maybe neighborhood, you know, different organizations, civic organizations, but those are all seemingly in decline. And wow, I I think how blessed I am that I got to grow up in a church. And I feel like I've always been surrounded by a wealth of friendships.

Speaker 18:46

Yeah, the the the sociologist Putnam, you know, talked about third places, the new that those were what was disappearing in America. And I think what he meant by that is when you get outside of your your home or your work, like where else do you connect? Right. And those are you know, so I would I would I have and would make the argument as a therapist to people even uh totally apart from uh uh a religious basis that going to church is one of the easiest things that you can do for your mental health. Because it puts you in a environment where generally people are coming because they are pro-social and because they want to form connections. And there are there are often ethoses in churches, um not just Christian churches, but uh religious gatherings of all kinds where they are actually they actually feel called to connectivity. And then when you add in you know the claims of Christianity, for example, that really sees human beings made in the image of God from love and for love, and the value of learning to love each other, you also have a laboratory where you know you can actually have the chance to build connections and to work out um some commitments to each other and maybe some people that'll be there when you actually need them, someone that will know your name. If you're not gonna go to church, you really have to ask yourself the question, where am I gonna find that third place? Because you really do need it for happiness.

Speaker 1 20:09

Yeah, absolutely. No, in our church, we actually have people like there are multiple staff members that their job is to help others connect. Like literally, if you live in the southwest Michigan area, you come to our church and we will help you find friends, find people who would know your name. And uh that's critically important, right? So, so counting down these threats, you know, I think about these, the reason that they're hidden in plain sight is they're they feel pretty obvious once we mention them, but they don't seem potent the way that a threat of war or economic collapse or something might be. But I feel like the result would be just as devastating as something like that happening. It's just kind of slow motion and sort of personal. But at the end of the day, people end up living sad lives, pointless lives, hopeless lives. Um, so we have to meet these threats with some sort of truth, some sort of answer.

Speaker 21:04

Yeah, and I think I think it's really staggering just to step back and you know, I I know the happiness literature, you know, they've actually studied what gives people well-being and just gives you a great life. When you control for for any other factor, the common denominator in that, in terms of whether you're going to be happy or not, is the quality of your of your closest relationships. So people with close relationships have hope, they have well-being, regardless of how wealthy or poor, you know, the wealthy you are, how educated you are, where you live, any other factor, the quality of your life comes down to closest of your relationships. And here's the thing, Dan, you said it. This is a treatable condition, right? This is loneliness is something that actually can be overcome, but it can't be overcome by yourself.

Speaker 1 21:47

Yeah. These things kind of compound on each other too, because why would you be lonely? Well, part of the reason could be if you're looking at your phone 8.5 hours a day, you may not have a lot of close relationships for that very reason. Know, so some of these things we've untangled them together. It leads to threat number two, and that is the collapse of the family. I grew I was a teenager in the 1990s, and I feel like that was the narrative then. Like the American family's collapsing, and there's fatherlessness, and there's a lot of societal impact on that, and then crime statistics go up when the family goes down and th and now I feel like, well, that's still true, but we're now like two generations into that storyline, so it's not new anymore. Um, so we're seeing the fallout all over the place.

Speaker 22:34

Yeah, I mean, the fallout on on numbers of fronts. The fallout and just the permanence of family. So one of the reasons why there are fewer married households in America today is because, you know, marriages, a lot of marriages didn't make it. I mean, people split up, right? So you have that aspect. But you also just have the aspect, Dan, where people are marrying later and a lot less frequently than ever before in American history. This is the lowest recorded marriage rates in our history. People simply aren't getting married, and they're not having children at the same rates as they were either. The fertility rate is actually down below the replacement level, which it has fallen in many Western countries, industrialized countries. But even in the US here, it's down to uh I think 1.6, and you've got to have 2.1 for a replacement. All of that raises the specter of what's going on. Like, why aren't Americans wanting to reproduce?

Speaker 1 23:35

It's kind of heartbreaking as I think about the greatest joys I have in my life, and the hardest things I've done, I mean it's both sides, would be a result of my marriage and my kids. And I think, what would my life be if I took all that away? Well, I would have more time for myself, of course. And one of my kids said to me the other day, um, Dad, you would be so rich if we weren't here. You're right. That's totally true. Um but I wouldn't be rich in the things that matter when I just think about what actually makes me happy, what do I look forward to every day? Family is everything. I I don't know how so all of us are called to walk a different walk, carry different crosses, deal with different things. So I don't judge anybody else for how they have organized their lives this way. I would just say if you're holding back on family formation for, I don't know, economic reasons, or maybe you're just scared to get involved in a close relationship, my advice would be push toward it, not away from it, like a lean toward the yes, because we were built to be with other people. Even in the Garden of Eden, God looked at Adam and said, It is not good that Adam is alone, and then he created Eve. Think, well, uh wow, that that's true for all of us. We're supposed to be in community, we're supposed to be in neighborhood, we're supposed to be in family. You should wake up every day and people care about you, and you care about other people.

Speaker 25:05

Yeah, that's right. You know, you mentioned that we just talked about how loneliness is a driver of unhappiness. One of the places that you find the closest connection is in cov, you know, covenant life, committed life, a married life, family life. So certainly that speaks to our well-being. But I think there's a there's another experience that people have. You know, you mentioned the economy and there, you know, there are fears of the future. And really having children is a bet on the future. It's sort of a it's a it's sort of a hope barometer of a culture. And you've really got to start asking yourself some serious questions together when a whole culture begins to say we don't want to bet on the future enough to have kids. We don't want to take the risks, it's too expensive, it's too burdensome. And I know a lot of people are healing from maybe bad experiences of not being loved well by parents. Fatherlessness is at an epidemic, and uh, there's been a lot of uh betrayals and breaches and wounds that people carry, and they don't want to repeat that or be a part of that. But we I think we've got to say together uh as a culture that our future together and our ability to love each other well and to learn how to love and to share things together are worth a collective bet that saying yes to life in that way is better than saying yes to death, which is really what failing to reproduce is. It's like on a civilizational level, it is a primal level. It's wow, it's biological uh suicide.

Speaker 1 26:36

So all these things are related to an inner core, which I would say is threat number one. And if we could get threat number one solved, I feel like that would cascade out, like the ripple effect might start to heal and solve some of the things we've already talked about. And that is the threat of spiritual emptiness. I mean, think of it, even if you had all the other things lined up, uh, good family, great friends, your media life was in balance, you had strong education, you could still have an empty heart, an empty soul, and not even know why you're waking up in the morning. Spiritual purpose, I guess I would say, is what animates the rest of it, fills the rest of it with vision and allows you to power through the hard times. Because, like, obviously, you know, you say marriage is great. Yes, of course it is, but marriage is also really hard. And you go through moments when you struggle and you think, why did I make this decision? Why am I connected to this person? And then there's like spiritual values, spiritual vision that fill you back up with hope and help you power through. If you don't have that, you're gonna struggle a lot. So when you think about the people you counsel in your office, how does their spiritual life affect all the other things?

Speaker 27:54

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, you know, my wife will sometimes call me, she's not super great with computers, and she'll say, you know, my computer's not working again. And one of the one of the very first things that we always check is whether she's got it plugged in. Because because, you know, without without being connected, if the battery's dead or not without being connected to something that renews the source of energy, there's nothing else that we're gonna do that's gonna fix any of the problems. And I think of I think of kind of spiritual spirituality like that, Dan. I think of it like the like the source of our energy. And I think a lot of people are out having good lives, living well, that are not plugged in necessarily to a spiritual source, at least consciously. But I think a lot of the a lot of the energy that they're riding off of is derived from somewhere, somewhere along the line that was. Um, and I think when masses of us get disconnected from the story and the why behind what it what it is that we're all doing and why we're why we're doing it, we begin to lose energy and we begin to lose hope. And the things that animate everything else you know start to dry up. And I think this is the wisdom of Jesus, you know, who came and actually said that the inside of our lives is actually what animates the outside of our lives, or the root is what actually um produces the fruit. And he kept he kept directing people to a course correction that went below just their behaviors and the things that they were doing to uh their connection to something deeper in their hearts. The story of God and his love is the one that he is that God is love and he is the source of our being. And that we derive really all of our life energy from his love, and that we were made for his love, and that not being connected to it ultimately is being disconnected from the life source. And that's why I think that topic probably is your number one threat, the kind of the hidden threat, is that you know, we need constant renewals of life energy that come from somewhere and ultimately somewhere beyond ourself.

Speaker 1 30:06

Yeah, that you your life actually matters beyond how you feel today, beyond the things you're accumulating, beyond the country you live in, beyond the even the family you're part of. Like there's something bigger that you're made for. And if you miss that, if you're spiritually empty, if you don't have a relationship with God, then the rest of life there there is a sense of it kind of just doesn't add up.

Speaker 30:31

Yeah, and I mean I think that's the whole Christian understanding of you know, like a big word like sin really just means missing the mark or misdirecting your life. Yeah. And I think I think the reason that God wants us to reset or to repent from sin is because he wants us to find the target. You know, he wants us to be on target in our lives and not to misdirect our lives. That's his heart for behind it. And in that sense, I would say, wow, you know, you're never really going to find what it is that you're looking for disconnected from the love of God.

Speaker 1 31:05

Okay, so we try to end each podcast with what do we do now, or how do we make this personal for our lives? There are a few things. I mean, we've covered a lot of territory today, going through the five threats, and you could probably say cultivating a relationship with God is the number one thing that any one person could do, just even out of the mess that they might be in right now. If you say, Wow, everything's wrong with my life, where do I start? I would start with having a right relationship with God and seeking the wisdom of Jesus, the transformational power of Jesus, and letting that be your beginning. But on a practical level, I think there's things any of us could do to address some of these things. Not difficult, but just intentional. One that comes to mind as we were talking about loneliness and about the over-reliance on media for our daily entertainment would be calling people to eat together more often. I heard somebody say one time that shared meals are sacred moments. It's different if you meet somebody in your office for a quick connection versus if you invite them to lunch. And then it's different on another level if you invite them over for dinner at your house. Like there's when when we eat with people in personal environments, it's like a connection of peer-to-peer fellowship. And I think we could do with more of that in our culture, maybe even with people we disagree with, like to humanize them a little bit instead of hating on them or arguing on social media with them, invite them over for dinner and just talk about life. And that may kind of check mark multiple of these threats and reduce them a little bit.

Speaker 32:43

It's pretty remarkable to think that you could start a revolution by just reclaiming your dinner table. Yeah. But I mean, I really wonder if you're not right that it would check so many of the boxes of these threats to just start building that face-to-face kind of communion over a meal. And, you know, we all we have a lot of empty dinner tables in there.

Speaker 1 33:04

And if you really think your dinner table's not adequate, you McDonald's has a dinner table. Starbucks has a dinner table. There's lots of tables available. You just need to call the person and say, let's let's get together.

Speaker 33:14

Yeah. And I think that leads to maybe the second thing is just that we could start really being intentional about showing up in person. You know, I've already made a quite a case for, you know, why go to church, but there are a lot of other ways to show up in person. You know, you could show up face to face to coach your kids' team or to visit somebody next door, check on a neighbor to learn somebody's name. So I think ultimately um the solution to the loneliness epidemic is again looking into somebody's eyes and knowing their name one person at a time.

Speaker 1 33:47

Zoom meetings, would that count in person?

Speaker 33:50

You know, zoom Zoom meetings are better than uh than than no meetings. Okay. But you know, um I think whenever we can be physically present with each other, man, what a what a difference.

Speaker 1 34:02

The most disappointing Zoom experience I've had is that a supervisor I used to have would uh they named the monthly meeting the pizza party. And you like log in the Zoom and there was no pizza, no nobody even talked about pizza. That's that's come on, man. I want the give me the benefit here.

Speaker 34:20

That's uh that's almost cruel.

Speaker 1 34:22

Yeah, right. Okay, here's another practical thing we could do would be being more intentional if we have kids, um, to disciple them rather than letting the algorithms do it. Algorithms being the systems behind Instagram or Netflix or Disney channel or all the things that are kind of picking content and serving it up in front of us, those are oriented to make profit for the people who produce them. They're not oriented to make you happy or thrive. And so if we take that back and we say, you know, I'm gonna at least limit the time that those things, that the or the influence those have on my life and my kids' life, but also to find ways to be engaging, not on the screen.

Speaker 35:07

Yeah, I mean, I I wish I would have started this earlier when my kids were younger, because now we have to do it by request, but just the simple habit of everybody putting their phones away uh at dinner or when we're having a family kind of like gathering can just completely change the dynamic. So because you can't disciple anyone when they're looking at a phone. And it is, it is pretty, it is pretty disheartening even to be out at local restaurants and to see entire groups of people, including families, all sitting together looking down collectively at their phones.

Speaker 1 35:42

Yeah, it's actually an act of rebellion almost to shut it off, or at least put it in airplane mode so it can't bother you. So here's the last one that comes to my mind that kind of, I guess it connects to the being, you know, having a relationship with God above all else. But I would say going to church could be a prescription to meet any one of these threats. Church in itself, it's hit, it's hit or miss. If you visit churches, you know, some of them are great and some of them not so much. And it may, you know, that's great. There's there's something for everybody. But I think making that intentional move, especially if you're not used to it or feels uncomfortable for you, just push out and do it. I think that makes a difference. And I'm speaking as one who's had a lot of church experience in my life, and I still show up because I know I need it. I don't necessarily need the singing and the preaching. Like that's the headline, right? But I it's I really need the family it represents, the individuals that are there, the accountability, the friendship, the sense of mission together. And so if you don't have that in your life, jump on it. That's an amazing opportunity to connect with God and others and probably end up happier in the long run. Anything else, Del, before we wrap it up for today?

Speaker 36:52

Yeah, the last thing I was just thinking about all these things is that we were we were actually made to be more like a part of a tribe than we were to be made like an individual. I celebrate the dignity of every person and every individual, but trying to live your life alone is a recipe for uh for unhappiness and and oftentimes disaster. So I think all of these prescriptions in various ways help us to, you know, become part of something bigger than ourselves, which is what we are made for.

Speaker 1 37:24

Abundant is sponsored by Baryon.life and originates from Baryon Center Bible Church in Southwest Michigan. Special production thanks to Ben Sanders, Trevor Jones, and the whole BCBC team. Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation. Help share abundance. Subscribe wherever you listen, pass this episode on to one person who needs it, and visit us at abundant.show. Until next time, live abundantly.