Friday, Feb 21 – Thursday, Feb 27, 2014
Week #9 Synopsis
- Vacation in Florida @ Disney World
source YouTube
Week in Review #9
Is Porn Harmless, or Is It Damaging Lives?
From the UK, a former editor for Britian’s version of Maxim magazine, called “Loaded” discusses his conclusion that pornography is “the most pernicious threat facing children today.”
I asked the teenagers: ‘On a scale of one to ten, how likely would you say it is that boys and girls your age are watching porn online?’
The reply was a chorus of tens, nines and one eight.
When I asked the children if there were parental controls on the internet at home, they all said no, their parents trusted them. They all admitted their parents had no idea what they were watching, and would be shocked if they did know.
Martin Daubney was involved in the making of a documentary called “Porn on the Brain.”
What I saw during the making of the film changed my opinion of pornography forever.
The true stories of boys I met whose lives had been totally taken over by porn not only moved me to tears but also made me incredibly angry that this is happening to our children.
And the looks of revulsion on those poor girl’s faces in the playground enraged me.
I feel as if an entire generation’s sexuality has been hijacked by grotesque online porn.
After seeing some definitive research on pornography and addiction, Daubney quips:
If porn does have the insidious power to be addictive, then letting our children consume it freely via the internet is like leaving heroin lying around the house, or handing out vodka at the school gates.
And this toxic effect is filtering down directly into young girls’ lives.
The article is well worth the read. But it is shocking…
photo via flicker @BlockSim
Week in Review #8
Friday, Feb 14 – Thursday, Feb 20, 2014
Week #8 Synopsis
- Technology conversations
- Sledding
- Followers
- Purity 2.0
- and Barnebirkie
source YouTube
The world has changed.
16 billion texts? 3.2 hours on social networks? Send 175 million tweets?
Wow.
The world has changed.
It wasn’t that long ago that smartphones were mostly in the hands of business professionals with Bluetooth earpieces walking through an airport. Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile OS ruled these devices. Now, it seems, almost every cellular device marketed is a smartphone. Average consumers, professionals, even children and teenagers have these devices.
In 2007, Apple wowed the world with the iPhone. That was less than 7 years ago. Think about it. The ability to send 16 billion texts is greatly enhanced with a Qwerty keypad instead of a 10-digit keypad where you used to have to press the #2 three times to get the letter C to display. Facebook’s catastrophic growth, current focus on mobile, and large ad revenue is from these little (and more and more often, large), plastic-lined network communicators. Twitter can thank these mobile kiosks for its meteoric rise as well. When’s the last time you tweeted from a desktop or laptop computer?
The world has changed.
My daughter was born in 2007. She will grow up in a world where video calling someone has always been a possibility, where computers and screens will constantly be vying for her attention and stares, and real human connection will seemingly be trumped by sharing real-life experiences on an online bulletin board for whoever isn’t with you to see.
The world has indeed changed.
How are we going to interact with this new world? How will the billions and billions of screens either help or hurt humanity? More pressing for me personally: How will my kids turn out in a world seemingly ruled by texts, tweets, likes, apps, and pictures?
Hmmm…
Week in Review #7
Friday, Feb 7 – Thursday, Feb 13, 2014
Week #7 Synopsis
- Sermon
- Retreat in the WI Dells
- Youth group story in Mark’s Gospel
- Jump Rope for Heart
- and playground city vision
source YouTube
Week in Review #6
Friday, Jan 31 – Thursday, Feb 6, 2014
Week #6 Synopsis
- High school retreat
- Story of Elijah in Main Street
- Followers and insults sticking
- and sermon preparation for the 5th installment of the series: Embracing the Story:Jesus
source YouTube
Week in Review #5
Friday, Jan 24 – Thursday, Jan 30, 2014
Week #5 Synopsis
- Nerf war
- a divided kingdom in Main Street
- Polar Vortex strikes again (no school days)
- an Eagle Brook visit and a snowstorm
- and a couple of hospital visits
source YouTube
Week in Review #4
Friday, Jan 17 – Thursday, Jan 23, 2014
Week #4 Synopsis
- Mark Jalovick’s visit
- Solomon Builds the Temple in Main Street
- Followers reconvenes
- and the Rock Wall becomes a reality
source YouTube
Week in Review #2
I didn’t have time on Thursday to video my weekly reflection, so I took a few minutes on Friday to get it done. I happened to be in my car on the way to a coffee shop to work on some Wesleyan Kids content for the new year. I didn’t want to talk into my iPad in the coffee shop, so I did it in the car.
So here I go… my second Week in Review
Friday, January 10, 2014
source YouTube
Week in Review #1
I want to take more time in this new year (2014) for reflection. I know reflection is good and I do it often informally in my own head as well as talking out loud with others, but I wanted to try a different, more formalized and regular medium. So I’m going to try, at the end of every week, which for me is Thursdays, to take a video-based reflection on the preceding week.
This might start out kind of jilted as it is awkward for me to talk to a camera and a screen, but hopefully will get better over time.
So here I go… my first Week in Review
Thursday, January 2, 2014
source YouTube
Paul and Empire
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“[The Apostle Paul’s] missionary work, it appears, must be conceived not simply in terms of a traveling evangelist offering people a new religious experience, but of an ambassador for a king-in-waiting, establishing cells of people loyal to this new king, and ordering their lives according to his story, his symbols, and his praxis, and their minds according to his truth.”
N.T. Wright in Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire
Conversations in Technology Consumption
This morning, Pastor Heath and I hosted an hour-long (turned into an hour and a half) conversation regarding wisdom and the use of technology and parenting. It was enlightening for all of us. Some things were brought up that I had not considered and some things were uncovered that some parents hadn’t considered.
Here are some highlights from today’s conversation:
- People focus on their technology (i.e. iPhone) rather than just living life… or life is lived through what can be captured on a mobile device.
- Using a smartphone tends to take away from life… a lot of “life” gets missed by only the idolization of the device.
- Any downtime in a conversation, the phone/tech is pulled out. If something is boring people check out and start looking on their device. Pauses in a conversation can lead to amazing breakthroughs… conversations loses continuity when pauses are taken up with something else.
- Cell phones (even further with the use of smartphones) have led to a lack of planning ahead. Because one can change the schedule on the fly via texts and phones messages, students (even parents) don’t need to have a pre-planned.
- It seems people have a love/hate relationship with technology. One minute we love what it can do, and often the next minute we hate the dependence (or something else) on it.
The working metaphor was of a loaded gun. With every gun comes a safety and that safety is located and taught to the user before it is handed to them. A parent wouldn’t hand their son or daughter a loaded gun without some safety training and guidance. Like a loaded gun, what does “safety training” look like when a young person is handed an internet-connected device (i.e. iPhone, tablet, laptop, Droid, etc)? Do we even think about safeties for these type of things?