Hi Parents,
On June 16th I am preaching and we have the youth staying in the service and presenting a really powerful drama. This drama is about the things that temps and lead us away (especially young people) from Jesus. As I have talked with parents around this issue, one thing has become particular clear as a big and current issue related to this: SCREENS.
Screens don’t seem on the surface to have a strong ethical component to them, though any parent knows how addictions to screens impacts the home environment. Attached to this are my notes (if you’ve only got 2 minutes) from a podcast on how screens are being deliberately used to turn children into puppets to be taken advantage of. Its subtle. On June 16th I will address this in my sermon, but this Sunday in youth I will be asking our youth if we can agree to not even take our phones out when we step into the church so that we can be present for each other and for God. Sounds a little trite when I put it like that, but if you listen to the [podcast here](https://lukenorsworthy.com/2018/01/15/max-stossel-time-well-spent/), you’ll see that this is a wide open door for Satan.
This is a tricky issue, as our teens have already, to varying degrees, become addicted (yes, screens are doing exactly the same thing with dopamine in our brains as drugs), and so as parents, just taking screens away will likely not work and make you super unpopular. I’ll be introducing some things on June 16th so that we can help our youth take ownership over the enterprise of being present in this world, and not the virtual escapism that is now normal.
Hamilton McNicol
Generations pastor