TLP 427: Gospel Tech | Nathan & Anna Sutherland Interview, Part 1

And so the gospel of this idea of Ephesians 2, 1, that we're all dead in our sin, and that we're not passive in our deadness, this is like death warrant deadness, that leads us then to Ephesians 2, 4, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us.

The Gospel, Deadness in Sin, and Mercy in Christ

Welcome to Truth.

Love.

Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, A .M. Brewster.

Today we begin a four-part interview with Nathan and Anna Sutherland from the Gospel Tech Podcast. Now, this is significant for a number of reasons. First, we've never had a four-part interview come out back-to-back like this.

Second, you're not going to have to wait a week in between episodes. The next part we'll post during our regular Tuesday slot, the third episode on the following Saturday, and the final episode will land on Tuesday as usual.

The third reason this is significant is that I've wanted to have them on the show for a very long time because their topic is so massive and the way they deal with the issue is incredibly biblical and helpful.

And the fourth reason I'm so excited about this short series is that Nathan and Anna have offered the TLP audience an absolutely amazing resource at a tremendous discount. So for all of these reasons and more, let's get started.

Welcome to Truth.

Love.

Parent.

I'm your host, A .M. Brewster, and so far this year, I've introduced you to some of my favorite parenting podcasts that I personally regularly consume, and I love every single one of them. But I do have to admit that the podcast to which I'm going to introduce you today is my favorite so far.

I love the content. I love how biblical and applicable and practical it is. I love the energy and the chemistry between the hosts, which is good, you know, considering they're married. The whole thing's fantastic though.

So that's why we're going to spend the next four episodes hanging out with Nathan and Anna Sutherland from the Gospel Tech podcast. Guys, welcome to the show. You're awesome. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah, thank you so much for having us. We're really excited to be here.

Well, I really appreciate it, and I know this will be an awesome discussion for everybody. But before we discuss your podcast and the other resources and the things you do, we guys just take a moment, introduce us to your family, because you've got a growing family, and it's a pretty young family, if I remember correctly, right?

Yes.

We have been married going almost 15 years.

Okay.

All right.

So that's how long my wife and I have been married.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Here we are.

This next summer, we'll be 15 years.

Awesome.

And our oldest son is seven, and then we have a five-year-old, and we have an almost two-year-old little girl. So we're just starting the school years and still kind of have a baby, hanging on to the.

Babies.

Yeah, she's still there. Well, yeah, because that little one, I mean, she's been like one or something like that through all of this craziness, lockdowns and whatnot.

Oh, yeah. Yep.

Yes.

Yeah.

And here in the Northwest, that means she basically hasn't seen strangers for her entire life that she can recall. So it's fun to try to take her outside.

She steps in the grass, she's like, what is this?

You know? Yeah.

Well, I can't completely understand. My kids are, now I've forgotten, my kids are 13 and 11, and it's very different, you know? It's a very different scenario parenting those kids in this current climate than it is parenting your kids.

And so I've loved one of the things on your podcast is you guys just talking really frankly about what this is looking like for your family, the highs and the lows. So that's been pretty cool and no doubt a little challenging.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Navigating the school, everything with COVID and tech and all of it, I feel like, yeah, it's been a whirlwind for us and for everybody.

Yeah, which has been kind of a cool part.

Oh, go ahead.

Sorry.

No, no, please go ahead, because I was just going to bring up a sore spot, so I'll wait to do that.

I was just going to say it's been a cool spot being in this ministry, talking about, well, how do we love God? How do we use tech? And then to be running to just, I mean, this meat grinder of COVID and quarantine and school on computers and like everything in our life.

We're averaging something like 13 or 14 hours a day on screens between work and entertainment and communication with loved ones. And like all of that combined puts us in a spot where like, man, we need more than just like platitudes to give people.

Like, how do we practically make this viable and feasible for families that are living real lives? Like not just in some ivory tower where like theories will work well for them, but like they're raising kids in the trenches.

Like how can we make it so? It's been fun to also live that and then try to encourage families in that.

Educational if nothing else, for sure.

Yeah, sure.

Well, then the sore spot I was going to bring up was the fact that then you had to go and sell your TV, but you bought a new couch. So I mean, you had to go and do all of that craziness. So I'm sure that helped.

Oh, the hate mail.

I know. I do feel like COVID definitely just pushed it over the edge. Like it'd been a conversation coming for a long time and then you're just in your house all the time. And it was like, okay, here we go.

Rip the bandaid off and we're just going to do it.

It's been amazing.

That's awesome. I love it. I love it.

It is very much a dream come true.

It is.

It has not been easy. So if this is the first time you're hearing about this listeners, there's a whole episode dedicated to that where we don't need to use your guys's time for this. But yeah, it was a thing.

It's a real thing. It happened.

Yeah.

The hate mail was coming from Anna.

Yeah.

Just on my pillow every night.

Yeah.

We're acclimating. It's been okay. It's been better than I thought. And I'm happy with, I feel like it was a fair trade with it. I got to buy the couch.

You got the couch.

Exactly.

I got the couch. It worked out.

That's awesome.

Now, to be fair for the listeners, no, Anna and Nathan are not going to try to convince you that you need to get ready for TV. That was totally not the purpose of that, but hear them out. Don't judge them based completely off of that.

But you guys have a podcast, the Gospel Tech podcast, but it's not your only ministry, right? So you've got actually a lot going on these days. How about you just do us a favor, walk us through your family's journey from what you used to do back in the school teaching days to what you're currently doing?

Want to tackle that one?

Well, I'll start. We both were teachers. We both taught English, actually.

Which is awesome. I taught English.

Oh, yeah.

Great.

Hey, oh, look at these people.

Yes.

But putting our English degrees... Well, my English degree is getting put to good use, but it's a hard degree to use sometimes.

Yeah.

So we used to be teachers, and then when we had Owen, I started staying home. And then Nathan had a couple years in limbo of working part-time and trying to start this, our nonprofit Flint and Iron, where he would work from home in the mornings and then go teach in the afternoons.

And we did that for about three years. And then the last year was kind of like, nothing's... We're like, teaching's not going well, and the nonprofit isn't happening. Nothing can happen, because it was kind of like, we need to make a choice here of where we're going to be.

Yeah.

And that's very much been kind of the process for us, where we did not start out and go, you know what? Like, we have this amazing vision, we're going to make it happen. Like, we're just going to really go work and be very clear in this.

We started with working with Young Life, actually, as a ministry. And I was like, man, I love working with kids. Like, my passion actually isn't classroom teaching, it's seeing kids reach their potential.

So we started this nonprofit focused on sparking positive purpose in youth. And two years into that, I gave this five talks in one day all around the state of Washington. And driving home late that night, I was like, oh no, like, all I did was share like, Old Testament rules.

Like, they're all right. It was all about like, how do you make good choices? And like, how can you reach your potential is right, but there was no power in any of that, right? I was like, if I don't get a chance to share the gospel, at least in part of what I'm doing, I'm not going to be happy, like walking away from the classroom, because the classroom actually provides quite a few opportunities to speak gospel truth in a daily relationship with these kids.

You see them 180 days a year. And so meeting with the board, praying with Anna, we move forward with this idea of Gospel Tech. And so we are in the middle of what this was before COVID and quarantine, and everyone needed it.

And this idea of how do we love God and use tech. And so that's very much where we're in now. And those are kind of all of our ventures. We have an online workshop. We created a handbook, we have a podcast, we have social media.

And the idea is how do we equip and encourage families to fight for each other, not with each other when it comes to tech.

Yeah.

And I was listening to your most recent podcast episode, at least by the time we were recording today, about celebrating one year anniversary doing the podcast, which is awesome. Congratulations for that.

Thank you.

That's a huge milestone. How many episodes do you have out so far?

That would be, we have the full 52. So we had one a week.

There you go.

We didn't miss any. And I mean, a couple others like this, like we won't be publishing this on our site. So we've done some interviews and stuff, but 52 on our site and that doing one literally felt impossible when we sat down.

Yep.

The first one felt so hard and scary.

It took me two hours to realize you can't plug in two USB Yeti mics into the same computer. And I was like, why isn't it recording?

Yeah.

Well, now what you need to do is you need to reenact for us, because you talked about that. You know, you found that the two mics weren't working. And so you had to share a mic. You need to reenact that for us right now.

Go ahead and show us. What was it like?

It was literally, literally we'd be here and you'd like makeup and make eye contact and just like nose. And it was like so awkward. So I'm like, I'm married to this person. It shouldn't be uncomfortable.

And he's shouting, like he's shouting when he's excited and I'm like, you're one inch from my face.

And sweating.

Yes.

Like I just start sweating.

Yeah.

That's a lot.

Oh, that's awesome. I loved it. I love it. Yeah. Praise God. That is so awesome. And I love you guys that you have the, um, you're, you're, I know totally what got going through trying to start do, um, my, my, my words aren't coming to me, but trying to start a nonprofit, trying to make that decision.

You're trying to do both at the same time. I, uh, I left my previous, uh, previous ministry and I just jumped right into the nonprofit thing and we still are going through that process, getting our paperwork and whatnot.

So I totally understand what you're talking about, but God uses it to stretch us, you know, it's so good. And in fact, a lot of the content that we create, I think comes because of the difficulty in the journey.

What you were saying about, you know, I'm, I'm teaching principles that are really important for how to use tech, but in a way I'm just making more savvy centers, you know, unless we bring the gospel element into this.

What are we doing? Right. So yeah, I love that. It's beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's, that's well said.

Yes.

Savvy centers.

Savvy centers.

Yeah.

We don't want those. Now, before we answer a question that no doubt is gnawing on the minds of some of our listeners, I want to share that, like I kind of alluded to, I've been listening to Gospel Tech really for a while.

I was introduced to it almost exactly a year ago. You were on a podcast with Jared Lopes and the Dad Tired podcast. And that's where I heard you for the first time. And I loved it. And I deliberately went back and I listened to every single episode that I had missed and I've been keeping up with it as I've gone along.

Not only that though, not sure if you know this, but when it came time for my son to get his first phone and I listened to a lot of the stuff you guys were saying about, you know, the good ways of going about that.

And I've took pretty much all the advice you gave except for the fact that I went ahead and I did the iPhone and I stripped it down as much as possible. But I take, I listened to your warning, but then just threw out the window.

But anyway, that's all we can do.

Yeah.

That's all you can do. One of the responsibilities my son had upon getting his phone was that he needed to also listen to your podcast. And I know it may seem strange to you, it may seem strange to some of the listeners that I'm having my kids listening to what is a parenting podcast, but really it made all the sense in the world.

The Sutherlands are talking to parents, sure, but the passion and the clarity of each point makes the content so easily understandable. So my son and I have benefited greatly from the podcast. So now what I want to do is I want to talk about GospelTech in more detail.

I want to talk about what you guys talk about on the show. And I think the best place to start is with that gnawing question to which I alluded earlier. What on earth does the gospel, okay, we know what the gospel is, right?

What does it have to do with our family's technology? I mean, the Bible, there's a talk about that. I mean, how does all this work? And you've done a fantastic job of unpacking that on the show, and I'd love if you'd share some of those thoughts with us here.

Yeah, thank you. That's, first of all, it's awesome. Now, is your son the elder or the younger child?

Yeah, he's 13.

He's the 13. All right. So those, by the way, 13 year olds, those are my people. That's my eighth grade middle school teaching here. And that was very kind of you both to include me in being an English teacher.

I'm actually language arts. So that's great. You guys are, I'm like the C grade version. I appreciate that. Shout out to all my language arts teachers out there. But I think when we talk about the gospel, I think just as I'm certain your listeners know, that idea, like I really run this off this idea of, man, if we're not bringing hope into the conversation, the only thing we really have to run on is fear, right?

Like, here's all the bad stuff you need to go out and avoid. And that leads us more to control. And it leads us to kind of some unhealthy spots where we either think we're doing awesome and we now have self-righteousness, or we're so shame-filled by our mistakes that all we can really do is hide behind it, or even worse, take ownership and be like, no, it's just who I am.

And so the gospel of this idea of Ephesians 2 .1, right, that we're all dead in our sin and that we're not passive in our deadness. This is like death warrant deadness that leads us then to Ephesians 2 .4.

And the reason we have to look at that is that section ends in verse 2 .10 of Ephesians where it says,. And that's kind of those three in mind. If you don't know you have a problem, then you're not going to look for a savior.

And if you don't have a savior, then those good works you've been saved to do, you're not empowered to do them, right? We can fix our technology. We're really just shifting the chairs on the Titanic. The ship's still going the same direction.

And so when we talk gospel tech, how are those two related? Well, if I'm a new creation, like 2 Corinthians 5 .17 says I am, then that should feed directly into how I use my tech, where I go online, how I talk to people, how I repent when I make a mistake, because you're going to tweet something you regret, right?

You're going to search something that was not respectful.

Nobody does that.

Nobody does that. We've never seen it. But how do we repent? Like Christians, rather than trying to find excuses, and the gospel's really where we have to begin with that to understand that our time's not our own.

You don't have free time. You have borrowed time. It has been given to you. Your life is not your own, like it says out of Corinthians. And we want to drive that point home so that we can arrive in a spot of like, man, the most joy-filled place we can be in any use of our life, but our little niche is technology.

The most joy-filled place is following the will of God for our life, that we're not saved from the world, and now we go hide in a bunker, but we're saved for the world because we've been made into now ambassadors for Christ.

And so I think that's kind of the heartbeat behind gospel tech. Why does it have to be gospel? We get that a lot. Like, can't you just talk about good technology use? I'm like, honestly, there's some great resources.

If you just want kind of good advice on, I don't know, internet filters, like go use common sense media. It does a nice job of that. But at the end of the day, any kid who's hell-bent on making mistakes will make mistakes.

They can do it. They're smarter than us. Their friends are smarter than us, and they can get around it. And so the point isn't control our kids and fix them. They're not problems to fix, they're people to love.

And the gospel puts that in perspective, that we need Christ. We love our kids because Christ first loved us in parenting. It's really the first mission field we're given, and technology is a very apt area to reach those kids in.

The Gospel as the Foundation for Tech Use

Amen. Amen. Well, I agree 100%, obviously, it's so true. God not only cares very deeply about how we use our technology, but it's evident from Scripture that everything we believe, everything we desire, do, say, feel is directly tied to our relationship with the gospel.

We just finished up a series called The Biggest Parenting Challenges You Will Ever Face, and we talked a lot about how your family's tech usage is either going to display the gospel in your life, or it's going to be used to perpetuate the false gospel of self-sufficiency.

Now for you listeners, over the next three episodes, Nathan and Anna and I are going to get more and more and more practical concerning how your family can determine if your tech usage is glorifying to God.

If you realize that it's not, how you can perform a tech reset, and then also how to create a family tech framework, as well as how to capitalize on analog adventures and so much more. So, at the end of it all, we're going to share with you a resource, yeah, just so much to.

Talk about.

There's so many things.

We're going to share with you guys a resource that will help your family's tech usage please the Lord. But I think the best place to end our discussion today is with this question, is all tech created equal?

Now, let me clarify this a little bit. So we're desiring to glorify God, whether we eat or drink or interact with a screen. And I'm sure many people may be wondering a couple of things. Number one, can all tech be used to glorify God, or is it possible that there is some tech that will never please Him?

And then the second part of this is, if there's tech that can glorify God, will it all be used the same way, or does it fall into different categories?

Whether All Technology Is Created Equal

Oh, good question.

Great question. Do you want to start us off on that?

Yes.

Okay.

There's a lot.

So much.

When we talk about tech, we talk about there being kind of two main camps, tool tech and drool tech are how we define it. So not necessarily that one is good and one is bad, but that they're very different types.

So tool tech is something where we, as the user, are creating something, right? So what would be an example of our tool tech?

I think some, I mean, so the idea would be like this microphone I'm speaking into, right? It doesn't do anything unless we're speaking into it.

Right.

That would be tool tech. It operates at the pace of real life. It's operating because of my goals and my abilities and

It's not beckoning me. I love the example Tristan Harris gives of the bicycle

From the Center for Humane Health.

Yes. Yes.

And he's in the Social Dilemma.

Or Humane Tech.

Humane Tech.

Humane Health.

He's the main guy who's speaking on the Social Dilemma, but he talks about like the bicycle is a tool and it's a wonderful tool to get me from point A to point B, but when I'm done using my bicycle, it's not calling to me from where I left it to come ride it.

It's not like that tap tap on my shoulder, like, hey, come take me for a spin. It's just when I need it, it's available for me and then I can use it how it best suits. So I think when we're thinking about tool tech, that's kind of that first chunk.

I'm the user and I'm in control of what's happening.

Yeah.

And then the flip side of that

That includes like Zoom and our laptops can be tool tech, but they could also be the drill tech, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's the humdinger, right? So this tool tech and drill tech came out of our conversation of like, man, I met right before gospel tech was not a thing yet. I hadn't even really started Flint and Iron.

I met in the school district I taught in with the head of technology at the time. And I was like, hey, I've got this kind of idea before it was gospel center. And I was like, we're going down this road.

And he was livid. I did not realize we were in the middle of like a one-to-one rollout and I was poking a very big red button. And it did not go well. It was two and a half hours and my principal was in the meeting and he walked away and he's like, what did you do to that guy?

I was like, I don't know, like I didn't mean it. But the idea was

But I did mean it.

But I did mean it.

And I just didn't realize.

I didn't realize what I was saying. But the idea was his takeaway was, man, you're so 2007, you just need to get with the times. Tech is here to stay. And I was like, man, like, that's crazy. That's what you're hearing me say, because that's not what I mean.

But tool tech, this idea that we can use technology to build, drool tech, we use technology to consume. It's not bad. But there's really two aspects of this. One is sometimes it's nearly indistinguishable.

So when I was teaching, I had an online platform to teach from. And I'd say, all right, kids, open it up, go to this folder, open to build a fire, right? Jack London talking about a guy freezing to death in the Yukon, spoiler alert.

And right next to that PDF file is Minecraft on these school computers. Well, your average 14-year-old eighth grade boy specifically in my group, maybe girls also have this, but for me, it was boys, has a really hard time choosing Jack London freezing to death story versus Minecraft.

And those two, right, reading a story and processing your own thoughts at a rate of real life is very different from building at a pace that reality can never compete with with goals set for you artificially by a trillion dollar company.

Like those are two very different forms of engagement digitally. And so what we found is the research is basically that on average, teens right now are engaging in eight plus hours a day of drool tech specifically.

This is not them being on Zoom calls, it's not writing papers, this isn't doing research. But starting at two hours a day, the likelihood of depression, and actually the research from 2017 was depression and suicidal ideations, was starting at two hours, it goes up 20%.

And by five hours a day, it goes up 66%. And we're averaging eight hours a day. And they were wondering why our kids are stressed out, anxious, looking for answers in all the wrong places, and wondering why they're coming up void, right?

Why they're coming up empty. And so that's really when we have this conversation, we're not anti drool tech, we just need to really take an assessment like, is this tool or drool tech? Like, yeah, it's a laptop.

But am I using it for Minecraft? Or am I using it right? Am I watching YouTube while I'm trying to do my homework? And is that YouTube like Khan Academy? Or is it just my favorite YouTube personality?

And these aren't cohesive towards the actual goals that I have in life and what I'm being called to do. So that's kind of the way we break that down.

So the answer to the question then is, yes, tech can definitely glorify God, for sure. However, we can use tool tech the wrong way, we can use drool tech the wrong way. It's not about one or the other being okay.

It's a question of how do we then take the gospel and apply it to these different types of tech in a way that glorifies God? Ultimately, then, that has to be our question.

Yeah, I want to jump in on that, because I did forget that part B you asked. I would say there's no technology. I mean, obviously, if it passes some kind of moral boundary, I don't know how deep you want to go on this.

But there are technologies out there that are morally wrong technologies. And I'll just say specifically in the area of pornography and sexual kind of distraction, there are technologies coming out where people are basically saying like, well, they don't hurt anybody.

So we're going to go this. And we would say those are morally wrong technologies. So just to make sure that there is a disclaimer. Everything else, if it's not morally wrong, I think we do have to be intentional about prayerfully listening to the Holy Spirit, remembering it's not our time, and then listen to the people around us.

Because there are tool tech, workaholism is a thing, like we're trying to find our identity in our job. So sure, you're using tool tech, but you're using it as a supplement for God's place in your heart.

And you're trying to put that on the throne of your heart, and it's not going to work. And so I think just recognizing why are we using this? How are we doing that? And is there an area we need to repent?

Because for some of us, actually, some people listening to this right now might have already started forming excuses in their heads for why this technology isn't a problem and how other people do worse stuff.

And I would just challenge you that you may not be arguing with Nathan, you may be arguing with the Holy Spirit on that. So just be prayerful. I don't know what it is in your life.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm not making excuses.

Yeah, guys, just a minute. I'll get right back to you.

Shut up. Shut up, Nathan. I don't know what you're talking about.

Writing hate mail to Nathan right now.

Amen.

Exactly. Amen and amen and amen. Now, I'm going to give you listeners more details about this in an upcoming episode, but Nathan and Anna have been so gracious enough to extend a special discount to the Truth Love Parent listeners.

They have a resource that's going to help you and your family create a plan for Christ-honoring, Gospel-centered tech use in your home. It's called the Gospel Tech Online Workshop, and if you follow the link in today's episode, you can learn all about it as well as enjoy a 50 discount off of the workshop.

Now, like I said, Nathan and Anna and I will be talking more about this resource over the course of our next few interviews, so be sure to join us for each of those conversations. Also, if you have not subscribed to Gospel Tech, I highly recommend you do that.

Whether you start at the beginning like I did or just jump in with their newest episodes, you will be blessed. They've got a ton of awesome ideas for the second year of podcasting. And many parents are struggling, really, just with the best approach to technology.

Maybe it's because of COVID. Maybe it's just because you didn't really grow up with it yourself, kind of like Nathan and Anna and I did. Technology was just like starting to become a thing, but God's Word is timeless, and it's relevant, and it's practical, and it has the answers.