148 | Andy Crouch - The Tech-Wise Family

 

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Andy Crouch

 

Andy is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, which works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His two most recent books--2017's The Tech-Wise Family and 2016's Strong and Weak--build on the compelling vision of faith, culture, and the image of God laid out in his previous books, Playing God and Culture Making.

Andy serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. For more than ten years he was an editor and producer at Christianity Today, including serving as executive editor from 2012 to 2016. He served the John Templeton Foundation in 2017 as senior strategist for communication. His work and writing have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing--and, most importantly, received a shout-out in Lecrae's 2014 single "Non-Fiction." He lives with his family in Pennsylvania

 

Conversation Notes:

 

• 1:16 - Andy Crouch - Author of The Tech-Wise Family & co-author of My Tech-Wise Life with his daughter. 
• 1:36 - Check out dadawesome.org/give for ways to support dadAWESOME.
• 2:59 - Introduction to Andy’s family 
• 5:03 - What are some of the components that lead to a family that is flourishing? 
  • Authority
  • Vulnerability
  • Discussing parenting literature about parenting with a balance of warmth and firmness. 
• 6:54 - The authority and vulnerability paradox. Authority - capacity for meaningful action, the ability to do something and have it really matter in the world. Vulnerability is exposure to meaningful risk.
• 7:17 - “I think that our best moments as families, our best moments as parents but also kids’ best moments, are when we are given the capacity for meaningful action in some way. That is, we have some ability to have something matter that we do, AND we are exposed to meaningful risk - that is, it could go wrong and we could lose something.”
• 9:27 - Discussing the process of writing a book with his daughter.  
• 11:45 - “Before they hit [adolescence], they're transparent in a way [that] we know what they're feeling, we know what they're thinking, and we usually know why. But then there's this important thing that happens in adolescence which is detaching from that transparency, in a way. Hopefully without secrets.”
• 12:20 - Jeff’s perspective on the book: (1) Andy continually pointed his daughter back to scripture. (2) It wasn’t just about technology, it was about connecting with his daughter’s heart. 
• 14:08 - “The reality is tech is about the heart because so much of our relationships now are mediated and...especially as your kids hit adolescence... you really have to pay attention to the way that technology, and really specifically media, shrink the channel for relationship.”  
• 16:02 - “The first way in which this is really about the heart, is our heart is ultimately about Who knows me? Who loves me? Am I known by someone and does that person once they know me, do they love me? Do they still love me... once someone really sees who I am? And you know the biggest way tech fails is on on question number one: Does anyone know me?”
• 17:19 - “So many of our relationships get channeled through these media that really are not sufficient for deep real relationship, and we really have to pay attention as our kids get older as to how we help them navigate that.”
• 17:43 - Phrase from Tech-Wise Family:  Technology makes things “easy everywhere.” 
• 18:50 - “There are good things about this (easy everywhere), but they aren’t good for our heart because we don’t grow when things are easy.”
• 19:57 - “So much of our lives has become so easy, and easy is always an option, that we never actually experience what it's like to grow through difficulty, to grow through adversity. And yet, that's what actually makes us into the kind of people who can have deep relationships and who have... hearts to offer the world.”
• 21:15  - Being creators versus consumers.
• 21:45 - “I believe this goes all the way down to who we are in the image of god and that we are meant to cultivate and create in the world that's our that is our purpose as human beings uh representing the one who created the whole world.” 
• 22:13 - Connection between consumer culture and the story of the garden of Eden.
• 23:20 - “And the message that we all get now is you're defined by what you consume rather than defined by what you create.” 
• 24:35 - Coaching from Andy around family rhythms and developing a “creating” culture in our homes and with our kids. 
• 24:45 - Definition of Culture - patterns that reflect underlying values. The strongest cultural patterns are those that everybody does. Build your culture and things you all do together. 
• 28:07 - Build a culture on rhythms of use and non-use and a rhythm of work and rest - Sabbath.
• 29:07 - Screens disrupt sleep and screens allow secrets. 
• 30:53 - How he set up his house to facilitate the family culture 
• 32:15 - “How you design your space makes a big difference about what are you inclined to do together? Will you turn something on and start consuming or do you actually pick something up and start creating?”
• 33:24 - Hope and encouragement for the dad who feels like he’s messed up. “You are not going to get through this without the two elements of trust: Rupture and Repair. 
• 35:45 - “You have got to realize that a limitless world is terrible for human beings and so you have to be willing as the authority in the home to re-establish limits that may never have had.” 
• 38:55 - Andy’s prayer for dads.

 

Conversation Links:

 

• andy-crouch.com
• Andy's Podcast
• My Tech-Wise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices
• The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place
• Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing
• Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
• Giving to dadAWESOME