7 Days to Dethrone Social Media in Your Children’s LivesSample

Redirect Worship

Social media is incredibly powerful because of its ability to attract an incredible amount of attention from billions of people. We shouldn’t treat social media lightly. It is not child’s play. It is no longer some new technology that “teens are addicted to.” Social media is no longer a “student ministry issue.” It is an all-of-us issue. Social media can easily lead us to worship ourselves or the wider world that God created. It does not easily lead us into a more intimate relationship with God, though it can be used to do that if used intentionally. What do we do if we see social media leading our teens to worship themselves or something else rather than God?

1) Point them to the finished work of Jesus.

In whatever ways social media may be warping the worship of your kids, you must lead them to find their hope in the finished work of Christ and the promised future we have with Him. Our hope amid whatever we see and experience in the world, by the grace of God, is rooted in the unshakable finished work and future promises of Christ, not the derivative works of a broken creation. We do not hope in social media influencers. We do not hope in some utopian vision of the future of the internet. We do not hope in personal fame. We hope only in the finished work and promises of Christ. In this we can rejoice. What an amazing grace it is to be able to cling to both the past and the future when the present can feel so precarious.

2) Encourage worship in everyday life.

There is truly nothing that can supplant the importance of regular prayer and Bible reading in the life of the Christian. No Christian who only attempts to commune with God on Sunday mornings can expect to faithfully walk the narrow road of the Christian life. If we have any hope to have intimacy with God, we need to spend time with Him often, even if the amount of time is not substantial. You likely understand this if you’re reading this book, but are you doing it? Likewise, are you leading your kids to do it?

This study was taken from the book The Wolf in Their Pockets: 13 Ways the Social Internet Threatens the People You Lead by: Chris Martin. Click here to purchase a copy and continue learning how to shepherd the people you lead.