Apr 28, 2022
“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.”
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Andy Crouch
Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organization that works as
a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His writing
explores faith, culture, and the image of God in the domains of
technology, power, leadership, and the arts. He is the author of
five books (plus another with his daughter, Amy
Crouch): The Life We're
Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological
World (forthcoming from Convergent in April
2022), 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, Playing
God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, and Culture
Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.
Andy serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological
Seminary and InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship. He also serves as an advisor to The Repentance
Project, The
Pelican Project, and Revoice. 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."
From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief
of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an
emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten
years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship at Harvard University. He studied classics at Cornell
University and received an M.Div. summa cum
laude from Boston University School of Theology. A
classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz,
and gospel, he has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to
20,000. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania.
Ministry Shout Out!
- Intentional - https://www.intentionalparents.org/
- "Intentional exists to equip people throughout the world in
their desire to become passionate Jesus followers to pass on who
they become through their own life, leadership, marriage,
parenting, and family for generations to come"
- The Intentional Film Series -- For quite some
time it has been the dream of the Intentional Parents team to be
able to invite anyone and everyone to learn how to raise the next
generation of passionate Jesus followers. Though none of us claim
to know it all— not even close!— this message has been the
heartbeat of Phil and Diane’s calling for over four decades.
Starting with very little understanding of how to pass a vibrant,
compelling faith on to their children, they’ve now spent the better
part of their lives listening, learning, researching, studying, and
practicing what they teach in this series. https://www.intentionalparents.org/film-series
Show Notes:
- 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
and 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.
Links from Andy Crouch:
Links from dadAWESOME