Filtering the Internet [Part 1]

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In the past week I've had several conversations around filtering the internet for families.

As I've reflected on this over the years, I think there are two key issues to the conversation. The first part is how do we prevent children, students, adults, ourselves... from seeing what we do not want to see online. The reality to this part of the conversation is that we can all see what we want to see if we circumvent the filters, which is really not that hard to do. However filters provide a form of safety and offer a level of accountability.

Filters are like a locked door in some ways - a locked door tells an honest person that you're not home, but doesn't prevent a dishonest person from gaining entry to your home.  Make sense?

As a starting point to read this article from Google.  Google and Google Images is where a lot of children / adults might start to search for porn online: http://www.google.ca/goodtoknow/familysafety/

In terms of filtering options, here are some:

http://www.covenanteyes.com

This is a Christian organization which provides both accountability and filtering. There is a monthly / annual fee for each and a package which includes both. The software has apps for both Mac / Windows as well as all mobile devices. The upside of this option is that your decices are filtered inside and outside of your home.

http://x3watch.com

X3 offers both paid and free versions of its software. The free version falls only into the category of accountability / monitoring and is not a filter. The paid version offers both. The software has apps for both Mac / Windows as well as all mobile devices.

http://www.x3pure.com

For those who struggle with online additions, this is a training course offered by the same folks as X3Watch. 

http://www.opendns.com

Unlike the device based software, Open DNS filters the internet at the router rather than the device. This is different in two ways - one positive and one negative. The positive is that Open DNS filters all devices on your network and there is not software to install per device. This makes it harder to tamper with. The negative is that once a device leaves your network and goes to another internet connection [a phone taken to work or school] the filtering is no longer in place.  Open DNS is Free.

http://kidoz.net

Kido'z is a different option, it is not a filter, it's a whole new internet access option targeted at roughly 0-7 year olds. Kido'z is a alternative browser which provides pre-screened content. Instead of giving children access to the whole internet, this browser gives children access in a fun way to pre-selected content. One of the highlights of this is a pre-screened video collection instead of YouTube.

At our house we use the free version of x3watch. We use Open DNS and have Google Images added to our black list of website addresses. We also use Kido'z as a browser for our younger children. We choose to block Google Images.

Remember this part 1 of this article. Part 2 will be a few days from now; in that I'll talk about how to parent our children towards discernment.

Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

Sometimes we forget to say thank you. 

When I was a student at Crandall University (Atlantic Baptist University) one of the classes I was enrolled in was Old Testament Survey with Dr. Stephen Dempster. Dr. Dempster later became the person who introduced me to the study of the biblical canon and then became my honors thesis supervisor on that topic. It was through Dr. Dempster that I was first introduced to the study of Biblical Theology as a means of understanding the Bible.

In those fall 1995 classes as I began at Crandall, I can distinctly remember learning about God's promise to send Jesus in Genesis 3:15. I remember being amazed that God revealed hundreds of years in advance how he would redeem the humanity and defeat Satan and Sin. 

Many years later, my absolute love of studying the OT to find Jesus has grown exponentially. As I read our NMBC Advent Bible reading today, I thought back to those classes and the investment Dr. Dempster made in my life and the lives of many others. Today, as I taught nearly 100 children about the promise of God to send Jesus in Genesis 3, I was thankful for the understanding of scripture being One Big Story that I began to have back in 1995 under the teaching of Dr. Dempster.

Praise God for his incredible promise and for the calling to pass the biblical story from generation to generation. 

Worth a Look

What is the Gospel? - What's in the Bible?

• "From Jesus' return to Jerusalem through his death and resurrection, they show the important events of Holy Week, why Jesus died for our sin, and what it means to us that he rose again.”

4 Reasons to Teach the Bible’s Storyline

• “Why is it so important for Christians to be able to connect the dots of the Bible’s grand narrative?” 

The Secret of Superman

• “If you you want to change the way kids and teenagers see this world, then make sure you give them stories over time."

6 Changes in Children’s Media Viewing Habits

• “A recent report reveals children’s use of mobile devices and mobile apps has jumped dramatically in the past two years, doubling and tripling in some cases."

Parents, Require Obedience of Your Children [John Piper]

• “I am writing this to plead with Christian parents to require obedience of their children. I am moved to write this by watching young children pay no attention to their parents’ requests, with no consequences."

The Bible App for Kids!

• “Be the first to know when the Bible App for Kids is ready to download.”

What's in the Bible? on Vimeo!

•  "With an all new cast of characters, flashy animation, and catchy show-tunes, this 13-volume journey through the Bible helps families understand how all the stories in the Bible fit together to explain God's great rescue plan." Videos are now available to rent or download from Vimeo OnDemand.

On Vacation - Plans, Decisions, Goals

As of this morning I am on vacation! This is the longest vacation I've taken - a full month from June 28 until July 28.

Vacation Plans
This year for vacation we are spending time with Sharalyn's family at the annual MacDonald Family retreat; we are heading to both Camp Peniel and Mt. Traber Bible Camp as a family for a week each [I'm the speaker, several of our kids are campers], and we are spending about 10 days at home with no plans until each morning when we wake up. For me, spontaneous is a bit of a stretch from my normal life, but it is a part of vacation. [Planned spontaneity is about as close as I come to being laid back!]

Vacation Decisions
I'm not always [ever?] good at turning off my working mind when I'm on vacation. Summer in ministry at church is a time when so much is going on, it can be hard for me to disengage.  I've made a few decisions to help, you [yeah, everyone] can hold me accountable to them.

• Sharalyn and I have turned off wifi and cellular data on our iphones.  This means that for the month of vacation, our phones can not pickup email, facebook, twitter, etc. It also means a few disadvantages like no Google Maps, but that's a trade off.
• I will check email only once a day. I know, it seems like never would be better, but lets face it - there's a lot going on with VBC, Tidal Impact, Oasis Kids, and children / youth ministry at NMBC and being completely out of touch isn't really realistic. I will check email each day after we put our kids into bed each night and will only send new emails that I absolutely have to send, and only reply to things which are urgent.

Vacation Goals

Taking a vacation for some people means choosing to take a break from goals - you all know me, I'm too much of a structure person for that.  Here are the goals I have for the next month, in no particular order.

• Four weeks = four books. I have four books that I want to read, one is fiction, one is about parenting, and two are about living out my faith in Jesus. I may blog about them as I finish them, but I'm not sure yet. Week one has to be fiction, need to change how my mind works for a little while.
• Four weeks = four books of the Bible. Each week I have a different book of the Bible I intend to read through and savor. Although my choices could change, at the moment they are: Ecclesiastes, Jonah, 1 Timothy, 1 Peter.
• Sleeping. It's sort of funny to list this as a goal, but the reality is that I'm not good at it.  I seldom sleep more than 6 hours in a row, and rarely more than 7. My goal is to be in bed by 10pm almost every night and up by 6am almost every morning. 
• Walking. I'm not a person who gets enough exercise.  My goal for vacation is to go for a 30 minute walk almost every day.
• Conversation. There are 7 children in our family.  Some parents who have less children can have individual / deep conversations with each of their children every day.  The reality is that in our non-vacation life, this just doesn't happen.  We spend a lot of family time together, but individual time isn't always in abundance.  My goal is to have [at minimum] 30 minutes one-on-one time with a different child each day - one day per child each week of vacation.
• Electronics Fast. I'm a technology enthusiast [my wife might say addict]. In some part its related to my work, in other parts, it's a hobby, sometimes perhaps Sharalyn might be right.  For vacation, I am taking a semi-fast from technology.  Other than once-a-day email and facebook messages to stay in touch with the urgent, I will not be posting online, or using other forms of technology [video games, Netflix  television, movies] very often. Rainy days might be an exception. As a part of this fast, the four books I intend to read are paper books [What?!] instead of Kindle books.

There you have it. I'm sure other plans will happen, I'm certain that I will falter in my decisions occasionally, and I may not achieve all of my goals. However, in some strange way, by posting them here on my blog, I feel somewhat accountable for them. At the end of my vacation I'll post an update about how it all went. 

Pray for me and for my family; it's been a long season in ministry, school and family life for us all, and we are all drained in different ways. Vacation is a great time to recharge our energy, our relationships and our spiritual lives. Pray that God will help us in each of those areas.

My Way... Another Way?

Love... "It does not insist on its own way..." (1 Corinthians 13:5 ESV)

Sadly this time I can't write about something I am good at. Let me tell you a story:

Imagine that there are two people who are married. Imagine that one of them is highly structured and one of them is not. Imagine that one of them thrives on systems and the other is less concerned about such things. Imagine that the person who is not structure focused decides to do something around the house. Now imagine that the structured person believes they have a better / more efficient way to accomplish that same something. What should they do? Is their way actually better? Does it really matter if it is? Is anything gained for the family by them pointing out the 'better' way? Can the 'better' way be suggested in love?

Love... "It does not insist on its own way..." (1 Corinthians 13:5 ESV)

This isn't one of those verses I am good at ... Not something I can ignore or check off my list. I am still learning.

Taking Responsibility

Over the past few weeks in the children's ministry at New Minas Baptist we have been teaching how Jesus intentionally revealed to his disciples who he is and what he had come to do - he intentionally showed them that he is the Promised King [Palm Sunday], that he had humbled himself to come and serve humanity [foot washing], and that he would soon humble himself even further and allow himself to succumb to death [Last Supper].

Last Sunday we taught the story of Jesus praying in the garden. Through his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus showed that he was fully aware of what was coming and also fully willing to choose death for us. Jesus was fully willing to take responsibility for sin which was not his own.

In order to teach this story, Caleb (age 11) and I told a story about an experience we had a year ago. Caleb was out with an uncle and accidentally banged his car door into the car door of a really nice BMW next to him when they parked. There was no mistaking the dent that the accident left behind. Caleb and his uncle did the right thing and left our phone number. In the end, I payed $400 for the damage to be repaired. Ultimately, as we explained to the children on Sunday, the damage was not my fault or the consequences my responsibility. However, because Caleb is my son, I accepted responsibility for his accident and payed the penalty ($400) in his place.

Obviously I am not saying that my sacrifice or Caleb's accident are the same as Jesus' death or our sin. However, the real life illustration was a very useful way to convey the concept of Jesus taking responsibility for our sin.

I am proud of my son, he spoke well, telling his story with purpose, and believing that God would use his experience.

DIY Archery Set

Someone asked me about the archery sets I made for my children for Christmas, so I thought I'd post the details here.  I'm am in no way suggesting that these are safe - our family rule is that children can not use them without adult supervision.  

I based my design on some websites I found online.  However, there were some materials that I couldn't find or modified, here's the details:

I used 1/2 inch electrical conduit. I bought it at Home Depot, it comes in about 8ft lengths in grey. I think on most websites that they used plumbing pipe.  I wasn't able to find 1/2 inch plumbing pipe so I used electrical conduit instead.

Because I couldn't find plumbing pipe and used electrical  the cross joint in the picture on the website at the bottom of this page was not available.  It guess it simply doesn't exist for electrical pipe.

Instead of the cross joint I used 1/2 inch foam pipe wrap for a grip / a place for the arrow to rest. I marked the middle of the bow and then put the pipe wrap below the mark.

I put the pipe wrap in place and covered it in duct tape really tightly.  I found with the first bow I made that the pipe wrap slipped a little. I put a little hockey tape on the bow under the pipe wrap with other bows and the pipe wrap doesn't move at all.

Instead of drilling for the string at the ends of the bow [like the website above], I made a 1/2 inch slit in one side of each end of the pipe and then knotted the string and put it into the slit with the knot on the inside.  I then slid pipe joiners [they are about a 1/2 inch long and about 49 cents] over the end to keep the knot inside.

For arrows, I used wooden dowel. I bought them about as thick as a pencil so I could put a pointed pencil erasers over the end - got those at the dollar store. I notched the end of the arrows with a hacksaw to allow them to fit on the bow string. I first made arrows at 22 inches, but shortened them to 18 inches to limit the distance and force that my children could shoot them.

Here's one of the websites I based my design on: http://lifesprinkledwithglitter.blogspot.ca/2012/05/avengers-homemade-hawkeye-costume-part.html?m=1

That's about all. If you have questions, let me know.

Series: 1 Corinthians 13 [More to Come]

Am I loving? Is the Church loving? Looking through the lens of 1 Corinthians 13.

1. Do we have love? [1 Corinthians 13:1]
2. Knowledge is nothing. [1 Corinthians 13:2]
3. Giving Motivation. [1 Corinthians 13:3]
4. Patient. [1 Corinthians 13:4]
5. Kind. [1 Corinthians 13:4]

More to home.

Kind

"Love is patient and kind..." (1 Corinthians 13:4)

Kind: "Having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature." (Google Definitions)

How often, I wonder, am I truly kind? How often do I choose to be friendly... when I am tired after a long week, or when I simply want to be alone but someone else does not. How often am I generous? Not the easy form of generosity when I give you what I do not want - how often have I given what I do want to someone who needs it more than I do? How often do I give away my time, without complaining? Am I truly considerate of others? Jesus said to put the needs of others before my own. Is that really what I am like? Does it come naturally to me?

What if I consider the Church? Are we kind? Are we warm and welcoming of other, friendly to those who are different than we are, to those who make us uncomfortable? Are we generous? Do we share our time and energy with others freely? Are we truly considerate of others and their need for the Gospel? Are we more concerned with our own consumption of religious goods and services or are we more concerned with the need in our community for the Gospel.

Am I truly kind? Are we?

Children's Theology of Hitting Back

Had an interesting conversation with my boys tonight. One of them saw an apparent (to him) contradiction in the Bible and sought clarification from me. I love being able to help form their theology.

There were two passages in question:

But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39 ESV)

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12 ESV)

Their question was: how can I turn the other cheek and also respond in anger when someone harms me? Good question. While there could be long and serious discussion about righteous anger (one boy did refer to Jesus clearing the temple, but it may have been a bedtime stalling tactic...) my answer was fairly simple:

We are to do to others what we wish they would do to us, regardless of how they are (or have) treated us.

When we honor others, when we treat them well, we honor God who made them in his image. We are to love others, in the name of Jesus, with our words and actions, regardless of how they interact with us. Truth be told, most adult struggle with these concepts.

Patient

Sometimes I am not a patient person. I complain about traffic and poor driving, I don't like waiting in drive-through lines, I stand and watch the coffee maker.

Sometimes it's even worse, I become quickly frustrated with my daughter as I attempt to help with her math homework, I can become easily annoyed by my boys when I have to repeat my expectations over and over to them. Sometimes I react badly when our family schedule changes. I often become irritated when something prevents me from getting my own way.

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant..." (1 Corinthians 13:4 ESV)

As churches, I think we are impatient with people. Sometimes I think we find ourselves as the Church feeling impatient because of the sin that we see in the lives of people in our church families and around us in our communities. I think we feel like life transformation takes longer than we wish, perhaps because it takes time sometimes and we expect it to be instant. I think, honestly, we are often impatient with God - as if our timing and our planning were better than His.

Love is patient. Not sometimes patient or selectively patient. It is always patient - patient with those we know and those we don't know. Patient in all circumstances.

Am I truly patient? Are we as churches truly patient? How does my / our lack of patience reflect God to those around me / us?

Giving Motivation

I usually feel like I am a giving person. In the recent past, I've opened my home and invited another family to live with my family for a month, I have given away possessions that I wanted to people who needed them more than me, I have given food to the food bank, money to my church, time to my children's school and a variety of other places, energy to serve others. And yet...

"If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:3 ESV)

Motivation for giving, not the gift itself, is the point. How often have I given from obligation? How often from pity? How often from my own prideful desire for fame? Do I really love?

Jesus said clearly that we are to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbours. These, he said, are the greatest commands and all other commands are based upon them.

Love comes first.  It should be my motivation for any act of giving. Do I truly love God and am I motivated by my love for him when I give in tangible and practical ways to the church or to my community? Do I truly love others? Am I motivated by my deep love for others and my heartfelt concern for their well being and their need of the gospel and is that the motivation for my gifts of time, energy and possessions?

Is love as my only motivation for giving in every way which I give? Or, am I gaining nothing?

Knowledge is Nothing

One of my favorite things in the world to do is teach the Bible. I love teaching and preaching to children, students, adults, large groups, small groups - anyone! What I love most is connections. I love how God's activity is woven into the fabric of humanity's experiences in the Old Testament. I love how the whole Bible tells the story of Jesus, how each story fits into the grand story of redemption.

However, if I stop there, I have a problem.

"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:2 ESV)

Even if I knew every connection and every fact, if I understood and had great wisdom, it would not be enough. Knowing what God has done in the past may help me to see what he is doing in the present. However, if all that information does not lead me to live out my faith, to Love God and Love Others, then I personally have nothing of value - "I am nothing."

Do We Have Love?

Each week on Tuesday morning out staff at NMBC meet to review, plan and pray. As we do we also take turns leading a devotional time. This week Pastor Mark lead and left me really thinking. He shared a simple concept which resonated deeply. This concept will be a series of blog posts here.

He read 1 Corinthians 13 and asked us not to think about it as individuals but rather a church. He followed up at the end with a question something like this: Is there evidence to show that we are a loving church? Interesting.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13:1 ESV)

If we have Biblically true and culturally engaging sermons, deep and convicting small group discussions, well planned children and youth ministry teaching, etc., but are not a loving church... we are simply making noise.

In our culture there are lots and lots of people making 'noise.' More books are published every single day in our world than anyone could ever read. More news is reported by video, audio and print media than ever could be consumed. More speeches are given, more lessons are taught than ever could be remembered. Our culture is noisy.

What will make the Church stand out? What will cause the gospel of Jesus Christ to be heard? Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13:1, says the answer is love... And so, the original question:

Is there evidence to show that we are a loving church (Church), or are we simply adding to the noise around us?