When I see whiffle ball, and I hear the piano, I know we’re probably doing ok as a family. And when I turn on the news and see what Meta has been programming AI to engage in sensual conversations with children, I don’t feel bad about keeping my children away from social media.

I wouldn’t have my job if not for social media. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve made and maintained many friends. I would miss social media. But I’m glad I had a childhood without it. Just a computer with internet contributed to enough problems.

If we as parents could see what our children see on social media, we wouldn’t hesitate to keep them away. That’s why Clare Morell calls for a tech exit: “no smartphones, social media, tablets, or video games during childhood.”

Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of its Technology and Human Flourishing Project. You met her husband earlier this year on Gospelbound as Caleb Morell wrote about the history of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

In her book The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, Clare says we’ve reached a tipping point in the fight against letting smartphones take over childhood. The key is preserving something better, something more valuable: the chance for our children to contribute to their family and community, to enjoy the bonds of families and the boundaries of neighborhoods. Clare writes, “It turns out that screens cost children more than just their time; they also cause them to lose their appetite for things of the real world.”

In This Episode

00:00 – Why kids need a “tech exit” in the age of AI chatbots

02:52 – Addictive by design: dopamine, algorithms, and broken parental controls

08:42 – Christian hope and human flourishing: forming persons, not consumers

15:20 – The five-step family plan for smartphone-free childhood

22:52 – Policy momentum: bans, age restrictions, and global lessons

32:33 – Practical guidance for families, churches, and schools

45:24 – Parents as models: rhythms, phone boxes, and screen-free community

Mentioned Resources

• The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones by Clare Morell
• Clare's Substack
• More from Clare
• Alternative “tools-only” phones:
  • Bark
  • Gabb
  • Pinwheel
  • Wisephone

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“Does it feel like you should be happy, you want to be happy, and you try to be happy, but somehow you can’t?”

What a simple, common, yet poignant question. It’s in the preface to the new book Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes’ Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness, written by Bobby Jamieson. He is the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge and previously served on the pastoral staff of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

This is a book about happiness that explains you’re probably looking for it in all the wrong places. Jamieson brings us into the world of Ecclesiastes and its enigmatic author, Qohelet, the world of hevel, or absurdity. His inspired words help us see our biggest problem with life is death. The epitome of pride is believing we can overcome it. We’ll never be happy until we surrender in humility to its inevitability.

Jamieson guides us through three stories that guide on a life well lived: the contentment of limits, the joys of resonance, and happiness you can’t lose in this world because it comes from another. He helps us see, “Happiness is not striving for gain from life but receiving life itself as a gift.”

In This Episode

00:00 – Introducing Everything Is Never Enough

05:30 – Who is the Preacher of Ecclesiastes?

07:00 – Vanity, absurdity, and the search for meaning

13:30 – Modern thinkers on money, time, and ambition

22:00 – How Ecclesiastes shaped Jamieson’s life and ministry

35:00 – Preaching Ecclesiastes and pointing to Christ

Mentioned Resources

• Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes’ Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness
• Hartmut Rosa, The Uncontrollability of the World
• Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society
• Michael Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy
• Andy Crouch, The Life We’re Looking For
• C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

— — —

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Music and family have always been connected for me. My grandfather taught me the Christian faith largely through our Welsh heritage of signing. Shortly before he died, our family gathered around the piano as my mother played and we sang many of his favorites from the Methodist hymnal. Every night with my own family we open the hymnal and sing some of these famous Welsh hymns, including “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” The great Methodist hymn writer Charles Wesley wrote “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” commonly set to the Welsh tune “Aberystwyth” (a-ber-ist-with). If you’re a fan of the TV show The Crown, you’ll recognize this song from the episode “Aberfan.”

So you can see I’m partial to the old hymns. But unfortunately, we’ve worn out the binding on my old Methodist hymnal. And when I’m singing with my family, I want to include some newer songs they sing in church, songs that have played such a big role in my own generation’s faith: songs like “In Christ Alone,” “Speak O Lord,” and “The Lord Is My Salvation,” written by Keith Getty, my guest on this episode of Gospelbound.

We’re talking about one of the most anticipated releases I can remember, the brand-new Sing! Hymnal, published with Crossway. In their introduction, Keith and his wife Kristyn write, “Hymns are the heart language of the church, used to sing truth to the Lord and to one another in every season of the soul. This has always been the way. . . . Our hymns hold us, inspire us, comfort us—and form us.”

You know Keith Getty as songwriter of some of your most beloved songs. A choir director. A musician. A movement leader. Hopefully you’ve sung with Keith and Kristyn at one of several TGC national conferences. He joins me today on Gospelbound to discuss changes in church music, liturgy, and the legacy of this hymnal.

Learn More About the Sing! Hymnal

• Singhymnal.com

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