Love the flexibility of attending digital church services from your sofa? Get skeptical. With Jay Y. Kim, discover why it impacts worship and community.

Show Notes and Resources

Connect with Jay Y. Kim and catch more of his thoughts at jaykimthinks.com and listen to his podcast jaykimthinks.com/podcast and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.
And grab Jay Y Kim’s book, Analog Christian on our shop.
Intrigued by today’s episode? Think deeper about our phones in our FamilyLife episode, How Are Screens Influencing Us?
Or we’ll send it at no cost to you with a donation of any size this week, as our way of saying a huge “Thank you!” for partnering with us toward stronger families around the world.
Find resources from this podcast at shop.familylife.com.
See resources from our past podcasts.
Find more content and resources on the FamilyLife’s app!
Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Check out all the FamilyLife’s podcasts on the FamilyLife Podcast Network

Ever think about how much time we spend on social media and why are we addicted to it? Is it messing with our heads? We’re caught in the addictive scroll and comparison game—yet social media offers global connection and endless opportunity. So how do we manage it? Senior Abe Sitota at George Mason University talks about the impacts social media could have on your life.
Show Notes and Resources

You can find us  here on our social channels.

Feeling low after scrolling, but don’t know why? Social media can cause low self-esteem and addiction. Jay Y. Kim examines how to to unplug–and increase contentment.
Show Notes and Resources

Connect with Jay Y. Kim and catch more of his thoughts at jaykimthinks.com and listen to his podcast jaykimthinks.com/podcast and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.
And grab Jay Y Kim’s book, Analog Christian on our shop.
Intrigued by today’s episode? Think deeper about our phones in our FamilyLife episode, How Are Screens Influencing Us?
Or we’ll send it at no cost to you with a donation of any size this week, as our way of saying a huge “Thank you!” for partnering with us toward stronger families around the world.
Find resources from this podcast at shop.familylife.com.
See resources from our past podcasts.
Find more content and resources on the FamilyLife’s app!
Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Check out all the FamilyLife’s podcasts on the FamilyLife Podcast Network

“I use my phone a lot. Doesn’t everyone?” Truth: Our phones are designed to keep us scrolling and swiping at all costs. Jay Kim reveals eye-opening ways our phones can create a prison for our souls and impact the life and future of the worldwide church.

Show Notes and Resources

Connect with Jay Y. Kim and catch more of his thoughts at jaykimthinks.com and listen to his podcast jaykimthinks.com/podcast and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.
And grab Jay Y Kim’s book, Analog Christian on our shop.
Intrigued by today’s episode? Think deeper about our phones in our FamilyLife episode, How Are Screens Influencing Us?
Or we’ll send it at no cost to you with a donation of any size this week, as our way of saying a huge “Thank you!” for partnering with us toward stronger families around the world.
Find resources from this podcast at shop.familylife.com.
See resources from our past podcasts.
Find more content and resources on the FamilyLife’s app!
Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Check out all the FamilyLife’s podcasts on the FamilyLife Podcast Network

For some, it’s social media or checking your fantasy football team; for others, it’s being in the pit of binge watching your favorite show or online shopping. Do you want to learn how to minimize digital distractions in your marriage? 

I’ll be the first to admit, I sleep with my phone next to me every night, and there are mornings where I wake up and immediately look at texts, Instagram, and my email. In today’s digital age, there are endless opportunities for screens to distract us. How can you identify if screens are distracting you from growing in your marriage?

Do you struggle with digital distractions?

Is it sleeping next to your phone? Watching TV at night to “wind” down? Most of our time is spent in front of a screen instead of being in front of real people—most importantly, our spouses—who are looking to us for connection.

Answer yes or no to the questions below to help identify if digital distractions are having a significant impact on your marriage:

1. Do you fall asleep looking at your phone every night?
2. Do you and your spouse have uninterrupted time together for a few minutes every evening?
3. Do you spend more hours on social media than you actually want to?

I get it, it’s fun and addicting. The pings, the colors, the videos, the music, etc. But our screens are sometimes the culprit of creating too much space between us and our in-person, human relationships. You’re not stuck in this place of digital distractions; keep reading.

I’m digitally distracted, what do I do now?

In his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, pastor and author John Mark Comer discusses the idea of putting your phone to bed. He writes, “Parent your phone: put it to bed before you and make it sleep in.“ Another way to help create more connection and conversation with your spouse is putting your phone in another room and using an “old fashioned” alarm clock. 

This idea of putting your phone to bed allows for time and space with your spouse to catch up on your day or just cuddle together before you go to sleep.

Here are a few more ways to limit digital distractions in your marriage.

1. Set social media limits.

When social media limits are set on our phones, we may be more apt to limit our digital use because we see how often we are ignoring the limits we’ve set. It helps highlight just how addicted we are to digital distractions.

2. End your evening with uninterrupted time with your spouse.

When you think about time with your spouse, do you picture laying on the couch watching a movie together, or drinking tea and catching up on your day? For my husband and me, we often fall victim to laying on the couch staring at our phones at the end of a long day.

3. If needed, delete social media and streaming apps from your phone. 

Oftentimes, when we don’t have apps on our phones, we tend to not think about them or reach for them mindlessly anymore.

There have been multiple times since having a smartphone where I’ve gone on a hiatus from social media. I’ve deleted Instagram and/or Facebook from my phone for a week and it’s been one of the most therapeutic exercises for both my individual relationship with God and my marriage.

Create a better story for your marriage with FamilyLife’s Art of Marriage

What if your spouse struggles with digital distractions? 

Perry and I have had conversations like this before, when one or both of us feel more connected to our screens than one another. Once we talk about it, the result is often more time together, which always leads to laughing and feeling connected as a couple.

Before pointing fingers at your spouse, where they might not be as receptive to your criticism, practice humility. Be the first to admit that phones and screens can be addictive. 

Once (hopefully) the conversation is opened humbly, mention how you’d love more uninterrupted time together in the evenings. It could be sitting and talking, going on a walk, etc. Make them feel loved and desired. Chances are, they will want more undistracted time with you as well. 

Questions to process together:

1. How do you feel when I’m on my phone and we are together?
2. Are there any boundaries we can set on digital distractions so we feel more connected?
3. Do we want to establish weekly rhythms with our technology, so we can be fully present together?

Want more on this topic? Check out these resources:

• Read 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You by Tony Reinke.
• Listen to “Overliked: Connection, Social Media, and Self-Esteem” with Rob Singleton on FamilyLife Today. 
• Read “4 Ways to Avoid Being a Social Media Marriage Casualty.”

Copyright © 2024 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Brooke Wilson is a content writer and editor for FamilyLife at Cru’s World Headquarters in Orlando. She is newly married to her husband, Perry, and they have a Chocolate Labrador named Willow. Originally from Syracuse, New York, Brooke moved to Florida to pursue writing and editing content full time. A few of her favorite things are photography, running, and sipping a warm chai latte across from a friend.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie, was the most inspirational blockbuster for me since Wonder Woman. There, I said it. 

Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Yes, I believe in the beauty of marriage and the significance of motherhood. No, I don’t agree with every single aspect of the film. 

Borrowing a concept from Andy Crouch in his book Culture Making, as a Christian, it’s easy to arrogantly condemn culture, quickly copy culture, or mindlessly consume culture. But my hope here is to bring a dialogue around the issues the film attempts to address. If you want to see Barbie but are met with the thought that you might be “betraying your Christian faith,” I hope in sharing my perspective you can find freedom to check out the movie for yourself and draw your own conclusions.  

I am a stay-at-home mom and full-time missionary with FamilyLife. My husband, Moses, and I live in Brooklyn, New York, where we homeschool our five kids ranging in ages from 4 to 11, run a community-center outreach, and lead the Awana children’s ministry at our local church. Several times a year, my husband and I travel around the country as speakers with FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway. 

From the outside, I may look like I fit the stereotype of some of Barbie’s biggest critics, but maybe that’s why the movie impacted me so much. 

Welcome to Barbieland

Barbie opens with an ingenious parody of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Several school-aged girls are stranded in a barren, primordial landscape. Helen Mirren elegantly narrates the scene, explaining that since the beginning of time, little girls only had baby dolls to play with. As a result, they had no choice but to imagine themselves as mothers and nothing else. 

Then along comes the invention of Barbie, who, in her many variations, expands the little girls’ horizons, inspiring them to be astronauts, doctors, judges, and even president. In melodramatic fashion, the girls smash their baby dolls to pieces, heralding a new era of equality and opportunity. 

Enter Barbieland, where, at least in the perspective of the Barbies, all of women’s problems are now solved. 

The entire film follows two worlds that intersect and affect each other (similar to Pixar’s Inside Out). Following Helen Mirren’s dramatic intro, the audience is immediately immersed in the all-pink universe of Barbieland (the creation of which caused a shortage of pink paint). In the utopian world, every day is a “perfect day,” and women are in the highest forms of government and influence. While the “real world” is run by men, and women are an objectified afterthought. 

The rest of the film follows Stereotypical Barbie’s journey traveling between the two worlds. 

The set design was perfectly executed—complete with a Barbie Dreamhouse and giant waterslide. I loved the costumes paying homage to iterations of iconic Barbie varieties. However, the highlight of the movie for me was a monologue by Gloria (America Ferrera), a Mattel employee and mom of a preteen daughter (and if you’re on social media, you’ve likely seen it). When I attended opening weekend, you could have heard a pin drop during that scene. 

The main theme of Ferrera’s monologue was that as modern women, we have expectations hurled at us that are not only unrealistic but simultaneously contradictory. She says, “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.”

In other words, whatever our marital or socioeconomic status, we live in countless variations of a Catch-22. 

Follow your dream … but don’t forget the dishes

As a first-generation immigrant whose family hails from the Philippines, I’m told to follow my career and take advantage of all the opportunities here in America, but also … “Don’t forget to do all the housework.”

I have often felt the tension between my choice to find purpose in spending the bulk of my time at home while my kids are young, and what others think I should accomplish—as if I’m silently torturing myself by not relentlessly climbing the corporate ladder. I have personally experienced the discouraging effects of countless expectations hovering over me, which consistently make me feel like a failure on some level. 

So while some may see Barbie as just a movie about a doll and seemingly pointless, God used this movie to remind me of how often I am guilty of letting others dictate who I should be, instead of who I was created to be. 

I’ve learned the hard way that it is difficult to simultaneously do all these things well at any given time. The only thing I can do is be sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit to discern what I am called to do moment by moment and be okay with different seasons of life, ministry, and career. 

In the midst of my confusion, this is what I am sure of:

1. God’s call for me to make plain biblical truths to others through my different communication gifts (writing, speaking, mentoring, etc.). 

2. God’s call for me to be a loving wife to Moses and a be-all-there mom to my kids.

Everything else is pretty much optional.  

Adapted from “A Barbie Movie Review,” originally published on Marilette Sanchez.com. Used with permission. Copyright © 2023 by Marilette Sanchez. All rights reserved.

Marilette Sanchez is a New Yorker passionate about finding the connections between God, relationships, and pop culture. She is wife to Moses, a homeschooling mom to five young children, and a full-time missionary with FamilyLife. She believes there is more to the Christian life than hypocrisy and more to pop culture than shallow art. College sweethearts and NYC natives, she and her husband, Moses, are FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® speakers known for their transparency and their ability to inject their love of hip hop and pop culture into their discussions of love, sex and marriage. She has recently co-founded an online apparel company to raise awareness for mental health issues in the church and communities of color. Follow her parenting and homeschooling journey on Instagram at @bigcitybigfamily and her musings on womanhood and pop culture at marilettesanchez.com. 

After hours upon hours of scrolling—with only an occasional glance up from the screen in my hands—Perry opened the front door. 

“How was your day?” he asked. 

Entranced by my phone, I mumbled, ”Fine.” Then continued my scroll to the next Instagram reel. 

At times like this, two things happen: 

1. My husband doesn’t feel cared for. 
2. He hesitates to ask me the same question next time, out of fear he will get the same cold reply.

Does this sound familiar?

Social media has the power to positively (and negatively) affect how we experience our most intimate relationship—our marriage. Addressing both the good and potentially harmful areas of social media and the need for boundaries is a conversation I invite you to today.

There are many ways couples handle social media accounts in marriage. How do we navigate the space of social media and marriage well?

Social media and marriage: The good side

Let this be heard: There can be a good side to social media! I’ve seen the blessings and opportunities I’ve been given to glorify God with it. I’ve seen it be used as a tool for connection between my husband and our friends and family. Social media has the power to strengthen and sustain long-distance relationships.

So let’s talk about a couple of good parts of social media.

1. Builds connections with other couples and families.

Social media can be a space for increasing connection, whether with friends from church, work, or school. But it’s also a great tool for meeting other like-minded people.

As I scroll on Instagram, I’ll occasionally read deeply vulnerable posts, like a wife writing about a hard circumstance she and her husband walked through. I feel both encouraged and trusted as a reader. I read of their lessons learned and how they saw God move through their circumstances. Couples can find encouragement and relatability from others walking through a similar experience.

2. Cultivates gratitude in your marriage.

Social media can be a space for hearing someone else’s marriage story and looking at your marriage with gratitude. To not see just the flaws of your spouse, but also the beautiful giftings and talents and how to celebrate them.

It can be a beautiful space for building up your spouse. Not in an inauthentic way, but in a manner of complete and utter gratitude, endearment, and honesty. Is “words of affirmation” their love language? Use this space to show thankfulness for something they did or give them a public shoutout. When genuinely expressed, it can make your spouse feel incredibly loved.

Social media and marriage: The harmful side

Any good thing has the potential of becoming harmful. Social media can bring connection or it can bring isolation. Earlier, I shared the addictive nature of social media and how I was glued to my phone as Perry tried to move toward me.

So let’s explore the potentially harmful parts of social media.

1. Distracts from “us.”

The addictive nature of technology can be dangerous when navigating social media and marriage. It can become an escape from talking and connecting with your spouse, resulting in distance. 

Social media can pull our eyes, minds, and hearts away from our spouses and lead us to find connection elsewhere. It’s important to understand that the comparison of your marriage to another can be destructive in not only your view of yourself, but of your spouse as well. 

Social media has also become a harmful avenue in which people come across content such as pornography. The topic of pornography is crucial in seeing the harmful side of social media. With the touch of a finger on a screen, anyone can have access to it, and it can become one of the most addicting and distracting barriers to connection with your spouse. Read more about the effects of porn on your marriage. 

2. Creates jealousy and can lead to unfaithfulness.

There is a dangerous side to social media and marriage. Where the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10), social media can create spaces of jealousy and unfaithfulness in marriage.

Seeing another married couple on a trip to the Bahamas, having the time of their lives, may light a spark of jealousy and bitterness. Even if you are only seeing their “best” moments.

That jealousy can build, leading to a lack of desire for your spouse and your life and creating a desire for someone or something “better.” If not talked about, this is where the slippery slope may result in unfaithfulness in your marriage. Without even thinking, you’re looking at pictures or videos of someone who isn’t your spouse or even in regular conversation with them.

Not only is this harmful to your marriage, but it’s harmful to yourself. You’re chasing a false version of love you could already have with the spouse you made vows to. 

Helpful tips on navigating social media and marriage

After hearing the good and potentially harmful sides of social media, you may be asking, “What do I do now?” Here are three tips to help you and your spouse navigate social media and marriage.

1. Put time limits on social media.

Putting a time limit on social media not only helps reduce potential eye strain and headaches due to the bright light of the screen. But it also provides boundaries so you can be fully present with your spouse.

2. Consider the accounts you follow.

The algorithm of social media is complex and manipulative. The accounts you follow will continue to show more accounts like it, leading to more temptation, comparison, and distance. So consider what social media accounts you follow. Block and restrict those that don’t honor your marriage and your spouse.

3. Have a conversation with your spouse about social media and marriage.

Sit down and talk through the good sides of social media and marriage, as well as the harmful sides. In vulnerability, talk together about where you’ve felt tempted to use social media in harmful ways in your marriage, and/or how social media has benefited your marriage.

So how do we protect the most intimate relationship, our marriage? We stay alert to the good and potentially harmful sides of social media. We also look to God for wisdom and discernment, remembering that being face-to-face with our spouses and engaging with them emotionally and spiritually is far more rewarding than being glued to a digital screen.

Copyright © 2023 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Brooke Wilson is a content writer and editor for FamilyLife at Cru’s World Headquarters in Orlando. She is newly married to her husband, Perry, and they have a Chocolate Labrador named Willow. Originally from Syracuse, New York, Brooke moved to Florida to pursue writing & editing content full-time. A few of her favorite things are photography, running, and sipping a warm chai latte across from a friend.

Professional stand-up comedian and America’s Got Talent contestant Mike Goodwin knows laughing out loud not only entertains…it connects people and heals lives as well. He explains the value of humor, how it changed his story, and how it can change yours too.

Show Notes

You can find us  here on our social channels.

For Shelby Abbott, it’s life as usual. He’s still a devoted husband to Rachael, a loving father to his daughters, Quinn and Hayden, and a music enthusiast.

Shelby’s new Christian podcast, however, is not usual. Real Life Loading… will shake the young adult generation as he cuts through the BS of surface-level Christianity, getting straight to the Scriptures and talking about the actual issues of this world.

Meeting Jesus on the bathroom floor

But before he ever met Rachael or even dreamed of being a dad, author, and podcast host, there was a clarifying moment where Shelby met Jesus on the bathroom floor. But we need to rewind a little to understand the full story. 

Shelby was never a party animal; he never did drugs or slept around.  

“I was something much more dangerous,” he says. “My danger was in thinking I was good. I believed I was straight with God because I was a good kid.” 

According to every worldly standard, he was. He didn’t rebel against his parents. Teachers and adults loved him. But the pride of being a good kid caused him to think he was better than everyone else around him. 

That is, until he heard a message from a guest speaker at his weekly college Bible study. 

“I was confronted with the fact that I needed to repent of my good works,” he reflects. “I needed to repent of the belief that God loved me because I was a good person. I walked out of worship, went into the bathroom, and pulled out a gospel presentation booklet called Knowing God Personally, and prayed the prayer in the back. I said, ‘God, I’m good, but I’m not there. Help me to become the person you want me to be.’”

All of a sudden, being a Christian felt a whole lot easier. 

Not that Shelby is afraid of a challenge. His love of doing hard things comes from a conversation with his college small-group leader. Actually, it was more of a statement. “You have so much stinking potential … if you’d just live up to it!” 

It wounded him in a good way. For his whole life, the bar was set too low. The idea of raising it for the sake of himself had simply never occurred. If you could jump the bar easily, why raise it? 

A new Christian podcast: Why Real Life Loading…?

Raising the bar to give our very best to God is one of the things Shelby’s most excited to talk about in this new Christian podcast. He was blessed to have someone stand before him and say “How much more can you be?” For the young adults who don’t have someone in their life to challenge, encourage, and expect great things from them, Shelby hopes to be that person. 

When he was younger, he wanted to know, “Is anybody going to throw their arm around me and be a trusted friend?” And “Who is willing to actually get on my level and talk straight to me about the things plaguing our generation today?”

Shelby’s own young-adult experience combined with more than two decades of working in college ministry are the driving forces behind Real Life Loading…. But why the name?  

As Shelby says, we’re all in a state of loading. We’re all in progress.  

“We’re all Padawans training to be Jedi,” he explains. “The secret is that we will never be Jedi but will always stay Padawan. Our never-changing Padawan status is because there’s only one Jedi and He is Jesus. We can get a little ahead, but we will never arrive. The only person who has become a Jedi is Jesus.”

Shelby doesn’t want to be the only person involved in his listeners’ lives. In his own words, he wants to be a vitamin, giving his listeners a little boost without being their main source of community. For the vital community component of life, he wants listeners to rely on the real, physical, shoulder-to-shoulder relationships with family and friends. 

Why I listen to Real Life Loading…

Real Life Loading… is different from any other Christian podcast for young adults because of the perfect blend of deep, serious, and insanely funny. 

I never would have learned what a “Premium McChubble” is had it not been for Shelby. (Listen to episode one if you have no idea what I’m talking about.) . But he also talks about biblical truths in a way that’s deep, rich, and engaging but not always so serious. He is definitely walking the talk in a way I was pleasantly shocked to discover. 

As an 18-year-old, spending the first five minutes of a Christian podcast listening to a Taylor Swift fan rant from the podcaster and his guest was totally unexpected. But then Shelby’s guest, Heather Holleman, took it a step further by seamlessly translating fangirling over Taylor Swift into evangelism today. 

In the second episode, Shelby and Sam Allberry dove into a topic any young adult (or person in general) has struggled with at one point or another: the discomfort we have in our bodies. Their talk ranged from self-image struggles (like weight, for example) to Sam’s story of feeling attracted to the same sex and how he has been called to celebrate singleness and find community in his church family instead of romantic relationships. 

Not many Christian podcasts talk about such a heavy topic as same-sex attraction, let alone on their second episode. 

Life may be usual for Shelby, but I think life for his listeners will soon become anything but usual as we learn to hear God’s voice, head back to the Scriptures, and raise our personal bars to become all God has created us to be. 

To listen, go to wherever you find your podcasts and follow Real Life Loading… Or listen on the FamilyLife app. New episodes are released each Friday. And don’t forget to follow @RealLifeLoading on Instagram.  

Copyright © 2022 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Chloe Whiteford is a writing intern for FamilyLife at Cru headquarters in Orlando, Florida. Her home base is McEwen, Tennessee. Regardless of where she is, you can most likely find her in her kitchen baking something (hopefully) delicious.

Curious about the story behind Lifemark, the latest movie by the Kendrick brothers? Stephen & Alex discuss the stunning true story behind the film.

 
Show Notes and Resources

Find Lifemark in a theatre near you
Register for our Weekend to Remember now 50% off for our fall sale.
Check out more films from the Kendrick brothers.
Find resources from this podcast at shop.familylife.com.
Find more content and resources on the FamilyLife’s app!
Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Check out all the FamilyLife podcasts on the FamilyLife Podcast Network