Reflection Options  

Journal  (Reflect on one or more of these questions)

• Do you multitask while you are using social media? What is the effect of that on your life (good and bad)? Have you ever found yourself multitasking while spending time with God? What do you think about that?

• On a scale of 1 (easy) to 10 (super hard), how difficult is it for you to put aside your phone/tablet to be silent and undistracted before God? To listen to a friend? To engage with a spouse, another family member or at a family event?  What do your answers tell you about yourself or your struggle in this area?

• Philip Ryken said, “To identify your own idols, ask questions like these: What things take the place of God in my life? Where do I find my significance and my confidence? What things make me really angry? Anger usually erupts when an idol gets knocked off the shelf.” Analyze what you feel when you have lost access to the internet or cannot check your social media sites.  How close are you to idolatry? What steps can you take to change?

Quote Interaction (Interact by agreeing, disagreeing or otherwise engaging with the quote/quotes)

• I know not what other’s experiences may be, but if I have found anything of God, or of his grace, I may thank a wood, a wildernesse, a desert, a solitary place for its accommodation. (St. Ambrose)

• Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (C.S. Lewis)

• I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed for idolatry.  (D.A. Carson)

• Anytime we long for something apart from God, fear something more than God, or trust in something other than God to make us happy, fulfilled, or secure, we worship a false god. It is important to emphasize the fact that idols can arise from good desires as well as wicked desires.  It is often not what we want that is the problem, but that we want it too much. (Ken Sande)

Reading & Reflection from the book, Shaping The Journey of Emerging Adults: 

• Read “Seek God through Fasting” (p. 141). How could a social media fast help you see it’s affect on you? Work out with each other what kinds of social media and how long you each will commit to fasting between meetings.

• Read “Teach Specific Skills for Healthy Relating” (p. 158-160). Though there are many reasons one may depend on social media, one might be a feeling of inadequacy in face to face relationships.  Go over these skills and discuss which one might be helpful to grow in.

• Read “Provisional Connections” (p. 35-36). Have you experienced relationships as being somewhat temporary and conditional?  Do you relate to the struggle to follow up on Facebook connections? How would scaling back on your use of Social media affect that (positively or negatively)?

• Read “Time Constraints and Technology” (p. 193-194).  Analyze how much of your time on Social media has been productive or encouraging (to your walk with Christ or to the development of a healthy adult identity, for example) versus has been a time-waster.  How can you decrease some of your social media time from being a time-waster?