922 Ministries - The CORE & St. Peter Lutheran - Appleton, WI Sermons

Though great technological marvels, computer/phone screens can do damage on our souls as they do our minds, robbing us of true fellowship and weakening our minds so they are unable to meditate on the deep truths of God’s Word. This message Pastor Mike Novotny warns us to think critically about the devices we hold in our hands.

Show Notes

Every researcher knows that something has drastically changed in our digital age. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide have spiked like never before. What factors best explain the sad data? Internet usage and social media. Yet screens can do the same type of damage on our souls as they do our minds, robbing us of true fellowship and weakening our minds so they are unable to meditate on the deep truths of God’s Word. This message warns us to think critically about the devices we hold in our hands. 

What is 922 Ministries - The CORE & St. Peter Lutheran - Appleton, WI Sermons?

The episodes are the weekly sermons from 922 Ministries campus in Appleton, WI. St. Peter is in the north part of Appleton. The CORE is our downtown Appleton campus.

Screens and Souls
Wk 2 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny

Good morning, happy Sunday, everyone. Welcome to week 2 of Screens and Souls.

Behold. I bring you good news of great joy. The World Cup just started 53 minutes ago and normally, I say, put away your phones for church. But if you want to watch Ecuador vs. Qatar right now, I don't blame you. I think Jesus gives us a free pass. This, probably not Biblical or true but it's just what I feel in my heart right now and I wanted to share so happy. World Cup. I've waited eight and a half years to watch the U.S. play a national team game. So tomorrow 1:00 vs. Wales, don't text me, don't talk to me. You might see the worst side of me and disqualify me as your pastor. So I love soccer. I hope you do too as good Christian people, but today we're going to put that aside for just a second.

We're gonna focus on a really relevant topic for us as we dive into week, number two of Screens and Souls. So a few weeks ago, I was sitting on the bleachers with the fellow volleyball parents and I decided to ask them a pretty dangerous question about their digital lives. On one side of me, was a professional counselor, a doctor on the other side, it was the chief of police next to him was a COO and next to them, were multiple professional educators, intelligent people, competent people. Advanced far in their career people and here's the question I asked them. If you want a grade, your personal relationship with your own phone, what grade would you give yourself?

And immediately I saw expressions like and there's actually one mom, we said I feel great, but my kids are always mad at me. I never know where my phone is. I don't know where I leave it. One mom said that and the rest of us had that like sense of conviction. That the fact that we all had devices didn't mean, we felt great about our connection to our devices. You have to show your answer out loud, but I want to ask you the same question today. If you have a smart TV or a tablet, a phone, or a laptop, if you had a grade, your personal ability to get all the good things out of modern technology resist, all the bad things and I've really strong and wise boundaries. I wonder what grade that you would give. It's actually pretty tough question me last week if you were here for church, if you're watching at home, we talked about the incredible blessings of being born and raised in this new digital age. But we have advantages spiritually that the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther could not have fathomed. I mean, our ability to go home and grow in our knowledge of the Bible to have one in our pockets worship music on our Spotify playlist. It is insane. What we can do, we can invite friends to church with the click and share of a link. We can share messages with French tourists.

To step into a church through live streams and YouTube videos. We can connect with each other and deeper fellowship and encourage each other daily. Even if we're not in the same space, it is a gift and a blessing to be living today.

But that was last week and this week, we need to talk about the other side of it. Because here's the picture that I think of living in a digital age, imagine that you and I like have a plates called life. And we step into a restaurant that has this huge digital Buffet. And on the buffet are some things that are really good for us and healthy. There's a whole section of the buffet, that's really bad and toxic. But there's just a lot of things in the buffet. And the question that wise, Christians need to ask themselves is not. Are there any good things to be found on the internet, or on social media, or on my devices? Obviously, the question is, can I take the good things without doing one of two things, first indulging in the bad things, the darkest corners of the internet, and then to not taking so many things. That I end up feeling kind of sick after all. This is over today. I want to, I do want to talk to you about the explicit, bad things of the internet. Pornography is a huge problem. That's affected my life. And many of yours were not going to talk about that. Today, the toxic trolls in the comments section, that deserves to be excommunicated from the internet where I can talk about that. Today, this fake news and algorithms and the obsessive comparisons, as we scroll social media and look at all the numbers. That deserves a sermon but that's not the sermon. Because this sermon, talks about the more subtle things of your digital and spiritual lives. I just want to talk about maybe the quantity of the things you're putting on your plate through those screens. And ask some really serious questions about three areas of life. That I think, all of us care about our family. Our friendships, And our faith.

So find a road map for where this message is going on. I want to cover three things first, your family, then your friendships, then your faith. And ask the question, are these screens are all this screen time? Is it ended up being bad? More bad than good? Actually for our souls. So today, if you came for a happy clappy sermon, where you skip all the aisle, you might want to leave now, But it's gonna be really good for us. You've got needs to get our attention and like call us back to truth in reality. It's better now than tomorrow or next year. So once you grab your pens, because we're going to wrestle with three big questions and think about the bad things that screens do to our souls. So, first of all, let's talk about family. A number of years ago, I had a really memorable conversation with a pastor named Mark Jeske after watching a home. You might know that name but founding lead speaker of Time of Grace, and you and I were talking about the Ministry, we were talking about work and family balance, all those big questions and Mark Jeske said something to me that no one had ever said before. He said something to the effect of, you know, Mike you think what you have It's that you have until they leave the house. But it actually happens long before that.

You know, I just thought I'm raising my kids. Time goes fast and when they go off to college or when they get a job and get their own apartment, you know, I won't see them as much as I used to but Mark Jeske said, actually that's not true. Because they're going to get in high school and they're going to make their friends and they're going to want to hang out more with their friends, then Mom and Dad and you're going to see a little bit less than them. And maybe a 15 or 16, they get their first job. And so for one or two, or three family, dinners a week there, they're not going to be at their place on the table. And maybe at 16, they get their drivers license. And so those minutes that you had with that good, windshield time between parents and children. That's going to be gone. Maybe Mark Jeske said they meet a boy and I said, what? No, no forbidden. I'm gonna keep my daughters in the basements of always saved. I said, you know, that's gonna happen, the boys gonna be way more interesting than the old man. Whose dad and you just trying to convince me, you know, you think you're counting down the days and the months and the years until May of graduation year, but it's not true. Like the window of your opportunity with those kids will close long before that. That's why not long after that conversation. I made this.

This is my daughter, Brooklyn's graduation jar.

Inside the lid, God willing is the dates of her graduation, May 30th, 2026, and inside.

Our marbles representing one week. Until this moment comes.

And I remember that conversation what Mark Jeske and creating this and going to Amazon and buying all the marbles and I swear it was yesterday when that jar was up to here.

You know, the scary part though, Pastor Jeske was right. I don't have this long.

I got half of these marbles left, my little girl was running around in her diapers yesterday. And now, she just got her first job, opened her first bank accounts, about to start learning to drive like, wow, how and when, how in the world did that happen, but it happened.

And I say that not to make the moms and dads cry. I see some of you crying right now my babies, but here's the fact, every family member that you love has a jar.

If your mom and dad are living. They have a jar. If you have a brother or sister that you're close to, they have a jar, If you have grandkids, nieces or nephews, Sons, or daughters people in your family that you love, whether you realize it or not, every every week you are one week closer to not having them in your life. And the mistake many of us make is what Mark Jeske was trying to teach. You know you think you have until what the median age of 74, 76? 80 years old when they pass away but actually in real life Most of the time you don't get that long.

Your mom or dad or Grandma, Grandpa gets older and they start to forget And they're a different person than they were in the past.

Your brother may be super close your brother. You would not believe this because he's a brother, but maybe he's going to meet a girl. One day that likes him and she's gonna want to spend time with him and I your brother who used to be there for every single Thanksgiving meal. He's going to be with his new girlfriend or his new wife, maybe God gives him a son or twin daughters and now you barely ever see him and that relationship, you know, he's still alive in your life. It's different before you want it to.

And so here's the question you and I need to ask in our digital age, if that's true. If time flies with the people, we love the most. Our screens separating you from that limited time, that you have.

First, big question, I want you to write down grab a pen. Our screens separating me from my family. Like I have this day this week. This marble and asked me looking at something bad on the internet. The question is, will this lesser thing? Get in the way of the thing that on paper, I say, I love so much more. My kids, my spouse, my parents, my siblings.

Let's see your teenager here today. You get dropped off for school or you drive there, 7:00 in the morning, you hang out with your friends to go to class with your friends who eat lunch with your friends. You go back to class with your friends. Maybe you're in an after-school thing is Sport music with your friends, you drive home, maybe talking to your friends and then you walk through the door and you sit down at the dinner table with your family and what too many people do?

Go back to their friends.

Literally just spent eight or ten hours with those people. You have this limited amount of time with the ones who gave you life. Will you separate yourself from the chance to really have a beautiful family which will last much much longer than most of those friendships will? Let's say you're in a relationship or your parents and you go into work early with a fresh cup of coffee. And you spent eight hours or nine hours or 10 hours or 12 hours returning text sending emails meeting with people closing deals and then you finally, finally, finally get to come home to the ones that you love and you're not ten minutes to the door. When And it's back to work. Boss. The clients, the partner of the co-worker, a little kid is.

I could. God gives us this limited time. Every parent knows it goes so fast. Will we allow these devices to separate us from those sweet moments when we can actually connect to be together?

Dad's, let me ask you a massively important. Spiritual question. One of the most important callings. We will ever have in life is to disciple our children. Have you?

Like it, if you taught your own children, how to connect with their father in heaven. Did they learn how to pray from you? Did they learn the Ten Commandments from you? Did they learn who Jesus is from you? And some of you say, well I don't know how to do that. Yeah, you look up your YouTube videos to change like your oil and something on your car, but she won't use it to disciple your own children to know the Living God, that the screen time says that you have hours of expendable time each day. And yet you don't take care of your own children's souls or something grievously. Wronged about that. I think relationships.

It's been kind of a tough season for our church in relationships. I feel like they're fighting and there's adultery and they need counseling. And I get that relationships are hard. And they can be really, really beautiful.

Like when you're connected with that person that you love so dear. There's something profound about that. That's like Jesus and his church and their connection but here's something you already know great relationships take time. They can't live off fumes. It takes time to talk, to listen, to ask questions, to communicate to work through differences. It takes time to plan romantic dates. It takes time to give a back rub to just be there and enjoy each other's presence. But my fear is that most of us default to watching the same screen instead of looking in each other's eyes.

Then after we finally get home after work, after the kids are finally, in bed, the way that we connect is simply by being in the same space, maybe even on separate devices. And if that's true, and it is for, so many of us, are we shocked? That marriages are struggling. They need time, energy and effort, have we wasted it not in the darkest corners of the internet, but just the ones that take too much time and attention.

Today, we're not asking, can I have a phone? Can there be a TV in the bedroom? Can my kids have social media? The question is, are these screens separating us from the limited time that God has given I think that passage from First Corinthians chapter 6 that the Corinthian Church, love to say, well where's the line, what's right, what's wrong? I had the right to do anything is what they said. But the Apostle Paul asked them this question. Or made a statement. I will not be mastered by anything.

That's a big question for you. Are you Mastered by your phone? Do you really want to give more time to your parents, your siblings and yet you step back. And at the end of a week, you've given hours and hours to lesser things and barely minutes to the most important things. And that's true of you and it is for many of us. The screens are not a blessing over all but a bad thing for our soul.

It's not just our families. Let's talk about our friends. Maybe it's just me but I think friendship is one of God's greatest gifts. I think is one of the most beautiful depictions of the gospel and here's why, because when your parents made you, they didn't know what you were going to be like another stuck with you and your brother sister like you're their family. So I guess your family but friends are different, right? We get to pick our friends, we can come, we can go. So the fact that your friend wants to be with you, come to the party, remember your birthday, share a cup of coffee, but is it get? That's like God, choosing you is to be with a friend and to have a friend who actually knows so much about you that soften the bad stuff and still shows up. It's amazing to have a friend who loves you enough to be both tough and tender. To like Pat you on the back when you need it, kick in the pants when you need it. It's have a friend in kind of read between your lines and know, when there's like something in your heart that you're not coughing up just yet, they can read your expression, the nonverbals, and they can ask the questions that you really need to have to ask you. And I will not have many friends like that in our lives. Maybe ten, maybe six, maybe three, maybe two. But the ones that we have are such a beautiful gift from God. When you get to be together in the same place to share a physical space, Case, that is a wonderful blessing from above. So here's my question, in those moments are screens, scattering my friends.

Here's this incredible gift from God, almost as good as his family. Maybe sometimes even better than family. And finally, finally, finally we get together. The question is, are we checking the game? We are checking Instagram, are we watching some TikTok to do? Our friends have to literally fight to get our attention, even though they're looking right at her face. Never heard of the seven minute rule before.

It's a theory of communication that basically says the most important conversations you will have will really start to happen at about 7 Minutes in. So here's what happens if you and I sit down for a cup of coffee and I say how you doing? And you say great. I've been watching soccer all week and I see, I know because you're a follower of Jesus, like you should be and you're gonna say, how am I doing? I'm going to make the smal talk about the weather. Like wow, isn't it cold in winter in Wisconsin? Who would have thought? That's over to talk about the little things and then the kids or whatever the politics and then after about five, six minutes, there's going to be that moments. Where we run out of things to say the small talks over. And it's kind of awkward and you and then someone says, something that matters

It's on the other side of that awkward silence that you come forward with something you really need help with. Or your friend tells you something. She's never told you before, like the Deep stuff, the good stuff, the stuff of life normally doesn't happen. The first second, you see a friend? It takes a little bit.

But you know what's happened, in our digital age,

We sit down for coffee. How you doing? Good. How you doing? Good the weather these days, huh? Awkward silence.

And we miss the moment.

It's like our brains. They can't stand it. You get to a stop light and you're watching a click down, 20 seconds for those people to walk across. I can find something in 20 seconds, you're standing in the line at the grocery store. My goodness, how can you stand for two minutes without? It's like we're physically unable to handle it. It makes us so anxious that we should reach for this digital candy. It's not that we're pulling up something bad or bullying people online. It's that we were So close to something so much better with our closest friends. And the internet took it from us. It scattered us.

I don't add rules that the Bible doesn't have, but I just want to encourage you if you're with a friend. And your phones are both out on the table. Do you realize what that conversation has become?

It means every notification, everyone who has my phone number, everyone who can text me, or send me an e-mail. Like it's like they're all standing right behind me and they're all close enough to do this. And even if I'm trying to ignore it, this is.

You're thinking I wonder who that is, and I'm thinking I wonder who that is. And I'm trying to be engaged in this conversation, but I'm distracted. And if you have your phone, I'll guess what? The same thing is happening to you. And now we just can't give each other our full attention because we've allowed all of these people to interrupt the conversation, and this moment that God gave us together, it's scattered.

That's why the Apostle John valued just being face-to-face with his friends. In the book of 2nd, John chapter 10 Jesus Friend, writes, these words.

I have much to write to you. But I do not want to use paper and ink modern technology of his day. Instead I hope to visit you and talk with you face-to-face. So that our joy may be complete

There was some level of joy that John knew, it has to be face to face. If it's this disrupted conversation that's good but it's not great. And if I want my joy to reach maximum levels with my friends, then I need to visit you. And I need to talk with you and I need to be face to face. God is trying to sober some of us up today. Ever have to raise your hand for this one. You've been at a party where everyone's drinking way too much and you're the only one who's sober. And you look around and think.

I have idiots for friends, slurring their words, they don't know they’re slurring you can't walk in a straight line. Does he even know? I thinks he's being funny and he's just being super cringey. And you have to be sober to see it because if you're buzzing you just won't see it. Ever been the sober one in a digital party.

We just walk in and you see these people who love each other just lost. You see, friends who finally find time to make it out to dinner and a minutes can't go by without someone reaching for their device. They're drunk on B, and pixels, and you're totally sober and you see it. The Bible says, do not conform to the pattern of this world. I know that's what people do. I know. You have to be available at all. That you don't have to be. You can value-- what John valued and say, you know, sometimes I can't have paper and Ppen, I can't have phones and tablets. I need to face to face so that my joy can be complete.

Finally. Let's talk about faith.

According to Jesus, what gets you faith and gives you great faith. Is this book? Romans 10 verse 17 says, faith comes from hearing the message. This book has the power to teach you about Jesus. Convince you that Jesus is Worthy to be worshiped. It can save you. It can remind you of the mercy and Grace and the amazingness of Jesus who went to the cross for you. But there's also something you should know about this book. That just by touching it doesn't give you great faith. Just by skimming it, does it give you great faith? Just by you sitting here in a church where there is a Bible, does not give you faith by osmosis. I've stood in my garage for many years, I'm still a turbo mechanic. All right. Just like being in a physical place. Doesn't give you the gift. So how do you get the gift of great faith? The answer is by fixing your thoughts on this book. The book of Hebrews 3:1 says this, Fix your thoughts on Jesus. I don't skim, don't scroll, don't quickly, like, and share instead, stop and stare. Psalm chapter 1 calls. This meditating on the word of God that you're chewing on it, you're you're thinking of, you're contemplating The Compassion of the Cross. You're fixing your mind and your thoughts on the amazing forgiveness, that is all yours. When Jesus died for your sins thinking constantly, persistently, deeply

Is the thing that too much screens will not allow you to do.

It's my last question for you today. Are screens sabotaging my faith.

Are they robbing me of the thing that will get me closer to Jesus?

If you ever studied how your human brain works, So God wired us with this, like, incredible system of chemicals that are released during different experiences. I've ever heard of the chemical dopamine before the feel-good chemicals, it's was connected with like really powerful experiences. So when you experience something new, like, see the ocean for the first time when there's something novel, I don't know. A cat could do that. Watch it on YouTube, when there's something dangerous, or arousing or exciting, mainly just new things, like dopamine is being released in your brain. Super exciting. Super interesting. That's why we itch for it. In fact, it's the main chemical involved in addiction. And so drugs are like specifically chemically engineered, so we release massive amounts of dopamine, it's so so good.

But you know, what happens after the crash.

It's for more of it. That's why addiction is so hard to escape. You've actually tapped into the reward system of the brain and taught your brain. I can't even be like, baseline, okay? Because I know what it's like to experience this. And so you crash below it and you just get just get caught in the cycle of addiction with diminishing returns. Guess what's on the internet? New novel. Exciting. Angry arousing everything. Doesn't have to be illegal or immoral, a new email, a new text a new post, a new person who liked my picture new person who's interested in me all that new, new new new, new new new is it wrong. But you know what? It does to your brain, It makes a real life, non Digital Life. Ichi.

Like I said, I just want something here or watch the movie these days. Like count how many seconds until the angle of the camera changes because our brains have been taught try watching an old movie. You'll see the difference. New new new. No I can't watch one angle for 15 seconds. That is so boring. My brain, is this happen to you, even the new movies, they don't interest my brain enough anymore. I'm reaching for my phone and checking the new like what I'm no longer entertained by entertainment. Hollywood makes a movie and I need two screens just to stay interested like that. That's a red flag. And how many of us can relate? So here's the spiritual problem. After we've all been trained to need that level of dopamine release and stimulation. What happens when we try to pray?

Or read an old book. And think about the words, Or come to church.

Even if you didn't check your phone, while I've been preaching, are you physically able to listen for 30 minutes to 1 human talking?

I should admit this. But do you know, sometimes why? Bring out props.

Because your brain would lose me if I didn't.

Super happened. You were Pastor gives you just a minute to pray? You literally can't pray a minute till your brain is

Back in the 1800s, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the average American would stand and listen to rhetoric for four to five hours. HOURS. Now, if that Instagram reel is in under 60 seconds to my son.

So, I got to ask you, is it possible that has sabotaged your ability to worship, to listen to preaching, about Jesus, to read the word of Jesus and to talk to Jesus in prayer?

This is my great fear, not that all of you will end up as gaming addicts or porn addicts, but that all of us will be so addicted to the dopamine rush of new and novel that the old truths from this old book just won't excite you anymore.

So I know what some of you are thinking. So inspiring pastor. This is I'm Greta glad I brought my friend today. This is wonderful. Yeah, the first like “thanks for the guilt trip, we all feel terrible about ourselves. “

I think my answer to that reaction would be : “You're welcome for the guilt trip. “

We've been taught that guilt is a bad thing. Guilt is a God given system to help us realize when we're doing a bad thing.

And so if during this message, you've realized, you know, and I give more attention to my work emails than to my wife. I'm more interested in the new and the novel than the old. And unchanging that is a gift from God, don't waste it. Don't run away from it. Don't wish it was just more positive and happy and clappy to lean into this guilt. So you have the motivation that you need to make a change. We never change until the pain of the status quo is too much. I want you to feel the pain of that today. We are living in an age. That is not Wise. It's foolish and it is wasting our limited time. And that's why you got to come back next week.

Like you and I the answer is not to become Amish and move to a place that doesn't have Wi-Fi. Okay? There are so many good things about having these devices. Yet we need somehow to come up with boundaries and structure and accountability. So we can get the bad things actually avoid the bad things and get the blessings. So, next week, I want to promise you much more hopeful, much more exciting. Super practical want to talk about what wise people do in our digital age to have devices, but not be controlled and used by them. I hope you come back for that. But today. Before my, amen. Which is some practical tips. What? I'll leave you with some gospel. Hope.

Like, maybe you were realizing I I can't go back those last year's with Grandma. I barely saw her.

And my kids are not little anymore. How much time did I squander? What have I done to my brain to my soul to my faith? If if that's you I want to tell you a story. An old old story about a boy who chased the dopamine high.

There was this kid, he was the younger brother and he thought his older brother was totally lame. Even more being with him. And the father was nice and everything, but not super, super exciting. And so this young man decided that he was going to take off and find something that was exciting and he did He separated himself from his family. He sabotaged his own faith by seeking after sin, and he loved it.

For a little while.

He chased after the dopamine rush and whoa, he got it with the women and the substances and the friends and everything this world has to offer, he was up here. Actually crashed.

And the high were often. If you've ever got lost in a screen and come out of that just felt empty, unproductive, guilty.

And he realized that he needed what this world cannot offer. He needed his family, he needed his father so he makes us long walk back to his father, he needs to see his face, look him in the eye and if you know the story that Jesus wants told, you know, what happens next The father, thank God was not lost in a piece of ancient papyrus. He was looking for his kid. I'm that father saw his son with all the guilt and shame coming down the road, he took off to embrace him. He looked him in the eye, he saw the compassion and forgiveness in his face. His son was so lost, but now he was found. He was dead separated from the family, but now he was alive again. You know what story? So the parable of the Prodigal Son, one of Jesus most famous and it's a reminder that wherever you're at today, whatever sins you've committed foolish years that you have wasted when you come to Jesus. Here's what he does. It's all of your sins in a big Excel spreadsheet. Highlights them all and He clicks….delete and empties the garbage can. He looks you in the eye and there's nothing but joy and acceptance in his eyes.

So I don't know what bad things you've done on the screen, I don't know your regrets you have today, but I do know this, we can bring all of our bad to Jesus and he responds with the greatest blessing of all the blessing of Grace.