Carry Your Cross: Social media, Video Games

Introduction

The Why Series

We started a series called carring your cross and Its a pardox because we think if we are to floursish in life we must aviod diffculty, pain, displine, self denial but jesus teach diffculty, pain, displine, self denial is the only way to find flourishing in life.

The why Topic

One of the mass things leading to such low qaulity of life and true unhappiness your age and even older genrations that i have noticed is social media, video game and movie addiction. I goal today is make you aware, help you see why its destructive and help you move to a what God wants for you.

Story

Shawn woolley, who was 21 years old, who devolped a gaming addiction, The addiction got so bad, he stopped visiting family, stopped cleaning his room and it was dirty even quit his job. After he quit his job he spend the whole week playing video games and something happened in the video game that distrubbed him so much he got a gun and shot himself.

Story

Molly Russell who was 14 years old girl the outside he looked normal but inside she was battlingheavy depression, anxiety and sucidal thoughts and she was on social media and on her social media activities they later found 1000 pieces of content related to self harm, depression and sucide. She evenually commited sucide After her dealth she left a note and it read “ I am not Good enough “.

Transition

The first question is why is excessive usesage of social media or video games self destrcutive?

Time

Story

Imagine a table and on the table there was a Jar, big rocks, small peddles and sand. The goal was to make the the Jar heavy and full. Then they asked two teenagers to take on the challenge. The first teenager came up to the table he thought if i fill the jar with all sand it would be heavier and more full. He felt no room for small peddles and the big rocks. The second teenger was wise instead of filling all of his jar with sand he thought the rocks will be more heavy so i will put them first then add the small peddles and all the remain holes i will fill with sand. His jar was way more heavy and full. The moral of the story is the Jar was symbolic of life and the big rock was symbolics of things that mattered most in life like God, family, school and the small peddles are things that are importnat but not as much as the rocks and the sand are things that dont matter much at all and are temporary. If we fill our life with sand we have no room in our lifes for what actually matters most.

Teaching & Application

Time is a gift given to you by God, you have free will to choose how you will use that time will you use that time to do good or will you waste that time by scrolling all day or playing video games.

Ephesians 5:16 ESV

making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Qoute

Time is waiting for you to give it purpose

Story

There was a kingdom with a strict rule that every king will serve for 5 years only. Post his rule, he was required to go to the forest to spend the rest of his life. The forest was full of dangerous animals and nothing was available to live a good life. Many people didnt want the role because they saw the danger after the 5 years. The People were growing weary of having no king so they begged this one person to become there king and he aslo denied it after knowing the rule. But somehow, he agreed to become the next king with a condition. He asked the people to let him visit that place. He found that the place is full of trees and dangerous animals. There were no facilities for survival. After the inspection, he came back to the kingdom and became the king. Now, he started to plan for making the forest a peaceful and safe place where survival is possible.In the first year, he started with the planning and execution of cutting some trees to make a proper path to go inside the forest. In the second year, he started with the plan to shift the dangerous animals to the safest place apart from that Forest. Further, in the third year onwards, he worked hard to start farming and making some small houses around. Finally, that forest was enough to live a peaceful life without any problems. In those 5 years, the king utilized the time properly with the best strategy. In this way, he managed his time well and created a better future. If he wasted his time he would of created a better future.

Transition

A lot of teenagers feel a lack of real community and friends so they turn towards online community.

Community

Teaching & Application

There was a research done by pew research center Fully 72% of teens say they often or sometimes check for messages or notifications as soon as they wake up, while roughly four-in-ten say they feel anxious when they do not have their cellphone with them. Overall, 56% of teens associate the absence of their cellphone with at least one of these three emotions: loneliness, being upset or feeling anxious.

The people who created this services like instagram, facebook, snapchat had a deep understanding of human pyscology, They know that people have deep desire for human connection and human connection is a human desire and God given deisre but they manipulate that desire you have to make money by trying to keep you on there social media services so that you watch ads and they make money. The question is are you meeting you God given desire by watching other peoples life through a small screen, by liking a bottoms and in a dark isolated room. The funny thing is people in the west have increasing beome one the most lonely people in the world. This app that prmised you social connection has addicted you to waste time and be more lonely. Instead of watching peoples lifes call people on the phone, seat down with your parents and ask them to tell you storys about there life, go for walks for your friends or Go play basketball with a couple friends, join a afterschool club like running,debating or something that you can devolep skills and be around community, many of you cant work but you can starting volunteering specially in the field you want to get into.

Story

Caroline: I decided to give up (most) social media initially because I noticed how much time it sucked out of my life, even when I tried to use it with moderation and self-control. As I got older, I came to realize that I never had especially good conversations online, even over text messages. When I did have important conversations online, they lacked the meaning and richness of body language, voice inflection, and bodily presence. I decided to channel more of my limited time and energy into in-person conversations or phone calls, and this meant foregoing most forms of social media. I’ve also noticed that social media can bring out in me bad habits of comparison, lust, or vanity, and that’s not who I’m trying to be as a Catholic.

Transition

You cant replace real friends with online friends, why do people devolped video game addictions?

Purpose

Teaching & Application

One of the reasons people devolped video game addictions is because they feeling a lack of purpose and they feel more successfu in the gaming world and the real world.

Story

There was a man who was playing video games so much he couldnt stop and he one day he was seating with his friend and he told him in the game world i am so successfull but in real life i have nothing.

Teaching & Application

1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Your purpose of your life is to glorify God, What does that mean in whatever we do go to eat,drink,go to school, spend time with family how do i do such things in a way that would please God? We can give thansk when we eat or not, we can be give our best in school so that we can get a job serve people with that Job or cheat and only try to make money. We can spend time with good friends who try to push us towards God or we can hang out friends who push us away from God. You see every part of your life has meaning and do you fill your life with Gods will or do you fill your life with your will. Which one of you will if you get old and look back at your life and be pround you spent all day playing games instead of actually changing the world or scroll through socail media all day instead of actually building real life relationships. 1. Find a quiet place to pray and think and ask what important things he want you to start doing. 2. Create a daily schedule put inside the most important things to the least important things.

Story

Ollie Forsyth’s school career didn’t promise success; he struggled with dyslexia, believed himself to be a failure, and was bullied. But his entrepreneurial spark was clear – at the age of 12, he sold friendship bracelets to his friends and their parents. When demand increased, he launched the online retailer Ollie’s Shop at the age of just 13. In the first few months he made £5,000, and the business has gone from strength to strength, with Forsyth getting up at 5am each day in order to have time to combine working on his business with the demands on school. Not only that, but Forsyth has since launched The Budding Entrepreneur Club in order to support and network with other young entrepreneurs, stating that he wishes to “provide entrepreneurs of any field or background with a platform to establish new connections, and coincide with the next generation of leading entrepreneurs and their ideas.”

Transition

Find a quiet place to pray and think

Prayerful think how should you use your time better

How can you remove more sand and add more rock and peddles in your life.

Conclusions

Clsoing Prayer