Screens vs Scripture: Who’s Really Shaping You? w/ Grace Ann Williams

Episode 05: Screens vs Scripture: Who’s Really Shaping You? w/ Grace Ann Williams 

 Are your students spending more time on screens than in Scripture? What is that doing to their identity and habits? In today’s episode of Hot Takes and Holy Things, the hosts are joined by Grace Ann Williams, student ministry admin for the Family Church Network, to unpack the idea that screens may be shaping students more than God’s Word. From leaderboard updates in the Word of the Day segment to eye-opening stats on screen time, the conversation explores how social media fuels distraction and forms “distracted hearts.” The episode wraps with practical steps like app fasting, managing notifications, and refocusing on God’s Word, challenging listeners to memorize Scripture and find their identity in faith, not online validation.  

Key Points From This Episode: 

• An introduction to our guest speaker: Grace Ann Williams. 
• Scoreboard update and Word of the day: Frame Mogging. 
• Student Shoutout: To those being The Church out there. 
• The Hot Take: Are our students being shaped more by screens or by scripture? 
• Jarvis shares some statistics about students and their screens. 
• Grace Ann highlights areas where the Bible should shape our lives, but where social media often takes over instead. 
• Our thoughts on how social media is impacting identity among students. 
• Grace Ann shares where her mind goes in scripture when she thinks about reflection and meditation. 
• How often we should be going to scripture: It’s about frequency. 
• What students can take away from today’s conversation on navigating the tension between screens and scripture. 
• A challenge to our students: memorize Psalm 19:14. 

Quotes: 

“Frame mogging. The actual definition is when someone is physically bigger than another person and takes the spotlight away from them.” — Cole Bearden[00:06:29] 

“Our students pick up their phones on average about 113 times a day – and [get] over 200 notifications from an app a day. – Your phone isn't just something that you check every time. Your phone is actually something that's shaping you.” — Jarvis Koyate [0:09:49] 

“I think social media is also shaping the habits that our students are engaging in.” — Grace Ann Williams [00:13:03] 

“When it comes to these conversations about social media and good things to God things, the best place that we can go back to and ground ourselves, is in the scriptures.” — Jake Kimbrell [00:15:52] 

“Social media, while it promises us connection, it's really disguised as distraction.” — Jake Kimbrell [00:18:42] 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: 

Matthew 13 ESV 

Psalm 19:14 ESV 

Psalm 1 ESV 

Family Church Students on Instagram 

Family Church Students Linktree 

Family Church 

Family Church on Instagram 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to Hot Takes and Holy Things. This is the podcast for the students of Family Church in South Florida. We're tackling the real questions students are asking and bringing you hot takes backed by God's Word. This is Hot Takes and Holy Things. What's up, students, and welcome back to Hot Takes and Holy Things. My name is Cole Bearden, and I'm here with two of the best co-hosts in the podcast game.

SPEAKER_05 0:38

Gentlemen, why don't you introduce yourselves? Hey, what's going on, students? My name is Jake Kimber. I get the privilege of serving as the student pastor at Family Church Sherbrooke, episode five, Hot Takes and Holy Things. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

I am excited. What's up, guys? Jarvis Koyata here, Family Church Tequesta, and it's going to be a good one. We are halfway through, boys. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Halfway through the season. Halfway through the season episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

We only got five more after this. Five more to go. Well, hey, I'm excited for today. We have a special guest. And uh I'm excited. I want to obviously, you know, we give a bio about this guest before we introduce them. Right. So let me give you this guest's bio, and then we'll tell you who we have, all right? So she is an American author, speaker, and media personality known for her influence in Christian ministry among young people. She was born in June, and she first gained national attention through the reality TV show Duck Dynasty, which followed her family business and life. She also was back in 2014, she was the runner-up in Dancing with the Stars.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Big deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Big fan of Dancing with the Stars. So without further ado, let's get up for Miss Gray Sam Williams from Family Church downtown. Let's give her three really quick. Yeah. He said, let's give her three real quick.

SPEAKER_05 2:01

Travis, you've lost the ability to call the give 'em three for the rest of the.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I think that's the issue. It's because I call it. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Well, Grayson, we're excited to have you. I have to say, that is one of the most amazing and incorrect intros I've ever received. So I'm very grateful to be compared to the Sadie Robertson.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

But that's it. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:24

So, Grayson, since Jarvis got the intro wrong, why don't you tell us a little bit about the things you get to do at Family Church and how you serve in our student ministries?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah, I get to serve here on staff with Pastor John McTaggart, and I'm the student ministry admin for our whole network. So I get to be involved in student camps, advance, block party, all of the fun activities. And yeah, so I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Come on. Let's go, Grisanne. Well, we're happy to have you here. Well, students, we're gonna kick it over to our first segment of the day. This is one of our favorite segments, one of my favorite segments. It's our word of the day segment. And today, students, we've got a good one. But before we get to the word of the day, what I want to do is I want to give you a scoreboard update. And so right now, with the word of the day segment, we currently have Jake and Jarvis both tied with a one-to-one lead. And unfortunately for you, Grayson, our guests have have tallied zero points. No way. So you're coming in at base level, no points, losing right now. But that's okay.

SPEAKER_05 3:28

You could change that today.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Because you could change that today.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Wow, what have the guests been doing?

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_05 3:34

You can blame Sydney and Pastor Jimmy.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

They've not done, they've not held their end of the bargain. That's right. All right, guys. Well, here's how this segment works. I'm gonna tell you the word of the day brought to you by none other than Hudson Champion. When I give you the word, you're guess what the word means. Closest person to that word, or the person that nails it and gets it right, puts a point on the scoreboard for their team. So today's word of the day is frame moging.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Oh wow. I don't really like the sound of it.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

I mean, what's a country of ordin?

SPEAKER_01 4:10

That's a good question. Um America.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Sounds good. I mean, gosh. I mean, can we use it in a sentence? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't give a sentence. We did that last week and he won. Okay. Or a couple of sentences, whatever it was. No, no, no, no. So, Gray Sam, what do you think it is?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Okay, so I'm gonna use my context clues of frame moging. So I think that this could be when you're taking a picture, you're taking a video, and somebody's just hogging up the frame. You know, they're a little too much. I think they're just a little too much in it, and everyone can tell. So that's good. Yeah. Oh my god. That's my guess.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

Okay. I was going to Jarvis.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

I think this is someone who is in photography. I think there's someone who's behind the camera. And I think the word, I think they're capturing frame by frame. And when they're mogging something, I think they're actually split like they're panoramming to the video. So they're frame moging. So when you're framing someone, that's a word. You're panoramming around the room or spell pan. You send a sentence for me. Panoramming is spelled P-A-N. Moramming. So that's my uh that's my definition there. I don't know if you finished the definition. You know, frame moging, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:33

Dude, I'm gonna be honest with you. Frame mogging is like I think that when you think about like when I thought about frame and framing something or framing someone, I thought obviously of trying to like put the blame on someone else for something that you did.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

And so maybe framing a different thing.

SPEAKER_05 5:49

The action of putting the blame on someone else might be frame mogging, but maybe you yourself, as the person who actually did it, you're the frame mogger.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Ooh, Jake, that's good. You like that? I think that's our best definition. That was so powerful.

SPEAKER_05 6:05

I mean, I truthfully just that's that's my guess. I'm locking it in.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I think that this has been our best word of the day segment because you guys actually gave some of the best definitions ever. Exactly. Actually, so creative. But there is one that stood out more than the others.

SPEAKER_05 6:23

Obviously, mine.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

And that one is going to Gray San Williams. Wow, dude. So frame frame moging, the actual definition is when someone is physically bigger than another person and takes the spotlight away from them. And so this is like this couldn't have to mean like large, like they could be stronger, bigger, more muscles.

SPEAKER_05 6:46

In a photo that you and I would take because you're eight feet tall and I'm not. You wouldn't be frame logging.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Wow. But it doesn't have to be in photos. Like right now, I am technically frame moging you over a podcast. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

This is so diverse. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

I I appreciate the word. Thank you, Hudson. Well, hey, right now, let's let's go into our student shout-out. Right. Every week we talk about our student shout-out. We shout out a student who's being the church in here and also the church. How there? Okay, Grayson. I hear you. All right, great. So today I want to shout out uh a couple of very special students that we have. So I want to shout out Theo and Boone and a lot of other students up in the Treasure Coast who are currently leading our FCA. So they're over at Jensen Beach High School, they're over at Martin County High School, and they're leading the Fellowship of Christian athletes up there. So the definition of being the church out there. Let's go.

SPEAKER_05 7:38

Man, I love that. And those are some of the, you know, I love talking about those students in our meetings and the different things that they're doing. I mean, to be a huddle leader for an FCA and just doing all those things and leading people. I mean, it's so much fun what they're getting to do. Super proud of them. So, Jarvis, I appreciate you giving them a shout out. But right now, we're moving to Oh, so we're not gonna give them three?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I wanna I want to be a part of give them three.

SPEAKER_05 7:58

Okay. I you know what? That's on me. I got too excited for the hot take. I know you did. So, gentlemen and Grace Ann, let's give them three. See, Jarvis, that's how you call it give them three. Okay. That's how you do it. I see. That's it. All right. Hey, so now let's get to the segment. Jarvis, you described it earlier as the meat and potatoes of the whole thing. This is the hot take. And guys, there's a hot take today that I'm pretty passionate about. I know you are. You guys know it. And I'm excited that we have an expert here with us to talk about this as well. But this is the hot take for episode five. The middle point of the hot takes and holy things podcast season one. It is this our students are shaped more by screens than by scripture. That our students are shaped more by screens than by scriptures. Cole, I didn't even let you ask. Amen, Jake.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Say it again for the people in the back. For the third time, Mark.

SPEAKER_05 9:01

From the second we pressed record, he was just like. Our students are shaped more by screens than by scripture.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

That's good, Jake. And you know what? I think that it's important that we define for our students what we mean by that. Because when we're talking about screens, there's a lot of screens that we interact with in our lives, right? You've got your TV screens, you've got your computer screens, you've got your iPad screens, you've got your phone screens. So what screens are we exactly talking about here?

SPEAKER_02 9:33

And that's interesting because I think it's really easy when we talk about our screens. It's easy for us to take something that can sometimes be a good thing. Yeah. And we actually turn that good thing into something that's negative.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

And so I want to share with you guys a couple of stats that I think are interesting when it comes to our students in screen time. So our students pick up their phones on average about 113 times a day. Wow. And that's the average. So that means half of them are doing way more than that. Yeah. Which is crazy to think about. And our students are getting over 200 notifications from an app a day. And some are getting over 500 notifications a day. Jeez. That's just 500 buzzes in your pocket a day, which is crazy. And so your phone isn't just something that you check every time. Your phone is actually something that's shaping you.

SPEAKER_05 10:15

And you know, I think some of our students would go, man, 500 podcast notif or podcast notifications. Sorry. Been on the podcast a little. Some students would go, man, 500 social media notifications or 500 text messages a day. Like I think that's actually on the low end of notifications that I get, Jarvis. Like you said, some students are getting way more than that. And so you're absolutely right that for us as humans, the way that we're wired, it can be so easy for us to take maybe something that's not even bad. Like maybe even at the heart of it, it's good. But we're taking something that's supposed to be a good thing and we're making it a God thing. And we're allowing it to take the place of what should be shaping our lives. And so that's why I'm excited, Cole, that we've got Grace Ann here with us because Grace Ann, you're a resident expert at social media and all these different things. So Grace Ann, what are some of the areas that we see maybe where the Bible should be shaping our lives? But in fact, social media really is.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Number one, we see identity. So the way that our students put their identity in, not necessarily social media. I don't think that anybody would say that their identity is in Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat, but it's in the people that are influencing them on social media. So it's in their friends, but also it's in the influencers that they follow. It's in the people that are telling them what to do, how to do it. And so they're listening to these voices on social media who are telling them who they're supposed to be. And they're not running to Jesus. They're not running to the Bible. They're not running to their church to help shape them. They're running to the things of this world into so many voices that are supposed to be giving them value that they think is giving them value, but it's actually diminishing their value and it's making them insecure instead of strong in their faith and confident in who they are.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

Grace and that was a bar. That was a bar. Students should be going to the things that are giving them value, but instead it's the things that are diminishing. I said it even worse than you did. I mean, you that was a bar. I love that, guys. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I think that's so true. When we're on social media, when we're when we're looking at posts from our friends or posts from even just influencers, we get stuck in the game of comparison. And so all of that does is start to diminish the way that we think about ourselves and diminish the way that we perceive ourselves and diminish the identity that God has spoken into our lives and begins to change it from what God says to what the world is telling us or who the world is telling us we are. So that's exactly that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_05 12:41

And I think sometimes about identity too, our primary identity as Christians is in Christ. And so I think sometimes we can even begin to align ourselves more with a specific brand or a specific people. Yeah. You know, rather than first our identity is in Jesus. And anytime that we place our identity in anything else other than God, like you said, Grayson, it's diminishing that value. And so I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah. I think social media is also shaping the habits that our students are engaging in. So social media, there's so many influencers who their job, the things that they get money for, the things that they love to do is to show people and to express to people how they should be living their life. But if you're not following the right people or you're not engaging in the right things that are helping you to shape your habits of we're gonna be people who are prioritizing scripture, we're gonna be people who are prioritizing prayer and community and fellowship with fellow believers in midweeks and Sunday mornings and going to camp. If you're not engaging with people who are telling you that, then you're not gonna do it. But then there's these people on social media who are like, hey, you need to dress a certain way, you need to go to these parties, you need to act a certain way to be liked. Or if your life looked a little bit more like mine, maybe you could do this too. Instead of, hey, we're supposed to be disciples of Jesus, who that's supposed to be who we're supposed to follow after. But our students are engaging in so much social media time that it takes away from the way that we follow after Jesus as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Absolutely. Now think about those influencers. Like think of people whose job it is to be an influencer. Like, what's their job? Like, what are they trying to do? Their goal as an influencer is to influence you to either buy this product or influence you to be a part of their brand. But at the same time, like they don't even know who you are, but they want to influence you to do all of these different things. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

It's kind of like with like I think of this in the light of like trends, right? Like there's these latest trends that pop up on social media. And so, like, even if your influencer, the people that you're following, they're not trying to convince you to buy something. A lot of times the people that we follow and the people that we're looking at on social media are trying to convince us to do certain things and to follow the latest trends. And like I was just talking about it yesterday at church with a mom who's kind of struggling with her own student and the and the trends that he's following, and we were just navigating those conversations, and a lot of it is just like we are being convinced in the things that we should buy into, but a lot of times we're being convinced into doing things that everyone else is doing because that's what's socially acceptable.

SPEAKER_05 15:11

Yeah, and I love that because I think about those influencers and the way that we see them versus the way they see us.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:17

And I'm not like here to trash people online who who make a living off of being an influencer and all those kinds of things. But at the end of the day, like we see them almost in the place of God sometimes, but they see you in a monthly paycheck. Like they see you as a number on an app. And so it just gives this tension in my heart of, well, who does know me? Who does love me? Who actually sees me as more than just a number or more than just an outcome? And we can go back to Jesus. Like, who knows you? Who wanted a relationship with you so much that we just celebrated at Easter? Would die on the cross for our sins. And so when it comes to these conversations about social media and and good things to God things, the best place that we can go back to and ground ourselves is in the scriptures. And so we know this is hot takes, but this is also holy things. And the Bible, believe it or not, even talks about the idea of social media and our hearts and how we're wired and those kinds of things. And so my mind immediately goes to Matthew chapter 13. This is the parable of the sower. And obviously, we know that Jesus in these parables, right, he's given them some very earthly stories, but they have pretty significant meanings. And so here, Jesus is just talking about some dirt and some different kinds of dirt, but it's really representing our hearts as people. And so he gives us three different kinds of soil in Matthew chapter 13. It says the seed that fell on the path, or the seed that fell on the rock, or even the seed, this is what we're going to talk about today, the seed that fell in the thorns. And so Jesus is talking to us about our heart. But if you go and look at Matthew chapter 13, verse 22, this is what it tells us about the seed that's in the thorns. And as for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. So if I had to describe this more for our students, the way that I would describe it is the distracted heart.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:13

The distracted heart. And so, Jarvis, what are some ways that maybe you even see social media distracting our hearts?

SPEAKER_02 17:21

I think some of the ways we see that is just by, I mean, we talked about earlier. I think like the amount of time that it requires of us. I think about the amount of reels that are meant to keep us in. I think about the algorithms and how they're all built to keep us focused and to keep us locked in on this app for longer and longer. So I think all that kind of builds up. I think the amount of notifications we get all kind of builds up to how much time we spend on the app and distracts our heart.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

I mean, Jarvis, I think what you're talking about also, like if we're honest with ourselves, even in the moments when we're not on our phones, we're distracted by our phones. And I I'm guilty of this. Like when I wake up in the mornings and I'm spending time in the Word and I'm reading my Bible, I'm thinking about I've got this to do today, I've got this to do today, my phone's sitting next to me, an email notification pops up, I gotta get this done today. I've got this notification popping up for my fantasy basketball league, which I'm currently the champion of, and like all these different things are popping up that distract me from what I'm actually trying to focus on in that moment. And so even when I'm not on my phone, I'm actually being distracted by my phone.

SPEAKER_05 18:21

Yeah, the thing that about social media that's crazy to me and that kills me is that it's not even necessarily bad things all the time. But because our hearts are so wired to make them God things, that's where it becomes bad. And so social media was never meant to take over our life, but it is. It was never meant to distract our hearts from God, but it is. And so social media, while it promises us connection, it's really disguised as distraction.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

And so for us, the devil doesn't even have to completely derail our faith. The devil doesn't have to get us to not believe in Jesus. The devil just actually needs to distract our faith enough to get us to start listening to the wrong voices. And so maybe what I'm really trying to get at is that I think that because of social media and the busyness of what our students are digesting online, it's actually helped our students lose the art of reflecting and meditating. And Grayson, that's not what the Bible tells us to do. And so when you think about the word reflection and meditation, where does your mind go in the scriptures?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

It goes to Psalm 19, 14. This was a verse that during a time that I was doing a social media fast, a mentor of mine encouraged me to memorize it and to meditate on it because it's a prayer to the Lord that says, May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. And so that's where my mind goes of just like meditating on the Lord and meditating on what is good for him and the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts need to be aligned with him. And I think that that's where social media comes in and distorts that. And even in the Christian influencers that you follow, it's still being distorted because you're engaging with people who don't know you and who are just distracting you from your faith and from your walk with the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

I also think of Psalm 1, right? Blessed is a man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Right? Shows us that hey, how often should we be meditating on the law? How often should we be thinking about God's law and what the Bible has to say, right? Day and so important.

SPEAKER_05 20:36

That's awesome, Jar. So I appreciate you bringing that up because it's a frequency thing. We talk about the frequency of social media all the time, but the question really is not how much are we checking social media, it's how much are we jumping into God's word. It's not like how often are we on Instagram, it's how much are we in the scripture? And so I appreciate the both of you just giving clarification to that, not only to the art of what we're supposed to do and where we're supposed to be going, but even you, Jarvis, how often are we supposed to go there? The Bible literally says every day and every night.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

And students, remember the Bible tells us that we don't want to just be hearers of the word, we want to be doers of the word. And so as we talk about these scriptures and these passages of scripture and have these things in mind, I'm curious, what do you guys think are things that our students can take away from this, some application points, some practical things that our students can do so that they are better managing or I should say better battling the tension of screens and scripture.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

I think one thing that I tried to do back when I was getting a ton of notifications it felt like, I actually just went to my settings. I just turned off all the notifications for social media. So anytime I had an Instagram like or anytime I had a Facebook like or whatever, I actually wouldn't get that notification on my phone. And for some reason, my brain it kind of just prompted me to not look at it because I had nothing to remind me about it. And so I think the idea of meeting your notifications for that social media app can be super helpful.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

I actually like That's a lot, Jarvis. I kind of did something a little similar with my social media. I went on my settings on my phone and I managed the screen time that I could have for Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat and things like that. And I just managed it to 30 minutes a day and eventually got to the point where I just didn't even really spend any time on the apps. And so I kind of just deleted them all together. And so if you're a student listening to this, I'd encourage you to go to your settings, manage your screen time, set it to 30 minutes, or if you think you can handle 15 minutes, do 15 minutes a day.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Yeah, I think that's so good. Fasting is such a biblical principle that we often try and kind of convince ourselves that we don't need, but it is something that's so important for us and for our work with the Lord. I would encourage every student to do one day a week, do one week a month, and do one month a year where you are doing no social media. So you're completely fasting from social media. It's hard, but it's so worth it. And you're gonna see the fruit of the fast as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

It's a great idea. That's really good, Grayson. So, students, here's your challenge for the week. Graysanne mentioned this passage of scripture earlier, Psalm 1914. We want to challenge you to memorize that verse. And when you do that, we want you to go in the comment section on Spotify of this episode and comment Psalm 1914 so that we can see you are memorizing this verse. But we also want you to go and take it to your student minister or pastor and recite that verse for them so that they can also see how scripture is transforming your life and how you're being discipled by scripture. Well, gentlemen, it's been a great episode, but Grace Ann, we also really appreciate you being on this episode, being able to bring your wisdom to social media, a topic that honestly the three of us, although we have some knowledge on it, we're not managing an entire social media platform for our church. So, Grayshan, we appreciate you. How about one more time? Let's give Jarvis the let's let's let Jarvis redeem himself.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right, well, hey, Gray Sann, Jake, Cole, let's give him three. Yeah, I did it.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Hey guys, thanks for listening to Hot Takes and Holy Things on behalf of Jake, Jarvis, and myself. It's been a great episode. Gentlemen, and Gray Sn, let's give them three. Thanks for tuning in to Hot Takes and Holy Things. To stay up to date on new episodes, follow us on Instagram at GoFC Students. Share this podcast with a friend and send us your questions. We'd love to talk about the stuff you care about. Catch you next time on Hot Takes and Holy Things.