Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

13 October, 2007   comments: (0) Resource Spotlight   Protecting Your Family From an Explicit Internet A discussion broke out in the comments of Monday's thread, related to all of the explicit advertising that's around us. Of course, the 'relevant' innovators use this as grounds for justifying today's brand of explicit church enticement. But the point still stands, as Dan said it well in the comments: "Let's face it. Anyone with an unfiltered internet connection is about 3 clicks from being a voyeur of any number of sex acts. If that isn't surrounded by sex, I don't know what is! But, that doesn't mean that we need to be partakers in it, or that we should pander to the world's obsession with it." With that in mind, I want to make a recommendation to Christians who use the internet. I've been meaning to write about this for a long time now, but it got pushed aside for other topics. Here's just a quick recommendation of what you can do in your house to help protect your family. I used to run a company during the Y2K era in which I hired numerous people to do computer work from their homes (those days are gone now so - don't send me your resume!). I used to give these folks computers to use at home, and it was surprising when I would get them back to find porn on a number of them. The surprising part was that it was from really old people, young people, and even those who were Christians. We can't assume that anyone is immune to this trap. I felt at least partially responsible, being that they were my computers, and I was making it easy for people to fall into this sin, with an internet connection that I provided. Eventually I found a pretty good solution to this, and one that I am still using in my house today. It's a filtered internet service from: Family Connect Filter Here's how it works: You can use it with whatever ISP (internet service provider) that you use to get on the internet. It's not just some software that you install, it's like an "air traffic controller" that checks every site that you go to. It happens fast enough so that you don't experience a slowdown, and every site that you go to gets checked against a database of sites at Family Connect's central office. It's not 100% effective however (nothing is), as it will still let you see the ubiquitous Spring Break videos on YouTube, etc. Also, sometimes it's overly aggressive and doesn't let you see sites that are really OK. In such cases, you flag the site for review, and Family Connect unlocks it for you in the next day or two. So when I read Dan's comment about being a few clicks away from some really bad stuff on the internet, what went through my head was "not in my house!". I have all of the computers here protected, and I feel safe letting my 12 and 14 year old kids surf the internet with only a few ground rules that I set up for them. I also don't have to worry ABOUT ME! Let's face it, there's hardly anyone who doesn't have to be concerned about this, and even my computer is protected by family connect. Their license let's you put the filter on up to three computers at no additional cost. Their service costs you five bucks a month, or fifty dollars per year, (your choice). What's interesting however, is that my filter often prevents me from going to the blogs of those pastors who use verbose and explicit language to seem more relevant to our culture. At first you want to say that this is a problem with my filter, but then you start to wonder whether the problem is with these pastors instead. Food for thought. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.806   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism