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RP’s 10-day screen-fast challenge is going nationwide July 21-30

If you want to register for the July 21-30 nationwide challenge click here. If you want to learn more about why you should consider it, including some tips on how to go screen-free for 10 days, read on!

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How many times are you scrolling on your phone or tablet each day? Do you have any idea? What pulls in your children most: books, games, physical activity, or a screen?

Christian homes, including seniors, aren’t immune from the addictive nature of screens. Although screens and digital technology can be a great blessing, we have a very hard time keeping them in their proper place. But we want what should be our priorities – family, friends, and faith – to remain our priorities, don’t we?

So enough talk. It’s time to act!

The challenge

Are you, or is your family, willing to go 10 days without screens and/or social media? Do you have the ability to function without them? It is one thing to say so, and another to do it.

A 10-day social media and screen fast will open your eyes to the power that our devices have on our lives, and on our family’s lives. It will provide a window of time to experience what life is like without them. This break can also provide a fresh opportunity to very deliberately decide how you and your family will utilize these devices moving forward.

It may be fun to invite another person or family to do this with you. If you are willing to give this a try, encourage your friends, care group, or others to do the same.

Nationwide July 21-30

You can start any time you like, and there's no better time than now. But we're also trying to generate some positive peer pressure by having a nation-wide screen-free challenge for July 21-30. We can all do this together at the same time!

Some generous supporters have recognized how important this issue is, so for the July challenge they are offering up a little extra motivation for us all. They have pledged to donate $10 per day for every day you manage to go screen from from July 21-30. The money will be split between two fantastic kingdom causes – Reformed Perspective and Word & Deed –  to a maximum of $20,000 split between both causes. Go all 10 days, and that'll be $100 donated. Go just 8, and it will still be $80. If you manage just 1 or 2 days that will still be $10 or $20 donated... and a hard lesson learned on dependency. How long can you go? If you don't think you can, isn't that the best reason to try?

A few tips

  1. Commit. Don’t allow yourself to make easy exceptions, even if you are having a hard day. For example, just because you are at someone else’s home doesn’t mean you can enjoy screens again.
  2. If your fast includes screens, but you still need screens for basic functions that are essential, ensure that you are only using your tablet and phone for those functions. For example, if you need a phone for directions, don’t take the opportunity to scroll the news. If you need a computer at work, or to write a report for a committee you are on, don’t let yourself go to other websites or play an online game.
  3. Turn your devices off and hide them. Take the TV off the wall. Make them difficult to access.
  4. Log out of your social media accounts so that it isn’t easy to open them.
  5. Move the icons of your apps so that the social media apps (including YouTube) are hidden.
  6. Come up with a plan: whenever you find yourself wanting to reach for a screen or open your social media, what will you do instead? It doesn’t have to be hard. Perhaps say a prayer, take a drink of water, try to memorize a verse (keep some verses on a piece of paper in your pocket), do a set of 10 jumping jacks, or read a couple of pages of a book you’ve been meaning to get to.
  7. Have alternatives waiting and ready for you and your children: books, magazines, art supplies, a soccer ball, a walk to the park, etc.
  8. Invite accountability: let loved ones know what you are doing, and ask them to check in on you regularly to see how it is going. Tell them not to let you off the hook!
  9. Don’t read this and conclude a screen-fast challenge is only important for youth or young adults.
  10. Be sure to check out our article "What can I do anyways? 35 screen-free alternatives."

You can register for the July 21-30 nationwide challenge here.

The results

We would love to hear how this goes for you and what impact it had on you and your family. Please send the editor a note.

Or send us a good ol’ fashioned letter via

Reformed Perspective
Box 3609
Smithers, BC
V0J 2N0

We look forward to hearing from y’all, and sharing the results!



News

Saturday Selections – July 12, 2025

Josiah Queen's "A Garden in Manhattan"

On the crowded streets,
all the people that I see
Want them to know the Jesus that I know
If I'm the closest thing to a Bible that they read
Let the words they read be what You wrote
Father, help me to go

I'll be a garden in Manhattan,
be a river where it's dry
When my friends can't find the road,
I'll be a roadside welcome sign
Sunshine in Seattle,
be a cool breeze in July
Light in the darkness
I'll be a garden, a garden in Manhattan

Florida after dark,
I know it ain't quite Central Park
There's souls in my hometown You wanna reach
Oh, God, use me where You have me...

Climate hypocrisy tells us what the elites really believe

When global warming proponents like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos all jet off to an exotic locale to celebrate a wedding, you can know they aren't really worried about CO2 hurting the planet... or they wouldn't fly a hundred jets to a party. And as this article explains, EV cars are another hypocrisy gauge. They might make sense in some instances, but if they are being pushed whether they help lower CO2 emissions or not, then you know this is about show, not substance. As Bjorn Lomborg writes:

"In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars...."

Now, to be fair, Lomborg himself is worried about global warming. But, as he highlights, the actions most governments take are not what would be needed to solve the issue if it did exist.

Parks Canada staff privately doubted Kamloops "graves" claim

“$12M spent by @GcIndigenous to find purported 215 children's graves at Indian Residential School was instead spent on publicists & consultants with no graves found to date...”

The legacy media is betraying Canada (10 min. read)

Soviet Union President Nikita Khrushchev is credited with saying, "The press is our chief ideological weapon." In contrast, US President George H.W. Bush is said to have said, "We need an independent media to hold people like me to account.” The dictator wanted to own the press so the government could use it to direct public opinion, while the US president touted the need for a press independent of government so it could hold those in power to account.

Our Canadian government spends massive amounts of money funding the country's largest media outlets, and these outlets not only don't denounce the proposition, but take the money. That tells you a lot about which direction our media is heading.

While readers likely won't mind this article's anti-Liberal Party bias, some might be put off by just how loud it is. But read it anyways for the money trail.

The Scopes Monkey Trial is 100 years old!

In 1925, a Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes was put on trial for violating a state law that forbade teaching evolution. The case made big news then – across both the US and into Canada – and made big news again in 1960 when a movie version called Inherit the Wind was made, which portrayed the town of Dayton as a bunch of creationist hicks who wanted to storm the jail to get Scopes. That film was then shown in classrooms across the US for generations, convincing many students that only idiots like those onscreen could ever believe Genesis is literal.

But the truth is, the whole town was in on it – they challenged the law to get some attention for their hometown, and recruited Scopes, who agreed to be charged, and in an ironic twist, he probably never even taught evolution in his classroom. In another ironic twist, as this article lays out, much of the scientific evidence marshaled for evolution during the trial has been overturned since (ex. vestigial organs, similar embryonic development). So, even if it had been a bunch of dumb hicks, dumb hicks siding with God are a lot smarter than a gaggle of reporters and scientists siding against Him.

Is Trump doing good or is he doing bad? Yes.

Jeffrey Epstein was a sex trafficker with ties to many of the most powerful people in the world. This, then, was a man who could name names, and topple empires... and then he died mysteriously in his jail cell – a purported suicide but one that happened when his cell's video cameras were broken. The country's reaction was telling. No one was buying the coincidence. This past week, Epstein's client list was supposed to be released and the news now is that there was no client list. As the video below details, this has a lot of conservatives, Christians among them, feeling crushed. They don't believe it, and want to know where the justice is.

Part of the disappointment comes from the tendency we have of making politicians our dividing lines. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were monsters... so we should love Trump? That doesn't follow. Canadian prime ministers Trudeau and Carney have a litany of sins, most recently trying to push murder as a treatment for mental illness. But does that mean we have to look past the shortcomings of Pierre Poilievre? Christians don't have to. Our dividing line is not a Trudeau or Trump, because our unswerving loyalty lies only with God (Josh. 5:13-14). So, yes, Trump continues to stand strong against gender nonsense, but the missing Epstein list has people wondering if the swamp can ever be drained, and as Mindy Belz (sister-in-law of WORLD magazine founder Joel Belz) highlights, his results-now approach has undercut processes that protect everyone from government overreach.


Today's Devotional

July 14 - Children of God!

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” - 1 John 3:1 

Scripture reading: 1 John 3:1-3; Romans 8:12-17

There is no greater way to express the intimacy of the fellowship that believers enjoy with God than in the reality of our adoption into His family.  As we believe on the Lord Jesus >

Today's Manna Podcast

Manna Podcast banner: Manna Daily Scripture Meditations and open Bible with jar logo

Glorification: In His Presence

Serving #903 of Manna, prepared by D. VandeBurgt, is called "Glorification" (In His Presence).











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Internet

Charles Spurgeon with some advice for the Internet age

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) died a century before Mankind mastered the ability to pass along unverified news stories and unfounded rumors at the speed of light. But while the medium is new, the sin of gossip isn’t, and Spurgeon’s warning remains as relevant as ever. **** What a pity that there’s no tax on words: what an income the government would get from it. And if lies paid double, we could pay off the National Debt! But, alas, talking pays no tax. Silence is golden Now if men only said what was true, what a peaceable world it would be. But we pass on hearsay. And hearsay is half lies – consider how a tale never loses in the retelling of it. As a snowball grows by rolling, so does the story. So those who talk much, lie much. While silence rarely causes mischief; too much talking can be a plague to the parish. Since silence is wisdom, it’s clear, then, that wise men and wise women are scarce. As they say, still waters are the deepest, but the shallowest brooks babble the most. An open mouth shows an empty head. It’s like a treasure chest – if it had gold or silver in it, it wouldn’t always be standing wide open. Talking comes naturally for us, but it takes a good deal of training to learn to be quiet; yet regard for truth should put a bit into every honest man's mouth and a bridle on every good woman's tongue. Be free of slander If we must talk, at least let us be free from slander. Spreading slander may be fun for some, but it is death to those they abuse. We can commit murder with the tongue as well as with the hand. The worst evil you can do a man is to injure his character. As the Quaker said to his dog, "I'll not beat thee, nor abuse thee, but I'll give thee an ill name." The world, for the most part, believes that where there is smoke there is fire, and what everybody says must be true. Let us be careful, then, that we do not hurt our neighbor in so tender a spot as to besmirch his character, for it is hard to get dirt off, once it is thrown. When a man finds himself put in people's bad books, he might never be able to get out of them. So, again, if we want to be sure not to speak wrongly, it might be just as well to speak as little as possible; for if all men's sins were divided into two bundles, half of them would be sins of the tongue. "And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body" (James 3:2). The solution So, gossips, give up the shameful trade of tale-spreading; don't be the devil's bellows, giving more air to the fire of strife. If you are going to talk, at least season your tongues with the salt of grace – praise God more, and blame neighbors less. Any goose can cackle, any fly can find a sore place, and any empty barrel can make a big noise. But the flies will not go down your throat if you keep your mouth shut, and no evil talk will come out either. So think much, but speak little; be quick at work and slow at talk; and, above all, ask the great Lord to set a watch over your lips. This is an abridged, modernized, version of Chapter 6, "On Gossips" from Charles Spurgeon’s “The Ploughman Talks.”...





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Adult biographies, Book Reviews

John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock

by Iain H. Murray 240 pages / 2011 Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001 John MacArthur has been a help and a hero to me. The help has come from his insights on important issues like creation and evolution, psychology, Pentecostalism, gender roles, and the need for fruit in a Christian’s life. I really appreciated books like Charismatic Chaos (on Charismatics) and The Battle for the Beginning (on Creation vs. Evolution) which were educational and accessible. But the biggest reason I became a MacArthur fan was due to his regular appearances on the Larry King Live show. This was an interview show on CNN and when the host wanted to talk about religious issues there would be MacArthur, alongside of Deepak Chopra, a full-on new age guru, and some forgettable weak-kneed Roman Catholic priest. The setting wasn’t exactly hostile – while Larry King is agnostic, he’s quite polite – but sitting there, in the midst of three fellows who not only had no idea what the truth was, but at points even denied there was a truth to be found, it was certainly a challenging position. MacArthur, as the sole voice for God’s Truth, had to not only present that truth, but in a winsome way that would give God his due. And he nailed it! It was just so encouraging to see him clean up, coming off as the only sane one on the panel. I think he even got me clapping, after a particularly good answer. So, a help and a hero. And to top it off he’s Reformed. But he’s also Baptist and a Dispensationalist. He's wrong about these major matters. That’s why, when I found out Iain Murray had written a biography on him, I knew I’d have to check it out. On the matters where we differ with MacArthur, Murray does too, so his biography highlights the great good God is doing through this man, and takes gentle note of areas where both Murray and we too would differ. Topics covered What Murray offers us here is a more topical than chronological look (though it is that too) at MacArthur’s life. So, for example, a chapter is spent on his wife, both on her influence, and a major car accident that nearly killed her. Another chapter is spent on the spiritual state of Russians after the Berlin Wall fell when MacArthur was invited to preach and teach there. We also learn about the role MacArthur had in fighting the “easy-believism” that was found in many evangelical churches. Pastors were teaching that not only is salvation not due to our works, after we are saved we still don’t have to do good works! MacArthur’s book The Gospel according to Jesus was a response to this error. Of course, Murray does also give un a look at the man himself. One little factoid that I found of interest was that one condition he set on accepting the call to Grace Community Church, the church he has served these last 40+ years, is that they allow him 30 hours a week for Bible study. He said that if he was going to teach the Word he needed time to be in the Word. I’m sure he works more than 30 hours a week, but even if he was at his task 10 hours a day six days a week, this still amounts to half of all his time. How much time, I wonder, do we give our ministers to simply study God’s Word? Murray clearly admires his subject, but that doesn’t stop him from, when needed, rebutting him. For example, Murray takes up the issue of Dispensationalism in a chapter titled “Objections and Corrections.” There is no better example of loving criticism to be found than in this chapter in how Murray corrects MacArthur! Conclusion While I loved this book – I liked it so much I took the luxury of reading through it slowly – it is not the sort of biography that everyone will enjoy. The battles MacArthur has fought have been of a spiritual nature, which doesn’t make for quite the same gripping nature as, say, a biography about a shot-down World War II pilot who had to contend with actual bullets and bombs. But spiritual battles should be of interest too – after all, we’re all in one. And for anyone who has read or heard MacArthur and wanted to know more about the man this will be a wonderful treat. Here is a man who sought the Lord first and foremost. A version of this review first appeared in the June 2015 issue. ...