Ep. 89 | Navigating Technology and Family Economy with Intentionality with Rory Groves

In this episode, a discussion unfolds on the balance between adopting modern technology and maintaining strong family bonds. The script delves into the challenges and rewards of moving away from mainstream economic dependencies and focusing on sustainable family economies. Insights include the importance of discernment in technology use, the value of community and mentorship, and the practical steps to fostering family unity through entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency. The hosts also introduce a new publishing project inspired by 'Henry and The Great Society,' highlighting the impact of modern conveniences on traditional family structures.

Connect with Rory Groves

Gather & Grow Family Ministry: https://gatherandgrow.us

Kickstarter Campaign – Henry and the Great Society:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gatherandgrow/henry-and-the-great-society (Available until Nov. 6)

The GroveStead Blog (Family Economy & Durable Trades): https://www.thegrovestead.com

Outline:

00:00 Introduction: Embrace Imperfection

00:25 The Podcasting Journey

00:35 Balancing Family and Media

00:59 The Real vs. Technological Advances

03:01 Henry and The Great Society

04:45 Reviving a Lost Classic

05:27 Gather and Grow Ministry

07:21 Kickstarter Campaign and Publishing Goals

10:42 Challenges in Christian Publishing

11:35 Long-Term Strategies for Family Economy

18:28 The AI Arms Race and Its Implications

27:27 Personal Reflections on Real Assets

29:46 The Importance of Discernment

30:35 Surviving the Jobs Apocalypse

31:41 Growing Your Own Food

33:12 Storing Up Without Stress

33:48 Embracing Change and Taking Action

34:30 Faith and Obedience in Uncertain Times

39:58 Building a Family Economy

44:54 Entrepreneurship and Education

46:52 The Journey of Publishing and Family Involvement

52:27 The Power of a United Family Vision

53:59 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript:

Rory Groves: [00:00:00]

you don't have to have it all figured out.

From the beginning, before you get started, you don't have to have analysis paralysis. You can just do one thing today with your family that unites your family, that's gonna bring you closer to something that's sustainable, that's going to survive whatever's coming, and it's gonna separate you and join you with other families who are doing the same things.

well welcome back to podcasting. I guess last time we chit chatted you weren't doing podcasts.

Nathan Spearing: Yeah, I think I still have a, uh, I guess tenuous relationship with it. You can devote a hundred percent of your time to your children, to your wife and it, not be enough.

You know what I mean? True. But then the, also the reality is that this media can work on your behalf and on my behalf, round the clock. True. Or relatively cheaply. Yes. You know, so maybe, um. You know, [00:01:00] that'll be, that'll be the discussion that we have here because it's this, uh, tug of war between the analog or maybe the real, we could just say that.

The real mm-hmm. And then the, the make believe technological advances and things like that. So I think I still, I would say that it's a big topic, whatever the metric that I apply now is that. I want to talk to somebody about a subject that I particularly am curious about. All right? And I want to know what do I do?

How do I figure this out wise, men, women, people that are in my network? Why not record it? I wanna have the phone call anyway. I just call you up and say, Rory, help me out with ai. How do I, how do I figure out as I watch all these billions and billions of dollars that don't even, they really exist? Thrown into AI chips because it's [00:02:00] an arms race that will never end.

Rory Groves: Mm-hmm.

Nathan Spearing: How do I protect my family today with my time? I want to call you up and ask you that actual question, and why not hit record and let's not spend a lot of time editing and polishing, because if it's real issues that men on the ground are facing. As they intentionally try to shepherd their families, then just, you know, upload the audio file. Shoot it out there and let it, um, produce, but don't spend a whole lot of time, um, at least right now with the resources that I have trying to polish it.

Trying to just, just let the, the, the content, uh, and the, because that's the medium is people want to have a conversation and want, feel like they're there. So if you and I are really discussing this, this is stuff we're wrestling with, how do we do it?

Talk about what you're working on because that ties directly into it, like about that.

Oh, I know, that's, I'm [00:03:00] thinking.

Rory Groves: So the book, Henry and The Great Society, the, uh, in a nutshell, what it does, describes the breakdown of a family that had lived. A very, uh, integrated way of life for generations. This is a farm family, kind of in the 19, I think the book is set kind of the 1940s, 1950s. It's mid-Century America.

Mm-hmm. The author who wrote it lived this life and he watched his life. His community fall apart when all of the modern conveniences of modern society came to his hometown. And so this is, this is, it's a fictional story, but it's like a cautionary tale, Henry and the Great Society. Mm-hmm. And, and when you read it.

Um, what's, it's really thought provoking because, uh, you see the way, not only that it dismantles this community, that it meaning the technology, the prosperity, all these things that we kind of take for granted as part of modern [00:04:00] life. It's not only that it dismantles this community and more that it begins to dismantle this family.

It's that you see how the thought patterns about life and what is. What is the priority changes in these individual characters? Mainly Henry, who's the father of this family. You see how it begins to break down and wear on him, and he, he's kind of up against an in insert. He's, he's, he's out of his league, so to speak.

Mm-hmm. And so this book is, it was just like very thought provoking book. It actually did very well in its day. It was published in 1969. It had, it had some, um, uh, it had some following there, but it basically fell out a print kind of in the two thousands. And we discovered this book a couple years ago.

Someone had mentioned it. I looked it up. I found. You know, there's used copies still for sale and there's things like that, but it clearly was a very rough shot thrown together version. It wasn't a very well, well [00:05:00] produced version. And before I even read the book, I just had this sense of, uh, this is gonna sound crazy, but it's totally true.

But I just had this sense that we're, uh, my wife and I are gonna get into publishing someday, and this was gonna be the first book that we publish. I hadn't read a page. I just had this sense about it. So then I start reading this book. I end up stop reading it. I get the family together and I start reading it to them because it was everything.

So gather and grow as a ministry. Everything that we're trying to do is all about the family economy. We're trying to bring the family back together in a world that's pulled them apart. And so I'm reading this book and it's like, man, this is like exactly what has happened to the 20th century family and now 21st century family.

And I'm like, Becca, this speaks exactly to what we're trying to reverse as a ministry. Like we're trying to bring God back into the picture. We're trying to bring family back into economy. We're trying to do all of these things. And this book is speaking at it, but kind of in a very unique way because it's not just saying, Hey, let's all do this [00:06:00] thing.

It's saying, here's what can happen if we don't, if we're not intentional about this, here's how the slippery slope works. And so for us, we just saw it as like this would be an incredible tool to be able to put in people's hands to start the conversation. Mm-hmm. Begin to open people's eyes. And we hear that from people who we've come across that we mentioned that we're working on this book, we're gonna bring it back into print.

And we've heard from multiple, multiple people. Like I read this book and it changed my life. Or I, I've run into Amish families, dude Amish, who say I read this book every year just to keep me focused on the things that matter. And they're already not, you know, they're already opting out of most of what we're opting out of.

So it, they, they're, they're on that scale. They're pretty far to the, they're pretty far already. You think like, dude. It's just because of the entrapments of wealth and prosperity and all these things. It's just always in the water that we swim in right now. Mm-hmm. So, anyway, long story short, uh, we have taken this project [00:07:00] on and we, um, we were able to meet with the copyright owner.

I've got this great story about it. Um, I'm not gonna go into the details here. Right now, but this great storyline about how the Lord set up this appointment with the guy who owned the copyrights told 'em about what we were doing, and they're huge supporters of it, and they sold us the rights to republish this book.

And so here we are. We're in the middle of a campaign right now to try to raise funds. To publish the book and to try to open a whole publishing house behind the book because we re