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A Practice in Fasting

The Vanguard Technology Fast

By HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development

January 17^th, 2023

Countering The Broader Culture

In more than one aspect, Vanguard Gap Year is eight months of living a distinct and unique lifestyle. One of the more unique experiences that the program provides is a six-week technology fast. This technology fast, better known as “tech fast” to Vanguards and HoneyRock alum, starts the second week of the fall semester and lasts six weeks until the end of October. The fast requires Vanguards to not use their phones, computers, smart watches, or tablets. The fast asks Vanguards to refrain from listening to music, this includes record players and all mobile music devices (even the radio!). The intention is not to isolate Vanguards during their first six weeks of living at HoneyRock.

Rather, it encourages and enables Vanguards to be fully present in their new community as it begins to form. The tech fast helps remove the all too familiar “noise” of streaming music, movies, and scrolling social media. Fasting from their devices and apps requires Vanguards to be more attentive and aware of the place that modern technology has in their daily life. The intention is to help students identify how tech influences their relationships, decision-making, and daily rhythms. Fasting from technology creates more space for students to reimagine their relationship with technology, each other, and Jesus. It carves out more time and attention, broadening Vanguard’s capacity to be present in this pivotal moment of transition.

All the photos in this story were taken during the technology fast, either by staff or Vanguards themselves. Vanguards are permitted to use digital cameras during the fast. Many Vanguards find Polaroid or disposable cameras to be a unique way of capturing memories during the tech fast.

Jocelyn Erbele (Vanguard '23) at Inspiration Point looking out on Long Lake.

The fast encourages and enables Vanguards to be fully present in their new community as it begins to form.

Getting our Priorities in Order

Charlie Goeke, School Year Program Director, explains that the goal of the tech fast is to reorient Vanguards in their thinking, to give them intentional time and guidance as they address questions like:

How do we use our time?
What do we choose to do when the easy things are not available to us?

Students have to be intentional with their decisions in the small things, “... a puzzle, a game, or going and doing things outside; choices that take a little bit more effort if music and movies are not readily available.”

Vanguards are invited to wrestle with the amorality and role of technology throughout the fast and the entirety of the year. The fast creates tension where students must grapple with tendencies of escaping through social media, movies, and music versus delighting in movies and music in moderation. Communication with family and friends is strongly encouraged during the tech fast. Many Vanguards choose to write letters to their friends and family while on the six-week fast. Students have easy access to a landline to make phone calls at their leisure in addition to the scheduled opportunities to check in with family.

The fast creates tension where students must grapple with tendencies of escaping through social media, movies, and music versus delighting in movies and music in moderation.

Charlie reflects on the impact and power that a technology fast has on students:

“Vanguard have realized that they can have a lot of fun and build friendships without having the safety blanket of their phone or digital media. We are not against those mediums, but we want them to be held in the right order. The deep friendships that are formed during Vanguard is a recurring result of things like the tech fast. Just being at HoneyRock helps you form friendships, but that comes from the intentionality of being “a place apart”. Living into the “a place apart” mentality helps foster social skills going forward."

Qian Lim and Ansel Flores (Vanguards '21) out and about at Bond Falls. Vanguards are still able to use digital cameras during tech fast!

Ryan Tsai, Megan Merimonti, and Ava Wentworth (Vanguard '23) raking leaves on Leaf Day.

Jamin Sinclair-Lee and Meg Wolfe (Vanguards '21) embrace the rain, chilly weather, and fall colors at Bond Falls.

Ava Wentworth and Sharlotte White (Vanguard '23) at Inspiration Point

Vanguard men ('21) on the Pictured Rocks Backpacking Trip

Forming Healthy Rhythms

Vanguard is a program that aims to challenge emerging adults, by having them critically reflect on their beliefs, habits, and lifestyle. When a Vanguard moves into their next season of life after the gap year, they will have a more diverse skill set. Charlie reflected on Vanguards who have since completed the program, noting that many of them have refined the valuable skill of knowing how to make the most of their circumstances and take full advantage of all the opportunities around them.

During the remainder of the first semester, current Vanguards have been readjusting to having technology back in their daily life, wrestling with how to live their lives with technology in a healthy way. Many Vanguards ask why participating in a six-week technology fast is so important.

Fasting from technology for six weeks allows Vanguards to actually get into a rhythm of living life without the devices, apps, and additional noise. A week or two of fasting from tech is so temporary that most people can push themselves through it.

Charlie elaborated on why the fast is six weeks long and why a tech fast was always part of the vision for Vanguard:

“The [tech] fast has always been a part of the design for the Vanguard program. A lot of data and research shows that seventeen to eighteen-year-olds are pretty saturated in their phone and media usage. In part because they have grown up in an age where there was no distinction between life with or without cell phones. This is all they know. We have always felt there is value in having an intentional pause and break; a detox from that way of living, to slow down and ask the question: Is this the only way we can live? Are there other healthy ways for us to engage in this? From our experience so far, the best way to have those conversations is to completely remove it for a length of time longer than a week.”

Vanguards and staff enjoy a chilly dip in Lake Superior during the Pictured Rocks Backpacking Trip

Tucker Wood (OAL '23), Kaylee Kooyman (Fellows '22, OAL '24), Olivia Sanchez Moreno (Vanguard '23), and Ava Wentworth (Vanguard '23) working on Leaf Day.

Annie Meldrum (Vanguard '22) takes in the view of Devil's Lake at Devil's Lake State Park.

Henry Xuan (Vanguard '21) playing ping pong in the Olsen-Pratt classroom in Chrouser Center.

Garrett Colber and Claire Haskell (Vanguards '22) enjoy the view at Devil's Lake State Park.

Tori MacDonald (Fellow '22, OAL '24), Grace Schroeder, Kate Vondrak, Kaylee Kooyman (Fellows '22, OAL '24), Eunice Heo, and Hannah Southard (Vanguards '22)on the shore of Lake Superior during the Pictured Rocks backpacking trip

Practicing the Sabbath

As a whole, we have seen the benefits and the freedoms that come with not being tied to our technology. Many of us, have started implementing rhythms of fasting from technology during the week. This usually looks like setting aside our phones and computers on Sundays to focus on having a Sabbath devoted to resting with each other and the Lord.

We really want students to be thinking about how to live differently after the fast is completed.

Charlie Goeke explained how the vision for tech fast has developed over the years, now including a heightened focus on and practice of the Sabbath.

“Vanguards have to be intentional in asking the hard questions of themselves and each other. The other piece of how the vision for tech fast has evolved is how we’ve positioned ourselves towards adopting a healthy and participatory view of the Sabbath. We’ve seen a significant shift in Vanguard's relationships with technology in light of the Sabbath. We are hearing and seeing students more openly and honestly commit to Sundays being completely phone free so they can authentically rest.”

Miika Forsyth and Grace Schroeder (Vanguards '22) at their camp site on the Pictured Rocks backpacking trip

Virginia Velker (Vanguard '22) at Bond Falls.

Left to right: Owen Rittgers, Isaiah Carlson, Jake Sandberg, and Blake Rittgers (Vanguards '21).

We are able to be fully present with each other and more open to the Holy Spirit’s work in and around us.

Finding Freedom & Balance

Six weeks without our phones, computers, music, and movies were challenging. By the end of the fast, all of us were missing the ability to listen to music and call our friends whenever we wanted. But the challenge of the tech fast helped our community come together. We’ve built relationships that will last us a lifetime. While it has been exciting to step back into the world of technology and digital media, it is fortifying to know that we are not at its mercy anymore.

Jayden Rascher, Emmett Peterson, and Henry Xuan (Vanguards '21) on the Pictured Rocks Wilderness Trip.

Olivia Sanchez Moreno, Jocelyn Erbele, and Ava Wentworth (Vanguards '23) at Inspiration Point

Emi Callaway and Hannah Brewer (Vanguards '21) prepping for the Great HoneyRock Bake-Off.

Phoebe Jeske (Vanguard '22) taking pictures.

Vanguards ('22) on the Pictured Rocks backpacking trip

Footnotes

Written by Olivia Sanchez Moreno (Vanguard '23) | Photos by Caleb Ledbetter (Vanguard '23), Weston Poling (Fellows '21), Laura Sattler (Fellows '20, OAL '22), Betsy Oda (Fellows '21, OAL '23)

Button Label

FootNotes

Written by Olivia Sanchez Moreno (Vanguard '23) | Photos by Caleb Ledbetter (Vanguard '23), Weston Poling (Fellows '21), Laura Sattler (Fellows '20, OAL '22), Betsy Oda (Fellows '21, OAL '23)