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The Pursuit of Holiness + Is Birth Control a Sin? | 847

Becoming MomStrong, Current Events

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Recently, we have seen startling and serious moral failures of several “Christian celebrities,” and it begs the question: how can we be the men and women God has called us to be in a culture of temptation and sin?  The answer lies in learning to surrender. We are called to be a “set apart” people and God will help us to do just that. I’ll also be answering a question from a listener about the pill.

Transcribed version of podcast is below.

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Hebrews 1:1-3

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

All Things Heidi

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by MomStrong International.

Hi, everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Wednesday, November 20th. This is episode number 847. Today’s episode is brought to you by MomStrong International. We are teaching moms to study the word to train up their children to walk in righteousness. Today, we’re going to be talking a little bit about what’s going on in the culture and I’ll be answering some of your questions. 

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

So thanks for tuning in today everybody. As usual, thank you so much for leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. I got a special favor to ask today. There’ve been a couple of people leaving reviews that are a little on the obnoxious side over at Amazon for Becoming MomStrong. And so if you guys have read the book and you don’t think I’m a homophobe or a bigot and you haven’t ever left a review for Becoming MomStrong over at Amazon, now would be really good time. Okay, that’s all I got to say about that.

All right, so couple of things happening in the news right now. Obviously, the Democrats are continuing their push for impeachment of the President of the United States. And last week, I ranted a little bit about … there’s a couple of things actually that I ranted about, but I ranted a little bit about my just disgust with the Democratic party here in the United States, and I said shame on them. I have never, and I mean never seen anything like this. The Democrats can’t win at the ballot box, so their only hope is then to hold a Salem witch hunt-style, phony political impeachment hearing. It’s disgraceful, it’s embarrassing and it’s wrong. And I hope that reasonable people on both sides of the aisle will come out in droves next November and teach them a lesson that they’ll never forget. You know what we’re doing with this? We’re teaching our kids that when you don’t get what you want, it’s okay to do anything to get it.

Now, you guys might not like Donald Trump’s style. You might wish he’d get off Twitter or think that he’s arrogant or even impetuous, but he hasn’t done anything that rises to the level of impeachment. Impeachment is a political death sentence. It’s the equivalent to a public hanging, and it should be reserved for true crimes against the nation. So you guys can say what you will. I think the President loves the United States of America, and I’m disappointed and frankly disgusted with anyone on Capitol Hill who would push for this impeachment inquiry. It’s a sad time for our nation’s history, and I hope you guys will be joining me in praying for President Trump. That’s exactly what I am doing. I’m praying for him, he needs our prayers. I literally have never seen anything like this in my entire life. So I hope you guys are praying.

And really, I mean, as I’m watching the pundits sort of throw this thing around, someone said to me on my Facebook page the other day, she said, “Heidi, you shouldn’t have any political posts on your page.” And I was like, “Wrong. This is my page. It’s my prerogative and politics matter. It absolutely matters.” You guys, politics determines policy. Since when did we start saying that we can’t talk about politics? I think part of the reason that we’re in the mess we’re in is because that’s been what we’ve been saying for a long time. We’ve been saying, “Hey, go ahead and be quiet about politics and religion. These are the things we don’t talk about at Thanksgiving. These are the things that we don’t engage, don’t engage.” And so in our lack of engagement, what has filled the vacuum? True fascists like Antifa. Hello, they are the true fascists. You don’t believe me, go to downtown Portland and just watch for a little while. It’s fascinating.

And I believe that the conversation’s important and I think we can have it in a way that brings life. It doesn’t have to be the screaming, yelling thing. So engage, you guys. Don’t be afraid to engage. It’s time for us to begin to engage the culture. I’d love to see Christians in every sphere of influence. I’d love to see us be in medicine. I’d love to see us teaching in the public schools and be on school boards and on library boards and in politics. Christians have the power of the Holy Spirit at their disposal. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and so when we have no fear of God, we’re going to have a really hard time doing anything that’s wise. And my goodness, we’re seeing that right now. And so I’m praying, really, I’m praying for our nation. I’ve been thinking a lot about holiness also in light of what happened with John Crist, something else that I have wrote about and have been very passionate about because I think that it’s time for our church to, actually, it’s past time.

It’s past time for our church to have a conversation about living a life of holiness, living a life of holiness. And we’re not really talking about that anymore in the church. And we’re not talking about it enough. I shouldn’t say we’re not talking about any more because I realize that there are some churches that are talking about it. And I watched the saga with John Crist unfold with just sadness. It makes me sad. Another so-called Christian celebrity bites the dust. And we feign that were shocked and we talk about how we need to be forgiving and how we’re all sinners and how, what a hot mess we all are and this is what I’ve been telling you for many years, frustrates me about women’s ministries. We stand around and we talk about what a hot mess we are and we’re drinking too much wine in the evening.

It’s wine o’clock and we wallow in our weakness. Where is our discernment? We’re upset because his public profile and career is damaged. Guys, this is a guy who doesn’t just have a sin issue. This is beyond John Crist looking at porn. This is John behaving in a predatorial way towards women while, all the while saying that he’s a Christian comedian. This is frustrating to me, you guys and it shows the pitfalls of fame and money. But we need to have people in our lives that will hold us to account. The most frustrating thing that I have read in this whole thing is that John Crist said that his team knew about his behavior since 2016 at least, and they let him carry on without so much as a, “hey, our guy is a predator warning”. Wrong on a hundred different levels. Why is this happening? Because we’re a milk loving immature church. And holiness starts in the quiet places of our lives.

It starts with a quiet personal commitment, personal to becoming more like Jesus. And if we can’t do that, we’re going to look just like the world or worse since we claim to look like Christ. And I wrote this and put it out on social media and the usual suspects came out and said, “How dare you judge and blah, blah, blah.” You guys, we are actually called and commanded to righteous and wise judgment. The minute one of us calls ourselves to… we call ourselves a Christian, then we are then subject to and accountable to the Christians around us. This is the church we’re supposed to be holding each other accountable. Doesn’t mean that there isn’t forgiveness. It doesn’t mean that there can’t be a do over and a reboot and redemption, a redemption story can totally can come from this, but we better start talking about the huge problem we have in our churches right now with a lack of accountability and the sloppy agape that we’re getting away with. And just a lack of basically just an overall lack of integrity. 

In 1 Peter 1:15 the scriptures say you must be Holy because I am Holy. He didn’t say that it was a, this is a multiple choice. You can be or not be, A, B or C. he said you must be Holy. So like most authors, I spend quite a bit of time studying words, right? And language is a cornerstone in our culture. And in recent years we’ve seen the language changed dramatically. We’ve seen reckless attempts by social activist to redefine gender in an attempt to get rid of our societal male and female norms. We’ve seen a shift away from kindness and our everyday language, which has given way to divisive speech. And it threatens to tear us apart even in the church.

But I’ve grown more and more concerned about the state of God’s people, particularly as it relates to holiness. So I looked up the word, of course, and according to the dictionary, so Webster, right? Holiness is the state of being sinless. Purity of moral character, freedom from all forms of evil. Well eh, because the dictionary just described God. Okay. And I can’t relate to that definition at all. So thank goodness that’s not what the Bible means when it calls Christians to live a life of holiness. God isn’t looking for a state of being sinless. Because He that we can’t attain such a thing on this earth.

Rather, the Greek word that’s used for holiness is αγιότης and it simply means this: We are to be as set apart people. It means we are not to be like the world that we live in, rather where to be different. Like God is different. Truly, there’s no one else like God. Oh men and women, how we need to be set apart. And part of that being set apart means we hold each other to account. And as I am thinking about this and I’m preparing for the podcast today, I’m realizing again that the church in Western culture is at a crossroad and we’ve been here for a kind of long time, like sort of an old Ford pickup truck out in the middle of Missouri, right? It’s like we’re paused at a four way stop on a dirt road, scratching our heads, waiting for Waze to tell us which way to go.

Should we turn left? Should we turn right? Should we go straight? Doesn’t seem like we know what to do, but we should. God has been clear from the beginning as to what he expects of his people and he expects holiness. He expects us to be different. Our relationship should be different. What we watch on TV should be different. The music we listen to, the way we look at sin, it should all be a part of our desire to walk in obedience to God that produces that desire for holiness inside of us. There is no room in the Bible for God’s people to view sin lightly and yet we struggle to be set apart. So I hope today as you’re listening to this that you are striving toward holiness. Remember you guys, God doesn’t expect perfection, all right? He expects surrender. You should write that down.

He doesn’t expect perfection. He expects surrender and if you want to see your kids strive to live a life that would please God, then don’t do your best to blend in. We have a choice to make and I am praying that we would choose holiness. It’s all right for Christians to call out other Christians. When we see them sinning, particularly when we’re talking about public figures. And we’re not talking about a judgment in terms of judging a person’s soul. Only God can do that, but Jesus said that we would know a tree by its fruit and there are consequences to sin.

We need people in our lives that would hold us to account. I am surrounded by people that will hold me to account. My husband, the women that work on my staff at MomStrong international and at the Homeschool Resource Center in Vancouver. We have a great thing going. If we see one of us stumbling and starting to get into a pattern of especially of habitual sin, oh my goodness, you guys, we should be talking to each other. We should be calling each other out. Let’s not wait until we’ve so tarnished the reputation of Jesus and so wounded the people around us that it takes years to recover. Instead, let’s choose holiness. Let’s choose surrender.

And in that surrender we say, “Lord, have your way. Have your way.” Some of you guys are listening to this right now and the Holy spirit is telling you, “you got to surrender. You got to give that thing up. You got to give it up. You got to lay it down”. There is something beautiful about being able to lay it down and just say to the Lord, “Lord, I see that I’m doing this. I see that I’m sinning before you help me to be set apart. Help me to walk in a manner that’s pleasing of You, and that’s worthy of Your gospel.” And the Lord will do it. He really, really well. So let’s be Holy. I have said that I’m going to start answering some of your questions on Wednesdays as well.

Love your questions. You guys, keep them coming. You can shoot them to me at my website, Heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday. And remember what I said, please put a one or two word sentence in there, one or two word description of what you’re writing about and then in as succinctly as possible, get your question out there and we would love to answer it here at the podcast.

So this one comes from a mom, her name is Sarah and she has a question about birth control and this was a really fascinating question. It came in quite awhile ago and I kind of tiptoed around it. I was like, I don’t know if I want to talk about that or not. There are certain things that I feel like we can talk about them but they don’t really help. Right? We can talk about it, but it’s not really edifying everybody. But something that she said to me sort of peaked my interest. So I’m going to go ahead and tackle this one and I hope it encourages. I’ll link back to some resources also to help you further study this issue. All right. She said, “Last night I was listening to a podcast in which you described certain things that are disputable and indisputable in the Christian walk, you mentioned birth control as something that is disputable. When I was a younger married woman, I use birth control in the form of the pill. I thought that it prevented conception from occurring at all, but only years later found out that it does not always prevent conception. It will prevent implantation on the wall of the uterus after conception has occurred. When I discovered that I was completely devastated and grieved deeply, perhaps your statement was only alluding to natural family planning or the use of condoms, but I feel strongly that people need to know how the pill really works. I thought perhaps you had a platform in which you could share this with other married women who maybe don’t know the truth about the pill. In my mind, the use of the pill or any similar form of birth control would be an indisputable sin in God’s eyes. I look forward to hearing back from you.”

So Sarah, I realized that you turned that question in quite some time ago and I’m going to probably bum some of you out today by saying that I also… So I had a very similar understanding of the pill. I was told that it would prevent pregnancy. And it turns out that it prevents, it does prevent implantation. And so there’s a couple of ways for us to look at this. First of all, Randy Alcorn, who I very much respect, runs eternal Perspective Ministries here in my neck of the woods out in Boring Oregon. And he has an awesome article that was written on February 17th of 2010 called Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortion? A Short Condensation. Let me, I’m going to read to you just a little bit. I’ll link to the full thing as well as his book in the show notes today.

“The pill is the popular term for more than 40 different commercially available oral contraceptives. In medicine, they are commonly referred to as BCPs or birth control pills or oral contraceptives. They’re also called combination pills because they contain a combination of estrogen and progestin. The pill is used by about 14 million American women each year. Across the globe, it is used by 60 million. The question of whether it causes abortions has a direct bearing on untold millions of Christians, many of them pro-life who use and recommend it. In 1991 while researching the original edition of my book, Pro-Life Answers for Pro Choice Arguments, I heard someone suggest that birth control pills can cause abortions. This was brand new to me in all my years as a pastor and a pro-lifer, I had never heard this before and I was immediately skeptical. My vested interests were strong in that Nancy and I had used the pill in the early years of our marriage as did many of our pro life friends and why not? We believed it simply prevented conception. We never suspected it had any potential for abortion. No one told us that this was even a possibility. I confess I never read the fine print of the pills package insert nor am I sure I would have understood it even if I had. In 14 years as a pastor. I did considerable premarital counseling and warned couples against the IUD because I’d read it could cause early abortions. I’d recommended young couples use the pill because of its relative ease and effectiveness. At the time I was researching Pro-Life Answers, I found only one person who could point me toward any documentation that connected the pill and abortion. She told me of just one primary source that supported this belief and I found only one other. Still these two sources were sufficient to compel me to include this warning in the book.” 

And here is his warning.

“Some forms of contraception, specifically the IUD, Norplant, and certain low dose oral contraceptives often do not prevent conception but prevent implantation of an already fertilized ovum. The result is an early abortion, the killing of an already conceived individual. Tragically, many women are not told this by their physicians and therefore do not make an informed choice about which contraceptive to use.” Randy goes on to say, “As it turns out, I made a critical error at the time. I incorrectly believe that low dose birth control pills were the exception and not the rule I thought most people who took the pill were in no danger of having abortions. And what I’ve found in more recent research is that since 1988 virtually all oral contraceptives used in America are low dose. That is, they contain much lower levels of estrogen than in earlier birth control pills.” 

And so he does a lot of research on this. He quotes Pharmacists for Life. He has a study that comes from the physician’s desk reference, which is excellent and I’ve read the whole article. It’s much too long to read to you. Also, his book Pro-Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments is an excellent, excellent read. And so I’m going to let you guys chew on that a little bit. And then I want to kind of turn the conversation just really briefly to what God says about children. All right, so a lot of us have experienced unplanned pregnancies, right? I have. My fifth baby was an unplanned pregnancy and you guys are to like “What? Your number five, don’t you know how that works?” Yes, but we weren’t planning on having a baby and the Lord had other plans for us and so when we find out that we’re pregnant and it’s an unplanned pregnancy, what we need in any pregnancy is the perspective of God.

In Jeremiah 1:5 it says, “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born, I set you apart”. God is the author of life. Deuteronomy 32:39 says, “I bring to life”, and so even if you feel like you’ve made a mistake, your child is not a mistake. God is not surprised by the creation of new life. He is the creator. And those whom he creates, He loves, and we know because of Romans 8:39. That nothing can ever separate you or your baby from the love of God. In Genesis 29:31 we read that God opens and closes the womb, right? 1 Samuel 1:5 the Lord closed her womb. God ordains all pregnancies regardless of the circumstances. That’s why when we talk about cases of rape and incest, I always say it is not the baby’s fault.

We don’t… The baby should not get a death sentence because it was conceived in rape. In Isaiah 44:24 this is what the Lord says: Your Redeemer who formed you in the womb, I am the Lord who has made all things. And God never forms a life without having plans for that life. Jeremiah 29:11 for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. You guys see that from God’s perspective, all pregnancies are from him and therefore are wanted by him. And so when we talk about babies, when we talk about a pregnancy planned, especially unplanned, the most important thing that we can do as God’s people is to always represent God’s point of view. We are ambassadors for the Lord. That’s what we do.

We represent the Lord’s point of view to the culture. And so I want to encourage you toward that today. This was kind of a heavy question, but I appreciated it being asked and I hope you guys are encouraged to look up what God’s Word says and to do your homework on the pill. My husband and I made the decision to go off the pill many years ago when we realized that it was preventing an already fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall. And we were so dismayed by that because no one told us. We were told that it prevented ovulation. So check it out you guys and then ask the Lord to give you wisdom and he will. So thank you guys for writing to me today. 

As usual, I love it if you’d leave reviews for the podcast, we’d love to hear from you. Love your Christmas cards. Love it if you join me at MomStrong International for the Bible study. And speaking of the Bible study today is when I do my teaching. So I’ll be going there for about an hour and teaching live at the members only Facebook group. So if you’re a part of MomStrong International’s Bible study, makes sure that you join us there. If you’re not on Facebook, we will record those videos and then put them out over the MomStrong International forums. All right. Stay faithful. Stay in the word and I’ll see you back here on Friday for part two of my interview with the Creation Guys. 

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Prioritize and Thrive: Life Hacks for Busy Parents – 846

Becoming MomStrong, Homeschooling, MomStrong Parenting, MomStrong Sisterhood

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Help! I feel overwhelmed! How can I homeschool my kids and keep my sanity? Please tell me what to prioritize! Today, I’ll be answering this and several more questions. Listen in and be encouraged!

Transcribed version of podcast is below.

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Psalm 63:3-4

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

All Things Heidi

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by our friends at Evangelical Christian Credit Union

Hey you guys, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Monday, November 18th. It’s mailbox Monday. This is episode number 846. Lots of stuff to talk about today. I’m going to get to your questions. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

There have been a lot of things happening in the news lately that I have been commenting on, on social media and obviously around the dinner table, and we’re going to get to those things today. I’m going to talk a little bit about what’s happening with the impeachment hearings that are happening on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, regarding President Trump, answer some of your criticisms from social media and then also try to get to as many questions as I can for Mailbox Monday. If you want to have your question considered. Here’s a couple of things I want you guys to remember. You need to submit your questions to me. Don’t send them to me on social media, on Instagram or any of my social media outlets. Those are looked at by staff members and it’s hard for them to get those questions off of social media and into the form that we have set up for you.

If you want to reach out to me, please do it at heidistjohn.com/mailboxMonday. Please put all the information in there that you would like for me to have, but there’s a caveat. Can you please keep it short? Short and sweet and to the point and actually it’s really awesome if right before you start your question you can say what it’s about. Maybe it’s about homeschooling, maybe it’s about marriage, maybe it’s about politics, maybe it’s about the church, whatever it is. Maybe it’s about parenting. If you can put just one or two words in there before you start your question, that really helps me categorize things, so that I can get to a wide variety of questions here at the podcast.

I wanted to remind you guys that we’re starting our third week of the November study on contentment at MomStrong International. Come study the Word with me at momstronginternational.com. You can sign up for the study. You can get the free scripture writing challenge. The study itself is about $8 a month and I’m here to tell you right now, it’s going to bless and encourage you and it’s going to strengthen you in your knowledge of the Word and help you as you train your children in righteousness.

On December 6th, I will be speaking at a women’s Christmas tea in Newbury Park, California. If you’re anywhere around there, come on out. I just cannot wait to be with all of my Newbury Park women, so excited about that. December 6th for a women’s Christmas tea. Really, really excited about that. 

You guys, we have an awesome sponsor today. ECCU is sponsoring this podcast. Wouldn’t it be great if kids were born just knowing how to manage money? What a relief, right? Just hand them a little cash and they instinctively know what to do. Wrong. Not going to happen. I’ve been telling you guys for some time now about one of our partners here at the podcast and Evangelical Christian Credit Union has lots of tools at your disposal and wants to help your child become a great financial steward. I’ll tell you guys a little secret. They want you to be successful in teaching them, too. All right. Learn more about how they can help you on this journey at eccu.org/heidi.

All right. Without further ado, I’m going to jump into your questions. Lots of questions here at the podcast and I have been praying over these as they come in and really asking the Lord to give me wisdom as your questions come in and they’re wonderful questions. I love hearing from you guys and I hope you’ll keep them coming, so remember if you’ve got questions, Heidistjohn.com/mailboxMonday.

I’m going to be bringing guests on the show occasionally now on Wednesdays also, and I will be attempting to answer your questions on Mondays and Wednesdays and so I hope it’s an encouragement to you.

All right, this comes from Holly. She says, “Heidi, I am a new homeschool mom.” Welcome, Holly. “Just celebrated my one year anniversary, walking with the Lord. My husband travels for work and isn’t always available and I’m struggling to homeschool my six and four year old and giving them the time they need for school, trying to tend to my house, fit in my appointments, play dates, one on one time, trying to be a full in my own spiritual walk with the Lord and get it all done. So do you have any recommendations on how to do it all? What should be the priority?”

First of all, a sweet Holly, can I just say welcome? You have just described motherhood and I think that sometimes, I’ve noticed that you have a six and a four year old. Right off the top, I’m just going to say you probably shouldn’t be doing any more than an hour every day with your six year old. They don’t need a lot. All right? It’s the system that has told us, we’re so programmed and so conditioned to think that our kids need to be in school six hours a day and they really don’t. Especially not a six year old and certainly not a four year old. In fact, I am typically not doing school with my four year olds. This is a mistake I made long ago when my 28 year old was very little and I was so enthusiastic and thought, “Oh my goodness, she’s four years old. So let the schooling begin.”

Yeah. In hindsight, I wish I wouldn’t have done it that way. So your six year old, I’d say let your four year old play. These are the wonder years, right? Dump rice onto a cookie sheet and let them practice their shapes and their letters and numbers and you have them copy things into that cookie sheet. Set out a bucket of toys for your kids. My goodness, you guys, when you make cookies with them, you’re teaching them. When they’re helping you with the laundry and helping you do chores, kids like that need to know that they are a valuable and an important part of your home. And so you have an opportunity to do that.

As far as fitting everything in, you asked specifically what should be the priority. And so I’m going to outline those priorities for you from the word of God. Are you ready? The first one comes from Deuteronomy: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. We love the Lord. The Lord is our first priority. I’m going to say that again. Your relationship with the Lord is and should be, according to God’s Word, your first priority.

And so that means when you get up in the morning that we should be conditioning ourselves, before we open Facebook, oh for the love. Please, dear God, help Heidi St. John to stop doing that. It’s so tempting, isn’t it? Especially if the first thing we do is pick up our phones, right? That’s the first thing that I do. But I’m telling you what you guys, when I get lazy, when I fall into that, the enemy messes with me. And we need to remember that we’re on a battlefield every day. And for those of you who have little children, I have written about this extensively, and I’m going to quote from the book a lot today.

I wrote a book several years ago called The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight, managing your days through the homeschool years. This is a great book for anybody, homeschooling or not, because it outlines the priorities that God gives us. Your first priority is your walk with the Lord and when your kids are little, bring them into it with you. If you’ve been up all night with a newborn, I’m not talking to you, all right? I’m talking to those of you guys who were sleeping through the night. Now I know, I know. I don’t know if mothers ever sleep through the night again, but you guys get it, right? You understand?

In the morning, bring your kids downstairs, read God’s Word to them, read out of a children’s Bible if your kids are little, let them see that this is the priority in your life. Your relationship with the Lord comes first. Out of an overflow then, of what God is doing in your walk with Him, you pour into your marriage. Marriage comes before motherhood. Write that down. Dads, marriage comes before fatherhood. Tend to your marriage and then out of an overflow of what God is doing in your marriage—you pour into your children, out of an overflow of what God’s doing in your children, you pour into your community. 

This is why so many people in ministry end up losing their families because we get it messed up. We start ministering to people when our own homes are not in order, and so this is the most important thing. And then ask the Lord, I mean, Holly, this is a great opportunity for you in the morning, when you’re having that time with the Lord. “Lord, how do you want me to order my day? How do you want me to do appointments and set up playdates and all those things?” And the Lord will show you. All right, Holly? Wonderful question. Thanks for writing.

Whitney. “In Alabama, we have an opportunity to homeschool our kids through Alabama Connections Academy. It is state regulated, they provide books and laptops for free. My question is, would this be a smart choice or is it best to consider something like Classical Connections that is more biblically based?” All right, now you know what I’m going to say, but I’m going say it anyway. Nothing is free. And so the school system, and I’ve been banging this drum for a really long time. Those of you who are homeschooling and you’re doing it through the state, can I just tell you right now, I believe in my heart that it actually hurts homeschool freedom when we do that.

I always encourage people, do it independent. Don’t take money from the government. Yes, they provide books and laptops. Why? Because they still want a window into influencing your kids. And so education is not neutral. It never has been, it never will be. And so I believe the smarter choice is always to give your kids a Christian education, a biblical education. And parents, you can do that without something like, I’ve never heard of Classical Connections, but without that you can do it on your own. I know lots of people who are using Ambleside Online. There are lots of online academies that are Christian based.

HSLDA— If you’ve got older children, they’ve got wonderful online courses that you can participate in. But I want to, I always steer parents toward giving their children a Christian education because education isn’t neutral. Luke 6:40. You guys know this verse. I say it all the time: When a student is fully trained, he will be like his teacher. And there’s never been a more important time than now to recognize that we’ve been duped in Western civilization into thinking that education’s just this benign thing and we send our kids to school and “bye, bye, have a good day, mama will see you later.”

We don’t realize that they’re being influenced and they’re often being influenced for evil. And that’s the straight up truth. And so I think, I love your question. It tells me that you’re considering the heart of your child, Whitney. And so I think that’s awesome. And I would steer you away from a state regulated, state run program, whether they provide free books and laptops or whether they don’t and say do something that is both independent and Christian in nature. That’s one of the reasons we love the homeschool resource center that my husband and I started here in Vancouver, Washington.

We don’t take money from the government. we don’t offer government things here. And we’ve kept the cost low, as low as we can, because most of the parents that are here are volunteering their time. You guys, if we would just link arms, think of what could happen. But instead we keep looking at the state, the state can help us, the state can give us books and laptops and all that stuff. So Whitney, I’m going to steer you away from that and towards something that’s biblically based. I love your question because it reveals your heart.

From Dana. She says, “Heidi, I love your podcast.” Thank you, Dana. “Thank you for being a voice of reason and truth. Last month at my school, I was told that drag queen story hour is potentially coming to my school for an afterschool event. That is infuriating.” Good grief! “With trembling voice, I raised my hand and asked how bringing in men dressed as sexualized women was relevant to our kids’ education. I was then told that we would have a vote on the issue and further discussion was to be had, so stay tuned. Well, fast forward to the next PAC meeting last night where I was told that drag queen story hour is now confirmed for next month. I feel so disregarded and brushed aside. Many of the people in the room, including the PAC president, have known me as long as 12 years. I’m an active member of my community and have served in many ways.”

“I love where I live and the families at our school, but this feels like a betrayal. I don’t know where to go from here. Of course, my husband and I will pray about it and are seeking the Lord’s will as we move forward or if we should, maybe this is the nail in the coffin and we should switch schools. We were there for a few years and we pulled our four kids to homeschool for two years and now this is the second year that we are back. What would you do? It seems like most people are for this event and it just breaks my heart.”

Okay, so Dana, I love your question again for the same reason as I love Whitney’s question, it really shows that you have a heart to do what is right for your child’s heart, for what your child is going to be taught and what they’re going to be surrounded with. And like I’ve said before, the reason it feels like a betrayal to you is because it is. The school system is not invested only in the academic pursuit of reading, writing, and arithmetic. There is a social engineering going on in our schools today that is beyond the pale.

It is beyond anything that I have ever seen in my lifetime. And for the 17 years that I’ve been speaking on homeschooling and speaking about education around the country for the first, you can ask anybody that listened to me for the first probably 10 years, or maybe even 12 years, I did not say “homeschooling is the best way.” I said “homeschooling is a great way.” I have changed my thinking on this over the years because I have seen such a blatant assault and a blatant disregard. When you say most people are for this, I’m here to tell you right now that the pressure that is being put on school administrators, the pressure that is being put on teachers, the pressure that is being put on lawmakers from the LBGTQ lobby for transgenderism specifically, for all other things, too, but transgenderism specifically is back breaking.

And most of the people that I am watching don’t have the moral fortitude or the courage to stand up under it and they kowtow to it. And that’s just the truth. And so if it were me, I would be switching schools. Since you asked. I’d be switching schools. I’d be taking my kids out of there so fast it’d make their head spin and I’d bring them home. The best thing that you can do for your kids is to be around your kids and influence them for the gospel, for as much time as the Lord gives you.

Because what is happening in the culture right now is a full on assault and we need to train our kids to be ready for it. I agree with you when you say that it breaks your heart. It breaks my heart, too. But more than that, it breaks the heart of God. And I think this is where Christian parents need to say no more. These kids do not belong to the schools. They don’t belong to school administrators or sexual activists. They belong to their parents. The parents have been given authority to train up their children and it’s never been more important than it is right now. Thanks for your question.

Next question comes from an anonymous listener. She says, “Dear Heidi, your podcasts always encourage me and I look forward to my 20 minutes with you while I get ready for the day. My question is not an easy one. I’m a homeschool mom of four and also a foster mom. I did not have a good education upbringing and felt very stupid growing up and was never told otherwise. My children started out in public school, but it didn’t take long to realize I needed to homeschool them for many reasons. I brought them home and did my best. Thankfully my first two and fourth are very much self motivated and learn easily. That is not the case with my third. He has continually gotten further and further behind, as I kept ignoring his obvious struggles because I simply did not know how to help him.”

“I kept thinking that it would just click, but it didn’t. He is now the age of an eighth grader and nowhere near where he should be academically. He has the heart of an angel and for that I’m grateful, but I am at a loss. We have always struggled financially and finally able to find a tutor. She made me feel horrible about myself and gave me very little hope for him. I’m afraid to go elsewhere for fear of being reported to the schools. I believe with all my heart that this is better than going to public school, but there is no support for this anywhere on the internet. And I feel as though I’m the only one in this situation and have become an absolute failure.”

All right, so anonymous. Can I just encourage you right now, God’s going to help you with this. You are not an absolute failure. I want to issue a request to everyone who’s listening to this. If you have a place where this woman can go to get help, can you send me that information at mailbox Monday? Heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday. And I’m going to get your information to this sweet mom. And so I hear from parents all the time who say, “I don’t think I’m doing a good job.” And you guys, you know what? Can I just say right now, the jury’s not in on your son. The enemy wants you to feel like a failure and what I hear in your email to me is condemnation. That is Satan. The Lord never speaks to us in tones like that. This is not a sin issue. The Holy Spirit will speak to you in tones of conviction, not condemnation, and so walk in the conviction of the Holy spirit and ask the Lord to help you. And there’s enough people listening to this that I believe we can link arms with you and give you some sound advice and some good places to go. But your son is in eighth grade. You’ve got lots of time. All right? This is not the end. This is not the end. You are not a failure and the Lord of heaven’s armies will help you. So hang in there. Don’t be discouraged. 

I’ve got time for just a couple more.

Amber. “Heidi, I love your podcast. You’re a breath of fresh air in this cultural climate. Thank you, Amber. My husband and I feel convicted to start homeschooling in a year when our oldest turns five. However, I currently work full time outside our home. I have a very good corporate job with very good benefits. My income gives us the ability to tithe, have great health insurance. We could meet all the basic needs if I stayed home and homeschooled my girls, however, we would not be able to tithe or save much, even on a rice and beans budget. Do I choose to stay home knowing I cannot fully tithe 10% or save very much? Or continue to work full time and place my girls in a private Christian school as a second best choice? I would love to hear your honest opinion and sincerely Amber, a mama trying to obey the Lord and do right by her sweet family.”

Amber, I love this question. You are not alone. I get similar questions here all the time. And first of all, I’m going to tell you I’m not the Holy Spirit. Okay? The person that is most likely to speak to you about what’s best for you to do isn’t Heidi St. John. It’s the Holy Spirit and God will help you. He will give you what you need and he will encourage you. Can I just say, since you’ve asked for my opinion and that’s all this is, I think if you have the ability, I know moms who would absolutely kill to be able to say what you’re saying. You’re saying “if I stayed home and homeschooled my girls, we could meet all the basic needs.” You guys, everyone listening to me, that’s all we need. That’s all we need.

And I just don’t think that the Lord would say, “Oh no, if you can’t give a full 10%, I don’t want you to keep your kids home.” I can’t hear Him saying that. And so if you know that you can meet your basic needs, you guys, you will never get this time back with your kids, ever. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. And if God gives you the ability to come home, then come home. So much of the things that we think we need, we don’t need. And you guys, I spent a lot of time hardly having any money at all. In fact, most of the years that most of our seven kids were young, we struggled, struggled, struggled, to just provide for basic things and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Also, I wanted to give you guys a couple of responses. I asked last week about those of you who work from home and I got lots of great responses, so thank you for that. I’m going to read one of them. This is from Heather. She said, “I’m writing in response to your podcast about working and homeschooling. I have been homeschooling my kids for four years and I’ve worked the whole time. My husband works until 4:30, so I found an evening job where I don’t have to go in until 6:00 PM or later. We still have dinner together as a family, so important, and after we eat, I head out to work. We live in a tiny town in Michigan, so I’m talking 500 people.” That’s a pretty small town. “And I found multiple jobs to work in the evenings. I even worked at McDonald’s for a bit, not ideal, but the hours were very flexible and honestly, I learned a lot about work from working there. I learned the value of treating food service workers with respect and this is a lesson I learned clearly. And I’ve told my children I want them all to work for at least some time, in fast food or waitressing in their teens, so they can learn these lessons firsthand. “Best part, my kids,” what does she say? “I also worked evenings at a local gas station.” This is a mom, you guys, who was willing to do anything to stay home with her kids and I so respect this. Finally, she said, “I was offered a custodial job cleaning a machine shop at night. I can go wherever I want, as long as I get my four hours per day, and the best part is my kids can come with me if I need them to. I was never willing to give up homeschooling and God always provided me with jobs that work around our homeschooling schedule. I did have to be willing to do jobs that are maybe less than desirable, but it makes money for my family and allows me to homeschool and so that I’m thankful where there is a will, there’s a way.”

Sarah wrote that she is able to work from home and she said “There are so many remote positions in our world today, I encourage moms to look there first.” She also goes on to say that they use an online school and it’s not the cheapest option she said, but it’s helped her feel like her kids are getting a solid education with her overseeing it and not having to do the prep time. There’s lots and lots of options for you guys and I just want to encourage you, I have written a book, I’m going to say it again. You can get it on Amazon, you can get it directly from me. I’ll link back to it in the show notes today, but it’s called The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight.

There is a ton of great information in there about everything from meal prep, to laundry, to scheduling your day, to working. Lots of moms who gave input for that book work from home. And so I just wanted to throw that out there again. Heidi St. John, The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight. I just want to encourage you because I’m getting lots and lots of questions for moms who are saying, “I feel like God is asking me to come home and I don’t know how to do it.” And you guys, I think that’s the Holy Spirit saying, “bring my kids home, bring them home. These kids belong to you and the Lord has given you responsibility for them.”

I love those questions. I’m out of time for today. I had some great other questions I want to get to, but I’ll get to them on Wednesday. And in the meantime, I just want to encourage you guys. Continue to be in the word of God. Join me over at Mom Strong International and sign up for the Bible study.

Don’t forget to send your Christmas cards to me, okay? As soon as you can, send your Christmas cards, we’d love to get a year end donation from you, as well. It helps us to keep the podcast on the air.

We love you guys and we’re praying for you. Stay faithful. The Lord is at work and he will not let you fall. He will be with you wherever you go. This is the Lord, you guys. He loves you.

All right, hang in there, everybody and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

“Faith on the Edge” with Pat Roy and Kyle Justice—PART ONE | 845

Current Events

Podcast (hsj): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:34 — 17.6MB)

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There’s a new wave of Christians converting to a belief in the flat earth, and it’s having a serious impact on our world. Are you equipped to give Biblical and scientific answers to questions that will inevitably come from family and friends?

Transcribed version of podcast is below.
Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Romans 1:21-23

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

All Things Heidi

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

Pat Roy served at the Institute for Creation Research for 12 years as the Director of Broadcast Media. It was during this time at ICR that he and his wife created the Jonathan Park audio dramas, a creation-based audio drama heard by millions around the world. They recently created a new audio drama called, Time Chroniclers. Pat has served as Director at Genesis Apologetics. He has traveled the nation speaking to hundreds of audiences, of all ages, about the importance of trusting God’s Word. 

Kyle Justice: Emmy nominated producer Kyle Justice began producing television projects as a teenager, which led him to work for and produce programming for major cable networks such as The Family Channel, ESPN, and National Geographic. In 1997 he partnered with Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis to produce the first creation kids show, “The X-Nilo Show”. This eventually led to him establishing Awesome Science Media, a prolific producer of creation science media used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is the homeschool dad of eight kids and married to Dawn since 1991.

Connect with Pat and Kyle: “Faith On The Edge” | The Creation Guys

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, November 15th. This is Meet My Friend Friday. It’s episode number 845. I’ve got a real treat for you guys here at the podcast today. Two of my favorite guys here at the Firmly Planted Family Homeschool Resource Center are here today, and we’re going to talk about a theory that some of you guys think actually isn’t gaining traction in the culture, but it is. That is the issue of flat Earth. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so lots of things going on in the culture right now and we’re going to address some of them today, but before I jump into that one, I’ll let you guys know where I’m going to be next. Thanks for everybody who came out for the speaking season. I’m winding down to a close. I’ve got one more event before the end of the year. I will be at Godspeak Calvary Chapel on Friday, December the 6th for their women’s event there. Come on out and see me if you’re anywhere in the area. Kind of cool. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. These guys- I mean who doesn’t want to go to California in the winter time? Right? So that’s where I’ll be if you’re looking for me. And so you can check it out. More information at heidistjohn.com/events. After that, I’m going to take some time off for Christmas. You’re welcome. And then we come back and I will be keynoting the FPEA Family Cruise. So we’re going to be going to the Caribbean. So if you guys haven’t found out more information about that, you can find that out at heidistjohn.com/events. I’m pretty sure that the cruise for FPEA is sold out, but I’m told that there are a couple more rooms at a regular rate. So just let us know you’re coming, and we’ll put you in with a group. So we’ll find out more about that.

I’ll be at the DFW winter summit on the 24th of January and again on the 31st of January. So, busy season for me coming up. You can find out where I will be at heidistjohn.com/events. Thanks for listening to the podcast today. I’m excited you guys are here because I’m going to do something I haven’t done before, and that is talk about the issue of flat Earth.

My friends, Pat Roy and Kyle Justice are here in the studio with me today. Pat served at the Institute for Creation Research for 12 years as the director of broadcast media. And during his time at the ICR he and his wife created an audio series that you guys are going to be familiar with, Jonathon Park, which was a creation based audio drama heard by literally millions around the world, including my kids. Pat’s someone of a legend around here at Firmly Planted, and he recently created a new audio drama called Time Chroniclers. So we’ll link back to that in the show notes today. Pat has served as director at Genesis Apologetics and traveled the nation speaking to hundreds of audiences of all ages about the importance of trusting God’s word.

I let Kyle into the studio today on a whim. Kyle is an Emmy nominated producer. Kyle Justice began producing television projects as a teenager. Some of you guys have teens that are interested in producing and being coming producers. I am always telling you, “Dude, let them go for it,” because we want to fold our kids where they’re bent. I think Kyle’s a great example of that. This led him to work for and produce programming for major cable networks such as The Family Channel, ESPN, and National Geographic. In 1997, he partnered with my friend Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis, to produce the first creation kid show called The X-Nilo Show. I didn’t know you did that. I watched that. We’ll get back to you. This eventually led him to establishing Awesome Science Media, a prolific producer of creation science media, used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is a homeschool dad of eight kids and married to his beautiful wife Dawn since 1991. Guys, welcome to the podcast.

[Kyle] Wow.

[Pat] Yeah. Thanks for having us here.

[Kyle] Yeah, that was a great intro.

[Pat] No kidding, thank you.

[Heidi] It’s almost like you wrote it yourself.

[Pat] Almost.

[Heidi] Almost. You guys, I’m excited that you’re here. So lots of stuff going on with you. You guys are out there getting it done. You’re what I like to call here at the podcast, we call it #offthebench. Off the bench and onto the battlefield and you guys are kind of in the middle of what can only be described I think, as a cultural battle. So I’m going to intro it this way. So my audience is used to me talking about controversial subjects. I actually love controversy because I feel like speaking truth into controversy actually sheds light on it, rather than just saying there’s a controversy. I say, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it from the position of the word of God, which you guys are doing. One of the things we started talking about here about four years ago was the topic of transgenderism.

I remember saying, “Oh, this will never… This is never going to take root in the culture. People are smarter than that”. No, they’re not. No, they’re not. And transgender is now of course, a force in the culture, largely because I think the church was silent and they thought like I did, “Oh, come on. Like no one’s going to believe this. Men can’t change into women, vice versa”. But I was wrong. And one of the… A similar topic is this issue of flat Earth. I heard about this right around four and a half years ago. I can’t remember where Jay and I were, but I met a woman at a homeschool conference. I was there with my friend Jay Wile, and he had a booth sort of behind me. You guys know Jay, sort of the… He is a physicist, right?

He’s a rocket scientist. I’m always like, what are you a rocket sci- oh nevermind. Yes you are. And this woman came up to me and I’m talking to her about what I’m passionate about, which is faith and culture. And she said, “what do you think about flat Earth?” And I started laughing and I was like, “Oh.” She wasn’t laughing, and I said, “Wait a minute, like you’re asking me for real?” And she said, “Yeah.” She said, “I really want to know.” And she began talking about her husband and basically it sounded almost cultish to me the way she was describing it. So I did my friend Jay Wile a favor, and I was like, hang on, I got someone you need to meet. So I took her, because I can’t answer this woman’s questions. I haven’t studied this thing.

All I wanted to say was, have you ever been in an airplane? Which I said to her, and she had this weird answer for me being in an airplane and how that did not- the curvature that I saw wasn’t actually right. And I thought, I can’t do this. So I took her over to Jay Wile and I said, Jay, I want you to meet my new friend and blah, blah, blah. I said, I can’t remember, let’s say her name is Mandy, for the sake of the discussion. I said, “Mandy”, I literally said this- in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the right call, but I said, “Mandy, tell Dr. Wile what he’s won.”

And she kind of looked at me like, “what do you mean?” I said, “I’m so sorry. Tell him what you just told me”. And so she started saying, “Well, Heidi and I were just discussing the issue of flat Earth.” And Jay looked at me like, “are you for real right now?” And I was like, “Oh look at the time, I got to go.” And I left her there, right, to which this day, every time he sees me now out on the road, he’s just like, dude, you still owe me dinner. And he’s right.

But you guys deal with this issue all the time. And I guess the first one, the first thing I want to ask you, cause I know that my audience is like, “What? Is this really a thing? Is this really an issue?”

[Kyle] Well, I first started hearing about it through Dr. Danny Faulkner who works for Answers in Genesis, and he kept doing these posts on flat Earth. And I’m like, he’s joking. I think. April 1st came out last year or the year before, and he was all over it, and I’m like, is this for real or not? So, I called him up and he goes, yeah, it’s for real. And he’s even working on a book on it and selling. I’m like, I’m doing all these documentaries, and Pat and I had been working together on some other projects. It’s like, “Pat, maybe we should do a documentary on this.”

[Pat] Right. And at first it sounded like a really interesting topic, but the further we’ve gotten into this, the deeper the rabbit hole goes.

[Heidi] It’s terrifying.

[Pat] It really is and Heidi, I’ve become convinced that this is another distraction that is calling Christian men away from being fathers and being husbands and getting out the gospel. Because we have gotten emails from wives who say, I am desperate. My husband has pulled us out of church. We no longer read the scriptures except for to prove that the Earth is flat. He no longer interfaces with the children and he no longer talks to people about Christ, but now he’s a missionary of flat Earth. We’ve also heard of a church that has split over this issue and so we have gotten all kinds of messages from all kinds of people.

Heidi actually, I think about it this way. If I was say, trying to distract men from doing what they’re really called to, I would come up with an issue that doesn’t really matter and make it seem like it’s the most important thing on Earth. And that’s what we found, what the flat Earth movement is those that are convinced that the Earth is flat. They believe that it is the most important thing and that is how they spend all of their time— is trying to convince others that the Earth is flat.

[Heidi] Isn’t that amazing? It seems to me that we are very, I mean this was from Genesis. We are a very easily deceived people, right? I mean you can hear Satan whispering in Eve’s ear, :you won’t surely die, it’s not that. God didn’t mean it. Did God really say:- and God really did say. So, when you guys see how this is affecting Christian families and you see how it’s affecting the world around you, your response has been to say, “Oh no, we’re going to show you, let’s actually take this up from a scientific standpoint,” which is largely what Answers in Genesis been doing all this time saying, listen, the Bible can actually stand up to your criticism. Let’s have the conversation and you guys have found a really unique way to do that. How did you come up with this idea, and sort of where is it taking you?

[Kyle] Well, it’s interesting because it seems like there’s two camps in the flat Earth movement. There’s the secular flat Earth movement, and then there’s the biblical, flat Earth movement. I mean, Heidi you said, “Hey, let’s show them the scriptures, it would make sense,” but there’s a whole camp of Christians that are using the scriptures to prove that the Earth is flat.

[Heidi] That’s the lady at my booth, she was quoting scriptures to me and I was like, okay, I don’t even know what to do with you now.

[Kyle] And I mean all over history you have different groups that are quoting scriptures to prove their little points and so on. And so what we have really had to do when we looked at the documentary and what did we have to present in it was, gee, I think we have to go after, not just the scientific side first, but the biblical whole model of what verses are they using? And then did they really work?

[Heidi] So we’re talking about this to a lot of people who have never heard of flat- they’re like, uh-uh, it’s kind of a big deal though. Like if you were to get on the Internet and start searching the flat Earth theories- and I saw a guy in the airport, before the show aired, I was telling you guys, I used to think, Oh, this will never catch on. Just like the lie of transgenders, and which it really is a lie, right? That we’ve just believed. And I saw a guy in the airport not too long ago and he had- yes, the Earth is flat. Asked me why, and I was like, I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole.

Then I think what you guys are doing is so cool because what you’re saying is, we need to engage. As Christians, we need to understand the argument, right? And be able to engage and the Bible says that we’re supposed to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. And what you’re doing is you’re equipping Christians to engage in this discussion with an answer. And so, where do we start? You’re saying it’s relevant. Pat why do you say it’s relevant? Why should people care about this issue?

[Pat] Well, Heidi I think that there are more people converting to the idea of the flat Earth than any other time in history. I think it’s really affecting churches. I think most churches, from what I’ve seen, most of them have never even heard of this, right? People just disappear from their congregations and they don’t know why. Or, the other response is, well, that’s ridiculous. That’ll never catch on.

[Heidi] That was me. Are you making fun of me right now, Pat? You making fun of me on my own podcast?

[Pat] There you go.

[Heidi] Back it up there, brother.

[Kyle] Never, never.

[Pat] So I think those are the ways. And so, either they’re ignoring it or they think it’s ridiculous. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are converting to this idea that the Earth is flat, and I just think it’s a dangerous idea. I think it’s having a huge impact on families and churches and nobody even really realizes it’s an issue.

[Heidi] Well, why should we care? I mean, you’re saying it’s a dangerous idea. And I’m like, who cares? So they think the Earth is flat, why do I care?.

[Pat] Well, again, I think the shape of the Earth really doesn’t matter, right? It really doesn’t matter. But what does matter is the fruits that we see from it. And again, we’re getting emails from wives whose husbands have completely pulled them out of church. We’ve gotten emails from churches that have said that they have split. We’re just seeing negative fruits from all of this. And my goodness, Heidi, once you get involved in the flat Earth, it seems like it consumes these people, and then all of a sudden they’re not out sharing the gospel anymore.

[Kyle] And not just in the U.S., too. I’ve heard Latin America, it’s spreading like wildfire there, too. So you know, it’s going around the world.

[Pat] Around the world.

[Heidi] What look what just happened! There are flat Earthers all around the globe.

[Pat] We actually, in our documentary went out on the streets. And I’ve got a clip with me where we actually went out onto the streets and talk to people about what they thought about the flat Earth.

[Heidi] So this is your documentary, your new one, Faith on the Edge, right? And this is a sampling of you guys talking to ordinary people about what they think. Let’s hear it.

CLIP:

[Pat] Okay. So Kyle, we’ve heard that this idea is really popular, but I would like to hear what people are actually thinking.

[Kyle] Let’s take it to the street.

[Pat] Many people these days are starting to believe that the Earth is flat. What do you think about that?

Person 1: That’s still a thing?

Person 2: It’s round, just keeps going around and around and around, man.

Person 3: It looks pretty flat to me, but I think it’s round. Saturn’s round, Jupiter round. Everything else is round.

Person 4: I was actually reading something the other day that said, the Earth is in a donut shape.

[Pat] And the moon is a coffee, right?

Person 4: You never know, it could be flat.

Person 5: I think that it’s whatever they tell us.

[Kyle] Okay, whatever they tell us so… But there’s some people that say round, some that say flat. What do you think?

Person 5: I think unless we actually go out there and explore it for ourselves, there’s no way that we can actually know what it is.

Person 6: No, I don’t think the Earth is flat.

[Pat] You think it’s round?

Person 6: Yeah, I guess- yeah, you’re right. I guess it’s round.

[Pat] Really? I just convinced you just like that?

Person 7: There’s a lot of compelling evidence that, the possibility that the Earth is flat. While in other cases the Earth is actually around, and the Bible doesn’t really talk about the Earth being round.

[Pat] What shape do you think the Earth is?

Person 8: Triangle? I feel like that’d be a tough sell.

[Pat] You think it’d be a- I bet it’s not as tough as you would think it would be.

Person 9: I don’t know. I think the Earth is definitely round. For people that believe the Earth is flat, maybe that’s true.

[Kyle] It wouldn’t be the two different shapes at the same time though. Is that what you’re saying?

Person 9: I don’t know. I mean our personal beliefs create our realities I guess, so I think it can kind of be both at the same time.

[Kyle] So do you know anybody who does believe in the flat Earth?

Person 9: Yes. One of my good friends is a flat Earther, yes.

Person 10: No, I don’t have any friends.

Person 11: Tons of boys at my school.

Person 12: Yeah, definitely.

Person 13: There’s people who say they do. I think it’s definitely a cultural trend.

Person 14: Kind of caught me by surprise when I found out, but yeah.

[Kyle] Why did they become so passionate about it, it almost seems like they become evangelists of the Flat Earth.

Person 15: It’s like it’s an anti kind of movement.

Person 16: A lot of people now are just starting to identify in an idea or a party versus themselves.

Person 17: Those people need to find hobbies.

[Kyle] Maybe that is their hobby. Just using your own observations, why do you think the Earth is round?

Person 18: Well, I can… Got me right there.

Person 19: Why the Earth is round… It’s very hard to explain that. I don’t…

Person 18: My own senses. Nothing I’ve been told.

Person 20: I would say just from the pull of gravity and then also you look at the day night cycle to the rest of the world.

Person 24: Until they show evidence, that’s when I will actually start looking into it.

Person 21: But he’s saying the same thing about people who believe that the Earth is round. We’ve been given these facts.

Person 22: To say that the Earth is flat is basically rejecting all of the scientific evidence that we’ve compiled.

[Kyle] Why do you think that young, younger people are the ones that are having a harder time accepting these things?

Person 23: Where do you look next for young people to be upset? Kind of overthrow the man, overthrow the machine, is going to be at the government. And I think that’s where a lot of these tensions and these questions kind of raise from.

[Kyle] Well, Pat that was really fascinating to learn what everyday people are thinking about the flat Earth.

[Pat] It was interesting that some of them were actually questioning the shape of the Earth. And then almost all of them had friends or family that believed that the Earth was flat. And then it was also interesting that they couldn’t defend their own observable facts on why the Earth is round.

[Kyle] That’s fascinating. My favorite guy was the guy who said “whatever your truth is, that’s what the Earth is shaped.”

[Pat] That was really interesting to me.

END CLIP

[Heidi] All right, so you’ve got a pretty good smattering of people there with kind of differing ideas and differing opinions. I thought it was really interesting that when you say, well, why do you say that the Earth is round? Some we’re like— “uhhh”. I mean if somebody asked me why the Earth is round, I’ll just be like, cause I saw a picture of it.

[Pat] But those were all faked by NASA.

[Heidi] I heard that.

[Kyle] Now, Heidi what’s interesting is when I go out to speak now on general creation topics, not even talking about the flat Earth, but just talk about scientific evidence for creation. I now will ask the audience, how many of you either believe the Earth is flat, or know somebody personally that does believe that the Earth is flat? And about a third of the hands go up, nowadays.

[Heidi] That’s crazy town. I mean it seems crazy to me. I was thinking about this as I’m listening to these people, I’m all for being open minded, right. That’s a big thing. Tolerance, open-minded. It’s like we’ve gotten so open-minded that our brains have fallen out. And I was thinking that really what’s happening0 and this is kind of where I’d like to sort of segue this conversation a little bit.

And I heard you talking about these women are writing you, and they’re saying their husbands are leaving their families, they’re pulling their kids out of church. They’re basically worshiping at the idol— of the altar of flat Earth right now. And it seems like a distraction. But I wrote in my notes it seems to me that evangelism for anything else is really idolatry. We can do this in the homeschool movement, right? I mean I can sit here, Pat, you and I have had this discussion, over the last couple of years for sure. People that we have seen that worshiped homeschooling. And homeschooling is the answer and homeschooling this, and homeschooling that. If we’re not turning people back toward Jesus, then it doesn’t really matter what we’re saying. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if the Earth is round or the Earth is flat. These guys, if they don’t have the gospel, they’re going to Hell. And that’s the bottom line.

[Pat] Well, I would say for the Christian flat Earth movement, I think most of them are actually Christians who have trusted Christ the savior. I just feel like they’re distracted. And so I want to say very clearly, I don’t think the flat Earth is a salvation issue. But what I do think is it’s a distraction issue. I think it’s taking people away from the gospel, from their wives, from their children, from their families, from their churches. That’s what I think is happening.

[Kyle] You think about Pilgrim’s Progress and how, Christians, that these different groups would get distracted in these towns and stuff, and not go the path that God has for them.

[Heidi] He’s on his way to the Celestial City but he forgot. He forgot!

[Kyle] And I’ve compared the flat Earth to that type of thing. Where these men, and training their families onto the next generation to serve and love the Lord. It’s not happening now because of the flat Earth.

[Heidi] And when you guys meet people who like me, I’m going to kind of swing it back around to this because I always feel like whenever I address topics like this with an audience that’s feeling already overwhelmed, right? There’s so many problems like Heidi, do you have to talk about one more thing? Next week I’m just going to have somebody come on and we’re going to talk about how to bake gingerbread cookies, all right? That’ll be the next thing we do because we don’t have to argue about it, or wonder if the gingerbread is actually real or if it’s flat or not. You can add more baking powder and it’ll be a little rounder or…

[Kyle] You believe gingerbread is flat?

[Heidi] But so here’s my thing. How can we encourage, cause we’re going to run out of time for today’s show. I’m going to bring you guys back because I want to talk about the scientific problems with the flat Earth theory. I want our listeners to really hear the science behind it, but I’d like to leave them today with an understanding of why this matters to them and is there a reason for them to engage in the conversation, to where if they encounter somebody that believes this, they will have an answer because it rather than just say, here’s another big problem for you guys, I want to give them kind of hope. Really that’s what you’re doing. That’s what your new documentary Faith on the Edge is about. You guys have been out there, you’re doing the research for us. Thank you very much. Doing the research for us, so that we can get a better of the issue at hand. Right? Was that the motivation behind the documentary?

[Kyle] Well, we began talking about this right at the beginning, because we realized that usually flat Earthers are so committed that you don’t often see them come back out of believing in the flat Earth again. So we said, well, what is the purpose of our documentary? Is it to try and turn flat Earthers back into round Earthers? Well, no, not really. I think more what our calling has been with this is to try and educate people. So if they are a wife, or children or whatever, they understand the issues. But I think most importantly of all, it’s to stop people from going to the flat Earth in the first place. We feel like if we can give them the evidence ahead of time, that when they’re confronted with it, that they already understand what the issues are, and already understand why the flat Earth is not a valid position.

[Pat] I think so many of the— what how many verses? Like 200 references to the flat Earth, the flat Earthers.

[Kyle] Right and hopefully in our next episode we can talk about those because that’s really the commitment of a lot of flat Earthers is they believe that the biblical positions says that the Earth is flat. And so I think we need to kind of address that a little bit and show why that…

[Pat] And the thing is we wanted to help other Christians who run into this, these verses that are being used. Really what the context of the passage is. So they’re not sitting there going, “Oh wow, it does say that.”

[Heidi] Right, so they’re not confused.

[Pat] And then they begin to question. So, we’re doing some apologetics at the same time. And that was a big goal, especially the first half of the documentary.

[Heidi] And the Christian Church really doesn’t see this as an issue right now. I mean I don’t hear churches talking about this. I don’t feel like I kind of feel like it’s going to slap them upside the head. Frankly, like the transgenderism issue. And when I wrote Becoming MomStrong two years ago, a lot of what I was saying, the premise behind that was, this generation of parents is dealing with questions that previous generations didn’t even see coming. And so part of the reason why I want to have you guys on the show is to say, get ready cause this question is coming. You are going to get asked it. Somebody at some point is going to say, “Hey, I believe blah, blah, blah,” which really a lie from the enemy, right? And it is I think a source of distraction, but also it takes away from the creator. And, and we do this. I mean this is the enemy, right? Over time, just distracting us with different things. And so in that regard, it really does matter.

One more thing before I wrap the show up for today. When someone says to you, let’s say just a mom or a dad is listening. I know there’s a lot of men listening to this today, and they’re like, “what? This isn’t really a thing.” Why should they care about this issue? Why should it matter to the average person who’s like, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to even be and why should I care one way or the other?”

[Pat] Well, I think you’re definitely, if you haven’t already, you’re going to encounter somebody who believes in the flat Earth. It has become so common now. Everybody is going to run into somebody who believes it.

[Kyle] And their kids, a lot of their kids are running into this. And we’re hearing about kids asking their parents, “Hey, what about this? So, how do I interpret what they’re saying?” And the parents often don’t have the answers. And so we want to prepare parents to be able, when their kids have questions, they’ll be able to say, “oh yeah, here’s the context and here’s the science of behind it”. So we’re providing tools for parents to be able to talk to the kids about this.

[Heidi] And so really what you’re helping parents do is to get ahead of it, to get out ahead of it. And I love that. I’m going to read from the back of your new DVD that just cause- is it out available for people right now?

[Kyle] Came out last March.

[Heidi] Fantastic. So it says on the back, it says there’s a new wave of Christians converting to a belief in the flat Earth and it’s having a serious impact on our world. Are you equipped to give biblical and scientific answers to questions that will inevitably come from family and friends? And you guys have some really great guests on this with you. Dr. Charlie Duke. You said he was Capcom for Apollo 11 and an astronaut for Apollo 16, he’s on here?

[Pat] Yes.

[Kyle] Yes.

[Heidi] Wow. What was that like?

[Kyle] You were on the moon, what do you think, round or flat? You’re going to be surprised by the answer.

[Pat] He was great. I interviewed him. He was awesome.

[Heidi] Oh, that’s fantastic. So you got a really great a range of guests on here speaking to this issue. It’s a fascinating topic and I’d love it, would you guys come back next Friday and we can finish this conversation?

[Pat] We’d love to.

[Kyle] We’d love to do that.

[Heidi] All right. We’ll plan it. We’re going to come back next Friday. This is too much for one show and so I’d like these guys to come back next Friday. My friends Pat Roy and Kyle Justice here, talking about the flat Earth and why it should matter to you. And what is the answer that you can give. Thanks for listening everybody. Stay faithful and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

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Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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Off the Bench: How to Be a Victor, not a Victim | 844

Becoming MomStrong, MomStrong Parenting

Podcast (hsj): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:34 — 17.6MB)

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Have you ever lost momentum? I have. One minute, I’m cruising along, just killing it at this motherhood gig… dinner’s in the slow cooker, homeschooling is all caught up… laundry’s done. Okay—that was pushing it. Laundry is never done. Am I right? We all need encouragement. Listen in and let’s be encouraged together. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Transcribed version of podcast is below.

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Romans 1:16-17

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TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by MomStrong International.

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Wednesday, November 13th. This is episode number 844. We are already halfway through the month of November. Oh my goodness. We’ve got a lot of things to get to you today. I want to talk a little bit about what it means to not be a victim, but rather to find victory. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

Thanks for tuning in everybody today. I really appreciate you listening. I think I’ve got the best podcast listeners in the whole wide world. I so love hearing from you and in fact your responses to Mailbox Monday have been so overwhelming and as the questions come in, I’m realizing I’m just getting farther and farther behind and as we prayed about it and kind of sought the Lord on it and talked about it as a staff, we’ve decided to go ahead and invest time on Wednesday also to answer your questions. And so I’m going to get to some of your questions today and then do a little bit of a devotional with you and kind of talk about what’s happening in the news.

And so today’s going to sort of be my off the bench day. Normally on Wednesdays I teach from the MomStrong International Bible study and we have gone ahead and moved that teaching over to the members only group. If you want that teaching, which I do live on Facebook, let us know if you’ve already purchased the Bible study. We actually, we should have already sent you an invitation, but I’ll be giving you snippets from the Bible study. But the full teaching is going to happen over there. That way I can interact with you and kind of take your questions and really put my finger on the pulse of what God is doing in your life so that we can be sure to minister to you more effectively. That’s kind of one of the changes that we’re making.

If you’re not part of the MomStrong International community, I just want to encourage you to do that. This is a fantastic way and a wonderful place for you to grow in your knowledge of the Word of God. And it will help you as you begin to get out of your churches and into the culture. We need to get away from the pews and into reaching the people. And I think we have, for so long, we’ve taken a sideline in the culture and it’s my heart to see you guys get off the bench and onto the battlefield. And so that’s why I’m going to be taking more of your questions and just encouraging you towards walking in a place of victory. And I hear so often from moms who feel less than victorious. We often feel like we are victims and that is not God’s heart for us, really. That’s the enemy. He wants us to feel that way.

And so I guess my question today as we sort of jump into this next 20 minutes is to ask you if anything is holding you back? In Galatians 5: 7-9, the Apostle Paul said, “You were running the race so well. Who was held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God for He is the one who called you to freedom.” So many great nuggets in that small passage. Galatians 5: 7- 9.

But I want to just ask you if you’ve ever lost momentum. Have you ever lost momentum? I have. A one minute I’m cruising along, just killing it. The motherhood gig and I’m feeling really brave and I’m like, Lord, I’m operating in your Holy Spirit. I’m getting off the bench and onto the battlefield. Dinner’s in the slow cooker. My homeschooling is all caught up. My laundry was done. Okay, never mind, that’s just pushing it. My laundry is never done. But just about the time I’m ready to collect my motherhood medal, something happens and I’m a mess. Lying in a fetal position behind my closet door with a bag of double stuffed Oreos.

Please tell me that you guys understand this. All the emojis in the world can come at us at any given time because life requires all of them. Sometimes in a single day when I fall off the mommy wagon, it’s easy for me to look around and an effort to cast the blame somewhere. But honestly, most of the time, even the discipline issues I’m struggling with with my kids can be traced back to wait for it, my own disobedience. I think the same thing is true in our unwillingness to engage the culture around us, to step out from the four walls of our churches and actually be the salt and light the Jesus calls us to be.

We just had an election here in the Pacific Northwest, actually nationwide there were elections and the voter turnout, I want to say it was 12%. What in the world? We wonder why we’ve got so many rotten people in leadership. And I think it’s because we’ve just, we give up, we feel discouraged and distracted and the enemy has used it. And sometimes when I’m struggling, it’s just my own disobedience. It’s the Lord telling me to do something, whether it’s, “Hey, Heidi, discipline your kid,” or, “Hey Heidi, go to bed earlier.” Or, “Hey Heidi, you wake up in the morning and get into My Word.” And I don’t do it because I’m tired, because I feel discouraged. Whatever it is.

And when you guys realize this is happening, can I just encourage you to step back and hit the reset button? And if you’re there now, then this, then lean in because this is for you. If you’re there, take a deep breath because guess what? God understands. He understands. And even when the momentum that you’ve lost has resulted in a departure from God’s truth, maybe you’ve lost momentum and you’re believing the lies in the culture right now. Maybe you’re believing the lie that it doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t affect you. If it breaks God’s heart, men and women, it should break our heart.

And I love Paul’s honest emotion in Galatians 5 because you can almost hear the tone of a parent in his voice. He’s looking at his kids. You guys what happened? You were running the race so well. And then as if he knows the inner struggle that we all face, he jumps right back in and says, “Hey, this is not God’s fault. God has more for you.” You see, the world wants to drown out the truth of scripture, but hear me loud and clear. Men and women, loved children of the living God, we have got to cling tightly to the truth of God’s word. God’s word, it brings freedom. God’s ways bring freedom. Freedom from worry. Freedom to rest when we need it. Freedom from the fear of failure. Freedom to cling tightly to the truth. Cling to it. For in the truth, we find life. We find life and Jesus understands the weariness of the race. I’m going to be answering your questions in just a minute here, but I want you to understand that these things that we’re going to be talking about today, they’re not taking the Lord by surprise.

He understands the weariness of the race and through the Apostle Paul, He gently is saying, “Hey you guys, I love you.” Can you hear his voice? Can you hear Him above the noise of your busy household and the demands of motherhood and the news of the day and all the stuff that’s happening in schools and in our libraries? Lean in because Jesus is here. He’s here and He will help you and encourage you to get back on the path that He has set before you. His word is a lamp to our feet and a life and a light to our path. Don’t be a victim when God has victory for you. Stay in His word and you’ll stay on the path. Keep running the race. God is for you. God is for you.

I’m in the middle right now of writing a 365 day devotional and as I write it, it’s taking a lot of self control because there are days when I’ll just be honest, there are days when I’m just like, I don’t actually have anything to say. I’m tired. Laundry is not done. Sometimes I’m discouraged because we suffered a major defeat. Planned Parenthood, by the way, is the enemy of every Christian that’s listening to this. They are your sworn enemy and we have come face to face with that darkness recently. And every once in a while I just, I feel like, why am I even trying? I really did feel this way last week. I’m like, why am I even trying? I’m telling all these people to get off the bench and onto the battlefield. And I feel like in so many ways, the battle is lost and there is no hope.

But that is not the Lord. That is not His heart. This is not his heart when I’m parenting and I’m tired of parenting, I can almost hear the Lord saying, “You’re running the race so well. What’s held you back? You’re not a victim. You’re my child.” And so I want to just encourage you to lean in and hear from the Lord. And hear from the Lord.

Speaking of leaning in and hearing from the Lord, I’m going to answer your questions, but I want to remind you guys, I’m super excited to start getting your Christmas cards. I’m already getting them. I know that I keep saying this, but I want to see Christmas cards this year. I will cry if I don’t see Christmas cards this year. Send us your Christmas cards for my Christmas card Palooza. I also want to encourage you that it would encourage us if you would join us over at MomStrong International. We’ve got awesome stuff in the Heidi St. John shop right now. The Speak Life necklace is back in stock and they go really quickly and so they make a wonderful Christmas gift.

I think we’ve got 25 in stock right now, so the first 25 of you to get that necklace. It’s a great Christmas gift made in Israel. Beautifully handcrafted. My off the bench cheese t-shirts. We’ve got some awesome Heidi St. John shirts that will also send a message. And if you’re anywhere in the Portland, Vancouver area, come by the homeschool resource center and see what God is doing. We’ve got Anne of Green Gables, there’s a play going on, a dessert theater, lots of stuff happening here. We are training these children to walk with and love the Lord Jesus and that’s what God calls all of us to do. Whether we’re at a homeschool resource center or not. God calls us to walk in right relationship with Him and to pass that truth on to other people. I’m going to read your questions today, But if you guys are discouraged, don’t be discouraged because the Lord of Heaven’s armies is at your side and He loves you and He has so much more for you than you even can possibly imagine.

This comes from Erin. Hi Erin. She says, “Hi Heidi. I’m a new follower. I was just introduced to you by the moms at our church who are doing your MomStrong Bible study.” I am so excited about that. Thank you so much. If you guys have not found the MomStrong Bible study, you can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere that books are sold and please leave reviews. Please do that. I would appreciate it. All right. She says, “My six year old daughter has been having an issue with Heaven and death. She doesn’t want to go because she doesn’t want to come back to our home. When she brings it up, I grasp at what to say to her, but I end up shutting the conversation because she gets so much anxiety over it. How do I approach this subject with her? Any talking points or Bible verses to read? Any help would be appreciated. I don’t want her to fear Heaven or going to see Jesus.”

First of all, this is one of the most common fears that children have is a fear of death. And actually I think it’s fair to say that adults have a fear of death and we read about death all throughout the scriptures. Our family has faced death many times. We lost my father-in-law a few years back and we obviously came very close to losing Bobby and death is difficult. But the Bible teaches us that death comes to all of us. Death is a part of our fallen world and the Bible does not shy away from this truth. Psalm 139 tells us that God has numbered our days. And actually you guys, knowing that God has numbered our days takes the fear out of, should I do that?

If your days are already numbered for you, the Lord knows when you’re going home, so get out onto the battlefield. He’s already ordained the days of your life for you and the Bible teaches us there’s a judgment coming. I want my kids to know that. I want them to know that there is a payday someday for the way that we’ve lived on earth. That’s 2 Corinthians 5:10. I also want my kids to know that death is not the way it’s supposed to be. This is not how when God made the world and put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, an intruder came. Satan, and he tempted Eve and Adam and Eve sinned and Adam’s sin opened the door through which the curse of death entered the world. It’s important for your kids to understand where it came from and explain to your kids that this is why we’re sad when someone dies. When in our morning and through our tears, what we’re really saying is there’s no such thing as death from natural causes.

We weren’t born to die. We die because of sin. We die because sin entered the world and there’s hope and your kids need to know that there’s hope. The Bible teaches us that one day death is going to be done away with. In 1 Corinthians 15: 26 it says, “The last enemy to be destroyed will be death.” And I’m telling you what, I’m looking forward to that. One day the Lord’s going to come back and He’s going to make the wrongs that have been done in this world, right again. And this is an opportunity for you to introduce your kids to Christ and to say the Lord’s already defeated death and when we die, the Bible says that those of us who know the Lord Jesus are going to go home to be with Him. That’s joy. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 1:21 that, “To live for me is Christ and to die is gain.”

And our culture is doing everything it can to run away from this idea of getting old and dying. And I remember, and I know you guys will too, I remember while not all of you, but a lot of you will remember Phil Donahue back in the 80s do you guys remember the show? And he had these guys on there that were saying that they had figured out a way to cheat death. That they had discovered a way that they didn’t have to die anymore. And it was kind of this morbid, weird guess what? Every single one of those people is dead now. Because death, the Bible says, is coming to all of us. But because of Jesus, we don’t have to be afraid of death. I don’t want my kids to obsess over it or become paralyzed in fear about the specter of eternity.

I want my kids to know that if they know Jesus, death is not something that we need to be afraid of. I remember when my grandmother went home to be with the Lord and she was looking forward to seeing the Lord. She had been serving Him her whole life and she wanted to look at Him in the eye, stand before Him, face to face and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” This is, it’s important for our kids to know there’s a difference between the death of a believer and the death of someone who doesn’t know the Lord Jesus. And so teach your kids how loved they are and how much God loves them, and then talk to your kids about it in a way that highlights the fact that they can have assurance of salvation. And that Jesus said that He so loved them that he sent His only begotten Son.

That whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. That’s God’s, it’s eternal life. That’s what it is. Eternal life is just that. And there’s no one, not even yourself who can take Christ’s God given gift to salvation away from you. And so you can take joy in it and you can pass that joy onto your children. Erin, that was a great question.

Noel says, “How do you juggle homeschooling high school when your teen gets a part time job?” Moment of silence for this, one of the most frustrating seasons of motherhood. She says, “My 14 year old daughter just got a part time job at a place she’s been wanting to work at for years. She just started ninth grade and I’m wondering how to balance getting her high school requirements in with her new job. I don’t want her to be overwhelmed, but I’m worried if we back off, she’ll get behind in school. Help this mama who likes checklists and is concerned about getting things just right. How do we find balance between life skills and academics and how can it not feel so anxious?”

Okay, so first of all, the anxiousness will go away when you realize every single one of us in the same boat, we all understand it. And actually nobody’s figured it out quite right. A couple things that come to my mind though Noel and I hope this helps you a little bit. I think our kids need to know and this is, I have a 14 year old daughter who wants to work right now and I have not let her get a job because my admonition to her is, “You got the rest of your life to be a grownup, you get to be 14 one time,” 14 is pretty young and so I would be more focused on, and obviously this isn’t a sin issue but I’m just saying for me we chose to focus more on our 14 year old accomplishing her schoolwork.

My kids don’t get jobs, real jobs as in clock in, clock out until they’re 16 because like you, my 14 year old’s also in ninth grade this year and it’s very hard to balance it. Also you have a very, you’re running out of time with her and I’m not trying to scare you but you are running out of time with her. And I think the time that you have with a 14 year old kid is absolutely of inestimable value. It’s absolutely invaluable. And so I would watch her attitude, watch her heart. If she’s struggling with her schoolwork, she doesn’t need the job. She does need to finish her schoolwork, she does need to have time with her mom and dad. And that time, there’s no hurry for her, she’s 14 there’s no hurry. I think don’t be in a hurry.

I understand your checklist and I would say the first thing you want to check off is her heart. How you guys doing for your time? All those things are important. And then don’t feel anxious because the Lord’s going to show you what to do. We’re all struggling through that. Noel, fantastic question.

Melody said, “I want to get involved in standing up for our kids and trying to stop the flash program in the battleground school district. My sister in law sent me your podcast and I was completely shocked. How can I help?” Okay, so first of all, Melody, I’m so happy that you heard the podcast and it makes you want to get off the bench and onto the battlefield. I’d encourage you, and I will link back to it in the show notes today, check out the group parents rights in education. There’s a Southwest Washington chapter, and for those of you who are not here in Southwest Washington, you can also get in the fight to stop flash from coming into your schools.

Comprehensive sex education, social emotional learning. You guys, oh my goodness. These are terminologies that you need to know. And this mom wrote me last week. She said, “Social emotional learning is a good thing.” Ah, no it’s not. I don’t understand why we’re having to come up all this social engineering stuff? Our kids are being social engineered into oblivion. I don’t understand why we’re doing this. Why can’t the schools go back to teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic? Why can’t we go back to teaching kindness? I don’t understand all this stuff. Anyway, it’s going to make me angry. Melody, thank you for wanting to get off the bench and onto the battlefield, start there, parents rights in education, start going to meetings. We have them here frequently at the Firmly Planted in Vancouver. And there’s lots of things that you can do to get involved. And so I’d say I would start there and obviously, and you mentioned this in your note to be praying as well.

All right, Carolyn writes, “Thank you so much for sharing the truth and standing for the truth. My teen son asked me what the biblical response is to smoking weed or vaping. I attempted to answer from the side of addiction, but then he said that caffeine, sugar, and alcohol can be addictive, but we don’t say those are sinful. How would you answer those questions?”

This is a great question, Caroline. Fantastic question. The Bible teaches us that God wants us to be focused on serving and glorifying Him in our life. But you can’t do that if you become a slave to something else. And that’s the point. When we talk to our kids about vaping or we talk to our kids about marijuana or anything, I can give you all kinds of medical reasons why vaping is bad. Hello? Read the news. Kids are dying from it. It just, it’s so funny to me. Oh that’s blueberry. That’s a blueberry flavored smoke. Okay. I’ve had this conversation with my own teens.

Anything that can lead us to addiction is, alcohol hello can be addictive and that can absolutely fall into sin. If you’re so addicted to sugar that you can’t get through a day without it, then absolutely it can be. If it’s causing you to be mastered by it and you’re losing control of your life. I don’t know very many people who are mastered by caffeine to the point where they can’t pay attention to their families and we can see the obvious problems with alcohol and marijuana, which makes you basically not care about anything. And if your son needs a lesson on what a smoking weed does, just tell him to come to Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington and just walk along the streets and he’ll see the very, very big downside to smoking weed.

The Bible talks a lot about what masters us and really that needs to be the topic to me, of conversation. I would take your son to Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 because even though things in our lives have a God approved place, we can still sign ourselves up for slavery if we’re not careful. That’s a great question, Caroline. I really appreciate you bringing it in.

I have one more question that I’m going to get run in here because I’m overtime as usual. Man, you guys have such good questions. We love our church, but recently I felt uncomfortable in new situations. Now that our sixth grader is in youth group, they get to take several trips and retreats throughout the year. I’m not sure if we’re at a stage of needing to let go a little or if the trips aren’t really such a good idea. Our 11 year old has said the girls in her youth group are very materialistic. They wear crop tops and shorty shorts and use cuss words and text their boyfriends during church. This is not exactly the kind of behavior we want our kids to spend a lot of time around.

Okay, so first of all, anonymous, very, very good for you to see that your child will be influenced by the people that are around her. In Proverbs 12:26 it says, “The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray,” and your Christian child can absolutely be led astray by hanging out with kids who aren’t walking with the Lord.

And how often is this happened in youth group? Do not even get me started. My husband was a pastor at a very large church long time ago and we did not let our kids participate. He was a pastor there and we didn’t let our kids participate in youth group. To me, I’d find out what’s going on at your youth group. Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron so one friend sharpens another.” And I think the converse of that is to say, as one friend is dull so they get the other friend to be dull also. Proverbs 13:20, “Walk with the wise and become wise. Associate with fools and get into trouble.” Just because someone has labeled it a youth group, doesn’t mean it’s good for your kids. I’m going to say that again. Just because it’s labeled as a youth group and just because it’s labeled as a youth group from your church, doesn’t mean it’s good for your kids. And so you need to be careful in who your children are hanging around with.

Luke 6:40, you guys have heard me say this a 100 times, when a student’s fully trained, he’ll be like his teachers. He’ll be like his teachers. Good friends give wise counsel. You want your kids to be around good friends. All right, First Corinthians 15:33, “Don’t be misled. Bad company corrupts good character.” And so if your kids are around people with bad character, I don’t care if they’re at your church or at your school or wherever it is, I would definitely be limiting the time. Psalm 1, I’m just going to end with that. You guys, oh my goodness, the Bible is replete with warnings about who we hang out with, especially children. Psalm 1:1, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night.”

I hope that helps you guys today. Thank you for those questions. Keep them coming. If you want to submit a question, you can go to heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday. Please leave your name and a date in there so that we can see when that question was submitted. Please keep your questions short and sweet and to the point. It helps us to be able to get to them more quickly. We love you guys. We thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your prayers for this ministry and for joining us at MomStrong International. If you’d like to participate in our Christmas card Palooza and I hope you will, please send us your Christmas cards.

We would also love it if you would send year-end donations to us here at Firmly Planted Family. We are a nonprofit organization and your contributions help us to keep this podcast on the air. You can reach us at Firmly Planted Family, 11100 Northeast 34th Circle, Vancouver, Washington, 98682. Thanks for listening everybody and I’ll see you back here on Friday with some new friends of mine, the Creation Guys. You won’t want to miss it.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Can I Homeschool If I Work? | 843

MomStrong Parenting

Podcast (hsj): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:24 — 15.4MB)

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Can I homeschool if I work? I get this question a lot — and I’ll answer it today along with several others. Tune in!

Transcribed version of podcast is below.

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Ecclesiastes 8:1

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

  • The Kingdom Code
  • Quick answers to tough questions by Bryan Osborne and Bodie Hodge
  • Ask Me Anything by J. Budziszewski
  • Grounded in the Faith by JI Packer

All Things Heidi

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by our friends at The Kingdom Code.

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the Heidi St. John Podcast. Today is Monday, November 11th. This is episode number 843. It’s Mailbox Monday. I’ve got lots of questions to get to today, including some questions on homeschooling and how you can get off the bench and onto the battlefield. 

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so you guys, first of all, thank you so much for leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. I’d really want to encourage you to keep them coming. If you’re listening to this show and you’ve never taken a moment to go over to iTunes and click on the review bar and just star the podcast or actually, even better, leave a written review, I just want to encourage you to do that. It’s very important to us to help get the word out and it really encourages the staff. We read every single one of those reviews, so thank you so much for doing that. You guys are awesome.

Also, I am starting to get Christmas cards. Yes, I am. Christmas Card Palooza is on here at the Firmly Planted Family Homeschool Resource Center. You can send us your Christmas cards and a picture. We would love to hear from you and I will link back to the address in the show notes today. And I will also try to remind you before the show is over today.

If you guys have not joined me yet, at MomStrong International for the Bible study and the live teaching, which I do on Facebook for the members group on Wednesdays, this is a great time to do it. We just started the bible study. We’re just a few days into it. We started on the 11th or on the fourth, rather. We just started the Bible study. We’re a few days into it. We started on the fourth and today is the 11th, that means we’ve been doing it for a week.

So it’s a great time for you guys to get in there, especially since the holidays are coming upon us. We are studying contentment over at MomStrong International and I was just talking to some of the members the other day when I was doing a Facebook live. And she said, “Oh man, I’m so glad we’re studying this because I really have a hard time spending money. I just, I want to buy all the things.”

And I was like, “Right? Because Amazon.” Because Amazon, because it’s too easy. All I got to do is click on Amazon and go, “Oh, I really want that coffee table. Oh I really need that shirt or I really need that 60 pound bag of flour or whatever it is.” It’s all right there. And God wants us to be content. And not only does he want us to be content, He’s given us the tools to pursue contentment.

And if we’re honest, contentment goes into a lot of areas of our lives. It even goes into the gender battles, which we’re seeing play out in the schools today and in the culture. Basically we’re shaking our fist at God and we’re saying, I’m not content with how you made me. I’m going to make myself in my image and this is exactly the struggle that we’ve been having since the dawn of time, right?

Eve wasn’t content just to stick with the fruit that God gave her. Entire garden. Anybody ever have a toddler? And you can give them the entire room. You guys play with this, play with that and here, momma just bought you this awesome Little Tikes toy kitchen for you to play with. Here’s the one thing over here I don’t want you to touch and what are they going to do?

Why? Because we have a hard time with contentment and we have a hard time with obedience, which by the way falls under the fruits of the spirit. So we’re going to talk about that all month at MomStrong International. There’s a three week bible study, so you guys can be done in time for Thanksgiving. So join me at momstronginternational.com and then be sure that you join the members only Facebook group where I will be hopping in and out of there, doing live teaching and connecting with you that way.

I also want to give a big shout out to my sponsor today. Today’s podcast is sponsored by the Kingdom Code. If you guys haven’t heard about this, I want to introduce you to it. Financial freedom, which we talk about a lot here at the show, is too important to ignore or postpone. How many of you guys are postponing it? Moment of silence, right? Sometimes we hope that somebody else is going to teach our kids about finances because we’ve had such a hard time getting a handle on it ourselves, which is why I really love the Kingdom Code.

So financial freedom for our kids is the main reason that this unique money management and budgeting program was developed. So it’s one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. It’s going to positively shape their futures and I want to encourage you to check it out. The program is based on a foundation of godly principles and money management skills.

And if you start using this easy to teach program with your nine to 13 year olds, you are going to give your kids an unbelievable jumpstart and an advantage in life. All right? So you don’t have to be an entrepreneur or a money wiz to teach the curriculum. The teacher’s guide is going to help you. It’s going to direct you through every step of the lessons and give you an opportunity to share your own ideas.

It’s also very adaptable to your own schedule. So you can build it into whatever it is your day looks like, all right? The Kingdom Code is going to equip your kids with valuable tools by using hands on activities and by teaching them entrepreneurship. I am a huge fan of being an entrepreneur. My husband and I have been entrepreneurs since we were married and I think it’s important.

Why? Why do we teach our kids entrepreneurship? Well, here’s the thing. It provides first hand experiences that build confidence and at the same time, you’re going to help your kids develop life skills, a positive work ethic. Hello! Sorely needed right now. Money skills and concern for others. The life lessons experienced by creating and building a business can contribute tremendously to their future success in life.

So let’s face it, you guys, all of our kids of course, are not going to be adult entrepreneurs, but it really doesn’t matter because the purpose of developing young entrepreneurs is to teach them life skills and money management skills that are best learned through firsthand experience.

So the Kingdom Code is the best and most comprehensive program on the marketplace for teaching young children about money management and life skills from a biblical perspective. And here’s the thing, write this down. You can visit thekingdomcode.com/heidi and they’re going to give you a coupon for free samples and 10% off your entire purchase. So remember you guys thekingdomcode.com/heidi.

All right, I want to get to your questions today. Mailbox Monday is filling up fast. I really appreciate hearing from you. We are getting a lot of questions about the culture, lots of questions about homeschooling. If you would like your question addressed here at Mailbox Monday, visit me online, heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday.

And then what we do is, we group those questions and hopefully try to get to several different kinds every single Monday. And we’re going to begin bringing guests on to help answer your questions on Wednesdays, so lots of stuff going on here at the podcast. We’d love to hear from you, heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday.

Here’s the first one. It comes from Christine. “Heidi, I want to thank you for your podcast. I started listening when someone posted a link to your podcast on yoga.” Christine, you are not alone. That yoga podcast has been the most downloaded podcast in the history of the Heidi St. John Podcast, so I’m glad you heard it.

“I was encouraged on two fronts. One, that you were speaking out against yoga, since it seems innocuous, but it’s not.” Absolutely true. “And two, that you were willing to say that you were wrong, but you changed your mind. I appreciate your humility and desire to follow God.”

Listen Christine, it’s really important for you to understand something about me. Because my life is very much in the public eye, particularly as it comes to the things that we address here at the podcast, I’m wrong a lot. And the Lord has been humbling me. I’ve been wrong in my parenting. Have you guys been wrong in your parenting? I’ve been wrong in my parenting.

I have been wrong in my marriage and the lord teaches us, I think, through failure, right? The key is humility and being able to say, “Okay, I was wrong.” Jay and I have a thing that we say a lot around the house and that is this, “Well that didn’t work.” Right? So we try something, it doesn’t work. What we want to do is continue to follow and honor God and that’s what I love about the listeners here at the podcast. I see a real desire to do that, so we’re walking in community with each other.

Christine goes on to say, “I’m not exactly sure how to phrase my question, but here it goes. I have noticed lately that the openness about the occult has increased. In the past year, two of my Facebook acquaintances have started to post things about witchcraft. I have decided to hide these posts as I don’t want to see them, but I’m not ready to unfriend someone in case they want to hear the gospel. I’m shocked that this openness seems to be okay and that there seems to be a normalization of the occult. So I’m wondering if you have noticed the same trend and how you think the church should respond.”

Well, the trend, it is trending and if you’ve noticed, I don’t know if you saw the news in Knoxville, but the satanic church in Knoxville is opening a satan club for children in one of the public schools in Knoxville. If you don’t believe me, I’ll link back to it in the show notes today. The occult is growing at the same time that this sexual indoctrination of our children has ramped up.

Why? Because the two of them are connected, right? This is Satan in the garden. You will not surely die. Right? Lying to parents, lying to children and desensitizing us to the danger that is the occult. So I heard from a kid the other day who said that he was playing again with Dungeons and Dragons, which hasn’t reared its ugly head for a long time.

You guys, Satan is real and the kingdom of darkness is real. The occult is dangerous and we need to teach our children that it’s dangerous. We shouldn’t be screwing around with things like Ouija Boards. It’s amazing to me. I did something that I would not recommend you guys doing, but I followed this thread the other day on Facebook from this satanic church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Little tiny Knoxville, Tennessee. People always tell me, “Oh, it’s not in the South.” Yes it is.

Okay, so little tiny Knoxville, Tennessee, and they are pushing to have this satanic club for children. And really you guys, they’re logo is a little cartoon goat. It’s terrifying. And they’re doing it under the guise of religious liberty. So now they’ve classified themselves as a church. And so as a church, they get nonprofit status. I mean, you guys can see where this is going, right?

We opened up the door to, in our country, to gay marriage. And when we did that, now we’ve got polyamory, which is coming on the scene, all manner of things. Also, you see a shocking rise in pedophilia at the same time that this fascination with the occult is rising. Why? Because they’re all connected.

So how does the church respond? That’s a great question. The church responds by teaching our people every single Sunday and throughout the week, how to interact with the culture through the grid of Scripture based on God’s word. So everything that we do should come from a position of biblical authority.

We don’t our answers for these things from the world. We get it from God’s Word. I’m going to recommend a couple of books to you. NavPress has a great book out, which I carry in the store and I’ll link back to it in the show notes today. It’s called Ask Me Anything. Ask Me Anything— and it’s fantastic.

They say it’s provocative answers for college students. Charles Colson said, “Crystal clear answers. No question is taboo. No issue is too hot.” I love this book because this guy is answering questions from a biblical worldview. So Ask Me Anything. It’s also a great primer for parents. So if you want to get ready to answer the tough questions for your kids, do your homework now. It’s so important. Never been more important.

Also, there’s another really great book by Bryan Osborne and Bodie Hodge called Quick Answers to Tough Questions. They’re talking about the bible as it relates to evolution and creation. The foreword was written by my friend Ken Ham. Absolutely fantastic. Also another great book, Grounded In the Faith by J.J., the foreword is by J.J. Packer. This book was written by an author named Kenneth Earisman and fantastic. Grounded In the Faith: An Essential Guide to Knowing What You Believe and Why.

And so the answer to your question Christine, is we inoculate our kids against the lies of the world, and at the same time, we’re inoculating ourselves by getting into the Word, which is why we started MomStrong International. To train you guys in the truth of God’s Word, to help you get off the bench and onto the battlefield.

Next question comes from a listener who wants to remain anonymous. She said, “Heidi, I’m leaning toward homeschooling and I want to. After listening to your encouraging podcast episodes and guest speakers, I really want to try. But I also work part-time and my hours change week to week. Any tips or thoughts? Thank you so much.”

So first of all, I also work. I know lots of people that work both inside and outside the home and this comes back to, are you ready for it? Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I hear from parents all the time, you say, “Oh, I can’t do that.” You know what we’ve done with the school system? The school system in the United States of America is the great babysitter, right?

So we have our kids, “thank you Lord for giving us our kids” and then we drop them off. Okay, you guys raise them. I’m going to go to work and bring home the money. And the enemy has really made us dependent, I think in many regards, on the system, right? So we live and this is why contentment is so important. Again you guys, I can’t encourage you enough, head over to MomsStrongInternational, join us there. You’re going to grow and learn and be strengthened.

The culture has really conditioned us not to be content. So we got to have that huge house. We got to have two cars, really nice cars. So a lot of us are making car payments, we’re making house payments, we’re making payments to our credit cards. And what does that do? It enslaves us to money. And so then, we have to work.

Now I realize some of you are saying, well that’s not my situation. I have to work because of A, B, and C. So I’m not saying you’re wrong for working, but I am saying, “Oh my goodness you guys, we don’t need most of the stuff that we think we need.” And that’s the truth. And honestly, we’re sacrificing our kids to get it. And I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, so I’m going to let that sit.

So a couple things. First of all, I really do believe that we have a wrong idea also of homeschooling because we think it’s going to take us as many hours as traditional school does. And it’s simply, that’s just simply not the case. You can do in two hours a day, if you really put your mind to it, two to two and a half hours a day with your kids, what it takes the public school system or even a private school, traditional school, eight hours to do. It shouldn’t take that long.

And so a lot of parents that I know are, they’re linking arms with their friends. They’re saying, “Hey, will you watch my kid on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons when I have to go to work and then I’ll help you with this?” And, and I do think where there’s a will, there’s a way. These are our kids. And so pray about it. Ask the Lord. He will help you. But I want to say, it’s absolutely possible.

And frankly, for those of you who are working and homeschooling, go to heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday and tell me how you’re doing it. And I will come back and read those responses because I think it’s a really important question. So thank you anonymous, for that question.

Angela. Hey Angela. Hey girl. Angela wrote, “I’m trying to do my homework and I’ve been praying about homeschooling for a while now. The more I hear about all the things that are going on in the public schools, the more I really want to try homeschooling, but I am terrified. I currently have a first and third grader, both boys. I am not that smart of a person, but I try hard and am determined to understand things. I think we’d be okay in elementary and possibly middle school, but when it comes to high school, I just worry about being able to equip them for college and all the other life lessons while being at home.”

So this is a great question, Angela. I love this question. First of all, I love that you just said that you’re terrified. First of all, I want to remind you, Luke 12 22:26. “Do not worry about your life or what you will eat or what about your body or what you will wear. Life is more important than food and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens. They do not sow or reap and they have no storeroom or barn and yet, God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life. Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

This is a great verse for homeschool moms who feel inadequate because I hear this a lot. People say to me, “Oh, I can’t do it. I’m not that smart.” Think about a system, you guys, that educates us to the point where we don’t think we can educate our own kids. They educate us and then we come out and go, “Yeah, I can’t do that.” Why not? They just educated us. We should be able to do that. Everyone knows that the student learns more, that the teacher learns more than the student.

And so I want to just encourage you not to let fear stand in your way. Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 52:22, “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall.” So in some regards, this comes down to what we believe and who we trust.

And I just want to encourage you to trust the Lord of heaven’s armies. God will help you. Take the plunge and when your kids get into high school, I’m telling you what, you’re going to know by then. And for those of you who have high schoolers and you’re looking and going, “I just don’t know if they’re going to be socialized.” Believe me when I say, there are so many resources out there for homeschooling parents now. Your kids are not going to lack for socialization.

And homeschooling does not mean, you guys should write this down. Homeschooling does not mean that mom teaches every single subject. Usually when my kids get into high school, they’re involved in the homeschool co-op that we started. Now they’re here at the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center. They’re taking things like chemistry and biology and algebra two and German and all kinds of fun things.

What homeschooling means is the parents are in charge of their child’s education. The parents are choosing how the kids are taught. The parents are choosing if they teach that subject or if they have a tutor teach it. The parents are the ones, not the school who says, “Here you go. This is what we’re teaching your child. Sorry if you don’t like it.”

All right? And so that’s the most important thing I think, for you to understand, particularly when it comes to your ability. A, I’m going to say don’t worry about tomorrow, your kids are little right now. And when tomorrow comes, believe me, God will give you the answers that you need. One thing I’ve learned about walking with the Lord these many years now, is that he’s rarely early, but he’s never late. He’s never late. And so God wants you to be encouraged.

One more really quick question. This is another anonymous. “My question is a fear of losing my children. I know every mother has some degree in fear of the loss of a child, but it eats my lunch. I’m afraid I’m going to outlive one or all of my children. I don’t know how I would move on from that kind of loss.”

Okay, so a couple things. You got to give this to the Lord, girl. Because we are instructed over and over again, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but this is disobedience on your part. Because the Lord instructs you over and over again, don’t worry about your life. Don’t be afraid. Put your trust in the lord, cast your cares on the lord. God says he’s our refuge and our strength. In the Bible, in Psalm 118, the Lord says, “I am with you. Don’t be afraid. What can man do to me?”

And you know why you don’t have the grace to deal with the loss of a child right now? Because it hasn’t happened to you. And if, God forbid, something like that were to happen, God would give you the grace. My husband and I have walked through many losses in our 30 years of marriage. I have walked through things that I thought, I don’t know how people stand up underneath this.

You know how they stand up underneath it? Because their foundation is secure. Their foundation is secure to the Lord. Their foundation is secure in the Lord. So don’t borrow trouble because what you’re doing really, is you’re borrowing trouble. So when that fear sets in and you start to think, “Oh my goodness”. And you can feel that spiral into anxiety, I’m so familiar with anxiety.

When you feel that spiral into anxiety, can I just encourage you? Worship is your weapon. Turn your worry into worship. Crank up the worship music, sing it out loud, turn your attention and your thoughts to the lord. Do not let yourself camp out on these thoughts of being afraid, right? Because that’s exactly where the enemy wants you to be.

Psalm 34, verse four says, “I prayed to the Lord and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.” Isiah, 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” He doesn’t say, “I might uphold you if you do everything right.” He says, “I will uphold you.”

And then finally today, David’s encouragement, his admonition, his exhortation. In Psalm 56:3 he said, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” I put my trust in you. I could go on and on and on. There’s so many verses in God’s word that deal with fear, but we know that Satan is a liar and he wants you to be afraid. And God said, “Do not be afraid. I will never leave you and never forsake you.”

And in fact, God will give you joy as you walk along this. So praise the lord that he gave you those children. Thank him for those children every single day that you have them and do not live in fear. That’s where the enemy wants you, not where the lord of heaven’s armies would have you be.

All right. My time is up today, you guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you want your questions addressed here at Mailbox Monday, go ahead and head on over to my website, heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday and fill out the form there. Also, send us your Christmas cards. You can send them to me at Heidi St. John, care of Firmly Planted Family, 11100, Northeast 34th Circle, Vancouver, Washington 98682.

Want to let you guys know too, that up on the website now, we have the speak life necklace. This is a beautiful silver necklace in the shape of a baby in the womb. It’s absolutely stunning. It’s a great talking point and it’s a beautiful, it’s just a beautiful way to say that you stand for life.

You can find that at my website, the heidistjohnstore.com and you can get our off the bench t-shirt. You want people to know that you’re off the bench? I’d love to see these all over the nation. Head on over to my website and look up the off the bench t-shirt.

Also, one more thing. We have a really awesome thing happening this weekend at the Homeschool Resource Center. If you’re anywhere in the Vancouver area, tickets are going fast. We are doing the play, Anne of Green Gables. We’re doing Anne of Green Gables. It’s a great way, we’re doing it as a dessert theater. It’s a great opportunity, especially for you to bring your young girls and just have a date night.

And I’m telling you what, you guys are going to love it. You can go to fphrc.org for more information or give us a call at the Homeschool Resource Center. I hope you guys have a great day and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday. 

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Bring Your ‘A’ Game: The Importance of Discipling Children with Marcus Brotherton and Claton Butcher | 842

MomStrong Parenting

Podcast (hsj): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:18 — 18.1MB)

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Are your kids enthusiastic about the Bible? Today’s guests think the Bible should be ANYTHING but boring! In their new book, Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles: A 12-Year-Old’s Take on the Totally Unboring, Slightly Weird Stuff in the Bible, Including Fish Guts, Wrestling Moves, and Stinky Feet ,  authors Stephen Arterburn M. ED. and Marcus Brotherton take aim at middle-grade schoolers! With humor, they help teach kids that Jesus has been part of the story from the beginning and can be found throughout the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation.
Transcribed version of podcast is below.

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Galatians 2:20

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

All Things Heidi

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

Marcus Brotherton is a New York Times bestselling author and collaborative writer known for his books with high-profile public figures, humanitarians, inspirational leaders, and military personnel.

Connect with Author: Website | Facebook | Book

Claton Butcher is an audiobook narrator, voice-over artist, and music pastor, with over 80 audiobooks to his credit. He has studied under some of today’s best and most prolific narrators, including Scott Brick, Sean Pratt, and Johnny Heller. He is also the founder of Two Words Publishing.  Claton and his biggest fans: his wife, and their daughter – born in 2016 – live in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota.

Connect with Author: Website | Facebook | Instagram 

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

[Heidi] Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the Heidi St. John podcast. Today is Friday, November 8th. This is episode number 842. It is, meet my friend Friday, and I’ve got two guys on the show today that you guys are going to love. If you’ve got kids in your home from the ages of eight to 12, and you want to encourage them to walk with The Lord, you’re going to love this one. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right you guys, so thanks for joining me today in my little corner of the internet. I want to encourage you, for those of you who have been following me at MomStrong International, we are at the beginning of a brand new Bible study over there, MomStrongInternational.com and we’re studying contentment for the whole month of November. We figured it’s a great time to study that heading into the holiday season. Speaking of the holiday seasons, Christmas card palooza is in full swing at Firmly Planted Family. We’d love to hear from you. Please send us your Christmas cards and pictures of your family. We would love to just put faces to the names of the people that we’ve been praying for, for a long time around here.

All right. Without further ado, I’m very excited today because I’ve got two guys on the show with me today who have never been on the show before. They share the same passion that I do for training up the next generation of kids to walk with and serve The Lord Jesus. Really what we’re trying to do is train up disciples, the next generation of disciples. I think you guys are going to be really excited to interact with them today. Marcus Brotherton is on the show. Marcus and I have a little bit of history which we’ll get into later. He is a New York Times bestselling author.

Also, Claton Butcher on the show. They have a brand new book out today. Marcus has been a collaborative writer known for his books with high profile public figures, and humanitarians and military personnel. Claton is an audiobook narrator with over 80 audio books to his credit. Though he occasionally gets behind the mic for special projects, most of his time is invested in running the audio book publishing companies he founded with his wife, Two Words Publishing and Black Hills Audio Books. Claton and his young daughter and his wife live in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. You guys, I’m excited about this. We decided to do something a little bit different today and started off with a clip from his audiobook. Hang in there. Here we go.

[Claton] Okay. You need to know that one of the grossest most feared diseases in those days was called leprosy. The disease caused a person to lose feeling throughout the body, so people would cut themselves and not know it or step into a fire without noticing and just let it burn till their foot smelled like barbecued monkey meat, or they’d break an ankle, but just keep walking on it until it filled with pus.

[Heidi] Claton and Marcus, welcome to the podcast.

[Marcus ] Thanks, Heidi. It’s great to be here.

[Claton] Thank you. It’s great to be here.

[Heidi] That’s gross. That was a pretty gross way to introduce you guys and Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles, but you’re really trying to get a hold of eight to 12 year old kids, and get them interested in Jesus. Right? Which is why you’ve started writing Kirby McCook. Marcus, first of all, I’m going to start with you and then we’ll move over to Claton a little bit. You and I have known each other for a while, so with full disclosure, I thought it’d be fun for you to say what is our long and storied history. Go, I’ll let you go. I want to hear what you have to say actually. This will be fun. I will put mic on mute while you talk.

[Marcus ] It’s all good, it’s all good. Heidi and I have known each other since college days. I don’t know, do we want to put a year by that, Heidi?

[Heidi] Well, yeah, it’s like the late ’80s.

[Marcus ] Yeah, before the days of podcasting anyways.

[Heidi] Before email, Before the internet. Yeah, all that stuff.

[Marcus ] I was actually at your guys’ wedding in, was it ’89?

[Heidi] Yes. Yep.

[Marcus ] Yeah. Heidi’s husband, Jay and I, we were in a rock and roll band.

[Heidi] Woot, woot!

[Marcus ] When you’re in college you have to play rock and roll. We both had really sweet mullets and ripped jeans, before they were sort of mainstream. Yeah. Heidi and Jay, I’m going to tell some nice stories on you guys actually, because there’s a lot of places I could go on that one. The thing that your readers really need to know is that Heidi and Jay do a ton of work behind the scenes with people, I don’t know, I guess your readers and listeners really don’t know about. We have mutual friends in common and I know for a fact that Heidi and Jay just put a lot of time into loving and supporting people when they’re going through hard times. They are rock solid people. When it comes to Heidi and Jay, they are it. They’re the true deals. Yeah. Good stuff, Heidi. Glad you’re doing that.

[Heidi] Thank you. I’ll give you your 20 bucks later. That was amazing. Thank you so much. Well, it’s fun because I’ve been watching you really … I mean, obviously when we knew each other way back when because Jay and I just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary, which is just crazy. I mean, I wasn’t planning on being a writer. Were you planning on being a writer?

[Marcus ] That’s a great question. My dad was a pastor and my mother was a newspaper journalist. I’d kind of grown up in this world of God, and faith, and words and how do you put them all together. When I was in college, I was doing the journalism track there at Multnomah. I had writing in mind. I wasn’t sure where that would go or how do you become a writer. I think that’s the big question a lot of people have. Yeah.

[Heidi] Right, yep.

[Marcus ] Right out of college and through grad school I worked as a youth director at a church and thought for a while that maybe pastoral ministry was going to be my destination. I came to be, I don’t know, 30 or 31 years old, and just went, it is time to write. Switched careers basically and started working as a newspaper reporter. That’s where I really learned the craft and banged it around in the trenches there.

[Heidi] Yeah, that is amazing. You are now in a project that I was actually kind of surprised to see you doing, because I didn’t anticipate you getting into writing for kids, but you’re doing this with Claton. Claton, you’re on the show today. Welcome, welcome. I’m glad that you’re here.

[Claton] Thank you. Glad to be here.

[Heidi] How do you know Marcus? Let’s just back up a little because this is helpful for me. You guys met how?

[Claton] Basically I stalked him on Facebook after the book was about to release. He was kind enough to respond and was able to … As the audio book publisher, we don’t see a lot of the impact that the books have that go to the authors, like the emails that are sent into the authors, if that makes sense. I was asking him, hey, I saw him post about it that there were a lot of awesome stories of how this was really impacting families. I said, “Could you pass some of those on, because we would love to hear that?” He was kind enough to do that. Then we started talking about the book a little bit and said, “I would love to get in with homeschooling families, because I think this is a great way to tie that in with what families are doing in training their kids.”

[Heidi] Yeah. So important and really more important now than it’s ever been. I mean, you’d argue that the culture has been messed up for a long time, but we’re watching it change very, very rapidly right now. I’m so encouraged when I see men in particular really get in there and try to do things that are geared at getting young people interested in the things of the Bible and the stories of the Bible. You guys have a collab. Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles, I love this title. It’s really long though, right? A 12 year olds take on the totally un-boring, slightly weird stuff in the Bible, including fish guts, wrestling moves and stinky feet. Marcus, you’re not known for this. You’re known for like military nonfiction, hanging out with the greatest generation, all that stuff. Why did you ever decide to write a children’s book?

[Marcus ] That is a great question. It’s so off brand for me. It’s like the East from the West, I don’t know. Over the years, yeah, I worked with Band of Brothers, and the Marines featured in the Pacific, and Gary Sinise who runs the Gary Sinise Foundation, and just sort of all these military projects. It was my own kids who really drove me to do a kid’s book.

[Heidi] Kids will do that.

[Marcus ] Kids will do that. They’re just so blunt in their approach. We’ve got three kids, two girls and a boy, and they’re ages 16, 11 and six right now. A 10 year age spread, that’s probably a podcast, by the way, how do you parent kids from a 10 year age spread. The two older kids in particular, for years, they were just sort of on me and this was their literal line. They would say, “Dad, when are you going to stop writing all those boring books for grownups and write something that us kids are going to enjoy?” One day I thought, let’s just do it. Let’s just write a kid’s book. What should I write about? I can write about anything, birthday parties or video games. I want to write about Jesus. Is it third John I think, 3 John 1:4 says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth.”

That’s really what I wanted to impress upon my kids, that their faith is important, and that Jesus is the life, and that Jesus can be to them, and I would use this word very reverently, Jesus can be the true superhero that they can follow, and marvel at, and emulate and ultimately live for.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s totally right. The title, which I just read, one of the longest titles ever in the history of titles. Right?

[Marcus ] Yeah.

[Heidi] What were you thinking, dude? I think it’s great because I’ve got a six year old grandson now and I’m telling you, I read that to him and he is just going to be like, “Yeah, where is it? Stinky feet.” How did you come up with the title?

[Marcus ] Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles is kind of the short version title, and then that subtitle that just goes on forever that nobody’s going to remember, but it’s really funny, but it came about, we had called it something different. The team at Tyndale, they’re just amazing, and we all sort of got together and said, “What is this book really about?” What was great about the team at Tyndale is they really caught the vision from moment one. They said, “It’s parents and grandparents who kind of buy the book, but it’s the kids who actually read it and get into it or have the book read to them,” so the book has really going to appeal to the kids themselves intrinsically. They went, “Let’s go over the top on this. Let’s make it really funny and fun and appeal to kids.” That’s how that title came up.

[Heidi] I love it. We share a publisher. I’ve been working with Tyndale for several years now. Love those guys. Love their heart to see the gospel saturated in the culture through media. Claton, I know that you are the producer for the audio version of the book. Talk about how Kirby McCook became a passion project for you.

[Claton] One of the reasons that my wife and I started this company a few years ago, was to expand the reach of the gospel and strengthen the church. We have a special emphasis, especially at the time on kind of filling gaps in the Christian audio book publishing industry. One of those glaring gaps that Kirby meets is in the children’s space. There’s very few audiobook options for Christian kids that are God honoring titles that actually teach kids…

[Heidi] That they are interested interesting…

[Claton] Right, that they’re going to actually listen to and enjoy.

[Heidi] Exactly.

[Claton] That’s our heart, where we came from, why we started this Two Words publishing. I meet with publishers to look at different books and things. Recently I met with a publisher and we talked about how we need to ask the question, how are you going to reach my kids or grandkids with the gospel. That really resonated with us, especially with the heart that we have and why we started at the publishing company. We started keeping our eyes open for that. Then it had, actually may have been at the same conference that I met with Tyndale. We’re talking about that and they said, “Oh, how about this book?” We looked at it and Kirby McCook obviously the cover, I don’t know if listeners are able to see the cover, but that’s…

[Heidi] Oh, we’ll link back to the show notes. It’s great.

[Claton] Awesome. Yes, it is really just a great book. It really jumped out at me partially because I had no idea who MD Brotherton was, which is how he’s listed on the book. Sorry about that, Marcus. Stephen Arterburn and I was so much familiar with and thought, oh, this has got to be really solid. Well, it’s coming from Tyndale, so it’s going to be solid biblically.

[Heidi] That’s right. For those people who are listening who don’t know Steve Arterburn, can you introduce listeners to him because he wrote the book together with Marcus, correct?

[Marcus ] Yeah. So Steve and I share the same agent and Steve has a 12 year old son himself. Steve and I were talking one day just sort of comparing notes. He’d done several specialty Bibles over the years. He’s just has a really big heart for kids and he had a big heart for this project just from moment one. Steve used to be a fifth grade teacher before he became a radio personality and sort of a famous author. He’s got a really good relatability fact with kids and he was the one who suggested just making this book as funny as possible.

In fact, he came up with the title, the chapter title idea. Jesus put the mag in magnificent, which I just thought was brilliant.

[Heidi] That’s awesome.

[Marcus ] Yeah, so Steve and I were talking as well, and there’s kind of a bigger vision here that we’re not too old to remember when we were kids ourselves, and we were involved in various children’s programs, Sunday school, and VBS, and children’s church, and Christmas programs, and on and on and on.

[Claton] Back when flannel graphs were the way to go, right?

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. Amen.

[Marcus ] Yeah.

[Heidi] Don’t knock the flannel graph. Okay?

[Marcus ] I loved the flannel graph.

[Claton] I grew up with them too.

[Heidi] Bring it back.

[Marcus ] Right. We’ve all been in those programs and we can kind of remember, some are really great and they’re really terrific. Then some of them are sort of less than excellent. As grownups, we wanted to make sure that we never presented the word of God to children in a, I don’t know, a slipshod or boring manner. Steve in particular is really big on, if you’re involved in children’s ministry, bring your A game. I mean, make this a great thing for kids. Don’t waste kids’ time as much as anything or don’t make the gospel a boring thing.

[Heidi] It’s so important too, because I think we see this in the church. It’s kind of a sickness in the church. We’re putting all this money and all this effort into big church and a grownup church. Then we sort of relegate kids to, oh, here’s your 45 minutes downstairs in the basement. Really, we need to be focused, laser focused on discipling our children. You guys have been very intentional about not just teaching information, but discipling kids also, which is a huge theme here at the podcast. I’m curious about what discipleship means to you and how do you hope that this book is going to help parents encourage their kids to be disciples of Jesus.

[Marcus ] I mean, the information is part of it. We definitely want kids to know about Jesus and about the events in His life, but it is key that we are trying to teach so much more than that. We want to inspire kids in their faith because children can draw close to God and they can live in light of God’s holiness, His sovereignty and His grace. When we use that word, discipleship, what does that even mean? It’s like Jesus said to His first disciples, His first followers, He said, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

There’s really three key parts of that. The follow me, is following Jesus. It’s having a relationship with Him. It’s knowing Jesus as a person, what He was about, who He was, what He taught, particularly how Jesus invited people to have an abundant life. Then the “I will make you” is it’s this idea of being transformed by Jesus. When we follow Jesus, our lives aren’t the same. Then fishers of men, come follow me, I will make you fishers of men, is the idea of living with purpose in mind. When we become disciples, we live deliberately. We become disciples who make other disciples. Ultimately we want to love God. We want to love people. That’s what it’s all about and that’s what we hope to get across in this book.

[Heidi] I love it. We know that because we’re watching with keen interest, I know this is one of the things I talk about here at the show all the time, is this importance of bringing kids into God’s story because they are a part of His story. They’re part of history which is God’s unfolding plan that we’ve been seeing happening around us and has been going on since the creation of the world. You’re giving a really unique opportunity for kids to kind of enter into that story. You’ve made it laugh out loud funny. I mean, I love the clip that we played because who doesn’t want to talk about leprosy in that way? Right? When you think about drawing kids in, and bringing your A game and making it funny, did you feel any apprehension at all about combining the stories of Jesus with humor?

[Marcus ] Oh absolutely. I think anytime you use humor you run a risk of being, I don’t know, misunderstood or sort of going over the top, whatever, but kids love humor, and so we wanted the kids to intrinsically want to read the book. Yeah. I don’t know. For instance, in the book we talked about how God came to Moses in the wilderness and Moses was told to go to Pharaoh in Egypt and say, “Let my people go.” We talk about how Moses was hesitant to do that. He answers back to God. He answers something like, “Okay, I’ll go, but I’m not much of a talker, Lord. I’ve been out with sheep in the past 40 years, and about all I can say anymore is, baaa.” Will people get that? I don’t know. Yeah.

[Heidi] Well, and honestly, if you think about it, again I was looking at the cover and how just very artistic and fun. It has almost a comic book appeal to it. We can’t help but think about Veggie Tales. It doesn’t matter where I go, and I speak all over the nation, I will often say, I’ll stop in the middle of something and I’ll say, “Hey, you guys, let’s not forget, God made you special.” 99% of the audience will go, they’ll say, “And He loves you very much.” Why? Because Phil Vischer was able to use humor to drive home the point that God loves you. That’s really what you’re doing. I mean that’s what I see you doing is really encouraging kids, by writing a story that’s going to draw them in.

Really you’re giving parents a tool. This is what, Mom and Dad, I want you guys to hear this because we talk about this all the time on the show. We want to put in front of our kids things that are going to draw them in and show the magnificence and the love and the power of Jesus. This does that so well and so beautifully. I thought it was interesting too, and Claton, this question is for you, you guys were able to get a really awesome voice actor to play the part of Kirby for the audiobook. This is the same guy that voices Diary of a Wimpy Kid. What was it like to work … Is it Ramon? That’s his name?

[Claton] Ramon, yep.

[Heidi] What was it like to work with him?

[Claton] Ramon is awesome. He’s definitely a professional. He’s been the narrator of the year multiple times and a whole bunch of other awards. When I cast him, I didn’t realize that he was the Diary of a Wimpy Kid narrator. I, for some reason, hadn’t put that together, but I thought, okay, this is the guy that I need for this book. He’s awesome. He can relate to kids. Kids can relate to his voice. It was such a smooth process.

[Heidi] He’s got the voice that draws you in. When kids listen to this, I always love it when my kids are listening to something that I can tell that it’s interesting to them, because they lean in. You can tell that they’re just like, ooh, can’t wait for the next thing, and this has that feel to it.

[Claton] It does. It does. We really wanted to, like Marcus said, to bring our A game to this. This is the first kid’s book that we’ve done to try to meet that need in parents’ and kids’ lives. We wanted to go all out. We got Ramon and he definitely didn’t disappoint, I should say.

[Heidi] That’s awesome. That’s so cool, Marcus. I understand that, speaking of going all out, you guys are getting some pretty cool feedback from the book so far. Different age groups of readers are emailing you. They’re saying they love the book and they love it for different reasons. Can you speak to that for just a minute?

[Marcus ] It’s been really cool, Heidi. You’re an author and you put books out there to the world. There’s all sorts of things you can do like beforehand, you get your sort of cloistered market of early readers and whatnot, and how is that book going to be perceived by other people, but they can sort of only tell you so much. Really the book has just got to be published and it’s got to go out there. You really need to hear from actual readers. The response has been fantastic so far. It’s been kind of different, kind of all over and different age groups. We had a mother who wrote us and said, “I got this for my kid, and then I found I was reading it myself, because there’s like things that I didn’t know about Jesus in it.”

This pastor in Vermont, he wrote us and he said that he had picked it up for his family. Vermont is a pretty unchurched area these days. He said, yeah, he’s like giving it to everybody he knows. It’s kind of on everybody’s Christmas list for this year. We had a grandmother in Colorado read it for her grandson, and then she turned around and she ordered like 20 copies for all the youth pastors that she knew.

[Heidi] That’s awesome.

[Marcus ] We had a principal of a middle school up in Canada who had picked it up and he immediately ordered a copy for like every student in a school. He was so excited about it. Yeah, it’s finding its way in some pretty cool places.

[Heidi] That’s really awesome. Someone said it’s like Captain Underpants meets the Bible, only reverent. I love that. You’re bringing kids into this story of Jesus with humor. You’re teaching kids that Jesus had been a part of the story from the beginning, and He can be found throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, which is something that parents really have I think a hard time communicating to their kids, like how can you see Jesus woven throughout scripture and He’s there. He’s there. You’re doing a great job with this book.

I got one other question for you. Well, actually I’ve got two other questions. I’ll start with the big one. For parents who are listening to this and grandparents who are going, man, this sounds like something my kids would love and make a great Christmas gift, where can they find Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles?

[Marcus ] On Amazon, it’s there on Barnes and Noble, on the Tyndale website. Just type in keyword, Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles. You’ll find it there or ask for it at a bookstore near you.

[Heidi] You guys have the audio version, which is super fun, is out. The best place to get that is at Audible. Is that right, Claton?

[Claton] Yeah, so Audible.com/TwoWordsPublishing. You can get to it at TwoWordsPublishing.com as well.

[Heidi] I will link that for those of you who are listening and you’re driving or you’re in the shower. I know you guys are listening in the shower, because you’re always emailing me, telling me how you’re washing your hair while you’re … I will link back to these things in the show notes today. Rinse your hair and everything will be fine. We will link to where they can find the book on Audible and also an Amazon, Barnes and Noble, basically anywhere that books are sold. I’m really curious to know, is this the one and only, or are you guys thinking you might make a series out of it?

[Marcus ] Well, we’d love to make a series. Yeah. That’d be great. It depends on reader response.

[Heidi] Yeah. Right. It always depends on reader response. Well, I’m really excited about this. I think we need more great books for kids. There’s so many. I mean you guys, oh my goodness, go to the library. There are so many books out there right now, they’re harming our kids and bringing messages that are not true and they’re hurting our kids. You guys have said, “Hey, we’re going to make something that’s not only interesting and fun and fantastic to listen to, but it shares the truth of the world as seen through the eyes of Jesus.” That includes some slightly weird stuff and fish guts and wrestling moves and stinky feet. I think it’s awesome.

[Marcus ] Thank you.

[Heidi] For more information on Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles, I’m going to link back to all things Kirby McCook in the show notes today, including a picture of the cover of this book, because you guys are going to love it. If you’ve got kids that range in age from about eight to 12 years old, I hope you guys will check it out. I’ll link back to it in the show notes today. We need to do a better job of discipling our kids. Claton and Marcus, I’m really happy to see such amazing men and professionals jumping into the market and helping us reach this next generation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

[Marcus ] Thank you.

[Claton] Thanks so much.

[Heidi] For more information on Kirby McCook and the Jesus Chronicles, visit me online at heidistjohn.com/podcast. I appreciate you guys listening. As always, we’d love it when you leave reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. Be sure to check out the brand new Bible study at MomStrong International, which just began. On Monday, we’re going to study the topic of contentment. Thank you so much for listening everybody. I’ll be answering your questions at Mailbox Monday, on November 11th. See you then. Have a great weekend.

Write to [Heidi]
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Off The Bench: The Story of Phineas | 841

MomStrong International

Podcast (hsj): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:11 — 14.6MB)

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Tucked away in the book of Numbers is the story of a faith-filled man named Phineas. It’s a story of boldness and courage in the midst of incredible wickedness. Listen in and be encouraged, because God is still at work today. There is a blessing in boldness when it’s for the glory and honor of the Lord!

Transcribed version of podcast is below.

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • 1 John 2:1-2

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

All Things Heidi

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Wednesday, November 6th. This is episode number 841. It is Wednesday, and normally we teach from the bible study at MomStrong International. We’re going to change it up a little bit. We’ve got some exciting changes for you. I’m going to tell you about it. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, you guys. So here we are. We’re well into November. Today’s November the 6th. A lot of us have been engaged in local elections. I hope that you all got out and voted. So important if you haven’t done it. If you haven’t done it before, you got to get involved. We live in a democracy here in the United States, a Republic actually, and that means we have a voice and so we want to be sure to use it, and I want to encourage you to get involved in the process.

You heard me talking on Monday about what’s happening with comprehensive sex education, and that sort of bumped out my answering questions to today, which I’m going to get to. But there are some things I want to talk about before I do that. First of all, I want to say thank you. We started … It’ll be two years ago in December. We started a bible study here at Heidi St. John, and we call it MomStrong International.

Now, the reason I call it that is because I have been for quite a while now frustrated at the lack of biblical literacy that I see within the Christian community, particularly as it relates to mothers. And so I began to write a bible study that I thought would help you deal with what’s happening in realtime from a biblical perspective. You see, if we don’t have a biblical perspective, then we’re going to struggle to act like Christians in the world today and we have to know what God’s word says, and it’s not enough for us as mothers I think, or fathers, to link arms and talk about what a hot mess we are and, “Go wash your face,” and all that stuff if we’re not engaging with and knowing God’s word.

And so we started MomStrong International. It has a component in it that’s called KidStrong, and that is written for you every single month here. The topics change, and this month we’re talking about contentment. So for the month of November, it’s a three week study rather than four because I know that you guys have, like me, the holidays are coming up and so we decided to shorten the study just a little bit, but what I’m really hoping to do is to encourage you even throughout the holidays to maintain a posture of prayer and to stay in the word, and you can do that through the scripture writing challenge also. So the scripture writing challenge is available for you. It’s free at MomStrongInternational.com. I’ve been doing that for many years here and every single day, there’s a scripture for you to write out.

Now, I want to issue a challenge to you. I know some of you like challenges. This is a great opportunity because we’re in the very beginning of November. The bible study starts on the first Monday of every month, so we’ve just started in week one. We’re talking about Lord or Label. Is the Lord truly the Lord of your life or is he just a label, like that you see on the inside of your shirt, “I’m a Christian,” but it doesn’t permeate your life? So that’s what we’re going to be studying for the month of November.

But I want to issue you a challenge. And so if you’re doing the scripture writing challenge with me, can I just encourage you, write those verses out on an index card, stick them in the mail, maybe put a little note on the back of the index card or whatever and then mail it. In your prayer, in your time of prayer, ask the Lord, “Father, who should I send this to? Who would you have me send this to?” And then pop it in the mail and see what God will do.

You guys, the bible teaches us, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It’s able to cut through soul and spirit, dividing even to the very depths of the heart of man. Why? To get to what we’re actually up against, and it has never been more important than it is right now. And so I just want to encourage you to a place of really committing with me to study the word with me. As the apostle Paul said, “To show yourself an approved workman who does not need to be ashamed, who can rightly handle the word of truth,” which is the bible. And so that’s what we’re doing.

So there’s my challenge. Take the cards and pop them in the mail. Go to Costco, get yourself some stamps and then just put them in the mail. You can take a half an hour and just address 25 regular standard size envelopes, and then just everyday when you write out your verse, stick it in there and send it to somebody. You can also send them to me. I’d love to hear from you here at Firmly Planted Family. Love to hear what God is doing in your life. Let’s encourage each other. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing.

So speaking of encouraging each other, I’m changing the format up just a little bit here. So normally on Wednesdays I teach from the bible study and I’m going to be telling you what we’re going to be talking about, but I’m going to reserve my teaching time for those who are members at MSI, and I’m doing that in a private Facebook page that we have started. So if you are already a member of MomStrong International, this is for you. So I want you guys to be paying really close attention because this is pretty cool.

So what we’ve done is we’ve gone ahead and opened up a group over at Facebook and it is just for members of the bible study. The bible study costs you about, I don’t know, $8, $9 a month, and I’m going to tell you what, you guys, that $9 goes a whole long way in helping support our ministry, and you get access every month to an in-depth, beautifully illustrated, very well-written bible study that we know is going to encourage you and draw you closer into God’s word.

So that started on the fourth, so just a couple of days ago. It’s a great time for you guys to get in. Remember, I told you, new bible study content begins every month on the first Monday of the month. So if you’ve already purchased a monthly bible study membership, please be sure to join me on Facebook at MomStrong International Bible Study Members Official, and I will link back to that in the show notes today. And that’s where you’ll get weekly teaching from me and conversation.

That’s where I’ll keep you updated on things that are happening in my life and my ministry, and we really want to see that community grow. We used to have you guys over at the forums and it was way too 1997 and I just couldn’t do it, so I finally just caved and we went ahead and moved that group over to Facebook. And also, I’ll do some Facebook Lives. We do some behind-the-scenes of the podcast over at that group. It’s really fun kind of to be a part of something that only the bible study members get to see. So I hope you guys will do that. If you have questions about MomStrong International or the community of women there, please contact Kay Orr. She is one of the directors of MomStrong International, and you can reach her at Kay@heidistjohn.com, and she can help you get started.

You can also become a leader over at MSI. We would love to see you guys lead in person groups. My goal really is to teach the online community and hopefully get you guys off the bench and onto the battlefield so that you will begin to nurture in real life groups. It’s really important, because part of what the Lord’s asked me to do is to equip this generation of believers to actually engage the culture. You know that I’ve been passionate about that. I’ve been doing some scary things for myself lately, getting off the bench and onto the battlefield. I actually looked up on the internet some of the phone numbers of the school board members before that decision went down last week here in my hometown. It’s always scary to call somebody and say, “Hey, can I talk to you about this? This is important.” But I’ll tell you what, you guys, the Lord will help you, and you have a voice and you need to use it.

There’s a really awesome story that I don’t think a whole lot of us are familiar with and it’s tucked away in the Book of Numbers. It’s the story of a faithful man, and his name was Phineas, and Phineas was the grandson of Aaron, who was, as you might remember, the high priest of Israel. You might also remember that Aaron was the dude who was responsible for allowing the Israelites to sin against God … remember this? … by constructing the golden calf while Moses was up giving the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai? Dude, that guy’s got quite the family tree. But I digress. The bible records that Phineas did something that so impressed God that God made a covenant specifically with Phineas and his descendants. So can you guys imagine this? It’s kind of a window into God’s heart. God loves it when we defend the honor and the glory of his name. If it breaks God’s heart, it should break our heart. If it dishonors God, it should break our heart.

Anyway, in Numbers chapter 25, we find the Israelites, right? They’re camped out at a place called Sheetim, in a territory that was occupied by the Moabites. Now, the Moabites were pretty scary dudes. They were warmongers. They were cruel. They were well-known for their sinful behavior, especially regarding sex. And the bible tells us that they committed all manner of sexual sin. Moment of silence. Does that sound familiar?

So eventually, the Israelite men … So the bible has a lot to say about who we hang out with. The bible says that, “Bad company corrupts good character.” It says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” It talks about the importance of associating and hanging out with people who are going to build us up like iron sharpens iron, but the Israelite men began to hang out with and just, “So what? He’s not doing anything wrong,” and eventually the Israelite men … I’m sure the women too, but the bible focuses in this particular passage on the men … the Israelite men chose to rebel against God by engaging sexually with the women of Moab. So they began to do things that were shameful in the eyes of the Lord with the Moabite women. And you can read about that in Numbers 25:1.

Anyway, soon, so many of God’s people were enticed to sin that eventually they began committing idolatry, so they began to worship false gods. Moment of silence. Turns out that when we sin against God with our bodies, eventually one thing leads to another, right? And the bible says that God’s anger burned against Israel, and eventually a plague broke out among them.

Now, there’s a lot of things that we can learn from the story, but one of the main things I want to stress is that God does not mess around with sin. We do, but God doesn’t. And so now Moses has been commanded to instruct the chief of each tribe to put to death each member of his tribe who had committed idolatry. What’s the first commandment, you guys? “You shall have no other gods before me. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength,” right? No other gods. And the Israelites had forgotten that. They were sinning against God with their bodies, and then they began to worship the gods of the Moabite women. And things began to get worse and worse and worse until God was so angry, he was ready to punish the whole nation.

Now, there’s a scene in Numbers 25 where you see that two people in particular, a man and a woman, were so full of arrogance and so committed to sinning against God and so flagrant and prideful in their sin that they committed an indecent act right in front of Moses. Okay, moment of science again. Oh my word, you guys. The boldness of the way that these two people committed sin, their pride and their arrogance. We see this all over the culture today, people committing sin in our churches and calling it love, and God was angry. I mean, he was ready to be like, “You know what? Forget it. I’m going to just punish the whole nation,” until a godly man named Phineas filled with righteous anger and a righteous indignation killed the man and the woman who were openly mocking God and sinning right in front of the people.

Phineas stood up and said, “Enough, enough,” and God was so impressed with his bold defense of his glory and his law that God made a covenant of peace of Phineas. And this is what he said. “Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore, tell him I am making a covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of lasting priesthood because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

Did you guys catch that? Phineas’ righteous indignation ended up saving the nation of Israel. Many lives of God’s people were saved because of Phineas, and our culture today is awash in the kind of sin that Phineas was driven to respond to. It’s important to note that he did not react for his own glory. He did it for the glory of God, and I pray that God would give us the strength and the wisdom and the courage and the zeal of Phineas. I pray that we would raise men and women who are so zealous for the honor of God that they would be moved to action, that we would learn to love people in grace and in truth, that we would be ambassadors of the gospel. Let’s be zealous in our defense of the glory and righteousness of the Lord and teach our children to do the same. It’s never been more important than it is right now.

This verse in the Psalms … so the story is in Numbers 25, but in Psalm 106, the Psalmist in recording things that various men and women did that pleased God, things that were recorded in ancient history, the Psalmist said, “But Phineas stood up and intervened.” Phineas stood up and intervened. And I keep thinking about this generation of believers and the need, the strong need for God’s people to be moved to action, the strong need for us to stand up and intervene.

And I often wonder why we don’t intervene. I often wonder why is it that we stay, so many of us, in our churches and we don’t get out into the world and we don’t engage the culture, or there’s kind of a fatalistic … One of you wrote to me a few weeks ago and said, “You know, Heidi, the Lord is going to come back. All this was foretold. It’s just going to get worse and worse.” And you know what I hear? I just hear fatalism, kind of like this Eeyore thing, “Well, you know, things are just going to get worse. You may as well just sit it out.” That’s what I hear. But I don’t see that modeled by anybody in the bible who knew the Lord. And I see that God was pleased. I mean, God was so impressed with what Phineas did, that he made a covenant of peace with him and his descendants. And so the faithfulness of Phineas blessed generations after him. That’s pretty amazing.

So you guys should write this down today. Psalm 106:30. “But Phineas stood up and intervened.” I’ve actually never heard that story, and I discovered it because I’m writing a book right now. Pray for me. And I was studying Numbers, and I read this story and I ran downstairs and I read it to my husband and I read it to my kids and I was like, “You guys, check this. This is so cool. You ever heard the story?” And they hadn’t heard it either. So there’s your verse for today. It’s not in your scripture writing challenge. This’ll be an extra. This is a bonus verse, Psalm 106:30. “But Phineas stood up,” there’s the action, “And intervened.” So the question I think is just, “Lord, what do you want us to do? How do you want us to respond? What should we do? Tell us so that we can do it.” And so to me, that has tremendous power. And so hope you guys are encouraged by that.

I want to get to a couple of your questions, too. That’s another thing I’m going to be doing here on Wednesdays. I’m going to try to at least get to one or two questions. And so today, I’m going to read a couple of letters from listeners. If you guys would like your questions answered here at the podcast, a couple of things you can do. Go to HeidiStJohn.com/MailboxMonday. That link was not working last week for very long, but it is now and we really want to hear from you, HeidiStJohn.com/MailboxMonday. If you go to that link, there’s also a place for you to submit podcast ideas and guest ideas too, so we’d love to hear from you. We’d also love it if you’d leave reviews for the podcast. Just go over to iTunes and write a review. And boy, it sure helps and blesses us. And same with sharing the podcast. So lots of ways that you guys can support what we’re doing.

So one mom says, “Heidi, who plays the outro and the intro of your podcast?” This is such an easy one for me to answer. That’s my husband, Jay. So when you guys hear the guitar on there every time the podcast comes on, that is my sweet husband, who is one of the best guitar players that I know. He was a worship leader for almost 20 years and in a band before that, and he does that. We’ve actually been thinking about creating a new intro and a new outro. I’d like to hear your thoughts on that.

All right, here’s another. “Hi Heidi. I’m in my second year of homeschooling here in British Columbia. I am fairly new to your podcast and absolutely loving them.” So thank you, Ashley, for that. She said, “I had a question about our culture’s ongoing gender identity crisis. What are your thoughts on calling someone by their chosen gender even though that’s not the one they were born with? Some Christians have been under fire in the media lately and have even lost their jobs for not agreeing to call someone by their chosen gender. Should we be refusing to do this on the basis that it goes against our Christian beliefs? The reason I ask this is because I worked directly with the public and I am concerned about how I should respond if the situation ever arises.”

So there’s a couple of things, Ashley. First of all, we really need God’s wisdom. My first instinct is to say no. I mean if a girl who’s obviously a girl comes up to me and she wants me to use her pronoun, he and it and they are whatever they are, no. I mean, these guys are actually, they’re trying to get us to change the language, which is ridiculous, right? They’re trying to get us to change pronouns and everything else. Ridiculous. I’m not playing. I’m so sorry. I’m not doing that. And my second response is to say, “No, I’m not going to enter into a delusion with you. I’m not going to get into your fairytale world and pretend that you’re something that you’re not. I don’t think it’s loving or kind to lie to people.” And that’s what we’re doing.

Now, the wisdom piece comes in when, I mean, if you’re working for a government agency I suppose, and they say, “You can’t do that or you’ll get fired,” then you need to weigh whether or not you’re ready to get fired. If that’s what I thought was coming, I would probably be looking for a job, honestly. It would be very, very hard for me to participate in somebody else’s delusional state. If a person who had anorexia came up to me and started telling me about how fat she was, I wouldn’t go, “Yeah, you right, you fat.” I would not do that. I would say, “No, you know you are not fat. You are beautiful and let me encourage you and tell you what I see.” These are people who are mentally and spiritually and emotionally sick and our culture is not helping them at all.

The same question came in from another listener wants to remain anonymous. “Heidi, my question is, can you address what a public school teacher’s role is when they see the junk that they see going on in the school system, or could you have a guest come on to speak to this topic? Thanks. My husband is a teacher and the LGBTQ junk just hit his county hard.”

As I told you guys talking about comprehensive sex ed the other day, this is going to continue to hit you hard. It is. This is an agenda and we’ve got to stand up against it. And so as I said, I think participating in it is only going to make it worse. We’re seeing more and more lawsuits coming by people who are saying, “No, I’m not going to do that.” I don’t know what the answer is exactly, but I know that God knows. So we want to come before the Lord in prayer. We want to bring these things to him. “Lord, help us to be both salt and light. What do you want me to do?” And then trust that God will show you. But I know one thing’s for certain, God did not give you a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.

So that’s all I had time for today. And so Friday, I’m going to be coming back. You guys, I’m really excited about my friend Marcus Brotherton coming on the show with me on Friday. I went to college with Marcus and now he’s a New York Times bestselling author and he has got a wonderful new project he’s involved in, which I know that you guys are going to love. So come on back on Friday the 8th for that.

And in the meantime, we would love it if you guys would do three things. One, send me your Christmas cards. I’m waiting for Christmas card palooza. I’m just going to have you guys put me on your list, and we would love to hear from you. Two, please be sure to join the scripture writing challenge. This is a great time to do it. Go to MomStrongInternational.com. And three, sign up to the bible study and then be sure to join me at my Facebook page and you will get all those details over at MomStrong International. We love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay faithful, and the Lord bless you for just like he blessed Phineas. See you back here on Friday.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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