WEBVTT 00:02.596 --> 00:05.317 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, welcome to the Christian parenting podcast. 00:05.517 --> 00:09.739 [SPEAKER_00]: We are here to help you grow into the perfectly imperfect parent God created you to be. 00:10.420 --> 00:16.323 [SPEAKER_00]: Each week we bring you honest conversations and practical encouragement to equip you for the everyday challenges of parenting. 00:16.483 --> 00:18.464 [SPEAKER_00]: And this week's topic is a big one. 00:19.044 --> 00:26.948 [SPEAKER_00]: We are talking with Nicholas McDonald about his deeply personal journey through faith, disillusionment and ultimately renewal in his hope in Jesus. 00:27.688 --> 00:37.435 [SPEAKER_00]: Deconstruction is a hot topic right now, and if you've ever wrestled with hard questions about faith, or if you're parenting a child who is wrestling through their faith right now, this conversation is for you. 00:38.076 --> 00:45.461 [SPEAKER_00]: Nicholas shares powerful insight on deconstruction, the role of community, and how parents can walk alongside their kids with openness and love. 00:46.342 --> 00:55.269 [SPEAKER_00]: And remember, if this episode encourages you, be sure to like, subscribe, and leave review, your support helps more families find the hope and direction they need through faith-filled parenting. 00:55.669 --> 00:56.730 [SPEAKER_00]: So enjoy today's episode. 01:06.315 --> 01:06.835 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Nikola. 01:06.875 --> 01:08.596 [SPEAKER_00]: So welcome to the Christian Parenting podcast. 01:08.736 --> 01:09.516 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad to be with you. 01:09.696 --> 01:10.197 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks a lot. 01:10.537 --> 01:12.998 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, but so yeah, just introduce yourself. 01:13.038 --> 01:14.118 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about what you do. 01:14.178 --> 01:15.019 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about your family. 01:15.299 --> 01:16.579 [SPEAKER_00]: All of the things that are important to you. 01:16.779 --> 01:17.139 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:17.359 --> 01:20.561 [SPEAKER_01]: So I am a pastor in downtown Indianapolis. 01:20.781 --> 01:22.281 [SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in a 01:23.882 --> 01:27.264 [SPEAKER_01]: half Christian home, both my parents are pretty late to faith. 01:27.604 --> 01:29.945 [SPEAKER_01]: And so they were figuring things out as I was young. 01:30.165 --> 01:37.269 [SPEAKER_01]: So lots of parts of my story are sort of weaving in and out of things they tried that were good or not good. 01:37.529 --> 01:37.749 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:37.849 --> 01:43.913 [SPEAKER_01]: So some of that experimentation led to a bit of a faith crisis for me in my senior year of high school. 01:44.153 --> 01:45.353 [SPEAKER_01]: And when I went to college, 01:46.454 --> 02:04.785 [SPEAKER_01]: I always have a hard time describing what my relationship with Jesus was like at that time, but I believe in Jesus, believed in the resurrection and I lost faith in the church at that time and felt like the mission that I heard Jesus describing in the four gospels just wasn't the same as the mission that the churches that I was with had. 02:04.985 --> 02:14.350 [SPEAKER_01]: In some ways I feel like seeing prominent leaders sin or fall that's been a lot of people's sort of deconstruction story that I just felt like, yeah, that's what happens in institutions to me. 02:14.370 --> 02:15.150 [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't that for me. 02:15.170 --> 02:15.851 [SPEAKER_01]: It was just that 02:16.211 --> 02:18.614 [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, I just don't feel like we're on the same page with Jesus. 02:18.674 --> 02:20.797 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I left the church for a period of time. 02:20.857 --> 02:27.705 [SPEAKER_01]: Came back to the church through a couple of good, providential experiences when I was actually not in the States. 02:27.745 --> 02:28.866 [SPEAKER_01]: I was abroad in England. 02:29.287 --> 02:33.472 [SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, a lot of my book is about my journey away and back again. 02:33.752 --> 02:44.614 [SPEAKER_01]: But today I have, so my wife is, and as she's in one of the last chapters of the book, she works at a school just down the street for me, where our boys used to go to Oaks Academy. 02:44.834 --> 02:48.855 [SPEAKER_01]: And my three boys are, we just had two birthdays. 02:48.875 --> 02:50.636 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me see if I can remember one of the ages. 02:50.796 --> 02:53.236 [SPEAKER_01]: It's teen, thirteen, and two. 02:53.576 --> 02:53.996 [SPEAKER_00]: You got it. 02:54.276 --> 02:54.516 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 02:54.656 --> 02:55.336 [SPEAKER_00]: It's confidently. 02:55.456 --> 02:55.897 [SPEAKER_00]: I like it. 02:56.337 --> 02:56.557 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 02:57.017 --> 02:57.577 [SPEAKER_01]: I was confident. 02:58.102 --> 02:58.322 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 02:58.542 --> 03:02.183 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think you have really interesting story in a story that resonates with a lot of people. 03:02.203 --> 03:06.164 [SPEAKER_00]: I think in general, the word like D construction is a bud's word. 03:06.524 --> 03:12.625 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a big topic and I feel like it's everything from a fear to like a passion. 03:12.685 --> 03:21.406 [SPEAKER_00]: Like if the parents are afraid, my kids are going to deconstruct and then their people were just like passionate about their life post Christianity if they fully walked away from the faith. 03:21.486 --> 03:23.027 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a little bit of everything in between. 03:23.447 --> 03:24.727 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm excited to talk about that today. 03:25.096 --> 03:29.018 [SPEAKER_00]: because your book really speaks on this is disillusionment. 03:29.479 --> 03:30.179 [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to say. 03:31.660 --> 03:34.121 [SPEAKER_00]: So why do you think that so many? 03:34.201 --> 03:35.502 [SPEAKER_00]: Why is this a big topic? 03:35.542 --> 03:37.443 [SPEAKER_00]: Like why are some of people wrestling with their faith? 03:37.623 --> 03:40.605 [SPEAKER_00]: And what is it that people are actually like looking for while they wrestle? 03:40.805 --> 03:41.185 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 03:41.546 --> 03:45.188 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's a lot of reasons why I think this has come to the fore. 03:45.208 --> 03:45.648 [SPEAKER_01]: I know. 03:45.828 --> 03:49.931 [SPEAKER_01]: So you mentioned the two words disillusionment and deconstruction. 03:50.691 --> 04:01.614 [SPEAKER_01]: So deconstruction is a very, very popular term, I think, especially with those who've sort of vocally publicly left the faith online of deconstructed my faith or deconstructing my faith. 04:01.974 --> 04:02.354 [SPEAKER_01]: Totally. 04:03.034 --> 04:06.855 [SPEAKER_01]: So in the book, I have a very particular way of talking about deconstructing. 04:06.875 --> 04:15.878 [SPEAKER_01]: And I actually started to distinguish that from the word you used earlier, disillusionment, which I think is a word that we should use more often when we're talking about this process that people are describing. 04:16.118 --> 04:27.782 [SPEAKER_01]: But when I think of deconstructing, I think of someone who, you know, had a conversation with, I actually had a couple conversations like this over the years with someone that I would say is truly deconstructing. 04:27.982 --> 04:32.343 [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, well, I think of my faith like I'm, I'm redecorating a room. 04:32.623 --> 04:33.524 [SPEAKER_01]: So here's the room. 04:33.564 --> 04:37.545 [SPEAKER_01]: It's been decorated for me by the church, but it's my job to redecorate the room. 04:37.765 --> 04:39.907 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's in a very subtle way. 04:40.087 --> 04:43.271 [SPEAKER_01]: That is, I would say a clear example of deconstruction. 04:44.011 --> 04:51.058 [SPEAKER_01]: Because what you're doing is you're saying, I'm going to rewrite Christianity and the story of faith in a way that fits me. 04:51.298 --> 04:52.940 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I have some thoughts on that. 04:53.040 --> 04:54.642 [SPEAKER_01]: But that's a true deconstruction. 04:54.742 --> 04:55.703 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't actually know that. 04:55.723 --> 04:56.744 [SPEAKER_00]: I like that visual. 04:56.884 --> 04:57.825 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's really good. 04:58.265 --> 04:59.767 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're making it like cozy for you. 04:59.947 --> 05:01.008 [SPEAKER_00]: You're doing how you want to do it. 05:01.168 --> 05:18.202 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there's a beauty to that, too, because there's a way in which you could say, yeah, you know, I think part of what you're trying to get out is that in some ways, I think in the American evangelical experience, people can feel like you need to be this certain type of person, you need to vote this way, you need to think this way about everything. 05:18.573 --> 05:20.015 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I understand that impulse. 05:20.395 --> 05:23.579 [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, I think that's a really lonely place to be in a room by yourself. 05:23.619 --> 05:28.465 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you sound a little more like Lego Batman than you do like the vision of a disciple that Jesus had. 05:28.545 --> 05:30.908 [SPEAKER_01]: So that might be a little bit of my push back, but I get it. 05:31.268 --> 05:35.313 [SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing that I think most of us experience and certainly what I experience growing up. 05:35.673 --> 05:37.794 [SPEAKER_01]: was not so much deconstructing. 05:38.074 --> 05:39.054 [SPEAKER_01]: That was part of my story. 05:39.274 --> 05:41.735 [SPEAKER_01]: But a sense of disillusionment with the church. 05:42.055 --> 05:46.717 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I really had two experiences of Christianity when I was growing up. 05:47.097 --> 05:51.078 [SPEAKER_01]: One was the type of Christianity that was very exclusive. 05:51.418 --> 05:54.619 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was, you know, here's the way all Christians think about things. 05:54.659 --> 05:55.859 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how we feel about things. 05:56.079 --> 05:57.840 [SPEAKER_01]: We're not like those other people out there. 05:57.880 --> 05:58.780 [SPEAKER_01]: We hate those people. 05:59.000 --> 06:00.481 [SPEAKER_01]: That never really resonated with me. 06:00.541 --> 06:03.802 [SPEAKER_01]: But the second experience I had was in a very, very large youth group. 06:04.162 --> 06:11.699 [SPEAKER_01]: And in this youth group, I remember it sounded great at sixteen years old, the youth pastor said, you know, Jesus wants all of you to fulfill your dreams in life. 06:11.860 --> 06:14.085 [SPEAKER_01]: And so he's here to help you fulfill your dreams. 06:14.355 --> 06:16.236 [SPEAKER_01]: which sounds amazing to a sixteen year old. 06:16.437 --> 06:26.785 [SPEAKER_01]: But when I was eighteen to very particular experiences for me, I went abroad to South Africa and I saw real poverty for the first time. 06:26.805 --> 06:30.067 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, people living in ten sheds eating bone broth for dinner. 06:30.307 --> 06:33.730 [SPEAKER_01]: And some of those people were not Christians and some of them were. 06:34.070 --> 06:42.156 [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, well, if God's dream and intention is to fulfill all of your dreams, either he really doesn't like you people and he just likes me. 06:42.937 --> 06:46.299 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that can be true or God is not very good at his job. 06:46.319 --> 06:47.860 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that can be true. 06:48.220 --> 06:54.984 [SPEAKER_01]: And so it was this vision of the gospel and faith that eventually I said, you know, I just don't, I felt disillusioned with it. 06:55.304 --> 06:55.824 [SPEAKER_01]: It didn't work. 06:56.164 --> 07:02.888 [SPEAKER_01]: And then two weeks after that was when I came home and I found my youngest brother drowned in our backyard pool. 07:02.908 --> 07:10.132 [SPEAKER_01]: And I just thought, well, you know, if God wants to fulfill my dreams and that's what the gospel is, he's doing a pretty bad job of it. 07:10.232 --> 07:11.713 [SPEAKER_01]: My life feels like a nightmare right now. 07:12.105 --> 07:15.566 [SPEAKER_01]: And that whole vision just sort of it caved, it caved that year. 07:15.726 --> 07:17.227 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's that's when I left the church. 07:17.347 --> 07:19.108 [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say I was deconstructing them. 07:19.128 --> 07:20.648 [SPEAKER_01]: I would just say I felt disillusioned. 07:20.968 --> 07:23.369 [SPEAKER_01]: I felt like the picture I had was gone. 07:23.569 --> 07:24.950 [SPEAKER_01]: And I needed something else. 07:25.170 --> 07:26.350 [SPEAKER_00]: So where did you go from there? 07:26.390 --> 07:36.834 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I feel like those are two very unique experiences to you, but everybody goes through some sort of thing in life where they're like, this can't be right. 07:36.854 --> 07:41.016 [SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, everyone has one where like, if God is good, why is this happening to me? 07:41.277 --> 07:42.444 [SPEAKER_00]: or why is it happening to this person. 07:42.464 --> 07:43.670 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's that question of doubts. 07:43.912 --> 07:44.857 [SPEAKER_00]: Where did you go from there? 07:45.470 --> 07:50.594 [SPEAKER_00]: that you're left the church, you eventually come back around where it has your story, continue to play out. 07:50.774 --> 07:54.597 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I feel very lucky and I think in a lot of ways God was just taking care of me. 07:54.818 --> 08:02.744 [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the experiences I had in college was going to Oxford for a couple of semesters to study creative writing and children's literature. 08:02.784 --> 08:04.005 [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of a passion of mine. 08:04.205 --> 08:11.131 [SPEAKER_01]: And so naturally one of the first people is you and you encounter if you're interested in children's literature at all, is CS Lewis because 08:11.531 --> 08:14.332 [SPEAKER_01]: And many ways he's a pioneer of children's literature. 08:14.432 --> 08:15.772 [SPEAKER_01]: We don't always think of him that way. 08:15.792 --> 08:19.893 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, mere Christianity guy, but I came in through a different door for him. 08:20.134 --> 08:24.315 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I read his autobiography, surprised by joy. 08:24.335 --> 08:28.976 [SPEAKER_01]: And he's talking about his story of becoming a Christian and mostly a lifelong atheist. 08:29.336 --> 08:31.597 [SPEAKER_01]: And he talks about how for 08:31.977 --> 08:32.337 [SPEAKER_01]: him. 08:32.577 --> 08:48.462 [SPEAKER_01]: The Christian story is about recovering joy, not not happiness, but he used this German word and he describes this experience he had as a little child reading wind of the willows and feeling this sense of happiness and sadness at the same time mingled together. 08:49.662 --> 08:55.670 [SPEAKER_01]: And having that same experience reading great literature and seeing great art and feeling like the world is beautiful. 08:55.970 --> 08:57.312 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to become part of it. 08:57.672 --> 09:08.546 [SPEAKER_01]: And somehow in CS Lewis Monin, Christianity answered the question, how do I become part of the beauty that I see around me, which is a totally foreign way for me to think about what the gospel was. 09:08.886 --> 09:11.767 [SPEAKER_01]: because I thought Jesus doesn't care about the beauty around me. 09:11.807 --> 09:17.408 [SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to help me escape this world to go somewhere else and so it was a very compelling vision for me. 09:17.588 --> 09:30.772 [SPEAKER_01]: So I stepped back into the church for the first time in England and I stepped into an Anglican church and interestingly they would have called themselves evangelical, but culturally just extremely different than the American Evangelicalism. 09:31.192 --> 09:36.955 [SPEAKER_01]: that I had experienced is very globally minded, very head of sense of rootedness in the history of the church. 09:37.175 --> 09:42.559 [SPEAKER_01]: There is a passion for sharing the gospel through evangelism, but also a real passion for justice. 09:42.779 --> 09:47.922 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, of course, Christians, one of the surprising assumptions was of course, Christians would only buy fair trade things. 09:48.782 --> 09:49.642 [SPEAKER_01]: I've never even heard of that. 09:49.682 --> 09:50.143 [SPEAKER_01]: What is that? 09:50.443 --> 09:51.643 [SPEAKER_01]: So we have a certain way to shop. 09:51.683 --> 09:53.004 [SPEAKER_01]: We have a certain way to think about justice. 09:53.324 --> 09:59.166 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was this very holistic way of thinking about, maybe Jesus didn't just come to help us escape this world. 09:59.206 --> 10:02.307 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Jesus came to bring healing and renewal to everything. 10:02.647 --> 10:08.150 [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, well, that's a vision that is is much more humanizing and interesting to me. 10:08.410 --> 10:11.071 [SPEAKER_01]: And I kept following that trail and now I'm a pastor. 10:11.151 --> 10:12.671 [SPEAKER_01]: So that won't happen to you that way. 10:12.771 --> 10:13.752 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it does. 10:13.812 --> 10:14.412 [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, you never know. 10:14.812 --> 10:15.493 [SPEAKER_01]: You never know. 10:15.673 --> 10:16.353 [SPEAKER_01]: You never know. 10:16.914 --> 10:31.146 [SPEAKER_00]: So if they're, I think, okay, in parenting, when you're trying to raise kids who know and love and follow Jesus and have a deep faith of their own, I think there is this fear that walks hand in hand with that desire of like they're going to leave. 10:31.326 --> 10:33.488 [SPEAKER_00]: Like what if they decide this isn't what they want to do? 10:33.528 --> 10:37.171 [SPEAKER_00]: And part of that is probably like a focus on what comes next and all these things. 10:37.211 --> 10:39.433 [SPEAKER_00]: But do you think that parents are listening? 10:39.833 --> 10:45.015 [SPEAKER_00]: who have kids who are deconstructing, feeling a little disillusioned, asking a lot of tough questions. 10:45.396 --> 10:53.079 [SPEAKER_00]: Is this something that they can walk alongside their kids with or should they just try to prevent their kids from experiencing this? 10:53.119 --> 10:54.600 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, where do parents come in? 10:55.180 --> 10:59.262 [SPEAKER_00]: If their kids in that place that you were, when you were late teenager young adult. 10:59.502 --> 10:59.782 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 11:00.062 --> 11:06.244 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, on the one hand, I want to say it's very natural to feel extremely anxious about that. 11:06.264 --> 11:07.124 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm a parent. 11:07.224 --> 11:10.005 [SPEAKER_01]: I understand feeling very, very anxious about those things. 11:10.685 --> 11:19.608 [SPEAKER_01]: But I think the irony of being a parent is that sometimes the things that we do out of our anxiety can almost make the problem worse. 11:20.048 --> 11:26.670 [SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the things I realized was happening in the evangelical culture I grew up in was that 11:27.230 --> 11:31.695 [SPEAKER_01]: We are trying to make the boundaries so tight around every single area of life. 11:31.875 --> 11:34.277 [SPEAKER_01]: So here's what a Christian thinks about economics. 11:34.417 --> 11:35.959 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what a Christian thinks about science. 11:36.019 --> 11:37.600 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what a Christian thinks about dating. 11:37.640 --> 11:38.741 [SPEAKER_01]: You don't date you court. 11:38.862 --> 11:40.123 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what Christian thinks about. 11:40.383 --> 11:41.084 [SPEAKER_01]: Just everything. 11:41.104 --> 11:44.507 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was a way of saying, all right, we're going to make sure every door is locked. 11:44.567 --> 11:47.070 [SPEAKER_01]: So you can't ever get out one way or another. 11:47.430 --> 11:50.092 [SPEAKER_01]: But paradoxically, it had the opposite effect on me. 11:50.312 --> 11:56.896 [SPEAKER_01]: Because what happened is that I went to college and I thought, well, what if I don't agree with the Christian view of literature? 11:56.936 --> 11:59.058 [SPEAKER_01]: What if I like a different kind of literature? 11:59.098 --> 12:03.241 [SPEAKER_01]: What if I don't agree with that particular way of thinking about politics? 12:03.441 --> 12:04.702 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that means I'm not a Christian. 12:04.742 --> 12:05.582 [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I've been told. 12:05.762 --> 12:09.645 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been told I no longer have a Christian worldview if I believe those two things. 12:10.005 --> 12:15.329 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, and an ironic way by trying to tighten all the bolts, so tight, it sort of led me out the door. 12:15.529 --> 12:27.579 [SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that I talk with a lot of younger people, especially, who have that experience of, you know, I'm thinking of one student in particular when I was doing college ministry, who was a literature student. 12:27.779 --> 12:32.403 [SPEAKER_01]: He was a literature student, and he started listening to his literature professor 12:32.823 --> 12:36.964 [SPEAKER_01]: and would bring some of those ideas back home to his home church and to his parents. 12:37.144 --> 12:39.524 [SPEAKER_01]: And they would say, you've lost your Christian worldview. 12:39.865 --> 12:43.445 [SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, after a year of those conversations, that students started to believe it. 12:44.025 --> 12:46.006 [SPEAKER_01]: And they walked away and they deconstructed it. 12:46.066 --> 12:51.307 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, it makes sense as an impulse to try to do that. 12:51.607 --> 12:59.989 [SPEAKER_01]: But I think one of the things we have to do as parents is to discern what is a matter of orthodoxy and what's true, what are truly the matters of 13:00.509 --> 13:02.690 [SPEAKER_01]: This is what the church everywhere has always believed. 13:02.730 --> 13:04.991 [SPEAKER_01]: And what are matters of personality and opinion? 13:05.011 --> 13:10.734 [SPEAKER_01]: And if we try to elevate everything to a matter of orthodoxy, I think ironically, we end up driving people away. 13:10.974 --> 13:11.255 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 13:11.675 --> 13:13.436 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I kind of want to touch a little bit. 13:13.596 --> 13:27.043 [SPEAKER_00]: You kind of mentioned this, but you kind of talked about how a lot of these young people who come back with their questions about literature or just a different world view aren't necessarily deconstructing historic evangelicalism, but like what American 13:27.463 --> 13:29.125 [SPEAKER_00]: what the American church can look like. 13:29.446 --> 13:35.494 [SPEAKER_00]: And as Americans are going to be really hard to get out of ourselves because it's just what we know, what we've been raised in and what we're comfortable in. 13:35.514 --> 13:41.281 [SPEAKER_00]: So what's the difference going to that a little bit more what the difference is and how that can just that in itself can be a challenge. 13:41.522 --> 13:41.822 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 13:43.564 --> 13:52.347 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the really surprising things to me over the last fifteen years is really how different American evangelicals are from the rest of the world, which is very, very different. 13:52.528 --> 14:01.771 [SPEAKER_01]: So much so that if you ask someone in Europe or Australia, are you an evangelical, it will immediately say, not the American kind, right? 14:02.151 --> 14:03.932 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a different sort of evangelical. 14:04.192 --> 14:06.673 [SPEAKER_01]: And that has a long kind of storied history to it. 14:06.693 --> 14:08.793 [SPEAKER_01]: That's right, particular to our country. 14:09.133 --> 14:13.895 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you look at evangelicals, one hundred years ago, look at them a century ago. 14:13.915 --> 14:22.397 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a fantastic book by Karen Swallow prior where she talks a bit about evangelicalism and what it used to be called the evangelical imagination. 14:22.437 --> 14:30.480 [SPEAKER_01]: But evangelicals were meant to be this coalition of different churches and denominations who were coming together 14:31.620 --> 14:34.841 [SPEAKER_01]: to see spiritual, cultural, and societal renewal. 14:35.081 --> 14:38.402 [SPEAKER_01]: So you have evangelicals at the forefront of the abolition of slavery. 14:38.502 --> 14:43.084 [SPEAKER_01]: You have evangelicals, this is a shocker, began the animal rights movement. 14:43.624 --> 14:46.225 [SPEAKER_01]: You just don't really hear, you don't associate that. 14:46.425 --> 14:52.407 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a history won't get into here, but there's a reason why we started to drop some of those categories. 14:52.867 --> 14:57.648 [SPEAKER_01]: We started to say, well, you know, evangelicalism, it shouldn't be about all these social issues. 14:57.728 --> 14:59.369 [SPEAKER_01]: It should just be about spiritual things. 14:59.969 --> 15:06.953 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think in a strange sort of way, you know, I'm thinking right now about one of the conversations I'd talk about in the book. 15:07.293 --> 15:12.677 [SPEAKER_01]: I think in a strange way that over spiritualization of what Jesus came to do can really drive people away. 15:12.817 --> 15:16.339 [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the students I talk about as name is is Michael. 15:16.479 --> 15:19.160 [SPEAKER_01]: And Michael and I, he's an artist, was to paint. 15:19.581 --> 15:23.223 [SPEAKER_01]: And one particular conversation that I had with him was on a college campus. 15:23.623 --> 15:30.950 [SPEAKER_01]: We were walking around the campus and then we walked to his favorite spot on campus, which was this building that overlooked everything and it was fall. 15:31.090 --> 15:37.196 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I remember being particularly beautiful and you just see these red, orange and green leaves all over the place. 15:37.256 --> 15:41.761 [SPEAKER_01]: And Michael's sense of the gospel was that Jesus cares about my spiritual life. 15:42.141 --> 15:44.182 [SPEAKER_01]: doesn't really care about anything else. 15:44.222 --> 15:47.564 [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, he probably is disappointed that I like to do art. 15:47.624 --> 15:57.791 [SPEAKER_01]: He's probably disappointed that I like pretty girls and he's probably disappointed that I have a sense of humor and I like to write and I should just be telling people about Jesus. 15:58.031 --> 16:02.633 [SPEAKER_01]: And so we looked over that college campus and I said, Michael, like, you love your paintings, right? 16:02.913 --> 16:04.394 [SPEAKER_01]: You mean you love the things that you paint? 16:04.434 --> 16:05.995 [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, well, sometimes, you know, okay, okay. 16:06.015 --> 16:09.357 [SPEAKER_01]: So when you do look at this campus right now, this is God's painting. 16:09.517 --> 16:10.217 [SPEAKER_01]: He created this. 16:10.517 --> 16:13.739 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think God would hate the thing that he's created that doesn't really make sense? 16:14.119 --> 16:22.922 [SPEAKER_01]: And so as we began to talk, I realized that Michael sense that the gospel was that Jesus cares about my spirit, doesn't care about my body, doesn't care about my emotions. 16:23.142 --> 16:31.285 [SPEAKER_01]: And as we walked through what I would say is the true gospel, the historic global Christian gospel that's been around for much longer than Americans. 16:31.545 --> 16:34.267 [SPEAKER_01]: which is that Jesus has come to redeem everything in life. 16:34.487 --> 16:35.348 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, our spirits. 16:35.568 --> 16:36.388 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, our bodies. 16:36.549 --> 16:37.970 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, creation, everything. 16:38.210 --> 16:41.052 [SPEAKER_01]: Just tears started coming down his face. 16:41.252 --> 16:45.435 [SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, we have been going back and forth with apologetic conversations for two years. 16:45.535 --> 16:51.859 [SPEAKER_01]: And every time I gave him an answer, it was sort of like, you could see he was just, he's like, okay, fine, that's a good answer, but it just wasn't resonating. 16:52.059 --> 16:55.682 [SPEAKER_01]: Until we got to this, oh, I don't think you really understood the goodness of the good news. 16:55.942 --> 17:13.733 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think you really understand that Jesus came to redeem all things and not just what's inside of you, but what's all around you, and for him, one of the things that I said to him that I think he thought a little shocked by is I said, Michael, the problem with your gospel is that if God only loves your spirit, then God doesn't love you. 17:14.907 --> 17:16.887 [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't love you as a human being. 17:17.248 --> 17:18.288 [SPEAKER_01]: He only loves part of you. 17:18.628 --> 17:23.329 [SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, what may be surprising to most people is I was quoting an early church father, how when I said that. 17:23.649 --> 17:30.291 [SPEAKER_01]: Because this is an early way to think about this early heresy, actually, to believe that Jesus only cares about our spirits and our bodies. 17:30.331 --> 17:39.113 [SPEAKER_01]: So they're early church father, Turtulian said, Hey, if that's your God, if you believe God has just called us to escape the service, to give some more else, then your God doesn't love you. 17:39.253 --> 17:44.834 [SPEAKER_01]: You call him loving, but a God who loves you has to love your body, is to love creation, is to love everything around you. 17:45.214 --> 17:56.645 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we've gotten that wrong as American evangelicals over the past century and it is pretty different from what the historic global church has always said and it's actually very different from what evangelicals around the world would call the gospel. 17:56.905 --> 18:07.535 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's just like a reminder too that that's that is kind of why we want our kids to make their faith their own and to ask the hard questions and walk through some of that process too because you think about like a little 18:07.915 --> 18:14.278 [SPEAKER_00]: toddler who just came from Sunday school and they're like, I want to ask Jesus some of my heart and how many of them say, like, because I want to go to heaven. 18:14.679 --> 18:17.160 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and it's like, okay, but, and that's good. 18:17.500 --> 18:23.243 [SPEAKER_00]: But you want them in their faith to progress from, I want to follow Jesus just so I can go to heaven too. 18:23.343 --> 18:26.565 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to follow Jesus because when the bad things happen, that's going to give me the peace. 18:26.905 --> 18:30.287 [SPEAKER_00]: And when the, you know, when life, when I have questions, I know where I can look. 18:30.407 --> 18:33.188 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, there's so much more to it than just that. 18:33.208 --> 18:34.969 [SPEAKER_00]: Because that would be way too easy. 18:35.750 --> 18:36.150 [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly. 18:37.095 --> 18:38.736 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 18:38.936 --> 18:42.758 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when reason I want my kids to follow Jesus is because Jesus is beautiful. 18:42.938 --> 18:46.379 [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he is love and he offers freedom. 18:46.479 --> 18:51.622 [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the things that I talk about toward the end of the book or those dreams that Jesus has for us. 18:51.722 --> 19:02.707 [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, one sort of practical advice piece of advice that gives to parents and really anyone working with someone who maybe in that phase where you've got a student or a kid who's walking away is 19:04.748 --> 19:11.872 [SPEAKER_01]: I think one of our impulses in our anxieties to answer all the questions or to fix whatever problems we perceive they have. 19:12.212 --> 19:14.574 [SPEAKER_01]: But again, ironically, that can push people away. 19:14.874 --> 19:29.842 [SPEAKER_01]: And what I always say to parents is, if you have a student who's got one foot out the door, maybe they're out the door, your goal should be to say, all right, I'm going to sit down and listen until I can say, okay, I understand how you got there. 19:30.042 --> 19:31.103 [SPEAKER_01]: I understand how you got there. 19:31.263 --> 19:32.244 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean you have to agree. 19:32.264 --> 19:44.794 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that you don't have a hundred other things you want to say to that to that, but if you can genuinely look someone in the eye and say, maybe we don't think the same about everything, but I really get why you are, where you are, that makes sense to me. 19:45.014 --> 19:49.117 [SPEAKER_01]: It just changes the tone of the conversation in a very significant way. 19:49.357 --> 19:58.102 [SPEAKER_01]: and so being able to aside the defenses for a little bit and to really try to get into that person's shoes, I think is so important. 19:58.122 --> 20:00.103 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, think of that student I was describing earlier. 20:00.443 --> 20:01.123 [SPEAKER_01]: Think of that student. 20:01.244 --> 20:10.749 [SPEAKER_01]: If someone had the literature student, if someone had sat down with that student and just spent a couple of weeks and said, oh, I really understand how you got where you are. 20:11.109 --> 20:12.730 [SPEAKER_01]: You have this opinion and I have this opinion. 20:12.750 --> 20:14.751 [SPEAKER_01]: Imagine how different the student story would be. 20:14.771 --> 20:16.592 [SPEAKER_01]: It would be totally different, totally different. 20:16.832 --> 20:18.773 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and that's like not even just faith. 20:18.813 --> 20:20.974 [SPEAKER_00]: That's just so much of life in parenting. 20:21.494 --> 20:26.776 [SPEAKER_00]: Just be able to listen and understand before you respond, which is, I mean, it's really hard. 20:27.376 --> 20:27.576 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. 20:28.197 --> 20:30.998 [SPEAKER_00]: One time, my son, he was really little, but he just looked at me. 20:31.018 --> 20:32.338 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, mommy, you have too many words. 20:32.678 --> 20:36.160 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, okay, and it was just a reminder, like, I don't have to explain at all. 20:36.220 --> 20:41.942 [SPEAKER_00]: We can just sit and I can listen to his questions and he was little, but it's easy to have too many words as a parent. 20:43.655 --> 20:43.935 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 20:44.275 --> 20:44.856 [SPEAKER_01]: I understand. 20:44.876 --> 20:45.476 [SPEAKER_01]: I understand. 20:45.916 --> 20:46.496 [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting. 20:46.536 --> 20:49.057 [SPEAKER_01]: You were talking about preventing deconstruction. 20:50.197 --> 20:53.018 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a sociologist at Notre Dame. 20:53.038 --> 20:54.139 [SPEAKER_01]: His name is Christian Smith. 20:54.499 --> 20:56.259 [SPEAKER_01]: And he sort of studies this. 20:56.299 --> 21:00.961 [SPEAKER_01]: This is his thing is to talk about what are the factors that make faith last for a lifetime? 21:01.021 --> 21:03.922 [SPEAKER_01]: And he came up with three when we could talk about them if you'd like to. 21:03.942 --> 21:06.683 [SPEAKER_01]: But one particular thing that I think is really interesting. 21:06.903 --> 21:13.425 [SPEAKER_01]: is he says, your parenting style is actually very important and whether your student is gonna retain their faith or not. 21:13.785 --> 21:23.307 [SPEAKER_01]: And he says, if you're very authoritarian and you don't really have room for individuality and personality, your student is actually likely to walk away from faith. 21:23.907 --> 21:33.970 [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, if your student doesn't, or your child doesn't have a sense of authority in the home and you're just sort of laws I fair, your student is also very likely to walk away from the faith. 21:34.190 --> 21:42.913 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that sense of your child understanding, there's authority, but also there's flexibility and freedom and room for your personality and individuality. 21:43.133 --> 21:44.293 [SPEAKER_01]: That has long term effects. 21:44.313 --> 21:56.857 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a bit of a surprising finding, I thought, but he's just, he's just going off the data as that was a major reason why a lot of kids eventually will keep their faith, because they have parents who are able to balance those two things. 21:57.097 --> 21:59.619 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it makes sense when you think about some of the things that you've already talked about. 21:59.659 --> 22:01.902 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, there is a God who's a God of authority. 22:02.002 --> 22:04.364 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, he does have an authority over our lives with the same time. 22:04.424 --> 22:06.586 [SPEAKER_00]: He is a creative God who loves his creation. 22:06.806 --> 22:17.616 [SPEAKER_00]: And so if you can model that of like, well, this is, you, I'm, you're leader right now, but also I see who you are and we can work with in that because who you are is beautiful. 22:17.636 --> 22:19.358 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it kind of makes sense to me. 22:19.718 --> 22:20.539 [SPEAKER_00]: But I haven't heard that before. 22:20.579 --> 22:21.140 [SPEAKER_00]: What were the other two? 22:21.380 --> 22:27.225 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the other two are number one that faith has talked about outside of Sundays. 22:27.846 --> 22:46.203 [SPEAKER_01]: So if if faith is a conversation you have throughout your week and it's integrated into the way you think about making decisions, you know, if kids get the sense that faith is just an event that happens on Sundays, they're not very likely to make that a real priority in their lives, but if they 22:46.423 --> 22:51.787 [SPEAKER_01]: They see faith as a lens that parents are using themselves to think through everything, that makes a real difference. 22:52.007 --> 23:00.953 [SPEAKER_01]: And the last one is maybe the most surprising of all, but it's that the child has one person who's not a parent in their life, who's modeling faith. 23:01.134 --> 23:05.497 [SPEAKER_01]: And so those three factors combined are, I think the plenty of food for thought. 23:05.517 --> 23:07.398 [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I've got to think about those once a month. 23:07.418 --> 23:08.038 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, okay, am I? 23:08.859 --> 23:15.441 [SPEAKER_01]: my resetting myself and centering myself with those things because it's it's a constant challenge, but I think it's very helpful to think about. 23:15.521 --> 23:19.643 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, and if you think about it too, like some of those things, I mean, it's all hard. 23:19.803 --> 23:20.963 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm so hear me. 23:21.643 --> 23:22.123 [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard. 23:22.484 --> 23:25.084 [SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, okay, so talk about faith outside of Sunday. 23:25.104 --> 23:25.825 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we can do that. 23:25.945 --> 23:26.565 [SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about it. 23:26.585 --> 23:33.067 [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean to have to have like a perfect devotion on has to be this beautiful family moment, but we can talk about it. 23:33.307 --> 23:38.469 [SPEAKER_00]: Even when we just see something that needs prayers, you know, like you pass an ambulance or something. 23:39.029 --> 23:43.855 [SPEAKER_00]: But then having someone outside of your parents, like that can be found in your church community. 23:43.875 --> 23:45.857 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's just investing in good community. 23:45.877 --> 23:47.519 [SPEAKER_00]: Like those are things that are very doable. 23:47.639 --> 23:52.885 [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing in that that's like you have to go through this checklist and do this many things every week. 23:52.905 --> 23:54.988 [SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes we put that pressure on ourselves. 23:55.228 --> 24:00.270 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, one of the requirements for kids keeping their faith was not perfection, right? 24:00.350 --> 24:00.790 [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't. 24:01.310 --> 24:01.771 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank goodness. 24:02.011 --> 24:06.653 [SPEAKER_01]: That you have this, you know, theology degree and you can teach your children the Bible every night. 24:06.973 --> 24:10.274 [SPEAKER_01]: Those are actually pretty approachable things for any of us for sure. 24:10.514 --> 24:10.754 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 24:10.934 --> 24:18.519 [SPEAKER_00]: And then what would your encouragement be to a parent whose kid is like very much walking away or has already kind of walked away from their faith? 24:18.679 --> 24:21.180 [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, I don't know what to do with this now. 24:21.420 --> 24:21.661 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 24:21.941 --> 24:27.644 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of the things I try to do in my book is go through that same set of conversations. 24:27.704 --> 24:32.047 [SPEAKER_01]: I would have with any deconstructing, disillusioned students. 24:32.227 --> 24:35.689 [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like I've had to learn through ups and downs how to do that through the years. 24:36.069 --> 24:40.390 [SPEAKER_01]: where the first half of my book is really affirming a lot of their concerns. 24:40.850 --> 24:44.291 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think if we skip that step, we're not going to be heard, right? 24:44.792 --> 24:54.374 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm very thankful I just had somebody write me last week who said, I have not been part of the church for many, many years, but read the book, read the light in our eyes. 24:54.614 --> 24:55.355 [SPEAKER_01]: I put it down. 24:55.375 --> 24:59.936 [SPEAKER_01]: I called my employer and said, I want some days off, because I need to go back to church. 25:00.676 --> 25:03.537 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why you do these things, that's why I write these books. 25:03.637 --> 25:11.701 [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think that without the first half of that book where I name, here's where I think a lot of your critiques are right. 25:11.941 --> 25:13.081 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's where we've got a wrong. 25:13.101 --> 25:14.702 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think you have that experience. 25:15.062 --> 25:20.344 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think being able to, again, sit down and say, all right, like I hear a lot of your thoughts from your deeks. 25:20.884 --> 25:23.686 [SPEAKER_01]: And then also to be able to say, I actually think, 25:24.795 --> 25:29.337 [SPEAKER_01]: that the Christian faith is much, much bigger than the American evangelical experience that you have. 25:29.997 --> 25:34.899 [SPEAKER_01]: And can we pull back and see, well, what is the church always said about the gospel? 25:34.939 --> 25:37.581 [SPEAKER_01]: What if it's bigger and better and more beautiful than he thought it was? 25:37.961 --> 25:42.303 [SPEAKER_01]: What if Jesus' dreams for you are even bigger and better than some of the dreams that you have? 25:42.823 --> 25:54.008 [SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the reasons I chose those three terms, love, beauty and freedom at the end of my book to talk about Jesus' dreams is those are a lot of the words I hear people using when they're talking about why they deconstructed. 25:54.708 --> 25:57.111 [SPEAKER_01]: It's out of, because I want to see more love in the world. 25:57.131 --> 26:00.134 [SPEAKER_01]: I want more freedom, because I believe in justice and beauty. 26:00.254 --> 26:04.019 [SPEAKER_01]: And what I try to do in the second half of that book is say, I think those dreams are good. 26:04.339 --> 26:08.864 [SPEAKER_01]: I think your dreams, your vision of that, from a secular perspective, are actually pretty small. 26:09.084 --> 26:12.288 [SPEAKER_01]: I think Jesus has those same dreams, but he knows how to fulfill them. 26:12.508 --> 26:15.872 [SPEAKER_01]: So trying to get that right is a little tricky, but that's why I wrote the book. 26:16.112 --> 26:17.654 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, tell us a little bit more about that. 26:17.694 --> 26:23.663 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, is there any, like you can talk about some like practices that can help people build up and restore their faith a little bit. 26:23.703 --> 26:24.645 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about that a little bit. 26:24.870 --> 26:38.278 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so one of my favorite kind of stories in the book is a guy I'm Joseph and Joseph, he graduated from college a few years ago and was totally disillusioned. 26:38.479 --> 26:44.462 [SPEAKER_01]: So he worked with a great organization for to do ministry at Purdue University. 26:44.703 --> 26:49.025 [SPEAKER_01]: But all of his friends, all of his those who were doing ministry with him, they left the faith completely. 26:49.045 --> 26:53.148 [SPEAKER_01]: He was the only one who thought I'm still open to maybe exploring this. 26:53.428 --> 26:58.551 [SPEAKER_01]: Joseph is a super intelligent, very muscular, intimidating person. 26:58.711 --> 27:03.074 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, we would have these conversations every other week at a bagel shop. 27:03.154 --> 27:07.116 [SPEAKER_01]: And I would start to say something in Joseph would say, why'd you say that? 27:07.136 --> 27:17.142 [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't know, I'm just using words, but don't even, don't even want to tell me, you know, these little bit intimidating is very, very bright, had a lot of philosophical questions that were, that are hard to answer. 27:17.402 --> 27:22.905 [SPEAKER_01]: But after two years of meeting with Joseph, he, he also was attending our church every single Sunday. 27:23.065 --> 27:24.326 [SPEAKER_01]: and reflect down those two years. 27:24.406 --> 27:30.750 [SPEAKER_01]: And now he has a family and he would say he's experienced renewal and has faith and significant ways. 27:31.530 --> 27:39.035 [SPEAKER_01]: He would say the most significant factor for him was the fact that he kept going to church on Sundays and taking communion with us. 27:39.235 --> 27:43.297 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of our practices that Redeemer is we do a real confession of sin. 27:43.357 --> 27:45.559 [SPEAKER_01]: We all write very concrete. 27:45.719 --> 27:49.001 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we as pastors, we try to think about what are all the ways we've sin this week. 27:49.021 --> 27:51.262 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's write those down for us to confess together. 27:51.482 --> 27:59.969 [SPEAKER_01]: And he would say, it's not that my big big apologetic questions were unanswerable or unimportant. 28:00.250 --> 28:11.039 [SPEAKER_01]: But it was really the practice of that embodied kind of community coming together, confessing sin, receiving the bread in the wine every week, hearing a pastor say, Jesus loves you. 28:11.399 --> 28:12.260 [SPEAKER_01]: He cares about you. 28:12.340 --> 28:13.080 [SPEAKER_01]: He died for you. 28:13.301 --> 28:14.782 [SPEAKER_01]: That built up over time. 28:14.802 --> 28:18.085 [SPEAKER_01]: And what he would say is, that was the real question behind the questions. 28:18.445 --> 28:20.086 [SPEAKER_01]: Does Jesus really love me? 28:20.446 --> 28:21.307 [SPEAKER_01]: Does He really love me? 28:21.647 --> 28:30.672 [SPEAKER_01]: And to hear that every single week and to feel that and to even eat it and drink it every week, he said, that probably did more for my faith than all the big conversations that we had. 28:30.772 --> 28:39.277 [SPEAKER_01]: So to the practice of even when you don't feel like it, you know, entering into that space and being in part of that embodied community, I don't think anyone's going to find 28:39.697 --> 28:43.419 [SPEAKER_01]: renewal in their faith on their own and just don't think it's like I was designed us. 28:43.719 --> 28:46.841 [SPEAKER_01]: So choosing to enter into that community, I think is a big, big part of it. 28:47.061 --> 28:47.322 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 28:47.502 --> 29:00.249 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I think that what you're sharing to is a, I mean, you said a genuine community in an honest community, no vulnerable community, like because you can't go to community in every week with confession and be fake. 29:00.549 --> 29:06.453 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you are getting real with your congregation and the people who are in your church community and saying, this is who I am as a broken person. 29:06.893 --> 29:10.175 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is why I need Jesus, and this is how I found hope in Jesus. 29:10.575 --> 29:12.436 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's nothing fake about that. 29:12.716 --> 29:19.480 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's probably a problem with what that people have with the churches that I feel safe in shiny when it's not totally. 29:19.580 --> 29:30.145 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I feel like I had to experience a personal transformation in that area as well because there's a daily invitation to be fake as a pastor, someone who's a professional Christian for a living. 29:30.225 --> 29:30.465 [SPEAKER_01]: Right? 29:30.665 --> 29:32.707 [SPEAKER_01]: People are always, they're happy for you to be fake. 29:32.747 --> 29:40.693 [SPEAKER_01]: But one particular story that stands out to me is, this is very pivotal for me was I was working with a college ministry called RUS. 29:41.093 --> 29:44.576 [SPEAKER_01]: And RUS is very good at reaching people who don't know Jesus. 29:44.596 --> 29:46.757 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just very good at reaching people who don't know Jesus. 29:46.957 --> 29:49.739 [SPEAKER_01]: And I had a friend, I called him cool Chris in the book. 29:49.979 --> 29:50.600 [SPEAKER_01]: He's very cool. 29:50.780 --> 29:52.902 [SPEAKER_01]: But we, we run a little prayer group together. 29:54.151 --> 29:59.853 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that would happen is we could get together twice a year and we pray for each other as campus ministers. 30:00.114 --> 30:08.757 [SPEAKER_01]: And in that prayer group, I just heard other pastors being so raw and so honest that I honestly felt like maybe I shouldn't be part of this organization. 30:08.957 --> 30:10.838 [SPEAKER_01]: These are bad things that we're describing. 30:11.018 --> 30:14.480 [SPEAKER_01]: Not really like, I mean, I'm talking about, okay, I drank too much last night. 30:14.800 --> 30:15.960 [SPEAKER_01]: I doubt Jesus this month. 30:16.020 --> 30:17.741 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not talking about abusive things, of course. 30:17.961 --> 30:25.406 [SPEAKER_01]: But as they confess their sin and I was sitting there judging them, I remember one particular year I was on the elevator. 30:25.666 --> 30:31.170 [SPEAKER_01]: We were right next door to this realtor conference and the lots of people having a very, very good time. 30:31.350 --> 30:44.700 [SPEAKER_01]: One man stumbled into that elevator with me and cool Chris and he was just very, very drunk, very sort of on top of the world and I was very annoyed and I just thought I just, I want you to be out of my way so I can go to my room and have my piece 30:44.920 --> 30:54.609 [SPEAKER_01]: But he was talking to us and as he was talking, I just watched Chris just engaged that man and look him in the eyes like he was a person worthy of respect and dignity. 30:54.970 --> 31:01.656 [SPEAKER_01]: And they had this whole conversation in front of me where I'm trying to get him off my shoulder and and Chris is just saying, Hey, yeah. 31:01.896 --> 31:02.977 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'd love to talk to you. 31:02.997 --> 31:05.958 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's who we are in and tell me more about you. 31:06.319 --> 31:12.602 [SPEAKER_01]: And Chris left the business man left and I just felt like, wow, I couldn't see myself in that man. 31:12.942 --> 31:17.485 [SPEAKER_01]: And the reason I couldn't is because because I'm not being honest about who I am with this group. 31:17.785 --> 31:30.989 [SPEAKER_01]: There was a connection between someone who can say, I had a really bad week, I got into an argument with my wife, to be able to say that, and then to be able to see yourself and someone else who also has flaws in their center. 31:31.189 --> 31:36.010 [SPEAKER_01]: And I realized that for me, I hadn't been, I hadn't been in that community that you're describing. 31:36.250 --> 31:39.874 [SPEAKER_01]: I've been communities where we would call ourselves sinners, but it's totally hypothetical. 31:40.235 --> 31:42.978 [SPEAKER_01]: I've never heard a Christian leader say, here's how I'm an actual sinner. 31:43.619 --> 31:49.806 [SPEAKER_01]: But to have that kind of love for someone else, I think you can't have that kind of love until you realize, let's go ahead, Jesus loves you. 31:50.266 --> 31:56.273 [SPEAKER_01]: He loves you as an actual sinner, not as a hypothetical sinner, and so that's why we do confess our sins every week, not to be 31:57.434 --> 32:04.096 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, throw shame on ourselves or to sort of pity ourselves, but to say, Jesus loves us with all this stuff. 32:04.156 --> 32:06.677 [SPEAKER_01]: He loves, he has more mercy on us because of all these things. 32:07.077 --> 32:14.339 [SPEAKER_01]: And as we confess those sins in real community, I think we get a real sense of Jesus loves us profoundly unlike anybody else. 32:14.719 --> 32:17.400 [SPEAKER_01]: And it creates a profound love, I think, for others as well. 32:17.580 --> 32:18.721 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I agree. 32:18.961 --> 32:37.897 [SPEAKER_00]: So kind of to wrap up our time as we've heard so many stories and there are you have so many more stories of interacting with people who are challenging their faith, rethinking things, building their faith back up like how do you still see hope for the church and for our kids generation in their faith? 32:38.117 --> 32:38.377 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 32:38.698 --> 32:48.845 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, um, I think a lot of what we might describe as disillusionment or deconstructing, and this is where I just, even with people who, you know, a lot of people who are deconstructing, they feel worried. 32:49.186 --> 32:49.986 [SPEAKER_01]: They feel anxious. 32:50.306 --> 32:51.707 [SPEAKER_01]: They feel like, how did I get here? 32:51.788 --> 32:54.209 [SPEAKER_01]: I think maybe I'm deconstructing something must be wrong with me. 32:54.410 --> 33:01.255 [SPEAKER_01]: One of those things I try to do to lower the temperatures, just say, I do think actually what you're going through right now could be part of your spiritual growth. 33:01.755 --> 33:06.600 [SPEAKER_01]: And the same way a teenager has a natural stage in which they want to differentiate from their parents. 33:06.881 --> 33:09.343 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a very like psychologically natural stage. 33:10.044 --> 33:14.128 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if a parent rejects that differentiation, it's not going to go well. 33:14.509 --> 33:16.971 [SPEAKER_01]: But if a parent says, all right, we're going to let you differentiate. 33:16.991 --> 33:18.773 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to keep coming alongside you. 33:18.793 --> 33:20.155 [SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to be anxious about it. 33:20.535 --> 33:21.977 [SPEAKER_01]: That is part of the growth process. 33:22.417 --> 33:33.906 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, when I see deconstruction today, and I see disillusionment, I think, well, if we could respond to that in a healthy way, I think this could be a real period of renewal and growth for the church. 33:34.266 --> 33:37.709 [SPEAKER_01]: If we keep trying to shut it down and clamp it down and say, no, no, no, don't do that. 33:37.929 --> 33:46.156 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's going to be a healthy thing, but it's one of the things I try to model is, hey, this could be part of the way that Jesus is growing your child or your teenager. 33:46.536 --> 33:50.119 [SPEAKER_01]: They need to differentiate in order to come back to faith for themselves. 33:50.319 --> 33:53.622 [SPEAKER_00]: That's just such a good reminder for parents that we don't have to panic about it. 33:53.922 --> 33:55.684 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it can be part of their story, their story. 33:55.704 --> 33:57.426 [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know if their story looks like, but God does. 33:57.666 --> 33:59.187 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we can't hold too tightly to it. 33:59.608 --> 34:01.570 [SPEAKER_00]: Or else we don't let them experience it. 34:01.930 --> 34:04.192 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's really true and really good. 34:04.633 --> 34:06.134 [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate all of your insight. 34:06.194 --> 34:07.555 [SPEAKER_00]: I really loved your book. 34:07.615 --> 34:08.997 [SPEAKER_00]: I told you before we started recording that. 34:09.357 --> 34:16.021 [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of sat down to look through it a little bit and just shut everything up and just dug deep because I really really loved it. 34:16.101 --> 34:22.045 [SPEAKER_00]: So tell us where we can find the book where we can connect with you and just keep going on this journey. 34:22.305 --> 34:23.946 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, thank you so much for reading. 34:24.306 --> 34:25.307 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you enjoyed it. 34:25.327 --> 34:25.367 [SPEAKER_01]: So. 34:25.887 --> 34:27.808 [SPEAKER_01]: You can find it on Amazon, like anything else. 34:28.008 --> 34:30.009 [SPEAKER_01]: Support a local bookstore, tell them to order it. 34:30.069 --> 34:31.049 [SPEAKER_01]: That's always a great thing. 34:31.289 --> 34:40.072 [SPEAKER_01]: My sub-stack is called the Bard Owl B-A-R-D, and so I have all kinds of links to the book there, and you can interact with me that way as well. 34:40.292 --> 34:50.016 [SPEAKER_01]: So, any and always, one of the things that I appreciate is when people are able to read it, and I've loved hearing people's stories, and so feel free to reach out to me. 34:50.056 --> 34:52.117 [SPEAKER_01]: You can find my contact on my sub-stack as well. 34:52.237 --> 34:54.578 [SPEAKER_00]: Perfect, and I'll get that in show notes of people can find it easily. 34:55.178 --> 34:55.418 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. 34:55.895 --> 34:58.096 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for being with me today. 34:58.196 --> 34:59.376 [SPEAKER_00]: I just appreciate your time. 34:59.596 --> 35:00.216 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks so much. 35:00.256 --> 35:00.737 [SPEAKER_01]: This was great. 35:03.758 --> 35:06.719 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for joining me on the Christian parenting podcast today. 35:06.799 --> 35:11.360 [SPEAKER_00]: I really hope this conversation with Nicholas reminded you that it is okay to ask hard questions. 35:11.980 --> 35:15.261 [SPEAKER_00]: God can meet us and our kids right in the middle of our doubts. 35:15.962 --> 35:25.505 [SPEAKER_00]: Walking through seasons of disillusionment can be painful, but they can also be really powerful opportunities for deeper faith, stronger community, and honest conversations that help draws closer to Jesus. 35:26.285 --> 35:30.569 [SPEAKER_00]: If today's episode encourages you would you just take a moment to like, subscribe and leave review? 35:31.189 --> 35:34.972 [SPEAKER_00]: It helps us reach more parents who are navigating this journey of faith with their families. 35:35.693 --> 35:44.960 [SPEAKER_00]: And as you walk alongside your kids through the highs and lows of faith, may God give you wisdom for every question, patience for every conversation, and peace that carries you through. 35:45.581 --> 35:49.224 [SPEAKER_00]: You are not alone, he is with you, he is faithful, and he will do it.