Helping parents, pastors, and educators equip kids to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the Christian worldview.
You think you know what you're talking about and all you're doing is setting people up to live repressed lives...they'll resent you and your church... Probably should take another approach
You totally never addressed the subject. Everything you talked about was sex. I think you didn't realize that masturbation is not sex .... Also, your discussion about hormones "science" is not very scientific. You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Having studied the Bible, I would say you are being a bit blasphemous in broadcasting your inaccurate interpretations....
Some really great ideas! Thank you for putting this together as a talking points kind of thing to generate good conversation on how to bring children back into corporate worship!
This was really good about thinking critically about her songs but how do we also address the influence/role model part looking up to someone who is not following Christ?
This was really good about thinking critically about her songs but how do we also address the influence/role model part looking up to someone who is not following Christ?
Interesting video. Some important points, such as avoiding indoctrination and affirming a child's gifting. However Elizabeth is not qualified to diagnose gender dysphoria, nor are parents qualified to do so (even in the case that a parent is a health care practitioner, it is unethical to diagnose your own family). In order to determine whether a child is experiencing gender dysphoria, they need to be assessed by a qualified clinician, and no, biblical counselling is not sufficient to support a parent (or child) in this journey. Biblical counsellors are rarely clinically qualified, and they can do great harm / damage, especially where neurodiversity or trauma is a factor in the child or parent's journey.
Just wondering why you had to specify or differentiate “your children or adopted children”. Adopted children are “your/our children”, period. No need to specify between the two 😊. Blessings 🙏🏼
This was sooo good. Shared on my facebook. I used to be a Taylor swift fan but as a grew in my walk with God(even a little before) I couldn’t listen to her anymore. I pray she comes to Christ
Elizabeth, the way that you think through each topic has helped me so much on guiding my children through situations and topics we encounter on our daily life. Actually it has helped me guide my own thinking-through. I pray that God continues to bless you and your ministry.
This is such a great question! My girls love some of the Taylor swift songs and we actually took spend quite some time discussing her new album last week, Thanks to a Matt Walsh video I was listening to in the car. We started with “why does Matt hate Taylor swift so much?” 😂 but yeah, it led to a whole conversation about Taylor swift vs biblical worldview.
My 4 year old is doing this and sometimes it’s compulsive and I taught them to do it in the room alone and not to do it anywhere and everywhere other times I try and distract them and go and spend time doing another activity but it’s not easy I have a small baby too that is breastfed and I don’t always catch my other child in the act so yeah I’m going to pray and ask god some guidance but thank you for this video
Thank you for adding the caveat about viewing disabilities as inherently good! I'll be sure to address that with my kids as they see the world celebrate anything and everything. It's not the disability that makes a person special, but the image of their Creator that they bear.
How timely, I was just explaining to my 5 year old tonight about a boy in her Sunday school who is in a wheelchair. We didn’t go too deep, I was just feeling out what she knew already. But I feel more equipped to continue to conversation with her later! Thank you!
This is great and nuanced. One thing I wish more people would talk about is the bubble effect and how to combat that. I've known a lot of wonderfully successful homeschoolers who really struggled to make friends outside of the conservative Christian community because they found the slightest sin or bad habit really jarring. It came across as judgmental and made for some very lonely and ineffective young adult years. How would you prepare kids for that?
Though this list is not comprehensive, several passages that speak of hell and of Jesus' redeeming us from God's just wrath toward our sin are Matthew 5:21-22, 10:28-33, 25:41-46, Mark 9:42-48, Romans 5:8-19, and Ephesians 2:1-8.
@@FoundationWorldview My concern was the phrasing “for those whose sins have not already been atoned for.” Jesus’ death on the cross provided atonement for the sins of the whole world. It is unbelief that will result in eternity in hell, not lack of atonement for our sins. John 1:29, John 3:16, John 6:51, Acts 17:30, 2 Cor 5:14-15, Titus 2:11, 1 Timothy 2:1-6, 1 Timothy 4:10, Hebrews 2:9, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 John 2:2
I am going to agree with you when we are referring to the kids need exposure to the secular world. And I believe they get that easy, especially with all of the technology or through entertainment, books, and our local communities. But not using God’s word for “knowledge”? I have to disagree with that. I homeschool my three children and His Words throughout the school day has caused my children to gain His Word strongly. The kids need strong foundation of his Word, before they are tested and ready to enter the world. I agree, secular information needs to also be continuous mentioned, but that to prepare the children to know how others think in the world. And I’ve studied homeschooling curriculums beyond curriculums (Christian-based and some secular), and most are vigorous. Way beyond anything I was taught in the public school. Anyways, I get your point, but don’t agree with it all. Thanks for sharing your thoughts I love anything you share with us!
Why not open up a study into the historial events of the middle ages and actually build context to explain why christians believed the way they believed back then? The Bible alone can only explain so much.
I love the way you encourage families to utilize the other members in their church to help foster their children's spiritual development. I think this is an often overlooked treasure from God. Thank you for your biblical perspective. You have a wisdom beyond your years!
I am a 19 year old Trans-man, and I am totally okay with letting kids with Gender Dysphoria socially transition, because they could possibly grow out of their Dysphoria. Once the kid turns 18+ they can medically transition if they have to. Not all trans people transition medically, and that is kids need wait since medical transition is permanent and there is no going back. Before adults try to go through a medical transition they should undergo at least 2 years of non affirmative therapy to see if they actually have Gender Dysphoria or not so they do not make a mistake by not medically transitioning or by medically transitioning. Medical transition needs to be severely gatekeeped so that those who need to transition medically can do so, and so that those who do not need to do not make the biggest mistake of their life.
Question #1- What third grader in public school is writing a paragraph, let alone five paragraph essays. From what I’ve seen, they can barely write a sentence. #2- Have you looked into these Christian homeschool curriculums, and do you know many homeschoolers using Christian curriculums yourself? #3- Why in the world would you compare a child in Sunday School doing arts and crafts to a public school child being better off education wise? That analogy makes no sense…and is also false. My daughter, who is in her Junior year at college, works as a tutor and is mortified at the writing abilities of these high schoolers being sent to her. Most of them can’t even form a paragraph, and misspell every other word. Most Christian homeschool curriculums are very rigorous. Some of them ridiculously so. I love most of Foundation Worldview content, but this time I completely disagree. Keep on using that Christian curriculum mamas! You can teach your children other worldviews, and educate them in the ways of the LORD, and provide a rich, fulfilling education for them without falling into the “Let’s do it just like public schools so our children don’t get left behind” trap. And it most definitely is a trap that a lot of homeschool parents fall into. Trust in God to lead the way for your homeschool, not the world 🙏🏼✝❤
Thanks much for this episode. As parents we needed to be reminded that our most important task is to make disciples. The principle of Mama Bear apologetics was so practical and wise in its application
Hi Elizabeth!! I love your podcast and have learned so much, but I respectfully disagree with you about using secular curriculum. You can use really rich Christian curriculum and discuss with your child the secular counterfeit for example creation versus evolution. Laying a Christian foundation is important especially while they are young and when they are older they will have time to learn different worldviews.
I appreciate this episode as a great conversation starter! I am curious though why entertainment and friendship are the goal instead of learning to serve together as a way of building attachment instead. When we cultivate entertainment based attachment with peers as a priority it can send the wrong message conflicting with Luke 9:23. I wonder if it wouldn’t also be helpful to foster children together to work towards a common goal in serving. It is certainly not immoral to go to the zoo but if you want your child to grow healthy godly relationships perhaps help them bond with a child over serving others and using their unique gifts as a team.
That "working together for a common goal" is great advice for siblings who are very different in personality and age.... I know this is not even close to the point of this podcast, but that advice really resonated with me too! I'm looking forward to the Gods Good Design curriculum!
Here is my take, and I would love to hear other people give their thoughts to challenge mine. I'm not a children's ministry director, but I have worked and volunteered in churches that have used Orange and have been able to be involved with thinking through strategies for teaching kids the Bible and using Sunday school curriculum, as well as have used the material as a sunday school teacher myself. The way I would succinctly describe Orange is that I find it "theologically lacking." I think it is far from great, but it is also far from outright heretical. My (limited) experience with children's curriculum is that you don't get "excellent everywhere." That is to say, you *either* get really great theology and grounded Biblical Lessons OR you get all the "extra" stuff that comes with curriculum. All that polished nice stuff that is easy to work with and takes hours off of time needed to put together online media for website and socials, newsletters, bulletins, decorations for your spaces, videos and graphics etc. Think of all the sorts of things that just take a lot of time. The thing is, on a surface level, it seems like it would be great to eschew all the "flash in the pan" sort of stuff and just keep things basic and focus on the Bible. But you still need to communicate with your people, you still need to have stuff to show to your kids so you aren't just lecturing to them. You still need games that have been thought through from a pedagogical perspective so that they actually teach and aren't just filler, and on and on. That all is necessary EVEN WHEN you intend to "keep things simple" and aren't aiming for flashy and cool. And those things take a lot of time. When you buy children's curriculum you are going to have to adapt it to your specific use. If the theology is lacking you're going to have to adapt it and make it more robust. When all the extra stuff is missing you are going to have to spend time creating all THAT material. As a children's minister, what do you actually want to spend your time on? Do you want to spend your time on graphic design and coming up with theme ideas and making sure activities and crafts are actually teaching, or do you want to spend time adapting the lessons to make sure that they are the best, most truthful teaching? And even if you get the best of the best, most robust, theologically sound curriculum, I would hope you are still going over the actual content with a fine-tooth comb! So with all that in mind, I think a curriculum that puts all the "extra" stuff on autopilot so you really don't have to put attention to it, and where the director and volunteers can focus their time on the content and making sure it is great VS one where they know the content is great and so put that on autopilot but then need to spend all their time adapting (or outright creating ... because let's be honest, it often just isn't there!) all of the extra material they need to run a Sunday school. Now, this obviously only applies if you find Orange (or similar) materials "lacking." If you think it is heresy, we'll need to have a different conversation. I personally think that Orange has good bones, it is just far too generic (in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible) and needs a lot of supplementary work to fit a church's specific theological bent. But to end on my experience, when I was young I taught Sunday school without curriculum and would pour hours and hours into making engaging lessons for the kids without the aid of curriculum. I just don't have that time anymore (any also, because of my inexperience, I'm not sure that hand-crafted lessons were getting a theology boost anyway--I don't think anyone looks at a young person teaching other young people the Bible and thinks that the best quality of such an arrangement is that young person's advanced expertise!). On the other hand, when I volunteered at a church that used Orange most of that ground work was done for me. I didn't have to think about, for example, a short game that fits the theme and displays a teachable moment to insert when the grade 2 boys needed to move. All of those sorts of things were supplied for me! On the other hand, I always knew I could easily crack open the Bible and spend more time making sure the kids understood the story of the day, or spend more time going over the memory verse, or spend more time in prayer. or spend time explaining how the story connects to the Gospel message. None of those things needed me to spend hours in advance crafting lesson materials, or hours afterwards crafting follow-up materials. The only prep I needed for those things was making sure that I myself was grounded in God's Word and I was familiar with the Bible story I was teaching--which were things that I would be doing whether I was teaching Sunday school or not. I think a great curriculum is one where your leaders can show up spiritually prepared (and with knowledge of the lesson plan) and all of the rest of the work is largely taken care of--either by the curriculum itself, or because the curriculum makes it easy to streamline that prep. I notice that for many "theologically great" curriculums, all of that sort of prep is the part that is "lacking." I'm seeing this even now as our children's minister has moved to a different curriculum to get something more Biblically grounded than Orange and her workload has massively increased. Do you want your teachers spending their valuable time in spiritual preparation, or in lesson plan and activity preparation? Just my thoughts though, and I would love to hear others' inputs. Especially if you've encountered curriculum that is excellent on both fronts.
Earth is round is probably one of the worse examples of an objective statement there is. That statement is completely subjective and based completely on other subjective opinions on what others have observed. The Bible talks more about the flat Earth than any other book out there. In fact, reality is both subjective and objective simultaneously. And those who believe that reality is completely objective are just as insane as those who believe it's completely subjective.
The first step in socializing children is to limit their exposure to electronic devices such as cells,iPad, video games ect. Even though these are apart of our everyday life it severely limits social skills.
