8 Current Issues That Could Hurt Who Your Kid’s Become – Part 1

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Episode Summary

What are you doing or going to do when there’s a mask mandate, Church isn’t meeting, and you are struggling with finding good community for your family? Suppression of freedom is growing and it could have dramatic consequences for this generation of kids when they are adults. Tune into this vital two-part series as the Tolpin’s discuss 8 issues that every parent should be thinking about right now.

In this two-part series, Isaac and Angie share about the repercussions they believe will harm kids in homes of parents who succumb to societal covid pressures and don’t effectively lead their families around 8 current issues that could hurt who kids become. You’ve probably heard them talk about the need for proactive decision making today that the future will require for your family to thrive. They reveal 8 issues they are thinking about and how they are handling them in their family.

In This Episode We Cover:

  1. How are masks and fear impacting your kids?
  2. Why and how we should be meeting for church.
  3. Lack of community will hurt their futures.

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Scripture In This Episode:

Luke 10:9 –And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’ But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city.”

Hebrews 10:24 – “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 –Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up.  Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Ephesians 5:15-21 –See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

Proverbs 13:4 – “The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”

2 Corinthians 10:5 – “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

Proverbs 16:23 –The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, And adds learning to his lips.”

Galatians 5:1 – “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to Courageous Parenting podcast. If it’s your first time, welcome, and I just want to let you know that we are talking a lot about uncertain times lately, but we also have lots of episodes about all kinds of things, right Ang?

Oh, that’s true. I mean, we were just talking about what are we going to talk about right now? There’s so many things going on in the world, but also we’re about to embark upon Thanksgiving. Yeah, Christmas. We also didn’t really promote a ton of our podcasts on Should Christians Celebrate Halloween. We had a ton of resources that were available there. Just so much going on in life. And so we had talked about all the different ways we could go. So we just really want to encourage you guys to check out season one at the podcast, because we have a lot of resources for people regarding parenting during the holidays and also like why kids won’t obey you just really critical, important stuff.

So if you’re wondering, hey, how do I handle when kids are disobedien? Or how do I handle raising up toddlers or kids ages 6 to 12 or these kinds of things, you can look back and find those things. But right now we are in times that are increasingly uncertain. But that doesn’t take any of our joy away, any of our hope away because we’re Christians.

That’s right. And so we feel charged with this.

The specific challenge we you guys might not know this, but Isaac and I pray before we do the podcast. And today he prayed something that was just really hit me. We Lord, we want to encourage families to be courageous while still being loving and that that’s a fine balance. And that just hit me like I wanted to share that with you guys, because that is God’s heart.

We know that, that he wants us to be courageous. His words says so and Deuteronomy and Joshua, and also not to have a spirit of timidity or fear right in First Timothy. And so we know that that’s something that God calls his people to, but he also calls us to be loving, to be selfless, to be sacrificing. Right. And so especially with the issues we’re going to be talking about, we’re going to talk about some crazy issues.

So the topic is eight current issues that could hurt your who your kids become. This is part one of a two part series. There’s eight points here. And we’re so excited to give you the first three of them because the first three are a little heavy right now. Big, they’re big. So we’re going to dive into that in a second. But first, we have a couple of things that we want to remind you of is that you’re part of the one million legacy mission.

What’s that about?

Well, if you think about it, a mission is something that you are striving to do together. Right.

And the reason why we wanted to remind you guys that you’re part of this mission because we’re all a part of the body of Christ. We’ve all been given different gifts and we’re all called to the great commission, which is a mission by Jesus.

Isaac and I have had different seasons in our life that were more focused on evangelism and the season that we have been in as of the last couple of years, though, we still do try to witness to people.

Right, and love those who don’t know the Lord. We have felt a strong calling to equip the Saints, and that is really what courageous parenting is about. Now, of course, we do have listeners who are not believers who have really gleaned a lot from the podcast and from parenting program. Praise God for that. But I pray more than anything that that is a witness to them. So we just wanted to remind you guys that as part of the body of Christ, you’re part of this mission, too.

And so when you leave a review, when you do five star tap tap on iTunes, when you share on social media, it is a huge, huge help to us because you are the hands and feet also in this body.

And this mission helps the algorithms for more people to see and expand the mission. It also helps us continue because frankly, it’s encouraging. We read every single one. We cling to some of those messages I shared with Angie because she doesn’t always get to them, but I make sure I share them with her. And she just he always shares them with me when I’m, like, discouraged or just kind of like, oh, do we have to search your words directly spur us on. And it’s so important because we get other words more recently, last six months, we also get negative words towards us. And it’s not that, you know, that’s normal, but some of them are like death threats and crazy, weird, demonic things that have been coming at us, which is sad. And and so your prayers. Yeah, I’ll be praying for us. But we are committed to continuing on and doing this. And by the way, if you’ve been through the parenting program, if you could share about that would be amazing. We created that a year and a half ago and it is even more relevant today than it was a year and a half ago. God gave us wisdom in what to create ahead of time for what parents need today. So CourageousParenting.com Has. All the free resources, also the resources like the parenting program, home schooling blueprint and and so forth, you can also go to CourageousMom.com for tons of resources and the postpartum course and book redeeming childbirth and so forth. So all of that stuff helps the ministry and great news. Our fundraising efforts already surpassed 40 percent of the need. So that’s great. Let’s dive into this here. So we’ve talked a lot about point one we are going to talk about a little bit differently and you’re going to get a lot of value out of it.

Mm hmm. So, you guys, we have a couple of questions for you. And I think the first question is actually about questions. Do you ask yourself the important hard questions? Because it is important to do that. Yeah, this is going to require introspection.

Taking rose tinted glasses off, looking at yourself and how you’re reacting to issues, whether that be your emotional response, your opinion and how you are physically reacting to some of the issues that are going on today, whether that be how your state or county is handling covid or how you are reacting to censorship or the way that this election is going.

We all have a responsibility and how we react. And so we’re going to we want to ask you, do you ask yourself the hard questions? And one of the hardest questions is.

Is my child seeing me react in a God glorifying way to the uncertain times, to the situations, as you mentioned, or others, which is glorifying or was the opposite of that? Frankly, the opposite of that. I was responding in fear.

Right. The dread, kind of fear, fear of something happening to me. Fear of the world we’re living. And it’s a lack is the complete opposite of hope and it’s the opposite of what God’s word causes to, which is to fear him only.

And I think that this is an important conversation we’re going to be talking about. The first point we’re going be talking about is actually fear. Right. We’ll dive into the masks. We’ll be talking about masks in this part as well.

And how, you know, I just I have to ask another hard question.

And this is something that I actually was first, I guess this is an introspective question that I was first struggling with, exposed to in my own personal devotions many years ago when I was pregnant with our first child when I was so sick. And I had hyperemesis gravidarum, diarrhea and vomiting 14 times a day, getting IVs for six hours, it was a very hard time for me. I felt isolated. We were newlyweds. We didn’t know anyone in the area.

I just moved back from school and I was working seven days a week, which I would not recommend nobody, nor is it biblical. Yeah, and we’re young.

Yeah. There was a spiritual immaturity that was there and not knowing, you know, to to practice the Sabbath and what that meant, which we quickly learned within our first year. But you are a hard entrepreneur at the time, and I was very isolated. Now, the reason why I’m bringing this up is because today a lot of people are feeling very isolated. Yeah.

And when you are isolated, it’s easier to fear things because you don’t have like mindedness of people encouraging you and spurring you on to remember what’s true, what’s good, to keep your eyes on the prize, which is Jesus, and to be asking yourself the hard questions which actually focus more on eternity than they do on today at the present time. And so I I just want to I want to challenge you with this question. Why am I struggling with fear over losing my life? Is it because I’ve made an idol out of my life? Is it because maybe I don’t have eternal security? This is a really big, hard, deep question that we all need to ask ourselves. But we also need to have grace for other people who are acting out of fear, understanding that maybe they don’t have that eternal security.

So just think about today what’s going on and think about, let’s say your kids are three or six or 10 or 15, 10 years from now on. Any of those ages, they’ll be 13, 18, 25, you know, do you want them to respond in fear when things are probably even worse ten years from now or more challenging or more uncertain ten years from now from a worldly perspective? So or do you want them to have to have experienced how well you’ve handled things?

We have been transparent in teaching others, so they’re trained and so as we thought about the things happening right now and how people are responding or not, we go, OK, here’s eight things and that we need to respond well to. So it catalyses how our kids respond 10 and 20 years from now.

Amen. And I think that this comes down to our other really big question that we there’s some overarching questions, right? The first one was, are you asking yourselves a hard question? And I want you know, one of the things Isaac and I agreed that we wanted to challenge you guys on throughout this episode. And the next one is to ask these same two hard questions on every single issue that we go over. Right. And so ask yourself the hard questions, but then also think ahead about the result or consequences that your kids will experience based upon how you handle this issue, which is what you were saying is just another way of saying this. You have to ask yourself. You have to kind of think ahead. You have to go, OK, wait a second. So if I’m fearful and we decide to always wear masks everywhere, like even the two year old, which isn’t mandated, how is that going to actually impact my kids when they’re 10 on a social level?

How is that going to impact them on a spiritual level? How is that going to impact them on a fear level? Are they always going to be walking in fear now of getting some kind of disease? Are they, you know, like what we do, how we handle this is going to have massive impact on our kids and how they view the issues that come up in their lifetime.

Remember, when kids are young, they the the messages and experiences are really powerful and they really have long term impacts. And so if consistently your kids wear masks now, you might go, well, this is just temporary. Well, weren’t we kind of told that eight, nine months ago? This is going to be temporary, maybe. I hope so, but just realize what are the repercussions we’ve just been talking about? What are the repercussions on kids when they consistently wear masks? And more importantly, everyone around them has a mask on?

Right.

And there are a few different categories here where we could talk about what are the consequences, ramifications, results of them wearing a mask. Right. One would be the health side, like the physical. What what are they going to experience physically? Then there’s the element of socially, right?

Yeah. I wonder we’re not health experts from a doctor or nurse perspective, although you super studied natural home remedies and so forth and all that stuff.

But it’s what is that doing to the development of their lungs? I don’t know.

Yeah, I mean, you guys just some of us all I’m sure that everyone knows at least one person that literally they do have a medical exemption or they should from wearing a mask for many different reasons. We I mean, you guys, we have a family of 10, like for me, I’m pregnant. You guys know this. I am nauseated all day long. I am on the verge of potentially vomiting. Different things will trigger it. Right. I can be in the grocery store, walk past the coffee aisle and I can lose it literally. And so for me, wearing a mask actually makes it worse for me.

But just breathing in that carbon dioxide, I get lightheaded, I get dizzy. It can’t be good for me. It can’t be good for the baby, actually. And so that’s one of the convictions why I don’t wear them. Just one. There are many we have a son gets massive headaches. Right. And so when like in the past when we did the whole quarantine time, way back in March, we realized right away he can’t wear them like at all. And so you guys, though, this is the thing. Think about kids, young kids. Are they even aware of what’s going on in their body? No, a lot of times little children are actually not aware of the difference of how they actually physically feel and they don’t know how to describe that to you. It’s like the child who’s been dairy intolerant their whole life. They’ve got issues and they’re just in pain. But they learn to live with it, thinking it’s their normal when it’s really not good for them and they need to be off dairy. Does a child know that? No, it’s the same kind of thing regarding the physical aspect of wearing a mask.

So educate yourself. You can Google is wearing a mask healthy for kids and you can find probably pro stuff and you can find negative stuff on it. You just have to discern what you believe on that. Common sense tells us it is not good and you might be going. We don’t we can love each other and have a different opinion on masks. OK, and there’s many other points that you’ll love here. But after this. But we have come to our own conclusion that masks are not effective from what we’ve read and so forth. And therefore there’s other problems, too. So you talked about the health of the kids. What about the the social the social health fact? You’ve been actually starting to wonder and think about little critical thinking. This could likely create social awareness problems.

Ok, so what we mean is socially awkward. And the reason why this is, is because the psychology studies of body language and being able to learn how to communicate with other people based upon how they’re receiving what you’re saying and how you’re saying it, your tone of voice. You look at someone in the eyes, but you also look at their face, you look at their facial expressions. You you tend to get cues based upon this communication process of how someone’s body language, including their smile or their frown or their teeth clenching or whatever it is. Right. Like you can see this now when someone is wearing a mask, all of that is hidden. And if kids are only around other people when they’re wearing masks, how are they ever learning those positive cues that teach them how to actually socially interact in a in a giving kind of way, in a loving kind of way that is sensitive to how the other person is feeling if you can’t see any emotion on their face unless they’re literally crying.

Right. And so this is a really big deal for me. This is one of the first things that for me became a huge red flag with masks was stranger danger. And this is something I’ve never heard anybody talk about. This is a really big deal as a mom that teaches my kids, my little kids, especially stranger danger. It’s just simple stuff like, hey, if somebody comes to the door and I’m not home, don’t answer the door, that kind of stuff. Right. But also, how do we what is the instincts that every human has regarding being able to tell if someone is a safe person or not? You judge. You have to judge. You have to discern. Right. And so a lot of times people will actually naturally, without being taught, look at someone’s face and they’ll see, oh, are they a nice person or not a nice person based upon if they’re smiling or not? We can’t see that. Kids can’t see if someone is a safe person or not safe person when everyone’s wearing a mask. And up into this point, who were the people that wore masks before other than doctors? It was burglars and robbers. So now to a little four year old. And the reason why I’m bringing this up is because we have a little boy, Solomon, right. Who’s watched some of the really old lone rangers where the burglars come in and they’ve got the mask on. And so for him, at first, he actually said to me, oh, no, all these robbers when we went to the grocery store and I was like, no, people have to wear anyway. And so I’m bringing this up because this is an issue and no one is talking about it. How is this going to impact your children? Are they just going to trust everybody or just not trust anybody?

And I think this social awareness and the social awkwardness in the lack of confidence, oftentimes, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but your eye contact wanes with other people even more like me. That’s true. Shifts away from people. When you have a mask on and they have a mask on or they have a mask on. And where I have purposely tried to maintain really strong eye contact and smile with the eyes and they say, well, I don’t wear a mask, but, you know, in these kinds of things. But just to really connect with people the best I can, but it takes effort. And imagine your kids on that and how that’s going to go into the future. Now, I do want to say that covid is real. We’re not not believing in covid. It’s real. We had it in my family. And so you can’t even relate our experience to people who are immune compromised or lost loved ones. And in tragic things that have happened, it’s real, it’s challenging and so forth. But we can’t let the.

We can’t create worse things than the actual virus to happen to people at a broad level across the United States and across the world, like imagine if all four year olds were socially awkward and not able to make eye contact with people or were shamed because they weren’t wearing a mask that covers their face.

Now, there’s lots of other issues, like closing down businesses, which this episode isn’t about, which we’re super opposed to.

And these kinds of things we will talk about in Episode two, because it causes so much problems economically in lifestyle and marriages falling apart and parenting problems and provision problems.

And now this. The mask thing is not the end of this topic of fear. There’s also other aspects to living in fear. Why someone would say what other things would they potentially do if they had fear over covid and different things like this? They would not practice hospitality anymore, potentially no more playdates. And so than their kids are not actually getting together and socializing with other children. Right. Which also adds to the social awkwardness and future isolationism.

So there could be a culture. Remember that the behaviors of today create a future culture. So the future culture of their families in a society and generation could be of more isolationism.

And so I just have to urge you guys, like God’s word commands us not to make decisions out of fear. Yes, we want to be realists. Yeah, but do we avoid everyone and become isolationists because of the potential of being exposed to a virus? The reality is that we as believers should not be making any of our decisions out of fear. And this is you know, I’m going to bring up something. You know, a lot of times these people are called anti vocoders. I personally do not like that title. I prefer pro medical freedom. OK, and one of the things that I have seen among this group of people is that they aren’t as fearful of covid in this sense, not all of them, but a lot of them. And I think that part of it is that they’ve lived for a long time. In a sense. They’ve been living, realizing that polio, measles, tetanus, all these different diseases are still in existence today, maybe not rampant in the same kind of way. Right. But the flu, like we’ve never gotten the flu shot. Do we get the flu? Yeah, we’ve gotten the flu in the past. And then we get over it. And some of the some of the viruses that are out there are harder. We had H1N1 13 years ago. That was extremely hard on one of our kids. And so we’ve experienced those things. But you guys, this is the thing. If you believe that God has ordained the number of days of your life and that you’re not going to go a day before or a day after you’re called to go home, you walk in that kind of trust of the sovereignty of God and understanding that he is the one that’s in control no matter what, you know what I mean. And so but at the same time, you also are doing all that you can because God’s word also gives us responsibility.

And we have to be wise. We have to take care of ourselves.

If somebody gets sick, covid or anything else, we shouldn’t be going anywhere. We should quarantine.

Oh, because we love other people and because we’re taking care of ourselves.

We quarantined for six weeks.

Well, yeah. I mean we had it for that long, you know. And so the reality is be wise, not your own eyes. You take in the reality the information that you’re getting. And I know today it’s hard to know what’s real. Right. So you do your best to discern what’s real and you make decisions using the real information that you think you have. Right. You do what’s best for your family, do what’s best for other people. But you also need to understand that at the end of the day, you’ve done everything God’s called you to do in taking care of your bodies. You’re trying to live healthy, you’re getting rest, you’re treating things. Then you pray and you give it to God and you don’t live in fear.

Amen. And a lot of your asking, OK, easier said than done. You don’t live where I live. You know, there’s lockdown’s there’s mask mandates. There’s all kinds of things and we get it. You got to go grocery shopping in some places. You literally will not be able to go to a single grocery store unless you wear a mask. That said, you can still practice hospitality, you can still practice, practice hospitality, do what you can. I have been even though we were in Oregon, we got kicked out of a lot of places and now be kicked out of probably every place in Oregon. I know you went on serious lockdown and Kate Brown is threatening jail for a month. Wow. Serious this time it sounds like. Who knows if it really is serious, but and then we moved to Idaho and. Yeah. I mean, I know of anywhere in the country, it’s probably the most free, but some of the nationwide companies, sometimes I get kicked out.

There was a day I got kicked out of Target. Our whole family got kicked out of Red Robin. Yeah, I’m never going to go to Red Robin again ever, because they were going to force every single one of us to wear a mask. Just to the table. Just to the table. As if. Oh, but that’s because covid knows to stop spreading when you’re eating.

Yeah, but so can’t do it. I can’t do it. And it’s more of a principle now that I just I just won’t do it. And you know, if eventually I’m just not going anywhere, I guess I’ll just we’ll go do things not in stores.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CourageousParenting.com. And I also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement for us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at CourageousParenting.com.

Steve and I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children. But Angie and Isaac have done and creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications. This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids physically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

The reality is you guys were talking about is how is fear impacting your life? And then how are those impacts on your life impacting the way your kids are going to operate in the world in five years tomorrow, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, because reality as the Bible actually predicts that there will be epidemics and it is actually plural.

It’s not singular. So we’ve had a most recent pandemic epidemic, right? Yeah, there have been many in the past and there will be more in the future.

And so we need to be aware of how we are walking and and to represent the freedom Jesus Christ died for. And and what I mean by that is, yes, we should have the right to choose if we’re going to wear masks or not.

Right. That there is a freedom that comes with that and potentially that being taken away, that freedom. Right.

But there’s also the element of walking in in a way where you have joy and you’re not full of fear that that represents a freedom in Christ. And that’s one of the greatest things that can impact your kids.

If you are the person that has high anxiety, high stress on the way to the grocery store, trying to make sure that your kids masks are on properly because you’re walking in fear and you have anxiety that they’re going to get sick in your overly sanitizing all these things. I’m not saying sanitizers bad.

I’m just saying overly. What is that going to do to your child? Yeah. Psychologically and for them in the future and how they treat their kids.

Other human beings are dangerous. All of them. That’s kind of what you’re teaching.

Yeah. Yeah. Or if you see someone walk by not wearing a mask and you’re Judgy in front of your kid and you’re like, I can’t believe that they.

Oh what is that teaching your kid. What is it teaching your kids. Yeah.

And so there is a danger. It teaches them division, it teaches them gossip. It teaches them a judgmentalism that is not biblical. Because let’s just face it, you know, I’m going to bring up another topic regarding this covid thing that nobody’s talking about, which is immunity.

The reality is for us, we got covered in March. And then you guys, we went on a six week RV trip, June and July. We visited eight states for two and a half of those weeks. We were in Texas when Texas had the highest rates of covid in the country if one were going to get it. Yeah, ten people, two of which at the time were four and two years old. I mean, we’re talking germ magnets. If we were going to get it again, we would have got it again and then we went home for three weeks and then we went to Idaho for two more. OK, we were all over and we did not get sick again. Praise the Lord. Yeah, but is anybody, like, assuming the best of other people? Like, our personal belief is that, you know what? We had it. We can’t get it again and we can’t give it. So are we going to wear a mask? No. But do other people assume virtue and one another when they see someone not wearing a mask? No, they don’t. They think the worst thing of people.

Yeah. So division is large, unfortunately.

And that’s impacting kids. Yeah.

Secondly, church. Let’s talk about church. OK, these are some of the biggest questions we’re getting lately to churches are getting closed all over the country, all over the world. And, you know, right now we just because we just moved from Oregon, they’re saying that it has to be 25 people limit for a church right now indoors, 50 outdoors in Oregon. Other places are more extreme, less extreme. It was beautiful. We visited a church on Sunday that had probably a thousand people at it. And it was big, maybe 500. At least a thousand people service. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyways, it was just so freeing. So great to be there. Worshipping worship was awesome. It was so fun. And I just think it’s so important to be human, to human. Do you guys know even if you don’t see a single word to anybody, which I hope that’s never the case, but your hearts communicate with hearts. There’s actual studies where when you’re near someone else’s heart, the there’s there’s connection that happens. There’s something that happens. And that’s what hugs are so powerful because the hearts actually get close to each other.

That’s why it’s so important that moms get together, too, because a lot of times and before covid, before all this stuff was happening, one of the biggest topics that women stay at home moms, especially of young kids, would talk about is that they felt isolated and they struggled with depression actually. And the biggest cure for that is hospitality, opening up your life, but also just getting together with another like minded person is a huge positive impact. And that’s because of actual physical interaction, right? Yeah.

And being in proximity to one another, it is so important that we get together. Fellowship is critically important. Hebrews 10:24 is very, very important verse and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Well, how do you stir up love and good works in each other if we don’t see each other? I mean, you can do it kind of.

And then to continue not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So as we see the day approaching, as we accelerate in and times, because the day what’s the day when Christ comes back, as that accelerates, we need to be meeting with each other. It’s even more important to meet with each other and we need to be there. And it says we need to stir up good works in each other. How is that happening? Isn’t it encouraged when someone else stirs up good works in you? Aren’t we supposed to use our spiritual gifts? How are we going to use our spiritual gifts if we’re not if we’re just streaming it?

Right. Well, and this is this is a really big deal, this concept of when you are part of the body of Christ, that you’ve been given specific gifts that are supposed to be used for the edification of all.

Not that invocation of you. Right. For the edification of the whole. But you’re not actually getting together with the body, so you’re not exercising your gifts, and we all know what the parable of the talents talks about, which is a warning for those who have been given talents and gifts and they don’t use them. We know what God does. And so, you guys, this is a really crucial element we need. We can’t stir one another up, like Isaac was saying, at least a depression.

If we’re not using our gifts, we’re connecting with people.

We’re not communicating is where we were made social beings to be social with one another. So then isolated.

So what are the repercussions then? So we’re trying to protect each other by not meeting from a virus that you OK, you can think whatever you want about the virus, but the repercussions are far greater. Think about this.

So what does the Bible say to do? Says to love your neighbor as yourself. Right. So this has been one of the verses that people use all the time for wearing masks and for quarantine. Right. On loving them by not potentially exposing them. But the reality is, is that God made us social beans. And when people are isolated, they become depressed. Did you know suicide rates are climbing like never before? Is that really loving to not connect with your neighbor? I’m sorry. That’s not actually what’s loving. If you’re sick, don’t go right. But you should be reaching out. You should be having human connection because that’s actually what is loving.

More kids have died of suicide during this period of time than have been hurt by covid.

Ok, so let’s this is a big issue, this isolation thing. You guys have to realize that this is a scheme, a tactic of the devil is isolation. Yeah. He wants people to be in bondage, isolated so that other people cannot help. The Bible says that were to carry one another’s burdens. How do you know if I’m burdened and what burden to carry if we never see each other and we never talk? Right. How can we obey that passage of scripture? The reality is, is if you’re getting together and even in small communities, you guys, if you’re getting together in house churches, you’re getting together couples to couples and then someone doesn’t show up.

You know, something’s wrong. You can reach out to them and go, Hey, brother, sister, what’s going on? How can I help? Right. And then, oh, they’re sick. Well, let’s take them meals. Let’s help carry the burden.

But when there is a bigger community, but nobody’s getting together, nobody knows what nobody needs. And then guess what? The only way people know if there’s a need is put on the needy person’s plate to actually be transparent, vulnerable and reach out and ask, which is hard, which is really hard to do, especially when you’re isolated to be meeting together, you guys. So this is a huge like literally people are not obeying God’s word to carry one another’s burdens because they’re not meeting. That’s a big deal. They’re also not obeying God’s word and exercising their spiritual gifts for the edification of the whole. That’s a big deal. Isolation also prevents spiritual growth. Yeah, it prevents spiritual growth because how do you grow? There are lots of ways that you can grow. Right. But one way is accountability. When you offend someone and someone points it out well, you’re not going to offend anybody if you’re never around anybody, and then you’re never going to be held accountable and be challenged to actually repent, confess, change and grow.

So look at the enemy. Point one, he’s going to make them socially awkward, isolate them, too, and create a pattern of that for kids, make them judgmental so they to be around other people and point to make it OK when there’s a challenge to stop going to church. Right. And and see their parents not going to church. And it creates a habit. I think it validated that streaming is just fine. You know, once in a while streaming is great. In addition to church streaming, more spiritual things is fantastic, but it doesn’t replace that human to human.

And if we’re creating a pattern, there’s no replacement for our kids. It’s just dreaming, what is that going to do?

I mean, guys, let’s just talk about streaming for just a second. Kids everywhere are streaming their education and they’re hating it. Yeah, they are hating it. Do you want your kids to hate church? I’m just saying what could happen? I’m not saying it. Well, I’m saying it could happen. They need connection. They need to worship. They need to pray. They need to be a part of the body. They need to take communion. We took I mean, taking communion is such a gift.

And I there’s so many things I could go off on regarding this. But we have to we have to look to God’s word, to Proverbs 18. One says A man who isolates himself seeks his own desires. He rages against all wise judgment, slowly, slowly, slowly.

A lack of accountability leads to worldly selfishness, selfishness. Yes, we have the spirit of God. But God uses people to do his will in our lives, too.

That’s right. And again, I just want to share from Ecclesiastes, chapter four, verse nine through 12. It says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor, for if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who was alone when he falls for he has no one to help him up again. If two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one be warm alone, although one may be overpowered by another two can withstand him?

Right.

And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. You guys, this is one of the things that we see happening is isolation, people not being able to get together. Let’s talk about the Thanksgiving for just a second. People are not able to gather together. Right. Which will get into more. But if you’re not ever able to gather together, then what slowly happens to your support system, which is what Ecclesiastes is talking about. He’s saying if a three four chord cannot be easily broken. Right.

If something bad was to happen, let’s say, and two people are standing together against one, who do you think is most likely to come out the the victor?

The two, right, that’s what the Bible is literally saying here, though one may be overpowered by another two can withstand him. So but but isolation breaks those bonds.

So let’s talk about the reality here where you are. What if churches aren’t meeting and things like that? Well, you should get together with a group of people. You should read the Bible. You have the same Bible your pastor does. And if your pastor is not meeting, then you need to go to a church that is meeting. And if you end up permanently there, that’s fine. It’s actually biblical. If a pastor isn’t going to stand up and go, my flock needs to meet. And if they’re not willing even to defy the government, we are to submit to government to the point that it doesn’t interfere with our obedience, with ingredients to God. And God says don’t forsake the meeting. OK, so there comes a point. There’s a period of time where, yeah, you obey that, you see what’s going on, you get more wisdom. But then there comes a point where you’re like, OK, this is definitely interfering with what God is telling me to do. And the repercussions way down the road for the kids is horrific.

You guys, we have to ask the harder questions that are actually more about, OK, so for these pastors, I just want to ask some really hard questions, which is. Have we put pastors in a position, have they actually created themselves a position of co-dependency where their congregation is not able to actually function Christian like walking as Christians, studying the word, have they not been equipped to where their codependent upon the pastor and him alone to where they have to meet collectively? Because if they’ve done that, that’s not biblical.

A shepherd, a good shepherd is going to go. My people need community. They need to be activated as the body of Christ. They need to be using their gifts. They need to be experiencing accountability. They need to be experiencing fellowship. And that desire for the goodness of your community and for the flock that God put in your care has to be far greater than you being the one on the podium.

Amen. And if you have a bunch of small groups that used to meet, why not equip the leaders of small groups or pick leaders that understand the Bible the best and let the spirit of God work in them and have them over for dinner, hospitality and train them over the next three weeks and have a whole bunch of home churches? That’s right. Why not do that if if you’re just leaning on streaming you talking and you’re just going to continue not meeting, just realize that is not good enough. It’s not good enough. It’s not what the Bible says. So you continue doing that. But also let’s have people meeting together or meet together and deal with it. You know what? God loves his bride, the church. And so do we believe he’s going to protect you?

Yes. And can I say, too, that I just have to ask these pastors, are they making decisions based upon if they’re going to keep their people coming to their physical church and they’re thinking that it’s theirs? Because the reality is, if you’re doing what’s best for your church and you’re equipping leaders and you’re having them meet in in homes, in smaller groups so that they’re like able to actually obey the law. But they’re meeting together. They’re having fellowship. They’re exercising their gifts within the body right there to find one another.

They’re studying the word if they are supposed to come back to the church, if things change and go back to the way that they were. I’m saying if there is a loyalty there that you shouldn’t have to worry about if you’ve been a good shepherd. Right.

And and they were never yours. They were it should have always been about the ministry with God.

So don’t fear losing anything. Fear for the spiritual condition of your flock weighs so much more that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that spiritual condition is growing versus receding, to make sure the needs of people are being taken care of versus being forgotten. It’s so important.

So this is the other thing I want to bring up that we haven’t really talked a lot about, but has been huge on my heart. I think I mentioned in one other podcast before, but I just want to bring this to your attention, to be praying, to be praying specifically for the tightest two men and women. I get that the older that you get, sometimes you have a more compromised immune system. So I want to be sensitive here for. All right, I get that. I get that. I want to be sensitive to that. But can I also just call out the white elephant here, which is that the devil is so strategic that he has now wiped out a massive population of Titus, two men and women with this thing called covid with the fear that’s associated with covid.

Yeah. And the reality is that’s not from God. It’s not from God. And if we truly believe that God is the one that is in control of when we go, we’re going to we’re going to walk in that kind of faith and hope and trust.

But also, you guys, this is the thing, you know, meeting in smaller groups is actually going to be safer for the tightest to actually than meeting in huge groups.

Now, if they’re Titus’s that are willing to go and do that, I want to applaud. I will be the first one standing up, jumping, hooting and hollering and going, praise God that you’re here because we need your wisdom. Yeah, but look at how the enemy just wiped out all that wisdom.

Yeah, crazy. And so another situation for pastors by the way, we love pastors. It is the hardest leadership job that exists in the world, maybe except the present United States or something like that. But it is a very, very difficult job because most people are volunteers and you’re leading a group of volunteers. And it has to do with the spiritual condition in the spiritual world is so different than the real world. In fact, the gap is larger than ever of how different they are. So it’s so it’s very, very difficult and it’s very challenging right now. And there’s probably if any pastors are listening or people go to churches, there’s people that believe in masks, people that don’t believe in mass. There’s conflict that happens because of these things. And I think we need to realize maybe we have. We need to draw a line in the sand and go, you know what we’re meeting, and if that causes you to lose some people, then it’s better that people are meeting. Some people are going to go somewhere else. And that’s fine, actually. Yeah, it’s OK. And they can come back when it’s, you know, perceived to be safer or whatever the case may be. And the people that want to meet can meet.

But and if you’re streaming that, those people that really feel unsafe, they got to deal with it on their they’ve got to deal with that. We all have to challenge one another to deal with these. He has a lot of the things that are bringing up. These are hard things and I get that. But they’re all stemming from our first two questions. Are you asking these hard questions? Are are the people in your lives asking these hard questions and how are the consequences of how we’re reacting going to impact our kids? Think about that. No to people in the church when your kids are growing up.

Yeah, that’s a huge, big deal.

The disobedience of Titus, Chapter two for all those old people, that is a big deal. What about kids not going to church on a regular basis? There’s an element of now we never want to go to church out of legalism, but we all are aware of habits.

So what kind of habits are being created? If you only stream every single week? Maybe you’re sitting in your PJs, you’re eating breakfast while you’re sleeping in.

You’re doing all these things that are maybe of more of the flesh that feel good. Right. And then when church is back running full force again, you’re tempted to not go and just watch the stream because that’s what you’ve created as a habit.

I would say the bigger value of going to church is the human to human connection than the message. OK, I’m going to challenge this real quick and bigger value. A lot of times in this being tested right now. Right. The message is very important. Teaching, training, very, very important, don’t get me wrong. But if it becomes just a game of streaming. You’re right, your message is going to fall quiet to the the best pastor in the world, the best the best entertainer, the best entertainers, or the most eloquent speakers, which Paul said he wasn’t an eloquent speaker. It wasn’t about that. But it’s because there’s a difference in your message in person that’s unique and powerful, because you’re in person. That happens in the spirit being part of that. Right.

It’s about relationship. That human connection is relationship, knowing your pastor. But if it’s just about stream elders, people are going to shift to whatever the most eloquent speaker is, which is one, I think that a lot of people are starting to realize that, like megachurches were not the way any way, actually, because you can’t possibly have a personal connection with every single person in your church when you have 6000 people. And what is necessary today is personal connection.

And I want to clarify what I said. I think it’s your message with the humanity, with the personal connection is what matters. And because teaching is very important, but if it’s just streamed, then people just decide who they want to listen to now.

Now, let’s just bring up the main reason why we even go to church in the first place. Is to worship God. Amen.

It’s to honor him, it has nothing to do with us, it actually has nothing to do with whether we have personal connection or not, actually on a human human level in that regard, it’s about God.

And so if it’s about if you really love him and you want to be.

In his presence, you want to worship him, you want to take time in your daily week to learn about him, to be with other believers, because you know that that brings him joy and delight.

Then why why wouldn’t you go? Right. Are you sad, are you bringing delight to the Lord not going, and what are your kids watching?

What are they going to do in the future? It’s not like things are going to get easier. We want to meet together as the day is approaching. So important in the final point of part one is community, the importance of community. So we felt it was so important to talk about that because right now, at least in the states, probably worldwide Thanksgiving, I guess that’s, you know, more in the States. But people have different Thanksgivings and different dates around the world. But our Thanksgiving is coming up and it’s getting hit a little bit by some.

It’s almost canceled. I’m just going to say it. It’s almost in my mind it’s almost canceled when state legislators start saying only two families can meet together, which is happening in some states.

We are 100 percent encouraging you to have the biggest Thanksgiving you can possibly have. We’re encouraging you to have the needy over people in your homes, open your homes to people who need a warm, warm meal and to be loved and to hear the good news and hear what we’re thankful for. And that’s right here to worship God and thankful have family together and aunts and uncles, you know, with your kids.

Don’t let the enemy isolate you on Thanksgiving. Yeah, let’s. Because that’s what he wants.

Yeah. I hope that you have to go buy more chairs from Costco. We will. I was just looking online chairs because you have people in your own.

Yes.

That’s so important. Community is so important. So if if we start hurting the holidays, if we start not letting even the holidays happen where families get together, I mean, this is what’s going to what is going to happen to your kids. That’s a lot of times where your kids actually get to see the extended family.

Right. Or friends or where there’s a real OK. And it shouldn’t be this way. I’m just going to preface what I’m about to say with it. Shouldn’t be this way. But a lot of people don’t really hear about God very often, except for if they’re at someone’s house, either a friend or family member for Thanksgiving. And that person is a believer and they are praying, worshipping God and being thankful to him. A lot of times, those kids of the parents, those nieces and nephews, sometimes that’s the only time in the entire year that they hear a prayer to the God Almighty.

Yeah. And that might be canceled. That might not happen. Right, like we need to realize this is a really big deal evangelism wise, but also for our kids, this is a this is at what point do we stop and go? This is getting out of control. This is insanity.

It’s out of control, the the kind of control is out of control. Yeah, and we need to teach our kids how to respond. We are not going to stop Hosteen. We’re not going to stop hospitality from happening. We as believers should understand that God’s word has a whole lot to say about hospitality and what a blessing it is.

I hope we see pictures on social media of Thanksgiving with couple families together, big turkeys, and someone was laughing about a meme they saw of, you know, oh, 20 pound turkey. We got to go investigate them. They’re going to have more than two families at their house.

So, so so, I mean, if you’re thinking about buying a turkey at one store in a different turkey at another store, I think just to be under the radar. Just to be under the radar. I mean, come on.

I wonder, though, strategic turkey buying.

Oh, you guys community is just so important that we have to realize that the enemy doesn’t want us in each other’s lives and he will stop at nothing to isolate us. And so we have to be at war against that attempt to isolate us.

And if there’s somebody immunocompromised. Yeah, maybe there is some mask wearing to involve them, maybe you have to be discerning.

You have to understand the uniqueness of your situations in those kinds of things, which is really important. But let’s not be fearful and let’s have full homes and let’s go to other people’s homes in that kind of thing.

And let’s end with Ephesians chapter five, verse fifteen through twenty one.

So see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God, the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Read that Scripture leading at Thanksgiving. Read other scriptures. I love Thanksgiving because I get a craft a few scriptures that put together share about what Thanksgiving means and all these things. It’s such an important time. I love Thanksgiving. I love going around and talking about what we’re thankful for. I love the impression on the kids. I love the games and hanging out, eating too much. Let’s not let that go. Let’s do it. Let’s do it well. And let’s love people while we’re being courageous and standing for truth and rejecting passivity in these crazy times. And in the next episode, we’re talking about point four or five, six, seven and eight really issues of the Issues Act. Your kid that could hurt who your kids become. Remember, what happens now impacts the future. Let’s be thinking critically about this couple episodes back. We talk about critical thinking. It is so important that we are not just the slowly cooked frog that we actually think and we actually think about what conforming is doing to hurting the future of our kids and who they become. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com And CourageousMom.com For free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program, Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranjini, I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com

That’s CourageousParenting.com

Written By Angie Tolpin
Angie has been married to Isaac for 19 years and together they have eight children, whom she homeschools. She is the Founder of CourageousMom.com, a doula, the author of the best-selling book Redeeming Childbirth, and the creator of the first ever Christian Postpartum Course. Angie loves ministering to Women and has created a few online Bible Studies on Biblical Friendship and Motherhood.

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