The "Loud Kids In Church" Issue

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Joe Wilke here, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Harab. And today is a. I always use the word interesting. Sorry, just jump right off the bat with interesting. But it really is an intriguing topic. It's something that has been going around on the Internet that. I mean, it's made the rounds. So if you have not seen it, you've kind of been living under a rock seemingly and good for you if that's the case. This is on X, this is on Facebook. It probably has gone to other places, Reddit or who knows what. I'm not on those places, but I know that this has made the rounds quite a bit. Instagram, it's been there. And so it's. It's definitely in the public consciousness and we want to talk about it. Jack, you wrote a great article on it. I'll let you introduce it. [00:00:50] Speaker A: You haven't heard what it is yet, Joe. [00:00:52] Speaker B: No, I have not. I'm going to let Jack introduce it. But Jack wrote a great article on this and so make sure to check that out as he describes what this is. But we're talking about kids in church and specifically a letter. I don't. Is it really a letter that was going around. I don't know, it was a social media post, basically. [00:01:12] Speaker C: Press release. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it was bizarre. But anyway, going around on social media about kids and their noise in church and so Jack, go ahead and tell our audience what we're talking about today. [00:01:22] Speaker C: Yeah, this was by the Mount Washington Church. I have not bothered to look up which Mount Washington church that is. So wherever they are, this is from them. Notification of Policy Change Loud kid Policy Effective immediately at Mount Washington Church, we are committed to transparency and accountability in all matters of church life. The following document outlines our comprehensive procedures regarding loud children and worship. Please consider this your official notice of policy clarification effective immediately. If a family is considering visiting Mount Washington Church and they have a loud kid, the following options are. Option one, the family should bring the kid. Option two, the family should make sure they bring the kid. Option three, the family is to see that the child is brought to church. Option four, the kid is absolutely welcome and expected. We believe the sound of children in worship is not a distraction. It is evidence of life, growth and the future of the church. If your child makes noise, you are not bothering us, you are blessing us. Policy enacted. No exceptions. [00:02:14] Speaker A: This has since been duplicated by other churches as well. Very well known church that has approximately 10 miles away from where I live. Probably less, actually. Yeah. Basically copied and pasted. Did the exact same thing. It's so funny to listen to that. You know that some millennial was just so proud of themselves as they rose. [00:02:34] Speaker C: They might have gotten injured back patting themselves. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yes. Like, option one, option two, again, just. I could just picture somebody doing that. But so it brought up. It brings up a lot of interesting questions. This is. This made the rounds. I think we mentioned it on maybe the Deep End episode that we did earlier this week. Even Matt Walsh, daily wire commentator, it reached his radar to the point where he commented on it. I know Jack wrote on it, and a lot of people had thoughts. And so we want to explore quite a few different things regarding that policy because it's one of those things that made. On the surface, it's like, wow, that's cool. That's great. That's. That's really cool to see. Is that. The end of the story, though, is where I think we want to really dive in. And so I don't know who wants to go first here and kind of give maybe some initial reaction, some initial take. I think at the very least, it's safe to say all three of us had maybe a bit of a different take than the. The app. Like the common. The common response to it. Right. [00:03:31] Speaker B: The. [00:03:32] Speaker A: The. The overwhelming response to it was, isn't this awesome? This is amazing. Love to see it. Don't know that we all quite share that exact take, so I don't know who wants the first on this show. Looks like you got some thoughts. [00:03:42] Speaker B: Who was it? Was it you or Jack that texted us? Texted the group. [00:03:46] Speaker C: I sent it over. [00:03:46] Speaker A: I think it was. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah, you sent it. And I think to. Without comment and reading through. And it's like, you know when that happens, like, am I supposed to like this? Dislike it? And initially I'm like, he. I'm pretty sure we're on the same page here. I really hope that he dislikes this because this is ridiculous. And then, you know, Will's like, yeah, this. So again, on the surface, we're big fans of families, we're big fans of kids. We want to go on the record and say that yet again for the thousandth time on this podcast. We think it's fantastic. Yes. Have your kids in church. Every bit of that is great. We want kids brought to church. But what a false. I don't know if it's false dichotomy. Like, what a ridiculous thing to think that if you bring your kid to church, that means he can act however he wants. It's like, can't we have both? Can't we bring a kid to church and expect him to not disrupt everybody else's worship? Can we bring him to church and expect that, you know, somebody wiser and older might be able to talk to the younger couple and really help them through it, and that the younger couple might have ears to hear rather than immediately assuming they're going to get offended and walk away. It's almost like we either have to let the toddler scream his head off or cause a complete disruption. Everybody, all three of us, the first thing we all talked about, all three of us have been in a pulpit where this has absolutely taken place. And, you know, we're talking. [00:04:56] Speaker A: I've debated stopping my sermon before legitimately, [00:04:59] Speaker B: like, all three of us, nobody in [00:05:00] Speaker C: the room is hearing a word you're saying, right? [00:05:03] Speaker B: And so we can either have that or the family walks away, never to be seen again, never to darken the door of a church. Like, hold on a second. That's the first thought that went through my mind is, hold on a second. Why is that equivalent here? [00:05:15] Speaker A: So here's where I'll start. I'll start with the. What this is probably in response to is just a very poor attitude towards children. And so I think it's important to start that. I mean, you'll see. And I. I always slam boomers. It's not just boomers, but it is older people often that will do the, like, turn and just kind of stare thing for like five or six seconds, just turn and kind of stare, or we'll make snide comments or stuff like that and just, you know, I don't know, Like, I feel like overall, the attitude towards children in our society is very poor. They're not viewed as a blessing. They're not viewed as anything to be cherished or be even proud of. And so I think there are times where that can leak into the church as well. We're going to talk about children's church later on. Like, I'm not an advocate of sending your kid into a children's church. I know you guys aren't either Bible hour or whatever it is during worship. And so, again, just to lay that foundation of this, this policy, whoever. So, like, again, I'm sure there are people that have been mistreated in the sense of like, again, older couple, you know, don't you know what causes that type of, you know, mindset of, again, turn around and stare, the snide comments and whatnot. What I want to get into is, and where this Post made me go mentally is okay. So what kind of distractions are allowed? [00:06:35] Speaker C: Right? [00:06:35] Speaker A: What is that? What is the end of the limit to the distractions? If a girl comes in wearing a bathing suit, two piece bathing suit, that'd be pretty distracting, right? Well, is that one allowed? Is that option 1, 2, 3, and 4, bring him to church, let him sit in the front row. Like, probably not, right? Okay, so, you know, keep going down the list. You know, what is it? You know, what is the. If somebody is playing music on a speaker and just sitting in the middle, like, is that distraction allowed? I would imagine probably not. Somebody would do something about it. You know, again, there's all. If somebody is loudly chomping on cheetos in the middle of, like, is that allowed? [00:07:10] Speaker C: So that was my first clip. Their toenails during church too. And their fingernails. [00:07:14] Speaker A: That's the new one. [00:07:14] Speaker B: Wow. [00:07:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:15] Speaker A: So that was my first thought, guys. And maybe. I don't know, I'm sure you all have some thoughts on that as well. Is like, I feel like you have what this post did and what kind of. What this again, press release basically kind of did not specify. Is like, why is this distraction acceptable? What. You know, where does it end? [00:07:31] Speaker C: Essentially, it had a good aim and it badly overstated its case, is the way I would say it. The. The good aim is. I remember one time, I've probably told this story before, this waitress at a place I used to go to in Forney, Texas, and I would invite her to church a few times and she finally was like, okay, I think I'm gonna come this Sunday. But, like, I don't have nice clothes. She says, there's jeans and T shirts. This is what I have. This is what I dress in. It's like, come on in. Like that. That's not a reason not to come. We're not. You're not gonna get weird looks. You're not. Just come on in. That's not. That should not be something to stop you at all. If she had said, I've got a kid and man, he gets kind of restless sometimes, we would have said, come on. Absolutely. Come on. I would not have said, hey, we want loud kids. They don't distract us. That's a stupid thing. That's a stupid way to put it, right? Like saying loud kids. Well, what are we talking about? Because we haven't defined loud. Have we talked about. Are we defining that as a kid who's a little bit fidgety? [00:08:28] Speaker A: Sometimes we talk about a baby or a toddler. That's Important to do. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:32] Speaker C: Are we talking about a seven year old who wants to run laps down or, you know, go from one aisle to the next? Like, we've seen that in church. Like that. What are we talking about? What loud? What is kid? We haven't defined any of this. We just say nothing distracts us. [00:08:44] Speaker B: That's not true. [00:08:45] Speaker C: It's just physically not true to say that a kid will not distract us. To say, hey, you're welcome in church, bring your kids and not, we'll handle it from there. You're not going to say that on public announcement kind of thing, but to just say, hey, we love having kids in church. Bring them along anyway. If they prove to be a distraction, you handle that later. But I feel like they've painted themselves into a corner that if somebody comes and their kid just bangs on a Tom Tom For 30 minutes, you can't say a word to them because you said you love loud kids and you're not distracted. So what is it? Like, this is an overstatement. But why did they overstate it? Because they're letting everybody know how nice and loving they are, man. And that like, to Will's point about, like, do we draw a line anywhere? Well, no, we're gonna say that we don't. Even though we probably would just to let everyone know, oh, we're not, we're not one of those churches. [00:09:34] Speaker A: So we're a nice. We're a nice church family. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:36] Speaker C: And I think most of the people who shared it there was probably some of that, but it was mostly like, yeah, hey, your kid should not be a reason not to come to church. We'll take you anyway. I think that's what they meant. Like I said that that good point is in there and it needs to be made. Overstating it by saying loud kids aren't a distraction is that again, they just went too far with it. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Well, did you make it? [00:10:01] Speaker A: Go ahead, Joe, let me ask this real fast. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Have you ever been at a church where a loud kid was there and you heard somebody else, like, lambast the [00:10:10] Speaker C: parents, the dirty looks, what you hear, you know? Okay, maybe dirty looks like getting blasted? No, I don't think so. [00:10:17] Speaker B: I mean, maybe dirty looks, but it's like, yeah, if your kid is screaming for 10 straight minutes, there probably will be some dirty looks. And I'm sorry, but that's part of the public shaming that I think we need to bring back. Like, I don't think that's a problem of, hey, you're probably causing a distraction for Everybody. And let's think about this from a movie theater perspective. People are trying to watch a movie. You take your kid to the movie theater and he's just acting out. And like people are looking at it going, we're here for a reason. And no, your kid is not the main show here. And so when we're throwing this out there, it's almost an expectation like, boy, you know, people just don't want to show up because of the meanness they're gonna get. Like, I've never once seen meanness. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:52] Speaker B: So it's overstatement. The same way that the post goes around of, would you accept this woman with tattoos? Like, yeah, I've never seen a church that wouldn't. I've never seen anybody go up and say that. Does it happen? I'm sure it's happened somewhere. Here's a question that's nuts. [00:11:06] Speaker A: I. It is interesting that in this policy it specified visitors. It wasn't talking about members. It says if you're considering visiting. And so I think that's an interesting maybe thing to get into is because that's where the, the, I guess the positive argument would come in of like, hey, they're trying to say, don't let your loud kid who maybe has never been to church before doesn't know what that's like. Don't let that detract you from worship. Should we have a different standard for members than we do visitors? Family's been there for three years. Got a three year old that is just out of control. And obviously I've got my, my thoughts on that about which we may we can save for later, about if your 3 year old can't sit through worship and you've been doing it for two, three years, that's a you problem, that's not a him problem. But either way or her problem, I suppose, should we have a different standard for visitors as opposed to members? Like that was something I had to read through it a few times to catch like, oh, it seems like that's not really a member policy. That's for visitors. So what are your thoughts on that? [00:12:03] Speaker C: I think you should. I just think that's where they painted themselves into a corner with their announcement to say we love loud kids and they're not a distraction if they become a member. It's like, hey, your kid's too loud. I'm sorry, that's not what you got them in the doorway, right? Say, yeah. And so like you can't. They. They've kind of taken away any leverage they have to ever address it by announcing it this way. And so, but yeah, no, I mean, and again, just same thing as the lady asking, well, I can't. I don't have this, that or the other. Hey, you've never been before. We would just love to have you. I mean, like, just, just come on in. And the same thing with the kids. And so, yeah, the visitor thing does make it different, but that's why you don't say, oh, it's not a problem at all. Say, hey, you're welcome here. There's a big difference there by saying, we want you here, you're welcome here, and you're. No amount of noise in the world is a distraction, which I'm paraphrasing, obviously taking a little bit farther than they say it, but that's essentially what the takeaway could be. And so there was a, in fact, a great post about this. I'm going to pull up. Well, I'll pass it over here for a second and read it in a second. Joe, do you have thoughts on this? [00:13:10] Speaker B: No. I mean, I think it's the, from the visitor standpoint, I agree with you, Will. I think there is a different standard for, for members, and there should be a different standard for members because you don't know where the visitors coming from. You don't know that they've ever stepped foot in the church. And the kid is, you know, of course, if you're not used to going to church, kid's going to be loud, kid's going to be a distraction. That's perfectly fine for a time, no doubt. But here's the thing. If every member is doing what they're supposed to in terms of teaching their kids and things like that, the visitor is going to see kids that are behaving appropriately and may even be like, hey, how did you get your kids to do that type of thing? I'm not saying it's going to happen on the first, you know, first or second or third, but the more that they come back, they may realize there's a culture of kids who respect their parents, kids who sit still. And that's going to. The culture itself, in my opinion, is going to help bolster a, you know, them, them taking care of their kid and making sure that the kid. And again, I'm not looking for complete perfection. I got four kids and my kids can be crazy, too. And so it's not like we're coming from on high here. We're saying you really do have to think about others. You got to think about. It's the golden rule. Do I want this? What? I want worship like this that is completely full of distraction and things like that, where people are. I mean, at some point I do think that. And this is not for the visitor, this is the difference. But for the member, at what point is my kid hindering somebody else's worship and that making my kid a stumbling block to them? If they're trying to really center their minds on Christ during the Lord's Supper and in that moment, you're just hearing the kid kick the chair or, you know, you are stomped the ground or call out loudly or whatever, and you're really having a tough time. And I've been in, we all been in those worship services week after week after week for a member. Yes, your kid is now causing other people to stumble and not be able to engage with the worship to the almighty God. God because you can't get control of it. That's a problem. That's a problem. So I do think that the elders in that, in that situation have a right and maybe even a duty to take the parents aside and say this is the case. Do they? They're not over the spiritual souls of the visitor and they can't set those parameters on the visitor. We hope the visitor comes back and we hope the culture helps culminate that or culminate to the point of the kid being, you know, better trained? There's no guarantee in that. But yes, I think there is a difference there. [00:15:22] Speaker A: This filter doesn't always work, but I found it helpful when looking at things like this before, and that is when looking at a decision that leadership made specifically within the church, always run it through the filter of did they make the easier decision or the tougher decision for this? What is easier? Putting out a post like this, putting out a service announcement like this, or putting out announcements saying, listen, we expect our families to have kids that are respectful through worship. Again, they should have probably specified the toddler baby thing. What are you going to do for a baby? Nothing, right? So talk about toddlers or whatever. That's the harder thing to do is to put out an announcement, say, hey guys, this is the expectation, you know, your kids will sit quietly. Your kids, you know, they're not going to be allowed distraction. If they are or if they need to be trained, we ask that you remove them. That get. That's not. That doesn't feel as good. Right? That's not as nice. Again, what's easier to tell? To set a dress code for worship or to say, you know, pretty much come as you are. [00:16:21] Speaker C: Right. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Doesn't really matter what you wear, what's easier. And typically when you. What you see in weaker leadership is something that is a decision that is made that will lean more towards easier or maybe I should say more approval. More approval. Right. This. This thing that went out from this church seemingly obviously not universal because we're here. And again, plenty of others have expressed kind of, you know, disagreement. Pretty widespread approval. Right. Could you imagine if they put out the other thing? [00:16:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:52] Speaker A: Or put out. The option would not have gone viral. [00:16:54] Speaker C: If it did, it would have been for the wrong reasons. Yeah, right. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Exactly. And so that's. Do you guys remember actually the letter that went out. This, this one did go viral. The letter that went out to the woman about disfellowshipping she was living. I think it was some kind of sexual sin was involved. I mean, so this church was putting out this letter to her saying, we care about your soul, but we can't fellowship you. Paraphrasing, of course, due to the sin that you're engaged in. And that post went viral for all the wrong reasons because they're. Look at this hateful church like that was the tough thing to do for that. The easy thing to do for that leadership structure would have been to say, come in anytime you can. We're happy to have you. You know, we'll pray for you. Let's work on this. That's not what they did. They took the harder out and got blasted for it. And so I do think that's also part of what rubbed me maybe slightly the wrong way with this. Even if it was good intention, even if it, you know, again, I'm pro life, I'm pro family. It was definitely the easy, high approval rating angle to go with. And that's what they did. So again, that filter doesn't always work, but I think it works here. [00:17:52] Speaker C: That's a really great point. And that filter. Yeah. I mean, you look at a lot of these things kind of fall in that way. The other thing that is really frustrating with some of these things is the members always have to take a back seat to the person who's going to come in. No matter how the other person will behave, no matter how serious the other person is, the members are just gonna have to bear the brunt of it. And there is a degree, obviously the Bible talks about leaving the 99 to find the 1. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:20] Speaker C: And the members should be. We've talked about before the. Don't be the little old lady who's like, you're in My seat. Don't be the member who scares people off. Don't be the member that the visitor. The first time they're there, you're just giving them the death glare the whole time. Absolutely. On the other hand, if you're just saying, hey, it would be better for everybody in here if we let somebody come in, their kids screamed the entire time. They didn't hear the sermon and nobody else did. But, boy, we let them know how nice we are. That's not cool. You're telling the members it doesn't matter that you get to worship God. It doesn't matter that you get to hear a sermon. You don't want to send that message. But as Will said, that makes you the bad guy, and that's the harder decision to make. And so what are you going to do? Well, I guess that gets to one of the topics we want to cover here, that is the dynamic of confrontation over these kinds of things. Obviously, having some kind of policy is a really good way to start it off that you're not targeting anyone. Although if you have this problem and you set a policy, it's gonna look like you're targeting somebody, but from the top down, from what the leadership can do, but then maybe what some of the members can do with a visitor, with a member, with somebody where this is an ongoing problem versus with, you know, somebody who's only been there two or three weeks or whatever, and then accepting that, we got to talk about the approachability side of it as well. But how should this be addressed for a church? And again in the different ways for member and visitor? In just three verses, 2 Peter 1:5:7, the apostle Peter lays out a divine blueprint for spiritual growth. Yet these Christian graces are often quoted far more than they are understood. 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The Christian God's Blueprint for the Development of Complete Christians by Adam Kozord is available now on Amazon.com and paperback, Kindle and audiobook. [00:20:54] Speaker B: What are your thoughts on having. [00:20:57] Speaker C: You can't ask a question. I just asked a question. [00:21:00] Speaker A: That's Joe's go to, man. [00:21:01] Speaker B: Exactly. I'm the therapist, of course, I always [00:21:03] Speaker C: ask, answering a question with a question. [00:21:05] Speaker B: There you go. What are your thoughts on having women designated, like older women in the congregation designated as baby helpers? Kind of, you know, and it's like, it's just something that the congregation does so it doesn't feel pushy. It doesn't feel like, hey, you need help with your kids. But it's like, hey, we have some women that are more than willing to help with the kids if you need help at all. They brought coloring books, they brought things like that. They're more than willing to help sit with the kids. Kids. I was thinking about, like, how you would, how you would approach this, because the moment that you're a visitor somewhere and an older woman comes up and goes, basically you're really struggling with your kids. And she comes up and goes, hey, you know, if you need any help, it's like, that could very easily turn people away from the church and be like, well, great. You're judging me in today's day and age, unfortunately. [00:21:47] Speaker A: But my wife would be so grateful if somebody did that. [00:21:50] Speaker B: I think, oh, that'd be incredible. That'd be incredible. For some women, they'd be like, thank you, thank you, that'd be great. Other women be like, no, I got it. They don't know you from Adam, you know, type of thing. And so they may not. And other people might get offended. So it's a tricky subject. However, if the church did have kind of a program, quote unquote, of sorts of like, hey, we just got some women that they have some snacks, they have some, some coloring books and are more than willing to help with anything like that if you need that. They're going to be, you know, I don't know how you'd exactly roll that out. Curious your guys thoughts on that as a potential to. It would give the old ladies something to really work with. They're great with kids a lot of the time and so plug them into a different ministry of sorts, and it would help other moms, even members, feel like they could really rely on it and maybe create that camaraderie between an older and a younger woman. And it might be able to help the visitors to, you know, to feel like, okay, this is just something that the church does. So she comes and offers my help. That's just kind of her role here. And she's offering help to a lot of different people. You know, something along those lines. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Just. [00:22:49] Speaker B: I'm thinking out loud here, but what are your thoughts? [00:22:51] Speaker A: No, I like that. I mean, I think you could do it fairly organically too. Just, you know, pulling a couple ladies aside and say, especially depending on how big your congregation is or how small it is and say, hey, just keep an eye out for visitors with small kids. Or again, you got families that have smaller kids, just maybe rotate. Because what you don't want is that, you know, the same 65 year old lady to be dealing with kids every single Sunday and never search for a [00:23:13] Speaker B: lesson you want to. [00:23:14] Speaker A: So yeah, like right, but some kind of rotation but you know, keeping it out of the realm of this is our program and more. So this is what we do here, right? This is, you know, and, and picking several people, maybe it's elders wives or whatever to rely on that you can kind of help drive this. Yeah, I like that idea. I think that's good. As far as to further get into Jack's question of like what are ways that the churches can help with this. Maybe this is, is branching off into a different, different angle or different tangent here. I think one of the. Because what we really didn't get into with that, that announcement that went out, I think it's pretty clear babies are, you know, there's not much you can do about babies. Right. So how old, how young or how young, I should say how young is too young for this not to apply to the reason I asked. [00:24:04] Speaker C: Even with babies though, I would say, you know, if they're baby screams sometimes, like they're, they're. Most churches have a cry room, have a place for you to go. So that's on the parent. Obviously with the kid you're expecting a little bit more of the kid. And so I get what you're saying about kind of splitting there, but there is an expectation there too. [00:24:18] Speaker A: I guess my point is like I could see somebody think, well my two year old put him in the same bucket as the baby. I don't think so. Like I've got a two year old and my two year old understands me very clearly and my two year old very clearly knows when I. So I guess what I'm getting at is I think churches need to have higher expectations and more uniform standards for how kids should behave. For instance, I would have no problem if an eldership put this exact same announcement out and said, if we see your 16 year old on their phone during worship, we will ask them to leave. I would have no problem with that. Right, so we'll start working your way down. What about 10, 11, like how, how should we expect them to behave? How should we expect the, the eight year old to behave? Do we want, if a church sent out an announcement, 8 year olds, if we see you running in the hallway and running down the auditorium or whatever it is, we're going to have a policy for that. I think this, this loud kid thing can apply all the way down to. Again, can your kid understand you? If so, we expect you to have your kid under control. And if he's not under control, I mean, because you'll hear parents that say that like my kid just doesn't listen. Like, why does your kid not listen? You know, again, is that a you problem or is that a him problem or her problem? And so I guess what I'm getting at here is I think just more uniform standards across the board would be great. Again, a two year old, we expect you to, you know, you need to have your 2 year old under control. You need to have your 7 year olds not running down the hallway. You need to have your 14 year olds not staring at their phone during worship. Churches don't do that kind of stuff like so yeah, that's kind of, that was a major take I had from this as well. [00:25:46] Speaker C: You're, you're pulling on a really interesting string here beyond just what they do in the church building that you're now telling churches to interfere with parents and their parenting. And I 100% am in favor of that. I think that is the church's duty. But man, a lot of people get real upset about that. You're telling me my kid, you know, and. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah, but my point is it applies all the way down to the 2 and 3, 4 year old. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Oh it does. I mean, because when you're talking about, hey, your kid's on their phone in church, your kid is, is, you know, being really loud with their toys at 4 years old. Any, the whole spectrum of there it's you as a parent are not handling your responsibility. People are very sensitive about that. And so we're gonna talk about approachability here in a minute. I think this is a great idea for a church to say, hey, we're not gonna make every decision about how everything needs to go in your house while you're in the church building. This is what we expect you as parents to be doing. And that's gonna trickle into some other parenting decisions. And why. I mean, the Bible speaks about parenting. Why is it, like a taboo to talk about parent. You're not doing a real good job of it. That. And. And you don't even have to say that. But to say what you're doing here is not acceptable. And. And this. You need to change your approach to this. [00:26:59] Speaker A: I think. Sorry, Joe. I'm sure you got thoughts. I think a lot of it. I think a lot of it's mom culture of the. You know, and I'm not trying to not shade at females. I'm saying the mom culture on social media is everybody's got to do what's best for them. You can't criticize. [00:27:12] Speaker C: Nothing's better than another. [00:27:15] Speaker A: If you want to feed your kid a bunch of garbage and seed oils and whatever, and. And like, Happy Meals, fast food, go for it. If you want to feed them healthy stuff, who's to say one's better? Right? Or the screen example is always the one I use. If you want to stick your kid in front of a screen for eight hours and I want to send them outside, they're both the same. I think mom culture, very much social media plays into a lot of that. [00:27:36] Speaker B: What's a body positivity movement? No, no, you're good. [00:27:39] Speaker A: That's a great example as well. Yeah. [00:27:41] Speaker B: You know, of. Well, we can't really say. It's like, no, absolutely we can. And the doctors do say that. And I think from Correct. The. The struggle is so many. Like, there's an online culture. So many parents are willing to say, I'm struggling, I'm burnt out. I don't know what to do. And there's an online culture amongst Instagram moms and things like that where, like, it's just getting on there and saying, I'm burnt out and I'm fed up with the kids. And that's where you get all the phrases like, oh, can't wait for them to go back to school type of thing. So on the one hand, we're all aware of this, that they are struggling as parents. And on the other hand, most of the time, they don't listen to their own parents, and so they're getting nothing from their own church affirmations. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Teaching, too, is what it is most of the time. [00:28:16] Speaker C: Right. [00:28:16] Speaker B: And if the church ever did say, okay, fine, we'll help you with that. Here's our standards here. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, they. There's no way that they go for that, even though they just got on social media and said that they're really right. They just got done saying they're struggling. So it's like, well, which is it? Because if you are struggling, this is a Titus 2 moment where the older has an opportunity to teach the younger. And if we framed it in that way, what we have to do is teach. And Jack, this is going to get you into your point of like the approachability, the teachability and the approachability. And I think if we. This is something I want to really work with my kids on. I want to work on them being more approachable about things and being more teachable, especially as they grow. Like you don't grow past the point of learning new things and hopefully of people being able to approach you with something. And especially if it's something like parenting, man, Nobody's getting it 100% right. So we want to be more approachable when it comes to things like that rather than this being a value judgment. But Jack, I think you had some other thoughts on the approachability piece because this is just as important as how we, we say it. That's the old, you know, the elders or the older coming to the younger. I think we have a real problem with the younger being approachable, with the younger being willing to accept what the older has to say without it being a judgment call, without them, you know, without them getting really hurt by it. And potentially it's the, the church trauma and the wounds, you know, church wounds and things like that. And they use these almost as badges of honor. We have a problem with just being approachable. How do we fix that? And what are your thoughts on that? [00:29:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I mentioned earlier I was going to go hunt down a post on this whole thing that I thought was really valuable. It's by Hans Feen. If you've ever said, okay Patrick, then you know who that guy is. He's the one who does those videos. He says when it comes to kids in church, 80% of parents need to hear that their kids are not nearly as disruptive as they think and that they should keep bringing their kids. 20% of parents will inflict their screaming banshees on anyone forever non stop. Because before they will ever reconsider their terrible non parenting strategies. The challenge with these bring your noisy kids announcements is that the 20% for whom they're not written will embrace them. The 80% for whom they are written won't or are written won't. And he's exactly right that the people that need to hear, hey, do a better job with your kid, don't Care, not gonna listen to it. The people who are already self conscious about that. And so they're. The, the approachability thing, there's a self consciousness, there's a humility, there's a. Because the other thing is if somebody approaches you with a criticism, with a critique, with a suggestion, with advice, you don't have to take it, but you have to be able to take it without going, I'm never coming to this place again. They want me to do this different, they want to do that different. It's okay to take advice into consideration and go, actually, I think I have a good reason for doing it this other way. If you do that every time, then you're not very approachable. But on the other hand, if you just bristle at anyone suggesting anything to you, how are you ever going to learn or grow from somebody who's got more experience than you? [00:31:07] Speaker A: That's exactly right. All I was going to say was evaluate what they're saying on its merit. Is it true? Is what they're saying true? And sometimes. One thing I've learned is that self awareness is not exactly a common currency right now. Some people just don't have it. And so sometimes all it takes is somebody pointing it out. Like, man, I hadn't even. Maybe I hadn't noticed, but like, oh, I didn't realize that was such a big deal. But Jack, you're exactly right some. So many times the gut reaction is, look, victim, I'm the victim, right? Let me look for a reason to be offended. I can't believe you would say that about me or my kid. And listen as kind of, I'll just kind of echo what you said, but this is kind of what was running through my mind. You don't have to necessarily agree with what somebody said. Let's say somebody comes and critiques me about the way I discipline my kids, for instance, outside of church, like just, you know, in normal day to day life, my parents, you know, critique me or whatever it is. I don't have to agree with them. At the end of the day, you know, it's my kids I'll discipline the way that I think they should be disciplined. But I at the very least owe them the courtesy of, you guys are my parents, I, you raised me, I respect you. You did a great job with that. Let me at least listen, right? Let me at least evaluate what you're saying on the merit. And obviously for the church example, maybe it's not your parents directly, but I think we should give each other the benefit of the doubt. If an older member comes to you about your kid, or again another example, again the 14 year old on their phone or whatever it is and comes to you that it's not going to be a gut reaction of I'm the victim. It needs to be a let me evaluate that. Is that true? Do I agree with that? And I just think so many times people skip that step. It's just straight to how dare you say that? And you know, no thanks, I'm good type of thing. It's like that needs to be the first step. [00:32:47] Speaker B: Well, when women drive the church, as we've talked about and we have really stepped into that state of the church, weak men and stronger women. Women don't thrive in conflict. But what's that? So. [00:33:02] Speaker C: Exactly, Exactly. [00:33:04] Speaker B: So, you know, when you think about it like there is a. So for instance, the Bible use words like exhortation or even the rebuke. Like there are words that it will use that are strong, that it talks about Timothy doing. Paul's telling Timothy to do this. Right. And I think about the exhortation, partly that can be encouragement, but I think there's a stronger piece there of just encouraging. It's like I'm exhorting you to do xyz. We are intended to receive that as Christians and to, to accept the, the, the rebuke or to accept the exhortation. [00:33:34] Speaker C: Reproof is really the one Reprove. That's right here. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's the word here is reprove. I couldn't think of the other one that's in there. Reprove, rebuke, exhort. There in first timing. So second Tim, second Timothy. There you go. Sorry, I'm all over the place here, [00:33:49] Speaker C: but with, with the reproving bit. Sorry. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. You could have been nicer about it [00:33:53] Speaker A: and just exhorted me, but sometimes people need it. [00:33:55] Speaker C: You keep messing up. [00:33:56] Speaker B: You're get rebuked, so you better get rebuked. Exactly. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Don't play the victim, Joe. How dare he? [00:34:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm done with this podcast. Are you kidding me? I'm not coming back. No, but the idea is we are, as Christians all supposed to be able to do this in a culture that doesn't receive anything like this. It's driven by women. And I'm not, I'm not trying to be again, denigrate women here or be misogynistic or any of those things. But truly the inability to create or to have a conflict and hope that it goes well is driven by a woman culture where it's like, we can't have any conflict, which is why everybody gets participation trophies of, like, we don't want anybody to feel bad about themselves. If we had more of a culture in the church, not where we're nitpicking each other. I'm not saying we need to nitpick each other to death, but where there's a little more friction. Like, we're pushing each other to get closer to Christ and to be holier, to be a little bit better. And I think that's what the elders are supposed to do. That's why we want them to be manly men. We want them to be masculine in their, you know, in their approach of, like, we're not wimps, we're not wusses who are, you know, gonna, like, suggest certain things or post on Facebook about. All kids are welcome. Like, what are we doing here, though? That is a wimpy way of leadership, rather than really investing in people's lives and being willing to have a little bit of friction. But the kids were raising. There's a reason they call it snowflakes in millennial culture, but it's like, first off, they raised us. Second off, nobody does. Nobody handles this well. Well, I used to get called out. It's like, well, there was abuse, then there's not saying anything. And there's probably a pendulum swing right in the middle that we're going to try to hit. But that's the key here, is we're not raising our kids to be able to accept these things. We are running it from a woman's point of view where we can't have conflict. And then we're wondering why people leave when that's the case. It's like, this is the only time in the last 20 years where somebody was called out in church. It's probably not going to happen. But if we got used to saying some of these things, you would have a culture where it was more accepted for that family, in my opinion, the family would be like, that's just what we do here. The culture of the church is we push each other to be better. And it's not coming from a place of anger. It's coming from a place of love. Because I saw brother so and so, you know, he got reproved for some of the things he was doing. He had his daughter go to prom and got reproved for it for it, you know, and rebuked to some degree, like, yeah, because we're willing to have that friction. That's what good elders could and should do, in my opinion. Is not shy away from the friction with an amazing amount of love involved. You have to know your flock to be able to provide the friction. That's why it's scary with visitors. But I do think that it's a. And, you know, probably not appropriate, but I do think that's the key here, is up the love and the support and the getting in people's lives, and that allows and opens the door for a little more friction than we're used to. [00:36:30] Speaker C: I want to hold that culture thought for a minute because I think there's an interesting thread to pull on there. But before the culture thing, the other thing that's really interesting here, you brought up, you know, women's culture or whatever. And a lot of times it's the young moms that feel the brunt of this. If we're following the principles that we set forth of the father leading the home, you should be going to the dad. I agree. And it's less of an attack when you talk to the dad. And it's not always dad bringing the kids to church. And then you're gonna have to deal with it a little bit more delicately if it's a single mom bringing her kids. And that's a really hard thing to do. And that's where she really does need an older woman to sit with her 100% on all those things. But when you go to the dad, it changes the dynamic. And it's there. There's a little bit of less of that feeling attacked kind of thing that women can feel from each other. And the judgment of. [00:37:13] Speaker A: It's less personal. [00:37:14] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. It's. It's less. And so as man to man, it's like, hey, man, brother, we're glad you're here. However. And I'm going to tell you, I've. I had this happen to me. A brother who I love very much. I don't know if he listens. I know his wife will. We were doing an auditorium renovation, and the. The seats were all loose seats, and the kids, they were pushing seats and moving them around during church, and it was on a plywood floor, and so every toy they dropped was 10 times louder. It was awful. And it was one of those, like, yeah, we're just getting through this for a month until we get carpet and the new seats in here and all that. But after a couple weeks of. Got out of hand a little bit, the kids were kind of moving around too much, whatever. And a brother just said, hey, you know, it's. He didn't. He didn't even like, pull me aside, but just kind of like, yeah, it's. It's getting kind of loud in here kind of thing. And it. He was right. And it was kind of like, so the next time I took a bunch of those single seats and kind of shoved them together so they couldn't. And then I'm like, I'm the last one. They can't go moving these things around. And I addressed it. [00:38:12] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:38:13] Speaker C: That's all it was. There wasn't any judgment. There wasn't any, like, I'm gonna, you know, let you know what a terrible parent you were. It's just, hey, church is kind of loud right now. Like, you're right. Let's do something about that. And so as this should be very much man to man, how dialed in are men? And I appreciate this, brother a lot. How dialed in are most men to say something to another man in the church? Like, almost everything in the business of the church gets done by women. And that's not a strike against women. That's women are the active ones in most churches. Women are the involved ones. Women are the ones that are talking to each other. Guys got to get involved in this stuff to help other young fathers and dad, you know, husbands and all those things as well. Hey, guys. Jack Wilke here. I wanted to tell you about our seminars at Focus Press. Each of us involved in the work have a series of lessons that we have prepared to encourage churches to help you understand the word better, how to navigate this culture. We cover a wide range of topics, from things like evolution and apologetics to cultural issues to the family to the godly young men. Kind of content that Joe and will do to church reset, which is, of course my passion, to schedule one of us. Whether Dr. Brad Harab will harab Joe Wilkie or me. Jack Wilkey, reach out to [email protected] if you'd like to talk to me or if you'd like to talk to one of the others, I'll pass your information along to them. We'd love to come and encourage your church and put on one of our Focus Press seminars. [00:39:41] Speaker A: This is such a great point. Sorry, just briefly, Joe, and it's all you. I was just going to say, isn't it amazing how many of our episodes just come back to the dad and the husband and the father stepping up and leading? Right. I mean, we talked a lot in this episode, and I think everybody is probably mentally picturing the mom as the one who's kind of handling all this the dad being the one that says, you know what? You're not going to act like that. You're not going to. Again, the parents that say, well, my kid just doesn't listen. It's on the dad, because the dad is the one setting the tone. So that was the only thing I was going to say is it feels like so many. So much of this stuff comes back to the dad either doing his job really well or needing to be pushed in that direction. [00:40:19] Speaker B: Well, that's exactly it. Because Ephesians 6 is, you know, fathers disciplining the children. We see from Hebrews 12 or 13, you know, God is a father disciplining the children we see all the way through Proverbs, the father's discipline. The father is intended to take the discipline. And that, yes, it shows up in the church. So you're right. In our mind's eye, I think the woman comes to the surface of like, boy, she needs to crowd the kids. Like, why is that not the man's role now? Some guys, the men's or the men are serving in worship, whatever. And so the woman's gonna have a little bit of time for that where it's just her maybe. But yeah, the guy needs to be just as involved. And it's not okay for dads to be checked out while the wife is trying to corral her three or four kids or whatever. Like, that's just as important. And so when we get our roles right and when the dad really is leading and when the dad is paying attention to man, is his family, is he getting in, is he allowing his wife to get the most out of the worship service as possible? All hands on deck where you can use grandparents, whatever it may be. I think you really have to think about what are we trying to accomplish here. And ultimately, if the dad is looking at it from that perspective, he realized, I want my kids to accomplish or to get to the point where they are comfortable being in worship, like, that's what we're accomplishing, is that they understand we're coming before the Almighty God, giving them our very best. There's young kids that aren't going to grasp that. But the more we can train that that's a dad's job. That's him setting that culture. And that's when I'm talking about it being more of a feminine type way. There's a lot of dads that have taken that on, a lot of guys that have taken that on of the feminine approach to Christianity, rather than having a little bit of that friction once Again, it's a guy stepping up and it should be a guy to God. I think that's a very important point, Jack. It should be guys that are calling each other to higher standards. [00:41:55] Speaker C: That is one of the biggest issues of, like, where a church can't set a culture is because. And I posted something about this the other day about, you've got the stay at home moms feel looked down on by the working, you know, career woman moms. And you've got the career woman moms feel judged by the stay at home moms. And like, everybody's got to choose for their family what's going to do. And so, like, we don't have a shared culture. So we're at each other's throats, we're viewing each other skeptically, we're mad at each other. We're like these things. The homeschool families, the public school families versus the private school families, all of these things. And if a church was like, hey, we're gonna recommend this and this is gonna be like the good, better, best Christianity, things like that. Well, it's the same about discipline, it's the same about all of these things. We're talking about noise in the church, like gentle parenting. Hey, your kid needs to be disciplined. And so I wanted to get to some of the practical stuff of like, a church is not out of bounds to say, hey, if your two or three year old is making noise, we expect you. And not like, he drops a toy one time. If there's a consistent noise going on and he's just getting, you know, just not stopping, we expect you to take him out and let him know that's not okay and bring him back in. Because the other thing that happens is we'll take him out and they get to play in the room out front. So they train mom and dad, oh, I'll just make noise and get to go play in the toy room or things like that. You know, if your baby's screaming, we are certainly understanding. If you want a nurse covered in here, that's fine as well. We've got a room for it in there. If they're screaming for more than like 10 seconds, we're gonna need you to do something about that. Like, you can say things to people like this, but it's one of those, like, no, you can't. That's really taboo. We just, yeah. Distracts everybody, but we're not gonna. We just hope maybe they figure it out. And whatever the case may be getting very practical to say in this situation, we want you to do this. Why would that be wrong? [00:43:47] Speaker A: And again, this is not to beat the dead horse of the point that I brought up 20 minutes ago. You can, you can apply this to the 6 year old, to the 9 year old, to the 14 year old, all the way up. I mean, obviously even for adults, I mean, there's certain things I think you should be able to come out and say, hey, you can't. You know, we expected this to take place. But yeah, I mean, I love this point because I think ultimately people do desire a standard to an expectation that is clear. Something that I can't stand in my line of work is any kind of ambiguity, any kind of vagueness, like it's kind of unclear. I mean, even with that announcement, like what is loud, what is kid? Not a lot of specificity there. Right. As we kind of spoke to at the start of the episode. And so yeah, for the two, three year old Jack, as you're speaking to, like specifically, this is our policy of what we expect, what we would ask you to do. I truly do think people deep down, that's what, that's what they want. Like, that's, that's because again, it's clear, it's, it's something that's very like black and white. Okay. This is what I do in this instance versus because I know I've talked to, and my wife, I guess primarily has talked to young moms that kind of feel the struggle of like, should I take them out? You know, is because they'll say, is it. Sometimes it's more of a distraction for us to just get up and take them out and then come sit back down and then get up again and take them out. And so I know this is something that they struggle with. And so that's where I do, I guess all I'm saying is this clear expectation and very specific expectation laid out on a number of levels I think is very, very helpful. Again, similarly, for just to provide an example, if a church mandated for the Lord said, hey, if you're serving on the table in the Lord's Supper, we would expect you to wear a tie or something like that. That's pretty specific. As opposed to we want you to make sure that you dress appropriately for doing the Lord's Supper, well, that's different for everybody. Right? And so the specificity is the point that I'm getting at here. That is just really helpful to people, in my opinion. Joe? [00:45:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. That's a really good point. I was curious as we Were thinking about that kind of building up. What are your guys's thoughts? We've talked about this before, got on the record. What are your guys's thoughts on something like children's church? As we think about the practicals, how to. What do we do? [00:45:47] Speaker A: Some people might look at somebody solution. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Somebody might look at that and go, well, the solution is just giving children's church. Get the kids out, you know, maybe third grade and under something along those lines. And that way parents can worship, everything's great, the kids go have a great time. All three of us are against it. But I'm curious why you guys might say you're against that. Why that would be a no go in your book when it seems like such a simple solution. And for a lot of big churches, it is their solution. [00:46:14] Speaker C: I gotta be try to be nice here. That is an infuriating decision. That's one of the most disgusting inventions of modern Christianity is telling children, no, no, we're all gonna worship God without you. Mommy and daddy want you to go somewhere else so we can worship God on our own. We're gonna take members of the church out of the auditorium and send them to go babysit for an hour. So they don't get to worship God or hear a sermon either. And the kids don't get to pick up on these things. They don't get to watch mom and dad take communion or watch mom and dad sing songs, or have mom and dad flip open. I mean, all of my kids want to open the songbook and have me flip the page to them. I mean, like from 3 years old on up. No, you don't get that opportunity because it'd be a little bit more peaceful if they weren't in here. What are we thinking? I mean, like, let the little children come to me. No, let the little children go to the room where they can ride tricycles. What on earth? Who came up with this idea and why were they not laughed out of the room? Sorry, I'm gonna stop right there. [00:47:13] Speaker A: Keep going, man. [00:47:14] Speaker B: This is great. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Couldn't have said it better myself. [00:47:17] Speaker C: I can't handle it, man. Like on earth brought that about. And this goes back to the point will it made earlier. Our culture hates kids and we send them away from. You got weddings that are kid free now. You've got all kinds of people want kid free movie theaters, kid free airplanes, kid free. All this stuff. And so we just came up with kid free. We were like, yeah, amen to that. We'll have kid free church now. [00:47:37] Speaker A: Kid Free worship, right? I mean, just the name, the name in and of itself. Children's church, like that's not what it's for. And I think in the same way you guys have made this point before about. Or I made it to about. About Live Stream, right? By offering Live Stream, what you're doing is enabling people to say, ah man, I've got a headache, I'm gonna stay home tonight, just watch through Live Stream when they wouldn't have had that option before. And that's not a legitimate option to stay home from worship for a lot of people. Similarly, children's church is just a way for you to enable. I mean I've seen children's church that goes up to like third grade, for goodness sakes. Third grade, what is that? Eight years old, nine somewhere in there. Like that's, that's insane. And so yeah, I think it, by offering that, it is enabling parents to not do the difficult thing, which is teach kids how to behave in worship. I mean, I want my third grader taking notes in the sermon like, I don't have a third grader yet, but that is absolutely my plan. But it is enabling these parents to have ill behaved kids and to basically take the easy way out when it comes to kids behaving in worship. And so any decision like that, that's going to enable a poor parenting choice. I'm altogether, you know, opposed to separate and apart from Jack's point, which is it's just not biblical whatsoever. Like you can't find any precedent for a worship assembly, worship, you know, of the church gathering together, hey, let's send the kids out, you know, to have goldfish time. Like that's, you just don't see it anywhere. And so for those two reasons, yeah, I didn't say it any better than Jack, but I'm very adamantly opposed to [00:49:08] Speaker C: one other point before you jump in, Joe. Kids need to learn. Hey, there's things in life that aren't about you. And this is a really, really important one that it's not about me either. It's not about, it's all about Jesus. And you can sit still and you know, pay attention to whatever degree you can through this time. [00:49:25] Speaker A: And kids need to be told that often. I mean, to that point we went to, we went to my cousin's wedding and my 4 year old kept asking, hey, when are we eating, you know, what's for dinner? And I kept telling him, this stay is not about you. This time is not about you. It's about our cousin and her fiance. That's getting married. It's about them. So it doesn't matter what time we're eating. Similarly, again, obviously, church and other instances, kids need to be told often, hey, this is not about you. It's a great point. [00:49:51] Speaker B: You guys said it well. And that's what I was gonna say is exactly that point of this is just training. You know, we're training them up to be in church for a long time. No wonder why we're losing kids. No wonder why the kids are walking out the doors. Like, we didn't really want you up until, like, 8 years old. And then we have from 8 to 18 maybe. But then you go sit with your friends and goof off in youth group from basically 13 to 18. And then you go off to college and you're gone. And it's like, yeah, from 8 to 13, basically, we had you in church sitting next to us, hoping that you were paying attention. We had you for five years. Like, no wonder why this isn't working. No wonder why. And why a lot of times we [00:50:22] Speaker C: start losing them when church stops being all about them, right? [00:50:25] Speaker B: And we have to let them know we do want you here. You are an important part of. Of helping worship God in this moment. It ain't about you, but, yes, we work together the same way. It's like the home isn't about you either. But we still do chores together, and we still, you know, play games. We're a family unit, and they get to be a part of this. And I'm just thinking about going back to Deuteronomy 6 and the Shema and whatnot. And it's like, you know, all the assembly gathers together. It's like, hey, the little kids, can you go into the tents over there? Like, Moses is talking. We need to make sure that you're, you know, we're not distracted. We just need you to go into the tent over there and. Are you kidding me? When would that ever be appropriate? Like, the thought of separating the families so that they could pay attention to Moses a little bit better is ridiculous. Of course the families are going to be expected to be there. And again, it goes to the expectation of you should be able to expect your kids to sit there and to be still. And if you can't practice at home, seriously, practice at home sitting still. Put them on the couch. Hey, this is Bible time. We're going to do family. If you're doing family devos family worship, this is a great time. We do it. My kids, where it's like, hey, zip it. And now is not the time for you to be goofing off. Sit down, sit still. We're singing songs and it helps get them into that concept of like, we're here for a reason and so it's [00:51:37] Speaker A: time to be serious. [00:51:38] Speaker B: Right? Right. We take them away until eight years old to do it. I'm with you guys again. I'm just kind of repeating the same talking points. We're doing ourselves such a grave disservice. We're doing the kids a grave disservice by doing that. And it just is like we checked our brain at the doors and it was all for the convenience of the parents. It's not even about the parents. It's not about their convenience either. It's about raising up kids unto the Lord. And the best way to do it is by having them there watching mom and dad sing songs, paying attention in worship, getting off their phone, actually having a real Bible in hand. Like, think of the optics of what a kid is seeing every Sunday and [00:52:11] Speaker A: learning how to participate themselves. One of the coolest things is watching my 4 year old when he hears a song that he knows because we sing it or we listen to it on the way to church, his eyes light up. I know this song. And to hear him start just to sing at age 4 years old. I'm sure you guys have similar story. To learn how to participate. To learn. I mean, my kids love passing the trays. Makes me a little nervous every single time, but still, they love dropping our check in the plate. They love, you know, even tonight at church, Jackson wanted me, to Jack's point to turn the songbook. Like, imagine missing out on all that. And all right, you're. You're in fourth grade now. Come on, come on to worship. Like, what is this? I haven't done this for the last, you know, however many years. Yeah, it's just making sure your kids are learning how to participate from the time that they're old enough to know what's going on. I think it's huge. Jack, I don't know where you want to go next. We've kind of covered a lot just to wrap that. [00:53:07] Speaker C: Joe brought up Deuteronomy 6. This really sticks with me. He says in verse 20, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, what do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean, which the Lord our God commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. And he goes on from there like, he's going to see you doing these things and ask, why do we do that. And you're going to say, here's our story. And I had John 3 years old, sitting on my lap the other day. Dada. What's that? Dada, what's that? And just yesterday we're at home, he's like, yeah, and at church you eat Jesus skin and drink his blood. Like, pretty much, buddy. You know, like, that's. It stuck with him. He was asking me about it Sunday and now he's thinking about it and he's. He's asking me, why do we do that? Well, because Jesus died for us. And he's at 3 and he's picking this stuff up exactly as Deuteronomy 6 says. And you're just killing that opportunity for kids up to 6, 7, 8 years old. I mean, yeah, I don't need to get going on it again. But there's one other thing I wanted to get to before we get out of here, and this is a very fair objection. Something I saw a couple people saying in response to the Matt Walsh post and all that. We do live in a time where there are a lot of children with special needs. With, with. There's autism, there's all kinds of other things like that that are make. That asking for the kind of behavior we're talking about is not exactly in the cards for a lot of these families. There are going to be kids where it's not a. Well, if you just discipline them. Right. They would not do that. No, that's. I mean, even in the sense of like the guy at the award show with Tourette's a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you guys saw that headline, but, like, he's got Tourette's, you know, like, and, and kids. I'm not saying the kids have Tourette's, but they've got things where it's not really in their control as much. And so people were saying, oh, so you're saying me and my kid with, with these, these developmental issues or with feel like that, whatever it may be. [00:54:49] Speaker A: That's the grocery cart thing that you bring up, though. [00:54:51] Speaker C: It really is the, the exception. We're not talking about people who are the exception. Now. I will say churches need to have some kind of answer in those situations. It's not. Well, yep, just don't come to our church. [00:55:04] Speaker B: We have that at our church. We have a young girl in the back that is special needs. She makes quite a bit of noise. To me, I feel like there's a more special place in the heart for that where it's like you understand? Dad's doing everything he possibly can. It's a sad situation on multiple fronts. And so the dad's there alone and he's doing everything he can to try to help. Yeah, there's probably times where I think it'd be great if he could maybe corral her and bring her out toward the back a little bit. Maybe that is a conversation, but I think there's a lot more grace given in those moments of you can tell he is trying and he's doing what he can. And it's really, really tough to, you know, to corral those in those situations sometimes. And we certainly don't want that to be a discouragement of, like, man, I don't want to be. Because he's got such a good heart. And so I think so much of this goes into the heart of the parent. It goes into the. The attempts that they're making and the, you know, I really am trying type of thing. Like, you can tell that. And so, yeah, people are willing to put up with it. And a lot of times it's a lot more sporadic. I find it's a lot more sporadic than the kid who just needs to be disciplined. You know, they're having a call out of the moment or whatever, and people realize it's a time that will pass. Whereas with a kid, you genuinely get the sense, like, this could go on all worship. I mean, he might actually scream and, like, try to hit his parents all worship long. That's not the case with special needs. And so I don't know. Those are just my thoughts on it. And again, having experienced that at the church that we go to, there's just a difference in perspective that, yes, there is. That there still is a distraction there, but it's, you know, it's going to pass. And I don't get the same sense, like, in the worship services that I've had with other kids, you don't get that same sense. I don't know. That's just my perception of it. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Not much to add. I think you covered that really well. [00:56:49] Speaker C: Yeah. It's about what can be controlled, what's reasonable to expect and what's not correct. And, I mean, this whole thing goes back to, like, what's reasonable to expect of visitors versus members versus babies versus toddlers versus teenagers. Like, and I think. [00:57:03] Speaker A: I think. [00:57:03] Speaker C: I think our frustration with the post is, like, no expectations. [00:57:07] Speaker A: Right. And I think that's what I was gonna say. I think. I think the bottom line is what's reasonable to be expected more than what we expect currently, I think we can safely say that for most congregations, what's reasonable is a whole lot more than what we're doing right now. So, yeah, I don't know, guys. I feel like we've exhausted it pretty well. I'm very curious to hear what people's thoughts are. I mean, the results were very mixed as regarding like the original post that came out and some very vocal supporters. I had Facebook friends that shared it. Again, a church that's a couple miles down the road from me basically put out an A church. Christ put out an exact same replica of that. And so pretty well received by most and then some with maybe a little bit more critical eye were, you know, maybe some more raised eyebrows. So all that to say if you have thoughts, if you have comments, specifically, if you're subscribed to Focus plus, which is our patreon, we do an extra episode every single week. We call it the Deep End, Responding to your questions and comments. Get those in. Let us know if you have any specific questions or thoughts on this topic. Anything else, guys, before we, before we wrap up. All right with that again, as always, we appreciate you listening. We don't say it enough. We don't say it often. We don't like to do it necessarily. Like every podcast does, the beginning. If you like our show, give us a, like subscribe on whatever platform you use, give us a rating or review. That's that stuff really does help. But the biggest thing you can do to help out is just tell a friend, tell people about the podcast if you like it. But with that, guys, we'll wrap up with this episode and we will talk to you guys next week. [00:58:44] Speaker C: Foreign. Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org.