Meredith Miller | Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From

Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode of So What Else. I'm your host, Caitlin. Today, I have the honor of interviewing author Meredith Miller. She recently wrote a book called Woven, "Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn't Have to Heal From." And if that tagline doesn't get you, then I don't know what will. If you are someone that has kids in your life in any capacity, whether you are a parent and grandparent, whether you teach Sunday school or you babysit or whatever, if instilling faith in the children that are a part of your life is important to you in any way, then this conversation is going to really hit home for you. We talk a lot about how to make sure that our kids are getting an actual faith based in trust in a good God as opposed to just sin management and obedience training. We get into a lot of really deep stuff like that. How to talk about the Bible, how to make the Bible about God and not about us. And honestly, I save our hardest hidden question for the end. So you are going to want to stay through till the end where we talk about sin and kids and if kids are just little sinners. And I'm just going to leave it at that. Okay, you're going to love this conversation. You're going to love Meredith. Stay tuned. I am so excited to talk to you today. Your book woven, nurturing a faith your kid doesn't have to heal from the tagline alone. It's like it gives me chills. It really, really does. And I'm not just saying that, but because you know, I'm a mom, I have three daughters ages seven, five, and one. And like I said, I now work on staff at a church as part of the Children's Ministry team. So like this really matters to me, you know, and honestly, I think that this topic really matters to any parent and grandparent Sunday school teacher that cares about instilling faith in the children that are in their life. This topic matters, right? And I just think it's becoming really common to hear about kids that will not kids adults that were raised as kids, right? In faith-based homes. And they get into their teenage years, young adult years, and they deconstruct their faith, which in and of itself isn't bad. But then what happens is they blow up their faith. And then they're just like screw it, you know, I'm throwing all of this away. And they end up citing a lot of baggage from the way that faith was first introduced to them. And weird ideas and things like that that kind of set them up for failure in the faith world, right? It just kind of gave them a really bad start, because they were given some, they were taught things in a way that wasn't the best, right? So I have a lot of respect and excitement for the work that you're doing. And I'm just really excited to get into all of it. But before we really get into the book, I would love to start with you. Like what is your story that kind of brought you to the point where you felt the pull to write a book like this? Like why were you brought to a place where you were really passionate about this? Yeah. So it's a number of threads that always kind of come together, right? But part of it is that my growing up church and faith experience was really good. Like I had the good one. And that meant lots of caring adults who loved Jesus and didn't necessarily agree with each other. It meant a lot of fun in the church culture I was a part of. There were just a lot of really good pieces to all of that. And then when I got into grad school, I went to Fuller Seminary and I was working as a kids pastor the first couple of years. And then my third year, I kind of funneled enough, I was like, I don't really want to get pigeonholed in children. So I'd love to do something new. I found my way at that point to Fuller Youth Institute. And they were starting some research on young people and their faith journey. They were following youth groups seniors into their college transition. And I became a research system for that project. And so that became this time when my handful of years doing kids ministry and this new project were starting to come together. And a big piece of that was these students talking about exactly what you're saying of the God I met does not seem to be the kind of God I want to keep following. And so either that means I need to get to know God again or I would rather just be all done. And I could connect some of those dots honestly back to certain things that were just really normal for how we did kids ministry at the time. But maybe not that good. And we all just kind of did it that way. And that was how a lot of curriculum got written. That was sort of how a lot of conferences advocated we do things. And more and more, it became clear that there is this batch of research, but we're really overdue on the response because we kind of kept going back to the same things. And then of course, there's intersecting layers to how those kinds of things get shared with families. What a parent or a caregiver gets told they should do and what would make them a good parent to have a good Christian family and the message is we send. And so that was back in kind of the, I don't know, 2007 is when I started with Fuller Youth Institute. And then it just felt like those questions just kept coming up. And people's stories kept sort of slotting in. And that kind of became a big piece of my story for the last chunk of years. And then you jump to win curriculum started coming home during the closures. And parents are seeing it with new eyes and they're thinking, I don't know how I feel about this. For a lot of reasons. Maybe it felt like it was too much or maybe it felt like it was actual content or whatever it was. But all of a sudden it was like, holy cow, our home is our church for we don't know how long. And also we don't know what that means we're doing. And also some of this doesn't feel like it's very helpful. And that was sort of the place I started writing publicly like online. And from there came a book because it's a great way to put all the thoughts in a hopefully organized sort of space that someone can then add their own story, thoughts, reflections, margin notes. That part's always really fun when you can consolidate it all. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. So let's kind of start with like the big general concept. Okay. So like your book is called woven and it's this metaphor of a web, right? And how our faith, the way I was always taught, the way that it was always talked about when I was growing up, it's like we're build, we have building blocks to our faith, which is a wall, right? Talk me through that whole metaphor and why that doesn't totally work and why a web is a better metaphor to use. So construction based kinds of metaphors. One of the limits, especially when you're talking about how we know things is this assumption that people start from certain fundamental truths upon which you can build other truths and then you build future truths. It is a very modern idea in terms of like philosophers getting all technical. And it's very appealing because if you can just find the right pieces of information or in terms of faith, you could also stack in like the right practices that you get people to start doing the right interpretations of the Bible, then brick by brick, strong faith. And we love construction metaphors for the way they sort of appeal to strengths. And that's not a bad thing, but the limit hits as soon as you have to start accounting for change. And so if I have building blocks that are faith practices that I'm told I have to do, but those practices don't work for me anymore. I'm pulling bricks out of the wall. If I have certain doctrines that I was always taught or true, but then I begin to realize that other theologians have a really different understanding of those same things that I have bricks pulled out of the wall. You do that too many times and it crumbles. And then you're left with someone feeling like they are standing in the middle of dust and destruction and not knowing what to do to completely restart everything. And that feels like a real limit with that mental model. And so then you can jump to again, let the philosophers nerd out in the postmodern space. They start saying, hey, anything we know, it's a lot more like a web. It layers on top of each other the sources of what we know come from so many different pieces of experience and information. And then I started thinking about when you watch a spider. And they have this really neat thing they do where they anchor to something strong. And then they kind of swing across and anchor to something else and again and again. And these anchor strands give the web strength. And then they weave internal threads that are really unique to each spider. It species its environment. That combination of anchor threads that are strong and internal threads that are unique make this home that is safe and nourishing. And it is particularly known for its strength because it can flex under stress. Yes. So then you think about how we grow up and life will bring challenges. And yes, our beliefs might expand or be reimagined or be pushed on. All of that inevitable stress of living. What if a face could flex with it and even be strengthened by it? And then one of the beautiful things I think is when you look at a literal spider web, it gets broken. Stick goes through, bird flies by. And you don't actually restart from nothing. It's not all ruined. You certainly don't like blame the spider. Like, oh my gosh, you totally failed at that. You must be such a bad spider. You tend to the section that was broken and you lean into the strength of the places that aren't. So when I think about families and young people, what I love about the idea that faith is like a spider web is you can anchor to who God is, to the strength, the strength comes from the character of God, not from their performance, their behavior, their adherence to a religious system, but to the actual person of God. Their internal threads get to look unique for who the kid is and who your family is. We don't all have to do one size fits all, which is a whole other thing about buildings, right? We all follow the same blueprint. And I think a lot of Christian families have been told that's really what they're supposed to do. They all look the same totally. What if it didn't have to? And then of course you have this idea that we could be practicing together that things that change or break or stress. We can lean into what we still know to be true of God while we take all the time we need to mend the parts that have changed. And that might be quick. It might be a real quick thing where it's like, oh, this thing doesn't work anymore. I'm going to try something new and on we go, but it might be slow and hard and both can be okay. And so this idea that there is something incredibly strong and resilient from an unlikely source that also accounts for how life seems to really work for so many of us. Even if we don't experience what some people might call a faith crisis or a deconstruction or whatever words, life gets hard. And we are wondering where God will be for us in the middle of that. And so I found that that metaphor was incredibly helpful for accounting for some of those very real pieces of what we experience as people were living in the world and then trying to get to know God in it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. You know, because it's like there's some people that to go back to the wall metaphor, right? Like if we're talking about our faith as a wall and there's building blocks, there's some people that like a major, major building block from when they're young is like a literal seven day creation. And then it's like if they get older and they're like, wait, maybe I maybe it doesn't have to be literal or if someone explains to them, like the book of Genesis is a poem. Like you then they're like, it crumbles. You know what I mean? Like then that's like, well, it's all gone. It's all gone. And yeah, that's an example of like why the wall doesn't work, but a way that's not a problem, you know, because you can have that seven day literal creation interpretation break. But you still have an anchor thread to a God who is creator. Yes. You still have an anchor thread to scripture can be trusted, even as I get to understand it in new ways. You start like these other pieces can hold on to you while you figure out how this thing that seems so critical is now gone. And we all have, I mean, there's a list of all kinds of things like that. I think that's such a good example because it's such a common one. This idea that if you don't have a literal creation, nothing else, then scripture is true. Right. Like then the whole Bible is false. We're throwing it away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. I think that's a huge one. You know, early on in your book, you said, I'm going to read a quote. It said, it's backward to ask a child to obey a God they do not know. Childhood is forgetting to know God so kids can discover if God can be trusted. And I was really, really struck by that because it is so common and easy from when kids are young to pull the just like you should be good because God wants you to be good. And like God wants you to obey mommy and daddy and things like that. And that doesn't feel harmful. That feels like, oh, you know, like we're trying to teach them to be moral people. But as you called out in your book, that is then giving them a moralistic faith, which we don't actually want. Can you explain that? Yeah. So a moralistic faith system, you could think of it a lot like a list management kind of faith. It is a system that says here are the lists of what good Christians do and what good Christians do not do. And then the project of faith becomes adhering to those as best you can to be more good and less bad all the time. And the idea then becomes that God somehow is pleased with you, the better you manage the lists, unhappy with you, the worse you manage the list, and perhaps even not going to help you if you don't. There is always a threat of loss in a moralistic, list-based faith system that you will lose the support, the love, the approval of the deity that sort of animates that system. And long before research started noting how much young people do believe that, there was Dallas Willard calling it the gospel of sin management. In contrast to a gospel of robust and relational grace in a person of Jesus who is always with us. And so a lot of it is well-intentioned. We want kids to feel like faith is relevant. I get that piece. The challenge is that when the grown-ups tell kids, this is how you should act and speak and feel and think. When we're so sure we know what obedience means that we just dictate it to children, the way a child receives that is, here are the items that go on my list. And often we do that and like you said, we do it kind of in a because God says so or because it makes God happy. But if I'm a kid, I don't know God yet. I don't actually know who God is or what God's like because I haven't been given the time or the space for the experiences I need in my young 5, 7, 10-year-old self to figure that out. And I think adults have not often realized how much they've jumped over the trust-building process in exchange for this obedience prescription that they've given kids. Totally. I just love, you know, obviously we can't get into all of it today, but this is an encouragement for people to read your book. I feel like that's really what your book is doing is showing us how to talk to kids at age appropriate ways, just showing them who God is. Just that God is good. God is trustworthy. God is whatever. Like the attributes of God. That's what we should be focusing on. Not what you are expected of you, but just who God is. And you know, you set something later on in the book also when you were talking about teaching Bible stories and you said you know, the way that a lot of times that we teach certain Bible stories is like translated in a kid's mind to like, I should be a good kid so that God's happy with me. And then God's going to make my life happy in return. So it's like it's in exchange. Yes, it wears like a contract. If a kid holds up their end of the deal, God sort of owes them. Yes. And then of course, you've gotten to points of life where like crisis comes or pain hits. And God does not do what that kid thought God was supposed to do. Very disorienting and very disillusioning. And it stemmed in part from the grown-ups sort of misrepresenting the deal. Yeah. That if you just copy the humans of the Bible as they exemplify great discipleship, you will be hashtag blessed in everything you do, child. And I really think at least part of that is that we as grown-ups, okay, maybe on the good side. Of course, I want a good kid. Of course, I want to honest kid, trust where the kid, a patient kid, we need to learn how to be those things. And of course, I believe that as we have space for the spirit to work in us, even more of that comes out. On the other hand, it can be tempting to want a compliant kid who will listen to me and do what I have asked more quickly, please, because oh my goodness, we were supposed to be in bed 20 minutes ago if you would just brush your teeth. Oh, yeah. Or pick up your socks. And so it's really convenient if I can grab a Bible story about somebody who listened right away so that I can tell my kid that they should listen right away. And then those socks aren't on the floor anymore. Which is not actually the same as we are going to get to know God together and figure out how we as a family show that love and practice that love and grace for one another. Those are actually coming from kind of two different paradigms in a lot of ways. And I think a lot of times adults are not always even aware of the degree to which our own stuff when it comes to how kids behave has crept into the ways we do faith of kids. Totally, totally. Now, on the other hand, though, so a lot of times we have parents that are trying to instill what they think is faith in their child, but then they're accidentally doing this, you know, sin management stuff and this obedience stuff and all, you know, whatever and they're tying that to God and it's kind of messing us up. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you have people who take what you call in your book, like the wait and see approach where they're just like, we're just going to like not talk about faith and we're just going to wait and see kind of like what are children like come up with like what questions they ask ever or whatever. What do you think about that? The challenge with wait and see is that we want to be in the conversation. And while we are waiting, our kids are forming their views on important things. We, I think sometimes overestimate how much a child will share with us about their inner world and their questions and some kids really do that a lot by personality, but many kids, they hold on to those things internally and we are not privy to the deep stuff they are wondering about, but it's happening. No kid is just staying neutral until they're 12 and then can have more sophisticated levels of thinking available to them because they're brain development. They're considering this stuff. And so when I think about like other kinds of things that we as adults know are important for kids, we start practicing those conversations early, not to sort of take care of it and get it all set up, but so that we've practiced how we do it. If we want to talk about bodies, we talk to three year olds about certain things for their bodies and then we add new things when they're seven and eight and so on because when they are teenagers, we want to have certain conversations about bodies that if we've never done it before. It ain't going to go well. Yeah. Faith is very similar to me in that where part of the reason to start even before we feel ready is not to tell our kids what to believe in exactly how to live it out but to be with them and to be starting conversations so that as they grow, we're practiced. We talk about this stuff together. I would love to hear your questions. We've been asking questions since you were two and so on. And so I don't think it is necessarily the case that starting young takes away from our kids own agency choice and growth. I think it actually is about fostering safe conversational space where we're communicating to our young people. Like I want to help you get to know God. I am with you in that process. And it is a process for a long time where I'm going to be patient as you get what you need, kiddo. You used a phrase in the book you said for parents, we should do less on purpose. What do you mean by that? Well, part of it is just at a practical level. Generally speaking, a kid's engagement capacity is their age times one to two minutes. So you got a four year old and you got four to eight minutes where they can be all in and that is truly full engagement that is incredibly meaningful. But if you try to make that thing 20, you've gone beyond them. We need to do less. Part of it is when it comes to faith, there is a lot of content. Oh yeah. Right. I mean, there's all of scripture and all this doctrine and all these thoughts and then all the practices of how do I learn to pray or how do I learn to be generous or whatever these responsive behaviors, so much content. And then we sometimes think that kids need all that content so that they can understand their faith so that they can make a decision about it and so on. And then they don't get a lot of space for their own thoughts or questions or wondering or just as you have to process. Like drinking from a fire hose sometimes the amount of content we ask kids to engage with at a time. And so part of it is giving them less content in a single occasion so that they get more space to respond back and to be actually part of a conversation. There's so much that has historically existed for kids that is like consume content and then regurgitate it back to me. And that's how an adult knows they're doing the right thing. But what we actually want is to invite kids to like explore the content and then respond to it and to God. And we want to help them both in using their full critical and creative capacities as they explore the stuff of faith. And then we want to help them develop responses to God that yeah, sometimes they're faith in action, but also sometimes like asking a question is a great response. And if we do too much, too much talking too much time, too much content, too hard, we usually miss that stuff. That's what will fall by the way side. Our kid will glaze over not along and be all done and will be like they don't really like talking about God very much. Yeah. Like well, you probably did too much. Yeah. And they shut down. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It's probably not actually about your kids interest in God or faith or the stories. It's probably the strategy, the approach. Totally. Totally. I love that. So when we get down to it and we're actually trying to teach kids about the Bible, you say in your book, you say before the age of five, the only doctrine that we should really be teaching our children is that God is good. And like there's people that are going to respond to that like, well, not my five year old. Like you don't know my four year old. Like she is, she's deep. Like she's way beyond. Like she's a theological prodigy. Exactly. Like she can handle so much more than that. And I loved what you pointed out. You said, it's not that kids are unable to comprehend more than that. Like you might be able to explain deeper than that and they could comprehend it. But you said life-long trust in a fundamentally good God means that maybe we should hold off a bit on the other stuff like atonement and repentance and blah, blah, blah. Why is that? Like why is it that up to five we should really just be keeping it? Like God is good. God is good. This is a long view kind of approach that I'm trying to advocate for. And because the whole idea is there is a God, this God can be trusted. I'd love to introduce you to God. Goodness is such a central piece from which so many other attributes sort of find their connections because there's no value in a just God who is not also good. The way we know the justice is really just is that there's also goodness. And there's no value in a powerful God who is not good. That would be scary. And so that is a big piece of the reason I would say to start there. But also under five are incredibly concrete and incredibly story oriented. And so we can tell them so many stories about God's goodness. And in that way, we really can almost give them the story of Scripture. There is God's goodness from start to finish most of all in the person of Jesus and the amount that they can understand out of that place where I tell them a story and they can see God is good because of this reason. That becomes a really robust place from which we can then expand the story or add nuance and death. But without God's goodness, it's not just that the other theological pieces can become confusing. They almost can threaten it if a kid doesn't have a robust enough understanding that nothing new I'm going to learn about God will compromise. God's fundamental goodness towards me towards the world. So that's a big part of it for me is that since we only have so much time with our young, we want to most camp and I've just watched kids, especially under five, they respond so well to the kinds of stories that come out when that becomes our lens. Those stories are really fun. They love the concrete ways they can see God's goodness explained it then connects to concrete expressions of God goodness in their life. There's just it's you can play there for a long, long time. Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of times when we read Bible stories, it's very tempting, especially in a Sunday school class or like a church setting to be like, okay, like what did you learn that you can apply to your life this week? And it's something like this means that I should blah, right? And there's not bad. But really, the Bible is supposed to be teaching us about God. So really we should be telling a story and then ending it with what does this story say about God and his character? Can you walk me through that a little bit? Like how it like I'm sure there's people that are bristling at that. That's like, whoa, like if they don't apply it to their lives, then what does that mean? Like kind of walk us through that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this whole model for a long time was we teach kids the Bible and then we help them apply it to their life. And teach and apply works really nicely once someone has already made a decision that they do indeed trust God. But again, we have kids, which means even when they are thinking they've made that decision, they need time to sort of let us settle in. But for a lot of kids, they're still in the process actually is who is this God? What is this God like? And can this God be trusted? And so when we take stories and turn them immediately into points of application, we often miss the chance to discover more about who God is or how God acted in that story. And so the kid doesn't get the chance then to get to know God through it because we've focused so much on how Joshua says be courageous or whomever it may be. And so when we practice God's inner storytelling where God just gets to be a character who is the center of the soul, then you have this idea that, okay, so God is with you, right? We take our Joshua, right? Instead of be strong and courageous for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. God is with you. What would that have felt like if you were the people in the story? Is easier hard for you to remember like to believe that God is with you and why? Tell me more about that kiddo. There's all these places to respond to God in the midst of that. And what the application oriented materials want is for our faith to seem relevant. But also when the humans of the scriptural stories are trying to figure out for themselves if they can trust God. That's relevant. That is a question that kids and adults alike are figuring out all the time. Here is the circumstance in my life. Will God be with me through it? If it doesn't seem like God was with me, what does that mean? Was that true? Was it not true? Whether I noticed it or not? The emotional experience of wondering about God's presence in our everyday life is relevant. And it's the same story. I can go tell a kid be courageous because Joshua Passage. But I also don't lose relevance when I start from who God is or what God's like or what God's done and then come into their story because these are the big questions that we're all sorting out. Is how does it work for me to live my ordinary life trusting God as if God is really with me and we can go through this together? And that's so much what the humans of scripture are working out in their own time and place. And so it works well in terms of being faithful to scripture, but it also works well in terms of meeting kids in a place. that they emotionally resonate with. And letting them know that it's okay to not be totally sure yet. It's okay to be figuring things out yet. That's exactly where all the people were too. - Yeah, absolutely. Can you walk us through an example of that? - Yeah. So for example, like the story of like, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego, which by the way, like anyone who like grew up on Veggie Tales, do you know that it's still hard for me? Like to not say Rack, Shack and Benny. Like they're totally-- Like, and I catch myself, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I almost have to say Benny. - Like you already know. - Yeah, no. - But I could like still sing all of that. - Absolutely. - Oh, 100%. - 100%. - Like it's so amazing. - Yeah, and they're such a good story, right? And so, okay, so we can tell this two ways. If I am kind of coming from this out of the nobedience training paradigm. If I really think the thing a kid most needs is to know how to obey God is quickly possible, maybe even tomorrow. They need an action step and so on. Then I might tell the story like, there were these three men, Rack, Shack and Benny, who were in Babylon, and the emperor created a statue and told everybody they would have to bow, but they knew they were only an obey God. And God said not to bow to anybody, but God. And so they made a decision to do what was right. And when the horn blew and everybody bowed, they did not, because they were going to obey God. And the emperor had said that there would be a fiery furnace and they were willing to even die in the furnace rather than disobey what God would have for them. But God did protect them in the furnace, which just goes to show you that if you do what is right, God will take care of you too. And so then I've got an action available to say, where do you need to do what is right this week? What is some examples of things that are right and things that are wrong? And how do we choose the right thing? And off we go from there. Now, if I am bringing a God-centered story to telling the lens to things because I'm most of all wanting a trust-based paradigm where I'm helping a kid get to know God and discover if God can be trusted, then I might say God's people were in exile, which meant they were far from the home God had promised them. And being in exile would have made them wonder if God was going to still be there for them. Or if maybe they had messed it up so bad that God was gonna be done, which would have been fair for God to do really when they thought about the choices they'd made and the ways they'd used their power. Well, in exile there were three Hebrew people, Brakshire Cambetti, who had gotten a lot of power with Emperor and found their way up into high positions. And then one day Emperor built himself a statue of himself that he wanted everyone to bow to. And they had to decide whether they'd do it or not. I wonder what they talked about together when they were trying to make up their minds. They probably remembered how God said, not to bow to anybody but God. But if God isn't there anymore in Babylon, would it really be such a big deal? Was it possible that Yahweh, God of Israel would still be with them even in Babylon and even in exile? If they decided not to bow, could they still trust God to take care of them, whatever would happen afterwards, or would God just leave them alone? Well, they decided that they weren't gonna bow. And the music played and everyone else bent their knees and they still stood. And that meant that the consequence then per declared of being an a furnace came for them too. But God was with them, even in Babylon, even in exile. God was with them while they stood and God was with them in the fire and God saved them. Now I don't think God always can stop a bad thing that might happen, but I do think God is always with us, even if we have to make hard choices about what it looks like to trust God. I wonder what they were remembering about God in the end when they decided to stand. What do you think they knew about who God is or what God's like that made it maybe easier for them to make that choice? Get it, and you might take answers, right? God is always with us, even in times when we think that might not be. And even in situations where it's really hard to figure out what to do next, we aren't ever alone. I wonder what else you noticed about who God is or what God's like in the story. Then we go from there. I love it. So they just, they sound different. They're both potential options for what you do because the thing with Bible stories and kids, we always are interpreting scripture for kids. That is the privilege we get to have. We are adults who get to be in the life of a child is it's always interpretive. We can't just read it straight off the page because the Bible's not a kids book. Some stories work a little better than that, but a lot of stories don't. They need our help to make meaning out of what's going on. And so when we start with, okay, what did God say or do or who was God in here? And we probably could notice a list of attributes that God put on display, right? Even in the story we're just doing, God was with them. God was a true God versus this statue that's just a big fake idol. God is powerful in Babylon, not just bound to Israel. God is powerful everywhere. God is greater than the most powerful humans, even though it sometimes seems like those kind of mean kings are actually getting so far in life. And so on and so forth. So we have this list. When I talk to a kid about it, I might just pick one because of a due less on purpose. Right. I'll tell the story pointing one thing out. And then I create this space to let my kids say, hey, what else did you notice? About that. You know, but then Shadirak Mechek and Abendigo don't have to be heroes who got it right. They get to be regular people in a very unique circumstance trying to figure out, will God still be trustworthy if we go on through doing what we believe God has invited us to do? And that's a very important question for all of us when we have hard choices to make. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it. Okay, listen, I left my hardest hitting question for the end here. I read a newsletter article that you wrote. And it was titled like, our kids just tiny centers or something like that. Yeah. And I'm like obsessed with everything that you said. Take us through that. Okay. Okay. And I realized that's like a big one. Like I'm like, can you just casually talk about real quick? Our kids tiny centers in 30 seconds. No, take us on. Yes, yes. But a lot of it's just it's so common to hear about, you know, like we're born sinful, sinful nature, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. You know, yeah. What is your perspective on that? It seems that there are many ways to take sin seriously. And there is a group who would say that the only way to take sin seriously is to believe that humans are what sometimes gets called totally depraved. I tend to pull my definition for that from a old document, Westminster Catechism, because it's an ongoing conversation. What do we mean by that? That document would say completely incapable of good. Just can't do it. And then we see examples all the time of people being good, acting good, whether or not they know God. Which I would say comes from the fact that God's image is still within them, whether they're aware of it or not. Because when you all the way to who are human beings most of all, they are people who bear the image of God. That goodness is stamped within them, not because of their own behavior or choices, but because our good God has made them image bearers. And a lot of the language around what sin does to us as people, it assumes the idea that somehow the image of God has been damaged or covered up, affected in some way, that it can't shine through anymore. But I think that both scripture and experience would say it's more complicated than that, that everyone's both, everyone's got the image of God shining through at times, and then they have places where their disconnect from God's love comes out in bad ways. But there is a, I think fundamental choice we make when we come to the story of scripture to say, does it say that the image of God cannot be accessed by a typical person? Because from the moment of birth, they are now sinners. Or is it that we are still image bearers? And that your kid is a good kid because God has made them so. And that you as an adult are introducing your kid to the God who made them that way, reconnecting an image bearer to the one who first put their image in them. It's a really different project than my sinner child needs to meet the God who can deal with that problem or elsewhere in trouble. And it's still, it's not to say that sin does not matter at all. It does because it disconnects us from God where we don't know that God really does love us that God really can be trusted, disconnects us from our own selves. And we see a sense of shame or a misunderstanding of who we really are. And relationally, we cease in causing us to use power in all sorts of ways that hurt and harm big and small. We don't stuard the creation God gave us in the same ways like all around, it matters. But there are folks who would say, kids come to be centers in the same way we all come to catch a cold. It's inevitable. It's part of the world we live in. Because yes, the world is impacted by sin and its effects. So in the same way that you're not going to be able to skirt on through and never catch a cold. Yeah, of course our kids sin. But this idea that everything we're trying to do for kids is a giant sin management project. Right. I think really misses that God has always found ways to get to us. We are not separated. In fact, I find it kind of interesting because a lot of this comes from what you do with Genesis 3, right? Or Genesis 1 to 3 depending. So you get that idea. Well, since it's from God. The first thing that happens after the people choose to eat the fruit is that God shows up in the garden, which is very much not a separated place to be. It's a right there sort of place. And then the very next thing that happens after that is that God stays with them while God closed them and sends them on into new realities. And then God keeps coming and coming and coming. And then also the incarnation in Jesus. And it's not like his humanity was like some sort of protective armor against our sin. We're not. We can't be separated. That's just flat out. Not the story. Right. Right. We have a God who comes near. And that's who we want our kids to meet because then we say, when you know the God who comes near, that allows you to become more and more who you were made to be. That allows you to become the self God always had for you. That allows the image of God within you to shine forth in the best possible ways. And so I find myself unsatisfied with such a narrow view of the doctrine of sin that doesn't account for how its effects really actually are quite complicated and also how God's image continues to sort of be like this magnetic thing that connects to the love of God that is also in itself, I think really magnetic. So. Yeah. That one I can go on and on about. Totally. And I know I know there are folks that that is not going to satisfy them. That really the idea is the only only way to understand sin is this particular view. But you look at like the letters of Paul. And he often talks about sin like it's got a capital S. It's like a force. He personifies it a lot in his language. So then that brings up this idea that if that's sin, it's doing its thing. Then you have a question like, but what about God? And that would really mean in the way he writes through things God is on our side against the forces of capital S sin and its effects. The work of Jesus is to come amongst us in order to break the power of capital S sin and its effects so that we would not have to keep being trapped by it. And in the same way that we chronically get a cold every season whether we want it or not. We would be able to be free of it or be healed from it or all these other metaphors that come. And scripture has so many metaphors and images and ways of speaking about what sin is how it impacts us and then similarly what Jesus's life, death resurrection do for us. It's like a whole kaleidoscope of images to help us see that fundamentally it is that God always comes here. And so if something God in the way, then God's going to take care of that. And that's what we are invited to trust is that yes, the faithfulness of Jesus means I can trust that God is for me and with me in all things. I love it. I love it. I just think that it's a beautiful, it's just a beautiful posture because like you said, it's not like you're saying, Nuro, kids don't like nobody sins. Like there's no, it's like you're saying that right. So it's like, no, there is sin and we do wrong things. But it's different when you come at it from the perspective of like you are totally depraved or you come at it from the perspective of you are an image bearer of God. Yeah, everything flows differently from that starting point. Absolutely. There's a lot there. There's so much there. So when it comes to the conversation about sin, when is it appropriate though like and how is it that we should talk to our children about sin in your opinion. Yeah. So I think that starting around age six or so is when you really start expanding the story overall. You start telling kids more Bible stories, their story sponges anyway, which means the more stories you tell more of those stories are going to involve things going wrong and people making mistakes because that's more of the stories in Scripture than that. And so that brings up inevitably themes around the way sin works and its effects. The vocabulary word, I think you can start you know around age six, seven, eight. It's what you say about it. And so I would offer that one of the options for how you start defining it is to say sin is anything that isn't what God wants. God wants a world that works like God. It's full of love. It's full of care. It's people are generous and honest and kind because God is a generous true kind God. And you can invite kids even thinking through like what would it be like if the world works like that. If you knew everyone in your class was always telling the truth. And so on. And you can say basically so sin is anything that isn't what God wants. It's when people are unkind or when people use their power in ways that hurt. It's when there's not enough for everyone to have what they need. And you can say sometimes sin happens because a person makes a choice. And it is a wrong choice. Sometimes we make those choices and they are wrong choices. Also sometimes sin happens because there's like a system that just keeps working that way. And it's really hard to figure out exactly who's doing something wrong. But we can tell that everything about it is wrong. So these are all ways to basically set up the idea that sin is God's opposite. And sometimes we participate in it. And sometimes we are affected by it. And sometimes it's like we don't even know where it comes from. It's just how the world works. And so we're giving our kids sort of descriptive language. Or to put this all the different way. Sometimes we make sin only a verb. It's just the actions. And then our kids either do or do not participate in that verb of sinning. But it can be really helpful to also make sure we've described sin as an adjective. Sin is the descriptive word for all these parts of life that are so far from what God would hope for us in the world. And yes, sometimes we participate in that in our families. And that's why we apologize and forgive and keep practicing. But also like our kids will get to know the wider world where there are hard sad things happening. And it is deeply true that it's like, yeah, that's sin. That's the thing. That's the force that is working against God's purposes. Our life giving, always loving God is inviting us to wholeness and togetherness and care. And there is this thing that always seems to be fighting that. That's sin. And so there's an adjective sense that can go along with the verb sense. And I think that can be really helpful for our kids to realize that this is not just about, do I do the verb? And am I okay? It is more that our bigger story is that this thing is happening. And yes, sometimes you do it. But also beyond that, we have a God who will never stop bringing the world back to the place where that isn't how things are. And that isn't how things go. More for us and for the world around us. But so I think that's the beginning. Those are the pieces. And all of what I just said is too long and too much for any one time. Right. So if I have my kids are 9 and 11, all of that is stuff we have said in pieces. Yes. Over the last five years. Right. Either because it came up in a story, they saw something in current events or they answered the question. So I would break everything I just said any one of those sentences might be just the one thing for that one car ride on the way to school or target. And then it just we let it lie and we see what else bubbles up from them. So that's like a it's like the pool you're going to swim in. Yep. But you're only going to like fill the water going to squirt one piece of that answer at a kid at a time because either they heard a story. They had a question they learned something from the news. They asked you something and you go from there. I love it. Thank you so much. That's very helpful. That's very helpful. Do you have a curriculum that either you are writing or that you support or like if somebody is like, OK, like I need a step by step thing. Like what are your thoughts? So right now I am about 15 weeks in to creating something called the great big Bible story walk through. And that comes weekly via email. It is this really fun combination of stuff that hopefully is like very user friendly because like ain't nobody got time for a lot of this. My kids will give me their best engagement on something serious in the car on the way to school. That is a seven minute drive. That's what I got. - Yeah, that's yeah. And so what we're doing with the great big Bible story walkthrough is I will paraphrase a Bible story and write that out for people who would like that. My kids and I make a Bible story podcast together called Ask Away. So we always have an Ask Away episode where we're telling that Bible story together. They just jump in whenever something seems weird to them or whenever they have a question and they interrupt all the time and it's beautiful. And then I try to create a game some wonder questions, which are questions with no right or wrong answer that sort of moved by us to imagine in the story and then a way to pray that has to do with you to the story or something we saw about God. So it's the story, wonder, play, pray. And then we, my husband and I are working on this two page commentary context page for adults. That's like, but also those other stuff is happening in the story if I read it for real. And so it's like kind of all those little insights that we often want, but we don't have time for the big thick commentary book. - Right. That has been the thing that we've been working on this last couple of months that we'll be rolling for at least the next year. We'll end with at least 52 stories on the same option. So how do people get that? - That is my substack. So what is that? MeredithAnneMiller.substack.com. Substack for people who don't know. It's just like, it's almost like a blog. It's a blog that you can find the stuff, but then also you can get it by email. It's very easy to sign up for. It's very easy to manage your own stuff within it. So that is one. I also think that there is some really fun stuff coming out right now. NTWrite just released a new children's Bible. And it is a lot of stories, probably more than you even need. But it's also written very like this is what happened. Which means there's lots of space for all the other questions and stuff. Like it's one page. That's a really cool one. And then I think there's so much to be said for like, make it up. Like, read, I would say the new living translation, 'cause it's so accessible. And then just be your kids storyteller. And like see what they say to you, which is I know not as curriculumy, but like sometimes you make it harder than it needs to be. And so that strategy of just what if you become a storyteller, I think sometimes adults feel intimidated or nervous. They don't know enough. But you're just invited them into stories. And you're saying like, what do we notice about God this time? And I bet for some of our kids, like my kids most of all came to life as scripture once I started being their storyteller instead of books. Because no matter what the book is, it's not the same as they're growing up. - Yeah, I agree with that. - You know what they think is funny or silly or totally. - Totally, and there's so much that comes from that too. - That's, yeah, that's very insightful. All right, so I know that you have the podcast, ask away, we know you have your substack. Is there anywhere else people like can find you? I know you're on Instagram. Those are my big three. Instagram, great big Bible story walk through on substack, ask away podcasts. Is a Bible story podcast for kids? Where kids can send in their thoughts and questions. And we respond to kid listeners. So that's a ton of fun. But yeah, those are my big three. That's amazing. And I know that you've been on with Aaron Moon a lot on that podcast. - Yes, so we make a show with Faith Adaysant called "I Kid You Not Growing a Child's Beasts" when you're grown up without all the answers. And so there's a collection of episodes there around various questions that adults are often asking about the kids in our lives. - I love it, I love it. I appreciate you so much, you have no idea like this. I think it's gonna be so helpful for all the listeners. But like I always say, I pick podcasts guests selfishly, right? I'm not gonna pick someone like, I'm actually not interested in this topic at all. I just think it would be helpful to people. Like I am very interested in this. I have like this map. - You got skin in the game. - I got skin in the game. - For three. - Exactly. So I appreciate it a lot. I really, really do. And I just thank you so much. - Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Don't forget to subscribe and follow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, www.katelynelia.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And hey, if you want to toss us a five star rating, I would love you forever. Check us out next week for another new episode. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at sow.watt.house, editing and all that stuff by Matt Carpenter with Powerful Productions. (upbeat music)