Beyond Sunday

Family Matters - Week 3

• King of Kings Church

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Wrapping up Family Matters before Christmas, Dina, Peter, and Tyler take a clear look at how family schedules, sports, screens, and commitments shape what we value most. They offer practical guidance for reordering time around faith, helping families choose what matters without guilt—and build healthier rhythms at home.

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Thanks for listening!

SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the King of Kings podcast, where we dive a little bit deeper into the message that we are studying and see what we're taking beyond Sunday. My name is Dina Newsom, and I have got a couple great guests for our Christmas week episode. Go ahead and introduce yourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Merry Christmas, Dina.

SPEAKER_03:

Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_01:

This is Tyler from our Fremont Campus.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, my name is Peter Beg, King King's Northwest Campus Director. And for those just listening, I'm also there's a camera on me this week. So I'm I'm looking very intently into it. Lots of camera eye contact.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, you'll have to picture it. There will be some uh snippets on social media of Peter on camera, and you have to check out his hat.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no, just do it. Show it off now. You have a you have an awesome hat, and then you also have a drink that you need to show off.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So uh runza, and I would say that the the item the runza, if I would put it as the worst fast food item in the history of fast food. That's a very strong statement. That's very strong, yes, and I know that some people with that some drama, and I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you taking into account the heat that comes off the runza when you're at a cold Nebraska game? And the purpose is not to feed yourself but to warm up your hands?

SPEAKER_00:

That's cool, actually. I like the way you just described that. So if you're using runza as a hand warmer, then it might be top five for fast food hand warmer foods. No, I would say that the runza restaurant, though, is one of my favorite fast food places, and I've been looking for this hat because this is an alternate uniform hat for the storm chasers, and I found it for three bucks at a resale. Wonderful. Hey, toxic waste, hazardous, hazardously satisfying. I'd give this a two out of ten on taste.

SPEAKER_03:

This is the drink he's drinking. That's what it is for our listeners.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the drink, and I got it from Ollie's great stuff cheap store. It's north uh Omaha, like 72nd and up there north somewhere, and really great deals. If you get a chance to go out to Ollie's, uh if you like bad energy drinks, toxic waste.

SPEAKER_03:

That's the one for you.

SPEAKER_01:

For those of you just listening, Peter has been looking at the camera the entire time while he was doing that promo. That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

None of that's gonna see the light of day.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they don't show my clips as often.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, well, I don't know if you guys know, but today is National Cookie Exchange Day. Today is the day most people exchange cookies for the holidays. So, in light of that, I wanted to ask, what's your favorite cookie? Doesn't have to be a Christmas cookie. What's your favorite cookie?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, this is just it's more of from the nostalgia, not necessarily I just love the taste, but I do like the taste. The simple peanut butter blossoms. That's what my mom would always call them, my grandma too, where it's like a peanut butter cookie that you roll in sugar and then you press the Hershey Kiss into the top. It just takes me back to my childhood and it's tasty. And we only have them at Christmas time, too. Like we don't make them any other time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that sounds good. I would say my favorite cookies, fresh, like warm.

SPEAKER_03:

Any cookie, as long as it's fresh.

SPEAKER_00:

Most any. Now I'm a big chocolate fan, but if you can like pull the cookie apart and there's like a a cocoa, a chocolate pole, like that's just the best. So slightly undercooked, fresh cookie.

SPEAKER_03:

What was the airline that used to bake cookies on the flight? Do you frontier was it that used to do? I think it was Frontier. I'm not sure. There was an airline that baked chocolate chip cookies on the flight. So the whole plane smelled like chocolate chip cookies and they served them warm. Now, they could have been frozen and they just heated them up.

unknown:

Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

I couldn't.

SPEAKER_03:

Or they could have been three days old and they still just heated them up.

SPEAKER_00:

Here's the deal. I think frozen food gets this weird bad rap. But it's not like fresh food is not that much better than frozen food. I want to put that on the record here.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it it appears to be better.

SPEAKER_03:

Throwing things down today.

SPEAKER_00:

But if you put a if you put like a homemade uh whatever cookie next to one that was frozen, like you then you freeze that homemade cookie and you heat them both up. How different is the taste? I'm willing to try this. Somebody bring me two and we'll do this.

SPEAKER_01:

Dina, what I will say, you oversee guest experience here at our Millard campus. Like you understand the value of a good smelling area and how that changes the guest experience.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Yep. I will say at Jersey Sunday on Labor Day, we really wanted to make fresh popcorn so the smell of popcorn would be. And then we decided for the number of people we have here, it was a bit impractical. So I went searching for room spray that smelled like popcorn. I could not find a quality one that was going to arrive in time. They were coming from very far away, which I don't know what that means about how they're made. But had we filled the corridor with the smell of popcorn, it would have been delightful.

SPEAKER_02:

So you probably need to go to Ollie's at 70 seconded up mark.

SPEAKER_03:

Great stuff cheap. My favorite cookie is just the traditional sugar cookie. I love just a regular sugar cookie, but not all of them taste the same.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Eileen's sugar cookies, yay.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_03:

Most grocery store sugar cookies, nay.

SPEAKER_01:

Are we icing and frosting or no?

SPEAKER_03:

I don't like the icing and frosting. So maybe just a little, like if you've made it at home. I'm not a big frosting person. Like I peel the frosting off cupcakes or cake, stuff like that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I do too with my face.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. So moving on. We are in week three of our Family Matters series. And Pastor Seth Flick has been taking us through this. And I really have been enjoying this series and kind of felt challenged by it, even though my kids are a little bit older. So some of the pieces, especially like this week, where it was a lot of it was talking about your kids. My kids are grown. So it's a different picture. But what are you guys taking beyond Sunday from this week's message?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I really appreciate Pastor Seth. Um I think he's done great taking us into Jacob's story and then applying it to our world and through the lens of the gospel, all the things we really care about here at King Kings. Um, what I took away from yesterday is his his tagline. He had us, he had us repeat it was, you know, bury your idols and build your family. And having that second piece really, really, I really appreciated that because and he even said it at one point where we if you only do part one, those idols or some other idol will just kind of come up in its place. And so to do the bury and the build, um, having both together, I that's what I took away from yesterday.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, one um the statistics were interesting. I mean, and those are averages. So for for every the majority of um, or how do I say this, if if there's 400 kids in the school, two of 200 of them aren't even doing athletics. And so if your one kid is if the average is 4.3, they likely are closer to eight already on their own. And so, like, I thought he was very conservative and even gentle with some of the statistics. And the reality is uh the prophet or uh the what was it, the idol of ball ball. Yes, and uh, and then by the time he got to screens, it was like, oh my goodness. Um that uh that that's that was convicting to me, and to what you were saying, it's really hard to bury those easier to say, like, we need to do that. It's a hard thing to do it. So there was some great conviction for me to build my family. Like I have to intentionally start lowering down the priority on the other areas of my life.

SPEAKER_03:

The statistics were what really got me. I mean, just hearing them all together. And like I said, my kids are out of the house now, so I'm not in the thick of that. Of um, but at one time I had two girls that played for two basketball teams each, those schedules. My husband at the time was coaching those teams. So he was, we had a three or four-year-old that was along in tow. We were had Girl Scouts, we had all the things, you know. Um, and cell phones had just become smartphones. So, like there was all the fun of that. And I think back and I never imagined like that would be the amount of time that we were probably spending on those things. But I I I'm sure it was so true. Like, so true. Yeah. That smacked me in the face.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and the stark contrast of amount of time that Christian families spend talking about God's word and Jesus and the whole thing. 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Holy smokes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I get it, because I mean, we can we can be the same. It's built into our schedule. Jada's practices are Monday, Wednesday, Bentons are Tuesday, Thursday, games, Friday, Saturday, sometimes even Sunday afternoon. Those are on the schedule. We're gonna do them. But we don't schedule um well, we haven't yet scheduled devotion time, Bible study time, prayer time. Uh so those things happen in our house, but not as regularly as the sports.

SPEAKER_03:

It's too easy to push off. Right. We'll do that tomorrow.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so how do you guys think that sports and other activities have become modern day altars in our society?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh boy. Yeah. Well, one, this is gonna be dramatic, but I I feel like you're gonna be able to do that. I would expect nothing less if you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03:

He's pushing buttons all over today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I think that youth sports um is one of the most damaging, it can be one of the most damaging things to families that exists currently. And I'm a person who is involved and coaches and advocates for it. But how we handle it one, the cost of it's outrageous, so financially that's tough. That causes lots of stress in families. Two, uh, if your child's in a higher level where you're traveling a lot, it separates the families. Moms and dads are often separated, uh, siblings are separated, and I know that like sounds good, but in the long haul, it that that's damaging. Uh, and makes um it becomes like we were talking earlier, prioritization on your schedule. So um, if you have a tournament in Des Moines that's Saturday, Sunday, uh your church attendance in Omaha, it's it's gone. And so um I know a lot of families who are very intentional to then find a church in Des Moines and then go there. Great, like awesome, but your consistency at your home base, your local church, uh that starts to go away. And so I I I find that youth sports have the potential to be incredibly damaging to the formation of a family. That being said, we as Christian parents who love sports do have a choice on how to handle it well. Um, and how to talk to our kids about sportsmanship, how to talk to them about how, yep, this is something you committed to, and we're doing this, it's not the most important thing in your life. How to have great discussions about failure, so many opportunities to fail in sports, which is wonderful. Um, and so I think like just that category alone, uh, it it has that potential, but we can also use it for good. And we as parents need to make the decision that we're in control of our kids' schedules, uh, not their sports that can't be in control. We still need to get to make the final decision. And if we our final decision is you know what, we're just gonna do one team this year because that's healthier for the family, our kids will be okay. And down the road they might even thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um the the where I would kind of have like a yes and with what you said there, Peter, is this is not a question of is it a is it a good thing or a bad thing, right? Like the there there are plenty of things that if the if the you know, even if going to our our text out of out of Genesis, like worshiping false gods, that's a bad thing. In this case, we would say, well, it becomes a bad thing when it's just not put in its right place. And that's something Seth emphasized over and over again. It's like it just needs to be put in its right place. Um, and so when we talk about kind of idolatry, which which is a very like the Bible takes it very seriously, God takes it very seriously, you shall have no other gods before me. It's saying, well, what what has supplanted the place of God and prioritizing the thing that is that which is most important? And so then the question is, how do we as Christians responsibly put this thing that is good, kids competing in sports? It's a good thing in its right place. Um I I think about my my personal story. So um I'm not particularly athletic. Um, I'm not fast, not strong. My older brother and sister were like all they they did all of the club soccer stuff. My brother's team was like the best in the state, 10 years running. They would always go to regionals. I think a couple years they went to nationals. Um, I was told by my parents um after my fifth grade year playing soccer, they're like, Um, Tyler, we're we don't think you should do soccer again. And I they totally made the right decision because I wasn't good. And they saw what the level of investment that they put in for my brother and sister, and they're just like, we're looking at the trajectory, like we think you probably want to pursue some of these other interests. And then I started doing a bunch of stuff with music and acting and all that sort of thing. Um and so I see the good side of it for like my brother, like that that led his way to get a division one scholarship, but then he allowed he got his undergrad degree in um pre-medicine, and now he's a now he's a intron medicine doctor, right? Like they there there are there are really redeeming factors of it. Um, but we also don't want to be under the illusion that there are all of these scholarships that are just waiting. It's like there actually are limited. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um unless you're a girl golfer, there's a ton. That's the most available scholarship in college sports. Come talk to me. I coach at Concordia High School.

SPEAKER_01:

Are are we up to like six times where Peter's talked directly into the camera as promos?

SPEAKER_03:

I think it's more than six.

SPEAKER_01:

None of these will get used, but maybe they will. As I was thinking about yesterday and putting myself in kind of the just the the average family in the seats, right, that have multiple kids and are in sports. I wonder if a lot of it is we just don't know another way. And I think this kind of bleeds into the tech conversation as well. Um, I'm I'm actually really encouraged by some of the cultural moves where it's like from state legislatures that are saying no phones in high schools, that sort of thing. That's like so needed. We had this 10-year period where I think everyone recognized like this isn't good for my kid and it's not good for their education, but they see all their friends that are doing this. And so then it's like, are we gonna be the bad guys that they can't connect with their friends? And that kind of has this negative, negative momentum. And I wonder if it's the same thing with the youth sports conversation, where it's like, well, that's where their friends are. They really want to do it. We don't want to deprive of opportunities. And and so it really is a question of like, okay, what does it look like for you to follow Jesus as a family in this specific context? And and having having a uh maybe some encouragement to take some convictions and be willing to say no and even potentially risk being seen as a little bit of a weirdo of saying no to the things that everyone else is saying yes to? Ultimately, like the Bible does say we're we're in the world, but not of it. And if we're experiencing, you know, Peter used the word destructive to describe this, it's like, man, if we're experiencing destruction, then we we probably want to find a different and a better way, but that's gonna look and feel a little weird.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. So, what role can church communities play in helping families refocus on spiritual priorities?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, one like uh Sus Message really that's that was the purpose of it is speaking into that and and having a culture in the family that's going to um bury the idols and build up the family. Uh, I I think as a church, it's it one, we do need to understand that these families, um, and my family included, who have put their kids in sports, they're not bad. It's not a good or bad conversation like what you mentioned earlier, Tyler. Uh, and I and I know a lot of families who attend out at King Kings Northwest and all over the city who value their relationship with God and value church highly and are trying to find that balance of how to do youth sports and church uh and my relationship with God, even more importantly, do it well. And so as a church, I think we need we do need to understand okay, um, we are for you, and how can we give you the ability to church wherever you are? And so King Kings, I think, has done that really well. Um, if you don't know, uh KingKings.org has the service every single week, uh, as well as the King of Kings app. Um, you can also catch just the message, and so you can either way, you can worship from wherever you are. Um, not only that, there's all kinds of content that you can find. On the app, um, there's content for kids and families and teens, and so uh being able to get in discussion about God and his word wherever you are matters. So, yes, there will be if you're in youth sports and you're gone and you're in Des Moines for the weekend, like your relationship with Christ still comes first. So talk about it. Um, I and then on the other side of it, I think we as families, um if we know what our identity is, we and place that above our activity, that'll go a long way into how we treat each other. This last weekend, uh, my son Benton had a game, and and there was a boy on the other team who was just like off his rocker, like this dude, and you could just feel the judgment from the other parents in the gym of like, what is going on with this little guy? I I naturally was like, I was shocked by it, but then I was also like, uh, I found myself immediately like praying for his parents, praying for their relationship with each other, if if they're together or if or if they're apart, you know, like uh as they co-parent or as they parent this this young man who's just clearly struggling. Um and and his behavior was so tough that like it became a conversation between Benton and I at home where he was like, Why do you think that was the case? And what should I do? And then we got to craft that conversation. I had a choice to either say, Yeah, that kid's just a lost cause or he's a mess, or his parents did a terrible job. None of those would be productive or helpful. Versus saying, Well, what do you think, buddy? Like, do you think that he really liked himself out there? Like, do you think he had a positive thought of himself? And the answer was obvious, no. Okay, well, like how how do we have a positive look thought of ourselves? And then it always goes back to identity in Christ. And crafting conversations that way helped Benton to actually be like, we should pray for this guy. Yeah. We absolutely should. So that's like our identity over our activity makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I like that. Identity over activity. Yeah. Um, I think one uh Seth emphasized this at the end, and so I'm just basically repeating what he said. Um, I remember when we started the Fremont campus, as I was talking with Pastor Greg and Pastor uh Zach about, you know, kind of next steps and goals, that sort of thing. They kept saying over and over again, it's like, it's okay to start small and don't put the pressure on yourself to have everything developed within this three-month time span. It's like just one step at a time, start small and grow. And so that that's the same kind of advice I would give to families where you likely are feeling overwhelmed and your schedule is stressed, you're trying to do school and homework and sports and activities and times the number of kids that you have. And so taking an inventory of where you are right now and then say, what is one thing that we can do different or more in the spiritual formation realm over the next season? And and so and Seth kind of just took it one step at a time. And so if you're not praying before meals, that's a great first step, thanking the Lord for the food that's before you. Gratitude is great. We we emphasize this with our kids all the time. Like, thank you prayers. If we can get if you can walk out of the Rawlson household in 18 years and recognize God is the giver of every good gift, praise God. We did it, we did awesome. I was about to say we did our job. There's a little bit more than that, but that's a good start. Um, if you're already praying at meals, find a way to work in a scripture, maybe a family memorization scripture, but not putting the pressure on like, okay, within the next week, we're going to be leading 30-minute Bible studies, which each child uh uh around the table asking very inquisitive questions, and everyone has their own commentaries of age. Like it it's good to just start and to start small. Um, and and and like the why behind it, why are we doing this, Peter? You you elucided elucidated it so well is like we are elucidated.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know why I said that. That sounds like a drug term. Elucidated. You are you are drinking toxic waste right.

SPEAKER_03:

There you go.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, but you yeah, you you said it in that like we're we're going to we're we say we're Christians, we are baptized, we're loved by God, we're saved by Christ, and now we're we're living that out, and that's going to have a bearing on our life and on our priorities. And sometimes that means it's gonna look a little different. Um, but we want to work towards that goal, and it's okay to start small.

SPEAKER_00:

Gosh, that's such a great point, Ty. Can you elucidate a little further, Peter? I have no idea. I in my mind that's like imagine things that don't exist. So uh, no, I cannot do that, Tyler. No, I actually can. I'm pretty good at that, actually. Um but the expectation also of a family, I think that like incremental growth. Um, so if you one thing, one big change that I've made with with my kids is at night, I've just said, instead of me just praying, because I love to pray, I say, I'm gonna pray, and then you're gonna pray. And sometimes they're like, okay, and sometimes they're like, Oh, I don't want to, I don't have anything. And then I'm just like, just thank you, whatever it is, it's fine. And every single time they've done it, and it's been wonderful. And I just I say my prayer, and then I'm quiet, and like sometimes they have more to say, and sometimes it's less, and that's okay. And oftentimes it's been for like last night. I'm trying to think of my seven-year-old prayed for her two teachers that are having surgeries over break, it was beautiful, and then we said amen, and then she wanted to talk more about why she was praying for those teachers, and it created conversations. Um, my uh 11-year-old, um, he's he prayed for the young boy who's who was struggling during the basketball game, and that was a product of the conversation that we had prior. And so, like, that's uh one thing. Now, my expectation cannot be that I add this thing and it's gonna work well right away, or always going to work well. These are kids, and so sometimes it happens with a little bit of like I don't want to do it, or sometimes it happens with the kid giggling and like it's messy, and that's okay. So, having our expectations there. Secondly, so I was listening to this great podcast with Jelly Roll. Jelly Roll's the singer, and uh I thought you were gonna say I was listening to this great podcast hosted by Dina Newsome by Dina called Beyond Sunday. Check it out wherever you find your podcast. And Jelly Roll, who has become this um, he's got this relationship with Christ that he talks about a lot, which is awesome. Um, he's a singer, and he I think is he right now he's known for his incredible weight loss journey.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And he uh a couple years ago he was 550 pounds.

SPEAKER_02:

What?

SPEAKER_00:

And he has lost over 300 pounds with no um like uh he's not taking any um what whatever GOPs uh because he was nervous that it was gonna affect his um acid reflux that he was struggling with, and he's a singer, and that'd be terrifying for him. So he didn't use any of those and he's lost 300 pounds. And one of the things that he said is like, you can accomplish way more than you think in a year. But we have a tendency to make goals for a month or three months, and then it's hard to make those because we make we say, I want to do all this within a month, and then we fail and we give up. And he said, versus if you're like a year from now, if we talk more consistently about gratitude in our family, that'd be a great thing. What are tiny goals that help us get there? So uh I I think that's a big thing. You want a family that prays more, we'll make a tiny goal saying, All right, kids, I'm gonna pray, then you pray. You want a family that's more generous? Rather than starting with each of us is going to give uh 10% right now, maybe it's um, hey, I'm gonna give each of you kids a quarter this week for you to give in the offering at church. And start with small things and see what God does in a year.

SPEAKER_01:

Dina, I have a question for you.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Because Peter and I both have young, young to younger kids at home, and you're in a different life stage. And so as you heard Pastor Seth sharing yesterday, and then this conversation, what are you thinking about that it kind of applies to your life stage?

SPEAKER_03:

Right now, my life stage is really focused on my grandkids and be sure being sure that my grandkids are plugged in in a way that um I think that they're being raised in the faith. Um, and so that's something that I um like even the Christmas gifts I've picked out for them are things that are gonna talk about praying or um things that lead to faith or Christian books, you know, things like that. That is my way of contributing to that. With my grown-up kids, um, it's really um encouraging them to stay plugged into a church. And, you know, as they go through adult stages, that comes and goes. And as a parent, that's hard when they get to make that choice by themselves and I don't get to drive them to church or force them, you know, up to go. Um and it's been interesting to watch um and interesting even to see the growth in my own ability to speak up about it because I I felt very shy about it at first. I'm like, oh, well, they're an adult. This is not mine to speak into. And um I'm not doing my job as a parent, even though I'm not feeding them and clothing them and driving them anywhere. I'm still a parent and I God still entrusted that child to me to take care of and to raise in his faith, even when they're an adult. And I see that in how my father parents me. And so I try to encourage that. Not like all the time in your face, you know, but you know, slide in those little ways of, you know, hey, what did you take up from this sermon? Or, you know, what are you um what what what's the last thing you read in your Bible? You know, like let's talk about it. Um, the other thing that I wanted to bring up with this question about church communities is really connect groups. I think that having a connect group, especially as a family that maybe is at a same life stage as you and being able to invest in that, even if you get together socially, like this last Sunday, not yesterday, but the um the Sunday before, one of our Connect group leaders, Harrett Millard, was leaving with his family. And I said, Oh, hey, you guys got big plans for the day. And he said, actually, we're having our Connect group over tonight. We're just kind of having a social Christmas party. We're just getting together and just gonna be together. And I was like, Okay, it's not a plan devotion. It's not a Bible study. You're not gonna sit down and discuss the sermon, but you're investing in those relationships that are surrounding you and your kids with people that want the same thing and understand the same God that you do. And how does that set your kids up for how they can seek out relationships like that as they grow older? Or how do they feel buffered by having a safe place to talk about Jesus, where maybe that doesn't feel safe at school or on their sports team or something like that? I think that's another way that our church community can really help our families. Plus, that's time that you can spend with people that maybe is not on screens or, you know, not in busy, it may be busyness, you know, to plan a get together, but it's uh a good investment, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

That's uh what I love about what you just said there. Well, I loved all of it. Um but shout out to all of our campuses, kids' ministry staff, and volunteers. You know, the the old phrase, it takes a village, it it's it's true. And and so for parents, like you you do have the primary responsibility of spiritual development of your child child, but God also, in his grace, like surrounds you a church community. And I can't think of a better way for my kids to be built up in the faith than to have other trusted adults who love Jesus, love the word, and love my kids. And like to so then it's not just coming from one or two sources, but it's from a multitude of sources. And, you know, Dina, you worked in kids' ministry for a number of years. Peter, you got a kids' ministry background. I think we've I think we've seen it, right? Where maybe there's something in the relationship with parents where parents can only get so far in terms of what they're able to to to plant seeds in their kids, but then that one trusted relationship at church that just breaks through because the Lord just set it up that way.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, it was really cool here at our Millard campus about a week ago. We celebrated Didi Knipe's retirement, um, who has been in ministry for 30 years. And it was neat to see some of the families that came to visit her that were kids that were in Dee Dee's kids' ministry that now have their own kids. Um, and just recognizing the place that she played in their grow in their spiritual development. Yeah. All right. So why is it significant that Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well? And how did this story apply to the sermon's message?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Seth, Seth tied this in so beautifully. So if you go back to was it Genesis 35, where uh Jacob is instructed by the Lord, uh, leave Shechem, go to Bethel, and Shechem is the place where all of the idol worship was happening, where family members were uh kind of mixing, mixing gods together. And God said, No, no, worship me and build an altar at Bethel. And then, and then quickly followed up with that is the well that Jacob digs, and then we fast forward how many years would that be, Peter? 2000?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, approximately.

SPEAKER_02:

He he has his Bible history map pulled out in front of us right now, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, to John chapter four, and just that amazing passage where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman crossing every kind of faux pas boundary um that you can think of in that time. And where does he meet her at Jacob's well? And even in the conversation, this woman asks, asks Jesus, Are Are you greater than our father Jacob? And Jesus is it, he doesn't say it outright, but yeah, he is the greater Jacob because he's the one that does um ultimately defeat all of the idols um and then gives us the living water that will well up to everlasting life.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm and I'm like, uh read the Old Testament, and Jacob's a stinker. This dude is an ultimate stinker, which I appreciate because I I think I'm in the same camp. Saved, saved by grace.

SPEAKER_03:

All right, as we wrap up today, what are your final takeaways from this message, this whole series even? Um, so this week or this Family Matter series.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I would say if this series was convicting to you, um, in in forgiveness and reconciliation with siblings, parents, authority, um, God, that good. Like I do I do believe that the Holy Spirit convicts. I do believe that we are called to forgive. And when we don't forgive, it jails us. I as Seth Pastor Seth mentioned, we're not always called to reconcile. Um but we do need to be reconciled with God and with Christ. And so if this if there is challenges for you, go into God's word and see what his word has to say about it. Pray to God and say, I'm I'm challenged with this. Find another Christian brother or sister to discuss it and pray about it. And uh these challenges, if it, if it pricks some feelings, yeah, because there's nothing closer to us than the people that God has placed around us. And so that's a real feeling. Um not something to run away from, but something to run towards. And uh, and God is there, he is faithful, he is ever present um in your time of exploration or challenge or mourning and desirous for you to come to him. That's good, Peter.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah, final takeaway from me, it really is just the the title of the series, and and Seth kind of landed here. It's so simple. But yeah, like our families really do matter. Um, and the the reason that we would take three weeks and and even maybe a bit of a harder look and maybe more challenging look is um the Bible takes this seriously, and like this is like the primary avenue for us to develop as people and develop as disciples to exercise kind of the uh the stewardship that God's given us and his parents and his siblings to live out the messiness of relationships. And so doing it God's way and as messy as it can feel and as imperfect as it is, um, it matters. Like your family matters, our family matters. Um, and ultimately, as we look ahead to Christmas this week, like Jesus was born into a messy family. And uh it's important. Let's not lose sight of it.

SPEAKER_03:

I really felt convicted by this series. I said that before, but I really liked each week. I felt that like the topics were very easy to point your finger at somebody else. Oh, this is my parents' fault, this is my siblings' fault, this is the school's fault or the sports team's fault or you know, whatever. Um, but I feel like in the end, each one was pointing the finger back at yourself. These are the choices that I make and I'm responsible for. I'm responsible for choices for my time, for my family, for my relationship with my siblings, for my forgiveness, for my obedience, um, you know, my submission, um, all of those things. And I really um I that I took it to heart, you know, that I really needed to look at myself and not um where my piece of the puzzle was. So that's I really enjoyed. All right. Well, thank you guys for being here. We are on break next week for the holiday. So we will be back in 2026 with the next um episode of our podcast. And until then, let's keep living our faith beyond Sunday.

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