Pearl and Beth have a quick chat about holidays and what it means to celebrate! Plus, anyone interested in an original Christmas tune?!

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. What will stick?

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun. Join us?Hosts: Pearl, Beth

Find us on Spotify!

Are you new to teaching kids at church? Do you need encouragement to stay the course?
Beth and Pearl talk the WHO/HOW/WHY of children’s Sunday school and give practical tips on stepping into one of the most privileged positions in the kingdom of God!

Teaching Bible to Kids: Part 1
When You Walk By the Way

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. 

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun. Join us?

Hosts: Beth, Pearl

Find us on Spotify!

Recently I was teaching kids about Jesus—Jesus, who knew the inside of people—he knew their deepest desires to be whole and healthy (Matthew 9, story of the woman with the bleeding disorder), he knew their thoughts and intentions, good or bad (Matthew 9, story of the paralytic man) and he knew their natural inclination towards sin—self and flesh instead of God (John 5:42). Mind, body, spirit, soul—this is what identifies a whole person, each one of us, and Jesus knew.

There is definitely more He knows, but I was teaching 8-12 year olds and tasked with the AWANA “God is Omniscient” theme with little other than Psalm 139 for my reference. You cannot go all seminary on these guys.

But why? Why is the homiletical, hermeneutical, exegetical approach so useless in teaching kids?

Well, because they are kids.

As I was growing up, my dad often preached at our little church. Before we’d leave the house, he was always scrambling for a “visual aid”—a prop that he would bring out during lesson time. Everyone knew when Roger taught, he would have something interesting to say—and show.

There are three questions I must ask and answer when I am teaching children:

1. WHO am I teaching?
   Kids—not adults!— and their importance in the kingdom of God cannot be overstated. They have the Top Spot.
   Jesus knows the ins and outs of us. He knows the mind and the heart and purpose of a child—and they aren’t to serve as a practice board for more important sermons, nor a tabula rasa on which to chalk complicated theological equations.
   A child is simple, simple in their taste, simple in their mind and heart. We’re called to drop our egos, ditch our big words and important liturgy. God wants us to reflect on the simpleness of children and to learn from them:
   The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
   He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And He said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matt.18:1-5)
   
   Even after Jesus explained how critical children and child-likeness are to the kingdom, the disciples rebuked people for bringing their children to Him. Jesus said, “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)
   He had to correct them! As a teacher of kids, often your job will be undervalued, even by some disciples. Carry on!
   
   If the key to understanding God’s kingdom is becoming child-like: Don’t you think, if we studied children, how they learn, how we ourselves were as children—if we dropped to our knees on their level, looked into their simple ways—we might understand a little better how to teach them?
2. HOW am I teaching?
   Remember the song, “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock”? At the end of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, He told the people, “therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)
   
   When we teach children, we are helping them build a life from the ground up, on a firm foundation. Everything must be built stone by stone—and when I teach, I try to remember I am there to erect scaffolding for their growing faith. This means I must be aware of what is age-appropriate; this is foundation pedagogy. Eventually their faith house that is built on the rock will continue to grow with the help of the Holy Spirit that comes as we “remain in Him” (1 John 2:27).
   But for now, we teach kids foundational truths as scaffolding, remembering their curious, inquisitive nature. Little kids love stories that pique the imagination! They understand concrete statements and the idea of good winning over bad. Middle-school kids begin to ask “why” questions—a good time to introduce more abstract concepts such as propitiation and grace. Teenagers begin to self-lead and express their faith, as they “remain in Him.”
   
   No stage of development can grow independent of a solid foundation, nor do these things grow out of order. For example,
   I prefer to tell an entire Bible story when I am teaching, as kids these days are sometimes quite Bible-illiterate. It’s just good pedagogy to meet them where they are and give them the meat and bones of scripture instead of theology nuggets and catechisms, which might mean something, but for the purposes of remembering and regurgitating and chewing on mean very little.
   
   I try to think about what they know before I teach them abstract ideas that float around without any tether to their practical life.
   Sin—yes, we know and can conjure up nasty thoughts and actions of our own, so it’s easy to compare my stories to David’s, Jonah’s, Elijah’s, etc. Winning victory over sin?—that is the exciting part, the Good Ending.
   Grace? Well, that’s another story, only to be understood through our own life-long idiocy, our run-ins with Law, our abject need for Someone to rescue us from our poor decisions.
   
   When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. (Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:11)
   
   The Type of Scaffolding matters.
   
   3. WHY am I teaching?
   When I was a kid, the denominations I grew up in placed a strong emphasis on where you were going to go if you died this very night. Not that car accidents aren’t common or that people don’t die in them, but these were the kind of scare tactics that had me questioning my salvation on a weekly basis.
   
   I was equally terrified of “sharing my faith”—my fear of evangelism (door knocking) itself seems possibly rooted in why I couldn’t quite be sure of my salvation and if I’d get into Heaven post-car accident.
   
   Sometimes I wonder if this is why there are plenty of parents in my own generation who don’t feel a strong desire to teach kids the Bible. Perhaps they are unsure of what they believe, or maybe, like me, they felt scared away by the heaviness of what they would have to teach—and the souls that depended on them saving.
   I have good news for you! God is not depending on you to save souls.
   
   “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
   (Matthew 13:3-9)
   
   Jesus told this parable to a crowd of people and his disciples came up afterwards to ask him what it meant. He explained to them that the different places the seed fell represented the heart condition of a person that comes into contact with the Word.
   
   “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. They seed falling among the thorns reverse to someone who hears the world, but the worries of this life and the deceitful news’s of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the world and understands it.”
   
   We, as Bible teachers, don’t save people. We just Toss out Seeds and Till Soil.

This is where we begin to lay a foundation for our kids: recognizing their Top Spot in the kingdom and the Type of Scaffolding they need, then Tilling Soil and Tossing Seeds.

I’ll talk about the practical side of teaching Sunday school to kiddos in the next post!

What’s your favorite quick meal? Favorite outdoor activity? Do you speak any other languages? Read any good books recently? Fave Bible story?

Pearl and Beth talk the ministry of cinnamon rolls and Bundt cakes, pickleball and racing against speed limit signs, Rosaria Butterfield, Preston Perry, Dav Pilkey and the recent proliferation of questionable children’s literature. Also, let’s talk about Amos and Ezekiel!

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. 

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun. Join us?

Hosts: Pearl, Beth

Find us on Spotify!

What does obedience mean for a Christian? How does it look in real life? Should we give money to random people in Walmart? What’s the difference between faith and foolishness?
Also, who was Cuesta Benberry? Beth knows—do you?!

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. 

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun.Join us?

Hosts: Pearl, Beth

Find us on Spotify!

Pearl and Beth discuss the Old Testament story of Ai and how it represents the battles we must fight with the flesh. Is it possible to win at life by denying ourselves? What does denying oneself look like in our culture? Is there a “secret sauce” to God’s blessing?

Post: Liable to Destruction

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. 

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun.Join us?

Hosts: Pearl, Beth

Find us on Spotify!

Does God want us to hit rock bottom? How does a person recover? 

Pearl and Beth chat about their formative, nontraditional church experience, being a neighbor (even when you don’t want to), and how to face personal struggles that often feel like a dead end.

Also on Episode 3 of The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast—how far has your library card traveled? And what do you really think of Caspar Babypants?

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer; both moms) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. 

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun. Join us?

Guests: Pearl, Beth

Find us on Spotify!

They nodded in agreement, chuckled, and set the can next to their cellphone.

It’s Walmart where I interact mostly with this younger generation, of which now nearly a third identify as LGBTQ. I’m not in a life situation that affords me constant contact with this populace, but a Walmart run allows it, since Walmart offers the best pay in town to working college kids.

It breaks my heart, the complications that accompany youth and young adults today who do not think they fit in any box, as if even checking a box would add meaning to one’s life. Some are conspicuous and proud, baiting attention with shock value and impropriety. But there are silent others—they mask their discomfort and pain with clothes and makeup and a hopeful glance cast for acceptance. What grieves me so much is the obvious despair.
And the walls between us…The fallacy of genderism has deceived all of us into thinking we are too different to co-exist.

No doubt they’ve believed the lie that this is the only way forward.
Without question the potential soul conversations have been fouled and muddied by loud gender warriors. Their incongruous propaganda (Less homogeneity! But let’s all be fluid!) has led to hopelessness and self-harm—less than half of Generation Z (those born 1996-2012) report having feelings of hope about the future.

I’ve heard more than a handful of friends my age muse on how thankful they are to have not been born later when this kind of sexual revolution (if you call it that) was unfolding. Because—here’s the truth from your elders—we would have been the same fodder for the machine, questioning and longing for acceptance.

Who truly met their lifelong mate as a teenager? Who even really knew what love was back then? Who of us didn’t get into a sticky situation and then regret it? Who hasn’t said things they wished they hadn’t?
The best of our generation was busy trying out orangey tanning lotion from Bath and Body. The worst was memorizing naughty Juvenile lyrics in the locker room.

Babies, we were—along with the internet. The messages we got were tied to landlines or Seventeen magazine. The reactions we got were from our parents in their living room, not the instant emojis from a thousand quasi-“friends”.
I can’t imagine the pressure to also align myself with a lifelong queer/non-queer agenda. With my romantic prospects, I certainly would have leaned into the former, just to have an easy excuse as to why I didn’t like boys in high school, why I dressed in my brothers’ hand-me-downs, why social anxiety kept me in its grip to the point of taking anti-depressants.
Today has arrived; this is reality. Our kids see it; they are experiencing it. And we cannot ignore it, as much as we’d like to turn away and pretend it doesn’t affect us.

It does affect us, and how we approach the culture around us matters. Here are a few thoughts to chew on—the overarching themes with which we must encourage the young believers in our homes:

1. Life is about who you are becoming and the choices you make. Choose wisely.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes:

“People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.
And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself.
To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

2. Romantic love (hetero or queer) as the highest lifelong-satisfying, fulfilling goal is not just a lie, it is idolatry.

If life boiled down to happiness was a matter of romantic fulfillment, how disappointing our lives would be! And yet, judging by every other picture or post we see our friends make on socials, it would be easy to conclude that a romantic partner would solve all our problems and finally make us happy.

Idolatry in Scripture is a huge theme, if you’ve never read the Old Testament. God’s people were always falling for idols, something that promised them health, wealth, and happiness.

I heard J. Vernon McGee speaking once on Jeremiah, a prophet who lived in a culture that was steeped in idolatry. The people were going to serve their idols “under every green tree.”Asherah and Baal required sexual encounters as their temple worship. McGee commented that idolatry is never a hard thing to fall into because idols don’t require anything a person isn’t willing to give into quite easily. Sex as worship? That was right up the culture’s alley. Incredibly depraved, yes—but look around! Our nation throws a month long party in June to celebrate a free-sex lifestyle.

But we serve a holy God —the One who transforms and renews our mind to make us more like His son, Jesus. We are asked, as believers, to serve only one master, one God, to make His name great, to bring Him glory, and not make ourselves the main focus. And when we recognize life isn’t all about serving ourselves through whatever false gods we put before Him, including romantic love (because, let’s remember, hopelessness, self-harm, and suicide is sky-rocketing today—what favors is “love” doing us?), we realize our yearning to be conformed to His likeness.

And this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

3. Following culture for clues to acceptance is, historically, a recipe for disaster.

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sketch, After Ten Years, he muses on how the years pre-World War II led to the moral failure of Germany to address evil in their society. Bonhoeffer observes that “against stupidity we are defenseless”—then goes on to detail how, “under certain circumstances, men are made stupid” when, “under the overpowering impression of the development of power, man is robbed of his inner independence, and that he now—more or less unconsciously—renounces any attempt to find his own relation to the situation that has developed.”

Basically, Bonhoeffer concludes that a strong influence in society (and here I think it applies to the LGBTQ agenda and pervasive “progressive” politics) quickly gains control of many folks, both the intellectual and not, who simply have listened too long to rhetoric and preaching. Tired of thinking it over, much less fighting it, they give up and follow dumbly along.

“In conversation with him (the follower) it is felt that you are not dealing with the person himself, but with cliches, slogans, etc., that have gained dominance over him. He is under a spell, he is blinded, he is misused, mishandled in his own being. Thus having become a will-less instrument the stupid person becomes capable of all evil, and at the same time incapable of recognizing it as evil…In this way men can be destroyed forever.”

How familiar this is in our own generation! Tiresome rhetoric that begins to feel like the law, and not the exception to it—this dumbs down our senses into accepting that which is foul and unreasonable. The antidote, Bonhoeffer concedes, is not arguing against the mainstream thinking, because no one is really thinking at all. Rather, he writes, “‘the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Ps.111:10)’ says that the inner liberation of man to responsible life before God is the only real conquest of stupidity.”

Our aim is not to convince the world they are wrong; it is to tell them of the holiness of a God who loves them, which will in turn open their ears and eyes to the truth, and initiate an inward change.

What can we do now? What shall our song be to sing over a younger generation?

Model choices that mirror Jesus—choices that keep us humble, like Him. Choose to speak words that uplift, not argue. Choose to be responsible with your money, your time, your attitude.

Keep speaking of a holy God, keep speaking of your own weaknesses and tendencies to stray from Him. Not one of us is without sin, and not one of us isn’t in need of a Savior.

Love—love in a way that disarms.
Be salt, which flavors and tenderizes and punctuates the culture around us. Set examples for our own kids of friendly, kind words that open doors, not close them. Offer a Coke, a smile.

Snatch some from the fire—the ones who are silently begging to be rescued from a culture they got wrapped up in and now desperately want out of… A culture that will knock you to your knees to stick a label on your forehead.

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer; both moms) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. What will stick?

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun.
Join us?

Guests: Pearl, Beth

Topic: introductions

Find us on Spotify!

The Average Pearl + Beth Podcast is made up of two sisters (one a thinker, one a dreamer; both moms) who like to chuck conventional culture noodles up against the refrigerator of unconventional Bible wisdom. What will stick?

Not your watercolored, hand lettered, instagram pith (though Beth loves a good candle) (and Pearl loves pith). We are deep diggers, here to excavate the Word and expose it to the next generation, with a side of momming fun.
Join us?

Guests: Pearl, Beth

Topics: Godly discernment vs. what the world tells us, Gary Chapman 5 Love Languages

Find us on Spotify!

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