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The Bible for Kids Podcast - S9Ep32: The Gospel Way Catechism for Kids · Shine FM

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Bible for Kids Podcast with your hosts, author Trisha Goyer, and author and co-creator of Veggie Tales, Mike Nuraki.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: If instilling biblical values and kids is important to you, this podcast will give you the resources, wisdom, and hope to do just that.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now let's join our hosts, Trisha, and Mike for this week's episode.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Bible for Kids Podcast.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Sarah Humphrey.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Trisha Goyer.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, we welcome Thomas West.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll be talking about the gospel way catacus and for kids.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: A resource to help young readers answer his life's biggest questions, making faith accessible and gauging and memorable.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was created to equip children with a strong biblical foundation.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But before we do that, we like to start every Bible for kids podcasts with a Bible first, so Sarah.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we have Proverbs 226.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Start children off on the way they should go and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that, so thanks, Sarah.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So joining us today, again, is Thomas West.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: He co-authored this book with Trevin Lacks, and Thomas has a PhD from South Eastern seminary in the senior pastor of Nashville's first Baptist Church, an agent, professor of theology at Belmont University and South Eastern seminary, so he basically doesn't sleep.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: He planted Redeemer's Queen Park in London before returning to the states.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thomas also writes West words on sub-stack and lives in Nashville with his wife's Elizabeth and their two children.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, welcome Thomas.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so great to have you on the Bible for kids today.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Sarah.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Christia.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: Honored to be with you, excited to have this conversation.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is an amazing book and I loved just looking at the press kit and seeing all the different questions.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I actually ordered a copy already and have been looking through it.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm really excited about it.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know that there's an amazing goal for this book, which is to help kids understand the truth of God's word.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that even at the beginning, you talk about the truth right away.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So why do you think that it's important for children to understand, not just the Bible stories, but the truth of the overarching story of Scripture, and how God's plan is to redeem us all?
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, thank you, Sarah.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Our kids are growing up around all sorts of stories about what is true and what is real and what the meaning of life is all about.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: You could say that our kids are already being catacized or instructed in a story and a vision of the good life.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's always been the work of families and local churches to tell the true story of the scriptures really, really well.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: It seems like there's something about our particular cultural moment right now where it feels like it's never been more important than this.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: To say, you have heard it said,
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: and we talk through some of those popular stories and narratives that they're starting to pick up, but the Bible says and get the truth of the scripture across to our little ones.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that so much.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about that word, cataclysm.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause I think some people may maybe new to the faith or have been in grow up.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So talk about that word.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's may seem super strange to some people, but there's a purpose in a history to cataclysm.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, thank you, Trisha.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: The word essentially means the teaching or the instruction, okay?
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And while it hasn't been necessarily popular of late, this is actually a really old and trusted way to do discipleship or spiritual formation with people.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're earliest catacatical documents.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: The earliest catacisms were present not long after the New Testament was completed.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's essentially a mode of instruction that goes question, answer, and a little commentary, or a little story time.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a classic way of doing discipleship.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And yes, when you hear this, depending on what kind of faith that ground or tradition you're coming from, some people might even have a little bit of an allergy to it.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I joke about it like this when people would ask them, what are you guys working on?
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: We tell them like, oh, we're writing a catacysm.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, a lot of like my Baptist people would say are we allowed to even touch that?
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then, you know, my pinocostal charismatic friends would say, what is that?
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then all the while my Presbyterian and Anglican friends would be like, ah, good man, we see you.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: So,
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: People are like, you have these different experiences with catechisms.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like, are we allowed to talk about that?
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Is it that Catholic?
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is it?
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, every faith tradition has done this.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Baptist have done this.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Baptist have done this, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Catholics, the rest of it.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: We've all developed a question and answer and story resources.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we're saying, hey, I think what we need in our modern cutting edge cultural moment isn't something new and trendy as much as the recovery of some really trusted old tools.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we're trying to bring that forward in a fresh way for families.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's, that's really, really good, especially because today, obviously we're going up in a culture where kids are having competing ideas left and right about what is true, what their identity is, what they're allowed to do, what's right.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So how would you say that this new book about cataclysm is going to equip kids and their families just to think biblically and to develop faith in confidence in their faith?
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Sarah.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's been said, though, the real problem that's upon us right now is something called self-expressive individualism.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I know a lot of people listening in and thinking, now hold on, I was looking for a few tips with this cup of coffee.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: What's this guy going on?
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hang in listen to me now.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Listen, because this is, this is really important.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: We need to understand where we are and what we're up against.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: The big idea today is you can create your own truth.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: If it feels right, chase it.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: My body, my rules.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's all a part of this kind of super idea set of the expressive self.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a really popular way of understanding meaning and identity today, not to say let's look up to God or let's look into his word, but the way identity is commonly understood today is hey look within yourself see what's there find a personality and a lot of us are saying which personality, I mean there's a lot going on in here find something and express that to the world the expressive self
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: parents, we wrestle with this.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Our children are hearing this message pushed in on them through the cartoons and the movies and the talk at school and whatever they can see through media.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is the pervasive story.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is the water we swim in.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: And his parents, we need to recover what Moses taught the children of Israel, there on Moab and Deuteronomy chapter 6.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, we have to teach our kids the true story of the whole world.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this particular Catholicism seeks to do something that all the classic Catholicism said done to be a counter-paticism or a counter-discipleship.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're trying to do instruction the way Jesus did it in the sermon on the mountain.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: When Jesus said, you have heard it said, and we talk about these cultural stories, these narratives that people are starting to wrestle with, and we say, but the Bible says in place of that.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of this vision actually goes back to Tim Keller, when he was pastoring Redeemer Presbyterian church in New York City,
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: On towards the end of his ministry, he wrote a book called How to Reach the West again and in there.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: He talked about what's needed is the recovery of a new countercategesis for a digital age.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: We need to bring back this old tool to help make disciples the big idea there.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: is we need to not only say, this is what the Bible says.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: We need a new mode of discipleship now that says, you have heard what this cultural story says and the Bible says in place of that.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: We actually need to deconstruct the cultural narratives and we need to rebuild biblical truth in its place.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that so much.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I have older kids.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've ten kids total, three or in their 30s as of my biological when we adopted kids.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting because our older kids in their 30s, they're turning back to the smaller traditional.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they're going to love this.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be getting these for Christmas presents or birthday or something.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's interesting because the churches they're choosing in the areas where they live, to go to are very much more traditional.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's more ritual.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they they
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, grew up in the youth groups that don't look crazy stuff and it's just so interesting because I think that there's so much noise out there, there's so much going on, they're just tired of it.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really cool to see their faith and how they're raising their kids and I think this will be perfect, they're gonna love it.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But for families who have maybe never used a catacus, I'm like, how does it even look, what does it look like?
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a page that you could maybe read some questions or something for us?
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: very, very happy to and in our cultural moment today, I think we are reaping the fruit of what we've shown in the American Church over the last 10, 20 years.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think we've promoted a mode of Christianity that's simple, watered down, expect as little from you as possible, and I think we're getting the fruit of that right now, and people are waking up to it saying, surely following
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: 40 minutes on the Sunday and just a TED talk in the middle of the week.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: But no, it's people are longing for something that's well formed, robust and structured.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: The catacysm itself, it's a beautifully illustrated volume, Jessica Blanchard, who is a part of several projects.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Her artwork alone is probably like worth the price of the book and it's very simple actually 50 units, a question,
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: and answer a Bible verse, and then some commentary or a story, but it's really just 250, 350 words.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: It all fits just on two pages.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it opens with something like this, and then I'll go back to you.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: We can keep reading some more if you'd like.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Question one, simply asks, who is the center of everything?
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the answer is this.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: God is the sense of everything.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: He made everything, and he keeps it all going.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's no one like him.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: listen.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: My kids can recite the lyrics of some beautiful songs, even some complex, bouncy, forest, frank lyrics.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they can remember like some long-form thought, okay?
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Our kids are really smart.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're really intelligent.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, eight to 12-year-olds.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the kinds of math that I walked in on and saw the other night around the homework table.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: They can handle a lot, surely, of everything else they're memorizing, we as parents can teach them a basic question, and a basic answer, and around the dinner table, we can study some scriptures, and we can just unpack a little bit of a story about what that means.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just the first question, just the first example.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's some really great ones in here.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: We could talk about some more.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that and we're gonna take a break.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is so good for like we just want to keep going but we're gonna take a break.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll be back in just a minute.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: When all this stands between Jewish children and the Nazis that hunt them is the brave volunteers of the Dutch resistance.
• 12:13
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• 12:16
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• 12:39
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• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sunday scribbles, the latest Nintendo House publishers go Bible line as an interactive journal designed for kids ages 7 to 11, with pages to draw, write, color, and play fun listening games, kids stay engaged during sermons and lessons, and remember what they learned.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each week helps them reflect on Bible truths, and the back includes kid-friendly faith tools and references.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Sunday scribbles helps kids grow in faith while creating a meaningful keep-sake they'll treasure all year long.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Pre-yard of today online, or wherever books are sold.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Bible for Kids.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking with Thomas West about the gospel way Catechism for Kids.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Thomas, now this children's edition, it actually builds upon a previous adult book that's called the gospel way cataclysm.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell us a little bit maybe about the process of how you made the biblical truths from the adult version accessible for younger readers?
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: The gospel aid catacysm, as a basic catacysm and a workbook, and it came out last year in 2025.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're so excited about this kid's addition here.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: How did we translate it?
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: How did we get there?
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: My kids helped put this together.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have, at the time, I had a 12 year old girl named Perry Elizabeth.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: and a nine-year-old boy named Shepard and their fingerprints are all over this.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I would be reading the actual adult version, thinking and dreaming and praying.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: How do I say this?
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I turn to my kids and constantly try out new ideas.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, does this make sense?
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Does that make sense?
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: How would you say that to a friend?
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: and it was a wonderful collaborative as a family, a trevin as well, working it out with his.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: He has a few just on the older end of the range, but even there asking those questions and talking, it was a real privilege to be able to write this theology book, this basic theology book, four families with the help of my own kids.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: They were great translators of the ideas.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did they have a favorite section that they just thought it was great or, you know, um, you know, this catechism itself, the gospel ecatechism and the catechism for kids.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: It has a section that the classic catechism actually don't have to treat and it's a section that's all about creation and identity.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: The great catechisms of the faith, they didn't have to have
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is sexuality?
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is freedom?
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Those weren't the popular cultural questions when they were written.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: But these are the big issues of our day.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: So one of our favorites, and I love the artwork with it as well as question 15, what is freedom?
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: You think about that.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: For an eight or 12 year old walking around.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're having all kinds of ideas.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, all kinds of nonsense that's passing as common sense, pressed in on them for what is freedom.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the very common kid answer here is freedom is I'm free to do whatever I want.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: But we all know, like you can't grow up and even be a functioning number of society and just doing whatever you want all the time.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, here's how we answer it.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is freedom?
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: True freedom means following God's way.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's not doing whatever we want, but learning to want what is good and true and beautiful.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: some scriptures help unpack that and you get into the commentary.
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And even with the picture, which they had a huge hand in, we talk about, you know, a fish.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: When is a fish free?
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, a fish is not free when the fish is flopping around on land.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: The fish is free when the fish is swimming in the water.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: The fish was made for a certain set of limitations.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: and the fish is going to have a great time when the fish learns to live within the boundaries that God made for the fish.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Freedom is within limitations and within boundaries.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's not the ability to live in the land or live on the sky or live on the land.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's actually going to be death for the fish.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then we can talk about, you know, in the Bible, we see with God's children, God made us to have certain limitations, certain boundaries.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's things that are within our limits, there's things that are off limits.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: And freedom is living within the way that God made us to live.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: That was one in particular that we had a lot of fun working on together.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so good because even, I mean, couple, this was a couple of years ago.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now my kids are 16, 14 and almost 13, but when they were little, they caught like a little box turtle and they brought it into the driveway and put it in the pool.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as I saw, I was like, oh my gosh, gosh, you have to go take that turtle back exactly where it was because they get so disoriented if they're taken out of their proper limits.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even though they were in a smaller limit, they were in like this little pool,
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: the mortal, you know, can't go back home.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think about that all the time because I feel like I'm a box turtle.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to be like, I like to be in my little square, you know, and when I'm in there, I know what I'm doing.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know where I'm going.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can go out every once in a while.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But primarily, I feel safe in my little one.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: No.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: The part of it, like a box turtle, but it's right.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we know that the world has got a lot of things going on.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's suffering.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's death.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's God's purposes in the midst of all of those things.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so even though I'd like to sometimes keep my kids in a little safe bucket, we have to talk about these kind of things because the world is, it's a hard place to be.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So why do you think that it's important to introduce these topics like suffering and death than other difficult things to children while they're young?
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: The idea of a catacysm is any form of instruction or teaching or formation.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: What we're trying to do is we're trying to create a fimble-sized category in a little person's mind.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're not trying to do everything there ever could be right there, but we're trying to give them a category.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: So there is such a thing as right.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: There is such a thing as wrong actions have consequences.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Consequences have costs.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: When we turn our backs on God, our relationship with God is broken, our relationship with one another is broken, and we actually suffer in all sorts of ways.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're not trying to do the long-form systematic theology, seminary lecture at the dinner table, but we're just trying to get it across.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, little one, as good as today was, as hard as today was, know this, and we're trying to give our children categories.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: If we can establish what the categories actually are,
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: They have a shot of growing up and continuing to grow, hopefully grow up within healthy family cultures and church cultures where those categories are being deepened and expanded and really built out over time.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: But we're trying to get to them early and teach these categories.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: One way we teach it is on question 21.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: We'll say what is suffering?
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: In their answer would be suffering is experiencing the pain,
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: and sadness of this broken world, even when we don't understand, we trust God to use suffering for His glory and our good.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Even there, it's just trying to establish for them.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Suffering is a consequence of all of us, ultimately, we turn our backs on God.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: We break the way the world was
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: and things aren't going to work right, but then we get on to that story of God's great plan of redemption as well, and how he heals all things through Jesus.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I love that.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we want our kids to follow God.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're not always going to be perfect.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But even if they're on the right path, they're just going to be suffering.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be hardship.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be loss.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we get that in our hearts when they're younger.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just going to make all the difference.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they have that foundation to turn back to you.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this is so good.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we're going to take another break and we'll be back in just a minute.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: From the co-creator, vegetables, and the voice of Larry the Cucumber comes and all new Dead Sea squirrels adventure.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: When Michael and Justin are forced to hide moral and pearls identities in a class presentation, they turn to AI to generate odd squirrels stand-ins, Uncle Merge, and Aunt Purge.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: As things spiral out of control, the boys begin to wonder if the cost of lying is worth it.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't miss Cyrosquirrels, book 13 in the Dead Sea Scrolls series, available now wherever books are sold.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Bible For Kids Podcast is part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network, a group of 29 shows to help you let go of perfection and embrace the perfectly imperfect parent God created you to be.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Raising kids to know and love Jesus isn't easy.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: and we're not meant to do it alone.
• 22:30
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• 22:38
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• 22:47
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• 22:52
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• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's CPGiv.org.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, welcome back.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are talking with Thomas West about the gospel way Catechism for kids.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I love, I mean, just the application that kids can apply to analyze, but you know, there's a lot of knowledge.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like we went our kids to know these things, but how do we move the knowledge from their head to the heart?
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know there's discussion questions and prayers and practical applications.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So talk a little bit about that.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: I wrote this as a tool, literally, for my family and for my friends.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just know very well, I am well versed in what it is to be a stressed out, overstimulated apparent.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I know what I ought to do with my children, but at the end of the day, just kind of summoning the focus and the energy to get in there and actually have the conversation.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes it can feel so overwhelming for us as parents.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm maxed out from the day.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Where do we even start?
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Where do you even begin?
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: We specifically wrote this with a set of table discussion questions or table talk and then a prayer practice just to make those conversations about who God is and being able to see where's God at work in my life and in the world around me.
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: we wrote some prompts here to really serve moms and dads and grandparents and guardians even Sunday school Bible teachers for how to kind of get the conversation going.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: So after a question and an answer, a little bit of scripture and a story time or commentary about it, it actually opens up into three questions just to help you talk about it around the table
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: different prayer rhythms, learning to confess our sins as a family, learning to thank God for the cross as a family.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just a lot.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: We all know, I need to be about that, but where do we even start?
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: It can be so overwhelming, all the information, all the you need to do this, you need to do that.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I wrote this as a dad for my own kids, for my own family, and just for my friends, just thinking, we need that one stop resource that we could work up at the breakfast table or the dinner table, and there's lots of great resources out there.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: We think this is another good one to add to the conversation.
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's absolutely awesome.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love those family conversations around the table or even in the car like those are some of the really sweet times of one on one conversations and just kind of unpacking questions like this and I know my oldest gets really theological when we get in the car it's like all of a sudden all the questions come out and so I just yeah it's just precious time just to have that or you know that space to talk about these things.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, out of all of the wonderful things that you shared with us today, what would you say is your hope for children who come across this gospel way, cataclysm for kids, you know, years from now, what would you love for them to take away from reading this book?
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: I hope that this book helps raise up a missionary instinct in the people who
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: God's people have always been able to live when whatever culture and whatever generation he has put them in and they've always had this little ability to say, I'm able to tell what the cultural story is, I'm able to identify what other people are believing and holding on to.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I know the Bible story well enough to where I'm able to relate the Bible story to the cultural story and to make it make sense.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: First Chronicles tells us the men of this car, they knew their moment, they could tell the time in the season they were living and they had the wisdom for how to live.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: I hope this resource helps awaken that basic missionary instinct within God's people, whether they live in the Bible belt in the deep south or one day they move off to a great international city to do faith and work in a cross-cultural context.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I hope this gives some of that basic framework and the operating system to start imagining.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is what these people are believing, but I know my Bible really well and I know how to speak the Bible to that.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I know how to present Jesus over and above all the other cultural longings that people are holding on to.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I love that.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: As a mom who said a daughter living in the Czech Republic for 13 years, who is married to a Czech, who's never going to live in a state again probably and has due Czech American grandkids.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was a perfect answer.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, they are going to get a copy of this book too.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's great.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love it.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Thomas, thank you so much.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where can listeners go to get more information about the gospel-way catechism for kids?
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's available wherever books are sold, the gospelwaycathachism.com is a website that talks more about the adult version, the workbook, and the kids book here.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I post about it on their own social media.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Less words is where I write on Substack.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: And also, we have a teen's edition,
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: coming out in the year ahead, we're actually writing that right now, something that fits in between what we're doing with kids and full on with adults, something for those high school readership and advent devotional and a daily devotional all scheduled for the years ahead.
• 28:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: So thanks so much for the consideration and I really appreciate you both having me on today.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this was this was super great.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well listeners, be sure to follow us on Facebook or Instagram at the Bible for kids.
• 28:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Bible for kids is now a 501c3 non-profit and we'd love to have you join us in our mission of reaching kids with a message of the Bible.
• 29:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Visit thebibelforkids.com to explore our store, donate, or learn more today.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening to the Bible for Kids Podcast with Trisha Goyer and Mike Nurekki.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Be sure to connect with the Bible for kids on Instagram, Facebook and at thebibelforkids.com.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Bible for Kids Podcast is powered by the Christian Parenting Podcast Network.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Find out more at ChristianParenting.org.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our show is also available at wayNation.com.