Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
My name is Alyssa.
And my name's Bri.
We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism.
We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His
word.
And apparently that's controversial.
Get comfy.
There it is.
Hi, and welcome to episode six.
I have no idea.
They're blending together.
We need to look that up before we start recording.
Welcome to episode six.
Could be eight.
No, pretty sure it's six.
It's confusing because we upload every two weeks, but we're recording them ahead.
Mm hmm.
So right.
You didn't know that, did you?
We talk about that all the time.
I thought it was a secret.
You know what?
Look how much louder we are now.
Wow.
Look at us go.
They're ready for us.
So because you guys are listening a little bit later, I believe episode four just went
up.
Yes, it did.
So our modesty episode is the one that went up just this last Thursday.
We're super proud of that one.
Super proud.
We got a lot of really great responses.
Did anybody follow along with the game?
I don't think we talked about the game.
I think it should be a game.
Go back and listen again to episode four.
Take a little sip of water.
Every time we say boobs, just water.
Just water.
That's all.
Jesus turned water into wine.
You could do wine.
Maybe if you pray hard enough.
I think we're crossing over.
We're tiptoeing through.
So we got really cool responses from the Modesty podcast.
Probably more responses off of that one than we have in the past.
Yeah, I would agree.
And I think that's because that tends to be a very hot button issue.
It does seem to be a hot button issue.
Yeah, I mean, it's something that affects, you know, a lot of what we talk about affects
women specifically in the Christian world, but that hits all women.
Yeah, across the board.
And we have a little bit of a different perspective on it because of our faith, but it's still,
it's just a universal truth, unfortunately, that women are expected to dress a certain
way.
Isn't that a quote from a classic book?
It is a universal truth.
Yes, it's from Pride and Prejudice.
Yes!
I'm literate!
It's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man of good fortune must be in want
of a wife.
I think that was like our first like post.
Instagram.
I was very proud of that.
We just were like tiptoeing into the verge of blasphemy.
Nope, that's not it.
Man, I'm an editor.
I should know that.
What is that word?
What word are you looking for?
When you-
Plagiarism.
That's the word.
Plagiarism.
Just a touch.
Just a little plagiarism.
Just a little taste.
She's long gone.
It's fine.
She doesn't care anymore.
Yeah, so that was a really good one.
Well, I think we'll talk a little bit about some of the feedback we got as well last week
one.
Yes, we may.
We may.
We very well may.
At least it's on the outline.
So today we wanted to answer a couple of questions.
We're kind of taking a little bit of a break from our really heavy topics.
It's been quite heavy.
It has.
And I hope you guys have enjoyed that.
I think especially with the modesty when we talked about it and it was a hard topic, but
we felt like it needed to be heavy and not just funny, even though we like to be funny.
Even though we are hilarious.
We are so funny.
Mostly me.
Our voices sound so similar though, so sometimes you really can't tell who's saying what.
When I edit, sometimes I'm like, did I say that?
I know.
So, sorry if that's the case.
Hi, my name's Brianna and I like warm hugs.
No, you don't.
I hate them actually.
Please stay away.
I think it won't help either.
Should we have, like, should we video this someday?
Because we look so similar.
Yeah, we do.
People are not going to, we're going to mess people up.
So we're going to address a couple of the questions today that we have gotten from people
that we have heard.
And are just like common questions for women who believe the way that we do.
Right.
So we're going to dive into that a little bit.
This may be a little bit of a shorter podcast.
They've been running long lately.
I know.
I feel like people deserve a little bit of a break.
Yeah.
So we just have to be really, really funny this time.
Or I can just sing more.
You sing so much.
I'm a little nasally today, so maybe it's not the best idea today.
I just finished editing episode five.
Yeah, so we are on six.
I just finished editing episode five and I, you sang no less than five times.
There's a song for everything.
I cut out several so they don't get to hear all of them.
There's several people who would agree with me.
Should we name them?
I have a cloud of witnesses.
You have a family full of witnesses.
So the first question we're going to go through is, I think what comes from people that are
not necessarily religious or people that have stepped away from the church, things like
that.
And that is why have we stayed in the church and why do we continue to follow God?
And I think that's such an important question because it's confusing.
It is confusing.
Because if we really have seen what we've seen and have been told things that we've
told you guys about, you know what we've heard, why would we stay?
Yeah, it seems like it's against everything that we would stand for.
So we have been diving into that with each other a little bit and just chatting about
it.
We have similar reasons and different reasons.
So Bri, one of the things that you have talked a lot about is that you tried to leave church.
Yeah.
I would say one of the things I wanted to bring up is there comes a point in everybody's
life where you have to decide what you want to believe for yourself.
So I feel like for us, we both grew up in church.
We both went to Christian schools.
And as much as I didn't go to Christian colleges, correction.
I went to Christian schools when I was really little.
Yeah.
With Curtis.
Curtis is my boyfriend.
Maybe he'll be my husband one day.
We can show him the podcast.
Maybe he's listening.
What a fun story.
That would be a fun story.
I sought you out.
Sorry, I threw up.
I hope people listen to the last of the words.
No sense.
But you just grow up in the faith for so long.
You go to a school or I went to a school that chapel wasn't really required, but I'm still
surrounded by people who are like minded in faith to me.
So once I got out of college, I didn't really know what to do with myself.
I would say I was a little bit depressed.
I think that would be easy for me to say.
Because now I'm having to figure out why I believe the things that I believe and why
God is putting me in these situations or do I think that God exists.
And I think that's really common for a lot of people.
You have to make your faith your own.
Especially people our age, I think have, you know, our parents, it was just expected.
You just go to church.
That's how it is, and it's not really expected for people in our age group.
So you do have to really deconstruct and then figure out where you want to go from here.
Yeah.
Also, it's like, it's scary going into a church by yourself.
It's not very fun, especially if you're going into smaller churches, because those people
have already made their connections.
Right.
Well, and one of the things that you've talked a lot about too, that I think is super important
to bring up is as a single person, you are literally having to walk in alone.
You don't have that extra person on your side.
Yeah, for sure.
And so much of church is geared towards married people or people in relationships.
It's like either kids or married people.
And if you're single, there's something wrong with you.
And if you're single, that's a whole nother topic.
We're actually, we've talked about, we're going to go into what it looks like to be
a single woman in the church and what it looks like to be a married woman in the church in
future episodes, but get excited for that.
But yeah, you have to make your faith your own.
And I kind of started by a lot of journaling, a lot of self reflecting.
So with all of that, once you had kind of deconstructed, what made you feel like you
still wanted to be in church, even if you did have faith?
I feel like God keeps calling you back and it's hard to explain, but there was this tug
of my heart, like, get back in there.
I still love you.
And I think a big part of me coming back to faith was when grandpa got sick actually.
And he lived his life.
He wasn't a Christian for a good chunk of his life.
Till I was born.
Yeah.
So 1992 he was born.
Hey, rude.
I'm so sorry I got you out.
I'm so rude of me.
Sister to sister.
She was born in 2008.
But for a big part of his life, he was not a Christian, but then he did become a Christian
and he spent his whole life like every morning he would pray over this huge list of people
and not just like, Oh, pray for Brianna.
Oh, pray for Alyssa.
It was like in detail about everybody's life.
And it was this huge list of people and his faith was so strong.
And I thought if I can be even a quarter of what he is, that would be amazing for me.
So I started diving deeper into the Bible, deeper into going to church, finding a small
group.
And actually, I think that's what helped me get through when he did pass away, because
I did have that connection back with God.
And I have this whole journal saved over there of going through that time.
And there's so many emotions.
Like God keeps calling you back.
Well, I think one of the big things that you're talking about there is just having a community.
And you know, we'll go into this a little bit later.
I think the Bible calls you into community with people who believe the same way that
you do or believe not exactly the same way.
You're never going to find somebody that has exactly the same opinions.
Not even you and I share all of the same opinions.
No.
I think I'm prettier than you.
That's incorrect.
But I think, you know, what you found at that time and what you needed at that time was
community.
And, you know, community can look different for different people.
And we'll go into that later too.
But I think that's part of God tugging on your heart is saying it's hard to live this
life alone.
Yeah, it is.
Which is a struggle for me because I am an introvert and let me tell you, my greatest
joy is to live life alone.
But I don't think that's totally true for you.
It's not.
And that's, you know, the wisdom of what's in the Bible and things like that is I left
to my own devices would have you and Nathan and that is the end of the list.
Well, maybe our parents and a few other members of our family.
No, but I mean, the list would be short, I guess is what I'm saying.
I wouldn't seek anyone out and create relationships because it's just not who I am naturally.
But there come times like when grandpa passed away, like when you have major tragedies in
your life or major great things in your life, that it does become important to have people
that you can count on and know that like you share a similar life with.
Yeah, I guess.
I think there is kind of a special bond, even if you meet someone in the workforce or something,
and you know that they're also they have a similar belief system to you.
There is kind of a special bond there.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, because you can talk about things a little bit differently.
Yeah.
You can say even things like I'll pray for you and not feel weird about it.
Well, it feels like and this is a very different topic, but as Christians, I think a lot of
times we, especially in the workforce, feel that we need to hide our beliefs in who we
are.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, when you find somebody, you kind of cling on to them.
You're like, oh, we can talk about this.
Right.
Even though it might not be everything you talk about, you might not talk about it hardly
ever.
But there's just like a camaraderie.
Yeah.
So I think, like we said, community is super important.
And we believe that God is calling us into community in however that looks for you.
Yeah, like I would say, like for grandma, her church people are her people.
Right.
I went to church with her fairly recently.
And you can just tell she's so at home surrounded by this, you know, her friends, her family,
and that's where she fills her cup.
That's where she gets energized.
Not that she doesn't get energized when we're around, but it's just different.
Yeah.
But for me, not necessarily that level of community.
I've changed churches a lot, and I'm currently in the process of trying to find a church
home.
So community is fluid.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, I've brought this up several times this week as we talk about the
podcast with our family and friends.
And we say this absolutely all the time, but it's important to remember that your reality,
or my reality in this case, is not everyone's reality.
So while the church community might be what works for you today right now, that community
may change over time.
Right.
And that's okay.
And I think something that I've been afraid of in my life is to be considered a church
hopper.
Like, I have this deep fear of being considered a church hopper.
I have talked about this in therapy.
So I've been very afraid of that, and that has kept me in communities that didn't function
for me anymore.
So I think it's okay for your church community to be a little bit fluid.
It's okay to find a faith community outside of church also.
Yeah, for sure.
For me, like people that I work with now, shout out to you if you're listening, I do
also have a community of faith people at work now.
Which is so cool.
Yeah.
And you know, when the Bible talks about having a faith community, it's really not talking
about what we know as church today.
Oh, nice, smooth transition.
Thank you.
Yes.
So we talked...
In which podcast?
Probably all of them.
Yeah, but we specifically...
I think in the last podcast, we very specifically...
Yeah, because we talked about women in leadership.
We very specifically talked about the structure of the early church.
And it was so different.
Yeah, it's not only Sunday.
Your whole life was for the church.
Your occupation was pretty much for the church.
Well, they needed each other on a whole different level.
They were starting a new religion that was being persecuted.
They had to have each other.
And so if you brought them into our modern day churches, they would be like, what the
heck?
This is sad.
Like, it's just not enough.
Where's your faith?
Right.
Because we have a very specific structure of the way church functions.
And I think we've made fun of that a little bit before.
Just a little bit.
You sing three songs and then you go into announcements and then you go into the message
and then...
I'll shut up.
And then you sing one more song.
Yeah.
You pray and you leave.
But that wouldn't have been familiar to them.
That wouldn't have been familiar to the writers of the Bible who were asking you to be in
community anyway.
Yeah.
So, all that to say, and I'm sure we may dive a little deeper into that later too, but...
Stop singing.
That's from the Princess and the Frog.
But I think it's important to just remember that a faith community can be fluid, depending
on where you're at in your life, depending on what you've dealt with with the church.
I've personally found a lot of faith building moments by myself.
When I was in between churches, I would drive over to this lake not too far from here and
I would listen to whatever church service I found that I liked on my phone and I would
have my breakfast there and I would pray and I would sing some songs because I love to
sing.
And that was kind of like community to me because I was with God and my phone.
Always good to be in community with your phone.
Social, Alyssa.
All right.
So bouncing off of that a little bit because I want to...
There's parts of that that I want to come back to because we aren't saying don't be
in church at all.
We're just saying church can look a little different for different people.
Yeah, absolutely.
But for me, part of why I stayed is because I don't believe that all of the garbage that
we talk about in churches, all the patriarchy, all of the extremism, the lacking women in
leadership, things like that, I don't believe that's what God wants for his church or for
his people.
I think that is a messed up version.
If I don't believe that this is what God intended or wants for his church or for his people,
then I feel a responsibility and I'm not saying that everyone needs to feel this responsibility,
but I feel a responsibility to help change that.
To help make it better.
Because I think if you let the church just sort of wallow in misinformation and tradition...
Well, there's a song, actually a church song that says, break down the walls of all my
religion.
Something of all my tradition.
You really don't know the Christian songs, do you?
I do!
I do.
It says your way is better.
That's what it says.
But I think it's at least for us and we're doing it in a different way because we absolutely
did very recently leave a church over this exact topic.
And I'm not saying stay in a church that's harmful to you and your belief system.
What I'm saying is I personally didn't want to give up on the whole institution because
I want more for God's community.
Not that I can do it on my own, that God couldn't do it on his own, but just that I feel like
there's something here for us to contribute.
And that's why we're here.
That's why we started the podcast.
I had to talk Bri into it.
Actually, the pastor talked Bri into it.
Don't you remember after that one sermon I said, so Bree...
Yeah, he did.
He didn't even know he did.
Yeah, well he kind of tried to opposite it.
And then another aspect of me staying in church was for my family.
And that sounds a little bit weird, like, I don't need it, but my family does.
No, I think that's a very valid reason.
I have said before, so a lot of people in our family homeschool and I've been asked...
We were personally homeschooled.
We were.
Not the whole time, but for a little while.
I think four years.
It was four.
Yeah.
And so I have been asked many times, like, oh, why don't you homeschool?
Because my daughter and eventually my son are in public school.
And that's a big no-no.
And I've been asked a lot of times why I don't homeschool.
And the biggest reason is because as a working parent, I don't have the capacity to be responsible
for my children's education.
If you do, that's great.
No judgment.
No judgment, because we were homeschooled ourselves.
Right.
But just personally, that's not something that works for me.
And I feel the same way about church.
We had left the church for many, many years and I started to see in my daughter that she
didn't know the Bible stories and she wasn't praying and kind of all those little things.
And I realized it was because I was the only one responsible for it and I was failing.
And there's power in knowing that you don't know everything and having other people in
your life, like not one teacher in high school is responsible for everything when you go.
There's other people, you know what I'm trying to say.
I got you.
And it's that part of the community, I think, is so important to have other people to help
your family along.
It takes a village.
Right.
And I mean, I think, you know, we were not raised in a religion where you really had
like godparents.
But I like aspects of that because I like the idea of here's somebody else who's going
to help you with your child's faith.
A spirit guide.
Instead of a godparent, I want spirit guides.
Okay, if you have kids someday, I'll be their spirit guide.
Okay.
Great.
So yeah, that's that was a huge thing for me was I just I needed other people to come
alongside me because I will forget things.
I won't tell the story right.
I will be the first person to say you have a terrible memory.
I do.
It's really bad.
The worst memory out there.
That's why we had a whole discussion about what this podcast was going to look like this
morning.
And I, Brianna, if you paid me a million dollars, I cannot tell you a thing we talked
about.
I know.
That's why we haven't outlined.
Yeah.
Not that it sounds like it.
But basically, we just we believe that there's better out there for the church.
And there are aspects of the church today that we enjoy.
Bri talked a little bit about worship.
Yeah, I think there's I've experienced good worship music, worship music in churches.
And I just personally, it's like a magic feeling when you're in a big church and they're all
singing the songs and the lights are low.
You just really feel God in that space in a different way than me in my car alone, where
I still could feel God in that space, too.
It's just different.
Yeah.
And for you, that's super important.
For my husband, Nathan, as well, it's it's something that we really focus on when we're
looking at a church.
Yeah.
He's a musician.
So that's huge for him.
I am also a musician.
You sure.
I'm not.
When we were in high school, you did talk about band camp on the last one time in best
year when I played the flute.
Now they know I'm not going to continue that.
Yeah, so that's kind of the answer to those questions.
If you have more questions about that, I would love for you to send us a message on Instagram.
You can find us at we are more dot podcast or Facebook at the same one.
I'd also love to maybe have a section where we share people's stories if they were comfortable
with that.
Yeah.
So share a story of why you stayed in your church or why you maybe left a church or just
share your stories.
Yeah.
So you can find us on Instagram or Facebook.
It is we are more dot podcast on both of those platforms.
And actually, we just started a YouTube channel.
Look at us go.
So you can comment there as well.
And soon I will make a Tik Tok.
And maybe eventually we will make a Tik Tok.
I'm so Gen Z and I'm so hip with the times.
So hip.
People say that about you all the time.
They say I have hips.
We didn't get that gene.
They say my hips don't lie.
Do they?
No, they don't.
They say I lie.
We're 34 minutes in and we haven't gotten to question two.
Question numero dos.
So this one comes from, I think, the more Christian side of things.
So we're kind of switching it up a little bit, answering a question from each group
of people.
Yeah.
So this question gets thrown at feminists a lot.
So like I said, we're switching gears.
And honestly, I'm not great at catching.
No, neither of us are.
We should not get that gene either.
Nope.
And I've seen it actually.
So we follow or I follow, I guess.
I don't know if you do.
I do actually.
And so Sheila Ray Gregoire, she wrote The Great Sex Rescue.
You're not allowed to say that.
You say that every time I say that word.
And she's just awesome.
We just love her.
But she has been diving into some very controversial stuff lately that I think we'll loop back
to at the end.
But close the loop?
Yeah, closing the loop.
But she has been getting this question all the time lately.
And I just think it's so important to address.
So the question is, why do we hate men?
Because!
Kidding.
And like I said, feminists hear this all the time.
Clearly because you're angry about men taking all the power, that means you must hate all
men.
Obviously.
And the answer is very simply, we don't.
We don't.
Never have?
No.
I think, I know so many great men.
You could never call me a sexist.
I'm friends with so many.
So shut it!
Hey, have you heard episode, possibly two?
I don't remember.
I think it was three.
I'm not sure.
So I think what it boils down to is that, you know, people see feminists, I shouldn't
say people, the more conservative people that dislike the feminist movement, the stereotype
is usually that feminists are angry.
They hate all men.
They're burning their bras and growing their armpit hair.
Which maybe would be better.
Maybe.
I do grow my armpit hair sometimes.
Let's get real real.
And the reality is like, it's just silly.
Well, I mean, I could do the same thing.
I could turn around and look at them and say, why do you hate women?
Right.
Exactly.
Why do you want to oppress me?
We don't hate men in any way.
What we hate is this attitude that men are superior.
Yes.
We hate the system.
Yeah.
And taking power away from women, taking autonomy away from women.
In the name of God.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I mean, we hate it all over.
Don't get me wrong, specifically.
Because I think when you use God there, there's just so much more manipulation.
Uh huh.
Well, you're clearly not a Christian or whatever.
Like your faith isn't as strong.
Right.
And if you can tell someone that the God of the universe hates them, if they do something
wrong, if they don't submit to their husband, if they try to lead in church, if they step
out of line in any way, that's a lot bigger of a threat than just, well, but your husband's
angry at you or society's angry at you.
Right.
That's calling your eternity into question now.
So that's a whole different thing.
So that's what it boils down to.
And there are lots and lots of incredible men out there fighting for women in the church.
Yeah.
I mean, and honestly, we've also seen men in our lives recently really come around to what
we've been saying.
Absolutely.
Shout out to dad.
Yeah.
Well, I think, you know, and we talked a little bit about how our parents never really lived
the husband is the head of the household submission lifestyle.
Yeah.
But they absolutely preached it.
Like it was because that's how they were raised.
And so my dad would have told you that that's how it was.
Yeah.
And our dad is like a big macho guy.
Okay.
Like you would believe him that he would assume that he felt this way.
But not only is he, he really has never been that way.
He's never been one to like assert authority over my mom.
But also, as we've been talking about this, I've watched like the way that he speaks about
things totally change.
Yeah, absolutely.
He does still make some jokes, but that's just who he is as a person.
And we love it because it's just like us.
That's where we get it.
And Nathan, my husband, you know, when we, when I first started down this journey, it
was kind of by myself.
Nathan and I have really never lived like that either.
But again, we grew up like this.
Yeah, we were taught.
And so to see him not only be supportive from a distance, but he reposts every single time
we post on Instagram.
He's the most supportive person I've ever experienced.
Even I don't do that.
I'm like, whatever.
He will spend an hour like trying to figure out the system so we can record.
Or he's been researching how to monetize for us recently and just so excited about it.
And so that's been really cool.
And then I got a comment from one of our family members recently that her husband, they just
finished listening to the Modesty podcast as a family, which I just...
That's so cool.
I love so much.
It's like we were driving with you in your car.
And I think it's such an important message as a family too.
That was a great one to listen to.
But she told me that her husband had no idea that women were being told some of these things
about Modesty.
And I think that's going to be important to go into as, you know, as we go on and talk
about things, but to hear the conversations that they were having.
And the way that this was affecting the way that they think and opening their eyes to
things that women are going through.
It's just really cool.
Yeah.
Opening up new conversations and even between like moms and sons or husbands and wives or
whoever it is.
I would argue even like our brother has been very supportive too.
I don't know that he agrees with 100% of what we say, but he's given us like cool books
and really a lot of words of encouragement.
So I think he's great.
But it's just, you know, when you say things like, oh, all feminists hate men, it just
doesn't even cross our minds.
I wouldn't think to answer this question except that I see people say it all the time.
And I think it's just kind of a smear campaign more than anything.
It's just, all right, well, I'm going to say that you're this extreme because if you're
extreme then you're crazy.
Well, it's a tactic that people have used time after time.
Like it's the way the different political parties make each other look.
Or in war times, what you would make your enemies look like.
Like they're so wrong that you'd have to be insane to think they're right.
And the Christian church, I think really put a lot of effort into making the feminists
look crazy.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because when I was a kid, I mean, feminism was a dirty word.
Honestly, up until very recently, I would say.
Very recently, yeah.
It was.
I remember, I think I've told this story honestly, but the first time I said something about
being a feminist, my dad like gasped.
I know, how dare you?
Just because it's got such a bad reputation.
And so you have to, in order, if you come from our circles, in order to step into a
more equality based mindset, you have to pull so much of your faith apart because it's in
there.
And that can be really hard and really scary.
Everything that you've been taught is being put into question.
You have to really figure out why you believe what you believe.
Yeah.
And I think we wrote down a couple of things too about, you know, we don't hate men, we
hate what's happening in the church.
We hate the use of stereotypes and patriarchy to put down women, to crush them till they're
manageable.
To make them think that the God of the universe looked at man and woman and said, well, she's
not as good.
Come on.
No, we are both created equally in the image of God.
And just because you're power hungry doesn't mean, I don't know what I was trying to say
with that.
No, but really just because someone's been in power doesn't mean that they need to stay
in power.
Yeah.
So move over.
Well, I think that's true in so many churches.
Whoever's in charge wants to stay in charge.
Yeah.
And you see this in a lot of places.
This is totally going off the rails, but you see this in a lot of places where a pastor
won't retire or-
A dentist who's a hundred years old.
I saw one the other day.
I was like, how are you still working?
But you see it all the time.
And I have big issues with satellite churches, but satellite churches where instead of hiring
a pastor to talk to this congregation, you're putting yourself up on the screen because
your words are the most important ones that they could hear.
Well, and this is something we talked about earlier, but there is such maturity and strength
in being able to step back, look yourself in the mirror and say, I don't need to be
in power or I'm not the smartest person in the room or someone else might have something
better to say that shows an incredible amount of strength and growth.
Right.
Well, and it shows even more growth if you can say, look, we've been silencing this group
of people for so long.
Maybe we should stop.
Maybe what we're saying is wrong.
Because the church has been silencing different groups of people since the beginning of the
church.
Oh yeah.
I mean, there's been racism in the church since literally the beginning of the church.
Yeah.
There's been sexism in the church since the beginning.
And so maybe we need to take a step back and say, we need to do things differently.
And so we don't, again, we don't hate men.
We hate all that comes along with this patriarchal church structure that we've been part of.
Yeah.
And that's why we talk about this stuff because we're tired of being part of it.
We're sick of it.
Do we want perhaps more?
She said the name again.
We didn't make that joke yet.
I was feeling empty.
I felt like.
I wanted to end this podcast somehow by saying something along the lines of, watch out.
We're coming for you.
Hide your kids.
Hide your wife.
Cut that part out.
Which of the pastors would you be talking to?
Because there's a list of 45 at this point.
I have one in mind.
I really feel like with every podcast that we're making and every move that we're making
in this direction, I've really felt God's hands on both of us.
Not to make this sound weird, but I really feel like God is moving us forward with every
step that we're making.
And if we're doing something wrong, I'm sure he'll let us know, but watch out.
Well, we got a text today and it was just like, you know, we were talking about this
and we were already planning on this particular topic for today and we got this text that
referenced all of the things that we were about to talk about.
And it's like, oh, okay, so people really are asking these questions.
These are really actually important things for us to go over.
And in transition.
Yeah, I would say our goal for this podcast, kind of what I was talking about before, but
is to spread God's love, right?
It's not to, what we don't want you to hear from the beginning of this podcast when we
talked about staying in church is that you need to be in church.
No, that's not our goal.
No, honestly, I think church absolutely has its place.
I'm not encouraging you to set out on your own and leave your church and whatever.
But again, my reality is not everyone's reality.
And so I have to sit here and understand that while my choice was to stay in church, yours
might be different.
And if my whole job is to show you God's love, that's it.
Mine too.
You're selfish.
Sorry.
Our whole goal is to show you God's love.
And if at the end of that, God wants you in church, he'll take you there.
Yeah, that's not my job.
No.
Like if you want me to come with you, maybe I'll come with you.
It depends on where it's at.
But that's not my job.
My job is never to force you into church.
It's never to say to you, the church is the most important thing you can do as a Christian.
No, actually, because I find that I'm jumping off on a tangent again, but I find so often
in those very conservative circles, church becomes an idol.
Church becomes something that you can check off on a box and then you can turn around
and judge your neighbor about it.
Did you go to church?
Do you go to church today?
Oh, you didn't?
Hmm.
Well, that's the first question.
It's never what did you learn?
How did you grow?
Did you meet anybody?
Like it's never that.
Did you go to church?
Check.
Yeah.
And that's...
Or how often are you going?
Right.
Are you going on Wednesday?
Are you all day there on Sunday?
Did you go to the small group?
Did you go to the ice cream social?
Are you also serving on 25 teams?
You know, 10 services?
Yeah.
It's something that people create into an idol.
So I think if that's what you're dealing with too, like maybe it is time to take a step
back.
Absolutely.
And I absolutely did that.
I was at a church for a while and I got very involved, which is very out of character for
me.
I got very involved in multiple teams, like small group, all the things, right?
And absolutely church was an idol.
So I definitely turned that church experience into an idol.
It was about how often am I there?
How many people are seeing me there?
It's kind of bragging rights.
Oh, a hundred percent.
And so it was important for me to walk away, to step away from that for a lot of reasons.
But that was absolutely one of them.
Yeah.
And I think that's a big part in the bigger churches and the smaller churches too, but
they're like, you don't have to become a member, but you do have to serve.
And if you're not serving, shame on you.
Well, sometimes you're not in a position to be serving somewhere else.
Maybe you're stretched so thin, you're working as much as you can.
You also have kids.
Or in my situation, I don't, but I'm also stretched very thin.
And maybe you're not in a position to serve and you shouldn't feel ashamed about that.
Sometimes you need someone to fill your cup for longer than a little while.
Maybe it's a whole season of your life.
And that's okay.
Do you know in the last podcast you ended it by singing goodbye?
I did.
He absolutely did.
And I absolutely kept it in.
How would you like me to end this one?
In conclusion, in our next podcast, we'll be hitting the big topic.
The big S. Nope.
Yeah.
Nope.
Yeah.
Nope.
The letter S, not sex.
So the reason we took a little bit of a week off of some of the tougher topics that we've
been doing, we wanted to have a little bit more fun and just chat also, but we're gearing
up for, I think one of our biggest topics so far.
I have the full armor of God on.
So next podcast, there'll be two weeks from now on Thursday.
And if you weren't aware, the podcasts go live at 10 AM.
So the podcast goes live at 10 AM wherever you get your podcasts.
But I usually don't post about it until like noon to make sure that it's up and good everywhere.
But yeah, so two weeks on Thursday morning, we're going to start talking about submission.
Okay, that hurt.
We'll have to cut that out because that's going to hurt headphones users.
Because it hurt me.
I'm scared, are you?
Actually I'm not.
I'm pretty excited.
I think it's a topic that we are excited to talk about.
This is a topic we're going to come back to all the time.
We're going to talk about it constantly, but we're going to really dive particularly deep
next time.
And I hope you guys are excited about that too.
I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
So that we can share them.
Feel free.
I mean, text, comment, comment on our...
Probably don't text.
They don't know our phone numbers.
And I don't want you to.
Feel free to message us on Instagram or Facebook, your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings.
We'll put them all into one big pro and con list.
Well, that'll be fun.
Alright, well thank you guys so much for listening.
We are so excited to chat with you in a couple of weeks.
Yeah.
Okay, bye.
Love you, bye.
Bye bye.