TRANSCRIPT: 7 Lies Your Kids Will Believe Unless You Do Something – Elizabeth Urbanowicz

And you say that to a five-year-old and you might as well have been speaking in a foreign language to them. But if we can break it down in really simple terms and just say, truth is what is real.

Truth is what is real. That’s what it means for something to line up with reality. And with little kids, if you can get their bodies involved, that’s a great thing and just have them lift up their arms and shout truth every time you say a sentence that’s true. For a little bit older kids, it’s great just to do a practical activity that can help them see that truth is what is real.

Usually what I’ll do with kids is if I’m working with younger kids, I’ll send them out on a treasure hunt and I’ll give them directions, usually hide candy or chocolate somewhere around and say, okay, I have a couple different sets of directions. Your set of directions might be true directions. Or your set of directions might not be true directions. Let’s see what happens.

And then all the kids go out and only one or one group of them find the treasure or the prize because only one set of directions was true. And then debrief and talk about why didn’t everybody find this? Well, let’s look at your directions. Oh my goodness, your directions sent you to the completely wrong place.

Why is that? And so then they didn’t show me what was real. They didn’t show me the truth so that kids get the importance of it. If you’re working with older kids, you can have them work on a recipe. Just give them a recipe. Don’t give one person the correct recipe, other people a recipe that’s like completely off that’s going to end up disgusting. And just so that they can see that truth lines up with reality, truth is what is real. So that’s just an easy thing for us as adults to be able to do with kids.

But then we want to dive in even deeper and we want to look at, okay, so is truth objective or is it subjective? And so these terms can be confusing, but I just like to say, think of grammar. The object of a sentence, if I say Tim picked the ball, the ball is the object. It’s outside of Tim, where Tim is the subject.

So a subjective claim is anything that can be changed by my preference or my emotions. Where an objective claim is anything that it doesn’t matter what I think, feel, or believe about it, it can’t be changed. Like an easy activity, I say bake cookies with kids or anything that they’ll enjoy. And then talk about what are some things about these cookies that are preferences.

I’ll always give kids the example, I’m super weird. I don’t like chocolate. If it’s a choice between chocolate and broccoli, I’m going to choose the broccoli every time, which I know is-

MIKE WINGER: Very disappointing.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: I know, I’m so sorry. My mom’s like, I don’t know how you’re my daughter. But I’ll tell kids, these chocolate chip cookies, I would say, ew, gross, that’s my subjective preference about it. Or you might say, yum. Or you might say, they’re too small, they’re too big, and just come up with a list of things.

What are things about these cookies that are preferences? What are things that are going to change from person to person? And then write a list of what are things that are objective, that are not going to change? My mom is severely allergic to gluten. And no matter how much she might think, feel, or believe that certain cookies don’t have gluten in them, her preference, her feelings, her beliefs don’t change the fact that either the cookies have gluten or they don’t. She can’t internally change that.

MIKE WINGER: That’s a great example.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: That’s just a great way to get kids to start thinking, okay, what is something that’s objective? What’s something that’s subjective? And then we can just begin in our everyday conversation. Oh, we’re talking about this movie, this decision that the character made, or this scientific claim, or what you’re learning in math, is that something that’s objective? It’s either true or it’s false, or is it subjective?

Your beliefs can change it. And this is so foundational and so important.

Impact of Believing Truth is Subjective

MIKE WINGER: So help us grab how important this is, because maybe give us some examples of if a kid falls for this, if I feel it, it must be true, how does that affect their views of things like God, religion, other things that, when the rubber meets the road, what are the symptoms of the wrong thinking here?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah, that’s a great question, because this is a lot of times why we don’t even realize it, because sometimes the symptoms are very subtle and they might not rise to the surface until we actually have an intentional question.

And so one thing that will just automatically arise out of this is just the belief that the Bible is true for some people and not for others, or Christianity is true for some people and not others, and not really understanding the objective nature of the claims about Christianity. Like Christianity, I don’t follow it because it makes me feel good. Like if it’s false, we need to be out of here. Christianity is of no value at all if it’s false.

And then when we think about things like morality, or we think about things like gender and sexuality, or concepts like justice, if our kids just believe that all truth is subjective or that truth changes from person to person, they are not going to believe that there is some kind of objective moral code that we are all required to follow, or that there are certain things that we as humans need to do. So this is just going to permeate every area of life if we don’t actually take the time to directly address it.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah, I heard in a poll that was done not too long ago amongst, was it Gen Z, or was it the generation before them, the millennials? Anyway, the poll was basically asking them, are you a Christian?

And for those who said yes, I’m an evangelical Christian, they asked them, do you think it’s right to proselytize, to tell other people about your faith, to try to convert them, to make them become Christian? And the majority of them said no. And I think that is a subtle symptom of lie number one, that there’s this idea of like, well, yes, it’s true for me, but I’m going to let you live in your own sort of constructed reality. And this has always really bothered me, but I’ve seen it forever.

Like my whole life, I’ve seen it where people deal with math in a very objective way. They deal with things like business and school, and everything’s objective until it comes to religious values, and now it’s all like make-believe. And that seems to be like, up until the point of death, we act like our decisions matter, and then after death, when we stand before God, or whatever happens, depending on your beliefs, you know, you may think something different happens. We suddenly go into la-la land, where we act like whatever you believe, that’s what happens.

But we’ve never thought this anywhere else in life. Like I’ve never thought, with the gluten example, that somebody who has a gluten problem could just eat gluten, as long as they believe it’s not gluten, then that’s fine for them. And so yeah, this is something that’s multi-generational, it’s not just today, but it’s affecting Christian youth so much more, because they’re being raised up with more exposure to that sort of thinking.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Right, and that’s something we’ll get into a little bit more later, but if we can help to set this framework of the difference between objective claims and subjective claims, that’s one way that we can really help them see, suddenly, you know, that in this religious or spiritual realm, not everything is subjective, because when we look at Christianity, I mean Christianity makes a whole bunch of objective claims, you know, and it’s not just like, oh well, maybe that’s true for you, it’s like, no, this is either true or false, and if it’s true, I need to stake my life on it, and if it’s false, I need to find another worldview.

So, as you said, you know, so important.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah, yeah, big stuff.

Helping Kids Understand Objective Truth

MIKE WINGER: So do you find that when you’re working with kids on this, and you bring these questions and these examples, does it turn the lights on? Does it cause them to say, wow, I get it, and then when they start asking questions about, you know, tense, culturally tense religious topics, are they able to transfer the, you know, the principles about objective truth over to those issues?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: I found that, yes, across the board, it does work that they are able to translate them over. The younger that you start, the easier that it is, simply because they’ve had less time to absorb this false lie from culture. Like a lot of parents that use my curriculum, especially if they don’t start until their kids are older, will write in and be like, okay, I think we’re going to have to go through that whole truth unit again, because my kid still doesn’t get it, where, you know, parents that start when they’re four years old, the kids get it right away. There’s really no confusion between objective and subjective, and that’s something I saw when I used this in my own classroom, that all of a sudden, my students were able to translate this into every area of life.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Like, they would bring a book up to me and be like, hey, like, this character just said this, talking about, like, their decisions didn’t really matter if it was different than someone else, because, you know, everything’s different for everybody, but, oh, my goodness, like, that’s not the way that truth works, and it was so exciting for me to see, like, okay, they’re taking this concept, you know, this foundational concept we’ve learned, and now they’re applying it to every area of life.

MIKE WINGER: Right, right. Yeah, there’s kind of a, I don’t know if you deal with this specifically, but there’s kind of this thing that, at least, that seems to be the case to me, which is that people feel like belief has, like, reality-making properties. The fact that I believe something can make it true, and this is, in some of the more Word of Faith churches, this is kind of a preaching point that I think is, you know, they talk about your faith creating things and all this, and I’m like, oh, don’t, don’t, please don’t do that, you know, because it feeds into the same problem. And then when you encounter people of other faiths, you feel like their strong faith creates the reality of that faith for them, and it’s just this whole, you know, contrary-wise, biblically, what you’re saying is so true, right?

If you’re believing it, it better be true, not, if you’re believing it, it is true.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Right, suddenly becomes true.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah, yeah. Like, in 1 Corinthians 15, he’s like, if it’s not factually true, the faith part doesn’t matter anymore. And so that’s a pretty big deal. How about, okay, let’s talk about lie number two. This one is follow your heart.

Lie #2: Follow Your Heart

MIKE WINGER: Explain like, what is it, what is the thing that the kids are believing, and then how does this affect them, and then how do you work them out of that?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yes, well, I mean, most media that they’re going to be consuming, you know, like, whether it’s here on YouTube, or whether it’s actually on a show that’s being streamed somewhere, like, everything is going to tell them, you know, follow your heart, be the true you, be the authentic you. You know, just like the phrase that we hear all the time, like, you do you, you know, you do you. So our kids are constantly going to hear this lie that their heart is the most reliable guide for truth, you know, meaning, again, that morality is subjective, you know, like, you will find the answer within.

I was just, last week, I was at Disney World with my whole family and, you know, with my little nephews and nieces, and, like, everywhere, there’s, like, I love it there, like, there’s this magical music, but then all these lies are just coming, it’s like, like, if you have a dream, you know, like, just chase after it with all you have, you know, like, or you have the power within you. And our kids just hear this all the time, you know, even if they don’t say those things out loud, they’re absorbing this.

But the reason I wanted to address this lie second, you know, as opposed to first, it’s if we actually first cover the difference between objective truth or objective claims that are either true or false, and then subjective preferences, then our kids will be able to see through this lie, because they’re going to hear it everywhere, you know, just you do you, you follow your heart.

But I saw this really quickly with my students that I was teaching third grade at the time, and I had taught them the difference between objective claims and subjective claims. And then we started looking at, okay, let’s look at some different ways that people view the world. Let’s look at different beliefs that people have about morality. And we looked at this idea of, you know, like, follow your heart.

And this one kid in my class, he raises his hand right away, he’s like, um, excuse me, Ms. Beth, I’m like, super confused. And I was like, what are you confused about, Josh? And he was like, okay, so let’s say my heart tells me that I need this new video game. And then my dad, his heart tells him I don’t need that new video game. And I was like, oh, so are you saying that your heart is going to sometimes tell you something different than somebody else’s heart? He’s like, yeah, that’s like a subjective thing. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting.

So then what’s going to happen? And so we just had a great discussion, you know, about how our hearts, you know, like are going to constantly be in conflict, but you know, you can’t practically nobody really lives this way. I mean, they might be following their own hearts, but not everybody else.

MIKE WINGER: Right.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Um, so I just found that we need to help our kids see that our hearts are continually steering us in the wrong direction, that we have these subjective whims. And one great way to do this is just to directly address this, just directly address it and ask our kids, you know, should we follow our hearts? Like should you just do you, what do you think about it? And have this discussion and ask them just so that we can first gauge, you know, like where are they?

How, you know, have they absorbed this lie from culture? How deeply ingrained is it? And then to really just get, start giving some hypothetical situations or it could even be personal examples. Like, I mean, I don’t know about you, but if I followed all of the whims of my heart this week, I probably wouldn’t be doing this live stream because I’d probably be in jail right now.

Like, you know, like there’s so many things that like I, in the moment, like when I get frustrated or angry that I want to do that would, you know, like are just clearly not the right thing to do. And kids are able to see this so quickly. Like a lot of times they’ll just ask a kid like, okay, what are some of the things your heart has told you to do today? Or, you know, like when you’ve been playing with your siblings, sometimes what does your heart want to do?

Push them, kick them, you know, like call them a mean name so that they can just see the logical outworking of this, that our hearts are not reliable guides to truth. You know, like we know in Jeremiah 17 that, you know, God directly tells us this, that our hearts are desperately wicked, you know, and right before that verse, you know, like God has outlined, you know, like that when we trust in ourselves, when we trust in man, you know, we’re, you know, like we’re like a dried up tree, you know, as opposed to following him who is the, who is the creator of objective reality. So this is another really important one.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah. Yeah. There’s like, I think of the, it’s the reversal of Proverbs three, where it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. This is, this is trusting in your heart. And then you’re sort of trusting the Lord with your heart, like as if my heart is going to even tell me what God wants and who God is. It’s all going to come from my heart. Like all my, my purpose and commitments and decisions are going to flow from my heart, which is my desires. But the biblical bad news, it’s good news when you realize it’s true. It’s like, oh, good.

I’m glad I was warned is yeah, the heart is like a landmine of dangerous, you know, places and things. And some of the desires are good and some of the desires are bad. And it’s, and I, I’m amazed, Elizabeth, I’m sure you are too. I’m sure anybody who’s honest with themself is amazed at how quickly and easily we can justify wicked behavior because we want to do it.

It’s like my imagination goes into overdrive to make it okay. I remember when I was a kid, this lame story, but my mom says, be home by the time the street lights come on. Right. That was the rule for, uh, for the season of life. I was 23, so I had to be home. I was, I was just a little kid, but, um, when I was playing, I noticed the streetlights coming on and I was trying to weigh in my head how much I wanted to not get in trouble versus how much I wanted to keep playing. And I noticed the streetlight directly in front of my house was not on. Now I knew that was just broken.

Right. But I was like, technically the streetlight in closest proximity to my own home is not on. And she said the streetlights come on, so I’m going to keep playing. Right. And I got home so late. And then when I, and this was the, this was the real bad thing, right, was I told my mom this. I was like, yeah, well the streetlight in front of our house didn’t turn on and she was like, okay. And she just accepted it.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Oh wow.

MIKE WINGER: I should have got a spanking. I thought it was disgusting. Um, I totally got away with it. I got away with a lot, but, um, but yeah, the danger is like, I’m so good at lying to myself. Like every divorce I’ve ever seen is a result of someone following their heart.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah.

MIKE WINGER: Every time someone has abandoned some really noble and good task they were doing, they’re following their heart. Like it’s, our hearts are just really dangerous things. So, um, follow your heart.

Elizabeth’s Experience and Program

MIKE WINGER: When you deal with kids, before we move on, tell people a little bit about your experience. Like you have a program that I, I think people should seriously consider if you have kids that fit. What are the ages for the program? From the bottom to top. Because I know you’re adding more.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, my kids are ages four through 14.

MIKE WINGER: Four through 14. And if, so if you guys have kids four through 14, please consider it. Go on their website, foundationworldview.com. I’m not making a penny from this. Like I’m not getting kickbacks for each person who signs up.

Like I just purely want you guys to be able to teach your kids. It’s not easy. It’s not easy as parents even to know how to walk them through this. And Elizabeth, tell us a little bit about your story, like how you got started. because it’s, this whole thing kind of happened organically, right?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah, very much so. I did not see my life heading in this direction like seven years ago. Um, so I was teaching fourth grade and then third grade in a Christian school. And the students that were in the school, they came from these great Christian homes. Um, you know, I’m passionate about God’s word. I’m passionate about discipleship. So I knew that they were getting a biblically based education all day long.

For me, most of them were fairly involved in the churches that they were attending. And several years into my teaching experience, I just noticed my students rapidly absorbing ideas from the culture without any questions. Just like one humorous story is one day I was teaching, was using a projector. The projector went on the fritz.

I was trying to fiddle around with the wires and I was like, okay guys, do this. Gave them an assignment, fiddling around with the wires. And one of the students goes, man, this is like really stressful guys. We should totally meditate to stay calm. You know, like kind of funny. So I like stopped fiddling with the wires and I turn around and like half my class is on the floor with their legs crossed and their arms out and they’re going like, Whoa, like time out, like, okay, everybody back in their seats. We need to talk about this. Like when we talk about the word meditation, like what you were just doing is not what scripture describes.

Like you were trying to empty your mind. This comes from like, you know, Eastern religions and like, like blank stares on their faces. And I saw so many different examples like this where I was like, okay, what, like what am I doing wrong? What, you know, how can I get my kids to think?

So I started studying. I started taking a few online classes, doing a lot of reading. At the time I had no idea what apologetics was, but I started diving into apologetics and worldview. And I was like, okay, this is what my students are missing. They can’t critically think through everything they’re being in count. They’re encountering. So they need these skills. So I was like, okay, I’m going to teach an afterschool class on this.

So I got permission to teach an afterschool class and I went and I looked for materials and I couldn’t find anything like at the third, fourth and fifth grade level. And I was like, surely somebody has to be doing something out there. And there was like a few things, but none of them were designed in a way that was actually going to transform the way that kids thought. They weren’t actually designed from a way that aligned with the way God designed the human mind to learn with sound educational philosophy.

So I was like, well, I guess I can start creating some stuff. So I started creating things, ran it by like a friend of mine who had a degree in philosophy and theology just to make sure I was like translating it faithfully. And the students were like completely transformed. Like moms were calling me and we’re like, um, excuse me, my son wants to pause family movie night and evaluate the character’s worldview.

And this is great, but I don’t know how to do it, so can you help me? And then other teachers were coming down to my class and they’re like, okay, your students are thinking like more deeply about literature and science and mathematics and history than I ever have. Like, what are you doing? And I was like, I kind of don’t know, like I’m just giving them these skills and they’re like, we’re not talking about like science or math or history in this class.

And so that was, you know, it was just so exciting to see the students at my school transformed and that’s when people started hearing what was going on. They were noticing the change in these students and like, oh great, how can we get our hands on this? And I was like, I’m not a publishing house. I’m a third grade teacher, like, sorry.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: But eventually after getting several years of those requests, I started praying through this and I went back to school, got a master’s degree in Christian apologetics from Biola and then eventually stepped outside of the classroom to create resources so that others can just take these resources and implement them with the kids in their life. Because I know, you know, most people don’t have time to go back to school and, you know, get a master’s in apologetics. So I love being able to do this and I just love the journey that God has brought us.

MIKE WINGER: I think it’s so valuable. I’m glad you’re doing it. The reason why I wanted you to tell your story is because I want people to know like this happened organically. Okay, this is the same as my own YouTube content, right? Like this is just me saying, I think there’s a need and I think that I can try to help fill that need and then just watching what God does through it, you know?

And what I want to do is not just tell people what to think, here’s the Christian theology you should believe in, but how to think, right? Like walking people through how to think biblically so that no matter what you encounter, you can assess it and consider it and then process it through a biblical worldview. So you’re doing this for kids, for young people, but also for their parents. And that’s what I love about this curriculum.

That’s why I want to recommend people do it. Can we tell them about the coupon code you mentioned earlier or is that for later?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah, yep, no, that’s great. So if you’re interested in purchasing one of our curriculums to use in your home, if you just use the coupon code BibleThinker, we’d love to give you 10% off any license that you purchase.

MIKE WINGER: There you go. Just use the coupon code right now, BibleThinker. All right, and again, I’m not making anything off, nothing, there’s no payment or exchange of anything, which is fine, God’s totally taking care of me, so I’m good. But I just want you guys to know there’s no motive there except to help you minister to your kids.

Lie #3: Love is Affirming Everything I Feel

MIKE WINGER: So how about we talk about lie number three, which is that love is affirming everything I feel. And this, sometimes when you write these out, they sound ridiculous, right? But that’s because they are ridiculous, but nobody ever says it that way. The lie is absorbed, the lie is, you get the packaging of the lie, you never open it to think about what the thing is you’re really believing.

And that’s what you’re doing, you’re saying, hey, let’s open this and look at it. So what is this? Love is affirming everything I feel. What is that?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yes, and you’re right, it’s never stated that way, it’s just assumed. We hear these things in culture like, love is love, like if you loved me, you would do X, or if you loved me, you wouldn’t do X. And this is really deceptive because we as Christians are called to be loving, we are called to love because God himself is love. And so our kids are receiving this message, just like we are, that if we are loving, we will never make someone feel uncomfortable, you know, we’ll never make someone feel like they are not enough.

And so this is just, this is really dangerous because the word love is being completely redefined, being completely redefined, like so many different words in our culture, just, we might be talking with someone using the same vocabulary, but be talking about two completely different concepts, because if we think of, you know, biblically, what love is, you know, we know in Greek, you know, there’s multiple words used to describe what we just use in English, you know, one word, love. But if we think about that highest form of love, like the love that God has, you know, among the members of the Trinity, the love that God has for us, it’s this self-sacrificing, this thinking of another’s best interest and putting that above your own, where our culture has really shifted that, you know, to say that love is a feeling, you know, love is how I feel when everything is okay.

And so if our kids aren’t, if we’re not careful with training our kids to actually think through what a word means, then they’re going to so easily buy into this, because the narrative in our culture is that if you tell anyone that what they’re doing is wrong, or if you don’t celebrate what they’re doing, that might actually go against reality, you know, as the way God has designed it, then you know what, you are not loving.

So what’s really important for us to do here is to really get our kids to ask good questions and to pay attention to how words are used. This is something we’re going to need to do some direct training of. We need to directly ask them, you know, like, what is the definition of love? Let’s actually look at this. And then look at, okay, how are some people defining love nowadays?

This is in some of the materials I’ve created, we take two whole days just to talk through words with kids, because it’s really beneficial to look at definitions, and then also look at examples. And look at, okay, when somebody…

MIKE WINGER: This one’s huge. This is such a big deal, the whole love question, because it’s, again, this is not something just kids are dealing with, and, oh, parents, you’re all immune to it.

I’m like, probably many of you are going, I think I’ve swallowed that one too. Like, you know, what are some of the spheres where this will impact us? When we come to a decision and we make a wrong choice, because we think love is affirming everything I feel? Could you give maybe a couple examples of, like, real life scenarios?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah, so when… I mean, just with everything that’s going on with gender and sexuality, so many parents that I talk to, even unfortunately now in the elementary grades, they’re having their child is going to school with someone who last year was a boy and is now identifying as a girl, or last year was a girl and is now identifying as a boy. And they’re expected, just without any question, to really celebrate that, and to call that student by his or her preferred pronouns. And so, you know, the narrative then is, well, if you actually don’t believe that he’s a boy, or if you don’t actually believe that she’s a girl, then you’re not loving him or her.

And so this is when, with our kids, we can go to the definitions of words, but then also anchor this back to the first thing that we talked about, the difference between objective truths and subjective preferences. And to talk through, okay, like, objectively, you know, what, who is this child? You know, that they were born a boy, they are a boy. Is it the most loving thing for us to do to tell a lie and to affirm his subjective feelings or her subjective feelings?

Now, this is going to… This can get wildly complicated, you know, and sometimes it involves actually looking at, you know, is the school, this classroom, the best place for our child to be? Because they might be too young, you know, to on a daily basis walk through this. But just practically, you know, knowing that our kids are going to encounter this, whether it’s at school, whether it’s in our own families, our own extended families, but to actually think through, like, is this loving?

Does… Is this actually what love is? And I love, you know, in the example in Mark 10, where the rich young ruler comes to Jesus, you know, and he tells him, you know, that he’s followed all the commandments. And it says that, you know, Jesus looked at him and loved him and told him this one thing you lack. And he knew that it was the one thing that that rich young ruler needed, but also the one thing that rich young ruler was not going to decide to do. And it says Jesus loved him, you know, that is how Jesus loved him. And that’s a really powerful example to give to our kids, especially with this lie that we’re facing in culture.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah, yeah. And I think that I almost want to empower people, even kids, by saying, if someone says you’re not loving them, that doesn’t mean you’re not loving them.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Exactly.

MIKE WINGER: And parents need to hear this, too. When their kids tell them, like, you hate me, and that’s the, you know, that’s like the trump card, because you won’t let me do the thing I want to do.

You hate me, therefore. And the wise parent, the secure parent, the one who understands their worldview can look and say, no, you’re just upset because you’re not getting what you want. And there’s an element of that, that we need to look at all of our culture and say, yeah, the affirming everything thing is silly and strange and irrational. It doesn’t make sense of objective truth.

And it’s also one-sided, because we’re really not affirming everything you feel. We’re only affirming things you feel that are in a certain accepted cultural category, right?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Right.

MIKE WINGER: I feel that male and female are real, you know, that apply to almost everybody. Male or female, those are real, like, objective physical things. And people are going to say, well, we’re not going to affirm what Mike feels right there. Forget that. We’re not affirming him at all.

So you find that it’s a super inconsistent. That’s why it’s never presented as a clear doctrine believed by people, that it’s just, you know, it’s more presented as, like, a standard of behavior. Approval if you submit to this standard of behavior. Disapproval if you don’t.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Right. And that’s another really powerful thing that we can do is train our kids to constantly be asking questions, to be asking, what do you mean by that? You know, why do you believe that’s true?

Or can you explain more about this to me? Because a lot of times what they’ll face is they’ll face somebody wanting them to justify their beliefs. And there are justifications for those, you know, and we need to train our kids for that. But a lot of times, you know, these words are just thrown out, like, you’re not loving, you know, or, you know, like, you’re not doing the loving thing.

And it’s like, well, what do you mean by love? Like, several years ago, I was in downtown Chicago, and, you know, like, a gay rights activist was, like, handing out pamphlets. And, you know, I engaged with him, and he was like, do you believe in equal rights? And I was like, well, that’s such an interesting question, can you tell me what you mean by equal rights?

Because, you know, if I had said that I wasn’t in favor of homosexual marriage, you know, like, he would have said, well, you don’t believe in equal rights. And it’s like, well, I do believe in equal rights, you know, but I don’t believe that that’s part of the natural order. I don’t believe that’s part of God’s design. So if we can train our kids to ask questions, there could actually be meaningful discussions. Usually not, but sometimes there could be. But also, for them to be able to see, like, oh, it’s not me that’s not being unloving, it’s this idea that’s being supported. It’s unsupported, it’s irrational.

MIKE WINGER: Right, right, yeah. Then hopefully, they have the power to look at the people and be like, oh, you’re mad at me, but you’re wrong. It’s very empowering in a positive way, you know, like, you’re mad, but you’re also wrong.

Lie #4: Faith is the Opposite of Knowledge

MIKE WINGER: So, all right, let’s talk about lie number four, which is that faith is the opposite of knowledge. And again, this is something I’ve heard from non-Christians, especially the atheist community online.

But I’ve even heard it from Christians many times. And me, you know me, I’m like banging my head on the wall, like, please don’t say that. Please stop. Like, it’s been very important in my Christian faith, my experience of following Christ and to stay committed in my faith, that faith is not the opposite of knowledge. And so, could you walk us through this one?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yes. And so, again, this is one of these things that might not be outright said, but just viewed as like, faith is just wishful thinking. Like, I was just at Hobby Lobby yesterday, which I love Hobby Lobby, great store, but I was looking at the home decor, and you know, like, there’s so many signs that just say things like this.

Like, with faith, all things are possible, and I’m like, what kind of faith are you talking about? Like, I know people that have faith in, like, really weird things that if they, like, followed through with it, like, they’d probably die, you know? Like, faith is not just, like, this wishful thinking, and we even see this sometimes in Christian, you know, like, programming, just as you said, like, in Christian circles, and it’s just like, oh my gosh, like, let’s look biblically what faith is, like, let’s actually look. And when we see passages about faith, we’re always seeing that God is constantly asking us to trust in Him who we cannot see, because everything we can see points to Him.

Like, before He gives, you know, in Exodus 20, before He gives His people the, you know, like, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, He says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of slavery, or out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And then He gives them, you know, the commands for how they’re supposed to live. First, He reminds them of who He is and everything they just visibly saw, you know, for the past several months. So, it’s just really important that we directly address this concept with our students, because our culture, you know, whether it’s secular or, unfortunately, many times Christians just use faith as this subjective, personal opinion about things, or this wishful thinking.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Last year, Ligonier Ministries came out with their biannual State of Theology report, and they found that 41% of evangelical young adults, so that’s not including, you know, the 60% that, you know, research has found has already walked away from the church, but, you know, like, those who have stayed and those who still consider themselves Christians, 41% agree that religious belief is a matter of personal opinion. It is not about objective truth. And it’s just like, our kids are going to be taught to believe, you know, like, this is just something that you hope for. It’s not something you think you’re, I actually saw this in a, I was teaching Sunday school at the church that I was attending back when I lived in Chicago, and it was between services, and I was out in the coffee area, and this little boy comes up to me, and he’s like, oh, no, it’s you.

And I was like, well, it’s great to see you, too, this morning. Like, why are you so excited to see me? And he’s like, well, I hate it when you’re our teacher, and seeing you here means you’re probably going to be our teacher. And I’m like, what is going on?

I was like, well, why do you hate it so much when I’m your teacher? He’s like, because every time I come here, I just say Jesus as the answer, and I always get a prize, and the teacher’s happy, except for you. You ask me why Jesus is the answer, and you make me stink. He’s like, you’re not supposed to stink at church. That’s what school is for. And I started laughing, and I was like, well, I know you did not mean that as a compliment, but that’s one of the best compliments any child has ever given me. But I thought, like, wow, how sad that he can articulate, I go to school, I turn my mind on, I go to church, I turn my mind off. And that’s a lot of times our attitude towards faith.

MIKE WINGER: As a youth pastor, I would go out of my way when I was asking questions for the students to make sure that the answer wasn’t Jesus, because I didn’t want them—it drove me nuts. Now, I wasn’t raised in the church, so I never had that. So to me, it always felt weird if I see someone who’s been—forgive me if I say this in a clumsy way—but who I’ll say has been churched in the cultural sense, but I’m not seeing a commitment to Christ. And whenever I see that, I would just be like, what am I looking at?

What is that? I never had that, right? I’m the only one going to church in my family when I was a kid. So I’m like—I remember finding out that there was even such a thing as Christian music, and I think I was like 17 or 18 when I heard about VeggieTales. I was like, what? There’s like Christian media stuff out there? So all that was very foreign to me. Salty the Songbook, I still don’t know any of those songs.

But I’ve heard people talk about it. That was weird. That was really weird. But I’m totally with you on that.

And I think that I would want to drive this point home so hard and just tell people, if you have a belief that Christianity—that you’re a Christian and religion doesn’t really matter about evidence and objective truth. It’s just a matter of opinion. That damages the fundamental gospel of Christ. I’m not kidding.

It’s so much worse than so many other things that you could possibly do wrong. Because Paul says, if Christ isn’t actually risen, our faith is in vain. It’s futile. All of our beliefs don’t matter if it’s not based on a factual truth of a resurrected Christ. And if you say that the factual truth of it doesn’t matter anymore, I don’t know if you’re even Christian. I don’t know that you’re not—I don’t know what you are anymore. It’s so fundamentally different than Christianity that I’m—it’s jarring to me. I’m jarred inside to hear that they’re doing a poll in a significant number of Christians, evangelical Christians, at least by cultural names, are saying this.

Oh my goodness, faith being the opposite of knowledge is a very dangerous doctrine that is not from Scripture.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah, and that passage in 1 Corinthians 15 that you just brought up, that’s actually what I recommend and what I do with the kids that God has placed in my care. Once they understand this difference between subjective preferences and objective truth, then to read through that passage in 1 Corinthians 15. And just as a side note, most of the Bible is written at a third grade reading level, so third graders are not too young to be diving into Scripture, you know, even on their own.

So just read this passage with the kids that God has placed in your care and then ask them, OK, with everything we’ve heard Paul write to the Corinthian church right here, is he saying that Christianity is a faith that’s based on subjective preferences or objective truth claims? And then talk through that and then talk through, OK, so what is he saying that, so these are objective claims. If these claims are objectively false, then what do we do with Christianity? We put it to the side because it’s of no value.

If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we are wasting our lives. We need to move on to something else. Where if the objective evidence points to Jesus rising from the dead, then we put our faith, we put our trust in him so that they can see and then ask, OK, so does the Bible, does it support this blind faith, this wishful thinking, or does it support this evidence based trust, this evidence based faith so that they can clearly understand that Christianity isn’t subjective. It’s not just subjective opinion.

It’s making objective claims and objective claims are either true or false. So we have to make a decision. Either we think the evidence points that way and we place our trust in it, or we think the evidence does not point us that way and we put it to the side.

MIKE WINGER: Right, right. Yeah, this affects so many things because it’ll kill your evangelism. If you think faith is the opposite of knowledge and all this stuff, you also won’t be able to do apologetics. You won’t be able to give people a reason to believe what Christianity is saying. Also, deconversion doesn’t matter because you’re just following your heart to whatever belief that you think is going to benefit you.

When I talk, an example of this from a previous lie would be I talked to a transgender person and I was asking what makes somebody change from being a man to a woman, for instance. So if I want to be a woman, am I a woman now? And then he says, yes, yes, then you’re a woman now. I said, what about if you go through the sex change now, does that make you a woman?

Yes, that too. I said, okay, but what if somebody takes you and forces you against your will and they do the sex change operation, all the hormones and everything? Have you actually become a woman? No, you haven’t because you didn’t want to. And I was trying to kind of narrow down how we were defining reality. What we’re getting our real making properties from is I want, therefore it’s true. And it’s that applied to religious claims. And then number four, you bring in faith is the opposite of knowledge and you just gut any religious claims of objective truth value.

And all of a sudden, yeah, it kills evangelism. Who cares about apostasy? Like, and there’s no apologetics. This is dangerous stuff.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why, you know, like what you’re talking about and why we did truth as the first one, because if we can really ground our kids in the objective nature of truth, then all of these lies become so much easier to tackle. Because as you mentioned, you know, our culture is just saying that it’s our subjective understanding that is what makes reality, reality. That’s not true. Reality is objective. I don’t get to play with reality by my feelings, by my just wishful thinking.

MIKE WINGER: Right. Right. If you’ve ever been surprised by anything, you know that your beliefs don’t form reality. When you wake up and you get ready for work and then you start driving to work and you realize it’s Saturday and you don’t have to work that day, you believed you were going to work. You thought the place was open.

You thought it was Friday. You believed it with all your heart. You got up. You lost sleep. You took a shower. You got dressed. You put on real clothes. And nobody was there because your beliefs and your intentions and your heart has no truth making abilities. It can’t just turn reality. But, you know, an analogy I like to give. We’ll go to number five in a second. But I just I love this analogy I would give with the students.

And I would talk about three guys jumping out of a plane. And this is an objective truth analogy. And I’ll say one guy, he jumps out of the plane and he believes with all his heart he’s going to fly. So he wears a Superman suit because he believes he’s going to fly. So he jumps out of the plane with a Superman suit.

Another guy jumps out. He believes he’s going to go up. He’s going to fly up into space. And so he brings a space suit. And then the third guy, he believes with all his heart he’s going to fall and he’ll die if he hits the ground that hard. So he brings a parachute. What happens when they jump out of the plane?

And then I just leave silence, right? Just let the kids talk. Let them debate it if they need to debate it or whatever. And then finally they’re like, yeah, okay, two of them die. One of them lives. That’s what happens. And I said, what’s weird is that when people go to the grave, we think that all of a sudden whatever we believe is going to happen to us. But when we jump out of a plane, we don’t think that.

So there’s this weird fantasy land we enter when we enter into the religion zone that I don’t want to be part of. Like, I don’t want to be interested in that. And if I’m going to make up a religion, I’m just going to make up one that suits me better than Christianity does. Seriously.

Because I’m not naturally inclined to do all the stuff that Jesus is asking me to do. But anyway, all right, let’s go to lie number five.

Lie #5: Humans are the Product of Blind, Unguided Evolution

MIKE WINGER: So the lie number five you have is humans are the product of blind, unguided evolution. And walk us through this. What are you saying? What are you not saying with this one?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yes. So what I am saying with this one is that this is a claim that’s just widely assumed. It’s not necessarily argued. And I’m also not saying, now, I do not adhere to theistic evolution. When I look at the evidence for creation as I understand it, I don’t see an evolutionary process being used. But there are some Christians who do think that God used that mechanism to form creation.

So I’m not here arguing against that. But I’m saying that when I think one thing that we can all agree on as Christians is that when we look at the world around us, just as scripture says, it all points to God’s design. And so what I’m saying is when we look at the evidence around us, it does not lead to just randomly life forming out of nothing, that we’re not the accident of different biological processes, that we are here with a purpose. And a lot of times what we think of, everybody has heard of evolution.

Everyone’s heard of Darwin. Everyone’s studied this in science. But a lot of times we think that this theory is just relegated simply to the public school science classroom, where that’s not true, that this belief so permeates and just undergirds everything else in our society that so many different philosophies have sprung up out of it. When we think about even identity, meaning, purpose, those are everything that we talk about in society.

Even so much of just like you do you, you create your own identity, you create your own destiny, kind of has sprung up out of some of this philosophy, just because if we are the products of blind, unguided evolution, there is no objective purpose to our life because there has been no design. There is no meaning. So the only thing that we’re left with is to create our own subjective meaning. Also, there is no objective value to human life.

We might agree or someone might agree like, well, we all agree that we have value. Well, why? Just because we’ve subjectively as a society agreed to that. So much of what we’re seeing in our society just stems from this belief that there is no objective purpose, that we are these accidental products of these processes of nature.

And so what we want to do is we really want to point our kids to see that the evidence in the world around us points to design. And then we also want to help them see the logical outworking of the belief that there is no design. Now, this one, this slide is one that just from a practical standpoint, especially even with really little kids, it’s really easy to address just to help them see the evidence around us. And if you have a Scrabble game or if you have the nanograms or you can even just cut out letters, you know, from printed off from the computer, what I’ll do is I’ll take two different groups of letter tiles.

And before I’m working with kids, I’ll just take one group of letter tiles and I’ll shake it up in a cup and dump it out on the table. And then I’ll take another group and I’ll make it spell a sentence. A lot of times I’ll do something like life contains information or something like that. And then I’ll have the child or the children that I’m working with come in and say, OK, like, let’s be detectives today.

Let’s look at these two groups of letter tiles. And we’ll look at the first one. I’ll say, OK, do you see any words in that? Like, do we see any information? They’ll be like, oh, I see an I, I see an A. OK, so we see like one letter words there. Do we see, is it telling us anything? Like, no.

Does it look like the letters got here by accident? Like, they just got spilled? Or does it look like they got here on purpose? And, you know, like really quickly, the kids are like, it looks like they got here by accident.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: I’m like, OK, well, could they be here on purpose? Like, could someone have taken them and arranged them in exactly that order? Like, OK, yeah. And then we look at the next one and say, OK, like, let’s read this.

OK, life contains information. Does this have, is this telling us anything? Is this giving us any information? Yeah, oh my goodness, it’s a whole sentence. Like, let’s look at this. The letters are evenly spaced. You know, there’s spaces between the words. It’s giving us information. And then talk about like, OK, does this seem like it came about on purpose or by accident? You know, and they can really quickly see on purpose. And then we talk about, well, what about an accident? Could these letters have spilled out of the Scrabble game?

And fallen like this? You know, and a lot of times kids will say yes. And be like, OK, let’s try to do it. You know, like, then you gather the letters, you shake them up, you dump them out. You’re like, oh, did we get any words? No, we didn’t. OK, let’s try it again. You’re like, and try it five, 10, 15.

And be like, OK, like, what if we did this 100 times, 1,000 times, a million times? Would we get this much information? No. And then go to the science textbook, you know, that talks about the amount of information there is in genetic coding and talk about, OK, so if in the world around us we can’t get information without there being an intelligent person, what does that tell us about this information in DNA so that they’re seeing, like, oh, the evidence around us, you know, like, is pointing to we got here on purpose, that this genetic coding was actually a plan so that they can see that.

And then we can take them to Scripture, you know, and see, like, you know, in Romans 1, you know, talking about God’s invisible attributes, you know, that are clear to us because he’s made them clear in creation. In order not to see them, we actually have to suppress the truth. You know, then looking at other places like Psalm 19, you know, that just talk about all of creation pointing us towards this designer. So this is a really important one.

And then to talk about, you know, like, well, what would be, you know, what would be different if we got here by accident? And then actually to talk through some of those things. And this is, again, this was something, the first time I went through this with students, I was shocked to see how they were able to kind of connect the dots on the logical outworking of this. That two of the boys who were in my class, they were in fourth grade at the time, and their teacher was taking them through a novel study that took place during the Holocaust.

And they were talking about Hitler’s final solution for the Jews in Poland and his hatred for the Jews. And these two boys chimed, piped in, and they were like, you know, I wonder if it wasn’t so much hatred for the Jews, but I wonder if it was his belief, like about how life started. Because, you know, if we just kind of got here by accident, then there really is no meaning to life. And we could kind of help evolution along, you know, if we kind of played around with it.

Now, I mean, I’m not saying like what happened in Germany in the 1920s to 40s is very complicated politically and economically and philosophically. But just that they were able to connect the dots because eugenics, you know, just actually, you know, getting rid of certain groups of undesirable people does stem from this philosophy, you know, that we are the product of blind, unguided evolution. So it’s really neat to see how kids can fill in those dots really, really quickly.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah, yeah, I like that. And so how much do you get into things like DNA and RNA and all, you know, complicated issues like, say, a biogenesis, the origin of life, the, you know, universal common ancestry? Do you do you get into that kind of stuff?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: That’s a that’s a good question. And it’s one that we actually receive frequently. So what we do is we just kind of give the basics of looking at just the start of life. And we look more at like an intelligent design perspective. And so we just strictly look at, OK, what is the what is the evidence that we find in DNA? What is the evidence that we find in life?

And then where does that point to? And so we get into a little bit just behind just genetic coding, but we don’t get into a whole bunch of other issues like that. We leave that. What our goal is, is our goal is to set the foundation that then other subjects and teaching can build on top of so that then they can take what they’ve learned here and then apply that in the science in whatever context they’re learning it.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah. So it sounds like you’re using stuff from like, say, Stephen Meyer, Michael Bay here, those guys, maybe perhaps they do a lot of like detecting design type stuff that I found very beneficial. And I think it’s very easy to break it down to kids because it’s so intuitive and natural to detect intelligence behind things. And so, yeah, that’s that stuff seems pretty good.

I think that’s probably one of the more challenging subjects to probably cover with kids and trying to police yourself on how much you’ll get into. Because if you want to pretend that you cover all the issues of science with your seven year old, it’s a joke. Right. But right.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: And it won’t be done well. Principles.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Right. Right. And that’s one thing that that we encourage, you know, even if people don’t choose to use our curriculum, if they’re just going to be, you know, working with their kids with their own stuff, we just encourage them to like, OK, seek out what is the main issue that you want to cover, you know, because unless, you know, you have someone in your family, you know, who is in microbiology or something like that, it’s going to be hard to study these concepts in enough depth to really get an in-depth understanding and to present them well to kids. So just focus in on one thing that you’d really like to learn and dive deep in that rather than getting like just like a shallow, broad overview of so many questions. That’s that’s one thing we really encourage adults to do.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah. Yeah. And so the bottom line is to say to the kids, there’s evidence here. There’s a lot of evidence here that there’s an intentional design. And when we look around at the universe and we look inwardly at our own biology and all that, and that is giving us evidence for God. And then you go to Romans 1, Psalm 19, and you’re like, just like the Bible says. I like that a lot. I think that’s fantastic.

So if you guys are interested, we’re still two more lies to cover. But it’s FoundationWorldView.com, right? That’s the website.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Correct.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah. And you guys can check out the curriculum there. It’s actually priced because I’ve looked at online curriculum and I’ve paid to go through programs and stuff before. But you guys’ pricing is really good. So how much is it for a parent to do it? And how much is the coupon code for it that we’re giving them today?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah. The coupon code is for 10%. And for a family license, it’s $175.

MIKE WINGER: And that lasts for how long?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: It lasts for a year. If you get to choose your start date, you could buy it now and start it next June if you wanted.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah. And that’s and how many lessons is that in a year?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: So we have 30 lessons. So our goal is we know that parents especially are really busy with all the things that they have to do with their kids and we wanted to make it manageable. So if you do it once a week for 30 weeks at maximum, it takes you an hour. So a school year is generally 40 weeks. So we give you a school year plus a little bit of wiggle room for not being able to cover it here and there.

MIKE WINGER: This is what excited me about it. When you gave me these details a while ago, I was like, oh, that’s totally doable. Like that’s doable for a parent who’s busy. You just sit down for one hour. You guys watch the video stuff. You talk to your kids. It doesn’t take a ton of prep for the parent to do. And then you have a year to do 30 sessions. That’s very doable. And the price is really low actually considering it’s like $5 or something each or something like that. I did the math and now I don’t remember.

Lie #6: You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For

MIKE WINGER: But let’s talk about number six. Lie number six. This is a very interesting one. I’m interested to hear what you’re going to say about it. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: So actually this lie did not come from me. I lifted it out of the second Frozen movie. It’s like the climax of the second Frozen movie.

MIKE WINGER: I haven’t seen that one yet.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: It’s okay. It’s not worth your time. But Elsa’s mom tells her basically you are the one you’ve been waiting for. And so this lie isn’t said many places in those words outside of Frozen 2.

But it is told in so many different ways in our culture that you are enough. Look within for the strength that you need. You can be anything that you want to be. You determine your destiny. Basically you can rescue yourself because it’s this view that, okay, the problem is out there. Like all of this guilt and shame and fear and brokenness that you feel. It’s just this pressure from the outside. You have all that you need within.

And I actually even see this a lot of times within the Christian community. I saw a Facebook post recently from someone that I knew, a mom of a former student. And she had posted how written on the bathroom wall in the Christian high school was this, it just said, you are enough. And I mean, granted, of all the things people could be writing on the bathroom wall, that’s really not that awful.

So yay. Yay for the win there. But she had just written, she was like, I love this, hashtag truth. And then I was like, really? Truth? You are enough? That’s kind of the exact opposite of the gospel that we are created in God’s image. And so we have this value that no one can strip from us.

But we are also irreversibly broken. We cannot rescue ourselves like the price was God himself bearing our sin. And so this is a lie that we really want to make sure that we’re covering with our kids. Because from the biblical worldview, yes, we can wholeheartedly affirm you are unique.

You are special, not because of your gifting, not because of your look, not because of the things that you do, but because you bear the image of the holy God, like you are incredibly valuable. But then we’re going to depart from culture and that we’re going to say, no, the problems like, yes, there are problems out here that do affect us. But the primary brokenness is within. And the only hope, the only solution for that is Jesus.

So we want to do two things. We want to make sure that we help our kids see their objective value and the grounding for that value and their internal brokenness. So this is, again, like keep going back to lie number one, because everything is grounded in that understanding of objective truth. And just talk about like, OK, so every human does every human have value, you know, and asking our kids that and giving them an opportunity to talk through that.

And then ask, where does that value come from? Is it like an objective truth or is it a subjective feeling? And so then talking through, OK, like if we believe that we got here accidentally, you know, if we’re just the product of blind, unguided evolution, we got here accidentally. Where does that value come from?

It doesn’t count like there is no objective value. It’s just subjective. Maybe our society, we all agree like, yeah, humans all have value, but that’s still subjective because then when society changes its opinion, what are we going to do? Then there’s not going to be that value anymore.

We can also help them really just like see, you know, like in Christianity that this is grounded, you know, objectively by taking them directly to Genesis 1, 26 through 28, you know, that talks about humans being created in the image and likeness of God, that this is something that is so powerful in the Christian worldview that we want them to see.

MIKE WINGER: For those who hear that their value comes from themselves, one of the big problems with this on a real experiential level is that a lot of people don’t feel that valuable. And so they bolster themselves up with confidence makers, you know, so whether it’s, you know, trying to get people to like their appearance or like the way they act or find some skill they’re good at that they can kind of make their identity or maybe find a niche identity. Usually it’s certain identities have a certain kind of approval.

So like punk rockers a little while back, you know, it gave you like a niche, it gave you like a person that people to belong to and you can find your value in that. And so it kind of creates a sense of confidence or many people, they find their confidence in their transgender, homosexual, lesbian identity, whatever it is. And these are to me, they’re kind of competence makers because confidence is my value. And so I feel like I really, really need that confidence.

And Christianity kind of takes a whole different approach and says, you actually feeling insufficient is part of what causes you to be dependent upon the Lord. And you don’t have to fix that. You don’t have to fix the fact that you don’t feel like you’re enough. That’s okay.

Neither am I. Jesus is enough. God’s enough. Your value ultimately comes from him. So that’s unstained by your not enoughness and your confidence is in Christ and your boasting is in Christ and your comfort is in Christ and your weakness makes you even more dependent on him. So what Paul says, I’ve learned to rejoice in my infirmities. I’ve learned to rejoice about my weaknesses because then the power of Christ can rest upon me. And he looks up and he’s like, my whole ministry, it’s all glory to God.

Oh, look at how wonderful God is. And so this to me is a healthy value and a healthy confidence. It’s a confidence placed in someone else that bolsters up your own courage. That’s not based upon your self-evaluation.

MIKE WINGER: And that to me is so valuable and so good. And it’s hard to give it to people who feel that what you’re really doing is you’re robbing them from their sense of value because you’re telling them that they’re not enough.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Right.

MIKE WINGER: You’re taking my value away. And I’m like, no, that never gave you value anyways. You’re just creating psychosis like all you’re doing. Creating all kinds of like weird psychological problems for yourself.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah. I mean, we can’t bear the weight of that because as you said, you know, like when we’re anchoring that in Christ, you know, like in our identity and him and in being image bearers of God, like God is the only one who can bear that weight. You know, like we can’t. That’s just like crushing.

You know, so yeah, just praying that as we evangelize that people see the truth and the beauty of the gospel and just that that, you know, like God is the only one is sufficient to bear that weight.

MIKE WINGER: I’m not the one I’ve been waiting for. I’m not good enough. I’ll never be enough. I will never be enough. But by the grace of Christ, I’m given the courage and hope to press on to seek and serve him and to know that my ultimately to me, my enoughness comes at the glorification when we’re entering into God’s kingdom. We have a resurrection and we’re given, you know, this corruption must put on incorruption and all that. Until then, I’m just learning how to be not enough and for him to be enough.

And that’s an incredible character growth thing. And I feel like the youth are especially prone to this because the older people tends to be they’ve gone through so many humbling experiences that they just can’t have that kind of shallow arrogance as easily as the youth can. Because they do tend to, you know, they just don’t see they don’t get it. And they will when they’re older.

They’ll be like, man, I don’t know what I was thinking.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Well, that’s also I mean, that’s one of the reasons why it’s so important that we be wise in not sheltering our kids completely from difficulty. I know I’m not a parent, so I don’t know the emotional struggle and difficulty that is, you know, firsthand of allowing our kids to walk through difficult things. But by allowing them to walk through challenges and to walk through struggles, that’s part of what this does, you know, is teaching them to rely on the gospel, you know, to rely on Christ that they are not enough that they do not control their destiny.

You know, like, yes, we make decisions that are going to affect the way that our life is going to go. But ultimately, we are not the ones that are in control of that. So that’s really important that we don’t just smooth the road out completely for our children.

MIKE WINGER: Yeah, yeah. And let me just remind everybody that the value of what Elizabeth is talking about and the things that we’re talking these seven lies is that what they do is they give, you know, I keep thinking of it’s kind of a weird analogy, but of diagnostic tools like these are the — this is the way you assess a problem. So I used to work at a computer place assembling computers, and I would do some kind of tech stuff like hardware, you know, checking to make sure hardware is working. And one point I went to a person’s house, right? And or their business, excuse me, and their computer wouldn’t work.

We had built a computer and installed it for them. And I start, you know, one of the things you do, you start unplugging everything. And then you boot up the system and you see if you get the beep for the memory check and all this. And you’re just checking to see is it working, right?

And I blew it up and it works. So then one by one, I start plugging back in all of the stuff that was previously plugged into the system, the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, the printer. Through the process, I found out the printer was keeping the computer from functioning. This is a really weird problem, like not normal.

But with the printer plugged in, it wouldn’t boot properly. And so then we ended up like doing I forget what it was as many years ago, whether it was just drivers or something, we ended up fixing the problem. What this program does is it kind of like unplugs everything, so to speak, and then gives the ability to sort of put back in these ideas. How do you see value? How do you see truth? How do you see confrontation, see disagreement, things like this? And then you find out where the problems are and you address those issues. And then it can like boot properly, in my analogy. So your kid’s brain can be clear and thoughtful and biblically minded.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: And even sometimes just to know, even know where do we need to dive in deeper, that we’re going to be covering all these things, but where do we need to camp out? And where is our kid really struggling? And where are they not believing truth? It’s really important just for those things to come to the surface.

MIKE WINGER: Yes, yes. So the value of this is really big and I’m really grateful you guys are doing it.

Lie #7: A Good God Wouldn’t Judge

MIKE WINGER: So what’s lie number seven, the last lie? What is that lie?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: A good God wouldn’t judge. That this is one that I didn’t, I wish I had recognized earlier on in my teaching. And I didn’t recognize it till later. But our kids are just like we are. They’re constantly hearing the message, don’t judge. It’s wrong to judge.

Who are you to judge? And the first time that I realized that this was an issue, even with my third graders, because I felt like, oh, yeah, I’m hearing this all the time. But I mean, my gosh, they’re eight years old. They’re not hearing this yet. One afternoon I was teaching handwriting and I was walking around and I was correcting, you know, my kids handwriting. And one of my students, as I was correcting, let’s say it was the cursive letter J. I don’t remember what letter it was, but I was like, oh, you know what? Actually, you made this J backwards.

You need to go this way. She looks up at me and she goes, don’t judge me. And I was like so taken aback. I like burst out laughing and I was like, OK, let’s take a step back here. Let’s talk about this. And I was like, is there a right way to make a letter J? And she’s like, yeah. I was like, OK, then are there some wrong ways? Yeah. OK, so it’s objective. As your teacher, is it my job to help you make it correctly? Yes.

So I do need to judge your letter J. But this is something that our kids just really quickly absorb. But now, just with the prevalence, you know, over the past five, ten years of progressive Christianity, the lie has gone even further that not only are we not to judge, but if God was a good God, if he’s a good and loving God, then he won’t judge. That God won’t judge.

And now, I mean, on the surface level, this sounds appealing, you know, because we’re just so used to hearing don’t judge. It sounds like, yeah, of course, God is going to be loving. Of course, he’s going to be compassionate. Like, of course, he’s not going to judge where we’re buying into those false definitions of love and compassion.

Because this, you know, like this idea of a good God not judging, you know, it’s not supported biblically and it’s not even just supported by reality in the world around us. Like, think of somebody who’s on trial for rape, you know, like someone that like violently raped someone else. And the judge just sitting there and saying, you know what? I’m just going to — I’m going to take it easy on you this time. You know what? Just don’t do this again. Like, I mean, can you imagine like the person and their family who were like, you know, brutally raped? And then now this rapist is just left, you know, to continue, you know, harming other people like a good judge wouldn’t do that.

And so what we need to do is we need to directly address this with our kids. We need to help them see that judgment, that just judgment is both good and it’s loving. So what we need to do, again, we need to circle back to the definition of words. It’s really important we get our kids in the habit of asking, what does this word mean?

What does this person mean when they use this word? And so looking at, well, what does it mean to be good? What would it mean for God to be good? You know, like and looking at biblically, it means that to be morally perfect, you know, in that in that term.

And so then, OK, if God is perfect, what a perfect being judge. Now, a really practical way to do this, like a lot of these things, like philosophically, our kids are just like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. So just get really practical. So play, you can either play a board game or you can play a game out, you know, like a game outside in your yard and have one of your kids not follow the rules, like tell them specifically, like, I want you to do whatever you want in this game, you know, like as long as you don’t physically hurt someone like I want to do whatever you want.

MIKE WINGER: You don’t even have to ask. There’s always a kid. Somebody’s going to do it.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: But just do that. And then you as the rest don’t call anything, you know, and like kids are going to get so frustrated because we have this innate sense of justice that like this is the rule and you didn’t follow it and you’re in charge and you need to do something about it. And so don’t let it go on too long because there could be real anger issues. But, you know, like stop it and then debrief and talk about what just happened. You know, OK, so there were these rules.

There was the right way to play this game and this person didn’t play by them. And then what did I do? Oh, was I a good judge in this game? Was I a good rest? No, I wasn’t. And so then to take them back to Scripture, you know, like in passages of Scripture that talk about judgment, you know, in Matthew 25, when Jesus is separating the sheep from the goats, you know, in second Peter, just talking about the day of the Lord coming, but that God is — he’s not slow to keep his promises as some consider slowness, but he desires that will come to repentance. So God is a just judge. And he also made a way for us to be forgiven and he wants us to be reconciled to himself. This is just a really important one because our kids are going to continue to hear in culture not to judge.

MIKE WINGER: I think another fun exercise you could add to that would be if if one team in particular is cheating, then you as the judge, you know, as the coach or whatever, the person who’s the arbiter of rules could ask them to all raise hands. Who wants me to step in and make a judgment here? Who doesn’t want me to step in and make a judgment here?

And you’ll watch the violating team raises their hand. I don’t want you to. The team that’s been wounded, I do want you to, right? And then vice versa, this will probably keep happening back and forth, right? Until you hopefully have kids that are just raising their hand going, yeah, we just need — we just need it. Because what I find is that the people who think that the justice system is the most messed up are usually the people who are in prison as a result of the justice system. Now, I’m not saying it’s not messed up. I’m not pretending it’s perfect.

God’s perfect. Our justice system is, of course, involves a bunch of humans. And we’re the way we are. So, yeah, so it’s got problems. But the people who kick the most against judgment are those who realize that it would fall upon themselves. And I feel like this is a big deal here. A good God wouldn’t judge is also coupled with this sense that people have of like, I really don’t want to be judged, you know, and then let’s hide all the other, right? And I am the one I’ve been waiting for.

I’m actually a lot better than what this Bible seems to say that I am. Plus, truth is, you know, it’s not really objective. It’s more subjective. And my faith can kind of create my reality.

And so I’m going to believe that God won’t judge me because I want to believe that I’m a good person because a good God in my version of good, which is perfectly acceptable, wouldn’t judge. And then all of a sudden you have like what I would call pop Christianity or pop religion, kind of world culture type religion. That’s just a bunch of, it’s the old picture of the guy picking himself up by his own bootstraps. Like he grabs his, he grabs his, it’s funny, you know, it’s an old saying because it uses the phrase bootstraps. Like what is even a bootstrap? What’s a, I guess, shoelaces? I don’t know. So he grabs his own shoelaces, he’s lifting himself up off the ground. Like that’s what all of these lies end up resulting in.

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Yeah.

MIKE WINGER: Except he’s not actually off the ground. He’s just trying to convince himself he’s off the ground. Yeah. His feet maybe.

Conclusion

MIKE WINGER: Yeah. So okay, foundationworldview.com. You guys can go check it out. I hope you will. The coupon code for you 10% off is from, is use the word Bible thinker, one word there, Bible thinker.

And Elizabeth Urbanowicz, thank you so much for joining us. Is there any last encouragement you want to offer or word of advice maybe to parents and people in the audience?

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Well, I just want to encourage them that the fact that they’re watching this means that they care. And that’s a really important thing that God, you know, God entrusting you with a child and with their discipleship is a weighty matter. So I would just encourage you to continue seeking God because that’s going to be one of the primary, you know, influencers in your own child’s life. And then to really be intentional about making sure that they understand the objective truth claims of the Christian worldview.

MIKE WINGER: Amen. Amen. Have hope. It is not time to despair because of the darkness. It is a time to shine because you’re the light. And the harder it is, the harder we have to wake up and pay attention to these things. And it might mean being tired and committing to doing a little bit of extra work, but it’s actually not much. I mean, one class 30 times a year for an hour, like 30 hours a year. Like I think that’s doable. I think that’s doable.

So thank you so much for joining us, everybody. Lord bless you. I’ll be with you on Friday for another Q&A. We’re going to talk about your questions, which you probably added several in the comments that I was unable to look at today. So we’ll tackle that on Friday and I look forward to it.

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