College Proof Your Faith with Jay Seegert

In this wonderful conversation with our guest speaker, my son Sam and I are glued to our seats as we glean wisdom about how to college proof our faith. (Or, life proof for those of us past college)

This is a rough cut transcript of the AMAZING conversation we had with Jay Seegert with The Starting Point Project at A Better Way to Homeschool on Facebook.

5 Steps to College Proof Faith

Examine home life. Are we living out our Christian faith in a way our kids can touch and feel it, or are we hypocritical?
Provide safe haven. Our kids need to have approachable parents and the ability to openly question their faith, challenges, and life. “Nothing is off limits for us”.
Identify the BIG questions we all wrestle with at one time or another: Does God exist? Is the Bible true? Which is correct: creation or evolution?
Study one question at a time.
Form an answer and PRACTICE.

Here’s the FULL conversation.

Bekki 0:01
Hey everybody is Bekki with A Better Way to Homeschool and I brought one of my son’s with me today. This is Sam Sam. Say hi. “Hi.” I am so excited to talk to you today I have a an amazingly special guest coming on not just Sam. And but Sam is here because we’re going to be talking about college age kids, and how 75% of Christian students end up walking away from their faith before they leave college, and that’s a problem. And so I am thrilled, thrilled it to be able to introduce you to my friend, Jay Seegert. Welcome. Jay is with a a mission called The Starting Point Project. And I met Jay about seven years ago Sam was just saying he doesn’t remember meeting Jay because he was eight.

so we’re going to give him some slack. And about eight years ago, Jay was at our church in Tehachapi, California, sharing a topic. “Faith is not a four letter word”, and captivated not only my attention about God and God’s word, and science and how they go together beautifully. But also just this idea planted in my mind that helping kids hold on to their faith as they transition from our kitchen table as homeschoolers into college and adulthood was something that we needed to pay attention to. So, Jay, welcome.

Jay 1:41
Thanks for having me on the program.

Bekki 1:44
I am super excited. So I was hoping that you would start by telling us a little bit about yourself and this whole starting point project.

Jay 1:51
Sure. I’ll give you my brief overview background, I was raised in a Christian home, two older sisters went to a fundamental Bible believing church, believed everything about the Bible, from cover to cover, went to public schools all through high school, but really wasn’t challenged a whole lot with my faith that Think about it. I believed it but didn’t think think it through a whole lot. Then I went to a Christian college to study mechanical engineering, john Brown University and Arkansas. I did get a degree there. But then I became more interested in physics. JOHN brown didn’t have a physics major. So I left there and transferred back to Wisconsin where I live went to the University of Wisconsin whitewater to get a degree in physics. And that’s when my world changed quite a bit going from a small Christian College where my engineering professors actually opened up every class in prayer, to a large state university where my physics professors did not open up in prayer. They were all evolutionists, some of them were atheist. And in essence, they were telling me everything I believed was wrong. And that made me feel very uncomfortable to be surrounded by these PhD scientists who I assume had a lot of evidence for what they believe. But I realized for the first time in my entire life, that even though I knew what I believed, I didn’t know why. How did I really know that God existed? How did I know the creation account was scientifically valid? That’s huge studying physics. How did I know there was a worldwide flood? How did they know Jesus was the Son of God? How did I know the Bible’s inspired Word of God? I was raised to believe every one of those things, and believe them, but I couldn’t defend it. So God put it on my heart at that point, my life to start researching. So I have been actually researching and speaking for the past 33 years on these topics. And about 12 years ago, I felt called out of the job I was doing, I was doing computer programming, I had my own business. But I felt called to leave that and go into full time ministry. So for the past 12 years, I’ve been working through the starting point project, which is a ministry that I started. Initially, we were the creation Education Center, and some more material still say that on our DVDs and things, but we broaden our horizon. We still talk about creation a lot, but it’s bigger than just creation and evolution. It’s about the authority of God’s word, which is our starting point. So we’re the starting point project. Been doing it full time now for 12 years and it’s just it’s gone international is exploded, I was up to 190 talks a year. God just keeps keeps blessing the ministry and I I just get to go along for the ride. God doesn’t need me but he’s allowing me to be part of this. So that’s my background in a nutshell.

Bekki 4:29
Wow. And you know, I I love that I love that you just are going along for the ride. Because truly, you could be doing something else entirely. And I know the same with me, I could be doing something completely different than homeschooling and bringing up kids with my husband and the way they should go. And but it’s it’s a wild ride. It’s like being in a wild water whitewater rafting trip the Lord just as long as you have yourself in a helmet of salvation on you’re good to go right maybe, let’s do it. So, um, this idea of a see I have three kids in college right now, college ish, this is one of the ish kids college ish, because where we live, they can go they can take their junior senior year in high school, while simultaneously earning their associates degree true, which is a fantastic program. But like you coming just with this wall of unbelief, and atheism and challenging absolute, not even challenging everything, but just attacking everything that you believe some very, very relevant, trying to be very aware that you can’t just send your kids off into the to the world and hope that every, you know, it’s one thing to know that God is real, like we do. But like you said, where you just don’t know why you believe or how to how to defend what you believe, that really slams kids in the face when they walk onto a college campus. At least we found that in our home. So far,

Jay 6:11
all the colleges generally the first time that these youth are thinking through they kind of thinking okay, I know what I’ve been taught, but what I really believe personally, what do I believe, and now they’re hearing a lot of other views. And some of them come across very dogmatic, harsh attacks against their belief system, their Christian Foundation, and some of the arguments can sound pretty good. And they’re not sure what to do. And what’s really key and will be a foundation for the rest of this interview. Is this point here. I’ve been speaking for 33 years now. And I talked a lot about kids walking away from their faith. And it wasn’t until about three years ago. So it was after I’ve been traveling around speaking for 30 years. Three years ago was the first time that I asked myself, why why when I was challenged at the State University, why didn’t I walk away? You most youth are? How come? I didn’t walk away? It took me about a half a second to answer that question. And the answer came very quick and confidently. And it was my relationship with my parents. And that’s a lot of people, a lot of people think, well, it’s going to be well, you’ve studied or you knew this, or no, I had nothing to do with that I didn’t, I didn’t know I had believed what I believed would have been easy to walk away. But I had such a great relationship with my parents. And I respected them so much. I didn’t want to disappoint them walking away from the faith. And I never thought for a second that what they told me was wrong or that they would have been lying or that they didn’t know what they’re talking about. And I didn’t think my pastor was ignorant or lying or anything. So I thought, okay, I can’t defend what I believe. But I believe it’s true. And if it really is true, it’s got to be tons of evidence. And if there’s tons of evidence, I’m going to find it. And so I was energized to go off that direction and find these evidence and I went home from college one weekend, I went to my church and I told someone you know that I was struggling being attacked. And they said, all you need to talk to Don Jacobson, he was a man at our church, who was he at the time was studying for his PhD in medical physics. And they said, He’s really into the whole creation evolution thing he could help you so went over to his house. I don’t think he probably knew me very well. But he was willing to spend half an hour whatever with me, he launched two books, I devoured them cover to cover, and that got me started 33 years ago. And what’s cool is he and I still get together for breakfast regularly. No idea that spending 30 minutes with a college kid would launch an international ministry. So I encourage people to spend time with others mentoring, tell them telling them what you know. But that’s how I got my start. And the reason I didn’t walk away is because summarizing, I didn’t want to walk away one of the problems we have today, as a lot of the youth who get channel challenged, they’re kind of looking for excuses to walk away way and college gives them those excuses, and we can discuss some of that.

Bekki 9:03
Yeah, it gave me chills when you said that about the relationship with your parents. Just That’s amazing, because it’s actually more amazing for me personally, because that’s my husband’s mantra is how important it is that we continue to nurture our relationships with our kids, but also that we we’ve been multi generations with our kids that we don’t buy into the fact that these age categories need to always be separate that you have over here, and the young adults over there and the you know, half time people that are in their elderly years over there, that there’s such a need for their it to be interwoven. That’s fantastic. So, so if kids are walking away, there’s got to be there’s got to be things so I am all ears and I’ve got my pencil ready. And I’ve got my little paper quarterback here with my not really but and I work when we do so we’ve got seven, your your website, and your step says up and I’m assuming it might even be more now, but 75% of Christian students walk away from their faith before they leave college. Um, what can we do about that as, as parents as Christians, what can we do? How do we help our kids?

Jay 10:28
Well, there’s a hard way in an easier way. Very often when I’m out speaking and talking about, you know, the huge percentage of youth that walk away. And really quick, just a caveat, some of these youth that are walking away, some of them probably were never really saved to begin with. And they may never come back because they weren’t really there to begin with.

Many of them are, but they’re not very solid when they go away. So there’s there’s a lot going on behind those statistics that we share. But often when I’m out speaking about this issue, I will have parents come up to my my resource table afterwards, some of them sometimes crying, saying, you mentioned these youth walking away, they’ll say that was my son, that was my daughter, and they’ll they’ll share a personal story. And I always feel bad for them. But I’m never really surprised. But then what happens is, in essence, and so many words, they say can you fix them? And what they mean is, can you tell my son or my daughter, this DNA stuff that you shared in your talk, that was fascinating, if you if you could tell them that that’ll get them to realize that creation is true, and evolution is wrong. And then they’ll be back in church again. And I’m thinking know, you really don’t understand the situation here. It’s not that they were fine. They went off to college, and they heard something about evolution. And then they dealt their faith and walk away, and they just need some of these facts thrown at them. It’s much deeper than that. The easy route would be get them a DVD or a book with all these schools, facts and it and that’s the fix. But that rarely is the case those things will help and we can talk about those things. Typically what’s going on is this scenario, and I don’t want this to be discouraging to parents, because a lot of times when you tell someone something like oh, you should have done a, b and c and they’re thinking I didn’t do it now it’s too late. I blew it. Well, maybe you didn’t. But it’s never too late to start doing something right now. Right? So let me give you just a really quick scenario of what can be happening at home that leads to you with walking away. And so you know, your viewers can be thinking through this and think what their proper response maybe should be. One of the reason that the youth are walking away is that they’re not really seeing Christianity being lived out at home. And here’s a typical scenario. This is not every Christian home, but it’s probably too many homes. Sunday morning comes and everyone’s getting ready for church and dad’s wife going down the hallway and he sees Little Billy, still in bed. He’s like, we gotta leave in seven minutes. You’re still in bed, and there’s all this tension. So they’re getting ready. So Billy finally gets out of bed and we’re driving to church, there’s tension in a car. And then the soon as I get to church, and they walk through the doors, the parents are like, Oh, hi, how are you? And all friendly and happy. He’s thinking if you would have just seen him screaming at me in the car five minutes ago. So now they’re at church, and then maybe Billy goes off to a Sunday school class and it’s okay. I mean, he’s got some friends there. He likes to see in the Sunday school teachers same blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. Then they get out of Sunday school and they go into the church service and the church services you know, whatever the Apostle Paul tells us in First Corinthians, you know, just like what I heard it before what other just small Bible stuff and on that’s fine. SS what you do, you go to church, you know, so you don’t have a choice. You know, you’re going to church with their family. So that’s just as Christianity and then as soon as you get back home, Sunday afternoon, from Sunday afternoon to the next Sunday morning, it has almost nothing to do with Christianity. Dad’s gone all the time working late moms frustrated cuz he’s not home to help out in the house needs fixing and on and on all this stuff. And then Sunday comes up in church is so important. You can’t be late. So we learn about Christianity. The other layer is Little Billy realizes how upset his parents get when his rooms a mess. And he’s thinking, if they ever found out that I was smoking pot once in a while, oh my word, they would just go through the roof. So he learns to hide that. And then he’s going to do something with his friends from let’s say the local junior high or high school public school. And his parents Oh, no, no, you you gotta hang out with the kids from the youth group. And Billy is thinking If you only knew the kids from the youth group, they’re the ones that got me smoking pot. On the public school, they’re actually pretty good kids. But he can’t You can’t tell on his friends from church because then he gets in trouble. So that’s that’s Christianity him year after year after year after year. Then he goes off to college. And he’s living with this tension in this guilt and the double lifestyle of messing around pot once in a while, and you know all this stuff and feels guilty. But you know, what are you going to do about his friends are doing and maybe it’s not that bad, goes off to college. And now his head is filled with all these reasons why Christianity isn’t true. Anyway, the Bible filled with errors and contradictions, there’s all these different versions, there’s extra stuff that got put in there, there’s missing passages, scientists thoroughly disproven the creation account. Nobody believes that anymore. There never was a flood Where did all that water come from? Where did all the water go? How to no good. All those animals on that are Jesus and the Son of God is just another religious guy, and on and on and on. And they are actually excited about those things. Their professors say, you know what, you’re here at the university now, to learn real truth, to get a real education to get a real job to live in the real world. So you leave that Bible stuff at home, I don’t want to hear about it in this classroom. And a lot of things happen like that. And the professor say your parents don’t know what they were talking about. Now, Billy goes home and talks to his parents about carbon 14 dating or dinosaurs, or whatever it is. Parents don’t have the answers. And he says, that’s what my professor said, You don’t know what you’re talking about. They walk away. That is more of a typical background than a child being so solid in his faith. And then he hears about carbon 14 or something at college and walks away, that doesn’t really work that way.

Bekki 16:30
Right? So it’s a snowball effect. See, and not being grounded and truth and then not having a safe place where they can be vulnerable and transparent with things that they’re struggling with. We don’t have any of those issues at our house. Never know, we never we never have any of those things happen. Do we ever never know. So, so what’s up? So is it is the first step, just having a real reality check.

Jay 17:06
Well, it should be parents should be honest with themselves saying if someone were looking in on our home, would they say wow, they’re really living out pretty good Christian principles fairly consistently. No one does it perfect. They say you know what, our Christianity really kind of comes out Sunday during church. And after that we don’t really think about it much other than maybe praying before a meal or something, but they don’t see mom and dad having their quiet time. They don’t have family devotions. Family devotions doesn’t mean okay, it’s Wednesday night, seven o’clock lecture time. Been there, done that. That doesn’t work, right. I’m a lecture that’s all I knew set the kids down saying if you just sit still for five minutes, five minutes, it’ll be over. If they did sit still, it’s not effective. They don’t want to hear from me. They were going to a Christian school the time and like it, they’re already saturated with all that. And then I was going to give them a lecture. It’s more of they come home from school. And they happen to say something interesting. And you say, what do you think about that, and one time my son came home, and I think if I remember, right, some of his friends, they were at a Christian school through eighth grade, and they finished at a public high school. But when he came home from the public high school, he said one day that you stand around with a bunch of his guy friends, and I think they were talking about two other guys from the school who apparently were gay. And they were all saying the other guys is my son’s friends were saying they guess they thought that was okay. I mean, they’re not really bothering anybody. And what’s wrong with that? If that’s what they want to do? And I just asked my son as well, what do you think about that? He says, I’m not sure what to think they said, Well, do you think God’s Word has anything to say about that? He goes, Yeah, probably didn’t. So we just kind of started having a conversation rather than for me to give them a lecture. Okay, well, let me tell you the truth. Here’s this verse, and here’s why this is wrong. Just get into real life with them and say, You know what? The problem that if we want to say that these two guys, you know, shouldn’t be interested in each other, we can say that that’s wrong. But that’s not really the problem. The problem is the authority, God’s word. Why do we expect those two kids at a public high school to live all Christian principles when they don’t agree with the foundation of Christianity, which is the authority, God’s word is God’s word, that’s the problem, not their behavior that you get the foundation taken care of the behaviors tend to take care of themselves. You just have these conversations. Another one came up with my son, a friend of his from the Christian school, had some different ideas about a certain doctrinal issue. And I, I was so close to just start telling my son all this doctrinal stuff on the verses and all these arguments for a particular view. And I just kind of bit my lip. And I said, Well, you know what, I think you’re gonna have to look into that. He said, yeah. And he did, he jumped on it. And he did hours of research. And then it was his own understanding, rather than like, well, now I know what I believes. So it’s just thinking through these things at home, it’s not about being great at it. It’s about getting better each day, each week, each month. Otherwise, it’s overwhelming. So start with what are we doing at home. And the other thing is you, you can’t give your kids something that you don’t have. If you’re not really reading your Bible very often, praying consistently, if you don’t really know how to defend the Christian faith. How are your kids going to magically learn this, if you’re dragging them to church, they’re supposed to learn at a church, well, you’ve been going to church, you didn’t learn it. So don’t, don’t be self condemning too much. Just realize, okay, I’m not in the best position, but I need to be better position. So maybe even tell your kids, I want you to be better at defending your faith. But I realize that I’m not in the best position. Let’s work on this together. And it could be kind of exciting, and just to a little bit at a time. You don’t have to learn it all in one month, and be done just each month, have a plan to learn something starting with the basics. How do we know God exists? If someone says, Well, how do you know God exists? prove it to me? What’s your response? Start with that? And then how do we know that the Bible is the Word of God? Those are the two most basic things about Christianity that God exists. And number two, the Bible’s His Word. If you don’t have a solid response for those two questions, why should anyone believe what you believe including your own children? So if again, answer those two questions, start there, and then just keep building and adding more things to it?

Unknown Speaker 21:19
So you can’t just say because I think it’s true.

Jay 21:22
You can say that when the kids are young, and like, Okay, fine. I guess that’s what we believe. But later, when you say the reason that we’re Christians is I believe the Bible. Why do we believe the Bible because we’re Christians? Why are we Christians, because we believe the Bible round and round anymore, because we’re like, but that doesn’t make any sense. So we need to have reasons as to why we believe that God exists, why we believe the Bible is truly from God, and not just another religious book out there. It needs to make sense to strengthen their faith to give them confident when they’re sharing the gospel message with someone.

Bekki 21:54
Right? And, and what you’re not saying is that, well, I can hear people’s starting to freak out. Just like, whoo, whoo, where do I go? How do I figure that out? Maybe I have to go to school, maybe I have to get a PhD. Maybe I have to, you know, graduate? The truth is, is that God is big enough to answer our questions.

Jay 22:14
Again, and start just one thing at a time, my wife was really big, she does interior design, she has professional counseling, but she’s really big at just doing a few things at a time every day. She’s like, get rid of 10 things every day around the house, you know, even if it’s a pencil or something laying around, if you didn’t need to get rid of it. After a while, you know, 30 days goes by you got rid of 300 things. So start this with your faith start somewhere. So you know, what, if someone asked me, How do I know that God exists? I am not comfortable that I have a really solid answer. I’m going to start with that. And by the end of the week, I want to have found a decent response. And I’m going to rehearse that, so that when the month is over, I not only had learned but it’s it’s kind of at the tip of my tongue and I can share it with you and and have practice that in my kids know that too. So we can we got that one, then What’s the next one? Okay, how do we know that God wrote the Bible? Let me start, you know, learning that so that when the week is over, I’ve read it and when the month is over, I know it. And then again, when the year is over, that should be 12. Things that you you know, are pretty adept at knowing that you don’t have to do it all tonight. Don’t be overwhelmed with knowing everything right away and be willing to get beat up once in a while. When you learn something, and then you share it. You think it’s really slick, and someone says, What about this? Like, oh, you might look like a fool. That’s okay. So you know what? You just brought up a really good point. I’m not sure I have a good response. But that’s such a good point. I need one, I’m going to find one. And if I can find one and get back to you, what difference will it make to you is, is what you’re bringing up one of the biggest issues for you? If it’s not, can we table that temporarily? And you tell me what your biggest three or five hours? we’ll tackle that? If this is one of the biggest ones, then when I come back to you with a reasonable response? Will you be willing to hear more about Jesus or God or the Bible? If they say no, they’re not serious. If they say yes, and you have your homework cut out for you, and go tackle it, get ahold of our ministry, you can email me call me or whatever. And I’m not going to give you 12 books to go read, or 500 hours of videos to watch, I’ll give you a link to a maybe a two three page article to start, again, which take it one step at a time.

Bekki 24:29
Well, and that reminds me that for anybody that’s watching now or in the replay later in the descriptions, there’s all the links and contact information for Jay. So the starting point project, com phone numbers, emails, so if you do have questions, but I, but I love what you just said, and I want to make sure people pay attention. Jay is not the man with all the answers. God is the one with all the answers. And, and yet, sometimes just to get your feet started in the right direction, it’s really helpful to have somewhere to go someone that has been down the road, a fuse, they’re just a little bit further down the research road than you are. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to open your Bible and pray, you still need to sit at God’s feet and say, because God’s big enough to answer our questions. I don’t understand this. Lord, I need you to show me that it’s true. I need you to show me you know, I believe you exist. But how can I? How can I? How can I articulate that to someone else in a way that they will receive it. And when you were in touch with me, and it was perfectly timed with I was walking side by side with another gal my age that was an atheist, and had been hungry and thirsty for the truth about God. And it’s interesting what you’re saying about being to being able to give a defense for your faith, because I was in that place where she would ask me why. How do you know that this is true? And my eloquent was eloquent response was basically I don’t know, I just believe, I don’t know, I just believe. And she’s like, that’s not good enough for me, I need to know more, I need more information. And I kept encouraging her to go and just for me, I’m rock solid and what I believe and I know that the answers are in Scripture, and I know that if you ask God, He will answer you. And right around the time you were there, she she’s like, Yes, Lord, I believe this is the coolest thing. So I have timed in my mind with that. But I love one of my homeschool moms. I was as I was interviewing her on the phone the other day, she has four little girls, and one of the little girls interrupted while we were on the phone. And so I’m talking to her encouraging her in her homeschool journey and her daughter interrupts and she says, sweetheart, mommy’s on the phone. I need you to go play quietly till I’m done. Yes, mommy. And I heard the little girl say yes, Mommy, and then go entertain herself. And I thought to myself, so far ahead of so many people. This is so great. But she was focusing on one thing with her daughter at that time. And that was being content you know, being content on mommy was busy clear outlines. And I love that you’re you’re not saying get all the answers, you need to know them all right now. But you do one thing at a time, just like that removing the one pencil that you’re whining does, that adds up these things really do. snowball, you know, a year from now, 10 years from now you can be much more rock solid in your faith. Not in what you believe, but in how to articulate.

Jay 27:52
Right. And that’s my story. I I honestly don’t feel that smart. I know my degrees are in physics and engineering but pitches shows that I could pass some tests in a sense, right. But the reason that I’m in a position now answering a lot of questions is because years ago, someone would ask me a question that I did not know. So I had to go find the answer, because I wanted to know, and then that was one more thing I knew. Then they asked me another question. And then it was two things. You do that over the years. And pretty soon, people will think that think that you’re smart. And what you’re going to find out is there aren’t 500 questions out there. There’s a small core that people ask over and over and over once a while, you know, something different comes up, I get excited when someone asked me a new question, because, you know, the core ones, but those are the ones that people are interested in. And those are the ones that we should be pretty quick with an answer because they are common. Like, again, you can’t get much more basic than Okay, well, why do you believe that God exists? How do you know what are the evidences or inspiration of the Bible? or Why do you believe the creation scenario rather than an evolutionary story, you don’t have to go and tons and tons of scientific details. But even within the creation, evolution controversy, here’s just some more practical advice. What I like doing is, in some of my lectures, I give a lot of detailed facts and people love hearing it. But it’s trivial. Because you know, an hour later or a day later, they’re going to forget the details. And that’s okay. They will have heard it and it will encourage them in their faith. So what I really like to do with people, is give them practical advice that anyone can use, whether or not you memorize facts or not. And one thing is piece of advice I call staying out of the weeds. And this is what I mean, you get into a conversation with someone and they find out you’re a Christian, and they go, I can’t believe you’re a Christian, you believe all that Bible stuff. And you say, Well, yeah. And they said, Well, you know, the Bible’s just myth, and I mean, evolutions of fact. And then you say, Well, you know, I, I believe in creation only I Well, you don’t you know that bacteria actually evolved resistance to our antibiotics, it we’ve seen it a laboratory, it’s proof of evolution gets eat right in front of our eyes. And if that much evolution could happen in a short period of time, imagine what can happen over millions of years. What’s a Christian going to say? They don’t know. They don’t even understand this whole, you know, evolving resistance to antibiotics. And what can you say, if you don’t know you can’t say anything. What they’ve just done is they pulled you down into something that’s fairly detailed. Now there is a response to that, which I won’t go into right now. But what’s a practical thing that someone can do? Who knows nothing about antibiotics and all that, what you can do is stay out of the weeds. And I’ll give you a practical analogy. So you know what I’m talking about, and then bring it back to the topic. Let’s say you’re at a used car lot. Now. And now I have everyone’s attention, like, Oh, you could relate to being a used car lot you want to buy. So you’re looking at a car and a salesman comes out goes, can I help you? And you say yeah, I’m looking at this car here. Because all let me show you something he takes around to the passenger side opens the door flips. Open the glove compartment says been done looking there seen the back there? That bolt holding it in place? And you’re like, yeah, I guess I kind of see it. use that as the most precisely manufactured bolt on the planet won’t find anywhere. And you’re like, well, I can. I can barely see it. I’d have to take your word for it. But I actually have a few other questions that maybe you could help me with first. He’s like, Well, before you came out here, I was looking around the car, and he noticed it doesn’t have any wheels. Secondly, I, I opened the door to sit inside and I don’t want to complain. But every car I’ve had before this had a steering wheel, this one just has this column sticking out. And then I pop the hood. And I noticed there was no engine. But if you can help me understand how those things are not going to be an issue for me, and I’ll still be able to drive the car, then you could tell me more about the bolt.

I honestly, I don’t care about the bolt. So how does that relate to like creation evolution? Right? When you bought antibiotics and all that, and what you get says, You know what, I have to take your word for it don’t really fully understand that. But I have a few other questions. Like what? Well, like? Where did everything come from? to begin with? All the stuff that’s in the universe? is a massive universe filled with energy and matter? Where did it come from? to begin with? How did it come from? Nothing? If there’s no God doing all this? How do you get something out of nothing? And then secondly, how does this massive expansion of a big bang form all the order we see in the universe they call the cosmos which means order. So how do you get all these ordered, you know, planets and things and all that, then once you have planets? How do you get dead chemicals to become alive and make it you can reproduce itself? And then once you do have a living cell that can copy itself and make more cells? How does it turn itself into every other life on this planet? Because it would have to gain a lot of new information. If you have to go from a single celled organism to a human being, you have to add tons and tons of new information. Where does the new information come from. And then also, I’m wondering, when this sell copies itself, you have another cell and then another cell and another cell another. So at some point in history, it had to go to making a pink and a blue one, a male and a female. And now each of these just has half the genetic information they used to and they have to get the halves together to make another one. And it has to work the first time, you can’t evolve all the steps one piece at a time over millions of years that has to work the very first time and every time you have a new species that has to happen, a male and a female. So can you help me understand those things? If you can, if you can answer all those things, you can tell me more about the antibiotic thing. But if you can’t answer these bigger questions, I don’t know that I’m interested about the antibiotics.

Bekki 33:49
And, and it and the goal is not to skip a fight or, you know, quiet. a skeptic

Jay 33:57
is not about winning arguments. What you want to do is always stress that we do these things extremely graciously, what you’re doing is you’re getting the other person to realize they’re making a lot of bold claims. Like I won’t go through the whole scenario right now. But often what they’ll say is, you know, evolutions of fact, and the Bible is just myth, okay? instead of jumping all over that and trying to prove that creation is true and prove the Bible is the Word of God or whatever. You just realize they made to what we call truth claims to drink. That evolutions of fact, and the Bible is just myth. So instead of trying to prove your beliefs, don’t even say what you believe. Just try to better understand where they’re coming from, by asking follow up questions. I asked him, How do you know evolutions of fact? Well, they’ll say, right, all scientists believe it. Okay, ask another question. All you have to do is listen to what they’re saying. They said all scientists believe in evolution. How do you know that all scientists believe in evolution? Well, all the real scientists believe in evolution. Okay. How do you define a real scientist? Well, anyone who believes in evolution, there are real scientists. Well, that’s circular reasoning. Right? But why do the scientists believe in evolution? Well, it’s proven by evidence from every area of science. Okay, can you give me a few examples? Well, there’s tons of it. Okay, then it should be pretty easy to give me an example or two. Well, go get a book. You know, there’s tons of books written on this. Okay. So you’re telling me you believe in evolution, because there’s apparently books written on it with facts in it. You don’t know what the facts are. But you believe it? So you actually believe it by faith? Which is ok, but then don’t tell me you know, it’s a fact because I don’t even know the evidence. And you do it graciously. And the reason is, you want them to understand they’re making a lot of bold claims, but they’ve got really nothing to back it up.

Bekki 35:44
Right. Right. And I think that we always need to err on the side of grace. You know, we’re not, like you said, you know, we’re not trying to win arguments. Ultimately, we’re, we’re trying I had somebody recently, she started the conversation with I know, you’re really religious but and I said, Well, I’m not, I wouldn’t consider myself a religious person. And she was stunned by that. And, and I said, Well, I just, I just love the Lord. And she’s like, Huh, and then she started to tell me all about this stuff in creation. And she’s a she doesn’t believe in God. And, and at the same time, she’s drawn to creation, she’s drawn to beautiful things in creation. And so rather than try to, like, beat her over the head with the Bible, just entering right where she was, you know, that creation is amazing. And that just shows my very first I tell this story a lot. I didn’t become a believer till I was 24. And yet I can look back in my life, and I can see God’s fingerprints all through it. And but the way that God would my heart was through creation, you know, my father showing me a flower and saying, Becky, look at it. And I would say, Oh, it’s pretty. And he goes, No, look at it. And I would say, it’s pretty, no look at it. And then I, you know, due to flee, look at the flower and then he’d whisper in my ear, how can there not be a god? You know, and I loved that. It was the simplistic, not simplistic, but these is revolutionary, it. I believed in evolution till I was 24. Because that’s what I was taught in school. Even though my dad was whispering truth, I had never heard the creation story. And I remember listening to I think it was Dr. David Jeremiah on the radio or something million years ago, and just scales falling off my eyes as I’m listening to the the truth about the scientific things that point to creation. And how just, nope, I’ve never been in a conversation with anybody where I’ve tried to defend creation vs evolution where I’m trying to make sure that I win that argument and then have them turn towards the Lord, versus loving them and stepping back and focusing on the bigger issues. It’s just the enemy wants us to get lost in the weeds, like you said, and we

Jay 38:24
need to affirm people where they’re coming from there. It’s this is a spiritual issue, not an academic debate. I’ve had people when we go to q&a, yeah, screaming at me swear at me. And when they’re finished, I’ll usually say, you know what, you are really passionate about this. That’s awesome, that you’re really thinking through these things want to talk to one satanist who came to one of my talks. And he was I introduced myself and he was just taking shots at me right away. And I just said, You know what? You seem like a really deep thinker. In fact, I think you think more deeply than most Christians that I know. Because the questions, you’re bringing up these, they’re awesome. Then I have answered his questions. He came to all four talks that I gave. And he said, You need to talk to my friends about this. Not because he was probably impressed by the details, but someone was accepting him and caring about him. That’s if they don’t see Christ in us, nothing we say is going to make a difference. And I run into a lot of people who want to learn apologetics and they just want to learn facts. So I can spew facts out win arguments, and like, No, I don’t have time for that. These are human beings who are loved by God, but they’ve been spiritually blinded, they cannot see things properly, they need the Holy Spirit to be working on them through us. So we need to be very gracious, we need to work really hard not to get in God’s way.

Bekki 39:41
Yes. So then, so just I know that we could talk about this forever, because I am passionate about this, as well, I’ve got my own little, you know, crew of people that are at our kitchen table and, and entering this season where I call it the gauntlet, where they’re transitioning from what mommy and daddy has have told them all their lives, and they have to go through the gauntlet to come out the other side to where they’re rock solid, and what they believe. And they’ve, they’ve been tested and purified and what they believe. And, you know, they’re at that at this gauntlet, being ready to be challenged by professors and other teachers and students and the world in general. And, and, and, and yet, it always comes back to love. And it always comes back to grace, and listening, you know, these these things that you’re talking about at asking open ended questions. Well, why is it that you believe that? Or really, is it all? Do you believe it’s all scientists that believe that why would you Why would you think that that those types of open ended questions absolutely apply to faith, but they absolutely apply to raising up critical and critical thinkers and kids that they’re not judgmental, and, but just really trying to understand where people are coming from?

Jay 41:08
Well, there’s Yeah, there’s so much, you know, if if we want to do another interview, in the future, I’d love to because we can address how do you handle yourself when you’re in the classroom, whether it’s, you know, public high school, going off to college, or whatever it is, when the professor teacher saying something that you know, is wrong, especially when they’re, they’re directly attacking, I won’t go into the full story. But in my geology class, in college, the first day or week of class, the professor was just slamming the Bible and attacking, and the students are laughing. And I was in the front of the class, he didn’t know who I was, I just transferred there. And if I What do I do? He’s making fun of the Bible, and one’s laughing about it. But I didn’t know what to say, because I just started my research so I can give advice on what do you do in those situations? Should you raise your hand? Should you ask questions? Should you say something? So there’s a lot of practical advice that we could cover if you want to do another program?

Bekki 41:57
Well, and I would love to do that. And I yet in the sticking with the advice of doing one thing first, one thing would be to examine ourselves to examine, like you were saying, as I was taking notes, just, you know, checking our own rocks, and what the atmosphere in our own home, are we the same at church that we are at home, I struggle with, I struggle with an even out here, right before I did this interview, I had another group and I was talking with them saying, look, I am I don’t have everything all together, I am not this picture, perfect mom, he will attest to that. Because I gave him a hard time today. For the exact same things. His room was a mess, the dog had been fed till noon. And I was like, not being the most gracious mom on the planet. And but so examining ourselves, examining our walks, and giving our kids and atmosphere in a home where they feel safe to be able to talk about these things. You know, we’ve talked about this, especially with a scientific minded mind, he won’t mind me calling him out, you know, how do you know that God is real, because as you’re digging deep, he loves science. So as you’re digging deep into scientific things, you’re going to come face to face much, much faster with this atheistic worldview of evolution. And you know, God’s word is just a myth and all these things, it’s, it’s nice for you, it’s a crutch for people that are weaker, all those things. And, but just giving him the opportunity, giving kids the opportunity, and that safe place where they can say, I’m struggling with this, you know, I don’t I don’t know what I believe right now and not feeling like they’re going to be ejected out of the CRISPR. Know,

Jay 43:53
I told our kids that I wanted them to know more about evolution than anyone else. I wanted them to understand what it represents, so they could understand problems with it. And I also told him, You guys can question anything that I say, I’d like you to do it respectfully. But question, don’t just assume you have to believe because I said, so you don’t want to get into a debate with dad, bring up anything you want. Because your faith needs to be your faith and not just mine. And that actually at one point in their life scared them that they’re not covered. Because of me, they have to make these decisions on their own. It was very helpful. And both of our kids just got married the summer and just moved out to we’re empty nesters now, but I you know, you talked about that you’re not perfect at what you do. I’m far from being perfect. In fact, I joke about saying, I think I got this thing now. So I’m going to ask if my kids can move back home again. I think I’m good at it finally, finally move out. And I get good at it. Because it’s for all of us.

Bekki 44:50
Right?

So I’m just making sure that I like hit all the things because a lot of my audience that moms I have a see. I have some comments. So let’s see, Gail had a big one. She was in living history. She’s she does living history presentations. So she portrays a woman of great faith. In one of her speeches, she says I was raised on the farm. Yet until I learned it on my own. I did not know that cows don’t have front upper teeth, similarly raised in a Christian home. But the time came when I had to decide for myself what I believed. Just because we’re around something doesn’t mean we understand it as truth.

Jay 45:33
But that’s huge. There are a lot of as I as I traveled around, that’s the primary thing I do is travel around and give talks at churches, conferences, or wherever and we don’t charge anything that anyone’s interested. We do ask that travel expenses be be covered. But there’s never charged for the engagements. But as I travel around I I talked to a lot of pastors whose own kids have walked away from their faith. And you think, how does that work? They grew up not only in a Christian home, but the dad was a pastor and knows all this well, just because you’re in in amongst It doesn’t mean it’s sinking in to the joke about you can go stand in the garage, it doesn’t make you a car. And so I meet more and more people who had a great Christian background, but it never sunk in, they never took it personally. And they easily walk away because they weren’t there to begin with. So until you experience yourself, in fact, my my faith was my faith was strong. Growing up, I didn’t have a good understanding. But my faith was strong. Then I went to the Christian colleges, solid, strong faith but still couldn’t defend it. Right. And when I went to the State University and got attacked like crazy, I grew more spiritually. I was in the navigators grew up at the State University, I grew more in the navigators group, and those few couple years and I did my entire life growing up in a Christian home and being at a Christian College. Because I was you know, was thrown into the fire, and that really refines you. And so those are great experiences to have. But you just have to at least be willing to create suit truth and God loves it. He’s just he’s excited when we say we need help. It’s like, that’s what I’m here for.

Bekki 47:04
That’s right. And I love that and you know, he does meet us when we’re going through the gauntlet when we’re going through the fire, you know, the things that fade away or things that need to go anyway. And but it’s it’s okay to ask us as parents questions, it’s okay to ask God those same hard questions. As long as you’re pursuing truth, right? As long as you’re actually asking for him to to meet you.

Jay 47:33
You’re willing to hear the truth versus I’m asking this question, but I’m only willing to accept this answer that’s dangerous

Bekki 47:40
by willing to listen to the answer. Sammy, do you have any questions? No pressure. Let me put you on the spot real quick.

Jay 47:49
Probably not on be funny, too.

Bekki 47:51
Yeah. Oh, everybody.

Look right at the camera. So look like you’re paying attention. No, you taught me if you do, he’s my He’s my slow thinker. In a good way. You’re welcome.

Jay 48:06
I processing slowly too. So don’t worry about that.

Bekki 48:10
It’s actually a gift of being a he’s he’s a careful thinker. So he answers carefully. And we always joke that Sam goes the right speed in a very highly caffeinated world. And everybody else is flying around wanting things just like this. And he’s not in a hurry. And I love that about him. So I’m so being in a place where we examine our hearts, we give our kids a safe place, so that they can ask us questions. I love that know more about evolution than anybody else. Because the truth is, is that the more you dive into God’s now he’s going to meet you right there. So as you’re learning about these things, I still shake my head and not making fun of what anybody believes. But the the, the fallacies that I just swallowed, because I hadn’t had anybody tell me the truth before. I still can’t believe some of the things with evolution that I believed it just it compounds me. But I don’t want anybody to feel foolish. It’s just speak the truth. And the truth just reveals itself.

Jay 49:25
Yeah, we don’t need to, we don’t need to shame anyone know, God was gracious with us to help us see the truth. We need to be gracious with him. I was having a conversation with a PhD scientist who had become a Christian, probably two, three years before I met him. So we were getting together to talk specifically about creation evolution, because even though he became a Christian, he struggled with creation evolution, because his whole upbringing as a PhD scientists was evolution, evolution evolution. And so he was working through some of that. So when we were talking, I shared a lot of detail with them. Much of the details, the actual facts, he knew, because he’s a PhD scientist, in fact, he’s, like a world leader in his area. And I’ll never forget that one point he looked, you know, he was sitting across the table, look me in the eye. He said, Jay, I know this stuff. How come? I didn’t see it before? I’ve known this stuff for years. How come I never saw? It was a rhetorical question. He knew it was a spiritual issue until he’s in fact, he said that he was right driving down the road one day, when he was fighting God. And he just felt overwhelmed. He couldn’t fight anymore. He literally stopped his car, got out, got down on his knees. And he said, I give up, I want to know you. And then boom, the spiritual blinders are removed. And now things make sense. But prior to that, he’s not going to build a sort through it, because it’s a spiritual issue.

Bekki 50:44
Very much, though, and very real, invisible scales that blind you to the truth. I remember. Anyway, just all these rabbit trails that we could go on, but that when the light comes on, it’s amazing. And then you have this institution appetite for more like, show me more. And let’s see somebody else. Jennifer said, she just watched your video on creation evolution debate, great series. Do you have you must have. So I, one of the things you said was about creation and evolution. So I want you to share about the Grand Canyon thing that you were just telling me about. But I want everybody to know that Jay has. So when we had Jay, at our church, my husband went, ooh, this man speaks truth. I want these will do this for science in our house. So we have all kinds of resources and on the website, and I don’t get anything for sharing. with Jay, we’re not connected in that way. Just spiritually, just, I love that he teaches the truth from a scientific standpoint. And so he’s got lots of resources out on his website. Lots of you can see the different topics that he’s talked about. But you were telling me, Jay, about this Grand Canyon trip that you do. And this is so so exciting. I don’t even have all the facts straight. So I’m going to try and take notes while you tell me again.

Tour the Grand Canyon with The Starting Point Project

Jay 52:10
Sure.

Sure, it’s I’ve been co leading Grand Canyon tours, starting in 2015. There’s another guy that I met, who he lives down in Arizona, he’s been doing them for Emerald, 20 years, and I met him and he said, Hey, would you do a tour with me? And I thought, well, I’ve never done that before. That’d be awesome. Right? So I did that in 2015. And it went so well. He said, he goes, that was the best experience he’s ever had. So he said, Would you do it again. So we did it again. Now. So each year since then, we’ve been doing about two each year. And what it consists of its it’s not just a tour to go see a big hole in the ground, millions of people around the Grand Canyon, it is cool. And what I tell people is that you can go to the Grand Canyon, go online and see pictures and cool pictures. It’s nothing like being there. But even those who go to the Grand Canyon, they go on their own, or whatever it is, it’s cool experience to see it. But after a few minutes, you don’t know what else to think other than it’s just really cool. Other than if you’re reading the plaques, and they tell you about you know, green or the Colorado River Carbonell the Grand Canyon, physically impossible. And a lot of secular geologists know that. But when you go with a guide, certainly can go with us. There are other creations groups that are doing trips. I like ours, because they’re very practical. They’re not super long. They’re not super expensive. They’re very family friendly. We’ve had kids that are five or six years old go, we’ve had a couple that was 82 years old go we had an 85 year old guy last year and everywhere in between. So our trips are basically one day on the rim in one day on the river. So you have a travel day to get to Phoenix or our trip, start in Phoenix, a day to get there. And then the last day you’re traveling back home, but in between those two days. So we drive up to the canyon. It’s a nice chartered buses, we staying nice hotels, that we get up to the rim of the canyon, and we spend that one day along the rim of the canyon, looking one mile down to the Colorado River. And I tell people I’m actually afraid of heights. But I figured it won’t be an issue for me because the canyons not high. It’s just really

so but it’s a safe trip. So we walk on flat paved path is not rappelling and rock climbing are people who say all my hip is bad or I’m too old to can’t walk. You don’t have to do a lot of walking. But we point out all these things that you can see for yourself. You don’t have to just say, Well, I guess I trust them like no, you’ll see for yourself, that there really was a worldwide flood, the green cane is the best place on the planet to see evidence for that. So we point out those things, tying it into the authority of Scripture, the Genesis flood, you’ll see direct evidence, and you’ll be able to see where the original creation rocks were. And you’ll be able to see right on top of that the great unconformity, or all the sediment tear layers are that started when something came through there and turned up that granite rock and redeposited those, we’ll be able to point those things out. Many other facts like one really quick fact that most people don’t even know when you’re standing on the rim, looking a mile down, there’s a lot of dirt missing 900 cubic miles of sediment gun. First of all, the Colorado River couldn’t have carved that out of a did at the end of the river, you’d see this massive Delta with all that sediment there. It’s not there, because the river didn’t carve it out. But here’s the point. Most people don’t know, when you’re standing on that room looking a mile down all the dirt missing. There used to be another mile and a half above that point. It’s missing. How do we know it was there because of the north of the canyon delay are still exist. It’s called the grand staircase. But it’s been washed all by the canyon, the Colorado River didn’t wash out a mile and a half of sediment above the rim of the canyon. physically impossible. It had to be a continent wide, you know, sheets of water coming, you know carving those things, you know, washing the layers away, and then later, probably a breach, Dan carved out the canyon very in a short time period of time, which even secular geologists many of now think the canyon was carved out in a relatively short period of time, not over millions of years by the river. we point out things like that, as you can see for yourself, and people get so excited about the authority, God’s word, they don’t have to be embarrassed about the flood story. They get excited to talk about it if you can trust that you can trust the gospel message to so the second day, we actually are on the river and we don’t have to climb down you know, to get there actually went hiking in February hiked all the way down to the river. And then next early next morning, six hours down and six hours back up, it was something else. But we don’t hike down there. We take a bus and you get off the bus and you walk down a ramp. And then there are the rafts. And it’s not whitewater rafting, where you’re falling out and worried about your kids getting hurt or anything or older people. It’s just perfectly smooth sailing going down that river. We give talks there, you’ll be able to see some petroglyphs, and it’s just, it’s an awesome trip. And at the end, we get to see some dinosaur footprints. So you can walk right on top of them, which probably shouldn’t be, but it’s part of an Indian reservation and you let your walk right on top of them. Take pictures of them all the it’s just it’s an awesome trip. It’d be great for homeschool groups to go with the parents and their kids. So if anyone’s interested with their next one we have scheduled officially scheduled is next May it’s the 28th through the 31st. You just get yourself to Phoenix, our fees cover everything once you’re in Phoenix, it covers everything all the hotels, charter bus, all the food, the hotels, the entrance into the canyon, the rafting company, it’s all covered. I say I say roughly $800 because there are family discounts there early bird discounts, there’s pastor discounts, and children are cheaper about 100 bucks cheaper.

Bekki 57:44
My house my kids, eat us out of house and home. That seems very reasonable.

Jay 57:50
So that’s the official trip. If enough people get together they wanted to we could schedule a custom trip, just pick a different date that works for people if they’d rather do it in June, July, August, September, October, we could schedule a trip All we need is enough people to make it worthwhile adding another trip, which we’ve been didn’t been doing about to each year I would do for if we could fill the buses, we can get about 50 to 54 maybe on a bus. So if there’s a homeschool group where you can get even 30 people together, we could probably Schedule A trip and then we would just add a few extra people to fill the bus but so if you’re interested get ahold of us through our website.

Bekki 58:24
Yeah. And what a what a fan as a homeschoolers, what a fantastic, fantastic way to be immersed in God’s creation, like, Wow,

Jay 58:37
what a really breath breathtaking when you get through.

Bekki 58:39
Yeah, and the difference between I’m going with somebody that knows, going with somebody that can speak with authority, because they understand what they’re seeing is day and night. It’s there’s no comparison, when you go with somebody that’s been there. It’s like when we were learning about Native Americans, and we were able we view in Tehachapi, where there was a were grinding stones, where the Indians would grind the acorns down into flour for their food. And so when we were learning, we packed up the boys and we brought them to the stones, and they were able to grind to their acorns. And we’re reading our stories, and how much more real and relevant that part of history became to them because they touched it and because it and they were walking where the Indians walked and the Native Americans walk, and how cool it would be I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, he tried to run across the Grand Canyon. He was little and we’ll forgive him for the fact that it looks like a mirage. And because it’s so deep and fantastic. And, and I’m I had always heard stories about the Grand Canyon that some people will walk up, look around. And then they’re like, okay, I saw it. And then there are other people that would sit and they could watch it all day. And I was one of those people I walked up and I was so captivated by this Marvel in front of me that I couldn’t explain. It just stunned me to silence. And but I we didn’t get any kind of tours, we didn’t get anybody to point to any of the layers or any of the anything that would declare the glory of God. And so how cool that would be. So Craig Sayler. If you’re watching later, that’s I want to go on granted, I want to go. But it helps you can plan this in because this is something that you’re now doing every year. Right? So

Jay 1:00:37
yeah, I mean, we could we’re flexible with, with dates, you know, we for sure, may 28 through the 30th versus one triple, we just started promoting it. So there’s only a few people that signed up. But if people want to go but that those dates don’t work, just get ahold of us. And we could select some other dates that do work as long as we get to know people.

Bekki 1:00:54
Okay, very cool. So as as we wrap up, I’ll get ready. I’m just going to I can see that people are on which you can’t see, because I’ve got this side on, I don’t see any questions. So if anybody has any questions for Jay, now’s the time to ask because we’re just about to wrap up. And but really this whole adventure of raising kids up and sending them out. And like you said, they’re not saved, and they don’t get into heaven, because we are, they really need to take cap, they need to take the reins to their own faith. And that’s really our job as parents in not saving them because we can’t save them, but pointing them towards truth. And then having open ended conversations and being willing to say things like, I don’t know the answer to that question. But let’s look deeper, or that sounds like something that you need to look into. And I would love to hear what you find after you have done that research, just cultivating those open ended questions, right, quote those conversations, so that we can have a dialogue because God’s not going to let us down. He loves our kids more than we do. And he’s going to meet them right, right where they’re at.

Jay 1:02:11
As parents, we need to be human and approachable. And one time I had walked into my son’s room, and he had done something wrong. I don’t even know what it was, he was actually a really good kid, very easy to raise. But one day he did something. So I was talking to him. And I just I looked at him and I said, Do you know who I am? You have any idea who I am. And I don’t normally talk to him that way. But I did that day. And I knew that would kind of surprise him. And I knew he wouldn’t have a response. I said, I’m just you just a little bit older. That’s That’s all. I said. I’m just just older. But I experienced the same things. I messed up tons when I was young, and I mess up now. And so. And that just totally allowed him to relate to me. And it just changed our lives relationship quite a bit because he saw me as human. Many times I would go into his room and say, Hey, you know what, you know what you did was wrong. However, I overreact a little bit because I was frustrated with something else. And I kind of took it out on you. I’m sorry, would you forgive me? And when you do that consistently, that’s when they see Christianity being lived out rather than like, I don’t dare question dad, because he’ll get angry. And he can debate me and say no, I didn’t want them to sense that or feel that at all. But I had to be proactive and making sure that it wasn’t coming across that way. And that then they feel free to bring up real questions. And our kids brought a lot of questions up that I was surprised, surprised that they did. Because normally you don’t want to ask your parents about that. But they did. So I thought this is great. They feel comfortable. And that’s what I wanted.

Bekki 1:03:47
And that’s inspiring, inspiring. I know, just this afternoon I like had a conniption fit on my own children. And I’m not afraid to say that hit cuz he’s right here to say yes. In fact, my mother had a conniption because I had these unrealistic expectations, and I let them know that I was frustrated and, and yet being able to go back and to say I overreacted. I was stressed because of things that aren’t related to what we were talking about. And so just even having those real conversation, especially with older kids, I mean, some of the moms are still having one and two year olds. But it’s super important. And to realize, like you said, and we’ll kind of close with this, that it really starts with that. It starts with the little things, it starts with one small decision to say okay, I’m not who I think my we’re not where we’re supposed to be, I can see that. I can’t answer these questions right now. So we’re going to start doing things to answer the question like you were saying about answer, answering, Does God Exist? You know, is his word truth? That we can take one of those questions and we can start looking in the word for what God says what the authority says, establishing what our answer to that question is, then rehearsing how we would answer those questions as people. And I love that because as parents and homeschoolers, and the the most rock solid lessons that our kids need to learn, need to be learned, and then practiced, and then rehearsed, and then fine tuned. And our faith is no different. It doesn’t need to be fairy dust and magic wands. It can be learned and practiced, and reinforced over time. And God is faithful. It’s like brick upon brick upon brick of foundation that are walking. so fantastic. JI, I could listen to you talk about this stuff all day.

Jay 1:06:04
Well, I appreciate the opportunity. And you know, if you want to do another show, you can even ask you, your viewers or anyone in your group, if there are specific questions they want addressed, whether it’s related to creation evolution, or the inspiration of Scripture, whatever it is, and, and we could address those because I know we didn’t, I didn’t get into a lot of details. And some people are probably thankful and others like, Oh, you didn’t? dinosaurs, carbon 14 dating or inspiration of the Bible, or whatever. And we can only cover so much. But I think this was a really good introduction.

Bekki 1:06:35
I think so too. And I just can’t thank you enough. I, you’ve been all over the globe, and you were even your wife’s knight in shining armor today, rescuing her from a flat tire, and I appreciate you carving time to answer these questions. And I think it’s so important that we see it as my dad would say, you know, this is a huge problem, not problem but challenge how we get our kids, you know, ready, and it’s like eating an elephant one bite at a time. It’s truly like that, that we can equip our kids to help them Captain their faith, but they need to do it one bite at a time. So really good. First bite. So great.

Jay 1:07:19
I’m glad to be part of the program.

Bekki 1:07:21
Jay, if you don’t mind holding on just for a second. I will be right back. But thank you. Thank you so much for joining. True poll. My goodness, Sam was fantastic. Wow. So you heard it, Jay would come back on and talk to us. What do you want to know? Do you want to hear more about creation vs. Evolution? See, I have all of our little DVDs here. So and he talks about faith not being a four letter word we’ve got? Is the Bible the inspired Word of God? Do you want to hear more about that or creation in six days? dinosaurs? DNA? What do you want to know? Is there anything that you want to know? Let me know and then we’ll put Jay on the calendar later and in there. But do me a favor and hop over to Jays Facebook page, the starting point project and like it and go visit his website he has. There’s so much information out there. There are little teasers for all of the topics that he could talk about. You can obviously get a hold of the DVDs or the teachings that he does. He also has a newsletter that comes to your email and has these questions of the month that would make fantastic open ended conversations for your family to think about and to chew on and just to go back and forth with through the course of your life and homeschooling. So definitely let him know that you appreciate it that he was here and thank you for joining so you guys have a wonderful day and I will talk to you soon. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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