Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Love Y' All get out conversations to help you get out and live the mission. My name's Chad, and I'm so thankful that you've joined us. And I just want you to know that every time you press play on Love Y' All get out, you'll get something that is really designed to encourage and challenge your faith. Some weeks will take a deeper dive into Sunday's sermon. Sometimes we'll hear stories of faith from people in our community. Sometimes we'll just talk church. We'll just talk about those things that allow believers in our community to come together so that we can give strength to and gain strength from one another. And I'm so excited today. I have my friend Amber Hudler here. Amber is our kids minister, and she's also the director of our Next Gen ministries. I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for being here today.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Hey, it's good to be here.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: I love it. I don't know if y' all know this or not, but Amber is an east coast girl who's been transplanted into Oklahoma. And I remember when, when you first came, you were kind of bummed that God moved you to Oklahoma. Have we won you over yet?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: I would say that the people have won me over, but I won't ever get over not living on east coast topography.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: It's kind of hard to give up the beach.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: The beach and the mountains all within, like, an hour or two drive.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: And with my allergies, I tease Londa. I'm like, why are we living in a state that's trying to kill us? I don't know why we're trying to do that or not, but, man, I'm so glad that God moved you here. I think maybe you're right on the edge of having lived here longer than you lived there. Is that true?
[00:01:39] Speaker B: That is true for the duration of my married life.
So I just need to be clear there. I was born and raised in Florida, went to college in North Carolina, met Matt, we got married, then we lived in Virginia for 12 years, and we have now lived here for 12 years as of May. So according to our married life, we have now lived here longer than there.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: So you're like minutes away from just shouting boomer every time football season shuts up.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: That's not ever going to happen.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Well, I'll keep try what we can do. Well, I can see from your shirt that we're right in the middle of influence right now. And so great job to you and your team on putting together an Incredible day camp for our kids. I don't know that everybody really understands or knows the vision for influence. It's not the same as vacation Bible school. There's some similarities, but it's not exactly the same. So tell us, what's your heart for? What brought that around?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: So what I love about influence is that we have kind of taken this idea of, you know, God created each of us on purpose for the purpose of knowing him and making him known.
So the fact that, like, you really enjoy, like, digital things or that you're really good with people, or that I love sports and I love being with people, that that's not so that I may make much of me, but that we both make much of him with that. And so the idea behind influence is for the kids to understand that God has created them uniquely so that they might use their passion for art or stem or outdoors or sewing or dance or whatever it might be, that whatever their gifts and their passions are, that they could think about, hey, how could God use my interest and my talent and my passion to make much of him? Because wherever he's put me is a sphere of influence that he has given me to make much of him.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: That's really good. And I just love the idea that.
That God's given us all skills and talents and abilities and. And you are using influence to help raise up kids to understand that they're really uniquely made for something that God. For a purpose that God has for them. That's really. That's really incredible.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Well, and what's so important is that this generation, more than ever, all of the research and things that we see that are coming out is that identity. It's an identity crisis. And so if we can really help our kids know that they are created in the image of God and, like I said, for a purpose, then maybe we can make a greater impact in this generation. My other favorite part about influence I've loved watching this week is that we also place our adults and our student volunteers in the areas that they love. And so they're leading out of their passion. So our kids are seeing our adults and our students lead out of passion. And so it's one of the reasons why it fills my cup so much. I just love watching, walking around and seeing volunteers get excited and as they're kind of passing on to the next generation.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: That's very cool, and that's that you've used this word several times already. It's about one generation pouring into another generation. It's actually one of the things I love about our church. And I know this is true for many churches. This is just seems to be something God's done special here. We are a generational church. We are intentionally trying to equip all ages to serve one another. And influence is one of the ways we do that. We see more mature people pouring into less mature people and everybody's having a blast doing it. And I just, I love that. There's another thing that takes place inside of our next gen ministries then, and influence is a part of that, but it's a, it's one piece of it. We have what we think of as milestone moments. They're, they're moments of significant transitions in the lives of family that, that we really want to make much of. And really your team is the team that's really been driving. What do these milestone moments look like? Tell me a little bit more about that.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Well, I would think that the best way to really explain this is to even think about our approach to minist from preschool through high school. So in preschool, the whole idea is that we are looking to incite wonder for our preschoolers, wonder into who God is and what he's done, his character.
And then in kids ministry, our plan is to be able to just pack as many foundational details that we can about scripture, like Old Testament, New Testament, how do all these details work together? And I believe many of you will hear your kids go, my kids know so much, you know, I can't even believe what they know. That's on purpose.
Because when they get to middle school, the idea is that as they're developing, they begin to start into this rhetoric and so question asking and processing. And then all of a sudden they're going to realize that they have all of these tools that have been built on from preschool through kids. And then that our high schoolers would own their faith, that they would go, whoa, I have all of these details and these tools and now I kind of know how they work together and then use those to defend my faith.
So with that in mind, I just felt like that was really important before talk about even what the milestones are.
And the milestones are a very natural thing for most any kid. But we really try to be intentional about how these milestones happen. So the first one is when kids are graduating from preschool ministry and they're coming into the kid ministry. We miss Susan, who she's our minister over our preschool kids. She gives them a big kid Bible. So she gives them a Bible and the translation that we use in kids ministry, that it's A step up from what they had in preschool.
And then we. But I guess actually I could go back to say it would really start with family dedication. And that is something different we do here at our church that I don't haven't seen everywhere anyways, is that often you'll see that churches have baby dedication.
But Susan really has a passion that families understand that this is a family commitment. Not just like a family in terms of the biological responsibility, but also the spiritual family, our church family, that, hey, we're making a commitment that we're gonna raise you to know Christ.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Part of what I love that is as families during a family dedication, we're saying our intention is to raise these children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. I love that. But it's not just you and your family alone. It really is our church family making a commitment. Really a promise to you that, that you're not alone, that we're going to do this together.
I love that about that family dedication moment.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: I do too. Susan has such a great vision for that. So it starts really with the family dedication and then into the kind of the stepping up from preschool ministry to kids ministry. And then when we launch our kids from kids ministry into middle school ministry, we typically give them a journal. Because one of the biggest things that Andrew and Kira do with student ministry is teaching them here, journaling, like how do they highlight a passage, explain it, apply it, and respond to the Holy Spirit through that. So there are some really unique tools that we're using in, like in those milestones. So then the final one is when, whenever we are sending out our seniors. My hope is that if a child is raised here under our next gen ministry, that they would truly walk away understanding the wonder of who God is, that they would recognize that the details in the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New Testament, that they would know that they can ask questions of God, that he's not afraid of them, and that they would realize that they have a confidence to defend that faith. And when they launch that, they recognize that in their sphere of influence, they have everything they need to know him and make him known.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: It's really cool because what we're really saying is we want to, well, train up a child in the way they should go so that by the time they graduate with confidence, we can know this isn't just some facts they know about the Bible. But. And it's not just some cultural Christianity because my mom and dad said so, or this just I was raised in a particular place, but they can step through graduation, and we can, with confidence, say, hey, this.
This faith is their own. It's theirs and they own it. I love that about that. There's some verses that always come to mind when I think about this.
In the Ten Commandments, it says that we should honor our father and mother. Yet in Ephesians, it says, children, obey your parents. And I think these milestones help us recognize that what we're really trying to do is, well, we teach children to obey their parents because we hope they grow into adults that honor their father and mother with a faith that's their own. And so I'm really thankful for the way you all have developed those milestones and for those significant, significant moments of transition that we can build into the lives of families. And as a church family, to remind each other, we're not alone, we get to do this together. And I'm really so excited about that. So thanks for being a part of that. You know, it's one of those things that is hard sometimes for people to see. You're with kids all the time. But as our kids minister, you're really not just ministering to kids, you're ministering to the entire family. And because you're ministering to the entire family, you're talking with moms and dads and grandparents, and there's, you know, big kids and little kids and teenagers and all the things.
So from your perspective, if we, as a church, we're going to pray for families, what would be some things worth praying about?
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Wow. So I think if we were to simplify it, I would just say that it really is true that we are navigating an anxious generation. That that is a real thing. And so as we're doing that, there. There really are generations before this Gen Alpha generation. And really, I could even say Gen Z. And then now we have Gen Beta on the scene, 2025.
But that it's really different than generations before. Not saying that generations before haven't had some of these similar struggles, but there's just, you know, we could have a whole podcast about it about why and how and all of that, but the reality is it is an anxious generation.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: So anxiety is just very real today.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: It is.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: It's very present.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: It is. And so we kind of have, like this. We have some generation of parents who are just kind of at a loss of, hey, how do I walk with my child through this? Because God is enough, and he is all we need. But sometimes, too, he gives us tools that are really helpful. And so I would say the way that you could pray for us is that we would connect well with the kids and the students, but also that we would connect and equip parents well too.
And that I think would really be what I would say would be the greatest ask. Obviously, we want kids to know the Lord. We, we always want them to feel. I love to say it this way, safe, seen, loved, and to hear about Jesus. And so the best way that we can do that is to connect with them on their level. And he'll let them know that they are seen.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: That's really good. So pray that God would overcome the anxiety that our families are feeling. Pray that God would give us connections with one another. You know, it's interesting how connected those two ideas are, because when we make a connection with go through Christ, when we make a connection with one another, it's amazing how that changes my approach to anything that might make me anxious again. It goes right back to some of the milestone ideas that we're not alone.
And somehow knowing and being confident that we're not alone, it absolutely changes the way I experience anxiety. And so those are great and worthy prayers to pray. God, would you overcome the anxieties in our families? Would you help us to make real, meaningful, lasting connections with one another? So that's really perfectly. Thanks so much. I'm so grateful. Thank you for what you do as our kids minister. I'm so thankful for you and great work. Great job. I'm really proud of you. It's really, really good. Well, thanks so much for tuning in today. I hope you'll hit subscribe that allows you to catch future episodes as they drop. And I'm just so thankful that you've joined us today and. And between now and next time, here's what I hope you do. Love y'. All. Get out.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: That's so good, Sam.
