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47: A Recap and Highlights of Season 3
148 Plays2 years ago
As we wrap up Season 3 and look forward to 2023, Jill Devine took some time to reflect on the conversations held during Season 3. You can hear all episodes of Normal Goes A Long Way on the podcast platform of your choice.
We hope you will join us after the New Year when Season 4 launches. Mark your calendars for Tuesday, January 10th, 2024 for new episodes of Normal Goes A Long Way. Season 4 will focus on stories of redemption, struggle, triumph, and more.
Normal Goes A Long Way Website: https://www.normalgoesalongway.com/
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Normal Goes A Long Way is brought to you by Messiah St. Charles: https://messiahstcharles.org/
Use my special link https://zen.ai/normalgoesalongway and use Normal Goes A Long Way to save 30% off your first three months of Zencastr professional. #madeonzencastr
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencastr
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Before we get into this week's episode, I'd actually like to talk to you about how I'm recording this week's episode. A lot of times I'll hear people tell me they want to start a podcast but they shy away from it because
00:00:15
Speaker
They don't have a fancy studio to go to, and they don't have fancy equipment to record with. And all I say to them is, you don't need those things. You need Zincaster. That's it. I've been using Zincaster since the day I started my podcast on my own, and it has evolved so much. Let me give you a couple of examples of what I've seen Zincaster go from to where they are now. So before, it really was just audio recording.
00:00:45
Speaker
Now you can record video. A lot of people are doing video podcasting and Zincaster allows that for you with 1080p video RSS, which you're like, what does that mean? Well, basically Zincaster will distribute your video podcast to all available video podcast players.
00:01:03
Speaker
Another really cool feature that Zencaster offers is the live soundboard. You can insert any audio clips live as you record. You can add custom intros. You can use different sound effects.
00:01:19
Speaker
Everything is built right in to make it so easy for you. And let me add, I've been so impressed with Zincaster. I actually had this podcast distributed through a different hosting site and switched to Zincaster because I just love
00:01:35
Speaker
everything that they're doing. You don't need to worry about a fancy studio or fancy equipment. You can be a podcaster with Zencaster. Go to zencaster.com slash pricing and use my code. Normal goes a long way. You'll get 30% off your first three months of Zencaster Professional. And I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. Now, let's get into this week's episode.
Jill's Personal Faith Journey
00:02:03
Speaker
Christianity has become known for judgy people. Strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members-only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way. I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The Normal Goes Along Way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation.
00:02:40
Speaker
Welcome to our final episode of Season 3 and our last episode of the year before we launch Season 4 on Tuesday, January 10, 2023. Season 3 kicked off on June 14 and the episodes from June 14 until December 13.
00:03:00
Speaker
all focused on the faith of the next generation. This is super important to me because being a mom to two littles ages six and four, I want to make sure my girls know who God is. I want to have
00:03:15
Speaker
a faith-filled parenting lens on. And I'm interested in a lot of the faith-filled parenting conversations, not just for littles, but even middle school and high school, because I know that these talking points, so to speak, will just help me and set me up for success. And it's also interesting to me too, because I did not grow up
Faith in Educational Settings
00:03:44
Speaker
with faith. I was not in a church. I didn't have any religion and I didn't have it in the household. And that whole story you can hear in the first few episodes of normal goes a long way. But I didn't start attending church or Sunday school, basically confirmation sort of kind of stuff until middle school. So I don't know what anything is like as far as growing up in the faith.
00:04:13
Speaker
So we started these conversations with...
00:04:16
Speaker
Hannah Lang, and she is a director of children's ministry. And then we also continued those conversations with Ryan Finler, who you know as my millennial mentor. He is one of the other wonderful hosts on this podcast with Laura Fleetwood. And I want to read to you something that they have said to me that they promote when it comes to reaching elementary kids and also middle school kids and high school kids.
00:04:46
Speaker
It's been said that the church is just one generation away from extinction. It is frightening to think that the faith we share may not exist for our kids' kids. From Psalm 78, verse four, we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. So we just have to do it in a way that connects with the new generation. And that is why I wanted to have these different conversations on
00:05:15
Speaker
We, like I said, talked to Hannah, we talked to Ryan, but then we got some of the high school students that Ryan is able to minister. We had them on to get their perspective. We got perspective from students that attend private schools that are Christian private schools. We got perspective on
00:05:37
Speaker
Kids that attend public schools and it was really interesting to me to hear these different perspectives because Like most people there are definitely assumptions that I have about Those that attend private Christian school, which I mean now my girls do so and
00:05:57
Speaker
I just wanted to hear this different perspective from teenagers because I attended a public school and but again, faith was not part of my DNA at that point. So I wanted to hear from those that faith is part of their DNA and they are going to a public school where it's not
Faith-Filled Parenting Series
00:06:15
Speaker
something to discuss openly. So those conversations happened and they were really great in eye opening and you can get those right now wherever you're listening to this podcast, any of your favorite podcast platforms, all that good stuff. But what I really want to highlight is what we just recently wrapped up with and it's faith-filled parenting for normal people.
00:06:41
Speaker
And so I had Hannah and Laura on to discuss certain topics based on ages. So Hannah would tackle the elementary age and then Laura would tackle the secondary age, high school, and maybe like just getting into college. And we talked about so many great things and so many great comments came from this series.
00:07:11
Speaker
were blown away of the number of people that said, oh my gosh, I never knew that you could talk about that in this particular way that involved faith.
00:07:27
Speaker
So I just wanted to share a couple of highlights with you as we wrap up this season and we wrap up this year. So we're going to start with faith-filled parenting, how to talk to your kid about death and give you a little highlight on how that conversation went.
00:07:45
Speaker
So that question of why do people die is so hard, especially if it's specific to a person. Why did grandma die? Why did her mom die? Why did my dog die? Because we don't have a good specific answer that feels satisfying.
00:08:01
Speaker
Sometimes, especially because we're wrestling with the same thing, but the truth of the matter is death is in the world because sin is in the world. But that's not where the story ends. We always want to point kids to Jesus because Jesus is the rescuer, which means Jesus gives us life.
00:08:17
Speaker
You don't want them to hear about all that as they're experiencing that initial grief. Like that there's there would be so much going on that to process all of that on top of it. I think teenagers are are able to understand like, OK, whether mom dies when I'm 17 or 50, you know, this is what she wants. This is what dad wants. So I suggest just having those conversations.
00:08:45
Speaker
Up next, episode 35 tackled how to talk to your kid about technology. When we set up this series of episodes you talked about, we don't really want to over-spiritualize things, right? It's not like Jesus made a commandment about how much screen time your three-year-old is supposed to have. Right, going back to cheesy or force. Exactly. However, I do think that when we think about technology, we come into some value conversations.
00:09:14
Speaker
We can't shelter them from technology because they need to know how to use it. And we want them to learn how to use it in a healthy way. Episode 36, the one that made me sweat, allows how to talk to your kid about sex.
00:09:32
Speaker
We never want to make a child feel shameful about their body. So if we're shushing them or not using the right words or not letting them talk about it, it's saying that maybe something's wrong or bad with their body. But that's not what God intended. That's not the way God made it. It doesn't have to be a taboo subject. Right. And so yes, the way you respond in those early years,
00:09:55
Speaker
to the questions about private parts, how our baby is made, you know, all of those things matters. And then after that very uncomfortable conversation, I wanted to lighten it up a little bit. And so we talked about faith-filled parenting, how to talk to your kid about healthy friendships.
00:10:15
Speaker
When we talked about how we treat others, some good things to say would be, friends are kind and loving to each other. What does it mean to be kind? Jesus loves us. What does it mean to love others? People who are different from you are great people to be friends with. Yes. Your friends don't all have to come from the same background, from the same culture. That's one thing I love about my youngest daughter. She has friends from so many different cultures.
00:10:39
Speaker
And I just think it's a beautiful way for them to experience the uniqueness of the people that God has put in the world. In episode 38, we talked about what your kids see on the news and in the media, and how do you talk to them about that?
00:10:55
Speaker
this world is hard and sad and scary sometimes, and that's never what God intended. And he didn't want the world to be like this anyways. And so when you talk about hope that goes beyond your circumstance, that's where you bring the faith component in. I think asking questions like, how do you see that event impacting your life?
00:11:16
Speaker
Because that's something that they're processing, is how is this war going to impact me personally? Because remember, teens are very self-focused. And then we wrapped it up with the conversation about how to talk to your kid about their faith questions.
00:11:32
Speaker
They're deep thinkers. They really are, especially in those older elementary years, like third, fourth, fifth grade. They are going to ask questions that might unlock some questions for you. And when that happens, that can be scary sometimes. I mean, even the people who walked with Jesus when he was alive had doubts and questions, and they got to experience him in true life.
Season Wrap-Up and Next Season Preview
00:11:58
Speaker
Doubting is a normal process of being human. I'm so extremely thankful that I was able to have those conversations with Hannah and Laura, and I hope that you were able to take something away from those conversations as well. If you haven't been able to listen to that series, again, all of those episodes are available right now. You can go to normalgoesalongway.com or wherever you like to get your podcast.
00:12:26
Speaker
Before we wrap it up and I say have a happy new year a reminder that season four will be launching on Tuesday January 10th and season four will be more about stories.
00:12:40
Speaker
Not that we haven't talked about stories, but I want to hear from individuals like you and me. I want to hear from experts too. I want to hear redemption stories. I want to hear stories of struggle. That's what we're going to focus on season four. And I hope that you will join us and continue to support this podcast. Again, that will launch on Tuesday, January 10th. Please come back and join us then.
00:13:08
Speaker
In the meantime, have a very Happy New Year and thank you for listening to Normal Goes a Long Way.