Equipping the Next Generation to Transform Culture, Part 2 - Meeke Addison

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Join Yvette Hampton as she talks with guest, Meeke Addison, Assistant Director of Special Initiatives at the American Family Association and co-host of Airing the Addisons on AFR. If you missed the first part of this interview, please go back and listen to Monday's episode. Meeke's work with AFA began in 2007 as a stay-at-home mom in Louisiana. Since then she has primarily served on-air as a radio personality.

Meeke Addison is a speaker for the live, interactive, online 2020 Homegrown Generation Family Expo. Check out a FREE preview (7 sessions - over 9 hours of content) here!

 

Meeke is a conference speaker, women’s teacher, author, and pro-family activist who keeps a close eye on politics, pop culture, and the Church. Her focus is on equipping everyday Christians to effectively engage and transform culture.

 

Watch the video of the first half of this interview (25 minutes) for free on YouTube.

Backstage Pass Members can watch the full interview (1-hour) here.

During this episode, Yvette and Meeke talk about the fact that religious instruction is common in "secular" public schools. Read more about that subject here.

Listen to the Airing the Addisons podcast: https://afr.net/podcasts/airing-the-addisons/

Find Meeke on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AiringTheAddisons/ 

Learn more about AFA: https://www.afa.net/

 

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Automated Transcript (Spelling and grammar errors are guaranteed)

 

Hey everyone. Welcome back to this Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. This is Yvette Hampton and I am your host and I am back with my friend Meeke Addison. Our first part of our discussion was on Monday, so if you have not listened to that, you're gonna want to go back and listen to that and then come back and join us for part two. But Meeke, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me back, Yvette. Yes, I am so thrilled to have you back. We are having a fun discussion about culture and homeschooling and parenting and the word of God and it's I, this is what I love to talk about is so much fun and you are actually going to be part of the homegrown generation family expo tonight, which is when this episode is airing, it will be April 1st at 5:00 PM Pacific time, 8:00 PM Eastern time.

Speaker 1:

So you guys please join us for that. It's going to be an exciting discussion that we're going to have. It'll be live and it will be available for anyone to watch the live session. So, you can see that at HomegrownGeneration.com you can watch it live on Facebook. If you go to Facebook, find the homegrown generation family expo live event page and you'll be able to take part in that conversation with Meeke and myself. So, so Meeke, welcome back. I'm excited to continue talking about what we've been talking about. At the end of the last podcast we were talking about how God is the final authority and we were talking about parenting and just teaching our kids that it's not our rules that we are enforcing upon our children, but it's really God's authority and just saying, this is what God has for us and we say this on the podcast all the time.

Speaker 1:

So for those who listen, they know one of the things we tell our girls constantly, and it has been said many times today, today's been one of those days for us. But we tell them all the time that sin causes pain, but obedience brings blessings. And the reason that we want them to obey is because we want them to have a life of blessings and not a life of pain. And, and here's the thing. Life is painful. Oh, obedience doesn't mean you're not going to have any pain in your life at all because we live in a sinful, fallen world, but it's a different kind of pain than the pain that you choose for yourself because of your own disobedience. And so we constantly are trying to just pour God's word over them. And, and, and it's one of the greatest things about having them home with us is because we get to be the ones you and I were talking about the different character traits and our children and you know, the strong world versus the one who is outwardly obedient but not so much inwardly obedient.

Speaker 1:

And when we have them with us for the majority of the time we get to, to work with them one on one and focus on who God created them to be and what a wonderful and amazing privilege that we have. And not just a privilege but a responsibility that we have as their parents to portraits into their hearts and to, and help them to become who God created them to be. So I would love for you to, I know you've got some scripture that you share with your kids and with your family and I would love for you to share with us some, some scripture that you go back to for conviction and for the encouragement and training of your children.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Well one of them we kind of alluded to and the previous broadcast, which was the understanding that, and this is sort of like whenever it's taxing, you know, whenever I feel overwhelmed or whenever I feel like maybe I, I talked to a friend and they're like, Oh, we're studying this and we're doing this. And that temptation kind of rises up to compare yourself and you think, wait a minute, should I also be doing, I don't know if I'm doing, you know, and I think about what's the purpose? Why am I doing what I'm doing? I'm not doing this so that my kids will be competitive in the world. That's not the reason that I'm doing this. I am doing this because I really do believe that when a student is fully trained, he or she will be like their teacher. And so I go back to that whenever I feel discouraged, whenever I feel like you know, man, I'm overwhelmed.

Speaker 2:

Or even when the enemy tries to condemn me, you know, are these feelings that we battle with as moms? Like am I meeting all of their goals? Like are there going to be gaps? Are there things that we don't know? You know, I remind myself of the reason that I'm doing this and the reason that I'm doing this is so that I can pass the gospel onto them intact. I want them to have the truth of the gospel, not some American version of the gospel. Not some 21st century version of the gospel. What I want them to have the faith as it has been handed down to us and that's why we do what we do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. You talked about the American version of the gospel and I know that one of the things that you really focus on in your ministry is the church and where the church is today. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in church culture and, and how we can be part of, of some change that needs to go on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I feel like there's, there's always been a battle in the church. Like I tell people all the time that the gospel has never existed in safety. We have this idea where we think that, Oh, you know, back in this day or this time period, it was just easy to hold on to the gospel. It's never been easy to hold on to the gospel through persecution, through loss of life, right. Through, you know, insidious methods infiltrating the church. The gospel has always been under attack, but I think in the United States of America, it's been different because we kind of think that that can't happen in the United States of America, that the gospel cannot be under attack because America and my husband says this, often, America and Christianity have grown up alongside one another, and so now people think that Americanism is Christianity, right? The two are distinct and one is supposed to influence the other.

Speaker 2:

It's supposed to be Christianity that influences the culture, influences the nation. Unfortunately, what we've seen is we've see, we've seen Americanism influenced Christianity and that was never supposed to be, so we see this represented in our churches where our churches have growth models like their businesses, right? Where how do we grow our church? Well, you do that by conversion. You do that because the gospel bears fruit everywhere that it's preached and then the church grows. If you read through acts, you know, we've been studying through the book of acts with our children because we want them to understand that our faith is real, that it's something that has passed down through generations, that it holds up under scrutiny. And so when you go back to that, you look at the Lord adding daily to the number of believers who are being saved. You look at the gospel bearing fruit.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that I think that our church got into our churches in America was really just Americanism. You know, how do we create more popular youth groups? And, and I'm not anti-youth groups, but I just feel like if we have gotten to a place, and even I think we have, but if we've gotten to a place where we think that it's the youth pastor's job to train my kid, if I think it's the church's job to equip my kid to stand against the onslaught of the culture, then I'm sorry, and not to be offensive, but we're raising lazy Christians and we ourselves are lazy believers. Like, if we think that, Oh, someone else is supposed to do that, it's a, it's sort of like I'm outsourcing discipleship, you know what I mean? How can I get to do that for me so that I don't have to get my hands dirty?

Speaker 2:

Well, you're going to get your hands dirty. You know, my husband says all the time, he says, we, you know, we glamorize being fishers of men. And he goes and yeah, he goes, but at some point you catch the fish, you have to clean them. Yeah. You know what I mean? It doesn't stop with cash. And that's the discipleship. That's the dirty work where you have to really get in there and shape character. While I'm doing that, first and foremost with my kids, that's where it starts. And then after that, I'm discipling women because I believe the Lord has called us to that, that older women are to teach younger women, you know? And so that's important to me. But my work is first with my own kids. They're right here. They're closest to me in proximity, so I don't want to skip over them and then go to meet somebody else's need. And you know, my own kids are growing up sort of like these wild weeds, you know?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yup, yup. That's right. I love this conversation. I love what we're talking about. I love talking about the church and, and how America has really influenced the church instead of the church influencing America. And that's really what we're seeing happen. All, you know, and it's not just in America actually, it's all over the world. You know, we, we've seen that in European countries and I mean it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And I think that Satan is very clever. I think that he wants people to believe that they're Christians. You know, if they go to church and they say all the right things and then serve in church and they serve the homeless. And I'm not saying any of that stuff is bad by any means. Of course it's not. But we tend to think that just playing the game is, is our ticket to heaven instead of people having a really deep, sincere longing relationship with and for the Lord.

Speaker 1:

And I, you know, that is one of the things that we desperately work on teaching our girls is we want them to, to thirst for the Lord. We want them to desperately want to know him and have a relationship with him because it's their relationship. It's not ours. You know, they, they don't get to ride on our coattails into heaven and, and it's a hard thing to do but, but you know, all we can do is what God has called us to do and be diligent in doing that. And you know, you have such a passion for Christian parents and so, and I know that you, for women as well, you talked about Titus two three through five and that the older women are to teach the younger women. So, and you've talked about this a little bit already. You did this in the first part of the podcast. But I would love for you to give some very practical maybe just advice on how, how we can very practically teach our children to love Jesus.

Speaker 2:

So my first piece of advice would be we have to live that out. That has to be true for us. We can't desire something for our kids that isn't first true for us. Right? So that's our first prayer point that we ask the Lord by the power of his Holy spirit to give us a genuine love for him, that we ask the Lord to create in us a clean heart, you know, to renew a right spirit within us. If, if the things of this world have overtaken us, then we need to confess that we need to bring that to the Lord. If we ourselves have been, you know, I dunno, captivated by Americanism and again, we need to confess that and bring that to the Lord. So that's one. Number two, I approach training our kids. Like I approached discipling other people's kids. We were missionaries for a number of years and we trained university kids.

Speaker 2:

And so I look at my kids like an extension of that work that we did as missionaries. So that means that I start with the word of God as our authority and as our straight edge. And I talk to them like real people made in the image of God. I don't disciple them. And this would be point number three. I don't disciple them for them to make me look good, right? Because our kids are not here to make us look good. In fact, our kids are going to embarrass us. Our kids are going to say things. They're going to have these little road bumps along the way as they grow in their faith. And I'm reminded of my own walk with the Lord where there are things that I didn't know I didn't understand perfectly. And the Lord was patient with me. He didn't cast me away because I embarrassed him.

Speaker 2:

No, the Lord was Haitian and enduring and long suffering. And so I want to have that as a model with my kids. They say things on a regular basis that I'm going and where is that in scripture? So that's number four when they make claims about Christ, you know, we're going through the book of acts. And so recently we're in acts chapter 17 where the apostle Paul has moved on from vessel a Nikah and he's going to Berea. And the Bible says that the Bereans were more noble than that. That's alone. Ian's, because they actually checked the scriptures to see of what the apostles were saying was true. Right. And so I told her kids, and this is something that holds me my feet to the fire, I tell them, if somebody makes a truth claim about the Lord, about his character, about his nature, your first question should be, where was that in scripture?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Where'd you get that? Like, where, where is that? You know, and so, and, and my son doesn't miss a beat. Like, he's like, yeah, that's great. He goes, you know, mom, cause I was wondering, he goes, you said that Barnabas and Luke are John Mark. He said, you said that Barnabas and John Mark were cousins. He goes, where is that in the Bible? You know? And I said, Oh, you know what, JD, man, I read it. I need, I need to get that reference for you. But that's a great catch. Like if I'm going to make a claim that you know, Paul and Barnabas split up because of this dispute with Mark and Mark was Barnabas's cousin. Well that's sensational and so I need to be able to back that up. So I was talking to my husband and I said, I said, I remember reading somewhere about this.

Speaker 2:

And he's like, where is it? You know, I said to my husband, where is it? And he goes, well, it's in Colossians, you know, and so he's, I go there, and I did read it, but I'm thinking these are the things that I need to subject myself to this as well. Right. I don't pretend, and this would be number five. I don't pretend to have all the answers when I don't know something I say to my kids, I don't know that answer, but I'm going to research it and I'm going to give back to you because that is a question worth digging into. I think it's so important for us to not trip ourselves up and being super parents that our kids see that we have a real faith. We have a, like I let my kids know when I'm wrestling, when I have questions.

Speaker 2:

Recently my sister, I'm the second of five so my older who was the oldest of the five died suddenly without Mike. There is no reason we don't, we still don't know. And this was February 20th and so I've been walking through this grief process and you know, I've had to say to my kids, listen, you know, this is a really tough time for me. This was my first best friend. Like you know I w she was just a year older than I am and so it's been really tough, but I'm not going to hide that from them. I'm not going to only come out of my room once I've gotten it all together. I mean they've seen me suddenly break down crying and we're okay one minute. And I say to them, listen, the Bible teaches us that we don't grieve as those who have no home. But guys, we do Greaves and I'm gonna miss her, you know?

Speaker 2:

And so these are opportunities for us to show our kids that our faith is real. We live in a world where there's pain, where there is suffering, but we also serve the true and living God. If I could summarize all of that for you, Yvette, what I would say is I want my kids to know that my faith is real. That it's not something that, well, I just grew up in this and this is just what people do, but that our hope is real. We, you know, everything that we're passing on to them is something that we put our entire what are in that. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I that, that is amazing. I love, I love that. I love everything you just said. I'm sitting here, I'm, I'm trying to write notes and still look at two at the same time. God's word does not return void. And you know, when, when I was in high school, I think I've probably shared this before, but when I was in high school, we went to a church that that didn't many things that were anti biblical and, and I really struggled with that. And I knew, I mean there was just something in my spirit. I was, I was a Christian at that time and I knew that there was just something wrong with the things that were going on. And so I went to a Christian school and I had a, my Bible theology teacher and his name is Dean Spoelstra. And I would come to him and I would say, so this, this happened at church this weekend and w what do you think?

Speaker 1:

And he would always say to me, it doesn't matter what I think, let's see what the word of God says about it. And he would always direct me back to scripture. And he was the first one ever, and this was my junior year in high school. I remember specifically, he was the first one ever who just always directed me back to scripture and just say, what does God say about it? It doesn't matter what I say, what does God say about it? And so we've, we really tried to do that with our children as well. Cause it, it doesn't matter what we say and, and teaching them scripture as a whole, you know, cause it's easy to take one verse and take it completely out of context and say, look, this is what the Bible says. Okay, well read everything around it. What's the history behind it?

Speaker 1:

What does the old Testament say that refers to that part of the new Testament? I mean like it's one big story. And so that's why it's so important to teach God's word as a whole. And, and so yeah, I love that point. And pointing them back to Jesus, there's no better way to disciple the hearts of our children. And we have, again, such an amazing opportunity with having our children home with us to be able to do that on a daily basis. You know, if we're away from us for 35 or 40 hours a week, we would miss so many opportunities to be able to do that. And so what a privilege and a responsibility we have to teach and train up our children to love. That's right. I don't think I would recognize them, Yvette. I don't think I would recognize these kids that God's given to me.

Speaker 1:

Right. If I were not able to be around them and have these times with them. Right, right. It is such a blessing. So while we are unfortunately out of time, I feel like I could talk all day long with you, but again, you are going to be on the homegrown generation family expo. We're going to do a live session with you. I'm so excited about that and I'm so we will continue to talk about all things culture and discipleship with you during that event. Thank you again Meeke for your time today. And where can people find out more about you? People can go to afa.net and connect with us there a search for the Airing the Addisons podcast, and they can also look us up on Facebook if they look for the page Airing the Addisons. Okay, sounds great. We'll put all those links in the show notes as well, and thank you guys for listening. If you have not yet left a review for the podcast, we would love for you to do that. We, we really appreciate it. I know it's kind of a hassle to do that. For some reason, iTunes does not make it easy to leave a review, but we appreciate those who take the time to figure it out because it is a bit of a hassle. But we love you guys. We're praying for you. Thank you for joining us today. Have a fantastic rest of your week and we will see you back here next week. Bye.