S3E22
· 01:01:07
Hey. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Sid. I work with an organization called the Youth Worker Community, and we train and equip youth workers. That's just part of what we do.
Sid Koop:We go to conferences, and we do it through a a tutor program called the Coalition for Youth Ministry Leadership. So, today, what I wanna talk to you about today is kind of, this has been kind of my, my my personal project that I've been wrestling with over about the last year just and and actually quite a ways before that. Up to this year, over the last number of years, I've been doing some doctoral work around gender, sex, and sexuality, issues around gender, sex, and sexuality. And then for me, what happened is I felt like, oh, I've been dealing with, I wanna be really careful when I say this. Not surface issues in the sense of something that's simple or shallow, but there's something deeper going on than than just the issues of behavior or orientation or those sorts of things.
Sid Koop:And so I start asking the question, hey. What's going on deeper? And what are we as youth workers being called to when it comes to this deeper sort of work? And, is there something that something there that we actually need to be concerned about? That's then being reflected in all these other areas.
Sid Koop:Second, sexuality, just one of them. All multiple areas for adolescent. So for me, that's that's where this conversation came from. And let me just let me quickly back up for just a second when it when I just to give you a little bit of, framework for thinking about identity. Oh, by the way, here's what I'd like to say.
Sid Koop:Sorry. You'll stay with me. Okay. Have any of you read, Atomic Habits by any chance? No.
Sid Koop:Okay. So Atomic Habits is this interesting book, not by a follower of Christ as I can tell. But he's talking about how do you engage in new types of practice or behavior. And so I've been really fascinated by that over the last little while. I, by the way, in that, life transition time, I am now considered an empty nester.
Sid Koop:Any of my people out here anywhere that can So much. Thank you. Right? So different. I know.
Sid Koop:It's sad. I hate you know what? To be honest, everyone said since it's gonna be awesome, I cried for the month of September. Thank you. I know.
Sid Koop:When my wife came into my office you you feel this? I sat in my daughter's room for a week. Yeah. I'm so sorry. And you can't tell them that or show them that.
Sid Koop:Well, you might have, but I didn't. I worked hard. My wife comes into my office, and she's like, hey. You're a mess. And I'm like, yeah.
Sid Koop:I am. This is really hard. I said, isn't it hard for you? She goes, yeah. It is.
Sid Koop:I said, well, I don't see you crying. She goes, I can't afford to. Someone have to hold it together. That's not you. So that was, like, ideal.
Sid Koop:So we made a few lots going on. Anyways, after that, I was like, okay. I wanted to see some changes happen in my life. So for one thing, I thought, oh, maybe now when our kids left our house, we could have a clean house. Shocking, our house didn't change after our kids left and I began to realize, oh, what's in our kids?
Sid Koop:It was me. So then I'm like, okay, how do we shift that? So, I was reading the atomic habit. Two of it said in atomic habits. It said, hey, if you wanna see, change happen in your life, there's kind of levels to this journey.
Sid Koop:First level is you could set some goals. Does that make sense? So you can just set some goals. I'm gonna do this, this, this different. That's gonna be awesome.
Sid Koop:That'll be great. For me, I've set a goal that said, hey, I wanna have a clean kitchen every day. That's a really great goal. That's super nice. And goals are cool.
Sid Koop:You should have goals that are helpful, but in all honesty, goals can quickly be lost just like that. It takes very little, whether it's your interest that you lose, whether you get distracted, goals are gone. So then he said, second level you do is you could build a really good system. So if you begin to engage process primarily as opposed to outcomes, and you, you you grab the system, a system can allow you to consistently end up with good outcomes, even though that's not your primary focus. Does that make sense?
Sid Koop:Sense? Someone had once said to me that, hey, Sid, just so you know, your system is perfectly designed for the current results you're getting. If you don't like your results, change your system. That's a goal. That's pretty good.
Sid Koop:Now, what I think I have to hit a record on this. Sorry about that. Let me just hit this thing real quick. Read that. Okay.
Sid Koop:So then, so I thought that was interesting. Good systems are really awesome unless you have a crisis. So what can happen is if you if you're simply relying on system and goals, if you get a crisis, that can really bump you off center again, and then it kind of deconstructs your system, and you have to figure out how to try to rebuild that again. So then he said, you can go gold, you should, those are good, you can go systems, very important, that are helpful, but if you really wanna see change, engage at the level of identity. And if all of a sudden, you know this is actually about who you are, then, then all of these things you want to change become an actual expression of your identity, and your identity doesn't change based on the crisis or situation.
Sid Koop:And so now you can continue to rebuild systems and goals that come out of identity. For me, I want a clean house. My goal was a clean kitchen, didn't work. System was every time I left, I clean one thing up. You start building you start stacking habits, that's awesome, till crisis hit, which is my kids come home.
Sid Koop:And then and then the but then if it becomes my identity, then I don't leave until I do something because it's an expression of who I am. Okay? So, I think when it comes to faith formation with our students, I think that there's been a time when we worked primarily on goals. You'd be a good kid. Do all the right things the right way.
Sid Koop:You know, like, we don't smoke. We don't chew. We don't go with people that do. All that kind of stuff. And so then that that's fine.
Sid Koop:Goals are good. We should probably look into some of those. Nothing wrong with that. But then it was like, okay. Goals aren't exactly working.
Sid Koop:Let's get the right system. Make sure you show up at Friday night for youth group. Make sure you show up at Sunday morning for church. Make sure you show up thinking, oh, let's get those systems down. And very helpful and very important, especially through childhood and early adolescence, to create structure because of the concrete thinking of young people in that stage of their development.
Sid Koop:Does that make sense? Super, super important. But then all of a sudden you hit a crisis called adolescence, and all of a sudden some of the systems start to become a little bit broken. Do you know what I mean? We're not attaining our goals.
Sid Koop:Wonder what does this mean exactly? But what we're actually looking for, especially as we hit middle and late adolescence, is identity. That, being a follower of Jesus is so much more than just a decision you make or the practices you engage in. This is actually redefining who you are. And that's, you know, that's really what I would like to suggest to you is what it means to be a follower of Christ.
Sid Koop:Now, I think, I I I think that, you know, it's interesting. We're using the language of identity, you know, more now than before, and I would like to just say this, that identity has always been at the very core of what it means to follow Jesus. Correct? So the thing that Jesus said more than anything else when he called people to follow him, anyone? Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.
Sid Koop:Or he said things like, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come. Or they said some Paul said something like, I no longer live the life I live. I live by faith in the Son of God who gave himself for me. And you're so there's all this, like, strong identity language, which when you listen to it, by the way, moves us out of the center of the story and places Christ right into the center of redefining who we are, Which, of course, we have language of identity, but creates a little bit of a tension for us within our current culture because the mode of identity or the framework of identity is so different in a gospel identity than what a culture identity is. And so that creates some really interesting tensions, but it also creates an incredible opportunity for us to help our young people understand how God's way is not just right or true, it's very good.
Sid Koop:And I think if we're going to by the way, this is the question. The question when it what young people are asking right now is certainly, they're asking questions like, is Jesus true? Is his way right? And those are good questions. We should answer them.
Sid Koop:But the bigger question kids are asking from all the research that we do says, is Jesus good? And is his way good? And are the scriptures good? That's the big question that we're always asking. And what I wanna say is it's sometimes difficult to show how his way is good if we're not starting at the foundation foundational issue of identity, actually.
Sid Koop:I think that's actually a really important part. So what I wanna do, today is I want to, just take a little bit of time and walk you through a couple of different frameworks around identity. And I'm sorry. It's a little bit of a 30,000 foot level, because, you know, these are the ideas and and things that I'm just kinda wrestling with a little bit. By the way, no such thing as an original thought here, so I'm gonna be really honest about that.
Sid Koop:And there are very few original thoughts that are flowing, which is fine because we've been working at this for a few thousand years now. And in fact, by the way, if someone comes up with a really original thought, especially around theology, I think we should just be a little bit cautious about it, to say just a little cautious. Church has been working on this for quite a while and have spent they've had seasons of deeper thinking than what we're experiencing right now from the audience. But, anyway, that's just personal thought. So, the book there's a number of books I've been reading.
Sid Koop:One book that's been very helpful, which is really foundational in this framework, is a book by Trevin Wax called Rethink Yourself. Okay? So, anyway, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk us through three frameworks in terms of thinking about identity. The first one I'm going to call a historical framework, which is what I would like to suggest is kind of how most of the world thought about identity, probably two hundred plus years ago. But what I would also like to suggest is, now still many parts of the world think about identity in this model, at the very core, especially, outside of the Western Hemisphere.
Sid Koop:Now, let me just say this. All three of these models, you will still there's overlap. It's not clearly, differentiated. That doesn't exist because it's not actually real for the user wondering. We create these categories to help us think better and more intentional.
Sid Koop:So I'll talk about a historical model, then I will talk about a modern model. And what I mean by that is just the primary way that our culture is moving us to think about identity right now. And then what I'll do is I'll contrast and compare that to what I would like to call a gospel model. What's a gospel model for identity? Now, I asked Kate the question.
Sid Koop:I said, when is Kyla doing her seminar? Kyla Gillespie is a friend of mine. We had her on tour with us this past year. Kyla's story is super fascinating to me. I was listening to a podcast when I first heard her story, Preston Sprinkle's podcast.
Sid Koop:And then, I realized she was a Canadian. She'd actually played with the Canadian hockey, program, National Hockey League program. And her story is just that, after high school, all through adolescence and into high school, we interviewed her at all of our conferences. She wrestled with gender dysphoria and same sex attraction. What happened is when she gets, part way, after high school, she in, what she ends up doing is transitioning from, biological female to male, present socially, to male, stealth, so no one knows she's actually female.
Sid Koop:She ends up in a recovery program because of, drug and alcohol addiction, has to end up in a spiritual space, ends up in a church where she starts reading the Bible, doing Bible study, and gets convicted that God actually has a real design around gender and sexuality, and comes to a place where she basically gives her life to Jesus and says, I need to detransition, and goes through that whole journey. Anyways, the reason I bring her up is because as we interviewed her, I went, Oh, you are the expression of a foundation we're gonna talk about here. Expression of a foundation we're gonna talk about here. So if you get a chance to go to her seminar this afternoon, I'd really encourage you to go there. It'll blow your mind a little bit to just go, oh, that's like, I've never even thought in that category of possibility in these areas.
Sid Koop:So I just encourage you to do that. She's wonderful and loving and super kind and humble and just, you know, one of the best people I know. So anyways, I'd encourage you to go have a chat with her. Okay. Let's dive in.
Sid Koop:Okay. First of all, by the way, as we go, you can ask questions at any time. I'll download quite a bit of information on your paper. All this information is there. You don't have to take notes.
Sid Koop:You can write any questions you have or any extra thoughts. You can do that as well. Okay? I'll pause partway through to say, hey. Do you have any questions?
Sid Koop:And you'll all look at me blankly. Mhmm. And that's completely okay. I totally understand. That's what it feels like to run a junior high bible study, so I'm with you right now.
Sid Koop:That's gonna be great. Okay? So we'll just do that. K. In a historical identity.
Sid Koop:Yes, ma'am? What was the name of the author? Treven Wax. Thank you for that. That's great.
Sid Koop:Okay. When it comes to a historical identity, here's kind of how identity was thought of. The first thing that you would do to understand your identity is you would look around you in a historical identity. You would look at the most powerful community around you, whether most likely your family, but also your community around you in terms of, like, your proximal community, by the way. And those voices around you carry the most weight in terms of defining who you are.
Sid Koop:What that community around you valued most, you chose to value and then express as a part of your community. By the way, really interesting thing. This whole idea of being able to define yourself and create your own identity is a very modern concept, and I would like to suggest that, historically, we didn't have the resources or time to create our own identity. We just had enough time and resources to survive. And so, we live in a day and age where there's more leisure time and space and resources where you can actually engage in this kind of way of thinking and processing that wasn't really available in the same way before.
Sid Koop:And, especially pre industrial revolution, your community had way more power in your in your defining reality because you survived together as community and you couldn't get away from community. You didn't have the same mode of transportation nor did you have, like, the same, type of resources in general in order to that. Understand. I'm making pretty big sweeping claims when I'm talking about this. Correct?
Sid Koop:So you'll just track with me. So first of all, you looked around. The second thing you did in a historical identity is in general, culture had a sense of something bigger than yourself transcended. So your community would create a type of god that you would serve that would then have a weight to reinforce the primary values or way of seeing yourself that culture clarified for you. Tracking with me?
Sid Koop:And, again, you see this in many cultures still today where your family religion becomes your religion, and if you don't embrace that religion, then you're out. Right? And and, again, we feel that here. We feel that lots of different places. There's there's com combinations of that.
Sid Koop:And then the third place that you did is you look inside yourself. And what you did now is you looked inside yourself, but your primary goal in terms of looking inside yourself was to take the desires that don't align with the values of culture and you suppress those. But any type of desire that might align with culture's values, you try to, like, ignite those and bring those forward. Are you tracking with me? So that was a really strong kind of historical way of understanding identity.
Sid Koop:Another way to just frame it is this. When it comes to your definition of who am I, community primarily defines you. What community says? Who you are. When it comes to your desires, which are a core part of understanding self, our desires become aligned with the community.
Sid Koop:So I wanna align my desires with the community, experience that acceptance and sense of self. When it comes to display, which is revealing who you now are, we display how we fit into and serve the community. So in a historical way, you go, okay, community says that, I am somebody if I'm a warrior because that's what we value as community the most, I'm gonna suppress kind of that artistic nature. I'm gonna bring out that warrior nature, and I'm gonna express that to the people around me. Or if you were a high school kid in our home and you lived in the Christian school where we were, basketball was a primary value.
Sid Koop:You were somebody if you could play basketball, so you expressed that sport over and over again, and, you were accepted there if you could add value to the basketball team, which is one of the reasons why when my son got cut from the basketball team in grade 11, it seemed as if he didn't just lose a sport, it seemed as if he lost himself. And it was heavy, like, for a long time in that journey. There was something more going on there. Okay? And then when it comes to, like, redesign ourselves, we redesign ourselves when our community tells us to.
Sid Koop:So in a historical model of identity, again, what happens is, let's say it's a community, it's a warring community, time of war is over, now it's peacetime, so we go to agriculture. So everyone does what? We're farmers. And if I can grow something good, I express that that's who I am, I'm contributing to my community, and that becomes core in terms of the sense of identity. Any questions on a historical model of identity?
Sid Koop:Make sense? Okay. Let me give you just a couple of implications for that then. A couple of implications. Number one, one of the good things about a historical identity is that you find security in community.
Sid Koop:So when your values can align with your community values, you're very secure, very loved, very accepted. That's something good. We're designed for community. God's made us that way. That's a good thing.
Sid Koop:Number two, relationships really matter, so you're invested in each other. Part of the reason why you're invested in each other is because if you're not, you're probably not surviving as a community or as individuals in in some of those types of spaces. Number three, we don't carry the sole burden of responsibility to define ourselves in a historical model. I'm going to try to make a case, for the idea that one of the reasons that we are experiencing a real mental health crisis amongst young people today is because we're asking our young people to carry the burden or the weight of creating their own identity, and they were never actually designed to identity that God has given to us, not create our own identity. And I'll talk a little bit about why I think that's creating a type of pressure that's contributing to the mental health crisis that we're experiencing right now, and certainly to the fragility that we're experiencing when it comes to mental health.
Sid Koop:Okay? So in a historical identity, you don't care to so burden or responsibility to myself. But, here's a couple of other problems. Number one number four is we can become very overwhelmed by the expectations of the kids. That can be, like, crushing for us.
Sid Koop:Hey. Let me give you a small example of that in Arnold. My, my mom's parents came over, they were immigrants from Russia with my two aunts, they came over as well on boats. And, when they came to Canada, very hard working people, grandpa wanted his daughters to be educated, so they became nurses, so they could provide for themselves, they could be really successful. That idea of a sense of self and ability to contribute well was passed on from like my grandparents to my mom and then to my sister in particular.
Sid Koop:And so my mom's vision for my sister was that she would be a nurse. That was gonna be her jam. And so sure enough, after Suzanne graduated, she became a nurse and hated her life. And so about two years after that, decided I'm out of nursing. I'm going to become a hairdresser.
Sid Koop:That's what God's calling me to. I got a great ministry doing hairdressing, and almost crushed my mom, which in turn, under that insecurity, she placed an incredible weight back on my sister. Correct? Fascinating, almost to this day, when my mom when her mind is working properly, which isn't the case as much anymore, and she introduces my sister to someone, she'll say, this is my sis my daughter, Suzanne. She was a nurse.
Sid Koop:She hasn't been a nurse for, like, forty years. She would do you have do you see the weight of that? And my sister had to really work from carrying the burden of responsibility to gain the affirmation of my mom in that area of her life. And it was a real way I mean, there was eating disorders and all sorts of things that were attached to that journey for it. K?
Sid Koop:So we can become very overwhelmed by the expectations of community in that sense. Number five, shame for not measuring up can be really crushing. Number six, we can lose our sense of self and sense of uniqueness in that type of environment. When you think about my mom, she had a very narrow vision of what success looked like. So for my dad, by the way, dad, dad got checked out of the church in grade nine for playing football on Sundays and driving motorcycles.
Sid Koop:That's a major issue in the Mid Atlantic community, so that's my jam. I love that. And then, you know, he just went up to lumber camps to work, drank, did his thing, got saved about 19, did, like, good manual labor, Frank Holmes got married. Mom wanted security in the home. That's what she was fighting for all the time.
Sid Koop:Said to dad, you're going back to school to become a teacher. And dad not wanted to go to war. Okay. So he finished high school, then went to university, became a teacher. My whole vision was that I would be a teacher from kindergarten up.
Sid Koop:I was excited about that until the day I came home and said, mom, I'm gonna be a youth pastor. And she was like, how are you gonna provide for your family being a youth pastor? I said, I have no idea, mom. But that did not go over well in our home, just to be really clear. Okay?
Sid Koop:So so there was like, woo. So, you know, that idea of, like, of understanding that maybe our primary goal is not financial security, but stewardship of who God's called us to be doesn't sit very well in a unique environment for identity. Yes, go ahead, please.
Guest 1:Yes. I was just curious. So, does this take into account other cultures also? Because different cultures that come into countries like
Sid Koop:I'm saying yes. Yeah. And in fact, what I wanna say, and I've said at the very beginning, is not only do some societies still live like that, but within our own, like, not our society, but even in a western culture, we'll still see lots of blending between the three models that we'll talk about. About. Does that make sense?
Sid Koop:So it's not as cleanly separate, of course, as what I'm explaining. So a %, this is resonating with you. Right? Again, you understand? Yes, please.
Sid Koop:Sorry to interrupt. Are there any extra, sheets cutting the notes? Yes. Absolutely. And they're at the back on the chair.
Sid Koop:Are there still some sheets back there? Thank you so much. That's great. Okay. Great.
Sid Koop:Thank you for both. Thank you for that clarification, and thanks for the notes question. That's wonderful. Look at that. Any other questions on this model before I shift gears here for a second?
Sid Koop:Part of what's gonna happen too is as we compare models, you'll start to understand, again, a little bit of the clarity, and you'll even see some of the different ways that we lean at different stages of our journey and same with our kids. Makes sense? Okay. Any other questions? Okay.
Sid Koop:Let me shift to the next one then. Okay? By the way, in a historical identity, again, like many others, our acceptance can become very conditional. So a, a family or community that's really embraced this way of thinking about identity is, again, if you don't embrace the values of your your community or culture and the identity that's expressed there, you can be very quickly marginalized. And in some places, it's much more formal than it might be in other places where it could be informal.
Sid Koop:In my family, my my mom's struggle was not a formal type of experience. Does that make sense? In fact, I don't even think that she could probably articulate it. And in some ways, that might not be completely fair to her journey in that sense either. Go
Guest 2:ahead. Yes. Something that's going on in our church is
Sid Koop:that we're very multi ethnic. We have, like, five different congregations.
Guest 2:So that brings in a lot of, like, immigration that that embraces historical identity. Right?
Sid Koop:Yes. And so one thing that
Guest 2:I'm really is interesting what we're dealing with is, like, the transition from grade 12 to adulthood is very difficult for these, like, second generation immigrants. And so, like, for instance, like, we have a parent. He's actually a pastor, which is, like, this, like and it it just it it floors me. He does not want us to get to go to bible college for a gap year because he he needs to go to USAS because it's a top 200 university, and that's his identity. That's what he needs to do.
Guest 2:Right? Because that's
Sid Koop:Yep. Where success will come. How do
Guest 2:you help frame the idea that, like, hey. That's actually, like, maybe we need to rethink that. And I'm not trying to push back on parenting. I'm there to partner with the parent. But, like, how do you help frame, like, hey, like, how do you start to overcome that historical identity thing where it's, like, you need to do this to, like,
Sid Koop:how how do you help them out that way?
Guest 2:Because our kids are struggling. Like, especially our, like, our kids who just recently immigrated. Yeah.
Sid Koop:So I wanna be really careful. Obviously, from my personal experience, I can't speak to second generation immigrants in that sense. So I just wanna acknowledge that really good, William for bringing it up, though. But let me just say this. We're gonna talk about what a gospel identity looks like.
Sid Koop:And in a gospel identity, what are the ways that we can affirm and what do we try to move to? Interesting thing about working with parents, we were just part of a research project. I was loosely connected with it on parenting faith. Yeah. We are asking the question in evangelical homes, the role that parents play in the faith formation of their kids.
Sid Koop:And this was, by the way, like, across all kind of ethnic experiences or or positions or or people groups. And generally speaking, what we were finding is that parents and this is just normative. This I I wouldn't even classify this within, a construct of identity formation, but it's pretty normative that parental fear has become a driving force to to parental practice. So personal fear. And I find it myself with my own kids.
Sid Koop:So let me just, you know, let me just say this. For Jen and I and, just to be really clear, we've been youth youth and youth ministry our whole lives. For the first eleven years, we lived off a youth pastor single salary. We lived in Alberta. We could do that.
Sid Koop:NBC, good luck. But but still, we would have been at the lower end of the bracket in terms of, like, the, financial status in our community. Does that make sense? It was a struggle for us. And so I was part of me in my mind was, like, my functional salvation would have been to find a job that paid and gave me financial security.
Sid Koop:Make sense? Yeah. And it was funny for me. I was really great to tell my mom I'm good without financial security. When my son came to me and said, dad, I wanna be a youth pastor, the first fear I had to suppress Mhmm.
Sid Koop:Was his lack of financial security that he was gonna roll with. What am I pressing in on him the most right now? Hey, kiddo. Are you looking after your money? Are you thinking about that actually isn't anything about identity formation right now for me.
Sid Koop:That's about my personal fear management. And part of it is also good practice that I'd like to give over to my child. Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean? So there's both and so I do wanna be careful to suggest that this encompasses all practices, but certainly, you can see it in some areas, William.
Sid Koop:And and let me just say this. Part of our job in pastoral ministry, I think, is as we unpack these frameworks for identity, we compare it to a gospel identity. In all circumstances, there will be elements that we can affirm and celebrate. We should. That's in alignment with the gospel identity.
Sid Koop:And areas that don't align with the gospel identity or a kingdom way of thinking, we should challenge and invite to a better way and try to show a better way. Very difficult, by the way. There are different stages in ministry life where we can, partner with parents in different ways. Those of you who have kids understand so well how different your relationship with other parents are now than it was before you had kids. Correct?
Sid Koop:I think that my, journey with I mean, my I think, you know, as an organization, we didn't engage parents very much until now that my kids are beyond adolescence. And I go, oh, I think there's a thought. Someone came to me the other day and they said, hey, Sid. Could you teach on parenting young adults? I was like, yeah.
Sid Koop:Not a chance. Like, I'm lost, but we're just trying to figure it out as we go. Okay? So we're working on that. Okay.
Sid Koop:This is historical identity. I'm gonna move on here real quick. Okay. In a modern identity, so this is what I would like to suggest to you is modern identity is the primary way our culture thinks or presses into the next generation in terms of how to form identity right now. Okay?
Sid Koop:Very, primarily Western in nature, but obviously spreads to different global pockets for sure. But that's and I wanna be careful not to try to play outside of my, punch out of my weight class on that. In a modern identity, the first thing that culture says to us is look in. You define who you are. How you feel about yourself is your primary, authority, and your responsibility and freedom is to authentically or goal to authentically express yourself and in terms of how you feel about who you are.
Sid Koop:So your identity, first and foremost, is rooted within you. And you're told to looking inside yourself, create you know, see who you are, understand who you are, create who you wanna be, and that should be your identity. The second thing you do then is number two, is you look around you and you find a group of people or community that will affirm what you think about yourself. By the way, you know, we are in such a unique time, an unprecedented time, for this way of understanding identity to be deeply rooted in a generation because never before have we had the opportunity to find whatever community we want to find to affirm however we want to to express ourselves the way we do on our social media platforms right now. One of the really unique challenges, I think I said this this morning when we were talking to youth leaders.
Sid Koop:I said, I don't think the journey of I don't think the way of discipleship, what the practices are that are so important to discipleship have changed much. I think the Bible is pretty clear on them. I think the hurdles that we have to overcome to help our students get there are much more challenging than ever before. One of which is access to so many diverse ways of thinking about all sorts of things. Let me just give you a quick example.
Sid Koop:When I grew up in Alcornandoah, Non Christian community, non Christian school, imagine this, non Christian teachers, and every morning for my first three years of public school, we would get to school and we would say the Lord's prayer, read a Bible passage, and sing the national anthem. How different is that? And in fact, we had a young boy in my class who, believed differently, and so he went and stood out in the hallway while the rest of us engaged in that practice. That is a culture shift, you guys. That's a quantum nature.
Sid Koop:And I'm not by the way, I'm not adding value to that, good or bad. I'm just saying this is how different it is. Do you know what I mean? Yes. So it's just like the the kind of the the the core accepted values, whether we actually embrace them as true or not, they were values we talked about in here are so varied and different.
Sid Koop:So we live in a very unique time that's actually allowing for this way of thinking about self to be, like, kind of mass produced, if you will. So first, you look in. Second, you look around. But then third, I would like to suggest that because we're designed for the transparent, we're still somewhat spiritual. In our culture, we create some sense of deity to look up that now affirms what we feel about ourselves and is in alignment with the community that we have found to actually affirm what we think about ourselves as well.
Sid Koop:So this is kind of the the primary model of thinking about identity in the space that we're in right now. Another way to think about it again is when it comes to definition, we define ourselves. So, our culture would say to us that you are the primary authority in your sense of self. By the way, just to be really clear, it's a fallacy. Culture tells you how you should think about yourself.
Sid Koop:Hey. Track with me for just a second on this. This one kinda blows my mind a bit. And, of course, we know it's it's very apparent. I think one of the, one of the things that's contributing to the pressure our young people feel is they live in a culture that says to them you can be whoever you want to be and express yourself however you want to express yourself.
Sid Koop:Correct? I don't think I'm lying when I say that's a pretty primary message. And yet our kids intuitively know that the type of expression they're allowed to give is actually found within a very narrow window of being that's culturally and socially acceptable. Yeah. And if they express outside of that acceptable boundary, they will be immediately and violently canceled.
Sid Koop:So I talked to my son when he was in grade 12, and he was talking about expressing his beliefs in his classroom. He was told that there's no way I'm expressing my beliefs in the classroom. I said, really? It's gonna be tough for your friends? He goes, my friends?
Sid Koop:No. It's my teacher. Wow. Yeah. I was like, oh, oh, that's different.
Sid Koop:And, you know, I I never wanted to be an alarmist. I'm always, like, pretty dead since, they set against being an alarmist. Like, hey. You know? And God is at work.
Sid Koop:It's wonderful. I just stopped one interview with my friend, Jonathan and also youth doctor. And they just had, like, four teenagers come back from their missions trip pretty fired up about loving people, and they decide to love their school cookies with the Bible. First one of the cookies, he put it in the teacher's box of every one of the teachers in the public school. They were castigated, like, angrily by administration in the school.
Sid Koop:All of those things were removed immediately. They were threatened to be brought into the office. It's turned into a huge thing. It's like, you can express yourself however you want, but only the window of acceptance is this small. I guess.
Sid Koop:Any of you, track with JK Rowling at all, by the way? Fastly the story. She's got a there's a podcast out right now called the witch hunt of JK Rowling. So JK Rowling was seen as an advocate for marginalized people groups, especially in the LGBTQ plus community, until she started to suggest that some of the transgender ideology was actually an attack on feminism and women in particular, and suddenly she was canceled, has cost her millions and millions of dollars. So really fascinating just to kinda see that cultural space that we find ourselves in with our kids and the kind of pressure and tension that that they live within that type of space.
Sid Koop:Can I make a comment? Please do.
Guest 4:One of the things we talk about with our senior boys a lot is understanding that they don't have to be neutral, with their belief of who their king is, and also that regardless of which belief a human being in today's age adheres to, whether it's, transgenerism, feminism, environmentalism, you're going to face persecution of some kind if you are vocal about it.
Sid Koop:Yeah. You know what? Go ahead.
Guest 4:And I I'm not trying to compare the the different beliefs. But in order to have a belief, there's gonna be someone who doesn't believe that belief, and that's just a
Sid Koop:part of living in. Hey. Let me yeah. You know what? That's so so smart.
Sid Koop:Hey. One of the things I'm gonna listen. You're gonna be at the end of my interview best here. So I always think that rabbit trail just blown this material. Okay?
Sid Koop:So, stay with me for a second. One of the there's a couple of really interesting things that are unique to our current cultural moment, I think. One of which is this, Coming out of COVID especially, we saw such intense polarization, both politically and religiously. Tracking with me? Much of it was fear driven.
Sid Koop:Does this make sense? So, because I'm seeing someone move, let's say I let you left and right, just for example, moving left, I don't just simply stand in my belief, but actually out of fear of lack of balance, I have to push harder right. Mhmm. And I have to turn that person into a villain and castigate them in order to to try to create balance in my mind Yeah. Or or of ownership of territory I feel like losing.
Sid Koop:That is not the kingdom way. Let me be really clear on that. We are actually aliens and strangers here. We're not victims, by the way. We have to help our kids understand that.
Sid Koop:Yeah. We are on mission as aliens and strangers in a cultural landscape where God's calling us to bring a very different way of being, and we do it in a very different way. What's fascinating, I talked with my friend from Apologetics Canada, and he said, when we're teaching Apologetics now to this younger generation, who's, like, tired, polarized, living in the space, not only are we having to teach them right thinking, we're now also having to teach them right expression. Yeah. Which is even harder.
Sid Koop:Yeah. You said, interesting statement you said, that there's always been others in all circumstances. This is very true, by the way. There's no such thing as a nonexclusive position, worldview, or, or religion. Doesn't exist.
Sid Koop:As soon as you join some type of community, there will always be an other. Here's the question we have to ask. What we should be asking is what worldview or way of seeing life or faith gives us the most resources to be the most loving and caring of the other. And that's where a gospel identity is so powerful because when we really understand the gospel identity, the gospel identity, which we'll talk about in just a minute, actually gives us the most resources to be the most loving of the other. Let me just explain that to you really quick.
Sid Koop:Number one, we actually have a heart for someone who's outside of our community because apart from Christ, we are the outside ones. He's the one who chooses us and brings us in. We are the marginalized ones apart from the gospel. So because of that, we have a deep heart for those who are under. Number two, the danger of exclusivism is pride and arrogance.
Sid Koop:Correct? Which leads to types of, like, anger and violence. But the gospel tells us we have no position for pride because there's nothing we have done that moves us in, so we can't look down upon those who are out. And because we understand that our position with Jesus is because of what he's done for us, we even acknowledge that there might be those who are more moral than us who are on the outs that we could actually learn from. How crazy is that?
Sid Koop:Which leads to this incredible humility that we also live with as well as deep conviction. Let me be really clear on that, as well as deep conviction. And then the final you know, a couple of other things is we don't ever have to feel threatened by the other or what they say about us because God's voice has the most power in our life and what he says about us. And his sovereignty ultimately reigns. Correct?
Sid Koop:There's nothing he can't redeem and nothing he can't restore. And then finally, we can be the most loving of the true other because Jesus modeled what it was to love the other, including your enemy, and love and sacrifice for your enemy, which is how he calls us to be. Of the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel know, I'm reading the book of first Peter over and over again because it talks about how we as followers of Christ are called to live from the political margin within society. You know what I mean? Like, so marginalized, under pressure, all that kind of stuff.
Sid Koop:Where one of the things he talks about Peter talks about, he says, hey, listen. Live such good lives that when others see you, they will see your deeds and give glory to your father in heaven. I was thinking about that. I'm like, what does that mean? He goes, oh, that there are still certain things that our culture considers good, that we as followers of Christ consider good, and when possible, we should overlap on those areas and live so powerfully in that space that culture lifts us, goes, wait a second.
Sid Koop:What you're doing kinda resonates with a value in me, but I've never seen someone do that myself before. Like, it's so sacrificial. It's so loving. Like, you're blowing my mind right now. Help me understand this.
Sid Koop:So what I think it says is in some way, you know, we are called to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus. There are certain things we should stand against, absolutely stand against injustice, but we should be most known about what we stand for in terms of the beauty of Jesus. We should be expressing that. I think we have a radical movement. Go.
Sid Koop:Quick.
Guest 1:I, I had a personal experience with that. My daughter, and she's got a lot of friends that are Yeah. On the fence. Right? And I used to be very against it and very vocal about it.
Guest 1:And I was really convicted of it because she looked at me and she goes, so you think this about me. And I really had to stop and think about it. And, you know, it really changed my heart Yeah. Because I was very judgmental. And now God doesn't want us to judge them.
Guest 1:That's not what he's about. We can judge the sin. We don't judge the sinner. We love them through the sin
Sid Koop:Yeah. But
Guest 1:we don't have to accept the lifestyle.
Sid Koop:Right. And we invite them into a better way. Yes. Correct. Yeah.
Sid Koop:Good. K. That's good. K. Good.
Sid Koop:Let me keep going here. When, it comes to design, we redesign oh, when it comes to displaying a modern identity, you display yourself for others' affirmation. That's cool. Hey. Look at me.
Sid Koop:How awesome am I? Talk to me about how great I am. Our platforms do that wonderfully. When it comes to design, we redesign ourselves when our emotions shift. So I feel a different way about myself, so now I'm gonna be someone else, which is one of the reasons why there is a lack of stability in a modern sense of identity that we live with.
Sid Koop:Okay. Here's a couple of implications. Number one, one thing that's nice in a modern identity is you have the potential to embrace certain traits of uniqueness. So there's an affirmation. There's a type of affirmation for unique sense of self.
Sid Koop:So you go, okay. You know? So there is room to say, hey. I think I'm wired and designed differently from others. Yeah.
Sid Koop:That's pretty cool. Let's talk about what that looks like, how God's calling you there. Number two, one of the problems is that we are very easily manipulated by others. When your sense of identity is primarily renewed rooted in your emotional self, emotions can easily be manipulated and moved. It's one of the reasons, by the way, why, marketers are having a heyday.
Sid Koop:All they have to do is connect their product to your emotional sense of self, and it's sold. So now we're not just dealing with a piece of clothing, we're dealing with a reflection of my identity. You know what I mean? And so it becomes really powerful for marketers to move us. Number three, the weight of creating our identity can be very debilitating.
Sid Koop:So a couple of problems. Number one, culture says you can be whoever you wanna be. That's a lie. What happens if I decide to be someone I don't measure up? Conversation having with my son about basketball.
Sid Koop:Wants to be a university basketball player, got a scholarship, and he broke his kneecap in half. Who is he now? Right? Like, who is he now? And by the way, we've invested, like, thousands and thousands of dollars traveling, that's how who are you now in that moment?
Sid Koop:So what happens when we can't when we can't make up? And it can just be overwhelming. What happens if the person I decide to be now is not the person I wanna be later? Lots of hard questions there. Number four, we become emotionally fragile because our emotions are easily manipulated.
Sid Koop:And if someone speaks against me, they're not just challenging my ideas. Now they're a true threat because they're challenging myself. It's one of the reasons why it's really hard to have a space of true debate, civil debate within our cultural context right now because it's not a wrestling with ideas. We we become very insecure in terms of how we deal with ideas. Couple more, we become the least accepting of the true other in a modern identity because by very definition of other, you're not affirming or, engaging in what I say about myself.
Sid Koop:You're offering a different way of being, which which, of course, makes me feel very threatened. And then number six, we all ultimately lose the opportunity to be our unique self because really what we end up doing is aligning with what culture says about us. And again, I've already said it. Try to express something that's against the cultural norm when it comes to your sense of self, and we find out how quickly we can be canceled in that space. Okay?
Sid Koop:So now you've just seen kind of two ways of of understanding identity. Correct? We've had a historical model. We've kind of framed that up. We've talked a little bit about a modern model.
Sid Koop:Any questions about what I said about modern model so far? That's true. K. Yes. Please go ahead.
Guest 2:So, like, obviously, the next identity is gonna be a gospel centered identity. Uh-huh.
Sid Koop:We're going
Guest 2:through historic, we're going through modern. Do you anticipate another kind of identity emerging today?
Sid Koop:Yeah. That's a great question, William. I, yeah, I think there's a real fluidity to this. I don't have an imagination for it, to be honest with you, simply because I'm trying to understand what is. Yeah.
Sid Koop:Do you know what I mean? That's good. And I'd even like to suggest that my gospel identity model is probably somewhat fallible. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
Sid Koop:It's rooted in my framework right now from where I am. I do think it's rooted in scripture, so I think there's something solid there, but I'm open to being challenged on it to some degree. Okay. That's a great question. Thank you.
Sid Koop:Okay. Let me keep going. Okay then. In a gospel identity, here's what we see. When it comes to gospel identity, the first thing that we're called to do is we're called to look up.
Sid Koop:So we're actually looking to God's voice as having the most authority in our lives and our sense of self, and we look to him and we say, God, what do you say about who I am? And what's beautiful about that is he's the one who has created us, Psalm one thirty nine, Genesis one. So he knows us better than we know ourselves, and he's also recreated us through his work on the cross, which expresses the fact that he loved us infinitely more than we can imagine. Make sense? So we go, oh, there's something really stable to root our sense of self in.
Sid Koop:Second, we look in. We look in at our own self and our own desires, and a gospel identity says, lord, could you please shape my desires to be in alignment with your desire for me? So I'm I love thank you for wiring me the way I am. If there's desires within me that don't align with you, I pray that your Holy Spirit will change that and suppress that. And the desires and we that do align with what you say about me, let's do could you fan that into flame and grow that?
Sid Koop:And so that's a process that works inside. And then number three, we look around at community for ways that we can actually, like, serve community. That's our primary goal when it comes to the community. I understand what Jesus says about me. I'm fighting to engage the journey of sanctification to become more like what he says about me.
Sid Koop:And at the very core, that is the way that I serve the community around him. So how do I go forward to serve? Which, by the way, I'm going to try to make a case to suggest that the healthiest space to live in is when I am least aware of myself and most aware of God and others. That that's actually the most freeing, healthy, strong space for us to function in. We'll get there in just a second.
Sid Koop:K. When you look at these other frameworks, by definition, we are who God says we are. When it comes to our desires, God shapes our desires, and we fight to align our desires with what God says about us. And by the way, it's all grace that we even can fight. If it wasn't for grace, we wouldn't even have the ability to fight.
Sid Koop:So we say thank you, God, for your grace. And when it comes to display, all of our display becomes about his glory, not actually about us. Oh, how freeing is that, you guys? Hey, can you imagine how freeing it would be to enter into a room, and you would never have to think, how can I impress these people? But instead, all you would think is, how can I be impressed by these people?
Sid Koop:When we were doing our conferences, we had a young, MC, and she was so nervous. I said I said, hey, Jenna. I said, your job on the stage is not to be impressive. Stop that. You're there to actually be impressed by the people and serve the people.
Sid Koop:So quit thinking about yourself. That's not actually who cares what they you know what I mean? And there's just this freedom there, and also we start understanding that our job is to serve and love and and not to be impressed by the peep not be impressive for other people. When it comes to display, we display as glory. When it comes to design, we are being redesigned into His image by His Spirit.
Sid Koop:And in fact, what's really beautiful is the one thing that we can count on God for in every single circumstance is his desire is to shape us more into the image of the son Jesus Christ. And he's always wonderfully at work doing that kind of work. Okay? Here are some of the implications for that. Number one, the one who knows us better than we know ourselves, he defines us.
Sid Koop:And, hey, here's what happens when we can begin to understand this. If you've ever read the book called, Convent of the American Mind, not written by followers of Christ, but a really helpful book in trying to understand why are we so emotionally fragile, why we catastrophize over so many different things. One of the things that they're saying is therapists say one of the best ways, one of the best ways of responding to, to some of the mental health crisis we're experiencing is through a process called cognitive behavioral therapy. Now what that means in the very simplest terms, it's this idea when I do not give my emotions primary ownership of my life, but instead, I have an ability to kind of step outside of my emotions, acknowledge what they are, and then ask myself the question, are these actually rooted in truth and reality? And if not, how should I respond to what's actually truth and real?
Sid Koop:And you begin to, like, kind of work with your emotions that way. Does that make sense? The bible calls that discipleship. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so we love like, we're thankful for our emotions, but our emotions don't get to have the ultimate control in our life.
Sid Koop:What Jesus says about us actually begins to shape our emotions. And there's something really powerful that happens for us when we realize that God's given us a type of volition in that space in our lives. That's quite that's quite unique and different. The one who loves us most has the most power in our lives. By the way, in a gospel identity and youth workers, our primary job is to help our students see the beauty of Jesus Christ.
Sid Koop:So if they can see the beauty of Jesus, then his voice will have the most power in their lives, and that creates the most stability that they can experience. You know what I mean? So, like, let me give you an example of this real quick. This is the example I always use. If my wife was here, and let's say I finished speaking, and afterwards, you all came to me, and you said, men said that was really awesome.
Sid Koop:You're great. High five. That's super cool. And then I looked at Jen. She's in the back.
Sid Koop:She's like, fifty fifty. I'd be depressed. Okay. I don't care how many you said it was awesome. I'd be why?
Sid Koop:Because she has the most value in my eyes. Makes sense. Now if she said if you guys all said you're pretty terrible, Sid, but she said to me, babe, you killed it. Good job. I'd be like, I don't really care what you guys say.
Sid Koop:I'm good. You know what I mean? I'm good. We want our kids to hear his voice that way. Yeah.
Sid Koop:That's the goal for all of us. Yeah. Real hard on the side of eternity, but the way that we give that kind of weight to his voice is by helping our students see the value and treasure of who Jesus is. I think salvation I've heard someone say this once that salvation, like, being a follower of Jesus isn't just about seeing him as your savior or seeing him as your lord. It's also seeing him as your treasure.
Sid Koop:Like like, this is the beauty of who he is. Jesus said Matthew 13 that, the the farmer found a treasure in the field and in his joy sold all he had and went and bought that field, bought for the sacred treasure. And I thought to myself, if God asked me to get, sell everything I had, that'd be really hard. Apparently not for him. It was a process of joy because he found something much greater.
Sid Koop:So there's like this wonderful space that God calls us to fight to experience. Right? That's the power. Number three, we can be the most embracing of the other. Right?
Sid Koop:Just talked about that. Jesus calls us not simply to embrace those who are different than us, but even those who are who are opposed to us, we're called to love them as well. So we have a strength to be able to embrace the other. It's really fasting talking with Jonathan last night saying, Jonathan, how are you going to come alongside your kids and help them to continue to love those in authority who are against them. Who talks like that?
Sid Koop:Only Christians. We're weird. K. Number four, we don't have to be afraid of failure any longer because our accomplishments don't own us. Jesus does.
Sid Koop:And, also, there's nothing that he can't redeem. How good is that, you guys? Right? There's not a single thing he can't redeem. He works all things out for good to those who love him.
Sid Koop:It was funny. I was talking to my boy at the end of the day. We were just talking about future decisions, And, like, he said, dad, what if I make the wrong decision? Like, what if this is the one that God has for me? I said, son, you keep seeing God as, like, a car salesman or something.
Sid Koop:Like, that's a game show host. I said, is an game show host to you? And he's kinda like, hey. I got these three curtains. You know?
Sid Koop:You get to choose whichever one you want. You choose this one. Shoot. You took, like, a can of soup. You could've had a new car, but, oh, well, sucks for you.
Sid Koop:Like, that's not like, he's a father. Right? He's a loving father who loves to give good gifts and redeem all things. Like, that's such a radically different way to understand life. All of our lives can truly make a difference, and this is really wonderful because, only God knows where we give Him the most glory.
Sid Koop:Correct? So wherever He's placed us now is the most significant space we can be. And each of us has the opportunity to live lives that are, like, equally, eternally significant. Now here's a problem, by the way. We tend a little bit to roll like a culture where we celebrate certain gifts and skills over others.
Sid Koop:Right? So we find the kids who can sing or speak or do something on stage, and we celebrate the heck out of them, but we forget about the one who's working behind the scenes, quietly affirming someone or following up with cleanup. So we just have to have eyes to see. That's part of our job to celebrate that and help our students understand that God has you know, when we understand what it is to have a gospel identity, we can quit comparing and competing with others, and we can just start embracing who Jesus is asking us to be and to understand that, again, only he knows where we give him the most for, and he's working through us in whatever space we find ourselves. Number six, we can celebrate and embrace our unique talents and designs, k, because of that.
Sid Koop:Okay. Real quick then, here's some ministry implications for us. This this is the most practical that I can get, last few minutes. Let's try this out. Number one, part of what this means is I think we have to teach the whole gospel story about, like, creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
Sid Koop:The reason why I say that, and I know there's a bit of complexity to that, but when we make the gospel story only about our own personal decision to follow Jesus, we become the center of the story.
Guest 2:That's right.
Sid Koop:And I think we have to understand that God is inviting us into this huge story where he's the center of the story, doing a significant work, and we get to be a part of that. Okay? That's a very different way to understand life. By the way, the gospel identity is radically crystal centric. Hey, I'm just reading this book called, Don't Follow Your Heart.
Sid Koop:I forget the name of it. It's Adios Somero. Here's what he said. He said, when it comes to idol worship, whatever we worship, we become like it. Does that make sense?
Sid Koop:Unless the idol we're worshiping is ourself. And when we start worshiping ourself, we become more broken, unless unless like who god has designed us. Book. Right? Is it yeah.
Sid Koop:Exactly right. And, actually, on Rob's, podcast just interviewed Tim Barnett who wrote that book with It's over. To the hey, Rob. Tell us the name of the podcast and when that one's coming out again.
Guest 4:Church of the North podcast. That would be about, I think, last
Sid Koop:Monday. Yeah. And you should listen to it. Really, really cool, by the way. Lots of things, though.
Sid Koop:.Ca.ChurchoftheNorth. Ca. Love that. Okay. Let me keep going here.
Sid Koop:Sorry. I'm sorry. We need to, teach both justification and sanctification. What I mean by that? We have to teach the journey of becoming like Jesus to our students and lead them into that.
Sid Koop:K? That's the way that God's called us to move. We have to be very Jesus centric in our ministry. Being in Christ matters most. So we have to remember that being a follower of Christ is not just like a religious set of rules or an ethos that's actually following a person.
Sid Koop:That's transforming us more into his image. So we have to talk a lot about identity in Christ. We have to talk a lot about what it means to suffer with Christ, and then we have to talk about ultimate restoration with Christ. I think we actually have to talk way more about heaven than we ever have to, guys. If we only think if if earth is all we have, then Paul would say we're fools.
Sid Koop:That's what he'd say to us. There's something greater coming. Happy to be very Jesus centric. Service needs to be at the very core to our culture and content so we become other centric. And we understand that's more than just what we do.
Sid Koop:It's an expression of our identity. We celebrate the unique ways our students have been created and teach them how to use those gifts to glorify Jesus, not glorify ourselves. We actually challenge their things like how they post online, why they post online. I used to talk to my boys all the time about, hey, boys. Just saw you post that.
Sid Koop:What are you looking for? Why like, why'd you do that? Is that a way of celebrating your friends? Is that a way about, like, just sharing your experience? Or what do you what do you need from that post?
Sid Koop:Is there something you need? How is that an act of service to others? Or how is that an act of glorifying Jesus? Just great, like, great conversation I mean, it's a bit of a conversation stopper, but if you get in the right moment, it'll be okay. We have to be rooted in the whole word of God, both the confronting and the affirming parts of scripture.
Sid Koop:I think one of the ways that sometimes we feel we may be bought into a modern way of thinking about self is when we only teach the parts of the Bible that our kids experience as affirming and not the parts that also are experienced as confronting or inviting into a different way. K. But that you know, there's there's no tension between truth and love. Let's be real clear on that. K.
Sid Koop:There is a tension between how we express truth and if that's loving. K. And then number seven, we teach cultural discernment. So because of so much, information coming, we really have to lean into teaching our kids how to become discerning, which means, by the way, we need to be rooted in the scriptures. And you talk about Alicia Childers, the the book that they wrote on deconstructing Christianity.
Sid Koop:You know, one of the unique elements of deconstructing faith right now deconstruction's always bad. They talk about that. But what's different is deconstruction used to be about challenging the truth of scriptures. Now deconstruction is about Yeah. Yes.
Sid Koop:And they talk about it as a type of reformation. Correct? Yep. Yep. Good.
Sid Koop:Okay. And then number eight, we challenge the use of our students' digital platforms, especially how to use those platforms for glory of God. We talked about that. And then we build resilience by mentoring our kids through hard times, not removing them from hard times. Yeah.
Sid Koop:So we figure out how to come alongside them. Okay. Hey. Our time is up. Thank you so much for your time.
Sid Koop:I wanted to say this. The work you do matters so much. There's no sweet formula to this journey. Correct? And here's I I mentioned it this morning.
Sid Koop:Discipleship, I don't think, has changed a lot. Gotta be in the word. Gotta be relational. Gotta see Jesus. All good stuff.
Sid Koop:But the challenges we have to overcome to help our kids experience that are very significant, and to do it well is gonna require some good thinking on our part, which means we're gonna have to create space to think well. And I really think that one of the great challenges to our students' movement towards deep discipleship is, is the mass distraction that they're living with. And if we can create space where we can remove distractions, simply do that, we would create the opportunity for them to now see the beauty of Jesus, and that would be transformative. Which is one of the reason why love can't be, guys. You should send the kids again.
Sid Koop:We'll just get rid of those distractions for a bit, and, we'll give them some space to experience Jesus and heaven for you. Alright. Bless you. Thanks so much for the work you do. Have a great day.
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