Celebrating 100 Episodes!

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Join Elizabeth Urbanowicz as she celebrates the milestone 100th episode of the Foundation Worldview Podcast! Whether you're a new listener or have journeyed through all 99 episodes, this special edition offers something for everyone. Elizabeth reflects on the top three most popular episodes, providing fresh commentary and insights. Plus, get an exclusive look at her personal favorites that might have slipped under your radar. Don't miss this chance to revisit the best of the Foundation Worldview Podcast and discover hidden gems you might have missed!

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello friends, and welcome to the 100th episode of the Foundation Worldview podcast. Can you believe it? The 100th episode. Now, if you're a newer listener, maybe you can't believe it because maybe you've only heard two or three episodes, or maybe you have been a faithful listener for a long time and you have listened to all 99 episodes before this. But whether you're a newer listener or one who's been with us from the beginning, I'm so grateful that you've joined me today for this 100th episode. For those of you who may not be familiar with me, my name is Elizabeth Urbanowicz and I run Foundation Worldview, which is a ministry that's designed to give Christian adults the skills that they need to equip the kids in their care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

Now, typically on a Foundation Worldview podcast, I will read a question that someone has submitted and then we'll spend 10 to 20 minutes answering that question. However, for our 100th episode, I have decided to do something a little bit out of the box and special. And what we're going to do for this episode is I am going to give us a quick look back at our top three most listened to and watched podcasts and just offer a little bit of commentary on them, on things I appreciated about them, anything that surprised me about them. And then I'm going to give you a look at my top favorite podcasts that haven't gotten quite as many listens or views. So in case you've missed them, you can get a heads up as to the fact that they exist, and maybe you can go back and check out those previously recorded podcasts.

So for our number three, most listened to podcast for the first 100 episodes, that was the podcast, "How to Talk to Kids About Porn". And now if I'm being honest, I am so very grateful that this is one of our top three podcasts, simply, because this is an incredibly important topic to think through because the porn industry is growing every year. And not only is it growing, but it's also predatory in that our kids don't have to go looking for pornography. Pornography is coming and looking for them. And so it's so important that we be proactive in equipping our kids to steer clear of pornography rather than simply being reactive once our children are exposed. And studies have found that the average age of exposure for a child is eight years of age. So we really need to start talking about this topic way before the age of eight to make sure that our children are prepared. And one thing I really appreciated about this podcast is we were able to go through and talk through what are different steps that we can take and conversations that we can have to make this an ongoing conversation so it's not just a one and done a sit down, have this big talk, have it be really long and awkward, but how can we build up a positive biblical theology of embodiment of the fact that we are body and soul, and that both are valuable.

And then how can we equip our kids to protect their bodies and also protect their eyes, their hearts, and their minds in this culture that's just so obsessed with porn. So since this is one of our top three episodes, I'm assuming that most of you who are watching or listening have already listened to that episode, but if you haven't, please go back and take a listen. I think it's a really important one, and also for those of you who have already listened or watched this episode, would ask that you just consider sharing it with those within your sphere of influence because we really want to make sure that as many Christian parents as possible are equipped to have this conversation with their little ones to be proactive in protecting their kids from pornography rather than being reactive.

Now, our number two most watched and listened to podcast was "Why Orange Curriculum is Bad". Now, I must admit that I was very surprised by the popularity of this podcast. The question came in, what do you think about Orange curriculum, which is a question we get frequently at Foundation Worldview, and we're kind of hesitant sometimes to review other curriculum simply because at Foundation Worldview, we are a curriculum creating company. And so if we review other curriculums, it can kind of make it seem like we have an agenda. However we receive this question so often I thought, you know what? Let me just do a podcast about this because Orange is the most popular curriculum among U.S. Protestant, evangelical churches. And so in that podcast, if you've already watched or listened you know right up front, I say, "I'm probably not the best person to do this because I write curriculum". However, in that podcast, I did not recommend our curriculum as a replacement for Orange because our curriculums at Foundation Worldview are not natural replacements for Orange, because Orange is all encompassing and has curriculum from birth through high school, which we do not at Foundation Worldview.

But I did give some recommendations for the Gospel Project by Lifeway and Truth Seven Eight, which comes out of, I think it's Desiring God, the ministry of John Piper. And so I was surprised by the popularity of this podcast, but I must admit that I was really happy that this one was so popular because the more I interact with different Christians across the US and even the more I talk with friends from different stages of life who I no longer live close by and just hear about what's going on in their churches, the more and more I hear about churches using the Orange curriculum. So if you have not watched or listened to that podcast, highly recommend that you check it out because in it we just do a really brief overview of some of the deep rooted flaws with how Orange approaches the biblical text.

Now, if you have already watched and listened to that podcast and you are part of a local body of Christ that uses the Orange curriculum, I'll just be really honest with you and say, I would really encourage you, that if your church uses this curriculum and you have already humbly gone to the leadership at the church and expressed your concerns and they're still using Orange curriculum, this is not something we want to cause division over. We don't want to cause division within the body of Christ. We don't want to have a prideful or an arrogant attitude, but I really would encourage you not to send your children to children's ministry if Orange curriculum is being used. And that might sound extreme, but let me explain why. In that podcast where we talked about Orange, we just went through what they do, rather than approaching the text and looking at what is the original meaning there, what is the meaning that God has placed there through the author given to the original audience?

What Orange does is they take some moral lesson that they already want to teach the kids, and then they find a text in scripture that they can use to teach that moral lesson, and that is a faulty hermeneutic. That we don't want to take descriptive text in scripture and just squeeze out some random moral lesson that isn't there. And so it would be so much more valuable for your children to be spared from learning that faulty hermeneutic and learning how to incorrectly read, interpret, and apply scripture, and for them to sit with you in the corporate worship service on Sunday. So really encourage you that if you do attend a church that is still using the Orange curriculum and plans to continue with that, to not send your children to that children's ministry, not with anger, not with an attitude of arrogance, but with an attitude of humility and just wanting what's best for your kids. Because having them learn that faulty hermeneutic week after week after week is really going to harm them.

Then our number one podcast that was listened to and watched most frequently is the podcast "Talking to Kids About What the Bible Says About Masturbation." And I must admit, I was very hesitant to record this podcast only because I know that this is a hot topic, but it's a really uncomfortable one for us to talk about. And I just wanted to make sure before I recorded the topic that I was doing a thorough job of covering what is the biblical theology of sex and sexuality? How does masturbation fit into that? And so I'm really happy that this became our number one most listened to podcast because it is a really important topic for us to think through as believers and then for us to one day talk through with our children.

Now, I must admit, one thing that did surprise me about this podcast is after it was released, we did get a number of emails from different people who had listened or watched the podcast who are in the medical profession. And in those emails, the people who emailed and were very nice and friendly and they thanked us for the podcast, but in some way, shape or form, they said they thought that we were misunderstanding the concept of masturbation and that we didn't understand the medical benefits of it. And then they sought to outline some of the medical benefits. And what I thought was really interesting about these emails is it shows a problem that is just prevalent in the Christian community and in just Western culture at large. And that is a flaw in thinking that a lot of times when we hear something we don't agree with, we might give reasons why we believe what we believe, but we don't engage with the other person's argument.

And what I did in that podcast is I talked about the three biblical reasons why God has given us the gift of sex and then outlined how those are portrayed in scripture. And then we looked at, okay, does masturbation fulfill any of these three purposes of sex? And we saw each time, no, it fails to meet that purpose that God has given to sex, and the people who emailed in did not engage with that argument and did not show how biblically masturbation fulfills the biblical purpose of sex. And so that's just something as we as adults are thinking through everything that's going on in our culture, we want to make sure that we are learning how to think well and how to reason well and that we're actually engaging with the arguments that are presented. So that's a really important thing. So those were our top three podcasts, "How to Talk to Kids About Porn", "Why Orange Curriculum is Bad", and "Talking to Kids About What the Bible Says about Masturbation".

Now, what I'm going to share with you is my top three podcasts, which was really hard for me to choose, but I tried to pick three that I really appreciated and wanted to highlight. But before we do that, I would just ask if you have been a faithful listener of this podcast and you have not yet taken the time to review this podcast would really ask that you just take a moment to give us a review on iTunes or whatever platform you're listening to because I think we finally earned our badge of honor that our podcast has been discovered by some who are very hostile toward the Christian faith and have given us negative reviews, not because we have misrepresented Christianity, but because they're hostile toward the Christian worldview. So if you are a faithful listener and you have not yet reviewed our podcast, we ask that you would just take a second just to give us a review right there just so that we can continue to drive people towards this content so that they can find it and equip the kids that God has placed in their care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

So it was hard for me to put my top three in any order, so they're just in a random order, and these are three that I really enjoyed. And if you haven't listened to encourage you to go back, you can click on the links that we're going to put in the show notes and either watch or listen to these podcasts.

And so one of my top three was the podcast, "My Kid Doesn't Hear or Experience God". And what I really like about this topic is this question was talking about a child who doesn't feel like they ever hear from God or experience anything emotionally when they read the Bible. And I just loved getting to look at, okay, let's see, what is the expectation that scripture gives us for what it should be like when we're interacting with God through his word and through prayer?

And this is such an important topic for us to cover with our children and for us to make sure that we as adults understand. Because our culture right now tells us that our feelings, that our subjective emotions are the most reliable guide to reality. They're the most reliable guide to truth where that is not what scripture portrays. But if we're not careful, we can buy into this lie that if we don't feel close to God or we don't feel like he's answering our prayers or we don't feel like we're excited about diving into his word, then we just must not be experiencing God. So just really appreciated the opportunity to dive down deep into, okay, as we look at the whole of scripture, what are appropriate expectations that we should have for our time with the Lord in his word and in prayer? So if you haven't checked out that episode, highly encourage you to go back and listen to that one.

Then another one of my top three was actually one of the first podcasts we ever released, and it was "What the Bible Says About Modesty and How to Live It". And the reason I really loved this podcast is that in our current cultural context, any form of modesty is just really a lost virtue. In fact, modesty is generally looked down upon by the secular culture, and I almost said the word sexual because that's typically what we think of. We tend to think of sexual modesty in dress when we talk about modesty, and that definitely is an element to modesty that we are to honor the Lord in the way that we dress, in the way that we present ourselves to others. However, if we're only talking about sexual modesty in dress, when we talk about modesty, we're really not looking at modesty as a whole and as a virtue that honors the Lord.

And so that's what I loved about this podcast is we just looked at modesty from all different angles and talked through how can we get our kids to think through the way that they present themselves to others, and to make sure that that is a way that aligns with God's good design for them. So if you haven't listened to that podcast, what the Bible says about modesty and how to live it, highly encourage you to check that out.

And then my final top three favorite podcast was "How to Talk to Kids About Violence in the Bible". And now this might seem like a random one to have as one of my favorites, but I love, love, love, love talking with kids about difficult things in scripture. And it's really important that we are training our children to soundly read, interpret, and apply scripture. And as we listen to so many of the deconstruction or deconversion stories that are coming out in the broader culture, many of the people who are claiming to leave the Christian faith are saying that as a child, they were just given this whitewashed version of scripture. That it always seemed like the only attribute of God that was taught was that God is love.

And then they were never taught about what God commanded the Israelites to do as they were driving the Canaanites out of the land or the judgment that God brought on his own people. And it's so important that we equip our kids with a holistic understanding of scripture that we're not hiding certain portions from them, or that we're only picking out certain attributes of God that we want them to know, but that we are helping them see God as he has revealed himself in scripture. So what I love about this podcast is it just provides a game plan for immersing kids in scripture in age appropriate ways. And this is so important for us to think through even from the youngest of ages, even when our children are just three and four years old and we are reading scripture to them. So again, these top three podcasts of mine were "My Kid Doesn't Hear or Experience God", "What the Bible Says About Modesty and How to Live it" and "How to Talk to Kids About Violence in the Bible".

And if you haven't listened to any or all of those, highly encourage you to check out the show notes and go back and give those three podcasts a listen. Also, if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast.

Well, this is a wrap for our 100th episode. I'm so grateful that you joined me for it. I'm so grateful to God for his faithfulness in sustaining us through a hundred episodes. And as we close our time together, my prayer for you is the same as always, that no matter the situation you and the children God has placed in your care find yourselves, that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of his son. I'll see you next time.