Episode 1: What Do You Love?

In this engaging conversation, Jo Hobbis and Christie Penner Worden explore the intricate themes of identity, parenting, and the importance of trust in conversations about self-discovery. They discuss the challenges of navigating identity with children, the role of technology and social media, and the significance of open dialogue. Christie shares her journey of writing a book on identity, emphasizing the need for compassion and understanding in these intimate discussions. The conversation highlights the importance of worship beyond music, the concept of need, and the power of questions in fostering meaningful connections with kids. Ultimately, they stress the necessity of community and the influence of Jesus in shaping our identities. This is a deep dive into The Me I Was Made To Be: Helping Christian Parents Navigate The Identity Conversation by Christie Penner Worden.

Transcript

Jo Hobbis (00:00)
Well, Christie we are here. This is very exciting. I'm so pleased that we get to have this conversation together. And I think probably we should start with our origin story. We should explain why we're even friends. So you and I first met in person in a bougie Airbnb in Croyde which is a little seaside town in the southwest of England.

Christie Penner Worden (00:06)
This is really exciting.

Mm-hmm.

Jo Hobbis (00:26)
and I think it was September 2022, you'd just joined the British media company I was working for. And we'd all gathered for a team building retreat. I don't think we could have imagined as we pulled on our wetsuits to try a bit of surfing. I think it was just you and me who did that actually.

The journey that God had planned for us that would cause our co-worker relationship to morph into real sacred, safe to tell you exactly what I'm thinking friendship. So, Christie, why do you think it's important before we start having this identity conversation that people know this about us?

Christie Penner Worden (01:09)
I think it's important that they understand that there's an intimacy here and a familiarity here that builds a relationship of trust. And I think that's important because a relation or a conversation about identity, a conversation about the most intimate parts of who a person is and how God made them or who God made them to be. 

that really is a conversation that needs to be  well steeped in relationship. think sometimes,  oftentimes, I would say even often, more often than not, a conversation about identity is based in politics or religion or  opinion or  emotion. And  we all get to where we get on

in the conversation about identity one way or another, but it doesn't make it necessarily public forum. Some things we get to learn to keep to ourselves. And so when we're talking about who we are, who we deeply believe that we are, whether a person knows Jesus or not, a person is curious or not, or somewhere on a spectrum of identity that I understand or not.

A conversation about identity is extraordinarily intimate. And so it is of utmost importance that we develop that relationship before we have the conversation. I think there are things we can talk about in the abstract, but what we need to always remember when we're talking about identity is that we're talking about people and who they believe themselves to be. And that can't be,  that can't be un...

hinged from the fact that this is an intimate conversation. So even if it's a docu-series, even if it's a convention, even if it's  a piece of news, when people are dealing with issues around their identity or struggling with who to say they are, when neutral things like a news program are happening, there are other people in the world

while you might find it neutral, that are picturing themselves or someone they love. Because behind the conversation about identity is always, always, someone's loved one. And so it's only in a trusting and safe relationship that we can really have this conversation genuinely, because sometimes we need to call each other out. Sometimes we get it wrong. And so we have to feel both safe, to be honest, but also trusting and trustworthy. We have to offer

a wide berth of  compassion and empathy in conversations that are so intimate like identity.

Jo Hobbis (04:01)
thank you for trusting me then. So you open the book by saying that you're sad that you can't sit at the table, coffee in hand and talk with each person that reads it, that you would ask big questions and share ideas, thoughts and feelings about those questions, praying that God would fill in the gaps between all the unknowns. So I am hoping that this podcast is the next best thing, because you can't talk to everyone, but you can talk to me.

Christie Penner Worden (04:04)
My pleasure.

Jo Hobbis (04:28)
And I would really love to ask you some big questions. So I think we can agree then that this is our safe space for exchanging thoughts, feelings and questions. Good. So my first big question then is why you, why are you the right person to write a book about identity conversations with kids?

Christie Penner Worden (04:35)
Yes. Yeah.

Well, before I answer that big question, I would say I'm really glad that you articulated that this is a safe space, but I also know that people I can't sit at the table with are going to listen to it. So I would love to ask for the same amount of compassion, empathy, latitude  of our audience for them to just recognize that this is a very vulnerable conversation.  And

to write the book felt extremely vulnerable. But to answer why I thought that I was the one to write the book is complicated because I don't, I didn't think I was the right person to write the book. I don't feel I have any  right to speak on behalf of.

anybody's children or anybody's belief system, I wrote the book because God asked me to. And that was clear. And so over the course of studying lots of scripture and lots of research around kids ministry today and today's era, kids ministry with technology, what's happening in Gen Alpha, even in the years emerging from the pandemic, a lot of my research was around what's going wrong and what's working.

because it felt like we were getting back, and I would say to some extent we were, getting back different kids than we had pulled out of the schools at the beginning of the pandemic, where we were getting back a different socio-behavioral dynamic than prior. So it felt like all  of the aspects of childhood, of relationship, of  how to talk to kids,

what was social norm had shifted. And so in the midst of all that, there was also all this conversation beginning to emerge around identity. And I would say it was emerging out of fear. Now I had had the privilege of working with David C. Cook at the time and was the founding author of their curriculum, Wonder Inc. 

I sat with Jesus on, I don't know if you can see a little tiny bit of my pink couch back there, but I sat on that couch begging God to take that project off my lap because it felt too big. And  I said, if we're gonna, what's the one big thing that we need to be talking about with kids? And 13 hours later, after lots of doodling and praying and reading and journaling and begging on my part, the word was identity.

Christie Penner Worden (07:36)
that the questions kids are asking at the end of the day come back to who they are and how they figure that out. And so it actually stemmed from all the research and work that I did in that project where being able to answer who am I became the most important question that I think kids are asking. I think they ask brilliant questions. Adults get weird and scared and try to tiptoe or pretty up what they want to say. They don't often come out and just

ask a bold question and if they do that can feel dangerous given the the political and social climate  that we live in today but  who am I became the question that not only did I not know how to answer if a kid were to ask me that without giving them a pastoral answer that may or may not be helpful  it also forced me to figure that out for me.

that who am I and why would He ask me? Why did He ask me? And why would I do this? And then as I journaled, that became, why wouldn't I do this? If God is asking me to do this, why wouldn't I? What excuse can I hand back to Him to say, you got it wrong? And did I have that sort of fear, that measure of fear that I could tell God?

Jo Hobbis (08:46)
Okay.

haha

Christie Penner Worden (09:04)
that God got it wrong. And I didn't have that in me. So I think being the right person to start the conversation is only based on the fact that I said yes to a conversation I was having with God first. It doesn't mean that I believe I got everything right necessarily, but I wrote what I was asked to write. And some of it will pinch for some readers.

Some of it actually from reviews that I've read of the book doesn't go far enough.  People often want us to land on one side or the other. And this is a spectrum conversation, not a black or white conversation. And so I think the ability to hold the conversation in the gray and to hold the conversation  with questions and not feel responsible for answering the questions for everybody is why God asked me to write the book.

Jo Hobbis (09:59)
Yeah, that's

it. That's exactly why. Because you never feel like you have to answer all the questions, do you? But you do really like us asking questions. I know that. Yeah, no, that's good. That's really good. I love that. I like that you sat on your pink sofa for a while and thought about it. How long did it take? Like, not from writing the first word to finishing it, but the kind of process of, yeah, okay, I'm going to do this.

Christie Penner Worden (10:02)
Yeah.

No, I don't.

I do!

Yeah.

Jo Hobbis (10:29)
And then was it a long time before you wrote the first word?

Christie Penner Worden (10:33)
So I think probably beginning with that conversation on the pink couch,  I have a lavender, a large sized journal  that says brilliant ideas enclosed or something on the front in gold. It's very spectacular and delightfully  colorful. That journal is reserved for moments where I believe I'm being asked to sit and be quiet with God.

To say that, seems like most, for listeners that are Christians, that just sounds like an everyday sort of thing. It's not actually, my devotional time with Jesus is often spent running, not away from him, but actually physically running with worship music. I've learned that I need to busy my hands so that I can't write things down because I have the capacity to turn almost anything into, any conversation with God into a book if I really wanted to or thought I should.

And so when I know he's asking me to be still, that book comes out. And so from the moment I started the concept of the book, that was the first place I went back to because that's where I wrote down that conversation on the pink couch that day. Now, what was fascinating was I didn't pick it back up again until it would have been January, 2024. So that was February twenty

one that I wrote those first words in that purple journal or that lavender journal. And it was January 2024. Is that right? Yes, that I submit my first manuscript. So to back it up a bit, it would have been January 2023 that I was at a conference and

Jo Hobbis (12:03)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (12:31)
they were going to do their next year's theme they announced was something about identity. And I thought, wow, that's really cool because that's all I think and talk and write about these days. And so maybe I'll be able to submit some breakouts or whatever that would, that would fit with that. I then went into lead a breakout at,  in January of 2023 about helping kids navigate the identity conversation. And I had this experience where, as the words were coming out of my mouth,

the rest of the book was being deposited into the back of my head. And so I don't imagine it was my best breakout just because it felt like there was a lot going on in my mind.

Jo Hobbis (13:04)
All right.

You

I mean, maybe we should ask for comments on that if anyone who's listening was there. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (13:14)
I should get the feedback form out from that

conference and see what people thought. But it was quite wild, this experience of  really what that breakout was, was chapter headings almost. And so I realized that for every point I was making, there was something to unpack about it. And so  I started

Jo Hobbis (13:21)
Right, yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (13:40)
The way it started was I started collecting bits of my writing around identity from different, whether it was my Google Drive or my thumb drive or my old computer or my phone or places where I had collected my writing around it and started just putting it in a folder called The Book on my desktop.  Then I just sort of let it sit there because.

Christie Penner Worden (14:04)
who has time to write a book and work full time and raise kids and the whole thing. I knew it was there, but I didn't really get back to it. But then I was gifted time a couple of times to dig in and write. And those days were like 17,000 word days where they were rich and full and  very, very intense where I felt I was really

able to listen well to Jesus. They were outside and there were hikes in between just to get my body moving. But it was exactly January 2020, sorry, December 2023. So just a full year, almost a full year after I had the idea of a book that a publisher approached me by January 2024. Like I said, the full manuscript was in the publisher's hand and by September 24, it was out. So it felt like this long

Jo Hobbis (14:54)
Amazing.

Christie Penner Worden (14:57)
process leading up to it. But a mentor once talked about the process of training for a marathon. And in the early days of learning to run long distance, you learn how tightly to your laces. You learn which soles fit. You learn if you need arch support or metatarsal support. You learn which shoes are comfier for your feet than others. There's different brands for a reason. There's all sorts of things you learn about how to run well.

Jo Hobbis (15:13)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (15:26)
and how to keep going, how not to get blisters, to shake the pebble from your shoe. You learn how to do that before you actually show up to the marathon. And so that whole season between February, 2021 and getting that like mental and spiritual download that I got in January, 23, I would say that was training for a marathon.

Jo Hobbis (15:50)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (15:51)
so that

by the time I was invited to actually run the distance, I had what I needed and I was in shape to do it.

Jo Hobbis (15:57)
Yeah, I love that. That really resonates. Thank you. ⁓ Let's talk about mum guilt. Because I love the story about your daughter that you share in chapter one. It's so relatable. I feel your mum guilt. Because here you are pastoring other people's kids week on week and your own child doesn't want to hear you talk about Jesus anymore. But it was the conclusion that you draw.

Christie Penner Worden (16:05)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Jo Hobbis (16:24)
that you were asking her to step into your story instead of stepping into hers that really challenged me because I know that I've definitely done that with my kids too. And I think it comes from a good place, doesn't it? It comes from a place of wanting the very best for our kids and knowing that Jesus is the very best. So if they sort of don't get there as quickly as we want them to, which is like now, then we feel like somehow we've done something wrong. So I wonder then,

Christie Penner Worden (16:44)
Right. Yes.

Jo Hobbis (16:54)
As parents, how do we get ourselves to a place where we can let go of that mum guilt? And do you think that is the key to a good conversation about identity?

Christie Penner Worden (17:07)
I think for some people,  the guilt or the pressure of getting it right, that... 

the motivation behind what we're trying to steer our children before is what needs to be evaluated. So my child understanding who Jesus is at the ripe old age of almost five, really  understanding who, I mean, I don't fully understand who Jesus is, you know, like I think that's part of the beautiful mystery of God that keeps us leaning in day after day. But here I was trying to make it pint sized.

Christie Penner Worden (17:49)
for my youngest child and didn't know why I hadn't told a compelling story and like, should I quit my job? am I terrible at this? Is this, why would we not want it? Like, why I want to talk about Jesus all the time? Why doesn't she want to talk about Jesus? And I think... ⁓

a lot of the guilt that I experienced or  even imposter syndrome,  pain, failure, any of those feelings came from a legalistic framework that I grew up with in the church. Didn't necessarily grow up with it in my home to be clear. they wasn't my, there wasn't a dogma in my home, but because I spent so much time at the church, it's...

things felt quite black and white about salvation, following, like discipleship, about relationship with Jesus, that there was a right and wrong way. And I think that's really where we get to, we are invited to, it's a get to, not a have to. I highly recommend it, but it's a get to, let go of the things we thought we were supposed to do.

should, as I say in my introduction, is one of my least favorite words, because should points to a previous understanding of something that you didn't actually follow through on or didn't get right or did differently, and I should have done it this way, or I should be doing it this way, and it's usually followed by a but. And I think as parents trying to guide our children in the world today, when they have access,

to thousands and thousands and thousands of visuals, second on second on second, and their thumbs are scrolling faster than ever before. I know when my youngest was five, the attention span of most children was about at eight seconds. And it was just because of the number of media they can consume simultaneously. I doubt it's still, I would say.

in my experience in my home. I'm not sure it's still eight seconds. It could just be me. But I think rather than fight those things that sound bad or  we have to take screens away because we need to have, they need to be able to sit and have a conversation. What I've actually learned is my kids can sit and have a really great conversation. They just don't necessarily want to have it the way I want to have it. And so the guilt I experienced of

Jo Hobbis (20:00)
haha

Right, yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (20:25)
getting it wrong or somehow leading my kid to a place where this was not a an invitational conversation meant that I had some questions to ask of her. And so when I went back into her bedroom that month later, I had given her a month break from me and which clearly wasn't long enough by her response. She probably still wishes I would take a break sometime. I started from a place of a question and

Christie Penner Worden (20:55)
What I've learned from that in retrospect, I certainly wasn't this spiritual or holy in this moment to think of it this way, but I think the reason why the key to the conversation, even having a place to begin again, was that I asked a question and that is in fact how Jesus starts most conversations. And so don't be afraid of being the learner in a conversation.

Jo Hobbis (21:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (21:21)
For me, the guilt came because I didn't know how to do what I thought I was supposed to know how to do. ⁓ What if that wasn't the point? What if the point was to grow my relationship with my kid in such a way that she felt safe having an intimate conversation about Jesus? The conversation about a relationship with Jesus should never be about, here's the checklist, do these things, and then I can wipe my brow and we can all carry on and feel better.

Jo Hobbis (21:39)
Yeah.

But I think

sometimes it is, isn't it?

Christie Penner Worden (21:52)
It

absolutely is. And even when we know that's not the heart of Jesus for his kids, and that's not how he wants us to build relationship, there are these trigger moments in us where we have to or should do certain things. And if conversation is going to be had in relationship, and if conversation about identity is inherently intimate, then that's where the conversation

Jo Hobbis (22:07)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (22:21)
Those are the keys to a conversation about identity with anybody, but not just anybody, but your kids. They want to feel known and seen by you. And how can we invite them to know and receive the love of a God who loves them more than we do without approaching it the way God has approached us in those conversations? Through his son, Jesus, asking us great questions.

Jo Hobbis (22:26)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (22:51)
taking time, Jesus never turned around to the disciples and said, hurry up, we're going to be late. Never. And just when they thought it was time to move on, he would sit down and he would sit at the well. He was waiting at the well for the woman that he met there to arrive. She wasn't there waiting for him. He was waiting for her. And so I think if we can take a posture of

Jo Hobbis (22:56)
No. No.

Christie Penner Worden (23:20)
rest of openness and of availability, that takes a lot of that guilt and fear away that I am here, I am available, and my kids know it. It takes that off the table. What it doesn't do is relieve you of how long it might take to get to a place of your kid wanting to have that conversation with you. But what I learned around my kitchen table with my kids is,

Jo Hobbis (23:41)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (23:46)
I'm just going to ask a lot of questions. And if they don't want to answer them, guess what they won't do? Answer them. And if I'm asking the question wrong, they will tell me. And our intimacy built through a trust of me expecting that I'm going to be one of the people that gets it wrong in this conversation.

Jo Hobbis (23:51)
Yeah. ⁓

And I think as adults, we sometimes approach a conversation with a kid assuming that we do have all the answers, don't we? assuming that we're right.

Christie Penner Worden (24:12)
assuming that we're

right and assuming that our kids expect us to have the answers. They actually don't. Amazingly enough, they've seen us make tons of mistakes and they know that we might get it wrong, sometimes better than we do because we try so hard to have it all together. And I think that's really at the root of mom guilt is that

Jo Hobbis (24:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (24:38)
At least for me, I'll speak for me, is that imposter syndrome that I have to get it right and if I get it wrong, somehow I will screw them up and that in some way that is irreparable damage. But if I think of all the mistakes I've made that Jesus has walked me out of and into his grace and mercy, can I assume the same for my kids? Can I assume the same for myself in a conversation with the kids? Will he do it again? Will Jesus?

Jo Hobbis (24:50)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (25:06)
Will Jesus walk me in grace and mercy out of a bad conversation or out of something I've said out of anger or confusion? And do I have the humility in these conversations with my kids to apologize when I get it wrong or to ask them to tell me how I got it wrong? Am I willing to be the learner? It's really hard. Yeah. So at some point, I don't know where it is  in the book, but

Jo Hobbis (25:23)
Yeah, that's really hard. That's hard.

Christie Penner Worden (25:33)
On more than one occasion, I say that we have to be willing to be the learner and not assume that we're the leader. Just because we're tall, just because we're the parent, we have to take on a posture of wanting to learn. Jesus was so curious about people and about how they felt and what they want. Anyone who had a miracle performed by Jesus, he would ask them, what do you want? I mean, it's the most curious question of all. It seems obvious when we have the full story.

Jo Hobbis (25:40)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (26:01)
Like, well, duh, of course he wanted his sight back. Well, that's necessarily true. And so asking our children a question, a leading question where we expect them to arrive at a place where we can dive into the conversation that we want to have, that isn't the way of Jesus. And the way of Jesus is not just simpler, it's ⁓ clearer and it's far more loving.

Jo Hobbis (26:06)
Mm.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (26:29)
than a leading conversation. Starting with questions and letting a child's answer be what it is without being wrong is a beautiful place of sitting like Jesus. Chances are their answer will lead you to a better question. It's worth sticking in the conversation for the better question.

Jo Hobbis (26:38)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah, that's great. You touched on it a little bit there, the kind of the concept of need, Jesus asking, what do you want? What do you need? It's hard for us to get our heads around the concept of need, I think, when we sit in our white privileged position, as we do on either sides of the Atlantic. So I would really love to know what does the word need mean to you?

Christie Penner Worden (26:56)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, need became the foundation of the new conversation that I got to have with my kid.  After, you know, thinking I had screwed her up forever, by the way, I was trying to have the conversation. But need, ⁓ I think is misunderstood in our place of privilege, around a scarcity mindset that I need, I need all of these things.

Jo Hobbis (27:44)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (27:49)
 because I want, I deserve them or I should have them or  I don't have enough. And so the word need  played into that conversation with my kid where  I told her my position in the conversation was 

you need Jesus. Now that statement in and of itself isn't untrue. I think everyone needs Jesus. I think Jesus,  there's plenty of Jesus to go around for everyone. Why would she need Jesus though is the place I hadn't gone with her. And when I asked her why she didn't want to talk about Jesus anymore,  she said because 

because you said that Jesus would change everything. And I don't need him to change a thing. There's that word need. She went on to list, she said, I love my toys, I love my bedroom, I love my house, I love my friends, I love my family, I love everything. I love all the things I have. I don't need anything. And so that scarcity framework that we live in where more is more.

Jo Hobbis (29:02)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (29:18)
you know, the more we get, the more we have. I had actually, you know, probably the first time in history met somebody who actually thought she had enough. You know, it's rare that you meet someone. Right. Right. And I thought, wow, like, why does she need Jesus? Because salvation can't be the answer. That word is, is nonsense to a five year old.

Jo Hobbis (29:27)
That's great wisdom from a five-year-old, isn't it?

Christie Penner Worden (29:44)
someone who is pre-Age of Reason is a concrete thinker and learner. Why does she need Jesus? What lock does Jesus turn the key for? What does he hold the key for that she would need when she's not wrong? She has everything she needs and then some. And it was in that wrestling where I learned

and this will sound familiar, is we need Jesus because He is the key to who we are. The more we look like Jesus, the more we become the me we were made to be. That He is the key to who we are. And it's so counter-cultural. It's so counter-cultural to say to kids especially, go be like Jesus. When everything in culture is telling them to be their own selves, you do you, be unique.

Jo Hobbis (30:25)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (30:41)
You can be whoever you want and you can change your mind tomorrow. I actually think there's some great freedom in like, you might say you're this or you feel this way today, or you might feel like this tomorrow and it's okay to change your mind. think getting comfortable with changing our minds actually leaves a lot of space for growth  for kids and for ourselves. I don't think we give ourselves that  latitude sometimes, but this whole idea of need

Jo Hobbis (30:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (31:11)
I need Jesus to know who I am fully, to know why God created me, knit me together in my mother's womb for what? Well, if we go to  1 Peter 2, Peter says that God put us together to be a house of worship. That's who we are. We were made to praise God. That is our sole purpose. That is our identity in Christ is as a living stone meant to build a house of worship.

Jo Hobbis (31:30)
Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (31:41)
So if it takes every living stone to actually build that house of worship, then we actually need each other in order to continue to build that house of worship. And that need to hear from others, that need to know what worship sounds like from every living stone, gives me sort of this FOMO, this fear of missing out on if I don't know...

what you sound like in that house of worship. If you don't know Jesus, if you are not part of that house of worship, we are missing out in the Kingdom. The Kingdom needs every single one of us to become a living stone made to be built into a house of worship in order for it to be what? A time and space where Jesus can return. And we talk about Jesus wanting to come back, but we're not even close.

Jo Hobbis (32:32)
Mm-hmm.

No.

Christie Penner Worden (32:38)
And sadly, our understanding of the word need is really, it often boils down to have or have not, or the definition of need based in scarcity. We think that the opposite of scarcity is lavish abundance. That's actually not a Kingdom value. That's not Kingdom math. The opposite of scarcity in the Kingdom is enough. When everyone has enough.

Jo Hobbis (32:56)
Mm.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (33:07)
And that is the ethic of Jesus, that everyone should have enough, that he can take loaves and fishes. And not only does everybody have enough, but the ones who needed some for tomorrow were given enough for tomorrow too. The idea of having enough is the story of manna, of collecting just enough for today and enough for two days so that you can rest on the Sabbath.

What's amazing is that we don't actually have a scaffolding or a framework within our culture to understand what enough is. And I think if we can claw back some of the abundance, some of the  gluttony, for lack of a better word, in our culture, we will see that we have enough, that we have more than enough, that we have plenty to share in more ways than one. But when we

Jo Hobbis (33:43)
No.

haha

Christie Penner Worden (34:05)
rest in the fact that I have enough Jesus to give away all of God's love within me today and trust that I will wake up with an equal portion tomorrow. If Jesus really is my portion, then there will always be enough. We do not live in a culture that believes there will always be enough. I mean, the Gospel is exploding in places of the world where the word enough doesn't even begin to feel

confusing. They have so very little. But the Gospel is exploding because the Gospel is for some people their first understanding of enough. And they need Jesus no more than we need Jesus. And we need Jesus in order to know why we are here, why we were made the way we were, what God has for us, what God is inviting us into, and how our voices equitably

Jo Hobbis (34:38)
Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (35:05)
contribute to that house of worship. And that is why we need each other.

Jo Hobbis (35:08)
Yeah,

talk to me about that house of worship concept then, because I think that still people hear the word worship and they think singing. And I'm getting from you that it's not just singing.

Christie Penner Worden (35:18)
Great.

I mean,

you know, as someone with a degree in music,  my preferred  form of worship does often include music, but worship  is the thing you prize above anything else. There are lots of things we worship, right?  We're about to enter the World Series tonight, actually, and I know that's probably not a very big deal on your side of the pond, but I mean...

Jo Hobbis (35:41)
Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (35:53)
Even the weather app in this part of the world has changed their screenshot when you open the weather app to a picture of a Blue J that says, let's go Blue J's. That's how much, that's how inundated we are by the World Series. So some people worship a team. And I'm not saying that we can't have fun with the World Series and follow a sports league, but we will know you will be known by your love.

Jo Hobbis (36:04)
wow.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (36:22)
who you worship. When Jesus says, will be known as my disciples ⁓ because of your love. When Jesus says, you will be known by your love. I think that's, you can add the word and by what you worship. I don't think Jesus' words need editing, but you worship what you love. If you love, love, love, love, love baseball, you're gonna spend a lot of time over the next few weeks watching the World Series. Is there anything wrong with that? No. If it takes away from,

worshipping Jesus if it means that it replaces other good things in your life, if it means that you don't eat a healthy meal for the next two weeks because, you know, the lucky charm for you is eating chicken wings at every game. There is just  a myriad of things we can worship. We idolize celebrities. We want to copy certain fashion trends. And you know me, I love colour, I love fashion, I love all kinds of things.

Jo Hobbis (37:11)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (37:20)
But if I go down a path of wanting to be like somebody, be like another person, that is replacing an act of worship with idolatry. And I think there's a lot of idolatry in the church, actually. think there's idolatry for the Sunday morning worship service.

Jo Hobbis (37:45)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (37:45)
The thing about where we are at in today's world of media is you can get preached at by anybody you want. Like podcasts, people get addicted to podcasts, to voices, and they actually change how they think and what they believe based on the opinions of people that they agree with. And that really, I mean, you can get into cancel culture around all of that. One of the biggest issues

Jo Hobbis (37:56)
Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (38:14)
we will see with our kids is they will unfollow people they don't agree with. Well that's a terrible way to learn and it creates this idolatry of opinion, this idolatry of ideation that there is one way to do things. Jesus never acted like that. There were lots of different ways to get from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Jo Hobbis (38:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (38:39)
He happened to choose the spiciest way through Samaria most of the time. But most of his Jewish friends, neighbors, the priests, the families, the tribes, they were going around Samaria. It's a longer way, but at least they got to avoid Samaria. Jesus didn't avoid it. There are a lot of ways to get from one place to another. But if you become so steeped  in a way of walking that doesn't look like Jesus, you may have...

invited a form of worship of something other than Jesus into your life. What do you put first? What do you love most? What gets your attention? What gets your money? What gets your time? What gets your energy? When you answer those questions, that will point to the possibility of idolatry in your life. Here's the thing, Jesus loves you all the same.

Jo Hobbis (39:11)
Mm.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (39:34)
There is enough love for every person and Jesus knows that you're on a journey. Jesus also isn't asking you necessarily to throw yourself on the floor and you know that here comes the mom guilt again of what have I done? What have I put first? It's more an attitude of where have I spent time with Jesus today? It's not necessarily always about getting rid of something in your life, but making sure you have enough Jesus in your life. Worship can look like journaling, walking.

admiring God's creation in nature, putting music in your earbuds, putting a podcast that puts your heart and soul at peace, at rest in your ears while you walk or while you do the dishes. It can be phoning a friend from church and saying, I could use prayer, the humility that worship requires to be able to come before one another. And I dare say confess our sins one to another, like scripture invites us to. It's a holy and sacred place.

For some it will almost always include music. It might even mean singing along. It might mean playing an instrument. I'm sure some people love to sit down at their piano and just play music to Jesus. But the act of worship is what comes first in your life. What gets your time, your attention, your money? What gets more of you than anything else? And for me, it's definitely not the case day in and day out. But for me, when I hear myself saying these things, I want it to be Jesus.

I want the thing that gets the most of me to be Jesus.

Jo Hobbis (41:06)
Hmm. And so that's what we're trying to get across to our kids, I guess, in the conversation. And they're coming up against all this, all this stuff all the time. Do you think kids are better at sort of dealing with the onslaught of social media than we are as grownups? Do you think just because they're growing up in it, is it easier?

Christie Penner Worden (41:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

think we're more afraid of it than they are. And I don't mean afraid to use it, but we're afraid of the messages they might be getting and or they are getting. What am I talking about? Of course they're getting mixed messages. They're getting all kinds of input. I think where we get to sit with them in that is  learning discernment. And discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit and everybody gets different gifts, but discernment is also a practice.

Jo Hobbis (41:43)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (42:06)
of testing information, testing  whatever it is, whether it's information, visuals,  stories, testing them against the Gospel even. Does this sound like something that would be true? Does this look like something that is healthy? Does this feel like something that's  making you  more you?

Is this guiding you in a way that feels good? We can ask those questions and they can measure the worth of those experiences or those influences against where they are headed in their life. Now, that brings me back to the phrase that made the book, really. The more you look like Jesus, the more you get to be who you were made to be. So encouraging each person to live their life in the way

that Jesus lived his life is an encouragement to more uniquely live your life. Why? Because who you are is locked up in who God created you to be. Like that story I often tell kids when I get to Psalm 139 and he knit you together. There's these, I believe there are giant golden knitting needles. Not really, but I do. It's the image I get every time. And there are these glorious strands of colorful yarn where God is.

Christie Penner Worden (43:31)
knitting together the arteries, the veins, the systems of our body that are so intricately designed and right in the middle of that DNA, there's a strand of tinsel, this like glorious, when met with the light, prism strand that runs right through us that is the image of God. And what's true for every human being is that every one of us, whether we know it or not,

Jo Hobbis (43:52)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (44:01)
your neighbor, the one you don't like, the one you love, the one that bothers you, the one that mows their grass at the wrong time of day, all of them, every single person, the kid that you find most difficult to get along with in your life, that colleague that just won't stop talking, every one of these people is made in the image of God. And I think sometimes we've got our theology mixed up in... 

Jo Hobbis (44:20)
Hahaha!

Christie Penner Worden (44:29)
whether it's in church or even in conversation, where we somehow see that becoming an image bearer is the result of salvation. That's not true. Being an image bearer is the result of being human. Salvation is the result of following Jesus, being made into the image of Jesus. And that desire to become more and more like Jesus,

Jo Hobbis (44:39)
Mm.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (44:56)
unlocks all the unique ways that God made us to do just that. He doesn't need all of us to do it the same way because that would not be interesting. The whole formula for God in my meager understanding in God building us up into a house of worship is that we are uniquely and wonderfully made, fearfully, which means full of awe. We are awfully made, which is a fun thing to tell kids because that doesn't make sense.

Christie Penner Worden (45:24)
fearfully and wonderfully made, we are not made the same in any way. And so that idea of helping our kids figure out who they were made to be has to come back to Jesus. And so testing what they're experiencing in social media or online or what they're participating in on TikTok or Snapchat, does this bring out who you were made to be? Does this help you figure out who you are?

And even more simply a question, but even more importantly, do you believe what you're saying? Is this helping you better understand or better clarify who you are? Is this your opinion or have you adopted this opinion? Have you tested this opinion? If I disagree with you, does that make you uncomfortable or does that just make me wrong? And so it helps our kids to have better conversations with people they care about.

Jo Hobbis (46:11)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (46:22)
when we choose to stay in the conversation, even when we disagree with our own kids. The goal in disagreement isn't to force our kids to believe like we believe or think like we think. The goal is unity. It's always unity. We can disagree and still be unified. Agreement is a pleasantry.

Jo Hobbis (46:26)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (46:47)
But we don't have to agree. What we do have to do is stay present and unified in Jesus as we have difficult conversations. And so there are things they are seeing, learning, knowing, words they're using that are their vernacular.

Jo Hobbis (47:00)
my kids love

to use words I don't understand. That's like their favorite game. Like, they have a conversation across the dinner table and my husband and I are looking at each other like, what are they saying? What is that? Different language.

Christie Penner Worden (47:05)
Oh, I was...

would have thought Riz was the one that I didn't understand right now, but then I was watching a bunch of parents on a talk show just yesterday have a conversation about 6-7.

Jo Hobbis (47:17)
Ha ha!

⁓ yeah, no. I had some fun with that because I learned how to do it.

Christie Penner Worden (47:30)
So like...

You learned. Well, and don't

your kids, I mean, if you want the most like GIF worthy eye roll, just start using the kids' vernacular back at them. I mean, I wish I had the video on my phone going every time I tried to use a Gen Alpha or young Gen Z vernacular right now. But that's just it. Isn't it? They have, they have a whole world within their phones, within their palms that

Jo Hobbis (47:41)
They really hate it.

Christie Penner Worden (48:03)
we aren't invited into, I mean, I don't see myself being invited into Snapchat with my kid. I don't see that happening. I also don't see a need for it in a lot  of cases, but I can ask questions and I can ask curious questions rather than, you on that thing again? Or don't you think you've spent enough time on there? Or who are you talking to now? Like there are all kinds of questions we do ask because, I think we're a bit jealous. We want the same time.

Jo Hobbis (48:10)
No.

Christie Penner Worden (48:33)
with, we want time with our kids too, or we think they've spent too much time on there. Whole group projects are happening over Snapchat. Homework is happening over Instagram DMs. Like this is, this is not something that's going away or needs to go away to my mind. Just be aware of what they're using it for and be part of their world. And do your best to learn to trust your kid.

Jo Hobbis (48:41)
Right. Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (49:00)
There will be so many red flags and warning signs that you can't trust your kid or you  need to ask more questions or that they've done something to break your trust. You will know why, because you have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit and you can be guided by the Holy Spirit when it's necessary to really ask questions that  dig into trust.

But I think.

being able to sit with our kids in this time and space, knowing that they understand the world differently and they use these tools differently than us, we have a lot to learn from them and alongside them and a lot less to teach them per se about their interactions. We do have a lot we wanna say about Jesus, but in the same way that you and I, Jo, get to have this conversation because we have an intimate relationship.

That is the first order of business in having this conversation with our kids. Are you intimately connected to your kids in such a way that you have earned the right to ask tough questions?

Jo Hobbis (50:11)
Yeah, so you really need, you need to be involved in their world, don't you? You need to, I mean, I think, I think most parents are. ⁓ And all of this, I feel like all of this depends on the age of your child as well. I mean, we are mums of teenagers, which is delightful in a whole new way. ⁓ But young kids have got phones, young kids are on social media, even though they're supposed to be 13 to have an account. 

Christie Penner Worden (50:36)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. So statistically, which I love, I love, it helps me wrap my mind around when we say like little ones have phones and it's like, that's just a statement. But in the U.S. the research I read was U.S. by the age of four, 48 % of children have their own device. It's likely a tablet, but they, definitely have their own device for it. So almost half, and this is in the U.S., by the age of eight,

Jo Hobbis (50:42)
Then up.

Wow. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (51:10)
69 % have their own device. and again, I'm not saying there's a right age for, that's not my area of expertise. It's just something to be aware of, that to say kids shouldn't have tablets means you're saying 69 % of parents are getting it wrong because they already have devices. And so I think we want to be really careful about how we link what kids are learning and how they're behaving to,

Jo Hobbis (51:34)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (51:40)
to the devices they're using, because you can parent in and through that. You can parent alongside that. You can be part of their YouTube  account. You can see what they're watching. And you gave them the tablet. So there's an accountability and ownership here that let's use our tablet or our devices for  great reasons, for learning, for singing, for dancing, for listening, for wondering, for

Jo Hobbis (51:55)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (52:10)
 for teaching each other, like let your kids show you ridiculous things that they've seen online. Why is it that the things I find so funny my kids saw a month ago? Why am I always late to the party? Always late to the party. So I think just acknowledging and recognizing too that they're on a different wavelength than we are with devices. You are behind because

Jo Hobbis (52:23)
Always.

Christie Penner Worden (52:37)
I wasn't born in the digital era. didn't have my first email address till I was in university. So I think just acknowledging that there is a generation gap here is really important. And then I would say to those who lead parents and kids, those who work with parents and kids, whether school teachers or in the church or social workers, understanding that today's parents are digital natives. So millennials, for example, they are the first generation to have been born into the digital era.

Jo Hobbis (52:42)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (53:07)
Well, they are raising Gen Alpha. They're raising the kids that we're talking about. And so they don't have the same hangups around technology that we might have in Gen X or as Boomers that they have no hangups to the same degree that we do because they've never not known technology. I mean, I'll be honest when  Gmail started taking off originally and everybody wanted

Jo Hobbis (53:26)
Mm. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (53:36)
a Gmail account, I actually, the minute we knew what we were naming our kids, I registered their names as Gmail accounts so that they would get their own name. Right? Like my kids aren't young. I don't remember being that smart in the fog of postpartum, but my kids all have email addresses that go with their names and they didn't have to add a number after it.

Jo Hobbis (53:45)
Wow, that was forward planning. I'm amazed.

Christie Penner Worden (54:03)
If you try to get your name now, you have to be like 871 or whatever it is, especially if your name.

Jo Hobbis (54:04)
Great.

It's okay

if you've got a daft surname like Hobbis, because no one, no one in the world has that, it's fine. You can do it when you're 18, it's not a problem.

Christie Penner Worden (54:12)
Right. Right.

That's right. You can wait. Yes. But it's quite interesting to me that like, why did I think of that? There was again, it went back to this thing like we're going to run out of email addresses. Like that's what my generation thought when we were having babies. That's what I thought when we were having babies was we're going to run out. We better register these email addresses. It's crazy. Thank you very much. Yes. I am too in retrospect, but I don't even remember what I must have read something. Honestly, I must

Jo Hobbis (54:39)
I'm just so impressed that you did that.

must

have done.

Christie Penner Worden (54:49)
Yes.  So I just, I think we need to be gentle with ourselves around this stuff. I don't think we need to be  afraid. I think we need to be discerning and we need to wisdom.

Jo Hobbis (55:02)
Yeah, and I only bring it

up because I think it plays a part in how kids are having the identity conversation. Like, they're getting that influence from everywhere. And so they're approaching it differently to us, aren't they?

Christie Penner Worden (55:08)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Right.

And I think some of the fear is around, well, if they listen to people that are X, Y, or Z, whatever it is that they're listening to, they will be influenced to the point of no return. And so I think we need to give our kids some credit that just because they're following a certain account doesn't mean that that's what they want to grow up to be like.

Jo Hobbis (55:36)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (55:49)
Maybe they think it's funny. Maybe they're curious. Maybe they disagree, but they want to learn more. I think it's really important not to give strangers in the world who inundate our devices more power than they deserve. It's really about the power we think people have to influence. And don't get me wrong, I'm not naive. I'm not naive to the power that I mean.

Jo Hobbis (56:05)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (56:14)
There is a woman in the world who has followers named after her called Swifties, right? Like I get it. There is real influence on this planet. But I think when we're afraid, when it's around the identity, and no one seems to be afraid of people being a, maybe not no one, most people aren't afraid of their kids being Swifties. That's fascinating to me. I mean, I don't care. it's, love her music, go to her concerts. She like, she seems delightful.

Jo Hobbis (56:19)
Hahaha!

Christie Penner Worden (56:44)
but pay attention to just how much time our kids are spending being influenced. And I think the other thing to pay attention to is if your kids are following certain accounts and it makes you uncomfortable or it makes you concerned, that's a great place to start a conversation with why do you like that person so much or what are you learning from them that you think is so valuable? What are they doing, saying?

you know, bringing to the world that has captivated your imagination. Tell me more about why you hang out in this space. Because I think in fairness to kids that maybe don't feel like they fit in or don't know what their identity is, or don't feel equipped to  even answer any of those questions, there are people online that are helping them feel safe to just not know.

Jo Hobbis (57:18)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (57:43)
or safe to ask questions or safe to  sit in the gray. And so I would be very cautious to give anybody or any account on the internet or any persona so much power that they will shape your child. Now, we've seen it happen and it can happen, but it can't happen nearly as influentially as

giving Jesus the power to shape your child. And if you feel that your child is going in a direction that's dangerous, scary, uncomfortable for you, get on your knees. Pray for your child. Pray for them to come to you with questions. Pray for the patience and the imagination for an answer that sounds more like Jesus than it does like fear when your child does come to you with questions.

Jo Hobbis (58:40)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (58:43)
because Jesus ultimately has a much louder, stronger, gentler, kinder voice to speak into your kid's life than any voice on the internet. I believe that. I know it's hard to believe with all the shouting that's going on on those phones, but we know that Jesus loves them more, loves them best, and has a purpose and plan for them as a living stone in this house of worship. That's what I wanna remain most curious about

with my kids.

Jo Hobbis (59:15)
That's the perfect place to finish this episode, I think, Christie. And I can't wait to carry on the conversation in episode two. So thank you so much. Let's do it all again.

Christie Penner Worden (59:28)
We will do it again. I'll talk to you soon, Jo.