Ep 1164 ｜ Andy Stanley’s New Trans Training & Should Kids Grocery Shop Alone？
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 9 minutes
Words per Minute
168.76572
Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, Brene Brownie and I continue the conversation about parents allowing their kids to take risks, and what is too much? All of this and more on today s episode of RELatable.
Transcript
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Andy Stanley's church has released a training series for its middle school small group leaders on sexuality and so-called gender identity.
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And what we are watching is extremely disturbing.
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We will play some clips today and give our response to it.
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Also, is the Trump administration finally going too far when it comes to how they are dealing with deportations?
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And Brie and I will continue the conversation about parents allowing their kids to take risks.
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All of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.
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Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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Make sure you check out yesterday's episode with Natasha Crane.
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And I hope you felt bolstered and edified after that conversation to unapologetically bring your entire worldview into every sphere that you occupy.
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If you don't know exactly what that looks like, let me give you the encouragement that I give almost weekly on this show.
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Do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God.
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That is kind of an addition to a maxim that was always repeated by Elizabeth Elliot, one of my favorite speakers and authors.
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She would also say the only thing that you have to do today is the will of God.
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But when you break it down to only doing the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God, no matter how seemingly small and trivial that might be, or no matter how public and impactful that might be.
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That is all we are ever called to do in any given moment.
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And the Holy Spirit, which dwells in us, which is just as powerful today, who is just as powerful today as he has always been, he equips us to be able to accomplish God's will in wisdom and with his grace in any given moment.
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Okay, before we get into some stories for today, well, actually a couple of things.
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One, if you haven't gotten your tickets for Share the Arrows, make sure you do that.
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We still have a couple that we have not announced yet, but we've got Elisa Childers coming back this year.
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We've also got a health panel, which is going to be awesome.
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We've got Shauna Holman from A Little Less Toxic.
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We've also had her on the show just approaching health from a biblical and balanced and natural perspective and worldview.
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And then we've also got Katie Faust, and she really needs no introduction to y'all.
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You know that she is going to absolutely bring it with the hard truths.
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She will be encouraging us in a conversation on stage.
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And then we will also have a panel on motherhood and the importance of raising children in the Lord, making a home that glorifies the Lord and that is conducive to discipleship.
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And those speakers, that announcement is forthcoming.
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It's sharethearrows.com for all of that information.
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Brie and I are going to continue a little conversation that we had last week.
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It was the topic of discussion on Thursday's episode, I believe, when we talked about Jonathan Haidt's Anxious Generation.
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We talked about the importance, according to Jonathan Haidt, of allowing your kids to engage in a reasonable risk at the right age and how important it is for us to foster bravery and to foster independence in our kids.
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Because we, as parents, especially today, are extremely anxious.
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And it's not just because the world is scary, because the world absolutely can be scary, but it's actually because we have access to all of these scary things.
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We see everything scary that is happening in our country and in the world all at once.
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And honestly, humans were never meant to have that power.
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We simply don't have the capacity to be able to handle all of that information, all of those frightening images and stories all at once.
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And so it makes us overly scared when, really, if you look at the statistics on things like kidnapping and crime, we don't live in that regard in a more dangerous world than we used to.
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I say that as someone who is very anxious and protective myself, but I'm trying to learn and to really be reasonable when it comes to this.
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And part of that conversation was we played a video of a mom on Instagram who allowed her seven-year-old to go into a Chick-fil-A while she was waiting in the car.
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She was watching the exit, but she allowed her seven-year-old to take her card or maybe cash, go in, order Chick-fil-A, wait for it, and then come back out.
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And so we shared that clip on Instagram last night, and wow, oh my goodness, it sparked so much discussion among my followers.
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And then you've had other people being like, oh my gosh, Allie, are you crazy?
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I can't believe that you are promoting something like this.
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And I didn't give that much of my take last week.
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And so I just want to flesh it out a little bit more.
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My stance is that it is important to allow kids to engage in that kind of behavior and take those kinds of actions at the right age.
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It depends on your literal, geographical, physical location.
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There was a whole debate last week about whether you would let your five-year-old, okay, so five-year-old into a grocery store, to go to a grocery store by herself to purchase things and then, you know, come back out and, I guess, meet you at the car.
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My stance on that, you've probably seen this debate, is, you know, I have a five-year-old.
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Maybe some of you out there are like, no, five is not too young.
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I think in general, though, five is too young for that.
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In a couple years, at the right place, at the right time, with the right parameters, I could see her totally being ready for that kind of thing.
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I do think those kinds of exercises and independence are really important.
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And as I said, I'm someone who has the propensity to, I want to err on the side of safety, but I really want my kids to be brave and they cannot be brave and totally safe at the exact same time.
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There always has to be some relinquishing of guaranteed safety in order to exercise bravery.
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And we want our kids to grow and be brave and to be courageous because it is a scary world.
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And we don't want the first time that they have to exercise any kind of courage or independence to be when they're 18 or 19 years old.
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We actually want them to deal with fear and deal with risk while they are in our protection, while we have more control, while we can kind of protect them from some of the consequences.
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One example of this, it's a small example, but I think it's important because I observe this behavior on the playground.
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And I'm sorry if you heard me say this last week, but it caused like so many messages.
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I just want to say it like I see so many parents stalking their kids around the playground.
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I will allow my kids, again, reasonably to fall or to get injured or to climb.
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And me sitting there being like, I have no idea how she's going to get down from there.
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And if they truly, truly need help, of course I'll help.
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But I think that kind of thing is really important.
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And I am surprised at the number of parents who say, no, I cannot allow even my five-year-old to go down the slide by themselves or to like run across the field by themselves because I'm scared of, you know, I'm scared they're going to get kidnapped or scared I'm going to be trafficked.
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Look, I think a lot of us parents really have to think about our own anxiety and our own paranoia and our own fears and really check ourselves to see if we are being reasonable because there's reasonable fear, absolutely.
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Or if we are being unreasonable and if we're actually being untrusting, like if we are actually creating anxiety in our kids because of our own anxiety.
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So I certainly don't have that balance perfect, but I just thought the backlash to the video that I posted was really a fascinating look into how a lot of parents think.
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And Brie and I were talking about this before and just like her thoughts on this.
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And Brie, I know that you're not a mom yet, but you were saying that you just had some thoughts about the comments and the responses that people had to that.
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Yeah, I kind of see, I mean, I definitely see both sides.
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I see why people might be a little, maybe some people take offense to this word, but paranoid about the state of the world and seeing things that are happening.
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To me, I'm like, I think you need to be really aware of like where you physically live and are because there are so many like suburbs and places where people live that are so much safer than people seem to think that they are.
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Where if you're on a neighborhood playground, like it's just probably not going to happen.
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And like you said, you shouldn't have your nose in your phone and not be paying attention.
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But yeah, I think there generally is just the sense of like dread following everyone despite where they are.
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If they're in a really safe neighborhood, they're still like there could be kidnappers around every corner.
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And maybe we should all have our head on a swivel all the time.
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But I also think it just gets a little bit much, you know?
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And some of it is like a consequence of the fact that we live in a very divided country.
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Some of it, this is controversial to say, is the product of multiculturalism very quickly being forced upon certain communities.
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When demographics change, when languages change, when cultures change and people don't have time to get used to that.
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They can't even share a language or a culture with their neighbors.
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That's automatically going to make people distrusting.
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That's not to say that they're assuming that the person who's not from here is a kidnapper.
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It's just you're on edge a little bit more because we are not speaking the same language in any regard, literally or figuratively.
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But even with that, as you said, a lot of our communities are statistically a lot safer.
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And of course, there's always a chance that something bad will happen.
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But I don't think that that's how we want to train our kids to live their lives, that something could always happen.
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And I will also say, though, I, when I was a kid, was like painfully shy.
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I cried one time because my parents made me order my own food at a restaurant.
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I was pretty young, probably maybe four or five.
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And so I was like, it was painful for me to interact with other people.
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And they really like forced me to have interactions with people, like respectful interactions with waiters and ordering things myself, things like that.
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Like in the Chick-fil-A video, I don't think I ever went in somewhere by myself, but things like that.
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Like, I know, you know, you can't attribute something to that directly, but I just feel like that really grew me as a kid.
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Yeah, it made me confident, made me more comfortable with strangers, which not in a bad way, but in a good way.
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And so I just, I think that's necessary for some kids, you know?
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When I think about just my own life, even my adult life and doing what I do now, every new thing that I've done has, I've looked back and been like, oh, that one thing that I did that I was scared to do, that prepared me for this.
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And so you want those like little steps out in faith.
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Again, when you're under the protection of your parents, that's the best place to have that risk.
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Okay, next we're going to talk about sleepovers, but let me pause.
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Okay, so this is another part of the debate that is going on online.
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So sleepovers, whether or not parents should allow their kids to sleep over at friends' houses.
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I don't think that this includes like sleeping over at grandparents' houses too.
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I think we're just talking about sleeping over at their friends' houses.
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And again, this is not specific to any age range.
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I'm pretty sure that the conversation is about all kids.
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Now, I did do sleepovers growing up like early.
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I don't know about as young as kindergarten, but I feel like first, second grade,
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I was definitely sleeping over at friends' houses and they would sleep over at my house.
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And my parents' rule was if I went over to anyone's house, whether it was spending the night or not,
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Not just I talked to them once on the phone, but like really know them.
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I would add on to that, like you should not only know the parents,
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but if your kid is going over to a house, like at any point of the day,
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You should know what access to technology they have and what they're going to be doing,
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Like I do think it's really important for parents to know all of that before you allow your kid
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into someone else's home, especially if there are other adults or like teenagers that are going
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My stance is different than my parents in that I say no to sleepovers.
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I don't know if I can say, because, you know, again, my oldest is only five.
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I don't know if I can say in no circumstances will I ever allow sleepovers,
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but I do believe it's a good general rule, especially with the access to technology that
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And I've talked to so many of you who said, even when we were growing up, 90s, 2000s,
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that they might, not everyone endures trauma at a sleepover,
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You are putting kids in a situation where they have no supervision for hours and are getting
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And my parents always said nothing good happens after midnight.
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And I think that is consistently proven to be true.
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Even if when they're older, it's like, okay, we're, I'll pick you up at 11 seems better to
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me than them going to bed at 3am talking about who knows what, and then being completely trashed
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It just doesn't seem conducive to like good behavior or like anything productive.
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So let me, let me hear you're thinking about it.
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I, I'm going to preface this by saying, I don't currently have kids.
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It probably will the more I think about it, but currently the way that I think about it
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is, uh, and maybe everyone approaches it this way from their perspective or the, from their
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I, some of my favorite memories growing up with my friends were at sleepovers and I always
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had the birthday party that was a sleepover and they were always so much fun.
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I had experiences that were really wholesome and innocent when it comes to sleepovers where
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it was just like hanging with my friends, watching movies, you know, I know that there are other
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people who were exposed to really awful things at sleepovers. And I just saw a guy on X, I forgot
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who it was, but he was saying he was exposed to porn for the first time at a sleepover. He was
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really young and he's still dealing with boys. Yeah. And he said he's still as an adult, married
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adult, he's still dealing with the effects of that. And that's horrifying. Like those are the
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kinds of things that might make me change my mind about it. But that was 30 years ago and seeing
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porn once at a sleepover, like really, really, the left an indelible mark.
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Yeah. So I can imagine how much worse it is now where you can stumble upon it by accident now.
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So, so I acknowledge all of that, but I just have really good experiences and I find that they were
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really formative of growing relationships with other girls and, and making friends. And I just would
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really be sad for my daughter to miss out on stuff like that. But yeah, maybe the risks outweigh the
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rewards. I definitely can see that that that's a possibility. I'm just, I love sleepovers. I always
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did. Yeah. And so I would have a hard time. Yeah. Not allowing that. Yes. I totally see what you mean
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because I also have some good memories with that, but I also am like, I feel like most of the time I was
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just so tired the next day and I never had anything traumatic happen either, but it's like, it's the
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gossip. It's the like, you know, people being left out, the prank calls, the silly things like that,
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that probably weren't like formative in a healthy way and wouldn't have happened if we had just like
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been in our own homes. Like, I can't even think of anything specific, but I just don't have anything
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that I can look back on and be like, yes, that was truly like beneficial and formative for me.
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But again, I, I also can't say 100% if we have a family that we're super close to, we know them
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really well. And my daughter and their daughter are best friends. We've gone on trips together.
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We know each other. Mom and I have great communication. We know the rules. I can't say
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no, absolutely never. Is that ever going to happen? I don't know for sure. Right now I am
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saying that's a pretty good ground rule and I absolutely will not be doing that in like first
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and second grade. It's kind of like even crazy to think about a little bit. Uh, but yeah, I think it
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also, again, kind of going back to the independence conversation, it depends. It depends on the kids.
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It depends on the maturity level. It depends on all kinds of different things, but yeah, I don't know
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that anyone can say before they get there what they absolutely will or will not do. Yeah, that's
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fair. Also, I was thinking about it just now and I feel like the sleepovers I remember the most were
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the ones that were at my house, not the ones where I went to other people's houses. I guess
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that's not a standard everyone can upkeep, but, um, but I was, there were some, I remember that I'm
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like, I, my parents let me go to that person's house. I spoke to them like once. Um, but the ones
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at my house were like a lot more special and maybe that's just because I felt safer there. I don't know,
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but yes, I, I never really liked going to other people's houses and spending the night. Okay. I
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remember like one time I spent, I'm still friends with her, so it's all good. But I will spend the
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night with a friend in like sixth grade. This is another example of like not trauma, but also not
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good. I watched signs. That'll get you. That'll get you. And I felt so bad because I was so scared
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after that. And that would not have happened if I hadn't spent the night because again, older siblings
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and everything, it was probably like, I was probably 11 years old and it was probably 10 o'clock. We
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watched signs. Also, I remember watching mean girls for the first time at this person's house, which
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great movie. Well, I can't say great, but it's great. Like in a lot of ways. Um, but that's really
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like a teenager movie. I shouldn't have watched it for the first time at this person's house. And I
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was like 10 or 11. Yeah, no, that's true. Definitely not at 10 or 11. Yeah. So if you're going to,
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you got to make sure that the parents, you know, follow the rules and all of that. And now it's a
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little bit different because kids at 12 years old have a cell phone and they can like text their
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parents and things like that, which is a whole other issue. But yeah, things, things to think
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about, things to think about. I think there are good risks and then like unnecessary risks. I think
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it's Jordan Peterson that said, let your kids do dangerous things safely. And I think that's like
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a pretty good rule of thumb of mom who is a mom of boys messaged me and said that someone told her
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once that if they're going to die, stop them from doing it. But if they're going to break a bone,
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leave them alone. And obviously that's different. That's like physical risk and not, you know,
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emotional, sexual and all of that. But also like maybe a good, a good rule of thumb in some ways.
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Yeah. Okay. Well, that concludes the conversation on that. Y'all can let us know what you think. I'm
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sure that you will have lots of opinions out there, a lot of differing opinions about what kind of risk
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is right for our kids. I'll tell you, one thing that I will not risk for my kids is their theology
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and their spiritual state. Now, obviously there is only so much control we can have over this as parents.
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God is sovereign. He is in control of their spiritual destiny and he will sanctify them through
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the power of their Holy Spirit, but of, of his Holy Spirit. But, uh, we as parents are charged with
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the stewardship of their heart and mind. We are called to raise our children in the Lord, to teach
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them what is good and right and true. And that means that we have to, as far as we can ensure that
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they have a good theological foundation, a good apologetics foundation. And so the education that
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they get at home, at school, at church really matters. And we want to make sure that the training
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that they are receiving is in alignment with God's word. How gracious is God that he has given so much
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clarity and such a good foundation in his word. And I am very troubled by training that I have now seen
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come out of Andy Stanley's very large and influential church in Atlanta, Georgia, North Point Community
00:26:14.580
Church. Now we have talked before about Andy Stanley's very problematic and unbiblical stance
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on homosexuality and so-called gender identity. We will link the past episode on that. We'll get into
00:26:28.800
some past context in just a minute, but you can go back and watch that episode if you are multiple
00:26:35.560
episodes, if you want specifically what I'm talking about. But this training that they are now
00:26:41.260
implementing that they are now showing to their youth leaders at their church called Transit is very
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troubling to me because it uses words that sound good while ultimately not affirming what scripture
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actually says about LGBTQ identity. So these training videos for middle school small group leaders
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recently were published online. They were, I guess, supposed to be private and they have now
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leaked. It seems to instruct the leaders to, I don't know if I would say affirm so-called gender
00:27:24.120
identity, but at the very least ignore statements of self-declared transgender status of children and
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teenagers in order to make the church more comfortable for kids who are struggling with gender deception.
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Now, gender deception is the terminology I use because I don't think gender dysphoria is always the right
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terminology, but the language they use I find to be very purposely ambiguous and that is why it's so
00:28:00.800
disturbing. Really important for us to know what's going on and these very large evangelical churches.
00:28:06.080
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All right. The 2025 leader training videos were intended for small group leaders with transit.
00:29:57.220
Transit is the middle school ministry. So sixth to eighth graders at North Point Community Church,
00:30:01.940
where Andy Stanley is the senior pastor. So the transit website says this about the middle school years.
00:30:07.420
We know that middle school can be complicated. Students are going up fast and need a place where
00:30:11.440
they can learn how God sees them. And remember that last line there, learn how God sees them in light
00:30:20.680
of what we are about to read about this instruction, these instruction videos meant for these small group
00:30:27.300
leaders. So the training videos included transit director Britt Kitchen instructing small group leaders
00:30:33.900
on how to handle issues related to their upcoming teaching series on sexuality. The emphasis of
00:30:40.540
the training in these videos is how leaders can be a safe place for all students. So let me just stop
00:30:48.300
there. First, I think it is great that any church is taking matters of sexuality and identity seriously,
00:30:56.580
that they're not just brushing it under the rug, that they're not just hoping that, okay,
00:31:01.140
maybe parents and students will kind of deduce what God thinks about these things from
00:31:05.100
us teaching through scripture, but we don't really want to talk about it because it's controversial.
00:31:12.100
I think churches should be addressing these things head on. It is true that middle school
00:31:18.540
is a very complicated time. There's a lot going on in each individual life in a person's body.
00:31:25.760
These are very formative years. And now more than ever, kids do have questions about sexuality and
00:31:32.660
gender and identity and all of these things. And so, so far, if this were it, if we found out that,
00:31:40.980
okay, North Point is addressing this issue from a biblical perspective, they're not ignoring it,
00:31:46.080
I would be applauding and say yes and amen. But I will give them credit simply for addressing it,
00:31:52.760
for saying this is an important issue, for recognizing that and recognizing that the
00:31:57.240
church needs to have a voice in it. However, how they go about this, I really, really disagree with,
00:32:03.300
at least as I'm watching these training videos and also in light of what Andy Stanley has said
00:32:07.800
in the past. So, Kitchen begins these videos by giving three main principles that they try to
00:32:12.740
emphasize as they teach middle schoolers about topics related to sexuality. One, honor God with your
00:32:17.960
body. Two, don't be mastered by anything. And three, don't sexualize any relationship
00:32:23.200
outside of marriage. Now, I agree with all three of those things. I agree with that. Those all are
00:32:31.320
supported by scripture. Now, his explanation of why we should honor these three principles, why we
00:32:38.140
shouldn't, for example, sexualize relationships outside of marriage, I think is weak because it makes it
00:32:43.680
sound very subjective, like this is a personal interpretation and not objectively what the
00:32:48.100
Bible says. He says, quote, we simply don't think it's wise based on the teachings of Jesus. We don't
00:32:52.680
think it's wise to make any relationship sexual in nature until you are married, that no relationship
00:32:57.260
should cross the boundary for your own physical, spiritual, and mental health. Well, yes, it's not
00:33:01.840
wise because Jesus clearly articulates that when he defines marriage in Matthew 19, 4 through 5, for
00:33:07.800
example. We read throughout scripture, especially in the epistles to the church in Corinth, to the
00:33:15.180
Christians there, that we are to honor our body and flee from sexual immorality. We see that throughout
00:33:21.760
scripture. We see that model of holy sexuality is between one man and one woman in the context of
00:33:27.740
marriage. It's not simply that we don't think it's wise based on our interpretation of what Jesus said.
00:33:33.400
The training video that then moves on to the question of same-sex attraction and of so-called
00:33:40.080
gender dysphoria with children and young teenagers emphasizing that they want their church and
00:33:45.040
ministry to be, quote, the safest place for students to talk about anything. Now, I don't disagree with
00:33:54.720
that one statement. Again, I do want the church to be a refuge for people with questions, for people with
00:33:59.860
struggles. I want people who are in sin, who are tempted, who are struggling, who are confused,
00:34:05.740
to be able to come to the church, to talk to Christians, for Christians to be ready and willing
00:34:11.540
to embrace that person, to love that person, to care for that person, to point that person to Jesus
00:34:17.200
and point that person to the truth lovingly, but totally unapologetically. However, I'm not sure that
00:34:24.120
that is the same thing that they are saying because in the entirety of this 20-minute video that was
00:34:32.540
leaked, this is part of the training regimen, Brit never addresses the Bible or any kind of biblical
00:34:40.260
support for these opinions, for these perspectives that he is putting forth. So what do you mean by this?
00:34:48.920
Now, maybe you could say, well, he gets to that later, or this is not the time for that. I just
00:34:55.460
don't know. We are talking about training videos for church leaders. I think the most important
00:35:01.660
question that a church leader would have is, what does the Bible say about this? And yet, at least in
00:35:06.580
this video, we just don't see that. So in this video that's circulating on Acts, he says, when he's
00:35:14.560
addressing gender dysphoria, he says, now, gender dysphoria, this is a weird term. We don't hear this
00:35:19.520
a lot. Basically, this is the clinical term for anyone who is unsure about their gender. Well, that's
00:35:27.280
not true. He says, dysphoria is the opposite of euphoria. Euphoria is joy, happiness, contentment,
00:35:33.020
excitement. Gender dysphoria is like they're not comfortable. They don't have joy over it. They're not
00:35:38.600
sure where they land. How, I mean, how many people honestly have joy over their gender? Not everyone has
00:35:44.100
joy over their gender. There may be a lot of different instances where someone would say,
00:35:47.980
gosh, it'd be a lot easier if I were the opposite sex, or this is a really hard thing about being a
00:35:52.360
man or a woman or whatever, but it is simply an acceptance of who we are, how God made us.
00:36:01.120
And so even putting this dichotomy up there, euphoria or dysphoria, I think causes a lot of
00:36:06.400
confusion because you might have a kid out there that's like, well, I don't feel euphoric about being a
00:36:10.600
girl or boy. Especially in middle school, things are so complicated and weird and confusing to tell
00:36:16.060
a person that the opposite of having this disorder is euphoria. I mean, that automatically is going to
00:36:24.420
make kids wonder, well, what am I categorized as? If I'm not euphoric, then am I really transgender?
00:36:31.540
But this is not the definition of gender dysphoria, by the way. According to the Diagnostic
00:36:36.020
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5, gender dysphoria is defined as a marked
00:36:42.460
incongruence between one experienced and expressed gender and the gender, this is, you know, liberal
00:36:48.300
language assigned at birth, accompanied by significant distress or impairment in social, occupational,
00:36:54.380
and other important areas of functioning. And here's what's important in this. The adjectives that
00:36:59.720
are used to describe true gender dysphoria are persistent and insistent and consistent, okay?
00:37:06.020
It's not just feeling some distress or some disappointment or incongruence. It was originally
00:37:12.700
seen only in boys, a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the population. You saw it at a very young age,
00:37:19.180
boys who felt distress about being a boy and wanting to look like a girl, dress like a girl, act like a
00:37:27.200
girl. And then over 80% of those boys would go through puberty and those feelings of distress would end.
00:37:32.880
There's also like a link of trauma there. And so what we are seeing now, this social contagion,
00:37:39.560
as Abigail Schreier and other scholars have noted, is not gender dysphoria. It is people trying to
00:37:48.900
identify as the opposite sex, but they don't have the diagnosis of gender dysphoria. They might have
00:37:55.640
gone through trauma themselves. That's typical in girls. They might be addicted to a dark form of
00:38:00.540
pornography. That's typical in boys, but it is not some innate mental disorder here. And actually,
00:38:06.760
if you're not understanding that and explaining that, you're not going to be able to equip church
00:38:10.520
leaders to be able to address it head on. So even just defining the terms, there's a problem there.
00:38:17.540
The terms transgender or non-binary are some sample terms that an adult might use to describe who they
00:38:24.340
are if they're trying to figure out their gender. Our goal in these situations is to best support the
00:38:31.560
Okay. I have so many problems with just the language there. That is affirming progressive language.
00:38:39.920
Transgender, non-binary are the terms that an adult might use if they're trying to figure out their
00:38:47.080
gender. Instead of simply clearly affirming that your gender is not something that you can figure
00:38:52.640
out, but it is something that was fixed at the moment of conception, that your unique DNA was either
00:39:02.980
male or female, that God made you that way in his image. Genesis 127, that is the clear reality.
00:39:10.280
Now, they might be deceived. They might be confused, but they are not genuinely trying to figure out
00:39:16.260
who they are. Who they are has already been defined by God, and it is our job to lovingly and persistently
00:39:23.860
affirm that reality. Now, at one point in this video, he also says that transgender people are a very small
00:39:30.200
part of the population and that leaders probably won't encounter someone who is truly transgender. But he then
00:39:36.060
says, this is strangely contradictory, over the years, we've gotten to know several families who have dealt with
00:39:42.040
so-called gender dysphoria. So I'm not really sure there. And actually, if you look at the statistics,
00:39:48.040
according to CDC data, 18 to 24-year-olds identifying as transgender has gone from 0.59%, okay, in 2014,
00:39:58.940
that's 0.59, okay, to 3.08% in 2023. So quintupled in the last decade. Yes, it's still a small percentage,
00:40:08.920
but still quintupled. And we know that I think according to Pew Research, I think it's Pew Research
00:40:16.580
that 20% of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ, okay? So something is going on here. It's not just,
00:40:25.280
oh, this is just a natural evolution here. It certainly seems like this is a phenomenon that
00:40:33.260
that is being socially driven. Then Kitchen tells the story of a family whose journey with so-called
00:40:40.180
gender dysphoria began when their student was five years old. I don't know why he says student
00:40:47.100
instead of child, but that's the choice in language that he uses. Here's that too.
00:40:51.520
Now, through the years, we've gotten to know several families. There's one family in particular
00:40:55.500
that's very helpful for me. Their journey first started when their student was five years old.
00:41:01.140
This family first started going to a child psychologist and seeing a medical specialist.
00:41:06.340
Then over time, they started using different pronouns at home, but only at home. They were
00:41:10.380
not using these pronouns in school. They weren't even asking an extended family to use those pronouns
00:41:15.100
yet. They weren't asking friends to do it yet. Then a big step was to pick a new name from the
00:41:21.080
other gender so they could start using that. Okay. Then he goes on to say that the parents did end up
00:41:28.920
asking other people to use the preferred pronouns. We don't actually know the real gender of this
00:41:33.360
child. The parents supported the child pursuing puberty blockers, knowing that surgery will happen
00:41:43.460
later. He said this is the typical kind of, these are the typical steps that are taken,
00:41:47.640
and that parents asked the school and others to use the names and the pronouns, and that this
00:41:55.420
particular family, this is right, Brie, that this particular family tried to get other people to
00:42:03.380
affirm their child's gender at the church and they wouldn't, or is that a different story?
00:42:11.460
Okay. Okay. Let's just watch the SOT then. Okay. Here's SOT 3.
00:42:14.820
Their local church said, nah, because we've known him since he was a little boy, we're not going to
00:42:20.440
start saying her. So not here, not at our church. We've known you too long to be able to do that.
00:42:27.100
And so everywhere this child went in life, they were saying you were one thing, but only at church
00:42:31.420
you had to pretend to be something else. And they had to leave that church, and they finally came here,
00:42:36.520
started to talk to our care ministry staff, and we realized, oh my goodness, we cannot be the last
00:42:41.320
place. A student feels comfortable. Oh my goodness. Okay. So we did find out that this
00:42:46.820
is actually a boy that trying to identify as a girl. And he is saying that it was wrong that their
00:42:53.700
local church would not affirm this child in being the opposite sex, would not call this child by
00:42:59.740
pronouns that do not correlate with his God-given biological reality. And this person who is the head
00:43:06.920
middle school ministry at North Point Church in Atlanta, led by Andy Stanley, is saying that that
00:43:14.600
was wrong. That that church was not a safe place. That that person, that that child had to pretend
00:43:21.880
to be something else. No, identifying as a girl was pretending to be something else. And that church
00:43:29.100
in love was affirming reality. And by the way, other kids matter too. Forcing children,
00:43:35.480
all of these five-year-old friends who knew this child as a boy to then call this child a girl and
00:43:43.000
say, no, this friend who I've known since preschool ministry, I now have to say as a girl, that is
00:43:49.320
sowing confusion in those kids. That is so damaging to their understanding of God and themselves and
00:43:56.560
others in reality and morality. Of course, that church is trying to shepherd the hearts and the minds
00:44:03.100
and the souls of everyone in that church, including the children. And so, yes, the right and the loving
00:44:09.660
thing to do would be to say, look, we will walk with you through this, but we will not tell a lie.
00:44:16.620
We're not going to tell a lie. And the fact that Andy Stanley's church is saying that that church did
00:44:22.200
something wrong and the right thing is for, I assume, reading between the lines for a church to
00:44:28.260
use opposite sex pronouns for a child who is deceived about their gender. It's insane. That
00:44:34.720
is a radically progressive position. I just want you to know where North Point is on this. All right?
00:44:39.740
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So he says, we cannot be the last place a student feels comfortable. Look, our primary concern as
00:46:16.680
Christians is not whether someone feels comfortable. Yes, I want that. I want people who are stuck in sin
00:46:25.440
or in some kind of mode of deception to feel confident walking into a church. But if they are deceived,
00:46:33.480
if they are stuck in sin, then it will be uncomfortable to walk into the light. If we've
00:46:41.520
been asleep and someone walks in and turns the light on, is that comfortable? No, it's not comfortable,
00:46:47.740
but at times it's necessary. Some things that are necessary are uncomfortable. And we have to recognize
00:46:56.340
that we see that acutely in the ministry of Jesus. How many people did Jesus make uncomfortable? His own
00:47:03.620
disciples were made uncomfortable by the difficult truths that he preached. Do we see in the ministry
00:47:09.220
of Jesus that he was really concerned at all with making people comfortable? Yes, healing people. Yes,
00:47:16.300
meeting their needs. But it wasn't about comfort. It was about loving them, displaying the power of God.
00:47:23.940
But we see over and over again that Jesus makes things really awkward sometimes by saying things
00:47:30.120
that he knows no one wants to hear, but they need to hear. So this is not modeling ministry after Jesus.
00:47:37.860
Kitchen goes on to describe how this whole process of transing a child can take years. And he uses
00:47:44.620
these progressive euphemisms like upper surgeries and bottom surgeries. Sop 4.
00:47:50.200
There's upper surgeries and bottom surgeries. And many people can go through the upper surgery,
00:47:56.200
but the bottom surgeries are extremely invasive and sometimes don't even work. And so it may not even
00:48:02.600
happen or be possibility for every person who wants to make this change. So knowing how long this journey
00:48:09.780
really is, it's important that we as staff, as small group leaders, care for these students knowing
00:48:16.200
this is not going to be a flip of the switch and be taken care of
00:48:20.200
next week. This isn't going to be something that is turned around
00:48:24.360
in just a few days. This is going to be a five or six year process
00:48:32.200
And the best part is, that's exactly what our strategy is already
00:48:36.160
made to do, to track along for multiple years with the students.
00:48:39.920
Okay. What do you think he's trying to say, Brie?
00:48:44.640
He's trying to say that what, what got me here was the language almost seems like he's trying,
00:48:52.560
like it comes like, it comes off like it might be saying the journey takes a long time for them
00:48:58.280
to come back to who they actually are, to like transition back.
00:49:03.600
Yes. But I, but I don't think that's what he's saying. I think what he's saying is,
00:49:08.660
yes, it takes a long time to get to the point of surgery and to get to the point of actually
00:49:12.620
trying to physically transition. And we need to walk with, with students all the way through that.
00:49:18.160
I think he's saying, slow your roll. Don't feel so much urgency to change them because they probably
00:49:26.340
won't even be castrated for a few years. So you don't need to worry about that right now.
00:49:32.440
Because that process takes a long time anyway. Now, charitably, he might be saying we might be
00:49:38.720
able to stop them from doing that. And we have time before that happens. But again, why should
00:49:44.300
we have to read between the lines, especially since this is supposed to be an internal video,
00:49:49.080
you should be saying, look, we do not want someone mutilating their body because we know God created
00:49:55.680
their body, loves their body. Christianity teaches that the body is good, that Jesus came here bodily,
00:50:02.440
that we will be raised in the body. Wow, the body matters so much. So we want to stop that. And
00:50:08.400
here's how we do that. But it's not. It's like, okay, this might not happen for a long time.
00:50:13.340
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But also the language of like, yeah, some of these bottom surgeries don't even
00:50:21.920
work. So some people won't even be able to succeed in what they're trying to do. It's the way he's
00:50:29.340
talking about it is like, oh, that's such a shame that they won't get to fully complete their
00:50:33.640
transition. And I know, again, I'm reading in between the lines too. But they make it that you
00:50:39.280
have to. Yeah. Yeah. It's ambiguous on purpose. And I do think they do that on purpose so that
00:50:46.000
they can point to a video like this and be like, that's not what we said. Okay, well, tell me
00:50:50.680
exactly what you believe then. Tell me. Because this is not clear. And I bet that we are older and
00:50:57.340
probably more mature than most of the middle school leaders, small group, the small group leaders
00:51:03.640
there. And if we are like trying to understand what you're saying, then they will too. And I know
00:51:11.360
Andy Stanley knows this. He's a good communicator. Clarity is a gift. Confusion is a curse. And
00:51:18.060
there's a lot of confusion in these videos that I think will be a curse to the church and to the
00:51:23.180
people that they are trying to serve. At one point in the training, Kitchen gives a little sample
00:51:29.600
script. When talking to a student who might identify as gay, that is all about affirming the
00:51:36.980
student being thankful that they told the youth leader and nothing about what the Bible says about
00:51:41.680
any of this. So affirming, they don't necessarily say in this video that they should affirm homosexuality
00:51:48.380
as good, right? No, not explicitly. Just affirming like... Like you're so brave for telling me.
00:51:56.420
Thank you so much. He says... There's a direct quote in here. He says, we need to applaud them
00:52:00.580
for being willing to tell us. And so there isn't... He's not explicitly saying we should affirm them
00:52:09.260
being gay or identifying as gay. But there's not the opposite either. Yeah. And I agree there is a time
00:52:16.080
and a place to say certain things. And when someone opens up to you and is very vulnerable to you right
00:52:22.460
the way, it's probably not the time and the place to open up Romans 1. But there is a time and a place
00:52:28.980
for it. Like at some point, there is a time and a place. And if I'm a leader, I'm wondering when that
00:52:34.260
is. So like, when can I point people to Jesus? Like, when can I point people to the truth?
00:52:39.700
Like, are we trying... It seems like a whole strategy to outnice God here. We're all nicer than God.
00:52:44.900
We're apologizing for his word. We already know that Andy Stanley calls Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6,
00:52:50.100
nine. These clobber verses that, you know, I guess, I don't know, he believes don't carry as much
00:52:56.560
weight. He has also said explicitly that homosexuality is a different kind of sin than
00:53:02.400
other sins, which is absolutely unbiblical and puts a yoke and a burden on people struggling with
00:53:07.900
same-sex attraction that the gospel that Jesus does not put on them. And so we already know that's
00:53:13.960
completely messed up. So this is where all of that confusion is coming from. Kitchen closes this
00:53:18.980
video with a story about a middle school student who had been struggling with gender confusion
00:53:22.420
and identity while attending a summer camp with their ministry. Kitchen said that this
00:53:26.440
child was hearing about the message of Jesus and salvation. But Kitchen claimed the small group
00:53:32.180
leader was too focused on the gender confusion and wasn't comfortable having a gospel conversation.
00:53:37.040
But luckily, one of their staff members intervened to point to Jesus and pray with the child.
00:53:41.880
God, I don't know if I'm your son or daughter, but I know I'm your child's. Okay, so that's how it
00:53:49.460
ends. I don't think it's, of course, wrong to point a child to Jesus who is in the midst of their
00:53:56.000
confusion. That is the most important thing. The most important thing that they go from unbelief to
00:54:00.660
belief. And we have to trust that Jesus will sanctify them after that through all kinds of means.
00:54:06.860
But I don't know if that's the conclusion. That should be the conclusion of this video. That still
00:54:12.680
leaves so many questions, right? Again, when is the right time to say the clear truth of what Jesus
00:54:19.220
said in Matthew 19, 4 through 5? When is the right time to tell people that Genesis 1 is really clear
00:54:26.880
and God tells us this because he loves us and he knows our body and he didn't make a mistake when
00:54:34.640
he made us? Like, when is the right time to talk about the Bible at church?
00:54:47.100
In this 20-minute training. And that is the concern. That is also my concern with Andy Stanley's
00:54:53.400
messages in the past is that I think he wants to let God off the hook. He wants to let the Bible
00:54:58.640
off the hook and I think he thinks he can give a better message and a more hopeful message to people
00:55:05.800
who identify as LGBTQ than God can. And that is self-idolatry. And I worry about those being
00:55:13.960
affected by this ministry. Yes, I think the church can do a better job of addressing this head-on.
00:55:19.300
Yes, I think that the church should be training their leaders to have these conversations,
00:55:24.760
but it's got to be Christ at the center. It's got to be the truth at the center.
00:55:29.620
Please go back and listen to or watch my conversation with Laura Perry Smolt, an amazing
00:55:35.280
woman who believed for years that she was in the wrong body. She believed it really from a young
00:55:40.900
age and she embraced this newfound identity as an adult. A man named Jake, she had a double
00:55:47.520
mastectomy. She had a hysterectomy. She wanted to be affirmed in this way. She was affirmed by many
00:55:53.700
people in her life. The people she was never affirmed by, the people who never called her
00:55:58.340
Jake, who never called her he, him pronouns, were her Christian parents and their fellow congregants
00:56:04.480
at their Christian conservative church in Oklahoma. And she understandably was uncomfortable going
00:56:11.720
there. She was uncomfortable talking to her parents because they didn't affirm her. And yet they loved
00:56:17.180
her. They never stopped reaching out. They never stopped talking to her. They never stopped caring.
00:56:22.680
And in fact, it was her mom asking Laura to transcribe some Bible study notes for her that
00:56:31.520
Laura started thinking about the Bible verses that she was writing. And the Lord used his word
00:56:38.480
to soften her heart. She started going to church, started going to Bible study. She was not affirmed
00:56:45.320
in her identity as Jake. These people knew that this was a woman made in the image of God named
00:56:49.360
Laura. And even though it made her uncomfortable, it was their truth telling while also loving them
00:56:55.580
that God used to change her heart and embrace who she really is as a woman. And now she is a woman who
00:57:02.340
is one of the most, I think, spirit-filled and articulate evangelists out there who is just so
00:57:08.600
beautiful and gentle and is now married to a man. And it's just an incredible testimony of God's
00:57:15.000
redemption. But God didn't use compromise to lead her to himself. He used courage. And what this
00:57:24.700
training seems to be promoting is compromise and cowardice rather than the courage that we get from
00:57:31.260
God's word. The definition of gender and marriage, again, this alliteration we've been using for six
00:57:37.400
years at this point, is rooted in creation. It's reiterated throughout scripture. It's repeated by
00:57:43.200
Jesus himself. It is representative of Christ in the church, Ephesians 5, and therefore it is
00:57:48.700
reflective of the gospel. The Bible starts with the marriage between a man and a woman, ends with a
00:57:54.220
marriage between Christ, the bridegroom, and the church, the bride. These are specific ginger
00:58:00.460
designations that not only have significance in the physical world, but in the spiritual and the
00:58:04.940
eternal. And we do not have the option as Christians of messing with that. It's a core tenet of
00:58:10.540
Christianity. When we get that wrong, we end up getting everything else wrong too. Once you start
00:58:14.940
compromising on Genesis 127, you eventually compromise on John 14 6. It always happens. So
00:58:21.360
let's pray for repentance from some of the people in this church. Let's pray that the Holy Spirit will
00:58:27.640
help those who are hearing this confusion, abibing this confusion at church, to be discerning and to be
00:58:34.100
courageous and to stand up. All right, we've got a little bit more. Let me pause and tell you about our
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All right, let's just talk, Brie, really quickly as our end segment. We've got a lot of people
01:00:24.660
who are upset by a post on X by the Trump administration. Okay, there's a, is it called
01:00:33.180
Ghibli? Ghibli? I don't know, actually. Ghibli or Ghibli? I don't know. Ghibli? We think it's
01:00:40.580
Ghibli? Okay. So, and it is, I don't know, a form of anime? Yes. Which I am spiritually and morally
01:00:49.540
opposed to. Spiritually and morally. Yes. I think that it is like, it can be, can be YouTube,
01:00:56.880
can be a gateway to all kinds of degeneracy, including gender confusion and promiscuity,
01:01:03.120
the themes that are in it. I think sometimes they're very dark and demonic. You can at me
01:01:06.860
all you want to. I will stand by it. But this is, seems to be kind of like a cute form of it. I don't
01:01:13.300
know where it comes from. I guess it's Japanese, but they're cartoons of like Grok on X. If you say,
01:01:20.960
turn this picture into a Ghibli, whatever, it will do that for you. And it's just a style of animation.
01:01:29.760
Yeah. It's a very, they're very popular movies that I think stem from one, one guy. I think he
01:01:35.260
made Spirited Away, if people know that movie. Yes. So I, in my opinion, it's a prettier animation
01:01:42.400
style of anime. I think most anime is pretty ugly, but yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Some of them are pretty
01:01:48.780
cute. I agree. It's cuter. It's like less harsh, rounded features. Okay. So the White House
01:01:54.760
capitalized on this trend and they quote posted a picture of this woman being deported, crying in
01:02:06.040
handcuffs with this ICE officer in this Ghibli style. And this is a quote post of a post that
01:02:15.420
says, Virginia Basora Gonzalez, a previously deported alien felon convicted of fentanyl trafficking,
01:02:21.360
was arrested by ICE in Philadelphia after illegally reentering the U.S. She wept when taken into
01:02:28.660
custody. All right. A lot of people, even on the right, said this is cruel. This is casual cruelty.
01:02:36.140
This is fascism. My response was, okay, I can see how the argument that it's unnecessary and that it
01:02:46.720
might be counterproductive because you are making her look like a sympathetic character. Because
01:02:54.260
she's a woman. She's crying. You've got this stone cold ICE agent that's arresting her. We don't want
01:03:00.000
people to feel sympathy for fentanyl dealers. And making this into a cartoon that's like making fun
01:03:06.240
of it will evoke sympathy, whether it should or not. It's going to evoke sympathy from people, even from
01:03:12.820
the like staunchest Republicans. They're going to be like, oh, there's something that like doesn't
01:03:17.900
feel right about that. And I get that. I don't buy the argument that, oh, my gosh, this is so cruel
01:03:25.680
because this person was a fentanyl dealer. She is likely responsible for the deaths of thousands of
01:03:32.280
people, including teenagers, accidental deaths, people who thought that they were taking one medication.
01:03:38.720
It was laced with fentanyl. Obviously, some people are making those choices and that's not a good
01:03:42.580
choice. But like this person literally like got fat off of the spoils of America, was here illegally
01:03:54.480
and was killing thousands of Americans. Like there is a real like she should get the death penalty
01:04:01.140
to me. And we're talking about, oh, my gosh, it's so cruel to make a cartoon out of her. All of your ire.
01:04:08.180
All of your ire should be directed toward her and the victims that she had. That's that's my take.
01:04:15.280
What do you think, Bree? I I feel a little bit differently about this one than I did the previous
01:04:24.140
ones that they've posted, which we might get into the White House account. Not Ghibli, but just kind
01:04:31.320
of like like the other like kind of closing time. That was my favorite one. That was great. Also
01:04:38.420
deportation ASMR. I thought that was so funny. So funny. And I think those speak more to like those of us
01:04:47.600
who are like, finally. Yeah. The sounds of deportation do sound nice after all that we've dealt with.
01:04:53.720
We're literally talking about murderers and rapists and pedophiles who are here illegally being
01:04:58.640
deported. There's nothing sad about that. No. And so those ones I'm like, I fully support posts like
01:05:05.320
that because they're funny. This one, I tend to agree that I think just the style itself evokes more
01:05:11.740
sympathy from people who are not going to do the research and look at who this person was. They're
01:05:16.080
just going to see the photo and then the cartoon and they're going to be like, wow, that's really cruel.
01:05:20.100
And that's all that's going to be reposted on Instagram where all of the liberal wine moms are.
01:05:24.920
Yeah. And what a joke this administration is that they're posting, you know, they're mocking this
01:05:29.460
woman without looking into it. And so I see how there could be some harm done to the narrative
01:05:35.300
when they post something like this. I see where they're coming from. They were trying to do the
01:05:39.860
same thing that they did with the ASMR video where it's just like a very online thing that a lot of
01:05:46.640
people did enjoy and think was funny. But yeah, I think this one, the reaction is just a little bit
01:05:50.820
different, I think. Now, Bethany Mandel had a take, which I thought was interesting.
01:05:56.240
And I still don't know if it was the right strategic move, but she said all of these messages that
01:06:01.200
they're putting out aren't for us. They are to their deterrence. They're to deter people like her
01:06:08.480
who want to come over here, get rich off of selling fentanyl, dealing fentanyl here,
01:06:13.620
or who want to come here illegally at all, but especially the criminals to say,
01:06:18.120
like, we don't give a rat's patootie about you, like nothing. We don't care about you at all.
01:06:24.940
Like, not only are we going to deport you, we're going to make fun of you when we deport you.
01:06:29.080
So don't even try because we're serious. That is the exact opposite of what Biden did,
01:06:35.140
which was allow people in who should not be here, refuse to deport people who were rapists,
01:06:44.480
who were assaulters. And that message was also conveyed to people who shouldn't be here and said,
01:06:51.360
OK, great. It's my time to come. And the Trump administration is communicating the opposite.
01:06:56.360
Like, yeah, we're cruel toward you and we will continue to be cruel toward you and we will laugh
01:07:01.600
at your tears because you're killing Americans and you're not allowed to be here.
01:07:06.780
Also, the one of this wasn't a meme necessarily, but Kristi Noem in front of prison cells in El
01:07:13.820
Salvador. She went to that big prison. I thought that that was a little odd myself.
01:07:17.900
Well, I think that's a good example of them being like, this is the kind of thing that we're going
01:07:24.540
to implement if you guys come here. Like, that's the kind of post that if I were thinking about
01:07:29.600
illegally immigrating, I would be like, oh, rather than like this cartoon.
01:07:35.120
Yeah. So I would see maybe that being the goal of posts like that.
01:07:40.100
I don't know. I don't know how much this like cartoon animation will deter people trying to
01:07:45.060
traffic fentanyl in. Yeah. But I see that maybe that's what they're trying to do.
01:07:50.700
Yeah. It's a little tough because the Biden administration granted asylum to people that
01:07:55.840
they probably shouldn't have. And Trump is deporting some of those people. And now the narrative
01:08:00.940
is he's deporting asylum seekers and people who have legal protections here. The problem is they
01:08:06.860
shouldn't have been here. Like there's this guy. He had two crowns tattooed on him, which is a symbol
01:08:13.260
of Trinidad, a Venezuelan gang. He's from that area of Venezuela. His previous ICE proceedings said,
01:08:20.020
yeah, we believe that he's a part of that gang. And yet he applied for asylum in the midst of all of that
01:08:24.980
and got asylum in the Biden administration. And now the Trump administration is like,
01:08:30.480
no, you're deported. And now the narrative is, well, he's deporting these genuine asylum seekers
01:08:36.720
who are just like good people. Well, it's a little more complicated than that. And I'm not saying that
01:08:42.260
they're doing everything perfectly and you shouldn't deport people who are here illegally
01:08:47.420
and like are doing nothing wrong. But at the same time, yeah, I want them to give a second look
01:08:54.460
at everyone that Biden allowed in, even legally. Yes. I want you to give a second look at that.
01:09:00.160
Of course. So, I mean, people forget about Lake and Riley and Kate Steinle so quick.
01:09:05.540
Don't be deterred by toxic empathy. Have compassion for people as made in the image of God. Yes.
01:09:10.900
Read my immigration chapter of toxic empathy because your good, your well-intentioned compassion
01:09:16.780
will be leveraged against what is good, right, and true for this country. And so this is not about
01:09:24.620
being anti-compassion. That is making sure that you are not whipped up emotionally, manipulated,
01:09:29.700
and dissaporting policies that are not good. All right. That's all we got time for today. We will be