So when you got in the middle of that whirlwind that was taking place, when you made some comments, I think after the Access Hollywood tape, about women and the experience of women with men, what was that like for you?

One of the reasons why I felt so strongly about the topic that we are getting to speak to in this podcast is because I truly believe that across the board, really across the globe, we are all leaving a life that was familiar to us.

I think just because of just global disasters and so much unrest, the pandemic that we thought we were coming out of and it swings back at us.

And we were all in a situation where life looked so different than it did.

And so my life, it felt like changed overnight, but it was really in that same season that so many of ours did.

And I'll remember it forever because I had been serving for the previous four days in Navajo Nation in Arizona and been with Native Americans American women.

And I had heard every story you can imagine, just what their lives had been like and how the Lord had grabbed hold of them and helped them put lives back together when they'd been through abuse and all sorts of things that they had endured.

should men in church leadership, whether lay or clergy, do better to empower women in our congregations and to love them?

First of all, does that description resonate with how you would describe what you see happening?

What I have been able to see is a connection that for whatever reason, a lot of us women on the other side of our Bibles from one another, with our Bibles between us.

And I always pictured every single curriculum I ever wrote.

Still to this day, I picture that person sitting on the other side of it.

And every new person I meet, I try to picture that face as well.

there was a connection.

And what we know, of course, Mark, is only the Spirit can do that.

other words, I thought

Moore said it wasn't always easy keeping the doors open.

And since COVID, the costs have all gone up.

Food costs, labor costs, all the costs.

They've all gone up, all the things.

I mean, the artists have been kind.

And when there's more, we give them more.

And when there's less, they go, don't worry about it.

You know, there are the big venues in town, but, you know, we need smaller venues too.

[laughs]

Um, one of the things that I've become absolutely convinced of in recent years is that we're not attentive enough to the actual Gospels.

I, I believe, I think it would be so important for every single person who is in Christ to spend, to, whatever they study in the scriptures through the course of the year, to always go, I mean, I'm talking about detail by detail and syllable by syllable through one of the Gospels.

Um, bec- one of the things that I have a group doing right now, and I've done this for the last couple of years, uh, for 31 days, is that we take a, an approach to prayer that can only come from God's own priorities as expressed through the Gospels so that we're walking with him.

And I said, "You're, you're setting aside your agenda.

I'm setting aside mine.

I'm not asking for things for myself.

The church has, has had a category for what women can do and what they're called to be, and, uh, what do you think, uh, a robust vision for, for women in the kingdom actually looks like?

While some are advocating for expanded biblical teachings in schools, are Christians receiving adequate biblical education in their churches? Beth Moore joins Russell, Mike, and Clarissa to talk about why she's so passionate about Sunday school for adults and why small groups may not be an adequate substitute.

[tape rewinding] I am a big, big proponent of there being a time set aside in the regular church meetings week to week where people are actually opening the scriptures together and there is a lesson that is being taught.

Now, what has happened, there are so many ways we could look at it with the kind of activities that are now available to families as regarding kids' sports, all the things that go into it.

But I do think it's an enormous loss, and I do not think most community groups, although I think community groups are marvelous things, I don't think they are the same thing.

And so I have great concerns here.

As a woman looking to the young women coming up in the faith, especially in the more conservative sides of the world that I've been a part of for a long time, of evangelicalism I'm then left to think with churches with no Sunday school, how in the world are women, since the opportunities are fewer in most conservative churches, how in the world are they ever going to get to find out if they are gifted in the area of teaching? And if they are, how are they gonna use it?

What content could I provide to people that would get them in the door to really launch what we've been talking about here?" Because I think that for many of our listeners, this is the heart longing that they have, but they don't know sort of practically speaking how to start.

One of the things that we have that we can be so thankful for today is that there are so many free resources to train people up.

explain what intervention is because it sounds like it's very dramatic.

Right.

No, we're not talking about a meeting where we all gather around and tell the kid what's wrong.

So not that kind of intervention.

No, we're talking about... seeing what the need is and coming in and meeting that need right where it is, right then with the things that will attack it and help, not totally resolve it, but make it where the child is able to access education because we wanna make everything accessible.

So for a struggling reader, it would be working with maybe an Orton-Gillingham person or an educational therapist.

And they also work with, in many areas, not just dyslexia.

What, how can a parent learn to build a plan?

Okay.

Well, I got my master's in early childhood and had begun work on my doctorate.

And then I met my husband and those plans fell apart.

So I never finished.

I'm not a doctor.

So I had that experience with young children and had a...

I thought a good background in reading.

If the schools have all of these programs, why are parents homeschooling kids who are neurodivergent?

My friend Beth Moore is one of those, and she talks about it here.

Russell, when I was a little girl in church, there were so many pockets of my really young life that are just blackouts.

For instance, I remember one of my birthdays, and it happened to be on a trip, and I think it was because it was away from home.

And so just these odd blackouts.

But I can remember vividly sitting at my church, First Baptist Church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, which I, of course, love to the death.

The oddity about my story is that it was my safe place.

My home was not my safe place.

What does that do to your sense of the fatherhood of God?

Mm

... that was my place of belonging.

So what, what finally brought that decision to pass was that I came to a place where I realized I had fought so hard for something, going back to what, the point that I was making a few minutes ago.

I was fighting so hard for it, uh, for my denomination, for us not to pull so far into what I'll call, and somebody else won't, what I would just call ultra-fundamentalism.

I was just like, "Oh, please, please, please, let's stay a bigger tent than that." Um, let's...

This, this is unrecognizable to me, just fighting for, fighting for women to just, you know, have, have a place to serve.

I'm not asking for a certain platform.

Mm-hmm