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One of the most important foundations of having a really clear identity. And knowing who you are knowing why you're here is around a belief system. And that's one of the critical questions that we've discovered over the years that every young person ought to be able to answer for themselves, in their own words coming out of their own mind in their own heart. What do you believe in, you know, the idea that you would have your own core beliefs that could give you a sense of orientation to the world and a way of being here. Research has shown that that young people who find a belief system to ascribe to and orient to do better, they do better academically, they do better socially, they, their mental and social emotional health is improved. So
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and yet, I know that we're entering into tricky conversations. The old idea is you don't talk about politics or religion at the dinner table like these are very private, personal conversations. But they are important, and especially for young people who are exploring that's a part of the journey of being an adolescent, exploring, figuring these things out asking these questions, we can learn how to engage with them and engage them to explore these really important ideas. Today, we're inviting a guest on who's one of my closest friends in the world colleague that I've had for 15 years. Plus, he's an experts truly, I'm not just kind of blowing smoke. He's an expert at helping young people, teenagers, especially explore faith, explored their beliefs, and come up with their own answers. He has done curriculum writing, in leadership, development and faith formation for young people for his entire career. He's brilliant, super smart, and extremely accessible and relatable, which is why he's on the show. And I just want to say as a quick disclaimer, he and I does his name is Tyler Tyler already, you'll meet him in a second. He and I both come from a Christian perspective, a Christian framework and point of view worldview. And for those of you who are watching and listening who don't, you're, you're not going to be turned off at all, I don't think we're merely exploring the idea of helping young people explore their own faith journey, their own belief system. And yet we're coming at it from that point of view. So I just want to kind of acknowledge that and say, That's who we are. That's where we're coming from. But this is helpful for anybody. So thank you for joining in and watching. And here is the conversation with Tyler. All right.
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Well, hey, welcome to another episode of YouSchool podcast. And what we've been trying to do in these conversations, episodes, interviews is talk through the what we call the 30 critical questions that everyone should answer must answer in order to have the foundation to build a meaningful life. And I've been I was speaking to someone yesterday, before I introduce you, Tyler. I was talking to someone yesterday, and they said, 30 questions. That's a lot. And I was like, yeah, no, I, you know,
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I had 50 at one point. So to me, it actually doesn't seem like that many. But what came out of me, what came out of my mouth was a new thought. I said, try to find one of these questions. And if you look at it independently, that you that anybody would say, you know, that's your right. That's not an important one. That's not something a young person would benefit by answering
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this one this question, what do you believe in?
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There's a number of ways to ask that same question. What are your core beliefs? In it's different than what we discussed a couple weeks ago? Your values? What do you stand for? They can overlap. But it's different. It's, we're going to talk about, I'm going to ask you, Tyler,
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you know, how do you go about discovering what you believe in? Why is it important, but we're gonna get into that, first, I would love for the folks to get to know you, I know you really well. And I'll do more this little intro that I'll do on my own. So we're not going to go into your own bio right now. But you have an interesting story. And I love for you to talk about that with the perspective of your own journey, discovering what you believe in, and how that is different or similar to the tradition and the family and culture. You raised them. So welcome to the school podcast. Tell me Tyler. What, what is it that you don't even have you figure it out?
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That's great.
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Yeah, that I love that. That question and
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I feel like I've been on this journey for most of my life starting as early as honestly fourth or fifth grade.
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So.
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So basically I was raised in the Mormon faith, all my ancestors, both both sides of my family back to the pioneers in 1800s are Mormon and raised in that and, you know, one, as a important caveat, I do want to say like, that's a good upbringing. Like I, I appreciated a lot of the morals, the direction
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that I received from that upbringing and even more in my later life reflecting back on it like, that's, that's a nice environment to grow up in, in any of us who know, like, I love my Mormon family, I love the friends that I've had that are in that church still,
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on a personal level, so this kind of some sort of personal crisis, there was my parents split, when I was young. And then that caused to many different reasons, kind of my own personal crisis of faith and direction, a lot of that. And what I started to realize was, as nice as good, it's kind of safe that upbringing was, at least my own experience of it was that I was also spoon fed a lot of things I was not taught to question, my own faith in any real significant way. It was just, I'm believing whatever the authority people in my life are telling me to believe. And
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really, I experienced kind of
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a desire to not question not probe, and that for whatever reason that didn't sit right with me. And so I went on this long journey.
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Maybe a little unique from other people. I've talked to that it started so young, but really honest, like, heavily through fifth grade, sixth grade into junior high, I got to this place where I'm like, I don't know what to believe. For myself. I don't. I'm seeing some weather, historical, logical, just different perspectives on life. There were some problems with what I had received growing up. And so I got all these books, like, I'm like, Okay, well, is there any religion? That's right. And I went through a couple years where I didn't know if I wanted to believe in anything and put my trust and faith in any one particular system. So I had
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maybe I was the only sixth grader with on my bookshelf where an entire volume for every world religion, it was like, and literally titled Buddhism, Islam Christianity. And I'm like, I just got to read all these. And so I just had this voracious appetite question to get into all the different details, the origins of all of these major world religions and spiritualities. And so I do, I got, like, basically, I started out as a nerd, and I'm still gonna say you were the sixth grader in history. Who's done right. Okay. I probably was, but that this was, this was my own journey. And that was something that I needed. And so I went through a couple years of like, I don't know if I want to believe in anything, I don't I don't know if I want to go to church.
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But I had this desire to really question and learn and whatever I do, end up believing in needs to be solid needs to give me some direction. So that was kind of my my journey. Out of the Mormon faith by the end of Junior High in eighth grade, I kind of have officially publicly proclaimed my allegiance to Jesus as a Christian, and haven't really turned back since then. But ask you a couple of questions with me on this. Yeah, I guess I'm just curious. It's not unique to your family and your experience to be spoon fed answers. You know, I don't hear you picking on the Mormon faith at all that Presbyterians do that. Muslims do that. I think even my family who had no, as far as I knew religious affiliation at all. I think I was, you know, we were spoon fed answers, as well. This is how the world works. This is what's going on.
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But I'm curious. And when you started that journey, exploring different phase how, how private was that for you? Because I know for me, it was very private. Later on in high school later on as a teenager, like I felt like I was in secret. Just like looking investigating things. I'd be in trouble if I was caught. And also, how disruptive of it for your family was that when you did say hey, I'm switching teams.
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Right?
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Yet, on one level, it was private. I think one of the biggest influences though, was my dad. He had also left the Mormon church and he has his own story. But really, he just encouraged a lot of openness and questions. He never said hey, you have to be this, this or that? He just he was always someone early on that was encouraging me to ask a lot of questions and probes so that probably started my journey.
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And I also know that it wasn't just me in a vacuum reading my academic books that caused me to convert it was also the community that I was finding it was at a you know,
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Presbyterian youth camp up in the Big Bear mountains that I actually accepted Jesus. So it was it was
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coming around a community but but internally like I'm also highly intellectual curious, I'm always questioning and so it was this mix of I'm doing a lot of my own research, but then there were some key relationships, my dad being probably the biggest influence that in those early years, I think that's it's interesting, if you're listening as a parent, the idea that your dad would give you that not only just the example, but the permission to explore and question. That's that can be though pretty dangerous, it can feel risky. I know, as a dad of three kids, I really, really hope that my kids find their way on their own to a similar understanding of who God is and how the world works and all that. But the chances you have three kids and and your dad too.
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I know, I know too many families where it'd be interesting to hear the other side of your story like to hear your relatives or maybe your aunts and uncles grandparents talk about the toddler who got away,
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walked away.
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And so some element of freedom, freedom to explore freedom to try out new ideas. And I know now and I'm as switched the discussion just a second. I know, having worked with teenagers for the last 20 years, that's actually a critical ingredient that I think all teenagers need some space and freedom to explore. You, you've also done the same thing you've done, you've gone into a career and spent 16 plus years helping young people explore their own belief system and their own faith. What have you found as helpful, productive, like, how do you do it? And then how do you do it in a way that it becomes authentic for them?
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Yeah, yeah, good. Maybe a segue from my own story that I think about a lot is somehow that that experience for me. And then certainly late in life actually working with students read, I realized there's
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a false notion that I see in different religious circles that doubt is the opposite of faith. And and so especially with young kids, in certain systems, we try to make it so that there's no doubt there's no questions, people just have this kind of blind faith belief. And that was something that for me early on, I had to realize no, actually, I think that we're supposed to question and we should always be endlessly curious. And especially, I worked for the most number of years with college students. But I've also worked with elementary, junior high high school. And I'm constantly encouraging them to probe into their questions, even really deep, kind of potentially faith shattering questions to say, you know, what, if your faith is worth it, if it's actually grounded on something real, if God is
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a real God, who's created us and is orchestrating this universe, then he can handle all of your doubts. There's no question that should ultimately shatter your faith if we're in pursuit of something that's true and real. And so finding ways for myself to say I can question all of this stuff, and come out of the end, stronger, I don't have to be afraid of doubts, like faith
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isn't is not opposed to doubt, you see that, especially in the Christian Bible, it's just saturated with people that are doubting and asking God, you know, why have you abandoned us? And
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what do we do about this problem of evil? And so we can ask all these really hard questions and come out stronger for it. So that's been a big part of it.
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You know, there's three lenses that have been really instrumental for me that I've been even developing more clearly in my own ministry for the last three or four years now. And I think of the way that I approach faith is through these three lenses of curiosity, challenge and wonder. And so when I say curiosity, it's that sense that there's always another question to ask I never want to get to the place in my own understanding of God or the Bible or faith that I feel like I have all the answers that I've arrived in some way. And so I'm always constantly going back myself saying okay, there's probably another question as there's something that I missed here, depending on whatever topic it is there's always another way to another angle another perspective to bring in
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the challenge peace I think I turn that also toward me personally to say i
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i should challenge my own outlook, my own perspectives. I have a very limited view of the world based on my upbringing, my culture, just who I am my personality and so I'm always looking to say is there another voice another person another? Another way to challenge me when it comes to play really clearly for me with the Bible, Mike, the core document of the Christian faith
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It should not be something that
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again, like kind of Pat's, me on the back and set like the voice that would that would say, Wow, Tyler, you are like, the best Christian around and you've totally nailed this and you're like, you're, you're up on some pedestal, I'm constantly turning back at Veterans. And you know, I think I'm looking at this wrong, there's something that should challenge me.
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And then the Wonder piece is like, in faith, there should be an element of worship of awe. It shouldn't just be some
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boring stale ancient texts that we try to read or, you know, sadly, a lot of folks in all different religious streams, I think you can get to this place of
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it's repetitive and stale and old. And why am I even doing this and to try to actually the point of faith is that it should bring forth some sort of awesome wonder, the religious term for that would be worship, it should, it should pull us to a place of worshiping something bigger than ourselves. And so if my faith has become too stale, again, my tendency now is to say, well, it's probably not my religions fault, it's probably something it comes back around to me like something that I'm doing is making me approach this in a boring way. And maybe there's a way to find that. That sense of awe again, those three curiosity, challenging wonder have just been three helpful frameworks for me lately. So
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I think as a parent, those, when it comes to how do I do this, those three lenses, I think, are incredibly helpful. Because what seems like the current script would be sit my kids down, or have them as captive audience in the car and say, hey, I want I want you to know what I believe in what we believe. And I you know, that how far is that going to go, especially when teenagers start developing their own thoughts, and in a part of the adolescent process is to actually distinguish yourself against the family and culture you come from? It's to separate yourself. So the idea that it would be a monologue, or that I would tell them the answers doesn't make a lot of sense doesn't sound very productive. And I think we all intuitively know that. But then I think that's why what you're offering so helpful. What then do I do? And I guess I'd ask you in it from a practical standpoint, curiosity challenge and wonder, what what can a parent do, or an educator do to cultivate those?
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Yeah, at least one experiment that I've been trying with my own girls, I have three daughters, age three to 10. And just in the last, probably two or three months, I've been trying this. So it's still an ongoing experiment. But around the dinner table, we started reading out loud together parts of the Bible. And so we started in the gospels, because for us, Jesus should be the center of our faith. But I really I've been intentional to not turn it into what you just described me as the father, telling them what they're supposed to believe, like, we so we're just, we read like, yeah, five verses of a story of Jesus healing somebody or,
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you know, giving a strange teaching or something like that. And then some sometimes that's all we do, and the girls are off talking about Harry Potter after that, and that's fine. And then if they ask a question, we'll try to talk about it. But um, it has been really encouraging to me to see they they actually asked for it now they say, Oh, Daddy wouldn't What are we gonna do that storytime?
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And I think, you know, my motivation was just to expose them to the story and see what questions might come up. And if this keeps happening over the months and years, I can imagine more questions coming up, especially when we come to some really strange parts, because there's some strange and fascinating stories all throughout the scriptures. But to not feel like I have to put on like a professor cap and say, Now, this is the moral of this story. You girls, you have to you have to understand this particular aspect. Like I'm just saying, I'm just gonna expose you to the story and see what questions come up along the way. And I guess, the main hope with that little tiny experiment is to establish curiosity, first and foremost, and then as as they continue to grow, to find ways to show how, you know, their dad is being challenged in his faith, and I don't have all the answers and so
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yeah, that's one one error and just exposing them to the story in a way that's
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and encourages curiosity and doesn't make them feel like oh, I just have to believe what my dad is telling me because I think that would actually backfire. That that's, that's been my own experience.
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Yeah, it sounds like a cliche. Once I say
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we're living in in
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stressful times or dangerous times or uncertain times, like pick, pick any adjective a world is in a very strange place seems like an in between time COVID, war, racial injustice, and there's just a lot of, there's a lot of stuff going on and use the phrase earlier. I think you said something about finding something big to believe in or bigger to believe in bigger than yourself.
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I guess maybe to wrap up, I would love to hear your thoughts on a life without something big to believe in? What what what do you lose? What do you lose? miss out on? What can that do to somebody? And the opposite? What is it? What can it do for particularly young person who's trying to make their way in the world? And understand themselves and how to be here? What can finding a bigger a bigger narrative a bigger story do for them?
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That's great. Yeah. The
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the first, the main thing that's coming to mind with that question is one, I think it's, it's a proven fact, from many different spheres that we we, as humans, do worship something we put worth in something outside of ourselves, by our very nature.
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And so on a very practical level, you know, well, actually, here's a great way to think about it that
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the thing that I set my attention to, and maybe that in a non religious stance, worship could be described as just attentiveness. What do we actually what are we focusing on? And how is that shaping how I view the world, how I treat people, whether I'm anxious, and afraid, or whether I'm feeling courageous and
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meaningful? And so think about that, like, for a young student?
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What are the things that they focus on first thing every morning? Do they get out of bed and immediately go to social media and start getting bombarded with all these images of their friends that look more perfect and more polished than they do? Do they wake up and start scrolling through the news and feel anxious and fear of, of all the hardship and violence that's happening in the world? Or do they wake up and focus first on, I was created by a being that's bigger than me, who has a good purpose for me, who has, who wants me to pursue meaning and to actually contribute something to this world? And then I'm still going to be bombarded later on with social media with the news and stuff, but
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so that that's been at least a practice in my own life to say, how do I make sure that I don't immediately reach for my phone and start scrolling through the news, I need to at least start with some sort of grounding activity to say, you know, for me, it's been the, there's a prayer that Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, it's famously called the Lord's Prayer. And so it starts by grounding us on God is our Father, our Creator, all things were made through Him, we are actually asking for His way of life to come into our world, heaven on earth, and we're trusting him for our daily bread, there's all this like, that just simple focus towards something bigger than myself, then helps orient me to say, I still want to deal with all the anxious stuff and all the frustration and violence, but they don't get to dictate my identity, if that makes sense. So that that's just one, like, I think a very practical example for me of how believing in something bigger shapes, how I then approach all those other important things.
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But if I don't have that, if I don't, if I didn't have God in my Christian faith, it would be something something would be giving me my identity. And if it's the news stream, and social media, that that's a
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to us, like a biblical language, that the God that is, is not a good God, that the quote unquote God or the idol of social media, is, would give me a warped identity of who I'm actually supposed to be versus
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the God of Scripture for me.
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Well, you are obviously someone who's very interested in investigation, and understanding things. I'm always impressed by that as a friend of yours. I'm also not surprised. If you don't, that's your personality that that around those early pre adolescent years, you started to wonder. And if you're a parent,
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maybe you have a kid like Tyler, who gets the books and puts them on the bookshelf. And it's, it's maybe more of a it's an observable process that you see your kids searching and wondering and trying to explore. Or maybe a little bit more like me, where it's very underground. But I want you to know, regardless of the personality of your kid, all kids around the age of 1011 12 start wondering and putting things together. The most helpful thing you can do is start asking questions.
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There's a shift obviously, from a monologue to dialogue to ultimately just listening. And I've learned that so much from you and working with you over the years. It's either the power and importance of a good question, and a good question that then expects an answer. So we have some of those questions in the show notes. Tyler, I'll I'll definitely include the framework that you shared. And parents and teachers explored. Try to experiment with asking your kids these big questions. Why do you think we're here? Who do you think you are?
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Who do you think God is? If there was a God, what would you think he or she would be like? Those kinds of questions?
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Start open curiosity. And, and I would just love to hear from you as you do that. Because it's gonna it's definitely gonna get tidy, tidier. It's gonna get Messier. But that's a part of the process. So it's kind of Thanks for Thanks for being the show. Thanks for your friendship and partnership with us and wish you all the best as you raise those girls to be just like you curious, challenging and wonder and awe as they go through life.
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Thanks has been great
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Perth
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
