Ep. 30: HISTORICAL DO’S AND DON’TS IN THE CHURCH w/ Simonetta, Emma and Lucas

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew Marcus from THE INDOUBT SHOW. Listen, we have a fantastic episode for us today. This is the first time we do something like this in INDOUBT’s history. We have multiple guests with us, and they’re all very, very young, and you’ll be surprised by this. But today we have guests who host a podcast called Kids Talk Church History. Now, we dive into the importance of understanding church history, studying church history, things we can learn and things we can avoid from believers who have gone before us. And so I’m not sure how well-versed you are in church history, but I know this is a very inspiring conversation. We hope you are encouraged and blessed, and that this sparks a desire for you to dive deep and learn about our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Awesome. So we have Emma, Lucas and Simonetta. Thank you so much for joining us today from the Kids Talk Church History podcast. So how are you guys doing today?

Emma:

Great. Thanks for having us.

Lucas:

Great. I’m doing good.

Andrew Marcus:

This is awesome. This is the first time we’ve done this where we’ve had three of you joining us on a Zoom call, but I’m going to give you guys the floor and I’m going to say maybe Emma can start since she’s the senior teen in the group, and maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself, what you’re up to, and then we can transition to what you’re doing for ministry. But tell us about yourself and then it can be Lucas and then Simonetta.

Emma:

Okay. So I’m Emma. I am a co-host on the Kids Talk Church History podcast. My hobbies include collecting all the hobbies, so I do just about everything in very scattered short bursts. So I don’t know, what kind of details do you want?

Andrew Marcus:

Okay. Wait, tell us a little bit about, so what do you do with your hobbies? Tell us some of the fun things.

Emma:

Well, as I said, I do just about all of them, just none at the same time. So a lot of crafting of various natures. All the things. Currently working on approximately 47 things.

Andrew Marcus:

47.

Emma:

That’s a bit of a hyperbole, but you know.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Give or take. That’s amazing. And how old are you?

Emma:

I’m 15, almost 16.

Andrew Marcus:

You’re 15. You’re turning 16 very shortly. And so you’re in school?

Emma:

Actually, I just finished this past year, yesterday, because I took some summer classes at the local community college.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, amazing. Come on.

Emma:

So yesterday was my last day of school until two weeks.

Andrew Marcus:

Until two weeks. Oh, okay. Wow. That’s unfortunate. But a two-week break, that’s amazing. Good for you. Awesome. And Lucas, tell us about… You’re the youngest of the two, but-

Lucas:

I am. This isn’t usually normal. I’m always the oldest. I always think I’m the oldest, but I’m 15. I’m the youngest one here. I like playing the bass. That’s one of my hobbies.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay. Nice.

Lucas:

I am doing school the whole summer. I’m trying to do overload on math because I want to get into electrical engineering, so I got to do a lot of math on that, and so I am never done with school.

Andrew Marcus:

Nice. That sounds rough, but that’s awesome. What do you want to do, Emma, after? Do you know?

Emma:

After high school?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Emma:

Probably marketing or something along the lines.

Andrew Marcus:

Cool.

Emma:

I am also like, “Wow, accounting would be really cool,” but I don’t know.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay.

Emma:

We’ll see.

Andrew Marcus:

Accounting. So I did accounting at university, and I do love numbers, and my mom’s an accountant. That’s where I get it from. And my dad loves numbers too, but you have to be called to be an accountant, man.

Emma:

Yes.

Andrew Marcus:

I guess you have to be called to be anything, but it’s hard work, but it’s good work. And my mom uses her firm for ministry. She’s praying with clients all the time. It’s actually quite beautiful. Amazing. And Simonetta, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Simonetta Carr:

I am many things. I was mostly mother for many, many years because I have eight children, but they’re all grown up.

Andrew Marcus:

Eight children?

Simonetta Carr:

Yes.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing.

Simonetta Carr:

So yeah, amazing. Kept me busy for a long time.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Praise God.

Simonetta Carr:

They’re all grown up. And so I also started to write books. I’ve always loved writing, but I never thought I would write a book. I wrote my first book in 2008. It was a book about John Calvin because 2009 was the 500th anniversary. And so I had this idea of writing short biographies about people in church history, but I didn’t want to write about how great they were or how much they loved the Lord because all Christians do. But I just wanted to see why they were important in church history and also theologically, because I really thought kids could understand more than we give them credit for. And initially I got a lot of rejections for my book, but I didn’t really care too much because I didn’t even think it was going to get published, but it did.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Praise God.

Simonetta Carr:

And I have got about 20 books done now, and I have a church history book, and so all of a sudden I’m an author.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow, that’s amazing. Thank you so much. Well, okay, so you mentioned you’re doing a lot of writing and you were asked to write for an article for The Gospel Coalition, but actually Emma wrote an article.

Simonetta Carr:

Yes.

Andrew Marcus:

And so maybe share a little bit about that, Simonetta, about the importance of passing the baton and then maybe Emma can walk us through the article.

Simonetta Carr:

So since I started with this podcast, this was an idea I had. After I did the book about church history, I thought about doing a podcast for kids, but hosted by kids. And I think this is unusual, I think. I have not found one yet that is completely hosted by kids. Maybe I’m wrong, but anyway, I had this idea and so I started this podcast and the kids took over. They’re doing beautifully. And then The Gospel Coalition asked me to write an article related to the podcast and about why it’s important to learn church history. And I said, “The podcast is by kids, for kids, so the article should be written by a kid or a teen.” And so I asked my hosts who wanted to do it? And Emma said, “Yes, I’ll do it.” And it was fantastic. And I think for me, it’s very important, I think it’s a good idea for anybody who has a magazine, whether online or on paper to involve the teens. They can contribute so much. And if you just listen to the podcast, you know what I mean. These kids are amazing.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s awesome. What a cool reminder for us to always be including all generations, all people in the work of the Lord. It’s so important. Praise God. Okay, so Emma ended up writing the article.

Emma:

Yes.

Andrew Marcus:

Tell us a little bit about what you wrote and maybe walk us through it a little bit.

Emma:

So I guess my goal with writing this article was to frame the study of church history in a way that I guess brought it into a context where it really is important for everybody to learn. And it’s not something that’s just academic, it is part of our spiritual heritage, and thus it is important for people to study it, especially I think children, because it really does bring Christianity into something being more than just something that you do on Sunday or something that you talk about but don’t really like. This is something that people for 2,000 years have died for and so it’s more important than just something that we think about sometimes. So I wrote about my experience, how I was introduced to church history through my parents.

For me, church history has never been something that I was like, “Wow, I guess I need to learn about church history now.” It was something that my parents really did a good job of imbuing into the ordinary life that I lived. And as in church when we did the Creeds or the Westminster Catechism or whatever it is, they really contextualized that as your brothers and sisters in the faith wrote this stuff and it matters. And so I guess that was kind of what I did in the article.

Andrew Marcus:

And did your parents incorporate some stuff in the home or was it all just kind of what you’ve seen at church?

Emma:

Yeah. So we have a lot of Simonetta Carr’s books on our shelf and my dad Sunday afternoons, that was a lot of what we did, is we would read those books when I was younger.

Andrew Marcus:

So cool.

Emma:

And my grandparents had all these historical fiction about missionaries and various theological figures. So whenever we went to their house, I would always read all of those. And it was just something that we just talked about very normally on a very regular basis. And it was never something that was like, okay, we’re going to talk about church history now. It was just part of our family culture. So yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so cool. And I think it’s so important for people who are watching or listening, maybe you have small kids or just to make sure that you’re incorporating that into rhythms and routines in life to make it an important thing to have that history. That’s cool that you’ve had Simonetta’s books. How cool is that to hear?

Simonetta Carr:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so cool.

Emma:

Well, that was part of the reason why I was so excited to join the podcast ’cause I was like, “Mrs. Carr is a celebrity.”

Andrew Marcus:

So cool. Lucas, what was your story getting involved with the Kids Talk Church History podcast?

Lucas:

Well, it first started with Mrs. Carr. She would come into the Sunday School room with-

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing.

Lucas:

The rough drafts for her books. She would read it to us and try to get our feedback. It started with my older sister Lucy, and then it came down to the fourth and sixth grades and I was in there so I heard some of her books from her. And she would also come over with the whole church history book. She would read that and get our opinion on each chapter. And then COVID hit and that stopped. But then she came up to us about a podcast that she was trying to get with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and I did an audition to make sure I fit there and I did. And this is the story.

Andrew Marcus:

So cool. That is so cool. And so what’s a typical episode involve? Give us a little taste.

Lucas:

It’ll start with the hosts, usually three hosts doing a little talk about… They’ll give a little introduction, a little story, introduce themselves, and then give a little background about what we’re going to talk about. And then we bring in an expert and then we ask them questions for 10, 15, sometimes 20 minutes if it goes long. And then we get the information out that way.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing. Talking to the experts, that’s what I’m doing right now actually, talking to the experts. That’s fantastic. So there’s a lot of people who don’t, I don’t want to say they don’t care about church history, but it’s just not on their radar. They’re just focused on the today and the future and they don’t take time to look to the past at what happened in previous generations throughout history. So why would you guys say church history is important? Why is it important for you?

Emma:

For me, one thing that I really love about church history is thinking about the body of Christ and how our brothers and sisters in the faith aren’t just present time church, but also the church in the past. So when we study church history, we’re learning about our family, and that’s a really beautiful thing to just learn how God has always sustained His church and just how He has worked. And also I think it’s really important theologically because enables us to, one, not be taken in by “new theology” that is actually just a heresy that they dealt with in the fourth century. And we learn about these people who died for really important things, people who would not back down in the face of heresy. And I think that is a really important thing for every Christian to understand, that this stuff matters and what stuff matters, and what we should be willing to agree to disagree on.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s huge, especially in 2023 where it seems like there’s a lot of heresy and there’s a lot of false teaching. Being rooted in truth, going back, looking at what people actually died for, what mattered, what’s important, that’s so good. What about Lucas for you? Why is church history important for you? What do you feel like I really want to be a part of this ministry?

Lucas:

Well, I’m kind of piggybacking off what Emma said, but the heresies, I think that’s a big one because let me just name, I think there’s Docetism and Arianism. Those were really big ones back then.

Andrew Marcus:

Walk us through those two. For some people who are listening who don’t know.

Lucas:

I believe Docetism is where you believe Jesus did not have a real body. And then I can’t remember what Arianism is, but it was a big heresy.

Emma:

It’s where you don’t believe that Jesus is divine.

Simonetta Carr:

Yes.

Lucas:

So those go hand in hand, but I think it’s really important so that we can defend the true Christian faith even today.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, praise God. I love it. Simonetta, for you, you’ve had a longer journey in ministry through studying church history, writing about church history. When did it start for you, and was that your upbringing as well like Emma, or when did your passion for church history start?

Simonetta Carr:

It started when I was homeschooling my kids. And actually it was not my upbringing at all, and it was not even included in my curriculum for my kids. I was one of the typical Christians, I guess, who doesn’t know anything about church history. But then somebody at my church had a class, it was an intern who studied at the seminary and he started to teach a Sunday School class for adults on church history. And I didn’t know anything and I was so excited to learn about it. And so actually when I started the idea of writing my books, I actually wanted this intern to write them and he kept saying no, and that’s how I ended up doing them. But that’s how my interest started. And then I was thinking, we need to include it in the curriculum, homeschooling the kids and they’re learning about art and science and everything in history, they should also learn about theology in history. And that’s how it all started.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. And why is it important for you?

Simonetta Carr:

Why it’s important. What they said about not reinventing the wheel. There’s somebody at the Westminster Seminary, the father of our pastor actually once said, “If you try to reinvent the wheel, it seldom comes around.” So sometimes Christians try to resolve issues today without studying the past and finding out that maybe they’ve been debated before. They’re just harming themselves by not doing that. And on a more personal level, I think for me, church history has helped me to, for one thing, to check my own ideas with those of other Christians who came before me and who lived in different times in different situation, but not completely alien to ours. For example, second century Christians, they faced so many things that we are facing now because they were living in a situation where people around them were not Christian.

So now we’re going back to that because I find a lot of people today know nothing about Christianity just because their parents never taught them. So we are facing some of the same things. And then you can learn from them how did they face this situation and what did they do? And some things are surprising because they wrote so much about patience and about love, and you probably don’t even suspect that you would think you find apologetics all over. And there was that too, but also so much patience and love and it was very impressive.

Andrew Marcus:

So good. Okay, so we see that there’s a lot of benefits, like looking at the second century Christians and how we can apply to 2023. Are there any dangers? And look, I mean, obviously church history, we see Christians not always get it right, so it’s not always the way that we need to take. I guess Emma, maybe you’re suggesting maybe there’s some warnings as well. So maybe walk us through that just to make sure that people are not taking everything church history as gospel.

Emma:

Yeah, well that’s part of the thing. The only gospel that we have is the actual gospel, the Bible.

Andrew Marcus:

The Bible gospel, yeah.

Emma:

And so it can be really helpful to use the lens of the scriptures themselves as we look at church history. And it can be a good way to learn the skills of comparing what people are saying to the Bible. And instead of going out in the world and being like, oh, this person said something and they quoted a verse from Luke so it must be true. And we can use practice our discernment skills on church history, but also it can be helpful where we know the pitfalls that Christians have often fallen into because there are definitely patterns of things that Christians all throughout history have always tended toward certain things. And so we can be more aware and watch out so that we hopefully are better guarded against those pitfalls and by God’s grace, we can not fall into those things by studying church history and knowing what to look for.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, that is so good. Okay, so tell us who your favorite character is. And we can’t say Jesus because He should be all of our favorites, but tell us throughout church history. It could be someone in the Bible or someone, a missionary, whoever, that stands out to you that you just really admire them and they’re like a person that you’re like, wow, that’s amazing. I love that person. So I’ll start with Emma, then we’ll do Lucas and then Simonetta.

Emma:

Okay. Well, my favorite character in church history is, well, they’re a lot, but I really love Brendan the Navigator who was a Irish monk in the fifth century, sixth century, something like that. And the thing that he’s kind of known for is he possibly discovered, well, landed on North America on one of his journeys. So he’s called Brendan the Navigator because he would take his little boat and all of his monk underlings and go journey around to mission to all the various people in all the different islands around Ireland and up through up, up all to Iceland. And he’s just very cool. He has a very cool name. He has a very interesting story. So he’s one of my favorites. I have a lot, but yeah, he’s my current obsession.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay. That’s amazing. That’s so fun. He does have a fun name.

Emma:

He does have a fun name.

Andrew Marcus:

Lucas, who’s your favorite character and why?

Lucas:

Well, first I was going to say Paul, but I feel like that’s a bit of a cop out answer, so instead, I will say Stephen because he was the second martyr. And almost the one thing you get to know about him is he gets chosen by the apostles, he preaches and he’s martyred. That’s all you get to know. And I think that’s just so brave of him to just do those three things and then be caught up into eternal glory. And I think that’s a very encouraging story.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing. Praise God. Simonetta, who’s your favorite character? Well, one of your favorite. Obviously we have many favorites.

Simonetta Carr:

If I had to meet somebody, if I had to choose to meet somebody, it would be either one of the women in the medieval times because we know so little about them, so I want to know more. And also they sounded very brave, but also I think I would like to meet Augustine of Hippo. I just love the confessions. I love the way he writes and it just speaks from his heart. And I think I would like to know more just about him and what he thinks about a lot of things.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow.

Simonetta Carr:

I think that’s about it, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

Isn’t it so cool that one day we’re all going to be together and we get to meet all these heroes of the faith?

Simonetta Carr:

Yeah, that would be fun.

Andrew Marcus:

And we have all eternity to just hang out with them.

Emma:

I’m most excited to meet the three wise men or however many wise men, we don’t actually – That’s who I’m most excited ’cause I have stuff I want to know.

Andrew Marcus:

What do you want to know from the wise men?

Emma:

Well, like what about it were they like, wow, this is a really cool star. Was it just the Holy Spirit that was just like, “You need to go,” or was there… Who were they? Where did they come from? I just want to know all the things about their journey and I just want to meet them.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so fun. What prompted them? What did the prompting feel like when you saw the star? What did you sense or hear? I mean, thank God we have eternity ’cause we have a million questions.

Emma:

I have so many people, I’m like, “Give me your life story.”

Andrew Marcus:

Start from the beginning and go, ready. We got time. All we got is time, so take your time. We got eternity. Maybe give some people who are watching who just don’t have a desire to learn about church history, what would you tell them? How would you encourage them?

Emma:

So one, I would say it’s your family history. This is exciting. Also, there’s a lot of really crazy drama that happens in the church. There’s a bunch of sinful people doing some crazy stuff, and that’s just interesting. But also, this is your family. You want to learn about your family. And on top of all the other more theological reasons that we’ve already discussed, it’s just interesting. Also, all history is God’s history. So basically anything that you’re interested in, it’s basically all church history if you think of it in that way. I don’t know.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s good, it’s all God’s story. The successes, the failures, the highs, the lows, the rights, the wrongs, the way the warnings. It’s all a part of God’s story.

Emma:

We’re just learning about his faithfulness.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, it’s amazing.

Emma:

Every time that we look at the church in the past, and it’s so encouraging. God has always been faithful and He will continue to be faithful and that’s a glorious thing.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing. Praise God. I love it. Lucas, what would you say to encourage them?

Lucas:

Well, I would say look to Jesus because He looked back to church history. He looked back on the Old Testament, He quoted it. And if you’re not going to listen to the greatest man ever, then you’re going to have some problems, right? Because all the great men in history, let’s say Napoleon, he looked back to Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar looked back to Alexander the Great, and you see all these famous people are looking back, even in secular, not even church history. And so you can see it’s always important to look back and you can always emulate what others have done. Like Isaac Newton, he said, “If I’ve gotten this far, it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulder of giants.” And you can always get help by looking at the past.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so good, man. That’s so good. Praise God. Simonetta, what would your word of encouragement be to a young person who is just not interested?

Simonetta Carr:

Well, just what Lucas was saying reminded me of something. Our pastor just preached on this a couple of weeks ago, about Mark eight, when Jesus told the disciples, “When I fed 5,000 people, how many baskets of leftovers did they have left? And when I fed 3000, how many did they have left? And just remember the past, remember what I did for you before. Are you forgetting so quickly?” And so that’s really good because reading church history can tell us, okay, we’ve been through this before and the Lord has preserved the church because so many times you hear today the church is going through something unprecedented. You hear the word a lot. We’ve never been in anything like this. No, wait, you have.

Andrew Marcus:

So good. I love this conversation. It points back to God. It points back to the importance of the gospel. It points to looking back. I’m so grateful for you guys. I’m so grateful for your ministries. We pray for all of you, and thank you so much for all that you do.

Simonetta Carr:

Thank you.

Emma:

Thanks for having us.

Lucas:

Yeah, thank you.

Emma:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out the Indoubt Show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcast. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.