On this episode, we’re talking about a rallying cry for parents—and really, for all of us—to push back against apathy and step into action. Whether it’s speaking up at a school board meeting, having that tough conversation with your child, really listening to your teen, giving someone else the mic, or re-engaging with an apathetic kid—each moment matters. The call to action may look different for everyone, but the heart is the same: pick up the mic. Don’t defer, delay, or disengage. Step in. Speak up. Be part of shaping a worldview grounded in truth, courage, and love. So, let’s dive in!
Episode 17: Summary & Transcript
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Episode Summary
On this episode of the Upside Down Parenting Podcast, Matt and Janel call parents to “pick up the mic” and push back against apathy, identifying it as a major epidemic threatening the Christian faith. The conversation explores the causes of apathy, such as parental example, busyness, and negative cultural influences, and its dangers, including the rise of moral relativism and children walking away from their faith. Citing Barna research and Scripture, particularly Romans 12, they provide parents with a biblical worldview and practical tools to combat indifference, re-engage with their faith, and shape the next generation with courage and truth.
Episode Transcript
Janel Greig (00:00):
Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting is one of the greatest adventures ever. Yet we all know that parenting can also feel overwhelming and confusing. The great news is that you don’t have to do it alone. We’re here to walk with you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s countercultural truth in his upside down kingdom and champion a biblical worldview.
On today’s episode, we are talking about a rallying cry for parents and really for all of us to push back against apathy and step into action. Whether it’s speaking up at a school board meeting, having that tough conversation with your child, listening to your teen, giving someone else the mic, or even reengaging with an apathetic kid, each moment matters. The call to action may look different for everyone, but the heart is the same. Pick up the mic, don’t defer, delay or disengage. Step in, speak up. Be part of shaping a worldview that’s grounded in truth, courage, and love.
So let’s dive in. Hey Matt, how are you today and how are you feeling about this new series?
Dr. Matt Jones (01:11):
Well, first of all, I’m feeling pretty good. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on in the world, or at least in my world. My daughter officially got engaged. I’m going to see Chris Tomlin tonight at Red Rocks and we’re going to sing Holy Forever.
And I’m excited about so many things that are going on, but primarily it is about picking up the mic and saying, Hey folks, let’s think about, let’s challenge ourselves to consider where’s our heart? What can we say? When can we be silent? When can we speak and pick up this mic and proclaim the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ? And so I’m excited to not only think about this with you and learn with you and wrestle with this for the good of our audience, but also we’re lining up some pretty cool guests too over the next few episodes.
So thanks for journeying through this with me. So before we get into kind of some details, I’m curious what you, or how you would define apathy. What do you think about apathy and why it matters in our society?
Janel Greig (02:19):
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. When I think of apathy, the word indifference comes to my mind, just a real nah. And I think we actually had a conversation really recently with our great producer, you call him the bearded wonder, but regarding that, and I think apathetic folks, that indifference there was the season of the nones and that struggle and that was one, engaging with that generation or those identifying as nones is a more difficult conversation and more frustrating, I think, than those that actually are passionate about something.
So to me, when I think of apathy, I think of somebody that just doesn’t care. And so it’s a challenge of how do you get someone to care? What would you add to that definition, Matt, when you think of the word apathy, what do you think of?
Dr. Matt Jones (03:12):
Yeah, I think of people at first and then I don’t want to call out any names, I try to go back to that definition. I think it also speaks to a state of a lack of motivation or interest or even emotion. I work with a lot of people on a regular basis and there seems to be a value that we have communicated that being emotionless is an okay and a good thing. And I’m not a huge fan of that. I look at a lot of pictures and the cool thing to be is kind of this stoic emotionless being, and I would prefer to be a person of joy and excitement and motivated to do what I do for the right reasons and things that reflect a biblical worldview.
And so I think that apathy may be one of the greatest epidemics we could be facing right now. And we see that in some of the stats that Barna research has pointed out. For example, and I’m curious about your thoughts on these. For example, 47% of students or Christian millennials, and this is a 2019 study, 47% of Christian millennials believe sharing faith is wrong. And that strikes me, and I’m wondering what you think is the cause for that.
Janel Greig (04:41):
Yeah, I think that’s one of the dangers in apathy. It’s that indifference, you don’t care as much. I think we see in society, apathy can lead to moral relativism, which is the, it’s their truth. What’s wrong for them isn’t wrong for me and vice versa. And so I think part of that, some of those Barna results that we’re seeing, and I love the work that George Barna does with the cultural research center at Arizona Christian, I think when they put out their Worldview Inventory Report, there’s some really great stuff to glean from there.
I think it can be depressing sometimes. Like wow, this is really where we’re at. But if we’re not apathetic about those results and it is that call to action, what can we do about this? What are we seeing? So I think that lack of church involvement or not wanting to share my faith, somebody not wanting to share their faith can come from that. Well, it doesn’t matter. Their truth is their truth. And I think that’s what we’re seeing, especially in those specific statistics from Barna.
Dr. Matt Jones (05:46):
Yeah, and I appreciate that because if we’re calling people to pick up the mic, we have to have, or we get to have the hard attitude of, alright, here’s our opportunity to proclaim what’s true. And I have found that in working with quite a few college students that because truth is relative and I really appreciate you bringing that up, that there’s a growing idea of this perennialism that it really doesn’t matter what faith I am a part of, they all lead to the same deity.
And if you actually study the different deities out there and the different religions, they’re not all the same. They are calling to different things. There may be a few similarities, but to point out that listen, if you don’t place your faith in Jesus Christ and he’s the only way that is offensive and we care more about not we, you and I, but there are people that care more about not offending than proclaiming the truth.
(06:41):
And we’re calling and asking people to say, listen, know the truth, proclaim the truth, pick up the mic. And here’s another interesting thing. 54%, according to Barna in 2018, says, church involvement is not too or not important at all. And this really concerns me as someone who has worked in churches and an advocate for the church and teaches the church and its importance. And we were just talking about it today in some of my classes. And I see while there are difficulties with the people at church to design the function of the church is ideal for human flourishing.
(07:21):
And while that is a mentality that I don’t need to be at church to experience God or know God, while there is an element of truth to that because of Romans one proclaiming, yeah, we can get some general revelation about God, understanding more of who he is, understanding what he exists in, what he expects in community and how we can experience community. One of the primary places for that is the church.
And we really need to pick up the mic and say, listen, the church matters. It’s very difficult to claim that you love Jesus and not love his bride. And that’s been something that stuck out with me from a speaker I heard recently. He said, listen, it’s difficult to proclaim you love Jesus if you don’t love his bride and his bride is the church that’s you and me and other believers across all walks of life.
Janel Greig (08:17):
And I think that’s a great charge. And I think that’s one of those things too, apathy and we’ll talk about, we’ll dig into this and we we’re going to spend a lot of time in this area and it’s going to be hopefully encouraging but also enlightening I would say from the sense of let’s raise some awareness and help pass that mic, pick it up, pass it and point out where we can do a better job as parents where we can do a better job as a church, local church. And even in education, I think as parents, it’s one of those situations where if we’re showing apathy in our faith, our kids pick up on that.
And we’ve talked about this in a prior episode that caught versus taught idea, but that’s something that’s important if we’re just going to church and going through the motions or not engaged at church and our kids see that, well they pick up on that. And so maybe on that note, Matt, what do you think as we lean into this a little bit, what do you think are some of the causes in what we’re seeing in the apathetic, I guess, experience we’re seeing? What do you think some of those causes are?
Dr. Matt Jones (09:24):
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing up just our example as parents. I think this is a challenge because we’ve got to allow for some ebb and flow in our walk with Christ. And because the reality is that we’re all in this process of being worked on by the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus and we’re grateful for that.
However, there are times whenever I have been apathetic, especially whenever there’s been something hurtful or whenever I have had a situation where I expected God to do something and he didn’t, and it affected my prayer life, it affected my desire to go to church, it affected my I zeal and fervor as Romans chapter 12 talks about for following Jesus. And so I think one of the primary causes of this element of apathy is us as parents, have we been good examples? Are we not only as a married couple challenging one, another husband and wife to say, Hey, I’m noticing some apathy here.
(10:33):
How can I walk alongside you to be a part of it, re-energizing your enthusiasm for the Lord and not to put on a show in front of our kids, but as an opportunity to say, okay, this reality that I’m struggling with experiencing the joy of the Lord is an opportunity for me to go to my kid and confess and repent and say, listen, I’ve not been leading well here. I’ve not been loving well here.
And so I think one of the causes honestly, is at times me as a parent and I need people in my life, I need my wife. Honestly, sometimes my kids have stepped in and said, dad, what’s wrong? What’s going on? You are usually the one that’s getting us up to go to church. So I think that’s one cause. What do you think are few others?
Janel Greig (11:27):
Yeah, I think that’s great. And I think the humility that you share there too, the realization that, and it’s biblical, we see it evidenced in God’s word in the Bible that it crept into many of those great believers that were written about in the Bible. For most of us, I think it does creep into our spiritual walk in some way and just becomes a numbing indifference that can slowly replace our first love. It’s not just a modern problem today. We see it reflected in God’s word. And I think that’s again, something we should take as a warning, but also, alright, God has grace for this. This is the normal ebb and flow, and let me find my true love again and follow the Lord and keep him at the focus.
Dr. Matt Jones (12:16):
And for me to find my true love is, and I have the benefit of teaching on this regularly, I get to go back to the beauty of the gospel.
Janel Greig (12:23):
Yes. Amen.
Dr. Matt Jones (12:24):
The gospel is not just about restoring relationship between God and humankind, but it’s about relationship between you and me, and myself and others, and even how I understand who God’s created me to be and the redemptive message of the gospel. It radically changes things and helps reinforce this fervor, but it’s easy to lose sight of that because we really are, we’re super busy.
I think that’s a cause of this apathy, because I find I have to be intentional to fight against it. And whenever I’ve got so many competing values, when I’ve got so many things vying for my attention, I can lose sight of, here’s what’s really, really important. And I have to step back and prioritize and ask my wife to say, wife, Cat, we call her Cat. How can you help me recognize where I’m just not taking this faith as intentionally as I can? And that’s why I find we need one another. But yeah, busyness is a detractor from finding joy and hope.
Janel Greig (13:36):
Yeah, I would say that that’s definitely a big one. It’s the busyness that comes from the extracurricular activities, even the cultural influences that are coming from spending time on social media or secular education, just the world around us. All of those things feed into that apathy and apathy, as we’ve mentioned, is a danger. It’s a danger to our kids. It’s a danger to us in our own walk with the Lord because it does manifest as indifference.
Dr. Matt Jones (14:08):
Yeah. So what do you think are those dangers for the kids? I mean, what’s the danger for our kids when it comes to apathy?
Janel Greig (14:17):
I think one of the big dangers is that leaving a biblical worldview behind, leading to a worldview of relativism, that relativistic worldview. I think that’s a huge danger. I think that the loss of that eternal perspective, which bringing it back to the gospel is something that is so important to keep on the forefront. I think that walking away from the faith, that is the biggest detriment. That to me is the biggest concern with apathy, is walking away from the Lord. Yeah. What about you? What am I missing that you think of when you think of the dangers of apathy?
Dr. Matt Jones (15:04):
I honestly think a lot of people miss out on the joy that’s available in picking up the mic, in taking a stand. And it may look different from person to person, but I actually think it affects human flourishing on a big scale if we don’t take a stand for what’s right and it affects our kids flourishing.
It’s interesting, I was thinking about this and Judges chapter two, it says starting in, well in the middle of verse 10 it says, and there arose another generation after them referring to the generation of Joshua after them who did not know the Lord or the work that the Lord had done for Israel and the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and serve the Baals and they abandoned the Lord. Speaking of, as you’re saying, walking away from the faith, abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
(15:56):
They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them and bowed to them and they provoked the Lord to anger. And I just think about that passage and I say, here’s a danger not only in terms of human flourishing, but also saying, listen, if we’re not faithful to pass down this biblical worldview, we have arguably have and can continue to face some pretty significant consequences if we don’t lead our kids in the way that scripture has challenged us, has scripture has encouraged us to have when it comes to the biblical worldview.
And so when we think about that apathy, as you pointed out, it’s so funny. I’m looking at my notes here and several of the things that you said I had here, and I’ve just got to say that we care immensely about your kids at Summit, as members of Summit.
(16:52):
We care immensely, but we also care immensely about the heart of the parent and for us to live this out well, we’ve got to encourage you parents that it can be done. Because the other thing that I think not only is a cause, but also a danger is the loss of hope. And I find there’s a connection between hope and apathy.
If I have hope that Christ is at work, that Christ can change things, that Christ is being glorified, then that affects my apathy. But if I lose hope, then it affects my motivation to be faithful. And I’ve been up and down in faithfulness at times, and that’s where being in community, being in church, recognizing here’s what God’s called me to be and do. Knowing these stories from scripture, they remind me, wait a minute, my kids are key, but Christ is first.
Janel Greig (17:52):
Yes. Yeah. Amen. And I think there is hope, right?
Dr. Matt Jones (17:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
Janel Greig (17:58):
There is hope coming. There is hope. We’re seeing it. And I think we, within the last month or so, we’ve seen some leaders, great Christians sharing the gospel, Christian pastors, both Charlie Kirk and Voddie Baucham, and they were both about picking up the mic.
Voddie did. He did so much. But his focus was that family driven discipleship. And I don’t know how many of you out there have heard him preach before at a conference or even read his book, any of his books, but he was the absolute opposite of apathetic when it came to encouragement for family discipleship. He stressed the idea of family driven discipleship and faith and that he set a great foundation for encouragement in that area for families.
I think you look at somebody like Charlie Kirk who talked about God, family, country. He was mobilizing the next generation, kind of countering the cultural apathy and engaging in conversation and using the gospel as a platform for that. There was a zeal. I like that where you used that earlier. And that comes from Romans 12:9, right? And so there is hope.
Dr. Matt Jones (19:19):
And there is, and there’s some numbers coming out of, there’s a mission organization that informed me last week that church attendance among 18 to 24-year-old young men has increased from 4% to 16% in the United Kingdom. And in addition, 34%, and I forget the age range on this, but in the United Kingdom it said 34% said they would go to church if a friend would ask them to church. You just simply need to ask.
(19:48):
And unfortunately, I don’t know the numbers for the US, I’ve not come across that, but that points to, listen, there is hope. And what we’re trying to do as we engage in this apathy series is to give us a biblical worldview on things to combat it. And I just want to take a minute and say, listen, we’re going to have a lot of time hopefully spent, not a lot of time, but enough time, spent in Romans chapter 12.
And so I would just encourage you all as you’re listening to maybe open that up and I’m just going to read a section of Romans chapter 12 to remind us, here are some things that we can use to combat apathy. And we’ve got to understand when we look at the book of Romans, chapters 1 through 11 are really, here’s what we believe and why in terms of the significance of the gospel being offered.
(20:36):
And now as a result of that, if we believe those things and they correspond to reality and they’re true, which we believe they are, here’s the call as believers in Romans 12. And in the context he talks about, listen, your active worship is offering your body as a living sacrifice. And then you have what Romans chapter 12 communicates. And it says, first of all, verse 12:9, it says, let love be genuine, abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good. And that’s just loaded right there. Are we helping our children discern what genuine love is? We need to have whole podcasts on that.
Janel Greig (21:20):
Yes. Yep.
Dr. Matt Jones (21:21):
Are we helping our children to hate or abhor what is evil? Are we letting evil into our homes? Are we taking a stand against it? Are we helping our kids as they’re hearing these things and seeing these things? Are we helping them evaluate? And then are we helping ’em hold fast to what is good? Are we being the model there?
And so avoiding this apathy, I think starts with, well, I shouldn’t say starts with includes several things such as, Hey, help us to understand what love is. Help us to hate what is evil, not the people but the evil that’s being done. And hold fast to what is good and what’s one way you like to hold fast to what is good besides listening to this podcast.
Janel Greig (22:04):
I think in our household, we actually practice through when somebody wrongs somebody else or when sin happens, holding to what is true, practicing that repentance, practicing that forgiveness. And I think that brings in Romans 12:9, the abhor what is evil. I think we live in a culture that, for lack of a better term, dumbs down what sin really is. And it’s somebody wrongs, you do something wrong in the house and it’s, oh, it’s, that’s fine. No, we need to sit and have a moment of reconciliation because that’s biblical. That’s holding on to what Jesus did for us on the cross. And so I think that’s an opportunity.
And not holding sin in a way that’s shameful, but for the weight of the realization of sin is real and our sin is what took Jesus to the cross. And he did that for us because of his love. And again, that’s pulling in that what is real love for us? And so that’s something in our house we really practice. And it’s pretty natural now just because it’s been such a regular rhythm, but sometimes it does require a reminder to our kids and even myself, but actually practicing that repentance for when we’ve sinned against one another. What about you, Matt? What’s something that you guys utilize to keep that focus?
Dr. Matt Jones (23:26):
Well, I first of all want to say thank you so much because there have been so many times that we have said, child, Tyler, Hannah Kinzie, what you did was wrong there and we need you to go and apologize to this adult. So I’m just going to reinforce yours here.
Janel Greig (23:44):
Great.
Dr. Matt Jones (23:44):
And it frustrates us whenever the adult says, oh, it’s no big deal, or in Colorado, they say, no worries. No. This was an opportunity for my kid to apologize and them to say, will you forgive me? And for them to say, yes, I forgive you now, what’s it look like to move forward? So thanks for bringing that in.
That’s one of the things that we want to do in terms of clinging to what is good, is that there is redemption, there is restoration whenever someone sins against you, and we should not pass it off as, it’s not a big deal. If it’s sin, while forgivable, it is a big deal. That’s one of the reasons Jesus died on the cross. And I don’t want to bring that up every time.
Janel Greig (24:31):
No, not every time. But I do think that’s that gospel focus too, that prevents the apathetic posture with that consistent realization of, that’s what Jesus did for us. That apathy or the indifference to that should leave.
Dr. Matt Jones (24:48):
Absolutely. And so we want you all to pick up on the mic. We want you to be challenged to pick up the mic, to say, listen, there are things that we should stand up for. There are things that we should call out. We’re to hate what is evil. We are to rejoice and let our, excuse me, love, be genuine. Let’s even call out those incredible things.
So maybe picking up the mic at your home this week is saying, daughter, son, I saw this good thing you did, and I just want to say thank you for reflecting either God’s character or God’s image or what it means to be a person who loves genuinely. Maybe find five good things about your spouse, about your child that you can pick up the mic and proclaim.
Hey, that was good this week. Okay. So if today’s conversation inspired you to pick up the mic, to take action in your home or in your kid’s school or your community, take a minute and subscribe, leave a review so more parents can join the movement to pick up the mic. Until next time, keep guiding your kids to live courageously in God’s upside down kingdom because every small act of faith you take as a parent pushes back against apathy and helps us shape the next generation. God bless.
Thank you for your time, Janel. Thanks for working with me again. It was a lot of fun.
Janel Greig (26:14):
Thanks, Matt.