Proverbs 22:6;  Hebrews 10:25: Ephesians 5: Hebrews 11:17-19; Genesis 17:19; Hebrews 13:8;  Leviticus 20:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:10; 2 Timothy 2:15; Exodus 3:2; Numbers 22:6- 24:14          Wendi:  Welcome everybody to the XPK podcast. XPK, means former preacher’s kids. Yeah, my favorite preacher's kid is with me today, my brother, Brandon, and I’m Wendi. Brandon:  I'll be with you every day.  Wendi:  Yeah, exactly. And I'm very excited about that and very excited to have the audience with us too. Brandon:    What are we talking about? Because we named this x p k, when there could have been a lot of different names we could have used, but we wanted to relate it specifically to being from the church, being former children of a pastor, a preacher. Yeah. What's that all about?  Wendi:  Well, I think especially in light of everything going on today. I know you and I have had many conversations about how it's just a miracle due to everything that we've been through.  The fact that we even have the Lord as part of our lives, not just part of our lives, but the foundation and the center of our life, it's just a true miracle.  It just points to his grace in our life.  I actually was scared of my dad and believed that I would go straight to hell if I did anything stupid. So, you know, for me, I didn't do that whole sneaking out of the house and all the stupid stuff.

Brandon:   Yeah, I waited to do all that until I got to college. Well, I mean, I didn't sneak out of the house in college, but all the stupid stuff that I wasn't allowed to do didn't happen until I got to college. So unfortunately, which can be one of our podcast episodes about the importance of being versus doing.  Being the man of God or the woman of God versus trying to do what you think a man of God or a woman of God would do, right? Which is why there's grace. Which we need to talk a lot about on this podcast. There's a lot of people out there with podcasts. And a lot of people have a lot to say about a lot of things. So in thinking about what is going to make us different than everybody else, I know we've talked about really being the voice of encouragement and a voice of hope and a voice of... I don't want to be like, positive thinking, a voice of positive thinking. But really talking about the fact that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but God is on the throne.  God is in control and look at what we've endured, and been through with the people in spiritual authority over our lives, leading us down the wrong paths for so many years. But yet God continued to pursue us, continued to reveal himself to us, and continues to draw us to himself. Just showing himself faithful, so faithful. It doesn't matter what you're going through. It doesn't matter what's happening in the world. Of course, we should care. I'm not talking about not caring. I'm talking about not worrying.

Wendi:  I have a much harder time trusting and especially trusting pastors, because of my experience and maybe I'm the target of Dad's double life and everything that that entailed, but you know, becoming a mom, it's been my life's mission to make sure my children don't ever have to deal with any of that. And so you know, for the first several years of parenting, it seemed relatively like a formula. You know, the Bible says “to train up a child in the way he should go and then when they're old, they will depart from it." And then it seems like recently there has been such an upheaval in the church and it's clear that my experience, certainly has not been an exclusive one.