 Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. That's what the kingdom of God is and that's what we believe you will experience today on Hope Today. I'm Tom Hollis, I'm here with Angela Madden. Thank you so much for joining us on Hope Today. We have an awesome guest gonna teach us some new things. Yes, I am really excited. You know, I don't know if you struggle to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those you meet, but many Christians do. There's one woman who has set out to fix that problem. Starting with our kids. Today we will talk with author Meredith Cook whose children's book discusses the importance of sharing the gospel and will encourage all of us to keep a global focus and aim to fulfill not the great suggestion, but Jesus' great commission. You know, Tom here at CTVN, our founder, Norma Bixler, she really took the great commission seriously and I love what she said. She said, everyone ought to know Jesus. I think today's conversation is really going to stir us into love and action. Well, absolutely. What a fantastic idea and a fantastic book. So on today's program, you're gonna learn all about how to tell kids about how to tell everyone about Jesus. But you know what? You're gonna have your own encouragement in that. And of course we'll be ministering and praying for you at the end of the program. But right now I wanted to honor someone. You know that this ministry was founded in prayer and Norma had her group of ladies that would come up and pray on the rocks. Well, one of them, Eleanor Frans, she is the, there she is with her upper left there looking at her Bible. Eleanor Frans turns 100 years old this Saturday. Happy birthday Eleanor. I just, Eleanor, you are one of the foundational members of this ministry. We would not be on the air without those prayers. I was just talking to Paul Bixler. He told me a story about how they were praying. Duquesne Light was having, they were delaying. They were dragging their feet about getting up here on the mountain here and putting in the electric that we needed. And Norma and her ladies were up there praying on the rocks. And as they're praying, four trucks from Duquesne Light come up on the mountain and start putting in the electric. Isn't that great? Everything by prayer. I love that. I love that. Well, again, thank you so much Eleanor and happy birthday, happy 100th birthday to you. Well, we just want to do something extra special right now called Stump the Host. Okay, this is Stump the Host where Angela and I have the opportunity to be embarrassed on television. We'll see, but why don't you play along? Maybe we'll know the answers this time. I hope we will. Here's the first question. Which son of Adam and Eve is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke? Well, that would be Seth, right? That's what I was thinking, Seth. Yeah, it would have to be Seth. So we're going to say Seth, our final answer. Yes! Yes! Okay. And that's found in Luke 3, verse 38. Okay, so here's our next question. Where was Andrew, Peter and Phillips home town? Oh, was it? Beceda? No. Was it Capernaum? Capernaum. Capernaum. Was it? I think that's right. Okay, well, we're going to go for our final answer, Capernaum. No! Yes! See, I thought- Always listen to the woman. But when you said that, it made me think, like, fishing town and I felt- Yeah, you were absolutely right. You should have went with it. Overrule me. All right, here we go with our last question. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, which book of the Bible did he quote from? Oh, shall not put the Lord at your God to a foolish test. Or, oh boy, I'm having trouble. I know. Turn these stones into bread. And, boy, that's a tough one. I don't have an answer for that, do you? No. No answer. Well, it's- Deuteronomy. Oh my. Shucks. Well, that's found in Matthew 4, verse 4. No, you know, a 333 batting average is not bad in baseball. That's not bad. Now listen, it is your turn to try and stump you, the viewer. In case you're new to stump the viewer, we ask you, the viewer, a Bible trivia question. Yeah, you get to be on the hot seat like Tom and I just were. And if you know the answer, you can go to ctvn.org forward slash stump. Okay, one random person who votes will then be selected to win this prize pack that includes a cornerstone TV shirt and this incredible book. So here is today's question. Who led the Israelites into the Promised Land? Was it A, Moses, B, Joshua, C, Aaron, or D, Abraham? Now, Tom and I believe you get an unfair advantage with getting these multiple choices. I want that kind of question. I want multiple choice. But if you know the answer, go to ctvn.org forward slash stump and vote now. The winner will be announced on tomorrow's show and you get to win these amazing prizes. That's a great opportunity. Yeah, we don't get to win any prizes. We just get embarrassed. They just say like, come back tomorrow, we'll embarrass you again. That's exactly right. Well listen, in a world full of divergent thoughts and seemingly a godless focus, it is ever more important to share Jesus' message of eternal hope. Today's guest Meredith Cook helps kids to understand that anyone, no matter how young, can tell everyone about Jesus. Her new children's book, Go Tell Everyone, Nine Missionaries Who Shared the Good News is a colorful book and practical tool to encourage really all of us to fulfill the Great Commission. Welcome to Hope Today, Meredith. Hi, thank you so much for having me. We are so glad to have you and we're so thankful for this book. My daughters love it. So I'm excited to dive in here. Meredith, just to start off, could you share with us a little bit of what has inspired you to be drawn so much to missions and how that love for missions inspired you to write the book? Yes, well, I started going on short-term mission trips when I was 14. I was able to join a trip that my grandparents were leading and that was a very formative time and I went on multiple trips growing up and as I kind of came into adulthood, I felt the Lord was really calling me into maybe pursuing being a missionary full-time myself and so that actually led me to attend seminary first. I felt like I needed a little bit more theological training before I went overseas and it was really in seminary where I really started to learn just the vast lostness around the world that there are people who are born and die and never hear the name of Jesus and that has created a burden in me to support missions, to go on short-term mission trips. My husband and I are very involved in sending people to be missionaries themselves and if the Lord is to call us overseas one day, we always have our yes on the table. So as I was, as we started having kids, we wanted to teach our kids about missions and I began looking for books about missionaries to share those stories with my kids and I found a hole in the board book arena. So for ages zero to four, I was just having a hard time finding something that would help me tell my kids about missionary stories and long story short, the Lord opened an opportunity for me to write the book that you have in your hands now. I love that you found a gap and addressed it, right? Like that's what we're called to. We're called to shine in the darkness to bring illumination where there is none. Why do you believe it's important for kids to learn about missionaries like the ones you share in your book? Well, of course, we want to teach our kids just foundational truths about the Bible and the gospel and God and Jesus and the Great Commission is very foundational to our faith. It is what we do with the gospel after we believe. And so as we're teaching our kids these very foundational truths, we also want to teach them what to do with it. Jesus told us to go and share this good news. And of course, that can be a very abstract concept and kids can kind of have a hard time with that. You know, if I tell my kids to go clean up their room, well, they don't really know what that means. I have to go show them, they're still so little. I have to show them what it means to clean their room. And in the same way with the Great Commission, we can use missionary stories to illustrate how people have gone before us in obedience to the Great Commission. And these are the things they did and this is how they shared about Jesus with other people around the world. And so that can help kids have an example to call back to when we're telling them, you can obey the Great Commission too. I love that. You take the Great Commission very seriously as we all should, but I love how you made it. Like this is what you do. You know, I think that a lot of adults today who are even watching have some trepidation around sharing the gospel with people they meet. And your children, because of this book and anybody who gets into this, won't have that trepidation. They'll know this is a part of being a believer. I love it. Now, Meredith, tell me a little bit about what made you choose these particular nine missionaries? You could have chose anybody, but what made you choose these ones? It was a very hard choice because of course we have hundreds of stories of missionaries that we can tell our kids. So I narrowed it down using a few different criteria. One was I wanted to show a diversity of people. So I wanted kids to be able to read the book and say, this person looks like me or this person has a quality that I strive for or this person like to do the same kinds of things that I like to do. That way that they can identify with the missionaries who obey the Great Commission. Another thing is I wanted to share stories that were easy to simplify and I wanted to show a diversity of countries. So each missionary went to a different place just to give kids a broader perspective of different countries around the world. And so that was how those were just a few different ways that I narrowed down what missionaries I chose. Yeah, I've read a lot of mission books but I think I only know about three of these myself. I'm excited to learn some more myself but let me ask you about the reaction. What have kids as you've shared this book, as you've read it to your kids or others or I had parents tell you, what has it meant to them? This has been really encouraging to hear feedback from a lot of my friends who have shared this book with their kids and I guess I can just give you a few examples, one family that we know they are about to go overseas as missionaries themselves and have been struggling a little bit with what that means for their three year old because of course he's just kind of along for the ride and he doesn't get to really participate in that decision but they read my book to him and at the end there's this kind of call to action where we ask, where will you go? And they were able to read my book to him and say, this is what mommy and daddy are gonna go do, do you wanna go with us? And he said yes, of course. And then other families have been able to read it and their kids really enjoy the interactive part where we introduce the missionary on the right side of the spread and then we ask, where did Lottie Moon go? And then you turn the page and you find out and some older kids have had fun trying to remember the countries and so they try to guess before you turn the page and it's just been really fun. Just to see this book in the hands of kids because it was a pretty long process of writing it to print and to be able to see the response has been just really encouraging. I can't imagine the process you went through. I mean, it's so colorful, like even that it's a hardback book. I love all the details that you placed in the book and it does, it makes it come alive to the kids. It's so powerful and to us. Let me ask you, of these nine missionaries, which one do you think kids will be most intrigued by and why? That, I think that is very specific to each kid. My kids get really excited about Marie Bullmeyer who was, she was a German immigrant to the United States back in the late 1800s and my kids get excited about her because she was a missionary in the United States and that's where they live. I know other kids have been excited about George Lyle because they liked where he went to serve in Jamaica and kids may be compelled by Betty Green who flew a plane or Lilia Stratter who was a painter. So I feel like there's a little something for everybody and it's really hard to pick which one because of course kids are different and they're gonna be drawn to different things. So many missionary stories are heavy. There's some hard times and some persecution. Now the book is very beautiful, very light and why address it that direction? I mean, what was your thought process in the whole, the beautiful illustrations? Well, of course, as I mentioned this is a book for kids aged zero to four and it really is just meant to be an introduction to the Great Commission and to missionaries who sought to obey it. And that's not to shield kids from the hard aspects of missionary stories. I think it's important to share those details but we can do so in an age-appropriate ways and I'm just not sure a board book is really the format for that. I think as kids get older, we can start sharing more details about these missionaries and reading longer books with them and telling them that there are hard aspects and trials that you'll go through as you seek to obey the Lord. But this was really just to celebrate the obedience of these missionaries and I think the illustrations can be a reflection of that and just a reminder that we should celebrate obedience to the Great Commission. As a mother and now as an author and one who has studied very extensively missions, what are some other ways beyond books that you take time to instruct your own children in God's word? When our daughter, so our firstborn was about 18 months my husband and I both read the book Family Worship by Don Whitney and we were convicted towards trying to establish a rhythm in our own family of family worship. So we started reading, we just started reading Bible stories with our daughter and then our son after he was born and every night we read a Bible story out of the Jesus Storybook Bible which of course is not the Bible itself but that gives them an introduction into God's word and the stories that are held in it and that is one way that we're able to teach them kind of the grand narrative of scripture from a very early age so that as they grow up and again reading the Bible themselves they recognize a lot of these characters in a lot of these stories and can see how God has sustained his word throughout history. You know, with so much we've heard and maybe this is kind of a far ranging question for today but I think I wanna go here is that we've heard of young adult Christians kind of walking away from their faith kind of growing up in the church and then not necessarily following it. Do you think something like this is, I personally think it's a great introduction to get their heart set in the right direction and maybe avoid some of that situation. I mean, what do you see as you work with young people? I feel like that's a lot of pressure to put on this one book but I do think that we can start at the earliest of ages teaching our kids these foundational truths. No one burden I feel as my daughter is about to start kindergarten and she'll be going to school and she'll be away from me more than she's with me and I've had the privilege of being able to stay home with her but I feel like it is very important to start early teaching kids these foundational truths and helping them view the world through what scripture says so that as they go out of our home and are kind of launched out they're able to filter out what the world is telling them and filter it through what God tells them. Of course the Lord is sovereign over all of these things and we pray every day for our kids that the Lord will save them and that their faith will be sustained throughout their life and that they'll serve the Lord and obey him regardless of what the world is telling them but I just really do think that starting early it's never too late to start so if you have older kids start now and start implementing these rhythms of family worship and reading scripture together and praying together we really do think it starts in the home and that our churches can be a help to us in that but yeah, that's a tough question. Ha ha, good answer. It is a good answer and I love that you do implore us to start early to lay the foundation. Now for that viewer who's watching today and they don't have kids and they're not a kid themselves how would you encourage them to share the gospel like you do with the kids to everyone they come into contact with? I think that it just it comes first through prayer and asking the spirit to open our eyes to those people that are around us that need to hear the good news and then asking the spirit to give us boldness to be able to share. I struggle with this so much. Fear of man is a big thing and sometimes I struggle with even knowing where to start or how to speak but just saying the words just starting with something we don't have to be the most articulate but even asking people how we can pray for them or just sharing a Bible verse that spoke to us that can start a conversation where we can then share the gospel with them and it just it doesn't have to be scary even though it is but I think if we walk by the spirit and pray for his guidance he will help us share that good news. It really is that simple Meredith. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today and thank you for this beautiful resource for our kids. Again, go tell everyone nine missionaries who shared the good news. This book is really beautiful and it does build a powerful foundation for your kids to know the Great Commission is a part of their faith. Thank you for being with us, Meredith. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let's now check in with Sydney and see what's happening during this week's edition of The Glory Hour. Hey Hope Today family, it's Sydney here from The Glory Hour and I'm super excited about this week's episode because we are gonna be talking about the biggest global event that everyone's talking about happening next Monday on April 8th and that is the solar eclipse. So we're gonna talk about the prophecies. We're gonna talk about some things that are happening how you can prepare and how you can watch it. And I'm really excited because my dear friend and she's also a former high priestess who had an encounter with Jesus and a Christian. She's gonna break down some of the things that we need to be careful about when it comes to the moon and possibly worshiping it. We're gonna get into all of that on this week's episode of The Glory Hour. So be sure to join me on Wednesday at 6 p.m. on YouTube. You can also check us out on Spotify and then we're gonna have a very special 30 minute version of the show on Cornerstone Television Network that's gonna be broadcasted here in Pittsburgh, Jacksonville and also our affiliates across the country on The Glory Hour. So you don't wanna miss it. I'm super excited. I will see you there. Glory brothers, Glory sisters and we're gonna be dropping some Glory gems with the solar eclipse. I can't wait. See you there. Well, what a great conversation we have with Meredith about children and about missions. It's interesting. We can't divorce Angela missions and sharing the Great Commission from following the Lord. That's exactly right. And quite often we do that. We turn it into go to church. Yes. And that's super duper important that our children are in church and that they continue in church and that they have a personal relationship with Jesus to part of that relationship has always been go and tell. All right. And it can be a mission trip, a short term mission trip. A lot of churches, almost every church has those now but it even has to go beyond that. It can't just be this once a year thing where I share about Jesus. It needs to be a lifestyle of sharing and loving and caring that you know what? If you instill that in young people it will stay with them that desire to touch a life. That's exactly right. When we have the ability to receive Jesus it's the greatest gift and when we give it to our kids we're so excited to build a foundation but it is just as important that they know it's also their responsibility that they get to share with their friends on the ball field at school about the love of Jesus. And I like that Meredith took the time to kind of break that down in a book that causes kids to not only just like oh, I've got to share and tell everyone about Jesus but oh wait, there's other parts of the world. There are people who don't know Jesus, you know? Just getting them to think outside of their daily bubble. Yeah, cross-culturally, thinking cross-culturally. I love it when young people go on mission trips because I feel like the Lord's like, hey, I've got a live one. They're really paying attention to what I said, that great commission thing that I said. They're actually going across the border and going into all the world and preaching the gospel. And I know that it's just for a week or two that they may go and they may not necessarily be preaching the gospel but they are bringing the love of God to people I just want to say, do you know the love of God yourself today? Do you know him as savior and Lord? If you had never have accepted Jesus as savior and Lord, all you need to do is open up your heart and invite him in and say, Lord, be my Lord and savior. Be my personal savior. One that has taken care of my sins and forgiven me for all the wrong that I've ever done. And we've all been there, we've all done wrong. We all know that we need to be forgiven. So I would encourage you today open. In fact, let me pray for you. Can I just pray for you with Angela here? Lord, I thank you for my brothers and sisters that have tuned in today and are watching this program. And maybe they've never taken that step, opened that door, began to say yes, Lord, to you. And I pray that they would say yes today and that they would follow after you with their whole heart, Lord, and say, I am going to follow you, Lord Jesus, give me the strength and fill me with your Holy Spirit that I might be a witness to others around me. In Jesus' name, amen. If you do that and you pray that, you'll begin to see things change. Yes, you'll still be the same person, but you'll be a new creature in Christ too. And that is the beginning of all the great things that can happen to us in our life is following Jesus and opening that door. That's right. And if you did give your life to Jesus, you can share that with us here at CTVN at 888-665-4483. And remember, as a believer, it is your great joy to share that gospel, that good news, that hope, that joy that is now in you with others. Listen, we want you to continue to grow in your journey with Jesus. And we hope that you learned a little something today, not just from our guests, but also maybe from our little quiz we gave to you as the stump, the viewer. And as a reminder, go to ctvn.org forward slash stump to answer those questions so that you have an opportunity to win these wonderful prizes. There is hope for you today and we trust that it's gonna be a good one. God bless you. On tomorrow's Hope Today, discover the powerful stories behind God's outpouring at the Asbury Revival. Vice President of Student Life at Asbury University, Reverend Dr. Sarah Thomas Baldwin gives us her personal account of how God showed up and awakened the next generation. Don't miss tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.