Here is the breakdown of your podcast transcript, complete with a structured intro, identified key themes, and an cleanly formatted, easy-to-read transcript split into logical chapters.

## Podcast Analysis

### Intro Section

In this episode, host A2 sits down with Julie Signorilli, a co-lead pastor, pastor’s wife, and homeschooling mother. A2 highlights how Julie’s overlapping lifestyles mirror parts of his own path, making for an organic and deeply relatable conversation. Together, they pull back the curtain on the realities of modern ministry, exploring everything from running multiple podcasts and managing a multi-site church to the daily tightrope walk of parenting children across different age brackets in an intensely digital world.

### Key Themes Discussed

*The Evolution of a Calling:** Julie shares her journey from a safe, blue-collar childhood in a Midwest steel mill culture to leading a prominent multi-site church in New York City—emphasizing that "ministry found them" rather than the other way around.

*Finding Rhythm Over Balance:** Moving away from the traditional concept of "work-life balance," Julie explains why ministry requires adapting to "fast and slow rhythms" and having the flexibility to change schedules quickly when tension arises.

*Digital Disciple-Building:** A deep dive into the challenges of raising children (a toddler and a pre-teen) around tech and social media. Julie emphasizes cultivating open communication, setting household boundaries against isolation, and teaching kids to be digital producers rather than passive consumers.

*Identity Rooted in Christ:** Navigating the public fishbowl of leadership by anchoring personal identity as a son or daughter of God first, ensuring that neither praise nor public criticism shifts their foundational worth.

## Podcast Transcript

### Chapter 1: Introduction and the Podcast World

A2: What's going on everybody, this is A2. The next conversation you will hear is with me and Julie Signorilli. I found Julie's story interesting because she is a pastor and pastor's wife who homeschools her children. These lifestyles overlap some of my own as well. Enjoy!

Julie: I'm a homeschool mom who also pastors and um, I have a podcast with some friends that you know, I kind of do as like a hobby and some spare time, yeah. And we uh, you know, try to stay active and all that stuff, but yeah, it's a—in ministry they call it a "full life," but it's busy, right?

A2: Definitely. So yeah, let's actually talk about the podcast a little bit, because that's one of the things I noticed when I started following V1 and the people that represent your church. What is the name of it and what do you guys get into? Because I know it's several of you.

Julie: Yeah, okay. So there's our church podcast—that's the V1 Church Podcast. That is where you'll find sermons that I preach. And then I have a separate, totally separate podcast called Circle of Trust, which is a group of—it's really my best friends but also family, so it's my sister and my cousin. We've been best friends for years and we're all Christians, we've all been in ministry, and so we just kind of share life.

It's actually in the comedy section. I don't know how much you're going to grow in your leadership from it, I don't know that it's that, but it's more like just funny things that happen to us as humans, as moms, as women, women in ministry, and just kind of sharing the ups and downs of life. It kind of started as a joke and then evolved into this thing, and actually ended up charting at some point, which was really random. Now we have kind of like a little following, I guess—it sounds so silly. And then my husband has a podcast and he talks about different life things, relationships, that kind of thing, right? So yeah, we're kind of all over social media a little bit.

### Chapter 2: Unexpected Paths and Steel Mill Culture

A2: Was this always the plan for you? Like any aspect of it, whether it was pastoring or homeschooling or like, even having daughters? Was any of it along the way like, "Yeah, this is what I wanted"?

Julie: No. That's the short answer, okay.

I grew up—okay, so I am a first-generation ministry person, right? First-generation college graduate. Where I'm from—I'm from the Midwest, Mike and I are both from Indiana—you grow up, you get a good job, whether you go to college and get a good job or you don't, and you keep that job for like ever, you know? And that's kind of—we lived in a steel mill culture. I still say it kind of like a hillbilly, steel mill culture. A very blue-collar culture.

So, you basically just work really hard and you provide a good life for your family. That's how I grew up, that is all I know. Very safe. I had an amazing childhood. Mike's story is different—his story you'll hear another time, but his was very dark and very tragic. Mine was great. I was like Leave it to Beaver style; it was an awesome way to grow up in a great town. And so for me, my dream was to replicate what I experienced.

When Michael and I got married, he had a good job after college—we met in college—and I just wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. We had Bella right away after we got married. I just wanted to kind of stay home and volunteer at my local church. Volunteering in our local church was the highest priority in our family when I grew up. We were not in full-time ministry in any way; we just supported our local church, like gave our life to it. So that was very important to me after we got married.

I loved ministry, but I never ever ever saw myself in full-time ministry. That kind of evolved as Michael and I's life in ministry and different circumstances surrounding our life kind of shaped it. It's like ministry found us; I don't know that we found ministry personally. Because when I grew up, all the pastors I knew were bivocational or volunteers, you know what I mean? I didn't know people who did this as their livelihood.

I always wanted to do ministry, but in a volunteer capacity. Like, I just wanted to be at home with my kids. We had a house that was like just a cute little house that was flipped on a half-acre—which I won't tell you the home prices because in the Northeast you would die, we probably could have had like a farm or something.

A2: Oh yeah. I went to college in the Midwest, so I'm very aware of how—

Julie: Okay, you get it. Yeah, you get it. So anyways, I thought that house was so small at the time. Now living in an apartment in New York City, I'm like, oh my gosh, that house was ginormous! But yeah, so that's what I expected.

To answer your question, I don't know that I ever envisioned having a podcast, preaching every week, traveling—none of that stuff was ever a desire in my mind because I didn't even know it existed at that time. Yep. So it wasn't until later.

We bought a home right around the recession, the 2007 market crash and all that, so life kind of took a turn for us and led us down a different road. It evolved through my working at a nonprofit and then eventually working in ministry. I worked a secular job up until five years ago, and it just kind of took its own path. The Lord was clearly leading us on a journey, we just didn't know it. When you grow up, you want to be able to experience what you had before if you really enjoyed it.

### Chapter 3: Embracing the Call and Overcoming Crisis

A2: So yeah, it's kind of wild to think that everything that you once thought of is just like, now this is reality. But as you said, there was a completely different path being made. Riding the metaphorical ride of just going through those ups and downs—when you started to kind of just see like, "Okay, I'm supposed to be in ministry," when you had those realizations in all those moments, what was that like? Was it just like, "Okay, now I get it," or was it more like, "Dang, like this is what it's like... are you sure?"

Julie: Yeah, I will totally say the people who are supposed to be in ministry are the ones who never wanted to be in it in the first place. You know, sometimes I'm a little wary of people who are just striving for something thinking it's a certain way. I think for us, you know, we were one of those people. We're like, "Lord, if we could do anything else..." because in ministry, it's a harder road. It's a tough road. You live in a fishbowl, you do all those things.

I remember just being a volunteer. My husband and I were youth pastors and someone came up to us—somebody in our life who has been a pillar in our life—and said, "I see you guys traveling." Now, that makes a lot of sense seeing us now, but at that time, we were just two people. I worked a full-time job, took my kid to daycare, volunteered at my church on the weekends. Mike was working a full-time job, volunteering during the week and on the weekends. Traveling for ministry seemed like such a zealous kind of ambition that I had a hard time wrapping my mind around.

I grew up in a Pentecostal denomination where you didn't want to be famous—not famous, but you didn't want to be known, you didn't want to promote yourself. Self-promotion was very much looked at as pride and all that stuff. I'm thankful for that heritage because that keeps me super grounded, but it also, I think, narrowed the vision that God had for my life. Because the vision that God had for my life was much bigger than I was. I remember that was the first time that somebody had seen potential in us for a big-vision ministry, and I remember hearing that and thinking like, "Yeah, okay, haha," you know, kind of just like, "Oh, that's a lofty dream."

A2: Like a Sarah moment.

Julie: Yeah, like whatever, yeah, exactly. Like a Sarah moment for sure.

And then, you fast forward five years, still volunteering at our local church. At this point, my husband and I were in a marriage crisis—which we are very open about, we talk about that at marriage conferences and different relationship series. So at this point, we're in a marriage crisis and somebody prophesies—or for those who are unbelievers listening, it's just basically an exhortation about your future—and they give this prophetic word to Michael and me that said, "I see you guys ministering together on a platform." Okay, so at that point, we weren't even living in the same house! So I had a real Sarah moment like, "Oh, that's cute. What are you talking about?"

And sure enough, about five years after that, you fast forward—and there were a million and one things that transpired between then and now—and I have this moment where we're on a platform and we're preaching and ministering together. I thought, Oh my God, you have fulfilled this word that has been spoken over my life. I just was too narrow-minded to even believe it.

So to kind of rewind and go back to your original question when you said did you ever see this for your life—no way. I went to school for public relations and then I went to school for a master's degree thinking that I wanted to teach some entry-level college courses. I mean, that was where my dream was headed. If I could work from home and be home with my kids more, that's where my head was. It was never, "Let's lead this huge multi-site church and take over, preach on social media, and preach on a platform." Never entered my mind in a million years.

### Chapter 4: Navigating Culture and Tech with Daughters

A2: Definitely, definitely. But I think that's the beauty of life. I call it the beautiful randomness of life because you don't know what's going to happen. But when you start to become more aware of the fact that there is a power working that is greater than you, then for me, what it looks like is I start to get just a little bit more excited. I get a little bit more ready, because readiness is important, and preparation, and just receiving whatever it is. We all go through different seasons and we all have to make sure that our mind is right to receive the lessons that we're learning.

That happens so many times with people, especially when they commit to that. That's what I love about spirituality because as much as it's been a light for so many people, it also speaks a lot to self-awareness and just what's going on on your inside and how that's affecting everything else.

So, just to switch gears a little bit. You have two daughters—you have Bella and Everly, right?

Julie: Yeah, cool, yeah.

A2: I've been following for a while. I like following Mike's stories and just seeing the personalities and who got what, especially as far as who looks like who and things. I always think that's fun.

As I had mentioned before, I started teaching like a year ago and one of the things that I really fell in love with was just being able to observe the family dynamic. Whenever I finished teaching, I just let the parents know what's going on, debrief with them what went well, what they need to work on, things like that. Being able to see that dynamic, I'm observing a lot more about just what happened in my childhood and what happens now. One of the big things is just navigating culture as a toddler, as a teen, a pre-teen, or whatever. So how was that for you, because your daughters are in different age brackets, right?

Julie: Yes, yeah. I have a five-year-old—Everly's five, so she's our spicier of the two—and then I have Bella who's 12. 12 and a half, yeah.

A2: Right, so two different worlds.

Julie: Two completely different worlds. And you know, they get introduced to so many different things.

A2: Yeah, two completely different worlds, and they get introduced to so many different things. When you had Bella, just being able to raise her, and with you guys getting involved in ministry especially in recent years of your life, how is that just navigating it for her? I always have a lot of respect for people who have daughters in particular and want to make sure that whatever they interact with, they know that we have to protect them. I feel like that's important, and I like talking about this because the conversation that comes out of it could really just be helpful. In ministry, I know that there's just a lot of warfare that you have to work with, and especially the tech side—there are a lot of aspects to that. My goodness. So yeah, I just want to pick your brain on that because I'm very curious.

Julie: Yeah, so growing up is so much different than when I was a kid because now, not only do you have normal pastor's kid stuff that's been around since the beginning of time, right, but now you have comparison. You have social media and you have a phone that's showing you how much better everyone is, and how much cooler everyone is, and how much bigger their church is, and how much cooler their dad is or their mom, whatever.

I think we're very aware. A year or so ago, we decided to get Bella a phone because she's at the age now where she might be alone for 20 minutes or whatever, and we want her—we don't have a landline anymore, like who has that?—so we wanted her to be able to call. We're in the car sometimes, or she's getting a ride sometimes, I want her to have a connection to us. Once we gave her the phone, I think we were so aware of how it's like you're holding a time bomb, you know? It's just a matter of time before the enemy, who already wants to attack her destiny, is going to come through this device—which, there's nothing evil about a phone, right? It's just how you use it, what you use it for.

We were so aware, and so what we have decided to do is just be heavily involved in what she has on the tech side. So you mentioned what's it like to have a kid in this tech world—we're super involved on that. We got some apps and things that we use to monitor. We have rules, like we don't allow any devices in rooms. If you're going to watch a video, just watch it on the couch where we can all kind of see what you're looking at or hear what you're looking at. We don't allow isolation.

That's really key, because I think once you have a young mind who already is learning how to think and how to put together their identity in Christ, and they're kind of going through that same thing that we all went through as kids—that uncertainty, that insecurity, all that stuff—and now we're giving them a phone to compare all of that into, that window into this whole other life that they may not even know exists, it comes with a lot of responsibility. So we've definitely tightened the reins on what that looks like. She's a great kid and I think I'm really blessed, but we're very aware of the pressures of her being a ministry kid.

### Chapter 5: Raising Kids in Ministry

Julie: Raising a kid in ministry—we definitely don't have it all figured out, that's for sure. But I think we're just aware, and we have people who speak into our life who we're accountable to. We're part of an organization and we pull on them for a lot of wisdom.

For instance, they say take them to all the fun stuff, let them have a few little perks as a pastor's kid. So when we travel, they get to go. When we take a guest minister to dinner, they get to go, and they get to order dessert, right? So like, they get a few little perks—I know it's not a lot or whatever, but they get to experience some of the benefits. I have a volunteer who helps with my kids on Sunday and is just kind of like, "Hey, do you need to go to the bathroom? Are you hungry?" Those kinds of things.

Instead of just ignoring the fact that their life is hard, we lean into the fact that their life is hard and just have that be a regular conversation in our home. For instance, yesterday I was like, "Bella, how was Easter for you? Were you okay?" and kind of gave her some props and encouraged her, and then we took her out for her favorite meal. Just kind of acknowledging like, we know there's pressure, but also I think sometimes churches or pastors can put so much of an emphasis on their life being hard that it becomes harder than what it really is. Because it's also this big, huge, fat blessing in their life. Like, they have 400 people that care so much about them that would do anything for them.

Yeah, you get some bad that comes with that, but there's a lot of good. My kids always have somebody bringing them a treat or a piece of candy or a toy or taking them somewhere. So I don't focus too hard on the negative. I'm like, "Hey, it is hard, but look at all these benefits. Look at all these things that you have. You have people who pray for you—you have more people praying for you than probably I have." Because they do know it's hard.

So I think focusing—if you're raising kids in ministry, yeah, you acknowledge the negative, but you also don't be afraid to let them know all the great things about being in ministry. Our kids every Sunday are so excited to go to church. At the moment that they dread going, that's when I'm going to re-evaluate how I'm parenting. Because if my own kid isn't into it, then I'm doing something wrong, and I can't be too proudful to acknowledge that.

Every day my daughter wakes up and says, "Are we going to the—" we call our office the HQ—"Are we going to the HQ? Are we going to V1?" And I'm like, "No, not today, that's on Sunday." And we're really careful to call church "church" and work "work," and not to mix up those two worlds. Like on Sunday, Daddy isn't working, he's at church. But on Monday through Thursday, 9:00 to 5:00, he's working. We're really careful about the verbiage we use, because you don't want them to be mad at Daddy for serving the local church—that's a blessing and an honor in our life. If you're frustrated about the 9-to-5, okay, well we can work on that, we can talk about that. But that Sunday life, that's never going to change, and that's a blessing and an honor in our family. We just focus all on that, and so far it's worked. Time will tell for sure.

### Chapter 6: Managing the Rhythm and Changing the Schedule

A2: No, it's all conditioning. But there's something else that you mentioned—you talked about isolation, which I think is really big. A lot of what happens as far as just—what is the saying? "An idle mind is the devil's playground"—it occurs from isolation. No education happens in isolation because you're not taking the time to like, surround yourself with people who are just being like, "Hey, there's actually another option," because what you're doing here is not necessarily going to be great for you in the short term or in the long term. So I really like how you said isolation, I think that's really big.

But with what you have done so far—raising two girls and then now having this huge platform where they're surrounded by this community—what lifestyle changes did you have to make over these past couple of years to maintain that? Because it's a lot of things to juggle, and they might go together really well, but they also, I'm sure, have separate purposes and responsibilities and priorities and things like that.

Julie: Yeah, well, if there's one thing that's just a constant balancing act, or if there's one thing I'm constantly re-evaluating, it is that rhythm, you know, of how do you manage all of it. I think the keyword has been "be flexible," or I guess the key sentence would be like, "be flexible and transition." For the past three years, we have been in constant transition and being okay with that.

Something we did was we started homeschooling. We knew that we were going to have a couple of moves ahead of us as we plant our church and as we get grounded, and the most important thing was just kind of getting here. So we couldn't be too choosy about where we live and what school and all that. We're like, "We'll just homeschool," and then that solves the problem and we can be more agile, more flexible. So that was the first thing we did. That kind of set us up for, "Hey, I can't maybe control the Monday through Friday, I maybe can't control even the next six months, but we'll be able to control how and when we do school." So that was one of the things that we did.

Another thing we did was when our schedule stopped working for us, we changed it. I love what Lee Cockerell—he was the VP for Disney, so he had like 20,000 employees, I don't know if you've ever read any of his stuff, it's brilliant—but he talks a lot about time management and all that stuff. We got a lot of ideas from that. But what he says, he says, "Hire slow, fire fast." And so what we do is we start slow, but when something isn't working, we get rid of it completely.

A2: GaryVee talks about that too.

Julie: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So we go slow, and then when it's not working, we get rid of it fast. For instance, yesterday Mike and I had a meeting, a family meeting, and we're like, "Our schedule isn't working," so we changed the whole thing.

Now, I think we're—here's the thing: balance, work-life balance in ministry—I can't speak for other career paths because I don't know, I'm not in those—but for ministry, it is not a balance, it's a rhythm. And so you're going to go in fast rhythms and you're going to go in slower seasons. When it's fast, you've got to adapt really quick, and then when it's slow, you kind of have to re-evaluate and gear up because it is going to get fast again. So for us, it's always like, "What's the rhythm? Is everyone okay? It's really busy, but is everyone happy? Is there peace in our home? Are we getting along? Are we going on dates?" Kind of just like evaluating all that stuff.

It may not work for someone else from the outside looking in, but for us, it might be working great. We just got out of a season where we're like, "Our schedule is not working anymore," and so we flipped it and now we kind of adjusted. We went from having Mondays off to now we're going to have Fridays off, and that was a good change for us because Monday we're amped up, we're excited, we're ready to get into the week. So having Monday off, there was tension in our home because Mike and I felt like we wanted to work, our kids wanted to relax, it just wasn't working. So we just re-evaluated really fast.

I think for us, it's just been being sensitive to the environment, and when there's tension, something isn't working. So either hearts need to change or schedules need to change. For us, it was a schedule thing, it wasn't a heart thing. But sometimes it's the other way around; sometimes it's, "Hey, we can't do anything about this as a family, so we all need to be understanding and maybe we need to change our hearts about it." So I would say for people in ministry, just be flexible. That's the 11th commandment, right? "Thou shalt be flexible." So there you go, it's okay if something isn't working, it's fine.

### Chapter 7: Anchoring Identity and Raising Producers

A2: I like it, I like it. And you know, I just think it's so important to understand that life is not going to go how you want it to go every time—you just have to take the time to just adapt. I actually wasn't really a PK (pastor's kid) until about, I want to say, five, maybe six years ago.

Julie: Oh man, yeah! So you teach me something, tell me something.

A2: I mean, I just feel like I've always been in that situation because my family has always been involved in the church—like, that's just been my life—but only in a traditional capacity. For me, growing up was a very interesting, probably the funkiest transition where the technology changed very drastically when I grew up, and it was kind of wild to observe for me and anybody else affected by it. It was just, how do we deal with this change?

Going back to your conversation about Bella and how you manage her as far as her phone—it's how you use it. It's how you use it, and it's your mindset and how you go into it. Also, there are a lot of nuances about it that need to be understood. Even before social media existed, comparison existed—it just got pushed to the forefront with what's available now. So now everybody's looking, trying to figure out like, "Oh, I'm trying to do this." So the mindset that kind of goes into social media is super important, because if you don't have that mindset, then you're not going to be in a position to handle the different little things well.

Julie: Yeah, and it's so true.

A2: Yeah, and it's so true. So even with the mindset of what you talked about with preparation and stuff like that, or just changing schedules—that type of method is so efficient because of the fact that if you don't do that, then you're just going to continue trying to dance around what's wrong. Just like when there's an issue, you just solve it fast. Do you feel that a lot of times you're just waking up every day as a problem solver?

Julie: You know, I have felt that at times, for sure. Especially as—you know, my husband and I, we co-lead together, but even as a co-lead pastor, I'm also a pastor's wife. And I'm proud of both of those titles; I'm proud to be Mike's wife and I'm proud to co-lead our church. But there are times when we're co-leads, and then there's times when I'm his wife. There are times as a wife where I have felt like I am a problem solver—I'm solving homeschool problems, I'm solving runny noses and dinner and people's marriage crises and things and all that stuff.

But what has been pivotal in Michael and I's ministry career—obviously it's a calling, but just for the sake of giving people context because we weren't always in ministry—for as long as we've been in ministry in a full-time capacity, whether that was compensated or not (because you can definitely be in full-time ministry and still do something totally different as your livelihood), I had to learn very quickly that my identity is not in my ability to pastor. My identity is not in my ability to be a rockstar mom, or to solve people's problems, or to give them the best prayer. My identity is in Christ, and that is the beginning and the end of who I am.

I am that first, and every day Michael and I remind ourselves: we are not pastors, we're a son and daughter of God who pastor along the way. We might plan a bunch of campuses along the way, we might have some podcasts along the way, we may have a viral clip along the way where people might get healed or have these powerful worship or healing encounters along the way, but our identity and our main focus is that we're a son and daughter of God.

When I get in that mode of, "Oh, I'm just a problem solver, oh, I'm just..."—and I do, I mean that's a very real place that I can get, especially with a maternal instinct and as a maternal leader—I remind myself that that is not my identity. That keeps me humble, it keeps me grounded, and it reminds me that these are just things that I get to do, and so they're a blessing in my life. That gives me some perspective and that really helps me.

I'm thankful for our pastors that sent us to plant V1 Church—Pastors Dave and Vanessa Garavano from Road to Life in Indiana. They were the ones that really ingrained that in us and taught us how to do ministry out of our identity as a son and daughter of God. So it's going to be successful sometimes and people are going to be celebrating you, and then you're going to have seasons where everybody hates you, and that's just the nature of being a public figure—that's just part of it. But that doesn't negate who you are in Christ and why you do what you do.

A2: No, definitely. When I ask about problem-solving, I actually look at it with a bit of excitement because going back to teaching again, I like the idea that the longer that I spend doing something, the better I get at it and the quicker I become at just, "How do I help people's problems?" So, that is a great feeling.

Julie: Yeah, and that is a great feeling.

A2: Yeah, so like on a ministry level when you're counseling couples, you get to the point where it's just, "Okay, I've done this enough to where I think I have a good idea of how to modify how to say this, that, and the third for each and every type of person," because it's all different. Every single personality that you run into is super different, whether you're teaching, in ministry, or whatever.

So, last question on that note of just getting better at something with time. I'm curious because we talked a lot about Bella and her upbringing as far as introducing the technology and what you've done to kind of circumvent anything that could go wrong. What does the conversation look like as Everly grows up and she starts to see the technology being used, and she starts seeing—because you know, I see her on Mike's story and things like that. I always think, because the thing about children is they have a very, very pure innocence to their mind of what's going on, so obviously conditioning is super important. But this is your second kid, this is your second daughter, so what is it like for Everly as far as just having those conversations?

Julie: Well, it's funny because I'm hoping the second time we do it better, right? No, you always wish that for the poor guinea pig—poor Bella. But I think with her, you have to be sensitive to the season because technology for her is going to look different. It is—it's so funny, almost her entire Pre-K program is on an iPad, which is crazy, you know? The traditional paper and pen is kind of going away. Even though we still do it, it's still not as prevalent as the techy thing.

But I think for us, it's like—it's funny because I saw a bunch of—she takes selfies on my camera, and she's got her little duck lips and her peace sign, and she's just emulating what she knows at five years old. I don't think she's trying to be anybody, but it's what she sees on YouTube and all that stuff, and she's definitely a techie. There's a genuine love for technology, so I don't want to squelch that in any way. Our goal is—we tell our kids, "Whatever you do, do it unto the glory of the Lord." You can use a cell phone and blow up your whole life, your whole marriage, your whole future, because that stuff never goes away, right? Or you can use it as a tool to minister to others.

That's my husband—he has like a vlog, and the kids are always doing stuff. There's always a ministry moment at the end showing them like, "Hey, you can be a part, you can step into culture." I don't want to shield them—I don't want to be the homeschool mom that shields them from, "Don't listen to the Top 40, don't listen to this or that," or "You can't watch YouTube, can't do that." It's like, no, how do we use these tools that are in the earth to minister to others and also use them unto the glory of the Lord? It doesn't all have to be evil. You know, some people use wine to do communion and some people use wine to get trashed and ruin their life—doesn't mean that the wine is bad, it's just all about how you're using it.

A2: Yep.

Julie: And so for us, I look at a phone a lot like that, or technology exactly. We just had a conversation with Evie about our little selfies, and we're like, "Why do you..."—you know, trying to get information. And she's like, you know—and we just encouraged her like, "God made you beautiful, God made you, and you don't have to take a picture to feel cute." So we just speak to it because it's there.

You're not going to—we don't listen to secular music in our home. It's not because we're against it; we actually love music, we love being relevant, it's just, I don't know, it's not on our playlist or whatever—not that we're holy or anything like that. But they know all the Top 40 songs because we're outside, so you're never really shielding them. It's either you teach them how to do it now, or you let them go and access it later and they have to learn it on their own. I'd much rather them learn it under the jurisdiction of my husband and I's guidance than to shield them from it and then hand them an atomic bomb later on in life and have them have to figure it out.

A2: It makes sense, and you can see the principles that guide each way of thinking. It's always interesting because even though I grew up in a more traditional context, I've always been a lot more curious about technology—and not like a hardware techie, for instance, but it's just something that I look at and I'm like, "I understand it." But I also know the double-edged sword of what it is, so guidance is super important. The difference for me is just like, I wasn't surrounded by a lot of people who understood it, so it was tougher for me to navigate it because I hit so many road bumps when I didn't need to, just because I didn't know. But it's really cool to kind of just see how that plays out, because now there's more education, now there's more people who understand what it can do, and I feel like we can almost better anticipate what goes on in the future. But as you said in the beginning, right, you don't really know what it's going to bring.

Julie: Yeah, and I will say this: one of the things that we really instill in our kids—and it's the last thing I'll say about it—is we would rather them be producers than consumers. Yeah. So if you're going to be all about YouTube, well, let's make some content, let's not just consume it. Let's get good at this. My kids, they podcast on their phone and—I mean, nobody hears it, but it's super cute—and they're using that technology to contribute instead of just like consume, consume, consume, you know? Because that makes you a critic, it doesn't make you a producer. So yeah, that's like another thing is like, if your kids are obsessed with it, find out ways that they can create stuff and not just consume it.

A2: Yeah, I think that's super practical. It keeps their mind in a really pure place about what it can do, but also aware of what it can do if you're not utilizing it correctly. Julie, thank you so much for taking the time, it means a lot.

love, romance and poetry: on writing, creativity & motivation