Building an Intentional Family – Interview with Elisha & Katie Voetberg

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In Genesis, God created the family before any other institution. That design is not just intentional; it’s powerful. Our recent conversation with Elisha and Katie Voetberg, hosts of the Now That We’re a Family podcast, focused on the topic of family and how we can all be more intentional.

The Importance of Vision for Your Family​

“If businesses can spend weeks crafting mission statements, why shouldn’t we be just as intentional with our families?” As Elisha pointed out, in our homes we have the opportunity to decide:

• What values will shape our culture?
• How will we spend our time together?
• What kind of legacy do we want to leave?

Proverbs 22:6 reminds us, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” This training doesn’t happen by accident; it requires purpose.

Practical Steps Toward Intentional Family Life​

Katie shared their family’s journey of decluttering distractions. “Four years ago, we gave up our smartphones,” she said. At first, this move felt dramatic, but the benefits were undeniable: more patience, presence, and peace in their home. Here are a few practical steps they’ve taken to create a God-centered family environment:

1. Ditching screens: Elisha and Katie’s children don’t use screens, which fosters creativity, deeper sibling bonds, and more outdoor play.
2. Simplifying communication: Instead of smartphones, the Voetbergs use emails and landlines, which reduce interruptions and allow them to be fully present.
3. Prioritizing family time: Whether it’s reading Scripture together, or simply cooking a meal, their home prioritizes relationships over busyness.

Embracing God’s Vision for Family​

The Voetbergs spoke about seeing children and family as wealth. In our culture, children are often seen as expenses or burdens, but Psalm 127:3 declares, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him.” The Voetbergs embrace this wholeheartedly. With six children, they’ve cultivated a joyful, Christ-centered home that reflects God’s love.

The Role of Marriage in Building Legacy​

Both Elisha and Katie emphasized that the strength of the family starts with the marriage. Katie’s parents modeled a loving relationship with a strong foundation of commitment, forgiveness, and joy. “If there’s one thing I want to show our kids, it’s how much we love each other,” she said. Seeing parents genuinely enjoy each other can bring security to children and creates a thriving home environment.

A Challenge to You​

Are you ready to embrace God’s vision for your family? Whether you’re just starting out or in the midst of raising kids, take a moment to:

• Write a mission statement for your home.
• Evaluate the influences shaping your family’s culture.
• Trust God to help you build a legacy that glorifies Him.

Remember, you don’t have to be perfect. As Elisha said, “We’re going to mess up, but God’s Word will not return void.”

READ TRANSCRIPT​

Aaron Smith (00:00):

We’re looking for people who have been blessed by this free podcast and our free daily marriage prayer emails and who want to help be a blessing to others. Creating and hosting this podcast and sending out our daily emails do incur financial costs, and we want to invite you to join our faithful patron team to help financially support these resources so that they can remain free for all who need them. Please join our patron team today and become one of the faithful financial supporters who desires to help bless thousands of marriages around the world. Your support will help us pay for the creation, hosting, and promotion of our podcast and daily emails. Thank you, and we hope to see you become a marriage after God patron. Hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Marriage I Forgot podcast. I’m your host, Aaron Smith. In this episode, I get the chance to talk to Elisha and Katie Boberg, longtime friends of ours.

(00:44)
My family have known them for about eight years. They currently have five children about to have their sixth. They currently live in a huge wall tent out on their property in Idaho, and we had an awesome conversation just talking about the beauty of family, God’s vision for family, and the legacy that we’re building in our families. We also got into a really awesome sign tangent about getting off of cell phones and screen time and technology and social media and the benefit of that. So I hope you enjoy this conversation that I had with Elijah Katie Berg. They’re the hosts of the Now that we’re a family podcast. They have a website called now that we’re a family.org or.com. Sorry about that. And they encourage families in their ministry of family, in the beauty of children, and so enjoy my conversation with Katie and Elijah Berg. Hey, I’m Aaron.

Jennifer Smith (01:39):

And I’m Jennifer

Aaron Smith (01:39):

And we’re the host of the Marriage After God podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that chases boldly after God’s will for your life together.

Jennifer Smith (01:46):

We want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen.

Aaron Smith (01:49):

We are so glad you’re here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.

Jennifer Smith (01:54):

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

Aaron Smith (02:02):

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. I have Elisha and Katie Berg here with us. Welcome to the show, guys.

Elisha Voetberg (02:09):

Hey, Aaron, thank you so much for having us on. It’s a privilege to be talking with you today.

Aaron Smith (02:14):

Yeah, I feel like, first of all, it’s a privilege for me. You guys have been just growing and blowing up and I’ve been watching you guys and as you’ve gone on your ministry, it’s stuff we can talk about later on in the episode, but it’s been really cool seeing what you guys are doing, seeing how your family’s growing, seeing how your ministry’s growing, and it’s just awesome. Why don’t you start off by just sharing who you guys are, some of your background and yeah,

Elisha Voetberg (02:41):

Katie, why don’t you start? Okay.

Katie Voetberg (02:43):

Yeah, so we’re Katie and Elisha and what’s funny, Erin is you and Jen were the first podcast we ever were interviewed on when you guys were launching your marriage after God book.

Aaron Smith (02:53):

That was a long time ago,

Katie Voetberg (02:54):

Years ago. I know we had just started our podcast, and so I remember being so nervous we’d never done an interview before. And anyways, we are from big families of 10 and 11 children, so Elisha is fourth born and I’m first born, and so we had that in common when we got married and we did want a larger than average family, but when we were comparing notes, we were like, Hey, we both really love the way that we are brought up, and there were similarities within that and then there were total differences too, and we both related to the fact that a lot of our friends that grew up in larger than average families didn’t have great experiences in those households, and so we really wanted to encourage families to kind of as we sifted through our own childhoods as we parent our own children. I’m currently in our third trimester with our sixth baby.

Aaron Smith (03:46):

Oh, amazing.

Katie Voetberg (03:47):

Yes, we’re excited and we just wanted to share what we were learning along the way, and then also things we got from kind of going back through our own childhoods and comparing notes and seeing what worked well and what didn’t.

Aaron Smith (04:00):

Okay. Real quick, you’re about to have your sixth. You’re so close. What are the age ranges of all your kids?

Elisha Voetberg (04:07):

Yeah, so our oldest is seven right now. We’ve got a boy, seven girl, six boy, five boy, three boy one. And then, or the one that we’ve got coming in January is another boy, so we’re going to have five boys. It’s

Aaron Smith (04:22):

Boys. Boys.

Elisha Voetberg (04:23):

Yeah. Boy, heavy.

Aaron Smith (04:25):

It’s like you guys know the MeeHans. They have do, yeah. Four boys and a girl. Yep,

Elisha Voetberg (04:32):

Exactly.

Aaron Smith (04:33):

It’s pretty amazing. Those are all really close together. Was that originally your intention? I know you guys came from big families, but was it early on you’re like, Nope, we’re going straightforward, having kids quickly?

Katie Voetberg (04:45):

Well, it’s funny, so a lot of couples, I think when we got married we thought, oh, we’re going to wait a year, and we were literally on our honeymoon and Elijah’s like, I don’t want to be an old father. And my aunt gave him a hard time. She’s like, A year would’ve made you that much older. So we ended up getting pregnant on our honeymoon and I could take it or leave it either way. We knew that we wanted kids to be a part of the equation pretty soon. And then I think as soon as we had Leon, we felt like we were this little family and we wanted to just be more of a family. We wanted to solidify ourselves as a family. We really, really enjoyed it. And so the first two were just over a year apart and then it’s amazing. Just kept going from there. So we’ve taken a couple breaks in between, but it has been so fun to have the kids all close together and currently we’re living in a Wal tent off grid, so that’s been a fun experience.

Aaron Smith (05:39):

Yeah, I’d love to talk about some of that,

Katie Voetberg (05:42):

But yeah,

Aaron Smith (05:42):

Real quick though, Elijah, what is an old dad to you? Because I just turned 40 and I’m realizing that Emerin when she’s like 10, I’m going to be 50. I feel it like I’m getting old. So what’s old

Elisha Voetberg (05:55):

To you, but you could probably speak to this. I feel like 40 is the new 30 in a lot of ways. I feel like in a lot of ways you might be healthier than when you were 30. I mean, I don’t know about when you were 30 for sure. I know you train a lot, you stay active, and so I think I’ve got a different perspective now as I did even then when we were newlyweds, I just wanted to be able to play one-on-one basketball or be able to, if I had boys scrap with them a bit. And so I don’t see 40 as being an old father anymore. Now that I’ve gotten closer to 40, I’m like, oh no, that is a young buck.

Aaron Smith (06:30):

I’m just getting started. I started Juujitsu when I was 38. I’m like, I wish I would’ve started when I was 30. This would’ve been way easier, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Now I just want to be able to choke my boys out when they get older.

Elisha Voetberg (06:43):

Yeah, that’s a worthy goal. It really is.

Aaron Smith (06:47):

Because they’re going to get super good. They’re all doing that. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s clever. When I was, do you ever remember when you guys were younger, did you have aunts and uncles that you thought like, man, everyone’s so old, right? And you look back and you’re like, they were in their twenties.

Katie Voetberg (07:02):

Oh yeah. Totally.

Aaron Smith (07:03):

Yeah.

Katie Voetberg (07:04):

It’s weird remembering how old our parents were. When I look at our kids’ ages, I have memories as our kids’, ages of my parents, and it’s just like, wow, I just thought they were so old and they were still so young. It’s just kind of crazy.

Aaron Smith (07:20):

You guys, 11 and 10 kids in your families, how old were your parents when they started having all of you guys? What was their ages?

Elisha Voetberg (07:28):

It’s a good question. So my parents were both, I think 23 when they had the oldest in our family, my older brother.

Katie Voetberg (07:34):

I feel like that’s a little more typical when you picture big family. My mom had her first at 27.

Elisha Voetberg (07:39):

Oh, wow.

Katie Voetberg (07:40):

There’s those girls out there who are like, I didn’t get married young. I want a big family. And it’s like, well, so

Aaron Smith (07:46):

She had most of her kids in her

Katie Voetberg (07:48):

Thirties, thirties, thirties and forties. She had her last at 46.

Aaron Smith (07:53):

I didn’t know that. Okay. That’s some encouragement for those out there that feel quote unquote, they’re getting older. Jennifer’s almost 40 and we just had our sixth baby and like, oh, we’re feeling this now. This feels different, but that’s cool. So you guys grew up in big families, you guys have, man, I’ve known you guys. I was just thinking about this for about 10 years, huh? Did we meet you guys right when we first, right around the time we first moved to Bend?

Elisha Voetberg (08:24):

Yeah, I think just after, I think it’s been just over eight years that we first met you guys. That’s probably about right. Yeah. You already mentioned the Mehan. That was the first time we met you was when we were meeting at the Mehan house. Crazy or church.

Katie Voetberg (08:37):

The Redmond House was pregnant with our first

Aaron Smith (08:38):

You were pregnant when we met you and already married, I’m assuming. My memory is terrible, so I’m trying to look back. It’s already amazing for me to think about when we first moved here, Elliot was one and we had one child. Now we have six, five of them born here in Oregon, one in California. It’s like we’ve been here, all of our kids, this has been their home, their whole lives. Right. It’s amazing to think about. So you guys were here in California. We did church together for a little bit, which was amazing. It was awesome getting to know you guys early on and seeing what you guys were doing. You guys both love music and you guys were starting to do some music lessons online. I know that you kind of do that still. I think you still have a Berg Academy, is that true?

Elisha Voetberg (09:25):

Yeah. Berg Music Academy is currently my primary business. We started that about right around the time we met you about eight years ago, and that is, I taught music lessons really from the time I was 13 until I was a young adult and I was brought up in a very musical family. Me and all my siblings would travel around the country performing at churches and fairs and performing art centers and so forth. And so then I started teaching music as I got older. And then it was actually when I moved from my hometown in Washington to Bend Oregon that I started doing lessons online, and then I started actually making a subscription website, voer music academy.com, and we’ve kind of built that out over the last eight years and added different features and different elements to it.

Katie Voetberg (10:09):

Yeah, there’s 2000 students currently enrolled Music Academy.

Aaron Smith (10:14):

Congratulations Academy. Cool.

Katie Voetberg (10:14):

So it’s really cool to see how it works so well for families.

Aaron Smith (10:19):

That wasn’t something easy to start up, was it?

Elisha Voetberg (10:22):

Well, no, that actually just now real time. I’m having this moment of this is really fun to think about. Yeah, going back eight years ago, the men would get together at that. What was that coffee shop in Redmond? We would get

Aaron Smith (10:35):

Together. Yeah. I don’t remember what it was called.

Elisha Voetberg (10:37):

Yeah, but you, Matt, Dale, Aaron, not Aaron, but Cody, a bunch of people. Jeremy and I was just scrapping. I remember Adrian was there and all of you guys had built some level of different levels of successful businesses online and you guys were so encouraging to me in that endeavor, but I wasn’t seeing it. I was like, I don’t know. I was still working at a restaurant and coffee shop and it’s just actually crazy talking to you now like wow, I feel like that was, I guess a huge reason I stuck with it was your guys’ encouragement.

Aaron Smith (11:12):

Oh, that’s good to hear.

Elisha Voetberg (11:13):

Cool. Yeah, definitely.

Aaron Smith (11:15):

But that’s not your guys’ only form income now, right? You guys, since you have Vote Bird Music Academy, what is the ministry that you guys have set up and how is that going?

Katie Voetberg (11:27):

Yeah, so now that we’re a family, and it started out just as a podcast, Elisha really wanted a podcast, and so people are like, how did you hit on the name now that we’re a family? And it’s funny, he started a blog first called, now That I’m a Father, and I stole that remember? And I was like, can I use that as a YouTube channel and call it now that I’m a mother? And then we did our podcast now that we’re a family, so over time we’ve ditched Instagram, we’ve ditched YouTube, we’ve ditched the blog, but the podcast has stayed constant. And so it has been really fun to be able to just podcast together and basically share our journey from one baby to now almost six. And just the ups and downs along the way have incredible guests on that we get to learn from and through that we’ve been able to create programs, the Get It All Done Club where I teach home management for moms who just feel like they’re drowning. Maybe they had their kids close together too and they’re feeling like, ah, I can’t keep all the balls in the air. Elisha has programs for men life coaching programs that he does. One of ’em is called the Growth Initiative. And so yeah, it just kind of spawned into family resources from the podcast.

Aaron Smith (12:39):

So you guys started off very similar to way Jennifer and I did. She had unveiled wife early on and she was just speaking to wives and ministering to wives. And then I was like, it was the opposite. You started first and then Katie, and then I started Husband Revolution, and then over time we combined it all into marriage after God, this one ministry where we both focus together on this one idea. The podcast is our main form of content. So it’s really cool to see what you guys are doing. And you guys have grown quite a bit. I’ve been noticing. I just started getting our videos on YouTube again, and I go and see every one of my videos. There’s the right hand side, there’s two or three of your guys’ videos next to it. I’m looking, I’m going clicking through all your videos of like, okay, I love the way they talk to each other.

(13:28)
How are they getting all these views? You guys are doing really good. There must be a lot of people that are really interested in seeing the joy that you guys have in growing a family because that is so opposite of what the culture for the last, gosh, I don’t even know generations has portrayed about children and family and this, I would say this biblical idea, this way of looking at what it means to be a family. I was just talking to the CEO O of carenet.org on an episode previous to this and just the enemy is just terrorizing family and the family unit and the idea and removing the father from the home and single mothers and abortion and all these things that are so anti God’s image. So anti god’s order. And you guys are like, Nope, we’re going to do the opposite. Elon Musk is so afraid. He’s been talking a lot about the birth rate in the United States and around the world, and it’s a serious thing and our families are single handedly trying to fix that. So you guys had big families and it sounded like from the beginning you guys loved the idea, you loved the way you were raised, and now you’re having your own big family. Just real quick, how old are you guys?

Elisha Voetberg (14:51):

So I just turned 34.

Katie Voetberg (14:53):

Yeah. And I’m 29.

Elisha Voetberg (14:54):

29. So

Katie Voetberg (14:56):

We’ll have our sixth the week I turned 30.

Aaron Smith (14:59):

That’s amazing.

Katie Voetberg (14:59):

So yeah, we’re trying to break any records over here. Erin, I don’t want to let you down.

Aaron Smith (15:05):

Yeah, let me down. You’ve already broken. I mean the average is like it’s under two per family, but this was beautiful. I want you guys to speak of this. Your goal is not just having a bunch of children.

Katie Voetberg (15:18):

No,

Aaron Smith (15:18):

No. What is it this idea of now that we’re a family, just speak on that if you don’t mind.

Elisha Voetberg (15:23):

Sure, yeah. Well, thank you for, I mean saying that we do present in a joyful way. I think we do feel that and we want to communicate that. And like you said, we don’t just want a big family. We don’t want to just be, the Bible says be fruitful and multiply. It doesn’t say just multiply fruitfulness. I want there to be fruitfulness. Yeah, fruitfulness. And that’s what’s actually really encouraging. If the Lord blesses you with one child, you can really pour into that child. I’m sure across with your listeners, there’s people that have had different challenges in conceiving and bringing children into the world. And so whether it’s through many children like the Lord’s Blessed our families with, we want to be fruitful with them, whether that’s through adoption, you want to be fruitful with those, whether it’s the one or two the Lord blesses you with, you want to see fruitfulness in them. And I think that we were given a great benefit in growing up in families, not only from parents that loved the Lord, both of our parents just read God’s word to us on a daily basis. My parents loved each other. Their marriage was something that looked nice, how many kids have grown up and they don’t necessarily get the impression from their parents that they like each other, let alone like their kids

Aaron Smith (16:29):

Probably a lot these days.

Elisha Voetberg (16:31):

And so I was blessed. I know Katie was as well, to have a perspective regarding children and marriage that was positive just because of what we witnessed. And so I don’t know if my parents were necessarily giving us this theological foundation for why family is important, but we were able to see that they valued it and we enjoyed it. And I think as we’ve grown, we’ve been able to see that from the beginning when God created Adam Eve, he created that as the primary institution from which he was going to fill the earth with his image. And you think about what God could have created, the creator of all things could have created. He could have started with the church, he could have started with some nonprofit organization or an army, but he started with a family, a home. And from that, everything has been multiplied.

(17:17)
And then once again with Noah being preserved in the ark, all it was was a family. And then of course, God chose to come into the earth through a family. Isn’t that insane when he became man, so awesome. It’s insane that he, through a miraculous conception, came forth through a family. And then when you look at what he calls us, he refers to us in familial terms, sons, daughters, children that were brought into the household of God. And I don’t think that diminishes or replaces the family here on earth. I think it really just elevates what the family here on earth is and how God views it. He couldn’t think of a higher institution to refer to us by than the family. He could have called us comrade. He could have called us cohorts or partners or employees, whatever he calls us family. And so I think as we started to realize that we truly felt humbled that God has seen fit to bless us, not just with a marriage, but with our own home, our own family, from which as we’ve witnessed through the Bible, so much can happen for the kingdom.

Aaron Smith (18:23):

That’s awesome. Katie, did you have a similar view when you looked at your father and mother that you fell in love with marriage by seeing the way they loved each other? Would you both say that that is a without words, because there’s a lot of husbands and wives, there’s a lot of moms and dads that are like, how do we do this? Right? And would you say at minimum if you could show your kids that you love each other, is that super important?

Katie Voetberg (18:52):

Oh yeah. I would say that’s the number one thing you could do. I just knew my parents were head over heels for each other and they still are. They still flirt, they still touch, they still kiss. They have so much fun and that brings so much security as a child. And both my parents are very vocal and outgoing, and so we witnessed big knockdown drag out arguments too in our home, and I knew that was a part of marriage, was not seeing eye to all the time, but then seeing them forgive each other and then the next day or even a couple hours later be teasing each other. I just saw that healthy restitution. And so I don’t think I was scared of conflict in marriage. I wasn’t scared of disagreement in marriage because I knew you could come full circle and come back to that fun loving side. So if there’s one thing I want to show our kids, it’s what a blessing marriage can be. I just want to show them. I don’t feel like we need to ever tell them they’ll see it.

Aaron Smith (19:52):

Elijah, you have the same scenario. Do you saw your parents be imperfect but still reconcile?

Elisha Voetberg (20:00):

Yeah, I think that is crucial because hopefully as Christian parents, we’re preaching God’s word. We’re preaching the gospel. Our children know what Christ has done on our behalf, and we all know that if we actually don’t act like that, if we don’t act like we’re recipients of grace and aren’t quick to forgive other people when we’re wrong as we’ve been forgiven, then it’s really going to be counterproductive honestly to our children. They’ll see the hypocrisy in that, and I am so grateful that both of my parents were quick to humble themselves, not just to each other, but also to us children. I think I forget how you said it, but you said many parents are like, well, how do we do this? How do we get this right? And a given is that we’re going to make mistakes between now and when our children leave the home.

(20:45)
That’s just kind of built into the way we operate as humans is we’re going to fall short and so early and often learning to confess our sins one to another, to ask for forgiveness, but then to not let that undermine your confidence and undermine the role and the responsibility you do have as a parent, I think you can take that too far and say, man, I’m such a failure as a dad. Who am I? I’ve got these stumbling blocks. I’m not capable of it. I’m fallen short. I haven’t been given an example. And you let that keep you from actually leading out rather than realizing that, no, I am. This is my role. I’ve been given children to lead and I need to lead in confidence, but also in humility, acknowledging when I do fall short. And I do think both of my parents modeled that in a very, very helpful way.

Aaron Smith (21:35):

I think this is something super important for us as in our marriages, to recognize that our goal is not to hide our failures and sin from our children. I’ve seen a lot of parenting people online talk about never fighting in front of your kids. Would you say that’s a false truth? Is there some truth to that?

Katie Voetberg (22:01):

I mean, I guess it depends on how your disagreements look what they’re about. There’s obviously times when Elisha and I need to be in private discussing something, but we will definitely disagree and argue in front of the kids. I mean, the kids have seen me cry in front of them and stuff like that, and they’re just all distraught and we’re able to be like, Hey, no, it’s okay. Sometimes this happens. And so I think that there’s a balance there, obviously with what your children are seeing. You want ’em to feel secure, but I think the security really comes from that full circle of seeing you guys get on the same page again and be on the same team. And I don’t think seeing that conflict should be a scary thing for them because they know that, Hey, daddy and mom, at the end of the day, they love each other. They’re on the same page. They’re going to work through this and they’re on the same team.

Aaron Smith (22:49):

We’re looking for people who have been blessed by this free podcast and our free daily marriage prayer emails and who want to help be a blessing to others. Creating and hosting this podcast and sending out our daily emails do incur financial cost, and we want to invite you to join our faithful patron team to help financially support these resources so that they can remain free for all who need them. Please join our patron team today and become one of the faithful financial supporters who desires to help bless thousands of marriages around the world. Your support will help us pay for the creation, hosting, and promotion of our podcast and daily emails. Thank you. And we hope to see you become a marriage after God patron. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think there’s a lot of things that probably need to be done in private, but sometimes things they can’t be private just happens.

(23:34)
It’s like you’re on a drive and an out, you miss an exit or something happens and then you’re in the middle of it. Often what we talk, my wife and I, is if something was done in front of the kids, then the reconciliation also needs to be done in front of the kids. And so we’ll often we’ll turn around and be like, Hey, we’re really sorry. The way daddy talked to mommy was not okay the way we dealt with that. Thank you so much for being patient with us. Will you forgive us? And so we repent to our children for if we were walking in the flesh in any sort of way, which then shows them like, Hey, we make mistakes. And I’ve had so many conversations with, especially my older, I’ll be like, Hey, I make mistakes. I mess up the way I did this thing the other day was so not good.

(24:21)
And I just want you to know that I’m not perfect, but that’s why we need Jesus. That’s why I need to repent. That’s why I need to ask for forgiveness, because I want to teach my kids that they don’t need to pretend to be perfect, but they do need to know how to reconcile and repent and have the correct approach toward our sinful nature, our behavior, which is putting it on the cross, killing it, and repentance is a huge part of that. So I agree. I think there’s definitely things that should be whenever possible deal with things in private, but things are going to, your kids are going to see disagreements and arguments and fights, and we should never pretend like those never happened. We should acknowledge that they experienced it and then repent to them in front of them, show that we’ve reconciled. Me and mommy are okay. We love each other. I’ve forgiven her. She’s forgiven me. We are good. Your kids are seven. Are they starting to see more and more something that nicer start experience? We’ll be in the middle of, we think we’re being quiet and my daughter will be Max and she’ll just start praying for us. And I’m sitting there listening to her pray. She knows that we’re having an argument.

Elisha Voetberg (25:33):

So

Aaron Smith (25:33):

Sweet. You’re starting to see more and more of that as your kids are getting older

Katie Voetberg (25:36):

Through awareness. Yes, definitely. Yeah,

Elisha Voetberg (25:38):

It is. And I think that with that, again, we don’t ever want to act in front of our, we want to be able to have conversations in front of our kids, but we have, especially in our car, we’ll just be starting to hash something out and we’re in the middle of some heated whatever, disagreement or whatever, and we’ll notice like, wait a second, it is dead quiet in the back. And you just see all five kids, all ears. Yeah, all ears, big eyes like a captive audience. And it’s really, it’s sobering and it’s humbling, but that’s definitely happening,

Aaron Smith (26:10):

Man. So I want to know, you guys have a sixth baby on the way you guys moved to Idaho? Gosh, was it five years ago, six years ago?

Elisha Voetberg (26:20):

Yeah, four years ago.

Aaron Smith (26:21):

24 years ago. 20, yep. That’s what it was, right around Covid, right?

Katie Voetberg (26:26):

Yeah, exactly. That’s when people are

Aaron Smith (26:28):

Perfect timing. What’s been the journey? So starting a ministry online, your family’s growing, you’ve moved, you have some family there with you, or is it just you guys?

Elisha Voetberg (26:43):

So one of Katie’s uncles lives in town, but that’s the only family we have.

Aaron Smith (26:48):

And so you guys had house before, and I want to hear some of the story of going from when you moved there to now what you guys are doing now, living on the woods.

Elisha Voetberg (27:00):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ll try to give it a brief overview. So from the time we left Bend and doing church there with you guys, we moved back to my hometown in central Washington. I was going to work with my father in his real estate

Aaron Smith (27:11):

Business. Right, I remember that. Yeah.

Elisha Voetberg (27:13):

And then it was about, we had been there for about eight months when all the Covid stuff started happening, and we were part of one of those people that are like, what’s going on? Let’s get out of here. And so we kind of went to the closest red state that was close to our families. We still had family in Bend, then we had family in Western Washington and North Idaho. We loved, we thought it was beautiful, and we had the opportunity at the time to be able to buy a house here. So we went ahead and just kind of went for it and kept pouring into our online ministry stuff and our online businesses. And then we were able to find a property further north. So we moved to Coeur d’Alene and we were in town for a couple of years, and then we were able to find a property north of Coeur d’Alene about halfway between Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint.

(27:58)
And we found this property two years ago, just bare land and bought it with hopes of building someday. And then as summer was approaching this last summer, our kids were getting older. The neighborhood children were becoming more and more, I guess, influential in our, we weren’t able to just send them out carefree without them being around some questionable characters. And we really felt, I guess, the desire to get out of town. And obviously everybody knows tons of amazing Christian families are able to bring their families up in town and in cities, but we were just like, man, if we’re able to get out of this environment, we would like it. And so we started the building process, meaning finding a builder plans and all that stuff, and we just kind of got the bug. And so before we had a building even close to started, we decided to go ahead and buy a 16 by 24 Wal tent and build a platform to set that up on. And so we set that up in June and moved out here in June. And

Katie Voetberg (29:04):

I mean, this whole thing is very north Idahoan because everyone out here is living in a shanty trying to build their properties. So it’s very normal to be like, what do you live in? A bunch of barrels duct taped together. Just so many of our friends are out here in trailers and shops and all kinds of things. And so I think we felt very normal doing that, and we just thought, oh, we’ll be out here for the summer. We want the kids to experience the summer out here on the property. It’s so fun with the creek and everything. So we did it for three months, and then at the end of three months, we didn’t want to move. And so the whole reason we were able to move out here in the first place was because of the creek, because everything we were doing is off grid.

(29:44)
We didn’t have any kind of electricity or anything like that. So bathing every night in the creek, stilling our water from the creek. Everything’s candlelight or propane. We have a propane Blackstone that we cook on, and now we have a wood heater that we put in the tent when it got cold this fall. And so we cook on that, the wood stove, and it’s just been really, really fun. So I haven’t wanted to move back into town for the winter, so we’ll see. We’re just kind of taking it a month at a time. Right now,

Aaron Smith (30:12):

You guys do know you’re living like many people’s Instagram dreams, right? Yeah. This whole living off grid not connected to anything.

Katie Voetberg (30:24):

And like Katie said, it sounds

Elisha Voetberg (30:24):

Romantic. We knew we were going to do it for the summer, and that sounded fun. And we were close to water. The weather’s great up here in the summer, so we didn’t think that would be too much of a challenge. And it was great. And then it’s just kept doing it. And so we’ve loved it. And here’s the deal. It’s like there are many aspects of it that are inconvenient and that are challenging, but you saying like, oh, it’s Instagram dream. There have been more picturesque mountaintop moments as a family in this setting than what we’ve ever experienced. And so we are really grateful for it just to be able to be so close together as a family. We do so much more reading now. We’re obviously outdoors essentially all day. And so it really has been a huge blessing, even though it’s come with challenges that we knew we were signing up for. I guess it’s like you are signing up for challenges when you do this, and I know you guys spent, maybe you guys spent a few months or was it like a year in some alternative living situations as your house was being built?

Aaron Smith (31:29):

Oh yeah. We were a little over a year in limbo between houses.

Katie Voetberg (31:35):

That’s hard to be in limbo. And I do think for the last couple years though, we’ve been kind of preparing for this and building like, okay, four years ago, oh, I should got rid of his smartphone, and then I got rid of mine a year later. And so we just haven’t had those for years. So that wasn’t weird being out here without that. And then we went screen free with our kids two years ago, and so that was easy. We weren’t moving out and trying to figure out, so we just kind of paired stuff down. I feel like in our lives, got off social media, which honestly has been a huge blessing because we’re able to just enjoy this for us and not feel like, oh, this would be such a perfect moment because I do think that would really change it in our perspective. And so it’s just really sweet to be like, Hey, these are our memories. We are going to take these photos on our point and shoot camera for the kids one day. It’s really special. But I think just detaching in those ways for us were really helpful and allowed us to really embrace being out here instead of trying to monetize the experience or something. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s been just freeing for us to,

Elisha Voetberg (32:42):

Yeah, we’ve done our fair share of monetizing

Katie Voetberg (32:44):

Experiences. Oh yeah, totally. Totally.

Aaron Smith (32:47):

Oh yeah. I’m all for the entrepreneur lifestyle, but I also mean genuinely in a as godly way as possible. Envy what you guys are doing because I so badly want to get rid of social media so badly, want to get rid of my devices. And I know it’s like, sure, I have dreams sometimes of throwing my phone in the paper shredder, but I’d like to know how has YouTube getting off of social media been beneficial for you guys?

Elisha Voetberg (33:23):

Yeah, I mean, the first time I got rid of my phone and with that social media was back, it was during the lead up to the 2020 kind of election season, and I was bringing so much stress home and actually into our home because I was getting so caught up in, I mean, everything that was happening with Covid, the Black Lives Matter matter with those things, all that chaos was happening in the election. And I just remember so vividly being on the living room floor with my 4-year-old and being in a pretty good mood, honestly, just genuinely being in a pretty good mood. And then it’s like we were kind of wrestling, my phone fell out of my pocket and I kind of picked it up and just without thinking, opened it to just all these headlines and notes and messages. And I just immediately got so angry and upset because of what I saw. And I thought about it was a moment of I would say, holy Spirit convicting in my life where it’s like, what am I bringing into my home right now? All these things. And of course there are other ways to mitigate that other than getting rid of your phone. My solution was, I mean, we’re kind of dramatic people anyways. So that was my solution was just like, you know what? I’m done with this thing forever.

Aaron Smith (34:33):

I like that about you guys, by the way. Thank you, Sarah.

Elisha Voetberg (34:38):

And so that was kind of the impetus to me getting rid of my phone. And then honestly, I think, well, Katie can speak for herself.

Katie Voetberg (34:46):

Well, we still had a social media account that drove all the traffic for the Music academy and for the podcast and for everything we were doing. So we were essentially, all our income was tied to Instagram at one point. And so I really started feeling, I just kept hearing from my mom, from my grandma, from random people. They were like, oh, motherhood’s so much harder for you guys in this century because we didn’t have to battle our phones. And I just started thinking like, well, you still figured out how to drive to the grocery store and contact people, and why do I need this outside of social media? It seemed like I needed it for that, but somehow women were able to live just 20 years ago without it. And so I knew I could replace everything else. And so at that point, we hired someone actually to start uploading social media for us, and we would film on a point and shoot camera, upload it to the computer, and then she would then upload it to a smartphone. And we did that for about a year and a half while we were weaning off of social media and building other ways to connect with our audience, primarily email and podcast. And then after a year, we felt like, okay, we’re ready to let it go and see what happens. So anyways, even show us screen did actually shut

Aaron Smith (36:04):

The accounts down.

Elisha Voetberg (36:06):

Well, we stopped posting on them. So you can still find our Instagram account and it just on that account tells us where you

Katie Voetberg (36:12):

Post. There’s posts.

Elisha Voetberg (36:13):

Yeah, it tells you where you can find us, our website and stuff.

Katie Voetberg (36:16):

It’s kind of like a landing page now.

Aaron Smith (36:18):

Well, that’s really cool. How is this, I’m not assuming, I know for a fact that this has had a benefit to your children. How has this transition of getting off phones and devices benefited your family?

Elisha Voetberg (36:33):

Yeah, I hope that it’s benefiting our children, but I’ll just speak selfishly. It’s just made my life better, meaning I enjoy my children more. I enjoy being even with Katie more. And it’s funny because in a lot of ways I almost felt irresponsible for the first year because it was harder for me to do directions, to stay up on my business, to go through these things, but I just liked it more. And so that was motivation for me to find a way to, I guess, succeed without a phone. And so I do think that our children certainly noticed the difference, and I am grateful that the Lord placed it on Katie and my heart at a similar time because I think it is helpful when you are kind of on the same page. I mean, obviously it’s always helpful when you’re on the same page with your spouse, but an endeavor like this, a really could be a tension point if one spouse is not aligned with this vision.

(37:31)
And so I think even me, Katie was so supportive of me getting rid of my phone even though it was an inconvenience for the whole family. And then by the time Katie had the desire to get rid of her phone, I was like, yeah, absolutely. It’s great. And I think we were nervous about what the ramifications were going to be to our income, but we took, like you said, those kind of precautionary steps ahead of time to try to, okay, we still love the internet, we still love our computers, we still love creating content. We really want to do it without these phones, without the smartphone. And so we just started finding solutions to that one problem that we saw.

Katie Voetberg (38:08):

I think when it comes to the kids, they probably notice more that I don’t have mine than Eisha doesn’t have his. I’m the one home with them all day.

(38:15)
Just my ability to be present with the kids. If I have a spare minute, I’m usually pulling one of ’em over to me to do something with me instead of grabbing my phone out. And then I’m just so much more patient, so much more because I’m just not seeing all of a sudden an email or a notification or something like that. I have to go to my desktop, open it up, sit down and be prepared for whatever’s going to hit me instead of it just coming in the middle of lunchtime and all of a sudden I’m snapping out everybody. I wasn’t expecting what I just saw. So I think it’s just made our home so much more peaceful in general.

Aaron Smith (38:52):

Yeah, that’s a really good point. I don’t think many people, maybe anyone recognizes how much of an effect these dopamine hits have on us and how when we’re constantly dealing with dopamine, that’s exactly what the phone does it. It’s a dopamine it producer in our brains, and those ups and downs does the exact same thing, causes stress and anxiety and frustration and makes you short. You’re convicting me by the way. I’m trying to figure out, I’m trying to think how can I slowly get off my phone more? I think that it would probably single-handedly deal with much of the mental health issues in our country if people were off their cell phones and off social media. That’s a huge thing. It’s something that we don’t do no screens in our house, but we definitely try and limit. We try and they ask every day to be on something and I’m like, no, it’s not. We wait until Fridays to have an hour of screen time.

Elisha Voetberg (39:53):

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s really good.

Aaron Smith (39:56):

So that’s kind of been our way of limiting it and making sure it’s not a daily thing. We used to give devices when we go somewhere when the kids need to sit for a while, and then eventually we were like, our kids need to be able to sit without a device. And so it definitely sucked for a while, but giving ’em something else to do, coloring, bringing a book, other things that are way better for our brains, way better for our motor skills, way better for our emotions.

Katie Voetberg (40:25):

I get used to it. They get used

Aaron Smith (40:27):

To it. They do get used to it, but it’s the consistency thing is just not defaulting back to those things that are just so easy to really what it is is it’s sedation. It’s like, Hey, here’s this thing that’s going to give you all this dope mean for a while to make you feel sedated and calm you down. And I started getting frustrated that we’d let the kids watch a movie and then they want to watch another one and another one. And when we say no, then it wasn’t enough. And then they’re like emotional. I’m like, I don’t want you watching any more movies. Why are you being like this? It affects the brain so much. It’s crazy that I don’t know if you guys grew up with tv, but that’s what I remember growing up with is that tv, there was one in my bedroom, there was one in the living room, and I remember watching cartoons in the morning and on the weekends and all the movies that I looked back on now, and I’m like, how did my parents let me watch these movies? I dunno if you guys ever watched Home Alone growing up. I think

Elisha Voetberg (41:26):

I saw one of those. There’s multiple of those, right?

Aaron Smith (41:28):

Yeah. But it is one of those classic movies. Many people in their saw that movie. And I remember thinking, yeah, it’s a classic Christmas movie. We tried watching it and I was like, wait, this is not appropriate. We did

Katie Voetberg (41:40):

Try watching it as a family with our kids. Is that right?

Aaron Smith (41:42):

Yeah. Oh no, it’s so not appropriate. I was like, I turned it off. And I was like, okay, we’re not watching that movie. And I just started to think, I’m like, how did I watch that movie up? Who told our parents? My parents? But what was okay to let, anyways,

Katie Voetberg (41:56):

I think we were a little extreme in their area too, because neither our parents had TVs growing up. And so we started considering our lives. We didn’t have a TV in our home, and then we’re like, whoa. But basically now you don’t need a tv. Everything’s accessible online streaming and everything. So we thought, yeah, we’re raising our kids, just how our parents raised us with not having this constant stuff. Didn’t

Aaron Smith (42:18):

Them your phone.

Katie Voetberg (42:18):

Yeah, exactly. Then we give them our phone or our laptop,

Aaron Smith (42:23):

So then they have the screen this close to their face.

Katie Voetberg (42:26):

Yeah, that’s so much better.

Elisha Voetberg (42:28):

But it is, like you said, you actually see it, that immediate behavioral change in your children,

Aaron Smith (42:34):

It’s immediate.

Elisha Voetberg (42:35):

Oh my gosh, it’s convicting. And then they’re so much happier when you start weaning ’em off and you get it out of your life and they’re reading books or they’re building Lego or they’re drawing or whatever it is.

Aaron Smith (42:47):

Literally anything but digital devices,

Elisha Voetberg (42:50):

Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Don’t

Aaron Smith (42:52):

Throw rocks outside.

Elisha Voetberg (42:54):

And I think the same for us adults is we know how to mask our emotions more or control our emotions more as adults, but it’s like some of us. But I’m always convicted when I see what it does to my kids. I’m like, well, man, if it’s, it’s still not doing something, it’s still not good to me because it’s easy to be like, we’re going to do this for our kids, but then I’ll just go watch whatever movies or shows or sports that I would’ve anyways, and it’s like, this is not good for me either. I want to lead by example in that area as well.

Aaron Smith (43:28):

Dude, it’s something I’m praying through. It’s been something I’ve been desiring for a long time, but I need to make some better steps in it for just personally, I want to be more free from my devices. So I appreciate your guys’ position. Like I said, one of the things I love about you guys is the drama is the fact that you’re like, here’s this crazy thing. Let’s just do this. We’re going to just do this. But what’s so funny, you guys are living in this tent, right? It’s a pretty large tent. I was just thinking about Katie, what you said is 20, 30 years ago, women didn’t need devices to go figure out groceries and be happy and live. And I always think this way is we tend to think that everything we have now is we need because it’s how life is. But the majority of people back in the Western times that they lived in tents like you’re living in right now, the people of Israel lived in tents for 40 years wondering before they were able to build a single house, even the Lord’s house, it was a tent that was being traveled around.

(44:29)
We don’t need much to happy. We don’t need much to be content. We don’t need much to be alive and to have a life. And it’s really cool that you guys are doing that and experiment that which it also encourages probably a lot of other people, not necessarily to go live in a tent, but to be content with what they have. Content should be like something. There you go.

(44:52)
So there’s a contentment there. And also just a beauty in like we were talking about earlier is it’s not about how many children, it’s the perception of children. It’s the beauty of desiring a family. And that’s something that this world needs more of. We need more not to shame people that can have kids or that don’t have kids, that has nothing to do with this. Because there’s been so many people that I know that have struggled for years to be able to have children, but their heart envisioned for their family is exactly the same as yours or mine. And that’s something that they’ve been suffering through and walking with the Lord through and that they’ve had to trust the Lord in just like we do with our children. But it’s a perception that the enemy’s trying to destroy, trying to get rid of. And I think it’s one of the greatest ways we can battle that is by showing the opposite of it, showing the truth of, well, family’s beautiful and it is God’s design, that this is the foundation of everything. It’s the foundation of every government doesn’t exist without family. Family is the first government that was set up. And society do not exist without family. And that’s something that’s really important for us as husbands and wives to be recognizing is that, as we always say, is your marriage and your family, they’re your first ministry. You’re discipling your children. God gave you human beings that you have the most influence over out of anyone in the whole

Aaron Smith (46:21):

World.

Aaron Smith (46:22):

You have less influence on every single person on the planet than you do. Your children, your children, they’re your number one closest neighbor, your wife and your children. And that’s who God’s given us to influence and our number one goal, not that we should never do outside ministry, outside of our home, that should be done as a family, but I want to stand before God one day and be like, I tried to be the best steward I could with my children, with my wife, with my home, and that we were used the way you wanted us to be used. And I see you guys doing that. What’s something that you guys in your ministry now that we’re a family encouraging the beauty of family, the beauty of children, this perspective that we can have, what’s something that you are seeing as a question from your community that’s coming up often that you guys would like to encourage my community with?

Elisha Voetberg (47:19):

Well, I mean, I’ll go and then maybe you can say something, Katie, I love too that you used the word stewardship. I think you were actually the first person that really, this was four or five years ago, we were having a conversation and you kind of flip my brain from taking ownership of my life versus stewarding my life and what the Lord is giving. Yeah,

Aaron Smith (47:36):

I don’t know. Nothing.

Elisha Voetberg (47:37):

And it’s like, what? That’s a huge difference in that perspective, and that’s what we’re doing with our children. I like to get practical because I think that within the church and within just Christianity, it’s easy to, I don’t want to use, well, for lack of a better expression, oversize things that actually are just kind of practical challenges.

(47:56)
And I think just like in a business, if you were to go through a business culture or if you were to start a successful business, you would create a cohesive and a comprehensive business plan. You would think through what your product is, who your target audience is, how you’re going to be marketing to your audience. And yet, when we think of family planning, we only think of head count, right? Spacing or numbers. And people almost think that, man, you just need to give it to the Lord how it’s going to turn out, how your home is going to look. And I don’t think that that’s the case. I think you can be extremely intentional on what you want your home to look like when it comes to the adjectives that you want to have be true about your home. Is your home a loving home, a peaceful home, a joyful home, an energetic home?

(48:41)
Is it restful? And then once you just identify those adjectives, then break down what that would even mean. Because we can all say, yeah, that sounds great. A joyful home sounds good. Well then say, well, does that mean we’re listening to pop music that we’re kind of thoughtlessly putting on? Or are we listening to music that is propagating biblical truths and that we want our children hearing, and it’s actually maybe even good for their mood and for their temperament? And same with media, and same with the literature that we have in our home. And you actually get practical with that, just like you would with a business. And so you could say, well, the family’s so much more wholly than a business. Yeah, so why don’t we give it more? And so why do we give it less intention than a business? That’s

Aaron Smith (49:24):

A really good point.

Elisha Voetberg (49:25):

Businesses and companies go away for team building retreats, and they spend weeks or pay consultants to come up with a mission statement for their business. And yet we won’t put that type of time and intentionality and into our homes because we think, well, it just is what it is, and we just kind of are reactionary towards what we want our home to be. And so I think that’s something that we’ve embraced knowing that once you put something, once you write down a goal for your family, say, we want to be a family that’s hospitable. And so then you break that down to what does that look like? Oh, we want to have one family over a week, a new family over every week. Well, you put that practical goal down, you need to do that. You’re going to miss the mark at some point. And that’s why it’s so crucial to measure backwards and to realize why was it that you put this goal down in the first place? It wasn’t to hit your goal to perfection, it was to become more this way. It was to become more hospitable. And then you’re able to acknowledge that.

Aaron Smith (50:22):

I love that. I want to make one note before Katie shares her side of things. You mentioned the business. You had set up a business. The first thing I thought of is family back in the Bible’s days was more ran like a business than it was just a family. I think of Abraham, he was wealthy sheep and shepherds, and they had servants and he was running a business. I mean, it was his family, but it was his business. And then we have the story of lot, and he took his men and they went and fought battles together. And then so I see our homes, our families, not necessarily that they’re cold and sterile like business is, but when you look at it from that perspective, it’s like, what is your family producing? When we say good fruits, is it not just fruitfulness and they’re moral, they love God, they know the word, but what are we producing as a family? So I just want to kind of tie those things together for my listeners, because I think that’s a beautiful perspective to have is are we just kind of existing or floundering, or are we actually growing and producing together something that’s beautiful. Katie?

Katie Voetberg (51:33):

Yeah, I love how you brought that up, Baron, because what I was thinking of was just a quote that we interviewed a guest, Joel Saltan on our podcast. And something that really stuck with me was he said, if your vision is, well, can say it. I mean, it stuck with me so well now I can’t. But it’s the concept of if your vision is only for your lifetime, it’s not big. Enough’s good. And I think so many of us, we think, oh, if we have an 80 year plan for our lives. That’s a huge vision. And here in Western culture, we really try to maximize our individual potential and then we try to raise children to maximize their individual potential. But when you do look at Old Testament scripture, you see how much bigger the impact is when you have that multi-generational vision. And when you’re thinking, okay, how am I going to set my children up, not to just be good individuals, but to stand on my shoulders and to go further than what we did?

(52:26)
And I think that we have another friend who he says, children are wealth. Children are wealth. And that’s something we don’t hear in our culture. We hear children are expenses, they’re liabilities. And so just having that perspective that each child you have is wealth. They’re carrying on our legacy, Christ’s legacy, his vision for our family, and to be seeking him and going, okay, Lord, when Eli and I are gone, we’re small parts of this story. What continues to happen through the line that you’ve blessed us with? What do our children carry on and what is the fruitfulness that they pass on to their children? And trying to make decisions that way instead of just, what are we going to do before we hit 80 years old and tap out?

Aaron Smith (53:07):

I love that. So I turned 40 in April and lots of stuff happened this year. And I’ve been talking about this, just really understanding the whole idea of a midlife crisis. Not that I’m going and buying a car or nothing like that, but just the questions of who am I? What am I doing with my children? What does my family represent? And just realizing this idea of legacy, and I don’t have much time. Elliot’s going to be out in, he’s turning 12, eight years, less than 10 years. My oldest son’s going to be gone, and then my daughter, it’s just going to be bam, bam, bam. They’re going to be out. And what am I leaving with them and what am I teaching them and showing them and what am I preparing them for? And also when we found out we were pregnant with number six, I was struggling because I did it.

(54:02)
It had been four and a half years, four years since we had our last baby. And we were at a point of like, okay, we’re going to be soon in a new phase. That’s what it felt like. And I was thinking about just me and my wife and what we’re going to do and getting excited about that. And then it got changed when we found out we’re pregnant. And God took me on a journey of showing me the reality of what it means. Because I thought at one point my kids are going to be in the house. And then my wife and I would just me out saying like, yeah, we’ll go travel, see them. But in reality, I never going to be, my wife and I are never going to be without babies because I’m looking forward to my grandkids. And what do you think I want to do?

(54:50)
I want to be with my kids, helping them with their kids and helping them with their homes and families. And so there is no next phase. I’m in the phase. It’s like I’m raising children to raise children, to raise children to know God, to know God, to know God, to make disciples. And so I’m now at this phase of, okay, everything I’m building, I need to be able to either sell it, to hand it down or to give it to them, or it’s not for me. It’s not for my future, it’s for their future and then their kids’ future. As it says, blessed is the man who leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. It’s two generations at minimum that we should be thinking about. And my kids, I was talking to my kids about this, sorry to be rambling, but I was sharing how much an impact a single family can have in the world. And I explained to ’em, I said, if each one of you have six kids, that’s a big number, but let’s just use the same numbers, the power of exponential growth. In a handful of generations we’d have 30 million people or 3 million people. It’s a lot. It’s like a number you can’t even imagine. I was like, just imagine if you teach your children to know God, and we would have one family could change a nation,

(56:09)
One single family. And there’s actually been studies done on this that people that have done amazing things, and they look like a lot of them have come from similar families and large families. And you look at one guy that had 12 kids and 11 of the 12 kids were senators and presidents, and you’re like, that’s crazy. And you see these lineages and the power of teaching and passing down a heritage of faith and a heritage not just of money, not just of business ethic. Those are all good things, but of faith and understanding. What you guys have been sharing is this vision of family, that it’s God’s heart for the family and what he intends for it. And I believe that if more and more believers would see their homes as the way God sees them and what they could be used for, it’s the whole purpose of marriage after God is that your home is a ministry, your marriage is a ministry, your family is a ministry. It would literally change our nation. It wouldn’t have nothing to do with who we voted in. We would change our nation purely by teaching our children who Jesus is and seeing our families the way he sees it. So

(57:19)
Sorry for rambling.

Elisha Voetberg (57:20):

Well, no, you illuminated that point very well. That’s inspirational. I mean, I feel like that was the beneficiary of that. And just to highlight, you were saying, I mean obviously 40 is still a young man and you’re proving that, but I would say that even that mentality of that flip that was switched, I think is so needed in the church that men, when their children are raised and then they are grandparents, it’s like, man, they’ve got so much to offer the church. At that point. You think of it in a lot of ways, you at 50 and 60 and 70, the wisdom. It’s just this wealth of wisdom that is retired in Florida or is retired in Arizona. I don’t do it. And I do think there is that multi-generational influence that can be had when you have the perspective that you just shared. It’s like, no, there’s never really an end to my work, or it’s not the next season, it’s this season. And I do think you’ll see a lot more. We will see a lot more fruit in our homes and then therefore in culture because of that.

Aaron Smith (58:20):

I love that. Why don’t give you guys, what’s one more thing you want to encourage my audience with before we close out of here?

Elisha Voetberg (58:26):

Well, one last thing.

Aaron Smith (58:28):

Last thing. Most important thing? The

Elisha Voetberg (58:31):

Most important

Katie Voetberg (58:31):

Thing. Oh man. I don’t know if we could do that.

Elisha Voetberg (58:36):

I mean, maybe I’ll just speak to men. I’m just reminded again, and I know you do this so well. Aaron is being a man of the word, getting in God’s word on a regular basis, having it on your heart, meditating on it day and night, preaching it to your children, being able to wash your wife in the word I love reading books, extra biblical literature theology. But every time I come back to the word, I’m just reminded of how straightforward it is and it’s so clear. The truth is so self-evident within God’s word. And that I think when that’s the bedrock of your home, that God’s word does not return void and you think of, man, we’re going to mess up. We’re going to try to refine our vision. I want my vision to be influenced and inspired by God’s word more than anything else. So I mean, that’s my parting word,

Katie Voetberg (59:24):

And I would just encourage all the families out there. I think the family is really under attack in secular culture. But I think what’s so cool is that because of that, you can’t really find a neutral ground. You’re either pro-family or and our culture, and maybe you’ve been able to go along for the last few generations kind of being, I don’t know, riding the line. And right now you really have to pick with the whole abortion situation with just Satan being just so anti the fetal bodies. And so I just think it’s a really cool time where so many families are getting serious about their theology. They’re getting serious about their marriages. They’re going, Hey, we didn’t come from a family that we want to recreate. And so they’re looking and there’s hundreds of thousands of families, and we get to come in contact with so many of them that are starting a fresh line. And I just think that is so beautiful because a legacy is built or lost in one generation. And so I don’t want to,

Elisha Voetberg (01:00:22):

Or it could be lost in one generation,

Katie Voetberg (01:00:24):

But it can be started, but it can be started in won. Yes. And so I just think not looking to someone else and being like, oh, I didn’t have the parents they had, or I didn’t have whatever they had. You could give that to your children. And that is so beautiful when we look at Abraham.

Aaron Smith (01:00:40):

His

Katie Voetberg (01:00:40):

Dad was not a believer, and we looked at him as the father of our faith, and he came from a pagan upbringing and he got to completely change that around. So God just has an incredible plan for your family, and I would really lean into that and thank ’em for that, and keep seeking for resources to build your home because you get to give your children something totally different than you grew up with, and it is a beautiful, beautiful thing that Lord’s starting.

Aaron Smith (01:01:06):

Amen. Well, Katie, Isha, you guys have resources. Why don’t you share what the resources are? Because just like you said, people should be finding resources to be enriching their experience, their understanding of family. So where can they find you and what do you guys have to offer for them?

Elisha Voetberg (01:01:21):

Yeah. Now that we’re a family, dot com is the home for all of our stuff. We just have it all right there now that we’re a family.com. You can find our podcast on all the platforms and we post that on YouTube as well. But yeah, when in doubt, go to now that we’re a family.com,

Katie Voetberg (01:01:38):

And if I was to encourage you to check out one thing, it would be actually signing up for Elisha’s top five Tuesday email, because one, he’s really funny. And then two, because we don’t have social media, we share updates he does about what’s going on in our life on a more personal level. And so that’s really fun to be able to connect with listeners that way.

Aaron Smith (01:01:58):

Awesome. Well, Katie and Isha, I love you guys. I miss you guys. You guys need to come to Ben soon and hang out.

Katie Voetberg (01:02:05):

We would love that.

Aaron Smith (01:02:06):

And we would have you over for dinner. Thanks for bringing the show. I love you guys. And yeah, hope everyone, I’m going to put all your links. I’m going to have you send me whatever links you have. I’m going to put ’em in the show notes so people can find you guys. Go check out Elijah Katie on their podcast now that we’re family is the name of the podcast, and you can go to the website, which is.com. So thank you guys. I appreciate you, and I’ll have you guys on again soon, okay?

Elisha Voetberg (01:02:32):

Okay.

Aaron Smith (01:02:32):

Thanks, Aaron.

Katie Voetberg (01:02:33):

Thanks so much. Aaron,

Aaron Smith (01:02:51):

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