Splash Into Summer

In this episode of the Fresh Wave Podcast, we’re diving into what it looks like to actually grow in your faith when school’s out, schedules slow down, and excuses run out. Whether you’re heading into senior year, working, serving at VBS, or just sleeping in, summer brings a chance to hit reset.

We talk about how to “take hold of eternal life” (1 Timothy 6), explore what might really be getting in the way of our relationship with God, and share practical ways to connect with Him this season, even when it’s hard or awkward. If you’ve ever felt like your faith has plateaued or your time with God gets sidelined, this one’s for you.

Let’s make this summer count: spiritually, personally, and maybe with a few wiffle ball games in between.

Transcript

Maddy: 0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Fresh Wave Podcast. This podcast is for youth by youth.

Johnny: 0:04

And Johnny.

Maddy: 0:05

And today, our returning guests are just me and Johnny. We're going to be talking about summer and diving into our faith this summer, how that affects us. And we hope you have a great week and enjoy this episode.

Johnny: 0:16

Let's go diving into our summer. Yes, we are. Splish splash. All right, man, this weather, huh? Pretty crazy. This just makes me think of summer, which I'm excited to splash into here. Summer of 2025. I can't wait. I have not made a to-do list for my summer plans, but always important to do to make sure that when September rolls around, you're like, oh man, I did nothing this summer. So it's going to be great. What up, Maddie? Summer is here. It is in action.

Maddy: 1:02

Yeah.

Johnny: 1:02

You looking forward to it?

Maddy: 1:04

Yes, I am.

Johnny: 1:04

This is your last. Well, no, I guess next year is your last, but like this

Maddy: 1:10

is

Johnny: 1:11

kind of your last summer as a high schooler.

Maddy: 1:13

Yep. Going into senior year.

Johnny: 1:15

How do you feel?

Maddy: 1:16

Honestly, it feels, I don't know. I feel like it feels the same. Not too different, but definitely like I have a lot of things coming up during the school year, but this is one of the last summers I feel like I'll be like, just doing nothing all summer other than work. But yeah, I feel like I'll start all my college app stuff later on. So

Johnny: 1:36

yeah. Okay. That's going to be crazy. Yeah. This summer is going to be great. We've got lots planned here at church. We got VBS to serve. We got fun events. We got mission trip.

Maddy: 1:49

Yep.

Johnny: 1:49

North Carolina.

Maddy: 1:50

Yep.

Johnny: 1:51

We just had some people from our church, uh, they were vacationing down there for like a week, right near where we're going to be going. And they were like, it's horrible. And they sent a couple of videos and they were like, yeah, this is still like, a lot of people were like, oh, you know, it's July. It was like almost a year ago. Is there going to be a lot to do? And they were like, it's awful. So we'll definitely have our opportunities to bless and hopefully improve what's going on down there. So looking forward to that this summer. But yeah, I think we are excited to talk about something I actually asked this past Sunday. Were you at Sunday school Sunday? Yeah. Okay, cool. So we're wrapping up Timothy and Timothy, first Timothy at towards the end, it says, fight the good fight of the faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. And I just really liked like that, uh, that phrase take hold of the eternal life. Like it's kind of, if you don't take hold of something, it's just going to like slip through. So whatever like, you know, your summer goals are, maybe it's to get to the beach a certain amount of days, or maybe it's to, you know, work out, do something like that or see certain friends, whatever it is. If you actually don't grab it and just be like, all right, I'm going to do this. How am I going to do this? Yeah. It just like September will come by and you'll be like, oh, I didn't go to the beach this summer or I didn't get to see my one friend because I never actually like called them. So for this past Sunday, I said, okay, well, if you were to take hold of the eternal life this summer, what would you do? Yeah. So that was an interesting question. So a lot of us, maybe have free time. Like you said, you guys is like your last off summer. And then maybe your last summer ever.

Maddy: 3:40

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a really good question to ask just because a lot of times I find me and my friends all saying like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited for summer. Like I'm so excited for when I don't have all these distractions or all of these things on my mind. Um, and so even though like all of us have commitments, like we all have sports commitments and I have work and like all sorts of things. Um, going on i think the main thing is like we're not at school for seven or eight hours a day like that is a lot of time and it's also a lot of like mental energy too to like pour into school so when you have these like two or three months off from that and without that distraction you kind of ask yourself okay what am i gonna do now with this comfort that i wanted so bad like we sit like, even all the time with like God, we're like, oh, please, like I'll do well on this test. And then you're less stressed about the test or you're less stressed about school. But the fact that it doesn't even have to be on our minds anymore, really for summer, like I have summer work, but it's not the same as all the assignments and everything. So I think now that I have that like comfort and less distractions and less work to do that I so badly wanted. And then I think most teenagers so badly want, it's the question of what we're going to do with that. And with all that, like, almost space in our head to like grasp more of God, I guess I would say.

Johnny: 4:56

Yeah. So what, like for, well, actually we'll ask everybody in the room here. So summer, what, did that start last week for you? Week before?

Maddy: 5:04

Uh, like three weeks ago. Oh

Johnny: 5:06

yeah. I was off early. So summer starts, you know, next week or summer starts tomorrow. Starts right now. No more school. What are you like? I can't wait to blank. What is it? We retrace our memories here, but we do have some people in the summer. So what are you like, bam, the first thing you're going to do in the summer or something you're most looking forward to? I

Tim: 5:31

don't know. I feel like when I was a kid, I just really enjoyed just the prospect. Well, I know I grew up at this church, so there was always like music camp that I was looking forward to, like VBS, different things like that. But I don't know, the idea of just being able to have– a summer that i could just hang out and just you know play wiffle ball with my brother go to the beach a few times just i think i just enjoyed the idea of nothing really being on the schedule for the most part

Maddy: 6:04

yeah i agree just a

Tim: 6:05

break from the daily obligations

Maddy: 6:07

yeah like less like i think the first few days into summer last year i would like wake up at like seven o'clock in like a panic. Cause I would think that I like forgot an assignment or forgot something. And so I think it's just like the like everyday expectation is like no longer there with summer because I like didn't have school.

Tim: 6:26

I think even now in my adult life, like I don't have that summer anymore where it's just like a week or like a whole like month or two of just nothing. But I was just thinking like now, you know, having a job every day, I love my job, but it also like the weekends become, time to accomplish things that aren't job related. I just know, I'll call them mini summers, when you have a day, like a Saturday, that has nothing on the schedule, oh my gosh, that just feels wonderful. And then you have someone text you, it's like, oh, you want to do this? And your part of you is like, ah, I don't want to, even though I love that person. But yeah, I just love the idea of just having nothing to do.

Johnny: 7:07

Yeah, for me, if someone was like, you don't have work all next week or for a month, I think for me, it'd be just like taking the day slow. Like morning's a little bit slower, slower time to make some nice breakfast. I can push things out a little bit later in the day and just like take my day slow. I think for me it would be, because I jam pack every day with stuff. So it's like 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. just hitting it running. So I think to just slow it down and for me, that would most excite me. it's not that exciting, but for me, it's exciting.

Maddy: 7:43

Just

Johnny: 7:45

not having to like jam pack everything, do it quick. So just to slow down, enjoy some of those other things more, not rushing off from place to place. How about our, our, our captain over there behind the, whatever you call that. What is that called? What

Tim: 8:03

do you call it? I don't know. The crow's nest or crow's nest. Yes.

Hannah: 8:07

Um, for me, I most look forward to just like, honestly what you said Tim like just having no mental thought of things that cause stress you know and just living like oh well like if I wanted to I could pick up this book and read it you know I have the time to and just deciding in the spur of the moment rather than having obligations I have to meet and obligations I have to go do so

Johnny: 8:39

yeah man, no one really said sleep. I feel like sleep is usually a big one. Like you don't do it with them. You wake up at like six, five, something. Yeah. All right. Well, so in terms of our faith, like people got, I like a lot of that stuff that we're saying, right? We don't have the whole, you know, the whole crazy days. We could take the day slower. I don't have the schedule, whatever. I could sleep in a little bit, be maybe be a little more focused during the day. So what are some things I guess when it comes to this summer that We, and we were kind of talking about this before we started, like a lot of us feel like, especially maybe during like the grind of a school here, like our faith, unfortunately, kind of gets pushed off to the side because it's like finals, tests, dealing with all this other stuff. So now, okay, you have all this time ahead of you and maybe you feel like your relationship with the Lord has like plateaued or

Maddy: 9:32

something.

Johnny: 9:34

What do you... What would you encourage someone like to... All right. Hey, you got the summer ahead of you. Why don't you do this? Why don't you think about this? Why don't you...

Maddy: 9:41

Yeah.

Johnny: 9:43

Whatever.

Maddy: 9:43

I'd say... I mean... I think for me, not having like having that free time is a very like that busy excuse no longer works for me. Like the excuse that every, I think a lot of teenagers, teenage Christians make is like, I'm so busy. I get home so late. I'm doing this all day. I have no time. And then I feel like I have no time to do any of this. And then I don't end up doing it. And, but I'm still going to talk about how flat I think my relationship with God has gone. But now that that, excuse of being busy and that busyness is over i think that's kind of a chance for us to almost take on a little bit of self-discipline and um devote and dedicate a little bit more time to prayer and also reading but at the same time um i had a verse from second thessalonians ready to go

Johnny: 10:35

ready to

Maddy: 10:35

go it's We ought to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, as it is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. And so I'm also reading this book, Everybody Always, about loving everyone and the design that Jesus has for us to love everyone. And so I think the thing that we might be so stingy to give away, like love, especially because it's easy to love all of our friends and everyone who lets us come to their pool during summer, I think... finding difficult people to understand difficult people to love and giving it anyway more less shaping of like our actions you know keeping ourselves accountable for like of course actions are important but they're not everything and it's not the premise of our relationship with God growing if you will I think the most important thing is to Like, watch the fruits that we're producing in this downtime, if you would call it. Like, is this downtime shaping you into someone who's producing fruit of love and fruit of joy towards other people in your life? And if it's not, I mean, that for me is like, okay, now this free time is a chance for me to do that. Like, allow and ask the Holy Spirit to do that in me. Have more opportunities to be a patient person or have more opportunities to be a loving person. And I think every little scenario we have with a stranger or with our family or with our friends is a chance to extend that. And it should branch off of the quiet time we're also having with God. So even if I have to put a timer on and like sit in silence for a while with God or like just sit there and read and not necessarily read to like comprehend right away, but read to just spend time with God. That's important. And that's how our relationship grows with any person ever is just trusting them and spending time with them in the boring times and the not so boring times. And like letting that take up more of our time.

Johnny: 12:34

So I have an interesting question. So you mentioned like a Christian teenager will often use busyness. I don't think that's just Christian teenager. I think that's just in general, especially this area. If you were to take, if you were to ask someone like, what's your biggest hindrance to your faith right now?

Maddy: 12:50

Yeah.

Johnny: 12:51

you would probably say a lot of people would say busyness. If you were to take away that whatever that hindrance was, whatever that excuse was, if you were to take that away and say, all right, well, this is not an issue anymore. Do you think your faith would grow then? Or do you think you would just fill it up with a different excuse? Because then it becomes, it's not actually that you're too busy. Does that make sense what I'm saying? So it's like, if you just say, all right, well, busyness isn't a problem anymore. You have all the free time in the world. And then it's just going to be something else. So it's almost as if, well, if you're just going to fill that reason with something else, then it's actually, the issue is your heart actually. These excuses actually aren't the reason. It's just like, you don't want to.

Maddy: 13:32

Versus,

Johnny: 13:33

maybe it actually would. For some people, maybe that actually is a big hindrance. You take it away. This summer, your faith grows astronomically. Then you would have to figure out okay well let's resolve that busyness issue then during the whole like school year

Maddy: 13:46

yeah

Johnny: 13:47

so i think that's an interesting thing like if you were to take away your busyness

Maddy: 13:50

yeah

Johnny: 13:50

what would you do

Maddy: 13:51

and you know maybe it's not busyness for everyone but i agree like if you took that hindrance away i think you oftentimes i wouldn't say your faith would grow automatically but i think you would get to the root cause of why this was an issue um and if the root cause of you know masking it with busyness you're masking laziness instead then you're realizing okay my heart actually just i need to discipline myself a little more maybe i need to force myself to get out of bed or force myself to get off my chair and like go read my bible like i think um even if it's not busyness if it's something else once you take that away especially like in summer i think your brain has a lot more free room to like discover that almost um i think that gives you a chance to look at the root cause of why you might not be spending as much time with god or why um you might be allowing your faith to go slack a little bit um because in a way i mean we're always drawing further from god it's never god drawing further from us so yeah i think it's helpful for us to kind of do like self-examination with that as well

Johnny: 14:55

yeah i've been thinking recently i think this is really true like everybody has excuses there's just some people who use them.

Maddy: 15:02

Yeah.

Johnny: 15:03

You know, like we could all go around this room and have valid excuses as to why, you know, we're not growing in our faith or like we're not physically taking care of our bodies or, you know, relationships, like all these things. We could have excuses as to why we can't do them well.

Maddy: 15:17

Yeah.

Johnny: 15:18

There's just some people who use it and actually don't do it. Right. So it's kind of overcoming those excuses and just saying, I'm not going to use that as a reason why I'm not going to do this. Yeah. So it's kind of thinking through that. So, Yeah, so for the summer, let's say it's busyness. Let's say it's all those other things. We take those excuses away, and we're coming into the summer. We're taking hold of the eternal life that is ours. What would be maybe a couple things that have helped encourage your faith, helped your faith with the Lord maybe in different summers or different seasons?

Maddy: 15:52

Yeah. I'd say kind of like what I mentioned before, like when I have less to talk about with God, I notice myself getting a little bit more antsy and like in prayer time. When you

Johnny: 16:05

have less.

Maddy: 16:06

Less to talk about, like when I have less to say. Okay. Like if there's something going on in my life, I find myself a little bit more quick to be like talking to God about it and whatever. And then I end up sub like subsequently spending more time in prayer because I have more to say. But I think more of time where I have less to say, maybe less is going on in my life. It's, it should be a challenge for me. And like, I should want to almost conquer that challenge by spending more time in prayer. Even if I have less to say, maybe it's spending more time listening, spending more time, however it is, I find myself like, you know, if I'm stuck, maybe I'll put on a worship song or maybe I'll even sometimes like, I do this when I study too. I put on like instrumental music. I find it gets my brain like going. Are

Johnny: 16:53

you a

Maddy: 16:54

lo-fi fan? Sometimes. It depends. For finals, that's what I do. I

Johnny: 16:58

listened to some worship lo-fi song the other day. Do you remember what it was?

Maddy: 17:02

Interesting. It was like praise or oceans.

Johnny: 17:05

Lo-fi? It was kind of weird.

Maddy: 17:06

Yeah. So something like that. And just reminding myself that I don't need to be talking the whole time. Like I can spend time listening. But also even if... like reading at that time seems like a chore for me like it's not always going to seem perfect and wonderful to me because of course my flesh doesn't want to do that 24 7 um but i think the important thing is not being too like hard on yourself just because your flesh doesn't want to do something like of course your flesh doesn't want to do these things but your spirit will be fed by it and will be fueled by it um and the fulfillment that we have in jesus is a promise as well um even if that satisfaction is not you telling God what's happening in your life that's so drama-filled that you need to tell him about, even if it's just God talking to you or you trusting God with little things or surrendering something that's happening in your future that you might be thinking about, even if it's not in the present moment, and writing those things down too. So, yeah.

Johnny: 18:03

Good stuff. I would say something new. Do something new. Yeah. Right. Like, especially if you've plateaued and you feel like, I don't know, just things aren't really happening. Things aren't going anywhere. Like I'm all about doing, doing new things. So if you've never, you know, if you, if you've never like written down stuff before, like I'm not a big writer, like I'm a lefty, I smear everything. My handwriting's horrible. Uh, but you got to try something new. So like for me, I don't like writing, but like I've tried in the past, you know, either writing out a prayer or just writing out, physically writing out like what this, chapter of the Bible, you know, meant to me. So just try to think of something new you can do as you spend time with the Lord. Maybe it's like, if you do go to the lake for the summer or beach, like go on a walk in the morning and just talk as you walk, you know, talk as you want. Or, you know, if you're not into worship, maybe trying to engage in worship in a different way, if you play an instrument or some other way. So I would just say, try something new. try something new, whatever that looks like. And especially, you know, this is a time to, if you have the time, all right, you can try some things. And if it doesn't work out, try something new. So I would just say, do something new. And obviously. We kind of joked, I think on Sunday, everyone's like, what are you going to do? I'm going to read my Bible and pray.

Maddy: 19:27

Yeah.

Johnny: 19:27

I'm going to copy that person. I'm going to copy that person. And it's like the cliche answer, but it's, you know, I said it's the bread and butter. It's proven. Yeah. It's the way to really engage with the Lord. So always, always do that. I would always encourage people to do that. But try, in addition to that, I would say try some new things. Engage with the Bible in a different way. So be creative and just... you know, when you're with your friends, like people are like, what do you want to

Maddy: 19:54

do? Yeah.

Johnny: 19:55

Right. Like go with God and be like, God, like what, what do we want to do right now? Like you said, maybe it's a listen. Let's just listen for a little bit. Let's talk. Let's go for a walk. Let's just whatever it is. So I think you can have that time with the Lord for sure. The summer. Let's see. Let's see what happens when September comes around. Hopefully we're all excited about what took place.

Maddy: 20:20

Exactly.

Johnny: 20:21

But it's going to be a good one. It's going to be fun. It's going to be hot. It's going to be cool. Let's dive in. Cringe. Let's dive in and make a splash. All right. Well, thank you. This was the Fresh Wave podcast. We're looking forward to some summer episodes. So stay tuned. Be ready. We're going to have a great summer here at the Fresh Wave. Let's go.