As we may remember from last week's post, I did not get to appear on a reality TV show (lol, confused? Go read that post first). Long story short, I was sad but relieved. And it lead me to realize that I need to be more actively pursuing pleasing the Lord, rather than pleasing the world. So I abruptly made my faith known and "came out" as both a Christian and a Conservative. It doesn't sound like a big deal... (it shouldn't be) but in a world like ours, that is HARD to do. The other side hates us, and they make it known. Cancel culture is in full swing and anyone who believes differently than the mainstream opinion receives immense hate. Christians and Conservatives alike are experiencing this on the daily- and I believe we need to stop putting up with it. We are being silenced and not fighting back. As Christians, we need to stand firm and stand up for our beliefs, hence why I outwardly admitted to them and have decided to fully absorb the Christian life, both behind closed doors AND in public.
With that being said, I decided to expand my guest platform. I wanted to hear from someone else who has experienced making the shift from living to please the world to living to please Jesus Christ- and Lily Kate was JUST the right person for this.
Lily is born and raised in Texas, with a classical homeschool education, and has grown up a pastor's daughter in the Christian church. Her faith and political views have always been strong, but she got to a point where she had to hide them. Her sister, the popular influencer Annie Rose, began YouTube a few years back and inspired Lily to start a channel of her own. Both Annie and Lily had serious success in the Youtube world that lead them to spending a lot of time in LA with top influencers, at parties, on the red carpet, and "living the dream." It was only within the past year that Lily realized "the dream" wasn't truly all that.
"Besides the fact that I hated it... I was miserable... I really felt the spiritual darkness and I really felt like a lot of the people (in LA) were lost." -Lily
As a successful YouTuber in the Hollywood atmosphere, you HAVE to care what people think. Your entire career is based off of your audience and their perception of you. And, like I mentioned earlier, if you dare to disagree with them politically, spiritually, etc. you would get CANCELLED. With that, Lily lived her life as two different people.
"In my personal life I was this hard dying conservative, but in my influencer life I had to stay silent about that. There became such a divide between Lily Cole (her real last name) and Lily Kate (influencer name) that I couldn't handle both of them anymore. I found myself wishing that I could say something about what was happening in the world and felt such a push and pull for who I really wanted to be, and for my spiritual affirmation.
A feeling that we have all felt, right? To be a people pleaser or to stand up for your beliefs. To give into peer pressure or stand out against the culture. It got down to a point where Lily had to make a choice. At the time, she was dating Jayden Siwa (Jojo Siwa's brother), and she tells the story of New Years Eve 2019. "I was sitting next to my neighbor and Jayden, and both of them were inching closer to me on the couch. I felt my attraction to my neighbor, as he was someone I had grown up with and who was more spiritually sound. And I asked myself, out of these two boys, who would be the man I want to raise my children with? Well that was clear- my neighbor was the one who had the education and beliefs I admired. So with that, Jayden and I broke up and I pursued the relationship with my neighbor- now boyfriend."
"I essentially gave up my quote 'ticket's be in Los Angeles, to be in that lifestyle, because I had a really good 'in' if I had chosen the other person."
Lily gave up the Los Angeles lifestyle in order to be authentic. To be herself, to pursue her love for the Lord, and to pursue her passion for American politics. She finished up her Youtube moving out series and with that, ended her Youtube career for good. Shortly after stopping Youtube in 2020, she started a podcast called "The Lily Kate Show" and a platform called Live Freely Ministries. Now, rather than working to fit the cultural norm, Lily speaks out about political issues in America with a biblical perspective and is unapologetically Christian and Conservative.
Making that change in her lifestyle, Lily did experience a lot of backlash. And we know that is a MAJOR reason why Christians and Conservatives are unwilling to stand up publicly for their beliefs. She lost over 80,000 followers throughout her social media platform, received hate comments galore, and has been banned on TikTok THREE times now. She was never banned prior to being outspoken, so why now?? We know that the world is continuously turning away from Christ, but as Christians we are called to spread His message. It has gotten to the point where we CAN'T stay silent.
Speaking specifically on social media banning, Lily and I know that this is a major issue. Even Donald Trump, as SITTING PRESIDENT of the United States, was banned off of Twitter for speaking on His beliefs. The constant response we hear when we confront these companies for suppression is "they are private companies, and can choose to ban who they want." The problem with this argument is that these "private companies" are being used as public forums. There are many other public forums out there that were once private entities (Ex: Buses, movie theaters) but the people had to fight for equal use of their services. We need to fight for the equal use of the media, as well. Social media is being used for public exchange of information and conversation. So, in reality, social media platforms are public domaines OWNED by private companies. The best way for us to keep equal representation through the media is to press into and change legislatively. That, or create our own social media platform... oh wait... we already tried with Parler... and they shut that down. The next argument will be to make our own internet servers... and it will repeat itself again. The inequality of representation on social media will not end until we make legislative changes. That begins with speaking up, speaking up begins with the culture, and cultural changes lead to legislation. God wants to preserve culture and save lives, and we are the ambassadors to carry out his message.
Social media is not the only area where Christians and conservatives are being shut down for speaking about our beliefs. Even in person, we feel the social pressures to externally agree with policies that we internally don't agree with. But, we need to grow the confidence to normalize our views even in something as simple as conversation. That's how Jesus began to spread his message, through grassroots level and word of mouth. As that begins to become normal, it will lead to being normal through the media. If you aren't ready to speak up on social media, start by normalizing christianity and conservatism on a personal level. Christians and churches say they won't get involved in politics because it's sticky and messy, but all sinners are. The Lord put us on earth to do only two things that we won't be able to do while we are in heaven- SIN and EVANGELIZE. So which one will it be!? While It is scary to get involved in the culture because we have been passive for so long, us Christians cannot afford this loss anymore. We are equipped to deal with battles of good and evil because we have the ultimate good on our side, God. WE can yield the power of the Holy Spirit through us so why should we be fearful? Why should we try to pursue our own lives when there is something so much more important to be involved in? We get to choose to spread the gospel. But as we get bashed, we are not doing it actively anymore. The fight is now, we need to be evangelists to save as many people as we can before He comes back.
In the end, we know that this is hard to take in. And we've thrown a lot at you guys today, so Lily and I want to sum this up with some practical takeaways:
Get involved on ground level. Speak up for Christs' policies. You can pray at your local Planned Parenthood, invite nonbelievers to Church, call your local state reps to advocate for your beliefs (Google "your state" .gov), etc. It starts with YOU.
Normalize Your Beliefs. Begin by spreading Christ's message through conversation. Be open and honest about what you believe when controversial topics get brought up, and have your research ready to back up the WHY you believe that.
Be informed through history and third party websites. Social media has a lot of truthful AND untruthful information. Do your own research on politics to discover where you truly stand, don't let the people of the world sway you without knowing the truth.
Vote in federal and local elections. We all know when the Presidential election is coming up, but we don't put near as much thought into state and local elections. But... we need to! Your local government affects you most directly, so stay informed and vote for that too!
Hearing Lily's story was so inspiring to me, and gave me a MAJOR boost of confidence to do the same- STOP living for the world and live for Christ. "Apart from me (God), you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Living for the world isn't enough, but choosing to live for God is NOT easy! Hearing the journey of other believers helps us to feel inspired and motivated to do the same, despite our obstacles. We want to encourage you to continue thinking for yourself, doing research, and beating the culture. Don't live for the culture, live for Christ. Be yourself!!
Check out my appearance on Lily's Podcast to hear more, coming soon!!
Follow Lily on instagram,make sure to check out her podcast The Lily Kate Show, and get connected on livefreelyministries.com !! We're in this together, time to BEAT THE CULTURE just as Lily is doing now.
Pictured to the left: A place that doesn't have it all, despite the stereotypes!!
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