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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

Mom and Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age of 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord. That ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews, or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch or join the Be Courageous app community, enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Hey guys. Oh, I’m so glad to be back with you.

And I know it’s been a couple weeks. We’ve had some awesome guest interviews on the podcast.

You guys say you have.

Well, it was amazing. When we went to the Texas Homeschool Conference, there were just so many like minded people that were also doing parachurch ministry. And so it was really neat to be able to connect with them, interview them and their expertise and share that knowledge and wisdom with you guys.

Absolutely. And gents, I got some of them really good guests on the Resolute Man Show, so check those out. But today we’re talking about what.

We’re talking about six reasons families should build something together.

It is so important. I’m so excited about this episode and no matter what size your family is, this is for you because a team is more than one person.

And can I also say, if you have little kids in the thought of like building something together, let’s just even use a garden, for example, it could be a little bit overwhelming. So this is a podcast episode for you in regards to thinking big and thinking visionary down the road, but also there are things you can do right now to create that same building together. When your kids are young and it can be really fun.

Absolutely. So hey, do you ever dream of your family having amazing sibling relationships.

Or have the ability to have good teamwork?

Unbreakable bonds into the future that never break.

If so, then make sure that you listen to today’s podcast. But before we jump into all of the topics, we have a really special announcement that we want to share with you guys. Yeah we.

Do. We, uh, have taken on some really amazing sponsors. They have been such a blessing. And our promise to you is we’re never going to have a sponsor we don’t implicitly believe in with deep conviction.

And so I want you guys to know that we actually kind of hand-picked these sponsors and reached out to them.

Well, you know, it’s kind of a phenomenal thing. We actually had a conversation with five organizations and all five said, yes, that’s right.

So we’ve been really enjoying this experience and working with other people, learning more about their organizations because they’re all Christian, all biblical based organizations, and many.

Of which you’ve either used their curriculum before with success or were currently using them. And or maybe.

They’re an organization that you’ve never heard of before. So you’re going to we just want to encourage you guys to listen to those little spotlights that we’re going to pop in and out through the podcast to share about, because they’re really neat organizations. In fact, as I’ve been learning more about some of them, my kids are actually this week doing some of the exciting things through summit. So anyway, we are really excited to be able to introduce you to some organizations that can help you with your parenting.

But hey, we’re going to give you six reasons that are really rock solid reasons to actually give you practical know how biblically based. And at the end of every show, starting today, we’re going to give some unprecedented times tips at least one right at the end that has to do with the content of the show. So stick to the end to get that super tip about parenting or marriage or whatever the topic of the episode is during unprecedented times.

You know.

I love that because if you guys have been around here for a while, you know that our mission is 10 million Legacies movement to help parents to equip and raise up confident, courageous kids for uncertain times or unprecedented times, as you like to call.

It.

Absolutely. Hey, I’m sure everybody wants to know how’s the garden going? I mean, off topic.

But I know.

Well, this is maybe like a little tidbit of personal Isaac and Angie time. It’s going really well now. Um, in the garden, we have a 1000 square foot garden that we put in. This is our what? Third summer? Yes, because we’ve been here for summer. So this is our third summer with that. And wow, such a huge difference when you already have the infrastructure and you’re not adding different things.

That gives hope to people that.

Are just building the infrastructure.

Yes, I’ve been thinking about this a lot because we did a lot of traveling in May in the beginning of June. It was.

A rough month and it.

Was good.

Though.

It was crazy. It was a crazy six weeks. I was literally gone a little bit of each just because of the passing of my father, also in the memorial and all the things. Yeah. And so I was a little worried that it wasn’t actually going to happen, even though I had the seeds planted. But the kids came together and helped keep them alive. That is teamwork. And that’s part of why we’re talking about this today, is that you can dream big and get big things done when you cultivate a family culture that where everybody’s chipping in and everybody is consistent and trustworthy to take care of things like growing plant.

Absolutely. Before we get any started, get any further. I think it’s so important that we talk about master books. I mean, you have so much good curriculum.

From.

Them, and they are one of our new sponsors and what an incredible company they have. The most curriculum in the sciences, isn’t that right?

They have over 30 biblical based, creation focused science curriculums, which I’m pretty sure they even told us. That’s like the largest amount compared to any other organization out there.

And what’s the great limiter of moms wanting to do science projects?

Oh my goodness, you guys. It’s the mess. The time, right? Let’s just say all the labs and labs can be expensive. I’ll just say, you know. So what’s neat is that they also have the Master Books Academy, so you can watch from a professor or teacher going through doing the lab with your kids or for your kids on the video, and then they get to see all the observations and fill in all the paperwork and everything. But there’s no mess. It’s pretty.

Awesome. What else is.

Good about it? What do you like?

Well, I was just actually looking through the their catalog today because there’s some extra things I want to go order. Of course. No they do. They have um, they have some really good books that are out by Israel Wayne, for parents that are considering homeschooling. Or maybe you just need a good kick in the pants on, like continuing to homeschool. There’s one called listen, this book. Does God have an opinion on schools? It was education. Does God have an opinion?

Oh wow.

That’s good. Another one was the conflict of the public school system and Christianity. And so there’s just some really good, like hard hitting books out there that I think are equipping for parents because we get, you know, we get the questions sometimes like, why do you homeschool? And so, um, anyway, I was just looking at those and then also they are one of, well, not one of they are Ken Ham’s publisher. And so answers in Genesis. If you guys are familiar with that ministry, the Creation Museum and the Know the Ark Encounter, he’s got so many resources for kids on Christian apologetics specifically like faith growing stuff. And so they have this like morning basket for elementary and kindergarten kids that’s like, got all the little kid age categorized books that are creation based.

I feel like we could talk about it forever. But the last thing I want to say, the buck stops here with it’s got to be biblical, right? Especially in this day and age. You got to know for a fact it’s biblical. And I love their oversight to make sure of that in every single thing they put out. Yeah. So go to.

Where.

Master Books.com forward slash courageous. Oh, and you guys, we have a giveaway that we are partnering with them in, which is really exciting too. So if you go to master books.com/courageous, you can find out.

About it there.

Some of your favorite stuff they’re giving away. That’s right. Okay. Let’s dive in. So it’s so important to do something meaningful together I’m going to list off some of the things or we will that we’ve done that are meaningful together. They don’t have to be the same as you. You’ll have your own list. They don’t have to be as weighty or as small as ours or whatever. Let’s not compare. But it was encouraging for us to think about it. Yeah, what.

We’ve done over the years.

Planting churches together, that was absolutely the whole family. And we’re about to embark. We are embarking on that right now again, and it’s been so fruitful. It’s not even going yet, but it’s been so fruitful for our family already. How about the vineyard?

The vineyard.

Was a huge.

Project. Gardens.

You know, I just got to say something briefly about the vineyard, because that was a huge project that was 1283 plants over, over a one and a half acre area. Um, and we were six weeks postpartum with our fifth, so we had six. We had five kids under seven. And so if any of you families that are listening, you’re like, I can’t imagine doing a garden. Like, guys, if we can do it, you can do it. Because Isaac was running a business, I was homeschooling Kelsey and Austin, and we made it happen during the summer.

My favorite moment was when we got all the small plants, 1283 of them, approximately. Yes. And we had them all in. They were all one year planted, every single one of them.

In a day.

One day. Yeah, as a family. And I remember the feeling we were exhausted afterwards. It was like 8 p.m. it was barely light out. It seemed like it was getting dark and we just looked at each other, youngest to oldest. We were, and of course locked eyes and it was like we went through something together.

We did. It was.

Memorable. Let’s let’s go to the restaurant and celebrate.

I mean, we were.

All like sweaty and dirty and all the things because we had the assembly line, you know, and I have pictures of the kids and the different things that they were doing. Right. Kelsey was the oldest, so she got to handle the plants and actually take them out of their, um, little pots and put them in the hole that dad had dug. Right. And then along would come Megan and she’d pick that up, that pot up, and she was in charge of collecting them. And then Austin would come along and he’d fill in the dirt, and then he’d get it with the hose, with the water.

And I think about 98% of those little plants made it. And it was unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Very few not make it. And and that was and we had little drew.

I know, but we just drove past the vineyard when we were at my dad’s memorial.

Yeah.

And it was it was thriving. The vineyard looked amazing. And the family that bought the house still had the vision to keep that legacy going. And they even named it.

They even have a little name for the vineyard. It’s so it’s so cool. How about gardens? How about businesses? Even when I was working out of the house more and less with the family, they still felt included.

And we did hospitality together.

And you would even take the kids to work with you every once in a while.

It was all.

Teamwork. It was all.

Teamwork.

Give credit to your kids. Give credit to your wife and rally together. It’s so good. Ministry. Be courageous. Ministry are the DNA of our entire family is all over this and making it happen?

It’s true. I mean, from editing podcasts, we’ve had three, four kids actually with bee have their hands on editing the podcast.

Plus the kid.

Episodes, 75 episodes in the app.

Almost every single. I think Caroline’s even in that.

Yes to helping us watch the kids. So you can be out here to all kinds of other things behind the scenes, uh, traveling together. I would call it a three month RV trip and all the six week ones. And so.

And on.

The traveling side of things, I just even think about this last time when we were traveling, we had older kids coming home and staying like Kelsey came and stayed for a day and took care of the little kids so that we could be speaking at the homeschool conference. So there’s been a lot of just different examples of where, you know, we’re really thankful for our family. One, thankful for the kids, but also love that it’s something that we’ve been able to do where everybody’s had a touch on it, and so they can even think that they have had impact.

So teamwork is essential. How can you do something together that causes the gifts to come out in your family, causes everybody to feel needed, causes people to rise to a higher level of responsibility, to see that happening with amongst siblings, and to see growing respect happen amongst each other, to for the marriage relationship, to be working together to navigate and lead the team and and do things together and, you know, use each other’s gifts and understand where we’re weak and help each other. It’s so.

Important. Well, and.

I think that that’s like the first big benefit, right, is of the six reasons why we think that families should build something together is that you discover people’s strengths and weaknesses. You discover their gifts and talents. You just you learn more about your kids and your kids learn more about each other. And and while there can be some growing pains in that of course. Right. Because sometimes there’s friction, sometimes there’s oh, he’s doing this that way. And I think it should be done this way. Well, okay. You get to grow in, in this, um, ability of understanding. Not everybody’s wired like you. And that’s a good thing. Not everybody needs to be like you. And humility, having to be encouraged in kids and things like that. But also, isn’t that biblical? Like, we all want to be known, right? God wants us to know him. He knows us intimately. So we see that modeled in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. But for parents to have opportunities to really get to know their kids, you need to spend time with them. And working on a project will truly open your eyes to a lot of things good attitudes, whining and grumbling, bad attitudes, um, their skill level, what they know and don’t know. Um, their intuitiveness regarding like fixing things. You really learn a lot about your kids and it’s super important to know your kids.

Some people are.

Saying, I’m just trying to get through the day. I’m literally I can’t imagine trying to do something with all my littles, right? And go and get something done when I’m just trying to get the basic things done. Someone might be thinking, but I think something happens when you have a vision, you cast with a group and you go, hey, we’re going to do this. You get them excited about it and then they have roles to play. Even though that those challenges still come out, there’s a motivation that’s new. There’s like you’re stirring it’s energy amongst the team towards something which makes it. You still have those things, but now you’re more motivated even to handle them and move past them.

Now it’s.

True. And for those who might be feeling overwhelmed or thinking, oh, I can’t do a project, my kids are too little. You know, we did briefly mention that we planted a vineyard with five kids, seven and under and that. And I don’t say that to like, puff us up. I say that because we made a choice to do something that was going to be hard, but because we wanted to have a memory with our kids and we wanted to build something with them that was going to be legacy lasting, even if we weren’t living there in the future. And thank the Lord, we got to be there for nine more years. We were there for ten years, right? And having a tiny little homestead, if you will. And that was a really good experience, having four acres to get us ready for where we are now, where we have six and a half acres, you know, and who knows what that’s preparing us for in the future, or for kids for in the future. And, and I think that having that perspective and understanding, like, do you think I was ready to do something like that when we first had our first baby?

No, not at all.

Our capacity was not there. But you guys, when you choose in the moments of hardship or making hard choices to do the less traveled road and to dig in and ask God, what do you have to teach me? And you persevere through it. It works the muscle of perseverance, and it helps you to actually stretch your capacity so you’re able to handle more in the future.

So think right now what kind of project you might feel capable of doing with your children right now. And if you don’t do that, if you decide not to do that, that capability might stay around the same place. But when you go and do that with them and you conquer it together, guess what happens to what you believe? Your capability is with your kids and what your kids believe. Their capability is towards doing more things. It’s higher. So each time you do things, the capacity for handling projects grows amongst your family. So if you’re if you have a regular rhythm in each year of doing some projects together, what happens over time? Your family becomes more and more capable, a higher capacity, and your children feel capable of more things, which is preparing them for these unprecedented times.

You know, as.

Interesting, though, I think that there is a need for moms especially. I mean, maybe dads too. But in those times when we’ve done something that was kind of out of the ordinary, like planning a vineyard, planting a vineyard, for example, like that day, I had to plan ahead what meals were going to be prepared. I had to prep the kids to help with certain things. I had to be okay with a messy house so that I could focus on being outside that entire day.

And I had to take some time off work because there’s a lot of infrastructure that had to get put in place before you ever just.

I mean, it was a lot.

Of planning, a lot of dreaming, a lot of a lot of twine. I remember the twine.

Getting getting the soil right, getting it tested, getting it exactly right for the exact.

But that was all.

Such an amazing experience for the kids too, because we were doing soil testing with them and we were doing geometry. You were doing geometry out in the where it was going to be the vineyard with the kids and teaching them how to measure and how to make sure it was right so that it looked good from above because we knew there would be Google Maps.

By the way, I was guessing.

But you know it’s true when you look through Google Maps, it actually worked. I mean, I was kind of guessing kind of beautiful. It ended up working out. I can’t.

Believe it.

It’s incredible. But but can I just say though, like, you do have to be okay with letting some things go, temporarily suspending those commitments. Those those?

You mean you can’t.

Have a perfect house.

And know these products?

Are you kidding me? So I would have zero garden, zero produce, zero fruit from any kind of growing plants if I expected to not have any dirt on any floor. You guys. I literally had thousands of starts we planted from seed in my kitchen on shelves. When you water the plants, guess what happens? Sometimes dirt falls on the floor. So we go. You have to be okay with it for a short period of time, but it’s worth it for the fruit and the educational process and the family building that happens through that process.

All right. We got to.

Do a little more rapid fire here. I want to make sure you guys get that tip at the end. Okay. Uh, so reason number two is to respect grows for the differences amongst each other and also the things that are similar. Your children are wired very differently than you are and from each other, and that is helpful for having a great team. In Hebrews verse 1024 it says, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hey, isn’t that about, you know, meeting for church? Yeah, I think so. But I love that scripture for the family too, because aren’t we supposed to stir up good works in our family? Of course, in the body of Christ, we’re supposed to do that? Well, don’t you think we’re also supposed to do that? Maybe even more so in our own families?

That’s true. It’s interesting how when you read scripture, sometimes you just only think that it applies to church or your church life. And like on Sundays or it’s I think that humans compartmentalize their life too much. And instead, when you are willing to let the Holy Spirit, like, really open your eyes and go, okay, so this is definitely talking about the church meeting here. It’s definitely telling us as Christians, we need to be encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near for sure. But it’s also like, why wouldn’t we be doing this first in our families, right? If the if that’s like the image bearing of the family of God, right? Yeah. It’s kind of this there’s this purpose that we need to recognize that God designed families to be the image bearing light in this dark, fallen world of what the family of God, what the body of Christ is supposed to be.

Which is number.

Three, being on purpose together.

That’s right. And so there’s there’s this beautiful like biblical imagery that we see. But are we as families actually living that out? Are we as families truly like seeking God and going, okay, so Lord, what purpose do you have for my family in this season and our life as a family? Right now? We have kids that are these ages. Lord, what do you want us to do for your great commission or what have you put? What mission or vision have you put on my husband’s heart that we can work together as a team to make it come to fruition sooner, and be a light to other people? Because we’re working as a team. And honestly, that’s rare today. Hey guys, it’s that time of year when we’re figuring out curriculums and you might be looking for a Bible based apologetics curriculum. Have the confidence to teach your kids and students about a biblical worldview. Summit Ministries Homeschool curriculum helps kindergarten through 12th grade. Students understand more than individual verses or stories about the Bible. Your child will learn the overarching story of Scripture, and how the same truths about God that guided David, Daniel, and Paul shape their lives today. And as your children become older, they’ll learn how to defend their faith and respond to false ideas. Together, you’ll find answers to questions like why do we trust the Bible? What do other religions teach? How do I stand for truth when my friends are against it? Learn more at summit org forward slash courageous and use the code 15 at checkout for a discount on any summit curriculum that’s summit org forward slash courageous. I want to share a really amazing personal testimony with you guys.

The first 20 years Isaac and I were married, we primarily went the traditional health insurance route. Being entrepreneurs. In those first 20 years, we had nine pregnancies, one loss, and eight babies birthed Earthside. Each time we were pregnant, we felt limited by our insurance coverage. When making the decision on where we were going to have our babies. When looking into coverage for those births, home birth exclusions were a really big deal for us because of the risk of liability in case of an emergency. As we continued having babies later into life and being older, I was labeled geriatric. I was considered high risk, which made it even more difficult to find the care that I wanted with the assurance of support. Then, four years ago, we switched over to Samaritan Ministries, which is a health sharing organization. A few years into switching, we experienced another pregnancy loss and then we became pregnant for the 11th time, still desiring to have a home birth. We were so blessed and surprised to find out that all our needs were shareable within the organization, and that I could choose the provider I wanted. So we moved forward to have the home birth of our dreams. If you’re looking for an alternative option to being able to pay for medical expenses incurred in raising a family, and you desire the freedom to choose your own providers, including alternative providers like chiropractors and naturopaths, we want to encourage you to check out Samaritan Ministries at our link Samaritan Ministries forward slash. Be courageous. In the video, we share how it works and answer a bunch of frequently asked questions. So check out our link at Samaritan Ministries. Org slash be courageous.

You know I’ve always taught this in building organizations is someone either has will or skill or they have a combination of both. If you just give them skill but you don’t influence the will, the will to do something and the motivation to do something, it doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. You might experience that if you’re educating your kids, if there’s low will in a subject because you haven’t stirred them up in interest, then it doesn’t matter how smart they are, it doesn’t matter what the skill level is. They’re not going to use it, right. They’re not going to cooperate. But what happens when you do projects together? It ignites more will for everything because you’re working together. It gives that purpose, and I’d rather have will any day than skill, because people will develop skill when they’re energized to do something. And so that’s so important. Number four.

Is number.

Four is fruit. So obviously like when you’re working on a project, there’s going to be fruit that you see when a job is done right. When a project is completed, you look at it, you stand back, you look at it and you go, hey, we did this together. And that fruit is like, it makes it all worth it. That’s the thing about, like, even the vineyard. Going back to that again, I just remember sitting at a restaurant with the kids all around the table, and we were all exhausted, and the food never tasted so good. But we were also like, we did that. And then we drove really slowly.

Past the vineyard.

On the way home, going, look at that, kids! And that’s why all the kids wanted to go see it again when we were in this in Oregon for my dad’s memorial. And so it’s like people are attached to that. They want to share that. Like, I remember Austin was saying he wanted to show Caroline and Quincy, right, because that was part of his childhood. That’s a strong memory of family teamwork that we did that together. And it wasn’t just the parents going, oh, you guys go do this. Oh no, no, no, no. We were out there working so hard with the kids, leading the way, teaching them how to do things in a gentle way with plants. And and that was really awesome.

I think that brings a question people might have. How do you get your children to be into the project, into the.

Direction you got to do it with them? You got to do it with them.

But I think there’s some pre-framing that happens too, which is, you know, you have to think about who your kids are and what will excite them and think about how you’re going to use your words to create interest. We can’t just be boring, okay? Today we’re going to do the garden. You know, you got to be into it.

You got to lead the way.

Your energy’s got to be excited and for it.

Right. So like we have this quarter acre pasture area that’s a crop this year. And we did it last year as well. And it was really productive produce last year. Right. We got almost £900 of potatoes, almost £300 of onions, £500 of pumpkin. And we’ve got probably, I mean total between the garden and the back, another £530 of tomatoes also so hugely profitable for sure. But getting out there to weed was a thing. It was. It was rough and tough. And what I mean is when you’re in the middle of the heat, like right now, it’s like 100 degrees during the day. You got to get up early to get kids up early. You know what I do? I feed them really well, I, I do I’m like, I’m going to make you guys a great breakfast because you’re gonna help me in the past year today. And I smile and I, and I go out with them.

But you make it fun.

Sometimes you’re worshiping together. Sometimes.

Yeah.

You got to make it fun. You got to get them into it.

And I. And I’ve gotten better at this, which is something you taught me, which is to do a certain amount of time and set a timer and stick to it, and then let them be done and let them get.

They got to.

Have an end in sight if they don’t have an end in sight.

Because really with weeds, it you could be out there all.

The time, unless it’s.

Got its own juice about it and you’re trying.

To hit. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, the fifth thing is marriage. This is.

So this is a big deal for me. You know.

I want to I want to share Proverbs chapter 12, verse 24. It says the hand of the diligent will rule, but the slothful while the slothful will be put to forced labor. And I think that, you know, for us with the kids, I just want to touch on that, because that is the that’s like the spiritual fruit or the maturity fruit that you see in the kids after you’ve done a project. So there’s the two kinds of fruit, right? And we just talked briefly about the physical fruit that you see. Right. Lots of produce whatever it is. But there’s the spiritual fruit, the maturity that’s in them, the work ethic, work ethic, all of those.

Things are.

Are, are and know how and trustworthiness of being able to say, hey, can you go do this now? Because I’ve done this with you for two years and or one year or even a month, and I trust you to do it. Can you do this on your own? They’re like, yeah, sure, mom. And they go get it done. And you’re like, that was rad. And so there’s this element of like teaching hard work, get it done as fast as you can so that you can then have fun so that you can enjoy.

Well, I think.

Of what we did this last weekend. On Saturday we created this whole outdoor lighting system, uh, with, you know, 350ft of lighting, I think, or 300ft of lighting, close to three outdoor lighting, two posts. But it wasn’t just like put two posts in. It was no. Okay, Luke, can you stain these posts? The same stain that’s inside our house? Yes. Can you put these end caps on and make sure it’s awesome? Hey, Ethan. Ethan, can you dig the holes? Here’s where to dig them. You know.

Through the cement.

Here’s here’s the clips. Here’s how we get the wires up. Yeah. Boom. It was like, what do we do? Like seven hours and we got this whole thing up.

I mean, it was a lot of work, but we did. We nailed it. And now everyone gets to benefit because we do hospitality and we’re playing volleyball or spikeball in the front yard doing campfire. And there’ll be light out there longer for hospitality and for those fun things that the kids are the main ones that benefit from that.

Right? It’s like.

Solomon, can you go play with the two littles? So they’re having.

Fun? Oh yeah, I mean.

They were playing squirt guns all around us, right? But you know, Philippians chapter two one through four talks about marriage, which is the fifth reason why it’s good to build something together. Let’s just say it this way. Your marriage is either surviving, stagnate, or thriving. And it’s like a spectrum. So you’re somewhere on that spectrum. And honestly, thriving. Marriage is the one of the things, one of the things that I see in common with them. Well, obviously the most important is that they love the Lord and that they’re praying together and they’re on a biblical mission together. They’re walking in oneness. Right. But part of that, that oneness leads you to be on mission together and doing something together and seeing a bigger picture. And, and and I’ll say it, thriving marriages, they usually are building something together, whether it’s building your family. And that is there are seasons where that’s all we’ve done, right? Where it was like, okay, hunker down. Homeschool, working on biblical character, training, different things.

There’s seasons.

If you feel like every day is about the same and you’re just trying to get through the day and there’s no longer term, you know, thing in night vision that you’re both in alignment about. There is a much needed visionary date night. And if you need help with that, listen to episode number one.

That’s great.

The very first episode.

We just did.

A mic drop. Listen to episode number one. But Philippians chapter two, the first four verses here are really beautiful in regards to marriage and this idea of like when you’re working together on something and how it does sanctify you and make you better, but it also helps with the oneness it says. So if there’s any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection, is there affection in marriage? I sure would hope so. Sympathy? I sure would hope so. Um. Complete my joy by being of the same mind. There you go. You want your. You want same mind you and your spouse having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Right? Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And so, like, I just want to encourage you for a second, because you, Isaac, like in our marriage, when we’ve done visioneering, you have been really balanced in making sure that you’re drawing out of me any vision or anything that God’s placed on my heart that I believe, like the kids need to know this for unprecedented times. We need to have a garden or whatever, you know, like you listen to that and you’re like, okay, we’re going to get it done. And you help that vision happen. You have that leadership ability, but that takes servant leadership to set aside your goals and your missions to care about mine sometimes and go, and what’s on your heart and what’s this. And and I.

Got to.

Incorporate aspects of both.

Yes. And so I just, I thought that this verse was really beautiful in that because it says let each of you look not only to your own interest, but also to the interests of others. And that’s what you have to do in marriage both ways. The husband has to be the servant leader that you talk about being willing to look at the interest of the wife and not always just be considering his own and making that like your one mind, you’re the same mind. So if the Holy Spirit is impressed, something on your wife, listen to that and vice versa. The same goes the other way. Hey gents.

What is the priority for spending money? Is it is it something that’s going to the most edifying thing for the well-being of the family? Or is it just something you’re really passionate about that mostly serves you?

And wives could say the same thing. I mean, how many? I mean, the honey do list is a joke, not a joke, because a lot of women really do push their agenda a lot of the time. Right? And so even if something’s a good idea or something really needs to happen, the truth is, is like a good leader in a family, in a marriage is going to hear that. And then the wife won’t need to push because they will listen and and they’ll make it a priority. But a good wife is also going to recognize that she is supposed to be the helper of her husband, and she’s going to take interest into the goals and vision that he has for the family and try to help with.

That, by the way.

So it’s a balance.

Yeah, it is. And if you want help with marriage, you got to get this six hour course. It’s really a series that’s completely free for app subscribers. Be courageous app in your app store.

That’s right. And so you’ll see us in there a lot. We’re in there weekly on our lives.

Yeah.

So, uh, and finally, number six is to glorify God. Does your family glorify God? Do the projects you do? Is the purpose ultimately to glorify God? Is it to point your children to God? Is it to thank the Lord for, uh, helping us persevere and these kinds of things? Is it that our family would become a better team and a better, um, like light to the other? The others would see something different. Wow, look at that family working together. It’s not perfect. There’s going to be arguments and things like that.

But look at how much they’ve done or look at that. That’s amazing.

Or they’re all like doing it all together. Like they’re all in. Yeah, that alone is a big deal, especially when you have like teenagers and older kids. But that only exists when you’ve done it well. Building relationships when they’re younger. And if you have this like real strategy or structure of like having built things together with your kids, then they get excited to do it again later in life. Right? And so I just think there’s something really powerful centered around this concept of building together, building together.

I want to just say one thing that it’s really important. You might have already decided as a married couple to do something, but it doesn’t mean you just put it on your family. And what I mean by that is, even though you’ve decided to do something before we pull the trigger, I like to get feedback and hear from the family. Not in a way. And they know this, not in a way that they’re making the decision. Like if they decide I don’t want to do it, the family’s not going to do it. They don’t think that because of the way we’ve set up the culture, they know at the end, mom and dad are going to make a decision. It may have already made a decision, but they feel respected that we go, hey, we’re thinking about doing this thing, and we wanted to know what you think about it and really hearing their feedback. In fact, tonight we were asked, I’m going to tell you what it is, but we asked Megan a really important question about the new church plant, uh, that our family and the community really is going to be doing together. Um, excited to meet all the people in the community that want to be part of it. But it’s it’s so exciting. And but getting her feedback from a different generation, it’s.

Really important.

Was important and it was helpful.

It was helpful.

And she’s so excited. And it’s so exciting to see the family rallying again to do.

A new.

Closeness, to do.

A big project again.

Together.

Well, and I think that’s kind of what’s been even though we have projects around the homestead, we do all the time. But doing something like this that’s going to impact other people for Christ, that really has been something that our kids have been missing for the last year since we haven’t been doing home church. Right. And so it’s been a really it’s exciting because like, everyone sees the bigger picture, you can tell. And there’s a different kind of excitement about that. Um, but, you know, there’s this prayer that Paul writes to the Philippians, and I just want to ask you this question. When I read this, like two verses in Philippians chapter one, can would Paul be able to say this about you and your marriage? Would Paul be able to say this about your family? I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. So if he was able to have known you and like as God knows you, so God sees all things. God knows all things. When he thinks of you. Is he thinking? He’s thinking. He’s thankful because of what he’s seen, right? It says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always, in every prayer of mine, for all making my prayer with joy. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, there is this significance of having a partnership in the Lord throughout the whole time that you are married. There is an importance of having that be like a signature, um, foundational cornerstone of your family culture, where it’s like we’re going to serve the Lord.

It’s that Joshua verse. As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. I see that verse in so many people’s families. But if if I was to ask like, so how do you do that? Like I wonder what people would say, like, how do you serve? How do my family and I serve the Lord? That’s a really good introspective, exhorting question that we have that verse up on our wall. And that was just something I was thinking about the other day when I was looking at him like, this is how we serve the Lord. Like it’s not a question in my mind. And I and I just hope that if anybody’s listening, that they would read Scripture from that perspective of Can God say this about me? Or how am I doing that If I have that plastered on my wall, how is my family doing that? Because you don’t want to. As your kids grow up and they start reading, they’re going to know if you’re serving the Lord as a family or not and hear you. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But maybe you’re not. Are your kids going to go then? Oh, we’re a hypocrite. Family. Like it’s important that what we read, what we speak, what we have.

Written.

On our.

Walls is actually.

The way we live. And if it’s not, then there’s gonna be a rubber meets the road kind of moment.

Yeah, it’s a it’s a break. Breakage of integrity somewhere. Right. And, you know, isn’t that what a lot of teenagers say in their teenage years that. Oh, either my parents don’t understand me or they’re hypocrites. Those are the two biggest accusations, even in well intentioned families. And how do you avoid that? You’re fighting hard to be congruent. You’re fighting hard to follow through. You’re fighting hard to build teamwork, to work together and to appreciate them, to respect them and help them rise up to new levels of responsibility and see the fruit like we talked about, and see a marriage that’s working together to alongside them to do something. There’s so many positive things about it. Okay, here we go. Here is the unprecedented times tip. And we’re going to do this at the end of every episode. Today we’re talking about, you know, building together. So what is the big tip okay.

Well first we have to start with what the problem is. And unprecedented times and the times that we are in even now, what is the biggest thing that you see is like a roadblock or the enemy is just really attacking families on is family loyalty. Family commitment to one another or like deep flourishing relationships, right? Like family loyalty is harder than ever because there’s so much indoctrination creating division. I mean, can I just say masks from Covid or vaccinations for a second? Because we saw in the last four years families, just churches going foop divided division. So then there wasn’t there was loyalty to a political agenda or a mask over family loyalty. It’s like, whoa, that’s very revealing. So how’s your family loyalty? I want to pause for a second and share something that’s been on my heart. This economy has changed, and it takes more to equip your children to thrive financially. Today, we can’t just assume that sending them off to college or helping them get a job will make them successful. Youth Thrive Academy is filling in the gap left by educational efforts, and offers a personal finance online course that’s relevant to today’s economy. I’m excited my teenagers are taking this comprehensive course knowing any gaps will be filled in. Financial preparedness. They’re learning career readiness skills and how to manage their money through budgeting, saving, investing, borrowing, and protecting their assets. Make you thrive. Academy a part of your summer. Initiatives like We Are go to Youth Thrive Academy for parents. That’s the letter U and get 66% off retail, which is exclusive only for our listeners. Use the code courageous at checkout before it expires. And again, that’s u thrive dot Academy forward slash parents.

Yeah, I mean it’s harder to for families to be loyal. There’s more distractions too. There’s more things coming at different pieces. There’s kids going all kinds of different directions. Of course, we could speak at how to make sure that doesn’t happen in different episodes, but it’s it is harder than ever in this environment. Doing projects together is essential for building family loyalty. I don’t I literally don’t know how we could have done it had the culture we had without our projects. Our projects are kind of the teaching is happening and the discipleship is happening, but then the projects is where it’s lived out.

Well, and can.

I also just bring something in for a second? I actually think that the projects also help prepare our family as a team for the trials. Yes, big time. And the Bible is really clear that everyone is going to experience trials at some point in their life. Count it joy, my brethren, when you meet trials, not if you meet them when you meet them.

There’s an actual.

In the New Testament. There’s an expectation that if you’re a Christian, you’re going to experience trials. Why? Because you’re a Christian. Because you’re glorifying.

God in unprecedented times.

You’re persecuted. Yeah. And so in America, at least, I know people listen from 194 countries that speak English. But in America at least, there has been a level of freedom and a lack of persecution for a really long time against Christians. But some of that is even bubbling up here. Nothing compared to many other countries, but some of it’s starting to bubble up. And you know what? It’s time that we purposely get uncomfortable and we do harder things with our families. And we we hit roadblocks and we hit challenges, and we don’t maybe know how it’s financially it’s going to work out. And these kinds of things we watch God provide as we pray together as a family. And we literally just witnessed this and something in our family. And so it’s just so important that you’re building that loyalty and you’re doing it in some unconventional ways. See, the normal Christian rhythms aren’t working where you just kind of go through the rhythms week in and week out, go on the normal vacation, go through the rhythms, rhythms, rhythms. Hey, you know what? You got to be different. If you want a different outcome, you got to do different things.

Well, the.

Reality is, is everyone is going to experience a trial at some point. If that’s the only challenge or hard thing that a family has to walk through to create some kind of loyalty, that’s a really negative version of that, right? And so doing a project together not only equips you and prepares you to be able to be a better team when you walk through a hard trial, right, creating that loyalty, that camaraderie, that help, I’ll help you. You will help me kind of culture, right? But when you’re doing a project, it’s a positive thing that you’re building and working on that helps you to do all the six things that we talked about before seeing the bigger picture. It’s about God, not me. Um, watching a biblical marriage do a project together and lead a family that’s incredibly invaluable for your kids to watch that and witness that so that they know how to do marriage in the future and lead their kids the fruit, the fun fruit, the fun. Like looking at it and having a pride of we planted that vineyard or the fun of I’m so glad we have these lights now we can play volleyball till 11 p.m., you know, like it’s just there’s there’s this fruit, there’s this purpose because you remember.

Why.

You were doing it together. Your respect grows for one another. So if you’re doing something that’s positive, where you’re building a project, you’re learning all of that together intentionally. And then when a trial does come, you’ve already got all of this foundational work in your family to help you walk through this stronger together. I think that truly like the things that we’ve walked through, whether it’s miscarriage or business failure or whatever it was like, it would have been a totally different experience if we hadn’t been building businesses and doing projects.

Together, because.

God often shows up at the end of our own strength. And when you do things that are hard, then children get to witness that and they get a witness, you at the end of your own strength, relying on God with joy in your heart and persevering in watching God show up. And that is real Christianity. That is walking the talk that is living what you’re trying to teach. Totally. And that is what congruency is. And that’s what your family needs to see and experience with you.

That’s right. So in these unprecedented times, we want to give you a courageous parenting challenge. What family project can you do with your family? It doesn’t matter what time of year it is. Think about the season you’re in. Dream together. That’s half the fun just getting out as a married couple and dreaming about doing something for the Lord, whether it’s something small or something really big. The the thing that you’re going to benefit from the most is just the communication and hearing each other’s hearts. But then when you do something, you’re leading your kids. That’s when you’re really going to see the fruit.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed this. Please share it if you loved it.

Take care. See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement, go to Be Courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

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