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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 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

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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. Hey, welcome. Merry Christmas. We’re so glad you’re here. Joining us in the podcast.

Hey guys. We are talking about handling the Santa and Gifts dilemma for Christian parents today. This has been a controversial topic that has come up. It’s been you know it’s the holiday season. So there’s a lot of stuff out there on social media for sure. This is something that has been a thing that we’ve been convicted about and taught on for many, many, many, many years. Um, simply because we’re honest and transparent about the convictions of the heart and the things that we’ve struggled with as parents. That’s part of the courageous parenting. Like the mission here, right, is absolutely that we can just be honest. So and I.

Would just say that, you know, you don’t have to agree with us and we can still love each other, meaning we come off strong in our opinion on the podcast. Why do we do that? Because we understand communication and it’s important to come across strong. When you’re trying to make impact, when you’re trying to have influence and so sometimes if you disagree with someone’s stance and you’re listening to a podcast, you can take that personally. And I would just encourage you not to. Yeah, I would encourage you to contemplate even the points where you disagree and realize that the person on the podcast isn’t speaking directly to you. Right? We’re in our studio here. There’s nobody in front of us. We’re just freely sharing what the convictions we have that are biblically based and what we’re sharing. But, you know, there is freedom in Christ in some of these issues, but we really feel a calling to impact 10 million legacies. And to do that, well, we we can’t not speak up about certain things because, you know what? The normal Christian rhythms are largely failing. And I would say this is one of those normal Christian rhythms that we feel is a piece of a contribution to the failure. You know, 70 to 80% of children that are raised in Christian homes are falling away from the faith. And that’s an old statistic. Do you think it got better or worse in the last decade?

Old statistics, for sure.

So I would say that, you know, we do need to actually pay attention, to critically think, to look at what the Bible says, to look at the outcomes of decisions we make, not just today, but what are those outcomes creating five and seven years from now in our children? You know, it’s interesting.

So many of you guys know our testimony that I was raised in a Christian home. Isaac was not raised in a Christian home. And so like when we got married and we started coming across these different issues, of course, when we got married, we hadn’t talked about if we were going to do Santa Claus or not, or how we were going to handle Christmas. You don’t know any of those things. You don’t necessarily get prompted to talk about them. Well, at least we didn’t 24, 25 years ago, because there weren’t books that were like prompting you to have those conversations with the person that you were dating or engaged to or anything. Right. And so we got married and we got pregnant right away, and we kind of just went along with, like, my family’s traditions that first year. And it got us thinking about things. And I think that part of that was that because Isaac wasn’t raised going to church, he would always ask why? Like sometimes there was some skepticism, but it was also like, but why? But why do we do x, Y, and z? But why? But why? Like, does the Bible say that we’re supposed to do this or not? And that really, like, became a foundation for us not to be like a pity party kind of person, but to really like, if, if the Bible does say to do something, to do it with strong conviction and fervor and like, do our best at it, right? But if there are things that the Bible doesn’t talk about, then those things that maybe the Christian church are doing, it is healthy for us to ask why.

It’s just it’s healthy, right? And sometimes you can find conviction to go one way or not another. And I just want to start this podcast by saying this issue is not an essential doctrine of faith. This is an open handed, disputable issue that, like, you can be going to church with people and still be of one sound mind and doctrine, because this is not doctrine. And what I’m seeing like even on social media, is that sometimes people are so strong in their opinion about it, and we could even come across that way too, because you just don’t have a lot of space in your caption to show the grace to show. Yes, this is a disputable issue. It’s okay if we don’t agree, but I just want to start the podcast by saying that.

Hey, and thank you for being part of the ministry and all resources are being courageous. Ministry.org free resources and ones that are super valuable courses and so forth that support the ministry. It’s a full time effort, 100 100% of the revenue for the ministry, which actually there’s a lot of expenses. And to support our family because it’s a more than full time effort come from the core sales and financial gifts. And we are doing fundraising right now. You can find out all about that at Be Courageous ministry.org too. But let’s dive in.

Okay. So the very first point we have in today’s podcast is that leadership matters. Yeah. As a parent, you are a leader of your family, and God has given us a very clear jurisdiction in Scripture. We know this from verses like Deuteronomy six that you shall teach your commandments to your children when you rise, when you sit, when you stand, when you lie, you should put them over your door fronts. And there’s just there’s so much exhortation in Scripture for parents to truly be intentional in discipleship and training your children in the way they should go. And so this is an important conversation on a parenting podcast, because this is about how the decisions you make are leading your family, whether you’re being intentional about it or not. And so we just wanted to to bring in that like this is an important thing. So even if maybe you don’t agree with us, like you need to own your decision and own your conviction and, and go with that. Yeah. And so, you know, the first thing in this conversation of leadership is that whatever your decisions are, whether they change today or you’re encouraged today, if you haven’t communicated that with people that you love and people that you’re in communication community with, we would encourage you to do so because it’s not it’s not.

You don’t want people to feel judged, and you don’t want people to feel like you’re being divisive based upon just finding out, oh, they don’t do Santa. So having an open dialogue conversation with people and saying, hey, thanks for inviting us to the gift exchange. We’d love to come, you know, and and just sharing, like, we have really little kids. And just so you know, we’re not going to be doing Santa this year. And so we’ve kind of explained to our kids that Santa is not real, but we’ve also told them not to tell your children. And it’s totally fine if you guys do that. We just wanted to have open dialogue. So there wasn’t any confusion. There wasn’t like any division or anything like that. And people are generally really receptive. At least that’s what we’ve experienced as we’ve gone about things over the years. Um, but I think that it’s important that you voice it, otherwise it can become the white elephant in your relationship. It’s so.

Good. Yeah. We want to have unity despite some differences, that we all have our differences, the things we’re doing. We do think there’s a danger in doing Santa. Let’s dive into that. We we think that, you know, there’s several things that are challenging about it. And so you have to think about where is your conviction on this. And sometimes one spouse has this really kind of memory of a magical childhood around Christmas and believing in Santa and, and Santa giving them gifts and filling the stocking and these kinds of things. And sometimes that past experience can really sway and bring a strong opinion. I want my children to feel that same wonderful feeling that I had waking up Christmas morning. And and Santa surprised them with something. And I just want you to recognize if you have a strong pull towards it because of your past, it doesn’t necessarily mean it should continue, but you do have to own up to that. Where is that energy coming from? And a lot of times I think it does come from that. And I think that, I mean, I have some really good memories of believing in Santa. You know, I didn’t believe in Jesus, but I remember believing in Santa and having some really fun memories about that. But you know what? I think there’s some really real big challenges with it.

Yeah. So let’s we’re going to dive into this a little bit more with you guys. Um, just so you know too, though, we do have more resources on it. There’s a whole blog post that you can find at Be Courageous ministry.org that’s on. It’s really asked some pinpointed questions we’re not going to be diving into today that help you to really test where your child’s heart at is at regarding being distracted or not from what the real meaning of Christmas is, and the reason why we decided, like, here’s the real like punch line, why we decided not to do Santa was truly it came down to we wanted a Christ centered Christmas. Like that really is the most important reason of all. And and while there are other little like sub categories that are just as important, and we’re going to share some of those with you guys. Um, you know, we’re our hope in sharing those is not to sway you. It’s not to get you to do something prescriptive that we’ve done in parenting or anything like that. But truly, like as iron sharpens iron, to think about some scriptures and go, oh, I never thought about how a kid could be affected by that. And really, when we sat down and we laid these pros and cons out, which is what we’d encourage you to do, it became really obvious for us that we didn’t want to participate in the consumerism of Santa and the worldly aspect of it. And and frankly, I’m just going to share from my own personal, my own personal thoughts. I’m going to throw myself under the bus. I am one of those. Those type of people that when I choose to do something I want, I’m like, all in, I want to do it like awesome, right? And I felt this, like, pull in different directions to want to make Christ the center of Christmas and want to, like, read books about Jesus and and and make a birthday cake and and do all there were all these like things that I thought, oh, this will be really a sweet tradition that will help to point to Christ or help really focus, help just create a culture of strong family or whatever it was.

And I was really valuing those. But then I was thinking of fond memories of my childhood, like going and sitting on Santa’s lap and whispering what the favorite toy is that you want to get. And just watching Christmas movies that were all all about Santa Claus and realizing and going, okay, hold on a second. There’s a competition happening here in my heart in regards to what I’m going to spend my time doing with my kids, and I want to do whatever I’m doing really well, which is going to require a lot of time. And honestly, when I think about it just now, laying out all of the potential things, it’s kind of exhausting. Like, I truly wouldn’t have the bandwidth to get my children gifts, but then also get my children gifts from Santa and then do all the Santa worldly activities, in addition to all of the church activities and church choir and all just different awesome experiences that the kids could have with Jesus. So I felt like I needed to make a choice so that I could do one really well. And then it really came down to what is Christmas all about? Well, it’s actually about Jesus. It’s not about Santa. And and so that really was like a huge thing for me was bandwidth.

I think, to, you know, just as is our word, as good as gold to our children. And do do we create a pattern of lying about things? I know that’s a big word, but we want them to believe us about Jesus, right? Our job is to disciple our children and point them to Jesus. We want them to believe that hopefully at some point they have an encounter with God, and only God does the saving right. And and they’re saved and and with with the Lord believing in the Lord. So I think that is is essential. But if if they’re raised up believing this mythical, magical but real person Santa Claus comes and gives them physical gifts, and there’s a lead up over a couple of months towards this idea of these gifts, this this powerful being Santa Claus that can fit down a chimney and come to every single house. So it’s almost like Santa is omnipresent, right? It can be everywhere in one night, you know, and these kinds of things. Well, only God’s omnipresent, right? But but you’re giving a false truth to this fake thing. Being able to do that, and in a child’s minds, looking forward to gifts is a powerful energy. It’s a powerful force. Well, and they’re.

Experiencing getting a gift from Santa, right?

Right. And so they so if you if you go down that path and then later they find out that Santa isn’t real, that really you are giving the gifts, then it can it can leave a little etch in their in their mind of what else isn’t real. And if you’re trying to help them understand who God is and believe in Jesus, it can be a really a challenging thing. So I think it’s really important not to point them to Santa Claus during a time where we’re trying to point them to what is actually real Christ. But if Santa is the one that gives them physical gifts that they’re looking forward to, that they.

Can feel and touch and experience.

Then who is going to get their focus right?

Where is their heart going to be at? Who has their heart is really the question. We have a Bible verse that for us this was really convicting. And it’s Matthew 537. It says, let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. And then actually what’s interesting is just a little further on. That’s where Jesus is talking about do not tempt one of these little ones to sin. It would be better for that person to have a millstone hung around their neck than to and be thrown in the depths of the sea, and that these are strong statements by Jesus, very strong statements by Jesus. And and I really, truly like my heart was convicted. I’m not saying your heart, but I’m saying my heart was convicted by this concept of telling my kids that Santa is real, and playing the part secretly to make them believe that he’s real while he’s actually not alive today. And then telling them that Jesus is real when he is real. And like the dilemma that there is going to be potentially in. I’m not saying it will be. I’m just saying potentially could be in our child’s heart stirred up because of my leadership and I, I felt an accountability for that very strongly to where I was like, well, if I’m telling them that Jesus is real and they’re believing me, but then I’m telling them that Santa is real and they’re believing me, and then they find out that I lied to them and that I knew all along he wasn’t. What does that do? One for them and believing in Jesus in the future, and two for them trusting me.

Like if I’m holding my children accountable for not lying, but then I’m doing it, but saying, oh, but it’s okay because it was just fun. Then could kids use that same excuse of well, I lied, but I did it because it was. I was just teasing you. Mom, I was just. And there’s a whole lot of scriptures that talk about lying. That’s an abomination to the Lord. Look up Proverbs six, verse 16 through 19. It’s one of the seven sins that God says he hates, and it’s an abomination, is a lying tongue. And I just can’t get around this. Like, you know, a long time ago, people used to say little white lie or half truth or. But the the reality is, is we know that a half truth is also a half lie. And we also know that a little white lie is still a lie. And so when you’re teaching your kids and you’re holding them accountable to being truth speakers, we need to be as well. I just felt that personal conviction. Um, but then also there’s this element, Isaac, you were talking about where he brings a physical gift. And as Isaac and I were talking about this podcast today, we actually realized something that we had never written about, that we’ve never heard people talk about. That’s so profound, you guys. And it’s that when Santa brings a gift, there’s actually a performance based, gift giving approach to Santa. And and let me you know, a lot of people don’t focus on it, but it’s the whole naughty or nice. Well, it’s.

In the movies about Santa. All these things.

Getting coal if you’re naughty, getting a gift, if you’re nice. It’s based upon performance. And then there’s the whole elf on the shelf, which is like a a spy for Santa. And he’s going to tell Santa if you were naughty or nice, and you’re going to get a gift based on that. And I’m going to be real frank with you, this idea of rewarding your children for their behavior or not, and then getting punished and not getting a gift. This is a form of parenting manipulation that I believe is actually unbiblical. It’s sinful. I don’t think that that’s something that we’re supposed to be doing. We just were sitting in on a sermon last week on Ephesians six where it’s talking about children obeying their parents and and fathers not provoking their children. And then it talks about bond servants and masters, and it has an exhortation to masters not to threaten. And that’s an exhortation to parents. Also, we shouldn’t be threatening. Well, you’re not going to get a gift from Santa this year if you have said that. I do believe that if there’s one thing you take away from this, I would exhort you that I. I believe that’s simple. We as parents should not be manipulating our children to be in good behavior based upon what they’re going to get. And that really, truly is the message of gift giving in collaboration with Santa Claus.

Well, I think it’s a manipulation to get good behavior from our children during the Christmas season, when really we need to dig deeper and really do the hard work of parenting and following through in biblically, biblically based, you know, you know, methods to support our kids, love our kids and capture their hearts and so forth. And so I think it’s really, really important that we do the harder things, which is how do I parent my children in a way and follow through with them to where they do obey, because they know that God wants them to do that, because they love you, because it’s what your parents are asking you to do, and God.

Because they love you.

The parents, in your protection plan to equip you and train you up in the right ways to understand how important authority is in your life. If children are just manipulated and they don’t learn to understand and respect good authority in their lives, then it’s going to be hard for them to respect God later on, potentially, and his authority in their life.

You know, there’s another scripture in Exodus 20. It’s verse three and four. It says, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on earth beneath, or that’s in the water underneath. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of our fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, and just continues on, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those of you who love me and keep my commandments. This is a commandment. These are literally the Ten Commandments that I’m. I’m reading a portion of you shall have no other gods before me. So this is a big deal.

You know what’s interesting about idols? Idol is anything that detracts and hinders your focus on Christ and God. It’s anything that that disrupts your relationship with God or keeps your focus away from it. And then so to keep a Christ centered focus at Christmas, I don’t know how you would do that. If you’re stirring up what appears to be an idol of a mythical being that gives gifts, and I’m looking forward to material possessions as the main focus of Christmas, that it’d be hard to not do that. So you’re focusing on Christ over here, but then you also have Santa and these gifts for a child, it’s hard not to be captivated by and this to become an idol for them and to really not be focused on Christ at Christmas. I don’t know how you accomplish that.

I don’t know either. And as you were just sharing about that and idolatry, I was thinking about this verse and not making an image carved image. So this is like a physical thing, right? And I just think again about that elf on the shelf. It’s this like thing that’s literally and it is an idol. It’s like I’m going to behave so that it reports back to Santa properly. Like there’s this, that is idolatry. And so when we as parents are inviting that pain for that thing to come into our home and we’re teaching our kids this concept, what we’re doing is we’re tempting them to sin. We’re tempting them to break that commandment. I know the.

Thought that might be going through people’s minds is, well, isn’t this kind of legalistic? Isn’t this kind of Isaac and Angie? Can’t you just let us have fun and you can do whatever you want? But I know that. I know the feeling of that thought, right? Is like, oh, here’s another thing to be a good Christian, I can’t do the fun things in culture, the culture is doing. And I would say it’s not legalistic. The only thing we’re pointing out is we’re very logical. We’re looking at biblical truth and we’re looking at what are good outcomes. That’s what we’re looking for and what builds a relationship with our children and points them to Jesus. And so when we look through it, through that lens, we’re just that’s all we’re doing. That’s all we’ve been talking about. And as we ourselves look through it in that lens, you know, the first four years or so, we we did some of these things I never knew about the elf on the shelf. I think this is a newer thing. Yeah.

No, I think that was just created in the last decade.

But anyways, that but but we did some of these things and, and we wrestled through it, you know, and we had.

Friends that used to dress up like Santa and they wanted to come and and just bless the kids because they loved our kids. And so we of course, we were going to open our doors to them. They wanted to come over and be Santa, but our kids knew the real story of Santa by then. And so that’s how we approached it. So here’s the deal. Like you see Santa around you, there’s movies. There’s all those things. It’s not like we’re vetoing everything. Like, think that it’s okay for the kids to watch a a film every now and again. But when they.

Don’t, when they understand the truth, right then they’re not swayed by a movie. So we can still have fun watching a Santa movie.

So, and this is the thing, like, we have resources. I get questions from people all the time about what books we use during the Christmas holiday season, and we actually have an entire list. One there’s a blog post again, you can find it. Be Courageous ministry.org. It’s our favorite Christmas books, but there’s an even bigger list as well as a link to make it easier for you in our new Christmas mini course. That’s called cultivating a Christ Centered Christmas Legacy. And in those resources, you guys, we have all the books that we read to our kids, you know, about the wise men, about the, the, the narrative of Jesus’s birth in the Bible, just resources we’ve used over the years. But there’s also two books in there that we’ve used over the years that have taught our kids the real story of Santa Claus. So here’s the thing. Like as Christians, we don’t just, like, go, oh, we’re not participating in that and hide it from our kids. We would by no means say that that is equipping your children for truth and for reality and standing firm. But instead our approach has been, okay, so let’s teach our kids who Santa Claus was. He was a real man. He was Saint Nicholas, and he died because he’s human, like all humans die eventually. But he was.

Generous and he used to give.

And and so reading these different stories, one is written by voice of the martyrs, which is all of the funds go to support missionaries, which we love that. And then there was another one as well. I can’t remember who it was by, but it was a Christian publishing company, and it’s just neat to see, like the generous stories that are told about Saint Nicholas, who was a priest. Okay. And sharing with your kids. He loved God and so he loved other people. And that’s what we want to do. And that that example of Saint Nicholas is a beautiful thing to share with your kids, because it’s going to just instill godly character. And a good example, we do that all the time with Martin Luther, right? Like he started. The Reformation.

Where were we in Italy? It is a long time ago. Oh, yes. And we stumbled upon Saint Nicholas Church. Church, which is now kind of it is still a church, but the tourists go through it too, and that kind of thing. But anyways, just interesting. Yeah. And it had, it had the old mosaics and stuff, but they were red and white.

Yes, yes, yes, they had Saint Nicholas on the walls and the stained glass windows. But you know, we just want to exhort you guys here because this is the thing. Like, you can still you don’t have to hide from Santa. You don’t have to hide from the elves. You don’t have to hide, hide your kids from these things and not approach it. That would be like saying the same thing about like gender confusion. Today our approach is no, teach your children, equip them right? But you want to teach them truth. You want to be able to have your yes be yes and your no be no. And that there’s just like congruency in the way that you’ve raised your children. And I think that that’s really where our heart has been and does does say no to Santa mean that you’re saying no to gifts? That’s our next point, because a lot of people, they may take that approach and go, you know what? No. But for us, we were able to realize that the two can be separate and that you can really redeem the gift giving to encourage a heart of generosity in your kids. Yeah.

So we love giving our children gifts. I think all parents do. Yeah. We love, you know, having fun, opening them together, appreciating it. It’s also an opportunity for us to get them, equip them with new tools in the areas of passion in their life. And so we’ve used gift giving to our children at this time of year for those things, depending on what’s going on in the season and so forth. In fact, in Matthew verse five 711, oh, which one, honey?

Matthew 711.

Okay. Matthew 711. Thank you so much. If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? Now you have to understand that you know we’re all about prayer. Yeah, we’re all evil compared to God. That’s the point there. But that’s why we need Jesus. There’s the gospel there. But you know, it’s mentioning that parents love to give good gifts to their children. Don’t you love to give good gifts? And God even gives so much more because he’s giving so much more good than we are, right? That’s right. So I think that that’s a wonderful thing. So we do that. We have a we have a good time with that. But nobody believes there’s some mythical Santa giving it to them. In fact, the accurate belief is there that all gifts come from God. And there’s another scripture. And and so we focus on that. Yes, parents are giving, but where did that money come from? Where did that provision come from? It’s all God’s. And to recognize that that yeah, we’re giving each other gifts provided by God. Yes. And it’s a focus on on that. And, you know, I think that’s important. I mean with the wise men gave gifts.

That’s right. And so, in fact, we have a book that we read with our kids about that, and we see many examples in Scripture. In fact, who is the best gift giver of all or gift giver? Is God right? He gave his only begotten son. So that we could have reconciliation with him and have the free gift of eternal life. Jesus gave the ultimate gift when he sacrificed his life for people who even hated him. And I just I look at that and I go, wow. Okay, so say no to Santa doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re saying no to gift giving. The two can be separated. And so there’s a freedom that is there. Right. And also like gift giving is actually God’s idea. It is a biblical idea. It was his idea from the beginning. We see it in Genesis when he created Adam, and he saw that it wasn’t good, that he was alone. So he gave him a gift when he gave him a partner in Eve. And we see that this theme of loving gift giving all throughout Scripture with the promises of God, with the blessings of God, and for us as parents, like this time of year, our heart is that our kids wouldn’t focus on getting gifts, or that they wouldn’t even focus on giving gifts, that their focus would truly be on the ultimate gift giver who’s God and Jesus Christ and and and recognizing the power that we have as leaders in our family to steer what the focus is during the holidays.

It’s incredibly important that we recognize that God has put us in this position to choose. We have a choice as parents every day, and the decisions that we make and the decisions are not always simple. They’re not always easy. And there may be times where you go, okay, well, I agree with them on this, but not really on this, or I really feel this way and that’s okay. Like, but for all of us to always have an open, teachable heart from the Lord is really where our hearts should always be. Yeah. And so like for Isaac and I, we have so many times, especially in those first ten years when we were married, we were like, okay, we’re going down this road. We’re saying no to Halloween, okay, we’re going down this road. We’re saying no to Santa, but we’re saying yes to gifts, but we’re saying no.

And what do we do about the tree? That’s that was a pagan thing. And then we, you know, reconciled with that. And we we have trees. We love the tree.

And we make it like we read a book called The Legend of the Christmas Tree and the Tale of the Three Trees with our kids at Christmas. Those are two different books that have really like, helped us to redeem something because God made trees, guys, they’re his. And you may go, oh, but I just have a deep conviction about not doing it because we don’t want to practice with the pagans. And I get that we you have that conviction. Again, these are not essential doctrines that are supposed to be things that create division, but to dig into them, to prayerfully consider these things is something we’re all responsible.

I think our heart is every decision you make is accumulating and creating an outcome with your leadership and your children over the 18 years they’re in your home for sure, and everything impacts and builds up. And so we’ve just realized that the these smaller things added to other things accumulate with your children going into a direction, becoming worldly, wayward or going towards Christ. And we want to just focus on.

The things that are.

Not doing anything that hinders, because there’s already such a big assault on children, the enemy is going after them. We all agree with that, right? We see what’s happening in the news. We see we experience it. If you put your kids in school anywhere, you probably have experienced it. So there’s these, these forces that are out to steal, kill and destroy. That’s Satan, that’s the enemy. Right. And so we as parents have to go, okay. If there’s if there’s this, this force against children, we have to do everything we can to point them to Christ and nurture and and equip them and so forth. And so I wouldn’t want to be lying about Santa. That’s just another little thing that could be adding to their psyche of confusion about things in the future.

And we want to be truth speakers to our kids, and for them to know us as people that are going to just tell it to them straight and be honest about things. And and that is a relationship like a character quality within a relationship that has to be created through trust over time. And so for us, we just didn’t ever want to do something that was going to break that trust and especially intentionally. And so we really would encourage you guys to pray about this and get in alignment with your spouse. This isn’t about being in alignment with courageous parenting. This is about being in alignment with your spouse, talking about hard conversations that are going to impact your leadership and your legacy. But first and foremost, we want to point you guys to the Word of God and to digging in. We want to encourage you guys. There’s so many scriptures. We have them throughout the course. The mini course, by the way.

This mini course is super inexpensive. We just want everybody to have it. It’s 70% off. So it’s, you know, quite a bit under $10. It’s like close to.

The same price as a latte. Yeah.

So you know we’re basically you know, there’s a little bit of expense involved in every course that people. There’s technology behind it, things like that. We can’t just give it for free. You know, although someday we might. But if we can, like if the fundraising grows and these kinds of things, then we can start giving completely, giving things away. But we just want you to have it. So be courageous. Ministry.org hit courses. It’s right there. The first one. Yeah.

So the last thing that we just wanted to encourage you guys with. Well actually last two things. We understand that parenting decisions are difficult and that sometimes there’s not alignment in your marriage on things because one person does have like really strong, fond memories from their childhood of doing something, or maybe they have a different conviction or bent toward something else. And so we would be we’re going to be praying for all the marriages, first and foremost, because we have been praying for marriages, it seems like the enemy has been attacking marriages left and right a lot lately. So don’t let this be something that creates a fight in your marriage, but instead, like have teachable hearts. Encourage one another in the word, bring your concerns to one another, pray together, and then ultimately make a decision in alignment. But here’s one thing, okay, when you’re making that decision, we want to encourage you to really examine your child’s hearts. Like who has their heart at Christmas time? Is it Jesus or is it Santa? If someone was to randomly ask your child what Christmas is about, what’s their answer going to be? Is it about gifts? Because for some people they may go, hey, you know what? My kids are just so focused on what they’re going to get. I think we just don’t want to do a ton of gifts. Maybe just one. Or maybe we don’t want to do gifts this year. Hey guys, we’ve done that before. We’ve we’ve had a year where we were focused on giving because we felt that. And that sometimes can be a good thing, but it doesn’t mean that that necessarily needs to be what everybody’s doing. So when it comes down to this, like, remember, this is about you, your conviction with the Lord and being in alignment with your spouse and leading your family with integrity moving forward. And our last thing is that no wishy washy parenting.

Wishy washy leadership is challenging. And so it’s okay to shift gears sometimes, but sit down with your children and tell them what you used to do and why you were doing it that way, and what God taught you and made you realize and what the new path is going to be and why. And if you do it that way, that’s not a wishy washy leadership. That’s like, hey, that’s a leader. That’s learning and growing, which is what we want them to be doing as well as they eventually lead their families learning and growing. You realize something is shift, but you don’t want to just be wishy washy because you’re not being thoughtful, careful, really getting marriage alignment and thinking through how you’re going to implement something. We need to be unified and going in a good direction together. And you can make changes, but make sure it’s not just abrupt and, oh, we’re just doing this now. No, you got to take them. You got to help them through the change by discussing it with them. So that’s important.

No, it’s so good. And I think that, you know, in the process too, not going back and forth, back and forth, you know, wishy washy can be an abrupt thing where there isn’t an explanation. Right? But it can also be going back and forth between doing something over and over and over again. That can be super confusing and hard for kids. We’ve actually seen the ramifications of that in other families in the past. And and we just really would encourage you guys to if you aren’t in alignment, don’t make change yet. Make change once you’re in alignment, actually, because that’s really when you can stick to something and you want to do that as soon as you can, you know what I mean? And because that’s good leadership and you know, you’re never going to be a perfect parent. We know that from experience. There’s going to be times where you go, we made this decision. Now’s not the right decision. I’m sorry. We’re going to go do this. And that’s okay. There’s grace for us as parents too. It’s not just for our kids. And so walk in grace. You guys with each other have long suffering where people are at in their spiritual journey with the Lord and in asking themselves these hard questions. Not everyone’s been there, but if this podcast episodes been encouraging to you, challenging to you, we would ask you to help us get the word out and encourage more parents by sharing it with someone that you think could be encouraged to.

Hey, thanks for joining us.

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.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts and direct access to.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous ministry.org. That’s Be Courageous ministry.org.