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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.

We’re praising the Lord that the 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.

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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 to the show. We’re so glad you’re here. Hey guys, hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. And if you’re listening to this some other time line, well, hope you had a good week.

That’s right. So we started last week. We did a first part to like a 2 or 3 part series on family culture. Today is the second episode to that series. Both of the podcast episodes stand alone, of course, and we’re really excited to dive into this topic with you guys. But before we do, we just want to say, hey, happy holidays. I mean, we just had Thanksgiving. Yeah, Christmas is coming, so Merry Christmas a little early. Um, we’re excited to be doing this podcast. We are in the month of our six year anniversary of doing the Courageous Parenting podcast. Yes. And that is only because of you guys making it possible. Um, a lot goes into the production of podcasts, and now we have the heart of the home, and we have courageous parenting and resolute man. And so we just thank you for those of you who have joined in and supporting, whether it’s through prayer or through giving, or through just the encouragement that we get. When you send us messages, it all means a lot to us.

It does and it be courageous. Ministry org you can find all resources. Also, we are kicking off fundraising today when this episode comes out for the end of the year, which is so vital for the ministries success at reaching more people and impacting people. I don’t know if you know this, but over 190 countries people listen to the Courageous Parenting podcast. We’ve the podcast Courageous Parenting has had its biggest year ever. Obviously the other two shows are newer this year, so we’ll find out next year how much they’ve grown, which is exciting, but they’re doing solid and we just so appreciate it. And so if you if the spirit prompts you to contribute, join us.

In the effort Be.

Courageous Ministry org and then hit give and you can see the details actually. Or if you’re just curious, what is the money going to what’s you know, what’s needed and these kinds of things. But there is a great need and we just trust the Lord and we just keep walking one foot in front of the other in faith in God’s direction to to have impact. And it’s part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. So but hey, we’re going to talk about family, culture, planning, date night. Um, I find it I think this muscle is hard for a lot of marriages, actually, because they’re used to a certain kind of date night, which is whatever you guys like to do just to spend time together. Which is the best kind of date night, right? You have a good time together. It’s fantastic. But what we’re periodically calling people to do is shift it. It’ll feel a little bit more like a meeting, actually, where you’re going with an intention to do something different together, not just shopping and dinner and a movie or whatever you normally do, or going to see a show or whatever. Instead you’re like, okay, we have this thing coming up where we’re actually going to get to work on elements of how we’re feeling about how our family is going and aspects of life and areas we want to improve so that we can constantly or periodically throughout the year, be recalibrating towards a better direction. And the reason this is vital is because your family is always going in a direction, and if it’s not being purposefully led in a direction, then it’s probably slightly unraveling. And if things unravel just a little bit over time, over time, you have something you don’t want. And so really, we’ve found it extremely important to be recalibrating several times a year. This is a perfect time of year to do so. And that’s what this episode is about.

Yeah. So the first episode, last week’s episode, we talked about thankfulness a lot because it was also aligning with when Thanksgiving was hitting in America. And but really exercising, regardless of where you live, isn’t having a thankful heart something God calls us to always have? Yes. It’s a good muscle to practice. And so we talk about that. We went through scriptures on thankfulness, what God calls us to, to pray without ceasing, to come to him with prayers and supplication, with thanksgiving in our heart. And so having a family culture that is thankful, just alone, like even if you think about I love using that word thankful, or you could you could put gratitude in there, right? And evaluating what your family culture currently is and what you want it to be, as well as maybe what it’s been in the past to kind of see if it’s eroded, if it’s gotten better in the last year. Um, because one of the things I was thinking about when you were sharing with them is how sometimes, yeah, things can get off of the, the tracks, like if you were a choo choo train on a railroad track. Right. You can the train can get off of the tracks at any point in the year because of random things. It can be because of disconnection and a lack of like, family meeting together in the Bible. Or it can be because of sickness, right? And maybe missing church multiple weeks in a row because of sickness. And then all of a sudden it’s like, where are our attitudes at? Right? Um, but then there’s also this element of maybe the couple hasn’t been as strong, right? Maybe husband’s traveling more or wife is.

Who knows, maybe there’s just been like, no ability to have regular date nights and an opportunity to connect and get back together and to discuss. And if that continues for too long, I think that that’s one of the biggest things that can end up getting the train off the tracks, so to speak. Right. But then also there’s like the regardless of what season of life you are in as a married couple or as a family, you know, you have the busy Little Tikes trenches, right? Where there’s sleepless nights, there’s little stuffy noses. Um, there’s constantly someone potentially tugging on your pant leg, wanting to give you a hug or interrupting a conversation. And you can feel like it’s easy for the train to get off the tracks in that season. But then you move to the next season, and it’s the same thing. If your kids are in sports or activities, maybe you’re going in different directions, so I just thought that I would share, like how does that happen? Yeah. And it’s so many subtle little ways over time it can create an erosion of wait a second, is this train our family going in the direction that we actually decided we wanted it to go on and and are all the things that we’re involved in are are circumstances or the season of life that we’re in or whatever. Is it actually causing us to get off track, and how do we get back on track? And we have.

To be careful, because sometimes we think everything’s fine, because we’ve consolidated an identity about our marriage and our family, and we share it with other people. So we’re voicing something into truth in our brains, like our marriage is good. You might say that to somebody if somebody asked. Right? Yeah. Oh, kids are doing great. And you list off all the things each kid is doing and all these things to the grandparents or whoever it is. And what you’re doing is you’re training your mind, convincing your mind that everything’s great. But let me warn you that while all those things you’re saying are true, I’m sure they are behind the scenes. The culture might be eroding because the culture is what actually is true in all senses. Meaning it’s the real behaviors. It’s not the behaviors you hope for, the best version of the behaviors or the best moments. Right? It’s what are the real attitudes of the children? What are the real attitudes in the marriage towards each other? What are the real words spoken when no one else is looking? What are the real activities or lack of activities in the right directions that are happening are not happening. You know, that’s what we’re getting at here. It’s not the quick answer you’d give somebody. The culture is the real behaviors when no one’s looking.

That’s right. So before we dive into today’s actual episode, which we’re going to encourage and coach couples through, what is this next date night look like, right. When you’re setting family culture, what is the what is the family culture planning date night look like. And we’re going to give you guys some tips. But before we do that we just wanted to give a shout out to one of our favorite sponsors, Master Books.com. I have been using their curriculum all year this year and I am absolutely loving it. You can find out more at Master books.com/courageous, which has like a list of some of my favorite curriculums that I’ve been using. Um, but I just wanted to highlight a couple of them with you right now. So for those of you who have like junior high and high schoolers, I would definitely highlight their apologetics curriculum. They are the number one publisher of Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham’s books, and so they are utilizing a lot of those books, along with a very strict curriculum that you follow to take your kids through, like, and even just, you know, what does the Bible say and what are people saying that the Bible says that’s actually a lie, right? And like literally equipping them to know when someone is believing a deception. Right? Which I think is so important today that we we attempt to do our best as parents. And I say attempt to do our best because it’s something that we have to consciously make an effort to do.

But guys like, no one’s going to be perfect at it. That’s true. There’s going to be things that your kids are exposed to, or they they hear someone talking about something and they may not have an answer for it. Well, okay. Take that as a learning experience. Be humble, figure it out with your kids, and praise God that they came and talk to you about it. Um, but one of the things that I’ve loved about this is that Master Books has a long standing history with answers in Genesis. They are their main publisher, and so they’re trustworthy. I know that everything is theologically biblical. I don’t have to worry about any progressive or woke things seeping into the curriculum. And so as a mom, that makes me feel like it’s a safer curriculum to be using. So anyway, so if you’re interested in that, January is a good time to check out new curriculums. And that’s just around the corner right now. It’s like Christmas time. And so if there was something that you wanted to like, add on to your curriculum or maybe do during the Christmas months, if you’re taking Christmas off from your main home schooling and you want to add a smaller curriculum to that, they actually have books that you can read through that are awesome, um, that are that just cover certain topics. And that’s something that I would recommend.

Yeah, it’s a resource place. You can bookmark it in your browser.

Master books.com/courageous. And I just want to I just want to reiterate there. It’s not just curriculums. They actually have books that parents can read. So you can have your teenagers read or whatever.

It’s beautiful. Well, hey, uh, let’s dive in. We have five things about this date night meeting or marriage meeting, if you will. Right. And if you have little kids and you can’t get out, just do it in.

And we’re we’re hoping that you if you haven’t listened to last week’s podcast, we would just encourage you to go listen to it, because we give some like exercises that we think are really helpful to do before this date night. Yeah. Um, but we’re going to start out with something that can be a sit alone date night that you can do with or without it as well. We just love both.

So after reflecting on all the things you’re thankful for, which is something we said in the last episode and praying some prayer time and so forth, then you’re going to have another date night because you probably already had one to do that other part. And you’re going to rate the different areas of life. And this is exciting and can be frustrating. The reason it’s exciting is because one of you is more optimistic than the other one, and that person looks at this as an exciting adventure. And then the person that’s not as optimistic in your marriage looks at this as an opportunity to finally share what they really think and how poorly some of these areas are going.

That’s right. And, you know, there’s also that element of like, is this an opportunity where I bring up something that I feel like we’ve been really failing in? Right. So then maybe there’s some potential conflict, like you’re bringing something up. And so, you know, we just want to encourage you guys that it’s important that you pray like that was one of the after reflecting on the things you’re thankful for, do spend some time praying before you have this date night. So after you listen to this podcast, maybe even just pray, Lord God, would you just help me to know how to have long suffering, to be calm? Help me to be optimistic. Like pray for the Holy Spirit. To help you to be. To be able to be a good finder and find the things that you’re thankful for.

And if you don’t mind me sharing this. Angie. Angie is a practical person, and so she sees things very much how they are, which is good for me and to be married to her. And it’s a wonderful thing. But one of the things that she’s worked a muscle on and improved at is not just immediately going to all the negatives about something which has been a thing earlier on in our marriage, but instead she’s far more balanced now of looking at, okay, there’s some negatives and some positives and not just spiraling in the negative, right?

And starting out a meeting with the good things is good. And then sometimes when you have to talk about the hard things to remember and look for the good things, even within the hard things.

And the thing I’ve worked on is not getting frustrated when there are negative things, because early on I would. I was so positive and so optimistic about things that it was too much sometimes.

Yeah. So having patience and long suffering as a married couple, give yourself some patience and grace because it does take time to grow in those things. But exercising this muscle of having an actual meeting as a date night is a good way to start exercising that muscle.

And hey gents, I just want to say something. Of course, your wife probably wouldn’t do this, but wives do struggle with this, and we can tempt our wives to do this if we’re not careful, which is if we don’t create an open line of communication to talk about everything in all things, then she’s going to feel this urge to tell somebody. And if your wife especially is a vocal person, I know mine is, but she doesn’t struggle with this. But I just know that is a temptation. I think that one of the things I’ve worked the muscle on is making sure she can tell me all those things, and I’ve gotten better at that even. And so I think it’s important that we really welcome all feedback. And so here’s some ideas. If you have pen and paper, great. If not, just watch listen to this again when you do. But you can get these in your head and you can start crafting your own. We might not even mention one of them, but there’s a there’s a good list here and you just want to rate them 1 to 10. You can do it together. I think that’s great. And you might wrestle with it. One of you is like, no, that’s a seven. And the other person’s like, well, that’s a six. And you might have to have two different colored pens as you rate them.

Actually, I think that we in the past we’ve done this so many different ways. We’ve used our favorite journals, our growth roots journals. Yeah. Um, which you guys can find out about those by checking out her website. But, um, we’ve used those for many years and we will write down our own list, and then we’ll evaluate them separately and then share our ratings with one another, one category at a time. And then we all like in that conversation, you usually both start to adjust your number to actually find the realistic number. Yeah. And so it’s not that you’re both, you know right. It’s that you’re actually sometimes are both wrong and that’s okay. Right. Or sometimes you are both right. And so it’s just a matter of perspective and hearing one another out. And sometimes one person in the marriage has a little bit more Intel than the other. And so it’s good to have that and it brings that opportunity. So when you get to spiritual or you get to education and you’re evaluating, how are we doing with the kids on the education, how are we doing with the kids spiritually? You might have totally different ratings, but that provides you an opportunity to ask this one simple question.

It’s why. Why did you give it a ten out of ten? Why did I give it a three out of ten. And let’s talk about that and find out what the real number probably should be. And then what can we do to encourage that. And so sometimes and I’ll you shared just a little bit about how I’m a little bit wired. I think that one thing that all couples can probably relate to that are listening to this podcast, is that sometimes the dads, because they are oftentimes not around the kids as much as mom is, their ratings can be a little bit more optimistic because they literally don’t have the Intel. They literally don’t necessarily even know what has been going on in a relational sense, between that kid and another kid, or that kid and all the other kids in the family, or mom and that kid. Right. And so that’s why these meetings are so important, is because when you have the different ratings, sometimes one might be more positive because they literally don’t even have a full picture of what the ratings should be.

So here’s some areas. Spiritual. Relational. Health, marriage, financial, church, education, friendships, um, your.

Dreams, your.

Dreams or callings or desires, those are kind of different things. But in the same general bucket, uh, personal growth. How is your personal growth going? Uh, productivity, um, generosity. And you could go on and on and on. So again, spiritual relational health, marriage, financial, church education, friends, dreams, personal growth, productivity, generosity. So it’s a lot of things you don’t have to use all those things. You could pick out six things, you know, and these kinds of things. But what are the things you want to rate? And gents, you could come in lead that lead. What are the areas you want to rate? Just don’t leave off spiritual just because you don’t want to talk about it. You wouldn’t do that. Of course not. Right. But Psalm 78, uh, verse 72 says with upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand. It’s talking about David there. Uh, what a great leader. Imperfect leader. Um, but in a lot of his life, he was a good leader. Some of his life he was a terrible leader. And I think we can all relate to that, you know? But I like this right here with upright heart. He shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand. Wow. Upright heart. Skillful hand. So what’s inside needs to be going well so that what we do on the outside can happen? Well, so that’s good leadership right there. And I love that. And so that’s encouraging to me. I hope it’s encouraging to you. And of course the moms are vital leaders as well in the family. And so I’m sure you can take that to heart too.

Yeah. So just even thinking about that upright heart when you come into a meeting like this, if you both have the heart posture of, I want to be a good leader for my family and I want to be a submissive wife biblically. So in this moment, what does that mean for having an upright heart? And it’s different for each person in that relationship, right? And so it’s still a good challenge for all of us. So thanks for that scripture. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think that one of the important things throughout the meeting that we wanted to put on here, number two. So after you’ve got your different areas and you may have totally different areas that we just gave you guys like a list, a short list of some of the ones that we have done over the years and do on a yearly basis. Um, but underneath each of those categories, there might be little subcategories, right? So like thinking about relational, for example, like maybe that is something where in your journal personally you’re evaluating what the relationships are like with you and your husband, you and each of your individual children. But then we had church and friends as separate categories, right? Because it’s like, okay, so I need to evaluate, like, are my friends actually being as iron sharpens iron, right.

Like, are they, um, helping me to grow stronger in Christ? Are they helping me to be fulfilling the purpose that God has created me to? Do they believe in that, right? Or do I feel like I’m constantly never measuring up and I’m stuck in a comparison trap and there’s just like this negative, unhealthy friendship going on, right? And so as you, as an individual need to evaluate your friendships, but then you’re also going to evaluate like the friend peer relationship. And do you have your child’s heart or do does your child’s heart actually belong to their friends? And if it does, then that’s something you need to confront. You need to chase after your child’s heart. And so each of these categories, like I said, could have like multiple subcategories. And this could take you a while if you were to really, really dig deep. But I do want to encourage you, for those of you who have never done something like this, when we first got started, I think we had like maybe five categories on our list. We started with God, marriage, family and personal growth in finances and finances health. So we had six. And so you could just and then I added.

A seventh Usually projects because we do a lot.

Of projects. Yeah, but even back then, in our first few years of marriage, we weren’t doing that so much because we didn’t even have a house yet until like 18 months in. And so I just want to encourage you guys that it doesn’t have to be this long, drawn out thing. You can start smaller and then maybe you have a second date night. That’s just about this, where you’re bringing in some more because you have such a fun time together and you love being purposeful, that you’re like, hey, let’s do this on these topics, right? And so for us, like we added generosity to our categories. And part of that is because years ago, that was one of our initiatives with our family, is that we had experienced so many, so much generosity from other people in a really hard time that we wanted to make sure that we were cultivating that within our children and in ourselves. And so that’s something that we evaluate because it’s near and dear and kind of like something that the Holy Spirit put in.

France that was transformative for me, as I think back over the years, just the generosity thing, like even with planting a church locally right now being super busy. Um, yeah, I don’t if we didn’t make that part of this, I don’t know that that would be happening today.

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Been participating.

It’s been a whole heart change that has happened anyway. So it’s just really beautiful. And you could add any, any word, maybe the word loyalty comes to mind that you need to evaluate what is your reputation. Are you a loyal person? Are your kids loyal to family?

What’s step two? So we got five of them.

So two would be to review your thankfulness list. And we put that on there because this can be a hard conversation. And so in the midst of it remember this is your little reminder to if things are negative, especially in like 4 or 5 categories in a row, to try to be a good finder and look for the things that you’re thankful for.

Number three start to create areas of improvement. So what I mean by that is start to look at what is most important to improve. And you might even have a list and it’s okay if it gets longer. You’re going to you’re going to narrow that down. But in fact I would encourage it to be long of areas you want to improve at first because it enables you to make sure you start focusing in the right areas. You’re not going to focus on every one of those areas. It’s impossible. It’s too frustrating. It’s too, uh, you’re not going to laborers. It’s too hard with a marriage and everything going on. So I’m going to we’re going to teach you something really quick how to distill down in a second. But first you got to go bigger, you know, what are the areas. So under spiritual what are the areas? Well, I really would desire a family to eat dinner more and read the Bible together. Maybe that’s one of those areas. Right. And you you write that down, these desires of your heart that areas you want financial. We really want to be able to buy this house.

We really want to be able to move on to acreage or whatever it is, you know, and to write those things down. There’s there’s power, by the way. You can think things, you can talk about things. But when you actually write things, I’ve just experienced so much power in that intentionality that it sticks. It becomes more real and concrete when I write something, and it’s even proven from a memory standpoint that when you write something, you’re more likely to remember it way more. So I think there’s something to that. So writing out this list, this longer list of things to improve, um, you know, keeping in mind the thankfulness too. So, you know, get out of hand. That’s a really, really important thing. And then the next thing is step four would be to look at what are the themes that are happening because there’s things on your list, but you’re looking for, okay, maybe like eight of those things have to do with the same bigger thing. Maybe there’s a bigger problem that’s causing seven of those problems. You know what I mean?

Like and I just want to point out something really quick because we were talking about this earlier, where sometimes it’s hard for certain personalities to be good finders, but then it’s also can be hard sometimes for other people to operate in reality and be willing to admit when something’s not right. And that’s what this exercise needs to do with people. Because if you’re not willing to see what is wrong, then you don’t know what theme to choose to focus on with your family so that that is cultivated. Do you see what I’m saying? Yeah. So if something’s missing, for example, like if generosity was missing and we were just like, man, the kids are just so selfish and and we’re, like, lamenting on our date night about this problem. This problem? Oh, the selfishness. The. Da da da da da da da da da. And then we don’t realize that that actually points to a good thing that could be cultivated, that could be the answer to helping selflessness be cultivated in the family. And that’s generosity, that’s giving weather. And that’s not just necessarily giving of like finances or giving of things. But what about if they were giving of their time? They were giving with their patience? What if they were giving with their pursuing relationships, right. Like how how much would that change a family culture that was struggling with selfishness? Right. And so you have to absolutely have to be willing to take the rose tinted glasses off and see the problems that are there in order to find out what the themes are like. You can’t find the themes unless you look at what the problem is.

Here’s how most people approach this. Sounds so good, and here’s how most people approach this. They just think about what they want. Yeah, and the problem with that is it’s maybe not getting to the deeper issue or the core of what actually creates what you want. So you’re like, I it’d be just great if in the new year we I’m going to do the same example again. We had more dinner times and we read the Bible more with the kids. Okay. But is that getting to the core of what causes that? So if you just focus on that, it’s not good. It’s just like companies I help companies with this in the past, which is they would have this thing on the wall of what they’re about and what they’re going for, right? The core values and their goals and what the company is about and these kinds of things. And I’m like, okay, well, is that really the most important things that creates the outcomes you really, really want? And a lot of times it’s not and it’s not what actually is. It’s this kind of facade of what we are. And so instead on that same example, uh, what do you think actually is the catalyst for that? It’s a, it’s a maybe it’s maybe it’s the husband changes a career because they’re gone all the time. It’s a.

Big change.

That’s a big change. So maybe there’s an unfair ask or desire with the same circumstances of the husband reading the Bible more often at dinner time, because the career doesn’t allow for that. So maybe the bigger question is, are you in the right career? Okay, so another another example of that could be spiritual growth. Maybe there’s just okay, maybe we need to grow spiritually. So we desire to open the Bible. So we desire to teach our kids and we feel more capable of that. Maybe I’m not being discipled. Maybe discipleship is the problem and that’s the core of it versus just I want to have more dinners and read the Bible more. Okay, well then where does that go? What’s the deeper, even deeper level of problem here is that maybe you’re not part of the right church, or maybe you are part of the right church, but you’re not digging in. You’re not committed to your church. Maybe you’re not in a Bible study. So this is.

A perfect example of what it means to ask why and not stop at the first why, but then ask another why? And another why? Because then you find the little things, right? So like, if someone was to evaluate their marriage and let’s say the husband puts a nine or an eight, and let’s say the wife puts like a two or a three. Oh, that could be a hard part of the conversation, right. Where the husband’s like, oh, really? Like you’re unhappy. Like, why did you put a two or a three for a marriage?

And maybe one of them’s valuing the bedroom, and the other one is valuing communication.

Exactly. Or maybe one of them is valuing acts of service or physical touch, like you said. Or maybe it’s a different love language, that they’re wired differently, and one person is purposefully speaking to that person through the way that they feel most valued. But it’s not that isn’t being reciprocated in the sense of like knowing them and going, oh, they don’t love what I love. They love this. I’m gonna try this instead. Right. And so then they’re able to talk about how they’re wired and how well, I actually don’t appreciate that very much. I actually appreciate this or I really like it when the house is clean and you help me with it versus me doing it, or like whatever it is. And then it’s like, oh, note to self, you can put that on the little note of like, oh, my wife wants me to do it with her, not just by herself or like and then it’s then they start pursuing the wife in the way that she feels most valued, which for that woman is acts of service. And so it’s like ding ding, ding. And then you come back and you reevaluate and she’s like nine, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so what Isaac is saying here on the themes and the, the little areas like what are the what are the little things that you can work on to up that number? That was the rate.

And themes to think of it like a lever. So the cool part of the mechanism of a lever is when you use a lever, you can lift far more weight, right? So if you lift something with your hand, it’s limited. But if you have a leverage by using a lever then you can lift way more. And so what we’re looking for in these themes is what are the levers? The few things. Now, in case we had a big list. And what are the few things that impact the most things on the list, right? Because you can only actually pursue 1 to 3 things and have success. And so and so the question I would challenge you with, once you have your list, how many of those things are impacted by spiritual growth? If there was spiritual growth, how many of those things would be better? That’s a way to test it. If my marriage was better, how many of these things would be better? Would be better. If our finances were better, how many of these things were better? You might be surprised how few actually on the list actually are better by better finances.

It’s interesting, but that’s a good tactic though, to evaluate and prioritize, because ultimately we all know that our relationship with God and then our marriage and then our family in that order. Priorities, right. But the truth is, is that if you’re, like, really struggling in a relationship with one of your kids. It affects your marriage and it affects the whole family culture. And it actually can affect your relationship with God too. And so the truth is, is we need to like we need to be willing to see those hard places, have those conversations, and then pick and prioritize. And this might take a prayerful time to some some couples have some really big issues going on. And so this may not all get worked out in date night. Number two, it might take 3 or 4 date nights to be able to go through the categories and to really figure it out and go, okay, so this is the thing we need to work on first to help our marriage so that our family can be better, or to help our family so that the culture we desire is really there.

And so now you’ve worked on your themes. We’re going to give you the fifth one in a second. But first, I want to read in Matthew 33, sorry, 633 but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Oh, there is the ultimate key which is seeking God. Both spouses seeking God and not seeking their own selfishness. Not seeking their own worldly desires, but instead seeking God. Then the things that you decide in point five here are going to be in alignment with God’s will. And that is everything. So point five is you’ve now decide what your key levers are, the impact of those things. And from that you’re going to develop either key words or a very short statement that our culture driving statements, family culture, driving statements that you can verbalize and use to influence and remind each other of the culture we’re trying to move towards. So an example of one in past is for us.

A culture driver would be eagles, not seagulls. And it was just this desire. We were starting to have teenagers and they were starting to do more things independently, where mom and dad are not necessarily always with them and they’re making their own friends, right? Like they’re making wise choices or we’re praying that they do. And we wanted to have something that they could really remember and kind of like hold on to that would throughout their life, remind them not to be like the crowds, be willing to stand firm, and that sometimes leaders, eagles who are Christians will fly alone, and that it’s okay and not be the people pleasing person that is constantly like wanting the crowd, right?

So dolphins are eagles, not seagulls, and that everybody remembers. Yeah, that is part of our.

Culture, right? Another one was, um, producers, not consumers. And that was something that we created. I mean, that was that was.

One social media one. It was when social media was taking off. Yeah. And we realized that back in 2003, the trend is going to be that people just massively consume and watch other people’s dreams versus really cultivating and creating their own dreams and accomplishing things. And there will be a lot of dread from just witnessing and always seeing everybody else doing things. And it will cause anxiety in people, especially children. So we came up with producers versus consumers. It’s not that we don’t consume, but it’s keeping it in balance. And that has been very, very important for our family too. Generosity too. One word was generosity. But be generous would be turning it into a sentence. And, um, that was a pivotal one, which we mentioned before. So these are just some of those. And we went through this process and were like, wow, this is going to be important people, right?

But you can even tell though, like with the producers versus consumers, you can tell what the potential problem we were foreseeing could have been. It wasn’t that we had a problem necessarily, it was that we were like, wow, okay, this could potentially become a problem and we want to get on top of it now. Yeah. You know, like. Yeah. And I bring that up because that’s actually an important conversation in this date night too. If you can is like okay, so this year this is how old our kids are. These are the activities they’re in. What are the potential problems or influential situations that we can foresee happening in the next year, year and a half? And then creating a theme that will also teach and lead your children not to follow into that problematic situation.

Medical freedom is something we all desire, and I think we’d all agree that in the last four years, we’ve really realized just how important it is to have a trusted, like minded doctor.

You should be able to build your medical team and choose who you get care from. Knowing that where you spend your money is a matter of stewardship and a desire to support local Christian medical businesses.

Absolutely. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to help support businesses that have a biblical worldview on life and health.

Here’s the problem more often than not, you have to choose your doctor off a preferred in-network list. And if I’m really honest, those clinics usually see such mass quantities of people that it’s incredibly impersonal and you walk away feeling like a number. In addition, in most cases, in order to be seen by specialists, you’re required to get a referral from a primary care physician, which costs more time and money.

We want to introduce you to a biblical approach to health care. Samaritan Ministries. You can find out more about it at Samaritan Ministries. Dot org forward slash be courageous.

They’re a health sharing ministry built on biblical principles of bearing one another’s burdens practically, financially, through helping with health care costs, and spiritually through praying and caring for one another.

Samaritan ministries gives you the freedom you desire to choose your doctors and health care professionals, including. This is cool alternative care providers like chiropractors and naturopathic providers as well.

The process is simple and provides us, as Christians, a way to obey Scripture and care for one another as the larger church.

Samaritan ministries is the only health caring, sharing ministry with direct member to member sharing.

I love that we send our monthly share directly to another brother or sister in Christ, to support someone going through a medical crisis or recovering from a medical need, rather than to some large corporation.

So if you’d like to find out more about Samaritan Ministries, go to Samaritan ministries.org/be courageous. That’s Samaritan ministries.org/be courageous. To learn more.

When you sign up don’t forget to tell them that be courageous mystery or Angie and Isaac Tolpin referred you.

The links will also be in our weekly podcast show notes at Be Courageous ministries.org. You know, it’s interesting as we came up with producers versus consumers before we launched Courageous Parenting, Angie was doing some things blog and had a book. I was doing things in the business world that were producing, obviously, but we never really dove into the level of content creation in a public way until after we launched this with our family. So the good point I’m making here is that it influences you too. And maybe most importantly, and when what I would caution anybody is they’re thinking through this, going through this process is don’t create anything that you aren’t. Because leaders will never drive forward something that doesn’t already exist within them. So it’s really important, as leaders in your family, that you’re not just coming up with cool ideas because you’re never going to do it if you haven’t already been doing some aspect of it. If the DNA of that isn’t already in your blood, how are you going to make sure that’s in your children’s blood? And so it’s going to be hypocritical, actually, which is the famous word that teenagers love to use about their parents in the world today. We don’t want that to be used about us. Right. And so we only want to drive forward things we’re committed to, and you never stop communicating about it. And that would be the next tip I have for you guys, which isn’t on our board, but is to never stop communicating about your culture. Drivers decide if you distill down the impact in many areas, and then you’re going to communicate them. And we’re going to talk more about that in the next episode and how to really launch this with your family, which I think is really important.

That’s awesome. So as you guys are identifying some of the key words or phrases that want that are going to be drivers of your culture, things that you want to stick to, your stick in your kids minds, things they’re going to remember, things that you can repeat on a regular basis. That’s another thing. If it’s not something that you would repeat with your family over and over again, it’s not the right phrase. That’s it’s just not because for us, it was like, okay, is this catchy? Is it memorable? Is it something our kids are going to remember? Is it something we need to lead ourselves in and they need to lead theirselves in? Like, it’s like the more of those questions become yeses, the better the culture driver it will be.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I’ll just give you an example. I’m wearing it right now. Be rooted. And we launched the church with a culture driving statement, which is and I have it on this wristband. It’s all about being everybody. More and more people in the community are wearing these, which is so cool, which is the love God, so you can love others well and grow in Christ so that you can go and make disciples. So love grow, go be rooted in Christ. And the side point was to be rooted locally because we believe local matters big. And that’s that’s something that I talk about often. And as I was putting this together and thinking about it, and Angie was involved in that too, is to go, well, am I like that? And then to be able to say, check those off? And then secondly, would I talk like this? And the answer is yes. And so therefore it works. Right. And then you’re going to drive it forward. And is it causing the most areas of what’s needed within that group or community. So that’s really important. And Proverbs 24 three through four it says 24 three through four it says by wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established by knowledge. The rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. So by what a house is built. Wisdom, wisdom.

And sometimes you don’t necessarily know what the phrases are going to be. And if you get to a place where you’re stuck like that in this process, you’ve already gone through reflecting. You’ve rated each category. You’ve taken time to be thankful, be a good finder. You’re you’re praying carefully through how to evaluate each of these sections with your spouse, and you’re communicating, and maybe you’re adjusting your numbers and you’re communicating more. And then you’re starting to find like, what are the things that I need to do to change to help the ratings of these different categories go up, right? Actually, that’s the goal. Yeah. Um, but then also you’re going, okay, so now, hey, we’ve got to figure out a word or two words or a three word phrase that we can take back to our family, and then we’re going to teach it to them. We’re going to teach them this process, which is going to be what the next podcast episode is all about.

So make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen. We’re on YouTube, we’re on Spotify, we’re on Apple, and probably all the other places that you have a favorite app. So make sure you subscribe so you get notified of this next episode. And if you haven’t listened to the first one, go back and listen to that. And everything’s at Be Courageous Ministry. Org. We so appreciate you being part of the movement. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, also, just before we go, we have to tell them about the new e-book.

Are you sure?

Oh it’s awesome you guys. It’s like 33 pages, right?

It’s pretty awesome.

We have a free e-book that’s available on the website. So when you go there, if you sign up.

Already 200 people have already taken advantage of getting that in the last few days. And that’s amazing.

People launched it Friday.

We have people sharing about it. It’s completely free and we’re just so thankful for everybody being part of the ministry. And it’s biblical parenting. Six Keys to Thriving in Unprecedented Times.

That’s awesome. So go check that out. Take advantage of the free e-book. You guys have a great week!