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Full Transcript:

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

Welcome to the podcast everyone. We have a special guest today, Kurt Cameron, and you might have heard of him from the movie fireproof or the new Brave books that are out. Maybe if you’re if you’re a little bit aged like us, maybe when he was a child actor. So but he’s he’s a Christian strong believer that’s really doing good things to bring awareness and to help the kingdom of God.

Hey guys, we wanted to have Kirk on the podcast today to introduce you to him. If you’re not familiar with what God has been doing through his ministry, but also he’s a parent of six kids himself. Him and his wife have been an advocate for homeschooling, and so we’re excited to have all kinds of conversations. I hope it’s edifying to you guys today. Thanks for joining us. Yeah.

So thanks. Welcome.

Thank you. Great. Great to be with you guys. Are you at home right now? Where are.

You? Yeah, we’re. You know, we’re on the property. We have a little studio that we do, the podcast shooting in and so forth. So. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Nice.

Renovated with our kids.

Where are you on? That’s right.

That’s right. Um, put them to work.

That’s good. You know, all about you have six children, so I’m sure you know all about that. Are you on your porch there or.

You know, I’m actually visiting a friend. I’m in Greenville, South Carolina, and so this is a little Airbnb, and it’s kind of worked out perfectly with, with this little porch to come out here and talk to you all today.

Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Well, you know, I was really encouraged to see doing the fireside prayer chats, I guess you call them where you’re teaching the Bible and talking about what’s going on.

American campfire revival.

Thank you, campfire revival. And one of the reasons I liked it so much is it just seems so pure. Wanting to help society during tough times. You started doing that I noticed in Covid, and I also appreciate too, with all of the challenge happening in society, that you have the American flag behind you. And I just I just feel like it’s there’s so much hope in what you’re doing there. But thought we’d start by just asking you what gives you hope and what you know inspires you to keep the American flag behind you?

Let’s see. The faithfulness of God is what gives me hope. And if I think that so often we can, we we want circumstances to go well for our kids, for our for us, for our country. And when we have our eyes focused on the foreground, which is the the weather, the news, what’s going on in the Middle East, what’s happening economically, California, $7 a gallon, gas prices. We’re looking what’s happening morally, spiritually, politically. We can become discouraged and we can become hopeless. And I meet a lot of people who are inching toward that cliff of despair, thinking, surely we’re near the end of the world. Since when did we ever think that boys would be becoming girls and millions of tax dollars would be going to abort babies? Surely the rapture must be must be planned to get here by Tuesday. I have no more hope for this world, but that’s a wrong view in my mind. I think that’s not a biblical lens through which we should look at the world. What I think we should be doing is keeping the faithfulness of God in the foreground, and understanding that all things work together for good for those who love him, including $7 a gallon gas prices, including watching our culture decline morally and the church wane spiritually.

Because I think God has lessons for us in that, and it has to do with maturing his people. And our focus needs to be on what’s in the background, and that is the sovereignty of God, the faithfulness of God. He is the blessed controller of all things. That’s what gives me hope. So when I see bad things happen in my town or in my country, or even a health setback, or a financial setback or something, that is generally discouraging, we have to put that in the context of the wider reality. And that is, this isn’t the perfect storm that’s going to take me down. This is a tiny white cap that is on the top of a giant tidal wave tsunami of the sovereignty of God and the victory of God and the unstoppable force of his kingdom that is moving through this world as it has been for the last 2000 years. And we get to ride that wave right now. Amen. In 2023. And it may be crazy and and it may be it may be terrifying, but there’s someone who’s directing the wave and it’s a good wave and that’s that’s the almighty in heaven. Amen. That’s what gives me hope. That’s what gives me hope. It all comes.

Back to trust in the Lord and having a real relationship with him, being in our Bibles and and yes, we need to take action, but it’s action with complete trust in God and that changes how our actions come out. It changes what’s behind the actions, the intentions of them. It it limits us from parenting in fear. Instead, we can parent in confidence because we trust God and we still make wise actions.

It’s interesting that we started out talking about hope for what’s happening in the world. One of the most common questions that we get on a regular basis. Maybe you have a word for these parents that are thinking this way, but there’s a lot of people who look at the world today, and they don’t want to bring more children into the world based upon the circumstances that they’re seeing happening. And of course, for us, we’re it’s probably pretty obvious what we’re encouraging parents in that God is sovereign, and part of his sovereignty is that he uses his body of Christ here on earth, his people. Right? And so if he if he decides to bring forth life, God’s only real creator of children and. For us to be equipping our children, understanding and trusting that God chose them for the generation that they were born in. And that is a it’s a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. When I say that, because a lot of people look at giving life as like their their jurisdiction, not something that God does. And I’d love to hear an encouragement for you from you. For parents who are struggling with like, what do I do? I don’t know if I want to bring another child into this world. Look at how crazy it is. Good question.

Yeah. Um. So if people are genuinely thinking along those lines, I, you know, my heart extends to them with with a sense of compassion because that’s you don’t want bad things for your kids. And so you’re saying maybe I shouldn’t bring them into this world, but that’s just not a biblical view. And I don’t say that like some like looking down my nose, but I’m saying, um, where would where would the church be today? And where would the kingdom of God on earth be today? If, if people thought like that during the time under the reign of Nero? Amen. Yeah. Where your children are going to be burned on a stake to illuminate gladiatorial games. Where would we be if parents thought like that? Even during the time of the Reformation, or during the time of the Revolutionary War? Nobody wants their kids to go through those kinds of things. But it’s because parents had confidence in the faithfulness of God, no matter the circumstances, that heroes rose up out of those generations. And and every George Washington, every William Wallace, every, um, William Wilberforce and every apostle Paul started out as a child who likely grew up in really difficult circumstances. So we can’t have that shortsighted view. We’ve got to have the long term view. And we’ve got to say also, the difficulties that we see in culture are not something that just came out of the ether from out there in the spiritual realms of darkness. Somewhere Jesus came, and last time I read in the Bible, he came to defeat the works of the devil.

He he secured all authority both in heaven and on earth. He he has the keys to the kingdom, and he’s defeated the powers of darkness and overthrown death itself by resurrecting from the grave. And we have allowed a a cultural deterioration here in America to happen on our watch as Christians and as parents. So we need to say I’m guilty. My fault? Yeah. Our fault. This isn’t something where people just kicked us to the back corner. As Christians, we we we slinked back there with our with our tail between our legs and our ears down when we were told, you know what it means to be good Christians and and how to how to how to basically sit down, be quiet, and don’t cause problems because of things like separation of church and state and other wrongly held ideas that that just demonstrate that. We’ve got to read our Bibles better, and we’ve got to begin living. Living out a biblical view of life. Or things will only get worse culturally for our children. Then the only, then the only, then the only ones are going to have babies are the pagans. They’re going to have all the babies. And then what are you going to do? That’s not the plan. And you know, if you think the answer is stop having babies and just hope the rapture gets here quick, that is a defeatist plan that you don’t find anywhere in the Bible.

Well, a lot of people, we all agree such a good answer. We all agree God is sovereign. God is in control. God is all loving.

Yeah, we say that. But do we believe that? Do we live that way? Or do you go and get the vasectomy before you have kids because the Antichrist is coming, right? Let’s let’s just play our theology out here and say, are we really doing the thing we’re saying we’re doing?

So in that light of things, there’s a passivity, especially in America. There’s so much we’re afforded to in America compared to other parts of the world. We have people listening from all over the world, but a lot of people in America. And so you’re out there in the front lines, you know, at least in the libraries right now, is your front lines. It looks like with these brave books and doing readings in libraries. So you’re seeing some of the strangeness and culture, and then you’re also probably witnessing some passivity amongst Christians. And you’re probably also witnessing a beginning of people waking up to. So could you speak to that? Yeah.

So just a little bit of background here. Last Christmas I wrote a children’s book called As You Grow. It was a book that teaches children how to grow the fruits of the spirit during the seasons of their life. So love, joy, peace, kindness, things you’d think every public library would love to have read at their story hour. Well, I was denied by over 50 woke libraries that previously held drag queen story hours for children. So if you want to go in as a man dressed up as a woman in fishnet stockings and heels, lipstick and a wig and you want to sexualize children with inappropriate content, come on. The public library will use your tax dollars to promote them and to hire them. But if you want to go in as someone who wants to talk to children about the importance of love and kindness, faithfulness and self control, it’s a hard no. Well, I. I have enough of a knowledge, basic knowledge of what the United States of America and that flag behind you represents to have said to these libraries, you’re engaging in what’s called viewpoint discrimination. And it’s of the worst type. It’s religious viewpoint discrimination. And you’re not allowed to do that by law. It’s called the First Amendment to the Constitution. And if you continue, I’m prepared to assert my constitutional rights in court. And they reversed course. I got an invitation to rent a reading room at the Indianapolis Public Library in the Scarsdale, New York, library libraries that told us, we’re not interested in your messaging. Your values and ours don’t align. People are not going to be showing up for these kinds of readings. We’re an inclusive society, and you’re basically not welcome here.

When I showed up at the Indianapolis Downtown Public Library, I was greeted by over 3000 parents and grandparents and children that flooded six stories of this beautiful library that had been abandoned, essentially because of all of the dangerous corruption and protests and political problems going on in that city. The police officer said that no one comes here anymore. The only people in these libraries are the homeless who come here to get out of the cold. But the moms won’t bring their kids here anymore. It’s too dangerous. And this was the largest event we’ve had in 137 years as a library. Why? Because Mike Seaver showed up. No, it was because parents are feeling the pressure cooker of being pressured by woke ideologies that they know are going to destroy them and their families and their freedoms, and they want to get back to the values that will lead to blessing and protection for their kids and their grandkids. So they showed up, and we found that same reaction from parents when we went to Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York, Seattle, Washington, Phoenix, Arizona, and all across the country. So I feel the rumblings of revival, and that’s very encouraging. Um, we we are God’s loving army of compassion. We are his children, and the captain of our salvation does not lose his battles. He wins every single one of them. But the troops have got to believe his word. And that’s what I’m finding is where we have been lacking. Perhaps we’ve just gotten so comfortable because of the blessings that. Were won by those who went before us and suffered and sacrificed to secure them. And now it’s our turn. Or our children will pay. Pay the consequences.

Hey, we just want to take a moment here in the middle and just share something really amazing that’s been happening that we would love for you to be a part of. And that’s the Be Courageous app.

It’s actually free for the first week. We have a free trial, so go check it out in the Google App Store or your Apple Store. And you can you can try it out, spend some time in there. Take advantage of the free exclusive resources like the Kids Podcast or the Courageous Marriage series.

Or your redeeming Childbirth and postpartum stuff.

And oh yeah, there’s all kinds of we basically have an audio and video book of Redeeming Child, and we do.

We do spontaneous lives in there, and we do monthly Q and A’s, where you can ask us anything for an hour. Everything’s recorded and put in libraries so you can see all the stuff we’ve already done by topic and the new stuff and be part of that. It’s just becoming. And it’s not just about us. What’s really cool about it, it’s it’s gone way beyond us. There’s so many people sharing, answering each other’s questions, encouraging each other.

It’s become a true, like biblical community where people point each other to resources that are biblical to the Lord in prayer, and they just support each other. And it’s really pretty awesome.

So come join us. Be courageous in the App Store. Well, what’s your what’s your word to a family where the husband is working hard? They’re just, you know, making the payments on things with inflation and everything. They got three little kids. The mom is working hard in the home to raise those kids. What’s their role to play when they feel tapped out? You know, how can they be part of this?

Well, if you’re a faithful parent, you’re doing it. You’re you are doing it. I hope we should be tapped out, pouring into our children. Yes. You’re already you’re already doing it. You don’t need to come become the president of the United States. Unless God’s called you to become the president of the United States. You don’t need to start a podcast. You don’t. You don’t need to be Isaac and Angie. You don’t need to be Kirk. You don’t need to be Tim Tebow. You don’t need to be Lauren Daigle or anybody else. All you need to do is what God called you to do. And there is no more. Influential or powerful position a person could possibly be stationed in. Then the role of mom and dad that is the frontlines of the culture war. It’s not in a public library. As a celebrity Christian. It’s not on the radio waves. That stuff’s important and good, and God can work there, too. But God gave us the strategy for cultural dominion right there in Deuteronomy chapter six. Yes, he gave it to Adam in the garden.

He gave it to Noah after the flood. He gave it to Abraham, he gave it to Isaac and Jacob and Moses. And Jesus reiterates the whole thing in the New Testament. It starts in the heart and it expands to the home. And then you’re going to put you’re going to write the laws of God not only on your heart or in your in your mind, on the works of your hands, your doorposts, the city gates. And you’re going to pass this down to your children through discipleship, not merely information transfer through an Awana class and a Bible memorization program. That’s fine, but you don’t need that. It’s heart transfer. Yes, download these things into your heart, parents. And then you teach them. You nourish your children with these things by your life and your example. When they rise up and walk and go to sleep, and you just keep doing that every day. So you’re doing it. Mom, dad, you’re tapped out, paying the bills, working two jobs, giving your life to these kids. You’re doing it. That’s the plan.

Amen.

The Great Commission starts in the home.

Such a wonderful answer, so encouraging to so many people and think that we just need to do that. And it really discipleship is a way of life. It’s it’s got to be woven into the fabric of everyday parenting. It’s the catching, the moments. It’s it’s teaching the Bible. It’s reading the Bible, praying together. It’s it’s it’s your children actually seeing a real relationship with the Lord in you, the parents when.

Things go bad. Yeah. When things are hard. Right. That’s when you get squeezed. You see the truth and like letting, not hiding. You know, I think that a lot of our generation grew up with parents that were trying to sugarcoat things and always make sure that we as the kids thought everything was okay. And no, it’s not like textbook. Every person our age was raised that way. But it’s very common for the baby boomer generation to have sugar coated things and not allowed us to, like, actually experience part of the trial in a sense of like, this is an equipping thing. I’m going to be transparent with my kids about these kinds of things. I’m going to equip them. This is going to make us stronger as a family. Let’s team together. Let’s pray together. Valuing prayer. Like for us, we’ve gone through different things in our life just as everybody has, right? Whether it was loss of a baby or loss of a business or different things like that. And those were the seasons when we experienced as a family a closeness because we were all going towards God, we were all seeking God, and we became stronger together as a family. Maybe you could share. I wanted to I wanted to just kind of highlight one of the most recent books that you came out with that is The Fox, The Fair and the Invention Scare, which is another brave book. Right. And you talk about the theme is Loving Your Enemies.

And obviously you’ve experienced a lot of hate online, and I think that it would be super encouraging to us as parents because we know you mentioned this before, that all throughout history, there have been people who thought the end was coming right now, right? Like it’s been ever since Jesus left. There has been this like we’re in the end times and there have been different cultures, different years in history where people thought the end was close and there was an experiencing of enemies rising up. Whether it was the Jewish Holocaust. There are many different experiences that have happened throughout history. And for right now, we’re in this place where we are seeing sun rise up against father. We’re seeing division. We saw it huge in Covid, right, where even marriages were not necessarily aligned. They were believing different narratives. There was division that was happening in the church. There was all kinds of these things. Right. And and Mark 13, Matthew 24 talks specifically about this kind of division. That could happen. But how do you love your enemies? Talk to your children about it. In the times where you’ve experienced hate, hating on you for standing for truth, have you shared that with your kids? How do you share that with your kids? I think it would be good to equip some parents, because I do think that this is going to be a growing thing that we’re going to be experiencing in life.

Yeah, well, there’s a lot there. And I would I would love to talk about this importance of loving our enemies. Personally, I don’t think anything that we see going on today has anything to do with Matthew 24 or Luke 21, and I think that things today are actually exponentially better than they were a thousand years ago. So people often. Decry things that they see going on today and oh gosh, things are getting so bad. So it’s actually nothing compared to the way it was in the Roman Empire. It’s nothing compared to what it was like being a Christian under the reign of Nero, or being enslaved in Egypt as a believer in in Yahweh. The reason that we think that drag queens are so bad and we just decry things like this is because we’ve been so Christianized and we’ve moved so far in terms of departing from paganism, that we see something like a man dressing up as a woman and we think, shocking. But again, you go back a thousand years or 2000 years and you have people being fed to lions. You have not just homosexuality and bisexuality, but you have you have sexual immorality that would make the LGBTQ community blush. And so I would say, look, the general principle is true. As long as sin is still in the human heart, we will have struggle. But. But there are countless examples of people who are going against the, the, the darkness, and they’re overcoming the darkness with the power of the gospel.

And that encourages me so much. This was one of the things that inspired me to write that book about loving your enemies. Check out this quick little story. I was in Washington, DC a couple of years ago, and there was an older couple that got up and addressed the crowd and explained how they they they shared their gut wrenching story of their son who was violently murdered by a gang member. And was thrown into prison. And it was their faith in God and the hope that he would bring good out of evil that kept them going. And then they introduced a young man who came up to the microphone and explained that he was a gang member. He was in prison for murdering someone. And then he pointed to the couple and said that one day they came to my cell and visited me and revealed to me that they were the parents of the young man that I murdered, and they came to tell me that they didn’t hate me, that they were praying for me, and that there was a God of forgiveness that could give me a new beginning. And when he got out of prison, they adopted him as their own son and raised him as a young man to be the man of God that he is today. And he explained that it was through loving your enemies and the power of the gospel, that he was changed and he was given a new life.

And I thought, wow, that’s not normal. That’s not right. I mean, here your son gets murdered of all times to say, well, how much worse could it get? Children are murdering children in the streets, and yet the gospel prevails in their own hearts as parents, and it prevails in the heart of their son’s murderer. And I thought Jesus was right. The way forward is not revenge. It’s not what Hamas is doing to Israel, or what or what the Republicans are doing to the Democrats, or vice versa. Jesus said, you’ve heard it said, love your neighbor, hate your enemies, but I tell you, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. And then you’ll be like your father in heaven, who sends the sun to rise on the good and the evil, and gets the rain down to water the crops on the wicked guys and the good guys. So perfect love. And you will be like your father in heaven. That’s what he did for us, right? He loved me, who was an enemy in his mind through his own wicked works. And now. I’m his son. Just like in that, in that story about that couple. And so I think if we can give our children a better strategy than what they’re seeing on Fox News and on CNN and on TikTok, then we really do have hope.

Yeah. So good, so good. You know, I saw one clip of you just talking about the importance of family. We agree with you the importance of family. And God ordained it that way. When we did a survey with our listeners. And the number one challenge they see in marriage that came back to us was men not leading their families well and think more of that was spiritually leading spiritually. And so I was just curious what your take is on that. And if you agree with that, that’s an issue which I’m sure you do. What’s a message for the men out there?

Show us. Show us how to lead. And I’m not talking to the women. I’m talking to. To. To the dads and to the grandpas. We want to lead. I mean, I’m just. I’m, you know, I’m throwing myself into the group here, right? In the way that I’m saying yes, I’m saying yes. I’m saying I want to be a good leader. Where’s my Gandalf? Where’s my Moses? Where’s my Elijah? Where’s my where’s where’s my teacher to teach me these things? And you know what my dad would say? What’s that?

I just said, where’s your Titus? Two Titus. Two men and women.

And you know what my dad would say? That’s a good question. I didn’t have one either. You know, and so I think what we need to do is we need to say, um, you know, we can all point to others who didn’t do what they should have done to help equip us so that we could do what we should have done for our kids and whatever. And I just want to say, all right, um, let’s let’s just sort of, uh. Band together here. Let’s get back to to the Word of God, which which is our hope. And this is this is our lifeline. And say, let’s begin to get back to the scriptures and learn these things, and let’s do it together. Let’s gather, let’s pray, let’s help and support one another. Let’s bear each other’s burdens, and let’s read the stories of the men who led in the past and did it right, and the ones who did it wrong. Learn from the mistakes of Solomon, learn from the mistakes of David, and be encouraged by the success stories of those who who did well. And then maybe our children will be able to take some of those things and learn even more, and then be good leaders in their homes. Um. And it’s tricky because we look at leaders on television, we look at leaders in movies, and we start to think that, well, yeah, maybe I should be like, um, the leaders that I see in DC, or maybe I maybe it’s I need to be like Iron Man or Captain America or whatever. And yet Jesus is our model. He was a shepherd. He was a servant. He had all power at his disposal. And yet he humbled himself and he laid down his life. How do I do that when it goes against every fiber of my being? That’s a great question, and that’s why I appreciate you guys. As you tackle that, as one of your topics that I think will. Just, you know, it’ll it’ll be something that we’ll be talking about for a long time.

Yeah. For a long time. You got me thinking when you were answering there. Because as as the woman that’s on this podcast interview right now, today, I think one of the things that is huge is that sometimes men look at all of those examples, like you were saying and think, oh, I need to do x, y, z, or I wish I was. And they look at their, the things they’re not good at, right? Because we’re all our own worst critic and we allow those things, or men can potentially allow those things to paralyze them, disable them, if you will, from actually walking in what God called them and created them, for which, if they’re married, their husband, if their father, their father. And I think one thing women can do to help their husbands is to start affirming their spouses more. So for you women who are listening like, you know, don’t compare your spouse to the podcaster or the pastor or the the guy you’re listening to sermons on on during the week. But instead be thankful and look for the things that are the God qualities, the Jesus qualities that are in your husband, and encourage your husband with those things. I think the a good first step is to be thankful, and to be on the lookout for the things that you can affirm in your spouse. So if anyone’s listening right now who is in that kind of a situation, who is really struggling with contentment even in their marriage or in their family because they desire for their husband to be leading more? I just want to encourage you. Here’s a courageous parenting challenge. If you will look for those things and affirm them in your spouse.

I’d also say that Kirk Kirk is not perfect. I’m not perfect. We’re men in our Bibles trying to live out being godly men and serving our families. But we make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But it’s not. It’s not looking at the mistakes. God forgives us for those it’s looking forward. What can we do? Step forward and lead our families by serving them, and by breaking open the Bible and praying together and just having an authentic relationship with Jesus that trickles out into your family. There’s no program. There’s no, like, exact equation for it. But if you’re in love with God and you’re reading your Bible, that’s just going to ripple out in the culture of the family.

Angie, I sure appreciate what you said. When you’re giving practical advice to moms wives, I should say to affirm their husbands. Um, you told me that I could speak freely on this podcast, right? Yes. Please do. This is what this is what’s going through my mind. You’re echoing what the scriptures say. Encourage one another. Build each other up. Make sure that your words are seasoned with grace and they benefit your husband, among others who are hearing these words. That’s great. That’s great. Affirm your husband. I think that’s great. I have a word, though, to husbands who husbands do not look to your wife for affirmation. Do not look to your wife to affirm you. You will set up a system that will cause you to resent the very people who are trying to affirm you. And let me tell you why. Because God is the only source of your affirmation. You must look to him. Because if you’re depending on your wife to prop you up and tell you that you’re handsome and that you’re intelligent, and that you’re not perfect, and that you’re still good, and that you look, you are putting a burden on her, or upon your children or upon others to praise you or to affirm you, and to help you secure a sense of worth and value and purpose that they cannot possibly fulfill. The only one who can give that to you in a right way is God himself and and.

And when you look to other people and they don’t give you the all the affirmation that you want, you will end up seeing them as the problem instead of your idolatry is the problem. And you need to go to God and say, God, you made me. I’ve got I’ve got struggles here and there, but you died for me on the cross, and I am here to serve you. And I am just so grateful for my life. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to love my wife, to love my kids, to do the very best that I can. God, give me a heart that values what you value and and help me stop this pity party where I’m just focusing on all the things that I wish I was, or I wish my wife was, or I wish my kids were and just say thank you for who you are and that you have me where you have me. Help me be someone who honors you with every opportunity that you give me. If you find your purpose, your affirmation, and your identity, there, for you will then have a settled peace. To be able to love your wife and to love your kids, and that will make them flourish. That’s the kind of leader I think we want to be.

Amen, Amen. So good. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it would be really interesting to hear just a little bit about your testimony. I know your sister is walking with the Lord, Candace Bure, and were you guys raised by Christian parents or did you you know, a little bit about your testimony?

So Candace and I were were raised in a home together with our two sisters. We all, all four of us never went to church as kids. I was an atheist when I was on Growing Pains and for the first, what, 18, 19 years? And then I ended up, I ended up going to church because I met a cute girl. I wanted to date her and she said, come meet my my family. And I met her on a Sunday morning at a church, and I’m an atheist, but I was also an actor, so I figured I could fake the whole thing for an hour and a half and still be able to see this girl and. I heard the gospel message. I had lots of questions. Her father answered questions for me about the Bible, evolution, other religions, and then encouraged me in light of the gospel and in light of the command to repent and put my faith in Christ before I die and stand before my creator in judgment. I prayed while sitting in my parked car on the side of the road. God, if you’re there, if you really put the stars in the sky and you keep my heart beating at night, would you. Would you show me the truth? And would you make me the man that you created me to be? I don’t have, I don’t have any religion. I don’t go to church, I don’t I can’t answer a million questions, but.

If you’re real, I really want to know. And I told a friend who took me to church and gave me a Bible. I began to read it, getting more and more questions answered, and then eventually became persuaded that Jesus must have risen from the from the grave. He he was more likely who he said he was the Lord of the universe than he was a liar, or a lunatic or a legend. Based on all the information I could find. And I. It helped me to see that fathers of science and medicine and philosophy and brilliant people around the world. Like Albert Einstein and like John Lennox and so many others, are people who have a profound faith in God. And I thought, wow, I would actually be in good company for believing in God. Einstein wasn’t a Christian, but but the idea of God was where I started, and the gospel brought me to a right understanding of who that God is. And that was the beginning of my faith. Some people ask me, how did you find Christ in Hollywood, of all places? That must be a hard place to find. Find the Lord. And my pastor at the time reminded me. He said, Kirk, don’t ever think that you found Christ in Hollywood. You didn’t. You didn’t find Christ. He wasn’t lost. You were lost in Hollywood and he found you. And that’s easy for for the Lord to do.

Praise the Lord. That’s amazing story. Very similar actually to my story. I became a believer at 23, was an atheist before that. God is so good. It’s like when you are living that way and you’ve lived so many years. You 19 years, me 23 years not knowing God even you know, oh, those people need that. You know, they need that in their life. I don’t need that. It was kind of my philosophy. And and then when the truth is revealed, when God reveals himself, when the Bible comes alive and it’s, wow, this is true. It’s so incredible to have the forgiveness of all sins, and to have the joy and peace and understanding of being with God. And so I can just relate to your story so much. What was interesting, you know, being a celebrity, you know, for so many years doing the show and then in Hollywood and accepting the Lord. That must have been a big shift in your career. That’s a big topic. But what’s just a little little piece? Because we’re coming to the close here of, you know, that must have been difficult.

It was challenging, but that’s the same reason that you and I go to the gym is because it’s hard, but I keep going. Why? Well, because I’m going to grow. That’s my goal. And what I want to do is grow in my understanding of God. I want to mature. I don’t want to stay a kindergarten Christian my whole life. And so as you have the opportunity, stand for what’s right, do do what’s good, do the good thing, go the good way. And when you do, that’s where your faith is actually strengthened. That’s where your convictions are formed. That’s where your values and your character is forged. It’s in the crucible of a tough spot when you’re caught between a rock and a hard place and something’s going to have to give. I say, I’m not going to give on my convictions to honor God. And that’s where you grow. And I find later that it was those early opportunities to do that that prepared me for the later opportunities that I’m enjoying now. Like standing up to the American Library Association, who has millions and millions of dollars granted to them by the federal government to teach librarians how to keep me out of their libraries so that I’m not reading the Bible to children.

Well, you got to know what’s going on in, contextualize that and know your know your biblical principles and even know your Constitution to be able to do that. And then you got to have some rhinoceros skin to be able to tolerate some of the insults that come your way. You got to. You got to have the the courage to go do some of these things. And you got to know where your where your strength comes from. It’s it’s the joy of the Lord, even in the midst of difficulty. So I think. We’ve got to learn to welcome those opportunities. Like it says somewhere in the Bible. Consider joy, my brothers, when you experience these various trials, knowing that this is the kind of stuff that God uses to produce all the hope and the joy and the character and the faith that’s going to make you look and live more like Jesus for a watching world.

So great. Well, we doing the Courageous Parenting podcast. We believe we’re helping the next generation by helping parents help their children. So there’s legacies of faith and these children. We defy the odds of, you know, what is it 70% or so of children in Christian homes fall away from the faith by age 18. Some of the studies show. So to to encourage our parents to really disciple their children. I see you doing it. A wonderful ministry that you’re doing right now, going directly to the parents and the children with these books and giving them tools that really help them, not just saying, hey, we need to do this, but here are some discipleship tools to actually do that which is so practical, so needed in awareness. But why brave books and maybe share a little bit what’s happening? We have your three books right here.

I’ll hold them up so we can see who’s watching on YouTube.

So Brave Books is a great company. I love them, support everything that they’re doing over there. They’re producing literature books, story books for kids that have pro God pro America values. And I’ve written three books with them, but they have dozens of authors that are all so good with. Some of my favorite books are Elephants Are Not Birds. That’s a book teaching children to love who God made them. This obviously is in contrast to the to the indoctrination about gender transition ideology. This one’s called Elephants are not birds, and it’s about a singing elephant who loves to sing. And so culture. The vulture tries to convince him that he might be better off as a bird and and have him strap on fake wings and a beak, which actually keeps him from being the amazing animal God meant him to be. And he ends up saving the day by throwing that stuff off and and doing what elephants do best. One of my other favorite books there is called The Island of Free Ice Cream, teaching children about the dangers of socialism. How do you teach your kids big concepts like this in simple ways that they can understand? Well, it’s by reinforcing the biblical principles and and ideas through creatively done projects like Brave Book. So go to brave Books.com if you’re listening, and if you want to invest in your kids faith in their character, consider joining the book of the Month Club. They’ll send a brand new book every month to your front door with a Pro God Pro America value, and my book is free right now. If you sign up at brave Books.com.

Go do it parents. And remember, sometimes these tools stir up these conversations you wouldn’t have thought to have or initiate with your children unless you had this resource that brings it alive with beautiful pictures and well written, biblically sound stories that I.

Know that our our three youngest kids, we have nine, but our three youngest are under seven and they love getting the map out with the stickers and reading the books going around.

And then the cool thing about these books that I love is you don’t have to find creative ways to talk about the principles in books like Elephants Are Not Birds or island free Ice cream or whatever. In the very back of the book, there’s all those great games and challenges and quizzes with Bible verses that specifically tee up conversation points with your kids with fun games so that they love the activity. It’s perfect for family time. Yeah.

It’s awesome.

So good. Well, so appreciate you being on that greatest parenting podcast. Any last words for our listeners.

And where can they find you?

Boy, you know, you could find me on social media. My Facebook account, my Instagram account, my my Twitter account. Just. Just Google me. Whatever. You’ll find me somewhere. And final words. Let’s see. Um. I’d like to end with with a quote from one of our founding fathers. His name is John Adams, and John Adams said. It does not take a majority to prevail. But rather an irate, tireless minority keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men. That that is that is who we are. We are the children of God. We don’t need to have the majority of people agree with our biblical worldview in order to bring the blessings of heaven to earth. It’s never been like that. But that powerful army of compassion who against all odds, out, funded, outgunned, outnumbered, out everything like the pilgrims or like the reformers. They come and they start a spark that catches fire on a college campus, or through a prayer meeting in a church that spreads to the young people, that ends up spreading across a land, and a great awakening takes place. We’ve had two of them in the United States already, and they come during times of great peril where you have economic collapse, moral decline, spiritual apathy, political corruption. Does that sound familiar? I think we’re in one of those times right now. Maybe we’re on the cusp of a revival.

Awesome. So good to have you on. Love all that you’re doing. May the Lord bless all your work in all the things you’re involved with. So so appreciate it. Thanks so much.