Social Media For Christians – BE COURAGEOUS app

• Exclusive access to the courageous kid’s podcast. Play it for your kids to stir up good discussions.
• Monthly LIVE Q&A with the Tolpins; ask the anything.
• Powerful Biblically minded community.
• Topic-based discussion groups.
• You get your own profile and can connect with others.
• Resources on marriage, parenting, homeschooling, pregnancy/birth, and more.

We look forward to engaging with you on the inside!

FREE COURAGEOUS PARENTING WORKSHOP

Relevant Resource Links:

• The Homeschooling Blueprint, the online program to boost your effectiveness & help your kids thrive.

• Parenting Mentor Program, A 6-Week, self-paced online program giving you the Biblical Parenting Model

• Postpartum Course, The First-Ever Christian Postpartum Course!

• FREE Courageous Parenting Workshop; Get the Parenting Packet Download!

• Financial Giving, is important to support our family and expand the impact of the ministry. We aim to impact 10 million families and their legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a family of 9 at home, so everything makes a difference. 

Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 10 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

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

Hey, welcome. We just wanted to share a little bit about this episode. It’s very important. One has to do with the spiritual condition of our families and seizing the opportunity before us this summer. That’s right.

So we’re calling this podcast The Summer Family Revival. This is actually a movement that we want to inspire among churches, among Christians all over the world. Think about the change that could happen if parents just took up their Bibles and they were intentionally discipling their children.

But how to do it? That’s a question so many have. How do you disciple your children? We’ll cover that in this episode. And we have a special announcement in the middle. Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources. Go to be courageous ministry.org.

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome, everybody.

Hello.

We’re so glad you’re here. We were just chit chatting before we started. How we love getting older.

Yes. And what’s really funny is if you’re watching us on YouTube or Rumble, we’re wearing our grandma and grandpa cardigans today.

I think it’s rather a contemporary youthful sweater. But yeah, I do call it my grandpa sweater. But he says it’s.

A youthful sweater. Yet the gray flecks blend in with the gray hairs in the beard. I love.

It. Well, we’re talking about a summer family revival. I really think the spirit has prompted us to be thinking and talking about this recently. We’ve been talking about it before. We decided to do a podcast on it. It’s been inspiration to find ways for find a way for churches to be able to go through the Parenting Mentor program and the friendship course and things like that. We’ll talk more about that later, but it’s really a exciting time. A summer can be such an impactful experience for everybody in the family. And when we say summer family revival, yes, we’re talking about the children. Absolutely. But we’re talking about you, too. It’s everybody. And what would be beautiful is if at the end of the summer, people maybe that you didn’t see because you get back into the activities and things you’re doing. Maybe some people you don’t always spend time with outside of those activities, they go, Wow, there’s something different about you. Yeah.

A mark of change. Or we were coming up with all these different words as we were just Isaac and I were sitting, collaborating, talking about this specific podcast and. And some really awesome, really awesome words came up. Rejuvenation, renewal. Do you want your family renewed? Do you want your relationships revived? Do you want to feel rejuvenated spiritually? What about the word regeneration? I mean, that right there is the mark of salvation, right? When we’re reborn, right? You want your children to be reborn in Christ, to be regenerated. And the summers really offer an awesome opportunity for parents to be able to connect with their kids in a more not in a more intentional way, but in a different kind of intentional way. And so we’re going to talk about a few different points in just a few minutes, but we want to say thank you, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. In this 10 million legacies movement, we have a real passion for family. Can you tell we’ve always been forward thinking regarding legacy. We’re leaving a new legacy for sure. And we want to encourage those of you who are also seeking to do the same and raising your kids biblically. But let’s just say something for a second. You know, Isaac was just talking about family revival.

And the reality of Christianity today is that most churches are not proactively equipping parents. Right? I’m just going to say that I’m going to be really transparent here and I get the problem. Isaac and I have a lot of sympathy for church leadership in a sense, because there’s so many things that they’re potentially juggling, right? A lot of plates, whether it’s restoration ministry and then there’s women’s ministries and mom ministries within that. And then they’re trying to awaken men to be spiritual leaders and be intentional dads and husbands in their home. And and then there’s the kids ministries, right? And and all of those things come from a good heart intention, we believe. But the reality is, is the equipping of the saints regarding how do you parent biblically, how do you discipline in the admonition of the Lord? How do you disciple your kids? Those basic things are not being taught in churches all over the world on a regular basis. I’m not talking about having a one time workshop, one year in 20 years in your church. I’m talking about on a regular basis, recognizing that there is new parents being born into parenthood every single day. People are having babies and needing this education.

And we know because, you know, Courageous Parenting podcast, we’ve been doing it for four years. We’ve been in ministry even longer through what Angie’s been doing through her blog for 14 years prior and all these different things. So it’s we hear from people all over the world, all over America, and we hear that this is a real challenge. And so what we also know and we saw this even at the beginning of our parenting, we’re like, hey, this normal Christian parenting thing, the normal rhythm doesn’t work, just aren’t working. We weren’t seeing them around us. We were going to good churches, reputable churches, non-denominational churches looking for.

Fruit and.

People that we love with lots of resources, all all kinds of programs and things like that. But still, we saw children falling away from the Lord, even from the even in the families with the most respected people. And by the way, there is no foolproof way to make sure your children are Christians. Obviously, you know, parents have nothing to do with salvation. Salvation is a mystery of God. It’s only something God does. And it’s because. Of nothing we do. Praise God. Other than have faith. And so. But we can pray. We can help our kids. And there is a lot the people that have the most influence in their children are the parents that the God authorized leaders influencers in their children’s lives, most important ones. And there is so much that can be done to help encourage a path of godliness. Well, and it’s God’s design.

God designed family. He designed parenting. He He. There is a purpose, a biblical purpose, and a theology around parenting, which we go into in depth. In the Parenting Mentor program. We’ve had over 3000 people go through this program in the last four years. You guys, it is literally it’s been a revival in those families. The testimonies that we hear, which you can go and look at them at courageous parenting.com on the main website. But you guys, this is the thing God does call us as parents to speak truth and teach and disciple our children. That is God’s design. And while we don’t save our children like we don’t take them to heaven with us, we can’t get them into heaven. We do have massive influence in our children’s lives when we are teaching them the word, when we’re inviting them into a relationship with Jesus and introducing them to him. And so we are so excited to be talking about this summer family revival. This concept. When you think of revival, what do you think of what are some of the words you think of? Isaac when you think of revival?

I think of newness, fresh, a fresh experience with God, a deeper experience with God, really accepting the Lord and experiencing his grace over your life and just being in awe of his goodness. Like unbelievable. Like, I want to learn more. I want to be close to you. I want to change my life. Not because of I feel like I need to for some workspace thing, but because I love God, because I just love the Lord and I just don’t have a desire for those other things anymore. Those other attitudes or behaviors.

Yes. That’s so good. I love that. I also think of when I think of the word revival, I think of hunger, right? A new hunger that is stirred up inside someone for the Word of God. When I think of revival, obviously, I’m thinking around the the concept of Christianity and coming to Christ and and our kids are not saved like when they’re born. They are not born saved. They are born and they are human. And there is a season in their life. You know, a lot of people call it the age of accountability. And there is this impressionable very they’re like sponges, right. For the especially for the first seven years of their life. There are many psychologists out there that will say that a child’s worldview is formed within the first 5 to 7 years of their life. Biblically, that also makes sense when you watch, like even the story of Moses and how God ordained and orchestrated for his mother to be taking care of him. Those formative early years. It’s just such a beautiful picture of that and how important that was to God so that Moses would be able to do what he was able to do. Right. And I bring that up to you guys because I think that we so often, especially with dads Isaacs talked about this in previous podcasts where he believed a lie when he was a young dad, that the early years it was okay for him to make the sacrifice and work really hard because the kids wouldn’t necessarily notice if he wasn’t around as much. Right. And I think a lot of people believe that lie. They think, Oh, well, I’ll work really hard while my kids are little so that I can be freed up when they’re older, when they remember and when I’m building relationships.

But that’s just not true in regards to forming relationship and trust, building relationship, being able to teach and instruct your children they are total sponges and their worldview is going to be formed by the time they’re seven. So are we doing now what we can so that when we are teaching them about the more intricate, more like think about apologetics and having deep conversations with your 12 year old to 16 year old about things that are going on today. If they’re going to want to listen to you, it’s because of the relationship that you’ve built with them when they were younger. Now, in listening to this, if you’ve got older kids and you’re like, Oh, I’ve failed, I’m past that time, what can I do? I just want to give you hope that if you repent before them, you come before them humbly and you just say, Hey, I screwed up and I love you and I want a relationship with you. Kids are really good at forgiving their parents because they desire the best possible relationship that they could have with you guys. Do you know that that your kid, from the time they were born, has always wanted to have the best possible relationship with you? So here’s a question. Do you want the best possible relationship with your child right now, today, And do you want to have the best possible relationship with your child when they’re 30 years old and you’re a grandparent? Because if you want that down the road, then you better start working on it today.

So summer is such a unique opportunity because a lot. Things change. A lot of the things that are involved in might change and so forth. The school, the education, these different things. And so you can really look at it as an opportunity, as an opportunity sometimes to get away. People do vacations and things like that, but doing it purposefully with the summer family revival perspective I think really changes everything. In Ephesians 515 through 17, it talks about using our time well, which is important. And so let’s use our time well this summer. Look carefully then, how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And so I love that verse. It’s a little bit of a heavy verse, but I do love it because it reminds me that we are living in a fallen world. We need to make good use of our time, and some of the normal aspirations for the summer might be good, but they might not be best. A lot of times in intentional parenting, we have to. We have to be willing to be resolute, to stand firm and to do what is absolutely best, even at the sacrifice of what’s good. And a lot of times people are naturally just following to what’s good and not really doing the critical thinking, the planning, the prayer way ahead of time to really discover maybe God has a best plan for the summer that is better than the normal good that most people do.

I love that. I just want to go up in the very first part of that chapter of Chapter five in Ephesians, it says therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. This is a call for Christians to walk as imitators of Christ. And when we think about what Christ did on the cross and His sacrifice and how he loved us, how he loved even his enemies, how he fell on the sword, so to speak, over and over again. And he still continued to forgive, to love, to be faithful. Maybe that’s what God is calling you to this summer. What sacrifices God potentially calling you to? Sometimes in parenthood, parenting can be hard because God calls us to lay aside our desires of what we think might be a vacation to do a different kind of vacation with our family because that’s going to be actually producing more fruit in our children. And so let me read this again. Therefore, be imitators of God. Amen. As parents, we need to be imitators as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. How can we as parents love our children and give ourselves up for them that is so powerful this summer? How can you give yourself up for your child and or your spouse? Can I just bring marriage into this for a second? To love your spouse the way Jesus calls us to the way Jesus loved us? That is for everyone, right? I mean, the Bible speaks specifically to men loving their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

But as women, we too can learn from that message and go, Hey, Jesus died on the cross for me and I want to be an imitator of God. How can I love my husband in a sacrificial way? So be thinking about this summer in the context of like, what can I do that would be totally different. That might bring renewal revival to my marriage first, how can I like and if you’re at that place where you’re like, Angie, I don’t know if I can pour out because I don’t experience what you’re expressing in my walk with God. If that’s you, this podcast is for you today because revival in your family and revival in your marriage has to start with revival in your own heart first.

Amen and Luke 640 It says a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. So the children are going to become like us. And are we exhibiting a real relationship with God, experiencing God in your life? Do they see you in the Word? Do they see you voraciously learning and growing stronger and wanting to proclaim him and glorify the father? And do they see the Bible open at meals? And is it talked about is Scripture talked about not just as a check off the list I did it but a real hunger.

Hunger like wanting to get in the word like do your kids see you like going through it? Like I was just even thinking about yesterday. Guys, I just want to share a little bit about yesterday. Yesterday was today is Monday. We’re shooting a podcast and it’ll go live on Tuesday like every single week. If you guys are looking for the Courageous Parenting podcast, it comes out every Tuesday has for last four and a half years. But for us recording yesterday was Sunday and it was a special Sunday in our little church because there was a special message that was given on elders and deacons, and we appointed Isaac as elder of the church and another man in our fellowship as a deacon in the church, which is such a special time. And I posted. About this on Instagram actually, if you want to go and read it. But what was so special for me as a mom that has some older kids as well as younger kids, I’m up in the back sometimes with our little guy who is not quite two yet, and he’s still figuring out what it means to sit still and not be a distraction. And I’m training him. Right. And that’s the reality of what Family Integrated Church looks like. And that’s okay. And but during this fellowship, my oldest son gave his first prepared sermon, and it was so beautiful to me. I had a hard time holding back the tears because of how thankful I am for the faithfulness of God and my family and that my kids all love God, first of all, and that I have a son who at age 19 is preparing a sermon message and reading all of the scriptures in the New Testament on and in Proverbs about wise counsel and elders and deacons and what their roles are.

And and then sitting back during the worship time and watching my 14 year old leading worship in a song and then watching my 18 year old daughter sing and lead worship as well, and they’re both playing guitar. And I just literally was like, This is legacy. Amazing. This is this is what God calls us to. And I’m I’m not sharing this story to impress you. I’m sharing my heart with you, to impress upon you that the dreams that you have about legacy can come to fruition. God is faithful, but it takes you being on passion for God and setting aside a cultural idea of success and pursuing to make his name known. That is what we are here for. Amen. And it starts with your family. So when you’re faithful, like Isaac was saying, and reading the scriptures because you’re making him known to your kids and like there have been a couple meetings in the last few weeks where we we didn’t have the Bibles out. And Solomon, our seven year old, will go, Are we going to read the Bible today? I love that. I love that even the seven year old is like hungry for. Are we going to read it? Are we going, what are we going to read today, Dad? And that’s how it should be. It should be a weird phenomenon to not read the Bible to where your kids go. Why aren’t we doing that? Yeah, you know, like, I think that that’s a cultural thing when it comes to that.

It is so it’s so important. So are you going to have a normal summer? We are imploring you. We are encouraging you. We are asking you to consider that you should throw aside the normal summer, that you should put it aside because normal is not good. It’s not biblical. It’s not.

Biblical. It’s not biblical.

So what is and sometimes we’re being influenced depends on how old your kids are and what circles you have them in and so forth. But a lot of times children are being influenced by peers. And then those your children then influence the parents to do certain things about the summer.

You know what I call that? Parental peer pressure.

Yeah. And and that happens from other parents and so forth. And so I would say don’t fall to any kind of peer pressure. Instead be in prayer and really consider and maybe together as a married couple, if you can’t do it together, one of you does it map out what a normal summer actually looks like for you guys? Like think about the last two summers and what are the normal rhythms of those summers. And then look at that and then pray and ask, well, how could that be upgraded to be a spiritual summer that causes a family revival where we’re just even more on fire for the Lord. We not only know more about the Lord, but we’re on fire for the Lord. And we’ve experienced some things this summer doing things for the Lord. And I just think that is so amazing. That really shows you where your treasure is, where your heart is right in doing things for the Lord. So let’s not have a normal summer. But it takes vision, it takes intentionality, it takes thinking through. These are things we’re thinking through. Obviously, we have a lot of things to do for farming, obviously church, obviously the ministry and all these things. But still we are right now thinking through how still we’re going to get away. And it’s not always about getting away, but part of it is sometimes about getting away and also what we’re going to do here. So it’s so important to have that vision. But there’s really a relationship opportunity, isn’t there? Angie Yeah, I mean.

The time that you have with your kids during the summer is different. I think everyone would say that, right? If you’re whether you homeschool or not, this message is equally relevant to you. When we are as a homeschool parent, we get locked into doing certain curriculums throughout the year and co-ops and activities and lessons and. All the things and when an activity sports just you know and and even when you’re not home schooling you get locked into those kinds of commitments as well. Right. And there is something different about the summer in the sense that you don’t have all of those things going on. You have an opportunity to plan and to choose. You get to choose What am I going to focus on this summer with my family? What are the things, What are the experiences? What are the life skills? What are the educational things that maybe I need to implement that they’re not getting? Let me give you an idea. Here is one really, really important thing. When it comes to revival. We’re talking about spiritual revival in your family, but that starts with relationship because in order to speak into someone’s life, you have to earn that that place by pursuing relationship. If you don’t have that, it’s going to come on deaf ears. I’m just going to say it.

You’re going to come on deaf ears and your kids are not going to listen to you. There may be even be a lack of respect if you haven’t invested in them. Children know children perceive a lot because they are human, just like you are. So while you think you may be getting away with things because they’re young, the reality is, is no, you’re not. Actually, you’re developing a reputation and a track record with your kids on all kinds of levels, whether they can trust you, whether you want to listen, whether you really care about what’s on their heart or if you’re just checking things off the list, like they get all of that. So this summer, I want to encourage you guys to evaluate first where your heart’s at and what are the potential reputations that you have built within your kids ideas or perceptions of you and your relationship with them? Start making a list. Evaluate. Make a list. What do I need to work on in my relationship with Suzy? What do I need to work on in my relationship with that kid? And and you may even you want to go bold. Here’s a courageous parenting challenge. Take him out for coffee and ask him how you can be a better mom. Whoa.

And how you can be a better father. It’s such an important thing. That is good leadership. It’s humility and it’s modeling it and it’s showing them how to be good leaders as well as they get older. And this is this is so relevant. And it should happen periodically.

Not just in the summer. Yeah, you’re totally right.

But but, but what a relationship opportunity as kids, a lot of times have more time available. They’re around. You know, there’s maybe less of a rigid schedule in some homes. Let’s focus on relationships. Let’s do relationship building activities. And if you’re a larger family, you know, three, four, five, six plus kids, um, that takes even more intentionality to get that alone time. But there’s a.

Way. There is. And hey, when we’re talking about this opportunity to disciple your kids, here’s another question. So after you evaluate your relationship, I want you to put your kids names down on a piece of paper if you can, and evaluate like what are the potential cultural lies that your children have started believing and acting out, or what are the potential things that they were taught in school or maybe influenced by peers or maybe influenced by your family members or even people in the church? You guys, you have to think about this. You have to think about like, okay, so obviously my child and I don’t see eye to eye on X, Y, and Z. Where were they influenced in those beliefs? Because they’ve been raised in my home and I’ve taught them these things. You have to ask that hard question. Where are they being influenced in correctly and in a worldview that is not biblical? And then the next step is to purposefully choose to engage that topic and use this summer as an opportunity to truly disciple them in biblical worldview on those things, whether it’s gender dysphoria, gender, how we how we react to people who are confused in the world, how we deal with different ideologies regarding spiritual issues like abortion.

Yes, I said that’s a spiritual issue. A lot of people would say it’s a political issue. I’m sorry, but it’s a spiritual issue. First and foremost, that’s become political and and we as parents have to like depending on our kids age, we need to, like, recognize, okay, what have I not discipled my children in so that we have similar biblical worldview down the road? If you have little kids, that would be the question I’d be asking. If I have older kids, I go, okay, what did they learn this year? What are where are the holes in the biblical worldview? What do I what apologetics do I need to pursue in personal conversation and then come up with a game plan with your spouse? Maybe he goes out with them, maybe you go out with them. Maybe you start doing more family meetings where you’re together talking about this with both of your kids. If you have just a couple or like it can look different from family to family. But this is the point is you have to be intentional in labeling the topics that you need to engage and you come across discipleship from a perspective of I’m going to teach my children, Amen. I’m going to educate them.

We’re going to get into discipleship in a second. We’re also going to talk about some things that are hard that we. Need to do in some really good practical insights about when you do get away as a family and how you can make that better. We’re going to give some practicals, but I want to just take a moment. Normally we have a recording here talking about the Parenting Mentor program, but instead we’re going to just candidly speak to it because we’ve been getting so many reach outs about people that have gone through the Parenting Mentor program and talking about how incredible this has been for them, whether they had a couple kids or a lot of kids, all different seasons of parenting, skill levels and so forth, people are getting so much out of it. Praise the Lord and can how can my church go through this or and these kinds of things? And so we’re like, okay, well, interesting. Maybe it is time to open this up for the first time ever to churches to be able to have an unlimited license for the summer to provide this and have control over the pace and everything, whether they let people take it self-paced or they do it in groups at the church or however they want to do it, but to pay one fee at and have it for the church for the entire summer to really encourage this summer family revival, obviously it helps the ministry achieve the goals of impacting 10 million legacies for the kingdom.

So we’re super passionate about this. We emailed some thoughts out to some churches. One immediately signed up. And so this is building fast. And so we are right now for the first time announcing be courageous ministry.org/church and you can see there how this can happen in your own church. And if you want all the details about the parenting mentor program, you still go to courageous parenting.com and that shows everything about it. And individuals can absolutely still or couples can still sign up there and take it. But if you’re really interested in the church or you’re a pastor or an elder or deacon or somebody that has influence in a church or a mom that’s just going to raise their hand and say, hey, we need to do this as a church, then be courageous ministry.org/church. You’ll get all the insights there. And it’s I think this is going to be incredible.

It could sweep across the world. I mean if you think about the power of walking in biblical like minded fellowship and in biblical community and biblical friendship, just that concept of running the race with other parents that are in the same season of life or even just a few steps ahead of you and a few steps behind you. And those are the three like main relationships that we always should have in our in our life, actually all throughout our life. And to think about the the depth of conversation when Isaac and I are basically like falling on the sword and bringing up really hard conversations in the Parenting Mentor program, facilitating discussion among you guys and taking you to Scripture that you have to answer to Scripture. You literally have to look at the Scripture because we brought it up in a video and you talk about it with your group. Imagine the transformation of your friendships and how that trickles down to impact the actual lives of the children and changing the generations for the Kingdom of God. Like the idea of this gets me so excited, but I, I cannot share enough with you how important this could potentially be within the church because pastors are maxed out.

I’m just going to say it like I get it. I’m I’m married to a man that is an elder in a church and he’s preaching every Sunday. And that’s a lot of work to protect doctrine to labor in the word. And then we run this ministry as well. And I know that there there’s an element of a different side of business and a different busyness, sorry, if you will, in running a large congregation and they’re maxed out and they’re needing people to team up and raise their hand and be willing to say, hey, pastor, I love what you’re doing. I appreciate the sermons and I love this, but I feel like there needs to be a more intentional equipping of parents so that our kids are not wandering, so that our kids don’t become lost. And there’s this program. And if we go to through it together, I’m willing to stand up and raise my hand. My husband and I will facilitate. We’ll play the videos. We’ll hand out the paperwork of the group, discussion questions, Can we use the building like?

And sometimes in the summer, churches decrease in size because I don’t know what it is, but maybe people are going on vacation. Well, there’s just so many, you know, fun things that are happening. We’re all into that. But at the same time, I think part of Summer Family Revival is staying plugged into your church while you’re in town, actually more so and more so and really seizing the opportunity. And this program, the Parenting Mentor program, is an opportunity to have something for people to really hold on to this summer that directly impacts their family and their parenting. When there is a change in season in more maybe more time to do so, and making those times when they’re away more meaningful to. So anyways, you can find out more there we’re going to dive into Oh.

Yeah, I forgot what we were talking about. So let’s go back to the summer.

Knowing how to disciple discipleship, it’s really interesting. There’s a very few books on discipling children out there. Or at least the last time I looked. And the reason for that is discipleship isn’t an event. It’s something that has to be woven through the every day parenting life. And a lot of times I know I wasn’t discipled when I was young. I became a believer when I was 23. So the word even discipleship was foreign to me. Even after I became a believer. Right away I had to learn, Oh, okay, this is this is equipping, This is teaching people about the Bible. This is equipping them and understanding and pointing them to God. This is nurturing their relationship with God. And what a powerful thing that parents get to do.

Let’s read in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse seven. Actually, I’m going to go right before it. In verse six, it says, And these words, I’ve command you today shall be on your heart. So this is a command that these things are on our heart, right? That verse five was, You shall love the Lord, your God with your all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. Which, by the way, Jesus reiterates in the Gospels, as well as the first and greatest commandment, right? Just before he gives you the second commandment, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. And so here we are with the first commandment that Jesus gives us that are the two greatest commandments. And then he says in in verse six of Deuteronomy, chapter six, it says in these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. Verse seven, You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them. When you sit in your house and when you walk, by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on your door, posts of your house and on your gates. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers and then just continues on that, there’s a promise.

And so I just want to share with you guys, this is all the time, right? When you sit, when you rise, when you lie, when you stand, you know, wherever you go, we are to teach our children God’s commands. But but but more than just like the commandments, like a lot of times people will think of the Ten Commandments, right? Oh, I’m teaching those to my kids. Know what this is actually referring to is just before this. Loving the Lord, your God with your whole heart, your whole soul and your whole might. That is something that we actually teach our children more by how we live our life than what we say to them. There’s this old Elizabeth Elliot quote, I believe, or maybe it was Elizabeth George. I always get the two mixed up. That is that you speak the gospel better with your life than you do with words. And this is an important aspect that us parents, we need to realize that how we’re living out our walk with God is going to make a massive impact in our children’s lives, whether we’re being intentional about it or not. Yeah, you heard me right there. I’m just going to share something that I’ve been very passionate about for a long time. We all are leaving a legacy, whether we’re intentional about it or not.

If we’re not being intentional, that’s actually the legacy that’s being left with our children. Now, God can do anything in your child’s life and turn them around. There are walking testimonies of that everywhere. Praise Jesus. But the truth is, is that we are called to love the Lord, our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might. And that that is what we teach our children when we sit, when we walk, when we lie. Why? Because it’s something that they experience. It’s something that they can visually see in our lives as we’re going throughout our day. So while we’re doing the dishes, we’re either grumbling or we’re silent or we’re praising Jesus, right? Like, do you put worship music on? Can I just say, like, if you want a family revival, like I even think about some other words worship, prayer, a revival of prayer in your family, Who wants a revival of hunger for the word in their family? Who wants a revival where their kids are like receiving Christ, getting saved, getting baptized? Who wants a revival of a passionate, sincere, like conviction of the word where they’re like, This isn’t biblical. I can’t do this. And they’re confessing their sin and they’re holding one another accountable and they’re forgiving one another and they’re walking out in grace.

Or they wake up and they go, Wow, I need to make some better decisions because I don’t think what I’ve been doing or what the friends around me have been doing is God honoring whether it’s behavior, what they wear, what they’re doing, these kinds of things, words, their language of respect, saying, you know, saying the Lord’s name in vain, for example, which is such a common thing on social media and everywhere abbreviated, you know, starting when you when your spirit gets agitated in a good way, you start caring about these things not from a legalistic perspective, but a love of God and wanting to obey our Father perspective. And when that starts to happen in your children, they became they become agents of change for Christ.

Now it’s totally true. So, you know, it’s interesting. There’s this little phrase I want to share with you guys. And when I think of revival and I think of a now think of family revival in the summer, what could that equate? Well, for sure, there’s going to. Be evidence of change. Evidence of change. What evidence of change can you dream of right now for four months from now? What vision does God put on your heart to be changed in your family in the next four months? And that’s going to look different from family to family. But this is where it begins, folks, is understanding that start with us. We’re not going to have a revival of worship, for example, in our families unless we’re worshiping and we’re worshiping when we lie, when we sit, when we stand, when we’re when we’re doing whatever we’re doing. And I mean like pulling weeds in the garden. Are you singing? Are you praying? Are you out there working hard with your kids and delighting in your time with them and asking them, hey, what’s on your heart? What are you learning from the Lord? This is what I’m learning, sharing with them quotes from books that you’re reading or concepts that you’ve been learning or thinking about. Like, I just I love that I was having a conversation with my oldest daughter the other day and I was just sharing with her because I found somebody online that was talking about how the church caters to women. And I was reading about this and I’m like, Oh my goodness, I never thought of that. And I shared with her what I learned. And she was like, You’re so right. And we just both got so excited about worship being worship that both men and women can worship too. That’s going to lead them in a biblical way.

Nothing wrong with the church catering to women. Just make sure it caters to men also. That’s that’s that’s the point.

That’s the point. I don’t know. It shouldn’t be catering. As I think about it, I’m like, we shouldn’t be catering to anybody. It’s about Jesus. And like sometimes.

Certain things naturally happen. But I just want to reemphasize asking your children questions, really getting. And sometimes you have to ask three questions deep. You know, when you ask the first question, a lot of times people think it’s a surface level answer that you’re looking back, which is simple. But if you’re really trying to have a deep conversation, you sometimes have to prove it by asking the question again in a different way. And then maybe follow up question on the on the on their answer and really showing that you really want to go deep and understand where they’re at spiritually and where they want to grow and struggles they’re dealing with. And you probably already witnessed their struggles. But I think that people own things when they when they speak to their struggles of someone being interested in them. And I think sometimes as parents, we know so much about our kids, it can actually become annoying to them. And what’s really important to realize is they’re human beings that want to be respected, understood and listened to. And even if you know something, sometimes it’s good to ask them and have them express their own version of how they feel they’re struggling.

And you might even actually learn something. And even if you don’t, they feel heard and understood, and they’re more likely to want to do something about it because they voiced it to a humble, learn listening parent in a posture of humility versus talking down to. And I think that is so important because you know what? A lot of times children, everybody are hard enough on themselves and we just don’t need somebody, you know, talking down to us. A lot of times what people need is somebody listening with an understanding heart and really living out the gospel and understanding the gospel that, you know, we’re all sinners and we need Jesus. And that grace that covers us is amazing. And, you know, when you’re talking about these deep things, it really I for me, I think for everybody, it really makes us appreciate Jesus even more. And that grows a stronger relationship. So those those tough points, those tough conversations, those listening ears, that spending quality time versus just quality time, summer is for quantity time. And that’s where you get into these conversations, really know where they’re at spiritually, which I think is good.

Yeah. You know, we got another verse here for you in Isaiah 41, verse ten. That is just you guys. Whenever I read in the Old Testament, especially Isaiah, I’m super convicted. I don’t know about you. Yeah.

You share this? Yeah. Fear not. For I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. So a lot of times, you know, there could be circumstances, unique circumstances in your family where when you listen to these episodes, you’re like, Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but you don’t have a marriage like mine. Yeah, but you don’t have finances like mine. Yeah, but I wasn’t raised like maybe you were or whatever. Those jouberts can go in the garbage. You know why? Because God is all powerful. Amen. And God wants fruitfulness in your family, and God will help you. This is a promise. Fear not. For I am with you. I will strengthen you. I will help you. That is a promise from the Lord. But are you willing to hear it? Are you willing to throw away the Abbotts?

Well, and I even think about this specific verses convicting in the sense of, you know, with everything that’s happening in the world, a lot of people might be considering using their summer months to try and figure out gardening and to, to take on new things to be more self sufficient. I know that that’s something that we’ve been doing the last few years is just to like we’re doing as much as we can, right? Because the world is crazy and inflation has been insane. Um, and that’s a legit thing. And I get that there’s a lot that could potentially tempt parents into worrying or being fearful and making decisions out of fear. But I just want to encourage you that this scripture is, is an exhortation to those of us who maybe are tempted to fear and make our summer plans be all about a homestead. Right? Because I get it. We have a homestead, you guys. And so, like, we’ve even talked about how it could easily happen, how like, for us, like, your homestead can’t become your idol. Can I just say that your homestead cannot become your idol to where you can’t leave it because you’re so afraid that everything’s going to die, Even if you have people who are willing to help you take care of it. Instead, you need to start looking. Now if you’re going to do that and and make a way make a plan for you to be able to get away some of your summer, to be able to focus on family.

Because the truth is, is homesteads are a lot of work. I get it. And like for us, one of the things we’ve done, if that is you, I just want to encourage you that what we’ve chosen to do is split up our vacation instead of doing a month long RV trip, which we don’t. We’ve, we’ve done three months at a time and we may do that again in the future, but we’re more like, okay, let’s do a week in the winter and do snowboarding and let’s do a couple weeks in the summer. Let’s do a week in the fall, right? Like we’re breaking up our month so that it’s easier for us regarding ministry, also church, but also the homestead. That doesn’t mean that we’re not spending less time with our family. We’re spending the same amount of time. We’re just being strategic about how to do it so that we can do both. And so I just want to encourage you that you’re making summer plans right now, like what is going to be conducive to the family revival that is in your dreams and part of that sometimes is getting away.

Now, if you already have plans for getting away and it involves joining up with other families or going to see and live with other family and things like that, that might be good, but it might not be what we’re about to talk about because, you know, is that other family going to have a similar mindset towards the summer, a summer family revival, or are there spiritual conversations going to be had? Is it going to be focused on Christ or is it only fun? Or we love by the way, we love having fun, we have fun, tons of fun. But at the same time, we like to be on mission at the same time and to be growing in a deeper close way with family. Yes, playing board games and all those things and whatever events you can do. But at the same time, having a mindset of how can this be a summer revival? And so if the family or families you’re going to be with or the extended family doesn’t really lend to the summer family revival, maybe do that in another or shift your plans a little bit because, you know, this could be a very important summer for your family.

So and on that note, I just want to say something like, sometimes you have to make decisions where you’re making less time with the people that are going to be potentially tempting your kids back into the old way of being the old self, the fleshly oriented self, and sometimes based upon the strength of your family. You can go into those situations confidently to be a light and be on mission, but you have to be a visionary beforehand and you have to prepare your kids for that, for standing out, being willing to not look like the cousins or to participate in the bad foul language or whatever it is, or watching the movies that you don’t approve of. Or I’m just like putting a whole bunch of things out there. And so the reality is, is you have to do some evaluating and preparing ahead of time when you’re planning to do a trip that’s going to involve family or friends, you have to be honest. That means take the rose tinted glasses off, look at the temptations, the struggles your children have actually struggled with. Label them. Talk to your kids about them. Be honest about it.

Speak truth and love and go, Hey, I’m just concerned that maybe you’re going to fall back into this. If we spend this time. What do you think? You know, having those kinds of conversations, I mean, and you may be thinking, well, my kids are really little, but can I just say even the eight year old can handle that conversation? Oh, yeah, right. Especially if you’ve been discipling them. They get more than you realize. But like having that conversation in a respectful kind of way where you’re like, Hey, little ones, we’re going to be a light to our family. We’re going to share with them that children are a blessing, not a burden. What does that mean? How can you show the aunts and uncles and the grandma and grandpa that children are a blessing? You can look at them in the eye and say please and thank you. You can have manners. You can participate When we’re praying instead of being a distraction during the prayer time, you can be respectfully praying with us. You can like that is huge. You’re going to be such a light to your whoever you know.

So let your kids, your children know you’re going on a mission trip this summer. Yeah. And normally we think of mission trips. You go overseas and you do this and that and the other thing, which is great. But you know what? A family mission not going very far might even be more meaningful these days to your family because you’re all together and. And having that mission mindset of being a light in the park, being a light in the restaurants, being a light in the campground and at the zoo, at the zoo, wherever, It does wonders for the parents too, like when we set it up that way and Angie and I are focused on this is a mission trip. We’re far less bothered by the minutia, burdens of the strenuous things we have to do and the lack of alone time and all those things. We don’t really think about that stuff as much because we’re on mission too, and.

It’s just a short period of time to you have perspective, right? And so like.

We were with that, we’ve been on mission in New York City during 4th of July. We’ve been on mission at Hershey’s Amusement Park. We’ve been on mission in Gatlinburg, Gatlinburg all over the United States, all up and down the East Coast, West Coast, all in between. Kentucky, seeing the Noah’s Ark, you know, just incredible things. And those experiences and all the little towns flying the American flag, which I so appreciated. And then obviously at the time we were living in Oregon, coming back to Oregon, no American flags visible. But anyway, so.

Not not any that weren’t ripped up or burned.

So but anyways, just appreciation of seeing where, you know, the land and what’s going on and doing things together and lots of stories of impact, lots of stories of meeting people and shining our lights and so forth. I think that is really, really those are.

The memories that I think your kids will talk about later in life. Right? When they were like, Whoa, what was that? I remember when we were on our three month RV trip having that conversation with our kids before we left that you guys were going to have fun. But we’re also going on a missions trip, and I just want to share with you guys this little vision. You know, as someone who’s done overseas missions not long, long term, just six months was the longest. And then, of course, for 12 years. I did it during the summers for a few weeks at a time. And one of the things that I realized in coming back is that there’s just as much of a spiritual deadness here in America, maybe even more so than in other places. And we need to be activated as Christians wherever we are. And sometimes people will go to other places to have impact. And I believe God can call them to that. But if God has placed you here, he has called you to a hard mission where you are. And I will be perfectly honest with you, it is harder to be a missionary in your own family and in your own community where you have always grown up or where you’ve always lived with nonbelievers who have always known you.

That is the hardest work. I don’t care where you are, that is the hardest because you have relationship with people and you do to a certain extent because you’re human care about what people think of you, and that does influence you on whether or not you’re going to be bold and be truly gospel centered as people and evangelistic. And the truth is, is that is a skill that our kids need to learn today. That’s how we change future generations. That’s how countries come back to the Lord. That’s how there’s revivals beyond family, right, is when there’s a church revival. It has to start in families and and in families. It actually starts in the parents and it starts in hearts. Sometimes it starts in a child that leads their own parent to the Lord. But I if you are a parent listening to this, then clearly you have the desire in your own heart now and change can begin with you and it can touch your family. It can touch your marriage, it can touch your church. It can touch your community. It can touch your extended family. But you have to be on purpose, recognizing that this is a collective call for everyone to be a part of the great commission.

Can I just say, too, that it’s so important to get away only with your family, at least for some time, at least a week, Like just you guys just recalibrating, getting away, even if your situation you have wonderful community friends, everything. Everything’s wonderful. You get away and recalibrate. And if you can even do it for two weeks in a row, it is incredible. And you don’t have to fill it with a bunch of expensive things. You can do a couple of those things. But you know what? Just being together, it’s like you’re living in another place and you’re you’re doing life together.

You’re not distracted by all the things that are actually on your property or in your house or even just helping your neighbors, which is a good thing. Like they’re good things.

And there’s nothing pulling your children away to other influences and things like that. Even if they’re good, you can even take phones away.

Imagine if you.

Took you might be thinking, Wow, that sounds really difficult. Like the the secret thing that parents might be thinking actually is like, well, I kind of like it when my kids are pulled away sometimes. So I get a little breathing room. You know what? Two weeks solid together, nonstop is amazing.

It’s going to be the best thing ever.

We did three months and, you know, we got back to our house and it wasn’t a big house. And we so we grew so close together that even though we had lots of seating in the living room, we. All crowded on one couch.

We would we would like squish together and we’d have people over and they’re like, Why are you all sitting there like that? And we just didn’t even realize it. We just because we’re used to living in close quarters. And I just have to say there’s like a special closeness that happens within your family when you do that. And I know that, like for our kids, whenever we tell them we’re going to go on a trip or we’re going to do this, they always go, Are we going in the RV? You know, and they have this like the RV has a reputation of having bringing our family closer together, even in the hard times, it makes us closer. All right.

We’re going to we’re going to close it up with doing hard things here. So the hard thing we just talked about is potentially going away for a trip, but also being present when you’re in town. The hard thing might be to stay committed to your church and how can you reinvest in your marriage, as Angie talked about, and how can you invest in parenting? Maybe it’s the parenting mentor program. Maybe there’s other things. What can your what can you do together as a family? And you’re going to have to be resolute, standing firm and and not just going along with what seems good and normal. There’s going to be things you’re going to say no to with a better option. And the children might not believe it’s a better option in the moment and it might take some real good discussions and all the whys and be patient and spending the time the older they are and so forth. But you know what? They’ll come around and you’re the parent. You know, what’s best in the spirit is prompting you to do things for your family. Your God wants fruitfulness in your family. God wants a legacy of victory in Christ. And so you get to make those hard calls and those hard decisions are going to be worth it. So what are the hard decisions come to your mind that you might have to make? It’s so important. And don’t forget how powerful the Bible is. The Bible is right there to help you. Second, Timothy 316 says, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. So this is your roadmap. This is this is what you need the Spirit of God in you and and asking for wisdom and reading the Bible. That all kind of goes together.

As we’re closing up. And if you go just want to remind you of the URL of where we have the summer revival, the opportunity to use the Parenting Mentor program as an option for your church, for your community, for you and friends to be going through this in the summer and on that same page, which is at be courageous ministry.org/church, you’re also going to see another one of our courses. It’s called the Biblical Friendship course. And I just want to encourage you guys, especially if you’re you’re women and you’re struggling and you’re feeling isolated, you’re feeling lonely, you’re I’m just going to say it. In the last four years, I think that a lot of women have struggled. There’s been a lot of division in friendships because you’re like, whoa, I didn’t even realize that person was woke and they are okay. How many of you are that raise your hand. Yeah, I know. I get it. There’s division, there’s progressive ideologies that have seeped into the church that have created all kinds of divisions.

There’s also legalism where we start taking these things to too focused on things that don’t matter.

And the truth is, is that I think that a lot of people, especially older generations, are not familiar with what biblical friendship is actually supposed to look like. And so when you start trying, sometimes you can get pushback, you know, people walking the other way. So I want to encourage you that we have this amazing course. You can go find out more about it at Be courageous ministry.org. And we have an opportunity for churches to also use this course to go through. So you can do this as women’s ministries or if you are you have a teenage daughter. This would be transformational for her for the rest of her life to actually have a biblical perspective on friendship. We talk about the comparison trap judging, critical spirit, all kinds of issues. If your daughter struggles with a competitive spirit or jealousy or envy or struggling with their identity in Christ and how they look and issues like modesty, oh my goodness. We talk about all the legalistic issues that women create division over at the legalism buffet, but this is a different course than what we’re talking about. Regarding the Parenting Mentor program. And it can also be used this summer to to help to stir up a family revival in the body of Christ. Regarding family friendships.

The Bible speaks very clearly about there not being division in the church, and there’s so much division. And so this course is 26 short videos, but all woven in with lots of great text and packets for facilitators and for individuals as they go through it. It’s just an incredible thing set up for the individual or it works great for small groups and the church at large. So anyways, go to be courageous ministry.org/church all resources from this episode and everything will be courageous ministry.org. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous ministry Org for more biblically based resources. Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible be courageous app community for.

True 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 us.

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.