Too many kids raised in Christian homes are falling away from the faith when they leave their parents’ homes. Part of the problem is that too many assumptions are made by parents that actually put performance pressure on kids. That’s the opposite of creating trust and comfort for your kids to ask deep spiritual questions, wrestle with scripture, and be candid about their struggles. If we don’t create this kind of relationship, our kids will conform to the family Christianity, but when they depart from the family unit, their faith falls flat because it wasn’t based on their own real relationship with Christ.
Main Tips From This Episode:
- Is your family culture religious or relationship-driven?
- How a religious culture can be harmful.
- Make sure your kids are comfortable asking spiritual questions even if they express unbelief.
- Faith isn’t a family thing, it’s an individual relationship with God thing.
- What you do when no one is looking says a lot about your walk with God.
- Make sure your kids understand their need for Jesus.
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Scripture In This Episode:
2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Hebrews 4:12 – “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Proverbs 4:23 – “Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.”
Ephesians 6:1 – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”
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Full Transcript:
Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.
Welcome to Courageous Parenting podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.
Hi, I’m Angie from courageous
Mom and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.
We’ve been married for twenty one years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the
Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18, and it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and the fall. Hey, welcome everybody to the podcast. Hey, guys, how are you doing? I hope you’re well.
We are excited to talk to you about another very important parenting topic. So, you know, when when people have kids, what is one of the most common things you hear when especially parents of many kids, they take them out to, you know, Costco or somewhere? I’ve had this happen to me. People go, Hey, you know, they’re all going to be teenagers at the same time. And they they they think of it as a bad thing. And so let’s think about that for a second. Go, why would it be a bad thing? Maybe if your kids don’t talk to you and they don’t trust you and you don’t have a good relationship with them. So we’re going to talk about how to cultivate that today.
So whether you have little kids are about to have your first or you have middle schoolers or teenagers. This is going to be helpful for you, and it’s never too late to capture your kid’s heart. Listen to the last episode and to cultivate a trusting relationship where your kids feel comfortable talking to you about anything.
So it’s actually the question. This podcast is a question title, OK? You say so will your kids trust you to talk to you about the hard things now?
You might instantly go, Yeah, I think we’re pretty good on that, and I would just caution you to pause for a second because I caution myself to pause on this often because you might be taking something for granted. You might not fully realize that your kids don’t feel comfortable talking to you about certain things, so they may have doubts in their belief in God. They may have some real serious spiritual questions that they want to ask, but they don’t feel comfortable asking you because there’s a religious culture in your family that we all believe in Jesus
Or they could. You know, another thing that comes to my mind is I think of the reputation that Peaks and MKs get. If you’re not familiar with those acronyms, pastor’s kids and missionary kids, right? Where parents are in ministry and kids, a lot of times in those situations are raised with really high expectations and standards. And they they yes, they have expectations impressed upon them by maybe their parents, maybe their church, maybe the culture in their church, maybe people like elders in their church. But there’s also something I mean, the Bible says, take every thought captive for a reason, because maybe they have impressed upon themselves expectations that are unrealistic, that were never impressed upon them by their parents regarding their spiritual maturity or their belief and things like that. So we need to be aware that, yes, we have influence on this. But just as you need to take thoughts captive and you need to have realistic expectations of yourself and other people, your kids also need to be taught those two things that they need to take their thoughts captive, and they need to know the truth about what your expectations are and are not.
So we’re going to dive in in a second, but thanks for being part of the one million legacies movement when you write a review. Share on social media. Give five stars on iTunes or write a review. There it is. One. It’s super encouraging. It does propel us forward because there is negative stuff out there too, so it combats that. It’s like, OK, people are along this race with us. This is totally worth it. It’s impacting people. If you know anything about us, we believe something’s worthwhile. If it’s having a growing impact on for the Kingdom of God, on numbers of people. And that is just how we’re wired. We’ve always been that way together, and it really is encouraging to us to press on and do the hard work in putting the truth out there in in a way that people can receive it.
Yeah. And you know, I just have to be really transparent. I feel like a lot of times I’m a salmon swimming upstream regarding things like social media because I have struggled with being censored for many years, actually, and I’ve had proof of that. Craig’s mom has definitely experienced that. And so like a lot of times, while I see other people’s platforms growing, there’s like this temptation for me to struggle with Oh, is it worth it if I don’t? You know what I mean? Just because I’m like, I don’t. I don’t even know if I’m reaching the people who have clicked a button and said, Yeah, I want to learn from this person or I want to do life following this person. I want to like, you know what I’m saying? And so like for me, I have my life. I am raising my kids. I have my first jurisdiction’s, my second jurisdictions. I have my priorities in order. And so when I get on social media, it’s very purposeful. I’m not like scrolling around dinking around. I’m like on there as a missionary to be a light and then I’m gone.
It’s a way to impact, so we really appreciate feedback and being part of that. Yeah. So we are going to dive into this. And I think the first point is maybe the most important point, but there’s a lot of important ones here, which is, are you creating a religious culture in your home or a relationship driven culture in your home?
I think that cultures and families can oftentimes change over the years, also based upon where the mom and dad are at spiritually. Yeah, because they lead it. But also, if you have a strong spirited kid in your home, every person in your family is going to contribute to the culture in your home, right in your family. And so as kids get older, sometimes they start to have more influence if the parents allow. That to happen. And so if they cater to children, if it’s a child centric home, go listen to that other podcast that’s in the first season. Do you have a child centric home? This is a really important thing to think about because that can actually negatively input impact if there is a legalistic religious culture or a relationship.
And sometimes we don’t realize it, but this is so prevalent that. There’s so many pharmaceutical parents. And sometimes all of us can even fall into that category, that’s what Jesus warned us not to be like the
Pharisees, not to be hypocrites,
Not to be hypocrites. And but there’s other dynamics to the Pharisees too, and I thought we’d kick it off by reading about them. Ok, Matthew, twenty three.
All right. So this is verse one through seven in Chapter twenty three says. Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe that observe and do but do not do according to their works for they say and do not do for they bind heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their their factories broad and enlarge their borders of their garments. They love the best, the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogue. Greetings in the marketplaces. And to be called by men. Rabbi. Rabbi. So, yeah, I mean, these are the people that are like at a conference and they’re like running up front to sit in the front because they want attention and they want to seem like they’re.
Or the motivation for the church you go to is to be seen and known and to, you know, dress a certain way to show the wealth or to, you know, have a heart posture of, you know, showing your best Christian foot forward on Sundays. But all during the week. There’s very little Christian foot forward. There’s very little spiritual strength in the home. And what is that showing your kids? It’s showing your kids a religious way of being. And then another way to look at this, too, is if there’s no ability for your kids to share their doubts and spiritual questions and things like that. Because no, this is we’re all Christians, but there’s very little spiritual dialogue during the week, but we’re expecting our kids to act like Christians
When maybe they don’t.
Maybe they’re not. They don’t have the Holy Spirit. They’re literally not saved. That’s like burdens. That’s burden the burden on their shoulders. The Pharisees put heavy burdens on their shoulders, so as parents, we don’t want to put heavy spiritual burdens on our kids shoulders. We don’t have the Holy Spirit in the heart change to actually desire doing that. That can be very hard.
And one of the key things here, too, is that it says for they bind heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. And so there’s not just this element of laying on high expectations of like the way they behave or act or who they are, right? Like if there’s pressure to always get straight A’s, for example, that might not even be in like a a Christian church setting like that. There’s this performance based acceptance that is spouted off or expected within the family without it actually being a verbalized culture. It just is a culture that is based upon other expectations that are heavy, that are laid on kids. Now, of course, we all want our kids to to succeed. We all want our kids to do their best. We want to see them thrive, right? And a lot of times when we think about that, some people might actually say that that would equal getting A’s or that would equal X, Y and Z right. But the reality is, is that it’s not like a kid can be thriving and be doing well spiritually, which is most important and not get straight A’s right? Like, let’s just say it. And so I think that this aspect of like a report card, right, for example, is one example when kids are raised with a focus on the report card versus what’s in their heart and what they’re doing and if they’re doing their best. That is the difference between religious legalistic culture within a family and relationship, because if you have a relationship, you’ll know if your kid is doing their best and they’re still getting a B. Do you see him saying you’re going to celebrate with them?
So relationship to a relationship with God, real relationship and real relationship with kids and kids with parents? Not just this is the way we are, but we don’t really talk about it, right? If you’re a 2LP and you’re a Christian, I would never say that to my kids. I would never propel them to believe that our faith in God is just part of our family culture, although it is. But the reason it is because there’s real relationship with us and God and our kids in God, and that is cultivated, different ages with different kids and God gets a hold of their heart and something God is doing. We’re nurturing. God is doing it. And it’s
Amazing. It’s real relationships between us and our kids. You just you mentioned, you know, the real relationship between us and God, real relationship between our kids and God. But then there’s also this element of real relationship between us and our kids to where it is a place where they can say, Hey, I’m really struggling with this and that we’ve had a couple of kids who’ve done that in the past that have come to us actually more than a couple that have had certain things that they read in the Bible or they heard, preached at a church and they go, Did that really happen like doubts, right? Or different things that they’ve struggled with? And that is oftentimes the season where they’re they are questioning, they’re trying to make their faith their own. They’re trying to get to know God, but also the enemy is attacking them as well because he knows that they’re growing. Asking good questions,
You’re most crucial period of time is like age six to 11. Yep, and younger on that spectrum is usually it. So it’s younger than you think of where they actually have some doubts. Like is God real
Listening to my prayers?
Hear my prayers. Am I just speaking to the air? Or am I really speaking to God? And is he really showing up in my life? Do my parents really believe this stuff? Is this real? You know, if that is real, what is heaven and hell? What is heaven like? Do I even want to go to heaven? Because all I see up there is white clouds, and it doesn’t look like fun in heaven
Because heaven up there. And I mean, there’s literally all kinds of questions we could rattle off a zillion different ones. You guys have kids, you know the questions that we’re talking about. Hopefully, you know the questions, and I would just encourage you that like them asking you what you believe about these things is going to come from them, caring what you think and having a tender enough relationship, a trusting enough relationship where they feel like it’s safe and they’re not going to be in trouble, which is super important. Yeah, they’re not going to be in trouble for asking these questions that you’re not going to reprimand them or scold them or like, look at them weird and be like, Why did you ask that? No, don’t look at them that way. Don’t say that.
They need to be comfortable asking spiritual questions. And although your heart is probably right with this, of course, I want to make him feel comfortable asking me spiritual questions. But is your way of being actually creating comfort, proactively cultivating comfort? In fact, I’ve gone to the level and Angie and I have of saying in a group and one on one with our kids. If you ever have doubts about God, it is one a normal thing. And it’s something we love talking about, because your relationship with God is your relationship. Just because we believe in God, it doesn’t mean you’re a believer. That’s between you and God. But we’re here as to disciple you, to help you, to answer questions you evangelize.
Really. I mean, we wouldn’t say that to our kids, but they all know like what evangelism is and discipleship is. But this is where the rubber meets the road and parents understand their immense responsibility in the great commission regarding their children and understanding that you are a teacher. The moment you give birth to a baby, you are now a teacher. You are a teacher. And so teachers are held to a higher accountability. There is an important, necessary realization that every parent needs to understand that they are going to be held accountable by what they teach. And what you teach is both in your word, your verbal words, but even more so in what you live out on a daily life, what you model for your kids. And part of what you teach is also when you screw up and you’re humble enough to say that you screwed up.
So tell your kids, Hey, if you ever have questions, you ever have doubts. Please come to me. I love you, no matter what forever. Totally. And so they it’s really important that they don’t think your love for them is dependent on them loving God. That’s kind of hard to say and think about, but it’s true. We want them to love God, but that’s God working on their heart. Mm hmm. Your coach, you’re encouraging. You’re teaching your discipline, but you love them no matter what. If your kids love God or not, aren’t you going to love them the same? But do they really feel that and know that? And potentially do they know that based on how you talk about other people who are not Christians that you all know? So it’s really important, what do they see on how you love non-believers?
Mm hmm. So the next one is clarity, yes, right? Clarity. That faith isn’t a family thing. It’s an individual thing kind of talked about that briefly regarding, like, you know, saying, Oh, just because you’re hoping you’re a Christian, it’s kind of like logic when you teach your kids logic. We do this when the kids are like 12, 13, 14 years old, they start learning logic, which is if a plus B equals C, then B plus A equals C. You might be going, Angie, I don’t even know what you’re talking about right now. The reality is, is that not all things added to one another equate to the same thing. Ok, so just because you’re a open in, you’re a Christian. This is who you are doesn’t mean that if you’re a autopen and you’re not a Christian, you’re not who you are. Does that make sense? And so we have to teach our kids that it’s their personal responsibility to pursue God. Like, Yes, our family is Christian Toppin. The Tobin family is a Christian family, right? But and we we spend time in the world and we worship him. And that is part of like when our family thinks about who we are, we want our kids to choose to say, first, I’m a Christian. We would all hope and pray that that would be the first thing if they were asked, Who are you? Go, Well, I’m a Christian, right? But the reality is is they have to individually choose that to be the most high priority thing in their mind that that would come to their mind. It’s like when you when your kids get on social media. I’ll say this because our older kids do write and people write bios like are they? Are they claiming Christianity in their bio? Like, is it that? Is that part of who they want the world to know them as? And that they’re claiming that and that their understand that their their branding Christianity by how they live as well?
Now, hey, real quick, just want to talk about the parenting mentor program? It is so amazing to be on this journey. Really, the catalyst tip of the spear of the movement is these two thousand parents that have gone through the program and are in a group together and just really encouraging and spurring each other on an ongoing basis. It’s 10 hours of curriculum, self-paced. You get personal attention live with us and even text messaging access, and it’s really been a special thing, and I really encourage you to go to courageous parenting and check it out. There’s so many good reviews on it and so many people benefiting from it. God really inspired it. It’s got scripture all throughout, so I encourage you guys to do that. Well, let’s dive back in. Angie, you have a scripture for us, right?
Mm hmm. So John 15:05 says, I am the vine and you are the branches he who abides in me and I and him bears much fruit for without me. You can do nothing. I love this. I would love to continue on because it actually gives us a warning. It says if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered and they are gathered and throw them into the fire and they are burned. So there’s a really strong contrast about the the reaping and sowing the consequences of if you choose to abide in him or if you choose not to. Yeah. And that is a warning that we not only as parents need to be aware of because the fruit that is produced in our children is largely consequential to if we are abiding in the fruit, right? Because how we are living our lives is often mimicked in our children and they are our fruit. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. And so there is this element of children being a fruit. That’s why, even with elders right, the qualification for leadership is based largely on how children are acting their behavior, the things that are that they are if they’re professing believers of Christ. And it’s obviously the kids are at least old enough to choose that. And so there is a reality that is a something that we, as parents, need to take that to heart and recognize. Oh, this is a reflection of my parenting to to at least to a certain degree.
But at the same time, the same thing is true that it’s also a reflection of that child’s personal responsibility in their walk with God and the depth of their relationship with them, which is not fully reflective of you. And so I say that because a lot of times parents get really hung up on in two ways they either have immense guilt because they feel this incredible burden that they screwed up when their kids are not walking strong with the Lord when they’re older. And I just want to say, you have to give that to the Lord. You have to repent of anything that you are responsible for. But just as Jesus forgives the repentant heart, you have to receive the forgiveness yourself. You have to be able to let that go and pray for your children and serve them and love them and be continue to be the evangelist in their life, that disciple or in their life. The other aspect of this is sometimes parents take too much pride in what their children are doing. They live vicariously through them. Or they’re like, Oh yeah, that’s because of me. I’m sorry. No, no, no. That’s because of the Lord. Because the Lord is the one who transformed your life and therefore blessed your womb. He created your child and praise God that his Holy Spirit is working and active and alive in that child’s life. You can’t take credit for that. Amen. You may be doing what the Bible tells you to do to disciple them, and that is something that God will say, Hey, well done, good and faithful servant, but we can’t boast and things
In our own strength. It’s parasitical, actually. It’s like being a Pharisee. It’s also taking credit for things that God deserves. The credit for other things too. Like maybe you prayed for something as a family, but then when it came about, you either didn’t even mention anything about God coming through or you literally took credit for it. Oh, look what we did, or you took credit for it as a family, but led that. Look what we did. Oh, look at this amazing thing that happened, but you’re not giving credit back to God. Be careful of that. It’s it’s this problem that’s happening of Sunday Christians.
Yeah, that that
There they believe the parents believe they go to church. But there’s this big disconnect in how they actually live in verbalize things in their life. There’s an indicative of how little they’re thinking about God’s activity in their lives and forgetting to share what God is doing in the regular activities of life to your kids that is creating a relationship with God, culture, home versus a religion culture home of just the Sun. Christian.
Well, and it’s also this element of like, there are so many questions that we could potentially ask, right? Not any one of them is going to be like, Oh, how do you know if you’re a real Christian or you’re a Pharisee? Like, No, only God knows what’s in a man’s heart, right? But there are questions that like we need to be aware of if we’re not opening our Bible during the week, except for when we’re going to church. And it’s just because everybody else has their Bibles, then we maybe need to spend some time in introspection there, right? But at the same time, it’s like the same. Maybe you’re the person that not just only brings your Bible to church and opens your Bible at church, but maybe you open your Bible with your family once in a while, but you’re not seeking God and you’re not in a personal walk with him. You don’t have personal convictions that are biblical that you’re willing to like, you know, be willing to suffer for Christ. Right? That’s a real that’s the real in my mind. The real marker of if someone is truly a believer in Christ as if they’re willing to suffer for his name.
Well, it’s the next point. What do you what you do when no one is looking says a lot about your walk with God. And I proactively tell the kids that I know kids, we’re reading the Bible around. This is awesome. We’re doing it together. But your faith isn’t always together as a family thing. Your faith is a personal thing between you and God. And so what you’re doing when no one’s looking matters, are you praying one on one with God? I encourage you to do so. He’s listening. Here’s every one of your prayers. Are you reading the scriptures? I encourage you to do so. So it’s not a religious thing of you need to. I’m not prescribing something for them to do. It’s an encouragement. It’s showing them making them aware of if they’re growing their relationship with God or if it’s stagnant. Don’t we all need that reminder?
Oh, yeah, I mean, we just read John 15- scripture about abiding in him. Like, How do your kids know that scripture? Have they been taught that to where they’re like, Oh, if I’m abiding in him, this is a fruit that will come out of me, and if I’m not, then this is the fruit that will come out of me. And these are the consequences of when I’m living my life this way versus that way and an understanding you guys like originally we were talking about, will your kids trust you to talk about the hard things? It’s also like, do they? I see this in legalistic religious homes where kids see their parents being so judgmental, and I’m not talking about like the importance of judging the fruit of a church. When you decide if you’re going to go there, that is an important thing. Yeah, right? You’ve got to make a decision like, is this someone that I’m willing to have as a spiritual authority over my family when you’re choosing a church? Ok, that’s a big deal. I’m not saying that that is wrong, but what I am saying is if you’re constantly like critical, having a critical spirit all the time and judgy of all the things and all the people all the time, then your kids are going to be like nervous and feeling like they can’t come to you with the things that they’re struggling with because they think they already know what you’re going to think. Hmm. And so I just I want to warn you because what you talk about, who you talk about.
Let’s just stay away from that. The tongue is a danger. It’s a dangerous fire who can tame the tongue, it says in the Bible. We need to ask the Holy Spirit, especially as moms. We need to really ask the Holy Spirit to help us to model what it looks like to expect virtue in other people to not talk about other people, things like that, because that’s actually one of the biggest things. Proverbs six Eden says this is one of the seven things that Lord hates is one who brings discord among the brethren, right? And so or speaks flat blasphemy or different things like that. And in so many times, like women can hear something or you see something on social media and you just repeat it without like verifying that it’s true. And if your kids catch you and see you doing that, then they’re going to be like more closed off, less trusting of you, which is a really big thing. And so what you do when no one’s looking like, if you’re if you’re just scrolling through social media and you’re allowing that to influence, that’s something you’re doing when no one’s looking. That says a lot about your walk with God, and it actually impacts your walk with God because an impact. Your walk in life and your fruit and your kids are going to see your fruit and they’re going to either trust you or not.
James, for seven and eight, says therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Your kids know these things. If you draw near to God, he will draw near to you. So use that scripture when you’re talking about praying or reading the Bible on your own and things like that. Don’t just let it be your words. Let it be God’s words. And do they know, resist the devil? Do they know there is evil? If they don’t know there is evil, they will not understand the need for Jesus. They don’t understand that their sin. They won’t understand the need for Jesus.
Super important. Romans five eight actually says, but God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, understanding that in the midst of when we were sinners, God sent his son and his son died for us. Our kids need to know that like. Jesus did that for them, too, and that we’re not going to judge them so harshly because we’re trying to be like Jesus, and if Jesus did that, shouldn’t we expect that also? And that is transformative in relationships with kids. I know that there are times when you know kids need to take thoughts captive, they need to be encouraged, they need to be encouraged, not to borrow troubles. The Bible talks about not borrowing troubles. And one of the things that’s really important is like understanding that kids are going to struggle with taking their thoughts captive and knowing what’s right and knowing the truth about things and not believing lies. And you know, really, those are the hard things in my mind. It’s not just like the political perspective on X, Y and Z and what’s being taught in schools, and all those are those are very hard things and those are conversations you need to be having. But I even think like the hard questions are the or the hard conversations, the hard things that the kids might not be talking about is their own body image they might not be talking about. Like the potential temptations to send that they themselves are struggling with that are on a totally different playing field. And those are the things that they need encouragement and they need love through. And if if we’re not there for our kids on a relational level, enough so where they feel like they’re going to be able to have a listening ear, they’re not going to talk to us about it.
So it’s really important that we’re not distracted parents. What I mean by that is we tend to put attention on things. Sometimes they’re easier in terms of evangelism. So if you’re getting good feedback out there in the world, maybe at work or on social media sharing good seeds about Christ and so forth, that might be where you give your attention. And sometimes our families are the heart evangelizing to our children, disciplining our children, training our children in the Lord is the harder thing to do. And sometimes we neglect that for the easier thing that releases endorphins in our brain, like social media to get good feedback from others. And I just want to warn you that if you aren’t doing it right in your home, what gives you the right to teach others right? You are not qualified. Well, you’re not qualified to be an elder. But are you really qualified to be teaching? If you’re not doing it with the people that God is entrusted you with the most to disciple, to evangelize, to, to build relationship with and point them to Jesus. So let’s stop pointing other people to Jesus if we’re not doing that right, if the sacrifice is our kids, our kids should never be the sacrifice. And I believe in the genius of the man versus the tyranny of the war, meaning that we should be able to do both. But the warning here is not to sacrifice your home for what’s easier out there, and we might get better feedback from it makes us feel better in the short term. But you know what, if you give too much to that and you sacrifice the family and the kids in the long run, all you’re left with is regret
And you’ll be disqualified from ministry. I think that that’s one of the things that is super important. I was just talking to a young mom in ministry the other day, and she she just said, How do you find the time to do everything that you do? And I shared about how when I was younger, how much time I spent preparing for things, when I would lead the moms group, how I would read all these different books. And I would like prepare messages. And it would take me hours to prepare and be in the word and write them down and all the things. And now it’s literally just out of the overflow of what we’ve been living out. And so there isn’t as much preparation needed because it’s literally like, Hey, let’s sit down and have a conversation about what we’ve been doing regarding this particular topic. That’s what every podcast is, right? And so we don’t have the time because we are living the life with our kids. These are things that we are actually doing. And so I just encourage you that literally, if you are to do things by the equation that Isaac really just gave you, which is to keep your first jurisdictions first ministry is actually easier. You can actually point people to Jesus better. If you are in the word and you’re pursuing God and then you’re you’re focused on your marriage first and then your family. Guess what? When people come to you with questions, they need counseling. You’re shooting that next podcast. You’re writing that next blog post. Whatever it is you do, you’re you’re you’re working at church leading worship. You can stand there without thinking in your head. Oh, I wish I would have done this with my kid this week or, oh, there was this argument that I never reconciled and I should have done that. But here I am on stage leading worship. Like, No, you’ve got to get that right first. And then it frees you up to be able to be truly transparent and really able to glorify God. And the fruit is going to be so much better, you guys.
All right, thanks for joining us.
See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. 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 with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.
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