Parenting Q&A (part 2)

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Mighty Lord, Foolish Galatians (part 3)

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Well, here's what we're gonna do tonight. Thank you for that reading, by the way. Jonathan's one of the men in the class, the preaching class, one of the 10 men.
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And he, along with the other men, are doing a great job. I'm really proud of this class. Here's what
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I think we'll do. I think we'll sing Amazing Grace, because that's a song that the kids know. And it's a song about the grace of God.
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And then we're gonna have the three elders here. Pradeep's not gonna be here. And then the ladies can go upstairs.
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If you've got little kids, if you wanna have the boys stay with the men, you can. If you wanna have the girls go up with the ladies, you can.
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Whoever you wanna work it, it'll be very casual in the sense that, imagine we were over at your home and we're just sitting around talking about parenting.
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And the kids are over here drawing or coloring or this, that, or the other. And so it'll be very simple.
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And if the kids make noises or whatever, it's fine. Okay? Okay?
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And if you pick the wrong hymn tonight. By the way,
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Mark sent me an email last night and we're ready for the review of all the memory verses. And you have to stand up in front of class and do the memory verses in 2
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Corinthians 4 and 1 Corinthians 2 and 2 Timothy 4 and Proverbs 3 and Psalm 8 and what am
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I missing? 1 Corinthians 16. And so Mark said, if you're looking for a federal representative,
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I'll get up and give all the verses for the class so the rest of the people don't have to do it. And I said, I'll take you up on that.
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So he gave those verses today. But before he gave the last six, I said, since you've done that so well,
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I'd like you to pick one other student if you'd like to do Psalm 8. And I didn't know if he was gonna be nice and just finish the verses, but he picked
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Robert Muto and made Robert do it. So that was pretty classy, I thought. So let's stand, number 89.
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We don't have any accompaniment. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. And we're gonna sing all five stanzas.
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♪ Amazing grace, how sweet the sound ♪ ♪
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That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪
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Grace that taught my fears to flee ♪ ♪
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His grace hath brought me safe thus far ♪ ♪
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And grace will lead me to my shield ♪ ♪
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And for as long as life leaves us ♪ ♪
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Bright shines the sun ♪ ♪
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We've no less days to sing of him ♪ ♪
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In God's grace when we first begun ♪
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Man, I like the extra singing there, that is great. Let me pray. Does anybody need assistance getting upstairs regarding an elevator or anything like that?
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Ladies, why don't you head on up. If you're staying down here as a band, if you wanna sit in the back, you can.
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If you wanna sit in the front, you can. We're just gonna make this a schedule. Mario, if you'd like to record it, you can.
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Let's not put it online unless I give you the okay. Well done, sir, well done.
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All right, so come on up. You know what I think I'm gonna do? Scott Farah, would you be up on the panel with us, please?
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Would you be up here on the panel with us, please? All right, because I know Cindy's helping out with the ladies, and maybe you can help us as well.
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All right, let's just do this and set it out a little bit farther.
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All right, John, how are you today? A few more guys on the panel, there'll be nobody left.
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Yeah, you know what, that's true, did you hear that? If we have a few more guys on the panel. This almost makes it kind of sterile, but that's okay.
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Okay, I have, oh, I have my iPad, that's what
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I need. So I still have the questions that you've given us that we can go over, but I thought
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I would start with not thinking about those questions and just ask if you men have any particular questions related to parenting that we can talk about or things that have come up, and this is not necessarily pit you against your wife or anything like that, but just from a guy's perspective, we can answer, and I can't have my wife get up or the other ladies get up and tell you men things, but I think our wives can offer specific wisdom to the other ladies, and so that's in a sense why we're doing this.
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I could have done the whole thing tonight, but then Kim couldn't have talked to the other ladies with Janet and Cindy and others, so that's kind of why.
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So this is almost supplemental for that because I thought that was important. I understand, you kind of got that?
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All right, any particular question before I have my list? I got one. Yeah, sure. I would love some advice on how they present very overly curated sort of perfect little idyllic snapshots of motherhood and look at my beautiful kids eating their non -GMO, you know, organic oatmeal in the morning.
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Artificially set our expectations too high. So, and I want to be appropriate and kind in how
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I approach that conversation, just not like, no more social media, right?
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But I also don't know how to be a mom myself, so what would be some good ways to approach that?
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Any of you men want to talk about how to be a mom? Okay, I have some thoughts, but I don't want to dominate this.
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Anybody? Well, I mean, first of all, I would say if it's not a
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Christian mom group, I don't know what the value of it is, right? So I think
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I, I mean, even there are Christian groups in social media that I'm just like, I don't see it.
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I've gotten out of almost all of them because they all devolve into arguing about the millennium or arguing about whatever.
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And so I think, you know, the very idea of a idyllic non -Christian mom is kind of a misnomer anyway.
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And so I would advise my wife to take three steps back from that group. Senator, a bigger issue with this
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Facebook in general where we're trying to come across as these wonderful families. And I think almost
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Taylor, it's a theological issue for me because if our justification is as good as our sanctification, in other words, we're right with God as long as we're doing the right things, which is an error.
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But if that's the way we think, then we've really got to keep up the externals and we've got to do the things that we're supposed to do to act in a holy way, at least superficially.
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But if we realized, you know what? We're worse than the unbelievers maybe and we're just as corrupt, but we're saved.
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Then I don't have to put on the show and how do I look? I don't know how well
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I do this, but I try to take myself very seriously where I'm supposed to, there.
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But outside of that, I'm just a regular person and with the regular foibles and sins and issues.
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And I don't have to paint myself perfectly to have a platform. So I just think when you first get married, remember the book we had you read, "'When
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Sinners Say I Do '?" And you have all this kind of idyllic thoughts about marriage and then you, after a few weeks or maybe a few hours in my case,
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I realized just how bad I was and how selfish I am and how unrighteously I can act.
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And so then it relates to me kind of as a theological issue. In addition, and you can push back if you want to ask other questions.
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There's only so much you can do, right? There's only so much time you have. And so all the
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Facebook time and learning from them or this, that or the other, I'm thinking, I just have other things that I need to glean from.
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I don't think things inherently are wrong. What if it's a Facebook for, like with your grandma who has
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Alzheimer's and she's lost her mind. And so how do you care for someone who's in bed all day and has lost her mind, right?
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I think common grace can help us, but always striving for perfect stuff.
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Doesn't that go back to even with marriage where the world says everything's gotta be five star, everything's gotta be the best, everything's over the top.
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Even if I am talking now to you men, in the marital bed, everything's gotta be, you know, stars and stripes forever and all these kind of like 4th of July moments when it's just a man and a woman who love one another, are thankful for another, can just enjoy each other in the small things.
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And whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you can just enjoy your spouse and honor the
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Lord. So it might just take care of itself or maybe you take all those pictures and have all those settings with the snaps, but you just don't have to post them all the time.
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Does that make sense? Yeah. Go ahead. It's more of, I totally agree with all that.
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Good, you can stay in the church. Logical reasons why we shouldn't follow these groups on Instagram anymore, you know, the soft skills side of it as opposed to the reasoning behind it.
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Well, and maybe Scott Ferris got some input on this too. He can jump in wherever he wants, or Scott Brown and Steve.
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Sometimes I don't wanna fight a battle until it's needed to be fought.
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So when I first married Kim, she was a Christian and I wasn't, and then I became one shortly after that.
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It's a thing called missionary marriage. Just kidding.
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That went over about as well as some of the jokes this morning from the pulpit did. What? Okay, good.
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And when I first met her, she didn't wanna get married. And when we got married, she didn't wanna have children. And when she thought we're gonna have children, she wanted to make sure we gave them to the babysitters because she wanted to stick with her career.
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And I didn't really have to change her mind, although I really wanted to change her mind because I knew it was right.
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But then after she was pregnant and after she gives birth to Haley, she realized
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I can't really hand this baby off to let somebody else raise this child. And so I think to be in preparation for it mentally is good, but you might not even have to fight those battles because there's too many other things for moms to do, especially when you've got the first one because that's hard.
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You wanna do a microphone? I don't think it's, you actually stole my thunder, which is a good thing, but I'm just saying,
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I don't think it's a hill you have to die on necessarily because I think it's an opportunity for you if it becomes an issue to say, it's my turn to lead here,
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I am the head of this household, and then you can start directing your wife into what she ought to focus her attention on.
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She's gonna be overwhelmed, I imagine, just being a mother. But I think if you see a pattern of behavior that you disagree with,
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I don't think you have to necessarily express your dissatisfaction, but it's your opportunity to lead.
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I think when we become dads, it's a whole new dynamic in terms of being a leader that you never worry about.
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You only worry about yourself, and then maybe you get married and worry. It's an entirely different dynamic when you start to say that I have some real responsibility for the spiritual well -being of my children.
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And so I just think if you're faced with that at some point in time, use that as an opportunity to lead your wife and lead your children and say, this is the stuff that I want you to understand.
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This is the stuff that I want you to learn. And I think by instilling that, the things that maybe she focuses her attention on will become less important.
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That's just, but again, I don't think it's a thing you have to die on yet. See how it plays itself out, and then insert yourself as necessary.
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This is my opinion. But I think some of that, too, comes with wisdom, right? So how she's treating that information, is she taking it in and trying to top it as others do on social media, or is it something that she's leveraging some of the discussions that come from that?
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Now, again, if it's non -Christians, we have another issue there, but social media can be used for both good and bad, right?
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So I think it depends on how she's leveraging that to what you do and your approach to it.
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If it's something that is useful, as Pastor Mike said, something like Alzheimer's forms or groups, things of that sort, right, where you can get healing information from, or is it, hey, look at me, how much
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I'm better than the Joneses, and there's that feeling that she has to keep up with that, right?
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I think that's when it starts to get more dangerous, and that's when I would then start to put my foot down and say, this is something we need to discuss, right?
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If it becomes more of a prideful thing than it is a informational or just what's happening, right?
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We need to top the latest post by doing X, Y, or Z and let's go up and get selfies of everybody and post it.
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It's just, that's when you start to realize things have gone a little far, so. I think just in general, as I've gotten older,
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I've realized so many things in life that I thought were important in a marriage or important in child raising, weren't, isn't really, they aren't that big of a deal.
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It's only taken me 30 years to figure it out, but that's why we look, why we, that's why we look this way, old and just like decrepit, but we have been around the block and so a lot of those things,
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I just wish I wouldn't make minor issues major like I did. I'm not saying you are, but maybe you could just because of youth and just excitement and so many things with parenting and my kids did or didn't do, and I think, you know what, either
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I'm a grandpa now or I'm too old, but I think I wish I could have gone back and just not have been such a stickler on a lot of things, even with parenting.
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Okay, other questions about parenting? Yes, Simon. Well, this is nine, issues in the world, evils in the world, and our default has been thinking we don't, they don't need to be exposed to basically what we've done so far, but at some point, they need to be aware of these things and be taught how to think through them and have a great perspective on these things, but when does that happen?
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Like if, I can't, I don't think it would be an age per se, more of a maturity level, but I guess when you know your kids are ready to be exposed to these evils in the world that exist, and also, as far as, you know, like, you know,
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I'd like to teach them, you know, maybe we go to like a public event and I would love to say, here's what you do if somebody tries to kidnap you, you do
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X, Y, and Z, but I don't wanna make them scared of being kidnapped, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like how to balance preparing them for these things, but also not trying to make them afraid of the world.
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Yeah. Well, that you're asking the question, I think is important, and you parents have to make a lot of decisions for yourself, right?
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At what age do you tell your girls about sex, right? And there's not really an age, you just have to figure that out with your wife.
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And it's like, Lord, give me wisdom, and they're my children, and so I know them well, and so how do I go about it?
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We went to the Red Sox games yesterday, and my kids are obviously bigger, but if they were tiny, they would have seen a lot of drunk people, you know, and what do we do with these drunk people, and how they first seem funny, and then they seem pretty pathetic, and then they seem really tired, and then they sleep, right?
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That was a progression of the people in section 18 yesterday, because the game was so boring.
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What I always did, Simon, was I thought, you know what, I'm gonna make sure I teach the scriptures regularly to my children, because then they will be exposed to the worst, right?
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There's rape in the Bible, there's incest in the Bible, there's murder, there's annihilation of people, there's envy, there's greed, and so then
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I could expose them to those concepts, and I knew the Lord could be trusted with a five -year -old, or a five -month -old, or a 25 -year -old, and I was just gonna keep teaching them about scripture, and how should we then think about these
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Canaanites, and how should we think about God tells the Israelites to kill all these people, and children, too, and what does that mean?
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And so I just tried to regularly do that. I think that if you told the kids, like we saw in the
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Bible, there's some people that killed a bunch of folks, and here's these Philistines, and all that, and people hate other people, and this is what
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Satan does, he's the father of lies. Did you know there were some people in a country called
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Sri Lanka, and you showed them, you know, the teardrop of India, and some people were killed there in churches?
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I wouldn't have any problem with that, saying that to a nine -year -old, and then hearing what they say, and dialoguing back and forth to figure that out, and if they said,
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Daddy, are we safe at church? And you could say, you know, there's always six people here that are carrying, and they're in different spots, and they're, which is true.
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I mean, I haven't said it publicly, you know, from the pulpit, but if somebody comes in here, they won't be able to shoot for long, right?
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We can't protect ourselves from the first shot, unless Charlie can intercept them, and he does a pretty good job checking people out on the way in, and that's why the back door's locked, and we can trust in the
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Lord, and we have to be ready any time to die, just like when Alyssa Brown was talking about that today.
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So while I think people don't talk about sex early enough with their kids, I don't think you wanna wait too long.
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In other words, if I were you, I'd probably expose them to things faster than maybe you are now.
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So, does that make sense, Steve? Well, I mean,
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I think I was reading like Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by the time I was like in the fifth grade, so, you know,
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I don't know what to say about that. You know, I'm reading the LA Times from a young age, so I had no shelter whatsoever.
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You know, and I think he's right. I think, you know, you just wanna make sure it's age -appropriate, and people do bad things all the time.
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As far as the kidnapping part, I don't have a problem with starting that early.
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You know, I mean, just talking about we don't, there are certain things we don't do with strangers, and, you know, that kind of thing.
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And, you know, if somebody tries to pick you up, what are you gonna do, and so.
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We did start from an early age on that, telling the three girls. And Luke, if somebody pulls up and says, we're looking for a dog, or we've got candy, or whatever, and you get in the car, we just want you to know one thing, you're dead.
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If you get in the car, you're dead. And if you run, they're probably not gonna chase you.
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And even, you know, when they're older, I would tell Gracie, you know, at 17, don't get in the car if somebody's got a gun, run.
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50 % of the time, they won't shoot. 50 % of the time that they do shoot, they're gonna miss. The times that they hit you, it's not gonna be life -threatening anyway, but if you, and so it's like 8 % chance that you're gonna die if you run.
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But if you get in that car, you're done. And so I regularly talk to the kids, because I'm sorry to say, they just need to hear that.
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They just need to know, you don't get in the car with anybody, unless dad says you can get in the car with them, there's somebody from church gonna pick you up, or whatever.
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Because there are wicked people, like Goliath, who wanted to kill David, right?
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Or whatever, and you can turn it into a story. But we regularly told the girls, you know, about the whole dog thing, and we've lost the dog, and everything else.
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Sad to say. And it does spoil their innocence. It does spoil what they think.
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But what else am I gonna do, because I'd rather protect them. No, I would agree.
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I mean, I think what he's meant too, right? Alyssa, we talked very early about, you know, the dangers that come with being young, and a child, and so forth, or what happens with that sort.
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So that was very early for her, like I said.
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I think also what we did, I mean, we're not a big news family overall, and we're not big news watchers overall.
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So unless she came to us with a question, hey, I heard about this, or someone was speaking about this, you know, we would have information for her.
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But it wasn't that we would actively pursue to tell her this occurred, unless she was more inquisitive about it, or someone at school was talking about something at Sri Lanka.
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Then we would sit her down, and we would talk to her about it. As Pastor Mike said, is we would always reference scripture, right?
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There is evil, and there always will be evil. And we would go back to the Word to say, you know, here's the reasons why it is.
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We still can trust in what, you know, our Savior has done for us. And, you know, rest assured that there is security, but at the same time, there's still bad people out there.
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So, you know, we wouldn't actively expose her, but it was one of those things that if it came up, or someone asked, you know, said something to her, we had open conversations where she would come to us and say, what is this about, right?
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And then we would definitely go to whatever level she wanted to. And you can kind of tell, right, that age where they're at, whether how you describe things.
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You know, if they're very young, you can describe it very simply, or a little more complex, you know, as they get older at the same time, right?
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That's how we handled it. I'll just make one comment. I'm probably a bit of a contrarian,
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I'm sorry to say, because I think I 100 % agree with them. I just never really placed a lot of emphasis on the homeschool, the kids.
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It wasn't that I was trying to keep them sheltered, but like Scott just said, we're not a big news family, and those things are never a big issue with them.
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But that whole thing about kidnapping, I was always very much aware that it could happen with my kids, but I always made a point of, me, and I realize, maybe
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I'm naive here, but I always, at the expense of making sure that my kids would always have the best time if we were doing something that was fun,
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I was always the one that was on heightened awareness. So I might have a miserable time, but I always wanted to protect them, my kids, and I was having a good time.
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Mike Huber, he and I had this little joke, because I told him this like 10 years ago, maybe 15 years ago, when all of our six kids, they were younger, and I'd take them to New York City during Christmas time, on a
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Saturday, and we'd go see the sights in New York City. And I said to Mike, all I did the entire time we were there in New York City was go, 2 -4 -6, 2 -4 -6.
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I was counting my kids, but that's all I did, I was gonna walk on the sidewalks in every building, 2 -4 -6, 2 -4 -6.
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I didn't ever project that on my kids that I was doing that, but I kept my eyes on my kids like a hawk.
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And so, I guess I really want, and again, I'm not trying to in any way speak against what these guys just said, because I think there's a lot of wisdom in there, but my personal thing was,
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I wanna take as much, I would try to prepare them and protect them, but I wanna take as much burden as a dad on as I possibly can, so they could just enjoy as much as possible the innocence and joys of being a child.
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So, I just always had heightened awareness, and if I knew, oh, this one person's going over there, I made sure that someone's watching these here, and I can go keep an eye on them.
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I just always kept an eye on my kids, and that's sort of the way I did it. Hey, Steve, who asked
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Scott to be on the panel? All right, I don't know, I'm just kidding. I was just like, I was saying it goes 2 -4 -6, 2 -4 -5.
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Well, that lends itself to a question, because a church body is made up of all kinds of sinners, and for those of you that have little kids, here's what we did here.
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I told my kids they could play in the sanctuary, but I didn't let them go anywhere else. So, if you've got little kids, and it was more difficult for Kim and I, because she was talking to ladies, and I was talking to people after service,
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I couldn't watch my children very easily, but I didn't let my kids run all around and do whatever they wanted.
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They had to stay within the sanctuary, and I wanted them to play and have a good time, but if I caught them not staying in the sanctuary, they were always disciplined when we got home.
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If they needed to go to the bathroom, they had to come up to me, put their hand on me while I was talking, and when I was ready,
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I looked at them and said, what do you want, Luke? And he'd say, may I please go to the bathroom? Yes, and then come right back, because there are people here that have awful backgrounds.
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All of us have sinful backgrounds, but some people have backgrounds that we can't prohibit from coming to the church, but maybe in your flesh, you wish we could.
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So, just remember, when your kids are here, even though it's a church, I would make sure I knew where my kids were, because what do you do with people who maybe they're not even
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Christians yet, and they come, are bad backgrounds? I still think you have to keep your guard up here, even at church.
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So, my kids don't get to go anywhere without me when they're little, and then when they got bigger, that's fine, they can kind of take care of themselves.
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Yes? Just kind of an extension to the other cheat kind of thing, did you teach them to protect themselves, to handle that situation?
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Yeah, okay, good question. I'll repeat it, because we haven't been repeating them for the tape, although I don't think we'll put it online.
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I'll let these men chime in, but I always taught Luke, my son, I never said it's wrong to hit or fight.
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I said there are wrong times and right times, and here's the right time. If somebody's hurting your mom or your sister, you pummel them until they stop.
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That's why you've made like a boy, because you can fight and protect. There's a time to hit somebody. If someone calls you a name, we don't hit them.
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If somebody's taking advantage of some other kid and they've got them on the ground and they're excessively beating up and all that, you know, you could intervene.
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But there's just times where we hit and times when we don't. And if somebody hits you, you can kind of work through that with Peter, but we had a guy here at church and he does street evangelism, and he has a military background, so I know he can take care of himself.
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It was Jim McStay. So Jim said, this guy said he was gonna punch me if I said anything more about Jesus downtown
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Worcester. What should I have done? And I said, well, God gives you reflexes for a reason.
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I said, if he was gonna try to punch you, I think you should block it and subdue him, even though you don't have to hit him, but you could just, you don't have to take the shot, right?
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When Jesus was talking about turning the other cheek, it was the backhand stuff, and you could see which cheeks and what's the hand, because it wasn't a punch, it was a backhand insult.
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And if somebody backhands you and won't even give you the front part of their fist in disgust with their backhand, then you just let them hit the other.
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But if somebody hits you, I think you've got to duck. I think you've got to protect yourself. Same thing with guns and kids.
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We always said to Luke, listen, guns are for the enemy. You do not shoot mom. I'm talking about play guns, right?
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The real guns, they stand daddy safe. You don't point fake guns at mom and sisters, you protect them.
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That's what these are for. They're not wrong, but they're to protect. They're for the bad guys. So I always taught
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Luke, there's a right time to hit. And if you're gonna hit, follow through with the hit. And so we practiced punching.
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We practiced, here's the thing, and how to aim through and punch and turn and everything. So I figured he needs to know that for defending weak people,
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Proverbs 31. And that's what we're doing. I'm a pacifist, so.
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I'll add just one thing, because I've kind of seen it with Alyssa again, from a female perspective, right? I mean, a girl, in essence, a lot of it today is not as physical as I remember back in my days, even between guys and girls to girls and guys and guys kind of fighting.
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It's really downturned almost to the social media, the social shame, and it gets to the point where it's just being mean, right?
33:56
So now how do you deal with that type of a thing? You know, we've had to deal with that, some with Alyssa and parents and other things too, just when people wanna be mean, it's very easy to socially shame someone and it's worse than a hit, right?
34:08
In most cases, at least I would think it worse than a hit. So that's just what I've seen, at least from the female side, more of that.
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I haven't, not having boys to raise them myself, I haven't seen it.
34:19
I would say my father taught me, as Pastor Mike said, right, there are times when there's a time not to hit.
34:25
So that's my own experience from my father, but it was a little bit different with Alyssa just being a female at that point.
34:38
If it's biblical. No, no, no, no, no, I'm just kidding. They say, don't look at me, just let me look at them, just get away.
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Eye contact is so important, don't look down. If you have to defend yourself, you defend yourself.
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They don't teach that in school all the time, defend yourself, they say it, don't fight it. I don't know if that's a lie,
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I don't know how to fix that deal. I know good, because I was going to do it anyway, if you said not to, you know.
35:26
You have to have a boundary. Eye contact is really important. I've seen it, kids who, you know,
35:32
I say, pick on the kids, the kids who turn away, don't make eye contact. It's those kids who get that.
35:43
The sooner you can turn these things into spiritual truth, I think, the better for the kids. And I was just thinking about 1
35:48
Peter 2, the Lord Jesus, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
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When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
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And as Christians, we're going to be persecuted and picked on and everything else. And even when we're not acting
36:08
Christian, we're just a kid on the playground or social media. And I try to teach my kids from an early age, people can say all kinds of things, and I know it's going to hurt, but we don't have to get back.
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That knee jerk, I'm going to get you back. And if you think you've got a sharp tongue, I've got a sharper tongue. We just have to let it lie and let
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God settle all the issues. It's okay not to do anything except, Lord, I'm going to entrust this to you.
36:33
And little Luke would come up to me and somebody would leave the church and say something bad about me. And he'd say, daddy, why doesn't so -and -so like you anymore?
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And I just said, you know what, son, it's okay. You know, I've got my faults and they've got theirs. And everybody doesn't have to like me, right?
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And so we want to just be faithful and we want to just have our consciences cleaned and just say, all right, we can just trust the
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Lord in this. Because we want to get back, right? You hurt me,
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I want to hurt you worse. Okay, other questions? How about modesty, the modesty issue?
37:09
That one came up on the email. Scott, what do you do, either Scott, what do you do with your girls in modesty?
37:15
And how do you teach your boys how to look at girls rightly? Again, Alyssa's been pretty good.
37:28
And you said this isn't going up, right? No. Overall, she's been pretty good, right?
37:33
I think, again, social media is a big influence for a lot of kids, right? That they want to look like what is being posted out there where they are on it or their friends and things of that sort.
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So, you know, in some ways, and I think it comes down to Karen and I too, is making sure to teach them what is and what isn't, right?
37:52
Because sometimes they don't even understand themselves, right, they just wear something because they think it looks nice. And then they come to us and we're like, you're not wearing that, there's no way that's, you know, let alone go to church wearing that kind of a thing, right?
38:04
So it's just, it's one of those things that, you know, we've just started to kind of, I don't want to say struggle with, but it's been one of those things that we're now that she's out of kind of that age of innocence and young, right, age, and she can buy her own clothing.
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And sometimes, you know, she'll now text Karen or me, you know, when you think of this, right?
38:26
And so we've, because we've had to return a few items when she brought them back. But I think it, you know, it was a learning process for us because she was our only child and the first, you know, that we've raised as a female in the course.
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And so modesty has been something that she understands and she understands that modest doesn't mean old woman -ish, right?
38:45
It doesn't mean she has to be completely covered, but at the same time, there is a point where what is, what is acceptable compared to what is, what you would normally see posted somewhere else, right?
38:58
That would be unacceptable. So again, it's newer for us.
39:03
I know you've probably had more experience just with the girls as they've grown up, if any, but I mean, we're just kind of dealing with it very slightly, but, well, and maybe
39:15
I'm just a, maybe I shouldn't be on the panel. That's what I was thinking. Never had a problem really with that because we would have great influence over what the kids wore at such an early age.
39:29
Now, maybe some people would disagree because maybe you've seen my daughters and had a, you know, they would dress that, but they're kind of indoctrinated the girls would wear.
39:45
And as they got older, and like Scott's saying, and have the ability to then select their own clothing.
39:51
I don't, there's been, I think there have been a couple of times where we've had to say no to something that someone's bought, but generally speaking, the kids have had to learn a standard based on an expectation for them.
40:04
And in terms of the boys and what they look at, we have really relatively strict standards in terms of this whole concept of dating, with the boys.
40:15
So I always, I've driven the point home about purity with the boys, because I don't even let, quite honestly,
40:23
I don't let my boys ever to be together alone with a girl, really until they get married.
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That might sound extreme to a lot of people, but that's just the way it is in our household. They're not allowed to date by themselves.
40:38
They've always had to have, they always have to have a chaperone, really until the day they get married. Emily, Kevin, and Vincent were never alone until the day they got married, and never,
40:51
I think, actually, I will confess, about two weeks before Vincent and Rachel got married,
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I was sitting at one of Caroline's basketball games, and my phone rang, and Vincent said, would you mind, could
41:03
I possibly pick up Rachel and take her out for a coffee? It actually brought tears to my eyes, but I said, yeah, absolutely you can, because he'd already, in my mind at this point, proven that he was a worthy character to marry my daughter, but I'm so, the boys,
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I know what goes on in their heads, because I don't think any of us are innocent in terms of what goes on in our heads sometimes around women and young ladies, and I think all of us would be lying if we didn't say that we don't have an impure thought.
41:33
However, I really, I think if you put the expectation and behavior out in front of the kids, you can't control what's going on in their head, but you can certainly have a tremendous impact over how they're gonna act, so that's my two cents.
41:49
I've tried to talk to the girls and say, listen, Daddy has the default, Daddy can say no to what you wear outside, because I provide all these things for you,
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I take you around the world, I do this, that, and the other, and so if I say on Sunday or school day, you can't wear that, I don't want to have a big hassle and pushback, and then
42:08
I usually say something like, men are just different, and God has made them very visual, so we see things, and of course, then tainted by the fall, it makes it worse, but you wouldn't want to wear something in such a way that, what if somebody wore something and made
42:25
Luke look, right? It's already in Luke's heart, but he's just now elicited to look more, and so since you have a brother, you want to be kind to people who are like your brothers in Christ and be very careful.
42:39
I've had to say regularly to the girls, you know what, I'm sorry, Daddy loves you too much to let you wear that outside the house, but here's what
42:46
I don't do, I don't want to be the legalist and say no, no, no, same thing with sex,
42:51
I don't want to say no, no, no, I want to say, you know what, you can wear that on your honeymoon night, right?
42:57
When the kids used to say, can we wear bikinis, Dad? They never said, can we wear a G -string, when they said, can we wear bikinis, sure, on your honeymoon night, go right ahead, right?
43:06
So I'm not trying to say no, there's a time and place, and when I officiate weddings and I have to say, you know, can
43:14
I see the dresses for the bridesmaids, because while I'm not against cleavage, I'm against showing cleavage for the wedding, right?
43:22
At the honeymoon, off you go, fine, right? To God be the glory, but I don't need to see that now, and so it's kind of time and place, and if the girls have something that's low cut, and I just think, you know what, let's just, just don't do that,
43:42
I just say, honey, I love you, I think you're beautiful, maybe this is the kind of thing you wear with your husband sometime out on a cruise, but not for church tomorrow, and it's hard, because you try to buy dresses that are appropriate now, and they're all so low cut, or they're all so high, it's very, very difficult to try to buy things for young ladies that are appropriate.
44:06
Now, we have to teach our sons, I think, and this is the way I've taught Luke, if you look at a girl and she's pretty, and you think, oh, she's pretty, and leave it at that,
44:15
I think you're fine, but once you start having your eyes go down a little bit, right, looking at things that you're not supposed to look at that aren't yours, that's when you run into trouble, and so if you can just look at her face and keep your eyes on her eyes, right, maybe you guys have never done this, but I know in my mind, when
44:33
I've looked at somebody before, and I've looked at their eyes, and I've wanted to look somewhere else, I just think I just have to keep staring at her eyes, staring at her eyes, staring at her eyes, because I don't wanna do anything stupid, because I'm a
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Christian, I'm a pastor and everything in between, so anything with your girls?
44:55
How about leggings? Well, this is kind of a, somebody asked about leggings.
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Leggings? Yeah. Yeah. What size do you wear? I'm not, you know, a girl doesn't tell.
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Well, Scott's a contrarian, maybe he wears them. I'm not a fan of leggings,
45:18
I mean, just generally, in terms of modesty, I just think they are not the way to go.
45:31
And sometimes I've seen where people have worn leggings with, you know, a dress or something else, right? Yeah.
45:36
So it's modest enough, but it's more to keep, Yeah, but I, yeah. Most of the time, yeah.
45:42
I mean, when did pajamas become, you know, acceptable outerwear, I don't know, so.
45:49
And pleasure. Pleasure. Okay, other questions before I have any of these?
46:02
Yes. Yes. I have an idea, but I don't want to dominate the conversation.
46:32
Oh yeah, well, so Scott did too. Okay. Steve or Scott, anything?
46:41
Public school, and I think, you know, it's basically, how can you contradict the public school teacher without contradicting the public school teacher?
46:52
You can't, you know? So that's what they teach you at school, and here's what the Bible says, you know?
46:57
And what God says always is more important than what the school says. Now, you know,
47:03
I think it's really a matter of conscience if the kid wants to write an essay about why evolution is false.
47:12
I don't really know that that's gonna score many points at school, so. Or change the teacher's mind, you know?
47:20
When your kids are little, of course, they love teachers, and you know, my teacher said this, or whatever, and what
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I try to teach our kids, because they've done some private school, some public, and some homeschool, we just try to say to the kids, no matter what anybody says, whatever
47:36
God's word says, that trumps everything. So whatever I say, whatever your
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Sunday school teachers say, whatever the pastor says, whatever the guy on TV says, that's the only true word.
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It's outside of us. It's not coming from us or in us. And therefore, do you know what, honey?
47:56
You're gonna go to school, and they're gonna tell you things that aren't from the Bible, and that it's because some of your teachers aren't
48:01
Christians and we love them and we're happy, and just like grandma's not a Christian, I don't know if the grandma is, but just like grandma's not a
48:08
Christian, we still love them and we're happy, and we're happy to be around them and we love them. But they're gonna say some things that aren't true.
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And what if they would say to you, there's no God, what would you say? What if they were to say to you,
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Jesus was a sinful man and he got what he deserved on the cross? What would you say if you came from a monkey?
48:28
How would you respond? Because they're gonna say some things like that, and you need to be respectful, but sometimes you're just gonna have to say that's not true.
48:34
And the best thing you can do is to come home and tell mom and dad, and sometimes we might have to go talk to the teacher or we might have to read the books with you and we'll help correct you.
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But you don't have to worry, you just go have fun in class and you learn, but not everything you learn is gonna be right, just like in the world.
48:51
That's the way I would do it. Yes. I think there's a tie -in with like that, and you have to learn some of this stuff, comes up in the news.
49:09
And then when you say, well, why do these people do this? Well, it's because they believe this, and it's not true. And at least for us, that's enabled us to stay ahead of some of that stuff.
49:18
Like, why do people abort babies? So it gives us an opportunity to address it before they hear it from somebody else.
49:33
Yeah, perfect, and as a dad, then you can explain it the way you want to, right? Because you could explain abortion to a kid by saying, you know what, when we have a brand new baby, you know, that's probably big in your household and regular occurrence, right?
49:44
Wow. Here comes the new baby, we're bringing the baby home, and we are thrilled, and there's the new room and painting, and we pick the name and praise the
49:53
Lord, and this is like the most exciting thing, you get a new brother, you get a new sister. Well, when you hear the word abortion, because you asked me, son, what's that mean?
50:01
It's when people don't want the baby, and they act the exact opposite. And they're like, you know what, we don't want to have the baby.
50:09
I mean, you don't have to say what happens, and you don't have to talk about dismemberment, but you put it in your own words, and then you pull your older son aside, and you say, now, this is kind of what happens, and this is,
50:19
I'm trying not to say right now, because we've got kids, but it's just what the father can do. Same thing when it comes to sex, right?
50:25
It's just a word that kids hear, and when you want to give them certain information, you can, right? David sees
50:32
Bathsheba, what'd he do? All right, well, he took something that wasn't his. Oh, that's bad.
50:39
He deserved it. What Kim did when the kids got older in public school, she read every book that they were required to read, and a lot of them were just awful, so then she could just sit and talk with every kid.
50:57
Listen, we're gonna have to read things that we don't agree with. I just had to do something online for Master's Seminary since I teach some preaching stuff there.
51:05
I had to do a human resources video and watch, and it's something that they farmed out, and I would give my answers, and they would say, no, you can't go farther, you know, until you give the right answer, right?
51:18
What happens if you meet somebody who's homosexual, and they do this, that, or the other, and you wanna call Cindy, you know,
51:24
Mindy or Mork, I don't know what their names are. Did you get that? Mork and Mindy.
51:30
It's an old TV show. And so sometimes I just have to deal with things that I disagree with because of corporate
51:36
America or school or anything else. All right, anybody else?
51:42
We've got about two minutes. That was fast, wasn't it?
51:50
You guys have done a great job sitting there listening. What about sovereignty of God and responsibility of parents?
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God's sovereignty over their lives and salvation, but the parents' responsibility. Can you do that in two minutes?
52:15
Well, I can. I mean, it means you expend yourself as a parent, right? I mean, there's nothing that you won't do and you shouldn't do, you know, in terms of trying to teach them and lead them in the right ways and correct them when they're going astray and everything else, but ultimately, you can't save them, and you have to trust the
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Lord. You have to pray and trust him. So do all that you can and then leave it to the
52:38
Lord. What about when people say, like in evangelism, believe like a Calvinist, but evangelize like an
52:44
Arminian? Do you like that? I know you don't like it. Don't do anything like an
52:51
Arminian. Why would you do that? Yeah, I think we evangelize like Calvinists, like we actually believe that God can save, right?
52:58
But that doesn't mean that I, you know, when I've done this, I'm not above pleading with people to believe, right?
53:05
I think if Paul can do it in 2 Corinthians 5, I think I can do it too. You know, we beg, we urge, we plead with people to be reconciled to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And Calvinists do that. Yes. If they're not a hyper -Calvinist. Because Paul was a Calvinist.
53:20
So, you know, there's that. I once heard James Montgomery Boyce preach a sermon and it was entitled,
53:26
Jesus was a Calvinist. That was an interesting one. Wow. I think he just meant that he taught the sovereignty of God, John 6 and stuff like that.
53:36
When it comes to kids, we can't save them because we can't make them alive. But we know how
53:43
God saves and he saves through the word. Faith comes here by hearing a message about Christ. So we regularly taught the children the gospel over and over and over.
53:54
I bet you thousands of times because people just forget. And I never wanted to assume the gospel because first you just assume it and generations to follow, then they just lose it.
54:08
I was going to say, we raised our kids on the four W's and then you changed it. So I don't know. Well, I think it's still right.
54:14
The four W's, just this one little minor change. So the four W's, who is God? Who is man?
54:20
And that should show you the need of a savior, right? What has God done in Christ Jesus?
54:25
And what should you do in response? So the first three are really the gospel.
54:31
The response ones I used to say, repent, believe and follow. I think I would say now, repent, believe and rest.
54:37
But a faith that follows is a real saving faith. I just kind of keep that out of the solo feeding categories.
54:46
But regularly you preach the gospel to children and ask them the question. I would say to my kids when they wanted to go skydiving, do you know what?
54:54
I want you to go skydiving. It's a rush, but I want to make sure you're a Christian first. I'm a
54:59
Christian dad. Can I just tell a story though? Yeah, sure. Kristen was a counselor at a junior high camp.
55:08
She was in high school. And the kids come out of this one meeting and they're like wanting to get saved. And they're like, what do we have to believe?
55:16
And they're coming up to her and everything. And she goes, and she gave them the four W's. And I'm like, good job.
55:22
Okay. Well, Scott, when I first got here to the church, people would come up to me and I'd engage a young person, 12, 13.
55:29
I'd say, are you a Christian? And they would say, yes. I'd say, well, when did you get saved and how? I got saved at the Superbowl.
55:36
Over and over and over. They kept telling me that people got saved at the Superbowl here. And I thought, this is not really a rich church, but a lot of people,
55:42
I guess, can afford to go to the Superbowl. Every year. Superbowl was the word of life overnight thing where they keep kids up all night and then make a decision in order to get out and have snacks.
55:53
No, I'm just kidding. Probably it could be some of that man -centered stuff. I did have one parent who was super mad at me.
56:00
And they said, you know what? Our kids went off to this thing and it was billed as bowling and hockey and this and that.
56:07
And then you kept them all up all night and then gave them this message and then asked them to respond with faith.
56:14
And it seems like manipulation to me. And I said, you know what? If that's true, it is manipulation.
56:19
Let me check. And then I found out that the message was given early on at the night at eight o 'clock or something like that.
56:25
And it was an evangelistic kind of, you know, Arminian Finney kind of thing. But to me, that wasn't the manipulation part.
56:33
It was theological manipulation maybe, but not a psychological cultish kind of manipulation where we're keeping kids up all night to make a decision.
56:42
So I told the guy, you know what? I disagree with you. And if you're gonna do a church function and we're gonna send your kids off for some
56:49
Bible church thing, I would imagine they're gonna talk about the Bible. And the Bible says you're all sinners and you need to be saved by the grace of Christ Jesus.
56:56
And so do you. The story's about waterboarding. We're exaggerating. Yeah. So anyway,
57:06
I'm encouraged by the fact that you can do a lot of dumb things as a parent, but God.
57:19
So what are we gonna do now? We're gonna eat? Who got to go to ice cream two weeks ago after we had the parenting thing?
57:29
Simon, you took your kids? Did you guys get ice cream? Where'd you go? Oh yeah, what kind of ice cream do you get at home?
57:37
Vanilla? Is that all you get at home is vanilla? Yeah. I used to get strawberry.
57:46
Neapolitan. There was a lot of strawberry left.
57:53
Nobody wanted that. That was the old days.
58:00
You like chocolate? Yeah. What'd you get? Wow, that's pretty nice.
58:07
Was it GMO? I don't know. I know.
58:16
It's gluten -free. Interesting side note. Let's see, how can I phrase this in public comment areas?
58:23
Someone said, you know what? American now is the most discriminating when it comes to their food that they've ever been in the history of the world, what they put in their mouth.
58:32
But Americans don't care who they sleep with. They care what they eat, but they don't care who they sleep with.
58:38
And I thought, you know what? It's just how things are when Satan, the father of lies, wrecks and smashes.
58:50
All right, well, we're gonna excuse ourselves. I said to my kids, we're gonna try to get out of here pretty soon.
58:57
And I don't know why I'm so tired. I just think I'm old now. It's all I can do to get through Sundays.
59:07
So let me pray. Michael, did you have any questions? Okay, you know what?
59:13
We are gonna do that. We're gonna answer the questions. But I thought tonight, instead of answering these,
59:19
I was gonna take them from you guys first. Is that all right? Okay. Scott Farrar, the contrarian.
59:28
Thank you for being on the panel last second. You know what I like? And these men in discipleship know this. If someone asks you to serve and you're able, what do you do?
59:37
You try to serve. That's exactly right. So thank you. Whether it's, Simon, can you hear me? Can you get me the tables? Yes.
59:42
Are you coming up on the panel? Can we call you Dr. T -Lock from now on?
59:53
All right, let's pray. Father, I thank you for these men. I know they wanna be good parents.
01:00:00
And some of them aren't quite parents yet. Some of them don't even have wives. And I pray that you would grant those who would like a wife.
01:00:09
I pray that you would grant them that great gift. I pray for those that don't have children and want them.
01:00:16
You'd grant them that. And for all of us here at the church, we can help out other people as church men see other families with children.
01:00:26
And we wanna be a blessing to the body. And we're thankful that you save our children. Please do, in Jesus' name, amen.