Parenting with Purpose: Turning Challenges into Discipleship Opportunities

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Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian Podcast Media, of which this podcast is a proud member. We're here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the
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Christian life, and today we're going to talk about, well, that thing nobody ever struggles with.
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There's no adults that struggle with parenting, ever. It's just the easiest thing in the world.
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Maybe not. But one thing that sets Christians apart when it comes to our parenting, or at least it should, is viewing our parenting not as a responsibility we have to just raise future adults, but discipleship, that our children are actually something we are given by God to be stewards of, to disciple them, and so that they would know and love
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God more. We're going to be talking about that. The book that we're going to talk about is
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Parenting Against the Culture, Taking Back Discipleship in Your Home, and I have
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Pastor Joshua here with me. So first time you're coming onto the show,
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Pastor Josh, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself a little bit about you, the church you serve at, and then how you came about writing this book.
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Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Andrew. Excited to get to dive in with you. I have been on this journey with Jesus really since my early 20s where I was trying to figure out who
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God was, finally looked at the evidence, gave Him all of me, and when
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I did, I was blessed enough to have a group of men walk beside me, one in particular, actually the co -author of this book,
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Matt Nations, disciple me and spend time with me and pour into me and shepherd my heart.
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And as that was happening, I met my future wife and life kept moving forward, but the tension that this book was based on and really the tension that I still feel as a parent today is my kids were born and then
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I am left trying to figure out what the heck to do. How much sunlight do they need? How do I water these guys?
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What do I do? And really just trying to do it effectively to the glory of God, which means that rather than letting culture, the current of this world, dictate where my kids are going to go,
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I want to push upstream and I want to shepherd with intent and move in a direction that God has been inviting us into.
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So what that was really wrestling with my kiddos being born, trying to figure out how do I lead them to a place that I was never led to myself in my home, which
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I know is the story of many, many other Christians. So I started taking with the counsel and the support and the help of a ton of other people started taking advice and wisdom from others who have been further ahead or further upstream than I am even now asking,
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Hey, what did you do? What worked? Where'd you fail? And then I was mostly I contributed where here's where I failed because I didn't have a lot of experience in the succeeding part of the ministry in my home.
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And yet God over and over again honored that I started having parents come up to me. I was a student pastor at the time and they were coming up to me saying,
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Josh, what do we do? Like, how do we like discipleship with adults is thriving in our church, but it's not scaling into the home, which the reality is like your home was plan
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A for discipleship for God. Like that is the primary place that we are meant to be discipling others, meaning that if it's not scaling into the home, there's a problem.
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And so it started by equipping parents and trainings and a blog and turned into really this book,
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Parenting Against the Current. Like we've got a current that we live in, but we need to be moving against it and we shouldn't be moving along.
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So where are you pastoring at right now? Yeah, I'm in West Hartford, Connecticut. I'm the pastor of 180
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Life Church. So I've been here for about two years, was the next gen pastor at Cy Life Church in Texas before that.
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And New England is different. We're still kind of figuring it out. And yet we are 100 % certain that this is where God has called us.
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So we're really blessed to get to be a part of the mission over here. And you figured, you know,
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Texas, it's kind of Bible -beltish and you wanted to go to some easy place to shepherd, right?
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You know what? I like the clarity, though, like people told me they're like, it's a spiritual graveyard over there.
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And I was like, well, Jesus makes dead things alive. So the tension is in Texas, you have to convince people they're not saved, like there's cultural
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Christianity over there, where here, like, man, there is no reason to be a Christian except that it's true.
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And so to get to be a part of that, where it's like, man, it's clear and you're against Jesus.
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Cool. Let's talk about it. Let's have a dialogue. Let's have some relationship. I like the clarity. And so that's one of the reasons that we're excited to be here.
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Yeah. I mean, I've always said that with Jersey, it's people don't pretend to be a Christian. So it's really easy in that sense.
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You're not having to deal with like convincing someone they're not, because they're going to give you a hard time if you say you're a
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Christian. So it's like, all right, well, let's go. So definitely works on your apologetics. Oh, amen.
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I mean, in Texas, like you want to be a good realtor, be a Christian, right? It's a strategy there.
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Here it is. It has worked against us more than it's worked for us. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
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So. So let's talk about this book, because I think that we have a number of people in the audience who are parents.
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And the reality is that a lot of people and a lot of people do struggle with parenting.
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I mean, I joke to that it's just so easy. But, you know, like you said, a lot of people don't think about how they're going to parent until all of a sudden the wife is pregnant or the kids are born and they haven't thought of a plan.
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And the reality is those that thought they had a plan, it goes out the window once that baby is crying its head off and you're like, what do
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I do with this child? Right. So I first want to talk about the title, because it's a very, very poignant title, right?
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Parenting against the current. When you say it, what do you see as the current that we have in parenting currently in our culture that you're trying to parent against?
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Yeah, we kept that pretty, pretty broad sweeping. And the reason is there's so many currents like we have we have left the garden where the design and the default matched each other.
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And now we're in the world where the default of the world does not move in the same same step as the design, which means that the current is anything that is pulling you away from being the disciple maker you were created to be.
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Which means that culture, especially in New England, emphasis on New England, is the current.
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Your exhaustion level is the current. Your job that you say, hey, I'm providing for my family, but it actually requires you not to be able to be intentional in your home.
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That's the current. And we need to be pushing. So it's really anything preventing you from being the disciple maker you were created to be.
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And you even you listed one a minute ago, because one of the cultures of today is,
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I will prepare when the opportunity arises, right? So like, I'll prepare to disciple my kids when they come out and I get to hold them.
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And yet, like really what we should be doing, if you're looking biblically, like we're meant to prepare in advance for the time to come, that when your child says, hey, what is this
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Jesus thing? Like, like, what is a relationship with Jesus even mean? What is sin? You've already been preparing for years, like they can't talk at first.
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You've got plenty of time, like you've been preparing for years, so that when the time comes, you're ready.
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And the thing is that I know a lot of parents who thought when it comes to discipleship, which
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I think we're going to speak about a lot in this episode, their thought is, well,
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I start discipling my children when they're four, five, but you really can't really start until seven, eight, nine, because they don't understand these things.
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When should we start discipleship with our children? How early? Emphasis on before they're born, can we say that?
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And it's not so much, like the perspective and the goal is going to shift. And so obviously you're not shepherding your kid's heart when they're in the womb, but what you are doing, again, you're training, you're preparing.
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So I would say those first two to three years, I encourage parents, like share the gospel with your kid through a random toy in their room.
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One, first time you do it, you're going to sound like a doofus. Like, it's not going to sound good. It's going to be a hot mess.
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It's okay. They won't remember. You're not going to mess up their theology, but you do it and you get in the reps.
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And by the time that they're five or six and they're ready to hear it, they're going to pull out a didgeridoo and you're going to be able to share the gospel through that Australian instrument.
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You're going to be ready to go. And so preparing in advance, partly it's about discipling them, but the other piece is like you being the disciple you need to be when they need you to be that.
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The other piece I would say is there's things that you can do very early on. Discipleship doesn't start with theology or at least by word of mouth.
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The first thing that you're doing as a parent is saying, Hey, I'm here to help with your needs. I'm a safe place for you to come to, like when you're hurt,
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I will hold you close. And in all of that, you are a representation, earthly representation of a heavenly father, which means that you have plenty of opportunities right there.
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By the time they're two, when my two year old working on complete sentences right now, he's starting to figure it out.
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But tell you what, he can sing some worship songs like he, he knows those songs because kids for whatever reason, a melody just, just steals them away.
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And so he, without even understanding what he's singing half the time, we'll sing worship music because that's what he hears in our home.
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And so I would say there are pieces like that where you can start instilling truth at a very early age.
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Now it needs to shift as they get older. If you give your teenager baby food, they're going to be very annoyed with you.
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And if you give your infant steak, they're going to choke on it. So you got to scale up with them.
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It's something that I would call needs -based parenting. You don't, you don't parent or disciple based on your specific sweet spot, which is tough because like you'll find an age range and it's starting to click.
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And as soon as it clicks, you're like, Oh, they're older now. Like, I don't want them to be older, come back. And yet we need a parent based on where they are and what they need.
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Because if I know where they are and I know what they need, then I am equipped as a disciple maker to help them take that next step.
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And that's really what it's about. Yeah. And the thing is, is that we, you and I talked about this earlier, you know, off air some, some weeks ago, but people don't realize how much, well, for example, my daughter, you know,
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I have a two year old grandson. So about the age of your, your boy. And he does the, he brings his own, as early as he could start walking, he started, you know, she trained him, she discipled him to bring his laundry to the washing machine.
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Mom, he does, you know, when she's doing food prep for dinner, so is he now granted he cuts the zucchinis and it doesn't look really nice, but he's cutting them, right?
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He, when they, when they go to bake something, he's, she basically hands him, she spooks spoons out the, or takes a cup of flour, hands it to him.
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He flips it into the bowl, knocks it in. He'll stir it. Granted, she had to do it afterwards, but he, he helps her with emptying the dishes, right?
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All these things. And he's been doing that before he was two years old. Mom. It wasn't something where he just does it right, but he's growing up knowing, well, mom's doing this and I do this.
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I help mom. It's, it's just part of the discipleship that she does with him. And so I think that a lot of people don't even realize that there's, there's things they could be doing in discipling their children.
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It's, it's something that is just not, they think, oh, I got to wait till they're older.
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I, I, they're, they can't handle this now. And I think one thing that if, if, that we, we can emphasize here is the fact that that's not true.
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We could start early on. And in fact, I think the earlier, the better, because then the, the children know they grow up being at, this is, this is norm.
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You know, this is the norm for them. Yeah. I think that that's such an important piece.
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We've lost the art of taking our kids with us. That was a cultural thing back in the day. Like I say back in the day,
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I don't know how long ago, but there was a time before iPads and TVs were used to pacify our kids because they, if we're being real,
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Andrew, they're not going to make it easier. Like they're not going to cut the zucchini and make it the way that you want it.
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And they're going to break some dishes when they help you empty the dishwasher. And my daughter still is figuring out how to mop appropriately.
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However, that's not the, it's not really the point. Like them learning how to do that stuff well is secondary, still important.
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Not the primary target. It's, I want a culture in my home. And it sounds like your kids want the same in their home with your grandkids of like,
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Hey, I'm going to take you with me wherever, wherever I go. Which means that when my daughter blew out her bicycle tire the other day, it's like, all right, let's repair the tire together.
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And there's certain things that are really hard for a seven -year -old to do. And yet she was there.
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She was handing me the tools. She now knows what a socket wrench is. And she's, she's learning.
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And even better than the learning is we are building a deeper and deeper relationship. And that is the found—relationship is the foundation of discipleship.
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You cannot have effective discipleship without strong relationship. And I think that part of this,
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I mean, your emphasis, having spoken with you, is very much on discipleship, which is the goal we have here at Striving for Eternity, is discipleship.
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I think that this is like a lost art. This is something that I find a lot of people when they talk about discipleship, a lot of pastors talk about it as from the pulpit.
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Why disciple from the pulpit? I think that loses the idea what discipleship is, and that's why so many people don't see their parenting as discipleship.
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What's your understanding, view of what discipleship is? And let's put aside the parenting at first.
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How should we see that in the church? And then follow on with how should we see that in the home?
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I love that. Yeah, my buddy, Steve, I was meeting with him this back when I was in Texas. So this is probably seven years ago.
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And I sat down with him. He was a guy that I felt called to even before we moved. And so I asked him,
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I was like, hey, man, have you ever been discipled before? Because I've been praying about it. Like, hey, I think he's a guy that I need to walk beside and help raise up as a godly man.
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And so I asked him, hey, have you ever been discipled before? And he goes, yeah, Bob disciples me every Sunday. And he was talking about the lead pastor.
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I was like, cool. Well, Bob's in his office. Go ask him. Ask him if he's discipling you.
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And obviously he didn't do that because Bob didn't know who he was. And that I think is what you're describing.
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I tell my church all the time, like, hey, I'm pouring in. I'm teaching.
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But our definition of discipleship, and this is one of the reasons we get into trouble, is we all have different definitions of discipleship.
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Ours is a personal relationship that has consistency, authenticity, and is going to lead to spiritual growth.
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Like, that's the target. It's not we don't do stealth mode discipleship, because I don't see Jesus, three years down the road, with people be like, surprise,
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I've been discipling you this whole time. He says, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
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There's no secrecy about it. And so I would say there's a level of intentionality and an intimacy that cannot happen with a crowd.
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So I'd say Jesus had 12. I'm not Jesus, so I'm probably going to have a lot less. I'm discipling my kids.
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There are seasons where I disciple my wife, although she is discipled by other women, and they're crushing it.
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She's discipling other women. And then I've got several people from my church. And that's my small circle.
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Some of them I'm even closer with than others. And those are the people that until it's time, and there will be a time soon where I'm, other than my kids, but the adults,
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I'm going to raise you up, and I'm going to send you out, and I want you to go make disciples too. And my kids, eventually I'm going to do that, except I get a little bit more time with them, which
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I'm very grateful for. Yeah, so in the home, you bring up a good point that people don't think about.
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Some people so focus on, well, I've got to disciple people in the church. I've got to work with people in the church. I've got to make time for folks outside of the home.
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And I think that they take for granted the fact that you have your children in your home for a lot longer than that person in your church, as far as the time you have to spend with them.
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And I think some people take that for granted to spend time with folks outside the home, forgetting that 19 years or however long they're going to be in your home, it goes really quickly.
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I mean, I'm saying this as someone who has two adult children that have moved out. And I got to tell you,
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Josh, I used to go crazy when I first had kids, and all these older people would be like, enjoy it.
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It goes really quick. When I was sitting there pulling my hair out, trying to figure like, how do I stop my son from crying all the time?
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What's he crying about? Because I don't know. He doesn't come and tell me why he's crying. Like, what's wrong? You're trying to figure it out.
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And I never, I'm like, no, I can't wait till, I kept thinking to myself, like, I can't wait till he's older that I could do things with and communicate with him.
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And now I'm like, I'm saying to my daughter, enjoy it. It goes really quick, right?
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I'm actively not thinking about that, Andrew, just so you know. I know it comes quick, goes quick.
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But we do need to, because I think that many men that I've counseled over the years, older men, they took for granted that the kids were in the home.
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And it wasn't until the kids were outside the home or leaving the home that they suddenly realized, oh,
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I have to disciple them. I haven't really spent the time with them to train them well enough.
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And I know a lot of men who have that regret, that they were focused so much with others in the church, they neglected or didn't even see what's right in front of them.
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So how important is discipleship within the home? And how should that look?
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Yeah, I would say it should be primary. Like it is the design of the home for discipleship to be taking place there first.
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Even to the extent that I would say, and I've again told this to my church, my first ministry isn't the church that I lead.
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My first ministry is in my home. And I will not give my family the leftovers, which means that if you text me at 8pm and I'm doing family time and it's not an emergency, if it is,
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I will help you. But if it's not, listen, we can talk about announcements for next
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Sunday. We can talk about that later on in the week. In fact, you should probably be talking to somebody else other than me for that. The point being, my family is not going to be a place that I cheat out on.
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I'm going to let them be primary and not give them my leftovers. And that's the design.
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Like you go back to Deuteronomy 6. That's the design. You're walking beside your family.
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And when they say, Hey, what are those 12 stones about? Say, Hey, this is what God did for Israel.
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This is what God did for me. It's another reason that sharing your testimony with your kids in age appropriate ways.
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All right. So like I'm 13 years sober, recovered alcoholic. My daughter knows that dad was a hot mess in college.
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She knows that I was a shipwreck and I was apart from Jesus and I was doing my own thing.
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She knows that alcoholism is still a little bit too big for her to grasp. But when it's time, when she is old enough, we're going to talk about it.
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We're going to talk about the things that I stumbled through and that Jesus redeemed me of. And I'm going to talk right now about the things that I'm actively messing up in.
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Because what I don't want to do is I don't want to set up a standard. I think everybody naturally starts here where you think adults just have it all figured out.
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I remember literally the other day, I looked in the mirror and I'm like, dude, you're a lead pastor of the church.
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How? You're still figuring this thing out. But kids, we naturally think that adults are perfect.
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And my role is anytime you've got a platform, and if you're a parent, you automatically have one.
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Any platform, like we need to remind people that we're human too. You see that throughout
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Acts. We're just humans like you. And if we can model vulnerability and boast in our weakness and seek forgiveness actively, that's discipleship.
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Like I want my kids to hear, will you forgive me from me more than anybody else? Because I'm with them more than most people.
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And if you know me, you know that I mess up all the time, which means I should be modeling a contrite heart and humility and a relationship and walk with Jesus that doesn't need to have me be right all the time.
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That's discipleship. Because modeling, this is one of the issues from,
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I don't know, 50 years ago when it was a saying, but like, do as I say, not as I do. It doesn't work.
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Like that's not a discipleship strategy. Discipleship is imitate me as I imitate
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Christ, which means that I'm going to model something beautiful and good back to the design.
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And our kids catch on to that. Yeah, they're always watching. And the reality is you won't know until they're adults sometimes what they were seeing that you didn't think they were picking up on.
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And they're sponges. They're watching everything you do. They're mimicking what you're doing.
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And so you can't wait until they get older to start this discipling relationship.
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Now, saying that you got to start early, you got to start when they're, well, as you said, before they're born for the parent who's saying, yeah, but my family already is a hot mess.
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Sure. What do I do now, Pastor Josh? Well, that's the beauty of it is the best time to start discipling your kids was yesterday.
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The second best time is right now. Like, like, do not let shame be the lie that prevents you from being the person
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God created you to be like, this is your chance. And if you're like, I still don't know what to do.
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What do I do with my hands? Well, here's what you do. Get discipled. Find somebody who is further along in their walk with Jesus, be discipled by them.
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Hopefully they're a parent so they can help guide you in that too. And then start imitating that. So they ask you, how's your walk with Jesus?
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And you stumble through an answer. Well, then you ask your kid, hey, how's your walk with Jesus? And they stumble through an answer.
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Like, if you start replicating this stuff in the same way, like God created a movement with his disciples in the book of Acts, like it was disciples making disciples, making disciples.
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And we stand in the wake of that, which means that that's the same model we got to take part in.
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The idea that you got to build the plane all on your own while you're flying is it's a myth. Like, we've got plenty of people who have also built planes and they can show you how to do it.
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I don't know why I'm on a plane metaphor right now, but they can show you how they parent it and where they messed up and the pitfalls and the victories.
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And you get to start flexing those muscles in your home. Like, don't do it alone. I think that that would be a huge miss, but also don't allow you're not doing it before prevent you from moving forward.
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Like, you are called to it. And even if you didn't do it yesterday, today is a new day. Let's make it happen.
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So we should not be sleeping on this, folks. This is something that's very important with parenting.
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But if you are going to try to get a good night's sleep, may I encourage you to get yourself a good MyPillow? Because if you're going to take a nap or get a good sleep, for me, it's just a nap for you guys that get eight hours.
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I don't understand it. But if you're going to do it, at least get yourself a good pillow to go to sleep on.
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And you can get it at MyPillow .com. Use the promo code SFE. It stands for Striving for Eternity So That Well.
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They know that we sent you and they keep supporting us here at the
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Wrap Report podcast. But you can get more than pillows there, by the way. I have their slippers.
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They have robes. We have their towels, their bath towels, outstanding bath towels.
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I like really absorbent bath towels. But to do that, you usually have to get these really heavy ones.
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Theirs are not so heavy, medium weight, and yet really absorbent.
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I love them. But they have more than I can get into.
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But the one thing I will tell you could change your sleep, maybe more than the pillow, and I do travel with my
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MyPillow, is their mattress topper. That was like getting a whole new bed. If you can't afford to get a bed, just get their three -inch mattress topper.
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And it's like getting a brand new bed. Transformed my bed for the couple of hours, three or four, that I get sleep every night.
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But go to MyPillow .com. Use the promo code SFE so you can get yourself a good night's sleep.
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And I know those of you who are not like me and you guys like to sleep, you get yourself a good sleep, but you have trouble getting up in the morning.
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Well, there's a good solution for that. And that is Squirrelly Joe's Coffee. Because not only are you supporting a good
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Christian family instead of, well, some woke company, you can be supporting a
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Christian family that is giving you really good coffee. So Squirrelly Joe's has a whole bunch of different types of coffee that you can get.
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They have fun names for them. The only one, well, I don't know, Pastor Josh, they call their decaf coffee honesty.
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I don't think that's being really honest. I mean, you can't call decaf honesty, right?
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Because that's not being honest. That's not real coffee. Their half and half is called responsibility, which
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I don't know. It's not really responsible. See, I personally like the wisdom.
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Now, you guys could decide whether it's because I need more wisdom or I have the wisdom. You figure that out.
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But that's what I typically drink is wisdom and their integrity. Fun names they have for each of their brands.
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But what you could do is go to strivingforeternity .org slash coffee that gets you over to Squirrelly Joe's with a special link so that they know you went there from us.
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And if you use the promo code SFE on your first order, you either get 20 % off your first order or a free bag.
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I forget which one it is now because I think he had changed it up. But use that for the first order. But do us a favor.
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Every time you reorder, go to strivingforeternity .org slash coffee. So that they know that you have gone there from us.
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It's the only way they know. And also, if you want to get for your church, they got the five pound bags.
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Or if you're just a heavy coffee drinker like I am, I get the five pound bags because, well, I go through a lot of coffee.
30:03
So you can get those there and supply your whole church with good Christian produced coffee to support fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
30:13
So go to strivingforeternity .org slash coffee to get your bag of Squirrelly Joe's coffee today.
30:23
So Pastor Josh, let's talk about your book. The book is titled Parenting Against the Current, Taking Back Discipleship in the
30:31
Home. It is available on Amazon. We will have a link at Striving for Eternity in our store for the book.
30:38
So talk us through the book. What are some of the things that people are going to learn from this book?
30:44
Who is it meant for? It's aimed at young parents.
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When I say young, it's really parents who are in the faith, primarily targeted at Christian parents who are trying to figure it out.
31:29
And that could mean your kid is newly born, you're expecting, or you could have a teenager, but you're trying to figure it out.
31:37
It's really aimed at that. I tried to, I'm a storyteller, so I tried to be creative, fun as we navigated this dynamic of equipping parents to walk beside their kiddos.
31:49
So what you can expect is that the first couple chapters are aimed at you, because you can only lead somebody to where you are.
31:56
Meaning that chapter one is really focused on where's your walk? How are you doing? Are you being fed?
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Are you growing and maturing? Chapter two aims at your marriage. You might not be married.
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We cover that as well, but it focuses on how the dynamic in your relationship with your spouse is a mirror of the gospel, or at least it's meant to be.
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And so how are you showing your kids what relationship is meant to look like and what a relationship with Jesus is meant to look like?
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So that's chapter two. And then chapter three on out is, all right, let's really get into this.
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What are some tools? What are some strategies you need to engage? And it goes from all the way just building a connection with your kid, because again, discipleship without relationship is not effective.
32:45
So how do I take them with me? How do I teach them to cut the zucchinis and really risk the dishes in order to pursue what's better, as well as the next couple chapters?
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Chapter five is, it takes a village to raise a parent, aiming at community. We need community.
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I need parents before me, behind me, and beside me that are going to help me take kingdom ground in the hearts of my kids, as well as I need to be looking back and helping others do the same.
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And so that's a key ingredient. There's a chapter called failing forward, which is saying, hey, you're going to screw up.
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You're not going to completely crush it every single time. And so when you fall, just fall in the right direction.
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And that's like asking for forgiveness. Another key phrase, though, that I'd focus on is because our kids, and Andrew, we were talking about this last time we spoke, like our kids ask all kinds of questions, and some of them we might not know the answer to.
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Heaven forbid, we don't know all the answers. And so what parents typically would do, they'll say, hey, why does
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God do this thing? And they'll say, well, God works in mysterious ways, or because the Bible says so, or because I said so.
33:59
And those might be true, but they're not great answers. Like, they're not helpful.
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And so really what we should say when we don't know what to do is, I don't know, but let's find out together.
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Don't leave it at I don't know. Like, that's not helpful, but let's find out together. It's saying, hey,
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I'm going to take you along on a journey where we're going to find out what's true, good, real, and beautiful. And just like that, you're not just giving them a fish, and you're not giving them a that's like God works in mysterious ways.
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You're teaching them to fish. You're teaching them how to seek what's true through scripture and through study and through conversation and through all the different outlets that we actually have access to, but often don't feel equipped to invite our kids into.
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And I just say, discipleship is all about that. It's walking a journey that you've never walked before and doing it not alone.
34:51
And so chapter by chapter, it's it's piece by piece, trying to put together as many puzzle pieces as we can for parents, knowing that like kids are nuanced and different.
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Like my two kiddos, like because God doesn't work in cookie cutters. So you could say like,
35:10
OK, no kid is the same. My kids were made in different factories. Like they're like completely different.
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My daughter is gentle and empathetic. And if I'm not careful, I could just destroy her with a word like it's like she's just such a soft human being in the best way.
35:30
And then my son is a I will climb that tree and we'll see if the branch can hold me when I get to the top.
35:35
Right. Like we're actively budgeting for our visit. It's a full on adventure.
35:42
Get totally different, meaning that what what the book tries to do throughout is provide guidance on what discipleship can look like and hopefully give us a room room and space for you to apply some of your creativity, knowing that your kids aren't going to be my kids and your kids are going to need different things.
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But all of them need certain things. And that's what we really aimed at is what are the what are the meats and potatoes that our kids are going to need?
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How can we put that together in a recipe that's reproducible? And then also know that like some of us are going to add a little more salt and some of us are going to add some other things in to make it the right right stew.
36:23
I don't know where I'm going with these metaphors, the rights to how I got here or your family to feed them and to help them grow and help them mature.
36:32
We came full circle. We made it. It was fine. Striving for Eternity is a Christ -centered ministry focused on equipping people for eternity.
36:40
And they provide speakers and seminars that come to your church with expertise in theology, hermeneutics, world religions, creation science, evangelism, presuppositional apologetics, church history and expertise in sexual abuse in the church.
36:54
For details on their seminars and to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
37:01
Striving to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. Yeah, I mean, one thing
37:07
I've noticed is that this is completely subjective, but your first two children are always polar opposites and any children after that kind of fit in between.
37:16
It just seems that way. And so there is an aspect where your kids will ask you questions that you honestly can't answer.
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And when I teach theology, the verse I probably quote more than any other is
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Deuteronomy 29 .29, which you're going to say, hey, Andrew, that says, you know, we can't know things.
37:38
And didn't Joshua say we shouldn't say that? But let's read it. It says, the secret things belong unto the
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Lord our God. And that sounds like it's the cop out of, hey, it is what
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God says and we just can't answer for that. There are going to be things that that's as far as we could take it, but we should study and work with it to say, okay, let's see if we can understand.
38:01
You know what? This is getting beyond what we know, but he goes on. Moses goes on and says, the secret things belong unto the
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Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
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You see, there are things we won't be able to comprehend in our finite minds, but there's a lot in the
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Word of God that we can comprehend and that is for us and it doesn't stop with us.
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It's not only for us, but according to Moses, for our children for a little while, temporarily.
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No, forever. So, there are going to be things where we can't, we're just not going to know the answers, but that doesn't mean we just stop and say,
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I don't know, it's beyond my ability to understand. No, we take it as far as we can in our thinking with our children, but when we take them back to Scripture so that they know the things that we can understand to apply them to our lives, to obey what the
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Word says. It's not enough just to say, well, hey, I sounded spiritual because I gave the answer,
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Lord's ways are above our ways. Yes, that is true, but he didn't give us things we can't, the
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Word of God is quite clear in many, many areas and a lot of people pretend as if, well, we can't answer.
39:32
Now, a key thing, folks, to listen to is something that Pastor Josh said earlier in the episode and I want to highlight it because you might have missed it and I want to repeat it so that you think back.
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Age appropriate. When children ask you about the
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Trinity, I don't know how many of your children are, you know, eight -year -olds maybe asking, you know, hey,
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Dad, what's the Trinity? What's that all mean? How could God be three persons in one being?
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How does that work? You might respond different with your eight -year -old than your 12 -year -old, or you should.
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Now, for those who think, no, you can't teach an eight -year -old the Trinity. Yeah, you can.
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You can teach your children theology. I know that because actually I've done that, not just with my kids, but with other people's kids.
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So, Pastor Josh, I don't know if I shared this story with you, but when I first started pastoring, I was hired on to a church, but the church retreat was already set.
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They already had a speaker for it, and so they wanted me to do some teaching since I just was hired in, and I just said, you know what?
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My wife and I will take the kids. You know, the kids' ages, I think, were like eight to 10 -year -olds or eight to 12 -year -olds, and I think
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I was actually even younger. It might have been six to 10 -year -olds, and we said, well, we'll just take them, and they were like, well, we don't have any program for you.
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What are you going to teach? I said, we'll just teach them the doctrine of the Trinity, and they were like, excuse me, these are eight -year -olds.
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They can't understand this. I said, just give us three days, and so by the end of the third day, what
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I did was the parents go to pick up their kids, and I made it where the parent came in by themselves.
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The other parents couldn't hear the discussion. The parents come in, and I turn to the parent.
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I bring the child up, and I say, I'm going to ask you two questions, and if you need any help, you can ask your children, and the parent's like, okay, okay, first question, can you define the
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Trinity? Second question, can you support it in Scripture? And I'm seeing these adult parents go, ah, um, um, um, and their kid, their eight -year -old child is, well, the
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Trinity is defined as three persons and one God. You can support that, and they start rattling off verses, whether it's
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Jesus' baptism, Ananias and Sapphira, and the parents are like, my eight -year -old is teaching me theology.
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Now, that had two effects. One, it made the parents all of a sudden realize that their pastor was going to teach theology.
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But the other thing it did, a number of parents came up to me after that and said, we need help because clearly we should be teaching our children something we didn't think they were ready for, and quite frankly, we aren't either.
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And so, it was a matter of starting to teach the parents theology so they could teach the children. They suddenly saw the need for it because part of teaching, or sorry, part of parenting against the culture is the fact,
42:43
I think you'd agree, Josh, is that we are in a culture that wants to parent our kids.
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They don't want the parents doing it, right? You kind of did a play on words with Hillary Clinton's book,
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It Takes a Village, but what is she saying there? She thinks it's the village of the school and all this that raises your children.
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Not you as a parent. You can't do it alone. You need the school and you need their government systems and all that.
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This is the thing that it means to parent against the culture, is we need to teach them biblical values because they have, whether it's the media,
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Hollywood, the video games, and by the way, parents do not think that video games are not teaching immorality.
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You can go and see Carl Kirby Jr.,
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a friend of mine, he's got a ministry, It's Not Just a Game, I think is the title of his book, but he goes into showing how video games are teaching an anti -Christian message, and parents think, well, it's just a racing car game.
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No, it's not. They're teaching messages, whether subliminally or not, and so there's all these things they want to parent your children.
44:01
They want to train up your children, disciple your children. Josh, with this as a culture, how is your book going to be something that parents can grab to parent against all that, against this culture that wants to, from every angle, indoctrinate our children, and what do you see as the biblical commands for us as parents to teach against it?
44:27
Yeah, my prayer is that for many of us, it's a wake -up call, and not a wake -up call as like, hey, in your face, if that's what you need, sure, but really, we need to awaken to the things that we're sleeping on, and what you are describing is so accurate in the sense that, man, pop culture, their seventh grade best friend, the person on TV, the news, their social media, they're all trying to disciple your kids.
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They're not going to help them be disciples of Jesus, but they're going to try to disciple them somewhere, and our role is engaging against that culture and against the currents that exist in the world.
45:09
One of the things that we do as a family is we watch, we do
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TGIF. It's something that I missed as a kid. I don't know if you ever did it, but there was like, TGIF, thank goodness it's
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Friday, was a staple in our home growing up, and we would watch Boy Meets World or Sabrina or whatever, and so we wanted to have that, but streaming and TV, binge watching, that doesn't exist anymore, so what we did was we said, hey,
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Friday nights, we're going to watch one show. It's the only time we watch it, and we're going to watch it together as a family, and the show that we watch is
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Boy Meets World because we really enjoy it, but what we do is, because there's a lot of lies in every
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TV show you watch, like it doesn't matter, and so we play a game called identify the lie, which means that if a lie comes up from culture where they're not cool because they don't have the cool clothes or, hey, they're going to lie to their parents so that they can get away with this thing or whatever it is, we pause the
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TV, and I ask my daughter, my son, he's in bed at that point, and he's not old enough to play the game, but I ask her,
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I say, Lila, what's the lie? And she'll tell me what the lie is, and then we'll laugh about how untrue that is, and we'll hit play again because what we don't need to be is we don't need to be, and you don't have to watch
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TV for this to be true, but we're not meant to be distant and hermits and hiding from the culture of the world.
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We're just meant to be set apart. We're meant to stand out in a way that says, hey, the current's going that way, but I'm pushing this way because that's where Jesus is, and that's where he invites me to be, and so there's little things like that that we can do as parents to say, hey, yeah, like there are things, but I would say another piece, and I think you were pointing to it when you were talking about video games.
47:01
There's a really good book, and I'm completely unassociated with the author, just a killer book called
47:07
Raising Tech -Healthy Humans and just wrecked me, and it's all about how technology is one of those leading discipleship tools that are being used to delegate the role of parents, and so if I want my kid to be quiet, what do
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I do? Put him on the couch. We're going to watch some TV versus like having the intentional conversations versus like having healthy boundaries and limitations versus really being careful about the things that my kids are ingesting because I'll tell you what.
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I'll give you an easy example. Our two -year -old, we have very firm limitations on how much
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TV he's allowed to have at his age, but there was a show that came on, and it seemed like a normal firetruck show, and so I was there watching it.
47:58
Jenny was watching it with him a couple weeks ago when they started sharing a lot of stuff, like a lot of sexual identity stuff that I don't know how it made it into children's
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TV, but we're like, we cannot watch this show anymore because he's not old enough to identify the lie, and there's a lot of lies being spoken.
48:19
We got to guard the hearts of our kids, and then also we got to start loosening our grips as our kids get older.
48:27
If you try to control your kids and their teenagers, listen, that's going to lead to rebellion, and part of it is you're trying to do
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God's part, which for you is rebellion. We need to trust. We need to create healthy boundaries for our kids to be trusted within knowing they're going to totally botch it sometimes, but you're going to be a safe place for them to fall.
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They're going to fail forward too in the same way that you've been modeling all these years, and together you're going to move closer to Jesus.
48:57
Yeah, and this is the thing that as a parent, you know,
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I used to do. I didn't grow up with a TGIF. It was something, though, that I did have, you know, when
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I was with my children, I was—Friday nights we would have family night, and we had some different things we would do to try to teach biblical lessons but make it fun, make it where it was—we'd do an activity to, you know, maybe it was they had to stand in a bucket of ice water to learn what long -suffering is, right?
49:42
Do different things that they would learn biblical lessons but make it in a fun way that they would remember.
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That was the goal, and so this is what
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I think is lacking, I think, in some is that they're—like you're saying in the
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TV, some parents, far too many parents, they're looking for the TV to do the parenting, just here.
50:13
It's the electronic babysitter, and that becomes problematic.
50:19
So, again, the book, folks, that I encourage you to go out and get is Parenting Against the
50:24
Culture, Taking Back Discipleship in Your Home. Pastor Josh, as we're wrapping up, what kind of things do you want the listeners to know, either about the parenting, the book, anything you want that we haven't had a chance to bring up yet?
50:45
Yeah, really, it's—I want to be a resource where people need help. You can reach me or my co -author,
50:53
Matt Nations, at ParentingAgainstTheCurrent at gmail .com, and, again, we just want to be able to help wherever you need.
51:00
But the biggest piece is, if you are even wrestling with this question, like, hey, how do
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I disciple my kids? How do I shepherd their hearts? How do I lead them effectively? You're in the right place.
51:12
That's the right tension to be navigating. I wouldn't say remain there for five years.
51:18
Like, me trying to get sober, there were two years in that sobriety process where I was like, I should get sober.
51:24
Like, I should stop drinking. Like, don't live there. But, like, that's a great tension to start—I would say even more than that—conviction to have.
51:33
I want to figure this out and get beside other parents who are doing it. Get into community.
51:40
Invite your kids truly into your life, which is so fun. Like, honestly, like, my daughter plays disc golf.
51:46
I love disc golf. It's so nerdy. Like, it's not the coolest thing that I do, but I love it.
51:53
At three years old, she would have told you she loves disc golf. But the truth is, she didn't.
51:58
She didn't know what a par system was. She didn't know how to play the game. She just knew it meant time with dad.
52:04
Now, she's several years past that. She's winning state tournaments, and I get to go be her caddie.
52:11
Like, that's awesome. That's that's awesome. That's because I took her with me.
52:17
I got disqualified from multiple tournaments because she had to go to the bathroom halfway through the round. She didn't make me better.
52:24
But, man, that time is something that was special, and still is, and we get to have together. So, don't sleep on this.
52:31
Like, there is an opportunity right now for every single one of us to grow our relationship with our kids and to lead them in their spiritual journey with Jesus.
52:42
Don't miss it. And also, don't hyper fixate on either one. Like, don't just be a teacher where there's no relationship, and don't just be the friend that never actually shepherds their heart.
52:55
Like, there's a balance there that we're supposed to have. I see Jesus dining with his disciples.
53:01
I also see him rebuking them. Like, there's space for both, and what we need to do is we need to press into that call, mess up fantastically, and fail forward for the
53:10
King. So, again, folks, go out, get the book, Parenting Against the Culture, Taking Back Discipleship in Your Home.
53:19
Before we wrap up, just to let you know some places if you want to come to where we are speaking at Striving for Eternity.
53:25
I got a couple events coming up. If you are in the, well, if you're north of Philadelphia, PA, I will be preaching at my home church,
53:32
August 3rd and the 10th. So, I will be there both Sundays preaching, and then that is in Levittown, Pennsylvania.
53:41
I will be out in Washington, Indiana, September 5th to the 7th for the
53:48
Powerhouse Conference. The Powerhouse is a ministry to high schoolers, and they're going to have a conference there.
53:56
Basically, it's going to be a very interesting conference. I think this is their,
54:01
I believe, their first conference that they've done, and so it's going to be a lot of fun there.
54:08
T .C. Cook, who's the president there, executive director of that ministry, is going to do a great job.
54:14
Now, September 12th and the 13th, I will be at the
54:19
Roadmap to Revival, and that is in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Meanwhile, one of our other speakers,
54:26
Aaron Brewster, will be at my home church. So, if you want to be in Tullahoma, Tennessee, go look, just type in Roadmap to Revival.
54:34
You can get the tickets there. If you want to come, if you're in the Philadelphia area, come to Oxford Valley Chapel, and Aaron Brewster is going to be talking about, well, he's going to be talking about our responsibility to God, to church, to others outside the church, and to our families, something we've been talking about tonight.
54:54
He's an excellent speaker. He's going to basically touch on every area of life, so whether you're a brand new believer or someone seasoned in the faith, you're going to have something there for that to learn from.
55:06
Also, I will be at the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, and I want to mention this, is that it is what the title of the conference is what it is.
55:18
Those in this audience, you guys would know, and I'm probably going to have Gabe on here soon or probably on my
55:24
Apologetics Live show to discuss some things he's doing ministry -wise, but they're very different theologically than where I'm at, but the neat thing about this conference is you can go there, disagree with a lot of the folks, and fight over it, and then have a lot of laughs, and then go have dinner, and I really appreciate that atmosphere that they create where it's not this thing where you're sitting there and you have to, you know, if you don't agree with them, it's going to be fighting over it, and that's it.
55:59
I really found it refreshing the last time I'll probably be there. I'm going to be going with the podcast equipment, so we'll probably set up, take some interviews there, but their topic this year is on homeschooling, so whether or not you agree or disagree with their theology, especially for the homeschoolers, you know, some of what
56:20
Pastor Josh was talking about here in this episode is the fact our culture wants to, you know, they want to kind of train up and indoctrinate our children.
56:30
Well, homeschooling is one way to put it, you know, to take back the parenting, but there really is a whole argument of why homeschooling, why should we, what should be our view when it comes to the schooling of our children, and so for that, that's what the conference is going to be about.
56:48
I encourage you to go get tickets. I know that their tickets are cheaper when you get them early, so go out and to Fight, Laugh, Feast, and look up their conference for this year, and then lastly, some new news for folks.
57:03
Those of you in the UK, it looks like I will be returning to the UK. It is the
57:09
Grace and Power Conference 2025. It is in Grace Church of Brentwood, so this is in Brentwood, UK.
57:20
I have not been, well, it's been since before COVID that I was in the UK, so I'm glad to be able to be returning, so if you are in that area, you could go to gracechurchbrentwood .org,
57:34
and they have the register for that. They got a number of speakers there in the
57:40
UK. I will be the keynote there, delivering three messages. Have not worked out what those messages are going to be yet, but it looks like I will be there as their one international speaker.
57:51
I guess they were really on the bottom of the barrel of finding international speakers, but so I know that there's many in the listeners who are from the
58:01
UK. I know because, well, you mentioned it when you emailed us, but it's been a while since I've been there, so this is an opportunity to get me to be in your territory.
58:11
I know the UK is not that big. There's a thing, Josh, maybe you've never heard this, but when
58:17
I was at the UK, I learned this phrase that they have about the United States because in the
58:22
UK, the way they like to word it is that, for Americans, is that to the
58:28
UK, 100 miles is a big distance, but to us Americans, we think 100 years is a long time because they have many centuries of history where we have 250 since we left them.
58:44
That's awesome. But in the UK, you're not very far.
58:49
You can get there. It's not like when I speak in the Philippines and you got to take a boat to a train to walking and all that, so it's a lot easier in the
58:58
UK, so I hope you guys would check that out. They have the details on their website.
59:04
If you need more information, call them and maybe they could get the notes up of what
59:10
I'll be speaking on once we work that out. So, Pastor Josh, I'm glad that you came on.
59:17
I hope that many people go and get the book, Parenting Against the Current, Taking Back Discipleship in Your Home, and I'm glad that you came on.
59:27
I really think it's refreshing for people to have a view of parenting as discipleship.
59:33
I know you view discipleship as just a way of life. That's the way we should view it, and I'm glad that there's more people out putting books out, you know, to help parents in this area.
59:45
So, thanks for coming on, and I really appreciate the work you've done in the book.
59:52
Thanks so much for having me. I enjoyed it. And with that, folks, that's a wrap.
59:57
This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.