TLP 52: The Best Parenting Resources

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Besides the Bible, what's the best parenting resource out there? I'd argue that it's the resource that conforms the most to the

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Bible. Welcome to Truth. Love. Parent. Where we use

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God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host,

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A .M. Brewster. If you've ever looked for help in your parenting, you've probably purchased a book or two, whether you downloaded it off of iTunes or got it from Amazon, most of you probably read it from cover to cover, some of you may have taken good notes, answered the questions, or highlighted huge chunks, and some of you may have actually been able to put into practice the concepts you studied.

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But even though I praise God for the avalanche of Christian resources there are in the world, I find that so many of the quote,

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Christian parenting books offer little genuine help. Sometimes it's due to the fact that anyone can publish a book these days, but sometimes it reflects a deeper issue with the failure philosophies of the church.

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Either way, how is a Christ -honoring parent supposed to find good resources? Well, more on that in a minute.

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We praise God for the number of people who've contacted us at counselor at evermindministries .com.

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I and my team of counselors have laughed and cried and praised God with many of you, and we're honored to serve you in that way.

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But we want you to know that we have a new email address. This one should be easier to remember. It's counselor at truthloveparent .com.

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And remember, you don't have to contact us if you'd like assistance or advice. You can take the time to tell us how we're doing or how we could do better.

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Fred has contacted us a couple times to tell us that we've had some broken links on our various sites, and that's very helpful.

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I really appreciate that. But you can also contact us to suggest topics or ask questions you'd like to have answered on the air.

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Of course, if you do that, please specify it. We don't want to answer a personal issue for everyone to hear. Yeah, Samantha Jones mentioned her kid hates her and she wants to know if she should disown him.

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But her pain -in -the -neck husband disagrees. That probably won't work out too well. Okay, so how hard does it have to be to find biblical, clear help for our parenting these days?

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And besides the Bible, what's the best parenting resource out there? Well, I'd argue that it's the resource that conforms the most to the

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Bible. So in order to answer this question, I'd like to provide you with three things today. One, an answer, two, a promise, and three, a suggestion.

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So here's my answer about how to invest your time and money on truly beneficial resources.

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Unless you read each book for yourself, which will cost a lot of money and take too much time, you have to have information about the book before you buy it.

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The more important question I can imagine is, does this book contain a jumble of cultural ideas and biblical proof texts, or is it a book that identifies and clarifies

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God's teaching and help you achieve His will for your life? This is basically the same duty as a pastor or teacher has.

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We've been tasked with feeding the Lord's sheep and the green pastures of His fertile scriptures. But how can you know such a thing about a book you've never read?

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Well, it's generally pretty simple. Can you trust the author? And if you're not familiar with the author, can you trust the person suggesting the book?

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See, that's the problem with the internet and Christian bookstores. Their goal is generally to sell books. They'll say just about anything or find a reviewer who will.

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So how else would Joel Osteen have sold so many books? The point is, if the person who wrote the book or the person suggesting the book doesn't consistently live out

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God's Word in their lives, I wouldn't suggest taking their opinion on a book. And, you know,

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I think we all do this to one degree or another. However, there are certain people you'll trust for a movie review, or to suggest an awesome restaurant, or to point you in the direction of the best software for your company.

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You trust the people who, one, know what they're talking about, two, have proven themselves, and three, have your best interest in mind.

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So that leads me to my second idea of the day, and that's a promise. Truth Love Parent is still very much in its infancy.

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We've been live for just over seven months now, and this is only our 52nd episode. But whether it's on our podcast, in social media, on our website, or in our parenting tools, we have striven to make

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Christ the center of all we do. Team TLP promises you three things. One, we will all continue growing in our relationship with God through our personal and corporate sanctification.

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Two, we will continue studying how God's Word applies to families and stay current with the secular failure philosophies so that we can pass that information on to you.

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And three, we'll take all your comments and criticisms to heart. We're not perfect, and in our growing process, we invite you to speak truth into our lives as you have so graciously allowed us to speak it into yours.

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Send us the books you're curious about, let us know if you disagree with our conclusions, and always feel free to ask questions.

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To that end, we want to be one of your most trustworthy sources for truth in parenting.

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We know it takes time to earn trust, but we promise to do our best to earn yours by staying faithful to God and His Word.

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In review, without studying all the parenting books and philosophies out there, we believe the answer to finding the most

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Christ -honoring resources is to find trustworthy people who know what they're talking about. And we promise to do our best to become those people for you.

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And here's my last theme for today. It's a suggestion. If I've earned your trust at all, I'd like to suggest you read what

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I consider to be the best Christian parenting book I've read to date. Earlier in the year,

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I had the opportunity to interview Paul David Tripp. That interview had to be canceled due to Paul's health complications, but let me tell you how excited

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I was at the prospect. Paul Tripp has written some of my all -time favorite books on Christian living.

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He writes not only from a love for God and people, but from a significant knowledge and experience base.

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He's been teaching and counseling and speaking and writing for decades, and the Lord has blessed him with keen insight, a clear writing style, and penetrating explanations and applications of the

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Bible. Last year, in the same month we published our first episode, Paul wrote his second parenting book.

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His first book was called Age of Opportunity. I've suggested that book to many people over the years, and I suggest it to you.

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And Paul thought that that was the last book he would be writing on parenting. He said, quote, I told myself and repeatedly told others that I was not about to write another one, yet here

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I am doing just that. Why? Because as I listened to people tell me how they used age in the lives of their teenagers,

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I became increasingly uncomfortable. I kept thinking, no, that's not exactly it, or no, that's not what

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I meant, or no, there's something missing. It took a while, but it finally hit me that what bothered me in these conversations and what was missing in these parents was the gospel that was the foundation behind everything that I wrote.

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So, with the publisher's encouragement, I decided to write a parenting book, but not the typical kind. This will not be a book of practical strategies for dealing with children at the various ages of their development.

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This book will not provide practical steps for dealing with the kinds of things every parent faces. This is meant to be a reorienting book.

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It is meant to give you a new way of thinking about and responding to everything that will be on your plate as a parent.

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This book is meant to give you vision, motivation, renewed strength, and the rest of heart that every parent needs.

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It is written to give you the big gospel picture of the tasks to which your Savior has called you."

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The book he wrote is called simply, Parenting. I'll definitely link it for you in the description, but it will also be a mainstay on our

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Parenting Resources page of our upcoming website. I believe this book delivers on its promise, and I love it because not only do we all need that, but that's been one of our driving goals here at Truth Love Parent since its inception.

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To quote Paul again, we want to, "...give you a new way of thinking about and responding to everything that will be on your plate as a parent.

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When you align your thinking, your words and actions follow right along. Please take the time to purchase and read

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Parenting," by Paul David Tripp. So, that's my answer, my promise, and my suggestion, but I want to end the show by giving you a peek into the future and goals of Truth Love Parent.

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TLP has a ministry paradigm consisting of five simple spokes, and later this year we plan to launch the hub of that wheel at truthloveparent .com.

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Our website will feature all five of our ministry outlets. The first is all of our social media links.

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Facebook and Twitter and Instagram will be around for a while, and good or bad, it's where people congregate.

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We want to provide Christ -honoring, family -applicable content so that while you traverse the sometimes dangerous landscape of the internet,

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TLP will be there with refreshing, encouraging, and timely content for your family. Right now, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and we plan to engage in Instagram and Pinterest shortly.

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In case you're interested, we do our dead -level best to provide unique content on each of our accounts.

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This means that you'll only see duplicated posts if it's extremely valuable. Therefore, you can follow us everywhere and not fear seeing the same quote or picture over and over and over again.

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Our second ministry outlet is our parenting tools. Truthloveparent .com will also become the home for all of those parenting tools.

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This includes original articles on family, marriage, and parenting. Unlike the content we share on social media, which comes from a multitude of ministries and authors, our website will only feature articles from Team TLP, our counselors, and special guest authors.

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You'll also find free TLP photo quotes you can share on social media. And as our library of parenting tools expand, truthloveparent .com

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will be the place to find them, from images, to e -books, to full -length works on family, marriage, and parenting. Number three, counseling.

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Of course, one of our greatest passions is the families we serve. We're deeply honored every time we receive emails from you, and we'll do our best to provide the answers you need or introduce you to people who can.

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Truthloveparent .com will have all of our contact information there. Four, obviously, is our podcast.

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Of course, Truthloveparent's free parenting podcast will continue to air as long as the Lord provides, and it will always be free.

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We want to make these episodes as accessible as possible. Of course, we hope to continue growing, and I'd love to be able to air a new episode five days a week.

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Who knows? Either way, you can subscribe to TLP on iTunes, on our website, or any of the other countless directories we're listed on.

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And don't miss out on our next episode. Some of you have been waiting a while to hear the Executive Director of the Association for Certified Biblical Counselors share his thoughts on parenting and counseling.

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So join us next time as I spend some time with Dr. Heath Lambert. And lastly, the last spoke of our ministry wheel is speaking engagements.

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One of our greatest goals is to connect with parents in real life, face -to -face encounters.

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I've had the opportunity to preach in a number of churches, but I see such a need for more parenting workshops, marriage conferences, teacher seminars, and TLP family fun nights.

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If you believe your church, school, or small group would benefit from such an event, please contact us.

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And you guessed it, truthloveparent .com will also feature all the information you need to book such an event.

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Like I said, we want to earn your trust by becoming a brilliant light for gospel -centered families, and you can play a massive part in that as well.

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Number one, will you pray for our ministry? We have a number of committed prayer warriors, and we would love to add you to that list.

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You'd thrill our hearts so much if you dropped us a digital line about how you're approaching the throne of God on our behalf, and if you send us your name, we can pray for you and your family as well.

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Two, will you share TLP? It's often so hard to tell which families are hurting and which parents feel like they're drowning.

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We all do such a great job of keeping up the facade when we're out in public, but when you share our podcasts on social media, you become part of Team TLP as we cast the word of God into the hearts of moms and dads right there into their homes where they feel safe to engage with content that they don't want other people to know they're listening to.

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We want to throw those seeds of truth to fly as far as possible, and you know people, we may never otherwise meet.

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And lastly, will you prayerfully consider supporting TLP? We've set up a Patreon page, which is linked in the description, and there you can learn all about our goals and aspirations and how your monetary gift can be an investment in your family and families across the globe.

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No gift is too small in the work of the Lord. So if you couldn't tell, the title of today's show served a dual purpose.

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The title is The Best Parenting Resource. I do believe that Paul David Tripp's book,

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Parenting, is one of the best parenting books out there, but I also hope that I've communicated the passion that we, Team TLP, has for making truth, love, parent a key resource in your parenting.

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Thank you for joining us today as we strive to be and provide you the best parenting resources available.

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Truth. Love. Parent. Is part of the Evermine Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.