Parenting Q&A

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Father, we're so thankful for all your gifts, including adopting us into your family as children.
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And now for many of us here, you've given us children. Maybe for some, those children are older and they have grandchildren, or some, they don't have children, but they love to help the body with their children.
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So I would pray tonight, you'd give me wisdom. Lots of questions. I pray that the dear congregation would make that distinction between scripture and wisdom, and that you would help us as we train our children.
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It's hard to do lots of trials and sleepless nights, and can't control what people do.
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And so we need your help for certain. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you take your
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Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 12, just to start things off, to reiterate, because a couple of people just got here, what
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I say from scripture, you need to do, not for me, but for the
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Lord, what wisdom tells us is a little more negotiable.
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Now you can get wisdom from above, asking God, write James chapter one, or get wisdom from other people.
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Hebrews chapter 12, we were here not that long ago in Hebrews 12. And I just wanna read this section and make one quick highlight.
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Hebrews 12, five. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the
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Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves or trains, and chastises every son whom he receives.
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It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
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If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
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Besides this, we had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live?
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For they discipline us for a short time, as it seemed best to them.
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Let me repeat that, as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.
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For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
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Notice that little section right there that I repeated in verse 10, as seemed best to them. I think overall,
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I wanna just start off by saying, the best parents are the best Christians. If you'd like to be a good parent, then you should strive by the means of grace that God has given to grow in the knowledge and the grace of the
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Lord. Because lots of times, there's not a verse to tell us exactly what to do, and you have to do what's best to you, right there.
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They did what was best to them. So people that are wise in the Lord, and mature in the Lord, and maturing in the
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Lord, I think they make the best decisions when they have to raise children, when there are certain things that aren't in the
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Bible, what do we do? So wise, mature Christians, I think, make better decisions, and I know you do too, than immature, foolish
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Christians, right? So one of the key things about parenting is your own growth and your own spiritual walk, serving,
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Lord's Day worship, baptism, communion, et cetera. So as you grow, you're gonna be a better parent.
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So you wanna be the best parent you can be, by the grace that God gives you, you be the best Christian you can be, right?
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That's one of the things that we're doing here, because, I mean, how many books are out there on parenting? That was my first question, what parenting book would you recommend?
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I thought Proverbs, that would be a good one. Hebrews, maybe
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Ephesians in chapter six, but there's not a whole lot in scripture for such a weighty task.
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There's not a whole lot on exactly what to do, because we have to make so many decisions as Christian parents.
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The one book I will recommend, I think it's in the bookstore, Gospel -Powered Parenting by William Farley, Gospel -Powered
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Parenting by William Farley, PNR, Presbyterian Reformed, I think there's a lot of good things in there.
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Years ago, when I was trying to do a lot of writing, I think I've got about half of a parenting book completed, but I wanted to make sure the kids turned out okay before I published it.
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And so Maddie's still in the house, so we're still waiting for Maddie to see how she does before I publish it, just kidding.
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It's been a joy to have Maddie at home, I'm gonna miss her when she moves out. Right now, the book just mentally is entitled,
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Common Parenting Mistakes, because I'm an expert in making those mistakes. And so maybe one day
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I'll finish it, we'll see. But that's my recommendation, Gospel -Powered Parenting. Anybody else have a great book they love on parenting that I'm not thinking of?
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Yes. Oh, Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp, good.
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I'm not too keen on Paul Tripp, but Ted Tripp is really good. That's good. Matter of fact, since that was the first question,
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I have a few gifts here to give out. And so for you, Mrs. Ferrer, I'm going to give you some pork crackling dippers.
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Now these aren't any pork crackling dippers. I want you to know that on the back of these brims, old -fashioned seasoned pork crackling dippers, fried pork fat with attached skin, there is a
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Bible verse. So these are Christian. Here's the Bible verse on the back, I kid you not. Psalm 84, 11, for the
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Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly, including pork rinds.
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So I just wanted to give this out for my first gift for you. All right.
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Here to serve, no carbs. Question two, it's an easy one.
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Are you going to do more parenting Q &As? Answer, yes, because I don't think I can get through all the questions tonight.
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And by your attendance, we even demonstrate that this is an important thing. Let's try to learn.
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Lots of times, I'm just going to give you kind of grandfatherly advice that sometimes we don't get from our own grandfathers and our own fathers and mothers, because maybe they're not
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Christians or they're pagans or they're drunks or whatever they are. And so I want to kind of be the role of grandfather, father, friend, shepherd.
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Make sense? So we'll keep going. I was getting emails as late as 3 p .m. today, long emails and questions and everything.
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So I don't think I can get through everything today. Pardon me? Sorry. Yeah, thanks. I know.
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Question three, what did a Sunday look like for the Ebendross when you had little kids?
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What did a Sunday look like? Well, answer, some Sundays serene and I read it, other
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Sundays, total chaos. I think the question is getting to kind of what did we do at church?
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And so I think for us, it started, and again, this is what we did most of the time. We weren't perfect.
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This was our goal and consistency is what we looked for. Saturday night, we wanted to make sure that we had food for Sunday morning, right?
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Where's the baby food? Where's the breakfast? We wanted to make sure that every kid had socks that matched and that we knew exactly what they were going to wear on Sunday morning.
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To this day, I do that same thing, not for kids, but for me. First thing I did last night at about 6 p .m.,
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I put out my clothes, did my socks match my tie, this, that, and the other, set it all out because you know on Sunday mornings, the chaos that can ensue, right?
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I don't wanna even say it's satanic. It could be, but there's a lot of crazy things that go on on Sunday morning.
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So I need minimal chaos on Sunday. We would coach the kids on the way to church every single
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Sunday, and we would say, when people shake your hand, look at them in the eye. No running around the hallways.
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You must stay in the sanctuary. That would probably be good advice for some of you parents to make sure your kids are here and you know where they're going to go.
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We would say to them when we dropped them off the nursery, we're going to ask the nursery preschool, Sunday school teachers, how you did.
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And then we're gonna ask them again, how did you do? And if you did well, there's gonna be a reward for you.
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And if you didn't do well, there's gonna be discipline for you. I hope that you ask the nursery workers.
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I hope you ask, maybe not nursery, how did your three -month -old do? But younger children, how did they do?
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And then ask again, and maybe they don't really wanna give you an answer so you can make it easy on the workers. On a scale of one to 10, how did my child do today?
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Just so you would know, because you wanna help and learn and grow and not just say, well, they're going to get babysat.
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One of the things that I wanted my children to do and Kim did as well, is we wanted them to learn what do the
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Ebendroth's do on Sunday. So a lot of times it was you stay by mom and dad, we're talking to people, we're interacting with people.
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If you wanna interrupt me, especially when you were little, you'd put your hand on my thigh, right? Dad, I'm here,
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I have a question, but don't interrupt me right now. Kim did this really well, giving assignments to the kids every
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Sunday. Some of the assignments would be, Luke, if you see a grandma in the handicapped park spot out there,
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I want you to go out there, open up the door, how are you today? Put your arm out, bring them in. The girls were given assignments.
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If you see a visitor, you go talk to that visitor afterwards. Almost everything we did was mirroring what
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Kim and I did. When you see me on Sunday, for most of you that are members here, you don't get to talk to me much on Sunday because I'm talking to the visitors.
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And if you need to talk with me, fine, call me or we'll talk if there's emergency. We were trying to get them to watch us interact.
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After the service, sometimes it would be, all right, kids, we want you to go around and put the hymnals back, pick up the trash, see how you could serve.
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That was something we did probably every single week. And we never let the kids say, you know what,
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I'm too shy to do it. I don't know how many times, maybe some of your kids have done this, where I'm at the door.
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Remember pre -COVID where a pastor stood at the door, just waiting to have everybody say, that was a great sermon, you're awesome.
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No, I'm standing at the door. I mean, do you stand at the door or don't you? I'm not standing there for compliments, but sometimes
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I don't get to see folks like Frank, Frank, Fred and Maxine. Oh, Frank and Maxine.
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But sometimes the children would say, the parents would say, say hi to Pastor Mike. They put their head down and they wouldn't say it.
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And then the parents would say, oh, they're just what? Shy. I'm like, they're not shy, they're disobedient.
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They just have been given a command, look at Pastor Mike and say hi. How hard is that? I'm not asking a two month old to do it.
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Say hi to Pastor Mike. No, I won't do it. You know, they're shy. So we wanted to make sure that everyone, every one of our children would watch us.
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How do we act on a Sunday? And again, we're far from perfect, but on our best days, this is how you act in a local church.
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You're there to serve, you're there to interact. You're there to say hello, come alongside and encourage. I hope you are telling your children when they go to a
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Sunday school to respect the teachers. There are, Anthony, when's the last time you were teaching a class?
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And you're retired now for what, a decade? Four years, okay.
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Do you think the kids were becoming more respectful as the years went on or less respectful? Okay. Well, you know what?
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I think that was a good answer, so I have my last gift I'm gonna give away. And this is something that I really hate to part with because I've actually used this before.
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This is a special comforter when it gets really cold in here. When Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom.
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There you go. That was great. Yeah, because we're trying to get rid of all our junk yesterday, nobody took it.
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Actually, somebody here gave it to me. Some Bill Kant, kind of Christoforo kind of guy or something.
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Yeah. Check one, two. All right. For the sake of the recording, just prep your children.
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We sing. And by the way, this is leading into another question, so I'll just, might as well talk about it now.
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One of the best things you can do to prepare your children for worship services is to have family worship services, right?
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And you don't have to do it every single night, like it's a legalistic thing. When the kids were little, we would sit around the table.
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And I didn't know what to do because I thought Kim knows more about the Bible than I do. I'm a brand new Christian, and what are we gonna do for a family
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Bible time? I had no idea what to do, which lends me to recommend this book that we've got a bunch of in the back,
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Be Thou My Vision, Jonathan Gibson, he goes by Johnny, a liturgy for daily worship.
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And so for 31 days, if you're a dad and you have no idea what to do, if I were you,
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I'd just read Exodus, talk to your children about sin and the Savior, sing a song or two and pray, make it simple, few minutes.
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But as the kids grow up and get older, you can use this great formatted guide in here and here's the guide.
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There's a call to worship with scripture reading, adoration where you pray or sing a praise to God, reading of the law, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, read something from the creed, praise, a catechism question, prayer for illumination, scripture reading, prayer of intercession, petition,
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Lord's prayer. You don't have to do every one of those. I just would happy if you all sat down and sat around the dinner table.
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And usually it was Kim's job to keep the kids from throwing food and all that.
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And it was my job to try to teach them something about the Lord. So the kids were used to, when it's singing time in the family, we sing.
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I just wanna make sure, and I sit on the front for lots of reasons. One is in case you're doing any kind of charismatic mumbo jumbo,
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I can't see it. Number two, that's just closer to the pulpit, but I think you better have your kids sing.
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If it was my kids, I'm not even asking you, Abendroffs sing. And by the way, you say, well, they're not
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Christians yet. Well, what are we doing in a lot of parenting? We're teaching the children the skeleton, the structure of how to do things.
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So then if the Lord does save them, they just slip right into that. Oh, we sing.
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And now what a joy it is for me to be with my family and sing and hear Luke and Maddie and Gracie and Haley and Kim sing.
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It's really, really wonderful. So what do the Abendroffs do? We're trying to figure out coaching the children on the way there, praising them on the way back.
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How do we do things? What do we do? We want them to figure out. This is what Christians do at the worship service.
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Okay, comments or questions about that? Yes. Yes. Okay, well, ask the question again for the sake of recording.
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What do you do if a child's disobedient when it comes to singing or whatever it might be? Well, I think there are ways we can try to help them obey, right, to make it easy for them to obey.
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I know children aren't dogs, but if you're training a dog, there's ways that you can make it really hard for the dog to figure it out and easy.
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And so how much more for an image bearer of the Lord, how do we make it easy for a kid to obey?
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I think one of the best things we can do to start off with is model, right?
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Children love to imitate their parents. And so even here we have somebody, I'm glad flipping through the
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Bible, trying to see what the Bible is. Mom and dad bring their Bible. I bring my Bible. Mom and dad sing.
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I sing. But our children know if you're gonna disobey, there are consequences. And I'm going to enforce those consequences.
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And so we might not do it at church, but when we get home, we'll have a good discussion. Here's what we're expecting.
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It's not that hard. It's good to sing. It's fun to sing. We like to sing. And so if daddy says sing, that means you're gonna sing.
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And if you're not gonna sing, there's gonna be a consequence. And so that consequence needs, I don't mean physically necessarily, because when the kids get older, it might not work as much, but it needs to hurt.
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It needs, I'm going to lose something if I don't make this happen, right?
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You have two older teenagers, and I'll address this a little bit later as well. And they've been told to reconcile and they're not reconciling.
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And so what do you do with teenagers that won't reconcile? If they're not going to do what dad says, mom and dad says at home, there's gonna be consequences.
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And it's gonna be painful because I'm trying to teach them. If you disobey the Lord, there's pain because what the fruit of disobedience down the line is, ultimate pain,
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I'm trying to save you from that. So if I had a kid and I looked down there and I said, we're singing. And I always think of Sinclair Ferguson that says, pretend you're holding the hymnal with Jesus.
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Would you sing? Oh, Jesus, that voice you gave me is not too good. I mean, I'm sure people that sit by me when
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I sing on Sunday morning are thinking that dude can't sing at all. And he's just belting it out. I think, well,
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I just, this is the voice I have. So I'm gonna sing. We're all gonna sing today. Let's practice at home. Let's go around the dinner table.
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You know what I do with Kim? Not with Kim, with Kim at my side and with the kids to get them to know how to sing,
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I'd say, all right, everybody gets to pick their favorite song. Oh, we wanna pick this song. Then we sing. Some nights
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I'd say, Luke, I want you to stand on the chair in the kitchen around the table.
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And I want you to sing Immortal Invisible, a stanza of that. And he'd just get up and sing it. And we're like, yes, way to go.
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Maddie, I want you to do such and such. And we just would try to teach them. This is what you do. This is the enthusiastic praise, but you're 50 pounds and you're gonna disobey me and not sing when
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I know you can sing. There are gonna be some serious consequences and everything that you love and all your fun time and play time and iPad time and all that stuff is gone.
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And so that's what I would do. Okay, I'm sorry, I don't have a gag gift for you.
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Oh, well. All right, next, any other questions?
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All right, next, what's the purpose of BBC's preschool and nursery?
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What's the purpose? Well, one of the things that we wanna do is, especially when the kids are in junior church, preschool, nursery, we're training them to sit with the parents.
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The goal is to get your children to sit with the parents. I don't think we have junior church now, but if we do open up junior church again, it's going to be a junior church.
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There's going to be a reading time, a prayer time, a giving time. Goldfish is not in lieu of the
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Lord's supper, but it's just a little snack and we'll do that instead. There'll be a Bible teaching time, et cetera.
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So we're trying to prepare them to sit here. I want Sunday school teachers, if you would, and you are teaching
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Sunday school or if you're gonna teach junior church, I want you to be able to say to the parents, your kids did such a great job, they're ready to sit through the worship service.
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While I don't like cell phones with Kenny Loggins ringtones, I don't mind children laughing, children crying, children making squeaking noises and any other kind of noise.
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I want them in the worship service. There used to say, the Puritans used to say, if you'd like to damn your children, send them to Sunday school.
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Not the Sunday school hour, but during the worship service. Because how do people get saved? By sitting underneath the word of God, preached, learning.
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And so we don't send our kids off. Our student, I mean, our teachers understand, let's teach them the gospel and not just moralism, but they need to be with you as a family to worship.
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And again, if you say to me, yeah, but they're not even regenerate yet. Well, okay, but this is what we do.
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The Abendroth is a family, we worship, everybody's together, this is what we do. Sometimes I think people think preschool is to babysit.
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And if they're tiny, of course, I understand that. Junior church, oh, it's babysit. We would have junior church for one reason at this church, if we ever get it back.
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And that is if a single mom, new Christian dad, they need to listen.
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Maybe they're not even a believer yet. They need to sit and listen. Oxygen mask comes down for them first.
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Let their kid that's going crazy, run around in junior church. Then once the parent knows a little bit more, then we bring the children in.
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That's the only reason we would do it as an accommodation, not because we wanna babysit your kids. I want your kids here.
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And so what do you do with a kid? You think, okay, 45 minutes. How can they sit through something for 45 minutes?
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Well, you can give them a little coloring book. You can ask, what are the key words that pastor's gonna say? He's gonna say one, seven times.
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He's gonna say Jesus a lot. You're writing down the tick marks for our family. You would get for every three good sermon notes, you'd get money.
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Bribing kids with money for spiritual purposes. I know, but we would do that because money motivates.
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And I'm thinking, yes, you can do that. I don't care if they have snacks, if they wanna color, they've got the Bible open, they're following along.
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What do you think pastor Mike's gonna teach? What's he gonna say? Helping them sit and listen. And by the way, that starts at home because kids don't normally sit for an hour unless they have a video game and they can sit for 18 hours.
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They know you have to eat. Kids don't have ADD necessarily. They just have selective attention.
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Every kid can sit for a long time to play a video game. So what do you do? We would regularly put our kids on the couch and we would say, it's reading time.
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Everybody, do you have to go to the bathroom? Nope, everybody's gone. Okay, fine. You're gonna sit on the couch and you are gonna read.
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Start with five minutes, go up to 30 minutes, up to 60 minutes, and it's reading time.
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I knew a guy that used to have his kids, they had to sit on the couch with nothing. He called it boring time. And you just have to learn how to sit.
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If there's somebody bleeding, you can say, dad, mom, and come get us. But if not, you just sit there with your book and you learn how to read for an hour.
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Little tiny kids, older kids. And then what does dad and mom get to do? Oh, I go take a nap, that's what
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I do. I go read, right? And so we're teaching the children to sit through a service.
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Your worship services at home with your children are teaching your children to sit through the worship service.
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So yes, okay, perfect. To help them, this is what we referred to earlier, trying to help the kid obey, right?
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And then she gets the blanket. Anthony just bequeathed his blanket to his wife.
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That's all in the family. Okay, I like that. I hope you say thank you to the nursery workers and preschool and sunny school teachers because they wanna teach your children.
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And I hope you ask them, I said this before, but I'll say it again. Ask them, how did my son do? How did my daughter do?
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And you can go back and forth on rating scales, but we're trying to just get them ready to be with you in the local church service.
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Okay, sound good? And number five, here's a good one. I'll read what was sent to me, then we'll talk about it.
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And this will certainly fall into the grandfatherly wisdom of my opinion.
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Here's what it was written. I was shocked to find out the vast majority of BBC parents co -sleep.
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All I see is danger, codependence, putting your child between your marriage. You might not want to address this though, because you'll likely lose 90 % of your congregation.
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We do need more seats open, so more parking spaces. I did a little history on co -sleeping.
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That is having your children sleep in bed with you all the time. I mean, certainly there were times for Kim and I that if somebody's got a bad dream or they were really sick, dad's out of town.
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So he's out of town for four nights. So each kid gets a time with mom to sleep. Okay, I understand that.
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But here I read about the history of infant sleep. Did I offend you, Paige? Just kidding.
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She's like, there's no way I'm gonna hear this co -sleep stuff. Oh yes, because yeah, they want to.
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I read this one article and it said things like, "'Sleeping next to your child should instinctively "'be the most natural way for parents and babies to sleep.
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"'It's only in recent history that mothers "'in the relatively small Western industrial world "'have had the dubious luxury to ask two basic questions.
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"'How will my baby be fed and where will my baby sleep?' In other words, they were always breastfed and they always slept with the mom and dad.
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They said, "'Western fear of bed -sharing "'can be traced back to 500 years ago "'in cities like Paris, Munich, and London.'"
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This is what this article said. "'Historians have documented that Catholic priests "'in these cities condemned infants and parents "'sleeping in the same bed after poor women confessed "'to intentionally crushing their babies in bed "'in attempts to control family size.
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"'While this is an interesting historical factor, "'there are many other pertinent cultural factors "'that more directly relate to our current condition.'"
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And you can study co -sleep. I never even knew it was a thing until I got the question. And of course, some might say you could hurt the baby sleeping with them, roll over, or get them tied up in the sheets.
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And other people said, well, maybe there'd be less sudden infant death syndrome if you were in the room with them or they were next to you.
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But my own advice, my own personal take on this. By the way, if you wanna co -sleep with your kids, can
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I give you a Bible verse for that? Second assumptions, third
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Hezekiah. I mean, I don't have a Bible verse, but Kim and I, we never did that because we wanted our children, and we showed them love in lots of different ways, but we wanted our children to be independent.
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We wanted our children to be able to be on their own. We wanted our children to say, do you know what?
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I can trust mom and dad. They're gonna be here. They cry. I mean, we put our kids on schedule feeding.
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We didn't co -sleep. We wanted to teach them that they're welcome family members, but not everything needs to revolve around them, including sleeping with dad and mom.
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Sometimes I think to myself, I don't know how co -sleepers have more kids than they do. I thought like you have one kid and you do a lot of co -sleeping.
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I don't know how you actually have more kids than that, but I guess that happens. What? This is like a children's parenting thing here.
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This is like PG. So I just, we just never did that.
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We wanted to make sure the children were welcome in our home. They were welcome to be there, but I have a friend, for instance, nobody in this room, and they stayed at our home and they said, you know what?
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We have to put down our two -year -old. And I'm thinking it's like 45 minutes. Where are you? This is the guy, my friend.
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And so every night he takes his shirt off, the man does, and he lets his toddler fall asleep on his chest, and then he slowly takes him off and then lays him down.
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And the kid can't fall asleep without falling asleep on dad's chest. You can do it if you want, but I just have other, you know, to be frank, in New England -ish,
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I just have other things to do in life than to put my kid down like that every single time. When they're sick,
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I get it. You know, I remember one time when Luke was sick and he was throwing up everywhere.
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And Kim, you know, she has to nurse, so I try to come alongside and do some things like clean up, throw up.
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And so I cleaned it all up and there was so much all over. We just took a shower together.
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Luke and I are just taking a shower. I get him all wiped off, all ready, all settled. I'm out there just holding him, thinking
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I'm just gonna let him fall asleep on my chest and I'm breathing, he's breathing, he's sick. And you know, that kind of stuff, obviously, but every single night, and by the way, we were by the fireplace and all cleaned up, new clothes, everything, four in the morning, laying there sleeping.
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I just felt some hot, wet going down my back. Like there it was again, a hot, wet oatmeal something.
29:54
That was awful. You can do whatever you want, but I think maybe that if you're a co -sleeper, you might consider, all right, maybe this would be a tact that we could approach it.
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One day, all your children will be gone and they'll move out. Husband and wife, they're the center.
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Matter of fact, I learned early on at Grace Church that when daddy comes home, he hugs mom first to say, you know what?
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I hug mom first. I love mom. Every kid wants to know mom and dad love each other. So I'd always hug him first.
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And the kids were clamoring to see dad. And I'd always hug her first. And then inevitably, as I would hold her for a long time, the kids would try to get in the
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Abendroth hug sandwich and they wanted the attention, but I wanted them to know you're safe and secure because dad loves mom.
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And so I always set that up, that this is the relationship. And soon enough, Maddie's gonna be gone and we will in fact be empty nesters.
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And I don't know what we're gonna do then. Ballroom dance on Thursday night. Hug sandwich.
31:03
First over here, now here. Wow. Anybody have a comment about co -sleeping?
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I have nothing dogmatic to say. I just think for me, I have other things to do. I finally get to put the child down.
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They can fall asleep on their own. Put the children down anytime, any place they fall asleep. And then
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I can relax. I don't have to worry about rolling over on them. And I'm just, if you asked me what we did, we didn't co -sleep.
31:32
If you wanna sleep, co -sleep, I guess you can. Steve, do you have any comments on co -sleep? I just wonder, like you said, how would you have, you could have more kids, but then you say, okay, it's time for you to move out so we can bring in, you know.
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The next one. Well, yeah, and what does it say about the older kids? Right, they're eight. Daddy, do I ever get a co -sleep?
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Yes, you do. You did. And now your turn's over because I'm doing that with the infant. If you wanna co -sleep, you can.
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This is not some big issue. This is not like Ephesians 4, 8, what does it mean? But I just think, for me,
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I'm trying to let the child know, no problem. You're fed, you're burped, you're clean, and I can lay you down and you can sleep.
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It's the same reasons we schedule fed the kids, too. And if you cry a little bit, you cry a little bit. And after a while, you don't cry, you just go to sleep.
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I put you in bed, you go to sleep. I'll be there in the morning, like clockwork. Anybody have co -sleep?
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Yes, Charlie, co -sleeper. Nope. Yes ,ısı
32:42
Does somebody have a blanket for Charlie? And by the way, good comments.
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And this is one of the reasons why I love it when Charlie's here, even for the men's purity night. I just turn over the class to you because you have good insight,
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Charlie, I appreciate that. I want my children to learn trust in lots of different ways. I'm gonna take care of you.
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and if you're screaming and you've got a fever or your diaper's wet, we'll take care of you.
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We're there, but everything doesn't revolve around mom and dad. I'm training you, and even when
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I get to this maybe later tonight or the next Q &A, what's a Christian family for? One of the things we're trying to do,
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God has to do the saving, yes, but from our part, we're just teaching and training. This is what a
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Christian looks like. This is what they do. And we can trust in the Lord. Most of the stuff that I read today on CoSleep has a lot of secular psychology background.
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And so, yes, it wasn't practiced very much into the last few centuries, but it was all pushed by this, you know, the second a child peeps, you have to just stop everything and make sure you comfort.
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And that was never our style of parenting. If they peep, I wanna make sure I understand it, but sometimes you're just gonna have to get a grip on yourself.
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And it's amazing what a one -year -old can do in regard to that. So, thank you.
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Yes, Mr. Kranz. Is that past tense?
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Yes, it's past tense. Yes, it is. So, um. Well, thanks for that, Mark. Are you a deacon?
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I was. Remember when waterbeds were big?
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It'd probably be bad to co -sleep with a waterbed. And probably the same thing can happen with, see,
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I'm thinking, Mark, in my mind, I am gonna get more sleep if the kid's not there because I'm thinking, well,
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I'm just gonna shut the door and then I can't sleep. But I understand. I don't.
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I'm just trying to think of something funny to say. Did you wanna say something, babe? Well, I was gonna say that. Let's try it. I think co -sleeping is negative and wrong.
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I'm just kidding. No, no, no, no. He wasn't. He wasn't. Okay. Well, and you think about a big picture, people can have strong opinions, but it's one more thing in the church where we need to make sure, okay, public school, private school, homeschool, music, birth control, politics, masks.
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I mean, there's so many things we can divide on. And so if you were my kids,
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I would probably say this is what I would do if I were you, but it's your house. Mark's in charge.
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You're wrong. He's coming after Mark anyway, the Lord. So you just duck, babe. That's all. Okay, yes.
35:42
I have a lot of more questions, so I don't want too many more on co -sleep. Because when I first heard the word co -sleep,
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I thought it's when a man and a woman are staying pure. They said, I do. They finally get a co -sleep.
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I'm like, I'm pro -co -sleep. I agree. The motivation is the key. And my guess is we won't lose one family because of co -sleeping.
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You think? You guys staying? I hope not. I just said
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I wouldn't do it. Well, that was a joke to say. Give him the merry blanket.
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Yeah, Charlie. Good, thank you. And to show my magnanimity,
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I have this special book that I'm gonna gift to the co -sleepers. Oh, okay.
36:44
As seemed best to them, right? In Hebrews chapter 12. Yeah, good. Okay, next.
36:50
What about teen dating? I got a question. What about teen dating? This is easy.
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Don't. Okay, this is another one of those things where you think, all right, well,
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Mike, where are your verses? I don't have verses. This is just wisdom. In our family, no dating until the man in the relationship is able to provide for the woman, right?
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So you'd say, well, I remember somebody said, could I go out with Haley? And I said, well, let's have a coffee.
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And so I said, well, tell me about your job and tell me about your health insurance and your co -pays. And they said, well,
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I don't have any. I'm a camp counselor. I said, well, usually when people date, then it leads somewhere and then you get married and then you have to provide.
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For us in our family, there just wasn't any reason to date. There's reason to go out in groups, but there was no reason to date unless you were able to get married because several reasons.
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One is when you start dating and you start liking the person, you want to be close to them.
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They're essentially, that is teenagers, adults in, you know, they're not very old, but they're in adult bodies and things can lead to, you can do,
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I can't talk. I wrote a book on sexual fidelity. I should be able to talk about it.
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So we never let our kids date until they were ready to get married. I've even said to people in this room before, do you know what?
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I'll officiate your wedding as long as you have a job. I don't know too many. There are a few.
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I don't know when Andrew got or got his job, but he was pretty young who has a full -time job, has a house for rent, full -time job, full -time benefits, et cetera.
38:37
So in terms of if you're 19 or whatever, that's different. But 14 -year -olds dating, we would not let our 14 -year -olds date.
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There's ways to get to know people, interact, everything else. One of my pet peeves is when people are 15, 16, they're dating and then they're sitting next to each other in a worship service like they're a couple.
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They're not even with their family, arms around each other, et cetera. I think that's, I'm not going to condemn you, but I'm just gonna say that's not very wise.
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And so for us and our family, we wanted to expose our children to, okay, this is how the opposite sex, this is who they are, that's how they do things.
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There are certain ways we can get to know them. But in terms of dating, if dating's saying, here's the keys, go out to a drive -in movie, we would never allow that.
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Here are the keys, go do something, you're a couple. We would never allow that. I just think 16, especially in our day and age, not like sailing the seven seas, they're 16 years old, they can barely drive, they don't know hardly anything.
39:35
No offense to the 16 -year -olds here. Steve, did you have any comments on teen dating?
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I just think it's very unwise. Maybe they want to, but for the Ebendroths, I'm in charge, there's no dating, but I'll make up for it in other ways.
39:51
Well, by definition, a 16 or 17 -year -old is still immature, and if they're a Christian, they're still an immature
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Christian. So we would regularly tell our kids, try to become, by the grace of God, a person that some other mature, godly person would want to marry.
40:06
And I don't think you're gonna see that. I mean, a century ago, yes, or two centuries ago, but not now. 16 -year -olds and 17 -year -olds.
40:14
Yeah, well, a lot of these young men are stunted, right? I think about my daughters, they think, you know what? They don't wanna marry some soy latte boy, and so they want somebody in the military who, in the old days, would have to be masculine, now it's all about diversity and inclusion, or a cowboy, right?
40:33
Somebody who, you know, we're the masculine men anymore, and as porn is to adults,
40:38
I think excessive video games is to young people, especially men, sucking that in, sucking them into that world where they're not learning, they're not growing, they don't have jobs, they don't have these things.
40:48
And so, just for our family, we don't let our kids stay teen dating. If you let your kids teen date,
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I hope you're involved, I hope you're asking questions, I hope you're talking to the young man, I hope you're dealing with that.
41:00
I have so many questions, we're about out of time, let me maybe do one last one. Adult children at home want to drink alcohol when the parents don't drink.
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That was how it was phrased. There are adult children at home who want to drink alcohol, but the parents don't drink.
41:17
And so, my first comment was gonna be adult children at home, oh, well, that's interesting, but there are reasons that could happen, right,
41:27
Maddie? I mean, I don't charge Maddie rent, but if Luke was at home, he would have to be paying rent.
41:34
It's in the Ebenroth household, the young man has to pay rent. If he's living at home, the young ladies, they don't have to, it's my pleasure to have them here, yes?
41:42
When they see fiction. That's all
41:48
I have. But I'm just thinking, here's what we try to do as parents. So when Luke, for instance, would say, dad,
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I think we should do these things at home this way, I think this is the way you should run the house, I think we should do this, that, and the other, dad, why are you doing this?
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And I would say to Luke, listen, I love it that you're aggressive, I love it that you wanna be in charge, you are showing masculine leadership, way to go,
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I like that, I was trying to fan the flames, but in this house, there's only one big dog, and it's me.
42:18
That motivation you should have is to try to get out and say, you know what, I'll have my own place, because when you have your own place, if you'd like to drink, not to drunkenness, but you'd like to drink at your liberty, guess what?
42:30
If I went home and my mom and dad were alive and somehow I wanted to drink in front of them, but I know my dad and mom didn't drink,
42:36
I wouldn't drink. If I was an adult child at my parents' home and they said, we don't drink, we don't want you to drink, and they say,
42:44
I wanna drink, I go, well, that's fine by you. But the answer is no, because I don't want alcohol in my house, if that's the case.
42:52
And so that's simple. If you're gonna be in charge and you pay the rent, well, go ahead and have a glass of wine.
43:02
But if not, so I think that's, you know,
43:07
I think parents still need to parent and it's your home. Okay, it's 6 .30, I've got questions on how do
43:13
I introduce a gospel to my baby for the first time? What if moms and dad disagree on something?
43:21
I just guess I will say this, I rarely, I think Kim said that I did this before, but I don't think
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I've ever said to Kim, you have to submit. Have I ever said that, Kim? Maybe joking,
43:33
I said it. But I never tried to throw my weight around. And about 10 years ago, there was a lot more weight to throw around.
43:40
I think I was 245 or something at the time. Why did some of you not just say, pastor, you're fat?
43:46
Why didn't you just do it? I mean, that's for love. We're to build up the body. But anyway,
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I think the best leadership isn't saying, you know what, you submit because in fact, the
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Bible's telling them to submit. The Bible's not saying I have to enforce the submission. I think we have to be very, very careful when it comes to throwing around, you submit.
44:11
Older teens, how do they restore one another? I just don't have time. I said I would do it in an hour, and it's been an hour.
44:17
Last question, any questions? What if teens date, get married, have children at teens, and have their co -sleeping with their children?
44:34
What would you say? And they want to have a glass of wine at night, but their parents whom they live with because they're still teens say no.
44:46
What would you say to that? Uh -huh,
44:53
I know. I think we'll do another one of these in a couple of weeks. I have to see my schedule.
44:59
Next week, I will be here. Then I'm gonna go to the Shepherds Conference for a week, but we might as well just continue this because some of you maybe came to hear me answer your question, and I didn't do it.
45:08
So I'm sorry for that, but I just only have so much time. We have ice cream, is that true?
45:17
Okay, let's see if we have. Kim, would you check? Would you please submit to me? We have ice cream, okay, half gallons, okay, good.
45:32
By the way, if you have questions about parenting, you can always ask people, but why don't you, here's my final exhortation.
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Why don't you see people at church that you like their marriage, that you like their kids, and you could pick their brain too?
45:49
Remember, grace is such a wonderful thing. I'm not an expert in everything.
45:55
People think pastors must be experts in communication, finance, parenting, advice at work, everything else.
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I'm not an expert. I'll try to tell you what the Bible says. I should be an expert in that, but there's lots of people that I just think,
46:09
I love, for instance, Lewis and Dallas. How do they treat each other? Well, if they treat each other well,
46:16
I bet you they've got some insights on parenting. Pastor Steve opens the door for Janet. Wherever they go, he opens the door.
46:23
Never says anything about Janet, except she's a great cook, and she's this, and she's that, and you go. Anybody that treats their spouse like that probably has some insight, because to finish off what
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I said, the best parents are the best Christians. And so, anyway. Aren't you glad for the grace of God raising kids?
46:40
What would we do? All right, may the Lord bless you and keep you. You are dismissed.