July 25, 2018 Show with Nancy Snyder on “The Gospel for Moving Targets: Helping Active Children Grow in Grace”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 25th day of July 2018.

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I'm so delighted to have on the program for the very first time a fellow

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Pennsylvanian, Nancy Snyder, and Nancy, until very recently before retiring from this specific post at Logos Academy in York, Pennsylvania, she was the

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K through 12 student support services coordinator at Logos Academy with experience as a homeschooling parent of four sons, an interpreter of conferences, and translator of seminary courses for deaf pastors, and today she's going to be discussing the gospel for moving targets, helping active children grow in grace, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Nancy Snyder.

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Thank you so much Chris. And I'm going to give our email address right now for our listeners who may have a question about helping active children grow in grace, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com, that's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

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Please, as always, make sure that you give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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As you may know, Nancy, when I have a first -time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I usually have them begin by giving their own personal testimony of salvation.

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If you could provide for us a little bit of background as to the religion of your youth, if any, if there was any kind of religion at all in your household while being raised as a child, and what the providential circumstances our sovereign lord brought about in your life that drew you to himself and eventually saved you.

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Sure, my pleasure. So growing up, my father would drop me off at Sunday school while my parents recovered from their

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Saturday nights, and God used that to develop in me some rudimentary faith that the

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Bible was God's word and God was my father in heaven. And then when

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I was entering high school, my sister invited me to Young Life, and I tried to weep a little bit, but one night it was at our home, and so it was there that I heard the gospel for the first time, and God used that to bring me to Christ.

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However, what I understood at that time was that Christ covered the sin of my past, and I, you know, in my sinful pride or self -dependence,

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I thought that now that I had the Bible, it was up to me to obey God and try as I might.

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That just didn't work out that well. And further complicating things, when

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I wanted to become a member of the church where my dad had dropped me off when I was a child, they asked me what

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I believed, and I said something very unshaped about how I believed

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Jesus was God, and he was the Savior, and the Bible was God's word, and the minister said, oh, you'll outgrow those childish notions.

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So, it took quite some time of, you know, it's hard to understand when you're steeped in Scripture, but as somebody who wasn't, it took quite some time of reading the

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Bible before I understood that it was possible to be a Christian and go to church, and be a member of a church.

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And I am indebted to people all along the way who discipled me, I'm indebted to a friend who invited us to a strong church where I did hear the gospel, but still didn't quite understand the richness of what

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Christ worked for his people on the cross. And so, one day we had a sermon response class, and the sermon had mentioned something about us being righteous in God's sight, and I, in a moment of uncharacteristic boldness, raised my hand and said,

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I don't understand how God can see me as righteous, because I'm not. And the pastor, knowing

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I'd been a Christian for, you know, a number of years, said, well, of course, it doesn't make any sense unless you understand double imputation, and I thought, wow,

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I don't get it. And this was back in the day before you could get on websites and search for words in the

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Bible, so I did what I always did when I was facing something, I just read the Bible cover to cover, and I wrote down on many pieces of paper everything it said about all those rich words of salvation, adoption, regeneration, propitiation, and our pastor's wife and our pastor's daughter were wonderful teachers of women, and I followed them around everywhere as they taught the

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Gospel until I really began to understand what it meant, minute by minute, to live out of the righteousness of Christ by faith united with Christ, and that was, of course, a game -changer, and then

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I began to see it everywhere. I felt like I'd been lightning on the biggest secret of the world, but there it was. It was in the

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Christmas carols, it was in poetry, it was in literature, it was everywhere, and God, in His mercy, opened my eyes to it.

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Amen. You know, you said something interesting about the Gospel being in Christmas carols.

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When I was a new Christian in the 1980s, I was sitting in an easy chair during the

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Christmas season, and I saw a Christmas special that was being televised by, hosted by Neil Diamond, and I remember, and in fact, if I'm not mistaken,

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I think the Church of Scientology choir was singing Christmas carols, or singing his backup, and I remember how infuriated

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I was initially. I was a cage -stage Calvinist at the time, and I was thinking, how dare they sing our hymns of Christ's birth, and then all of a sudden, it dawned on me, wow, even the pagans sing praises to Christ, and tell the

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Gospel story, even if they're unconscious of it, at least one time a year during the Christmas season, and I saw

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God's sovereign hand in even that occurring, which initially got me angry.

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I started to rejoice over it. Right, right. Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth, you know, hark the herald, it's all over the

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Christmas carols. Amen, and he was also singing segments from Handel's Messiah, and it was just, oh wow, and I actually happen to like Neil Diamond.

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I actually saw him in concert at Madison Square Garden, but when I was hearing him as a new

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Christian singing Christian music, it upset me, but as I said, the Lord took care of that.

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Yes, amen. And can you tell us where you are a member, as far as the church, where you and your husband now attend?

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Absolutely. So my husband is the pastor of a deaf church, and that church is in Lancaster.

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It is first deaf Mennonite church. He's the interim pastor.

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We're not Mennonite by background or recent

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Christian tradition, but in the deaf world, you go where people speak your language, and the beloved pastor of that church, in his elderly years, knowing that he was facing his homegoing soon, asked my husband

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Chuck if he would consider pastoring the church, and Chuck just sees this man as a hero in the faith, this man who's now with Christ, and that really moved him, and it's a wonderful group of people.

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We are privileged to be a part of what God is doing among them. Praise God. Can you tell us where you and your husband are at, theologically, yourselves?

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So we are Reformed, so you have to understand that when you interpret, we interpret these theological conferences.

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There are two signs for baptism, for example, depending upon whether you are

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Cato Baptist or Credo Baptist, and so when we are interpreting for, say,

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Mark Depper, we become him and use that sign. When we're interpreting for Lincoln Duncan, we become him and use the sign for infant baptism, and so we are solidly, joyfully in the

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Reformed tradition, but some of the particulars just go back and forth depending on who we interpret for.

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But as far as, I happen to be a Reformed Baptist myself, and where would you be in the Cato -Credo divide?

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So when we were early in our marriage and our first son was born, we were at a church that's now

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PCA. It was OPC, Orthodox Presbyterianist time, and it's since become Presbyterian Church of America, and at the urging of the elders there,

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I took a course at Westminster Seminary on Cato Baptism, and then the elders of our church noticed that there was a

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Reformed Baptist church nearby that had more deaf people than we had at our church, but nobody who could interpret, and so the elders at our

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Reformed Presbyterian Church laid hands on us, prayed for us, and sent us to the

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Reformed Baptist Church, where it was a requirement that I be baptized, even though my parents, who you probably picked up, weren't in the faith.

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Still, they did have me baptized when I was a baby, and so I remember the pastor saying to me, well, you have recently become convinced of Cato Baptism.

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I said, yes, but under my husband's authority, I've been led here, and under the authority of the elders of my church,

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I've been led here, and they said, we just want to know what you're going to say when we tell you that you have to give a testimony for the church when you're going to be baptized again.

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So, having recently come to understand Roman VI as really pivotal in my life,

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I said, well, I'm going to talk about Roman VI, and in my little testimony, and that satisfied them.

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So, what we are there is flexible. Well, praise

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God for that, and I know already that you have a lot of pedigree, as far as I'm concerned, in not only the issue of bringing the gospel to children, but also just your overall theological perspectives, because I know that the ministry that published your book,

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The Gospel for Moving Targets, is Shepherd Press, founded by Ted Tripp, who is a friend of mine and someone whom

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I have interviewed on this program. I've also interviewed his wife, Margie, and I've also interviewed his brother,

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Paul, on this program, and all of them have written wonderful commendations for the show. But I know that I can have complete confidence, knowing of their connection with this work, that there's nothing to fear.

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Yeah, I really appreciate the ministry of Shepherd Press. Shepherding a Child's Heart was a book

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I read every year while raising our four children, which will give you an idea of what kind of challenges we had with our wonderful brood, and I have really appreciated their gospel -centered resources.

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Yeah, speaking of a connection between Pato and Credo, as you may know, we have

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Ted Tripp and Margie, who are Credo Baptists, and Paul, his brother, is a Pato Baptist. Yeah, yeah, and we have also done a translation of the book

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Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand into American Sign Language, so yes, we appreciate the work of both brothers and of Margie as well, who was helpful to me as I worked on the gospel for Moving Targets.

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By the way, is your husband deaf, or is he just extremely gifted and experienced with sign language?

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He is very gifted. He's hearing, and he did not... Some of the best interpreters are people who grew up with this language because their parents or a sibling were deaf, but Chuck did not meet deaf children until he graduated from college.

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He was thinking that he was applying for full -time jobs, and in God's providence,

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Chuck accidentally applied to camp, and the camp got his application the day one of their counselors had to leave, and at this camp, so they brought him in for just three weeks, so at this camp, he met deaf children.

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He took the job because he was working with a group of intellectually disabled children that was...

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We were engaged at that point. He wanted to understand more about what I was going to be spending my life doing in special ed, but again, in God's providence, he met deaf children at that camp.

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He actually taught them theater during the day, and he was with his cabin full of children at night, and he was just taken with these spunky, sparkly kids, and their language began learning the language from a book, which is a bad way to learn any language, let alone one that is not written, and it's three -dimensional, but there weren't many classes at that time, so he began learning from a book and then got a job at Pennsylvania School for the

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Deaf, where he was taking care of teenage deaf boys during breakfast, lunch, and three in the afternoon until 11 at night.

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We got married over Thanksgiving break when I wrapped up my student teaching, and he was on break, and his wait after our honeymoon, our one -week honeymoon, they hired me, and together,

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Chuck and I had 25 teenage deaf boys to take care of. So that was our training ground.

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Those kids who are now, of course, adults were the ones who really taught us the language.

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Now, I know that you're no longer with Logos Academy. You were until very recently.

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The K -12 Student Support Services Coordinator, and could you, even though you're not with them anymore, let us know about that academy, since it is in my new home state of Pennsylvania, and we have listeners all over the world, but we do have a number in Pennsylvania that might be looking for a good

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Christian school. They might be in that area, and I understand it's also of a classical Christian background as far as the nature of the school?

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That's right. So what God is doing at Logos is so special. Logos is a classical school, but you probably know that the classical school movement is, for the most part, upper middle class or upper class white culture phenomenon.

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Right. But at Logos, Logos was started 20 years ago to bring hope to families of York City, and one of the founders heard a report, a news report, about an urban child, if I remember correctly, maybe it was a child in Chicago who lived in a housing project and dropped another child out the window to see what would happen.

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Of course, killing that child, and she was just grieved and thought God about what she could do to help urban kids not keep throwing away their lives.

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And though she did not have a background in education, she and her, one of her prayer partners who came alongside her and was our co -founder, together these two women started this school.

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And the school has several distinctives. It is culturally diverse, really reflects

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York City. A large

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African -American population, a large Latino population, and as well as some

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Caucasian students, just a great diversity, and a diversity economically.

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When David Rusk, who is, I'm not sure what you would call him, an urban studies scholar, and he gets paid the big bucks to come into cities and give them advice.

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And when he came to York to advise us on what to do with our very troubled city, he said,

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I would have declared York City a city beyond the point of return, except I did that to Chicago and Chicago turned around.

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So he declared York almost at the point of no return. One of the things he said was, what if you, you have such concentrated poverty here in the city where I live, and if you could have these students educated with middle -class peers, that, according to research, is what makes it a difference.

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And the other thing, of course, we know according to research, is that relationships, mentoring relationships.

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So Logos has a very small class size, no more than 18 students. It is classical, but we have seen that our students bring a very special passion and energy to the classical curriculum.

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For example, urban students here in York City, where we have a very high crime rate, a lot of violence, a lot of gang warfare, they bring a different energy to the

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Iliad than their white, upper middle -class peers do. And so it's, like I said, been in existence for 20 years.

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It is intercultural, culturally diverse. It is Christ -centered. It's different from a lot of Christian schools in that we don't require the students or their families to be

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Christian. So there are a lot of families at our kingdom school who are not yet in the kingdom.

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However, they love their kids, and they want to do right by their kids, and I'm by no means trying to put down our city schools, because there are a lot of people working hard to bring change and do right by the students in our city.

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But, you know, if you've looked at any statistics, the most recent ones

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I saw of 593 school districts in Pennsylvania, our city school district was rated 573rd.

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So it's a very troubled area, and here we have these families for whom we're providing an excellent education, and it really does a lot to lift not just the students, but their families as well.

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Well, praise God. I want to let our listeners know that you can find out more about Logos Academy in York, Pennsylvania at logosyork .org,

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l -o -g -o -s -y -o -r -k .org. I'm also going to put in a plug for the

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Christian school that is a part of the church where I was a member for my entire

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Christian life before moving to Pennsylvania, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, New York in Merrick.

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They have a school that is also a classical Christian school called Grace Christian Academy.

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Their website is g -c -a -l -i for longisland .com, gca for Grace Christian Academy, li for longisland .com.

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There is no official connection between Logos and Grace Christian Academy, they're just both

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Christian and both classical Christian schools. So I just thought

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I'd let the folks know, for those of you who live in the New York area who might want to investigate

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Grace Christian Academy. Well, I'm going to repeat our email address here, it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com, that's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

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If you have a question, we already have several people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but before we go to any of our listeners, why did you write the

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Gospel for Moving Targets? So I have a short answer, maybe later we'll have time for the backstory, but we have four sons, and homeschooled our sons, so I had all day every day to bring the

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Gospel to bear on their lives and teach them what it meant to live out of union with Christ.

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And they were, well, let's put it this way, we had one bathroom all those years, and we had one of our four sons who could brush his teeth in the bathroom with any one of his brothers, any other pairing of two, and it might take an hour to untangle.

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They were the kind of kids who, if you turned your back for a second, I remember the day that two of them were like riding their sleds down the front stairway because they were tired of waiting for snow.

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And in the city wheelhouses, what I'm talking about, the first floor stairs, that's pretty dangerous.

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So they were a highly spirited, rambunctious group, and when

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I began working at Logos, I didn't have all day every day for 18 years, and I needed a way to compress all that Gospel energy, and so I began doing these lessons with students there.

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Also, I'm a biblical counselor, and I began counseling children, and so I had all these lessons just sort of worked out in my head, worked out on scraps of paper, and the basic thrust of the material is in three sections.

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So there's dealing with feelings, teaching children that feelings are a gift from God but have to be used in ways that honor

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Him, and that sort of clears the runway of the heart for these kids who are explosive, you know, the kids who throw the desk because you told them they had to wait for the gold crayon.

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I've been there, yeah. So, and then the middle section is just the Gospel straight up in a hands -on, lively kind of way.

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It's Romans 1 through 8, and it uses mud and puppets and all sorts of fun little things.

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And then the third section, so you can see this corresponds with Ephesians 4. The first is putting off the explosive feelings.

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Not putting off feelings, they're very important, but putting off the wrong responses to our feelings, and then renewing the thinking with the

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Gospel, and then putting on the attitudes and actions that promote attentiveness to help the kids who can't sit still, keep quiet, pay attention.

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How did you come up with the title? It is a humorous title. I mean, it's really kind of a stupid question because it's almost self -explanatory, but the

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Gospel for Moving Targets. And as I worked on this, so what's interesting is, you know, as I taught children how to deal with their feelings,

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I became much more biblical in dealing with my own fears and worries and upsets.

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And as I worked on this, I realized that we're all moving targets. Our hearts are constantly shifting away from the

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Gospel. So it's not just the children, it's their parents, it's their teachers, it's all of us. And we all need to learn to, you know, preach and counsel that Gospel to our shifting hearts.

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Praise God. I want to read two endorsements, because to read all of them would be too time -consuming, because they're very excellent and lengthy endorsements.

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But the two I'm going to read are from two of my modern -day heroes, one who is still with us, one who is in heaven.

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First of all, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who is a teaching fellow, visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, an author of The Whole Christ, The Holy Spirit, and In Christ Alone.

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He is one of my few remaining modern -day heroes that I have not yet interviewed, and I'm hoping that I get the opportunity to interview

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Sinclair. I think Sinclair has an aversion to being interviewed on live radio programs, but he is such a phenomenal preacher and teacher, and he has been a major part of my growing in Christ and learning in Christ since I first got saved in the 1980s by God's mercy.

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But Dr. Sinclair Ferguson says, Nancy Snyder knows what the word rambunctious means.

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She has seen it in action in nurturing her own children. If you are a parent, chances are you have also seen it and wondered how to handle it.

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If so, the Gospel for Moving Targets is just what you need. In fact, this is also a for all families.

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It is full of mature biblical wisdom and a real understanding of how Christian character is formed.

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Anyone who buys the Gospel for Moving Targets to help them love their children will find its teaching transforming them first of all.

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And that, of course, is exactly how God means family life to be. And also the brother that I mentioned who is now in heaven,

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Jerry Bridges, who I did have the opportunity to interview a couple of times, and he wrote a wonderful commendation for this radio program.

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Jerry Bridges, known for his book, The Pursuit of Holiness, and a book that I give away to everyone

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I know who is going through a serious trial, Trusting God Even When Life Hurts. But Jerry Bridges said,

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The Bible is meant to be applied to one's daily life, but how to communicate this to small children is a challenge.

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Nancy Snyder has given us a creative way to do this involving the children in the learning process.

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This book should prove useful to parents, grandparents, and anyone else working with small children.

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Well, we are going to go to our first break right now, and we'll start taking our listener questions. And again, if anybody would like to ask a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

29:23

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

29:28

We'll be right back after these messages with Nancy Snyder and more on the gospel for moving targets, helping active children grow in grace.

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

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Manhattan. You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc

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.nyc. They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarmson at gmail .com.

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34:04

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for the very first time is

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Nancy Snyder, and we are discussing her book, The Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. As always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I can understand a subject like helping active children grow in grace,

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I can understand how that might lead to personal and private messages, questions I should say, if you are asking about your own children and there's some kind of very serious or delicate issue or intimately personal issue that you want to ask.

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So you may feel free to remain anonymous if those are the cases, but other than that, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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And before I go to any of you who are already waiting, I want to ask you, Nancy, are there societal forces making life more challenging for children?

35:14

So life has never been easy for most children, all right?

35:20

There were no children before the fall. Children have only lived in a fallen world, and they've always been vulnerable.

35:28

It wouldn't have been easy to be Abel, of course, or Shem, Ham, and Japheth, or Jacob, Esau, Joseph.

35:35

I mean, you just go through history. You know, I've known that theologically all my Christian life, but I never even thought of it that way until you just said it, that there were no children before the fall.

35:44

Even though I knew that, it struck me in a different way when you just said it. Yes, yes. So children are so vulnerable, and whether it was during the time of enslavement in Egypt, or the wilderness wandering, when they saw all kinds of hard providences, and I mean,

36:03

Roman occupation, Babylonian exile, you just go through history, and you say, and most, throughout most history, and most places of the world, life for children has been very difficult, and it is very difficult for American children right now.

36:18

Not as hard as it is in some places where, you know, we do have malnutrition and hunger here, but not like in some other places where children are displaced by war and violence, and don't have access to healthcare, and are forced into unspeakable horrors, and I just, you know, what

36:40

I know best is my little city here in York, Pennsylvania, and having lived here for almost 30 years, it's a city of much poverty.

36:55

The median household income is $30 ,000. About a quarter of our city speaks a language other than English at home.

37:07

Our high school graduation rate, which they've really worked hard on, and it has improved, it's now up to 73%.

37:17

Our, you know, our state tests are not showing great results, and last year, in my city of 44 ,000 people, there were 17 murders.

37:29

Okay, so that's a murder rate per 100 ,000 of 39. I mean, of major cities, only like New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, and St.

37:37

Louis are worse than that, so here in my little city, not to mention mental health issues, addiction, incarceration,

37:48

I mean, as student and family support coordinator, that was my role, it was to help our children and families through these things.

37:58

It's just overwhelming what people are facing, and, you know, then you look at the bigger forces, pornography, video games, distracted and overwhelmed parents who were never parented themselves, and, you know, a society that's really lost its biblical mooring.

38:17

Is it any wonder that our kids are in free fall? One of my roles at the school was helping students with high numbers of adverse childhood experiences, you know, being the trauma -informed care person, and, you know, a lot of the research shows that if students who have these high numbers of terribly traumatic experiences go through, you know, they endure changes just in their brain chemistry, but the way out, the way of help and hope is in supportive relationships, so it's a real opportunity for the gospel, and that's what

39:00

I'm trying to do in the gospel for moving targets, is bring the gospel to the lives of vulnerable children. Great.

39:05

If you could, please return to the backstory and why you wrote the book. It has something to do with children and gender, if you don't mind.

39:13

It does. So, one of our sons, let me back up a little bit, we have four sons, two of whom were born in our family and two of whom were adopted.

39:26

We wanted to adopt a deaf child, you know, that's our life, it's in the deaf world, and so we adopted our son who, when he was growing up, we were much more private about his story.

39:39

He has since given me permission. In fact, he said, you can tell anyone because maybe people who hear will adopt children younger and they won't go through what

39:52

I went through, but he came to us at 18 months having gone through, presumably, some trauma.

40:02

However, he was deaf and he had no language, so he had no way to communicate with us.

40:09

At the orphanage, they felt sorry for the poor little deaf boy and they gave him whatever he screamed for, so he did have a very effective scream.

40:19

He had a lot of challenges, you know, the kids who don't bond with the human race, who have attachment problems, a lot of trouble with anxiety, but one of his struggles had to do with gender.

40:40

The kids who think, you know, by the age of four, they're convinced that they're born in the wrong body, and although he had never heard of it, he devised in his own imagination what is referred to as gender reassignment surgery, and I called all over the country.

41:00

I wrote letters, I sent letters to lots of places, and Christian people told me, problems this serious in a child this young, there's nothing you can do about them, and I just was sure there was something in the

41:14

Gospel for our son, and one person who was willing to track with us and did so for years without, you know, being unwilling to take any money from us was

41:32

Larry Krabs, and his encouragement to us was to not see our son as having any sort of wildly unusual problems, just that most men, most boys have some fears of manhood, and just to see him on one end of the continuum, and that turned out to be very helpful advice, and the other thing he told us to do was for Chuck to learn what it meant to be a man by God's design, not a husband, a father, a leader in the

42:12

Church, but a man, and for me to learn what God's design for women was, and for us to live in the beauty and symmetry of that good design, and pray that our son got swept along in that stream, and it took about 15 years, but he is now very, very glad we didn't turn him into a girl, and...

42:35

Of course, I don't think you wouldn't have done that anyway, would you? We wouldn't have, however, it gets a little more confusing than you would expect, because you've got a child who is screaming and crying out his soul pain, and so we knew if he were born with a hole in his physical heart, we would surgically repair it, and it's a little confusing when you face this day after day.

43:00

We had to really ransack the Scripture. We knew it was not what

43:06

God was calling him to, or us to, but we had to search for a strong biblical foundation that was enough to carry us through 15 really difficult years, and what we found by just scratching

43:24

Genesis 1, 2, and 3 until they bled, and what they bled was redemption, and in essence, it boiled down to for us, gender is a gift from the

43:36

King, and it's meant to be lived for His glory, and you and I both know that God does give some gifts that are really hard.

43:44

You've had gifts in your life that have been hard gifts, and so have I, and this was a hard gift in our son's life, but it was a good gift for all of us.

43:52

It taught my husband and I to pray, but like I said, he also had attachment disorder, so we didn't have any ways, you know, no evidence of a conscience for a decade, no, there were not many ways to reach his heart, but art, storytelling reached his heart, so I wrote a book, and the characters were based on him and his brother and a couple other children who were important in our lives, and it takes two of these children who were very broken, and it celebrates their baby but beautiful steps of faith to embrace, to live out their gender, and of course it has these two little foils, the story

44:36

I wrote for him, has these two little foils who just level in their gender, and that's all very gently woven into the background, it's just, you know, it's very gentle in the background, and the book is called

44:49

Lions for Ajax, and Shepherd Press has said that they're going to publish that next. Wow, well

44:55

I've got to have you back to talk about that. Now did you say it was called Lions for Asia? Ajax, Ajax, oh yeah, like in Veliot, but it's just a nickname of one of the children in the book, and so I originally wrote this for our son, and of course it had a very limited audience, our family, and as the gender wars began to swirl around me, and I just,

45:20

I ache for these families, I understand these families who take a five -year -old and change that child's gender presentation,

45:30

I understand why they're doing it, they're in so much pain, and they can't, they feel like they can't bear to see their child in this kind of pain another day, and the professionals are saying to them, if you don't change your child's gender presentation, your child will have a higher likelihood of suicide, well that's a heavy burden to lay on any parent, nobody wants to hear that, and so I just wanted to come alongside them, not to,

45:57

I'm not trying to come down on anybody, I'm just trying to gently open a path that I think is

46:03

God's path to joy for these children and their families, and so I reworked the book to make it so it would be more suitable for a wider audience, and Shepherd Press, I sent it to Shepherd Press, and in the process of trying to get them interested in an untested writer writing on a subject that Christian families don't necessarily even want to acknowledge could actually take place in a

46:31

Christian family that wasn't too popular, I mentioned,

46:38

I have this other curriculum that would be, I think, an easier sell if you'd like to take a look at that, and so that was the

46:46

Gospel for Moving Targets, and I had first written it as a curriculum for a school, and they asked me to rewrite it as more short, lively little lessons for families, and schools, they use it at Logos, but you know, lively little lessons that would be more user -friendly for parents if they want to use it, and so that came first, but it was really this burning passion

47:14

God has put in me to come alongside these families who are struggling with their children in terms of gender that prompted me to take those little lessons that were on a million scraps of paper and formalize them into something usable.

47:28

Now, forgive me for asking you to repeat a couple of the facts here, because first of all, I don't want to derail our main conversation here, but this is so fascinating to me that I wanted to just have a couple of issues clarified.

47:41

How young was your son when he was approaching you with this desire to be a girl? This was before the age of four, which is really classic for gender identity, and I had never heard of it, so you can imagine

47:56

I was pretty taken by surprise, and of course, you know, we felt very alone with it, and you know, it's just, it's a tough issue to face as a family.

48:07

Yeah, I can imagine, and the other question was if you could repeat today, this is 15 years later, did you say?

48:13

Oh, he is now 34 years old, and, but I would have said those years from four to really probably 20 years, four to 20, somewhere around then, were the years of God just gently shaping his gender identity.

48:41

I mean, you just wouldn't believe the videos, if you could see video of him then and now, you would just be staggered by the difference.

48:51

You mean the masculinity now? Yep, yep. And so is he married?

48:57

Does he have children? He is single, and he is, he has been very thoughtful about the issue of marriage, and doesn't see it as out of the question, and is looking at God's timing and calling in that area.

49:21

Okay, but as far as his being very comfortable with the gender that God gave him, that seems to be a thoroughly accomplished gift from God right now in his life.

49:32

Yes, thank God, yep. And well, that's a fascinating story that I definitely want to continue at some other point.

49:40

But before we move on to our other main issue, the gospel for moving targets, do you have any idea,

49:47

I mean, some of this is just speculation, because there is mystery behind this. You have those on one side of the debate amongst

49:56

Christians who say that someone could never be born with that proclivity or inclination.

50:02

Then you have another side which would say that, well, if we are born totally depraved, if we are born with a sin nature, why couldn't that be one of the sins that somebody has a proclivity toward?

50:16

And I used to be on the first category of saying there's no way that a person is born that way.

50:23

But then, when my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries said to me that simple statement, he said, well, if we're born totally depraved, why couldn't that be one of the proclivities that a person has?

50:33

And I just, like, totally brought a different light on the subject. Yeah, yeah.

50:40

And adoption is an area of interest to us.

50:46

And so I've read, one of the books I read was called Identical Strangers, and it's a memoir of twins who were separated and reunited.

50:53

And some of the similarities in these twins, and in one case, at least, triplets, who were separated, grew up separately, it's uncanny.

51:07

I mean, one of the foster mothers said about one of the twins, oh, she's a great eater, she'll eat anything as long as it has cinnamon on it.

51:14

And the other foster mother, not knowing, none of these people knew that these children were children of multiple births, said, oh, she's a terrible eater, she'll only eat something if it has cinnamon on it.

51:28

I mean, reading that book was very eye -opening. There is a lot of mystery when it comes to the environment and genetics, and either way, what it comes down to is the gospel is the answer.

51:40

Amen. And this son was adopted, am I correct? That's right. Right, and so one can only wonder what happened before you adopted him and so on.

51:51

And I want to repeat to our listeners, believing that there is a possibility somebody is born with this kind of proclivity or proclivity or inclination towards homosexuality does not mean that a person believing that believes that that is a license for a person to live that way.

52:09

It's just because, just like there are proclivities that someone may have because of our depraved nature that leads them to kill or steal or any other kind of wicked activity, it doesn't mean that since they are born with a proclivity towards that, that that is acceptable just because they were born that way.

52:26

Right. Right. So I just wanted to make that clear that this is not a discussion on how someone can salve their conscience by moving forward with a certain decision just because they think they were born that way.

52:38

We are going to our midway break right now before we take any of our listener questions. The midway break is longer than our other breaks because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

52:47

FM in Lake City, Florida always requires of us a longer midway break because they air their own commercials in Lake City, Florida and air their own public service announcements and so on.

52:58

So please be patient as we take this elongated break. Use this time to write down questions for our guest

53:05

Nancy Snyder on helping active children grow in grace and also use this time to write down information provided by our advertisers so that you can more successfully and frequently patronize them because the more you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they are to remain as advertisers and their finances are what keep us on the air in addition to the generous support of those of you listening who donate to us regularly and we thank

53:33

God for all of you. But our email address if you have a question for Nancy Snyder is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

53:39

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

53:47

USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with Nancy Snyder.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round Bible conference and retreat center nestled on the

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01:00:29

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

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Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

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Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

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He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy. And currently, his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. My name is

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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.nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio.

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01:05:50

Just have a few special events that we want to highlight before we return to our guest, Nancy Snyder, who is discussing her book,

01:05:58

The Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in God's Grace, or Grow in Grace, I should say.

01:06:04

First of all, we have coming up right around the corner, August 2nd through the 4th, the

01:06:09

Fellowship Conference New England returns to the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine, and the speakers this year at the

01:06:17

Fellowship Conference New England are Pastor Tim Conway of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas, Pastor Mac Tomlinson of the

01:06:26

Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and Pastor Mac is also an author. We have Pastor Jesse Barrington of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, and another author and pastor is

01:06:37

Pastor Nate Pikowitz, and he is pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Ironworks, New Hampshire.

01:06:43

All of these men have been guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and I always thoroughly enjoy interviewing each and every one of them.

01:06:50

If you'd like to attend this conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

01:06:57

and please make sure that you tell the folks at the Fellowship Conference New England that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:07:06

And then coming up in November, November 9th and the 10th, the

01:07:13

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology, and I intend to be there,

01:07:23

God willing, manning an Iron Trip and Zion exhibitors booth once again. I always thoroughly enjoy my times at the

01:07:31

Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology, and the conference speakers, or should

01:07:38

I say, let me start with the theme. The theme this year, this November, is the glory of the cross, and the speakers include

01:07:47

David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

01:07:52

That's November 9th and the 10th, and it will be held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

01:07:59

If you want more details, go to alliancenet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology, and please tell the folks at the

01:08:10

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:08:17

Then coming up in January of 2019, which will be here before you know it, the

01:08:24

G3 conference is being held once again at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia.

01:08:31

I will be there, God willing, also manning an exhibitors booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio. This is my third year in a row being present there at the

01:08:40

G3 conference, which stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory. Actually, they order it

01:08:45

Gospel, Grace, and Glory, and the theme is the mission of God, a biblical understanding of missions.

01:08:52

And I want you to seriously consider not only registering as an attendee of this event, but I strongly urge you to also seriously consider registering for an exhibitors booth, just like I will be manning there,

01:09:10

God willing, because they are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to be there present.

01:09:19

In fact, I'm going to put in a plug for my guest today, Nancy Snyder, that she should have an exhibitors booth there for her book, and perhaps

01:09:29

Shepherd Press should have one there as well. In fact, they might even have one there scheduled, apart from my knowledge.

01:09:38

But this is going to be a really incredible conference, as always. The speakers include Paul Washer, John Piper, Stephen J.

01:09:46

Lawson, whose voice you just heard in a commercial for our new advertiser, New Covenant Church NYC, Vody Balcom, Mark Dever, who our guest just mentioned a little while ago,

01:10:00

Conrad Mbewe, my favorite preacher on the planet Earth, pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

01:10:07

Tim Challies is speaking there. Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you.

01:10:13

Josh Bice, who is the executive director and founder of the G3 Conference and a frequent guest on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

01:10:20

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. Stephen J. Nichols, president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C.

01:10:28

Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many other guests are on that roster. If you want to register, go to g3conference .com,

01:10:36

g3conference .com, and please tell the folks at the G3 Conference that you heard about them from Chris Arnson of Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

01:10:44

Last but not least, I hate doing this, but it's something that needs to be done. I have to beg you for money, as you have been hearing me do every day for months now, and I'm sorry that I may be bugging you, but if you want

01:10:57

Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio to remain on the air and you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to provide for your church and your family, because I never want anybody siphoning money away from providing for their church where they are a member, or putting your family in jeopardy just because you're giving to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

01:11:17

Please don't ever do that, but if you're financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands of providing for church and home, and you love the show and you don't want it to go away, well then please consider going to ironsherpanzironradio .com,

01:11:31

click support, then click click to donate now, and you could donate instantly with a debit or credit card.

01:11:37

You can also mail us a check the old -fashioned way to the address that will appear on the screen when you click support at ironsherpanzironradio .com.

01:11:47

If you want to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:11:52

and put advertising in as long as whatever it is you do is compatible with the theology we express here.

01:11:59

We would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we surely do need the advertising dollars to remain on the air, and you don't have to believe identically with me, just as long as whatever you're promoting is compatible with what

01:12:12

I believe. For instance, you could be a Wesleyan Arminian and have a shoe store that you want to advertise.

01:12:19

That's not going to bother me in the slightest bit. You know what I'm talking about. As long as whatever it is you're promoting does not militate against what we believe here,

01:12:28

I would love to hear from you at chrisarnson at gmail .com. That is also the email where you could send in a question to Nancy Snyder on the gospel for moving targets, helping active children grow in grace.

01:12:40

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and as always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:12:53

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and we would love to hear from you at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:13:05

We have a listener from another author, a colleague of yours in the literary field,

01:13:13

Nancy. She's a very dear friend of mine and has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron radio a number of times.

01:13:20

She is actually a former Mormon who came to a saving knowledge of the true Jesus Christ and true gospel of the scriptures.

01:13:28

Latane C. Scott, Dr. Latane C. Scott, wrote the classic book,

01:13:33

The Mormon Mirage. She says, what is the role of scripture memorization in your ministry, and what have you found to be the most helpful method?

01:13:46

That's a great question. So, scripture memory work is very important, and in this book,

01:13:56

The Gospel for Moving Targets, the place where that comes up is in the central part two, which is the section that corresponds with renewing your mind, and like I said, it goes through Romans one through eight, and with every lesson, there is a verse or two for students and children in a family to memorize, so that by the end of it, they have a little chunk of Romans that they have memorized.

01:14:31

Another place where it comes up is one of the verses that really helped me to understand my union with Christ is

01:14:40

Galatians 2 .20. So, families are asked to memorize that passage, and it also mentions personalizing it, so the family might memorize,

01:14:53

I have been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life for which

01:14:59

I live, and the flesh I live through faith in the Son of God who loved me, and it goes on. But the crux of that is,

01:15:08

I, and children are asked to personalize it in their minds, not in their memory work,

01:15:14

I and my sin of loving myself most have been crucified with Christ, and it's no longer

01:15:19

I and my sin of loving myself most who live, but Christ and his love for God and other people that live in me.

01:15:26

So, that's a really concrete way of helping them understand what it means to put off and put on.

01:15:32

As for method, I've used a lot of different methods, sometimes drawing pictures, sometimes we write it on a board, and like a whiteboard,

01:15:44

I erase a word at a time, so that by the end of it, they can say the whole thing. Really, whatever fun ways you use to memorize it, the most important thing is to keep reviewing it.

01:15:59

So with my children, when they were younger, we reviewed their Bible verses they memorized every day, then when they were a little older, we would review them once a week, when they were older than that, it was once a month, and by the time they were teenagers, really, it was just once a season, and we would do that maybe even in the car, but review is really important, and it's important for me in my personal

01:16:21

Bible memorization work. I swim often, I've got chronic pain and swimming's really great for pain, and my first half mile is spent reciting

01:16:33

Scripture that I've memorized, just reviewing it. And of course, the other big thing, along with reviewing, is applying, and to talk of it.

01:16:43

And as you're going through your day, and the children are struggling with this or that sin, it's the opportune moment to talk about that verse, and how it applies, and turn to God together for power to live out that verse in that situation.

01:17:00

Well, thank you so much, Dr. Latane C. Scott. Look forward to your return to Iron Troupe and Zion Radio.

01:17:07

In fact, she's writing a book right now, Nancy, that might be of great interest to you. She's actually writing a book on how to,

01:17:15

I don't know the exact title, but she's in the process of writing a book on preventing your children from becoming addicted or even being exposed to internet pornography.

01:17:25

Oh, that's a great topic. Yeah, very timely. Yeah, and so, Latane, if you could email me your mailing address in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so that cvbbs .com

01:17:36

can ship you out your free copy of The Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace.

01:17:42

Compliments of our friends at Shepherd Press, and also compliments of our friends at cvbbs .com who are shipping that out at no expense to you or to Iron Troupe and Zion Radio.

01:17:53

We have Gordie in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and Gordie says, My wife homeschools our seven children.

01:18:00

How do you strike a balance between the academic and fostering the children,

01:18:06

I'm sorry, fostering the Christian worldview via the gospel and Christ -like character building?

01:18:14

Yeah, that's a great question. Gordie, right? Yes, that's right. Okay, great.

01:18:21

So one of the things that I think is most important is for the parents, as the leaders in the homeschool, and perhaps in many situations at least, particularly the mom, to delight in God, enjoy

01:18:42

God, and know God, and then make Him known to the children. That's really the crux of the homeschool life.

01:18:53

And as the parents become the kind of people who increasingly, in deep, meaningful ways, know and enjoy

01:19:04

God, they will be the kind of teachers God wants them to be to their children.

01:19:10

So in other words, I think this Hebraic -style discipleship, where you're living the life with your children, is at the very heart of it.

01:19:19

But I also believe that academics are very important, and you know, one of my sons is a mathematician, and another one of my sons teaches

01:19:28

Japanese, and so for all of our sons, their academic preparation in homeschool was really crucial to their becoming the person that God wanted them to be, to fulfill the calling that God has for them.

01:19:51

So one of the ways that we kept that balance was first things first.

01:19:57

The first thing in every homeschool day was our time as a family spent with God.

01:20:04

Time in God's Word, time in prayer, and time in song.

01:20:10

Now, I am not musical. In my former church, there were two families with the last name

01:20:18

Snyder, and one were called the Singing Snyders, and the other were the Signing Snyders. Never the twain shall meet whoever.

01:20:29

We did sing our hearts out to God every day, you know. So, and if you have that time in the

01:20:38

Word, in prayer, and in praise, and then you have time enjoying God's world, and which

01:20:45

I would include in that the rich gifts you've given to us in poetry, and music, and literature, then really the most important thing is that your children become readers, right?

01:21:01

Because, for example, my son who is a mathematician, I couldn't teach him the things he learned, but I did teach him how to read, and then he could run with it.

01:21:12

I certainly couldn't teach Japanese, even learning Spanish, my kids took off way better than I did.

01:21:19

But as long as they can read, they have the tools to learn what

01:21:27

God has for them, and if you can help them learn writing, then they can be very useful in God's Kingdom.

01:21:37

So I would put, I'm beginning to sound like a classical educator here, I know, but I would put a heavy emphasis on those language arts of reading and writing, because you want them to be able to read and understand

01:21:52

God's Word, you want them to read whatever tools they're going to need to fulfill the calling

01:21:57

God has given them, and of course, you know, math is one of the things that, it does come up in everyday life, but you do have to plan for math, okay?

01:22:06

You can't just figure that math is going to happen, and so really, with seven children, if you hit those, the reading, writing, and math every day, and I understand at one point,

01:22:20

I not only have homeschooled our four children, but at various points for various lengths of time, homeschooled nine other students from our city, and so I have had at certain points,

01:22:32

I remember at one point where we had three children I was homeschooling who all had, they were not yet strong readers, and I had to sit down with every one of them, one -on -one, and listen to them read, and read to them, and help them read, and really

01:22:48

I found that I had to plan more for my younger children. I don't know, Gordie, if your family has little ones and older ones, but with seven children,

01:22:58

I'm guessing you do, and well, you can tell by the title, The Gospel for Moving Targets, I really had to plan for the little ones, as much as for the older ones.

01:23:07

In other words, I had to line up activities that I could shift maybe every 15 minutes. I had to set a timer to teach them how to be occupied in our activity for up to 15 minutes, so there is a lot of planning that goes into it.

01:23:24

My husband and I once did a workshop called Homeschooling Amid Chaos, so I understand that even if your children aren't quite as rambunctious as mine, there's just a certain energy level that comes with seven children, so I would say really prayerful planning, especially to keep the younger students occupied while you're working with the older children, and really then just joyfully focus on those priorities of reading, writing, and math, and not worry about the things that you can't do.

01:24:00

There's a passage in Scripture that calls us to count as lost, and in Philippians 3, and every homeschool day, you have to count a lot of things as lost for the gain of Christ, that if you have ended the day gaining

01:24:18

Christ as a family, it's been a great homeschool day. Praise God. Well, Gordie, since you live in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and you're only less than a half hour from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, why don't you just stop by there tomorrow and pick up your free copy of the

01:24:38

Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace to spare CVBBS .com

01:24:45

the mailing expense of shipping that out to you since you're so close, and please let us know if you need it to be shipped out to you, but I think that you'll be able to manage that.

01:24:57

Please say hello to Todd and Patty Jennings of Cumberland Valley Bible Books Service when you stop by there.

01:25:03

We really rely upon their loyalty to make Iron Trip and Zion Radio a successful program.

01:25:10

Let's see here. We have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, and CJ asks,

01:25:21

I have found myself on many occasions with friends and family members who have little children at a dinner table in a restaurant or other public place where the child has been really acting up and being disobedient and making loud noise that is disturbing the other diners in the restaurant or the other people at whatever venue we may be fellowshipping at, and one thing that I have noticed that I personally disagree with, but I was wondering what your opinion is,

01:25:59

I have noticed that sometimes the children have been punished right before the eyes of all who are at the table and sometimes embarrassing the child greatly.

01:26:11

Do you believe that this is appropriate or should a parent always take a child aside for the more severe chastisement?

01:26:21

I'm not talking about light and gentle chastisements, otherwise parents would be constantly leaving the table, but I'm talking about the more serious scolding that may also involve the swat on the bottom, which is another thing that might get you in trouble doing in public.

01:26:38

Yes, CJ, I agree with you that any time you are talking to your child about their sin, you want it to be private, and the only exception

01:26:51

I would see is if, say, you're in your family and your child might defy you in front of the other children, it might be wise,

01:27:01

I think children pick up on this very readily, to make sure that they understand that you are taking that child off for the purpose of loving, restorative discipline, so that your authority is intact, but the child's dignity is also intact.

01:27:25

And I think that we can be friends to such families.

01:27:34

When I go out with a family, I often take, in fact, I'm looking, I've got it right on my desktop,

01:27:40

I've got a stack of quiet little activities that I can just stuff in a bag or a pocket or a backpack, so that I'm prepared to love the children well, and sometimes that's instructive for the other parents, too.

01:27:56

They might not have thought of bringing these quiet little activities that would preclude ending up in this situation where a child is being disciplined in public, but yes,

01:28:08

I think that we always want to respect our children and deal with them privately, just as we would with another adult.

01:28:26

Well, thanks, CJ, for your excellent question. Please give us your mailing address there in Lindenhurst, Long Island, so that CVBBS .com

01:28:35

can ship you out your free copy of Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace.

01:28:42

We're going to our final break right now. This is going to be a lot briefer than the last break. Take this time to write down any questions you might have before we run out of time.

01:28:52

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?

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Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

01:32:41

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the

01:32:47

London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect

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Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

01:33:00

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostle's priority, it must not be ours either.

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We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.

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Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled,

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01:33:56

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

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His name is Dan Buttafuoco. Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled,

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Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

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Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many

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Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:35:28

That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com. My name is

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Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

01:35:47

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

01:36:41

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And please remember to continue to pray for Mike Gaydosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, as he faces some very serious decisions in regard to open heart surgery that he needs, a surgery that is a lot more complicated and delicate and serious than the average open heart surgery.

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So please pray for decisions he makes in regard to the surgeon that he uses, and also obviously pray that the

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Lord, as our great physician, guides the hands of those surgeons very meticulously and carefully so that Mike rises up out of that hospital bed a stronger and healthier man than he's been in years, and even more importantly, a stronger and healthy man spiritually, that he may be even a far better ambassador for Jesus Christ as a result of the trial that he's experienced.

01:38:33

We are now back with Nancy Snyder, author of The Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace.

01:38:40

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:38:47

And if you intend to write in a question, I would do so now because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:38:54

We have a question from an anonymous listener who says, how old do you think a child needs to be before he is forced to leave the premises where you live?

01:39:08

If a child, a teenager specifically, is causing such havoc in the home that the younger children are in danger, perhaps not physically but more in regard to their spiritual and mental health, should we ever, before they are 18, force them to leave the home?

01:39:27

Obviously I would want to make sure that there was some kind of preparation for where they may wind up living, but what is your advice in regard to this very scary and delicate question?

01:39:38

It is a terrifying prospect in front of you, and I'm so sorry.

01:39:45

I wish that we had an hour together where I could ask a lot of questions.

01:39:51

I feel a bit out on a limb. Proverbs warns us that he who speaks without listening is a fool, and I want to avoid that foolishness.

01:40:01

However, maybe just a few things to think about. I would, you probably have already done a lot of these things, but if you haven't already garnered strong prayer support, and I'm talking about people who will pray and fast daily, you know, daily prayer and regular fasting for your teenager,

01:40:26

I would gather that now. A lot of times we try to struggle through on our own, and in the situation that I mentioned with one of our sons, we had about two dozen people who prayed very, very faithfully for him, and I believe that's why

01:40:48

God has worked the way he has in our son's life. So, garner prayer support and fasting, and also,

01:40:58

I'm guessing that your church, the leaders of your church, have been strongly involved in this young person's life, and I would lean very heavily on them as well for wisdom.

01:41:17

This is their sheep also, and they carry responsibility before God for the well -being of this child as much as possible.

01:41:29

So, and I'm wondering if church discipline has been, if the steps, formal steps of church discipline have been begun.

01:41:40

I know that can sound, um, well, it is very weighty, and to think about church discipline and the life of a teenager is a hard prospect.

01:41:57

However, it is our biblically ordained means of dealing with sin in the church, and I presume from the fact that you're listening to this radio broadcast that you have raised this child in the church.

01:42:13

So, prayer and fasting, the leaders of your church, the shepherds of your church, and the steps of church discipline, and if all of those have been thoroughly used, then

01:42:32

I would make sure, I would want to make sure that I had that there are a lot of good

01:42:43

Christian residential programs for people who are struggling with very serious matters, and that would be where my heart as a mom would want a son to go, or a child in the family to go.

01:43:04

Sorry, I have all sons, so it just comes naturally to me to say son. And I just ache with you not knowing your name.

01:43:18

I'm going to be taking this weight to God along with you. It is a hard and a horrible place to come to as a parent.

01:43:28

I do understand that there are times for the sake of the rest, for the safety of the rest of the children in the home, that this is a step that you might need to take after much prayer and fasting and anguish with your church and steps of church discipline.

01:43:49

So, I will join you in praying for God's wonder -working power, that the gospel would flourish in this hard soil, not only in this teenager's life, but also in the lives of the whole family.

01:44:13

Well, thank you, Anonymous. Give me your full name off the air, of course, and address, and we will mail you a free copy of the

01:44:22

Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace. CVBBS .com

01:44:28

will ship that out to you as soon as we have your full mailing address, and we promise we will not identify you on the air so that you don't have to worry about that.

01:44:37

We have Kate in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania who has a question.

01:44:44

There is an old saying, boys will be boys, and I know that that may be often used to excuse sinful behavior, but isn't there truth behind that?

01:44:54

It seems that there are too many people too quick to medicate their sons just because they're acting like boys.

01:45:02

I'm sorry if I'm laughing, because it is, but I know it's a serious thing about over -medication of children.

01:45:09

Right, right, and even in my years when I worked at Logos, there were just a number of boys who

01:45:18

I just wanted to bring home and homeschool them. You know, I just wanted them to be able to have an exercise break every 15 minutes, and so even in that setting, our principal was very gracious and said to me things like, you get the work done that you need to get done,

01:45:39

I don't care how many recesses you give those kids to help them through it. So I agree with you, not boys will be boys when it comes to sin.

01:45:51

We don't want to excuse sin, saying, well, boys will be boys. However, we do need to understand that God has perhaps designed males to be active, to enter into the needs around them, to push back the jungle, so to speak, and when

01:46:18

God made Adam, and He put him in the garden, and then told him to cultivate the whole of the earth, and so I think it's really important for boys particularly, although there are a number of girls who also find this to be a real sanctifying grace to get lots and lots of exercise.

01:46:40

I can remember days of going from, you know, swimming to reading to roller skating to this to that, and thinking now everybody's going to be tired enough to sleep at night, but I was the one who was tired and not them.

01:46:51

So I think you're wise, if you have boys, to give them lots and lots of activity, safe activity, not riding down the stairs of your city row house on sleds.

01:47:08

Well, thank you so much, and make sure we have your full mailing address so that we can have cvbbs .com

01:47:14

ship out the copy of the Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace.

01:47:22

Thank you, Kate, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania and beyond.

01:47:30

Before I go to any more listener questions, I want you to just give a summary of the four, I'm sorry, the three major headings in your book.

01:47:38

You have God's ways are higher than ours, you have energy is from God and for God, which

01:47:46

I think is probably more for parents to learn than for children, and feelings are from God and for God.

01:47:54

If you could go through those three. Great, okay, that's great. So that's in the opening section, section one, which is dealing with feelings.

01:48:03

And I wanted, and Shepherd Press, the editors there helped me to lay a good foundation for that.

01:48:11

I wanted to start with God, and everything flows out of the character of God.

01:48:17

So everything that comes later in the whole of the book flows out of the character of God.

01:48:25

So God is, so some of the activities in this section work with trains, and if you don't have a train track, there are pictures of trains for you to download, and instructions, everything's got step -by -step instructions.

01:48:40

But God is the engineer of our life. He designs the track of our life, and His ways are higher than ours.

01:48:48

And He is also the engine. He's also the power for obeying Him to the end. So that's what that section is about.

01:48:55

And then energy is from God and for God, has some games in it for children to learn. One of the most difficult things for kids to learn is when they can be active and loud, and when they need to turn that off, and understanding that not only feelings are a gift from God that must be used the way

01:49:15

He said, but also energy is a gift from God that needs to be used in ways that honor the

01:49:20

King. And that leads right into the section that feelings are from God and for God, because even anger, it's surprising for a lot of children to learn that anger is a gift from God.

01:49:33

We often misuse it, but what a terrible world it would be if we didn't have a sense of anger over then.

01:49:41

And so, but how to respond to it in godly ways, how to deal with our feelings.

01:49:47

So that section deals with anger, and it also deals with fear, and then all of those lead to the last unit in that whole section, which deals with the heart.

01:50:01

So what I want children to be able to do is look behind their feelings, beneath and below their feelings, to see what they're treasuring, because what we treasure determines how we act.

01:50:14

And that's true for us as adults too. When I get upset over something and I trace behind it,

01:50:20

I often find my idols of my heart, and it's in repenting of them that I'm led back to joy and gospel grace.

01:50:29

So that is section one, has the four little units. Section two just has one unit, like I said, the gospel straight up.

01:50:36

Section three, which is the putting on the attitudes and actions necessary to attention, actually has three sections, three little units within it, and one deals with how should

01:50:50

I pay attention, and one deals with motivation. Why should I pay attention?

01:50:55

And one deals with power. How can I pay attention? So that's the book in a nutshell.

01:51:02

Great. And we have a first -time questioner.

01:51:07

We have Joanna from Gardnerville, Nevada. And Joanna from Gardnerville says, my husband and I would like to keep our child in church through the service from a young age.

01:51:21

It's important to us to be a part of the service and to have our child see us worshiping and learning.

01:51:28

We know not all families do it this way, and we completely respect that, and don't cast any judgment on others who do it differently.

01:51:37

Obviously, all children are very different, so we know what works for one may not work for the other.

01:51:45

I was just wondering what are some guidelines and tips you would suggest for us to help train, discipline, and teach our child?

01:51:55

Thank you so much for doing what the Lord has called you to do. That's blessings from Joanna in Gardnerville, Nevada.

01:52:02

And I'm assuming when she says, I'm just wondering what are some guidelines and tips, and I'm assuming she's specifically talking about as far as children behaving during a worship service.

01:52:12

Yeah. Great question. I love that you've approached this as an area of freedom.

01:52:19

Our children were most often in the worship service with us, and I appreciate that you want them to see you worshiping and worshiping together as a family with the whole body of Christ there.

01:52:32

I do know that when our children were with us in church, there were a couple families that my husband, in his loving wisdom, said, you are not allowed to sit behind those families because you'll come home despairing over our children.

01:52:49

Because they were the kind of families where the children just, without a whole lot of prompting, just were wonderful.

01:52:58

They were really great. But our children needed a lot more guidance to be with us.

01:53:04

In fact, I remember one time when I was interpreting and my husband was preaching, and he actually stepped out of the pulpit, said, excuse me, and took one of our children privately and came back in with a much happier child and proceeded to go on preaching.

01:53:23

Really? In other words, he stopped his own sermon, walked outside with your child, and then came back?

01:53:35

So again, I think of planning. In fact,

01:53:40

I'm just looking at my little stack here that I grab and take places. I have some of the activities from the

01:53:48

Gospel for Moving Targets that can be done quietly in worship. I know that you want them, for the most part, taking in everything you're taking in.

01:53:59

I like taking notes with my children. I would often do that in a picture form.

01:54:07

Again, I'm not really an artist, but the things we do for love and pointing out the words of the hymns and songs along with them.

01:54:19

I have made them a little book on worship that has just explained the elements of our worship, the order of our worship, the attitude we should bring to worship.

01:54:31

I mean, we worked really hard on this as a family. If you,

01:54:38

Joanna, have kids like ours, you're going to work really hard on it, too, but it's very fruitful. So we would come home and make little posters of things that we learned about in the sermon.

01:54:51

It's especially helpful if the pastor is, say, preaching exegetically through a book, and you can read that book and do little lessons related to the next section that you know the pastor will preach on.

01:55:06

That really primes the pump for them, so we would prime the pump beforehand and help them through it, leaving, if we had to, to help them through it and bring them back in, and then help them understand it afterward and apply it.

01:55:24

As you do that step by step, of course, depending on how many children you have, you know, and if you have two parents, then you can sort of divide and conquer somewhat, but it's a fight worth fighting.

01:55:41

You know, it's a fight of faith, and it's a lovely... there's a lovely fruit in the

01:55:47

Gospel to worship together with your children. So be gracious in your expectations so that you help them come along.

01:56:04

I use the timer at home for lots of things to help our children develop their attention span.

01:56:13

So for some of them, you know, as you start, and we celebrated that they had a minute on task.

01:56:18

You know, that was really great, and then you stretch it. So we practice that in family worship, which

01:56:25

I think really sets the stage for corporate worship. So if they have learned to feel their heart, make their heart like little monasteries while you have been praying together as a family at home, then they can transfer that more readily to the corporate worship setting.

01:56:47

Well, thank you, Joanna, in Gardnerville, Nevada. Not only have you won a free copy of the

01:56:55

Gospel for Moving Targets, Helping Active Children Grow in Grace by our guest Nancy Snyder, but since you are a first -time questioner, you also receive...you

01:57:04

will also receive a free New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publisher of the NASB and CVBBS .com,

01:57:11

who will be shipping that out to you. So please get us your full name and mailing address in Gardnerville, Nevada.

01:57:17

Thank you so much for blessing us with your question. Now if you could, in two minutes, Nancy, summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we go off the air today.

01:57:27

I want our listeners to understand that the Gospel is mighty to transform the hearts of the little ones, that Jesus draws them, and in ways that are deep and vital, and can do so through the simple little lessons that you can do at home.

01:57:51

Great, and I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the information that they need to get a hold of this book.

01:58:00

First of all, Shepherd Press, who published this book, The Gospel for Moving Targets, their website is shepherdpress .com,

01:58:08

shepherdpress .com, and I'm sure that the folks at Shepherd Press would not mind if you actually purchased the book from one of our other sponsors, which is

01:58:17

CVBBS .com, that way you could kill two birds with one stone and bless both the publisher and my client,

01:58:23

CVBBS .com. You could go to CVBBS .com and you could order a whole host of books by Shepherd Press.

01:58:31

In fact, they carry everything, I believe, that Shepherd Press publishes, and if they don't have it in stock, they will get it quickly for you.

01:58:39

And also, I want to make sure that you are reminded about the

01:58:45

Logos Academy, where our guest was at one time on the staff, logosyork .org,

01:58:53

logosyork .org. Do you have any other contact information or other information you'd care to provide? Oh, I would urge people to come in for a tour.

01:59:01

Even if you don't think that you'd be interested in having a student attend

01:59:07

Logos, it is a dynamic, exciting place, and it's wonderful to see what

01:59:12

God is doing there. So you would want to call the school and set up a tour.

01:59:19

Great. Don't forget, tomorrow we have John Sampson of the King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, discussing the seven deceptions of the charismatic movement, and Morris Roberts from Banner of Truth joins us this

01:59:31

Friday on July 27th. I want to thank you so much, Nancy, for being our guest today.

01:59:36

I look forward to your return to the program. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater