SPEAKER_00 0:00

So that's the point of this is we want to help parents raise kids that follow Jesus genuinely. And we recognize that it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey everybody, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

This podcast. This podcast. This current podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

The one you're listening to, I'm Madison.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I'm Justin.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And we thought it would be helpful to just address some of the questions that we get a lot and specifically about parenting and what it looks like to parent in this world. But beyond just parenting, like helping raise your kids to follow Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, raising children to follow Jesus. I do have to say, real quick, that's probably the best intro to a podcast of all time.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

The current, you know, just I like I think people will listen to this years from now and write just thesis papers about the best intro. Like they used to say the best intro to a movie ever was the original Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark. That was like one of the first movies that ever had the action so front-loaded, and they're like, this is gonna change the way movies are made. I think that intro will change the way the way intros are made. Intros are made. Yeah. So for some context, Madison and I are both parents. I have four children. 13 currently is my my oldest, but they're gonna get older every year. And then all the way down to five.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

You've got two that are a three-year-old and a one-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

But even though your kids are younger, both of us have kind of a unique experience with students. And so we both work at a church. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

You were my youth pastor.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I was your youth pastor. Now you're my child's youth pastor. Well, my oldest, because my youngest aren't Lily will be gonna be in two years. Okay, cool. You got two years. Okay. So I was your youth pastor for all of middle school and high school, and I spent about a decade working specifically with teenagers. This would have been like 2006, 2005, 2006, all the way up until like 2013. Um and then you've been a youth pastor now for like what six, seven years? And we work together at our church, and we end up having all these conversations because it all bleeds together. Like I'll be dealing with someone and they're going through a really hard thing, and oh guess what? They have kids who are going through a hard thing, and we end up talking about it. Um, or we just talk about culture. And I come to you even for advice now. It's so cool because I was your youth pastor, and now I'm like, hey man, this is what do you what do you think? Right. And I actually get a lot out of that. So um, yeah, we just thought that having a specific podcast that is focused on the challenges of parenting in a culture as a believer, the challenges of parenting in a culture that doesn't value what you value, um, and maybe even really tries hard to get your children to value something else. To value something else. And all the challenges and dynamics that that creates. Let's just jump into that. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

And I I think to to say like we might not have the best parenting advice all the time because we're still processing what it means to be parents. Like you said, you come to me for advice as we're like parenting. But like you said, we do have so much, you know, pastoring experience shared between between us. And so we can at least say what we've seen not work.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Right, right, right. Well, and we're just uh yeah, no, I uh we can process out loud a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

And I think a lot of parents they need help pastoring their kids or discipling their kids or raising their kids up to potentially know Jesus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

You know, you can't force it. No, you you you can't force it. It has to there if you have faith, you want one day for your children to have faith of their own. Um obviously that's what we would all we would all want. I don't know many Christian parents who are like, I kind of hope they don't believe in God one day. Just to, you know, have more variety in the house, right? Now we just have no debates. I'd like there to be more contentious Thanksgivings. Yeah. Right? That's not a thing. But but it's it there's not like a guidebook for it. Um I mean, there's there's the Bible, but even still, there's not like, well, now the chapter on parenting. There's there's stuff about parenting.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

It's addressed, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

It's addressed, absolutely. Um, but it's definitely not not in the way that a lot of people would like it to be. Like, where can I go for this long step-by-step process?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

If you had to sum it up, what would be the goal of a parent when it comes to the faith aspect of like raising kids?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Aaron Powell Well, we talked about this a little bit ago, um, even as we were kind of getting ready for this. Joshua in the Bible says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Um, and the context of that, well, you know the context of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, there's like a bunch of other gods, a bunch of other nations, and uh Israel at the time is kind of like wooed by those gods.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Yeah, they're wavering in their in their commitment to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I'll go be a Canaanite, I'll go be this or that.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

And um their festivals are way more fun than right. We should see what happens at these. It's crazy. But they let me stay up way later over there.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

No, um, and so Joshua says, he says, uh, you can go serve those gods if you want to. Um, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He kind of makes that stand not just for himself, but for his family as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

For his family. And that's even like a multi-generational thing. Like, as for me and my house, I mean, in those days, it wasn't just like the house I live in, like that phrase my house, you mean like the the house of Joshua and his kids and their kids, whatever. And so when you say like what's the goal, I think it's to live in such a way that your children see you take a stand for what you believe is right. And at the very least, they learn that my father or my mother have convictions that they can express. It's not just we're doing this because I said so. Right. Even though sometimes that's appropriate to say as parent. Um but no, I know what I believe and I know why I believe it. And here's the stand that I'm taking. And you, at the very least, as a child, I don't know if one of Joshua's kids went off and worshipped another God or not. Sure. Story is not in the Bible, but they at very least saw what it meant to have a parent who had conviction, who lived by those convictions and was willing to take a stand and say, this is how our family's going to live.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Gotcha. So there's like the belief aspect. So like you're articulating your beliefs.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Articulating your beliefs and living them out in the midst of pressure, outside pressure to go a different way. Because, you know, I mean, Joshua's culture is not that different than our own. Everyone's kind of there's all these other options. Right. And some of them are really attractive. And there's a lot of cultural momentum in the other direction. And Joshua's saying, you know what, no matter what everyone else does, this is what we're gonna do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

So yeah, being able to share that, but like you said, but also model it, like to live it out. And so I think for your kids, especially as they become teenagers, like that's the years that it's like you realize your your parents are people. Oh, yeah. And you can like take advantage of that and go like, man, I hate them because they're idiots. This hypocrisy and that hypocrisy.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

And it's a lot of it's true, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And so to have a faith that's one, it's like felt on a personal level for you first, like it's like that Joshua was saying, as for me in my house, like starts with him. Um, but then to be able to like process that um almost like not out loud where you're processing everything you believe, you know, in front of your kids, but they're able to see you walk in authentic faith where you might not have everything figured out, right? Where you might be trying to figure out the boundary um that you're setting as you're setting it. And you might be able to say, like, one day this boundary is going to be removed, or one day this boundary might be added onto. Um, but for you to have that um like a house where your kids see you pray or you pray with your kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Um and I think too, the intentionality, like Joshua's living very intentionally there. Right. He's not just it's not where he just goes, oh, okay. You know, he just eventually goes, All right, guys, I mean fine. It seems like what everyone's doing.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

The relenting.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

A relenting. And it's very easy to live a life that is just a relenting life where you kind of go, okay, I guess I'll I guess I'll be okay with this because everyone says I should be. I guess I'll go this way, I guess I'll think this way. Um and the people I respect the most, even actually some of these are people that don't even agree with me a lot in a lot of different areas of life. But they're people who have strong convictions and beliefs and they're intentional about it, and it and they're not they're not just living at the mercy of the world around them, they're living intentional lives. So I think part of it's that. And I think so too, it's a little different. Like we're saying there's this word in church culture, discipleship. Yeah. And it's the it's a word that like it's very churchy word.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Well, it's a Bible word. So disciple, but like the discipleship, like as like a program or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

But you read it, you read like uh if we had if we titled this discipling your children, there's certain there's certain like types of Jesus followers who'd be like all about it. Other people are like, I'm just not gonna listen to that because it's clearly just I don't know. But but I think part of it's because we don't even think about what that really means that much. And you've talked about the idea of something being is it something that we should it's like uh Christian, like Christianese. Christianese, yeah. Which is just using that's like the we all know those people who just speak this language that you can only speak if you grew up in church. Right. And the average person seems like, I don't know what you just said.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah, or is it a a word that's kind of required to understand our faith? Right salvation's a word that you really only hear in church. Like even when someone saves someone else, no one says, like, you are my salvation from saving me from that dog, right? That's only a church word, but it helps articulate what we believe about our faith. And so I think disciple is kind of one of those things. There's a lot packed into it. Right. It means following Jesus, it means disciplining yourself in the pursuit of Jesus, right? And so as you're discipling, which means raising up other disciples, which by the way, we're we're asked to by Jesus, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Very simply, he like I said asked to, not called to, because that's the list churchy way to say ever. So we're told to. We're told to. Listen, but he said, like, go make disciples. And it's very easy to see that as an external thing, like go to your places of work, go on a mission trip, go out in the world and make disciples. But it even if we were to do that really well, but we don't make disciples at home, like that's a miss. Or we're not trying to we're not even thinking about it because we're like, oh well, they go to church or whatever. We want to be intentional about it. And I know for me, uh lately this I I think this actually came out just out of the blue in a conversation we were having last week. But I've never even expressed it this way. I really liked it though. I really liked what I said. Go ahead and say it again. Okay. Um well, I think like, okay, mentoring, that's a word that we have in culture. And mentoring is basically where you take someone and say, Hey, I want to help you be more like me in some ways. Like, I'm a mentor. I can show you how to be more like you can be successful like me, you can be fit like me. And a lot of mentoring isn't gonna be do what I do, and it's definitely so that you can be the best you you can be kind of thing, right? Right. But it's like be like me.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

It's couched in the expertise of the mentor.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Correct. Discipleship's a little different. Sure, there's a follow me. Paul actually said follow me to people, but he said, follow me as I follow the Lord. Discipleship is I want my kids to be more like Jesus. In fact, I'd like them to look more like Jesus than they look like me. And I want to do my best Jesus impression on a daily basis so that they see that. But ultimately, even if it means I have to have the humility of saying, guys, this is where I really screw up as a dad all the time, and this is where I fall way short, and this is where I don't look like Jesus at all, and I'm working on it. I want them to know who Jesus is because of me, whether that is me modeling it for them really well or being honest about the times that I don't. Yeah. So that they like Jesus more than they like Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

I was gonna say, what a cool place to live. If you're your home, there's like a humility in your home where dad's not always right or doesn't always need to be right, or when dad's wrong, like it's not like he storms off and lives in a room by himself or whatever, to say, like, hey, would you forgive me because I got this wrong? Like asking for forgiveness, or um, if you're creating a home that's you know modeled after Jesus, where there's gonna be generosity, that there's gonna be mercy like in your punishments. Because I mean, discipline, like disciplining your kid is is an aspect of raising them up. And so if you have mercy in the way you discipline your kids, if you have grace in the moments where they need it, it's like that creates just such a healthier environment that regardless of whether that your faith becomes their faith, they grew up in an environment that was defined by the love of Jesus either way.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Truth, which is really cool. I love it. So that's the point of this is we want to help parents raise kids that follow Jesus genuinely. And we recognize that it's hard. It's and it and it's maybe as hard as it's ever been. And I'm not trying to say that in this, like, it's never been, it's always been hard.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Right? Following Jesus in the first century would have been pretty tough.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Um, and it's it's hard, it's always been hard. But there are certain aspects I think a lot of parents deal with like, man, when I was a kid, I didn't have this to deal with. I hear that a lot. And so we talk about this all the time, we process it all the time together as we're trying to do it. You're trying to lead kids and eventually your kids too, because I know there's they're young enough that you can just pick them up and put them places. And I'm trying to lead my own kids now. I'm not a youth pastor anymore, but I'm actually pastoring youth more hours of my day than I used to. Yeah. And so we just want to do it well personally, and hopefully these conversations can be helpful. So that's the point of this podcast, raising kids who follow Jesus. And we're gonna start in our next episode by talking about, well, really answering a question, which is should I get my kid a phone?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yep. So tune in next time.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Tune in next time for that. That's probably a question that we hear the most often from parents that are feeling that that pressure. Um, and I recognize a lot of people like I've already done that, still listen, because it's good to maybe analyze why we did and and what problems it is creating and what problems maybe we think it's solving, and if that's really true. So there you go. Thanks for listening. Bye.