This is the first part of Mom Month and we're thrilled to take the month of May to gather wisdom from some incredible women. Laurel Bunker is the Dean of Campus Ministries/Campus Pastor at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. As campus pastor, Laurel serves as the primary preacher in chapel and leads a team that is dedicated to providing transformational ministry opportunities for the Bethel community. She is a member of the President’s Executive Leadership Team, providing strategic guidance on issues related to the spiritual formation and personal development of the student body. She also teaches and trains at colleges, churches, and para-church organizations in the areas of leadership, spiritual development, biblical issues in the 21st-century, and more. Laurel and her husband, Joshua, have two daughters.

Conversation Notes:

• Never underestimate the importance of your life and your roll as dad in life and in your children's world (7:15)
• Culture and the demonic work of Satan are trying to break men (7:50)
• Having kids gives you a place to be emotional (8:30)
• What your child wants from you is not perfection. What they want is your time and your love. (8:45)
• Your computer your phone your hobbies your job and are not as important as your kids (8:50)
• Love your wife well in front of your kids (9:15)
• He rarely calls his girls by their name. He calls them beautiful (9:50)
• Work hard, but don't let your job come before your kids (9:55)
• I can be strong and beautiful in the eyes of my father and my Heavenly Father (11:10)
• Get down on your knees when you are talking to your little kids. Your voice is louder and stronger than you are aware of (11:45)
• Their girls seeing pain through youth ministry and hard tragic events of suicide and teen pregnancy (14:15)
• Calling their girls into painful moments and processing pain together (14:35)
• Walking with their girls through pain and trusting the heart of our Heavenly Father and His grace and mercy even when we're not sure (15:50)
• Pain can be an opportunity to be vulnerable... Don't just shuttle away the emotions (16:50)
• Take daily things and bring God's word into those moments (20:00)
• Holman Field Restaurant https://www.holmanstable.com/
• Boys, Boundaries and "Bexpectations" (22:35)
• Using rhythms of daily life to apply the Gospel (23:10)
• Business creates blinders... when you are consumed with your own vision for what you need to do (24:10)
• Little girls don't always need superman. They just need daddy to lay on the floor and let them crawl all over him (24:50)
• Please don't introduce your kids to technology too early (25:25)
• Guard your hearts in your own sexual lives (25:35)
• If there's brokenness, find a group of brothers to find freedom with together (25:50)
• The kingdom of God operating in all it's fullness with men and women working together (28:26)
• Don't give us. Forgive your dad if you need to. Seek the Lord to find healing so you don't drag all that muck into your relationship with your own kids. (28:50)

Links:

Bethel Campus Ministries Team: https://www.bethel.edu/christian-formation/staff

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