It’s our season wrap episode, and we could not have asked for a better guest.

Ruth is a teacher and author, and she knows the real-life challenges of helping kids to and parents to turn their hearts toward God.

How can we practice something like family devotions without it feeling too forced?

What if husbands and wives are on different pages about how to lead the family spiritually?

Is structure helpful or hurtful?

Let’s dive in.

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THIS EPISODE.

We literally cried. All of us. And it led to a mentoring relationship between Matt and our guest, Michael John Cusick.

Why? We were struck thinking about how to *actually live* in that tension between our faith and our experience.

Join us?

Next Steps: 

As ministry leaders and therapists (Matt and Laurie), we have often wondered: When do church leaders and pastors utilize therapists and para-church ministries and when do they care on their own?

Do pastors always outsource?

Do they never outsource?

What role does the church have for families in crisis?

Let’s talk about it with author and psychologist (and lover of the Church), Jennifer Ripley.

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What was your favorite children’s book while growing up?

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If the average age of pornography exposure is between 8 and 12 years old, and the majority of Christians are looking at it regularly, we need to talk about it. 

Specifically, documentary creator and author John Michael Bout helps us ask and answer:

How can we help our kids prepare to see it?

How can we help them recover?

What hope do we have?

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What is something you have purchased off a cookie ad or As Seen on TV and it was actually good? 

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It’s so easy to identify as “I am what I do” or “I am how I feel.”

The next generations especially seem to feel this pull.

How can we help Gen Z and Alpha understand who they are in Christ? How can we start with our own identity so we speak from a place of firm-footing instead of hypocrisy? Author and therapist Jonathan Holmes is here to help lead us.

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If you had the time and the desire, what sport would you want to get really good at?

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Many parents feel a mixture of emotions about screens: On one hand, we see they can be useful tools. On the other, we feel a lot of shame because we are probably addicted to them ourselves and we let our kids use them too often.

We feel shame, anger, and . . . gratitude?

How should we feel? 

How can parents approach screen time with their kids—and move us all from fighting to flourishing?

Christian dad, tech-guru, and founder of Protect Young Eyes, Chris McKenna, is here to help us.

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Parents and caregivers of the next generation need help to lead their kids in an affirming-LGBTQ world.

Our guest and author, Rachel Gilson, said it well on today’s episode: “Even my friends who had great discipling moms and dads didn’t grow up in this cultural moment. Their moms and dads didn’t have to help them navigate these cultural questions.”

She continued: “So even they feel out on a limb: ‘No one prepped me for this.’ There is a panic of feeling without a guide and lost. That’s no one’s fault but it’s where a lot of us find ourselves now.”

Parents were not prepared for this. How do we live and teach the next generation wisely?

We also talk discuss:

How do we engage this topic not with a culture-warrior mentality but a Jesus mentality?

When do we talk about sex and sexuality?

How can we teach our kids a gospel identity?

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What generation do you actually belong to and which one should you belong to?

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Discipleship is something Christians are talking about more.

It’s so important. But…what is it?

Today, author and pastor Eun (EK) Strawser helps understand what discipleship is as well as:

--How can we become a community that centers discipleship?

--How can we know if we are doing it “right”?

--How does parenting relate to discipleship?

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What do you need to prepare for winter?

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This episode left us speechless.

Today, we are joined again by psychologist and author Dan Allender to talk about the most important part of parenting: Your marriage. 

(If you are a single mom or dad, we bless you and intersperse much of the conversation with relating the conversation to close friendships.)

For those of us who are married, why is that the most important part of marriage? Dan tells us well: 

“Our children are given the gift of watching the reality of love and life brokenness and beauty being played out in the theater of our marriage,” he says. “They are in the audience watching closely—far more closely than we presume. If our marriage doesn’t have the ability to actually name brokenness but also glory in one another, our children are going to be hungry souls looking for what they were made for.”

Okay, Dan. Help us out, friend. How can we lean in without setting the bar too high or low?

This episode is one we will be going back to again and again.

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| QOTW |

What is your go-to birthday dinner?

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To launch our spring season focused on parenting and discipling the next generation, we are starting with YOUR QUESTIONS.

We toss around: 

“What parts of ‘the sex talk’ were helpful for us when we were growing up?”

“How can we protect our kids’ bodies without being a helicopter parent?”

“How can we approach school systems that don’t agree with our beliefs?”

“Should we talk to our kids about p*rn even if they don’t have unlimited access to the internet?”

Pull up an earbud and join us!

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| QOTW |

Do you have a word, a focus, or theme for the year?

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