Guests: Holly Hamilton, Sandy Leydig, and Joel Gordon

For video of this podcast, check out PCA’s YouTube page.

Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child’s Heart, Mind, and Soul

By George Barna

Section ONE - The Importance of Children

Section TWO - The Four Principles of a Disciple

Section THREE - Families and Churches in Partnership

Section Three - Families and Churches in Partnership

Working together, parents and their faith community can be a dynamic and potent force for the kingdom of God, leading to transformed lives among the young people in the church’s families.

Chapter 8 - Parents Must Manage Media Exposure

• Exposure to media is the MOST significant shaper of a person’s worldview

• Parents consciously fill the role of media gatekeeper

• Large doses of media consumption change the configuration and capacity of the brain - for the worse
  • Acceptance of parental authority drops

• Four M’s of Media Management
  • Monitor media use

Chapter 9 - Where is the Local Church?

• Churches, like most service-based organizations, are responsive to the expressed needs and desires of their user base. Face it, parents do not clamor for real discipleship experiences for their children, and churches have not done much to push back on that blind spot.

• The most effective churches provide:
  • Teach parents to understand and own the role of spiritual mentor to their child

• Good churches look to PARTNER with parents…

• A WORD about Christian schools…
  • Public schools are no friend to Christ

Chapter 10 - Fight for Your Children

• You must MODEL for them the life of a spiritual warrior…

Guests: Holly Hamilton, Sandy Leydig, and Joel Gordon

For video of this podcast, check out PCA’s YouTube page.

Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child’s Heart, Mind, and Soul

By George Barna

Section ONE - The Importance of Children

Section TWO - The Four Principles of a Disciple

Section THREE - Families and Churches in Partnership

Section Two - The Four Practices of a Disciple

1. Making a life-defining commitment to be a disciple of Jesus

Chapter 4 - Disciple-Making Practice #1

• Being a genuine disciple starts with obedience.

Chapter 5 - Disciple-Making Practice #2

• Biblically speaking, discipling a child is meant to be done by the child’s parents

• How WORLDVIEW develops
  • Experimental process

• List of DIFFERENT/COMPETING worldviews…
  • 94% of adults have a syncretistic worldview - a blending of views from two or more of the comprehensive worldview systems

Chapter 6 - Disciple-Making Practice #3

• An equally important undertaking is to promote the fledgling disciple fully, and passionately integrating those beliefs into a Christlike lifestyle.
  • The expansive impact of those attributes is an example of why discipling someone is not a quick process.

• Spiritual fruit begins with evidence of personal transformation

Chapter 7 - Disciple-Making Practice #4

• Accountability system

Special shout out to Jared Wood for allowing us to use his music - check him out at JaredWoodMusic!

Guests: Holly Hamilton, Sandy Leydig, and Joel Gordon

Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child’s Heart, Mind, and Soul

By George Barna

Section ONE - The Importance of Children

Section TWO - The Four Principles of a Disciple

Section THREE - Families and Churches in Partnership

Section One - The Importance of Children

Chapter 1 - Making the Most of Your Life

• Most young adults (54%) admit they often feel anxious, depressed, or unsafe

Chapter 2 - Realigning Our Course Trajectory

• Many embrace the label of “spiritual but not religious”

• LESS than 1% of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old Americans have a biblical worldview

Parenting Tactics

• Prioritizing spiritual development

• CONSISTENCY is the single, most important attribute…

Chapter 3 - Disciple-Making, Yes-But Why Disciple Children?

• Who has the greatest impact/influence on our kids - the arts and entertainment media industry…
  • Act of repetition

Guests: Len Munsil, President, and Dr. Jeffrey Green, VP of Academic Affairs and chief academic officer, at Arizona Christian University (ACU)

Transforming Culture with Truth

In Transforming Culture with Truth, Arizona Christian University President Len Munsil explains how the principles and values that built Western Civilization are under assault, and how a decaying and divided culture can be transformed through biblical truth. In this second edition, Munsil applies his incisive analysis to the most pressing cultural issues we face as a nation, and offers both hope and practical wisdom to the next generation of Christian leaders as they seek to advance God’s Kingdom in an increasingly hostile culture.

Worldview training and development address concepts of personal spiritual development as well as how our faith intersects with culture!

Recommended resource: Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child’s Heart, Mind, and Soul by George Barna

Parents, don’t get discouraged in the training of your children - parenting is hard work…it’s a journey, a marathon, not a sprint…stay faithful and prayerful - and look to partner with solid Biblical institutions like PCA and ACU.

Guests: Shannon Lichty, Trudy Reed, Jillian Bryant, PCA’s FPS State 1st and 2nd Place teams

Twenty-five years ago, Shannon Lichty brought the FPS program to PCA. Along with several others who have invested in making this program a resounding success, Shannon has invested her heart and energies into countless PCA students both in the classroom and through FPS. To learn more about PCA’s FPS program, check out this page on the PCA website. To learn more about FPS in general, check out: Future Problem Solving Program International

Guest: Giovanni Capriglione, Texas State Representative, District 98

• Barna’s research has shown that nearly 3/4th (72%) of parents are worried about or concerned with AI’s impact on their children - but also that only 17% have actually taken steps to learn more about AI - so, basically parents are afraid and under-informed

• One concern expressed about AI is the potential likelihood of decreased social connection, adding to the epidemic of loneliness and isolation this generation is already facing

• AI is more complex than “if/then” commands - it is a system that can be trained to use data for specific purposes

• Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Rep. Capriglione’s bill (HB 2060) into law creating the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council that will study the use of AI in state government

• AI collects data points - the average person has at least 100,000 data points collected on them - which means that AI can know you better than you know yourself! Digital privacy laws are being passed so that people can begin to see the information that has been collected about them.

• The best way to protect yourself is to reduce the amount of information that AI can collect on you - be aware of this

• Social media has one goal - to make sure you don’t put your phone down - the more you scroll, the more data that is being collected about you!

Guests: Emerson Seal, Elizabeth Teague, and Sevyn Trogdon (PCA Freshmen, Class of 2027)

Sevyn’s dad runs a discipleship ministry called Kingdom Focus Coaching.

The girls share their thoughts about some of the more memorable moments at PCA Lower School including: the Kindergarten Circus, sea animal project, transportation day, Invention Convention, Let George Do It, and the Boosterthon Fun Run! Their favorite part of school was definitely their teachers!

Things that their parents did to help them grow in their faith:

• Going on ministry service projects and opportunities with their parents and actually seeing God at work

Guest: Kristin Dysart, M.Ed., MS and US Guidance Counselor, PCA North

PCA isn’t just a “college prep” educational institution - the Biblical worldview and academic rigor of PCA is designed to equip students for success in life, which includes college for those who desire to attend.

Kristin references a Christianity Today article that differentiates between the “price” of a college education and the “cost” - which dives into the cost of young people being indoctrinated in a worldview that is contrary to solid and orthodox Biblical teaching. In the article, Dr. Henderson points to a “strong link between a young person’s choice of a college and their short-term and long-term commitment to Christian faith.” Here is a summary of that article.

To learn more about Hope College’s “Hope Forward” initiative featured on Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast, click here.

What should parents instill in their children as they mature on their journey at PCA - here are some recommendations:

• Allow your children to fail and to learn from their mistakes

Good resource as you consider where your son/daughter should attend college:

• Where You God Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania by Frank Bruni

Guest: Matt Shaheen, Texas State Representative, District 66

State Representative Matt Shaheen led the efforts in the last legislative session to pass laws requiring age verification for access to “adult” [porn] websites (for more information, see House Bill 1181). The law requires that users verify that they are over 18 years old. A couple of months ago, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a challenge to the Texas age verification requirement. Responding to that decision, several porn sites have blocked all uses from Texas. Several other states are passing similar legislation in efforts to protect children from sexually explicit material.

Common Sense Media released valuable research called “Teens and Pornography” which found that 73% of teens aged 13 to 17 who participated in the survey have watched pornography online and more than half (54%) reported that their first exposure to pornography occurred around the age of 13. The report also revealed that a majority of teens who indicated that they’ve viewed online pornography have been exposed to what has been labeled aggressive and/or violent forms of pornography.

And remember that this year is a Presidential Election and the General Election is coming up this November. Christians Engaged is a wonderful organization to help you get informed and engaged as a Christian citizen in our great country.

Guest: Erin Williams, LPC, PCA US Counselor

Erin recommends Jess Connolly’s book Breaking Free from Body Shame: Dare to Reclaim What God Has Named Good as a good resource and launching point for conversations about body image, God’s design, God’s goodness in our lives, and our struggles to embrace God’s best for us when it conflicts with the world’s narrative

Another good resource for wrestling with body image issues from a biblical perspective includes the work and writings of Heather Creekmore made available on her website Compared to Who?

Scripture refers to our bodies as temples…and tents…both are important to understand - temples meaning that our bodies are important, valuable - we actually carry the Holy Spirit with us - and tents meaning that our bodies are temporary and should be held in the proper perspective of eternal things…as Christians we have this tension between this world…and the next - we are citizens of both!

Our bodies are “good” - but aren’t they also “broken” and flawed because of the curse of sin - and working to “better” our bodies doesn’t always have to be trying to beat the curse…can’t it also be just working to better what’s broken?