Talking, Teens, and Twenty-four Years :: Bruce + Heather [Ep 399]

Many of us avoid and struggle with conversations about race or disabilities because it’s uncomfortable. When our children ask innocent questions about someone who is different than they are, it can make us feel tongue tied or embarrassed. Author Dorena Williamson has created some lovely children’s books to help parents respond and invite their children to join them on the journey of learning to love and speak worth over every person that God created. And I kept feeling frustrated thinking that’s not the solution to teach your children to be colorblind because that’s minimizing the beauty of God’s handiwork. And as Christians we should be the biggest proponents of celebrating the beauty of our racial diversity and not minimizing it or sort of washing it away and this colorblind land. She shares powerfully about how to engage with your children about racial and cultural differences and how we can model what it looks like to grow in the area of loving and accepting people who are different than us. As our children get older, I think that these are valuable conversations to have with them because the beauty of it is that it tells your children you are teachable and that you don’t get it right all the time and that you’re continuing to learn and grow. What we chat about: All about Dorena’s family and their multiracial church, Strong Tower Bible Church Her book ColorFull and the background behind why she wrote it The creativity of God and how he uses color in all that he created Looking for opportunities to share the beauty of racial differences with our children Language for parents to use to help teach children and avoid shaming Reinforcing the idea that “Different is not bad” and calling out the worth of people Why equipping kids early is important Modeling how we are all growing when it comes to loving and accepting people who are different than us Encouraging our children to ask questions even when they are uncomfortable Engaging with our kids about other cultures whether we can travel internationally or experience cultures in our own cities Other books/sites that Dorena recommends:  Brownicity.com site with helpful resources (created by a Godly woman Dr. Lucretia Berry) The Beatitudes by Carole Boston Weatherford The Other Side  by Jacqueline Woodson Beabridgebuilder.com A list of 28 picture books (aren’t about boycotts, buses or basketball)  –listed created by ScottWood **Amazon affiliate link to help support the production of this podcast.

10 Sep 201850min

Contemporary Christian musicians Chris Rademaker and Jodi King followed God’s call to pursue a musical adventure as the husband-wife duo Love & The Outcome. They share their experiences of selling their home, walking through grief, newlywed life on the road as musicians and their transition into parenting. Jodi especially talks through how she leans on the Holy Spirit in her parenting, managing expectations and other people’s reactions. I’ve had to learn how to just know the Holy Spirit. So in the moments when we’re in public and I’m parenting, I focus on Him. It’s so easy to turn and see everyone else’s reaction to what I just did was or I can just try and do my best to really listen to the Holy Spirit in the moment so that I can feel confident in my decisions. I love how Chris and Jodi open up about playing shows and bringing their two young sons Milo and Ziggy along for the ride. There’s so much encouragement for moms of littles in this episode, including letting our standards slip a little so we can still experience community even if it’s messy and involves take-out food instead of handcrafted meals. Maybe it’s just a season. But maybe it’s forever. I don’t really know what the Lord has. But letting go of some of my ideals has been so good. I have to acknowledge that I have a 2.5-year-old and a 1-year-old. Life looks like this right now, and it is the dream if I choose to be present to it and enjoy it. What we chat about: When Jodi and Chris met and started a touring band Their Enneagram types and how they work together as a couple How the Lord directed their path through grief and loss Parenting and challenges that come when touring with kids Dwelling in the Holy Spirit to make decisions Transitions in parenting and learning to lean into the Holy Spirit vs worrying what others think The concessions you make to connect with community when you are in a busy season Freeing yourself up from pre-conceived plans of what life “should” look like A new way to look at living the dream and choosing to be present in what your life is like now Links Mentioned: The God I Know music video The King of My Heart music video He is With Us music video L&TO albums: These Are the Days** &  Love & The Outcome** **Amazon affiliate link to help support the production of this podcast.

3 Sep 201849min

It’s an uncomfortable and often controversial subject, especially in the church, but homosexuality and same sex attraction is something we all need to understand from a Biblical perspective. This week’s guest Jackie Hill Perry shares how the power of the gospel in her life rescued her from the sin she was living in as a woman with same sex attractions. She not only brings us into her amazing story, but absolutely preaches the word of God and brings a lot of clarity to what can feel like a gray area for many Christians. My conscience would not allow me to shake the truth that Jesus died for sin and that he is not pleased with sin at all. So I tried my best to shake him and I couldn’t…And I felt God speak to my heart and say that my girlfriend or my sin would be the death of me. That the wages of sin equals death. Because I saw it wasn’t my girlfriend or my lesbianism alone. It was that my entire life would be the death of me. Jackie shares stories and insights from her new book Gay Girl, Good God. She also answers listener questions about how to share God’s love with LGBTQ friends and family by treating them as a whole person and keeping the gospel centered on God’s truth and not culture’s.

27 Aug 20181h 2min

Often the hardest assignments in our lives bring us the greatest good. I’ve seen it to be true in my own life. And have walked this Truth with friends on their journeys.  In this episode I’ve invited my friends Alice and Candace to share their stories of adoption. And the process of discovering their adopted children have special needs. We also discuss how God has led them each into new ministries because of the children He’s brought into their families.  I love seeing God’s purpose for Alice & Candace unfold alongside their leaning on Him for strength and guidance. Not to mention how they follow Him obediently with humor and grace! I don’t know if God made Millie have autism or if that is a result of living in a fallen world. That’s something that I question every day. But I do know that the struggles that she has had more than anything else have shaped our family in a way that I think brings glory to God, more than the easy and fun and good things.–Alice

20 Aug 20181h

In the thick of parenting it is easy to get our perspective skewed or react to our children from a place of emotion or our own sin. My guest Dr. Paul David Tripp gives a course-correcting pep talk reminding parents of their deep calling from God and how to look at discipline as an opportunity to connect our kids with God’s goodness. “You’re never just dealing with behavior. You’re always dealing with what controls the child’s behavior and that’s his heart. And if God consciousness doesn’t rule my heart, self orientation will. That’s what has to change. No I can’t create that change, but I can I can give God’s Spirit an opportunity again and again to work in the heart of my child” Tripp  is a pastor, international event speaker, and best-selling author. As a father of four grown children, he shares candidly from his own experience. This encouraging episode is packed with a lot of truth! Share with your spouse and friends! What we chat about: The deeper calling of on our lives as parents We cannot rely on our kids to give us hope for parenting them. How opening our children’s eyes to see God everywhere pulls them away from a self centered existence. God created the world so that it’s very physical nature reveals him. Root the rules that you have for your children in God’s goodness and his love and His grace. Every opportunity we have to discipline or correct is not an opportunity first to threaten  with punishment but to talk about how good God is. Ask the question, “What is God wanting to do in the heart of this child?” Behavior is really about a child’s heart orientation God way of parenting isn’t efficient, but it is transformational  . The values of the world push against our calling as parents. We have to consider where we are placing our treasure and hope. A God perspective for how to respond when your children sin God is exposing something in my child so I can be part of his help and rescue. Parenting is about planting seeds. We aren’t going to see them bloom overnight. Dealing with rebellion and authority issues with grace and consequences Parenting adopted children and helping them with identity

13 Aug 20181h 6min

In a time when biblical truth is often narrowed down to a greeting card slogan or a small subset of feel-good encouragements, the She Reads Truth community takes a different approach. The bible studies and reading plans from She Reads Truth take a deep dive into scripture with the goal to understand the big picture of who God is throughout history and our need for his grace. SRT co-founder and CEO Raechel Myers shares the community’s origin and her personal story of encountering God’s goodness amidst the loss of her daughter. Jump in to hear Raechel share her heart for studying scripture and relying on the Holy Spirit in the difficult places of parenting. I can base my understanding of God on the 36 years that I’ve experienced with him, but that is a mistake. God’s story is so far back before I ever existed. And so one of the important reasons that we read the Bible is to understand the broader story of who God is and how I fit into his story, not how he fits into mine. What we chat about: Raechel’s writing background and the purpose behind her first blog How God trained and equipped Raechel through various experiences before She Reads Truth began The origin of the She Reads Truth community Taking God’s word for what it is and not relying too heavily on devotionals or feel-good scriptures alone She Reads Truth has options for everything from free reading plans to beautiful, bound books A new children’s story book they’ve produced called This Is the Gospel Addressing faith and trusting that God is who he says he is with your older kids Why scripture plays such a key role in our understanding of who God is beyond our own experience with him The importance of modeling Christian life for our children’s spiritual formation

6 Aug 201853min

“They just keep fighting!” Summer, for us, means lots of unstructured time together as a family. Which is great. . . until it’s not. Perhaps you can identify. Maybe you see yourself in one of the following situations: Situation #1 – The kids are fighting – again! The harder you try to make it stop, the worse it seems to get – and the kids seem more and more resentful. Situation #2 – One minute they love each other and the next minute they’re arch enemies. The older they get the louder and angrier it gets. You hate the way this affects everyone’s mood, including your own. Situation #3 – Time-outs, required apologies, and firmness temporarily curb the fighting, but it soon comes back with more intensity. Situation #4 – Your young kids are beginning their rivalry and you worry where it’s heading if you don’t learn some better strategies.  (copied from Sibling Conflict Online Course description). Jim & Lynne Jackson from ConnectedFamilies.org are back to equip us in training our children to solve conflict well. And instead of just wishing they would “just stop fighting”, to recognize the gospel work of guiding our family to reconciliation. Jim & Lynne have been on the show before sharing their fabulous 4-layer framework for discipline that connects (Listen here to Episode 80 & 81). And again helping connect in any situation (Ep 98). And recently helping us work with our kids on all of our entitlement issues (Ep 200) Today, they are talking us through The Peace Process. A simple but effective way to guide our kids to a lifetime of reconciled relationships. Here’s their great graphic with the four steps moving us from “crazy mountain” to peaceful reconciliation (Click here to print your own copy):             Conflict is inevitable. Instead of just getting frustrated and annoyed, I’ve found having a plan to reconnect hearts and train empathy so helpful. I also loved all the phrases Jim & Lynne modeled to use as we guide our children through the process. Here are some of my favorites (I’ll be bookmarking this page and referring to often): “Sounds like y’all are having a hard time. Do you need my help or are you able to work it out on your own?” “Solving brains won’t work until we’re calm. Why don’t we each find a comfortable place. How long do you need? 5 min? 10 min? Then we’ll come back together to work this out.” “Did you hear that? How does she feel? Do you like that what you did made her feel that way? You two are listening to each other. How does that feel?” “Your big feelings are a gift. And they are an even greater gift with you can use them to help understand other’s big feelings.” “What’s going on? What was important to each person? How have you solved this problem before? Would you like to think of ways to solve the problem or do you want me to help give you choices on how to solve it?” “Are there four things you could say that are kind and true about that person?” Lastly, if you need more help learning how to guide your kiddos through the peace process, check out Jim & Lynne’s new SIBLING CONFLICT ONLINE COURSE. I’ll be working through it this summer. Join me!   What we chat about: Considering your own baggage/sibling situation as you rush into your kids’ conflict. Are we trying to get conflict to stop or teach reconciliation? The four steps to “The Peace Process”.  A real life example of applying peace process. How training in reconciliation helps our kids in their future marriages and relationships. Helping our kids learn how to solve the problem of the conflict (a 3-step process). A scenario of a more empathetic child in conflict with a more strong-willed child–growing specific skills in kids. Addressing the differences in your kids outside of conflict. Help for the mom who has a child with special needs in the sibling mix. Connecting with others based not on experience but emotion. Tips for conflicts that happen right before you have to leave the house.

30 Juli 201857min

You desire your children to walk with God. But how do you lead them to that place? Is that only your husband’s job? What if you are a single mom or functionally single mom? What about your role as a leader in your faith community? Should women leaders be gentle and quiet? Today’s guest is Jen Wilkin, author of “None Like Him” and “Women of the Word”.  She debunks some myths we believe about spiritual leadership, inside and outside of the home. Her desire is for women to be grounded in the truth of God’s Word. To study with both their hearts and their minds. To know God and who He is. Then from knowing Him and His character see how He crafted us uniquely and our high worth in His eyes. In this episode Jen and I chat about spiritual leadership. How we can expand the definition of what we think that means. How leading our children changes over the years. How her own single mom prayed fervently for her and for God to grow big in her life. We also discuss how to be a spiritual leader in your community. How to manage that responsibility with humility and boldness. And how women need to not just see cute Instagram posts but know who God is from His Word. What we chat about: Jen’s young mom journey with three kids in four years. The need for accountability and structure in studying the Bible as a young mom. How the Wilkins describe leading children spiritual–the differences over the years. Tips for the woman who is spiritually leading her children. Expanding the definition of “spiritual leader” in the home. Jen’s journey of spiritual growth having a single mom. Self-reflection asking “Am I stepping on people? Limiting the contribution of others?” How to be a woman in spiritual leadership/ministry. What do you do if women think you are more “spiritual” than them. How to be grounded in theWord and not cute, Instagram posts. What does it mean that God is transcendent. Links Mentioned: Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna** When Dad Doesn’t Disciple by Jen Wilkin None Like Him by Jen Wilkin ** In His Image by Jen Wilkin** Flower Mound Women’s Bible Study Jen’s Bible Study at the Village Church this Fall on Genesis Jen’s Published Bible Studies –> Sermon on the Mount** 1 Peter: A Living Hope in Christ** God of Creation : Study of Genesis 1-11**

23 Juli 201847min