Parenting and Grace + Q&A Session - Stand-Alone Messages

Since I don't have your Jonathan Edwards booming low timbre Georgia dog voice, welcome, welcome.

We'll get all oriented here.

You didn't have to all of a sudden get super quiet.

Just uh just want to make good use of y'all's time and uh share and make plenty of time for any kind of QA you might have.

So just glad you're here.

Um Rush, you you are are we good to go?

Okay, well, good.

Well, um welcome.

And um this is a conversation basically about the implications of God's grace for our parenting.

And I should put that into context for you a little bit, let you know about my family story in terms of my wife, Darlena mentioned this morning.

She and I, our next will be our 48th anniversary.

We have two adult kids, a daughter, Kristen, who's 43, who's a single mom.

She is the um mother of our oldest of three grandsons, Finn, Finley Ward Russell.

Ward's my middle name, so Finn has our middle name, my mom's maiden name.

Then we have our son Scott, who will be 40 in November, and he's married to Bailey, and they have Otis and Otto.

So I've got three cool grandsons, Finn, Otis, and Otto.

11, almost five, and almost three.

Um Darlene and my journey in parenting uh is kind of parallels our understanding of an experience of God's grace.

We both grew up in um significantly fractured families of origin.

Uh, Darlene's family was marked by alcoholism, early divorce, probably some mental illness.

She was the youngest of three girls, and got put into the role in her family system of um pretty much being hero caretaker.

If if if any of you here, and I'm sure that would be some of you, have grown up in uh family systems impacted by addiction, you know that there's just roles that emerge.

You sometimes choose, sometimes are put on you.

And Darlene was the youngest of three daughters in that uh peacemaker role, especially after her parents' divorce when she was about, I think, five.

Um, my family, some of you know my story, referenced just a little of it today.

Uh, I have uh one sibling, a brother named Moose, that's not on his birth certificate, but in the eighth grade, he wore a hat of a character in the uh old show The Archies, and there was a guy named Moose, and my brother wore a moose hat.

And uh he uh three years older, um my our mom killed when I was 11, he was 14 in a head-owned car crash, and what impacted the world we grew up in uh was my dad did not mention her name for 39 years after she died.

He just shut down in a real depression, continued to function as a professional photographer, but um we never as a father and two boys knew how to grieve.

So just broad brush speaking, Darlene and I uh came to the Lord with some significant uh story impact that that later uh we would begin to process.

In fact, uh it might have been helpful this morning, even talking about that great passage in 1 John 3 that will lead us through even a part of what we're gonna do today.

Uh God's love meets us in different seasons in terms of comfort and healing.

And uh, Darlene and I have done most of our growth in grace and therefore thinking about our parenting 25 years into our marriage.

Really, our biggest breakthrough in terms of understanding, we've got stuff we never dealt with that's fueling some fears and some control issues as parents.

And uh, so a part of our parenting story is being reparented by God the Father and looking back when our kids were real young, how we did everything we thought Christian parents should do to protect our kids from what we experienced.

And that was to, you know, insulate their world.

And again, there were just a lot of things we were reacting to even before we more fully understood the God of all grace.

So that's a real broad brush introduction to the fact that a part of this conversation will in time run through you processing more.

So what what what is the um what's the name in the face of some of your fears?

What are you reacting to when you think about being parents?

What are some of the recurring themes for which the gospel will be important?

So that's kind of how we're gonna go today.

You've got an outline.

Um I want to pray for us, then I'm gonna go through this material and like I said, uh honoring the fact that we all turn into pumpkins at 545, I think it is.

Is that legally what we have?

We will have a conversation before then, and then I'll go to the airport and fly home to Nashville and get up tomorrow morning to teach our new class of Nashville fellows, which I'm excited about.

So, but let me pray right now.

Father, thank you so much for this church, which is becoming increasingly endearing to my heart, and thank you for Russ and Christy and um just the wisdom of the elders of this church to help build our friendship and relationship.

Um, pray now for this visit this afternoon, Lord, that uh it would be uh the gospel of your grace and you, the God of all grace, that would really free us, inform us, help us to understand uh, Heavenly Father, how you are the perfect Father, and you meet us in our self-righteousness and rigidity, and you meet us in the deep, deep regrets we have about choices we've made and perhaps things we've already done and patterns that seem to be hard to break already, as we are at times overwhelmingly frustrated in our call to love our babies.

So, uh Lord, invade this time, pray these words recorded would be even helpful to others rethinking through this afternoon or those that could not be with us.

We offer praise in the name of Jesus and for his glory.

Amen.

Well, if you would follow with your outline, this will once again keep me on point, my lanes, so that will help at least in a brief time say, here are some things to consider.

Now, I will mention a few books just as a follow-up.

I mean, how much can we hope to do in an hour and seven minutes?

Well, we really can hope to do a lot, because you know, I think every time we gather, it's about continuing a process and resourcing.

So I'll mention some things that hopefully will be helpful, but especially starting with kind of picking up where we left off this morning.

Gospel-shaped parenting, what's grace got to do with it?

The Bible consistently affirms this great relational truth.

God's loving relationship with us in Jesus is meant to impact and shape how we relate to everyone, including our children.

Now, here's just a few select passages that kind of will further make that the issue.

Because I can promise you this if you only hear one thing that I will say in the next hour, it will be for all of us as we come more fully alive to the love of God our Father for us.

That is the best gift we will give our kids at any age and stage.

I'm seeing that now with a 43-year-old daughter that's a divorcee, and walk through some choices that I would have never wished she made, and how God is just really uh helping us become dear friends.

And uh so that being said, let's go right to the scripture.

So here's some images of who our God is.

Luke 15, 20, and while he, this is the younger prodigal son, was still a long way off, his father saw him coming, filled with love and compassion.

He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

Now I want you to think about this passage and others in two ways.

Number one, this is the way God your father thinks about you tonight.

He's not ashamed of you, he's not rolling his eyes, he's rolling up his skirt to run towards you.

Whether you are filled with rigidity and fear and self-righteous and controlling your kids, or whether you just again assume if anybody in this room really knew your past and your present, they would trade you in for a diet coke.

Whoever you are, the father wants you to know this is how he relates to you now in your calling to be a parent, but just for you.

And and and we want to believe this because you see, if this is the way God loves his kids, this is the way he's gonna love his kids through us.

And it's not easy.

I mean, this is not a cliche, this isn't just a refrigerator verse you put there just off in reference.

This is, Lord, help me learn to love my easy kids, and my kids that sometimes I think are demon-possessed to your glory.

How through all the seasons of parenting?

And uh in four decades of parenting, you know, we we've, Darlene and I have been the kids that the father's had to run after, and we've had kids that he's had to run after through us.

Passage we saw this morning, uh meditated on that um Russ will pick up and move forward in the text next week.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God.

And that is what we are.

Pondering, looking, moving forward as a congregation in your own life to really to behold that love.

And see, that love's going to meet you in the utter privilege of parenting, and then when absolutely it does feel like too much.

It'll be the lens of grace.

It'll be learning more about his great love that won't shape us.

Romans 8, 15 and 16 reminds us of the Spirit's work and our lives to help us come alive to this love.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship.

And by him, which means by the Holy Spirit, who lives inside of every believer, we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

God is utterly convinced to reparent us.

He is committed, convinced, he is supplying, he's resourcing that process.

And every single day the Spirit is saying to your heart, whether you're listening to it or not, how much God loves you.

And when you are blowing it, and when you are absolutely living a life that you think would be commendable.

And realizing how grace sabotages a lot of the fears, including our fears of parenting.

Later in chapter 3 in 1 John, Russ will come to this soon.

Flowing out of this great text, um, John says something like this, very beautifully says, Um, perfect love drives out our fears, including our fears of parenting.

And would you agree with me?

There are fears associated with parenting.

Please tell me I'm not alone here.

I mean, you know, and and and there should be caution.

Don't hear me say, get over your fears.

Uh no, I would rather say own your fears, understand appropriate caution, but let's learn together that it's going to take a community to help us raise each other's kids.

So a little bit more about that.

This next passage, Colossians 3.13.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

As parents, one of our callings is to learn to be quick forgivers because God deeply forgives us.

Uh, not parental denial, not overlooking stuff you dare not overlook, but we're gonna stay alive to the way God our Father forgives us to ponder the journey of how do we put a culture of grace into our home.

And we'll talk more about that.

Luke 6.35, here's another great picture of our father.

Be merciful just as your father is merciful.

Um, I didn't grow up with an earthly father that really showed me the face of mercy.

And I don't say that cynically.

Uh, fortunately, when he was 81 and I was 50, my dad and I had a remarkable breakthrough and finally going to mom's grave together and finally weeping together and doing that heart and heart work that was long delayed.

I can encourage you that that God um can break in your heart the patterns of just being overly defined by how you either were or were not parented well, by your mom or your dad or both.

And that's just been a part of both Darling and my story, and uh that's just an important thing for us to know that mercy, see, mercy is two things in the scripture, and we need to know this about our God.

Mercy is not getting, mercy is not giving us what we deserve, but it's also supplying us with the compassion we desperately need.

You know, mercy is the good Samaritan showing up and extending resource and investing in the face of brokenness, right?

Really, it's it's it's it's investing, it's spending when someone has no capacity to pay you back.

But it's also an attitude and a merciful heart for you and for me is going to be born out of.

How is how does God love me in his tough love and his severe mercy?

And how can I, in the various seasons of parenting, really learn to want to cultivate that heart now?

Because I can promise you, I mean, how many of you right now parent teenagers?

How many?

A few of you, okay.

So you're okay, you're you're in the rodeo.

You're in, you know, you're beginning to taste the wonder of the fact that, you know, the ones that used to cuddle up to you now are embarrassed to walk with you publicly.

So you're gonna you're gonna go through many different zones and seasons.

And uh, and I wish, you know, I thought I wish I thought about earlier having um Russ Lode a picture taken this past Easter at Alice Beach, where I've led a uh Easter outreach for the last seven years, and just the picture of our family now of these faces and these stories of saying, we actually love being together now.

And we don't see everything all the same way, but God is merciful, you guys.

I want you I just you need to know, in relationship with our father, not hoping is not optional.

And I know that's a double negative, so you English majors, forgive me.

But let me say it again slowly.

In relationship with this father, not hoping is an option.

Not hoping is not an option.

We are wired for hope.

Not hype, but true hope.

So as God reparents us in the gospel, here are some things, some of the things we will begin to see, believe, and practice.

And these are now, broadly speaking, a storyboard for parenting, but certainly some concepts that I would love for us to chat about a little bit.

So uh again, think about parenting your kids at every age and stage, the way you are being reparented now by God the Father.

Now, what might this look like?

Well, when we begin to see ourselves and our children as God sees us through the lens of creation and redemption, some good stuff happens, starting with this.

Look at A.

What God says about us must have more power over our hearts than what anybody else thinks or says, including our kids.

One of the, let me encourage you now, one of the things you want to begin to own as a directive of your heart is to not give your kids power or to take back the power you've given your kids to either make you absolutely joyful or absolutely depressed.

Um because of fear, because of our own stories, because of the world we live in, it's easy to fall into codependent styles of parenting.

And if your main goal as a parent is to have your kids as your best friends for the rest of your life, you know, you need to give up on that.

Not that they're not gonna be, but if if if the you if you relate to your kids primarily to get something from them, i.e.

affirmation, validity, and all that, you're gonna be using your kids more than loving your kids.

And you see, this is why this theme in the gospel is as our God loves us, so let us love.

Uh as we come alive to his grace, so let us learn to extend grace.

And uh again, as you'll see as we chat, that's not always easy, but it is an orientation.

Uh, we want to absolutely die to the theme over and over and over of validation by parenting.

And uh we can do that in community real well.

Here's another aspect of again the first of uh five affirmations.

Uh, as we are being reparented as we think about creation and redemption, B, every child is an image-bearer of God, each with a unique design, dignity, and beauty, though marred and hidden by sin.

Don't be shocked at how different your kids may be from you.

They're made in God's image.

Let's not try to remake them into our image or that of our culture.

That's just a good way of thinking about the Bible says that, you know, first of all, uh our children, according to God, are far more his inheritance than our Plato.

So uh He loves them more than you love them.

God does, He really does.

And He declares our kids to be a gift to us and His inheritance.

So they're made in His image.

Uh my two kids, uh Scott and Kristen, are so different from each other.

Now, similar in some ways, but so different.

And I think early on for Darlene and I, we knew what we wanted them to be like in temperament, right?

Would you not all love compliant children that rise up and call you blessed and say, Oh mom, it's okay, you stay seated.

I'm gonna go tuck myself in tonight.

You've had a full day.

You know, I'll read to myself tonight.

You just have another nice little hot toddy or something.

But, you know, there's just, you know, we we um we want an easier life because it will make us feel better about ourselves.

And and and you know what?

Some of the things you're gonna begin to see in your children's lives, temperament-wise or you know, and and the language now the world of Myers, Briggs and Enneagrams, and I think those kinds of tools can be helpful to at least give us respect for the image of God looks different.

And uh and through the gospel, we begin to see our kids, you know, when their attitude or their style is different than us and it contradicts our personality, uh, we don't take that necessarily as quickly personally as though we did something wrong.

One of the great stories out of the Great Awakening was the story of George Whitfield.

If you know anything about the great movement of God's spirit in England and in America, uh one of the uh Englishmen who was a really kind man, um, his name was George Whitfield, and uh God gave him an amazing gift.

I mean, he before there was amplification, he preached during the Great Awakening.

20,000 people at a time could hear him speak.

Ben Franklin got to know George Whitfield and actually climbed up in a tree a quarter of a mile from George Whitfield and heard him preach.

He said, I just want to hear how far I can stand from this man.

You know, his life began as about a 10-year-old kid that used to take a pot and pan, run around the outside of his English church, beating it, trying to disrupt the worship service.

An elder came out to stop this activity and basically said to him, I cannot wait to see what God's gonna do with your passion when his grace gets a hold of your heart.

That would not have been my instinct.

I've been the pastor embarrassed, I'm gonna lose my job.

What are you thinking?

You know, you know, go, you know, put a lid on it, you know, what are you thinking?

You're embarrassing the family.

Now, I'm not saying, I mean, that's an illustration, but it's an orientation.

You know, um, begin to ask God to show you now, Lord, what's, you know, what what how can I begin to honor the fact that before I had any chance to mess up my kids, you've given them a DNA, you've given them calling, you've you've given, you've given them a dignity and a beauty that sometimes the parts of parenting that really make life just exceedingly exhausting, I just don't see as easily.

So again, we're we're talking orientation.

What grace has got a lot to do with everything, because it rewires.

Us.

It just kind of exposes and then contradicts our instinctive ways of in a culture of performances of what we would typically do.

So, you know, again, first of five, as God parents us, as we grow in grace together, as we grow in the Lord, as you continue to say, I want a heart shaped by grace, not by law, these will be some of the things you'll begin to say, Lord, help me, help us together and Redeemer.

Love our children well and love each other's children well, because it is community.

Number two, as we grow in the gospel and understand more and more what that means and process more of our own stories and family of origin experiences and being parented and get some healing and freedom, we'll learn to parent as unto the Lord, as an act of worship, not as a means of self-validation.

None of us is the fourth member of the Trinity.

We plant gospel seed, watering with our prayers and love, but only God can cause growth.

Luke 15 reminds us that a good father can weigh, can raise a wild child and a self-righteous prig.

Never lose that when you read Luke 15.

I mean, Jesus is saying, here's the best father.

Look at two of his boys.

So if you ever thought pragmatic parenting will guarantee, you know, a lot of us have heard the scripture, raise up a child in the way they should grow, and you know, in the end they won't depart or something.

I mean, I'm kind of paraphrasing there.

We've wrongly translated that into mean.

Perfect parenting will raise perfect kids.

So what do you conclude when your kids are wild?

We screwed up.

Or at least you did, you know.

If you hadn't been so preoccupied, you know, we we're still like Adam and Eve blaming and shaming each other uh when we see failure.

And we've got to break the cycle of blaming and shaming.

We've got to understand, listen, our calling is to parent as unto the Lord, which would mean what?

As you look at the one, three, five, or nine children you have.

Um I say nine because I do have there, we have two friends back in Nashville that have nine kids, and they never raise their voice.

It's amazing.

They are creatures of another orbit or something.

But anyway, but they really learned early on, this is a couple, Tom and Janice Gilman, to say, you know, these really aren't our kids.

We're stewards of them, and they had a wide range of temperaments and stories and acting out.

But they said, listen, when we dedicated these kids to the Lord, we said, Lord, we're gonna raise them uh as humbly, as honestly as we can, but they are yours.

And and and we want uh as an act of worship, Lord, here's our daughter, Lord, help us to love her as unto you.

And not again, not tying what we do or don't do primarily to how we think about us.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying the same thing in many different ways.

We've got to break the cycle of I am a schmuck or not to the degree my kids turn out well.

Oh you want you absolutely work at parenting.

You absolutely do, and you must, and we must.

But loving them as under the Lord.

Um parenting palms up.

Palms up means uh uh you are as an act of worship, Lord, they are yours.

Help me, Lord.

I I I need, I take you at your word.

In my weakness, your strength is made perfect.

Uh I uh I come to you as weak.

I uh I worship you, I praise you, but I also release them because they are yours.

I'm not gonna hold so tightly that my kids feel strangled.

So, you know, the the picture here of uh of consistently coming back to that place, of offering up our children and loving them, not assuming, again, if you do it right, you can predict the outcome.

I can promise you this on our parenting journey, I know that Darlene and I were far more sincere in wanting to love our kids than at times we were capable of doing it.

But the Lord always uses broken, humble beginnings.

He always gives grace to the humble but resists the proud.

So that's gonna be a theme within your parenting.

You know, where is pride or where is humility and grace shaping what you do?

Thirdly, and this is again just another aspect of our own living out before our kids.

I mean, truly, with our kids, a lot more will be caught than taught.

The culture of our home will mean more than simply all the confinements of our home.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Well, number three, as the Father continues to free us and heal us, and we're growing in a culture of grace, we'll begin to live as chief repenters before our children.

As the Father's acceptance, forgiveness, and delight is more real to us, we'll be more comfortable living in humility, brokenness, and repentance before our children.

We'll seem more authentic and real to our children and less fearful and controlling.

Can I get an amen to that one?

Wouldn't that be awesome?

Just think about that.

Wouldn't you like that for you?

That God would work in your heart and my heart, that you in your partnership as parenting, wherever you are, so that your kids would be more likely to experience you as real and authentic and engaged and not as at not as fearful and controlling.

And when you go to fear and control, when you know you've gone overboard with that in discipline or threat, uh, you'll more quickly be this language of chief repenter.

I need to unpack that image because that sounds scary to some of us.

Uh it's in quotations because my spiritual parents, Jack and Rosemary Miller, they kind of created that language as a way of saying uh we want our kids to taste the fact that we are comfortable saying, I am so sorry, I missed your heart, sweetheart.

No, it's not okay the way I reacted to what you did.

Now, what you did wasn't okay, but I shamed you rather than really sat with you.

Will you forgive me?

And uh, see, Jack and Rosa Marie did that.

In fact, I should mention a great book if you've never heard of the book, Comeback Barbara.

Any of you read Comeback Barbara?

You even know that title?

All right, that'd be a title to write down.

I didn't give you titles, but if you are a note taker, one of you listening to the Elbow Sweetheart, get that one.

Uh, Comeback Barbara tells the story of my spiritual father and his and his wild child daughter, Barbara, looking back on the season as a pastor and daughter, she threw away the faith, decided to move in with a junkie, moved to California to become a communist, and how God worked in their story uh to bring Barbara back to the Lord and a dialogue as a father and daughter looking back.

So, what was it look like?

How does Jack tell the story of here's where I was overprotective or overzealous just to preach at my daughter?

Here's Barbara saying, here's how I knew dad loved me, but here's what I was dealing with.

So sometimes stories of those that have leaned into this reality of restoration and renewal.

And it's why Jack became, you know, this image of I want to be as a parent, as a pastor, the person that's comfortable saying, I need God's grace today.

You know, I want my kids to taste the fact that I am going to be safe, not always happy, but I'll be safe when we need to do some important work together, you know, as parents.

And uh see that this language begins to even help us think about the conversation of appropriate discipline and inappropriate discipline.

And uh knowing this, that until our kids uh come to rest in the love of God for them, they're gonna they're gonna push your buttons.

You know, um, they're image bearers of God, but they're fallen image bearers of God, and they want what they want when they want it, right?

Just like you did.

I mean, just look in the mirror.

You know, um, some of your most important parenting is gonna be born out of.

Do you remember when you were an absolute pill?

Either an outlandish one pushing the parameters or just a quiet manipulator learning how to work the system to get your way.

Just remember your own heart.

And as you begin to see your kids, you know, live out before them this picture of repentance.

It it is a beautiful thing when a parent uh can give their children not groveling but grace, when you can say, okay, listen, that I'm I'm not proud of how I did that.

And and and it it, you know what, that's and when they see that, let me say this.

If you are married, and you're here, some of you may be single parents, but if you are married, uh this works in y'all's relationship.

If if you're if your kids can see you as a husband and wife uh saying I'm sorry to each other, uh, I didn't mean you air all the issues and conversations before your kids, but if you're if your kids see you as mom and dad demonstrating humility, being those who are comfortable saying, time out, honey, I have lost sight of the goal, and I'm right now just I'm not leading with my kindness, I'm leading with my rightness.

Will you forgive me?

Let's let's let's ramp this down.

Uh I apologize for how I spoke to you.

There are appropriate ways when our kids begin to see grace practice between parents that they say, wow, that smells good.

And so that's that's gonna be a part of what I'm saying to you.

It doesn't make you responsible for your kids' response, but you know, you typically control the thermostat more so than your kids do in your home, right?

I mean the literal thermostat.

They may want it to be 68 and you want it to be 73.

I think your vote wins.

But you see, there are other thermostats we want.

What's the atmosphere?

What's you know, I'm getting to know Russ and Christy better and being in their home and and and watching how they're seeking to do what I'm talking about here.

One of the sweetest gifts I had this morning in their garage apartment was I get up every morning to write these gospel prayers about 4, 4:30, and I was immediately bummed out because the Wi-Fi wasn't on.

Oh no, I require Wi-Fi to do life.

You know, I've got to put these things up on the blog site.

So I went to my hotspot, of course, thank you, iPhone technology, and you know, I was saved.

But, you know, uh Russ said, oh yeah, you know, I forgot we we turn our Wi-Fi off at certain times so that as a way of loving our kids, there's just not open always access.

But you know what?

What I feel being, and I'm not trying to embarrass you guys or set you guys up because you'll confess your sin as fast as anybody, but what I'm watching, a culture of their home, because they know legalism, they know performances, and what they're saying, we want our home to be an environment.

I'm seeing reality between them, the way they engage, the way they say.

We want boundaries, not bob wire fences on our home.

And we're gonna think through ways that will be directive and appropriately protective, but but not, you know, we're not treating our house as Fort God and we're gonna protect you against the world.

No, we want you know, they're wanting to prepare those girls to live in the world.

And so do you.

But but again, Christy and Russ, thank you all for I know that's what you want.

And and I know you would be there, you're sitting there screaming thinking, oh, if you really knew, Scotty C, you're a guest.

You didn't see two days ago how we just blew up and were throwing, you know, cookie dough at each other because we were so frustrated.

Point is direction, it's not the finished product.

And so um this is a part of what it means.

Uh be those that are comfortable.

Four, and then on to five, and then we're gonna have some QA.

Umber four or five, again, as we are rethinking or thinking through what grace has got to do with it, God Himself is a great father.

Uh, we'll focus our parenting on our kids' hearts, not just on their behavior and achievements.

All of us learn to treasure and trust something or someone as a way to make life work.

That's really the essence of what it means to be worshippers.

We treasure something and we live in view of those treasures, to get them or protect them.

The battle for our hearts is unrelenting.

Prayerfully, let's seek to reach our kids' hearts with the beauty, truth, and riches of Jesus.

That will be more natural to us as we treasure and trust Jesus more and more.

Now, look at let's again take, um, Russ and I are both fives with wing six on the enneagram, so we're always thinking up here, the big story, the big perspective.

So let's bring it down for some of you, others that think more.

Well, that's nice, but tell me how to do that or be more specific.

So uh to focus on your the heart of your kid means that you're gonna be thinking now, so what have you consciously or unconsciously already determined success for your kids is gonna look like?

If you either inherited or chose primarily sustaining and even building a certain socioeconomic wherewithal to say this will be what it will look like if my son is successful.

He will own the company, he will not work in the company.

And I know dads that are that way, I know dads that are going to heaven that absolutely love Jesus, but who don't realize that functionally they want Harvard more than heaven for their kids.

You know what?

Your kids may teach at Harvard.

Your kids may uh be those that will unlock the final mystery of the DNA of Alzheimer's and it will be eliminated in this generation.

Your kids may not live at the same socioeconomic place you live.

They may not be able to afford to live in Marietta.

Will you feel like you failed?

See, this is just a start of what thinking out what do you what do we want for our kids, even unknowingly?

Where do you feel pressure?

I was with a marvelous group of missionaries uh four years ago in Spain.

I'll be with them again this next May.

Um my spiritual dad, Jack Miller, started a marvelous missions movement called uh World Harvest Mission, now called Surge, not S-U-R-G-E, but S-E-R-G-E, colon, grace at the fray.

And I love that.

That's a uh a surge is a um is a uh fabric image of you take two freight ends and you sew, you make a surge.

And so grace at the fray, that is parenting.

Grace at the fray, marriage is a lot of fray and a need for a lot of grace.

And the the point in all that is this.

Yeah, what is the point here?

Oh, I know, of course.

These missionaries come from so many countries, and early in our time three years ago, when 500 of them were gathered, we said early in the week, comparison kills community.

Because some missions, you know, some people were showing up with mission reports of we can sneeze and people come to Jesus.

Others are laboring in very hard places where persecution and loss are current.

We don't want to compare.

You need to be thinking now, who already are you, whose kids are you already comparing your kids to?

Why aren't our kids even wanting to go to church?

Their kids have got the whole Bible memorized.

You know, what are we doing wrong?

What are they doing right?

You know, or you know, we again this could be a tattoo.

Comparison kills community.

Be careful, but start examining now.

What what what how do you define health and freedom and beauty, good, the truth and beautiful, good, true, and beautiful?

It doesn't mean you don't want your kids to make good grades to get into a good school.

It's just it now, listen, there is everything right with your wanting appropriate uh financial, educational, economic success for your kids and creature comforts.

God gives us all things richly to enjoy.

I mean, I live in a house I never thought I would live in, unabashedly without guilt.

I'm thankful to be almost 70 and to be relatively in a place that I think I don't have to, you know, I don't have to work as much as I had to work in order to put my kids through college and marriage and all that stuff.

You know, I'm I gotta raise when college and marriages were over, you know.

It's a nice place to be, and some of you are looking towards those things.

But but, you know, even what do you want for your kids and a spouse when that time comes?

And and just these are just a part of the transvaluing power of the gospel.

Just begin to say, Lord, as you become my treasure, help me to want what you want for my kids.

And if you write their stories differently than we would choose, then give us grace for that.

Help us to nurture.

See, there's four four formative ends that are true for your story and will be true of your kids' stories.

And this isn't in your outline, so if you're a note-taker or a texter to yourself, four ends that are a part of your own story work that you could reflect upon, but also you want to think about for your kids.

They are nature, nurture, notions, and nukes, nukes and quotations, short for nuclear, all right?

Um, you all of you and whatever family system you grew up in, you grew up with nature, i.e., something was true of you DNA-wise, even before you were sucking oxygen.

So you've got you've got a combination of some stuff you simply inherited genetically.

Uh, and and some of you will have the privilege of loving kids shaped by generational DNA.

And and that's nature, it's it's biological, and and and don't be afraid of it at all.

Uh, it's just something to understand that some parts of our kids is are have come through our family trees and don't despise it, learn to honor it.

Uh nurture.

Uh you were or were not well nurtured.

And if you are background tomato growers, you know you just don't go to the Kmart, buy a tomato plant, and dig a hole in your background and put it in and think it's gonna give you anything other than green little hard tomatoes.

Soil matters, environment.

And if you were not nurtured, part of your learning is gonna be how do you become a nurturer if you were never nurtured?

See, that's been a part of my growth as a parent.

Um really knowing I I have I have no memory of ever being read to as a child, I have no memory of ever being tucked in, I have no memory of ever being touched physically in discipline or affection by my father.

My mom was the center of whatever there was nurture, and she was a very busy woman until three years before she died because mom and dad worked to build the dream house so we could finally get her around to be a family.

And and again, I don't blame, it's part of my story.

Why has it been easier for me to stand in front of 4,000 people and preach the gospel with a microphone in my hand than really pursue my wife's heart or my kids' heart?

Well, uh, not having been nurtured, I've had to learn for God to nurture me and trust God to work in my story to become a nurturer.

And and I understand that more than ever.

And you see, you you you you you're gonna look at some of these things and say, Lord, I want my heart to be more gentle.

I don't want to say my liability is because I didn't have uh the perfect father, the most kind mother, I can't be a nurturer.

We we we gospel helps us and in community.

That will be one of the final things I'm gonna mention before we go right to some QA.

But the theme of uh, okay, nature, nurture, notions.

Notions is simply uh how you and therefore how your kids are learning to interpret the world.

I mean, your kids are getting a worldview.

This is why, like I think uh, and and Russ, you and Christy, maybe at appropriate time, maybe in this conversation, can share how y'all are thinking through.

Um, in a world of just everything's accessible through the internet, why even have boundaries and what that looks like for you guys?

Because, see, unlike my generation, uh, we had all kinds of input and we had all kinds of notions.

I grew up with love sex and rock and roll.

I mean, I was 14 when the Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan show, and the soundtrack of my life was rock and roll music.

And I got a lot of my notions unwittingly, I adopted from what the 60s people were saying about what matters and what doesn't matter.

Notions.

Just be aware of where you have absorbed stuff and just be aware of, therefore, how you want to love your kids by thinking about proactively how do we want our kids to think about the world?

Why would we or would we not make certain educational choices?

And let me hear me say loud and clear, I believe probably every educational environment is appropriate with the right heart and motivation.

I mean, in our church, we've had uh uh families committed just to being in the public schools just to say we want to be a redemptive presence.

We're not gonna throw our kids to the whoops, but we're gonna be wise about that.

We may even move a county over to get them in the best public schools.

Private education, homeschooling, hybrid there is every model in the world.

Don't assume if you make the right choice, i.e., if you send your kid to a Christian school, that they're really gonna get a biblical worldview and understanding of the gospel.

My son Scott, who is such a dear guy, you'd love him.

He was abused in a Christian uh school, went K through 12, and uh had a unfortunately very legalistic experience of behavioral modification.

And uh God worked in his heart famously, and son Scott now, he loves to hang out at his old school and just look for guys like him that hated being there, and he just shows up and loves and disciples, these young men that would love to do anything but be in a Christian school.

Now, God works in your story, so be encouraged.

But uh, notions, be aware of what is influencing your kids and uh be proactive, but also be uh appropriate in terms of not just giving them uh wide margins because it buys you more time to do what you really want to do.

That's a part of the challenge, isn't it?

And especially when your kids are with kids that everybody's got an I something or three I somethings and you don't want to be the bad parent, you know.

Um so real stuff we got to talk about here.

Uh yeah, lastly, and then we go immediately for our final um 25 minutes or so to some QA.

Uh as we really understand and are continually growing in the grace of the gospel and being renewed and refreshed ourselves, we'll bear each other's parenting challenges, praying for and loving each other's kids.

We are to live like a covenant community, not as isolated strugglers.

I cannot say this too much.

What's happened in our culture, an American culture of post-Enlightenment individualism, is created almost this idolatry of the nuclear family unit.

And the Bible never anticipated that those who love God would have, we'd all have our own everything.

Um picture in the scripture is far more like for us in the church and the body of Christ.

You know, Jesus even said one time when uh he was asked, so where are your you know, where are your mothers and fathers?

Or or or or uh two or three contexts in the gospels.

He he he references the fact that to know me is to love me more than your parents.

But he says, let me tell you this, no one will leave any relational context for me and not have more mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters in this life and the life to come.

We're made for a larger community.

Please, if you have not started, start asking friends to pray for the hearts of your kids.

Um, don't be private with your parenting struggles.

Uh, one of God's greatest gifts to me was after my mom was killed and my father just disappeared, God raised up two families, had two friends, a friend named Steve and a friend named Fuji.

He was named Fuji because he erupted like a volcano as a linebacker.

But Ma and Pa Allen and Ma and Pa Contin said to me after mom died, Scotty, you'll always have a chair at our table and a bed in our house.

And I know now that was a part of the Lord's saying, look, Scotty, yeah, there's some stuff you didn't get in your family, but through my family, uh I'm gonna give you moms and dads.

And some of you know already now, some of you have experienced that.

Some of you would say, I'm so thankful.

There was an aunt, there was a friend, there was a young life leader.

There, somebody showed up to give me what you know my parents either couldn't or wouldn't, or gave me more, because no mom and dad are meant to be the entire formative community for any child.

So my prayer for Redeemer is gonna be that increasingly y'all have margins for this kind of stuff.

You you need to be rescued from all forms of wrong thinking about what's it gonna mean for us really to parent to God's glory.

And and and and as we do community together, we're gonna go through seasons when our kids are absolutely wanting to be missionaries or really basically wanting just to kind of, like Jonah, run away to Tarshish and bear each other's burdens, pray for each other.

Again, that's another thing Jack and Rosemary taught us to do.

They said, Scotty and Darlene, pray that God, by his spirit, would bring your kids' conscience under the sway of the gospel.

And that was what they meant by that was this.

You know, our our default mode is gonna be, let's get them under the law, let's scare them to death, you know, let's really, you know, we're not gonna talk about hell.

Sometimes we may feel like that, but uh, you know, we're gonna threat.

We're gonna, you know, because fear is a compelling parental style.

But if we really want our kids' consciences to come under the spell of grace, that means we're gonna pray, Lord, as early as possible, make Jesus beautiful to my kids.

Not just, I won't just don't want them to be afraid of they might get AIDS or some other disease, some sexually transmitted disease, and so they're just afraid of sexuality.

They don't even know how to think meaningfully about, you know, the stuff of the world we live in.

And and and that that's a big part of our world, right?

I mean, uh, again, as parents, and now me as a grandparent of three sons, I'm thinking about Finn, Otis, and Otto.

What's what's the world gonna tell them about their bodies, about how what relationship looks like, what touch is appropriate, what's not, and and and we want to be concerned, but not so afraid when we do that together.

All right, I'm gonna push pause now because that's a lot of talking.

But uh what are some questions?

I've said something already that intrigues you, or I have said nothing that's relevant to you, but you've got three questions you so wanted to ask at an event like this.

Anything at this point, comment, clarification, uh uh, and this is an open forum here.

Uh you ask a question, I'll restate it in a way so that we can uh follow up maybe with some good listening.

But but just you know, what what's on your mind and heart as we think about parenting and the challenges and uh what's in front of us?

Um anyone you want to start?

Yes.

Um so nukes, that would be the parts of your story where there have been certain wounds or things that have happened, the more difficult things, um, nuclear events that maybe impacted you more than you realized, that might help you understand why you are so afraid or angry.

Um for Darlene, uh, this is the way that worked out in our marriage when we moved to Nashville from Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1979.

That's when she first, being displaced, started feeling, you know, there's parts of my heart, I don't, I don't know why I feel a certain way.

And so she did some good counseling, got involved in um some Al-Anon community, adult children of alcoholics, and began to understand, okay, it was a nuclear reality, it was a, it would, you know, the the fact that my dad was an alcoholic who was incredibly nice and then so mean when he was drunk, that that that's just not something I don't take seriously.

So she needed to know how did that impact my fear?

Um uh or uh the fear of being devalued, you know, part of her story as and my story of sexual abuse, we needed to know, okay, what if if I'm not processing uh some of the nuclear events of my life, that's gonna probably make me far more less than wise in thinking through, not guaranteeing my kids won't have nuclear events, because you know what?

We we don't we we don't have control over everything our kids are gonna experience.

They will suffer in this world.

God promises that.

It's a broken world.

Now it's a kingdom-invaded world, but we we want to be processing our stuff.

I mean, Scott and Kristen, our two kids, are so thankful that Darlene and I have done a ton of work in our marriage uh because it's impacted how we've been able to be present with them through their stories.

So as we process our nuclear events, we also become more comfortable knowing what happens when our kids might get uh, and again, this is not fear, but uh if if if your kids should suffer a difficult experience in life, uh how will you be prepared to enter into their suffering?

Um I've walked with parents through every season.

I will never forget the call I got from Stephen Curtis the very hour uh Maria was run over by her brother and to enter into a family story of a major nuclear event of an adopted child witnessed by the two other little Chinese girls and dying before their eyes.

Um be afraid that's gonna happen to you, but understand God will give us grace for our story so that as we love our children towards the final restoration that God has promised, we'll be more present rather than just simply afraid and controlling or angry and all that.

That's kind of what I mean by that.

It's just uh as we are graced, as we are getting healthier, we're gonna be we're gonna be there, you know.

Uh our son Scott, he was more that compliant child that watched his mom and his sister fight.

I mean, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I don't know if any of you as daughters had strong-willed moms and you were a strong-willed daughter, but our sin said that didn't work.

So I'm just gonna be the weasel.

So we learned a lot of his story long after the fact.

A lot of alcohol abuse, a lot of stuff that, you know, he just learned how to be creative with his sin.

Kristen was just out there with hers.

But as a family now, we've processed that.

And because Darlene and I have been repenting and healing, we're we're able to go there now, like you did what?

You know, so don't be so shocked by your kids as you're honest about your journey.

You know, we're thinking about nukes, in other words, uh, so this you know said earlier, one of the best things you will always do for your kids is keep seeking God's grace to invade your marriage story.

Uh again, if you're a single parent, I don't want to put anyone in an awkward place because God has plenty of grace for you too.

But if you're as a couple, uh, you know, be involved in saying, what will a healthier us look like?

And so, see that, as I mentioned, is encouragement.

25 years into our marriages when we started doing that stuff, individual story work and then able to learn about each other's heart and story.

So Darlene and I are broken differently and also similar in some ways.

We have different temperaments, different ways of experience the world.

And so good counseling helped us begin to see the blending, the respect, uh, and in psychological terms, it's called individuating and differentiating.

It's like to individuate means that you come to develop a more self-awareness.

What really is driving my fear, my anxiety, and my anger.

Um, there's a guy in Nashville named Chip Dodd, who's done a lot of work on the voice of the heart, and he just says, you know, we need to know as believers, as image bearers of God, emotions, there are no good or bad emotions.

They're the language of what's going on with me.

And as I individually could go there finally, Darlene went there 17 years before me.

Pause.

He pauses to give encouragement to those who are still waiting.

I mean, Darlene really just started processing stuff, her nuclear stuff, long before I would go there.

I lived in my head, I'm a five, and I'm an INTP.

I like answers more than I like mess.

And I had to, by God's grace, go through a burnout to come to the point of really beginning to say, these things have impacted me.

So now we are so much more able for ourselves and our coupleship and in our parenting and grandparenting.

Uh so that but that took process and journey.

It took for good friendship.

See, um, churches that only do small groups as another book study but never have conversation, they they just basically educate a bunch of fools.

Um, you know, if my face is in a book but I'm not in your life and you're not in my life, you know, please know Redeemer will grow as y'all are willing to really listen to each other and know that the gospel is the safest place in the world and that there are people that absolutely would listen without trying to fix you.

And and you know, as we grow in this kind of culture, I think we we come to the place.

Uh, and we have to learn, I think, what Darlene and I had to learn through that journey, because we had a lot of regret.

I mean, we, you know, usually with your first child you make most of your worst mistakes.

It's brand new, you don't want to blow it, you know.

You, you know, and Kristen, God bless her.

I mean, she went through all of our fear and controlling and not having a TV and going to every religious thing imaginable.

You know, we we we our default mode initially was more protection rather than equipping.

And that was born out of some of our nuclear stuff.

We had real fears, because, you know, so that, Christy, is what I would say.

It's together learning, but knowing not anything is ultimately dependent upon you being the best mom or the best dad.

Be growing in your faith, union with Jesus.

And and and you may be new to the faith, or you may be in this church in a long time and still you like the vibe, but you're still kind of like, I just, you know, I don't exactly talk about God the way these people do, but press in.

This is the per this is the perfect time.

None of you have to wait till you're 50 years old like I was when I had a burnout and began to get some, you know, get out of my living out of my head and moving into my heart.

I mean, I'm exhibit A.

You can be encouraged.

You know, don't say you can't teach an old dog new trick.

You're not dogs, you're image bearers of God.

So I think those are some thoughts.

But yeah, um, Darlene and I still, temperament-wise, we're very different.

Uh, I am, I love uh things that measure time.

I'm a calendar guy, I like to plan, I like to execute, kind of like your husband.

Darlene doesn't own a watch.

She's allergic to time.

See, it's this huge mercy gift that she simply camps out.

She's a trauma counselor now because through her trauma, she went back to school, graduate school, got a master's.

Last two years she's been walking with women coming out of sexual slavery in Nashville.

I can't do that stuff.

I'm so glad that's her calling.

She's a lingerer.

God has blended our gifts and our style, and we see more with one heart and we respect each other.

But that's been a long journey.

And it's it's okay.

God's building for eternity, not next week.

Good question.

What do we wish we had known now before our kids became teenagers?

Well, see, here I thought I knew everything because I'd been a youth pastor for 10 years.

I thought, I understand teenagers, but you see, I think a part of which I would I'd known was that you know, to to be, for instance, even a youth pastor working with kids and watching God do different kinds of stuff in different ages and states, those aren't the kids under my house.

So I I wish personally I had you know been um moving more into my journey of realizing how frozen my heart was.

And I'm talking about me first, but then kids.

I wish I'd been more um further along in my growth in grace, but that's that's nothing I can blame myself for.

It'd be that would have been awesome.

You know, I wish I had been more engaged in um as a husband uh in Darlene's heart and journey together with us.

That would have been great.

But again, God's not dependent upon anything.

Uh if I had been freer in that, I would have been, I think, more patient with my kids.

I would have invested more in their hearts than simply their world.

I think for me, it was more like I'm gonna work harder to pay that you get a private school education so I can keep you away from the devil.

And and and what my kids really need is what I needed.

You've heard me describe my dad, even before mom died, my dad was not invested.

He was paying for life, but he wasn't engaged.

And I thought, I'm never gonna be like my dad.

Well, I was more preoccupied with not being like him, that doesn't measure, that's how I became.

It was just harder to go to the heart.

So, you know, kids need to be loved, welcomed.

They will push your absolutely button because one, God is, you know, um we're called to give our kids roots and wings.

The problem is they start wanting to bud wings before they want them before we want them to.

And that's a part of what, you know, now it's more like in middle school age.

I mean, kids now, 11 and 12, or my version of 13, 14, or 15 when I was coming along.

So there's an advanced adolescence that being forced upon our kids.

So uh again, don't all of a sudden that make that put you into reaching for another glass of wine or something just to kind of settle your nerves.

It's just let's just be aware.

And what does grace look like in knowing that um 11 and 12 year olds are exposed to more stuff?

And how do we love?

How do we create an app an appetite for conversation?

And um as an introvert, I'm not naturally someone that just kind of just loves to go and just pursue like that, but I've I've learned more.

And again, God's name is Redeemer, not redo.

So, and there's some good books on adolescents.

I mean, Russ was a youth pastor too.

There's some really I tell you, we have a phenomenal community in Nashville called Daystar.

And I don't know if they have a website or not, but they are a community of adolescents and pre-adolescence counselors that resource, that teach, that work with kids.

And there are great resources around just to say what are the best books or parenting seminars or things like this.

So there's a lot of resources we can think about.

So I'll kind of put that on Rust to kind of help build some bridges there.

So I think with that theme of you know, focus on your kids' heart, not just their behavior and your goal of success for them.

So, how do we do that?

Some kids would love that.

You've got some of you have some cuddlers, some of you have golden doodles for children, um, some of you have pit bulls.

Um, so you know, to successfully pursue the heart of your kids is no guarantee that before they're 12, they're going to give you their heart.

But but they're picking up on stuff.

I can promise you, your kids with a certain temperament or however, uh, to pursue their heart is just uh, you know, you you move towards them in kindness and pursuit, not pushing down doors that have, you know, uh padlocks against them, but you pray for them.

You know, uh that sometimes pursuing the heart of your child is spend more time praying for your child than they'll even let you pray with them.

Because it's softening your heart.

You're beginning to say, Lord, help me right now.

I'm so concerned, I'm so afraid.

This kid is just shut down, they just won't give me their heart, they just got always things in their ears, they got stuff.

Well, Lord, help me under how how do I come alongside of this kid and help me to understand and help me to risk, you know, moving towards them to the point of uh knowing that that's gonna create some pain when it's not being reciprocated.

But I think because what happens if we move out of that, let's say we don't feel like we're doing well with that, then we ramp up maybe, okay, I'm gonna work on your behavior.

I don't like your attitude, young man.

So, you know, you're gonna be penalized for being sullen.

Well, sullen, it's a lot of stuff that goes on with sullenness.

We don't even know physiologically what's going on with our kids.

I mean, you know, back to your question, I wish I'd known more consistently.

What's typical?

I mean, not having a mom or a sister, I had no clue about the world of a woman.

And and I wish I'd known more about that from a daughter.

What's it gonna mean for her to go through?

Because let me tell you, I'll share this story vulnerably, but as a way of saying it's never too late.

So when I started getting counseling and Darlene and I started getting healthy as a couple, I went to Kristen and I said, Kristen, I don't want to be 81 and you 50 before we ever do what I did with my dad.

So I want you to start telling me what did it feel like to have me as your dad?

And I said, I want to know.

Let's just revisit some stuff.

And here's the first thing she said.

She said, Dad, thank you for asking.

She said, I think I was 11 or 12, and I can tell I could tell I was becoming too much for you, so I watched you disappear into more ministry.

Well, that wasn't fun to hear, but you know what?

Because I asked what that led to connection, talk, healing, trust now.

And uh so um please, as you're thinking through, oh my gosh, you know, even driving here today, I just threatened my kids, you know, please throw down your measuring rod of thinking how you've already so blown it.

Think now about I'm so glad I'm here today to understand God's gonna meet me where I am.

You know, I'm hearing Scotty talking about even 25 years into marriage is when he and his wife start getting you know a hard engagement for themselves, and then to look at parenting and and to and and we can I can clearly say before God's face to you tonight, Darlene and I did everything we thought as Christians we were supposed to do for our kids.

That was our prayer.

And some of the things we did were overbearing, and some of the discipline at times was more harsh than kind.

And we repented and we've asked our kids to forgive us.

And uh it's just been you know a good thing to see the Lord is at work.

So I think Bo, keep pursuing.

Um, be careful if you have more than one kid to think, why can't you be like your sister or brother?

You know, that's a part of you in the comparison thing.

Uh, don't champion your compliant kids.

Sometimes they're just playing you.

And uh so just just be wise and uh love them and uh and uh be careful that we don't turn prayer requests for our kids into gossip.

I think that would be something.

I would say is we're, you know, about out of time now.

When I say bear each other's burdens, be careful to honor your children's confidences.

Sometimes your kids are going to make very destructive choices that you're going to need help with.

And you need to know where I can go with the fact that my 14-year-old has already slept with a guy.

How do I wrap my head around that?

And how do I not out of fear all of a sudden, you know, order a chastity belt?

How do I process some choices and some things like this?

Or people like me, who was eight years old, that's you know that I had one incident of being sexually abused by a neighbor.

It wasn't predatory, episodically going on and on and on.

But mom, you know, I had minimized it, which was what we typically do with nukes.

We immediately try to just say, oh, it didn't happen, or go to denial, or endomorphins kick in.

But I was 54 before ever voiced that story.

And uh I want to be someone that is not afraid, oh no, my child's gonna be the next kid sexually abused.

But I just want to be aware of is my home, am I becoming a person safe enough that my kids can talk?

Or are we becoming a village?

Some of you in this church will hear other kids' story before their parents will.

Don't despise that.

That doesn't mean you're a bad parent.

It does not mean you blew it.

Thank God that you've got friends in this church.

Thank God that you're not gonna be so busy getting ready to retire by age 50 that you don't make time to have friendships now.

You know, Hillary Clinton, in my estimation, wasn't right about everything, but her phrase, and she borrowed it herself, it takes a village.

It's true.

We're family, we're body, we need each other.

But don't gossip about your kids.

Uh protect them, love them, but bear each other's burdens.

60 seconds left.

You wanted to ask that question.

Finally, you're gonna do it because you know I won't put you, I won't embarrass you because we're about out of time.

Any final words?

Uh a good book.

Here's another good book titled, Elise Fitzpatrick.

Um give your kids grace.

Colon, dazzling your hearts with the love, dazzling your children's hearts with the love of Jesus.

Elise Fitzpatrick.

Um Christy and uh Russ know who she is.

Uh great woman again.

Um I think it is.

I think it is.

Give your give them grace.

Uh that's a great book.

Thank you all all so much for coming back this afternoon.

And uh I'm I'm really um uh I told Russ and Christy and the elders, it just is so good just to see what the Lord is doing here.

Um I'm thankful for you.

Um you're living in a beautiful part of the country.

Uh God has given you and this community a lot of wonderful uh opportunities in life, creature comforts, fun stuff.

Enjoy all of it, but don't let the good become the enemy of the best.

Seek to build community, uh, engage your heart in the journey of growth in Christ and His grace, and uh love and pray for those kids.

Amen.

Is that good?

Gonna pray for us as we conclude, Father.

Thank you for um this marvelous gathering of your sons and daughters whom you cherish.

Uh you love all of us more than we have faith to believe, Father.

And uh Lord, you've been very kind to Darlene and I in helping us in our marriage and in our parenting and now our grandparenting to parent less by fear and more by faith.

And Lord, we are still in that journey and will be until Jesus comes back.

So help all of us, Lord.

Some things were said today that uh for those who are here absolutely confirm a prior understanding about we need help.

I pray, Lord, that grace, not shame, would motivate anybody here that's concerned about their parenting anger or where they think their kids are already so damaged now, or just the stuff, Lord, that uh we inherit and also, Lord, uh, through some of our foolish choices in life are brought upon ourselves.

Your name is Redeemer, not redo.

Father, thank you that you are you take full responsibility uh for all of our challenges.

You tell the weary ones to come and find rest.

You promise us sufficient grace for all things, including our marriages and our parenting.

And we give you praise and great thanksgiving in Jesus' name.

Amen.