EP11: Why is Parenting a Discipleship Issue?

Welcome back or to the grace church members podcast, I'm your

host, Chris rivers and in this episode, I'm joined by Scott

Mozingo and Bill white to discuss.

Why parenting is a discipleship issue.

If you're a first-time listener, we're excited that you've joined

us. The goal of this resource is to

address discipleship issues in the life of Grace Church and

discuss. How to be more fully devoted to

God. If you're a parent, then you

know that parenting is no. No Easy Task.

The formative role of training. My kids is not something that

comes naturally to me. And quite frankly is one of the

most challenging aspects of my role.

As a follower of Christ. This responsibility of parenting

should lead me to be intentional about the work that needs to be

done. And it should motivate me as I

look for opportunities to work with Rachel and teach our

children, what it looks like to follow Jesus.

In this culture, I'm very grateful for this interview

because it gave me some And ideas for what it looks like to

be the primary discipler of my kids.

I hope it is a resource. You can use and share to help

grow your Devotion to God and others in this area.

Rachel and I have a lot of work to do and we are joining you in

this conversation and pray that it will be as challenging and

encouraging to you as it was for us.

Be sure to check out our podcast page located in the show.

Notes on this page, you can access past episodes a summary

of this episode. With Bill and additional

resources to help you move toward discipleship.

Okay, let's jump into our episode on why parenting is a

discipleship issue. So Bill we often say that

parents should be the primary disciple makers of their kids.

What does that even mean? Yeah, it's funny how we use

language and then you start thinking about what it really

means and you're like, what does that really mean?

I mean, I would put this in the category that you are, the

Disciple maker. You're just either a good one or

a bad one. You're training.

Your kids. And the consequence of your

training, it isn't determine itive.

You're not sovereign, you're not God, but it's a responsibility

that is given to you by God and it's a peculiar one.

No one else has the opportunity that you have, and you're

training them all the time. And if you abdicate that

responsibility, then there's going to be a huge gap and the

content and the manner in which Which you do it is going to be

really formative in your kids lives your children's lives.

And so trying to be a just be aware of that and to take that

responsibility. Seriously to realize that in a

very real sense, I'm going to stand before God, and I'm going

to give an account for the manner in which I did that being

conscious of that responsibility should cause us to be

intentional. And that's the That would just

say as a pastor, I want people to know, I don't want people to

be afraid that they're going to make a mistake.

If you have a really conscientious person who has a

certain type of Personality than that that can produce some fear

and be overly scrupulous where you feel like I have to do

everything right. Rachel and I were infected with

some of that we were both first born's.

We both are responsible people, we tend Has the owner more

responsible than we are. And so we made some mistakes

around that, but that seems to be more of an exception.

Is that, it seems like we have a lot of folks who are very

confident and not very intentional sometimes and they

sing God, this all going to work out and you can miss

opportunities. And we don't want people to miss

those opportunities that we don't want the Next Generation

to not be intentionally train. And what it looks like to follow

Jesus in this culture. And so that's what we want our

parents to be engaged in that. And, and to realize what a

privilege and opportunity it is. And to be intentional about the

work that needs to be done. Yeah.

Can you reflect on that a little bit more?

How do you think you've seen parenting Norms change?

Just as you've been pastoring? And maybe from this, I've got to

do it a certain way to little. Or Freedom that can result right

now in. I don't know if you use the

word, he didn't use the word laziness or just kind of a

hands-off parenting. Sure, what's going on?

What's been going on for the last 15 years?

Sure, it will when I got engaged and student Ministry that was 37

or 38 years ago. So it's been a while.

And I don't know that. I mean, culturally things have

changed, the fundamental challenge of being desirous of

being the primary disciple of my children.

I don't think that's changed because that was one of the

first things that I noticed in student Ministry.

All those years ago, when I was just finished, I just finished

high school. I was a college student.

I was getting paid in the Summers to do student Ministry

in my home church. It was breathtaking to me the

conversation. Since that I was having with

people who were three and four years younger than me at the

time that their dad's had never had with them.

And I wonder if some of that might even be a little better

now, right? But the game has changed, so

dramatically with the intrusiveness of the culture, so

the World, the Flesh and the devil, same enemies.

Always right. But we thought things were

challenging when in my early years of student Ministry, which

I did full-time for over 10 years.

So all through my 20s until we went to Philadelphia and and I

was the lead pastor Of a tiny little church.

I was doing student Ministry every day and we thought it was

challenging with, you know, music and movies and television.

Right. You know, like I remember when

the movie Titanic came out and all of our kids were going to

see that movie and I was like, this is today.

Sign of the Apocalypse meant this idolatry of romantic love,

right? And this myth is being presented

in such a powerful way and it was so compelling.

I Thought, you know, there's no we're not recovering from this.

And now, you know, Taylor Swift is discipling for kids, right?

And and parents, right, right? Because now, parents and kids

are consuming the same media and with the invasiveness of social

media and the web and the reach of their friend group and how

their friends unbelieving, friends are being discipled, the

pervasiveness of that I do. It's that is the Big Challenge.

Challenge and what that requires, as a parent, the level

of Engagement, you have to have how you have to keep up.

I've seen a big difference even with my children, who have

served who serve in student Ministry, the difference between

what it was like for them to what it is today.

And my youngest son is turning 25 and Is this different now

because of just the pervasiveness of media, And

those voices are very compelling and and that puts a burden on

the church, but it puts a burden on parents because you can't win

once a week. Like, it's a soaker hose like is

irrigation and if you're not engaged in the soaker hose and

you haven't created in The rhythms of your life, the

opportunity to engage, and if you don't have credibility to

engage in it, you don't have thoughts to share and you hadn't

created those Pathways. Then that's the thing.

That's different. Having a good youth pastor,

who's doing a good many sermon and having one compelling event

a week that in go get it done. Like it's just a different, you

know, you're at a nuclear war with a knife, you know, it's not

a gunfight with a knife. I mean, it's a, it's a, just a

different, it's a different thing.

It seems like parents are desperate to connect with their

kids so they're choosing friendship over discipleship.

Yeah, I mean that may be more pervasive, you know, our student

Ministry guys would know better. I don't know if that's different

than it was. I mean, I remember the parents

who threw parties and bought beer for the kids who were in

high school, so that's always been around.

I guess I shouldn't laugh when I say that.

But Maybe this is the bigger issue.

Is that it seems that all authority is rooted in personal

credibility. With people now said, like I

don't have the right to speak into anything in your life that

you don't give me because you trust me and relationship with

me which means that if I want to have a voice with you, then you

have to grant that voice to me. Right?

And so the way you get that voice, granted is you have to

know that I'm with you that I affirm you.

And that is definitely different could build up a relational

Capital around some of these fun cultural things.

Yeah, that's right. Now that we're the same out we

both like the same things so then I hope that I could speak

into your life but what do I lose along the Journey of

becoming equals right? That's exactly right well and

what I'm doing is I'm creating an environment of entitlement

where I'm a, making a younger person like, as we're talking.

I'm thinking about what I think. All this, okay.

Is that the sense of entitlement that you're in a position to

evaluate me? And I'm giving you that ability,

I'm trying to win with you on your terms and not to say that

there isn't a place for building credibility with people and

crossing boundaries that way. But if my whole life and I do

see this, if I feel like I have to answer your question before

we can move on to addressing an issue.

I think that's a real problem, right?

Like if we think that we need to hear our three-year-olds voice

on something right. You know, I just that is a real.

You're going to have a hard time.

Forget anything done, right? All you're going to ever do is

be sitting around wrangling and talking about ideas with someone

who's not qualified to make that decision.

If we're going to wait a 15 year-old boy or girl's opinion

about something equally with their parents and say that we

have to relate to them on their terms.

About all of that rather than just say hey I just need you to

trust me on this and I have a backlog of trust that I've

built. And now you're gonna have to

come under. I think the loss of that view of

authority, And I think we have that in our culture at large but

but where we see it real clearly is with when you get into the

teen years and it just breeds arrogance if you go back to the

language that we use to use and we still use to a large extent

of establishing authority of training and this is a real

conversation. I was just having this

conversation with one of my kids because my kids have kids, no,

not all of them but they're that's the season of life where

they are and I was just encouraging, one of my

daughters-in-law who's overwhelmed with this idea right

now and I was like hey you are training that child to be happy

doing something that they don't want to do, which is one of the

greatest gifts you can give them Because they have to agree with

everything. And feel heard.

And every moment there are a lot of opportunities come off the

table because they're just not going to get included much, but

if they going to learn how to do something, they don't agree with

or feel like is the best option happily, then they're going to

be a lot. Happier person takes

spirituality out of it, you know?

But if I can just be a good team player and just do what I'm told

to do and make the environment better, and not having an

existential crisis every time. Some don't go my way then I'm

just I'm going to be able to move on and live.

Her life. That's an important.

That's a skill that has to be trained.

And so I don't know how you train that skill if you don't

have parents on a daily basis over who are making decisions

that younger people are not consulted on and they just have

to get with Bill question for you.

Just, as you are not unpacking some of this stuff, this idea of

building credibility establishing Authority, can you

maybe like, go back years in your parenting?

Maybe a help me. Help us see where you maybe

failed in some of that and then maybe where you won, you and

Rachel one share because it'd be nice to kind of see what you're

talking about here. Yeah, so I mean if I were to go

back let's talk. First of all about Where we won.

So what I don't regret is being engaged on a daily basis and

being there and being a part of it.

I don't regret teaching my children that they have to obey

when they disagree and stopping everything, like I don't regret

taking my children out of a restaurant to the car.

Correcting them and private. Bringing them back in, making

them apologize to people with the table for being a disruption

and then eating their mashed potatoes.

Yeah, whatever. I don't regret that stuff for

not looking the other way and make any excuse for them being

tired, that's training. I'm thankful that we did all of

that. I think my children are thankful

that we did all of that because I see that as training them for

the real world. So the way in which we did, I

have regrets about doing that to make my life better at times,

you know, and to make my life simpler.

I have regrets around canonizing, my personality

making my personality. The standard.

I didn't know, I was making my personality to standard but

where I was making something about God, that really was about

me. So, I need, I feel a need for a

pretty high degree of order in my home like cleanliness things,

being where they go, not having a bunch of junk and clutter,

which is just a personality and its really a weakness for me.

It's when I'm dealing with the chaos of the world.

When I come home, I like for things to be pre-ordered, you

put for teenage boys. We have four sons and five

years. So there were a lot of times

that I I realized my stress and put that on them and I made that

a character issue for them. And one of my son's is light me

and three of my sons are not like me in that way.

And so, I burned credibility on that now that they've been

gracious to me so far. Now, I may be paying for therapy

in their 30s, but we've talked about all those kinds of things,

but that was clearly a place where I was imposing my weakness

and I was spiritualizing it and putting it on.

Them. And so, I regret that now,

Rachel and I had conflict running, she tempered me on

those things because my need for, that's way higher than her

need for that as well. But when you say spiritual eyes,

would you say that you made it about obeying God by obeying

Authority typing probably? And just I think more what I did

is I put more energy into it than it deserved. you know, I

made it a bigger deal than it was You know, I didn't, I just

didn't dumb stuff. I like I came home from work and

they kick their shoes off and they were in the front door and

I took their shoes and threw him off the porch into the front

yard. So then in know where their

shoes were, I was like, well, I know where they were before.

I threw him off the front porch because we talked about this

five times, I mean, I did stuff like that, you know?

But I don't recommend that, but I can tell you this, that when

they when they come Find their shoes.

They started putting them in a different spot where I wouldn't

throw him into the bushes. So we're just looking in the

bushes. Yeah, no, just go look for him

in the bushes. I mean, so I did, I mean, I

could give a number of examples where I most of mine was by

overreacting and I mean, a lot of that stuff.

I apologize for. Yeah, you know.

So because I didn't absolute eyes it and I think that's why

it worked out is not kids were like yeah I mean that's just

crazy around all this stuff and and as they got older I realized

I have less margin on that kind of stuff, man.

I got a, I got a deal with me and so that was a part of that

became a part of parenting. As they got older, I started

seeing how my sin and my weakness was impacting them,

which is very different for all their personalities.

So then I had to go to and say hey man I'm sorry, I'm making

your life harder than it should be.

And I'm sorry we had to work through this and we got to make

allowance for one another on this and have realistic

expectations of one. Another yeah, I think it's

interesting to talk about parents as primary disciple

makers of their kids, but also guide using parenting as a

primary disciple maker of adults.

Yeah, no doubt. And I think that's hard when

you're You're in the early stages the establishing

Authority because you're all your energy a lot of wrote down

the word energy, so much of those.

It's about how do you Steward your energy?

And how do you create margin? Not make things that shouldn't

be made big deals. Big deals how to right-size

effort for outcome and then spend time trying to see what

God's doing in all that. And then, you know, the thing I

heard you say earlier, if we're trying to spend all this energy

to have relational credibility and capital with our kids to get

on this even playing field so we can have authority.

We just don't have energy to be an expert on the authority

matters because we're spending our time, trying to know the

latest Tick, Tock Trends, and be friends with our kids, right?

So how think about energy, energy and different?

Stages of parenting. What are some principles for?

How do you just Steward? Not just masculine energy.

But how do we steer with the energy of parenting?

Well, I mean, the first thing is, you have to understand is

going to take a lot more time early on, so I think you have to

spend the time. What I see people trying to do

is get super personally engaged once their kids are teenagers

because they're afraid, right? Right?

And then not being as engaged structurally, when their kids

are younger making excuses for their children because they're

tired or they're hungry or whatever, when they're younger,

right? You know, they didn't get a nap,

they do whatever. And then what's their kids are

teenagers. They're not making any excuses

or trying to clamp down and control everything.

So we got it backward, we got to invert that, right?

And so now it takes a ton of energy.

When your kids are teenagers. But if you spend the time with

the positive training, you know, we think of discipline.

A lot of times we think of corrective discipline and I

would just say, if all you're ever doing is correcting, then

you're probably not doing the kind of formation you need to

do. That's one of the things that

Rachel and I realize is that when we got to a new stage with

our kids and we were realizing man, he's just not getting it

because we had all boys. He's just not getting it.

And I feel like all we're doing is correct in him all the time

and we're having a chaste Sighs and we have to do all this.

We'd have to back up and say, where's the issue, in our

formation, where are we behind? What do we have to do to train

him positively? And is this an issue of we're

not doing our job? Or is this an issue of he's

being stubborn and rebellious? Is this a weakness issue that he

has a deficit in his personality?

Went to accommodate him but you can see by doing that, that's

that takes a bunch of time in conversation, right?

And so, that's where I think. If you're going to really

disciple your kids, you had to be Attention on that level.

You got to have those categories to be thinking.

It's this sin. As it weakness is this my

Center? Is this my weakness or my

expectations? Is?

This about me and I need a high level of control or is this

about me? And I'm overreacting to my my

parenting in my upbringing that I disagreed with that takes a

ton of time and energy and so for us when our kids were that

age I mean that's what we were doing as our hobby that was we

were reading about all we were about we were in church that we

were serving in church together. We were having conversations

around all of that with our kids.

We were calling them to sacrifice as a part of all that

that was all exposing that was creating the need for

conversation. And that was, I mean, that's a

ton of time and energy, but the interesting thing is, if you so

in that season, then you begin to reap some dividends for that.

Hopefully, as your kids, get older.

And it doesn't always work 100% that way.

But I would say you reap dividends even if they're not

spiritually, exactly where you wanted to be.

If you have a human being, who knows how to be with other

people, have a conversation and gauge that they've been trained

and all that, right? Then your life's gonna be

better. You're going to reap later,

right? Where you, so yeah, we talked

about in our home, being a fully functioning member of society.

Yeah, that's exactly. That's what we're doing today.

We're training you to be a fully functioning member of society

about, I think this idea of Appling is a misnomer.

We use it. We misunderstand it to in

relationships within the church, we talk about discipline.

We don't really see our everyday relationships as part of

formative discipline, spiritual formation being made into the

image of Christ, growing our devotion.

And so when we talk about discipline your kids, it's

almost always bad stuff. Hmm.

It's like oh, are you discipline, your kids?

I don't know. Should we spank?

Or should we not Spanx? Like know that, you're asking

your question? I was going to say, you're done.

That's, that's the wrong question.

Yeah. Time out count to three, I hear

it all these things. We can't we should do this.

We should do this now, you're missing the point.

Yeah, there is yes, we got to have a conversation around that

but what happens before that and so you have to have times of

times of Peace where you're willing to have those difficult

conversations but because you're so tired, when you have those

like quiet times of Peace. It's like well that's the last

thing I want to talk about is intentional parenting, right.

But that's really where you make you make.

Hey, it's where? Yeah, that's where you take

ground. Yeah, and just simple things

like you don't have to. This is what I would.

Suggest is that you don't have to go looking for those

opportunities. I think today, I hear people

talking about trying to create all these events and because we

had had ceremony as a part of our culture or not a part of a

traditional culture. People come untethered.

But this is what I would say, is The Breakfast Table is a great

opportunity to train, right? Emil to eat something.

That is not your preference. It's a great opportunity to

train to show respect for somebody who serve me by

preparing this meal. To sit at a table together with

other people who had different days.

Some of who are in a good mood in a bad mood, And to stop what

I'm thinking about pray, give thanks for this food and then

create an environment where people can actually have a

conversation. Just the meal time with young

children, you know. So when I hear parents, say we

can never go out to eat. Or when I hear parents say, you

know, I can't eat at the table. I have to feed my children and

get rid of them, so I can eat we eat after our kids, go to bed,

you were, I believe you're wasting a huge opportunity to

discipline your children, to teach them to be a part.

And discipline is disciple, is this as an opportunity for us to

be together to receive something with gratitude to humble myself

to take something that maybe would not be my favorite and to

not throw a fit about it. You know, I'm tired or I want to

get up and go play, but we're going to sit now.

You can carry all that too far, but that's just bedtime, right?

Take a bath. Don't create chaos, out of that.

Put my toys away, get in bed and then have my imagination

captivated as I go to bed. Sing a song about.

Out who God is and what God has done.

I'm disciplining my thoughts. Around now today is at a closed.

And we're going to ask God to forgive us for the things that

we've done that. We shouldn't have done that way

and you heard me speak to your mom that way and I shouldn't

have done that and I'm asking God to forgive me.

I'm your mom and I are going to make that right before we go to

bed tonight. That's discipline.

That's discipling. Your and industrious.

Waking up and going to bed. All of those are things going to

bed on a schedule except for, when you make an exception to

it, that's discipline. And so, if you're doing those

sorts of things with your children, when they're young,

You're equipping them right? You know you're not being

indulgent to them and you're not explaining everything to them

because you don't have time to So, thinking through different

stages, when we come in jumping around a little bit and

developmental stages, but you said up until your kids were

preteen like 12, right? Where you do a lot of that work.

So, this age range, that's a real sweet spot that we're

trying to identify as the church where we really want to come

alongside parents. Give them some additional tools.

We're thinking that's Ages nine, ten somewhere in there.

Sure? Why?

Why that age? Do you think?

Well, what we seem to be hearing in student Ministry is that just

because of exposure. If you're not really

intentionally in the game by middle school, and if you're not

capturing your children's, imagine their moral imagination,

their spiritual imagination, You're not equipping them with

self-mastery. By that age, is really difficult

to make up ground afterwards. That does seem to be different

culturally. Now, and so, it just seems like

in this season of what we've talked about at times as

establishing Authority, That there's a God and you're not

him. It's one of the first things we

teach infusion is to be under God's Authority, and then, to be

able to experience a glad-hearted obedience that I'm

okay to be a child and not be in charge and not be worried about

things that are too great for me.

I would read that song this morning have a weaned and

quieted soul where I'm calm and I can receive instruction and I

can receive comfort. That if you haven't learned how

to do that by the time you're nine or ten years old, it gets

really difficult and our culture is and not helping people learn

how to do that. I mean, people were living in

anxious toil and they're a bunch of other things coming down the

pipe after that, that it's important for us to buy that

season. We want to help parents to a 1

in that way and to equip their kids in that way.

Because the things that come subsequent to that, I used to

talk about it as do this handle this.

And what do you think about this?

So when my kids were little, I wanted them to be good at

glad-hearted, obedience to what they were told to do.

As they began to get more into Middle School.

I wanted them to begin to be able to be entrusted with

responsibilities without specific instruction, and for

them to carry something and have a sense of this is my job to

own. And now I'm accountable for

whether I did this, effectively is my job, to remember, not my

parent's job to remind. I wanted to transition to all of

that and then once they began to get into their teen years, I

wanted to be Having real conversations about.

Well, what do you think about this?

What would you like to do? If you had a future, you know,

but they have to have already had their imagination.

They have to be ever been humbled by doing some real

things, and they have to know what some of their strengths and

weaknesses are at that point to, you know, one of my son's was

having a conversation with another guy in a summer job.

And this guy was he'd been raised in a Christian home and

He was about 18 years old, he's an outlier.

But my son was talking to him about what he'd like to do this

future and he's like, you know, I think I'd like I might like to

be a professional baseball player and so he was not why I

have a brother who's a professional baseball player.

And this guy was like, yeah, I mean, just he's like, so, are

you on a baseball team? He's like, no, and my son came

home. He was he was just this guy, was

that. That's an extreme example of it,

right? But If you get into high school

age and you don't have some sense of what it's like a form

of child abuse, right? This is a young man who's

ill-equipped was where he fits into the world and he's just not

been equipped by his parents. I'm sure.

Good folks, you know, who care about him, right?

But he's just not prepared. And so I think that process of

having been humbled had carried responsibility, figured out what

kind of where you fit a little bit and I think well, no one who

you are and what you're doing. What would you like to do?

Where would you like to go to college?

Where would you? There's a lot of work that's

involved in the early years and someone someone doesn't just

wake up, knowing that stuff bill.

There's a ton of resources on our website at resources dot

Grace Church us, c.org for parenting.

Could you maybe clothesline the plane with us and just maybe

just commissioned us as parents on.

What would, what would the next if you could change one thing in

your parenting or do something right now in your parenting?

For the? Next 30 days you know what would

you what would you just a couple steps that couple thoughts you

had advised us on? That's a good question.

I think don't overreact first of all.

So this is a think. One of the difficulties is if

you realize you're behind or you're not as engaged as you

need to be. The first thing is to stop and

reflect and part of humility is just to own your piece and not

go try to fix everything at once.

And so I would say that that's a big thing.

You got to know your personality a little bit.

The second thing is if you're married have a conversation with

your spouse and get on the same page and and biblical Community,

do that. Go have a conversation with

people. I mean Rachel and I when we were

Trying to parent our kids. We had a number of Seasons where

we came up against some obstacles where we cannot get on

the same page and we would go to our Biblical community and say,

we are not in agreement on this and I think this and she would

say what she thinks and we would invite other people into that.

And we had a couple of Seasons where we had about six months,

where we had to do, some really intentional work to figure out

how to get on the same page and really trust one another and

here, Each other's concerns were. and so you got to get on

the same page as best you can and then depending on the age of

your children, if you have teenagers You got to go

acknowledge to them. Hey, these are some of the

things that we're thinking and be vulnerable with them.

If you don't, if you're if your kids are younger than it's

simpler, but take advantage of the resources that are around

you and spend time getting on the same page.

That's the thing I would say when you have young children get

your imagination Captivate it. And get a vision for what you

want your family to look like. Because you're not going to

answer for whether or not your family.

Look like my family, you're going to answer for what you did

with, what God gave you You're not going to be able to point

someone else. Say well I did what they told me

you know, that's not how that works.

You gotta understand. Sibility God entrusted to you

with the gifts that God gave you and I think that's the important

thing. I did not.

I underestimated the role of gifting and personality and

parenting. So I was real free to tell

people what to do and some particular things when I was

younger as a teacher. And I regret that now because

you got to, you got to do what you are gifted to do.

We all have the same responsibility to disciple our

children. We all on the same outcome when

our children to walk with Jesus, and be equipped to live in

fruitful lives in the world, to make the world a better place,

that is our job, and you got to figure out how to do that.

But there are things that God is going to hold me accountable for

that. He gave to me that he didn't

give to you, or he didn't give to Yuma.

And then there are things that God gave to y'all.

That he didn't give to me. And so we could judge one

another as parents, which I think happens a lot to make

ourselves feel better about one another.

But in reality, that's that's the wrong standard.

You got to use the gifts that God gave you.

And then we as the church have to come alongside one another

and help fill in the gaps. you know, and I think that's If I

want people to do anything, I want people to think about it in

that way. And then, but if you don't go

take the opportunity and take the resources that God has given

you through your community and you don't humbly address these

issues. Then you are going to, you're

going to regret it and even if nothing else, even if things

turn out great for your kids but you missed the opportunity to

have the relationship with your kids that you could have had.

Then you're going to be full of regret over that even if it goes

well for them. Because you're going to have

missed the kind of community, you could have with your

children and most of your relationship with your kids is

going to be as adults. You only have them as small and

impressionable for a very brief period of time, and then they're

just going to be adults that love you and respect you or

don't for decades. God willing.

Hopefully and they get to choose whether they want to be friends

with you or not be friends with you.

And you get to choose, whether these are people that I want to

go on vacation with, you know, that's one of my new things is.

I'm trying to parent in such a way that I hope produce people

that make my vacation better. This, I think this is a and this

sound real spiritual. This is like, I'm trying to do

my part to help ensure that this is somebody.

I would enjoy spending a week with and I'm trying to be

someone and grow to be someone that they would enjoy spending a

week with their kind of cuts through some stuff Janna.

And there's a lot of iron Ernie. And that we spend, we are

tempted to spend a lot of time when they're teenagers, trying

to be their friends. Yeah, without thinking what we

have to do and they're teenagers, so that we can have

Decades of friendship later on. No, that's exactly right.

And I just tell you between I would say 17 and 19.

Well, one of my son's, he needed me in that period and he knew

where he needed me. And so one is complicated for

him. But for three of my four 17 and

19, they just had a hard time believing that what I was

telling them was true. You know, I remember, describing

a situation to one of them and I could tell he's rolling his

eyes. I said you think I'm lying to

you. He said, I just think you're

exaggerating to make a point. I don't really think it's that

big a deal which I'm prone to do.

He buzzed? Listen.

Teach you know that I like hyperbole but then we got

through his third year of college and I said hey man was I

exaggerating on that point. He said you are not you know but

at the time it was I was trying to I knew what was coming for

him because I lived it right you know and so I think you got to

be willing in that moment. But I had credibility at 21.

Yeah. That I did not have at 18

because he had lived through those years.

He's like, no, you were 100% telling me the truth, man.

I wouldn't hear you, I wouldn't have believed it.

So I do that. It is definitely a point to be

considered for sure. Well, this has been great,

you've given us a great, some good thoughts on what it looks

like to parent. And so thank you for being here

and sharing with us. Anything else you want to add?

I'm good. I've probably said a little more

than I should. I'm kind of regretting some of

it already. Now we appreciate it.

Thanks so much. Thanks Bill.

Well, as we wrap up today's conversation, we want to thank

you for joining us. We realized that listening to a

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believe is only enhanced by talking through it and applying

it to life. And this is something that we

believe lots of people don't naturally seek out or have built

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share this episode with someone else and ask them to share with

you any takeaways. They receive from listening.

Be prepared to do the same and approach their feedback with a

posture to learn and apply. This is a great way to move

towards this discipleship issue. If you have questions or want

access to additional resources, be sure to check out our podcast

page located in the show notes. And if we can help you answer,

any questions about this episode or want us to discuss something

in a future episode, please, visit the podcast page and click

on ask risk and Scott and will reach out to you.

Thanks for joining us today and we look forward to joining you

on the next episode. This is a great way to move

towards this discipleship issue. If you have questions or want

access to additional resources, be sure to check out our podcast

page located in the show notes. And if we can help you answer,

any questions about this episode or want us to discuss something

in a future episode, please, visit the podcast page and click

on ask risk and Scott and will reach out to you.

Thanks for joining us today and we look forward to joining you

on the next episode.