Resource Station Talk with Heather Soukup

Part of your role in equipping families often includes a well-stocked and carefully curated resource station. Listen to the conversation with children's ministry veteran Heather Soukup to learn how she plans and stocks her church's resource station. 

#intentionalchildrensministry #kidmin #familydiscipleship

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to the Kidman Huddle with Amber Pike, where children as ministry leaders get equipped, encouraged, and empowered to disciple with intentionality, growing God's kingdom one child at a time.

SPEAKER_02: 0:16

Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. Today, we are talking resourcing with Kidman leader extraordinaire, Heather Sukup. Heather, welcome.

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Thank you. I'm so glad that we get to talk about resources. It's parents want resources.

SPEAKER_02: 0:32

Yes. And you do. You have caught my eye on social media. Like you do such a great job intentionally resourcing and just constantly resourcing. So I knew I'm like, let's let's talk. I love talking resourcing. So thanks for being here first. Hey, tell us a little bit. Where are you? How long have you served in children's ministry? All that stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

Okay, great. Yeah, thank you. I'm at the Evangelical Free Church here in Crystal Lake, Illinois, which is a northwest suburb of Chicago. So we're about 90 minutes from Chicago, about 45 minutes from the Wisconsin border. we can't it's a nice little suburb you get kind of the best of rural and the best of city whichever you are wanting to pick so we enjoy it here our church is about 800 adults and we have about 150 kids that we serve we actually had down to 228 for VBS a couple weeks ago so we're we're you know, we're, we are reaching out into the community and we're growing because of that. And so we're very grateful for the work that God is doing and our church.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48

Love it. Okay. So Crystal Lake, are you a horror movie fan? Cause my husband is, and he's all about, Jason, you know, the hockey mask guy at Camp Crystal Lake. So I was camped the other

SPEAKER_01: 2:02

week. No, I'm not. I've heard of Jason, but I've never watched the movie. So I'm not, no, I'm not into that at all.

SPEAKER_02: 2:10

Okay. So I sent a picture home, you know, I'm sending pictures home of me and the kids. And then my husband sends it back. He had used AI and he put Jason in there and our camp picture and my son cracked up. So my husband would love to move to your town. Oh,

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

well, he lives

SPEAKER_02: 2:25

in Crystal Lake.

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

That so funny yeah I would yeah then he would probably come up behind me and be like boo and then I was sure yeah he has

SPEAKER_02: 2:32

like he's got he's he's got masks in our closet on like mannequin heads um thankfully the doors stay shut through the night or I'd like wake up and see like a mannequin head of a horror movie

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 2:43

no that

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

I couldn't know those that would be that would be in the garbage if that was my house so I'm Not into that at all.

SPEAKER_02: 2:53

Me neither. I'm a pansy. I like princess cartoons.

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02: 2:58

All right, off topic. I got distracted. Okay, resourcing. So tell me your heart behind resourcing. Why is that such an important part of what you do as a ministry leader?

SPEAKER_01: 3:10

Well, I think, you know, it goes back to the biblical foundation of Ephesians chapter four, where it's talking about the different gifts of the church and that God has given people who are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, right? To be in the church and the purpose is to build up the church and to equip the church to do God things. And so I, I'm a firm believer that everybody in the church has a role to play in the kingdom. And so one of my roles is to equip parents and to help them disciple their family. And there's a lot that we can do on a Sunday, on a Wednesday, but we both know and a lot of children's pastors know that the real... opportunities that people have happen at home it happens you know when the kids are yanking on a toy or when one of them is upset about something or when you're tucking your kid into bed at night and they're like mom what if and and then you know the parent sometimes is like Yeah, that's a good question. I worry about that, too. Good night. Yeah. And we don't want to have parents and parents themselves don't they don't like that area of disequilibrium. Right. So if there's resources that we can give to them beyond a piece of paper that comes from the curriculum, then it's left

SPEAKER_02: 4:53

in the minivan floor. Most.

SPEAKER_01: 4:55

Yeah. Right. Right. But but yeah. I know parents want like quality resources, but they're also super busy. They don't have time to think about it. So that's kind of my passion behind it is that it's one of these things I feel like is part of our God given responsibility is to resource our families to help them disciple the next generation.

SPEAKER_02: 5:19

And I think too, since, I mean, like in near me in Kentucky, there are no more Christian bookstores, nothing. So you're looking on Amazon and if you're trying to find stuff, or maybe you're going to Lifeway as a parent, you don't know about some of this great stuff that's out there.

SPEAKER_01: 5:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 5:40

I love your heart behind it because yes, we as ministry leaders, we need to be cultivating these good quality resources to put in the hands of parents. Because honestly, so many parents probably have no clue where to look other than just going on Amazon and typing in like a book to help with anger for kids. And then like, well, what's coming up? Because... Right, yeah. So yeah, yes. I'm a big fan of a resource station. I know I've talked about it before in a podcast. I just actually started one at the new church that I am. It's just a little tiny shelf. I've seen them all shapes and sizes. I have made so many mistakes. I was that Kidman leader starting out before I had kids. Like I was posting like an article in the nursery bulletin board and calling that a resource station. So I've made all the mistakes. Yes, yes. So tell me, what does your resource station look like? Kind of like, how are you, how are you using it and frequency or stocking amount? Like tell me about your station.

SPEAKER_01: 6:40

Yeah. Well, I feel like it's, I will, I will answer that question, but I do want to kind of go back and talk about how I started because I, I started with an eight foot table in the, in the lobby area of the children's wing. And I had, someone had asked me, Hey, my kid's talking to me about baptism. Do you have anything on baptism? And I said, sure. And then I scrambled, I said, I'll have it for you next week. And so I scrambled during the week, found, probably ordered something and put together a little table with stuff about baptism. And, and I left that table up for like three or four weeks and then it, I made it go away, you know? And there was some traction, but it wasn't like huge because that's not something that everybody's dealing with at the same time. Right. So then, A few, I think, I'm just, I'm trying to remember, but the, you know, the pandemic happened. And so then everyone's ministry methods changed at that time. So one of the things that I ended up doing was working with the senior pastor to write family group letters. family discussion questions. Cause we already had like community groups in place, but of course those weren't really meetings. So nobody was writing sermon based discussion questions. So I felt like it was a good thing for me to, to do that just during the pandemic. And, and then coming out of the pandemic, I wanted to have like a stronger family, I kind of went into legacy mode for a number of reasons. And I wanted to have a full-blown resource area. And I got that approved budget-wise. And I bought four different shelves that have four shelves each and started thinking about the kinds of things that I wanted. I would want to help parents with. So if they're supposed to be, um, discipling their kids, then what is that? That's Bible reading, that's prayer, that's communion, that's baptism, you know, other spiritual disciplines like that. Then there's like the whole social emotional side of things of like anxiety, anger, those kinds of things. Then there's like, um, our church has a big push on, um, on missions. So that's like a topic. And then there's all the cultural issues of like racism, LGBTQ, abortion, those kinds of things. And so I've always kind of wanted to find resources that help clarify those issues. cultural issues and those biblical things at age appropriate level. And then looking at all of children's ministry, that doesn't mean you have one resource. So I began to say, okay, this shelf is going to be early childhood. This shelf is going to be elementary. This is going to be preteen, and this is going to be teen. And so that's why I had the four shelves. And So then that helped break down some of those silos in ministry because then I'm working with adult and youth ministry. I'm working with my early childhood coordinator to help review and curate resources that can go on the shelves. And then I chose to buy five to 10 of each book that I had picked out. And And I would put those up and just, they were just up there. And if you came to church and you saw it and you're like, Oh, what, what are, what are these books? And it's funny. The response is some people feel guilty for taking a free resource. And so they just scan it and they buy it themselves and put it back on the shelf. Other people are like, really? I can take this. And there it's like, you can tell it's really meeting a need and really encouraging to them to receive that gift, you know, and other people, obviously they just walk by and they, you know, they probably don't even know that

SPEAKER_02: 11:31

there's a shelf there.

SPEAKER_01: 11:31

Right, right, right. And it did take quite a while for me to, um, you know, remind people like, Hey, you know, we have these, this resource shelf and, and stuff like that. So, um, So in the beginning, it was just kind of like a smattering of whatever I thought was good at the time. And then I would stock it and then it would stay stocked for a while and then I would restock it, you

SPEAKER_02: 12:02

know.

SPEAKER_01: 12:05

Then kind of the ebb and flow of this whole thing is that there was a while there, like I ran out of books and I ran out of budget and it, you know, like a big event was coming like VBS. And then we re we usually take down the whole resource shelf during VBS because that wall becomes something. Yeah. This year it was for wonder junction. Those shelves became our general store and we totally switched it out with like, pie tins and metal tin cans and, you know, some fabric and different things, you know, to kind of cutesy it up and turn it into like our little general store. And all of the actual resources went away. And then right after VBS, of course, nobody has time to do anything except sleep. So I just put a sign up there that says new resources coming June 29th. And so then this week, so well throughout May and the first part of June, I was ordering and getting resources and getting all this stuff ready so that this week during the week I've been, stocking those shelves. And I sent an email out, hey, we have this cool new resource that's available on Sunday. And now parents are kind of getting used to this rhythm of like, oh, look, there's an email. I put that out on social media as well. There's a churchwide newsletter. It goes into that. And then everybody knows that, oh, we've got this resource. I can go and check it out and grab one. And in March, maybe March. I think it was March, I did a whole thing on anxiety and worship, kind of thinking of worship as the antidote to anxiety. And so I had curated a bunch of different resources for that, and I sent that out. So sometimes it's one resource for everybody. Sometimes it's 10 or 12 or 15 different resources, different topics. that kind of dovetail with each other and for different ages and things like that. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:38

Love it. That's how I do it. You're doing some of my favorite things for resource centers. You're keeping it fresh. So you're changing things out and then you're letting parents know. That was one of my big mistakes early on is I just sat there and just assumed parents wanted these things. And that wasn't always the case. So

SPEAKER_01: 14:58

let them know in as many ways as possible. Yeah. And changing it out frequently is super important because otherwise it just becomes dust. You know, it becomes like when you move into a new home. You see the wallpaper, you see the pictures, you see the carpet, all of that. But then after you have gone in and out, in and out, in and out several times, you don't see that anymore. You see... and obviously you see the people, right? And that's really why people come to church. They don't come to church to look at what's on the wall. They come to meet with the Lord. They come to see their friends and to fellowship with the body of Christ. And so if we're going to put something up, they might see it and say, Oh, I'll get to that later. And then never, but then they don't know what it is. So, or they think that's not for me. That's just some random thing. Someone's stuck there because so, um, But I think people have learned over the years that I'm intentional and I'm not just putting some random thing up there. It's actually something that's good. That's going to be helpful. And, and that, that brings me to the point of like, we've got to have stuff that is aligned with our mission and vision and theology of our church. Right. And so that's a part, that's the backside of resources that we, I don't think people talk about very much. So what is your process Amber for like getting, making sure that the thing that you're buying is actually worth passing on?

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

I don't recommend or put out anything unless I've read it cover to cover. I have a box of shame in my basement that I, And it's labeled box of shame. My son was so excited that things get put into because I'm finding increasingly things are not theologically sound. And so if it's just weak and fluffy, which is, if I'm being honest, that's about 75% of the stuff that's out there for kids is weak and fluffy and it's not just hyphaling. It doesn't go in the box of shame. It just goes on a shelf, never to make it off of my personal shelf. But there's a lot of things that are not theologically sound. So everything gets read by me. This is an area that because I'm small church, Other than my mom, I don't have anyone that I would trust to do that. I know kids. Now, if I had a big leadership team and I've trained my leaders, here's what we're looking for, for sure. But I would not even go on like recommend if a parent's like, oh, this has been great. I'm ordering a copy and I'm reading it. What does it say about God's word? Is it lining up with God's word? So question one, you know, God's word. And then what's the depth of it? Is it actually going to grow families in their faith? Is it actually discipling? Because so much out there, it's just time fillers. It's fluff. There was one, my kid's a science kid, my oldest, and he loves anything science related. There's this animal devotion book that a publisher had released. I'm like, okay, awesome. We'll get it. It'll be great. And he loves the animal facts in it. It is a full page. Right. no three-year-old's going to sit and listen to this because it's like a full page of text and it's got 25 pages, you know? Yeah. Right, right. That's what I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_01: 19:00

It is hard to find that sweet spot. So what I did last year was I was onboarding a new employee, plus I had a summer intern. And so I kind of trained them together on resource curation and kind of talked about those buckets of like missions and salvation and um, Bible reading, prayer, anxiety, those kinds of different like hot button issues as well. And then, you know, went over the statement of faith and all of that, and then ask them to, you know, we just ordered a bunch. We went through, there are certain publishers that we know are going to be more aligned with our theology than others. Um, but it's not an automatic check, right? So we, uh, so we order one copy of, of everything. And then we would divide it up and we would read stuff. And then if one of us was, had like a little question mark, we would hand it to the other person and say, Hey, can you read this part? And then there was, there was one resource that I was like, Nope, you're right. That, that is, that doesn't fit our philosophy of ministry. That doesn't fit our theology. And so we, And I had it on the side of my desk for a long time. And I finally threw it in the trash because I'm like, this is just annoying me to have it sit here. And so I actually threw it in the trash. Yeah. And obviously we didn't order any copies of that one for the congregation. But the, I just know that people really appreciate having those books and everything. And then, you know, one thing that I learned too is if you just put books up there, that's super boring. It's better if you can like market it and, and, and, merchandise it in a way. So I actually went on chat GPT and I went on YouTube and I gave myself a crash course in, in marketing and merchandising. And so one of the things that I learned is if you do everything, one way to do it is like by color. So I happened when I did the anxiety and worship series, I had a lot of books that were four different colors, pink, blue, green, yellow. So that's the way I organized the books. I didn't organize it by age group. I didn't organize it by topic. And visually, I organized it by color. I organized it by color. And then one of the books that we recommend is Anxiety Elephants. So I grabbed some little toy elephants from the nursery and a couple more from hobby lobby. And then I like put the little elephants on the, on the same shelf with the, those books. So the pink, the anxiety elephants for girls with the pink cover was on the pink shelf with all the other pink looking books and the elephants and same thing with the, the boys one. And, and then we had a couple, you know, that had, green covers and a couple of yellow covers. And it just, I mean that there was a lot of energy around those shelves, not only because of the topic, but just because it just looks so fun. I added a couple of fake plants and I had some, I'm sure I had some signage or, oh, I know it was some Bible verses to go along with it. So they could grab a Bible verse card. So I had like, you know, Philippians four, six, be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And maybe that was in pink or a different verse in blue or green or yellow. And so then they could grab those little verse cards if they wanted to, but it was also something that was providing value on the shelf that tied in with everything. And if they wanted to take it, they could. But if the shelf was getting depleted with books, there was still something of value there and not just a blank shelf. You know what I'm saying? So... So

SPEAKER_02: 23:28

visually it's standing out, which is making, if you did that every month or every two months, it wouldn't work if it's my color, but shaking it up visually, great way to draw the attention. And then I love that you're mentioning like the Bible verse cards. I think that's one of the cheapest ways to resource families. If you're encouraging Bible memory in your children's church verse, I design them on Canva. I print them at Walgreens with a coupon, like I'll batch print. I'm like, all right, here's the next three months worth of stuff, all the verses that I need. And I send home. you know, a photo from Walgreens is like 15 cents.

SPEAKER_01: 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:02

Yeah. So you, even if you're paying out of pocket, cause I know when we're talking like resourcing books, some churches don't have a big budget to do that. Oh yeah. It's huge. But there are inexpensive things that you can do. There are a lot. I have so many do it yourself things that I have made that I've sent home. My laminator. One of my favorite things ever was for fall. Our series was on giving things go figure. And I made a pretty pumpkin. And it was like, today I'm thankful for, and I laminated it and put a magnet on it and sent it home with a dry erase marker and they put it on their fridge and they would write what they're thankful for. And that was one of my teens loved it. And she sent me a picture and she's like, we already started. There's so many simple things you can do.

SPEAKER_01: 24:40

Yes. Yes. There's a lot of, of, yeah. So, I mean, I am from a larger church and I have a healthy budget. And so obviously if I'm providing 10 copies of 10 books at$10 each, then that's, a lot of money. And, um, I know not a lot of churches can do that. I know other churches will buy one copy of the book and then create, um, the same type of shelf, but they'll put QR codes next to that so that people can quickly scan that and order that. Or, um, we did also try like a signup sheet and maybe this would work at a smaller church better than it did at my church. But we were like, Hey, if you want this book, sign, sign here and we'll order them. you know, 20 of them if we have 20 people or 15 or whatever it is. So yeah, every once in a while, there's one book that we want like everybody to have. So we just order it and then we just try to make sure that, And we basically look at the number of families that we have and then kind of go a little bit less than that because we don't want to have a bunch of them left over sitting on our shelves.

SPEAKER_02: 25:54

If budget's an issue for you, I know not you, Heather, so much, but listeners, most of your Christian publishers do offer bulk rate. So ordering from their website or ordering on amazon not your best choice there is someone whose job it is to work with churches and give you bulk rate and i'm talking even maybe 10 copies can save you 30 which is huge so um

SPEAKER_01: 26:20

well yeah and sometimes different vendors will um send you a sample pack too if you ask them so i've had a one particular, I don't know if they're still doing it, so I'm not going to say who it is, but there was, there was one vendor that did send me like a sample pack of stuff so that I could look through everything. And, and I thought that was super generous and it was super helpful. And the, the, What else was I going

SPEAKER_02: 26:53

to say? What are some of your favorite resources on equipping parents and informing them of their biblical command to lead? So resources for parents.

SPEAKER_01: 27:29

Okay. I would say Paul David, Paul David trips book parenting. There's 14 gospel principles of parenting. I feel like that's the number one book that I give to parents on parenting that will take them through all of the stages because he's not saying, well, this is how you do it. train or discipline your child as this age or this age. He's giving you foundational bricks to lay down in your parenting role of identity and obedience and things like that. So that's my number one thing for parents. just new parents. You want one book on parenting. This is your one book. And then the other thing that I love that is a very new book is called What Do I Say When? And that's published by Crossway. And that book is organized around the cultural issues. So there's a chapter on abortion. There's a chapter on capital punishment. There's like some of these other hot topics that are like, I don't know if I really want to talk about that. Or man, I dread the day when my kid says blah, blah, blah. I mean, I had those moments. I just assume all parents feel the same way. Or you at least

SPEAKER_02: 28:52

do after the question has been asked to you.

SPEAKER_01: 28:55

Right, right. You're like, so you're like, oh, we're going to gymnastics, right? No, no. actually so this book is great what do i say when is the title and um it gives you the biblical foundation for talking about those topics and then after that it says it kind of gives you like three different levels or tiers so you've got tier one tier two tier three it's not not hard and fast a certain age because some children are ready for deeper topics and deeper answers than others, right? So tier one is like the bare minimum. Okay, you can trust mom now and stop asking questions. And then tier two is a little bit deeper. Tier three is definitely more deeper. If I had to assign an age, I would say tier one is up through about, first or second grade. And then tier two is between first and sixth or seventh grade. And then late junior high and high school in the tier three category. And as you read the questions, it kind of gives you a way to guide the conversation. And it's not a book that you sit there and go, blah, blah, blah. And then talk with your kid about it. You read ahead of time to kind of get yourself oriented of some things that you can say as you go along having the conversation. So that one also flew off the shelves at our church. So we were very grateful that that one was published.

SPEAKER_02: 30:45

Similarly, I just got, last month I purchased, I had to look up the title because I don't remember exact titles. Talking to Your Kids About God, 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crane. Oh, yes. Similar style, important conversations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Family Devo books. What are your favorite things that you're sending home for families to be in the word together?

SPEAKER_01: 31:08

Well, I have done... I think my very favorite one was the very first one I did, which was the What's for Dinner magazine that was published in 2020. And I'm so sorry, I can't remember. Dima. Dima Cohen. Yes, Dima Cohen. Thank you. And that was probably the first one that I did. And I liked that one because it was fun. It kind of had a good mix of fun and activities and conversations. And then I, you know, I, we, I know we talked about this and I never did add any of the titles, but there's a couple of the one, Louis Giglio has some on about science and creation. Those are really good ones that people have enjoyed. I don't, I personally don't Push family devotionals with a devotional book per se. I really encourage parents to sit down with a Bible that's at their kid's age level, their reading level, and just read. read a few verses. And in fact, what we're doing on our new resource is something that we purchased off of Deeper Kidman website that Vanessa Myers made called Where's the Word? And we did do some modification to it. But basically, it's like a We bought these paper lunchboxes and it's got a little bingo grid board that you can mark off where you read the Bible while wearing sunglasses or you read the Bible while building a sandcastle or so forth. And then there's Bible stories that dovetail with that, that aren't. super contrived you know it seems to fit like build your house on the rock and not the sand and you're building a sand castle I mean that's super hands-on learning that's going to make the scripture come alive for a little kid yeah

SPEAKER_02: 33:13

Vanessa has a ton family faith builders um is her website her her ministry name I've done a ton of her summer ones her all the time ones are good like she had one scripture scoops where you're writing on an ice cream scoop what scripture passage you read I think it was through psalms or proverbs lots of that yep and I'll like bookmarks or just did a recipe card. That's the, that's something I would caution people when you're looking at family devotion. So much of the devotions out there, it's a person's thoughts and a Bible verse tacked on. Right. Right. I'll just give a little teaser that by the end of the year, there'll be a new devotion for a 30 day devotion out for families. That's not that. That's exciting. Just, just saying. And I've got titles for like six more of them. So yeah, Well, yearly check, check rejuvenation to see so many of those out there. They're not, it's a person's thought and you're not really in the Bible. Yeah. So yeah, I'm with you on that. Okay. Anxiety. Anxiety is a big topic.

SPEAKER_01: 34:14

Yeah, it is a huge topic. So I already mentioned anxiety elephants for girls and for boys. And that's been great there. We also have enjoyed the, Now I'm so sorry. My mind has gone blank, but Andrew Welch has a tiny little book. It's a, it's a bright yellow green book on anxiety. And it's basically like having a pocket counselor in your back pocket. And I really appreciate that book. That's more for like teens and adults. And so that's probably the number one book that I recommend to the older segment of teens. my ministry and then the anxiety elephants I recommend for like third through fifth graders. And then, um, uh, give me a second. You've probably seen this one on life way. Um,

SPEAKER_02: 35:16

I think anxiety while you're looking that up is, is, um, You need to be careful with what you're sending home. I was looking for resources for kids going through divorce. And the one that I found that was horrible, it was putting ideas into kids' heads. The author was projecting her hurt. And the words of this book written for small children were like, I'm sorry that daddy left you, but it's not your fault. And I'm like, whoa, back up. And I think anxiety can be one of those areas where we're putting thoughts into kids' heads. So that and divorce resources, grief resources is just read them carefully and know your kids.

SPEAKER_01: 35:52

Yes. Yes. Okay. So I've found the, one of the ones that I like is by Dr. Josh Straub and it's called, what do I do with worry? And that book has been helpful because it basically is, you know, helping kids kind of walk through those. What if, and guide them where to put that in their brain and how to turn those things into prayer and to hand it over and to trust God. And that's really what we want kids to be able to do. And just to help let those worry birds, as he calls them, fly away and with real practical tips. So I've enjoyed that. When there's another one that he does with, emotions that I think is good for kids with it, who were like in early childhood, it's called, what am I feeling? And in the back, there's like a picture poster of, of all these different faces. And it has like a, you know, a new vocabulary word that's assigned to that picture. face that the kid is making. So it helps put language to that. When, when your kids are two, three and four, they, it'll help transition them from just crying all the time to being able to say, I'm frustrated or I'm sad or, you know, I, I'm feeling happy or whatever the feeling is. Right. So it kind of helps that. provide that language which is so great and i think sometimes parents if if there is slower language development they just are like well they just cry that's what they do and this book will help move the kid through that phase and equip them for maturity

SPEAKER_02: 37:54

yeah so another one that there's often not a lot of resources out there is grief. So I would love to hear, um, the one that I always recommend is the moon is always round. Yes. I think it's, um, just so well done, but that's really when people are asking for resources, that's the only one I see recommended. So do you have any resources for grief?

SPEAKER_01: 38:17

Yeah. You know, actually we, um, we actually recently went through this in our ministry that was, um, in the last year there were, um, Two babies born, well, was it two? Well, two to three babies born with medical, that were medically compromised. And so that was something that was just really weighing heavy on us. And the moon is always round is great because it's giving that tangible picture of, that anchors you back to the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God and the truth that the Lord is on his throne. No matter what is happening around us, we build our, our house on the rock of that. God is always the same as he always was. And then there's another book. Was it new growth press?

UNKNOWN: 39:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:25

Yeah, you'd mentioned like favorite publishers in New Growth Press. I've seen very solid theologically. Their resources are good.

SPEAKER_01: 39:35

Yes, yes. And there's one that, I mean, any, you know, with grief, I think the main thing is to help people recognize, yeah, that It's not supposed to be this way. It's because of sin. Right. And we need to lament that. But then we need to turn our eyes heavenward. And why can we do that? Because of the resurrection. So there's this book that I'm so sorry, I didn't get my titles all written down today. But there's a book on the resurrection and it's a retelling of Jesus. of John chapter 11, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. And we know that because of Jesus's death on the cross, his burial and his resurrection, that we have hope for the future, right? And that's really what people need is to be anchored in that hope of Jesus and the fact that, yeah, this... Sad thing happened, but there's hope for the future. I don't have to stay stuck in this sad place. While at the same time, acknowledging that that thing is sad.

SPEAKER_02: 40:56

I think with so many of these... you know, issues like anxiety, grief, if we're talking about like eating disorders, deaths, all of that, I think divorce, I think we need to be careful that the resources are not putting ideas into kids' heads. Like if you're looking for teen or tween devotions for girls, all of them are talking about body image. I'm like, but what if my kid doesn't have body image issues? Now you're putting the thoughts in their head. So I think in a lot of these situations, you know, one, know the kids, but then may Maybe you need to just focus on the goodness of God or the attributes of God, praising God, praising through pain or hurt or worry or anxiety. I think those resources are always a win. Scripture music as well. I love Seeds Family Worship. It's word for word scripture. They have lots of different themes. I just put out their album of praise, their praise album, because we're doing a lesson series. I try to time on with my lessons on praise. So I did that.

UNKNOWN: 41:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 41:57

Yes. I think it's so important, especially things like seed family worship, because you're injecting scripture right into the kid's brain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 42:07

Yeah. All right. Let's do one more category because we're kind of running out of time. But what about apologetics or current issues? These are kind of that, you know, we talked a little bit about with the parents. We're equipping parents with answers, but then also we're giving the kids the answers. So what would you what would you put out for those?

SPEAKER_01: 42:24

Well, some of those like apologetics slash like cultural issues type of things. There's two authors that are kind of my go-to on that. One is Marty Machowski. Sorry, I don't know how to say his name. But it's a God made me or God made like God made boys and girls. God made me for heaven. God made me for worship. God made me, you know, God made. people differently, those different types of ideas and stuff. So there's a series of about six of those books that Mr. Marty wrote and they're beautifully illustrated and, and, um, they're geared towards, you know, like ages four to seven or so three to seven. Um, and so though I, I love those because you're planting those seats early. Then, um, the other, um, like Case for Christ, Case for Faith, those books have been great for like the middle grades. And it's not just... Case for Christ, which is like an adult book, but Case for Christ for Kids. And so it's like brought down to that level. And so I feel like it's really, those things have been helpful in the apologetics realm. For parents, I love, you mentioned that Dasha Crane, she has Mama Bear Apologetics. And that, I love that book because then it's really digging in deeper into some of the more like things philosophies of the world that we run into, and it helps us distinguish what we're encountering and help us to recognize, oh, this resource is bad because it's coming from a deistic point of view, for example.

SPEAKER_02: 44:22

Yeah. Yeah. So I did in our spring issue of the Renew Nation review, I did a whole list of apologetics resources and I was actually really sad that there weren't as many as I would like to have been able to put on the list. I love everything Answers in Genesis. They have a ton for both kids and teens and grownups. You know, we at Renew Nation, we have some stuff, but there's not as many kids ones. Like if you're looking at the gender issue, that's a big issue for our kids. And Marty's book, God Made Male, God Made Female. is one of the only ones out there for kids from a biblical perspective. Yes. So yes, absolutely. Especially with those apologetics, those kind of hot button issues, read it cover to cover. And then I also, I'm that person. I don't know if this is the way to, if I know what you theologically stand for does not line up with the word of God, even if your resource is good, I pitch it. Are you that way? Like the person's viewpoint of the Bible determines whether or not I will use your stuff. So there are authors. I'm like, nope, nope. You were wrong in this one thing that I read and you don't line up in God's words. I don't trust anything that you do. I'm harsh.

SPEAKER_01: 45:37

Yeah. Yeah. It's there. Yeah. I struggle with that. You know, I, I do because there are, sometimes there are certain things that this one resource is really good, but then there's a bunch of other stuff that's not. So I hesitate to recommend the one good thing in the context of the whole church, because I don't want to, I don't want people to assume that, Oh, well, Joe Blow is a great author. And when, but I don't mind, I might recommend, um, individually to a particular person. Yeah, with some context. Be like, hey, this is the one resource. Yeah, this is the one thing you can read by this author.

SPEAKER_02: 46:18

Yeah, yeah. So resourcing is not, it's not an easy task. takeaway you hope listeners go home with?

SPEAKER_01: 46:55

Because, um, my, because something you're, you're breaking out a little bit. Okay. I think we're back now. Yeah. Can you say that question again? Cause I didn't get your question. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 47:08

So as we wrap up, what would be your one big takeaway that you hope listeners go, go home with one tip, one takeaway, one last closing, whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 47:20

I just want to reiterate what we said at the beginning that parents want resources. And if you're nervous about, well, is this a good way to spend my budget money? I would say yes, because if you have a quality resource to put into their hands, they, they will eat it up. They will eat it up because they want, they want to disciple their kids and they want to, You're helping that and it's an easy way to influence the home is by having great resources.

SPEAKER_02: 47:58

Yeah, no, I completely agree. Heather, I appreciate you coming and sharing some of your favorite stuff, how you've done things. I love that you are championing your families and Kidman friends. I hope that you were doing the same, whether you have a big budget or no budget at all. There are things you can do to resource, reach out. If you have any questions, if you have specific things that you're looking for, Heather would be a great resource too. You can find her on social media. Hopefully you want a new friends. Of course she's, she's She's in like all the Facebook groups to ask questions, share hidden gems that you guys love. It's even for a ministry leader who's in this world. And I'm, you know, I've got like half the publishers. I've got a contact on my phone. Like I'm friends with these guys. Sometimes it's hard to find good quality stuff. You likely know of something that we don't know. So share about these resources so that we can work on discipling our families together. Yeah. All right, Heather, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And like I close every episode, Kidman friends, remember what you do matters.