Welcome to the Family Business Podcast. Again, where Mary and I are talking about family and business because let's face it, family is everybody's business. So, Mary, we are talking today about how we've been able to work this whole relational thing out with our kids that come alongside of us and serve us in the ministry. And there's some things we can say here that we just can't say on a Sunday in a service environment, which is why it's so good to get into these weeds of how it's done. Because for one thing, you have a lot to say, and I gotta tell you, I I I say it to you on occasion, and I don't know if I say it always the right way, but you got a lot of great wisdom.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_01Um, just the way you see things and say things, that sometimes the pressure of the the platform and podium because you're trying to communicate a message doesn't always allow you to say. Well, thanks, babe. Yeah, you're welcome. And so what I'm hoping we'll be able to see and hear from you as we go on is some of that stuff coming out of you naturally, the way it just rolls off your tongue when we're sitting around the house. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't pick up my phone quick enough to write that down. Like that little comment you made the other day as we were talking about people. He said, Man, people need to follow the cloud instead of following the crowd.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I love that.
SPEAKER_01Little things like that. I think it's inspiring. So look, we we have been raised in the ministry, you and I. Uh-huh. We're talking now about these rug rats that we had alongside when we were building the church.
SPEAKER_03I prefer the term church rats.
SPEAKER_01Church rats. Uh, when we were building the church, uh-huh, and man, there was hardly 50 people in the sanctuary, and yet those kids, they were jumping in the car, whether they were dressed or not, uh, and we had them out the door and we'd do church. Our focus wasn't on the kids at that time at all.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_01No. We were just focused on getting through a service, blessing God's people, working with our staff, getting that music right, getting that sermon right. The kids were the last thing in our mind. On our mind. That's true.
SPEAKER_03We were in work mode. We were in build church mode, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you know, that's important for people to know because some people think, oh my gosh, you guys just have this magical thing going with your family, and what did you do that was so perfect to make it happen? We we had our nose down, our head down, nose to the grind, as they say, right? Yeah, we were doing our job, and we have a phrase that we'll throw around our church that what you make happen for God's house, he'll make happen for your house. That's right. Part of the blessing that we have today in our family that comes alongside of us
is that we were focused on God's house and God's people.
SPEAKER_03We were.
SPEAKER_01Not to the point that we neglected.
SPEAKER_03Never, never.
SPEAKER_01But we were focused on God's house. Right.
SPEAKER_03God's people. And and I think it's it can be so complicated and sound so complicated to get where you you dream of going with your children and with your family, and along the way, it seems a lot more difficult than it actually is. It's really just making sure you're doing the same simple things consistently all the time, right? It works with disciplining, it works with your job. Just get up and go to work, be there every day, do what you're asked to do, and then in the end, you'll reap a great harvest. Well, with our ministry building our church, we knew God had called us, and then Lauren came surprisingly when we started our church. We had more complications with having Christopher and Stephanie, and then Lauren was a surprise. So she's the age of Metro Life.
SPEAKER_02Yep, that's true.
SPEAKER_03And it moved us into a season where we knew really the hand of God was on our lives because that we just so quickly conceived and we were so thankful on our own. And then right on the tail end of that, she's not even a year old and we're pregnant with Gabby. So we didn't have a choice to decide, uh-oh, we weren't banking on two more kids, so let's stop and just get jobs somewhere. We knew we had to follow the call. And we just went along with our parents in ministry wherever they went. You know, wherever our parents were, we were. If they had to meet with somebody at the church, we would go and we'd sit there and be quiet and just listen or coloring book. We didn't have iPads or phones back then. But we made it work. And so when our kids came along, we didn't have this preconceived idea that somehow we're supposed to make this nirvana-like childhood for our children.
SPEAKER_01That's true.
SPEAKER_03Which a lot of parents fall prey to these days.
SPEAKER_01Okay, when you say that though, explain a little bit more what you mean.
SPEAKER_03Well, we are big believers that your your life is your children's life. Now, I know you can't take your kids to work with you if you work at the bank or if you work at a factory, you worked at the car dealership. We get that. But a family needs to have, every family needs to have a central focus and vision for their family life. And I remember, I'll give you an example. Our parents, my mom specifically, was not raised in a ministry home. My grandfather was a railroad engineer. So their family vision was that railroad. And everything, Saturdays, Sunday nights when they would post the schedule, the family, everything they did, the planning of the week was around my grandfather's work at the railroad. So my mother would tell stories of how they would uh go there on a Saturday when he was off and they hated it because then he'd go in the office and stay all day when he was only supposed to stay five minutes, and but they would go play out on the tracks, waiting for him to get done. And really, although you today we would say, Well, the kids can't be bored. Well, the kids, we need to take them to the mall.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, the kids should have their own. This isn't fair. This is your job. No. The family needs to have standards where when we're with dad, we're with dad. And even if he has to go by the office, we're gonna wait, we're gonna be there, we're gonna find out who his boss is and be around that experience so that you know your dad's world. And I think we have become really a culture where everything's isolated. It's dad's world, his job, mom's world, her job. And then somehow the kids are just supposed to have this incredible Disney-like childhood with this perfect school and this perfect after-school experience. And then we go to Disney three times a year and it's supposed to be perfect. Well, then we we don't like the outcome because there's no real central focus and vision around dad, around what that father does or what the family is supposed to do together. So I think for us, when we started pastoring the church, it was like, well, whatever dad said is what we're gonna do. Wherever God leads us, we're gonna go. And guess what? You're gonna be at the church for about five hours playing with boxes in the back while you wait for mom and dad to get done with what we're doing. I'm not going to just make every day for you that's boring.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. This perfect day. They c they came along with us in everything we did. And you know, some people, um, you really do pick and choose what your kids' interests are gonna be in the future. Right. Um some people want when their kids are young, they're going to make it about sports. So they're gonna put them in the different sports and even uh could get on travel clubs and so forth, whether it's soccer, baseball, softball, whatever it is, right? Basketball, football. They're gonna put them in that sport and they're gonna make it about that. And they really do. Parents will cater their weekends and even evenings around those interests for the kids. The point there is whatever you do and focus your kids on at an early age is most likely what's going to be there in the future for those kids because those kids are going to walk in the harvest of that. That's right. That's where you put your energy. That's right. Then you expect that to be something that's going to help your kids sustain your kid. Maybe their kids are going to do something professionally in the future. Yes. All right. Maybe it's another art, maybe it's dance. They get involved in dance at a young age. And mom and dad are at the performances, maybe it's music, they're at the recitals. There's a lot of that focus on the kids at such a young age. What happens, though, that I have seen is that, like one guy I knew, his daughters got old enough because he had them in softball, travel leagues, everything. He'd open up his garage and have garbage cans full of softballs. They were just always playing softball. Well, when the kid went to go to college on a softball scholarship, she told her dad, Listen, I'm done. Yeah, I don't want to play softball anymore. I'm burned out on softball. Right. And the very thing that got her to college was the thing she said, No, no longer, uh, I'm not gonna do that anymore. So they had to re-assess all of that season of the kid's life. And to the and now, all these years later, the kid never picks up a softball or plays again. Parents have to recognize when they raise their kids like that, that most likely when they're young, most likely, they're not gonna be doing that thing when they're young as adults.
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_01And if it's not gonna be what their kids are gonna be doing as adults, why sacrifice so much of their time and your energy, finances, that's right and time when they're younger to do it, to the extent that some people keep their kids out of church because basketball or travel sports is more important. What we did was we didn't say to our kids, even though they wanted to play soccer and football and basketball and all of that stuff, we knew their future wouldn't be in that. That's right. We knew their future, the Levitical priesthood, there was going to be some measure of ministry in them. So that was going to be something they did. It wasn't something that they were.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01He just played football, Steph played soccer, Lauren, you know, whatever that was. Played the violin. Played the violin. They just played those things. But they weren't those things. We knew they were going to be ministry. So we didn't have that mindset that said, let me make it all about my kids in all my spare time. We made it about what our destiny and calling and purpose was as adults. Yes. And the kids had to fit into our world. Right. We didn't force ourselves into our kids' world because our kids weren't old enough, didn't know what they were going to do, they weren't mature enough, they didn't have the mindset for it.
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_01We knew our kids were somehow going to be in the church when they were adults. So the church was going to be the most important thing because it was our calling, daddy and mommy's calling, daddy and mommy's destiny. So let's fit them into our world instead of us trying to make a world of for them that then as kids we were trying to fit in.
SPEAKER_03Right. And that gives them a bigger vision for the long haul over their life. There wasn't a whole lot of vision for Lauren to get into violin. She liked it for a season. But if we had thought, if we were the kind of parents that said, oh, this is it, she's going to be this world-class violin player because she likes it in the third grade. Well, you can water those plants all you want, but if if Lauren did not love violin for the long haul, all that energy and time that we put into focusing her being this world-class violinist would be wasted. And you don't get a do-over. That's one thing we learned about raising kids. You don't get to push rewind and go, you know what? Yeah, we push you towards sports, and that was a waste. Let's go back and do it
again. But you know, Steve, something that we incorporated having learned from our parents. And we say that because what you're learning today, you can incorporate it right now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right now. It is never too late. But they made the main thing the main thing. And the main thing in our family, both our parents growing up, was a relationship with Jesus. Yeah. It wasn't a relationship at school, it wasn't with sports. All those things were fun curricular activities.
SPEAKER_01And they did them.
SPEAKER_03And we did all those things. The only thing I didn't get to do was be a cheerleader because my dad thought that was sinful. I wish I had been. I would have been more muscular today. But other than that, everything was about living for God and living for God through serving the kingdom, serving the church every Wednesday night. You know, going to church now, parents, y'all have it easy. Because when we were growing up, our parents went almost every night of the week. We didn't watch TV. We were in church at choir, at prayer, at something. There was service. Plus, we had Wednesday night service and we had Sunday night services.
SPEAKER_01Gosh, we used to go to church Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Then we go to church Sunday night.
SPEAKER_03With dinner on the grounds in between sometimes. Sometimes. She didn't even go home.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03No, we we did lots and lots and lots of days.
SPEAKER_01It was really church day.
SPEAKER_03All day long.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we don't look back and think, ever, not one minute, do you? What a waste of time.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it has shaped us into who we are, and it's given us this real, you know, not just a boost of confidence, but it's created confidence in us. That I remember Oprah Winfrey said one time, she was interviewing Whitney Houston. I'll never forget this. And she made the statement because she was not really raised in church, but she'd interviewed so many talented artists that were raised in church, and she said, What is it about people that have been raised in church, like you, Whitney Houston, that are they are so confident in their gifts that they can just step out there. You don't have to overcome some sense of insecurity. And we know it didn't end well with Whitney because she got away from the main thing. Had she stayed in the main thing, could you imagine? But she let the world absolutely destroy her, consume her. But her mama had it right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03She started her out in the right place. But I thought it was so interesting that Oprah analyzed people that she'd met that were raised in the church like we were, picked up on that, had something different about them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I we we know that's true. You never convince us that that's not true. We've lived it and we're raising our kids to live it.
SPEAKER_01So so let's let's get a little uh more specific here. Our kids today are the result of certain things you and I were very intentional about. Very intentional. Okay, the first thing was their relationship with God. Yeah. They loved, as you've said before, you know, your your kids are gonna love what you love as parents. Right. If you love God, Dad, most of the time your son's gonna love your God if you show him at a younger age. If moms, you know, you're loving uh having that relationship with Jesus, your your daughters are going to see that and know that that's just natural, that's normal, that's what people do.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01He's not just a Sunday God, he is a daily God.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01And your choices and decisions then that you make throughout the week are showing your kids that, hey, I have a relationship with God, which then meant that's intentional. So our kids were at camps, our kids were at uh conferences for churches because we weren't thinking we're raising up future church members or church leaders. No, right. We were raising up kids that were gonna be Christian first and foremost, that would have that passion for God. So they would see, and you and I, that our Bible wasn't something that we just had on our phones and would snap an image of a scripture verse and then post it on social media. Our Bible was something we opened up. That's why I try my best on Sundays, man. Tell people bring your Bible and bring it. One with pages.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The one that you open up and it smells a little old from it sitting closed for a while on time to time. But bring that Bible with you because getting in that Bible lets your kids see. Man, my dad loves the word. Right. I I should be loving the word. There was some intentionality there at a young age. Not that I'm running around preaching. I don't think I preach to the kids. But they saw something in, all right, dad, he's got a connection with God. Right. And this is how I need to do it too, because our kids model what they see if it's healthy. That's right. If it's unhealthy, they'll reject it.
SPEAKER_03They're smarter than we think they're. They really are. They are.
SPEAKER_01There's so much of what they see in us is helping them determine what is normal and abnormal in life. And if this is normal, not weird, quirky, over-the-top, you know, like you said, you know, speaking in tongues just because you're having your cereal filled with a nice bowl of cereal your morning, you know, speaking in tongues. No, not that. That's weird. Quit that. Yes, please quit that. But when they see that you're opening that Bible and you're studying and they they hear that you're praying, know that you're praying. Gosh, I can remember walking by family members' doors and I could hear them praying when I was growing up. And I just knew that was the normal thing you're supposed to do. Our kids pray today, Mary, not because it's the Christian thing to do, it's the normal thing to do.
SPEAKER_03They've been raised to do. They know, they've what they've had it modeled.
SPEAKER_01So there's it was an intentionality about having a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Church was another intentionality.
SPEAKER_03And we had a great relationship with church. Can I say, too, that maybe we're talking to somebody here today that will say, you know, I was raised, my parents were really religious, very spiritual, and we went to a church that was very strange, very controlling. We know that. We know that that's out there. We get that that's out there. But that is rare, first and foremost, but it does not mean that that shapes you and marks you forever. There's a right way to do this without that level of control in the church. And there's too much good there to throw that baby out with the bathwater because of a controlling environment. One in controlling environment. Get out of that environment and get in a good, healthy one. Get your children in a godly, healthy, non-controlling church environment. One that understands relationship, that believes in the long haul of relationship, pastors that are shepherds that lead and love their people and don't love the audience more than they love their people, don't want fame more than they want to make sure their people are growing. Find that place. The Lord will lead you there. But kids don't know what they don't know. When we were raising our children, they don't know what they don't know. We taught them to know. We taught them by modeling that a relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important thing and a relationship, a good, healthy one with church, church people, and we would lead that charge. We didn't wait for them to just find it. We we pursued the right relationships for our kids all along the way throughout every season of their life. When they were little, when Christopher got a little bit older, you pursued healthy relationships from men around him to help shape him. Yeah. With our girls as they've gotten older, the right women in the church that have endorsed my voice and helped me. I've not, you know, just thought, well, I'm the pastor's wife, I know it all. No, I don't know it all.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We we had to make sure we surrounded our kids with more voices that really signed off for mom and dad. Oh, mom and dad aren't wrong. They are right. They're saying the same things as mom and dad are saying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, we made church and uh intentional. We did. We made sure that they were, and when I say church, not just going, but they were involved in all the programs and they were connected with the people that we were connected with. Yes, they were. And what's so beautiful about a healthy church, you mentioned a controlling church. Really, a controlling church is just unhealthy. Yeah. But a healthy church is a place where there's freedom and there's liberty and there's connection that's taking place because people want it. And uh so I'm thinking about all the good lessons that our kids have learned in church. They also learned some crazy lessons or bad lessons. Like one day, I remember we were, I picked up Chris from school. He must have been, I don't know, 12 years old, 11 years old, or something like that.
SPEAKER_03The scary years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Gosh, you don't want to see his pictures back then.
SPEAKER_03Oh Lord.
SPEAKER_01And uh he cussed one day. Had a cuss word come out of his mouth.
SPEAKER_03Our perfect, precious little boy.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, we didn't make a big deal at it in front of him, you know. We were kind of like, don't don't blow it up, don't make it look like it's that bad. Because I never wanted our kids to feel ashamed of something as stupid as a cuss word. You remember my lesson on what is a real cuss word and what is not a cuss word?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01If you called you say it in anger, if you yeah, or you're trying to. Insult somebody, then it's a cuss word. But if there's something that a dog dropped and on the ground while it was walking through whatever and you stepped in it. You stepped in it, then it is that. Gotcha. But the moment you go calling somebody that, that's that's when it's a cuss word. Remember all that? So here Chris is. He cusses, and I'm like, gosh, I gotta find out where he heard that. Did he hear it from Mary?
SPEAKER_03No, because I would have might wash his mouth. That was so did he hear it from me?
SPEAKER_01No. No, I'm pretty pretty careful about those things, and I'll never forget I'm driving, taking them to school one morning. And this is like a couple days later. I say, Hey Chris, uh, by the way, you know, you said that cuss word the other day, and we laughed about it and talked about it. But tell me something, where did you hear that? I'm thinking he's gonna tell me from school, you know. He says, Oh, dad, so-and-so at church said it.
SPEAKER_02I said, What? He says, Yeah, so-and-so at church said it the other day. And I thought it was a funny word. I said, Well, uh, so and so did say it. And so we our kids learn the good in church, and they they also learn some of the not so good.
SPEAKER_01But keeping them in the church like this is so important, which is why I've told you about this single mom that I see around our church. Yeah, I'm just so impressed with her that she comes and she's been coming for a couple years now, but I see her rallying her teenage kids to get in church with her. Oh, yeah. And she's working. There must be four or five of them. There's a lot of kids. There's a lot of kids that she's bringing to school. And they're all teenagers. They're all teenagers, and some of them are friends of her kids. It's true. And I see her doing the work. Her daughter, a couple years ago at a youth camp, was one of our best testimonies. And we used her video testimony because she was so overwhelmed by what happened. I think of that single mom who says, you know what, I need to make church a priority. I'm gonna intentionalize
church. You can do this married, you can do this single.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Kids have to see that church is a priority. Right. It can't just be another suggestion for them. It's got to be a priority. We did it for our kids, and we're thankful because as we did that, our kids loved what we loved, which was really the house of God and then the people of God.
SPEAKER_03And you know, Steve, I I don't want to dive into this fully on this podcast. We'll probably talk about it in the next couple ones. But one of the things, if we're being fully honest and transparent here that we've talked about for many years that burn me up, that just get under my skin, I have to ask God grace for, is when I hear a precious parent say to me, I don't want to push my kids. I want them to decide.
SPEAKER_01Get ready for the wisdom. Go.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh. That's when I literally, as and as I get older, I have a very hard time being gracious about it because I see what a lie from the enemy that has become. And it has anchored in the belief system of parents. That is an indicator that they've listened to the world and not listen to the voice of God. I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend, but we've watched this from the front row how many years? It plays out every single time. You can either take our instruction, heed it, and do it, and you'll have what we have, or don't. And listen, we're gonna pray for you that mercy and grace guide you and assists you with your children. But we don't live in a culture anymore where kids can quote unquote make their own way. The world has gotten way more scary, way more dangerous, and the enemy is seeking whom he may devour. Moms and dads, single or not, need to be very clear. I I want to be clear here. There is no, I don't want to push my kids. And here's why. Do you push them at six o'clock in the morning to get up and brush their teeth and drop do their hair and make them go to school? Do you push them to get to school on time? Do you push them to make sure their grades are good? Do you push them to make sure that they come straight home after school because you're afraid of what could potentially happen to them? Do you push them to practice their piano? Do you push them to make sure they show up to the sports that they're included in? Yes, and you shame them when they're not A students. You push them, they don't get to choose. If they got to choose, they'd stay in bed every day. You think a 12-year-old would go to school if he didn't have to? Absolutely not. But when it comes to the most important thing in their life that they will build their life on, everything of good gifts that God wants to give you flows out of your relationship with Jesus Christ. You really think you're going to let kids who don't know what they don't know make up their minds? Well, then just get ready to sit in church by yourself. Because they're not coming. They're not. And I can't tell you how many parents I've told, make them come. Well, you know, I don't want to push them and they didn't. I'm not making fun of anybody. I'm sorry. I just get it makes me frustrated because we know what we're talking about. Make them come. Make them sit in church with their arms crossed. So so who cares if they embarrass you?
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03Be a parent.
SPEAKER_01Mary, I hated broccoli. Come on, reach. Good gosh, my mom would make me sit at that table. Yes, she would. Everybody in the house be already showered and ready for bed, and I'd still be sitting there over that cold broccoli, and I couldn't get up until I ate it. Stupid thing was on me. I had to eat it every night.
SPEAKER_03Your mom made it.
SPEAKER_01That's right. So I never slept at the table. I always somehow figured out a way to get the broccoli. You did. I couldn't hide it in my napkin.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was in my mouth.
SPEAKER_03Well, you're making a great point because one of the things we should not do, which I see a lot of modern day parents do, is they'll take that broccoli and they'll put it in a blender and they'll infuse it in the food. And their kid's eight years old and he's still eating chewed-up broccoli that he doesn't know is in his chicken. And the truth is, when it comes to a relationship with Christ, you cannot water it down. You don't sneak it in. You make sure you're living a relationship with God that is out loud, that your kids see and want. Church should not be something that, number one, is negotiable, but why is it a place they don't want to go? I mean, ask that question. Why don't they want to go?
SPEAKER_01Oh, this can keep going on and on with regards to that right there, because you know what's going to happen? It's going to affect the future spouse. Absolutely. It's going to affect the boyfriend and the girlfriend that comes into your teenager's life. That's right. Here's what you what you realize in life. And there you're going to see it with them. You attract who you are. If a kid is not a church godly person that's developing their relationship with God, just like they're developing the relationship with their mom and dad, their teachers at school, and their friends, if they don't have a God influence there, they're not going to be godly, which then means you're going to attract ungodly people to you. That's right. So you don't put them in church, then how do you expect them to find good, solid, healthy, godly people coming around them? You won't. We we knew even to this day, we've seen it, that God has kept certain people from our kids' lives.
SPEAKER_03He has, that's right.
SPEAKER_01Because that that that that is what is in them is so pure and strong that it rejects anything that's unhealthy and ungodly. That's right. So there's so much more of a benefit to young kids being encouraged and I mean, not just encouraged, not just, you know, blending up the broccoli in the blender. Yeah. No, get them to church. That's right. If they're bored for an hour and a half, let it be a holy boredom. That's right, Steve. So they're not up in their room on their phone, all by themselves, doing their deals.
SPEAKER_03Well, because that's the mindset that somehow your children are supposed to just enjoy every single day of their life. And that's false. That's a mistake. You're setting your children up to fail. I know this is another podcast, but you're setting your kids up to fail to truly believe that every environment they're in is somehow supposed to just feed them and be specific for them. And honestly, technology does it, it sets your children up for expectations that cannot be met. Bring them to church. Even if they have to sit and listen to you or me teach and they don't understand it, it doesn't matter. The culture of your home is as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and we go to church every time the church doors are open.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Well, I hope people are getting that. Because if they want to be able to extend anything of legacy that they have, they want to see their kids later, walking in step with them alongside of them, and all be on the same page and sharing holidays together, and people really wanting to do that together as a family, then there has to be this certain intentionality. And it's how we have built our family business, the ministry with our kids involved. That was some of the other things that uh church was one of them. Uh, God, relationship with God was one of those things that were very
intentional for us. So hopefully, some people have learned something. But here, I don't know if people know your full name.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_01I don't know.
SPEAKER_03My full name?
SPEAKER_01Your full name.
SPEAKER_03Maria Anhala Elena. That one?
SPEAKER_01That one. The one with Sophia. What is your legal name?
SPEAKER_03My legal name?
unknownAngel.
SPEAKER_03No. My legal name, my legal name is Mary Elaine. Stallings Alessie.
SPEAKER_01You don't have Stallings in there, I don't, but I didn't know what you were asking me.
SPEAKER_03I just wanted them to know.
SPEAKER_01Did they know you have a middle name?
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Did they know your middle name?
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Mary Elaine Alessie. My maiden name was Stallings, and I didn't like that because my initials spelled out mess, which prophesied over my life. A true prophecy. I was a mess for a long, long time.
SPEAKER_01You said it, not me.
SPEAKER_03But baby, you helped me clean up.
SPEAKER_01Stephanie's name is what?
SPEAKER_03Stephanie Elaine Alessie.
SPEAKER_01So she took your middle name. That's very cool. Lauren.
SPEAKER_03Lauren Ann Alessie, named after your mom.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03Gabrielle Faith.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Alessie. All right. My name is John Stephen Alessie.
SPEAKER_03After your dad.
SPEAKER_01After my dad. And then we named, of course I go by Steve, because my dad didn't want a JJ John Jr.
SPEAKER_03Oh, brother.
SPEAKER_01Then we named Christopher, Christopher John Alessie. And that John was my father's name and your father's name. Yes. So he shares that together. And who knows what they're going to uh if our names will survive.
SPEAKER_03Well, I just have to say, I have to say, because I'm very proud of this. You know, two of our daughters are fighting over my name for one of their daughters. So we'll just be interested to see you. Mary, they like the name Mary.
SPEAKER_01Ah, sure.
SPEAKER_03That's the most boring name.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, it's not, babe. That's a precious name. All right, we hope you enjoyed the Family Business Podcast today.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Family Business Podcast with the Alesssies. We appreciate you listening and learning with us as we just shared more about the Family Business. You know, I bet there's someone you know who could use this kind of advice, encouragement. So make sure to share this episode with them and their family because let's face it, family is everyone's business. If you want to be a part of our family, subscribe to the show right now on your favorite app and make sure to download the episode so you can hear them at any time. Oh, and one more thing one of the best ways to help us spread the word about the family business with the Alessis is by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. So help us out, write a review, and join us next time at the Family Business Podcast with the Alesssies.