Let's Connect
The Official Podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas, where we want to help you live a life that matters; one that is both on mission and has a purpose to know Jesus and make disciples.
Let's Connect
Episode 25 - Faith Beyond the Front Door!
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Back-to-school season presents Christian parents with the challenge of preparing children to maintain their faith when returning to worldly environments after spending summer in Christian homes.
• Live your faith authentically in front of your children, avoiding the trap of displaying different personas at church versus home
• Make prayer a normal part of family life, allowing children to witness parents in genuine communication with God
• Studies show about 80% of children whose fathers actively attend church maintain lifelong church involvement
• Involve children in church service and community outreach to demonstrate faith in action
• As children mature, transition from direct parenting to mentorship, becoming coaches rather than controllers
• Focus on raising children "to be in heaven" rather than pursuing worldly accomplishments or recognition
• Remember that consistency in modeling Christian living has greater impact than formal religious instruction
We'd love to have you join us at Connect Church in Rockdale. Coffee, donuts and fellowship start at 10:00 AM with service beginning at 10:30 AM at the American Legion. We have nursery and Kids Church available. Visit connectchurchrockdale.com for more information.
Welcome to let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, texas, where we want to help you to live a life that matters, one that is both on mission and has a purpose to follow Jesus and make disciples. So let's get started, all right? Welcome into let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church here in Rockdale, texas. I'm your host, bill Whitmire. I'm here with our pastor, ken Ansell. As always, ken, how are you today Doing? Great, how are you doing? Oh man, it's a great day, it's a beautiful day. It really is a beautiful day.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, I keep thinking we're never going to get to a place where we're going to get any more rain. You know, it's about time for a burn ban to kick in. The grass is getting dry, boom. We get about an inch or inch of rain, like once a week. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to be in a burn ban, but there's this time in the summer, like between the middle of July until about the end of September, where we're not supposed to be mowing our lawns anymore in Texas.
Back to School Season Begins
Speaker 2The water stopped falling from the sky, the grass quits growing. You don't have to go get gas or any of that stuff. And you know me, mowing is like my least favorite thing on the planet and I'm having to mow and I don't like it, so we're right at the time.
Speaker 2Depending on when you're listening to the podcast, it could be any time, but right now, as far as when we're sitting here recording this, we are in. Some of the schools started today. Yeah, it is August the 7th. Yeah, I think when you and I were growing up, if a school would have started August 7th, that would have been like a capital crime.
Speaker 1Yeah. We would have burned the school down, maybe or something, not me, but somebody else.
Speaker 2August the 7th. Yeah, isn't that crazy, and I heard today that one of the schools here has already started and one's starting tomorrow, or two, I think, are starting tomorrow.
Speaker 2I'm like man, that's just crazy. It is crazy. But as we go back to school we have all these things. They say you know, watch out for the kids on the road, watch out for the buses.
Speaker 2But the nurse actually today stopped me and said you know, as we start thinking about that and we think about our kids, think about this You've had them at home. If you have a Christian home, you've had them at home all summer and now you're fixing to send them back out into the world and in a worldly place with children that are raised in a worldly home rather than a Christian home. And so the question came up, you know well, her point was and we thought about, we brainstormed this out while we were driving back from where we were earlier today was what are the ways that we can basically teach our child you know how to be a Christian in this world right now, you know. And so I'm just going to go through the ones that we kind of thought of. And so I'm just going to go through the ones that we kind of thought of and we can talk about each one of them.
Speaker 2But the first one she had was live your life out in front of them. Live that Christian life Be that example. And I don't know that we talk about this from time to time. People come to church. This is I'll use my name, I don't want to accuse anybody else, but this is church Bill and then 30 minutes after we're out of church and we're down at you know, corona's or Julio's or wherever I don't want to advertise for anybody, but we're at the restaurant after church and somewhere in that hour while we're eating with our friends, then worldly Bill comes back into play. And we do that often when what we need to be doing is being that example to our children.
Speaker 1Yeah, the goal is to make disciples. Charity begins at home, right? So as parents we want to make disciples out of our kids. If we can, right, share the gospel with them, we hope they accept it, seek forgiveness of their sins from Christ, and they're on their way. But then we have to fulfill the part of the Great Commission that says teach right, teach people. So it takes one to make one. We have to be one ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1And then take that, deuteronomy 6. Those kids have been given to you, not to the church, right? Anything you get at your church youth group, sunday school, children's church that's the gravy that goes with the biscuit, and the biscuit comes from mom and dad. Man, I grew up in a great Christian home where, you know, my parents sold the sedan to buy a van so we could pick people up and take them to church. And you know, and I mean I just saw it lived out crazy good at home, and so I mean we did the family Bible studies. I remember everybody getting on the living room floor and getting the old green living Bible.
Speaker 2You know the old green paraphrase oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And study that I hadn't thought of that in years.
Speaker 1Yeah, I even had a blue. I still have it. I'll break it out. Bible covers they're still, you know, big, trendy, whatever People would get them. But mine had a blue. You know mom made them and it was blue velour like velvet. All that green cover. I'm going to get it out. But yeah, so we'd break that out. And you know, as a kid man, I mean we had a great football field in our front yard, like you know. We had a 50-yard line and everything, a sidewalk that ran from the front door of the street and you know we'd have to come in to do Bible study and our friends would still be out there my older brother.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you know we're inside. Didn't want to be there, but you know it didn't matter. Mom and Dad knew, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And that's a big thing. You know you think about. You know I was thinking about this on my way over here from the house and you know we hear people say you know, the one thing I remember about my dad is playing catch with him.
Speaker 2The one thing I remember about my dad is him working on the car, and you know it's probably too late for us. Our kids are all grown. But you know, when I think about my grandkids, one thing I want my grandkids to remember is when they say what do you remember about your papa? Well, you know he spent some time in the Bible every day.
Speaker 1Is that you papa? Yeah, your papa.
Speaker 2Yeah, my grandfather was papa and my great-grandfather was papa.
Speaker 1Oh, that's cool, yeah, so it just kind of keeps going. It's just.
Speaker 2P-A-P-A, p-a-p-a If you're in England it's Papa in.
Speaker 1England. Oh, papa, yeah, I'm getting you off track. Yeah, your legacy, you want your legacy to be Papa. Yeah, what do you?
Speaker 2remember. I remember my grandfather and my papa. He was senior deacon, he was an associate pastor, but I remember him sitting in his office at night. I mean, I remember all the fishing trips and he came to my sporting events. He more than anybody came to my sporting events and stuff when I was growing up. But I remember sitting in the living room of their house and seeing him. You could see straight into his office and every night, every evening, you know, before the news came on he was in that office.
Speaker 2Unless it was Monday night football, then he would do it before Monday night football, but normally at 8.30 to about 9.30 time period. You would see him sitting in his desk going over his Bible study or going over the Bible, and I mean you know, I have that Bible now.
Speaker 1And I mean it's.
Speaker 2You know as much as mine is marked up. His is just, it's just a treasure trove, you know. But how do our kids, our kids—so folks that are out there that have younger kids keep that in mind? I'm not trying to convict anybody, but think about that when you're doing this. What are your kids going to remember? What are those things they remember? And having that time to stop. Last night the nurse came home from Bible study and we'll sit for a good hour after Bible study mine or hers and talk about it talk about what happened.
Speaker 2You know, and that's kind of our deal on those nights and then other nights, you know, we have that time where we're just talking about, you know, what we might have read or what we're doing. And I'm not saying I'm better than anybody else, because I didn't used to do that. That's something that we have developed, her and I, in the last two or three years, and the thing about it is, once we started it, man, it's powerful, and if you have kids at home, it can be just as powerful for them as well.
Speaker 2So you know, I read a study one time that said you know, kids in America, if their parents don't go to church, rarely when they grow up do they make it into church, and kids that just go with their mother and mothers are the only ones that show up. It's about 40% to 50% of them become regular churchgoers when they grow up. But kids whose dad go to church and are there and in the church, it's crazy. It's like 80% of those kids will be lifelong in church. And so you know, as a parent it's important to have that, but as a dad I mean, it's hugely. I've told you this before and I've said it on this program before too. It's probably one of the. If I have a regret in my life, it's that I didn't do that enough with my older children when they were younger.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2You know and it's one of those things that you know that time will get. We've talked about this too before. Time will get away from you fast yeah. So you got to make that time.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I'm just agreeing.
Prayer as a Normal Part of Life
Speaker 2One of the other ones was, you know, and this kind of goes along with it is to make prayer a normal part of your life, you know. I remember when I was growing up, my dad would say did you go in and say your prayers? Before bedtime and you know, come on, we're little kids, did you really? You're like yeah, Dad, I'll be in there. Hey man, okay, I got it. Dad, I'm good. Go pray with them.
Speaker 1Teach them to pray. Yeah, we did that same family stuff. We kind of did two old you know. We got four kids. They're about five years apart, so it's like we raised two families and the older two kids. We kind of did what my parents did, took a more formal approach, but we'd sit down Back then Dobson was still part of Focus on the Family and we had like a study guide thing that he sent out, that we sat on the floor, did the family Bible study and then we had a journal, you know, like a composition book, and prayer was a big part of that and writing down what we could pray for them about, and then we wrote those answers as well.
Speaker 1So yeah, I probably will butcher this story, but our oldest daughter, brooke you know Jennifer, gets up early, she spends time in the Bible and praying. And Brooke got up early when she was a little kid and probably not in school yet, and she came in and Jennifer was on her knees by the bed praying and Brooke, you know she goes. Yeah, brooke, what do you need? You know I'm praying. And Brooke, you know she said, come on in, you can pray with me. And Brooke never went back into the bedroom again after that. So that was a funny story, but a true story. So Brooke's not a prayer, she's like I'll pass on that, but that's excellent. Prayer matters, and my point was tied into your point is that she caught Jennifer praying yeah, and our kids need to catch us doing that.
Speaker 2Man, wouldn't that be great, I mean they catch us doing certain things or they catch you doing the wrong thing, yeah, I mean, you catch you. You know you hit your finger with a hammer catch you saying the wrong thing and think about that if they catch you doing that. But you know, I really believe that you know and think about that if they catch you doing that. But you know, I really believe that you know. We've talked about this before that people knowing how to pray and so many people when I've heard people say this before.
Speaker 2well, I'm just not a very good prayer, you know, it's like they don't know the words, or they don't know the proper sequence or this, that, and they're really, you know, except for you know praying with a glad heart, not having you know those sinful thoughts, those ugly thoughts, those mean thoughts in your head or being mad or whatever, but you pray in your words. You know, god knows you he knows that.
Speaker 2You know, maybe you're the most articulate person in the world and you're the the world and you speak the king's English. Or maybe you're like me, from a little town called Serban, just outside of Giddings, where there were seven people in my class and most of us don't talk. Some of us still wore overalls to school, so maybe you're from that and you know what that's fine, god knows you and he knows how you speak and he knows the big thing is is your prayer heartful? Is it coming from your heart? Do you mean what you're saying? And we do ourselves and our kids a disservice when we don't take that time. I remember somebody the other day told me when I was talking about taking some time to read the Bible and go to God in prayer like man, my day's so full, you've got to carve that time out. You've got to say this half hour or this hour. I'm going to shut everything off. I'm going to put my phone on airplane mode.
Speaker 1I'm going to turn my computer off.
Speaker 2I'm going to put my phone on airplane mode.
Speaker 1I'm going to turn my computer off.
Speaker 2I'm going to turn the TV off and I'm going to sit here and I'm going to pray.
Speaker 1You do that and let your kids catch you. That's big for them.
Speaker 2That's just absolutely huge for them. So, as you're doing that, encourage them to pray and not always just oh, so-and-so's sick. Well, let's pray for them. Let's just pray and thank God. You don't always have to go to God about something in prayer. You can just pray to God and say God, I love you and I praise your name and I thank you for being here, and you know what that's an important prayer. That's just as important as any other prayer you might make. Yeah, teach them to say thank you to the Lord.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I mean, for some reason that's hard and I don't know why. It's because we're ingrates, we do what we're ingrates, we're not grateful.
Speaker 2Gratitude doesn't always flow through our veins. Yeah, and that's a problem with prayer. You know everybody wants that answer to their prayer that they want you know we've talked about this your prayer comes. It's like they say. You know, every pass in a football game there's three ways it can end and only one of them's good, and so many people pray that way too, that well, I'm gonna pray. There's three answers. You could get yes, no or not yet, but the only one they want is the yes, and they pray the same way. A quarterback throws a pass, and you've got to understand. Sometimes, not yet is the answer.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you know, nothing's new under the sun, according to Solomon. And only one leper came back. So you know nine didn't bother to come back and say thanks, jesus for healing us, but yeah, what's next?
The Critical Role of Fathers
Speaker 2Well, you know, we did talk about involving them in the church. And the church. You know you talked about the gravy on the biscuit and all that, but involve them in the church. It kind of goes back to what I said a second ago. You know, dads and I put a big onus on dads, and the Bible does too, for that matter, but it's so.
Speaker 2our culture, the world today, um, excuses dads a lot you know, and and and dads, you got to get in there, you got, you got to be the one that that leads that family and and the Bible says that you will lead the family and, um, and we have to, you know, you've got to be the one that that's in there. That's that, that um example for your kids. You know, um, I just don't. You know that that, to me, is is a super important part of that, you know. You know, getting them in there, um, making that go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1Yeah was gonna say. I mean are, are, are the kids seeing dad serve in the church right so often? I mean, if it wasn't for women, you know how many churches would be. Their doors would be closed. Right now, women are doing the bulk of the serving within the four walls of the, the church building and and, yeah, dads need to.
Speaker 1Maybe it sounds like we're being down on dads, but your point's well taken. The statistics prove right. But, yeah, are they seeing us serve, you know, within the body and outside the four walls? And that's one of the great things about what we did with our teens a couple weeks ago was Jesus schools. We read the Bible and then we did what it said. Like we read about how God feels he's got a soft spot and it's hard for widows, and then we went and helped a widow clean up her yard, do some things that she just wasn't capable of, and then we read about the poor, and then we went and did a food drive and, yeah, so our dad's teaching their kids what it looks like to serve and it was cool that we, those kids, were anxious to go serve, you know. But are we, are we teaching that within our families?
Speaker 2Exactly.
Speaker 2I mean, we are to lead and, yeah, we're not trying to be down on dads, but you know, I know there was a time period when I was in that boat too, where, um, you know, our pride just gets in the way of everything.
Speaker 2And you know, you get in there and you see one or two guys and they're doing something, but the guys that that that you relate to, aren't and as a man, it's very easy to sit there and be one of those that aren't, yeah, rather than one of those that are. And that's where we get into that deal, where, you know, you said a few weeks ago, pride's the first and the biggest root of all sin. And it truly is. And so, you know, when we hear somebody tell us something or we hear something, we can't get offended by it. I mean, we can get offended by it, but when it's constructive and when it's biblical, you should stop and reflect on yourself and see where you are in it and realize, hey, I need to quit worrying about what what Frank's thinking or what Jacob's thinking and start worrying about what God's thinking, yeah, and and when you have that relationship with God.
Speaker 2you're walking with God, you start acting on that. Your kids see that I mean they see it in a major, major way. Um, you know, when I was growing up, my parents divorced and, uh, we moved close to my grandfather, my papa who uh, my papa P-A-P-A.
Speaker 1Yeah, p-a-p-a, our youngest son, jack, calls me Pa. It's P-A-W. I'm like dude, you've been watching too much of the Waltons.
Speaker 2There's such a little house on the prairie. It's weird, pa Ansel.
Speaker 1Yeah, so he calls me Pa. Who are you?
Speaker 2talking to dude.
Speaker 1But anyway, so y'all moved close to.
Speaker 2Papa. So we did, and my dad is a wonderful person too, and he's very involved in his church too, but we moved away and we lived pretty far away. But being around my grandfather and then knowing my other grandfather was also the same way it really should have. And at this time I look back on it now and it did move me, but at the same time, at that time I was also pretty rebellious, you know, and I put up a pretty good fight so to speak.
Speaker 2But in the end you know God wins and but you know we need to be that leader of our family as men and then, you know, support our wives and be what we should be, and it's kind of difficult, but the thing is is, if we want our kids and you mentioned it earlier you know we should know him and make him known.
Speaker 2It's what we've been talking about all year in our church and we should start at home with our children. They're fixing to go back out into the world. They're fixing to go back to school. You know Devin leaves for A&M in another week or so, and he'll be back in that and I'm not ripping on.
Speaker 1A&M, because every college is the same way. Not TCU, but every other school, yeah, yeah, whatever. Texas Christian, I got a lot of friends and family that went to TCU. It's no better. It's no better than Baylor. It's no better than Baylor, you know, and I went to Baylor.
Speaker 2So, but I mean, it's out there you know those temptations. The world is out there, and so you know you know if I, you know those temptations, the world is out there, and so you know if I, you know I look back now. I did a much better job with my younger children than I did with my older children. Us too, I think I was just a young one. You know, when I was, you know, Devin's age, I already had two kids, you know.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I'm thankful he doesn't, yeah, but I look back now and I did a better job. I'm not bragging on myself because, like I said, the one regret I may have is that I didn't do that job with the older ones, and so if your kids are still in that age, they're still there, be a part of their lives. So many fathers are parts of their lives when it comes to baseball or when it comes to football or when it becomes, it comes to these worldly things.
Transitioning to Adult Relationships
Speaker 2But be there in that same whatever you want to call it ferocity with being a Christian as well and teaching them about God and helping them, because you know we worry about them when they leave the house. But how do we prepare them?
Speaker 1Yeah, and you talk about, you know, the older kids, younger kids, our younger two kids. We took a less formal view of discipleship in the home. It was more organic, more, I don't want to say on the fly, but it was more natural, had a natural feel. Less structured, yeah, less structured, more natural. Had a natural feel, less structured, yeah, less structured. And and, uh, you know, I don't, I don't know that either one was better. Uh, it was good for the season we were in and, of course, times had changed too, right? Uh, I mean, I think our oldest was 15 or 16 when jennifer got pregnant with claire. So you know, that's probably just weird. Anyway, going going, why is it my mom's going to have a baby and I'm fixing to learn how to drive? That's weird.
Speaker 2My youngest brother is 16 years younger than me. Yeah, yeah, that's a bigger. Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1I get it, yeah, so you know how you do, it is probably less important than the fact that you do it. And then something we're not talking about. But, um, and well, two things. One is and I hate cliches, but all we can do is plant seeds right, how our kids, what they do with the jesus seeds we plant, ultimately is up to them. And then we need to make that transition. You, devin, who's going back to school soon? You know? I just, yeah, I find that a lot of parents don't make the transition into parenting adults. You know, for me, coaching is a good way to think about it.
Speaker 2When Claire went off to college and Jack and Miller and Brooke, we became coaches Starting to work on friendship, becoming more like friends to our kids, maybe praying harder for our kids as we make that transition to know when to speak and when not to speak, I think you go from being a parent and it's easier with the younger ones to more of that mentor. You know adult peer type mentoring. You're still the parent but, you're not a parent as much as you are in that mentor stage.
Speaker 1Yeah, you certainly have less control, right, I mean depending on, I mean Claire, still we paid the phone bill, insurance, you know, yada, yada.
Speaker 2but yeah, I think there was a time when you know you and you know you hit it when they they quit asking permission. But they call you when it goes wrong.
Speaker 1That's good, yeah, well yeah, I had a big win last week. Uh, claire's subaru was in the at the dealership and and she said Dad, can you call the guy? I don't know what he's wanting, it's $3,000. Do. I have to have it done and I'm like, oh, you called your dad, not your husband, Big win man, this guy Steven at the Clear Lake Subaru, he and I are pretty tight now. We talked and talked, and talked.
Speaker 2It was a big deal, but yeah, it's dad to the rescue.
Speaker 1I loved it.
Speaker 2I don't get those calls too often and you get them less and less as they get older, but I mean you kind of transition there and that's another one. I did a lot better with that transition and have done a lot better with that transition with the younger ones. I probably did more of the alright. You're on your own with the younger ones. I probably did more of the alright. You're on your own with the older ones. Don't call me. You're 22,. You're out of college you're on your own.
Speaker 1Now we're begging. Call me.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure. Please call me today as you get ready, and to kind of wrap this up, as you get ready and your kids are getting ready, just know that you know that world out there is big, it's mad, it's the world.
Speaker 2And they need you. We all know they need us and we all do. I think for the most part, the folks that we know do a really good job with their kids. It's just that you know where are you. Where do you want them to be? I guess is the question, where do you want them to be in their relationship with God? And you have to realize they're not going to get there by themselves at this age. You've got to be that example for them, you've got to be that leader for them, and as much as we love them we've talked about this before so many parents they're raising their kids to be Hall of Fame scientists or Hall of Fame athletes or Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2We need to be raising our kids to be in heaven and what they need to do to not only be in heaven, but to be the Christian that God asked, that Jesus asked them to be with the great command, or ordered them to be with the great command. I say ask, but it's really, you know, he ordered us to do that and that starts with us doing that at home.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's time to go, but, man, I'd like to say some stuff to that. But yeah, oh yeah we could talk.
Speaker 2We could talk for a while.
Speaker 1We really could you just yeah that preaches. All right, who's?
Speaker 2up, you are, I am okay, you got it this week.
Speaker 1All right, let's do it. Holy Father, we thank you so much for this time that we come together with those that are listening and talk about you, think about you and, father, I would lift up those that are parenting. A lot of grandparents are parenting and we lift them up to you and ask that you give them wisdom. We pray that they would understand they need to focus on their own walk with you. It's going to flow downhill into the kids, grandkids that they're raising up to be yours, and let's be reminded, father, that we need to share the gospel, that it starts there, that people hear about the good news, about your son and forgiveness and the cross and the empty grave. Let us all be bold in that and teaching our kids. Father, we lift up the parents that are doing this, grandparents. Be with them and bless them. We pray these things in your son's name, amen, amen.
Speaker 2All right. Well, that is episode 25 for let's Connect. If you're in local area, we will be. We're holding services at the American Legion here in Rockdale. You can look at our website connectchurchrockdalecom and you can get the address. We'd love to have you. Service starts at 10. Well, actually, coffee, donuts and fellowship starts at 10. Service starts at 10.30. We have a nursery, we have Kids Church. Come on and join us Until next next week. We'll talk to you later, thank you you.
