How to Form Kids in a Biblical Worldview – Discipleship for Dads

We are to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord – but what are the basics of doing this? The dads talk about their own practices: the place of family worship…what they’ve learned about sanctification taking place in daily activities…which books of the Bible they focus on most…how to instill doctrine systematically while keeping it relevant to life…helping kids deal with opposing worldviews…and making the home safe for questioning.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

And welcome, friends, two generations, another segment of Discipleship for Dads, and today Todd Strasser, Bill Roach, and Danny Craig's studio with me. Yours truly, Kevin Swanson. So today, let's get back to what dads are supposed to do, and that is to raise our children, the nurture, the admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's that's the command. That's the director from our master. And so we are responsible in the home to be raising our children and the teaching program of Jesus. And so what does this involve? Well, what is it to teach our children the basics of the faith and grounding them in a biblical worldview? Now, as we talk about worldview, let me say from the outset, the worldview idea is just the fundamental structure of thought relating to the most important issues of life. Worldview answers the most basic questions, not so much what's for dinner, that's important for a 12-year-old, but more so, does God exist? What is man? Are we cosmic dust floating on the universe of pure chance? Or are we made in the image of God for the glory of God and so forth? And what is right and wrong? These are the sorts of questions that are answered by a biblical worldview. So, in other words, we want to give our children the fundamentals. We could be giving them a few, you know, neat Bible stories, but what does this tell us about God, about us, about redemption, about salvation, and all the rest? So, so uh so are we doing this? Are we doing this for our three-year-olds or five-year-olds or eight-year-olds or ten-year-olds? And uh and how are we teaching our children the basics of the faith? Uh so let's just kick it off this way. Uh, how do you do this, Todd?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Well, we you know, one of the kind of I think core aspects for our family is God's people and and the church. You know, his his we're not just alone, some family walking through this life with the gospel and what Christ has. He's this is he has the a lot of people of God, and he's we've covenanted with a particular people in the church, and so that's there's a family, and then there's this broader family of God also. And so, you know, and and we one of the things we get to do together as the people of God is to worship him together, and so that's you know, been laid down, that's important as a as a priority in in our home to do that and to recognize that and and to be talking about that. And so, you know, there's there's my there's prayer for obviously people in the church, but how to love them and serve them and go along with that, and then in the home itself, um, it is having that foundation of uh integrating God and the gospel and the reality of Christ into everything of life.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

So let me ask you this question. Todd, let's say that that there's a family out there who say, Yeah, we do this 12 to 16 times a year we make it to church. And we do a family devotion time probably 27 times out of 365 days. So we we're we feel like we're we're getting there, but you know, maybe 12 times a year we make it to church, and maybe 27 times a year we do some family worship. There seems to be a lack of consistency in the teaching program in that home. Is that going to be ineffective?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Well, there's a couple challenges there. One is that we're we're pretty forgetful, and we we need to constantly feed on the word of God. You know, I we tell our children, you know, we we eat three times a day. I mean, for these physical bodies. Like, how much more does our soul need to feed on the bread of life? Daily. Daily. Yeah, daily, absolutely. And then and then you know, yeah, the other aspect is this there's okay, if you're going to church whatever, 18 times a year, what about all the other inputs? The constant inputs that are that are maybe not God focused. Um, and so we need that that constant knowledge of God so that we can walk in his ways.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

That consistency to me is absolutely essential, something I picked up from my father. But Bill, your thoughts on this. How how do we do this? How do we lay good foundations?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Uh I think it's a a daily um bringing God into your life. I I think the greatest danger, one of the greatest dangers for our children, is that we segment life. You know, we we talked about family economics and integrating uh, you know, family businesses and things like that. But boy, the biggest thing is you can't segment God out. That God is something you do on Sunday. Remember the story of the babysitter who came over and decided to to pray with the children and the kids said, no, no, we just pray on Sunday. Uh you know, there's a segmenting of life. And you're dealing with the living, active word of God. Yeah. Do we do we really believe it? We're not segmenting Jesus to Sunday for a couple of hours. He is part of our everyday life.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

That's one of the most dangerous things, absolutely. I mean, and and we have, I think, stories, and I've seen this, where people attend a pretty good church, get a pretty good theology down on Sunday. They might have learned the catechisms and all the rest. But wow, they run off into you know all kinds of secular material. They're watching uh Star Trek and you know, these weird metaphysics where there's cross-species mating going on. And it's fine. There's no issues with that. You know, so they've got this segmented life where it's a secular school, it's a secular classical education on Monday through Saturday. It's a secular media thing, and they're just really good with that. But boy, do they have their catechism down well. To me, that's that's counterproductive to any true faith.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

I want my children to love God's word because they have experienced and seen for themselves that God's truth is light and life. And I think those two things God's word is a lamp to your feet. You want to know what you uh need to do in this situation or that situation. You want to know how to conduct yourself, you want to know how to live your life, and God's word is a lamp to your to your feet. And then secondly, uh Psalm 11993, I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. And so I want my children to realize that walking in the truth is the way of life, and and and help them experience the blessing and the life. This this word is real, it means something, it changes you. Yeah, it's powerful. And and hopefully, first of all, they see that it changes me. Um so that's that's that's square one, I think. If they don't they don't see that it it's changing mom and dad, that's gonna be a real inhibitor to their faith.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

It is interesting that the book of Proverbs is a very practical book and seems to address the issue of faith and character as it is expressed in daily activity and relationships. Right. The book that God gave to be wisdom, uh to be trained into our children is is a book that is really focused on the day-to-day application. And uh and so, of course, that's why we've done our Proverbs Bible study guides as a as a means of kind of kicking off a little more of that training and getting some of those conversations going in the home. But uh, but yeah, so so what we do for our children is is a day-to-day consistent teaching of God's word. And I think an emphasis of focus in upon certain aspects of the Bible initially is helpful that our children understand the book of Genesis well. Yes. Uh I think Ken Ham says, you know, Genesis is one through eleven. One through eleven is where it all starts. Uh but I think there's some some truth to that. Let's make sure we've got Genesis down well. I think we talk about depth and distance. Uh distance meaning let's look at all 66 books, let's make it through the scriptures. But the the the depth, the digging in can happen uh by a focus in upon the book of Genesis, book of Psalms, book of Proverbs, and I would also add the Gospels. Uh that's that's that's basic. That's basic stuff. Let's go over that, make sure they they have that down well, and then let's press on into the rest of the scriptures. So so I would, again, you know, as our children learn the the doctrine of scripture, a biblical worldview, they've got to start with the scriptures. By the way, that's one reason why we started with a catechism uh as our ministry, uh Teach Me the Faith, uh Scripture Memory Catechism, which really goes through the doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of creation, providence, um, redemption, Jesus, uh, the Ten Commandments, uh, you know, just the basics all the way to um uh to the end, uh eschatology really. Uh but uh but yeah, uh the you can root and ground your children in the basics of the faith with this more systematic Bible memory program rather than just pulling out a couple of meme verses that are kind of neat, uh focus in upon one aspect of scripture. What we thought we ought to do is pull together uh a systematic scripture memory program of uh what is it, 59 verses. By the way, I have made it to oh I've made it to question, here it is. I made it to question 66 with my grandchildren. So I'm doing this with my grandkids, and uh so I'm I'm one away from the end. So I I think I'm gonna need a gold star uh from you guys as I finish, and they'll be probably finishing next week. So we've been working on this for one year, so it's I would say roughly a one-year program of scripture memory. But uh I would start with that. I would start with scripture, and then let's work on into catechisms as well. Um one of the one of the catechisms I'd recommend is the the children's catechism that begins with who made you? And the answer is God made me. What else did God make? God made all things. Good, you guys are getting this down well. Why did God make you in all things?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

For his own glory.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Man, Danny, you're doing well. How can you glorify God?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

By loving him and keeping his commands. Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

And why ought you to glorify God? Because he made me and takes care of me. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

All right, you got this down straight. Don't push me past question five. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Well, I got it to five. I made it to three. Okay. Uh but let's do that with our three-year-olds and four-year-olds, five-year-olds. I I think those basic, easy catechisms are super helpful for structuring basic theology and worldview.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

And then and then tie those answers into everyday situations. That is important. That's where the that's that's when you get the juice out of it.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

So are we loving God and doing what he commands? Are we doing this because he made us and takes care of us every day?

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Back to the complaining issue. Yeah. Um, okay, so what does God want? He wants me to glorify him. How can you glorify God? You know, so just tying that right back in. And I think that's one of the most exciting things that we can teach our children is God's word is effective for the battle against sin. And um if we can give them a sense of the the reality of the spiritual battle, even at five and six, sin is a big deal, isn't it, kids? Yes. How can you win with the truth?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, this is the sort of spirit, which is the word of God. Wouldn't it be exciting if you had you know the 20 books, all the children's books, and this one's sitting there, and you say to your child, hey, I'm gonna read you a book, and then they run over there and grab this book and say, Read this one to me again. Again, and you know, you're you know how you read through a book with a child and you're reading it, and they already have all the answers, they know the words and stuff. Wouldn't it be great if they pick this one up and bring it to you?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, it is important. And and also, you know, I think one thing for young children, we we memorizing scripture is very, very important. In fact, we've talked before in this program about hiding God's word in your heart and the importance of that later in life. But but also just remember, dads, to give children the big picture, you know, just the big thing that God is doing. God's kind of big story, kind of that's like creation, fall, you know, redemption, and restoration. This is what God's doing, yeah, you know, in a very simple way. God's always working in in all in in those aspects. And then these verses are really more specific to that as well. And and you brought up a good point about the catechism versus memorizing catechism versus scripture. What's more important? Memorize scripture. Well, obviously, we'd probably say scripture is more important than catechism. And we do have to be careful about you know just running to something like the catechism and just focusing upon that. I mean, I've seen personally in and and uh church that we were in uh on the east coast, uh that that's a that that's not how God wants us to approach his word. Catechisms are great for for understanding some basic theology and what we believe, what what God, you know, what uh what what God what man's duty is concerning God, but uh but we can't just can't just go there and then like you said, run off to Star Trek and all these other things. That can be very confusing for children um because they're really getting two truths.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Todd, you have taught your family from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, right? Can you tell us a little bit about like the the theology class that you run in your own home?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, we I mean we do our in our family worship time, family Bible time, we just go through the Bible. Yeah. We just go through it. I mean, probably on our seventh or eighth time, you know, just because we go very slow. We go like a few verses a night, kind of a thing. But but outside of that, depending on the age, we've used the children's catechism for for the young children and then the you know, the the uh the Westminster shorter, you know, for for older children. But yeah, going through that and trying to go again very slow, but making applicable. I'm actually not as interested if they can memorize, you know, all 171 questions. I'm not if I'm not interested. I want them to be able to understand and apply it to their life. And sometimes I'll say, I'll read a question and I'll say, now just tell me in your own words, right? You know, what what does that mean? Or apply this to something that happened this week. So it's more than just the rote memorization because that's doable. But it's like we actually want them to live out the faith, right? And trust God in these truths.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Like a Sunday afternoon thing that you guys have.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Um So actually, uh I you know, for for years I did it in the evenings, kind of when I was done with work, because that's when when I could do it. Separate, you know, be you know, there's there's family Bible time, but there's also just times when when you have time. So actually it it would sometimes happen on a Sunday afternoon. Uh we did that if but now and now more we do hospitality on Sunday afternoons, so there's not that time, and then we do evening service. But it's just whenever whenever the opportunity arises. Um, I think it is the the Deuteronomy call to just as we walk by the way, as we lay down at night, as we rise up, we're we're looking for these opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

There is a value to confessional statements, creeds, yes, worldview statements, uh, especially as we address the antithesis. I think that's one of the big applications. I mean the bottom line is the doctrine of the Trinity came about because of Arianism, because the antithesis steps in, demonic diversions come into play, and then you've got to you know address that one at a time. That's right. And the same thing happens in the development of the Reformation Catechisms and Confessions. Uh same thing's happening today. I mean, you get evolution, now what? Well, we're gonna have to identify a biblical doctrine of creation, which was there in the early church and was sort of there uh with the confessions during the Reformation period, but now we we're getting a little more specific. We get to 624-hour day, and why is that? And what is the value of emphasizing the worldwide flood? I don't believe the worldwide flood shows up in the Westminster Confession, and yet it plays a pretty important part today as you address the scientism of the day that has expressed itself as this new religion. Really, scientism and evolutionism is a new religion. It's a faith. Everybody believes, believes with all of their heart that uh the world is, you know, 16 billion years old. And uh that that's just really, really, really important to people who have apostatized and hate God and are running away from God. They have to believe that they're, you know, they've evolved out of the cosmic slime over 16 billion years.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

There is no God. There is no God, there is no God, there is no God.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

They go over their catechism pretty carefully, right? Right. But then we need our catechism. We need our confession, we need our worldview statement to address the present antithesis, the demonic diversion that has stepped in. So uh so I think it's important to realize that this worldview study that we present, you know, whether it be uh the the the catechisms uh or the worldview uh book that I put together, what we believe, what they believe, and why they're wrong, or uh for more for nine, ten, eleven-year-olds, what does the Bible say about that? Trevor Burrus You know, it really addresses the fundamental stuff, stuff that you would find in some of the early church stuff or Reformation catechisms, but really digging into some of the more present antithesis where the devil is attacking, right? Such that if our children walk out into the world, they're able to address this. If they are in a you know secular university classroom or they're with secular people working in the work world somewhere, they need to be able to address uh the issues of evolution, the issues of uh existentialism and uh and the various forms of autonomy or antinomianism that opposes God's law in these various areas. So uh so I think we ought to equip our kids such that they are competent and able to give an answer to to anybody who's asking uh a reason for the hope that is within them, or uh or to cast down imaginations or take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ uh in in given the situation they're in today. I mean, you know, let's say, for example, that you know you're trying to train a church in the jungles of New Guinea, you may not have to get into some of the specifics that we talk about. But if you're training your children in the jungles of Colorado, they better be ready to give an answer, right? They better be ready to take every thought captive. Right. And uh so we have an obligation to do this. And that's why, of course, we're producing this kind of material uh for our kids. And one other thing I would th throw in, brother, step in on this as well. Um I think we walk with our kids through these things.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

You know, we watch movies together. Um when your child is 10 or 11 years of age and you're running through Denver and you see a billboard that's, I don't know, stating some form of modern humanist autonomy or something, you need to have a conversation with them. You know, say, okay, let's talk about this from a biblical perspective. Um, Todd, how do we engage the antithesis? How do we engage uh maybe even it's unsaved relatives? I guess you've you've you've had some, we've had some. Um how do we how do we prepare our children to to give an answer, but also to do it with meekness and fear, for example.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Right. Yeah, and we we should be asking our children questions, and that's a way of seeing what their worldview is. You say, what do you think about that? Or you recognize that. Uh what what what what do you see is happening there? Um and and I think that's important to draw the heart out in that way and and see where there are and see if there's aspects that that you can correct is by just talking to your children about those things as they come up. And then as dads, we're all we should always be looking as as opportunities come up of how we can apply this word of God to life. Now we should be doing that to our own souls constantly, but you know, if you're I remember one time we had a like a church work day, and I had I ended up with some group of young boys, and we were pulling weeds out of the little parking lot islands in the church. But I mean, wow, does the Bible talk about weeds and you know, and I mean, so just say, guys, what does the does the does Jesus talk about weeds and weeds in gardens and how to is that a good thing, bad, you know, just to just to cultivate that a little bit because what I want my children to do is start thinking biblically about everything that they encounter, like, oh, this is happening to me. What does the Bible say about that? And so there's there's a bit of training that needs to happen because I don't think naturally our hearts are gonna just they're gonna go to what do I think about that, or what does my best, my best hero think about, you know, but what does God say about this? And just always the going back to it in every circumstance. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Basic worldview, what does the Bible say about that? Because it's an epistemological authority. God's word is the ultimate authority. Bill, I wanted to ask you, I mean, you raised uh your children uh with a biblical worldview in mind. I mean, I'm sure they ran down to the Ken Ham's you know creation seminars that were happening at the Czech conference here in Denver. Um how important was that to prepare your children to to be savvy, to be able to address you know the worldview issues that are out there? And are there any, I don't know, ditches that you could fall into as you are training your children for this?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, I think creating a culture of questions is really, really good. And I mean your your book is a question. Jesus asked many questions. So the way he drew out the heart was with questions. So your home should be full of lots of questions. It's just not dad giving a 20-minute sermon. Right. That's not devotions, right? It's asking questions. And not only you asking the questions, but that they get then to ask you questions. And the this is a place where, you know, I don't understand that. So that they feel comfortable not having all the knowledge. If your home isn't that place, you're gonna it's gonna be a dangerous place because they're gonna ask the questions somewhere else. So you want, first of all, to have um a place that that questions are freely asked. And you know, no question is out of bounds. Questions doesn't mean doubting. It's okay to to to ask the questions you don't understand because you want to okay, what doesn't where where do we go? We're gonna go back to the word of God to answer that question.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

A relationship is a big part of cultivating that uh openness. If our children sense that questions will be responded to with you know stifling or put down. Uh or if there's just relational blockages, our children aren't gonna come to us with those things that are nagging them. There will be there'll be a fear of you know, I'm struggling with this. Well will dad receive this question or concern on my heart with with grace or would be a good thing. God help us.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

What what would what would shut it down? What what what is it about dad that would shut it down? Is it a fear that he can't answer those questions? Pride is pride, what is it?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Pride pride is uh you know, uh number one, dad has to be talking about things that maybe he's not sure sure of in a careful way, or questions, you know, say, you know what, I did struggle with this at some time. It's good that dad just says this is part of normal life, not understanding things. And then you go find them. This is where we find the answers to it. So I think it's the that if dad has to come across as he knows everything and he never does anything wrong, forget it. It's just you you've lost the battle on that one. So you're you're confessing, you're open, you're honest, you're you're telling them where where things don't make sense to you, and you're still trying to figure things out.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Is it okay if our kids doubt dad? Or you know, versus doubting God? I I honestly I think it's uh that's appropriate for our children at points to doubt dad.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yes. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

And and so so in dad's mind, dad has to distinguish between God and dad. That's pretty important for all of us, right? If if somehow that distinction gets blurred in my mind, that's a problem. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Every once in a while you have to say, I don't know, I may not have this right. Right. Yeah, but here's what I think. Yeah. And then the then the children are like, okay, this is fair.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

And the other ditch from pride, of course, is like a passiveness. Yeah, we don't want to. And a child might ask a question, and you know, you might just go, ah, it's not a big deal, don't worry about it. No, no, no. It the child asks, like, we need to lean into that. Even it might mean seem minor to us, or it might not seem to be a big issue in the church today, but the child's asking and they want to know, and we need to help them walk through that. Or it's leading to a wrong direction, and you want to shut it down right away.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

And sometimes there's a deeper issue behind the question that we have to pursue. And just uh and maybe oftentimes we should respond to the question with a question. Like that's a that's a good question. Why why is that on your mind? Well, I had a conversation with so-and-so at church on the playground. Okay, tell me more about that. What did that make you think? What questions did that represent?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Remember the story of the Good Samaritan. The question was, Who's my neighbor? And Jesus flipped it all around and said, What kind of neighbor are you? He didn't talk about who your neighbor is. It's what kind of neighbor are you?

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Todd, you began this conversation by speaking of the importance of the church. You know, and and yes, that the church speaks to this as much as the family does. Um what are we looking for in the church? Should the church be equipping the saints to every good work? Should the should the church be more active than the church is in this area? Of course, I guess we don't really know. And one of the things that concerns me very much so, is that only one percent of Gen Zers have a biblical worldview per Barna. This is recent. And uh while fifty-six percent of young Gen Zers think they're Christians.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

That's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Only one percent think like Christians. So you know, that's why I wrote this book, by the way. I wrote it for the 55% of Gen Zers out there that think they're Christians, they don't think like Christians, don't believe the things Christians believe. Uh to me, there's a disconnect. That's a massive disconnect. That may be the largest disconnect of our generation. But why? Is somebody's fallen down?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

The church is defining what Christianity is, in part, you know, the liberal church.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Are we not doing enough? Is it the 20-minute sermon that's not cutting it once a week? Or what is it? What should the church be doing?

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I mean, the the the you know, Ephesians 4, uh, God has set forth uh pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And if you're gonna go do work of ministry, you have to have the foundational truth of Christ, otherwise you're gonna go minister wrong truths and wrong gospels. So yeah, I mean, there's yeah, there's a 20-minute sermon, and that's good, but how is as churches, how are we equipping families like fathers to go to minister, to teach truth and their to their children? You know, and there's some churches that where the the pastors will teach the catechism and things like that. And that I think that's that's good. Um, but also just we fathers need to be doing that as well. Fathers need to be uh constantly talking about it, can't just be the one time once a week.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

There's as we talked about that's Deuteronomy 6, 7, is you're integrating the Word of God into every position, right? Bodily position. As you sit in your house, you walk by the ways, you rise up, as you lie down. It's uh it's throughout. It's the front lip before the eyes, it's hanging in front, it's on the walls, it's on the gates. That sounds like total immersion to me. I mean, that is immersion. That is like wow, the word of God everywhere. 724 is right. That's the vision. That's the that's the biblical discipleship model that completely cuts through that dualism of Sunday version.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

It was it's it's a good uh illustration. You know, I I learned Spanish in high school, but you know, it's it's very segmented. It's like you go study your book and you don't study it again for maybe another 24, 48 hours. Um, and and by after four years of Spanish, I was pretty fluent in Spanish. But it took like that long. But I went to Thailand for three months and I was immersed. Yeah, and most of the people that talked were around me only spoke Thai. And I pretty much learned Thai in three months. It's pretty amazing. But it's the same thing. What are we soaking in? What are we immersing in? Uh, and that's what we want is the truth of God.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Makes all the difference in the world. Well, last words, brothers, on this. Uh, so crucial, so crucial that we we give our children a paidea in the the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Word of God as saturated in their lives, and uh and obviously pressing into every aspect, entertainment, their history lessons, their science lessons, etc., which is what we're trying to do with our curriculum, uh, just integrating it, bringing it into every aspect of their life. To me, it's it's it's the frontlet, it's the frontlet approach where you're just absolutely 100% 724s presenting the word of God into every context of life.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

At the end of my high school program, I did a couple of years of studies in apologetics. And what I remember from that experience was just this overwhelming sense that God's word speaks to everything, and and but even more than that, God as the source of truth, as the source of ethics, as the source of reality, is the God that I want to worship. He holds it all together by the word of his power, of him, through him, and to him are all things. And so I I've kept that with me, and I think that's what I want to give to my kids is this sense of how great is our God. Uh, how how unsearchable are his ways and his his you know wisdom past finding out of him and through him and to him are all things. So that's that's the that's what I want my kids to walk away with from our discipleship program.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

And friends, this has been the passion of our ministry for 22 years. We've done a daily radio broadcast for 22 years. I think I counted 5,515 programs over 22 years. And some have some have asked why are you doing this? Well, I think it is to to press out of this segmented view, but apply the word of God every day to every area of life. I think that's been the goal is somehow to break out of this, you know, Sunday Christian, but we're not going to apply the word of God the rest of the week. Uh and and I think we're also competing with 99.999% wrong worldview stuff, bombarding us in social media, and pop media, university, academia, et cetera, even the business world. I mean, you know, think about it. You walk into the business world, you're not supposed to bring Jesus into it, right? I mean, that's sort of the unspoken rule. Can we cut through all that and say, no, Jesus applies to everything, and the word of God applies to every area of life? Um, a daily radio program has been extremely difficult for me to pull off of my schedule over all these years. But I think it's essential. I think we we want to do this. We want to exemplify the sorts of things we've talked about. Here's one more thing. John Piper, you know, the pastor, said something I thought was really interesting one time, and I've really took this to heart. He says, I don't think one sermon does that much good. Right. Now, as a young pastor, I used to think this is the sermon you know, it's gonna it's gonna be the silver bullet. It turns out one sermon doesn't do that much good. It's 5,515 sermons over 22 years. Actually, and same thing for the family, right? Same thing for it's it's not just one lesson, but it's everything that happens over all that time. So I think that's the the vision, the mission for uh this ministry to exhort one another daily, lest any be hardened with the deceitfulness of sin or taken, you know, they're down the wrong path by bad worldviews. So uh we want to this month encourage folks to support this this program. We haven't done this kind of thing for 22 years, but we're just asking for partners, people who want to, you know, link arms with us and kind of hold up the prophet's arms as we continue to uh to bring this ministry, not just to America, but to over a hundred countries around the world. Really, I think it's time to root and ground uh families and churches in a biblical worldview everywhere around the world today. So much missing in secular education, even evangelical church planting in the world today often misses out on some of these really crucial messages. So, if folks, you want to partner with the Generations Ministry this month, please do so at generations.org slash give. That's generations.org slash give. Just encourage you uh to do that. You can designate to our international program, the Worldview Program, Generations Radio, or Homeschool Summits as well. We have a homeschool summits program that's reaching out to like hundreds of thousands of families around the world. It's amazing how many testimonies we receive from the Philippines or from Zimbabwe or wherever. Uh but friends, uh if you'd like to help us, we want to double our outreach this next year, and we can do it if uh if you partner with us. We encourage you to do so at generations.org slash give. And today you've been listening to another segment of Discipleship for Dads with uh with my good friends and brothers in Christ, Todd Strasser, Bill Roach, and Danny Craig. And this is Kevin Swanson, inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.