Kade Pierce- Relationships from a Christian Perspective

More about Kade

My name is Kade Pierce. I have been married to Jenny for 9 years. We have two boys, Wesley who is 5 and Noah who is 3, and are currently in the process of adopting another. I serve as the pastor of student and mission at Bay Area Church in League City, TX. I enjoy all things Texas BBQ and college football.

Connect with Kade
 @kadepierce on Instagram

Your hosts: Colton Cockerell & Trisha Stetzel
Click for more about your hosts:
Colton Cockerell
Trisha Stetzel

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Transcript

Colton Cockerell: 0:04

Hello and welcome to a another exciting episode of Bridge the Gap where we're balancing life through health, wealth, business and relationships. All right, hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Bridge the Gap we're bouncing live through health, wealth, business and relationships. My name is Colton Cockerell. With me I have my lovely co host, Miss Trisha Stetzel, Trisha, what is going on?

Trisha Stetzel: 0:29

Hey, Colton, I'm super happy to be here. As everyone knows, the month of may bring some beautiful weather, right? We're loving it. Although we're in Texas, it's probably really hot outside. Welcome, everyone this month on the show. As a reminder, we're focused on family and relationships. Today we're going to be talking about relationships through a Christian perspective. And who better to talk about this then Mr. K Pierce students and missions pastor at bay area church. Kate, welcome to the show.

Kade Pierce: 1:01

Hey, thanks so much for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

Colton Cockerell: 1:03

And Kade, I'm glad , you're about to ask this yesterday, we do have a sponsor and it does Sharer McKinley Group, LLC. So thank you for, for asking the question. Okay, we're gonna jump in. We don't have any for too much time. I love the smile. My nose is bothering me like crazy. My voice is not the same. It's not the deep, booming, luscious voice that you hear every Wednesday, but hey, it's I'm going to make it happen today. Kade being a youth pastor, because specifically as we're kind of talking about, you know, you are battling culture, I feel like all the time. I mean, you have all that, you know, social media, so much stuff, and trying to lead young men and women to, you know, follow the faith, it's very difficult to do. So. Let me ask you this. What are obstacles that you see right now? It really I guess, in a sense, you are a parent, you have two, two little boys? What do you see the biggest obstacles are for kids? That are, I guess, taking their attention away from you know, not only family, but from God and other things like that?

Kade Pierce: 1:57

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think it's new. I think it's packaged differently than it has been before. But I don't think the obstacle is new. The obstacle for any teenager for that matter for any human is figuring out who they are. It's an identity issue. Who am I? And what does that mean for my life? So in in the teenage world, now, you're finding that from social media platforms, you're finding that from friends, you're finding that from a number of different things. And as I said before, as a friend has told me, that's not a new obstacle. It's just a repackaged obstacle. It's packaged in a seven inch screen in their pocket, and it's called their phone. And so that's, that's a major obstacle. But it's not a new one.

Trisha Stetzel: 2:40

And it's, it's interesting that you described it that way to K because, you know, although it is a smaller screen, and it's in your pocket, I feel like it's following us around everywhere, right? And it really does. Give us a sense of culture in our pocket, if you will, what would be your best advice to parents out there that have teenagers to steer them, maybe clear of finding culture in their pocket and finding culture with real people?

Kade Pierce: 3:11

Yeah, so you have to monitor the phone in their pocket. So one of the pressures of parenting is, well, everybody's got one of these. So we gotta give our kid one of these, and every kid has one of these, and they can use it at their will. So we should let our kid to use it at their will. But if you, you gotta give your guardrails with that kind of stuff. So in some ways, like handing them a phone and just saying Go for it is like putting a loaded gun in their pocket and say and figure it out. It's not a good scenario, they need to learn how to use it. And so it's not bad for them to have boundaries, boundaries are good things, we we're underneath boundaries all the time you drive on a road, you appreciate boundaries, they're called lanes. When there aren't lanes, chaos happens. So when there aren't boundaries, chaos happens. And so create boundaries with your kids with their phone, have moments where they put it away, or they can't take it out, or they turn it off, or they look a person in the eyes instead of somebody else on a digital screen in the eyes. That way, they're being formed by real people in front of their face,

Colton Cockerell: 4:13

then that's, that's good information. So how important is that? You know, because, again, a lot of people I see now a lot of people make friends on social media naturally, the that's where the extent is, there's no there's no other contact in real, real time because everyone either, you know, they're they don't want to go out because it COVID That's kind of behind us now, but there's just so many obstacles. So how important is it to have those relationships with real people? So whether it's a school outside of school, definitely with family members, instead of just like texting all the time and all that stuff? How important is it to be present?

Kade Pierce: 4:44

Yeah. So in the faith community, dad makes it pretty clear in the Bible that we're not meant to live alone. We were created for what would be called community and that community can't be satisfied digitally. It should be satisfied. So, in reality, virtually is not going to accomplish that, in reality is where we accomplish that. So there's a book called Gen Z that Barna put out, it's a study. And it talks about how social media actually gives us the illusion of a community, but not actually the reality of community. So it over promises and under delivers is really a scenario. Right? So it gives you this idea of presence and absence is what they call it. But it doesn't actually deliver on what it promises. And so only real life in person Eye to Eye relationships can accomplish that. So it's vital. I mean, you really, really, we cannot live without it as people.

Trisha Stetzel: 5:42

Yeah, Kade, how has 2020 or since 2020, the last couple of years where we really had to move into digital only world and now we're kind of moving back into being in how has that changed what you're doing with the youth at the church.

Kade Pierce: 6:04

Um, to be honest, it's it's not it's not changed what I'm doing particularly. We were we had an online presence as as a church anyway, we had an online presence as a student ministry on on a social media platform. But we didn't like we didn't live and die on that digital platform. And we're still not going to live and die on that digital platform. Like, at the end of the day, we're going to encourage you to gather in person with the people of God, that's that that is the preferred way to gather. We have that option. It's available to you. But at the end of the day, we're going to resolve to the in person gather.

Colton Cockerell: 6:41

It's so many kind of change. I mean, still kind of the same topic a little bit. But can you give some pointers, I know they're there, right now, I feel like there's so many parents who just feel disconnected from their kids. Right? And we kind of touched on this a little bit. But can you give some tips or some ideas or thoughts, how families, specifically, parents can better connect with their kids.

Kade Pierce: 7:01

So this is not new to me. I didn't come up with this idea. But like experts say, like, eat around your dinner table together. It's easy to eat on the go, right? Like, everything's busy, we've got volleyball, this and soccer practice that and whatever clubs, whatever, it's just a lot I get it. The more you can fight to sit around your table with your family, the better it will be for your child, you can look at the research on that it's probably through the roof on how much how beneficial it is to the family dynamic. And then like connect with your kids where they want to connect. So one of the mistakes that parents might make is they try to create connection between their kids. And it might default to things that they like to do instead of what their kid likes to do. And so as a result, your teenager or your kid doesn't really care about what you're doing. So you as the parent have to figure out what is my kid like to do? And how can I meet them there. And the way that I tell it to our parents and to our leaders here is you don't have to love that thing that they're doing. But you and you step into that place because you love the kid that's doing that thing. So look, you don't have to like video games, you can be terrible at video games. But if your kid likes video games, play video games because you love your kid, not because you love video games

Colton Cockerell: 8:17

like that. And Trisha it's funny because you know, that was a two weeks ago, Raychel mentioned the same thing about you know how important it is with her family to eat around the dinner table. How that's a big staple in their household. And that's eating no, no TV in the room? No, nothing. It's just conversation around the table you're eating?

Trisha Stetzel: 8:33

Yeah, put your phones away. Right. That's the role. And I think a lot of people throughout the pandemic found that again, right where they were, they were cooking with their kids again, they were sitting at the table and having conversations. And I feel like now everyone's gone back to the old way. Right? They're just not being intentional about spending time with their kiddos. So Kade, what do you find is the most difficult thing with the relationship building between the parents and I'm gonna call them tweens right betweens in the teenagers because that's where I feel like just from having a kiddo of my own who's as old as Colton. Yeah, I know. I don't look that old. But that there's a space there right where there's more disconnect as they get older. Right at the at this age. So what what's been the most difficult thing do you find? Talking with parents and the kids in that tween teenage space?

Kade Pierce: 9:36

I mean, I think in some ways you're identifying even in your question, there's a natural gap that begins to be created relationally between parent and child so I've got littles I've got a five year old and a three year old. They still like being around mom and dad, you know, we're we're fun people to them. Somewhere along the way, a relational wedge can be start to be put to between parents and kids. And some of that is like them trying to figure out who am I and what I want to be about. And I've got these friends that I want to hang out with. And so some of that's not bad. But what so that's the challenge. And I think some of the solutions that is like as a parent, it's a lot harder work to keep the relationship when they're a teenager. And so perhaps what happens with with parents is, they just resolve this is too hard. And so I'm just going to kind of throw my hat in the ring and be done. They want to be with their friends. I'm not cool enough. And so I'm just going to step out, and you use the word earlier. It's gonna require a lot of intentionality on your part. In some ways, with littles it's easy to live in their world because they want you in their world. When it comes to teenagers, you have to carve out time and create intentional time and block out time and all that kind of stuff. And it's hard, hard work to do that. But it's, it's worthy work at the end of the day.

Colton Cockerell: 10:55

That's a good word. And and let me ask you this. So how, you know we this is from a Christian perspective. So how important is is faith in young children growing up and you know, experiencing life? In all the chaos that comes with being a like Trisha said, tween and teenager

Kade Pierce: 11:14

is so from my perspective, it's the only way to deal with the chaos of life. There is like, it is the best answer to all the chaos that we're looking at in the world. That through the biblical worldview, we've we see the answers to what it is that we're facing, where the solution is found, it's found in in Jesus, I think otherwise, you kind of grasp at things or to try to figure out how do I make sense of the chaos, it's around me, not only like people say like this, not only is the chaos outside of me, but the chaos is in me, not only is the world broken out there, something is broken in here. And it is only through Christianity, that we find a solution to both of those problems, the brokenness out there and the brokenness in here.

Trisha Stetzel: 11:59

And it's something that we, we need a connection, right? As humans, we need that connection. And whether you believe in one thing or another, it's always important to have those groups of people surrounding you. Right, and they, they share the same values. So how do we get our kids to hang out with the right people? Right? They, right, because we send them off to school, they get to hang out with whoever and make those choices. So how do we? How do we encourage them or create this space? Where they're choosing the right relationships?

Kade Pierce: 12:37

Yeah, so maybe a couple of things. One, you model it as a parent, what kind of people that you hang out with? What kind of people do you bring in your home? They will, they will inevitably see that. And they learned from that. So what are you showing them as you have friends in your house, and then to like, give them space in your home to bring those friends over? The kind of friends that you want to be in your house, give them space? Don't make your home off limits to your kids, friends, know them, see what they're about. That's going to be work on you, that's going to be inconvenient on you as a parent, but such as parenting, right? The alternative is not the better solution. So be the house that people people go to let your door be open to the kinds of people you want them to be wrong.

Trisha Stetzel: 13:25

Are you taking? I take a notes Colton,

Colton Cockerell: 13:27

no, no, I like that. That's really that's really good. Really good.

Trisha Stetzel: 13:32

You know, I believe that you are the average of the five people that you hang around with most, right? And if we're teaching our children that I think that's an important lesson, you know, who do you want to be the average of you want to be the average of these kids over here? Or do you want to be the average of these kids over here? Right? The ones that are challenging you and making you do better things? Whether it's through sports, or faith, or building relationships, right, all of those things are so important.

Colton Cockerell: 13:59

And sadly, as a teenager or tween, you're more geared toward the five for the most popular, right instead of the five that are probably most health that are healthiest, your your growth and development. That's okay, what do you have to say to that? I mean, is that, are you seeing that constantly in teenagers and tweens, just the Battle of you know, popularity or the Battle of just finding space or finding belonging even if it's in a toxic environment?

Kade Pierce: 14:27

Oh, I mean, I Yes, I think it's a teenage problem. I think it's a human problem. Everybody's looking for a place to belong. Nobody wants to walk into a room and not know anyone. It's it's specifically noticed in teenage world because teenagers have a variety of insecurities. Right? And, but I think it all goes back to what we talked about at the beginning is they're trying to figure out who they are. And one of the ways that they figure out who they are is they find a group of people that will tell them who they are. Or they find a group of people that will give them a label of who they are. Right I I am popular. I am an athlete. I am a theater kid I am fill in the blank, their group becomes a label by which they gain an identity.

Colton Cockerell: 15:11

That's really special. We're right here on the 15 minute mark. So we're gonna have to leave it at that. Kade, thank you so much for being here today. I think it's really good insight I hope parents really understand and only the importance of really spending time with your kids. And even if it is inconvenient, like you said, hopefully they found some tips and some tricks to really make that work and then also the aspect of faith. So Trisha, you want to take us out?

Trisha Stetzel: 15:36

Yeah, absolutely. Kade, thank you so much for being with us today. And for our listeners. As usual, we'll have the contact information for Cade down below if you are interested in reaching out and learning more about the program that he's responsible for at the church. So tune in next week for another exciting episode of Bridge the Gap will be focused on again family and relationships for the month of May. Next week, we'll be talking with Regina Wagner.

Colton Cockerell: 16:05

Thanks again for tuning into this week's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with the most important people in your life. Colton Cockerell with Sharer McKinley Group, LLC is located at 820 South Friendswood Drive Suite 207 Friendswood, Texas 77546 phone number to 281-992-5698. Securities and investment advisory services offered through NEXT Financial Group, Inc. member FINRA/SIPC Sharer McKinley Group is not an affiliate of NEXT Financial Group, Inc.