00:00:07
Speaker 1: Glady to be with you. I really have enjoyed my twenty six plus years of doing this show. In case you don't know, it's a faith in values program that tries to intersect faith and values with what's going on in our world. Thank you for listening, and many thanks to Perry's Find Jewelry for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could not do this on a weekly basis. Well, Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who are moms, and I hope that those of you who aren't moms are celebrating the moms who help bring you into this world and particularly find a time this week sometime to thank them for all they have done for you. And what I want to talk about today has something to do with moms, but in a larger context has to do with moms and dads raising kids, because there's a huge debate out there in our culture regarding pushing RELFE religion on kids. Are we wrongly indoctrinating them regarding faith? And having used that as our introduction to the subject today, should we push religion on kids or we just indoctrinating them with our own faith? Let me give you insights into a recent Harvard study that followed five thousand kids for fourteen years who attended church on a weekly basis. Listen to these statistics, eighteen percent were less likely to report high social problems, eighteen percent were less likely to suffer depression, thirty three percent were less likely to abuse substances. Now, those are statistics coming from Harvard, which is not exactly a pastion of conservative political views. It's basically saying that following five thousand kids for fourteen years showed that those kids who attended church on a weekly basis had better life satisfaction, better emotional health, and even stayed away from deadly abusive substances. Now, psychologists say that religion provides three things that are necessary for kids that need to be replicated repeatedly. First of all, they have meaning in life. It's the age old question that people have to answer in life. Here what's my reason for living? Why am I here on earth? So religion provides an answer to that question regarding meaning. It also provides an answer to the question about structure. And Marilyn, I want you to talk about this later on. There's a book that you have talked about before entitled First Make Your Bid and we'll talk about what that means. But you tried to teach our children structure in life, which we all know gives better benefits for success in life, for job success, for accomplishments, etc. I know that my mom and dad teaching me personal discipline as a young child set the stage for me learning personal discipline as I played basketball, and I became a much better basketball player because I was a disciplined basketball player. And I had the privilege for playing for coach Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. And people have said through the years that David Chadwick was a prototypical Dean Smith player, not particularly athletic, but he had the disciplines down he played fundamentally. And Thirdly, not only does religion give people meaning and structure, it also gives them a sense of belonging. I know that here in Charlotte, North Carolina, a local high school, over the last six years has had eight different suicides that have occurred in that high school, and part of the problem has been isolation sickness that has happened post COVID. So religion, though when rightly participated in, gives people a sense of belonging. First, of all, to others. Secondly, to your own family that's a part of your religious experience, and to a church family as well. But finally to a common belief system where you have a group of peers who believe the same things you do and aren't challenging you to change your world views. And finally, what religion gives is a belief system. It allows you to believe something that allows you to say I don't believe that, but I do believe this, and give you structure and foundation in life. I can remember going to church every week with my mom and dad, sitting between my mom and my brother and sister, and Mom pinching my knee if ever I start wiggling around and not paying attention. And I can remember every week standing up and saying what is commonly called the apostles creed. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ's only son, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born in the Virgin Mary, etc. Et cetera. I can still recite it today, why because at the age of four five six I heard that repeated over and over again. I also by Missus Huntley, my third and fourth grade Sunday school teacher learned Psalm twenty three. She thought that David Chadwick would be like King David and loved the Lord like King David did, and she had me memorize the twenty third Psalm and say it before all the kids in that classroom. I also learned the Lord's Prayer by repeating it week in, week out. Well, here I am at this age and stage of life, and my belief system was ingrained within me as a small child rooted in the Apostles creed, rooted in the twenty third Psalm, and rooted in the Lord's Prayer, and those things have been foundational for me as I have lived my life. So psychologists say that religion is important for people. That provides four different things meaning, structure, belonging, and beliefs. And when we come back from our commercial break, I want to take some time with Jen and Marylyn to talk about as moms this Mother's Day, about the meaning and purpose of these kind of things and have they found them to be important as well as they have tried to raise their kids. Again, if I didn't say it, Jen, you have two children, Maryland you have three children, and twelve grandchildren. You have a dozen cousins now living all locally as well, and we would say, like the Harvard study found that it is very important to esconce our children in faith, to push religion on our kids, to indoctrinate them to our beliefs. If they're real to us, if we find them important to us, we would want our kids to share that faith as well, because it not only gives them meaning, structure, belonging and beliefs, it gives them a reason to live for all of their lives. I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk one oh seven point nine FMWBT. Will be right back with Maryland Chadwick and Jen Houston to talk about these realities.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: Mother of mine, how do I say.
00:07:35
Speaker 1: All the love feed t Harvey One. I'm David Chadwick and this's this News Talk one oh seven point nine FMWBT Radio. Great being with you. Thank you for listening. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, and all of those of you who have great moms, Thank them for all they have meant to you in your life. Well. In the first segment, I talked about the question ES that is being debated in a lot of different places today. Should we push religion on our kids? I know my mom did me. She expected me to get up and to be at Sunday school and worship every Sunday. She expected me to be at Wednesday night church. She expected me to sing in the church choir. I didn't like that. I would rather have been at home watching NBA basketball on Sunday afternoon. But I had to go sing in the church choir. Then I hated it. Now I'm grateful to her. Did she indoctrinate me in the Christian faith? Maybe? I mean I had to claim it for my own ultimately, but she did present it to me in a way that I thought was valuable and meaningful, and ultimately I bought her faith. And in the first segment, I talked about how a Harvard study showed that kids who have been supposedly pushed in their religion or have been indoctrinated by parents that they are more in life satisfaction, They are less likely to suffer depression, they are less likely to suffer substance and other abuses as well. And so we want to talk today about what psychologists say is the value of religion being pushed on kids. By parents. It gives them meaning, structure, belonging, and belief. So I've invited two moms on the show with me today, my wife Maryland again, mom to three kids and now twelve grandkids, and Jen Houston, who's a mom to two kids. They do regularly what we call our Moments of Hope dailies that we allow to arrive in your inbox at seven am every single morning. And Jen, just so we can give all our listeners a chance to receive them free of charge, something you and Maryland and I do every day for five minutes to give people a moment of hope. We call them daily moments of Hope. How could people receive them?
00:09:45
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:09:45
Speaker 3: Sure, It's such a fun thing that we get to do together, kind of bring the content to life and taking a deeper dive in a conversation together. Listeners, you can simply go to our church website, which is Moments of Hope Church dot org slash listen and write there. It'll pop up our little logo icon that you're going to see every morning in your inbox. Once you subscribe, there will be a written version, which we like to call our blog, and then there's a button in there you'll be able to click and listen to us discuss the day's topic.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jen, Marilyn. Let me turn to you on today's topic on the radio show, the question should we push religion on kids? Does it indoctrinate them wrongly? You're a mom. We raised our kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ. We unashamedly talked the Bible to them, We had the memorized Bible versus rewarded them for doing so, et cetera. What are your thoughts on this question?
00:10:38
Speaker 4: Well, David, it's interesting because of course ours are now three grown children with all these grandchildren. But I have to say to you that when we were raising them, if they had thought I was pushing them, they would have probably gone the other way. So I'm a little sneaky in the way that I would say we raised our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as you put it, I think that they would say that it was a positive way to do it. And yes, it did push our values, and it did indoctrinate them, probably unknowingly, But we tried to go kind of hand in hand with the way God made them. I think that was the thing that made it not only palatable for them, but actually fun, and it sort of stuck. They never rebelled from it. And I'm going to go back to a Bible verse that might be familiar to some of our listeners. You probably heard it in a different way, but this is an amplified version. Train up a child in the way he should go, and David, we think we tried to do that and in keeping with his individual gift or bent and when he's old, he'll not depart from it. In other words, I think that's a way to make children where they are less likely to rebel because it's kind of a kind way. You nurture them in the ways of the Lord. But you also notice the way God made them, and all three of ours were very different. And yes, we did have structured learning, we did have discipline in our home, but again they might not actually have known all the time that we were doing that, and I think consequently they adopted this as their own. But you have mentioned this book called First Make Your Bed. Would you like for me to talk about that now? It kind of goes hand in hand with what we're talking about.
00:12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you discipline a child, or teach a child how to live out their life in a discipline form. It does really help them out a lot.
00:12:21
Speaker 4: Please talk about that, and you want them to see that this is actually good for them. That's kind of like eat your spinach, but that's not what you say, right, So you want them to see that. But there was a wonderful book written by a gentleman named I think it's William mc craven. He's a Navy seal and I first heard about this when he gave the graduation speech at the University of Texas. But I was captivated by his whole point, which is starting your day with small, disciplined tasks like making your bed bill's momentum for tackling the bigger goals. And he would say the bigger goals in life, and that he says, that's the way you change your life and the world. The book title again is first make your bed so and then the subtitle is little thing that can change your life and maybe the world. And I think we try to let our children see that the lessons that they were learning at home were going to actually be for their good and they wouldn't really excel in the areas of life that were important to them, and they would be able to follow their own dreams and goals. Dreams are great, but if a child doesn't have the discipline or the perseverance to stick with it, then they're just always dreams and nothing more.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: So that structure is very important to children and raising them, and even the structure of religious education as well. We thought that was very important. And you see again the study from Harvard this says kids who have that are healthier and better off in life. Jim, may I turn to you because this might be more personal to you than it would be for Maryland to me right now in our agent stage of life. But you have two teenagers and both of them are involved in church ministry and they have friends in that community. Is there some truth to this whole idea that kids that are brought up in a religious environment, you're not necessarily and doctrinating them, but you are teaching them the beauty of belonging. They have other friends as well. Would you talk about that.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:14:07
Speaker 3: I love that word belonging and I love that you threw that to me because that is the word that just resounds in my heart. I mean, that is one of the core values of the human heart is to want to feel like you belong.
00:14:18
Speaker 2: So I think immediately.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: Being involved in a faith community, our church, or giving your life away.
00:14:24
Speaker 2: You belong immediately.
00:14:26
Speaker 3: And when you choose to surrender your life to Jesus, you're instantly invited and grafted into the family of God. And so that soul craving the thing that God stamped on each one of our hearts as humans being made in God's image, we crave belonging and being a part of a community of faith gives you that immediately.
00:14:49
Speaker 1: Well, you and Chris have two children again, and both are teens, and you're raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To use a biblical phrase, but you are saying that the church, the images even in the Bible, are the bride of Christ and the body of Christ. But another one that's not often talked about is the family of God. That God is our father, Jesus is our big brother, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Did your kids find brothers and sisters in Christ among peers of their own age that help only validate what you and Chris have tried to teach them.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, and they've experienced this too in school. We've chosen Christian school for them, so they've also been raised there in that community. And you find a lot of purpose when you're kind of going in the same direction, say as like you have the same faith with the group that you are growing up with. You find deep purpose in that. And each person kind of like that body image that the body of Christ. You know, there's toes, there's legs, there's shoulders, there's heads, all coming together for one purpose and one mission. It just is so deep, it's profound. It's really actually kind of hard to put words to how deep and profound it is.
00:15:58
Speaker 1: So we would say to everybody listening Mother's Day weekend again, Happy Mother's Day to everybody. Not only this is important to have a healthy family, it's important for you to find a healthy faith community family as well.
00:16:09
Speaker 4: Marylyn well Jen, I love that you're mentioning this and the purpose. And I'm aware that your daughter went on a missions trip recently. And I would say that serving is something that's built into us once we accept Jesus, that just naturally flows that we want to serve others. But we know, David, just from our background and counseling. Serving makes you healthier mentally, and it bonds you together, like you said, with other people that share that. I mean, what a great way to live. Like I used to tell my kids, why would you want to rebel? This is so fun?
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about meaning as well. And Marylyn, let me come back to you. Have you found that giving them a deep faith reality has helped them have a sense of meaning and purpose in life?
00:16:48
Speaker 4: That's a great question, David, and I would always say to you, I really wanted them to own that for themselves. And as we watch them develop their faith, when they went through hard times, that is when they started to see that there was, you know, the Lord absolutely in their life, able to answer prayers, help them through problem areas, and fill them with peace when there shouldn't have been any.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: But the important thing there, I think is in comment on this too, that it's got to be their faith.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: It's got to be their fath.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Faith is not inherited, It's not passed on by simply living in a Christian family.
00:17:19
Speaker 4: No, And that's why I laughed, instead of faith, thought we were indoctrinating them. They'd run the other way. But you know what we as moms and dads too. But we have this thing called prayer, and I would say prayer was my go to method.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: Well, I believe with all of my heart that most faith is caught than taught, and now I do believe you've got to teach it. And we'll talk about that when we come back. Things we did to help teach our kids' faith. But you know, at the end of the day, your own faith experienced moms and dads is what your kids are going to want or not want. And we'll talk about that again when we come back. I'm David Chadwick and we will be right back.
00:18:35
Speaker 5: Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance every everyone.
00:18:43
Speaker 1: I'm David Chadwick and this is News Talk one O seven point nine FBMWBT Radio. Welcome back to the show. And I have in studio with me my wife Marilyn about almost forty eight years of marriage, Hard to believe, and Jim Houston, a dear friend who helps us do weekly podcast at Moments of Hope Church, but also daily moments of Hope, Jin would you do it one more time? Plug? How people can hear those podcasts are also those daily moments of hope arriving in there inbox about five minutes every morning at seven am to give them a daily moment of hope.
00:19:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: They can simply go to our church website which is Moments of Hope Church dot org slash listen, and on that specific page they can subscribe to our daily Moment of Hope which you mentioned, and also take a listen to the weekly Hope cast that we do together.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jin Well. Happy Mother's Day to you all, and Marylyn, let me turn to you. We talked in the first two segments about a Harvard study and also psychologists who say that when kids are given a strong firm foundation in faith, they find meaning, structure, belonging, and beliefs in life. Let me come back to this meaning idea, because everybody's asking the question, why on earth am I here? What's my purpose? And we really believe that we believe we were set by God on this earth to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, to be his vessels and instruments of serving Him and enlarging the Kingdom of God. If you will so talk some more about the importance of teaching faith to children in order to give their lives meaning.
00:20:15
Speaker 4: Well, I think there's nothing more exciting than watching children learn and grow and begin to dream their own dreams. And I was a student of our kids because each one of them was so different and it required a different hand of raising each one of them. But when they started showing areas of interest, I tried to teach them that God made them in a certain way, and so the way they were going to serve Him was very different from their brother or their sister. And so those teachable moments, David, you know, I was always giving them pop quizzes, you know, when I'd drive him back and forth to school. We had long commutes to these magnet schools. But it was just fun to watch them grapple with, you know, the big questions of life, and then to try to insert some appropriate teaching that seemed to apply to what they're going through. But the big thing was helping them realize why they were here, like you just and there was that wonderful verse. I think they all memorized it that we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do what remember good work.
00:21:08
Speaker 1: Good works for two tend.
00:21:10
Speaker 4: He prepared those in advance, So I always kind of made it an adventure for them, like, I wonder what God has planned for you to do for him?
00:21:17
Speaker 1: And you would even do that on a daily basis while they were at school, say hey, what could you do for God today in your school? And then the next day and then the next day. And that was an exciting adventure, was.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: Well, they thought it was, you know.
00:21:27
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because I think they began to see that their life maybe had meaning and purpose when some of their peers were floundering. And so that wasn't a reason to judge the peers. If anything, I tried to encourage them, Let's help your friend kind of see what God might have in store for their life. And it was a very winsome way to live because they were in secutor school environments their whole career.
00:21:48
Speaker 1: Well. And also beliefs, which was the fourth thing. The psychologists say that raising kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord helps them with his beliefs. We would try to teach our kids basic scripture. We'd have an every Friday night family home nightly home nights. We'd often act out Bible stories and have them memorized. Versus give them their reward for work during the week and it just became a special part of our lives that they enjoy loved it.
00:22:12
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they wouldn't trade it for anything. And I would want to interject to just briefly, don't forget the impact of the Christian faith practice in marriage. And you know, there's a lot of study that has been done on that. You know, everybody talks about the one attitude divorce rate, but if you look at a home where the parents attend church regularly and simply maybe pray together occasionally, the divorce rate goes way down. I think the last thing I read was like one out of nine hundred get divorced when it's a faithful practice of their faith.
00:22:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're loving together, they're praying together, they're worshiping together children right, Yeah, will affect their children in a positive way. Gen let me turn to you. Do you think it's important to give kids Christian beliefs? I mean, after all, aren't you just jamming it down their throat. Isn't that going to be psychologically damaging to them?
00:22:57
Speaker 3: Well, I'm with Maryland and to answer your y, and yes, we do that. We open we practice our faith openly, and it is an invitation. I like to say it's a presentation by our practicing out loud in our home kind of our faith on display, even wrestling through some hard times in an appropriate way with the age that our children are. We let them see us, you know, tackled out and unbelief or prayer for healing and just contending in prayer for something. So it's an invitation and a presentation. And when we do that, they're part of it. They observe, they're kind of part of the process. They see when a miracle happens. We've had a few tangible miracles within our family and sometimes when we go back and remember those, it boosts all of our faith all again and there's that shared faith that continues to grow. So your approach, Marylynd, is similar to how we do it too. It's an invitation and it's a presentation. We don't make it seem like we're forcing them, but we're living our faith out loud.
00:23:58
Speaker 4: You're living it out loud, and whether you call it this or not, you're sharing testimonies with them and they are with you. And it all a testimony is is here's what God has done in my life. And it also helped me, and like I said, we were in a different situation being in secular environments. I wanted them to bring the questions, you know, to David into me about how is this happening at school? These friends are getting into this, or this is what the teacher's teaching us, what do you think about that? And I just kept giving them little pop quizzes to see how they were assimilating things, and more often than not, they were telling me what they wanted God to do in their life. And then when we saw answers to prayer in some of these really difficult situations, they're faith through.
00:24:36
Speaker 1: And what you want is for them to have a personal relationship with Jesus. You don't want them to just go through the motions like some Christian parents do, and kids can see that that's not real for their parents. But when they do have their own personal relationship with Jesus and they're praying and they're seeing God answer prayers, and they're also part of a family that's praying together and they share that together, it does make their own faith experience come alive.
00:24:59
Speaker 2: Jen, Yeah, it sure does. You know.
00:25:01
Speaker 3: One of the things that we do is oftentimes we'll kind of talk about what we've read in the Bible or what we call our devotional time, you know, with God.
00:25:09
Speaker 2: And then we'll ask, well, what did you read? What are you learning right now?
00:25:12
Speaker 3: And I wouldn't say my kids are doing that every morning when they wake up, they make their bed and do their devotions. But when they do read in scripture, they are pondering things and they are able to apply them to their lives, and it's really neat.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: They're absorbing more than you realize. I remember you told me the story of I went through the Book of Revelation here with our church family and y'all were talking about end times kind of stuff, and you had one of your kids say, well, Pastor David taught this about Revelation. It was pretty in depth subject that I was talking about.
00:25:41
Speaker 3: Oh it was, and he had for my son had formulated. You know, I really believe this, and you.
00:25:46
Speaker 2: Know your approach. I've said it before, your approaches.
00:25:48
Speaker 3: You know, I believe this based off of scripture, but there is some gray area. You can agree to disagree with this, but you really help my son form what he believes about the end times theology.
00:25:58
Speaker 1: Well, again, they're absorbing more than you realize. And that's why I started by saying, when you're going to worship every week and you're reciting the Apostles Creed, or you're hearing the Lord's Prayer said on a regular basis, or reading Psalm twenty three the Blessed Palmon, those things get stuck in your mind. You know, when you're going through a tough time yourself, and we all go through tough times, don't we. Listeners, you can say out of memory, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters that I love this one. He restores my soul. I mean, those kind of verses come alive, and you memorize them as children, and they'll remain for the rest of their lives.
00:26:34
Speaker 4: Marilynd Well too, I was always trying to stretch them and make them realize. I did not dumb it down for them. I wanted to let them know that even as children, you can hear once you've accepted Jesus and the Holy Spirit lives, and you can hear the voice of God. And I would say to them, look what Jesus said in John ten twenty seven, My sheep and that's all of us. Listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me. And it said actually three times in John ten. I think Jesus wants to make the point that God wants to speak to us. He speaks through his words. He speaks through preachers who preach faithfully his word. He speaks through parents and other people as well. But sometimes God's spirit just gives us an itching, an insight into our hearts. So we just know that we know that, we know this is what we're supposed to do. Yeah, because we don't always carry a Bible around with us, and they may be in a dilemma or in a situation in school where they'd have to face either a problem or a friend with a need, you know, and they would automatically kind of hear God saying, hey, why don't you share something that'll help this friend? And now we'd talk to him later and say, isn't that cool that you answered a prayer? You know you heard God's voice.
00:27:34
Speaker 1: Interestingly, Obama's Surgeon General, this is fifteen plus years ago, spent years warning what he thought would be a coming mental health crisis and what would a company it is? Loneliness, a loss of purpose, a lack of community and no safety net when life stinks. May I say those again, listeners, that Obama I'm a surgeon general fifteen plus years ago, predicted a coming tsunami of crisis driven by loneliness, a loss of purpose, lack of community, and no safety net when life stinks. And that's what we're talking about. Parents. If you give these to your kids early on, it will allow them to have meaning, structure, belonging, and beliefs to avoid these kind of problems which we see now that Obama's surgeon general was a prophet. This is exactly what has happened in a post COVID reality. Jend you have any.
00:28:32
Speaker 3: Thoughts, you know, it makes me so thankful looking back on the COVID times that we all went through. Is you know, our church body really fought to gather and we knew the importance the leadership. You David Marland both knew the importance of gathering. And there's a scripture that says don't neglect the gathering of the saints, and that's one of the things that really struck us. We really knew that that was important to you guys, and we wanted to be a part.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Of that well, we just know that infectious diseases need to be heated and under good. But the most infectious disease of all this loneliness and that crisis can cause more mental unhealth than just about anything possible. So we need to take another break. But when we come back, I want to answer this question. Shouldn't we just let our kids decide what they want to believe? I mean that's out there as well from parents, and I can give you a hint what the answer is going to be. I'm David Chadwick and we will be right back.
00:30:07
Speaker 5: Listen, my soul, oh, my soul, lisship, his oly namely Foolhi.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: Everyone, I'm David Chadwick. Welcome back to the show. Great to have you with us today. And if you'd like to hear this program on Mother's Day and again Happy Mother's Day, please go to WBT dot com, scroll down to the weekend shows, look for the David Chadwick Show and you can hear this from beginning to end with my wife Maryland now almost forty eight years, my friend Jen Houston and we do regular communications together with a daily moment of hope, as we call it, a five minute time that can get into your inbox at seven am every morning. Jen one more time, if people want to subscribe to this again free of charge. It's just the three of us trying to give people a daily moment of hope. How do they subscribe?
00:31:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can go to our church website. It's Moments of Hope Church dot org slash listen. They can subscribe there. They'll receive this in their inbox every morning at seven am, and they'll also find our weekly Hope Cast that you do each week.
00:31:17
Speaker 1: We try to give people information regarding what's going on in the world with the Hope Cast or podcast as they're called in the world, but also the daily moments are just to encourage you often. Now we're looking at the Book of Proverbs, looking at different proverbs and how they apply to our lives. We'd love to have you come join us, so well, please go to Moments of Hope Church dot org and you can find them there. Well, Marilyn, I'm going to turn to you now and ask this questions We've been trying to wrestle through this whole idea. Should we push religion on our kids? Isn't that indoctrinating them into faith? That parents might have, but the kids don't necessarily need to have. We've looked at some Harvard studies and the results of not doing that the kids don't have meaning and structure, belonging or beliefs in their lives. But then there's still a lot of people out there who say, you know what, I believe in Jesus, but I need to let my kids decide for themselves. I mean, that's actually out there. I've heard that more times than I'd like to admit. How would you respond to that statement, I just need to let my kids decide what they want at the appropriate time in their lives.
00:32:15
Speaker 4: Well, whether we like it or not, our kids will decide for themselves. You know, we can take what is it, You can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. But I think in a positive way, we let our children decide, but only because we worked so hard to try to share this wonderful good news of the Gospel with them and raise them in the faith. Now, yes, they made their own decisions, but I don't think it was a hard sell. I think we put our whole heart into it, and I think if we let our children decide, we only do that knowing we're praying like crazy, putting it out therefore raising them in the faith in a very wensome way. And then I just have a very belief that they will decide that they won't reject the faith.
00:32:52
Speaker 1: And we do think that faith is important, as we've already talked about it.
00:32:55
Speaker 4: Well, and let's remember I did walk away at age fifteen, so I was one up on them, you know, I knew what the reas were and whow walked away. So I was a little careful to make sure that their experience was different and they didn't know everything I was doing, but I was a step ahead. And then I came back to the Lord at about age twenty one. I didn't want them to wander.
00:33:12
Speaker 1: Jen your thoughts, I mean, come on, don't let your kids decide for themselves when the time is appropriate.
00:33:17
Speaker 3: Well, I would say to that, if you saw your child struggling with cancer and you had the cure in your back pocket, wouldn't you pull it out and apply it. So I feel like we need to pull out the truth and apply it and again invite them and show them and practice our faith out loud, and ultimately, yeah, they're going to choose and it's such a joy. It is such a joy and eternal joy when they do choose your faith, when you've placed it in Jesus Christ, it's amazing when they do that.
00:33:46
Speaker 1: We know that statement all just let your kids decide themselves. It doesn't take seriously that we don't live in a neutral world. We live in a world where there is world values that are destructive if you buy into them. We live in a world where our human flesh is fallen and it has desires that if practice repeatedly, can lead to substance abuse and ultimately our demise. We live in a world, I believe folks in a biblical worldview, there is a devil. He is evil. There's a supernatural world that's next to us, and Jesus made it clear that the devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and he wants to start with your children. He wants to kill, steel and destroy them. So the best way to get them to be able to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil is to teach them the power of Jesus, the armor of God, how to fight those spiritual battles with spiritual weaponry. So, when we are getting our kids to decide to follow Jesus. We're giving them the weapons they need to fight against the world. Again, this world is not a neutral place in which to live. There are enemies that are out there that want to destroy them, and we need to give them what they need in order to fight that battle. Well, Maryland, and.
00:34:59
Speaker 4: Again with us, Jenna, like what you said about you live it out loud in front of them. And I think the Christian faith really is best maybe caught as much as taught, not completely both and both and.
00:35:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think you catch it more than you are taught.
00:35:12
Speaker 4: It right, But I do think that means it's important for me to have a sincere and devoted faith myself and be joyful and excited about what God's teaching me. And it'll be a lot easier than to teach our children, or it was a lot easier.
00:35:24
Speaker 1: Well, you've nailed it. I mean that is the most important job of parents. You believe it, You enjoy Jesus, you live for him, you worship him, and your kids watching you live and pray and serve others. Remember, we used to take our kids on international missions trips and we'd go into some of the worst slums in the world with our kids, and they smelled the smells, they saw the futudness around them, but they also saw our church trying to make a difference in one small place in the world, and that made them, I think, have a greater sensitivity to the needs of the needy.
00:35:54
Speaker 4: Or even just locally, just being in places where they can step in and their problems all of a sudden look really small when they're around people that may have bigger problems, and it also is a cool opportunity for them to see God answer prayers. I just think I can't understate the importance of the miraculous Jim.
00:36:11
Speaker 3: You know, one thing that keeps coming to mind in this conversation is I hear a lot of people, probably more my age, who are deconstructing their faith. And a big excuse that you hear across the boards is the hypocrisy in the church. And you know, in order to combat that in my personal life with my kids, me and my household is to live it out authentically, live out my faith authentically, and like I said earlier in the program, is to wrestle through those things and let my kids see me working those things out. Let my kids see me mess up and get back up again and ask for forgiveness. You know, when my husband Chris and I might disagree about something, letting our kids see us work it out forgive each other. And there's just something authentic about that. When they can see humility, when they can see me mess up and get back up again and be strong in my faith, I think it allows them to realize, Oh, Christians are humans too. So I don't know, I just felt like we needed to debunk a.
00:37:06
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great point, Jen, And if you don't raise your kids with your Christian values, I promised you, they're being raised by somebody's values. There's somebody in the world who's teaching your kid's values. And your question that you've got to answer is do I want them to live by the values? I find it important. And so therefore, to answer the question that we've begun today's show with, are we indoctrinating kids by teaching them our faith? The answer is absolutely no. If indeed your faith is alive and real to you, you're not indoctrinating them. You're infecting them with the Gospel of Jesus and how to love God and love their neighbor. And if you do those two things. You have a lifetime's worth of work to do. One other thought here is ignacious Loyola, the famous Catholic theologian, one time said, give me a child until the age of five, and he's mind for the rest of his life. What a powerful statement, Marilyn. I know you've heard me say this before. Give me a child until the child is five years old, and he's mine for the rest of his life. Those first five years are very formatively important, aren't they.
00:38:08
Speaker 4: Well, they are, and I think it's always important for parents and some of your grandparents and some of you just work with children. Don't ever underestimate God's ability to speak to a child when they're tiny. There's no junior Holy Spirit. They all are able to hear God in a special way. Don't ever underestimate what they can understand and know and believe.
00:38:26
Speaker 1: And Deuteronomy success. Put little placards and Bible verses and all kinds of things all over your house. Let your kids see them everywhere, and you know, as they grow older, they're going to go. You know, Mom and Dad really did take this seriously and to your point, Gen, and even more importantly, they lived it. And I want the Jesus that they had because he meant so much to them. I want to know it as well. Don't push religion on your kids. Be so infectious and contagious that they'll want the Jesus you have in your hearts. Hey, everybody, love God and love your neighbor. If you'll just do those two things, you have a lifetime's worth of work to do. I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk one O seven point nine WBT. Thank you for listening, and talk with you all next week.
Speaker 1: Glady to be with you. I really have enjoyed my twenty six plus years of doing this show. In case you don't know, it's a faith in values program that tries to intersect faith and values with what's going on in our world. Thank you for listening, and many thanks to Perry's Find Jewelry for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could not do this on a weekly basis. Well, Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who are moms, and I hope that those of you who aren't moms are celebrating the moms who help bring you into this world and particularly find a time this week sometime to thank them for all they have done for you. And what I want to talk about today has something to do with moms, but in a larger context has to do with moms and dads raising kids, because there's a huge debate out there in our culture regarding pushing RELFE religion on kids. Are we wrongly indoctrinating them regarding faith? And having used that as our introduction to the subject today, should we push religion on kids or we just indoctrinating them with our own faith? Let me give you insights into a recent Harvard study that followed five thousand kids for fourteen years who attended church on a weekly basis. Listen to these statistics, eighteen percent were less likely to report high social problems, eighteen percent were less likely to suffer depression, thirty three percent were less likely to abuse substances. Now, those are statistics coming from Harvard, which is not exactly a pastion of conservative political views. It's basically saying that following five thousand kids for fourteen years showed that those kids who attended church on a weekly basis had better life satisfaction, better emotional health, and even stayed away from deadly abusive substances. Now, psychologists say that religion provides three things that are necessary for kids that need to be replicated repeatedly. First of all, they have meaning in life. It's the age old question that people have to answer in life. Here what's my reason for living? Why am I here on earth? So religion provides an answer to that question regarding meaning. It also provides an answer to the question about structure. And Marilyn, I want you to talk about this later on. There's a book that you have talked about before entitled First Make Your Bid and we'll talk about what that means. But you tried to teach our children structure in life, which we all know gives better benefits for success in life, for job success, for accomplishments, etc. I know that my mom and dad teaching me personal discipline as a young child set the stage for me learning personal discipline as I played basketball, and I became a much better basketball player because I was a disciplined basketball player. And I had the privilege for playing for coach Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. And people have said through the years that David Chadwick was a prototypical Dean Smith player, not particularly athletic, but he had the disciplines down he played fundamentally. And Thirdly, not only does religion give people meaning and structure, it also gives them a sense of belonging. I know that here in Charlotte, North Carolina, a local high school, over the last six years has had eight different suicides that have occurred in that high school, and part of the problem has been isolation sickness that has happened post COVID. So religion, though when rightly participated in, gives people a sense of belonging. First, of all, to others. Secondly, to your own family that's a part of your religious experience, and to a church family as well. But finally to a common belief system where you have a group of peers who believe the same things you do and aren't challenging you to change your world views. And finally, what religion gives is a belief system. It allows you to believe something that allows you to say I don't believe that, but I do believe this, and give you structure and foundation in life. I can remember going to church every week with my mom and dad, sitting between my mom and my brother and sister, and Mom pinching my knee if ever I start wiggling around and not paying attention. And I can remember every week standing up and saying what is commonly called the apostles creed. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ's only son, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born in the Virgin Mary, etc. Et cetera. I can still recite it today, why because at the age of four five six I heard that repeated over and over again. I also by Missus Huntley, my third and fourth grade Sunday school teacher learned Psalm twenty three. She thought that David Chadwick would be like King David and loved the Lord like King David did, and she had me memorize the twenty third Psalm and say it before all the kids in that classroom. I also learned the Lord's Prayer by repeating it week in, week out. Well, here I am at this age and stage of life, and my belief system was ingrained within me as a small child rooted in the Apostles creed, rooted in the twenty third Psalm, and rooted in the Lord's Prayer, and those things have been foundational for me as I have lived my life. So psychologists say that religion is important for people. That provides four different things meaning, structure, belonging, and beliefs. And when we come back from our commercial break, I want to take some time with Jen and Marylyn to talk about as moms this Mother's Day, about the meaning and purpose of these kind of things and have they found them to be important as well as they have tried to raise their kids. Again, if I didn't say it, Jen, you have two children, Maryland you have three children, and twelve grandchildren. You have a dozen cousins now living all locally as well, and we would say, like the Harvard study found that it is very important to esconce our children in faith, to push religion on our kids, to indoctrinate them to our beliefs. If they're real to us, if we find them important to us, we would want our kids to share that faith as well, because it not only gives them meaning, structure, belonging and beliefs, it gives them a reason to live for all of their lives. I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk one oh seven point nine FMWBT. Will be right back with Maryland Chadwick and Jen Houston to talk about these realities.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: Mother of mine, how do I say.
00:07:35
Speaker 1: All the love feed t Harvey One. I'm David Chadwick and this's this News Talk one oh seven point nine FMWBT Radio. Great being with you. Thank you for listening. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, and all of those of you who have great moms, Thank them for all they have meant to you in your life. Well. In the first segment, I talked about the question ES that is being debated in a lot of different places today. Should we push religion on our kids? I know my mom did me. She expected me to get up and to be at Sunday school and worship every Sunday. She expected me to be at Wednesday night church. She expected me to sing in the church choir. I didn't like that. I would rather have been at home watching NBA basketball on Sunday afternoon. But I had to go sing in the church choir. Then I hated it. Now I'm grateful to her. Did she indoctrinate me in the Christian faith? Maybe? I mean I had to claim it for my own ultimately, but she did present it to me in a way that I thought was valuable and meaningful, and ultimately I bought her faith. And in the first segment, I talked about how a Harvard study showed that kids who have been supposedly pushed in their religion or have been indoctrinated by parents that they are more in life satisfaction, They are less likely to suffer depression, they are less likely to suffer substance and other abuses as well. And so we want to talk today about what psychologists say is the value of religion being pushed on kids. By parents. It gives them meaning, structure, belonging, and belief. So I've invited two moms on the show with me today, my wife Maryland again, mom to three kids and now twelve grandkids, and Jen Houston, who's a mom to two kids. They do regularly what we call our Moments of Hope dailies that we allow to arrive in your inbox at seven am every single morning. And Jen, just so we can give all our listeners a chance to receive them free of charge, something you and Maryland and I do every day for five minutes to give people a moment of hope. We call them daily moments of Hope. How could people receive them?
00:09:45
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:09:45
Speaker 3: Sure, It's such a fun thing that we get to do together, kind of bring the content to life and taking a deeper dive in a conversation together. Listeners, you can simply go to our church website, which is Moments of Hope Church dot org slash listen and write there. It'll pop up our little logo icon that you're going to see every morning in your inbox. Once you subscribe, there will be a written version, which we like to call our blog, and then there's a button in there you'll be able to click and listen to us discuss the day's topic.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jen, Marilyn. Let me turn to you on today's topic on the radio show, the question should we push religion on kids? Does it indoctrinate them wrongly? You're a mom. We raised our kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ. We unashamedly talked the Bible to them, We had the memorized Bible versus rewarded them for doing so, et cetera. What are your thoughts on this question?
00:10:38
Speaker 4: Well, David, it's interesting because of course ours are now three grown children with all these grandchildren. But I have to say to you that when we were raising them, if they had thought I was pushing them, they would have probably gone the other way. So I'm a little sneaky in the way that I would say we raised our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as you put it, I think that they would say that it was a positive way to do it. And yes, it did push our values, and it did indoctrinate them, probably unknowingly, But we tried to go kind of hand in hand with the way God made them. I think that was the thing that made it not only palatable for them, but actually fun, and it sort of stuck. They never rebelled from it. And I'm going to go back to a Bible verse that might be familiar to some of our listeners. You probably heard it in a different way, but this is an amplified version. Train up a child in the way he should go, and David, we think we tried to do that and in keeping with his individual gift or bent and when he's old, he'll not depart from it. In other words, I think that's a way to make children where they are less likely to rebel because it's kind of a kind way. You nurture them in the ways of the Lord. But you also notice the way God made them, and all three of ours were very different. And yes, we did have structured learning, we did have discipline in our home, but again they might not actually have known all the time that we were doing that, and I think consequently they adopted this as their own. But you have mentioned this book called First Make Your Bed. Would you like for me to talk about that now? It kind of goes hand in hand with what we're talking about.
00:12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you discipline a child, or teach a child how to live out their life in a discipline form. It does really help them out a lot.
00:12:21
Speaker 4: Please talk about that, and you want them to see that this is actually good for them. That's kind of like eat your spinach, but that's not what you say, right, So you want them to see that. But there was a wonderful book written by a gentleman named I think it's William mc craven. He's a Navy seal and I first heard about this when he gave the graduation speech at the University of Texas. But I was captivated by his whole point, which is starting your day with small, disciplined tasks like making your bed bill's momentum for tackling the bigger goals. And he would say the bigger goals in life, and that he says, that's the way you change your life and the world. The book title again is first make your bed so and then the subtitle is little thing that can change your life and maybe the world. And I think we try to let our children see that the lessons that they were learning at home were going to actually be for their good and they wouldn't really excel in the areas of life that were important to them, and they would be able to follow their own dreams and goals. Dreams are great, but if a child doesn't have the discipline or the perseverance to stick with it, then they're just always dreams and nothing more.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: So that structure is very important to children and raising them, and even the structure of religious education as well. We thought that was very important. And you see again the study from Harvard this says kids who have that are healthier and better off in life. Jim, may I turn to you because this might be more personal to you than it would be for Maryland to me right now in our agent stage of life. But you have two teenagers and both of them are involved in church ministry and they have friends in that community. Is there some truth to this whole idea that kids that are brought up in a religious environment, you're not necessarily and doctrinating them, but you are teaching them the beauty of belonging. They have other friends as well. Would you talk about that.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:14:07
Speaker 3: I love that word belonging and I love that you threw that to me because that is the word that just resounds in my heart. I mean, that is one of the core values of the human heart is to want to feel like you belong.
00:14:18
Speaker 2: So I think immediately.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: Being involved in a faith community, our church, or giving your life away.
00:14:24
Speaker 2: You belong immediately.
00:14:26
Speaker 3: And when you choose to surrender your life to Jesus, you're instantly invited and grafted into the family of God. And so that soul craving the thing that God stamped on each one of our hearts as humans being made in God's image, we crave belonging and being a part of a community of faith gives you that immediately.
00:14:49
Speaker 1: Well, you and Chris have two children again, and both are teens, and you're raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To use a biblical phrase, but you are saying that the church, the images even in the Bible, are the bride of Christ and the body of Christ. But another one that's not often talked about is the family of God. That God is our father, Jesus is our big brother, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Did your kids find brothers and sisters in Christ among peers of their own age that help only validate what you and Chris have tried to teach them.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, and they've experienced this too in school. We've chosen Christian school for them, so they've also been raised there in that community. And you find a lot of purpose when you're kind of going in the same direction, say as like you have the same faith with the group that you are growing up with. You find deep purpose in that. And each person kind of like that body image that the body of Christ. You know, there's toes, there's legs, there's shoulders, there's heads, all coming together for one purpose and one mission. It just is so deep, it's profound. It's really actually kind of hard to put words to how deep and profound it is.
00:15:58
Speaker 1: So we would say to everybody listening Mother's Day weekend again, Happy Mother's Day to everybody. Not only this is important to have a healthy family, it's important for you to find a healthy faith community family as well.
00:16:09
Speaker 4: Marylyn well Jen, I love that you're mentioning this and the purpose. And I'm aware that your daughter went on a missions trip recently. And I would say that serving is something that's built into us once we accept Jesus, that just naturally flows that we want to serve others. But we know, David, just from our background and counseling. Serving makes you healthier mentally, and it bonds you together, like you said, with other people that share that. I mean, what a great way to live. Like I used to tell my kids, why would you want to rebel? This is so fun?
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about meaning as well. And Marylyn, let me come back to you. Have you found that giving them a deep faith reality has helped them have a sense of meaning and purpose in life?
00:16:48
Speaker 4: That's a great question, David, and I would always say to you, I really wanted them to own that for themselves. And as we watch them develop their faith, when they went through hard times, that is when they started to see that there was, you know, the Lord absolutely in their life, able to answer prayers, help them through problem areas, and fill them with peace when there shouldn't have been any.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: But the important thing there, I think is in comment on this too, that it's got to be their faith.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: It's got to be their fath.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Faith is not inherited, It's not passed on by simply living in a Christian family.
00:17:19
Speaker 4: No, And that's why I laughed, instead of faith, thought we were indoctrinating them. They'd run the other way. But you know what we as moms and dads too. But we have this thing called prayer, and I would say prayer was my go to method.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: Well, I believe with all of my heart that most faith is caught than taught, and now I do believe you've got to teach it. And we'll talk about that when we come back. Things we did to help teach our kids' faith. But you know, at the end of the day, your own faith experienced moms and dads is what your kids are going to want or not want. And we'll talk about that again when we come back. I'm David Chadwick and we will be right back.
00:18:35
Speaker 5: Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance every everyone.
00:18:43
Speaker 1: I'm David Chadwick and this is News Talk one O seven point nine FBMWBT Radio. Welcome back to the show. And I have in studio with me my wife Marilyn about almost forty eight years of marriage, Hard to believe, and Jim Houston, a dear friend who helps us do weekly podcast at Moments of Hope Church, but also daily moments of Hope, Jin would you do it one more time? Plug? How people can hear those podcasts are also those daily moments of hope arriving in there inbox about five minutes every morning at seven am to give them a daily moment of hope.
00:19:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: They can simply go to our church website which is Moments of Hope Church dot org slash listen, and on that specific page they can subscribe to our daily Moment of Hope which you mentioned, and also take a listen to the weekly Hope cast that we do together.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jin Well. Happy Mother's Day to you all, and Marylyn, let me turn to you. We talked in the first two segments about a Harvard study and also psychologists who say that when kids are given a strong firm foundation in faith, they find meaning, structure, belonging, and beliefs in life. Let me come back to this meaning idea, because everybody's asking the question, why on earth am I here? What's my purpose? And we really believe that we believe we were set by God on this earth to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, to be his vessels and instruments of serving Him and enlarging the Kingdom of God. If you will so talk some more about the importance of teaching faith to children in order to give their lives meaning.
00:20:15
Speaker 4: Well, I think there's nothing more exciting than watching children learn and grow and begin to dream their own dreams. And I was a student of our kids because each one of them was so different and it required a different hand of raising each one of them. But when they started showing areas of interest, I tried to teach them that God made them in a certain way, and so the way they were going to serve Him was very different from their brother or their sister. And so those teachable moments, David, you know, I was always giving them pop quizzes, you know, when I'd drive him back and forth to school. We had long commutes to these magnet schools. But it was just fun to watch them grapple with, you know, the big questions of life, and then to try to insert some appropriate teaching that seemed to apply to what they're going through. But the big thing was helping them realize why they were here, like you just and there was that wonderful verse. I think they all memorized it that we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do what remember good work.
00:21:08
Speaker 1: Good works for two tend.
00:21:10
Speaker 4: He prepared those in advance, So I always kind of made it an adventure for them, like, I wonder what God has planned for you to do for him?
00:21:17
Speaker 1: And you would even do that on a daily basis while they were at school, say hey, what could you do for God today in your school? And then the next day and then the next day. And that was an exciting adventure, was.
00:21:26
Speaker 2: Well, they thought it was, you know.
00:21:27
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because I think they began to see that their life maybe had meaning and purpose when some of their peers were floundering. And so that wasn't a reason to judge the peers. If anything, I tried to encourage them, Let's help your friend kind of see what God might have in store for their life. And it was a very winsome way to live because they were in secutor school environments their whole career.
00:21:48
Speaker 1: Well. And also beliefs, which was the fourth thing. The psychologists say that raising kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord helps them with his beliefs. We would try to teach our kids basic scripture. We'd have an every Friday night family home nightly home nights. We'd often act out Bible stories and have them memorized. Versus give them their reward for work during the week and it just became a special part of our lives that they enjoy loved it.
00:22:12
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they wouldn't trade it for anything. And I would want to interject to just briefly, don't forget the impact of the Christian faith practice in marriage. And you know, there's a lot of study that has been done on that. You know, everybody talks about the one attitude divorce rate, but if you look at a home where the parents attend church regularly and simply maybe pray together occasionally, the divorce rate goes way down. I think the last thing I read was like one out of nine hundred get divorced when it's a faithful practice of their faith.
00:22:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're loving together, they're praying together, they're worshiping together children right, Yeah, will affect their children in a positive way. Gen let me turn to you. Do you think it's important to give kids Christian beliefs? I mean, after all, aren't you just jamming it down their throat. Isn't that going to be psychologically damaging to them?
00:22:57
Speaker 3: Well, I'm with Maryland and to answer your y, and yes, we do that. We open we practice our faith openly, and it is an invitation. I like to say it's a presentation by our practicing out loud in our home kind of our faith on display, even wrestling through some hard times in an appropriate way with the age that our children are. We let them see us, you know, tackled out and unbelief or prayer for healing and just contending in prayer for something. So it's an invitation and a presentation. And when we do that, they're part of it. They observe, they're kind of part of the process. They see when a miracle happens. We've had a few tangible miracles within our family and sometimes when we go back and remember those, it boosts all of our faith all again and there's that shared faith that continues to grow. So your approach, Marylynd, is similar to how we do it too. It's an invitation and it's a presentation. We don't make it seem like we're forcing them, but we're living our faith out loud.
00:23:58
Speaker 4: You're living it out loud, and whether you call it this or not, you're sharing testimonies with them and they are with you. And it all a testimony is is here's what God has done in my life. And it also helped me, and like I said, we were in a different situation being in secular environments. I wanted them to bring the questions, you know, to David into me about how is this happening at school? These friends are getting into this, or this is what the teacher's teaching us, what do you think about that? And I just kept giving them little pop quizzes to see how they were assimilating things, and more often than not, they were telling me what they wanted God to do in their life. And then when we saw answers to prayer in some of these really difficult situations, they're faith through.
00:24:36
Speaker 1: And what you want is for them to have a personal relationship with Jesus. You don't want them to just go through the motions like some Christian parents do, and kids can see that that's not real for their parents. But when they do have their own personal relationship with Jesus and they're praying and they're seeing God answer prayers, and they're also part of a family that's praying together and they share that together, it does make their own faith experience come alive.
00:24:59
Speaker 2: Jen, Yeah, it sure does. You know.
00:25:01
Speaker 3: One of the things that we do is oftentimes we'll kind of talk about what we've read in the Bible or what we call our devotional time, you know, with God.
00:25:09
Speaker 2: And then we'll ask, well, what did you read? What are you learning right now?
00:25:12
Speaker 3: And I wouldn't say my kids are doing that every morning when they wake up, they make their bed and do their devotions. But when they do read in scripture, they are pondering things and they are able to apply them to their lives, and it's really neat.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: They're absorbing more than you realize. I remember you told me the story of I went through the Book of Revelation here with our church family and y'all were talking about end times kind of stuff, and you had one of your kids say, well, Pastor David taught this about Revelation. It was pretty in depth subject that I was talking about.
00:25:41
Speaker 3: Oh it was, and he had for my son had formulated. You know, I really believe this, and you.
00:25:46
Speaker 2: Know your approach. I've said it before, your approaches.
00:25:48
Speaker 3: You know, I believe this based off of scripture, but there is some gray area. You can agree to disagree with this, but you really help my son form what he believes about the end times theology.
00:25:58
Speaker 1: Well, again, they're absorbing more than you realize. And that's why I started by saying, when you're going to worship every week and you're reciting the Apostles Creed, or you're hearing the Lord's Prayer said on a regular basis, or reading Psalm twenty three the Blessed Palmon, those things get stuck in your mind. You know, when you're going through a tough time yourself, and we all go through tough times, don't we. Listeners, you can say out of memory, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters that I love this one. He restores my soul. I mean, those kind of verses come alive, and you memorize them as children, and they'll remain for the rest of their lives.
00:26:34
Speaker 4: Marilynd Well too, I was always trying to stretch them and make them realize. I did not dumb it down for them. I wanted to let them know that even as children, you can hear once you've accepted Jesus and the Holy Spirit lives, and you can hear the voice of God. And I would say to them, look what Jesus said in John ten twenty seven, My sheep and that's all of us. Listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me. And it said actually three times in John ten. I think Jesus wants to make the point that God wants to speak to us. He speaks through his words. He speaks through preachers who preach faithfully his word. He speaks through parents and other people as well. But sometimes God's spirit just gives us an itching, an insight into our hearts. So we just know that we know that, we know this is what we're supposed to do. Yeah, because we don't always carry a Bible around with us, and they may be in a dilemma or in a situation in school where they'd have to face either a problem or a friend with a need, you know, and they would automatically kind of hear God saying, hey, why don't you share something that'll help this friend? And now we'd talk to him later and say, isn't that cool that you answered a prayer? You know you heard God's voice.
00:27:34
Speaker 1: Interestingly, Obama's Surgeon General, this is fifteen plus years ago, spent years warning what he thought would be a coming mental health crisis and what would a company it is? Loneliness, a loss of purpose, a lack of community and no safety net when life stinks. May I say those again, listeners, that Obama I'm a surgeon general fifteen plus years ago, predicted a coming tsunami of crisis driven by loneliness, a loss of purpose, lack of community, and no safety net when life stinks. And that's what we're talking about. Parents. If you give these to your kids early on, it will allow them to have meaning, structure, belonging, and beliefs to avoid these kind of problems which we see now that Obama's surgeon general was a prophet. This is exactly what has happened in a post COVID reality. Jend you have any.
00:28:32
Speaker 3: Thoughts, you know, it makes me so thankful looking back on the COVID times that we all went through. Is you know, our church body really fought to gather and we knew the importance the leadership. You David Marland both knew the importance of gathering. And there's a scripture that says don't neglect the gathering of the saints, and that's one of the things that really struck us. We really knew that that was important to you guys, and we wanted to be a part.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Of that well, we just know that infectious diseases need to be heated and under good. But the most infectious disease of all this loneliness and that crisis can cause more mental unhealth than just about anything possible. So we need to take another break. But when we come back, I want to answer this question. Shouldn't we just let our kids decide what they want to believe? I mean that's out there as well from parents, and I can give you a hint what the answer is going to be. I'm David Chadwick and we will be right back.
00:30:07
Speaker 5: Listen, my soul, oh, my soul, lisship, his oly namely Foolhi.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: Everyone, I'm David Chadwick. Welcome back to the show. Great to have you with us today. And if you'd like to hear this program on Mother's Day and again Happy Mother's Day, please go to WBT dot com, scroll down to the weekend shows, look for the David Chadwick Show and you can hear this from beginning to end with my wife Maryland now almost forty eight years, my friend Jen Houston and we do regular communications together with a daily moment of hope, as we call it, a five minute time that can get into your inbox at seven am every morning. Jen one more time, if people want to subscribe to this again free of charge. It's just the three of us trying to give people a daily moment of hope. How do they subscribe?
00:31:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can go to our church website. It's Moments of Hope Church dot org slash listen. They can subscribe there. They'll receive this in their inbox every morning at seven am, and they'll also find our weekly Hope Cast that you do each week.
00:31:17
Speaker 1: We try to give people information regarding what's going on in the world with the Hope Cast or podcast as they're called in the world, but also the daily moments are just to encourage you often. Now we're looking at the Book of Proverbs, looking at different proverbs and how they apply to our lives. We'd love to have you come join us, so well, please go to Moments of Hope Church dot org and you can find them there. Well, Marilyn, I'm going to turn to you now and ask this questions We've been trying to wrestle through this whole idea. Should we push religion on our kids? Isn't that indoctrinating them into faith? That parents might have, but the kids don't necessarily need to have. We've looked at some Harvard studies and the results of not doing that the kids don't have meaning and structure, belonging or beliefs in their lives. But then there's still a lot of people out there who say, you know what, I believe in Jesus, but I need to let my kids decide for themselves. I mean, that's actually out there. I've heard that more times than I'd like to admit. How would you respond to that statement, I just need to let my kids decide what they want at the appropriate time in their lives.
00:32:15
Speaker 4: Well, whether we like it or not, our kids will decide for themselves. You know, we can take what is it, You can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. But I think in a positive way, we let our children decide, but only because we worked so hard to try to share this wonderful good news of the Gospel with them and raise them in the faith. Now, yes, they made their own decisions, but I don't think it was a hard sell. I think we put our whole heart into it, and I think if we let our children decide, we only do that knowing we're praying like crazy, putting it out therefore raising them in the faith in a very wensome way. And then I just have a very belief that they will decide that they won't reject the faith.
00:32:52
Speaker 1: And we do think that faith is important, as we've already talked about it.
00:32:55
Speaker 4: Well, and let's remember I did walk away at age fifteen, so I was one up on them, you know, I knew what the reas were and whow walked away. So I was a little careful to make sure that their experience was different and they didn't know everything I was doing, but I was a step ahead. And then I came back to the Lord at about age twenty one. I didn't want them to wander.
00:33:12
Speaker 1: Jen your thoughts, I mean, come on, don't let your kids decide for themselves when the time is appropriate.
00:33:17
Speaker 3: Well, I would say to that, if you saw your child struggling with cancer and you had the cure in your back pocket, wouldn't you pull it out and apply it. So I feel like we need to pull out the truth and apply it and again invite them and show them and practice our faith out loud, and ultimately, yeah, they're going to choose and it's such a joy. It is such a joy and eternal joy when they do choose your faith, when you've placed it in Jesus Christ, it's amazing when they do that.
00:33:46
Speaker 1: We know that statement all just let your kids decide themselves. It doesn't take seriously that we don't live in a neutral world. We live in a world where there is world values that are destructive if you buy into them. We live in a world where our human flesh is fallen and it has desires that if practice repeatedly, can lead to substance abuse and ultimately our demise. We live in a world, I believe folks in a biblical worldview, there is a devil. He is evil. There's a supernatural world that's next to us, and Jesus made it clear that the devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and he wants to start with your children. He wants to kill, steel and destroy them. So the best way to get them to be able to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil is to teach them the power of Jesus, the armor of God, how to fight those spiritual battles with spiritual weaponry. So, when we are getting our kids to decide to follow Jesus. We're giving them the weapons they need to fight against the world. Again, this world is not a neutral place in which to live. There are enemies that are out there that want to destroy them, and we need to give them what they need in order to fight that battle. Well, Maryland, and.
00:34:59
Speaker 4: Again with us, Jenna, like what you said about you live it out loud in front of them. And I think the Christian faith really is best maybe caught as much as taught, not completely both and both and.
00:35:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think you catch it more than you are taught.
00:35:12
Speaker 4: It right, But I do think that means it's important for me to have a sincere and devoted faith myself and be joyful and excited about what God's teaching me. And it'll be a lot easier than to teach our children, or it was a lot easier.
00:35:24
Speaker 1: Well, you've nailed it. I mean that is the most important job of parents. You believe it, You enjoy Jesus, you live for him, you worship him, and your kids watching you live and pray and serve others. Remember, we used to take our kids on international missions trips and we'd go into some of the worst slums in the world with our kids, and they smelled the smells, they saw the futudness around them, but they also saw our church trying to make a difference in one small place in the world, and that made them, I think, have a greater sensitivity to the needs of the needy.
00:35:54
Speaker 4: Or even just locally, just being in places where they can step in and their problems all of a sudden look really small when they're around people that may have bigger problems, and it also is a cool opportunity for them to see God answer prayers. I just think I can't understate the importance of the miraculous Jim.
00:36:11
Speaker 3: You know, one thing that keeps coming to mind in this conversation is I hear a lot of people, probably more my age, who are deconstructing their faith. And a big excuse that you hear across the boards is the hypocrisy in the church. And you know, in order to combat that in my personal life with my kids, me and my household is to live it out authentically, live out my faith authentically, and like I said earlier in the program, is to wrestle through those things and let my kids see me working those things out. Let my kids see me mess up and get back up again and ask for forgiveness. You know, when my husband Chris and I might disagree about something, letting our kids see us work it out forgive each other. And there's just something authentic about that. When they can see humility, when they can see me mess up and get back up again and be strong in my faith, I think it allows them to realize, Oh, Christians are humans too. So I don't know, I just felt like we needed to debunk a.
00:37:06
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great point, Jen, And if you don't raise your kids with your Christian values, I promised you, they're being raised by somebody's values. There's somebody in the world who's teaching your kid's values. And your question that you've got to answer is do I want them to live by the values? I find it important. And so therefore, to answer the question that we've begun today's show with, are we indoctrinating kids by teaching them our faith? The answer is absolutely no. If indeed your faith is alive and real to you, you're not indoctrinating them. You're infecting them with the Gospel of Jesus and how to love God and love their neighbor. And if you do those two things. You have a lifetime's worth of work to do. One other thought here is ignacious Loyola, the famous Catholic theologian, one time said, give me a child until the age of five, and he's mind for the rest of his life. What a powerful statement, Marilyn. I know you've heard me say this before. Give me a child until the child is five years old, and he's mine for the rest of his life. Those first five years are very formatively important, aren't they.
00:38:08
Speaker 4: Well, they are, and I think it's always important for parents and some of your grandparents and some of you just work with children. Don't ever underestimate God's ability to speak to a child when they're tiny. There's no junior Holy Spirit. They all are able to hear God in a special way. Don't ever underestimate what they can understand and know and believe.
00:38:26
Speaker 1: And Deuteronomy success. Put little placards and Bible verses and all kinds of things all over your house. Let your kids see them everywhere, and you know, as they grow older, they're going to go. You know, Mom and Dad really did take this seriously and to your point, Gen, and even more importantly, they lived it. And I want the Jesus that they had because he meant so much to them. I want to know it as well. Don't push religion on your kids. Be so infectious and contagious that they'll want the Jesus you have in your hearts. Hey, everybody, love God and love your neighbor. If you'll just do those two things, you have a lifetime's worth of work to do. I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk one O seven point nine WBT. Thank you for listening, and talk with you all next week.
