Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / How To Parent Courageously In A Degenerate World (PLUS: Kids + AI?) ft. Isaac and Angie Tolpin

Transcript

How To Parent Courageously In A Degenerate World (PLUS: Kids + AI?) ft. Isaac and Angie Tolpin · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited today. We're joined by Isaac and Angie Tolpin. They are the purveyors of courageous parenting. I've been following you guys for a while. Love what you guys are doing with your kids. There's so much alignment between family teams and courageous parenting and all the things you guys are doing. So thank you guys for jumping on here. Oh, so good to be here and love what you're doing, too. It seems like we're down a similar vein of helping people.
• 0:22
  So one of the things I wanted to start with is that I feel like we're both refugees from the Pacific Northwest family culture. And I have noticed this theme and I'm a bit fascinated by it. People in the Christian world that really are advocating for, I would say, just a more aggressive stance towards redefining, understanding the biblical family seem to be from Washington, Oregon area.
• 0:45
  So I grew up in Federal Way. I think, Isaac, you were from Port Townsend. Okay. And then Angie, were you from Portland or like Oregon somewhere? Yeah. So Jeff Bethke, who works with me, he grew up in Tacoma, Auburn area. And so we're all just like, okay, guys, we've seen the future. It's really bad. We got to pull back, pull back.
• 1:05
  Totally. I think you're onto something right there because 20 years ago, we're like, none of this is working. Even the normal rhythms are like, this is, this is saturated the church. There's an issue here. Yes. And it's funny that you mentioned refugee because yes, we have moved. We are now in Idaho and that move, we call it our legacy move.
• 1:25
  Because we had wonderful biblical community that we were surrounded by, and it was a hard decision, but we had to think beyond. We had to think about our legacy and our kids' kids and advocating where they would be raising their family and so forth.
• 1:39
  Yeah, that's huge. To think about your homeland from a generational lens is very usual for people. We tend to think about where we live almost exclusively based on either our occupation, where's the business or our work send us, or just through happenstance. So you guys made an intentional decision, like we're going to raise our kids in Idaho because our grandkids are going to flourish more here. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:07
  Yeah. Well, absolutely. We asked ourselves the question, what we want, what we recommend our children raise their children where we're living. And the answer was no. And so then what do we do? You know, there's no sense that any kind of discomfort for us is worth it. And to be in a place, there's no perfect place, but to be in a place where more likely people will want to live that are raising their kids and it'll be better longer.
• 2:31
  Yeah, that proximity thing has always been important to us walking in biblical community. And also proximity for when our kids started getting older and launching from the home. And we currently have three adult children that are married and have started their own families. And then we have six more that are still at home. And so for us, we didn't want them to start getting married. And then us feel like we needed to move for the rest of them and then be separated. Yes, absolutely.
• 2:56
  So it, and it, God bless that in the last five and a half years, those three kids met and married their spouses and they all live here in Idaho. So, I mean, the only, the Lord knows what the future holds, but when you're choosing a climate that is going to facilitate more religious freedom, more freedom for just everything, medical freedom, all the things we went through that lens of, okay, long-term, what is the best option for our kids?
• 3:26
  Man, that's so good, guys. So nine kids, three adult kids, and you guys have found your homeland. So I want to play devil's advocate because I 100% agree with everything you just said. But I feel like what I heard growing up in the church, and this is something, is like, look, that's just not your responsibility. What happens to that generation? It's on them. Release them. Don't think about that. You just go to Arizona and soak up the rays while your grandkids are being raised by your kids. It's your time. Your golden years. Yeah.
• 3:55
  Like, it sounds like you guys are from a slightly different point of view. You know, it's funny you say that. And I think that people have been raised with a selfish mindset. It's rooted in pride and selfishness and a lack of vision, frankly.
• 4:10
  And I think that part of it's not their fault. I don't think they were raised that way. And in addition to that, it takes vision to see beyond that. And it takes, I think what it takes is realizing how influential you are as a parent and exercising that influence. I think people have forgotten that.
• 4:29
  how much impact they have and that God authorized them to be the most important disciple makers of their children of anybody else. I mean, they're the God authorized leaders of their families. And when they start delegating that it starts making it easier to, to go, Oh, that's not my problem anymore. I'll just bounce the grandkids when I come visit from Arizona or whatever. Yeah.
• 4:48
  Yes, I would even say I'd be the devil's advocate to your devil's advocate and go, show me where it says that in scripture that we can retiring and go to Arizona. Right. And it's like, I mean, I just think there's no, I don't know. Snowbirds. So I'll just preface this with we lived in a tourist town. We lived in Bend, Oregon for a while, and we knew many pastors there. Isaac had planted a home church. We did home church there.
• 5:16
  And, um, one of the biggest, most common problems that those pastors faced was finding elders who were not snowbirds that were committed to being in one place. And I think that we know what God's government looks like for the church. We know his calling on Titus two men and women, but when you have that mentality of I'm only going to be here six months and then I'm gone. Um,
• 5:40
  There's not a commitment to community. That's not part of it. So I think that there's this element of like, we look at the family. This is something we teach in the book. And we look at the family, and it's very image-bearing of the family of God, but it's also the training ground where we are raising the next generation of the body of Christ, of the leaders of the body of Christ, because our kids are actually part of the body of Christ now.
• 6:03
  And I think that if we as a church and when I when I say church, I mean, like collectively, we shift our thinking to be less about us and realizing that we're here for Isaac said for a purpose. But what is that purpose? Yeah, it's it's a glorify God to make him known. It's the great commission. It actually has nothing to do with us.
• 6:22
  Right. So when we approach any decision in life and we stop compartmentalizing Jesus and the word of God into different buckets and out of certain things, our life's going to look very different. And I know coming from my business background, I used to think, wow, look at, you know.
• 6:39
  And I actually was kind of prideful when I was younger and I was, you know, well, look at all the people I'm impacting, right? This is amazing. And then really God got a hold of me and made me realize that no, no, no, the most important people you're impacting are when you go home and are in your home.
• 6:55
  And the extent of that impact is deeper, more rich, and longer lasting, frankly, than anything else you could do, Isaac. And once I really got that, my entrepreneurism shifted from outside of the home to inside of the home. And that leadership and that focus and that long-term vision and so forth. So I think any gents listening to this episode...
• 7:20
  You know, how much are you passionate about what you're building outside of the home? Was that passion being brought into the home? It's okay to be passionate out there. We should be. We need to provide and have impact. It's wonderful for the glory of God. But are we bringing that into the home? And is that even bigger? Because that vision is even bigger.
• 7:39
  Yeah, there's a journey you kind of describe there that I think about, which is, you know, men in our culture in particular, like in the Christian world are taught, okay, out there, you make a living, that's your domain, keep pushing, pushing further, and this sort of creates this real dissonance. Then you suddenly see...
• 7:55
  Fathers have this epiphany. Oh, I think what's happening in the home is is more critical than what's happening out here. So they come back into the home and they reintegrate with their families and then with their families. Then they start to do economic things. So instead of going out as an individual, they're coming out into the marketplace with the family. And then, you know, the final step of that to me is when the church actually gets involved together.
• 8:18
  Like that, that's the journey we've been on. And it's just like, most people are stuck in this other. So I want you guys to take me through a little bit of this journey because so Isaac, you said, okay, you went into the home, you realize, okay, this is most important. You have nine kids. That's a lot to provide for. Talk me through like as an entrepreneur, how did you think through, like, how do I provide if I don't just like stay out there, knows the grindstone 60 hours a week? Like what happened with you?
• 8:44
  Yeah, it's I mean, it's a faith walk. Right. And I think that I think of a poor decision making process that people make is they go, can I afford to have more kids? And I don't think that's the right question, because if we trust that what the Bible says, God promises to help us be able to provide for his blessings.
• 9:06
  And so once we have that switch in our minds, it's no longer like, can I afford to have children? It's I'm going to trust that God is going to help me provide and that I am going to be brave and courageous enough to step forward and risk where needed, where I feel like God's calling me. And I think if we're willing to step forward and we're willing to trust God at the same time.
• 9:28
  It's going to work out. And that's kind of been my story. I've had ups and downs. I've had extreme success. I've lost everything. Not too long ago, 10 years ago, I was 40 years old. We just had her seventh child and she's a stay-at-home mom, homeschooling mom. And, you know, what am I going to do? And I could have chosen to go work for my friend for a couple hundred grand a year. That would have been an easy choice.
• 9:52
  But I felt like, you know, in prayer that the Lord was calling me to stay the course. And that's when we launched the Rageous Parenting Podcast, actually, and went full-time ministry in this other direction. And how do you provide for a family starting a podcast? Well, that's not the question. The question is because everybody has different things to do.
• 10:11
  The question is, are you in God's will? Are you close to God? And are you hearing from the Lord and what you're to do and trusting him? And while it was hard sometimes, really hard, but I'm so thankful that we chose this, what appears to be an impossible path, a harder path, but because of God, it wasn't. And so it's always been a faith walk.
• 10:32
  It's interesting because part of, there's actually a chapter in the very last section of our book that's all about teaching your kids how to walk through the valleys and how to walk through trials biblically. And we share part of our story and what we experienced with our kids during that time.
• 10:49
  We call those our job years. There was about five years that were really hard for us. We lost a couple babies. I almost died during one of those. It was very traumatic that we came very close to foreclosing on a property because we had a squatter in our home.
• 11:07
  There was just all these different things that were going on. And it just felt like every time we woke up, it was like, what now, Lord, what do you have for us today? But in that walking in biblical community and seeing God take care of every single one of our needs, sitting at the table, being transparent with our children, not hiding that from them, but using it as an opportunity to show them what it looks like to lean into the word, to trust God, to walk strong together in him.
• 11:33
  And inviting them to pray with us, inviting them to say, like, at the table, we would talk and we would pray together. And we had this dry erase board that we used for many years, and we used it as our blessing chart. And we would just go around the table. What can we be thankful for? And then we would pray with thanksgiving, because that's what Philippians 4 tells us, to not be anxious for anything, but with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to the Lord.
• 12:00
  And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And so we would practice this with our children. And let me tell you, like their faith grew so much when those kids, like there were times where we were eating oatmeal for breakfast and lunch. And then the boys would like pray for meat. This is one of the most iconic times. And then an elder shows up at our house with two coolers full of meat and says, the Lord just really impressed upon me that I was supposed to bring this.
• 12:27
  The kids are like shocked. Can you imagine? Wow. Yeah. You know, and for them to see God doing that, not only that, but like some people on the outside could go, well, was that responsible, Isaac? Like you could have gone and gotten a job and provided. And would you know what?
• 12:43
  The community that we were around, they were literally the ones that were like, you have to do this. They had been in ministry for years, marriage ministries, we were discipling them and mentoring them and parenting and they were like, you need to do what we do, but for parenting.
• 12:58
  Because we're coming to you guys because you're 10, 15 years down the road farther than us. And we're watching you walk through these trials like you need to teach this to other people. And so we felt like everyone in our community was unanimously in support to the point where they were giving us microphones. They were giving us the equipment and showing us how to start the podcast. And so I think that if there's ever like a time in your life where God is very opinionated and loud.
• 13:24
  And the people that love you the most are there saying, you need to do this. Like, that was our experience. That's so good.
• 13:32
  I'd love, Angie, for you to speak to the fear of a wife whose husband is trying to be courageous and take risks. So I coach a bunch of families that are trying to move from some kind of corporate regular employment into business ownership because they want to integrate more with their kids and their family as spouses as well. Absolutely.
• 13:56
  And a lot of the times that the dads are like, okay, I'm ready to do this, but their wives are scared. And, you know, 1 Peter 3 talks about, you know, when you're being led by Abraham, be like Sarah. You know, Abraham had a vision, but it said, if you will not be frightened by all the things that are frightening. And it's interesting that fear can really grip the heart of a wife and mother whose husband is trying to do really hard things that require a ton of faith.
• 14:23
  And I'm curious how you work through that and what you would say to a wife who's like, my husband wants to be like courageous and take these leaps of faith. And it's sort of scaring me to death. I think I would, after listening to her story, I would appeal to her to look deeper at God's purpose for her husband's life. Hmm.
• 14:46
  What is God calling her husband to? And is he doing that and fulfilling God's calling in his life the way he was working before? Or is it more of a fulfillment of his calling to be pursuing the thing he's pursuing? Because most times when women are moving from that kind of experience where their husbands are essentially working for a master, right? Yeah.
• 15:09
  into being an entrepreneur. There's a lot of unknowns and what ifs. And I get that. For me, I think that Isaac and I had always tried to do hard things together for a long time. We always had side things going on. We had a side coaching business and we've done a lot of things over the years. And so when he decided to not go into what
• 15:32
  corporate again and instead go into ministry, I actually had a sigh of relief because for the longest time I had felt like he was called to that, but I was just quietly encouraging him and trying to support him. So for me, my personal experience is a little bit different than what a lot of women, I actually was like, he chose us.
• 15:55
  He's choosing, he's choosing the family. Yes. When you're choosing to do something that is going to incorporate the family, like you have to look at what the blessing is that's behind it. That he, that he gets an opportunity now to show the boys and the girls firsthand what it looks like to build a business from the ground up. That is invaluable experience for your children. Yeah.
• 16:19
  So there's all these extra things, too, that you can look at that are going to be the potential fruits that will come from it, whether it succeeds or fails. Right. Because a lot of our lessons learned are actually in the valley. Right. And so when you choose to do those hard things, you can anticipate there's going to be growth and growth is always good, even if it's hard.
• 16:38
  And so like, I know that for us being prepared for ministry, God had to bring us through all of that. There's no way that we could ever speak to or be able to counsel people who are going through hard things if we hadn't been in it ourselves. Right. Even Corinthians says we comfort those with the comfort that we ourselves have received from Christ. Like if you didn't receive that comfort, it's hard for you to give what you don't have. That's right.
• 17:02
  Yeah, you got to go through these valleys. Well, I love that phrase, and I just wanted to resound in the ears of every wife. If your husband's choosing you and the family, that's a win, no matter what you're risking. At that moment, your family's about to be transformed, and you are on an adventure of a lifetime. Just buckle your seatbelts and say, this is good. So, Angie, your heart is, I think, right on there. That's beautiful.
• 17:31
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• 18:01
  Isaac, I wanted you to tease out something that in this transition, you know, you guys mentioned the blessing board. One of the concerns a lot of people have is that, OK, if I do this, if we start taking more responsibility for our own economic well-being and do it as a family, we're going to end up working more hours than ever and more disintegrated than ever. And I think that they don't see...
• 18:20
  There are ways to do this together. But if you've not seen that before, you've just seen the dad just like, oh, my gosh, there's a crisis. I'm putting it on my shoulders. And see you guys later. I got to go, you know, kill the dragon by myself. Like, what a practical. Walk me through practically. How did you keep Angie as a part of this? How did you keep the kids? How did they experience this? Like, any examples of that? Because I think that's hard for people to see.
• 18:46
  I think, you know, when you're going out and you're working and your family's not part of anything, you're leaving early usually, you're coming home, you're fighting traffic or whatever the thing is. Even if you're working from home, you're drained and nobody knows the story. They don't know the challenges. They don't know the highs unless you share them. And unfortunately, a lot of men don't share them or they only share the lows.
• 19:07
  And that creates discouragement from the wife's perspective too. So what's beautiful when you reorientate your life is the way I've talked about it. And I think a lot of men and families need to reorientate their lives. Some people say from the earlier conversation, well, we can't move. We'd like to move, but we can't. And I go, well, who said you can't? Well, we're going to get the 401k. We've been working 20 years. My husband's working 20 years on this. I go, well...
• 19:31
  Is it about money? Because, you know, God's the creator of money. You know, he can provide. There might be a loss there, but what's the potential gain if you reorientate your life? If you actually live where, you know, fruitfulness can continue through a legacy and those kinds of things. So, but practically, to answer your question...
• 19:52
  What really happened there is I was home more. I wasn't leaving early in the morning. And so I could fold my schedule. And so what happened was we would do Bible time in the morning and we would pray together. And then humility. When you get crushed and you have a business fail and a half a million dollars following you, and it's pretty negative and you lost all your things of value, you're humbled as a man.
• 20:17
  And it was exactly what I needed. I needed to be humbled and to be even more surrendered and more reliant on the Lord. And then the family saw that. And so our family grew stronger than it ever did because it was focused on Christ. And so when we're doing those blessing boards, hey, how did the Lord come through and answer our prayers? And the kids are writing them up there.
• 20:38
  I'm reading the Bible. We're praying together. We're doing that breakfast. We're worshiping the Lord as a family in the evenings very often. And we're all doing church together. You know, at the time it was home church with, you know, maybe 10 other families. So it was just a beautiful time. But I think the really key thing is vision. You do have to be a visionary. And by the way, some people are gifted in that and some people are not. But I'm going to just exhort every man listening. If you're a parent, you have to be a visionary.
• 21:08
  you're leading a family. If you're married, you need to be a visionary. It's your job, actually. You don't need to be great at it. You need to think ahead. You need to pray and hear from the Lord. You need some alone time, and you need to have ideas about the future and plans that then you bring your wife on board with. And I've always done that with Angie, where we'll have napkin talks. We'll go out to dinner and,
• 21:33
  it'll be one of those more visionary things that she knows that's what we're going to do. And she loves that. And she brings so much good Intel and ideas into it too. And so then when we're built, we're literally building something other. Yes. I'm initiating, I'm leading, but it's the kind of leadership of teamwork. I'm cultivating teamwork in my marriage so that she's owning it. Cause the worst thing you could do gents is to go out there and,
• 21:59
  And then if you fail, it is all on you because you didn't bring her along. How are you expecting her to be positive and supportive when it gets tough? Because it always gets tough. There's always tough spots. But she's your biggest cheerleader. If you've involved her and she feels like she's part of the team, even if she's not doing all the actual work day to day, she feels like there's an ownership there. So there needs to be ownership in the marriage. I would say even when you were doing corporate work
• 22:29
  You and I, when you had a goal that you were shooting for, we go on a date night and we did do napkin visioneering. That was our phrase. And he would pull out a napkin and he would start writing down the different goals that he wanted to hit. And he would share them with me, which might seem strange to some people who they're like, their wives don't really know a lot about what they do.
• 22:50
  But he brought it to me because I was his biggest cheerleader and he wanted my support. And so he would tell me and he would say, this is what I really feel like I would like to shoot for, but these are the sacrifices it's going to require to hit these goals. Are we in or not?
• 23:09
  And we would discuss that because he, I knew if he was shooting for something bigger, then it was going to require a little bit of sacrifice. But us making that decision together, then I'm not the one going, you're home late or this and that, or you didn't make it to this, or now I'm doing this on my own. There wasn't.
• 23:27
  like, because we had made that decision together and he had communicated ahead of time, it made it so much easier for me to say, okay, can I bring you dinner? Can the kids and I come and, and just bring it to the office and we'll bring enough for everybody. And we had always had that perspective of missionary marketplace. And like, he always was bringing me into that. Like, do you want to host the next DM meeting at the house? Do you want to, you know? And so for us,
• 23:57
  When most people, there was a big separation in how they were doing it, we chose to do it differently to involve our family. So then when we moved into doing more ministry stuff, there actually wasn't a lot of change, to be honest. Because even when he was in the business world that wasn't Christian, he was involving us physically.
• 24:17
  were putting on suits and going to work with dad when they were four years old. And like every time there was an opportunity, he was trying. And I know that like, I even had a Facebook memory come up in my phone recently where our oldest son, who is now 23 years old, he was probably eight years old and he's sitting at a soundboard at a conference where daddy is about to speak and, and, and lead to a few thousand college students. Yeah.
• 24:43
  And he's sitting there and he's learning. He's got his little fedora on and he's sitting there with someone older and he's learning. And what's ironic is now our 10 year old is the audio guy at church. And so surrounding yourself and building a culture where other people also value your children and they're willing to allow them to come along and learn. They aren't going to do that naturally. They're going to do that by following your leadership. Yeah. You know what I mean?
• 25:09
  It seems like part of you guys have gone through a similar paradigm shift that we went through, which is understanding the family is like a team. We're not playing a single-player game. And I think that your point, Isaac, that the father has to be a visionary leader. And there's a sort of idea of fatherhood that your job is to protect and to provide. And that's nested inside of you are the visionary team leader. Yeah.
• 25:35
  And so when you separate and atomize those other callings as separate individual elements of what a man must do without saying your job is to do this as a team, like, you know, yeah, it falls on your shoulders if you need to go out there and do the hard work individually.
• 25:52
  It'll come to that at times and that's fine, but it's nested inside of this larger, you're leading a whole team. You're not supposed to like lead them behind or chase an identity in the workplace that separates you from your family. So yeah, I love how you guys have thought about this and talked about how to do this with the whole family.
• 26:11
  I think it's like baseball, you know, I'm not a baseball player, but it just came to my mind. It's like if you're a dad and you're on the baseball team, let's say, and like protecting and providing is like you showed up and you're on the bench. Yes. And but if you're actually playing the game.
• 26:28
  You're being a visionary, you're leading, you're discipling your family, you're loving your wife well, all those things. It's like a given. Yeah, you got to show up, protect, provide. But unfortunately, culture has uplifted, protecting, provided as the apex. Right. And it's not, you're not even playing the game, actually.
• 26:44
  Exactly. I 100% agree. Like we've misdefined the role. And so somebody could be 10 out of 10. I'm protecting. Nobody's getting hurt in my home. I'm providing. Everybody's got food. I guess I'm like crushing it as a father. I'm like, you could be like a two out of 10. You're not even starting. Yes, those are prerequisites or those exist. But this role is something fundamentally different. You're the visionary leader of a team. Get your players on the field.
• 27:13
  So, oh my gosh, man. Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about technology with you guys. I just feel like this is a growing concern for so many families. I know you guys have thought about this with the number of kids you have. We do live in weird times where it seems like, you know, despite it's like playing whack-a-mole with...
• 27:32
  trying to keep these portals from erupting in our houses. So how do you, as Christian parents, how do we stand against that? How do we, and you just mentioned, you know, your son's on the audio team. You guys do a lot of stuff online. You know, this is also a part of how our kids are going to interact with the economics of the future, using AI, using social media. This is such a confusing topic. So I'm curious how you guys have thought through this one.
• 28:00
  Well, I think that people have different approaches to this in the Christian world, and I think it has a lot to do with whether there's real discipleship happening in the home in the first place. If there's biblical discipleship, like they're learning the Bible, they're cultivating a relationship with the Lord, they get to a point where they're reading the Bible on their own, and they're praying on their own, and they have a real relationship that's growing, which should be happening in homes, right? You can't save your kids. It's something only God could do, but you're the most important people to point them to Christ and help them.
• 28:26
  If that's happening, you're able to then not be so fearful about them using technology. Like defense is a good offense. Yes. Yeah. So defense and offense, but a lot of people just play the one side.
• 28:42
  And it's a very fear-driven approach. And two parents can make the same decision. But if one makes it in fear and one makes it in wisdom, the one in wisdom is going to work out well. The one in fear is going to backfire usually because all the communication around it, all the decisions after it are going to taint it in the eyes of the child. And they're going to want to push back on it. But if it's made in wisdom, then you're more of a teacher and educator that's going to be a teacher.
• 29:07
  that's calm and collective and not fearful, but gives real reasons for things and gives real big biblical answers for things and has open conversations. So I really believe we have taken an approach of protect them from technology when they're young. But while they're in our home, we want them to have technology because we want to disciple them with technology while they're still in our home. So by the time they've launched, they're well aware of
• 29:33
  all the dangers, all the challenges, the addictions that can happen, how to keep your eyes pure, how to keep yourself safe, how to not look at other devices and so forth. And so we've really taken, I think, a well-rounded approach, but you can only take that approach if you're actually doing the other part, if you're actually discipling them and they're growing a relationship with the Lord. Otherwise, they just want the world. Yeah.
• 29:57
  It doesn't matter how much you protect them. They're just going to go to what the world has anyways. Yes. I think back in the day, men, well, families were learning their father's trades, right? And that was a given thing. It was a blessing that they would equip their children with the knowledge that they had so they could stand on their shoulders and do better than them, right? There was this like building the family legacy on top.
• 30:22
  of, instead of this individualistic independent spirit that we have in America, where it's like, oh, I'm 18, I'm launching, I'm going to go do something different. And I'm going to learn it from scratch. And I'm going to, I'm going to really suffer and work really hard and toil and all these things. And while every kid is wired differently, like we have nine and they are all not that none of them are going to do exactly what we have done. Right. And
• 30:44
  Um, but for us, we have really felt a strong responsibility to at the least teach them the skills that we have to prepare them for life. Right. And so when we started doing ministry, one thing that really shifted that became more family oriented was that it, it, there are seasons when it's all hands on deck. So three of our kids, three of our oldest six kids have all been our podcast editor. That's just one example. Um, but for us, we have really felt a strong responsibility to at the least teach them the
• 31:13
  And so Isaac knew how to do that. He taught our son, who's 23. He did it for the first four years. Then he and Isaac taught our daughter, Megan, who's our third. And she did that for three and a half years. And now the next one that is interested in that is doing it as well.
• 31:31
  But here's the thing, all six of the older kids all know how to build websites. There have been multiple opportunities where they were either selling essential oil shelves that they were making or handcrafted American flags. And they had to build a website to sell their products on. And so dad would sit down and he would teach them how to do that. And I think that when it comes to technology, just in general, if they're going to own a business, they're going to need at the least a website and they probably are going to need social media as well.
• 32:00
  So there's boundaries that need to be taught. There's etiquette that needs to be taught. And so for a while, you're helping them. Like you're overseeing. You're, I remember when our, some of our older kids were first starting on social media, they would send us a post. And with one of our daughters, this would even happen for years after she was on Facebook.
• 32:18
  She would send me a post and say, does this look okay, mom? Is this theologically accurate? And so I would read through it. But her heart was just, I want to encourage my generation. And that to me is like, she caught it. She caught the vision. It's about impacting for the glory of the Lord.
• 32:37
  And, and, but she wanted to be under so that there was protection and wisdom. And so she would come and say, can you look this over, make sure that it's correct. And then I'd say, yep, I think it's wonderful. And I'd encourage her and she'd post it. Right. And so I, I, I think that there's a need for that kind of a relationship where you're on the same team as a family and you get that what you're doing, it's not to build your kingdom. It's to build God's kingdom. Yeah.
• 33:04
  One of the things is how there's a couple things in the book. There's a whole chapter on producers versus consumers, which was part of our family culture. We drove very early on, which has to do with technology. Like, hey, we don't just consume other people's content only. You can do some consumption, but what's the balance? How much are you producing compared to how much you're consuming? And if it's out of balance, it's going to hurt you. It's going to hurt your mindset. It's going to hurt your capability and what you feel capable of and all those things. Right.
• 33:29
  We also have another chapter on social media and things. And one of the things is if a child wants to get on, say, Instagram or something like that, say they're 15 years old or whatever. Well, what's the reason? And we have them write out a reason. We have a little mission statement. What is my purpose to do this?
• 33:47
  Because if it's not a good purpose, then, you know, let's not do it. Become addicted to whatever the tech overlords are trying to convince me of, of course. Yeah, that's so important. If you don't, going back to the vision conversation, start with a vision and stick to the vision. And don't let some other...
• 34:04
  Don't let the enemy redefine the vision for what this is. And this is what's happening. There are good reasons to be on social media. Let's make sure that our use of that tool is limited to those good reasons because the tech oligarchs have another reason. They want to addict you to their technology so that they can monetize your attention. That's going to destroy your life. We have to fight against that. But I love what you guys are describing too.
• 34:29
  We need our children to be leaders in their generation. And if you cut your kids off from the tools that are the most powerful tools, oftentimes your kids just end up constantly playing catch up and then end up being kind of in the underclass of their generation, which doesn't allow them to maximize influence. We're being called to be fruitful, multiply, multiply.
• 34:49
  to fill, subdue, and rule as families. And so we have to have access to these tools, but man, we've got to be really shrewd, right? As wise as certain as innocent as doves. This is a hard thing to figure out. I love how you guys are describing this.
• 35:01
  It's super hard. And the biggest one, this is going to be exasperated with AI now. So the biggest challenge and the biggest concern parents probably have is what do we do with AI as Christian parents? How do we navigate this? I don't know. A lot of them themselves are like, I don't know anything about this. And it's all danger. And it was interesting. We were just at the teaching diligently conferences and they asked us to write our talks, what we want to speak on. I go, well, I'm going to teach everybody about AI and parenting.
• 35:26
  And so, and it was, it was super, I was super, it was interesting because they were packed rooms. It wasn't because of me. It was because of the title of the talk. And when I gave it, I mean, the gist of it is this, and there's a chapter in the book on AI and parenting. It's very important. Like, could the, is there a likelihood that Antichrist uses this to dumb down lines and get control and get everybody in his direction?
• 35:55
  Is it going to be used for evil? Yeah. And in the book, we give seven reasons how we think it's actually used for evil. But then, you know, it was kind of funny in the talk and they're all agreeing with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I used the up. I agree. I agree. And I go, but...
• 36:10
  You are disadvantaging, there's a disadvantage you're giving to your children if they're not equipped to use the tools and you do not equip them while they're in your home. In fact, one of the most important topics any homeschooling family can be teaching their teenagers right now is how to use the right AI tools, how to set the right boundaries around them so we don't lose our art, we continue to use our creativity, but instead let AI tools accelerate our creativity and not take the drug of replacing it.
• 36:40
  And if you don't talk to them about that, they'll just take the drug and they'll be numbed in mind. Successful, maybe, because they know how to use it. But they'll be numb in mind and they'll be controllable in the future. And so it's really important that we don't let them make sure they keep their art. And one of the, I just want everybody to hear this, one of the most important things you've got to be doing more important than ever before. These are unprecedented times because of this and several other things.
• 37:06
  is that you need to build their confidence in their original art, their ability to create. Everybody wired differently. So it might be different things working with wood,
• 37:17
  painting, different mediums and so forth. Sales, sales can be an art. So they're gifted in that. So they need to love their gift that God gave them and understand their gifts and have confidence in them so that they don't just go, well, that's going to save me three hours if I just have AI do it. They resist that. They still do their art and then they use tools to help their art get to the marketplace in a faster, more favorable, favorable way.
• 37:46
  And it's about integrity too, right? And so home discipleship, it applies to every topic in life, including AI. And so bringing up, you know, a lot of parents, especially homeschool parents, they might think, oh, my kids are naive. They don't realize that this tool could actually help them write their paper they're supposed to write.
• 38:06
  Right. They might think, oh, I think my kids don't they don't know that. So I'm not not going to bring it up. I'm just going to not talk about it because they don't want to put that idea in their head. But that's fear based parenting. Instead, we need to come to them with, did you know that this is what is happening today? What do you think has integrity? It's good.
• 38:27
  Bringing scripture up. What scriptures come to your mind? 17 year old son. What scriptures come to mind? 14 year old daughter. Like, you know what I mean? And having a dialogue where they're able to share with you what, because the reality is, is I think that we don't give our kids enough credit. They are more perceptive than we think they are. And the reality is, is even if you are homeschooling your kids, they're
• 38:50
  unless you're literally keeping them in an isolation bubble, they have friends and they are hearing about it. And so you have to get in front of it. It's kind of like the purity talk, right? Like you have to talk about things before other people do so that you are the one that's educating your children through a biblical worldview. Man, I feel like I'm really like, you guys have, your ministry is very well-branded.
• 39:13
  Courageous parenting. I think you're hitting the nail on the head of why there is so much fear. And every one of these areas, there was an easier, fearful path that you guys could have taken. And you're like, no, we're going to take this path. We're going to talk about it. And I think that that is so right. And I think parents need to really face this
• 39:37
  reality that I call the intentional age. Basically, if you're not intentionally talking about these things, and I think courage is the virtue that we're really reaching for, if you're not overcoming the fear you're feeling as a parent and actually wading into these very difficult things,
• 39:55
  Then there is no way that the enemy is not going to get kind of a hold of your kids because these things are coming for them anyway. The enemy's tools are so sophisticated that if we if we approach the enemy with a fully defensive and fearful posture as families, we're going to get crushed. You guys, we need we've got to go on the offense with our kids. We've got to talk about this stuff overtly.
• 40:15
  Unfortunately, because in the Christian world, there is sort of a such a strong bias towards conservatism in a sense of like, let's just hold on to the past that there is a there's a resistance to things that I think are going to overwhelm us. It's like it's like if the enemy was coming at your city and you're like, well, I just don't want to I just don't want to be bothered with going out and defending and actually trying to take back that ground. Let's just wait until we're overwhelmed. Yeah.
• 40:42
  and just get into a smaller and smaller world until it disappears. That is not the way we're going to win this. We're being called to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and rule. This is the mission God gave the family, but it requires more courage now than ever. So I would love for you guys to talk about your ministry, the book.
• 41:01
  How can people find out about this? Because I do think this is the key, you guys. We have to become very confident and faith-filled as parents in the era that we're heading into. And so I love how you guys are describing this. So yeah, tell people about the book first, and then I'd love to get into other tools you guys have as a ministry.
• 41:25
  Well, well said. Really, really awesome. Courageous Parenting, Amazon. It's Biblical Parenting, Unprecedented Times, 31 chapters, four sections that marriage challenges, podcast episodes that you can go to. We have 405 episodes on the Courageous Parenting podcast every week for seven and a half years.
• 41:44
  And it's every topic, nothing left out, biblical truth in the book and on the podcast show. The full ministry is at BeCourageousMinistry.org. And there's lots of ways you can support. There's merch, there's coffee, there's all those things. And our vision is that we feel like the Lord has given us is to impact 10 million families and their legacies with biblical resources that actually cut deep and cause real change for the kingdom.
• 42:14
  Yeah, I would say when it comes to making impact in the world, it's all about implementation, right? It's not just saying you're a Christian, it's being one, that our lives are literally changed and that Jesus and the Holy Spirit, like we have the Holy Spirit in us, we're going to look different than the world.
• 42:32
  Right. And that is in every area of our life. And so a lot of the resources that we have on Be Courageous Ministry, we've been doing the parenting mentor program for the last seven years before the book came out. We have another one starting up in a month or two. And that is a six week self-paced
• 42:49
  program. And then we have lives. We have three lives where we meet with people and we do like a 30 minute teaching and the 30 minute Q and a, and it's, we've been doing this for so long. Thousands of parents have gone through this. And I would say that a lot of the Q and a's, I mean, you just get a temperature for what is happening in families. When you are meeting with families on a regular basis, like we are where they're asking questions about how do you handle boundaries with in-laws? How do you handle when you have, um, uh,
• 43:18
  unbelieving family members, questions about homeschooling, questions about discipline. That's a whole nother thing. There's like biblical discipline. And then there's all the wayward parenting philosophies that are out there today. And they're, some of them are deceiving and calling themselves Christian. And it's parents today, they need biblical truth. And
• 43:37
  This is the guide. The Bible is the guide. It's the instruction manual. It's all we need, but it's, you know, the longer I'm sure you've experienced this, the longer that you've been parenting, the more God just keeps teaching you because his word is alive and active, right? And so you walk through something and if you're walking with a contrite heart and you're willing to be sanctified, his word is going to come alive in a different kind of way. And scriptures that maybe you've read a hundred times are going to mean something totally different.
• 44:05
  You know, I was just recently, we have an app. It's called Be Courageous App. And every Saturday morning, I do a Bible study called Heart of the Home. And it's to encourage women to have their hearts in their homes and not be constantly wanting to be out in a way, but like focus on what is your main mission, right? Yes. Yes.
• 44:24
  And so we've tackled so many topics. And I think I just said 245th one, right? But this week I was reading Psalm 127, which everyone knows so well. But even with that, it was like God was speaking, Angie, look, there's two ditches on either side of the road when it comes to build. It says, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain, unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
• 44:51
  It's vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. And then all of a sudden it hits me eating the bread of anxious toil. Proverbs 31 says, do not eat the bread of idleness. So there you have it. You have two ditches on each side. And what is God calling us to? It's the biblical middle road. Yes, we're going to steward our things well, but not with anxious toil. We're not going to be lazy. Right.
• 45:17
  We're not going to be OCD and stressed out and our kids hating us, right? Because we're about to practice hospitality, which is a biblical concept. So it's like, it's simple things like this, where we're literally, we're reading the Bible and then God just shows us his word connected to other parts of his word and how it applies to parenting and life today. Yeah. So good. What's the URL one more time?
• 45:41
  BeCourageousMinistry.org. BeCourageousMinistry.org. Okay. Awesome. You can find the book Courageous Parenting on Amazon. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Your ministry is so inspirational. I'm so glad to finally meet you guys. I hope I get to hang out sometime in Idaho. I love... Oh, come on by. Yeah.
• 46:01
  I want to, I want to experience the hospitality, just meet some of your kiddos. And, but, uh, this is so, there's been such a wonderful conversation. Thank you guys, particularly for the, the courageous part, like for elevating that virtue. I think I just, I think that that is rare to see that, to put your finger on that being the problem. And that's what we need right now. So appreciate you guys so much for jumping on here today. Absolute honor to be on. Good to meet you. And I can't wait to do dinner at our place. So come join us. I'd love that. Thanks guys.