Helping Your Child Develop a Resilient Faith in Uncertain Times

So all of these concepts fundamentally about. We've got to get to the heart of how words are used for how ideas are seeping into our minds and teaching kids to be a thoughtful about it.

I can do it in a loving way. It's not being a jerk to say it is kind of like you to the Princess bride, you keep using that word.

I do not think it means what you think of me and what a great way to teach ideas to get less John Stonestreet and he's our guest today on Focus on the Family as we talk about helping your child have a resilient faith your hostess focus president and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller, John the coronavirus, the pandemic is really taking its toll on all of us in many ways it's a magnifier in whatever challenges you had before. This virus struck. Whatever your issues, your underlying problems and will have. They seem a bit worse.

Now that's a magnifier but as believers in Christ we have hope. Jesus reminds us of this hope in John 1633, when he says in me you may have peace in the world you have tribulation, but take heart. I've overcome the world how beautiful that is in the face of this virus that gives me comfort and I hope it brings that kind of comfort to you as well. Today were going to be talking with John Stonestreet that he's can answer some of these tough questions about what's going on in the world and how we as Christians need to respond to a world that's in desperate need of faith and answers you and John wrote a book with Brett Kunkel on this very topic is called a practical guide to culture helping the next generation navigate today's world we got that here.

Click the link in the episode notes to find it. John and his wife Sarah have four children, three girls and a young boy, John, welcome back to Focus on the Family. Let's try to be with you anytime I can be with you, Jim. It's a good time. Love focus love everything that you guys do so. Thank you John.

As we look at this pandemic. That's one of things that concerns me is how fear seems to be gripping people. I have a family member who's calling my wife every couple of days and it's all filled with fear. It's the president's not doing this right people are doing that right.

Medical professionals don't know what they're doing, what are we gonna do we gotta protect ourselves is just a lot of anxiety in that context, what's the Christian approach to the pandemic.

Well listen I it's a real concern is in and I mean we live in a culture.

Now we live in a time in history were a lot of the real threats to our day-to-day existence that were just cut apart a life. At another time and another place kind of removed and so we have this illusion that the world is a place that we control and it creeps in.

Even if we can in our head. Know that God is in control.

It still kinda creeps in and when things like this happen to be really disorienting.

I you know I've got the same situation where we have friends and neighbors who are really panicked and then just a few days ago Jim with my own daughter. She was just having kind of a rough day my wife so much smarter than I am in and she said hey something else going on and she just expressed a level of fear about what was happening and she's probably among our kids the one that you know pays the least a bit of attention to kind of contemporary news or current events or things like that.

And yet it still had gotten to her well look that the thing that Scripture gives us that you really can't get anywhere else. The thing that our faith gives us is this vertical reference point right in other words, there is a God outside of this universe. We don't control the world.

He does we can remember that this God loves us enough to become one of us in Christ Jesus in an eternally defeat death and sin on the cross into the resurrection and that is where as Peter says where our whole lives at an amino Chuck Colson unit is my mentor and who calls the center of course is named after Easter.

Put it this way, despair is a sin because Christ is risen from the dead and want a great opportunity for parents to help their kids see that the resurrection is not just something that happened in the past is not just something that's part of, you know, the Christian book. It actually is something that redefines all of human history in our lives right now. And there's so many immediate concerns.

It's so easy to forget that the truest thing about right now and whether it's us dealing with the coronavirus here are brothers and sisters, and you know Nigeria dealing with Boca ROM and persecution is still Jesus Christ is risen from the dad and that's where we begin, that's for sure. The point of this, though, is all of this is kind of birthed out of that worldview that we possess and when people are coming from a place of fear and anxiety. It does show a bit of the breakdown of that worldview. And I think the first question I really want to ask years when were looking at the development of that world there. What are some of the biggest hurdles in teaching our children that Christian worldview today.

I mean I've got. That's the obvious softball question, but the culture is careening and losing into us, even as believers, so have a what is the development and how do we do that and then be his way to prevent the bad stuff from leaking in.

Yeah, you know, I think the greatest obstacle is asking how it's coming what you know one of those the lines that we seen the problem and it's us because it were not intentional to help them see that their faith is not just a part of their life, but it's the lens through which they see all of life.

What's the Christian perspective on this. What's the Christian view on this. If we don't have that sort of intentional level of conversation with our kids and our kids are going to get there worldview like they catch a cold or like they get sick they just catch it from their environment right in other words, it happens passively. They have a worldview don't make any mistake about that. But it becomes a very passive sort of acquisition as opposed to intentionally connecting the faith to what's happening, you know, in the world and so that's the biggest obstacle is that parents too often are not intentional. They think that kids worldview will happen either by osmosis or just because that's the way it's always been, and that really underestimates Jim as you put it, the power of culture and Jim you and I know the man how dramatically culture has shifted and we have felt that shift in areas of sexuality in you know the predominance of technology and so on. But our kids are natives were immigrants to this right, we have that, you know, immigrated into this new cultural reality, our kids have never known anything different. So if were not intentional, and pointing it out and say hey here's the connection of the faith to the coronavirus. Here's the connection of the faith units of socialism which is a big topic, especially, even for high schoolers. Given the and of the election which we've all forgotten about, but is still happening right this stuff really matters, and so that level of intentionality I think is the most important thing we can begin with weights true, and I think it comes down to this really hard question. How do we do that, how have you been doing it in your home and your kids and that's what it comes down to, because we have the cultural influence and we chose it in our home. Our two boys went to a predominantly Christian charter school, but it's there's no you know safeguarding that there mixing with kids that don't have a Christian worldview. So how do you teach your kids how to be Christian world that is not Christian. The first thing that we have done is trying to have it intentional that Christianity has more to do with our lives than just our behavior. In other words building that foundation of beliefs. It's very easy. As Christian parents to think that our kids will just absorb the beliefs that we have know again by osmosis. And so we focus in on behavior you know is your behavior honoring God.

Are you having the right kind of moral choices. So true yeah, but morality is at the top of the pyramid underneath that when a kid is out on his own when they have to make their own decisions or as many of us have found out his parents because you know sin doesn't stop at the edge of the home, school, family, write and send is not out there sin is in here and when kids have to make the decisions after making the privacy of their own. You know in private when no one's watching, then those decisions are based on compliance to a system there rooted and are deeply held beliefs about life in the world and so beginning with talking about Christianity as if it's not a way to behave. It's actually a set of fundamental beliefs about how we can know who God is, who actually exist, you know, and is engaged with his creation including us just of the night, Jim. We had a wonderful conversation around our dinner table about this were one of my daughters had read through the book of Esther and we were wrestling with what Esther about and in her first response was oh, it's about how to be courageous and I said will look.

Esther was courageous, but if you're you know someone of Jewish descent. Esther is not about Esther Esther is about the history of your nation like this is actually something that happened in real life, and now Christians have put this into their own Bible. What does that make sense of and why does God's name never pop up and Esther and it just started this wonderful conversation about how the story of the Bible that begins in Genesis and goes through Esther how God is preserving Israel to preserve the Messiah to make all things new.

Eventually, in his death and resurrection that this is actually real history like your reading about Esther like we would read about George Washington and it was this paradigm shifting moment for at least one of my kids. She told me because it was suddenly, this stuff is real. It's not just about how to behave or how I can be a better person. It's actually the true story of the world. That's one of the things we try to do the second thing is this strategy of asking really good questions. Sometimes we feel like we've got to have the answers but if you learn from the two greatest educators in history and I'll say that Socrates and Jesus who didn't have a lot in common. But what they did have in common was they taught through questions and we teach two fundamental questions I think are particularly helpful in developing worldview.

The first one is what you mean by that. And basically what were trying to do. There is force kids to think about how they use words. The battle for their hearts and minds is in the definitions that they embrace or CS Lewis would say they assume when the words like truth and love and freedom in God and male and female in marriage are used are culture might be using the same vocabulary as the Bible but not the same dictionary and fighting for those definitions are ways to get underneath. What's happening in our culture to that worldview level. Yeah, the other question we ask is how do you know that's true because we live in a world where well.

It's called the age of information for good reason.

Right amidst the noisiest culture in human history, which means things are thrown around. You talked about Jim your family member. One of the problems that creates fear and so many is just the sheer amount of information that never goes away and were people in headlines make assertions that are not backed up by facts or arguments and this becomes a really common thing right.

How many teenagers do you know that start there kind of opinions by saying what I feel. Well, wait a minute. How do you know your feeling is true, you talk about in your book, the need, not just to read the Bible, but understand the context in which it speaking from and you know I think one of the things that the people of all stripes, you can be a teenager and have the same feeling that many so-called Christian leaders will twist Scripture to fit a doctrine that they want to create and you gotta be so careful. Understanding the Scripture in its context, so to speak to that element of reading the word is important, but reading it with the context it's being spoken is even more important. Oh yes in Scripture has been used it well abused to justify all kinds of awful things rhino throughout history and it becomes really disillusioning and we actually see it. I will say though, Jim. One of the things that should give us hope and should chasten our skepticism on how the Bible can be misused is that throughout the history of the world. If you kind of a layout. What do Christians believe there is a strong core of truth that goes throughout history so it's it's if you know that it's not too hard to really realize you know who strayed from the truth because there's this core way that the Bible teaches a lot of it's kind of obvious, this is your center and you need a Savior and Jesus was God in the flesh in the history of the Israel was the kind of set up Jesus this way. Now the problem comes because what we do is not read the Bible holistically were read in bits and pieces of Francis Schaeffer said that that's the problem is that we don't think in totals. We think in bits and pieces and we read the Bible in bits and pieces I think Philip Yancey calls it the moral McNugget approach to the bottom right so you look for a story over here are verse over here completely without looking at any verses or stories around it and then you try to pull out that moral McNugget from your life and what we do with that.

Jim is we treat the Bible and Bible stories like Aesop's fables. This was what my daughters you know were thinking about when it came to Esther. They were thinking while here's a story and when I read a story I look for something, you know, some mortal plasma. Is it what it did, as it is made that story really more a myth or a fable for them than actual part of the history of Israel, which is central to the whole history of the whole world according to the biblical story so to quick pieces of advice one is never read just a Bible verse. You can get at the heart of almost all of Scripture by just reading before and after. Secondly, I would say is read whole chunks of the Bible as much as possibly a full book if you can do that will block yeah I mean II learn this in seminary where you know when I can sit down and read the Gospel of Matthew in about 45 minutes. Now I had to for an assignment every night of the week for one week, but it was remarkable to see look even if I don't want to read the whole thing. I could certainly read more than a verse here or chapter. There, I can see Jesus's movement in the early parts of his ministry. If you do that with the gospel of John. You start to realize wait a minute John spending half of the book on three years.

In the second half of the book on one week right.

I mean, this is really amazing and this stuff becomes obvious. We tell people ignore the verses ignore the chapter divisions and read large chunks but never just yank a Bible verse, you know out of the middle of nowhere and twisted see what it actually means.

Look at the verse before in the verse. After look at verses before and verses after and that at this and if you just do that much.

You'll go a long way towards not reading it out of context me, let me turn a corner here because again I think for the listeners. It's important to hear about this.

We talk about pluralism and its impact on the culture and then I would couple that with even tolerance, and I have heard it described that the God of this generation. This era is the God of tolerance and if you express tolerance. You are a welcome citizen into this world and tolerance certainly has its place.

I mean Jesus was incredibly tolerant of sinners he engaged them.

He talked with them. He was really cursed for engaging with them. Whether was the tax collectors. The drunkards etc. but he said quickly and I've come for the sick, those who are well who needs a doctor right but I'm coming from these people that are struggling and but speak to the pluralism and then couple that with the idea of tolerance and its ascendance in the culture today. Yeah. Listen, this is the perfect place to introduce that question.

What do you mean by that because pluralism can mean two things. And historically, pluralism has meant has been more of a descriptive word. In other words, it's describing the terrain, the culture in which we live, and that it's a culture that's not dominated by one particular philosophy or one particular religion.

One particular belief system but it has many it's a pluralistic culture in a descriptive sense.

Well that's observably true right so to same. A pluralist I can say I'm a pluralist in that sense.

But what has happened in our culture is that word has moved into not just a descriptiveness explanation for what the world is but a prescriptive one, which means because there's so many different belief systems. It's intolerant or bigoted or hate for or wrong to say that anyone has the truth so pluralism has become actually a prescriptive mandate against the idea of having the truth and if we don't actually help kids see the difference between those two uses of the word or because we live in a culture where the so many belief systems represented that there is such a thing as truth and that truth actually is knowable. That's what is required to navigate this world that is so pluralistic and effectively. Here's the thing, is our culture's been pluralistic for a while. When you take pluralism and dump it into an information age than that means these random half-truths, unexplained things get dumped addressed to headlines and means in an Facebook post and twitter feeds and Instagram, and you know tick-tock and everything else. And so it becomes even more pluralistic in that sense because things are so on. Contextualized same thing is true.

By the way, the were tolerance. Jim is what you mean by tolerance. If tolerance means, I think you're wrong but I respect your ability to have an opinion I'm going to honor you and by not you know taking away your rights or beating you up or you know harming you or anything like that. That's the traditional sense of the word tolerance I'm going to tolerate but tolerance now again has been hijacked. It's been redefined to mean you can't think anybody actually has the truth and you can't think anybody is wrong. So all of these concepts.

Fundamentally, we've got to get to the heart of how words are used, how ideas are seeping into our minds and teaching kids to be a thoughtful about it and I can do it in a loving way. It's not being a jerk to say unit. It is kind of like you to the Princess bride, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think of me and what a great way to teach ideas the kids that's so true, and I think one of the things that were saying is this a demand for tolerance except for the Christian community. Let me give you a perfect example and for the listeners talk about this when you have a moment, the New York Times story that basically blamed Christians for the coronavirus outbreak, which I'm still perplexed trying to understand what are they really saying and what they were. I think attempting to say is that because Christians are so disconnected from science. Therefore, their lack of doing the right thing or holding this president accountable for whatever they perceived to be his in action, or the administrations in action.

They're guilty for spreading coronavirus. I thought that was a blatant intolerant thing to sell and very prejudiced but you're seeing that throughout the culture mostly around the definition of marriage ironically oh yeah, that is.

That's the crux of the issue that because we won't believe in a broader definition of marriage for humanity were sticking to what the word of God says that marriage is for man and a woman and if you say that man you are truly intolerant and basically don't deserve oxygen to breathe that this is exactly the things that parents can bring up with their kids. Number one look at the intolerance of tolerance. Let's define the word what it is and what it's not.

Are they really being tolerant. What a great way to get a fundamental idea of how do we live and work and live together with people with whom we disagree. Secondly, why is it that the conflict seems to be between these two groups of people.

That is a profound thing to talk about with your kids. This is different than get off my lawn.

They hate us, or where the persecuted minority or everyone hates Christians and so on and so on and so on. We need to get to the heart of what it is that is the root of the disagreement because it's not just a kind of a personal grudge that's happening here although it's kind of turned into that at times, but what is at root of this is a fundamental disagreement about what it means to be human about beliefs were back to where we started. Jim what is true, and so on. This is a wonderful opportunity to talk about this and then the third level of this that we can talk about is what what happens. What should you do when someone mistreats you in the name of tolerance. Okay, this is a really interesting one and I I want to share a story with you. The focus listeners have heard me expresses I I recall, I had written a book called refocus which hits on these themes and I was invited to a bookstore here in town and the owner of the bookstores fairly liberally minded and a progressive as the left calls themselves. I call it regressive, but he invited me down and I will. I wanted to be a good citizen, a good friend and I said yes and I went down this by 50 to 70 people there can remember I spoke about these things and I remember a happen to be a homosexual activist was in the crown. He put his hand up and I called on him during the Q&A time and he said you know when will Christians get away from their antiquated sexual orientations and understand human sexuality in the 21st century. Why would a state I'm smiling and I could tell it was irritating him and he you know why you smiling nice about. Here's the bottom line you're asking me a follower of Christ to take out some kind of a racer and do a race. Certain things in the Bible that offend you or offend me. That's not how it works. My friend the way it works is I'm a follower I'm not the editor I'm certainly not the author and your issue is with the author of the Scripture, God himself and we never use the Scripture to bend to our proclivities. We have to bend to it.

That's called born again and being a faithful follower of Christ, and I feel for these people that want to change the very core of Scripture to fit their desires. There lusts. There idolatry and I'm telling you, friend. As a believer in Christ.

You don't want to go down that road, because that's the road to damnation. I'm sorry to tell you but that's it.

And what we gotta do is bend our lives toward the creator of life and that's what you've done so well. John and your great book.

Let me ask you at the end here is that this is really for the benefit of all. But what are some of those questions parents and young people can have. To further their confidence, their position there worldview. As we talked about what are some questions that can cover that really open up the spiritual dialogue between them. Yeah, well, listen. It's a great question. I think those clarifying questions that we mentioned earlier, especially the definition of words when there's so much noise when you mean by that I do know that's true you know there's also a great pair of questions in their pair.

They fit together because we live in a culture in which we try to remove the natural consequences from behaviors right whether it's through abortion or whether it's through unit how we do, even criminal justice, and everything in between its these questions about consonants.

What if you're right and this belief and what if you're wrong in this belief.

What a great way to again show the connectedness between our faith in life but to give you the one that I think is most profound.

The greatest commandment in the Bible is not to believe it's not to think it's not to defend.

It's the love that I think times like this. Experiencing this lockdown and an uncertainty that are loves are going to bubble to the surface. Much more obviously than perhaps in other situations where I so appreciate that it's true.

I think that we've been experiencing.

Actually, in this dark cloud we have seen the silver lining in our household club and on each other. Spend time together playing board games, reading the word together, praying together.

It feels like the way family should operate and it showed me how much busyness robs us of the prioritization of how to use our time wisely. John Stonestreet, thank you for being with us. Thanks to and let me turn to you the listener of Focus on the Family is here for you. Our staff is answering phones and ready to help in whatever way we can and we get this quarantined business is not easy, but you're not alone. We have lots of resources available for you on our website from everyday parenting issues and marriage issues. Things to equip you to do a better job in both of those areas and with your family in general. We even have information to keep you up to speed on the coronavirus from experts that we have recorded with recently that we also have John's great book. A practical guide to culture helping the next generation navigate today's world and the best thing about getting your copy through Focus on the Family's of those proceeds go right back into ministry. I mean you're helping to save marriages help parents do a better job raising their kids and saving babies lives. I mean, how about that so we hope you'll get a copy of John's book through Focus on the Family and will encourage your gift of any amount to the ministry of Focus on the Family today. I will say thanks for joining the support team by sending your copy of a practical guide to culture.

I just look for the details in the episode's will. Tomorrow will have some practical tips about how you can be a great neighbor. During this coronavirus crisis and what if the people of God learn how to take teaching of Jesus seriously like were to love those who persecute us word to pray for those that we find difficult or annoying or challenging me. What if every believer could try the other neighborhood and I think we can have to because we can escape. So it's an opportunity. If we choose to see it as such to grow in really try on the teaching of Jesus and on behalf of Jim Daly, and the entire team. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller inviting you back. As we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ