Anchored
Anchored
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Steve Parr
Interview with Steve Parr, author of “Why They Stay”. Steve shares from his research and personal journey about the investments needed to help keep kids connected to the church for a lifetime. Steve also discusses how to stay connected with kids that have already strayed.
Well, hello, and welcome back to the Anchored Family Ministry podcast. We are four dedicated staff members, plus another very dedicated staff member, but not on our staff here at Harps Crossing.
Here today, helping families navigate what it looks like to build disciples at home. I'm Jennifer, and I'm here with James Paul. Paul and Daniel in person. And then we have a phone interview today.
And this is the first one I've been in on. - Me too. - Yeah. - It's only our second. - It's exciting. That's okay. It's my first. - 50 /50 shot. - Yeah, yeah. - That's right. So we have Steve Parr here with us today and we'll tell you a little bit more about him and his role in writing and move into that in a second.
But how's everybody doing? - It's good. - Doing well. You know, second week of spring training, no injuries so far yet for Braves too much. Acunia came back clear. So hoping for no new injuries moving forward and let's get the season started.
- I like the way in my mind when you're talking about second week of spring training, like it was you out there. - That's what I was thinking too. - I got my glove at home if they need me. - He's always ready.
- We'll see, to me, this is Bible school. Wow. Yeah. I mean, we're already in it. VBS. Yeah. Time at VBS, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. When you just go to VBS,
like, oh, this is just this week long thing and, you know, get registered and sign up. And now when you're leading it, a little bit different. We started our first meeting a couple of weeks ago. I mean, it's usually starts in January,
the planning. Yeah. It's fine. I love it. D now coming up in a week for our students. And so it's kind of one of our huge events for the year and planning that and looking forward to that. So yeah, good things happening.
- I know by the time this airs, that'll be over with and PBS will be closer, but - - Party fail. - No worries. - No, it's good. - It's good. - The spring training will be over, hopefully no injuries,
whatsoever. - When's the opening day? - Thursday, March 28th in Philadelphia. - And that is the day that people will hear this podcast. - Yeah. - Awesome. - Look at that. - Watch the break.
- We'll celebrate. - Yeah, drive into the game, turn on the podcast. - Well, it's on the road, but. - I mean, any game. - That's true. - You say spring training.
I'm like, is football already starting back for spring training? - Spring practice. - Yeah, they will do it. - Well, we have a guest patiently waiting, listening to us chat about our week.
All is going well, beautiful day. And Steve, thank you so much for joining us. Glad to be here. Just to kind of segue to that, I'm in a slow fantasy baseball draft and I've got Matt Olson queued up right now.
So we're good to go. You're speaking my language. I'm in a 16 team dynasty league with teenage prospects. And so I'm drinking from that water cooler, but I don't want to nerd out. So I would take Matt Olson,
50 homers, 120 RBIs. You'll be good. I didn't understand a single word. league teenage prospects. Whoa.
Hey, so tell us a little bit about what you do currently and maybe just a bit of your history. Yeah, I'll be glad to. Currently I serve as the executive director of missions of the largest association in Georgia.
It is the Gwinnett Metro Baptist network, but most people don't know me for that for 20 plus years. I worked at the Georgia Baptist mission board in a variety of areas. So So very acquainted with Georgia Baptist.
Been to Hart's Crossing for the years several times, not recently, but through the years. And I did a lot of training in small groups. Later at the mission board, I went on to be like an executive pastor role where I led the staff there.
In addition, I've written several books through the years. So I'm thinking a lot. And of course, that's why you've been by to me today about one of my books, which is become one of my hottest topics and still is a very hot topic about deals with parents and pastors and here's the bottom line of the book.
How do we keep kids connected to church into their adult lives? Right, it's called why they stayed, correct? Right. A lot's being written about when we're losing young adults and why people are walking away,
but we kind of flipped that upside down into a national research project, multi -denominational east to west coast and we studied young adults who grew up going to church. And instead of asking why they're leaving,
we did the opposite. We looked at the ones who were still there, asking the question, "Why did they stay in church?" And it's powerful information for church leaders and for parents. - We perused recently,
we had it a while back and we're studying it. Years ago, I remember when it came out and then we were looking at it recently. And just, just curious, that was done 15 right somewhere around there?
15, so 2015 is when it was published, yes. Okay, and we'll come back some of the results and what surprised you, but since then have you seen trends more recently for the good or the bad that affects some of that research?
Well, let me say this first of all, just culturally. the climb is getting steeper for teenagers growing up in this culture and I would not want to be a teenager today. That certainly makes it more challenging for us as parents.
There are more voices speaking into the minds of our children because of the World Wide Web, which is a great thing, but more people have access to your children and your children have access to more information,
a hundredfold that I did when I was drawing up. And that is certainly affecting us as parents and affecting the children and making that faith journey steeper for them. And we need to be aware of that.
They're also exposed to a lot of good, of course, too. As you were sharing that, I'm thinking, you know, right now, I know James is teaching through a series on identity, what the Bible has to say about who we are. So we'll come back to that,
but let's go back to your research. research. What has stood out to you, maybe a few of those findings that stood out to you the most, or maybe surprised you?
- Well, let me tell you what stands out the most. And we found what we call 10 heavy anchors. That's 10 things that highly increase the likelihood that your child will be in church as an adult. The weightiest thing was the way your child views scripture.
And I cannot emphasize enough how important it is. is moms and dads for them to see the way that you handle and believe in scripture and give you an example I'm not old school about things but if I'm sitting in a worship service I'm not looking on my iPhone or my iPad I want the Bible in my hand because if I'm on my phone they don't know what I'm looking at but if I've got the Bible open they know what I'm
looking at hard copy yeah I'm trying my children to see me elevating the Word of God yeah for me listening to the message, for them to see me in my home reading God's Word.
And I would say from a church perspective, apologetics has never been more important than they are in this generation. I got my apologetics in college. You can't wait until college anymore. We've got to be doing apologetics when children are in the fourth,
fifth grade and from the beginning, but especially teenagers and older children instead of waiting. So that was one thing. thing. One of the big surprises was the influence of the senior pastor.
And we found that those who were still in church said they loved their pastor when they were growing up, which means they had a relationship with him. And when you get into a larger church as a parent, you may have to,
to some degree, I said the word manipulate. I don't mean in a negative sense, but you may have to orchestrate. That's just probably a better word relationships them in the past are probably. Because we found the closer they were to their pastor growing up,
the more likely they were in church as adults. And another thing we found in that context, which speaks to your church and your pastor, which is very positive, we discovered that the more pastors a child had growing up,
the less likely they were in church as an adult. In other words, now talk about staff members now, talk about the lead pastor. If they had five or six pastors, a new pastor every two or three years, they'd probably weren't in church.
But those who grew up with just one pastor, or maybe two pastors the whole time, were very likely in church. So I want to affirm Dennis and your church and a long tenure and the power of that and the relationship of a child.
Now that's two just examples. The weightiness of scripture, the Big Sur Prize, that was not a surprise by the way. That's just a one thing I want to emphasize. Big Sur Prize though would be the the relationship with the pastor.
Not a surprise, but just something to encourage parents. We found those who grew up in church and were still there when they were growing up, both their mom and dad served in the church when they were growing up.
Now, key word, I didn't say they attended. I said, mom and dad serves. I want to say to you parents, moms and dads, thank you for what you do. But when you're serving at the church, it is really reinforcing.
the way your children view your faith that you really embraced it and having an impact on them. So please, please be finding ways to serve and not just attending the church.
And it's important again for both mom and dad. At a previous time when I was at a different church and working with a different pastor, he said the youth pastor from every church is the senior pastor, meaning that the senior pastor kind of sets the standard and is involved in a lot of students not just growing up,
but when they leave for college. And yeah, we've definitely seen that here with Dennis and I mean, I've only been here for for six months, but just seeing him and Sheila interacting with our students, definitely see that. And that's awesome.
And then what you were talking about, about, and that's what we're all about is building disciples at home, right? The thought that the parents are the primary disciples when the students see in their parents,
children, in their parents, what it means to follow Jesus, that just so much greater makes the likelihood that they would follow Christ as opposed to a parent dropping a kid off at church once a week,
twice a week. And I try to stress that with parents that, "Hey, I might have your kid for one hour, two hours in a week. You live with them." Right? You see them every single day. "Hey, I'm going to disciple your kids,
but we want parents." to be the ones as the primary ones. And we can walk alongside, but one or two hours a week just isn't going to be enough to make real life change.
I appreciate you saying that. That's good stuff. I remember Paul gave me a little pocket Bible when I was in youth ministry. I think I still got it somewhere. It's good. It's got a little sticker on it, but I remember taking it to school and breaking the night and re -knit.
And then eventually I felt conviction to graduate beyond that and bring my big Bible, you know, to school. I don't know. It was almost like a challenge. It was almost like putting a stake in there and saying, "This is what I believe and I'm not ashamed of it." And even like carrying it in Starbucks.
What's funny is I attended a church friend of mine wanted me to come and hear a speaker. So of course I'm going to church and bringing my Bible. This particular church, a thousand of people coming in, they had to get bussed in from parking lots and stuff like that and not a single person was carrying their Bible.
I was shocked. And I had to go up to one of the college students who was serving this a long time ago. And I had my Bible and I could tell immediately that I was way different than everyone else because she was confused almost that I had a Bible with me.
And I remember even talking to students and Jaden was one of them. I said, "Hey man, are y 'all starting to carry around your Bible? Like, do you actually care about this thing? Are you not ashamed of the Gospel?
You know, what it is right now?" Christianity and the people started doing this pretty cool. This physical stuff, the digital stuff is neat, but too many distractions. And I think we can get away with kind of hiding instead of outright claiming to be a Christian.
- I remember talking to you, Steve, along those lines, you know, talking about that commitment or the challenge, kind of to make your faith your own, you know, you're like, no. is really mine. It's going to affect the decisions I make and where I go.
And I remember asking you, Steve, about disciple building and having a team of leaders within your youth group, for example, that you pour into more. And I remember you saying something about some research that y 'all found where it was whether or not kids went to a public high school or Christian.
Christian high school, didn't necessarily make a huge impact on whether they continued in their faith. But if they chose to go to a Christian college, you did see difference because that was more their own choice.
Am I remembering correctly? You're right. And that was one of the bigger prizes. And I'm really curious. Again, of the things we did, all the research has been affirmed. I've seen other studies and I've not seen any contradiction to what we discovered.
when we did this several years back. But one thing that was a surprise to me was the elementary, high school education didn't seem to be the tipping point or the key difference.
Although I'm a big advocate of Christian schools, I'm a big advocate of homeschooling, but it was not the key, but we did discover that those who went to a Christian college or much much,
much more likely to be in church as a 30, 35 year old than one who went to any other kind of college or those who didn't go to college dollars. As a matter of fact, we did find that even going to college,
interestingly, for someone with a college more likely to be in church than one who did not, that was interesting to find that also. Can you say the last part one last time? Yeah. We found out that a person who went to college and graduated was more likely to be in church as an adult than one who either did not go to college or went to college and did not graduate.
What I drew from that was it has to do with a, I think the attitude of commitment and seeing things through. In other words, when you go to college,
you got to be self -disciplined. Nobody's behind you telling you to do it. And there's this edge You don't want to see it through and the same thing is true in faith. You know, we persevere which they committed We messed up.
We spray some stuff, but we always come back the spirit draws us back But it was interesting that those who went to college and graduated were more likely to be there than those who did not go at All or those who went and did not graduate.
Hmm. That may be uniquely North American by the way I don't know if you'd find that if you did it in China or something, but it wasn't a surprise and And all the things we were able to put a biblical underpinning to,
that's the one we were not necessarily. That's why I did stretch it to us proposed that it has to do with the level of commitment of the person and having those disciplines, you know, to see things through is the bottom line.
I'll give you an example real quick. One of my daughters was playing basketball and she decided she didn't want to play anymore. She said, dad, I'm going to quit. I said, what are you talking about? I'm not going to play basketball. anymore." I said,
"Oh, yes you are." I said, "You got practice Thursday night." She said, "Well, why? Why do I have to go back?" I said, "Well, what's your name?" She said, "My name's Lauren Parr." I said, "Well, Parr's don't quit." I said,
"Now, you don't have to play next year, but you're going to see this thing now." She cried and upset, but she was at practice Thursday night. This game started, I did not let her quit. There's no telling how impactful that was.
I did not let her quit. Because if you met this young lady that she she's an adult. She is bulldog determined and gets things done. She's not a quitter. And so how about in our faith, a lot of people walking away,
thinking let's do college and more to do with attitude and more to do again, the attitude that we try to, try to build into the lives of our children. So that makes sense.
That was my thoughts was the parents are the ones who who are encouraging and kind of keeping up and even when they're in their college years and stuff like that with college,
finishing college, but then also with their faith. And that's built up over a lifetime or at least their entire lifetime. - Well, we don't quit when you, but commitment,
you see it through. And again, like in the basketball situation it was, she had to play the rest of her life, but she had to see through the commitment that she made, but she had to see through the commitment that she made. which was for that season. - I had one other thought on that. And I feel like it goes a little bit counter to at least what sometimes I think is the attitude in church is,
which is you just get saved, you get baptized, and that's kind of it, and you're good, you know? And God's gonna come and, you know, he'll do a thing, you know,
but oftentimes we forget. But no, no, no, it requires work and everything. You're seeking him and you're drawing closer and you're the one putting yourself in a position to grow.
I mean, of course, the Lord is the one that does the increase, but yeah, it's a commitment. We're saved by faith. We grow with sweat. You know, you got to invest. That leads to a question I definitely wanted to get to.
And this would kind of maybe fall into Jennifer's area more so to talking about children. growing up in church, which I'm sure a lot of our listeners, that's who they are. They have families that are committed to the local body of Christ,
their members, and their kids are growing up in an environment where their parents want them to be saved and are praying for them. The pastors want them to be saved. God wants them to be saved. If they know all this,
and so many times we see, you know, seven year olds are just picking an age, you know. a younger child walk down the aisle or come to somebody and pray to receive Christ.
And we celebrate that. We rejoice with them. But as they grow, Steve, what advice or practices, talking about that sweat, you know,
could we put into place or would you advise parents to put into place to help start discerning if this was a genuine conversion or whether it was a kid who was just culturally sane this is what we do.
And like Daniel said, I have prayed a prayer, got baptized and now I'm good versus, 'cause we're kind of having this conversation a lot at our church right now as we're beginning to discuss what meaningful membership looks like and when do we baptize,
when do we say kids are ready to be active members of the church versus what their parents are seeing at home. And so I don't know, can you speak to that? Well, I will do my best to make sure I understand your question.
So please ask a follow -up if you want to. What I want to say to parents is so important that you continually, I mean, from as early on as possible, that you expose your children to environments where not only is the gospel being presented,
but where again, they're being fed at their life stage and faith. Now. Now, whether that's going to a Christian camp, whether that's being in Bible study every week,
where it's going to that wisdom night programming, but also it's important that you have other adult in their lives. That's why Bible study groups are so important. When my children were growing up,
there came a point where they just weren't listening to me a whole lot, nothing personal. It's just the same thing with me and my parents when you get into those adolescent years. So as a parent, always one of people.
speaking into my children's life, telling them the same thing I would tell them if they were listening to me, and they were hearing me, but they were hearing others, the Bible study leaders, the student pastor,
other adults. So I've got to put them in those environments that gets tougher with a strong -willed child. And we can talk about that too, and how you do that with a strong -willed child. But you've got to be intentional as a parent about that,
because they can't drive. You've got to place them in those. those places and it's amazing. When we do that for a baseball, we'll drive them and we'll sit in the parking lot, wait on them. And I love baseball. We'll talk about while they go,
I love sports. I may sports nut, but we've got to think about it from again, the spiritual perspective. Some parents invest more in the athletic endeavors or the academic endeavors of their children than they do the spiritual endeavors.
I'm not going to say it's important, it's more important, as a matter of fact, but we tend to drift away from that sometimes as parents. And so we don't want them 24 /7 where they're just feeling overwhelmed by what we're doing,
but we've got to have those opportunities throughout the week for they're exposed to the spiritual things as well as what's happening in the home. Of course. Right. I think your book, as I was reviewing it again,
you said at the beginning, I mean, it almost goes without saying that kids who are are truly born again You see a big difference in those who remain in their faith because if they're not they're they're not gonna remain So just be aware and walking with your your kids through we'd see again a lot of kids at Teenage years all of a sudden at a camp saying hey,
I didn't know what I was doing when I was younger I'm giving my life to Christ now, and I'd like to be baptized, which is awesome. We love to see that as we work with kids.
One thing we did notice that what those who were in church as adults, they came to Christ when they were young, but not too young. And we found very few that were still in church who quote came to faith before five years of age.
I've known people at four or five, six years of age, but that's a very tricky time. And I would just. say this, don't throw water on the fire. That's for sure. But at the same time,
proceed cautiously when they're at five, six, seven, eight range. I remember I made both a decision when I was about nine years of age and my parents did not allow me to get baptized at that point.
It was very wise because it was about three years later that the lights really came on and I genuinely gave my heart to Christ. I was baptized then. So I think it is okay, I believe in you to trust Christ and to be baptized,
but I believe with a child, I think it is okay to be patient just a little while and look for the fruit there before you do that because you don't want to have them baptized and give them a false sense of security because how many people do we know that say I prayed or prayer,
I was baptized and there's no fruit in their life beyond that. The main thing is keep feeding the hungry. hunger they've got when they've got it. Thanks, good sense. No test. You wouldn't like hire a bunch of strangers to intimidate them and try to get them to,
sorry, go back on their word. Not much to get it right. That's what youth groups for. Yeah, exactly. James has got that in the works. Yeah. So Steve, I'm the student pastor here and I've read a number of books on young people,
and adolescents, teenagers, what they're struggling with. social media, communication technology. And there's a book that I read by a lady named Sherry Turkle, who's a professor at MIT called Reclaiming Conversation,
The Power of Talk and a Digital Age. And she was just given a number of examples. And one example she gave was of high school seniors who were applying to Ivy League schools who felt anxious about talking with those schools over the phone.
So when they got the call back, whatever the decision was, was, they would send it to voicemail and then type out a response 'cause they didn't wanna talk to a stranger over the phone. And I'm just constantly thinking through as I can minister to young people,
what are they struggling with? And one thing that I've definitely seen is just conversation, right? Like face -to -face conversation because we live in such an age of texting and that has its purpose and email definitely does.
But I guess if he could just kind of speak to the, what are the... the things that should be warning signs for us for young people? I mean, we could spend hours and hours talking about social media, but just in a few short points,
like what are things that parents who have teenage children should be watching out for with them? Yeah, by the way, the book is done. Address that body. I want to give you another one. Gene twinge,
T W E N G E wrote a book called I G N I G E N. She's a sociologist or or psychologist, not a Christian, but there's a chapter in there about religion and it's very well written and nothing's contradictory to what we would believe or do as Christians.
It's just a great resource. But one thing with our children we've got to remember is this. Now I'm gonna give you a real quick example to set this up. I had a parent tell me one time,
"I just cannot get my son to come to church any longer. Ever since he got a car, he does not come to church." And I said, well, where did he get the car? Cause he was 16. She said, we gave it to him. I said,
well, my cars go to church every Sunday, you know, all of my cars in the parking lot. I said, you know, my girls got cars, but all those cars were in the parking lot on Sunday. And I said that to say this is my mantra to parents.
As long as I pay, I get a say. So a cell phone is pretty common for a student today or a child today, not a job, but a teenager. When I give them that phone,
if I do, as long as I pay, I get to say, for me, it's not going to be in their room at night. It's going to be in my room at night. It's my phone. It's not their phone. I'm the one paying for it. You can draw boundaries.
And they're going to tell you, but my other friends, what doesn't matter about other friends, I've got to draw some boundaries. And it's not that they can't have one, but they can have the technology that can have the phone that can have the social media,
but they have it with boundaries. Because I remember seeing it, I was not good at drawing my own boundaries. I didn't realize it, but I needed help with it. And your teenagers don't realize they didn't need to help with it.
I'll say this, your teen is more mature than you think they are. They know more than you think they know. However, they're not as mature as they think they are, and that's what they need to do. Yeah.
There'll be a lot more. about it. But one way to remove the tension of that is you do it on the front end when it comes to a car, when it comes to social media, when it comes to a cell phone, those things. On the front end,
you have those conversations, instead of fighting about it in the back end. And I had one daughter, we had to put it in writing, whatever it was, because she could conveniently forget what we said or misinterpret what we said or change what we said.
We learned we had to write it down in a positive way. on the refrigerator or whatever it was, any boundaries or so forth. You may have to do that with some of your children, but you do have to take some initiative because let me tell you, this is a great time to be alive.
But again, many people do have access to your children and they are getting confusing messages and you've got to help. And it's a struggle. I know this is not easy, but you've got to help draw those boundaries for them.
Now, one thing to do to pair, have confidence. with other parents. We can share one another on it, encourage one another in this regard, because sometimes we're wonderful doing the right thing or not. And other parents can be a great help here,
especially those who are parents, you know, a godly parents trying to raise their kids right. Definitely. One thing I saw with my teenagers was pushing them to work because they had to save up money anyway to get a car and that sort of thing and be a part of that process,
but working forced them to learn how to interact with people differently. and people that weren't in church necessarily and actually affirmed a lot of what we were saying about talking, having eye contact.
Yes, sir, no, sir, sort of stuff, being on time and a lot of biblical wisdom that we've been showing them for years. It was reaffirmed just like Steve said, they're more mature. They have the ability to be more mature and they actually,
when they do that, become more mature, which is fun. I want to reinforce what you said too, because I didn't speak to the is the social skills today are diminishing. And it's nobody's fault.
It's just the environment we're in. But as parents, you are going to have to take a little bit more niche than parents of former generations may have to help develop some of those social skills, those basic social skills.
Like I said, look at some of the, I think until adult respectfully, you know, shaking someone's hand, those various different like, Hey, make this phone call. Have them do it. It's a different world,
I'm telling you, but we've got to be on top of it. I'm telling you. One last thing, Steve, I'd love for you to share a little bit of your personal journey, because I know some of the feedback we get from parents is,
you know, what about parents that have done everything right as far as trying their best to know how to disciple their kids and grow them up, going to church, being actively involved,
serving alongside your kids. And still, that kid has as a young adult strays and that's hard for parents they don't want to say hey if you do all these things it's gonna work out perfect most of the time it sounds like it does work out in the end but there can be some tough years so I know you've shared your story a little bit but could you share that with this audience?
I sure will and I've got several things I want to share there and one thing I'll remind you of is God is the perfect father I think we would all agree and yet all we like deep have gone astray. So you can do everything right as a parent and things can still go wrong.
Now, if you do everything wrong, it's not gonna go right. So remember that too. It was not only the erosion of young adults in the church, but in my own family of my three daughters, when I was doing this research,
or before I did it, two of my daughters were in church and one was out of church. And it bothered me, I was wondering, where did I miss the mark? And so that's why I was trying to study this. subject. I had one of my daughters who was very,
very strong -willed, very rebellious. There's a chapter in the book about her called Rebel Without a Cause. I wrote it with her permission. She was the first person to read the chapter. As an adult,
she was out of church for over 10 years. She never got antagonistic. She just was not connected. That really all just burdened me because I want all my children to love the Lord and to be in church. But I'm going to end the story here.
here. When I wrote this book, she was out of church. As of today, not only is she in church, she's serving. As a matter of fact, she's now in ministry. She's the executive director of a maternity home called The Haven.
There's been a total turnaround in her life since I wrote this book. This book was a part of that journey, by the way. And since then, we've done a follow -up study called "When They Stray." Instead of me telling people what gets your children back,
we have a follow -up study called "When They Stray." We had those who grew up in church and left and came back. They're telling us what brought them back and we'll be releasing that in May, 2024. It'll be free. See par .net.
You can go there. Matter of fact, go there now and get videos on why they say, why they stray both for Bible study groups or for personal development or whatever as a parent, but be watching for those videos on what it is that gets your children back.
And we speak that for a few minutes. So you guys like like to as a matter of fact. Sure. Well, let me just say this. You will never complain your children back. So stop complaining. Okay. You'll never rebuke them and get it back.
So those of you who have prophetic gifts, God bless you for that and exercise that. If I mean profited that truth telling everything's black and white, you may have in this case to tone it back up a little bit with your children because if they do do have a rebellious spirit,
a strong will, it is doing just the opposite of what you intend. And so you really got to pray through that and have to adapt the way you're ministering. Another thing is you cannot win a child back that you are estranged from.
So I don't know what happened. I don't know whose fault it was. I'm going to assume it was their fault. But at the same time, if they think it's your fault, you just got to humble yourself and go to them and focus on the role Now,
listen carefully, not on whether they're insured, not on whether they love Jesus. Focus on your relationship with them. Here's why. The more they love and respect you, the more likely they are to come back.
And that's why you got to humble yourself and maybe take ownership. Say, "Hey, it's my fault. I'm sorry." And reconcile with your child. And here's another thing I would say too. Let's suppose your child is never coming back.
to faith. How about your influence on your grandchildren? You don't want to do anything that hinders your ability to have an influence on your grandchildren. If you're a strange from your child, you're not going to have influence over those grandchildren because they're going to limit,
if not totally eliminate any relationship that you have with the grandchildren. So that's important also. Now I will say this, you have more influence than you think, but you've got to be patient.
You've got to be prayerful. And nothing's more important than just your relationship with that child. Once that child is an adult now, we found that when the relationship maintained ordinarily,
those adults would face a crisis and come back to their roots, but the relationship with the parents still remained important even into the adult years. Great stuff.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. - It's gonna be a video series. There'll be like four 30 minute sessions that you can do at a Bible study group, or a parent retreat, or parents can just watch on their own. And it'll be free by the way, there's no cost to it on my website.
So looking forward to that coming out in May. - Excellent, man. This is really good stuff. I would say the book again, Why They Stay is a great resource, to kind of help you out,
give you some insight into things. And I know a lot of times, a lot of parents, are kind of like holding their breath when their children go off to college. And hopefully this will help you be a little more at ease and confident.
Hey, did you know that the most critical six month window in the life of a child who grows up in church are the six months following high school graduation. Makes perfect sense. From May to Thanksgiving.
So be sure you're not letting your foot off the accelerator as a church or as a parent during the that season but you're continuing to encourage and build some accountability and sending the state from when they go off the college the expectations of faith engagement.
That was part of my story right after I graduated that summer. I was really considering do I need to take Christianity seriously because I'd become a Christian. I was about like 16 going on 17.
17. And I was really thinking to myself, am I going to continue down this path? I prayed and prayed and prayed and then made a decision to go to a Christian college. And I didn't even know that was part of,
you know, I'm in that study. Not really, but it was kind of funny when he was sharing some of that stuff right there. So that was pretty cool. Final questions, I know we need to probably get to wrapping it up.
So, Steve, thank you so very much. Appreciate you. your insight and input and your time today. And thank you guys, everybody for tuning in. I hope you really enjoyed this podcast here with Steve.
I know he dropped a lot of valuable little nuggets. If you want to buy the book, why they stay, I'm sure you can find on Amazon and why they stray video series. I think it's going to be really cool. Not only that,
he's going to be in our church. Those of you tuning in who attend Harps Constant Baptist Church, you'll be here April seven. So that's neat. I would get to see him. him. Give him a high five and whatnot. If you got any thoughts, questions,
anything like that, you can reach us at 629 -888 -3056 or you can email us at anchored @harpscrossing .com. Thanks for tuning in. And as always, stay anchored. - Steeple cost productions.
