Christian Parenting Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Christian Parenting Part 1.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church with Hope Worth Having podcast today and we are excited today to have with us Sam and Debbie Wood with Family Fortress Ministry. How are you guys doing?

It’s been such a joy to be here this weekend at the church ministry. We appreciate it. Debbie, how are you doing? I’m glad to be here today. It’s a little chilly. Quite chilly. It’s the word. Yes, yes.

Well, I want to start off talking about Debbie’s new book and what a wonderful book and I have not read every page, but I definitely have read parts of your book and I think that’s just what I’ve read.

It’s just been amazing. I think it’s going to be very helpful. Can you tell us a little bit about what motivated you to write this book? Back several years ago, Sam and I started doing parenting conferences and one of the sessions that we did, we talked with parents.

He took the guys out to the mothers and we talked about how to tell your children true intimacy because we not only wanted to give them scripture and biblical principles, but we wanted to give them things that would help their kids be motivated towards purity, but also maintain this excitement, like looking forward to the gift that God has for them.

That’s how we got started. A friend of mine came to me and her daughter, I think she was about 10 or something like that. She said, I need help. She was really fearful in approaching the subject with her daughter.

I just got out the Bible and went through a whole lot of scripture with her and pointed to the things that she could show her daughter straight from the Word of God. There’s a lot in there. Yeah, that’s excellent.

So the book is called Don’t Awaken Love Until It Pleases. And how did you come up with that title? That is straight from Song of Solomon chapter 2. I think that’s verse 7. And that’s what God does. He goes over this progression.

It’s like a wedding night for the couple. It goes through a progression of how it involves stimulation and just how it’s building to a certain point. And then all of a sudden the bride stops and she warns the virgins of the land, don’t get involved in this.

Don’t awaken love until it pleases. And her message is, this is wonderful. It’s a gift from God. But make sure that you wait until your wedding night. Yeah. So if a mom or even a dad, any parent was picking this book up, what advice would you give them on how to use this book to talk to their daughters or even their sons?

I would say, yes, you can read through the book for yourself. Get familiar with the scripture that’s in the book, because I know there’s a lot of books out there. You can find other books about telling your children about sex.

But what I couldn’t find was any that had scripture in them. And this is scripture driven. So this is a resource for them to know how to point their kids to what God has to say about this. So I would read it and get prepared for the early questions.

We have conversations for when your children are young, and then just use it as a resource continually refresh yourself with it, because this is not just one conversation you have with your kids, this is a lifestyle of conversation.

Very good. Sam, in moms and dads sometimes have a hard time talking about sex with their children. Can you maybe share a little bit about why you think parents struggle with that? Well, I think one of the biggest reasons is because it’s a to be word.

Sex is, it’s not brought up much. So it’s something they know very little about. And many times many parents are brought up is in the thinking that sex is dirty. It’s not a gift of God. It’s not something beautiful God created for marriage.

So I think that’s part of it. And the other part is I think they just are not equipped and do not know how to answer the questions they might get from their children and know how to talk about it in a way that allows level of age that they feel is appropriate for that child at that particular level.

So I think it’s a little fear there because of that too. Yeah, that’s good. And so did you, you know, kind of read through the manuscript with Debbie and kind of give her some advice or input? So he did yeah, I mean we got how through the solid Solomon.

Yeah, I should call it It’s right. What a few times so we’re very familiar book and I was that many many discussions concerning it because of that And so when she started writing this book and doing it she asked me to review it and get get some feedback You know for it.

Yeah, and of course, I think it’s an excellent resource It’s like she said, I don’t think there’s anything out there white white is Where the mothers especially have a guy to talk to their daughters at different ages as they grow up Yeah, I don’t sex an appropriate way and how to start those conversations and how to keep Yeah, excellent Debbie.

What is the one thing you want moms to walk away from when they read this book? What is the one principle that you think is most important for them to get? I want them to have confidence good and and just conveying what God has to say yeah, and just To be able to show their daughters.

This is special. This is something you get to look forward to Because I also learned that I did another Bible study with ladies probably that had kids of this age and They said there was a real disconnect for them because they were taught all their lives Don’t don’t don’t don’t they said they got married and all of a sudden it was go for it Mm -hmm, and they just there was a disconnect They said between their brains and what was going on in their bodies,

right? And so the material in this book hopefully will help their daughters so that they will not face That disconnect that’s awesome. So tell us how can people get a hold of this book? What are different ways that they can get access?

They can get it off Amazon Okay The name of it is don’t awaken love until it pleases and you have to look for the authors would be Debbie would and Amanda Clark, okay, or they can contact us at family fortress ministries and They can order it straight from us.

Okay. Yes on our website Okay, so can they is there anything on your social media or app that gives you access to the book? Okay. Yeah, which you can do right? It’s it does have the ability to go there and order this.

Okay, so I just got a link to our website We’re you go straight with it. Okay Excellent. So people can go to again family fortress ministries dot com dot org So or or you can go to any of your app stores Search for family fortress ministries download the app and it’s got that and many other things Resources that are free there that you can use to help the family Marriage can’t do all these different.

Excellent. Okay. Well, I want to I want to shift a little bit and talk a little bit about marriage because you know, that’s a big topic going on and the first thing I want to talk about is that you guys together did a Time for Three devotion book, is that correct?

And I’d like to hear about that. Yeah, we, you know, I’ve got a degree in engineering. Yeah. So I never thought that I’d write a book in English involved. And it was a tremendous experience as we began to support moral marriage of the, I guess, the need we felt that couples had to have a time daily to read the Word of God and talk about the Word of God together.

We had seen what it had done for our marriage relationship. And I believe that you’ve been a couple focused daily on the Word of God will help them in their spiritual oneness. Yeah. So, you know, I guess it’s been what, six, seven years or so to do it, but God has really used it since then it’s available.

in book form. Also, I have a podcast, I mean called Time for Three. Nice. A search for that. It’s free. And we have an audio version of that daily devotion on podcasts daily where people can listen to it.

Excellent. Now, Debbie, when we think about marriage and devotions, you know, me as a pastor, sometimes a lot of the wives will come to me and say, hey, you know, my husband won’t do a devotion or he won’t read the Bible or pray with me.

What kind of advice would you give some of those Christian ladies out there that are kind of struggling with the fact that their husband will not participate in any kind of devotion? What they need to do is make sure that they are in the Word themselves, that they have daily personal devotions and that it’s a time of worship for them, that they receive from Christ and that they get their strength and they get their attention from Christ through reading his Word and through the worship.

And as for their husbands, I don’t think it’s a wise thing to push them or to criticize them, but they could have conversation, maybe let them know, you know, I saw this today and it meant a lot to me.

Right. Not nothing pushy. Yeah. But just let them know that, you know, I am finding joy in this. Yeah. Sam, what advice would you give to a wife who maybe doesn’t quite understand how a man receives, you know, somebody, their wife pushing them towards, you know, reading the Bible, praying all the time.

Maybe you could help us as well from a man’s perspective. You know, I think most men, many never seen their father do a devotion with him. Right. I’m seeing this model before them. So I think even as Debbie said, I think in the Bible, clearly says that you’re not going to drive your husband.

to you by nagging and being careful that you don’t badger, you know, with Travis, say, why don’t we do this? If you’re ever gonna start meeting us with the physicians, and you know, that kind of thing.

But for him to see about the beauty of Christ and its wife, and that’s what it says in 1st Peter 3 and verse 1, it says, you know, when your husband, by your words, you win him by him observing your godly behavior.

So I think if he can see your love for Christ, he can see the joy that you’re getting out of that. And a wife can go to her husband and say, man, it’s so good. I wish we could share this together. It’s ways to do that, I think, without trying to be pushy with him.

I think most men are reluctant to do it, maybe not because they really don’t want to do it so much when you think about devotions. I think most men have never seen it modeled, and then they think, also, I’m not a theologian.

I don’t know how to lead this, but that’s one reason there’s couples devotional books like ours out there makes it very easy you just pick it up reactives what passes you read and you read it together then discuss it so yeah i think you try to make it as easy as you can guys that’s good um debbie the wife uh if her husband starts picking up this habit of having devotions with her um how can she affirm him because maybe he like he feels a little insecure and maybe he feels like hey i’m not this theologian and then you know maybe he’s not as far along in his faith as his wife is but she still wants him to grab that bible and lead her um how could she affirm him when he does yeah yeah oh oh wow she needs to thank him she needs to pay attention to whatever he says yeah and and let him know what it meant to her personally how it impacted her personally but i mean just thank him all the time and even later in the day you know i’m still thinking about what you said yeah and how much it means what it did for her that day yeah so just like you say affirmation because debbie does exactly right so i didn’t always do this when i started doing it it’s like i’m gonna let you know sam this is one of the most special things that you do with me it’s a real gift to me when you do this i get uh this is better than you giving me a present right you know some material objects at the time read the word of god with me and to pray with me i it makes it so easy to and here’s a good thing for your husbands husbands want their wives to submit to them but it’s easy for a wife to submit to a husband they see submitted to god right so when they see their husband absolutely pray with them they see his submission to god and it makes it so much easier for her to submit you know which makes sense when she sees him submitted to god yeah so debbie has just encouraged me so many times and saying this is something i just really really enjoy it means so much.

Yeah, I think that’s great because a word you used earlier, Debbie, confidence. And I think that affirmation helps the man, the husband, to feel more confident to open the Bible or to grab his wife by the hand and pray with her.

And I just think that means so much in the completeness of their marriage. Yeah, it does a lot for spiritual oneness. Yes. It’s something like the world can have physical oneness. The world can have some emotional oneness.

Hey, but Christians, they’re the only ones that can have spiritual oneness. And this is just a key step in moving deeper in your spiritual walk together. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Did you want to add to that?

You know, it’s so important to realize that this time that we put together, expand together as a husband and wife and building our spiritual oneness through reading the Bible together, praying together.

is something that husbands and wives don’t do. This is a real missing ingredient in their marriage and building that kind of spiritual wellness where they got sort of the avenue of a vibrant marriage relationship and just taking 10 minutes a day and spending a little bit of time every day doing that just means so, so much.

And you build trust. You’ll build trust in your life. That’s right. People break trust sometimes in marriage. It weren’t the things that bring that trust and build that trust back about as much as anything else is to have a word of God in, especially a wife and husband hearing each other.

Yeah. It just really builds that trust in the relationship. I think there’s another benefit too, is your children know, they know you’re doing this. They see you and they hear you. And even at a young age, they notice that.

And it makes a difference in their lives. And it makes them know God is real. And just, I think it places God at a level in their life. Right. It’s impactful. Yeah, it’s beautiful. Sam, you and Debbie are working with a lot of couples, especially Christian couples.

And what are you seeing out there that are some of the big challenges that Christian couples are facing? Well, I think for that sake, one of the biggest challenges we see, especially the last couple of years in counseling, is couples who just do not have any time for each other.

And it’s basic is that in one of the reasons I didn’t have time for each other is their children are so involved with different sports and different activities that it pretty much runs their home. I mean, they got three or four kids and they’re running here, they’re running here, all these different places.

We got, we have four sons. So we got to the point where playing sports, where I love sports, but I thought I can’t let that rule my family. I can’t let that run my family. Yeah, so we got to what we said, but that’s in each one of you can pick one sport.

You won’t play. You’re not gonna play fog And and is expensive. Yes, it takes a lot of time and So that busyness and distraction I often say Satan will try to distract you so he can destroy you And I think couples go distant from each other because they don’t have we’ve had couples contacts That’s about marriage counseling.

It couldn’t find time to have wild one I mean, it’s like can we get together and help fix our marriage again? Well, we can do it this time with this time. Well, we can’t do those times our kids are doing this You know, so I just saying we live in a busy busy world Yeah, the distractions if you don’t intentionally carve out that time date for each other it won’t happen So that’s one of the biggest problems I would say uh you know that we see in the last few years especially worse name problem is just submissions yeah you know there’s no question about it yeah debbie um as from a wife’s perspective um what ways can she help in making sure that there is time uh for her and her husband to maybe just have a little bit of a talk time or take a date or even a trip or whatever that will be helpful i think you have to schedule that time i mean you have to set a time because if you don’t it’s not going to happen right like if it’s if it’s better for you early morning then you just have to get up early yeah or you know and it may be depending on the ages of your kids sometimes it’s immediately after you put those kids in the bed right and um but you just have to find a certain time and i think um you have to let each other know what the schedules are yeah i mean somehow you have to communicate your calendars together and coordinate you got to set a time just to coordinate times it’s it’s there’s just craziness going on out there and so much so those are some things i think a wife can do and she has to be flexible i think as a wife i have to adjust myself to sam’s i mean he is the one that works he’s the one that provides the money for our home so i have to adjust to his schedule yeah i know one of the things uh terry used to do is to train the children to be able to occupy themselves when they were older and not to interrupt mom and dad unless there was blood or death or something like that but just so that we could have a time to catch up on the day how’d your day go and we used to call it couch time and we just would interact with each other yeah definitely that’s something we would call it couch time too where we would teach our children number one that we say stay over here and play yes and don’t bother mom and dad this is paris bed shift uh Right.

With each other. When they see that, they see the importance of your time and your marriage, too. You’re teaching them to obey you, but you’re teaching them that your marriage is the card, your relationship at the home.

So yeah, that’s a great, great way to do that. I like what you said about the priority relationship, because what I see a lot today is the children seem to be, everything’s like what I call child -centered.

And I always felt like, you know, husband and wife is the priority relationship. Obviously, we know what the Lord, but certainly mom and dad need to have a strong relationship. What are your thoughts on that?

I think if you go back to the original statement that you just found forward, it’s about, you know, leaving. Yeah. And then coming together as one flesh, just the start of that is there needs to be a leader.

And leaving really means that now your marriage relationship needs to be the party relationship in your relationship. your life outside of your relationship with Jesus Christ. Of course, the greater my relationship with Christ, the greater relationship I’ll have as a husband and wife.

But my mom and dad, I love them, I love them, but they’re no longer the priority relationship. My wife and I are. Listen, my friends that I go golf with, that I play sports with aren’t the priority relationship.

My wife is. My children aren’t the priority relationship. My wife is. If your marriage is not right, your parenting will not be right. So I have to make that. It’s an advantage to the kids because what we have found out that if you make your marriage the priority relationship and your kids know it, it gives them security.

Right. And that’s something most kids don’t have. They live in a fear that things are not going to be stable, that something’s going to change. And a lot of them live in fear. Dad’s going to leave. Mom’s going to leave.

But when they see that marriage is a priority with you, it gives them security. And what happens and it’s interesting is that their behavior improves because once they have that security, they’re not trying to misbehave in order to get attention or to make sure you’re paying attention to them.

Security just makes a difference for everybody. Yeah, that’s huge. That’s important. Did you want to add to that? It makes me think of the verse in page six of verse four. It says, the fathers did not vote their children to wrath, but bring them up.

It’s very interesting. The phrase bring them up pictures the atmosphere and the color in which they are to administer the nurture, the discipline, the training in the home. And that atmosphere needs to be a spirit filled atmosphere.

And so many times, even with parenting, we’ve had couples come in and say, we’ve got this problem with parenting, this problem with parenting, we notice they got a problem with marriage. marriage like, you start your marriage right, it’s going to make a difference with your children automatically.

And it’ll fill into that and they come back. We’ve had some come back to say, you know, you’re absolutely right. The problems we’ve had with them before, we don’t have any more because we don’t have tried to their marriage.

We don’t have confidence as the fruits of the spirit at home and it makes all the difference. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Well, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and I serve as a senior pastor and we’re just so grateful that you could join us and be a part of this podcast.

We’re going to have more in our next session. We’re going to talk about gender identity, but also want to talk about parenting. And we already kind of hit on it a little bit, but more from the marriage perspective.

But we know that parenting is one of the hardest jobs in America. And so I really want you to share a little bit about that. Thank you for joining us today. And we look forward to continuing to minister to you.

And thank you for checking out our podcast. Don’t forget to check out our website on hopeworthhaving .com. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.