August 12, 2024 • 50 mins
“The most important thing in life is to know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. This is eternal life... That's the most foundational principle in the universe is truly knowing God." - Israel Wayne
Watch this full interview on our YouTube Channel
Israel Wayne, author, speaker, and director of Family Renewal, joins Garritt Hampton to discuss the significance of parents discipling their children with a biblical worldview. Israel shares his unique educational experience, growing up with a single mother who was a founding pioneer of the homeschool movement and how it has influenced his work in the field. Tune in to learn more about the impact of education on culture, the church, and the future.
The Thinking Dad and all of the shows on the Biblical Family Network are only possible because of the generous support of our listeners. Would you consider a one-time or monthly donation to support this important ministry?
Recommended Resources:Foundational Truths: A Modern Catechism, by Israel Wayne
Education: Does God Have an Opinion? by Israel Wayne
Christian Education A Manifesto, by Israel Wayne
Israel Wayne on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast
Homeschooling Resources:
🍿🍿🍿 Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for FREE today!
Strings Attached: The True Cost of School Choice
Discussion Questions:
1. Discuss the importance of having a family mission statement. How can it guide decision-making and help families stay focused on their goals?
2. What are the roles of fathers and mothers in establishing and implementing a family mission? How can parents work together as a team, utilizing their different skill sets?
3. From a biblical perspective, what is the role of fathers in discipling their children? How can dads effectively teach and nurture their children's faith?
4. Explain the Hebraic model of education and its emphasis on parents being models for their children's worldview, beliefs, and lifestyle. How does this differ from other educational approaches?
5. Why might some parents hesitate to homeschool their children? How can the fear of responsibility and self-awareness play a role in this decision?
6. How can avoiding conflict by sending children away hinder the development of strong family relationships? What are some alternative ways to address conflicts within the family?
7. Why do you think pride often prevents people from seeking help in their relationships? How can families overcome this obstacle and reach out for support when needed?
8. Israel Wayne believes that fathers are twice as responsible as mothers for the education of their children based on biblical principles. Do you agree or disagree with this view, and why?
9. Share your experiences with family discipleship. What challenges have you faced in implementing consistent Bible reading or devotional time with your family, and how have you overcome them?
10. Discuss the concept of a modern catechism as a tool for teaching Bible doctrine and theology. How can this approach be beneficial for families, and what potential drawbacks should be considered?
The Thinking Dad podcast is a member of the Biblical Family Network. Our mission is to support and encourage the family by providing the very best podcasts on family, discipleship, marriage, parenting, worldview, culture, and education, all from a Biblical perspective. Visit the website for more great shows.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When I look at what can we do that would make the most amount of
change in our country? I don't know of anything that
is more important than parents discipling their
children and giving them a biblical worldview. I mean, anything that I think
of, any political activity, any kind of social movement or
social change or whatever, I can't think of anything more fundamental
(00:21):
than just changing hearts and minds, beginning in the home
with parents and then them discipling their children. You know, when we
think about return on investment, it's the best ROi I can think of
in terms of my time. With a face for radio and a video show
to prove it. Coming to you from a bunker in northeastern
Oklahoma. I'm your host, GarrittHampton, and you are
(00:43):
listening to the Thinking Dad. I'm so glad you've joined me today. We
have a really great show for you. I have Israel Wayne on
today, who's a good friend, and we've spent about the last 15
minutes shooting the breeze. I love Israel and I love his
family, and I know you're going to be blessed by him today. Um,
we're going to be talking about his book, Foundational Truths (01:01):
A
Modern Catechism. And we're going to be talking about one of my
favorite subjects, family discipleship. Uh, but
before we get started, I want to tell you about our
sponsor, CTCMath Guys,
these guys are the greatest. I've got to tell you what they did, as we
(01:22):
get started. I don't know where this interview is fitting in the
podcast, but this is the first one we're recording.
And right out of the gate, CTCMath joined us.
These guys understand that thinking dads raise
thinking kids. One of the most important things you can do for
your kids, as a dad, is to raise kids with a
(01:44):
great education so that they can go out into the world and make
an impact. And CTCMath
understands that and is there for you guys. This is the math
curriculum our family uses, and we love it. Try them
out for free at ctcmath.com. They
have a money back guarantee that I guarantee you're not going to
(02:06):
need, because you're going to love them. Check
them out at ctcmath.com. All right, guys, we're
here with Israel Wayne. Israel, for those of our listeners who
may not know you, would you introduce yourself real quickly and tell them
about yourself and your family? Yeah. So I have a unique angle
or experience with the homeschool movement in that my mother was one of the
(02:28):
founding pioneers of the homeschool movement, started homeschooling my
older sister and I back in 1978 and she
started publishing a national homeschool magazine in 1988. So I grew up
in kind of the national leadership side of homeschooling. My
wife was also homeschooled. Her family started homeschooling in 1983.
We've been married for over 25 years. We have eleven children. Our
(02:51):
oldest is almost 24, our baby is
almost three. And so all of our children have been
homeschooled from birth. So I'm kind of known somewhat in that space,
but I'm an author, conference speaker, director and founder
of a ministry called Family Renewal and
have been publishing with New Leaf Press and Master Books for about
(03:13):
the last decade and have had a great synergy
relationship with them. They're a great Christian publisher that put, they put out a lot
of excellent resources for Christians as well
as Christian curriculum for children. And
I'm a conference speaker, so I travel all over the US and sometimes even around
the world, speaking at churches, family camps,
(03:35):
Christian conferences and so forth. So I love what I get to do.
It's a lot of fun. And I, I should also mention, I guess
I wear kind of a volunteer hat with the state Homeschool association of
Michigan Service vice president there and that's keeping me busy
lately. But yeah, a lot of,
a lot of fun things that I get to do. Nice. Yeah. Now this
(03:57):
wasn't a part of my questions at all, but I'd love if you would take
a minute and explain the importance of state homeschool
orgs because this is something we're really passionate about and
I didn't plan on talking about it today, but I'd love it if you would
go there for a minute. So the modern day Christian homeschooling movement
started in 1983 and there were about 26 different state
(04:19):
associations that started that year and then other states
joined. Almost every state in the United States has their own Christian state homeschool
association and these folks do a variety of things. Many of them
put on an annual conference, which if you haven't been to your state's homeschool conference,
I highly recommend that. And you can find all of
these websites for all of the state associations at
(04:41):
a place called homeschoolfreedom.com
and they have a website
that links you to all the different state homeschool associations so you can learn what
they do. They'll also tell you the laws regarding homeschooling in your state.
Oftentimes they will connect you to local or regional homeschool
co ops or support groups. So you can plug into what's happening with events
(05:03):
and opportunities that are local to you. They will
provide all kinds of resources, whether oftentimes, whether it's
special needs or encouragement, inspirational
articles, sometimes podcasts. There's just a lot that they
provide. And so some of them are paid membership
organizations. That basically is just a way for you to donate to the organization
(05:24):
and fund them. But you often will get some membership perks and
discounts on the conferences or goodies.
So I highly recommend and encourage that you check out the state
home school associations in your area
and that you get plugged in and get involved because we're stronger when we stand
together. Yeah, totally. They're so important. Before we
(05:47):
started recording, you were actually talking about what you're working on right now
with your state. Would you mind telling parents what's going on?
So in the state of Michigan, we have a potential bill. It's not been
introduced yet, but supposedly it's been written. They're just waiting for the right
timing to, to introduce it. That would require
annual registration for all students in Michigan into a
(06:09):
centralized education database that would probably be controlled
by the state Department of Education. And so this will be tracking
all children in the state of Michigan through the centralized
database annually. And then additionally to that, of
course, we think that's just the foot in the door. There have been suggestions
that because they are accusing homeschoolers of being child
(06:31):
abusers and that they need to track homeschoolers,
specifically in particular, so that they can
protect the children. And so there's been talk about adding additional
legislation or regulations that may even include home
visits or twice annual visits with some sort of government mandated
reporter. And so our state association, Michigan Christian Home School
(06:53):
Network, or M I C H N is our acronym, we pronounce that mission.
We've been trying to fight that pretty aggressively here in the state of Michigan. We're
an all volunteer board. I serve as vice president of the Michigan State
Homeschool association. So again, this is the kind of thing that we
do and that your state association does many times. You may not even know that
you have a state home school association, but these are the kinds of
(07:16):
battles that we fight, and we're stronger together. So
make sure that you stand with your state home school association. Yeah. Thank you for
that work. It's so important. We regularly try
to warn people about the danger of school choice. And
for conservatives listening, you may hear that and go, why would you
try to stop school choice? And I want people to understand
(07:38):
that these, these school choice laws that are being pushed
are just an open door for government control into
homeschooling and private schools. They're extremely dangerous
because what the government funds, the government runs.
So, please, parents, keep your eyes open and
talk to your legislatures. Talk to people who are pushing
(08:01):
this regulation. It's extraordinarily dangerous for
homeschoolers. Israel, you've spent most of your
career talking to homeschool families, and your mom, of course,
you mentioned, was kind of a groundbreaking homeschool leader.
Um, you've had 30 years to figure out what you wanted to
do. Why would you do this? I think one of the things that
(08:22):
happened to me back in the 1980s and nineties
was watching my mom, who was often a keynote speaker at these homeschool
conferences. When she would give a presentation,
people would often come up afterward and would just talk about
how that message changed their hearts and minds.
There were people who would get saved listening to my mom's messages,
(08:46):
or they would read the magazines that she published or the books she wrote
and just talk about how life changing it was. And I started to
see how this could have a multigenerational impact, that you're not just impacting
a person, but when you really see the hearts of parents
turning to their children, that can have an impact
that goes many generations deepen. And so
(09:08):
in terms of cultural change, I really don't know of anything that is more significant
than being able to make an impact in seeing
revival in the home and seeing the hearts of fathers turn to
their children and the hearts of mothers turn to their children and couples being reunited.
And so even as a teenager, I started
working in her publishing business and worked there 20
(09:31):
years, and have just seen that impact of
thousands of families over the years that have said, like,
we read your book or we heard you speak, and it just put us on
a completely different trajectory. And so
I think as far as when I look at what can we do that would
make the most amount of change in our country? I don't know
(09:53):
of anything that is more important than
parents discipling their children and giving them a biblical worldview.
Right. I mean, anything that I think of, any political activity,
any kind of social movement or social change or whatever, I can't think of anything
more fundamental than just changing hearts and
minds, beginning in the home with parents and
(10:15):
then them discipling their children. I think it's probably the best
investment. When we think about return on investment,
it's the best roi I can think of in terms of my time. Yeah.
Amen. What you're saying is that education is
related to everything, right? Culture is downstream. Downstream from
education. The church is dependent on education.
(10:37):
One of the things I say all the time is it doesn't matter how
committed the adults are in the church, if
their children are being discipled by the state into a
secular worldview, the church will die in a. In a generation.
And so, yeah, I think this is so important, and I'm. I'm really so
thankful for your ministry. Um, our. Our viewers don't probably
(11:00):
know, but you and I met many years ago working on a
movie called Schoolhouse rocked the homeschool Revolution,
which is available now for streaming for free at
schoolhouse rocked.com. but you were an important voice in that
movie, and you've had a real impact on my
thinking about education for years. In fact,
(11:21):
when I started directing that movie, um, I was of the
opinion that education was important, but
that parents could kind of do whatever they felt was right for their
family and, you know, trust the Lord to take care of everything else,
and it would be fine. And as I started working on the movie and
talking to people like you and reading your really, really powerful
(11:43):
article, um, Christian education a manifesto.
Right? I've shared this article dozens of times, and
you wrote a book called education. Does God have an opinion?
And these sort of things really shaped my opinion
in a very important way about education. It really
is the key to the rest of culture, and it really
(12:05):
is the key to discipleship. So I want. I want you to talk a
little bit about how education and discipleship go together, and
that'll bring us to why you wrote your book and kind of what you're trying
to get families to do. Well, Jesus said and
taught and demonstrated something that was really radical. And it was quite
different, really, than the approach, the socratic
(12:26):
method that the Greeks had embraced.
The idea from the Greeks was really very much that you have an information
download and that you try to pass on
ideas from one generation to the next. And I think sometimes when we think
of education, we think of it in that way. But the more
hebraic model that Jesus emulated was where
(12:49):
he woke his disciples up every morning and he said, come,
follow me. And then they just followed him around,
and they watched what he did, and he taught them
by how he lived. And so Jesus said that
when a student is fully trained, he will become like his
teacher. And so the question, I think, for us as parents
(13:11):
is, do we want our children becoming like their
teachers in terms of their worldview, in terms of their
beliefs, their lifestyle, their practice, and really,
the concept within the Bible that we find is that we're the ones that are
supposed to be the mentors. We're the ones that are supposed to be the models,
right? And so we're supposed to say, like the apostle Paul, follow
(13:33):
me as I follow Christ. And I think for some parents,
especially for some dads, they think, I don't know that I want that. I don't
know that I want my child becoming like me. I want my child
to become a composite of all these wonderful,
you know, morals or values or principles.
I don't think I want my child to grow up and be like me. And
(13:55):
in one sense, we don't. Right, because we know our failures and our
imperfections. But we're supposed to be
modeling for our children what we want them to become. And
so if we want our children to know how to forgive people, well,
we need to learn how to forgive. And if we want them to know how
to do conflict resolution, we have to model that. And if we want them to
(14:15):
be good financial stewards, we have to show them how to do that.
And we want them to have good marriages. We have to model that for
them. And so discipleship is far more than just cramming
their head full of information and data. It is very much us
passing on who we are to them,
and that's deuteronomy six. And so many people, I
(14:37):
think, think that they can fulfill deuteronomy six, which says,
this law, which I give you this day, is to be on your heart. That's
where it starts. But then you teach it diligently.
When you sit in your home, when you walk outside your home,
when you rise up, when you lie down. And they think they can fulfill that
by sending their children away from them all day, and you can't.
(15:00):
And so that model is really one of having your
children close to you, being with them, and just letting them see the way that
you live. And that requires us to have that law
written on our heart. Right. We have to get it first. You can't give to
somebody else what you don't have. And so that that principle of
discipleship means that we have to own it first in order to be able
(15:22):
to transmit it to others. And that's a big commitment, and it scares a
lot of people, and they run away from it. Yeah, I think you actually.
I don't know if you meant to do this, but I think you actually
hit on the number one reason that
parents don't actually homeschool their kids. You know, we hear
arguments like, well, my kids need to be socialized, or I want my kids
(15:44):
involved in school, sports or whatever. There's a million
reasons that we'll hear why parents won't actually take
charge of their kids education. And ultimately, I think
it boils down to the sobering thought that, man,
if I bring them into my home and I put them under my
discipleship, I'm ultimately responsible. And I know
(16:06):
what I am, right? I know as a dad, I'm a sinner.
I'm, I'm prone to anger at times. I'm prone to
speaking out of turn. And if I'm responsible for training my
kids, then ultimately I have to take responsibility for
the outcome. What would you say to a parent who struggles with
that? Well, I understand that myself. I think
(16:28):
we all do. I think Garritt and I both do. And so we're sympathetic
to it. But at the same point, so I put it
this, a friend of mine said this back in the eighties, I remember he used
to go around and do homeschool seminars. And when I was just a teenager, I
used to go hear him say this, but he would say, homeschooling is a window
and mirror into the heart. It is a window into your child's
(16:49):
heart where it gives you the context, the time,
the ability to be with them all day and to see what's in their
heart. And sometimes what we see in our child's heart, we
don't like. Sometimes we see laziness. Sometimes we see disobedience,
we see rebellion, we see bad attitudes, we see lack of
character. And he said, but homeschooling is more than just
(17:13):
a window into our child's heart, giving us the time and the opportunity
to see what's going on inside of them. It's also a mirror back to our
own heart. And so, oftentimes, we see a lot of yuck in us
where we are impatient with them and we get frustrated how
we're lazy and we don't want to put the work in. And it reflects back
who we are, and we don't like that. We don't like the bad
(17:35):
things that we see inside of their heart, and we don't like the negative
reflection that we see from the mirror that they reflect back
to us. And so what most parents do is they just say, I'm going to
send my child away from me, and then I don't have to see
that, and then I don't have to think about that.
And, you know, I had a lady told me one time, she said, my twelve
(17:57):
year old daughter and I are homeschooling. But it's not going well. We're not getting
along. She pushes back. She loves her teachers at school.
She doesn't like me. She just wants to go back to school.
And she thinks that she would be happier there. And I'm thinking she would be
happier there, too. And I think I would be happier. And so I'm thinking
that I should just send her back to school. What do you think about that?
(18:20):
And I told her, I said, so, let me ask you this question. What is
your main goal? What are you trying to achieve? And she said, well, I
guess just so we stopped fighting. I said, so just avoiding
conflict. That's your goal? And she said, yes. I said, okay,
well, I would agree with you that if you want to avoid conflict, that that's
probably the best way to go about it. And she seemed really surprised
(18:42):
because she knows I'm a strong homeschool advocate. And so she said, well, I'm really
surprised to hear you say that. Like, I didn't expect that from you. And I
said, but, yeah, I mean, if that's your goal, to avoid conflict, then definitely
send your child to school. I said, now, if your goal was that you wanted
to have a relationship with your daughter, that would be the worst possible thing you
could do. And she said, wait, what? And I said, well,
(19:03):
basically, sending people that you love away from
you almost assures that you will not have
relationship with them, because relationship is predominantly
a product of time, and influence is a product of
time. And so if you don't want to have
conflict, then send your child away from you. But I said, I'm going to make
(19:24):
an additional suggestion that during the season where you're avoiding conflict
with your daughter, I would also advise that you move out of the house and
not live with your husband anymore either, so that you can avoid even
more conflict. Because if you don't live with your husband, then you can't
have conflict with him either. Right. And she was totally confused by
that. And just, it was like, she's like, that seems like terrible advice.
(19:46):
Like, why would you say that? And I said, well, again, I mean, if that's
our goal, if our goal is we just don't want conflict, then that's a great
way to avoid conflict. But again, if the goal is that you want to actually
have a relationship with your husband, then you need to run into these
relationships, not run away from them. And so I think this. You're
exactly right, Garrett. I think people don't want to face
(20:06):
the hard part of doing
relationships and doing life together. With their family.
And so avoidance just becomes their path, and it leads
to divorce and marriage, and it leads to our children wanting to have nothing to
do with us when they're adults. And so, you know, the better
approach, rather than just sending them away for complete strangers to raise them,
(20:28):
is that we have to figure this out. And I'll say this, too, sometimes it
actually requires bringing people, welcoming people into our
family dynamic, you know, our church elders or maybe a biblical
counselor and saying, we need help, like, we're
not surviving here. We're not thriving here. And yet, you know what keeps people
from doing that? Pride. People are too proud. They are
(20:50):
too self reliant.
And they think that it's a shame on them to say that
they need help. And men will often ask for help if it's, you know,
fixing their truck or solving a plumbing problem, and they
realize they're in over their head. But when it comes to relationships and their
family, we don't go outside the house for that.
(21:12):
And I think people do themselves a great disservice.
Yeah. Wow, man, that is so true. And what's
unfortunate is that pride is praised as a virtue.
Now, in culture, you talked about something in
that where you mentioned the goal of, and I think that
brings us to a really important point. Whereas parents,
(21:34):
we have to evaluate what is our ultimate goal with
our children. I think that God has very clearly given our children to
us to steward them and to steward them toward an
end. So I want to talk about that a little bit after we take a
break. We will be right back. Men, I want to ask a
favor of you. As you know, the Thinking Dad podcast is brand
(21:56):
new, and we really want to reach millions of men
with this message of encouragement. So I want to ask you to take a minute
to share this show. If you're watching the video on YouTube or another
video platform, make sure you're subscribed to our channel.
Go ahead and hit the like button and then leave a comment that really does
help with the algorithms. If you're listening on a podcast app, take
(22:19):
a minute to go in and rate and review the show. It helps others
to know why. This shows an encouragement to you, and it really does help to
get the word out. Also, men, take a minute, go
to ctcmath.com and just say thank you for supporting this
show. They're such a blessing. They've been with the Schoolhouse Rocked
Podcast for about five years now. They've really been a blessing
(22:41):
to us, and they just believe in this mission. So they were game to
come along with us for the first season and support us in a big way.
If you are blessed by this show, it's partially because
of them. I want you to take a minute and say thank you to them.
It really does help out. All right, we are back with Israel.
Wayne. Man, that was good stuff, Israel. We were talking about
(23:03):
the goal. What do you see as the goal for dads?
Well, we actually have a family mission statement, and I created a
poster that hangs in the living room of our home in
the main high traffic area that we go through all day,
every day. It's probably about a three foot by four foot
poster, and it has a picture, but then the words
(23:25):
say, we exist to know love
and serve God, and love and serve others.
And if you ask any of my children, down to at
least my seven year old, they can all recite that. And if you ask
them what is your purpose in life, they will say it's to know
love and serve God and love and serve other people. And to
(23:48):
me, really, that's the heart, that's the bullseye of the target. That's
true north for us. And so we constantly
look at that and recalibrate to that and say,
are we fulfilling the purpose for which God has placed us here on
the earth? And it also helps us to make wise
choices when opportunities come up to
(24:10):
ask, does this align with and help us to accomplish our mission
on Earth? Or is this just going to be a distraction from us
accomplishing our mission on earth? So, like, does this video game
help us to know God better? Does it equip us to love and
serve other people better? Wow. Okay. If it doesn't, then it's
taking us off course. It's not aligning with our mission.
(24:33):
Okay, what about this opportunity to go on Saturday and help
an older person in our church who is recovering from a surgery?
Yes, that does align with our mission. And yes, we want to be about
that. So it really helps us to be able to even sort through
making wise decisions as a family. Yeah.
Wow. Now I'm going to jump into this tool you've provided for
(24:55):
parents, but before I do that, I want to ask you,
how are dad's role and mom's role different
in establishing the goal and working toward the goal and
communicating the goal in the house? Well, I know
that every family dynamic is a little bit different, and
so it's hard to say that, you know, every family is going to look exactly
(25:18):
the same. However, in general, I think
dads tend to be visionaries and they
tend to be able to see the big picture. But
oftentimes it's the moms who are really good with the
implementation. And so in addition to creating a
mission statement for your family, which I highly encourage you to do,
(25:38):
there can also be a mission strategy
where you talk about, okay, so what are the ways in which we
are going to implement our mission statement and actually functionally get it
done? So for our home, for example, it's my
role as the husband to constantly remind our family
of the main thing and keep pointing us back there and
(26:00):
to make sure that we are on target and we don't derail, we don't go
off course and drift from mission.
And that's the role, like, for a CEO in a corporation. Right. Because
universities, nonprofits, businesses
oftentimes experience mission drift, and you find 100 years
later, they're completely doing something totally opposite than what
(26:22):
they started, like the YMCA or the Boy Scouts. Right.
And so we want to make sure that we keep our family on mission. But
then the role of the mom, I think, often, is to say, okay, now here's
our big picture goal. How do we get there and how do
we implement that, and what's the strategy that we use? And so there
really is good teamwork. I think that God makes us, as husbands and wives, a
(26:44):
little different in terms of our thought processes, our skill
sets, our giftings. And so we work together as a
team to make sure that we don't just have a grandiose vision, but that we
actually know how to practically implement it throughout the week. Right?
Yeah. Just like in homeschooling, when the rubber meets the road,
usually if there's a two parent home, dad is out earning
(27:06):
a living and providing for the family, and mom is at
home with the kids during the day doing the educating.
I think that contrary to the cultural norm, in
most cases, um, in order to make it work,
you have to have some level of mom being home to teach the kids.
I know that, that, that with homeschooling, there are all sorts of
(27:28):
cases, but it's usually not dad doing
the bulk of the teaching. However, I think there's a biblical
command for dad still to be the. The
ultimate discipler, right? For sure, yeah. I think
that when you go through the scripture, I talk about this in my book, education.
Does God have an opinion that there are twice as many commands in
(27:50):
scripture for men to teach and disciple their children as there
are for mothers, too? And I think that's intentional. And
I sometimes say that the main reason for that is that women
don't have to be told to teach and nurture their children. And men do
just like, love your wives, right? Yeah, exactly.
So men have to actually be told to do these things.
(28:12):
But on the other hand, I think that God
holds us as fathers twice as responsible for the education
of our children as our wives. And so
this idea that we have within culture that we're only breadwinners is
simply not a biblically sustainable idea. Right. Boil that down
a little bit into practical steps. What should dad
(28:35):
be doing if, you know, if everything works out
great? What would an ideal situation be for a dad
discipling his family at home? The two most important things I've
done as a dad that have benefited our family is, number
one, insisting that we are going to homeschool all of our children
from birth to graduation. It's just a non negotiable. Yeah, you
(28:58):
might have just lost half of our listeners there.
I'm not fighting my wife on that. I'm actually insisting that
this is the direction we're going, this is the method we're going to use.
This is non negotiable for us. We're not going to reconsider it. Every year
we've closed the door, our children will be discipled by
us as their parents. And so we don't have to go back and keep revisiting
(29:21):
that all the time. That's a commitment that we've made. We're as committed to that
as we are that we're going to love each other and stay together as a
married couple. You know, we don't go back and revisit that every year and say,
like, is that something that we're really committed to for 2025? You know,
like, we settled that a long time ago. Yeah, so, so that. And
then secondly, the second thing I've done, and I've done a ton of things wrong,
(29:42):
I mean, I write parenting books and you can read my parenting books and
see some of the things that I know I've done wrong. But the one thing
I think I've done that's really benefited our family is having daily family
devotions or family worship time. And that was not
something I was raised with. It was not something I was familiar with. I
heard, knew the concept, right. I'd heard of it, but I hadn't had it
(30:04):
modeled. And I just, as a dad, had to jump in and learn
how to do it. And that's scary for a lot of dads, but
it's been one of the most rewarding things for our family,
and it has reaped huge dividends and so just
those two things. If I did nothing else, that
has had an eternal impact on my childrens souls. Yeah,
(30:27):
I know a little bit about your family background.
Mine is different. I grew up in a house where my dad, when I was
a kid, was a pastor, and we were always in church. My
parents were committed Christians who talked about the
Lord, and yet still we didnt do family
discipleship as a structured thing. Um, what that looked
(30:48):
like in our house was more, I think, of the deuteronomy six
model, in that my dad especially would talk about the
things of the Lord with us. And we, we were always
in church because that was a part of our family dynamic and that
was a part of our family culture. So we understood that it was
important. But even in this house, where my dad was
(31:10):
dedicated to the Lord, my mom was dedicated to the Lord, we did
not sit down regularly and read the Bible. And so, kind of
like you, I had to learn to do that on my own. And
I praise God that, um, I really believe
he just impressed that on my heart, because I don't remember a time
where I heard from somebody, you need to do this as a dad.
(31:32):
Like when I was figuring out fatherhood with my oldest,
it wasn't something I understood necessarily, but I
felt convicted that I needed to do it. So from the time she was an
infant, we would read through, while she was a baby, we would
read through this childrens Bible, and we went through it several times.
And then as she got a little older, we started reading the real
(31:55):
word of God. Right? And then when she had her younger sister, we broke
back out that kids Bible and read through that a bunch of times.
And, you know, its funny, you talk about things youve done
wrong, and I know that as a dad, I've failed in so many ways,
but I praise God that he prompted me to do that thing.
Pretty right. And so, dads, I would encourage you,
(32:17):
just, if you do nothing else, sit with your family,
open up the word of God. It is so important and so
powerful, and that is a great first step in
changing this dynamic in your family, if you're not already doing it.
Uh, let's move on to the tool, because Israel has
presented a great tool to start this off. It's called
(32:40):
foundational truths, a modern catechism.
And, uh, if you're not Catholic, you may have never heard the
word catechism. Um, so Israel, let's jump into that.
What is a catechism? So catechism really means
question and answer format. And so it's a tool that helps you
to ask important Bible doctrine and theology questions and then
(33:02):
hopefully answer them from the scripture. Some people
do associate it as being something Roman Catholic because the Catholic Church
used a catechism for centuries. But Martin Luther actually wrote the
first protestant catechism back in the 15 hundreds. And almost every
protestant denomination in the Reformation time had their own
catechism, from the Presbyterians to the Methodists, the Anglicans
(33:25):
to even the Baptists had what they call the keaches catechism, which
was distinctively Baptiste. And so that really was the
predominant way that churches taught and discipled not
just children, but new believers to the faith for
centuries. And then when the modern Sunday school movement started,
publishers started to come up with Sunday school
(33:47):
curriculum that was denominationally specific. And it kind
of replaced the catechism as a methodology.
But I wasn't raised in a church environment that utilized the
catechism. I was kind of typical middle of the road evangelical,
using the Sunday school curriculum from our denomination. And
it really was not until more recently,
(34:09):
really, for me, that I began studying church history and
wanting to understand what the catechism and the creeds and the
confessions and confirmations and all that stuff was,
and have really become convinced that there's a lot of value in it.
And the one downside, I think, which
kind of got addressed a little in the second great awakening, was that lots of
(34:30):
people had been catechized or taken through a series of questions and
answers about Bible doctrine, answered the questions correctly, but maybe
never got it on the inside. And so they're just, you know,
giving rote, repetitious answers
to the right questions. They answer the questions right on the pop quiz, if you
will, but it never really experienced regeneration of the heart.
(34:52):
And so, you know, during the second great awakening, some of that was being
addressed. But then we pendulum swung too far,
where Christianity then became all about this personal,
subjective response to an invitation and an altar
call. And then people kind of get welcomed into the church
or just identified as a Christian on the basis of some sort of
(35:13):
a response at a concert or an evangelistic meeting.
But they never actually got discipled into actual Bible doctrine and
theology. And so, know, they were focused very much on the
subjective inner heart work, but they kind of scrapped
teaching them the basic foundational tenets of Christianity. And so
my view is, well, we don't have to go to one extreme or the other,
(35:35):
right. We want to reach the head and the heart. And so that's kind of
what this resource really aims to do, is to lay that solid
foundation of the core primary biblical
doctrines. This is not denominational, it's not sectarian, we're
nothing. Teaching divisive secondary doctrines that
churches disagree on pretty much. You can go through this book and I think if
(35:56):
you're from a protestant evangelical theological perspective,
you're going to agree probably with every single
position that's taken within this catechism, because we're
focusing on the main things, not the secondary things. But I think you'll find it
to be a really helpful resource. Yeah. Recently
on the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast, we talked to doctor George
(36:19):
Barna and actually he booked today
for the thinking dad podcast, so well be talking to him as well.
And one of his main clarion calls
is that even in the church we are missing a biblical
worldview. And I think its so important here that you start
at the basics and really build the foundation for a biblical
(36:42):
worldview. I want to open up the book a little bit and one of the
things that I'm struck by is that you start at
question one with really the very basics about
God. How can we know there is a God
and who made God? Right?
Why is it that it's important to start with the very
(37:03):
basics and move from there and tell me a little bit about how
you go from there to these bigger stepping stones.
Well, John 17 three asks the question, or
it doesn't put it so much in a question, it makes a statement, but it
essentially is answering the question like, what is the most important thing in life?
(37:23):
And the answer that's given is to know God and Jesus Christ,
whom he has sent. This is eternal life. And
so that is the most foundational principle
in the universe is knowing God. Not just knowing about goddess, truly knowing
God. And so we have to then ask ourselves, well then who
is God and how can we know God and how do we know that
(37:45):
we're worshiping the correct God? And so I think
that that's, there's just nothing more basic or fundamental than that. So we start with
the doctrine of God and then of course we move from there
to the scriptures because you have to be able to trust that the scriptures are
the word of God and that you know that they're
trustworthy. But creation, that God made everything and that
(38:08):
he's the founder of everything. So we talk about the doctrine of God, and then
the doctrine of man, and then the doctrine of sin and our
fallenness, and how did the world become broken and corrupt? We all agree it
is, but how did we get here? And then moving on to the
solution, which is Jesus Christ and who is
Jesus and what do we need to believe about
(38:29):
Jesus in order to truly
understand him correctly and the significance of who he is and what
he's done for us. So there is a chronology to the
questions in terms of how they build. They're linear and they kind of
build foundationally on top of one another. Yeah,
that's so profound because as you were talking through,
(38:52):
you're saying by learning these things we should be building
a basic theology, right. A knowledge of God, a basic kind
of archaeology, knowledge of man, a christology and
a soteriology, right. A knowledge of how to be saved.
And these are the basic building blocks of our faith. And,
and unfortunately I think we live in a time where even
(39:15):
many in the church don't understand the basic building blocks of
our faith. I want to take a quick left turn
as we go there. Israel,
what is your perception of the state of the church right now?
Well you're going to talk to George Barna and George Barna
can give you stats that will depress you for weeks.
(39:41):
There were a couple of stats. So I highly recommend his new book, anybody who's
not read it. Raising spiritual champions. Powerful,
amazing book in a bad way.
It's a good book, but the information that he shares is just
devastating. And I think that the two things that stood out to me the
most was when he said that only 12% of children and
(40:03):
youth workers within the church have a nominal biblical worldview.
Only 12%. That blew my mind. I mean I already knew like I knew it
was bad, but 12%.
And by nominal biblical worldview he means basically like that would sign your church a
statement of faith like that. Low. The bar is set super low for that
too. And then the other one was where he said that a
(40:25):
child's worldview is essentially locked
down by the age of twelve.
And so that was a wake up call even to me because for many
of us as parents, when we start thinking about doing worldview and
theology training with our teenagers, it's when they're in
adolescence. And so for us to start thinking about
(40:47):
by age twelve, they're pretty much fundamentally
locked down in terms of what they believe in, the trajectory
in which they're headed. That's frightening as a parent.
And so that has given me more motivation with this catechism
to encourage and try to get in the hands of parents to say let's start
way earlier than twelve. Let's not start laying foundational
(41:10):
building blocks at the age of 13. Let's start doing this
much younger. Amen. The time is so short.
I was talking with Israel before we launched, and our
oldest daughter is 18, and Israel has now
kids getting married. And it goes by in a flash.
So, parents, don't waste this time, please. One of the
(41:33):
other scary statistics that Barna brought out recently
was the percentage of pastors who don't
have a fundamental biblical worldview. And so, parents, I want to
caution you, if you don't have one and you're
not instilling it in your kids and you're trusting the church to,
ultimately, it may be a gamble. Um, one of the things
(41:56):
that strikes me, Israel, is that I, I see that in many ways,
the broad road that we hear about in scripture
includes a huge chunk of the church who are
unfortunately sitting in seats, hearing, um, encouraging
messages and Ted talks and feeling built up, and
yet ultimately are built, being built up right to hell. And I don't mean
(42:18):
to, to be so firm on this, but unfortunately, the truth
is that, um, as you dig into the numbers,
real important aspects of a saving
faith in Christ are missing, even in the church. So,
parents, again, we're back to these tools. I would encourage you
to get Israel's book, sit down with your kids and open it up and
(42:40):
go question by question and teach them these truths.
And you know what? Along with them, you'll be learning them as well. And don't
stop there. Open up your word and, and read God's word
with your kids. Do it daily. Um, this one thing will
be the powerful element that will change your family.
Uh, Israel, thank you so much for your time today. Would you
(43:03):
do me a favor real quick and tell people about some of your other
books, because you've written several and they've been hugely
impactful. Well, thank you. And I would encourage anybody, if they want to get a
signed copy of any of my books, they can order them from our
website, which is familyrenewal.org. and
then there's a store button or just forward slash store. So
(43:24):
familyrenewal.org. and I've also written a high
school bible doctrine and theology curriculum that is
called foundations in faith. It's a 36
week course for teenagers. And so
this foundational truths is a catechism that is
based on. We just put the scriptures right
(43:47):
in there. And we try to give the answers to each of these questions directly
from scripture as much as possible. We reference all the scripture verses.
So it's not just a person's opinion. We're actually trying to give the answers
directly. The verbiage directly from the word of God itself, and answering
the different theology questions. So it's sort of just like a
topical Bible study, like the scripture applied topically to these most important
(44:09):
issues. I've written a couple other theological books. One called
questions God asks and another called questions Jesus
asks. And the questions God asks is based on 19
questions in the Old Testament that God asked people, and then
20 questions in the New Testament that Jesus asked people. And
so there's like 39 different Bible doctrine topics
(44:31):
that are addressed through those questions that God asked and that Jesus
asked. It's a very unique approach to Bible study. I wrote that for
adults. They're just kind of, you know, it's not quite
devotional format, but it's just a unique twist on
Bible study. And they're great read alouds as a family, too. Just to
gather in the evening and read it together brings a lot of questions. I've written
two parenting books. One is called Raising Them Up (44:53):
Parenting for Christians. It's
like the 30,000 foot view of how to disciple your children, how to get
your child's heart and keep your child's heart during those years when you have them
in your home. My wife and I co wrote a book that's actually our bestseller
called Pitching a Fit (45:07):
Overcoming Angry
and Stressed Out Parenting. That book, I think, is just universally
relevant for all of us as parents. That one
has sold the best of everything we've written. And then I have another book on
homeschooling for those who are looking for answers. It's called Answers
For Homeschooling (45:26):
The Top 25 Questions Critics Ask.
And in that book, we deal about the questions of, am I qualified to teach
my child? And what if I'm not patient enough? And how can we afford to
do this? And how can we live on a single income? And what about socialization?
And shouldn't our children be missionaries and evangelists in the public school because
they're supposed to be salt and light all of the questions, what about high school?
(45:47):
And what about college? And what about transcripts? And I answer every conceivable question
about homeschooling and Answers For Homeschooling and then Education:
Does God Have an Opinion? I think is one of the most comprehensive books
on a biblical philosophy of education that's on the market today. And
so these resources and more, again, are all available at our familyrenewal.org
store website.
(46:09):
And we would encourage you, if you can, to support our
ministry by buying them on our website. And we'll sign any copies
that you buy directly from us. Yeah, and we'll put links to
the, to all of that in the show notes today,
I'm going to tell you, as, as a listener and a viewer,
I'll give you a little bit of inside baseball. When you podcast, you
(46:31):
get a lot of books. Publishers send us books all the
time. But I'm going to tell you, Israel's
books are excellent and I've actually read them.
Um, parents, I would really encourage you. In fact, I'm going
to brag on Israel a little bit. Israel is so careful.
He was, when he was writing, raising them up, he was wrestling with
(46:53):
an important issue. I won't name the issue because, um,
I don't need to bring any unnecessary controversy into the show,
but he was wrestling with an important issue, and I was blessed to see
an early copy of that book and read through what he had written to. And
I have to say, Israel addressed this with such wisdom
and care. And ultimately, I think the book
(47:16):
really reflects that. So parents, pick up Israel's books,
especially Foundational Truths. This is a
great place to start as a parent. Sit down with your kids, read
through it with them. Israel, I want to ask you one last question before
we wrap it up. If you're a dad
who's starting out and hasn't been doing
(47:38):
these things, what one piece of advice would you give that dad
to? Just practically put this into action day.
To day, just do something consistently. I think even if
you spent five minutes a day opening up the word of God,
reading a chapter from the Bible or
half a chapter, praying with your family,
(48:01):
maybe singing a song together, if you feel brave enough to try that,
just 510 minutes a day, if you just did that consistently, it would build
so much. It would just recenter your family to the word
of God and to showing the importance of
that in your life and to your children. It would reap so much
spiritual benefit for your family. I think you can't
(48:23):
do it wrong. The main thing, the only way to do it wrong is to
not do it. And so, you know, just, just try to do
something with some consistency. It will bear a lot of fruit.
Amen. Well, Israel, thank you so much for your time today.
Man, I hope you know how much my family has been blessed
by you and how much I appreciate your friendship. You are a blessing
(48:44):
to many and I really appreciate you guys. If you've enjoyed this
show, we would love your support. There's a couple ways
you can help out. Please share this show with your friends.
It's brand new. We're just getting off the ground and we need your help to
spread the word. Additionally, go to our website
ThinkingDad.net. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with
(49:06):
what's going on and you can also pick up some great merch there.
Through my microphone, you can see my "Think Biblically" shirt
today. You can pick up one of those or a couple other great
designs. Check out the merch there and
just really spread the word. Also, if you're watching on YouTube,
please make sure you're subscribed to this channel. Like comment,
(49:28):
share do all the things it really does help out. I hope
you've been encouraged today. Stick around to the end of the show to hear
what's coming up next on the thinking dad podcast. Have a
great day and we will see you again soon.
Jesus when he said, the greatest commandment is love, Lord your God, with all your
(49:49):
heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like unto it to love your neighbor
as yourself. Then he said, everything in the Old Testament can be summed up
in those two points. Everything in the Old Testament is either about how we
love God or how we love our neighbor. All of the Bible is either about
how we love God or how we love one another. All of the one anothers
in scripture are, are to be applied in the marriage
(50:11):
relationship. I used to read passages that would say
encourage one another and I would think, well, I need to encourage people at church.
And then dawned on me, well, I need to encourage my wife
or bear one another's burdens or exhort one another or
greet one another with a holy kiss. They're all these one anothers. I used to
think, well, this is how we should get along with people at church. But the
(50:32):
Bible is saying it's how we love our neighbor and
the neighbor is the person nearest you in need. And most often the
person who is nearest me in need is my wife.
When I look at what can we do that would make the most amount of
change in our country? I don't know of anything that
is more important than parents discipling their
children and giving them a biblical worldview. I mean, anything that I think
of, any political activity, any kind of social movement or
social change or whatever, I can't think of anything more fundamental
(00:21):
than just changing hearts and minds, beginning in the home
with parents and then them discipling their children. You know, when we
think about return on investment, it's the best ROi I can think of
in terms of my time. With a face for radio and a video show
to prove it. Coming to you from a bunker in northeastern
Oklahoma. I'm your host, GarrittHampton, and you are
(00:43):
listening to the Thinking Dad. I'm so glad you've joined me today. We
have a really great show for you. I have Israel Wayne on
today, who's a good friend, and we've spent about the last 15
minutes shooting the breeze. I love Israel and I love his
family, and I know you're going to be blessed by him today. Um,
we're going to be talking about his book, Foundational Truths (01:01):
A
Modern Catechism. And we're going to be talking about one of my
favorite subjects, family discipleship. Uh, but
before we get started, I want to tell you about our
sponsor, CTCMath Guys,
these guys are the greatest. I've got to tell you what they did, as we
(01:22):
get started. I don't know where this interview is fitting in the
podcast, but this is the first one we're recording.
And right out of the gate, CTCMath joined us.
These guys understand that thinking dads raise
thinking kids. One of the most important things you can do for
your kids, as a dad, is to raise kids with a
(01:44):
great education so that they can go out into the world and make
an impact. And CTCMath
understands that and is there for you guys. This is the math
curriculum our family uses, and we love it. Try them
out for free at ctcmath.com. They
have a money back guarantee that I guarantee you're not going to
(02:06):
need, because you're going to love them. Check
them out at ctcmath.com. All right, guys, we're
here with Israel Wayne. Israel, for those of our listeners who
may not know you, would you introduce yourself real quickly and tell them
about yourself and your family? Yeah. So I have a unique angle
or experience with the homeschool movement in that my mother was one of the
(02:28):
founding pioneers of the homeschool movement, started homeschooling my
older sister and I back in 1978 and she
started publishing a national homeschool magazine in 1988. So I grew up
in kind of the national leadership side of homeschooling. My
wife was also homeschooled. Her family started homeschooling in 1983.
We've been married for over 25 years. We have eleven children. Our
(02:51):
oldest is almost 24, our baby is
almost three. And so all of our children have been
homeschooled from birth. So I'm kind of known somewhat in that space,
but I'm an author, conference speaker, director and founder
of a ministry called Family Renewal and
have been publishing with New Leaf Press and Master Books for about
(03:13):
the last decade and have had a great synergy
relationship with them. They're a great Christian publisher that put, they put out a lot
of excellent resources for Christians as well
as Christian curriculum for children. And
I'm a conference speaker, so I travel all over the US and sometimes even around
the world, speaking at churches, family camps,
(03:35):
Christian conferences and so forth. So I love what I get to do.
It's a lot of fun. And I, I should also mention, I guess
I wear kind of a volunteer hat with the state Homeschool association of
Michigan Service vice president there and that's keeping me busy
lately. But yeah, a lot of,
a lot of fun things that I get to do. Nice. Yeah. Now this
(03:57):
wasn't a part of my questions at all, but I'd love if you would take
a minute and explain the importance of state homeschool
orgs because this is something we're really passionate about and
I didn't plan on talking about it today, but I'd love it if you would
go there for a minute. So the modern day Christian homeschooling movement
started in 1983 and there were about 26 different state
(04:19):
associations that started that year and then other states
joined. Almost every state in the United States has their own Christian state homeschool
association and these folks do a variety of things. Many of them
put on an annual conference, which if you haven't been to your state's homeschool conference,
I highly recommend that. And you can find all of
these websites for all of the state associations at
(04:41):
a place called homeschoolfreedom.com
and they have a website
that links you to all the different state homeschool associations so you can learn what
they do. They'll also tell you the laws regarding homeschooling in your state.
Oftentimes they will connect you to local or regional homeschool
co ops or support groups. So you can plug into what's happening with events
(05:03):
and opportunities that are local to you. They will
provide all kinds of resources, whether oftentimes, whether it's
special needs or encouragement, inspirational
articles, sometimes podcasts. There's just a lot that they
provide. And so some of them are paid membership
organizations. That basically is just a way for you to donate to the organization
(05:24):
and fund them. But you often will get some membership perks and
discounts on the conferences or goodies.
So I highly recommend and encourage that you check out the state
home school associations in your area
and that you get plugged in and get involved because we're stronger when we stand
together. Yeah, totally. They're so important. Before we
(05:47):
started recording, you were actually talking about what you're working on right now
with your state. Would you mind telling parents what's going on?
So in the state of Michigan, we have a potential bill. It's not been
introduced yet, but supposedly it's been written. They're just waiting for the right
timing to, to introduce it. That would require
annual registration for all students in Michigan into a
(06:09):
centralized education database that would probably be controlled
by the state Department of Education. And so this will be tracking
all children in the state of Michigan through the centralized
database annually. And then additionally to that, of
course, we think that's just the foot in the door. There have been suggestions
that because they are accusing homeschoolers of being child
(06:31):
abusers and that they need to track homeschoolers,
specifically in particular, so that they can
protect the children. And so there's been talk about adding additional
legislation or regulations that may even include home
visits or twice annual visits with some sort of government mandated
reporter. And so our state association, Michigan Christian Home School
(06:53):
Network, or M I C H N is our acronym, we pronounce that mission.
We've been trying to fight that pretty aggressively here in the state of Michigan. We're
an all volunteer board. I serve as vice president of the Michigan State
Homeschool association. So again, this is the kind of thing that we
do and that your state association does many times. You may not even know that
you have a state home school association, but these are the kinds of
(07:16):
battles that we fight, and we're stronger together. So
make sure that you stand with your state home school association. Yeah. Thank you for
that work. It's so important. We regularly try
to warn people about the danger of school choice. And
for conservatives listening, you may hear that and go, why would you
try to stop school choice? And I want people to understand
(07:38):
that these, these school choice laws that are being pushed
are just an open door for government control into
homeschooling and private schools. They're extremely dangerous
because what the government funds, the government runs.
So, please, parents, keep your eyes open and
talk to your legislatures. Talk to people who are pushing
(08:01):
this regulation. It's extraordinarily dangerous for
homeschoolers. Israel, you've spent most of your
career talking to homeschool families, and your mom, of course,
you mentioned, was kind of a groundbreaking homeschool leader.
Um, you've had 30 years to figure out what you wanted to
do. Why would you do this? I think one of the things that
(08:22):
happened to me back in the 1980s and nineties
was watching my mom, who was often a keynote speaker at these homeschool
conferences. When she would give a presentation,
people would often come up afterward and would just talk about
how that message changed their hearts and minds.
There were people who would get saved listening to my mom's messages,
(08:46):
or they would read the magazines that she published or the books she wrote
and just talk about how life changing it was. And I started to
see how this could have a multigenerational impact, that you're not just impacting
a person, but when you really see the hearts of parents
turning to their children, that can have an impact
that goes many generations deepen. And so
(09:08):
in terms of cultural change, I really don't know of anything that is more significant
than being able to make an impact in seeing
revival in the home and seeing the hearts of fathers turn to
their children and the hearts of mothers turn to their children and couples being reunited.
And so even as a teenager, I started
working in her publishing business and worked there 20
(09:31):
years, and have just seen that impact of
thousands of families over the years that have said, like,
we read your book or we heard you speak, and it just put us on
a completely different trajectory. And so
I think as far as when I look at what can we do that would
make the most amount of change in our country? I don't know
(09:53):
of anything that is more important than
parents discipling their children and giving them a biblical worldview.
Right. I mean, anything that I think of, any political activity,
any kind of social movement or social change or whatever, I can't think of anything
more fundamental than just changing hearts and
minds, beginning in the home with parents and
(10:15):
then them discipling their children. I think it's probably the best
investment. When we think about return on investment,
it's the best roi I can think of in terms of my time. Yeah.
Amen. What you're saying is that education is
related to everything, right? Culture is downstream. Downstream from
education. The church is dependent on education.
(10:37):
One of the things I say all the time is it doesn't matter how
committed the adults are in the church, if
their children are being discipled by the state into a
secular worldview, the church will die in a. In a generation.
And so, yeah, I think this is so important, and I'm. I'm really so
thankful for your ministry. Um, our. Our viewers don't probably
(11:00):
know, but you and I met many years ago working on a
movie called Schoolhouse rocked the homeschool Revolution,
which is available now for streaming for free at
schoolhouse rocked.com. but you were an important voice in that
movie, and you've had a real impact on my
thinking about education for years. In fact,
(11:21):
when I started directing that movie, um, I was of the
opinion that education was important, but
that parents could kind of do whatever they felt was right for their
family and, you know, trust the Lord to take care of everything else,
and it would be fine. And as I started working on the movie and
talking to people like you and reading your really, really powerful
(11:43):
article, um, Christian education a manifesto.
Right? I've shared this article dozens of times, and
you wrote a book called education. Does God have an opinion?
And these sort of things really shaped my opinion
in a very important way about education. It really
is the key to the rest of culture, and it really
(12:05):
is the key to discipleship. So I want. I want you to talk a
little bit about how education and discipleship go together, and
that'll bring us to why you wrote your book and kind of what you're trying
to get families to do. Well, Jesus said and
taught and demonstrated something that was really radical. And it was quite
different, really, than the approach, the socratic
(12:26):
method that the Greeks had embraced.
The idea from the Greeks was really very much that you have an information
download and that you try to pass on
ideas from one generation to the next. And I think sometimes when we think
of education, we think of it in that way. But the more
hebraic model that Jesus emulated was where
(12:49):
he woke his disciples up every morning and he said, come,
follow me. And then they just followed him around,
and they watched what he did, and he taught them
by how he lived. And so Jesus said that
when a student is fully trained, he will become like his
teacher. And so the question, I think, for us as parents
(13:11):
is, do we want our children becoming like their
teachers in terms of their worldview, in terms of their
beliefs, their lifestyle, their practice, and really,
the concept within the Bible that we find is that we're the ones that are
supposed to be the mentors. We're the ones that are supposed to be the models,
right? And so we're supposed to say, like the apostle Paul, follow
(13:33):
me as I follow Christ. And I think for some parents,
especially for some dads, they think, I don't know that I want that. I don't
know that I want my child becoming like me. I want my child
to become a composite of all these wonderful,
you know, morals or values or principles.
I don't think I want my child to grow up and be like me. And
(13:55):
in one sense, we don't. Right, because we know our failures and our
imperfections. But we're supposed to be
modeling for our children what we want them to become. And
so if we want our children to know how to forgive people, well,
we need to learn how to forgive. And if we want them to know how
to do conflict resolution, we have to model that. And if we want them to
(14:15):
be good financial stewards, we have to show them how to do that.
And we want them to have good marriages. We have to model that for
them. And so discipleship is far more than just cramming
their head full of information and data. It is very much us
passing on who we are to them,
and that's deuteronomy six. And so many people, I
(14:37):
think, think that they can fulfill deuteronomy six, which says,
this law, which I give you this day, is to be on your heart. That's
where it starts. But then you teach it diligently.
When you sit in your home, when you walk outside your home,
when you rise up, when you lie down. And they think they can fulfill that
by sending their children away from them all day, and you can't.
(15:00):
And so that model is really one of having your
children close to you, being with them, and just letting them see the way that
you live. And that requires us to have that law
written on our heart. Right. We have to get it first. You can't give to
somebody else what you don't have. And so that that principle of
discipleship means that we have to own it first in order to be able
(15:22):
to transmit it to others. And that's a big commitment, and it scares a
lot of people, and they run away from it. Yeah, I think you actually.
I don't know if you meant to do this, but I think you actually
hit on the number one reason that
parents don't actually homeschool their kids. You know, we hear
arguments like, well, my kids need to be socialized, or I want my kids
(15:44):
involved in school, sports or whatever. There's a million
reasons that we'll hear why parents won't actually take
charge of their kids education. And ultimately, I think
it boils down to the sobering thought that, man,
if I bring them into my home and I put them under my
discipleship, I'm ultimately responsible. And I know
(16:06):
what I am, right? I know as a dad, I'm a sinner.
I'm, I'm prone to anger at times. I'm prone to
speaking out of turn. And if I'm responsible for training my
kids, then ultimately I have to take responsibility for
the outcome. What would you say to a parent who struggles with
that? Well, I understand that myself. I think
(16:28):
we all do. I think Garritt and I both do. And so we're sympathetic
to it. But at the same point, so I put it
this, a friend of mine said this back in the eighties, I remember he used
to go around and do homeschool seminars. And when I was just a teenager, I
used to go hear him say this, but he would say, homeschooling is a window
and mirror into the heart. It is a window into your child's
(16:49):
heart where it gives you the context, the time,
the ability to be with them all day and to see what's in their
heart. And sometimes what we see in our child's heart, we
don't like. Sometimes we see laziness. Sometimes we see disobedience,
we see rebellion, we see bad attitudes, we see lack of
character. And he said, but homeschooling is more than just
(17:13):
a window into our child's heart, giving us the time and the opportunity
to see what's going on inside of them. It's also a mirror back to our
own heart. And so, oftentimes, we see a lot of yuck in us
where we are impatient with them and we get frustrated how
we're lazy and we don't want to put the work in. And it reflects back
who we are, and we don't like that. We don't like the bad
(17:35):
things that we see inside of their heart, and we don't like the negative
reflection that we see from the mirror that they reflect back
to us. And so what most parents do is they just say, I'm going to
send my child away from me, and then I don't have to see
that, and then I don't have to think about that.
And, you know, I had a lady told me one time, she said, my twelve
(17:57):
year old daughter and I are homeschooling. But it's not going well. We're not getting
along. She pushes back. She loves her teachers at school.
She doesn't like me. She just wants to go back to school.
And she thinks that she would be happier there. And I'm thinking she would be
happier there, too. And I think I would be happier. And so I'm thinking
that I should just send her back to school. What do you think about that?
(18:20):
And I told her, I said, so, let me ask you this question. What is
your main goal? What are you trying to achieve? And she said, well, I
guess just so we stopped fighting. I said, so just avoiding
conflict. That's your goal? And she said, yes. I said, okay,
well, I would agree with you that if you want to avoid conflict, that that's
probably the best way to go about it. And she seemed really surprised
(18:42):
because she knows I'm a strong homeschool advocate. And so she said, well, I'm really
surprised to hear you say that. Like, I didn't expect that from you. And I
said, but, yeah, I mean, if that's your goal, to avoid conflict, then definitely
send your child to school. I said, now, if your goal was that you wanted
to have a relationship with your daughter, that would be the worst possible thing you
could do. And she said, wait, what? And I said, well,
(19:03):
basically, sending people that you love away from
you almost assures that you will not have
relationship with them, because relationship is predominantly
a product of time, and influence is a product of
time. And so if you don't want to have
conflict, then send your child away from you. But I said, I'm going to make
(19:24):
an additional suggestion that during the season where you're avoiding conflict
with your daughter, I would also advise that you move out of the house and
not live with your husband anymore either, so that you can avoid even
more conflict. Because if you don't live with your husband, then you can't
have conflict with him either. Right. And she was totally confused by
that. And just, it was like, she's like, that seems like terrible advice.
(19:46):
Like, why would you say that? And I said, well, again, I mean, if that's
our goal, if our goal is we just don't want conflict, then that's a great
way to avoid conflict. But again, if the goal is that you want to actually
have a relationship with your husband, then you need to run into these
relationships, not run away from them. And so I think this. You're
exactly right, Garrett. I think people don't want to face
(20:06):
the hard part of doing
relationships and doing life together. With their family.
And so avoidance just becomes their path, and it leads
to divorce and marriage, and it leads to our children wanting to have nothing to
do with us when they're adults. And so, you know, the better
approach, rather than just sending them away for complete strangers to raise them,
(20:28):
is that we have to figure this out. And I'll say this, too, sometimes it
actually requires bringing people, welcoming people into our
family dynamic, you know, our church elders or maybe a biblical
counselor and saying, we need help, like, we're
not surviving here. We're not thriving here. And yet, you know what keeps people
from doing that? Pride. People are too proud. They are
(20:50):
too self reliant.
And they think that it's a shame on them to say that
they need help. And men will often ask for help if it's, you know,
fixing their truck or solving a plumbing problem, and they
realize they're in over their head. But when it comes to relationships and their
family, we don't go outside the house for that.
(21:12):
And I think people do themselves a great disservice.
Yeah. Wow, man, that is so true. And what's
unfortunate is that pride is praised as a virtue.
Now, in culture, you talked about something in
that where you mentioned the goal of, and I think that
brings us to a really important point. Whereas parents,
(21:34):
we have to evaluate what is our ultimate goal with
our children. I think that God has very clearly given our children to
us to steward them and to steward them toward an
end. So I want to talk about that a little bit after we take a
break. We will be right back. Men, I want to ask a
favor of you. As you know, the Thinking Dad podcast is brand
(21:56):
new, and we really want to reach millions of men
with this message of encouragement. So I want to ask you to take a minute
to share this show. If you're watching the video on YouTube or another
video platform, make sure you're subscribed to our channel.
Go ahead and hit the like button and then leave a comment that really does
help with the algorithms. If you're listening on a podcast app, take
(22:19):
a minute to go in and rate and review the show. It helps others
to know why. This shows an encouragement to you, and it really does help to
get the word out. Also, men, take a minute, go
to ctcmath.com and just say thank you for supporting this
show. They're such a blessing. They've been with the Schoolhouse Rocked
Podcast for about five years now. They've really been a blessing
(22:41):
to us, and they just believe in this mission. So they were game to
come along with us for the first season and support us in a big way.
If you are blessed by this show, it's partially because
of them. I want you to take a minute and say thank you to them.
It really does help out. All right, we are back with Israel.
Wayne. Man, that was good stuff, Israel. We were talking about
(23:03):
the goal. What do you see as the goal for dads?
Well, we actually have a family mission statement, and I created a
poster that hangs in the living room of our home in
the main high traffic area that we go through all day,
every day. It's probably about a three foot by four foot
poster, and it has a picture, but then the words
(23:25):
say, we exist to know love
and serve God, and love and serve others.
And if you ask any of my children, down to at
least my seven year old, they can all recite that. And if you ask
them what is your purpose in life, they will say it's to know
love and serve God and love and serve other people. And to
(23:48):
me, really, that's the heart, that's the bullseye of the target. That's
true north for us. And so we constantly
look at that and recalibrate to that and say,
are we fulfilling the purpose for which God has placed us here on
the earth? And it also helps us to make wise
choices when opportunities come up to
(24:10):
ask, does this align with and help us to accomplish our mission
on Earth? Or is this just going to be a distraction from us
accomplishing our mission on earth? So, like, does this video game
help us to know God better? Does it equip us to love and
serve other people better? Wow. Okay. If it doesn't, then it's
taking us off course. It's not aligning with our mission.
(24:33):
Okay, what about this opportunity to go on Saturday and help
an older person in our church who is recovering from a surgery?
Yes, that does align with our mission. And yes, we want to be about
that. So it really helps us to be able to even sort through
making wise decisions as a family. Yeah.
Wow. Now I'm going to jump into this tool you've provided for
(24:55):
parents, but before I do that, I want to ask you,
how are dad's role and mom's role different
in establishing the goal and working toward the goal and
communicating the goal in the house? Well, I know
that every family dynamic is a little bit different, and
so it's hard to say that, you know, every family is going to look exactly
(25:18):
the same. However, in general, I think
dads tend to be visionaries and they
tend to be able to see the big picture. But
oftentimes it's the moms who are really good with the
implementation. And so in addition to creating a
mission statement for your family, which I highly encourage you to do,
(25:38):
there can also be a mission strategy
where you talk about, okay, so what are the ways in which we
are going to implement our mission statement and actually functionally get it
done? So for our home, for example, it's my
role as the husband to constantly remind our family
of the main thing and keep pointing us back there and
(26:00):
to make sure that we are on target and we don't derail, we don't go
off course and drift from mission.
And that's the role, like, for a CEO in a corporation. Right. Because
universities, nonprofits, businesses
oftentimes experience mission drift, and you find 100 years
later, they're completely doing something totally opposite than what
(26:22):
they started, like the YMCA or the Boy Scouts. Right.
And so we want to make sure that we keep our family on mission. But
then the role of the mom, I think, often, is to say, okay, now here's
our big picture goal. How do we get there and how do
we implement that, and what's the strategy that we use? And so there
really is good teamwork. I think that God makes us, as husbands and wives, a
(26:44):
little different in terms of our thought processes, our skill
sets, our giftings. And so we work together as a
team to make sure that we don't just have a grandiose vision, but that we
actually know how to practically implement it throughout the week. Right?
Yeah. Just like in homeschooling, when the rubber meets the road,
usually if there's a two parent home, dad is out earning
(27:06):
a living and providing for the family, and mom is at
home with the kids during the day doing the educating.
I think that contrary to the cultural norm, in
most cases, um, in order to make it work,
you have to have some level of mom being home to teach the kids.
I know that, that, that with homeschooling, there are all sorts of
(27:28):
cases, but it's usually not dad doing
the bulk of the teaching. However, I think there's a biblical
command for dad still to be the. The
ultimate discipler, right? For sure, yeah. I think
that when you go through the scripture, I talk about this in my book, education.
Does God have an opinion that there are twice as many commands in
(27:50):
scripture for men to teach and disciple their children as there
are for mothers, too? And I think that's intentional. And
I sometimes say that the main reason for that is that women
don't have to be told to teach and nurture their children. And men do
just like, love your wives, right? Yeah, exactly.
So men have to actually be told to do these things.
(28:12):
But on the other hand, I think that God
holds us as fathers twice as responsible for the education
of our children as our wives. And so
this idea that we have within culture that we're only breadwinners is
simply not a biblically sustainable idea. Right. Boil that down
a little bit into practical steps. What should dad
(28:35):
be doing if, you know, if everything works out
great? What would an ideal situation be for a dad
discipling his family at home? The two most important things I've
done as a dad that have benefited our family is, number
one, insisting that we are going to homeschool all of our children
from birth to graduation. It's just a non negotiable. Yeah, you
(28:58):
might have just lost half of our listeners there.
I'm not fighting my wife on that. I'm actually insisting that
this is the direction we're going, this is the method we're going to use.
This is non negotiable for us. We're not going to reconsider it. Every year
we've closed the door, our children will be discipled by
us as their parents. And so we don't have to go back and keep revisiting
(29:21):
that all the time. That's a commitment that we've made. We're as committed to that
as we are that we're going to love each other and stay together as a
married couple. You know, we don't go back and revisit that every year and say,
like, is that something that we're really committed to for 2025? You know,
like, we settled that a long time ago. Yeah, so, so that. And
then secondly, the second thing I've done, and I've done a ton of things wrong,
(29:42):
I mean, I write parenting books and you can read my parenting books and
see some of the things that I know I've done wrong. But the one thing
I think I've done that's really benefited our family is having daily family
devotions or family worship time. And that was not
something I was raised with. It was not something I was familiar with. I
heard, knew the concept, right. I'd heard of it, but I hadn't had it
(30:04):
modeled. And I just, as a dad, had to jump in and learn
how to do it. And that's scary for a lot of dads, but
it's been one of the most rewarding things for our family,
and it has reaped huge dividends and so just
those two things. If I did nothing else, that
has had an eternal impact on my childrens souls. Yeah,
(30:27):
I know a little bit about your family background.
Mine is different. I grew up in a house where my dad, when I was
a kid, was a pastor, and we were always in church. My
parents were committed Christians who talked about the
Lord, and yet still we didnt do family
discipleship as a structured thing. Um, what that looked
(30:48):
like in our house was more, I think, of the deuteronomy six
model, in that my dad especially would talk about the
things of the Lord with us. And we, we were always
in church because that was a part of our family dynamic and that
was a part of our family culture. So we understood that it was
important. But even in this house, where my dad was
(31:10):
dedicated to the Lord, my mom was dedicated to the Lord, we did
not sit down regularly and read the Bible. And so, kind of
like you, I had to learn to do that on my own. And
I praise God that, um, I really believe
he just impressed that on my heart, because I don't remember a time
where I heard from somebody, you need to do this as a dad.
(31:32):
Like when I was figuring out fatherhood with my oldest,
it wasn't something I understood necessarily, but I
felt convicted that I needed to do it. So from the time she was an
infant, we would read through, while she was a baby, we would
read through this childrens Bible, and we went through it several times.
And then as she got a little older, we started reading the real
(31:55):
word of God. Right? And then when she had her younger sister, we broke
back out that kids Bible and read through that a bunch of times.
And, you know, its funny, you talk about things youve done
wrong, and I know that as a dad, I've failed in so many ways,
but I praise God that he prompted me to do that thing.
Pretty right. And so, dads, I would encourage you,
(32:17):
just, if you do nothing else, sit with your family,
open up the word of God. It is so important and so
powerful, and that is a great first step in
changing this dynamic in your family, if you're not already doing it.
Uh, let's move on to the tool, because Israel has
presented a great tool to start this off. It's called
(32:40):
foundational truths, a modern catechism.
And, uh, if you're not Catholic, you may have never heard the
word catechism. Um, so Israel, let's jump into that.
What is a catechism? So catechism really means
question and answer format. And so it's a tool that helps you
to ask important Bible doctrine and theology questions and then
(33:02):
hopefully answer them from the scripture. Some people
do associate it as being something Roman Catholic because the Catholic Church
used a catechism for centuries. But Martin Luther actually wrote the
first protestant catechism back in the 15 hundreds. And almost every
protestant denomination in the Reformation time had their own
catechism, from the Presbyterians to the Methodists, the Anglicans
(33:25):
to even the Baptists had what they call the keaches catechism, which
was distinctively Baptiste. And so that really was the
predominant way that churches taught and discipled not
just children, but new believers to the faith for
centuries. And then when the modern Sunday school movement started,
publishers started to come up with Sunday school
(33:47):
curriculum that was denominationally specific. And it kind
of replaced the catechism as a methodology.
But I wasn't raised in a church environment that utilized the
catechism. I was kind of typical middle of the road evangelical,
using the Sunday school curriculum from our denomination. And
it really was not until more recently,
(34:09):
really, for me, that I began studying church history and
wanting to understand what the catechism and the creeds and the
confessions and confirmations and all that stuff was,
and have really become convinced that there's a lot of value in it.
And the one downside, I think, which
kind of got addressed a little in the second great awakening, was that lots of
(34:30):
people had been catechized or taken through a series of questions and
answers about Bible doctrine, answered the questions correctly, but maybe
never got it on the inside. And so they're just, you know,
giving rote, repetitious answers
to the right questions. They answer the questions right on the pop quiz, if you
will, but it never really experienced regeneration of the heart.
(34:52):
And so, you know, during the second great awakening, some of that was being
addressed. But then we pendulum swung too far,
where Christianity then became all about this personal,
subjective response to an invitation and an altar
call. And then people kind of get welcomed into the church
or just identified as a Christian on the basis of some sort of
(35:13):
a response at a concert or an evangelistic meeting.
But they never actually got discipled into actual Bible doctrine and
theology. And so, know, they were focused very much on the
subjective inner heart work, but they kind of scrapped
teaching them the basic foundational tenets of Christianity. And so
my view is, well, we don't have to go to one extreme or the other,
(35:35):
right. We want to reach the head and the heart. And so that's kind of
what this resource really aims to do, is to lay that solid
foundation of the core primary biblical
doctrines. This is not denominational, it's not sectarian, we're
nothing. Teaching divisive secondary doctrines that
churches disagree on pretty much. You can go through this book and I think if
(35:56):
you're from a protestant evangelical theological perspective,
you're going to agree probably with every single
position that's taken within this catechism, because we're
focusing on the main things, not the secondary things. But I think you'll find it
to be a really helpful resource. Yeah. Recently
on the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast, we talked to doctor George
(36:19):
Barna and actually he booked today
for the thinking dad podcast, so well be talking to him as well.
And one of his main clarion calls
is that even in the church we are missing a biblical
worldview. And I think its so important here that you start
at the basics and really build the foundation for a biblical
(36:42):
worldview. I want to open up the book a little bit and one of the
things that I'm struck by is that you start at
question one with really the very basics about
God. How can we know there is a God
and who made God? Right?
Why is it that it's important to start with the very
(37:03):
basics and move from there and tell me a little bit about how
you go from there to these bigger stepping stones.
Well, John 17 three asks the question, or
it doesn't put it so much in a question, it makes a statement, but it
essentially is answering the question like, what is the most important thing in life?
(37:23):
And the answer that's given is to know God and Jesus Christ,
whom he has sent. This is eternal life. And
so that is the most foundational principle
in the universe is knowing God. Not just knowing about goddess, truly knowing
God. And so we have to then ask ourselves, well then who
is God and how can we know God and how do we know that
(37:45):
we're worshiping the correct God? And so I think
that that's, there's just nothing more basic or fundamental than that. So we start with
the doctrine of God and then of course we move from there
to the scriptures because you have to be able to trust that the scriptures are
the word of God and that you know that they're
trustworthy. But creation, that God made everything and that
(38:08):
he's the founder of everything. So we talk about the doctrine of God, and then
the doctrine of man, and then the doctrine of sin and our
fallenness, and how did the world become broken and corrupt? We all agree it
is, but how did we get here? And then moving on to the
solution, which is Jesus Christ and who is
Jesus and what do we need to believe about
(38:29):
Jesus in order to truly
understand him correctly and the significance of who he is and what
he's done for us. So there is a chronology to the
questions in terms of how they build. They're linear and they kind of
build foundationally on top of one another. Yeah,
that's so profound because as you were talking through,
(38:52):
you're saying by learning these things we should be building
a basic theology, right. A knowledge of God, a basic kind
of archaeology, knowledge of man, a christology and
a soteriology, right. A knowledge of how to be saved.
And these are the basic building blocks of our faith. And,
and unfortunately I think we live in a time where even
(39:15):
many in the church don't understand the basic building blocks of
our faith. I want to take a quick left turn
as we go there. Israel,
what is your perception of the state of the church right now?
Well you're going to talk to George Barna and George Barna
can give you stats that will depress you for weeks.
(39:41):
There were a couple of stats. So I highly recommend his new book, anybody who's
not read it. Raising spiritual champions. Powerful,
amazing book in a bad way.
It's a good book, but the information that he shares is just
devastating. And I think that the two things that stood out to me the
most was when he said that only 12% of children and
(40:03):
youth workers within the church have a nominal biblical worldview.
Only 12%. That blew my mind. I mean I already knew like I knew it
was bad, but 12%.
And by nominal biblical worldview he means basically like that would sign your church a
statement of faith like that. Low. The bar is set super low for that
too. And then the other one was where he said that a
(40:25):
child's worldview is essentially locked
down by the age of twelve.
And so that was a wake up call even to me because for many
of us as parents, when we start thinking about doing worldview and
theology training with our teenagers, it's when they're in
adolescence. And so for us to start thinking about
(40:47):
by age twelve, they're pretty much fundamentally
locked down in terms of what they believe in, the trajectory
in which they're headed. That's frightening as a parent.
And so that has given me more motivation with this catechism
to encourage and try to get in the hands of parents to say let's start
way earlier than twelve. Let's not start laying foundational
(41:10):
building blocks at the age of 13. Let's start doing this
much younger. Amen. The time is so short.
I was talking with Israel before we launched, and our
oldest daughter is 18, and Israel has now
kids getting married. And it goes by in a flash.
So, parents, don't waste this time, please. One of the
(41:33):
other scary statistics that Barna brought out recently
was the percentage of pastors who don't
have a fundamental biblical worldview. And so, parents, I want to
caution you, if you don't have one and you're
not instilling it in your kids and you're trusting the church to,
ultimately, it may be a gamble. Um, one of the things
(41:56):
that strikes me, Israel, is that I, I see that in many ways,
the broad road that we hear about in scripture
includes a huge chunk of the church who are
unfortunately sitting in seats, hearing, um, encouraging
messages and Ted talks and feeling built up, and
yet ultimately are built, being built up right to hell. And I don't mean
(42:18):
to, to be so firm on this, but unfortunately, the truth
is that, um, as you dig into the numbers,
real important aspects of a saving
faith in Christ are missing, even in the church. So,
parents, again, we're back to these tools. I would encourage you
to get Israel's book, sit down with your kids and open it up and
(42:40):
go question by question and teach them these truths.
And you know what? Along with them, you'll be learning them as well. And don't
stop there. Open up your word and, and read God's word
with your kids. Do it daily. Um, this one thing will
be the powerful element that will change your family.
Uh, Israel, thank you so much for your time today. Would you
(43:03):
do me a favor real quick and tell people about some of your other
books, because you've written several and they've been hugely
impactful. Well, thank you. And I would encourage anybody, if they want to get a
signed copy of any of my books, they can order them from our
website, which is familyrenewal.org. and
then there's a store button or just forward slash store. So
(43:24):
familyrenewal.org. and I've also written a high
school bible doctrine and theology curriculum that is
called foundations in faith. It's a 36
week course for teenagers. And so
this foundational truths is a catechism that is
based on. We just put the scriptures right
(43:47):
in there. And we try to give the answers to each of these questions directly
from scripture as much as possible. We reference all the scripture verses.
So it's not just a person's opinion. We're actually trying to give the answers
directly. The verbiage directly from the word of God itself, and answering
the different theology questions. So it's sort of just like a
topical Bible study, like the scripture applied topically to these most important
(44:09):
issues. I've written a couple other theological books. One called
questions God asks and another called questions Jesus
asks. And the questions God asks is based on 19
questions in the Old Testament that God asked people, and then
20 questions in the New Testament that Jesus asked people. And
so there's like 39 different Bible doctrine topics
(44:31):
that are addressed through those questions that God asked and that Jesus
asked. It's a very unique approach to Bible study. I wrote that for
adults. They're just kind of, you know, it's not quite
devotional format, but it's just a unique twist on
Bible study. And they're great read alouds as a family, too. Just to
gather in the evening and read it together brings a lot of questions. I've written
two parenting books. One is called Raising Them Up (44:53):
Parenting for Christians. It's
like the 30,000 foot view of how to disciple your children, how to get
your child's heart and keep your child's heart during those years when you have them
in your home. My wife and I co wrote a book that's actually our bestseller
called Pitching a Fit (45:07):
Overcoming Angry
and Stressed Out Parenting. That book, I think, is just universally
relevant for all of us as parents. That one
has sold the best of everything we've written. And then I have another book on
homeschooling for those who are looking for answers. It's called Answers
For Homeschooling (45:26):
The Top 25 Questions Critics Ask.
And in that book, we deal about the questions of, am I qualified to teach
my child? And what if I'm not patient enough? And how can we afford to
do this? And how can we live on a single income? And what about socialization?
And shouldn't our children be missionaries and evangelists in the public school because
they're supposed to be salt and light all of the questions, what about high school?
(45:47):
And what about college? And what about transcripts? And I answer every conceivable question
about homeschooling and Answers For Homeschooling and then Education:
Does God Have an Opinion? I think is one of the most comprehensive books
on a biblical philosophy of education that's on the market today. And
so these resources and more, again, are all available at our familyrenewal.org
store website.
(46:09):
And we would encourage you, if you can, to support our
ministry by buying them on our website. And we'll sign any copies
that you buy directly from us. Yeah, and we'll put links to
the, to all of that in the show notes today,
I'm going to tell you, as, as a listener and a viewer,
I'll give you a little bit of inside baseball. When you podcast, you
(46:31):
get a lot of books. Publishers send us books all the
time. But I'm going to tell you, Israel's
books are excellent and I've actually read them.
Um, parents, I would really encourage you. In fact, I'm going
to brag on Israel a little bit. Israel is so careful.
He was, when he was writing, raising them up, he was wrestling with
(46:53):
an important issue. I won't name the issue because, um,
I don't need to bring any unnecessary controversy into the show,
but he was wrestling with an important issue, and I was blessed to see
an early copy of that book and read through what he had written to. And
I have to say, Israel addressed this with such wisdom
and care. And ultimately, I think the book
(47:16):
really reflects that. So parents, pick up Israel's books,
especially Foundational Truths. This is a
great place to start as a parent. Sit down with your kids, read
through it with them. Israel, I want to ask you one last question before
we wrap it up. If you're a dad
who's starting out and hasn't been doing
(47:38):
these things, what one piece of advice would you give that dad
to? Just practically put this into action day.
To day, just do something consistently. I think even if
you spent five minutes a day opening up the word of God,
reading a chapter from the Bible or
half a chapter, praying with your family,
(48:01):
maybe singing a song together, if you feel brave enough to try that,
just 510 minutes a day, if you just did that consistently, it would build
so much. It would just recenter your family to the word
of God and to showing the importance of
that in your life and to your children. It would reap so much
spiritual benefit for your family. I think you can't
(48:23):
do it wrong. The main thing, the only way to do it wrong is to
not do it. And so, you know, just, just try to do
something with some consistency. It will bear a lot of fruit.
Amen. Well, Israel, thank you so much for your time today.
Man, I hope you know how much my family has been blessed
by you and how much I appreciate your friendship. You are a blessing
(48:44):
to many and I really appreciate you guys. If you've enjoyed this
show, we would love your support. There's a couple ways
you can help out. Please share this show with your friends.
It's brand new. We're just getting off the ground and we need your help to
spread the word. Additionally, go to our website
ThinkingDad.net. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with
(49:06):
what's going on and you can also pick up some great merch there.
Through my microphone, you can see my "Think Biblically" shirt
today. You can pick up one of those or a couple other great
designs. Check out the merch there and
just really spread the word. Also, if you're watching on YouTube,
please make sure you're subscribed to this channel. Like comment,
(49:28):
share do all the things it really does help out. I hope
you've been encouraged today. Stick around to the end of the show to hear
what's coming up next on the thinking dad podcast. Have a
great day and we will see you again soon.
Jesus when he said, the greatest commandment is love, Lord your God, with all your
(49:49):
heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like unto it to love your neighbor
as yourself. Then he said, everything in the Old Testament can be summed up
in those two points. Everything in the Old Testament is either about how we
love God or how we love our neighbor. All of the Bible is either about
how we love God or how we love one another. All of the one anothers
in scripture are, are to be applied in the marriage
(50:11):
relationship. I used to read passages that would say
encourage one another and I would think, well, I need to encourage people at church.
And then dawned on me, well, I need to encourage my wife
or bear one another's burdens or exhort one another or
greet one another with a holy kiss. They're all these one anothers. I used to
think, well, this is how we should get along with people at church. But the
(50:32):
Bible is saying it's how we love our neighbor and
the neighbor is the person nearest you in need. And most often the
person who is nearest me in need is my wife.
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