May 6, 2025 • 45 mins
The digital world has transformed parenting in profound ways, creating unprecedented challenges for families navigating sexuality and technology. In this eye-opening conversation, Jacob Volk, Co-Executive Director of Into the Light Ministries, brings clarity and hope to parents feeling overwhelmed by these complex issues.
"The average child is exposed to explicit content at age eight," Volk reveals, underscoring why conversations about sexuality can't wait. But rather than approaching this reality with fear, he offers a compassionate framework balancing protection with preparation. Parents today face what he calls a "triple challenge" – the inherent difficulties of parenting, the pervasiveness of pornography, and the complexity of managing ever-evolving technology.
For parents who discover their teens are already struggling with pornography, Volk offers hope through stories of families who've navigated these challenges toward restored relationships. His message resonates with grace: it's never too late to begin these conversations, even if it requires acknowledging past hesitation or mistakes.
Perhaps most powerfully, Volk reminds us that sexuality is God's beautiful design, not the distorted version our culture presents. By reclaiming this territory from "the devil's turf," parents have the opportunity to guide their children toward a healthy, integrated understanding of sexuality as sacred rather than shameful.
Ready to better equip yourself for these crucial conversations? Visit these resources below and begin transforming how your family approaches these essential topics.
Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome back, super eager to get
in today's conversation.
It is a heartbeat of mine, aheartbeat of our ministry, but,
both because of the work that Ido and because I'm a dad, we
want to talk today to parentsabout the issue of pornography
and sexuality and raising kidsin this sexually confused
(00:21):
culture.
And my guest today is JacobVolk.
He is a.
Am I saying your last name,right?
Oh, yeah.
You got it Nice, okay, I likethat.
Um, jacob, tell us like,without, without, without boring
us with your Vita right off thethe the backs.
I'll ask you more questions but, like you are, you're getting
your PhD and you got to tellpeople what you're doing PhD in.
(00:41):
I think this is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, so so maybe, maybe I gotta, I gotta lead into
that.
There's so many things.
Um, you, you know this becauseof the work you do.
You know pornography is one ofthe biggest house fires in the
church and so once you recognizethat, you kind of have a
handful of things you can doabout it and, for whatever
(01:06):
reason, god wired me to want todive into the thorniest problems
I can find and try and behelpful, and so we'll talk a
bunch about pornography andparenting and stuff.
(01:29):
But then I'm currently atSouthern Seminary working on my
PhD in another thorny, messy,difficult topic of modesty.
So I'm fascinated by beauty, byembodiment, by our sexuality,
by attraction, how we clotheourselves, how we steward our
bodies in the public sphere, thesexual revolution, purity,
culture.
It's a giant mess of difficultthings and, I think, heartache
for a lot of people, a lot ofparents, a lot of like girls and
(01:49):
guys trying to navigate theirway, you know, through later
teens and earlier teens.
Even so, yeah, that's, that'ssort of a, it's kind of like
it's that's the jake.
That's more as me as a, as anacademic, doing my best in a
sphere, and it's related butslightly distinct from my, my
role as the executive directorof into the light, but they
complement each other.
Sexual ethics is always.
(02:09):
That's that's the world I livein and it's it's a real
privilege to learn about God'sbeautiful design for sexuality
and families and everything thatcomes from that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, well, what I love about that and I think I
mean I love it just in general,because it's an important topic
and we should have you back onat some point to talk about
that- yeah, not for about fiveyears, please, okay, okay.
All right, shoot me an email infive years, all right.
(02:39):
Or talking about pornography orany of that stuff, in a very
kind of one dimensional approach, thou shalt not, or a wait
until marriage, or whatever, andit really is so much more than
that.
And so I just, even in yourkind of that level of interest,
in like addressing modesty, Ithink it reveals like you're
(03:02):
you're thinking more broadly,more deeply, more integratively,
which we need and parents need.
So, if you're a parent,listening, keep listening.
If you're not a parent, you'relike, okay, this podcast isn't
for me.
Maybe I should have said thistwo minutes ago.
But, like, if you're not aparent, listening, listen anyway
.
Because I will say, personally,these conversations do so much
to help me grow, both in lookingback to, well, what was it like
(03:24):
for me when I was a kid andwhat did I get and how might
that have formed me or misformedme, um, but also then like, how
do I move forward?
So all right.
So, jacob, let me, let me justdive in, um, uh, we are the,
we're really kind of movingbeyond, but we're pretty close
to the first generation of ofparents raising kids in a, in a
(03:45):
sexually, um, just full, uh,culture in your face culture and
and a digitally connectedculture, a culture where
technology is not somethingthat's just at the home, it's in
our pockets, it is a part ofour lives.
Um, parents are raising kids insituations where, like, if I
could, if I could, keep you fromtechnology, I would.
(04:06):
But really this the schoolrequires it, church is requiring
it to have friendships requiresit, so holy cow.
Um, so how?
How should parents be thinkingabout technology?
Like, let's just start thereyeah, so, uh, do you?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
are you thinking more technology more broadly or
specifically in, like the worldof sexuality, like the
intersection that is sexualityand pornography?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, wherever you want to go with it.
Like yeah, certainly, certainlybecause of our topic today.
Like let's get into sexualitystuff.
But if there's, if there'ssomething more broadly than that
, like you know, fill us in.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, we'll dive into that.
I think the first thing that Ialways, when I'm thinking about
this, I lead with is sympathyfor parents, because when it
comes to pornography, this wholeproblem is three interrelated
difficult problems.
First of all, it's parentingthat's difficult and complex and
(05:03):
hard and a huge responsibility.
That's difficult and complexand hard and a huge
responsibility.
And then it's pornography, likeone of the most, um, pervasive
addictive sin struggles thatwe've seen at least.
The unique nature of onlinepornography.
It's like it's unlike any, likeparticularly sexual deviance
that the church really is thatjust struggle with.
(05:23):
And then it's a technologyproblem.
It's like it's the routers thatyou have in your home, it's the
smartphones, it's apps, it'sVPNs, it's all of these things,
and each one of those ismeaningfully difficult to deal
with on its own, and but thentogether it just becomes, I
think, a lot of parents andmaybe rightly so just feel
(05:45):
overwhelmed trying to navigatethat, and so that's something.
When we're really grappling withthis problem, you know, years
about a year and a half ago, aswe're, you know, working on the
research side leading up to thetwo resources we made, we just
wanted to make sure we reallytry to make parents feel seen
and understood because it'sgenuinely hard.
(06:07):
That doesn't mean that we asparents can abrogate our
responsibility.
It's like these are thechildren God has given you in
this world.
Every age has its problems andGod calls parents to be
responsible where they're at.
But it's hard and so there'ssort of a few kind of posture
(06:27):
points, perspectives and this.
This is done really well, likein the, in the series that the
video series masterclass that wemade.
It starts off with AbbyHalberstadt and Albert Moeller,
two really great speakers whoreally kind of helped frame this
(06:47):
issue for parents of being like, hey, this is difficult but
you've got this.
Like technology more broadly isgood, like it's this really
good gift that God's given us.
We don't want to run away fromit, but we also want to be sober
minded, knowing that there'smore danger points than most
people realize and they'rereally really deep, that they're
(07:09):
really bad.
And pornography, like the pornindustry unapologetically, is
targeting a new demographic, anew up and coming generation of
clientele, because they need itand they're the most
sophisticated marketing enginesthe world's ever seen.
It's and it's not close.
My background is in marketingand, like I'm really familiar
(07:29):
with how smart um that thepeople are behind like a
multi-trillion dollar industry,and so it's like it's a hard
thing, you know, as you're, aswe're talking to parents, it's
like you don't want to do.
The fear-mongering thing and Ithink that was a big tactic with
pornography for a while wasjust like fear, fear, fear, fear
, fear.
Just hurl like at parents andat strugglers, just everything
(07:50):
that's bad and it's bad and and.
But also not be too like happy,clappy, hope, like you want to
get something in the middle andand that's yeah, that's what
we're trying to do.
So I don't know if thatdirectly answered your question,
but that's one of the thingsthat I think about.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, no, I love the compassion, I love the, the,
those three categories, and it'sjust helpful to kind of go.
Oh, that's why I feel sooverwhelmed.
The other thing is you, asyou're talking about not
abrogating our responsibility,what comes to mind for me is how
I think, in many ways, modernparents in the West have have
kind of been formed in the ideathat, um, parenting and home
(08:25):
life is separate from, from my,my primary responsibility of
doing work, which is a and itand it kind of.
In some ways, I think whatyou're, what you're doing, is
you're calling us back to nolike back in the day when you
had your farm or your, you know,your, your shop or whatever.
It was where you lived and soyou were parenting while you
were doing everything else, andso, and that was the way it was.
(08:48):
And in some ways I mean, Iremember you're probably too
young for this, but watchingleave it to beaver when I was
growing up, and that was.
It was an old show and I wasgrowing up, but you know the dad
would go to work and then comehome.
So in some ways, I think whatyou're calling us to is hey,
this is we we're living in, itis in our homes, Like, it's not
like just out there.
And so let's, let's take up thethe, the mantle, the calling
(09:09):
and do what we can to raise kidsin this world with these three
factors that are there now,they're happening, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Totally and even building off that.
One of the beautiful things isyou can do it like I think
there's sort of this littlepervasive lie that the devil
worms into these to parents asthey're thinking through this
this kind of defeatist like justI can't, I can't, I can't stop
my kids, I can't keep my kidsfrom encountering pornography
(09:38):
which you can't, but that'sthat's.
We'll have that conversation.
But like it's just, I can'tmake my home safe, I can't.
Like it's just there's just alosing battle, and the reality
is that's not true.
Like you can raise your childrento love God's good design, to
understand in age-appropriatecategories what sexuality is,
what pornography is, and you canmake your home remarkably safe
(10:01):
from explicit material andsteward both your parental
responsibilities and thetechnology in your home well.
And God is sovereign, we knowthat, and there's no carte
blanche to the perfect kids.
Every parent knows that.
But you can do this well and Ithink that's something.
There's a hope there that, likethe Bible has given us the
(10:24):
resources we need in order tonavigate this, and so it just
takes smarter Christians than mereally thinking through this
well, and that's the whole basisof our ministry is we collect
those smarter Christians and putthem all together in the same
room and build a resource thatties all of it together and
makes it helpful for parents Allright.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So I want to get specifically into kind of
parents raising kids and talkingabout sexuality and talk about
pornography, um so, but I thinkyou're giving us a great pivot
point here.
Um, we'll have links to thesein the show notes, but also give
us a quick flyover of likethese.
You have these two new videocourse resources.
One's a master class and one, Ithink.
The second one, I think, reallyspeaks into what you're talking
(11:03):
about, about creating a safehome, which is a tutorial.
So just give us a quick flyover both of those and maybe
it's um, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So oh yeah, I mean this is what I get most excited
about, right Cause we're we'reour company, you know into the
light ministries.
We're a film company and so wewe build resources and sexuality
for the church, and so theunique nature of what we do is
we basically hibernate foreverworking on a massive film
project that costs hundreds ofthousands of dollars, and then
(11:35):
build it all and then sort ofexplode like, wake up and be
like hi guys, remember us, we'vemade some more things, and so
it's really fun to have themdone free for parents to watch
and on our website, which isintothelightministriesca.
But sorry, answer your actualquestion.
We built two resources forparents in this topic.
The first one is Parenting andPornography.
(11:57):
It's a nine episode masterclassseries that walks parents
through God's like how to talkto their children about God's
good design for sexuality andthe dangers of pornography, and
so it includes some reallyamazing voices like Abby
Halberstadt, jonathan Holmes,albert Moeller, justin Whitmore,
early Dr Andrew Walker, julieLowe lots of theologians,
(12:22):
pastors, biblical counselorsreally helping parents navigate
this topic well.
Age-appropriateians pastors,biblical counselors really
helping parents navigate thistopic well.
Age-appropriate categoriessafety in the home.
It's a really good theologicaland practical foundation and we
can dive into the specifics,like who talks about what and
what the kind of arc is, becauseI also know I know you're a big
process guy.
(12:43):
We talked in some otherconversation.
We talked about you guys whenyou were structuring your book
Treading Boldly which is anamazing book, by the way.
It was really helpful for uswhen we were writing.
But yeah, that's theMasterclass series Really, I
think, giving parents afoundation of these topics, of
how to talk to your childrenabout it, of how to talk to your
(13:05):
children about it.
And then when we realized,really in the process of making
this, that it was good.
But we had this glaring problemof, like the smart home, the
smart TVs, the laptops, thetablets, the phones in
everyone's home, that is ahighway to the most explicit
content the world's ever seen.
In seconds, right Like rightnow, a four-year-old can pick up
(13:26):
a phone and access moreexplicit content in three taps
than the most devious monarch inages past could have done in a
lifetime of trying.
And so we we were like that'ssomething we want to approach
with with clarity and try and behelpful for parents.
So we built another resource.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Good and, by the way, was was that because that that
um four-year-old three tapmonarchy like monarch like you
have had to have said that linebefore you.
It came out of your mouth Likeit was nothing.
Tell me, is that in your backpocket that was?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
so this is, yeah, um, this is one of the one of the
one of the things.
You're a writer, you get thisjohn michael, and so I'm I'm
half of into the lightministries.
My other half is john michaelbout, who, uh, who was going to
be here, but they had a babyliterally 12 hours ago, so he
knows something about sexuality.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, I know we, um, our joke is that he's the
practitioner and I'm thetheoretician, because I'm not
married yet, so, but the two ofus have a deep, deep love for
the craft of writing, and so wehave spent hours and hours and
hours flat on our backs on acouch, looking at the sky,
(14:40):
trying to find the right verbsand the right nouns and the
right order to try andarticulate something that we're
so passionate about.
And if you can paint a storythat, I mean, this is what Jesus
was a master at, of not justsaying, hey, do good things, but
painting a picture that, at theend, made the truth punch you
(15:01):
in the gut, and so, if you cando that well, the truth punch
you in the gut.
And so, if you can, if you cando that well, um, I hope, I hope
, we hope we can serve parentsby telling stories that are,
that are meaningful, even injust the way we talk about the
stuff we do.
Yeah, love it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Love it and I hope you heard that as a compliment
but, yeah, but.
I did interrupt you cause youwere getting into the second
resource which I'm veryintrigued by.
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, so, uh, so, uh.
Every parent.
If you're listening to this inyour home right now, just do do
a 360 degree turn and look atall the devices that are in your
home.
You would be probably unlessyou've been thinking about this
for a while you'll probably beshocked to find out how many
access points to pornographythere are.
Your smart tv has a browser onit and you can look up anything,
(15:44):
and so, recognizing that, webuilt a series we called
TechSafe, and TechSafe is 11, Ithink it's 11, laser sharp
tutorials that walk through allthe devices in your home and
helps you shut them down andmake them safe your smart TVs,
laptops, gaming consoles, yourwatches, smart watches and
(16:06):
basically helps parents justfrom the ground up, go like what
is this device?
How was basically?
What's it doing?
How is information flowing in,flowing out, and what do you?
What resources do you have as aparent that allow you to make
that a device safe, to give to afour year old-old, a
nine-year-old, a 15-year-old,and then think through what you
(16:28):
need to do to each of thosedevices to be safe at that level
.
And so we wanted this to be asboots on the ground, practical
for parents as possible, and wedid the best we could.
It's like, oh, it's basicallytwo and a half hours total of
tutorials and we have it stagedreally well.
So there's like an oh, it'sbasically two and a half hours
total of tutorials and we haveit staged really well.
So there's like an openingvideo parents can watch that
(16:48):
really kind of gives them someof the foundation, like almost
like a toolbox, to then go andapply it to each of those
devices.
And, by the grace of God, oneof the things he's let us do is
crowdfund all of our resources.
So we have a really great team,growing team of supporters who
really believe in making theseresources so they're free, both
(17:08):
the Parenting, and Pornographyseries and TechSafe series are
free at intothelightministriescaand I hope everyone goes and
watches them.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, awesome, awesome, love that, jacob.
Okay, so I I'm imagining someparents like me go hold on, hold
on, like that, the re, theresource about, like this is how
to button up the um, thedevices in my home.
I think one of the things thatI've heard for years is yeah,
but things are changing soquickly.
Like how can you create aresource, like is this going to
(17:37):
be a good resource in six months?
And I mean when the next thingcomes out like how did you guys
address that?
Yeah, and I mean when the nextthing comes out like how?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
did you guys address that?
Yeah, yeah, okay, that was John.
John, michael and I talk oftenas we walk, right, you know,
walk and talk.
That's a probably like a 20 or30 mile question of like road
that we've burned, trying tofigure out how to get that right
and it turns out it's aresolution.
So, um, like, for example so Ican do this with an analogy
(18:07):
Wi-Fi carries information, love.
That that's a great fact.
That's going to stand the testof time for a long, long time.
It's also not the most helpfulthing.
Like cool, there's a concept,you got it in your brain, but
like, wi-fi carries information,okay, what do I do with that?
The?
And then that's at one end ofthe spectrum.
(18:27):
The other end is press thepower up button button on your
insert name here router, spin itaround, flip it over, read the
bar like and now we're like,we're at, like I'm literally
walking you through step by stepon a device that you can see in
your hand.
That is really, really, really,really helpful, but will be
(18:51):
outdated in like the next modelof whatever device that is, and
it doesn't generalize as wellacross devices.
So what we did is we mapped.
This is getting so much moretechnical than most people need,
but it's the technicality wedid in order to then build
something more helpful.
We found the sweet spot ingiving really practical boots on
(19:14):
the ground.
Hold the device in your handlevel concepts that are just shy
of the walking you through whatbuttons to press.
But then we give furtherresources underneath each video
that link out to constantlyupdated websites that we really
like.
That do give you some of thosespecific things, and one of the
(19:38):
big things we encourage parentsto do is, like you know, let's
say you have a PlayStation, aPS5, playstation 5, it's a
gaming console.
You would be surprised at theparental resources that are in
that device already that themakers of playstation were
pretty thoughtful in trying toset up for you, and they didn't
(20:00):
make them for tech wizards, theymade them for actual parents.
So once you know that andyou're encouraged to just go set
a timer, just take, give it 20minutes, sit down, grab the
gaming thing and just just alook, just look, thumb through
those, see what's there,experiment with a few things.
(20:23):
You're already 75% of the wayjust by getting involved with
the device and doing your bestto figure things out and then,
if you know, that's there, andyou also know about Wi-Fi level
security, and that's somethingyou've been thinking about.
Now you're already thinking oftwo levels of safety for that
device and you're you're alreadyin a really good place to start
setting up a device like thatsafely, and it just takes like
the knowledge that it's thereand you can start doing it, and
(20:46):
with time it's able to befigured out, and so that's the
kind of thing we're thinkingthrough with these devices.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Love it, I love it, yeah Again.
So, going back to my agrarianillustration earlier, I think,
like for for anybody listeningwho goes, yeah, but I'm just not
like good at that.
Okay, look, you know, 150 yearsago, if you weren't good at
plowing a field, you had to doit anyway because you need to
eat.
And I think we're.
I think we're at that level ofimportance when it comes to
(21:16):
these kinds of things withparenting.
All right.
So let's shift gears.
Let's talk about pornography,let's talk about talking to our
kids, because one of the thingsthat my co-author said in our
book that I think you'd agreewith is it's not a good
parenting move just to set itand forget it.
So, say you get your homebuttoned up as best you can with
the resource you've provided.
There's still parenting to do,there's still discipleship to do
(21:38):
.
So you guys make the claim thatit's important to talk to your
kids early about sex and it'simportant to talk to them early
about pornography.
Just unpack that.
Talk a little bit about what'searly.
What do you mean by that?
Why is that?
Wherever you want to go withthat question?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Totally.
I love that question, but first, like this, I'm just being
super genuine.
People should buy your book ifthey haven't already.
There's few Treading Boldly.
That you and Daniel Weiss wroteis a really good resource.
Like we read copious amounts ofeverything in preparation for
(22:15):
writing this series.
Art, like the.
The Google sheets document ofall of our resources is like
hundreds of books long.
Your book is really good.
It's a really good just likeany parent can pick it up.
You guys are really kind,thoughtful and convictional and
like it.
It's one of the handful ofbooks that I instantly recommend
.
We and we do in our leader'sguide that we're almost finished
(22:37):
creating for the series.
We recommend your book a bunchof times that parents should
read it.
It's really helpful.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
See, I knew I wanted you on this podcast.
I just knew I wanted you onthis podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
This is just the fun thing about being in this space
for me is like how team orientedit all is you.
Everybody else we've workedwith is like, how about let's
help parents have the kids notwatch porn?
I don't know, I'm team that,you're team, that it's great, so
I love shooting more resourcesto people.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, anyways, it answers your actual go ahead and
going back to the agrarianillustration again, like in that
day you could not make it aloneand we can't make it alone
today, Like we really need eachother.
The day of the siloed parent,the day of the Christian I mean,
Christianity has never been tobe siloed anyway but the day
that, like you know, you kind ofraise your own family and worry
about yourself, Like it justdoesn't work, it's not working.
(23:29):
It's not going to work now.
We need you, you know we needeach other.
So, yeah, All right.
So so back to the question.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Thank you again To uh in in the the.
The refrain that the that's allthe speakers throughout our
entire parenting and pornographyseries say is those two words
early and often.
And so what does early looklike?
And one of the things that'sbeen helpful for me is a lot of
parents are scared to talk aboutthis topic with their kids
(23:57):
early because they don't want todamage their kids, they don't
want to give them something tooheavy to carry too early, and I
really sympathize with that.
Like we have this intuitiveunderstanding that sex is this
weighty, beautiful thing.
It might be the most sacredthing this side of eternity
(24:19):
because what it represents theChrist, church, union, marriage,
like there's so much packedinto that.
And so I think there'ssomething worth grieving a
little bit in saying you mighthave to err on the side of
earlier and give a younger childa little more to grapple with
than in other ages you mighthave been able to, and just
(24:41):
being like, yeah, that's maybe abit sad.
There was a time where you couldlet, like your agrarian example
, you could let the barnyardanimals and their example get
enough of the categories in andthen wait till the kids were 12,
13 to really keep thoseconversations.
That's a good thing, and that'snot the world we live in now
and right now.
(25:02):
The average age of exposure tothe most graphic sex the world
has ever seen is eight years old, and so parents must be clearly
talking to their children aboutthis topic at that age, or
you're going to let everythingin the world disciple your
children about this before thatand so and we know that parents
(25:24):
are the authority, like God hasgiven you the authority to love
your children in this area.
So, having said that, thatdoesn't mean you need to full
send, on the whole, all theinformation as soon as they hit
eight years old, because one ofthe cool things about and the
video series really unpacks alot of this there are categories
(25:47):
about what it means to be humanthat you can tell two-year-olds
, three-year-olds,four-year-olds, four-year-olds.
That will then make the moreexplicit conversations about
what is sex.
You know bodily parts, whatdoes that mean later?
So much easier.
So you can tell a two-year-oldand three-year-old hey, your
body is good.
God made it Like.
(26:08):
Your whole body is just reallybeautiful, created thing from
God.
Mom and dad, like us, beingmarried husbands, wives, those
are good things.
Your body parts, the privateones that we cover with
underwear and bathing suits.
Those are good, but they'respecial good and they're a kind
of good that only mom and dadcan help you with.
These are some like scriptsthat you can talk to, and so
(26:29):
they're starting to getcategories early without needing
to necessarily tie all thosethings together and then so
there's lots of things in therethat you can help really young
with.
And then the other thing and youguys talk about this in your
book a lot of parents, you knowwe've been kind of had this idea
(26:49):
of the talk.
You know air quotes the talkand I get why people.
Again, it keys into this ideathat sex is this really
beautiful thing, to kind of makeit an event when you talk about
it with your children.
There's something good there.
But I think, on balance,framing like the whole
(27:09):
conversation as the talk hassome really big pitfalls,
because what it does is it kindof removes the conversations
about sexuality from real lifeand makes it this kind of thing
that then is hard to integrateback into the rhythms of your
life.
And so well said, if you, ifyou can say you know to your, if
(27:31):
you can think about it and sayyou know what I going to have a
bunch of conversations with mykids, just keeping touching base
with this topic, asking if theyhave questions, letting them
know things.
Not only does that make it like, uh, I can talk to my mom and
dad about this kind of wheneverI need to, which is a really
good thing, but it also takesthe stress off.
So if you were talking to yourkids about sexuality and you
(27:55):
kind of felt like you botchedthat conversation, it's okay,
talk to them next week, like it.
Just it takes all this weightof like when do I have this
explosion of truth with mychildren?
And just goes it's okay, makethis part of the rhythms of as
your kids growing up, tellingthem what they need to know and
letting them know.
You can talk to me about this.
(28:15):
If you have questions, I'm theone you can come to and I'll
give you answers.
Even if I don't have them rightnow, I'll get back to you and
make it a safe place.
An example is this my mom did areally good job with this.
I remember when she she so shetalked to me about what
sexuality was, her mom and mydad both sat down and they
explained it to me and I waslike, whoa, okay, that's crazy.
(28:38):
And and then my mom followed upand just said hey, remember
that conversation we had.
Just curious, did you have anyquestions about it?
Happy to.
If you have any questions, youcome talk to me.
I'm like, yep, whatever, mom,that's cool, but I knew I was
like I can go to mom and ask her, that's fine.
And then another time she said,hey, there's these pictures of
people.
Remember we talked about sex.
Well, some people have sex andthen take videos of themselves
(29:00):
and put it on the internet.
And I was like I remember sodistinctly, thinking why the
heck would anyone?
That is so weird.
11-year-old me was like whatit's bizarre?
And mom was like, don't worryabout it, just to let you know
that exists.
And if you ever see it, comeand tell me.
I won't be angry at you.
But Christians should not watchthose kinds of things.
(29:20):
So it's out there, but youshouldn't watch it and let me
know if you see it.
And I was like, yeah, okay,sounds good.
Later, when I started realizingwhy someone would watch that, I
knew two things.
One, I shouldn't.
Two, even though I was tempted,we had covenant eyes and I knew
, and I knew ever since everydevice we had in the entire home
.
I knew mom could see what Ilooked at and I wasn't going to
(29:42):
risk it.
Later on, still later teens, Istarted becoming very grateful
because I had friends who werewatching porn and, like
struggling, we would talk aboutthat and I was like I don't want
to get into that mess.
So my personal story is that Inever I never struggled with
pornography because I had aparent who was was, by the grace
of God, really, really careful.
(30:03):
That's not, and that's not tosay I have another friend, john
Michael.
His parents were also verycareful and very thoughtful and
he did struggle with pornographyfor a decade.
So God doesn't you know, goddoesn't God's sovereign and God
is good, and we have differentstories.
But that's just, that's justkind of my thoughts of like
saying you can do stuff, parentsand and yeah, and God can equip
(30:25):
you to steward this well.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I love I mean just to draw this out for parents
listening like, um, your mombrought it up, asked if you had
questions, so it was in yourcourt, but also didn't just
leave it in your court, cameback again, went a little deeper
, went a little different.
Um, it sounds just by the wayyou reiterated it.
There was a tone that wasnon-threatening, non-scary,
(30:49):
non-scared.
Um, so you knew, like, man, youknow this.
Uh, I think sometimes when wecome, we come, you know, big and
boisterous, or scared.
What inevitably we communicateto our kids is you're going to
freak me out if you bring it upor we make our kids scared, and
then they're like, oh, this isscary, I don't want to bring
this up or something, somethingworse.
(31:09):
So, yeah, I love the winsomenessof that and the consistency of
it and I appreciate too I wantto just kind of come back to
this because I never thought ofthis before and I think it's so,
um, helpful that there, thatit's actually legitimate for
parents to to grieve, that welive in such a culture that we
have to bring some of thesereally important things up and
(31:30):
some of these really hard thingsup, uh, to kids who we may find
really struggle or grapple withwhat we're, what we're sharing.
And, um, uh, you can tell, Ikind of always go back out to
like other other illustrations,but I think probably be akin to
like, well, what do we do if, ifour village is, you know, has
been invaded by dangerous people.
(31:51):
Like I don't want to tell mykids that the world's a
dangerous place or a scary place, but it's really important for
their good that we talk aboutthese things, even when they're
young, because I can't parentthem the way I want to and look
out for them the way I want toin this environment.
So I just appreciate thesensitivity to yeah, is that sad
(32:12):
for you parents?
Like, yeah, that makes sense.
I don't think I'd even kind offaced my own sadness about,
about that and we wrote a bookabout it, you know.
So, yeah, um, yeah, so thankyou for that.
Um, so you, you kind of gave ussome pretty early on stuff for
talking to kids.
Um, can you, can you get alittle bit like go go a little
(32:33):
bit further into some of the um,kind of young adolescent?
um we're going to talk to ourkids about porn.
You have the example what yourmom said to you, which I think
is I mean it was concise, it wasclear um, love that.
What else would you say toparents of, of kids kind of, who
are in that teenage years maybe, especially when, um, what did
your expert say when desirestarts to kind of get ignited, a
(32:55):
bit like any guidance, guidancefor parents there?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Totally, totally.
It's hard to like.
I'm, I'm, I'm just.
I come at this with.
I sit in a very interestingposition where I'm half the
parent I mean, I'm not a parentyet, but I'm old enough to be
half the parent and I'm half thekid like I remember very
clearly what it was like to be16, 17, 18 and navigating these
(33:19):
issues and and feeling like thetemptation to want to like.
But it's funny, we were, wehave like official, we have some
really great partnerships withcovenant eyes.
Now I loathed covenant eyes.
When I was a teen I spent somuch time trying to get around
it, not necessarily because Iactually wanted to look at
explicit material, but because Ijust wanted to look at things
(33:42):
that Kamen Oni has blockedbecause they weren't as
sophisticated then that weren'treally bad, but like, like, like
there's a whole, a whole thingin there and now I'm like Kamen
Oni is amazing, I love them,they're so great.
So it's like I remember thatand I just know what I can
really hear a lot of parentsfear in a lot of this when
(34:03):
they're especially with a kid,who, with a child who they're
like.
I know my kids watching pornand I know they want nothing to
do with the, with the rules andstuff that I want to put in
place.
That's tough, and to thatparent specifically, I'm kind of
bouncing around, but to thatparent specifically I would be
like, hey, like you are stillthe parent.
(34:26):
One of the I think one of thecultural, one of the worst
cultural lies that is invadingthese kinds of conversations is
the idea that parents don't haveresponse, not only
responsibility, or the authorityGod's given, or the authority
God's given you, the authorityto shepherd your children in
whatever way you think is best,and like.
Parents need to have thatconvictional steel and,
(34:46):
hopefully, support to know thatif you want to make, if you feel
like it would be wise, withprayer, with counsel, to make
radical decisions aroundtechnology for your 16 or 17
year old, do it because you lovethem.
You do know what's best forthem.
You're way older than they areand and and.
It's going to be hard, but youhave to stand before god one day
(35:06):
, doing the best that you wereable to, and and and.
Don't be afraid to do that.
Um, yeah, that's, that's,that's one direction go, go
ahead.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Let me just add one thing just from my experience.
So so, in walking with adultmen and women in our ministry
for the last 20 something years,like I've never met any, any
client, any person um who wishestheir mom or dad, um wished a
worse relationship with theirmom and dad, even those who had
terrible relationships withtheir parents and whose parents
(35:36):
were very abusive.
The pain they walk with todaybecause they wish their mom and
dad was more present, moreattuned, more loving that kind
of stuff.
So, yeah, I mean I just I wannaspeak as a word of affirmation
to parents, like your kids.
Actually, however you're doing,however, like whatever rupture
there is in a relationship,however toxic it is, your kids
(35:57):
way down deep really want agreat relationship with you.
Yeah, but do what it takes toto get there and and and, yeah,
for that reason alone, but alsoso that you can be the parent in
some of these biggerconversations.
So, all right, I took it fromyou, but go back to yeah no, no,
building off of that.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
So now we're in, like , like there's, there's lots of
different, lots of differentparents.
We could talk about Lots ofdifferent places their children
are at in relation to where theparents are at.
A snapshot at them at 17, 18,with their parents still living
(36:40):
at home.
Disaster parents doing theirbest to shut down devices to set
up safeguards, having thoseconversations, discovering them
with pornography um, disaster,fast forward three years.
Really, restored relationshipthat kids who have, who on their
(37:00):
own volition joinedaccountability groups, tried,
put porn to death and came backto their parents with gratitude
that their parents like toughedout, saying like had the
consistency of porn is wrong andwe're not going to tolerate.
Uh, we're going to, we're goingto be helpful.
So it's not just like aprohibition without any more.
But you, watching pornographyis not a place.
(37:20):
We're staying, we're moving,we're trying to help you and
love you, and maybe that's toughlove, and I know so many
stories of really, reallybeautiful, then French, you know
kind of the older child parentfriendships.
That were the stories of theyears afterwards, and so it's
possible, if any parents arethere right now, just set your
hope that you could have thatrestored relationship with your
(37:44):
child, but quickly, maybe tosome of the other parents.
I think a lot of parents I mean,tell me what you think about
this there's probably a lot ofparents who their kids are
teenagers, late teens, earlyteens and they're probably
thinking, gosh, I don't, Ihaven't really talked about any
(38:05):
of this and like, I think we'regood, like I've got good
relationships with my kids, butthis is just a whole new.
I don't even know where tostart.
And I think where to start, ifI may be cheeky, is to go watch
our masterclass video series Notcheeky at all, not cheeky at
all.
That's good.
But I think to them, you couldsee, I think there's something
(38:29):
powerful with kids of the rightage to sit down and say, hey,
you're 15.
You know what sex is and youknow, you know what pornography
is too.
Um, let we just let's just befrank about that.
I owe you an apology.
I wish I had talked to you more.
I wish I'd been a better parent, um, for for in this area of
life and I haven't hadconversations, I wish I had, um,
(38:52):
but I would like to have someconversations now.
Um, that's, that's a hard thingto do.
It takes humility.
There's that's going to beawkward as all get out Like I
for sure.
But there's something I there'ssomething really powerful, I
think, for, uh, for someonewho's younger, hearing those
kinds of conversations and thenstart to ask them genuine
questions about how they'redoing and and do so with the
(39:15):
knowledge that it's entirelylikely we just know the stats.
It's entirely likely that yourteenager is struggling with
pornography, guy or girl, if you, if it's not a conversation
you've had, it's more likelythat they've well, it's
guaranteed they've encounteredpornography and it's more than
less likely that they'restruggling with it to some
degree.
So, going into a conversationknowing that that's the case and
(39:38):
also it's hard and there's somuch more there, that's
situation specific and I'm sureyou've got you probably have
some more well-formed thoughtsthan I have, but try.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Maybe that's maybe the biggest one to parents.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Just try, you know, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I love it.
Jacob, this, our podcast formatis is insufficient, but that's
great news, because peopleshould check out your resource,
which is hours and hours andhours of of content.
So, but I do want to give youkind of the like um, as we're
wrapping up, is there something?
Oh, I really wanted to say this, or the one more thing I'd
(40:16):
really want to throw in?
Um, uh, I'd love to give youthe opportunity that before we,
before we wrap, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
This is.
This has been a really fun, funconversation.
I really enjoyed this.
I would just be like I'd say toparents like every, the
majority of anything having todo with sexuality that you've
encountered in the last coupleyears, almost all of it has been
on the devil's turf.
Every billboard you've seen,every advertisement, you've seen
(40:47):
every crude joke, almost all ofour experience of sexuality I
mean, apart from actually havingsex, the public sphere of
sexuality is all the devil'sturf, and we can be inculcated
to think about sex.
When we think sex, we can intuitpornography.
We hear good and feel and thinkdistortion.
(41:08):
Try and reclaim that.
God made sexuality, godinvented marriage, god made this
beautiful thing, and it's easyto forget that.
But, like, when we're talkingabout this concept of sexuality,
we're talking about one of themost beautiful gifts God's given
(41:29):
us, and so try and realize thatyourself, and then it's from
that knowledge of the good andthe beautiful that we have a
better understanding of all thedistortions and the importance
of talk to your kids about this.
Set your vision of like, wantingto talk to your children about
this thing, to shepherd them inthis way so that, by the grace
(41:49):
of God, they can walk down anaisle one day, having not made
some of the mistakes that maybeyou as a parent have made.
And so, if you're, as a parent,even if you're feeling like I'm
terrified of this topic becauseof the mistakes I've made, know
that A we're Christians here.
God has forgiven you as far asthe East is from the West.
That's how far your sins are,and last I checked, that's
(42:11):
really far.
God loves you and he'sempowered you to be able to have
those conversations with yourkids.
So go do that.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Go do it come on mic, drop right there.
You literally said before yousaid that you said no, I think
this has been a goodconversation.
And then you said, well, Ithink I'd say, and then that was
like I'm over here, likebecause it's you know, I don't
want to talk over you because wegot, you know, mics going on
stuff, but I want to just belike yes, yes, like that, like I
(42:37):
love.
I mean, it is so true, likethere's so much of this on the
devil's turf, our regularexperience on the devil's turf,
um, but this is not his stuff,it's God's.
I love that.
What a great way to.
And, jacob, we will have yourinformation, um, into the lights
information and these resourceinformation on our in the show
notes.
Please check it out and and bepraying for this brother and
(43:00):
John Michael too, as they do thehibernating good work they're
doing.
Are you guys hibernating now?
Are you working on something,something new?
Are you?
Are you spending?
Speaker 2 (43:08):
your time getting this out.
We have so many things in thecauldron right now Lots of John
Michael.
He's the wise one, so he wouldhave his hands over my mouth if
I say too much.
What I can say is there'stopics that we're going to
explore next.
Probably dating and pornographyis the next, that whole
(43:30):
conversation.
So as a ministry, we exist toserve the church.
We want to equip parents.
So if you want to kind of keepin contact with what we do,
follow us on Instagram and joinour mailing list.
We don't spam people, but wejust want to keep people up to
date on what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
So, yeah, into the Light Ministries.
We're grateful for you guys,jesus.
We pray for the parentslistening.
No shame, lord.
No shame, just your love, yourinvitation to something better.
And we do pray, lord, for Jacoband for John Michael, that you
would bless and keep them andguide them in the paths you have
for them.
I pray all this in Jesus' name,amen, amen.
Hey everybody, welcome back, super eager to get
in today's conversation.
It is a heartbeat of mine, aheartbeat of our ministry, but,
both because of the work that Ido and because I'm a dad, we
want to talk today to parentsabout the issue of pornography
and sexuality and raising kidsin this sexually confused
(00:21):
culture.
And my guest today is JacobVolk.
He is a.
Am I saying your last name,right?
Oh, yeah.
You got it Nice, okay, I likethat.
Um, jacob, tell us like,without, without, without boring
us with your Vita right off thethe the backs.
I'll ask you more questions but, like you are, you're getting
your PhD and you got to tellpeople what you're doing PhD in.
(00:41):
I think this is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, so so maybe, maybe I gotta, I gotta lead into
that.
There's so many things.
Um, you, you know this becauseof the work you do.
You know pornography is one ofthe biggest house fires in the
church and so once you recognizethat, you kind of have a
handful of things you can doabout it and, for whatever
(01:06):
reason, god wired me to want todive into the thorniest problems
I can find and try and behelpful, and so we'll talk a
bunch about pornography andparenting and stuff.
(01:29):
But then I'm currently atSouthern Seminary working on my
PhD in another thorny, messy,difficult topic of modesty.
So I'm fascinated by beauty, byembodiment, by our sexuality,
by attraction, how we clotheourselves, how we steward our
bodies in the public sphere, thesexual revolution, purity,
culture.
It's a giant mess of difficultthings and, I think, heartache
for a lot of people, a lot ofparents, a lot of like girls and
(01:49):
guys trying to navigate theirway, you know, through later
teens and earlier teens.
Even so, yeah, that's, that'ssort of a, it's kind of like
it's that's the jake.
That's more as me as a, as anacademic, doing my best in a
sphere, and it's related butslightly distinct from my, my
role as the executive directorof into the light, but they
complement each other.
Sexual ethics is always.
(02:09):
That's that's the world I livein and it's it's a real
privilege to learn about God'sbeautiful design for sexuality
and families and everything thatcomes from that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, well, what I love about that and I think I
mean I love it just in general,because it's an important topic
and we should have you back onat some point to talk about
that- yeah, not for about fiveyears, please, okay, okay.
All right, shoot me an email infive years, all right.
(02:39):
Or talking about pornography orany of that stuff, in a very
kind of one dimensional approach, thou shalt not, or a wait
until marriage, or whatever, andit really is so much more than
that.
And so I just, even in yourkind of that level of interest,
in like addressing modesty, Ithink it reveals like you're
(03:02):
you're thinking more broadly,more deeply, more integratively,
which we need and parents need.
So, if you're a parent,listening, keep listening.
If you're not a parent, you'relike, okay, this podcast isn't
for me.
Maybe I should have said thistwo minutes ago.
But, like, if you're not aparent, listening, listen anyway
.
Because I will say, personally,these conversations do so much
to help me grow, both in lookingback to, well, what was it like
(03:24):
for me when I was a kid andwhat did I get and how might
that have formed me or misformedme, um, but also then like, how
do I move forward?
So all right.
So, jacob, let me, let me justdive in, um, uh, we are the,
we're really kind of movingbeyond, but we're pretty close
to the first generation of ofparents raising kids in a, in a
(03:45):
sexually, um, just full, uh,culture in your face culture and
and a digitally connectedculture, a culture where
technology is not somethingthat's just at the home, it's in
our pockets, it is a part ofour lives.
Um, parents are raising kids insituations where, like, if I
could, if I could, keep you fromtechnology, I would.
(04:06):
But really this the schoolrequires it, church is requiring
it to have friendships requiresit, so holy cow.
Um, so how?
How should parents be thinkingabout technology?
Like, let's just start thereyeah, so, uh, do you?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
are you thinking more technology more broadly or
specifically in, like the worldof sexuality, like the
intersection that is sexualityand pornography?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, wherever you want to go with it.
Like yeah, certainly, certainlybecause of our topic today.
Like let's get into sexualitystuff.
But if there's, if there'ssomething more broadly than that
, like you know, fill us in.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, we'll dive into that.
I think the first thing that Ialways, when I'm thinking about
this, I lead with is sympathyfor parents, because when it
comes to pornography, this wholeproblem is three interrelated
difficult problems.
First of all, it's parentingthat's difficult and complex and
(05:03):
hard and a huge responsibility.
That's difficult and complexand hard and a huge
responsibility.
And then it's pornography, likeone of the most, um, pervasive
addictive sin struggles thatwe've seen at least.
The unique nature of onlinepornography.
It's like it's unlike any, likeparticularly sexual deviance
that the church really is thatjust struggle with.
(05:23):
And then it's a technologyproblem.
It's like it's the routers thatyou have in your home, it's the
smartphones, it's apps, it'sVPNs, it's all of these things,
and each one of those ismeaningfully difficult to deal
with on its own, and but thentogether it just becomes, I
think, a lot of parents andmaybe rightly so just feel
(05:45):
overwhelmed trying to navigatethat, and so that's something.
When we're really grappling withthis problem, you know, years
about a year and a half ago, aswe're, you know, working on the
research side leading up to thetwo resources we made, we just
wanted to make sure we reallytry to make parents feel seen
and understood because it'sgenuinely hard.
(06:07):
That doesn't mean that we asparents can abrogate our
responsibility.
It's like these are thechildren God has given you in
this world.
Every age has its problems andGod calls parents to be
responsible where they're at.
But it's hard and so there'ssort of a few kind of posture
(06:27):
points, perspectives and this.
This is done really well, likein the, in the series that the
video series masterclass that wemade.
It starts off with AbbyHalberstadt and Albert Moeller,
two really great speakers whoreally kind of helped frame this
(06:47):
issue for parents of being like, hey, this is difficult but
you've got this.
Like technology more broadly isgood, like it's this really
good gift that God's given us.
We don't want to run away fromit, but we also want to be sober
minded, knowing that there'smore danger points than most
people realize and they'rereally really deep, that they're
(07:09):
really bad.
And pornography, like the pornindustry unapologetically, is
targeting a new demographic, anew up and coming generation of
clientele, because they need itand they're the most
sophisticated marketing enginesthe world's ever seen.
It's and it's not close.
My background is in marketingand, like I'm really familiar
(07:29):
with how smart um that thepeople are behind like a
multi-trillion dollar industry,and so it's like it's a hard
thing, you know, as you're, aswe're talking to parents, it's
like you don't want to do.
The fear-mongering thing and Ithink that was a big tactic with
pornography for a while wasjust like fear, fear, fear, fear
, fear.
Just hurl like at parents andat strugglers, just everything
(07:50):
that's bad and it's bad and and.
But also not be too like happy,clappy, hope, like you want to
get something in the middle andand that's yeah, that's what
we're trying to do.
So I don't know if thatdirectly answered your question,
but that's one of the thingsthat I think about.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, no, I love the compassion, I love the, the,
those three categories, and it'sjust helpful to kind of go.
Oh, that's why I feel sooverwhelmed.
The other thing is you, asyou're talking about not
abrogating our responsibility,what comes to mind for me is how
I think, in many ways, modernparents in the West have have
kind of been formed in the ideathat, um, parenting and home
(08:25):
life is separate from, from my,my primary responsibility of
doing work, which is a and itand it kind of.
In some ways, I think whatyou're, what you're doing, is
you're calling us back to nolike back in the day when you
had your farm or your, you know,your, your shop or whatever.
It was where you lived and soyou were parenting while you
were doing everything else, andso, and that was the way it was.
(08:48):
And in some ways I mean, Iremember you're probably too
young for this, but watchingleave it to beaver when I was
growing up, and that was.
It was an old show and I wasgrowing up, but you know the dad
would go to work and then comehome.
So in some ways, I think whatyou're calling us to is hey,
this is we we're living in, itis in our homes, Like, it's not
like just out there.
And so let's, let's take up thethe, the mantle, the calling
(09:09):
and do what we can to raise kidsin this world with these three
factors that are there now,they're happening, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Totally and even building off that.
One of the beautiful things isyou can do it like I think
there's sort of this littlepervasive lie that the devil
worms into these to parents asthey're thinking through this
this kind of defeatist like justI can't, I can't, I can't stop
my kids, I can't keep my kidsfrom encountering pornography
(09:38):
which you can't, but that'sthat's.
We'll have that conversation.
But like it's just, I can'tmake my home safe, I can't.
Like it's just there's just alosing battle, and the reality
is that's not true.
Like you can raise your childrento love God's good design, to
understand in age-appropriatecategories what sexuality is,
what pornography is, and you canmake your home remarkably safe
(10:01):
from explicit material andsteward both your parental
responsibilities and thetechnology in your home well.
And God is sovereign, we knowthat, and there's no carte
blanche to the perfect kids.
Every parent knows that.
But you can do this well and Ithink that's something.
There's a hope there that, likethe Bible has given us the
(10:24):
resources we need in order tonavigate this, and so it just
takes smarter Christians than mereally thinking through this
well, and that's the whole basisof our ministry is we collect
those smarter Christians and putthem all together in the same
room and build a resource thatties all of it together and
makes it helpful for parents Allright.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So I want to get specifically into kind of
parents raising kids and talkingabout sexuality and talk about
pornography, um so, but I thinkyou're giving us a great pivot
point here.
Um, we'll have links to thesein the show notes, but also give
us a quick flyover of likethese.
You have these two new videocourse resources.
One's a master class and one, Ithink.
The second one, I think, reallyspeaks into what you're talking
(11:03):
about, about creating a safehome, which is a tutorial.
So just give us a quick flyover both of those and maybe
it's um, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So oh yeah, I mean this is what I get most excited
about, right Cause we're we'reour company, you know into the
light ministries.
We're a film company and so wewe build resources and sexuality
for the church, and so theunique nature of what we do is
we basically hibernate foreverworking on a massive film
project that costs hundreds ofthousands of dollars, and then
(11:35):
build it all and then sort ofexplode like, wake up and be
like hi guys, remember us, we'vemade some more things, and so
it's really fun to have themdone free for parents to watch
and on our website, which isintothelightministriesca.
But sorry, answer your actualquestion.
We built two resources forparents in this topic.
The first one is Parenting andPornography.
(11:57):
It's a nine episode masterclassseries that walks parents
through God's like how to talkto their children about God's
good design for sexuality andthe dangers of pornography, and
so it includes some reallyamazing voices like Abby
Halberstadt, jonathan Holmes,albert Moeller, justin Whitmore,
early Dr Andrew Walker, julieLowe lots of theologians,
(12:22):
pastors, biblical counselorsreally helping parents navigate
this topic well.
Age-appropriateians pastors,biblical counselors really
helping parents navigate thistopic well.
Age-appropriate categoriessafety in the home.
It's a really good theologicaland practical foundation and we
can dive into the specifics,like who talks about what and
what the kind of arc is, becauseI also know I know you're a big
process guy.
(12:43):
We talked in some otherconversation.
We talked about you guys whenyou were structuring your book
Treading Boldly which is anamazing book, by the way.
It was really helpful for uswhen we were writing.
But yeah, that's theMasterclass series Really, I
think, giving parents afoundation of these topics, of
how to talk to your childrenabout it, of how to talk to your
(13:05):
children about it.
And then when we realized,really in the process of making
this, that it was good.
But we had this glaring problemof, like the smart home, the
smart TVs, the laptops, thetablets, the phones in
everyone's home, that is ahighway to the most explicit
content the world's ever seen.
In seconds, right Like rightnow, a four-year-old can pick up
(13:26):
a phone and access moreexplicit content in three taps
than the most devious monarch inages past could have done in a
lifetime of trying.
And so we we were like that'ssomething we want to approach
with with clarity and try and behelpful for parents.
So we built another resource.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Good and, by the way, was was that because that that
um four-year-old three tapmonarchy like monarch like you
have had to have said that linebefore you.
It came out of your mouth Likeit was nothing.
Tell me, is that in your backpocket that was?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
so this is, yeah, um, this is one of the one of the
one of the things.
You're a writer, you get thisjohn michael, and so I'm I'm
half of into the lightministries.
My other half is john michaelbout, who, uh, who was going to
be here, but they had a babyliterally 12 hours ago, so he
knows something about sexuality.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, I know we, um, our joke is that he's the
practitioner and I'm thetheoretician, because I'm not
married yet, so, but the two ofus have a deep, deep love for
the craft of writing, and so wehave spent hours and hours and
hours flat on our backs on acouch, looking at the sky,
(14:40):
trying to find the right verbsand the right nouns and the
right order to try andarticulate something that we're
so passionate about.
And if you can paint a storythat, I mean, this is what Jesus
was a master at, of not justsaying, hey, do good things, but
painting a picture that, at theend, made the truth punch you
(15:01):
in the gut, and so, if you cando that well, the truth punch
you in the gut.
And so, if you can, if you cando that well, um, I hope, I hope
, we hope we can serve parentsby telling stories that are,
that are meaningful, even injust the way we talk about the
stuff we do.
Yeah, love it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Love it and I hope you heard that as a compliment
but, yeah, but.
I did interrupt you cause youwere getting into the second
resource which I'm veryintrigued by.
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, so, uh, so, uh.
Every parent.
If you're listening to this inyour home right now, just do do
a 360 degree turn and look atall the devices that are in your
home.
You would be probably unlessyou've been thinking about this
for a while you'll probably beshocked to find out how many
access points to pornographythere are.
Your smart tv has a browser onit and you can look up anything,
(15:44):
and so, recognizing that, webuilt a series we called
TechSafe, and TechSafe is 11, Ithink it's 11, laser sharp
tutorials that walk through allthe devices in your home and
helps you shut them down andmake them safe your smart TVs,
laptops, gaming consoles, yourwatches, smart watches and
(16:06):
basically helps parents justfrom the ground up, go like what
is this device?
How was basically?
What's it doing?
How is information flowing in,flowing out, and what do you?
What resources do you have as aparent that allow you to make
that a device safe, to give to afour year old-old, a
nine-year-old, a 15-year-old,and then think through what you
(16:28):
need to do to each of thosedevices to be safe at that level
.
And so we wanted this to be asboots on the ground, practical
for parents as possible, and wedid the best we could.
It's like, oh, it's basicallytwo and a half hours total of
tutorials and we have it stagedreally well.
So there's like an oh, it'sbasically two and a half hours
total of tutorials and we haveit staged really well.
So there's like an openingvideo parents can watch that
(16:48):
really kind of gives them someof the foundation, like almost
like a toolbox, to then go andapply it to each of those
devices.
And, by the grace of God, oneof the things he's let us do is
crowdfund all of our resources.
So we have a really great team,growing team of supporters who
really believe in making theseresources so they're free, both
(17:08):
the Parenting, and Pornographyseries and TechSafe series are
free at intothelightministriescaand I hope everyone goes and
watches them.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, awesome, awesome, love that, jacob.
Okay, so I I'm imagining someparents like me go hold on, hold
on, like that, the re, theresource about, like this is how
to button up the um, thedevices in my home.
I think one of the things thatI've heard for years is yeah,
but things are changing soquickly.
Like how can you create aresource, like is this going to
(17:37):
be a good resource in six months?
And I mean when the next thingcomes out like how did you guys
address that?
Yeah, and I mean when the nextthing comes out like how?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
did you guys address that?
Yeah, yeah, okay, that was John.
John, michael and I talk oftenas we walk, right, you know,
walk and talk.
That's a probably like a 20 or30 mile question of like road
that we've burned, trying tofigure out how to get that right
and it turns out it's aresolution.
So, um, like, for example so Ican do this with an analogy
(18:07):
Wi-Fi carries information, love.
That that's a great fact.
That's going to stand the testof time for a long, long time.
It's also not the most helpfulthing.
Like cool, there's a concept,you got it in your brain, but
like, wi-fi carries information,okay, what do I do with that?
The?
And then that's at one end ofthe spectrum.
(18:27):
The other end is press thepower up button button on your
insert name here router, spin itaround, flip it over, read the
bar like and now we're like,we're at, like I'm literally
walking you through step by stepon a device that you can see in
your hand.
That is really, really, really,really helpful, but will be
(18:51):
outdated in like the next modelof whatever device that is, and
it doesn't generalize as wellacross devices.
So what we did is we mapped.
This is getting so much moretechnical than most people need,
but it's the technicality wedid in order to then build
something more helpful.
We found the sweet spot ingiving really practical boots on
(19:14):
the ground.
Hold the device in your handlevel concepts that are just shy
of the walking you through whatbuttons to press.
But then we give furtherresources underneath each video
that link out to constantlyupdated websites that we really
like.
That do give you some of thosespecific things, and one of the
(19:38):
big things we encourage parentsto do is, like you know, let's
say you have a PlayStation, aPS5, playstation 5, it's a
gaming console.
You would be surprised at theparental resources that are in
that device already that themakers of playstation were
pretty thoughtful in trying toset up for you, and they didn't
(20:00):
make them for tech wizards, theymade them for actual parents.
So once you know that andyou're encouraged to just go set
a timer, just take, give it 20minutes, sit down, grab the
gaming thing and just just alook, just look, thumb through
those, see what's there,experiment with a few things.
(20:23):
You're already 75% of the wayjust by getting involved with
the device and doing your bestto figure things out and then,
if you know, that's there, andyou also know about Wi-Fi level
security, and that's somethingyou've been thinking about.
Now you're already thinking oftwo levels of safety for that
device and you're you're alreadyin a really good place to start
setting up a device like thatsafely, and it just takes like
the knowledge that it's thereand you can start doing it, and
(20:46):
with time it's able to befigured out, and so that's the
kind of thing we're thinkingthrough with these devices.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Love it, I love it, yeah Again.
So, going back to my agrarianillustration earlier, I think,
like for for anybody listeningwho goes, yeah, but I'm just not
like good at that.
Okay, look, you know, 150 yearsago, if you weren't good at
plowing a field, you had to doit anyway because you need to
eat.
And I think we're.
I think we're at that level ofimportance when it comes to
(21:16):
these kinds of things withparenting.
All right.
So let's shift gears.
Let's talk about pornography,let's talk about talking to our
kids, because one of the thingsthat my co-author said in our
book that I think you'd agreewith is it's not a good
parenting move just to set itand forget it.
So, say you get your homebuttoned up as best you can with
the resource you've provided.
There's still parenting to do,there's still discipleship to do
(21:38):
.
So you guys make the claim thatit's important to talk to your
kids early about sex and it'simportant to talk to them early
about pornography.
Just unpack that.
Talk a little bit about what'searly.
What do you mean by that?
Why is that?
Wherever you want to go withthat question?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Totally.
I love that question, but first, like this, I'm just being
super genuine.
People should buy your book ifthey haven't already.
There's few Treading Boldly.
That you and Daniel Weiss wroteis a really good resource.
Like we read copious amounts ofeverything in preparation for
(22:15):
writing this series.
Art, like the.
The Google sheets document ofall of our resources is like
hundreds of books long.
Your book is really good.
It's a really good just likeany parent can pick it up.
You guys are really kind,thoughtful and convictional and
like it.
It's one of the handful ofbooks that I instantly recommend
.
We and we do in our leader'sguide that we're almost finished
(22:37):
creating for the series.
We recommend your book a bunchof times that parents should
read it.
It's really helpful.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
See, I knew I wanted you on this podcast.
I just knew I wanted you onthis podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
This is just the fun thing about being in this space
for me is like how team orientedit all is you.
Everybody else we've workedwith is like, how about let's
help parents have the kids notwatch porn?
I don't know, I'm team that,you're team, that it's great, so
I love shooting more resourcesto people.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, anyways, it answers your actual go ahead and
going back to the agrarianillustration again, like in that
day you could not make it aloneand we can't make it alone
today, Like we really need eachother.
The day of the siloed parent,the day of the Christian I mean,
Christianity has never been tobe siloed anyway but the day
that, like you know, you kind ofraise your own family and worry
about yourself, Like it justdoesn't work, it's not working.
(23:29):
It's not going to work now.
We need you, you know we needeach other.
So, yeah, All right.
So so back to the question.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Thank you again To uh in in the the.
The refrain that the that's allthe speakers throughout our
entire parenting and pornographyseries say is those two words
early and often.
And so what does early looklike?
And one of the things that'sbeen helpful for me is a lot of
parents are scared to talk aboutthis topic with their kids
(23:57):
early because they don't want todamage their kids, they don't
want to give them something tooheavy to carry too early, and I
really sympathize with that.
Like we have this intuitiveunderstanding that sex is this
weighty, beautiful thing.
It might be the most sacredthing this side of eternity
(24:19):
because what it represents theChrist, church, union, marriage,
like there's so much packedinto that.
And so I think there'ssomething worth grieving a
little bit in saying you mighthave to err on the side of
earlier and give a younger childa little more to grapple with
than in other ages you mighthave been able to, and just
(24:41):
being like, yeah, that's maybe abit sad.
There was a time where you couldlet, like your agrarian example
, you could let the barnyardanimals and their example get
enough of the categories in andthen wait till the kids were 12,
13 to really keep thoseconversations.
That's a good thing, and that'snot the world we live in now
and right now.
(25:02):
The average age of exposure tothe most graphic sex the world
has ever seen is eight years old, and so parents must be clearly
talking to their children aboutthis topic at that age, or
you're going to let everythingin the world disciple your
children about this before thatand so and we know that parents
(25:24):
are the authority, like God hasgiven you the authority to love
your children in this area.
So, having said that, thatdoesn't mean you need to full
send, on the whole, all theinformation as soon as they hit
eight years old, because one ofthe cool things about and the
video series really unpacks alot of this there are categories
(25:47):
about what it means to be humanthat you can tell two-year-olds
, three-year-olds,four-year-olds, four-year-olds.
That will then make the moreexplicit conversations about
what is sex.
You know bodily parts, whatdoes that mean later?
So much easier.
So you can tell a two-year-oldand three-year-old hey, your
body is good.
God made it Like.
(26:08):
Your whole body is just reallybeautiful, created thing from
God.
Mom and dad, like us, beingmarried husbands, wives, those
are good things.
Your body parts, the privateones that we cover with
underwear and bathing suits.
Those are good, but they'respecial good and they're a kind
of good that only mom and dadcan help you with.
These are some like scriptsthat you can talk to, and so
(26:29):
they're starting to getcategories early without needing
to necessarily tie all thosethings together and then so
there's lots of things in therethat you can help really young
with.
And then the other thing and youguys talk about this in your
book a lot of parents, you knowwe've been kind of had this idea
(26:49):
of the talk.
You know air quotes the talkand I get why people.
Again, it keys into this ideathat sex is this really
beautiful thing, to kind of makeit an event when you talk about
it with your children.
There's something good there.
But I think, on balance,framing like the whole
(27:09):
conversation as the talk hassome really big pitfalls,
because what it does is it kindof removes the conversations
about sexuality from real lifeand makes it this kind of thing
that then is hard to integrateback into the rhythms of your
life.
And so well said, if you, ifyou can say you know to your, if
(27:31):
you can think about it and sayyou know what I going to have a
bunch of conversations with mykids, just keeping touching base
with this topic, asking if theyhave questions, letting them
know things.
Not only does that make it like, uh, I can talk to my mom and
dad about this kind of wheneverI need to, which is a really
good thing, but it also takesthe stress off.
So if you were talking to yourkids about sexuality and you
(27:55):
kind of felt like you botchedthat conversation, it's okay,
talk to them next week, like it.
Just it takes all this weightof like when do I have this
explosion of truth with mychildren?
And just goes it's okay, makethis part of the rhythms of as
your kids growing up, tellingthem what they need to know and
letting them know.
You can talk to me about this.
(28:15):
If you have questions, I'm theone you can come to and I'll
give you answers.
Even if I don't have them rightnow, I'll get back to you and
make it a safe place.
An example is this my mom did areally good job with this.
I remember when she she so shetalked to me about what
sexuality was, her mom and mydad both sat down and they
explained it to me and I waslike, whoa, okay, that's crazy.
(28:38):
And and then my mom followed upand just said hey, remember
that conversation we had.
Just curious, did you have anyquestions about it?
Happy to.
If you have any questions, youcome talk to me.
I'm like, yep, whatever, mom,that's cool, but I knew I was
like I can go to mom and ask her, that's fine.
And then another time she said,hey, there's these pictures of
people.
Remember we talked about sex.
Well, some people have sex andthen take videos of themselves
(29:00):
and put it on the internet.
And I was like I remember sodistinctly, thinking why the
heck would anyone?
That is so weird.
11-year-old me was like whatit's bizarre?
And mom was like, don't worryabout it, just to let you know
that exists.
And if you ever see it, comeand tell me.
I won't be angry at you.
But Christians should not watchthose kinds of things.
(29:20):
So it's out there, but youshouldn't watch it and let me
know if you see it.
And I was like, yeah, okay,sounds good.
Later, when I started realizingwhy someone would watch that, I
knew two things.
One, I shouldn't.
Two, even though I was tempted,we had covenant eyes and I knew
, and I knew ever since everydevice we had in the entire home
.
I knew mom could see what Ilooked at and I wasn't going to
(29:42):
risk it.
Later on, still later teens, Istarted becoming very grateful
because I had friends who werewatching porn and, like
struggling, we would talk aboutthat and I was like I don't want
to get into that mess.
So my personal story is that Inever I never struggled with
pornography because I had aparent who was was, by the grace
of God, really, really careful.
(30:03):
That's not, and that's not tosay I have another friend, john
Michael.
His parents were also verycareful and very thoughtful and
he did struggle with pornographyfor a decade.
So God doesn't you know, goddoesn't God's sovereign and God
is good, and we have differentstories.
But that's just, that's justkind of my thoughts of like
saying you can do stuff, parentsand and yeah, and God can equip
(30:25):
you to steward this well.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I love I mean just to draw this out for parents
listening like, um, your mombrought it up, asked if you had
questions, so it was in yourcourt, but also didn't just
leave it in your court, cameback again, went a little deeper
, went a little different.
Um, it sounds just by the wayyou reiterated it.
There was a tone that wasnon-threatening, non-scary,
(30:49):
non-scared.
Um, so you knew, like, man, youknow this.
Uh, I think sometimes when wecome, we come, you know, big and
boisterous, or scared.
What inevitably we communicateto our kids is you're going to
freak me out if you bring it upor we make our kids scared, and
then they're like, oh, this isscary, I don't want to bring
this up or something, somethingworse.
(31:09):
So, yeah, I love the winsomenessof that and the consistency of
it and I appreciate too I wantto just kind of come back to
this because I never thought ofthis before and I think it's so,
um, helpful that there, thatit's actually legitimate for
parents to to grieve, that welive in such a culture that we
have to bring some of thesereally important things up and
(31:30):
some of these really hard thingsup, uh, to kids who we may find
really struggle or grapple withwhat we're, what we're sharing.
And, um, uh, you can tell, Ikind of always go back out to
like other other illustrations,but I think probably be akin to
like, well, what do we do if, ifour village is, you know, has
been invaded by dangerous people.
(31:51):
Like I don't want to tell mykids that the world's a
dangerous place or a scary place, but it's really important for
their good that we talk aboutthese things, even when they're
young, because I can't parentthem the way I want to and look
out for them the way I want toin this environment.
So I just appreciate thesensitivity to yeah, is that sad
(32:12):
for you parents?
Like, yeah, that makes sense.
I don't think I'd even kind offaced my own sadness about,
about that and we wrote a bookabout it, you know.
So, yeah, um, yeah, so thankyou for that.
Um, so you, you kind of gave ussome pretty early on stuff for
talking to kids.
Um, can you, can you get alittle bit like go go a little
(32:33):
bit further into some of the um,kind of young adolescent?
um we're going to talk to ourkids about porn.
You have the example what yourmom said to you, which I think
is I mean it was concise, it wasclear um, love that.
What else would you say toparents of, of kids kind of, who
are in that teenage years maybe, especially when, um, what did
your expert say when desirestarts to kind of get ignited, a
(32:55):
bit like any guidance, guidancefor parents there?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Totally, totally.
It's hard to like.
I'm, I'm, I'm just.
I come at this with.
I sit in a very interestingposition where I'm half the
parent I mean, I'm not a parentyet, but I'm old enough to be
half the parent and I'm half thekid like I remember very
clearly what it was like to be16, 17, 18 and navigating these
(33:19):
issues and and feeling like thetemptation to want to like.
But it's funny, we were, wehave like official, we have some
really great partnerships withcovenant eyes.
Now I loathed covenant eyes.
When I was a teen I spent somuch time trying to get around
it, not necessarily because Iactually wanted to look at
explicit material, but because Ijust wanted to look at things
(33:42):
that Kamen Oni has blockedbecause they weren't as
sophisticated then that weren'treally bad, but like, like, like
there's a whole, a whole thingin there and now I'm like Kamen
Oni is amazing, I love them,they're so great.
So it's like I remember thatand I just know what I can
really hear a lot of parentsfear in a lot of this when
(34:03):
they're especially with a kid,who, with a child who they're
like.
I know my kids watching pornand I know they want nothing to
do with the, with the rules andstuff that I want to put in
place.
That's tough, and to thatparent specifically, I'm kind of
bouncing around, but to thatparent specifically I would be
like, hey, like you are stillthe parent.
(34:26):
One of the I think one of thecultural, one of the worst
cultural lies that is invadingthese kinds of conversations is
the idea that parents don't haveresponse, not only
responsibility, or the authorityGod's given, or the authority
God's given you, the authorityto shepherd your children in
whatever way you think is best,and like.
Parents need to have thatconvictional steel and,
(34:46):
hopefully, support to know thatif you want to make, if you feel
like it would be wise, withprayer, with counsel, to make
radical decisions aroundtechnology for your 16 or 17
year old, do it because you lovethem.
You do know what's best forthem.
You're way older than they areand and and.
It's going to be hard, but youhave to stand before god one day
(35:06):
, doing the best that you wereable to, and and and.
Don't be afraid to do that.
Um, yeah, that's, that's,that's one direction go, go
ahead.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Let me just add one thing just from my experience.
So so, in walking with adultmen and women in our ministry
for the last 20 something years,like I've never met any, any
client, any person um who wishestheir mom or dad, um wished a
worse relationship with theirmom and dad, even those who had
terrible relationships withtheir parents and whose parents
(35:36):
were very abusive.
The pain they walk with todaybecause they wish their mom and
dad was more present, moreattuned, more loving that kind
of stuff.
So, yeah, I mean I just I wannaspeak as a word of affirmation
to parents, like your kids.
Actually, however you're doing,however, like whatever rupture
there is in a relationship,however toxic it is, your kids
(35:57):
way down deep really want agreat relationship with you.
Yeah, but do what it takes toto get there and and and, yeah,
for that reason alone, but alsoso that you can be the parent in
some of these biggerconversations.
So, all right, I took it fromyou, but go back to yeah no, no,
building off of that.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
So now we're in, like , like there's, there's lots of
different, lots of differentparents.
We could talk about Lots ofdifferent places their children
are at in relation to where theparents are at.
A snapshot at them at 17, 18,with their parents still living
(36:40):
at home.
Disaster parents doing theirbest to shut down devices to set
up safeguards, having thoseconversations, discovering them
with pornography um, disaster,fast forward three years.
Really, restored relationshipthat kids who have, who on their
(37:00):
own volition joinedaccountability groups, tried,
put porn to death and came backto their parents with gratitude
that their parents like toughedout, saying like had the
consistency of porn is wrong andwe're not going to tolerate.
Uh, we're going to, we're goingto be helpful.
So it's not just like aprohibition without any more.
But you, watching pornographyis not a place.
(37:20):
We're staying, we're moving,we're trying to help you and
love you, and maybe that's toughlove, and I know so many
stories of really, reallybeautiful, then French, you know
kind of the older child parentfriendships.
That were the stories of theyears afterwards, and so it's
possible, if any parents arethere right now, just set your
hope that you could have thatrestored relationship with your
(37:44):
child, but quickly, maybe tosome of the other parents.
I think a lot of parents I mean,tell me what you think about
this there's probably a lot ofparents who their kids are
teenagers, late teens, earlyteens and they're probably
thinking, gosh, I don't, Ihaven't really talked about any
(38:05):
of this and like, I think we'regood, like I've got good
relationships with my kids, butthis is just a whole new.
I don't even know where tostart.
And I think where to start, ifI may be cheeky, is to go watch
our masterclass video series Notcheeky at all, not cheeky at
all.
That's good.
But I think to them, you couldsee, I think there's something
(38:29):
powerful with kids of the rightage to sit down and say, hey,
you're 15.
You know what sex is and youknow, you know what pornography
is too.
Um, let we just let's just befrank about that.
I owe you an apology.
I wish I had talked to you more.
I wish I'd been a better parent, um, for for in this area of
life and I haven't hadconversations, I wish I had, um,
(38:52):
but I would like to have someconversations now.
Um, that's, that's a hard thingto do.
It takes humility.
There's that's going to beawkward as all get out Like I
for sure.
But there's something I there'ssomething really powerful, I
think, for, uh, for someonewho's younger, hearing those
kinds of conversations and thenstart to ask them genuine
questions about how they'redoing and and do so with the
(39:15):
knowledge that it's entirelylikely we just know the stats.
It's entirely likely that yourteenager is struggling with
pornography, guy or girl, if you, if it's not a conversation
you've had, it's more likelythat they've well, it's
guaranteed they've encounteredpornography and it's more than
less likely that they'restruggling with it to some
degree.
So, going into a conversationknowing that that's the case and
(39:38):
also it's hard and there's somuch more there, that's
situation specific and I'm sureyou've got you probably have
some more well-formed thoughtsthan I have, but try.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Maybe that's maybe the biggest one to parents.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Just try, you know, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I love it.
Jacob, this, our podcast formatis is insufficient, but that's
great news, because peopleshould check out your resource,
which is hours and hours andhours of of content.
So, but I do want to give youkind of the like um, as we're
wrapping up, is there something?
Oh, I really wanted to say this, or the one more thing I'd
(40:16):
really want to throw in?
Um, uh, I'd love to give youthe opportunity that before we,
before we wrap, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
This is.
This has been a really fun, funconversation.
I really enjoyed this.
I would just be like I'd say toparents like every, the
majority of anything having todo with sexuality that you've
encountered in the last coupleyears, almost all of it has been
on the devil's turf.
Every billboard you've seen,every advertisement, you've seen
(40:47):
every crude joke, almost all ofour experience of sexuality I
mean, apart from actually havingsex, the public sphere of
sexuality is all the devil'sturf, and we can be inculcated
to think about sex.
When we think sex, we can intuitpornography.
We hear good and feel and thinkdistortion.
(41:08):
Try and reclaim that.
God made sexuality, godinvented marriage, god made this
beautiful thing, and it's easyto forget that.
But, like, when we're talkingabout this concept of sexuality,
we're talking about one of themost beautiful gifts God's given
(41:29):
us, and so try and realize thatyourself, and then it's from
that knowledge of the good andthe beautiful that we have a
better understanding of all thedistortions and the importance
of talk to your kids about this.
Set your vision of like, wantingto talk to your children about
this thing, to shepherd them inthis way so that, by the grace
(41:49):
of God, they can walk down anaisle one day, having not made
some of the mistakes that maybeyou as a parent have made.
And so, if you're, as a parent,even if you're feeling like I'm
terrified of this topic becauseof the mistakes I've made, know
that A we're Christians here.
God has forgiven you as far asthe East is from the West.
That's how far your sins are,and last I checked, that's
(42:11):
really far.
God loves you and he'sempowered you to be able to have
those conversations with yourkids.
So go do that.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Go do it come on mic, drop right there.
You literally said before yousaid that you said no, I think
this has been a goodconversation.
And then you said, well, Ithink I'd say, and then that was
like I'm over here, likebecause it's you know, I don't
want to talk over you because wegot, you know, mics going on
stuff, but I want to just belike yes, yes, like that, like I
(42:37):
love.
I mean, it is so true, likethere's so much of this on the
devil's turf, our regularexperience on the devil's turf,
um, but this is not his stuff,it's God's.
I love that.
What a great way to.
And, jacob, we will have yourinformation, um, into the lights
information and these resourceinformation on our in the show
notes.
Please check it out and and bepraying for this brother and
(43:00):
John Michael too, as they do thehibernating good work they're
doing.
Are you guys hibernating now?
Are you working on something,something new?
Are you?
Are you spending?
Speaker 2 (43:08):
your time getting this out.
We have so many things in thecauldron right now Lots of John
Michael.
He's the wise one, so he wouldhave his hands over my mouth if
I say too much.
What I can say is there'stopics that we're going to
explore next.
Probably dating and pornographyis the next, that whole
(43:30):
conversation.
So as a ministry, we exist toserve the church.
We want to equip parents.
So if you want to kind of keepin contact with what we do,
follow us on Instagram and joinour mailing list.
We don't spam people, but wejust want to keep people up to
date on what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
So, yeah, into the Light Ministries.
We're grateful for you guys,jesus.
We pray for the parentslistening.
No shame, lord.
No shame, just your love, yourinvitation to something better.
And we do pray, lord, for Jacoband for John Michael, that you
would bless and keep them andguide them in the paths you have
for them.
I pray all this in Jesus' name,amen, amen.
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