October 13, 2025 • 56 mins
Pastors' Perspective is a one-hour call-in program where listeners can call in and get answers to questions about the Bible, Christianity, family, and life. The program is live Monday through Friday from 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Pacific. You can call 888-564-6173 to ask your questions.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. The number to call
is 888-564-6173. Again, 888-564-6173. I'm Michael David in for Brian Perez,
and on today's program we have Char Broderson, pastor.
At Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, you can get more information
at CCCM.com. Also we have on the program Pastor Mike
(00:39):
Chaddick from Image Church in San Juan Capistrano. More details
on that church at mageChurch OC.com. Gentlemen, welcome to the program.
Thanks so much, Michael.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Great to be here. How are you, sir? Good. How
are you? Yeah,
doing well. Well,
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I imagine since the holidays are coming up, you guys
have a lot of plans coming up for your church. What,
what's the next thing going on at Costa Mesa and in, uh,
Raage Church?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Uh, Costa Mesa, we actually just started a six week, um,
like intensive courses just around discipleship and theology. So we
just started that last week. We call it the gathering.
So that'll lead us um into November and then we'll have,
we do annually, we do, you know, Thanksgiving dinner with
the whole church. So we set up our gym and
(01:24):
I mean, it's really beautiful like I don't know, there's
like 500 people that come out to this and it's
just organized chaos, but it's just really beautiful. Like every
year I just kind of look out and just like, man,
this is people just in deep conversation and sharing a
meal together so.
Yeah, you know, and then on the holidays, we've got
a bunch of things planned just to kind of bring
people together and just celebrate the season and reflect. So yeah,
(01:48):
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you, Char. How about you, Mr. Mike? Yes,
so on the last Sunday of this month, October 26th,
we do an annual fall celebration. Obviously, everybody's in the
the Halloween or harvest festival kind of a thing and
as sort of a a a church history nut and
a
Someone who's very appreciative of the Reformation, we do like
(02:12):
a celebration of the Protestant Reformation and just kind of
the basic things that I think a lot of Christians
in America today take for granted, um, that happened because
people were willing to put their lives on the line,
and some indeed lost their lives, uh, to get us
the Bible. People just kind of assume, oh, Bible will
always be present in a church service and 500 years ago,
(02:34):
that was actually not normal and
Many people literally risked their lives, you know, Martin Luther
and others, to bring us the Bible. So I do
a special reformation message that Sunday, and then we have
just a huge festival, tons of food, games, bounce houses,
all that kind of stuff. And we think celebration is
(02:55):
an important teaching tool. Um, celebration is used in the
Old Testament to teach God's people about the mighty acts
of God and
History. And so I think it's, it's great to teach
from a pulpit, and it's important we always do that,
but at the same time, I think celebration.
Uh, is an amazing tool, and I think for the
kids to grow up and seeing this huge celebration, and
(03:16):
when they ask, why are we doing this, just like
the children of Israel when they would celebrate the feast
of Tabernacles and they would dwell in little tents for
a while, and they say, Mom and dad, what why
are we doing this? It's an opportunity for us parents
to explain, well, you see, God did this amazing thing
500 years ago, where we got the Bible in our
own language, and that we have the freedom.
To do that and, and of course, um, just kind
(03:38):
of crystallizing and, and recovering the essence of the gospel, um,
it's a beautiful thing to celebrate, so we're gonna be
doing that. And that's on October 31st, 26th. So it's always,
it's always the Sunday before the 31st. OK. Yes, yes,
all right, cool. Well, great events coming up at, uh,
Kilsta Mesa, Calver Chapel Costa Mesa, and, uh, Image Church
in San Juan.
(03:58):
Capistrano, uh, number to call if you want to talk
to Pastor Char or Pastor Mike 888-564-6173 888-564-6173, uh, but
we'll start with the Facebook questions as we traditionally do
that you can send to us at facebook.com/pastors perspective, uh,
but we do prefer to hear the sound of your voice,
so 888-564-6173 is the number to call.
(04:22):
We're gonna start off with Kelly, who lives in Menefee.
She says, I'd like to know the best way to
respond to this. My husband is not working at this time.
He spends almost all his time visiting different churches with
questions for the pastor and states that it's important to
have his Bible questions answered.
He says he's looking for work but seems to have
(04:43):
different reasons why he can't do this or that job.
Are there some scriptures that indicate the importance of working,
earning one's keep, as well as spending time in God's
word and in church with fellow believers? Uh, char, why
don't we start with you on that one?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, I mean,
It's just interesting, kind of the, the things that um
are being shared about the situation, right? Like, it sounds
like there's some concern, just kind of overall with um
You know, it's like, uh man, high importance on, I
gotta get my spiritual answers, but there's kind of like
(05:19):
not this practical side of just investment in the family,
maybe in the marriage, uh, and just contributing to the
overall household. And I find that there is a a
a consistent pattern within our churches, right, that
You know, um, it's kind of, you know, adjacent to
the whole, you know, faith versus work thing, you know, well, the,
(05:41):
the important thing really in my life are the spiritual things,
but kind of these earthly more kind of worldly minded
things really aren't important to God. And the interesting thing
in the scripture is they're not two different things. They
are one and the same, right? God made the whole
world and he's made the whole body and
I think especially when we look at the teachings of Jesus,
(06:02):
we see how what Jesus is after in the sermon
on the Mount in particular is whole person righteousness, right?
So even, you know, when you think about, he goes
and he talks about, you know, some of these aspects,
you've heard that it was said, you know, you shall
not commit adultery, but I say to you, you know,
if a man looks looks at a woman and lust
after he's already committed adultery in his heart, uh, Jesus
(06:22):
isn't saying that, oh, you know,
Uh, you know, committing adultery really isn't the, the important thing, but,
you know, what's important is your heart. He's actually saying
both are absolutely vital to true whole person righteousness, and
this is the kind of righteousness that God is looking for,
not just one who abstains.
(06:42):
From doing what is wrong and what is harmful to others,
but actually one who is deeply convicted in their person
about the right way to live and it's, you know,
being manifest in their whole life. And so to me, I,
I kind of see that in this situation where it
sounds like
The person is saying, hey, I got, I gotta really
figure out these spiritual things because this is what matters.
(07:04):
I got to meet with the pastor, but they are
neglecting to do these very important practical things, just simply
contributing to the family, being a partner in this marriage,
which is what God calls us to. And I, I couldn't, um,
I think it's 2 Thessalonians, but I was thinking about.
There is that one command there where Paul says, um,
(07:26):
if a man will not work, or if an individual
will not work, neither shall they eat, right? And Paul,
I think, is going after this whole idea where we
have individuals who will make up all of these excuses
why they cannot be, um, you know, in the workforce
of these things. Well, it doesn't really fit my giftings, and,
(07:47):
you know, well, I'm just waiting for the Lord's will
and my giftings just to line up perfectly, and
We don't find that kind of scenario in scripture. What
we find is actually, we are called to work and
to be contributors, and especially like when we think about
what the gospel does, like it, it transforms us from
(08:07):
being people who are just constantly taking and seeing what
I can get for self fulfillment into somebody who is self-sacrificial,
like Jesus.
right? We've been reborn into his image, and he is
the perfect human being who gives himself for others, right?
Who uses his stuff for the benefit of others. It
gives his own body for the sake of others, and
(08:30):
our lives are to be patterned after his life. And so, right,
this isn't Paul just, you know,
Like sticking it to people who are lazy in the church,
he's actually extracting this from the model that we have
for a new way of living and a new way
of being, so.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I think you're right, Char, about there sounds like
a false bifurcation.
There and I think, you know, even tying it into
or what I was mentioning about the Reformation, one of
the great things Luther did as well in his doctrine
of vocation is he
Recognize that there was too harsh a distinction between the
sacred versus the secular, and Luther had a saying where
(09:10):
he said, God works behind the mask of the ordinary,
and he talks about in our vocation as husbands and wives.
That's a vocation as mothers and fathers, that's a vocation
as a baker, um, as a milkmaid, all these kinds
of things, all these jobs.
Our spiritual things that we do when we do it
in faith to God's glory, and that God actually uses
(09:32):
those things to provide the well-being. When we pray, give
us this day our daily bread, Luther would say, Well,
how does God do that? Does he do it? Because
we sit around, do nothing and pray. Well, our prayers
are being answered through the people who are growing the wheat,
who are harvesting the wheat, who are processing it, who
are making bread out of it, who delivered the bread
to our table so that we can eat.
So again, I think there there does sound like there's
(09:55):
a false dichotomy there. And as far as another scripture,
like Paul wrote to Timothy, a man who does not
provide for his own house is worse than a non-believer,
so it doesn't get any more practical than that. Paul
is saying that's, that's a terrible thing. Like that is
a
You know, so somebody claiming to be spiritual, cause I
asked theological questions, but they're refusing to provide for their family.
(10:16):
Paul is saying this, this person is in gross sin,
and you can't really expect to be getting any answers
when you're an unrepentant sin. And I would also say,
you know, like Jesus shows this in his own ministry,
for example, when somebody's bringing an offering to the altar, right,
to do quote unquote, spiritual things, he says, but if
you have a grievance against a brother, first set your
(10:38):
gift down.
Go make things right with your brother, and then you can,
you know, Jesus was against this kind of hypocritical worship
where we're not honoring God in our daily relationships, but
then we're gonna go to church, temple, tabernacle, whatever and
show up and
I think we're fine because we've done these things. That
(10:58):
is a, that's been an obviously and it's a perennial problem,
but one that's very, very important to address. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I was also thinking about in the passage doesn't apply specifically,
but remember when Paul says, you know, that the thief
who stole steal.
No longer, but rather let them work so that they
are able to give to the one that asks. And
I think Paul's laying, you know, um, an order out
for the Christian community. We have become the kind of
(11:25):
people that when we are asked
That we can actually give, we can contribute, we can
actually bless other people. And I think, yeah, I mean,
like if we're able and we're not doing those things,
we're actually, I would say limiting how God can use
us in the work that he wants to do, not
just the work that he wants to do in the world,
but also the work that he wants to do in
(11:46):
us and transforming us to be more like Jesus.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Absolutely great answers, great answers, Char and Mike and Kelly.
Thank you for contacting us on Facebook.com/pastors perspective. Another Facebook
question comes from Dan. He says, if more people pray
for the same thing, does that move God to answer
in the affirmative? Please, if possible, please provide supporting scripture.
We'll start with Pastor Mike on that.
(12:11):
I can't think of any explicit passage that says more
than one person praying for the same thing is better
than one person praying for it. I mean, I can
think of a verse where it, uh, like in James,
the fervent effective prayer of a righteous man, singular avails much.
So it sounds like the, the prayers of a single person, uh,
(12:33):
avails much. I think more descriptively, you know, I mean,
You know, you think of Acts 2 and Pentecost, and,
and again, this is narrative and it's descriptive, but you
see a unity and harmony and, uh, the disciples in
the upper room waiting together, praying together, and you see
God's spirit poured out. Again, I want to be careful,
(12:55):
you know, to not pull something out of that description.
Um, that isn't explicitly stated, but I mean, you get
the sense, of course, that maybe this is a part
of why God is doing this at that exact moment,
but um,
So again, I, I could point to James to say,
I think there's no reason to think that an individual
(13:16):
praying their prayers are not effective or valid. So there,
there you go, um, and I would probably just say, um,
And this is more of a theological than simply like a,
you know, proof texting verse thing. I think this has
to do with the with the sovereignty of God, whatever, um,
God wills to do. I think there's prayers that, um,
(13:38):
God will not answer it the first time we pray.
We have to pray it 100 times.
How do you know you don't? Um, there's prayers where
I think it is quite possible God is foreordained that
I'm not gonna do this thing until all these people
are praying together in unity and harmony, and then I
will do it, but that's a mystery to us. We
don't have access to God's hidden will, you know, so
(14:00):
I think again, it's, it's simply something that we do.
Um, out of service to God, out of, uh, vigilance
and faith, we're, we're told to pray, we're told to
continue pray, pray without quitting, pray without ceasing, and I think,
of course, corporately, that's, that's powerful. And I think God
I think he support as we pray together, there I
(14:22):
think there is a special blessing, not even so much
in the sense that, oh well, now the prayer will
get answered. But I think there's a, well, Paul would
say this in Galatians, bear one another's burdens and so
fulfill the law of Christ. I think that's happening in
a unique way when we pray together as opposed to
when we're praying alone.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, it reminds me of what CS Lewis says, right?
And I think it's his um reflections on the Psalms
or um.
Um, maybe it's letters to Malcolm. I can't remember which
one it is, but he talks about how, you know, prayer, uh,
it does not change God's will, it changes me. Prayer
is a transformative work, uh, because it brings us into
(15:03):
line with the will of God. And Mike, you mentioned unity, right,
with other believers, but also, you know, to have clarity
for what God's will is. I was thinking about this story,
you know, so you're talking about James, right? And that
story um or exhortation about
I think um Elijah, right? And then I was thinking
about another James, right in the book of Acts. So
(15:26):
um I'm blinking on the exact passage, right, but James
is arrested by Herod, he's killed.
And then, you know, Herod sees that it pleases the
Jews and so he arrests Peter and it says that
the whole church is praying for Peter. And, you know,
this miraculous story of this angel, right, coming in Peter
doesn't even like know what's happening. He doesn't even know
it's real. He thinks it's all a dream because it's
(15:47):
just so unbelievable how God rescues him and just leads
him by all the guards opens the gates to all
these things, right? And then Peter goes to the house
and everybody's shocked cause they can't believe that Peter actually
was released. I think it's a ghost. It's just this wild,
wild story.
And in that story, a bunch of people are praying,
but we have to imagine that the same group of
(16:07):
people was most likely praying for James as well, right?
It's not like Peter was the favorite, you know, apostle
and they're like, well James, he's on his own, his
own good luck.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
We'll pray for Peter.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, but here's a story where we have the church
praying and we have two different outcomes.
And we would say like, well, is it the Lord's
will for James to die in that way, like to,
you know, like, it's such a scoundrel like Herod and the,
you know,
Well, no, like, in the sense of like, what glorifies
(16:37):
God in the way that we think about God's kingdom,
advancing his kingdom, and from our perspective, no, right? But
then Peter, we say, yes, this is according to God's will,
and I think, kind of back to your point, like,
at the end of the day, like, God gives us
clarity on what his will is, his kingdom is, right?
We see this in the Lord's prayer specifically, but all
throughout uh the scriptures, and still, there is this
(17:00):
Lord, we don't know. Like this is what you've shared
with us and invited us to partner with you and
pray and and yet like we are um we're looking
at you and and we're trusting that you know best.
And I remember reading one theologian that was saying, even
in the story, we have a a really powerful picture,
I think, of the way that the world works since
(17:23):
Christ has come.
And we have kind of with James, we have the
way the world just is, right? Evil triumphs, the righteous
are persecuted and snuffed out in a moment.
But then in the story, the next story, we have
this beautiful picture of the kingdom of God breaking in,
(17:44):
confounding the wise and powerful, turning everything upside down on
their heads, so that even the guards themselves are killed
by Herod, right? Like, evil is turned in on itself,
you know, the church rejoices because there's this incredible victory,
and I think that this is actually a really helpful
picture of what we can actually expect in this life.
(18:07):
it's an overlap of the ages where often we see
that evil and the kingdom of darkness still has these victories,
but God breaks in. And I think back to your point, like,
we just never know. And so it should, I think,
within us just create.
Um, hope and expectation. Like, man, we don't know what
(18:28):
God will do. But what if in this moment, this
is what he wants to do? He wants to do
a Peter-like thing.
And through us partnering with him, that's how God's gonna
do this, is we, you know, come together in prayer,
call on the name of the Lord, you know, uh,
some preachers like to talk about, you know, that contending prayer, Lord,
you said, right? So taking God at his word and
(18:48):
bringing it back to him. Lord, didn't you say that
this is what you want? So do it. We're asking,
you know, so, uh, I just love that, you know,
prayer really.
These questions, you know, rather than being like, well, it's
the sovereignty of God and we can just kind of
fold our hands and we don't really know. It actually
doesn't allow us to do that. It invites us into
the story, uh, and to be a, you know, dynamic
(19:10):
partner in what God's doing, right? So those are just
some of
Speaker 1 (19:14):
my, yeah, and I, and just to highlight something you said, um,
because again, the question was kind of like, you know, hey,
if we get more people praying, does, does this thing happen?
But underlying that could be the idea that prayer is
mainly about
Getting things done out in the world, which is part
of it, but it's also transformative. Part of the goal
of prayer is changing me, aligning me with God's will.
(19:39):
You think about Paul when he prayed for the thorn
in his flesh to go away, right? Like, why is
he praying that? He's praying it because he wants something
to change, but through that prayer, he says, on the
3rd time.
Um, he, the answer comes back, it's not God's will
to do the thing he wanted to do, and then
Paul yields to that. So he's changed in prayer. That's right,
(20:01):
not the thing he was praying for, and I, I
do find it's common and, and I think I revert
to this if I'm honest, um, that we do kind
of think of prayer mainly as a tool to get
things done and not so much.
A transformational practice that God intends to align me with
His will to conform me to the image of Christ.
(20:23):
Like that's like like I'd say every time we pray,
that's like the number one thing I need to change.
I need to be more like Jesus. I want to
be more conformed to his image. I want to align
myself with God's will, whether it be this thing I'm
asking for or if God's answer comes back no or
maybe or wait or whatever it is, I wanna be
conformed to his will.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, have you ever heard that phrase? I think it's
Lex Credendi, Lex Aridi, Lex Vivendi, the law of praying
is the law of believing is a law of living.
I often think about the Lord's prayer and um.
Just a fascinating thing that it comes in the middle
of the sermon on the Mount, and it is the
it is the um hinge passage for the whole sermon,
and the, you know, the middle words even of the
(21:04):
prayer on earth as it is in heaven, or even
this hinge of the prayer. And so, the first half
is God inviting us into his world and his will,
and then us inviting God into our world for his
will to be done, you know, and just kind of
recognition of, you know, what I call holy partnership, but
I think
And that's transformative, right? Like these conversations where I am now,
(21:30):
I'm not just contemplating like, oh, I want this done,
and thinking about like, OK, yeah, how can God's name
be hollowed, you know, me seem to be holy. How
can uh we see His kingdom come and it will
be done. It, it brings me into this holy imagination
of seeing God's name exalted in the world.
And then on the latter half, right, inviting God into like,
(21:52):
oh my provision, my um forgiveness, uh and, you know,
for my sins, how I'm forgiving others, but then also
my protection, right? Like inviting God into these broken places
to work and just to be present, right? And so
much more like what you're saying, like prayer is transformative,
it's an ongoing conversation with God that result is spiritual transformation.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And I think that's why it is great to pray
the Lord's prayer and again thoughtfully, not, not in an empty,
you know, rote manner, but it reprioritizes cause I find
it's natural for people when they pray to treat God
like their personal assistant.
That prayer is about getting my will done. God, I
need you to do this. Get on board with my agenda.
But if you actually pray thoughtfully through the movement of
(22:40):
the Lord's Prayer, it, where does it start first of all,
instead of being man centered, anthropocentric, it's God-centered. Number one,
our Father who are hallowed be your name, and that's
actually the first request.
Right, and the imperative. It's the most important thing in
my day to day is glorifying your name, that your
name be hallowed, that we, as the community of the king,
that we hallow your name and then your will be done,
(23:03):
not mine, Your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. And I think if you thoughtfully pray
through it, suddenly you
I think sometimes I find when I do that, my
very requests completely change, you know, I was coming as,
you know, if I'm the center of the world, this
is how I want things to be God, can you
help me out? But when I come to the Lord's prayer,
(23:24):
when you enter into that tabernacle of prayer, suddenly, you're
on your knees recognizing I'm before the sovereign of the
world and it's all about him. It's not about me.
And it's about aligning with his will and by the
time I get to give me this day, my daily bread,
which we are invited to do, nevertheless, that's actually been
even that prayer is, I think the order of the
Lord's prayer is important as well, right, in terms of priority.
(23:46):
So by the time I get to the petition and
the request, I've been transformed by the will of God,
the priority of God, the glory of God, the majesty
of God, the plan of God, right? Like what are
we here for? What is the purpose of mankind and.
So I think it's a very, very helpful thing to
do that keeps us from going off the rails in prayer.
(24:06):
All right, great conversation from Char and Mike here on
Pastor's Perspective. Great question from Dan on facebook.com/ Pastor's perspective.
We're gonna take a few of your calls now before
we get to the break. Uh, you can call us
at 888-564-6173. Again, 888-564-6173. We're gonna start off with something
(24:26):
that is sort of on prayer as well in a
different way, and that's from Lucy from La Habra Heights. Lucy,
welcome to the program.
Hi, how are you? Good.
How can we help you?
Uh, yes, I have a question. Um, my question is, uh,
Speaker 2 (24:43):
what do I
Speaker 1 (24:44):
do
Speaker 2 (24:45):
when
Speaker 1 (24:45):
a
Speaker 2 (24:45):
person
Speaker 1 (24:45):
tells me I will pray for your family, but I
know they're not a Christian.
Hm. That is a very good question. We'll start with
char on that. What do you say?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Uh, I mean, are you asking personally for yourself, or
you're just asking like, in like, in my experience, what
do I do? I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Well, personally for myself, I mean, do I, uh, I
know they're gonna be praying
Speaker 2 (25:09):
to
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Buddha. OK, they're Buddhists, OK.
Yes. OK, this is a Buddhist person is asking, OK,
so I'm going to ask Mike and Char, that's what Char.
So they go, Buddhist says, Pastor Char, I'm praying to
you at the Buddhist temple, and I'm not praying to Jesus.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
OK, what do you say?
Yeah, I mean, I think it really depends on the
context of the conversation, right? If we're having a, like if, right,
what the person is trying to communicate to me is empathy.
That they feel what I feel. I don't want to
miss that. And I think sometimes as Christians who care
(25:48):
about truth, and we should care about truth, so I'm
not setting that aside. I don't want to miss the
human moment. And so with, you know, um.
Yeah, I, you know, I don't know personally, you know,
how I would communicate this, but I would want to
in some way receive that as like, wow, thank you
so much for for caring about me. That means so
(26:11):
much to me. And I would probably take a moment
to talk about.
How, like, hey, this has been my experience through this,
you know, and, and talk about Jesus and talk about
how I've sensed his presence with me and how, you know,
uh Buddhism is an interesting, you know, uh scenario because
it's one who actually, uh, a religion actually takes seriously
the suffering of the world, right?
(26:32):
Um, and Christianity is actually the only other religion I
know of that also takes serious the suffering of the world,
but because God took on our suffering because, you know,
God isn't just just that's gonna, you know, just deal
with evil, but he's one who actually has experienced evil
himself and took on our sufferings and just the
(26:54):
Yeah, the with usness of the gospel through Jesus, I
would want to somehow share that and try to try
to create some kind of, you know, um, yeah, opportunity
just to kind of talk about my faith as they're
sharing their faith with me. And, you know, I think
I would avoid the type of thing like, well, I
don't believe in that, so no thank you, you know,
(27:16):
because to me it's like this is a really powerful
human moment where this person's connecting with me and my suffering.
How can I
Uh, receive that, I know the truth, right? How can
I receive that in a gracious way that also communicates, um,
the truth of the gospel and the graciousness of Jesus Christ.
That's what I would want to do.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I, that, that was great that you pointed out again, like,
if you look under the service, like where is this
coming from? This is, you know, uh, a compassionate moment
a sense where a person who is made in the
image of God, even if they don't understand or know
the God of the Bible, they're still made actually in
their image and.
A lot of times, and by the way, Christians do
this too. Oh, I'll be praying for you. They're not
really going to be praying for you. It's just, it's
(27:58):
a nice thing. Christians communicate to, to sort of like
you just said, actually, yeah, to just say, hey, my feelings, uh,
really go out to you, you know. So number one,
it could just be, you know, loose terminology that really
has no spiritual theological depth at all.
Um, on the other hand, like, you know, Lucy, it
(28:20):
could be an opportunity to ask some questions, you know,
I mean, again, the context matters like if you're running
out the door and somebody's gonna stop you and your
kids in the hospital, you got to pick them, you're
not gonna probably stop and have a.
Missionary encounter right there, but I think it's something where
given the right context that that actually is. And I,
and I think like Charles said, a a great foot
(28:43):
forward is not so much to be like, well, you
believe in false God, so I reject your you know,
you could do that, but I think again a more
I think wise approach would be to say, OK, let me,
is there anything in that I can receive? Obviously, I
don't believe in prayers to Buddha or Buddha himself and
all that. Um, but if this person is extending, it's
(29:03):
like a child. Like sometimes my kids will quote, do
something for me, and it's very unhelpful, you know, um,
like when I was washing my car.
And they wanted to wash it, but they put soap
on it after I dried it. I received the thought,
but not so much the work, and I can maybe
correct them at some other point without missing that, that
(29:23):
moment of love and compassion. Yes, good way to look
at that. Yeah. So Lucy, I hope that answered your
question here on Pastor's Perspective.
888-564-6173 is the number to call if you want to
talk to Pastor Char Broderston or Pastor Mike Chaddick, 888-564-6173.
We do have a second half of the program that
(29:44):
we're gonna join in just a few minutes, so stay
with us again. 888-564-6173 is the number to call 888-564-6173.
(30:17):
Welcome back to the second half of Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173
is the number to call if you'd like to talk
to Pastor Char Roderson or Pastor Mike Chaddick. Again, 888-564-6173
is the number to call. We'll go right back to
the phones and talk to Laura in Upland. Laura, welcome
to the program.
(30:39):
Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure. I just
have a question to deal with an 11 year old son,
my husband's son biologically, but we constantly have behavioral issues
with him and not sure what to do. We pray. Well,
I pray with my partner and we fast.
(31:00):
But every day I'm getting a call from the school
with his behavioral issues. He's got ADHD, don't wanna medicate him.
Um,
Not sure cause it's been going on for 4 years.
And the Bible says to train up a child in
the way that they should go, and then when they're older,
they will not depart. But the issue is, uh it's
(31:25):
being
It it's been basically enabled.
He's following in the footsteps of his dad.
His dad's trying to make changes.
And it's very difficult after obviously the damage has already
been done. What do we do?
(31:50):
That's a good question. Pastor Mike, what would you say?
Yeah, well, I mean, I think open communication, obviously, you know,
with your husband about his son, I think that's, that's
vital and important. It sounds like you said, you know,
maybe there's some patterns of behavior that he's repeating. So obviously,
(32:10):
an obvious step is, you know, and I think you mentioned, um,
that his dad is making an effort to address some
of those behaviors and of course, yes, if there were
some behaviors, uh, that were modeled.
Incorrectly, yeah, obviously that that does put you at a disadvantage,
but I, I think change is possible. Um, so obviously
I think continuing to encourage him, uh, even if there's
(32:33):
not immediate changes, um, in your stepson, that nevertheless, the
right thing to do, of course, is, you know, and
I think this is true actually of a lot of
parents where they have bad behaviors, but they think they're
not that bad until they see them in their own children.
Things they should have changed, could have changed, um, but
just didn't think.
It was as big a deal, but then when you're
looking at it and its impact on your kids suddenly now, uh,
(32:57):
God will sometimes use that as a mirror for your
own soul to help you to see those areas in
which we need to change. And and that's, that's true
for me and that's true for, I think pretty much
every parent I've ever talked to. There was just certain
things they didn't see as a big deal until they
saw it in their kids. So, number one, you're, you're
not alone, um, at least generally speaking, so I would encourage, um,
(33:20):
You know, I would, I would encourage his dad to
just to really take this as an opportunity to seek
the Lord. The Lord wants to get a hold of
your heart. There's areas in your life that, to be honest,
they needed to be addressed for a long time, um,
but now quite obviously you see the matter is urgent,
you see that, uh, those behaviors are probably now worse
than you realized because they're being emulated in your son,
(33:43):
so I would encourage that.
Um, I'd say, you know, obviously, are you involved in
the church? I would try to set as many healthy
environments and patterns as you possibly can, you know, again,
like going to church, it's not like taking a pill, you,
you go and you'll be fine, but it's about being healthy.
(34:04):
You know, it's like if somebody's physically unhealthy and I say, oh, hey,
you should, you know, start working out. Well, if they
come back to me and say, well, I worked out
yesterday and I, I feel the same, you know, like, well, yeah,
that you, you have to make it a lifestyle. It
has to become a pattern, you know, you see results
over a long
Period of time. So don't underestimate the power of small
(34:24):
steps of faith. So I think, you know, all three
of you, you know, being involved in church, um, you know,
if there's youth groups, middle school groups, I think you said, uh,
he's around 11, um, so getting involved in groups like that,
that's important. It's a Christian environment. I'm not sure where
he goes to school, so I don't know how and
to what extent the particular school he's in might.
(34:45):
Have something to do with that as well. So I'd
say those are a couple of steps that you could
take that I think would be helpful.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah. Yeah,
Mike, I love what you shared, just, I mean, all
of it, but just uh when you're talking about just like,
as a parent sometimes, right, these patterns of behavior that
we see our kids uh emulating.
That's gonna take actually a step of humility to, to
take ownership and say, hey, I know you're doing this
(35:12):
and you know what, you probably learned it from me
and seen it in me. Guess what? That was wrong.
Like that was hurtful to others. Um, I'm working through
that stuff now too because I see the damages. So
I recently even had to do this with my, uh,
teenage son, you know, talking to him just about I
see something that's going on. I'm like tearing out of
my own life. Look, I've gone down.
(35:34):
This path and I hurt people and like I want
to spare you from that, you know, takes a lot
of humility, right? Like to to say like in this moment,
I'm OK, I'm going to put aside kind of the
dad authority, you know, like I do everything right and
you should look up to me and I'm actually gonna say, look,
I'm actually kind of in the same boat as you, like,
(35:54):
we're in this together, and what I did was wrong there,
and I'm also learning to grow, uh, you know, out
of these, you know, bad habits and these things. And so,
you know, I found that in my life, right? And like,
Uh, this is something that I have to do regularly.
I have to own my missteps. I have to talk,
you know, with humility to my kids, like, yeah, I
(36:16):
made a mistake and they're like, well, you shouldn't have
done that. It's like, you, you are right. It's like
belaboring the point. Yeah, Dad was actually wrong. Yes, I
am admitting that, you know, and it's some humble pie. Um,
so I just appreciate, you know, you saying that because
I just think that is just a real part of it.
Um, I think just the partnership side of just really
getting on the same page as your spouse and I
(36:38):
think being able to speak to them, um, in a
non-accusatory way of saying, hey, look, this behavior that we're
seeing here, like,
Like, you got, we got a partner in this together
and just be united in, you know, like the standards
that we're setting, you know, and that we're not, you know,
going to move that boundary line and say, no, like,
(36:58):
there are consequences for this behavior, you know, to to
begin to see change. So you need that united front, uh,
conviction about, you know, the kind of discipleship that you're
doing together.
Um, two things that came to mind though. Um, I
think if you are involved in church community, I would
encourage you to to look around and observe families, uh,
(37:19):
who you see and you think these individuals are doing
a good job of discipling, right? They're doing a good
job of what you said earlier, you know, raising up
children in the way of the Lord, um, and I
would
Ask them about, like, hey, what does this look like
in your home? What are some of the rhythms and
patterns and habits? You know, sometimes I think like, we
(37:41):
are so focused on correcting, uh, you know, poor behavior,
but we're not necessarily thinking about setting new patterns and
new habits. And I, there's this one brilliant um sociologist,
and he says, you know, the only way to change
culture is actually make more of it.
And so maybe in your life, it's not only about correcting,
you know, negative, poor behavior, but actually creating new opportunities
(38:05):
for good behavior, uh, you know, shared family time.
Uh, doing things together, times where you're really just spending
time loving on this individual hearing kind of the things
that are going on underneath the surface that are causing
these things, you know, so I would encourage you to,
you know, seek out ways that you can make new
positive good culture as a family, uh, positive environments for
(38:27):
your son. And then, you know, the last one, you know,
you mentioned, you know, not wanting to give, um,
Any kind of medication and you know, as a parent,
like I hear you, like, yeah, the last thing I
want to do is just unnecessarily, you know, give my
kid a medication that I don't actually know if they need.
And I think maybe just a first step would be
meeting with a counselor for behavioral issues. And I only
(38:51):
say that as as parents, right, we only know what.
We know, and have, you know, the hindsight of kind
of the experience we already have. And sometimes we need
to reach out because we need new tools, or we
need somebody to like help us sharpen our tools, right?
And so meeting with a counselor to say like, hey,
these are the things we're doing, and they're not working.
Can you just kind of speak into this and just
(39:14):
kind of give us some
insight about maybe there's, you know, some blind spots in
our own life of, you know, the way that we're,
you know, reacting rather than responding, you know, maybe we are,
whatever it might be, right? So I think wise counselors, um,
can give us some tools that can be helpful for
us and, you know, doing the hard work of discipleship
(39:34):
that you were doing. But I think
All that to say. Mike and I are parents, and
we have been in it. We're probably both of us
still in it, and it is hard work. So Laura, we,
we feel you, we're with you in this, and I
just want you to know that the Lord is with
you and believe that just as you uh continue just
(39:56):
to love on uh your stepson.
Invest in him, invest in your marriage, the Lord's gonna
do good things.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And I think one thing Char Yu actually just prompted
me to follow up on is the importance of affirmation
as well. And I especially with uh a particularly quote
unquote troublesome child.
It's so easy to look at the bad behavior and
you just take the good that is there for granted
or you become blind to it. And I, I know
(40:24):
I've been guilty of this too where, you know, like
he's old enough now he probably doesn't care, but my
oldest son was so difficult in every possible way. I mean,
I thought for sure he's gonna go to jail, you know, when,
when he's older. Uh, now he's he's 19, wonderful, responsible, sweet,
but he was a terror, uh, as a, as a
little kid, and I know he was so difficult.
(40:46):
I think I neglected to see the good things about him. Ironically,
even some of the bad behaviors underneath, it was actually like,
like even stubbornness, right? We look at that as exclusively
a bad thing, but when you send your kids out
in the world when they're gonna be tempted by, you know,
goodness knows what, I want them to be stubborn for
the truth. I want them to be stubborn for the gospel,
(41:08):
I for those things that are good and
You know, so it's, you know, sometimes I think we,
we can just focus on the bad, neglect the good,
hoping the good will just always be there. And I think,
you know, number one, sometimes the good goes away. That's
what's sad, you know, I've seen quote unquote good kids
go bad later, um, because parents never, never praised them,
(41:31):
never focused on all the good that they were doing,
and I think it's something where
You know, if we see anything good and make it
a practice, like, you know, this is an application of
Paul and Philippians whatsoever is good, whatsoever is noble, whatsoever
is pure, whatsoever is lovely, meditate on these things. Look
for those things in your kid, even if your kid
is a terror like mine was, find those good things
(41:55):
and praise them for it.
Elevate them, say, God, you are so great at this, son,
you know, uh, we just, we got to work on
these other things, but, you know, I hope you never
change in this area. You are so wonderful. You're so gifted,
you're so called because I think some children too, um, are,
are crushed by that sense of disapproval and disappointment.
(42:17):
And some of them actually go, well, why should I
even try? You know, it's, it's hard for me to
be good in these areas, but since all you do
is criticize me and say how I'm, you know, I'm,
I make life hard for you and all that, I'm gonna,
you wanna see what trouble is, I'm gonna give it
to you. I'm gonna quit. So we wanna be very, very,
and it's understandable because parents are busy, you know, you,
(42:38):
you work, you got, for example, we had multiple kids
in the house and.
It's just, it's so easy to only look at the
bad to be it's a problem and I'm gonna
address it.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
I think that's great. I think too, like I love
what you're saying like, OK, I'm not just correcting bad behavior.
I'm affirming good behavior and I think also even underneath
all of that.
Sometimes we can only get stuck in doing rather than being.
And I do think as, you know, those right, you know, Laurie,
you're raising your son in a Christian household that is
centered around Jesus and it sounds like discipleship. You want
(43:08):
to raise your child up in the way that they
should go, so that they're older not depart.
And so, you know, what we learn in a Christian
household is to affirm our being in the sense of
you are made in the image of God, you are
made for God's love, you are made for amazing things.
God made you to rule over the whole world one
(43:30):
day with him, to speak those truths, like that it's
it's true of actually every single human being.
How much more those who are part of the household
of faith, right, that we actually kind of raise that
bar up to say, hey, this is what you were
made for. You're actually created for great things. You're created
to love people the way that God does. You're created
(43:51):
to have empathy the way that God. So, like, taking
those things that are true about the Amago day, we
were talking about this earlier, and stirring those up and
really affirming those things, you know, so something that I
do in my home, you know, is, you know,
I, I, I do this not just on that kind
of cosmic scale, but even just with my children, you
are my beloved child, in whom I am pleased, you know,
(44:15):
this is, we're not talking about behavior, but just you
as an individual. I love you and I am pleased
with
you.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I love you no
Speaker 2 (44:21):
matter what. I love you no matter what, exactly, yeah.
Beyond behavior, beyond doing just for who you are. And
I think, man, that kind of affirmation just creates such
security and safety and actually a desire.
To obey, a desire to please, and not in a
weird manipulative way, but in a real way, right? Like, oh,
this person loves me, affirms me, knows me, and sticks
(44:45):
with me through, you know, thick and thin, so.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Great answers, great answers from Pastor Char and Pastor Mike
and Laura, thank you for that question. Laura,
Speaker 2 (44:54):
can I
just say one last thing. 11 was the hardest year
for all three of my kids. Hardest.
It was the worst.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I felt like we had a bunch of those here.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, sure, but I mean
Speaker 1 (45:11):
11 5678.
But we're better now. Well, 11 is a tough year
because that's you're changing, right? You're no longer a kid,
you're now turning into an adult and a lot of
things are changing and
That's not always an easy transition. So, so yes, so Laura,
I guess God bless you as you continue to, um,
(45:33):
parent your stepson who's 11 years old. Uh, 888-564-6173 is
the number to call to talk to Pastor Char Roderson
and Pastor Mike Chaddick. We're gonna go from Upland to
Monterey and talk to Andrea. Andrea, welcome to the program.
Thank you. My question is, earlier you were talking about, um,
praying for a long time about something and about how
(45:56):
people were praying for both apostles, but one died and
was martyred, and the other one lived. And my question is,
how do you go about or, or what is the
meaning or
How do you keep praying for a very, very long
time when you're praying about something really important that's not coming,
(46:16):
that's not happening? For example, I'm not praying a long
time to get a new car, something frivolous, but I've
been praying for a really, really long time about the
state of my nieces and nephew. They live in a
home that's very, very harsh, and I've been praying for
a long time for their.
Parents to have some sort of a breakthrough to realize
(46:39):
how harsh they're being. And, and I'm actually kind of
getting disheartened and tired of having to pray about all
of this, you know, how is this glorifying to God
to have them in a household where all of this
bad stuff is happening to the kids.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
And I've been praying a really long time about
it. Yeah, I think, you know,
in our conversation that we're having about prayer, um,
Prayer, you know, God in His sovereignty, he does not
override human free will, right? And so, like, right, we
know that we can look around the world and say, OK,
(47:20):
God's will is not being done in in a very
general sense, right? Like you're saying, you know, Andrea, there's
children living in homes where they are not being loved
by their parents, but they're being abused and manipulated and,
you know, treated in a way that is not glorifying
to God, right? And so, um,
You know, prayer doesn't um ignore the fact that that's happening. Um,
(47:45):
I would say in this particular situation, I, I'm curious, like,
and do you have any like
Uh, are you close to the family? Are you able
to interact with them? Are you able to see the
kids at all?
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, I, I keep the kids as often as possible
for fun weekends and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Well, that is beautiful. I'm really just so encouraged to
hear
that
Speaker 1 (48:09):
and praise God for that because that's not always the case.
There's a lot of family praying for kids in bad
homes and they cannot see them like the people or
their minds are poisoned against their Christian relatives, and they
will not see them. So in a way, providentially it
sounds like.
There is a blessing there that you're even able to
do that because I think that
(48:31):
Again, like I said, there's so many people where I
know like, for example, just wonderful Christian grandparents and they're
very concerned about the well-being and safety of their kids
and the parents, uh,
Hate them, they hate their Christianity, and they will not
allow their grandkids to see their grandparents at all whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, and I just think the reason I asked because
I think it's beautiful like I believe like you are
enacting your prayer. Like you're not just like praying like,
oh God, fix that situation. It's so terrible, but you're actually.
Like being the answer to your prayer in a sense, right?
You are inserting yourself, you're caring for these kids, you're
loving them, as Mike said, you're giving them a beautiful
example of, you know, how they should be loved, cared
(49:12):
for and treated. And even if this never ends, right,
the parents don't ever change.
At least from you, they have heard words of truth,
they've experienced the love of God, so that then when
they are of age, they can remember like, oh, you know,
I heard so many testimonies like, oh man, I grew
(49:33):
up in a house atheistic, you know, and very antagonistic
to the gospel, never talked about Jesus, but I had
an aunt, and I remember her, right? And I
Remember she would always pray for me, and she was
always so kind to me, and it was like, literally
when I hit rock bottom, like, I remembered the words
of my aunt, you know, and I just think about
how God has his people in all of these places
(49:55):
doing his work, you know, in like almost a subversive way,
and those seeds of the gospel.
Um, and just the good works that glorify our Father
in heaven, that you're planting those each time that you
hang out, uh, with these children, and who knows when
God will cause those to grow. But I think keep praying,
(50:18):
keep calling on the name of the Lord, keep pleading
with him, and keep doing what you're doing. And I
do think that this is gonna
Bear fruit, and I actually just talked to a girl yesterday.
This is a beautiful story, like 15 years ago, her aunt,
who's a friend of mine, gave her a Bible and
wrote a note in it, and this girl was so very,
very far from God, and just, you know, in her
(50:39):
own story of just living, you know, the, uh, you know,
atheistic life to the fullest. I'm gonna eat, drink and
be merry. I'm just gonna party so hard. She, you know,
basically hits rock bottom.
Remembers her aunt, pulls out her Bible and reads this
note from her aunt and begins to read it. She's
(51:00):
been following Jesus for 2 years now, and now she's
been sharing her testimony and doing these little Bible studies
online with people and who knew? Just by this faithfulness
of Sandra, that God was gonna do this. And Sandra
was shocked that this even happened, you know, so it's like,
just continue.
Doing good, continue praying, continue working with the Lord, and
(51:23):
who knows how he will answer.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
And I think going back to what we said earlier,
you know, prayer is not just about getting things done,
it's about transforming us. And I think, so what is
your alternative if I see a bad situation, I'm praying
for it.
So I just stop, and, and that's not the end
of my care and concern, rather, what happens now is
my care, concern and anxiety start to overwhelm me, maybe bitterness, resentment, whatever.
(51:50):
So I think again part of prayer is changing me.
So if there's a bad situation for me, for my kids, grandkids,
somebody else's kids, nieces, nephews, part of my necessity because
I know about this as a follower of Jesus is
to cast my cares upon God because my shoulders are
not big enough to handle all of life's pain and sorrow.
(52:13):
I've got to go to the man of sorrows, my
Savior Jesus, who bore the sorrow of the world upon
himself and
So to cast my care is just to continue to
be a faithful follower of Jesus. I've got to do that.
And secondly, I mean, again, and I would not give
up on praying for this situation, but another thing to
pray for is that, you know, there's people who grow
(52:33):
up in horrible households, some on the left hand.
That's their excuse for not following Jesus. The others say,
that's why I follow Jesus. And you go, well, what's
the difference between them? Obviously, God did something in their hearts.
It wasn't you, you grow up in this environment, you
have to turn out this way. That does not seem
to be the case. There's people that grow up in
(52:56):
wonderful homes, they end up horrible. There's people that grow
up in terrible homes, they turn out wonderful. And what's
the difference? And again, I think this is another prayer
is like, Lord, I pray, and again I.
The situation changes, but insofar as it doesn't, Lord, do
not allow Satan to use this to harden their hearts
against you. Rather, let this, let this situation drive them
(53:16):
to the cross and the need for Jesus. And some
of the best parents I know were people who had
bad parents, and they said, you know, I had the
example of what never to be, and that's why.
Uh, you know, their kids say, I have the most
loving mom and dad in the world, and you ask why?
because I had horrible parents, and I knew not to
be that, and I let Jesus heal me and teach
(53:38):
me how to be a good parent. Great answers, Andrea,
thank you for calling us from Monterey Park. Let's see
if we can squeeze in Abel from Yukaipa. Abel, are
you there?
Hello, um, here's Abel. OK.
Uh,
Speaker 2 (53:55):
should I go out
on
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Halloween? And trick or treat, you mean?
Yeah, and she cheat. OK, very good. Um, we'll see
if we get a quick answer,
Speaker 2 (54:06):
yeah, why do you want to go trick or treating?
All right,
cause I
think it's fun. Yeah, I think it's fun too.
I think that sometimes I think we can only think
about kind of the negative things about what people will
do and you know, you know, certain costumes and they're
scary in these things, but I think generally for most people,
(54:28):
they just want to dress up and go get a
bunch of candy and I think why not, right? And
I would.
I'm gonna do that with my kids. We're gonna go
around and it's a wonderful time to just meet our neighbors,
hang out with people, be silly, dress up as something fun,
and eat a bunch of free candy. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Yeah, I think Char's question was great. Why do you
want to do it? I think that's, that's the issue.
I mean, for some people, if it's some weird religious
celebration of evil, well, then that's very weird. Um, if
you like to dress up, you're probably like every other
little kid, I mean, except I guess every day was
Halloween when I was 3. I was wearing my Batman
and Superman suit.
(55:10):
So if you can wear costumes, receive candy, enjoy it,
give glory to God, then I'd say you're free to
do it.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Have fun.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
And you can also go to a church event as well.
Go to a wonderful church event as well. And I
think you, like you said at the beginning, your church
is having we're gonna do a fall celebration on October 26th.
All right, so you can join them at Image Church
in Ladera ranch.
On October 26th for their fall celebration, lots of, uh,
church events going on all over the place for Halloween
(55:38):
alternative events as well. So I hope you can check
out one of those near you. I'm Michael David in
for Brian Perez for Charroderson of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa
and Mike Chaddick of Image Church in San Juan Capistrano.
We'll see you next time on Pastor's Perspective. Good night.
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. The number to call
is 888-564-6173. Again, 888-564-6173. I'm Michael David in for Brian Perez,
and on today's program we have Char Broderson, pastor.
At Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, you can get more information
at CCCM.com. Also we have on the program Pastor Mike
(00:39):
Chaddick from Image Church in San Juan Capistrano. More details
on that church at mageChurch OC.com. Gentlemen, welcome to the program.
Thanks so much, Michael.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Great to be here. How are you, sir? Good. How
are you? Yeah,
doing well. Well,
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I imagine since the holidays are coming up, you guys
have a lot of plans coming up for your church. What,
what's the next thing going on at Costa Mesa and in, uh,
Raage Church?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Uh, Costa Mesa, we actually just started a six week, um,
like intensive courses just around discipleship and theology. So we
just started that last week. We call it the gathering.
So that'll lead us um into November and then we'll have,
we do annually, we do, you know, Thanksgiving dinner with
the whole church. So we set up our gym and
(01:24):
I mean, it's really beautiful like I don't know, there's
like 500 people that come out to this and it's
just organized chaos, but it's just really beautiful. Like every
year I just kind of look out and just like, man,
this is people just in deep conversation and sharing a
meal together so.
Yeah, you know, and then on the holidays, we've got
a bunch of things planned just to kind of bring
people together and just celebrate the season and reflect. So yeah,
(01:48):
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you, Char. How about you, Mr. Mike? Yes,
so on the last Sunday of this month, October 26th,
we do an annual fall celebration. Obviously, everybody's in the
the Halloween or harvest festival kind of a thing and
as sort of a a a church history nut and
a
Someone who's very appreciative of the Reformation, we do like
(02:12):
a celebration of the Protestant Reformation and just kind of
the basic things that I think a lot of Christians
in America today take for granted, um, that happened because
people were willing to put their lives on the line,
and some indeed lost their lives, uh, to get us
the Bible. People just kind of assume, oh, Bible will
always be present in a church service and 500 years ago,
(02:34):
that was actually not normal and
Many people literally risked their lives, you know, Martin Luther
and others, to bring us the Bible. So I do
a special reformation message that Sunday, and then we have
just a huge festival, tons of food, games, bounce houses,
all that kind of stuff. And we think celebration is
(02:55):
an important teaching tool. Um, celebration is used in the
Old Testament to teach God's people about the mighty acts
of God and
History. And so I think it's, it's great to teach
from a pulpit, and it's important we always do that,
but at the same time, I think celebration.
Uh, is an amazing tool, and I think for the
kids to grow up and seeing this huge celebration, and
(03:16):
when they ask, why are we doing this, just like
the children of Israel when they would celebrate the feast
of Tabernacles and they would dwell in little tents for
a while, and they say, Mom and dad, what why
are we doing this? It's an opportunity for us parents
to explain, well, you see, God did this amazing thing
500 years ago, where we got the Bible in our
own language, and that we have the freedom.
To do that and, and of course, um, just kind
(03:38):
of crystallizing and, and recovering the essence of the gospel, um,
it's a beautiful thing to celebrate, so we're gonna be
doing that. And that's on October 31st, 26th. So it's always,
it's always the Sunday before the 31st. OK. Yes, yes,
all right, cool. Well, great events coming up at, uh,
Kilsta Mesa, Calver Chapel Costa Mesa, and, uh, Image Church
in San Juan.
(03:58):
Capistrano, uh, number to call if you want to talk
to Pastor Char or Pastor Mike 888-564-6173 888-564-6173, uh, but
we'll start with the Facebook questions as we traditionally do
that you can send to us at facebook.com/pastors perspective, uh,
but we do prefer to hear the sound of your voice,
so 888-564-6173 is the number to call.
(04:22):
We're gonna start off with Kelly, who lives in Menefee.
She says, I'd like to know the best way to
respond to this. My husband is not working at this time.
He spends almost all his time visiting different churches with
questions for the pastor and states that it's important to
have his Bible questions answered.
He says he's looking for work but seems to have
(04:43):
different reasons why he can't do this or that job.
Are there some scriptures that indicate the importance of working,
earning one's keep, as well as spending time in God's
word and in church with fellow believers? Uh, char, why
don't we start with you on that one?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, I mean,
It's just interesting, kind of the, the things that um
are being shared about the situation, right? Like, it sounds
like there's some concern, just kind of overall with um
You know, it's like, uh man, high importance on, I
gotta get my spiritual answers, but there's kind of like
(05:19):
not this practical side of just investment in the family,
maybe in the marriage, uh, and just contributing to the
overall household. And I find that there is a a
a consistent pattern within our churches, right, that
You know, um, it's kind of, you know, adjacent to
the whole, you know, faith versus work thing, you know, well, the,
(05:41):
the important thing really in my life are the spiritual things,
but kind of these earthly more kind of worldly minded
things really aren't important to God. And the interesting thing
in the scripture is they're not two different things. They
are one and the same, right? God made the whole
world and he's made the whole body and
I think especially when we look at the teachings of Jesus,
(06:02):
we see how what Jesus is after in the sermon
on the Mount in particular is whole person righteousness, right?
So even, you know, when you think about, he goes
and he talks about, you know, some of these aspects,
you've heard that it was said, you know, you shall
not commit adultery, but I say to you, you know,
if a man looks looks at a woman and lust
after he's already committed adultery in his heart, uh, Jesus
(06:22):
isn't saying that, oh, you know,
Uh, you know, committing adultery really isn't the, the important thing, but,
you know, what's important is your heart. He's actually saying
both are absolutely vital to true whole person righteousness, and
this is the kind of righteousness that God is looking for,
not just one who abstains.
(06:42):
From doing what is wrong and what is harmful to others,
but actually one who is deeply convicted in their person
about the right way to live and it's, you know,
being manifest in their whole life. And so to me, I,
I kind of see that in this situation where it
sounds like
The person is saying, hey, I got, I gotta really
figure out these spiritual things because this is what matters.
(07:04):
I got to meet with the pastor, but they are
neglecting to do these very important practical things, just simply
contributing to the family, being a partner in this marriage,
which is what God calls us to. And I, I couldn't, um,
I think it's 2 Thessalonians, but I was thinking about.
There is that one command there where Paul says, um,
(07:26):
if a man will not work, or if an individual
will not work, neither shall they eat, right? And Paul,
I think, is going after this whole idea where we
have individuals who will make up all of these excuses
why they cannot be, um, you know, in the workforce
of these things. Well, it doesn't really fit my giftings, and,
(07:47):
you know, well, I'm just waiting for the Lord's will
and my giftings just to line up perfectly, and
We don't find that kind of scenario in scripture. What
we find is actually, we are called to work and
to be contributors, and especially like when we think about
what the gospel does, like it, it transforms us from
(08:07):
being people who are just constantly taking and seeing what
I can get for self fulfillment into somebody who is self-sacrificial,
like Jesus.
right? We've been reborn into his image, and he is
the perfect human being who gives himself for others, right?
Who uses his stuff for the benefit of others. It
gives his own body for the sake of others, and
(08:30):
our lives are to be patterned after his life. And so, right,
this isn't Paul just, you know,
Like sticking it to people who are lazy in the church,
he's actually extracting this from the model that we have
for a new way of living and a new way
of being, so.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I think you're right, Char, about there sounds like
a false bifurcation.
There and I think, you know, even tying it into
or what I was mentioning about the Reformation, one of
the great things Luther did as well in his doctrine
of vocation is he
Recognize that there was too harsh a distinction between the
sacred versus the secular, and Luther had a saying where
(09:10):
he said, God works behind the mask of the ordinary,
and he talks about in our vocation as husbands and wives.
That's a vocation as mothers and fathers, that's a vocation
as a baker, um, as a milkmaid, all these kinds
of things, all these jobs.
Our spiritual things that we do when we do it
in faith to God's glory, and that God actually uses
(09:32):
those things to provide the well-being. When we pray, give
us this day our daily bread, Luther would say, Well,
how does God do that? Does he do it? Because
we sit around, do nothing and pray. Well, our prayers
are being answered through the people who are growing the wheat,
who are harvesting the wheat, who are processing it, who
are making bread out of it, who delivered the bread
to our table so that we can eat.
So again, I think there there does sound like there's
(09:55):
a false dichotomy there. And as far as another scripture,
like Paul wrote to Timothy, a man who does not
provide for his own house is worse than a non-believer,
so it doesn't get any more practical than that. Paul
is saying that's, that's a terrible thing. Like that is
a
You know, so somebody claiming to be spiritual, cause I
asked theological questions, but they're refusing to provide for their family.
(10:16):
Paul is saying this, this person is in gross sin,
and you can't really expect to be getting any answers
when you're an unrepentant sin. And I would also say,
you know, like Jesus shows this in his own ministry,
for example, when somebody's bringing an offering to the altar, right,
to do quote unquote, spiritual things, he says, but if
you have a grievance against a brother, first set your
(10:38):
gift down.
Go make things right with your brother, and then you can,
you know, Jesus was against this kind of hypocritical worship
where we're not honoring God in our daily relationships, but
then we're gonna go to church, temple, tabernacle, whatever and
show up and
I think we're fine because we've done these things. That
(10:58):
is a, that's been an obviously and it's a perennial problem,
but one that's very, very important to address. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I was also thinking about in the passage doesn't apply specifically,
but remember when Paul says, you know, that the thief
who stole steal.
No longer, but rather let them work so that they
are able to give to the one that asks. And
I think Paul's laying, you know, um, an order out
for the Christian community. We have become the kind of
(11:25):
people that when we are asked
That we can actually give, we can contribute, we can
actually bless other people. And I think, yeah, I mean,
like if we're able and we're not doing those things,
we're actually, I would say limiting how God can use
us in the work that he wants to do, not
just the work that he wants to do in the world,
but also the work that he wants to do in
(11:46):
us and transforming us to be more like Jesus.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Absolutely great answers, great answers, Char and Mike and Kelly.
Thank you for contacting us on Facebook.com/pastors perspective. Another Facebook
question comes from Dan. He says, if more people pray
for the same thing, does that move God to answer
in the affirmative? Please, if possible, please provide supporting scripture.
We'll start with Pastor Mike on that.
(12:11):
I can't think of any explicit passage that says more
than one person praying for the same thing is better
than one person praying for it. I mean, I can
think of a verse where it, uh, like in James,
the fervent effective prayer of a righteous man, singular avails much.
So it sounds like the, the prayers of a single person, uh,
(12:33):
avails much. I think more descriptively, you know, I mean,
You know, you think of Acts 2 and Pentecost, and,
and again, this is narrative and it's descriptive, but you
see a unity and harmony and, uh, the disciples in
the upper room waiting together, praying together, and you see
God's spirit poured out. Again, I want to be careful,
(12:55):
you know, to not pull something out of that description.
Um, that isn't explicitly stated, but I mean, you get
the sense, of course, that maybe this is a part
of why God is doing this at that exact moment,
but um,
So again, I, I could point to James to say,
I think there's no reason to think that an individual
(13:16):
praying their prayers are not effective or valid. So there,
there you go, um, and I would probably just say, um,
And this is more of a theological than simply like a,
you know, proof texting verse thing. I think this has
to do with the with the sovereignty of God, whatever, um,
God wills to do. I think there's prayers that, um,
(13:38):
God will not answer it the first time we pray.
We have to pray it 100 times.
How do you know you don't? Um, there's prayers where
I think it is quite possible God is foreordained that
I'm not gonna do this thing until all these people
are praying together in unity and harmony, and then I
will do it, but that's a mystery to us. We
don't have access to God's hidden will, you know, so
(14:00):
I think again, it's, it's simply something that we do.
Um, out of service to God, out of, uh, vigilance
and faith, we're, we're told to pray, we're told to
continue pray, pray without quitting, pray without ceasing, and I think,
of course, corporately, that's, that's powerful. And I think God
I think he support as we pray together, there I
(14:22):
think there is a special blessing, not even so much
in the sense that, oh well, now the prayer will
get answered. But I think there's a, well, Paul would
say this in Galatians, bear one another's burdens and so
fulfill the law of Christ. I think that's happening in
a unique way when we pray together as opposed to
when we're praying alone.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, it reminds me of what CS Lewis says, right?
And I think it's his um reflections on the Psalms
or um.
Um, maybe it's letters to Malcolm. I can't remember which
one it is, but he talks about how, you know, prayer, uh,
it does not change God's will, it changes me. Prayer
is a transformative work, uh, because it brings us into
(15:03):
line with the will of God. And Mike, you mentioned unity, right,
with other believers, but also, you know, to have clarity
for what God's will is. I was thinking about this story,
you know, so you're talking about James, right? And that
story um or exhortation about
I think um Elijah, right? And then I was thinking
about another James, right in the book of Acts. So
(15:26):
um I'm blinking on the exact passage, right, but James
is arrested by Herod, he's killed.
And then, you know, Herod sees that it pleases the
Jews and so he arrests Peter and it says that
the whole church is praying for Peter. And, you know,
this miraculous story of this angel, right, coming in Peter
doesn't even like know what's happening. He doesn't even know
it's real. He thinks it's all a dream because it's
(15:47):
just so unbelievable how God rescues him and just leads
him by all the guards opens the gates to all
these things, right? And then Peter goes to the house
and everybody's shocked cause they can't believe that Peter actually
was released. I think it's a ghost. It's just this wild,
wild story.
And in that story, a bunch of people are praying,
but we have to imagine that the same group of
(16:07):
people was most likely praying for James as well, right?
It's not like Peter was the favorite, you know, apostle
and they're like, well James, he's on his own, his
own good luck.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
We'll pray for Peter.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, but here's a story where we have the church
praying and we have two different outcomes.
And we would say like, well, is it the Lord's
will for James to die in that way, like to,
you know, like, it's such a scoundrel like Herod and the,
you know,
Well, no, like, in the sense of like, what glorifies
(16:37):
God in the way that we think about God's kingdom,
advancing his kingdom, and from our perspective, no, right? But
then Peter, we say, yes, this is according to God's will,
and I think, kind of back to your point, like,
at the end of the day, like, God gives us
clarity on what his will is, his kingdom is, right?
We see this in the Lord's prayer specifically, but all
throughout uh the scriptures, and still, there is this
(17:00):
Lord, we don't know. Like this is what you've shared
with us and invited us to partner with you and
pray and and yet like we are um we're looking
at you and and we're trusting that you know best.
And I remember reading one theologian that was saying, even
in the story, we have a a really powerful picture,
I think, of the way that the world works since
(17:23):
Christ has come.
And we have kind of with James, we have the
way the world just is, right? Evil triumphs, the righteous
are persecuted and snuffed out in a moment.
But then in the story, the next story, we have
this beautiful picture of the kingdom of God breaking in,
(17:44):
confounding the wise and powerful, turning everything upside down on
their heads, so that even the guards themselves are killed
by Herod, right? Like, evil is turned in on itself,
you know, the church rejoices because there's this incredible victory,
and I think that this is actually a really helpful
picture of what we can actually expect in this life.
(18:07):
it's an overlap of the ages where often we see
that evil and the kingdom of darkness still has these victories,
but God breaks in. And I think back to your point, like,
we just never know. And so it should, I think,
within us just create.
Um, hope and expectation. Like, man, we don't know what
(18:28):
God will do. But what if in this moment, this
is what he wants to do? He wants to do
a Peter-like thing.
And through us partnering with him, that's how God's gonna
do this, is we, you know, come together in prayer,
call on the name of the Lord, you know, uh,
some preachers like to talk about, you know, that contending prayer, Lord,
you said, right? So taking God at his word and
(18:48):
bringing it back to him. Lord, didn't you say that
this is what you want? So do it. We're asking,
you know, so, uh, I just love that, you know,
prayer really.
These questions, you know, rather than being like, well, it's
the sovereignty of God and we can just kind of
fold our hands and we don't really know. It actually
doesn't allow us to do that. It invites us into
the story, uh, and to be a, you know, dynamic
(19:10):
partner in what God's doing, right? So those are just
some of
Speaker 1 (19:14):
my, yeah, and I, and just to highlight something you said, um,
because again, the question was kind of like, you know, hey,
if we get more people praying, does, does this thing happen?
But underlying that could be the idea that prayer is
mainly about
Getting things done out in the world, which is part
of it, but it's also transformative. Part of the goal
of prayer is changing me, aligning me with God's will.
(19:39):
You think about Paul when he prayed for the thorn
in his flesh to go away, right? Like, why is
he praying that? He's praying it because he wants something
to change, but through that prayer, he says, on the
3rd time.
Um, he, the answer comes back, it's not God's will
to do the thing he wanted to do, and then
Paul yields to that. So he's changed in prayer. That's right,
(20:01):
not the thing he was praying for, and I, I
do find it's common and, and I think I revert
to this if I'm honest, um, that we do kind
of think of prayer mainly as a tool to get
things done and not so much.
A transformational practice that God intends to align me with
His will to conform me to the image of Christ.
(20:23):
Like that's like like I'd say every time we pray,
that's like the number one thing I need to change.
I need to be more like Jesus. I want to
be more conformed to his image. I want to align
myself with God's will, whether it be this thing I'm
asking for or if God's answer comes back no or
maybe or wait or whatever it is, I wanna be
conformed to his will.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, have you ever heard that phrase? I think it's
Lex Credendi, Lex Aridi, Lex Vivendi, the law of praying
is the law of believing is a law of living.
I often think about the Lord's prayer and um.
Just a fascinating thing that it comes in the middle
of the sermon on the Mount, and it is the
it is the um hinge passage for the whole sermon,
and the, you know, the middle words even of the
(21:04):
prayer on earth as it is in heaven, or even
this hinge of the prayer. And so, the first half
is God inviting us into his world and his will,
and then us inviting God into our world for his
will to be done, you know, and just kind of
recognition of, you know, what I call holy partnership, but
I think
And that's transformative, right? Like these conversations where I am now,
(21:30):
I'm not just contemplating like, oh, I want this done,
and thinking about like, OK, yeah, how can God's name
be hollowed, you know, me seem to be holy. How
can uh we see His kingdom come and it will
be done. It, it brings me into this holy imagination
of seeing God's name exalted in the world.
And then on the latter half, right, inviting God into like,
(21:52):
oh my provision, my um forgiveness, uh and, you know,
for my sins, how I'm forgiving others, but then also
my protection, right? Like inviting God into these broken places
to work and just to be present, right? And so
much more like what you're saying, like prayer is transformative,
it's an ongoing conversation with God that result is spiritual transformation.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And I think that's why it is great to pray
the Lord's prayer and again thoughtfully, not, not in an empty,
you know, rote manner, but it reprioritizes cause I find
it's natural for people when they pray to treat God
like their personal assistant.
That prayer is about getting my will done. God, I
need you to do this. Get on board with my agenda.
But if you actually pray thoughtfully through the movement of
(22:40):
the Lord's Prayer, it, where does it start first of all,
instead of being man centered, anthropocentric, it's God-centered. Number one,
our Father who are hallowed be your name, and that's
actually the first request.
Right, and the imperative. It's the most important thing in
my day to day is glorifying your name, that your
name be hallowed, that we, as the community of the king,
that we hallow your name and then your will be done,
(23:03):
not mine, Your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. And I think if you thoughtfully pray
through it, suddenly you
I think sometimes I find when I do that, my
very requests completely change, you know, I was coming as,
you know, if I'm the center of the world, this
is how I want things to be God, can you
help me out? But when I come to the Lord's prayer,
(23:24):
when you enter into that tabernacle of prayer, suddenly, you're
on your knees recognizing I'm before the sovereign of the
world and it's all about him. It's not about me.
And it's about aligning with his will and by the
time I get to give me this day, my daily bread,
which we are invited to do, nevertheless, that's actually been
even that prayer is, I think the order of the
Lord's prayer is important as well, right, in terms of priority.
(23:46):
So by the time I get to the petition and
the request, I've been transformed by the will of God,
the priority of God, the glory of God, the majesty
of God, the plan of God, right? Like what are
we here for? What is the purpose of mankind and.
So I think it's a very, very helpful thing to
do that keeps us from going off the rails in prayer.
(24:06):
All right, great conversation from Char and Mike here on
Pastor's Perspective. Great question from Dan on facebook.com/ Pastor's perspective.
We're gonna take a few of your calls now before
we get to the break. Uh, you can call us
at 888-564-6173. Again, 888-564-6173. We're gonna start off with something
(24:26):
that is sort of on prayer as well in a
different way, and that's from Lucy from La Habra Heights. Lucy,
welcome to the program.
Hi, how are you? Good.
How can we help you?
Uh, yes, I have a question. Um, my question is, uh,
Speaker 2 (24:43):
what do I
Speaker 1 (24:44):
do
Speaker 2 (24:45):
when
Speaker 1 (24:45):
a
Speaker 2 (24:45):
person
Speaker 1 (24:45):
tells me I will pray for your family, but I
know they're not a Christian.
Hm. That is a very good question. We'll start with
char on that. What do you say?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Uh, I mean, are you asking personally for yourself, or
you're just asking like, in like, in my experience, what
do I do? I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Well, personally for myself, I mean, do I, uh, I
know they're gonna be praying
Speaker 2 (25:09):
to
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Buddha. OK, they're Buddhists, OK.
Yes. OK, this is a Buddhist person is asking, OK,
so I'm going to ask Mike and Char, that's what Char.
So they go, Buddhist says, Pastor Char, I'm praying to
you at the Buddhist temple, and I'm not praying to Jesus.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
OK, what do you say?
Yeah, I mean, I think it really depends on the
context of the conversation, right? If we're having a, like if, right,
what the person is trying to communicate to me is empathy.
That they feel what I feel. I don't want to
miss that. And I think sometimes as Christians who care
(25:48):
about truth, and we should care about truth, so I'm
not setting that aside. I don't want to miss the
human moment. And so with, you know, um.
Yeah, I, you know, I don't know personally, you know,
how I would communicate this, but I would want to
in some way receive that as like, wow, thank you
so much for for caring about me. That means so
(26:11):
much to me. And I would probably take a moment
to talk about.
How, like, hey, this has been my experience through this,
you know, and, and talk about Jesus and talk about
how I've sensed his presence with me and how, you know,
uh Buddhism is an interesting, you know, uh scenario because
it's one who actually, uh, a religion actually takes seriously
the suffering of the world, right?
(26:32):
Um, and Christianity is actually the only other religion I
know of that also takes serious the suffering of the world,
but because God took on our suffering because, you know,
God isn't just just that's gonna, you know, just deal
with evil, but he's one who actually has experienced evil
himself and took on our sufferings and just the
(26:54):
Yeah, the with usness of the gospel through Jesus, I
would want to somehow share that and try to try
to create some kind of, you know, um, yeah, opportunity
just to kind of talk about my faith as they're
sharing their faith with me. And, you know, I think
I would avoid the type of thing like, well, I
don't believe in that, so no thank you, you know,
(27:16):
because to me it's like this is a really powerful
human moment where this person's connecting with me and my suffering.
How can I
Uh, receive that, I know the truth, right? How can
I receive that in a gracious way that also communicates, um,
the truth of the gospel and the graciousness of Jesus Christ.
That's what I would want to do.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I, that, that was great that you pointed out again, like,
if you look under the service, like where is this
coming from? This is, you know, uh, a compassionate moment
a sense where a person who is made in the
image of God, even if they don't understand or know
the God of the Bible, they're still made actually in
their image and.
A lot of times, and by the way, Christians do
this too. Oh, I'll be praying for you. They're not
really going to be praying for you. It's just, it's
(27:58):
a nice thing. Christians communicate to, to sort of like
you just said, actually, yeah, to just say, hey, my feelings, uh,
really go out to you, you know. So number one,
it could just be, you know, loose terminology that really
has no spiritual theological depth at all.
Um, on the other hand, like, you know, Lucy, it
(28:20):
could be an opportunity to ask some questions, you know,
I mean, again, the context matters like if you're running
out the door and somebody's gonna stop you and your
kids in the hospital, you got to pick them, you're
not gonna probably stop and have a.
Missionary encounter right there, but I think it's something where
given the right context that that actually is. And I,
and I think like Charles said, a a great foot
(28:43):
forward is not so much to be like, well, you
believe in false God, so I reject your you know,
you could do that, but I think again a more
I think wise approach would be to say, OK, let me,
is there anything in that I can receive? Obviously, I
don't believe in prayers to Buddha or Buddha himself and
all that. Um, but if this person is extending, it's
(29:03):
like a child. Like sometimes my kids will quote, do
something for me, and it's very unhelpful, you know, um,
like when I was washing my car.
And they wanted to wash it, but they put soap
on it after I dried it. I received the thought,
but not so much the work, and I can maybe
correct them at some other point without missing that, that
(29:23):
moment of love and compassion. Yes, good way to look
at that. Yeah. So Lucy, I hope that answered your
question here on Pastor's Perspective.
888-564-6173 is the number to call if you want to
talk to Pastor Char Broderston or Pastor Mike Chaddick, 888-564-6173.
We do have a second half of the program that
(29:44):
we're gonna join in just a few minutes, so stay
with us again. 888-564-6173 is the number to call 888-564-6173.
(30:17):
Welcome back to the second half of Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173
is the number to call if you'd like to talk
to Pastor Char Roderson or Pastor Mike Chaddick. Again, 888-564-6173
is the number to call. We'll go right back to
the phones and talk to Laura in Upland. Laura, welcome
to the program.
(30:39):
Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure. I just
have a question to deal with an 11 year old son,
my husband's son biologically, but we constantly have behavioral issues
with him and not sure what to do. We pray. Well,
I pray with my partner and we fast.
(31:00):
But every day I'm getting a call from the school
with his behavioral issues. He's got ADHD, don't wanna medicate him.
Um,
Not sure cause it's been going on for 4 years.
And the Bible says to train up a child in
the way that they should go, and then when they're older,
they will not depart. But the issue is, uh it's
(31:25):
being
It it's been basically enabled.
He's following in the footsteps of his dad.
His dad's trying to make changes.
And it's very difficult after obviously the damage has already
been done. What do we do?
(31:50):
That's a good question. Pastor Mike, what would you say?
Yeah, well, I mean, I think open communication, obviously, you know,
with your husband about his son, I think that's, that's
vital and important. It sounds like you said, you know,
maybe there's some patterns of behavior that he's repeating. So obviously,
(32:10):
an obvious step is, you know, and I think you mentioned, um,
that his dad is making an effort to address some
of those behaviors and of course, yes, if there were
some behaviors, uh, that were modeled.
Incorrectly, yeah, obviously that that does put you at a disadvantage,
but I, I think change is possible. Um, so obviously
I think continuing to encourage him, uh, even if there's
(32:33):
not immediate changes, um, in your stepson, that nevertheless, the
right thing to do, of course, is, you know, and
I think this is true actually of a lot of
parents where they have bad behaviors, but they think they're
not that bad until they see them in their own children.
Things they should have changed, could have changed, um, but
just didn't think.
It was as big a deal, but then when you're
looking at it and its impact on your kids suddenly now, uh,
(32:57):
God will sometimes use that as a mirror for your
own soul to help you to see those areas in
which we need to change. And and that's, that's true
for me and that's true for, I think pretty much
every parent I've ever talked to. There was just certain
things they didn't see as a big deal until they
saw it in their kids. So, number one, you're, you're
not alone, um, at least generally speaking, so I would encourage, um,
(33:20):
You know, I would, I would encourage his dad to
just to really take this as an opportunity to seek
the Lord. The Lord wants to get a hold of
your heart. There's areas in your life that, to be honest,
they needed to be addressed for a long time, um,
but now quite obviously you see the matter is urgent,
you see that, uh, those behaviors are probably now worse
than you realized because they're being emulated in your son,
(33:43):
so I would encourage that.
Um, I'd say, you know, obviously, are you involved in
the church? I would try to set as many healthy
environments and patterns as you possibly can, you know, again,
like going to church, it's not like taking a pill, you,
you go and you'll be fine, but it's about being healthy.
(34:04):
You know, it's like if somebody's physically unhealthy and I say, oh, hey,
you should, you know, start working out. Well, if they
come back to me and say, well, I worked out
yesterday and I, I feel the same, you know, like, well, yeah,
that you, you have to make it a lifestyle. It
has to become a pattern, you know, you see results
over a long
Period of time. So don't underestimate the power of small
(34:24):
steps of faith. So I think, you know, all three
of you, you know, being involved in church, um, you know,
if there's youth groups, middle school groups, I think you said, uh,
he's around 11, um, so getting involved in groups like that,
that's important. It's a Christian environment. I'm not sure where
he goes to school, so I don't know how and
to what extent the particular school he's in might.
(34:45):
Have something to do with that as well. So I'd
say those are a couple of steps that you could
take that I think would be helpful.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah. Yeah,
Mike, I love what you shared, just, I mean, all
of it, but just uh when you're talking about just like,
as a parent sometimes, right, these patterns of behavior that
we see our kids uh emulating.
That's gonna take actually a step of humility to, to
take ownership and say, hey, I know you're doing this
(35:12):
and you know what, you probably learned it from me
and seen it in me. Guess what? That was wrong.
Like that was hurtful to others. Um, I'm working through
that stuff now too because I see the damages. So
I recently even had to do this with my, uh,
teenage son, you know, talking to him just about I
see something that's going on. I'm like tearing out of
my own life. Look, I've gone down.
(35:34):
This path and I hurt people and like I want
to spare you from that, you know, takes a lot
of humility, right? Like to to say like in this moment,
I'm OK, I'm going to put aside kind of the
dad authority, you know, like I do everything right and
you should look up to me and I'm actually gonna say, look,
I'm actually kind of in the same boat as you, like,
(35:54):
we're in this together, and what I did was wrong there,
and I'm also learning to grow, uh, you know, out
of these, you know, bad habits and these things. And so,
you know, I found that in my life, right? And like,
Uh, this is something that I have to do regularly.
I have to own my missteps. I have to talk,
you know, with humility to my kids, like, yeah, I
(36:16):
made a mistake and they're like, well, you shouldn't have
done that. It's like, you, you are right. It's like
belaboring the point. Yeah, Dad was actually wrong. Yes, I
am admitting that, you know, and it's some humble pie. Um,
so I just appreciate, you know, you saying that because
I just think that is just a real part of it.
Um, I think just the partnership side of just really
getting on the same page as your spouse and I
(36:38):
think being able to speak to them, um, in a
non-accusatory way of saying, hey, look, this behavior that we're
seeing here, like,
Like, you got, we got a partner in this together
and just be united in, you know, like the standards
that we're setting, you know, and that we're not, you know,
going to move that boundary line and say, no, like,
(36:58):
there are consequences for this behavior, you know, to to
begin to see change. So you need that united front, uh,
conviction about, you know, the kind of discipleship that you're
doing together.
Um, two things that came to mind though. Um, I
think if you are involved in church community, I would
encourage you to to look around and observe families, uh,
(37:19):
who you see and you think these individuals are doing
a good job of discipling, right? They're doing a good
job of what you said earlier, you know, raising up
children in the way of the Lord, um, and I
would
Ask them about, like, hey, what does this look like
in your home? What are some of the rhythms and
patterns and habits? You know, sometimes I think like, we
(37:41):
are so focused on correcting, uh, you know, poor behavior,
but we're not necessarily thinking about setting new patterns and
new habits. And I, there's this one brilliant um sociologist,
and he says, you know, the only way to change
culture is actually make more of it.
And so maybe in your life, it's not only about correcting,
you know, negative, poor behavior, but actually creating new opportunities
(38:05):
for good behavior, uh, you know, shared family time.
Uh, doing things together, times where you're really just spending
time loving on this individual hearing kind of the things
that are going on underneath the surface that are causing
these things, you know, so I would encourage you to,
you know, seek out ways that you can make new
positive good culture as a family, uh, positive environments for
(38:27):
your son. And then, you know, the last one, you know,
you mentioned, you know, not wanting to give, um,
Any kind of medication and you know, as a parent,
like I hear you, like, yeah, the last thing I
want to do is just unnecessarily, you know, give my
kid a medication that I don't actually know if they need.
And I think maybe just a first step would be
meeting with a counselor for behavioral issues. And I only
(38:51):
say that as as parents, right, we only know what.
We know, and have, you know, the hindsight of kind
of the experience we already have. And sometimes we need
to reach out because we need new tools, or we
need somebody to like help us sharpen our tools, right?
And so meeting with a counselor to say like, hey,
these are the things we're doing, and they're not working.
Can you just kind of speak into this and just
(39:14):
kind of give us some
insight about maybe there's, you know, some blind spots in
our own life of, you know, the way that we're,
you know, reacting rather than responding, you know, maybe we are,
whatever it might be, right? So I think wise counselors, um,
can give us some tools that can be helpful for
us and, you know, doing the hard work of discipleship
(39:34):
that you were doing. But I think
All that to say. Mike and I are parents, and
we have been in it. We're probably both of us
still in it, and it is hard work. So Laura, we,
we feel you, we're with you in this, and I
just want you to know that the Lord is with
you and believe that just as you uh continue just
(39:56):
to love on uh your stepson.
Invest in him, invest in your marriage, the Lord's gonna
do good things.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
And I think one thing Char Yu actually just prompted
me to follow up on is the importance of affirmation
as well. And I especially with uh a particularly quote
unquote troublesome child.
It's so easy to look at the bad behavior and
you just take the good that is there for granted
or you become blind to it. And I, I know
(40:24):
I've been guilty of this too where, you know, like
he's old enough now he probably doesn't care, but my
oldest son was so difficult in every possible way. I mean,
I thought for sure he's gonna go to jail, you know, when,
when he's older. Uh, now he's he's 19, wonderful, responsible, sweet,
but he was a terror, uh, as a, as a
little kid, and I know he was so difficult.
(40:46):
I think I neglected to see the good things about him. Ironically,
even some of the bad behaviors underneath, it was actually like,
like even stubbornness, right? We look at that as exclusively
a bad thing, but when you send your kids out
in the world when they're gonna be tempted by, you know,
goodness knows what, I want them to be stubborn for
the truth. I want them to be stubborn for the gospel,
(41:08):
I for those things that are good and
You know, so it's, you know, sometimes I think we,
we can just focus on the bad, neglect the good,
hoping the good will just always be there. And I think,
you know, number one, sometimes the good goes away. That's
what's sad, you know, I've seen quote unquote good kids
go bad later, um, because parents never, never praised them,
(41:31):
never focused on all the good that they were doing,
and I think it's something where
You know, if we see anything good and make it
a practice, like, you know, this is an application of
Paul and Philippians whatsoever is good, whatsoever is noble, whatsoever
is pure, whatsoever is lovely, meditate on these things. Look
for those things in your kid, even if your kid
is a terror like mine was, find those good things
(41:55):
and praise them for it.
Elevate them, say, God, you are so great at this, son,
you know, uh, we just, we got to work on
these other things, but, you know, I hope you never
change in this area. You are so wonderful. You're so gifted,
you're so called because I think some children too, um, are,
are crushed by that sense of disapproval and disappointment.
(42:17):
And some of them actually go, well, why should I
even try? You know, it's, it's hard for me to
be good in these areas, but since all you do
is criticize me and say how I'm, you know, I'm,
I make life hard for you and all that, I'm gonna,
you wanna see what trouble is, I'm gonna give it
to you. I'm gonna quit. So we wanna be very, very,
and it's understandable because parents are busy, you know, you,
(42:38):
you work, you got, for example, we had multiple kids
in the house and.
It's just, it's so easy to only look at the
bad to be it's a problem and I'm gonna
address it.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
I think that's great. I think too, like I love
what you're saying like, OK, I'm not just correcting bad behavior.
I'm affirming good behavior and I think also even underneath
all of that.
Sometimes we can only get stuck in doing rather than being.
And I do think as, you know, those right, you know, Laurie,
you're raising your son in a Christian household that is
centered around Jesus and it sounds like discipleship. You want
(43:08):
to raise your child up in the way that they
should go, so that they're older not depart.
And so, you know, what we learn in a Christian
household is to affirm our being in the sense of
you are made in the image of God, you are
made for God's love, you are made for amazing things.
God made you to rule over the whole world one
(43:30):
day with him, to speak those truths, like that it's
it's true of actually every single human being.
How much more those who are part of the household
of faith, right, that we actually kind of raise that
bar up to say, hey, this is what you were
made for. You're actually created for great things. You're created
to love people the way that God does. You're created
(43:51):
to have empathy the way that God. So, like, taking
those things that are true about the Amago day, we
were talking about this earlier, and stirring those up and
really affirming those things, you know, so something that I
do in my home, you know, is, you know,
I, I, I do this not just on that kind
of cosmic scale, but even just with my children, you
are my beloved child, in whom I am pleased, you know,
(44:15):
this is, we're not talking about behavior, but just you
as an individual. I love you and I am pleased
with
you.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I love you no
Speaker 2 (44:21):
matter what. I love you no matter what, exactly, yeah.
Beyond behavior, beyond doing just for who you are. And
I think, man, that kind of affirmation just creates such
security and safety and actually a desire.
To obey, a desire to please, and not in a
weird manipulative way, but in a real way, right? Like, oh,
this person loves me, affirms me, knows me, and sticks
(44:45):
with me through, you know, thick and thin, so.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Great answers, great answers from Pastor Char and Pastor Mike
and Laura, thank you for that question. Laura,
Speaker 2 (44:54):
can I
just say one last thing. 11 was the hardest year
for all three of my kids. Hardest.
It was the worst.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I felt like we had a bunch of those here.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, sure, but I mean
Speaker 1 (45:11):
11 5678.
But we're better now. Well, 11 is a tough year
because that's you're changing, right? You're no longer a kid,
you're now turning into an adult and a lot of
things are changing and
That's not always an easy transition. So, so yes, so Laura,
I guess God bless you as you continue to, um,
(45:33):
parent your stepson who's 11 years old. Uh, 888-564-6173 is
the number to call to talk to Pastor Char Roderson
and Pastor Mike Chaddick. We're gonna go from Upland to
Monterey and talk to Andrea. Andrea, welcome to the program.
Thank you. My question is, earlier you were talking about, um,
praying for a long time about something and about how
(45:56):
people were praying for both apostles, but one died and
was martyred, and the other one lived. And my question is,
how do you go about or, or what is the
meaning or
How do you keep praying for a very, very long
time when you're praying about something really important that's not coming,
(46:16):
that's not happening? For example, I'm not praying a long
time to get a new car, something frivolous, but I've
been praying for a really, really long time about the
state of my nieces and nephew. They live in a
home that's very, very harsh, and I've been praying for
a long time for their.
Parents to have some sort of a breakthrough to realize
(46:39):
how harsh they're being. And, and I'm actually kind of
getting disheartened and tired of having to pray about all
of this, you know, how is this glorifying to God
to have them in a household where all of this
bad stuff is happening to the kids.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
And I've been praying a really long time about
it. Yeah, I think, you know,
in our conversation that we're having about prayer, um,
Prayer, you know, God in His sovereignty, he does not
override human free will, right? And so, like, right, we
know that we can look around the world and say, OK,
(47:20):
God's will is not being done in in a very
general sense, right? Like you're saying, you know, Andrea, there's
children living in homes where they are not being loved
by their parents, but they're being abused and manipulated and,
you know, treated in a way that is not glorifying
to God, right? And so, um,
You know, prayer doesn't um ignore the fact that that's happening. Um,
(47:45):
I would say in this particular situation, I, I'm curious, like,
and do you have any like
Uh, are you close to the family? Are you able
to interact with them? Are you able to see the
kids at all?
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, I, I keep the kids as often as possible
for fun weekends and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Well, that is beautiful. I'm really just so encouraged to
hear
that
Speaker 1 (48:09):
and praise God for that because that's not always the case.
There's a lot of family praying for kids in bad
homes and they cannot see them like the people or
their minds are poisoned against their Christian relatives, and they
will not see them. So in a way, providentially it
sounds like.
There is a blessing there that you're even able to
do that because I think that
(48:31):
Again, like I said, there's so many people where I
know like, for example, just wonderful Christian grandparents and they're
very concerned about the well-being and safety of their kids
and the parents, uh,
Hate them, they hate their Christianity, and they will not
allow their grandkids to see their grandparents at all whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, and I just think the reason I asked because
I think it's beautiful like I believe like you are
enacting your prayer. Like you're not just like praying like,
oh God, fix that situation. It's so terrible, but you're actually.
Like being the answer to your prayer in a sense, right?
You are inserting yourself, you're caring for these kids, you're
loving them, as Mike said, you're giving them a beautiful
example of, you know, how they should be loved, cared
(49:12):
for and treated. And even if this never ends, right,
the parents don't ever change.
At least from you, they have heard words of truth,
they've experienced the love of God, so that then when
they are of age, they can remember like, oh, you know,
I heard so many testimonies like, oh man, I grew
(49:33):
up in a house atheistic, you know, and very antagonistic
to the gospel, never talked about Jesus, but I had
an aunt, and I remember her, right? And I
Remember she would always pray for me, and she was
always so kind to me, and it was like, literally
when I hit rock bottom, like, I remembered the words
of my aunt, you know, and I just think about
how God has his people in all of these places
(49:55):
doing his work, you know, in like almost a subversive way,
and those seeds of the gospel.
Um, and just the good works that glorify our Father
in heaven, that you're planting those each time that you
hang out, uh, with these children, and who knows when
God will cause those to grow. But I think keep praying,
(50:18):
keep calling on the name of the Lord, keep pleading
with him, and keep doing what you're doing. And I
do think that this is gonna
Bear fruit, and I actually just talked to a girl yesterday.
This is a beautiful story, like 15 years ago, her aunt,
who's a friend of mine, gave her a Bible and
wrote a note in it, and this girl was so very,
very far from God, and just, you know, in her
(50:39):
own story of just living, you know, the, uh, you know,
atheistic life to the fullest. I'm gonna eat, drink and
be merry. I'm just gonna party so hard. She, you know,
basically hits rock bottom.
Remembers her aunt, pulls out her Bible and reads this
note from her aunt and begins to read it. She's
(51:00):
been following Jesus for 2 years now, and now she's
been sharing her testimony and doing these little Bible studies
online with people and who knew? Just by this faithfulness
of Sandra, that God was gonna do this. And Sandra
was shocked that this even happened, you know, so it's like,
just continue.
Doing good, continue praying, continue working with the Lord, and
(51:23):
who knows how he will answer.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
And I think going back to what we said earlier,
you know, prayer is not just about getting things done,
it's about transforming us. And I think, so what is
your alternative if I see a bad situation, I'm praying
for it.
So I just stop, and, and that's not the end
of my care and concern, rather, what happens now is
my care, concern and anxiety start to overwhelm me, maybe bitterness, resentment, whatever.
(51:50):
So I think again part of prayer is changing me.
So if there's a bad situation for me, for my kids, grandkids,
somebody else's kids, nieces, nephews, part of my necessity because
I know about this as a follower of Jesus is
to cast my cares upon God because my shoulders are
not big enough to handle all of life's pain and sorrow.
(52:13):
I've got to go to the man of sorrows, my
Savior Jesus, who bore the sorrow of the world upon
himself and
So to cast my care is just to continue to
be a faithful follower of Jesus. I've got to do that.
And secondly, I mean, again, and I would not give
up on praying for this situation, but another thing to
pray for is that, you know, there's people who grow
(52:33):
up in horrible households, some on the left hand.
That's their excuse for not following Jesus. The others say,
that's why I follow Jesus. And you go, well, what's
the difference between them? Obviously, God did something in their hearts.
It wasn't you, you grow up in this environment, you
have to turn out this way. That does not seem
to be the case. There's people that grow up in
(52:56):
wonderful homes, they end up horrible. There's people that grow
up in terrible homes, they turn out wonderful. And what's
the difference? And again, I think this is another prayer
is like, Lord, I pray, and again I.
The situation changes, but insofar as it doesn't, Lord, do
not allow Satan to use this to harden their hearts
against you. Rather, let this, let this situation drive them
(53:16):
to the cross and the need for Jesus. And some
of the best parents I know were people who had
bad parents, and they said, you know, I had the
example of what never to be, and that's why.
Uh, you know, their kids say, I have the most
loving mom and dad in the world, and you ask why?
because I had horrible parents, and I knew not to
be that, and I let Jesus heal me and teach
(53:38):
me how to be a good parent. Great answers, Andrea,
thank you for calling us from Monterey Park. Let's see
if we can squeeze in Abel from Yukaipa. Abel, are
you there?
Hello, um, here's Abel. OK.
Uh,
Speaker 2 (53:55):
should I go out
on
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Halloween? And trick or treat, you mean?
Yeah, and she cheat. OK, very good. Um, we'll see
if we get a quick answer,
Speaker 2 (54:06):
yeah, why do you want to go trick or treating?
All right,
cause I
think it's fun. Yeah, I think it's fun too.
I think that sometimes I think we can only think
about kind of the negative things about what people will
do and you know, you know, certain costumes and they're
scary in these things, but I think generally for most people,
(54:28):
they just want to dress up and go get a
bunch of candy and I think why not, right? And
I would.
I'm gonna do that with my kids. We're gonna go
around and it's a wonderful time to just meet our neighbors,
hang out with people, be silly, dress up as something fun,
and eat a bunch of free candy. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Yeah, I think Char's question was great. Why do you
want to do it? I think that's, that's the issue.
I mean, for some people, if it's some weird religious
celebration of evil, well, then that's very weird. Um, if
you like to dress up, you're probably like every other
little kid, I mean, except I guess every day was
Halloween when I was 3. I was wearing my Batman
and Superman suit.
(55:10):
So if you can wear costumes, receive candy, enjoy it,
give glory to God, then I'd say you're free to
do it.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Have fun.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
And you can also go to a church event as well.
Go to a wonderful church event as well. And I
think you, like you said at the beginning, your church
is having we're gonna do a fall celebration on October 26th.
All right, so you can join them at Image Church
in Ladera ranch.
On October 26th for their fall celebration, lots of, uh,
church events going on all over the place for Halloween
(55:38):
alternative events as well. So I hope you can check
out one of those near you. I'm Michael David in
for Brian Perez for Charroderson of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa
and Mike Chaddick of Image Church in San Juan Capistrano.
We'll see you next time on Pastor's Perspective. Good night.
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