Kris Kropp

Kris Kropp is a math and science teacher, and a great Godly influence to countless young students. In this episode we discus his testimony, teaching career, personal finance, and more.

--

Show Links:

⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon Music⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠iHeartRadio⁠⁠⁠⁠

--

Questions or comments? Email me at [e-mail]

--

This episode was recorded on June 7, 2025.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I'm here today with Chris Crop and well, I'm showing she
introduced shelf. I nearly started to, even though
I literally just told you I wasn't going to.
But yeah, you can go ahead and introduce yourself.
Don't be humble. OK, so yeah, well, I'm Gunner's

(00:21):
teacher at the Grace Christian Academy.
That's How I Met him. And.
And so I guess I don't really know what all this say.
I'm a follower of Jesus, my husband almost 30 years, father

(00:45):
for 20 years, educator for 28 years.
Yeah. Yeah, that was awesome.
And you want to just go ahead and dive into your testimony, so
as much as you're comfortable with sharing.
OK, well, my testimony is prettysimple, really.

(01:09):
I was one of those people who were blessed to be raised in a
Christian home. So, you know, I went to church
my whole life. It's all I've.
It's all I've ever known. And so, you know, I was pretty
young when I knew that I wanted to follow Jesus.
So, you know, I, I was baptized like I was like 8 or 10

(01:33):
somewhere in that neighborhood. You know, now you know, it,
it's, it's a journey, all, all of it.
You know, So I don't, I don't have a super, you know,
compelling crazy history. I, I, I mean, when I went to
college, you know, there was a short time where I kind of sewed

(01:55):
some wild oats, if you will, youknow, had a roommate who was a
partier. And so I went to a few parties
with him and threw a party at our house one time.
It didn't really take me very long to kind of realize that
that's not who I was. And yeah, it's so.
But the journey is continual, right?

(02:15):
I mean, your whole life, you're always growing closer to the
Lord. You're always as a follower, you
know, you're, you're following, you're, you're looking at that
where you know he wants you to be.
And so you know, he will put things in your path to help you
along that progression. I guess so.

(02:37):
I mean, for me, like when, when my kids were pretty young, I was
introduced to Precept ministries.
And so I, I went and spent a week, maybe 10 days, something

(02:58):
like that down in Chattanooga ontheir campus and learning, learn
how to study the Bible inductively, dive real deep into
it, which was just really a blessing in, in my spiritual
growth. And then I was introduced to
Christian Educators association through school, like I was

(03:20):
working at Davis Canton Public High School, you know, and, and,
and it was introduced to Christian educators, which is
just an organization, you know, for, for Christian educators,
kind of AI don't want to say club, but in some ways that
that's kind of what it's like, you know, but I got involved.

(03:44):
I got involved with that and went to what they at the time
called a Daniel weekend, got invited to, to that weekend
where just the time of refreshing and rebuilding, which
was, was, was really foundational for me in terms of
kind of a turning point in my, my walk of faith in some ways,

(04:12):
because it kind of gave me purpose.
It gave me a mission at the public school.
That was kind of the goal of theDaniel weekend was to see how
you could be like Daniel in Babylon, right?
What, what could you do? And so it really, it really
opened up my, I guess, my, my ability or my faith to, to, to

(04:35):
be more vocal at school with my colleagues and gave me more
confidence to, to be able to saythings even to students because
I learned my rights, if you will, Like, you know, we, we
talked about the Constitution and, and, and what educators

(04:57):
rights really are. So anyways, I got, I got
involved with that and that led me down a path to where I got
connected with tent makers. And then through that, you know,
I went on that 40 day wildernessexperience that I've talked with
you just a little bit about in the past, which, which again,

(05:18):
was another huge leap forward inmy faith and in who I am as a
believer. You know, when you spend 40 days
basically focusing, connecting with Jesus in the backwoods in
Minnesota, I mean, you're just going to you're going to come
out of that changed in some way,shape or form.

(05:39):
So, you know, and then eventually was called out of
public system to to grace Christian Academy for a short
while and was blessed to be ableto be there.
Which brings us basically to where we are today, I think.
Yeah. And and you mentioned precept
what I've never heard of that. What was that?

(06:00):
So Kay Arthur kind of is a big founder of Precept Ministries.
And they, amongst other things, I think they, they create Bible
studies and they teach people how to inductively study the
Bible. So it's, it's a much deeper

(06:20):
process than just reading the Bible.
It's, it's learning how to studythe Bible.
And, and they, they teach all kinds of different tools about
that. They teach you how to do word
studies. They teach you how to use
Scripture to interpret scriptureand do cross referencing and,

(06:44):
and those kinds of things. So I mean, it's really just a
way to, like I said, to, to learn how to study the Bible.
So they have all kinds of reallygreat studies, variety of kind
of depth of studies, something they call like in and out, which
you can sit down and, and you know, spend 15 minutes or half

(07:06):
an hour or they've got the, the deepest level of studies are
called precept upon precept studies.
And those are know you're going to spend multiple hours,
probably a day studying, workingthrough it.
And they have some topical studies.
One of the best studies that I think I've ever done was their

(07:28):
covenant study, which really gotinto, you know, what is a
covenant? How, why all the stuff behind
that, which really makes you ultimately explore your covenant
relationship, you know, through Christ to the Lord.
And then they just have book studies.

(07:49):
So, you know, I mean, for example, I LED Saturday morning
study with a group of guys and we spent a year going through
Genesis. Wow.
And, and, and so that study looked like we would meet
together on a Saturday and spendabout two hours together
discussing it when we spent probably 10 hours during the

(08:13):
week on our own plowing through that material.
That's awesome. And just just in the book of
Genesis, just using the bottle. There's a lot there and church I
used to go to in Evansville, we went through Genesis and it took
like two or three years. And then if someone wanted to

(08:39):
get involved in that or access their material, is this like
something like, can anyone use this material?
Yeah, yeah. If you just Google search
Precept Ministries, I think it'sPrecept ministries.org if I
remember correctly on the website.
I haven't been there for a whileso, but yeah, just precept
Ministries, it's a great resource.

(08:59):
Awesome. And then can we talk a little
bit about tent makers? Like what's their mission?
Sure. So yeah, tent tent makers is
their, their goal was to make disciples who could make
disciples, I think big picture. So they're, they're trying to

(09:22):
train people to be leaders. So, so like the 40 day when,
when I went, you know, it's likea leadership.
They give you all kinds of different skills to, to help you

(09:45):
stand out as a leader in the church.
So discipleship, Jesus following, you know, just all
kinds of, of different areas. They, you know, like when I was
on the 40 day, we spent a bunch of time looking at such a wide

(10:06):
variety of different things. Just to give you a few ideas.
I mean, like one of the things that that we spent some time on
was making a 100 year plan for our life.
Like, what do you want broken upby like decades?
What do you want to do in your 30s?
What do you want to do in your 40s?
What do you want to do in your 50s And up to your hundreds, You
know, and so that was one of those things that again, kind of

(10:29):
made me re evaluate and where I was and what I wanted to do.
I mean, they they spent time making sure that you had the
financial goals that they lookedat.
When you look at your job, you know, how do you go about

(10:50):
performing your job? What are your roles and and are
they effective? And are you a self motivated
worker? And so just a wide variety of
different things. But but you know, the end goal,
of course, is for you to have a a mission for you to to be
living on purpose every day in your life.

(11:12):
Really, really big into reading.So a big part of the 40 day was
we, we plowed through, I don't know, 10 good sized books and a
bunch of little books. You know, I, I mean, every
waking moment it seemed like if you had spare time, that spare
time was spent in reading. We would discuss those books.

(11:34):
Lots of great books. Yeah.
And they have programs for adults and then other programs
for kids. That's right, yeah.
So I think the the the youngest age group that they kind of try
to hit are like the the just thepreteens, early teenagers.
They have a a program, I want tosay it's like maybe 12 to 14

(11:57):
year olds. I don't remember the exact age,
but there's a little camp that they do up there during the
summer. It's called David's Wilderness
Challenge. And that's for those, those
young boys. And it kind of almost reminds me
of like what the Boy Scouts was Once Upon a time.
You know, where they're, they'rebuilding some, some life skills
into these kids, teaching them how to, to, to be a man

(12:21):
basically in in a world where a masculinity is kind of being cut
off, right? You know, and then they've got
some programs for like junior, Senior High School age kids and
those are called leadership quest.
And again, same kind of stuff, teaching you how to build
relationships quickly and easilywith people, ultimately with the

(12:46):
goal of trying to lead people toChrist, if they're not already,
or teaching them how to be able to disciple the others.
And then, you know, they've got all kinds of great resources for
adults as well. They have different shorter
trainings. Oftentimes they're like a
weekend kind of deal. Friday night, Saturday, they've

(13:09):
got breakthrough living just andagain, I'm not super involved in
that area, so I don't know all the names of those smaller
courses, but I know that they have a bunch of different
weekend things that churches cando or you can, you know, plugged
into to to kind of make sure that that you're living a life

(13:33):
on mission. And then shifting back to you,
you were you are a chemistry teacher, you are a Grayson at
DC. And and what, what about
chemistry made you want to go into that field of science?

(13:55):
Yes, wow, that really goes, you know, all the way back to of
course, high school, right. And so my high school chemistry
experience was phenomenal. I had such a great chemistry
teacher. Mr. Singer, if you're out there
and you ever listen to this podcast that we've connected
since I was in high school, But just here's another shout out to

(14:17):
to him. He's a he's a great man and a
good, good, good teacher. And he just, he just made, made
chemistry a lot of fun. And I was just fascinated by it.
It was challenging, you know, itreally made me think and problem
solve. And I guess, you know, we all

(14:37):
have our personalities and, and it just matched with my
personality. I mean, I, I enjoyed the problem
solving aspect, the thinking aspect of it.
And I just kind of saw that, wow, this is something that I
could enjoy thinking about and doing for the rest of my life.
So, you know, I'm, I went off tocollege and, and started

(15:02):
studying chemistry and that led me down a path.
It was just unbelievable. Again, in terms of building
faith, like the more I studied chemistry, the, the deeper I got
into my classes. You know, by the time I was
getting into those kind of junior, senior level, real heavy
deep chemistry classes, I mean, it just screamed the existence

(15:26):
of a divine creator. Like, like someone who put
things together very much on purpose.
I remember very specifically sitting in my inorganic
chemistry class, which is a senior level class, and our
professor was teaching us about these things called ligands.
And then these really, really big molecules, though, I have
hundreds of atoms in them and they're an organic molecule as I

(15:49):
recall. But then they'll be one single
transition metal ion kind of at the center of this molecule.
And depending upon what that metal ion is and it, and it
could either be like iron 2 plusor iron 3 plus or a cobalt plus,
or, you know, it could either. So it could be a different
element or it could be the same element with a different charge,

(16:12):
but that changes the color of this molecule.
And so, so I was just like that that is so amazing.
Like God replaces a single, I, Isay Adam, but they're really
ions, you know, a single ion in the middle of this big molecule,
just one ion and completely changed it to a different color.

(16:36):
And we were looking at these different colors of these
ligands and they were beautiful colors.
And I was just like, how could somebody ever study this and not
see the existence of God? It's amazing and and when we
were in class, one thing I enjoyed about your class so much
is how you would connect what wewere learning about to the glory

(16:59):
of God and, and his his design and his creation.
Well, absolutely. I mean, that's the whole goal in
my mind. That's the whole goal of
education. Like to know God, to make him
known. I mean, why else are you
studying? Why else are you learning?
That's what education should be all about.

(17:19):
It should point back to him as creator.
And so that's one of the things that I'm so passionate about.
And one of the things that I enjoyed so much about being at
Grace was that the liberty to beable to do that.
And that's just, that's to me, that's so important that if we
learn something that that is, you know, awesome, then let's
give glory where glory is due because God is the creator of

(17:42):
that awesomeness. Yeah.
And also like this might be the last thing I have on chemistry
class, but we did a few Socraticcircles where we would you would
just give us a topic like a question and then you would have

(18:02):
a soul. And there's only four of us in
that class, and we would just sit in a circle and try to
discuss the question without getting sidetracked.
But it did a lot of times lead to some really interesting
conclusions. So what?

(18:25):
Like, how did you learn? Like what?
Sorry, I don't know what I'm trying to say here.
What about the surprise circle do you like?
So, you know, my kids are in classical conversations and
that's where I first learned about the Socratic circle many

(18:45):
years ago. I was asked to sit in on
Challenge 4, which is senior level class.
The director of that class was was also kind of an area manager
and she needed to be on a different campus kind of just
observing for the day. So she asked me if I would be
interested in sitting in on her class, basically be a substitute

(19:06):
for a day. So I get a good day off of
school. It just happened to be my
birthday. So I was like, I'm going to take
a day off of school. And, and I sat in with that and
I watched her class do a Socratic circle and, and I was
really just an observer. I was at that point in, in CC,
you know, you're kind of just the adult in the room.

(19:27):
So I was just watching them in the and they did a Socratic
circle and now the class was a little bit bigger.
So it looked different obviouslythan our Socratic circle did.
They had a small circle on the inside and then a circle around
them on the outside. It was the inner circle that
would converse and the outer circle would observe and then

(19:49):
the outer circle would comments to the inner circle and then
they would switch roles, you know, so they would, when they
commented, they would kind of talk about, OK, well, here's
here's what you know, what did you do?
Well, what, what could you do better?
You know, that kind of thing. And, but, but again, for me, a

(20:11):
Socratic circle is it's just a conversation, right?
That that was our goal was to just have a conversation.
And, and again, as the teacher, I want to be in the background.
I want to just. Ask a question and allow the
students to explore and have a conversation with each other,
right? To go and dive as deeply into

(20:33):
thinking about that question is possible.
And so, you know, the challenging part is really
coming up with a good question, a good leading question that
that you will allow the studentsto connect with and be able to
think deeply about and converse deeply about.
But you know, that's again, that's a great role of education

(20:57):
is just to be able to spend sometime thinking and contemplating.
And so of course, as you know, the questions that I always ask,
we're always directly related toGod.
So you know, I think we talked about after we studied the the
periodic table, it was one of those conversations where I was
like, you know, now that we understand the organization of

(21:19):
the periodic table, how does this relate to the wisdom of God
or something along those effects?
You know, and so just challenging you all as students
to just take time to think and delve deep into making the
connection between what are we studying and where did it come

(21:42):
from? Who is the creator of all of
that? And so that just can be a real
rich time. And then, you know, the goal, of
course, is just to bounce ideas off of each other and have a
great conversation about it. Yeah, yeah.
I really enjoyed the Socratic circles and I liked the one with
the periodic table. And and that's just something I

(22:03):
think about anytime we would talk about the periodic table
after that, just how it was so like expertly designed by God
and just the way it all fit together.
It's really cool. It's cool and so.

(22:26):
It deserves my heart. Yeah, I hear you say that too.
Yeah, it was a really. Cool feeling.
It's Do you think you'd continueto Socratic circles?
You're going to be teaching at Hancock next year, right?
That's the plan, yeah. And I'm teaching math, so I
don't know the answer to that question.
Like I think it would really take me some some deep thinking

(22:47):
and planning on on a way to figure out how to do a Socratic
circle with math. I'm I'm sure it could be done.
It was just new territory for me.
I tried to do some Socratic circles at DC in some of my
science classes and depending upon the students that can go
well or it cannot go well. I did that inner circle, outer

(23:10):
circle thing, but you got to have the right mix of students
for it to work really, really well.
You know, I, I remember one of the times I tried to do it, he
was coming. One person kind of opened up and
started to respond to the question.

(23:31):
Wasn't a super deep response, but it was a good response, you
know? And then the next several people
just were like, yeah, I agree with them.
So it didn't really go anywhere.It wasn't a good conversation.
But but part of that, I think, and I don't mean to this to
sound like horrible, but part ofthat is just, you know, the

(23:54):
students aren't brought up to toknow how to do that kind of
thing. So it was boring to them.
You know, they they really didn't.
They just kind of saw it as an assignment.
I don't think they saw it as a of learning opportunity as a way
for them to think and grow. And of course, you know, when I
did it there, it wasn't tied directly back to God.

(24:16):
It was more just of a let's think about this science content
and let's just talk about it andtry to have a conversation about
it after we'd studied a little bit.
But so, you know, will I continue to do that?
I will probably try, but we'll just have to see how it goes.
Yeah, what kind of math are you teaching?

(24:37):
So I don't have my exact final schedule, but my new principal
did e-mail me just this week suggesting that I'm probably
going to be teaching a couple ofdifferent levels of Algebra 2.
So kind of like a regular and then an accelerated I think
probability and statistics and then a trig class as well.

(24:58):
OK. Are you excited for that?
Yeah, it's it's going to be a lot of the, but you know it,
it's, it's going to be challenging, but I like, I like
a challenge. I don't mind that.
I have never taught probability in statistics class before at
all. So that will be very new for me.

(25:20):
I'll be doing a lot of studying for that.
But I did have the opportunity to teach trig at Grace couple of
times. So that won't be all new.
And then Algebra 2, I had it taught since we tipped in
Wisconsin, which was over 20 years ago.
So yeah, you know, again, it'll be kind of a a lot, but, you
know, get through it and it'll be fun and I'm sure I'll enjoy

(25:44):
it. And then last year you taught a
personal finance class for one semester.
That class really made a huge impact on me and I kept all the
material and now I don't have the material 'cause it because
the emails don't work anymore. But but I think I'm going to

(26:06):
get, I could have downloaded it,but I didn't want, well, I don't
have the space download honestly, but I think I'm going
to get Financial Peace University because what we're
going through was kind of like, it was kind of like that, but
like a junior version of that. Yeah, I think so.
And it really, I mean, I learnedthings in that class that I'm

(26:26):
still doing now that I want to continue to do.
And then also some things that I'd like to start doing.
But now that I have a job, I've been working for about two or
three weeks. But yeah, I mean, if you just
want to speak to that a little bit because that class really
like, I love to chemistry class,I'm probably not going to be

(26:49):
like a chemist. I, I'm thinking it because I, I
want to be a teacher and I can'tdecide if I want to teach
chemistry or history or maybe some other science.
Well, I have about two years to figure it out.
So I'm not too worried about it now.
But like, I'm not going to go like if I were going to learn
chemistry, it would be to teach others, not to necessarily like

(27:13):
do the, the chemistry stuff in alab like like for
pharmaceuticals or, or any of that.
But I did enjoy chemistry. But personal finance, that's
like something every single person is going to have to deal
with personal finance at some point.
And I'm so glad that you all hadthat class and made it a
requirement. Yeah, if you just want to talk

(27:35):
about that for a little bit. Yeah, I, I was super blessed to
have the opportunity to teach that class.
So, you know, it's totally, we use Dave Ramsey's material and
and I had gone through financialpeace many, many, many years
ago, probably close to 20 years ago.

(27:57):
And, you know, my wife and I had, we went through that
together And, and we, we implemented it.
We, we followed, we followed it.But it's one of those things
where, you know, you, you remember some of it, but there's
so much there you simply aren't going to absorb at all Going
through it one time, Right. So that's part of the reason why
I enjoyed teaching it so much was just for me personally kind

(28:19):
of get back to it and see, Oh yeah, I forgot about this.
Or Oh, we, we hadn't been doing this, you know, kind of recommit
to some things. But but yeah, that that class
was so fun to teach because likeyou said, no matter who you are,
what you want to do with your life, you're going to have to
deal with finances. And of course, God expects us to
be good stewards of what he blesses us with.

(28:43):
And so, you know, I, I love looking at the, all the
different aspects of that class from, you know, especially
thinking about planning for yourfuture.
And that, that's one of the things that I really took away
from personally took away from that class, even though I was
the teacher, you know, as, as you're aware, my kids are, are

(29:03):
your age, right? So Gallup's just going to be,
he's going to be 20 here in, in a week or so.
And Chloe's 16. And so looking at what can we do
for them, for their future so that they're in a better place
than what I am, you know, so, you know, like, for example,
I'd, I'd hounded on you guys in class as soon as you start

(29:25):
working open or a Roth IRA, right, get going on that and
start plugging money away because the, the whole point of
that is time is your ally. And so, you know, if you can
plug money away into a Roth at 161718 years old and you have
4050 years for that to grow compound interest, you'd be

(29:48):
amazed. If I remember correctly, one of
the lessons that we did where welooked at that specifically was
if you start around age 18 to 20and plug $200 a month or
something like that away into anIRA, you know, by the time

(30:08):
you're 50 or 60 you're going to be a a multi millionaire.
Yeah. And that was low balling the
interest rate. Yeah, yeah.
So just I, I love teaching that class.
So we, we looked at some, some other things besides just don't
specifically finances. I mean, we talked about, you
know, what kind of insurances are important.

(30:30):
We looked at, you know, what's the difference between renting
and buying a home, You know, allkinds of different neat things
in that class. We looked at, you know, how do
you go about buying a car? I thought that was a really good
lesson. Yeah, that one was.
Awesome. You know, you start with with
kind of a relatively cheap car, own it for a year, save money,

(30:50):
then use what you paid for that car.
Hopefully you'll get back close to what you paid for it.
If you only own it a year and then upgrade to a newer car,
save a little bit of money, upgrade until, you know, 2-3,
four times down the road until you've got kind of the car that
you wanted. I thought what a neat plan.
That was really cool. And then you have to go into
debt for it, right? So, you know you're going to pay

(31:11):
cash every time, pay cash, pay cash.
So, yeah, I don't know what elseyou want to talk about about
that class, but I loved teachingit.
I think it's great for us to be wise stewards of the money that
the Lord has gifted to us. And so, you know, are there
other people out there who have great ideas besides Dave Ramsey?

(31:32):
Absolutely. You know, he's just the one that
RCA chose to use his materials for our class, but great
materials. Yeah, my granddad always says,
he's been telling me this since I was located, said your money
is not your money, it's God's money.
And he's given it to you to be agood steward over it, to take

(31:53):
care of it and and to grow it. And that's always something
that's stuck with me. And I, I've not always tried to
do that, but that's something I think I've always wanted to do
well and, and God blesses that alot of times.
Yes, well, you know, and just it's it's interesting timing.

(32:14):
Just this week I was in in Matthew and the the parable of
the the three. He gave that talents, the three
talents or two talents, then theone talent, you know, and and
yeah, that the guy that buried the one talent, he took that
talent and gave it to the guy who had five and made five more,
right. And then sent away that

(32:35):
worthless slave. So, you know, yeah, he's
absolutely going to bless it. That's biblical.
Yeah. And a few things that stuck out
to me in personal finance. And there's a lot of stuff that
I took out of it that I've been using nearly every day now that
I'm like in a dole and I'm getting ready to transition to
being on my own. And I have a job and, and I'm

(32:59):
just really seeing how useful that class was.
And the, the few things that really stuck out to me were how
to budget well, which is something that I've, I did for a
while and I need to start doing that again.
And investing like you're talking about just how powerful

(33:20):
investing can be. And even those those figures
we're looking at like that was, I mean, we did that on like an 8
or 9% interest rate, those exercises when when like on
average it usually it's more like 11 or 12.
Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's crazy

(33:42):
how much money you can end up having for retirement and then
and then and then you can start putting away, you can start
investing money for your kids orgrandkids before they're even
born. And then and then they can.
I mean, just building generational wealth is something
a phrase that I heard a lot. Yes.

(34:04):
And, and actually, yeah, that was one of the things that I
thought about when we were goingthrough that unit was, you know,
not too far off. You know, maybe my kids will end
up getting married and I'll have, like you said, grandkids.
And I started thinking, wow, man, if I, if I could plug $100
a month for each grandchild awayfrom the time they're born until

(34:25):
they're, you know, say 25 years old.
And then, you know, take that now, you know, at that point
you're not putting into a Roth because you can't have a Roth
unless you're employed, right. So I just talking about putting
$100 into the, the, the the market, you know, with some
mutual. Funds.
Yeah. And growing that money for, you

(34:47):
know, 2025 years. And then you'll have a pot of
money there that's big enough that that would then fully fund
to the maximum amount that you're allowed every year, fully
fund a Roth IRA. So you're, so you're taking that
pot of money that, that, so I'm in, I'm investing into my
grandkid $100 a month for, you know, 2025 years.

(35:11):
Then that money will be big enough that it can fully fund a
Roth IRA until they retire. And they wouldn't even have to
put money into a Roth now they they would hopefully something
like a four O 1K, you know, withtheir employer or whatever.
But yeah, then that would just, like you said, build

(35:32):
generational wealth with, you know, hopefully the end goal it
is to be able to give, to be able to, you know, work towards
the Kingdom and and support whatever you're passionate
about, whether it be, you know, ministry for widows and children

(35:52):
or ministry for the unborn, you know, or missionaries overseas,
wherever it is, whatever your particular passion is.
Or if you have multiple passions, you know, the word
will will bless that as well andallow you to give to lots of
different places. But ultimately, you know, yeah,
you want to be able to set yourself up so that at some
point you can retire and be ableto give generously.

(36:15):
Yeah. One thing that really struck me
was how I don't know if easy is the right word, but it in my
head before I learned all this stuff, I just assumed it was
going to be really, really difficult to be able to build
wealth like that. To err, as Dave Ramsey said,
build wealth and and keep it andgive generously, which I guess

(36:38):
isn't keeping it, but you don't like not be broke, build wealth
and then continue to have wealthand then use that wealth in a
way that benefits the Kingdom. And it's just a lot of simple
things like just saving money where you can.
You don't absolutely need something paying cash for a car.
And I was even talking about this with my girlfriend
yesterday because we were, I don't even remember how it came

(37:02):
up, but I was basically saying like, I like, you're not ever
going to want to have payments on the car because you're paying
for what that car was worth 5-10years ago.
The SEC, you can drive it off the lot, it loses value and and
then and conversely, a property,property gains value.

(37:28):
I was located. I always got those two confused
because my granddad, I mean, he's always talking about
something with finances and so he talked about it sometimes.
But oh man, I forgot I was goingto say shoot.
Well, just to to jump in a little bit.
So yeah, not only are you payingon the value of the car once

(37:49):
was, you're also paying somebodyinterest.
Right. Yeah.
And plus interest on what it was.
You know, and, and that's just literally just giving away your
money like you're, you're makingsomebody else wealthy in that
instance by giving away your money to somebody else.
And so, so yeah, that's a that'sa huge thing for a young person
to recognize it. And also you, you said earlier

(38:11):
about budgeting and in our culture that is almost wildly
uncommon, I would say. It's like a taboo word.
Yeah, yeah. But it's not hard to live on a
budget, you know, I mean, you, you just live on what you make,
hopefully less because you want to be investing, you know,

(38:31):
putting putting money aside. And so, you know, you give God
off the top and then you pay yourself for future, you know,
you invest and then from there you, you live on what you make
it. And it's not that hard.
I mean, you know, my family and,and I'm not trying to brag or
anything, but you know, my wife stayed home with our kids up

(38:53):
until they were in high school. I mean, she just started working
this past this past school year at Carnet and until then she was
a stay at home mom and we lived off of a teacher's salary and on
that, you know, we were able to pay off our home.
And, you know, I, I mean, we didn't do extravagant vacations

(39:13):
or anything like that. We lived within our means.
We gave to the Lord and we paid off our house and he's blessed
us and we've been able to live. You know, I mean it like you
look at us and we know we're notpoor.
You know, I mean, we, we haven'tlived extravagant lifestyle, but
we're happy and and we've consistently been able to to

(39:37):
give to different ministry organizations that we feel
called to give to into the church.
And and it in the meantime, you don't become that free all on a
teacher salary, which is not, you know, as high paying as what
I could have made with my degreein industry.
Yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

(39:58):
And it's just so encouraging to hear that as someone who wants
to be a teacher as well. But man, I forgot again.
And as you're talking, I remembered and then I forgot you
were saying something about right before you were talking
about budgeting. Oh, I remember what I was going
to say. Just how simple it is like for

(40:22):
the. Investing, especially you're
putting in a hundred $200 a month.
You have a job like you were already worked to make that
money. You're just moving it into your
Roth IRA. And I don't remember how to set
up a Roth IRA. But I mean, once you, you do
that, you only got to do that once and then you're just

(40:44):
putting in money in there for the rest of your life.
And that money's growing exponentially without you even
having to do anything aside fromjust consistently putting in and
something that they, because we'd watch these videos and
different people who work at Ramsey just kind of talking and
something that they all drilled was being consistent with all of

(41:07):
the practices that they're teaching is consistent too.
So important this so easy to getsucked into that debt cycle.
And then also another thing theyhammered was just that all this
stuff, a lot of it is just common sense, like budgeting.
And they would just say like, don't spend more money than you

(41:30):
make. It's just common sense, right.
And yeah, I think, I mean, it was a fantastic class.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it one. Of the other lessons that really
stood out to me and if you remember this or not, but they
compared two guys and I rememberone of the guys name was Jack.
I can't remember the other one but but one of them put money in
consistently from like 20 to 30,age 20 to age 30 the other guy

(41:56):
and then he stopped putting money in, stopped investing.
So he only invested for 10 years, but he started young,
right? And then he, the comparison was
to another person who started investing when they were 30 and
they invested the same amount ofmoney per month as the first guy
did, but did it for the rest of his life until he retired.

(42:19):
Do you remember that? And he never caught up with the
first guy. You know, the first guy's wealth
outgrew his because he started younger.
And like I said, time is your ally when it comes to investing.
Yeah. And even when we're talking
about this, I was on my, I thought I was putting in my
reminders, set up a Roth IRA. That's some I definitely need to

(42:40):
do now that I have a job. Yeah.
So is there anything else you want to talk about with the
personal finance or chemistry orany of that?
I mean, if you have any other questions or thoughts, I'm open
to it, but no, I don't think that's good.
And then for anyone listening, the Ramsey material, there's a

(43:00):
lot of different ones, differentcourses, and then there's just
articles and there's tools on their website.
It's all really great stuff. You got Financial Peace
University, which I've heard is fantastic.
And then I think they have a lotof free content too.
Yeah, go check that out. Do you want to talk about?

(43:23):
So I want to talk about GCAA little bit more and just kind of
the difference there versus public school and how that
stands out. And then also about Ryan, did
you run today? Yeah.
Not yet. No.
Did you run yesterday? No, I actually haven't run at
all this week. Oh yeah.
No. Is that nice?

(43:44):
Yeah, kind of. I, I decided I wanted to start
lifting weights this Well. Oh yeah, not, not really lifting
weights, but I'm using a Total Gym, so I'm lifting my my own
body weight. What's a Total Gym?
So it's kind of hard to describe, but it's basically a
bench on a rails with rollers onit.

(44:07):
And then it's got pulleys and soyou're sitting or lying and you
can do all kinds of different things, your arms.
Like cave works or says yes. So you're pulling your body on
this roller up an incline and you can change the the angle of
the incline to be steeper or less steep depending upon how

(44:27):
hard you want to work. So anyways, I started that this
week. I hadn't done that for a couple
of years and I just decided I want to get back into doing
that. So I didn't run this week, but I
will probably get back into and like when, you know, when you
first start lifting weights, you're really, really sore,
right? I'm sore somehow.
Like I couldn't lift my hands above my head earlier in the

(44:50):
week. I was so sore.
But now day three here, I'm OK. There you go.
Not day three, day 6. I started on Monday.
So, so anyways, I've worked out three times this week is what I
what I was thinking there. But anyway, so I'll get back to
running and I may run today at some point.
A light 20 mile jog. No, no, it would be short since

(45:11):
I haven't run at all this week. I mean, you can't when you don't
run, you can't go out and run like crazy, right?
But I might run 3 or 4 miles today.
See, that's like, I've never even ran more than a 5K and that
was like a big deal for me. Well, when you don't run, yeah
it is. Yeah, but.
Well, I do run. Well, I didn't.
I don't run anymore. I should.
I just started. I just worked Debbie yesterday

(45:33):
for the first time in a while. Well, good for you.
Yeah, Yeah. But yeah, I, I, I enjoy running
most of the time. It as long as the weather's
conducive. I like running when it's cool.
And of course, it got crazy hot this weekend.
That was another, another reasonI was like, I, I I'll walk
outside and be like, and I don'twant to run in this.
I'll die. Yeah, and now, and now that it
started raining, it's super humid.

(45:54):
Yeah. Which I think it, I don't know.
I remember last summer or the summer before it was so hot.
And it was really humid too. And there was, I used to read
political cartoons and now I don't anymore because they make
me so angry. I quit reading them when
election season started. And but I just remember one

(46:16):
political cartoon that I always think of when someone mentions
humidity and you've got like, it's like a party scene, like a
like a fancy party. There's like a band and
everyone's wearing a suit. And you've got like one group of
people on one side of the room and they all have speech bubbles
and all the speech bubbles for them say the heat exclamation

(46:37):
point. And then, and then on the other
side of the room, you have otherpeople and all their speech
bubbles, say the humidity. Oh, yeah.
I just thought that was funny. Yeah.
That that is funny. Yeah.
Yeah. It's tough to run when it's
humid. It's like you got to chew the
air. And then when you're trying to
run on top of that, it can be really tough.
But. But yeah, I'll get back into it.

(46:58):
Maybe today, if not, you know byMonday and get back out there
and run. Try to bounce the running and
the lifting. Yeah, you're a big runner.
What got you into that? Well, really the main thing that
got me going was just to stay healthy.

(47:20):
So when I was a senior in high school, I decided to try track.
I, I was a swimmer, big time swimmer all through high school.
I was captain in the swim team my senior year, but just that
was the only sport I ever did. So I thought, I'm going to try
something different. So as spring, you know, spring
in my senior year, I joined the track team and that was

(47:43):
miserable. They, they put me, they, they
wanted me to do the high hurdles, the high jump and the
low hurt. So I ran the lows, the highs
and, and the high jump. Well, I never cleared the bar on
the high jump. I don't know why they, they
just, but they needed a body, you know, and, and I, and I was,

(48:03):
I was too old that, you know, I wasn't trainable.
So I never even competed in the high jump in a, in a meet.
I could never clear the, the lowest bar, but I did do the low
and the high hurdles And I, I just decided I, I, it was kind
of fun. I enjoyed, enjoyed the running.
So when I got to college, I would run just for fun a little
bit. I lived on campus the first

(48:25):
semester of my freshman year andthen we were overcrowded.
So like we had three people in atwo person room.
And so a couple of my buddies that I met at college, we ended
up moving off campus and we lived about 3 miles or so down
the road from from campus and where it is Michigan Tech

(48:46):
University, which is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
And so, so like three days a week, I would run home.
So my, my roommate and I would drive into school in the morning
together. And then at the end of the
school day, I would just put my stuff in, in his car or my car,
whichever one we drove, and he would drive that home and I

(49:06):
would run home. So just try to kind of stay
healthy, you know, lose that freshman 15 that I had gained
while I was living in the dorms,eating all I wanted to at the
Cafe everyday, you know, and I just continued that.
So just enjoyed, just enjoyed running.
And so I just just kept it up and just purely recreational,
just for fun. You know, you, you always feel

(49:29):
you. I mean, you're tired when you're
done, but but the endorphins make you feel good.
Like I accomplished that. That felt that felt good to do
that. So, you know, I've run a few
half marathons. I've run the Wendell Foster here
in town from three or four times.
I did one in Nashville once, butjust enjoy getting out there and

(49:50):
spend a little bit of time exercising.
Yeah, and man, this normally I forget stuff, but it's like bad
today. I don't know why.
Like I just had it about running.
Oh, man. Yeah.
Make contact to you. Yeah.

(50:12):
OK. Is there anything else you want
to hit on with that? No, I don't remember.
All right. And then can you just talk a
little bit? I know we already kind of hit on
this a little bit, but just about GCA because that's a
special school. Yes.
Oh wow, what a blessing it was. Doctor Holmes called me.

(50:37):
It was like the last day of school.
I was in my classroom at Davis County and it was either the
last day of school or like closing day, which is the this
year. No, no, no, this was several
years ago. OK.
I was at Davis County and, and he called and I was in my
classroom and, and there was no kids there.

(50:58):
So I don't remember if it was like towards the end of the day
and they they were done with finals already or if it was that
closing day of school where I was just cleaning up my
classroom and getting ready to go on break for the summer.
And Doctor Holmes called me and said, hey, let's meet for
coffee, you know, so it's like, OK, that's fine.
So so we met at overflow there on 54 and he basically just

(51:24):
said, I would really like for you to think about coming to GCA
and teaching what, you know, what would it take?
And I was floored, like, Oh my goodness, you know, I'm, I've
been teaching for at that point,let's see, 25 years, nine years
in Wisconsin and then 16 years at Davis County, you know, and

(51:47):
like, OK, you want me to walk away from public education and
teaching this little private Christian School that's just
started? It's like 2 hallways.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, You know, there was 40 or
50 kids were out in Davis County, those 1800 kids, you
know. You guys had 50 kids?
My first year, I think there were 48 students.

(52:09):
Yeah, yeah, We had. We had a good freshman,
sophomore and junior class the year that I started there.
In that junior class, they were that's, oh, I can't ever
remember that. Well, that was Jonathan's class,
like the first graduating class.OK.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyways, Chris and I talked

(52:31):
about it, my wife and I talked about it, we prayed about it,
and I decided, OK, let's, let's do this.
So it's one of those things where, you know, I've said a
handful of times in my life, theLord has spoken to me using
somebody else's voice, you know,and so I thought the Lord spoke
to me using Chris Holmes's voice, asking me to get out of

(52:53):
public education. And so I did and went to Grace
and it, it was, wow, just such adifferent world.
I mean, obviously the small classes was, it was huge.
You know, I went from a a county, you know, you probably
have on average 26 to 30 kids, 31 kids in your class to a

(53:19):
grace. I mean, my first year, I think
there were 11 or 12 kids in my chemistry class.
I had two kids in precalculus, you know, handful of kids in in
geometry. I don't remember how many.
It was pretty big. Probably.
I think geometry was actually mybiggest class because it was a

(53:41):
mix of the freshmen and the sophomores probably had like 18
twin kids in there. But anyways, you know, small
classes, but again, just the environment, so different.
I mean, start every morning withScripture and a prayer.
You know, a Chapel weekly which,you know, sometimes there there

(54:05):
would be guest speakers. You know, a lot of pastors from
churches in the community would come in as a guest speaker where
Doctor Holmes would speak or oneof the teachers would speak.
You know, Mr. Elkins sometimes did it.
I sometimes did it just wow, really neat experience to to
take a part of your school day, you know, that Chapel, but just

(54:29):
just what an environment there, you know, to be able to, I want
to say to be to be able to just openly, like we talked about
earlier, talk about God and and,and, and not even I I wouldn't,
you know, I would tell people that first year I was there, I
remember telling different people, you know, what's it like

(54:49):
being at grace And I was like, well, not only can I talk about
God, but I have to like it's a job requirements to talk about
the Lord. Pretty cool, right?
You know, anyways, so that is just phenomenal, you know, to
again, because of tent makers, you know, part of part of who I

(55:12):
am is, is a person who wants to try to disciple others.
So having that opportunity to tobe able to bring God or Jesus,
depending upon, you know, this scenario into our discussions in
the classroom. You know, is that opportunity to
try to build and disciple into young people to try to help them
to build their faith. If they're, you know, because

(55:35):
you've got a variety of kids that are there, you've got
unbelievers that are going to grace, you know, and so you're
trying to build to them the potential for a faith or you're
trying to build into students like yourself who, who have
already, you know, accepted Christ into their life.
You're just trying to strengthenthem and to show them areas
where they can open their eyes to, to see the Lord working and

(55:58):
that kind of thing. So phenomenal.
So I don't know, you know, if you've got some specific.
Questions. I don't know where else you want
to go to where I was thinking, but and they were open for five
years. Yeah, yeah, they, they started
with that freshman class, Johnny, Johnny Deckman, you know

(56:18):
him, his class, they started with that class as freshman and
they just kept adding a freshmanclass every year.
And so, yeah, they graduated a year ago and then your class
graduated this last year. And and as you know,
unfortunately, enrollment just kept dropping.
And so the board made what I canonly imagine was a really,

(56:40):
really tough decision to put a pause on the high school.
And I and I hope that's all it is.
It's just a pause for a year or two because we've got kids.
You know, I mean, the first yearthat I started there was when
they opened up the elementary, right?
So that was three years ago. And so that first year they had
a pre-K, kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade.

(57:03):
They added all of that in in that first year that I was at
Grace, which was year 3 for them.
And then the next year they added 4th and 5th.
Think right now? Well, no third and 4th.
And then last year they added. Yeah, 5th and 6th and 6th

(57:23):
they're adding. And they're adding 7th and I
think the goal is to next year, of course, add 8th to allow
those 7th graders to move up. And then hopefully once those
8th graders are ready to go to high school, they'll be in a
position again where they feel like they can reopen.
I mean, I don't know what the plans are.
You know, again, I've said this so many, many times to people.
I'm, I, well, I'm not anymore. I was just a teacher there, you

(57:46):
know, so I don't know all the background stuff I wasn't Privy
to, to all the, the big decisions and all that stuff.
I, I was just a teacher there. And I mean, I don't mean to take
that lightly, but I just did. I just didn't.
Yeah, I know anything. So.
I mean. But I hope that now, you know,
because the thought in my mind anyways, is, you know, you, you

(58:08):
get at least some of the kids from Heritage.
We're coming to Grace. And maybe not all of them, some
of them wanted to, to go to the public schools or to be home
schooled or whatever they were doing.
But you get some of the kids from Heritage.
But, you know, I'm hoping that once Grace gets to that point
where we're up through 8th grade, then you'll get at least
some, if not all of the kids from Grace moving in and

(58:29):
feeding. So I imagine that their thought
process, and again, this is justmy complete speculation, but I
imagine that their thought process is, is that once we get
past that 8th graders and they'll start again with
freshmen. OK.
And they'll just add a freshman class every year until high
school is back up and running again.
I assume that that's what's going on.
Yeah. But I do.

(58:51):
I hope so too. Yeah, yeah.
I saw one of the board members. I think that was the day the
decision was made. Of course, I didn't know it at
the time, but looking back at itand he, I mean, he just didn't,
he wasn't like he would. I mean, it was a hard decision

(59:11):
and you could just kind of see on his face that he just had to
make hard decision or that someone was bothering him.
And I think that was the day that decision was made.
And I mean, it wasn't easy for anyone.
No, yeah. But yeah, hopefully they'll
they'll have them back up in a year or two.
I hope so, yeah. Because I mean, I, I think

(59:34):
Owensboro really, really needs aschool like that.
Absolutely. And yeah, I, I just, I just
can't understand with as big as Owensboro is and as many
different churches as we have here, it just baffles me that
our enrollment didn't, I just kept waiting for it to explode.

(59:56):
Like, I feel like GCA was the best kept secret in Owensboro.
Like, I don't like how, how were, were we not bursting at
the seams, right? Like, again, not putting down,
you know, the public schools in any way, but just, you know, as
a, as a father, myself, as a, asa Christian man with kids, you

(01:00:21):
know, do I want my kids to be discipled?
By people that I don't know or do I want them to be discipled
by brothers and sisters, Right? I'm going to choose this for
sure. And so I've just, I was always
baffled. I just kept waiting and praying.
We all did. We kept praying.
Lord, send the kids. Send the kids.
What? How is it that that we are not

(01:00:43):
just, like I said, bursting at the seams.
But yeah, hopefully that'll change.
Hopefully you know as as the school continues to to grow the
elementary school and word continues to get out, hopefully
it will just explode. Yeah, and I don't know what's

(01:01:04):
going on. Forgot again.
But yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you're saying.
Oh yeah, 'cause Grace is the only private Christian high
school, right, Except for Owensboro Catholic.
Is that a Are Catholic schools private?
Private schools, yeah. Yes and I don't know a whole lot

(01:01:25):
about that other stuff. I I just I just don't know you
know it's just outside of my area of expertise.
I mean, I know there's, there's valor too, but I know that's a
very different school. At least that's the impression
that I got because we had a couple of kids that came from
Bauer to GC. And so, I mean, I don't, I, I've
never been there. I don't, you know, I don't know

(01:01:47):
anything really about it. I know that it exists, but I
don't know what it's like, but Ido.
I did get the impression from the way the kids talked, there
was a very different kind of environment than GCA was.
And I thought Valerie was in a different city.
No, it's on the other side of town.
Oh, OK. It's out on the West End, yeah.

(01:02:08):
And this is a question I should have asked at the beginning.
But what first? What made you want to be a
teacher? And what about being a teacher
do you enjoy? Man, Well, I'm going to start
with the second question. I enjoy the kids.
I, I and I enjoy, you know, getting to know, you know, you

(01:02:30):
and your sister and, and the other kids, building
relationships with them, having the opportunity to, to hopefully
minister to them, to disciple them, to build into their lives,
to encourage them. And again, hopefully to be able
to share. You know, even when I was in the

(01:02:51):
public schools, I remember students, you know, telling me
how much they enjoyed the enthusiasm that I brought to
class because I really do. I love chemistry specifically,
you know, and I love to be able to share because I see it as
God's glory, right? I mean, and that's something

(01:03:14):
that we talked a lot about in class, You know, just just the
amazing, the the more you know about a field like that, the
more you see God's handiwork, right?
And I just love the fact that hejust spoke it all into existence
in seconds, you know, and there there is and, and wow, and it's
so complex, But you know, I, I like the teaching aspect of

(01:03:39):
being a teacher. You know, you know, there's a
lot of other things that are notmy favorite.
I'm not going to lie to you. I don't like giving tests.
I don't like grading tests. You know that that is that is
the work aspect of work for me now, sharing my knowledge and my

(01:04:00):
love for the content. That's not work.
Like, I can't believe they pay me to to talk to people about
what I love. Yeah.
So that part is the fun part, the easy part, all the other
paperwork and the politics, especially in the public
schools, the politics that's there, you know, the behind the

(01:04:24):
scenes stuff that the students have no idea that we have to
deal with. That's the stuff that that's why
it's work and that's what I feellike I'm getting paid for isn't
all that other stuff. What got me into it really was
my high school teachers. I already spoke a little bit
about my chemistry teacher in high school loved him.
My band director was another huge, huge influence on on me

(01:04:47):
and some of my friends too. He just passed away in the past
year and my best friend from high school called me and we
spent quite a bit of time on thephone crying together and
reminiscing about Tom Newton, who is, was a very special man
to, to so many students over theyears, but particular to me and,
and Mike, my, my best friend from high school.

(01:05:10):
But just the influence that theyhad on us, you know, again, good
guys speaking into our lives, mentoring us, you know, helping,
helping us to grow. And, and I just, I just knew
that I wanted to do that. I knew that I wanted to to have
that same influence to, to speakinto other people's lives and to

(01:05:35):
to mentor them and to help them to grow.
And, and so teaching was the path that allowed me to do that.
I think it could have just as easily been, you know, becoming
some kind of a full time minister pastor, you know,
you've something and that that that alternately could have been

(01:05:58):
a route, but I just chose science.
I just again, I just loved, loved the sciences.
So I was fascinated by it. Is the direction I went is that
did I answer your question? OK, perfect.
And and you mentioned earlier about going through the
Christian Educators program. Is that what it is like?

(01:06:22):
Am I saying that right? Yeah, Christian educators, it's
so, you know, like there's in inpublic education, you have the
teachers union, right. And so a Christian educators is
kind of an alternative to the teachers union.
So one thing that they, that they offer is like insurance

(01:06:44):
and, and I mean like liability insurance.
So for example, again, I was a science teacher.
So if the kid was in the lab andsomething went wrong and they
got hurt and they sued me, I hadliability insurance through
Christian educators to help cover, to help cover that.

(01:07:04):
But again, Christian educators is, is a ministry.
And so they, they provide opportunities for Christian
educators to be involved in, participate in other areas to
encourage and equip them and empower them in the classroom to

(01:07:24):
be missionaries basically in theclassroom.
And in, of course, they, you know, they teach you again, like
I said earlier, what the boundaries are.
So you can do it without gettinginto trouble, right?
That's where, well, go ahead andfinish your.
Well, I was just, you know, justgoing to say, I mean, but they
have they have different what the Daniel weekend then I went
to they have Lyft events, they have the rise up event.

(01:07:51):
So they have different events that Christian educators can
participate in that will encourage them especially.
I mean, I mean, it can be tough.It can be tough.
You're in the trenches, so to speak, you know, out there.
And so you just sometimes need to be refueled and re energized.
And so they have events that will help to do that and they

(01:08:11):
support you. And then, you know, they they
have a, if you're a member of Christian Educators, you can you
can be a a paid member. And with that comes the
liability insurance. You're basically the payment is,
yeah, you know, your insurance costs or you can just be a
member, a non paying member and you're still entitled to all the

(01:08:31):
educational stuff that goes through that.
You just don't have the liability insurance.
I don't know personally why anybody would not, you know,
want that insurance. Yeah, because you we live in a
crazy, crazy culture today. More and more people are getting
accused of things falsely. And so that insurance is is
vital, but but you know, that's kind of the big, big role.

(01:08:54):
And then what? You were asking me a question.
Yeah, well, I was going to ask about those because you're
mentioning the the rights you have as an educator to be able
to talk about your faith in school.
Is that just like freedom of speech or but then wouldn't.

(01:09:14):
Well, OK, because I was thinkinglike, well, the school to make
their decision to it's their freedom to fire you if they
don't, if they don't, if they don't think that you what you're
saying match up their policies. But a public schools that's like
a government thing, right. So they can't do that.
That's, well, that's the tricky part because because schools are

(01:09:39):
technically government, so you're a government employee.
And so there's that real tricky,you know, church and state
separation thing, which by the way, is not constitutional,
right, right. And, and a lot of people know
that. But the, the big thing is, is
that you really just have to learn that you, you, you got to

(01:09:59):
shy away from like, you can't preach the gospel, like, like
you're not allowed to try to convert people to Christianity
in the classroom. Now, it's, it's OK to do that
with your colleagues at lunch orbefore school or after school,
You know, so there's a lot of freedoms.
There's a lot of things that youcan do outside of your contract
time that, that are OK. You just have to be careful

(01:10:21):
within the contract time. And I mean, there were, there
were plenty of times, you know, again, a big part of it is
building relationships with students.
So when you build a relationshipwith a student, you get to a
certain point where I think backover the years and, you know, I
would have some kids to either share with me something that was
going on or I would find out in some other ways, something that

(01:10:42):
was going on, you know, and I would just ask them, hey, is it
OK if I pray for you? And if they give me the green
light for that, you know, maybe check in with them in a day or
two, you know, how are things going?
OK, Well, would it be OK if I pray with you, you know, and
just kind of incrementally, you know, and, and, and then that's

(01:11:04):
as far as I would go because again, I don't want to cross the
line and break the law, you know.
But did I pray with kids as often as I could?
Yeah, probably not nearly often enough, you know, but but when I
could, I would. And and so, you know, that's,
that's you just have to be real careful.

(01:11:26):
And, and that's why I would encourage it.
You know, if, if other Christianeducators are listening to this
and you don't know about Christian educators, look into
Christian educated. Just Google Christian educators.
It used to be Christian Educators, CEAI Association
International, but I think they've changed it to just
Christian educators. But, but Christian

(01:11:48):
educatorsprobably.org again and,and look into that And they,
they've got a whole section of their website where it'll get
into, you know, how do you be careful in the classroom?
That's awesome. Well, we got to start wrapping
up. Is there anything else you

(01:12:08):
wanted to say about this or anything, even if it's something
we haven't talked about? I mean, just whatever's on your
mind. I don't, I didn't really think
about coming in with my own stuff because you told me you
were going to be asking me questions.
So I can't think of anything that I have on my mind other
than just thanks for inviting meto come in here.

(01:12:31):
I appreciate the time. I always enjoy our
conversations. We've had some really great
conversations. That's true over the past year.
And I just wish you absolutely the best as you head off to
college. Stay in the word and stay
faithful to the Lord. It's easy to get distracted when
you go to college. So that's my challenge to you,
is to make sure that you keep your eyes focused on the goal.

(01:12:53):
Yeah, thank you. And you're a great man, great
teacher, and the love of Christ really shone through and
everything that you did inside the classroom and outside the
classroom, I just really appreciate you.
I just want to thank you for that and for helping to reignite
my passion for teaching. OK, well all praise goes to the

(01:13:17):
to the Lord for that. So I I just pray that he will
use me as a vessel. Yep, All right, all prayers out
Great. You're gone.
Thank you for this day, even though it's a little rainy, I
pray that well, God, I thank youfor, for sending the rain and

(01:13:41):
watering the earth and making everything beautiful and green.
And God, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to sit down
with Mr. Crop and, and the opportunity to, to learn under
him last year. And thank you for putting him in
my life and, and the lives of somany other kids.

(01:14:03):
And thank you for thank you thathe is such a good steward of the
position that you've given him and of the money that you've
given him. And I, I just pray for him and
his wife and his kids that you will bless their family and keep
them safe from the schemes of the devil.
And I pray that you will draw them close to you and God.

(01:14:28):
And I pray for this podcast. I just lay down at your feet and
however you like to use it, God.And I want, I want to work
according to your will. And I pray that you can use this
episode to touch someone's life and to draw them close to you.
In Christ's name I prayed. Amen.