Month: November 2019

While we love ROCKSTARS and ROB JONES, in this podcast we make the great point that the most influential people in a child’s life are potentially their parents. As a parent, you have a unique and broad platform to be a spiritual influence in your child’s life now and in the future.

You don’t have to be a Bible scholar or have it all together to do this. Some of the basic starting points we discussed in this EPISODE are:

Start with prayer: Make a daily “big things only God can do” prayer list and include your children on it.

Share your journey: When we share our path to trusting in Christ (messes and detours included), it can really help a young person see their way through their own journey.

Be Intentional: Influencing your children for Christ is not easy and will never happen if you don’t make a plan and an effort.

Listen: Make sure you don’t do all the talking, but make yourself available to really hear where they are at – in life and in faith. And sometimes that means losing some sleep!

Lastly, we want to encourage you. You’re not alone. You will make mistakes. You won’t have all the answers, but when we make the margin, have the courage, and, if need be, say I’m sorry, we are going to find ourselves poised to be the greatest youth leaders our kids could ever have!!

Here are some ways you can continue to connect with us:

Here on our website – isthatnormal.org (click on the SUBSCRIBE at the bottom of the page)

Watch our smiling faces on our video format on Calvary Chapel’s Facebook page.

Subscribing or downloading through iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify

Be Abnormal!!

We are so excited to start this new adventure with you. For so long, we have prayed for a way to be more of an influence in the parents of the youth that we teach each week. I believe God has brought us to this format to help encourage, support, and resource parents.

Parenting is one of the hardest things we will ever do and our culture has magnified some of the common struggles of adolescents. This first episode unpacks our heart and direction for how this podcast will address those issues. We particularly start with a conversation about FOMO and reference a great resource, Tony Reinke’s 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You. We’ll highlight this book more in depth with a future episode, but I recommend anyone who is living in the 21st Century to read this fascinating treatise on the theology of technology. You’ll be surprised at his conclusions!

We also make the challenge to start dispelling ours and our childrens’ fears with truth. One great way is to start the daily habit of reading the Bible with your children. Again, we’ll talk about some other great ideas on this in an upcoming episode, but encourage you to start this week by daily reading the Shema prayer from Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and discuss how you as a family can do what it says.

We look forward to spending time with you each week. Our podcast will by weekly episodes releasing on Tuesday morning. Here are all the ways you can access us:

Here on our website – isthatnormal.org (click on the SUBSCRIBE at the bottom of the page)

Subscribing or downloading through iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify

Watch our smiling faces on our video format on Calvary Chapel’s Facebook page.

Be Abnormal!!

As a Youth Pastor of almost 20 years, this is a question I have been often asked by fearful parents. As those responsible for the shaping of fragile young lives, we want to be sure we aren’t totally messing up their futures.

I have increasingly seen my role as one of parental support, as much as discipler of young people. So out of the desire to be a better resource for parents, I’ve decided to start a podcast. We will be launching later this month. I will be joined by one of my long time youth volunteers – Randell Boggs, as we explore topics such as technology, communicating with teenagers, having good conversations about socially hot topics, and spiritual development. We will also be highlighting lots of other great resources that can help us lead our children through adolescence into adulthood, particularly encouraging them to follow Christ.

Our podcast will be roughly twenty minutes an episode, releasing every Tuesday. Hope to have you join us soon!