Focus on the Family

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John Fuller: This is John Fuller and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Guest (Male): And finally from Numbers chapter 3, verses 17 through 20. These were the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. These were the names of the Gershonite clans: Libni and Shimei. The Kohathite clans: Amram, Hebron, and Uzziel. Now kids, isn't that an exciting Bible lesson for today? Kids? Kids?

John Fuller: And it doesn't get much more boring than that. Maybe Leviticus can take you there too. I don't know. Sometimes the challenges of trying to be spiritual with your kids and have an effective devotional time, it gets hard. Maybe you didn't even want to start at some point because that was what you thought devotions could be. Well, we have some help for you and your kids today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, I just need to defend a little bit. Ray Vander Laan, who's done That the World May Know with us, he will always say when you're reading the Word and you come across something that kind of sticks out, like numbers and genealogies, to stop and read that because there's importance to it. So we don't want to diminish, but eight-year-olds might struggle with that.

That's the point of that clip, that it's hard for an eight-year-old, nine-year-old, ten-year-old to wrap their heads around that. So it's important to have that kind of reverence for the Word of God, but at some point, some of the scriptures can be a little dry for kids. You’ve got to work that and summarize and get creative.

Today we want to talk about a great way to make those scriptures come alive with our guest who is an expert in translating those things from the church language into kids' language so they can get it. He's written a great book, The Really Radical Book for Kids, which at first you're going, "What? What? Radical? Radical in Jesus." I'm going to have fun today. I'm looking forward to it.

John Fuller: Yeah, and the research, of course, shows that moms and dads are the number one influence when it comes to spiritual matters. So we're thrilled to have Champ Thornton in the studio with us. He works at Crossway Publishing and he helps children and families to grow spiritually and understand theology. Champ and his wife, Robin, are the parents of three teens, and he's written a devotional book that will be the basis, as you said Jim, for our conversation, The Really Radical Book for Kids: More Truth, More Fun. We've got copies of that at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Champ, welcome to Focus on the Family.

Champ Thornton: Thanks Jim, it's great to be here.

Jim Daly: What a great name. How'd you come up with Champ?

Champ Thornton: I had nothing to do with it. I know you were thinking it's my athletic ability, but no. My mom and dad had a little girl who was born about a year before I was. She was premature and she lived about a day and passed away.

About a year later, they're expecting again and I come along and I'm premature as well. They didn't know if I was going to make it, the medical technology being what it was in the '70s. So my mom just fasted and prayed and sought the Lord that He would spare my life. The doctor said, "Oh, he's a champ, he'll make it." The Lord spared my life and the name stuck. So my real name is George, but no one calls me that.

Jim Daly: What a story though. That's amazing and that wasn't in the book. God's kindness is amazing. Well, let me ask you from the get-go. We were kind of laughing there at that beginning in that intro we did because that is kind of a typical evening devotional, especially when your kids are younger. So I just want to get right to it. When did you fail in your devotion with your kids and what was the subject matter and is that why you've written the book now?

Champ Thornton: I feel like I fail regularly because it'll be something I want to talk to my family about. So I'm opening up God's Word and there's my wife and our three kids on the couch and we're talking. It's something I'm passionate about and I want to communicate it and I kind of get carried away and it goes a little long.

Then I kind of wrap it up, I land the plane, and I think I did a great job. Then I say to my wife, "Anything you'd like to add?" Or I say to the kids, "What else does that make you think?" And the response one time from my wife was, "I think that about covers it, Champ." That meant like, I think we're done. So that phrase, now my kids say that at the end whenever we finish our Bible time together. I'm like, "What do you guys think?" and one of the kids will smirk and say, "I think that about covers it, Champ."

Jim Daly: You know, structurally, and this is true and I've talked about this before, sometimes as we marry typically opposites, extrovert, introvert, all those things. For my wife, she was a biochemistry major, so she's very black and white. She wanted a very proper devotional time, five minutes of a little music and song, 10 minutes of study, and then let's wrap up with Q&A and that kind of thing.

For the parents that struggle with that, and I was trying to convince her, hey, I'm on the move when I take them to school, we're talking about the Lord or what have you. But speak to that structural question of how is it to create an effective way to do devotions with your kids, age-appropriate, etc. Is there any perfect way or any better way, or is it, yeah, do some of all of it?

Champ Thornton: I feel like the best way forward is to just try something. Better to do something and realize how you can make it better than not to lean in. One thing that we tried years ago that worked really great for our family, and it may not work for every family because you’ve got to know your kids and their attention span and what they're thinking about in terms of their life issues at that point.

We had advice from someone I read about online where he said, "Take a Psalm, like a shorter Psalm like Psalm 1. That's where we started, Psalm 1 or then Psalm 23 or Psalm 100. Gather everybody around and say, we're going to learn this Psalm together." Then read the whole thing, go back, read the first verse, have maybe your oldest kid try to say it, everybody try to say it together, and then let's pray.

We did this when our kids were one to two years old and so they're just kind of nodding along and maybe mouthing a few things, and then we prayed. Then we did it again the next day and we read verse one again, and then we read it again and we tried to find ways of varying it up or have my wife read or my wife and my son read together, or try to say it by memory.

I was so surprised within a few weeks, our whole family knew Psalm 1, word for word. I was shocked. Who knew? So now, like you said about driving in the car, now it was portable. So now we're driving on the way to the grocery store, I've got the kids in the back and I'm like, "Hey guys, let's say Psalm 1 together. Micah, our oldest, why don't you start it off for us?"

So he starts off verse one and then, "Okay, Jack, that's our youngest, why don't you take the next one?" And Kenzi, that's our middle child, "Why don't you say the next?" They would stumble and it would be okay, but just a wonderful time. Then you can ask questions, right? Like, "What do you think it means in Psalm 1 when it says he's like a tree planted by rivers of water? What is it talking about?" So it provides wonderful conversation and it's something that's so easy to do as a family.

Jim Daly: It's so true. Let me ask you in terms of culture because culture, modern culture particularly, feels really disconnected from words of antiquity. But you make the case, maybe not so much, that human beings are pretty much the same when it gets down to our behaviors, our sins, our virtues, etc. So how do we, and how did you, help close that gap with your own children and what are you hoping for with the book to help other parents make ancient culture more relatable to modern culture?

Champ Thornton: I feel like the Bible just sets the tone for this because when you think about the phenomenon that we have Scripture and that it is profitable, Paul says to Timothy, for showing you what is right and what is wrong in life and how you can make things right and how you can keep things right. These truths, God says, are coming out of an ancient book.

If God can write something 3,000 years ago and it still be relevant, then that means that there's so much more that unites us as a human race than divides us. I have a lot of cultural differences from people who lived in Abraham's day or David's kingdom, King David's day. Tons of cultural differences, but I have so much in common. Why? Because it was God's Word then and it's God's Word now and He knows what's going to resonate with people of any culture and any timeframe.

God's Word also gives us the clue when we go to Deuteronomy chapter 6. When you go to Deuteronomy chapter 6, we have that very famous, and you kind of alluded to it, right? You're in the car and you're talking to your kids about the Lord. Deuteronomy 6:6 says while you're walking down the way or getting up in the morning or driving in the minivan, you're talking about the Lord.

But how does it start? That's not where it starts. It starts a few verses before, the Shema. It says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." He's unique, there’s only one like Him. He's the only true God and you should have a unique love for Him, that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Then this is what you teach your children. So before we get to Deuteronomy 6:6 and we're riding around in the car talking to our children, how are we loving the Lord with all our heart? That really is where it starts because we can't pass along to our children something that we don't have ourselves. We're going to have it imperfectly, but that ought to be our aspiration and our goal that I want to love the Lord. That is the main thing in my parenting and then I want to pass it along to my kids.

Jim Daly: And Champ, one of the things that's so important is we tend to think that they'll get enough of that at church. We can go about just being family and having dinner and talking about news, weather, and sports. But really, as John said in the opening, parents have that unique role. They are the number one influencer of their kids even through the teen years, which kind of shocks most of us parents today.

That survey information is still holding true, that even teens will say their parents are the number one influence in their life, for the most part. So in that context, I want you to give that rah-rah for the parent who may be underselling their influence with their children and to take it more seriously. Don't leave it to the church to do it. You're the primary faith giver and faith teacher to your children. The church will augment that, but if we designate it or relegate it just to Sunday and Sunday school with our kids and the pastor, the youth pastor will take care of that, I think we're missing our God-given responsibility to do that.

Champ Thornton: God has put that responsibility on us as parents and there's also a responsibility the church has for our walk with Jesus and that doesn't exclude our children. But as we think about our relationship with our kids and the responsibility we have, I remember as a young parent having parenting books on my shelf and thinking, "How's this even work?"

This is a 230-page book and I'm supposed to remember at three in the morning something on page 116. My mind doesn't work like that. So I really had to work and think, what is our goal? How do we parent? What's going on?

The phrase that I came up with that my wife and I use is that we want our kids, here's our goal, that when they leave the house at age 18, 19, whenever it is, we want them synced up with reality. We want them living in the reality of this world. That means that God is creator. He made everything. He made everything good.

That also means this is a broken world and that we're sinners. It also means that He's not just creator, but He's savior. God sent His Son, Jesus, to be our rescuer because we're sinners. He rescues us from ourselves and He invites us into that relationship with the Father. I want them to live in that reality.

But all of the rest of life is spinning this narrative that's untrue. So we kind of think as parents we want to be the naughty filter. So this show we're not going to watch that, it has these elements in it, or we're not going to talk about this because of the other thing. But the reality is we just go to the mall and every store is spinning fiction, that if you have this set of clothes, you'll feel this way, or if you have this toy, this is what it will do for you. They're not necessarily sinful, but they're not necessarily true. So as parents, we're there to help interpret for our kids what reality is and to help our kids live in sync with that reality.

John Fuller: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guest today is Champ Thornton. We're so glad to have him here talking about how to really make theology and Scripture come alive for your children. Get a copy of his book, The Really Radical Book for Kids. We've got that here at the ministry and additional resources as well to help you as a parent. We're a phone call away, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Champ, one of the chapters you mention Galileo's telescope, which we were just in Europe last summer and saw a number of Galileo's original telescopes. Amazing. I always loved astronomy, so I connected with that section of the book. But you referred to it and compared it to a Bible telescope. So what point were you trying to make with Galileo's telescopes being like a Bible telescope?

Champ Thornton: And just connecting it back with the fact that we want our kids to live synced up with reality of God as creator and God as savior is that we go to church on Sunday and we hear about Jesus and He's our rescuer. Amen. But He's also the one who made pizza so great and soccer. Are you sure about that? Absolutely. Everything that we love about this world that He made comes out of His creative mind.

So when we look to life in this world, we see so many lessons we can learn. Whether it's about a telescope and how that relates to the Bible, this book we want in this book to relate things that are fun but also true. So when we think about this telescope, we've got those three lenses like you put in a telescope and we look at the Bible the same way.

Those lenses are that we look through the Bible as if it's a window. So when we think about like the stories of Jesus like in Mark chapter 4 and 5, we see Him stilling the storm. Really happened, true story. We look through the Bible to a true event that happened.

But then what's interesting is we also look at the lens like it's stained glass. In other words, the Gospel writers and other writers of history in the Bible don't just tell stories that actually happened, they relate and arrange those stories in a way that tell more of a mosaic, like a stained glass window.

So notice the story about Jesus and the stilling the storm, He also heals the demoniac, which no one else could heal, and then He heals the woman who had the bleeding issue that no one could heal for 12 years. Then He heals a daughter who's not just sick, but now she's dead. No one can fix that. Jesus does the impossible. So Mark is writing these stories together to show that something else is true about Jesus, that He can do the impossible.

But then the third lens is that when we look at the Bible, we look at it not just like through a window to actual events or stained glass telling a larger story, but also like a mirror because we learn that God has things to say to us and He wants us to change and become more like Jesus. So when we read the Bible, it's not just about something out there and then, it's about right here and now.

Jim Daly: Yeah, which is a great application for it. You also in teaching your son how to play video games, you said it really lined up with the book of Proverbs. So I'm dying to hear this answer. So how does video game playing line up with the book of Proverbs?

Champ Thornton: So the very short answer is I'm terrible at video games. And when my son was first starting out, I was still better than him. That lasted like about two weeks. And so I went online and there are these things called walkthroughs and cheats and the internet is amazing.

And you know what's really amazing is like could you imagine if the designer of the video game, not just someone who had lots of time on their hand to figure it out, but what if the creator of the video game created the walkthroughs? That’d be brilliant. Well, the book of Proverbs, God is giving us a walkthrough on life.

When we think about like living in wisdom, it's not just that the book of Proverbs gives a bunch of nuggets of wisdom. Proverbs is coming from the perspective that first God is wise and that He made the world wisely and He made it to operate in wise ways. So Proverbs is helping us understand how God made the world to work. We are living in harmony with that. Someone said if you go against the grain of the universe, you get splinters. So Proverbs is showing us this is how God made the universe to work, now live that way.

Jim Daly: Wow, that's a good way to look at it. That's good.

John Fuller: That's really an interesting approach. Now one of the things you talked about in the book, Champ, is using the game "Two Truths and a Lie" to help your kids. So some people might think, "Oh, don't lie," but it's a game and it's a fun game. A lot of folks have probably done it, but what was your lesson out of that?

Champ Thornton: Yeah, so we found this game was a lot of fun at the dinner table, especially when the kids were younger because you know how it is. You ask your kid, "How was your day?" and what's the answer? "Fine." "What did you do?" "Stuff." It’s like, okay, this is not good. One-word answers. It’s awful.

So we came up with this game and of course when the kids were little, I thought, do we call it "Two Truths and a Lie"? So I said, how about we call it "Three Things"? All right, that's what we called it. Just so I didn't tell them to tell a lie.

But we said, "Okay, tell us two things that actually happened and one thing that didn't." And so then they would, and I got to tell you, I'm the world's worst at this game because I have no poker face. So I have to like cover my face with my hands when I play because they all know exactly which one's the false one.

But the reality is it occurred to me one day, have you ever noticed that all the slogans out there in the world like "be true to yourself" and "follow your heart" and "your body, your choice" or "you only live once"? All those things you can put them on a bumper sticker. They're so meme-worthy, right? I thought, why does the world have all the good slogans?

And it occurred to me, "Oh, it's because they're only telling half the truth." It's a truth and it's leaving something out. And the Bible gives a more full-orbed response, but those don't fit on bumper stickers nearly so easily. So you could say "follow your heart". Well, sure, God wants us to live authentically, right? But my heart is not always reliable. Right. Our heart is deceitful often. And so there's more to the story and that doesn't make a very catchy slogan.

Jim Daly: You know, it's interesting with that is so often how we want to detach those pithy good sayings from accountability. So follow your heart under God's guidance would be the fuller bumper sticker. But we want to cut that off all the time. I just want to follow my own heart. Totally independent of God. Totally independent, and that is the problem of culture and everybody, every household, because we are sinners like you said.

Let me ask you, part of your passion to disciple children comes from a health crisis that you encountered in your 20s. Describe what happened and how did that motivate you to help children better understand spiritual truth?

Champ Thornton: I was 29 years old and I developed a blood clot in my leg which turned into a pulmonary embolism and you know I didn't know what it was, but people die from those I found out. And then I found out that I had the clot because I have a blood condition, a genetic disorder that inclines me to clot.

And so I'm 29 years old and you know you're not thinking about dying, you're thinking about like let's go, life is in front of us and all the things that I want to do and that hopefully God has planned for us. And then it all of a sudden makes you think about things you weren't thinking about thinking about.

And so I would say maybe for the next decade of my life, probably not a day went by that I didn't think about dying. And maybe sometimes in a morbid way, but also I think in a healthy way, that I'm mortal and that I'm not going to be here forever. And so when kids came along, I wanted to be able to leave something with them to say this is what's important to Dad. And so that really is a lot of the genesis of this book and its predecessor, The Radical Book for Kids, is I wanted to leave something for my kids like almost like a starter kit for the Christian life to help guide them in their faith.

Jim Daly: Champ, your children are now, you have twins that are 15 and then you have a slightly older young adult I believe. Yes indeed. So in for parents that are in that similar position where maybe now they have the teens and maybe a 20-something like you but they feel like my eye wasn't on the ball and they're hearing this with a heavy heart like I didn't concentrate on this, I did think the church would pick up the slack, I wasn't as good as I could have been in doing this transfer of my faith. What do you say to them now that they have a 15, a 16, 17-year-old? What can you do to make up some ground and not be too obvious in that desire to help your children better understand kind of the core principles of faith as they launch into adulthood?

Champ Thornton: It's a great question. I feel like with parenting a lot of it is a wisdom issue, right? So you know your family, you know your children, you know what's best in a certain situation. I think you need to lean into that. And if you have a spouse who's also a Christian, then conferring on what are best steps here with our kids, I feel like that's important.

But I feel what's always applicable and always the right thing and the wise thing to do when we realize that something in our past is not what it could have been and should have been. The right response is always repentance, right? Is we say I was wrong, or I was foolish. God forgive me.

And then where appropriate we share that with the people that we've sinned against. So, you know, in this case if it your children are teenagers and you realize you could have been a better parent in particular ways when they were younger, gather them up and say, "Can I just share with you, God has shown me I could have been a much better dad or mom when you were younger. Can I tell you in what ways and would you forgive me? And I'd like to try to do better." And I feel like it just like you said earlier like being that example for them and being honest about not just here the expectations in life but like here's where I've not lived up to those expectations.

Jim Daly: You know the irony too Champ, I want to play the other side of that coin because some parents that have been very diligent, you know, the difficulty with humanity, and the Lord knows this better than anyone, is that we have free will and He has given that to us. And you might have done an excellent job, an A+ in your parenting and did all the right things. You did devotions and that child has become a prodigal.

And the weight and the guilt of some of that that parents have for what could I have done better, it almost takes it out of the hands of their free will and the Lord's design for their journey. You know some kids are going to have to hit a valley and we wear that very hard as a parent. Like we beat ourselves up saying where did I miss it, Lord? Where did I let you down, Lord, that this child you gave me responsibility for is not acting in a way that honors you? What do you say to that parent?

Champ Thornton: Well, I feel like probably the first thing is not even something you say but if I'm having a conversation with someone like that maybe the first thing is listening. I want to hear tell me more about your story, tell me more about your situation, how's it affecting you? I want to hear some of the pain that they're carrying. And not just that I hear it, but the Lord hears it. He knows. He knows the pain.

I do think when we talk about parenting we're talking about a wisdom issue and we go to Proverbs for example, we see Proverbs is like a city map with streets and you know if you go down two blocks and turn left you'll be at your destination and it's very mapped out with causes and destinations. And we feel like, yeah, that's how parenting works. You do A, you do B, you do C and it leads to D, right? But what if it doesn't?

Well, God is honest about that and He's given us Ecclesiastes and the book of Job to show that A and B and C sometimes don't lead to D, it leads to Z. And if nothing else the Lord is telling us I know that sometimes that happens in a broken world. But He's done more than that. He's done two things: He's gone to the book of Psalms, you see lots of Psalms of praise, so when A and B and C leads to D, praise the Lord.

And then when it leads to Z, there's Psalms of lament, Psalms of complaint. Lord, hear us. Lord, You've done stuff in the past for our fathers, would You do it for us now? Lord, where are You? And these songs of complaint come from God. He wants those in our mouths to Him. And so I would say to a parent who's struggling with this: learn and inhabit those Psalms of lament because God gave them for that purpose.

And then the last thing I would say is God doesn't just speak to us from a far from heaven about these things. He came down in the person of His Son and He walked this road of pain and disappointment and He knew what it was like to have people close to Him who rejected Him, who turned on Him. And He's not God far away from you, He's a God who understands exactly what you're going through.

Jim Daly: Yeah, and that's so good. And listen, if you're that parent, get in touch with us. Focus has spent almost 50 years now compiling help for you. It's one of the things that we do. Even like finding this great book by Champ Thornton, The Really Radical Book for Kids: More Truth, More Fun. This is what we're doing to help you, to identify those wonderful resources that can get into your hands and you can apply them. I mean that's part of what we're doing here. So help us, help us to continue to do that. If you can make a gift in any amount, a one-time gift, a monthly gift to be part of the ministry, send that along and just ask for a copy of the book and we'll send it as our way of saying thank you for being part of this wonderful outreach that the Lord has provided.

John Fuller: Yeah, get in touch and donate today at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. And of course, when you get in touch, Jim alluded to our counseling team and help that we can give you if you're in a spot where you're hurting about some of the things going on in your parenting journey. Call that number and ask for one of our counselors to give you a call back. It'd be a privilege for us, as Champ said, to listen to your story and to help as we can. Champ, thanks again for being with us. It's been great.

Champ Thornton: Thanks, Jim. I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks, John.

John Fuller: And thank you for joining us as well. And by the way, if you happen to be traveling this summer to or near Colorado, we'd love to have you drop by and see us. We've got our wonderful bookstore here and a terrific play place for kids featuring exhibits from Adventures in Odyssey and our very own Whit's End ice cream soda shop. It's fun for the whole family and we'll have a link on the website for you to check it out. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again have you and your family thrive in Christ.