Practice Makes Parent

Dr. Danny Huerta: Hey guys, we made something we think you'll love. Our new Practice Makes Parent t-shirts are all about what parenting actually feels like.

Rebecca St. James: They're available for pre-order during the month of August using the link in our episode description. Don't miss out.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Welcome to Practice Makes Parent, where we understand it's not about perfection but about transformation. I'm Dr. Danny Huerta.

Rebecca St. James: I'm Rebecca St. James. Today we have part two with our wonderful guest, Billy Hutchinson. It was so good last week that we had to continue this conversation on worldview because it really is important that we as parents are equipped to encourage our kids with a biblical Christian worldview so that they know how to handle the intense pressures that are hitting them right now in society.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Billy Hutchinson is the director of Colson Educators at the Colson Center. He's spent over a decade in Christian education as both a classroom teacher and as an administrator. You'll soon see that Billy is passionate about what he does at the Colson Center and just being a dad to his own five-year-old. I loved hearing his heart. I'm excited about part two.

Rebecca St. James: Me too. This is such a needed conversation and we are so grateful for Billy's expertise. Billy, welcome back. Thank you so much for doing round two with us.

I want to dive straight in on an idea that I've really been passionate about when it comes to worldview and character formation, biblical formation with our kids. That is the idea of apologetics. I have three kids that are 12, 8, and 5. My oldest, I've just been recently thinking it would be really great if she and I could press in on a curriculum together where we can learn about why Christianity is true.

What are the foundational beliefs of apologetics that can really help her know and trust that what she believes, what she's committed to as a Christian is true? I also thought it would be a lovely bonding experience for us as well to journey through that. I've thought about Lee Strobel's *Case for Christ* for kids and curriculum like that that we could study together. What are some ideas around that idea of apologetics and resources that you're thinking of, Billy?

Billy Hutchinson: One that we have is actually from the president of the Colson Center, John Stonestreet. Last week you referenced the *Practical Guide to Culture* book that John put out almost a decade ago. There's also a student version of that, which is a *Student's Guide to Culture*.

What's really cool of seeing this happen in some families is that the parents will read the book and then the students will read along with them. The first part of the book talks about what a worldview is and what culture is. The second part of the book really talks through issues of gender and even things like economics, purpose, identity, and calling.

The *Practical Guide* is aimed at how do parents walk students through these conversations. The *Student's Guide* is clarifying what some of those issues are and then having them get some questions that they can think through as well. When you have a parent that will read the chapter on identity and then the student read the chapter on identity, that gives them a common framework to work from, yet questions that are designed for the parents to disciple the children and for the children to bring to bear on culture or even questions for them to ask their parents. Those resources together are really good.

There's another book that I would recommend from Rebecca McLaughlin that's called *10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask*. It walks through questions that teenagers should ask. You could take that from a parent and say if they're not going to ask them, maybe I'll throw the question out and we can walk through how those would be answered.

From an apologetic standpoint, let me make a distinction here. Apologetics gets a bad rap because people are like how do I answer this question and what is the answer that's going to defeat this objection to Christianity? I'm much more on the worldview shaping end of it. There is a component of apologetics that's in worldview shaping, but you can have apologetics without thinking through a worldview lens. When you look at a worldview and you shape a worldview, then those apologetic questions are going to naturally come in. As I mentioned last week, when you look at a worldview that says something about what is true, then you're naturally going to go how do I know that the Bible is true as you move in that direction? Whereas you could just ask the question of what is true about the Bible and then not make that bridge to what is true about everything else in reality. I would lean in again. Apologetics is good, but worldview formation is the better way to do that to get both of those pieces together.

Dr. Danny Huerta: There's an intellectual building that's taking place as we are guiding our kids through this. There's an intellectual connection and then there's a heart connection that we're also building. When we're thinking about worldview, we think about that intellectual practice, but there is clearly a relational component to this that you're talking about and alluding to. It's so important to model a loving relationship. We see the evidence of spiritual maturity through the fruit of the Spirit and we think about just the relational opportunities that our kids get. It seems that that's where we need to also have conversations. We need to talk about a worldview from a relational standpoint, not just an attaining of academic information, but from a relationship standpoint. Talk to that a bit, Billy. How do we help our kids see relationship as part of worldview formation?

Billy Hutchinson: That's such an important question because when we look at this understanding of identity and we look at the understanding of human beings and what it means to be made in the image of God, we are by our very nature relational people. This isn't just about winning an argument. It's about winning a person to Christ. When I was in the classroom and students were like how do I respond to this person when they say this, I would ask them if they have the relational capital to have that conversation with somebody.

A lot of times we think I'm going to show up to this person and I know that they're in this type of lifestyle and I'm going to give them nine podcasts and eight books and just shove it in their face. For them, they look at you as if you feel that they are a project, a project to be won or a victory to be had. The older I get, the more I understand about how we need one another from a relational standpoint. We have to cultivate an understanding. Francis Schaeffer said it this way: we need to treat and see people as they are created in Genesis chapter two and not the sinners we are in Genesis chapter three. As we cultivate a relationship and people see that we actually love them, then we have the ability to speak truth with love without compromising anything. Too often we just run into arguments armed with truth but without grace or love and we actually end up pushing people further and further away instead of gaining relational capital to have the right to speak into those issues.

Rebecca St. James: What I hear you saying too is that we're not just potentially doing this with peers or our kids doing this with peers at school, but we're often potentially doing that with our own kids. Just being preachy and not relational about it and just thinking we know and you've got to listen. What are some relationship building strategies even with our kids? How can we be intentional? How can we be pouring into them in ways that really connect on that relational level so they're not just tuning it out because it's truth, but it's a back and forth, it's a conversation, it's connected? How do you advise us on that?

Billy Hutchinson: When you look at parenting style, some of us could fall into the authoritarian mode. I'm the parent, therefore you do it. There is an element of that that has to apply in some cases, but the authoritative mode I think is much better in which they understand the why behind your asking them to do something.

My little boy is running around the apartment. He's tumbling around and doing things and we continue to tell him don't run, don't run. We have to tell him the reason we don't want you to run is because we don't want you to trip over your toy and hit your face on the table. We don't want you to do this or we want you to do this because here's the heart behind it. It's not because we're some sort of killjoy. We want you to flourish.

When we look at flourishing, fences are good for two things: to keep the bad things out and to keep the good things confined in a certain way. He was talking about the Ten Commandments the other day and he was like, "Daddy, I've memorized them." He can walk through and tell you all ten commandments. I said, "Now you'll spend the rest of your life trying to figure out exactly what those mean in terms of how do I honor my father and mother and how do I not covet."

As we model that for our children, yet we have to give them sometimes the here's the why because I love you and because these are the things that are happening so that you can flourish, not just because we want to be punitive or we want to remove things from you. We want to instill in you those values. His teacher tells him right now, "I want listening ears and an obedient heart." What does that look like as we reinforce that at home to say we want you to do this because we want what's best for you? What's best for you may not seem good for you now.

Parents, you're not there to be the best friend of your child. You're there to develop them so that they will flourish later. That's been in education, it's been in personal lives, it's been with our friends. There is a value in having a strong relationship, but you're still the parent and you still have to press forward for what's good.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Research is backing that up. Just recently the large flourishing study pointed that out, that that strong relationship with guidance and with warmth leads to a flourishing child. If you're curious, parents, about your parenting style, we have a quiz for you. It's free. Look for that in the show notes. It's a parenting styles quiz. It'll let you know if you're more of that authoritarian parenting style or a permissive one or authoritative. Then it'll guide you into that seven traits assessment.

One of the things that just sticks out to me as we're talking through this, I was thinking about a conversation I had with my daughter when she was younger, she was around eight, nine, ten years old. She said, "How do we know that God is listening to our prayers? How do I know that, Dad? Because we keep praying. We prayed for our neighbor to heal her of her cancer. She ended up dying. Does He really actually listen to our prayers?"

It's a great question. I loved sitting within that question with my daughter and affirming that. I was saying we think that God would want that healing to take place and here's a trust component we need to look at. We don't fully understand why God answers certain prayers and why He doesn't others. How about we continue to pray and write down some of those prayers and see how He's answering some of these prayers?

One of the times she decided to come up with this idea of 60 seconds where we would pray together and the idea was that we would just be present with each other. What I told her is this reminds me of when I'm praying to my Heavenly Father. You've given me a picture of what God feels like with us. He wants to carry things for us. He wants to be with us in all that we do. Yet He's going to do what's best for us, not just what we think we need in the moment. Me as a dad, just holding you and you sharing things about school, you probably would want me to fix all those things. There are some things you're needing to go through at school and you need to grow through that are difficult that I wish I could just resolve for you, but it's actually good for you to go through these things. Do you trust me? She says yes.

In this relationship, hopefully I begin to model a close relationship that you can have with your Heavenly Father. In that close relationship with our kids, we are able to create a safe environment for them to ponder worldview, for them to consider what it is that they struggle with with their Heavenly Father.

I was thinking about three things here, Billy. In worldview, one is it tells us in first Peter to be sober-minded. For our kids, we need to talk about being sober-minded in what they do. There are a lot of things they can take them off track. The second one is to be prepared to give an answer. It talks about that in first Peter as well, to give an answer to what we believe. Then the other one is to love others freely and that's part of worldview. How do we see the people around us and how do we love them freely? Let's go into a practical rhythm in the home. What are some things that you've come up with, Billy? The dinner talks, the elevating expectations, let's talk about some practical ways that parents can live this out with their kids regardless of stage.

Billy Hutchinson: It's important to make a distinction between safe and that doesn't mean you're not stretched. As we look at it, it is a safe place to where any question could be asked, no matter how much we think the question might be ridiculous. That question is pressing on someone. In our home, we want to have it to where our little boy can always ask us any sort of question, no matter what it would be. They're not chastised for asking a question, no matter how big the question is.

I think about this in my own life experience, especially as it relates to the problem of evil and some things that I have walked through. It's always okay to ask God the question why. He never chastises us for asking the question why. We see this throughout the Psalms. When we step over into saying who are You to allow this to happen, that's where we've crossed the line.

We need to model for our children how can we answer questions in tough circumstances. How can we wrestle with these issues? At home we may, and this is kind of down the pipe for our little boy because he's only five, but as news stories come up, we want to ask questions of where's the brokenness here? Where do you see the brokenness here?

We talk about this at the Colson Center a whole lot, especially as it relates to calling. I think these four questions would really apply to anything from a movie, a song, a book, a news story. We ask a question like, "What's good here that we can celebrate?" That's a worldview question. What's good that we can celebrate here? What's broken that I can fix? Why is it broken and is my solution to this brokenness actually a biblical solution? What's missing that I can create here? What's evil that I can stop?

As we think through those four questions of what's good that I can celebrate, what's missing that I can create, what's broken that I can fix, and what's evil that I can stop, now we can have those conversations at our dinner table. We can say to our little boy, "In that movie that you watched today, what was something that was evil that needed to be stopped and why do you think that was evil?" Now we're putting those worldview questions in over and over and over again.

You put those in music. What is being celebrated here? Is that really good or is that something that we should not celebrate? Same thing with TV shows and movies or whatever it would be, but those questions, that framework of understanding what are the right questions to ask when we sit down. I hope that gives some practical things just in how you would guide conversations. The other piece of that that's assumed is that you're having conversations with your children. You need to have conversations. Put the phones down. Put them away. Put them in another room during dinner. That is going to be revolutionary enough for them. When you go out to eat somewhere, you see every other family is nose-deep in their phone and they're not actually having relationships. Sherry Turkle had a TED talk that was called "Connected but Alone." We're more connected than we've ever been, but we're more alone than we've ever been.

Rebecca St. James: I think that's wonderful advice to put the phones away. We talk about that a lot on this show, about being intentional about family dinners and family meals. It's healthy in every way: spiritually, emotionally, mentally, relationally for our kids to have those family meals. I love the ideas that you've given us here for dinner conversations.

Another idea for parents too is to go in person. Take them to pregnancy resource centers, serve the poor, or find a charity that you can partner with and serve. Just recently, Gemma, my oldest, and I went to Ecuador with Compassion International. It was just such a powerful trip. I think re-centering for her, especially when it comes to worldview. I mean talk about worldview. She's seeing different parts of the world that are struggling and realizing she can do something about it by sponsoring our sponsored child, Leah. I think that's really key too.

Then you said something last week about liturgy that I thought was so great. You said sometimes we push back on that idea of liturgy. It feels maybe to some of us religious or rote. I think there's a resurgence, I've really seen it in Christian families, a resurgence of the value of modern liturgy. Can you just speak to that too when it comes to worldview? Unpack that a little bit more, the value of liturgy and speaking intentional truth to our kids, not in a religious rote way, but in a very relational way like we've been talking about?

Billy Hutchinson: You're right to mention that some folks will look at liturgy as almost the actions without the meaning behind it. You can have a completely void liturgy, but that's not how the Bible presents those things. As we think about those liturgies, they all need to flow from a position that these are done to reinforce our teaching.

One of the things that's my favorite part of the day is when our little boy prays over our meals at dinner. To hear a five-year-old's prayer, we unfortunately had to put our dog down about a year ago and he would pray for God is taking care of her in heaven. I'm like okay, well, there's some theological things we're going to have to work through on that. The idea that he's concerned enough about other people that he's praying over our meals, that liturgy is the practical application of those catechisms. As we think through how we live our life, if we really believe this about humanity, then what liturgies do we have in place that are going to honor people and to love people?

They can be practical liturgies. At the school that I was at, whenever we had a presentation, we made the young men wear a coat and tie because it symbolized there's a gravity that's happening to this, that this moment is different. We're going to do a liturgy that reinforces these important things or these important truths. It is so devoid in our culture today. People are kind of like, "Wait a minute, this just seems rote for us to do this or there's nothing behind it." That gives us a really good opportunity for us to speak into why these things are meaningful and why they matter and why we can speak words of love and grace and truth over one another because Jesus has spoken words of love, grace, and truth over us. He has enacted those in His work on the cross. That models for us how God has spoken these words of grace, love, and truth over all of creation. As we move through that, those pieces just intentionally reinforce what we're talking about so that they're getting both the action and the content and the modeling as we spoke of earlier.

Dr. Danny Huerta: There's the reverence piece here. It's a posture of the body. There's a discipline to this and we get to drive that as parents. There are certain rhythms that we get to have and we get to model in our homes. The first one is spending time in God's Word and reading it together as a family, speaking words of blessing over our kids. You can even put notes in your kids' lunches with a verse or something that would be beneficial for them. There are a lot of boxes out there, I know we have them in our bookstore here at Focus on the Family, where it already has those made or you can write some out and put those in your kids' lunch bags.

Another one is prayer, having prayer time together. Maybe you pause somewhere, you're walking around the neighborhood, you're going through the house and you just stop and pray. That's another rhythm where you can show I truly believe in this conversation I'm having with my Heavenly Father. Another one is having a steadfast identity as a child of Christ. That's built throughout our lifetime. We can talk about what we have learned about the identity of who we've been created to be and how we have discovered that in our story. Then the next one is humility, a humble posture in conversation, in our day-to-day. Then one that we talk about a lot in our show is rest and balance. This idea that we show that we can rest because we trust in our Heavenly Father. We live out of balance because we're not trying to gain people's approval and affirmation. We are here to serve and we're here to love others around us even through our work. Through those rhythms, we can pass on to our kids something that's so beneficial that they'll learn in our day-to-day rhythms.

We have that in our Built for Resilience curriculum. That's a train the trainer curriculum that we would encourage you to check out. Tell your pastor, tell your school, your homeschool co-op about it. It's a quick training, four and a half hours, and then it's a 13-week parenting class to go through these rhythms and to learn about the 40 developmental assets that you can build in your child. Check that out. It's called Built for Resilience.

Just to close this conversation up, Billy, it's been great to talk to you. What would be one thing that a parent could do starting today, right now, after listening to the show, as they prioritize worldview?

Billy Hutchinson: One thing. That's hard because I've got like 15 that I could just start with. I would think that just begin to learn how to ask the right questions: the questions of what's real, what's good, what's true, what's beautiful. You can do derivatives of those of, "Who are you?" and see how your student answers that. How they answer that question will reveal a lot about their worldview.

Learn how to ask the right questions so that then they can now open up conversations with their children. For many parents, they're just afraid because they have no idea what questions may come out because of what is in culture or what they've seen. Learn how to ask the right questions and then if they don't know the answer, say, "You know what? That's a really good question. Let's find out together. Let's walk through this together." It's that piece of humility where it models that lifelong learning. We don't have it all figured out now and we're not going to. It's not about perfection.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Billy, we appreciate the conversation, part one, part two. It's been great to spend some time with you. I think you've given us great tools to be working with in our homes and I'm sure listeners have been encouraged by what you've talked about.

Rebecca St. James: Billy, thank you so much for being a part of our podcast. We know this is going to be a tremendous asset to parents that have been listening. Thank you so much.

Billy Hutchinson: It was great to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Rebecca St. James: Next week we are going to be talking to Dave Bowden about raising Gen Alpha. You're not going to want to miss that.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Gen Alpha are our twins right now, those born between 2010 and 2024. That conversation will be eye-opening. Be sure to join us. I'm Dr. Danny Huerta.

Rebecca St. James: I'm Rebecca St. James. Join us next time for more tips for transforming your parenting on Practice Makes Parent.

Dr. Danny Huerta: We wanted to share something with you we've been working on. If you've been listening for a while, you know this is something we come back to a lot: the idea that we're all learning as we go in parenting.

Rebecca St. James: That's actually what inspired our new Practice Makes Parent merch. Each design reflects a piece of what it really feels like to be a parent and some of those everyday moments we don't always put into words.

Dr. Danny Huerta: It's available for a limited time pre-order during the month of August. Check out all our designs using the link in our episode description.