Revive Our Hearts

Melissa Kruger: The most important thing about parenting teens is not making sure they follow God, but making sure you follow God.

Dannah Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of *You Can Trust God to Write Your Story*. For August 19, 2026, I'm Dannah Gresh.

The teen years. There will be joy, there will be challenges, and by God's grace, there will be hope. That's what Melissa Kruger wants to show you today. Melissa is mom to three, author of *Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age*. She shared about that book at our most recent True Woman conference. You ready to hear seven principles for parenting teens with hope? Let's dive in.

Melissa Kruger: It's so good to be with you to talk about this topic. I love talking about parenting teens. I want to just say if you're on the cusp of the teen years, you always hear from older moms—this was a statement I used to hate—"Oh, little people, little problems. Big people, big problems."

And you're just like, "Getting thrown up today was kind of a big problem from this little kid," or the tantrum where you're carrying a child and they're kicking you. Those moments feel kind of big in your life. So that was actually always incredibly discouraging to me.

A little bit of my background: I have three kids. I have a daughter who turns 25 at the end of this month. I have a son who will turn 22 next week. And I have a daughter who is 18 and she turns 19 in November. We were only able to get pregnant in February or March, it seems like. That's what we've determined.

And so those are where my kids are. So I'm actually—I cannot believe I'm slowly moving out of the teen years. I've only got one more year. 19, that's it. And so that is shocking to me. I just want to say I've truly enjoyed these years.

I love teaching teenagers. So I say I got to fail on all the ones I taught before. I had 150 kids. I taught at a large public high school, and I taught everyone's favorite subject: mathematics. I taught Algebra I, Algebra II, I taught discrete math. And I'm telling you, if you can get them to listen to you for 50 minutes, that feels like a minor miracle in that season of life.

And so that's kind of my background. And so I will say, I want to give some encouragement as we get into this. I'm not going to be able to say everything there is to say, obviously. But what I hope that this session will do is infuse some hope in this season. Because I think it can feel overwhelming. It can feel scary. It can feel shocking. And it can feel really guilt-ridden.

So I just want to say before we begin, I know everyone's coming into this topic from a little bit of a different place. I've seen a lot of babies in here and I'm like, "You are one second away from being a parent of a teenager" is how it feels. Right?

So I'm really glad you're here because a lot of the principles we're going to talk about, I wish I had known at six months. So a lot of it is applicable for all of motherhood. But I also know there are some women in here who are looking back.

Sometimes it's really tempting when we're having talks about parenting to just feel our failure and just be like, "Oh, I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I didn't do that." And I don't want anyone to do that because here's the thing: tomorrow is another day. And tomorrow is a day that you can start parenting with hope.

So even if you look back and say there's a lot of things I did wrong, don't get stuck in that. Just say, "Tomorrow I want to be the godly mother to my kids and honor God in my parenting." So that's part of the hope as we get into this topic.

And I just want to say that in the beginning: don't feel the failure. If the Lord convicts us, yeah, we can go to Him, we can confess. But just always remember, Christ came to die for all of us. We are all imperfect parents. No child out there is being raised by a perfect mother. They do not exist.

And no one has a perfect father either. So we're all trying our best to follow God as we walk through this mothering journey. And the best thing we can do is cheer one another on rather than condemn one another. So I'm going to start us with prayer and then we're going to jump in.

Father, we thank You so much for this time together. Lord, I thank You that You allow us to be mothers. Lord, what a gift to get to raise the next generation. Lord, we pray that we would be faithful stewards of the grace entrusted to us. That we would pass it on to the next generation. That we would not fail to tell them the good news that You have come into the world to save sinners, of whom we are the biggest.

So Lord, I pray that we would mother, that we would parent, that we would do it all with hope not in our own motherhood, but in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen.

Okay, well, what I'm going to do in this session is go through seven principles that I think help us to parent with hope. So if you're a note-taker, you can get out your pen and we're going to go through seven principles. I'm just going to springboard off those principles and talk about those.

And I hope that they will provide clarity. Again, they are not going to say everything that needs to be said, but I hope that they will kind of be some signposts on the journey of parenting. So the first principle of parenting with hope: our hope must be God-oriented, not child-oriented.

So our hope needs to be God-centered, not child-centered or I'm going even say circumstantially centered. Now, here's the thing: when you look out at the world today, it can feel just ominous when you talk about teenagers. It feels like there are threats around every corner.

And so we're looking at our world and we're saying, "There's this secular age. How on earth can I raise children who love the Lord?" It can be cell phones, it can be sexuality, it can be anxiety, it can be apathy. We see disobedience and we see discord. We see all of these things culturally. If we look at our circumstances, we are tempted toward despair.

And a story I always like to go back to in the Bible is the story of the 12 spies as they went into the Promised Land. Do you remember what happened when they did that? These 12 men go in, one from each tribe, and we have Caleb and Joshua. They go in as well. Everyone returns and what do they say?

"Those people are fierce. We look like grasshoppers in comparison. They are wealthy, they are strong, they've got it all together and we are this little nation." Ten of them said we shouldn't go in. We should just quit altogether. Do you remember what Caleb said? Listen to this.

He saw the exact same thing and he said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." The Lord is with us. What did he trust in? The Lord was with them. And so if you notice one common theme through Scripture, when you see the words "Do not fear," think what it's always accompanied with.

It is not "Do not fear because there's nothing to fear." It is not "Do not fear because they don't have way bigger soldiers than you." It's "Do not fear because," yeah, this is a pagan world we're living in in a lot of ways. It is always "Do not fear, for I am with you." It is always God's presence that alleviates our fears, not a circumstantial change.

And so that is what Caleb and Joshua—yes, they saw the circumstances. So what we don't want to be is blind. Your children are not going to be promoted in their faith just by living in a secular world. This isn't an age that's encouraging them in their faith. So we're not blind to that. We see the giants in the land. There really are giants in the land.

But what we say is, "I can have hope because I serve a God who is with me in this parenting journey." You are not alone. Okay, so that's the first thing: we keep this God-centered hope because God is with us.

And here's the second thing I want you to hope in. And this is really good news for everyone in this room. Children are not saved by perfect parenting. And you can say amen. Children are not saved by perfect parenting. It never says in Scripture, "For by perfect parenting you have been saved and this through the mother."

It doesn't say that. What does it say? "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of itself, it's a gift of God. Not by works," not even by your motherhood works, so no one can boast.

So every child who becomes a Christian is saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. The grace of Jesus Christ, not perfect parenting. So we hope in that. The other thing we hope in is this—so this is true too. God saves, but He also does work through families.

So here's the thing: both are true at the same time. God is the one saving, and what you do in your home really, really matters. The environment of your home is doing something to shape and fashion this child.

We see this, don't we, when Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy. Do you remember what he says about who does he comment? How did Timothy start to know the Scriptures that were able to make him wise for salvation? His mom and his grandmother.

Isn't that interesting? The thought is that Timothy's father was a Greek and didn't know and that his mother and his grandmother taught him the Holy Scriptures. Okay, so what's going on in the home matters. There's a really great book, it's called *Handing Down the Faith*. And it's a study of the passing of faith from one generation to the next.

Not just Christian, it looks at different faith traditions. The question was "How is faith transmitted from one generation to the next?" I want you to listen to this because it's encouraging and maybe a little bit terrifying.

Some readers might be surprised to know that the single most powerful causal influence on the religious lives of American teenagers and young adults is the religious lives of their parents. Not their peers, not the media, not their youth group leaders or clergy, not their religious school teachers.

Myriad of studies show that beyond a doubt, the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave the home. So what you are doing in the home really matters, but it does not matter in a salvific sense. Okay?

So you are creating an environment in which the Spirit, in which God can come in and be at work and make alive. And what we think of leaving an inheritance for our children as money. Guys, that's not what it's talking about. Children's inheritance is to leave it to generation? This is the treasure. God's Word.

It's way more of a treasure than a pile of gold or honey. Okay, so to know the Word and pass it on to the generations, that's an inheritance. That's what we get to do. So then if the Spirit, if God saves them, think about a child who is saved who has been raised in the Scriptures.

Think about how that affects their faith and how they go out into the world with the Word already memorized because of all those songs you sang around the breakfast table. Think about that. Wow, what an amazing gift to the church. What an amazing gift to the world. That's an inheritance we get to do.

So yes, it's the Spirit. We hope because the Spirit saves and we hope because what we're doing actually really does matter. It really, really does matter. Okay, principle two: the most important thing about parenting teens is not making sure they follow God, but making sure you follow God.

And one of our temptations is always to be thinking how do I control my child's behavior? I just want to say you can't. You cannot control your child's behavior. You can control your behavior though.

And one of the most important things we can be doing as parents, whether you are parenting a six-month-old or a 16-year-old, is to be a woman who sets herself before the Lord, who knows His Word, who is in prayer, who is begging the Lord daily to save her children. Remember what Deuteronomy 6 says? Listen to it with me again.

"You shall love the Lord your God," you, you shall love the Lord your God "with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. Then you shall teach them to your children and talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise."

So here's the thing: it doesn't start with you doing the teaching. It starts with you doing the abiding. So we abide in God's Word. We know it ourselves. And guess what? Then you are equipped when you are in the car and they ask you, "I don't—what's going on? Why shouldn't I lie? Why should I tell the truth?"

Your time in the Word is going to equip you for those car-ride conversations that come later. So that's what we need to be focusing on: that we are putting on God's Word as we walk with our children.

One of the scariest verses in Scripture for me—it's actually it's in 2 Kings 17:41. If you go and look it up. And this is what it says: even while these people were worshiping the Lord, listen to this, while they were worshiping the Lord—this is Israel—they were serving their idols. And their children and their grandchildren did likewise.

So here's the thing: they had an outward sign of religiosity. They were worshiping the Lord. But what were they really doing? They were serving their idols. This is going to be one of those hard truths that I think we need to talk about, but we don't often want to talk about.

Culture out there is actually a lot less impactful on my children than the idolatry in here. We want to blame culture because we don't want to look at our stuff. Okay, culture out there is actually impacting your children a lot less than the idolatry in your own heart. We all have idols of the heart—comfort, approval, power. You can go through all of those type things and think about it.

When I look culturally at America and I look at the West, the idols that I see very prevalent in our world today are scholarship and affluence, sports and activities, social approval and acceptance. Not sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We're worried about the wrong things.

We think all these bad things are out there that are encroaching. And what I want to say is we are sacrificing the better thing for something that seems like a good idea. So think about it as a parent. It is really tempting in our day and age to not go to church because you've got to be at that sports thing.

It is really tempting to say, "Oh, you've got a big math test tomorrow, so okay, you're going to miss youth group." It's really tempting to say, "Oh, yeah, my kid can't really study or memorize Scripture, but they have to take five APs so they can get into a good college."

Do you see what we've done? We are telling and teaching our children what really matters. It's subtle. It's subtle. But we want to tell them the best thing of life, no matter what they do in this world, is to follow hard after God. That's what we want to be communicating.

So we've got to look at our own hearts. We've got to think about this. And the only way our kids are going to be convinced that this is the most important thing to us is if it is the most important thing to us. But there's something in us, right? That when we see them doing the amazing thing on the soccer field, we're like, "Yeah, that's my kid."

Whereas when they're pursuing and going to church and taking notes—there's no highlight reel of that. But that's the thing our hearts need to hope for the most. So point two is simply this: parenting teens with hope begins with making sure we follow God, not just that they follow God.

And let me just also say this on this point. I want to highlight this. I could say this after every point. We all get this wrong. We all overemphasize the wrong things. I just want to say one of the best things we can do as parents is learn to give a really good apology.

Get in the habit of apologizing. One of the best compliments my new son-in-law gave our family, and he said it so in jest. He was like, "You guys say you're sorry way too fast in this family. You've got to let it lie for a little while and have some tension." And he's so fun. I love him.

It's the best to just get a new family member that you just love so deeply. But that's one thing we worked hard is to own our stuff as parents. To say, "Hey, I am sorry I yelled about the shoes." The shoes should not have been left where they were left, but me yelling about it, that's all me.

That is all me and I apologize for it. Could you please work on putting your shoes back in the proper place so I do not trip over them next time? But mom should not have yelled at you anyway. So I just want to say us learning to do that is really important as parents.

Because what you are doing is you are modeling what it is like to be an imperfect person. And guess what? You're an imperfect person raising an imperfect person, and they will go on to an imperfect marriage and they will have imperfect children. And so you are helping them.

And that is what the Bible helps us to do and understand: how do I as an imperfect person go forward? Oh, I repent a lot in life. I say I'm sorry and we give forgiveness. And that's what happens in a family. That's what we keep doing.

And I listened to a really interesting podcast about this. It was a secular podcast. And she was talking about this very thing, this need to apologize. And she said it's actually how our physical bodies work. Our physical bodies work in such a way that when you lift, it creates small tears in the muscle and that's how they actually get stronger.

And she was like, "These small tears in relationship that are then repaired with an apology actually strengthen the bond." So when we do this: apologizing, saying we're sorry, doing this relational thing, it's actually strengthening our families. It's not weakening. It's not weakening you as a parent. Your kid in their soul already knows you were wrong to be yelling like that. So it helps them to actually hear you say I'm sorry I did it.

Okay, principle three: don't underestimate the power of the basics. Again, if we look at our physical bodies, if I were to ask you how do you maintain a healthy physical body? Every diet from the history of the planet basically comes down to eat right and exercise. Right? Eat right and exercise. At some level, eat right and exercise. That's how our physical bodies are maintained.

If we want to create a healthy spiritual culture in our home, it's actually not hard. It's not hard to understand. It's difficult to live out. Okay, we need to be a family that's in the Word. We need to be a family that's in prayer, and we need to be a family that's in the church.

It's not hard, but it is difficult to live out because our world is constantly pressing in. We think it's pressing in on all these other things. Yeah, we think it's pressing in on sexuality. We think it's pressing in on social media. And it is doing all those. I'm not denying those.

But what Satan's really trying to keep you from is God's Word, from prayer, and from the church. Because God has given means by which He works in the life of His people. And those are the means by which He works.

What did we hear about the Word? It is able to make you wise for salvation. It is living and active. It can work in your child's heart. What do we know about prayer? That is our lifeline to God. We cry out to God for the salvation of our children.

But what am I tempted to do? I am tempted to go to Google and be like, "What do I do about this? What do I do about this?" Or now we go to AI, right? "What do we do about this?" We have actually the God of all the universe who could actually change their hearts.

And I want to call up my friend and say, "What should I do?" And I do this over and over then finally I'm like, "I have not even prayed. I have not even asked God, will You help me in this situation?" And His Word is constantly shaping us and fashioning us to help us.

But I want to give this one quote: Harvard Chan School of Public Health study. And this is what it says about the religious life of teenagers and participating in church services. And I just want to say this: it's okay to make your kid go to church.

Again, I taught a large public high school. No child wanted to be in my Algebra II class. I can tell you, they did not want to be there. No parent said, "Well, I'm scared they won't really love Algebra II if I force them to go." Okay, no one said that to me. You know what they say? "You're going to Algebra II. You're going."

I just want to say you can say, "Hey, in our family while you live here, we go to church." I don't want you to be afraid of doing that. Okay? And so listen to this: participating in spiritual practices during childhood and adolescence may be a protective factor for a range of health and well-being outcomes in early adulthood.

Researchers found that people who attended weekly religious services or practiced daily prayer or meditation in their youth reported greater life satisfaction and positivity in their 20s. They were less likely subsequently to have depressive symptoms, smoke, use illicit drugs, or have a sexually transmitted infection than people raised with less spiritual habits.

Here's another quote from this: the results show that people who attended religious services at least weekly in childhood and adolescence were approximately 18% more likely to report higher happiness as young adults than those who never attended services.

So if I told you there was a drug that could give your child an 18% bump in happiness and less anxiety, we would have people lined up for it because we know we are living in a completely anxious age with our kids. But the very community that God created to enfold them and bring them in and make them feel safe, we are too busy to go.

Because we've got sports to play and we've got other things to do on Sunday. And that's our day off and so we want to rest and be together as a family. Be together as a family in the church. It really does matter. It really does matter.

Dannah Gresh: Yes, it does. I'm grateful for Melissa's bold encouragement today. One of the best things you can do for your teens is make church your number one priority. If you're thinking, "I've already failed in this area. We've prioritized weekend sports tournaments, we've skipped church to sleep in, we've just really dropped the ball on this."

Well friend, it's not too late to start again. Like Melissa shared, you can sit your kids down and say, "I'm sorry. We haven't been prioritizing church in our family and it's not been healthy for us. We're going to make a change together." And this might just be one of the most powerful things your teen could hear from you.

As Melissa shared, the enemy wants to keep your teen from more than the church. He wants to keep them from opening their Bibles, too. That's why we created the Wonder app. This resource gets teen girls into God's Word every day, defying the enemy by flooding their hearts with biblical truth.

When your girl hops on the app, she'll be welcomed by 10 Wonder mentors who are so excited to dive into Scripture with her. They're creating fun and engaging devotional videos to help your teen mine the depths of God's Word one day at a time. Learn all about the app at ReviveOurHearts.com/wonder. Then share it with a teen girl in your life. We'd love to see her there.

Need some help seeing God's goodness in the midst of the crazy busy teen years? When you donate any amount this month, we'll send you *Finding Beauty in Every Season*, a brand new book featuring photography from our team and quotes from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Now, it would be a lovely coffee table book for guests to flip through, or maybe to keep in your car and read while you're waiting for your kid's practice to end. To give and request yours, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

We just heard Melissa's first three principles for parenting teens with hope, which means there are four to go. We'll hear the rest tomorrow, and let me tell you, they are incredibly practical. You're going to want to hear Melissa's wisdom on Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.