[SPEAKER_02]: Hey guys, welcome back to the courageous parenting podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Today we have a special episode for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be interviewing Leslie Fennery.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're have a really lovely conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Regarding all things motherhood, she is one of the founders co-founder with her husband and the teach them diligently homeschooling conventions that have been going on for about fifteen years.
[SPEAKER_02]: as well as an author and her most recent book that she co-authored was Faith that sticks to settling your pre-teens.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're gonna be talking about homeschooling, discipling your pre-teens.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're also gonna talk about a book that she co-authored, co-created a legacy Bible which was a really rad, consent and conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just know that you're gonna be super encouraged.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like always, all the shonans will be at courageousparenteen.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: just click on the video and podcast and the latest episode will come up as well as all other resources that you might need is that the B courageous ministry dot org.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for joining us today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey guys, thanks for coming back to the courageous parenting podcast today.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so excited to have Leslie Nunnery with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for joining me today, Leslie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so glad to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, well, I am excited because we have a lot of listeners who are younger moms who are just starting their journey of homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have moms who've been homeschooling for ten, twenty years as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so maybe some of them are familiar with you because you've been running that teach them diligently.
[SPEAKER_02]: home schooling convention for many years, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll talk a little bit about that, but you also have a few books out and you've just been in this mom and thing for a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I love introducing other moms to biblical Christian women who've been living out the faith and discipling their kids on purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm very excited for people to meet you today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe you could share a little bit about you, how long you've been married?
[SPEAKER_02]: your husband, David.
[SPEAKER_02]: How long have you guys been married?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been married for twenty-six years.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have four children.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all grown now.
[SPEAKER_00]: My baby just graduated from high school this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everyone has grown and we now have two grandchildren.
[SPEAKER_00]: By God's grace, everybody lives close so well, we get to see everybody and really enjoy just staying in community with each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's been one of the greatest things I think
[SPEAKER_00]: the foundation that you're laying when you parent, biblical, you invest in those relationships and shepherding those hearts really plays off or pays off so abundantly for this mama and for for I'm sure you as you get older and you see your kids continuing to walk with the Lord and wanting to continue to walk with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's just been a joy to see how God has grown them, grown our family and now kind of eshered us into this new stage of life.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, a lot of people know that we've talked about the Titus two ministry here on courageous parenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: We try to encourage people to find mentors that have fruit in their life that they can learn from.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so while I'm still getting to know you, I think that there's something really powerful in other women's scene that there are people who have done what their dream is actually.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now my husband and I, we just planted a church about nine, ten months ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in our tiny hometown here in Idaho,
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are some young parents that are thinking about homeschooling, that are struggling with that, like, that initial wrestle.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you remember what it was like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, that, oh, am I going to feel my kids?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not qualified.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it supposed to look like?
[SPEAKER_02]: just that the pressure that we put on ourselves as moms and the expectations that we have for ourselves and our kids sometimes can be overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I would love if maybe you could share a little bit of your journey with when you started homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why you started homeschooling?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then maybe an encouragement to those moms and then an encouragement to moms who've been doing it for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I would love to.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is I'm passionate about a couple of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is missional homeschooling and one is just biblical parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we can talk about those two things, we are going to be golden here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the Lord actually called me to or called David and I to homeschool out of a mindset of we never would like we were we were never gonna do that and The way my story goes really the Lord started just impressing on my heart that my time with my children was short and if I wanted to effectively disciple and pass on my faith I had to be with them I had to invest the time to to be there and so really that initial
[SPEAKER_00]: urge for for our family was discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was time with our kids that we could spend really investing in shepherding their hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so carnal that when I first started kind of feeling the leading that way, I
[SPEAKER_00]: trade, which was kind of French for argued with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: For are you sure about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we had a plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it just didn't fit what I had foreseen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Lord was very clearly leading and just removed any obstacles along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we started homeschooling our kids when my oldest son, who is now almost twenty six, he was
[SPEAKER_00]: He was going into fourth grade.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was quite a while ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of that year actually is when God called us to start teaching them diligently to really focus on discipleship and mission all homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you use homeschooling as a tool for what your real call is as a parent?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, which so crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know only God would write that script because we didn't know anything and we didn't know any of the players.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't know anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have used a lot of curriculum on year one year with a box curriculum.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I didn't even know anything so for this coming year in in twenty twenty six will be our fifteenth year of producing conferences.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the first several years, you didn't see David and I. We were production.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were just facilitating getting people out there through the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has called us forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have written books.
[SPEAKER_00]: We speak a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that didn't come until much, much later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now, through the years, God has really disburdened our hearts to equip families that are starting out as well as families who are in the trenches and kind of maybe feeling a little mired to really focus on what is important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually wrote a book a couple of years ago called Heart School, which is all about what is biblical parenting and excellent home education and how do they work together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really lays out
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly how you can homeschool missionally, periodically go for the hearts of your child and use the, you know, get your mission right and then line up everything else under it because for so many families, I see the struggle, especially those that are in it longer, the struggle becomes they have so many things on that top line.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homeschooling is the same as this, is the same as that and everything is of equal importance when it isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has called us to teach our children diligently, to go for their hearts, to pass on our faith, to prepare them, to walk through whatever door God opens for them in the days ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's biblical parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Home schooling comes up under that as an incredible tool to give you time, intentionality, opportunity, all the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's amazing as a tool.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you look at that as your mission, things are really, you're gonna have a lot of friction in your family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think people get kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: way to down in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Heart School actually is designed to try to help people wait through that and kind of line it back up again.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that when we first started homeschooling like you, Isaac and I fought with God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll just say, like we and with each other because it took a while for us to get into alignment and to like really get committed.
[SPEAKER_02]: At first, I think we were like, okay, we'll get our toes wet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it was like, okay, now we'll stand with our feet in the water.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now we'll go to our ankles.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, our knees.
[SPEAKER_02]: No art, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: And for years, I remember saying, I'm just taking one year at a time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not that mom that was addicted on homeschooling all the way through.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it wasn't until
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until probably my oldest was in high school that I realized, oh, like, looking at all of my other kids, we have nine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so once you've homeschooled kindergarten, you're like, oh, no, easy peasy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going back and do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once you get your senior, you're like, easy peasy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not like your perspective changes once you've actually done it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one thing that I did not realize I was signing up for that was a huge eye opener and really the most sanctifying part of homeschooling and motherhood for me was how much sin I was going to be on a daily basis by seeing yes to homeschooling because your kids are with you all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we'll see it in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So who do you are being sanctified more and more as you're trying to?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you're more aware of the refining that you need, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so God grows both the mom and dad and the kids so much through this because of the togetherness and you know, you can't miss it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish I would have had your book art school many years ago because when we were first like looking into homeschooling, I remember going to a few homeschool conferences.
[SPEAKER_02]: um here in the Pacific Northwest and walking out after hearing some speakers talk about how important character was and that that's the most important thing in academics or secondary and I remember like looking around at the home schoolers that I saw and I'll be honest most of them were very socially awkward and seemed very unprepared for real world and they there was this um this attitude of like
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if we're teaching biblical truth and we're heavy on the Bible and we're heavy on character, then actually it was like they were spending so much time doing that that they weren't even getting to the academics and it was pretty apparent that the kids were unprepared and they weren't going to necessarily launch an enter into society if they were guy like being able to be an entrepreneur or being ready to enter an industry, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of them, if they were entering industries, it wasn't industries that were like, you know, medical or.
[SPEAKER_02]: technology or things that were, I don't know, revered in that day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was well, like, oh, I'm joining the family business in my dad did this, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we were looking, not that that's bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that that can be fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're really heavy on entrepreneurship and trying to figure out like what God's call is on our kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember being that young mom and looking around going, okay, that sounds great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes, faith is the most important thing to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But why can't we have both?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like why does academics have to be sacrificed?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I remember starting out going, I'm going to do a different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like having kind of this attitude of like, where do you both?
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have good character.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to focus on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be very team, but we're going to, we're going to raise kids that they can enter society.
[SPEAKER_02]: People would meet them and not go, oh, your homeschool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the socialization perspective, but instead be like, wow, they're homeschooled.
[SPEAKER_02]: That kind of changes my opinion about homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Just I have this like different vision, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And now, twenty one years later, looking at the kids and seeing the fruit and seeing them integrating into society, getting married, starting their own families, it's like, it's not what we've done.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what God does in the process.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that your book, what you're describing is kind of like the guidance that I needed back then, because I was floundering.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wasn't sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay, this is an experiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that's how we started and the other thing that I found we started with the right mission, like we knew that we were doing it for discipleship, but it didn't take any time before the check boxes and
[SPEAKER_00]: what I thought everyone else expected of me derailed my mission altogether because I started pursuing homeschooling more than hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's another thing that's very easy to fall into because I've talked to so many people who have.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just me, but that's another thing that it's just really, really good to zero down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the things, not just the wise, why are you doing this?
[SPEAKER_00]: But how does that look?
[SPEAKER_00]: practically what does that mean for my family and what we say yes to and no to and all of these things and so that again all of that is actually in the heart school book which I I have found to be just really helpful just in a small little you know three-hour read it gives a lot of clarity to what you are already thinking like so many people out there were thinking all of the nation I say
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's confirmation and it may help line it up for you a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may help just kind of position like you've got, I know with me anyway, I get all of these thoughts in my, I'm all over the place, but if I can line them up, it makes so much sense and it's actionable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I pray that by lining those things up for you, it's actionable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I, in fact, at the end of the podcast, I would love to give you readers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a workshop called the seven essential attributes of successful homeschooling, which just goes through heart schooling.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would love to give that workshop to everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll give you that link at the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that's perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, when you were saying that you weren't the only one, I would literally was sitting there going, um, made that mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, when I think back to those early years, it's like, it was so easy to get like, starry eye at the new curriculum that comes in the box.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay, we're going to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden, that's running your life, right, in your schedule.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're saying no to things that would have been good things, because no, we have to check the boxes off the list, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought that that was me being a faithful homeschooler and prioritizing what was important.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's interesting is it took a few years for me to realize that I that pursuit that pursuit was almost making academics an idol.
[SPEAKER_00]: No question.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it just like, and so then I kind of, if I'm honest, I kind of pendulum swung the other way.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not gonna do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Curriculum anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna do this now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gonna be like her and Jithler and sweeter and slower and all of the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, and I imagine if I am relating so much to what you're saying, they're like, sixty-five percent of the people out there go, oh, I did that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that we do that sometimes and we, but we need, that's where I think it's so important to have those older moms that can come in with the book, with the workshop, with the, um, which is the phone call even if you have people in your local church that have homeschooled, I cannot urge those listeners more than enough to sit down and invite them out to coffee, invest in buying them a lunch and just ask them
[SPEAKER_02]: to mentor you or share where you're at and ask for wisdom and prayer and accountability.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's I really think that today's church, there's so many aspects of today's church that are broken, but one of them that is massively detrimental is the lack of tightest two-minute women stepping up
[SPEAKER_02]: and being willing to take another brother, sister, under their wing and say, hey, I'll walk with you in this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're doing a good job.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: And just me, what we needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: What exactly?
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is a huge, a huge burden for David and I. That is, you know, at our church, I've actually started a T. Two ministry to try to make connections in that way because it's
[SPEAKER_00]: There needs to be some facilitating because it's so foreign right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, people don't just naturally do it with our teach them diligently, three, sixty-five community.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are actively trying to connect people in small groups through meetups through real moms of three, sixty-five just different ways to connect people with older.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you explain?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Teach them diligently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three sixty five is an online community of homeschool moms.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have access to all of the workshops from our events, which is just the audio vault is massive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's all searchable and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: but what's really sticky is there's an amazing community in there of like-minded they are teach them diligently mom so they are missional in focus they have a very similar they're making very similar choices to you so we have messaging groups we have small groups retreats meetups unsighted our events there's a lounge where a lot of the members
[SPEAKER_00]: have gotten to where they don't even go to many sessions because they get the recordings and they just take that time to spend in fellowship with women that they've been doing life with virtually all year long.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God has just turned that into an amazing, um, amazing resource and this summer we're actually rolling out a T-two membership.
[SPEAKER_00]: where those who have graduated out from our midst can stay in obviously for free if they will invest in those coming up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just to facilitate those kind of relationships because they like you said, they are so rare.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a struggle for women like you and I, you just had two grand babies, which is so exciting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that next generation.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are fourth grand babies do in a few weeks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we love grand parenting is just impossible.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are, I don't like babysit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like the term babysitting.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were spending time with our grandkids.
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: The night before.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it is part of our, it's a blessing and a privilege.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's also a jurisdiction for grandparents to be intentional with their grandkids.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what a delight and a joy there when they're being raised biblically, which is huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that requires investing in
[SPEAKER_02]: your kids even when they're older as parents, as their parents, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I remember years ago, I, there was this one woman that I just looked up to so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had seven kids and had been homeschooling for probably fifteen years longer than me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I took her out to coffee and I asked her, I was so scared to ask her she would mentor me because I had been turned down by so many people because they were too busy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she gently turned me down because she was too busy.
[SPEAKER_02]: because she had four of her kids married.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was investing in her daughter and loves.
[SPEAKER_02]: And her grandkids, she already had twelve at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think now she is thirty-eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just remember going, it's not fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the first generation home schooler in my family.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like the pilgrim or the pioneer, like making all of the mistakes.
[SPEAKER_02]: trying all the different curriculums with the different kids, with their different wiring, with, you know, the different learning styles.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm doing my best and I sometimes feel empty, like I need someone to point to me, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I remember feeling that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I have these moms who are feeling that way coming to me, wanting me to mentor them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm now
[SPEAKER_02]: Julie going, but I've got four great kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I get how hard it is for the Titus to women to prioritize or to have the time because when you've done it well, like you said at the very beginning of this podcast, your kids want to be in community with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they become your closest friends as their older and their brothers and sisters in Christ.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's this beautiful family culture that's there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to also be willing to bring a few others in that haven't had that, they haven't had that.
[SPEAKER_02]: To help give them vision is so important.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you're inviting the older women to stay so that they can put into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do people find out about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, teach them diligently, three, sixty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find it straight from our website.
[SPEAKER_00]: Teach them diligently.net.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a button at the top that is membership that will take you to a page that just tells you all about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, if you go to teach them diligently.net forward slash courageous, I will have information on there to make it easy for you, along with that free workshop.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, say, whatever, as we talk, I'll just keep the one stuff on that page.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll just see what the conversation takes us.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's so great because I think that, you know, one of the things, one of the big questions, so there's like a handful of questions that we get repeated over and over and over again over the last like seven years, what we've been doing this ministry.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of them is, how do I find a ties to mentor?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that the
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so as far as courageous parenting goes, one of the things that we try to encourage people is you have to choose to do hard things sometimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And home schooling is not the easier route in some regards in many regards it actually is because yeah, dodge a lot of bullets when you homeschool, which is a totally different perspective, but for most people if they have never homeschooled, they would look at that as that's the harder road.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's more time.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, I can't have a job.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's whatever it is that they're thinking that they have to sacrifice, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when we talk about courageous parenting and we're trying to encourage parents to do the thing that sometimes it seems counterculture, even to their church communities, it's a hard-pilled swallow.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a hard thing to commit to.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when they do, and they start to see the fruit, then more and more questions, it's like you said, you have all these questions in your head and you're constantly thinking, yeah, I'm the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think most people, when they start doing something new for the first time, that's when you start having all of those new questions and needing to have a place where you can go and ask those questions without being embarrassed, where it's like, I'm just gonna be real.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what I'm dealing with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we need that we like one of the things that has kind of been a turn off in some home school co ops for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll just be honest um has been like this image portraying of like I've got it together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're all good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, I never related to that because I always felt like I was dropping balls everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I think too that you see that in kind of the influencer culture too, I think a lot of our young moms now are confronted with these perfectly curated images and videos that don't tell the whole story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that can be overwhelming and defeating because I'll be honest, my world never looked that perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was never that together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God tied it all up.
[SPEAKER_00]: God was so faithful even when I was weak, which was always, I was always weak.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that it's very easy with the way that we're inundated with images and information and messaging now.
[SPEAKER_00]: to really get discouraged and overwhelmed and defeated rather than being able to be truly joyful in the privileged position that God has given us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that breaks my heart.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm a hundred percent agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the comparing your realities to someone's highlights, very dangerous.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it's a trap from the enemy to disable people and paralyze that absolutely means be faithful, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because then you look at it and you go, oh my house isn't that clean because I homeschool my kids, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if they feel that competitiveness and they get sucked into desire and to be an influencer, for example, because I do feel like there is this like, it's almost like it's a profession that people are aspiring to be an influencer versus like God
[SPEAKER_02]: calling you to do something and recognizing that there's a great responsibility that comes with teaching, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I think of James three one, not many of you should be one of you teachers, my brother unless you receive a strict judgment.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's this like, oh, okay, I'm gonna walk this out with fear and trembling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to practice that well, recognizing that you're branding Christ, not yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's there's a very false thing where a lot of people are branding themselves and branding themselves as influencers and putting this whole pressure, not just on them, I think in the next decade to fifteen years.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are going to see an outcry of the kids of those families.
[SPEAKER_02]: felt like they had to be perfect on camera all the time, and it's going to be devastating to a lot of the families unfortunate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that really concerns me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, not everyone who is a large, has a large following falls into this category.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some are very careful, but you have to be very, very careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think that the glut of information and images and messaging that
[SPEAKER_00]: that especially young moms are faced with now is is really hard to deal with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm I'm so grateful that I was not parenting when I was young in an Instagram age.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just I'm so grateful for the freedom that I had to be ignorant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to not know what everybody else's life looked like.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could just really enjoy mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's my heart for for young moms everywhere is that they can just really get in the frame and enjoy the life that God has given them rather than looking longingly on someone else's.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, and looking like just the time that is spent looking or being on there is time lost looking in your kids eyes or
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's there's been times where I've even been convicted myself where like if a kid will comes up because they want to hug or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm in the middle of getting back to somebody, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just texting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just the fact that we even have a device like I remember parenting without cell phones.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember the pre internet age, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or AOL dial up where there was no vlogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you went to the thrift store to try to find the cookbooks to learn how to cook.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like,
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was much more old school where you valued the older women to each you because there wasn't Google search or you do that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So run and learn the thing from real quick.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I know that for those who are listening, you might go, oh, she's she's and she's pounding a lot of these things really hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you guys, I use them too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I utilize these that there is an element of helpfulness to technology for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that our responsibility as Christians is to make sure that it's not replacing the things that are God's idea of what's best.
[SPEAKER_02]: And his idea for his church is that older men and women would teach the younger men and women.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when we're replacing real life mentors with podcasts and audiobooks and Instagram reels and YouTube and we're not
[SPEAKER_02]: Where I, what is that doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no need to go out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it actually, what it's doing is isolating us to our home.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we wonder why we feel lonely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's probably why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's sad when you're homeschooling because your kids are actually reaping the same exact thing that you're experiencing, like if you're experiencing loneliness, so are your children.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it could be because mom feels a temporary satisfaction because of social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: I just remember when I had little kids and that urge to get out, to go into nature, to go to the playdate, to go to the co-op, to go and get together with another mom.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a stronger urge than it is today with all of the technology that we have.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think there's a direct correlation, but I would love to kind of shift gears and bring up your one of your newer books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I'm very excited to talk to you about because we're all about biblical parenting here, but we don't talk a ton specifically on age categories.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've maybe done like three podcast episodes that were like age categories on discipling your kids in these different age categories, but you and Trisha Goyer just wrote a book together called Faith that sticks, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all that is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm pretty pre teens.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell me a little bit about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I would love to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, pre teens are actually an age group that kind of gets overlooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's stuff for little, there's stuff for teens, but I feel like there's very little for pre teens or at least that's what the feedback that Trisha and I got at our events over and over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went in and just did a deep dive.
[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at what's going on inside of our kids so that we could understand what's changing and I found out it was fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about the hormones and all the things that are rushing and changing and that's happening but really it's the brain changes that are impacting their behavior and the things that we see so much that insecurity, the multiple identities you never know who's going to show up.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of that stuff is actually developmentally normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as Christian parents, you know, I think back to that verse in first Peter three, I believe it's first Peter three where it says husband should live with their wives with understandings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as parents, we need to do that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just, I just dug in to find out what's going on with these kids so that as parents, we can understand it, then when they have a meltdown or their insecure, or they just don't know what's going on, we get the privilege to come alongside of them, wrap our arms around them, assure them you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what God did.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where it's going.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be so amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just we are the ones there to encourage and help them make sense of just this new reality that they don't understand anymore than what you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know why they're acting the way that they are and it's frustrating for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's an element of just kind of helping you understand your pre-tain your middle school or better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we go through five real life ways to disciple them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we gave personal examples.
[SPEAKER_00]: We told you how to fit them in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're so simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just prayer and Bible reading and conversations and relationships and service.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just when you start with those five and work out, it's amazing how big of a platform you're able to have to give your preteen the tools to have a faith that sticks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the choices that they make are theirs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot make them walk with God, but we certainly can bring them to Jesus and give them every tool that we possibly can to make that faith stick with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this specific book is in my mind, I'm thinking of this would have been good for me to read before I had preteens, but also good to read while I have preteens, but also my, I know this sounds crazy, but might be good to read if you have teenagers so that you can go back and potentially apologize for not having an understanding with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, absolutely, and also
[SPEAKER_00]: All of the discipleship tools in there, they've been a look a little different at the different ages, but they're all just general discipleship ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all relevant to every stage of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, we focus in on application for this stage, but you can definitely imagine or see how it would work on the bookends as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think it would be helpful for any parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so the other resource that I was really, really interested in was creating a legacy Bible.
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw this actually saw online and I was like, oh, she did that.
[SPEAKER_02]: They did that because that's something that I've been trying to do, but I'm going about it and just with my own ideas and so I would love to hear what that is all about because I think that this is actually like a multi-generational thing that could potentially become a tradition that's handed down from one generation to the next.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it reminds me of how important.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my dad passed last year ago in April.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was a believer.
[SPEAKER_02]: He had this Bible that was just very worn and written and had all of his notes and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm the oldest.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I always kind of assumed that that kind of stuff I might get.
[SPEAKER_02]: But my brother, who is two years younger than me, he actually asked for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just said, oh, yes, let him have it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dad would want that.
[SPEAKER_03]: for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, but we had it at his memorial and I was flipping through and I took some videos of it and to see his personal handwriting and to see which verses were ministering to him in the different seasons of hardship that he walked through and to see those notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Literally it, well, it obviously made me cry, but like I
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I was knowing a deeper part of my dad, even after he was gone on a spiritual level, on an eternal level.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I want from my kids with the vision of writing in the Bible that they would want these Bibles.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I actually went multiple, but why don't you tell me about the vision behind it?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what, how you'd go about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, we actually, Trisha and I actually ended up doing a book on this because every time I speak, it seems like someone who has heard that I do the, the asks about them, whether that no matter what the topic is, that's one of the questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Trisha was in the audience one day when I was speaking, we're both speaking at a retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this question just derailed everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started going down, you know, everybody wanted to know about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she realized she had done them too.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do them differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both of us do them differently than you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's the same hard, but a different way of getting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way that I have actually done it, I for each of my kids, sixteenth birthday, I took two years
[SPEAKER_00]: and wrote a Bible just for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would read through the Bible praying for that child specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote notes, I wrote prayers, I wrote stories in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I gave it my oldest son, his sixteenth birthday came and I gave him a Bible and I kind of held my breath because that's not a very exciting gift for it's no car.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were no car keys for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was really cool because
[SPEAKER_00]: He did seem to understand the importance of it, the treasure that that would be to him someday.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of the other kids started asking if they got one, do we get one of these?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did, I did one of them for all four of my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've now, I'm working on my son and lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did my daughter-in-law's last year, gave it to her for her birthday.
[SPEAKER_00]: My son-in-law, I'm in the middle of now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the middle, even.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in judges.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so just really praying and focusing in on one person at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what was amazing was first of all, they were all different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought after I did cameras, I'm like, oh, these are just going to all be the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had four very different children and God had me write very different things in each one.
[SPEAKER_00]: which not only was exciting for me to see how personal God was, but it also gave me unbelievable insight into the child that I was really focused on during that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When my second son, in particular, was kind of veiled to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, he's very much like his dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't
[SPEAKER_00]: get him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was he was a great kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just he wasn't anything like me and I did I would pray and pray God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to know this one better and amazing what happened as I went through his Bible and the way that God knit our hearts together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's now he has the little girl calls me pretty much every day on his way home from work.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a school teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just the relationship that we have now, I really point back to when I was working on his legacy Bible as that turning point, the way that God really used that to knit our hearts together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is just a precious gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: My kids have taken those to church and to camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've had counselors look down the aisle and be like, where did you get?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want one of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're very, very, like everybody seems to understand how special it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if we had one that you could show us,
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even think about grabbing one because two of my kids are down the hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: They probably could get them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's everyone was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are, there's no science behind it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why we wrote the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little probably a hundred and ten page book with devotions in there to get you started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a small book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a little skinny book.
[SPEAKER_00]: How to create a legacy Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both Trisha and I tell how we did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We go through all the all the reasons that you're saying right now in your head that you can't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell you why you can.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to we're going to just put those aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also the what you stand again through doing it what your kids standard game through doing it or will impact your relationship in their faith for eternity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just amazing how God used this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, the the how to create a legacy Bible is one of our favorite things to talk about because it is such a practical personal treasure of a discipleship gift that you're able to pass on to your kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's different from what like I've been doing in the sense of like reading scripture and whatever season.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm walking through the different scriptures mean something different to me, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you can make the same scripture like two hundred times.
[SPEAKER_02]: You go through some trial or something and you read it and you're like, I never saw that before, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so then you journal it and you write it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's different in that you're reading through the Bible, the whole Bible with this child in mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: and writing letters that you think will help them to make that part of church history or whatever it is more relevant to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, or parenting advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: When God has you married and you're a parent, you need to think about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I'm doing my son-in-law's now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And doing it for them for adults that have children, which both of them were either on the way or had children when they did it, it's just cool the way it's so much more mature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I actually struggled when I first started because I'm like, these guys are getting better stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: My kids did when they were younger, but then I realized my kids actually had me through all those years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was teaching them all along.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it isn't in their Bible, they were still getting it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is my opportunity now with my in-laws to
[SPEAKER_00]: give them some things that I wish that I, you know, had I known them all along.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's just really cool how everyone has been different.
[SPEAKER_00]: How same scriptures like you said, you can read it every time and yet it's, it's alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see that so clearly as you go through and read it on behalf of different people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got me thinking, my brain.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, okay, how do you do this with nine kids?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you do this with?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if the mom who maybe has five or four, like you didn't, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe they have a few out of the house already.
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't start doing it when their kids were in the home.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it wasn't like a family cultural thing that's like exciting and everybody's been accepting of it and all the things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'll send you of in-laws.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, I'm sure your kids were like, oh, like, like, the in-loves were like, oh, I know what this is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You make them for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I feel so special, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: but to be like the first one, giving that out to adult kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking to myself, how would they, how would he receive that?
[SPEAKER_00]: How would this already be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Trisha, Trisha didn't do it like I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Trisha, Trisha Goyer is who wrote this with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has ten children, but seven of them are adopted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she adopted
[SPEAKER_00]: four of them as teenagers out of the foster care system.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the dynamic of her family is very, very different than mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way that she did it was not sitting down and reading through the Bible for each child individually.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was she kept several with her that she was working on and she would just share as the Lord impressed on her heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would just pull the Bible aside and write in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I gave them to my kids on their sixteenth birthday.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gives it to them when she feels like the Lord wants them to have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a very different approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way I think that the book is so helpful because you see two very different approaches to how to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that hopefully whatever is going to work for your situation, you'll have the confidence to say, oh, well, it's the general idea of it, not the specific way that I approach it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is so impactful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's a certain type of personality that's like, we probably do it and I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move, that's really the key part, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that it looks different for every family and that's really wonderful that you guys are giving two very different examples of how it can be done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Super cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those of you who listen, like I just want to encourage you that thought of creating a legacy Bible for your kids or for your family, it can look
[SPEAKER_02]: different from family to family, but what a legacy to leave, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like envision that being passed down, like five generations from now.
[SPEAKER_00]: somebody's going to have the Bible that grandma Leslie wrote in or great great great great grandma that's like have you thought about that I had not gone that far down I I um it really no I really hadn't but you're right it's it's any powerful generation old piece and that's cool that my
[SPEAKER_00]: The way that God was working in my heart as I prayed for their father or grandfather or whatever it was is going to be getting to them is just mind-boggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's just, it just shows how good God is to take simple little ideas and he magnifies them so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just incredible to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it just hit me, though, is that this is what's modeled for us in Deuteronomy.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what's modeled all throughout Scripture actually is that
[SPEAKER_02]: They would teach their children and their children's children, and that's that concept of passing down the great works of the Lord from one generation to the next through stories, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Through, oh, God did this in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: These testimonies, testimonies are better word to use.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think even back then, they didn't have paper and pen and bibles, obviously, there were roles, but they were hard to get a hold of.
[SPEAKER_02]: So instead, they made altars to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: so that when they came across this altar, it was like triggering them to share that testimony and to remember and to share it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole point of even having it was to remember and then to share what you're remembering with the next generation so that they know more about the character of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's like in the modern times, what do we have that does that, that solely focused on that and also uplift the word of God?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we do have the Bible today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: As efficiency of Scripture and how it's real.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can only envision that a small letter, or did you put post to now, so I'm just curious.
[SPEAKER_02]: You write it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a journaling Bible, and a lot of passages, it's down the side, under, up the little skitty edge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm writing it over the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then it's also funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be sitting in church, and most of my kids still go to the same church that we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I get to a page that has nothing on it, they're like, look and down, like, what happened here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they're just wasn't it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you write it that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's it's cute.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like they're always looking for what's next.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was there?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was amazing to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it teaches why I just even think like Isaac and I tend to think three, four, five generations down the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just think of how that is literally showing your great grandkids how to read the scripture and to apply it to personal life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is that is discipleship.
[SPEAKER_02]: So even far beyond your life here, Leslie, there's going to be discipleship of your great great-grandkids.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: That gives me chills to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it makes me want to go by like nine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, bibles that are turning over.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have no time now.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have no money because I just bought twelve bottles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, before we wrap up, I'm really wanting to hear from you more about the homeschool convention and to encourage families about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm sure that you have probably seen the homeschooling movement change a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the last twenty years.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am curious about what you've seen because you've been doing these conventions for fifteen years, you've been home schooling for sixteen then, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's been a lot of changes in our world even in the last five years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm just curious if you could share about that a little bit because I know that for us what we're hearing and seeing is that there's a whole new group of people who are willing to say yes to homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: There has been a massive explosion in homeschooling, which is great because anytime parents spend more time with their kids, that is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, when we started when you guys started,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was almost synonymous.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were homeschooling, you were Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were doing it for missional reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is no longer the case at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's so diluted that I'm finding that the people who are truly missional in their thinking are a little bit lost because they're surrounded by all of these people who aren't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so teach them diligently events are really designed to celebrate missional homeschooling.
[SPEAKER_00]: focus on discipleship when you come to our events, you're going to get all the academic workshops and a huge exhibit hall, all the things that you need to homeschool with excellence.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, because homeschooling does not happen in a vacuum, we have a ton of sessions on biblical parenting, on relationships, on
[SPEAKER_00]: marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those are the sessions actually that do a lot better than the homeschool ones because when push comes to shove homeschooling is the easy part.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the relationships that you want to make sure you are really investing in because those are the things that are going to last for eternity.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's resources to help you homeschool.
[SPEAKER_00]: teachers guides and all kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: All kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But really, we want to be there to encourage you to do what God has called you to do, to go for the hearts of your children, to teach them diligently, to love God with all their hearts, so mind and strength, and to give them a faith that sticks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you're gonna find a lot of that at our events, but beyond that, the camaraderie of being surrounded by thousands of other missional home schoolers, so that you're not swimming upstream, you're actually going with the flow for two and a half, three days is pretty amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is such a breath of fresh air to be with your people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really why we started to teach them diligently, three, sixty-five.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could bottle that community and those resources and kind of keep it going all year long.
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't just hitting and running, you know, in two and a half days, we wanted to invest in your family all year long.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know Isaac and I are looking forward to coming out and being a part of it's next year in, when we were working with Lizzy on the topics and we were sending them to her.
[SPEAKER_02]: I looked at Isaac and I said, these are the things we're most passionate about, but they're not like how to teach your kid how to read in twenty days or
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's not, it's not the typical what here in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of the workshops and different things that we've seen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and so, you know, it's just different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so to hear you talk about the culture, I'm excited to come and let it work for you to be there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be great to be around additional homeschoolers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that, the way that you have
[SPEAKER_02]: titled that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Missional.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: How can people find out more about you've already mentioned, teach them diligently.
[SPEAKER_02]: Met is a great place to find about the community, the conventions.
[SPEAKER_02]: What about one of the resources?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's all on that website, but if you will go to teach them diligently.net forward slash courageous, I will kind of curate it for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will put in a discount for our event so that you can come see Isaac and Angie in person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of that for you will be on teach them diligently.net forward slash courageous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to make it easy for you to find what we talked about today.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for those of you who are listening, I just want to encourage you that, as you are setting out in this, what seems like a daunting thing to be vividly between your kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to remind you that God is one who saves, who can't save your kids, but you can introduce them to Jesus and you can't walk them in the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so keep on keeping on and we'll see you next time.