Mom to Mom: Raising Kids to Love Jesus

How do you raise a kid who loves Jesus? Moms from all walks of life join Sherri and Jackie as they go head first into this topic. What are the things we can do to help our kids cling to their faith? You will come away richer after this conversation with practical things to implement with your kids as well as a reminder that you aren’t alone in the battle.

Special Co-host: Jackie Nickel

Special thanks to Redemption Press for sponsoring the Snacks And Good Company Podcast!

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Transcription:

Speaker 2 [00:00:10] I think I would ask, “How do you raise your children so they never stray from following Jesus?” I mean, I think about it a lot. And I was raised in a Christian home, and there was a period of time where, I mean, I would still go to church, but I wasn’t following Christ. 

 

Sherri [00:00:27] Out in the streets. 

 

Speaker 2 [00:00:29] I actually I was. Very much, yeah.. But I mean, I found my way back and I pray that they don’t do some of the things that I did. I know that’s like maybe inevitable, but hopefully not. Like, I would just love to know, like, how can I keep them on the straight, narrow path? You know. 

 

Sherri [00:01:00] Greetings, friends, and welcome to Snacks and Good Company. Brought to you by Redemption Press. I am Sherri Lynn and my co-host is Jackie Nicole. This episode, we are talking about something that is really near and dear to your heart, how to disciple your kids. 

 

Jackie [00:01:17] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:01:17] That. I mean, this was all you. This is these are things that you wanted to know. What was the background of that? When you articulated it or you asked it, I had never heard anyone ask that question before. 

 

Jackie [00:01:30] Oh, really? 

 

Sherri [00:01:30] Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:01:31] I guess for me, I currently I feel like I’m the spiritual leader in my family, so I feel like I’m just trying to take the lead and just trying to figure out what that might look like for my family. 

 

Sherri [00:01:43] Okay and can we talk about your dad? Is that okay? 

 

Jackie [00:01:47] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:01:47] Okay. So did you feel like your dad has passed away? How long ago? 

 

Jackie [00:01:53] Uh, 12 years ago. 

 

Sherri [00:01:54] Okay. And so he. He was sort of like your spiritual…

 

Jackie [00:01:58] Yeah, I think the older I got, the more he built a stronger relationship with the Lord. So I got to sit back and watch that. 

 

Sherri [00:02:09] Okay. And it was influential to you? 

 

Jackie [00:02:11] Yeah. I mean, he’d sit at the end of the table and read the Bible, and it’s not like he was trying to push anything on me or anything like that, but it just made me curious. 

 

Sherri [00:02:21] Because you. Saw. 

 

Jackie [00:02:22] Because I saw him doing that. 

 

Sherri [00:02:24] And you knew him be. I mean, had he always do you always remember him being a believer? Or did he become a believer or you always remember him…? 

 

Jackie [00:02:32] Yeah, I always remember him being a leader. And, you know, we’d go to church or like, if we didn’t go to church, we would do kind of like our own little Bible study on Sunday or something. Yeah, but that was really it. But like, again, as I said, as I got older and he got older, he was more active. 

 

Sherri [00:02:49] Okay. And then so did you feel like, okay, he was the one that kind of led me in that way. And for me to now have kids, if he were here, I’d be able to glean some things. 

 

Jackie [00:03:01] Yeah, I didn’t think much of it when I was older. I mean, younger. But now that I’m older and have kids I like, those are the things I think about. And yeah, like, I wish he was here so I could maybe talk to him and ask him a lot of these questions that I’m asking moms now. 

 

Sherri [00:03:16] Okay. So it was like, that’s what I thought it was, but I want to make sure it’s like, I don’t have that right now, so I need it. And I’m asking these moms that. 

 

Jackie [00:03:24] Right. 

 

Sherri [00:03:24] Okay. All right. So we aren’t that is the question. “How do you disciple your kids?” That’s the basis of the question. So we’re actually going to go back to the quote unquote, roundtable discussion with you and your friends and some other young moms that kind of came together over snacks and discussed all these things. And everyone has little kids, right? 

 

Jackie [00:03:46] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:03:46] So everyone was kind of saying what they do to disciple their kids. 

 

Jackie [00:03:51] Yeah. So when we have dinner together as a family, which I feel like is like far and in between now, because our kids are so involved in sports in the evenings and being all together. But we do intentionally try to do that when we are at home. We have this, I actually brought it. So it’s a it’s this book. It’s called “If I Could Ask God Anything”, and it’s written by Kathryn Slattery. And it’s a great little devotional for curious kids because, I mean, they are curious. They want to learn or they want to know things. And I feel like they asked me all these questions and I don’t know all the answers, but this has just been a really wonderful platform for us. And it’s quick. It’s like ten or 15 minutes at each dinner that we just read a different devotional and it’s become so much routine that like my three year old daughter, when we sit down, she points at the book and she’s like, “mommy book.” So that’s pretty cool. 

 

Sherri [00:04:46] What’s the book again? 

 

Jackie [00:04:47] It’s called “If I Could Ask God Anything” by Kathryn Slattery. Awesome Bible Answers for Curious Kids. So like, one of the questions was, Did did Jesus really feed 5,000? Did Jesus have any brothers or sisters? Like, I just, you know, and sometimes questions that like I would’ve never thought of, but it also links Scripture with it that you can refer back to Scripture. So pretty cool. 

 

Speaker 4 [00:05:13] So we, um, we worship at my house. So my son is a drummer and my baby…

 

Sherri [00:05:23] He applied for my band, by the way. And I was like, “Do you have any qualifications?” Like because I said, “Do you play any other instruments?” He said, And his no was so straight. I said, “You play drums?” “Yes.” I said, “You play any other instruments?” “No.” I said, “Well, are there any other qualifications that you have that I can consider you for this position?” And he’s like, I go potty like a big boy.”. 

 

Speaker 4 [00:05:49] That’s my boy! 

 

Sherri [00:05:49] And I was like, That’s better than some of the musicians I know so that’s all right. 

 

Speaker 4 [00:05:54] Can you imagine having a drummer who is not potty trained? Who’s going to keep the beat?

 

Sherri [00:06:01] I know a few, and that’s all I’m saying. All right. 

 

Speaker 4 [00:06:04] So yeah, so I say praise and worship. We pray every night and not I try not to, you know, like when you prayer, when you pray, it can become it’s a routine. You want it to be a routine, a spiritual discipline, right? But I do try to be aware of how we execute that spiritual discipline just so that it doesn’t become mundane. You know, it’s not like this boring thing that we do, you know what I mean? But sometimes, you know, even when we we go to start prayer, I’m like man, and I hate to say this, but it really is true, like I’m too tired to pray right now. So I just start singing, you know, And sometimes they join in. Even the baby joins them like, you know, So that’s just what we do. So just trying to trying to implement various… that recent thing is like I literally put myself on a quest to say, “What else can we do?” You know, because we’re all different. We all are wired differently. Even creatives like, you know, there are the visual arts, the musical arts, the physical, you know, dancing. So, you know, trying to help him and our kids and even other kids that I work with, find out how they best connect with God. 

 

Speaker 1 [00:07:16] I think for us, it’s a challenge discipline your children or our children. You know, I can easily disciple yours because you know, they don’t belong to me. I can give them back. But because, you know, you try to set routines and disciplines in place, but things come up. Somebody’s sick, somebody is tired. And so it’s really easy to fall out of that routine. So our oldest is eight and he is, you know, the people’s champion, like softest heart in the world wants to know everything that’s wrong is wrong and what we can do about it right now to fix it. And he’s also like, his mind is very philosophical. So he’ll ask the questions that will just like stop you in your tracks, you know? “Like what? Why is that? I don’t know. I honestly, I don’t know.” So I think the constant for us is being sure that they’re seeing us live out a Christian life, you know, and the things that we do being consistent and not just going to church, but serving in ministry, and then even in our daily conversation, like you don’t hear us saying certain things or doing certain things because of what we want to reflect in the world. So the other stuff we’re still working on. Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:08:38] Well, you some some good suggestions. 

 

Speaker 1 [00:08:40] Yes, I did. I did. You know, we’ll do prayer and declarations at night, but, you know. 

 

Sherri [00:08:46] But I respect that. A mom that’s got four kids. I mean, what am I supposed to do all the service every night? You know what I mean? Like that. I respect everything you guys are saying. Cara, I’m going to come to you. 

 

Cara [00:09:00] So one thing Ryan actually gave me this suggestion when I was having a hard time with my daughter. I started to write down on notecards, just like little scriptures that she could look at. You know, “you are fearfully and wonderfully made” and, you know, stuff like that. And I have it posted throughout the house or even outside of her bedroom door and on the inside of her bedroom door. So even if she’s not thinking about it, she sees it all the time. You know, it may not mean anything right now, but then there’s going to come that day where she actually looks at it and she’s like, “You know what? Oh, okay.” You know? So, it’s there. And whether or not you pay any mind right now, you will. Another thing that we do is my daughter. She asks, She has a lot of questions about things, so she makes me have to find out. So we eat dinner at the table every day and our conversation we talk. And so usually she’ll come up with something crazy. You know, she’s been like that ever since she was small, though. I always worked two jobs and I’ve always been like pretty busy as a mother. You know, I’ll come in, you know, late night and she’s like, “Mom. So Jewish people?” Like, No, girl. I’m not the one. 

 

Sherri [00:10:20] That’s Cara. Cara was so awesome. 

 

Jackie [00:10:23] Yeah. They all were.

 

Sherri [00:10:24] Yeah. She’s a single mom, 13 year old daughter talking about just come out of nowhere with spiritual questions. Yeah, I remember being very disturbed as a kid. God bless my mom, who we’re about to hear from right now as a matter of fact. There’s this very disturbing scripture. Brant and I, if you don’t know, Brant, is Brant Hansen’s show is the show I produce in the Brant and Sherri Oddcast. That’s my day job, so to speak. Brant and I talked about how there’s a scripture. Are you familiar with the Scripture where a prophet, his name’s Elijah, is on a road walking somewhere and some kids come down and they’re like taunting him because he’s bald, like a bald guy or whatever kids would say, and he calls bears down to…Well…well, they yeah, you know, they rip the kids apart. 

 

Jackie [00:11:11] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:11:12] So and I remember asking my mom. So you like, “what is that?”. 

 

Jackie [00:11:18] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:11:19] And I don’t remember what she said, but I just remember thinking. So the prophet said, “Hey, bears, come eat the kids.” And they did. The bears came and ate the kids. And so anyway, that that was funny to me when Cara said her daughter always comes off the wall with some questions. So discipling kids, how do you disciple? That was the moms talking about you guys trying to come up with ideas and think through, how do you make spiritual disciplines? How should I say it? Spiritual disciplines common in your kids lives. That’s difficult for you, you think? 

 

Jackie [00:11:52] I think so because, I mean, you’re wrapped up in so much of what’s going on in the daily and but like, how do you implement them in ways that they’re going to be interested or that it’s going to stick? 

 

Sherri [00:12:03] Yeah. No. Yeah yeah. That’s what, what a lot of our older moms are going to start talking about. Here’s my mom starting it off and she is talking about what was most important for her first in discipling us. 

 

Bev [00:12:17] I have to say it all boils down to my relationship with Jesus in personal relationship, my personal relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit guiding me. 

 

Jackie [00:12:32] And trading that for them? 

 

Bev [00:12:33] Yes, yes, most definitely. Because I’ve never been a parent. So, you know, I don’t have I don’t I know they have books and everything. I read those books. I don’t know anything. But the Holy Spirit will reveal to me some things about them. And then I would address them. And then even though my parents, they weren’t good parents, but they didn’t tell me the whole I don’t want to say they lie, but I was going to make sure that when they got around people or they…

 

Sherri [00:13:11] You were very open and honest with us about life. 

 

Bev [00:13:15] Thank you. 

 

Sherri [00:13:16] You’re welcome. About like real topic. Yes everything. 

 

Jackie [00:13:20] That and were you open with them about your struggles? 

 

Bev [00:13:24] Well, yes, Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I can say that I didn’t sit down and say, well, mommy’s going through this and that, but they could see the things that I was struggling with in, in the outcome of that by me taking those to Jesus, you know? 

 

Sherri [00:13:40] And then in made God real to us. 

 

Bev [00:13:42] Yeah. Yeah. Because I can remember something happening in our home and I was just bleeding everywhere. So I started screaming, That’s me. So the kids, came in there was like, “What’s wrong momma?” I was like, “I’m bleeding to death, I’m bleeding. Get this, get that,” whatever, you know? So finally, when I did calm down, you know, I probably ended up just being a little scratch. But anyway, they said and I was telling them, “Pray, pray!”. So when they did pray and it did stop. And every day I thought that was a wonderful testimony. So I told this to a lady and she said to me, “You let your your kids see you in that state?” And I was like, “Yeah?” “Well, you’re not supposed to let them see you weak like that.” Do you know, Jesus is…Basically I’m supposed to be strong all the time. And I said “No, because if they feel like I’m strong all the time and there’s no weakness, and then what do I need Jesus for?” 

 

Jackie [00:14:50] Right? I feel like that just resonates with me because I feel like one of the biggest things I want to be as a mom is just completely honest. And I was telling you, Sherri and actually Tammy, yesterday during our interview, I was just like, that’s one thing I want to make sure that I’m always doing is I’m always honest. And even, you know, when they get older, if they don’t want to hear it or not, because that’s how my dad was for me. And I respected that so much. And then I just apologize when. I’m wrong because I always follow it with saying, “Mommy’s not perfect and I don’t expect you to be perfect.” Because, you know, a lot of kids, you know, their expectations of their parents are they’re these perfect people that know everything. And then when as they get older, they realize, “My mom was not right at all.” So I feel like if I just like, lower the expectations now. 

 

Bev [00:15:35] That like what you said, when you when you apologize to them, “Mom’s not perfect.” You know, “Mommy did this wrong”, you know, because they I don’t think enough parents do that. To tell their kids I was wrong in my decision in this. I think I did that for you? 

 

Sherri [00:15:51] You modeled it in ways that transformed I think both of our lives, you and Nana did. Seeing you all be humble made humility normal for us, right? And listen, pride is the original sin. It’s in all of our hearts, right? So to have someone model humility for you, to have someone who doesn’t dig in their heels and say, “No, I didn’t do that,” or “you saw that wrong” or whatever the case may be. 

 

Jackie [00:16:20] Or this happen, or make them feel like it’s their fault for what hapened? Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:16:25] Right, the justification and manipulation and all those things. That was never the case. She would say, Nana would say, “Oh, you know what? I was wrong on that. I’m so sorry, baby.” Kiss you on the forehead and move on. Well, that that modeled that for us so that we knew it’s not the end of the earth to be wrong. You know what I mean? It’s not every the world is not going to cave in if you’re wrong. You don’t have to live in shame because I did something wrong. I apologize. I’m sorry. Life moves on. And so, yes, you you both modeled that for us. And I think, you know, when the Bible says that God gives grace to the humble, right, He gives more. And that’s what it say, that He gives more grace to the humble. That’s what we learned, right? Is that we had and that’s what grace is. It’s strength, it’s favor. H gave that to us because of their humility. 

 

Jackie [00:17:11] Yeah. And I feel like this is something you’ve shared with me before and you just feel like that’s your mom’s greatest quality, right? 

 

Sherri [00:17:17] Yeah. Yeah. And what’s what makes being with them enjoyable? I look now at this age in people who have parents, they’re not enjoying themselves with their parents, so they’re caring for them because, you know, that’s what you want to be able to do for your parents. But it’s not enjoyable. I enjoy being with my mom and my nana and would be with them as much as they would allow me to be with them because they’re so humble. I just want to say about her saying I don’t want that to get lost when she says the way I discipled was to show them my walk with Jesus. Please hear me as you know, I have an inordinate amount of confidence. So, that doesn’t mean I don’t, you know, struggle with it in some areas. But overall, I walk pretty confidently. I walked confidently because I have a mom and an aunt who walk with God. How can you not? That’s the greatest gift you can give your child. My mother walks with God. Yeah, we believed it about my grandma. It was true. My mother walks with God. You show them that And then so anything, my uncle always says, “More things are caught than taught.” So it’s not what I’m necessarily what I’m teaching you. It’s what I’m showing you.  And she showed us. She modeled that for us. Nana modeled worship for us, right? So she wasn’t just the singer and the piano player and all of that on a Sunday. She wasn’t a performer. We were in the house. She’s worshiping in the house, right? Like she’s on it. It sounded weird because we couldn’t hear the keyboard because you would have your headphones in it, so we could only hear her singing and it would be like, “what is?” Because you sound different. You don’t know how you sound and you can hear the music and we can’t. But she would worship and we would hear that that’s what she’s showing us, right? She didn’t gather around the keyboard, be like, “All right now y’all sing with me.” Right? She made that very tangible to us. We could see it. And so that, you know, again, if you’re thinking, “How do I do that? How do I disciple my kids?” For us, it was mostly watching them. 

 

Sherri [00:19:39] All right. So we were talking with my mom about discipling us. She took it very seriously. 

 

Jackie [00:19:45] Yeah. Could you tell? 

 

Sherri [00:19:48] Yeah, it was just. It was. I think I said it in there. It was like life or death. These kids have got to know who Jesus is. That’s that. That was her singular focus. 

 

Jackie [00:19:59] Yeah. It seems like she took it really seriously. 

 

Sherri [00:20:01] She did. So now we’re going to hear from your Aunt Nikki. And well, you set the question up well so we’ll just go to you. 

 

Jackie [00:20:08] How did you or do you incorporate God into your parenting? 

 

Nikki [00:20:13] For me personally, I am so down. Desperately dependent on the presence of God in my life. So I really would say that that is how like I am incredibly like needy in that aspect, that I need to hear God in the morning. I need, you know, so it’s very relational. And I think in that aspect that I incorporated that into my parenting because I understand that, you know, that as human beings that they also have a need for Christ. So that’s kind of, I would say, my angle, like, you know, that it’s my personal relationship with Christ and that you can have a personal relationship, too. 

 

Jackie [00:20:59] So you feel like you’re setting the example for them by showing them how you have a relationship. 

 

Nikki [00:21:06] Yeah, I mean, that’s a good way to put it. Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:21:08] I have a memory and you can probably piggyback off this because I don’t it’s not too clear, but I just remember visiting you when I was younger, and I think we are going to church and all of us were in the car with you and you were either telling us a story or we’re praying for somebody. And I just remember that being so like, “Oh, we don’t have conversations like this,” You know what I mean? But it stuck with me. And I find that to be something I like to do with my kids, too. You know, like after church, we just talk about what we learned, just little simple things like that. 

 

Nikki [00:21:47] So, yeah, I know what you’re talking about. So after my kids were on our way home from church, I would say, “What stood out about what you learn? Was there anything that stood out?” And then after they would tell me, I would say, “How does that affect you personally?” And I still do it to this day. Like I teach junior teens on a Wednesday night and now I call them takeaways, right? Now you heard something and it’s just to kind of help get that young person thinking, you know, about Christ. And then also okay, like, well, that kind of stuck out to me. And then how does that relate to my life personally and just trying to get them to bring God into their thoughts and into their conversation and then, of course, into their life. Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:22:39] I also have a funny story because now that we have these discussions in the car, this was just like last week. Mason goes, “Mom, in church, I learned that God’s promises are sweeter than honey.” And, you know, so with that. So he’s like, “What are God’s promises?” And I named a couple off you know off the top of my head. He’s like, “Well, that’s only three.” He’s like, “What about the other ones?” And I said, “Well, those are the ones I just know off the top of my head.” And he said, “What about the bottom of your head?” And I glanced back at him because I was like, “Are you are you being serious right now?” And he was he was looking out the window, like contemplating life. But I was like, “We’ll look at that, buddy.” 

 

Sherri [00:23:24] Is your son still asking questions? Daughter asking questions? 

 

Jackie [00:23:28] Yeah. I was going to say we end up getting a book that Chelsea talked about earlier. 

 

Sherri [00:23:32] Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:23:33] Well, they’ll ask questions, and sometimes if I don’t know the answer, I’m just like, “Okay, let’s refer to this book and see if they have the answer.” Because I don’t have all the answers. 

 

Sherri [00:23:41] So yeah, but it’s nice to have them questioning. You know? I think it’s healthy for kids to ask questions because they’re going to ask them anyway. 

 

Jackie [00:23:49] Yeah. And I like the idea of us learning together. 

 

Sherri [00:23:52] Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:23:53] Because, I mean, like I said, I wouldn’t expect, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert in any of this stuff. So the fact that we get to learn together I think is, is that cool opportunity. 

 

Sherri [00:24:05] That is nice. That’s so it’s not like, “Hey, I’m telling you something.” It’s it’s like, “Wow, we are learning this together.” 

 

Jackie [00:24:11] Yeah. This is why, you know, it gives them more of more substance than just because. 

 

Sherri [00:24:18] Yeah. And I think I know in the next segment we’ll be talking about what if your kids don’t want to pray where you’re like, “Hey, yeah, okay, now it’s time to pray.” And then they don’t want to. A lot of the moms at the roundtable experienced that. We’ll be talking to Tammy again. But I do have to say this one thing I notice with my mom and with your Aunt Nicki when talking about discipling kids, and then if you contrast it with what you guys were saying at the roundtable, right? At the roundtable discussion, it was like, you know, we play worship music or we read the book or we ask these questions or we do these things the older moms were less about, here are the things that we do. And it was more about here is who we are and how we are. 

 

Jackie [00:25:03] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:25:03] So that discipleship would be more modeled this time. 

 

Jackie [00:25:07] Yeah. And honestly, I didn’t even recognize that. Yeah, I feel like that’s huge too. Yeah. Like, that’s a good reminder for us as well. 

 

Sherri [00:25:14] To say, Hey, I can teach them these things, but it’s far more impactful. If they see them.

 

Jackie [00:25:21] See it, and then they see how to apply it.

 

Sherri [00:25:23] Yeah, my mom always did that because I do say that all the time. Anyone who listens to our show hears me say, “My mom always did this. Yeah, my mom always did that.” It was more of that than her, you know, telling us the Bible story and all of that’s important. But I noticed that I know that trend of older moms saying it’s not they weren’t saying it, but they were right? 

 

Jackie [00:25:45] Well, yeah. And that brings back the point of when I think back to my dad sitting at the table just reading the Bible. 

 

Sherri [00:25:52] Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:25:52] So, yeah, he wasn’t saying anything to me. It was just showing it. 

 

Sherri [00:25:55] And that’s impactful. That was lasting in your mind. That’s good. All right. We’re coming back with more from the young moms talking about, “My baby don’t want to pray” and Tammy’s going to talk some, and we got some other stuff, too, coming up. 

 

Sherri [00:26:15] Let me ask you a question, friend. Do you have a book in you? I bet you do. Like, have you ever ended the night writing in your journal and then look at what you wrote and be like, “Ooh, that’s a story to tell.” Well, why not tell it? Seriously, why not? Redemption Press is here to help you not only find that story, but help you tell that story and give you a community of support while you’re on the journey. Listen, if you ever felt like you wanted to write a book and you just didn’t know where to start. Redemption Press will help you with that. They have a professional editorial staff. They’re all believers. They’re ministry minded, supportive and trustworthy. Reach out to them. Why not Redemption Press? Find out how you can start telling your story now. Your message is their mission. I love that. Go check them out right now. Redemptionpress.com. 

 

Jackie [00:27:14] So with our boys every night we have, we all go to my youngest room and we have a devotion that they do. It’s like a one that’s actually designed for boys. So we do a devotion, and sometimes my youngest wants to sing, but we always do prayer. And like lately, my oldest hasn’t wanted to pray. I’m like, “Okay.” Like, sometimes we were like,”Okay, you need to pray. Like, you got to do it.” But then sometimes we’re like, “All right, I’ll pray tonight.” Our youngest always wants to pray, and most of us, like his prayers don’t really make sense, but there’s actually a really sweet. Yes, he God knows. Yeah. So that’s what we do every night. I love worship music, so I have that playing in the house a lot and a lot of singing and yeah, I do a lot of prayer. Like, just like I pray all the time. Pray before school, prayer in the car, obviously dinner prayers. It’s. Yeah, just a lot of a lot of prayer. 

 

Speaker 4 [00:28:15] Can I ask you a question? So. And it’s for you, or for anyone. So with the whole “My kid doesn’t want to pray thing”, even though, like, they whether they were used to regularly or whatever, but when they’re like, “No. Yeah. No.” Night after night. So like, how do you guys handle that? Because you don’t want to force them and then create this like, traumatic thing, you know, because trauma can be really tiny, like a mustard seed, you know? And then next thing you know, it’s a whole field of everything you don’t want your kid to ever do or be your faith. So, like, how do you deal with that? 

 

Speaker 6 [00:28:50] I feel like that’s it’s like I day by day type thing for us. Like like I said, sometimes we’re like, “Okay, you need to pray” like, but then other times, like we’re like, “All right, that’s fine.” Tonight you don’t because like you said, like, we don’t want I don’t want to force him to do that all the time and make it be something he dreads or, you know, I want him to enjoy his conversations with God and I want him to know they’re very important. And whenever he doesn’t want to pray, I do say to him, I’m like, “You know, buddy, God loves when you talk to him. It makes him a little sad whenever you don’t. But that’s okay. I understand you don’t want to right now.” You know, just kind of put I mean, tell him that as well. Just so he kind of keeps that in his mind. 

 

Jackie [00:29:25] But yeah, I feel like for us, we do kind of like a scripted prayer at first. And I’ll always ask like, “Do you want to pray or do you want me to pray tonight?” And a lot of time, my son, anyway, he’s old enough, or he’s like, “I want to do it.” So he’ll do it and take the lead. And after that I’m like, Is there anything else you want to pray for, like specifically? And usually he does even. And, you know, I always say, no matter what big or small, it’s, you know, and I feel like he’s getting more comfortable with that, where my daughter, she’s not as interested in it. But like every once in a while she’ll want to do it. But I kind of leave it up to them, I think. And I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but I think another thing we do to again, I like what Ryan you were just saying, like we just kind of do whatever, which is great and honest too, because I feel like at different ages, like they’re not as interested in some of the things you want to do. I know we started getting those for the kids, we get this the verses and like if they learn it, they get a new one. So it’s not like they have to learn it at a certain point or mean like that. But if they’re interested in it, then they learn it. And then once they both get it and they memorize it, then we can change it up. That and like we like to listen to worship music and stuff like that too. 

 

Sherri [00:30:31] I will say there’s something I do with my nieces. This probably not helpful for you guys, but maybe someone listening. I want it to be more of a spiritual influence for them such that I am. So I started this thing where I call them Sunday nights and I ask, “How can I pray for you this week? What do you have coming up this week? What do you think is going to go on this week or whatever?” Instead of them praying it was me praying for them and then also ask, kind of asking God like them thinking about their week in a way that how can God participate in my week? Right?

 

Speaker 6 [00:31:08] Do you do you pray with them on the phone when you’re talking or do you pray after. 

 

Jackie [00:31:12] I don’t pray with them. The baby will say to me, I want to tell you why I’m praying about this bus situation. “Now go ahead and pray and I have four stories.” She said, “I got four stories to tell you.” I say, “Auntie, don’t have time for four stories, so pick the two that most exemplify what you trying to say, okay.?” She said, “Go ahead and pray and I’ll get into it.” I said, “Well, well, you can tell me quickly what it is.” She said to me, I promise she’s 11. She said to me, “Let me pour this tea for you.” Let me pour this tea for you real quick.. Real quick. 

 

Speaker 6 [00:31:47] It was piping hot.  

 

Sherri [00:31:49] Spilling over on the slicer. 

 

Sherri [00:31:51] All right. That’s how I get my nieces to at least acknowledge that prayer is something that should be a part of their day. So the whole prayer request thing, I mean, in that segment, I took the long way around saying basically that I asked them for their prayer requests so that we incorporate prayer into our lives. 

 

Nikki [00:32:10] Do you guys pray together? 

 

Sherri [00:32:12] I say, “okay, I’ll be praying for that. Okay. I’ll be praying for that. Okay. I’ll be praying for that.” The younger niece is always like, okay, well, let’s go. Like, Yeah. Now in the throne room. Now let’s go. Like, she’ll she wants me to pray in the moment. And conversely, if I say to her, “Grandma is not feeling too good today, do you mind praying for…” “Father God, Jesus, We ask you…” Like she launches right in the prayer. How do your kids respond to prayer? Do they ever say, “Hey, let’s pray for this, Let’s pray for that?” Or are you don’t want initiating that? 

 

Jackie [00:32:48] I mean, they’ll it depends. Okay. I think sometimes if, like our family is going through something or someone sick or something like that, the kids take initiative and they pray for something like that. 

 

Sherri [00:33:00] Yeah. 

 

Jackie [00:33:01] It was really cute the one time my son’s teacher, I guess I don’t know what kind of surgery the teacher’s daughter was having or anything, but at dinner time, Mason, he’s like, “I want to pray tonight.” And we’re like, “Okay.” And then he started praying for Olivia. We’re like, “Who’s Olivia?” And he told he explained it to us. So I thought that was nice, that, like, sometimes he will take initiative to do that, Not all the time, but I think when it means something to them, they’ll they’ll do that. 

 

Sherri [00:33:27] Well, I think that that matters. Even that they haven’t an inclination to pray and inclination that there’s something higher than they are inclination that there’s someone who loves them, and is powerful enough to do something. Shows that there’s some discipleship going on there.

 

Jackie [00:33:44] I think it’s really cool too that if they’ve seen some of their prayers like come to fruition too, I think that gives them like it excites them and motivates them to pray more. 

 

Sherri [00:33:55] I love that. We’re going to Tammy right now, our dear friend Tammy Hamilton, mother of eight, because she’s talking about prayer and discipling and I talking about the intentionality of it. She mentioned that before, and I wanted her to talk about it more. 

 

Sherri [00:34:09] Just Something you said is just so good. And I want to make sure we got it. Is the intentionality. 

 

Tammy [00:34:13] Yes. 

 

[00:34:14] And is it because I don’t think any kid when you’re like, now we’re in a you know, talk about Bible stories or whatever, is going to sit and be like, “Yay! Let’s go.”

 

Jackie [00:34:24] Right. How did you get them right? 

 

Tammy [00:34:26] Well, you just read it to them. I mean, the stories are exciting. Yeah. Especially if you’re reading something they can understand. You know, we didn’t do King James version, right? Some families think they need to. We didn’t do that. But and and our own enthusiasm for it, you know, we love I had to develop a love with the Word. I had to learn to to want to do those things so that they would want to do them. And again, you just push through. You really pray. You trust the Holy Spirit to do it. “Okay. Holy Spirit, this kid is not getting it. They’re not hearing me. They’re not having a good attitude.” 

 

Sherri [00:34:59] But I do it anyway. 

 

Tammy [00:35:00] But I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to do it anyway. And they are going to do it anyway. They’re going to learn. We do things we don’t want to do because you know what? We have to do that in life. We do things we don’t want to do in life. So yeah, it being intentional in every area really, and you do that in the context of how much God loves them, right? Not in the separate. Okay. These are the thing, These are the rules. And we need to know the Bible because we’re Christians. We need to know the Bible now it’s God loves us. Let’s go read about his life. Let’s go read about His great love for us. 

 

Sherri [00:35:30] Tammy Hamilton for the win again. 

 

Jackie [00:35:33] She always knows what to say. 

 

Sherri [00:35:35] Like, Let’s just go read about His great love. Who doesn’t want to read that? Like, if you make it about rules and regulations and all these things that God requires and nobody really wants to. 

 

Jackie [00:35:44] Nobody would be interested in. 

 

Sherri [00:35:46] Yeah, no kid wants to read that. But let’s go read about His great love for us to say it that way? 

 

Jackie [00:35:50] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:35:51] Let’s go read about how much God loves us today. 

 

Jackie [00:35:54] Yeah. 

 

Sherri [00:35:55] That’s pretty wonderful. 

 

Jackie [00:35:56] Yeah. I mean, when she put it that way, I’m just like, “Yeah, why don’t we?” 

 

Sherri [00:35:59] Yeah, Actually when she said that, I was like, Hey, but I thought if I had some kids, I would say that, yeah, let’s go read about God’s great love today. There was a caller when I asked her about disciple. I think it’s Lynn. Yes, Lynn. I asked her about discipleship discipling her kids. She has two kids who are adults now. What did that mean? And she gave me a great, great definition. 

 

Lynn [00:36:25] I do think discipleship was putting them in a position where they could see the light stronger than the darkness. And then when the darkness is so dark that it was for them to bring the light and it was for them to be the one that finds. So, If he does something wrong, like Katrina or you know, or somebody needs help, well go help them, go help. 

 

Sherri [00:36:53] You’re the light. 

 

Lynn [00:36:55] Yeah, go be the light. 

 

Sherri [00:37:08] All right, Here we are at the end of episode four of Snacks and Good Company. This was a good one. 

 

Jackie [00:37:15] Yeah. What I liked most about it was that everyone had something different to say, because I feel like in the other ones, everyone had similar things to say. Yeah, you know, But this one, you know…

 

Sherri [00:37:25] Was A variety. Yeah, I think so too. All right, next episode. Hold on. Jackie’s. Get my notes. 

 

Jackie [00:37:32] Get it together Sherri. 

 

Sherri [00:37:34] Okay, so. Oh, next episode is good. This is talking about how do you encourage your kids in their specific gifting? So you look at your kids and you’re like, “Hey, she can saying, hey, she can draw. Hey, she’s really analytical.” Like you see gifts in your kids. How do you encourage them in that gifting? Lot of people talking about that. My mom will be very funny about that. 

 

Jackie [00:37:57] Oh, yeah. It’s just all good. 

 

Sherri [00:37:58] Yeah, it is. So. Okay, so this was episode four. Next episode is the final episode, guys. So you got maybe two or three more bags of snacks to get and eat it with the episode five. All right? 

 

Jackie [00:38:11] Yep. See you next week. 

 

Sherri [00:38:13] Just a reminder, if you like this podcast, we sure hope you do, make sure you subscribe. That helps us a lot. You know what else helps rating us when you need a nice rating. If you put a nice rating like a well, just something nice. Okay guys, you can rate us comments. All of that really helps us to kind of get out there. I think this is such a blessing for moms and that’s why we did it. So please do that. Share it with a mom, you know, that may need some help, may need some encouragement, may need some snacks, whatever the case may be. This is presented by purposely produced by yours truly. Sound Design by Lauren Tone Kirkland. Music by Matt Mason of Mason Haven Music. Art Design by Natoria Marketing. Social Media by Chenessa Schuller. Multimedia Photography by James Brunson. And we recorded the majority of this podcast in the Christian FM studios in Vero Beach, Florida. Until next time, Thank you, friends. 

About Sherri:

Sherri Lynn has been a radio professional for well over a decade. She has her degree in Communications as well as Biblical Studies. Sherri is a writer, comedienne, and former youth pastor. She wrote and produced a comedy DVD entitled “The Very Funny Church Comedy Show: Together We Laugh”, wrote and starred in the stage play musical “The Bold and the Sanctified” which starred American Idol Winner Ruben Studdard, and authored the book “I Want To Punch You In The Face But I Love Jesus.” She is the producer of The Brant Hansen Show and “The Brant & Sherri Oddcast.”