Focus on the Family Broadcast

Mom #1: Father, I pray that you would help my five-year old to stop squirming during devotions.

Dad: Dear Lord, I pray that you would help my daughter come back to church.

Mom #2: Heavenly Father, I’m trying to talk to my kids about you, but I feel like they’re not listening.

John Fuller: Well, if you’re a Christian parent perhaps your greatest desire is to help your kids have a strong faith in Jesus, and today on Focus on the Family we’ll offer some practical ways you can build your children’s faith in everyday situations.

Your host is Focus president and author, Jim Daly. And I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, when my first son, Trent, was born I was so enthralled by him that I- that I’d stay awake all night just holding him and praying for him. It’s that special moment that I know many parents have in that journey.

And with that hope that you heard in those parents a moment ago, you’re praying that your son or daughter will enjoy a deep, close relationship with Christ for their entire life. And then teenage-hood comes along…(laughs)

John: (laughs)

Jim: But if you’re like Jean and me, uh, we sometimes wonder, “Have we modeled a strong enough faith? Will our kids stay close to the Lord…

John: Hmm…

Jim: …because we’ve demonstrated how to do that?” But as we learn in 2 Timothy 1:7, God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear. Here at Focus on the Family we want to encourage you and remind you that God is enough. He has given you a sound mind and the skills you need to raise your kids in Christ.

And we know from research that only 11% of those who abandon their childhood faith say they came from a home where a vibrant faith was taught and practiced. So that’s good!

John: It is good news.

Jim: And if you’re like me, and maybe you, too, John, you want to hear that and think, “What are those things I can do to display that vibrant faith to my kids?”

Our guest today has some amazing insight and practical ideas for doing just that.

John: That’s right. And Natasha Crain is a national speaker and author with degrees from both UCLA and Biola. She and her husband have three children and live in southern California. And Natasha is a blogger and she’s written a book called, Talking With Your Kids About God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have. And you’ll find your copy at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Here now is how we started our conversation with Natasha Crain.

Natasha: Well, the book is written directly to parents, and so it’s meant to equip the parents directly so that they have this knowledge. And then every chapter has a conversation guide with it that will help you engage with younger kids, even older kids, so that there are different level of questions. So really, it can help parents with kids of any age.

Jim Daly: Yeah, that’s good. I- in fact, I talked to Trent this morning and I said, “Hey, here’s a question,” in the, uh, preparation of the program, “I wanna ask you.” And he goes, “What is it?” And I said, “Well, God. Good and evil. Um, you know, if God is good, why does he allow evil to exist?” And he said, “Well, that’s easy, so you could choose who to follow.” (laughs), I’m like, “Wow.” Okay. That sunk in.

John: Good answer, yeah.

Jim: And, uh, that’s the kind of, uh, good questions that you’re proposing here in your book. Let’s start with your blog, though. Uh, I understand it was meant to be a- kind of a lighthearted parenting blog, and, uh, that quickly changed. What happened?

Natasha: Yeah, so in 2011, I had three kids who were three and under at the time, and at that age range-

John: Oh, three kids, three and under.

Natasha: (laughs).

John: How’d you do that?

Natasha: Well, (laughs).

John: W- well, I- I don’t mean how to do that.

Natasha: I dunno, somehow, (laughs).

John: I meant, you know. You have twins, is that right?

Natasha: I have twins, right. Yes. I have twins, and then a younger one.

John: (laughs).

Natasha: And, you know, at that age, you’re doin’ a lotta stuff, with diapers, and potty and that kinda thing, and it- it anyone who has kids that age understands, it can become a little bit redundant. And isolating, too. It’s hard to get outta the house and have fellowship with others. And so-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: … everyone was starting blogs in 2011 and I thought, “You know what? This is a good way that I can kind of have fellowship with other people and meet other people online at least, and have those conversations.” So, I started a blog just to write about how we were teaching our young kids, at that time, to know about Jesus and to love Jesus, and I just started blogging.

And it- it turned out great. I started having people who were actually reading the blog. I was meeting people just like I hoped. But what I didn’t realize is that, when you blog, people share your blog posts online, which is a good thing, but that will bring people, who are also non-believers, to your site. And so, what happened was I started getting a – just a large stream of comments from skeptics of Christianity who were coming to the site. And they were commenting on everything that I would say.

And I have to emphasize, I was not writing anything provocative. I wasn’t trying to pick debates with atheists; I wouldn’t have b- even been able to if I wanted to at the time. I was just writing about Christianity. And they would leave comments like, “There’s no evidence for the existence of God,” and “Science has disproved God.” And, “There’s no evidence that Jesus existed as a person in history.” And, “The Bible’s filled with errors and contradictions,” the list goes on, all of these objections.

And I was a lifelong Christian, I grew up in a Christian home, spent hundreds of hours in church, had never turned away from my faith. So, I was a Christian through and through, but I did not know how to answer those questions.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: And it bothered me a lot, because I realized that my kids were growing up in such a different world than the one in which I grew up, and I wasn’t prepared.

Jim: You know, for the parent that might, uh, have a busy life, I mean, you had twins, and a third child, all at- by the time your twins were three, it sounds like. So, you were busy.

Natasha: Yes.

Jim: You could easily, as a parent, say to yourself, “Well, you know, for this season, because I’m so busy and my husband’s so busy building a business or doing whatever he might be doing, let’s leave this to the church. I mean, they’ll go to church on Sunday, they’ll go to, uh, maybe they’ll go to Sunday school, and, you know, we’ll make sure we have singalong songs that talk about Jesus, and all those things.” Is that enough for this- and I guess what I’m asking you is, speak to the mom particularly, who’s kind of in that place where it is so busy, “I don’t know that I can capture that right now. And I really, I’m gonna take this time and let church do it.”

Natasha: Yeah. It’s- it’s very tempting. And for a lot of us, we grew up in homes maybe that were Christian homes, but our parents didn’t necessarily do a lot of discipleship at home, but they took us to church. And we think, “Well, that worked for me. I’m- I’m a Christian today.” But we have to understand that the world is totally different than when we grew up.

So, I find that parents who had a conversion experience when they were an adult, they get this. They understand, because they’ve been there, they know the other side of it. It’s the Christians who grew up in a Christian home who feel like, “Well, I was okay, and I didn’t have to learn all this stuff, all these apologetics,” who need to understand the world is far more challenging today.

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: And so, your kids will encounter these questions. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: And it’s not just about looking up to the church. First and foremost, the Bible calls us as parents to be the primary spiritual influence in our kids’ lives. So, whether you want to leave it to the church or not, the- the Bible wants us as parents to be in that role.

But beyond that, even if you said, “Well, I understand that, but I’m just overwhelmed, and I’m just gonna- I’m gonna put this in the church’s hands.” It’s important to understand that churches have not yet, by and large, caught up with this either. A lot of churches aren’t teaching apologetics. And one example of that is that, you know, this research that shows how – why kids are walking away. Over and over again, they show that some of the top questions are science-related. The understanding how science and Christianity can be complementary, and that they don’t conflict, as the secular narrative goes.

So, there’s so much of that happening, yet when they survey youth pastors to see the kinds of subjects that they’re addressing in church, they find that only 1% of youth pastors have addressed an issue about science in the last year. So, there’s-

Jim: Right, and it should be 80%.

Natasha: Exactly, right, or 100%.

Jim: It should be 100%, (laughs).

Natasha: Right? So, there’s this big disconnect between- still, where the church is catching up. We as parents are catching up, and the church is catching up. So, we all kinda have to work together. But first and foremost is our role as parents, and- and like I said, if a kid had any other struggle-

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: …you would assume you had to match the preparation for that. We need to be the same with our spiritual lives.

Jim: And I like that underlying theme, you know, if they had a medical issue, you would do all the research you needed to make sure the right decisions were being made.

Natasha: Right.

Jim: That is probably the most profound thing you’ve said so far. When you, um, look at the culture today, so often we as Christian parents want to insulate our kids, you know? That’s the strategy. So, there’s so much technology coming at them and so much exposure to things that we don’t want them to see, it’s easy to move in that direction.

But in your book, Talking With Your Kids About God, you describe a story, uh, where you were comfortable, it sounded like, exposing your kids to non-Christian themes. And in fact, I think it was Jehovah Witnesses that came to the door and- and, how did you handle that with your children standing there listening to the conversation?

Natasha: Yeah, I think that’s the overall theme of the book, really, is that we should be exposing our kids to all these ideas. So, these are not just 30 questions about God in general, but 30 questions that our kids really need to understand, given the secular world that they’re growing up in.

We can demonstrate this in all kinds of ways, but to the story that you mentioned about Jehovah Witnesses coming to the door. I was just making dinner one night and I heard the door knock, and I went down there. And my son was playing near the door, and he was probably about six at the time. And I opened the door, and, uh, they introduced themselves. This was a mom and a girl who was about my son’s age. And she said, “Can my daughter show you this movie about God? It really just shows the design of a butterfly and how that points to God’s existence.”

And it was a perfect opportunity; I knew my son was kind of listening nearby. And I said, “Oh, that’s great. I- I totally believe the same thing and I agree with you, that the design in nature points to the existence of God. I’m a Christian.” And she said, “Oh, we’re Christians too. I’m so glad to meet you, because everyone I talk to is an atheist when I go door to door.”

And- and I said, you know, that I understand what you’re doing and I really appreciate that, but I- I knew my son was listening and I wanted him to understand how we can approach these things. And I said, “I don’t have a lot of time right now because I’m in the middle of making dinner, but I just wanna say that we still do have differences between us, because based on your translation of the Bible that Jehovah’s Witnesses use, that Jesus is not God. Jesus is not part of the Trinity. And that is very different than what I would believe, based on the translation that- that we use.”

And so, I said, “Part of what I do as a parent to help my kids is expose them to other viewpoints in the world to explain why there’s good reason to believe that my faith is true. And I would just encourage you to do the same with your daughter, to look into why is it that so many Bible scholars reject that translation of the Bible.”

Jim: Interesting. Yeah, really good.

Natasha: And she- she looked at me, and she kind of nodded. And I learned later that Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to accept any kind of outside literature or look into those opposing viewpoints. So, even presenting that is something that was challenging to her. But when I closed the door, my son looked at me, and even at that age, he said, “Okay, so the reason that they believe differently is because they have a different translation of the Bible.”

Jim: He picked that up.

Natasha: Yeah.

Jim: That’s-

Natasha: And I was-

Jim: Wow.

Natasha: … I was really- I was really interested in that, because, I said, “Yeah,” you know, “That’s exactly right. There are all kinds of reasons why people believe differently. In some cases, people believe there is no God that has revealed anything, that would be an atheist. And other cases that people believe there is a God, and we have that in common. But that that doesn’t we’re- we believe the same thing. And there are those crucial differences.” So, we can help our kids a lot by telling them this.

Jim: And Natasha, it does get back to this idea of fear. And we’ve got to- with that opening scripture I mentioned in 2 Timothy, s- that the Lord hasn’t given us a spirit of fear. So, it’s almost like an inoculation process. You want your children to be exposed to things so they can manage them and understand them and process them, and explain them in a scriptural and truthful way. And I- I think that’s great. It- do some parents struggle with that?

Natasha: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I wrote a blog post once, and it was called, uh, “Don’t Be Afraid to be the Cause of Your Kid’s Questions or Doubts.”

Jim: Hmm.

Natasha: And I think that’s so important. I- I told my kids, when they were probably five, I said, “I don’t want you to ever grow up and think that you’re a Christian because mommy and daddy were Christians.”

Jim: Hmm.

Natasha: “Don’t believe in Jesus because I do.” And I said, “I want you to understand that I’m so convicted of the truth of Christianity, because God has given us so much evidence that this is what’s true, that my job is to help you learn how to pursue that truth yourself.”

Jim: Right.

Natasha: “And so, as you get older, we’ll be talking about that, and we will discuss it and I will show you how to do it.” But I think that is so important for kids to understand, because then when they do have questions, they do have doubts, then they come to you and they know it’s okay. It’s okay, when mommy and daddy are-

Jim: It’s a safe place.

Natasha: Yeah. They’re so convinced of the truth of Christianity that they don’t fear. It’s like what you were saying, there’s no fear in this house, because if Christianity is truth, there is nothing to fear.

John: Hmm

Jim: Yeah. That’s all good.

John: Yeah, and our guest today on Focus on the Family is Natasha Crain. Her book is Talking With Your Kids About God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have. And you can order that through us and support our ministry here at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Natasha, let’s start with the- teaching our kids the evidence for God’s existence. Let’s get into some practical application now we kinda talked about the theory of it. You say many Christians rely on the wrong kind of evidence. Um, explain what you mean.

Natasha: Well, I wouldn’t say necessarily it’s the wrong kind of evidence, but I think that if you ask a lot of Christians, you know, “How do you know Christianity’s true?” 95% of the time, a Christian will give you their testimony. And so, they’ll g- they’ll tell you about their experience, and that’s extremely important. So, it’s not that it’s wrong to share your testimony, but we have to understand, we cannot export our own experience to anyone else. So, if you’re-

Jim: It’s evidence of.

Natasha: It’s- yes, it’s evidence of. So if your kids come to you and they ask, “How do you know Christianity’s true?” And you tell them about something that happened to you that they haven’t experienced, yet they’re getting all of these kinds of intellectual challenges from the world, then they’re kind of b- between a rock and a hard place there, and it- where do you go?

Jim: Yeah, and I think this next question kinda lends itself to that. And I’m thinking of this in the context of teenagers. And it is this: one common argument against God is that he- he doesn’t make his existence undeniable. I like the way that’s stated.

Uh, that’s actually a very good question. Uh, if he’s perfectly loving, why is he still such a mystery? Why doesn’t he just declare it so there’s no question?

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Okay, we all know God is there. Why that distinction, that we must trust him by faith?

Natasha: Right. That- and there- there are a lotta pieces that kinda go into-

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: … answering that, obviously.

Jim: It’s a big question.

Natasha: It’s a huge question.

Jim: That’s an adult question, frankly.

Natasha: (laughs), that- that is an adult question, it absolutely is. And in fact, I’ve been asked a lot of times what makes me doubt or what challenges me, and the hidden-ness of God, I think, is- is a primary issue for a lot of people. Um, so it’s a good one.

I think that the first part of that answer comes from having our kids understand the evidence for God’s existence first. A lot of times when people ask that question, they’re asking it assuming that there is no evidence.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: That was just- have to blindly believe. And that is just so detrimental to kids’ faith today, if they believe that faith is a blind leap in the dark, that there is actually no evidence, we just have to close our eyes and say, “I hope- I hope it’s true.” And so, we don’t want kids to have that blind faith.

So, if they have the evidence for God’s existence to start with, then we can begin to answer that question, why isn’t there more evidence? And so, when we get to that question, and so many atheists say, you know, “If God just wrote in the sky, you know, ‘Here I am!’ Or showed up in my living room, what- you know, what would that be?” And a good way to explain this to kids, I think, is that if you imagine a detective; kids love detectives, right? You see a detective. He goes in, he evaluates the evidence. He looks at all the pieces that are there, and comes to the best explanation for that.

We would laugh if the bumbling detective came outta the room and said, “Well, I don’t like what’s there, so I want these five things instead to tell me about who did this.” You know, “I wish that he had left a note with his name and his phone number. I wish, I wish, I wish.” Right? It doesn’t necessarily make logical sense to come up with a wish list of the evidence that we want to have. We have to look at what we do have.

And so, when we point our kids to that evidence, where did the universe come from? Where did life come from? Looking at the complexity of life, and of how our universe is structured just right to support life. And where did our moral understanding come from? All these things that I talk about in the book that are these pieces of evidence. When we look at that, then we can say, “Okay, this is the evidence. What’s the best explanation for it?”

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: And if God were to show up in everyone’s living room, kinda the bottom line answer to that original question, he would be taking away our free will to choose to love him freely.

Jim: Yeah. And I- y- you know what I appreciated, that you did the ant farm experiment, I think, that illustrated this. And this is a great way to, uh, teach it to four, five, six, eight-year-olds. What happened with that?

Natasha: Well, we didn’t intend for it to be an experiment, but it-

John: (laughs).

Natasha: … it- (laughs) it- it ended up being one.

Jim: Oh, ant farms are always-

Natasha: Always-

John: Always…

Jim: Always an experiment, (laughs).

Natasha: … an experiment.

John: All of us who have had ant farms-

Natasha: (laughs).

John: … we can identify.

Natasha: Well, y- so I was- just for the record, I was fundamentally opposed to ant farms.

Jim: So this is husband’s idea.

Natasha: Th- this was husband’s idea, yes. I- I did not understand why we needed lots of these little creatures I normally want outta the house, in the house-

Jim: Yeah, (laughs), right.

Natasha: … even in a contained environment. But he convinced me that this would be very educational for the kids and they could burrow little holes and all these things. So, we got the ant farm. And for, uh, a few days, it was very interesting and I thought, “Okay, maybe he is right, maybe this isn’t so bad.” But then we wake up one morning and the ants are almost all dead. And you can’t separate out, as anyone who’s had an ant farm knows, you can’t separate out the live ants and the dead ants. So, now we have a semi-alive creation-

Jim: Yeah.

Natasha: … in the corner of our room. And you can’t do anything about it. By the next day, all of the ants had died, and so I have to take the whole thing out and throw it away, and that was the end of that. So, uh, the moral of the story is don’t get an ant farm, right? (laughs).

Jim: I- I’m hearin’ that.

Natasha: Kind- kind of.

Jim: (laughs).

Natasha: But- but we used this as an opportunity to explain to the kids, “Look. The- these ants, they needed something really specific to survive.” And what came with the ant farm was this blue gel stuff that was in there.

John: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: And I remember asking my husband, “What do we feed them? What do- what kind of water?” And he said, “No, no, no, the blue gel gives them all that they need,” and according to the instructions, that was correct. But in order to have living things that exist and flourish in our world, we have to have certain things; we have to have liquid water, for example.

And so, our living environment, both the universe itself and our planet Earth, have to be just right to allow for us to exist. And we kind of intuitively know we don’t exist on other planets. You know, we have not seen anything that looks like us, (laughs) on any of the planets. But we don’t necessarily think of how much is required for planet Earth to support us.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Natasha: And so, just the ant farm, use everyday situations where you can show your kids, “The ants need something specific just like we do. And there are very specific things that are needed in order for us to survive on this Earth.”

Jim: And what’s so good about that is they start making that connection then.

Natasha: Right.

Jim: And- and they can … And it’s a young age. They can start to connect those dots.

Natasha: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim: And what a beautiful illustration. This might be the most critical question of all. And of course, we’re gonna encourage you to get Natasha’s book, because I think every parent, I don’t care how old your kids are, both for yourself as well as for your children, need to answer these 30 questions and be a- proficient at thinking them through.

But here’s the one: how can we help our children understand how to have a relationship with a God they can’t see, and in most cases, can’t really audibly hear? It’s that intuitive Holy Spirit voice that we hear in our hearts and our souls. How do we do that? How do we help them have that relationship?

Natasha: I think that’s a great question to ask, because a lot of times parents come at it from assuming that, because we’ve become used to having a relationship with a God that we don’t physically see and hear that our kids will know how to do that. The- it’s a really foreign thing, if you think about it. When you put yourself in your kids’ shoes, your young kids’ shoes, and you’re telling them that God is this and God loves them, and, “Hey, you need to love him too, and here, start having this relationship,” it’s very hard to explain that.

And so, I think, number one, it’s important for us to just acknowledge to our kids, “Hey, this is different. This is something different than relating to your friends at school. You can’t see God, you can’t hear him. But just like with a friend at school, if you’re gonna get to know someone, if you want to love that person, you have to get to know them. And we hear from God through his Word.” And so, that’s where, first, the Bible study comes from, and- and helping our kids understand the importance of studying the Bible together. And we respond to God by our prayer and through our serving.

And so, those are- and I could kinda elaborate on all those things, but that’s kind of the big picture of how to approach this with my kids, is to think of it. If you’re having that relationship with someone you know at school, it’s kinda the same thing, that you’re hearing from them and you’re responding to them. And in the context of God, we hear from God in his Word and through the Holy Spirit, and then we return by prayer and by serving others.

Jim: Natasha, we’re right near the end. And I- I- I’m thinking of the parent who, uh, maybe they’re through the 10, 11, 12-year-old stage and they are in the teen years now. And there- there’s a lot more independence in those years, that teenagers are trying to express themselves and find out who they are and becoming more independent from the parental control that’s been, rightfully, kinda there in the earlier years of development. How does that parent, who’s been desperate to ensure there’s a relationship there with God, because they know this is eternity; what we’re talking about here is the most serious business of any human soul. Do you know God or do you not know God?

But to that desperate parent who may be thinking, “I haven’t been able to do this. It hasn’t caught. Something’s wrong.” And they lay up awake in the middle of the night worrying about their 15-year-old who may be listening to things, doing things that’s inconsistent with the faith. What suggestion do you have for them in that desperation? How do we not become fearful, as we opened the program with that great scripture from 2 Timothy. Where do they get the assurance to say, “Okay, God, do you have this?”

Natasha: Yeah. I think that, first and foremost, praying. We- we have to continue praying and asking God for guidance in that. So, we can’t lose our sight of our relation- our own relationship with God in that. I think that the more that I talk with parents who have teenagers who are in that situation, the more I realize that every parent realizes what they did wrong was panic when their kids first started expressing doubts.

Jim: Right.

Natasha: It shut down the communication line, so that they don’t have the relationship that they could have, in terms of those questions. So, their kids no longer want to talk. And that’s-

Jim: They’re fearful to talk to you about it.

Natasha: They’re fearful because they’re afraid that their questions are gonna upset you. And I’ve always told those parents, “Go back to your kids and just acknowledge, you know, this is what I- w- I responded poorly.” You know? O- obviously, you can say, “As a Christian, I believe this is true and that there are eternal implications for what you believe. So, please understand, from my perspective, that this is important to me. But I want to understand where you’re coming from. I wanna hear your questions. I want to understand.”

John: Some valuable insight on Focus on the Family from Natasha Crain about continuing to have those faith conversations with your children, and keeping the doors to the relationship open.

Jim: Right, I wanna turn to our listeners. Uh, that passion you’ve heard in Natasha’s voice about raising children to love Jesus, it’s because she knows deep in her heart that a life with Jesus is the most abundant and purposeful life there is. We all believe that as Christians.

And that love that we feel for our children, that is what is motivating her. But our love for our kids doesn’t even compare to the love God has for us. Um, if you haven’t accepted Jesus and you’d like to learn more about what that means, we’re here for you.

John: We are. And over the years, Jim, it’s been a privilege for us to introduce people to the Christian life and tell them more, both personally and through a little booklet called “Coming Home: An Invitation to Join God’s Family.” And we’ve got an e-book of that online at our website. So, look for that at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast, or call us at 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, if we can help you understand the Christian life better.

Jim: And again, the resource we have for you today is Natasha’s book, Talking With Your Kids About God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have. It’s a book full of deep faith questions that all of us, even adults and believers in Christ, need to grapple with. So, contact us, and I wanna get this book into your hands. It’s yours for a donation of any amount. Or if you can’t afford it, uh, call us anyway. We’ll trust that others will cover the expense of that.

John: Yeah. It’s because of the monthly pledge partners that we have, the sustainers, who give on a regular basis and those one-time gifts. Those all add up and make it possible for us to reach out, and, uh, to do as Jim just noted and make that book available to all who ask for it.

Donate, and get your copy of the book at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast, or when you call 800-A-FAMILY. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we, once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ.