Talking With Your Kids About Jesus – Natasha Crain

[00:00:00] thanks for being here today my name’s Kevin Conover with educate for life and my guest today is Natasha crane and you

[00:00:09] can visit her at Natasha crane calm and I just wanted to read this really cool quote this is an endorsement for her

[00:00:15] book that just came out talking with your kids about Jesus this is from Lee Strobel Natasha has an uncanny

[00:00:21] combination of a warm and winsome writing style keen insights born out of personal experience and a wealth of

[00:00:27] knowledge about Christian apologetics or evidence for the faith and that’s Lee Strobel the author of the case for

[00:00:34] Christ who has a movie out and everything pretty impressive endorsement Natasha have you had a

[00:00:42] chance he how did you get an endorsement like that that’s amazing he must have he must have really liked your stuff that you’ve written so far

[00:00:48] yeah I was so honored that he was willing to read write the foreword for the book and to read the book of course

[00:00:53] and we just connected because he had written read some of my blog posts and he liked them and he reached out and son

[00:01:00] you know if there’s anything I can do to help you I you know he loved a support and so I decided to just take a big

[00:01:06] chance and I said well actually I’m currently finishing a book and I don’t know if you’d be willing and you know I

[00:01:12] couched it in a thousand it’s okay if you don’t want to and then he wrote back he said yeah absolutely I’d love to so it was one of

[00:01:19] those moments because I loved all of his work he’s done so much great work for

[00:01:25] the body of Christ so it really is an honor that he was willing to write yeah that’s incredible well let me just brag on you a little

[00:01:32] bit for our listeners just so you guys know who we’re talking to here Natasha crane is a national speaker she’s an

[00:01:37] author a blogger and her passion is equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how

[00:01:43] to make a case for and defend their faith in what we all know is an increasingly secular world so the book

[00:01:49] we’re talking about today is talking with your kids about Jesus 30 questions that Christian parents must ask but

[00:01:55] she’s also authored two other apologetics books for parents keeping your kids on God’s side and talking with

[00:02:01] your kids about God and she’s been on Focus on the Family she has an incredible blog she’s been with the

[00:02:07] Christian research journal and she’s been interviewed all over the place she also has a degree from UCLA and MBA

[00:02:14] as well as a certificate in Christian politics apologetics from Biola University and Natasha you know what I

[00:02:20] wanted to ask you about you know I’m very passionate about helping parents raise that’s what I do also I’m a Christian high school teacher I teach

[00:02:27] apologetics and I see and I speak around and I hear parents say my kid walked away from God my I raised my kids in a

[00:02:35] Christian home and they got they got to college and they told me I’m an atheist so I’ve had this happen quite a few

[00:02:41] times after a church service or whatever somebody comes up to me and says what happened what did I do wrong and so this

[00:02:47] is what your book is about this is what you’re passionate is about and I wanted to start off by asking you you know

[00:02:52] there are a lot of books written about apologetics lease troubles written tons of books Sean and McDowell’s written

[00:02:58] tons of books there’s a lot of books but your your books are meeting a need in a

[00:03:04] way that a lot of other books are not addressing the issues specifically with parents and kids what motivated you to

[00:03:11] write this book why did you how did you come without going you know what this is what needs to be written about yeah well I started

[00:03:19] my blog it was just a Christian parenting blog I started it back in 2011 and when I started that blog I had never

[00:03:25] heard of apologetics before I just decided I was gonna write about Christian parenting and I was gonna write about the things that we were

[00:03:31] doing to help our very young kids at the time to learn about Jesus and to to know a love of the Lord and as I started

[00:03:37] writing I started getting people who were coming to my site and they were attacking Christianity and I wasn’t

[00:03:42] writing anything that was trying to provoke people at all it was just for whatever reason when people shared my

[00:03:48] blog posts I would get a lot of skeptics coming to my site and as they did I was introduced to all these kinds of

[00:03:54] challenges and questions that even though I had been a lifelong Christian I really had never encountered before

[00:03:59] things about you know Jesus never existed the Bible is filled with errors and contradiction science the district

[00:04:05] god all these kinds of questions that are so calming and I just realized that I was woefully unprepared to raise my

[00:04:12] kids in a world like this and so I set out to get answers I discovered apologetics how we make a case for and

[00:04:18] defend the shoots of Christianity and through that process I turned my blog into a place where I was writing to

[00:04:24] equip other Christian parents with that same understanding so over the that led to me writing my three books

[00:04:30] that you described a little bit ago and ultimately the same of those books is that there are all these conversations

[00:04:35] that Christian parents desperately need to have with their kids given the specific challenges in today’s world

[00:04:42] that there are certain things that they’re just not going to hear about in church and they’re not necessarily gonna hear about in the average home that that

[00:04:48] we need to be aware of we need to know what the challenges are and then we need to prepare them accordingly so each of

[00:04:54] my books has that theme and they just focus on a different type of subject in each one so this most recent one talking

[00:05:00] with your kids about Jesus focuses on 30 conversations specifically at the Jesus level so in other words how do we know

[00:05:06] that Jesus was who he said he was and what did Jesus teach and what is the death of Jesus mean and how do we know

[00:05:12] he was actually raised from the dead and ultimately what is the difference that Jesus makes for us yeah and it’s so

[00:05:18] important it’s so valuable and I think parents are becoming more and more aware of this that would you say that the

[00:05:23] experience you had is an experience that a lot of parents are having in the sense that oh my goodness all of a sudden my

[00:05:29] my young person my young my child is asking questions and I don’t feel prepared to answer these questions do

[00:05:35] you think that that’s something that’s a common experience yeah I think that what’s not common is the parents

[00:05:41] themselves getting personally attacked unless they’re already online and really engaging with people in these kinds of conversations then you will see these

[00:05:48] kinds of challenges all the time but a lot of parents are kind of in their own little bubble you know they go back and forth to school and they have their

[00:05:55] friends and they don’t necessarily engage in these things but what is a very common experience is that they

[00:06:00] start to become aware of what’s happening through their kids so as their kids are getting older they begin to

[00:06:06] encounter these kinds of questions especially if they’re in a public school setting where this comes up a lot more

[00:06:11] often or even just from the media that their kids are watching and questions that come up that way so they’re starting to see more and more these are

[00:06:19] challenges and I think almost universally Christian parents know that the world is becoming a tougher place

[00:06:24] they just don’t necessarily know what to do about it yeah exactly you know it’s funny that

[00:06:30] the interview that I’m having with you today the discussion we’re having is so relevant yes yesterday I had my students

[00:06:37] or I had a lot of students watch on a discussion a debate I had with

[00:06:42] an atheist atheist vlogger who has a lot of subscribers on his YouTube channel

[00:06:49] and he was giving all these reasons why he shouldn’t believe in God and he started off with his story and his story

[00:06:55] was I grew up in a Christian in a Catholic family I had questions that I

[00:07:00] wanted answered nobody gave me good answers and I decided God’s not real and so you know I always at the end of my

[00:07:08] classes I have an atheist and evolutionist teach my one class to

[00:07:14] challenge the students because I want them to know hey this is what’s out there this is what’s coming your way and

[00:07:19] so so that they’re prepared but a lot of kids don’t have that opportunity to be in an apologetics classroom to have

[00:07:26] those discussions and to be made aware of what’s happening and so like you’re saying this is a big need because one of

[00:07:32] the things he said was he said you know we don’t he said I don’t even think Jesus was a real person he said Jesus is

[00:07:39] a myth is that something that you hear frequently because this this isn’t

[00:07:44] something that people always this is this is a new idea yeah that’s actually

[00:07:49] the first chapter in my book is Jesus of myth and we start there and I even acknowledge in the book you know when you’re thinking of raising your kids to

[00:07:56] know Jesus you’re often knocking first of all you know how do I show them that Jesus actually existed as a person in

[00:08:02] history this is just not on the radar for most Christian parents but it is a very common thing it’s very popular on

[00:08:08] the Internet there’s kind of this whole community of people of Jesus mythos that they’re called and they don’t believe that Jesus

[00:08:15] existed as a person in history and I have to qualify that by saying that amongst people scholars who study this

[00:08:22] academically virtually no one thinks that Jesus wasn’t met because there’s really good reason to believe that he

[00:08:27] existed as a person in history as I outlined in this chapter but it becomes an issue for kids because they’re going

[00:08:33] to encounter it in a popular level kind of conversation online I think that’s so important pairs to understand because

[00:08:39] sometimes they just waive these things off and say yeah but everyone knows Jesus wasn’t a myth and you know even atheist scholars will admit that you

[00:08:46] know yes we know Jesus existed but a lot of times the scholarship is not what kids using with their engaging with

[00:08:52] those kinds of bloggers and and miss postures that are out there and they come upon this stuff haphazardly

[00:08:59] and it sounds good if they haven’t studied it and then they can be persuaded of things that there’s actually very little evidence for there

[00:09:06] yes actually a very popular topic online especially yeah and again I really think

[00:09:13] your your hitting the nail on the head here because that’s exactly the issue it’s not as if the young people are

[00:09:18] going out and then they’re talking to educated people about these issues right

[00:09:24] they’re not talking to J Warner Wallace or Gary Habermas or any of these guys the people they’re getting this this

[00:09:29] guidance from are the skeptical bloggers online or on Instagram or on snapchat or

[00:09:35] whatever there’s on periscope there’s all kinds of atheists that are saying making these arguments and they just

[00:09:41] stumble on them as their because they’re on their phones all the time and they go wow I never heard that

[00:09:46] before I’ve never heard a response to it and they don’t even necessarily go out and research it so we have to be

[00:09:51] proactive in making that happen and in your book you give a in the introduction

[00:09:56] you give it an analogy about housecleaning to help give parents perspective on this issue so can you

[00:10:03] share that with our listeners of what you’re talking about there yeah so I acknowledged in the introduction that

[00:10:09] I’m horrible at keeping my house picked up we always have stuff all over the place homework papers and pencils on

[00:10:15] seat cushions just there’s always stuff everywhere but when I go to other people’s houses I feel like they are always more clean than my house and so I

[00:10:22] was just wondering out loud in my introduction you know how do people do this how do they actually keep their house so clean and I told the story of

[00:10:30] how one day I was on Facebook and scrolling through and there was this article that was promoted that was called five things that tidy people

[00:10:36] don’t do and so I clicked over to get some very practical help and one of the insights actually kind of blew my mind

[00:10:43] and infected how I thought about not only cleaning but about raising kids with ongoing conversations about Jesus

[00:10:50] and here’s what the point was it said tidy people don’t act like a slob all day and then clean everything

[00:10:56] up in one fell swoop they developed these tiny non drastic kind of habits to

[00:11:02] tidy as they go and they called this low-grade tidying and I just thought

[00:11:07] this was such perfect analogy because if you see a book like mine and you say okay there

[00:11:12] are 30 conversations I’ve got to have and you think of it as this giant process and you’ve got to hurry up and

[00:11:17] do this deep cleaning on your kids spiritual understanding and set aside a week where you’re going on a family retreat to figure this all out you’re

[00:11:24] never gonna do it and it sounds completely overwhelming but just like it was cleaning if you treat these

[00:11:31] conversations as a process an ongoing process of low-grade tithing of your kids spiritual understanding it becomes

[00:11:38] much more manageable suddenly now you’re able to just have these conversations as

[00:11:43] you go you weave them into your daily life and you see it as a very long-term kind of project instead of that one deep

[00:11:50] clean that you do one day and I think that that’s a really big encouragement for us as Christian parents to remember

[00:11:56] we don’t have to see this as a giant overwhelming burden but rather we just need to see it as an ongoing way of life

[00:12:03] that we’re doing a little bit of cleaning each day as we go absolutely I love that I love that metaphor it’s so

[00:12:09] appropriate just like you’re saying and if you’re listening if you’re tuning in just recently Natasha crane is my guest

[00:12:15] today she’s the author of a book that just recently came out talking with your kids about Jesus 30 conversations that

[00:12:21] Christian parents must have with their kids and you can check that out Natasha crane calm she’s got incredible all

[00:12:27] kinds of blogs I know that are very helpful very interesting engaging and relevant to your life so I recommend you

[00:12:33] check it out and of course you can get her book anywhere it’s on Amazon it’s all over the place you have the opportunity to pick it up you know

[00:12:39] Natasha you break the book down into five different sections so I’ll just read these off here you have the

[00:12:45] identity of Jesus the teachings of Jesus the death of Jesus the resurrection of

[00:12:51] Jesus and the difference Jesus makes you know for you when you are writing this what for you was the most enjoyable or

[00:12:58] most the part that you felt like wow this is so significant so important so

[00:13:04] eye-opening for people I mean a lot of times when you’re writing something like this and you’re studying these issues

[00:13:10] you’re learning also to what for you was one of the biggest blessings as your you

[00:13:15] were writing this book oh you know it’s interesting because you’re right you do learn so much even

[00:13:21] as you’re writing because just as you’re finding ways to explain to other people something sometimes things click for you so I could I could say that about

[00:13:28] practically every chapter in the book but I would say that I especially when I

[00:13:33] was writing the second section on the teachings of Jesus and I was picking out the topics that are most popularly

[00:13:40] misunderstood by both skeptics and Christians alike that I just really felt this burden upon me to help parents

[00:13:48] understand this and a very streamlined easy to understand what because it is so common to hear people have these

[00:13:55] misunderstands even things like what did Jesus teach about judging others and what if he teach about loving others and

[00:14:00] what did he teach about organized religion these are things that you have to be really gentle with because a lot of times people think that they have a

[00:14:05] biblical understanding about them whereas in reality it’s based on the popular cultural kind of understanding

[00:14:12] of these subjects and so I really enjoyed writing about these and just knowing that this is such an important

[00:14:18] thing for parents to understand so that they can engage more effectively with other people especially online and the

[00:14:24] conversations that people are having today but also to help the next generation to help kids understanding as they’re coming up hey actually we are

[00:14:31] called to be good judges we are called to discern well we are called to love

[00:14:36] others in a way as defined by God and so finding those points of clarity was really rewarding for me and so you

[00:14:43] separate you know you separate between the identity of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus and you emphasize that a lot of

[00:14:49] times people end up spending more time on the teachings of Jesus in then the identity of Jesus what’s the

[00:14:55] significance of that why help us understand why that’s so important yeah

[00:15:00] I think that as parents it’s a way easier to just naturally talk about the tea-things of Jesus in our day to day

[00:15:06] lives because we can apply those teachings to our kids behavior a lot of time so it might be easy as our kids are

[00:15:12] doing something they shouldn’t be to talk to them about okay well here’s why as Christians we don’t do that or here’s

[00:15:18] why it’s Christians that we don’t watch this kind of thing or whatever the case may be it just kind of naturally fits

[00:15:23] together but we don’t seem to find as many of those natural opportunities in our day-to-day lives to talk about the

[00:15:29] identity of Jesus in terms of will who how do we know that Jesus was who he said he was and this is so key to

[00:15:36] understand because if we don’t have good reason to believe that Jesus was who he said he was in other words that he was

[00:15:43] God himself then all those teachings of Jesus don’t matter at all because he if

[00:15:48] Jesus wasn’t God then he he has no authority in order to teach those things in any kind of binding way on our lives

[00:15:55] and might as well talk about what our next-door neighbour teaches so that’s why that first section of my book is the

[00:16:00] identity of Jesus because if we don’t have a really solid understanding of who Jesus was and how we know that then none

[00:16:07] of the rest of the book matters and I think we just far too often skip over that with our kids and just assume that

[00:16:12] they understand they’ve been at church they must know Jesus is God right but how do they know that because when they

[00:16:18] don’t understand that He is God and all that that implies in terms of his authority for our lives and they’re not

[00:16:24] I’d share so much about what he has to say and all those teachings kind of go out the window so as your you know

[00:16:30] you’re studying this a lot I mean you you’ve written your book on talking to your kids about God you’ve written the

[00:16:37] book on raising your kids to stay Christian and as you’re doing this what

[00:16:43] are you seeing what kind of feedback are you getting as far as what are some of the most significant issues when it

[00:16:48] comes to raising Christian kids and helping them stay Christian having a vibrant faith after they leave high

[00:16:53] school and they’re off on their own are there any things that are really popping up as common issues that you feel like

[00:17:00] you know if somebody were to say where do I start with all this and and you

[00:17:06] know along with your book and everything what do I need to do to continue this and and for them to have a vibrant faith

[00:17:12] and for me to have a lot of confidence that they’re not going to fall away from their faith as they get older yeah well

[00:17:19] there there are a lot of questions in that one question you go some different directions with that but let me just

[00:17:26] start with the question of you know what’s gonna make it Prince and their eventual thing okay I think that is really important that we

[00:17:33] have the right mindset as Christian parents that we are not called to do x y&z so that we will have a certain

[00:17:40] outcome in terms of our kids relationship with the Lord ultimately that is between them and God well

[00:17:45] we’re called to make the investment we are called to put in the time and to put in the effort and then we let God and

[00:17:51] take that and make it grow all for his glory and so I think that that mindsets important because if we think okay it’s

[00:17:57] a process of I’m gonna put in this and then I’m gonna get this out that they’re gonna have its relationship when that

[00:18:02] doesn’t exactly work out like we think we can become resentful or frustrated angry and that’s the wrong mindset to

[00:18:10] have biblically so we need to think of this as an investment that we’re making now that said I think some interesting

[00:18:15] research has been done by the Barna Group on some of the factors that they found in what kids report who have grown

[00:18:22] up into what they call spiritual champions so those who have taken their faith seriously and are still committed

[00:18:28] to a biblical worldview by the time they’re in their early twenties they’ve gone they’ve researched these kids and they’ve looked they’ve interviewed them

[00:18:34] they’ve interviewed their families and they’ve looked for these connections and they found a couple of things that have

[00:18:40] made a Fenneman difference and you can read the book revolutionary parenting if you’re interested in all of this research but one of the things that they

[00:18:46] report that the adult kids reported was most important to them in developing their faith was Bible study as a family

[00:18:53] and I think that this is so important not because it should sound shocking it shouldn’t of course as Christians we

[00:18:59] should be staying with a vow together with our kids but the research also shows that fewer than one in ten

[00:19:04] Christian families read the Bible together in a given week so think about it think about the gap there right the

[00:19:11] kids who grow up and have a really strong faith are saying it was Bible study that made the difference those

[00:19:17] connections to their worldview but very few parents are actually doing this so we should not be shocked when we see

[00:19:23] kids walking away from faith today because how are they going to hold your biblical worldview when they’re not studying the Bible so I think that

[00:19:30] ultimately there are many many things that we need to be doing as a family but if we’re not starting with Bible study

[00:19:35] we’re really missing the boat because our kids cannot learn to defend something that they can’t first define

[00:19:41] and that’s their faith as defined by the Bible so it starts with Bible study but then also these other conversations like

[00:19:47] the ones in my book that take them not just from here’s what we believe it’s Christians but here’s why we have good

[00:19:54] reason to believe it and that’s the conviction that kids need in a world for they’re constantly the challenges from everyone around them

[00:20:00] yeah and your book you know questions you know opportunities for parents to

[00:20:07] have these discussions with their kids so you provide some of the talking dialogue to have with these kids can you

[00:20:13] go into that a little bit because it’s not just a straight through read through book in that sense but it actually provides these opportunities to dialogue

[00:20:20] not just doesn’t just tell the parents what to talk about but then provides these discussion questions can you talk a little bit

[00:20:26] about that right so every single chapter in the book has a conversation guide and I think this is really important because

[00:20:32] my very first book keeping your kids on God’s side it just had the content itself so it’s 40 conversations and that

[00:20:38] are big challenges today and it’s kind of an apologetics 101 for parents but after I wrote that book a lot of parents said I understand this stuff now but

[00:20:45] it’s hard to get it out of my head and into conversation and so my last book in this book have a step-by-step

[00:20:51] conversation guide with every single chapter so that it takes that information you just put in your head

[00:20:57] and helps you to verbalize it and it starts with a really easy to understand open the conversation type of question

[00:21:03] that even kids as young as you know 5 could answer and start thinking about and if you have a really young child

[00:21:08] maybe that’s the only question that you ask and then you just use that opportunity to highlight a couple of things from the chapter that you want

[00:21:14] them to know with that age and as they get older you can revisit it like that low-grade tiding we were talking about

[00:21:19] and use it as this long-term guide to what you’re gonna have a conversation about and you come back the next time

[00:21:26] and go a little bit deeper so the questions you get deeper and deeper to take you across the content and then every chapter at the end has something

[00:21:32] called apply the conversation which gives you an actual quote from a skeptic that I’ve ever either found online or any book and it challenges everything

[00:21:39] that the kid just learned in the chapter and it’s um an opportunity to apply what they just learned and practice

[00:21:45] verbalizing response so if your home schooler for example it makes a great assignment for a kid to go back and

[00:21:50] write out a response if you’re doing it as a family time kind of conversation you could use that as well just practice

[00:21:55] you know talking about as a family how would you respond if someone said this so all of these are just some of the tools that will help you to put into

[00:22:02] practice what you’re learning from the chapters themselves so that’s fantastic I think that’s just excellent so these

[00:22:10] these you know you wrote six specifically on the resurrection and you

[00:22:16] know some questions come up more off than other questions as far as it pertains to things like miracles

[00:22:22] skeptics question the validity of uh you know why should I believe that somebody rose from the dead I’ve never seen

[00:22:27] somebody rise from the dead today you know why should I believe that and and so forth so why did you write so much

[00:22:34] specifically on the resurrection is this a question that comes up more often than others

[00:22:40] help us understand the most important issues that you wrote about in the book

[00:22:46] in your mind yeah well I think with respect to the resurrection specifically the answer that is in first Corinthians

[00:22:52] 15:14 where ad Apostle Paul says if Christ has not been raised then your faith is in vain and I love this verse

[00:23:00] because it so succinctly gives us a truth test for Christianity it tells us

[00:23:05] very specifically here’s how we know if Christianity is true or false if Jesus

[00:23:10] was resurrected from the dead then it validated his claims to divinity his predictions that he would be raised in

[00:23:16] the dead came true he was who he said he was and he has all authority for his life and all those teachings we talked

[00:23:21] about matter his death matters it accomplished all these objective things for us on the cross everything is

[00:23:27] changed if Jesus was raised from the dead and if he wasn’t then nothing else matters we don’t need to be Christians

[00:23:33] we can pack our bags and go home so I think it’s so important for our kids to understand that in fact that section

[00:23:38] starts a chapter on why it matters that Jesus was raised from the dead because so often we find that apologists will

[00:23:46] talk about all the evidence for the resurrection but they’re jumping right over but why should I care so much and

[00:23:51] so bad I think is a starting point for that conversation so I think kids need

[00:23:56] to understand why the resurrection is so important to Christianity but beyond that they often also have to understand the evidence for it we don’t want them

[00:24:03] to just think well I guess I just have to blindly believe that somebody was raised from the dead 2,000 years ago

[00:24:08] even though this kind of stuff never naturally happens and so they have to understand a lot about miracles the

[00:24:15] nature of miracles first and then also why we would have any reason historically to think that Jesus was

[00:24:20] raised from the dead and just as a side note I think this is a really interesting topic there’s a new book and I wish I could

[00:24:27] remember the exact title of it but it’s a book by a Robert Bowman and he’s comparing the claims of Mormonism and

[00:24:33] Joseph’s visions to the resolution and looking at the evidence for each and

[00:24:38] it’s just a really great example I think to talk about with kids about how there are specific historical claims of

[00:24:45] Christianity that the truth of our faith rests on and there are specific claims

[00:24:50] and other religions that the truth of their faith rests on and when you compare them you can see there’s no

[00:24:55] comparison that we have enormous evidence for the truth of Christianity whereas it in

[00:25:00] other faiths you just don’t see that in fact a lot of the evidence is against those claims so

[00:25:05] it’s I think it’s it’s interesting to see how we can compare Christianity versus other worldviews in that way but

[00:25:11] it does all come back to the resurrection for Christians yeah absolutely and I I think that’s a common

[00:25:16] thing that I hear all the time I mean during the debate yesterday in the chatbox what was coming up frequently

[00:25:22] was why do you why do you accept the Christian God but you deny all these

[00:25:28] other gods and this seems to be the new atheist kind of mantra which is uh I’ll

[00:25:33] hear people say I’ve had an atheist say this to me on the radio he said you’re an atheist too you just you just only

[00:25:41] believe in this guy but you’re an atheist with all these other gods and I feel like that that is so naive and so

[00:25:48] just misunderstanding because like you said the credibility of the word of God compared to things like the Quran or the

[00:25:57] Book of Mormon whatever is there’s just no comparison a lot of people just aren’t aware of that but you’ve got to start with knowing what you believe like

[00:26:02] you said you’ve got to know about Jesus you’ve got to know the claims of Jesus you’ve got to know all these sorts of things that’s really important so

[00:26:10] ultimately you know when I when parents are part of what parents are struggling with is you know how do I make the time

[00:26:17] for this when do I read a book like this do you have any guidance as far as you know in your own personal life and your

[00:26:23] own schedule and how you incorporate these things into your life on a weekly basis what does that look like for a parent what recommendations would you

[00:26:29] give them about how do I read through the book do I read through it with the whole family do I read once a week do i

[00:26:36] read twice a week or is there you haven’t thoughts on that yeah well it can be used a lot of different ways but I guess

[00:26:43] I would say in an ideal world I would recommend reading the whole book yourself fur his there’s a definite kind

[00:26:49] of step-by-step trajectory to it where it’s its building blocks going from like I said earlier the identity of Jesus to

[00:26:55] now we know who he was let’s talk about the teachings and then his death resurrection is very sequential and I think it’s helpful as a

[00:27:02] parents you kind of have that big picture in mind before you go to teaching your kids individually about

[00:27:08] the different topics so you could take it then from having that understanding you could say okay I think that you know

[00:27:15] whatever it is you’re doing homeschool or we already have a Bible study every week whatever it is if you are able to take one chapter a week and work through

[00:27:21] it with your kids over 30 weeks that’s great a lot of oh they’re kind of going from 100 with that and they’re like yeah

[00:27:28] but I don’t necessarily do anything right now and in that case you might just set aside one section and say okay

[00:27:33] these six chapters we’re gonna have these conversations and make it a six-week study with your family do one a week and then take a break and then

[00:27:40] maybe in a couple of months come back to it and you can do another few weeks on another topic it really just depends on

[00:27:46] kind of the pattern of your life but I think the biggest thing I would say is that once you’re equipped with this

[00:27:51] understanding yourself and you know what the topics are there that are no often

[00:27:57] brought by skeptics and you know how to answer them you’ll start to see teachable opportunities in day-to-day life that just come up when you’re not

[00:28:04] just sitting down intentionally to say okay we’re having this conversation now and that’s so important because it’s

[00:28:09] those teachable moments where this becomes so relevant to kids where you might something that they read at school

[00:28:15] or maybe something a friend said or maybe something you saw online that you bring to them and say hey I just saw this today what do you think of this and

[00:28:21] those are the opportunities where you can say hey by the way how do we even know that Jesus was God like why why

[00:28:27] should we even think that and kind of challenged them and then maybe you just bring forth your knowledge from chapter 3 on is Jesus God at that time so there

[00:28:34] I look at it in terms of creating moments so when you’re bringing that time to your kids and saying hey we’re

[00:28:40] gonna study this but then also using moments and that’s where your knowledge as a parent comes in so important that

[00:28:46] you can identify those opportunities based on your understanding value and then weave them into your ongoing

[00:28:52] daily life that’s great that’s good advice and then you know some parents

[00:28:58] might be thinking yeah but this is the stuff that my kids are gonna be picking up in Sunday school in youth group or in

[00:29:05] church um what would you say to somebody who says you know this isn’t really something I need to focus on they’re already getting this maybe after

[00:29:11] Christian school or whatever the case what what might you say to somebody like that

[00:29:17] yeah well there’s a tiny tiny chance that they might actually be right about

[00:29:22] that so I can’t argue that with any individual in terms of their own church or school but I would say that overwhelmingly churches are not Gina’s

[00:29:30] overwhelmingly Sunday schools and youth groups are very very focused on teaching

[00:29:35] the basics of Christianity and they’re unfortunately not going to the basics of

[00:29:40] apologetics which should be taught right there with them and I so I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be they absolutely

[00:29:45] should be but unfortunately they’re not and we can see that the problem with that is that kids are walking away from

[00:29:52] faith when they encounter these challenges and all the research shows that at least 60% of kids are walking away from their faith by their early 20s

[00:29:58] today so clearly when they talk about the challenges that they’re encountering that they’re not getting answers to

[00:30:03] they’re not getting the answers they need at church and for those who are in Christian schools most Christian schools

[00:30:10] are not going to have extra step of saying yeah let’s teach our kids apologetics maybe a Christian high

[00:30:15] school is but very few Christian elementary schools or Middle School’s are doing that and if they are it’s probably in a very small way but I would

[00:30:22] say that even if you have won the lottery in terms of a Christian school and a church that is going more deeply

[00:30:28] into these topics that shouldn’t take the pressure off you as the parent because ultimately we are the primary

[00:30:34] disciples of our kids we are the primary spiritual influencers in their lives and we should be working to integrate all of

[00:30:42] this their understanding or worldview into our daily lives I know I keep coming back to that daily life thing but

[00:30:48] it is an ongoing way of life that we should have with our kids it’s like Deuteronomy 6 you know when you sit down

[00:30:53] when you walk along the road when you lie down when you get up it’s at all times not if your church happens to do

[00:30:59] it you’re off the hook or if your school happens to do it you’re off the hook we should be doing it no matter what and if

[00:31:05] you can find a school and a church that are additionally doing it then praise the Lord it’s great that they’re gonna hear it there too yeah yeah you know I

[00:31:13] love your your website for those of you listening Natasha crane comm she’s got a great blog posts in here and one of the

[00:31:22] blog posts you have on here is the number one side sign your kids are just borrowing your faith you know what are

[00:31:28] the what are the red flags that pair should be looking out for and you know

[00:31:34] along the way you know some people they might feel like starting this too late

[00:31:41] you know it’s it’s they’re a senior and of course we want to do that like you said tidying along the way but what are

[00:31:49] the signs that a child is not embracing their faith and where that parent might

[00:31:54] say man I really need to pick up the slack in this area and my in my life and my parenting what kind of things should

[00:31:59] be should they be watching out for yeah well sometimes it’s very very obvious to

[00:32:05] parents because the kids start to fight back and push back and you are very verbal about how they feel about their

[00:32:11] faith and it’s then that a lot of parents go into crisis mode of saying oh my gosh I can’t believe in my kid they’re turning away from the Lord and

[00:32:18] they go searching for answers and then they discover apologetic but when I wrote that blog post the number one sign

[00:32:23] that your kids are just borrowing your faith and not developing their own I wanted to call attention to parents who

[00:32:29] are kind of in a comfort zone you are just kind of sitting back saying yeah well thankfully I think we’re okay right

[00:32:35] now my kids not really saying anything and you know they’re going to church without too much trouble they’re

[00:32:40] involved in youth group and you know volunteering in the nursery maybe and I think it’s a false sense of security in

[00:32:46] a lot of cases and what a lot of times happens is that the kids who are quiet are the ones who are not asking

[00:32:53] questions and if they’re not asking questions there’s a good chance that they’re just borrowing your faith and

[00:32:58] not developing their own and a borrowed faith can be just as dangerous as one

[00:33:04] that gets destroyed in high school because ultimately if they’re not asking questions and they’re not wanting today

[00:33:09] more deeply into what they believe and why by the time they leave home that faith is just as ready for crushing as a

[00:33:16] faith where they had already turned away in their their teenage years so that

[00:33:21] number one sign is that kids are not asking questions and if they’re not asking questions you need to get them to

[00:33:28] ask questions you need to kind of raise these things with them and you need to be giving them the questions when you

[00:33:33] know that the world is going to challenge your kids on the plausibility of miracles for example and the world’s gonna tell the miracles don’t happen

[00:33:39] it’s ridiculous to think this stuff happens you know it’s ridiculous somebody was swallowed by well if you

[00:33:44] know that you need to bring the question your kid and say why do you think miracles are possible and talk to them about these

[00:33:51] things so I like to give the example of world war ii in history we don’t say

[00:33:56] okay well if my kid asked questions about world war ii then i’m going to teach them about world war ii you don’t

[00:34:02] do that in their academic lives so we shouldn’t do it spiritually either we know what they need to know or we should

[00:34:08] know that and then we need to teach them accordingly and a lot of event yeah and a lot of

[00:34:14] kids they don’t even know the questions to ask they don’t know what’s coming that way so if we don’t prepare them for those questions then those questions

[00:34:20] might not come up until there’s a point where they’re in a moment of crisis and because if they’ve never been dealt

[00:34:26] they’ve never had to deal with it before it just they just get knocked over so that’s absolutely true that’s what I

[00:34:32] love about your book is how you break down these thirty specific questions that are very very specific because a

[00:34:38] lot of times too as parents parents are kind of like well I hope I’m covering what what needs to be covered I’m not an

[00:34:44] expert in this I haven’t taken the time to study it and so they might grab a DVD over here they might grab a book over here they might grab this over here and

[00:34:50] just hope okay I think maybe these are the topics and and yet what your book

[00:34:55] really does is really breaks that down and shows them exactly the kind of questions that are coming their way so

[00:35:00] they can address each one specifically which is fantastic and if you’re listening my guest today is Natasha

[00:35:05] crane she’s the author of three books that very specifically are addressing the fact that many kids are walking away

[00:35:12] from their faith George Barna actually did a study on this in 2000 2017 and he

[00:35:17] actually said we’re in a crisis kids do not have a biblical worldview if we don’t do something about it we’re in big

[00:35:24] trouble and you know that word crisis what are you doing a crisis you act quickly and

[00:35:29] you act decisively you don’t sit around go well I’ll get to that son at some point in time no you go out and you do

[00:35:35] something about it very quickly right away and I really think that is it’s a crisis for our kids they really need to

[00:35:41] be able to deal with these issues as soon as possible and you know you you

[00:35:48] said something really interesting here to which which well I want to get to

[00:35:54] that but basically with kids and thinking critic about these issues sometimes you know in

[00:36:01] Sunday school what happened seems to be happening is it’s almost and I’ve seen this also in

[00:36:07] even Christian high school classes like a Bible class sometimes it seems like

[00:36:14] they’re having a negative impact they’re not actually having a positive impact on a kid’s faith they’re actually weakening

[00:36:19] their faith can you talk a little bit about that because you also blog about this issue also with Sunday schools and how sometimes they’re creating

[00:36:26] secularists you mean you mean how much how bringing up these questions can

[00:36:33] actually make them question their faith or that well a lot well along those same

[00:36:38] lines actually this is even more specifically what I wanted to address I’ve had parents who have said to me I’m

[00:36:45] concerned about you bringing up this issue because I’m afraid that it’s gonna cause my child to doubt their faith and

[00:36:52] so they’ve actually said well can we just not cover this issue you know how

[00:36:58] do you feel about about somebody that says something like that right yeah I’ve actually encountered that quite a lot

[00:37:03] where parents think you know well I don’t want to bring this up my kids you know like I don’t want to bring up all

[00:37:09] this stuff that they’re gonna hear on the internet but that’s exactly the thing they are going to hear it so it’s

[00:37:14] like a lot of other subjects as parents that maybe we don’t want to talk about subjects XY and Z but if we know that

[00:37:20] our kids are going to hear about it from the world we want to be the ones to talk about it first we want to be the ones to have that safe

[00:37:26] conversation that we can actually have these conversations and answer questions and talk about those things so it’s not

[00:37:33] a matter of if your kids will encounter these things it’s when but I think that’s the biggest thing that parents

[00:37:39] need to understand it’s not that they have the choice to talk about what skeptics are saying kids are gonna hear

[00:37:46] this they’re gonna see it and so if you want the opportunity to provide some input into that into how they’re

[00:37:52] processing these things and to explain what an answer would be from a Christian worldview then you need to take it

[00:37:57] seriously and need to do it and ultimately I think what parents need to accept if Christianity is true then you

[00:38:05] have nothing to fear and so a lot of times I think parents are coming from the perspective whether they want to

[00:38:10] admit it or not where they’re not so convicted of their own faith maybe they’ve been a maybe their nominal Christian maybe they

[00:38:17] didn’t get their own questions answered so they’re scared of the questions themselves but if Christian is not true

[00:38:22] you shouldn’t want to believe it and so you shouldn’t be afraid to go after the truth and to pursue it and if

[00:38:28] Christianity is true then we don’t have anything to fear with all of these questions and so I think that’s the mindset that we have to have and it

[00:38:35] gives us a lot of credibility as parents to raise our kids in a home where we say look you know I don’t know I’m not

[00:38:40] hiding anything I want you to ask all these questions because this is a home where we’re going to think about the deepest things of life and we’re gonna

[00:38:47] process these things together and all questions are welcome all scenes are good questions and we’re gonna work

[00:38:52] through it together so I think it sets an important tone in your home and that’s really the tone of Scripture also right and in Isaiah God

[00:38:59] says come let us reason together right Paul says you know we didn’t follow cleverly devised schemes in order to

[00:39:07] persuade you that something is true and Christ himself uses the phrase I tell

[00:39:14] you the truth I believe in the NIV version it’s 78 times and so there’s

[00:39:19] this overarching theme in the scriptures that like you said we don’t have to be afraid of exploring these questions

[00:39:26] because ultimately it’s true and so I think that’s a really good message and I

[00:39:32] think you’re right that a lot of a parent’s fear where is this question going to lead I don’t know where it’s gonna go down this road and and they’re

[00:39:40] concerned about it but I think too you know this is an important issue is in

[00:39:46] the how is parenting as a Christian today different from parenting as a

[00:39:52] Christian in the past because parent because parents may say my parents had didn’t have to do this they didn’t have

[00:39:58] to deal with this situation why should I bring this up when my own parents didn’t bring that up what has

[00:40:04] been what what is we all know culture is becoming increasingly secular but what else is it about parenting today as a

[00:40:10] Christian that is different about parenting in the past well I think parents need to realize that you know

[00:40:16] discipleship has always been our calling so that has not changed since in the Bible that that has always been the same

[00:40:23] but what exactly entailed with that with discipleship is going to change over time given the

[00:40:29] environment in which you are disciple so I think that you have to consider okay when we were growing up maybe the

[00:40:36] environment that we were in didn’t require us to constantly but up against

[00:40:41] these challenges that they hear these kinds of things so even though I wouldn’t say when I was growing up for example that everyone around me was a

[00:40:49] Christian they had at the surface similar values and so we could kind of

[00:40:54] float along next to it without it becoming really obvious that I was a Christian and that they weren’t a

[00:40:59] Christian and we didn’t really have to have any kind of conflict over that but

[00:41:05] that’s so different now because now the world is explicitly coming after Christians in so many ways in so many

[00:41:12] areas of life and it’s becoming a solicit ly anti-christian in a lot of ways and so kids will constantly butt up

[00:41:18] against that in a way that we didn’t so the environment has changed and that changes our job description as parents

[00:41:24] because we have to address that and one of the biggest factors I think some kids

[00:41:29] walking away today is that they feel shame for their beliefs they feel the shame of people pointing their fingers

[00:41:35] and saying how can you believe this stuff I mean isn’t this just ridiculous and you’re not only does it sound

[00:41:40] ridiculous and it’s not true but also hateful and it’s ignorant and it’s bigoted that is all these things so not

[00:41:46] only is Christianity not true according to skeptics it’s also a really bad thing and when kids have no conviction of why

[00:41:53] there’s good reason to believe it they’re not gonna stand there and take all the shame on it it’s too uncomfortable to be in that position

[00:41:59] they’re just gonna walk away and so if we want them to be able to stand strong on what they believe they can’t feel the

[00:42:05] burden of that shame and so that’s why I think apologetics is so important today in terms of parents and giving that

[00:42:12] information to kids and helping them understand it otherwise they’re not gonna want to be in the whole view minority where we find ourselves in our

[00:42:19] world today they’re gonna just walk away where it’s a lot easier yeah that’s great and I absolutely I mean I feel

[00:42:26] that myself and you know with kids in the classroom what I’ve noticed is as I’m teaching apologetics to kids

[00:42:31] what ends up happening is is as they get these answers they become more confident

[00:42:36] in their faith and they become more comfortable actually talking about their faith and they kind of come out of

[00:42:42] their shell and all of a sudden they’re excited to to talk to their friends about these quick questions because they’ve got answers and so it makes a

[00:42:49] gigantic difference in their own walk with the Lord yes absolutely and and so now in your book the book you

[00:42:57] wrote wrote about raising raising your kids Christian making sure that they stay in their faith your first book that

[00:43:03] you wrote you covered 40 questions and you know somebody might want to end up buying both of these books because they

[00:43:09] do cover such a different area can you just share with our listeners what are some of the things you cover in the the

[00:43:15] previous book that you wrote that you don’t cover in this book and then your third book as well what are the big

[00:43:21] differences in them why should they take a look at each one of these books yeah so like I said there’s an ongoing theme

[00:43:28] that these are the conversations kids need to have in a secular world but each one has two totally different focus and so they’re meant to be kind of this

[00:43:34] complimentary set resource set for parents the first one is called keeping your kids on God’s side and that’s

[00:43:39] basically an apologetics 101 for parents and so it covers a broad survey of 40 topics and so you’ll get eight chapters

[00:43:46] on got eight chapters on truth the world views eight chapters on the Bible eight chapters on science and eight chapters

[00:43:52] on Jesus so these are just introductory questions across the board to kind of get your feet wet to understand some of

[00:43:59] these topics and then after I wrote that book a lot of people said okay I see this is so important and I love this

[00:44:04] stuff I love the parent to parent voice and this is really easy understand what do I really write what do I read now and

[00:44:09] how do I go deeper and s and so my next thing is talking about God and that book focuses specifically on the God level

[00:44:16] questions so what’s the evidence for God’s existence and what’s the nature of God and what’s the relationship between science and God’s questions like that

[00:44:23] and then this book is to focus specifically on Jesus and like we’ve been talking about the identity of Jesus

[00:44:29] the teachings the death of Jesus the resurrection of Jesus all three of the books work together and if you’re

[00:44:34] considering the first two books you might want to know that starting next week both of those the ebooks will be on

[00:44:40] sale for I think it’s a dollar 99 on talking to their kids about God and 299

[00:44:45] for keeping your kids on God’s side so you can get a really good deal on the e-book starting in May that’s great and

[00:44:51] you also got a curriculum coming out too that’s gonna be helpful talk to our listeners about that and and what the

[00:44:57] purpose of that curriculum is specifically yeah I’m really excited about this because I haven’t had a curriculum to go with a book before and

[00:45:04] I’m working on it right now but how can your kids about Jesus we’ll have a small group curriculum a sixth session

[00:45:09] curriculum to go with it and it’s supposed to come out in December and it will have DVDs with it that are gonna be

[00:45:16] on right now media if your church uses that and also can be purchased separately as well as the participants

[00:45:21] guide it’s not going to teach through the entire book all thirty subjects because that would be a giant DVD series

[00:45:27] but the idea instead is to just have one DVD session per big section of the book

[00:45:34] as an introduction to just kind of give people a beginning I have what their to

[00:45:39] be thinking about with these subjects and get people talking so I’m hoping that maybe for those who wouldn’t pick

[00:45:45] up a whole book and read everything in it that they might I go into a small group for parents at a church on the topic start hearing about some of these

[00:45:52] questions and get into good discussions about them and then it will pique their interest to learn more so I’m excited

[00:45:58] about the small group curriculum for sure as long as we are allowed to meet as small groups at some point yeah

[00:46:04] hopefully that happens sooner rather than later exactly yeah so so is that curriculum more geared

[00:46:12] towards parents or is that more yes it is okay so that’s that’s fantastic well that’s really great Natasha I think this

[00:46:19] is incredible what you’ve done here and it’s gonna be an incredible resource for parents and hopefully as time moves

[00:46:25] forward were able to push back against these horrible stats we’re hearing about kids walking away from the faith I think

[00:46:30] that as parents are equipped and then they can then pour into their children like that I think that’s exactly what’s

[00:46:36] going to happen so I just want to thank you so much for being on the program today it’s been a huge blessing thank

[00:46:43] you hey thanks so much for having me it’s been great talking with you absolutely so if you want to check out

[00:46:48] Natasha’s stuff Natasha crane comm you can also pick up her books at on Amazon or wherever else

[00:46:54] books are sold it’s now an e-book form like she said and keep an eye out for the curriculum we’re gonna be coming

[00:46:59] back next week again we’ll have more guests more debates all kinds of stuff if you want to check out mice

[00:47:05] educate for life or you can check it out I’ve got a full online apologetics curriculum it’s video based a little bit

[00:47:11] different from what Natasha is doing but it is very complimentary at the same time you can check that out there and we

[00:47:18] also have all kinds of shows up with debates with atheists having discussions with physicists like Lawrence Krauss he

[00:47:24] believes the universe came from absolutely nothing I’ve also got lots of debates up there with people like Dan

[00:47:29] Barker from the freedom of religion foundation just so that you can see these dialogues take place in action and then we have a lot of scientists we

[00:47:35] interview also on the different issues about evolution and things like this dr. james tour one of the top 50 scientists

[00:47:41] in the world we have an interview with him and many many other interviews that are there to encourage you support you

[00:47:47] as you’re trying to raise your kids to love God and as you yourself are being built up and equipped to be able to be a

[00:47:53] light to your neighbors and your co-workers and the people around you and just give you that confidence that the Word of God is true so thanks for being

[00:48:00] with us being with us scuse me and stay safe and we’re all praying that this

[00:48:06] whole coronavirus goes away very quickly here so thanks for being with us today

[00:48:11] and god bless you bye-bye

[00:48:20] you