This Is The Most Important Job of a Parent | Parenting Uncovered | Dave & Ashley Willis

Hey, there. Welcome to Parenting Uncovered. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and this is officially our first episode. We are so excited. And today, what are we going to be talking about? Sweetie?

You know, we wanted our very first episode to be the most important thing we could think about as a parent. And we believe that really the most important thing a parent can do is teach their kids to love Jesus. Right? I mean, giving him a foundation of faith is just so vitally important. And so in this very first episode, we're just going to give some tips and tools for how to do that, how to set a foundation of faith that, like the Bible says, you raise a child up the way they should go, even when they're old, they will not depart from it. It says in Proverbs. And we want to give our kids that kind of faith foundation. And I'm excited to jump in, and I'm just kind of still giddy that we're doing this, that we are. We're doing Parenting Uncovered. This has been years in the planning, hoping, dreaming, and now it's here. And every single week, we're gonna have brand new episodes, some with just Ashley and me, some with some really great interviews. So go ahead and subscribe and stay tuned, man, there's gonna be some good stuff going. So, sweetie, teaching our kids to love Jesus, you know, where do you start? And we've got four kids right now, aged eight to 18 at the time of this recording, grade school, all the way to college. So we've got the full spectrum, so to speak. What are some of the things that, as you think about, what we've tried to do intentionally to give our kids that foundation of faith in Christ that you think has worked the best? And what would you suggest to those parents listening in that want to do that as well?

Man, I think we have a lot to say about this because I feel like there's been certain things we've done really well that I'm like, that worked, that stuck. I could see where that was resonating with them. And then there's been other times where I've tried things that worked with other families. I know where I've learned from friends that didn't work with our family. And so, okay, I wanna start with kind of things that have worked. I think, number one, I think the most important thing to remember when it comes to ministering to your children is that they are your very first ministry. Like, the people that God placed in your home are your primary ministry. And that's where you know, when it comes to ministering because all of us in Christ are called to minister to others, right? Well, as far as being Christians, ministering to others, the primary ministry we have are the, are the people in our home. And so we need to see, you know, you know, teaching our kids about Jesus as ministering to them and making sure that we're making that a priority. But I think even with that, you know, as I said that some of you, your heart dropped and you're like, oh my gosh, I've already messed this up because we're imperfect human beings and. Or maybe you haven't been intentional about it yet. I'm not saying that to make you feel like you're behind, because the truth is, I think that the greatest way that we can minister to our kids is in how we follow Christ, like in just what we do as a Christ follower. It's really not necessarily what we're teaching them that is important. Like, we do need those teachable moments with them where we're reading from the Bible and doing those things. But most of all, they need to see us living it out like what we do in our quiet time. I know our kids from the time they were born, they have seen you get up every day and read your Bible every single day. What they don't know, I'm reading mine on my phone. So what I'll do, because I love a lot of the different translations and I kind of geek out on different things that I'm looking up with the Hebrew and the Greek and all that, but I will show it to them and be like, mommy's on her phone. But I think that nothing replaces seeing your parent with their Bible in front of them and reading and praying. And so I think, you know, them being able to see you do that and not just like you're faking it, but you're really doing it and benefiting from it. And also just talking about the Lord in a very normal, everyday way, like bringing your kids at an age appropriate level into what God is teaching you, what God is doing in your life. You know, I think it starts early with your kids when you're outdoors and you're exploring God's creation and you can say, can you believe that God made the sky and the clouds and, and can you believe that God made the teeny tiny little hairs on our dog and that he made dogs just to love us as human beings? Because he loves us and dogs are evidence of that more than anything. Right? But you know, and I'm saying, like, just pointing out all these wonderful things that God does.

Are evidence that Satan exists.

No, for many people, cats are evidence that God loves them, too.

I like cats.

We love cats, too. He loves to joke about it.

Intentionality. About, like, everything. Everything can be a cat.

God made this.

God made it. Yeah.

Yes. And he loves you. He made you. I even think I remember when our kids were super little, which, let me tell you, it goes by super fast. Cause to me, it feels like yesterday that our college student was a little baby. And I just remember pointing out his little features, like his hands, his feet, you know, just the little parts of him that God made. I think it's really important to point that out. And it gives them that awe and wonder of their creator who loves them, who knit them together in my womb. You know, I remember when we had, you know, we had our first child, and then we had our second, and they start to realize, wow, you know, there's a baby growing inside of Mom. I would take that as an opportunity to say, yes. Isn't it amazing that God is growing another, you know, your brother inside of Mom? And this is something that. A blessing that he's given our family. And, you know, just really, Just really pointing out things that God is doing in our life.

I love it. I remember it just made me flashback to when you were pregnant with our third and our oldest boy at the time, who was like maybe three or. I don't even remember the age gap of which baby it was that you were pregnant with. But one of our kids would smell your belly because they were convinced that they could smell the baby.

They thought they could.

I smell the baby. I smell the baby.

No, he was really little. It was our oldest, with our second son in my belly. And he would say, yeah, he wasn't even two. Smell belly, smell belly, smell belly.

It was so silly. But, yeah, when you make everything a lesson, I think that's so important. And Ashley talked about, just through our own example, none of us are perfect guys. We have not got it all figured out. But when we can just walk that intentional walk, and whether it's reading our Bible or hosting a small group in our home, which at different points in our life, we've done. And we made sure the kids saw all that and experienced all of that, made sure that church attendance was, and still is, yes, a really important part of our routine and ritual, not just for the sake of checking a box, but because the Bible says, you know, we should not get out of the habit of meeting together. And there's so much in Scripture about the importance of gathering together and we all need that community. God created us to live out our faith within community. Yes, it's a very personal and private decision, but it wasn't ever meant to be a private one. It's meant to be lived out in relationship with others. So if you don't have a church home, find one. You know, find someplace where your family can worship and connect and serve and be part of the community. It is something all of us need and they need you. That church needs you in terms of just some practical resources because on this podcast we want to give you as many practical resources as we can as it relates to whatever we're talking about. Some things that have helped our kids through the years we when they were little we got them the Jesus Storybook Bible, which is a really good age specific story driven Bible. That's the theologically sound and beautifully written. The illustrations are great and you know, still that's up in their room and our younger ones will still read that. There's a cartoon series done by CBN called Superbook. I watched the original version of it back when I was a kid and it taught me a lot of the Bible stories. They redid it. They've been redoing it over the last 10 years or so and my kids have fallen in love with, with Superbook. You can watch Superbook. I think it's free right now on Amazon. There are other places you can get it. But it is so well done. And they tell us like most of the Bible stories we know, we've learned from Superbook. You know, it's not that stories I've read them or what they've heard in church. It's done in a way where the stories really connect and it's told straight from scripture and that's a great resource as well.

So can I add something to that really quick? One thing I love about Superbook, if you go to cbn.com, i believe so that's the Christian Broadcasting Network Network who has put together the team that does Superbook. You can, you know, you can watch for free on Amazon, but if you become like a member of, of the club that does Superbook, they will send you their newest one like digitally or on like a dvd. And what you can do is give those away. Do you remember they used to send us like five at a time and what we would do now granted, I know we're in different times, but maybe you could share it. Like you could send a link or whatever to somebody but they will basically give you shareable things and so you can share it with a neighbor. And so I remember when our kids were probably early elementary, we were members of that. And not only so we could get Superbooked, but we were helping to fund them to develop more cartoons of these Bible stories. And I remember they sent us like five DVDs and our kids would give them out to the neighbor kids and they had fun watching them. And so it really is a great ministry tool that also teaches your kids how to just easily share the message of Jesus with people. And so I thought that was really a neat thing. But they, I'm telling you, literally our 18 year old son, I don't know how we got talking about this, but he was like mom, I think most of my Bible knowledge is Superbook. Like I remember. No, he said I remember. I remember specifics mostly because of Superbook.

Well, even Jesus in his teachings. So much of Jesus teachings were what were called parables which are stories because God knows he's the one who made us, what resonates with us. And people are storytellers, we are drawn to stories. That's why we like movies, that's why we remember stories. And so, you know, Superbook does that. It just kind of grabs the story and it makes it really memorable for the kids.

It does. And just kind of in that same vein of thought, you know, as far as stories go. Another thing we did really, I wanna say from, you know, Cooper being our oldest, I wanna say he was probably in preschool. So around preschool age and you can kind of go down from there with our kids ages, we started doing dinnertime discussions about Jesus and also different situations and how to work them out in a Christian way. And there was a book that got recommended to me by one of our worship leaders and it's called Sticky Situations. They still made it, they've revamped it. In fact, I was just looking through our bookcase for something the other day and saw that there it's a big book but it basically gives you all these. It's very short. It's like a short little story that brings your kids into. It's interesting on their level. And then it basically has like three or four questions where you as a family will say like how would you handle this situation? You know, what would you do if your friend did this to you? Or you know, how would, what would Jesus say about this? And it's just really interesting and we had the greatest conversations about that. And it really, you know, it really led to just, I don't know, some insight into our kids hearts because sometimes we just. We don't even think to ask the kind of questions that sticky situations would pose. And I loved how, as a parent, it helped me to not only see kind of where they were on these different issues that we were kind of wrestling with in that discussion, but also as a parent, to be able to speak into it, you know, because all of a sudden, they're talking about something that happened at school that maybe they wouldn't have brought up if we hadn't talked about that sticky situation that was presented in that book. So, yeah, it was really.

Scenarios.

Exactly.

Why is this the right choice or the wrong choice?

Well, speaking of that one, for even younger children that I think we did, our pediatrician, who's a Christian man recommended to us is called Right Choices. And that's for kids as young as, like, two that you can read to them, and there's great pictures in it, but it talks about what's the right choice and what are not some, you know, some wrong choices here, and how do we. How do we make the right choice? And it's from a Christian standpoint. And I loved it. I mean, it really. It was a great book that, you know, again, it's short little stories that you go through with your kids.

Absolutely. I think, too. Don't ever underestimate the power of prayer. I mean, prayer is our lifeline to God, and he invites us to talk with him all the time. He wants that prayer line to be open. The Bible says pray without ceasing. So, like our thoughts, our mind should always be connected to God.

And.

And we're teaching our kids how to pray, whether it's before a meal, whether it's on the way to school or at bedtime, to make sure that we're helping them build into the rhythm of their day. Regular conversation with God, and that when we're praying, and sometimes parents don't pray out loud because they feel intimidated by it or they don't know what to say. But this is God, our heavenly Father, who loves you more than anybody, who knows you better than anybody. So you don't have to make it weird or use big churchy language. Just talk to your heavenly Father. And I mean, on the way to school, the prayer is usually simple as, like, God, thank you for a beautiful day. Thank you, Jesus, for making us. Thank you for our family and help us make good choices today. Help us do our best. And, you know, to pray specifically for whatever the kids have going that day, but just to make that a regular part of the routine that they'll remember mom and dad always, they prayed with us and they prayed for us. And let them see you do that. Let them see you pray before the meal and then invite them to do it too. You know, let them take turns. Hey, it's your turn to pray tonight. And then celebrate them when they do, even if their prayer sounds nothing like yours would have, because that's okay. I think we can meet them right where they are and celebrate. Celebrate their walk with God, Celebrate anytime they show a hunger or an interest for learning more about God, or if they want to put their faith in action and encouraging them to serve. I think serving in the church or in the community and letting them know that this is something Jesus did, this is something Jesus taught us to do, to use those gifts he's given you to help other people, then everything we do can be an act of worship. And everything, you know, what they're doing at school, what they're doing in their homework, it can all be an act of worship. If we help our kids to see that everything is sacred when we do it for God's glory, it is.

And, you know, I know it's sometimes, and we've been there, where it's kind of hard when it comes to serving outside of the home. There's plenty of times where, you know, we can encourage our kids to serve one another. You know, if you have more than one child, you can say, you know, tonight you can help serve the family in some capacity, whether it's, you know, helping to clean up or it's helping your brother learn how to do something. I know one of our boys really struggled with learning how to tie shoes. And another one of our boys is really good at it. So he was working with him and learning how to tie shoes and just kind of showing that brotherly love. And for those of you who have girls that sisterly love, I think it's important to serve in that way within the family, but I think outside the walls. I know for us it was a little frustrating to find places to take kids where they can serve because sometimes it's not safe for children necessarily. You know, if it's like a soup kitchen, it's like, it's hot, it's gonna, you know, it could pose a danger to the kids. And I remember us being a little frustrated in that way. But I know our town has a dream center, which is essentially a center that just helps the community. And I know many communities, thankfully have dream centers very similar to ours. And what I love about it is they offer age appropriate or age, you Know, age appropriate. Different activities that pretty much from probably age 5 and up can do. And there's different days where they call them, serve days at our church and we'll go and they'll have something for ages 5 and up that you can do as a family, like sorting clothes for our clothing closet. Maybe it's working in the pantry and getting the food all organized. Or maybe you are making food and serving food to people. You could be, you know, we do a haircut day where you could be sweeping up the hair as the hair artists are cutting hair. You know, there's all kinds of things. Like, I recently did this with our son Chandler, who's 11 years old. And we had the best time. We actually got assigned. This was so fun. We got assigned to do snow cones because it was a really hot day and we had a ton of people. We were giving backpacks away and doing haircuts for school and stuff like that. And Chandler and I, along with a couple other ladies, kind of manned the snow cone place. And it was a blast. And just handing them out to people. And Chandler became kind of a runner of sorts where he was even going out to the line and saying, hey, I have a blue raspberry snow cone for anybody who wants it. Or I have a cherry one. And it was just really fun. And I love spending that time, but also showing our kids that serving Jesus is fun. It's fun to serve, it's fun to give, and it fills your heart in a way that is even better than receiving. And so I think it's just important to look for things to do like that. And I think too, I said I would point out things that backfired. Okay. Cause we've talked about all these good things, but it has not always been smooth sailing.

Yeah, we don't wanna paint that picture, guys. We've made so many dumb choices and a lot of stuff that we thought was smart that just wasn't right or.

Didn'T work for our family.

Didn't work for our family. That's right.

Yes. And one in particular, I remember this was probably like seven years ago or something. And I really was like, you know what? I want to teach our kids how to have quiet time. Okay. And I think I had talked to another friend of mine and how they did it in their family. And I was just really like, well, we've gotta do this. So I went to Amazon. I ordered each of our boys their own age appropriate devotional. Do you remember this? And then I think I had like a journal. If they Wanted to journal. They could journal. And I had little journals for them. And then in the morning before school, I got them up like 10 minutes earlier than usual. And then I would, you know, they get down, they get ready for school, and then I'm like, okay, now it's quiet time. And I would do it alongside them, and you would too. But it just turned out to be a very frustrating time because this is what I did not think about, is that in our family, we have one morning person. And Dave, you would think it was Dave. It's not. It's actually our second son, Connor. He's the one morning person in the family. I'd say Chatham is a close second. He's our youngest. But really, the rest of us are not really necessarily mourning people.

The mornings, we're not even Christian.

We're not until about 3am we're not firing at all cylinders. We're not exactly, you know, like, we're just not in that mode. It's just not right, you know. And you know how most school mornings, there's a lot going on. You're trying to get breakfast in, you're trying to get dressed, you're trying to remember if you sign the papers or if you have the homework and all that stuff. And I felt so defeated. I remember after about a week of it, I was like, our family just can't do this. You know, like, why can't we get quiet time? And I just. I really prayed about it. And I felt like God really kind of through my prayers, you know, was really telling me, like, listen, it's not that your family can't do quiet time. It's that you feel like it has to look a certain way.

That's right. Exactly.

And so we talked about it at our dinners because our dinner time worked for us, having those conversations. And we just encouraged each of the boys to have that quiet time. And this is something that is also reinforced in their classes at church and in their small groups and things like that. But what's so cool about it is that boys adapted to their own way of doing it. And like, one son in particular really took it in stride. Our son Connor, who's now 16. He asked us for a journal, didn't tell us at first what he wanted to do with it. And it turned out that he said, you know, he said, when I'm praying, it's at night. And he said, but I wanted to take it to another level, and I wanted to do a gratitude journal. And I was cleaning his room one day and it knocked over. And it went to that first page. And all it was is Connor wrote out, I am thankful for whatever. You know, he just went through this long list of friends of. I mean, the most random little thing and just focusing on what God is doing in his life. And I didn't flip. Don't worry. I know it's his journal, but, you know, it flipped open and I was. But I was so. My heart just. It just swelled with just. I was just so proud that he took that upon himself. And I think sometimes as parents, we underestimate, you know, how God is working in their life, and he is answering our prayers in that way. But it maybe looks different than what we expected. And I think that we underestimate, you know, we underestimate what God is doing and also what they've seen modeled not only from us, but. But from others in their life, from other leaders that God's brought into their life. And so. Yeah.

So good. Well, guys, that brings us to my favorite part of every episode. We're gonna end every single episode the same way. It'll be a fun fact from Ashley and a dad joke from Dave.

So why don't you start it out, sweetie? You go for it.

It's always hard to pick just one. All right, all right, let me see, let me see. Okay. This one is gonna be one I took from our amazing producer, Taiwan. We're here in the studio with a great crew. We got Sam, Taiwan and Josh, part of the all star team at home marriage here in South Lake, Texas and Taiwan, who's not even yet a dad, but I can tell he's gonna be a great one because his dad joke game is fire.

I love how you said it's fire. That's so great.

I know. Yeah, it's part of my midlife crisis, is trying to talk like a 20 year old. But. So here's the dad joke for the day. Why can you never take garlic out in public?

I don't know why, sweetie.

They're always taking their clothes off.

I love it. All right. And guys, be ready for next week when he's going to share yet another.

The Naked Garlic podcast.

Oh, my gosh. Get another dad joke for next week. And also, I just want to say this, if you want to get in on this dad joke game, you feel free to reach out to davexomarriage and share your favorite atomarage.com. sorry.

You know, and I'll give you credit, I'll say, hey, this one's from Darryl in New Hampshire. And I'll give you problems. Right. So if it's a good one, you'll make it on air.

That's right.

So, yeah, send me some material.

He is all ready for it. Okay, so for my little portion, I'm doing a fascinating fact. And this is gonna be about anything throughout history, science having to do with parenting. Okay, so this is from goodhousekeeping.com where it's talking about how parenting has changed. Parenting advice has changed through the decades. And so this one I thought was pretty funny. It says birthing plans can be hot topics for debate nowadays. But back in the 1950s, author Patricia Carter made waves for her particularly unique attitude toward childbirth. Her plans for at home childbirth meant stopping one's chores for an hour and having a couple of highballs. That's an alcoholic beverage for those of you who don't know beforehand. And so that's literally what she said. So, like, get ready for birth, guys. Let's. Or ladies, take a couple shots. Take a couple shots, have a relaxing moment, and then have your baby. And I just, I think that's. That's really out there because that would definitely not be. The experts of the day, the world.

Experts, you always have to take with a grain of salt exactly 50 years from now.

But this was published, honey.

I know. That's what I mean. That's why. And I wonder what 50 years from now people are going to say about our generation.

They'll have some stuff, I'm sure you know.

But what they're going to say, though, is like, they had. They got a lot wrong back then. But that parenting Uncovered podcast was on the money. It was ahead of its time. Now, hey, guys, listen. Thanks so much for listening to our very first episode. Whether you're listening to this in real time or you're somewhere in the future and you found this very first episode, we're just glad that you're here and we hope that you'll stick around and that this whole parenting journey we're all on together will be an encouragement to you again. Feel free to reach out to us on Instagram. We're at Dave and Ashley Willis on Instagram. We would love to hear your stories, your suggestions, your questions, even fascinating facts, if you have some fascinating facts and dad jokes, too. So, guys, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

Bye, guys.