Gospel Centered Soul Care At Home For Youth Ministry w/ Dr. Randy Jackson

When a student walked into the office during the pandemic asking whether his father would live long enough for a transplant, it exposed a gap many youth pastors feel but rarely name: we can teach Scripture and organize programs, but do we know how to shepherd teenagers when fear, grief, and uncertainty overwhelm them?

We sit down with Dr. Randy Jackson to talk about a gospel-shaped approach to soul care that equips parents as the primary shapers of a teen’s faith. We trace his journey from a pandemic crisis to building a practical framework that deepens conversations at home and in small groups and why equipping parents remains the most strategic work in student ministry.

This episode offers practical tools for youth pastors, volunteers, and parents who want to move beyond behavior management and into Christ-centered care for the inner lives of teenagers.

🧠 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• A clear, Scripture-rooted definition of soul care for youth ministry
• Why crisis moments reveal the limits of program-driven ministry
• How the Gospels connect soul care with healing and restoration
• Eight core components of biblical soul care every leader can practice
• Why parents and grandparents remain the primary influencers in teens’ lives
• How to equip families to talk about identity, emotions, and mental health
• The most transferable skill for shepherding students: active listening
• How better questions lead to deeper spiritual conversations
• Why vulnerability should come from scars, not  wounds
• How volunteers can provide meaningful care without being counselors

📖 The 8 Components of Gospel-Shaped Soul Care

Dr. Randy Jackson outlines eight practical dimensions of caring for the soul that apply to both ministry leaders and parents:

1. Time — Slowing down to be present (Psalm 90)
2. Influence — Recognizing who shapes a teen’s inner world
3. Motivation — Understanding the “why” behind behavior
4. Vulnerability — Modeling honest faith from healed places
5. Empathy — Entering a student’s experience without rushing to fix
6. Mindfulness — Paying attention to God, self, and surroundings
7. Discernment — Seeing spiritual realities beneath surface issues
8. Communication — Speaking truth with grace and clarity

Parents and grandparents outrank social media influencers, celebrities, and youth pastors as the most influential voices in teenagers’ lives.

Connect w/ Dr. Randy Jackson, Youth Pastor, FBC Atlanta, Texas

Email: rsjacksonus@gmail.com

Facebook: facebook.com/rsjacksonus

Book Recommendations:

• Aundi Kolber, Try Softer
• T. Dale Johnson, The Church as a Culture of Care
• Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands
• Harley Atkinson, W. Lee Barnett, and Mike Severe. Ministry with Youth in Crisis. 3rd ed.
• Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
• Robert D. Jones, Kristin L. Kellen, and Rob Green. The Gospel For Disordered Lives
• Kara Powell and Brad Griffin, 3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager

- J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith, Untangling Emotions

- Timothy Paul Jones. Family Ministry Field Guide: How Your Church Can Equip Parents to Make Disciples

- Edward T. Welch, Caring For One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships

Transcript

Welcome From East Texas

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast. Hanging out here in a new location. We are on location all the way in East Dallas, Rockwell, Texas, hanging out with some friends today. We have the one and the only Randy Jackson with us today. What's up, my friend? How are you? All the way from Atlanta. Atlanta, Texas. Atlanta, Texas.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yes, sir. There is one.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

There is one. There is one, and it didn't even need all the consonants. That's right. I love, I love that you like the story you tell is that, you know, sometimes Texas borrows things and they don't give all the consonants back. And so that's good. That's good. Like, well, for our friends down in the Houston area, um, if you read it on a page, it says humble Texas. But it's humble. But that's right, it's humble. Yes. My wife is from that area. She corrected me quickly. Yeah, it is it's not humble Texas, because a Texan would never be. So, well, Randy, we got you on the show today. We wanted to talk a little bit about some of the work that you've been doing that we think is really relevant and important to the life of youth ministry. Uh, if anybody's been uh on the journey with us, uh folks know that parent ministry as a topic as it relates to the enterprise of youth ministry matters a lot to Chad and I and the things that you're working on, I think even nuance that out further. But before we get into the question of soul care and parent ministry, I want to hear a little bit about your journey in youth ministry of serving, working, and doing, because you've been Texas man for generations. So tell me about Texas youth ministry from the perspective

Randy’s Journey Into Youth Ministry

SPEAKER_03 1:35

of someone generationally.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Well, let's see, I felt God called me to ministry back in 1999. So that should tell you my age. So I'm before a century ago. Yeah. And uh kind of didn't know what that would look like. I started off as a volunteer in my church. I was working as a high school teacher, so I was sponsoring lots of Christian clubs. Yeah. So I was kind of walking the line between education and youth ministry, and finally, God had told me you need to make, you need to make a choice. And so I surrendered to full-time ministry and then uh immediately ended up going to a church in West Texas as a full-time youth pastor, served there for a few years, then went to the panhandle, served for a few years, and then now I'm here in so like a true Texas journeyman.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Like you, you, yes, sir. Okay, come on now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

My wife and I have gone all over the state. Okay. You know, I'm from North Texas, she's from Southeast Texas. Yeah. We went to Tarleton, we're Aggies, we went to South Texas, we went to West Texas, the Panhandle, and now we're in Northeast Texas. All of it, man.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Well, man, we we are we are honored by your presence and your years of service in ministry. But I think what's see what's great is that it's there's still fresh reflections. I think that's one of the things that I was so taken with when we met at Conclave not so many months ago, was that we were still thinking about youth ministry in new ways. Because I do think that youth ministry at its strongest point is the site of innovation. It should be the leading edge of what the church is trying to figure out when it comes to ministering. Again, next ideas for the next generation. And so one of the things that I want you you shared, it's to kind of draw folks into it, uh, not to relive trauma for some folks, but the pandemic happened. And there were things that came to the surface, not only ministerially in the program, but ministerially in some of the

A Student’s Crisis During The Pandemic

SPEAKER_03 3:20

gaps of formation uh and spirituality that you really were addressed by with a student. Do you want to set the stage for that a little bit of how, like for you, this really was birthed out of out of a out of a crisis, out of a need in student ministry?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Sure. Uh when I was at serving at my church in the panhandle, it was when the pandemic hit, and I had one of my youth leaders, a good student from a great family, solid foundation, yeah, came into me, into my office and he said, Hey, I want to talk about something. I thought, okay. And so we sat down. And this is a he is a basketball player, a jock, yeah. And he he's the not the type to cry. Okay, okay. And he was in tears. And I was like, and I asked him, so what's wrong? And he's bringing the emotions to the office. Yeah, he was bringing the emotions. And so I asked him what's wrong. He said, Well, I'm I'm worried about my dad. Well, what's going on? Is everything okay? And he said, Well, what if my dad's on the transplant list? What if COVID, yeah, my dad gets COVID? What if he dies? And then he Oh and this is a solid young man, made a profession of faith in fifth grade. He's preaching at fifth quarters. I mean, I mean, this is a solid kid.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

And I sat there and I thought, I don't know what to say. I mean, granted, the pandemic, we've never experienced one. I've not, but I I had no idea. New for all of us. Yeah, it was new.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

But but drove but drove the questions of uh uh life, mortality, death to the surface.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, yeah. And I realized I I don't have what I needed to help him at that moment. So when I look at Christ as my example as a youth pastor, I see three key traits of

Prophet, Priest, King: Rethinking The Role

SPEAKER_00 5:00

him. He is the prophet, the priest, and the king. And as a pastor, the prophet is the teaching side, which coming from high school as a high school teacher into ministry, I felt pretty confident in doing the king side was the administrative work, and that I could handle. But it was the priestly role leaning into what it means to be a true pastor for youth. Yeah. That pastoral ministry side of being a youth pastor. Because it's, you know, there's fun and there's games and camps and denals and everything. But this was something that really stretched me in terms of that role. Like, if Christ is my shepherd, how am I going to shepherd this young man and be uh who he needs me to be at this moment? And so that kind of spurred uh my honestly a change in every direction that I was going to. I was actually working on my dissertation, I was working in discipleship. And I made a hard turn towards counseling, biblical counseling, and soul care because I felt like I'm deficient in this. And if I feel deficient, I'm pretty sure other people felt deficient.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

So that's what led to me going this direction. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Well, say a little more. I think you you define it so well in the work, uh, but I think for some folks, maybe the word the phrase soul care has become uh a little more popular in vogue, uh, I think as a way to umbrella term some of the gaps or deficiencies uh in the nurturing that that feels different than discipleship. I mean, it's all related, but it seems to be a little more uh specific or have some weight to it that maybe discipleship feels um important, but not always uh as internal. So will you share a little bit how you've kind of defined soul care in the ways I know you've presented on this and shared before. What are what are some of the kind of key traits? So we make sure that we're talking about the same thing for folks that are listening.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

So when I was looking at a definition of soul care, it was a term that is honestly be truthful, it's a loaded term. Yeah. And there's many different definitions of it. Yeah. And what I noticed is there's really not a solid Christian definition of it.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Or not like uh a shared one. That's it. Yeah, well, everybody gets that's everybody gets to kind of pick apart their own idea.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And and what I noticed is uh one of the words that came up in looking at a definition was psychotherapy. And we look at that and that's oh that

Defining Soul Care In A Gospel Frame

SPEAKER_00 7:20

in and of itself is a complicated word.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Yeah, that's that's that's got its own loaded, loaded sometimes sometimes. Yes, baggage is great, sometimes helpful, sometimes fraught. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

But what I noticed is that when we break that word into its two root words, psyche and therapy, yeah, those two words are in the gospels. Yeah, yeah. Because when Jesus uh says, Come to me, all who are heavy, you know, heavy burdened and find rest, heavy laden, he's talking about find rest for your souls. That word is psyche.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Yeah, but when it's it's not just a little bit of stress leaf or the sweat equity, yeah, yeah. And then something a little heavier than that, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

And then on the other side, when there's a description of Jesus' teaching and preaching ministry, it also talks about when he would heal people and the word for healing in the gospels is therapeutic, which is where we get our word for therapy.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And all of this was and something that I never even caught. And so I incorporated that into the definition that I used because I feel that when we talk about soul care, we have to talk about it within a gospel context. Yeah. We have to. Yeah. Because it's so laden right now with secular psychology, uh, you know, things, uh, belief systems that are outside of Christianity. Uh there's a lot of Eastern influences, there's a there's a lot of uh just I would say kind of pop culture instead of pop culture.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

Emotional driven. A lot of the things that we've talked about recently is uh every teenager today is more familiar with um therapy terms than they've been before, which sometimes is helpful. Um and so every kid is is is diagnosed, uh, either clinically or self. Uh and so just um trying to make meaning of the words in a helpful way, I think is even more important for students that are trying to navigate nuance or or or come to terms with understanding. And so you you talked about too that this is the pursuit of growth and restoration and wholeness. And I think that that concern for wholeness is significant because uh some of the frustrations we feel in youth ministry are usually along the fragments or the fracture lines of you know, it was this was fun, this was teaching, this was small group, but but it's all interrelated. And I think there's some some deep care and concern there for us to see how it all fits together um in in in a way beyond just like the things that we've planned, but the actual the the priestly concerns as you painted it.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Well, scripture speaks to the whole of a person. Yes. And one of the things about having a student who's diagnosed with whatever, yeah, is we're so used to a culture that defines it in medical terms that we regard it as just something that's part of our biology without realizing that our biology and our bodies, in fact, our spiritual beliefs, vice versa. It's all intertwined. Yeah, we can't pull them apart.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

And so when I look at and was looking at defining soul care, I you wholeness is the whole of a person, so it's your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength, your relationships.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Because soul care is also the other part of the definition, is it's something that we do for somebody else. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Because speak more to that, because I think that's yeah, for the for the minister that's trying to be proactive and not just a student of it, um, but someone that's a practitioner. Give us more insight there.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

So there's a difference between self-care and soul care, okay, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

And soul care another

Wholeness: Body, Mind, Spirit, Relationships

SPEAKER_03 10:45

key distinction, uh, because sometimes those can be interwoven. Yeah. Maybe related, but but not necessarily interwoven. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Because soul care is meant for something outside of yourself. And so it comes in many different ways. You know, as a youth pastor being the shepherd of the flock of students that God has given to you. In this case, in my project, it was for parents and how they can have conversations for with their students, their kids that follow the biblical model and kind of take care of some things that can be done in-house without having to go too far outside of that to seek help.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Well, and that's that's where I really want to pick up the bulk of our conversation today is I think for youth ministers and the function in which they can serve two students, whether those are priestly moments in the office of the young man, the athlete that comes in, uh bearing their soul, feeling heavy and burdened with, you know, either the the weight of a moral choice or the grip of their own life, death, mortality. Uh, but the ways in which you've talked about it as an influence or education or involvement of parents, because I think that's one of the things for a lot of youth ministries that are hungry to do parent ministry well. Um, most of what we have to offer feels like announcing what we already had planned or equipping them culturally with maybe trends, facts, updates, apps, or the like. But this is something that is deeply spiritual, deeply biblical. And it's a way for a youth ministry person, a leader, a pastor, to uh relay uh a skill set that doesn't feel thin, right? Like sometimes when we're the youth pastor, it's like, hey y'all, did you know that TikTok's not great for your kid? Like that, like that's it, it's an important thing to say, but that that that doesn't feel like the kind of like spiritual authority that we signed up for. Yeah. Um, and so the idea of like having the next parent meeting, seminar, conversation, class equipping be guided this way. So t tell us a little bit where either the research does diverted into this or you like just your own like excitement and discovery led to it. I mean, Deuteronomy 6, we want to teach our children in all the places and signposts and doors and car rides we have, but what what kind of guided it? And then we're gonna get into some of the ways in which we can kind of um equip them to lead this way.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

So, well, in the 20 years of being a student ministry, which is like wow, 20 years, um, I've been in predominantly rural and even remote areas of Texas where access to counseling is limited.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

And so that was kind of one of the drivers of the project is I have some friends in counseling um in Texas Panhandle who came and told me and said,

Why Parents Are Central To Care

SPEAKER_00 13:30

as a minister, if you could talk and have conversations with students, church members, community members, and kind of gather some information before they come to me, that would be a benefit because she she one of them uh had told me I'm out of six-week backlog. So, and then that first appointment was just here's your information, let's get insurance lined out, and then possibly not see them for another six weeks. Okay. So we're talking a possible good 12 weeks. That's that's three months of a student or a before even intake, before even intake. Yeah, and so we're like, okay. And then I thought, well, who is the person besides me that deals obviously with students the most? Well, it's gotta be their parents.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

And Deuteronomy 6, one of the things in that passage is talking about on the road.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

I mean and I thought, parents can have these conversations with their students while they're going to a basketball game or going to, you know, going to the store or just sitting around watching TV. And so, you know, I thought my responsibility as a pastor is to equip.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Is to not just shepherd, but to equip. And I felt like, you know, this is something where I needed to step up and fill this gap. And so that's what drove kind of this idea. Now I didn't know the project would go exactly in the direction it would go to, but as I as I started um on this road, I remembered also one of my professors had told me as a minister, I minister one-third to my students, one third to their families, and a third to the church as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

There you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

And so that kind of that took the responsibility in the direction is I needed to hit all three at once.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

And so I started looking at, well, how can I serve the parents? How can I serve the students? What would help them? And what really started it, of all things, I know you mentioned TikTok a while ago, is when I got to Atlanta, there we have a Sunday school class, which is comprised mostly of the parents of my students in my youth group.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And their Sunday school teacher uh was out for a Sunday and he said, Would you like to fill in? Like, sure, I'll fill in. I'll just follow it.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Nothing more fun than getting to do a guest spot. Absolutely. Yeah. I've been reminded of the guest lecturer. Substitute. Guest lecturer from the office.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

That's what I kept thinking. Go on the lecture circuit. It's what I would joke with.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

May your hats fly as far as your dreams. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

So and so I asked, I asked the teacher that teacher, him and his wife, I said, What would you want me to talk about? I said, Why don't you teach on social media? Yes, yes. And so I taught on social media. I taught on technology, I taught on social media, and I took like, you know, instead of just saying, Well, TikTok is bad or fill in the blank is bad, I talked about neurological development. Yeah, and tied into Romans 12 about the renewing of your mind and the transformation. And they were all like, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

That was deeper than just banning an app.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah,

Building A Parent Curriculum

SPEAKER_00 16:20

yeah. And but but when they when they left, they all told me they're like, Can you come back? And so I was like, okay, that's what opened my eyes to see, you know, the parents want this. Yes. And in time, you know, certain some of the parents would start coming to me and say, Hey, can you give me resources on this? Mind talking to my child on this. Yeah. Can you help me with this issue? Some of it was ranging from autism to bipolar to suicide ideation to cutting to all the you know, all these rent, all these different issues. And I thought, okay, cool. And I started by doing that, I was earning the parents' trust. Yeah, yeah. And so finally that Sunday school teacher came back to me and said, Hey, my wife and I want to take a sabbatical. Would you want to take over for a while? And I said, Okay, how long? And he said, I'll give you seven to eight weeks. Okay. I was like, that's the right amount of time that I could watch the project. Yeah. So uh in in the weeks leading up to me uh teaching that big make it ministry, make it school.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah. And you know, I worked on developing a curriculum and the parents had input. And so I asked them, what are the issues that you are encountering with your own, within your own families, with students, and even students that maybe are friends of your students that we can address. And I gave them a long list of just, you know, we narrowed it down to talking about identity, emotions, and mental health. And so that became kind of the under under undercurrent of what was going on and how to approach it from a biblical counseling soul care context. Because I myself, I know I'm not certain I'm not an LPC.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

But they were willing to listen to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Because I had earned that trust. I had gotten that um gotten that door open for them.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

And I was surprised because in the very first Sunday, 30 parents showed up. Okay. And the seminary ready to go. Yeah. The seminary's like, you don't need 30. And I was like, well, 30. We're gonna take them all. We're taking them all. And and so in walking through that, we walked through first kind of establishing the definition of soul care, and then looking at the different components, and then how does it play out in those three specific areas that I yeah they identified? And the the thing about it was here's what the parents are telling me. But for a lot of the project, I went to my own students and and I told the the parents up front, I said, I'm not pulling this from some other church, I'm not pulling this from say Barna or some some national staff grab.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Nothing like that. I said, which for a lot of local churches, especially in a specific like rural or or or geographic or regional context, we can kind of, you know, we can kind of cast blame of like, well, that's that the national average shapes that more than us. That's that's that's powerful to be local and contextual.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah, yeah. So I designed a questionnaire and asked

Eight Components Of Soul Care

SPEAKER_00 19:05

my own students, and I left it open-ended. So I did not give them any answers. I just said, like one of the questions is who is your top three favorite musicians?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

You know, and I worked my way up to what's your emotional struggles, yeah. And left it blank and just kind of narrowed down the answers, looked for what's common and kind of the common trends, and narrowed it down and realized that the students and the parents are saying the same thing. But the problem is they're not talking to each other about it. And that's what I realized. This is the gap that's needed is how can we bridge that gap and have the conversation happen between the two of them?

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Because some of them were not, some of the parents were like, I don't know my own kid.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Were the see, I was gonna ask, were the parents surprised by that? Was it one of those that the parents were surprised at how aligned they were without talking about it? Or is it the the cold reality of like I just didn't know my kid? Like is it, is it like I knew it and I just we hadn't discussed it, or I was legitimately surprised that that was even the case?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I would say a little bit of both because there were some parents that were like, Yeah, I suspected it. And some of them were genuinely surprised. So I would say both, a little both, a little A and B there.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Uh you mentioned earlier, what are some of those core components? Like I think going through the the structure of some of the give us that that uh the outline of like what what a true sense of biblical soul care is um as we're trying. I mean, you you you did over a course of seven, eight weeks. Uh so g give us some of the framework maybe that we can take and glean from here.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

So when you talk about the different components, there's eight that I identified looking at literature and research, and just there's no certain order. And when I say this, a lot of times we may have the tendency to say, well, one is more important than the other. To prioritize in a certain way. And understand that this list is not meant to be interpreted in the from like greatest to least or least to greatest. It's just this is how it's on my paper.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Puzzle puzzle pieces on the page.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

They're all they all work together, they're entwined. It's time, okay, influence, or power, uh, motivation. Uh, we said altruism on that part, but what's your motivation? Vulnerability of being vulnerable, vulnerable in your conversations, empathy, mindfulness, discernment, and then communication skills. Those were the eight components that we identified.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

And and in and in what ways were those uh, I mean, you examined those over the course of each week. Uh, was there specific uh like tools or questions given, or is this more just trying to create a better sense and definition of of the scope of what of what the work is?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

So what I did is I took each of the components and linked them back to scripture. Okay. So for example, time, you know, there's a statement timing is everything. Yeah. Well, well, Psalm 90, verse 12 says teach us to number our days carefully. And Ephesians 5 15 says, pay careful attention to how you live, making the most of your time. So I just all I said was make the time, make the time that we

Scripture Anchors For Each Component

SPEAKER_00 22:00

We've been given count, but I use that to ask questions on the next part of that, just that little subsection of how do you use the time you have with your kid? Is it used wisely? Are you glorifying God with that time? Are you building each other up?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Are you is it marked with gratitude? Is it productive? Is it fruitful? Is it quality time? And what so basically, what do you do with the time that you have? It's just getting them to think biblically about time. Yeah. And I use that kind of perspective for each of the components.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Was there one in particular that either felt new to the parents or felt um particularly uh piercing in kind of the conversation? Maybe one that that's that's that's stunned or silenced the room, right? Like I think about time, and they probably have had either some guilt, as every parent, a little bit of guilt or shame of maybe too much time at work, not enough time at home. Um, but when it comes to things like influence and mindfulness, like these are probably not categories of parental consideration and yet deeply spiritual.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So it ended up, I would say, from the instructor's perspective, if you want to say it that way, is influence. And here's why. So I took that survey that I mentioned of the students and I put it into a family feud game that we played.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Make it fun. Yes, yeah. Hey, the beauty of youth ministry is when you have a big, painful, deep truth, make it a game. Yeah, make it a game.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

And it was fun. And one of the questions on that was the stud I asked the students to identify three role models or influencers in their life. I used influencers because that's the term.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

That's that's them. And oh another vogue term. Yeah, sorry, we're back in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

And so I, you know, had eight answers and the reading from eight to one. Of course, the parents were like celebrities, actors, they would name off people like LeBron and famous athletes, famous, you know, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, other YouTube folk, sure.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

And I was surprised because you know, the number eight was God. Okay, number seven was none.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Okay, none.

Influence: Parents As Top Shapers

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Okay, none, none more than God. Interesting. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Then grandparents, okay, then actors and actresses, professional athletes, social media, YouTube, especially, famous musicians, but they could not answer number one. And finally, when everybody had run through the, you know, getting X'd out and all that and everything, everybody was like, Randy, tell me what's number one? Yeah, and as soon as I clicked the button, it said parents, they were like, Are you? I was like, Yeah. And my favorite, say favorite because it was just the most rememberable, is one of the moms who's sitting in the front row, literally watching her jaw just drop. And she goes, I had no idea. I said, Yeah, and if you take the their answer for parents and their answer for grandparents, that's that far outstrips all the others combined. Sure, sure, sure, sure. I said, So understand that faith is shaped by you, whether you realize it or not. Your influence is both positive and negative. Yeah, we tend to view it as just positive, but the negative has just as much impact as the positive side of it.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Okay, let's keep going into that moment because uh was there a conversation that you had in the classroom situation with them that kind of outlined some of the ways in which it may have a negative net influence for parents? Was that discussed, or was that just kind of uh laid out to them? Because I think that's um, you know, we always we we we we fight for, we shoot for the positive, but was there any conversation about like or consideration for for the negative influence that it might have?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

We did. We talked about it uh within the context of like spiritual disciplines and the habits that parents could practice as a family that could model uh faith development for them, like and ask them questions, not really so much the negative, but seeing how they can turn things they may not consider into positives.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Like you know, we were right after Christmas, it was in between Christmas and March 1st when we did the project. Okay. So I said, you know, coming out of Christmas, I said, is it just a holiday, or did you truly as a family celebrate the meaning of Christmas and what's behind it? Yeah. So celebrating, uh, celebration's one of the spiritual disciplines, according to uh Richard Foster, so which is who I cited. And so I didn't really come out and be negative because I didn't want the parents to feel like, well, these are dumping, it's just making me feel bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

It was more saying things that trauma dumping, another vogue term.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, don't want to do that, yeah, but it was turning things that I know from conversations and just listening that they would interpret negatively and putting and trying to put to turn it into a way of saying, look, that you can make something positive out of this. Like when you sit down to dinner, do you talk about spiritual things like when you're driving? Yeah, because I know some of them probably already feel guilty, you know. Well, I don't pray enough, or I don't read scripture enough. I remember we went through this whole lesson on one of the sections about identity. And one of the moms on her feedback had told me, I'm going to start personalizing scripture for my kids. Uh so and you know, looking at identity verses and plugging her kids' name into them. Yeah. And she was doing that because she felt bad about it. And I was like, no, that's a good thing. Yeah. So it kind of taking it

Turning Guilt Into Faithful Practice

SPEAKER_00 27:10

seriously. Taking it seriously is actually a good thing because I and so that's why I would say I didn't really I knew there were negatives and we talked about it, but I always tried to spin it to where the parents can say, hey, look, this is an invitation. Okay. Don't don't beat yourself up.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Well, I guess that's that's where some of it that I want to ask, because I mean you you've like this is from the trenches, this is lived with. What what were some of the like key like pivot points for parents coming out of the time spent in this? Like, well, not to distill it down to one thing, but what were some of the things that were like, um, we we are now thinking about this differently, we're considering it differently. Um, so how does that show up in their lives? What were some of their what were some of their ideas, their talking points? Um, what was it just a wholesale consideration, or was there like key things that trended amongst their conversations that you'd want our folks to know?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

So one of them was understanding that scripture does have a lot to say.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

That was one thing.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Taking scripture seriously.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Taking scripture seriously and understanding that scripture as if we say it's authoritative and we say it's sufficient, it's there. It's there. We have what we need right there. Yeah. And understanding that scripture does address some of these topics of they just didn't know. The other one I'd say that really emerged uh is a different mom than the one I cited earlier. We were talking about uh stages of development. I remember that. And I showed this video from a school counselor, and it was about you know about how to handle the the changing from children to preteen to teen to emerging adults, you know, that kind of that real phase and stage work, yes. And and the conversation just the class started having a conversation amongst themselves, and I love that. So is the teacher. I just kind of stayed back and wrote notes, and it's all on video, so I just you know, and I heard one of the moms say, I never thought that anybody else was dealing with what I was dealing with. She goes, I'm not alone. And that was the thing, and these parents had been friends for a long time.

Parents Realize They’re Not Alone

SPEAKER_00 29:10

And for her to go, I'm not alone with being a mom struggling with a teenage boy.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

And that was the thing that emerged too, is that they're realizing that, hey, I'm not the only one walking through this and we can be there for each other, which is what the church is supposed to be about. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Well, but we don't always align along that axis. Again, it's what we talked about at the top. Like some of the things that are the the most difficult in ministry are when they feel they're like along these like fault lines or fracture lines that this exists here and that exists there. Like one of the things that we've talked about the most, uh kind of coming out of some of the research and and conversations uh on the podcast has been the ways in which um parent parents are in small groups that talk about scripture and talk about their lives. And the one thing that's the most universal amongst uh parental life group, small group, is that they're all raising kids. And it goes, it goes overlook uh or or unasked or or or uh unconsidered. And so it's not until we're like in the special environments or we're asked by you know the special guest teacher and making the guest spot of like, did y'all know that you all have teenagers and you probably are more alike than you are unalike? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Well, one of the components of that we found in the project was vul vulnerability. I'm having a hard time saying that word.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

It's a good one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Vulnerability, excuse me.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Well, it's okay. We're in East Texas, we can drop consonants, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Being vulnerable with each other.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

And you know, I encourage that between the parent and the and the kid. Yeah. But parent to parent needs to happen too. Because I can't help you if I don't know what, you know. But you've got to earn that trust. It takes communication, it takes opening up, and the project helped not just between the parents and their kids, but between parents and other parents. Because now I've gone back a year later, and the depth of the relationships between the parents in that class is completely different.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Well, I was gonna say it's been some time since you've worked on this. Uh, has has the the character, the tenor of the class changed because of it?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Very much. Okay. Okay. Uh, their Sunday school

Vulnerability Builds Community

SPEAKER_00 31:10

teachers have told me and said we still use what you've shared with us. Okay. Because they just have found it's the most helpful.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Just the reframing of the ways in which we are more alike, the ways in which this fullness of understanding of what we're how we are serving and ministering our students beyond just bringing or providing them to it. Well, well, walk us a little bit through for a youth minister that's uh feeling feeling the pain of either a student coming to their office, asking big, heavy questions, maybe maybe they're on the other side of a winter weekend or they're thinking about camp moments. Uh, they're just in a season that feels heavy. I mean, I think the the roles of prophet, priest, and king that are embodied in Jesus, sometimes we can feel the weight of each of those uh uniquely in the seasons that we're in in ministry. And so if someone's feeling uh heavy in a priestly season, uh, what would be some wisdom of maybe ways to implement this? I mean, you were invited in, you made it a full project, but how does this become an integrative work for what the youth ministry leader is doing today?

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Well, first I would say that you cannot give from an empty cup.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

So as much as we talk about soul care being for others, that's where the self-care comes back into it is you know, teaching, and I taught the parents, I said knowledge of God means knowledge of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

You know, your spiritual disciplines, are you practicing those? Are you spending time uh with God in prayer? Are you practicing fasting, celebration, thanksgiving, those different spiritual disciplines that we ask not just individually but corporatively, you know, corporately, sorry, you know, are you practicing those? Because that will help you to get through those heavy seasons and then to be there. Uh one of the videos I showed in the project was uh this the safety video from when you're going on a plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if the plane's going down and you need oxygen masks, what do you do? They tell you, yeah, before you put somebody else's on, you do what? You put yours on first.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

And that's the same thing that you can't breathe, you can't help somebody else. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Well, that's the same thing I told the parents. I said, before you try to help your kids, help yourself first. It's the same

Caring For Yourself To Care For Others

SPEAKER_00 33:10

thing for me as a minister. I can't help the parents or help them if I'm not practicing what I preach, if I'm not taking care of myself first.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

And so that's uh where that comes from.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

Uh so give us give us a little more, Randy, on the ways in which, like, because a minister's hearing this, and maybe they're feeling some of the ways that you felt, like, I'm not a licensed professional counselor. It's been a long time since I've had a seminary class on biblical counseling, if any at all. What are some of the ways in which this is like possible, feasible? And what ways are we capable, like in our ministry today, or in the sphere of how we minister and what's right in front of us?

SPEAKER_00 33:48

So one of the things that I remember in doing the research is this quote from Dr. David Pallison. It's this all people influence others by what they believe and want. All people are influenced by the thoughts and intentions of others. All of human life is, by definition, counseling.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

So that means that we do counseling no matter where we're at with who, with whoever we're with. Okay. So like even right now, this would technically be a form of counseling.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

So understanding that and going, you know what, I I practice that. Okay. Okay. Cool. You know, I can feel confident in it. It takes a little bit, you know, but then you're saying, well, okay, well, that's just the definition. But scripture gives us the the two things that we need as a believer to do that effectively. The word and the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

And the word in 2 Peter 1, Psalm 19, uh, 2 Timothy 3, the power of scripture. And then being open to the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is what empowers us and empowers us with the word to do this. We're not, I know I'm not a licensed counselor. I know that. I I readily admit that. But I also know that I can do what I'm doing in a counseling sphere with my students and providing

Counseling Confidence: Word And Spirit

SPEAKER_00 35:00

soul care because of scripture relying on the Holy Spirit. That's good. And I know if I can do it, I know others can do it too.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Well, Randy, one of my favorite things about this project is that this is something that's come for you after many years of ministry. I think I think sometimes folks can can come right out of seminary and have the fresh idea, but this is almost like a like, well, I mean, but honestly, it's like a renaissance, right? This is one of those, like, like uh for a lot of folks, COVID was harrowing or like ministry ending. And for you, this has become like a springboard for like a new season. So I just want to ask, as someone who's a veteran youth ministry person, veteran youth worker person, like, are you doing ministry now differently because of it? Like, how has this impacted not just like your perspective, but your ministry philosophy or your ministry plan?

SPEAKER_00 35:44

That's a good question. But hey, this is year 20. As the uh the 20-year journeyman of youth ministry, 20 years. Um, considering my calling was last century. Oh, that's right. Yeah. My senior pastor.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

As a 20th century theologian, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

My senior pastor jokes with me that when I turn 50, he's gonna bring me a walker. Oh, good, okay. Oh, that hurts. That hurts.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Someone that's just recently turned 40, that makes me sad because I only got 10 years until my walker. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

But uh as you got them dodgeball knees.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Oh man, don't say that.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

But uh, I would say that in terms of how it's personally impacted my ministry, yeah, and this is something that I would encourage anyone, is learning how to listen better. Okay. And learning how to ask questions better. Which are like that doesn't but when you design a lesson for students, asking questions and training your your volunteers or your youth leaders to ask questions in a different way. So in counseling, we're used to one of the things that I told the parents is we're used to asking questions that have a yes or a no.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

We don't ask questions in a way that reflect back what we're hearing.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

And can you give us like an example of that? Like if we

Better Questions, Better Listening

SPEAKER_03 37:00

just thinking through like because I think for a lot of us, I mean, we we we we're just writing questions, we're not necessarily like styling them. So the consideration of of not just like what I want them to know content, but maybe how it might repeat back. Like what give us an example.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

So I think the best example, and I use this when uh the project is Jesus' conversation with the woman as well, John 4. Is he initiated the conversation, but every question he posed to her was a reflection back of something that she had said prior. Okay, yeah, yeah. And he used the conversation to guide her to the truth, where she came and said, Oh, you're the messiah. Yeah. And he's like, Yeah, that's me. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

I am the I am the Messiah. Walked her into it because I, you know, you have said this, but you should know. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

And so, you know, he could have he could have asked her an open-ended question, do you believe I'm the Messiah? She could have said no, or she could have said yes. But instead of doing a simple yes or no, turning it into you know, a conversation that's guided by the other person. Yeah. So that requires listening as much as it is talking. And designing questions that really does, you know, we talk a lot in soul care and biblical counseling about getting to the heart of the matter.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

And looking at what is the heart? Like, where are we really getting at? And asking questions that get people to think and not just think to say an answer, but think about what does it mean to get it from here to here? So from the head to the heart. And that's where it's kind of helped me the most is learning to ask students questions just one-on-one when I'm teaching, getting others to you know, say, hey, do a little more thinking about it. How what's it saying to your heart? Um, talk to me. We we even did a whole series on emotions with my junior high group.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

So, so in the ways in which you're preparing your teaching and the ways in which we're preparing questions for small groups, but even some of the like the the content considerations. I do think that's one of the things for folks. Um, youth ministry leaders love to plan a scope and a sequence. We love a sermon series, we love an annual calendar. But for you, this is even like is

Teaching Emotions And Real Talk

SPEAKER_03 39:10

this the emotion conversation like a regular touch point? Like is this like uh every spring or fall?

SPEAKER_00 39:15

This is something that we're kind of working through, thinking through, or well, it kind of came about by a happy accident. Okay. We love those. The older students had for years wanted to go through a true love weights type program. And so I said, okay, we can do that. But a lot of the junior high parents were like, please don't do that. Please don't. So what I ended up doing for a whole year was that.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Please don't encourage dating in any way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

What I did for a whole year last year was I split my group into the high school, we did true love weights, and we did the whole year. Oh, okay. I'm not going to talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

I I I'm gonna want receipts on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

For the junior high, we did it more like, what are you you know, what are the fundamentals of the faith? The cross, consummation, yeah, you know, creation. We did we called them the C's.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

And then we well, that got us to January. Then we're kind of like, well, what do we do? And I and so I just asked the kids, I was like, what are y'all interested in? And they're gonna go like, I'm struggling with feelings. Oh, okay. That's part of my project. So I pulled from my project, yeah, and we did this whole long series. I called it in my feels. Yeah, no, and we went through the basic emotions and what we see in scripture emotions, and I asked questions related to that subject, like, well, when you feel anger, how do you respond to it? So instead of like, hey, do you get angry? We all get angry. But when was the last time you got angry? How did you handle it? You know, what's how did it show up? And junior high kids, they had no problem telling me.

SPEAKER_03 40:45

Which is the blessing of a junior high kid, is they will tell you, yes, a high school kid is guarded, a junior high kid is not, and it is a beautiful gift. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

And there was a lot of un thank goodness that we did not record that group, because the um there was a lot of uh unfiltered conversations, but honest conversations about emotions, because I was asking them the questions that were designed to get them to do that, yeah. Where I can say, okay, well, here's what scripture says about anger, here's what scripture says about joy.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Can can I ask a question? And maybe, maybe it's not fully measured, but just as a as you reflect back uh anecdotally for your group, after having some of these uh pieces of of content presented or some of these considerations for the questions asked, are is small group engagement

Deeper Small Groups And Student Leaders

SPEAKER_03 41:30

better overall? Is is the is is is is is thinking about it and doing this way? Is it helping to maybe bridge some of those like frustration gaps of like our group isn't talking or our group isn't our group isn't connecting? Actually, yes. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah. And some of my volunteers uh have asked me to take this and adapt it for them.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

One of my youth workers, he's our junior high boys leader, he took my dissertation and read it in three days. Yeah. And he goes, I want to use this. Okay. I was like, Okay, he's in, he's in. He's in. And so I it's it it it really has. I've sat in on some of my small groups and and and I'm also training my high school students to do to to group lead, and I'm hearing conversations that are deep and meaningful, and they feel the freedom to say, I'm I'm struggling with this. Yeah. So yeah, it's been very transformative. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Well, it's one of those when we see it in ministry in other places, but was this in your notes or am I just imagining with like vulnerability begets vulnerability? Was that a was that a thing that I read? Or something. Sure. Somewhere, sure, sure. Sure. If you agree, we'll say it was in there. But there was, but there was something, there was, there was something, uh just the idea that like someone has to go first. Like someone has to go first. Um, but in the same way you shared with the parents, like once we kind of like pull the lid off of the things that we'd held back, and I think for a lot of at least youth ministry friends that I talk to, small groups are either going great or they wish there was something different to do because it just feels like they're pulling teeth. Especially in middle school ministry, it's like they're just given the like, you know, the church answer or the cheesy answer, the ham-fisted, like it's just not going anywhere. And like engagement feels low. Like we know this is important, but engagement feels low. And I just I'm so taken with the idea that maybe it's not um that the group isn't working, it's just we've we've framed it around the wrong questions, or we haven't created a safe enough space to be vulnerable enough to get really into the the rich spaces that we want.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

And so I would agree with that, especially when you're talking about questions. If they do give a Sunday school answer, I've turned around and asked them said, well, then tell me why you believe that. Yeah. And then they're they're actually on the hook. They're on the hook to actually like give me more than just what I what they think I want to hear. Yeah. You know, and the other thing too is is I try to model it when I can appro in an appropriate way. I don't I'm vulnerable with myself.

One Skill For Parents: Active Listening

SPEAKER_00 44:00

but I don't share. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

You know, I don't this is so for good youth ministry pro tips to include in the bottom below. Yeah. We always share from scars, not wounds. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Because one of the things that my students have learned and I don't go into all the details, is they understand that I'm on the spectrum. And that's led to a lot of good conversations because the students are like youth pastor is walking through anxiety and depression. Yeah. On the spectrum.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

That we're more alike than we are on the past. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

And that's led to a lot of conversations where and students will and a lot of it ends up being one-on-one, which is fine. Yeah. But practicing vulnerable I can't say that word. And I put it in there. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

East Texas. Vulnerability. We're dropping consonants. It's okay. Being open. Yeah. Let's just say that. Being open. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

But it's a it's a practice. It's not an art. I am not uh it's not I'm not the best at it. I've made mistakes in it. But I've learned through the years, you know, model what you want. Because they will in turn yeah model what they see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:11

Well Randy, thank you so much for sharing today. If someone's listening right now and they've heard, they've been encouraged, maybe they've even connected personally with the ways in which you've shared openly, um what what is the ways we could train parents in one skill first? Like if we were going to try to just simplify this into a next step to get it out of what we could control and into the home, into the life of the parent. Maybe we're not the guest teacher in the small group class, but maybe we could ask to be uh maybe we have a parent seminar before camp coming up and we want to include a meaningful connection moment. What is the what is the one thing that you would say this is the block I would build on or the first step that I would take.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

That's a good question. I s I would start with teaching communication skills. Okay. And by that I really mean active listening.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

And then that there are two components asking good questions and listening for the response.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Because the goal of active listening as it is with good biblical biblical counseling is to get to the heart of the matter, the heart of the student. So instead of asking basic questions like well how is very yes or no good, bad, whatever, is asking questions and rewording them to say something like tell me what something good that happened to you today.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

I know with parents not really understanding their

Resources And How To Reach Randy

SPEAKER_00 46:30

kids asking questions in the right way is a good way for them to learn about each other. So for example you I know you earlier you mentioned Taylor Swift. T Swift I got a lot of Swifties I got a lot of Swifties in my group trust me.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

She is like Thanos inevitable.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

She is inevitable. That is true. And so you know and I and I told my I told parents I said I know that you hear that and you would probably roll your eyes but here's the point use it as an open invitation to learn more about your kid. Yeah so instead of saying I can't believe you listen to that why do you listen to that? Go what is it about that song that she sings that speaks to you? Yeah. Is it the lyrics? Is it the melody? Is it something because they'll tell you and then if you're listening you'll go oh maybe that song is speaking to a situation that she's walking through and then be vulnerable by themselves to say you know I've gone through similar yeah connecting it. Yeah connecting because the cool thing about this if it's done in a in a right way is giving this giving your kid the full attention without distraction and letting the student guide the conversation you get deep without realizing it. And parents need that because that bridges the gap between them and it strengthens that relationships because a healthy family is a healthy church. Yes. But if it's done in a spirit led manner it leads to spiritual conversations where evangelism and discipleship can happen.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Come on come on that's where I would start there's just something about the why question that creates such a defensive posture and the the noticing right like that's one of the things that I think is such a powerful like not like why do you and that puts them on the back foot but the what about it it it it is a provoked curiosity instead of like mom and dad immediately coming off as corrective when you mean maybe you're not even meaning to be yeah yeah yeah yeah so like you know you mentioned TikTok instead of saying well why are you on TikTok? Who would ever do that?

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah go well what on TikTok be like what's enjoyable yeah what's enjoyable when do you find yourself yeah what do you get out of it? Yeah yeah and they'll they'll tell you that and that they will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Well Randy my friend thank you so much for being with us today. Uh thank you for the download of good information and thoughtfulness uh not only for the ways in which we minister priestly prophetically and pastorally but also in the ways in which this gets into the bigger question of parent ministry. If folks wanted to read a little bit more learn a little bit more um what what are some places they can either catch up with you or connect with you more on this topic?

SPEAKER_00 49:06

So there's tons of resources on biblical counseling from authors like Kelleman and Banner and you know one of my professors from Southwestern Dr. Okinago there's a lot that's been written on this subject but one of the most helpful books that I used is Try Softer by Andy Kolber.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Okay.

Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Because not only does she talk about different uh emotional struggles and how they affect the body but she also gives strategies which are easy to teach to others I've even used them for myself on how to handle emotional disturbances and she connects it with scripture. I love that book I would recommend that book to anybody but to reach out to me. Yeah yeah if it's if one to follow up or ask you more either I would do email or my Facebook I'm on Facebook quite a bit I'm on Instagram but not as much so the the DMs on Facebook are the emails that we'll list below.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

Well Randy thank you so much for being with us or thank you so much for the ways in which you've been faithful serving ministry and still showing that there's more to learn and more to do and ways for us to care deeply so thank you appreciate it man well guys we'll see you next week thank you