[Music] hey friends welcome to the empowered homes podcast the purpose of this podcast is to grow strong families by connecting church and home Meg is in studio we're sitting here on our computers because we got a special guest uh via Zoom uh Andrew Walker Andrew you uh we we've already hung out with you we love you um Andrew was one of our keynote speakers for the empowered homes conference last year uh talking about uh gender sexuality and the gospel and uh had a great time we'll link that video if you want to go back and watch the content from from that conference uh we'll link that to the description of this episode uh but Andrew welcome man glad you're here yeah hey thanks uh for the invitation and uh good to be back with some familiar people and a familiar institution and group so who's doing good work so thanks for the invitation man we're so grateful and uh some of our audience will will know who you are but for those who don't uh just share a little bit about yourself your family and kind of what you do yeah so um my my big title I guess is uh associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville Kentucky been here for um just at five years and as I joke with people um my area uh of uh my discipline is ethics which oftentimes conjures up a lot of different thoughts but the easiest way to describe it is everything uncomfortable and controversial that people don't want to talk about I talk about for living in the classroom so uh that makes my my job very fun and Lively and then been married to my wife Christian going on it'll be 18 years this December and she's a fifth grade teacher at our local um classical Christian School um actually about literally a quarter mile from the Seminary here and it's her actual first day of classes so interesting day for her and um we've got three daughters Caroline who is 13 Going on 22 uh Katherine who is nine almost 10 and then Charlotte who is um six so just three girls actually four girls if you count my wife and uh me and a male dog named buck so that rounds out the the maess in the home oh that's awesome so cool to hear about your family exciting things going on in your life uh the one of the main reasons we got you on the episode is you got a new book uh yeah love it me and Megan have been talking through it we've we've com through it um the book's called what do I say when a parent guide to navigating cultural chaos for children and teens we'll talk about the book here and a little bit that's super exciting but something else happened today I just saw on Twitter tell us what was that about what what happened today something cool yeah so um there's like a a ceremonial kind of symbolic Mark of being on faculty Southern um that usually comes when you're earlier in your career hopefully around like year five or six if you kind of pass all the the tests and if you pass the tests with some interviews you uh you become elected to the faculty of Southern Seminary which is kind of maybe the southern baptist uh equivalent of tenure is what you might call it um but it culminates in signing uh the original abstract of principles uh from 1859 that every elected faculty member of Southern has signed so it's it's a really symbolic moment um at the Seminary because it's our um it's it's our commitment to teach in accordance with and not contrary to uh the doctrinal confession and parameters of this institution and so we literally sign the document handwritten in 1859 that governed the institution um and so you know we had to you sign this old book with a actual like quill which was interesting to to use a quill so we had to practice that in advance but yeah signed that book um about three hours ago and just um a major moment of of I mean honestly today just overwhelmed with gratitude I began at Southern 16 years ago as a student um and you know idealized perhaps teaching ethics someday and sitting here 16 years later uh being an elected member of The Faculty um teaching ethics is just uh completely undeserved Grace and so I'm just very grateful today man when I saw that I just thought what a what a a cool testimony to to sign your name in that book with so many people that went before you but then thinking of how many people are going to sign it after you and just y really really cool man I'm proud U for you and just a that wanted to share that I when I saw it I was like oh man that's that's incredible so yeah thanks I appreciate that yeah awesome yeah that's really cool and I also commented you have a a really very nice signature and the fact that you signed it with a quill I'm like really impressed that it looks so good that would be very nerve-wrecking so I was very intentional and slow in trying to sign that but not only signing it but not like dropping any of the ink to create a blot on the page which has happened previously so like don't be that guy don't screw this uper don't smear your hand across the whole thing after you sign it yeah exactly that's awesome well you know um we love your work and and following and and seeing what the Lord is doing through you and and we know that by being an advocate of of biblical truth in the political Arena you encounter a lot of people with very strong opinions pretty regularly right we know that about you no never never okay but here's here's an arena that I think a lot of people have strong opinions about and I want to know from you what your opinion is or what you do so um it's what do people listen to when they exercise or run because we saw in your bio that you're an avid long-distance Runner and so we want to know what do you listen to wow I've never been asked that question on a podcast thanks um because because I I am profoundly boring but the one thing that I actually think that makes me somewhat cool on the spectrum is I've got a I think a pretty good taste of music okay I grew up in kind of the Midwest punk rock emo Indie scene and so I really never have matured out of that although I have a wide repertoire of music that I appreciate um so uh the music you're going to here most often um would be a combination of and this is not necessarily Christian bands so I apologize I'm not I can't give an endorsement of these bands so to to be clear on the podcast um but bands like um Death Cab for Cutie Alkaline Trio uh that's kind of my my native genre but then I also do um I listen to way too many podcasts because um my my world is kind of one where I have to know what's going on on in the world around me that's a part of I I love that um but it's also a part of I think my professional responsibilities is to know what's happening in the world so it's usually a mixture or one day it's a podcast listened to at like 1.5 speed in order I can get through it um or or yeah music depending on kind of my vibe for the day whether I want to like tune out or tune in um that also depends on the intensity of the run so if it's if it's an intense run more music more relaxed run it's going to be a podcast that's cool and what's the longest you've ever run oh so um I've done five marathons wow so that's 26.2 um and actually uh I I am one of those weird Ducks who actually really loves like long long distance running and so for me like every I run 5 days a week at least 3 miles or 3.3 miles per day when I run um but I actually would prefer to run 8 to 10 miles if I was going to do a run because for whatever reason the way God made me I actually enjoy running the further I go and get stronger the further I go so it's a weird that's how I know that like God made me a distance Runner and not a sprinter yes that's awesome that's awesome I I do like podcast while I'm going too it kind of gets my mind mind off the pain uh so what's before we jump into the book what's a what's a podcast that you're you you would recommend to our our parents oh goodness um so I uh oh man I listen to so many what are um I really and again I can't give these podcasts like a full-throated Christian endorsement but um there's a podcast called the ruthless podcast which is uh four guys who are on the itical kind of conservative side of things and um they're they're not Christians or maybe if they are they're not overly well discipled Christians by some of the language that they use but they at least provide some levity to um politics and I also enjoy um and I'm not just saying this because he's my boss but when Dr Mohler does um he does the briefing podcast every day which I I enjoy he does the thinking in public podcast which is kind of a more long form public intellectual discussion um I enjoy that that one as well that's awesome well man let's jump into the book it's uh it it is really helpful for parents um most of our listeners are parents or grandparents and uh in the description it says when inevitable questions arise parents must be equipped with sound biblical answers to guide their children through the complexities of modern life because if we fail and I'm going to probably say this word wrong because I've heard it said different ways but if we fail to catechize did I say that right you got it right if we fail to catechize our children the world will surely step in and do it for us can you define that word catez and explain some of the ways you're seeing the world um impacting our children yeah what a great question because it's it's a it's a word that I think has been lost on a lot of contemporary um evangelicals um let's go back and I'll be brief cuz otherwise I could spend way too much long on this in the early church if you were wanting to become a a Christian and become welcomed into the church you went through this long process of being a cuman which meant you were kind of on this long process of of discerning and figuring out the demands um of the life of of the Christian and that it wasn't just a halfhazard um thing that you would decide kind of instantaneously I'm going to I'm going to do that thing you might get saved instantaneously but it was one of those things well we're going to we're going to test this out we're going to train you and equip you and educate you in the contents of the faith in order for you to be matured um and and and discipled and so that is at the history of the church um very at the very beginning and then when you get into um my history might be a little rusty here but in the Protestant Reformation um upwards from there you begin to have this emphasis on the creation of of catechisms as documents which are usually in question and answer form that are meant to help Christians memorize the content of the faith and one of those questions from the Westminster Confession is what is the chief end of man and the answer is to glorify God and enjoy him forever that's the that's the the the very first question in the Westminster um and so uh that has kind of been lost I think as lurgical Traditions have tended to treat a little bit but I actually think that catechisms are coming back um and I'm very encouraged by that but for all intents of purposes what we're getting at in the use of catechism is um parents need to be the primary catechis of their children we need youth ministers we need children's ministers but fundamentally um and as a priority we need parents because discip ship is a home issue and that means that that needs to be a part of the regular rhythm of of a family's um the family's rhythms so that's what it looks like for our house at 7 o'clock we have a time for kind of catechism and discipleship and family worship it's often a wreck because it never goes according to this idealized uh way that you have in your mind but the the important thing is we're doing it and that's what I think we want our children to memorize to to remember as they AE out uh and and form their own families is that our family took time to consecrate the the day for the Lord and to to teach them the the contents of the faith but as we're thinking about where the world is catechizing us um it's catechizing us in subtle ways uh and then in very overt ways um you know if and I'm not saying this critically um in whatsoever you know if you are a Taylor Swift fan you have been catechized U because you have been drawn into the Allure of her music and the fact that um the eras tour became this almost lurgical like event right people would go to the concerts and they would be transfixed with the music uh people would go and more or less uh what's the word that's the sports term for uh oh gosh if you're like cooking and Grilling out before a sports event tailgating tailgating I am inditing myself you all should be making fun of me listening to this podcast right you tailgate at this Taylor Swift concert why because you're part of a community there's a a Common Language uh common um sense of identity you're a Swifty right that's just one subtle way that you're getting catechized what the world is really really good at doing that we often have a disadvantage at as Christians is that the world does it um in much more subtle forms because we are just constantly immersed in all of the world's systems that are constantly barraging us with what the world wants us to think and be informed by so social media YouTubers are a form of catechis um that we are fundamentally not just passive being well we are passive but we're fundamentally lurgical and affective beings meaning that we are constantly being shaped and formed formed by what is is being put into us and Jesus says what comes out of us is a true measure of what we have been catechized by and so what we're trying to do in this book um is is to impress upon parents that given what's taking place in the culture around us if you think that your kids are just going to go to public school or maybe even Christian school and come out of those environments with this you know morally intact largely Christian understanding of the world um I think that's a very naive assumption uh because of what the Norms are in our society and so that requires Christians and Christian parents to have to have a sense of intentionality with in instructing their par instructing their children on these issues that sadly um are often putting children and teens in very uncomfortable positions because they're very controversial and we don't like to be against the grain right the the human tendency is to want to fit in with the In Crowd U but sadly in in many portions of the country The In Crowd is holding to views that are not only contrary to scripture but I would argue are contrary to what it means to be human um and so as a way for us to to catechize our kids influence our kids and quite frankly to be a voice for sanity in our culture and a voice um to love our neighbor into the truth um we we have to be intentional about these issues uh and so that's really all this book is is you know we we we can provide all the content um that we can imagine and envision and do but until a parent kind of uh has has a fire under their seat to do this um we can't make someone read the book we can't make someone have the questions parents have to decide to do those things themselves yeah that's right you know and Ed art homes you know you say that parents have to be the primary catechis and we call that primary Faith trainer same thing right um and and that's what we're all about you know equipping families and and helping them understand that the home is the primary place of discipleship and you know you talk about a lot of the the cultural chaos and the things that are coming at our kids and and even us as adults and it's intimidating for parents and and you know you sort of look at those things and you're like I want to say the right things I want to have those conversations but I don't know how and so you know that's what I love that you and and I don't think we mentioned that Christian wrote this book with you did and I love that y'all um um that's what you were going after and you're going after some really tough topics but you do it in such a really cool easy to read practical way and so if you can just just talk to us a little bit about how each chapter is packed full of resources and I want you to talk about those floors that are in there because that's really cool yeah yeah so um we we we thought to ourselves what are I we think the the 10 most essential topics in the culture today that parents need to be equipping their kids with and so um the really really challenging thing for me as and I hate to say this as an academic that sounds very austere and borderline arrogant but as someone in the academy who's prone to more kind of maybe heady or intellectual approaches to things um and and never one to lack for word counts when I write something to put it mildly I'm of the opinion that if I if you know if I'm GNA write something I need like 20,000 Words which won't get R um so to be forced to take what I I think are the essentials of the issue and to boil that down in each chapter to five to seven ma major like header points and I I would say what we've tried to do in that in the first section of each chapter is um you know I I I do ethics and I do the cultural stuff professionally and I I try to look at it from all angles and I thought to myself and it was the most challenging part of writing the book was to say okay what are the five to seven distilled truths that that comprehensively cover the issue as much as a a busy parent needs to know and so there's uh seven kind of five to seven points of Biblical teaching that usually have like a paragraph with each point to kind of flesh out the point that I'm making um and then we in the middle part of the the chapter we kind of condemn the essence of those points into even shorter forms so that parents can have like basically like bullet points and talking points uh and then in the third part of each chapter as you mentioned Megan we talk about these various floors and we wanted to use the metaphor of the home to communicate kind of what we envisioned with these floors and the floors move from General to specific from Simplicity to more complex lexity so we have three floors um with each issue and the first floor is generally speaking ages 4 to8 the second floor is ages 8 to 12 and then um the third floor is roughly ages 12 to 16 um and we understand that children develop at different stages and so these aren't hard and fast principles but just general rules like this is probably how your your child is thinking about this issue uh at this particular spot in their in their emotional and intellectual development and that's actually where my wife's gifting comes in because she's been a curriculum writer um for LifeWay for the gospel project she led um a thriving kids ministry at our previous Church in Tennessee and she's obviously an elementary teacher now and so we just thought like let's use my ethics background let's use her educational background and early childhood background to provide a resource um to make it as accessible and intuitive as possible and and the one of the things I want to stress here is um our vision to do this book well is not necessarily and I mean you could do this you could sit down take the chapter and work through it with your child if you want to do that we think that child discipleship on these issues occurs best when it's occurring naturally and organically and as you're just encountering things in the culture um if I can just tell one quick story kind of how this teases out we write about it in the book you know we we have talked about um loving our neighbor and caring for the vulnerable and um giving respect and kindness to every human being regardless of what that person looks like if that person has some type of intellectual or physical disability because we've been very clear as as soon as our children can understand the concept is to say you know what every human being is made in God's image and that means God loves the human beings that he creates and if if he creates those human beings that means as fellow human beings we're called to cherish those human beings and respect those human beings because they're special creations of God and so the image of God the imod Dei in in in big fancy theological terms all of a sudden can be communicated in very simple ways of just compassion respect and so one day we were we were leaving a restaurant and we saw um a young boy uh in a wheelchair with some some severe uh disabilities was being pushed in by by his mother and I noticed that my younger two children were not staring awkwardly but I could tell that this young boy had kind of caught their attention and so we were walking out to the car to go back home we get in the car and I said to my two youngest I said I said girls I noticed that you saw that young boy who um was in a wheelchair and he obviously had some some physical disabilities I said I noticed he caught your attention um what caught your attention about him and and they said well yeah it it was it was sad because you could tell that he he had some physical limitations and I said well how do you think we should treat someone like that and they said oh well you know that boy was made by God and literally my my it would have been my seven-year-old at the time said yeah that boy was made by made in God's image and so we're called We're called to be kind to him and respect him and we we should never make fun of someone or point out someone's uh physical problems and I remember just like being blown away because I never thought you know in the process of having those conversations with my kiddos that someday we're going to have this moment where it's all going to come home you know to to to fruition but it had because we had just had normal everyday conversations along the way and that's the beauty I think of what discipleship is is it's almost as though when you're like in this moment like like okay now we're doing discipleship we're having discipleship it's like well actually like yeah you might be that can be a little artificial discipleship is um being with Jesus I just preached on John 8 this past weekend and what does Jesus say in John 8 you have to abide with Jesus abiding with Jesus is just like being near Jesus getting familiar with Jesus um discipleship for those L literal disciples meant like Tagg along with him getting acquainted with him uh it was those everyday rhythms where they figured out this is what it means to be a follower of Christ and so we're trying to to mimic that same thing for our children in the home yeah and we say that all the time it's it's not just a onetime conversation it's multiple conversations about multiple things it's about uh being sensitive and intentional about how we're building that culture in our home um around the things of God and around uh what Jesus says for us to respond to the world and how we do that um man you you the 10 I guess focuses of of each chapter just to name a few um that we can you're equipping parents so that we can disciple our kids I mean abortion sexuality gender homosexuality identity transgenderism technology political engagement um me just some of the key things for our listeners to to you know maybe curious of like what what topics does he hit he I mean you're going right to the heart of a lot of where our people are are really hungry for ways to speak biblical truths into our children and for us as parents to be able to to do that and so I'm going to put you on the spot if that's okay I want to give you I want to give you a real life example that happened at my kitchen table and I want you to respond to my son and see if I did did okay so last night we're having dinner and my son says hey there's a new new kid at school and uh I was like oh yeah he's like yeah um I think it's a boy we have a lot of tomboys at school but some of the other kids were were saying that that they had transitioned um he goes what do you think about that Dad so how would you respond to your kids coming to you with just the simple innocent question sure so you know I I always want to begin with an affirmation that um human beings matter in the eyes of God so if we're able to establish at the outset that there is an attitude of care and compassion it means we're tearing down this notion that there has to be first and foremost conflict and antithesis now the conflict and antithesis will eventually come but I don't think that's where the conversation needs to begin so if that were if that were my child we would talk about um what does it mean to love someone generically as a human being I think we would then think through the categories of okay how would then have conversations with someone who would have really really significant disagreements with us um we would then probably try to figure out okay if there are significant disagreements are there any commonalities that we could establish amongst that kind of big ideological and and and and moral difference to to figure out like all right this is why that person is thinking the way that they're thinking uh this is the way that I'm thinking but then figuring out like okay what things might we have in common uh what I would then do is to go to the Bible and I would say Okay um you know when we see God make human beings we see that God makes human beings how and in what forms and I I I think my children would say well when we look at Genesis uh there are man and woman so I I I then would think we would go with okay so God makes man and woman so that's an issue of authority right so then the issue needs to become for the children so okay if if God creates and God is a good God then his creation is inherently good uh that then raises the question of okay well why do people feel the sense of alienation and Brokenness and confusion that they do well that can be because of our doctrine of sin and that sin Works its way into the world um comprehensively um into our um our thoughts into our desires into our perceptions uh but it also means that um we have an opportunity to like explain and and I hate to use the word like empathize empathize is good not empathize with fallenness but empathize with the reality that there Brokenness in the world um and so that right out of the gate we're understanding that we have a vocabulary for why people would think the way that they do now we might think that they're mistaken about how they're thinking about this um and so I remember one time we had um my my oldest daughter saw um a same-sex couple on TV and she we had a conversation about that and uh you know we we had been building a worldview where she understood that marriage was one man and one woman and she had that building block squared away and she said well like why would people think that you could be two husbands or two wives in a relationship and I said well you know people do think differently than us I think that doctrine of sin allows us to understand and communicate to our children why people would think differently about certain ma certain matters Okay then if we establish that sin creates Divergence and disagreements and Rebellion against from against God's creation order the question then becomes how do we then treat people who think differently than us and I think that's where Christian virtues of love and compassion enter into the equation and I remember saying to my daughter you know we do disagree with how these people understand what marriage is and and um how they are to relate to one another as two men um but we we are not going to sacrifice the truth um but we can show uh love amidst disagreement and to communicate to them and and we you know and we're clear about this just because you communicate love doesn't mean that your love will be met with an equal measure of respect and that's why we wrote a chapter on hostil and persecution yeah um and to to to communicate to them that you can go out of your way to communicate love and good intentions and that still may be met with a degree of of criticism but again it comes back to the question of who has ultimate Authority yeah that's so good I took all the notes and I did I did okay I did did all right I we we talked about you know I I asked the question I was like you know with this this person how do you think God views them how do you think God sees them and do you see them the way that God sees them and then one of our core values as a family we make my kids say it all the time um you know kolies we're leaders um we're kind we get back up and we know God and make him know that's that's like our core values that we have them and so I said are you a he said yeah I said aren't we kind he said yeah I'm going to be kind and then he goes so it's okay for me to be friends with them I said we're friends to everybody buddy like yep absolutely we're friends with everybody and so we can be kind and we can still tow that line of showing that love and kindness even though we disagree and uh so I did okay I think you gave a better you gave a better more concise answer that I get so kudos to you well boys are different than girls I'd have to it'd be like a two-hour conversation if it was yeah that's actually a good point yeah so so it's so good and I love it you know I love that we have we have this like-hearted um just mission for family and and just that core of of how God created family and how important it is you know for us to to reflect his image and and speak that into our children and even for grandparents that can do that into their grandchildren and all of that and and so we're so we're so grateful that you um wanted to join us and and talk about that and one one thing I want to know before you go and this is kind of getting off topic of the book but one thing I want to know is um you know people they live in a place for a long time and they tend to not actually experience the place that they live in so I want to know in Louisville Kentucky where do you go to have fun with your family oh goodness well um this is going to be the most cliche Christian answer you could expect Chick-fil-A for one of them nice not on that that's that's obviously an answer um one thing that we enjoy doing as a family is going on walks in our neighborhood um and then we also enjoy going to the movies um and so we have gotten to that stage of life especially with our older daughter um she's a very reserved uh doesn't really ask for a whole lot uh and so I go out of my way to communicate with her like hey if you want to do something like name it and if we can't do it we won't do it but she's just someone who doesn't really think she wants to ask and so um for for for she and I uh she loves going to the mall and um you know maybe doing a little bit of shopping for the younger two uh a trip to the candy store goes a long way as well but the other thing that we have really um we enjoy doing is on Friday nights oftentimes is because everyone's schedules are so busy Friday night at home with a pizza in a movie uh in the living room really is one of the greatest sources of joy and respit and calm for our family right now yeah I love that that we we've had a kind of shift our our family fun night that's what we call it uh around the last couple weeks because it it changes when we're all together because we've got so much stuff going around but it's it's definitely important um well man so grateful for the book so grateful for you again the book is called what do I say when uh a parents guide to navigating cultural chaos for children and teens um it I love the discussion or the the the questions that you have in there the conversation starters that you have in there um each chapter is it's a it gives parents handlebars to really do what we want to do and that's to disciple our kids towards the heart of of Jesus and um it's a it's a fantastic resource so uh for the listeners where can they grab a copy of this book sure so um I me obviously Amazon um has it available um Crossways website has it available and um it's been really encouraging the response to the book and um I think the what has been really humbling uh you write a book and you hope people will read it and then when people do read it and it's humbling because you're thinking like why would you why would you read this right maybe there's like some impostor syndrome at the heart of my psychology right there um but no it's been so encouraging like the number of churches that have wanted to buy it in bulk M um and so Crossway has uh they're the publisher and so they have the the mechanisms available for it to be purchased in bulk and that means like a bigger discount as well so yeah Amazon and and and Crossway be the best two places yeah so if you're listening uh this is a must have for for every parent especially those with teens who are um in the throws of of culture and the chaos of culture so man thank you so much for your time today um just just so honored to to have you and our continued uh like-hearted partnership uh man we we are so grateful uh for all the work you're doing and continue to do and man I uh hope you and you your craziness in your schedule right now and your wife starting school that y'all have a some time in the next couple weeks to really have that family night and uh spend some time together Cu uh so vital for for all of us for those of you listening uh if you want more resources uh when it comes to being the primary faat train trainer leading at home uh you can always access all of our incredible resources at empowered homes.org Megan thanks Andrew thank you so much thank you