00:00
How would you encourage, especially single brothers and sisters, to think about dating apps? So it's becoming increasingly just kind of common way in our digital age to meet people. Good, bad, neutral wisdom that you would give to those who are desiring to be married and then using dating apps. Yeah. I have never looked on a dating app. Have you ever? I'm glad. Yeah, you're glad. Okay, all right. So.
00:28
There was no such thing growing up with us. We had several folks at Southwoods that met on, I guess they were an app, a website or something like that, that met, but I think, boy, you had to be judicious. I don't know, what do you think of that? I probably know a little bit more about it. I think you know more about it. You do because I've talked to ladies that have used it.
00:57
I mean, you have to be careful, obviously, and I don't really know that much about it. I just know I've seen some marriages that have been a result of they found each other on a dating app, and it's a good thing, and they're happily married and so forth. It seems to be something that's, you know, it's just the way people meet that's a little more normal that wasn't around when we were dating. Having said that, I mean...
01:25
You have to be pretty smart about it. And I don't know, there's a lot of variety of dating apps, apparently. And I think probably some are better than others maybe, but I don't know what that is. So, has anybody ever met on the dating app in here? Did any of you all meet? You don't have? Well, I shouldn't ask that. I shouldn't ask that. Okay. There we go. There you go. So, I would never say, hey, against it, because I know too many people. It's just.
01:53
That's the way they met and I think it's wonderful. Probably a lot of the dynamics have changed over the years with, I mean, where we were meeting and where people our age now tended to get married a little younger than folks nowadays. And so there's probably a lot more reliance on those. And, you know.
02:21
It's wonderful if you meet folks at church and you end up getting married. Praise God. Or, you know, you just, you need to be careful where you meet them. You meet somebody in shady places, you may have a shady marriage, you know. I don't know. So, you know, if those maps, if those apps are shady, then, you know, I think you just really have to have a lot of discernment. And I would say if you're, if you're doing that, have some accountability with.
02:49
some brothers and sisters in the church to help you navigate on that. And I would not do that without some accountability. And I don't think you have to be ashamed. Hey, I'm looking on a dating app because I can't find anyone. Okay, but have some accountability.
03:12
Hello? Yes. Hello. Did you guys have different parenting styles, maybe upbringings, views on discipline? Like, did you find yourself united at every turn, or were you bringing some different styles? And if so, how did you work to stay united in front of your kids and not let that be a wedge in your marriage? Yeah, I would say we probably had some differences. My dad was really stern.
03:42
He just wasn't one to pamper you, do anything like that. And he was pretty quick to correct and strongly correct. And I'm thankful for it. I think the Lord used that in my life. I think my brother and I needed that. But I think sometimes he was too strong in the way he corrected. So I had to be mollified in that because that was the model that I had.
04:11
And I think your folks corrected, but probably did it in a little bit better way, maybe. I don't know. I didn't think you were that.
04:25
Sometimes I thought, well, I was a lot more of a scaredy cat type mother. Like, if you took the kids somewhere, you know, I wanted to make sure that you were going to watch them really well and not let them do crazy things. So, anybody identify with that? And I might let them do crazy things just a little bit, but reasonable.
04:53
oh you're going to get hurt, you know, and afraid for them to do certain things. You were not like that. So that's the way I, I don't know, that's not really discipline though, I don't guess it's just. Well, it is parenting style though. It's a parenting style. I'm thinking of our differences on that. I think one of the main things we didn't, if we disagreed, we're going to disagree in private and the kids, the kids would always see a united front with us on that. And, and sometimes we would talk through in.
05:22
she would help me and I would help her. I think that's a fair statement in, okay, how do we deal with this personality in one kid? I mean, much of our kids have really strong personalities in, that's not a sure way of saying, most of them were really stubborn. And so how do you deal with their stubbornness in and do it in different ways? And we leaned into each other's wisdom and then
05:52
We prayed together about these things. So I don't know that we sat down at the beginning of marriage or beginning of when she was pregnant with our first and saying, okay, how are we gonna do all this? I think we just did it. And then if something came out, maybe it was, hey, maybe that's a little too firm or I think that's a little bit too soft. I think we need to go otherwise. And then we would work through on that. And.
06:19
I don't remember us getting into arguments from parents. I don't think we were that far apart with the way. I don't remember a lot of struggles over that. I would suggest read somebody like, yeah, okay, got it. Read someone like Ted Tripp's book, Shepherding a Child's Heart, and spin around for years and years.
06:48
But the overall picture, he's not giving you a checklist. He's, he's dealing really dealing with the parents attitude of heart more so than the child's in parenting. Read through something like that. The ones that are boxing everything into a checklist, put them aside. I mean, they may have some good stuff, but the overarching thing is affecting your attitude to think if I'm a legalist here, I'm going to get.
07:15
get the end result I want out of my kids. Yeah.
07:28
talking until maybe here it is. So we, so you've been emphasizing a lot about the word, prioritizing your walk with Christ. And so I wanted to ask Karen, a little bit more of a specific question in regards to what you were mentioning yesterday. I mean, five kids at home, you know, there's a lot going on there. And so I was just wondering if you could get really practical, I think a lot of us are in that season of babies, toddlers.
07:56
and wanting to prioritize our time in the word. Could you just share, like, how did you, you know, how did you do that with being at home? I don't know what your community looked like back then, but could you just like take yourself back there even and share some of that? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I don't think I did a very good job of it, to be perfectly honest. But one thing that I did do that I would not do as much now.
08:25
is I had my devotions a lot of times at night. That's just the way it worked out for me. You always hear it starts your morning with your devotions. It didn't work so hot for me. I'm not by nature just a really great morning person. And we stretch our kids out. There's 15 years difference between our oldest and youngest. And so I had little people for a long time. And so I did much better if I did mine at night.
08:56
I wouldn't do that now. I prefer the morning and I see the benefit of it and so forth, but that's, you know, I did what I could do sort of, I guess, you know, after getting up in the night a lot and that type thing. So don't, I don't think you should go on a guilt trip, you know, with babies and, you know, as long as your desire is there, you know, if you have a desire and you have to do it in a little unconventional way, I think that's perfectly fine. And,
09:26
And the day will come where you'll have your mornings to yourself and you can do it the way you want to and it is a nice beautiful thing. But it just, and so sometimes I would be on a guilt trip about that and I got over that really and truly. And I had a lot of meaningful, you know, time at night and would read, you know, not only my, you know, the scripture or whatever, but books and biographies and things like that, you know. And...
09:55
So it worked.
10:05
Going, I'm loud. Oh, okay. I'm gonna ask this as broadly as possible. How would you lay a gospel foundation and offer your kids stability in maybe a home life that is not stable or that is broken? Yeah, yeah. I think that's where you set that example. You be the teacher because you're gonna be the primary teacher.
10:33
You keep, and I think it's good as, as their little minds develop, it's good to talk about the brokenness of sin and have that affects us. It is good to talk about the kindness and mercy of the Lord that shows up. Even when everything is not going well. Um, do you, I mean, I've been reading an old biography on John Newton and, uh, written by Josiah Bull. So it was written in the.
11:02
1800s and John Newton's mother was a faithful Christian. His dad wasn't and his mother had this massive impact on him later as a, you know, he's, he's on a slave ship and he ends up getting converted because of the influence that his mother had. And so I think that's where you, you just cry out to the Lord, Lord.
11:30
You know where I am, you know the weakness, you know what I'm going through. Will you multiply the effort that you're giving me through your grace? Will you multiply that in my kids? And, and then I think the reinforcement that you see with members of the body of Christ is, is supplementing what you're doing. The Godly example you give is going to be, I mean, that's gold. It's absolute gold.
12:00
And that, that sticks in a kid's mind as much as anything.
12:10
How did y'all know?
12:13
I'll let you go first. That's a good question.
12:21
Well, we, no, you go first. You go first. Well, all right. I would say junior in college when we met, she was a senior in college. And, you know, I'll tell you a little bit about it last night. I'm, I, there was a girl I took to church. I mean, we weren't really dating. I took her to church a couple of times and maybe we got pizza once. And there have been other girls that I, that dated, but you know, there, there was not that, that heart. I'm, I want to spend my life with her.
12:51
And when we met, there was this change in our affections, to I want to spend my life with her. And it didn't take long after we met till we, that's what started happening. So it was reinforced when she graduated, moved back to her town, a Biola Bachelor, where I'm serving on staff. And so we...
13:21
We had dinner together with her cousin that introduced us pretty much every night, or I ate at her house. And you stayed until like two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, we did stay up pretty late. But finally the day came where I let David, her cousin, know three is a crowd. You're gonna have to get out of this. And I think, I mean, we were engaged within
13:50
six weeks after that. Yeah, we moved fast. We met in March. We had our first date July 4th. We went canoeing. And you asked me to marry you off as first. Yeah. And we got married in December. So we moved fast, obviously. And we didn't have any cold feet. No cold feet. And we just went forward. Yeah.
14:20
It was, my kids were a little bit embarrassed about it over the years. They thought, mom, dad, don't tell people that story. That is so, I think they're okay with it now, you know. But when they were teenagers and stuff, they were like, don't tell that. But anyway, we moved fast and really with our kids, we told our kids, if you find someone that you think, you know, you want to marry, they want to marry you, and they,
14:48
They love the Lord and they're Christians. And we'll give you blessings on that. You don't have to have a year engagement or anything like that. I don't think that's, I'm a big believer. If you know what you want and what the Lord seems to be moving you toward, go ahead, don't waste any more time, go for it. Yeah, my niece just got engaged and she's,
15:17
I had a conversation with her, I don't know, back maybe two months ago, three months ago. She was engaged maybe a month now. So it was probably about three months ago and she, she really loves the work. We got a good relationship. And, and I said, look, you need to marry that boy. You need to quit. You, you, you're afraid you're going to miss out on something. You're afraid something's not going to go right. Go ahead and get married.
15:45
You, you love him. You're crazy about him. He's crazy about you. What are you waiting on? So, man, she moved to marriage up. It's coming fast. So she's getting married in December. Uh, and, uh, I mean, everything's going fast on that. Uh, I mean, I think if you, if you're willing to commit yourself and, uh, to, to that other person and you're willing to spend your life with them, don't let grass grow under your feet.
16:15
Go ahead, go ahead and get engaged. I mean, yeah, talk to brothers and sisters, that's fine. You have some accountability in that. Am I being wise in this? That's okay. But move forward.
16:35
Yes. In seasons of your marriage where you've been struggling, be it X, Y, or Z, at what point have you guys reached out to help? And then who did you guys reach out to for help and counsel? Usually, we've worked through things through word and prayer. I mean, usually, we've had a few things along the way where
17:04
You know, I get a terminal illness. I need a few people speaking into my life. And so, you know, there were some long time friends that have known us, some of my pastor brothers, and you know, some of the folks at church. Some other things, there have been those that knew us really well that we would talk to and seek counsel. We've even...
17:33
We've been taught with some of our kids about some decisions. I mean, you know, the decision about retiring from pastoring and doing the work with the Pillar Network, one of our kids in particular was incredibly helpful and was very discerning. But usually it was a very tight, tight group of people that knew us well. But with most things, I would say most things
18:02
We talk through, we try to work it out, and then maybe there's somebody that says, hey, we're dealing with this. How do we process this? I'm not sure I quite understood the question exactly. Can you rephrase it? So say you're disagreeing about something or you're
18:31
lacking intimacy for a time period or, you know, your husband is maybe not living with you in an understanding way or, you know, there's something going on in your marriage and you're working on it together. But at what point are you like, hey, we need help here. We need to let so and so in. Is it my girlfriend? Is it my pastor? Is it, you know, my parents? Like, who is it?
18:57
And at what point are you like, okay, now we're there where we need help? Is it the very beginning? Is it after a couple weeks? I don't know if you put time on it. Are you asking what we did or are you asking in general what we advise? Both, yeah, what you guys would counsel us and how to think about it. Okay, by God's grace, we have been able to work out, I think, pretty much everything with each other. I mean.
19:25
We never, did we ever go to this town? I mean in terms of our relationship, by God's grace, only. Only His grace. Only, only. We've been there to work things out. That didn't mean that we didn't have some toughness. We had to really work through, have conversations, and it wasn't something that was an instantaneous movement, but it was the kind of thing that we had to.
19:55
We had to be willing to listen. We had to get over, maybe there was anger or bitterness over something. We had to get over that and whatever time that took and work through, but I don't remember us being at a still mate where we could not get past. Had that been the case, we would have definitely gone to a brother or maybe even a sister that we loved and respected.
20:25
I know then Karen mentioned last night there was a Bible teacher that she had 30 years ago that really impacted her and I think she would have had a lot of freedom to talk with her. There were some mentors in my life and I would have had freedom to talk with them on that. And I think there's different seasons in marriage where I think having teenagers is probably,
20:54
We had conversations about how to handle a lot of things that came up with that. There was probably a little more. We had conversations with my mom's son on that when the kids were teenagers. Karen's mom died when she was 54. So, unfortunately, we didn't have her. Her mom was 54. So, we didn't have her around. But we talked to...
21:23
Mama changed some, and some of those things in, you know, when we're, we're getting into that stage. And then we've talked to other folks in the body that we had respect for. I think it, I think it depends on where you are. It, if there was a stalemate, get some help. Yeah. That, that to me would be the standard. If there's a stalemate or there's something that's, that's been crushing, get some help in, and that's where I'd say generally.
21:53
Go to some people that have some either you really admire their spiritual life. I probably wouldn't, I'm trying to go to people older generally because of life experience, because sometimes with peers, they go like, Oh no, the earth is, is, is caving in on you. And maybe somebody that's older go, no, you'll walk through this and here's what it's going to take because there are things now that don't that.
22:21
Maybe we see younger people just falling apart on work, kind of going, what's the big deal? It is only because of life experience. So I would say utilize those with life experience that can.
22:38
And if you weren't, if you're not able to make a breakthrough and you feel like the other, you know, like if you, I didn't feel like you had listened or you didn't feel like I'd listened, we would have definitely, you know, but. Gone to the elders and talk with them. But thankfully, you know, we developed the pattern of communication so nothing got so broad or big that we didn't, we couldn't deal with it.
23:07
We try not to procrastinate on issues. And that, and I think that's absolutely critical. Don't bottle things up. Go ahead and deal with them, whether they're smaller, rather than getting bigger.
23:21
Will you guys give it up for Phyllis and Karen? Yeah.