
Parenting in the Digital Age: Melissa Kruger & Jim Mitchell
Parenting in the digital age comes with new fears and concerns. Melissa Kruger and Jim Mitchell talk about how grace, communication, and modeling faith can build foundations with teens that will last a lifetime.

Show Notes
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About the Guest
Jim Mitchell

Melissa Kruger
Melissa B. Kruger serves as Vice President of Discipleship Programming at The Gospel Coalition. She regularly teaches women in her community and speaks at conferences around the country. Her latest book is Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age. She is the wife of Michael J. Kruger, president and professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary-Charlotte. Together they have three young adult children.
Episode Transcript
FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson – Web Version Transcript
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Parenting in the Digital Age
Guests:Melissa Kruger and Jim Mitchell
From the series:Parenting in the Digital Age (Day 1 of 1)
Air date:January 24, 2025
Melissa:The pattern of our lives are telling them what we actually believe. So if they hear, “I believe this is important,” and we never spend any time in God’s word. So I always tell parents, “Don’t read the Bible on your phone.” Seeing the physical Bible matters. They don’t know. Are you reading Sports Center? Are you reading a news article? They don’t know. Are you playing Wordle? They don’t know what you’re doing on your phone, but when you have your Bible actually in front of you and your kids see it, it’s a little something that’s getting in to them.
Ann:Welcome to FamilyLife Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.
Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.
Ann:As we travel and speak about marriage, about parenting, what are your thoughts—
Dave:Don’t ask me a question; what do you need?
Ann:Just like we talk to a lot of parents around the country and what do you think their—especially with teenagers, what do you think the vibe and the feel is?
Dave:Immediately the first thought was fear-based.
Ann:Yes.
Dave:They parent out of fear.
Ann:Exhaustion.
Dave:Oh, definitely.
Ann:There’s an exhaustion with little kids that’s physical, but with teen years it becomes mental.
Dave:And spiritual.
Ann:Yes.
Dave:And emotional.
Ann:Yeah.
Dave:It’s all the above. So we need some answers. So we don’t only have just Melissa Kruger who we had here earlier. She’s back. I mean, you talk so much about parenting in your book. By the way, like I said before, Parenting with Hope, one of the best ever, in my opinion.
Ann:It’s so good. And because you’re talking about teenagers, Melissa, and parents with teenagers,
Dave:So welcome back.
Ann:Are you feeling that too with teenage parents?
Melissa:Oh yes. I mean, the fear is kind of on steroids and it can be directed towards cultural fears and then how that’s going to impact my teen.
Ann:Yes.
Melissa:They’re just kind of screaming louder at everyone because things have gotten probably wilder than we could have thought that they would get in some ways. We all are looking at it saying, “Wow, I didn’t expect this.” And then the internet and social media amplifies it. So now we actually know more than we have. I mean, I think we can actually say that. I’m always a little bit wary of saying more than in any generation because I’m like look—
Ann:Every generation said that
Melissa:There’ve been really hard things in lots of generations. If I was living during World War II and being bombed, I’d be like, “Okay, there’s a lot to fear every day,” but I would say we have more access to information than we ever have had in society. I mean, our little cell phones can tell us what’s happening in India, what’s happening in China, what’s happening in Russia, in real time.
Ann:And we can see what some of these teenagers are doing and saying, and it freaks us out at our kids.
Dave:Well, and also, the cell phone, and again, it’s a wonderful gift, but our teenagers and our seven-year-olds are being influenced now by people that we don’t even know, and we don’t agree with, and we don’t maybe know their influence on our kids. They have access to our child through—we would never put a TV show in front of our kids, that channel we would not let them watch, and yet they may be watching it in their bedroom on their phone.
Ann:But let’s not forget who else is at the table.
Dave:I know, never been in the studio.
Ann:Our executive producer, Jim Mitchell.
Dave:He has come out of the audio booth into the studio. Jim, how do you feel coming in here?
Melissa:He’s got the real answers.
Jim:I’ve come from the room where things are so much easier. You never get anything wrong in that room over there. Now I’m in here with you guys, but it is fun being in here.
Ann:It’s awesome
Jim:And it’s great being with you, Melissa.
Melissa:I’m so glad you’re here because I’m hoping you’re going to have answers that I don’t have.
Jim:I don’t know about that. You are one of our favorite guests.
Ann:You are.
Jim:We’ve had you on a few times, you and your husband Michael, and phenomenal stuff. Actually, these programs that we’ve recorded with you, you were here recently, and I was going to tell you about a story that happened while you were recording. So I’m literally in the other room listening to you talk about permissive parenting versus authoritative parenting and even authoritarian parenting. I was riveted. I think I’m the permissive parent, by the way. I’m good cop. My wife is—
Ann:Wait a minute, are you?
Jim:I am kind of good cop with the kids. I go soft on them, I think.
Ann:Dave’s the good cop too, and I get so mad because I want to be the good cop sometimes.
Jim:Things are. So I remember Dave saying in that broadcast that his mood would fluctuate based on how the kids were doing. And I think your point was, “Yeah, but you thought the kids were always doing good.” So your rollercoaster was always up.
Anyway, while you were recording, literally saying the things you were saying, Melissa, and I was learning and taking notes, my son calls me. I love it when he calls me, but he tends to call during recordings and I’m like, I have to whisper. I never want work to interrupt a phone call with him, so I always try and take the call, but I’m really trying to focus. Anyway, he calls me, and he still calls me Daddy, which is sweet. And he says to me, “Daddy, I don’t think I’m going to do good on this test.” He’s in his sophomore year.
He’s a very good student, but he has a lot going on in life. He is helping start a Christian fraternity. He’s involved in his church. He’s a very social young man, so he loves his friend groups and he’s in leadership track, so he’s just got leadership opportunities, very busy. I don’t know how he balances it all, but he says, “I don’t think I’m going to do good on this test on Friday. I haven’t had any time to study.” And so as a parent I’m like, “Okay, no time to study.” I’m thinking the normal parent thought, “Really, no time to study.”
So he walks me through his last week and a half and literally Melissa, I think he hasn’t had a window except for maybe the weekend when his girlfriend came up to visit him. And so I’m sitting there thinking in my brain, “Do I say that? How am I going to respond to this?”
And he says, “I could study tonight, but I want to go to see Jennie Allen and I think JP, Jonathan Pokluda do a thing called Unite, and they’re going to be at another campus.” He and some friends are going to drive to that campus to attend this big worship service. And listening to you, I’m just telling you, I’m crediting you, Melissa, you guys, you and Dave and Ann, I’m listening to y’all talk about as a dad, how to prioritize the right things.
So I had a choice to make on the phone call and I’m thinking I could coach him on how to prep for the test. I could maybe give him a little mini low-key lecture on how to plan your time better. And by the grace of God, I just said to my son “Tonight, Wednesday night, when you go to Unite with Jennie Allen and JP, that’s the most important thing that’s going to happen to you this week. Bar none. That’s what you’re on planet Earth for, son. Go and worship and forget about this test right now.” And I could hear kind of a “Yeah.”
And I said, “Okay, and then tomorrow, I know you got a full day of classes, so just tomorrow night, cram as best as you can.” By the way, I’m a pro at cramming for tests. “Just cram, do the best you can on this test and if you make a C in this class, move on. I can tell you it’s not going to be a big deal for you.”
Little pause on the phone, and he says to me, “Daddy, thank you and mom for not pressuring me on my grades.” He said, “I got a friend who his dad never let him make a B. He got in trouble for a B, and you’ve just never done that to me.”
The parenthesis to that I’m thinking, “Yeah, but I’m sitting in a studio listening to Melissa Kruger talk about Parenting with Hope. And so I got a little bit of an advantage.” But anyway, thank you on behalf of our listeners for encouraging us to kind of rise above the normal things that a parent’s going to think about is how you plan your time. He’s adulting for the first time. There’s always going to be too many priorities to fit into the day. I chose not to give him that lecture and really focus on why he’s here.
Melissa:That makes me tear up.
Jim:Oh my goodness.
Melissa:You were telling that, I was just like, you’re so right. You’re made to worship.
Jim:Yeah.
Melissa:This is the lesson.
Dave:I was thinking the same thing. I was tearing up and I’m thinking, why am I tearing up? Because it’s right. It resonates in our soul like, “Way to go, dad.” He made the right call. So many kids long for their parents to do that. And we know we can feel it that that’s the right call. Not that grades don’t matter, they’re important, but they’re not the most important.
Ann:But Jim, it shows that grades for him aren’t your idol. Jesus is the one you worship, and you want Evan to worship along with you and Lisa. That’s the priority. It reveals your heart. I’m interested. Why do you think he called?
Jim:I think he calls to test it. I think in some weird way he calls to see if he’s going to get a little bit of the lecture because he’s worried and he’s probably feeling a little bit like, “Was there a window of time I could have done better at?” As an adult, we know that we’re not efficiently using a hundred percent of our time already. We’re making choices to entertain ourselves, to exercise, to just laugh and play. And then you can always look at things I didn’t get done because of that. I know you guys go a million miles an hour all the time, Dave and Ann, and you’re always doing, doing, doing. So there is that temptation to shame a little bit. Yeah, I probably had some margin I could have used wiser. Isn’t that part of the human experience?
I probably do it too much. So I don’t have a hard time not scolding my son for take it easy. I’m already lean toward being a little more laid back than I should and maybe that’s unfair to my wife. I’d love to hear your thought on that because as a parental team, yeah, I can be good cop and I can emphasize the spiritual and does that leave all of the, oh, but the downside to this son, you got to plan better. Does that leave it all to my wife? It sometimes does. And that’s not really fair to her as husband and wife. Is it good to balance each other like that or how would you coach me? Should I loop back with him later and say, “Hey, in hindsight,” what’s your thought on that?
Melissa:I think some of it is just, it depends on the marriage and the family that you’re in, how it takes hold and takes shape. But I always think especially when you’re talking about—now you’re talking about college student, so we’re even getting further in, “Hey, they’re really responsible for their life” because his grades are going to impact his life more than they’re going to really impact your life at this point. But it sounds like he already knows that “Oh, maybe I should have spent some time on studying somewhere else.”
And so I think what he heard from you was remember what’s most important in your life. And I think that was the best thing he could hear in that moment. I think when we get to that age child, I think questions are better than lectures, honestly. If you could do it different, what would you do about last week? He has a better window into his week than you do really. And he’s probably going to say everything you would’ve said anyway. He’s probably going to be tougher on himself than you would’ve been. And so then I think what’s wonderful in that moment, we get to be those dispensers of grace.
Ann:That’s what I was going to say. Grace always wins.
Dave:That they’re not going to give themselves.
Melissa:Yeah.
Dave:We give it.
Melissa:And to remind them, “Hey, the world’s telling you you’re created to produce good grades. I’m telling you; you’re created for worship.”
Ann:And it’s not like Evan does this all the time. He’s a good student. If he was constantly skipping class, if I don’t care what my kid was doing, if they’re going to a worship thing, you could skip class every day of the week. But if worship things come in, go to that.
Jim:Yeah, he’s not a skipper, but he doesn’t always, he’s a little like me. He kind of procrastinates on the things he doesn’t want to do.
Ann:Dave and I are good at that.
Jim:We all learn that. Yeah, we all have to learn that. So he’s probably not studying in advance, but he’s doing it way more than I ever did. It’s not uncommon on Friday nights for him to be at the library doing homework and who doesn’t want a college student on Friday nights who’s not at the bar. He’s in the library working on his homework. So I think he’s learning that. I love your coaching though on timing. A week later is very different than in the moment when he is dreading the test and he’s beating himself up for all the mistakes that he made.
Melissa:I remember one time my daughter came to me, it was maybe 11:35 at night, which as a parent, your brain— I was meaning to be in bed an hour before then and she was in tears crying. She was a group project. Group projects are always bad.
Ann:Oh no.
Melissa:Someone had not done their part of the group project, but it was due at midnight. So this is part of parenting teens right now. I hate that things can be due at midnight in high school. That’s new, right? For me, you had to be in school to turn it in. So she comes to me in tears. Now at that moment, the worst thing I could have done was lecture her and by God’s grace, the Holy Spirit intervened and prevented me from, and I just said, “We’re going to do this together. And so we got to stop crying about it. That’s not really going to help and we’re going to jump in and we’re going to do,” because at that moment, she just didn’t need the lecture. She needed help from me in that moment.
And at other times I’ve told her, and I’ve told her really clearly, “Hey, my brain stops working after 9:00 PM so if you’re going to need help on that essay, can you ask me before?” And I do that on a regular basis. I say, “These are my limitations. Mom shuts down at this point, brain doesn’t work. I’ve been editing words all day.” They think, “Can’t you just do it at 11:00 PM?” So I think it’s right to give them our boundaries, “Hey, I can’t normally help you with this,” but always to see the person and what’s going on rather than just see, “Hey, you should have done it this way.”
Jim:Yeah, they do lose track of timing when they’re in college. He’ll call me at two in the morning—
Ann:Totally.
Jim:—and I’m in REM sleep. I’m woken up; he’s eating lunch. I’m like, “What calendar are you on? I have no idea what’s happening right now.”
Melissa:That’s right.
Jim:And then ask you a deep question at two in the morning.
Melissa:Oh yeah. We get those theological questions late at night, my husband, he’ll be FaceTiming with him with eight little faces on the screen from my daughter’s friends saying, “So Dad, what do you say about this theological question?” And he’s like, “Oh my goodness, this is late.”
Ann:When we have teenagers, especially high schoolers, they’re up late. And we said, as parents, “We want to be there.” If they’re coming with a question, like for that call, for him to make that call, for Evan to say, ‘I’m going to call Dad,’ it says a lot about his relationship with you. “I can trust dad. I need his wisdom.” He’s bouncing things off. When our kids would call us, and most of the time it was for an exam or something coming up. And man, I spent more time praying with teenagers about school stuff and about their pressures than any other thing. They feel the weight of it. And so did Evan.
Jim:Yeah, thank you, Ann. I don’t think I can take credit for that, although I do think we would agree that a lot of this has to do with the heart work that the parent has done before God. The fact that I try to make a habit of acknowledging like just this morning telling God, “I have not spent enough time with You. I want to be enthralled with Jesus again. I want that to be my first love, Lord. Would you let me do that today?” Well, I just reoriented myself and there’s been a lot of days I haven’t done that.
So he caught me on one where I did and then I’m able to give that to him. I don’t think that’s by coincidence, so no credit to me but yeah, I think that really does. When I don’t do that, I bring that into that phone call. It’s very easy to go to that low 1000-foot level and say, “Well, let’s talk about time management” or planning ahead or procrastination.
Dave:I mean, Melissa, as you wrote about this, and we’re all parents of teens and adult children, how much do you think even what Evan experienced and any of our kids experienced in their walk with God and what we’re dreaming and hoping and praying, they’ll become men and women of God? How much of that do you think is more how we are living as parents and people and adults than what we are doing? You know what I’m saying? We got parenting strategies, we read the books, and we try and have the devotional in the morning or whatever it is, how much is that part of it? And the other part is they’re just watching us model rather than tell them, show them. And we’re not showing them because we want to show them as “This is my strategy. I’m going to show you.” It’s literally an overflow because we’re walking with God—
Melissa:Yes.
Dave:Or we’re not.
Melissa:Unfortunately, I think our example matters more than exterior practice, and that is terrifying to me.
Ann:Me too, yes.
Melissa:It’s terrifying to us all because I can tell you the things that I’ve heard from my kids that impacted them the most were things I didn’t even know they were noticing.
Ann:Yes, isn’t that scary?
Melissa:Yes, it’s terrifying. So my oldest, Emma, she started reading the Bible on her own and I had given my kids Bibles and things and made sure they had it, but I never sat down and said, “Hey, you should every day spend time in God’s Word.” Just never said it explicitly. But she said when she would come down and see me reading the Bible in the morning before the kids got down, she said, that’s what made me know that’s what you’re supposed to do to walk with God, not lecturing about it but living it before them. And they need our words. They need us to tell them, “Hey, God’s Word is important.” I mean, at some level we should be doing those things but if they don’t see it in the pattern of our lives. The pattern of our lives are telling them what we actually believe. So if they hear, “I believe this is important,” and we never spend any time in God’s word. So I always tell parents, “Don’t read the Bible on your phone.” Seeing the physical Bible matters. They don’t know. Are you reading Sports Center? Are you reading a news article? They don’t know. Are you playing Wordle? They don’t know what you’re doing on your phone, but when you have your Bible actually in front of you and your kids see it, it’s a little something that’s getting in to them.
Dave:That’s good.
Ann:We’ve talked previously about how important the relationship is with the kids, not just like Jim, if you would’ve called Evan and said, “Hey, you need to go to this thing with Jennie Allen and JP.” That would be very different from the conversation that he’s like, “What do you want me to do?”
And one of the things I noticed when our kids were teenagers, you can tell when your kids’ hearts are open or closed to spiritual things, even to your relationship with them and based on our personalities, Dave and I are pretty, we’d like to have fun and some of you’re not going to agree with this at all, but when we could tell “I feel a distance. I feel them pulling away. I feel their heart being a little more closed.” we would do something to build the relationship. And so we would do crazy things like we would take them out of school, and we would go to Lord of the Rings. They loved Lord of the Rings. We would take them out of school in the middle of the day. They had no idea we were going to do it. “Get out of school; we’re going to Lord of the Rings.”
Dave:It was an adventure.
Ann:All of a sudden, they’re like, “What are we doing?” You talk a lot in your book about grace and just relationships. So will they remember that? They all remember that. Austin had his big horn and he’s blowing it in the theater, and he probably has his cape on. They all remember that. Will they remember what they did in that day at school? Probably not.
And so as parents with teens, maybe your different personality, passion, what you do with them could be different and look different but give them grace. Think of ways: “How can I do something to build our relationship, to open their heart?” Because then when that relationship is open—Jim, you are so good at this, so is Lisa. You talk so openly about your own life of what’s going on. Your kids would naturally call you and ask you anything. Dad, what do you think about this? It says a lot about you. Have you seen that with your kids? Like that open, closed, hard?
Melissa:Oh yeah. I love that story. I actually think when kids are going through hard seasons, and I even mean this with young kids, every kid goes through really, “I don’t know what took over you” season.
Ann:You don’t really like them that much.
Jim:What happened in that?
Melissa:Yes.
Ann:You love them but…
Melissa:Yes, I’m like, “Ooh, whew.” And in that time, I always say that’s the moment one, to catch them doing something right. I just tell moms of young kids, if they just put one carrot in their mouth correctly, praise it all day. “I love how you ate that carrot. You’re crunching so well.” I mean if that’s the only thing you can praise that day, because think about a kid’s life, sometimes they feel like I’m followed around, told, “Do this, tie your shoes correctly, button your shirt correctly”—
Ann:“Brush your teeth.”
Melissa:Yeah, all day long. It’s how you’re not living up to the standard all day long.
Ann:Especially teenagers because they start bugging you.
Melissa:And now teenagers, now, it’s not just your standards, it’s all their peer standards, so the weight is even heavier of how they’re not living up. They’re realizing, “Oh, my skin has all these pimples on it. I don’t live up to the world’s standard,” standard of beauty and things like that. So they’re feeling it in every way. So when you can do something fun like that and just say, “Yeah, the relationship matters more than you making straight A’s.”
Ann:Yes.
Melissa:And they actually need to really feel that from you. And they do when you say, “We’re going to all play hooky together.” I mean, I think that’s great. I remember my mom doing that. I mean, this is way before—
Ann:She was a teacher.
Melissa:She was a teacher. And this is way before mental health was a thing, but I can remember in high school she’d be like, “We need a mental health day. You’re coming out of school.” I was taking all these hard classes, and she would do just that. I would say my parents did this so well. When we made good grades, they’d be like, “Huh, that’s great. Yeah, I mean you’re doing way better than we did.” It was kind of like—
Ann:It wasn’t that big of a deal.
Melissa:It wasn’t that big of a deal. I have a copy of my grandfather’s report card. It’s this old document. It’s from Memphis State Schools. And what’s fascinating, it’s his sixth grade, when you look at the report card, only one fourth of it is grades. The rest, this whole half was character traits.
Ann:Whoa.
Dave:Really?
Melissa:And they’re all described, “Puts others’ needs before his or her own.” Things like—
Ann:Biblical truths in character.
Melissa:Yes, and I was thinking, “Huh, how great to be a kid in this society” because maybe you don’t have great handwriting. My grandfather did not evidently from his grade on handwriting, but he had trustworthiness. That was one of the ones he was really good at that. Isn’t that a beautiful way culture can help your child say, “Hey, it’s okay that your handwriting’s not that good, but we really value that you’re trustworthy. I can give you a task and you’re going to see it to completion.” We’re not doing that as a society, so we have to do that as parents.
Jim:So a parent could say, how fortunate for a kid to grow up at that time when report cards did that. Or we could say, what a great opportunity I have as a parent to be a home that is one fourth grades and three fourths—
Melissa:—character.
Jim:—”Look what I see.” You said something last time you were here that impacted me. You were talking, I think about your daughter, your oldest daughter, and you said a phrase, something like, “You’re so valuable to me.” And I think we get sideways when we start talking about self-worth in isolation from relationship. I’m just valuable just because… I think there’s some truth to that; I’m created in God’s image. But the way you framed it, you’re valuable to me, is this not what God says to me. You’re valuable to Me and to My Son.
Ann:Not for what you do.
Jim:Not for what you do.
Ann:But for who you are and how God has made you.
Jim:Yeah. So I’m trying to be careful not to say, “Your grades are so valuable to me,” “Your sports are so valuable to me,” “Your safe driving is so valuable to me,” but to say, “Wow, I’m enthralled with you, boy. You’re valuable to me.”
Melissa:Don’t we all want to hear that. I’m like, I want to hear that.
Jim:Yeah. I’m kind of talking to myself right now a little bit.
Melissa:I know and so think about a child who kind of grows up in that ecosystem every day of their life. You know what they’re going to be able to do? They’re going to be able to go out into the world and just overflow with that to others because they’ve been well loved. They’re going to love others with that same love. That’s where I always want to say what we’re doing in our families is very missional. Because by raising a kid who is going to be poured into with God’s Word and with all these prayers.
I even think about your son going to this Jennie Allen; maybe he’s going to bring someone along who wouldn’t have gone if he wasn’t going. I don’t know how it’ll go, but just the fact that he’s going there, and other people go, it impacts the world. We think about what’s happening in our homes as only what’s happening in our homes. But it makes me so excited because I’m thinking, actually, no, this changes who they are, how they’re shaped and formed here, and they’re going to be able to go out with that love and love other people in the same way.
Ann:That’s good.
Melissa:And that’s so exciting. Isn’t that kind of what Jesus said? He said, “As I have loved you, love others.” The home does that.
Ann:It’s so good. Melissa, I’m wondering, would you pray for us at the end, just spiritually even for the teenagers? I’m thinking of all the parents that are listening and just like, could you pray for our kids?
Melissa:I’d love to.
Ann:I love that Evan’s doing that. I’m going to be praying for him and all those students that God will just impact.
Dave:My last thought before you pray is I think Evan called you because he knew what you’re going to say, and he needed to hear it again from one of the most important voices in his life. He just wanted to know that’s the right thing to do. He knew it because he’d been raised in a family that taught him that, but he needed to be reminded. It’s like the grade card. This three quarters matters more than this one quarter. Not that this one quarter doesn’t matter. This matters. And we get to do that in our home and in our family. We get to set the values that the world, the voices that are screaming are saying “That’s not true.”
I know there’s parents listening right now is like, no, I think the grades are the most important. That’s good for you. But they actually are not.
Ann:That’s an idol.
Dave:God would not say that. He would say they matter. They really do matter. And they may help you get a job and all that, but they’re not the most important. The character is what’s most important. And they got it in the forties and fifties. We’ve sort of lost that. But in the home, we get to recalibrate and say, “We’re going to do this by God’s word. And God’s word says, this matters.”
You reminded Evan of that and just think when this interview is over, he’s going to be with his arms open with thousands of college kids.
Ann:That’s good, Dave.
Dave:What a night.
Melissa:That’s so good. It’s so hopeful, right? Because the world might be doing one thing, but we get to do what we do in our homes. I love that. I love that. Well, let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for the privilege to get to be the parent of teens. Lord, thank you that you set us in families, that you have allowed us to even have children to get to watch grow up. But Lord, we know that they’re yours. They are not ours. And so, Lord, we pray that you would do immeasurably more than even we could ask or imagine in their lives.
Lord, we pray that you would make us prayerful parents, parents who are quick to come to you. Father, we pray that you would make us parents who are rooted in your word, that it would overflow from our lives into our teen lives. And Lord, we pray for what is happening with teenagers and college students right now. Lord, we just pray that your spirit would be at work in this next generation.
Lord, we know we can do all the right things, but if your spirit is not at work, they’re of no value. So Lord, may your spirit reach this next generation. May there be an overflow of just revival among teens through colleges, through ministries, through all the things that are going on in this world. May they see that the world has nothing to offer and that you provide abundant life, that you give life to the full.
And so, Lord, we pray that they will be drawn to Jesus, that they will see Him, that they will abide in Him, that they will know Him, that they will love Him, that they will be saved by Him. Lord, this is our hope. This is our desire, and it’s in your name we pray. Amen.
Dave:Amen.
Man, what a great conversation that was with Melissa and Jim.
Ann:Isn’t it fun to have Jim in the studio with us?
Dave:Yeah, it was great. And Melissa is just, she’s powerful. Even her prayer at the end. But her book, we’ve said it a couple times now, I think it’s one of the best we’ve read on parenting teenagers. It’s called Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age. And you can get it at FamilyLifeToday.com or give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. Again, that’s 800-“F” as in Family, “L” as in Life, and then the word “TODAY.”
And let me tell you this, small groups are kicking off soon. And if you’re leading one, FamilyLife has you covered. That’s one of the things we do. It’s one of the best things we do, creating world-class resources really to assist you, to equip you to lead small groups. We’ve led small groups in our home with resources from FamilyLife for over 40 years.
Ann:We have, and that’s probably changed us more than anybody else.
Dave:Yeah, so right now you can get the new Art of Marriage™, which is perfect for helping couples connect and grow deeper in their faith. You can get ours if you want. It’s called Vertical Marriage. You can get Love Like You Mean It. I mean, we’ve got a whole resource at FamilyLifeToday.com. And you go there and you just sort of pick the resource you want to use right now. It’s 25 percent off on all of our study materials.
Ann:And that sale will be going on until the end of January so don’t miss your chance to get it at this discounted price.
Dave:You can visit the show notes or FamilyLife.com/shop to grab what you need.
Ann:We’ll see you back next week for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
Dave:FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife®, a Cru® Ministry. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
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