Discipling Our Children: A Conversation with Carl Laferton

Well, hey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc. That's a Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm John. I can serve as a pastor as well as a host of this show.

You can always submit questions to peacechurch.cc/questions. And today, I'm here with Pastor Mitch, as well as special guest, Carl Lafferton, who is an author and publisher. Some great resources, excited to get to talk with Carl today about some great resources, and especially how we can better disciple our kids, our grandkids, kids in our churches. So excited for this conversation today. Yeah, I'm gonna ask you a little bit more about you, but before that, I'd love to just do a little bit of an introduction. You're a publisher at the Good Book Company.

You've got a best-selling book, The Garden, The Curtain, The Cross, God's Promises, and Bible Storybook. You've worked as an editor and a journalist and a teacher and as a pastor, and then you are from London, England, so it's not just a funny bit that you're doing. That's genuinely your accent, and you can correct us on our improper English because I know some British friends of mine always say it's English, it's not, you know, American. So I'll take any sort of feedback you've got for us. You've got a new book this fall, God's Big Promise Bible Story Prayers.

So Carl, would you tell us a little bit more about yourself beyond just those details?

Well, thank you for that introduction. It's great to be with you. I mean, you guys fought and won a war in order to be able to dictate how the English language ought to be spoken. So I'm not going to tell you how to speak it quite the reverse, I guess. Yeah, so I live in southwest London, have been working at the Good Book Company for 14 years or so and married to Lizzie. And we have two kids, a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old, one of whom is on her full break at the moment. And the other one, her school runs for a bit longer. So she gets a week's less vacation than her older brother. So there's some sadness about that in our house right now.

Yeah. Oh, man.

And Carl, tell us a little bit about your new book that just came out. Sure.

So last fall, we released God's Big Promises Bible Storybook, which is a storybook for kind of two to six-year-olds aiming to tell the stories faithfully in a super engaging way, and also to show that the Bible is one big story of God making and keeping his promises, so that kind of kids understand where, you know, the story of Abraham fits in and where David comes. And most importantly of all,

that the cross isn't some kind of weird accident. Actually, it was the plan all along. It's the place where God keeps his promises and so on. So we released that last fall, and we've kind of been building out the family of God's big promises resources since then.

And the one that's come out this fall is a book that is aiming to help kids learn to pray in response to scripture or truth. So it has, it maps along with the stories that are in God's Big Promises Bible storybook and each one has a brief synopsis, a verse from the scriptures that encapsulate what's going on in that story and then a very simple prayer in response to the truths of that story. So the idea is that kids are seeing that they can pray wow prayers of adoration, they can pray thank you prayers, they can pray sorry prayers, and they can pray please prayers, but in response to what they're hearing in Scripture. So hopefully setting them up for a lifetime of listening to God speak to them in his words and then praying his word back to him.

Awesome.

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah, so many of our listeners are parents, grandparents, Sunday school teachers, serve in different churches. So this is an awesome opportunity to talk about some great resources and how we can help our kids grow in their walk with Jesus. So Carl, can you just tell us a little bit, what makes you passionate about creating Bible resources for kids?

Well, because it's a very simple thing to say, but children are the next generation and one of our great hopes and heart in the Christian life should be that we're raising a generation who are more in awe of the Lord God, more in love with Jesus, more on fire for serving him in this world than we are. And so I get the privilege of getting to write hopefully come alongside parents and churches in their aim of doing that. Kids are little sponges and if we're not discipling them, the world will be discipling them.

And so I just think we need to be helping parents and churches to get the word into our kids at an age when they are beginning to form their view of the world and what matters and who they are and so on. So that's why I think it's the greatest privilege of all to get to help teach our kids who the Lord Jesus is.

Yes, amen.

Yeah, the next generation. And we mentioned already some of the books that Carl has published. If you're watching via video, you can see them laying here on our coffee table, so check those out. But if you're listening just via audio, The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross, my favorite of the books that we've got here, just an amazing book, just outlining.

You know, one of the things that I've heard, actually one of our pastors here at the church has talked before about how when he was growing up and going to Sunday school, he didn't realize how pivotal the story of Jesus was. He just thought of Jesus as another character alongside Abraham and Moses and Noah. Just one more story. But realizing, I love that, the garden, the curtain, the cross, just understanding the whole storyline and how Jesus is the climax, the pivotal moment, he is the son of God, he is really the whole thing right there. So does a great job explaining that. Carl, so you've written lots of different resources for kids. Are there any Bible stories that you've left out of the kids' resources that maybe didn't make it in because they're PG-13 Bible stories, a little too old for the little kids?

Yeah, I mean, about half of the Book of Judges would come under that category, I guess.

It'd be a hard job for your illustrator.

It would. And yeah, far too many, prompt far too many questions that parents don't really want to be dealing with a four-year-old. I guess the other one I've never taken on is Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, which kind of I feel like such a beautiful picture of what happened at the cross where there was a father who really did sacrifice his son and his son was the stand-in, there was no other provided. And so in a sense it's a shame, but I think, you know, like, I mean God's Big Promises Bible Storybook and The God and the Curse of the Cross, they're both, you know, I tend to be writing for sort of three to sixes and that's quite young to be getting your head around the idea that God would ask a father to sacrifice his son and that the father would be willing to do it.

I have always felt shy of going to that one. Others have and they've done it super well. Maybe I just need to put my big boy pants on sometime, but there we are.

Yeah, no, that's good. There's some of those stories. Yeah, good point. The judges

One I thought of recently my wife spoke at a conference about Judah and Tamar There's a story that'd be pretty hard to explain to some kids Yeah, yeah, there's some stories in there We are messy broken sinful human beings that God has come to rescue. So and yeah, awesome. Well, hey Let's talk a little about how so as parents, one of the things that we've talked about numerous times on this podcast, and it's really important as we're thinking about these resources, these are resources not just for churches, not just for Sunday school, but for in the home. So, Carl, if you could just share a little bit about your perspective on why can parents not just leave it up to the church to disciple their kids. Obviously, the church is an important part of discipling our kids, but why can we as parents not just say, hey, I take my kids to church on Sundays and Wednesdays and that's good enough and I don't need to do anything at home.

So I guess to answer that, one is sheer function of time. So if you're going on a Sunday and a Wednesday, I'm guessing you're spending maximum four, maybe five hours your kids are spending in a church setting. And likely they're spending it as a, you know, in a group. It depends on the size of your church, but five kids minimum, I would guess, up to dozens and dozens, right? And when you think about the amount of time that they are in the home with their parents, even if they're in the public schools, then that's still hours and hours and hours of, you know, one to however many time, depending on how many kids you've got. And so just by that function, always when we're spending our time with kids, whoever we are, whether a teacher or a kids pastor or a parent, we are teaching them something about what is valuable by what we do with them. And if we are never actively and if you like explicitly discipling them in the home, then what we're saying is that actually there are more important things in life than the Lord Jesus. And what we're teaching them is that actually Jesus is something that can be confined to a church setting for a few hours a week. That's where you do your Jesus thing and then the rest of life we get on with what really matters. And if it's not Jesus, it will be an idol. So functionally, therefore, we want to be using the time that we have with our children.

And if we're a parent, that's a lot more time than it is if we're a kid's pastor in church. That's the first reason, it's just a sheer function of time and numbers. And then the second reason is scripturally, Ephesians 6, Deuteronomy 6, other places, it's clear that one of the great privileges that parents have is to show their children who the Lord Jesus is and how they live and what they say. And so the responsibility, and I would say the gift, of discipling children falls mainly on parents. And I think pastors, churches are there to support parents, equip parents, and to, if you give an extra boost to what parents are already doing in the home. If you want your church to disciple your kids, the best thing you can be doing is discipling them yourselves alongside what the church is doing.

Yeah, and as cool as pastors are, I've never heard a kid say, my pastor can beat up your pastor. It's always my dad can beat up your dad, you know. I mean, there's a special place that parents have.

Right. That's exactly it. And our children, and I say this with some fear and trembling because I am a father, but our children will see from us as parents what truly matters. And, you know, they learn from very young that pastors are effectively paid to say that Jesus matters. So, of course, pastors are going to say that that's their job. But parents are not paid to say that.

And so they will catch from us what really matters in the home far more than they catch it from what their pastors say in church. Yeah. Amen.

I remember I've told this story many times at church, but a pivotal moment in my life with my parents was when I went from elementary school to middle school, I had to get up much earlier to get on the bus. I think we started getting up at 530 or something like that. The bus came just after six. So, uh, so at that time I finally was at the point where I would get up early enough, but my dad was still in the house before he left for work. And I remember I would, I would wake up as a, as a young teenager and I'd come upstairs and at 535 45 in the morning, there's my dad at the table reading his Bible. And remember, that was just a huge moment for, you know, I'd never before gotten up early enough to ever see that. And so now seeing, oh, wow, you know, this is, this is for real. This guy gets up really early to read the Bible every morning before we go about our day. So just the impact of seeing that, not just in a pastor, not just in a Sunday school teacher, but in my dad, that had a huge impact on my life. So totally. So one of the things that I hear a lot as a pastor from parents is just, and I experience myself, we've got four kids, nine, eight, five, and four, and it can be a challenge to hold their attention.

So, Carl, any tips from your experience about, you know, maybe a five-year-old, a six-year-old, how do you hold their attention while you try to do some kind of devotional work with them?

Well, prayer is a good place to start, I guess. Yeah. No, but I mean, I think, well, no, seriously, prayer is a good place to start. I think we've got to know our kids. I think there's a danger that we're always comparing with other families. I don't know what your church is like, but most churches have that family who have five or six kids and they do a half-hour devotional every morning and the kids behave impeccably and the kids can, you know, they're reading Calvin's Institutes on their own just for fun, you know, and we compare ourselves to that family and then we crush ourselves. Whereas actually all kids are different and it's okay to say, you know, my kids are live wires, so five minutes of quality time is going to be a win for us and that's fine. Or to say either, you know, the mornings are the best time for us or, you know, just after dinner or whenever it is, you know, just know your kids. That is an important thing, I think. I think having said that, that setting expectations and setting the environment that gives you the best chance of having a Bible time or a devotional time in which they're actually engaged is important. And so we would say to our kids when they were younger, you know, this is what we do as a family. We never set it as a sort of thing that might be negotiated on, or if you act up, you might not have to do it or whatever.

It was just this is what we do as a family. And it's worth setting the environment as well. So I think it's a killer if you're going to say, right, turn the television off now because we're going to do Bible time. And that is not how to help them to sort of actively engage. So again, maybe doing it straight after dinner, in the evenings, or shortly before bed, if your bedtime experience tends to be calming. It isn't in all households, I know that. Just find an environment, find a room that is away from distractions, all those kind of things.

It's just worth thinking through. Give your kids the best chance possible to engage well. A couple more things, I think, sound excited about it. If you don't sound excited about doing family devotions, then don't expect your kids to feel excited about it. If you do sound excited, then likely they're going to think this is something that is a fun thing to do. You know, if you've got a three-year-old or a four-year-old, normally, sounding excited about something, they'll get excited. And then I think the last thing I would say is just keep going. If you're expecting a win every day, then you're setting yourself up for feeling like a failure. Do it, keep doing it, stay consistent in it, and you never know what the Holy Spirit is doing. So I think back to our family Bible times, some of the ones where I felt the kids have been least engaged, a couple of months later they've been able to recite something that they read in the scriptures that day. And I'm like, well, you really didn't look like you were listening. And other times, you know, they're there and it's on time and it runs really well and they're listening or seem to be listening and so on. And actually, it doesn't seem to have any impact. So I think, just remember, the Holy Spirit will be doing things that you can't see.

But if you're sitting down and sharing God's Word with them, then the Holy Spirit will be at work. Whereas if you're not doing that, then you're not opening up that opportunity for the Spirit to be at work in their hearts.

Yeah, amen.

Yeah, I liked what you said at the beginning there, but even if it's only five minutes, don't aim for that half an hour. They're not going to listen to a half an hour sermon or a half an hour in-depth Bible study. We're just getting to the place now with our older two, and they're girls, and I found that our girls are much more inclined towards deeper study than our young boys, and they're older. So I'm getting to the place now with them where we can actually sit and have more of a longer discussion about the Bible story. But during that, so usually we'll read a Bible story, and then our younger two will kind of start to wander off while we have a longer discussion with the older two. And at first that would frustrate me a lot, but now I've kind of come to realize that's the place they are in life. That's just kind of how it is with their temperaments, and eventually the other ones will kind of grow and hopefully we'll be able to have more of those conversations. But yeah, those little wins, even if you can only get five minutes of focus time, important.

Makes a difference.

Yeah. Good.

So, as we're trying to teach our kids to read the Bible on their own, to pray on their own. Your newest book is about prayer in specific. And so what are some tips, Carl, about how we can teach our kids to pray?

Well, I think that, I mean, coming back to what you were saying about getting up early and realizing that your dad had been getting up early and reading the scriptures himself for years, I think modeling it is the best thing we can do. And I'm very grateful to my wife, who is a great external prayer-er.

Prayer-er? Is that a word? Um, it is now. Because I'm British, and apparently I get to say what the words are. Yeah. Yeah, so she is great at giving thanks to God when, you know, when there's a space to park in in the parking lot or when the rain stops, just when we would like it to and all those kind of things. I think particularly when your kids are young, just hearing that informal prayer about our needs and then giving thanks and those kind of things is key. I think modelling it in a more formal way, if you like, so let them hear you pray at bedtime, as you reflect on your day. And that is, I think, kids probably, kids' prayer is probably caught more than it is taught. And again, that's where as parents at home, we have the privilege of modelling it to them.

I think it's worth setting a time for family prayers. So for us, from when the kids were very little and even still now, it's bedtime when they're ready for bed and the lights are about to go off, we'll alternate rooms and just get together as a four or three if one of us is away and we will pray. And because we do that and have done that since the kids were little, we kind of, it's just an expectation. Like, nobody, it's a bit like brushing your teeth, like nobody needs to sort of think about it, it just happens. So, however, if somebody's listening and they're not doing that, I would say it's always going to be easier to start that routine now than it is in a year, however old your kids are. So get going with it would be my tip. And then the other thing we've done is we've used some sort of acronyms, so STOP, sorry thank you other people, PLEASE, PRAYERS.

And a couple years ago my wife listened to a breakout session at a conference that we'd gone to and the guy who was doing the teaching about prayer in the home said his family had the liturgy that they wrote that they walked through, out that's based on the Psalms. So it calls us to praise God, then calls us to confession, then we remind ourselves of the gospel truths that as far as Jesus from the West, so far as he removed our transgressions from us from Psalm 103, and then it moves us into praying for our needs. And then we end with Psalm 4, in peace I will lie down and sleep, you alone Lord make me dwell in safety. And so the kids now know that they can take us through it if they're in charge as it were. And again, that's just setting a great rhythm of prayer. And the nice thing about that one is when they go away on the school trip or whatever, we encourage, I don't know whether they do it, but we encourage them, hey, you know, you know how to do bedtime prayers, so do it on your own, whisper it to yourself in the dorm room. And so again, just those little, again, it's something I was trying to do in a much simpler way in God's big promises, Bible story prayers, was just show kids, hey, these are the kind of categories that God loves you to speak to him in. You know, wow prayers of adoration, thank you for things he's given you, sorry prayers and please prayers. So, yeah, what I'm saying, I guess I'm saying, model it yourselves, get going with it and have a set time for it and maybe have some kind of either acronym or liturgy or something that you come up with that just anchors your prayers each night. I love that.

Yeah, giving them a pattern that they know how to follow, that they can build off of for the rest of their lives. Yeah, love that.

Is there any wisdom in saying, is there an age that's maybe too young to start this at? Or maybe, yeah, what would you say to someone who's saying, I don't want to start prayer yet, they're too young for that?

Yeah, that's a great question. And again, I mean, I don't pretend to know everyone's children, so I don't know what will work well. But something that we didn't do, but looking back I think I would have done differently is to pray over them each night as you put them, I was going to say put them to sleep, I mean babies who knows when they're going to go to sleep, but you know put them

in their crib. And just again get that habit set from the word go. And God's Big Promises Bible Story prayers is written for families with kids aged two to six and again you're just modelling prayer to them over them and they can then learn to copy that. So I'm not sure there's an age that's too young. The thing I would say is with young kids it's always worth giving them the opportunity to give thanks for whatever they want to. And so like my son gave thanks for cars every night from the age of two to four, roughly speaking, and then he diversified into other things, which was very exciting.

But again, just showing them how we pray in response to God's Word, but also letting them

in their own little lives to pray out of what they are particularly excited about, which might be different than a 40 year old adult.

Sure.

I do have to ask the follow up. Is that cars the movie or the vehicle car?

No, it was the vehicles. He just, he was obsessed with cars for a couple of years there and that's when he wanted to say thank you for every night. And then, fair enough.

That's great. Well, I got to ask then, what's his favorite car? Is it an American muscle car?

Or is it a European car?

He did like Chevrolets, I think, because they're fairly rare on our roads. And so spotting one of those was nearly as exciting as spotting a Mustang, which again, is pretty, pretty rare over here. So yeah, anytime I get a Mustang as my rental car when I'm over in the States, my credibility shoots up a little bit when my son gets one.

Oh yeah, I bet.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Very cool.

Well, hey, a big part of this show is we like to answer questions about theology and try to make it really clear and plain for people to understand. So actually, since we're talking about kids' resources, I was able to get a hold of a few questions that kids within Peace Church here have submitted for us to answer. So I've got a couple of those, if you don't mind. We'll try to tackle each of these in just kind of a short, concise way.

So I've got three of them here. Let's start with this one. Should we be scared of God? Question coming from a kid. I can imagine a kid asking this question, especially after some of the,

you might finish a Bible story seeing some of God's power come out, some of God's wrath or anger even towards sin. Should we be scared of God?

I think we are called to be in awe of Him. We are called to be amazed by Him. But we don't need to be scared of Him because He is our loving Father. All the reasons, all the wrong things we do that would be reasons to be scared of Him, Jesus dealt with those on the cross. And when God looks at us now, He doesn't see any of those things.

So if I was speaking to a child, I would say, no, you don't need to be scared of God, he's your loving father, he loves you to run towards him, that's what prayer is, but do be amazed by him. And so perhaps it's a case of imagining that the President of the United States is the best and kindest, most wonderful person who you've ever met. Now we may need to imagine that, that's fine, but imagine that he were and imagine that you were going to get to meet him. You wouldn't need to be scared of him because you know that he's kind and that he wants to see you and that you're going to have a great time with him. You wouldn't need to be scared of him, but you would be a little bit in awe of meeting him because he's a president and he's so powerful. And so maybe that's the way to think about God. He is our father, but he is also the ruler of the world. And so we're not scared, but we are in awe of Him.

I like that. That's really good.

Yeah. I'm sure our listeners have heard us talk about this many times, make this reference. I know it's often overused, but in the Chronicles of Narnia, there's that famous scene, right, with the beavers who, I think it's Lucy who asks, you know, when we meet Aslan, you know, is he dangerous or is he safe, she says. And then the beavers respond, well, no, he's not safe, but he is good. And that's the picture, right?

God is like a lion. He is so powerful. He's so good towards us because he loves us. But he is powerful. He can be dangerous, especially when you're on the wrong side of him. So yeah, totally.

No, it's such a great way to explain it to kids. That's great. All right, another one here. This one could take us in a long spiral, so we'll try to keep this answer concise for kids. But if a kid asks the question, why did God create Satan if he knew that Satan would go bad? What a deep, thoughtful

question. Any thoughts, Carl? So I think I would be honest and say, I don't know, and that's okay. God doesn't tell us everything in the Bible that we might like to know. He tells us what he knows we need to know. And so, I mean, if he told me everything, then my brain would explode, because my brain is just a human brain. So I think I want to take the opportunity in a way we have sometimes I find that I find I feel sort of desperate to answer every single question the kid has so that they can keep seeing that hey Christianity like works and it fits together and it coheres and it's true and um but actually good to say to kids sometimes I don't really know and that's okay because faith is trusting God who does know everything, not knowing everything myself, then that wouldn't be faith. So sometimes the Bible isn't going to tell us things, and I'm not sure it tells us why God created Satan if he knew that Satan would go bad.

I suppose we firstly, I would want to affirm that the kid has grasped the fact that God knows everything ahead of time, and that's a great thing to grasp. I suppose I want to say that sometimes God does let bad things happen to bring about things that are even more good than the bad thing and we can see that at the cross where that's the most bad, most sad thing that ever happened and yet it's also the place where the greatest good comes about. And so I suppose that because Satan exists, evil exists and therefore Jesus is able to rescue us from that evil and that makes us more excited about heaven where there won't be any evil and it causes us to praise Jesus more than we otherwise would have done because we're praising him as our saviour, our rescuer, rather than simply our ruler. So there are a few things we can say about, well, these are the good things we can see happening was allowed to exist and allowed to sort of prompt the fall. But ultimately, I think I have to come back and say, I don't know a full answer to that question, and that's okay, I trust God.

I think that's a great answer.

That's fantastic. Yeah, as they get a little bit older, so it's funny, I bet, you know, this question in our house has come back time and again, you know, when they're very young, I remember our kids asking that question and trying to, yeah, keep it fairly simple. We don't have a full answer to this question, but as I'm getting older, they keep asking that question and we've circled back to it. And we've talked about ideas, like you said, like the cross is such a great example of how God uses something horrible and uses it actually for good.

I think of Genesis 50 and the way that the Joseph story is described, you know, you meant this for evil, God meant it for good, for sure. So that's great. Great answer. Last one. This is one that a kid

submitted. What does God look like? How do we answer that question?

Yeah, it was. It's a great question. And yeah, questions like that. I just want to say, how wonderful that you're thinking about these things, keep asking these things. This is what the Christian life is like, isn't it, facing the understanding. So what does God look like? I suppose in one sense, I've got to say we don't know, and the reason we don't know is because words or images couldn't come close to describing how amazing God is. So as soon as we started putting words around it we

would be sort of limiting the amazingness of God. And so when God appears in the Bible, he either appears symbolized by something, like often it's fire because fire brings life, but it's also a bit dangerous, you have to treat it carefully, and that brings us back to, shall we be scared of God? Often described in the Bible is like what is around God, so there are amazing things around God, like an amazing throne or a rainbow or a crystal sea or, you know, read the whole of Ezekiel 1. So if that's what it's like around God, then that's like saying, well, how amazing must God be that we can only just describe what's around him. So in one sense, we don't know because he's too amazing. In another sense, we do know in the sense that he became a man and came as Jesus. And we don't know exactly how Jesus looked, but we do know that he looked just like a normal man. It's 52, 53, and we can say that that man is smiling at us. And I think that's probably quite helpful for kids to know that God came as a man and God smiled in love upon us, even despite all our flaws and failures and shortcomings, Jesus came to forgive and to smile.

And then I suppose the last thing I'd say is one day you're going to know exactly what God looks like because if you keep trusting Jesus and following him, then one day, the Bible promises you're going to see him face to face. And you still won't have the words to describe it, but you will be experiencing it. And that'll be the most exciting day of your life. And the most amazing thing that you've ever seen will be when you seek on face to face.

We could probably add that like Carl and I here, Jesus did have a beard. Oh my goodness. So we could say that.

I don't know about Mitch over here, but we'll just get that one in there.

Yeah, sorry, I missed that. I have the absolutely key facet of what it looks like to grow into the likeness of Christ.

Is there anything on the horizon that you're working on that we should be looking out for?

Oh, thank you. Yeah, so in the God's Big Promises family, the next two or three actually big things is one, we're working on an audio Bible. It's like an immersive audio experience. That's super exciting. I'll hopefully be out sometime next year.

As well, we're working on some devotions for little kids. So like three to six year olds, just super simple, but again, helping them to engage with the scriptures in a devotional way. And then further down the track comes a Sunday school curriculum for churches. That will be about two, two and a half years from now. So we're slowly building out the ecosystem of God's Big Promises Bible Storybook.

Carl, what a great conversation. Thank you so much. Everyone listening, you can find Carl's books at The Good Book Company, especially his newest book, God's Big Promises, Bible Story Prayers. Check it out, great resources to help you as you're trying to teach your kids the Bible as well as how to pray.

Thanks so much, Carl, for the conversation.

Oh, no, thank you for having me. It's been great fun. Awesome.

Well, hey, you can always find resources at resoundmedia.cc. Click and follow, subscribe, and check us out there.

Have an awesome week, everyone.