With The Perrys - Discipling Our Kids with the Krugers

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

The Perrys are joined by Melissa and Mike Kruger to discuss their new book “The Good News Family Devotional: 52 Weeks Through the Gospel of Mark.” Mark is fast-paced and story-centric, which makes it an ideal book to study alongside your kids. The Kruegers and Perrys discuss navigating discipleship with kids in different stages, helping children move beyond surface-level observation questions, and seeing family devotionals as just one part of a broader culture of discipleship in the home. Melissa and Mike encourage parents – especially those without a model from their own upbringing – to pursue family discipleship imperfectly but diligently. Check out “The Good News Family Devotional” – https://goodnewsfamilydevotional.com/; https://us.amazon.com/Good-News-Family-Devotional-Through-ebook/dp/B0GX2YCWT4  Connect with the Kruegers: https://melissabkruger.com/  https://www.instagram.com/melissabryankruger/  https://goodnewsfamilydevotional.com/ Scripture References Deuteronomy 6:4-9 This Episode is Sponsored By: https://magicspoon.com/PERRY — Get $5 off your next order! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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How are you? I hope you are good, blessed, happy, sad, honest. You hope that they said? I mean, they might be. I'm not happy you're sad. I don't hope you're sad. I just know that that might actually be a reality. And so I hope.

Well, we have been talking about healthy lament lately. Have we? How we've been talking about that? We had a couple of guests on here. We were talking about lament. Oh, got it. Yeah, about lament. You said it like it was recent.

I was like, we, we, we have. You wouldn't talk about this. It was the last podcast shoot. Oh, whatever, man. You're making me confused now. No, that's okay. Whatever. I don't know what it is.

I was just trying to basically say, you know, it's good to have, you know, healthy sadness. Yeah, I'm sad all the time. No, you don't say. You know, speaking of sadness. Jackie, me. What? What a hell? What are you saying?

You're going to say something? I was just, we got the Kruger's here. Hey, hey. Hey, how are you doing? Hey. Good to see you all. pivoted because I got to tell a real quick story. I've been telling it, I told it on the stage, and I told it

on threads, and I'm going to tell it here. It's actually really powerful. It's a sad story. Yeah. See? I know what you're going to tell. So I was on so me and Melissa, we used to do a podcast together. What was it? You never remember the name. I don't remember. We need to talk. Let's talk.

I even remember the name. My bad. We used to do a podcast with Jasmine Holmes called Let's Talk. And so Melissa's one of my favorite people, really wise, light, beautiful. theological woman. And we were on the phone about something. And I don't know what we were talking. We were just talking about the difficulty of the Christian life. And you were saying how somebody asked you how you've endured it or how you have navigated the Christian faith and like all the

things. And you would expect Melissa's answer to be something deep. And like, you know, I just endured by, you know, looking to Christ who is my kinsman Redeemer or something. But she was like, yeah, I cry a lot. And I said, that's it. Like, that's actually a really underrated spiritual discipline. It's just grief. And what that actually does cultivate in us as it relates to, like, being able to stay near to God. So I just, I don't, that's been a, that's been in my pocket ever since we talk.

Because that's a thing. She came on and told me, I was like, huh? I cry a lot. I cried a lot. But then the Lord started to show me how healthy it is for. us to cry. And then wrote a poem about it. Yeah, when you look at Jesus, when you look at Jeremiah, when you look at all these

people, they had some grief. So thank you for that, yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know what, I mean, because I know we're going to talk about kids and stuff in a minute. It's also good. My mom, I remember this, this was her piece of advice to me. I had this newborn, and I remember I hated it when she cried.

And her advice, and I realized it was good advice for a baby, but it was good advice for a 10-year-old. It was good advice for a teenager. She was like, babies are going to cry. That's simple. And it's okay. Like, we want to fix it. We want to make them stop crying.

And sometimes it's just like, oh, your teenager, they just need to cry. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, or whatever. And then adults, we just need to cry. And Christians. Yeah. Anyway, thank y'all for being here.

We appreciate it. They had a real mishap with the flight. It was on that thing for four hours. I don't, you know, I don't know if the, Never wanted to make y'all irritated or something. I don't know what that was about. But you came here full of joy. So we appreciate that.

Yeah. Because a lot of people came here with an attitude. I love you, Melissa. I'm so glad you to do Dr. Kruger. It's like a reunion. I don't know. I know. You got to call me Mike.

That's the rule. That's the rule of our conversation. We talked last time we were together, we did a panel together at the gospel coalition. We did. Yes. On marriage. And I just remember getting the critique because I had like slides on like this on a stage.

People were like, how dare you get on that stage with slides? I'm like, I'm going to be myself. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. How long have y'all been married? Coming up on 29 years. Wow.

So 28 years right now. It'll be 29 on July. I better get the month right, I guess. I never can. Yeah, I actually remember our anniversary more than you. Yes. It's the number thing. It's 72697.

I need it to be 72797. Yeah. I needed that. I should have got married on Sunday rather than Saturday. Because it would have been cheaper, too. It would have been cheaper. Oh, wow. So, no, so it's 20,

Well, we'll be 29 years, yes. We're coming up on the big 30 next year, which we're excited about. We're going to try to take a fun trip somewhere and celebrate. What is that like to be married that long? And we dated for five years before that. Yeah, we dated for five years before that. So I've known him since I was 18. Sheesh.

It's like we grew up together. I think in some sense, being married for that big a chunk of your life, I mean, you really realize that the reason you tune out the way you are is largely because of the person you've been with for so much of your life, you know? And the reason I'm me and not, you know, certainly a lot better version of me than I would have been is because we get to be together and shape each other and love each other over those years. And so, I mean, I think if you get, it's not that getting married later in life's a bad thing. I mean, great. When God brings you a spouse, that's wonderful. But you don't have the backstory of all those years of shaping.

That's good. I think the best thing is just the content. of sitting on the back porch together. I mean, we're, you know, all of us, we travel a lot. We do a lot of stuff. And the thing I think I love the most is my favorite place to be is on the back porch with you. Yeah. And just talking. And he's still the person I want to talk to about things.

Like, did you hear this? Yeah. What do you think about this? And, man, I mean, that's, I just am so thankful for that. Yeah. One of the things we're getting to do more in recent years is actually travel together. which is really great because, you know, lots of times we're just, yeah, apparently traveling together is cursed if you go by today's standards.

But I mean, lots of times we're just off to different places every weekend. We have a funny story we tell years ago when we were traveling places and we were getting our schedule straight. And I told Melissa, I said, hey, just so you know, I'll be in Dallas this weekend. And Melissa's like, you're going to be in Dallas? I'm like, yeah, she goes, well, I'm going to be in Dallas this weekend. And I'm like, no. And like, you're going to be in Dallas too.

Turns out we were on the same flight and didn't even realize it. So we both flew to Dallas on the same flight, took Uber, to two different events, didn't even realize it. Did y'all ask somebody to move so y'all could sit next to one or a little? I don't think we were able to sit next to each other. I think I thought was full. I need to work. You probably were.

You're probably like, I don't want to talk to you. I got too much to do. And that's what you know there's some trust in longevity, because I feel like there are some younger marriages where they would fill a type of way about not sharing the same thing. Or, you know, hey, I got to work, man. I can talk to you when we get to the house. Like to be able to say that freely without there being a consequence is, that's a thing. I ain't going to lie a couple times though.

I said when you was in a different seat, I just waited to see if it was like a creepy person to sit next to you because I'm like, oh. I mean, you always sell people to move. Yeah, I always see. I'm going to sit next to my wife. Yeah. Gotta get up, Bucco. And you say it kind of aggressively.

So it's like, it's not even like an option. I do. Question. How long between getting married did you have children? And did you have children intentionally? I think it was about three years. And then it was three years between all of our kids. Yeah.

So apparently the number three is a big factor in our family planning. Three, three, three. Okay. So we got married and then it wasn't long to we moved to Scotland because I was doing my PhD there at the University of Edinburgh. And we were trying actively. And we're excited to see what would happen. And we were thrilled to get pregnant that quickly.

And so, yeah, it was about three years into our marriage that we had Emma. and she was born in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, Scotland. So that was a crazy experience because obviously your first child, no one is there. We were born, you know, she was born in a foreign country, and we were completely alone, and there was no phone to text with back then. There was no one in the United States even knew we had a baby, and we were there alone with her for a long time before even knew. He had to use a calling card.

That's how you had to call from the hospital. That's crazy. Our cell phones couldn't call at the time. They were just like... Flip phones. Yeah, flip phones. And so he had to find a calling card to be able to call the States. You know.

Okay. Dang. Yeah. It's like the dark age. Is that dang? Is that dang like how old are you guys? Is that what that dang's about? It's like, did they have electricity back then?

Yeah. This was late 90s. He said the 80s. Well, I'm saying, why is that a shot? Why is that crazy? When we moved to Scotland to late 90s? Yeah, but she was born in 2000. She was born in 2000.

Oh, cute. Well, 2000 in my mind was yesterday until I think about 2001. And everybody thought Jesus was going to come back. Exactly. I remember how we were buying crackers and water and sardines. Yeah, I was at a party and I went in the bathroom at like 1150. I said, Lord, just in case, I don't know, and I didn't know you. I don't know you.

Can you, if you come back, can you take me with you? I just remember my uncle buying five cases of water. Like, that's really going to last us? That's ridiculous. Anywho. Y'all have written a devotional together called the Good News Family Devotional. A good news. And it's a 52 week, am I right?

52 week devotional on the book of Mark. The way... Fifty-two weeks is... Is that a year? It's a year. It's a year. How long it takes you out to write this?

Well, it took us a while, but we also drew upon some Bible studies that you'd done before. And so that helped when we put it together. He had taught at RTS where he works, performed Theological Seminary. He had a women's Bible study he taught for years with a bunch of women in there.

And for over two years, you taught the Gospel of Mark. Yeah. So the devotionals are actually pulled from all of that teaching. So he had a lot of the material already, but he spent two years teaching it. Magic Spone cereal tastes like the classics that we grew up on, but without all the sugar. And clearly, y'all know I am a diabetical. So sugar got to be watched and observed and kept at bay. With Magic Spoon, each serving packs 12 to 14 grams of protein, zero to two grams of sugar,

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Perry. That's magic spoon.com slash Perry for $5.00. What I like about it is like, you know, I haven't seen one, a lot of family devotionals, but if I have, it's not through a book of the Bible. And so I guess why Mark of all the, we got 65 other options, why that book? Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, we thought about the idea of doing a family devotional and the importance of that and what kind of book would be really useful to do with your kids that could put you right in front of the core teachings of the gospel and the person of Christ. And obviously, a gospel comes to mind. I mean, you know, what's not to love and enjoy about any of the four gospels? You get to meet Christ. You get to see his teachings,

his activities, his death and resurrection. And then it was a matter of then picking which gospel. You know, part of the reason that Mark was an obvious favorite is because I'd done all this work on Mark that we just talked about. But the other thing is that Mark actually functions as a great family devotional because it's so quick and so to the point. It has this real rapid sort of way it moves through the narrative. Each story is short and containable and it moves along quickly. It doesn't drag. And for a family, that really worked. Now, here's the fun part of the story, though, is that Melissa and I were on different pages about which gospel. We had this little intra-family debate. Basically, he won. Yeah, I won the debate, but she was calling for, tell them which gospel.

John, the gospel of John. Everyone's like, Mark, why did you pick Mark? Everyone's favorite gospel. except yours. I love the underdog gospel. I love the underdog gospel. It's all inspired. I love that. It's all inspired. Yeah, and I just can't, I mean, maybe going through Matthew with all the parables with kids that could be good or bad.

I think the obvious is kind of John, but I think I can see Mark. I have to say, John 1 is tricky. Yeah. If you start, they, I mean, so Mark gets right into it. I will say, which is nice for kids. They love stories. It's very story-centric. And so there's teachings of Jesus and Mark,

but they're not really long-extended teaching blocks in Mark. And so you can kind of get lost in a long teaching block with a kid. But they really grab a story that has a short teaching at the end. And we found that to be really useful. And they really grab a hold of it. I love that. I got a question. There you go.

One of the interesting ways or the way you structured it, which I think is helpful, is that you have like observations and questions and approaches for younger children and for older children, which I think is, I think we feel that because our kids are 11, 7, 5, 4. So with Eden, she's kind of moving into this range where she can handle more, I guess, not lofty, but heavier subject matters, but then you got sage in August where it's like, God is real. that's all we got. And so I guess even in your experience, tell us how many children you have, their ages,

but also that process of how y'all learn to navigate teaching them when they were younger and teaching them when they were older so that people who have kids in different stages know how to approach discipleship according to ages. Yeah, that's right. So our kids now are 25, 22, and 19. You know, I still think when I meet people that age that I'm like five years older than them, so it's always shocking when you're like, oh, you're my daughter. daughter's age. Okay. Okay. But, so we kind of had a range. There's a six-year-spread.

And we face that same thing. We'd have a 12-year-old at the table and a six-year-old at the table. And so that was actually part of what I was trying to do is how can you study the Bible together as a family and yet have different ranges? And so my background is education. And so one thing I know about younger kids is they need really concrete questions. Well, you know, in our lingo, we call those observation questions. You know, if you're looking at observation, interpretation, application. And so kids can actually listen to a story and be like, oh, okay. And you can even tell them beforehand, hey, I'm getting ready to read the story. I want you to be listening.

Where did it take place? You know, who's in the story? And then afterwards, you know, you can say, hey, who was in this story? Who are some of the names? Did anybody remember who are the names? and doing that kind of interaction with them, well, there are a couple things I love. One, it gets them talking rather than you talking.

That's good. But it helps them engage and listen in a different way. So if you give them a little prompt beforehand, then they're like, oh, I'm supposed to be paying attention. Well, that's just helpful anyway. And then with the older kids, it can be a little bit more, okay, well, so why do you think Jesus got so upset when Peter, you know, said, you know, you're not going to go to the cross, basically that whole interaction. Why did Jesus

rebuke Peter? You can ask the why questions, more the interpretive questions with an 11-year-old. And then we put a family application question and why we did that was they need to see I'm growing. It's for everybody. That's good. Like who do I, you know, how does mom need to obey differently? How does his dad need to obey differently? Like we're still learning too. And so it's kind of teaching them that basic observation, interpretation, application, but also giving it age appropriately. That's great. Everybody gets to answer. That's great.

That's really good. I have a question. So you guys have multiple kids like we do, right? And we know that every kid is not the same. They all are different. And so, like, the way this one thinks is not the way this one thinks. The way this one processes is not the way this one process. Because it's the way you could talk to Eden and she's locked in.

Autumn is like, come back. here, come back to Earth. She'd think about unicorn somewhere. Yes. And so oftentimes, you know, I find myself having really sometimes great apologetic questions from my daughter, Eden. She's very thoughtful. And then sometimes I'd be like, oh, I didn't actually pour into my other daughter today.

And so, like, what is the balance of adjusting to each child and how they're made differently? Like, what is the balance? and also this temptation not to leave one behind or like I'm pretty sure some kids can be lost in some families. So talk about that. Yeah, I mean, one thing to remember and all that, and those are really great questions, is that when we think about how we decipher our children, the family devotion is not the only thing we're doing, right? So the first thing to remember is that that's one part.

It's a key part of what we're doing, but not the only thing we're doing. So when we worry about leaving a child behind, it's not necessarily all having to be solved in that one. study but one of the things that I've found over the years and that we found together over the years is that the different learning styles of the kids actually feeds one another horizontally. In other words, it's not just that the kids are learning from us. They're actually learning from each other. And the way they respond differently and the way they engage a text differently, the other children will listen to them maybe in ways they don't listen to us. And they'll resonate with things they observe that even, that they may not even resonate if we were to say

the same thing. And so one of the big takeaways, we've seen over many years of doing this with our kids is how it's bound them together. It's really made them a tight unit. Now, of course, their friendships and their relationships are bigger than just that we did family devotionals together. We're not suggesting that's the whole thing. But we really think that spiritually, they're really, really united because they spent time studying God's word as a unit.

And there's something different about studying God's word as a unit as a group than doing it independently and in isolation. And I think that's really the key thing you're taking away is it, of course, if you do it in a group, you're not going to be able to meet every individual need. But, you know, it's not always bad to not meet every individual needs. Sometimes it's good for people to absorb to the group and respond to the group and realize that it's not only just about their individual needs. That's really good. And that's actually very, yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, because I think also too, it's like church. It's like a little picture of church. Yeah.

Why do we go to church? Why don't get anything out of it? Well, okay, you may not get anything out of it, but you realize you're there for more than that. You're there for you're trying to give as well as Gat when you go. Yeah, it's good. I think one thing that I've noticed, our children, they have their own relationships from one another. And so the things that I kind of pour into Eden, I think Eden has her own unique ways of kind of passing what I pour down to her daughter, I mean, to her sister,

which is a great observation. I never really noticed that. Yeah, I think a learning curve for us is that we were not raised in Christian homes. And so it seems as if we are trying to create traditions and rhythms and patterns that we didn't see. And so for me, sometimes I feel lost. Like, how do I do this?

Like, I know how to disciple people that are 20 and up. I don't know how to disciple as what, I don't know how to be as consistent when it comes to these kids when I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to make sure y'all stop fighting. I'm just trying to make sure you got your homework. I'm just trying to make sure it was pajama day for one of y'all. Another one of y'all got a science project.

I'm actually thinking about all the other stuff that sometimes I miss Jesus in a way. I'm trying to stop my son from jumping out 14 flights of steps. Yeah, I'm trying to keep you alive. Yeah, you're in survival mode. Yeah. And so the whole rhythm stuff, the rhythm stuff is something. So I guess did y'all learn this growing up or was this something that y'all just developed as a family unit when y'all got married? This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group.

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We knew we wanted to do this, but we were like, how do you do this? You know, what do you do? And so honestly, when they were little, you would just read one of the storybook Bibles or something with the kids and talk with them about it. And that was just a daily, you know, like you're reading books with your kids doing that. And then when the kids got in elementary school is when we started doing family devotions in the morning. And I want to say this was so far from perfect. I mean, it was like 10 minutes.

But here's my biggest parenting secret is kids only know the house they grew up in. Like they don't know it's weird that you're spending 10 minutes talking about Jesus at the breakfast table and opening your Bible. they just know that that's what your family does. So that was kind of my, oh, well, we can just make, we can make our family normal, whatever we want to make our family normal. And so we would meet and we would read a passage and we would pray for each other. And I look back and I think about those prayers for each other, them learning to do that. Every day of the week, because we had five.

So like on Monday, we might pray for Kate. On Tuesday, we might pray for Emma. On Wednesday we might pray for mom. And we prayed for each member. But somebody else around the table prayed for them. And so just those little habits, you realize you're building community just by doing what God asks you to do. And that binds you because, you know, a kid, if you say, hey, how are you doing? They might grunt at you, especially as they get older.

I just prepare for the boy grunting. Like that's what they kind of speak at that age. It's grunt language. It is. I was like, I don't speak grunt, John. Can you like use words? articulate, man. But when you ask, hey, how can I pray for you this week?

They do share. And you get more in those moments than you really start to hear a little bit about how they're doing or they're worried about a friend or, you know, whatever. And so I look back and I'm like, oh, these are really, really sweet times together as a family. That's dope. Was there a reason for, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say one of the things about sort of feeling like I don't know how to do this, which is, I think, what everyone feels, and I think we felt that too. There's, there's a,

I think an instinct to a lot of people that think, well, if I'm going to have a family devotion, well, I should just go all the way and make it the greatest family devotion that there's ever been, and I'm going to make it a little church service, and I'm going to study all week and prepare a message. We're going to make this really wonderful. And the analogy I give is like, is when someone decides they want to start, you know, getting more fit and working out, what do they do? They always try to bite off more than they can chew, right? So they're like, well, I'm going to go and I'm going to run five miles a day, and I'm to work out of the gym never last because they've just tried to push it too far.

And so what I always tell people is, if you're going to start a family devotional, keep it really simple and achievable. Those are the two words I like to use, simple and achievable, so that you're like, I can do this reasonably every day because it's not trying to do everything. Yeah, that's good. And I think the way, okay, so the devotional on this one is actually set up for the parent. So it's based on Deuteronomy 6. We didn't see anything like this out there, which says,

love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. And then it says, these commands are to be on your heart. Teach them to your children. So the devotional is actually kind of like devotional commentary. He wrote it, but he wrote it for normal people. And so it's the, because I think a lot of times as parents, we feel like, well, what if they ask me a question, I don't know how to answer? You know, because kids, you know, when you're teaching.

They got angles. Yeah, when you're teaching, you get to just say what you want to say. And you're like, I might miss that part about why he got so mad about the fig tree. Yeah. You know, but like kids are going to be like, well, did Jesus have a temper tantrum with the fig tree? They're going to ask those type of questions. And so we're trying to create a resource that actually makes a parent feel like, well, I know a little bit about what's going on, maybe more so. That's helpful.

But then we really want just the kids to start talking. Like so that the parent doesn't feel like, okay, I'm going to tell you for five minutes something about Jesus. it's the word's going to tell them and then we're going to talk about it as a family and that just lowers the pressure like rather than us feeling like we have to have all the answers or know everything it's a little more like

hey we're learning alongside you but God's word is what we want you to know and you know the only way you learn language is by speaking it like when you have little kids you talk to them even though they can't understand you so you know your youngest kids will be sitting at the table they might get half of it

maybe they'll get a quarter of it. That's okay. That's how you learn. Yeah. You know, you pick it up as you go. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it's 15 years later, and you know a lot of Bible stories.

That's good. I got a real practical question, real, real quick, which is why did y'all pick the morning? Because I think of the morning, I'm like, I'm tired. I got to get y'all dressed, get y'all fed, get y'all up out of here.

Why was morning best for y'all rhythm? It used to be at night. Okay. And it used to be right before they went to bed. And that worked for a while when all the kids went to bed at about the same time. But once the older one got older and had soccer practice and activities, that makes sense. Then it sort of split up the moment and we decided that we had to pivot and move it to the mornings.

Believe me, and Melissa can attest to this, I am not a morning person. I do not like mornings. Wow. And we had to do it this morning. We got up really early this morning. So I didn't want to have devotals in the morning. but it's kind of like one of those things you're like well if it if not now then it won't happen and so we decided that we were going to do it in the mornings now because we did it in the

mornings it had to have to follow my my own advice there had to be simple and achievable yeah because you're not going to get kids out of bed yeah 45 minutes earlier than they have to be yeah for something like that that's good uh you guys now are are empty nesters oh that word so you feel so old yeah you guys like have just seen your kids in every stage of life all almost, right? You have a child in the 20s? Yeah, yeah, a 19, year old. Yeah, 19, 22, and 25. And what I hear, though, when you guys are talking, I hear like labor, like you guys labored and a lot of long hours, all of these hours kind of accumulated over the years.

I guess my question is, what are the benefits? Like, what are the fruit that you saw that produced in your children? With all of these mornings that you were tired? because it could be encouraged into young kids, people with young kids now. I was like, okay, I hope this produces some fruit. I think that's really the heartbeat behind why we even wrote this book is because I think we were shocked at the fruit of faithful, regular time in the Bible as a family. We thought, okay, I know I should do this. And of course, we believe that it would do good things in general,

but I don't think we really apprehended what it would do. And the fruit has been amazing. And I don't think it's amazing merely because we're so excited about where our kids are spiritually, but we are excited where they are spiritually. But just watching how they've grown theologically and how they're understanding of the Bible works, how their instincts are driven by scripture in a way that we just look back and they're just so thankful. So it just set a trajectory that's really been life-changing. That's good.

It's unbelievable to me. Our oldest is on the mission field. And she's in a predominantly Muslim nation. And I realized she just knows stuff. And it's just, you know, it's like she just marinated in it so long. And our 19-year-old is at a large public university, college university. Every Friday she goes up on the main street with her roommate, and she does street evangelism. You got a bunch of events.

I love it. And I'm just sitting there, and I'm like, okay. I mean, but what she'll say is she was kind of surprised. She was like, Mom, I actually know how to answer people. That's good. And, you know, we so think, I think we felt a little bit like, are we going to be too much for these children? And is it just, I almost had a negative view of,

this is going to sound terrible, of Christians growing, kids growing up in a Christian home, because I kind of came to a faith apart from my family. And so I became a Christian through a high school ministry. And I felt like it was my own. And like I almost grew more in that way because my faith had become my own. And so I was like, is this going to just make the kids hate this stuff? Well, and some kids do.

You know, the Lord's got to save our children. We always want to say kids aren't saved through our parenting. They're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, you know, Ephesians. But what I would say is. is if the spirits are working their life and they become Christians, what an inheritance they have. Think about it.

If you had been learning, little verses, all your childhood, it's just in there. That's beautiful. So if the spirit awakens their heart, they've got riches galore. Just because of all these 10-minute

little things you tried to do imperfectly along the way, but all of those years add up. I got one quick quick question back. Because I'm just intrigued by what you said when your daughter said, I know how to answer people. I love that as an evangelist because I love evangelism. But one of the reasons why I love that, I do a lot of apologetic and evangelism conferences. And one thing that I've noticed is that a lot of sometimes mothers, sometimes fathers come there looking for answers for their children who left the nest, went to college and got rocked by a different ideology or different worldview.

and sometimes it can seem like the Christian faith, a lot of people in the Christian faith, they have like this reactionary faith that says, let me try to look for resources when our kid stumbles upon a false truth. And so like what was the process of developing, I think, good thinkers. Oh, yeah.

You're great at that. This has been a passion of mine for a long time. Talk about it. I'm glad to hear you say that because this is something that's been on my heart for years. And this actually is related to a different book, one that I wrote a number of years ago called Surviving Religion 101, which was a book for college students on how to navigate the complexities of intellectual challenges they had faced in college. And I wrote that for my daughter

Emma when she was headed off to be at a big university. And so I wrote this book. It's actually composed of letters to her about how to keep your intellectual and sort of worldview intact while you're at a big university. But here's what I realized is I wrote it. is that even though the college students were using it and being blessed by and I was so excited for that, the people who are coming to the most were parents. And they were like, hey, I gave that to my kid at college and that's great.

But I realized that I've got these younger kids still that are coming up through the ranks. How do I prepare them so that when they get out of the house they're ready for this? In other words, let's dial it back. Let's not wait until they're 18 to give them a resource. Let's start working on this earlier. That's good.

So one of the things we did in our house, and this is just something I love to do, is I would play skeptic with my kids. So I would be, I would put on the hat of non-Christian professor. And I would start making claims and challenging what they believe and poking holes in Christianity. And I would, I would say, okay, what would you say to that? I love that. We'd have debates around the table where I would be the skeptical professor and they would be the student.

He would be a really bad non-Christian. Yes, exactly. He would be terrible. Dad, you make a really good non-Christian. I'm like, I don't know what I think about that. that's not good. But we would do it in car rides, and I would do it around the dinner table,

and I would just sort of challenge them, and say, well, what would you say about that? And they would say this. I was like, well, that doesn't work because of this. And we would just go around and around, around. And it got them to sort of own it. They couldn't just be a faith

where you can repeat back a catechism, although I think there's usefulness to that. It had to be a faith that you could think on your feed and actually deal with the kind of questions. I love that. That's really dope. Yeah.

I find myself, I can see myself doing that. You could totally. You would be great. I know, but I do, I kind of do with my 11 year old. She's really fun to talk to. Yeah. But, you know, I want to, as my kids get old, my son is four. I can't really do it with him right now.

You're going to love those ages. I think everybody, you know, get so negative about the teen years. It's actually really fun. I think I'm a fun. Jackie said that a lot. She's like, I feel like they're going to be more friends. Yes. Because I don't, I don't, I don't really want to talk to you about Bluey for too long.

You know what I'm saying? I just, I don't know how to engage that with excitement for too much time. Yeah, my son thinks he's Spider-Man. He's like, he really thinks he's- It's real cute, but yeah, I don't know. I think what I think what I love about that is that I've always seen that what you did, me and Preston doing that, just because in our experience with people that go to college or like the universities that we speak to, it's like they get to school and they lose their mind. And I'm like, oh, y'all, y'all never knew.

that there were other worldviews outside of the ones that you were probably raised in. And I've always felt like, I don't know if I told you this, my plan is that when they get in high school to read certain secular books and they got to write a paper about it. Whether that's sexuality,

whether that's agnosticism, whether that's like Black Hebrew or Israel, I don't care what it is. It's like, I want you to be aware of what you're going to face when you get out in the world. You know what I'm saying? Because I just, some of the stuff is legitimate and some of the stuff is like convincingly legitimate.

Yeah, because I've been thinking about my children a lot because I've been going to Alabama State University and talking to doing Q&A's with the crowd this year and just some of the questions I'm getting. I'm like, yo, like, why are y'all being rocked by these? And so like if we can start helping our children think early, I think it can be really, really great. Here's an analogy you guys might love in this regard.

Years ago, I came across this book from a microbiologist, and it caught my eye because of the title. And the book's title was called Dirt is Good. And his argument, which is about an unrelated subject, but it fits the bill as an analogy, is that the reason kids' immune systems can be so bad and not kicked in is because their parents have protected them from germs for so long when they grew up using hand sanitizers and special soaps and keeping them from ever getting any diseases. by the time they turn 16, they've never been sick a day in their life. And it turns out they get sick and they get really badly sick because they never had their immune system kicked in because they never had germs along the way. And I use that as a spiritual analogy. As parents, we've got to expose our kids to these non-Christian rule views in small doses, so to speak.

So they can be inoculating against them. That's a really great analogy. Gotta catch COVID-1 so it won't kill you in the second down. Yeah, don't bubble up, you know. And you think you're doing your kid of favor if he's never heard of a non-Christian before he's turned 18 and you're not. You need to give him some insights or her some insights on what to expect.

Wow. And when you have those conversations, this was the most fun thing just last week. Our daughter is coming back. You know, in college, you all take, they all drive to the beach. This is North Carolina because they're close to the beach. So they're driven for the day of the beach. They're in their car and there are five college kids

and they're talking about evolution and they're talking about, I don't know, all the different topics. Speaking in tongues. All kinds of stuff. And so she's like, hey, let's call my dad and ask him. I can't tell you. I mean, like, of all the things, like, oh, you want to call your dad and ask him.

And I really believe it. My daddy was Professor Kroofer, too. I'll call my daddy too. I'll FaceTime you every day. But, you know, you think, oh, like, but I really think you fostered such good conversations, not forcing answers, but fostering conversations. That's good. You know, because if you just always say.

the answer, they're going to stop talking to you. Yeah. Rather than like, no, let's dig in together. That teaches them how to think, though. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned Deuteronomy 6, and I just want to read it with a question. Starting at verse 4, it says,

Hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command, you shall today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently. Let's hold that word in our heart. mind to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be

as frontlets between your eyes you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates i bring out the word diligently because how did y'all develop the discipline to disciple when you're tired and not even just tired with life but tired you might have something going on in your your marriage. You might have something going on with your job. You might be wrestling with some mental stuff. You might be, you know what I'm saying? And it can become easier to lay that to the side in light of what you're going through. So, well, I mean, one thing I'll add, I know Melissa's got things to add too, is that a reminder that part of, part of creating this culture in your home is not solely on the devotional time. The devotional time is what you might call the anchor for it.

But as the passage you just read indicated, you're kind of always teaching your children. children in life, when you're standing, when you're rising, when you're walking, when you're going. And so I would encourage parents to realize that, you know, don't, don't hinge everything on this. Realize there's a bigger system of how they're going to learn from your example, from the way you interact with people in the world on a daily basis. That's going to help sort of deal with some of these things. So in that sense, you know, sometimes you can feel like if I miss a family devotional, I'm more my family's doomed, you know, or something.

I'm like, well, no, it's bigger than that. and there's more to be said than that. But then in terms of speaking about how we keep going on the family devotional, I'll let Melissa say. I'll worry about that. I might give three-piece. Oh, my, you're pulling out alliteration. I am.

I am. Good old teacher, Melissa. I think place, a plan, and a pattern. And those things actually help you when you're tired. Because it was every morning in the same place at the kitchen table, the kids were just there. And so it wasn't like I had to drum it up. that it was the habit. And then having a plan for what you do

that just makes it that much easier when you're tired. Because here's the reality. You make it up every time. Yeah. Brand new, yeah. Yeah. And then it just becomes such the pattern that kids just expect this is what we do

on Monday morning or whatever. Like I remember we were on vacation one time and we were on vacation. So we weren't necessarily going to go to church that Sunday. We advocate going to church on Sunday. And our kids, were like, what do you mean? We got to go to church. It was such the pattern that they actually were taking us to church. And so I think sometimes the habits become the very helps that we need

when we're tired. That's good. Yeah. You know, they pull us along. But it is the hard part, it's just like exercise. It's beginning. But I will just challenge our, like, culturally, we are getting our kids to soccer practice. We are getting our kids to dance practice. We're getting our kids to later on to all these things. And so sometimes we may have to also, I'll give another P word, we may have to purge. We may have to get rid of something. And I did not have any of those in my mind.

We may have to get rid of something so that we can make it happen. But at some point, every family has got to say, what is this family going to be about? Yeah, that's good. You know. I'm thinking about the single parent. Wow. And how you, because I mean, that could, it's a little bit easier because we're sharing a good burden, right? Like, and we're both able to like manage and steward the home together.

But I'm thinking about the woman or the man who is taking care of children by themselves and working and doing all the things and now saying like, oh, I got a disciple too. And it's like, I guess what would be encouragement to them? My biggest encouragement is Timothy. You know, I mean, when Paul writes the second letter to Timothy, he said, you know, the faith that lived in your mom and your grandma. The dad's not mentioned. We don't know what his story was. But just that encouragement that, you know, a single parent can really have a lot of power to pass on faith from one generation to the next. And he says, you've known the Holy Scripture.

infancy. Well, it must have been his mom who was teaching those. And so, and then that became Timothy, who became, you know, this great disciple of Paul. And so I think just be encouraged, the word and the spirit, again, that's how the Lord's going to make your child wide is for salvation. And, and I think a lot of prayer. That's great. Yeah, I also just want to add to, because I grew up with a single mom who didn't necessarily raise me in church. but because she knew she couldn't give me a lot, she made sure she always tried to put me around godly men, and I think that's what the role of the church,

local church kind of comes in. That's a great point. I was going to say that, which is that you've got to utilize the tools available to you that might be outside the home. Yeah. And make sure you put your child in a place where they can find a mentor,

find a voice that adds to you. The other thing that's interesting, too, you mentioned single parents, but there's also people who are married to people who aren't Christians. Yeah. So they effectively are single parents as it pertains to raising your kids as Christians, even though they're actually married, right?

Their spouse doesn't share their faith. And that actually may be what's going on with Timothy's mother and grandmother. Because we have a lot of evidence from the ancient world that women converted to Christianity in great numbers in the early stages. And lots of times their husbands did not. And so you have a lot of mixed marriages in these early stages, interestingly, where you have a lot of women who are converted, but the husbands aren't. And they have to raise their children.

kids following Christ and Timothy is, you know, the poster child for that. Wow. It's dope. Yeah, I've actually, I feel like we were part of a conference one time and somebody from the Q&A asked that question about how, you know, they would teach their child something and then daddy would contradict it and just that constant wrestle of like, what do I? That's hard. What do I do with that? Have you ever counsel somebody with that? That's hard. I don't know if I've ever had a person that I've tried to counsel about that, but I certainly know of many cases like that. and these mixed marriages are really hard. Sometimes the unbelieving spouse just sort of lets it be.

So they don't sort of get in the way of it, right? Because they're not, they're not, they don't really care about religion, do what you want. But other times they do what you just described, which is they're actively opposing what you're saying to your child, and the child is in a tug-of-war, theological and practical tug-a-war with the parents. That is just really, really difficult.

And that's going to take a lot of prayer, a lot of perseverance for a single parent, effectively a single parent to work their way through that. Wow. Yeah, I think that's when your character shines. Oh my gosh.

You know what I'm saying? Where it's like, I want to live up to or live out everything that I'm communicating in such a way that it actually reveals that what I'm saying is true. You know, I think there's some power in that. It's dope.

We got a question yesterday on Instagram and we've kind of answered it but we haven't answered. It's really simple, but like, how do you start giving the gospel to toddlers? That's interesting. I think, you know, one of the things we learn as parents, and you guys have learned those two, and anybody who's a parent knows this, is that kids pick up things a lot quicker than you think they do.

And so the term, toddler is a vague term. I mean, what exactly counts as a toddlers? Somewhere between one and four, probably, is the general age that people consider a child to be a toddler of some sort. Four is probably way on the upper end of that. But kids can really pick up a lot more than we know. And I don't mean just intellectually, but they pick up intangibles. They pick up a family vibe, a family feel.

They also pick up the parental example. And so lots of times we tell people, it's not even just what we say and teach our kids from the Bible that is the most influential on them. It's actually our example is the most influential on them. They're going to end up looking like us, which is scary. And we tend to think our kids don't pay attention, don't listen, don't watch. They don't want to be anything like mom and dad. On one level, that's true.

But also studies have shown on the level that's not true. They actually try to emulate you in ways that they're not surprising. And toddlers are really good at emulating their parents. So you can see them follow dad around their room or mom around the room trying to look and act like them. So one thing I would just say is that don't be discouraged by thinking they're not picking up on anything. They're actually probably more perceptive than you realize. Yeah. That's good.

I would also say have rules. Okay. And this is going to be surprised. Yeah, how do you teach grace? How do you teach the gospel? Well, the law came first so that we might understand our inability to keep it and our actual need for grace. So I think sometimes people think, oh, a gracious home, that means they're, you know, we don't, we don't have rules, we don't have standards. Let's see how that goes.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's actually okay to have a standard. But then when the standard's broken, how do we walk them through that? That's great. That's good. That's excellent. You know, and so, I mean, I would say one of the biggest discipleship things is how do you say you're sorry?

And how do parents say they're sorry to their kids and all of those things? But yeah. Yeah, Jen Wilkin, I don't know when she said this, but it's been a framework for me. When your kids are young, it's high frequency, low depth. the odor they get, it's high depth, low frequency. And so that's just kind of eased my attention when it comes to, yeah, it ain't got to be that deep. You know what I'm saying? And one example was I was telling the person this other day.

Sage. I was just about to ask you that question. Talk about it. Yeah, because I don't remember what she said. I was like, I was going to ask you, what is Sage? So Sage, she just woke up. She's been randomly talking about the Lord. Yeah.

And she. How old is she? Five. And so she was trying to do something or whatever. And I was like, we should just pray about it. And she was like, I don't want to pray. God doesn't answer my prayers. And I was like, what do you mean?

He doesn't answer you? And I'm like, this is already deep to me. I'm like, what do you mean he doesn't answer your prayers? And she said, during nap time, I couldn't go to sleep. And I asked him to help me go to sleep. And he didn't make me go to sleep so he doesn't answer my prayers. Wow. And I said, it's good.

I said, well, you know, When you ask me something, I say no sometimes. And she was like, yes. I said, so sometimes God says no, but that's also an answer. And she was like, okay. But it's engaging her world, but also communicating a truth that even adults don't understand. Is that God can say no. And we're not even dealing with the fact that you probably, you got ADHD tendencies from your daddy.

And so that's why you can't go to sleep. But I think that that's kind of just been a rhythm, I think, in our life. It's me like engaging them where they are. But even for her to have a conception of prayer, a concept of God is her picking up on us in church and us, I'm not the Lord and us praying. You know what I'm saying? Like for her to even pray during that time. I was just like, oh, I ain't ever told you to do that. And what a grace to have that answer from you.

Because you're right. There are a lot of adults walking around saying, yeah, I'm not praying because God doesn't answer my prayer. And here she is at five, learning a deep truth that she's going to actually take all of her life. She will remember that. I hope so. She will. And it's, you know, and so it says, but that's that along the way. Yeah.

It's parents are the first theologians your kids will ever meet. And the issue is, you know, are they, are they in contact with a good theologian or not, right? And the better theologians we can be, the better biblical reasoners we can be, I mean, our kids are going to really be blessed by that. So what a great answer. You were able to give her. That came off the hip because it's 645. I don't know.

I don't know what to say to you. It was no, Bucco. And I tried to go to sleep. They ask such good questions. They do. They ask a deep theological questions. They do. Our kids always, all three of them ask really good questions.

And our joke around the house is they're actually pretty unimpressed with my answers for most of the time. Super unimpressed. They might think, dad, aren't you a Bible scholar? Aren't you a professor? and I'm like, well, yeah, and they're like, that wasn't good. That's not, the answer's not limited to the hype, you know. That's funny. So I feel like I'm a perpetual disappointment to them in terms of these complex questions.

Wow. Because kids ask tough ones. They do. And it's fascinating, but we are thankful that y'all have created a resource from lived experience for us to just be able to create homes where Jesus is central, you know. And so I just, I don't know, I'm just, I'm thankful. I've been challenged. I've been encouraged.

I've been super challenged by this conversation. just to have. Absolutely. We got to get the book, sit at the table, start going through Mark, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to go through John. Well, I love John, but I don't know how to respect Cosmos and all that. I love John. I love John. I love John. I love John. I don't want to go there. I am statement. Maybe our next one can be on John. I know. No, it should be. Make it, stay with the Synoptic Gossils right now. Well, thank you, Kruger. We love y'all. We love you. We love us. Thanks for having us. Peace. Bye y'all. With the Perrys is produced by the Perrys, with support from Amanda Reed and Channing McBride,

video recording and audio production by Matthew Baxter and Xavier Fairley, edited by the team at Tread Lively, artwork by Hobb. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.