VIEWPOINT with Chuck Crismier
RAISING SPIRITUAL CHAMPIONS
This is viewpoint with attorney and author Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is a one hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now with today's edition of Viewpoint here is Chuck Chris Meyer. I'm going to presume for a moment that you are a parent. That you have one, two, three, maybe more children. I don't know what their ages are, but you have children. They could range anywhere from just neonatal right after birth. They could go all the way up into their teenage years or pay me up into their twenties and thirties and forties, but you have children. And if you have children that are up in there beyond their twenties, it's likely that you may actually have grand children. But are those children grand before God? Yeah, I did mean to ask that question, are those children grand before God? And what would make them grand before God? And how about your children if they're younger? Have you been nurturing and preparing them to be able to stand in the evil day and to be able to stand having their loins gird about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, carrying the sword of the spirit, the shield of faith, having their feet shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace and being able to stand in a world that is becoming so chaotic and so anti-gospel and so anti-God that it's almost as if the culture itself has become the anti-Christ. What are you doing? What have you been doing? How would you characterize your discipleship of your children? Suppose that it's on a continuum of one to ten with one being the least responsive and ten being that you've been a great disciple, spiritual disciple of your children. Where would you rate on that scale your own discipleship? This is a serious question because God's going to check us all off on that scale. He really is because it's going to judge us according to what we've done in this life and our fruit. By your fruit you shall know them, he said. Now that may sound like a rather heavy-handed type of approach to the program as we get started here today, but the reality is that what we're going to be talking about today, how to raise spiritual champions is one of the most serious issues we could ever discuss on this program. It's more important than the economy. It's more important than the presidency. It's more important than the battles in Ukraine. It's more important than any of those other things because it's the one thing that God said that we're to do. Our special guest today, George Barna, joining us, again, has been a few years. George, it's great to have you back on the program. Good to be back with you, Chuck. Well, hopefully we've set the program up straight here for you. I'm looking at your visage here. It's been a while since you and I sat at lunch probably 15 years ago, then, in Ventura. But you used to head up the Barna Research Group, and whatever happened to that? Well, I sold that in 2009. It still exists, but the research that I do, I'm now a professor at Arizona Christian University, and we started the Cultural Research Center there about six years ago. So a lot of the research that I've been doing in recent years particularly related to world view has been done through the Cultural Research Center. So what does the Cultural Research Center do? Well, the primary focus is trying to figure out how the body of Christ can be more effective in bringing about cultural transformation, and we believe that that's not going to happen unless Christians possess a biblical worldview, and then through that worldview, they'll be able to reinterpret the culture and be used by God more efficiently and effectively to be agents of transformation. One of the things that concerns me about the idea of a worldview is that oftentimes when people talk about worldview, they're forgetting about the God view. I'm wondering if maybe we shouldn't be talking more about God view. You know, I'll take any solution we can find at this point, if that works, I'm all for it. Well, brother, you have been in this for a very long period of time, and I have all of your early books, all of them, and have quoted you in so many, many different settings, and I appreciate so much the labors and efforts that you have gone to over the years. You've committed yourself, and you're still committed, and now you've written a book quite different than most of your other books, Raising Spiritual Champions, Nurturing Your Child's Heart, Mind, and Soul. And as I understand, I have read the first half of your book, and it's almost George as if you have been listening to this program, that you read my book, Hearts of the Fathers, giving a legacy that lasts, and that somehow you borrowed all my material. You know, I think I'm going to plead the fifth here, because I know I'm talking to a lawyer, so I'm going to be very cautious when I try to hear. Well good for you. In any event, even if you did borrow, which you probably did not, but even if you did, I would congratulate you, because that would mean we were on the same page, and God was speaking to us from his art, and somehow I think we have not, as professing Christians for the past 40, 50, even 60 years, done very much to please the heart of the Father. What say you? Yeah, you know, I mean, when I wrote that book, it is in some respects like all my other books, which is that it's based on research. So my opinion is nowhere to be found, and there hopefully, you know, everything that I try to write about is based on the research, who cares what my opinion is, but you know, what I'm trying to do is understand what's the condition of our culture and our church and our children, what does the Bible say about what we should be doing in relation to our children and our culture, and what can we do to move forward in a way that's really going to advance the kingdom of God. We've been called to be disciples, and disciples are called to make disciples. Exactly. And when we look at our children, those are the ones that we're supposed to focus on first and foremost. If we can't make disciples in our own household, we're probably not going to make them anywhere else. You got that right, brother, absolutely right, and you've used a number of terms here, just in the last minute or so, that I would like to build on very quickly, one is you use the word transformation, and anybody that's listened to this program very long knows that we have, I hate to use the word critical, but we have indicated that most of Christian so-called discipleship, so-called teaching, has been based upon transfer of information. It's not been based upon transformation, but transfer of information, but information without transformation leads to frustration, stagnation, and even termination. So the question is, how do we bridge the gap from information to transformation, and isn't that really what your book is about for kids? Well, it is, you know, it's essentially a book about discipleship, how do you disciple a person, and then it looks specifically at children in that context, but really what it comes down to is relationship, and what is your commitment, now if your commitment to, if you're committed to Jesus Christ, and therefore you're committed to his word, then your relationship with children matters, because you have the opportunity to influence them, to think like Jesus, so they can act like Jesus. Well, everybody wants to be an influencer these days, but maybe not quite so much along the lines that Jesus had in mind. We'll talk about that more as we talk with George Barra, his book raising spiritual champions fifteen dollars is going to put it in your hands, it's on our website, saveus.org, we'll be back. Once upon a time children could pray and read their Bibles in school, divorces were practically unknown as was child abuse, and our once great America virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Chris Mar and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint where we discuss the most challenging issues, touching our hearts and homes, could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org. Welcome back to Viewpoint, I'm Chuck Chris Mar, it's a conversation with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms friends, and without transformation we leave ourselves with frustration, stagnation, and it's not good for us and it's not good for our kids. The problem is we have not learned how the process of transformation takes place, and it has to do with a word called discipleship. The problem with the word discipleship is that its root is in discipline, discipline and discipleship, they go hand in hand, and we don't like discipline anymore. We have very seldom like discipline in this country for the past fifty, sixty years as revealed in our educational system, as revealed in so many different areas, as revealed even in the teaching of our churches, because we just don't much like God's authority and discipline you see is related to somebody's authority. So discipleship has to do with teaching people to obey everything that God has commanded. The unfortunate thing is that the broader body of Christ and its institutions decided that discipleship doesn't sell, it doesn't market well. Now what does market better is what is called evangelism. Why is that? Well because we could notch our belts, and we can say we'll see we had all these people to come to Christ and look at the great ministry that we're doing and so on, but discipleship you can't do that. There's almost no way to truly accurately measure it, even though we have the ultimate Christian guru for statistics on our program here today, George Barna, and his whole book is about how do we get to the point where we reassess the real meaning of the great commission. discipleship, teaching people to obey everything that God has commanded. George, we've been talking about that for years and years and years on this program. And yet it's as if it goes right over deaf ears because we are so enculturated into a marketing mentality in the church, and discipleship just doesn't market well does it? Well apparently not. I mean one of the things that I've discovered through the research we do every year, we interview the national cross-section of pastors of Christian churches, and one of the questions that we're asking every year for a number of years is do you consider your church to be successful in ministry, and what we found is that way over 80% more than 4 out of 5 senior pastors were saying, "Oh yeah, we're very successful in ministry." Great, okay, so how do you know that? How do you measure that? What they told us was there are five things that most churches in this country measure. This is something that's consistent across the vast majority of our churches, but the five things they measure are how many people show up, how much money the church raises, how many programs are offered, how many staff people have been hired, how much where footage has been built out. And of course, you know, what's funny about that George is that Jesus said, "I'll build my church. You make disciples." We decided to build churches and fail to make disciples. Well, yeah, when pastors criticize me because I bring this up in interviews sometimes and they'll say, "Oh, what's wrong with that?" It's a simple answer. Jesus didn't die for any of those things, and so let's go back to what he came here to accomplish and the command that he gave us, which we call the Great Commission, why don't we start looking at that? You mentioned an interesting thing when you came back after the break, which was that there's no accurate way to measure disciples, and I don't know if I quite agree with that. I mean only that. Well, that's because you're the statistical guru. I knew I was going to make a blasphemous statement to you when I said that. Only one? Only one? Come on now. Come on. Yeah. Well, the way I think about it is, well, as I was preparing to write this book, I read thousands of books on discipleship, trying to understand what's the prevailing mentality about how we go about this in America. One of the things that shocked me was when I looked at how different authors and pastors define disciples, and it shocked me because I didn't find a single book where anybody laid out the six ways that Jesus defined disciples in the scriptures. And so in John 80 says, you'll be my disciple. If you'll be my teachings, John 13, you'll be my disciple. If you love the other disciples, John 15, you'll be my disciples. If you produce a lot of spiritual fruit, Luke 14 said you cannot be my disciple unless you love God far and away above everything else. Well, Luke 14 also said you cannot be my disciple unless you pick up your cross and follow me in that Roman context, meaning unless you submit to the prevailing authority, which of course is God alone. And then finally Luke 14 said, and you cannot be my disciple unless you surrender everything that you have in order to fulfill my agenda. Well, no, wait a minute. We used to sing a song years ago, "All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him in His presence daily of I surrender all." That just doesn't compute these days. Surrender all. No, what I want is the blessings. I want the blessings. I want to be part of a Christian community. But this idea of obeying God and surrendering in that regard, no, that just doesn't work for me. Well, yeah, it doesn't work for most Americans. When I took those six factors that Jesus gave us as how He thought about disciples and looked at our survey data in measuring those things, we wind up with about 3% of adults in America who actually fit the definition of a disciple. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that a mating in a land that claims in God we trust as a motto? Well, I'm worried you've got 66% of adults claiming that they're Christians. It kind of begs the question, okay, if you're not a disciple but you are a Christian, what are you doing? Who is it that you think you are? Well, maybe we ought to go back and reassess. What does it mean to be a Christian? I think one of the problems that we have, excuse me, of being a lawyer, and that was an accurate accusation, but you know, we lawyers are concerned about words. And God, God Himself is a lawyer. In fact, Jesus is a lawyer. He's going to be an, we have an advocate, the father, Jesus is a lawyer, and He's concerned about words. In fact, He is called the living word. And yet, words just don't seem to matter anymore, especially one. And here's the one that doesn't matter, O-B-E-Y. It's deemed to be a four-letter word by most Christians today. And do you know, George, I have had numerous pastors and paratrooch leaders on this program in the last 10 years who have admitted the word obey is the most hated word in the church today. Isn't that the most fundamental word for discipleship? Yeah, I mean, it's certainly one of those. And you know, when we look at our worldview research and where obedience fits into the process, you know, we ask people, "What do you think a successful life is?" And one of the six or seven options that we give them to choose from, they don't even have to come up with this on their own, we give this to them as a possibility. The two out of 10 Americans say that consistent obedience to God constitutes success in life. And then we look at so many other things, you know, what we possess, our reputation, how much influence, you know, all the different things. But, yeah, obedience to God doesn't rank very well. All right. Well, Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll obey me. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. If you don't love me, you won't. If you do love me, I and my father will manifest ourselves to you, John, chapter 14." So it seems pretty clear the beloved disciple in the Epistle of John repeated the same theme. So it seems that somehow we have repositioned, redescribed, reexamined, whatever, reconstituted the gospel. It's not the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's the gospel of American churchy entity. Yeah, and when we look at what's going on with children in churches, it's that same kind of issue because in interviewing the parents who are bringing their children to church, we ask them, "Well, what is it that you think would be a successful experience for your child coming to church?" And the answers that they gave us had nothing to do with discipleship. What I want my child to be safe, I want my child to be happy, that was the biggest one. I want my child to make some good friends. I want my child to have a positive religious experience, but none of it had to do with, "I want this child to be as Christ-like as possible, and I want the church to support me who has that primary biblical responsibility to facilitate that outcome in pursuing that outcome." But that's not what parents are going for. The question is the church gathered, or any church school, an adequate substitute from God's viewpoint for the discipleship to be carried on by parents in the home? Oh gosh, no. I mean, it starts very early in the Bible where the Lord begins telling us about the importance of family, the role of parents, and how it is the parents' role to raise the children to know love and serve God with all our heart, mind, strength, and soul. It's not any other institution's responsibility. That's one of the things that God is going to hold us responsible for. And so when we come before Him in judgment, I fully expect it. That's one of the things He's going to examine me on. Okay, now you're bringing up, now you've gone from preaching to Madeleine George. That's not like you, a statistical guy like you. That's not like you. And that's one of the reasons why I was particularly fascinated by this particular book because you're really, you're going beyond what most pastors and parent church leaders are willing to grapple with and you're saying, look, the bottom line is parents. The bottom line is parents. You can't delegate discipleship to anybody else. It's you and your kids and your grandkids. And you know what, George, I've got to tell you, since our very first child was born 52 years ago in California, by the way, that has been my viewpoint. That has been my outlook and I remember carrying our oldest daughter, Nicole, across the street from our house to the former campus of Nazarene College that became the missionary center there in Pasadena, California. And I would walk with her at night after I got back from law practice and here she was only about a year old. And I would carry her and I would speak the word of God into her life every single night. Every single night. Now, people would say, that's ridiculous. A child like that can't learn anything. Why would you even think, why would you even think about that? You can't even raise a child to the age of accountability, age 12 or 13. Isn't that when we should start discipleship? What say you? Get the gun is what I say. Whoever came up with that philosophy needs to be shot quarters. And why is that? Because a person's worldview, everybody has a worldview, you need one to get through the day. Yeah. And everybody's worldview begins developing at 15 to 18 months a day. Exactly. And is fully formed by the age of 13. And isn't that when they're also, their linguistic ability is developing? Yeah. Of course. And it has to do with words? Analytic reasoning. I mean, there's all kinds of things that come into play. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, if you wait, which the church in America typically does until somebody's a teenager, a college student, maybe a young adult, maybe a parent with children saying, "Okay, now you really need to get serious." Yeah. You've waited until their feet and their minds and hearts are planted in concrete. And now you're expecting to extract them from that and give them a God worldview, which is almost impossible at that time. Yeah. Absolutely true. I often talk about it in terms of concrete, but the worldview that's being poured is concrete by the time they're 13. It's hard. You know, you can still chip away a little bit during the teen years, maybe. But after that, if you want to change the worldview, you've got to get a jackhammer and go through all the trouble of getting rid of the old worldview and then coming and pouring and do what. We don't do that very often. All right. So, here's the question. Here's a question. Let's suppose as many increasingly believe that we're on the near edge of the Second Coming of Christ, and there are going to be consequences that are going to take place because God is going to judge, He's not going to judge just the unbelieving world. He's going to judge the so-called believing world according to whether or not they've done what He asked Him to do and the fruit that is brought forth. So if that be true and we're on the near edge of the Second Coming, it seems to me that makes what we're talking about here of incredible importance beyond almost anything we can even put into words. Think about that. Respond to that after the break. The book friends raising spiritual champions, nurturing your child's art, mind and soul, $18 is going to put this $18 book in your hands. It's on our website, save us. Or call us 1-800-SAVE-USA, write to us at Save America. That is yours. That's $5. Most demanding. We'll be right back. There is so much more about Chuck Chris Meyer and Save America Ministries. On our website, save us dot o-r-g. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on His mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a fact sheet on the state of the Maripal Union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry, marriage and morals, save us dot o-r-g. Marriage, divorce and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at save us dot o-r-g. Also, a letter to pastors, the Hosea Project, save us dot o-r-g. And many more resources to strengthen your marriage. That's all on Chuck's website, save us dot o-r-g. Again, you can listen to Chuck's viewpoint broadcast, live and archive, save America Ministries website at save us dot o-r-g. Today, friends, we're talking about something that is of such critical importance, not just to our country, but to the Kingdom of God and to God's willingness to say upon Christ coming, well done, now good and faithful servant. If we have not discipled our children, I'm not talking about taking them to church. That's not discipling. If we have not discipled our children, as we're going to further discuss in the second half year of the program today, there are going to be severe consequences because God is going to evaluate as a father. You did not do what I asked you to do. You didn't do the most simple thing that I asked you to do. Oh, my friends, I just don't want to be in that position. Never did want to be in that position. My special guest today, George Barnum, had the Barnum Research Group out of Ventura, California for many, many years, and now is a professor down at Arizona Christian University where he also conducts what's that called the Cultural Research Center now? That's what you got. So yes, our culture is at stake, but the reason our culture is at stake is because we haven't done as professing Christians, both for the pulpit and for the pew, what God expected us to do. Would you agree with that? I would, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So all the statistics and all of your studies and so on, all over these past, how many years has it been? 35, 40 years? Yeah, it's over 40, I know that. Yeah, because I remember back I've been doing this program for almost 30 years. We launched Save America Ministries there in Southern California 31 years ago. And one of the things, George, before we ever did that, you're in Ventura, California. It's a beautiful place, a little foggy at times, but it's a beautiful place. And my wife and I purchased two time shares 45 years ago in California. One was in the San Diego area in Delmar and the other was in Ventura, California, both of them on the water. And the reason we did that is because I was a practicing attorney, I had a sole practice that I couldn't afford to be too far from the law office for court appearances if they become necessary. So that gave us an opportunity one week out of the year in the fall and one week out of the year in the late winter to get away with our family. And that's what we did. Well, here's what we did every single year. Yes, in Ventura and yes in Delmar. Right after breakfast, we spent an entire hour. Our family understood this is what we do. We spent an entire hour going through the scriptures, certain aspects. And it was thematic. And what we were focusing on is applying the word of God so that our three daughters then would understand what God's expectations were in their lives, whether it be for the book of Daniel, where Daniel purposed in his heart to obey God to Joseph and so on. That's what we did. Did they always want to do that? No, we did it because that's what God asked us to do. And guess what? All these many years later, they remember those things and the depth of what we trained them with and at least it produced fruit in their lives. We cannot just accept what our kids say they want. God has asked us to do what we are supposed to do and when they don't want to, then we need to say what I've said to many of our grandchildren, then change your want to's. What say you? Yeah. I think you're right. You know, I mean, we know there are no guarantees. You could have gone through all that Bible study and prayer with them and following things for them. Yeah. And they could have still decided to reject it because. Exactly they could have. In fact, we're having the same struggle with with 10 grandchildren to great grandchildren now. And the reason for that is because children in our society are targets. Oh, yeah. Who's targeting them? Well, frankly, yeah, I know some people don't like to hear this, but Satan is. Yeah. It's a war. It's a war. And you're on one of two sides and Satan wants children on his side because he knows if he wins somebody over when they're a child or is over for that person there. You know, they're going to fight for the wrong things, they're going to desire the wrong things. And what's happening in our universities right now, spreading like wildfire from from the east coast to the west coast and now all across the world. Yeah. And so, you know, I really applaud what you did. I mean, the basic rule of thumb here is that if you're going to try to honor Christ through your kids, then you've got to protect them and you've got to prepare them. Protect and prepare. Not just protect. No. We've got to protect and prepare question. Are these children and grandchildren that we have not prepared and discipled? Are they going to be prepared to handle the amazing persecution that's rapidly coming across the Western world? Of course, what basis would they address that? I mean, they're coming into this with such convoluted world views. It's something that, you know, our research is showing that the dominant world view in America today is what we call syncretism, where 92% of adults have adopted syncretism as their dominant world view. Only 4% have adopted biblical theism or the biblical world view as their dominant world view. It's amazing. I mean, it's shocking, but it's absolutely sad and it's the reason why America's falling apart. And then somebody said, well, why is that? I still don't get this because every decision you make, every moment of every day of your life comes from your world view. And when you look at a culture, the culture is nothing more than the outgrowth of the accumulation of the world views of the people who are making decisions within it. And your world view is dependent on your God view. So, you know, it doesn't take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure this out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. It's very simple. You get what you sow what you reap and you sow what you don't reap in terms of weeds. So you don't have to sow weeds. They come automatically and you have to nurture. You have to trim, you have to landscape your family spiritually. You have to prepare. You have to do that with God or Danes for us to do. Now, you talk about a grand calling. Let's run through. There are four elements to that grand calling. They're excellent. They're purposeful and we need to talk about it. Well, very simply, I mean, the first element of our grand calling is the great commission that Jesus gave to us. Which is not about evangelism. It's about discipleship, right? Yeah. Fundamentally. I talk a lot about evangelism without discipleship and spiritual abuse for you to introduce somebody to the idea or maybe even the person of Jesus Christ as a Savior. And let's say the person, "Wow, I like that. That's really good. How do I get that?" Then you abandon them. How good have you done to them? In other words, you get them to quote some minuscule little, mouse a minuscule little prayer. You knock your belt claiming they came to Christ and you left them to be stillborn. Yeah. I mean, we've actually done the more of a disservice and a service and I would contend that that's partly why we've got 66% of adults calling themselves Christians but only 3% who are disciples. They don't know the difference. In fact, what we've got is 34% who theologically defined would be qualified as born-again Christians. And yet even most of those people don't have a biblical worldview. Most of those people don't qualify as the person. And they have not been discipling their children or their grandchildren. And that leads us, the latest statistic that I recall, I think it was from you George, and this was about 10 years ago, is that 80% of professing Christian young people do not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way, the only truth in the only life. In other words, at that point, 10 years ago, only 20% believe that Jesus Christ was the only way, the only truth and the only life. That was of so-called Christian young people. Now what does that say to us? It's a sad situation where we've left our kids to make their own choices without giving them the guidance that we as parents are called scripturally to provide for them in the same way that you insisted that you have the time with your children to walk through information but also experiences and to model for them what the Christian life is all about. Because parents today don't have those kind of relationships, they're not taking that kind of time, they don't accept that responsibility as theirs. In the book I talk about how the dominant approach to parenting in America today is what I labeled outsourcing, which is where what parents do, they love their kids, that's not a doubt, but because they love them and because they love themselves and their own wives and they're very busy. They say, "Look, the best thing I can do for my kids is just hire experts." And so they hire, they hire sports coaches, they hire academic tutors, they bring kids to a church for the religious experts. Dealingated responsibility is avoiding responsibility and our parents are doing that and then we're reaping the benefits. That's been happening for two generations, three generations now. What we're experiencing now is a result of two previous generations and let me share with you something, I don't know if you're aware of this, but on April 5, 1993, right one month before we launched this radio program, Time Magazine came out with what I believe is the most important cover they ever had. On the front cover was a cross in the lower right-hand corner where these words, the generation that forgot God. It wasn't talking about the generation that was going to forget God, it was talking about the generation that already had. If you open the magazine to the major article called the church search after Gulf War I, people were flooding back to church and Time Magazine said this, "Church will never again be the same." Why? Because Americans are looking for a custom made God. And made in their own image. That tells us a lot. In 1993, we'll be right back with George Barna after this raising spiritual champions, friends. You want to do that? This is your book, "Nurturing Your Child's Art Mind and Soul on our website, SaveUs.org. Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for a greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore 1st century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, "I'll build my church." Is Christ by His Spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family and it was said by all who observed, "Behold how they love one another." Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to SaveUs.org and click Sell Church. We can revive 1st century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body, not a building. That's SaveUs.org. What an incredible delight and blessing it is to come before you every single day now for almost 29 years, confronting the deepest issues of America's heart and home from God's eternal perspective. Today, George Barna, who has been a voice to the church through statistics and so on and analysis for 40 years, is joining us with his book Raising Spiritual Champions, How to Durture Our Children's Heart, Mind and Soul. I want to make sure you get a copy of the book, $15.00, we'll put the $18.00 book in your hands on our website, SaveUs.org. You can call us at 1-800-SAVEUSA, that's 1-800-SAVEUSA, or write to us at Save America Ministries, the OBOC 70879, Richmond, Virginia, 23255, adding a ad $5 for postage and handling if you're writing a check. Now, I'm going to make a special offer here today to kind of up the ante with regard to providing materials, particularly for fathers now, for fathers, because we have the ultimate and final responsibility as heads of our home. Two years ago, I wrote a book called Hearts of the Fathers, leaving a legacy that lasts. It's a $22 hardbound book and here's what I'm going to do today. I'm going to make it available to you for $15.00, together with George's brand new book, which is $15.00, that's $30.00 for both of these books. You're only going to pay $7.00 postage and handling instead of $5.00 each, so actually you're going to save like $12.00 or $13.00 by getting the book Hearts of the Fathers. But that book is written specifically for men to help men become the spiritual leaders of their homes. So that's the offer. In order to get that offer, you'll have to give us a call at 1-800-SAVEUSA, 1-800-SAVEUSA, or you're going to have to write to us and tell us exactly what you want because it's not on the web or store that way. I just decided to make that offer here. So Hearts of the Fathers and Raising Spiritual Champions. All right, George, we were talking about the grand calling. It's comprised of four elements. One is the Great Commission, teaching people to obey everything that God has commanded. The second is the Great Commandment. What's that? Well, very simply, when Jesus said, "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul, and love others as yourself," but that's, again, a thing that people give lip service to, but they don't stop and think about, "What does that mean?" In other words, look, if we love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, wouldn't we be doing what he's meant to do? You would think so. Okay, so in other words, we have to start asking some rhetorical questions about the words that we claim to embrace. And that kind of relates to the third element in the floor here, which is the Great Commandment. And what's the Great Commitment then? Well, it's very simply that you're going to give your full cooperation to what God has asked you to do. You're going to have total pursuit of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment because you realize that is loving God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul. That's what he's called us to do. That's why we're here on Earth. And so the only way that we can really accomplish our ultimate purpose is to do what he called us to do and to be who he made us to be. George, we have to sing a song called "Give of Your Best to the Master." Give of your best to the master. Well, the one thing that we consider our best is our time. In other words, if we're going to truly do what God asks us to do with regard to our children, which really he's entrusted to us in loco paretta, so to speak, and the place of him as the Father, he's given us these children to disciple, to nurture, and to prepare the way of the Lord in their lives. So if we're going to do that, it's going to take our time, time together, talking, thinking, thinking, tenderly, touching those kids all in the name of Christ every day, isn't it? It is. And you know Chuck, as I've done the research on discipleship and what doesn't work, one of the things that I've found that is critical in this process is the credit dialogue, not just telling kids, "Here's what you must believe," because then what you're trying to do is give them your faith. You don't want to do that. You want them to have biblical faith. And so being able to ask questions of them about what do you believe? Why do you believe that? What does that look like in your life? What kind of results does that produce? What are some alternatives? Have you thought about what the Bible has to say about this very kind of situation? That kind of a dialogue enables a child to own their own faith. They don't have to own your faith, because they never will. But what you want to do is take your faith, bottle it for them, so that it's attractive enough that they'll want to talk about it, they'll want to consider it, and then have those conversations which take time, which take your own knowledge of the scriptures, which take your own commitment to living those scriptures out so that your children can see this, all of that is critically important, but that's what the discipleship is about. It's a relationship that takes time, it takes trust, it takes your willingness to share and to give yourself to the child. That's your highest calling. And you may not see all the rewards that you would like in this life. Isn't that right? Absolutely true. Isn't that what Jesus did? He discipled. He discipled for three and a half years, and then by the time the existential moment of his life came around, they all left him, but then they came back, 11 of the 12 came back, and then they turned the world upside down because they had been genuinely discipled. And one of the things that so impresses me about what Jesus did is he didn't even have a program. What was he thinking? What was he thinking? What was he thinking? He had the program. He had the program. And he market this, how could he market it without a program? Well, I think that was Judas's role. Oh, but that's where it all fell apart, you see. Hey, you know what? Can I give you a holy hug right now across the airwaves? I am so reveling in this conversation, George, and it's like taking many, many years gone by when we've sojourned here on the air in a different venues. I remember a lunch we shared together 15 years ago, probably there in Ventura, and I've appreciated what you've done. The fourth element of this is the great consignment. What's that about? Well, that's your spiritual legacy. Why do you think you're on the planet? You know, you're only here for God's purposes. And so the legacy that you leave behind is who your children become in Christ and what they're able to do to continue to serve him, to be the church, to build the church, to honor God through every thought, every action in their lives. And that is how you want to look back at your life and say, well, how did I do? It's not about how many cases you want in court. It's not about how many books I've published. No, it's about what did I do with my children, and then, you know, once they were squared away, what was I able to do in the lives of other people to bring them to Christ as well and help them to become genuine followers of his? I've said so many times, George, that in spite of the fact that we left the practice of law at the height of my career to plead the Lord's cause in the land as a voice to the church to clear in vision for the nation, the ultimate ministry has been to my children and grandchildren. That's what my wife and I are concerned about more than anything else. And that doesn't mean we aren't concerned about others. It doesn't mean we're not concerned about those that are listening to this program. They know we are. But if we don't do the most fundamental elementary thing that God asks us to do, we've failed. And unfortunately, you look at American society and you cannot come to any conclusion other than we've got so many people who are failing and don't even realize it. We did the research for the book, we did seven original research projects, we went into it once with parents. And what we found is only two percent of America's parents, of kids under the age of 13 today, have a biblical worldview, you can't give it, you don't have. And so therein lies part of our problem. There are solutions in the book about what you can do about that. It's not a lost cause. But we've got to recognize that the process is broken. Yeah. You've got to start somewhere. Yeah. You know, it's like Julie Andrews said, let's start at the very beginning, the very best place to start. You remember that? Yeah. Whatever profound statement. If you haven't started until now, then get started. And ask the Lord for direction. You have George Barnard's book here, raising spiritual champions. You have my book, Hearts of the Fathers, leaving a legacy that lasts. And there is that word legacy, George, leaving a legacy that lasts. Isn't that what a father wants to do? Absolutely. You think he does? Well, and we've got to remember that we can't be scared off of this response solely by the notion that I don't know enough. I'm not perfect. I don't know how to do it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. You got to start somewhere. Yeah. I mean, none of us know what we're doing. I mean, when you come right down to it, we're just doing the best we can. But it's an issue about what's your priority? Because some people are doing the best they can to building their career. Yeah. Some people are doing the best they can to building a reputation. Some are doing the best they can to building a bank account. What we're called to do is the best we can at raising our children to know, love and serve God with all of our heartmarks, right? Well, we've laid the foundation in our conversation here today. The rest of your book makes applications in many, many different ways to help fold all of this in so that we can grasp it with a whole heart. You know, there's a reason why the last next to last message that God in his mercy gives to the planet is in Malachi where he says, before the great and terrible tale of the Lord, I'm going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, send forth a lodge of the prophet to call the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. And if we fathers can't get it, you know, the mothers are despairing. Did you know, George, that when my book, Hearts of the Fathers came out two thirds of all those books were purchased by women? Why do you think that is? Well, I mean, just based on the research that I've had, I would say is because women tend to take the actual raising of their children more seriously than the fathers do. Isn't that incredible? Isn't that incredible? And just think what God did in challenging Eli the priest, who was a priest of the Lord, when he consigned him and his progeny to destruction because he himself refused to disciple his kids. Wow, wow, this is this is big, big time stuff. You know, it's reminding me of another situation. It wasn't just what we did on vacation. And by the way, my daughter, my oldest daughter who experienced what we did on every vacation asked her mother and I to come along on all their vacations and guess what we do, exactly the same thing with her kids that we did with ours. And then that responsibility when we leave after one week is picked up by the rest of the family, all of whom are now young adults, and they take the leadership to do exactly the same thing every single day after breakfast on vacation. Well, to me, that's encouraging. That's a little bit of fruit. But then again, my wife will tell you that every day when I came home from law practice after dinner, and it was time for bed, I would take our three daughters into one of the rooms, sit on some stairs there, and they would sit on either side of me and around. I would put my arms around them and this happened every single night as they were growing up. Every single night, we would take the word of God. I wasn't reading it to them. I was sharing it with them and the applications of it. And one thing they will never forget is this, because God through Peter said that we should be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud against grace to the humble, therefore humble yourselves before the mighty head of God that he may exhort them in due season casting all your care upon him. But be sober, because your enemy, the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking, who be made of our, they will never forget the roar, ever forget the roar. It's George for joining us here on Viewpoint, such a blessing friend. Raising spiritual champions got to get a copy of the book Friends $15 will help massage it into your life, call us 1-800-SAVE-USA, write to us. If you want the special offer with regard hearts of the fathers and raising spiritual champions, $30 total plus $7 postage and handling, you'll have to call us for that 1-800-SAVE-USA. God bless, be a blessing, become a partner friend, send your gifts by faith to save American ministries, we're in the ultimate mode of testing friends, will we pass the test regarding raising our children. You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Chrismeyer, Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]