Simple Faith with Rusty George

00;00;00;04 - 00;00;29;22
Rusty George
No matter what organization you lead, finances are paramount for your success. And church finances aren't any different. Poorly managed church finances can hurt a pastor's ability to lead church members and reach the local community after all. Very little will wreck the movement of God more than weak financial policies and workflows. Thankfully, it's much easier to make changes now before your church is in the headlines than to try to reestablish those relationships after they've been torpedoed by a costly financial misstep.

00;00;30;09 - 00;00;53;00
Rusty George
And that's where our friends at BELAY can help build a modern church staffing organization with fractional US based accounting and virtual assistant services has helped busy church leaders do just that for more than a decade. To help you figure out where to start, Belay is offering its resource for costly financial mistakes for churches to our listeners for free.

00;00;53;12 - 00;01;17;16
Rusty George
To help you identify the four biggest things we can see wreck churches when it comes to their finances and what you can do to avoid them. Just text Rusty. That's ruc t255. One, two, three. To get back to growing your church with belay.

00;01;17;16 - 00;01;27;20
Narrator
Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

00;01;28;12 - 00;01;54;09
Rusty George
Hey, welcome back to the leading Simple podcast. My name is Rusty George. If you've ever wondered what is the deal with my kids, how come they are so sensitive? Why are they so lacking in motivation? Why do they struggle so much with relationships? Well, it just so happens they are dealing with more anxiety and more mental illness than we have ever experienced in our lifetime.

00;01;55;07 - 00;02;19;00
Rusty George
Justin Knowles is a pastor at deals with student ministry and elementary age ministry and does it at a very large church in Southern California. And he's my guest today to help us understand kids these days at Real Life Church. We're going through a series called Kids These Days. You can check all that out on the app or the website, Real Life Church dot org and through the Real Life Church app.

00;02;19;11 - 00;02;39;10
Rusty George
But we wanted to take a little bit of extra time and dive into this with somebody who's seeing it from the front lines, from his ministry world. So I know you're going to be blessed by what Justin has to say today. Well, we are sponsored today by Belay Solutions. Belay Solutions provides virtual assistance and back into office help.

00;02;39;19 - 00;03;01;14
Rusty George
All kinds of ministry and working solutions, accounting, social media and website services. Make sure you check out Belay Solutions dot com. Thank them for sponsoring leading Simple and check out their sources and solutions that they have for you. It's so, so helpful. Well, I'm anxious for you to hear Justin. He was great and I think you're really going to appreciate what he has to say.

00;03;01;14 - 00;03;17;18
Rusty George
So here you go. My conversation with Justin Knowles. Justin, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. For our listeners and for me as well. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? How did you get to where you are? Yeah, and what was going on in your life?

00;03;17;19 - 00;03;40;00
Justin Knowles
What do I do? Yeah. So Justin Knowles, 36 years old, married for ten years, and we have two little two little boys, five and three, and they keep us busy. And it's a lot of wrestling and random nakedness in our house, so I'm not going to lie to you through them throughout the day. And so it keeps keeps my wife and I going.

00;03;40;08 - 00;04;11;07
Justin Knowles
I've been in youth ministry for the last 15 years, and I just had at a youth pastor at three different churches over that time, one and all, which I know you're familiar with for a long, long time. I was down at Saddleback Church down on their high school team for five years, and then I've been at Sandals, where I serve now as the director of Kids and Youth for the last three and a half years, a year and a half of that has been the kids aspect of it.

00;04;11;07 - 00;04;34;26
Justin Knowles
So I originally got hired to do youth only to oversee our campuses. And then now I added kids onto the plate, which is super fun and been a whole new endeavor for me as a 15 year youth ministry veteran. So that's been super fun. I'm an avid golfer. Love it. It's one of my favorite like times by myself where I get to like, refocus on everything.

00;04;35;19 - 00;04;58;12
Justin Knowles
Avid reader, I'm like a book book or two a month right now is where I'm at, and I have a podcast of my own that's like specializes in youth ministry stuff. So if you're a youth ministry leader or like to dive into the world of youth ministry, I bring a whole bunch of people on like, like this one where we bring a whole bunch of stuff on there.

00;04;58;19 - 00;05;06;16
Justin Knowles
It's called youth ministry hacks, and you can go ahead and check that out if that's something that you're into. So and obviously that's what we're talking about a little bit today.

00;05;06;22 - 00;05;11;17
Rusty George
Yeah, it is. Are you from California originally? Do you grow up out here?

00;05;11;17 - 00;05;31;15
Justin Knowles
Yeah, I grew up in Chino. So Chino, Gina's where I am, born and raised. Still live there now. And it's. It's. I love it. My wife's from there. We actually live in my father in law house as we're saving up to buy our own and so it's like the house that she grew up in. So it's kind of cool to still be in that area.

00;05;32;21 - 00;06;07;22
Justin Knowles
And then, yeah, Sandals is based out of Riverside, so eventually I hope to move a little bit closer out there once we are able to make that happen. Yeah, So born and raised there, grew up playing sports all throughout ministry, wasn't really a part of my agenda as a high schooler, and I got called into ministry at 16, ran from it until about like 18, where I was a senior in high school, and my high school pastor was like, Hey, you know, you're supposed to do this.

00;06;08;07 - 00;06;27;24
Justin Knowles
And I said, Absolutely not. Because at that point I'd been like leading a small group of students, and he's seen me interact and do all the stuff and and he's like, You're supposed to do this? And I said, Absolutely not. That's just not what I want to do at all. And then he just was like, Hey, why don't you just intern me for the fall and tell me that I'm wrong?

00;06;28;27 - 00;06;48;01
Justin Knowles
And he wasn't wrong. And so it kind of launched from that point on. I kind of dabbled in so what, like went to school to like a, like a community college. And then when I finally was able to transfer it to like a four year, ended up going to APA and majoring in youth ministry and kind of haven't looked back since.

00;06;48;14 - 00;07;14;01
Rusty George
We hear a lot of people on this on the show talk about Called By God. I felt like I was called to do ministry, felt like I was called to go on the mission field call to start this nonprofit. How did that call look in your life? Because I get different answers from people of how they feel that or sense that it was nice to have kind of your own Sherpa to come alongside you and speak that in your life as well.

00;07;14;01 - 00;07;15;26
Rusty George
But how did you sense that?

00;07;16;06 - 00;07;36;26
Justin Knowles
Yeah, I mean, what I always tell students and it kind of, you know, it's nice when you whenever you teach something, you can apply it to your own life as well. You know, I think that's the powerful ness of teaching effectively. And I always tell students all the time of God speaks in three major ways. He three speaks through Scripture, through speaks through prayer and street speaks through people.

00;07;37;09 - 00;08;06;10
Justin Knowles
And I feel like those when I look at those three things at that time in my life, like that's just as I was developing, like my own stronger, my own faith out of high school, not my parents faith, not something that they forced me to do. But as I was really looking into my own faith, I just kept on feeling like as I was praying to God to say, like, Oh man, you love all the all your gift things and your skill sets goes into pouring into these students that you've been leading for at that point for six years.

00;08;06;15 - 00;08;30;14
Justin Knowles
Like, I took a small group from second grade all the way to senior year of high school. And wow. And at that time, that's like where, you know, my leadership and the guys that I was serving under, they're like, there's something about you, like this is something you're supposed to do. And then just reading through like scripture and like being convicted by like what a service look like for me, how do I serve God the best?

00;08;30;22 - 00;08;54;08
Justin Knowles
And then allowing all of that into it, into a moment where I remember sitting at, you know, my senior year just graduated houseboats in Lake Mead in Nevada, and three in the morning and looking up at the sky and praying to God. I remember like hearing this voice of like, you know, why are you running from the thing like, from what I'm calling you to do, You know, like, I'm just asking you to be obedient.

00;08;54;17 - 00;09;21;00
Justin Knowles
And so and then, you know, two weeks later, having that conversation with my high school pastor saying, Hey, just intern and see what's up. And then and I'll just I feel like all of it's just been steps of like little obedience. Yeah, that just allows me to kind of it's taken me through the, the process. Wow. And you know, now now 15 years later, still doing it and still loving it and haven't really ventured out of the youth ministry space.

00;09;21;00 - 00;09;33;17
Rusty George
So what what does that look like for you? What would be your next most logical step based on your personality? Is it to be a lead pastor? That seems to be the the journey. A lot of guys take plan a, church, whatever.

00;09;33;17 - 00;09;50;07
Justin Knowles
I don't know. I don't think so. That's I don't that's never been in my head to like won't like doing what you do and looking at my pastor Matt Brown who I serve under now and I got I don't know if I want to do that. You know, maybe maybe it's one of those other things that might have to be called to.

00;09;50;08 - 00;10;11;13
Justin Knowles
But, you know, I, I do have a passion for this, the next generation. And as I've been even delving into like the kids space, like even more so, you know, because when they first told me, they asked me or they asked me if I'd be willing to take on the kids ministry here because it like this is not just like kids, This is like kids and youth ministry across 14 locations.

00;10;11;13 - 00;10;28;06
Justin Knowles
So, like, it's it's a it's a it's a quite an undertaking. And I said no at first. And then they're like, well, why don't you pray about it? Henry and I went home and I was telling my wife about like, okay, like, what is this look like? I don't know. I've never done kids ministry. How does this look?

00;10;28;22 - 00;10;47;17
Justin Knowles
And she just, you know, as you might experience sometimes your spouse, you're live in Holy Spirit, where the spirit speaks through her, through through her to me. And she goes like, Well, wouldn't you want to be a part of building something for like our kids to be a part of, you know, like you would be able to, like, speak into what our kids get to experience and how they're disciple.

00;10;47;17 - 00;11;11;03
Justin Knowles
Then I'm like, Yeah, all right, Yeah. And so, yeah, I kind of took that on and, and it's kind of re re engaged this new passion for like, not only just like Gen Z now, which would be our teenagers, you know, but you have Gen Alpha which is like the next coming up into, into the ranks of our society, which hasn't done a lot of studying because they're just too young.

00;11;11;06 - 00;11;19;11
Justin Knowles
Right? And so we kind of really don't know exactly what what that's going to be like or what that it's going to look like. You know, So it's been it's been fun.

00;11;19;14 - 00;11;45;26
Rusty George
Wonder if at some point we start defining generations based upon how they connected to COVID. You know, is there is there going to be the COVID generation, the post post-COVID? Because it has such a huge impact on on students and kids. But I remember when, you know, when 911 happened for for many people, that was the very first war or act of war they'd ever seen or experienced that defined us, changed us.

00;11;46;13 - 00;11;53;16
Rusty George
And so everything was defined as post-9-11. I wonder how much COVID is going to play into that. Obviously, we'll still be talking about it years later.

00;11;53;18 - 00;12;22;12
Justin Knowles
I think we're going to see very soon as Gen Alpha is being developed, you know, missing a lot of the years of schools, at least out here in California, because we were it was crazy out here for a long time. And yeah, I think we'll I think we'll definitely like if as we've opened up kids ministry and I don't know if you've seen this in youth ministry back up like post COVID, like there was there's some pretty immediate effects and I'm I'm curious to see what the long term effects are going to be when it comes to that.

00;12;23;04 - 00;12;48;06
Rusty George
We had a therapist come in and talk to our our parents and he speculated that it won't be long before social skills is to our kids what Home EC was for some of us. So we were in school because they just lost so much during COVID and being stuck in a room or on a Zoom call, or losing that interaction of just learning how to talk to people is kind of a lost art right now.

00;12;48;06 - 00;13;06;27
Justin Knowles
Mm hmm. Yeah. I feel like everybody kind of went down like two grades in, like, and then like, how to interact with people. It's pretty crazy. Like, our our sixth graders feel like fourth graders. They look like fourth graders, you know, even have how they interact. It's it's pretty wild.

00;13;07;05 - 00;13;26;29
Rusty George
That's a great point. Okay. I want to get to our questions. We're going to talk about kids even more. But okay, anytime somebody says I'm an avid reader, my antenna kind of chimes in on that because I love to read as well. What what do you read? What? Give me a couple of titles that you thought, man, that's a great book.

00;13;26;29 - 00;13;34;10
Rusty George
I mean, I'm assuming a lot of nonfiction, but maybe you're really into Danielle Steel. I don't know. Yeah. So what's what's your vibe?

00;13;34;10 - 00;14;07;27
Justin Knowles
Yeah. So I mean, I did I did just finished all of the Chronicles of Narnia stuff. That was super fun. Okay. It's been a while since I've read through any of those. Like, I like that kind of stuff, but it's not like my forte. I like, for example, one of the books that I just finished actually had to read it twice is the ruthless Elimination of Harry, John, Mark, Homer, and I feel like I had to read it twice because I rushed through it and then I was like, No, I need to like really take it on and be challenged by it because I was super convicted, by the way, how he was talking about,

00;14;07;27 - 00;14;33;20
Justin Knowles
like, what does Harry look like and what to do. Another book that I, I just finished was Saving the Saved, I think is what it's called by law. It's. Yeah. Gosh, what's his name. I can't I can't remember Crawford Lawrence. Yeah, that Ryan Lawrence. I think it's Brian. Okay. I'm going to I'm not to look it up now just because I'm curious to see which one it was.

00;14;33;26 - 00;15;00;05
Justin Knowles
Yeah. Save the Say by Brian Lawrence. And that was really interesting because it had to do with like church people. Mm. So it's not just, it's not, it's not saving the like the unsaved, it's saving the people who say that they're saved. Right. And what does that mean. And so I thought it was like super interesting and then I, you know, I lead a team of kids and youth pastors and the team that I work with on our central team.

00;15;00;05 - 00;15;11;28
Justin Knowles
And so I just finished High Impact Teams by Lance Witt. And so was walking through different like dynamics of how do we lead effectively. And yeah, so those are like the last three.

00;15;12;27 - 00;15;21;29
Rusty George
Lance is a, is a guest or has been a guest on the podcast a friend of the show. Did you work with him at Saddleback?

00;15;21;29 - 00;15;28;04
Justin Knowles
No, we, we we like he left and then I must have I came in right underneath right after he left.

00;15;28;16 - 00;15;41;18
Rusty George
Okay. So before we get done, I'll give you time to think about this while we're talking. I need a really good a Rick Warren story. Everybody that works at Saddleback has got a this was amazing. This was hilarious. Whatever it was so anyway.

00;15;41;18 - 00;15;42;25
Justin Knowles
I got a few already, so.

00;15;42;25 - 00;15;59;11
Rusty George
Yeah. Okay, we'll get to those. I let our listeners be teased for that one. Okay. Let's talk about kids these days. Yeah, we've already hinted this a little bit. It's just, you know, the post pandemic dropping down to grades. But there's so much more than just that. There's the mental health issues, which some of that comes from post from post COVID.

00;15;59;21 - 00;16;13;11
Rusty George
But a lot of it's technology, all those kind of things. And then, of course, the gender questions, which are becoming a rampant discussion. So what are you seeing? What do they experience being that many of us parents are kind of missing?

00;16;13;23 - 00;16;22;02
Justin Knowles
Yeah, I got a couple stats for you, Rusty. This comes from the Springfield, I think it's called Spring Hill Research.

00;16;22;05 - 00;16;22;16
Rusty George
Okay.

00;16;22;24 - 00;16;42;02
Justin Knowles
No spring tide research dot org. If you want to, like, look it up or put it in the show notes Spring Tide research dot org. They did a whole study on this generation of students coming out. And there's a couple of things. I just shared this with our teams that were that really stuck out to me. So if I could just rattle off maybe a couple of things that I was like, Oh, this is something to take note of.

00;16;42;04 - 00;17;06;21
Justin Knowles
Yeah. So the first one is this. This one was like, Wow, if we as a Sandals Church youth ministry could focus on this, this stat could be eradicated from at least within our ministry. And it said almost one in five students right now, Kids report that they're not flourishing in relationships with friends and family. So that's one in five.

00;17;07;01 - 00;17;29;26
Justin Knowles
And the second one is almost one in five report that they do not have someone in their life who really cares about them. Hmm. I want to say that one again, because that's the one that really sticks out to me, is that out of all the studies that they've done, it's almost one in five students. Kids report that they do not have someone in their life who really cares about them.

00;17;29;26 - 00;17;53;20
Justin Knowles
And so like that. That to me is one of the most saddest stats that I think I've read in a long, long time. To think that one out of every five people in your ministry, at your church, wow, how can you not point out one adult who genuinely cares about them? And there's a little little note on this little thing that says many young people who identify as religious are not members of any religious communities.

00;17;53;27 - 00;18;24;03
Justin Knowles
And a fifth of the young people say that they aren't flourishing in their closest relationships. But these types of relationships are the first place that they think of when it turns. And in times of need, meaning 20% of young people don't necessarily have that help when facing life's biggest questions. And so, you know, when I look at that stat and I look at like what we do and what parents, you know, just kind of even being there, the person like, are you a person that a teenager could go to or a kid could go to?

00;18;24;03 - 00;18;37;08
Justin Knowles
Like, do they feel like you might know that you love them, but like, do they do they know that you love them? Is the question that I feel like, you know, it seems easy, but it's also really, really easy to miss also.

00;18;37;25 - 00;19;05;26
Rusty George
Isn't that fascinating that they say they're not religious? Everybody says they're spiritual right now. They say they would listen to somebody who had some kind of spiritual standing and yet they have no relationship. So it's kind of like this this thing their parents keep telling them, which is I'm spiritual, but I don't need church, is now working against them because they don't have that community.

00;19;05;26 - 00;19;16;16
Rusty George
That's the one thing that we know for sure about church is we're supposed to be together. So it's fascinating to see how those stats play out and heartbreaking as well.

00;19;16;27 - 00;19;37;14
Justin Knowles
Yeah, and that's something that I was telling our teams is like, man, if we as youth pastors, as small group leaders, if we could be that one person that students could point to because we know that they genuinely care about a site that changes the game we could eradicate that sat in our ministry ourselves if that's like our focus.

00;19;37;14 - 00;20;04;05
Justin Knowles
And so this year, like we had a huge small group focus of, you know, how do we get small group leaders to challenge out, to hang outside of Wednesday nights, you know, for with their students, not just that they come here, but how do we go to them and make it like a we call that like our group challenge where we basically wrapped up, we had all these different things that small groups could do and we created points to go along with it, and groups throughout the semester could rack up points.

00;20;04;05 - 00;20;22;28
Justin Knowles
So with how many times they've hung out outside of Windsor Knights and the group with the most points gets like a really big prize at the end of the year. And it's a it was a great thing. And the stories that we've seen out of that of like the connections that have been made, you know, I think for those leaders that took really that on, they could they could not worry about that stat because those kids would know.

00;20;23;15 - 00;20;47;17
Justin Knowles
While my small group leader, they generally care for me because it's not just come here, it's their come to me. They go out to where I'm at, they go to my games, they go to my stuff. And so it's just like stuff like that. When I when I think through the stats and from a ministry perspective, you know, there's that I think from a parent perspective, you know, do you your your kids my you do you do they know that you actually like care for them?

00;20;47;27 - 00;21;10;23
Justin Knowles
You might take care of them. But like I think as they get older, having the conversations and reminding them and having like, hey, do you know that I care for you, you developing whatever those relationships look like is vital. We just I think a lot of times we assume I assume in my kids six, my oldest is six and he's there's been moments where he goes like, do you love me?

00;21;12;00 - 00;21;24;04
Justin Knowles
Wow. You know, And he has a six year old. Yeah. And I'm like, Yeah, of course. Like, of course, buddy. Of course I do. But like, in my head, I just go like, wow. I just. I need to constantly remind him that, like, I care for you.

00;21;24;13 - 00;21;26;15
Rusty George
Does he then look at you and say, Feed my sheep?

00;21;26;17 - 00;21;33;06
Justin Knowles
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, just watch. Sorry. Bring me snacks. That's that's why, that's why he says no humor.

00;21;33;06 - 00;21;36;28
Rusty George
Like Bible humor. Yeah. So that's really, really good.

00;21;36;28 - 00;21;57;15
Justin Knowles
So that's like once that another one that I thought like this has to do with like leaders and parents that really stuck out to me that I think we miss is this idea of the question was that they asked these young people what our young people looking for when trusted friends, mentors, guides, parents, relatives reach out and support, right?

00;21;57;22 - 00;22;27;14
Justin Knowles
So when we like if we were to reach out, like what were the most useful or important things that someone did to help during a challenging time? And the number one answer, 51% of these kids that responded said they just let me talk. Hmm. That was the number one answer, which I translate as adults, you need to listen more than what you do to give, because what we've also noticed is this generation doesn't want answers.

00;22;28;17 - 00;22;54;06
Justin Knowles
They want to come up with their own answers. They are publishers. They want to they want to come to it on their own. And what we as adults miss is we we tend to like teach them or teach down to like teach at them. In reality, what the stats are showing is that the biggest thing, the biggest help for anything is just to let them talk and to air it out themselves without interruption.

00;22;54;29 - 00;23;13;20
Justin Knowles
Wow. So that way they feel like they're being heard. And I feel like that's something that we miss a lot, especially in the, you know, if you're leading a small group or as a parent like I do, we allow spaces for students and kids just to be open and to talk and let it let them kind of air it out.

00;23;13;20 - 00;23;35;06
Justin Knowles
Because what happens is that they are they're kind of like developing their answer as they go. And we're here to like what we always tell our small group leaders is you're a facilitator, not a teacher. Yeah. And so like, how do we how do we facilitate and kind of create the guardrails as they kind of navigate their problems to kind of it's like bumper cars, you know, we want them to we want them to feel the bumps.

00;23;35;18 - 00;23;49;23
Justin Knowles
And I feel like what parents naturally do great. What I want to do with my kids. I want to protect them at all costs. Yeah, I don't want any bumps. I don't want any bruises. But that's actually sometimes the best thing for them. And we could be like the guardrails to make sure that they're not running themselves off the road.

00;23;50;01 - 00;23;50;15
Justin Knowles
Mm hmm.

00;23;51;16 - 00;23;56;24
Rusty George
That's really great. And what's encouraging about this is it's. It's doable.

00;23;56;29 - 00;23;57;11
Justin Knowles
Yeah.

00;23;57;11 - 00;23;59;15
Rusty George
Like, our kids need adults, and they just. They need to listen.

00;23;59;15 - 00;24;20;06
Justin Knowles
Yeah. And that's. That's the thing is I found the stat it said it said 58% of all these students, young people, ages 13 to 25, said, I do not like to be told the answers about faith or in religion. I'd rather discover them on my own, and that 54% of religious communities try to fix my problem instead of just being there for me.

00;24;21;01 - 00;24;39;11
Justin Knowles
That was those were the two stats that again, that stood out to me in regards to that. This is what this generation is saying, is we get into fix it mode. I'm a husband. When my wife's hurting, I want to fix things. And that's not necessarily what she wants. She just wants me to listen. Half the time, you know?

00;24;39;11 - 00;25;00;19
Justin Knowles
And I feel like that's kind of what we do in the church mode is that we want to go in and fix it rather than hear hear their grievances, problems airing it out, which is why I feel that they move to like TikTok or Instagram to air their grievances over things, rather than having trusted communities of people to come sit in and listen to them.

00;25;01;27 - 00;25;12;03
Justin Knowles
And so, yeah, it's it's super interesting when you kind of like when you navigate through, when you hear this is what they're saying and how they're like processing through some of those things.

00;25;13;04 - 00;25;33;23
Rusty George
That's great stuff. Even if we talked about nothing else, I feel like that is gold right there. Okay. I do want to ask you about this. This is a question I get a lot parents are come up to me because I have I have a 20 year old and an 18 year old. So I've navigated some of these things and they assume since I'm a pastor, then I have the right answers.

00;25;35;04 - 00;25;50;28
Rusty George
I let them know this is a lab. We're all figuring this out as we go. But they ask questions like, okay, when should I get my my child an iPhone or a phone? Because I, I want them to feel like they can call me, text me, let me know where they are when they need me to pick them up, those kind of things.

00;25;50;28 - 00;26;08;14
Rusty George
So it's a little bit more of it's to my benefit than it is for theirs. But also, you know, when do I let my kids get on social media and what, you know, what apps are, okay, and those kind of things. So that's the parent that's really dialed in some they're just kind of doing whatever, but what would you say?

00;26;08;14 - 00;26;09;22
Rusty George
How do you answer those questions?

00;26;10;01 - 00;26;27;28
Justin Knowles
Yeah, I think my my first response that comes into my head is, you know, blankets are great for cuddling and not for statements in the sense of like to give like a general a general overview I think is, is like I can't say like 12 years old or 15 years old or 16 because they're some really mature 12 year olds.

00;26;28;04 - 00;26;45;14
Justin Knowles
Yeah. Who could probably have the responsibility and be able to be trusted. And there's some 17 year olds that I definitely would not to be able to navigate it. And, you know, I think truth is, you know, I think this is the theme as as my hope is that you hear from my family perspective, it all comes down.

00;26;45;17 - 00;27;06;27
Justin Knowles
It's down to a different for every kid in every family. And it's it's having the conversations with your kids about why you do and what you do and how you do it, depending on, you know, I think, you know, if I look it at like a married couple, husband, wife and like, have you had a conversation about what do you want first?

00;27;06;27 - 00;27;25;27
Justin Knowles
Hmm. Navigate and set the guidelines, communicate those guidelines and then execute those guidelines. You know, if you're a single parent, I feel that the same thing, like you have to at least have to have some sort of structure, because when you look at like a teenager, their life is all chaos. And so whether they fight it or not, structure is really helpful.

00;27;25;27 - 00;27;48;03
Justin Knowles
And so I think having the conversation is the first step of determining whether or not your kid is ready for a phone or whatever apps that they're doing. You know, because for me, like I look at my again, I look at my my six year old and my three year old, they know how to navigate an iPad. They know how to navigate the Roku on our TV.

00;27;48;14 - 00;28;05;15
Justin Knowles
They know how to navigate YouTube. And that's scary because I've I've like without me, they know how to download apps. You know, that are free. And for whatever reason, we were still logged in and they were like looking at, you know, watching YouTube stuff that I was had no idea that they were watching. And I'm like, What are you what is happening?

00;28;05;15 - 00;28;25;14
Justin Knowles
And it was not an appropriate thing for a six year old, right? So they they could already do that. They've figured out how to do that at six. You know, I know that when I give my kids their first phone, they're going to get the first phone that I got, which is a Nokia brick. Like, that's all they're going to get, you know, And so but.

00;28;25;21 - 00;28;26;29
Rusty George
The antenna you pull up.

00;28;27;00 - 00;28;49;02
Justin Knowles
With the antenna with the snake. With snake, that's all I remember from that first one. But like, you know, I think when it comes down to that, to like, okay, what age? When do I give? What apps do we have? I feel like it starts with a conversation with with your spouse. Or if you're a single parent with like you just writing it out like your values and then communicating those with your kids.

00;28;49;02 - 00;29;06;06
Justin Knowles
Because I think that's the other part of it is, you know, I think like, you know what, my friend, all my other 12 year old friends have iPhones and I'm like, that's that's great for them. You know, their parents are irresponsible. I don't know. I don't know if that's what they do. But like, for me, it's I'm not your friend, you know, I'm your parent.

00;29;06;07 - 00;29;28;05
Justin Knowles
I'm going to try to make sure that we're walking you through that. And I think a lot of parents, they fall into the idea of like, why just they're going to give in to the peer pressure of their kids or their friends, parents or anything like that, rather than knowing what their values are and sticking to those because you're not your kid's friend, you're their parent and you're going to do whatever you need to do for your family and whatever thing that you value.

00;29;28;06 - 00;29;45;04
Justin Knowles
So all that to say is have a conversation, Write out your values, figure out what you feel like is you might have a really mature kid. They might be able to have a little bit more freedom on some of those things, you know? And so that's really good. That's that's where I would start with that answer. It's not an answer, but that's my answer.

00;29;45;18 - 00;30;13;11
Rusty George
Well, that's that's a great answer because there's nothing like getting into a heated conversation with your child. And you, you know, you're you're laying down the law and your spouse says, no, I don't agree with that, that that's a fun place to be in. And I've been there. Okay. So help our parents out. What are some ways that they can you know, they can monitor their kids activity without, you know, swing into one of two extremes the over bearing or the out to lunch.

00;30;13;19 - 00;30;13;27
Justin Knowles
Yeah.

00;30;14;07 - 00;30;17;13
Rusty George
You know, how do you how do we kind of stay engaged?

00;30;17;20 - 00;30;27;22
Justin Knowles
Yeah, well, I mean, if you don't give your kids a smartphone, that kind of that kills that right away. Right. You don't have to worry about you don't have to worry about that. Because in my personal opinion, I think you should wait as long as you can.

00;30;28;07 - 00;30;28;16
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;30;28;29 - 00;30;50;24
Justin Knowles
To give a teenager access to social media and all that kind of stuff with what we see with stats and stuff like what it does to you mentally, comparison mental health, all the stuff, addiction, screen time, all that stuff is just it's real. And I think the like the most if the best we could do is push it off as long as we can, as long as you're willing to.

00;30;50;24 - 00;31;12;29
Justin Knowles
But there's some like honestly, there's some great apps out there that allow for parents to at least, again, start the conversation, write out what you want, like what are the guidelines? Because a lot of these things, they're all they all pretty much do the similar things, but you could allow more access as they like. Trust is earned. And so you could start very like little with your your kid.

00;31;13;10 - 00;31;31;15
Justin Knowles
And as they are becoming like not complaining, not trying to go around stuff, they're sticking to what they're doing, they're doing all their homework, whatever they need to do that you could actually give them more access to more screen time. I there's like stuff like that. You could actually, you know, you could do I mean, to name a few.

00;31;31;15 - 00;32;01;14
Justin Knowles
I wrote a couple of them down as well because these are the ones that I've suggested and they're all they all go for like different ages. So like there's screen this actual app called Stream Screen Time Unglued, Bach Canopy and Net Nanny. Like all of those apps are like subscription based. You have to pay for them, put them on your devices and basically all of them have like allows you to like tracks, location, set Wi-Fi timers turn off the ability to access Wi-Fi or apps at certain times of the day.

00;32;01;24 - 00;32;22;01
Justin Knowles
So like nothing at night, nothing during school, you know, not until homework's done like and you can actually go on your phone and turn it on and track. You know, you can look at messages, activity, like all that kind of stuff, depending on what you're wanting to dive into, you know, And I think that's again, that's a conversation of like, well, you're getting into all my stuff, you know, like, why are you reading my messages?

00;32;22;10 - 00;32;42;16
Justin Knowles
I think part of it is like, no, I it's not that I'm going to go in every day, but I have the ability to. Yeah, you know, I think that's again, that's a conversation that parents and students need to have with each other so that there's a guideline and structure set you know, to because to give a student full access free freely is so scary to me.

00;32;42;25 - 00;33;05;04
Justin Knowles
Mm hmm. With, with what they got. And so I think working and building and earning trust, one that's just a good life skill just to have in general, but then to, like it just creates conversations between parents and students and their students that I think a lot of in general, a lot of people don't do. And I think that I think that's like the number one step.

00;33;05;04 - 00;33;23;25
Justin Knowles
Again, I keep coming back to it is like having the conversation, setting the guidelines and values and boundaries and explaining the why, not the because this is just what we're doing, but it's helping your teenager redirect kind of where their focus is and helping them understand why you value what you value.

00;33;24;29 - 00;33;44;25
Rusty George
That's really good. I, I hear a lot of parents say, you know, in the heat of the moment when their kids are arguing about screen time or social media apps or whatever, they pull out that well, when you start paying for your phone, then you can make those choices. Well, that is what I've discovered, is every time I did that, it fell upon deaf ears.

00;33;44;25 - 00;34;00;25
Rusty George
But when I wrote out a like you said, you write it down. And my wife and I talked about this, we came up with like a contract for one of our daughters who needed this more than the other one. The other one didn't care, but the other one was always kind of pushing, We're going to get this. We're going to get that.

00;34;00;25 - 00;34;26;27
Rusty George
I said, okay, well, at age 16, here's what we're going to pay for and provide and here's what you're expected to do. And here's the, you know, the the perks of that age. And then as different things happen with every year, they get a little bit more whatever. But like you said, it's not always just about age, but it at least allowed the conversation to happen when everybody was calm and and specify, I pay for this, you know, we're paying for your insurance, you're paying for your gas.

00;34;26;27 - 00;34;38;18
Rusty George
You know, I pay for the phone. But that allows me, you know, to monitor your screen time and to shut it off at certain times or, you know, just. Yeah, it it, it it allows the dialog to happen, I guess.

00;34;38;26 - 00;34;56;14
Justin Knowles
Yeah. And I think like, as they get older, I think obviously if you're I mean I don't know why you would, but if you're giving a sixth grader an iPhone then the monitoring should be which there are, there's like fourth graders that I see this last weekend. They have like full on. Sure. iPhones and stuff, which is just crazy to me.

00;34;57;03 - 00;35;17;03
Justin Knowles
But, you know, they I would say that you have every right to go through and monitor anything that you feel like you would want to do. And then as they get older and again, like I said, earn it and like I like how you laid it out and say, this is what you get when this happens. It kind of creates some of that structure that is really nice and helpful for parents and students to talk.

00;35;17;16 - 00;35;23;21
Justin Knowles
Again, it goes back to conversation like, can can we all be on the same page and be understanding of what this looks like? Yeah.

00;35;24;00 - 00;35;47;27
Rusty George
And they just keep coming back to it. This is what we talked about as we talked about, okay, let's talk about dating. The days of dating when I was their age is certainly different. The days of dating when they were when you were their age certainly are different. What does it look like? There's so much social media texting, you know, video chats, but is it just hanging out and hooking up?

00;35;47;27 - 00;35;53;15
Rusty George
Those are the two phrases I hear about all the time. Is it just kind of a tinder world out there for kids or what's happening?

00;35;54;10 - 00;36;28;10
Justin Knowles
Yeah, I, I in all honesty, I don't feel like dating in itself of hanging out and hooking up has changed for ever. I think the mediums in which they operate probably have different, you know. Okay. And so when when I'm looking at like I mean I'll use a real life example of we had to like find and crack down and crack crack it of, you know, airdrop people posting or like airdropping at a summer camp, really inappropriate things to anyone who's available in that general area.

00;36;28;10 - 00;36;54;04
Justin Knowles
Right. Like that's something I've never had to deal with, you know, ten years ago, navigating through like, you know, Snapchat and DMS and video and all the new stuff that comes out. Like, I feel like the initial dating scene is there, but like this, the access and availability and perceived and not a, uh, anonymous guideline which I say perceived anonymous anonymous anonymity.

00;36;54;11 - 00;37;15;03
Justin Knowles
There you go. That word. Yeah. Like that's like the because we all know, like, you know, one screenshot of something could ruin a kid's like life and, and let it go. And so I feel like I've seen a lot more of that kind of stuff. I feel like when it comes to like, the dating scene, I mean, again, I don't feel like it's it's different.

00;37;15;03 - 00;37;38;21
Justin Knowles
There are kids hanging out. There's kids that are hooking up. There's kids that are are doing everything in between. But like the medium, like digital stuff, like that's all new. Like, that's that, that's the new space. That's like, wow, okay, we haven't really thought through that until, like, it popped up, like it happened at summer camp and we're like, Oh, shoot, okay, how do we even find this person who sent out this thing?

00;37;38;21 - 00;37;50;20
Justin Knowles
Yeah, you know, inappropriate. It wasn't like of themselves or another person, but it was like, Wow, this is really, really bad. And we need to figure this out because it's not. I'll be called into the office when I get back, you know what I mean? Like that kind.

00;37;50;20 - 00;37;51;18
Rusty George
Of. Exactly, Yeah.

00;37;52;01 - 00;38;07;28
Justin Knowles
That kind of deal. So I feel like for me, you know, I don't know if I have much more to say on that, cause don't feel like it's been different. I feel like teenagers are teenagers. We need to talk about it. We need we're going to address it from a church perspective. Whether or not their parents do you know.

00;38;07;28 - 00;38;36;15
Justin Knowles
And what we could do as a church is to, like, set up parents while to have conversations. Because even if even if the conversations are not happening at we we decided as a church, we're going to talk about it. So what parents, if you're ready or not to talk about it, we're we're going to give you an option to set you up Well, or if you feel like they're not ready to talk about it, you have an option to keep your kid home for this series because we this is what we're going to lay out.

00;38;36;15 - 00;38;54;27
Justin Knowles
And that's like, you know, when we talk about like, I think the the when we get into like the gender identity, stuff like that, I could explain to like what kind of stuff we did in order to prop some of those conversations that I think is really helpful and good. And I feel like the same with dating. Like we have to talk about it.

00;38;54;27 - 00;39;13;29
Justin Knowles
You have to address it, you have to set your boundaries and what you're like hoping for and then actually keep them accountable to those boundaries that you set. But again, again, that's one of those things where I don't feel like it's a blanket statement of here's what, here's what dating looks like and here's what it doesn't. I think it's based off of, you know, your kid, you know how they are.

00;39;14;26 - 00;39;23;05
Justin Knowles
Talk with them. Talk with your spouse, set the guidelines, set the boundaries, and then lay them out there to say like, I wasn't allowed to date Tyler 16, right?

00;39;23;05 - 00;39;23;20
Rusty George
Me either.

00;39;23;20 - 00;39;34;11
Justin Knowles
I don't know if that I don't know. I don't know if that was random for my parents because that's what they thought or whatever, you know. But I never remember having a conversation about it, about why I just like, No, you can't.

00;39;34;11 - 00;39;46;14
Rusty George
I had a date lined up on my 16th birthday when it was legal, and the beauty of it was that she had another date lined up after me. Yeah. So I got to drive to her next date, so that was fun.

00;39;46;14 - 00;39;52;12
Justin Knowles
Yeah, that's not that's not intimidating at all. And the fact that you knew that, that's like. That's even weirder.

00;39;52;26 - 00;40;10;03
Rusty George
Yeah, that was, well, it was kind of sprung on me towards the end of the date. Apparently the didn't go well. The showing of the Michael J. Fox movie didn't go all that well. So. Yeah, well, okay, so kids delaying adulthood. We were hearing about that before the pandemic and then that just kind of even took it a little bit further.

00;40;10;13 - 00;40;27;05
Rusty George
You know, we got a lot of parents with kids living in their home that there's kind of that weird balance of, well, I'm glad your I know where you are. I'm glad you're here with us. I'm glad you're safe. But I also don't want to enable you to never launch. What do you say to parents that are kind of dealing with kids that are kind of stuck?

00;40;28;05 - 00;40;46;28
Justin Knowles
Yeah, that's like that's a great question because I, I when I look at my kids, you know, it's hard to fathom as such a young age that eventually that they're going to like, leave. Right. And not be dependent on me anymore. But like I have always imagined, the question of like is like why can't you know, I can't wait to get out of this house.

00;40;46;28 - 00;41;07;06
Justin Knowles
I know it's coming, right? Yeah, I can't wait to, like, get out of this house. And I'm going to be like, Yeah, me too. Like, I can't, I can't. I can't wait either. Like, you should be on your own. I think we should, as parents, be able to, like, send out our kids. Yeah. And that said, I love what you know, a couple of weeks ago our pastor talked about we had a whole thing about parenting and kids, the whole sermon through Ephesians.

00;41;07;16 - 00;41;45;14
Justin Knowles
And so we're talking about, you know, parenting, you know, kids honor your parents and he said something that I thought was really, really good in this area in the sense of like the teenage years as they are getting older and getting into that spot. He says it's about redirecting big feelings to things that are true. And so because like that age is so emotional and and it's based off of feelings and so all of teenage years is is helping like teenagers point back to what is what we know is to be true good and right and then the 18 plus years as the brain is still developing because it's not fully developed till 26 is

00;41;45;14 - 00;42;01;18
Justin Knowles
that it's celebrating when your adult kids do make good right and true decisions. And so it's it's like that kind of age of and I love what he said. He says, I will I will help you live. But I will not finance sin.

00;42;02;21 - 00;42;03;09
Rusty George
That's good.

00;42;03;21 - 00;42;22;27
Justin Knowles
And so and so. And I love that idea of it because, again, they're still developing and we're what we want to do is right. We want to reinforce all the good right and true and we'll reward that. And then but if if you're living in my house and this is what you're doing, I need you to fly and go away eventually, which is what we want.

00;42;22;27 - 00;42;37;13
Justin Knowles
Like, I'm not going to do this, like, I'm not going to like if you're choosing to do this and I'm saying that you need to do this while we're doing this, or you're going to have to you're going to figure it out on your own or do whatever if you're going to live here, what does that look like?

00;42;37;13 - 00;43;03;01
Justin Knowles
And so, again, it goes back to the what are your boundaries? What are your values and what are you and what are you communicating out, you know, to to your adult kid as you're trying to to navigate? Because I think that's a get a good timeline. Like, I know for me if I wanted to live at my parents did this well, if I wanted to live at the and not pay rent, I had to be in full time school and have a job.

00;43;03;18 - 00;43;26;23
Justin Knowles
Those are like the main the main two things that were a requirement for me to live in my house with nothing. And so so that and I think it's the same thing with any adult who or any parent who has adult kids is the same thing. It's if you celebrate when they choose the right things and you set your your firm foundation of like, I'm not going to finance sin.

00;43;26;23 - 00;43;33;07
Justin Knowles
Like, I love that saying of that's what that's what I'm going to do. So I've already made a mental note for my kids.

00;43;34;26 - 00;43;35;10
Rusty George
You're smart.

00;43;35;10 - 00;43;37;02
Justin Knowles
For later. Yeah. Yeah.

00;43;37;18 - 00;43;58;18
Rusty George
When I was when I was your age with kids, the age of your kids, that was my obsession. Every person I talked to, especially pastors, men. How do you raise kids? You know, and I remember just filing that stuff away because it was so, so helpful when because when you get into it, you know, it's like changing a tire if you don't know what you're doing, you're on the side of the freeway.

00;43;58;18 - 00;44;00;03
Rusty George
It's a bit different.

00;44;00;07 - 00;44;01;11
Justin Knowles
Yeah, one time.

00;44;01;24 - 00;44;31;11
Rusty George
Okay. So let's get to the biggest topic that our kids are dealing with today besides technology, which is gender confusion. I hear a lot of students say, Boy, I almost feel like I'm not accepting of others unless I do have some kind of non binary desire. So it's almost like there's some people out there that truly have gender dysphoria, which is like very, very small percentage and then there are some that are just confused and others that are sympathetic.

00;44;31;16 - 00;44;43;01
Rusty George
So how, how do we help our kids or our parents to deal with these conversations our kids are having and the identity issues that their kids are facing?

00;44;43;20 - 00;45;03;24
Justin Knowles
Yeah, I think so. I mean, this is such a I mean, we could probably do a whole episode on this in general. And so I'll try to I'll try to keep it somewhat coherent, I think, because I have a lot of thoughts on this. And we've been dealing with this, you know, within our own ministry. And I think a lot of it, it comes back to this like knowing the stats that kids want to be heard.

00;45;04;11 - 00;45;28;28
Justin Knowles
I think like the first one goes to one parents, are you bringing this up? Because the truth is our culture is teaching them and indoctrinating them in some in their religion of whatever they feel that is important to our culture. And for whatever reason, there's a lot of parents that don't teach their kids about the values of Christianity and Jesus and and those things.

00;45;29;02 - 00;46;04;23
Justin Knowles
And when it comes to relationship and naturally, if one person's being talked to over here, but it's never talked to over here, where do we are, where are we going to naturally lean in and opinions and desires and all that stuff. So I think part of it is parents like are we talking about it in general? Like, I know it's weird, I know it could be awkward, but I think like when we see things in culture on TV, when you, you know, even there's this crazy dichotomy, like I was watching The Voice, you know, with my wife, I saw one of our shows, one of the guys led an amazing worship set on The Voice,

00;46;04;23 - 00;46;26;25
Justin Knowles
which I thought was super cool. And then you also have like a, you know, nonbinary, you know, you know, pronouns and all that, following immediately afterwards. And and it's just like that's in front of our students face all the time. And so I feel like it's our job as parents to bring it up to them and talk to them about what do you feel about this?

00;46;27;04 - 00;46;47;03
Justin Knowles
What are the I get their thoughts. I think that's one of the biggest thing, is we assume so many things that students don't have thoughts on them, and I think a lot of them do, but also a lot of them don't really have any any opinion because they're kind of like, yeah, it doesn't make sense. But that doesn't just because that kid has pronouns and he sits next to me doesn't mean that I'm not his friend.

00;46;47;10 - 00;47;10;24
Justin Knowles
Still, like they're trying to like, get the idea of like, what is religion have to do with this, Right? You know, what is our faith have to do with this? And so I think just one having conversations and then helping like again, listening, listening to what your kids believe about those things and then diving into dialog of really like, I think our culture has gotten into this idea and I think this has played out in parents and kids relationships as well.

00;47;11;06 - 00;47;33;03
Justin Knowles
Is that you and I could disagree and we could still love each other and be friends. And I think our culture has replaced that with if you disagree with me, it means you don't you hate me and you don't like me, and so therefore you're against me. And so I think we have to get back into this idea that this we could disagree and we could be friends and we could have dialog and we could still have a relationship there.

00;47;33;03 - 00;47;55;21
Justin Knowles
And I think it starts with that when it comes to, you know, how do you help your kids deal with gender identity, talk about it with them. Like, it's amazing to me, you know, as we we did a whole series on this at our in our youth. And we what we did is we told parents, hey, we believe that this is important to talk about our culture, talking about this consistently.

00;47;56;14 - 00;48;14;26
Justin Knowles
We want the church to be the safest place to talk about anything. But in reality, we want your homes to be the safest place for your students to talk about anything. And so here's here's what we want to do to help in that process is, you know, we did it We did a series called We call it Sex, but Make It Holy.

00;48;15;25 - 00;48;36;22
Justin Knowles
And what we did is we talked about dating, but we talked about marriage, we talked about LGBTQ, we talked about gender identity, and we talked about like what friendships would look like. So basically all like the important relationships that go along in the series. And we didn't pull out, we didn't pull any punches. We drove straight into it.

00;48;36;22 - 00;49;00;10
Justin Knowles
We we basically had I had all of our we do video based teaching, so we record all of our youth messages at one time. And so we had everybody's notes written out that everybody write them out word for word. We packaged it up, wrote all the small group questions, and we sent it out two weeks before we even started the series to all of our parents saying how good this is, this is what we're talking about.

00;49;00;24 - 00;49;25;23
Justin Knowles
Here's all of it. What? Here's all the sermons, here's the notes, here's the small questions as you look this over, you know, we hope that you could partner with us and start having the conversations now because we want you to be prepared because they're going to come home, probably wanting to talk about some of these things and and if you feel like you're you know, because we're in middle school and high school together on Wednesday nights for like the teaching, and then we split out into small groups.

00;49;25;23 - 00;49;44;14
Justin Knowles
And so if you feel that your kid is not ready to talk about these things, then for this series, by all means, you can let them sit out, just communicate with your at your campus and their small group leader will make sure that we're continually following up with them relationally. But maybe it's not with engaging with this content.

00;49;44;21 - 00;50;11;00
Justin Knowles
And so we tried to like, do our best to like, partner with parents because we're not the parents. And so we want to make sure that parents were set up well to navigate the conversations. And for us, it was a really cool way like I was waiting for like blowback. I was waiting for like people coming in hot and I didn't get any like, there was there was a couple parents were like, Oh, I don't know if we're really down to do this.

00;50;11;00 - 00;50;25;14
Justin Knowles
Like, why are we talking about this? And our youth pastors, you know, they were able to talk to it and say, here's why, here's the reason. So like, not at least none got up to got up to me. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, none got up to like, my level were either like an internal conversation with a parent out a campus.

00;50;25;29 - 00;50;46;28
Justin Knowles
But if anything, it was more of like, Wow, thank you so much. We we didn't know how to talk about this, but now this has set us up well to at least begin conversations about this. And you know, it was is a really first like series that I felt like we we at least took a good step foot direction of partnering with parents with what we're doing as a ministry.

00;50;46;28 - 00;51;03;24
Justin Knowles
And I think that's like a best way to do it because it is a partnership between, you know, we want we're on parents side and we are on the kids side. And so like, how do we glue that together as kind of navigate some of those things? And so we wanted them to set them up well for that.

00;51;04;24 - 00;51;07;17
Rusty George
That's so good. It's always available on your website.

00;51;08;13 - 00;51;29;19
Justin Knowles
Yeah. If you go to the whole series, if you want to go through the series, I think the smaller questions are still attached to that. That's on YouTube, but it's like moved out. SC Slash youth is the is our like YouTube channel where all of our messages live and then it has on the show notes that should have like a full on like outline and and small group stuff.

00;51;29;21 - 00;51;49;03
Justin Knowles
And the series is called Sex but make it holy. And so yeah it's, it was super interesting, especially when you get if you want to dive into some fun comments just watch some of the the online you know YouTube sphere of some of those topics is super fun there because you know, random people just jump in and you know, navigate all that stuff.

00;51;49;03 - 00;51;50;12
Rusty George
So that's helpful, isn't it?

00;51;51;04 - 00;51;55;05
Justin Knowles
Oh, it's it's so helpful. I read them all and take vigorous notes.

00;51;55;28 - 00;52;11;08
Rusty George
Yes, of course. Okay. Just a couple of last things here. Give our parents some resources that might be helpful for them. You've mentioned several of the apps that might be good as far as monitoring screen time and those kind of things. What else you see out there, that might be a good thing.

00;52;11;24 - 00;52;30;05
Justin Knowles
Yeah. So a couple of things that came to my head right off the bat that I use now, and there's two of them in particular. It's basically anything by Doug Fields and Jim Byrnes about parenting. There's something that they do called like intentional parenting. Dr. Jim Burns and what he's written about it. And it's just been super helpful.

00;52;30;05 - 00;52;55;22
Justin Knowles
And we've I have read everything that they've put out in regards to that, such as I've jumped into this new role for me is kind of doing a little bit more family ministry oriented stuff and then the parent Q app. So the parent. Kuka It's a great like there's blogs because the podcast on there that they had these different parenting topics is really good.

00;52;55;22 - 00;53;01;12
Justin Knowles
It's something that my wife and I listen to all at once because I'm going to I'm going to make I want to make sure I get it right.

00;53;01;18 - 00;53;08;19
Rusty George
No, that's awesome. And while you're doing that, I will echo some of those, but I'll also add plugged in Tor.com.

00;53;08;19 - 00;53;09;08
Justin Knowles
I haven't even heard.

00;53;09;08 - 00;53;28;23
Rusty George
That is a great one because it you can type in movies, books and video games and they'll give you kind of a content of what's in them before your kid comes home and says, Hey, can I go see this movie? Sure. Or, you know, download it or whatever. You have a little bit of a heads up as to what's going to be in that show.

00;53;28;28 - 00;53;47;22
Justin Knowles
Oh, God, I found it. It's it's actually it's a book, an a podcast. It's called it's called Good Inside by Becky Kennedy. Okay. She's like a clinical psychologist. And she she talks about like the what a mind of a like a three year old is going through and how you as a parent cannot lose your mind as they lose theirs.

00;53;48;15 - 00;54;07;23
Justin Knowles
And it's and it's super helpful like, you know, how to how to like example would be like how to how do you parent a strong willed toddler, you know, like what's going on? And it's like super helpful in those areas in regards to like the little because that's also my stage of life right now. So I'm I need help.

00;54;08;02 - 00;54;11;04
Justin Knowles
And so I'll take whatever, take whatever they got.

00;54;11;04 - 00;54;13;13
Rusty George
Yes. The days are long with the years are short.

00;54;13;17 - 00;54;14;02
Justin Knowles
That's right.

00;54;14;25 - 00;54;19;11
Rusty George
Okay. So where can we find you? You mentioned youth ministry hacks. What else you got out there?

00;54;19;26 - 00;54;45;25
Justin Knowles
Yeah, an Instagram mom on just the Knowles three. Um, I think I gave a link to you guys so you could probably get down there. And then if you want to follow anything in regards to sandals, sandals, sandals, kids, that TV would be all of our, like, kids content stuff. If you want to dive into that and then moved out to sea, slash youth, like I mentions all it's all of our youth stuff is on YouTube and you can kind of see what we're all about there.

00;54;45;26 - 00;55;12;11
Rusty George
That's also, Yeah, okay, Now is the time that our listeners have been waiting for. Give us a good a Rick Warren story and we love Rick Warren. He led with integrity and did such an amazing job for so many years and left in a unbelievably kind way. You get to spend some time with him at at Saddleback and I'd say with him, you were in the Saddleback solar system.

00;55;12;16 - 00;55;14;09
Rusty George
Yeah. So give us a Rick Warren story.

00;55;14;16 - 00;55;32;28
Justin Knowles
Yeah, a couple. I actually have a couple quick ones. I remember when I was first on staff, probably couple of weeks in my first staff meeting, you know, hundreds of staff there. And, you know, Rick Warren, I'm like, there's no way. Like, I'm just going to introduce myself. There's no way that he knows who I am, you know, as I'm coming on on like the high school team.

00;55;33;14 - 00;55;48;29
Justin Knowles
And I walk up to him and I was like, Hey, you know, Pastor Rick and before I could even say anything is was like, Oh, just the Noles, like, so glad that you're that you're on staff. I've been praying for you as you jump on the high school team. Wow, I'm so happy for you. You're here. And I was like, That is crazy.

00;55;49;01 - 00;56;10;29
Justin Knowles
That's that's, you know, like, do I really believe that he prayed for me? Yeah, Obviously he knew I was before I even came up to him. And so that's that was like one of the things I was like, yeah, he's the real deal. That was cool. It was one of the craziest things. And this is not like a personal one for me, but just for me watching, you know, because I was there when his son took his life.

00;56;11;08 - 00;56;39;01
Justin Knowles
Yeah. And watching him and K lead him through that time was something that I've never seen ever in anybody. And I was like, so inspired with like how they, you know, would walk around and still talk with people on staff and, you know, able to lead through that time and and to to lead through it without losing their minds, which I can't imagine what they were going through and thinking through.

00;56;39;01 - 00;57;01;05
Justin Knowles
And so, like for me as a as a young leader sitting in, I remember the first staff meeting back with him and I'm like, I get to sit here for free because I'm on staff where people would like pay to listen to this guy talk about leading through grief and hurt and pain. And I just I remember that going like, this is frickin awesome.

00;57;02;27 - 00;57;20;24
Justin Knowles
That and I also remember, like, you know, a couple of times where he would come down, you know, randomly come down to the the youth building, and then he would literally just spend like he would throw the video on up at the mains at the main service. And he like, play a game with HSM, you know, down with like kids and stuff like that.

00;57;21;08 - 00;57;39;29
Justin Knowles
And so, you know, and sent him to sit and take pictures with like kids as they were coming in there and all that stuff. I just he was like the way that he led was very as a high three on Instagram. He's very task oriented. Helps me like he challenged me to like, oh, like, oh no, he genuinely cared about people.

00;57;40;15 - 00;57;46;02
Justin Knowles
And so and it kind of it kind of challenged me in that sense. So a couple couple of fun stories.

00;57;46;19 - 00;58;08;14
Rusty George
It's fascinating to hear those for a couple of reasons. One, you always like to hear that these guys are who they say they are. But I think back to reading Purpose-Driven Church and some of the tactics you're talking about, he did those as a church planner. I remember him talking about he would take Polaroids with people in the lobby and write their name on the bottom so he could learn their names.

00;58;09;07 - 00;58;24;17
Rusty George
And I got to imagine up in his office, somebody giving him a little dossier of new staff members, their names and things with pictures and and he's he's praying for these people. I mean, this is he never stopped doing what he did to start the whole church, which was. That's incredible. Thank you for sharing those. Yeah.

00;58;24;22 - 00;58;27;04
Justin Knowles
Yeah. It was a it was a great there. I learned a lot there.

00;58;27;18 - 00;58;42;12
Rusty George
Well, this has been great for our listeners, great for me. I've learned a lot. I've taken a lot of notes, so I'm going to listen to those again later. But Justin, thank you for coming on the show and we'd love to have you back some time. I love to meet you face to face sometime. That would be a big great.

00;58;42;22 - 00;58;45;12
Justin Knowles
That'd be awesome. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

00;58;45;12 - 00;59;03;13
Rusty George
It's a good time. Well, I think it's possible to make families simple and kids simple. But Justin sure did a good job of it, didn't he? So make sure you share this with somebody else. I think you can probably think of somebody right now in your life that would be encouraged by blessed by or learn something from what Justin had to say, pass this podcast along to them.

00;59;03;26 - 00;59;23;18
Rusty George
There's so many podcasts out there, so much great information out there. We'd love to be able to pass on the stuff that you think is good, so pass it along to somebody else, like it on social media. Leave us a review that would be really, really encouraging for us. Thanks to our friends at Belay Solutions for the sponsorship next week, we're back with an individual that you're never going to forget.

00;59;23;18 - 00;59;51;10
Rusty George
His name is Beckett Cook, written books. He's been on talk shows. He is a nationally known, sought after speaker. He has an incredible YouTube podcast and his story is going to absolutely rock your world because of what he has lived through, what he has come out of, and his voice in dealing with the LGBTQ community because he is a part of it.

00;59;52;11 - 01;00;09;08
Rusty George
But how he learned, how he was loved by God and what God has in store for him and how he should live, I think is really going to be thought provoking for you. So I can't wait you to hear from Beckett Cook next week. Thanks so much for listening. Share this with a friend. Talk to you next week.

01;00;09;08 - 01;00;10;19
Rusty George
And as always, keep it simple.

01;00;10;29 - 01;00;34;00
Narrator
Take a moment and subscribe to the podcast so you get it delivered every week and subscribe to the Rusty George YouTube channel for more devotionals, messages and fun videos. Thank you for listening to Leading Simple.

01;00;37;06 - 01;01;04;15
Rusty George
As we mentioned at the top of the podcast, our friends at BELAY are offering a free copy of their resource for costly financial mistakes for churches exclusively to our podcast listeners today. BELAY's modern church staffing solutions have been helping busy church leaders delegate important financial details for over a decade. Their fractional U.S. based contractors provide accounting and virtual assistant services to level up your church through the power of delegation.

01;01;04;21 - 01;01;19;03
Rusty George
Just text rusty. That's rusty255. One two, three. To claim this exclusive offer and get back to growing your church with BELAY that's rusty are USD 2551, two, three.