Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
10 Challenges to parenting sexuality & how the Incarnation solves them - part 2
What if the most important part of talking with our kids about sex isn’t a perfect script, but a different posture?
We unpack why the one-and-done model backfires, how tone silently teaches more than content, and what to do when your own fear, shame, or grief flares in the moment. You’ll hear practical language for “I don’t know yet, but I’ll get back to you,” and how that single line can keep your child coming to you rather than Google. We also tackle the tricky middle ground of vulnerability without oversharing, focusing on emotions and beliefs—shame, belonging, body image—rather than graphic details, all while making sure kids know they aren’t our support system.
Caught your teen in sexual sin? We outline a third way between withdrawal and control: affirm love first, then collaborate on next steps. Expect rupture and repair, not instant perfection. Re-narrate the story with truth about brain wiring, cultural pressure, and real hope for change, and add wise guardrails that serve the relationship rather than replace it. Along the way, we challenge purity culture’s fragile target and point to a sturdier aim: spiritual maturity and Christlikeness, whether the journey includes clean stretches, hard setbacks, or both.
If you want scripts, tone, and a long-game vision rooted in mercy and truth, this conversation will steady your steps and open new doors at home.
For more support, grab Treading Boldly by Josh Glaser and Daniel Weiss, explore our Parental Guidance workshops for churches, and look into Redefine Student Recovery for teen-focused care.
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Resources from this episode:
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:
- Email us questions! info@regenerationministries.org
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Last week we got into five challenges for parenting sexuality and how the incarnation solves them. This week we have five more. I'm joined once again. I'm James Craig, Director of Projects and Spiritual Coach here at Regeneration. And I'm joined once again by the Blake Brinkman from somewhere in New York City. Um calling in in front of a brick wall. I love that. Love that backdrop. Uh if you're watching on YouTube, is it real? Okay. Yeah, actually, I was like, I think it's real, but I'm not positive. So, so Blake, last week we unpacked things like how do I shield my kids from porn in a hypersexualized world? What rules should I set? Um, how do I even think about something as complex as sex and what it means to parent that topic? This week we have a lot more to get into. We have five more challenges and how the incarnation solves them. And friends, I just want to acknowledge um these are coming out around the holidays. College students might be home if you have uh college students, uh, high school or or you know, elementary grade students might be on break. And these are really great opportunities. You're probably trying to figure out some of this stuff over the course of so much family time together. And so we're these are just invitational um podcasts where we want you to actually be invited into, I don't know, what how the incarnation might how Jesus might want to come alongside you journeying uh with your children. And so we really believe that he wants to help us in this area. And I I think we're privileged, Blake, in some ways to be a generation that is talking about sex more openly than ever before. Now, part of that's because our culture is so permeated with um sex in its broken forms, really. But we have such an opportunity, we we we see a lot of Gen Z. You you talked to Gen Alpha, um, we see millennials, and some of these younger generations are like just so open in ways that 45 years ago when we when we started this ministry, that might not have been the case. It might have been so shameful to talk about sex or sexual brokenness. And so speaking about speaking of talking about sex, how do parents have the talk, Blake? I mean, is this something you address with the parents you walk with and the the teens who come come into your coaching ministry?
SPEAKER_01:Uh that's right, absolutely, and I a perfect segue of this idea because there really is this idea of sex is being talked about so much from almost every angle of this world we live in. You you could slice it up in all the different ways, and it's being talked about. And it used to uh very rarely be talked about from the church, the religious, uh, whatever angle that may be. And I love that we're starting to see a shift in that and starting to open up the conversation because the idea is that the one talk formula that many of us grew up in, some of us got zero talks, that even the one talk does not really work for a child, a teens sexual development. And because of a lot of the areas you listed, and some we talked about last time of this idea of sexuality in God's design is far too complex to cover in one conversation, and it's one painfully awkward conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Can you say that? Painfully awkward for everyone involved.
SPEAKER_01:I was about to, you're right on it. I was about to jump right into that because the one conversation that actually implicitly communicates this idea that this isn't something we want to talk about. This is either scary, it's uncomfortable, I don't like talking about it. And as a parent, we may think that's all on me. I that these are my own feelings about it. But what a child or teen implicitly hears in this is this idea that, oh no, maybe I'm the problem, or mom and dad don't want to talk about sex. I shouldn't talk about sex. I should bury my questions or I should take them to a source that appears more comfortable to talk about it, namely pornography, peers, pop culture. That's why a lot of those mediums get a lot of interest. There's this idea of comfortability and understanding that is very attractive to, I would say, all generations, but especially these younger generations. And so the the idea is instead of the talk, is having, I don't know what to call it, a talk about as many times as possible. And by as many times as possible, I don't mean shoving it into conversation when it's not meant to be there. You're you're watching, I don't know, the the baseball game room, and you're like, so let's talk about sex right now. But this idea of simply looking for more and more opportunities to talk about it, and where that really starts is for parents and leaders to start engaging those conversations with ourselves, with other adults, with people that can help this conversation become more comfortable over time. And our children and teens are going to uh feel that over time. I think the incarnation points to this. And I would say one of the best parallels to parenting is when Jesus took on flesh and led the 12 disciples, of instead just of just a one sermon on the mount moment, he spends, you know, the entire life together with them of this, these hyper three years of ministry of day in, day out, teaching, talking. Some are things that he just thinks about and says, this is a truth that needs to be explained. A lot of them are just normal everyday life experiences that come up that he then uses to teach uh a beautiful truth about himself, about them, about God's design, about whatever it may be. And I think that's the model we can take into our parenting around sexuality of finding these moments and simply sometimes it's asking our children or teens, or probably more teens in this development, but asking them questions. Hey, what do you think about that? What have what have you heard? What comes up for you in that? And just showing this idea that we are not uncomfortable talking about it. And therefore, you can ask me any question about this and we can discuss it together. That brings a a safety and awareness of, oh, someone said something about school. I'm gonna take that to mom or dad. You know, I want to, I want to ask them some questions about this. Now, that requires we build our own awareness, right? Our own comfortability with it, of there's gonna be some sexual conversations that may make us feel uncomfortable. I would encourage us uh all to be working on this idea of uh taking that in, almost compartmentalizing it in the moment, saying, I'm present with you, I'm not scared by this question. And if you are scared, to find some solid adult community that you can talk about those fears with and begin to dig through why these emotions may be coming up. But the the key here is simply making as many conversations as comfortable as possible in your households.
SPEAKER_02:You know, we teach this in our PG uh church conferences that we do, these these church events. I think they're usually just a few hours on like a Saturday morning. And I remember when I first we were recording these at one point, they might still be available on our site. I'm not positive, but I was recording one of our speakers, Dr. Kathy Mathe. She's a medical doctor, and I remember just being blown away when she said, like, you know, a kid, a kid might come in five years old. Uh, mom, how how are how are babies made? And she just, you know, explained it in a simple, uh, biological, honest way. She didn't say, hey, the storks, you know, uh, bring the baby. And she she said, you know, I forget exactly how she framed it. So I'm not even gonna try to parrot what she said, but it's exactly the kind of thing you're talking about. Not shying away from that teaches that five-year-old. Because most of the five-year-olds aren't gonna be like, All right, I'm gonna just let's have like an hour-long conversation right now about this. They're just like, they're coming to you instead of Google, and that's an amazing, that's an amazing thing. And so having that kind of conversation teaches the child, and they often just like run off right after, they're just like uh going back to playing outside because they don't actually, they're not caring in the way we might be afraid that they're caring. But Blake, you were alluding to this. This is our seventh challenge that we're gonna talk about, our second one of today, but seventh overall. We we talked about last week how some of us feel betrayed by our children's behavior, some of us feel angry or afraid to talk about this, or that we feel grief. And so, what do parents do when it's hard in that moment to just kind of be like, all right, you might be able to hold it down for a moment, you know? I'm gonna be at at peace as they as I try to answer this question, but you're like in turmoil inside. What where do you take that? What do you do with that?
SPEAKER_01:It's a great question. And uh truly, I would say one of the most challenging, right? Of when when I'm feeling dysregulated, when I'm feeling maybe it's triggering some part of my own shame or my own sexual story, or maybe not knowing the answer bothers me, right? That there can be so many emotional effects in these moments. And so to simply one, say that's normal, right? That that's a common experience amongst, I would say, all parents. And two, the this idea once again of this andness, right? We'll keep coming back to this idea and uh the incarnation of two things can be true at once. Jesus as God, the divine, Jesus as human flesh, the man, all of that's somehow true at the same time in the person of Jesus. And so to not shame ourselves for these feelings, but to simply recognize them, to notice them, and to say, that's something I need to explore, but that moment's probably not right now with my child or my teen in front of me who's asking some very attuned questions of me. And so to take that, to notice that, and to say, I'm gonna explore that with a part of whoever my adult community support structure is. And if you don't have that, maybe that's an invitation of exploring who that could be in your life. Who can I have these type of complex conversations with around sexuality, around God's design? Um, and so to hold that one there. And then two, James, you're alluding to this in our past point, but tone is everything. And so to to follow Jesus in this um example of his gentleness, his kindness, the the the posture he takes of moving towards us, even when we sin, we reject him, uh, he still move toward moves towards us in that repair, right? And you know, it it's an interesting example, but I really loved how you shared this this stork story, right? If if our five-year-old comes to us and says, How how are babies made? You know, is it the storks? If we respond dismissive or deflective or no, that's not it, or I don't know how, or right, that tone gets absorbed more than anything. Whereas even if we don't feel ready for an answer, if we simply say, you know, that is such a great question. I'm really glad you asked it. And you know, I'm trying to think of the answer, and I'm a little bit unsure right now. Can I go ask some of my friends and maybe we talk about this again next week? That that communicates a whole different picture. Wow, oh, mom and dad's open to that. They don't know yet, but that's okay. They're gonna come back to me.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and and this whole idea of tone, what's challenging about scripture is it's words on a page. We actually don't know for sure tone. Jonathan Rooney, I love him in the chosen, but he may or may not be getting the tone right. I mean, he's not infallible. But but here's one thing, here's one clue about tone, and this is actually I want to highlight this for the parent right now. The fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5, 22 through 23. If if the spirit, you know, the spirit is one of the persons of the Trinity, he is God. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, or patience or long suffering, kindness, goodness, gentleness, uh, faithfulness, self-control. That can give us some sense of how God is postured toward us when we don't know, and that gives us a sense with our kids. One more passage, Colossians 3, 12, one of my becoming one of my absolute favorite passages. Therefore, as God's chosen chosen people holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Friends, this means not just toward your kid, this means that this is God's posture toward us. What would it look like to be kind toward toward yourself for not really knowing how to explain to a five-year-old how sex works? Because do I go deep into the biology? Do I mention the penis and the vagina? Do I mention where where does love and merit? Like you might get a little stuck, like Blake said, you might need to come back to them that night or the next week, but what does it look like to have kindness toward yourself there? And kind, and by the way, part of why we're saying this is not kind of just the cultural therapeutic mindset of just be nice to yourself. It's actually because God's kindness toward us is what leads us to repentance, a new mindset. And when we're able to receive his compassion, his kindness, humility, his gentleness, and patience toward us, that's when we can give them out authentically. We can't just force this out. Like, I'm gonna just be kind to Blake in this place where I hate myself. It's actually, it doesn't really work. I might kind of do it in a in a way that's clearly inauthentic, or I might just simply be mean. Either way, though, I might be missing this gospel invitation to putting on Christ. I mean, this is one of my favorite things, Blake. Like when we're in Christ, we wear his robes of righteousness, we wear his clothes, which are compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient. So I don't know. I just feel like that's an important guiding word for as we're thinking about these tough things, including this question eight, which is how do I not go too far in vulnerability? But feel free to respond to all that I just shared as well.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I just I loved it and I had to reiterate, if you're listening, you can't hear this. But when James brought up the the fruit of the spirit, I like raised my hands because I was like, that that's exactly what I was thinking of the the this the spirit informs us of you know Christ's tone. And that can be such a helpful um barometer of how do we go into these conversations. And the the only other thing I'll add is on this idea of what do I do when I'm angry or I've I've I'm afraid, I have grief at my child's sexual choices or something that happened, is to remember from our last talk of this idea that this is probably bringing up something about my own sexual story. And so part part of this is their their choices, their actions. That's definitely a piece of this. And I wonder what might be triggered for me in my own sexual experience or history. What else is going on here that could be helpful for me to explore? And that's gonna segue us into this point for number eight of how do I practice vulnerability as a parent without oversharing?
SPEAKER_02:But especially if we get to that place of vulnerability personally where we're maybe we're opening up with a trusted Christian mentor or therapist, and we're now practicing vulnerability in these areas. How do we not then just vomit that all out on our 12-year-old or five-year-old or 18-year-old?
SPEAKER_01:That that's exactly right. A hundred percent. And that that really is this idea of there, there can be a lot of different responses. A very common response I see is this idea of I'm never gonna talk to my teens about my sexual story because I'm afraid of they might see that as license to uh experience similar sexual mistakes or choices. And I I understand the logic behind it. Often what it communicates in the teens, I see, is this idea of I'm not aware of any mistakes or imperfections mom or dad has ever had sexually. And therefore, they must be sexually perfect, and therefore, I know that I am not. And that creates this immediate barrier between healthy conversation and that rupture and repair we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02:Like, that's like the that's like the same thing that social media so often does to our brains. We're seeing the best, most polished versions of others, and we as and we're comparing our insides with their outsides. That doesn't really help. And by the way, I I'm thinking about my own story as you share this, Blake. I think one of the difference makers between something giving us license to do exactly what our parents did, and something actually just being kind of healthy and healing to hear about is the more work we've done on our own story. I mean, I can think in my own life how um there was a generational struggle in my family with um cheating in high school. And so, you know, cheating on tests or or finding ways to cheat. And, you know, I think part of why that continues on. I think you have a quote here, you got to pull it out for me. I can't remember it off the top of my head. But when we don't actually process our stories around that, what ends up happening is whether we share it or we hide it, we're still communicating it somehow. Maybe it's through implicit memory, maybe it's through uh nonverbal signals that our right brain descending to our child's right brain. But but my point here is the more we're able to actually do the work of integration and healing, the less we will pass down. What's the do you do you remember the quote that I'm trying to reference? You spoke about making retreats. I don't remember. Something about like the more we mine our story, you know, our healing only happens insofar as we're Oh, maybe you're looking for uh we can only heal when we tell a true enough version of the story. Yes. So if if all I know is that I cheated in high school and that's the story that I tell my kids, that's one thing, versus if I recognize I'm convinced I'm stupid, I'm really struggling to believe that I uh deserve this, I'm not willing to make the time, and I don't really believe I have the strength to make time for studying. That's a much deeper, more robust story than simply acknowledging that I I cheated. Now, always a great place in the context of confession, again, around other parents, around your counselors or your pastors. You know, confession is such a starting point, but there's a deeper, there's deeper elements to every story, right? And that's where I don't know, does Jesus does the incarnation come in there somewhere, Blake?
SPEAKER_01:It sure does. I the incarnation for me interacts in this place of. It's a little bit incarnation, a little bit God's design, but that God has designed us with these emotions, right? With these desires. And Jesus in the in the incarnation took on these same emotions, these same desires, yet was without sin. Right. And what I think is important about this is it it gives a barometer for, I do fully encourage process your story with healthy, biblical, Christ-centered adults who can help you kind of navigate the discernment on what's a helpful element to share with my kid and what may not be the time and place for this right now. And how do I share that one day when I truly think it is the right place? But the idea of to go towards the emotional level, to this desire level that we all share in the human experience that Jesus shares with us in the incarnation. And so when we're thinking about our sexual history, maybe or we we're not gonna probably share about certain sexual details. However, we can share that I felt ashamed. I felt like I didn't matter. I sharing kind of those shameful core beliefs that our children or teens may be dealing with of uh I felt like my body needed to look a certain way. I I didn't, I didn't like myself and I was I was sad, I was afraid, I was anxious, whatever it may be. These are the things our our teens especially are gonna connect with so deeply. And uh what I always tell parents around this is this idea of helping our teens understand that they are not our support structure. Hey, I'm sharing this with you because it's true and I want to connect with you. And I want this to be a safe place where we can talk about struggles, that we can talk about repair of what God's doing with us. And I want you to know I've got a beautiful adult community that helps support me in some of these things. And so you're my son, you're my daughter. You you don't need to pick up my emotional pieces or my story. I'm I'm stable, I'm connected, and I'm vulnerable, vulnerably sharing here with you because I want to connect with you around these lens. It's a little bit complex of how do we hold this tension of my child is not my support system, and sharing vulnerably with them about some of my experience can be so healing and important and valuable.
SPEAKER_02:Beautiful, man. Well, friends, we only have two more for you. Are you still with us? Hopefully, hopefully um, this is helpful so far. But we want to land with these last two. One is super concrete, practical. And I've had uh parents talk to me about this before, Blake. What do I do if I actually catch my child in the act of sexual sin? What and this is this is uh I just want to acknowledge this is really hard because it goes beyond just simply hearing about it and feeling betrayed, which could totally be part of what you feel. But when you actually see it, when you all of a sudden you you catch your child, what do you do with that, Blake?
SPEAKER_01:Such a great question. Like you said, a a really sensitive question that I know many, many parents have experienced. And there's a lot of heartache, there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of sadness, there's a lot of things going on here. And once again, this is a topic we could talk about for a whole podcast on, but to to hit on the incarnation piece of this of the the way forward is always towards. Of in in the incarnation, we see Jesus come towards us, right? He puts on flesh and chooses to be with us to the point of his uh death on the cross for us, right? And so this journey of towards with such compassion and kindness, those fruits of the spirit, right? Because there can be two kind of extreme responses when we catch our children or our teens in some form of sexual sin or brokenness, of one is that that fear flight response, right? Of I don't know what to do with this, I'm gonna kind of ignore it, I'm gonna run away from it, we're not gonna explore this in deep in detail. And kind of like you were saying earlier, our our teens or children receive an implicit response from that of maybe uh I'm too broken, or my mom or dad doesn't want to be with me in this place, or maybe I've sinned too far, right? Those are some of the implicit responses. The other extreme is I'm gonna move almost towards, but in a more controlling, I'm gonna manipulate and create the safety of this system, kind of this helicoptering, right? Of I'm gonna know every detail in every area of your life uh so that this never happens again. And the implicit response from there is often this uh shame of I'm I'm too far gone, there's something wrong with me, uh, everyone's disappointed in me, whatever it may be. And so we're looking for something kind of in the middle, which takes that rupture and repair, right? Of sometimes we go too far one way, sometimes we go too far the other, and yet there's this opportunity for repair. So to move towards, and what I encourage parents in this moving towards is to helping our teens narrate their story of what you were saying this earlier, James, this idea of we can't heal until we tell a true enough version of the story. And so our teens are often creating a narrative of why they struggle sexually. Their narratives are often very self-blame and self-shaming, of I do this because there's something wrong with me, I do this because I'm just a broken sinner. And helping them narrate of actually, there's so much and here of I've grown up in a hypersexual culture, of maybe my peers or friends told me this was a good idea and I was drawn to it. And I have a lot of desires and longings that I thought might be met in this, and now I'm realizing aren't. And this is really addictive to my brain, and it's really hard to get out of. And so there's a much broader picture here than the simple shame statements of there's just something wrong with me or I'm not good enough. And one of our most beautiful jobs as parents and leaders can be in re-narrating that story based on what's true, based on how God sees us even in the journey of struggle. And so there's a lot of emotion there. I know there's we we could talk so much longer about this, but once again, to take those feelings, the the betrayal, the anger, the sadness we may feel. And there may be a time to share that with our kids, but to process that first with our adult safe, supportive communities and to try and maintain that kind, compassionate, I'm here with you in the process with our children and teens.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, two other ideas are coming to mind as you talk, Blake. One is you were sharing earlier about this idea of collaborating. And if we catch a team, right, would that would this be an appropriate place of at some point getting to a place of, hey, this happened, we we we saw, we witnessed this. How do you feel about this? And assuming, you know, for many of our kids, it's gonna be, I feel really bad. I don't want to be doing this. Now, I can imagine there are probably the occasional kids, I don't care, whatever, you know, but for for probably the majority, Blake, there is a desire for help here. There is a desire to collaborate and to come up with stuff maybe as a team, maybe if it's a father and son, maybe it's a mother and daughter, and the parents are you know talking together separately, or maybe it's both parents with the child. But like, I think first and foremost, there needs to be a clear sense of you're loved. Because whether it's same sex or opposite sex, whether it's something that you would consider very shameful, very sinful, or whether it's something you might not consider that way, regardless. I think the answer, the first thing needs to be you're loved. We still love you and as our child. Then I think there can be this going back again to this idea of there could be collaboration on how do we move forward from this.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great point and can be so impactful and give our children more teens in this conversation, but give teens this sense of I'm a part of this, I'm I'm actively working against this. And to to communicate and share this vision for what often what recovery looks like is a lot of rupture and a lot of repair. A lot of teens can confess, or maybe they get caught and they think, okay, well, now that it's out in the open, now that the light's shone on it, I'll never struggle again. And that can cause some deep shame wounds around that. And so to help communicate this idea of, hey, you may struggle some more. This stuff is hyper addictive. It can be really challenging at your area of brain development. I just want you to know I'm gonna be with you in that. And even if you struggle again, I want you to tell me about it. And I want to keep walking through it together. I'm not scared of you messing up or struggling with this again. I'm excited to walk this journey with you. And maybe this is a moment, once again, where we can share some of our vulnerability if we've worked through it to that place of, you know, it was really important for me to learn that uh God loves me all the same, even when I struggle. That that changed everything for me as I was walking through a similar process. And so I want you to know that even if this isn't the last time you struggle, you are loved by me, but much further by God. And we are both excited to get to grow with you and be with you in this process.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and that's the incarnation in a nutshell. That is, Jesus came into sinful humanity and the struggle of the Pharisees, they got some stuff right. They they cared a lot about doing the right thing. They might have even sought out justice as a community. We don't know everything about, I at least I don't know everything about first century Pharisees, but but they were missing the withness in sin. They were like, you don't even dine with a sinner because that's gonna rub off on you. Or but somehow Jesus carries such life in him, such light that not only were sinners, those who when I say sinners, they they were aware that they were sinners, were drawn to him, but there was also this like withness of like, I'm not gonna send you away because you're broken. It's I mean, that's kind of revolutionary, and I think that is actually so different than what most of us have the gut response with. It's like, okay, that was really hard and scary. You might have a difficult conversation, but like I just I don't want that to come up again versus this, like, we're gonna journey together. And so Blake, yeah, what as we come to a close here, what is the ultimate goal here? Like one of the challenges is understanding okay, if I'm not just trying to get a uh my child, it's an admirable goal to have your child be, you know, a virgin on their wedding day. I mean, there's actually a ton of blessing in that, there's reasons it's so good, but I think sometimes culture can go so deep in that direction that you know a child can feel so broken and lost when that's not happened or when there's been a long-term addiction. So, how do you describe like when you're trying to figure out kind of true north when it comes to a child's sexual journey, how would you how would you figure that out and almost have a vision for that as a parent for parents?
SPEAKER_01:Such a great question. And it it is true from a lot of if you've ever heard of purity culture, there's this idea that's been very longstanding. Uh, a lot of Christian communities of our our sexual pureness or our lack of sexual acting out is one of our most valuable qualities we have. And if we lose it or if we act out sexually, we kind of lose this piece of our identity or our uh our worth, our value. And so, to what we're seeing is this massive move away from that because it doesn't resemble the truth of the gospel, of this idea of how God views us even in our brokenness, even in our sexual brokenness. God's heart and love towards us does not change. And we see this beautiful design from God in sanctification and a piece of that in the art in the incarnation of God walking with us through our repair, our struggles, our difficulty, and seeing us grow more and more into who we are in Him. And so the a lot of this actually comes from treading boldly that Josh and Daniel wrote that we've been talking about of I'll hold it up right here.
SPEAKER_02:I got my copy.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's a quote, it might be a loose quote, but this idea of would you rather your kids have a spotless sexual journey or greater spiritual maturity in kind of hitting the this point on the head of the the goal is not our sexual spotness. Like you said, there can be a lot of blessing that that's not a bad thing at all. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's a huge gift to yourself, even like if in so many ways, I'm like, oh, it'd be so great if I didn't have 10 years of a pornography pornographied brain that still needs to heal in various ways. Or it's it's a beautiful blessing.
SPEAKER_01:And and God, God uses uh, you know, none of our struggle, our pain is wasted, as uh I'm sure you've heard from many different sources, and this idea that God is using our struggle to transform us, to draw us into deeper, greater spiritual maturity, to help us look more like him. We talked about this a little bit in uh our last session of this idea of God wants to teach us something beautiful. Sometimes he does snap his fingers and remove the sin struggle. A lot, and a lot of times he's teaching us something beautiful through it. And so to think through that lens, and I I would add the beauty to it because it it provides this great tone to it, right? That often our teenagers are missing. They're feeling so ashamed, so worn down. But this idea of, hey, I'm not scared of this. God isn't either. And my guess is he wants to teach us something beautiful through this about who he is truly, about how he sees you, about his beautiful design he wants us to experience. And so to recognize that instead of our goal. It's not this uh sexual purity is not the end goal, our our spiritual maturity and likeness to Jesus is, and God can do that in and through sexual mature uh purity, uh, and through deep sexual brokenness. Jesus in the incarnation, we see he can do it all, he can repair all things through himself and his blood that he's given for us.
SPEAKER_02:It's beautiful, and it's why Paul says his grace. Um Paul Paul has that interesting thing. Should we sin so that grace should abound? No, of course not, because sin is literally sowing seeds of death, and we have we reap those to some degree, and yet in the incarnation, even our sin, even the things that we've done in rebellion against God, even the things that we've done without giving him a second thought, he can and wants to use for our good and for his glory and for the good of this world. And so, friends, I'm so grateful for this conversation with Blake because we're pulling out just themes that are much broader than simply, you know, uh, what do I do as a parent? But these are really deep discipleship themes that we care a lot about at regeneration. And so, Blake, just such an honor um to have you. I'm gonna ask you to pray in just a moment. But again, Blake was highlighting this book, Treading Boldly, from our executive director, Josh Glazer, co-authored with Daniel uh Weiss. Fantastic book to get you thinking about your own journey and how to walk with your kids. We also do workshops for this at churches. We have a parental guidance workshop for churches as well, especially for you know, stewarding younger kids. Um, we also at one point, we might bring this back, had a PG 13. So PG for kids, PG 13 for teens, because we recognize that a teen struggling is in a different spot than the the culture you're trying to build, you know, in in infancy and childhood. So you can check those out on our website if you want to see your church do either of those events, but you can also just pick up treading boldly. Um and uh and you know, we do some work with teens and coaching, but we we do want to honor that Blake. One of his roles is he has his own organization uh that I'd love you just mentioned briefly. Blake, remind me the name again of your organization for teens.
SPEAKER_01:Redefine student recovery simply in this idea of trying to help teenagers experience the gospel-centered biblical sexual recovery journey that's often withheld for most teenagers until they're 18 years old. And so we're trying to bridge that gap and allow them to experience this level of repair at a at a much earlier age that I think anyone who's been through the struggle can speak to how much we've desired it in our teen years.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So while Blake is working with us on parenting resources, he has his own um redefined student recovery organization. And part of what I love about this, Blake, is again, I've maybe worked with a couple teens, obviously with parental permission, but you've just got a lot of wisdom in this area. You've spent a lot of time focusing on this. You've you've maybe, you know, they say to master something, you need 10,000 hours. You're much closer in that journey than most of us. Now at Regen, we do coaching especially for parents, whether you're you're navigating some of what we're talking about, whether it's a child with LGBT desires or identifying with LGBT community or even navigating these pornographic struggles. Blake's gonna be especially helpful though, if your teen is struggling and you want help for them and he will involve the parents. It's not like, you know, yeah, it's it's totally uh comprehensive in that regard. So please check out redefined student recovery if if your uh teen is in a is in a challenging spot and you need like kind of a very holistic solutioning. Um, but you can also receive coaching here at regen. So um, Blake, would you just pray for our listeners as we close out today?
SPEAKER_01:Uh love to. Um Lord, we we thank you, God, once again that you're you're a God that desires to be with us. God, thank you that you sent your son Jesus, who took on flesh to be with us, God, that uh did all of this so that we might know you more and live more in the the joy, the life, the abundance that you have set out for us, God. And God, I just pray for all the parents, all our listeners, God, that they would feel your your tone and that the fruit of the spirit, God, of the the kindness you look upon all of us, uh, no matter the season and no matter the struggle we may be experiencing, no matter the fears, God, and that you long to be with us in this journey. And so, God, we're just so thankful that you love us like that, God. You give us great peace and hope and wherever our own story is or whether wherever our family story is, God. And may you bring great hope to that, Lord. God, we're just so thankful. We love you. We trust you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.
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