A Lifestyle of Discipleship

Dannah Gresh: The evils of society can be depressing for parents and grandparents. Jeff Keaton provides perspective by reminding us that it's actually been worse before.

Pastor Jeff Keaton: I do come across Christians who are very pessimistic—like maybe there's no hope for our children, our grandchildren. I say, “Stop it!” If there was hope for Noah's children, there's definitely hope for our children today.

Dannah: Welcome to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for September 30, 2026. I'm Dannah Gresh. Our host is the author of Adorned, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: If you're a parent of a younger child, have you ever imagined the day that he or she will become a mature, godly adult? Now, at times, it may seem to you like, "Yeah, that's never going to happen,” but you can dream, right? And have you ever looked at society and thought, Wow, there's such a strong current threatening to sweep my child the wrong way. Parents can easily feel pangs of fear: What if my son goes off the rails? Or, what if my daughter gets caught up in the devil's lies? Those are real concerns.

Our guest today is Jeff Keaton. He wants to provide hope to you as a parent or grandparent. He says, by God's grace, your child's story doesn't have to be a heartbreaking tragedy. He's convinced that a big key is to help your child develop a biblical worldview to think biblically about everything.

On yesterday's program, Jeff defined a worldview as a person's core set of beliefs. Those beliefs inform the choices we make. So a biblical worldview is one that lines up with God's Word. When we left off, Jeff was talking about the importance of parents being authentic. He also mentioned prayer and what an important weapon that is in our arsenal as we ask God to rescue and redeem the lives of these young ones.

Now let's listen to Part 2 of this conversation between Dannah Gresh and Jeff Keaton.

A Godly Heritage: Jeff’s Parents and the Legacy They Built

Dannah: You know, Jeff, I want to go back to when you were a child. Like, who was praying and depositing truth into your heart?

Jeff: My beautiful mom and dad. My mom and dad got married at 17 and 18. I was their fourth child, born on their fifth anniversary. Then, they had five more children after me, so we had nine kids.

My dad preached in thirty-eight different countries of the world. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who tried to manage the chaos of nine children with a husband who traveled a lot. My mom and dad, they're alive today. I'm going to go take them out to dinner here in a few minutes. They're 81 years of age. By the way, we gave them forty-one grandkids, and just in the last month, they've had their eighty-fourth great-grandchild born. 

Dannah: Wow! So you didn't give them that many grandchildren. All of the nine of you together. 

Jeff: The nine kids gave them forty-one grandchildren, and ninety of us are in full-time vocational ministry—that includes moms and dads and kids right now. I will say, eight of us nine kids went into full-time vocational ministry for the last thirty-plus years.

I say this to encourage people because sometimes people get a little bit enamored with a big family in ministry, but we had one brother that went into full-blown rebellion. He served twenty-four years in the U.S. military. We're very proud of him, and today he makes a profession of faith. He comes to church with us a lot.

The bottom line is this: they were 100 percent sold out to Jesus. I don't like to overcomplicate it. Dr. Josh Mulvihill, who leads our church and family division at Renew a Nation, has written incredible books like 50 Things Every Child Needs to Know Before Leaving Home, and when I read Josh's book 50 Things (he wrote it because I told him to because I saw some material he had), I went, “Josh, I could have done a better job. I didn't do it just like you do it.” However, my parents didn't even have James Dobson. They didn't have all these tools that people have today. But I tell you what they had, they were utterly sold out to Jesus Christ. Period.

They loved Him with all their heart, and there was no thought in their mind that any of us children would do anything but follow Him with all of our hearts.

So, even though my dad was busy in ministry, he was masterful at taking us children with him. We were involved in all of his ministries in some form or fashion. So for my mom and dad, everything was about Jesus and His kingdom on earth and eternity. That's all I can say.

Discipleship Is Caught as Much as It Is Taught

Yes, we had family devotions, but not every single night. We didn't have a real massive discipleship program. My dad would read the Bible; we would get on our knees and pray. But just every moment of every day was discipleship to mom and dad . . . not not in some kind of weird way where we always felt like we couldn't have any fun or anything. It wasn't like that. 

I remember going down the road as a boy, and my dad would reach over and pat me on the leg, and he would say, "Son, you are destined for leadership in the kingdom of God on earth. Don't you ever let the devil mess that up."

Well, what did that do to a little boy's heart? I didn't know what that meant, but I felt like I had a grand purpose in this world, and that's how my dad passed that on to me.

And then, my dad preached a zillion sermons. I never heard him complain one time about having to preach or prepare. It was his calling. It was the love of his heart in life, and so I'd say it was somewhat more caught from my parents than it was taught. We just saw them in action.

Authenticity: Parents Must Live What They Teach

I will say this: model as parents. Even though I absolutely believe parents should be intentional about teaching their children at home, I'm going to tell you something. You can teach all you want to, but if your life is not authentic, and you're not a good example truly in the home, your words will be blown away by your example.

Dannah: Well, you're sort of talking about what God instructed the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6, which is this whole lifestyle of discipleship. I'm going to paraphrase, but it says, “Teach my commandments to your children when you walk, when you sit, when you stand, when you lie down” (Deut. 6:6 paraphrased).

This isn't like quality time discipleship. This is every moment of every day you bump into your child. When this experience happens, you turn it into a discipleship moment. That's what you're talking about. It's all life, every day, modeling and teaching.

Jeff: That is one of the most powerful passages of Scripture for parents ever. I really love Deuteronomy 6, and it's in another place or two in the Old Testament with the same words.

One of the reasons why I actually ended up getting into education as a pastor was because I read that passage. I thought, We're supposed to teach them God's truth all day long, except for those seven hours in school?

And literally, as a pastor thinking about how you best disciple children, that's when I began to get into this whole idea of the importance and the value of education, because of that very command right there in Deuteronomy 6.

Noah: Hope for Raising Children in a Broken Culture

Dannah: Life changing. I want to talk to you about how your family is a testimony of encouragement in a world that's pretty nutty right now. It's pretty crazy. There are some really radical identity issues alive and well in our world. Just for example, pronouns that don't make sense. At least let's find a singular pronoun to describe you—if you don't like him or her, but not a plural pronoun. It's not logical? There's a lot of insanity, I think, in what's happening in our culture.

But Noah raised a family through a culture that was so insane that God said, "I'm just going to wipe you out. I can't even be with you anymore." Then he finds Noah. He finds one man and one family that he says, "I have some hope here." So, I guess Noah is sort of evidence. You say this in your book that he's evidence that it is possible to raise a family with a biblical worldview in a world gone crazy. Can you talk to us about that?

Jeff: Think about it. How much harder did Noah have it than we do? I mean, we have the Bible, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us (and obviously the Holy Spirit was working with Noah back then as well). But we have millions of Christians surrounding us in this world to encourage us and to help us and to give us hope.

One of the reasons I like to focus on Noah is because I do come across Christians who are very pessimistic, like maybe there's no hope for our children, our grandchildren. I say, “Stop it! If there was hope for Noah's children, there's definitely hope for our children today.”

So, literally, I just spoke in a church on Sunday and gave my speech on Noah called "Saving Our Children in a World Gone Crazy: How Did He Do It?” I start off first of all that he did it because he was right with God.

I'm telling you right now, the hardest young person to reach with the truth of the gospel for me in thirty-five years of straight ministry now, is that young person who lives in the home with Christian parents, where one or both of them are inauthentic in their walk with Jesus.

My niece is a pastor's wife down in Texas, and she said to me, "Uncle Jeff, did you know there are seven kids from our church slash school setting, my age (and she was 32 or 33 at the time) who are divorced already?" 

I said, "From our church and school." 

She said, "Yes.” 

We had hundreds and hundreds of kids, so I didn't know." I said, "Name them for me." 

She named them. Six of the seven came from a home with one parent who was totally not walking with God. It was complete dysfunction. 

What I try to say to parents in my book is: first and foremost, before you think about how you're going to train your children, make sure you are in an intimate relationship with God, because you can't fake it to children. If you're not in an intimate relationship with God, your desires will not be for the things of God and for the Lord Himself. You'll have passions and desires that will lead your children astray.

I talk to dads a lot about sports. Travel sports is dominating. Pastors and heads of schools tell me all the time that parents are literally taking their kids out of church. I knew of one dad who took his kids out of church, his son out of church at 11 years of age for twenty-two straight weeks to play travel baseball.

When the boy was 17, he happened to be in my brother's church. When the boy was 17, his dad had the audacity to come to our student ministries pastor and say, "There's something wrong with this student ministry because my son has no interest in church."

Okay, so the bottom line is this: parents must be right with Jesus. They must have a right relationship with Jesus, and live it authentically in the home.

I like to say too, Noah saved his children because he knew God's plan for his family. God said, "Okay, to save your family, you’ve got to stop whatever else you're doing and build this massive ark.” 

Dannah: Insane, right?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, how drastic is that?! And yet Noah believed God enough to do what He said. He knew what God's plan was for his family.

Being Willing to Be Different

I'm going to be honest with you. I'm a little bit old school. I didn't grow up with all of these thoughts. I've grown into all these thoughts as I've studied the Bible more. I believe Christian families are violating God's good design for the family when it comes to the roles of husbands and wives. I know there must be some circumstances where it's absolutely necessary, but it troubles me to see young mamas having to drop their six-week-old babies off at daycares, and go do their job.

God wants parents to be the primary influences of their children to raise their children. The bottom line is: I think Christian families have to rediscover what is God's good design for the family. What are the roles of husbands and wives? If we would re-adopt that. 

The crisis in America is breakdown of the family. That is the crisis. 75 percent of everyone in prison basically grew up without a healthy father, or grew up without a father. Why does that happen? Because it's God's good design. You can't break God's laws without God's laws breaking society and breaking us.

That's another reason Noah saved his family. He knew what God's plan was and he followed it 100 percent. He was willing to be different. I like this. I say that if parents today are not willing to be different, your kid is going to become . . . 

You mentioned devices or screens or something earlier. Let me tell you something. If we're not willing to buck the trends of our kids being locked into screens and devices all day every day, we're not going to raise healthy children who are going to fulfill their purpose in this world.

Dannah: And . . . we've got to not be locked in ourselves.

Jeff: Exactly, absolutely. We have to set the example, and it's hard. Yes, we all live in this world.

Dannah: In early 2026, there were a few landmark court cases, one in California, one in New Mexico, where the court found in favor of families who came up against the social media giants and creators and said, "I think you knowingly damaged my child." And the court said, "Yes, they did know." They did know that they were creating addiction. They did know that they were manipulating the mental health of these children for the sake of their algorithm, and parents need to wake up and read about these court cases.

In addition to that, there's just this constant IV drip of untruthful things and false teachers in the name of Christianity, but they're not. Saying things that are true from Scripture on those screens, and our children need to know that. And the way they're going to know that is by being so familiar with God's Word that when they hear those things, occasionally they're like, "That doesn't sound like it fits with the Word of God. I don't agree with that." They can't be constantly exposed to it and not be influenced by it and affected by it.

Jeff: 100 percent.

Dannah: Anything else about Noah stand out as an example for us as parents and grandparents?

Winning the Hearts and Minds of Our Children

Jeff: I understand God's sovereignty in all this, but I've often wondered how hard it was for Him to convince His three sons to follow him onto the ark. I'll let the theologians argue over all that. But the point I like to make when I think of that is that we must win the hearts and minds of our children.

My dad was a strong disciplinarian, but he was also filled with love. I was a strong disciplinarian with our daughters, and I made them follow the rules. But I also was full of love towards them.

Probably the coolest thing that happened for me was that that showed me that I had won their hearts and minds. They both went away out of state to college separately, three years apart. I had said to them all through the years, I hope when you find a young man that you think you might want to date or marry, that you'll let your dad be involved in that.

They weren't going to do that before they were 18. I was very involved before that. Both of my daughters called me from college and said, "Dad, there's a young man that wants to date me. Do you want to talk to him?"

And funny thing is, people laugh about it, and I laugh about it, but I typed up a multi-page handout. I went and met with these boys, and literally took them all the way through it. I started out saying, “God entrusted these girls to us. We only have one dream for them: that they will know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ their entire lives. We realize who they marry is going to determine how well their lives go. If you marry my daughter, you're going to be the father of our grandchildren, and we want a godly man.”

My oldest daughter Juliana, who now lives on a 2,000 acre farm with three boys and a little girl, is just an incredible woman, but a hardworking farmer's wife. She's tough. She's tough on her dad.

She would challenge me. I'd preach at church, and then we'd be going home and she said, "Dad, I'm not sure if you actually live everything you just preached." Occasionally, I was like, "What? You're kidding me!"

However, she trusted me enough to let me help her make that decision. I didn't make the decision, but I vetted those young men, and I've got two fantastic sons-in-law now.

Grandparents: Build Influence Before You Need It

So my point is this, and here's where I'm at with my grandchildren right now. I'm trying to win their hearts right now so they'll give me access to their minds as they get older.

And yes, I'm pumping stuff into their minds now. When I take Marshall with me on a speaking trip. My next one down, four-and-a-half year-old Henry, he's begging to go, but he's a little bit of a corker, and I just can't take him.

On recent trips, Marshall wanted to sit on the stage with me when I'm speaking to hundreds of people, and you know what I did? I let him sit on the stage with me. He thought it was so cool. He behaved like an angel until he got a water bottle and he started crinkling up a water bottle in my last speech. But I told him to stop. Then we go to Culver's ice cream or wherever he wants to go and get volcano ice cream.

But I'm trying to win his heart so that when that time he starts thinking really logically in middle school, he and I can have incredible discussions about worldview, etc.

Where Does a Parent Start?

Dannah: So you're a pastor. You started a Christian school. You have a few decades of experience in worldview here. Where does a parent start if they're like, "I like what you're saying, but it sounds impossible. It sounds difficult.” What resources and tools can we direct them to so that they can kind of digest this one step at a time. How do you present a biblical worldview to your children? What tools do you use?

Jeff: The way we sum up our mission at Renew a Nation is, to inspire and equip the family, church, and school to give the children under their care a biblical worldview.

We've discovered that when you get the family, church, and school all teaching God's truth—that's a three-stranded cord that is not easily broken in the life of a child. The reason we lost so many children in evangelical Christianity over the last fifty years is one or two of those were not teaching God's truth.

What I would say is, first of all, they need to evaluate: how are we doing in the home? Are we teaching our children God's truth?

It's shocking to me to find out how few Christian parents are actually sitting down and simply reading the Bible with their children. If somebody's listening today and you really haven't gotten started. Here's where I say start. 

• Literally, at least three to five times a week, have a meal together in the home. Don't go out to eat. Have a meal together in the home. 
• After the meal, open the Bible up and read a brief passage that you know you can have a good discussion around. 
• Then let each one of your children (if they're super young they can't, but as they get a little bit older) talk about that passage and what they understood it to mean. 
• Then you make sure they have a clear understanding of it. Answer any questions they might have. 
• Then you literally just pray.

I like to have every member of the family pray. They don't have to pray long, but if you get your children praying, they'll get very comfortable with it. And yes, when they're three years old . . . My grandson Henry prays the funniest prayers. One of his prayers is, "Lord, help me to be good” when we're eating every time." Okay, so Henry needs that prayer desperately right now because he's not always behaving well.

But the point is, people overcomplicate this.

I dare people to read the Bible three to five times a week with your children and discuss it openly. Now, a mom and dad should kind of maybe read from passages that you want to lead your children into, some teachings you want them to have, and so I say start there.

And then I would say make sure that you're going to a church that's actually teaching God's truth, and do not expect your church to teach your kids that much. And the reason I say this is a kid will attend school from kindergarten to twelfth grade for 16,000 hours. If they go once a week from kindergarten to twelfth grade to church, they'll go to church for 750 hours total.

Okay, so the bottom line is a church does not have near enough time to truly disciple a child. This is why at Renew a Nation we have this online family ministry academy for church workers because we're trying to flip the paradigm away from what we call attractional entertainment children and youth ministry to where churches are equipping parents and grandparents and inspiring them to train their children at home.

That is critical. So let me just say a word to grandparents. Grandparents, you have an incredible responsibility and opportunity to shape the worldview of your grandchildren. I do not believe grandparents should get to 65 years old, move 5,000 miles, and see their grandkids twice a year. Now, sometimes that happens, but the bottom line is, I think every grandparent has a role in the worldview shaping of their grandchildren.

Resources for Building a Biblical Worldview

So I would say just be simple at home. If you want some of the resources we have, obviously my book, you read it. It's a "why" book. Why should we do this? So if you're not convinced of it, read my book, Saving Our Children in a World Gone Crazy. That's what I call the starting point.

But then we have a book that Josh Mulvihill wrote, 50 Things Every Child Needs to Know Before Leaving Home. It is an incredible resource. It's got a place to put their picture when they're baptized, when they cook their first meal, when they get their driver's license. It's everything pretty much from inductive Bible study to small engine repair. It really came from Josh's parents.

They set him down at 17 and said, "Josh, when you were just a boy, we wrote down everything we wanted you to know." And they literally at 17 pulled out an old sheet of paper, slid it across the table. He didn't even know it existed. They said, "Tell us how we did, Josh, and what do we need to work on in the next year before you go to college?"

Josh and I were speaking at a conference in Minnesota when I heard him tell that story for the first time, and young couples lined up at our book table and asked one thing: "Where's the list, Josh?"

His mom had died suddenly when he was in his twenties. He didn't get a hard copy, but it was written on his heart. I said to him that day, "That is your next book." So that's a great resource. 

We have a primer on biblical worldview. It's a book called Biblical Worldview: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Shape the Worldview of the Next Generation. It's really simple. Parents can train their children out of that book.

And then the last book I would say for grandparents is Josh wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the biblical role of grandparenting. What does God have to say about grandparenting? That's an incredible resource for grandparents, and it's a paradigm-shifting book.

So those are some of the things that we offer at Renew a Nation, and obviously I speak around the country on this issue a lot, and so does Josh.

Nancy: We've been listening to Dannah Gresh and Jeff Keaton hitting on some helpful parenting and grandparenting-related topics. Jeff will be back in a moment to close our time in prayer. I hope you'll wait for that. 

Be sure to check out the links we've provided in the transcript of today's program at ReviveOurHearts.com. Links to the resources Jeff just mentioned, as well as to the website of the organization Jeff leads. It's called Renew a Nation. Oh Lord, do we need that? Yes.

Well, can you believe it's the last day of September? That means it's the last day we'll be mentioning our newest six-week study in the Women of the Bible series. Most of our Women of the Bible studies spend six weeks looking at the life of one woman in Scripture. This one's different. You'll cover six different women over the course of those six weeks.

My personal favorite is Mary, the mother of Jesus, but there's also the woman at the well, the Shunammite woman (do you remember who she is?) and more.

The title of this study is Devoted, and it's our thank you to you for your donation of any amount. Your giving helps support not only this radio program and podcast, but also our global outreaches in other languages. To contact us with your gift and to request the Devoted study in the Women of the Bible series, just go to ReviveOurHearts.com and select donate, or you can call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Tomorrow we'll meditate on a series of passages from God's Word that point us to our Savior, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. I hope you'll tune in. Now here's Dannah with Jeff Keaton once more.

Dannah: We're so grateful that you could join us today and rev us up. This could be sort of considered a jumping-off point for some of us to explore more about a biblical worldview and learn.

Sometimes, for probably some of you listening, it's just pushing the reset button on some things. For others, you're just being refreshed and being told, "Yeah, you're on the right track. But I wonder if you might just take a moment, Jeff, and pray for the moms and grandmas listening that they might really understand the value of passing on a biblical worldview to their kids.

Jeff: Yes. Amen. I'm delighted to do that. Dear Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to mothers and grandmothers. Their role is immensely valuable. And Lord, as I have two daughters who are raising young children right now, I know it's not easy. There are days when every mother has wondered, Am I doing a good job? Is this going to work out okay?

And there are many days, Lord, when the house is a mess because the kids have been running around all day, and when they've got to get supper, and they forgot to get stuff at the grocery store. It's just kind of chaotic, and sometimes the devil slips in and says, "What you're doing isn't working, or it's not valuable."

Oh God, I pray for every mother who has been tempted to believe something like that. I pray right now, Lord, that you would help them to understand that when they are nurturing a child, when they are loving a child, when they are teaching their children, when they're feeding their children, when they're changing their diapers that they are literally changing the world. 

So encourage every mother that's listening today. And Lord, prevent the devil from convincing them that, “I'm not a perfect mom,” or “I don't know how to raise kids perfectly, so I shouldn't even start.”

No, Lord, no one can raise a person's child like their own mother and their own grandmother. So I pray for every mother and grandmother listening right now. Empower them with with Your Spirit, Lord. Give them hope, encouragement, because of what they're doing today and raising their children well. So bless them, encourage them, strengthen them. We pray in Christ's name, amen.

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