Hey everybody, welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast. We are so glad to have you joining us today. And of course we've got Rob back. He has been on the road. He's been a road warrior for the last two weeks. So it's good to see you. Rob, how are you? Yeah, good a little tired, but, conferences are always, always fun. So glad to be back. Yeah. Awesome. And for our listeners that don't know, and if you go to conferences out and about all across the country, you are likely to see Rob Stoddard there. He attends, I don't even know, like 18, 20 conferences a year on behalf of Covenant Eyes. So many conferences. Something like that. Yeah, yeah. So if you're ever at a conference and you get into the exhibit hall, look for the Covenant Eyes booth, you might see Rob Stoddard there. So with that, though, today we are actually going to be talking to a wonderful gentleman. His name is Cecil Taylor. He's an author, he's a speaker, he's a teacher, and he's really focused on promoting practical faith. And I love that because that's something we absolutely need. You know, how do we actually put our faith into action every day? You know, whether we're at the grocery store or washing the dishes, you know, with our children, with our husband. So it just it's a really great conversation, Rob, and I'm really excited to dive into that topic. How about you? Absolutely. This and it seems like we've gotten away from this as a church of really just living out our faith day in and day out. And so really excited to talk about this topic today and how it relates to, you know, the work we do, because there's definitely some, some pieces in there. So. So if we could Cecil, we'll start out, could you tell us a little bit about your, your ministry, how how you help people live that practical seven day, life of faith and also really kind of what inspired you to to start this ministry and what you're doing? Yeah. I was a preacher's kid, and I always was in the church as an adult. I taught, adult Sunday school classes for decades, worked with church youth for 30 years. So, I was so involved in that. And then I felt a call to go outside the bounds of my church because people kept telling me I could do this Christian stuff on Sundays, but the rest of the week it's really hard. It's so I said, maybe I, I need to do something about that. And I eventually felt a spirit call to go outside the bounds of my church and form this ministry to teach Christians how to live a seven day practical faith, bringing Sundays into the rest of their week. Well, I first started trying to do it on the side along with my day job. And I started doing videos and blogs and various things, but it wasn't going really very well. And about 3 or 4 years into doing that part time, I got a very clear message from God that I needed to go full time, which I did not respond to instead. Instead I said, how about if I cut back my full time work to part time because I was worried about money? So I went back to part time and after, a few months, it was clear that wasn't really providing much benefit to the ministry, after all. And in prayer, as I was wrangling with God over this, I heard God say, well, Cecil, how much money do you really need? And I said, I guess whatever is in my bank account right now, that's the right answer. So I went full time into his ministry after that. And, God has sustained and bless the ministry and I know it was the right decision and that it's God's will. I love that, and that's that's real life, right? Like, we often face situations where we're confronted with we know God's calling us to do something and we're kind of negotiating with him. We think we can kind of like dip our toe in both waters. It's right. It's definitely a real life struggle. Well, talk to us a little bit about some of the resources and, things that you have developed in the ministry to really help people kind of put their faith into action. Yeah, sure. So everything I do is around seven day practical faith. I'm not going to go argue theology with people. It's cross denominational because I figure everybody has the same problem. How do we put faith into practice? And it really live and walk the walk. So what I provide is, first of all, some regular social media content, things like devotions, blogs that appear all through weekdays on my site and on my, companion site on parenting as well. And then I also have the practical Faith Academy podcast, where I bring people alongside me to talk about how they put faith into practice in their corner of the world. And then I also write books and produce videos, original videos for Sunday school classes or small groups. So whenever I write a book, I also do a small group video series for a class to study together, along with participant guides, study guides, that sort of thing. So those are popular as well. You know, for a while I thought, I just wanted to do the videos and not that, excuse books because I thought people didn't read books anymore. And I was disabused of that notion by many people, especially because when you have a video, it kind of can go, you know, out at the head. And so having the book is stickier and you can, keep, keep up with, what the thoughts were and go back and reinforce them. So, so I try to be very comprehensive in what I do. There's a lot of free resources that people can get to. And then of course, there's the books and videos for sale. And I'm a speaker too, as you mentioned earlier. So I like to go around and speak in churches about my book topics or anything else they wanted to talk about. Excellent, excellent. Well, Cecil, as you know, we deal with a lot of people who are struggling in life. Struggling with addiction around pornography and, and other screen issues. Talk to us a little bit about how having Scripture in our life, day by day, really can help somebody that's going through these kinds of struggles. Yeah, I think first of all, I think of taking the message from James that echoes with the seven day practical faith idea, which is, James says, when you look in the mirror and then you walk away and forget who you are, then that's the problem. You're not putting the word into practice. So I think the first thing is to remember throughout the week, as we reengage with God through prayer or through Scripture, or through simply doing life together, that we want to remember that who we are and who's we are. And I think that has that's kind of a broad brush at what you're talking about, about bringing Scripture in. Maybe there's some more scripture we can talk about, but that's that's the first thought I have, is that we need to remember who and whose we are. Like James talks about. I think that's really good wisdom. I think, it's easy to forget that in the day to day life. I know I've had situations like recently, you know, driving to church and someone cuts me off and I get like a worked up about it and I'm like, wow, take a step back. And then, you know, as I'm like getting all huffy and puffy about it, I turned into the church parking lot and I'm like, yeah, that was not my best, you know, moment there, you know? And I should have been thinking more like, okay, maybe that person was in a hurry to get to their church. Maybe there was a good reason that maybe you didn't see me. You know, like, I think there's so many things, like, we have little things like that that we have to remember. You know, how to, like, really live out our faith. And, like, I think that is beautiful to just say, you know, remember who you are. And when you think like that, it changes your perspective and how you respond to situations. So talk to us a little bit. You do a lot of work, and you've had a ton of experience working with families and children over the years. And I think there are a lot of parents that listen to this podcast that certainly, you know, in the day to day life of a parent, you know, taking kids to soccer practice or off to baseball or, you know, school activities or all the things, how do we make sure that we're really putting our faith into practice in those small moments throughout the day with our kids? Right. I think that we we start by understanding that, what what goals we have. All in all, I believe in parents. I have a book called Unison Parenting about parents being aligned and starts with having a proactive plan of what we're going to be about, what are our core values, and how do we put those core values into our families. So it starts with having a core value, our family, and a core value. If we go to church, church is something we do. It's non-negotiable. That's that's just what we do. When you get to be 18 years old, you get to decide what you get to do. But you know, when you're in our household, you're going to church on Sunday morning. That's just the way it is. And then talking about the small moments, I think that there are times when the family needs to come together and do something a little more formal. We used to have family meetings at times, but, you know, so much happens when you're just riding in the car and that kind of thing. And I think part of that, that plan also is building it in to the way you operate your family. So let me give you an example. In in the idea of turning core values into practice, we had something called a choices chart. And the choices were all things that started with the letter C, and they were really, really biblically founded for the most part. I mean, there were things like chores and classwork that weren't so much biblically founded, but things like courtesy and caring and going to church, you know, those kinds of things. So when we're whenever we assign consequences for getting out of line, we mapped it to what happened here is you weren't caring towards somebody else or you weren't courteous. You weren't conforming to your parents. You weren't honoring your father and mother the way that you should. So we try to tie things in biblically and religiously, as much as we could to the way we managed our household. It wasn't the kind of thing where my kids would say, yeah, we were always just talking about the Bible all day, every day. It wasn't it wasn't like that. But they understood very much our context. I think context is very important. They understood we were talking about a biblical context, a church context, a Jesus context in the way we lived our lives. So good. Yeah, it really is. And it's so important that that consistency that seven days a week, over and over, every little opportunity you get that's that's wonderful. Seesaw another area, as you know, Covenant Eyes is, is dedicated to the importance of accountability in those types of relationships. And it really gets down to discipleship. I know in, you know, in your work, you know, were designed for community, were designed to disciple one another and encourage one another. Tell us a little bit about how that plays out in, in the work you're doing. I think there's three things from that that I emphasize when we get into this area of, of faith and that is community, vulnerability and trustworthiness. So with, with community, I really believe in the church. I know it's got its flaws, but I don't know how people get through life without a Sunday school class to support them. To be honest, you have to have those people around you. Maybe you find that somewhere else, but you have to have people with like minded not necessarily equal, you know, totally minds where we all think exactly the same thing because it's it's wonderful to have that diversity of opinion to come to you also, but to have people who are grounded the same way you are, who have loving hearts and are willing to do something and you're willing to do something for them. So community first, I found both as a teacher and as an individual, how important vulnerability is. You maybe don't come in the first five minutes of the conversation being vulnerable, but but as you get to know somebody and build a community, then you can open up and be more vulnerable. In my experiences, when you lead with vulnerability, it allows other people to be vulnerable as well and know that you're a safe place for them to express themselves. And then trustworthiness is really built on those things. Trustworthiness is very attractive. You know, people want to be able to trust, to know that they have a safe place where they can have an authentic supporting relationship. So, we need to your idea of consistency again, plays into that. It's so easy to break trust. It's so hard to build it. So a consistent with who we are and how we behave and how we love others is very important in that relationship. So those are the kind of the three thoughts I have them. Most people don't know how to measure whether porn is a problem. Well, now you can. Hi, I'm Mike Stone, producer of The Covenant Eyes Podcast and Covenant Eyes. We have created a short, free and confidential assessment called the Pause Test. That's porn addiction use severity. It's not about judgment, it's about understanding. So in just a few minutes, you'll get clarity on where you stand and what your next step could be. So take the free test now at 70 eyes AE forward slash test. That's 70 E Tesco forward slash test. Super short super simple. Now you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Now back to the show. So good. And you you mentioned this, but you know your family really made going to church a priority. And I think that in some ways the American culture, we've let that slip a little bit. We haven't made that a priority. You know, I've seen, you know, where our families prioritize making sure we get to, you know, cheerleading practice and baseball practice on time, and we get to all the games, but then we, oh, we're so exhausted. We just need a day to, you know, chill out on Sundays and we don't make going to church a priority. I think that's very dangerous as a family unit because it I mean, our children are watching and it shows our children where our priorities lie. And so I want to talk a little bit about why prioritizing church as a family really is valuable and almost instructional to our children as they grow. I tell you, when I was in church youth ministry, I saw this slide. I was like, we have lost Sundays as a church there. You know, you'll you'll let the soccer coach tell you where and how you're supposed to be at when. And yet, in fact, one thing interesting is in my church, we had kind of a path to discipleship for teens, and when we put more stuff on them, right, they had more accountability that they they had more demands put on them. And that is a time when I saw families respond to most of what maybe we're not asking enough of families because we're trying to be, oh, if you can come, that's great. And at the time somebody said, no, you really need to be here for this. Then they responded to it. So but, but I think as a family, I realized that, you have to balance some things in today's society. And I would love to say that every Sunday you have to be in church. Well, we tried to do is work out to where, if at all possible, we were going to be in church on Sunday. There were other activities too. At church, sometimes you had Wednesday or Sunday night activities or whatever. So what we really tried to do is say the church is really the center of our activity. It's it's where we're going to donate the most. It's it's both in terms of time and money. It's, it's it's where we're going to find ourselves as a family the most. And even if you go into the church and you all go to your own classes or events to come back together and then talk about it, we always wanted to do that each week. What happened in your end of the church today? But but I think it is difficult. And sometimes you, you just have to say no to some things and say no to some over scheduling, for example, we had a rule that you can only play one sport at a time. I would see kids in three sports at a time and they just bounce from one to another. They'd be doing their homework in the car, you know, in between practices. So we said, you have to pick. You could be in a sport, you can be in the sport year round, but only one at a time. And I think that you have to make decisions like that in order to squeeze in church to, the rest of your life, to say church comes first. We realize sometimes there's conflicting schedules, but we're going to make up for that in some way. And church is always going to be the focus point. Yeah. So important. So, so key. Let's continue to talk about the church a little bit. One thing we certainly find is the church can struggle with, dealing or addressing this issue of, pornography. And, you know, addiction is around that. You know, in, in your area of, of seven day a week. Faith, what kinds of things can the church do to really help? People live out their faith, which, again, will will help them address some of these issues that they're struggling with? Well, I, I a couple of things come to mind rather. Well, one thing is that, we, we have this, need within our groups, our small groups to talk about things like forgiveness. What are the issues around all this is that people may know that they're doing wrong. They have shame, and they have, addictive characteristics. And to let them know that there is, healing that comes with openness, right? That comes with vulnerability. So I think that we can talk a lot more about things like love and forgiveness. I wrote a book called Live Like Your Loved that talks about the biblical truths that you are loved by God, forgiven by God, sent by God, and meant to be with God eternally. And then how did your life look? If you really believe those things, how does your life transform? It thinks like that. Or being able to talk about love and forgiveness. And these these aren't easy things. People are like, oh, love, forgiveness. No, love is the messiest thing I've ever been a part of. So it's hard. Forgiveness is hard. So these are hard topics. Whenever I teach on forgiveness, we have to add extra weeks because people have so much to talk about how hard it is to forgive, how hard it is to ask for forgiveness and to feel forgiven. So these are topics that we need to to bring up in the church and their their core, their fundamental, their basic to faith. And yet, I think we can get caught up in a lot of other things. We can get caught up in social things. We can get caught up in this first or that first. And sometimes we need to go back to the basics. So, that's that's one of the things I think about. Another thing is of course, Covenant Eyes has a very positive kind of message. It's something we want people to look at and listen to. We my ministry is something positive. You know, we want to be able to somehow direct people to positive and nurturing kinds of things. You know, these search algorithms that we have and you know them well and they're they're problematic for people who are addictive. You know, the search algorithm isn't good or evil on it. So because all it does is feed you more of what you ask for and keep feeding it. So I never used to look at cat videos, but then I was really stressed. One day I said, oh, I'm going to look at a cat video. I have a cat, I enjoyed it, I'll watch another one. Guess what? Now my feed. I always get cat videos and I always watch them, so I get more cat videos. On the other hand, I know of some teens who decided they wanted to make fun of this concept of extreme masculinity, so they were pulling up videos of that and mocking it and having a good time laughing. But guess what happened? The extreme masculine videos kept showing up in their feeds, and they started listening to it, and they started doing these toxic things, right. So what we want to do is guide people towards positive things. It's not always say, don't look at this or that. It's what does something nurturing what is something like. Paul says, what? What is true, what is noble, what is right, what is lovely? What is the cat video? You know, Paul did write that. But but those kinds of things. So I think that so to to combine all that together, I think we need to talk a lot about love and forgiveness in the church and outside of the church. As we as we have outreach, we want to provide positive things and steer people. It doesn't always have to be a biblical thing to steering people towards positive things. The plus side of life. I think that's really important because, you know, as parents are raising kids in this very tech saturated world, it becomes a challenge because you brought up, you know, the algorithm, you know, whatever they look at, it's going to give them more of that. But also the voices that are speaking into our children's lives in a variety of ways, whether it's music or movies or TV or the algorithm setting you know, cat videos, whatever it is, really has a lot of power to influence our children. So how do we counteract that? So as you think about parents that might be listening, what advice do you have for them as they're trying to navigate technology and not let that overwhelm the message that's being given to our children? We really need to, kind of balance that in some way, shape or form. So what advice do you have? Yeah, I kind of have a broader advice, but it applies to the digital world as well. In my book, Cuteness and Parenting, I talk about how we we can't bubble wrap our kids until they're 18. In fact, I don't even think that's desirable because I've seen kids who did get bubble wrapped. And then when the wrapping comes off as adults, they're immediately saturated with things they've never encountered before. And I think, frankly, that's one of the ways at times the protocols can happen is because suddenly they have to encounter all this. So what we really want ultimately, is to build a child who makes good decisions, even when we're not around. And to do that, we have to begin allowing them to make decisions with guardrails with limited consequences for bad decisions, because they're they're going to make those. But if they can learn from them and the consequences are limited and, you know, bad decisions lead to good judgment, which lead to good decisions, right? So, so what we want to do is how can what is the message we can give that is centered around that? Well, as an example, there was a time when somebody got on me for not homeschooling my kids. My kids always went to public school. We're in a very good public school system where I live. And yet it's impure. Like, you know, any time you get kids together, frankly, even private schools, believe me, from my experience, that they have their impurities there as well. So, you know, but sending them outside of the home. And I was feeling a little guilty. So I went to my oldest, who was, a senior in high school at the time, and I asked him, hey, when we sent you off to middle school, to high school, and this public setting, what did we tell you? And he said, you said three things. Be polite, influence others positively, and don't let them influence you negatively. I'm like, man, he got the message. That's that's really good. That's what I wanted. Be a light comes from Scripture.

14-16. Jesus discusses, you are the light of the world, and let your light shine. And when you let your light shine, then that glorifies God. We want to teach our children how to let their lights shine, how to make good decisions. We know they're going to make bad decisions from time to time, but teaching them a good decision making process that is focused on influencing others and being a light, you know, one thing I also tell my kids all the time are people are watching you. People are always watching you. Maybe I learned that from being a small town preacher's kid because everybody in town watched me. But even in the anonymous big city, people are watching you. And the reason is they sometimes are watching for somebody to do the right thing. So let's say that you have a bunch of teens together that want to watch something digitally that's inappropriate. It's time to stand up and say, guys, we don't want to do this right. Let's let's do something else. Let's watch this other thing instead. And you may get kicked out of the group for that, but somebody is going to follow you, maybe not out the door immediately. They may come to you later, but that's attractive. People will come to you when you are doing the right thing. I had a friend in high school. She was a rowdy girl, but she would hang out with my sister and me because she said, When I'm around you, I don't want to do all that other stuff that I get caught up in. So that's where we want our kids to be. We want them to be positive, attractive lights. And I know that's tough. Not every kid, has it in them instinctively to be a leader, but they can be a leader even at the back of the room by saying no, by saying yes to certain things. And people will pick up on that. People are watching. So true. So much wisdom in that. Well let's see. So for all our audience that's listening today, how do they find your ministry, your resources, your podcasts, your books, your all of that? Where would they go and find that? Yeah, sure. Thank you. Well, first of all, everything I do can be found in one way or another through CecilTaylorMinistries.com. And on there you can see pick up my feed of the latest blogs and devotions, that sort of thing. There's a link to my practical Faith Academy podcast, which you can also find on major platforms just by searching on practical Faith Academy podcast or Cecil Taylor Ministries. It'll show up, on my books and in videos or available through my website. Of course, the books are on major online booksellers as well, but you can find everything I produce, whether it's a book or a Sunday School video series, through CecilTaylorMinistries.com. Now, for the parents who've been listening, I have a separate website as well that links to that one. It's called UnisonParenting.com, and it is, based on my book Unison Parenting The Comprehensive Guide to Navigating Christian Parenthood with One Voice. And that book has a lot of great parenting advice based on me teaching parenting classes in my church to 700 families over 15 years, and all the playback I got on the the research I was giving them and the techniques I was giving them, how it played out in their families, all that informs the book. And then there's this underpinning of how do you get on the same page, stay on the same page, and get back on track when you inevitably get off the same page. So as I walk through a child's life, I kind of show also, here's the pitfalls. So, there's a couple of things that, I'd like to reward people with if they go to my sites. If you go to CecilTaylorMinistries.com, I have a free gift if you'll register for it. That is a collection of some of my most popular devotions, essays and blogs over the last five years. And so it's kind of a greatest hits. And you can kind of catch up on what I'm doing. And there's 31 of them, so you could read them daily for a month. And that'll help you also get into a rhythm of of putting faith into practice each day, having something that guides you. So please go there and it'll be in a pop up window or in the little orange box at the bottom of the page. And then, for the parents or for somebody who would like to help a parent. I'm running a sale right now on UnisonParenting.com, where the book is available for 60% off the price you'll find on the big sites only for $10. I also throw in six different bonuses to sweeten the pot. So, I really want people to have the book and to connect with me and so we can cut out the middleman and have that book for $10 and have all kinds of advice. And I'll tell you something, Robin, Karen did, is worth the price of the book on its own, especially if someone out there is teenagers. I have a tip on how to get your teenager to talk to you. And in all the years I've taught this tip, no one has ever come back and said it didn't work. In fact, they come back and say, how do you turn it off? They talk too much now. Oh my God. So that alone. Is it worth ten bucks to know how to get your teenager to you? I think probably. Well, that is absolutely worth it. And, you know, I mean, for some of us out there, I'm thinking like, baby shower is what a great gift to give new parents. You know, to start them off on the right foot because you are so right about being in unison as parents. Because if you are, like, unequally yoked, so to speak, with your decision making and your role is putting, it can be a disaster as parents. So I love that we'll make sure we put links in the show notes for everybody. So it's easy and clear how to find these amazing tools and resources. And for $10. Wow, what an amazing gift you could give to people in your life. So I love that. Thank you so much, Cecil, for your ministry and for your work and for your heart to help Christians grow stronger and find practical ways to really walk out their faith each and every day. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing. Well, thank you for allowing me on here, and thank you for the work that you're doing. It's necessary in today's world, so thank you. Well, as we close today, to our listeners, thanks for joining us. Please, share and like this. And, pass it on. And definitely that's it for today. Join us for the next episode of the covenant House podcast.