Episode Details

Recorded on location at Gulf Coast Family Camp with Ben and Nilli Stewart, the family Daniel and Allison run the camp ministry alongside.

Ben pastored for 21 years, coaches businesses for a living, and owns six of them. Nilli was diagnosed with leukemia at 19, back when she and Ben were still dating. The doctors gave her a four percent chance of living and told her children were unlikely. Nine children and 26 years of marriage later, they run family camps and purity retreats out of a ranch property in the Ozarks.

This one is the most practical hour on the feed. Ben and Nilli open the entire operating system of their home: the family mission statement they hammered out over three days and revisit every year, the four bird framework they use to name what each person carries instead of getting frustrated with them, the annual vision retreat, the monthly goal reset, the 25 minute Saturday family meeting, and the fifteen minutes right after it that belongs to one child at a time so every child gets a real one on one about every nine weeks. Homeschool Monday through Thursday. Friday is a family work day and no client gets scheduled. Saturday is rest.

Then it turns. Ben says the thing most Christian parents will flinch at: he does not need his children to obey him. He needs them to obey the Lord. He apologized to his son Zion for getting that backward. Control produces rebellion. Pointing children to Christ keeps their heart.

"Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 NKJV

Come sit under teaching like this in person. Registration for Gulf Coast Family Camp is open at GulfCoastFamilyCamp.com

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