TLP 91: Our One Year Anniversary and You

Today’s a BIG deal. It’s our one year anniversary and that means presents . . . for you! Tune in to hear about the special opportunities we have to sharpen you parenting skills.
  
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Transcript

Introduction

​Hello, Friends!

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Today is a special day for me and the rest of TeamTLP, but it’s also a pretty cool day for you too.

On Thursday, September 21st, Truth.Love.Parent. will celebrate it’s one year anniversary. 

And we’re starting the party early!

To be honest, I am having a very difficult time feeling like we’ve been doing this for a year. I feel like the time has flown faster than Apple’s new iPhone will fly from the shelves.

It does not feel like a year. But, as I’ve said frequently, my emotions don’t matter when they contradict reality . . . so here we are a year later.
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So, please allow me to share just a thought or two by way of reflection, and then share with you what the coming year promises, and what special opportunities await you at TruthLoveParent.com.

Topic

When I founded TLP last year, I did so with an overwhelming desire to glorify my God by helping His children learn how to parent the way He designed.

And that’s the mission of Truth.Love.Parent. We strive to magnify God by teaching men and women to be intentional, disciple-making parents. We’ve been called to be vibrant Ambassadors for Christ in our homes, and as we learn to do that from God’s Word, we want to help you learn to do the same.

And every step of the way God has allowed TLP to continue publishing. Most of you know about the momentous blessing God gave us back in February. If you don’t know about that, please listen to A TLP Snippet #4 entitled “We Won!” It’s a great story.

During this time our audience as grown to include you and many others from nearly ninety countries. I’ve met and corresponded with a number of you from various corners of the earth, and I’m daily amazed by how God is using you to introduce us to more premeditated parents.

When you suggest our podcast to a friend, you’re doing more than a thousand PR companies and ad campaigns could do. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being a part of our global mission to serve families with the Truth and love of Christ.

We also need to thank those of your who’ve chosen to bless us by giving financially. Your contributions have enabled us to do many things we wouldn’t otherwise have been able to accomplish. 

If you haven’t yet clicked the link to see our Patreon page, may I humbly request that you do? It’s in the description and it’s on nearly every page of TruthLoveParent.com There you’ll find many of our ministry goals and find out how even the smallest gifts can be used by God to connect His parenting truths with hurting and searching families.

I’ve mentioned before that our show has been heard in a number of countries that are anti-God and anti-Christianity. That means that people in China, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates have tuned in to TLP. Even if you donated only one dollar a month, you’d be playing a part in helping us show the world how the Gospel can revolutionize their families.

I want to move past this talk about finances; I believe God will introduce us to the right Patrons at the right time, but let me share one other way your gifts help us minister to families.

When you go the Patreon page you’ll see a handful of projects we’re working on. They include free eBooks, full-length parenting books, and video curriculum. Your gifts will enable us to produce these resources and get them into the hands of moms and dads all over the world.

The project I’m currently working on, but don’t have the resources to finalize is called “Quit: God’s cure for family strife.” We plan to offer it as a free eBook to anyone who joins The TLP Family. 

Thank you for considering that.

Okay, so speaking of The TLP Family, let me now transition to what our one year anniversary means for you.

Many of your have visited TruthLoveParent.com. If you haven’t been there in a while, I’d highly suggest you get back as soon as possible. 

We know that everything starts small, but it’s our goal for TruthLoveParent.com to become a hub for all things biblical parenting.

To that end, we’re constantly adding new features to our site, and we’ve multiplied that addition ten-fold in the past week.

One of our newest opportunities is what we call The TLP Family. All you have to do is navigate to TruthLoveParent.com and sign up. It doesn’t cost anything, but when you become part of the The TLP Family, you'll receive valuable email updates when we release new blog posts, episodes, and parenting resources. But as we expand our resource library you’ll also receive special discounts, holiday and birthday deals, and receive access to unique competitions just for The TLP Family. But DON'T WORRY, we do not want to fill up your inbox. It’s not that kind of thing. In fact, at first you may wonder if you’re ever going to get an email from us. We only want to send emails when we're sure you want to know what we have to share.

But here’s the part that really excites me. I’m part of a bunch of parenting groups of Facebook. In fact, perhaps that’s where you were first introduced to TLP. But there seems to be a reoccurring theme. Generally only the moderators post. Everyone else just sits back and watches. Sometimes a hurting parent will post and ask for help, but again, most of the parents in the group just sit back and watch. 

It’s not a very engaging atmosphere where people are genuinely being built up in the faith and encouraged in their parenting. In fact, there are some groups that I’m the only one who ever posts and I’m not even the moderator. Well, when you sign up to be part of The TLP Family, you'll also receive access to our closed Facebook group. 

This group was created to give you a place to meet other intentional, premeditated parents who love God and His Word. Our desire is that you'll dive into the discussions, ask questions, encourage each other, give hope, point each other to the Bible, and pray for each other.

I’m part of another closed Facebook group. It’s the Launch Team for Natasha Crain’s new book, and you know what I love about it. Nearly everyone on there is engaging. They’re asking questions, answering questions, sharing prayer requests. It’s amazing. But it only works when people invest.

Listen, if we can’t have each other’s backs in our parenting, what do we have? I would love for The TLP Family Facebook group to be teeming with parents sharing their victories and their defeats. I’d love to see people posting encouraging and edifying helps. It would be amazing if we all started praying for each other.

So, when you sign up on the website, that’s what you’ll get. And I hope that excites you as much as it does me.

Alright, so, let me take you on a walking tour of our site just to point out special opportunities for you and your family.

First, obviously, our podcast is featured there. Of course, we highly suggest you subscribe on iTunes or your favorite hosting app, and be sure to rate and review us while you’re there! In fact, our podcast and reviews pages on our site include instructions for reviewing us on iTunes because it’s not the most intuitive process.

Moving on, we also have a page where you can find all of our social media sites. There’s a page that connects you with our team of TLP counselors. Many of you have taken advantage of that ministry. Please note that it’s free to email a counselor and ask a question. It will always be free because we are here to serve God and serve families.

There’s also a page where you can learn about having a TLP speaker come to your church, teacher’s convention, camp, or couples conference. 

I have to pause here for a moment and say that my favorite times are interacting with premeditated parents face-to-face. Whether it’s over Skype, after a workshop, or grabbing some hot chocolate at a coffee shop, I thrill to connect with parents and see God working in their lives. I love counseling everybody, but interacting with people who want to change and grow is so refreshing and invigorating. 
So, if you’re looking for a speaker for a parent seminar, teen camp, or you’re interested in introducing Victory Academy for Boys and Truth.Love.Parent. to your church, just click on the “Speakers” tab on the website.

Okay, so lastly, our fullest page is called “Parenting Tools.” It’s filled with so much, and we have plans for a lot more in the future. There you’ll find our blog, Taking Back the Family where we post original articles on marriage, parenting, and family. We also publish free show notes and transcripts of all our podcast episodes on Taking Back the Family.

Then there’s a number of pages dedicated to our favorites. We provide you links for the best parenting blogs, podcasts, and books. And we have a way of you to suggest your favorite blogs, podcasts, and books to be added to our list.

And the final parent resource I want to highlight is the “TLP Products” tab under “Parenting Tools.” These are those projects I shared with you earlier. This is where our parenting books, courses, curricula, and videos will be available. 

Now, there’s not much there now . . . that’s why we need your help, but — to start things off — our very first Truth.Love.Parenting Course has been posted! Officially, it doesn't become live until the 21st, but if you’re listening to this episode before the 21st, all you have to do is click on the parenting course called “25 Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent” and you’ll get immediate access to enroll for that course for free.

Basically, it’s a parenting course formatted in email. Each weekday for twenty-five days you’ll receive an email with a lesson and LifeWork assignment designed to help you grow in the area of being intentional and premeditated in your parenting. 

I will say that this is not just an inspirational note or a helpful parenting tip delivered to your inbox. These lessons are robust in many ways, and the curriculum has been crafted to really challenge and stretch you. I’ve had some people testing it for the past couple months and some of the feedback I received is that it was far more than they imagined. Some of them also felt like they had to really push themselves to stay on target with the due dates.

But here’s the thing: it’s an email course. You can follow the due dates or archive the emails if you get behind and then work through as you finalize the LifeWork. It doesn’t have to be a burden.

And if you’re the type of person who wants to take it to the next level, you can sign up to have a TeamTLP Mentor. There is a cost associated with that, because your Mentor will walk with you every step of the way as you work on and complete each assignment:

1. They will provide an extra layer of accountability.
2. They will be available to answer questions via email.
3. They will personally read each assignment and provide invaluable feedback.
4. They will even have opportunities to connect with you via phone or Skype to help you with more challenging assignments.

Conclusion

​If you couldn’t tell, we wanted to really provide you valuable assets that would point you to God and sharpen you ability to parent to His glory.

And this is just the start. If you're listening to this in 2017, you have the opportunity to be on the front lines of this movement. We’re celebrating out first anniversary, and we hope to be around for you until your kids have kids of their own.

Welcome to The TLP Family, thank you for entrusting us to speak into your experience, and may God receive all the glory and honor for what we do.

We don’t have any episode notes for you today, but your assignment is to get over to TruthLoveParent.com, join the TLP Family, sign up for “25 Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent,” and check out the other amazing resources. And we hope you’ll stop by our social media and wish us a happy birthday on the 21st!

On our next episode we’ll talk about Christian Parenting 101. We’re getting back to basics on Friday. I thought it was an appropriate way to start off our second year.

Listen, parenting is a really big deal, and it’s so easy to fail. That’s why we need God and faithful preachers, counselors, teachers, and friends to constantly drive us back to Him.
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We love you all and look forward to seeing you next time!