Ep. 264 - JLTY Plus: I Don’t Want To Go To Church! With children’s book author Renae Bolton

This is the FCNB podcast network. A praisa that we won't with say then we won't to say oh we got it does? No one can take that? OWA gonna be okay. A prais that we won't with say then we won't to say oh we got it does? No one can take that oway don't be okay. Well, hello, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself. This is Just Listen to Yourself. Plus, this is where I get to interview people that I find interesting fascinating. And last week Darvio mentioned a friend of his who wrote a children's book, and you guys know, I love to support anyone who's out there doing anything creatively that isn't insane. And I thought, wow, I want to have this woman on my show. So I think if you're a parent, or if you have young kids in your life and you're a person of faith, you're really gonna want to hear this. Next guest. My guest today is Renee Bolton. She's an author, and I want to read you her bio because I think we can all relate to this. Renee Bolton is a wife of one and a busy mom of six children. Five boys, one girl, twenty eight, twenty five, nineteen seventeen, and fifteen year old twins. She is absolutely sure that her daughter will be the death of her girl. Don't we know that her house hasn't been thoroughly cleaned and at least seven months Her calendar is full of appointments that she's missed or probably will be missing or be late for in the near future, and her children constantly fear that she will fall and injure another part of her body. In a nutshell, She's a hot mess who loves God and tries to act like it in spite of her mouth, which tends to let stuff out that should just be between her and God. Renee was Renee. Renee was raised in the Church and did not develop a real, true relationship with him until she learned that you can't truly love God if you don't love all of his people. That's something we talk about all the time on this show, all of them. As a COVID outlet, Renee started creating low content books, sermon notes, content journal's, handwriting workbooks, et cetera. She's started She's decided to start writing children's books. In late twenty twenty three, and this is really important. Everything she does is from the point of view of a mom who is just trying to get one or more of her kids to do something anything. Please welcome to the show. Children's book author Renee Bolton. Renee, welcome to just listen to yourself. Thank you so much. Awesome. Well, first of all, tell us the title of your book, and then I'm going to ask you some questions. I didn't give the title. I want you to tell people. So the title of my first book is I Don't Want to go to Church. That was the key, that was what got me when Darvio sent me that. And let me set this up to for you, Renee, because some of my listeners, by the time this goes to air, are already going to know. I feel like God is doing something with this podcast. And recently I've been very interested in how we evangelize, how we offer hope in this really chaotic time that we're living in, and I feel like I've been directed to talk to people who also have that same burden. So I interviewed my friend Cam who is a missionary in Norway, which I thought was really interesting, and we talked about that. So when this popped up, I thought, okay, this, this is a God thing. Because well, I'll get into this later. Tell us a little bit about what drove you to write this book and why a children's book. So initially why a children's book, And the primary reason is because I've had a lot of them, so I know kids. And one of the things that you're told when you're creating content is something you know, it will come easier to you and it will be more of an experience that you can really relate to because you know it so well. I have been children ing for for twenty eight years. It's been on stop, and it's what I know. So when I thought about writing a book that God, this is what I know. Okay, well, I'll tell you why this particular book interested me. I've recently switched churches. Were non Denomination evangelicals, and I recently switched churches. One of the reasons why we left our former church was because I have a son who's in college and he returned last summer on a break, went to meet a lot of his former friends from youth group, and three quarters of them came back non binary, trans whatever the thing is. And to me, I'm making no personal judgment about those children. To me, what it said was our church was not teaching the fundamentals of our faith, and it worried me. And I realized that it is really important to be giving our children this solid theological base. And as inconvenient as that is, it's of course it starts in the family, but it's flor It flourishes in the church. But these days churchesn't cool. It's hard to get your kids to church. They've got everything else to do besides go to church. And I think a lot of parents face what you were facing in the title of this book, this idea that, oh, I don't want to go to church, it's so boring, and we sort of sometimes we let the kids dictate, you know, the spiritual direction. Yes, And I think that's part of what drew me in that direction for a book topic. I mean, for my first book, like right out the Gate, I don't want to go to church. It wasn't It wasn't me. I believe that it was God that gave me that idea and told me what to say. And a lot of it is because I feel that I come from a culture of my mom said we're going to church, so we win. If I said I did didn't want to go, it was to that, so sad, go put your coat on. You know, we didn't have the culture that we have now of talking to your children. And I've learned in the last twenty eight years of parenting that there is something to be said for talking to your children, explaining things to them, instead of just dictating we're going because I said so, Because then we end up with a generation like the one that we have now, where they don't have any real roots in the church because they only went because their parents told them to, as opposed to giving them reasons why this is why we go to church. These are the things that you're going to learn as a human being when we go to church. What do you tell your kids? So I'm going to assume that this book is based on your experience as you set that up. So when your kids were smaller, they're they're older now, but particularly when they were little and they were complaining, What kind of conversations did you have When my oldest were little, we didn't have conversation. I parented the way my parents parented. It was you're just going, I don't I don't really care that you don't want to go. This is what we're doing. We're going to church. And then after the first two, I had a little gap, and then I had the four, the four younger ones, and that was when we started doing things differently and we started talking to them more and very involved parents. So we're constantly taking them places and it always things that they enjoyed. And I remember bondly having that oh my children kind of feeling when a break from school was coming up and my kids would asked, can we go through community service while we're on spring break or while we're doing whatever. Thanksgiving, I remember, you know, I used to always go and do a feed the Hongry program on Thanksgiving morning as a family, because I felt that it would give them an appreciation for people who have nothing when they come home and we might not have a lot, but we have more than nothing. And they got to the point where they just loved doing those things. Service events and things like that. They loved doing those things. So we started talking about that and we do this because this is what Jesus. This is how we show other people for the love of Jesus. And that's the kind of conversations that we started having that's why we go to church. Like we go to church to learn how to love people. We go to church so that we can learn other ways to love people. And that's what I try to do in the book. I love that, I really do, because one thing that I've been thinking about so much rene lately is how lonely everybody seems these stays, and particularly our children, because of the isolation that we went through through COVID and then just the internet culture. It just breeds loneliness, right, I mean, like you said, you have to make a concerted effort to get your kids out like that. That is a decision on your part. It's not something that comes automatically. And and I it breaks my heart because I think a lot of the anger and we see around us, especially when it comes to politics, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that people are so lonely. And You're right, the church is a place where we learn how to love other people and other people who aren't like us. Despite what you might see on TV or in the media, churches aren't uniform. Even churches where you might have one race or another, you still have all kinds of different people in those churches, divorce people, married people, single people. You know, people who vote one way, people who vote another. You're never going to get along perfectly with everyone in your community, but we learn how to love there within the walls of church. I love that you put it that way because a lot of people, including me, including my kids, including I'm sure many people listening to this podcast, look at churches as a chore. But here in this book, you're saying, it's not a chore. It's a learning ground. It's a place where we where we learned to love. Do you see that when you when your kids have, as your kids have grown in church, I have seen that. It's and it's very interesting that when when I stopped demanding and dictating about church and I made it more about them than about what I wanted them to do, it just was a game changer, it really was. I remember we moved from Cleveland, we used to live on It's Monday night, and we moved to Garfield Heights and one of the main things that my older kids were nine and seven at the time, and their biggest thing was can we still go to our church. They didn't care that it was quite a distance from where we bought our house. They want They didn't want to miss their youth groups, they didn't want to miss their experience at church. And I think a lot of that was from being making it their own things. Not you're coming to church with mom. It's about the things you want to do at church that are I'm agreeing with it because it's making you into a better person in your church. Do the children sit in the service or do you have separate service for youth? I'm always curious about this. So in the church that we attend now, Momentum Christian Church, we have children's church up to fifth grade, and after fifth grade they're in regular service with their parents. I like that. I actually think kids need to be there. It was not like that, Yeah, in the service with everybody else. Yeah. I went to a church and because I go, I live in southern California. This is the land of the megachurch. So we have all the programs right, like you know, specifically for your one to two year old, your two to four year old, are they autistic, are they dyslexic? Are they gluten free? Like we whatever your kid needs, we have that for you. You tuck them away and then you know you meet them after service, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. But I went over Christmas, I went to visit a friend in Omaha. She went she goes to a very traditional church, and everybody and it's it was a church full of homeschoolers. Everybody was in that sanctuary. It was so noisy, but it felt good. I do think that, you know, it is important for kids to be in the quote boring part of church too, because there is so much. You know, school's boring too, but that's kind of how the lessons work. So I was just curious about that. Hot topics, the news of the day, in depth interviews, and a whole lot more. It's The Outlaws Radio Show. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts today. That's out Laws, The Outlaws Radio Show, n FCB podcast. Tell me this. You said you had a little you had a gap in between your two oldest and your next four and you said you changed your approach to church in that gap. If you don't mind, would you share with us a little bit of like what happened in your life personally that made that change. I think that that was when I started realizing that, you know, my relationship with God was more than just about me, that my relationship with God was about me and his people. And during that time I grew quite a lot, and I think it didn't really take hold until the twins were born, and our twins got really sick when they were two years old. So we had a five year old, a three and a half year old and the twins, and then they got really sick and they were hospitalized. And it was during that time that I realized the church is supposed to be about family, circling the wagons when you need them. This is this is your village that you can go to when you need something, just like the early churches. And it wasn't like that. It was very disheartening, and it made me realize, you know, why why am I going to church? Why am I making my kids go to church? Why am I doing this other than just for the road kicking the thing off, you know, the box off, this is what we do, we go to church. I realized that I needed a different kind of church, and I needed to make it more real for us and as opposed to just a box to check off on Sundays. And so when I met my pastor's wife at school. She could be introducing me. And when I started attending that church, I realized this is how it was supposed to be. Like kids taking ownership of what they're learning about God, kids mentoring other kids, doing Bible studies with younger children. It just was beautiful and I thought, this is how in real relationship with God is supposed to look like. And so at that point, like I said, the twins got really sick and it was a long struggle, but momentum, man, they just showed me the whole love God, love people thing. And then that made me really want my kids to have that same kind of thought process about going to church, that it was about you and your relationship with God and other people, not I want you to do this. I love that, Yeah, making making it personal, because it does have to be personal. And I have always told my kids, Look, it's our job to educate you in this faith and to protect you in this faith while we're here. But at some but my faith can't be your faith. Right at some point, you're going to have to make your own decision about who you're going to follow and why and the way that you help push along a good decision is to give them a good solid foundation. And I say this on justice to yourself all the time. The problem with modern Western society is everything is pointed inward. How do I feel about this? Self care, self love, self esteem, selfish self everything, and the Gospel points us outward. It's why it's so counterintuitive to literally everyone. You have to train your child to look outward. The world around them is telling them to look inward. This is the very basis of community church. I mean, what do you think? And it's not easy. It's so much easier to just let your kids dictate I don't want to do this or I want to do that, But then we end up with anxiety as society, like you said, that's full of the young people who are depressed, dealing with anxiety lonely. They don't have any real connections because the one that they need to have a real connection with is the one that they were never pointed toward in the first place. And so I feel that if you start when they're young pointing them in the right direction, that will help them as they grow to build that relationship with Jesus so that as they get older it'll be something ingrained in them, not just something you made them do. And now I'm eighteen and I don't have to do this anymore. That's absolutely right. And while you were talking, the other thing I was thinking about is you're not going to have your kids with you forever. At some point, if you're doing your job, they're going to go out into the world and they're going to face the world without you holding your hand or being there to catch them. And I think far too few parents these days think that far ahead and what you're preparing your kid for. So some things are easy, right, It's easy to let your kid complain and not do this or that or the other, and you just don't want to deal with it, so you take the easy way out. But down the road it's not going to be easy for them. And here's what. And you tell me if you've experienced this, because now you've got adult children as well, and I do too. I send my son out about to send my sixteen year old daughter out into this world soon enough, And the second he walked out the door, I'm suddenly realizing all the things I haven't done, all the things I haven't prepared for him, all the failures I've had is there listen. Oh my goodness. When our oldest went to college, I was in his dorm room thinking to myself, I don't think I ever taught him how to and I just constantly yes. I was like, I don't think I taught my son how to sew a button. I think I should quickly show him how to sew on right. Right, Like, there were so many things, and some of them seemed minor, right in the grand scheme of things. You know, how to balance a checkbook, why you shouldn't accept those credit card offers. You know, it's like so many little things that you don't think about. But then at the same time, like I'm joking about it, But at the same time, it's like, are you teaching your child why they should have a real relationship with God? You know, it's like that. It's the same thing, like what are you teaching them? Are you teaching them about whatever they want those that life is whatever you want to do, it's okay, go ahead and do it. Or are you teaching them that it's not just that Jesus loves you, it's about Jesus wants you to go out and love others, and this is how you do that. You know, are you teaching your kids that? And here's something interesting, Renee, And yeah, that girl is so true. I'm like, okay, do I know. I don't know if my son knows where you put the light bulbs in stuff like that, but here. But why I brought that up is you're gonna need someone something to fill in the gaps. And if it's not something that's solid and everlasting and unchanging, it's be all this sandy stuff right that just shifts and moves, and that's how you get anxious children. And so my prayer always is instead of punishing myself, which I like to do often punish myself for all the ways I failed, my thing is like, when I start feeling that way, I say, okay, God, fill in these gaps for me. You know, wherever I've left the gaps, you step in and you fill those because I can't be perfect, and certainly I have failed so much in so many ways. But the thing is, Renee, and I would love to know a little bit about your background for me, the way I was raised by godless hippies. So that's what I was raised as. Life is whatever you want it to be, whatever you want to do in your life. You do that, you sleep with as many people as you can, because that's freedom. You don't have any relationships. You know, you do whatever you want. And so it was jeez, it was a church that really changed my mind, that really shifted my point of view. So for me, that's a no brainer, right, that your life is about more than just you. But I find it fascinating to talk to people who who have been raised in the church, And it's very interesting being a parent now raising kids in the church. Now I'm raising a Christian family where I wasn't raised that way. So for me, I had this conversion experience, right, so I can harken back to that. My kids don't have that they were raised in a Christian home, so you have. I'm realizing I have to be more deliberate about the relationship that I'm offering them, but also the one I'm showing them. I don't know that I've always done a great job of that, right, and I don't think any of us have always done a great job. I don't think it's a cure. I think it's a human being thing. I can tell you. I think I'm on mom Phil number three million two hundred fifty eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty nine. I mean, I was keeping track for a while, and I've just lost jack of how many mom feels I've made over the last almost thirty years of parenting. But I'll tell you that one of the things that I oh, hang on, Renee, hang on. I know you heard my dog barking. She's the the hoa. Landscapers are out there and there's leaf blowers, which means she must protect me from the leaf blower that's on the next block. All right, I'm so sorry. I have a lot of editing to do. Please continue, though you are on mom failure speaking my language. Girl, I was like, well, it's not just me, no, no, no, no no. But I realized that one of my most important jobs is teaching my children to love, honor, and respect that and I didn't feel that I was doing a good enough job at that. I needed to change some things, which is what brought about the whole having conversations and talking about different things that we do and all of that. I wanted my kids to grow up feeling like they knew who God was because He knows them. And it was not easy, and I don't know how many times I've said to God, I didn't do this when they were growing up. I didn't say that to them when they were growing up. I should have did this. You know, God, why didn't you remind me to do this thing with my kids? You know? You know I'm trying to make makes love you do. What's going on? You know, it's just a process to process. And I think that it doesn't matter if you've been in church your whole life, since you were worn, or that you just started going to church at seventy five. It doesn't matter. It's a process. And I think it's just our job to start from where we're at and and do whatever we can to instill a love for Jesus and our children. So if parents buy this book, what are they What kind of a story are they going to see when they read this book with their kids. So this book is about little debri Jel Hello, brownskinned girl, and her mom is telling her we're going to church. And Debrigel doesn't think she wants to go to church. In fact, initially she's adamant she does not want to go to church. I don't want to do that. But as the story progresses and mom starts showing her, well, yeah, we're gonna go do this thing today. And after the thing, Debora Joe gets to reminisce about what they just did and and she you know, I really liked that. That was so much fun or that made me feel some kind of way, and and mom is explaining, yeah, that's because of you know, we do that at church. You know we organ all those people were from my church. We do these things because this is what we're supposed to do. This is how we love other people. And by the end of the story, Debor Joe has a I don't know, but I'm going to go, and then she realizes it is what her mom was saying all along, and she loves it. I love this approach. I think it's so it's so real. I just I wish I had had this book when my kids were younger. The way you put it, Renee, really, I have to say, this is something I'm going to take with me because I love how you connect it to the idea of loving others. This is not indoctrination thing. This is a yeah, this is a thing of learning how to care for others, which is really what we are called to do at the end of the day, only Jesus saves. Only Jesus saves. Christians have a real problem with this. A lot of Christians seek they're the ones saving folks. Right, So if you don't thank me properly for the help I gave you, or you don't seem appropriately accepting of this ministry or this charity, there's something wrong with you, you know. And Christians take that. Many Christians tend to take that personally. Yes, But on the flip side of that, it's also as long as our kids behave, as long as they do what they're told. You know, that's good enough. The kids are good, that's good enough. And it's not that is more than that that a girl. Yeah, and neither can little Johnny or Anne. They cannot be good enough. Our children cannot be good enough, which is why they need Jesus. Right, you cannot be good enough. I cannot be good You just sat here and listened to me and Renee talk about are many many parenting fails. I mean, there's just nobody you're gonna find. Yeah, it's the struggle is very real, and I do think a lot of moms need to hear that, right, need to hear that because we're just assaulted with social media perfection all the time. And you don't have to be a perfect mom or a perfect parent. You have access to something that is perfect. They just have to point your kids in that direction. M h. Well, Renee, I think about my all daughter, my one and only daughter, who is now a freshman at the University of Akron, and she texted me last mom, I went to the youth group on campus and I had a great time. I loved it. I'm going to go back. I can't make her do that. It has to be something that she wants to do on her own because she's too far away. So it's got to be something that they take as their own for ownership of their relationship with Jesus. I love that ownership. You've got to give your kids a stake in their faith, in your faith, and in their community, and that's where you start. Well, Renee, tell people where again, the name of the book, where they can find the book, and how they can help you telp more people about this book. Well. The book is available on Amazon and print and Kindle, and the title of the book again is I Don't Want to go to Church. It's published by Bolton Books. So if you want to look up Bolton Books or I don't want to go to church by Bolton Books, you should find it. And what I really want is people outside of my circle to share about the book. So if you know someone might find it helpful for their family, share the link to the book with them, tell others about it, hit me up on social media, with me on social media. Walton Books. So all of my parents on social media is Bolton Books. So if you just look that up, you should be able to find me. And I'll include all of these links in the show notes as well. And I just want to encourage my audience to maybe another thing for the Christian listeners in this audience, because I have a wide audience. I know this is a very specific episode, but get this book A. You're supporting an independent artist. You're supporting someone who is disseminating traditional core values in a society where our kids have to go to a library and look at books about you know, why boys can be girls and all of this upside down stuff. This is a This is a type of book that really wouldn't get published in the mainstream anymore. So you're supporting an author who has a really good message. So one of the things I suggest, and this is what I'm going to do, buy the book and donate it to your church library. You know your church has nursery, a nursery program and they want all they need, always need books and to ways, So buy the book and donate it to your church. That's a great place to start. La Renee. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. I wish you the best of the book. Of course, we're going to do everything we can to let people know about it. And is there anything else you would like to tell our listeners before we leave, just that they would pray that God would do what he wants to do with this book, that it will reach people for Jesus, because that's the ultimate goal, that we will start raising children who love God and love people. Amen. I couldn't put it better myself. Well, everybody, if you have a question or comment on this episode, be sure to write me jail tyat proton mail dot com, j lt yat proton mail dot com. Rate and review this episode. That's the easiest thing you can do to support this show, and it's free. It doesn't cost you anything but a few seconds of your time, and don't forget to subscribe to my substack just Kira Davis dot substack dot com, and uh listen as always, don't forget until we talk again. Every once in a while, just stop and listen to yourself. Opbreads Masoda Day that we won't with say then we won't to say oh we got it? Does no one get dig that? Owen? This gonna be okay? Opreads that we won't with say then we won't to say oh we got it? Does no one get dig that? Owen? Day? Don't be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk lives Visitors online at fcbpodcasts dot com.