You Mean Discipleship Can Be Fun?, with Hunter Beless and Laura Wifler

Let’s make discipleship fun! Hear fresh ideas from Hunter Beless and Laura Wifler in this upbeat edition of Grounded. This episode will spark your creativity as you discover ways to instill a love for God’s Word in others. 

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Episode Notes

Read It, See It, Say It, Sing It! by Hunter Beless

Any Time, Any Place, Any Prayer: A True Story of How You Can Talk With God by Laura Wifler 

True Girl podcast

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Erin Davis: You teach somebody to love the Bible by seeking together. Can you teach somebody how to pray with a coloring book? I'm Erin Davis. This is Grounded—a videocast and podcast from Revive Our Hearts.

Portia Collins: I am Portia Collins. Here's a bright idea for your Monday morning. Ready? Drumroll . . . discipleship can be fun.

Erin: Well, I think that's more like a kazoo. Discipleship can be fun; it's true. Hunter Beless and Laura Wifler are both returning guests whom we love. They are going to give us some fresh ideas for discipleship in this episode of Grounded.

Portia: And that is your cue to do what? Hit that like button, and also hit the notification button if you are not already subscribed. It's a small thing that you can do that helps Grounded get in front of more women, which means more hope and perspective.

Erin: I'm all about that. Getting my invisible kazoo out again. Before we get to our guests this morning . . . And what a great lineup we have. Portia, you know the drill, we need some good news from you.

Good News—6:04

Portia: I'm ready for today's good news. It is short and sweet. If you're listening to the podcast version, you are definitely going to want to track down the episode notes at ReviveOurHearts.com/Grounded, because the tulips are in bloom in Holland. I don't know a better way to start our week out right than staring at fields of gorgeous flowers. Alright. 

So, these images are real rows and rows and rows of beautiful flowers to take your breath away. And you know what I think? I think Jesus was the first creative disciple. In Matthew, the sixth chapter, verses 28 through 30, this is what many of us know as His greatest sermon of all time. It recorded Him saying this, “And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

God uses flowers to teach us about Him and birds and rocks and music and all kinds of other things. Just look out your window. He wants to teach you something today. And that, my friends, is good news.

And guess what? I've got a double dose of good news, because Laura Booz is here with us. She's going to take us straight to God's Word. Welcome back Laura.

Grounded in the Word with Laura Booz: Deut. 6—8:04

Laura Booz: Hi, Portia. Good morning, everyone. We are going to open up our Bibles right away to Deuteronomy 6. So, while you are paging through to Deuteronomy 6 in your Bible, I want to tell you what a blessing it has been to prepare this short little teaching for you. Because, sincerely, it has stirred my faith. It has opened my eyes to see God's Word and to see Jesus in a whole new light. 

I'm thankful for that. I am praying that you receive the same. Open our eyes, Lord, that we may behold beautiful things in your Word. 

Alright, so we're just going to jump right in. As we read Deuteronomy 6:1–9, I want you to look for three things. First of all, I want you to look for the word “you” and “your,” because God had just rescued His people out of slavery, and Moses is recapping for them here is your God. And here is His covenant with you. He had just gone through the Ten Commandments. And now the Lord gathered His nation together. He was saying to them, this is the way we're going to move forward from generation to generation all the way into the land that's flowing with milk and honey. 

And so, when you see the word “you” and “your,” you know, He's speaking to God's people, you know, He's speaking to you and to me. So, you're gonna look for that, I want you to look for the action steps that God gives us in this passage. And I want you to keep your eye out for any promises. Like, why, why is God telling us to do this? What good is there behind us? Because we know He has good intended for us? What is it? 

All right, let's dig in Deuteronomy 6.

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it,that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”’ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Now, a little footnote there for verse eight, because I had to look that up. That was just kind of a figurative speech, like these words should be on you, they should be so important to you. But the holy men in in Israel would actually make a bracelet for their wrist with a little box on it and a little scroll of Scripture and a headband to go around their head with a box on it with a little roll of Scripture. So, to keep that command so literally, and keep the Word of God so close to their hearts. 

Did you hear how God was talking to all of Israel, all of His people, not just the mamas with young ones, not just the homeschool mamas not Just the Sunday school teachers, but the men and the women, the young and the old, all of Israel together. 

And when I read this, it stirs my heart. And you know, I really do ask the Lord for the grace to do it. But on a daily basis, I lay my head on the pillow at night. And I realized that I didn't, I didn't do this. I didn't like constantly overflow with the Word of God I forgot all about Him. Some days, I think: Did I speak the name of Jesus to my children at all? Did I reach out to a friend? How about the young women that I mentoring? Have I connected with them recently? When I read this, I can see how very far I fall short. 

And whenever that happens, I've got to look for how Jesus lived out this Scripture. I think you're going to be amazed if you look with me through the Gospels. So later today, I want you to hold Deuteronomy 6 on the left, and I want you to page through the Gospels with your right hand, and you are going to see Jesus live this out, moment by moment, day by day. I mean, I was looking at it last night, and it just blew me away. What a blessing. 

So, you know that first of all, the Lord, His Father was one. He knew they were one. He loved the Lord with His whole heart, soul and might. Everything He did was for His Father. He said, I don't do one thing unless my Father has told me to. He was always pleasing His Father and thanking His Father and pulling away to the mountainside to speak with His Father. Everything was out of love for God, His Father, and He held to His Word to the letter. 

Out of that overflow of love for His Father, and the Word, Jesus then taught them diligently to His children. And you know, while Jesus was on earth, He did not have biological children. But He diligently taught them to all of God's children around Him.

It's amazing to see when He sat in a house, first of all as a 12-year-old boy, He couldn't wait to do this, to teach as He sat in his house, because He was sitting there in the temple. And He said to His parents, “Didn't you know, this is my Father's house?” And He was busy teaching and interacting with those leaders and astounding them. 

He taught in Zacchaeus, his house, Simon, the leper, Mary and Martha, the Pharisees. Everywhere. We see Him at the Last Supper, He's in a house sitting, teaching people diligently of God's love and His character and His ways. 

We see Him teaching when He walks, by the way, I mean, you can't get through a story without Jesus’ teaching, while He's going up a mountain or down a mountain, while He's getting into a boat, or out of a boat. While He's walking by the roadside, He was healing the blind and, and raising a son from the dead. He's always teaching, always healing, always rebuking His disciples, showing them how to serve who God is. It's just amazing to see Him walk, by the way, overflowing with His teaching.

And when you lie down, well, I think of the story of when He literally did lay down in the stern of the boat in the middle of that storm. He taught His disciples that He was the God of creation and the God of peace. 

But I also think about when he did lay down His life for us, and what that taught us about God's love and character and promises. And when you rise, how about when He rose from the grave? What did we all learn about God's heart to redeem all creation? 

And sure enough, when He did rise, He met his disciples at breakfast. When they rose up in the morning, He made them a breakfast and said, “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” In other words, go after Deuteronomy 6, like I did. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes. I just couldn't help but think about how He had the sign of God's truth and God's heart on His hands and the crown of thorns around His brow. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 

Well, in John 10 and Matthew 7 and Luke 13, Jesus says, I am the Door. I am the gate, so that you, My people may come and go.He wants to gather us as a nation and move us forward through to the land flowing with milk and honey. 

So, because Jesus did this, you and I have a perfect Savior, who fulfilled Deuteronomy 6 for us. And then who mentored? Who showed us the way? What can this look like? He showed us the way through His own teaching and His own lifestyle. 

As we are fully redeemed through His death and resurrection, He gathered His disciples together one last time before ascending to heaven. 

I'm going to close with this in Matthew 28. Jesus came and said to them, now see if you see some similarities of Deuteronomy 6, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (vv. 18-20).

So, my friend, you and I can follow Jesus. We can teach, and we can know He is with us, always, to the end of the age.

Grounded with God's People: Hunter Beless and Laura Wifler—18:27

Erin: Thank you, Laura. How have I never seen Jesus living out Deuteronomy 6 before? It's so obvious now that you've shown it to us. But that's beautiful. I'll never think of that verse the same way again. 

Hey, this whole episode is built on a premise that maybe we should have been more overt with at the beginning, which is that you are a discipler. Do you know that you're a discipler? You are. I mean, the four children in my home, they are my disciples. Whether or not you have children in your home or not, somebody's watching your example. We want to encourage you to have joy in the discipling. Just as Laura showed us, Jesus did. I gotta think Jesus enjoyed discipling those who came around Him so much. 

So, we've got two guests that are going to help us get grounded with God's people. Hunter Beless is with us. She's the host of the Journey Woman Podcast and the author of a new book called Read it, See it, Say it, Sing it. Ooh, Say that five times fast. You're gonna love the story about how she got the idea for that book. And Laura Wifler has such a fun way to teach kids how to pray. She's also the author of a children's book, Anytime, Anyplace, Any Prayer. Welcome back to Grounded YouTube. We're so glad to have this conversation with you.

Hunter Beless: Thank you so much.

Laura Wifler: Yeah, it's so fun to be here.

Erin: You're all smiles, which makes me all smiles. That's so fun. 

Well, you're both in the mothering smallest children phase of life. I just believe everything takes creativity in that season of life. You gotta have creative solutions. But Hunter, one of the things I know about your life from just being your friend, and honestly, from a lot of social media peeping, is that you use song to teach your kids about God's Word. I want to know more about that. How did that have a start in your family?

Hunter: Well, I always remember things better as a song. It's such a wonderful thing to get to sing together as a family and just enjoy God's Word, to teach them to delight in God's Word. But really, I think the principle behind the singing is that our lives ought to testify to the wondrous works of the Lord. And so, our theology, our understanding of who God is, is naturally going to lend itself to doxology or a singing, proverbially speaking, but for us it does happen literally too. 

Erin: I love that. I think we're about to have a Grounded first. I'm gonna sing on Grounded because there's a little song at the Davis house that I think I invented. Maybe it's copywritten, but all my boys know it. Here it goes, “Obey. I love to obey, obey. I love to obey, obey. I love to obey. It helps me prosper.” My 14-year-old can sing it, and my 3-year-old can sing it and everybody in-between. It's so much better than me just saying, “You need to obey mommy,” right? There's this song. It's imprinted on their hearts that this is for their good. I think you're right, that music makes it stink. Not stink, stick. I was nervous from singing. Has that been your experience? As you sing with your kids? It sticks, not stinks.

Hunter: Yes, absolutely. And for us, it actually comes out in more of a rap or a rhyme than a song. 

Erin: Oh, you have more skills than I do.

Hunter: It's just something that comes naturally to me. And so, for us, we always say, “Do whatever works.” You know, you can sing if it works for you. You can rap, you can bang on the table, you can scream, you can use a monster voice. Do whatever works for you to just get the words of God down into your heart. That's the goal, that we would reflect upon and remember the wondrous works of the Lord. And so, whatever it takes, that's what we're gonna do at our house, to be putting that into practice.

Erin: We've lost that a little bit. I mean, church used to be a place in Sunday school where you sing songs like “This Little Light of Mine” and those repetitive phrases over and over. Now our Sunday school is like very cool. There's very cool music, but I can't remember any of it, so just those simple, redundant songs are so so helpful. 

Before I move on to Laura. I love the story of how this became a book. Can you tell us the short version that began with those beautiful words every woman loves to hear, “I'll take the kids.” Tell the story.

Hunter: Well, my husband did take my kids one morning, and he offered me time just to sit with the Lord. And out of my own overflow of just delight in God's Word, I penned a poem, and I often pin poems. Laura knows this, you know this, Erin. And so, it just came out. 

I was trying to encapsulate what is it about God's Word that I love so much? And why is it that we want to be hiding God's Word in our hearts? It’s so that we can communicate the truth about what God's Word is, and what it does for us in the life of a Christian to our children, so that maybe, then they'd be a little bit more excited, whenever we say, “Hey, guys, let's sit down and read God's Word together. Or, Hey, let's memorize this Scripture together.” Because I don't know if you're like me, I know that I need to be teaching the commands of the Lord to my children, like Laura just taught us so beautifully. But oftentimes, that results in grumbling and complaining.

I think if we can just give our kids a little bit more of a biblical understanding of what God's Word is, and why it's so important in the life of a Christian. Then, maybe they'll come to the table with a little bit more eagerness and a little more willingness to engage with it.

Erin: I love that. I actually think the spirit of Deuteronomy 6 is delight and creativity. In your everyday life, write it on the walls, sing it while you're walking down the road, put it on your forehead, if you need to just find a way to remember it. And our kids are, of course, drawn to that. 

Hey, Laura, you've got your eyes set on a pretty lofty parenting goal, which is to give your children a biblical understanding of prayer I've got a confession, which is that prayer is a discipline I often struggle with, and therefore, not an area of my spiritual life I focused on much with my kids. So, I hope to learn from you. Tell me about your approach and teaching your kids to pray.

Laura Wifler: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's a struggle for all of us. So, just because I wrote the book on it, trust me, it is preaching to my own heart, and it is what I need to hear for sure. 

But when talking about prayer with our kids, I think sometimes I would overcomplicate it as a mom. I would really want there to be just robust, long prayer for my children that really acknowledged all the facets of God. I remember one time one of my girls said to me, whenever I wasn't gonna pray but it was gonna be my husband. She just goes, “Thank goodness, Mom's prayers last so long.” 

But really, the heart behind the book is just to show children the idea that the Lord has always made a way for prayer. Since the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, prayed to God. It's just simply talking with God. And so, we did that before sin, before the fall. And now we're doing it throughout the fall. 

And so, I hope to show just how prayer has changed, but that it's still something beautiful. It's something that we still get to practice. We still get to do that. God still made a way for us to talk with Him. 

We see that the book kind of goes through when Christ came back, and how prayer changed when the Holy Spirit came. Whenever He sent the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts, we have the Spirit to help us when we don't know what to pray, which has been a huge gift for me as a mom. Even for my kids, they've come to understand that the spirit groans, even for us, whenever we don't know what to pray.

And then it even goes into the new creation. We're going to spend eternity talking with God. I mean, prayer is something that is from the beginning of time to the end of time. It's something that God's people have always done and will always do. 

And so, it's such a joy to be able to help children understand that concept. And even for me, as I wrote the book, to be like, “Oh, that was prayer in the Garden of Eden. Oh, when the disciples talked with Jesus as He walked the earth, that was prayer.” I think for me, I've been a Christian for, 30 plus years, and I didn't even quite realize that until I sat down to really think more deeply about prayer.

Erin: Yeah, it demystifies it. I mean, prayer is not this extra holy, special thing we do. We talk with each other. We talk with God. When war broke out in Ukraine in Russia, I just rolled out a big piece of butcher box paper and taped it to my dining room wall and said, “Okay, we're all gonna write prayers on this as this conflict unfolds.” And they did. Some of my littler kids’ prayers were just like, “Jesus help.” And some of my younger kids’ prayers were a little bit more complex. But I was teaching them, you can write a simple prayer. You could say it out loud. You could say it quietly. It doesn't matter. But it's just that every day rhythm. I love that. That helps me feel a little less guilty about not being a prayer warrior.

Something I noticed about young moms and moms with young kids. Now I have a toddler, but I'm the old mom at the park. I'm not a young mom. But anyway, there's this renewed interest in catechizing our kids, which is not a new idea. In fact, it's a very old idea. But I wanted to talk about it in this episode. Either of you can take this ball. What does it mean to categorize our children or ourselves or women's discipleship group? I'd love to hear the ways that you guys have done this. Laura, you want to pick it up first?

Laura: Catechizing is simply teaching your children the truth of God. I mean, it's usually a call and response, or a question and an answer, where we ask the question of who made you? You know, why did God make you? A different simple question that really just teaches your children truth. 

Just a quick story. My youngest daughter is almost five. She has disabilities. In our family, we had been working through many different catechisms. I was mainly working with my older two children, because my youngest is not as verbal and just is delayed overall. One day I said to my kids, kind of like in review, because this was basic, I just said, “Who made you?” And my youngest daughter, who doesn't hardly speak very much, she just goes “God,” and just yelled it out. I just lost it. 

This is a truth that I don't know when it was planted in her heart. Because this was the first time, she had articulated it for us. But I just thought, “Oh, baby, I'm so glad you know this. I want you to know this.” It was such a joy to see something that maybe we have been working on in passing take root in her heart. 

I pray that is even for my other children who are regularly developing, that as they grow up and someone says, “You're not very smart, or you're not beautiful, or you're not good,” whatever, it may be probably much harsher than that; that they remember. “No, God made me.” Some of those catechizing type things, those are what really implant truths from the Bible. They give us language to be able to rebut lies, to be able to fight Satan, to just speak truth to our hearts and to other people. And so, I have really enjoyed catechizing my children. I haven't done it maybe as much as I have wanted to or felt like I should. But I think when we take time to do those things, they come out of us in moments when we need them the most.

Erin: That is so good. And you know, I have four sons. I think they probably all have a different approach to learning, they probably learn each one in a different unique way, and certainly at a different pace. And so, there's not a one and done approach to implanting these things in my children's hearts. One of them is definitely an auditory listener. So, he likes to listen to the Bible read out loud. One of them is definitely kinesthetic. He's gonna need to draw or sculpt it or something. One of them cannot sit still for I don't know, any given amount of time. 

So, we're gonna have to find some way to do it. Well, that dude is on the move. And so, we just take this constant creativity. We love Songs for Saplings, which is some music, you can find it on YouTube. It's straight Scripture, and we're playing it a lot. Hunter, anything you want to add to this idea of catechizing our kids?

Hunter: Yeah, I think Laura put it so beautifully, that it really is a summarization of what Scripture teaches on a particular topic. And so, this ties in really well with Scripture memory. I think you're just giving them doctrinal statements. They don't know that word. But you're teaching them what the whole Bible says about who made me. And these are wonderful things, like Laura said, just in that moment of need. I think the Holy Spirit is able to bring those truths to mind to help them employ them in times they need them both. 

So, it's a lot like Scripture memory. But you're just taking all the verses about one particular topic and giving them a little blip about here's what the Bible says about this. There are so many wonderful helps out there particularly in relation to singing. We love Asked Me Who. That's one of the CDs that we listened to whenever they were really young. Then New City Catechism. That's another great resource. And certainly, I want to be doing this more as well because this isn't something that I grew up with. 

I am really helped by it and refreshed by it as a mother myself. So, it's such a great practice for for mothers who may not have time to be studying a systematic theology text just to bust out the app, the New City Catechism app, set it on kid’s section, and then to be also refreshing our own hearts and minds with the truth about God's Word and who He is in His Word as we spend time together with our children

Erin: I've found that to be true. Listen, ain't no mama got time for systematic theology texts. So, we’ve got to find some other ways. I'm refreshed. You're right. I enjoy that time with my kids. I enjoy that learning together. I've been soaking this whole year in Psalm 92, which is all about delight, that delight is good for us. Praising God is good for us. Singing is good for us. And what I'm finding is that when I delight in my kids, that they delight in me. When I delight in God's Word, it's something that I want to reach for. It's not drudgery. 

So, the big idea of everything you're saying, I think it's like, just make it fun. Enjoy it. It's supposed to be enjoyable. This opportunity we get is to disciple our children. Well, I want to end this interview by praying for the two of you and your families. I do feel just some affection for you as a mama a little further down the road. And I would love to just pray for you both to delight in Jesus as you teach your children to delight in Him. 

So, let's pray. Jesus, you delight in us. We know that's true we’re your delight. You must have delighted in the ways you taught your people. While You were here on earth, I can just see You smiling as You taught in the synagogue, and on the road, and in the wheat fields, and all the places you taught. Help us to learn that from You. 

I pray especially for my sisters, Hunter and Laura. You've given them this passion to teach Your Word and Your truths with creativity and with joy. I pray for their children, all of the children represented here, that they would be like oaks of righteousness, planted by streams of living water, and that these seeds that are planted in their hearts in these days, that they would grow up into such a forest of fruitfulness for You, Lord. Help us to enjoy the mission. The co-mission of pointing people to you. Lord, it's in Your name I pray, amen. 

Thank you so much Hunter and Laura. We're gonna drop links to both of your books. You gotta get them. Hunter, yours I have. Laura, this is a shameless plug that yours I need. They're beautiful. They're fun. I genuinely am reading them with my own kids. We're pointing people to do this together. So, appreciate you both very much.

Laura: Oh, thank you, Erin. It's so fun to be here.

Erin: Thank you. Portia, you want to give us some more tools?

Portia: Absolutely beloved, but first, I need shameless plug number two. Laura, send me your book as well. I know I have Hunter’s. I need it. 

And then I want to do one more, the True Girl podcast. Check it out, guys. First of all, they have the best intro music ever. Me and Emmi are like rocking out to it. So, check out the True Girl podcast. You can find all of these on the Revive Our Hearts website. As always, we're gonna be dropping links to them in the show notes and in the chat.

Erin: So many great resources at your fingertips, you better go grab them. We wouldn't steer you wrong. It's things you need in your arsenal. And like I said, you are a disciple or do you think of yourself as a discipler today? I hope you do. I hope you will enjoy that and take advantage of these ways to bring some new life into it. Portia, what's up next week? 

Portia: Serious gear switch. Next week we have Mark Vrogrop. He will be with us talking about what the past two years have taught us about lamenting. Oh yeah, it's gonna be heavy. Wake up with us. Let's wake up together next week on Grounded

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