75 | Amber Garrett Carroll: Parents, You Really Can Do This!

Talking to your kids about sex is a lot scarier than it used to be. It's always been uncomfortable for most parents, and is often a topic danced around or ignored completely. But the stakes for our kids are too high to ignore how changing cultural messages are affecting our kids.

Amber Garrett Carroll knows all about this, and has been devoting her life to helping not only her kids, but all kids - by offering training and resources for parents. As a single mom, co-parenting with an ex-husband who came out as gay, she's aware of how many complex situations kids are exposed to. Sexuality (in general), same-sex attraction, and gender incongruence are some of the topics impacting kids even before they're out of elementary school. 

Amber has been working for over a decade with a nonprofit organization called EQUIP (see Episode 46 with EQUIP's director, Pieter Valk), and has written a parent training course to offer parents a deep familiarity with God’s wisdom for sexual stewardship for all people, and to provide practical guides for age-appropriate conversation with kids, broken down by age group.

Amber has also recently published a book for parents called Ready to Talk: A Christian Parent's Guide to Gender and Sexuality. This extremely practical book offers what so many Christian families have lacked: a clear roadmap for discipling kids in today's culture.

Amber lives in Nashville, TN with her two kids.

#ambergarrettcarroll #ambercarroll #equip #equipyourcommunity #vocationalsingleness #christiansingleness #lgbt #gaychristian #parenting #sexeducation #gender #genderincongruence #sexaddiction #healing #recovery #grace #gospel #transformation

EQUIP's web site
Amber's author website
Free Parent Pack
Purchase Ready to Talk

Transcript

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Parents Can Do This

Amber Garrett Carroll 0:00

I encourage parents, hey, you're not gonna keep up. But that's not the point. The point is to steadily, all the time, from ages zero to 20, talk about what God's wisdom is. What is God's wisdom? What is God's goodness? What is God's good plan for sexual stewardship? What is God's good plan for biological sex and gender? And that is what we need to seek to be discipling our kids and communicating to them.

Announcer 0:25

Welcome to What We Really Want. Conversations about connection. Settle in and get ready for a great conversation. Let's talk about what we really want.

Greg 0:37

Hey friends, welcome back to What We Really Want. Today is episode 75. Our guest is Amber Garrett Carroll. And the title of the episode is Parents, You Really Can Do This. We want it to be encouraging, don't we?

Stacey 0:51

We do. Hello.

Greg 0:53

Stacey's here with me. She was a part of the conversation we just got to have with Amber. It was really encouraging to me.

Stacey 1:01

It was very encouraging. When you told me initially about what we were going to discuss, I guess I don't feel equipped to talk about these things. Well, I definitely need to be on there.

Greg 1:11

Yeah, and you use the word equip twice. And Amber has been equipping churches, parents, friends, communities to better understand and relate to people who kind of live in sexual minorities. And uh Amber has just recently written a book called Ready to Talk, which is specifically geared towards parents who are raising kids in the world today where you're not just talking about simple birds and bees conversations. Not that we ever should have been that simplistic about it. But some of the topics now that are coming out are not just about body parts and abstinence. And as Christians saying God's plan for sexual experience, but it's getting into things like same-sex attraction, gender incongruence, and that's an awful lot for a parent to try to tackle.

Stacey 2:01

And I know people that I talk to, myself included, we don't know what to say, or we're gonna say the wrong things, or we're afraid of many things that we don't know about, and then our kid's gonna do X, Y, Z. It's understandable, but we have to do better.

Greg 2:16

But and one of the things that we got into in the conversation is it's actually better to go ahead and engage and say some things wrong. That's right. Because you can go back and you can repair that. That's better than not engaging because you're afraid of saying something wrong or waiting until you are fully confident because I don't know that that day ever comes. Right. Because the information changes so frequently. Yeah.

Stacey 2:38

Thinking about when our kids were little, and I'll think about a way I related to Katie Matthew or Claire and think and tell them, hey, I did this, and I just don't think that was great. And I'm sorry. Do you remember? And we'll have a conversation about that.

Greg 2:50

And that right there is dealing with something that keeps kids from asking questions and keeps parents from going back. And that something is a shared experience with shame. I think shame is so powerful in keeping from being said things that need to be said.

Stacey 3:07

That's right.

Greg 3:08

And and so Amber has written a book called Ready to Talk, which a part of the book has 50 different conversational prompts for parents to engage with their kids. And I really hope that you'll take advantage of it. It's available anywhere you buy books. We're going to put a whole bunch of links in the show notes of some free resources she offers and also how to get a discount on the book, which just released on August the 4th. So it's pretty new. But we would encourage you to be an early adopter and let this go into your toolbox of the things that you use to make you a more effective and a more engaged parent.

Stacey 3:41

She's lived some hard experiences, and out of that, she's doing great work.

Greg 3:46

This is episode 75. Our guest is Amber Garrett Carroll. It's called Parents. And the conversation with Amber starts right now. Amber Carroll, it's it's just great having you. I've I've gotten emails from you through a QIP for years.

Amber Garrett Carroll 4:05

Oh nice. So you know my name, okay.

Greg 4:08

Yeah, and I've heard I've heard Pieter Valk say wonderful things about you for a long time. Pieter and I have known each other for

Calm Engagement Beats Perfect Words

Greg 4:15

a good little bit, but it's nice to finally have a conversation with you and and over something that's really exciting. We're gonna talk about your book here shortly and find out more about you and how it is that you came to be inspired to write this book. But before that, I just want to acknowledge something and then ask something. I'm gonna acknowledge for our listeners that I vocally I'm at about I said earlier 70%, but since I've started talking, I think it's probably more like 60%.

Stacey 4:41

Yeah.

Greg 4:41

So I'm getting over like weeks of sinus infection and some kind of weirdness. And so I I know I don't sound great. I'm gonna try to let you do a lot of the talking, Amber. And Stacey's here as well. So that's the disclaimer. The question I want to ask you is the one that we ask all of our guests, which is, Amber, what do you really want out of the conversation we're gonna have today?

Amber Garrett Carroll 5:00

Absolutely. Such a good question. Also a little bit of a hard question because it can be pretty broad. I'll try to be narrow, a little bit more narrow. So I think what I really want, I didn't I did I did give some thought to it, is I want listeners to, especially Christian parents of young children, because that's kind of my primary audience in some ways, who I write to two and for. I want them to know that they they really can have these conversations with their kids about God's wisdom for sex and sexuality and gender. And they can do that with confidence and boldness and calm, calm inner and outer, you know, count countenance. The Holy Spirit will equip us as parents to have these really important conversations about his wisdom. And we may need some help, we may need some guidance as part of what you know my job is. But I really want parents to know that they really can do this, they don't have to outsource this to the youth group or you know, the culture or the media. They really can have these conversations and really can have an influence on guiding their kids toward and embracing God's wisdom. That's what I like.

Greg 6:12

That's beautiful. You know, I just want to invite parents who are listening just to pause for a second and take a deep breath because you said a lot without saying a whole lot of words. But parents, you really can do this. And I know there are a lot of parents who really don't think that they can. And so to hear that, and also to hear you say, you may need some help. I mean, I can guarantee you that parents are gonna need help. Because you can do this doesn't mean you are expected to do this by yourself. And and I'm sure that we'll talk more about that. But yeah, just don't go, don't breeze past that because that's an encouragement that's not just blowing smoke. I mean, not only can you really do this, but it is critically important for our kids and for the generations downstream that we accept that invitation to engage on this stuff.

Stacey 7:03

Well, and I thought about when you said be calm on the outside and on the inside. Because I know a lot of us joke, people I've talked to joke about on the outside. I was trying to ask questions and out and you know, show up right and then on the inside, freaking out, which understandably, but like we can move toward a calmness. Like that's I think that what God would want us to have, not be anxious about it.

Greg 7:30

And not to wait to engage until you've reached the apex of calmness and confidence. Just do it badly.

Stacey 7:36

Do it badly and keep moving.

Amber Garrett Carroll 7:38

We all have to get over that awkwardness, and that's okay. But I think our kids are worth mastering our fear and our discomfort.

Amber’s Story And Calling

Greg 7:46

Well, before we get into the nitty-gritty, just we want to get to know you. And when I say we, I don't just mean our listeners. We don't know you either. I I know I know some things about you. I know that you are a new author. I know that you work with Equip, a ministry that's based out of Nashville. You can talk more about that. But even before what you do, like help us get to know you a little bit. I mean, what who is Amber Carroll?

Amber Garrett Carroll 8:11

I will start with my job just because that does help set up the kind of foundation of sort of the rest of what I talk about. Um, I am vice president of Impact and Parent Resources at Equip, and that is an organization here in Nashville that that helps Christian parents and churches to disciple. Well, what my main part of my job is to to help parents and, you know, kids' ministers, pastors, to disciple kids according to God's wisdom for sex, sexuality and gender. And so part of kind of my history is that I have now spent nearly a decade with Equip researching, writing, teaching on sexual stewardship, you know, gender pornography, Christian formation, kind of all these, kind of all this where sexual stewardship and faith intersect. That is sort of my wheelhouse. I do a lot of speaking and teaching and equipping. I'm also the creator of our parent course, do a lot of writing for our blog, again, do a lot of teaching for churches and things. And as you said, new author, but kind of a backstory. How did I get there? How did I come to do this job? Well, I am a mom, number one. Um, and my kids, you know, matter. I want, I wanted to make sure that I was teaching them God's good wisdom on these topics. And then also I am divorced. My ex-husband, he left our family to pursue same-sex romantic relationships when our kids were very, very young. So my kids are now 13 and 11. And so we've entered the teenage years. I have remained single. I do love my teenagers, just a little different. And I've remained single for the past since my husband left over 11 years ago. And God did call me to remain single, to give up remarrying and instead serve him through my singleness. And so I would say I'm in a committed state of singleness. I'm also a former middle and high school public school teacher. And so that plays into my teaching gifts. And, you know, with with my marriage and subsequent divorce and with my children, I knew that I couldn't avoid these conversations, right? My kids have a gay dad. So it's just not something that I could just say, well, I'll talk to them about these kinds of things when they're 14, 15, 16. They've grown up with a gay dad. Their dad has a partner who lives in the home and they spend, you know, a good chunk of their time with their dad. And so, like, he's he's not a Christian, he's not teaching them Christian values. And so that's falling to me. And so I knew I had to get this maybe not perfect, but but, you know, get it right kind of from the beginning. And so that pushed me to a lot of um, I'm a researcher by nature, I want to know all the information. So I went looking at all the Christian parenting books on how to talk to your kids about, you know, sex and sexuality. There just isn't a whole lot out there for parents of younger kids. There's a lot out there on here, here's how you talk to your teenagers about these things. And then even in some of those resources, the information about same-sex attraction, about gender incongruence is like a paragraph or two in the whole book. I was like, but how do I talk about this particular thing with a five-year-old, with a seven-year-old? And so I realized there was a big gap. And then when I came on staff with Equip, I was able to devote a lot of time and resources and energy, you know, into parents of it's not just me. Parents of younger kids need these resources. They need help. I needed help. So I kind of wrote for me first. And I kind of, what did I need? And so that is that is kind of how I came into this job, how I came into this book on a more personal level. I love a good 90s country playlist. Come on. I read, I read a lot. I like historical fiction, biographies, fantasy novels, that kind of thing. I actually named my son after the main character in the C. S. Lewis trilogy. That's how serious I am about literature.

Greg 11:56

Yeah, you are.

Amber Garrett Carroll 11:57

And so I live in Nashville. I think we I think we established that. Yeah. So that's just kind of a little bit more about who I am and where I come from.

Stacey 12:06

That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that.

Greg 12:08

Yeah, and I appreciate you sharing just the personal aspects of your story too, because that's something that, okay, this is just a story I'm making up, but probably 20, 25 years ago in Christian circles, that would be a story less commonly told than it is now. Even if, you know, a woman in your position had a husband who came out, left the family, pursued living gay, then it's just wouldn't be something that people talk about. You know, those are the kinds of things that that were in the long column of stuff you don't talk about in church. And I'm struck by our story. Right, right. Struck by that, but also I'm struck by a commonality in what I heard from you and what kind of led to your eventually writing this book. And it's the same thing that we've heard from other guests. Like I'm remembering not too long ago when Kristen Jensen was on the show, and you know, she wrote good pictures, bad pictures out of a lack of a resource that was saying those kind of things.

Amber Garrett Carroll 13:08

And it's still like the only one.

Greg 13:10

And it's still just about the only one, right? And and so I love, I love, love, love when somebody says, Hey, I want this, I can't find it. So maybe that's God telling me that I'm the one who's supposed to write it. You know, your your experience as a school teacher, and also with all of the training that you've done with Equip, tell me if I'm wrong, but I would think that that would probably help overcome some of the self-skepticism of like, I can't do this, because you've probably already proven to yourself that you're pretty good at communicating. Yes, no?

Amber Garrett Carroll 13:44

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would at this point consider myself sort of an expert on the topic and have, you know, again, having that background in literature and secondary education. I taught for five years in the school system. I tutored for a few more. I've always enjoyed public speaking, I've always enjoyed some aspects of writing, did some editing for some, like for LifeWays, a couple of other companies, um, kind of freelance. And so, yes, that's always sort of been the world that I've been in. And then also having an ex-husband who is gay and kind of walking that out, even even pre, you know, divorce, learning some of the things about his life and and what he needed from the church and didn't get and didn't find. And again, having children and knowing, A, I've got to teach them about these things, but B, you know, the world is broken, and this actually could be a way that they experience the brokenness of the world. They could experience the same sex attraction, they could experience gender inconference. And so, how would I parent them? I want to be prepared if that happens to be a part of their story. Um and so all of those things are very motivating to do that. And and the Lord just crossed my path with Pieter Vaughn equip. And we have a good working relationship in that he recognizes that, hey, as a parent, I am able to speak to parents and also have the life experience that that kind of gives me some credibility or you know, some authority to kind of speak into these things and and other parents are able to hope learn from that and and be helped, you know, by my story, but also by this expertise that I've gained from the job and also from just my life.

Greg 15:21

So, Amber, just so that I am clear on my timeline, what you were sharing about your experience with going through a divorce when your kids were very young. They're 13 and 11 now. You also said you'd been working with a quit for about 10 years. That tells me those things were pretty close to each other. Is that right?

Amber Garrett Carroll 16:50

They were pretty close. So my husband left when I was pregnant with our son, and we had a two-year-old daughter. My kids are almost exactly two years apart. And then we didn't divorce for about two years. That was kind of a long, drawn-out process. And literally a day or two after my divorce was finalized in court, I met Pieter Overcliffe. The providence of the Lord was pretty impressive there. And I started off as a volunteer. I didn't come on staff immediately. You know, I was parenting very small children and didn't have a full-time job and was, you know, actively trying to work my way through, you know, therapy and things with with the divorce. And it just started off again in a I was like, I can lick envelopes, like, what do you need me to do? Because I found, you know, Quip's content and approach so compelling and started off that way and kind of over time moved into more of a full-time role. But yes, they were again, the process of divorce was very long. So it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, a couple months after he left. Um, so so they they but they almost just almost by a couple of days

Church Family AND Support Groups

Amber Garrett Carroll 17:53

overlapped.

Greg 17:53

And I'm wondering too, I think you used the word compelling about the way Equip was doing things. What was it that you found compelling as you got to know Pieter and what he was seeking to do through Equip?

Amber Garrett Carroll 18:05

So a big part of what we do is we seek to help churches and we do a lot of behind the scenes training with church leadership. We'll do a weekend conference, but we know that ultimately one weekend conference every five years isn't really going to change church culture. Right. Yeah. As far as like how do we, you know, how do we talk about LGBT plus people and and their kind of what they're facing? Um, how do we talk about singleness? Do we actually have a right view of Christian marriage? What is Christian marriage? You know, what are our kids hearing in the kids' ministry? What are they hearing at home? How can we support parents? And, you know, it's just the kind of the broad, you know, what I call sexual stewardship, kind of that broad topic. Most of the ministries that I've either been a part of or or have, you know, kind of seen and known are more of a support group based, which is not bad. I think we need support groups, but ultimately the church should be that place. We shouldn't have to have support groups. Like support groups are kind of a sign of a failure of the church to be family for people. I'm not against support groups, but I don't think that's the problem.

Greg 19:14

I think that support groups have been given responsibility for things that aren't what they're for. But to your point, like there is something about having family and closeness and connection with people whose experience is not exactly the same as yours. People who who are intentional about seeking you out and saying, hey, I don't, you know, I'm not single, I'm married, or I don't experience same-sex attraction. I know you do, but like I want to hear your story and I want to be part of family for you. We I mean, people need that. And I think we also need to have a place where we can go and just talk about it and not feel like we have to bring everybody up to speed. So that's where I think they really work well together. Uh in the absence of having it though, in your church, I think maybe too much weight and too much expectation sometimes gets put on support groups.

Amber Garrett Carroll 20:04

Yeah. I've seen the same thing where support groups become the family, become the church, become the entire sort of community of that person, become where they find all of their accountability, where they find all, you know, and it's just that is what I'm speaking to when I say that's not the answer. Um, we as a church, Capital C church, we we need to do better than just sending people away to a support group because we don't want to deal with them, right? We need to be educated and trained. We need to, if we don't have that, we need to pursue that. And we need to be able to, a support group may definitely still play into kind of the holistic care of that person, but it can't be, oh, you experience this thing. Well, the this ministry over here that's not a part of our church, these people over here that are not the people that you worship with, take communion with, serve with, you need to go over there because your problems are too much. That's right. Like that is the problem. Like that is something that we that's right.

Stacey 20:59

I think nobody would say that. Nobody in a church would say that, like not out loud, not having something in your church where you are fully supporting and whatever leaders would be saying these things. But yeah, I think so many of the women, of course, my context is different. The betrayed spouse partner coming to me and just I said, Do you have anybody in your church that you've talked to? Oh my gosh, no, there's nobody. Well, there might be, but it's not known. You know, they don't know that they could talk to whoever. And so yeah, just coming to this other place where they feel like it's too much for my church. And also a lot of people are afraid for people in their church to know. So even if there was a group, maybe they still wouldn't go to the church. But I still think it's better to have it at your church and to be be something that you talk about. People have come to me and not always a betrayed partner, but struggling with something. And they went to somebody in their church, and the first thing was like how to fight it, how to beat the sin or whatever. And it's like, why do you have to lead with that? Like, tell me more about what that's been like for you, you know, and I'm learning to do that. I didn't know how to do that before.

Greg 22:14

But um There does tend to be the absence of much curiosity in church.

Stacey 22:18

So anyway.

Greg 22:20

Well, you know, I think that to the point that you're making really well, Amber, when churches want to align with organizations that know more about a topic than they do or with therapists, is it outsourcing or is it a partnership? Right. Because if it's out because you were describing outsourcing. Right. And that's like we don't know about it, we don't want to learn about it. Partnership is we do we feel ill-equipped to be the only helpers in this scenario. So we're going to have some others come alongside. But even as they're doing that, we want to learn more, which is exactly what you've been doing for years through Equip. Yeah, I want to hear you talk about that, and then we'll we'll get to the book because we we have a daughter who for seven or eight years was a sixth grade teacher, and some of the things that she was dealing with. Were kids in her class who were coming out as non-binary. You know, these are 11 and 12-year-olds who are telling their teacher what they want their pronouns to be and changing their names. And how, you know, our daughter was trying to navigate that in a school system and in a class setting and in a you know, a place where some of the kids' parents would be very opposed to any talk about that at all, and others who are like, oh, this is great. And I mean, it's so confusing for a teacher who's kind of trained for this, much less for parents. And so I I I guess the question that I want to ask you is how much do you experience parents who really want to train and disciple and equip their kids, but are just overwhelmed by the intensity and the volume of the stuff they're flooded with, as opposed to parents who are just, you know, lazy or phoning it in?

Amber Garrett Carroll 24:03

That's like a really good question. I'll answer your kind of early question first about partnership. Yeah. We we we Equip is not an outsourced kind of place. We we will resist that if that's what we feel like a church is trying to do. It is a partnership. And and the goal is, again, long-term partnership, at least from Equip's perspective, is what we offer. Like, hey, if you're all in on this, we'll be all in on this too. And we want to walk with you for about five years to help you. We it's usually a long-term five, five or more year partnership to really help churches kind of get to where they they want to be. You know, they cast a vision for where they want to be in five years. We help them write out a pathway, a blueprint to get there. And then we stick with them as they move toward that blueprint. We offer consulting and guidance and teaching and training. And we'll review your documents and your website, you know, whatever it is that they feel like they need in order to get there. But the goal ultimately is for the church, the leadership of the church, for the people of the church to learn how to do this well so that those who experience same-sex attraction, those who have like you were talking about, Stacey, those who have been betrayed or the so that the church culture is one of we can have these conversations here. We're not afraid of these. We're not gonna send you elsewhere. You may want to go well, you may want to have a support group, you may want and may need, we may recommend an outside therapist, you know. But we also want to be knowledgeable, educated, prepared to support you well and not just leave you out in the cold or kind of make you feel like this is too big of a problem, or we just don't know what to do. And so that's ultimately the goal. I love the word partnership there. And that is what that is what we try to do. So as far as your question,

When Culture Feels Too Fast

Amber Garrett Carroll 25:43

Greg, yes. Parents do tend to have a lot of fear. I I wrote a whole chapter in the book about fear. I did some surveys and some polls. Like, hey, what do you are you most afraid of? What are you most fearful about when it comes to these conversations with your, you know, up to 12 year olds? And I gotta, I think I in the book there's like five or six kind of particular responses, and then I I respond to each of those. But you know, a big one is that overwhelm that they feel from culture. It's like we we can't out teach culture, we can't win here. This is this is just too much. My kid is just in this all the time, every day, like you were talking about with school, even sometimes the school curriculum. How do we do this? It's just too much. And and I think it is too much, right? Like culture, you know, right now the the kind of hot topics are gender and sexuality have been for a while. We idolize romance and romantic companionship is kind of the answer to a lot of things, loneliness, any kind of emotional need you may have, someone your romantic partner is supposed to meet that for you. You know, we've got the soulmate language. And then in addition to that, every song, every movie, it seems like, um pushing this romance-centric idea. And then we've got, you know, LGBT plus characters and messaging. And that's not all necessarily bad. Just because a character shows up in a movie or a TV show doesn't mean that it automatically becomes bad. But I think we need to do some curious investigation. And not just when it a gay character shows up. Are we also doing this when a straight character is sleeping around outside of marriage? Are we also investigating that media when a character is really mean to their, you know, sibling or really rude to their parents? Like, are we also, you know, that also goes against the wisdom of the Lord. Like, are we also investigating that media and maybe toning that down in our homes? You know, I think we need to be equal opportunity as far as what we allow and what we don't allow in our home. But yeah, parents, I think this particular topic feels a little harder. And I think it's because it's so talked about in our culture, and it just seems so prevalent and pervasive in some ways.

Greg 27:57

And new, right? Because I mean, it's not like there's been generations talking about transgender.

Amber Garrett Carroll 28:02

Yeah, it definitely wasn't in the kind of common cultural lexicon at that point. I mean, there were definitely people who experienced gender incongruence, but it was very underground, very, like you said, not talked about socially, certainly not talked about among children, certainly not talked about at school. And it's changing so fast. We feel like we get a grip on the terminology or we get a grip on kind of what's going on culturally, and then it changes again. And so that's another part of the, you know, another piece that makes it difficult is it's rapidly changing over and over and over again. And I do talk about that in my book. It's called the looping effect, it's very interesting, but that's part of the reason it's difficult to kind of keep up. And and I think ultimately I encourage parents, hey, you're not gonna keep up, but that's not the point. The point is to steadily, all the time, from ages zero to 20, talk about what God's wisdom is. Yes, not what it isn't. You can talk about that, but but really hammer home. What is God's wisdom? What is God's goodness? What is God's good plan for sexual stewardship? What is God's good plan for biological sex and gender? What is the truth, according to the Bible, about those things? And that is what we need to seek to be discipling our kids and communicating to them. We don't have to point out every single thing because we're gonna miss some, right? We're gonna miss, you know, there are gonna be opportunities. If something happens, if your kid sees something, if your kid comes home with a library book that's inappropriate, if your kid, you know, you're at the mall and you see two men holding hands and they look at you and they ask a question about it. Those are wonderful God-given opportunities for you to disciple your kid and you should take them and you should talk about it. But that's not the only times we talk about sexual stewardship or the stewardship of our body.

Greg 29:39

The thing that's coming up for me now is it doesn't really matter how many deviations from the design there are, because if the focus is parents is on there is a design, and there's so many ways we can talk about that. One of the categories is he created you as a sexual person, and that's beautiful. And he had an idea behind that. And if we're focusing on what we believe the Bible says the idea was, then anything that's a deviation from that, we can bring it back to the source material. And it's like our our pastor last night, we go to church in the evenings, but our pastor was using the illustration I've heard a hundred times of like the way that they used to teach people in banking how to spot a counterfeit, was to just put them in a room with the real thing and have them just spend so much time around real money that as soon as they see a counterfeit, they can spot it. And and that's kind of what I feel like I hear you describing right now.

Amber Garrett Carroll 30:32

Yeah, you want to create a place that is setting a foundation that you can talk to mom and dad about anything. Yeah. So that's a huge part of what I try to teach parents. Like we have to start young, we have to start building that foundation. And that does not mean that we tell five-year-olds about gay sex. We tell five-year-olds, here's God's definition of family. Not what you're seeing out in the world, mom, dad, kids. There's more to family than that, according to God, right? According to the Bible, right? There's more to family than that. What do we do with our emotions? How do we handle being rejected, feeling sad? How do we handle because that's a huge part in why kids go to porn? It's not necessarily sexual curiosity. It is a drug to soothe. How do they hear us talking about things and people we disagree with? Because if they hear us, they hear us giving the ick to gay people or to you know homeless people or to kind of whatever other thing that we might go to, or oh, oh, that's sinful, or we're not like those people. If they wanted to experience whatever that is, if they wanted to experience same-sex attraction, well, they know you've got the ick. Exactly. They're not going to go to it. Those kinds of foundational, you know, we can talk to them about what is Christian marriage. We don't have to say, here's what gay marriage is and this is why it's bad. We can say, here's what Christian marriage is, here's what here's what God, you know, designed as a Christian marriage, one man, one woman for life with an openness to raising children and for the purpose of embodying the gospel for the watching world, right? That is what we want to teach them. So it's it's, you know, again, that's another common fear. Well, I'm gonna say too much to my children. You don't have to, you don't have to be explicit when they're young. Um, you know, and and actually the opposite is true. Research

Build Foundations Without Oversharing

Amber Garrett Carroll 32:08

bears out that we often we wait too late, and our kids kind of know the values of culture, and they're they're forming their own values based on cultures because mom and dad aren't talking to them about God's values and wisdom. And so we do wait too late. Um, and that's unfortunate. We shouldn't have to, but that is the world we currently live in. We've got to get to our kids first. But we can do it in a way that's not explicit, and we can do it in a way that's appropriate and still teaching them God's good wisdom for sexual stewardship.

Greg 32:35

Yeah. There's a packet that you offered connected to the release of this book. It it wasn't only stuff from the book, but one of the things that you included was an article you'd written several years ago called The Five Scariest Questions Your Kids Are Going to Ask and How to Respond Without Panic. Questions like, Can boys become girls? Why does my friend have two moms? Can gay people be Christians? Why does God care who I have sex with? And would you still love me if I were attracted to the same sex? And one of the things I noticed as I was reading that, even when you're talking about things that you would say to your kids, this is a departure from the way God made it to be, it's very kind. It doesn't vilify people who have differing views because we know as Christians, we believe that this this world is not our ultimate citizenship. And so of course, there are going to be people here, many people here, who don't agree with us on this and who don't recognize the authority of God's way that we do. And you know, we're older than you, I don't know how much, but you know, we're in our mid-50s. And we can remember a time culturally when to disagree was not equal to being an enemy.

Amber Garrett Carroll 33:47

And it's still not.

Greg 33:48

It's not, but but you won't hear many people saying that. With cancel culture and with, oh, I'm so offended that you would say this and you must be destroyed. I I think it was Voltaire that said, I, you know, I I vehemently disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to my death your right to say it. How do we navigate with people with whom we disagree? And I feel like what you're putting out there and and what you guys with Equip are putting out there is teaching people how to be not only Christians in what we stand for, but Christians in how we act towards people that disagree with us. And that's the part that I think gets tossed out the window, sadly. Okay, I don't want us to not talk about the book.

Stacey 34:31

That's right.

Greg 34:32

Um the the book is called Ready to Talk. And I I want you to talk generally well anything you want to say about it. I mean, we've already talked about it here and there. You included in that parent pack a sample chapter, which was chapter 10 from your book, Why Follow God's Wisdom. And I think it's really important, at least for me, to say that what might initially draw people to a book like this is I want to know how to talk to my kids about homosexuality. I want to know how to talk to my kids about gender incongruence. But that's not all you're talking about here when you're talking about God's wisdom. It's God's wisdom for traditional cultural Christian messages about marriage and singleness and purity culture. And it's so much broader. What might get parents in the door is the current topic about which they know very little. But then it's going to broaden into, oh, well, I thought I knew a lot about this. And I but what I didn't know is how harmful some of these messages have been that I've just kind of co-signed on. And in that chapter, there are three different examples you give of God's wisdom that we want to follow. One is God's wisdom leads our kids away from legalistically focusing on the rules surrounding sex and marriage. God's wisdom leads our kids away from idolizing romance and assuming they'll marry, they'll get married because that's their preference. And then God's wisdom leads our kids toward the most joy and meaning and true pleasure in this life. And you know, that second point particularly jumped out to me. You you had a bullet list of some things that cultural Christianity teaches. And I'd love to just read some of those and then let us talk about it some. Cultural Christianity teaches these things. God gave me the desire to marry and have kids because He wants me to get married and have kids. The purpose of marriage is companionship and mutual fulfillment. If I focus on communication, sexual gratification, and keeping the spark alive, my marriage will succeed. I'll have kids only if and when I want them. God spiritually sustains single people. They don't need family. God calls a few asexual people to lifetime singleness. All single people are either gay, asexual, or just haven't found the one. And then finally, friendship can't provide the same level of companionship, family, and intimacy that romance can, and friends shouldn't be too close. Okay.

Stacey 37:03

So many fails.

Greg 37:04

That's a lot. But you know, one of the things I noticed, Amber, is that the messages, some of them, what makes them tricky is that they're not com they're not a hundred percent off from things that are true. Right?

Stacey 37:18

Yeah.

Greg 37:18

So I I'd love to just hear you talk about some of the ones you chose to put out there and yeah, why why it's important that we get into the nuances.

Amber Garrett Carroll 37:27

And and nuance is a great word. We we have to be careful. Like that first one, God gave me the desire to get married and have children. So obviously, I'll get married and have children. God, I think you did give me these desires. I I'm leaning heavily toward marriage because I really want to get married and have children for the sake of the kingdom. But that's not the answer. Like, I think we still need to be willing to submit that question to the Lord through a process of discernment. And we need to remember God doesn't owe us marriage. He never

Purity Culture And Romance Myths

Amber Garrett Carroll 37:58

promised us marriage to assume, which is what Christian culture has done. We've assumed marriage for everyone except for gay people, right? We've assumed that we all need romantic companionship, we which is not a need, according to the Bible. We've assumed that that everyone deserves to get married. We've also assumed that you're kind of just weird and not maybe not a mature Christian if you don't get like what's wrong with you if you're still single. And we haven't kind of, at least in the Protestant spaces, haven't we we put marriage way up here and singleness? Well, we're sad that you're single and there's not much you can do as a single. We don't really trust you as a single, right? And so that's part of the problem is that assumption of this beautiful good gift, we've made it into a right that we're owed. And that is that is where we've gone wrong. It is still a beautiful good gift. God will still call 90%, maybe more of our kids to Christian marriage. But God also can call anyone he wants to to singleness for the sake of the kingdom. And we need to be careful, you know, not to assume that, oh, well, our kids are exempt. They don't need to ask God about this question. They don't need to submit singleness or marriage. You know, which one do you have for me, God? They don't mean need to submit that to God. And when we do that, we're saying, well, one, we're saying we know better than God, but but two, we're also, you know, not entrusting that God actually knows us best as creator. Um, God knows our kids better than we do, better than they know themselves. And he knows which gift, lifetime singleness or lifetime marriage, will serve the kingdom best, but will also be best for them. All of our kids, even though 90% of them are more, are going to be given the gift of marriage by God. They still need to submit that question to God, be willing to submit that question. I think a lot of us, I was never taught to do that, but a lot of us just kind of aren't willing to do that either. We don't want to give up this thing that Christian culture has made to be ultimate, which is marriage and in some ways sexual expression. And so, yes, nuance is super important because some of those do sound like, well, what's wrong with that? We got to kind of dig down into it and really think through with the with the help of the Holy Spirit, the help of scripture. What is God's wisdom here? And how can I tease that out from and be sure that that's actually God's wisdom and not just cultural Christianity that has taken culture's wisdom and kind of sprinkled some Jesus on top and called that good. Maybe God knows better and maybe we maybe we get it wrong, or maybe we maybe we go in, even if the Lord wants to call us to marriage, we maybe we go into marriage with the wrong attitude. I'm owed this, and therefore, or like I maybe in another one of those bullet points, if we just focus on communication and having a good sex line, our marriage will be great. Well, that's a live purity culture, right? Right. That we kind of used sex to sell abstinence to teenagers. We still do that in in some ways. And these these teens, they they don't have sex, they get married, and then they start to experience sexual dysfunction in their marriage. They start, you know, again, they feel, well, I did the right thing. So God owes me marriage. And then they get into a marriage and it's really hard. It requires sacrifice and you know, laying down of their own wants and sometimes even their own needs. And nobody really told them that. They just said, don't have sex and you'll have great sex like later. And so we we got to be careful about kind of how we, yes, purity is good. I think the scriptures do teach abstinence outside of a covenanted Christian marriage, right? And and so abstinence is not bad, but the way that we talk about it can influence and affect how our kids go into marriage.

Greg 41:23

Well, something you said that I that I wrote down and and even told you about on an email that was compelling to me is the problem with purity culture wasn't the commitment to abstinence, it was the promise of marriage. And you know, that's one one of the struggles is that a lot of harmful messages, a lot of harmful contexts, it wasn't that everything they were saying was wrong. A lot of what you know well-intentioned messaging contains is a lot of good stuff and and the desire is, like you said, what God's wisdom actually does, which is lead our kids towards the most joy and meaning and true pleasure in this life. I believe that even proponents of bad systems genuinely want, usually want that for their kids and for themselves. It's just that we didn't often didn't know what we didn't know. We were regurgitating some incomplete or some unhelpful messages. And what I'm really excited about for people like you, for people like Kristen and others who are, you know, pressed and sprinkle with ChristianSexuality.com and some of these resources to help parents have the real conversations about what's being talked about now is that we're gonna have a chance to not erase every message of movements that we didn't like, but to say, hey, there are some things that they got right, but it was incomplete or steered in a wrong direction. Let's let's broaden it and let's correct some of the things that need correcting and let's add some of the things that didn't get talked about. And I just think that's such a service for people to do in developing resources that are not just being critical, but are actually offering things that are helpful. So it's I think it's really great. And and I hope that a lot of parents will take advantage of ready to talk and just add that to their to their toolbox of really, really helpful things to give them the language to say.

Amber Garrett Carroll 43:14

That is my hope. That is my hope as well.

Greg 43:16

Amber, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and help us get to know you. Anything, I mean, one of the things that you said right as we were getting started that you wanted for the conversation was for parents to know you really can do this. And if they listen, I think that that is an easy takeaway. Not that it's going to be easy to do, but it is possible to do. Anything, just kind of kind of final word that you want them to hear from you before we wrap up.

Amber Garrett Carroll 43:42

I had my daughter make some stickers for my book launch, and one of them is a little name tag and it says, Hello, I'm and then we wrote inside a qualified parent. You really are a qualified parent. You really are. That doesn't mean you you don't need any kind of help or education or you know, walking along, but it just means you really can do this. And so, yeah, I definitely want parents to walk away with that. I have so many good resources. I would love for people to get my book, like you said, Greg. About a third of it is solid theology. And sometimes I think we think, oh, we know all the theological stuff, but sometimes it may surprise us. I was surprised when I was doing my research and reading. What does the Bible really say about singleness, for example? Do we actually know and understand what a calling to singleness would look like? Do we actually know what Christian marriage is, not just what the world is calling marriage or a

Ready To Talk Resources And Next Steps

Amber Garrett Carroll 44:32

lot of churches call marriage? I kind of assumed when I got married, oh, we're both Christians, so we're in a Christian marriage, right? There were more people than that. And it has a purpose. And what did God create it for? You know, how are we supposed to embody the gospel to the watching world through a relationship that God calls marriage, right? So, so some of those we have to really understand for ourselves that foundation and what we actually believe and think about these things so that we can teach them well to our children. And so we can't skip that part. And then the book, the kind of the middle third is those practical things we all want. It's those conversation scripts. There's about 50 or more in the book, and they're just eight, they're age grouped. So, you know, two to five, six to ten, I think, and then 11 plus, four. Here's some things that might come up. Here's some ways you can intentionally teach some of these truths to your children. Uh, and then the last third is I think it's four or five chapters on specifically on gender, gender incongruence, same-sex attraction, LGBT plus topics. How do we talk to our kids about them? And then also what do we do if our kid experiences same-sex attraction or experiences experiences gender incongruence? How do we, if our kid comes out to us, how do we respond as Christian parents who who want our kids to know the truth and also we want to love and disciple them well? So those are kind of each of the major pieces or major parts of the book. And it's kind of a 101, 102, and 103 altogether. If you're looking for that kind of resource, that's what it is. And would love for parents to get that. And you downloaded the free parent prep pack. That is available on my website. There's a whole bunch of stuff in there. There's a video teaching, there's that article you just mentioned. There's a coupon code for the book. So if you're gonna buy the book, download the parent prep pack so you can get the coupon code and get some money off of the book. It's at ambergarrettcarol.com forward slash parent. That'll take you right to form to get that. And then the ebooks on Amazon. If you if you're an e-reader, prefer the Kindle version, it's on it's on Amazon as well.

Greg 46:32

And we'll put all of it you mentioned and then any other resources that you'd like people to know about in the show notes and make sure that parents have have the access to them. Amber Carroll, thank you. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much for the work that you do and for writing this book and for spending some time with us.

Amber Garrett Carroll 46:50

Thank you so much. Greg and Stacey, y'all have been y'all have been awesome. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

Stacey 46:55

This was fun.