Fight for your Family Jonathan Evans Chaplain Dallas Cowboys by ParentCompass.TV

you my name is Jonathan Evans and I am the son of dr. Tony Evans and many people will know that name and well I also have to say the brother of priscilla shirer because people people know that name but come from a great believing Christian family my dad dr. Tony Evans is been preaching now for 50 years this is his 50th year he's been at our church for about 43 years he started the church Oakland Bible fellowship he's from Baltimore Maryland and he started a church with 10 people in a house in 1976 and now has about 12,000 members he has a radio broadcast that that started you know in our garage with my mom putting his tapes and packages and just going to the mailbox and dropping them off and now it's a thousand stations on over a hundred and thirty countries and and so there's a lot going on he was the chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys during the Tom Landry days he's still the chaplain of the Dallas Mavericks and that's been since their conception as an organization and so so he's kind of really paved the way in more ways than one for our family and many others and so it's it's hard to follow in his footsteps but it's a it's a great thing to learn from all of us in the family so as my mom and dad and then crystal is the oldest okay she's crystal Hearst now and then Priscilla who many many people know Priscilla Shire and then I have my brother Anthony okay and then it's me so it's four of us I would say that a lot of people would know Priscilla from the movie war room she was in the movie war room plus she's a nationally known speaker but if you've seen the movie war room or the movie I can only imagine and then and there's a new movie coming out that the Kendrick brothers are putting together called overcomer and so she'll be in that movie as well and so she's doing really well she never really asked to be in the movie scene but God said I want you to do it and people would ask me has she ever acted before and I'd say she's been acting her whole life you know in the house and so she's been doing really good with that Anthony is the is the singer he has 8 to 10 albums now he's been singing all over the country Anthony has been and leading worship at our church every first Sunday so he's still committed there while doing it all over the country and so he's been really doing really well as well crystal is the she's the mom with the but she's got five kids and but she's also she's a book writer she's an author she's got two books that she's written a kingdom woman and is she still there which was written for women and so she does that she helps build our small groups at our church she's real structured in her mind and how she puts things together and so she's fun too well you know people you know ask me all my life what it was like to grow up with dr. Tony Evans as my father dr. Louis Evans as my mother and for me it was just life I had I didn't know any different I didn't know that there was a difference until I got older and when I got older I realized oh God gave me something special and that's when I really started to treasure the parents that I had in the siblings that I had and the opportunities that I was given through their hard work and what God has done in their life and so there's a lot of great things that I was taught and blueprints that I was given that I realized a lot of people don't have and really was just up to me to decide how I was going to use those and how I was going to further that legacy and that foundation that had already been built and so I had to give a lot to my parents for first of all given their lives to Christ and then showing how that permeates through them to the children and how we live that out afterwards and so so growing up was a lot of learning a lot of understanding in some ways pressure because when when those are your parents you know you're starting to think well you can't do this and you can't go there because of who they are but then you begin to build your own relationship with God and you realize know the reason why you live the way that you live is because of who he is in you and so realizing they were to not distance myself from my parents but to do so spiritually so that I can have my own relationship with God as I spent most of my life riding the coattails of my parents relationship with God and I thought that was good enough because of of how strong they were but I realized it wasn't and so it also taught me how to have my own relationship with God and how to use their blueprint with that new relationship so it's been good yeah I think off the top of my head about funny stories when it comes to my parents and my brother and sister but most of those things would happen you know for us at the table I mean the table was wild you know people think you know the Evans family they sit down there at the table they're listening to Tony Evans crack open the Bible and all that kind of stuff and we were throwing food we were talking crazy we were having a good time my parents couldn't keep us from being silly and acting crazy and so it was a wild time but it was it was a fun time where we just got to spend time with them but we're a crazy bunch and and we have fun I ended up going to Baylor University and College where I met my wife and so we met at Baylor University and you know just fast forward because time flies we ended up getting married and now we have five children the personality of our family is very fun very fun-loving we're on the go each child obviously is different and they present different fun things for our family different challenges for our family Kelsey the oldest she's the artist she's the one who doesn't want to be held in a box she's the one who doesn't want to do anything formal she likes to just be open spontaneity that's her thing and Jonathan is the thinker so it goes from Kelsey who's at a hundred to Jonathan who just wants to sit still analyze make sure it's okay ponder things and then Camden's the wild man I mean he's not happy unless he's beating up his dad running over his brother or running into a wall or swinging from the chandelier in our kitchen I mean that's Camden Kyler can get away with anything because we call her sweet sweet she's daddy's girl and then we're still learning who Jade is and so but it's a fun family it's a lot of activity going on all of our kids play sports or do an art because we can't just sit around and play video games all day and so we get them involved in a lot of activities and they love to travel I try to bring them along with me when I'm traveling so that I make sure I spend that quality time with them because I'm gone and so we have a lot of fun we do a lot of family activities we make sure that we're at the table each night doing activities with with each other getting to know one another and so we just go we just go we're just doing what we feel like that was calling us to do I think when they had comes to having children choosing right versus wrong it's very important to parents okay that we we really just wish we could you know take our brains and put it in their head and just let them go with that but the reality is is that they're gonna have to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ and they do that first and foremost by understanding that he's real through your life and through the example that they see but also understanding that they're gonna need to build their own relationship for themselves that that I learned in my own personal life being raised by dr. Tony and Louis Evans that they had such an outstanding relationship with God and it was great but I realized that their relationship with God wasn't gonna work for me like it it was good to see it was good for me to learn brut blueprints but I had to have own personal relationship with God in order to actually be able to choose right from wrong because in order to choose right from wrong you basically have to deny yourself which is what the Bible says deny yourself take up your cross and follow me and so really understanding that in order to deny myself and take up my cross I'd better really love God for myself I better really love Jesus Christ for myself I better really have a relationship with him for myself and be really in love with him if I'm going to obey Him that's what John 14:15 says if you love me you will do what I say and so we want kids to do the right thing and we want to pour into them hey this is right and this is wrong but like all of us they're born with a sin nature and so we all have a natural knack to the wrong thing we know we should eat the salad but we love McDonald's I mean that's just the way that life works and so the question is how in love with being spiritually healthy are you that's going to take you to eating right spiritually and so that right and wrong is not just a question of decision-making it's a question of spirituality making a decision with your spiritual self and really helping them fall in love with God instead of falling in love with the rules because rules without relationship will always equal rebellion if you have rules but you don't have the relationship you're asking for rebellion and so if you want that kid to choose right from wrong first of all they need to have a great relationship with you know that you love them even when they're doing wrong God demonstrated his love towards us that while we were yet sinners that's when he that's when he showed his greatest love so that's our job but then also telling them and helping them understand the importance of having a relationship with Jesus Christ and falling in love with him because if you love him the offshoot of that is that you will obey Him technology is his is big obviously when you talk about social media when you talk about the culture that we're in right now it's all about screens television I mean it's it's all about seeing video technology is big in our culture that's used for good things but it also can become a hindrance to the family it's a big hindrance to the family that I've noticed I mean if I give my kids some screens they'll never look up I mean for hours on end they'll never look up their their personal person-to-person skills are very low due to the fact that they don't need to have community they don't need to have people around or conversations and that takes away from family time and so we recognize that as our kids were growing up and getting older and I know most parents all parents are gonna have that same thought or that problem when it relates as it relates to technology and so what we've done in our family we decided that Monday through Friday there is no technology we have zero screens zero tv0 phones zero iPads we put everything away and their job is to interact as a family our job is to interact with our kids as a family and so everything is shut down and so and and kids get used to it now they're creative now they they play outside you know there's something called outside that a lot of kids have forgotten about you know and they'll come in and ask for a bottle water I'm like no stay outside there's a hose outside you know that's what we used to drink out of when we were just get the hose drink out of that and stay out there have fun enjoy one another learn how to deal with one another when it comes to sharing all of these different things these small skills that they don't learn with technology and we don't want that to take away from our family time so Monday through Friday there is no technology in the Evans household and Saturday and Sunday we allow it for a certain amount of time and so our kids and of course when that time comes they binge on it now they're excited about it but that's okay because they spent the whole the whole week taking care of her responsibilities loving their family and loving God and that's that's our prayer every night and in in the opposite order we say love God love your family take care of your responsibilities have fun okay so that's our that's our rules in our house and so we want to implement that naturally and so that's what we do so I would encourage parents for sure to shut that down and it'll be hard especially if you have teenage kids it's gonna be hard for them to backtrack to that but then they'll start loving they'll appreciate that when they get older that all of that family time they had being creative board games you know going back to the old school a little bit is really how you have family time and how you can pour into and really get to talking to your kids again because now the talking in the household is going way down because other people are influencing our children instead of us and so we have to change that words are huge when it comes to family and I learned this best for my dad and my mom but my dad specifically because my dad was just unusually patient okay the fruit of the Spirit patients he's got that and he's got it on a whole nother level I mean my mom has it too but we noticed that my dad was just like he never raised his voice and that's I mean for me with five kids it's hard for me I'm like I'll start raising my voice and then I'm started thinking man I messed up on that one because I remember how my dad and mom raised us in a home where even we made bad mistakes and even when we can see the frustration on his face he would just talk to us and we were and now that I have kids I realized how hard was that to never raise your voice and remember bathing one of my sons and I'm and I'm on the phone with my dad and my dad's talking to me and I'm gonna hold on that and I'm like cam didn't get in the tub you know he won't get in the tub he's right he's doing what Camden does he's running around playing with everything doing everything except what I'm telling to do and so I'm raising my voice just trying to get him in the tub and my tie I remember my dad saying Jonathan and I said yes I mean yes sir you know had to calm myself down he said if I have you ever heard me raise my voice at you like that and I said no sir and he said it's a fruit of the Spirit patience said you've got to have patience and the more you continue to grow with God the more you can and you realize how patient he is with you you can see your relationship with your kid the same way you got to be patient just talk to him keep reiterating just help him understand how important it is to be obedient all of those different things and I'm like yeah but you're Superman yeah you know what I mean I can't do that but the importance of that because kids pick that up and there's so many kids that'll say oh well I guess I am just like dad I guess I am just like mom and you want that to be a good thing because they've been sponges their whole life on how you've raised them patients they say patience is a virtue it's a big deal and words if you're operating from frustration and if you don't take the time to say you know what let me come back to this in a second let me think about this and if you react then you'll end up saying something that you regret and kids remember they remember situations where adrenaline has kicked in adrenaline causes remembrance and so it's a scientific thing so people remember things where they had adrenaline so if there was someone who hurt you really bad or a situation where you won really big or a big play that you made in football you'll never forget those moments well when you pierce your kid with with bad words or cuss words or or telling them there will never be anything or out of frustration you've heightened adrenalin they've heard you and they're never going to forget it and those words we'll define them and the enemy will use those to define them for a lifetime and they'll have to like break the cycle so if parents are out there and they've said those things to their kid what parents don't do well as apologized but if you apologized you help your kids understand real life you help your kids understand oh wait even someone who I view as never wrong can actually show that they're wrong they need Jesus just as much as I do and when they see the parents say you know what I was wrong that's not what God would want me to do that's not what God would want me to say I reacted I had a frustration out of my own humanity you know please forgive me that's not who you are now let me speak life into you let me change that kids respect that god is love and love comes from God in first John the Bible tells us that God is not only all loving but that he actually is love itself the heart of the parent compass television show is to bring the transforming love of God to families everywhere in every parent compass episode true stories reveal family struggles and how their lives were radically changed by the love of God parent compass an award-winning television series is completely funded by people like you if you have been touched by God and you want to share God's love to others would you please pass it on Jesus tells us to go into all the world and to tell about him with your donation you allow us to take this television show into many different nations and in many different languages free of charge and a portion of your donation goes to parent compass outreach to feed starving children your gift does so much to make your tax-deductible gift go to parent compass TV forward slash donate that's parent campus TV forward slash donate and thank you for sending love and hope around the world [Music] you

Channel: Parent Compass

Views: 8,010

Rating: 4.9241705 out of 5

Keywords: pcepisode, pcshow, pcseries, pcseason2, Season 2, Parenting, help, Christian, Christianity, kids, teenagers, advice, children, parents, marriage, family, parent, compass, struggle, faith, prayer, God, life, happy, joy, happiness, father, mother, mom, dad, home, management, forgiveness, grace, mercy, love, Jonathan, Evans, Tony, Dr, Lois, Priscilla, Shirer, Fight, fighting, Chaplain, Dallas, Cowboys, Oakcliff, Bible, Church, Technology

Id: C3rjsY6CwtA

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019