Connecting with Our Grandkids: Lost Cause or Dynamic Opportunity?
August 21, 2024
Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell
Guest: Robert Pettersen
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/21/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Jamie Mitchell: Well, hello and welcome again to Stand In the Gap. Today I am your host, Jamie Mitchell, the director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. Every year I visit a number of churches. I talk to a lot of pastors, and here’s what I’m hearing from many, where have all the young people gone After approximately two decades of spending a lot of money, resources, programming and staffing to reach children and youth, many are walking away from the church, but worse, they’re walking away from the Lord. Pastors are laboring, trying to figure out how to reach them, how to bring them back, how to touch their hearts and their minds. Presently, there are 69 million gen Zers in the world that would be 12 to 27 year olds. That’s 21% of the world’s population. This is a large segment of the world and many are in need of Christ.
Jamie Mitchell: The gap between today’s generation and the older one seems to be widening, yet there may be a secret weapon to reach today’s young people, their grandparents. Our guest today is convinced that connecting grandkids with their grandparents may be the way to spiritually salvage the next generation. Bob Pettersen is an author, storyteller, historian, pastor, tour guide, but most significantly, he’s the founder and president of the Legacy Imperative, a ministry to train, equip, engage, and ignite grandparents towards their families. Bob, welcome back to Stand In the Gap. It is always a joy to have you with us.
Robert Pettersen: Great to be with you, Jamie.
Jamie Mitchell: Bob, when we say the next generation, I think we need some clarity from you to help us on this discussion. If you are a grandparent today, it’s likely that you have grandkids who are either millennials, gen Zers, and the most recent alpha generation. Who are these young people? What are their ages and is there really a big difference between these three groups?
Robert Pettersen: Jamie, there’s a huge difference between these three groups and we need to understand each group. Our legacy imperative makes it our business to be on the cutting edge of understanding what’s happening in the dizzying chains that are taking place in our culture today. Millennials are those that came of age during the turn of this century from 1980 to around the turn of the century. These are the kids who came of age during the 9 1 1 and the economic collapse that took place in America around 2008 got a late start in life. Great more education than any other generation coming at a high cost with huge college and university debts. The Gen Zs are those that are just under 30 years of age. They are shaped by the trauma of school shootings, the transgender revolution, and probably even the Covid pandemic that we recently experienced. The alphas are those born after 2010. They are the just coming of age. Actually, the oldest are young teens at this point. So those are the generations and they’re significantly different than the older generations. The silence, the baby boomers and the Gen Xers who are the grandparents of these kids and the great grandparents of these kids,
Jamie Mitchell: Bob, each of these generations have their struggles and concerns that make it difficult to relate to them or even reach them, especially with the gospel. Yet that has always been the case throughout the history. Generations have always had issues, but why does it seem that it is so challenging to connect and reach these three generations and especially spiritually speaking?
Robert Pettersen: Well, first of all, we are not just suddenly having a problem. There have been erosion going on since the silent generation, particularly the baby boomer generation. It was one of the most traumatic generations of all time. The baby boomer generation basically abandoned the faith and the values of those generations that came before them. It was the time of hippies of the flower child, revolution of feminism, anti-war protest. It was the time of putting a flower in your hair and going to San Francisco. Woodstock. Then in 1968 where everything changed when Charles Manson and his cult murders took place, the Vietnam War protest, the Tet offensive, the soured people on Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King were assassinated. Students were shot by National Guardsman at Kent State. It was a horrible, horrible year the year that changed everything, and I think baby boomers then turned in their tie dye shirts and beads for polyester leisure suits and disco dancing were caught up in Affluenza.
Robert Pettersen: Credit cards became available. The National Gross National product increased by 30%, and for the last 40 years, baby boomers have controlled the economy. They are the biggest owners of the wealth of our economy, also the biggest debtors in our economy. They have given us four presidents, but they are conservative by and large politically, but increasingly liberal in their social cultural views, dropping out of the church at greater numbers than any other generation. And they’ve given us basically the next generations, particularly the millennials who are their children, the Gen Zs, who are their grandchildren for the most part, and the Alphas who are now their great-grandchildren. And so it didn’t happen overnight. The step show fluidity of the 1960s has turned into gender and family fluidity today, where tonight in America, 24.7 million kids will go to bed in a home without their biological father. And so everything has changed, but I really look at the baby boomer generation, my generation. Your generation is the people who changed everything and now the chickens are coming home to roost with our younger generations.
Jamie Mitchell: Bob, it’s so important for God’s people and the great service that legacy imperative does, especially for the older generation. We’ll talk more in this program, is that you do help us to understand how big events that took place in the news education, the different vices, the different struggles, the different sins that have popped up and crept up in our country, really in the world, and also the global touch of the world. We didn’t even hardly touch on things like the internet and television and media and all of those things. Friends, what we’re talking about today is how all of these things are shaping and making and marking these different generations. And the issue is these are your children, these are your grandchildren, and you probably have had a difficulty talking to them, relating to them, understanding them. That’s why we have Bob with us today, and we’re going to continue outlining for you how grandparents can be the best position to make an impact on the next generation. Now, join us back here in just a moment for segment two as we scratch the surface more on how to connect with our grandchildren here at Stand At the Gap. Well, today we’re trying to understand how to best reach the younger generation. Bob Pettersen, the founder and director of Legacy Imperative, is a ministry to train and mobilize grandparents to make a spiritual impact on the lives of their grandkids. Bob, from what you are seeing and the research you’ve done, why are grandparents key people to reach the next generation?
Robert Pettersen: Well, first of all, grandparents are beloved by their grandkids. Anaheim Travel did a nationwide survey asking millennials, particularly who would, they would rather go on vacation with their peers, their parents or their grandparents. They were shocked to discover that 87% of the next gen kids said they would rather go on vacation with their grandparents than anyone else. A deeper dive into that study showed that their parents put pressure on them to act right. Their peers put pressure on them to be cool, but their grandparents loved them the way they are. Grandparents are just the favorite people. They’re the cheerleaders. Parents have to play by the rule. I’m not your friend, I’m your parent. They’re the coaches. It was I think Thomas Sewell who said that our children come into the world as barbarians and we have about 18 years to civilize the barbarian. And so their job is to correct, to discipline, to take the time to tell kids they can’t do what they don’t want to do.
Robert Pettersen: They have to do what they don’t want to do. They’re the coaches. No coach ever communicated unconditional love, but grandparents, we don’t have to play by the rule. We can be their friends. We’re their cheerleaders, not their coaches, and that’s why kids love their grandparents. Not only that, we’re in the fourth quarter of life, most of us, some of us may be even being sudden death over time without knowing it. But in the fourth quarter of life, which means Jamie, that we have all of the experience, the wisdom and life stories to tell our grandkids that we’ve gained from the first three quarters of life. We also have resources. We have time available, and that’s really critical. And finally, Jamie, we’re the last generations probably in the history of America to know the stories of faith and family and the values that come out of faith and family. We’re the last generation. It’s being lost in the generations that follow us, so that’s why we are perfectly poised. There are 28 million evangelical grandparents in America today, 75% of people over the age of 65, our grandparents and every study shows that children need at least four to six people in their lives to shape them in a healthy way. When surveyed kids will say, our parents are the most important people in our life, and our grandparents are the second most important people in our life. And more importantly, they’re the ones who really love us.
Jamie Mitchell: Bob, I was getting ready for this program. I thinking about my own relationship with my grandparents of my 16 cousins. I was the youngest, and so really all of my grandparents passed away when I was fairly young. I think my last one passed away when I was about 13 years old, and so I didn’t have that, but I did remember one thing. I wanted to be with my grandparents. I didn’t have to be with them. It wasn’t under compulsion. I really look forward to, I wanted to be with them. I even asked to be with them. And so there is that unique dynamic. Bob, it’s really interesting because I loved my grandparents, yet they did seem distant to me when I was younger, maybe because of my age and location, but today’s grandparents I’ve watched seem more engaged and desire to be around their grandkids. Why is that and what is motivating grandparents to have that kind of an interest in this next generation?
Robert Pettersen: Well, I think the former generation sort of went by certain rules, respect your elders. Don’t do as I say or as I do, do as I say, children should be silent. Adults should do all the talking and be the center of attention. That’s shifted in our culture. We’re now playing by different rules. In some ways it’s good, some ways it’s bad. I think we have a generation of helicopter parents. We have a phenomenon now where we have parents that are even moving into a hotel near the college for their kids’ first two or three weeks at college. I mean, it is amazing. So I think there is sort of a sense that we’re losing our kids. We need to be close to our kids, so that’s a good thing. And so I think that’s where a lot of the change has taking place. Here’s the real problem, Jamie, even though we I think understand more as grandparents today that we need to be engaged in our kids’ lives, there is a big difference. There was a time when almost all families lived in the same town. Often grandparents lived in the same home with their grandkids. Today, grandparents live a long ways from their grandkids. In many cases, they live in gated communities, they travel a lot. Baby boomers particularly don’t ever call a baby boomer, a senior citizen or an old person.
Robert Pettersen: They want to stay young as long as possible. They spent 60 million billion dollars last year on Botox treatments to stay younger. And so that’s a critical issue today too, that often people are connecting with their kids more on social media devices than they are face-to-face. And our kids are saying that they would rather have face-to-face interchange with their grandparents and their parents. They’re complaining. Today in our focus groups, kids are complaining that their parents and their grandparents are spending all their time on their social media devices and not paying attention to them. And so that’s part of the thing we want to educate grandparents in. It’s critically important that you put away your social media devices when you’re with your grandkids, that you stay in touch with them, even if it’s by social media device, but you make sure that you invest in their lives when they’re young, by taking them on trips, visiting them, having them visit you, spend as much time with your kids as possible, your grandkids and the earlier the better. Don’t think that you can be disengaged from their lives and then when they go get into the teenage years and suddenly have problems that you can show up like the lone Ranger and solve the problems, you won’t be welcome if you haven’t built a bonding relationship with them when they’re young.
Jamie Mitchell: That thought. I want to go a little deeper. How can grandparents get themselves ready to significantly influence their children’s children? What can we do to get ourselves ready right now?
Robert Pettersen: Well, when we started this out, Jamie, we thought we were going to study grandkids and where Gen Zs, millennials, gen Zs, alphas were give the grandparents all the information so they could understand their grandkids. As we got deeper into it, what we realized is that oftentimes we don’t even understand ourselves as silent generation, baby boomers or Gen Xers. We don’t even understand ourselves. What shaped us? Why do we think the way we do? So what we’re doing with our legacy imperative seminars with our films, you can go on legacy imperative.org and find a plethora of tools that you can use. What we’re trying to say to grandparents is, first of all, you got to understand yourself, the things that shaped you, why you feel the way you do, because the way you feel about things is incredibly different than the way your grandkids feel about things.
Robert Pettersen: And you have to understand yourself. We are the most polarized time, I think in American history other than the eve of the Civil War. We have seven disparate generations occupying the same landscape, each with radically different life views and worldview, religious views, social political views, and we need to understand why we feel the way they do. We do why they feel the way they do, because until we understand each other, we won’t build bridges. We’ll just continue to erect walls. And until we build bridges, we won’t have an opportunity do the most important thing of all. And that’s to talk to them about not only their near future, but their eternal future.
Jamie Mitchell: I just love that, Bob, because when I think about myself, how I view money, how I view relationships, how I view fun, how I view going to church, what I like to eat and where I even go, if I just look at some of those and then I put them in comparison to the next generation, it’s like a whole new world, isn’t it?
Robert Pettersen: It really is. Take one example. Recently, our kids no longer look at the old media for their news. They don’t even look at cable news. Their news primarily comes from TikTok and from X, formerly known as Twitter. And it’s been fascinating to see that over 68% of Americans that are baby boomers and Gen Xers side with Israel in the current Middle Eastern conflict, but almost 50% of our Gen Zs side with Palestine and Hamas, why is that? If you go on TikTok, you’ll discover hashtag Israel about 600,000 posts and responses. If you look at hashtag Palestine, you’ll find over 6 billion posts in comments.
Jamie Mitchell: Wow. Hey, listen back in the Old Testament, Malachi admonished the fathers to turn their hearts towards the children to touch the third and the fourth generation. I think we are seeing that possibility today. When we come back, Bob is going to answer some questions that grandparents are asking as they encounter the next generation. We’re trying to help grandparents make an impact today on Stand In the Gap today. Well, we’re here with Robert Pettersen from Legacy Imperative. Bob mentioned just a few moments ago their website, legacy imperative.org. There’s all kinds of resources on that, but Bob, could you just take a moment and tell our listeners about your summits and what you’re trying to do with them?
Robert Pettersen: Well, yeah, and I would invite our listeners to contact us@legacyimperative.org and just say, we’d love to have a summit come to our church or to our community group or to our retirement community. Our summits are an evening and a morning the next morning. We’re dealing with all the issues that are facing today with our next gens. We’re training people and inspiring people to get involved, to get involved in the only battle that really matters. We believe that righteousness exalt a nation, and so we care about who gets elected to office in America. We believe that the culture is important, but we also believe that the most important war we can be involved in is the spiritual war for the hearts and lives of the next generations because our kids really are facing a dystopian near future and a lost eternity. When you realize that there’s 170 million people under the age of 40 in America, eighth largest nation in the world if they were separated out.
Robert Pettersen: And when you realize that over 155 million of them do not have a biblical worldview as one of the largest unreached people groups in the world, but we’re training churches and pastors to say, these kids maybe aren’t coming back to church again. Only 11% of church attenders are under the age of 30. 65% of our church kids never come back to church when they leave home. 75% of pastor’s kids never come back to church when they leave home. And so what we’re saying in these seminars, we’re training you in these summits on how to be equipped to go to what we call digital land, digital natives outside the church. And isn’t that what the church is really about? It’s about equipping the saints. It’s about the saints gathering to worship and to become stronger, and then to lead the church and go to what hall went to Mars Hill where the pagans were and sharing the gospel in a way that they can understand in their language, in their culture.
Robert Pettersen: And that’s what we’re training. We’re telling pastors everywhere. You’re not going to see as many young people at Christmas or Easter services, but they will be home with their grandparents and their parents, and that’s what the gospel has to be taken to the family, to the home. And so that’s what we do in these summits. We also have a book called Legacy Reaching Digital Land. It has all the facts you ever want about your generation, about future generations, what you need to do. I think it’s the greatest book out there on understanding the generations. And you can go on our website and you can order this book. It has a 406 footnotes. Everything is all the stats and everything are backed up with statistics that are credible and provable. And then of course, we have on our legacy imperative channel, we have several video series on how to talk to your kids about issues like the Bible and science hypocrisy in the church, transgender issues, how to talk to your kids when they’re in the far country. What do you do when you’re told that you can’t talk about Jesus to your grandkids? All the issues that we’re facing as grandparents today, we’ve got a toolbox. We’re all about equipping grandparents to evangelize and disciple their kids. One final thing about that, if you’re an evangelical grandparent today, there’s a 90% chance that two or more of your adult children have walked away from the church and three or more of your grandchildren are lost to the Christian faith.
Jamie Mitchell: Wow. Well, Bob, talking about equipping, I want to do something now. I want ’em to act like we’re in some church auditorium and people are giving you some questions to answer and let’s tap your experience and tap what legacy imperative can do. So here’s a possible question that could be asked you, Dr. Bob, my grandson came over for dinner and I noticed he had tattoos all over his arms, and then I noticed there was a piercing in his ear. I wanted to say something, but I held my tongue. Should I say something? I’ve always thought that tattoos and piercings were a sign of rebellion.
Robert Pettersen: Well, at one time they may have been, and they may be today. I think they’re more a sign that our young people are desperate for identity today. All the markers that our World War II parents had that identified them are basically a race today. Our kids are desperately looking for identity, and a lot of ’em have put tattoos on nose rings so they can identify with friends, they can identify with being part of a group, part of a tribe, part of the people God didn’t make us to be alone made us to be part of community. And so what I would say to those parents, you’re right to keep your mouth shut about that. That’s not a hill you want to die on because what you want to do is keep communication open to talk about what really matters. To paraphrase Jesus, what should a prophet, a person if their children are clean skinned with no ornaments in their nose and ears and lose their souls?
Jamie Mitchell: Hey, another thing you can do, Bob, is you can always say, I’ve learned to say this to them. Hey, tell me the story behind the ink on your arm. And they will gladly tell you what is that significance? But I think you’re right is an identity. Hey, here’s another question, pastor. My daughter has a friend who I think is a girl, but she looks like a boy and she has a guy’s name. I’m concerned that my daughter think that this is okay. How do I speak to her about the transgender issue without causing tension?
Robert Pettersen: Well, first of all, the chances are that she does think it’s okay, particularly the younger kids. The Alphas, A recent study by Hotwire Communications, a global communications network, discovered that alpha kids, those born between 2010 and 2024, that alpha kids are more set in their opinions than people were, than generations before. Were at an older age, and they are set in their opinions toward diversity, toward progressive viewpoints. They’re being schooled in them at school. They’re being schooled in them on the internet, on social media. And so don’t be surprised if your grandkids actually do approve of whether there’s a doing. I just recently talked to my 7-year-old granddaughter when I was in Washington DC and my 7-year-old granddaughter and I backed into a discussion about transgender, and she said, but papa, everybody owns their own body. They can do with their body what they want to seven years old, where did you get that sweetheart?
Robert Pettersen: My teacher told me, and she gets it on internet, she gets it in cartoons, she gets it in Barbie videos, she gets it everywhere. And so we had a wonderful opportunity. So I listened to her. I didn’t get upset at her. Why do you think that? What’s your view? And then I talked not in terms of this is right or wrong, but in terms of my own life, story stories, people can disagree with you, but they can’t disagree with your life story. And what I said to her is, sweetheart, your papa has a different view. Your papa believes his body belongs to God because God created your papa in your grandmother’s womb, and he created me to be a boy, a man, a male, and I’m happy because God does all things well. And so I never want to change what God made me to be. And she listened and she smiled and said, that’s good, Papa. Do you see the difference between saying you’re wrong? I’m right. Let me set you straight, as opposed to telling my personal story to her and speaking in those terms.
Jamie Mitchell: One more question, Bob. Bob, I want to keep some family traditions alive. Many of them revolve around the Lord, the church, my faith, but my daughter has told me not to push them on her son, her grandchildren. They would be turned off and probably won’t want to participate. My heart is broken by both her insistence and his lack of interest. What can I do? We have less than a minute.
Robert Pettersen: What can you do? You can talk to Jesus about your grandkids. When you can’t talk to your grandkids about Jesus, you can pray and your prayer will have far more impact than all the arguments you give. You can really believe that God loves your grandkids more than you do. If you can’t talk to them about Jesus, then show the life of Jesus to them in the way you live. And as you develop credibility, you will find opportunities and pray Every day. God give me an opportunity to say something of my Christian faith and value to my children in a way that won’t shut the doors to my grandkid’s heart or to my adult children’s home.
Jamie Mitchell: It’s interesting, isn’t it, Bob, that it’s not so much that your grandchildren don’t have an interest in spiritual things. It’s almost like your children are a roadblock between your kids. There is something that is there that’s causing them to resist, allowing you as their parent to get to their children, your grandchildren, and we can talk about that in our final segment. Friends, these questions and more are answered by legacy imperative. I want to encourage you, check out their conferences, check out their website when we finish up making the connection and the fruit that comes. Join us for our last segment here on Standing in the Gap today. Well, we’ve been talking with Bob Pettersen from Legacy Imperative, a ministry to equip grandparents to make a spiritual impact on their grandkids. Bob, as we come to a close today, I want you to share some testimonies or stories of people that you’ve been able to train and encourage and the fruit that comes. What kinds of things have you seen as you’ve ministered to people through legacy, imperative, equip people with some of these tools that you’re providing? You must have heard some stories and some fruit. Let’s encourage our listener today of the possibilities if they would do some of these things.
Robert Pettersen: I’m glad you asked. And going back to what we were talking about before in the last segment, 5 million grandparents in North America are not allowed to see their grandkids. Millions more are not allowed to talk about their faith with their grandkids. And as we studied the issue, as we talked particularly with adult focus groups, adult children, focus groups, we discovered a phenomena that most young people are not keeping their grandparents from talking to their grandkids about faith because they’re anti-Christian doing it as those who feel they’re guardians to their kids’ health, the gatekeepers to their kids. And many of them have a very negative view of the kind of religion they got growing up of what they saw in the churches, the hypocrisy, the weirdness that sometimes happens in churches of what they saw as the inconsistencies in their own parents’ religion, a religion that didn’t reflect what they thought the gospel said about Christ and Christ’s way of thinking and living.
Robert Pettersen: And so what we have said to parents is, when you are grandparents, when you’re not allowed to see your grandkids or talk to ’em, if you can make an appointment with your kids, go off with your adult kids and ask them, what was it like when you were growing up? How did you see our faith? How did you see our church’s faith? And be prepared to get a report card on your parenting that may not be pleasing and don’t be defensive. Listen, and if they’re right, repent, ask for forgiveness. And then afterwards, don’t expect immediately they’re going to trust you. But wait, live up. Live differently in front of your kids. And what they said, you used to live in front of them with your Christian faith. And what we’ve discovered, Jamie, is we have seen hundreds of families across America where parents and adult children have been reunited and the doors to their home and to their grandchildren’s hearts have been thrown open.
Robert Pettersen: That has been one of the surprises of this ministry to me in the last three years, how we’ve brought about reconciliation. And we started out, this was about grandkids. No, it’s also about adult children who are the gatekeepers to our grandkids. That’s an incredible success story. How to deal with your kids when they’re transgender, for instance, or LGBT Q1. Mother wrote us saying, my daughter says, unless I affirm her L-G-B-T-Q orientation and her girlfriend and celebrate it, she won’t have anything to do with me because I’m denying her personhood. She said, what do I say? She says, I’m a Christian. I can’t affirm something or celebrate something that’s unbiblical, and yet I don’t want to lose a relationship with my daughter. I love them. I invite her over. I invite her friend over. I’m kind to them, and yet, unless I affirm and celebrate, they won’t have anything to do with me.
Robert Pettersen: So I gave her some advice. I said, she wrote me an email after a summit, and I said, why don’t you go to your daughter and say, honey, I’ve always accepted you, even though I don’t agree with your beliefs and your choices, and I’ve loved you. My life has been open to you, my home has been open to you. And if we’re going to have a healthy relationship, wouldn’t it be important that you would respond to me with my beliefs the same way I respond to you with your beliefs? She wrote me back a few weeks later and said, I had that conversation with my daughter, and my daughter realized the inconsistency of what she was saying. She said, you’re right, mom. You love me the way I am. I need to love you for the way you are in your views. That’s a powerful thing.
Robert Pettersen: That’s a powerful thing. And we have had story after story of people who took their kids on trips, who spent time with their kids, who learned the skills and have shared with us how they’ve led their grandchildren to Jesus, how they brought their children and their families, children’s families back into church. It’s an amazing, miraculous thing when we learn to understand ourselves. We learn to understand the next generations. And more importantly, we learn to understand the great commission and our responsibility to fulfill it in those we love most who are closest to us. It’s amazing, Jamie, the miracles that take place.
Jamie Mitchell: It’s obvious now, Bob, when you read the story in Luke 15 about the prodigal son of why that father threw a party when the son came back from the far country, those return stories are sweet, aren’t they?
Robert Pettersen: And that reminds me of something else too. We love the younger brother. Most of us don’t really like the older brother. The older brother in that story is the picture of the person who’s in the father’s house, who’s doing the work of the father in the fields, but who hasn’t grasped hold of the father’s heart of grace. And what I want to say to those that are listening too, is we hear a lot from people who try to weasel out of their responsibility of their grandkids. Well, my kids go to church. My grandkids all go to church. They’ve all accepted Jesus. Everything’s okay. Not everything is okay. You need to be as committed to discipling your Christian kids, your church, growing kids, because it’s so easy to be in the father’s house and to have the heart of the older brother. And the older brother was as much in the far country at home as the younger brother was in a distant place, Finn Augustine said, the far country is not so much a geographical place as it is when your heart is far from the heart of God.
Jamie Mitchell: Bob, we have a few minutes left. Would you do me a favor and do our listeners a favor? What a joy to have you. I just feel led that we should pray for the grandparents that are listening right now. Would you pray for them and ask God to work in their lives as they become missionaries to the next generation? Would you pray for them right now?
Robert Pettersen: Lord God, we want to claim the promises of the psalmist, that and the call of the psalmist, that we should rise up in our old age and tell the story, your story, the gospel story, the story of your grace to the generations yet to come. I think of the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes, that great grandparents leave a legacy of faith to their grandkids. And Lord, I pray for every grandparent out there, those that are perhaps confident that everything’s okay when it isn’t those Lord, that our hearts are broken right now. Those that have given up hope that they can make a difference. I pray not only for grandparents, but I pray for what we call grand people, older people that may not have grandkids, but they can share with somebody else’s grandkid, their own faith story. So Lord, I pray that you would save these next generations, that you would use us in a mighty way, that you would give us courage, that we would stop fighting the wrong wars and fight the only war that matters, that war that’s not against flesh and blood, that spiritual war for the hearts and minds of our children.
Robert Pettersen: And I believe Lord and I claim Lord, that with the power of the Holy Spirit, with the truth of the word and with the love of Jesus, that we really can forge the future. We really can make a difference in those we love. And Lord, I pray for every grandparent out there that they will one day have that great joy of being in the new Heaven and the new Earth with those they love most. In Jesus name, amen.
Jamie Mitchell: Thank you, Bob Pettersen. God bless you, legacy imperative. Check out their website and you return back here in 23 hours for another edition of Stand In the Gap Today. Have a wonderful day.
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