Phone A Friend | Week 4 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

The big idea

The primary goal of a Christian parent is not to raise successful kids but to instill genuine, faith in God in their children — and that takes an intentional home, a modeled life, a good community, and persistent prayer.

Raising kids today is harder than ever, but God has not left parents to figure it out alone. Pastor Daniel shows that the goal of parenting is to instill genuine faith, not just to raise good or successful kids, and that this happens as parents foster faith at home, model it with their lives, curate community, and fight for their children in prayer.

Point 1 of 6

Pastor Daniel points to statistics on Gen Z mental health, anxiety, depression, LGBTQ identification, and church attendance decline, arguing that a generation raised on cell phones and social media is being discipled by the world instead of by parents and the church.

Point 2 of 6

He walks through Judges 2:10, noting that Israel had seen God part the sea and provide manna, yet the next generation grew up not knowing the Lord or His works. He warns that it only takes one generation neglecting the responsibility to hand off faith for it to be lost.

Point 3 of 6

Using the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Pastor Daniel explains that faith conversations should be woven into ordinary life, not confined to church. He highlights research on the decline of family dinners and challenges the church to reclaim the dinner table as a simple, practical way to build faith-filled rhythms, offering a playbook of praying, sharing gratitude, talking about the day, and opening God's word together.

Point 4 of 6

He points to 2 Timothy 1:5, where Paul commends Timothy's faith passed down through his mother and grandmother, noting how culturally unusual it was for Paul to credit women in that context. He uses the statistic that kids of smokers are four times more likely to smoke themselves to show that children mirror what they watch, not just what they're told, and calls especially on fathers to spiritually engage even when it isn't easy.

Point 5 of 6

Drawing on Proverbs 13:20, he warns that friendships shape kids more than almost anything else, and shares a personal story of his mother stopping him from working at Abercrombie & Fitch on a spiritual hunch, later validated by the company's troubled history. He urges parents to prayerfully curate the schools, sports programs, and friend groups their kids grow up in.

Point 6 of 6

Pastor Daniel shares that his own grandmother prayed relentlessly for him even when he was far from God, and credits her prayers with keeping him from ruin. He teaches from Ephesians 1:17-18 as a model prayer for a child's heart and encourages parents that their children's stories are not finished, even if words no longer reach them, because prayer still can.

Take it into your week

Pastor Daniel frames the charge as four keys to raising faith-filled kids: foster faith at home, model it yourself, curate community, and fight for them in prayer.