“It’s difficult to flourish in a place where you don’t fit”: How to fortify the faith of our kids in today’s culture

In downtown St Louis, Missouri stands a quirky building that is part art installation, part playground, all fun. The City Museum is 10 storeys of caves and tunnels that require you to climb up, slide down, crawl under, jump over, swing across, walk into and spin around.

It is in this offbeat wonderland that features repurposed planes perched precariously, a salvaged school bus jutting out of the building and a rooftop Ferris wheel that Dr Timothy Paul Jones sets his story.

It was at this urban playground cum museum that Dr Timothy Paul Jones had an epiphany about his faith and the culture of the day. Photo from City Museum website.

“Let me say something about myself. Whatever my kids are doing, I’m going to jump in and do it with them. Everything. So when we go to this place, I do all of it. All the climbing, all the swinging, all the sliding,” said the father of four.

“But I got up to a certain point on the outside of the building, and I was going through this archway. And what you’re supposed to do at that point is you grab above you, and you swing your legs through and under yourself, and you slide down to the next section.

“So I’m up there, and I try to swing my legs forward, and I realise my legs weren’t going forward. This is not working for me.”

As he struggled, twisting and squeezing his body to get his legs from under him, the line of children behind him got longer.

“I keep trying, and I keep trying, and something occurs to me 50 feet above the ground that should have occurred to me when I was on the ground – maybe this wasn’t meant for me.

“Maybe the reason I don’t fit in this is because this wasn’t actually made for me. Maybe it was made for people who are closer to six than 60.”

Dr Jones was the keynote speaker at D6 Singapore Family Conference 2025 (July 25-26) which was attended by over 400 people from more than 50 churches. A professor of Christian Family Ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he is also vice-president, Dr Jones is, in addition, a Pastor at Sojourn Church Midtown, and an author and a cohost of The Apologetics Podcast.

Dr Jones was the keynote speaker of D6 Family Conference 2025.

In the opening plenary session, Dr Jones spoke about how the culture of today is “squeezing our faith”, telling our children how to live and view the world in a way that is counter to the Christian faith.

“It is hard to flourish in a place where your faith doesn’t seem to fit.”

He shared how to help our children “keep the faith in a place where they don’t fit”.

“Do not forget”

Ours is not the first generation of believers to feel a mismatch between faith and culture, noted Dr Jones. Some 1,500 years or so before Jesus came to earth, the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6 were in the same situation.

They had lived on their own for 40 years. Now they were about to enter the Promised Land where the inhabitants did not worship the Creator God, Yahweh. Instead, they worshipped the gods and goddesses of fields and fertility.

Concerned that the Israelites would be swayed by the new culture, Moses tells them: “Take care that you do not forget (Deuteronomy 6:12).”

Dr Jones continued: “It is a phrase that is repeated seven times in the book of Deuteronomy. We might say that it is the actual theme of the book.

“It’s not that they were going to forget about God’s existence, but that they were going to live as if God does not exist.”

Then Moses gives a plan on how not to forget, a plan not for priests and not for prophets but for parents (Deuteronomy 6:7). He tells the parents to “teach diligently” God’s Law to their children, using the Hebrew word shanan which is used to describe a sharp, incisive, repeated approach like a tool engraving upon stone or wood through repeated action over a long time for lasting effect.

How not to forget

How Moses teaches them not to forget is also interesting.

“The structure of this text is utterly beautiful,” said Dr Jones.

He goes on to explain that Deuteronomy 6:1-9 is all about fearing God and the same idea is repeated in Deuteronomy 6:13-17.  

“Do you see what Moses is doing? He is quite literally doing what He is commanding – to repeat it. So He says it, and then He says it again in a different way.

“Moses is modelling by actually repeating it in this particular text.”

1. Fear God

Fear one God, worship and obey Him and do not follow other gods, was what Moses instructed the people. 

“Because here’s one of the things that they were going to be facing – Is the God who brought us out of Egypt actually enough? Is He sufficient?

“Yes, He’s powerful enough to get you out of Egypt. He’s a good military God. But can He bring fields and fertility? Once we settle in this land, will that God be enough to fill our houses with children and our fields with food and with cattle?”

This is the same temptation we face today – being distracted by other loves because “if you say you can’t live without that, that you have to have that, that is your God”, unsure if our God is culturally relevant or able to rise to the occasions we face in modern times.

2. Embrace God’s gift

The Israelites were going to move into a land that was already prepared for them. They did not have to work to make it liveable.

“That’s grace,” said Dr Jones “You’re getting what you did not deserve. You’re going to get a gift. And that’s a reminder that whatever good we have in our families, we have because of the grace, the goodness of God.”

3. Tell God’s story

Pass on the fear of the Lord, and the obedience to His decrees, statues and ordinances. This is the only story that is truly worth remembering and re-telling.

“Why does Moses emphasise story? Because stories are the ways that we make sense of our lives,” said Dr Jones.

“He was saying that the way you pass on this faith in a place where you don’t fit is by repeating your story over and over and over again.”

3 truths from Deuteronomy 6

Apart from the three strategies to help our children keep the faith in a world culture that counter to the Christian faith, the passage also offers three practical truths.

1. See your children

“See your children in light of God’s story,” said Dr Jones.

“Your child is a gift. They are not designed by God to be the fulfilment of your dreams. They are designed and given to you for His glory.”

But your child is a sinner and what they need the most is a Saviour, added Dr Jones.

“Are you really living as if your child’s deepest need is a Savior? Is this the storyline that you are living by in your house?”

How to see our children in the light of God’s story.

To know if you are seeing your child through the lens of eternity, ask yourself: What is the first thing you start to tell someone when you are talking about your child? Is it how successful they are, how happy they are or is it about their spiritual walk?

“That reveals the real story we’re telling in our household.”

2. Amateurs tell the best stories

The word “amateur” has, at its root, the word “amare”, meaning love. An amateur is, in essence, someone who does something for the love of it.

In the same way, parents as amateurs are the ones who should be doing the storytelling.

“Because what matters is the person that does it, not how well it’s done. And what matters to the discipleship of your children is not just how well it’s done, it’s who does it. You, as a parent, need to be part of that process.”

To the parent who feels inadequate, Dr Jones said: “Just because you’re not good at it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Just do the next right thing.

“It may be something as simple as just telling your child, ‘Here’s how Jesus saved me.’ That’s the next right thing. And then do the next one and the next one and the next one.”

3. Pass down the story

Remember the story is passed down so that it can be passed on, said Dr Jones.

In Deuteronomy 7:13, God tells the Israelites to lay down roots in the new land and to be fruitful and multiply. This was the same thing he told Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28. The story was passed down and passed on.

“The idea was that they would spread around the globe, and the people would be worshiping the true God all the way around the globe. The way we do that now is not merely through families, but through the church, making disciples all the way around the globe.

“Understand that God gives us children so that their lives can be leveraged so that persons in every place can bow to the rightful King of Kings.

“I want to be able to say to my kids, ‘I would rather have you on the other side of the world in God’s will than to be next door to me outside of God’s will. And I would rather have you in a grave inside God’s will than in a mansion outside God’s will.’”

Boldly jump in

Is all this difficult? Most definitely. Would parents fail at times. Assuredly. But because of the work Jesus did on the cross for us, “the Father can never think any less of us than He thinks of Jesus”.

“Do you know what the Father looks at you in your worst parenting day and says if you’re in Jesus? ‘This is my beloved son, daughter. In you, I am well pleased.’

“Do you know what God says to you on your best parenting day? ‘You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. In you, I am well pleased.’

“Because He sees you in Jesus, He says the same thing to you on your worst day and on your best day. The Father can never think anything less of you in Christ than He thinks of Christ Himself.

“Boldly jump in because you have nothing to prove and nothing to lose. You are loved in Christ.”

To end the session, Dr Jones tells of how his adventure at the City Museum ended. Stuck in the tunnel, unable to get his legs in front of him to slide down and unable to retreat because of the long line of children behind him, he decided to throw himself down headfirst instead.

“I yelled to my oldest daughter, ‘Catch me, I’m coming down.’ So I went and maybe just because she likes her allowance, my oldest daughter caught me and I was okay.

“As you go down, as you jump in to what God has you to do, know that there’s Somebody greater than my daughter or your own children to catch you. Your heavenly Father is going to catch you. So jump in and do it, even if it looks hard, even if it looks impossible. Your Father is there to catch you.”

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