A preview of Daren's new parenting book!
- Daren Overstreet
- 13 minutes ago
- 17 min read
I have posted the introduction to my new book below. It is not yet released, but if this introduction encourages you, I'd like to invite you to take the next step with me, and be a part of the early-release launch team! Just a heads up - we are working on a PARENTING PORTAL for our website - a page where you can go for all kinds of helpful resources. It will go live immediately after the book is launched!
In the coming weeks, I’m forming a small Launch Team forBiblically Resilient Parenting: Equipping Our Kids to Stand for God’s Truth—a group of parents, ministry leaders, and friends who believe in the message of this book and want to help share it with others.
As part of the Launch Team, you will receive:
Early, exclusive access to the full manuscript before it’s released
A behind-the-scenes look at the launch process
Occasional updates, insights, and content previews
The opportunity to help me shape the final conversations around the book
All I ask is simple:
Read the book early, and
If it blesses you, consider sharing a thought, quote, or reflection on your social media platforms during release week. The launch will most likely be mid-December.
No pressure. No scripted messages. Just your honest voice and your heart for families.
If you’d like to join the Launch Team and receive early access, just send us an email at biblicallyresilient@gmail.com and let us know. The team will send you more information.
Here are just a couple early reviews:
As a dad, a minister, and someone who has spent years helping families wrestle with real-life cultural pressures, I found Biblically Resilient Parenting both refreshing and incredibly helpful. Daren Overstreet writes with the heart of a shepherd and the honesty of someone who has been in the trenches. He doesn’t panic about where culture is headed—he simply points us back to Jesus, Scripture, and the steady courage it takes to raise kids who love God when the world pulls them in other directions. This isn’t theory or hype; it’s practical, grounded, and full of hope. I’m genuinely grateful Daren wrote this, and I know a lot of parents will feel the same.
Guy Hammond
Executive Director
Strength In Weakness Ministries
Nothing is more important for shaping our children than assuring that they have a Christian worldview. Overstreet's book, Biblically Resilient Parenting, understands this need and offers great support for parents who want to raise strong believers in Jesus. This book is for parents, grandparents, teachers, church leaders, and others. Great book!
David Young, Scholar in Residence, Renew Network
I would be honored to have you join me! Enjoy the introduction...
Introduction
The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to
understand its problems and respond appropriately to them. – Carl Trueman
It was April 9, 1997, a cool evening in Bellevue, Washington. My wife had just given birth
to our first son, Zack. After the delivery and celebration, both she and our new baby were
sleeping. I was wide awake, my mind flooded with gratitude for this new phase of life, so I
slipped out of the hospital and went on a prayer walk.
I remember it as if it were yesterday. I must have walked five laps around downtown
Bellevue, with tears pouring down my face. My biggest prayer? “Lord, please give me the
wisdom to help guide my new son in a fallen world.” Karla and I had seen God change our own lives in countless ways. It’s not an overstatement to say that our Christian faith and the truth of the Bible were the primary reasons we had a growing marriage, family, and hope.
We had both grown up in Christian homes and were raised by loving parents who did their
best to help us understand the wisdom of God’s vision for life. I vividly remember my dad telling me to read the book of Proverbs when I was a teenager struggling with sin and my identity. He told me, “It contains all you need to see what being a man is in this world.” He often reminded me to, above everything else, never forget that God’s word is where truth is found. If there is one thing to remember as you go through life, that is it.
Karla and I felt blessed for the foundation we received. Still, after going off to college, it
became clear that we weren’t totally prepared for the world we were entering. I think that’s
normal, and it’s a good thing we didn’t forget what we were taught: that God’s truth provides
strength and success in a world corrupted by sin. After recommitting to live life as disciples of Jesus and getting baptized, we began living our lives according to the narrative of Scripture, no matter the cost.
Two and a half years after Zack’s birth, my wife gave birth to our second son, Hunter.
Once again, I walked the streets of Bellevue praying the same prayer. Then, in 2005, Karla and I traveled to China to meet and adopt our third child, Ellie. You guessed it—I walked the streets of Nanjing praying the same thing for her precious life.
Here is the reality: When God allows us to bring children into this world, it’s a fantastic
blessing and an incredible opportunity. Our world, no matter the generation, is reeling from the effects of abandoning God’s way of living life. Way back in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God, disobey him, and try things their own way. It introduced sin and depravity into the very world we are bringing children into today. Satan has been distorting things ever since, confusing each generation, lying to them about where to find truth and real fulfillment.
As Christians, this provides us with an opportunity to shine light into the darkest corners of
our society, but it will take courage and intentionality. Christ-centered families remain the most effective way to disciple the next generation and display the hope of the gospel to a watching world, but it will require deepening our convictions about the spiritual battle we are engaged in.
Are you up for the task?
Our children are now grown and out of the house, but my wife and I have a renewed sense
of urgency about this crucial calling. We are now grandparents! With a two-and-a-half-year-old grandson and a brand new, beautiful granddaughter, we possess a fresh sense of mission. We also understand that the world they now live in has changed significantly. My goal is to spend the rest of my days helping my family and other parents understand the world their kids are living in and equipping them for success. Ken Idleman, in The Disciple Making Grandparent, describes our times like this:
We are living right now in a time unlike any other I have experienced in my lifetime. There is so much straight-faced lying, propaganda, and duplicity—so much image- consciousness, posturing, and people living secret lives of shame. Our grandchildren growing up today are trained by Hollywood, Washington DC, and Wall Street to be disingenuous. The media, some of their peers, and some authority figures are leading them down paths of deceit and dishonesty. Because we want to leave a radically different legacy, we will be truthful, living an integrated life before their eyes. 1
Teaching our kids where real truth resides in our culture and leaving a radical, biblically
grounded legacy—this is my reignited passion. This is how I want to spend my remaining days, what I want filling the space in my head and heart. This is the need of the hour in the church today.
We want to help this new generation of parents navigate our culture with the same thing we
used—a deep conviction that God’s word is, and always will be, where truth is found. The first thing we all need to realize is that we are living in a post-Christian culture that is increasingly hostile to that idea. The Bible is viewed at best as a joke, at worst as a danger. Things are changing, and quickly.
This book is a realistic conversation about that.
Different Times
Let’s take a moment to discuss culture—it represents the life we are immersed in. The day
a child is born, they are placed within a culture that has deeply embedded values about life and truth, values that are not neutral but bent on forming them. The word “culture” comes from the Latin colere, which means to till or cultivate. It originated as an agricultural concept, to cultivate and care for the things we live in. Over time, it was applied metaphorically to the cultivation of the human mind and spirit. Today, it is used to describe the shared way of life, practices, and values of people groups. It encompasses various aspects, including art, architecture, language, entertainment, traditions, experiences, and worldviews.
Culture is certainly not the enemy; it is the result of people doing what they are designed to
do—make sense of the world they live in. The culture in which any person lives contains some truthful and beneficial aspects, but it is fundamentally flawed and broken. It also contains incorrect ideas and patterns of thinking that can be blindly accepted as the truth. The culture in which we live is doing its best to cultivate the hearts and minds of our children—and therein lies the challenge. If you doubt that, you’re already behind.
Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Christians are called to engage with culture lovingly and thoughtfully. Still, when determining God’s will, we are to use Scripture to transform our minds. We live according to the values of God’s kingdom, not the prevailing ideas around us. The apostle Paul warned us that Satan tirelessly works to shift our focus from God’s truth to cheap imitations, spinning the same lies he did with Adam and Eve:
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and
encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when
people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will
gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to
hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy
4:2–4)
People won’t tolerate sound doctrine? They’ll try to change God’s words? They will make
decisions about truth based on their desires? They will pick and choose teachers mainly based on who will tell them what they want to hear? They will turn their ears away from the truth and believe lies? They will try to bend the Scriptures a bit to make them more appealing? Yes, and that time has arrived. Our society now calls myths (made-up stories about reality) truth and demands that we normalize them. There is no shortage of so-called biblical teachers and podcasters scratching the itching the ears of people with lessons that are long on opinion but short on truth and clarity. It all happens slowly, but the result is devastating. As author Morgan Ferrer observes, “Culture’s lies are like weeds that take over the garden of our children’s minds.” 2
We see it in the confusion over gender, where God’s good design for manhood and
womanhood is treated as a violation of human equality. We see it in morality, where truth is
defined in a thousand different ways, mainly according to the desires and feelings of individuals or activist people groups. We see the Christian faith being marginalized and the voice of the church being muted, which makes kids afraid to speak up for fear of being shamed or excluded.
In a recent study that included interviews with 1,452 college students, 88 percent of them
said they “pretended to hold more progressive views” than they actually possessed, in order to succeed socially or academically. They call it “performative virtue-signaling,” a practice arising out of the tension so many young people feel about assaults on their faith. 3
My wife and I have witnessed how things have changed. We raised our three children
between 1997 and 2022. When our first child was born, the internet had just begun to take shape. There were no smartphones, girls played girls’ sports and boys played boys’ sports, masculinity wasn’t automatically labeled “toxic,” and reading the Bible wasn’t something to be embarrassed about. In just one generation, so much has shifted that parents today are raising children in an entirely different cultural climate—and the stakes feel higher than ever.
About fifteen years ago, we began to notice a dramatic shift. For example, as a society, we
seem to have decided that sexuality is not only a part of who we are but the most important thing about us. It became the lens through which identity was defined, which is a tragedy, because sexuality is only one part of being human. By elevating it above all else, we’ve minimized the far more profound truth that every person is an image bearer of God. Our worth doesn’t come from how we label ourselves sexually—it comes from the fact that God made us in his design, for his glory. That is where our true significance is found.
So, What Happened?
Let’s talk for a minute about the shift I just described.
In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman discusses some deep and
monumental changes that are shaping how we think about identity and purpose today. He begins the book with a simple question: How did the sentence “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” come to make sense in modern Western society? 4
We began having children in the late 90s. If you had asked me that question then, I would
have thought you were joking. Fast-forward to today: It not only makes sense to most people, but a large number also agree that it is a valid question that deserves our attention.
I have experienced this rapid normalization of our modern sexual revolution as my kids
have gotten older. When my son Zack was about seventeen, we went out for a Saturday
breakfast. As we ate and talked, I asked him how school was going. In particular, I wanted to
know what kinds of difficulties he faced. I remember asking him a question like “What unique challenges do you face around sin and righteousness?” His answer went something like this: “It’s tough, dad. There is a lot of pressure. Just the other day I saw two girls making out in the hallway, and it’s considered pretty normal.”
At that moment, my jaw nearly fell into my omelet! In just seventeen short years, what one
generation thought was unheard of, or at least kept secret, had become normal and accepted. Trueman has some very important ideas about how this has happened, and I plan on using the conclusions he has come to often in this book.
The most crucial thing we need to understand is that ideas that are being pushed on us
today used to be thought of as the things university professors debated. Today, their ideas about how society should be operating have turned into commonplace assumptions. The things that used to be debated in elite academic settings have now become ideas that the general public takes for granted as true! That’s a scary thought, especially since many of these ideas are deeply flawed.
This is what Satan does. He slowly takes our eyes away from the big picture of God’s
beautiful narrative. Often, we don’t know even know it’s happening, but he gets us to plant the flag of meaning on a lesser snapshot, such as sexuality, politics, activism, success, or personal freedom. He does it all in the hope that we miss the greater story of redemption and the eternal identity God gives us in Christ. He has truly “blinded the minds of unbelievers,” causing them to miss the gospel of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4).
I contend that too many young Christian kids are subtly buying into the vision of life
offered by a culture that is openly rejecting God, which is essentially coaching them into
emotional and spiritual unhealth. As we move forward, nothing more than a robust faith will
equip families to thrive and stand firm.
A Resilient Future
The word “resilient” is everywhere today. Schools, counselors, and business leaders all
recognize that kids (and adults) are struggling to cope with life’s pressures. We are in the middle of a mental health crisis, and the statistics are staggering:
A peer-reviewed 2025 study showed anxiety having risen among young people by as
much as 84% in the US, 105% in Australia, and 115% in Canada. Depressive
symptoms among US youth rose by 115%. 5
In England, 25.8% of young adults (16–24) now experience common mental health
disorders—an increase of nearly 19% in the last decade. Among young women, the
rate is more than double that of young men (36.1% compared to 16.3%). 6
Jonathan Haidt reports a 145% increase in depression among girls since 2010, 161%
among boys, and a 188% increase in emergency room visits for self-harm among girls.
He traces much of this “surge of suffering” to the rise of smartphones and social
media. 7
There is plenty more data like this, and the numbers reveal a sobering truth: Today’s young
people are more anxious, fragile, and confused than any generation before them. And while
technology plays a role, at the core is something more profound—our culture has replaced God’s truth with shaky substitutes, and there are profound consequences.
But here is the good news: God’s word has always been about building resilient lives. Peter
reminds us that God’s divine power has given us “everything we need for a godly life” (2 Peter 1:3). It’s why I love the phrase “biblically resilient.” Hollow secular ideas have played a
significant role in our current predicament (Colossians 2:8), so we really don’t need more help from the world in turning things around. True resilience is the ability to bounce back stronger after experiencing pain, hurt, or disappointment, and it isn’t found in positive thinking or self- help strategies. It comes from a biblical worldview rooted in God’s unchanging truth.
Are We Teaching a Fragmented Faith?
I’m concerned that many children are receiving limited teaching and training on how to
practically apply their Christian faith to navigate life’s challenges and questions. Francis
Schaeffer was an evangelical pastor and theologian, and he said it like this:
The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so…is that
they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals…through a fundamental change in the overall way people think and view the world and life as a whole. 8
Christian truth being taught in “bits and pieces.” Interesting. Schaeffer was concerned that
society was doing more to disciple the hearts and minds of well-meaning Christians than parents or the church were, and he wrote this in 1981, forty-four years ago! He was warning people that anything less than a robust biblical worldview would not be sufficient for long-term faithfulness. That danger he predicted is with us today.
As a minister, I’ve noticed too many children grow up with a patchwork faith. They come
to a knowledge of God’s will for their lives in “bits and pieces”: some Bible lessons here, youth camp there, kids’ classes and church attendance over here, all while absorbing most of their worldview from the internet and the culture they experience. Many children believe certain fundamental truths about Scripture. Still, when it comes to navigating issues like morality, they often revert to worldly ideas.
Author Michael Kruger sounds the alarm, saying the church is “reducing Christianity to
two things: personal conversion and personal piety.” 9 In other words, we tend to teach our kids how to be saved and how to live a principled life, but we often fail to provide them with the tools necessary to think critically. Our kids don’t just need to know what to believe; they also need to know why it’s true and how it applies to every part of life. Their faith will be tested, so they need to be prepared.
Where Are We Now?
George Barna’s research confirms what many parents feel: Worldview is largely shaped
very early. By age thirteen, most people’s worldview is so deeply formed that it rarely changes after that. He also notes that a worldview is beginning to form in them as early as eighteen months! 10 They are sponges, born to absorb and process life from the minute they enter this world. Yet studies show that only 18 percent of Christian kids today list the Bible as their primary source of moral guidance, while more than half (56%) say truth is entirely up to the individual. 11
None of this means hope is lost, or that a person’s worldview can’t change. The Holy Spirit
can transform any heart at any time. But it does mean this: The most crucial mission field for the church today is the family. If we fail to disciple our own children well, what does it matter if we win the world?
This conversation isn’t about sheltering kids from every bad idea. It’s about training them
to discern truth from error. It isn’t about teaching them to avoid persecution, but helping them stand up to it. It isn’t about condemning culture, but equipping our kids to separate the truth it contains from the lies it feeds us.
It’s about showing them that God’s vision for life is far better than the cheap substitutes
culture offers. It also involves affirming a truth that for some reason has become controversial
today: If the Bible were all we had to guide us through life, we would have more than enough!
A Posture of Hope
In today’s cultural climate, Christians are often tempted toward one of two extremes: to
condemn the world outright or to conform quietly to its patterns. But Scripture calls us to a better way: to engage our culture without being shaped by it (James 4:4–5), bringing the light of the gospel into every space we inhabit. We must also resist the twin errors of despair and blind optimism. Despair sees the world’s moral decline and concludes that hope is lost; optimism naively ignores the spiritual battle raging beneath the surface. Parents cannot afford to do either.
Biblical hope is different. It looks reality in the eye, recognizes the presence of evil, and
yet stands firm in the confidence that Christ reigns supreme. Our task is not to fear the darkness or to retreat from it, but to live faithfully within it, believing that the gospel still transforms hearts, families, and even cultures. We are not doomed, nor are we deluded; we are hopeful, because Jesus lives, and his kingdom cannot be shaken.
As a Christian today, I am neither in a state of despair, nor am I blindly optimistic. I am hopeful.
Looking Ahead
Here is what this book is about: discerning, training, and equipping. In the chapters ahead,
we will:
Discuss the ethos of the world our kids are living in.
Talk about the critical role parents play in forming a biblical worldview.
Confront the foundation of the lies Satan is telling our kids about truth, identity, and
purpose.
Explore how parents and churches can partner to form a robust biblical worldview.
Address real-life issues like education choices, screen time, and mental health.
Provide practical tools to help you disciple your children with wisdom and hope.
Within each chapter, you’ll find some biblically resilient ideas—practical ways you can
disciple the hearts of your children. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a summary and
discussion questions to help you put these ideas into practice and explore topics further.
On our website (www.biblicallyresilient.com), you will find a devotional series for your
children that accompanies each chapter, additional reading recommendations, and links to
helpful resources.
Parenting today is not easy. But with God’s word as our foundation, we can raise children
who are joyful, courageous, and biblically resilient. We can develop kids who will shine with
light in their eyes when they see the incredible wisdom of God’s plan.
Let’s get started.
Discussion Questions:
1. Looking back at your own upbringing, what truths or practices from your parents have
most shaped your view of God—and what was missing that you want to give your
children?
2. What do you see as the most significant cultural influences shaping your kids (or
grandkids) today?
3. How does Romans 12:2 challenge the way your family engages with culture? Pray that
you will find the strength and courage to put into practice the “renewing of your mind” as
a family.
Daren Overstreet
Daren is a Senior Leader at Anchor Point Church in Tampa, Florida. He has been in ministry for nearly 30 years, and holds a Master’s Degree in Missional Theology
You can contact him at
1 David Upchurch and Daniel McCoy, The Disciple-Making Grandparent: A Guidebook for Helping Your
Grandchild Trust and Follow Jesus (Renew.org, 2025), 14, Kindle.
2 Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies (Harvest
House, 2019), 17.
3 Forrest Romm and Kevin Waldman, “Performative virtue-signaling has become a threat to higher ed,” The Hill,
August 12, 2025, https://thehill.com/opinion/education/5446702-performative-virtue-signaling-has-become-a-threat-
to-higher-ed/
4 Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the
Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway, 2020), Kindle, Introduction.
5 Patrick McGorry, Hasini Gunasiri, Cristina Mei, Simon Rice and Caroline X. Gao, “The Youth Mental Health
Crisis: Analysis and Solutions,” Frontiers in Psychiatry, Volume 15 (2024):
6 Anna Bawden, “One in Four People in England have mental health condition, NHS Survey Finds,” The Guardian,
June 26, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/26/young-people-england-common-mental-health-
conditions-nhs-survey
7 Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental
Illness (Penguin Press, 2024), Chapter 1, Kindle.
8 Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Crossway, 1981), 17.
9 Michael J. Kruger, Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College (Crossway, 2021), Introduction, Kindle.
10 George Barna, Raising Spiritual Champions (Arizona Christian University Press, 2023), chap. 1, Kindle.
11 Barna, Raising Spiritual Champions, Chapter 2, Kindle.