What if your family could discover new purpose and spiritual growth this Lent by wondering together about the Easter story?

On this episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with Vanessa Myers, children's minister, author, and founder of Family Faith Builders, for an inspiring conversation about raising Christian kids, faith at home, and meaningful family time during Lent. Vanessa shares practical ways families can build discipleship, nurture spiritual growth, and live out their faith—plus, insight into her latest devotional that invites kids and parents to dive deeper and wonder through the Easter story.

Resources:

• familyfaithbuilders.org
• Wondering to Jerusalem on Amazon
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

*Special thanks to our editor Jay Lee from provisionpods.com!

Clip Finder:

Empowering Families to Live Out Their Faith: "That's what my heart is for, is for families, moms and dads, grandparents, whoever, you know, at home to spend time together in the word, praying together and talking and living out their faith, you know."

— Vanessa Myers [00:03:32 → 00:03:42]

Using Imagination to Explore Historical Stories: "God doesn't give us, He doesn't always give us all the details of things. So I help kids use their wonder and imagination and thinking more about the story...

— Vanessa Myers [00:10:36 → 00:10:55]

Why Did People Recline at the Table?: "When I was doing my research, you know, they [reclined at the table to eat]. They really embraced the Roman style of dining because they were under the Roman rule at that time in history. And so Romans, you know, set up long tables, low, long tables, and they reclined like this, you know, so like with their feet facing away. And just that really was interesting to me."

— Vanessa Myers [00:12:22 → 00:13:03]

Viral Topic Title: Lent Sacrifices and Their True Purpose

Quote: "It's not just giving up and, oh, I'm gonna give up this food because I wanna lose weight, you know, or whatever. Like, it's really taking that sacrifice and focusing it on the Word and reading the Word, you know? So that's what I tell kids. It's not just giving up something for fun."

— Vanessa Myers [00:18:05 → 00:18:20]

Title: The Most Important Decision

One of my favorite parts about the book at the end is really helping them to understand what it means to make the greatest decision of their life, and that's to follow Jesus, and what that looks like, and why it's important, and how to live that out.

— Vanessa Myers [00:19:40 → 00:20:00]

Viral Topic – Nostalgic Easter Traditions: "We would walk to church every Sunday, Easter Sunday morning. And we would come home and we'd have our big Easter meal, which consisted of pot roast and potatoes and carrots. And everybody had their own seat. Cousins, aunts, uncles, we all were there. I just remember those, the egg hunts that we had at the church."

— Vanessa Myers [00:21:59 → 00:22:16]

Bark proactively works to monitor, detect, and alert you to potential issues on your kids' devices. Visit bark.us to learn more about how you can keep your kids safe online. Use the code COLLIDEKIDS to get 15% off Your Bark Technologies Plan !

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What if God could use creativity in your family to spark faith, purpose, and discipleship in your everyday life?

On this episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with legendary animator, writer, and pastor Butch Hartman—creator of The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, and most recently, The Garden Cartoon. Hear how Butch’s journey from a chaotic childhood to Hollywood success and Christian parenting led him to inspire families through cartoons.

Resources:

• Show: gardencartoon.com
• Website: butchhartmanstudies.com
• Instagram: @butchhartman
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

Clip Finder:

Kids’ Cartoons and Faith: "And the Garden Cartoon teaches kids all about the Bible and Jesus Christ. And it's like, I looked at the Christian marketplace and I realized that there's some cool cartoons out there, but there's not enough."

— Butch Hartman [00:04:15 → 00:04:24]

Nostalgic TV Moments: "So if I used to love the Charlie Brown Christmas special and things like that, but if they only showed it once a year, you had to be right in front of that TV when it came on and you couldn't see it anyway."

— Butch Hartman [00:06:32 → 00:06:41]

Imposter Syndrome in the Animation Industry

"I got to the animation world and everybody is incredible. Like, my gosh, I could never, how do these people do this? So I, I either had two choices. I could run away or I could stay."

— Butch Hartman [00:08:40 → 00:08:50]

Viral Topic: The True Meaning Behind "Apple of My Eye": "What it means is you're so close to someone, you could see your own reflection in their eye."

— Butch Hartman [00:10:05 → 00:10:11]

Viral Origins of Fairly OddParents: "If I could just create my own show, I would have a job, right? So I came up with a show about a little boy, uh, who had two fairy godparents, and I sold it to Nickelodeon as one cartoon, one episode."

— Butch Hartman [00:15:13 → 00:15:24]

Hidden Christian Themes in Danny Phantom: "I love this show because there's a huge Christian theme running through it. You'll never see it when you watch the show unless you know what to look for. Danny's the light coming into the darkness and he's fighting all these, you know, A lot of Christians will miss out on fun stories sometimes. Oh, you can't watch that, they'll turn it off. Sometimes there might be a message in there you might want to see."

— Butch Hartman [00:15:39 → 00:15:57]

The Power of Christian Cartoons for Kids: "Had I had a Christian cartoon to watch at that time, I might have thought differently. I might have learned differently. I might have understood things differently and not let so many things scare me or upset me."

— Butch Hartman [00:19:03 → 00:19:13]

Viral Topic: The Power of Practice in Artistic Growth

"And by the way, All your drawings aren't going to be great, but as you get, as you practice, they're going to get better and they're going to, and they're, you're going to see improvement, but you got to practice."

— Butch Hartman [00:20:27 → 00:20:37]

Bark proactively works to monitor, detect, and alert you to potential issues on your kids' devices. Visit bark.us to learn more about how you can keep your kids safe online. Use the code COLLIDEKIDS to get 15% off Your Bark Technologies Plan !

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Could simple faith rhythms at home radically transform the way your family grows spiritually this year?

On this episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with Adam Griffin—pastor, author, and host of the Family Discipleship Podcast—to explore the power of Christian parenting and raising Christian kids through intentional family time and everyday discipleship. Together, they unpack practical tips for making faith a natural part of family life, why starting simple matters, and how spiritual growth shapes your family's purpose and inspiration—even in busy seasons.

Resources:

• www.familydiscipleship.com
• @familydiscipleshippodcast
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

Clip Finder:

Unexpected Callings in Life: "about eight years, nine years ago, the Lord laid it on our hearts to plant a church, but none of that was planned."

— Adam Griffin [00:07:07 → 00:07:12]

Podcast Beginnings and Leadership Transitions: "Matt Chandler had started that podcast and then he stepped away and I took over with a co host, also named Adam, who's still doing it today."

— Adam Griffin [00:08:41 → 00:08:49]

Filling the Gap in Family Spiritual Leadership Podcasts: "But what we saw, there's a ton of family podcasts, there's a ton of parenting podcasts, but there wasn't one that we really admired that was like, hey, this one focuses on how to lead your family spiritually."

— Adam Griffin [00:09:20 → 00:09:31]

Rethinking Discipleship

"If you combine both of those, that's closer to the definition we would use is saying, for our kids who do not follow Jesus, and for our kids who do, how are we pursuing a life of following Christ? That's much more than just familiarity with the Bible characters and Bible stories. It's more like, how does my faith apply? How do I see the world through a biblical worldview lens, and how do we form that?"

— Adam Griffin [00:10:55 → 00:11:19]

Family Discipleship Without Shame: "I want this to feel like I'm inviting you to a party that you've wanted to go to."

— Adam Griffin [00:16:28 → 00:16:31]

Viral Topic: Embracing the Invitation to Lead

"I pray that as families hear an invitation to lead their homes, they go, oh, I've always wanted to do that."

— Adam Griffin [00:17:07 → 00:17:13]

Viral Topic: Unbreakable Family Traditions

Quote: "One of the great things about my dad is he told us always that we don't wake up on Sunday morning and decide if we're going to church. That decision was made a long time ago."

— Adam Griffin [00:18:21 → 00:18:29]

Viral Topic: The Discipleship Drop-Off in Middle School

"If there's any season of life where it is critical that we are helping our family not just be familiar with Bible stories and Bible characters, but know how their faith applies to decision making, isn't it middle school and high school?"

— Adam Griffin [00:20:12 → 00:20:24]

Bark proactively works to monitor, detect, and alert you to potential issues on your kids' devices. Visit bark.us to learn more about how you can keep your kids safe online. Use the code COLLIDEKIDS to get 15% off Your Bark Technologies Plan !

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