What does it look like to make Jesus the star of your daily life?

On this episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark welcomes Brock Eastman and Shaun Stevenson—co-authors of the Parable Port book series—who share how their friendship started with with a critical book review and how wanting to learn and get better turned into a writing partnership. This episode has tons of laughs, stories, and practical ideas for raising Christian kids, building faith at home, and inspiring spiritual growth through creativity and discipleship.

• [00:05:32] How Brock and Shaun became friends
• [00:13:02] Turning parables into a book series for kids
• [00:22:11] Parable Port’s bonus resources and podcast
• [00:27:41] Childhood memories and creative inspiration

Resources:

• Book Website: parableport.com
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

Clip Finder:

The Power of Collaboration in Creative Projects: "that collaboration has been building over, I don't know, 5, 10 years, Sean. It's been a long time."

— Brock Eastman [00:09:18 → 00:09:22]

Modern Storytelling and Ancient Parables

"We're not creating something new. We're using stories that Jesus has already told and helping kids understand them in different ways or look at them from different angles or help them find characters in the book that they can relate to and see how it applies to their life."

— Brock Eastman [00:17:36 → 00:17:49]

Why We Chose Not to Write a Picture Book: "I know just based on the word count and the, the, we could have never explored the story in the way that we are right now."

— Brock Eastman [00:18:22 → 00:18:27]

Viral Topic: The Power of Collaboration in Children's Storytelling: "It's about collaboration, it's about building and growing and creating a really great immersive story that kids can read and get into. And that's the ultimate goal."

— Brock Eastman [00:21:54 → 00:22:02]

How Unexpected Friendships Start: "We met because I actually left Brock a— I wouldn't say it was a bad review. It was a like middle of the road review on one of his books online. And he actually messaged me... So we started emailing back and forth, and after that we started working on different projects together and just became friends and had a great time."

— Shaun Stevenson [00:07:02 → 00:07:14]

Viral Topic: Creating a Parable Book Series for Kids: "And she said, nope, I can't find anything. So we talked about it like, oh, what if we made like a book series about parables?"

— Shaun Stevenson [00:12:43 → 00:12:50]

Viral Topic: The Power of Parables

Quote: "parable, it's this word that we use kind of a Bible-y word, but it's a word that helps us understand something using everyday objects all around us."

— Shaun Stevenson [00:14:45 → 00:14:53]

How Everyday Objects Teach Us About Faith: "That to me is the power of like everyday items helping us learn about Jesus."

— Shaun Stevenson [00:17:14 → 00:17:18]

Empowering Young Storytellers: "And I think even as a kid, like you can tell stories too. Like if you love telling stories, do it. It's so fun."

— Shaun Stevenson [00:27:35 → 00:27:42]

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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Can a giant tub of cheese balls and a heart full of faith truly change lives and spark unexpected spiritual growth?

On this episode of the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with Molly Sanborn, also known as the "Cheeseball Chick," a speaker, influencer, and author whose hilarious, heartfelt adventures connect faith, purpose, and family life in surprising ways. Molly shares how raising Christian kids, embracing spiritual growth through hardship, and bringing joy to everyday moments collide with God's purpose—even when life gets messy, cheesy, or a little unexpected.

• [00:07:04] How Molly's cheeseballs journey started
• [00:15:14] Molly’s open-heart surgery and how God gave her purpose in pain
• [00:13:48] Using everyday life for discipleship and connecting with others
• [00:30:24] Molly’s childhood journals and the importance of honest faith

Resources:

• Molly’s Book on Amazon: Cheese Balls for Jesus
• Instagram: @cheeseballchick
• Website: craigandmolly.com
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

Clip Finder:

Viral Topic: When Cheese Balls and Faith Collide "It is kind of funny, like cheese balls and Jesus collided, and it is like this beautiful thing."

— Molly Sanborn [00:07:08 → 00:07:13]

Viral Acts of Kindness: Oh my word, cheese balls are bringing the world together.

— Molly Sanborn [00:10:49 → 00:10:51]

Spreading Joy in Everyday Life: "I just wanna make, I wanna make you smile and spread joy and encourage people. Life is hard, you know, we need to laugh more."

— Molly Sanborn [00:13:26 → 00:13:32]

Finding Purpose in Pain: "God will not waste your pain, and that there is purpose in the pain."

— Molly Sanborn [00:17:39 → 00:17:43]

Unexpected Connections in Difficult Times: "One of those exchanges happened right before my third surgery with a nurse named Jen at Mayo Clinic who was not even my nurse. She came in 'cause she heard there was a patient who had cheese balls and she was from Wisconsin and thought I was a cheesehead too."

— Molly Sanborn [00:18:13 → 00:18:27]

Hearing God in Everyday Moments: "I'm guessing maybe most people haven't heard the Holy Spirit say, bring the cheese balls, but I did. It was like, yeah, this still small voice, just like not an audible voice, but I knew I was supposed to bring the cheese balls."

— Molly Sanborn [00:24:33 → 00:24:43]

Building a Strong Spiritual Foundation: "I would love to encourage all of you kids and anyone of any age to invest first and foremost in getting to know Jesus and being open and honest with him."

— Molly Sanborn [00:30:11 → 00:30:18]

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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Should you pay your kids an allowance for doing their chores?

This week on the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with Dr. Stephen Day—economics professor, author, and Christian dad—for an energetic and practical discussion on raising Christian kids who are confident with money, generous in spirit, and purposeful in their spending and saving. Discover how to create “mini economies” at home, teach your children to save in meaningful ways, and use ordinary chores to spark spiritual growth and discipleship in your family.

Resources:

• drstephenday.com
• Book: Teach a Kid to Save
• @_paperrobots
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

Clip Finder:

Teaching Kids About Value

"So it's not just about bugging the parents for screen time. It's about, you know, do I want to save up to get something better later, like a toy, or do I want to spend my money on screen time now?"

— Stephen Day [00:09:18 → 00:09:30]

Building Lifelong Habits

Quote: "changing your habits can be a little bit intimidating, but kids need to start setting different habits, and it starts with the family practice together so that it's not just deciding at the last second, do we buy this, do we buy that? No, like, you have plans ahead of time. And you're a little more intentional about what you do. And I think the kids carry those habits on into adulthood. I know I did."

— Stephen Day [00:09:50 → 00:10:11]

The Importance of Skill in Chores

"What I find is that chores work better when there is some skill involved. That's something parents often miss."

— Stephen Day [00:10:43 → 00:10:49]

Teaching Kids Responsibility

"You can, right, have categories where you say this work is family work, you do it because it's your responsibility, and this work is your job and you do it because, because kids need to learn the connection between work and money and their choices. It's a, it's a teaching thing."

— Stephen Day [00:12:12 → 00:12:27]

Parenting Hack

"When you're trying to teach your children, involve them, and it'll take longer at first because they're learning their skill, but over time they're able to do it, and that can be part of their household job that they get paid for."

— Stephen Day [00:14:14 → 00:14:26]

Teaching Kids About Money Management

"The first fruit of everything that we make goes to God. Next, we had to save, you know, and you can either have the kids save for a goal or you can have them save a certain percentage."

— Stephen Day [00:17:32 → 00:17:41]

Training Kids to Avoid Impulse Buying

"I want to take away their ability to do impulse buys when they're a small child because they're still developing control of their impulses. And so they need to get those habits that all good spending is planned spending."

— Stephen Day [00:22:02 → 00:22:17]

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 !

Support the show