July Update

Greetings Beloved,

We have some exciting news to share. God has provided us with a new house with less rent,  more space (including screened pool) to share with our Gospel Community and new neighbors. The house is in a neighborhood with a recreational area; pool, basketball, fitness. All great places to meet new people to share the gospel with. I admit when we first heard about this house up for rent from a couple that's part of the Round Lake Church family, I was already thinking that I didn't want to move, I like our current location and neighbors and didn't think for a moment what God might want. After finally looking at the house and talking with the owners we knew this was where God wanted us. We move July 28. Sunday July 29th we leave for Lake Aurora Christian Camp where we'll be the mission for the 5th-7th grade week. 

This past weekend we were in Jacksonville teaching an Empowered Parent Conference with 7 parents. We visited the "Farm," the location for the 30 day camp and boys home. That was my first time seeing some of the children of parents attending our conferences. After our visit there and after hearing testimonies of some "Empowered Parents" that dropped by this weekend it makes me realize even more the importance of getting the word out about how life changing "The Parent Project" is. There are so many parents that have been through the conference, the camp, and support groups that say they wish they attended this when their kids were younger. But now they have peace in their homes and have found hope. Our goal for the conferences is to give parents hope; there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Our prayer is that they may have hope in Jesus and hear the gospel spoken at Camp Consequence and the Sunday morning service we all attend after the conferences.

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers. Please pray that doors will open for a support group to start in Central Florida and EPC's will grow to the greater Central Florida area so we can help parents. "Changed Parents will see changed kids."

Grace and Peace, 

Hope Kegg

Control

One of the mistakes that parents make with strong-willed children is trying to control them. "Look at me when I am talking to you." "Don't walk away from me, get over here." Strong-willed people (children and teens) in general don't want to be controlled. They fight it. If we as parents truly had control then our kids would do everything we ask them to do. They would never lie to us, sneak out of the house, fail school, get drunk, get pregnant. Smart parents know this and give up the notion of trying to control the strong-willed child.

But we can control everything that doesn't breath. That's right parents can control all the stuff that strong-willed children/teens like. Computers, food, car, cell-phones, clothes, etc. Smart parents know how to properly influence their children to make the right choices. Here's the rub. It's really hard work. Yeah, being a parent is tough. That's where Empowered Parents helps. We show you and coach you how to properly change those unwanted behaviors in your strong-willed child.

Testimony

Thank you so much for the eye opening weekend at the Empowered Parent Conference. We are anxiously awaiting Camp Consequence to be able to see how the program works in action and start using it right away. My wife and I both feel a huge weight has been lifted off of our shoulders, because for the first time ever we have a concrete, proven plan to implement. Both of us will be on the same page, a united front for our kids to contend with. Many of the ideas presented we have tried but not the right way or we didn’t follow through with the idea. We love the fact that it is all laid out in a book. This type of program is long overdue and should be mandated when you have children. I have been often said that parenting would be so much easier with the luxury of a manual. Well, the Parent Project has listened and made that type of resource available.

When I was looking for a program online to help my son’s out of control behavior, the decision was an easy one. I spent seven hours looking for a solid program, which not only sounded good, but received good reviews and had solid backing. Most programs I came across had something that I didn’t like about them until I came across The Empowered Parent. The testimonials that I found were 100% positive, but the thing that sold me on Empowered Parent organization was you. If you watch the videos online you can see the passion that you have for helping families regain their happiness. The videos only show half of the passion you see when you talk to you in person, which is awesome. I also loved the fact that there are measures to keep me accountable for getting it right and working the program. I need to be accountable; I realize that my wife and I need to improve our parenting as much as our son needs to improve his behavior. The fact that you target the parents first and foremost was important, I wanted a program where our family can grow and get it right together. That is exactly what is happening.

With the unbelievable content of the Empowered Parent Conference this past weekend and the intensity of the message that you send, my wife and I couldn’t wait to get home. That is yet another thing that blew me away, how close the families that go through the program become. There is so much strength in numbers and in the support you receive, I don’t know how we can go wrong. I am ready to put in the hard work and get things right. This is the total opposite of the way we have been feeling for some time when it comes to our kids. We have hope again and can’t wait to restore happiness in our home so we can enjoy our children and one another again. Thank you so much Glenn for everything. We are looking forward to working with you and everyone in the Empowered Parent family.

I could go on and on, when really I could say all this in two words. Thank you.

Sincerely-

One of our Empowered Parents (written by the Father)

The Kegg's, where Jesus is always on tap!

Hope and I would like to share an update on our ministry and work with parents. There are three areas I would like to cover that we have been doing for the past 8 months. Two are parent and family related and one is church/ministry related.

First, we are so excited to be back at Round Lake Christian Church. One of the things that Hope and I have always done is share our lives with others in order to make disciples. Now is not the time to explain all of what takes places, but as “the church” we live in Gospel-Communities on Mission.  Think of the church in groups of 8-12 scattered throughout the city, on mission for Jesus, to serve, bless, and share our lives with others. Making disciples that can make disciples. We then gather as “the church” on Sundays to celebrate what God has been doing in our lives through the week.

Since Hope and I have been back, we have seen three GC’s planted, people coming to Christ and baptized, and we are about to be sent out to plant a GC in our home and neighborhood. We already have two families joining us that we will send out to plant new GC’s. Since there are about 50,000 people in the tri-cty area (Mt. Dora, Eustis, Tavares) we hope and pray to plant 50 GC’s, 1 per every 1000 people and then 300 for the 300,000 people that call Lake County home. This is a huge goal that only God can accomplish and we need prayer and funding to make this happen.

Secondly, we are still working on helping parents through our weekend conferences. So far we have co-taught three Empowered Parent Confernces with the founder Glenn Ellison; on our own, lead three EPC’s, been to four Camp Consequences, helped over 20 parents & 22 children on our own and over 60 parents/children with Glenn.

The biggest issue that we are facing is marketing. The last two months, February and March, we haven’t had any parents sign up.  While we have had a great start, I needed to get a part-time job to bring in some finances. This has really cut into my “hitting the streets” marketing. We are discouraged but keeping our heads up. Glenn Ellison has a life-changing program for families and we are thankful to be apart of it. Hope and I feeling strongly about this ministry and are trusting God is going to provide, which brings me to my last area. 

We have been working on a 3-4 hour, Gospel-Centered Parenting class. I traveled to Denver for a men’s conference in January and also taught an hour class on parenting. This gave us the idea of doing this in local churches and give parents a taste of what we do. We hope this would help get the word out and feed our EPC’s where parents can get more training. We are also looking at doing some free, one hour, classes at local libraries and community centers. I have a couple of conventions that we would like to attend to promote and market what we do for churches. 

Thank you so much for your finance support and prayers. We need more of both!

Grace and peace,

Jesse, Hope, Justus, & Elli Kegg.

Timeouts

Have you ever placed your child in a timeout? What about your teen? We have hundreds of parents that put their teenagers in timeouts. One minute per year, so a 13 year old would spend 13 minutes in timeout. And here is the good part, they work!

One of the reason that parents fail is that they are not consistant with disciple. "I not going to put my child/teen in a timeout, they are to old for that." Let me ask you this, so what are you doing? and how is that working for you?

In order to change unwanted behaviors in your child/teen you have to be consistant. Most teens do two things, disrespect adults/parents and blow up in anger. When the child/teen disrespects the parent or yells in anger, parents react in the same way. And so we teach our children to yell and scream. One reason for the timeout works is they help the child/teen to calm down and the parent. Then you can have a calm conversation with your child.

Also a timeout fits the way a child thinks, here and now not a week from now. Children/Teens live for today. A 13 minute timeout is more doable than a weekend restriction. It also teaches them to respect you as the parent. We teach this powerful method at our Empowered Parent Conferences. We have parents that almost never place their children on a weekend or weeklong restriction because they have mastered timeouts, even with 17 years old!