[Once a week, I am going to be sharing with you a brave story sent in from a reader. You can comment, respond, encourage. Want to submit your own story or a story of a brave friend of yours? Head to thatisbrave.com!]

This week’s #thatisbrave story comes from Barrett. Oh man this one has me so excited, exactly how I want to start 2015 for you and me- going after the brave things. His words and name are used with his permission.

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I am quitting my job.

It’s a really good job: I love the work, I enjoy those I work with, and they pay me well. But I am quitting to do something that I feel is incredibly important. Needless to say, I’m feeling rather brave.

For the past 25 years, I have worked as a pastor, mainly with youth and families. Three years ago, my wife Jenifer and I taught on an issue that we had never heard anyone address before. We taught several hundred parents about what it looks like to help their kids navigate the hyper-sexualized culture in which we live.

While the parenting of our 5 kids (now aged 7-22) has been hit and miss, one thing we feel that God has helped us do well is to lead our kids to think biblically about their sexuality. We have tried to communicate that it is one of God’s most wonderful gifts but that it needs to be guarded and protected. So far with out kids (including our oldest who got married young and who now has a child), God has been faithful.

As we taught those several hundred parents over four Sundays, we realized that most parents feel ill-equipped to talk with their kids about sex and relationships. Either due to the brokenness from their own pasts or a “head in the sand” ignorance about what their kids were dealing with, most parents had not given much thought to helping their kids make wise choices about this stuff. They devoured the content.

The more we talked to parents, the more we realized that there was a significant absence of help in this area. We started writing about a parent’s responsibility on our blog at www.infoforfamilies.com. (INFO is an acronym for Imperfect & Normal Families Only…get it?) We published a book back in February called “The Talk(s): A Parent’s Guide to Critical Conversations about Sex, Dating, and Other Unmentionables.”

A few years ago I heard somebody say: “Find the thing that God has called you to do, that if you don’t do it, the body of Christ will suffer.”

I do an important job at my church, but it is a job that just about anybody can do. Jenifer and I feel that if we don’t step out and give our lives to this issue, the body of Christ will truly suffer. That’s why I quit my job. Today, INFO for Families is a ministry committed to helping people start their marriages right, keep their families strong, and (mainly) to guide the next generation to discover that God created sex for their good.

As we transition from a stable job at a church to the establishment of fledgling non-profit, there are days when we are scared to death. Still, we have an incredible peace that comes a clear calling by God to do something that matters. If there were no risk, we wouldn’t need Him.

So today, I’m going to choose to be brave.

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If you have any encouragement for Barrett and his brave story, leave it below in the comments. And be sure to check out his website!

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