License To Parent is an outreach ministry of Shepherd’s Hill Farm. It’s a live 50,000 watt call-in radio broadcast that seeks to give biblical guidance to parents of dysfunctional families.  Questions or comments by phone or email are welcome.

License To Parent broadcasts from AM 660 in Greenville, SC. and can be heard in the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson area of South Carolina as well as Charleston, South Carolina.  It can also be heard in Charlotte, North Carolina; Knoxville, Tennessee; and the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.   Shepherd’s Hill Farm is located in Martin, Georgia and serves teens and families worldwide.

License To Parent airs Thursdays at 12:30 PM and again on Saturday mornings at 11:00 AM EST. Shepherd’s Hill Farm enrolls kids year round.

Because of the transformation and healing of so many teens and families that are ministered to at Shepherd’s Hill Farm, it seemed prudent to take what is evidently working inside the gate of Shepherd’s Hill Farm and get it outside the gate.  This way, families that can’t afford to send their children to Shepherd’s Hill Farm can now at least glean ideas, principles, and biblically congruent concepts that they can tweak and appy to their own situations at home.

Parents can call (1-888-660-9535) in their questions on the live broadcast or email (trace@license2parent.org) their questions.  Some of these questions could be read and answered on future broadcasts.

Date:  March 11, 2010

Time:  6:30 pm

Where:  SHF Chapel, 2200 Price Road, Martin, GA 30557

Brief synopsis:  3/11/05 Atlanta, GA.  5 years ago, Ashley Smith Robinson was held hostage and shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with her perpetrator. The perpetrator later turned himself into the authorities.  You can view Ashley’s website at:  http://ashleysmithrobinson.com/

Trace Embry & Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family at the Sunday Morning Prayer Breakfast at the National Religious Broadcasters Expo in Nashville, TN

License To Parent is an Outreach Ministry of Shepherd’s Hill Farm (SHF). Trace Embry, Founder and Director of SHF gives parenting advice on the License To Parent radio program.  In this photo, Trace is in Nashville, TN at the National Religious Broadcasters Exposition. He met with many radio program hosts from across the Country.  Trace attended a Sunday morning Prayer Breakfast with the Honorable Dr. James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family.  This event was to “kick-off” the Expo!    More to come on the event…

The grant funds are being used to build a greenhouse, and to purchase the necessary supplies.  On Friday, the girls were excited and busily preparing the ground to accommodate the new 16×16 greenhouse.  As Beth Embry was counseling the girls with the instructions to build the greenhouse, there were many teachable moments that helped improve creative thinking skills.  The girls also learned dedication, perseverance, and patience as they worked each step in obedience to the instructions. 

The girls are positioning the greenhouse next to the garden plot.  Last summer the girls planted, weeded, watered, and ate the fruits of their labor from the garden.  This year, they will learn to start their own plants from seeds, and they will have the greenhouse to help give them a jump start in the growing season!  Certainly, they will learn a thing or two on how to operate a greenhouse as well. 

Ceasar the Llama comes to Shepherd's Hill Farm

Girls learn to grow their own food in the garden.

With loving guidance and support from Assistant Founder and Director, Beth Embry, of Shepherd’s Hill Farm, the resident girls now have a Homestead Project to call their own.  The girls have elected officers to the project.  This not only gives them a sense of ownership, but teaches them responsibilities of how to operate the program and collaborate as a team.

Since late last summer, the resident girls have gotten to go on numerous field trips to gather ideas from other local area farms already partaking in homesteading.  On one of the trips the girls learned what it was like to be self sustaining.  They learned the methods of bee-keeping, gardening, and raising animals for food.  Here they got to pick fresh organically grown blueberries and raspberries.  They learned how to milk a goat and got to try it themselves.  They also discovered all the different uses of goat’s milk, how they can make cheeses and soaps.  We found that the wax from the bee’s honeycomb is used to make candles and lip balm.  Surely, this will lead to more fun projects for the girls.

Another fun trip was to an animal farm.  There the girls brought home sheep, goats, dogs, and yes llamas to add to the barn.  The barn also has rabbits, chickens, and kittens.  All of the residents at the farm have been enjoying the animals.  The girls love, nurture, and tend to the needs of the animals every day.  They performed a car wash in the local community to raise funds for the upkeep of the animals.  New ideas for fund raising are on their agenda, as well as joining the local Future Farmers of America.

Troubled parents have a reason to be troubled, today.  The entire culture has allied itself with the teen mentality.  It began with the baby boomers—a generation who never grew up.  This is largely because their depression-era parents didn’t want their little “Throckmortons” to have to go through what they went through—unfortunately, this included some of the tough character-building experiences.  But, what these depression-era parents had going for them was an entire culture that allied themselves with most of their parenting ideologies.  Kids knew it too.   Parents raising their kids, just ten or twenty years ago, had more of our American culture backing them up– but nothing compared to the parents of the baby boomers.  Certainly, in the 1950’s and 60’s parents had a built-in system of accountability by the watching eyes of neighbors, school teachers, extended family, the government, and the church.

Today, however, the cultural shift of “do what feels good” brought on by the baby-boomers, has come home to roost.  Today’s teens our ARE doing what feels good—and they are doing it at every turn with little or no restraints and little or no consequences.  In addition, neighbors, school teachers, extended family, the government, nor the church, are any longer helping troubled parents hold their troubled teens to a common standard of morally acceptable behavior.  Tragically, today, all of the entities above may actually be encouraging a troubled teen to follow his heart and engage in whatever feels good for the moment.  Remember, Hitler followed his heart!  Parents are actually fighting, not just their troubled teens, but the very entities that used to be staunch allies of parents who raised their teens according to a common moral standard.

But, in our ever increasingly pluralistic, postmodern, and politically correct society, a common moral standard no longer exists.  This is not only breeding chaos and anarchy in our culture; but, certainly in our homes.  Troubled teens are the result.  And since parents no longer feel they have the support of government, neighbors, schools, extended families, or even the church, troubled parents and families are another result.

Parents, it has never been more important to understand the times we live in.  Therefore, it has never been more important to equip your kids with the knowledge of Christian apologetics.  A website, cpyu.org, is just one of many good resources for books and DVD’s for this very purpose.  Understanding the Times by Summit Ministries is another.  Still another is the Truth Project by Focus on the Family.  Once your child sees the bigger picture, you won’t look so odd to your teenager anymore.  Today’s teens are as intelligent as any generation in history—and they are much more informed.  What they are failing to acquire is wisdom.  True wisdom, of course, comes from God and should be filtered through us.  If our kids exercised wisdom, they would do more positive and constructive things with the huge access to information they have through vehicles such as the internet.  But, as parents, we haven’t required much of our kids.   Believe it or not, if you start young enough, kids will do what’s required of them.  But, this is going to take a concerted effort on the part of today’s parents.  The only option is more troubled parents and more troubled teens.

Shepherd’s Hill Farm is also coming out with a DVD that will give troubled parents a head’s up on the issues that will help them navigate today’s culture with their troubled teens.  In addition, the outreach ministry of Shepherd’s Hill Farm, known as License To Parent, can be listened to at our website, www.license2parent.org.  It is a 30 minute radio broadcast that can be heard on AM660 on Thursdays at 12: 30 pm and Saturdays at 11:00 am out of Greenville, SC.  License To Parent is designed to offer insights and answer questions of troubled parents who are experiencing the fallout of today’s ever-increasingly godless American culture.

If you are looking for a Georgia troubled teen boarding school, Shepherd’s Hill Academy at Shepherd’s Hill Farm is staffed with men and women that the Old Testament would call the Sons of Issachar.  The sons of Issachar were men who understood the times and knew what to do.  There aren’t too many Georgia troubled teen boarding schools that really do understand the incredible impact today’s American culture is having on, not just our kids, but the church as well.  Troubled teens from all over the world have come to Shepherd’s Hill Academy at Shepherd’s Hill Farm to be healed for this very reason. 

When troubled teens understand that the staff at Shepherd’s Hill Farm live lives submitted to Christ both on and off the clock, a new respect and interest in the things of God are birthed.  They understand boundaries and the importance of boundaries.  Even more, they understand the importance of these boundaries being consistently enforced.  This brings a tremendous amount of security to a troubled teen—especially when they begin to trust and love the counseling staff as much as the staff loves them.  Any Georgia troubled teen boarding school that dispenses the love of God like the Staff at Shepherds Hill Academy at Shepherd’s Hill Farm should be recognized and supported by anyone in a position to do so.

But, perhaps the greatest benefit to life in the woods for troubled teens is the fact that it is a reprieve from the Sodom and Gomorrah world they’ve come from.  It is a time of innocent pleasures and a time to reflect on the really important issues of life such as origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.  Though Shepherd’s Hill Farm could be called a Christian counseling boarding school, it is actually more of a camp atmosphere where a Christian school resides.  Shepherd’s Hill Academy is a tremendous bonus that most Christian Wilderness programs do not offer troubled teens.  So, while a resident is working on his behavioral issues, he doesn’t have to sacrifice academics in the process.

Christian troubled teen schools are a dime a dozen.  But, what really makes a troubled teen school Christian?  The question is asked, because so many troubled teen schools have compromised biblical principles for secular theory and political correctness.  In some cases they have compromised for the sake of funds or enrollment.  There aren’t a lot of parents who are willing to be stretched by enrolling a troubled teen in a place that may actually stretch them! Consequently, the Troubled Teen School is willing to compromise biblical principles to appease a doting or politically correct parent who takes his or her parenting and theological cues from Oprah rather than Scripture.  But an institution devoted to Christ isn’t as concerned with political correctness, enrollment, litigation, or money, as it is honoring the Savior on a regular basis.  This isn’t always so easy in this postmodern and relativistic age we live in today; but, it is what makes a troubled teen school Christian.

But, if the good name of Christ is going to be adequately represented before troubled teens and parents who are genuinely open to what the Truth actually is, the politically incorrect mold must be broken.  Shepherd’s Hill Academy at Shepherd’s Hill Farm is committed, not necessarily to breaking molds, but to obeying, serving, and honoring Christ.   Another thing that makes a troubled teen school Christian is the fact they hold individuals, including their students and their parents, accountable for living out a biblical worldview.  This isn’t always comfortable either—especially when parents are investing huge sums of money to support their child’s stay in one of these troubled teen schools.  But, this doesn’t deter the staff at Shepherd’s Hill Farm.  The staff is committed to helping troubled teens and their families with the Truth of God’s Word, and let the chips fall where they may.  Parents, who are willing to occasionally hear a hard word and deal with it, are helping in the extremely rewarding process of seeing a troubled teen transform into a Child of the King.

These “somebody’s” not only impacted their nation, but the world!  Few people, if any, know who influenced these great men of God.  These “Somebody’s” for God where influenced by the “nobodies” of the world—all because some “nobodies” obeyed God!  What these former troubled youth are learning and experiencing here at Shepherd’s Hill Farm is revolutionizing their lives.  Public schools can’t teach it, and many private schools won’t.  But, the real tragedy is that because of political correctness, not even many Christian schools are creating an authoritative community environment, while reinforcing a biblical worldview either.  Many are little better than the garden variety public school.

There needs to be more Christian schools, Christian boarding schools, and Christian wilderness programs for troubled youth, like Shepherd’s Hill Farm, so that troubled teens can at least be exposed to a worldview that will resonate with that void that is in the heart of so many struggling teens today.  It’s a worldview that exalts God to His rightful position as Lord of our lives!  Only when we follow the order of the universe will we find our place in it.  It takes a long time to bring these kids to an understanding of their place in this world: but, it is the root of all of their hang-ups.  When they understand that God is God and they are not, they begin the healing process.

So, when they finally leave Shepherd’s Hill Farm for good and return to their mean streets and home cities around the nation and the world, perhaps some of them will become great themselves—not just in the eyes of the world, but great as God defines great.  Perhaps others will simply take the truth and love they experienced here at this Christian Wilderness program for troubled youth and take it back to their neighborhoods and make them great.  Perhaps, then, the “nobodies” of the world can leave here and make “somebody’s” of the troubled teens that still occupy those mean streets.  Perhaps, then, and in that way, to some degree, my prayer has already become a reality—a nobody bringing Somebody (Jesus) to anybody for the good of everybody!  Amen

This gives the parents of currently enrolled students the option of visiting Shepherd’s Hill Farm, day or night, for the duration of their teen’s stay.