Faith TALKs and the Legacy of a Lioness

by Amber Spencer

(I’ve had the opportunity over the years to meet some of the most remarkable people in our BMA churches, one of them being Amber Spencer, a high school English teacher in Galena, Kansas. Following God’s prompting, she said, “Yes” to helping equip and empower families to know God and share their faith through a Facebook page called “Lioness Legacy.”)

My whole life changed when I realized something as a young mama: Church was not enough.

I know. I know . . . we Christians shouldn’t say such things, but looking back, I wish they had.  Maybe then, I wouldn’t have relied solely upon it for the health of my children’s spiritual lives. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have endured one of the scariest seasons of my life.

For several weeks, God allowed my family to walk through a season of fear. My kids began waking up in the middle of the night from vivid nightmares and terrifying visions, from feelings of dread to a downright fear of the dark. During these weeks, NO ONE was getting any sleep . . . most of all, me. It got to the point where I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Though I begged my children to be strong and courageous, we ALL gave way to our fears. We weren’t connecting the spiritual lessons that we had learned at church to real life. Something was missing that kept us from living out our faith.

Though God eventually brought us out of that difficult season, it wasn’t without battle wounds. It still goes down as one of the most frightening experiences of my life.

Months after this, God brought Deuteronomy 6:4-9 to my attention; he lit those verses on fire in my heart:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

It was then that I realized what the missing piece was: me. Not their Sunday school teachers.  Not our preacher. But me. And I also knew how to help my kids live out their faith . . . I was going to have to teach them. God, through these verses, calls me to talk to my kids about Him. He calls me to share my love for Him and to live out that love in a real and authentic way. He calls me to model what loving and trusting Him looks like. Not only this, I needed to coach my kids how to do the same in their lives.  

That moment was a game changer for me.  I had relied solely upon my kids’ Sunday school teachers to teach them what they needed to know, thinking that they would automatically connect it to their lives. 

Over the next several weeks to months, I started living out Deuteronomy 6:4-9 by having intentional talks about faith with my kids: 

I shared Bible stories with them while we ate dinner. 

We talked about those stories and how they could connect to our lives.  

We memorized Scripture together and created simple prayers out of those verses. 

And most of all, we started praying together as a family.

Looking back, God used that season to shake me out of my spiritual slumber and light my heart on fire to share faith with my family.

Over the years, God grew this passion. Preparing to teach at a ladies retreat, God led me to the word legacy. I meditated on questions like “What is my legacy?” and “What do I want to pass on to my children?” So I taught Deuteronomy 6:4-9, showing these ladies what our spiritual legacy is. After that, we created very intentional plans for how we could live out those legacies.

After that retreat, God challenged me to live out my legacy in a way that would keep me accountable. So I said a big YES to God, and a few weeks later, Lioness Legacy was born.

Why “Lioness”? Lionesses are hands-on in raising their cubs: 

They raise them in community. They provide the food. They nurture. They discipline. They protect.  They know their purpose in life: to raise cubs that could live and thrive on their own. This short list of job descriptions fits perfectly with what we mamas try to do with our own children on a daily basis.  It would take me having that same lioness attitude and focus to provide the best food for my “cubs”— God’s Word. And if I could intentionally talk faith with my family, perhaps I could show others how to do the same.

So I created Lioness Legacy for any mama who needs some spiritual encouragement and guidance on how to have these intentional conversations with her family—conversations that could not only lead her kids to salvation but also ignite a spark in them to live out their faith, continuing this generational influence.  

Kids who know their identity in Christ.  

Kids who can thrive in a post-Christian world. 

Using my 25 years of teaching knowledge and experience, I created Faith TALKs—easy, short talks that engage kiddos with a question to get them talking, a Bible point to anchor our discussion, and a memory verse for the week. The most important part of our talk is the accountability portion, where I include ways we could hold each other accountable to live out the truth of that talk.

So on January 1st, 2017, I made a video about Lioness Legacy and posted it on Facebook, hoping a few women would join me. God was gracious and gave me more than a few, and today, Lioness Legacy is a place where mamas can feel equipped and empowered to share faith.

Our goal is simple yet powerful: growing our children’s roots of faith so that one day, they too become Christ followers and pass on that legacy of love and faith to the next generation.  

With the tenacity of a lion but the nurturing touch of a lioness.