David Eaton is president of Axis, a Christian organization that exists “to help parents and their teenagers understand each other” in a day when language and culture barriers divide the generations, perhaps as never before.

The Stream spoke with him by phone to learn more about Axis, why their work matters and how they carry it out.

Why do you do what you do? Why is this important?

We believe there’s no more essential person in a teenager’s life than her mom and dad. Everyone knows it’s true theologically and sociologically. But there’s this giant language gap or barrier between those two generations. And it’s getting bigger. So what we’re trying to answer is, How do you bridge and connect those two generations together?

How do you approach that tough challenge?

We have teams that speak face-to-face with thousands of kids — 25,000 students a year. With what we learned from being with parents and students face-to-face, we generate highly leveraged, easy to access, short form content.

There’s no more essential person in a teenager’s life than her mom and dad.

With that, we send out an email to 46,000 people a week, which simply explains, “Here are two or three things that are happening this week in your kids’ life.” I think the sweet spot is answering questions — parents’ real questions. They can’t keep up with what’s going on. We give parents vocabulary, first of all. Then we explain underlying themes and how to have a conversation about it — all in a four-minute read. It’s nice and direct. We call it the Culture Translator.

Some of this stuff is just really straightforward. It’s just easier with the Culture Translator. We can help you save time. But really what it’s gonna do is help you have better moments with your kids. You’re going to be able to join the conversation that your kids are already having with each other — and the culture is already having with your kids.

You can sign up for it at axis.org/CT.

How else do you help parents connect with teens?

We do a Parenting Teens Summit every year. It’s all online, and it’s free. We bring the experts’ best content to parents. So we can talk to Tim Keller about what he’s done in his church, or Ravi Zacharias about key issues in life, and how to talk about meaning and purpose.

The Culture Translator is about what’s happening right now. The Summit is about core principles, or ideas that are more timeless. I think some parents are really interested in this — they just want a pathway. Axis has the quite humbling honor of being able to curate and convene some incredible voices.

So you have both the Culture Translator — very current — and other voices speaking timeless ideas.

It’s all about intersections. We’re interested in the intersection of faith, culture and family, and in the intersection of timeless ideas and really current stuff. People are really good at answering questions no one is asking. That’s especially a danger for parents with their teens. Look at Jesus and the way he was able to tell stories in a way that would capture people’s hearts. There’s an art to that, and we’re just aspiring to pursue it.

There’s plenty of truth, right? We’re all great truth-tellers, but we need the ability to listen, think about the truth, and explain it in a beautiful way. The idea of goodness, too: There is a deep stream of goodness in the gospel. I think one of the great opportunities of parents of young adults in the next generation is to surprise them with the goodness of God. Surprise them with a better mission, a better way of living life. Let them know it’s not about being mean or oppressive. Tell them you want to show them the treasures of God.

How does a parent attend the Summit?

The Summit is online, and it comes out in mid-September. We’re nonprofit, and we invest all donor revenue and all of our product revenue into creating better product for parents.

All of the content of the Summit is completely free. We release five interviews a day. Over a two-week period, those interviews are completely free. Currently, sign-up is at our “bonuses” page. Your ticket will tell you the schedule. You can view talks anytime in the 72 hours after they go online.

After that it’s still available, but no longer for free. You can buy it for your church, for a parents’ night where you drop your kids off at youth group and go learn something together — in community — from the experts.

Togetherness helps. You may be the most uncool person in the world to your kids. But that other parent may have the job that will fascinate your daughter, the hobby that will connect with your son. Don’t be afraid to call on other parents’ strengths.

If there’s one thing you could say the Christian parents what would it be?

Hang in there. Hang in there. Really it’s going to be hard. And it’s going to be awesome. And there’s going to be some joys.

But no one’s gonna fight for your kids like you are. No one is. You can’t outsource your parenting to a pastor. Not to a grandparent, not to a coach, not to a teacher. You can get their help, but you can’t offload the real responsibility.

There was this one young lady in her 30s who told us, “You know, I’ve only had one real conversation with my dad.” Now, that’s bad. Real bad. Come on, dad! No wonder there are always bad things happening in the world, if dads are not involved in their children’s lives. But then she smiled. She had a sparkle in her eye, and she said, “I’ve only had one real conversation with my dad, but we’ve never stopped having that one conversation.”

That’s what we want to support. For us it’s like, you’re the only one that’s gonna be there. You’re gonna be helping your teenager someday raise their teenagers. And they need you. They’re gonna call you for your support. So don’t lose that influence. Don’t lose that connection with their heart. And surround yourself with a good team. Axis wants to be on every parent’s team, especially through the teen years.

[Disclosure: Tom Gilson is one of the Summit’s scheduled speakers for this September.]