About us
A movement of family leaders, learning from Scripture and from each other.
Adults Saving Kids trains parents, grandparents and congregations to teach children to be perceptive, wise and strong in the Lord — with tools specific enough to actually use.
What we do
We start with churches, because that is where the family leaders already are.
Adults Saving Kids works alongside Parents Arise to train and resource parents and grandparents, so they can equip their own children to be “wise as serpents.”
Parents and grandparents need to be trained, equipped and supported in ways that build up the lives of their children. Many churches have overlooked clear biblical teaching on this. Ephesians 4:11–12 says pastors and teachers exist to equip church members for their ministries. Ephesians 5:21–6:9 lifts up six of those ministries by name — and half of them happen inside a family.
Deuteronomy 6:1–9 lays out how parents are to share the messages of God daily: in the morning, in the evening, on the road. Proverbs 1 through 7 shows parents urging their children to be wise rather than foolish, to guard their hearts, to not be taken in by treacherous people. That instruction was written because children meet clever schemers.
There is plenty of gold out there to be mined.
Many wonderful resources already exist, and many family leaders have learned a great deal from life itself. What is needed is a movement of family leaders learning from the Bible, from those resources, and from one another. Their offspring are then safer, have more faith, are less broken, and go on to lead their own families well. Not all — but many.
Founder and director
Our director
Al Erickson
Al Erickson has spent his working life close to people in difficulty, on four very different kinds of ground.
As a missionary he worked with fifty-five villages in Papua New Guinea for six years, and taught for five years at a seminary there in a local language. He was pastor at Trinity Lutheran in Mott, North Dakota for seven years, and served as interim pastor in two other congregations, including an African American congregation in south central Los Angeles. He founded Grassroots Ministry in a tough inner-city neighborhood of Minneapolis and lived there for fourteen years.
In 1987 his third daughter was taken by a human trafficker. That is where Adults Saving Kids begins. Al led the organization for fourteen years, worked with three former traffickers and recorded their accounts, and helped the Christian Science Monitor, the Oprah Winfrey Show and ABC 20/20 understand how the trade works from the inside.
Al was married to Ina for sixty years, until she became ill and died. He has five children, sixteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The daughter who was trafficked died of burns from a fire that stemmed in part from what was done to her.
His hope is simple: that young people grasp how much their faith matters, and how to stay safe. He believes God has already provided the tools, the wisdom and the resources for that to happen.
What we believe
Four convictions that shape everything we teach.
One
Preparing beats protecting
Watching a child closely is not the same as making a child hard to deceive. Vigilance ends at the front door; discernment goes with them.
Two
Parents are ministers
Scripture treats the household as a ministry with real assignments, not a private matter the church works around. Family leaders can be trained like any other minister.
Three
Name the danger honestly
Naivete does not protect anyone. We let former traffickers and survivors describe the methods plainly, because a young person who has heard the pitch recognizes it when it comes.
Four
Cost should never be the barrier
The whole curriculum is free. Not a sample, not a trial — every session, every leader’s guide, every handout. Gifts pay for the work so that families never have to.
In the news
Coverage and endorsements
Morrison County Record · 29 November 2025
What our communities are up against
A report that wakes up communities, churches, parents and grandparents to what they are facing. It does not serve our youth if we are naive, lazy or apathetic.
Living Lutheran · National magazine of the ELCA
Serious harm can be headed off
Harm comes to the young when they are not prepared for the people they will meet — and parents and grandparents can get the training that prevents it.
Oprah Winfrey Show · ABC 20/20 · Christian Science Monitor
National programs drew on this material
Al Erickson assisted each of them in understanding human trafficking. Both Oprah Winfrey and ABC 20/20 worked from the Wise As Serpents footage.
The ten challenges of the first volume and the ten actions of the second are specific, pointed and all make sense. For those who care about our youth today, these books are must reading.
Walter Sundberg
Professor of Church History, Luther Seminary
Adults Saving Kids Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit registered in Roseville, Minnesota, EIN 87-3926126. We are currently all volunteer. Contributions are tax-deductible.
Start where you are.
If you have twenty minutes this week, begin with the first parenting skill. If you lead a congregation, start with Course 1.