The Tim Ahlman Podcast

Raising Jesus Followers in an Anxious Generation

• Unite Leadership Collective • Episode 15

Share episode

Through honest conversation about modern parenting challenges, Adam Griffin shares how Christian families can create a discipleship-centered home culture that nurtures genuine faith in children while freeing parents from perfectionistic anxiety.

• Anxiety in middle-class American parenting stems from making everything important and measurable
• The gospel offers freedom from perfectionism without lowering standards
• Family discipleship doesn't require theological expertise—just willingness to grow alongside your children
• Modeling faith requires being both reliable (consistent) and relatable (connected)
• Creating intentional rhythms (daily Bible reading, prayer, special monthly one-on-ones) builds discipleship culture
• Biblical patience means resilience and tenacity, not just waiting quietly
• True discipleship happens in relationship, not through programs or mere information transfer
• Raising up leaders in local churches should mirror Jesus' relational approach to developing disciples

Explore more resources at familydiscipleship.com, including the Family Discipleship Podcast and Adam's upcoming book "Good News for Parents."


Support the show

Watch Us On Youtube!

Speaker 1:

But in the kind of middle class American mindset there's a lot of anxiety, and a lot of what it comes from is we make everything important. Everything important has a pressure to do it perfectly. So for parents, parenting is important, so then you feel this pressure to do so perfectly for your kid growing up. Every test, every sport, making the team being acceptable, being pretty enough, being dressed well enough, making it on YouTube or TikTok having enough views, having enough likes Everything is measurable and therefore it's important that somebody else has measured you and found you to be worthy.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Tim Mahmoud Podcast. It's a beautiful day to be alive and I pray. You got your water. You're taking this in the morning. You got your water, you're moving your body, you're getting ready for the adventure which is this day, which the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it and all the people that are around you. Life is all about relationship, right, and I love doing podcasts because I get to meet new people and make connections.

Speaker 2:

And the new person that I just met through the screen is my brother in Christ, adam Griffin. If that name sounds familiar and you're connected to Link in some way, shape or form, yes, adam is Ben Griffin's brother, and let me tell you a little bit about him before we get going. He went to Southern Baptist Seminary. He has a doctorate in educational ministry. He has been the lead pastor at Eastside Community Church. He has been the lead pastor at Eastside Community Church. He is currently the lead pastor at Eastside Community Church in East Dallas. He served as an elder and spiritual formation pastor at the Village Church. If that sounds familiar, it's because that is where Matt Chandler has served for a number of years, and he also co-authored with Matt Chandler a book we're going to be talking about called Family Discipleship, leading your Home Through Time, moments and Milestones. How are you doing, adam? Thanks for hanging with me today, buddy, no.

Speaker 1:

I'm doing great. It's great to meet you and thanks for having me on, tim. It's an honor to be here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man. Well, a couple things before we get into the book. What was it like serving with I'm sure everybody asked you that with Matt Chandler, especially gosh, a decade ago in my I've been a pastor now 18 years In my early years. I mean Matt Chandler's everywhere. He's in all the devotion. I know he's still doing that, but it sounds like in some of your years, like he was the celebrity pastor, status was kind of falling upon him in some regard. So were you right there during that season with him?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I met Matt. We both started ministry in the same town at about the same time, about 20 years ago, and I was a youth minister at another church in town. He was brand new. I was doing young life outreach with teenagers in the schools and we would bring our students to Saturday night services. I met Matt probably at a Starbucks, when I was just trying to minister to kids and he was trying to minister to men and we were in a small suburb where a lot of the men would leave town to work during the day and he and I would still see each other at restaurants and we were the men that were left, you know, left behind.

Speaker 1:

And so I've I I'd like to say I probably knew Matt before. He was much of a celebrity. Matt's never seemed like a celebrity because of that to me, but I get that like there's a, there's an echelon of celebrity pastor ism that he definitely like he's known, he's well-known. People will send me a picture when they see him in the airport. I'm like, yep, that's a, that's Matt. There he is, you know, Uh, but to me he's just been a friend and a pastor and I'm I'm grateful for his ministry. I learned a lot in my years at the village.

Speaker 2:

Uh yeah, so much to say here.

Speaker 2:

I and again I'm pretty conservative We'll get to know one another theologically, you could say politically, etc. I'm pretty conservative and there's a conservative part of me that is like I don't like the whole celebrity thing, which sounds weird for a guy to say who does a podcast and whatever, but it just feels so kind of strange. And maybe one of the good things I get your take on this, maybe one of the good things in COVID in every pastor having to have some sort of a persona on online. Hopefully it's an authentic, you know persona, consistent persona, but maybe maybe that's kind of leveling the playing field. Now, um, and, and maybe that's a maybe every pastor has to be a pastor online. There are people that I get to pastor that I see face to face and there's others that I get to be a pastor for that I don't see as consistently. I pray they have a face-to-face relationship with someone who gets to tell them about Jesus, for sure. But, yeah, any kind of take on the times regarding kind of the celebrity pastor kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, I think a distinction this is actually really helpful between Matt and a lot of men that I know that are celebrity pastors. Matt's intention, nor his goals in life were never celebrity, were never fame. In many ways you could say he can't help it that a lot of people want to hear him preach. He didn't pursue that. He didn't try to grow a big audience. He hasn't tried to grow a platform where he can be more accessible to more people.

Speaker 1:

There are those men out there that are trying to create content on social media, that are trying to create a platform for themselves by which they gain in notoriety and fame and they earn all their book sales back to them. For instance, like the book we're talking about today, if you read the copyright on that, it is owned by the Village Church. It's not owned by Adam Griffin. It's not owned by Matt Chandler. You can buy a million copies of that book. I don't make a dime. And that's the philosophy of a church that says we're not making a celebrity out of this pastor, we're putting out a resource that ministers to people. Now, so that's an important distinction. I would say for Matt's sake. Matt is the man off the stage that you'd hope he is, that he is a godly man. He is funnier off the stage than on it. He loves his wife, he loves his kids. That is not always the case. I've been around a lot of men who, not only in secret but in public, off the platform, are not who you would hope they would be, and so there's definitely a distinction there and, at the same time, man. I'm grateful for a man like Charles Spurgeon, who was a very famous pastor and you could say at the time, a celebrity, and there's more words in English printed from that man than just about anybody else, and aren't we grateful for that. Or, tim, in your doctrinal background, would we call Martin Luther a celebrity pastor? He called out the Pope, he put it on the Wittenberg door. He said come talk to me, pope.

Speaker 1:

I don't think he was pursuing fame, though he was pursuing, I think, doctrinal purity, like many of the reformers we'd look at, and that brought him fame, that made his words go further. And so you have to go. How responsible is this man being with the mantle God has given him? So if he was given the five talents and I was given the half a talent, it's great that he's given five talents and he does something great with it. And Matt is a man like any of us. He'll make mistakes. He's a sinner, I'm a sinner. The difference is when, if he makes mistakes, they are manifold. You know they're out there. Similar, the difference between a Sunday school teacher and an elder is like when a Sunday school teacher gets removed for something. It may not be a huge deal to the whole church as much as maybe an elder or a pastor would be, and his even more so. The way he lives impacts the way people think about the gospel.

Speaker 2:

That's a big deal. I don't care if you're leading 10 people or 10,000 people like we will be held accountable for our consistent witness to who Jesus is. And if you miss on character. This is why, I mean, the pastoral epistles are all about character. It's not just about what you do, it's about how you live Right. Character it's not just about what you do, it's about how you live right and uh, and so yeah, praise me to god for uh, leaders like matt and others that that we can.

Speaker 2:

You know the heart behind celebrity, it's just. There's certain people that are carrying their mantle, investing their talents, whatever you want to say, well, and they should be, they should be celebrated. And you know, you look at the apostle paul, even right, follow me as I follow christ. There's not every part of me that is exactly like Jesus, but the parts of me that are it'd be good if we started to model, and that is the height of leadership right, it's the heart and mind, the character of someone that we see, not perfection, but glimpses of who Jesus is and how he leads, how he loves, how he communicates, how he draws people near. I was just we're, we're getting ready for Lent right now.

Speaker 2:

Adam um, putting together. We do collaborative sermon writing, super, it's super fun. But there was an element of Jesus. Obviously his celebrity status only took him so far because it led him to a Roman cross right, all of his, all of the crowds kind of dissipating. But in Mark, chapter six, you know he looked upon the masses, probably 12,000, some people in the feeding of the 5,000. He says he has compassion on them, right, splits them.

Speaker 2:

His heart is like open, wide for him. So I don't care if Jesus Jesus was a celebrity and Jesus cared for the crowds. Jesus wanted to preach to the crowds. More there, Adam.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think one of the things you see about Jesus that undermines the celebrity culture. Well, Jesus grows in fame, right, and even like the messianic secret at the beginning of Mark, he's going hey, don't tell anybody, don't tell anybody. And then he becomes so famous he can't travel from place to place. But one of the things you see in Christ that is pastoral, that undermines the positional idea of celebrity, is that Jesus Christ would do things like go ahead, disciples, I'll stay back and dismiss the crowds. As opposed to the culture that kind of rubs us.

Speaker 1:

The wrong way in church is that I'm going to go away. Will you go dismiss the crowds? Pastor, who says I'll be hiding in my office? I'm too big time, I can't. I can't interact with all these people. I can't possibly know them. They'll just have my broadcast ministry, They'll just have my podcast ministry. That was not what we saw in Christ. We saw Christ who saw people, and the way he dismisses crowds is the way I hope every pastor is right that if you don't know your church, if you aren't interacting with your church, how do you expect to care for your church?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, facts. Well, this is going to be fun. We're going to talk about discipleship, family discipleship. Let's get into your story. How did you fall in love with discipleship in the family? Tell a little bit more of that story, adam.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, you know I mentioned that I had done student ministry right out of college. I went to Concordia University, wisconsin, and then I moved to Flower Mound, texas, to do student ministry and loved discipling younger men. I was a single for all of my 20s and just spent a lot of that time discipling people read a lot on discipleship, was discipled, jumped into a lot of men's Bible studies, was just studying, studying, studying and trying to pour my life out into others. Then, as I became a father, that passion obviously kind of narrowed and specialized in some ways but didn't change all that much. In fact, the whole framework that we use in this book is the same framework you could use for discipling anybody, but it narrowed to the way we disciple our sons and daughters and so we started to think about that. That was part of my role at the village. I was overseeing our next-gen ministry how do we equip families to think about the way to disciple their kids? So we try to codify that, clarify it, and that led to Crossway wanting to publish that work. That's the family to stop a ship book. But that one didn't come as like. Here's a good book idea. It was what we're doing to disciple our families. And then that's led.

Speaker 1:

You know, chelsea, my wife and I do a podcast on this. We do writing on this, but our hope is not like we're not expert parents, but we hope, hope that parents see their role as disciple making. We love to help parents think about not just sleep schedules and eating and school choice, although those are certainly great parenting. Things to discuss is how do I impart to my children my faith and how do I continue to mature as I want to see them mature and so that passion for life, on life. It's what Jesus did when he was here and it's what Jesus demanded while he was here of his disciples. So I'm just trying to follow Christ right, like follow me as I follow Christ, like you said, like Paul said, that's what I want and Christ demanded and demonstrated. He declared and demonstrated make disciples. So I'm trying to do that and in this book and in other places that we do most of our ministry we specialize about what it looks like for moms and dads, grandpas and grandpas to think about in their own homes.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's where we're going to go. Understanding the times is I got a book on my shelf. Our team's just walking through the anxious generation right now. Yeah, I'm sure you've taken a look at it. How should parents understand the times in which they're raising their young Jesus followers right now? And I guess maybe frame it up this way what has not changed and what has changed as we're? Raising up the next gen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of arguments for what has not changed, in the sense that, like even you know, in ancient Greece, they're complaining about teenagers and in some sense, we're always looking at the next generation saying like, oh, is there any hope? You know? But they grow up, they become men and women and there's always been a desire for God's people to be intentional. In Deuteronomy 6, when Moses is telling people to invest in their children and tell them to love God above all things, he's saying it to a new generation. The old generation died out in the wilderness because they were unfaithful, and there's not this new generation that becomes super faithful. Joshua leads the next generation and they're unfaithful. And then there's another group and you'd imagine that each one of those groups is looking at the teenagers, going, oh, this is not going to go well. And then some grow up and some become like a Noah who are going even if nobody else is following God, I'm going to follow God, and that's beautiful. They shine like stars in a twisted generation and others go the way. They conform to the pattern of this world, to use Paul's language.

Speaker 1:

But what has changed Tim in books like the Anxious Generation? Technology has changed things. Social media has changed things. The pervasive lack of resilience in a generation that we try to keep happy all the time has led to a anxiety around keeping what we want or losing what we have, and part of it's the style of parenting that we're in right now. This generation as a response to the generation behind us. It's really not necessarily a global thing. We're talking really about the culture that you and I find ourselves in, tim. So we find ourselves in an anxious generation, but I think a lot of people in different socioeconomic status, even in our own country, may find that to be kind of foreign to them, but definitely in other nations would find it foreign. But in the kind of middle-class American mindset there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of what it comes from is we make everything important. Everything important has a pressure to do it perfectly. So for parents, oh, parenting is important. So then you feel this pressure to do so perfectly For your kid growing up. Every test, every sport, making the team being acceptable, being pretty enough, being dressed well enough, making it on YouTube or TikTok, having enough views, having enough likes Everything is measurable and therefore it's important that somebody else has measured you and found you to be worthy.

Speaker 1:

My wife would say it like this that humanity is desperately seeking justification. We're desperately seeking justification in so many places and so we're anxious everywhere we look for it If we're looking for it outside of Christ. And so, in fact, the book that we have coming out this fall called Good News for Parents, which is kind of like a companion piece to that book that's already out Family Discipleship is about that idea. Like you can read a book like Family Discipleship that gives you a framework for how to disciple your kids, and you walk away from it going oh my goodness, look what I'm not doing. Oh, I feel terrible about what I'm doing. I just don don't. Oh, you're under pressure, you're under stress, and the gospel is not a burden that weighs people down.

Speaker 1:

That's the way the Pharisees work is described. Christ talks about releasing burdens, setting people free not to do whatever we want. But the freedom is to give our best portion. It's the able work that says I can bring my best portion and trust God with it, and it's the cane work that says I have to be anxious. God may not give me my attention. I'm giving him kind of my worst because I want to keep my best. Oh man, we are free to say I can give God my best, I can do my best, and I'm forgiven for when I fall short. But I get to walk free of things like anxiety because I walk in peace, because I walk with patience, because I walk with gentleness and faithfulness. That's what comes from walking with God, and so that's a little bit of what's used to be, a little bit of what's changed, but there's a lot more to that. I'm sure as you've read that book, even as it covers religion, you've seen some of how this generation can be really clearly defined by our sense of. I don't have enough.

Speaker 2:

Yes, adam, so many things there. Could you say more? I a hundred percent agree Living in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the freedom that he offers by the power of his Holy Spirit. It does not, it cannot produce anger or anxiety. We can acknowledge when we have those moments, but it is for freedom. Christ came to set you free. He's the Prince of Peace and he makes you his dwelling place and he gives you over over the top mercy and grace. That's undeserved, and so it's really the sanctified journey in our kind.

Speaker 2:

What does it look like now to walk in step with the Holy Spirit, to daily die to self, to be raised up anew, and it really all goes back to identity. I am enough. I was talking to because he says so, right, I was talking to a brother the other day. More theology into philosophy. But the first naivety is thinking that I have to, or the first half of life is building up the appropriate sense of self, right, and we all have to have that. I'm okay, oh, and I do have a voice and I do have gifts. The second half of life he titled as the second naivete. It's kind of this, you're coming back home again, but it's deeper, it's richer. The voice of God is more present in your life. Your communion, your intimacy with God is richer. But it really comes back to the same place, which is which is I'm enough in Jesus.

Speaker 2:

He said, he said Jesus. He said it. I believe it. He's claimed me for us in the waters of baptism. He set us free. We've been washed, the old self has been washed and we've been raised up again, day by day. This is one of the best parts of Luther. It's a daily remembrance of baptism, a daily remembrance of our identity in Jesus Christ. But it's so much richer and it gives us a freedom as a parent.

Speaker 2:

So to get to my main question here, as a parent, to say, you know what, I can look back and say, yeah, would I have, should I have? Yeah, probably, it's all given to the cross of Jesus Christ. I've been crucified with him. He's taken it all and now I'm just putting in the right next steps, just kind of to layer in these maybe holy habits of how I want to care for my kids, love them. But I would love give people, if you would, just a little bit more of a sneak peek into this new book on parenting that's coming out. You say that parents are defined by a pursuit of perfection and that? Is there anything more about parenting today? Some trends we're seeing in parents in the US, especially in the middle class.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks for asking, tim. I think there's a couple of things that you can really see really easily if you give kind of a spectrum of the best parenting advice we get. So, tim, if I said, how old are your kids? Tim, you have kids.

Speaker 2:

All in high school, bro. They're 18, 16, 15.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, nice, okay. So you've been around the block. You know about this. If somebody says, hey, the key to being a good high school dad is to stay involved in your kid's life, and you go, oh praise God, that's good advice. And then somebody will come right next to them and say, hey, the key to being a good high school dad is don't get over-involved in your kid's life. And they'll say, hey, you need to remain a friend, but stay a parent. You need to be really stern, but never scary. And they start to give you all these kind of like hey, which which way do you want me to lean here? Cause you're painting a picture of a spectrum on which, like, the best advice is the extremes, is the polar opposites, and I don't. I don't know what to do with that.

Speaker 1:

That's what makes parenting so hard is I can feel guilty, no matter what I'm doing. If I'm super involved in my kid's life, am I too friendly with them? Am I if I'm too removed from them? Am I too stern with them? And at the end of the day, our kids might resent us for our best efforts. Your best parenting advice might be what drives your kid up a wall and maybe what drives them to counseling one day. And you'll say I still stand by that and that's what makes parenting practically impossible to get absolutely perfect. But because we feel this pressure to get it absolutely perfect, because it is so important, it drives us to things like you said that anxiety is actually not a fruit of the spirit, that if I'm walking with the Lord as I'm parenting, the fruit of that walk is not anxiety, it's not fear, it's not dread, it's not exhaustion even, but the fruit of the spirit comes in things like patience.

Speaker 1:

I love to talk about patience with parents. We have a chapter in this new book on patience that I hope really helps people understand a distinction. When we're talking about patience and parenting, we often think about the ability to wait quietly. Can you wait quietly when the word patience in some translations it's translated long-suffering, in some it's forbearance, it's the ability to put up with a lot? That's what patience means. And so if the fruit of the spirit is, hey, my kid can be an absolute nightmare and I can still keep going, why? Because the fruit of the spirit is patience. It's not just hey, be quiet and stop bothering me. That's not patient. No, patience is grit, patience is tenacity. Patience is the ability to face something and keep going. It's the resilience that this generation typically lacks.

Speaker 1:

We want our kids to be patient, and then we hand a screen to them and say what I mean by be patient is be quiet. No, no, no. I want them to be patient. That means I want you to be able to do this without needing a screen, without needing a pacifier, in whatever form it comes now, as an iPad or a phone or a watch. I want you to be able to put up with being bored for a little bit. That's how we learn patience, in other words, resilience. I want you to face something difficult and overcome it. I want you to be grateful and not entitled.

Speaker 1:

Well, where do those things come from? Well, parents can create, foster inequity. It's another. I mean, I'm doing the same thing Hypocritically. I'm saying there's going to be times where you let your kid face the natural consequences of their bad choices and there's going to be times you rescue them from them, and both of those are true. Here's some good parenting advice Sometimes, let your kids fail.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, don't let them fail right Again. That can drive you bananas. But what are you doing that? You're trying to find opportunities to help them grow, to help them mature, and you get to walk free from shame and guilt and, at the same time, that freedom from shame and guilt doesn't give you license to lower the bar for yourself. And so now I don't need to try that hard, now I don't need to give it my best.

Speaker 1:

Freedom in the scriptures never calls the believer to say therefore, should we sin all the more? By no means right. Therefore, should we give up on giving our best? Well, when Moses says, hey, you can do this, this is not too hard for you. Do we go? Oh, I guess it's easy. No, he calls us to do what? To diligently care for our own souls, to diligently impress these things on our children. And the word diligence that Moses uses in his speech in Deuteronomy implies this is going to be hard work, you're going to do it over a long period of time, you're not going to give up at it, and that's why this is not too hard for you. He's saying to the people of Israel you can do this and all of it.

Speaker 1:

We believe to him it's not because there's inherent strength in me that I'm able to overcome. It's not enough self-esteem, it's not enough merit, it's certainly not meritorious salvation. What I believe is because I'm empowered by an all-powerful God to do what he's called me to do. What do I have to fear? If God is for me, who can be against me? And that's the strength of the parent. That's where I find my rest. When I feel overwhelmed, my God is not overwhelmed.

Speaker 1:

In Mark you just brought up Mark chapter six and Mark chapter four when Jesus is in the storm with his disciples and they are absolutely freaking out and they are saying, hey, are you not concerned that we're about to die? And Jesus could not be more calm? Because we follow a God who does not fret. We follow a God who does not fret. We follow a God who is never anxious. We follow a God who is not scared, and he calls us to likewise not complain, not worry, don't worry about tomorrow. Why? Because he is with us, we get to cast all our burdens onto him because he cares for us. Right, tim Preach baby.

Speaker 2:

Hey Adam, this is fun dude. Reach baby. Hey Adam, this is fun dude. There's so many things that you're making me think of. One is what you were saying is relatively paradoxical and for me, family systems theory was a major part of my doctorate work. I don't know if you're familiar. Like the two postures that have to be present for healthy human relationships at every time is connected and differentiated Differentiated. I know who I am in Jesus. I don't need any man's approval, or anybody my kid's approval, and yet I love you and I need you. I care for you. It's the I need you and I don't need you at the very same time.

Speaker 2:

That makes for a healthy marriage and I think, for a healthy parenting as well. And then it's just wisdom to know am I trying? And there could be. I don't know if I want to go down this path, but the feminine characteristic, the motherly characteristic, could be overprotective, right, so overly connected, you could say fused. And not every woman has this sort of tendency, right, they could have some more.

Speaker 2:

But then the masculine tendency is more disconnected, maybe inappropriate, risk you know, and this is why God made us male and female and brought us together as husband and wife so that we would live in that beautiful middle, because my posture just in our home, I'm like, yeah, give it a shot. You know, sometimes I have not. Let me just be honest. I have two drivers right, I'll have a third driver here soon. Um, the only time I've ever had deep thoughts about them killing themselves in a car crash which is, you know, tough stuff happens is when I was behind my daughter as she took her foot off the brake I'm following her in my car, takes her foot off the brake and is about ready to move out on a left-hand turn into traffic. I honked and she put her foot on the brake. She was a brand new driver.

Speaker 2:

So, this was one of her first go around. She didn't look, you know, but I'm here to tell you, outside of that one interaction. When they leave the house, I don't think about them driving right, my wife thinks about them driving like a lot.

Speaker 1:

You know like I hope.

Speaker 2:

I hope there she's looking on the phone.

Speaker 1:

You know you went 85 miles an hour, all this kind of stuff out of the interstate with for my son.

Speaker 2:

It's tough man.

Speaker 1:

So yeah.

Speaker 2:

Anything more to say about the balance between husbands and wives.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think part of what you're talking about too. You see, in Christ, right, the way he makes disciples isn't. Part of what he does is evaluated practice. He says I want the two of you to go out with nothing and 72 of you going two by two with nothing. And he doesn't say because we don't have anything. He's, in essence, getting them ready for the days when they won't have anything and getting them ready for the days when he's not going to be with them. You're going to go two by two. This is how you're going to handle it. And then we're going to come back together and we're going to talk about it. And when they come back, they're so excited oh, this happened. We cast out demons in your name, we perform miracles. And he said hey, hey, hey, calm down, let's just be, let's just be excited that your name is written in the book of life.

Speaker 1:

Again, he's corrective.

Speaker 1:

He's teaching, he's training, and if we can think about parenting as more of an opportunity to train as opposed to just tell them, uh, I think it was Mark Twain who said if teaching were the same as telling, we'd all be so smart.

Speaker 1:

We could barely stand it, because we tell our kids things all the time. But if, in parenting, we could teach them and if, as we're maturing, as we're being discipled as parents, we could be taught, we could be trained. Hey, you can be free of that sin, shame, guilt, the lies you tell yourself or the mean things you say about yourself, the negative self-talk, or maybe it's the pride that you feel like, hey, I'm fine, I can let my kids go, do whatever. That's the best way to parent and you go. Maybe actually it's good that I have a spouse who's softer than I am towards my children and maybe it's good for my spouse that they have me that's a little bit more carefree with my children and maybe we can learn from each other, lean into each other and where we make mistakes, hand that to the Lord and say Lord, forgive us where this is sin and help us where it's foolish, but we're going to try to do our best.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's so good. All right, let's get into the weeds here a little bit, and they're good weeds, we don't need to.

Speaker 2:

I don't know why we say get into the weeds. That doesn't sound like fun, let's get into the flowers and have a good conversation, anyway. So how? So how can we create a family discipleship culture? And for some of our listeners we talk this way in our congregation but maybe they're in a church that doesn't talk about family discipleship and culture, kind of the nuts and bolts A cool thing about our tribe, I guess. Confirmation is a big deal in a lot of our Lutheran churches and we bring families, we bring the moms and dads into confirmation during during that too. Yeah, it seems like a duh, but it's. Unfortunately it doesn't happen too too often. So get, get us behind the scenes. How do you define a family discipleship culture?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, a family discipleship culture. I'm glad you brought that up and you're right in the. In the historical Lutheran church, the idea behind catechism was to equip parents to lead their homes. Right, the idea behind catechism was I'm going to simplify this not so that the professional priest, but that the royal priesthood, the priesthood of believers, could be equipped to lead their kids. And so to have a family discipleship culture means I don't just punt to the organization known as the church in order to teach my kids about Christ. I wouldn't do that with math, I wouldn't do that with science. I wouldn't say, hey, guys, well, let me say it like this, we would do that, maybe, when it came to their education. But I would never de-qualify math and say, hey, you don't need to pay attention really, because you're going to get enough from watching math around the house. You'll see me balance my checkbook and add things up to the grocery store and that's all the math you're going to need. No, I'd say your math in the school is important. I'd say following Christ in the church is important. The difference is there's also been a explicit command of God that my job is to teach my kids to observe all that Christ had commanded. There's been a commission to every believer to make disciples everywhere, including the kids who are growing up in your own household, and so a culture of discipleship within the home is the idea that I'm establishing, hopefully across the board, a safe place for my kids to ask their spiritual questions and a place where it is normal to read the Bible together, to sing together, to pray together, that it is ordinary for us to do these critical things like be a Christian around my kids, not in order for them to see me be a Christian, but because I genuinely love Christ. They get to see that in my household and so it's a part of the culture. Tim, again, we know what this looks like in other areas, right?

Speaker 1:

If I said there's a person in your congregation who's a huge Phoenix Suns fan, just loves the Phoenix Suns, and I said, how would you know? And you'd say, well, they probably build their schedule around when the games are. They probably spend some of their money to go to the games. They wear the gear and they want to talk about it. Maybe, if they're really into it, they listen to, they read the blogs, they listen to the podcast, we go, okay, that's what it looks like for someone to love something right. They can't help talking about it. They spend their money, their calendar revolves around it.

Speaker 1:

And yet when it comes to loving God with all of our heart, soul and mind, we kind of go what he means by that? Just kind of casually say do you believe that you'll go to heaven one day? No, that's not what it looks like to love something. To love something. If somebody said I love the Phoenix Suns, I just can't name a player. I don't know how they're doing, I don't know what city do they play in again, I don't remember what are their colors, you'd go oh, it doesn't sound like you actually love them. It sounds like you know what it sounds like to say you love them. So discipleship culture in the home has to be built around faith life of mom and dad mom or dad, depending on the case of grandma, grandpa, whoever it is. They're building a culture where people genuinely love God and raising kids in that environment.

Speaker 2:

I want to wear the jersey. Come on, I want to. I'm a we're people of the book. We talk about the way Jesus is at work in our lives. We invite him into the hard things. You know, obviously we, we pray, and any words of wisdom too. For cause you and I I think a lot of people that, oh, you guys are pastors, you know, so you guys do that kind of stuff. But I'm, you know, I'm still figuring out, I don't even know like the whole Bible that well, you know, and so you want me to go and like find Jesus in normal conversation? Like I don't, I'm not, I'm not spending like.

Speaker 2:

Just to be fully transparent, we're actually trying to do biblical literacy work heavy right now in our, in our church, connected to the master story, and I think I'm referring, if you read the Bible four times or more per week. The Lifeway research came out recently with that kind of study. I don't know what it is about. Four times or more in a week. The health, the social, the relational, all of it. The benefits are like through the roof. So the word of God is living and active and very, very healthy for us. But what would you say for the brother or sister who's just under shame and guilt just saying I don't do that, help me. We've got to reverse engineer this thing a little bit. Destigmatize this, adam, yeah.

Speaker 1:

We talked about generational problems earlier in this episode, tim, and the truth is we have a generation that wasn't discipled, and so they're going. How would I disciple anybody? I never was discipled, and while that's a legitimate problem, it's not a legitimate excuse, right? We wouldn't say, oh, that didn't happen, oh, you know what, then don't worry about it, as if, like, there's nothing else we would do that with and say, oh yeah, if your parents didn't show you what a healthy marriage is, then I guess you shouldn't try to have one. Oh, I guess if they didn't show you what exercise was, then don't worry about exercise. No, if you weren't discipled, I'm so sorry, that is going to be something to get over. That is going to be something that may be difficult for you, but get discipled now.

Speaker 1:

You actually don't have to be a scholar, a seminary professor in order to disciple a family. There's tons of resources for kids. Read the resources for kids. Be on the same page they are, be in the same step. I always say it's easier to lead somebody, sometimes from standing right next to them and one step ahead of them, than it is from 100 yards away anyway. So if you could put yourself in the position to say what's it like to be my son right now? What kind of questions is he asking at his age? What's it like to be my daughter right now? What kind of questions is he asking at his age? What's it right to be my daughter right now? What kind of questions is she asking at her age? I wonder if the scripture has any answer to us there. Or I wonder again I think there's a generation of Christians right now that are satisfied with kids being familiar with the Bible.

Speaker 1:

That's not what I want. I don't want kids just familiar with the Bible. I want kids that follow Jesus. And so if you're not following Jesus by being discipled, studying his word, being a man or woman of prayer, I'm not okay. Just because you know the story of Noah and the story of Adam and Eve and you know the story of David and you know Jesus is coming back one day. That's familiarity. I want to trust in Jesus. I want to say I make decisions in my life because he said that's the right decision, even if it's not. What my heart wants, and that's what I want to train my kids to do is I want them to follow Jesus, regardless of what their heart wants.

Speaker 1:

And that takes saying I have to get over this idea of whatever excuse I have. Hey, I don't know my Bible. Well, okay, we'll get to know your Bible. Hey, I'm not really a man of prayer. Let's start praying. Hey, I look at these other dads and it makes sense that they can do it. Well, go get breakfast with that dad. Then say, hey, do that, help me out.

Speaker 1:

This is one of the gifts of the church. You're not living in a generation like Noah, where you're the only believer. You're living in a generation with a church on every corner in this country where we live. And so go find one that loves Jesus. Get to know somebody there who loves Jesus and ask them to disciple you, and you can get over a lot of these excuses and then just demystify it a little bit. I'm not talking about something that's abnormal and crazy. My kids aren't. I don't come home and they beg me to open the Bible for them, but I am consistently saying, hey, before you go to bed tonight, we're going to open the Bible together. I'm consistently praying for them. I am a man who tells them why I'm making decisions based on God's word. I invite them into those decisions because I want them to know that, but I'm an imperfect man trying to help imperfect kids follow a perfect God right. So I'm actually trying to help them see how an imperfect person follows God, because they'll grow up to be imperfect men and women.

Speaker 2:

You're fantastic, Adam.

Speaker 1:

Thank you Tim.

Speaker 2:

You put a quarter in you on discipleship stuff.

Speaker 1:

This is so good, just flying off the handle. No, no.

Speaker 2:

And it's so well, it's just true, and it's so well, it's just true and it's simple. This isn't rocket, it's like Jesus, the God of the universe, the God of great complexity and order. He gave us simple and when I hear you talking, it's just simple rhythms, holy habits that we invite our kids into and it just becomes. It doesn't become like a task, it's just a way of being and the rhythms in different seasons of life. Because if your kid's schedule, they're going to kind of, but we're people that are connected to the word, we're people of prayer, we love talking the things of Jesus and where we see character that's out of step with the heart and mind of Jesus. We're going to have a conversation about that as we grow up into Jesus, who is our leader and Lord.

Speaker 2:

Right, no-transcript, Because it wasn't about you've got to get these certain degrees and do these things and all that kind of stuff. You got to do all these things to then be drawn. No, no, no. Just come and walk with me. Figure out how I do it. I love the easy, unforced rhythms of life. Just figure out the light, easy yoke that I put on you. It's not like the Pharisees, it's going to be great. Just come and go on an adventure with me. Jesus says right, I mean, this isn't hard.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, jesus made it. I mean, you look at the way he discipled. He's inviting making breakfast for people after they sinned against him, which nothing's more family-like than that To say, like Peter really messed up bad, cut a guy's ear off trying to kill him, fell asleep when I asked him to pray for me. He abandoned me. He showed up, he pretended he didn't know me. He cursed at himself saying he didn't know me. And then they sit down to breakfast together and who cooks? Jesus cooks says come, sit down.

Speaker 1:

And the cool thing about that story, tim, you know this is when Peter first met Jesus. In Luke, chapter five, there's a miraculous catch of fish. And Peter's response to the miraculous catch with fish was you need to get away from me, jesus, I'm a sinner. We shouldn't be close together. Three years later, when Peter's still a terrible sinner and he has a miraculous catch of fish again, he said he dove into the water trying to get to Jesus as soon as possible. Not because he's a better man than he used to be as far as like sin is concerned he's still a sinner but he's more convinced than either that he's welcome and wanted by Jesus.

Speaker 1:

And if we can both, as parents, operate of that kind of confidence that my mistakes don't drive a wedge between me and my God. They drive me to him. I need to be restored by him and we could treat our kids the same way to say where there are problems in my household, I don't want it to divide us, I want it to strengthen us the same way, like the paralytic in Mark, chapter two, can always look back when he was healed and say if I hadn't been paralyzed, I don't know if I would have met Jesus. That any one of us could say.

Speaker 1:

If I hadn't made that parenting mistake, maybe it wouldn't have brought the kind of strength I have now to lead the way I need to lead in this household. If we hadn't endured this difficulty, maybe we wouldn't have matured in the faith the way the Lord called us to, because that's the way he paints. Suffering for us is something that's disciplined from a loving father. Ah, isn't that just like our household? Like you're, you're disciplined. You're making things harder. Why? So that there'll be better, so that there's be strength and rest. And that's the picture of the discipled home, is a picture of a home that's free and strong in the Lord.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so good. All right, let's go deeper. Two key components. You talk about modeling. I, like you're obviously a preacher, because there's alliteration throughout the book. You and Matt really love that.

Speaker 1:

Well, alliteration is helpful for memory, let's be honest.

Speaker 2:

So two key components of modeling being reliable and relatable Say more.

Speaker 1:

There so two key components of modeling being reliable and relatable. Say more there, yeah. So with each one of these parts of the framework modeling, time, moments and milestones we tried to help give a little deeper picture of remodeling being reliable and being relatable. What we're saying is you do have to have similar to what you're saying earlier, tim a connection with these kids that God's given you, that is genuine, that is sincere, that is loving. In order to model for them, you have to have proximity to them and then there has to be something. There's something consistent in the way you do this.

Speaker 1:

Modeling for them will not look like the best kind of modeling is not a one-off right. My kids won't grow up and be like I know how to read the Bible because one time I saw my dad reading the Bible. That's not what I just modeled for them is a lack of something I want them to see. I want my kids to see in me modeled patience and kindness and gentleness, and I want them to see that consistently. And how will I seek that? It's in my own spiritual strength and spiritual walk. So I seek that for myself. I ask that for myself. I ask for victory over sin.

Speaker 2:

I ask to cast off the sin that so easily entangles, so I can run the race that's marked out for me and I want to do that reliably and I want to do that relatably close to my kids. I love that. All right, let's talk time. I love this, your rhythm. There's some habits here. There's some holy rhythms. There's a season to it. Right, there's a rhythm, and then there's intentionality. Talk about time.

Speaker 1:

So all of these things that we have in our framework, we're trying to help families get on the same page. Right, so, to have a husband and wife sit down together and say how are we doing in these areas? The same way that, like it's very common in our Christian culture right now, if you're going to get married, to go through premarital counseling, and you sit down and go, how do we get on the same page on how we're going to share our faith with our kids? Not just think about sleep schedule, not just think about food, not just think about school, not just think about academics and extracurriculars. How do we think about sharing our faith? And so time, the same way you saw Christ have hey on synagogue on Saturday we're going to go and I'm going to teach from the word. Same way, our family the Griffin family is a good example.

Speaker 1:

We go to church together on Sundays. That's part of our family discipleship rhythm. Sunday mornings are set aside for us to worship together. It's a tradition, so we often overlook it as a Christian culture, but it's an important part of what we're doing and it's not part of punting my spiritual development to the church. It's actually part of me showing them what a worshiper looks like, why I gather with a congregation Then in our house every night. So we have a nightly rhythm where every night, before our kids go to bed, we read, we pray, we sing together. We keep it very simple. I'm going to read something from the scripture, sometimes we'll use a devotional, sometimes we just go like right to the Bible and we'll read something, we pray together, we sing together. Then we have some monthly rhythms where one of my kids was born on the 5th of the month, one the 16th, one the 29th, and each 5th of the month is Theodore's night. So when it's Theodore's night, his kids or his brothers are going to go to bed or his brothers are going to go do something else and we're going to get one-on-one time with Theodore. That's when we're having one of our 10,000 faith talks, one of our 10,000 sex talks, one of our 10,000 opportunities to talk to him about. Hey, just you, where you're at right now, how are you doing? We're proud of you, and so that's part of our rhythm is to have individual time with each kid each month, and so those are kind of like there's a lot of ways to do it.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, when I talk about that, families will go. Oh, every night. I can't do every night. I'll tell you, if your kid was in football and they said practice was every night, you'd probably be there. And if Christ said, hey, we're going to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and I said, let's do it every night, I'd hope you go. Hey, let's build up to something. But I don't want you to ever hear me say, hey, if you can't do all the amazing stuff, I do. No, I'm trying to give God the best portion of my life, which means I don't want to miss a day where my kids hear about Jesus.

Speaker 1:

That means in the Griffin household, tim, if we have a babysitter and I'm not there when my kids are going to bed, when they were little, we tell the babysitter hey, just so you know we're Christians. So before our kids go to bed, they read, they pray, they sing together. If you're a Christian, you're welcome to join them. It means when we have people over at the house, be it family or friends, and it comes time when our kids were little, for them to go to bed, we don't say, hey, guys, we're going to skip family discipleship time tonight, or of the room for my friends and go read with them. Believers or not, we would say, hey, one of the rhythms our family has is every night we read, pray and sing together. You're welcome to join us. And that gives us a chance to disciple not only our kids but disciple our church, disciple our friends, disciple our neighborhood. It's something that we've said. If we're Christians and we really believe this, then shouldn't? We have appointed times where we are sharing our faith.

Speaker 1:

Now, for some families that means they do breakfast. For some that means they do. Every Sunday night we're doing a family Devo or a movie night where we're going to talk about, you know, what Bluey has to do with the Holy Spirit. I don't know anything about that. But for different families they do different things.

Speaker 1:

But that's the rhythm of our families. We have appointed times where our kids know my parents are going to talk to me about Jesus. Or even right now, this morning, I had men's Bible study at our church. I've invited my 13-year-old son to start going to men's Bible study with me, so he gets up at 6 am, studies the Bible with me and a group of adult men, and then I go take him out for breakfast, and at breakfast we're going through a book on human sexuality, and that's because he's at an age, at 13 years old, that I really want to make sure I'm discipling him. In particular, in that area where he's curious, the world is going to tell him something different than I want to tell him, and so that's a weekly rhythm for us right now, and those weekly rhythms are family discipleship time.

Speaker 2:

Dude, I love the high challenge. It's so good, we desperately need it, and we're as human beings. We love to let ourselves off the hook, don't we? Yes, yes, you know John.

Speaker 1:

Tyson Go ahead. John Tyson wrote a great book called Intentional Father and we talked to him about it and it's very intense, it's daily discipleship. And I asked him if you got to do it over again, what would you do? And he said if I got to disciple my son over again, I'd be more intense, I think, about every show we watched together and how we could have been talking about me to him. This was perfect. To sum it up, he said I'm not asking you to do something you can't do. I'm just asking you to do everything you can and I'm challenging you to believe that you can do more than you think. And that has weighed on me to go. That's true. If I love God with my whole heart, soul and mind, then shouldn't I be trying to do everything I can?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this isn't so for those who have a Lutheran kind of perspective. We hear this is moving us right back into the law. I hear invitation. I hear Jesus when he's challenging his disciples in the upper room discourse greater things than these you're going to do, why? Because the Holy Spirit's going to come and you're going to have everything you need. But he was not. When Paul, then, is giving the letters to the church, I mean, they are high challenge documents to emulate the life of Jesus. The whole thing is saturated in our identity in Jesus. It's saturated in mercy and grace. But that does that mercy and grace again does not lead us to cheapen the grace of God by compromising our responsibilities. Anything more to say there. Adam.

Speaker 1:

Oh, amen. I don't think the gospel and licentiousness are equivalent. Right Like to say oh, it's gospel. If I'm not telling you what to do, the gospel says I don't have to do anything. That's not the gospel. The gospel says you were saved in spite of the fact that you could not save yourself. But because of the gospel, now you are still called to say what is the portion? I have to give God my whole life. God didn't say, hey, I'm saving you, so now you can do whatever you want. No, he said I'm saving you from doing whatever you want, I'm saving you from you being king. I'm saving you to me being king. So, since Christ is my king, it's not you think about it like this Tim is.

Speaker 1:

I lock the doors of my house at night not to trap my kids inside my home. I lock the door of my house to protect my kids from the lion who seeks to devour, from the lion who prowls, and so we can look at that lock and go. Look at this guy. He's such a legalist. He locks his kids into this. He just he's forcing them to do this. No, no, no, no, no. I believe that following God's commands is what sets me free. I believe that Christ is King is what sets me free. That's gospel, good news, that I am protected when I follow God. Not that God has to do whatever I want, that I am happy to submit to whatever God wants.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, that's, that's good. You know, sometimes we talk about who needs good works. You know Lutherans are super fidgety as it relates to works.

Speaker 1:

Yes, sir.

Speaker 2:

We got to. We got to. You know we're going to throw us back right out of the way to the law. One, one helpful thing that, uh, I don't know if it was Luther or just kind of Lutheran theologians. So God doesn't need your good works, your neighbor does.

Speaker 2:

And your neighbor created in the image of God, which your neighbor starts with your wife and your kids Like they desperately need to see the love of God through you. And then there's this, like now in the gospel, in our new identity in Jesus, because of his life, death, resurrection, ascension, his reign, his indwelling spirit for us. I rejoice in the law. Your law is good, you know good. I go to David in the Psalms over and over again. So yeah, that's good. We just moved right into some deeper theology on how that connects to discipleship.

Speaker 1:

Well, I believe the fruit of the spirit is goodness. So to some extent, if I walk with the Lord, there's something pleasing to the Lord in me. It's not that I am worthless. It's not that I am valueless and somehow God scraped me off the toe of his boot and saw fit to save me. It's that the Lord loved me, valued me, and it's not because I offered him something that he saved me. But it is as a loving child, like Ephesians 5.1 says, as a loving child delights in imitating their father. That's what I'm trying to do in these commands of God. I'm not trying to heap things like a Pharisee onto people. I'm trying to set them free by saying now go and sin no more. Now let's go and make disciples of all nations. Now let's not commit adultery, let's not kill. Yes, those are the laws that set us free and I am set free from the punishment that comes from the breaking of those laws, but not set free to run to the breaking of those laws.

Speaker 2:

That's good, that's good, that's a good articulation of justification and sanctification for those who have your Lutheran lens on. Uh, and the tension between the tension between the two. Um, there's a cost I'm thinking Bonhoeffer right now right, there's a cost to this thing of discipleship, picking up your cross and following after Jesus. Jesus didn't lower the bar. He told us to go out and die daily, die to self and so that he may live in and through us. Good stuff, hey, we're just about at time. This has been really, really great. Maybe one closing comment. I wish you were in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I'm just glad you're. You're sharing the love of Jesus. We were talking before we started going on on leadership development and I told you one of the tests we're running right now in leadership development and I'm a product of Concordia seminary in St Louis. Praise God, go preachers. I just played in an alumni basketball game, adam.

Speaker 1:

Hey, how'd you do?

Speaker 2:

Well, it was good. I played probably six years in a row. And the old guys most of the guys in mid to late 40s, maybe early 50s, most of them minus me. I played football and baseball in college, but they played college basketball. So these glimpses, you know, of glory from your, but then our bodies just don't do what they used to do.

Speaker 2:

Nonetheless, there were two alumni games some younger alumni and then some older alumni but we won and I hit. It's really quite fascinating. I hit almost a buzzer beater with like 10 seconds to go to put us up three and I think I had like 10 points or something like that and it was pretty, it was wild. The whole gym went crazy Like I hadn't experienced that in 20 plus years.

Speaker 1:

Most people have to remember that from high school. You've got a recent memory of that. I love it. It was great. Now did the people on the other team say, hey, we weren't putting as much effort because that would be legalism and we just don't want to be?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think to land the plate right. I mean I was just, I didn't really care, I mean I was just out there having fun, you know the whole thing.

Speaker 2:

The whole thing was just fun. Yeah, give it a shot. Sometimes it goes in Anyhow. What a delight. It was a delight. So my perception by some in our church body is that I'm anti-seminary, I'm anti-education, because we're doing things differently, raising up bivocational, co-vocational leaders, and nothing could be further from the truth. I love our seminary and our leaders and are hoping for a both and approach moving forward. And for those of you who listen and have no idea, it's okay, but you had some interesting comments around formation and the way we do it today that maybe we could just close. I thought it was pretty provocative, adam.

Speaker 1:

About the Lutheran Church in particular.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, just about kind of seminary.

Speaker 2:

So for 700 years we didn't do residential Until the monastic movement. We didn't do residential education. It was all discipleship as I do, so you start to do and it was more rabbinic right. They were following in the footsteps of Jesus, following the footsteps of Paul, testing out certain gifts that they'd been given and obviously getting correction and feedback along the way with someone who's just a little further advanced in their leadership journey, and what it looks like now for pastoral formation is there are hints of that, there are parts of it that are commensurate with that, but it's strange that our congregation having a learning community that leads all the way up to raising up pastors is not the norm. It's the exception rather than the norm. Any comments on that, though?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure I think we've. You know, in some sense, the same way that maybe families have historically in our generation punted spiritual education to the church and said, pastor, educate my kids. We have in some senses and in some denominations punted discipleship, raising up shepherds for our church to a distant organization, a distant Hogwartsian, like, well, you raise up and you produce pastors for us and then send them to us. And there's something really beautiful about the local church, like Timothy did when he got to his church and Paul commended him hey, go find elders there, raise up shepherds under shepherds, people who are going to pastor this church, shepherds under shepherds, people who are going to pastor this church. And so I do think there's a biblical responsibility on every local church to be raising up a generation of leaders and not just looking outside themselves to an organization. That's classical education as much as that's good.

Speaker 1:

I'm a product of seminaries. I've gone to three different seminaries. I did undergrad Christian education. I'm a product of private school. I've studied the Bible in a lot of schools and I've benefited from that.

Speaker 1:

But in my church now when I'm looking to hire, I am delighted when I can find a minister who is a qualified minister, because they have learned in our local context. We know them, they are theologically aligned with us, they know our people, they can shepherd these people that they already know. They are ready. And I, as a disciple maker, my meeting right after this was with a young man that I'd love to bring on professionally here, but he's already discipling people here. He's already being ministered to. I've been discipling him and that's a beautiful aspect of what we see in Jesus' ministry. He didn't say come and follow me and I'm going to start a school. He didn't say I'm going to write something in this ivory tower and I'll send it to you. You should read it. And that he says come and follow me. And in that life on life, discipleship, he produces men who are ready to lead and I think there's something beautiful about that in the local church.

Speaker 2:

Hey, love it, adam, if I'm pretty sure Right, any other ways that people can follow you and pray for you? Yeah, the easiest way is familydiscipleshipcom we have the Family Discipleship Podcast.

Speaker 1:

We've got a new book called Good News for Parents and several resources for parents of young kids. Right now, all that's at familydiscipleshipcom.

Speaker 2:

Tim, thank you so much for the time. This is a kick, please like. Subscribe helps get the word out on these hope-filled conversations. This is one of our podcasts of the Unite Leadership Collective. Let's move in unity with Jesus and let's move collectively out in mission to make Jesus known, starting in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our churches, for the sake of the advancement of the gospel. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. Wonderful work, adam. Thanks brother.