Building Spiritual Habits in the Home - Clayton Greene & Chris Pappalardo

You can't invite your children into something if it's not there. If your kid has identified that you don't actually live in a way that seems to be the life of following Jesus, say, all right, do I actually believe this? Start with that. You'll get to the spot of saying, well, well, now how do I transmit this to my children? But the more important thing, build your own robust life of faith.

Like, work on that first. And then you could try to invite your children into that. All right, so you know, I got a funny way to remember your name, Chris.

Okay. It just came to me when I was walking in the studio. Maddie, who you met, Maddie brings you in and she's coordinating with you. She hums a song. That that makes me remember your name.

So we got Chris Popolardo, n dun dun dun. You know that song? You guys are too young. Do it again. Do it again.

Come on, man. This is the opening right here. Our producer is just looking in here like, this is not going to make it onto the air.

Well, you're going to have something. There was a song way back in my generation called I Like Pina Colab. That didn't sound like papa. I don't know. And Clayden green.

There you go. We got Melty Rage. That's all right. You're intro to Family Life Today. Welcome to Family Life Today.

Aren't you glad you're here? Got it. And Chris Barbilardo. Let me tell you, you're never going to forget his name now. You are in a song.

You have to sing it, though. And the song, you don't know what the song's about. But it is about married couples. It's a weird song. That's what it is.

It's a weird song. I have had so many people play with my name over the years, and this was the first. That has never happened. That's what I'm going to say. Leave it to Dave.

Somehow, well, no, leave it to Maddie. Maddie put the song in my head. She was humming this? Yeah, and I'm never going to be able to say his name without thinking of. We've had a lot of fun just talking to you guys before we even started the interview.

So I'm going to drop this deep because I feel like you guys are super knowledgeable. You just said you guys dropped something deep. I know, I am. That means you've decided to say that. No, no, no.

I'm saying, no. Dave did his thing. I'm going to take us a different direction. I'm the light guy. She's the deep one.

No, I'm not at all. Go ahead. Let's hear your deep. But as a mom, as doing ministry for 45 years, I'm going to ask you guys, now, this isn't like a number that you would know, but just off of the top of your head, we feel like. Spiritual disciplines, discipleship.

This is not something that generally. takes place in 100% of homes.

So what would you guys say? What percentage of Christian homes are discipling their kids or building spiritual habits in their families? Just off the top of your head, what do you think that percentage would be? My gut is 100%. I was going to say the same thing.

Oh, great, great. I'm glad we're together on that. Do you think 100% of parents. Are building disciples and building habits. I know what they're doing.

Yeah, see, they're going real deep, right? Maybe not all of them intentionally or knowing what they're doing. I think in the conversation that Chris and I have had, Chris, Kristen is my wife. This is Chris, my co-author. Chris and I talk all the time about.

Kids being able to go inside Target and buy chewing gum, right? How many five-year-olds did you didactically teach? Did you plan? I will teach this kid how to walk inside Target with a card. buy the gum or the sour patch kids that they want.

Go up to the self-checkout register. Beep. Scan it. put the card up, and walk out with the receipt in their hand. None of us.

Nobody actually planned to do that. How many five-year-olds can you do? 100%. Yeah. Right.

Because you naturally do it. You know, and we are all very naturally. Training up our children in something. We're all discipling them in something. And I think the question is: the day in and day out things that you regularly do, those are the things that they're going to take with them whenever they leave your home.

So I think you have to think more intentionally about it. I would say that the percentage of families who feel like they're doing it well And would be able to say to somebody else, yeah, go ahead, look at my life, take cues for me. That's probably closer to like 10%. Yeah. Because 10%.

Yeah. I think so. Because even if you're really intentional about it, we're super intentional about this. There's just a lot of insecurity about that saying, I don't know. Am I doing this right?

I'm so glad you said that because I feel like we were asking those questions all the time. Yeah. Are we failing? Are we doing it? Are we doing anything?

Is this making a difference? Yeah. It's simpler before you have kids, which you know, you just can't. We have a lot of friends with children, a lot of friends without. And it's just, you get to a point where you're like, I can't explain to you this seismic shift that happens here.

And it's. I don't want to make you feel less than because you don't have kids, but like it's you just don't understand the simplicity, the the amount of time you have, right? What did you guys think before you had kids? About parenting, about how you would parent, how you would disciple. your kids spiritually.

I s I don't I didn't. Yeah. That might sound bad. I just wasn't, I wasn't thinking, all right, here's going to be my plan. For what it is to disciple a five-year-old or a 15-year-old, it's just, I don't know.

Maybe in the back, way back in my head, I thought, I guess I'll figure it out when I get there. And I that is kind of what I've been doing. But I If you had asked me, I was confident and arrogant enough that I'm sure I would have had an answer. It just wouldn't have been a good one because I hadn't given any thought. It might not be that we uh didn't have a plan, but it's we w I would have had an opinion when I thought somebody else was doing a bad job.

That's not right. I can't believe they let that happen, right?

So but I think I think a lot of people I think the reason it's probably 15 to 20 percent of people who actually have something that they would recommend to somebody else in terms of spiritual rhythms in their home is because we don't really have a plan. Most people don't have that type of plan, but everybody is doing something. I think there's a the process of that Chris and I are on that we want to invite other people into is being willing to have that conversation that you said you had a number of times like am I failing? Yeah, I'm doing this right we actually think that that that is very common and that should be okay, but it's the consistency of starting again trying something different continuing to try to make sure that the spiritual things happening in your home are consistent that's a gift to your kids and so you have to be able to say hey we dropped the ball let's start again because you're all everybody's gonna drop the ball at some point oh that's good it kind of it kind of gives you hope as a parent like i'm fail i'm failing and i'll always fail you're saying no we all probably feel like that but you can always start over yeah it's not it's not a bug it's a feature That's it's a feature of the process is being it because there's so many we try to say that you know creating a habit is is easy or we try to give a plan for it, right? Here's six steps you can do in order to create a new a new spiritual habit in your home, but it's it's actually way more complicated than just six steps.

It's actually six things that you can do in order to try to be more consistent. And you have to try and then it messes up and then you try again and then it messes up and then you try again. But you guys, it's really good because as I was reading, I'm like, this is doable. This is simple enough. It's really practical.

I thought it's not doable at all.

So I do this. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really hard one. No, I'm kidding.

But in some ways, building a habit is hard. Because you've got to, like you said, you're going to fail. You got to start over. And it's hard to start over sometimes.

Sometimes you just sort of quit.

Well, there are different ways that things are hard, right?

Some things are hard implicitly. And you can make them as easy as possible, but like it's still just a very difficult thing. And I think spiritual habits are like that. And then there are some things that are hard that shouldn't be because they're easy and we make them more complicated. And so, like, what we're trying to do in the book is saying, okay, Let's just be honest.

This is very difficult. It's going to be very difficult no matter what. We're going to try to get it as easy as possible because it already is that hard. It's not, so there's not a key here where you read the book and you're like, oh, great. I knew it was incredibly simple and I was an idiot for not getting it.

Now there's a patent. No, it's still very, very difficult. But We don't have to make it harder than it needs to be. This can be actually slightly easier. Great marriages don't just happen, they take intentional investment.

And that's why we want to acknowledge today's sponsor, Weekend to Remember, a three-day marriage getaway hosted by Family Life. Weekend to Remember has been held in cities across the country for more than 40 years with over 80 events each year. Millions of couples have attended to strengthen communication, resolve conflict, and grow together. To find an event near you and learn more, visit WeekendToRemember.com. I mean, in some ways, I've even heard you say.

You guys are Atomic Habits meets Jesus.

So, which one of you is Jesus? Chris. Which one of you is Habits? Dave, you took my joke. I love that.

Whereas Atomic Habits meets Jesus, and I'm Habits, and he's Jesus. And he hates it when I say that because, you know, the comparison, you know. I've read a ton of habit science books. I absolutely love them. Chris has read a lot of the Bible.

And that's not to say that the opposite person hasn't done some of the other things. Spiritual. That's all he's saying. Yeah. How do you measure up when someone says, oh, he's basically Jesus?

Yeah. You have to say that's not no. But this is how our relationship naturally functions: I'm like, so prayers, right? Prayer is really, really hard because, and just this random idea about prayer. Chris, where's that in the Bible?

Like, literally, that's how like half of our conversations start. And so goes a beautiful friendship. And hopefully it's helpful to us and to other people at some point.

So when I used to read habit science books, social psychology books, whatever it would be. Atomic Habits is one. The Power of Habit is another. Chipping Dan Heath wrote a book called Switch. I mean, all these are really, really, the reason they write these books and they get so popular is because.

Doing the things that you want to do in life. Is a lot harder than just thinking about doing something, right? Actually making it happen in your life. But every time I would read one of these books, I would be reading it and applying it to reading the Bible. I would be reading it and not, I would apply it to exercise or dieting.

I would also apply it to my prayer life. How do I get more consistent at this? This thing says, if you put your tennis shoes by the door, that you're more likely to take more steps in a day. That's good for your physical health. That's a small little tip of just by placing your shoes there, you're more likely to do it.

And that's a good thing for you. And the same thing is true of where you place your Bible.

So every time I was reading one of these books, I was actually applying it to my spiritual life. And hopefully, what we've done here, Atomic Habits Meets Jesus, is we've taken some of those things that the habit scientists have discovered and we've actually shown that that does exist. These ideas and these tips, they're incredibly consistent with scripture and what God calls us to do. And so we're just taking those things, putting them together and saying, hey, let's be more consistent. That'll be good for us.

That'll be good for our kids as well. Have you heard the one where, you know, you put your shoes under the bed?

So that's a different one now? Tell us. Come on, you've heard that one right now? No, I haven't either. I don't know who I heard say this, and I've never done it.

Okay. But I should do it. They said, when you go to bed at night, put your shoes under the bed, and then when you wake up in the morning, you'll be on your knees looking for your shoes and just stay there and pray. I'm like, dude, that is we should have put that in this book. Do you think the editors will let us come and write a sequel?

And the book is called Building Spiritual Habits in the Home: Small Steps You Can Take Today. And it's got little building blocks. Oh, do your block. Oh, yeah. We got the graticoub.

Graticub. Cube. Cube. Cube. Graticube.

It's with a K. Graticube. Explain the Graticube to us. The Graticube. I'm a five-year-old kid.

I don't know what it is. Or I'm a parent listening, like, I want to get that. What is that thing? Yeah, I think the funny thing is. I actually have a grandpa, and I don't know what it is, so explain it to me.

The funny thing is, a five-year-old would be the most intuitive to know what to do with this. Because when we have Graticubes on the table, they pick it up, roll it, and immediately know. Like, really? How it operates. Yeah, so you don't have to explain it.

So the gradi cube is a 12-sided die. It's actually a dodecahedron, is what it's called. On each side, I knew it has a dohecahedron. It has a prompt to say. That's what I was saying.

No, you know, it's flawless, Dave. Doe heckahedron. No, Dodecahedron. Just let him explain it. It's got 12 sides.

The dodecahedron has 12 sides, and on each side it has a conversational prompt. that you're supposed to when you roll it. It says food. And you start with, God thank you for peace. Pizza, which is what almost every kid would say, or noodles, or whatever it is.

And so it just adds variety and gratitude to your everyday table conversation. It's playful. Does it ever go like. Powerful? Like, get pretty tender?

Absolutely.

So, there's one of the sides is God thanks for being, where you get to hear your child actually talk about what they know about God, which is really beautiful. There's one on here, which is a difficult time because you can be grateful for God being with you in a difficult time. And so, that one. Almost always kind of points towards something that is a little bit more meaningful. And you don't need to have kids to do this.

I'm thinking of married couples, like we don't even talk. We just are on our phones while we eat. Our kids are gone or we don't have kids. It could work for a married couple. Small group icebreaker.

Yeah. Bosses will have it sitting on their desk. I mean, it just adds variety and gratitude into normal conversations. It really helps with kind of getting closer to somebody. And you can find us at goodkind.shop.

But goodkind is a business that we started really from, I came and interviewed. We've talked before talking about Advent blocks, which was the beginning of all of this when Chris and I really started working together. What we found out with Advent Blocks is we kind of reverse engineered what was so successful because so many different families came and were like, I've always tried to do an Advent calendar, some kind of Advent reading, but this one I actually finished. My kids were begging me to do it. We're going to put this link in our show notes because everybody needs to get.

Advent. Oh man. I love it. It's been transformative for us and for so many families.

So, Graticube, we suggest that you put it on your dinner table and then you never have to think ever again about having an intentional conversation with your kids.

So. The idea is you roll it. Let's do it. Go ahead. Dave rolled.

So I guess something about God. Yep. God, thanks for being. You just finished that. All-powerful.

There you go. Yeah. So that was yours. Thanks for being all-powerful.

So it can be as short as that, where the kid rolls it and it lands on food and they're like, I love mac and cheese. And we're like, that's great. Thank God for mac and cheese. And it goes to the next person. Accomplished.

Something accomplished.

So what's something you did recently you're proud of? Uh What is something I did? Wrote a book. Hey, thank God for that. See, and it pivots that from I can pat myself on the back for this thing I did to, you know, what that's something to thank God for because He's the one that did that through you.

And hopefully, He's going to do beautiful things for you. For other people in that. You guys have done this? Do you do this with your kids? Oh, yeah.

How old are your kids? My kids are eleven and seven. Yeah, mine are 11 and 13 in two weeks. Will the 13-year-old still do this? Yeah, absolutely.

The 11-year-old will start set. I think there are some things that when you start them earlier, if you can start them earlier, you can continue to get a little bit more movement as the kids get older as well. Our girls still love Advent Blocks as well. You know, they interact with it differently. But um yeah, we're still we're still doing it.

And it's a great habit. Talk about fun habits at the dinner table. Do you just keep the cubes on the table? Yeah, and it's I mean it's small enough, it's like elegant and pretty that it doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel That all the stuff we make is the goal is to cultivate a spiritual practice or spiritual habit. But what we realized is if it's not beautiful in its own right and something that families want to look at, then it doesn't matter how spiritual they are, they're going to tuck it away.

And so it's got to be appealing to the eye to say, yes, that can live on my table. Right. It's perfect. It's perfect in the setting. See?

We have small groups that use it. Yeah. There are small groups that use it. There are bosses that keep it on their desk, and people come in and they'll just roll it. It really helps open up the conversation to something more than just kind of a little bit of a table.

We can keep it right here at Family Life Today table. Yeah. Just tell them to roll it.

Well, here, here is: I think about spiritual habits. You guys are dads. We're we're Parents and grandparents, every Christian parent I know Wants to do this. Yeah. Build spiritual habits into their home.

Great title. Where do we start? I mean, they're listening, going, okay, I've been trying this, and it hasn't been working. How do I start over? Or where do I?

Maybe it's a young parent just had a baby. How do I where would you help help them start? Yeah, I mean, it might be a cop-out to say our book would be an excellent place for them to start. That'd be a good way. I think so too.

Go to Family Lark Today. Click on the link in the show notes. We have it there. You can buy it. Um but one of the things we say in in the book is There are um basically six six features of what makes a habit stick.

And the first and most important one we mentioned there is to make it easy. All the habit science books say this too. Um, when we, this is my experience. Are you allowed to say this because you're Jesus? Should the habits guy be saying, Yeah, I have also read some habit books.

This gets one. Clayton is a pastor.

Okay, so you both. He's read the Bible. Yeah. He overstates for emphasis. Um In the habit science books, they're always saying, Look, I'll take it out of habit science, my own personal experience with spiritual habits.

If you resonate with this at all, I get to a spot where I'm like, you know what? I really ought to read the Bible more. By every Christian at some point, right? At some point.

So I come up with a plan, and this year I'm going to read the Bible in a year, and I print out the plan, and I do it, whatever. But every time I make the target, It feels like I could do that. That's maybe that's a little ambitious, but it's totally doable. And after two weeks in, something has happened. It's harder to read on the weekends.

My kid has gotten up earlier than I expected, so I didn't have that time in the morning. And now I'm behind on the reading plan. And after a month, I feel like a total failure. And um For a long time, I felt like, well, I guess I just need to gut it out and do a little better. You know, because other people don't seem to be having this problem, they're consistently doing this.

And what we're recommending instead is saying, hey, It would be wonderful for you to read the Bible in a year. That's a great, great thing to do. But if you set that as a target and you fall off after a couple weeks, you beat yourself up, you think you're a failure, and then you stop. That's not good for anybody. If you set the goal, tremendously lower.

you will hit that mark. For a few days, and then you'll experience momentum. You'll be encouraged because you actually did it, and it will keep going.

So I would rather somebody. Spend five minutes a day reading the Bible for an entire year. If they actually carried it through the whole year, than to knuckle down and be like an hour a day, every day, but they burn out after a week, because that's what I've always done. And so that's what we would say: make it easy. If you think the goal you set is easy, Reduce it by half.

It should sound so easy that you're almost embarrassed to share the goal with other people. Like, I don't know, that doesn't sound ambitious at all. Like, it's that level of easiness that we want to aim for. And that'll actually get you started.

So that would be my first piece of advice. And the piece I would add to that was: we have in every chapter. We do something where we celebrate what's working. Right. Because there are a lot of things that people are doing.

Like your question in the very beginning, like 100% of people are disciplining their kids in some way. And so if you look at what already is existing and see how you can take those things and either one, be thankful and give yourself credit for it or add something on to it, you're much more likely in order to continue to do more.

So you have to make it easy, but you also can celebrate what's working. The habit scientists would call that habit stacking.

So if you put scripture memory verses right beside your toothbrush, you're more likely to read that scripture memory verse and get into a habit of reading it over and over again.

So you commit it to memory, as opposed to if you put it on your nightstand, which might be a good idea, but by the time you get to your nightstand, what are you doing? You're trying to lay down. But you're much more likely to spend the time while you're standing there brushing your teeth. Of course, you know, Dave, if you have a rhythm of brushing your teeth, I don't know if that's called him out. What do you think?

That's good to me. You tell me. Yeah. So the habit stacking and the celebrating one is working, you know, attending worship is a spiritual habit. Right.

Right. So you have to, in some ways, you have to give yourself credit for that. Maybe be a little bit more consistent in it. But, like, that once you start saying, I am doing this, and you're building confidence, you're building momentum, that's when you actually can begin to add more things in. It was, I was reading, I think, a book by Justin Whitmel Early on.

He's written some fantastic stuff on spiritual disciplines. But in one of his books, he had a moment like this where he paused and said, Hey, you know, it's possible you're already doing some of this stuff and you don't need to find problems to solve, but just recognize things that are already working. We were writing this book, and I thought, oh my God, we need to call that out because we read so many books like this, and it's. I struggled for a long time and didn't understand it, but now I found the key, and you're probably stuck and broken too. But I can fix it.

And it's like, you know what, maybe people actually needed just a little bit of encouragement to say, hey, you know what? I know you feel like a failure, and great, there's some things to fix, but Something is already working. Like, build on that. Don't start from the posture of complete failure because that's just not an honest. Place to be.

Yeah, a very practical example of that would be the number of families that we were speaking of earlier, families of faith that would have a a normal Sabbath practice is gonna be pretty small. I don't know, we'd have to do a poll in order to see how if they are thinking they're accomplishing it. The number of families of faith that have a regular weekend meal that is in some ways celebratory in order to kick off not being the work week. is much much higher. It doesn't mean that just because we have pizza on Friday nights, that I'm doing Sabbath.

That's not what I'm suggesting. But I'm saying when you have pizza on Friday nights, or if you have it on Saturday night, that then becomes a launching pad for something that does then teach your kids something spiritual and train that up in them. I like that because it's simple. You're already probably having a meal together one day a week.

So just add. on top of that, just a little spiritual component. We meet a ton of couples who say Family Life helped them when they needed it the most. And that's what being a Family Life partner is all about: helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here. And we'd love for you to join us.

So click the donate button at familylifetoday.com and become a partner today. Do it. I don't know, that might have been a really good one. That might have been a one-taker. I really like even your five roots for your spiritual habits.

I'm like, man. That is just good to know. You're so simple. Simple. Like, talk about those.

You remember that? I mean, you guys are deep, but you're simple. That's right. You can wade into where your deepness is. Does that make sense?

That was deep right there. I like that a lot. But I mean, just your first one: God starts. Yeah. Walk us through those.

Those are really good. And I feel like it's catechism in a way. It is. And it was the last piece that we came to because we started with all the practical.

Okay, what do you change? What are the things that people need to do differently? And along the way, Clayton, you suggested to me, like, should we tell people where this is coming from? Like, A biblical foundation for it? Yeah, we have some assumptions about God.

That inform how we think about spiritual habits. Yeah, but they were really, they were in the background. And so we just brought them to the foreground. And it's funny because I've been to seminary twice. I've done a lot of the seminary.

Of course, you're Jesus. Twice. Thank you. I grow more and more uncomfortable with this comparison as the interview progresses. We're done.

We're done. No, you can keep laying on. Give you something to repent for later. And.

So I've been to seminary, but I never had somebody attach. Theological truths to spiritual disciplines in a helpful way. And so we wanted to do that for people to say, like, look, you could say that God is all-powerful and omniscient and whatever, list out the attributes. What does that actually do for me when I'm struggling to pray consistently? It felt like a disconnect.

So we came up with five. And we call them roots because they are where all of this comes from. If you want to grow. Uh, the spiritual life, these this is how you need to root yourself in scripture.

So, you mentioned one, Dave. God starts. I'll list all five and then we can. You know, meander in all of them as you want. God starts.

Number two, God wants to be with you. This is the goal of any spiritual habit: intimacy. Number three, God is real, but we can't see Him. It's very important. Number four, God prefers to work slowly.

He can go quickly, but his usual mode is slowly. And then God is gracious. And every Christian is going to hear those and say, well, yeah, that's true. I already know that. But I don't think we generally take those and apply them.

actually apply them to spiritual practice. Like God starts, for instance, because our spiritual habits generally start from a place of. I'm not praying enough. I need to pray more. In our heads we think I'm initiating something.

Um But that's not the case because God has already said something. Eugene Peterson said this in his fantastic book, Answering God, it's a book on prayer. All prayer is just a response to the God who's spoken first, He's given us His word. It is our responsibility to respond to him. And it takes away so much pressure for prayer because I don't have to drum this up.

I don't have to initiate anything. I'm responding to a God who's spoken first. And then the more you look into it, you see, oh, this isn't just prayer. This is anything we're doing for God and with God. begins with him Oh, suddenly I can breathe.

I'm like, I That's possible in a way that me initiating just is absolutely not.

So, and Chris in the book talks about goes through scripture, and many of us could do the same where you see all these different characters, and the things that they did for God is what we remember. And you go back and you read the story, and God started. Like, God called, God, you know, Jesus called his disciples. They didn't come up to him knocking on the door saying, Hey, can you tell me? Right.

He is inviting them. And that's the consistency of that God's character that he starts things in us is beautiful and it's freeing. And the analogy that I like to give is: we've all had the experience of hosting a party and then coming to a party, right? When you host a party, there's a little bit of attention at the beginning. You're there by yourself.

Is anyone going to come? Is it going to be fun? Are they going to have a good time? Right. And then they're showing up to the party fashionably late where you show up and everything's already happening.

And it is just, it's free. It's exciting because you come in and you join people, and the excitement, and the music, and the foods are already there. That's the shift that we need to make in our spiritual habits. And these five roots help us make, especially that first one, God starts, is when we're approaching a new spiritual habit. We don't need to come in with a pressure-filled situation, which I bet most of us feel like many times.

We come in knowing that God has already started and invited us. And actually, if you think about the last root, like God is gracious, is also that God's going to finish the work in us as well. And so we're entering into a system where it's just gamed for us to win. What we just have to do is just make sure we're consistently engaged. Just this week though.

Talk to this person because just this week we had a lady reach out and she said, I feel everybody says God's with me, God's near me, God's here. I feel nothing, I hear nothing, I see nothing. I don't feel like he even loves me. Wow. I love him, but I feel nothing.

So, what would you say to those people or your kids that are like, you guys all talk about Jesus is with me, God's with me, I feel nothing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's that third root, I think, is gets closest to that idea that God is real, but we can't see him. And I don't think we give enough credence to people that it is super odd. In prayer, for instance, to talk to somebody who's not in the room who you're not going to get an audible response back from.

We just take it for granted that people will do this and roll with it. And it's strange. You know, God is invisible. And so to talk to an invisible person who doesn't talk back. Strikes most people as crazy.

Right. And even for those of us who believe it, it's like just tremendously awkward. And so I would say at the very least, you gotta give yourself a lot of grace and remember that Most believers throughout history have had moments where they felt like that. Yeah. I don't feel God's presence and his daily movement in my life.

I'm unsure if this is real. That is not It doesn't mean, oh, well, I guess the stuff's not real and you're not really believing hard enough. Like, no, every believer is there at some point. Yeah, and that so that absolutely. You got to give yourself grace and remember that route.

And then, also, in one of the steps, it's find your friends. You know, discipleship's not meant to be an individual game. And so I would encourage that person to attach themselves to a church and to some people who have been experiencing walking with God for a longer period of time, because then they can actually follow them in that. And that will help coach them, help them show them where God is actually moving and speaking and. Participating, leading in that person's life.

How important do you think it is to find friends? And this would be true for a family as well, that do what Chris just did. that are that honest, to say I feel That's what Ann just said, I feel the same thing. I feel like I'm alone. God's not here.

I know He is, but I. 'Cause so often in the church nobody ever says that. It's two-thirds of the Psalms are lament. And they're saying, where are you and how long? And nobody in church will ever say anything like that, even though they feel it all week.

And again, you don't live there, but to be able to say, this person's felt what I feel right now. Yeah. How did you walk through that? I mean, how important are those friends people that you can be that honest with? You really can't overstate how important that is.

Because there's the experience of. doubt, or suffering, or pain, or whatever. And then there's the loneliness on top of that. And I think most of us could weather. the doubts and the suffering, If it wasn't for the loneliness that jumped on board that says, and you know what?

No one else gets it. Yeah. And you're by yourself in this. And so just vocalizing it with somebody else just takes so much of the sting out of those doubts and out of that suffering.

Sometimes other people will say, I've been there. Other times they'll say, you know, offer a word of correction, like, I actually don't think you're seeing this situation clearly enough, but that's the beautiful thing about the the friendship, you don't know what the other person is going to bring. But Clayton, or I said to you. It happened in the course of our friendship anyway. One of us said to one of us.

When I'm trying, have you ever heard the phrase with preaching the gospel to yourself? Yeah. which I think is a beautiful and important thing. I can talk myself out of the spirit of God in my own life if I'm just, if it's self-talk. Because I talk to myself all the time and I can convince myself one way or another.

But the times in my life where I've really felt like, you know what, the Spirit of God has spoken to me have been through the voice of other people. Because it's harder for me to say, oh, that person is just deceived. And something about it when. When God uses somebody else to speak in your life, I more naturally hear the Spirit of God in the voice of another than I do in my own head.

So, friendship is tremendously valuable for that. Mm.

Well what about I mean, you know, the other one, God prefers to work slowly. We don't like that. No. Yeah. You know what?

A lot of our struggle is it is slow and it's not moving. I'm even thinking a couple's listening right now and their marriage is not where they want to be. And God's working, but it's really slow and maybe years slow, and they're like. I'm I'm not I'm not hanging in. I'm out.

Because he's not, she's not. You know what I'm saying? It's like data's working slowly. Help us understand that concept of God working slowly. I really like to pair the root four and root five five together.

Um So, God prefers to work slowly, and God is gracious. You know, God starts a work in us, but he's also going to finish it.

So, if you think about God's gracious, His His graciousness means that even when we fail, He's still going to love us. It's the only religion that I know of, that we know of, that is that when you fail, God still accepts you. And that's actually the entry fee: being able to receive that forgiveness.

So, my grandmother's favorite verse was Philippians 1:6. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. When? On the day of Christ Jesus.

So the slowly piece means. you might experience a burst here and there, a breakthrough. Right? But we know that you're not going to be done. Until then.

And so that by like, if you just kind of lay that out, lay the math of that out, that means that it is going to take time. And you will experience seasons where it doesn't feel like there's a lot changing in your life. And you'll experience seasons where a lot is changing in your life. But the consistency of engaging with the God who has promised to do that work in you is actually what we, that's our responsibility is engaging with a God who is going to, while though sometimes it feels slowly, is going to graciously actually finish the work in us. I think you have to think about those together.

I just saw. On social media last week, I took a picture of it because it says David waited 12 years, Abraham waited 25 years, Joseph waited 13 years, Noah waited 120 years. That's these are like pillars of the faith. We're thinking we read The Bible, and it seems to have appeared like, oh, that happened fast. It took a long time.

I don't like that. I don't like waiting. It's hard. And yet, God shapes us if we tuck in under Him. But man, I think these conversations are.

conversations to have with our kids, all of that. God is invisible. And even to say, like, isn't that frustrating? Right. Isn't it hard sometimes?

But I love the gracious part too. Which reminds me of your cube, you know, of talking about the things that are good and reminders of that. Oh, you're going to do it again. He can't stop. It's your turn.

I did mine. You did? Made you smile. She did something complicated. What made you smile?

These guys. These guys? You're supposed to say your husband. Yeah, that's what it is. You always make me smile.

But I think Chris and Clayton, you guys came in with so much joy. We laughed so hard before that, before we even started our podcast. We got Chris Papari. That did make me smile. Here's what I want to know: you guys are dads.

Forget, you know, the riffraff. You guys are dead. Forget the riffraff. How does this riff like? I think that he was.

He didn't mean it. That's what you're getting for that thing. He made you slap. I know. He made you slap.

No, I'm the riffraff. My stupid song. Anyway, that was great. Let's do another Greg. Yeah, let's get it just roll the die.

Forget what I said. Yeah. What's this one?

Something you own, I think.

Something special to you. Yeah, what's the thing you have?

Okay, great. Here we go. Here we go. Oh, we did it. You are so special.

I thought I also like guitars. Oh gosh. You're up there. I mean, this is, I think, a lot of our listeners and viewers would be saying, okay, I'm a Christian home. I've got kids.

You are a Christian home of kids. How are you guys living this out? Give us some. Yeah, what's it look like in your home to have spiritual habits with your Your kids. How old are they?

Yeah, so they range Clayton's oldest is 13. All right. He's got 13, 11, minor, 11 and 7. And we've been trying to tinker with this since they were born. Right, right.

One of the funny things, you know, Ann, you mentioned feeling like you're always a failure. I think part of that is because parenting shifts so rapidly that as soon as you get your feet under you, the kids are in a new stage and you're like, well, I don't know how to do this. I knew that stage, but I don't know this stage. You're right. And so every every stage brings a different Like a different idea of, okay, here's what it's going to look like for us to do.

Here's a thought, you know. Ask your parents. They probably know. Oh. You know what I'm saying?

Our kids never ask us. We wrote a book on Paris. I don't know. They don't think we know anything. They just figure it out.

But anyway, keep going. I'll ask my mom this way. That was for you guys. Anyway. Who never probably listened to our show either.

From a true family. One thing, I mean... One thing we do often, we talk about this in the book, is being really open-handed about the habit that you've got, trying it out. And if it fails, to just say, well, that didn't work and move on to another one. Don't over-moralize it.

Just say, well, that didn't work. Let's try again.

Now, wait, are you guys wired that way? Because I know some parents would be like. I'm going to make this habit work. It didn't work. It's going to work.

I'm not wired that way. You're saying, hey, I'm going to get a stuff all the time. I don't know that way. I don't think that's the things that you force your kids to do, I don't think that they take with them. I think they often walk away for those things.

I usually blame Dave for it. Yeah. Because if she would have done it better, they would have liked it. She's not kidding.

So there are some things that you do want to hard code in. Yeah. Right. And I think that you can put some spiritual things that are hard coded in. Attending worship every weekend, praying happens whether or not you can do some things like that, but when you're giving it to them, it's almost like they need to make it their own.

In order to actually be able to take it with them after you're there to continually make them want to do it, which is why we talk about it being a habit, is because a habit is something that you take with you and you continue to do. And so I think that by thinking about it that way and making sure that you are Actually, you're trying to graft it in. You're not trying to add it to the side as something that they can take away. You want to actually make it a part of what they're doing.

So, are you trying to know the actual habits? We're being cagey right now. They're like, What are you actually doing? Right? I mean, are you saying you don't?

Take your kid to church? Yeah, what are the non-negotiables? You don't say you're going to the youth group. I don't care what you think. Friday nights at what you're going, I'm taking you, I'm dropping you off, you're going.

Yeah, right now my daughter loves Youth Group, so we haven't, I don't know, I haven't crossed the impasse of her saying, I don't want to do this. Let's go. We can worship as something we do as a family. And that is just, it's like many of the other things we do in our lives, that it's not a question of. How much you enjoy it or not.

This is something that matters to all of us. This is why we do this. We use a similar language for like. Loving each other and forgiving each other in the home. Like, no, you need to apologize to your brother because when you hurt one another, this is what needs to happen.

So, Um Weekend worship, I think, would go in that category. I mean, we miss, we'll travel or something comes up, right? But my kids frequently will say, Oh, I just don't want to go and I I'll empathize with that. Like, I get it. I you know, it's nice to sleep in and it's a lot to drive out there, but it matters for these reasons and I tell them that we're Worshiping within the community of other people, and we're hearing the word of God taught, and all these are the reasons it matters.

But at basel it it generally comes back to This is a rhythm for us. This is valuable to all of us. Therefore, we are doing it.

Sometimes it's not our favorite thing, but it's just still an important thing. A lot of pastors will say the most important thing. That I can give to my congregation is a personal walk with God or my personal holiness, depending on, you know, whichever way they wanted to phrase that. I think that. The parent walking with God.

is the most important habit for the kid. Even though I agree, like, you know, you, there are, there's the assumption in what I'm saying is that there is some consistency of spiritual things that are happening in the home, most notably being Sunday worship and some as some regular aspect of like Bible intake and prayer in the home. But like kids seeing the Bible in a place that is either actively being read or has has been read, kids seeing the books that other additional books that you are reading, praying with them at scheduled times and in and not scheduled times. I think the parent leading out in that ends up being the most important. And not to completely circle it back around to only available Advent blocks, but.

You know, when you think about Um your childhood. When I think about my childhood. The things that I remember the most are the things that I did the most often. It's true. And when I look back at my childhood, It there are a lot of things I'm sure I did every single day.

But it's actually the seasonal rhythms that we had that I are actually most, whether it's because of the joy of the experience, the uniqueness of the experience, it's the consistent things that we did tied to major holidays that actually I have like the most fond memories of. And I'm actually trying to recreate some of those memories in my home.

So I think that though there is a daily walk with God that is important, I mean, my response to that of like that would be like the lowest hanging fruit of somebody is like go to weekly to worship. But then also do something around Easter, do something around Christmas. that is actually instilling that these are not secular holidays. These are Christian. holidays.

And I think by anchoring that, you know then That your children are going to experience Christmas and Easter for the rest of their life. And so, what you gave them tied to those things is going to have an impact as well. It's true. Like I I watched our one of our sons go through the resurrection eggs at Easter. On Easter morning, and he went through all of them.

He had talked about them. This his kids were little, and they were locked in. Yeah, and they do it every single year. And you know, they'll remember it, and they'll want to do it too. Here's one on the more the daily side, Dave.

I feel essentially you wanna just tell us what to do, right? Just well, I'm thinking a lot of parents are thinking that. I mean, that's what I want. Do I do like a weekly family devotion outside of going to church together?

So we when my kids were little, And we would do like bedtime stories. We would do. A story Bible every night as part of the bedtime routine. And I think that's a really relatively easy way for families with young kids to start. Get the Jesus Storybook Bible or We like the big picture story Bible.

I mean, there's a lot of good ones. Get one of those you like. Sit with your kid in the bed and then read one story each night. And they will get a big picture understanding for how the Bible works. I think that's good.

Our kids have aged out of that, so we're not in that phase anymore. One thing we've done recently is we came up with a seven-question catechism. I call it the cardachism because we do it on the way to drop offs for school. We're in the car. It's a straight catechism.

And it's just me thinking, what do I want my kids to know in their bones? Like About their identity and about how God is sending them out into the world. It's not comprehensive. Like a real catechism, but it's just like, What do I want them reflexively to know?

So it's just seven questions and answers. It's so, who are you? And they say, I'm Lottie. God's creation and God's child. Uh who loves you?

My mom and dad, but most of all God. Can anyone take that love away from you? No, God's love is forever. The fourth question is, what will you do today? Walk with God and serve others.

Number five is, can you do that on your own? And the answer is no, I need others and they need me. Number six is how you do your work today. I'll do my best, I'll do what's right, and I'll be kind to others. And then, number seven, What will you do at the end of the day?

I will rest and trust in God. remarkably simple. It took a little time. In my family, to figure out how do I want to phrase each of these specifically. But we do this so often that the kids very quickly memorized it.

Because I want them to know that. Their identity is being a beloved child of God. that if they love others and do their best Then that's a success no matter what else happened during the day. And at the end of the day, they can leave it all with God and lay down and trust Him because He's taking care of things. It's simple, but.

If they could actually have this as like their operating system in the world. I think they would just be so freeing. Guys, you need to do this for the cars. We're trying to figure out how to make it. Come on, man.

You need to have that something on your visor that, as a parent, you need a cardicobe. Carter cube. Carter cube. Yeah, just throw the cube right out in the car. Trust me, we've tried to come up with some tangible way to get it in the car.

We haven't gotten it yet. Let's do that. I'm guessing people are pausing the podcast, rewinding, and going back through those six questions. Seven? Seven questions.

Seven questions. Mm-hmm. Seriously, you need that on And we are working on. Help us get there, Dave. Go to a shark tank and get this baby funded.

Here's what I love about it. You know, we do it every morning, and they're like, we know the questions, so they blast through it really quickly. But because the questions are so ingrained for them now, we've been doing it probably two years, me with my kids. I will bring them up at other times when something happens and I want to reinforce something that's gone on. And so my daughter will have a tough day at school that she didn't do as well.

On an assignment, or she went to her running practice, and it, you know, it was discouraging. And I say, well, How how did you do your work today? And she'd say, Well, I did my best. I did what's right and I was kind to others. And I'll say, That's what matters.

Yeah. This other stuff doesn't matter. That's that's what I want to see in you. That's what God wants to see in you. And if you can do that, then you can hold your chin up because you did a good thing.

And it, you know, it's not always like she gives me a great hug. She's like, oh, dad, your discipleship is beautiful. But I'm glad to have kind of little hooks. to anchor these moments on uh rather than just kind of you know making up as I go. It's really good.

All right, Clayton, what do you got? Chris got that. Jesus over here. Chris took that from me. I have my own seven questions.

He made his better. I think making it your own is really important with that so that you can actually reflexively bring it back up. The same thing will happen with our family. We have our questions that we ask on the way to. to school.

I even let the girls, like whenever they'll sometimes try to add something to their answer and we'll talk about whether or not that's true. And these you have to be able to truly engage with them. The thing that I would add would be, so my girls are a little bit older than Chris's. And I wonder as your kids became teenagers, if some of this ended up being true as well. They definitely are developing more and more of their own personality.

So they definitely fit in our family and they do some things because they're in our family. And I know it's whether because we require them to do it or because they naturally learned it from us. There are some things that are very consistent in what we have given them. But as they get older and their personalities become a little bit more clear, They become a little bit different from each other. We actually have begun to encourage them in their spiritual, their own personal spiritual rhythms in different ways.

So, my daughter, Kara. Is a reader. Like she will read, like, just, she'll wake up on Saturday at seven. The rest of us are still trying to sleep a little bit more. She'll read for like 45 minutes to an hour and a half without getting out of her bed, right?

So when I give her books to read, I like that is me. I am, it's like, that's me feeding her, right?

So if I, if I'm like, hey, you should read this book, then I know that's all I had to do. Yeah. And she's just going to read it because it's a habit that is very natural to her. My daughter Susan, she does a good job of reading as well. Like she can, but she just doesn't read in exactly the same way.

She reads kind of as an experience and she'll, she'll go in bursts. But what she does love is singing and dancing. And so, if I can find worship music as close as I can, I try to find worship music that is like mirroring scripture. I mean, there's a lot of worship music that doesn't precisely mirror scripture, but is telling the story still. But that is how I am getting to her heart: anytime we're in the car, hey, do you want to play a song?

Here you go, boom. And so, that's a little bit of. As they're getting older, I'm trying to learn who they are and actually feed it. But we still ask the seven questions every morning. But I love that.

I love because that was really a student of your kids. It was important to say that true for y'all. Yeah, it's raise up a child in the way he should go. And when he's old, he won't depart from it. But it's according to their bent, according to who God wired them to be.

And our kids were so different in how they related to God. I think to be parents and to be watching that of what really fills them and feeds them. I think that's really important. Because what we can do is whatever works for us, we try to shove down our kids' throat. And you're right.

It may not be the thing that they just connect with. It's not how God is wired to them necessarily. I mean, what have you found as a parent of teenagers? Is there. Ben a difference.

Yeah, have you sensed it? I mean, you've got a 13-year-old. She's almost 13. She's almost 13. She's almost 13 in a year.

It's two years from now. But by the time of airing, she'll be 13.

So it's fair to her.

So, I have a little bit of a unique situation. My 11-year-old sometimes presents a little older than my 13-year-old. My daughter, Kara, has a rare genetic disorder where she has poor vision and poor hearing.

So, my response to that question is: I actually have a unique opportunity to watch somebody who is being influenced by peer pressure and someone who is not.

So my daughter has po um poor vision and poor hearing. She she does not bring home from school. um the way that people are behaving And so we've actually been able to avoid some of the eye-rolling and know-it-all-ness because she has never observed anybody else doing that. Wait, what's eye-rolling and know-it-all-shoes? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Susan brings home. These behaviors from peers, how she's interacting with peers, how she sees some teachers interacting, right?

So, understanding like the, I am very aware of how much the external influences get into your kids, even when you're not paying attention to it. And I wouldn't have noticed that without Kara's differences.

So, you tell us about teenagers, right? What do I need to be prepared for?

Well, I mean, we only had boys. I think the thing that we've realized. I think I mean This isn't necessarily a part of your book, but I think we realize that you guys have probably heard too that really the first 12 years, you're their main influence, but as teenagers. the outer world and their peers become more of an influence.

So we kind of started asking a lot of questions. Oh, interesting.

So instead of just hearing, they already know your seven principles. They've the catechism, now that's in their mind, now you're asking questions what they think about it. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like you're getting to their heart of what do you think about that and not freaking out if it's not the same as yours because you're seeing them evolve in who God's making them to be and what their thoughts are.

I think it's the most fun part of discovering. Yeah, but and it very much is exactly what our book is because exactly what our book is trying to do.

So the six steps, you got to make easy. You got to make it easy. Yeah. You got to make it tangible. You got to pick a place.

You got to find your friends. You got to choose your timing.

So, you think about all these different things. Hey, you forgot one. I was five. Did I name five? Make it playful.

Make it playful. Come on. We're going to talk about that in a minute. The example for this would be. Choose your timing.

There is a time when your child is much more willing to have a longer conversation with you. Then, and there are some times when they're not, right?

So for. for the better or worse, and then sometimes it feels like worse. My girls at bedtime want to ask the deepest questions. Yes, the older they get, the later it gets. Yeah, okay.

Well, you're seeing to do something to prepare for that. But so choose your time, he would say.

Okay, I'm shifting into a season. When you become aware of it, where you heard a sermon, you read a book, you were listening to a podcast, and you're like, okay, I need to shift more into questions. The first thing you need to do is not just go start asking questions. You need to go see, can I remind myself to do this with something tangible? When do I want to remind myself to do that?

Right. And then you put cues into your environment in order to make yourself do something that you have not naturally been doing for 12 years now. is actually start asking questions rather than teaching. And then make it easy would be. Don't go in every single night.

Oh gosh, this has to be true. Please nod your head whenever I say this. Don't go in every night expecting that you're going to have a conversation to the depth that you want to. You go in every night being like, hey, what's up? You know, what happened today?

Nothing.

Okay, great, cool. I mean, there's some times you want to push in, but the consistency of asking questions will then, once a week, once a month, whatever cadence you end up getting, depending on how talkative your child is, you'll actually then get into the deeper conversation that you're available to. What the book is trying to say is. Create a very small expectation for yourself. I'm going to ask some kind of question today at bedtime.

And that's it. And then, if you get the response, then it's beautiful, and you kind of take it wherever it's going to go. But by picking the timing, By making it easy, it is You want to add the friends one into it. If you have another friend that has teenagers as well, say, I'm going to do this as well. Will you do it with me?

That's a good idea. If the second person is doing it as well, it greatly increases the likelihood that you're actually going to be consistent.

So that's what each one of the small steps is trying to do. Environment would be, I'm going to cover all of them now. The environment would be, the environment would be: is the bedroom the place? Right. Or is the dinner table the place?

Or the car the place? Or the car the place.

So, you take all of those things and you put them together, and you can kind of say, All right, here's, and then it's not going to work. And you have to change something.

Okay, it's all worked except the environment was not exactly right, you know, or this all worked, but I needed to tweak the timing to before they go in the room rather than after they go in the room. And so, hopefully, it's a playbook for how you can identify something needs to change in our spiritual rhythms. How am I going to go do that? Here's a playbook for how you can script something for yourself. I mean, you know this, but everything you just said applies to marriage as well.

Oh yeah. Yeah, you're right. Cause this girl right here Every date wants to go deep. Yeah. You know, and talk about.

Intimate things about her life. I don't think I'm like that anymore. No, I mean, she would. I already figured it out. Yeah, that is true.

But she would like to go a lot deeper than I would at times. And there are times where I'm ready to go there. And there are other times it's just not the right environment at the right time or whatever, and I'm not. And for years, it would really frustrate her. Like, she'd be like, come on, we got, let's go.

And I'm like, it's because our kids were little, and we didn't have time to talk. And I'm like, talk to me. And I should have realized that you're not going to do that every time. Because you just said that, and even looking at your six small steps, I'm thinking married couples could take the exact same strategy. It'll work for any habit.

We're directing it towards spiritual ones. But we're in, my wife and I are in a season.

Well, gosh, again, just want to learn everything that you guys experienced during as your kids got to the point that they even wanted to stay up later than you do. Like our girls, it's like. It's like nine o'clock, and I'm like, can y'all go to your bedroom, please? I'm trying to hang out with your mom. Like, what's it?

Can y'all leave us alone? I do.

So, what we're having to do is actually.

So, my wife works from home. I get home. She works a little bit later because her job is in Central. And so, she works a little bit later and she comes out and she's like, Does anybody want to go on a walk? And I'm like, Me?

Because this is the only opportunity we're going to have to talk about. Alone time.

So, but you're exactly right.

So, our timing of those intentional conversations. It has ended up shifting. And so that's why you have to, you answer the six steps, but you have to always be willing to make small tweaks. You don't throw everything out if it's worked before.

Sometimes you just have to make one small little adjustment and you can continue to be consistent with whatever habit you're trying to develop. And I think what you said earlier, Chris, you said seasons are always shifting. And so the habits are always shifting. Exactly. And I think that's really important because.

As parents, especially as a mom, I can grieve seasons because I just got really good at that season of them being elementary school kids. Like, this, I have this. I am so good at it. And then they're in middle school, like, I don't even know who you are. Who are you right now?

And so you have to learn and create different rhythms, different habits, or tweak your habits in a way that relates to them. I think that's really wise. Yeah. And if we don't do that, then we go one of two ways. You keep plowing ahead with the habit you had before when it's no longer age-appropriate and everyone's frustrated.

Or you just bail on it altogether. Yeah. So Uh, reading the Bible to them matters, and when they're older. They don't need the Bible anymore. Like, no, the Bible still matters, but you got to be really creative to say, all right.

The story Bible worked when he was five.

Now he's 15. It's clearly not that. What is it now? And asking the question is easier than coming up with the answer, but always asking what does it look like to have a Bible rhythm, a prayer rhythm, a Sabbath rhythm with our kids at this stage, knowing the answer is going to be different year to year and just deal with the dynamism, you know. And don't be discouraged if your kids are like, No, this is so boring or this is so dumb.

Our kids never said that. We're talking about other sympathetic things I've heard in counseling before. But as a parent, you don't necessarily need to get your feelings hurt. You're thinking, oh, I need to shift what we're doing. And listen to them.

I think it's good to listen to them. You guys said it earlier, but I think it's so important that. They're seeing it modeled. Absolutely.

You and your wife. I mean, it's and again, they sniff out. If it's not authentic. Oh, yeah. It's just like you're doing this because you're supposed to.

If dad isn't walking with God, they know.

Well this is not an overflow. You're just doing a habit. It's got to be, it's got to come out of your personal walk with God. Advent blocks started. With Clayton's Older daughter Kara identifying this lack of congruence between what they were saying they believed and what was actually going on.

Yeah, so Carol was five years old and she said, Mommy and Daddy, you say that Christmas is all about Jesus, but it feels like Christmas is all about presents.

So you have to do that. I've said that to my wife. I definitely know. I've said that to Ann. How many presents do we have under the sticker?

But when I read that, I thought, oh my gosh, Clayton, I think every kid would say that almost.

So when she said that, what did you think? Oh, what that we were doing something wrong. And so we had to change something. And so the next year we ended up creating something. But the same thing with it, you say that the weekends are all about rest, but you still check your email.

Right. You say that weekends are all about rest, but I get more tired on Saturdays than I do any other like so. Like our kids could point out those that lack of congruence in a ton of different ways. You say that social media is bad and I can't get a phone and yet you're the one glued to the phone all the time. Dad.

You're right, Dave. They will sniff out the lack of consistency. Call you on it. Call you on it. And it's.

It's terrible, you guys. They're driving now, like, I thought we were supposed to obey the law. And you're going like f. 30 miles over the speed limit. What are you doing?

Yeah. 30 miles over the 30. 30. I know go 30. Maybe five.

I was talking about myself. Oh, okay. You do go 30.

Well, she has a blind spot there, guys. She thinks she's just driving on and get, you're going 82 right now. And you think I drive fast okay, that's a whole nother conversation. But even our five and six-year-old grandkids are watching that.

So, what do you say to the parent that's like. Right now they're listening and they're going, I'm not. I'm not living it. Hmm.

Well, I mean, that would that would be the place to start. Yeah, don't, you know, it's a good thing when you have kids. A lot of people do this. They have kids and they're like, I should probably go back to church. Yeah, I should be serious about this again.

And if that's where you are, then all right, follow that trend. But the more important than like figuring out how to do this for your kids is to answer that question for yourself. Yes. If your kid has identified that you don't actually live in a way that seems to be the life of following Jesus. First of all, accept the fact that they hurt your feelings.

Cry about it a little if you need to, right? Spend your moment. But then say, all right, do I actually believe this? If I did, what would I want to be different about my life? And start with that.

Take it one step at a time. You get to the spot of saying, Well, now, how do I transmit this to my children? But the more important thing, like Clayton has mentioned, is Build your own robust life of faith. And then you could try to invite your children into that. You can't invite your children into something if it's not there.

So, like, work on that first. You look like you had a thought. He's thinking something. There's a deep breath, and then nothing happened. I hope it's deep what comes out.

Let's see.

Okay. No, I've completely lost what I was gonna say. If you like Lardo, look at that! Get a stick!

Somebody rolled the gratitude. I think I might be midnight. It's not a great song, by the way, guys. I thought that was the plan. Didn't we talk about that on Friday?

Any lulz? You rolled it on. We did. But then we said, but you never have lulz. We did.

We never have lulz. We don't have lols. Clayton has to answer it. I thought Clayton needed to sneeze. You could have totally just like.

Yeah, like you were gonna. You're gonna roll it? You want me to roll it? Or did you remember your thing? I don't even remember what the question was.

There wasn't a question.

Something Yeah. I don't I don't like that one.

Someone helped.

So I helped somebody or somebody helped me. Um God, this is o always one of the harder ones. Let's see.

Is that because you haven't helped anybody? I need to help more people. Wow, that was awesome.

Okay, this is small and ridiculous. Yesterday on the flight, the woman in front of us was struggling to turn off the um The like call sign for the call button for the flight attendant. And was pressing all these buttons, and I just looked for her. I was like, Is this one right here? And she pressed it, and the button went off.

This is about the smallest thing in the world I could have done to help another human being, but it happened. That makes me so happy because I'm so short I can never reach it when I'm sitting in my chair. Oh, immediately it was a confusing system. It was, but we got there. You remember.

Oh, Clayton. There it is. I don't know. Is this Oh. Is what Chris was saying.

Yes. But I also just for the person who is listening that feels that pressure. Hmm.

Our faith is not about being perfect. Oh, that's good. It's not. And as much as like It is about striving to follow. Yeah.

Pursuing joy in a relationship with God. And living the way that he's designed us to live. It is completely about that. But it is not about doing that perfectly. One person did that perfectly.

Because for the person who is thinking, I am like, I'm off. My kids are watching me. I'm so incongruent for what I need to be doing for them. That's an incredibly great place to be because you're just demonstrating grace in front of them. You just have to be willing to accept the grace that God has given you in front of them.

And there's no better thing for your kid than seeing you give them grace. receive grace from God because that's what we're trying to know more. Is we're trying to know the God that wants to know us and who is gracious. And so, by, if you're in a spot which we all have been, Where you're not doing what you need, like what you need to do in order to show your kids the way. In some ways, you're doing precisely what you need to do as long as you don't stop there.

You have to then actually show them how to receive that. How do you own that with your kids? Do you admit it to them? Absolutely.

Oh, yeah. Apologize. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Um I I think I mean generationally, um I think that we probably do that more. I'm speaking of myself and Kristen. We probably do that more than our parents did it, or maybe we just don't remember it.

So you're saying you do that more than we do? I was gonna ask you when you're kidding unless you were exceptional. You grew into. Yeah, I mean, I um we definitely talk about it on a on a regular basis. Um And there's a dance between kind of being a vulnerable, imperfect human and kind of retaining the leadership that you have in your home.

Andy Krauss wrote an amazing book called Strong and Weak, where he talks about leadership vulnerability and how we're strong and weak in front of the people that we're leading. You could take that leadership vulnerability chapter and just apply it to parenting, just carte blanche. But I do think there's something about a parent or parents sitting down with kids at dinner or whatever to say, guys. My walk with God matters so much to me, but I feel like I'm not consistent all the time. And I would love, I think the greatest gift, I could see myself saying this, I think the greatest gift I could give to you guys.

Is knowing who Jesus is and how much he loves you, and who he is, and who you are in him, kind of like what you're saying. And I would love. To start doing this in a way that's not weird or condemning. but like we just bring this into our family. and build some habits.

You know, and I also think to pick up your book if you're married to go through it as a couple and to highlight it and say this could work for us, these things are things we could try, but to start, as you said, small. Really small, maybe just something you're adding once a week. But I also really like to, I think. This is kind of our personalities. Your chapter seven make it playful.

Yeah. I think joy makes everything better. As a family. Like, don't be the parents, like, here's what, let me get out my big Bible, and, but just to have fun, to be yourself and. For us, that was really important just to create memories, even in habits around these things.

That's why. The I feel like what you guys have created with your cube, with your advent blocks, they're really fun memories. And it's fun to do. They'll remember it with good feelings. You guys make it playful?

Yeah, I mean, we try. The writing and all the stuff that I do is intentionally playful because I'm thinking, well, how am I going to keep a five-year-old's attention for three minutes? It's a very hard thing to do. But even as we're doing other things when it comes to spiritual habits, like I think. Kids, sometimes they'll say it's boring and they just need to buckle up and pay attention a little longer, but other times it's like, you know what?

We are making this more boring than it has to be. Yeah. You know, and they'll have, they'll have like crazy questions about the Bible that I'm like, you know, let's go there. Let's go there. My son asked me what color God was.

Like what a good question. I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, well, is he green? I was like, well. I don't think he's green, but I this is a new question for me.

But you know but I I rolled with it 'cause it's the sort of thing like i if if I'm not taking him seriously with these like with the questions he's asking, then he'll eventually be like, Oh, my dad doesn't want to engage with me on these things. But The Bible is, it's very important. At times it is very serious, but it is full of surprising and sometimes silly and playful moments. I just finished reading the book of Judges. There's a story in there.

It's a playful moment. It's a dark book. It is dark. Everything was right in her own eyes. Ehud, you know, the left-handed judge goes and kills the evil king Eglon, but the king is so fat.

That he stabs him and the poop comes out, and his men come to check on him, and they find the door locked, and they smell what's going on, and they say, Oh, we better not go in there. He's doing his business. And they wait for so long until they're embarrassed, and then they break the door down. And all of this is in the story. And I'm like, that's really scary.

Yeah, like this is like, you should be teaching this to middle schoolers. Yeah, it's a very middle school kind of story, right? The poop is involved in the, is in the text. But I mean not every story is like that, but just saying like, you know. This is a fantastic story written by a God of creativity.

If we're making it sound boring, I think we're doing it wrong. It is a fascinating story. I remember a long time ago when we started our church, one of the things we decided mattered was art.

Okay. God is a God. He's an artist. And so as we and I was on a team that designed the actual whole hour. Hour 15, whatever it was.

And so we had this principle: like every service, we're going to try. To create some moment of, there's so much joy in the moment that people are laughing just spontaneously. or uh smiling or someone or and probably both A moment of power where they might be in tears because they're so moved by something that happens. Whether it's a video, it could be back then. We had actual drama actors from Broadway that were coming to our church and they'd write some things, and sometimes they were.

So funny, you're just laughing your head off, and you're like, God laughs, yeah.

So, and then so, I mean, and people start coming out like. I've never been to a church where you appreciate the arts. And when we did. Music, it was well done. Like people from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra were in our.

We just thought this is. Who God is.

So, why would it be boring? I think that whole same principle should be the same thing in a family. Life is so much more like that. Playful and joyful and tender and powerful. There's moments where you're crying as a family because you're so moved, and there's other times where you're hitting each other, you're laughing so hard.

That's the heart of God. It's like that would be a kid, would want to come to that devote time. You know what I mean? No pressure, parents. Yeah, and that's that playfulness really helps us play the long game as well.

Because playfulness, you know, there's tons of books on play, you know, which we read a number as we were researching for the book. And there's this, there's this cycle that seems like discipleship, where like you have to have a certain amount of vulnerability and connection with someone in order to be able to play something with them, to be playful. Interesting. But when you are playful, you think less about yourself, you think more about them. And that actually increases the connection that you have to them and actually deepens the vulnerability that you're willing to have the next time.

And so the playfulness actually helps with connection of whoever is at the table. And that actually helps you with your kids in particular. But with your spouse and with your small group or with your employees or whatever, it's like it allows you to kind of play the long game in terms of we're going to remain connected to these kids and they're going to wanna continue to engage with us, you know, tell us what it's like to engage with adult kids, right?

So, I mean, you have to play in the long game in that, but then also with playfulness. Like, if you asked me to tell you what the fruit of the spirit are, like, I have to sing a song in my head in order to be able to tell you what it is, right? And everybody has different songs for it. But, like, I mean, I think that's probably the epicenter of when you think about playfulness in spiritual habits, is you think about. How you feel when you sing a song if you grew up in the church that you learned at VBS, right?

And how you feel, you know, my God is so big, so strong, and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do. Boom, boom. Right. So, like, that's playful, right? Yeah.

So, like, and that, but that is still that, the memory of that and the truth of that is still being embedded, even it's coming in that dynamic kind of way. And it looks different when you're an ad an adult. But I think it's more like you're saying, like, play has this element of. Joy and beauty. You know, it's it's not always silliness.

I'm not as a grown-up saying, like, well, I guess I better only read children's literature, but it sparks the imagination. I think of C.S. Lewis, he said that he he first experienced a baptism of the imagination before a baptism of the mind. And people have this feeling with his stuff all the time. You read the Chronicles of Narnia, people who aren't Christians are like, man, I don't quite understand what's going on there, but.

I am compelled by this. I want whatever's going on here.

So, if we can do that with our art that's just so beautiful and moving and joyful and playful or whatever. Uh and then that Transitions people into the actual, yeah, like the actual doctrines. Why not? Why not? Yeah, I'm I'm sitting beside the queen of playfulness.

Mm-hmm. I'd say you're pretty good too. No, you are the great. I mean, she created a character at our church called Miss Krabby. Awesome.

And just a mean old crabby lady. And, you know, how about, yeah, it became this thing. The kids just ran up to her. She was converted, Miss Krabby was. Yeah, she became, she got converted.

Okay. Let me ask you this: just for some final thoughts. Do you have any parenting fails? Have you guys failed in any area?

Well, I told you this Kara story, right? Yeah. Where Christmas was all about presents. Yeah, I think every parent can relate to that one. Yeah.

But any anything that comes to your mind that your kids would say or you think that, yeah, I blew it in this one. Yeah, I think we'll have a clear picture of that in like 10 years when they let us know, like, hey, this is awesome. Um Something that comes to mind. This is going to sound weird. I was too insistent on trying to get my daughter, particularly, to read the Bible with me as she was becoming an early reader.

And so I would have this time every night where I was, my goal was to transition out of. the you know kid Bible into Like actual Bible. And so I decided what we will do is. I'll have some time. I'll read my Bible.

You'll sit next to me and you'll read yours for 20 minutes, and we'll do this every night. And we tried it, and in my head, it worked great because she loved to read. But after like two or three nights, it just it She wasn't enjoying it, like, it wasn't working. And I insisted for another like two weeks. No, we have to do this.

I'm not sure she remembers it, but it's just the sense of like. No, this is what's right. We're going to do this and just continuing to drive it. When it wasn't working with where she was, not being responsive. I think just saying, hey, This is not working out.

We'll figure out some other way. But I get like probably look at the six steps. Is the timing wrong? Yeah. Is this should we use some other resource?

Um, is this too boring? Do I need to make it more playful? But I wasn't asking those questions, I was thinking: if I care about discipling her in the Bible, we will read the Bible every day, it will happen like this. And I have a tendency to be like that. I have an idea.

This is going to be good for our family. We will make it happen. And I don't care if everybody hates it, you know. And I just need to I recognize that I could be really pushy. As a parent, leadership is fine.

Um, but being pushy and uh overbearing is is not. And so just always keeping a t an eye on like Am I leaving space? for everybody who lives with me. To have their own life and not feel like they're on tiptoes because I guess we all have to do all the things dad says.

So that would be a big one for me. That's a good word. Do you want an answer that is like Solvable or one that's terrifying and not solvable? Oh my gosh, it has to be terrifying.

Now I want the terrifying. Yeah, I do want both. The solvable one is we let prayer at night lapse from our kind of regular routines. We still have a good connection and conversation. It's been more difficult to put that back in as opposed to if I was.

should have had it be continuous. Our efforts are Um have been Somewhat beneficial at this point, but we continue to try to add that back into bedtime.

So that's the solvable one. The the terrifying one, since since we we've been given permission now, is um I'm terrified. My wife and I are both pretty pretty driven, efficient, productive career kind of um types. And I'm terrified. That we're going to give that to our girls.

What I know about the world is the world is about relationships, it's not about money and achievement. The world is about knowing and walking with God. Yes, God as He created it to be, it's about knowing Him and walking with Him and with others. Just the operating system of my heart. Because of where I grew up and the opportunities that have been in front of me, the operating system of my heart every single day I wake up is: what am I going to do?

to achieve more. Right. And what I'm terrified about. Is I'm going to give that to them. And they may accredit that to me, and they may accredit that to just society, society, or something like that.

But. We are actively, probably more so even than working on the prayer at night, but we are actively trying to change our schedules and our vacation, how I relate to work, how I relate to my days. Sabbath. Yes, I know I have to fix the sin that's in my heart that's making me operate in a certain way. Because if I don't fix that, I'm going to pass that on.

So, So Maybe I've been a failure. Maybe I still have a little bit of time, but it kind of goes back to like, you know, our walk with God. And even if we use six small steps in order to be able to help. Help myself be more consistent in that walk. My walk with God is probably the most important thing that I can do in a demonstration in front of them.

So good. Yeah, and I would say the fact that your oldest is 13, right? You're catching this at a great time because this is the ageist they're really gonna. Follow that. I mean, not that there aren't at eight or nine or 10, but at 13, 14, 15, 17.

They're They're that's in the DNA of the home that they're catching, and you're catching it already in yourself. Is he actually doing it? Yeah, so we now we talk about it a we talk about a lot. The treadmill comes up often.

Well, I think that he's like, you know, I feel like. That's a lot of my life is encouraging me to be on this treadmill and keep going, going, going faster and faster, faster. And God tells me that I need to step off the treadmill. It's like this I have this image 'cause I I resonate with that too. There's this image a lot.

And so we'll talk about it. And he's mentioning like, I feel like I'm doing too much and And I say, why are you Are you trusting God enough to step off the treadmill here?

Well, I have flexibility in my job. More flexibility than a lot of people would. But um This uh this past summer, I took off a little bit more Time when my girls have year-own schools, they only have five weeks off in the summer. I took off a little bit more time than is normal. Probably a little bit more time than I should if, like, if work is the thing that I'm primarily need to accomplish.

And a couple. Weeks ago, maybe two weeks ago, we were having dinner with somebody that lives in Spain, and they were talking about the The PTO that you get in Europe, and how much, so much more than the United States. And my girls are at the table. My daughter, Kara, the same one who convicted us at Christmas. Actually, says, I haven't told Chris this, so he's like really instrumental.

That's right. So she's, she, Kara says, she says, Well I feel like mommy and daddy. Have 40 days of vacation. Oh, that's beautiful every year. Wow.

And we were like, what? That's awesome. And our friend asked, So, what do you mean? She's like, well, I mean, I feel like whenever I'm out of school, they're not working. And I was like, oh.

See that? Yeah, so it's like we have to be making those intentional steps in order to be able to do that. And I had to say no to one thing in order to be able to say yes to that. But how beautiful that's a victory. Yeah.

Yeah, that was great. Yeah, that was great. Well, let me say thanks, guys. And building spiritual habits in the home. is available right Today, familylifetoday.com, go to the show notes, click on the link, and buy a copy or 10.

For yourself and your friends. Thanks, you guys. That was awesome. Yeah, thank you. That was a blast.

What a great last few stories. Thanks for being vulnerable and channeling. Hey, thanks for watching. And if you like this episode, you better like it. Just hit that like button.

Yeah, and we'd like you to subscribe.

So, all you gotta do is go down and hit the subscribe. I can't say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don't think I can say this word. Like and subscribe.

Look at that, you say it so easy. Subscribe. There it goes. Yeah.