Faithful Routine

So we had a somewhat embarrassing moment, you know, as a father and mother trying to raise sons that follow Christ, you know, and were radio hosts about marriage and family. We've written a book on marriage, but the book on parenting was all about how do you make disciples of the only children in your home, right? So we had this conversation one day. So you asked one of our sons to name the 12 disciples.

Oh, yeah. This is when we were in the midst of parenting. How old was he? He was 13.

OK, this is really embarrassing. I was hoping he was like five. No, this is the son that wasn't raised in Christian school.

The other ones were. And so, yeah, I just said, hey, if you had to name the 12 disciples, how many could you name? He goes, I don't know, maybe a few. I'm going, OK, well, why don't you start?

He goes, OK, Moses, Joseph. I'm like, what? And I was so humiliated thinking we are doing a terrible job. What are we doing in our house? Welcome to family life today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at family life today dot com or on our family life app. This is family life today. It was pretty embarrassing.

And I blame it all on my wife. Well, the good thing is that son is now in ministry, full time vocational ministry as a pastor. So it doesn't always require a prerequisite. You can name the disciples when you're 13.

He could now. Yeah. But I mean, this is a big topic in the home is like, how do we help parents disciple their children and make disciples? So we've got a great guest with us. He's been on before, but we're glad to have you back because you're the expert at this. Kenan Vaughn, glad to have you back on family life today.

Thanks. It is an absolute joy to be here with you guys. And we were inspired when you were here the last time you're talking about disciple making. You're talking about your passion and heart for this. And I know that a lot of our listeners were inspired and we were like, man, this is so good. And so many families feel lost in knowing what does this look like?

I don't know how to do it. Yeah, I do remember that interview because we weren't really here having you on to talk about discipleship as much as downline, which I want to hear you talk about a little bit. But man, oh, man, we both are like, wow, that was so inspiring. So let's talk about this life and our children. But before we do that, you are the president of Downline Institute, Downline Ministries.

Yeah, that's right. Downline Ministries and the goal of Downline is to equip men and women to make disciples. And you guys just said it well.

I was inspired to about our time together and just by you guys example. But Ann, just like you said, a lot of folks are saying, I don't really get that. What does it look like?

What is it? I mean, I see it's Jesus is telling us to make disciples, but it's just such a nebulous, vague kind of term in the church today. And so Downline exists to help you understand what did Jesus mean when he said, go make disciples of all nations.

How do you do it? And my goodness, even with our own children, my wife and I have five sons. And I know we're going to be talking about family discipleship here shortly. And this is one of our greatest God-given stewardships, discipling these boys, raising them in the training and instruction of the Lord. But in terms of the level of intimidation that comes with discipling your own children, anybody that's a parent has felt that and thought, where do I start?

What do I do? And so I'm excited to dive into that. The Downline Institute is a nine month program where we literally take folks that generally people don't make disciples because they have no idea what it means and they don't feel like they know their Bibles.

Even longtime church goers generally feel intimidated when it comes to navigating God's word. And so over a nine month period, we meet twice a week. And by the way, this is now available not just in our live locations, which are found on our website DownlineMinistries.com, but we have a live stream class. This last year, the pandemic year, we piloted it and it's been a great success.

So we now have folks all over the country, all over the world that can live stream. And we walk Genesis through Revelation in nine months. We will literally start you in Genesis one and finish in Rev 22 and give you handles on the big picture of God's word, which I've just been so fascinated and enamored watching people fall in love with Jesus through the scriptures. And they've just never had that opportunity, even in good Bible teaching churches, to see how it all fits together. And then we do practical discipleship training. We define it.

We talk about it in the struggle of our own life and context of our own life where we live, work and play. But we hope in nine months and have seen it 15 years running now, God has used this institute to literally train men and women to make disciples in your home, in your church, in your community. And so I want to invite every listener that's out there just feeling intimidated by that, not knowing how to do it. Please come check us out at DownlineMinistries.com.

We do have a family life promotional code. I just promise you this. If you do it, I don't care how old you are. It will absolutely change the way you live the rest of your life.

Now, I want to go take that class. Look at you. It fires me up. And Kenan, anyone that talks to you knows that you have this passion for discipleship.

You started Downline. And so where did that come from? Where did that passion and that zeal come from? I mean, just solely the mercy of God who took me when I was in my early 20s serving in youth ministry, but really not knowing my Bible very well, feeling convicted that I needed to know it better to do what I was called to do. I loved the Lord.

I love these kids, but I really didn't know how to be a leader, how to be a discipler. And I had never had a spiritual father in my life. And by God's grace, I heard a man speak named Soup Campbell. And I saw in him Jesus like I'd never seen. The way he exposited John 15 one night, it was like the Lord was speaking to me.

I wanted to know the Lord and I wanted to know his word like this man. So I pursued him and he gave me his number, told me to call him. The story is kind of funny. I called him the next day, told me to call him in a week and I called him in a week and he told me to call him in a month.

And I was pretty sure it's a true story. At that point, I assumed he was just kind of blowing me off. But a month later, just by the Lord's leading, I called him one more time. I fell over myself apologizing for continuing to bother him, but said, I just, man, I don't know my Bible. I don't know the Lord like you do.

I want so bad what you have, that intimacy with Christ that you just reek of. And he said, well, come to my house tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. I showed up there at 4.45 in the morning and he was standing in the front yard and I thought this is just an awkward situation.

And I walk up to him and no pleasantries. He had me sit down on his front porch and said, Hey, Kenan, you and I come from two very different worlds. And I could look around and know that was true. He said, I don't really care how smart you are or how talented you are, but if you can be faithful, I can show you how to be a man of God. And I had never had a godly man in my life.

My father was a dear man and we were best friends. He passed when I was 16 of brain cancer, but I'd never had a godly man ever kind of grab a hold of me and say, come on, follow me. I'll show you how to follow Jesus. And that relationship completely changed my walk with Christ, my life, my love for Christ, my intimacy with Christ, my knowledge of his word and love for his word. And it was discipleship. And God birthed in me a passion to help other people be discipled and make discipled. And that journey is when I began to realize how confusing that term is, how people don't know, how the scriptures are so intimidating. And just in God's divine providence, he connected me with one great man after another.

Howard Hendricks became a great mentor of mine in seminary, helped me kind of think through what experience and gifts God had given me and how to steward those to help. Really, I'll be honest with you, our dream at Downline is to see a restoration of biblical discipleship in and through the local church. It's nothing less than that. We want we want what Soup did with me to become the norm again. I think that was Jesus's plan. It was his lifestyle.

It was his command. And so we want to help people follow Jesus. Well, what Soup did with you, obviously, is what we as parents want to do with our own kids. Right. You as a dad, you've got five sons.

In some ways, I found it easier to disciple my congregation as a pastor than my own sons. But you've got to do both. But talk about how you do that in home. Yeah.

And just what a great, vital and overwhelming question. How old are your boys? My boys are thirteen, eleven, ten, eight and three. And you've been married how long? We just celebrate our 15th year anniversary. Congratulations.

Thank you. And so, yes, God's blessed us with five boys. The last one's name is Mac, because we said if God gives us a fifth son, one of our favorite families in Jewish lore is the Maccabees. And God used a family of five to help restore the heart of his people to him.

So we would joke about it. If God gives us five sons, I'm going to name him Mac. Actually, Maccabee. So Mac's just his nickname.

His name's Joseph Maccabee. So God's been gracious to us. And your question, Dave, it's something that Katherine and I have to think through, not just because I'm in vocational ministry with a discipleship bent and a job in pastoring people, but because this is the primary stewardship God's given us. I mean, discipleship starts in the home.

And it's so easy to be a pastor in Christian ministry and spend your time discipling everyone else and not your children. Because frankly, it's sometimes it's harder at home. It's really hard. It sure is. I mean, you can't just put your best foot forward.

It's not just an hour a week. Can't fake it. No, you know, those kids know me.

Those boys know exactly who I am. And by the way, that's where I would say it starts. You know, the beautiful thing about God's design for discipling in the home is the authenticity that's built in. And you guys have already alluded to something. I loved it in your intro story about your son that didn't know the disciples.

As much as I hope a 13 year old, I was thinking in my head, I got 13 year old. I wonder how he would do as much as I hope he'd be able to name three or four. What I hope even more is probably what your son had and that he has the gift of seeing his father wholeheartedly love and follow Jesus, because that is the most important thing that we can give them is what it looks like to pursue Christ. In our own daily walk, and of course that has practical outworkings, in a marriage that they see pretty much everything right in front of their eyes unfold. In sin, like I'm far from perfect, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to be selfish.

I'm going to make bad decisions. There's so many opportunities for them to see me struggle with my flesh, difficult situations, with circumstances, with persecution, with tragedy. And I want to make sure that just like Supe did with me, Dave, I'm saying, hey guys, follow me. Jesus is the good shepherd.

I'm an under shepherd and I love you guys. But the greatest thing I can do is point you towards him. And I'm going to do it imperfectly, but it's going to be my greatest endeavor to do so.

So how have you dealt with the imperfect part? Like you've got the boys, they're watching you. Your wife's watching you. I'm looking over at my wife. She's watched all my sin and imperfections and so have my son. So what have you done? Because I know you haven't lived it perfectly.

How do you live that out? And how do you, do you apologize? Do you say I'm sorry?

All the time. When my oldest son was about five and I was starting to, you know, lose my temper, speak to him in an unloving, selfish way. Maybe I was embarrassed by his action. I realized it was more about me than him. And when I saw some of those, I thought I got to do a lot of covering up and a lot of justifying and a lot of defending and a lot of rationalizing my own mind. Or I got to be honest with him and tell him I blew it. There's so many times I will fail my sons as a dad. I know that. There's a few ways I want to make sure I don't fail them. And one is I want to be a regular repenter before them.

So this is what you're modeling. Absolutely. And look, they're pastors kids, too. They kind of live in a little bit of a fishbowl. I pastor a large church in Memphis and sometimes I feel for them on that. You know, if I expect them to be godly beyond their age and that's that's tough for them.

It can be. And so I want them to be unafraid of being a Christ follower, not Christ, but a Christ follower. And part of that means a life of confession of sin, repentance from sin and trusting Christ to grow us through it. Even when God convicts me in things that don't have to do specifically with the way I might have sinned against them or led poorly in the family. Just sin in general. That is the fodder for our family devos.

That's the time when we're praying in the evenings. I say, guys, let me tell you what I'm struggling with. I've been really offended by a brother and I'm struggling with forgiveness. And when you talk to kids and they're so sweet, they're pretty innocent and they're going, yeah, yeah, that is hard. And I'm like, hey, you know what? That's even hard for me.

You're not going to grow out of that. But let's look what the scriptures say about it. We all pray for me. I need to forgive a brother. I need you to pray for me.

This is going to be tough for daddy. And you invite them in to followership of Jesus. This is a radical countercultural lifestyle.

That's not what you're going to see. That's not what's celebrated, but it's what we value with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength. And we've got to be, you know, our little church community starts with us and it extends to our harvest community and then to Christians all over the world.

But we've got to hunker down together and link arms and follow Jesus. So letting them in on the reality of the struggle with your flesh and with being obedient to Christ. Has there been a time that you can recall that you've gone back and apologized to your kids? Something you've done? Oh, yeah, regularly.

And I appreciate you asking me a question that forces me to be vulnerable and deal with my own shame. But yes, most recently, you know, I got in a tiff with their mother. Do you guys ever had that? Have you all graduated from that?

No, we're perfect. OK, good. No, but I did. And I spoke harshly with her, not berating her or cussing her out or anything like that. But I raised my voice with her, my tone. And I knew it as it was happening. I knew it as I was happening. I said, no, no, no, this is wrong. And I literally had three sets of eyes just staring at me from little guys. And so it was one of those, you know, it's like watching my own dumpster fire and not being able to control it. So, you know, I was convicted in the moment.

Sometimes God does it afterwards. But no, that's one where I sat them down and said, hey, guys, I just need to talk to you about what happened down there. Your mother is the jewel in my crown and she's the greatest treasure God has given me. And she is the most delightful and faithful wife and woman. And I could go on and on and you guys know how much I love her, but I lost my temper. And I spoke with her in a way that was completely inappropriate and that dishonored her, dishonored the Lord and it dishonored you guys. And I asked them, how could I have handled that?

Did they answer? Oh, absolutely. They said, well, first, you know, she was right.

I was like, I don't need you to correct me right there. But no, they said you could have prayed about it first. You know, which these are things I've confessed to them in the past.

So they're learning. Of course, they're going to learn about what they see more than what you say. But you could pray about that first. You could have talked to mommy gently. You could have admitted where you were wrong.

I mean, they begin to see the patterns from my confession to them of how to conflict well in our relationships and how to do so selfishly and poorly. So that was the time I apologized to him. An apology is not just an acknowledgment. It's asking for forgiveness. And so I said, I need you guys to forgive me on that. And even if you need time with that, take time. I need you to forgive me. And there's great accountability in that.

When you've got to ask your son's forgiveness, it's going to help me the next time when I lose my temper, which will happen with them, with my wife, to handle that in a way that honors the Lord and honors them. That's really good. Yeah. And you mentioned already about praying together, devos. Yeah. I want to hear about that.

Yeah. Talk about that a little bit, because, you know, one of the things we tried to focus our parenting book on was Deuteronomy 6, which is very interesting in terms of the Shema, the command to the Israel nation and the family about the commands that are on your heart. So as a parent, they have to start on our heart, pass them on, you know, when you walk along the way.

I'm just paraphrasing the whole thing right here. You know, when you sit down, when you rise up. So it sounds like there's a lifestyle of discipleship that you've already commented on.

What's that look like in the Von home? Well, that's the exact right term, lifestyle. And by the way, catechism, Bible memory, Bible study, Bible reading, is all so foundational to my own life with Christ.

Therefore, that's part of sharing it. But just this lifestyle of following Jesus together, sometimes we want to compartmentalize discipling our kids to a study. Now, I'm not going to minimize the importance of studying God's Word and having it central, but I would love to encourage folks to think through the grid of Deuteronomy 6, which says, hey, when you lie down and when you wake, like this is the pillars of your home are going to be God's Word, and you talk about them all along the way. And so Catherine and I have thought through, OK, how do we put Deuteronomy 6 into practice? That was everything done in Jewish tradition. And I love Psalm 78 about passing on a godly legacy that you tell your children.

The character of God, the experiences that you've had with God, his goodness. You pass on a legacy that they will even tell their children, lest you forget, lest they forget. And Ephesians 6, of course, reiterates Deuteronomy 6 to raise them in the training and instruction of the Lord. Let me say one more thing biblically to root this, and I'll give you some practicals.

I love Leviticus 6. It talks about the priests. They were to prepare the altar that the sacrifice would burn day and night and that the fire would never go out.

And dads, single moms were priests in our home. And the key is that spiritual fire, you want to constantly be arranging the wood, arranging the sacrifice, preparing the altar that the fire never goes out. So mornings and evenings I think are so big. Specifically mentioned in Deuteronomy, I love building traditions in our home, daily traditions, you know, annual traditions, seasonal traditions. I think that's a great way to kind of build a gospel legacy and a home of worship. Well, one of those daily or two of those daily, how we start in each day.

And boy, there's a lot of failure in between. A lot of missed moments and a lot of acknowledgement of that and some other sweet things that always happen. But we want to kind of put some pegs in the ground in the morning and the evening. And so we start our day with a little family devotional.

I don't want to freak people out on that. We've invited so many people into our home to be a part of Family Devos. And they're really messy, especially if we've always had young children. It's kind of fun that our youngest is three. And of course, that's a messy age, but that's our youngest.

We've always had a baby and a toddler and it's just crazy. So you're doing morning devotionals. Morning devotionals.

No matter how old these kids have been. That's right. Yeah. And listen, don't be overwhelmed by that. It's not you're a pastor, of course. No, again, messy two and four-year-olds don't care about systematic theology. So you're trying to have a moment of gospel-focused worship. And so the way Catherine and I structure it, we try to have our own time with the Lord earlier than our family devotional, which oftentimes allows there to be some real relevance, something that God's put on my heart or her heart. We also have a Bible reading plan we're following.

And again, the stage we're in, this changes really year to year. But the stage we're in at 7.40 every morning, we're at the table for Family Devo. And that gives us about a 20-minute window. So they're eating. Yeah.

Well, they finish up their eating by then and they clean their dishes. And then we are around the table for I'll read a little bit of God's word and we talk. And if God's putting something on my heart or Catherine's heart that we want to discuss, we can totally go that direction. But we're reading through. We just did a study on the names of God.

That was really funny. Just take one. Talk about it. And how do we see it? Okay. Walk us through a little bit.

It's something I cherish. I'll read God's word, which usually takes three or four minutes. Okay. No.

And again, for us, long wouldn't work. So it's going to be relevant. And so read three or four minutes and then I'll ask a couple questions, which is, did you understand that? What questions did you have? What did you hear that made a lot of sense?

What did you hear that made no sense? And then depending on what the study is, there's usually some leader guide questions that will talk about God's faithfulness and Joseph's life. And what do we do when things don't go the way we want them to go? And then I'll ask them, Hey, Luke, have you ever had that happen?

Caleb, what do you think? And you let them ponder it. They don't always have the answers, the right answers, but I want to engage them in a discussion. And this is a low hanging fruit discussion.

We're looking for big gospel rocks. But here's what it does. I don't ever feel like I've got to nail the discussion and bring out something profound and everyone gets saved. I feel like we're starting our day talking about a truth from God's word. And what happens is now we're noodling it all day. That's a Deuteronomy of success.

It's in there. And then it's so fun when you're picking up carpool or you're taking to a sports practice and they refer back to a devo. And you find out how on time God's word is. Like, Dad, you remember we read this morning? I saw that today. I saw an opportunity to help a guy in need, like the Good Samaritan said.

And I was just thinking about it because of what we said. It was a kid that was silent and devo and boom, God's bringing it to roost in his life. And so it's a peg we put there every morning, even when we don't just see this tidal wave of fruit that morning.

We may have disinterested, tired kids that are giving us very little. But we try to keep that engaging, conversational, centered in God's word. And then in the evenings, on the other side of it, this is my favorite moment of the day when everything finally winds down. The last thing I do, and I've done this since my oldest kid was about three years old. So we have about a 10-year tradition working, is we get on our knees and we pray together. The whole family.

Well, me and all the boys. Katherine does the thing where she walks in and prays the armor of God over them and she's got her own kind of cool tradition. But I get on my knees. I've done this since my oldest was about three and he was just climbing on my back.

I've still got a three-year-old climbing on my back. But it's fun to watch them go from being a distraction to being a worshiper to participating in prayer. And it's really fun.

My oldest goes first and then we go right down the line and then I finish. So you all pray out loud. We all pray out loud. And I just cannot tell you how powerful this is.

I really can't put it into words. And I don't have a routine prayer. I just pray. I pray about what I've seen God doing in my life and in that day and thanking Him for His faithfulness and taking to Him my struggles or family decisions we're wrestling with.

And it's so fun to see. For them, they get to hear me, my heart. They know what Katherine and I are wrestling with through those prayers. And it is the sweetest thing in the world when you watch a three-year-old go to a 13-year-old listening to him pray. It goes from just the thank yous for my brothers and for food and the beautiful, sweet learning gratitude to he's struggling with things.

He's wrestling with things. And he's asking God for help and he's doing it vulnerably in front of his brothers because that's all he's known from the time he began to pray. And when they're all praying, now we all know where each other's heart is with the Lord, how to pray for each other, how to support each other, how to love each other. You just hear the dependence on God deepen in all of our lives together. And that's the evening peg. And you got these pegs, God's Word in the morning, intimacy with God in prayer in the evening.

And I just tell you this because I don't want to make it too hard. You don't need a seminary degree to have a 20-minute time of talking about God's Word in the morning and 15, 20 minutes in the evening to be on your knees before the Lord together. If you do that, I can make you the promise that it will effect so many of the conversations in between your morning peg and your evening peg. And if you do it every day, it becomes a lifestyle where the gospel is at the center, Christ is at the center. And there's going to be so many opportunities in the as-you-go time to talk about things through a biblical grid. Oh, I wish we would have done that. That's so good.

I mean, that's actually just beautiful. You know, as you were saying that, I literally pictured in my mind families, moms and dads listening right now, single moms, single dads listening, saying that's a vision I can accomplish. Because it isn't a seminary degree, it isn't a master's degree, it's really a fire in mom and dad's heart that just overflows to say let's put a peg in the morning and a peg in the evening. I'm hoping that families are going to change a daily routine just as a result of listening today. I think any of us who have tried to engage with our kids on spiritual issues on a regular basis have experienced what most parents have experienced, kids who tune out, don't act like they're paying attention, don't act like they care or like they're even listening.

And yet we are planting seeds. I can't tell you how many kids I talked to once they've grown who have said this was a priority in my family and just that statement of it being a priority is what mattered. They may not remember a specific devotion or a specific thing you shared, but they remembered that it mattered to mom and dad that the family get together and acknowledge God on a daily basis. We have resources here at Family Life that can help you disciple your kids. I'm thinking of the video series we created on the art of parenting which covers a lot of topics including family discipleship. And then let me draw your attention again to what Ken and Vaughn was talking about earlier, the Downline program that is a great resource to help moms and dads, single people, whoever you are in your walk with Christ.

This will help you understand the Bible better and go deeper. Downline Ministries has a virtual institute that's available. It's kind of like enrolling in a one year Bible training or Bible college program.

It'll help you get a big picture on all that the Bible teaches. You can find out more about the Downline Ministries Institute when you go to our website familylifetoday.com. There's a link there and keep in mind if you choose to enroll, Family Life is a keyword that can provide you a savings on the enrollment. Again, all the information is available on our website at familylifetoday.com.

Find out more about Downline Ministries and the Downline Institute. You know, this topic of family discipleship is just one of the many vital topics that we're addressing every day here on Family Life Today. Our goal as a ministry is to effectively develop godly marriages and families who change the world one home at a time.

We want to equip you to win in your home, in your family, with your kids. And there's a group of listeners I just want to say thank you to. Those of you who are regular monthly givers, legacy partners is what we call you. This team of monthly supporters is the group that has made today's conversation possible. And here in the last weeks of August, our team is praying that in every city where Family Life Today is heard, where you're listening right now, we're asking that God would raise up two new families to join us as legacy partners so that this program can continue to be available not only in this city but in cities all around the world.

You make that happen when you become a Family Life Today legacy partner. If you can join with us today, we'd like to say thank you by sending you a copy of Dave and Ann Wilson's new book, No Perfect Parents. We'll also send you an all-access pass to more than a dozen messages from Dave and Ann about marriage and family-related themes. Some of those messages have been featured on Family Life Today.

Some of them are brand new, messages you haven't heard before. We'll make the messages available to those of you who join us as monthly legacy partners. And as a new legacy partner, we're going to send you a certificate so that you and your spouse or someone you know can attend as your guest one of our Weekend to Remember Getaways this fall. We've got about 30 getaways happening once again this fall.

We're pretty excited about that. And you'll get a certificate so you can be a part of one of the upcoming getaways when you become a monthly legacy partner today. You can sign up online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Join us in praying that God would raise up new legacy partners in every city where Family Life Today is heard. And if you're one of those new legacy partners, we look forward to getting to know you better and helping you win in your marriage and in your family. Now, we hope you can join us again tomorrow. Ken and Vaughn's going to be here again. We're going to look at some of the very specific things he's doing as a dad for family discipleship in his home. I hope you can tune in for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.