Portrait of a Father - Teacher of the Family

For most men, the two most influential people in all your life were a teacher and a coach.

Now listen carefully. The teacher that God has called to have the greatest impact in the life of your child is you. But it's more than teaching them how to drive a car, play an instrument, or be good at a sport. It's teaching life, morals, a relationship with others, and how to be an authentic follower of Jesus Christ. If you would like some help in teaching your kids how to be the greatest person God wants them to be, stay with us.

Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. And we're in the middle of his series, Portrait of a Father. Today he'll continue highlighting four vital roles only a dad can fill for his kids. So far, we've learned what it means for a father to be a leader and a priest.

Right now, Chip's going to begin focusing on the final two. So get your notepad ready and let's dive in. Many of you ever awakened in the middle of the night with a cold sweat with a knot right down in the pit of your stomach, and it seems like life is suspended for that moment, and this horrifying thought comes to your mind. Are my kids getting from me what they really need from their dad? One of those flashes of review where everything else seems to just fade away and that issue comes right before you. When this happened to me, I found myself a few minutes later sitting in the living room, a small light I still remember and some shadows in the background, and I had to face the painful reality that I was going way, way too fast.

That what I said was important was getting the back seat and the urgent was getting the front seat. Have you had that moment where you honestly come out of the denial long enough to sense relationships are fragmenting? Starts with your mate. You see it in the eyes of your kids. You've told them and told yourself, well, it's going to change soon.

It'll change. And then you realize you don't know exactly how to get off the speed train. And if you got off, you don't know exactly what to do. You know your kids, something deep in your gut tells you your kids need a lot more from you than you're giving them, but you don't know what it is. And if you're like me, you don't know how to give it.

At least I didn't then. It changed my life. It started me on a journey of trying to figure out what in the world does a dad look like?

What do my kids really need? What's really important? But to be very candid with you, it happens to men in different ways, but unfortunately most men end up going back to sleep. They feel a disturbing event occurred and then they get up and they live that next day the way they lived the last day and the last week and the last month and the last year. But I believe every now and then God loves us so much as men and He loves our kids and our families so much that He'll bring a tragedy or a sleepless night or some event to get our attention so we don't end up living our whole life with our ladder leaned against the wrong wall. David Blankenhorn in his book Fatherless America gives some evidence to why the stakes are so high, men. It says fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation. It is the leading cause of declining child well-being in our society. It is the engine that is driving our most urgent social problems from crime to adolescent pregnancy to the sexual abuse of children and to domestic violence against women.

Yet despite its scale and its social consequences, fatherlessness is a problem that is frequently ignored. And so I had the opportunity to write this big paper I told you about. I had to write a thesis and I was pretty tired and I figured, you know what, write on something that you're motivated, you have a big need. And I wrote it on the role and responsibility of the father in transmitting values in the family.

And you remember there were four key roles that the Bible evidences, backed up by the psychological and sociological research. And that us as dads, we need to be the leader in our home, we need to be the priest in our home, and now we're going to learn we need to be the teacher and the lover. But men, we get a chance to break the cycle. We've got a chance to make a huge, huge difference. And you don't have to have it all together and you don't have to go and start some big new thing. You can take little baby steps and God will be so pleased if you would begin to initiate and lead in your home and begin to make sure worship occurs in your family's life.

You'll never regret the day that you did it. Let's just go over these four roles and I'll just highlight them quickly and then we'll look at snapshots number three and number four. One of the primary roles is he's a leader. We set a definition of a leader, he makes things happen. That leaders ask pivotal questions, like where are we now as a family?

Where do we need to go and how are we going to get there? Here's what I heard from men. I have never thought, it never dawned on me to bring the same intensity, the same focus, the same strategic thinking to my family that I do to my job every day.

And you know a lot of guys told me, I don't know much about the Bible to be candid, but you know what, I can do that. But I've got to turn that switch inside. I'm going to be the leader in my home. We learned that the focus of leaders is objectives.

Where are you going to land? The how to was modeling, taking initiatives, setting some direction and ongoing evaluation. And we said the stewardship as a man is we are morally responsible for our homes. And to be very honest, this is pretty foreign territory for some of us. We grew up and our parents grew up and their parents grew up in a generation where if we went to work, got a paycheck and there's a roof over our family's head and we put bread and butter on the table, most of us grew up thinking that's what a dad is. And that's provision, that's part of it, but that's not it. Second thing we learned is that a father is not only a leader, he's a priest. He makes God's known. Remember Moses went up and he heard from God and he took what was true about God and he gave it to the people. And then he said to the fathers, you do that to your kids and to your grandkids. And then he took the needs of the people and he brought them to God. That's what a priest does.

Men, that's what we do in our home. We have the privilege of revealing God to our kids and then taking their needs and their hurts and the things that we can't handle and taking them to God and then watching him work in them. A dad who's a priest says over and over throughout the stages of his kids' lives, do my kids know God? Do they have an accurate view of God? Does our home honor God?

Are they and am I growing in holiness? We said that the focus of the priest is worship and we said some how-to's. First we have to model it, dads. We need to be authentic worshipers privately and devotionally and then we need to be the ones to say to the family, hey let's get up Sunday morning or Saturday night. We're going to worship because it matters. And then we initiate family worship.

You know, at least once or twice a week. We make it short, we make it fun, but there's time around the Bible and time where we share hearts and time where we care and pray. And then you teach your kids how to worship on their own. The stewardship here, men, is we're not only leaders, but as priests, we're the stewards of the spiritual climate of our home. That's not your wife's job. That's not the church's job. In my home, that's my job. And in your home, that's your job. Well, where do we go from here?

Snapshot 3 and Snapshot 4. Snapshot 3, he's a teacher. Definition, he imparts wisdom and builds character. That's what a teacher does.

I want to get something out of your mind. Get the picture out of your mind of a teacher as in someone standing up has a book in front of them. Little people are lined up in robes and the goal of a teacher is take information out of their head and put it in the heads of all these kids. Many of us have grown up with a Western view of transmission of knowledge where we think we open our kids' heads, fill it full of a bunch of information, close it down, wind it shut, and someday they'll figure out how to use that. That is not what the Bible teaches about education. And by the way, that's not a good education anywhere.

You know what a teacher does? A teacher imparts wisdom. The Hebrew word for wisdom really has more the idea of skill. The book of Proverbs defines what it is. Wisdom is understanding how life has created life and relationships and things to work.

Then you know it. And then after you know it, then you understand the why behind it. And then you have discernment about when and how to put it into practice. And then you teach your children to live life according to God's pattern so that it protects them and brings his shalom, his blessing, and glory to him. That's what you want to transmit, the wisdom of God. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But beyond that, you don't want just them to know what's right or to learn a few skills. You want them to have character.

And so a teacher's job is to build values and principles and convictions and loyalty and integrity so that when they hit transitional years, they make decisions on their own in their peer group to say, I'm not going that direction. I'm going this direction. Not because of my parents, but because of what God has done in my life.

See what you want to impart wisdom and you want to build character. The classic New Testament passage, Ephesians 6, 4. And notice who's it addressed to? Mothers? No. Parents?

No. Fathers? Don't exasperate your children is the idea. Or don't frustrate your children. Or don't cause them to get angry. That's the negative side of this command. But rather, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Notice there's a negative and a positive command. The negative is, don't frustrate them. Men, we're to be the primary teachers.

Will our wives and Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders help us? Yeah, but we're the primary people responsible. And so he says, be careful, because as men, we can, we can frustrate or get our kids angry. The ways that I've done it, you want to know how not to do it, is be very perfectionistic. That produces anger.

Be harsh. Be passive. Or no matter what they do, find fault.

I've done all this. And when I do it, my kids get mad and they don't want to hear from me. And they don't want to embrace my values. When we're harsh, perfectionistic, or passive as men, we stir up anger in our kids. But he says, don't do that, but instead what?

Hey, bring them up. It's a very broad word. To bring up, the word was used in the classical Greek to mean nourishment, even physical nourishment, mental nourishment.

It had this broad, broad view of the total development or nurture of a child. And so we're to bring up, the educational environment, we're to bring them up with two things in mind, the how-to, with the discipline and admonition. The word discipline, King James translates it, I think, in Ephesians 5 toward the end as nourishment. And then in Hebrews 12, the same word is translated as chastisement.

Very broad range. The idea is whatever it takes for your kids to learn or be educated or to be trained in the things of God, that's what you do. But the unique aspect of this word discipline or training has to do with you do it by actions. The instruction or another translation says admonition, the discipline and instruction or discipline and admonition of the Lord. The idea there is you do it with words.

And I think the word order is important. When your kids are first learning, can they understand what you're saying? How do you teach your kids when they're real early, when they're real small? When they do what's right, they get reward. And when they do what's wrong, they get consequences.

It's done lovingly and kindly. And so dads, our jobs is to lead our family in such a way so when our kids grow up, instead of talking, talking, talking, talking, explaining, explaining, explaining, explaining, yelling, yelling, yelling, yelling, screaming, screaming, screaming, and your kids start to do this? The goal is early on, by way of your actions, they know what's right, they know what's wrong, they know what's expected, they know that they're loved. And then the admonition is the words, the verbal words to keep them on course. And so dads, our job is to bring up our kids in a sphere of Christ likeness in the Lord, whereby our actions and by our words, we educate imparting wisdom and building character. Well, what's the focus then?

The focus is wisdom. And there's some questions to get you there. As a teacher, what are the kind of questions you need to ask to be effective? The first one is, ask yourself, what does your kid need to know, do and be?

Okay? What's the knowledge that they need? What's the skills, the doing? And what do they need to be or become? If you want a good way to put this together, this has been very helpful to me. Think about, I need to develop my child's head, I need to develop my child's hands, and I need to develop my child's heart.

You get it? What do they need to know, head? What skills do they need to learn in relationships? Skills with their finances, skills about decision-making, skills about studying God's word, hands, skills.

Finally, their heart, their character, their motives, their relationships. See, as a teacher, don't fall into the trap where you think if they get just the right knowledge, you've done your job. See, the goal is not that they get to become smarter sinners like us. The goal is that they have a transformed life. The goal isn't how much they get to know. The goal is, can they put it into practice in real life? That's the goal. You want to make a Christ-like one, done in a very nurturing, loving environment. The second question, then, is how do they best learn?

See, the greatest danger is you'll have your first kid be fairly compliant and whatever you do with them, you think that's the way you ought to do it. I've got news for you. They're all different, aren't they? I have four. God gave me a test case.

I'm convinced part of it was to help you. I've got two kids that were born within five minutes of each other and when they were little, looked a lot alike. I mean, they're twins. Same family, same environment.

They learn completely differently. I had one that if he was the only child I had, you would be looking at the smartest and most intelligent godly parent in the world, right here, right here. With my son, Eric, as he grew up, this is how I disciplined Eric.

Eric? Oh, sorry, Dad. It's done.

I'm done. And so I would tell other parents, that's how you do it. Now, he had a brother out of the same womb. I didn't take the proverbial two by four with his brother. I mean, that didn't work a long time ago.

It was the two by six. And I could take, you know, metaphorically speaking, of course, and I could smash him across the face with, man, son, what in the world are you doing? And here's all these consequences and you're grounded, yes, for the rest of your life.

And he'd put his hands on his hips and say, is that all you got? And so as a teacher, you better find out how your kids learn, what kind of personalities they have, and what's the most effective way to communicate. Third question you need to ask is, when and how will you teach them in this season of their life? Let me give you a quick example. Let me run through this and maybe it'll be helpful for some of you, maybe like me, didn't grow up in a Christian home and I didn't read the Bible until I was 18.

Each season is different. When my kids were small, see, what I'm talking about is you have to have a structure and a game plan to educate them. And so when my kids were small, it was bedtime. Each bedtime, I put my kids to bed if I was home.

Now, I'd fight over this now and then with Teresa because she'd always want to get in on this. I said, you get to be with them a lot more than me. And so I read through storybooks, storybooks of the Bible, and I'd get them real close to me and then we'd shut the door and pile up the pillows and we made it fun, it was outrageous, it was crazy. But I wanted them to hear the content of God's Word associated with their dad, my arm around them, cuddling up together, and I did that in the early years. In the middle years, then you shift. And the time instead of bedtime was around meals because by the middle years, even 10, 11, 12, early preteens and teens, I want my kids to meet with God on their own before they go to bed.

And so around meals, once or twice a week. Read the Bible a little bit, talk a little bit. I tried a million different ways.

None of them lasted more than three weeks to three months and then it didn't work. It's a lot like business, isn't it? You know, whatever's working now, three months from now, it's not working. Why should it be any different with your family?

Because they're growing, they're changing, the paradigm's got to shift. And so it was mealtime. That was the formal instructional time. And then as they've gotten older, you know, 1920, I'll give them a book. I need a really good book. Give me a really good book.

I need something to fire me up. You go out and you goof around and you talk about it. And around the table, a lot of our family times now is I just say, honey, what are you reading right now?

And she'll share. Eric, how about you? Ryan, what's going on with you? And you know, yeah, there are times where someone will say, you know, dad, to be honest, it's been a pretty bad week. I've not read a whole lot.

Okay, well, just move to the next one. But it's a loving, positive, nurturing environment where of course everyone has their ups and downs, but where you share life together. And so each season you need to figure out how am I going to communicate formally and informally the truth of God's word in a way where it gets into their heart and they apply it to their life.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll get back to our series Portrait of a Father in just a minute. But first, if this teaching has ministered to you, consider becoming a monthly partner. Your regular financial support goes a long way to help us encourage pastors, create resources, and share Jesus with today's youth. Visit livingontheedge.org to learn how to support us today.

Well, with that, here again is Chip. And so the focus is wisdom. And ask yourself, some of you, I hope you're thinking, I need some curriculum. I mean, I need some curriculum.

Where would I go? What should I teach him? Are you ready for this? There's a section of the Bible called the wisdom literature.

Can you, do you have any idea what it might be for? Wisdom. If you want to train your kids' hands, skills in life, book of Proverbs. Take your kids through the book of Proverbs. It starts out, son, I want to teach you how to walk with God. It's all the skills about life.

It starts what? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And then chapter after chapter after chapter, it talks about basic things like work, your tongue, sex, money, relationships, loans. It teaches your kids the skills of life.

But you don't just want to do their hands. Then move as they get into preteen, actually teenage years, to Ecclesiastes. Because you want them to know when they're finding their identity that it can't be found in money, it can't be found in education, it can't be found in fame, it can't be found in popularity.

Let them know there was someone that could do anything. The wisest, richest, most powerful man in the world named Solomon. And he said when it's all been said, when it's all been done, if you don't walk with God, everything's vanity. And you give them a biblical worldview. And then finally you want to develop their heart so the wisdom literature get in the Psalms. And you read and pray Psalms out loud.

You got a great curriculum there. Because the focus of a teacher is to transmit wisdom. You do it how? One, by modeling, having a word-centered life yourself. Two, by those formal times of instruction, like we talked about. And then by informal times. And by the like, you know, I want to just for a second think outside the box. Now all of us would say when your kids graduate from high school, you want them to be able to read, write, think, and be able to articulate ideas, right? And communicate verbally.

We all want that. And I fell into the trap of thinking that if the public schools are not doing a good job of that, and I know there's, I mean, I'm a school teacher. My parents were school teachers. Been involved in public schools all my life. But, you know, there's been a slide. There's a lot of great teachers out there, but there's been a slide.

You know, I hope that they'll help me, but I'm not going to stand before God and say the name of such and such high school, how come they didn't do a better job with my son? I realize that's my job. Now if I get a lot of help and it gets done at the school, great.

If not, then I better do it. The senior year of my youngest boy, we did something. It was really cool. And he wasn't thinking real well, wasn't writing real well, and wasn't articulating in a way that I thought was at the level that was going to prepare him for the future. And so I said, you know something, son, school's not very hard and you don't seem to do a whole lot of the work and you don't do much work and you still get good grades and that doesn't make sense to me, but since they're not giving you a challenge, I will.

And he said, what do you mean, dad? And I said, so we went through a book called Chafer's Bible Themes. It takes all the great doctrines of the Bible, 6, 7, 8, 9 pages, gives a bunch of passages and about 18 to 20 questions. And I said, read this, look up all the verses, answer the questions and we'll talk.

Well, I mean he did it and he got into it. And we went through most of that book. And pretty soon now, he's writing papers for me and turning them in. And I go, I need a little work here.

I give them back to him. Then we went to C.S. Lewis and we did Mirror Christianity. He outlined every chapter of Mirror Christianity and gave me the reasoning and the thought, the presuppositions and the apologetics. And then he started using them on his high school teachers.

It was unfair. And guess what? My son developed a love for theology. He learned how to write. And I actually made him a couple of times give little mini messages and I made him stay in the living room.

Wife and I sat down on the couch. I said, go, babe. Oh, dad, you're kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm committed to you getting educated. And he did it and got a little nervous.

And then pretty soon he got pretty good. See, let's think outside the box, guys. What's the goal? The goal isn't how can we get out of something. The goal is what we can put into our kids that years and years and years will say, whoa, boy, am I glad I did that. And so you do it informally.

You do it formally. And you do it at times where not just by the way of those, but you do it at times where they have a failure. That's called a teachable moment.

They break up. That's called a teachable moment. I've had a time where I came back and one son had lovingly propelled another son into the wall in a way that did damage to the wall. That was a teachable moment. We're educators, we're teachers. And so the stewardship as teachers, God's calling is to transfer godly wisdom to the next generation. Now, this next little section is a chip Ingram ism.

It is not from God. It is a personal conviction, but I felt prompted to say it. Okay, so you ready? I made a decision early on. This was when I grew up in the era. My kids were coming up when Nintendo just came out.

I made it. Here's a here's a decision I made. I would not have video games in my house.

I would. None of my kids would have a TV in their room and that during school nights we won't watch TV. See, my observation as I watched the culture was most homes, including born again Christian homes, are media centered homes.

They're not word centered homes. Okay, now am I saying that that's from God and everyone ought to do that? Not at all. I'm saying it's a personal conviction and my kids. Oh, you know, dad, you know what to do. What's it? You know what?

Hey, if you want to go to those arcades and play it a couple times, fine. But when a kid sits in front of a TV and watches something, I can tell you the research of what's happening in their mind. And when they're a little bit bored and they can play around with something and two and a half hours later nothing has been accomplished.

What they learn to do is burn time. So I have four children. They're all four voracious readers. Second, all four are musicians. Third, all four are initiators.

And fourth, all four are communicators. You know why? They got bored.

They got bored. You know, my house, you get your homework done. It's eight o'clock.

It's 815. I mean, what do you do? You're not watching anything. You're not playing video games. You're not going to amuse yourself to death. Ah, meaning non muse as in think.

So we got a world that is amusing themselves to death not thinking. So you know, you get so bored. Hey, pick up the guitar. Go play the piano. Go work out.

You ready? Read a book. And amazing things happen. They learn to take initiative. They learn to think.

They learn to be creative. Just a little thought. I'll just leave that one with you. I'll pass you right on.

Are you ready? Okay, dads. God's got a great plan for your family starts with being a leader. Next is a priest. Third is the teacher or educator.

And fourth, this is special. We're to be a lover. Definition of a lover is he gives people what they need most. Now, primarily as you go through the scriptures, you find that that's what God does. He's an unconditional lover of our soul. He gives us what we need most, a great sacrifice.

And so what is it? It's provision and protection. When you really think about love, that's what you get. You get provision and you get protection. You get material provision from your dad, spiritual provision from your dad, emotional provision from your dad, and relational provision from your dad. See what you love says, whatever they really need, if it's a tender hug or being grounded, done out of the same concern and motive, you give it to them.

You care for them. You sacrificially, literally give your life. Interesting passage. Read with me Malachi 4, the very last two verses of the Old Testament. It says, Behold, I'm going to send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, speaking of judgment. And he will restore the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with the curse. Jesus told us that John the Baptist was the Elijah spoken of here, that he came to prepare the way of the Lord.

And one of the evidences is when people are living under kingdom rule, one of the primary evidences is when a culture and when a home are living the way God wants them to. You know what it is? It's when there is an intimate heart connection and concern from the father to the children and from the children back to the father. The focus of a man is relationships. It's hard to do that when you didn't get it, but it can be learned. It can be learned. You just take little baby steps.

It can be learned. It doesn't mean it has to come naturally. You know, before we go any farther, I just want to stop right now because I know how hard it is when you listen to this as a man and say, You don't get it, Ingram. I mean, you're a pastor. You got some Bible training and all that other jazz, and your dad was probably a pastor, and his great-grandfather was a pastor and all this jazz. Man, I feel like I'm just barely wet in Christ of knowing anything, and I don't know how to be a dad. Well, let me tell you something.

I had a good moral dad who was a Marine, who was a very tough guy, who never verbalized once in my early life that he loved me, though I know he did. And I didn't get it, and I never opened a Bible until I was 18. And I found myself with three little boys trying to teach them what it meant to be a man, and I didn't have it. And so I told you at the very end, it can be learned. It can be learned. It can be learned.

I've had this weird opportunity right now. I am now 30 years down the road of being a dad, and I started at zero. And so let me give you some baby steps to take. Baby step number one, start eating as a family. You don't even have to talk about God. Just get people around the table three or four times a week.

That's called leadership. And by the way, ask some questions, but you don't have to make it overly spiritual when you start out. Just get people in the home, and you initiate. Second is every other week, put your kids on your schedule. And you can go get a milkshake. You can take a walk.

You can throw the ball in the backyard. This is not dropping them off to youth sports, and they're going out in a field playing with other people and saying you spent time with them. This is dad to kid, okay? You're actually with them. So, so far, you haven't even given them a verse. Third is start modeling something. And you know, here's simple. I didn't have any idea, but around the table after you eat for a little while, get the book of Proverbs out, okay? I mean, it's just like wisdom. You don't have to be a genius. And just read, you know, like start at chapter one, and read like half of a chapter, and then say, you know, which one of these do you think is pretty cool, you know? And then say, this is the one, I read it earlier this morning, that I thought was really kind of neat, and here's why. Make it five minutes, okay? Six. And if everyone rolls their eyes on dad, what are you doing in the Bible? This is all new. Don't get discouraged.

Well, they're not going to be tuned into this early. You be the man, and you give them what they need, not what they want. And the other thing it means is that you read the Proverb that morning. And if that's all you do, guys, you know, meal together, personal time, a little bit in the Bible. And then, you know, here's what you do. I meet with so many pastors, and I can tell you, pastors' wives tell me, this isn't just husbands, pastors' wives tell me their greatest need, their greatest heartbreak is their pastor-husband doesn't pray with them. And when they do, wives tell me, I feel protected, I feel loved.

And just before you go, wait a minute, guy, that's way out there. I've helped guys learn how to pray with their wife by doing something as simple as simply holding hands with their wife and say, you know, let's silently pray for each of our kids and for this big thing that's coming up tomorrow, okay? And when I'm done praying, I'll be real quiet and I'll say amen.

I mean, like how threatening is that? And then you move to, you know, let's each share one or two sentences and let's have a little quiet time. All I'm telling you guys is you'll get more and more comfortable. You find a group of guys, there's so many great resources, we have them, other people have them. This is not rocket science. This is courage, faith, a willingness to draw a line in the sand and stop saying, I didn't get it so I can't give it. You start a new generation. Men, we can turn the corner and change the world but it starts under our roof. May God give you supernatural grace, strength and courage. Act on it today. Don't in your heart, as I'm talking to go, you know, I really ought to do that.

Forget that oughta stuff. Do it today. Start the journey. Tell you what, man, you'll be like me and I've looked back now 30 years because I started with baby steps. You start with the baby step today. Well, Hal, what a great bit of encouragement for dads, Chip.

Thanks. Well, you're listening to Living on the Edge and the message you just heard is from our series, Portrait of a Father. So if you've missed the first couple of programs of this insightful teaching, let me encourage you to catch up through LivingontheEdge.org or the Chip Ingram app. Well, before we go, Chip's still here in studio with me and Chip, you know, the idea of discipleship is at the heart of this ministry and we believe there's a specific group of people responsible for continuing that work all around the world.

So if you would, identify these difference makers and explain how we're investing in them. Well, Dave, the fact of the matter is this, is that we want to help Christians live like Christians but God has ordained there is a place, there's a supernatural community and it's called the church. The church isn't a building. It's a group of people and there's a person or a group of people, pastors who are morally responsible to lead churches. If there is a godly pastor who's healthy, who teaches God's Word practically, clearly, relevantly with Orthodox theology, guess what?

It produces people, young people, middle-aged people and older people that are Christians who live like Christians. So one of the main things we do at Living on the Edge is we train pastors right here in the United States and all across the globe. If that's on your heart, would you help us? If you would give a gift to help us reach, train, develop and encourage pastors, it would mean a lot to them but it will create the disciples of the future.

That's absolutely right, Chip. And if you'd consider becoming a monthly giver, it would make all the difference. If we can depend on your regular support, we can continue ministering to pastors all over the globe. Learn more about becoming a monthly donor by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org.

Atlas Nursetap donate. Thanks for giving whatever the Lord leads you to give. Well, as we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has provided encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever. So thank you to those who support us in prayer. God is doing amazing things. We'll listen to next time as Chip wraps up his series, Portrait of a Father. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.