You have to be modeling before them, the life of a disciple.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the practitioner's podcast, , where we're applying Jesus style disciple-making to every day life in this episode. And all of our episodes are powered by navigators church ministries, which focus on helping churches, make disciples who can make disciples for more information.

Check out navigators, church, ministries.org. Justin, how are you surviving Ohio winter so far, I'm making it, it's been a white month. There has been a white month and thinking about it, we didn't have really any snow through almost the, almost all of January. And since then we've had snow on the ground. So it's mid February now.

And next week they're predicting, like I've heard from eight to 20 inches of snow next week. Yes, it sounds insane. And what that's really done is it's given me a lot of time with my kids. Okay. Yep. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. Got to prepare for the snow snowpocalypse here, being in the house with the kids.

Yeah. One of the good things is, is that I get the opportunity, , with my oldest son Connor. He and I get go to the gym almost every day together. And that's always really good. And there was a funny story that happened the other day at the gym is we're getting ready to leave. One of the guys at the gym, , asked Connor what a particular amount.

What, what a particular scripture reference was. And now Connor is just the normal 15 year old kid. He looked at the guy like he had three heads, like, why would I, why would I know what scripture that is? And, and, , on the way home, it led to a really interesting conversation about whether or not a pastor's kid.

She'd have a whole bunch of scripture memorized. Oh yeah. The whole PK debate. Right. The PK debate. And, and so it really got me thinking about, , Christian parenting versus discipling. Cause I disciple guys and we talk about scripture memory in there. And I, I do Christian parenting and we talk about scripture there, but not scripture memory kind of as, , as well defined.

And so I'm kind of curious in your, , in your expert opinion, w what is, or is there a difference between Christian parenting and disciple? Oh, that's a good question. And that's a question that, , You know, we hear a lot, not, not necessarily express explicitly like that, but a lot of times when I'm with pastors or church leaders, they will just talk about how they're discipling their kids.

So yeah, I play my kid. , and it's really interesting because this idea of, well, you know, are we discipling them? Are we not mean, are we mean we're, if we're disciples and we're parenting our children, Well, the way that the Bible would talk about, then there's, there's gotta be some sort of discipleship in there.

, so yeah, so I haven't answered your question. Not, not even remotely close, if we're honest, right? Like, , I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with yes. , that every Christian parent should be discipling their kids, but I think there's a no answer here too. So maybe we should talk on both sides. , yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that, that we talk about a lot when we're working with adults is they'll say, well, the person that I'm discipling is my kids as opposed to another adults.

And I don't necessarily prescribe to that because there's some, , you know, relational authority that happens between birth parents and birth kids versus spiritual parents and spiritual kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot there. What's the, what's the yes. Answer. Maybe let's talk on that side first. So yeah. I would, I'd be comfortable saying that yes, every Christian parent is discipling their kids because as we talked about in a recent episode, more is caught than taught, right?

So if you are a disciple and you're living in a house with other people, you have to be modeling before them, the life of a disciple. You as parents are with their kids, they are in relationship with their kids. Right. So we've talked about the, the importance of relationship and disciple-making, and so, , there's a yes element here that I don't think can be denied.

And it doesn't the problem of it though, is it doesn't necessarily fit the definition of Jesus' style disciple making. Right because Jesus called people. Right. And he was like, just live with them. Yeah. If we didn't select our kids, right. We love them and are excited about them. But the Lord, you know, my parents surely had days when they're like, man, if we could send this guy back, we we'd consider that.

, and so we don't select our children. Jesus selected his disciples. , and the other part is that. They opted in, right. At some level, those guys that Jesus was pouring into, not only were they invited, but they said yes to that invitation and with kids, it doesn't happen. So, you know, yes, there are some elements and there should be elements of discipling in our parenting.

, but just to say automatically, if I'm, if I'm a Christian or a disciple and I'm parenting, , that means I'm discipling my kids. That's not where I like to land, but I can see how people get there. Yeah. I think, I think that that's, it's like a, the yes and no of this debate really live intention of each other.

Okay. In the sense of like the, yes. Is there is the modeling part. Like I love the fact that. The person who discipled me said, Tony, you gotta be in scripture every day. And well, , you know, as I started to do that, , and being in scripture every day, what I've now realized is my kids know not to bother me when I'm in my scripture time.

Hmm. Yeah. And so in that sense, I'm discipling them and, and it's super relational and, , but sometimes yeah, My discipling of my kids lacks the intentionality of what we see in Jesus style. Disciple-making yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I think. Maybe two it's, it would be helpful to, to compare what we're talking about in Christian parenting or parenting kids as a disciple, that it might be closer to teaching at times, shepherding at times mentoring at times.

I mean, sometimes just we're just influencing them. Right. But again, and in our podcast, we try to frame it out really well. If we're trying, we're talking about Jesus style, disciple-making here because we believe that Jesus, his way of making disciples was the best way to do it. And I don't think we can automatically say that that type of disciple-making is automatically happening.

When we parent our kids. Now, I know that you're super intentional about discipling your kids and that's been a passion point of yours. What are some of the things that, that looks like when we talk about, , discipling our kids in, in your life? Yeah. , so I have, I have, I have four kids ranging in age right now from four to, , to 10 or 11 blanking on that.

Right now. I'm going to hear about that later. , but, , so I disciple them in the sense of. Like what we've been talking about so far, right? I'm very intentional about what I'm modeling, what we're talking about. I'm inviting them into conversations together. We are talking about the word of God. We're in Bible study together, all that sort of stuff, but, but they haven't had an opportunity to opt in.

Most of them haven't had that opportunity. , You know, there is one that has opted in, , in a lot of ways. And so that, that child not gonna mention who, , is memorizing scripture right now. And, you know, we're meeting with regularity to talk through that. Yeah. You know, it's very much on that person's initiative and just like it would be if I was discipling somebody outside the home, I don't want to put that on my other kids because just like I had the opportunity to opt in when I was first discipled and Jesus gives that opportunity to others.

I don't want to expect that level of commitment and intrinsic motivation to be there. , just because they happen to be part of my family. And I also don't want to exercise my authority as a parent to punish somebody. If they're not going to memorize scripture, if they're not going to do the things that, , disciples do naturally, when they want to know Jesus better and become more like him.

And so. That's kinda how we do it. , there are some intentional things we do that we could get into, but, , big picture wise, that's kind of how we're handling it. Yeah. I love, I love the part that we're talking about here as it comes to disciple-making versus Christian parenting is the opt-in part.

Right. And so, so the child has the opportunity. When they're at whatever age is appropriate to opt in to the intentionality that comes with the relationship. So like my kids, for example, just like I didn't, they don't get the, they don't get the, , the option to opt in to coming to church. Yep. That's Christian parenting.

Hey, I'm the parent. You're the kid you're coming to church because I say. Right. And that's what our family does. That's what our family does. Right. Like, , just like, Hey, ju just like, it would be F for grades. Right. I set a standard for the family. Well, I say I write my wife and I just be clear. Yeah. We set a standard for the family and then we make sure that our kids hit it.

Right. And that's Christian parenting. And I would tell you if you're listening to moms and dads, that if you haven't had the dialogue around what Christian parenting looks like in your family, that's a good place to start to gear you up for Jesus style. Disciple-making with your kids. Yep. Yeah, because you can, you can build on it, right.

You can build on the values of Christian parenting. I'm a big believer that we're not, we're not negotiating with kids. We're raising. Yeah, I love that. And the other part of that too, of we, as parents set the culture. Within our family. And so there's some things that are, that we can allow them to opt into.

And there's other things that, you know, it's not appropriate, right? Like you mentioned with church, I mean, for our family, it's, it's that sort of thing related to like being on mission. We live on mission together and they know that, Hey, you're in our family, mom and dad are the leaders. And they're on mission.

So that means you're on mission. And so we are intentional reaching out with our neighbors. We talk about how to do that. We're praying for them, all those sorts of things. Now, at some point, you know, they can opt out of that. Now their opt out point is probably going to be when they're 18 or when they're paying their own bills or when they're not living with us, you know, you're going to do your own culture wherever you're going.

But when you're here in our culture, that we're the leaders of. , you're gonna move along with the things that we put there. , but again, with discipling and Jesus' style discipling, I don't want to opt them in to that automatically. , the other thing I've had to be real careful about, cause we do have the one that's opting in right now, , is to be careful not to attach fleshy things or reward type things, , to the discipling that I'm doing without.

And so, you know, with kids and especially with four kids and a family, like just individual time with a parent, like that is, that's kind of a reward, right. And that they hunger for, , going out together or, , getting extra praise, you know, those sorts of things. And so, you know, my wife and I are very aware of.

Okay, well, just because somebody ops in to discipling, it doesn't mean they get extra time that others don't have opportunity for, , with a parent and an individual level. , we don't try to make it a huge thing. Like, oh, look at so-and-so she's she, or he's memorizing verses or doing this or that. This is what that child is doing between them and God.

And we are helping to spur that on. , but we're not going to make the others in the family feel less than because they're not ready for that. Or haven't opted into that yet. Let me ask you this. How do you know when a child's ready? , I mean, cause they're not going to use the language. They're not gonna come up to me and be like, dad, I think it's time for me to opt in to the disciple-making culture.

How, how did you know, , that one or when the next one will be ready for that, , intentionality that comes with Jesus' style? Disciple-making yeah, that's a great question. So for us, what we did and it kind of revolves around COVID a little bit, and then when COVID hit, we were doing. , devotions or Bible study where we would all be in the scripture around the breakfast table before school.

And so when schools shut down, well, we weren't doing that anymore. , our, our get up times were different and, you know, to get rolling was different. And so then as my wife and I were thinking like, well, we got to, we want to continue this. And so how are we going to continue investing in them, , in their, in their life with God and just that discussion.

And so what we decided to do was that every. Every other week, , we would meet with two of them. And so at a weekly level, my wife would meet with two and I would meet with two. And our meetings would be, it felt similar to discipleship, but there's no opting in, right. It was Hey. And they loved it. Right?

Oh, we get time with you. Get time. Talk about the Bible, ask him what, what I can pray for, for them. You know, share something out of my own life as you know, it's just spending time. And so as we did that, , I would ask, Hey, well, what would you think of reading, you know, first John between now and the next time we're doing this.

And so I'm like, yeah. Okay. And others would be like, ah, I don't know. And so we just kinda put it out there and when they took it, then we'd offer them a little more. Right. And so it was all right after, , one of them read first, Sean, Hey, would you want to memorize this verse really important? Okay, I'll try it.

And so, you know, they did it and then it was, you know, so it's just little by little that you can see the hunger and when the hunger is there, I want to meet the hunger that they're expressing. I don't want to overwhelm them with spiritual food when they're not interested in the food that's in front of them.

And so that's kind of a principle, I guess, that as I'm talking. Is coming out right. That we want to, we want to keep pace with what the Spirit's doing in their life. Well, and you, and you and I have talked about this before on this podcast is we often use the acronym fat, faithful available teachable as, , as a discerning kind of filter for whether or not someone's ready.

To be discipled in Jesus style. Disciple-making right. And I think that that actually holds pretty true to what you're talking about here. How faithful will they be in the little things before they pick up the bigger things and move on and keeping in mind. And I think this is so critical and, , knowing you guys pretty well.

I know that you do this well, is that as parents, it's critical to make sure that our kids know that our love is not contingent upon. Their relationship with Jesus. Right. And do I want my kids to have this incredible relationship with Jesus and you know, D do I want them to do all these wonderful things for the kingdom of God may?

And that is my prayer, right? That is my prayer for them, but will I love them either way? Absolutely. I will. And so, you know, I think, you know, you mentioned those fleshy rewards even. The unflashy ones and just love and, and, you know, adoration, like I think those are, those are probably really good reminders as well.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's good to tell your kids that, right. Like, especially Tony for you and I, who are vocational in ministry. , I don't want my kids to just follow Jesus because they think dad wants them to right. It's gotta be their own thing. And so I tell them, you know, periodically.

Hey, you know, Jesus is the best thing that's ever happened in my life. And without him, my life would be a mess and you would have a very different father. , but you need to get to know him on your own and whether you do or don't, that's up to you. I'm going to love you either way and I'll be here for you either way.

And even now with our kids and, you know, there there's differences in the way they're responding to Jesus and that's okay. Because, you know, when I was, you know, 10 years old, I wasn't really interested in Jesus. And there was a time two years before I was a really good investment for the guy discipling me.

Somebody tried to disciple me and I was all over. I was terrible. I wasn't faithful. Wasn't available and I wasn't teachable. And yet a couple years later, God did something in my life that totally changed me. And so then I was just a short time later, so that the. The place of figuring out, okay, well, yeah, they are.

They're doing great. And we remind our kids that it's not about, , a particular day. It's about a lifestyle of following Jesus. And so if you want to be like him, then it's day by day pursuing, you know, taking just that next step. Right. Just that next step. And if your steps further behind somebody, else's, don't worry about it.

God has you on the path that he has you on and your decisions are appropriate for where you are. Yeah, I love that. And, and one of the things that I think about often as I'm meeting with guys and, , you know, and I'm on this mission to disciple as many people as possible is that one of these people that I'm discipling could disciple someone who is going to disciple my kids, you know?

And because I, I realize, especially in the adolescent. In, in the growth pattern of our children is that you may be able to disciple them for a season, but you're not going, I mean, like the 20 year old version of your kids are probably not going to be the, you're probably not going to be the person that disciples.

Right. Right. And so you disciple. Yeah. And you know, I mean, if it happens great, but like the reality is, is wherever God takes them or, you know, wherever life takes them. You know, I'm probably not going to be there for a season and that's good. And that's okay. But man, I'm going to, I'm going to disciple as many people as I can in hopes that one of them gets back to one of my kids and that's, that's my selfish nature probably.

But, , yeah. That's great motivation now. I mean, yeah, yeah. So it sounds like what we're saying is that Christian parenting is not the same as discipling your kids. Yeah, I think although we should definitely be, , parenting our kids. Well, as, as disciples, , we should have our antenna up around what could it look like to disciple them while they're under our house?

If they have that hunger. Right. What might that look like? And the things that I've said, that's just not what that's, what works now, , in, in our family. And it probably is going to look different in your family. And so figuring it out, praying, leaning in, , asking those questions of God, I think is really important.

, Tony, one thing I wanted to share before we get to our action step. We said that opting in was really important. I just wanted to throw out a couple of verses to help people kind of grab onto that. It's not just our idea, right. That Jesus prayed all night. Then he invited the 12 that's. , we see that in mark three 14, , Luke 9 23, , talks about how, , That I'm blanking on the star.

You remember the star that 9 23, I'm like asking Connor here. If Connor was here, we could ask him, he would not know in that awkward moment. Right. , but that talks about how, , Jesus asks him to take up their cross every day and follow him. Right. If actually it starts with this. If anyone would come after me, must deny himself.

Take up his cross daily and follow me. And so there's an, if there, which helps us see that it's your choice. It's each of our choice, you know, as a, as a person, as a han, and we need to give that to our kids as well. , when we think about whether we're going to disciple them or not. All right, Tony, , action step and lead us out of here.

Action. Step, pray that your kids might become hungry for kingdom impact and is those prayers are answered, disciple them right until then. Just love them the best you can show them model. Show what life as a disciple maker looks like. And we believe that God's going to do some amazing things as always.

Thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. Thank you for listening. If you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, make sure you don't miss an upcoming episode and share this episode with us. Maybe a parent who's trying to raise up future disciple makers or are just trying to figure out what it means to be a Christian parent.

We want this to be helpful to you, and we're thankful that you trust us with the time today. So, , look forward to connecting with you guys.