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January 9 - January 9, 2022
“Individualism hasn’t quite seeped in as strongly here, and they see the family as one of the main places to find an identity and the primary vehicle for bringing blessing and goodness into the world. In America, Christian or secular, we just simply don’t believe that. Families are teams here, and the Scriptures are their playbook.”
Stable is where horses live. It certainly wasn’t the home I grew up in.
My whole life I always thought we were missing something by not being a “nuclear family.” All throughout high school I was always hyperaware of how different many of my peers’ and friends’ families were from my own. Of course there were broken homes, and everyone had their own story to tell. But most of my friends in high school had two-parent, very well-off, stable families. And so at every playdate, every birthday party, and every graduation party, I was acutely reminded of just how my family and upbringing didn’t look like theirs.
The ancient picture of family was a robust, intergenerational, complex, and enormously helpful web of relationships where the most vulnerable and downtrodden were welcomed, protected, and given a safety net.
One easy litmus test for God’s vision for the world is, if it’s worse for the poor, it’s most likely not his vision.
The magic before industrialization was not simply that everyone was together and everyone was home; it was that life was integrated. Dads worked in front of their kids. Taught their kids their craft that they’d honed and cultivated over the years. They passed it on. They discipled with their life.
Like most complex questions, I usually respond by asking, “What do you mean by feminist?” If by feminism you mean equality of man and woman, with that entire half of the gender flourishing and living in freedom and living fully into themselves as image bearers of God, then yes, I’m a feminist. And I’d say it’s obvious Jesus is too.
The ideal is not two parents, two kids, one dog; the ideal is a multigenerational family team on mission (and that doesn’t even have to mean a family by blood).
We pass on our faith to our kids, not so they can consume it for their personal emotional feel-good, but so the territory of the kingdom (God’s good and gracious reign and rule) can be expanded as we raise disciples who kick back the darkness and permeate every walk of life with the sacrificial love found in Jesus.
There’s something in the American narrative that allows men to give—or gift—their best at work but usually not for their home team, their family.
First, as followers of Jesus, we like to say there are technically two missions for everyone. There’s the general and then there’s the particular. The general is the mission that every marriage and family on earth has been given. To be fruitful and multiply, and to garden. This is the general purpose of family, or what marriage and family are for. The particular mission is the very specific way God wants to apply the general mission in your family. The particular mission is the one that you and your spouse (and kids) have been brought together by God as a team to do and fulfill.
We are inherently built and wired for teams, and yet the West and our modern society inherently and systematically bake it out of us the older we get. The goal of the West is to never need each other.
Parenting is one of the highest risk jobs—you are caring for another human who is incapable of doing anything on their own—and you have no experience, no résumé, no specific training that can help you.
Individuals depend on themselves; teams depend on each other.
Can I just say I hate the “my job is to provide” train of thought? I don’t think there’s been a more destructive lie to Christian fatherhood than the idea of “my job is to provide.” Because at least anecdotally, what I’ve noticed is that this phrase is essentially code for “I make sure the kids are fed and there is a roof over everyone’s head and the bills are paid, so I don’t need to do anything else.”
There’s an insidious part of that mentality I’ve seen play out with so many dads. “Providing” has become more often than not an excuse to not be present, coach your kids, be close to their hearts, mentor them, or play with them.
Provide in Western culture means to provide money. But what we really need to provide is presence, grace, gentleness,...
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What’s their role on the team? How are they wired or gifted? How or where do they need the most support? What activities do we need to prioritize for them to flourish? What is the best way to spend one-on-one time with them? When do they come most alive?
Our interactions with each other come first. Our interactions with customers come second. Community comes third. Suppliers come fourth. Investors come fifth.
What is our mission? What is important to us? Why are we here? Why do we exist? What differentiates us from others?
Why were we living where we were? Why was I doing what I was doing? Why was Alyssa doing what she was doing? Why did I wake up this morning? Why were we married? Why did we not know any of these answers? Why did I say yes to some things and no to other things? Why am I here?
We apprenticeship to Jesus. Family is a team sport. We center the table in everything. Nothing is ours. We are generous. Create more than we consume. Live rhythmically. Live multigenerationally. Practice holistic health.
We will sacrifice our family on either the altar of “but I have to work to provide for us” or the altar of “I’m doing big things for God.”
Basically, we work super hard to provide a lifestyle that our kids don’t even want. We want it. But our kids don’t want a lifestyle; they want us.
The truth is, family and home should get the best of everyone’s talents and skills, before work or school or anything else does.
I mean, if you’re not taking pictures of your butts at your dad’s law office, are you even integrating? Probably not.
High support, low demand creates coddled, baby-fied kids. High demand, low support creates shameful, militaristic family cultures. High support and high demand, though? That’s the absolute sweet spot. And that’s how the best coaches we know act.
“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know you can reach them.”
And that’s Sabbath. As a family it does a few specific things: It is the family’s chance to resist the insane idolatry of work and productivity. It’s a day to remind ourselves that we are not what we do and we are not what we have. It’s an identity-shaping day, a high point or mini holiday for your last name. It’s a generational ritual. It’s a day of filling and rest.
