The Faith of our Fathers
“A man ought to live so that everybody knows he is a Christian...and most of all, his family ought to know.”
A few months ago, our Director of Children's Ministry, Blaire Johnston, approached me with a suggestion for an interview with Hunter Griffin about how a weekend retreat changed the way he lived out his faith and the impact that has had on his family. As Blaire spoke about Hunter's story, I was reminded of something Joel Washburn said when he and his wife, Emily, shared their testimony about the birth of their son a few years ago (you can hear their testimony here). He talked about how through his prayers for his son, God led Joel to re-evaluate the direction he was leading his family.
At this point, I was curious if this was a common phenomenon for Christian fathers, so I asked Blaire for the names of other men who might be interested in speaking with me. In addition to Hunter Griffin, I was also able to talk with Daniel Herndon and Brian Lesley. I learned that their experience as fathers is very different, but there are some things they have in common regarding fatherhood and discipling their children.
A few years ago, Hunter Griffin had the opportunity to take part in a Walk to Emmaus weekend retreat. Initially hesitant, his experience there led him to a deeper commitment and relationship with God. Over the weekend, Hunter began to understand the depth of his faith, focused on the importance of scripture and prayer, and experienced the support of other Christians. He made a commitment to himself and others to take what he had learned at Emmaus back home with him and make it the center of daily life with his family.
However, the night after he returned home, Hunter struggled to join his wife, Amy, and their son, Cort, in his bedtime prayers. "It gets dark, and it's about time to go to bed, and I told Amy that I couldn't pray with her and Cort," Hunter recalls. He found himself sitting in their den, coming up with reasons not to go into his son's room and pray with him. Having realized he was making excuses, Hunter remembered what he had learned to do at Emmaus and reached out to someone for help. For the first time, he found himself asking his wife to help him with a spiritual situation.
"I told her I couldn't go in there and pray, that I didn't know what to pray for, and I couldn't even remember the little prayer that we had taught Cort. But Amy prayed for me as we stood out in the hall, and we both went into Cort's bedroom, and as she said the prayer, the words started to come back to me, and we prayed together as a family."
Following his experience at Emmaus, Hunter devoted himself to studying the bible and leading his family in spiritual discussions. "As his understanding and his independent study grew, I could see how it was changing him, making him less hardened and more approachable," Amy says, recalling how others noticed the changes in Hunter as well. "Ultimately, that started bleeding out to the rest of us too, especially Cort, and it has made a huge impact on our family as a whole."
Brian Lesley didn't have an intense weekend experience that changed how his faith impacted his life, but he does recall a chance meeting with an older friend while on a late-night Walmart run. What his friend said that night brought clarity to how Brian’s faith informs his role as a father.
"He asked me what my "plan" was for my boys, and I had no idea what he was talking about," Brian says, talking about running into his friend while walking the aisles of Walmart with his young sons and his wife, Emily, who was pregnant at the time. "He really caught me off guard when he asked me what my plan is for my boys, where I want them to be spiritually at 10, or at 16 when I hand them a set of keys, or at 21 when they're away at college," Brian says, so he asked his friend to help him develop a plan. His advice was to start by doing a word search in the book of Proverbs, looking for words like "child," "discipline," and "wisdom." Then print those verses out, study them, and pray those verses. "He said God would most likely show me a different discipleship plan for each of my children," says Brian, "and he was right."
For Daniel Herndon, there was no lightbulb moment or radical conversation about how he and his wife, Karen, wanted to raise their children, but they both knew from the beginning that they wanted to raise their children in church and lead by example. "My dad became a Christian later in life so it was super important for him to teach us and disciple us and invest in us early on," says Daniel, "I can remember my dad sitting with me at the dining room table at the moment of my salvation, asking questions and reading scripture with me. That had a profound impact on me, so I think from the very beginning it was important to us that we invest in our kids that way."
While I heard three different stories from three different fathers, I did notice common answers from everyone. All three men talked about having conversations with their children, even in the small moments of daily life, and taking opportunities to lead their families to dig deeper into scripture. But they don't just stress the importance of discipleship to their children, they also model it. They let their kids see them having their own quiet times and studying the bible, they let their kids share in their spiritual successes and failures, and by their actions, they demonstrate for their children the importance of being involved with a local body of believers.
I've gathered what I learned from speaking with these three couples and organized all three men’s answers into three common themes that emerged during my interviews. First, they make intentional choices that make discipleship a part of everyday life for their families. Second, they are genuine and open with their children about their relationship with God, their spiritual journey, and their mistakes. Finally, they demonstrate the importance of being involved in a body of believers, whether it is volunteering at church, leading, or creating relationships with other church members who help mentor their children as well.
The Importance of Being Intentional
Hunter Griffin
"My job is not to raise productive individuals in society, my job is to raise followers of Jesus Christ. And to walk beside them, teach them, and show them the same love that God has shown me through my salvation. Amy and I really emphasize the importance of prayer; pray every day together. Our son is very curious and highly logical, so we watch videos on apologetics together. We really limit television and apps and social media, and we explain to him why. We do bible verses every morning, we discuss them and talk about how to apply them. Ultimately, it's trying to find God in everything we do and focus our conversations on God and what He expects of us."
Daniel Herndon
"We try to have direct and intentional conversations, using whatever opportunity we're provided, even with sports. It is very easy to fall into the trap of getting into the vehicle after the game and talking about what they did wrong or bragging about their efforts. But we also try to be intentional with our parenting and point out the lessons in everyday life. If we get in the car after a game and talk about so-and-so being a bad sport, then let's also talk about the importance of what people see, and when we have Christ in our hearts how are we to display that. And I think that's a key thing for us, that we try to be intentional with conversation.
During the height of COVID we got into the habit of doing a family devotional every morning and discussing what we were learning. That is a habit that we've gotten out of doing daily now that our schedules have gotten busy again, but we recognized how important it is for us to be talking about the Word of God with our children."
Brian Lesley
"One thing that we try to do is talk with our kids not just about what they're learning from their bible reading, but also what Emily and I are learning as well. I got that from Jim Davis, who used to be on staff here with Campus Crusade. I asked him one day to sit down and show me how to read the bible in order to dig deep and get more out of it. As we met, I learned to not to read chapters just to check them off, but to read and re-read and write down what sticks out to me. And we've tried to teach our kids that too. A lot of what Emily and I have talked about when it comes to discipling our kids has stemmed from studies we participated in at First Baptist. For instance, we did a Chip Ingram study that taught us to focus more on heart transformation rather than just learning to behave and I learned about the need to celebrate milestones and life events from Men's Fraternity. But we've taken what we've learned and intentionally put it into practice with our kids to help them grow in their faith."
The Importance of Being Genuine
Hunter Griffin
"It's my job to get the shovel out and really dig down into what we believe. You don't just believe it because Daddy said so. And that's been a big deal with Cort. I can't have every answer, but I ought to have most of them or be able to direct him to reliable resources to answer those questions. That's one of my primary responsibilities. However, if I talk all this talk but he can't feel my love, then it's worthless. If I'm sitting there telling him you've got to be slow to anger, and then when he drops a glass and I'm ranting and raving for minutes, then he can see right through that.
So when I do make mistakes, I confess my sins to him and ask him to forgive me. And I show him where I messed up. We talk a lot about Peter and how God knows we're going to fail and stumble and make mistakes. But we acknowledge where we've failed, we ask for forgiveness, and we pick ourselves up and walk on with Him."
Daniel Herndon
"Being in ministry, one thing that has been important for me is making sure it doesn't keep me so busy that my kids never see me. Our desire has been that in the end our kids don't come out and hate ministry because it took their dad away. So we try to include them as much as we can so they can see our ministry and our faith lived out day-to-day. We're now getting to a point where my oldest, Maddox, is at an age where I can take him to BSU events with me. He went to a BSU conference with me in the fall, and he still talks about it. It meant all the world to take him with me to that conference, even though I was worried he would be bored during some of the administrative stuff I had to do. But he wanted to talk to me about every message that he heard and it has opened up opportunities to talk about missions and our desire to see our family go and tell people about Jesus."
Brian Lesley
"When both of my oldest sons turned ten, I took each of them on their own father/son trip. They got to pick what we did, but I got to control what we discussed. It gave me the opportunity to talk with them about responsibilities and expectations and to have genuine conversations about whatever they wanted to talk about; I spent a lot of time answering questions for them about everything under the sun. But it reinforced my goal of letting my kids know that God has given them a resource that is here to support them with everything, and that resource is named Dad."
The Importance of Being Involved
Hunter Griffin
"Our son sees us serving at church and I really feel like that is a big way to help him grow, is for him to see Mom and Dad actually walking the walk. We make a point to discuss everything we do, even down to what we're giving and I have him put our tithe in the box for us. It might be easier to just stay home, because we're homebodies, but we want our family to be involved as much as possible, even in extra events at church. After Emmaus, I said we can't just stay on our hill. We have to go out and be involved and participate and our kids need to see that.
And I've gotten involved in a few groups with older men who have a lot of wisdom. I try to surround myself with people that are smarter than me and have walked with the Lord longer than me. It's one of the things I've found in this church; a group of older men that have discipled me and shared their perspectives on things. The impact on me and my family has been a blessing."
Daniel Herndon
"It can be very easy to take the backseat at church and think of this time as a break for me as a parent. But we think it's important that we model for our kids what it looks like to be a part of a local body of believers and serve in the church. We want to teach our kids that it's important to be with a body of believers. That we're not going to use up all of our energy doing these other optional activities, like sports, and cut out church just because we're tired from being at the baseball field.
So we're here every week, volunteering, serving, and having the kids involved. I think at church it's modeling what Christ has called us to be here and now. And being involved gives us the opportunities to see what we're teaching our kids at home reaffirmed here by people like Blaire who, when she does children's church, will text us and say "Listen to what Maddox or Grey did." Or we'll hear from Maddox's Sunday School teacher about how he's always the first to volunteer to lead the devotion. It's hearing from people in our church family how what we're teaching our kids is starting to click with them."
Brian Lesley
"Being involved at church gives us the opportunity to invest in other people's lives and to let our kids see those relationships modeled for them. But it also let’s us know that there are solid Christian men and women investing in the lives of our children. We're so blessed at First Baptist with the Family Ministry team because they have done a phenomenal job getting older kids to invest in the younger kids. It's so great to see all of the college kids on campus, and it's really showing our kids that their role as they get older is to mentor the younger ones. It's such a great model and supplement for what we're doing at home.
Jim Rohan once said, "You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with." We've always told our kids that you have to be wise with whom you invest your time. But then the flip side of that is, you may be in someone else's group of five people, so you've got to be filling people up even as you're being filled up."