CONFERENCE - Question & Answer Session with Pastor C.R. Wiley, Pastor Jared Longshore, and Pastor Joel Webbon
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
5
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Toxicity
14
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Hate speech
12
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Summary
In this episode, Bro. Chris and Bro. Jared talk about how to keep your kids safe and secure in your authority as a father. They discuss practical ways to keep kids safe, secure, and on track in the eyes of the Lord.
Transcript
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I didn't grow up in a household where blue-collar trades were on display.
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I grew up in an academic kind of bohemian world.
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And when I became a ward of the state, when our family fell apart,
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I was in western Pennsylvania and I was surrounded by blue-collar people western Pennsylvania if
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you've ever seen the film deer hunter you know it's about that period of time where I was actually
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in that part of the country and it's kind of the way it was it still is but um so I was surrounded
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by guys who were competent manually and I grew to respect them and try to try to live like them
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I think there are two things you can do one is make friends with guys who have those skills
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and just talk about it with them I think that you'll find a kind of they'll be pleased know
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that somebody who maybe doesn't have that background
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We live in a world where often people foolishly look down on them
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because smart people only work with their heads
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That's kind of the false belief that many people have.
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Some of the brightest people I've come across are tradesmen.
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but i think you can do that if you are trying to pick up skills when your children are small
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of course they won't know that you don't know what you're doing
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and there's always youtube videos you know you know there's lots of things i've learned just
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watching youtube videos uh and so we live in a marvelous time when instruction manuals are
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almost unnecessary just like i was trying to fix a fuse on one of my jeep tj my tj and uh
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I had to go to YouTube to figure out where it was
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and then figure out the crazy sort of convoluted way
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But anyway, there's lots of stuff out there to learn from
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I gave Jared that talk about keeping your children,
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and then some of the podcasts I've listened with you
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isn't uh going through a you know difficult period you know uh with each of the kids there
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were there were bumps and things we had to kind of work through but you're the father yeah you
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should be up for dealing with the disappointments and the the things that that go with working with
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any other human being you know you're going to have that kind of stuff so you just need to
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keep that in mind and be a know how to take a punch that kind of thing then i think if
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you can communicate to your children that the standards are objective and that everybody is
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subject to them including you that goes a long way toward them understanding that the standards
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are just simply true so you know if i found myself in a situation where i had behaved foolishly
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or had not been fair or whatever, I would apologize.
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Now, if you're an adult and you're always having to apologize,
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that everybody is sort of rolling their eyes over
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So you need to be quick to acknowledge when you are in the wrong and then do whatever has to be done to make certain that the standard is secure and respected and that through that you're demonstrating that you respect for it.
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And then, obviously, I think self-mastery is huge.
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I think that you shouldn't ever entertain the idea that you can exercise a mastery with your children
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if you can't master your own emotions and your own mind, you know,
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because the kids will know that you're a hypocrite.
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What are some of the things you're doing to help keep your kids practically, parental stuff?
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So you have the prophet-priest-king thing.
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First, thinking of what Chris said about working with your sons particularly,
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I do think that's more important than we realize.
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And it's also going to look very different depending upon your circumstances.
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So this is a little bit biographical here, but I moved over the last two years.
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And two years ago, we bought in Florida a, well, not two years ago, I guess four years ago now.
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Had tons of trees in the backyard that needed to be cut down, like huge pine trees.
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burn pile i mean it was perfect so all the things chris says it's i struggle sometimes because i'm
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like boy three years ago i was on that we had space we had all kinds of things that needed to
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be fixed our home was incorporated into our life like as a as an actual project so they weren't
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even like annoying things usually when something breaks in the house you're annoyed by it and it's
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an interruption no this was just like a part of our lives so it's this fully integrated thing and
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have four boys and we could burn we could cut down trees together hall we could work on
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faucets and all that kind of stuff um now that's from that's that situation is very very different
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we're we're city dwellers right um they have a very robust classical christian school experience
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they're involved in sports um and i'm having to when it comes to those mid-grade things i'm having
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to call people to fix things because i don't have time to do them so even hearing chris again anytime
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i listen to some of the things chris says i'm like i've got to i've got to do this we have to
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have some dad on son uh dad daughter time where we're actually doing a project together and so
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ensure that whatever your whatever the structure of your life looks like it might look if you're
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homeschoolers and you have some property then that's going to be way up but even if you're not
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you have to find out ways to make sure that you're actually demonstrating to them how you are
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facing these various challenges it really is learned like they're going to learn when you
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hit your thumb what do you do they're going to watch you and it's going to have to be it's going
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to what do you not do it's going to be very life on life kind of thing and then with their education
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and with their physical activity in sports so governing so governing your lives so you have
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that time together. Also governing to make sure that you're making the sacrifices necessary for
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them to succeed. I thought Chris's point on prayer was really, really demonstrative. Pray that they
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would win and that they would excel. And then you're shepherding them. You're watching right
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now, not just big abstract promises, but right now, what do they need? Well, that child needs
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to learn how to control his emotions more, right? Well, this child needs to learn how to stop being
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so lazy. And so there's encouragement, prophetic work. There's also kingly work where you're
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actually going to structure it in such a way that they're positioned to win. And then the priestly
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work of saying, God bless that. And then share that with your wife, like talk about that. So
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have a date night worked in or something where you have some time and you're talking about that
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in such a way that it's not just pent up anxiety. Like why does he keep making that mistake or she
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keep making that mistake? You're actually talking about it when you hear about it, then you pray
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about it and just work with the Lord to watch him to watch him answer those prayers that's really
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helpful uh it make it makes me think of like what you were saying the kingly prophetic kingly and
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priestly that's a priestly praying God bless my kids in this endeavor in this way the prophetic
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is instruction and uh and and preaching to your children preaching gospel and law but the kingly
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aspect I feel like is one that has been neglected especially by reformed folks um when I was in Acts
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29 for a while um i ended up growing uh resentful towards uh kyperianism because it kyperian just
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was uh became a sentiment a synonym for uh social justice woke because that's what it is in acts 29
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yeah sure we're kyperian it's uh but it's not all of christ for all of life it's all of marx
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for all of life um you know and so and and so i you know realizing that you know that the two
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it was the two kingdom guys um who who were more conservative and so i said well then that must be
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the right position so then i kind of just started doing and exploring some of that and then i
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realized oh you know what it's it's still good uh all of christ for all of life uh every every
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realm every sphere uh it just needs to actually be christ and not and not carl marx and so um so
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then i you know i came i came back and uh and you know and doug wilson was you know obviously um a
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big a big inspiration in that regard and i started thinking and then i started thinking about you
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know grown children who had gone astray with and and looking at some fathers and so i'm going to
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get a little bit particular here but i'll do my best to be uh respectful but um but i i was thinking
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about abraham piper and i'm thinking about you know it's not just like oh he's not serving the
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lord but it's well he's blaspheming christ to a million tiktok followers you know and and 100
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percent writing off of his father's name like abraham piper it's not like he's a genius or
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uniquely gifted or would accrue that big of a platform on his own merit he's uh so it's a
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mockery of his father and a blasphemy of christ and really a shame um and and i don't know john
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piper i don't know his private parenting you know i'm from what i can tell like john piper is going
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to be in heaven he'll have probably a closer seat to christ than me and um he seems like in a lot of
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way he's like a stand-up guy but i i did think and this is you know speculation so i i want to
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give that disclaimer i have no idea what happened in the particular sense in the piper home i'm sure
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in many regards it was godly but i was thinking about that i was thinking about wilson doug wilson
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and i was thinking about you know nate who have you know a little bit of you know i got to meet
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him in person one time and um but it just seems like doug was okay with nate um very much okay
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with uh nate just like dad i think what i want to do is something with dragons you know like
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video games or writing or whatever it is this creative like what i'm getting at is um not uh
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vocational ministry not not going to be a pastor whereas um where again i don't i'm speculation i
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don't know what went on in the piper home but i could imagine just from a distance looking in
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and so i could be ignorant and and working with pieces the information but if i was looking in
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From the outside looking in, I would feel like if I was John Piper's son,
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there wouldn't be much for me other than vocational ministry,
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that that would kind of be the end-all, be-all,
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not that Piper would frown on it or anything like that,
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but I would feel just internally like I had settled for something less.
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which in that case is beautiful because it's representing your daughter
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saying that motherhood is even higher than that and that's right but i would hate though a child
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feeling i have to settle for something outside of vocational ministry because that that is wrong
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uh that that's not settling vocational ministry is not the highest end all be all and i remember
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seeing on twitter with with you know some guys who remain unmentioned but a few months ago where
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they posted um a quote or no it wasn't even a quote it was just the guy talking and saying you
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know pastor as as christian christianity and politics has become more popular he said uh pastor
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um do not you know uh do not quit your church pastoring your church of 100 to be uh to be the
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the mayor of a town of a hundred thousand better to be a pastor of a church of 100 and be the mayor
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of a hundred thousand and i uh quote tweeted that that individual and said uh and mayor of a thousand
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do not quit your uh vocation being a mayor of a thousand person town to be uh the pastor of a
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megachurch of 10 000 like it works both ways it depends on your vocation i i and and i just think
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we've gotten so into we're pietists you know evangelicalism is marked by pietism and i wonder
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how many kids certainly god has to sovereignly work and convert and save their souls that's
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first and foremost grace and faith like jared but i i can't i just i can't help but imagine
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how many kids especially particularly boys would be spared if their fathers could recognize the
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direction they were going and bless it yeah so i don't know john piper but i knew i think i'm
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having problems i do know doug obviously and uh pietism is the last thing that comes to my mind
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when i think doug wilson uh and his kids love him uh his grandchildren love him his his daughters
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and sons-in-law they all love love him but uh the very first time i was out there this is kind of a
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fun story so i was brought out to speak at grace agenda and i you know i never met you know doug in
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person prior to that never been with his family but i was at this big family gathering and doug
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couldn't get a word in edgewise it was just sort of like this you know the scene right right but
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but he was very amused by everything that was going on around him he just kind of but that's
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not uh i think what people uh who have no direct experience with doug would necessarily assume
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i think people who don't know the situation uh directly themselves uh are projecting upon
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doug as things that are not true uh now i know nate and i know something about the background
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there and nate uh is a really interesting guy he just he's very talented and uh i think that
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you know i've not talked to doug directly about this but my guess is that your read is completely
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right that um there is a kind of family mission that they have that that they've received from
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doug's father jim who i had the opportunity to get to know a little bit um and i and all the
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kids have bought into it all kids have bought into it but uh how they work it out is quite
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you know it's quite open because of this reformed understanding uh that every vocation is a means
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by which you glorify god yeah that um when it comes to the say the american christian landscape
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i um you have say maybe the non-reformed evangelifish world is full of handing your
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kids over to the state to be educated um egalitarianism all that all that nonsense
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but then when you come into the reformed american christian world i would say where you have headship
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complementarianism patriarchy something like that they know this this reform group knows that that's
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wrong um so look let's look at ourselves for a minute i would say that the reformed world if
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they're airing are airing on the side of fathers that are going to be at some on some spectrum of
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heavy-handed okay so you get the the worst forms of that but just a little bit of that like they
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dad the kids know the expectations but it's kind of like sit straight act right now i want to i
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know that there's a kind of a loose reformed world that doesn't get it in these more more of the rod
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right but I do think there's this there's this reformed vision kind of picking up on what Chris
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said about Doug just there is a there's a phrase that I found them using out in Moscow a lot pull
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don't push pull don't push and then left-handed power which is kind of like priestly okay right
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handed is this what I said you know do what I said and left-handed is where you see something
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wrong with the people that are under your command and you don't even say anything about it you don't
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send those subtle signals that passive aggressive signals you don't do any of that they literally
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probably don't know where you're at on the issue that's happening in the room but you pray and all
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sudden you know now if somebody's burning the house down then make sure they stop burning the
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house down but it's those little things where where the children feel the freedom to be like
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to live to go to risk um to to do like go for it so the whole world is wide open to you like take
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off and and um there's a there's a freedom there that that turns the hearts of the fathers to the
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children and the hearts of the children to their fathers so when you're leading your home you want
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your home to be like a fun place to be okay so and chris said great stuff about happiness and
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not knowing how to define happiness it's like is the joy of the lord present in the home right is
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is mom snapping at the children all the time then you know people aren't going to want to be around
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there is dad always kind of dropping the iron hammer people aren't going to want to be around
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there but is it a place where like it's going to be so hard for me to turn my back on dad because
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dad tangibly blessed me like over and over and over and over again like i see all the ways that
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he poured himself out leaders eat last kind of thing and we got these we got these blessings
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that we didn't deserve so there's a vision of what you what you're aiming at great i saw a hand in
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the back uh let's do the far back right there black shirt far back
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well in the case of my second son uh at united steel um he got the job uh there because one of
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the elders of my church used to be a foreman there and it's a family held business so it's
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got about 300 employees, but it's still very much a family firm. So he's not in, say, corporate
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America in the way that I think we all can imagine. But I do think that those who do find
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themselves in corporate America, my encouragement to them is not necessarily to pull up stakes and
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try to go someplace. You might really be the Daniel or the Joseph. And I've had guys I've
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worked with over the years who've had really a positive influence on the corporations that
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they've been in and have become kind of, well, counselors and mentors to others in those places
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and even kind of advocates for other people. But I do think that just at a practical level,
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you need to have your plan B ready because there is no such thing as a safe, secure job with
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benefits that's a myth that's any corporation the last guy to get fired is the owner right
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so uh be just be prepared and it may be very sad to let you go i'm it's not it's not like
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it's just dog eat dog but you do you do need to just be you know the kind of the the thing that
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was the real eye-opener for me was my my father-in-law was an engineer with united
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technologies, which is an enormous corporation, owns Pratt & Whitney, lots of very large
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industrial businesses, enterprises on the East Coast. And he was like a lot of guys in the 1950s
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who believed a safe, secure job with benefits was the way to go. And then in 1992, I think it was,
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he was a victim of the first you know big layoff sort of wave and then he was
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hired back as a consultant a lower rate and no benefits so and I it just
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devastated him he had no plan B and it's understandable no one was encouraging
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him to think in those terms but I do think you everybody ought to have a plan
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Okay, well, one of the things about strengths is that generally kids who have strengths
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have kind of a positive feedback loop because they're obviously doing something that they
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tend to have some ability to do, and then they're getting some kind of, you know, reinforcement
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either because they've done a good job and they know it
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or they're getting other people who praise them for what they've done.
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In terms of weaknesses, I think that we all have weaknesses
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and I try to get my kids to play to their strengths,
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understanding that you don't want moral weaknesses.
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But in terms of weaknesses of maybe competence or ability,
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those can be you know we don't we just kind of think you know we can't all be great at everything
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and just encourage kids to to pursue the things that they're going to shine
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in thing with my kids is uh they were all pretty self-motivated so um in in many respects they
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made my life easy yeah that's right that's right well they basically there are there
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there's the carrot and the stick and you know you try to work with that I think too though if you
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can you know and then I think there are also kind of periods of life where a kid is going through
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a period of life and then when that period is is ended they're almost like a new person
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and it's hard when you're in the moment to know that that that happens a lot so in you know with
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with my children there were there were these you know sort of periods of great concern
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with my boys you know i i just you know regular conversation with my wife at the end of the day
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would be it's going to be all right don't worry about it uh i know what's going on now even though
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it completely perplexes you i think i understand what's happening here now i might not have actually
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know but uh but i i would say to my wife hey babe you're actually being counterproductive right now
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um the more you lay it on the worse it's going to get so let up you know so i'd coach my wife a
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little bit on the male mindset when the boys weren't in the room never never correct your
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wife when the kids are around always always do that and likewise wives same with your husband
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You know, if you've got it, if you've got something that concerns you about the behavior of your husband, your wife that you think is counterproductive, that's a good conversation for another time, you know.
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But when both kids are in the room, it's time for united forces, you know, because kids have a real sense of what the sort of the window of opportunity.
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It is no. OK, I'm going to side with dad right now. I'm going to side with mom against, you know, how it works.
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you know on motivation um one of the things is sometimes parents have this false expectation
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that we're going to have like pauline's self-control at seven you know why don't you do
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why don't you weren't you better at this the hand of the diligent shall rule son well yes he shall
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but i am also eight years old so what parents have to do is actually the governing thing
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uh for for both your boys and girls um put them in a hard sport like put them in a very hard sport
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um now if you're homeschool and you're you're way off the reservation kind of thing if you're way
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out then then manual labor and for the for the daughter following mom doing that hard work early
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early morning rising making breakfast for the family that can that can do it but if you're not
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in that kind of situation where you're you're in access you're close access to some kind of sport
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do it do it do it for the boys do it get them in there they need to get hit they need to know what
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it feels like to get hit they need to get back up they need to sweat they need to uh pastor wilson
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said this recently he's like there's some lessons that boys can't learn unless they're throwing up
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on the sidelines that's just you can tell them all you want you can look them right in the face
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son life's hard he doesn't understand what you're saying he doesn't understand if he's throwing up
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then he'll understand. So you have to do it. You can't build those, that practical virtue that
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Chris was talking about and that martial virtue. I don't think it can be built without a lot of
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blood and sweat, particularly for your sons. And I think you need to lean on your daughters that
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way to being a woman. I mean, look at that Proverbs 31 woman, that strength has to be
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cultivated through, through very practical means. So this is kind of fun to reflect on,
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because I did spend time with my oldest son coaching some of his teams and stuff.
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So he was on the town traveling team for baseball.
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I played collegiate soccer, so I was in Division III.
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And so when it came time to get involved in different things,
00:27:33.480
One of the things that you saw with this is that the role of a coach is really important,
00:27:41.420
But one of the other problems is other parents and what they're coming to the sport with in mind for their kid.
00:27:50.200
I remember, you know, one of the things is when you move from t-ball, which is like everybody gets a trophy kind of thing, to actually winning and losing.
00:28:03.000
And then winning and losing really big, you know, really kind of freaky, the kind of behavior that you see with people.
00:28:11.240
But, you know, that's just, I agree with you completely,
00:28:18.300
I remember one time I had a young man, we had a competitive team.
00:28:34.940
and he didn't want to do it because it wouldn't be fun.
00:28:37.340
and so i just informed him that his fun was not the objective uh winning was what we were concerned
00:28:45.420
with and then his father took the kid's side and i said to the father i said what what do you think
00:28:52.940
this is all about uh when has your son learned to make a sacrifice he said this is supposed to be
00:28:58.220
his fun years it's like no this is not supposed to be exclusive fun time this is where he learned
00:29:04.420
some important lessons that he's going to have to to you know hopefully take the benefit of to
00:29:11.100
into the rest of his life and one of those is sometimes you do things that are not fun but
00:29:16.100
just need to be done so this is a great learning opportunity father never got the message
00:29:34.420
Well, you need to follow my friend, Aaron Wren.
00:29:59.960
You know, the first time Aaron and I got together was when he was still at the Manhattan Institute in New York.
00:30:04.020
and we had lunch right across the street from Penn Station
00:30:06.820
because the Manhattan Institute was located there.
00:30:08.740
And it was like three hours later, I said, don't you have to go to work?
00:30:12.460
But anyway, but he has a lot of really great things to say about those subjects.
00:30:17.680
But when it comes to servant leadership, what do we mean by that?
00:30:22.140
I think sometimes we place the accent on the wrong word.
00:30:27.720
Leadership is where the accent should be placed.
00:30:30.640
Okay, first of all, we're going to be going somewhere.
00:30:34.020
And there is some authority I'm going to exercise in order to provide the leadership here.
00:30:44.880
I might need to teach you what's in your best interest.
00:30:56.420
When I was a little kid, I didn't like pecan pie.
00:31:03.180
It looked like a bunch of roaches in a big soup.
00:31:08.080
And my father would look at me and say, boy, you don't know what good it is.
00:31:16.700
Then I actually tasted it one day, and I realized that I'd been schnookered my entire life.
0.59
00:31:26.880
So do you serve by leading, or do you lead by serving?
00:31:32.560
so most of the evangelical world thinks it's the latter so that you you know it's not that you
00:31:37.380
serve by leadership but uh but your leading is by serving and in my experience you know pastorally
00:31:45.080
not so much here with this church by god's grace but in the past due to my own immaturity and in
00:31:52.140
my own immaturity the type of people that i attracted um it was the you you know instead of
00:31:58.580
my leadership is my act of service, my service to this household, to this crew, to this woman
00:32:05.020
is my leadership, faithful leadership. Instead of that, it was, it was, you know, I, I lead by
00:32:12.960
serving and, and leading by serving. I can, I mean, I can define it for you very simple. It means not
00:32:18.540
leading always. The, the guy who's like, well, I'm leading my wife by serving. He's not leading his
00:32:24.880
wife always uh every conversation every pastoral counseling meeting at the end of the day what it
00:32:30.240
always got down to the bottom line the guys who were um i'm leading through my service they just
00:32:36.580
weren't leading and what that really meant is i'm using you know so ephesians 5 you know that
00:32:41.280
christ he laid his life down for the church um but what that how that got defined was a husband
00:32:47.200
laying down his life his prerogatives even his good sense his common sense his convictions his
00:32:54.680
theology everything laying it all down things that you're not actually supposed to be laying
00:32:58.420
down um and it wasn't laying it down for the good of the wife uh for her salvation her
00:33:03.420
sanctification her preservation protection provision it was laying it down for her personal
00:33:08.180
preferences so it was uh that's how it ended up getting defined was uh husband you lay down your
00:33:13.460
biblical patriarchy theology for your wife's preference that uh tonight she wants to go to
00:33:19.240
this particular restaurant you know that's I mean at the end of the day you press gospel coalition
00:33:25.080
and that's what they mean you press them what they mean is husband it's not husband lay down
00:33:29.440
your preferences for your wife's eternal good it's husband lay down your desire for your wife's
00:33:35.380
eternal good and anything else for that matter for her preferences even Driscoll back in the day
00:33:40.220
Aaron Wren brings this up but uh you know he'd rail on men but at the end of the day um it's
00:33:46.200
ironically it was it was feminism uh so it's like men you should you know work hard and do this and
00:33:51.660
blah blah and but but when it really came down to it the application was you should be willing to
00:33:55.760
to do all these things work you know one million hours a week and you know and and provide and
00:34:01.600
blah blah blah and um and lay down all your desires all your preferences she always gets to
00:34:07.840
pick the activity always gets to pick the restaurant notice none of those are needs they're
0.97
00:34:11.500
not they're not eternal salvific sanctification needs it's just her wants her wants her wants her
00:34:16.440
wants her wants you lay down and it's not even you laying down your wants for her wants it's you
00:34:21.780
laying down her needs for her wants you laying down even when you know she needs something that
00:34:28.760
doesn't align with her wants you pick her wants over so really the counsel is hate your wife
00:34:34.040
whereas ephesians 5 is that christ loved his bride and gave himself but but what you're actually
00:34:39.660
encourage you to do is to hate your wife by giving her what she wants over her needs we don't we you
00:34:44.140
know apply that to parenting any other scenario right we want to say well the child is five and
00:34:48.700
they want candy for breakfast lunch and dinner and you know that they need vegetables but they
00:34:53.000
want candy and if you love them you will give up your preference for your child to eat broccoli
00:34:58.020
so that your child can have their desire which is to eat candy well we would all just say that
00:35:03.320
that's abusive parenting but apply it to the husband wife relationship and it's totally fine
00:35:08.020
and when i say it's totally fine i'm talking um i'm not talking about uh heretics i'm talking
00:35:13.600
about evangelicals i'm talking about reform guys they would say not only is it totally fine to do
00:35:17.740
anything else is you are an abusive man you're a cult leader and we are going to rally as much as
00:35:24.200
we can social media attacks uh hit pieces will be written doug wilson is a cult leader you know
0.96
00:35:29.500
this person's a cult leader that person's you know um so why are they flock you know people
00:35:34.980
you said that the last part of your question they're flocking towards you know jaco you know
00:35:40.140
or andrew tate or whatever um well that's the that's the bad uh that's the bad solution it's
00:35:46.400
the wrong solution but i think they're flocking there because um well there's a couple things
00:35:51.620
but i'll just i'll end on this i think right now what you have happen is you have certain
00:35:55.480
individuals who are you know they're they're complementarian maybe even strong complementarian
00:36:00.800
broad complementarian almost patriarchal or you know they just don't like the word or whatever
00:36:05.400
and they're busting the gandalf move right so they're in the middle you know and that you shall
00:36:09.920
not pass and and so they're you know they're standing i was just going to stand up they're
00:36:14.740
like you know if here's the bridge and here's you know here's uh the weak gods thinking of like rr
00:36:21.140
reno you know the weak gods and so that would include all the universal inclusive kind of stuff
00:36:24.820
the dei so the egalitarianism feminism and here's the strong gods lowercase g gods um not like
00:36:32.620
patriarchy would be one, nationalism would be one,
00:36:38.640
you've got these evangelicals, and they don't know what
00:36:40.600
time it is, and they're saying, you shall not pass.
00:36:42.660
And I think right now, like the sons of Issachar,
00:36:50.360
the evangelicals like it or not. Feminism has
1.00
00:36:58.700
the way back to patriarchy and then it's just the old adage the rush duny adage of it's not whether
00:37:03.300
but which so you're going to get andrew tate patriarchy uh islamic patriarchy pagan patriarchy
00:37:08.300
or christian patriarchy biblical patriarchy there will be uh a return to nationalism you can have
00:37:14.260
third reich nationalism right or you can have christian nationalism but this strategy of i'm
00:37:20.280
going to stand in the middle and say no nationalism no patriarchy no this no that just middle you
00:37:26.020
know 1988 complementarianism a word that's been invented you know it's existed for 15 minutes
00:37:31.240
that middle that third way that third way that middle ground these guys are uh they have rendered
00:37:37.120
themselves completely impotent and irrelevant they're a joke no one will remember their name
00:37:42.560
no one whereas other guys who are mocked right now a hundred years from now people will remember
00:37:48.760
them the same way that we are today we remember guys who we would excommunicate if they were
00:37:53.700
members in our churches today. Because we all admire courage. The thing is, we want courage to
00:37:58.620
be safely buried under six feet of dirt. Then we'll admire it. So what I would say is, get right
00:38:04.420
there next to Andrew Tate and outman him in every way. And say, here's how he's right. Here's also
00:38:12.260
how he's a fool. The red pill movement, they know what time it is, but they have no solutions.
1.00
00:38:18.580
So say, yeah, you know what? And that's the beauty of the Calvinism post-mill combo, right? There's
00:38:23.000
red pill calvinism total depravity things are bad post mill uh gandalf is going to come over
0.78
00:38:28.740
this hill here in a here in a moment and uh and we're going to win we're not just going to black
00:38:33.420
pill like you know like theoden and rohan we're gonna we can we can win so
00:38:37.240
let me connect what you said back to something you said and then i'll answer your question
00:38:57.000
And we need to be able to laugh at some things.
00:39:00.100
I just saw somebody tweet that Andrew Tate said something like,
00:39:07.600
I was like, why would people look to a guy for masculinity
00:39:19.220
makes i hate feeling full i'm like that was part of the tweet i hate feeling full it's like so
0.95
00:39:25.000
ridiculous i'm like this stuff is so absolutely ridiculous i didn't imagine a 14 year old girl
00:39:30.300
i was imagining ben stiller uh from um what's the movie zoolander yeah no that's what i was
0.97
00:39:36.200
okay it's a great way to lose a few uh matilda matilda it's no big deal it's a great way to
00:39:41.720
lose a few pounds before a show believe me so i'm just underscoring how bad the situation is
00:39:48.980
like that such a fake fabricated ridiculous um version of masculinity could be at all looked to
00:39:57.660
as the real deal okay so we do have a massive problem but your question is what do you do
00:40:02.940
you mentioned a lot of our a lot of fathers would be dispensationalist that kind of thing
00:40:06.740
and it's going to start by honoring them this is the way this is the way forward um if you
00:40:16.420
are a post-mill, covenantally minded, theonomic, etc., etc., patriarchal kind of person that's
00:40:23.980
understanding the family, the first thing you do is honor your father. And if you had a father
00:40:29.500
that took you to church, I mean, wow. Praise the Lord, right? Cover up his weaknesses. You don't
00:40:39.520
have to act like they're not there. Identify them. Try not to emulate them and their weaknesses.
00:41:40.940
uh jim never came around to the reform position um and i remember being in a meeting one time
00:41:49.600
uh with doug and he said uh i'll be back in about half an hour i've got to put my father to bed
00:41:55.620
he would literally go home pick up his father on his back and carry him into his bedroom and put
00:42:01.280
him down for the night and i saw that kind of thing uh you know often enough there in that
00:42:08.460
environment to be deeply, uh, taken by it. Um, so Doug, uh, honored his father, uh, in, uh, a number
00:42:19.820
of ways, but, um, it wasn't because his father had come around. It's kind of interesting kind
00:42:27.720
of feature to this I think that it depends on the nature of the mistake and who is affected
00:42:41.400
so if let's say maybe you were heavy-handed in the discipline of a son which is something I was
00:42:47.040
guilty of you know you go to that boy and talk to him about it you know don't necessarily make a big
00:42:54.460
house meeting. We're going to have a big house meeting here so I can say I'm sorry to Caleb
00:42:59.300
or something. So I try to keep short accounts with different members of the family. Now let's say
00:43:04.720
maybe you've made a mistake in terms of vocation or something that affects the house's financial
00:43:10.760
well-being or something like that. I don't know if you need to apologize for anything. We all
00:43:17.820
have setbacks. Things don't always work out the way we thought they would.
00:43:22.880
you know you've made the best decision you could under the circumstances with the information you
00:43:27.480
had and it didn't work okay it's time for us to pull together and try to do the best we can to
00:43:32.520
make this you know transition or whatever you're in at that point you know now at the same time
00:43:38.380
if it's something like that then it's great to have a plan b you know so you know one of the
00:43:44.580
things i i would always try to do is uh think about what's the worst case scenario can i live
00:43:48.880
with that can the people i you know care for live with that you know and so i'd have a set of uh
00:43:57.260
things that i would have as sort of uh plans of action in case things didn't work out the way i
00:44:02.740
hope they would and so sometimes you're actually working through that no one knows it i'm actually
00:44:08.220
working on plan c right now no one you don't need to announce it um you just kind of just do it
00:44:18.880
I can just tell you what I did, you know, which was, there was a, you know, it's been a practice
00:44:35.720
that I've had over the years, and it's not as though I've been completely faithful to
00:44:44.260
it and there have been periods where i've been really on task and then there have been periods
00:44:49.220
where because of one thing or another i've not but every day i would go out uh during my prayer time
00:44:55.940
and i would pray through you know the membership members of my family pray for my wife pray for my
00:45:01.920
kids now i'm praying for my spouse their spouses now but years before they even had spouses i was
00:45:07.100
praying for their spouses praying for their for their children praying for my grandchildren still
00:45:11.740
Now I actually have grandchildren to pray for and names for the spouses.
00:45:18.840
When it came to periods where I was concerned about their obedience
00:45:25.940
and where they were spiritually, you know, there would be periods of fasting and prayer.
00:45:31.300
I wouldn't necessarily let them know I was engaged in those things.
00:45:36.180
Like I said, I didn't want to put them on some kind of guilt trip or anything like that.
00:45:50.180
So I bless the children before they go to sleep.
00:45:56.280
May your children possess the gates of their enemies.
00:46:02.920
And then I would just say that particular priestly dimension.
00:46:06.740
I mean, family worship, developing a robust psalm singing culture on a Sabbath dinner
00:46:16.300
or something like that, breaking out a psalm and singing, anything that's going to be in
00:46:20.060
that priestly function, and then just carrying that idea around, knowing that that's what
00:46:25.900
So if Romans tells us to offer up our bodies as living in holy sacrifices, in everything
00:46:33.100
And you're going to give in to those temptations, knowing that you are not just you, but you
00:46:39.660
are the head of this household and a priestly function.
00:46:42.660
So seeking to walk in holiness and asking the Lord to bless all that to the generations.
00:46:47.100
One of the things is kids really love traditions.
00:46:50.120
And it's, you're sick and tired of it, but they just want it.
00:46:55.360
You know, that kind of thing is how you're feeling.
00:46:57.360
But when it comes to, you know, blessing your children, praying for your children, laying
00:47:01.140
your hands on their heads and praying for them as a father i think that that communicates
00:47:04.740
and there are lots of fun things and you know i remember uh i had a tradition where christmas
00:47:11.420
would not come until i drank from the santa mug and they completely went along with it it was like
00:47:17.020
i really had the power over christmas no christmas for you this year but anyway but it was about the
00:47:25.320
family traditions, you know, and, you know, your priestly office, you know, being there
00:47:33.640
to, you know, provide an environment in which they belong, they feel secure, they are going
00:47:46.020
through kind of a pattern that they understand and have heard many times before, that's all
00:47:55.320
and so that's on a weekly basis we do a sabbath dinner on saturday night
00:47:58.600
and i think seeing that something like that happens can really ingrain things
00:48:03.420
we celebrate advent so that kind of thing uh thanksgiving what's it going to be like so you
00:48:09.580
that and that takes a lot of time and investment and conversation with your wife what are we going
00:48:13.760
to do how are they being willing to fund those things knowing that there's going to be sacrificial
00:48:18.060
investment to create this liturgical flow to the day to the week and to the year yeah we we
00:48:25.300
do sabbath dinner on saturday night with our family we usually invite one other family from
00:48:28.700
the church over to join us and we'll depending on on the family we'll usually ask ahead of time
00:48:33.720
the family that's going to join us as guests um assuming that they're okay with it we'll do like
00:48:38.200
a little bit of wine for our children and talk about celebrating uh the lord's day and so wine
00:48:44.060
is a celebration we're ushering in the lord's day and um doing those kinds of things uh has been
00:48:50.420
helpful and then our church has like a potluck meal that we do on sunday so that's saturday sunday
00:48:54.580
so the whole church is doing that we do that as a part of our sunday evening service but i think
00:48:59.320
yeah having like a a calendar a rhythm for us the one rhythm that uh that i just and i know i know
00:49:06.540
it's unhelpful but um there's a sense in which uh if the advent season is stretched too far
00:49:13.540
it undoes itself and i'm aware but christmas begins november 1st for us because we can't wait
00:49:21.160
So we have two months of decorations, Christmas songs,
00:49:29.180
and I know that the calendar is correct, and I'm wrong,
00:49:31.200
but we just can't wait all the way until December.
00:49:37.900
yeah that's a great question um storytelling uh was a big part of our family um sort of practice
00:49:57.580
so i write stories so that makes makes things a little different than maybe most people uh
00:50:05.960
in terms of their experience uh so a couple things i would do um and then i'll get to your
00:50:13.640
question about uh medium uh one of the things is that the dinner table sometimes i would have the
00:50:20.140
kids make a story so we'd sit in a circle and i'd say okay here's the here's the main character
00:50:26.820
the protagonist her name is maggie okay uh and she's at the bottom of a of a hole okay and then
00:50:35.560
i turn to my child on my right then what happens and then you know the child has to make up something
00:50:41.400
on the spot you know and then the next child gets a turn there then you end up with this absolutely
0.99
00:50:45.800
non-stupid sensical stupid story of course but everybody's engaged in making the story you know
0.99
00:50:52.180
and so it's getting them thinking making them you know think in terms of you know character plot
0.99
00:50:57.340
all that kind of stuff that was fine uh the other thing i'd do is i would tell my story i tell my
00:51:02.060
kids stories every night before bed and um i'd say a good half of the time that i was making them
00:51:09.280
up on the spot extemporaneous and so there were the uh the iguana brothers igor and iggy uh so i
00:51:19.080
tell the stories about their adventures to my my sons and then my daughter i created a character
00:51:25.560
called daisy because she couldn't handle narrative tension everything had to be rainbows and
00:51:30.800
butterflies all the time so i actually made a story up on the spot that when i was done i thought
00:51:36.000
that's pretty good uh i think i can do something with this i'm i've been working on the story it's
00:51:40.500
actually a picture book that's going to be coming out here in the next couple years but i've been
00:51:43.880
working on it forever and uh there's a whole story behind that but anyway uh i think storytelling
00:51:49.740
is important and i think that if you can you know if you put books and uh verbal storytelling as
00:51:59.720
sort of the lead thing then uh the other stuff is more or less kind of uh secondary in the in the
00:52:06.980
household so we always had tons of books uh so even my my son the blacksmith uh and welder he
00:52:14.820
takes russian literature to lunch to read you know at work you know he's reading like war and peace
00:52:21.320
for goodness sake you know i'm like sitting with my kids and they're like reading this stuff that
00:52:27.820
but they're talking about comparing notes about Doyshevsky and whatever,
00:52:36.260
my main message was every medium can have a positive use.
00:52:42.920
So we're not like avoiding the internet entirely,
00:52:46.640
but we have to be aware that there are temptations that are often associated
00:52:53.360
with or kind of come with the territory so uh making sure that we're the master of the medium
00:52:59.940
and not the other way around is the key i remember with my second son again a lot of stories about
00:53:05.420
gabe but he really got into video games for a while i was getting a little bit concerned about
00:53:11.180
it and then one day he just stopped just stopped and we were going we were driving somewhere and
00:53:19.180
i hadn't really talked to him about it but we went by one of these places that was all about
00:53:23.200
virtual reality kind of full immersion kind of thing i pointed it out to him he said i'm not
00:53:27.440
into that anymore and he said i want to i want to master the real world that was the thing
00:53:34.340
wow all right well let's go ahead and pause here and let's let chris not be late for his plane