Discipleship is Leadership with Dr Rich Griffith

[00:00:00] Thanks for being here today. My name is Kevin Conover and you’re listening to the Educate for Life podcast. We’re

[00:00:06] broadcasting all over uh the world and um I’m based out of Southern California

[00:00:11] down here. I’m a Christian high teacher at uh Shadow Mountain Community Church.

[00:00:16] Uh we have a Christian high school associated with the church. I’ve been doing that now for going on my 19th year

[00:00:22] and uh loving it. I get to teach 12th graders all about uh the Bible and answer the tough questions they have and

[00:00:28] and really just um challenge them in their walk with the Lord. And uh my website’s educateforlife.org.

[00:00:35] And uh we have all kinds of fantastic guests on the program just um helping us to get insight um from their own lives

[00:00:42] and um how God is working in them and through them. And uh we have something a

[00:00:47] topic that’s uh really near and dear to my heart. Um a while ago there was a pastor I knew. He was um in his I think

[00:00:54] he was like maybe 77 years old and we were talking back and forth and we were

[00:01:00] discussing um raising kids and these sorts of things and he said he said kind of off-handedly my generation dropped

[00:01:07] the ball and um he didn’t say how they dropped the ball which I wrote back immediately what do you mean by that?

[00:01:13] How did you how did you drop the ball? What are you talking about? And he said, “We did not we did not disciple um like

[00:01:19] we should have.” And he said, “I think that a lot of the things that are going on in the church today and with the

[00:01:24] generations today are because um we did not emphasize disciplehip like we should have.” And my guest today is Dr. Rich

[00:01:31] Griffith. He’s an associate professor of youth ministry at Takcoa Falls College. He holds a masters of theology and

[00:01:37] doctorate in youth, family, and culture from Fuller Theological Seminary. and um he has been mentoring teens and

[00:01:45] working with families and serving in ministry in this capacity for more than 30 years now. Uh Dr. Griffith, thanks so

[00:01:52] much for joining us today. Thank you very much for having me. Uh took a little journey to get here,

[00:01:58] didn’t it? Yeah, took us a little but we I’ve been trying to get him on the show uh for

[00:02:03] quite a while now and we’ve we’ve been uh missing each other here, but we finally did it and so um I’m glad that

[00:02:09] it worked out. You recently wrote a book called disciplehip is leadership for those of you who are uh watching. Oh, I

[00:02:16] got my green screen there. It’s all invisible hand. Uh the the disciplehip is leader leadership stages of

[00:02:22] generational development. There we go. There we go. And um you can pick that up anywhere, but his

[00:02:28] website is d as in disciplehip sixfamily.com.

[00:02:34] And um why did you title the book specifically disciplehip is leadership?

[00:02:40] Yeah, it’s a great question. Um, after I finished my doctorate, I was a glutton for punishment and I went back and got

[00:02:46] another masters, this time in organizational leadership. And frankly, it all starts with a confession that I

[00:02:52] spent 30 years exclusively discipling other people’s children.

[00:03:03] Um, I think what I realized too is when as I was going through this master’s program and finishing that up, all the

[00:03:09] leadership models that we were presented and leadership philosophies, I looked at

[00:03:14] it and I go, “Boy, these sure do sound like disciplehip if they are placed in the right context.” And then as a

[00:03:21] professor and uh you know human development and psychosocial development and looking at Erikson’s psychosocial

[00:03:26] development stages you know going man these really fit u these these models

[00:03:31] with disciplehip really fit in Ericson’s psycho social development honestly like I said it was it’s been a journey for me

[00:03:38] to figure out well how do I disciple my own kids because it’s not like parents sit down and go okay well let’s go ahead

[00:03:44] and get on lifeway you know bookstore bank or whatever and see what curriculum we’ll order for our is I think most of

[00:03:50] us unfortunately we we’ve fallen into the trap of professionalizing disciplehip, handing it over to pastors,

[00:03:57] youth pastors, and yet we are called to be the primary disciplers of young people. So, put that all together and

[00:04:03] and this is what this book comes out of. I love that. And um it’s so true, you know, and and parents are um especially

[00:04:10] in this day and age with all the competing um you know, attention grabbers uh on the internet, social

[00:04:17] media, the phones, everything else. uh a lot of people struggling to go, okay, I

[00:04:22] don’t even know how to navigate this. It’s not even something I grew up with. I have no context for what’s

[00:04:27] appropriate, what’s not appropriate, and you know, these sorts of things. And so, um, a lot of people are kind of

[00:04:33] floundering, like you said, and and they’re going to, uh, youth pastors and going, “Okay, you you probably know how

[00:04:38] to do this or or whoever else.” Um, or or they’re just relying on what their

[00:04:44] parents did. And a lot of times our parents made a lot of mistakes and we end up just repeating those mistakes

[00:04:50] because it’s all we know and and we haven’t seen otherwise. And so um this is uh wonderful that you’ve been able to

[00:04:57] uh put a book together. And it’s a it’s an easy to read book too which is a real big blessing for parents who are all

[00:05:02] stressed out and got so much to do. But um and you may have said this uh earlier

[00:05:08] you um I I lost you for a second there. But when you say disciplehip is leadership, what is the mi

[00:05:14] misunderstanding that people have in regards to if they say hey leadership is

[00:05:20] over here, this is a separate bucket and disciplehip is over here. This is a separate bucket. Um what is the

[00:05:25] misunderstanding about why they’re actually in a lot of ways one and the same? Why are people differentiating

[00:05:32] them when actually they’re they’re exactly the you know? Yeah, that’s that’s a great question and I I think

[00:05:38] the reality is I think I flipped the script a little bit and say that for many people they very they’re very

[00:05:44] confident in leading in the boardroom or leading at business and so they understand some principles of business

[00:05:51] leadership or leadership as a whole but then they get home and they’re like I don’t even know how to lead my own family and yet the same time you know a

[00:06:00] lot of these principles overlap with each other like I said when you when you study disciplehip like I do I actually

[00:06:06] teach a course uh called evangelism and disciplehip uh and then I teach at a master’s level

[00:06:11] on a lot of leadership courses and and like I said you look at it you go there really is not a whole lot of differentiation here’s the way I put it

[00:06:17] you will lead your children and you will disciple your children or somebody or something else will

[00:06:23] and so we have to ask the question of of all the voices that are speaking in our kids’ lives are are we the one that is

[00:06:31] the most trusted the most consistent and the one that has sort of the the grip of

[00:06:37] our children’s hearts and minds. Uh John Carter, who’s a famous um leadership

[00:06:43] guru, said that 80% of change actually comes from the heart. And it’s

[00:06:48] fascinating if you think about it. You’re an educator, you know, at schools, you know, churches, you know,

[00:06:54] think about Sunday morning, you go to a sermon. What are pastors teaching to? A lot of times they’re teaching to the head. But when you get that story that

[00:07:01] connects the heart with the scripture, that’s where it makes a difference. So my point being is when you’re a parent

[00:07:08] and you’re discipling and you’re leading your children, you’re doing that both with the head and the heart. And we need

[00:07:14] to be able to speak to our children’s heart more, if that makes sense. It totally makes sense. In my own

[00:07:20] experience as a teacher, when I started off teaching, I found out very quickly that once I connected with the student

[00:07:26] on a an emotional level, a friendship level, a relational level, all of a

[00:07:31] sudden they latched on to whatever I was teaching uh like so so quickly. Um which

[00:07:38] is really amazing how that happens. And like you’re saying, that happens with parents and children too. You said

[00:07:44] something interesting there. you said um that our children are going to be discipled either by us or by someone

[00:07:51] else. So um can you break that down a little further? I know it’s the emotional the the relational component there, but

[00:07:58] when when um a child is probably unconsciously making that decision about

[00:08:05] whether they’re going to follow their parent or they’re going to follow someone else, what’s going on in the

[00:08:10] mind where that kid is starting to, you know, go one way or another? How how is

[00:08:17] relationally or whatever that factor is, what do parents need to be aware of about what causes that the child to go

[00:08:26] one way or the other? Well, you you don’t ask hard questions, do you?

[00:08:31] Well, I have so many people honestly that that are like that need this. They like they they need this to know this,

[00:08:38] you know, and so well, not just self-promote. I need to backtrack because there is a book where

[00:08:43] I actually talk about and I know you’ll understand this too, but uh there first book I wrote which again was my

[00:08:49] confession about disciplehip. It’s called voices helping our children and youth listen to wise counsel. I don’t

[00:08:55] want to plug that one. People can go look at the website for it. But where it comes to the heart is that um we have a

[00:09:01] lot our kids have way too way more voices speaking in their life than when you and I grew up. And so there’s this

[00:09:08] concept called parenting. And what that means is like if if mom and dad says the

[00:09:15] sky is blue, then the kid typically says the sky is blue. Now back in the day when institutions had a similar

[00:09:22] worldview, Christian worldview, you know, this is why we didn’t have sports on Wednesday or Sunday, right? Because

[00:09:28] church and family life were honored. So we had the same voices. But now you have, you know, mom and dad may say the

[00:09:35] sky is blue, but a coach at at the public school may say, “Well, the sky is, you know, gray.” Uh, and somebody

[00:09:42] else called it, and then, you know, maybe a counselor sky is another color. Well, the problem is the kid is only

[00:09:48] pariting back, and you’ll, this gets to your question in a moment. The kid is only pariting back what they hear. They

[00:09:54] have not owned that answer yet to form their own opinion. So, they paired it back. This is why by

[00:10:00] the way the primary task of adolescence is identity formation and this is why

[00:10:06] identity formation and adolescence are being extended is because kids have too many voices speaking into their life and

[00:10:13] they’re not able to form that identity process and own it in their as their self. And so this is now adolescence

[00:10:20] starts in puberty age about 11 10 and a half 11 and now it’s going to age 29 because they’re not meeting the social

[00:10:26] markers of responsibility because they can’t sort out all the voices right now. How does that’s really interesting.

[00:10:33] Oh yeah, that that that’s uh I’ve never heard that before. Um I thought I’ve you

[00:10:38] know I was talking to somebody some friends of mine. I have three teenagers um 13, 15, and 18. And so a lot of my

[00:10:47] friends have kids the same age and we are discussing these sorts of things. And one of the things that somebody said

[00:10:53] was that um putting off getting a job um stunts a kid’s growth because

[00:11:01] uh when I was a kid like I had my first job at 12 as a newspaper boy and I I Yeah. You too. Yeah.

[00:11:08] And so that that’s not available anymore. when I was trying to get a job for my son um and help him with that, it

[00:11:14] was very very difficult. And even at 18, a lot of his friends are struggling to

[00:11:20] find jobs. And somebody said the more you delay that uh the longer it takes

[00:11:27] for the child to mature and grow up. And I’m just curious uh what is the relationship between that

[00:11:34] and what you just shared which is that there’s so many voices speaking that they’re having a hard time um

[00:11:42] solidifying their identity. Yeah. That the process is called individuation where they start to

[00:11:48] discover their own selfidentity. Fowler talks about this in faith development although Fowler doesn’t leave a whole

[00:11:54] lot of room for James Fowler. He doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for the Holy Spirit. Right? So, when kids are younger

[00:12:00] and they’re hearing this uh these parenting concepts, um what’s going on

[00:12:06] is they are still in what’s called a conventional faith. It’s the faith of their parents or the faith of the church

[00:12:11] or whatever. And they really don’t get into what’s called integrative faith, which is what we want because then they

[00:12:17] own their faith. Uh it becomes their faith, not the faith of their parents or grandparents or church or whatever. And

[00:12:23] sometimes they have to get through that through hard life experience, right? having a job that asks them to ask hard

[00:12:29] questions or have a work ethic, right? And so what happens is it’s their individuating process and their

[00:12:37] individual integrative faith is taking longer as well. Or if the church doesn’t

[00:12:42] disciple deep enough or parents don’t disciple deep enough and give what I call pop culture theology answers, then

[00:12:49] the kid feels like there’s no real answer that they can own for their questions. And so a lot of times they’ll

[00:12:55] walk away from the faith. Um research shows and this is actually based on a Christian Smith study all the way back

[00:13:00] in 2000. Thankfully millennials in Gen Z are starting to come back to church. But

[00:13:06] we were losing 75% of young people that grew up in the church because they

[00:13:11] didn’t have opportunities to own their faith to individuate in community in the sense of like for instance uh youth

[00:13:18] groups youth ministries were program driven it was entertainment driven it was attractional driven which is great

[00:13:24] if you’re going to win them uh to Christ but you have to take them deeper because if you don’t when hard questions come

[00:13:31] and if we say pop culture theology they just wind up leaving the faith. because they have not owned deeper answers.

[00:13:37] That’s I know that’s a lot. It’s like out of a fire hydrant, isn’t it? Well Well, this is right up my alley because this is a big part of my job. My

[00:13:44] personal job is um that I’m dealing with my my whole class is apologetics and you

[00:13:50] know, worldview and all these sorts of things. And and I have the students actually go out and they have to

[00:13:55] interview people of another religion. um they’re challenged to to uh have a

[00:14:01] dialogue, not to really debate somebody, but just to dialogue and learn and see

[00:14:08] where the pain points are between what they have been taught and what somebody else believes and then to really process

[00:14:15] that. We come back to the classroom and you know, as soon as they come back, all of a sudden they’re they’re buzzing

[00:14:21] because they’re like, “Well, Mr. Connor, uh we’ve got to talk about this.” So um

[00:14:27] is that what you would say is the process part of the process of uh what did you phrase it? Indiv indiv

[00:14:32] individuation. Individuation. Yeah. Individuation. Okay. Is that is that Yeah, absolutely. That and you’re doing a

[00:14:38] wonderful job with that because again you’re allowing students to ask hard questions. So when we look at simple

[00:14:44] processes of of disciplehip, which was the heart behind the book, you know, if you’re solid in your faith as a parent,

[00:14:51] and I’ve encouraged I’ve done this with my children. I’ve encouraged my small group leaders when I was in church

[00:14:56] ministry, you know, don’t be afraid to take your your child to another denominational thing. Like you can go to

[00:15:02] a Catholic church and still appreciate some of the differences of it and have discussions about it. Right? So a lot of

[00:15:08] this is based the d6family.com. This is based out of the concept of Deuteronomy 6, right? So disciplehip

[00:15:16] should be as you walk uh as you lie down, as you get up. So there are things you do in

[00:15:22] the home, right? teach your children these things. And then at the end of the part of the schma, it basically says,

[00:15:27] “And then write these commands on your doorposts and your your gates.” Well, why? So that when children are walking

[00:15:33] with their parents, they’re seeing these commandments on the post and they’ll ask questions. And I think that’s the best

[00:15:40] thing we could do. We can So I have this process. So have you ever when you work with young people, have you ever got

[00:15:45] stumped by a question and you’re like, “That is a great question.” Yeah. Yeah, I have. I I encourage them

[00:15:52] to try to stump me and Yeah. And uh yeah. Yeah. I think that’s one of the reasons why a

[00:15:57] lot of parents are afraid to disciple their children and they get quote the professionals do because oh yeah they’ve

[00:16:02] been to seminary and all this other stuff, right? But I I think that stunts our growth. I

[00:16:07] think it stunts their growth by not engaging. And here’s what I encourage parents to do. So when your child asks a deep or tough

[00:16:14] theological or life question, there’s a three-step process. The first thing you say that is an excellent question. The

[00:16:21] second thing you say is I don’t know the answer. And the third thing you say is but let’s find out together. So what you

[00:16:28] do in the first part you’re acknowledging their intelligence which makes them feel good. Right? You’re owning up the second part a little bit

[00:16:34] of humility to say I don’t have all the answers. And the third part is now you’re inviting your child on a journey

[00:16:40] to discover the answer with you rather than just providing the answer for them.

[00:16:45] And it begins this process of disciplehip where it really engages some deep and meaningful conversations.

[00:16:51] Average p dad spends maybe two minutes of a day and meaningful conversation with their kids. That’s not enough to

[00:16:57] disciple your child. That’s great. Um and so that’s a really big that’s really a key point as far as

[00:17:04] um parents who have questions about disciplehip is that you know you said they’re going to follow your voice or

[00:17:10] they’re going to follow somebody else’s voice. And the question is is where is your voice? you know, is are they actually even hearing your voice? Do

[00:17:17] they know what you think about these things? And and that’s a really a challenge uh to all of us as parents is

[00:17:22] that um I think some parents are afraid that I don’t know, like you said, I

[00:17:28] don’t know the answer and I don’t know where to go. But there are so many resources now that are available for

[00:17:34] parents. So so many more I think than even there were in the past um that are

[00:17:39] available really at your fingertips um through some really wonderful credible

[00:17:45] uh ministries and um you know podcasts and everything else. So that’s fantastic.

[00:17:50] It just takes a little bit of intentionality um for for this particular book though with the

[00:17:55] leadership is disciplehip. I’m sorry disciplehip is leadership. I was dyslexic there for a moment for this

[00:18:03] book. It really does nail down some really key stages. So, if you don’t mind me digging in that a little bit.

[00:18:08] No. Yeah, let’s do it. So, how disciplehip can be easier and we don’t have to professionalize it. Like,

[00:18:15] you know, Ericson’s psychosocial development is trust versus mistrust. And that’s the very first stage when it

[00:18:21] comes to building relationships uh with your children. And frankly, and I I write write this in the first book a

[00:18:27] little bit here, is that your child’s impression of God comes from you first.

[00:18:33] It doesn’t come from the church. It doesn’t come from the pastor, youth pastor, children ministry. It comes from the parent. So trust versus mistrust. If

[00:18:40] you meet that child’s need, you nurture them, you do the eye contact, you do

[00:18:45] life together, you build the relationship, and they learn to trust you, then they learn to trust God. If

[00:18:51] you’re a parent who’s absent or who doesn’t spend enough time with your child, then honestly then they feel like

[00:18:57] God is distant or aloof. And so that and that’s the foundational thing. Now that

[00:19:03] role model then if you think about it, if the ser so the the leadership model I put in there is servant leadership. Now

[00:19:10] there’s a lot of pastors who say, “Well, I’m a servant leader.” But people don’t always need you to be a servant leader

[00:19:18] because then you start going into codependency and you start becoming either the helicopter or the bulldozer

[00:19:24] parent. Right? But for the stages of trust versus mistrust uh 0 to one and a

[00:19:29] half years of age, that model is actually Christ, right? So let’s face it, I’m you’ve said you have three

[00:19:36] children. Those babies when they were babies, they couldn’t do a whole lot for you. They could snuggle with you and

[00:19:43] make you feel good, but they’re pooping and peeing and crying and keeping you awake and all that other stuff, right?

[00:19:48] So, you truly are a servant leader building trust and modeling Christ to

[00:19:55] these children, which builds that trust, right? That believe it or not, that’s the first step to their healthy

[00:20:00] individuation when they become an adolescent. Now, one model parents have a hard time

[00:20:06] moving away from is like the role of a cop and that’s transactional leadership.

[00:20:12] And you see that in the Bible all the time with Moses, right? Moses tell the tells people Israel, if you do these

[00:20:18] things, the good things, you follow the Lord’s commandments and precepts, then you’ll get these blessings from it. If

[00:20:24] you don’t and you forget God, then you’re going to have natural consequences and you’re not going to be

[00:20:30] under his protective umbrella. So, there’s going to be negative consequences. So that role is the cop. And think about that when a child is

[00:20:36] young, 6 to 11 years old, they’re learning how to engage with other people. They’re learning social skills.

[00:20:42] They’re learning uh how to clean the room and get rewards or just for the sake of cleaning the room. So it’s a lot

[00:20:48] of transactional leadership. That’s a cop. Where parents have a hard time, me included, had a hard time transitioning

[00:20:55] is from a cop to a coach, which really is more transformational leadership.

[00:21:02] Because when your child gets older, they have to experience natural consequence of their decision. Hey, you don’t study,

[00:21:10] you get a bad grade on your test or you’re and it’s hard, man. It’s hard as a parent. I keep want to jump in a cop,

[00:21:15] right? How many of us want to jump into the cop? Oh, you’re going to be grounded, right? No, they have to learn the natural consequences and that’s more

[00:21:22] transformational leadership and uh I give biblical examples for that too. Uh but why do you call that transformational

[00:21:28] leadership? Because it’s a process of moving to be a coach where that child is experiencing

[00:21:35] transformation internally, right? It’s their internal motivation rather than the external

[00:21:41] motivation of consequences and reward for the cop. Right? So now you’re moving from motivation of exttrinsic to more

[00:21:48] motivation of intrinsic and which is ideally what every parent wants. They want their child to start

[00:21:55] making good decisions on their own without having to constantly but but like you said the process of getting

[00:22:01] there is so painful sometimes because you’re you’re like no what are you doing

[00:22:07] and you just want to stop them. Yeah. And we want to save our kids from failure. But to be honest with you, how

[00:22:13] many of us as adults we look back, we actually learn more from our failures than our successes.

[00:22:19] As a matter of fact, our successes can make us rely too much on the past and

[00:22:24] not transform, not move forward, right? So sometimes we have to learn from

[00:22:29] failures. And now again, unless we want to keep kids away from like ethical or moral big ethical or moral moral

[00:22:36] failures, you know, but like there are times when Oh, bless my heart. That’s a

[00:22:41] southern saying. Bless your heart. The hardest part for me is in a transformational coach. And you’ll

[00:22:47] appreciate you had your oldest is 15. My old is 18. 18. 15. 13. Yeah.

[00:22:52] This is even better. So when your 18-year-old was learning to drive when

[00:22:58] he was 15 or she was 16. He or she? Uh my oldest is a boy and then I have

[00:23:03] two girls. Okay. So your oldest son when he was learning to drive from 15 to 16, how

[00:23:09] hard was it for you to be a coach? Very hard. Let me tell you,

[00:23:15] I just I have lived that as well. My youngest son is 16 and and it’s hard to sit in that side seat and bite your

[00:23:23] tongue. You want to be the cop, right? But you got to be the coach. And uh that’s how they learn better, you know? Because if not, it’s too much pressure,

[00:23:30] right? They, oh, dad, you’re treating me like a kid. And that when kids start saying that then sometimes, yeah, we

[00:23:35] probably are treating them like a kid. Yeah, that’s when I say, well, stop acting like a kid and I won’t treat you

[00:23:40] like a kid. That’s true. That’s very true as well. And by the way, that’s a great point. I

[00:23:46] should say that some of these models will go in and out of each other and they will overlap. In some ways, you

[00:23:51] never stop being Christ to your kid, right? Sure. Sometimes you do have to go back to the transactional leadership

[00:23:58] because they really just made a mistake and you got to go back to that. But for the most part, these these stages will

[00:24:04] overlap and there’ll be different periods of time for, you know, depending upon the child where they are in their maturity and where the parent is in

[00:24:10] their maturity. Yeah. I mean, some of us, you know, we have a lot to learn. We’re still uh we

[00:24:17] we need our parents in our lives, uh, you know, a for a lot of the time. Uh,

[00:24:23] my guest today is Dr. Rich Griffith, and he is the author of Disciplehip is Leadership. If you want to check out

[00:24:29] that book, D as in disciplehip sixfamily or D as in Deuteronomyfamily.com

[00:24:35] and then his email too if you want to get a hold of him. rw Griffith that’s g r i ff i tfc.edu.

[00:24:44] Is that correct? Yes sir, that is correct. Okay. And then um I I did have a

[00:24:50] question too here. You put um as one of the quotes from the book, you cannot discover your purpose until you discover

[00:24:56] your passion. Um I have found that to be so true. But explain to us the

[00:25:01] significance of that particular quote. Yeah. I think you know how many times did we grow up and we heard questions

[00:25:07] like when we were little children, what do you want to be when you grow up? Right. Yeah. And you know we’d say stuff well when I

[00:25:12] was growing up it was an astronaut right now. Now now I’m just a space cadet. Yeah.

[00:25:18] But no I think and so what we’re doing is we’re defining people by what they do

[00:25:23] uh rather than who they are. And so passion precedes what we do. So I give

[00:25:30] an example. I might I might step on it here and some parents might get offended. But so obviously I teach youth

[00:25:35] ministry, intergenerational ministry at a Christian college and I legitimately have Christian parents come in and their

[00:25:41] son or their daughter feels called to youth ministry. And the question they will ask me, first question, I

[00:25:47] understand as a parent, I understand the concern, but the first question is, well, can my child really make a living,

[00:25:52] you know, being a youth pastor? Well, I’ve been gracious and I haven’t worded it this way. Uh, and I have said, “But

[00:25:59] would you rather you have your child pursuing a paycheck or their passion?” Because how many people make a lot of

[00:26:07] money, right? But they’re miserable. And uh, and God’s always provided. But

[00:26:12] here’s the point. We try and get people to pursue their purpose first when they have no idea what they’re passionate

[00:26:18] about. And you look over and over again in the scripture about how who God used and how he used them. Think of David,

[00:26:25] you know, God used David. And David, David was passionate for God. He was

[00:26:30] passionate for the things that God put on his heart. And he became kind of a renaissance man, you know. Uh yeah, he

[00:26:36] made mistakes, but it was his passion first, which is our passion for Christ. Then therefore, we find our identity and

[00:26:43] then we find our purpose. Yeah. I love that. And um it’s so you know Psalm 37:4, one of my favorite

[00:26:49] verses, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. I I find that to be so interesting that um God works within our

[00:26:57] our passions and what we um care about. And because ministry is done everywhere,

[00:27:03] doesn’t matter where you go, um you’re going to be loving people and loving God. whether you’re in a dentist office

[00:27:09] or whether you’re in a, you know, an engineer or whether you’re in full-time ministry, you know, as a youth pastor,

[00:27:15] whatever it may be. And I think that’s really important, too, for people to recognize is that um because sometimes

[00:27:22] people kind of put that in a box and say, “Hey, that person does ministry.

[00:27:28] That’s not what I do.” Um but in fact, um we all do that. So, uh that’s cool.

[00:27:35] Yeah, that’s a great point. I mean, I think that’s that’s the problem why disciplehip has been so weak because we put it in a box

[00:27:41] for somebody else to do. And I like to say we’ve created a lot of spiritual orphans and let them left them at the altar and

[00:27:47] we’ve not taken them in that we’ve got them justified but not sanctified, mortification, and then glorification.

[00:27:52] Yeah. Amen. That’s awesome. Well, um and then you have another quote here. When your kids rebel, remember it

[00:27:57] is not the seed they are rejecting. It is the soil that needs tending. Um explain that quote.

[00:28:03] Yeah. I think I think what I learned many years ago in in student ministry especially, and it’s true of a parent,

[00:28:08] you’re planting seeds, right? You’re you’re planting the seeds. And every now and then, if I’m not I mean I I hate to

[00:28:15] say this, but in the sense of plants, I have a brown thumb. So, a lot of those

[00:28:20] things just die if I don’t do it right. But what I do know is that you have to change the soil every now and then. You

[00:28:25] keep the seed or the plant that comes out of the seed, but you have to change the soil to give it new nutrients and

[00:28:30] things like that, right? So I guess what I’m saying is recognize that when your kids are you feel like they’re rejecting

[00:28:37] your faith or that you feel like they’re rejecting your values, that’s just a normal part of moving away from that,

[00:28:44] you know, again that uh conventional faith to an integrative faith. They they

[00:28:49] have to get new soil sometime to experience that what they would call their own. So for can I’ll use an

[00:28:56] example of this if I so people may get caught up on this conventional faith and integrative faith and I just want to clarify it a little bit. So like the

[00:29:03] reason young people go to when they go to a Christian camp right and they have

[00:29:08] an altar call and a lot of their friends they have a common experience. It’s a shared experience which is great things

[00:29:14] for youth group. You go back you have a common experience to talk about but that

[00:29:19] seed is planted but a lot of kids three weeks later they’re back to their own same lifestyle. Right. Mhm. Mhm.

[00:29:24] So I think what we need to do is continue to tend that soil. And when it comes to conventional faith, I put it

[00:29:30] this way. So think of the word convention. If you can have the Republican, and not to be political, but

[00:29:36] you can have the Republican National Convention, and you can have the Democratic National Convention. Well,

[00:29:41] what makes them conventions? Well, Republicans think a certain way, Democrats think the same way. They’re in

[00:29:47] like-minded environments. right now where kids have to move into integrated.

[00:29:53] The only way to get them to do that is get them out of those continually likeminded

[00:29:59] environments. So change the soil a little bit, but keep the truth of the gospel and the truth of the Bible. This

[00:30:06] why I say sometimes take your kid to another bibleelving church. Go with them. Ask questions. What connected?

[00:30:11] What didn’t connect? Because what it does, it expands their worldview. You know this as someone who teaches apologetics. You have to expand the

[00:30:18] worldview to get to deeper answers. Yes, 100 percent. It’s really interesting because um that’s something

[00:30:26] I’ve I’ve uh shared personally is that until you provoke them with like you

[00:30:32] said getting them out of their their bubble basically. Yeah. Uh they

[00:30:39] actually don’t try to think deeper because of the fact that they don’t feel

[00:30:44] the need to seek deeper answers. Um, but as soon as they’re put in a position where they have to talk to somebody that

[00:30:51] doesn’t agree with them, all of a sudden now they’re far more interested in finding more serious and deep answers.

[00:30:57] So that makes a lot of sense. But I tell the the parents like on an open house night, I tell them, look, the good news

[00:31:02] is is we do this here while they’re still at school and they come back to the classroom and then we have a chance

[00:31:08] to dialogue and so we’re not throwing them off to flounder. Um, which happens to a lot of kids, right? Is that they’re

[00:31:15] put in a place where they don’t have that person to disciple them and they’re they’re being hit with

[00:31:21] all these difficult things and they don’t know where to go for good answers and and eventually some of them just

[00:31:26] decide oh there must not be any good answers. So uh that’s the scary thing and and the proof is in the pudding.

[00:31:32] That’s why so many young people you know they go off to college a secular state college and they walk away from their

[00:31:38] faith and and let me reiterate this too. Disciplehip isn’t again I’m not saying all disciplehip has to happen with just

[00:31:45] the parents. It is a collaborative effort between parents, churches and frankly I I made sure every single one

[00:31:52] of my kids had a mentor who has you know the same Christian worldview, same

[00:31:58] values but sees life differently so that they can get a different perspective. And again it leads back to those voices.

[00:32:04] They have more voices in their world saying the same thing to give them a solid foundation to build off to answer

[00:32:11] the harder questions. Absolutely. So it’s not just coming. It’s not necessarily although the parent

[00:32:17] is the primary um disciper that they they hear these alternate voices like uh

[00:32:23] my son recently we we go to a men’s Bible study together and the pastor that

[00:32:29] was leading the study we he he wanted to go up and talk to him afterwards and he was like this is so great. This is so

[00:32:35] great you know and I’m learning all this stuff. He was complimenting the pastor and I was thinking to myself, “Yeah, yeah, you should have listened to me.”

[00:32:43] But but I was just happy to to hear how he was so enthused. Um and it’s so

[00:32:50] important, you know, he looks up to that pastor and and has a lot of respect for him. And so that voice is also, like you

[00:32:56] said, voice is speaking into his life. And so that’s wonderful. Well, how many of us did that, right? We didn’t believe something until somebody

[00:33:02] else said it, right? You’re like, can I believe that? Right. Exactly. Right. That’s that’s a funny

[00:33:08] thing. Yeah. Um well, so um something you mentioned earlier,

[00:33:15] you said, and this is slightly off topic, but I thought it was interesting what you said. You said um I think you

[00:33:21] said you teach a class on disciplehip and evangelism. Is that what you said? Evangelism and disciplehip. I

[00:33:27] evangelism and disciplehip. I thought that was interesting. what what is the relationship there between evangelism

[00:33:32] and disciplehip as far as uh you know you have disciplehip as leadership but how is uh evangelism integrated into

[00:33:40] disciplehip. Yeah, I define disciplehip too actually in the text and you know spiritual

[00:33:45] formation. So for instance, spiritual formation is the process of conforming to the image of Christ for the sake of

[00:33:51] others, right? But then disciplehip feeds into that too in the sense of and evangelism in the sense of you know when

[00:33:58] we’re doing things for others, we’re sharing the gospel. Uh and and then what I also look at is the fact that um this

[00:34:05] process is really about creating disciples who make disciples, right? And what that means is you’re strong enough

[00:34:12] in your faith that you can go out and share your faith with a non-believer.

[00:34:18] Now, there needs to be training in that. But you, you know, it’s really funny that they call us evangelicals,

[00:34:24] but but the thing about it is we spent so much time being evangelicals. I wish

[00:34:30] we’d become more discipicals. I don’t know if that’s a word, but we’re gonna coin that here.

[00:34:35] Yeah, that sounds good. Because you you can’t you can’t separate the two. If

[00:34:40] you’re a disciple, if you’re a follower of Jesus and you’re being discipled, you are going to do the Matthew 28 go as you

[00:34:48] just like as you go do disciplehip. Matthew 28 really is translated as you go make disciples. They go hand in hand.

[00:34:56] Well, you can tell you haven’t been strongly discipled if you don’t know how to share the gospel because people are

[00:35:02] like, “Oh, I’m a saved. I’m a Christian.” Well, what does that mean? Can you present a sequential presentation of the gospel in a way that

[00:35:10] makes sense or do you like, “Oh, I can’t do that.” Well, again, if you can’t do it, then you’ve been weakly discipled.

[00:35:17] We e a k l y, not we e k l. Yeah, that would be the better one.

[00:35:23] Um, yeah. And that makes a lot of sense, too, is and and the reality is is that a lot of adults can’t, right? They they

[00:35:29] can’t share the gospel. They don’t know how to do that. Um, and I have a lot of I have a lot of kids in my class that

[00:35:36] their parents, you know, did not get to go to a Christian school. And so a lot

[00:35:42] of the things that these kids are learning, they’re they they know more about the Bible than their parents do. And and they’ve received that. And so

[00:35:49] the parents are like, “Oh gosh, I want to I want to learn this stuff, too.” You know, um, they haven’t had that

[00:35:55] opportunity. So, um, that’s something we kind of have to seek out in our churches and and, um, in our relationships. So,

[00:36:03] yeah. And I I want to point out to parents, too, because this has been a journey for me. Like I said, I did it for 30 years with other people’s kids.

[00:36:10] My student now, my kids have been with me for 16 plus years. But I had to start

[00:36:15] somewhere. I had to be humble and say, even though I don’t know how to do this

[00:36:20] with my kids, I’ve got to learn, right? And so a simple thing I’ve done with my youngest son is, you know, we’d open I’d

[00:36:28] take him to school. It’s about a 40-minute drive um when he wasn’t driving. And we’d open the Bible, we

[00:36:35] went through the Gospel of John, then we started through the Psalm. And it’s really interesting. He he I would drive,

[00:36:40] he would read, and my basic question was, “What does that mean to you?” So

[00:36:46] about when we got to Psalm 18, he goes, “Okay, Dad, I get it. It’s like the

[00:36:51] psalmist is always writing about how things are horrible and I’ve got and God I wish it would just smash their teeth

[00:36:57] in and stuff like that. But then at the end he always goes, “But you’re my rock, my fortress, all this other stuff.” And

[00:37:03] I’m like, “Okay, great. You got the context for these. What does it mean to you now?” And now as a kid who’s been

[00:37:08] adopted out of the system, I I get emotional when I think about this because he says, “What that tells me, Dad, is God will never leave me or

[00:37:15] forsake me. I’ll always be under his.” I’m like that’s that’s disciplehip. I

[00:37:20] get emotional every time I recall that that scenario. That’s wonderful. Yeah. And that’s the thing we you know we all want our

[00:37:27] children to do that. Um and I like how you said you got to start somewhere because um as parents all of us at one

[00:37:35] point or another feel inadequate. We’re all, you know, doing it for the first time. Um and so the reality is is that

[00:37:43] uh we’re going, okay, wait, is this the right thing to do? Did my parents do this right? Is this the way I should

[00:37:49] approach discipline? And we run into so many unique scenarios too. That’s the thing too, right? Is is every one of our

[00:37:55] kids is living life doing things that a lot of times are completely new to us

[00:38:03] and uh you know how do I deal with all these different issues that are coming up because of the internet and because

[00:38:09] of social media and everything and so um that’s really tough. Um again Yeah.

[00:38:15] Every child’s different. Every child’s different. You’re three kids. You raised in the same home, but everything’s

[00:38:20] different. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I have one child who I I thought I was going to have to like

[00:38:27] be real um strict and she would just change on on a dime. Um but then I had

[00:38:35] another child who was like, “I’ll never change, Dad.” So it was a such a contrast in parenting

[00:38:43] but um we just need that that guidance. Um and Kevin if I could say really the

[00:38:49] honestly it is so simple disciplehip is having conversations with

[00:38:54] your children and pointing them to Jesus. So that brings something else up, you

[00:39:00] know, because it is simple in a sense, but one of the things I’ve heard parents say a lot is is my child doesn’t want to

[00:39:07] talk or I don’t know how to generate these discussions. I don’t know how to get them they they’ve they go silent on

[00:39:14] me and you know how do I generate these conversations?

[00:39:20] Yeah. Well, um try and make them natural. So for instance, you know, sometimes we feel like we’re generating

[00:39:27] artificial conversation. Oh, let me go back the other thing you said too and remind me about generating artificial

[00:39:32] conversation. But we all feel like imposters as parents, right? We have imposttor syndrome. But I want to remind

[00:39:38] parents, Adam and Eve had God. They had the perfect father. They still blew it. Yeah.

[00:39:43] Sometimes as parents, we just need to hear you’re doing okay. You’re doing the right thing. Yeah. So, going back to the

[00:39:49] conversation, well, you can’t force conversation, but I’ve never known a kid to turn down an ice cream cone and just

[00:39:56] sit and talk. Yeah. It’s It’s just simply that simple. And I would say this, too. The more the

[00:40:03] earlier you start with these conversations and the more you just keep yourself open and the more you dialogue

[00:40:10] with your child, they get used to it. Now, maybe parents are engaging. They’re starting this new and it’s like, man,

[00:40:15] I’ve got a 16-year-old. We haven’t done this again. Try and find natural ways to do it. Invite them to talk. There’s a

[00:40:22] great uh I was gifted by D6. There’s a great book called About Me, About You.

[00:40:29] And it’s just this little binder thing. And it starts out asking simple questions. What’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite color? Simple

[00:40:36] simple questions. It asks parents. Um the kid says something like, you know, one of the questions, tell me about a

[00:40:42] favorite TV show you watched when you were a kid. you talk about that, but as it goes through the book, it actually starts

[00:40:48] delving into more spiritual concepts. Now, I’m plugging somebody else’s book, and that’s okay, but it’s a d.com,

[00:40:55] and it’s called about me, About You, and I’ve used that as ways to start conversations. You can go online and you

[00:41:01] can buy boxes of questions for teenagers or questions for families or, you know,

[00:41:07] and I know this is going to sound simple again, do a game night. And sometimes your kids be like, I don’t want to do a family

[00:41:13] game night, right? but fine teeth and say something like, “Well, you know what? We’re going to have family game

[00:41:19] night and if you don’t want to participate, I get your phone for a while.” Man, that’s like the death death sentence right there. Right.

[00:41:26] That’s for sure. So, and just say, you know, I’m asking just to play some games. We’re going to have game night. Put your phone up and

[00:41:31] you’d be surprised how many conversations come up around game night. It it is all about relationships and

[00:41:37] just trying to find ways to intentionally reconnect with our children. Yeah, I think that’s so important is um is just being really

[00:41:45] persistent in creating those times that you can spend with your kids and

[00:41:51] sometimes like you said uh it does just take you to saying, “Hey, this is what we’re going to do.” And then and then

[00:41:58] later on they really appreciate it and they go, “Oh, wow. That turned out way better than I thought it was going to and I actually really enjoyed it.” And

[00:42:05] so, uh I mean that was my story as a kid. Like constantly my mom would make me do something and I’d be all grumpy

[00:42:10] and then I’d have a great time and then she’d be like, “See, you had a great time.” And I’d be like, “Oh yeah, I did.” Okay.

[00:42:18] Yeah. It’s It’s almost like a right of passage, isn’t it? We Yeah, it is. It really is. So,

[00:42:24] yeah. Speaking of which, too, there’s another thing you can do. You can implement simple rights of passage for your children. We don’t have enough

[00:42:29] rights of passage, you know, things that they can hang on to in their memories and stuff. I I try and take individual

[00:42:34] trips. I I try and have individual time with each of my kids. We do group stuff, but I just want to do things with my

[00:42:39] kids that are going to build memories. Absolutely. That’s wonderful because that’s something they can reflect back

[00:42:44] on. And then um also I I think what’s important there too is what you said

[00:42:50] where you you know it’s kind of back to that point. They’re going to follow somebody’s voice and those memories are

[00:42:56] special and they cause the child to want to follow your voice because you’re the one that poured into them. You’re the

[00:43:01] one that loved them. You’re the one that took them on that trip. And so, um, it’s building that relationship. Well, well,

[00:43:07] uh, thank you so much, Dr. Griffith, for what you’re doing and, um, just your ministry and your heart and this book.

[00:43:13] Uh, for those of you listening, Disciplehip is leadership. Again, you can pick that up at his, uh, website, D

[00:43:19] as in discipleship 6ixfamily.com. And there’s some other resources there too that are available. And, um, you’re

[00:43:26] open to just taking questions too through email or if somebody wants to reach out and just ask for some guidance.

[00:43:32] Yeah, absolutely. And you know if they want to meet face to face, you have some church leaders willing to do that or anybody parents have questions. I think

[00:43:39] we need to support each other. You know, they can email me. I’ll try and get back within 24 hours. Depends on how busy the

[00:43:44] semester is. And then if they want to go the conversation further, I can give them the way to connect uh you know

[00:43:49] through teams or zoom or even just a phone call. That’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much for uh taking the time to share

[00:43:56] with us your insight and your wisdom. Uh Rich, really appreciate it. Oh, thank you very much. I hope it was

[00:44:01] worth the wait. Absolutely. No, 100% 100%. Yep, you got it. My website’s

[00:44:07] educateforlife.org. Uh, check it out. Lots of resources there also. And, um, look forward to seeing you guys next

[00:44:13] time. We’ve got some other fantastic guests coming up that, um, I think you’re really going to enjoy. So, uh,

[00:44:19] we’ll see you soon. God bless you. Have a great night. Educate for Life helps you build your

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