The Other 6 Days

Dads: A World of Difference | The Other 6 Days | Episode 52

• Southwest Church • Season 3 • Episode 52

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In this special episode, we have special guest husband, father, best selling author, parenting expert & Christ follower, Dr. Jim Burns with us to share some helpful wisdom & insight on ways we can show up better as faithful father's, husbands & friends. 

SHOW NOTES & RESOURCES:
- Confident Parenting by Jim Burns (https://a.co/d/b9Q0OYx)
- Finding Joy in the Empty Nest: Discover Purpose and Passion in the Next Phase of Life - Jim Burns (https://a.co/d/fAKtfBZ)
- Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out by Jim Burns Ph.D -  (https://a.co/d/50kGfrg)
- Understanding Your Teen: Shaping Their Character, Facing Their Realities - Jim Burns (https://a.co/d/gjl6h5W)
- Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality: A Biblical Approach to Prepare Them for Life by Jim Burns (https://a.co/d/9pQgklb)
- Homeward - Helping Families Succeed (https://homeword.com/)
 - (Blogs, devotionals, newsletters & seminars, etc.)
- Creating an Intimate Marriage: Rekindle Romance Through Affection, Warmth and Encouragement by Jim Burns (https://a.co/d/1CKGp2C)
- Blog from Tim Denning - Wise Words from 631 Dads That You Can Implement Right Away to Be Happier (https://timdenning.com/wise-words-from-dads/)

For more information or to join the conversation, head over to https://southwestchurch.com/theother6days or email us at theother6days@southwestchurch.com

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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the other six days podcast, where we chat about life outside of Sundays and what it means to live from our gatherings, and not just for them. I'm your host, cj McFadden, and on this special episode we have a special guest with us, dr Jim Burns. Jim is a husband, father, bestselling author, parenting expert and Christ follower who, through his books, resources, leadership and wisdom, has helped parents raise an empowered kids and guided couples towards stronger marriages and help shape families around the world. Today we get the privilege to glean some of his profound wisdom, expertise and insight on how we might show up better as fathers, husbands and friends. Jim, thanks for being here with us. Cj, great to be with you Cool music too.

Speaker 2:

You did a good job on that. That's a fun one. You went and played it. You played that right. Yeah, it's just a little ditty I worked on. Yeah, really good, Good ditty.

Speaker 1:

From Envato.

Speaker 2:

Downloaded.

Speaker 1:

No. So, Jim, we always like to start off our podcast here with something a little more fun, a little game for our guests. So I'm going to go ahead and give you some common quotes. Growing you think they're wise or weak dad advice and why.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Sound all right. You got it All right let's do it All.

Speaker 1:

Right, Dad, you say my house, my rules.

Speaker 2:

It makes sense, but I don't think you say it that way. Okay, it's all in tone Tone. So you're the dad, so you're the authority. But don't say my house, my rules. There's a better way to say it too.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Timing tone, all that kind of stuff. So the old school, they probably said it wrong. Yeah, I think I got that one. So talk about ideas, not people. I don't even know what that is. I honestly have no idea.

Speaker 2:

You told me a few of these and my dad told me most of those. I had never heard that, so I can't tell you if it's weak or wise.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I want to tell you that one came from. That was Katie Couric. Her dad used to say that to her, so I just thought I'd throw that in there.

Speaker 2:

Well, she's pretty, so that means it's all together.

Speaker 1:

There you go, guys. If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about. Oh horrible.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what'd you say? Why is her weak? That's, that's weak. No, no, no, no, no, weak sauce right. No, Dad what. I love about dads today is they're much more sensitive to their kids than they used to be. That's old school and it's just dumb. I'm not even going to say it's weak, I'm saying that's a dumb thing to say Dads. Don't say it. No, no, no.

Speaker 1:

That's just like around that. Okay To think it, not say it. That would have been better. Better language.

Speaker 2:

Uh, because I said so um, you know there's another, better way to say it, but you know you're the authority, so I'm saying authority. You don't say it though, and again it's goes back to the tone the way you say it. But you know you're in charge, and I don't think dads sometimes are in charge. They let the kids kind of run all over them or they'll, you know, the whole family kind of run over them. What they need to go is no, this, this, this is the way it is. My thing is I say nevertheless, this is what we're going to do. I understand why you feel that way, but nevertheless, this is gentler, but you know, I think it's better.

Speaker 1:

That?

Speaker 2:

oh, I definitely think that's better, I'm going to steal that one. Actually, that was really good.

Speaker 1:

We're already getting advice just in the game.

Speaker 2:

Here it builds character Well again, I think that's one of the things you think Okay, so you know something is wrong. Yeah, you know it is going to build character. That's great, but I think there's a better way to say it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, and I don't think you say it you talked about timing in one of them.

Speaker 2:

Here I am giving parenting advice when we're playing a game, but I think you give them more that story later yeah, yeah Like that was an opportunity to build character, you know, or how, yeah, yeah, you know your best friend, their best friend, you know, broke up with them, or you know quit spending time, or they were talking bad about him. It's going to build character. It probably will, but you don't say that that's not the way you show love and care and concern.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to call that week.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I like that. Um do what you love.

Speaker 1:

I like that. Yeah, yeah, I think there's.

Speaker 2:

There's a great thanks for that it in your head and never voice that Don't. Here's the, here's the phrase. Don't say everything you think to your kids dads, and we dads do that sometimes.

Speaker 1:

We do it a lot of times.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I think like yeah, so you're going to hear a lot more of these probably things to think, not say, yeah right, exactly. Money doesn't grow on trees.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, money doesn't grow on trees. It makes sense, but again, it's most of these phrases that we used to use. These are old school phrases. Most of those phrases they kind of suck. There's just a better way of saying it. So yeah, money doesn't grow on trees, that's true. And yet there's a better way to teach stewardship to our kids and say that.

Speaker 1:

Well, you'll talk to that a little bit more, but a lot of this is for behavior modification, right? Like just getting your kid to do something you want them to do. So, it's a control thing a little bit. You'll understand when you're older.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry I don't think you say that to your kids. That's weak, but it is kind of wise. Just let it go. Let it go.

Speaker 1:

There you go. Let it go. There you go. Okay, this one, I stole this one, but approach people with a rose in your hand and a hammer behind your back.

Speaker 2:

I love that you stole. I'm glad that's not yours.

Speaker 1:

Okay good, I think that's weird.

Speaker 2:

So it's a W, but it's not weak.

Speaker 1:

It's weird. It's weird. We have a third option in there. Now you can do as I say, not as I do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's horrible. Okay, that's weak and not just weird, but that's a horrible thing to say, that's wimp.

Speaker 1:

Ooh good, we could have done these things with Ws.

Speaker 2:

We could have got some more things going the alliteration.

Speaker 1:

Okay, it's wimp, we're with it. Wimp, I like it. Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

Speaker 2:

Well, as a dad of three daughters, I sort of believe that I tried that on my girls and they just gave me eye rolls and, like you, are an idiot.

Speaker 1:

But it's kind of true. I think I would agree. I found that to be true.

Speaker 2:

But what do you get? So it didn't work, but it's still true, because that's the thing with parenting too. You go dang. It didn't work what I said, but it's not wrong.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, that's good.

Speaker 2:

Uh, this hurts me more than it hurts you. Uh, you know, my dad said that when he hit me and I don't think that was I mean he hit me he gave me a spanking and he literally said that and I kind of went I think you're wrong, cause my butt hurts badly right now. So, anyway, I think you're lying when you do that.

Speaker 1:

I think it's one of the things I remember to this day that my dad says is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. And he spanked me and I thought that's crazy, cause I was the one getting spanked.

Speaker 2:

Right, right.

Speaker 1:

No, that makes sense I thought yeah, you're a professional opinion. Um, it's not how you start, it's how you finish. I like that actually.

Speaker 2:

And and maybe that's there's context to everything. So what we do as dads? Sometimes we just say the phrase, but that needs explanation and dialogue. So, dads today are dialoguing with their kids much more than they used to. My dad didn't really dialogue. He didn't ask me what I thought. But when you do that I you know that's good. So that could that. That helps them understand you're in it for the long haul. You know makes yeah, okay, so not weak and not wimp.

Speaker 1:

That's good. I like that one.

Speaker 2:

So, along these lines, what might you say is probably some of the best parenting advice that you've given? Is there any like one of those kind of things that you think is like A rose moment when you're hanging out with your kids? And that's why what I love today about today's dad is that they're willing to spend time with their kids or hanging out with their kids, or playing with their kids, or going out and getting something to eat with their kids, and so the best advice comes in that moment. So it's responding to a question or a thought. I remember one time my daughter Christy said and I think this was good advice for me but my daughter Christy said Dad, I'm kind of struggling with some doubts in my faith.

Speaker 1:

And she was 15. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I said, doubts are okay, I go. You know what that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's okay to doubt and you're going to have to learn to doubt your doubts, but that's okay. And Christy is now 40. And she said to me the other day you know, dad, some of the best advice you ever gave me was that it was okay to question my faith and whatnot that you cause. You said you know you're going to work that out and I really believe in you and if I can help you think through it. But I don't have great answers to that either. Answers to that either.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so I think sometimes it's in the authenticity, not just in the word. Yeah, yeah, oh, that's really good. There you go. Yeah, I love that one about your doubts. Mine was from my kids. It's funny I didn't find that out until later with them and I didn't even know at the time but, an apology was actually the best advice that I gave them.

Speaker 2:

So good.

Speaker 1:

So I didn't realize. My kids were like hey, when you came and you said that you were sorry for the way that you showed up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

It meant the world to my son, who was very sensitive.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And he was like dad, you you have no idea that gave me permission, it gave me, it took a burden off me and I was like all those things I told you and the apology was what you heard and I love that.

Speaker 2:

I love that. You know one of the things. I tell a story in the in a book I wrote called confident parenting, where I said I yelled at her or something and I said you know what, babe, I am so sorry. That was all about me and what I'm going through and not about you.

Speaker 2:

And that was when she was 12. At 17, she comes up to me and she had done something silly and she goes. Dad, I am so sorry, that was all about me and that was not about you and I went I've heard that before and she goes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when you yelled at me when I was 12.

Speaker 2:

But you know, apology is a key thing. We parents, why don't we apologize?

Speaker 1:

And dads, don't do that very well, yeah, and that's what I learned. I was like man, I, you know, I was like I didn't know what else to do at the moment, and so you know, and it gave my son permission and now it opened up dialogue with us.

Speaker 2:

It's crazy. So that was a good one. Yeah, that's, that's uh, that's wise Good. I'm giving you a wise. Thank you. I appreciate that, out of all of the weak ones we got, we got a wise one.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm just kidding. So, jim, give us a little bit of background about your family calling career. A little bit about that for me.

Speaker 2:

Well, I became a Christian when I was 16, got married one week out of college and wanted to do youth ministry, and that's never changed my background now. Now I do more parent and marriage ministry, but I'm thinking about kids and for me, now that I'm an old guy, is what's the most effective way to help kids? And it's to come alongside parents, cause if you, if you look at spirituality I was talking to a group here at church today of parents and grandparents and I said the most, all research shows us that the most influential spiritual force in a person's life is their mom. Secondly, his dad's. We dads need to jump up a bit. So what I'm doing now is trying to come alongside moms and dads, and part of that is just because I was in youth ministry and went wow, it's working with the kids, we're putting them back and these parents need help.

Speaker 2:

So I have found that parents are grateful. Parents are hungry for good content and help. They want help, but they also, like a woman said to me today at the seminar I was doing here at the church, and she goes. I thought I was going to get beat up for being such a bad mom and you didn't do that, thank you and I went. That's what she got out of it. But really all of us have a poor self-image us dads, we have a poor self-image that well, I'm probably a lousy parent. Well, most dads today are a lot better parents than any generation before and I think it's because they're leaning into it and there's some things that, as parents, we didn't get from our dads so we don't know how to do that. Like we were talking about sex my dad never talked to me about sex.

Speaker 2:

And I'm now saying to dads no, you need to have a conversation with your kids, because kids make sexual decisions at a young age and all research shows that the more positive, value-centered sex education kids receive from dads and moms, the less promiscuous they'll be, the less confused they'll be. So there's dads, or there isn't one dad who goes. I want to talk to my daughter at age 11 about sexuality, but they're doing it and it's awkward, and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Do you think a lot of that, too, has to do with, maybe, access to information now, why dads feel more empowered to have these conversations and stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's great resources out there yeah, there's great resources out there and so they don't feel like they're on their own, like we have a course at Homewood where we just put the course in front of moms and dads and kids. It's for kids, it's for teenagers and they just go. We love this because we don't have to say anything. We can now we talk about discussion starters afterwards, but we don't have to do the talk.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And the other thing is people like me and others who are doing this are saying I would rather have you have 100 one-minute conversations with your kids about stuff like this than one 100-minute conversation Because dads are going. I can do one minute, that's easy. And even talking about? What do you think about? What are the kids saying at school about drugs? What are the kids saying at school about media? What are the kids saying about who the coolest music group is? Or what are the kids saying about who the coolest music group is? Or what are the kids saying about God? Yeah, and those kind of conversations dads do better at than saying let me give you seven points on why you need to be sexually pure.

Speaker 1:

Sure, yeah, that's such good advice, because those little sound bites, that's kind of how I operate too. Yeah, you can absorb it a little bit better. It seems it's more authentic, really, because that's how we all do it you have a relationship with your kids, so you don't have to have everything done. Sit down.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you don't have to have those long things. You know it's a continual dialogue. What I say to people about most anything, any conversation you have with your kids about any important subject, make it a continual dialogue. Notice that I'm saying dialogue. So sometimes the best thing a dad can do is just listen in. And so what's going on? So I learned about culture by saying to my kids what's going on with music and you know all those kinds of things, and then I would just kind of sit there and listen.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, okay yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so, and then I would go, they'd go. Oh great music group. You know, man, the beauty today is I can go online and go that music group. They said the F-bomb nine times or whatever. What did you like about that? Then I come back hey, what did you like about that music group? I watched a song and I didn't get it. And they go well, what song? So I said, oh, you don't want to listen to that one. That's on track eight and that's not good, but oh you should hear four.

Speaker 1:

Learn a lot. Yeah. So yeah, some of the music. Yeah, I would say weak, but I'm not going to use our keep going back to our W's here. What inspired you to devote your life to this topic, Like, what kind of served you towards that?

Speaker 2:

Well, I, think it was. I think it was youth ministry.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, I was working with kids.

Speaker 2:

I started doing youth ministry when I was 18. I became a Christian when I was 16. And I just saw this incredible need that we had for families to succeed and research.

Speaker 2:

I have a PhD. I never talk about that, but I do so. I do a little research and research was showing that when dads were involved, things were so much better, for example. So I was a counselor slash chaplain at a prison when I was in grad school and mostly I did counseling, and it happened to be the time when Hallmark gave free Mother's Day cards to prisoners and nine out of ten of them took the card, gave it to their mother. So Hallmark went crazy and this. I was literally in the prison during this time as a counselor not in the stripes. I think they wore stripes then and now they wear orange and the big ball.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, geez.

Speaker 2:

But the interesting side to it was, you know, father's day, one out of 10.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

So it meant prisoners didn't have a relationship with their dad. So then it moved me as a counselor to start asking about, tell me about your relationship with your mom. Oh man, she was great, she did this and that and a lot of times even mom was a praying mom and she's so sad for what I've done. Dad, I don't know my dad or my dad's a blank blank or he, you know, he left us at an early age or whatever. Very few dads lived in the home and so when dads engage, it's massive when it comes to spiritual life, when it comes to better grades. If a dad is engaged in a kid's life, better grades I mean just things you don't think about but it gives them security. So I'm big on dads leaning into doing it, and I think a lot of them are, but they don't have a model because they probably didn't. Many dads didn't have that growing up themselves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it wasn't modeled for them, so it's a little bit more difficult and some had great dads.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying everybody, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, when you were exposed to that, that's kind of the extreme example. But man, what a, what a light bulb to go on to see that in prison and go, oh, look at the connection between you, know, fatherless or a strained relationship or whatever that might look like, Right, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it gets complicated because you know there's divorce and there's parents who are listening to this and they're going yeah, but I'm divorced and it's hard getting in.

Speaker 2:

But, the point being is stick with them. Stick with those kids. They're resilient, but they need a relationship, if they can with with their dad and with their mom, and because it's really different, a dad relationship is different than a mom relationship. A lot of that is is similar, but it also, you know, my kids ask me questions all growing up that they didn't ask kathy, and then, vice versa, they ask kathy questions that they didn't ask me yeah, yeah, that's the same with me and my wife.

Speaker 1:

We daughter comes to us for different things and they see a common analogy that we share and we talk about it and she knows that, but she's watching that whole dynamic play out and it's healthy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 1:

How do you think that a traditional ideas of being a good dad have shifted in today's culture and what do you think one of the biggest myths you see dads buying into these days?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, the dad who buys into. I'm like what old dads did? I work hard, I make a lot of money. The way I show love is to give them money, but I really don't have time to go to your games or your dance recitals or I don't really engage with my kids much. That's, and I still see people doing that. That's not good. There's still dads who aren't changing diapers. There's still dads who aren't doing that stuff. That's wrong, got it. But the dads, on the other hand, who jump into the mess and it's messy Parenting is messy.

Speaker 2:

But I wrote a book called Confident Parenting. I should have read it. I should have called it messy parenting, because all parenting is messy. But the dads who do that and the dads who engage and the dads who figure out how to juggle their work and still go into the dance recital or the game, those dads are winning. But again, because it's you know, at work you know you slayed the dragon, you made the money. You, you know, did the sale, whatever you do, and you know you're doing four steps forward, three steps back in parenting because you know your child did great today and tomorrow they hate you and they hate life and you know they, you know. So it's hard.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you're like look at all I provided for you, but that's all happening remotely from your kid. They don't get to be a part of that, right.

Speaker 2:

And you know what, like my kids, they never cared that I I mean, they wanted me to give them really good shoes and I had girls. So outfits and all that kind of stuff, yeah, of course, but the point being they wanted my presence, yeah, you know. So what I always? I call it the power of being there, and so dads who buy into it's the power of being there. So I started when my kids got older, in teens years, I started dating them every week.

Speaker 2:

And so this is three hours I mean that was a lot of work, a lot of time. I mean three hours didn't sound like a lot of time but you know we're busy and so I did a stand. They were always standing appointments, so it was like I did breakfast with Christie and three of the times she would talk about snowboarding and some boy at school who's a character and nothing, and then the one conversation would be so worth it. But I realized pretty quickly that it was going to happen. It wasn't going to happen as fast as I had, so I would have in my pocket like questions I wanted to ask her, and half the time I would never get to those questions because again she's talking to me about this or that, and then all of a sudden she would go Dad. So I read in the Bible or my youth pastor said this what do you think about that? And we would have this amazing conversation. But it had to be on her terms, not on my terms. So much of the time.

Speaker 1:

That's funny. Yeah, same with my daughter. She likes it when I, when I show up for her in the situations that she's in, that are real life to her. That's where it means the most Right my kind of moments to try to manufacture something or create something.

Speaker 2:

Usually, again, she's like nah, you work at a church, yeah, yeah, right, you do this, this is what you do. I remember one time I went to a dance recital. It's all girls. So I went to the dance recital and I was so impressed with myself that I was there and I had one rose. I'd gone by a florist and I bought a rose, right. So she's done. She comes running up and I think she's coming up to me to thank me for the rose and how cool it is.

Speaker 2:

She runs right past me, her youth pastor has a dozen not roses but a dozen flowers and she's like thank you for coming, this means so much. And I'm like, oh man, so also I didn't get like he got all the praise and glory and that was cool that he did it. I mean, I gave him praise and glory but then I kind of go, would you like?

Speaker 2:

this, maybe that rose will fit in your, you know, in your other. We did this together but it still means a lot. Yeah, and you know we just we we can't parent to always receive some of those blessings. They come, but they come on their timing at their place, and now that I'm older and my kids are older, I'm getting a lot of that. They're going, dad, thank you so much. My daughters all three of them were cheerleaders and they go. You sat in the chair section, didn't you? You probably didn't like sitting in the chair section and I said, oh, I loved watching you guys. And then my middle child goes you didn't like sitting in the. Just tell me you didn't like, because her mom, my wife, was a cheerleader, so she cheered with everybody else.

Speaker 2:

I'd kind of like go I played sports.

Speaker 1:

I didn't do that.

Speaker 2:

But she said thank you. I mean, I was like, you don't need to thank me for sitting in the cheer section, but it comes later.

Speaker 1:

That's good, that's really good advice. That actually challenges me because I literally was just a dance recital for my daughter the other night and where I'm a dance dad yeah but it's not my favorite thing but, I, know my daughter loves it and it keeps her busy, and you know all those things, but um yeah, showing up, I mean in building, no, it does.

Speaker 2:

My secret was I would bring my ipad and I would like read. And my wife goes you need to put the ipad down, buddy okay, all right, I was thinking about that.

Speaker 1:

I was actually kind of works it kind of works.

Speaker 2:

So that's wise, not weak advice that I'm giving from dad to dad for us to CJ, but not, yeah, you don't probably want to let your kids see that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a cheat code right there that I probably will have to cut. So one of them that I did notice is I noticed, you know, obviously masculinity has been redefined in our culture and there's a shift away from that, like we talked about, tough, stoic dad, towards a more empathetic servant leader model that's being accepted. Yeah, what?

Speaker 2:

do you think that that is? I actually think masculinity is, when we think of masculinity masculinity you can say the word right and we think of the like sick guy on a sick who smokes cigarettes. Sitting on a horse yeah, and he has he, honestly, he has like this amazing face. Yeah, sitting on a horse, and he has he, honestly, he has like this amazing face. That's not masculinity, come to think of it.

Speaker 2:

Masculinity is rolling up your sleeves and jumping in the mess of your family and dealing with your family and actually having some empathy, working on things that don't come natural to some of us guys. Empathy, and it does to certain people, but you know the empathy and things like that. That's good masculine masculinity, and so we have to redefine what that means, and I think that's up to people like you and me, as leaders, to help men feel comfortable in that, because I think men want there's a nurturing part of men too. The more we look at this, we see that men have some of the same nurturing needs and abilities that women have. We've just never been able to display that so to speak.

Speaker 2:

It's a new world. So the good news is again, I'm not saying we're going to cry at every Hallmark movie I do, but I don't watch a whole lot of Hallmark movies but the point being that's not masculinity, that's just it was a Hallmark movie that made you cry. But when you tie in with your kids, when you're being sensitive to your wherever your wife is going and what she's doing and whatever her need, is things like that, that's that's that's manhood, yeah and so we've we're redefining that, and men are are looking at their wounds, their wounded father issues or their wounded things and they're.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to do something about this, I'm going to work on this and I'm going to be that transitional generation that I'm not going to repeat what my family background was. I'm going to recover and in recovering, I'm going to do it a different way for the sake of my kids. And I think men are today not just men, because women are awesome doing this too but I think we're changing the trajectory of families because we're we're parenting different than we used to.

Speaker 1:

So I'm really I'm really up on this and I realize if you and I were talking about another subject, we could talk about all the bad stuff and media and life and sexuality and all that kind of stuff, and yeah, it's not easy, but I think I think we're, I think we're moving the you know the needle in the right direction, yeah, and I honestly think it's because of some of the men have the courage and the power to do it to step up in that way, I would totally agree and I think, like I love how you redefined masculinity, I think that's so, so spot on, and I can't say the word very well, as you can see in this, but I I tried to redefine it. We don't use it.

Speaker 1:

You know we'd say more, just being a man, or whatever that is, but yeah, kind of the old way that we used to look at that, I think definitely is gone and I know, like you said, most guys are actually pretty receptive to wanting to do that. They just don't feel they're equipped or have the tools. And then also, too, for a lot of guys, I noticed that there's this idea that if our dads were a certain way, or someone, a figure in our life, will slam the needle in response at the other direction. And that's more. You know being emotionally unregulated, or something like that.

Speaker 2:

No, and I probably did that, some of that, so there's an opportunity to kind of find some balance right.

Speaker 1:

No, I think we can be balanced.

Speaker 2:

And I mean the thing we don't want to do and this is one of the other concerns is that men aren't men and and so what they do is they we don't want to become you know, I'm totally in disagreement with people who say you know men and women aren't the same, so you know men are different, so, but you know my daughters needed a strong man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but also a loving man yeah.

Speaker 2:

And you can be both.

Speaker 1:

Yep, oh, that's a good word. Oh, I love it. Well, let's talk some barriers to men becoming men, the husbands and fathers that God has intended for them to be, so some barriers to men becoming men, the husbands and fathers that God has intended for them to be. So I call it killing it. What are some areas that you see men killing it? Meaning they're excelling, maybe. And then what are some areas that they're killing? They're literally killing their relationships.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I think some men don't know how to be a dad. Okay, we're talking about dads.

Speaker 2:

So I don't think they know how to be a dad. I think some of them don't. I'm happy when men find mentors in their life and they go oh, this is how you do it. And plus, I mean this guy rides motorcycles, he smokes a cigar or whatever it is, but he's a great guy and he's showing me how to love my wife and he's showing me how to have discipline with times with my wife, same with my kids. At the same time, sometimes we get so busy or so preoccupied or so distracted that we don't have mentors and so we don't know what to do because no one we need. I didn't know how to be a dad. I mean the day we adopted Christy cause we'd been infertile and then we had two miracle babies and you know, there you go. But when we brought Christy home from the hospital, so she was, you know, super baby. But I went. What have I got myself into?

Speaker 2:

I don't have any clue what to do, again, because I didn't have role models. So I immediately went to a guy his name was Randy and I said Randy, you got to teach me how to be a dad quickly. And he goes do you know how to change a diaper? No, well, you need to help your wife change a diaper. He named all these kinds of things. I was like well, no, I meant like a dad.

Speaker 2:

I didn't mean a diaper changer, and um, it was really good because I and so I just started following people. I still do it, you know. I mean, I have a mentor. His name is Terry Um, he's in his eighties. He's an amazing Christ follower, amazing husband, amazing dad, not perfect, and I just kind of go what would Terry do?

Speaker 2:

So, we used to have those bracelets that say what would Jesus do? I want to follow Jesus, but I also follow Terry, because he may be the greatest dad known to humankind, and you know what? I bet you he doesn't even know. He's a good dad. Wow, he's just Terry, yeah, but he's just, and he's a wonderful grandfather, and now I have four grandkids and so I'm I'm imitating him. That's good when we're too prideful to come and say I don't have a flipping clue how to do this. Or, as a dad, if you know, we can listen to podcasts. There's great dad podcasts out there. There's great books out there. So we'll read a business book, but we won't read a book on being a better father.

Speaker 1:

What's up with?

Speaker 2:

that, where's our importance, where's our strategy on this? So I think, dads, we dads need a strategy, and so I think we have to lean into that and learn how to do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I know a lot of the guys that I talk to. They're like man, I'm doing the best with what I've got, but a lot of them have a lot. They're having a lot of trouble finding a mentor. So they hear that and they're like hey, you know, have a Paul ahead of you and a Timothy behind you and a Barnabas beside you, and all that, which is all great, but they're like I don't even barely have any friendships or relationships or community, let alone a guy to pour into my life. No, this takes time.

Speaker 2:

And what I tell people is don't walk up to somebody and say will you be my mentor? That's going to freak them out because nobody thinks they're mentor. I mean, my friend Terry doesn't realize he's probably a mentor to me, but I, terry, would. Would you have lunch with me? Hey, I've got five. Well, we're here. I have five questions about how you father your kid. He loves talking about that stuff and all of a sudden we just turned into a mentoring relationship and he didn't even know it. Terry, thank you so much. Can I buy you lunch? No, he has more money than I do. Free lunch out of it. Terry, could we do this again in a couple of months? And then I do that. And then his wife, sharon's awesome. So Kathy and I say, hey, we want to take you and Sharon out for Mexican food, let's go. And he's like awesome, let's go. Hey, we have three questions we wanted to ask you about how you're doing this with your adult children and all of a sudden they've become mentors to us and they don't even realize they're mentors.

Speaker 1:

That's great advice. Yeah, put yourself out there and look for opportunities.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and they're there and they aren't perfect, so you're not going to find the perfect mentor. But there's different styles of mentoring. Sometimes you mentor someone. You guys have this here at the church where you have, if somebody wants to be a pastor, they can go to two years of, you know, pastor internship or whatever. That's a formalized mentoring. Sometimes mentoring is much more casual and it's in the relationship that you have with them and I think Jesus did that. I honestly think Jesus mentored his disciples by walking around the lake.

Speaker 2:

You know they did a lot of walking right Because you know, there were no cars and I don't hear them say he got on a horse as a cowboy right. So they did some walking. So I see Jesus walking with them. For a while we with our kids walked this thing called the Camino in Spain and we had amazing conversations for a week. So I'd walk with Kathy and then I'd be walking with Heidi and then I'd hike with Becca. We just did different things. I think he'd had casual. They might say Jesus, here's my situation. Peter might say what do you think?

Speaker 1:

about this.

Speaker 2:

You know he was married. What do you, what do you think about this? And then he'd have a conversation with with Peter, and then the next guy walks up and that's good mentoring.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, kind of a. Those are the. That's more organic too for guys especially who are into more affinity stuff and as you go kind right, no, it kind of is and then peer support.

Speaker 2:

I mean guys, the average American male at 50 says literally, when I say the average, more than 50% say just right on the edge there, say they don't have one best friend.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So if that's the case, then that is talk about weak instead of wise. So go find a friend, yeah, and if that means you play golf with your friend, if that's what you like to do, play golf. If that means you do whatever you do it's not like you become good friends by hanging out, and so find something that you can hang out with and go do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, most of my most meaningful ministry done here at the church has actually been out on the golf course, outside the walls of the church, hanging out with guys and developing that, and then once we get in, we have other things to talk about, but it's all just, it's kind of a natural export of that.

Speaker 2:

No, you're so right and it's funny because we use the illustration golf. I mean, we always think of guys golfing and stuff, but and I don't golf anymore, but I played college golf- and some of my most amazing, even amazing even Christian conversations. We're on a golf course, because we were together for like four hours and I had to be careful because I would say that I was a Christian, so I couldn't say bad words and throw clubs.

Speaker 2:

But honestly, I mean amazing conversations and this is how guys we don't do well sometimes, just sitting face to face, how are you feeling? How's your soul? What's going on? We feel better when we're playing something together or at a game. We're at a ball game, watching a game, and we're not even looking at each other. And here we go. And we have to be careful as guys we can go too light. It's like the comedian who goes. His wife says hey, you met with so-and-so, and how's the divorce? After the six months, he goes oh, we didn't talk about it. Well, isn't that the most important thing in his life? Oh, we never got to it. He's got a new job and he's got this and he's got that, yeah, but they never talked about anything meaningful. Well, sometimes your most meaningful conversations come spontaneously. I call it planned spontaneity and I think that's something to introduce to dads, because we think we have to have this all together.

Speaker 2:

We don't. It's planned spontaneity I'm going to have a conversation with my son or my daughter and it's planned, but it's going to come across spontaneous and it's organic because it could go left, right or whatever.

Speaker 1:

That's what we do. That's so good. Yeah, some of my best conversations with my kids are always in the car, right, because I have a captive audience and you know if I turn the radio off and all the distractions and we make the most of that time.

Speaker 2:

We've had some of the most fruitful engagements there, oh our kids, because when they were in the, you know when they would. Now we don't really do this as much with them because they're, you know, older, but we wouldn't it just kept turning the radio, even if the friends were in the back. I kept going lower because I wanted to hear their conversations, because dads need to be students of the culture and you learn that in places like the car, when they've forgotten that there's a dad driving.

Speaker 1:

What a value statement, though, to pick up on what your kids are into just by listening and you've been saying that, this whole podcast. But that's just a beautiful thing for you.

Speaker 2:

Well, what it says is we have to be students of their culture. Yeah, and the way to be students of their culture is to ask them the questions, learn from them, I said to the group today who had adult children. I said you know, one of their distinctives is they see tolerance as a form of loving. So they can understand that we who are Christian have some biblical worldviews that are they sound.

Speaker 2:

I mean you can still be tolerant to people. You can still agree to disagree yeah, I hope we do. But that that was a thing that I learned from my own children. Because they will, they would go well. We love Jesus, but we're I mean. It's harsh when Christians say this or that about whatever it is. Yeah, and we could have some good dialogue. Oh, that's good. But you know, listening is the language of love and sometimes dads aren't good listeners. That's probably. Another negative that we do is we don't listen. We just tell them what we think and we think that's all good. We need to listen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that comes across as a correlation of how we love them. Yeah, a correlation of how we love them. So speak to the parent, the dad out there that's discouraged because their kid's not growing in their faith. Any thoughts, tips, advice or encouragement? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, know that it's their faith and they've got to own their faith and it's also their timing. So what I'm saying to the dad is be consistent in your own faith and to be honest. You love your kids. God saves them. So you know they aren't going to make every decision that you want them to make.

Speaker 2:

But the Bible says something very interesting. It's in Proverbs 10, 9. It says the man of integrity walks securely. And I think that the man of integrity who walks securely will have kids who walk securely. But it's possible for the kids to walk somewhat securely and still be going through that, they have to own their own faith. So my daughter says you know, I had to disown my parents' faith in college. She said this I had to disown my parents' faith to own my own faith. So you know, today she sits next to us at church, we go get the grandkids and I pay for the donuts or whatever it is, and it's a great thing. But she went through this phase that was like I don't know if I believe, I don't know if I buy into your faith, your faith yeah.

Speaker 2:

And what I had to say, and we panicked I mean, if you could hear the conversations that Kathy and I had in the bedroom when she was running around. But we also had to say you know what? God's in control. We're going to have to relinquish and we can't parent the kid we were. We have to parent the kid we have in front of us, and that's a different story. So with that, there are things dads can do, sure, but dad, dads can't manipulate their spiritual faith. Now there's people who don't like that, because they want me to say oh, you just have to have them read this book, or we've got this little program at home where I work, and if they just go through the pass it on, write a passage thing, then everybody's going to be strong Christians.

Speaker 2:

No, it's a process and faith is a process and it comes at different stages, and so be consistent with your own faith. The job is we impress it on our children. So we have faith conversations, but I don't think they should be very awkward and I don't think they should be pushed as luxury or preachy. That doesn't mean that we don't have our kids when they're younger. You know, go to church and they go. I don't want to go to church. Well, you know what? In our family we all go to church and then we go to breakfast or then we do something else, I mean make it fun. But I think too many dads and moms put this on their own. They go, you know what Like with us.

Speaker 2:

When one of our daughters kind of bumped along the road, faith-wise Kathy said you know, we went on vacation to Hawaii over Easter and they had a chance at Spring Break to go do a missions trip with the church. We should have stayed and they should have gone on the missions trip as if that missions trip was the church. We should have stayed and they should have gone on the missions trip as if that missions trip was the answer. So then now she's feeling guilty. I'm not saying they shouldn't be in missions trips. I'm just saying it's okay to have a family. It wasn't her. My daughter's entire faith was not based on if she went to Hawaii with us or if she went on the mission trip?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we have to be careful that we don't have that that there's some kind of a magic formula. There's not. But when they like with me, with my kids, I prayed with them at night and the interesting side is, when they got to be teens I would say hey, do you want to pray? They always prayed. When they were younger They'd go no, you're good, dad, you pray, that's okay, I just but I was consistently doing that, had an experience. I got somehow CJ and I have no idea why, but I got into the thing of putting my finger on their forehead and cross, putting like the sign of the cross.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, I was like the Pope here and I started doing it Now when Heidi Heidi wouldn't let me do it because she thought it would cause pimples, so she would go dead, and so that was really weird because I just in front of her I got to do that. Christy is 25. She's broken up with a boyfriend, she's back at our house feeling really bad about her life and I said Christy, can I come in and pray for you?

Speaker 1:

She goes, daddy I'd really like that.

Speaker 2:

So I prayed with her and then I started to walk out and she goes Daddy, come here. And she took my hand and she made the sign of the cross. That's cool and in my mind I had no idea that that was that important, that ritual of a dad coming in and doing that. And that's the kind of thing we have to be consistent with, wherever they're at in their faith.

Speaker 1:

Now, if they're going, don't pray with me then I think okay, well know that I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray for you, but.

Speaker 2:

I'm not going to pray always with you right now, but know that I'm going to pray and know that I stand at this door and I pray for you. And and again, I'm not, I'm not pushing that on you, but I want you to know that. I love you so much that I I must do that as a dad.

Speaker 1:

And I believe it to be one of the most powerful things that I could do in your life, based off of who I follow and what I believe in, all the things I told my daughter. That's so crazy that you said, I mean, actually it's not, it makes total sense. But, um, I just started praying for her and, uh, telling her, you know. I said, hey, I don't want you to inherit my faith, I want you to have a faith of your own.

Speaker 1:

And so I said, um, I'm going to you know I, can I pray for you in some of these milestone moments, these big, pivotal things she's going through, and I didn't realize there's so much opportunity. You know, don't make manufactured as best you can do, do what you can, but in it I think my daughter, I was had the ability to be able to speak truth and some things that I wanted to say to her that I might not have had the opportunity to. That. I had a captive listener through that prayer and she actually she heard me and when we talk about it later she's like she felt she was like man, dad, that was so meaningful to me and it was such a beautiful moment. I was like, wow, there's so much power in prayer so much opportunity?

Speaker 2:

No, and there is. So they're hearing, they're listening, they're watching. So there's a lot going on and they've got to figure out their own faith journey and we want to manufacture that for them. And when we do that, it doesn't. The end is not good yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I totally agree. So what's the legacy that you'd hope to leave one day? That would be, uh, one of the greatest things for future generations could say about you, yeah, oh, about me personally, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That you, that you love to leave behind if you could. Yeah Well, you know, it's funny, as and I'm getting to that age, I'm not planning on dying to quote Monty.

Speaker 2:

Python, I'm not dead yet, but um, but for me, I want my legacy to be first and foremost with my family. Yeah, so I have a platform and I live with a platform, that's. You know, there's a joy and a burden, cj, of having the kind of platform that I have through Homeward and through my podcast and through my books and things like that. I mean it's humbling, but that's not as important to me as my kids going he was a great dad and my grandkids going.

Speaker 2:

Papa J was such a neat guy and, like Huxley, he's four and a half and he's not going to church right now because, since COVID, my daughter and her husband, for some reason, they don't go to church. They're Christians, but they never got back. Don't go to church, they, they're Christians, but you know they never got back. And um, and Huxley was having a conversation with his aunt, my other daughter, about Easter and he knew all about Easter and and this aunt, of course, two sisters. It's like come on, give me a break, go to church. And and she said actually, how did you learn that? And he goes from Papa J. When I'm with Papa J, he read look at, you can see my eyes well over tears.

Speaker 2:

He said because Papa J reads me stories about God and because Papa J prays and sings and I just went, okay, I could die right now I'm good.

Speaker 1:

Now he's only four and a half right.

Speaker 2:

But I want him to know that I want my grandkids to know who, that I love them and that I love God and that I believe that the answer to life is a relationship with God, and so that's all about, for me that. That's more the legacy. I'm not like when Homeward made a switch where I was the president for 40 years of this ministry and now I'm the founder, which means I'm an old guy and we were. We kept talking about legacy and I said you know, I kind of don't care about my legacy with this. I have a good life. I really care about my legacy with my family and I can't tell you that I could have said that even 20 years ago. Wow. So I want now, to me it's it's much more about family. I mean, I love my ministry and there is a legacy how great I'm going to die and somebody's going to read my book still, and you know how great is that Cool?

Speaker 1:

They'll listen to our podcast.

Speaker 2:

Didn't that guy die 25 years ago.

Speaker 1:

That's CJ.

Speaker 2:

But, um, but the point being, though, that's not as important of legacy anymore when I see it, it's not about and it's not about work. It's not about that. It's about what am I going to do with my family. So I want to love God and I want to love my family when people die. There was a woman named Elizabeth Kuber Ross, and she studied death and dying, not from a Christian background, but her research all said that when people are dying, they want two things A right relationship with God, even if they had none and they didn't even know about God. But they're talking about God and they're talking about their family. So why do we wait to die? Be thinking about that stuff?

Speaker 2:

So that's that's what I want.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I tried to.

Speaker 1:

I write a lot about living with the end in mind because, I think it's so important now and it, you know, it seems macabre, maybe morbid to some people, and I was like, no, I want to leave nothing.

Speaker 1:

I have a document called nothing left unsaid, and so the things that I make sure that I want to say to everyone while I'm still here, so that I don't leave anything unsaid.

Speaker 1:

And so, um, yeah, because, um, I saw a William Borden wrote a epitaph that says apart from Christ, uh, faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life, and so I want to live in that, that way, you know, for my daughter to say my dad loved me and then to say, you know, hey, this outside of Christ, there is no explanation for how he lived. And so I'm just like man, if I could live with those two things, that's the legacy, because I keep thinking, you know, three generations from now, my great, great grandkids probably won't know my name, but I would love to know the name of the person in whom I live my life for. And so if that's a legacy that I can leave, it's a gospel legacy, right? And so I'm like, hey, here's a few things I can grab onto and how to instill those in my children, and how do. I do that and live out the rest of my life in that way, so that that is what I leave behind.

Speaker 2:

You are singing the right song.

Speaker 1:

I'm like man, so good and I don't get it right, but you know hey that's my goal. So that's what I oh, man really enjoying our time here. As always, I hope our conversations are engaging, but we always want to provide people with helpful information and resources. What are some resources you'd like to point people to that might be helpful or beneficial in their life?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, since we're talking about parenting, mainly because we go to all kinds of resources Homewardcom is great. H-o-m-e-w-o-r-dcom Yep, we're the largest provider of parenting seminars in the U? S. We have two podcasts my podcast homeward, with Jim Burns. We have one called embracing your season for parenting the littles. Understanding teens um courses. We have a lot of great stuff so it's, it's a.

Speaker 2:

it's a. I mean we send out 7 million e-blast on uh with you know, from a daily devotional to a culture brief. That's so cool. Dad's liked the culture brief because in four minutes you can read it all and it just helps you understand where your kids are going through and what the latest culture things are so Homeward, I'd say Homeward. There's also some really good dad podcasts out right now.

Speaker 2:

I'm on them, I go on those and I'm really impressed with some of the people. And so if you go online and just put and I like Christian podcasts and I think they're really authentic and so good where they used to not be as good, but they're like you I mean you're amazing. I honestly just would type in you know dad podcast. And so when you're going to work, yeah, I mean you can listen to you know sports radio and that's cool and do listen to sports radio sometimes, but you could also listen to a dad podcast a week and you're going to get some good, helpful ideas out of these kinds of things. And so, just put, you know put, just type in dad podcast, you'll find some great stuff. You'll find some things that are funny, but I find that dads today are so much more authentic and wanting to lean into it, so I think that's cool and um, and there are books on you know dad books. It's funny.

Speaker 2:

My favorite dad books are actually sometimes written by women. There's two women within the Christian world that write dad books, yeah and uh, and I I love them, yeah and um. So, anyway, just go online and look for you know, read a dad book. You say look at, this is the year I'm going to read a dad book, we're, you know, we're coming up to summer, so and men don't read. So read or listen to it, you know, do whatever, but you know, listen to a dad book, but lean into the parenting and the marriage thing just a little bit stronger.

Speaker 1:

That's good, that's so good. Yeah, there's a bunch of guys I know doing a like dad podcasts, like you said, and we'll include a bunch of this in the show notes for you guys. But he is does a one, to call it. I think it's like five minutes to the car ride and it's a five minute car ride for your kids. It's like a little Devo, and so guys are doing all kinds of stuff and then some great, real deep insights for Also, jim obviously has a ton of books and stuff.

Speaker 1:

We'll include some of those that could be really helpful to you guys. And then also, as always, if you have any questions, comments or feedback here on the podcast, we'd love to know. You can leave a comment for us on YouTube or email us at the other six days at Southwest Church dot com. That's the number six and we'd love to just be able to help you however we can. We're here for you guys and we'll help point you to any information that you can find helpful.

Speaker 2:

Jim, any last thoughts or comments or encouragement before we wrap this up? I think you're a stud. You really did a great job on this podcast and I think your desire, how you want to leave a legacy, is how all of us. When you said that, it stirred my heart to say, no, we dads, we want to leave a legacy that shows love to our kids and love for God they may not remember.

Speaker 2:

When you said they may not remember our name in the third generation? Now maybe they will, but they are going to remember who we stood for and what we were committed to. That's changing the trajectory of families. It's not just getting a paycheck. It's not just going to work, it's not just playing a great golf game. It's changing the trajectory of a family, and the Bible says that you inherit the sins of a previous generation to the third and fourth generation.

Speaker 1:

I get it.

Speaker 2:

But you know what the next phrase is. But the love of God lasts a thousand generations. Whoa, that's cool. So let's, dads, put some energy there, and it's not going to look great and we're going to be messy, but we're going to do it anyway and we're going to change the trajectory.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, yeah, christ, love he covered. Love covers a multitude of sins. And there you have it for a thousand generations. So, just lean into God's love and that wow, Jim, that is profound. So well, there you have it, guys. Thanks for joining us again on another episode of the Other Six Days podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe, follow, share and like, Spread the word and, as always, take what you've heard and turn it into something that you can do to further the gospel in the world around you. Until next time.