Building Spiritual Habits in the Home – Clayton Greene & Chris Pappalardo

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript

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Building Spiritual Habits in the Home

Guests:Clayton Greene and Chris Pappalardo

Release Date:October 28, 2025

Chris (00:00:00):

You can’t invite your children into something if it’s not there. If your kid has identified that you don’t actually live in a way that seems to be the life of following Jesus, say, “Alright, do I actually believe this?” Start with that. You’ll get to the spot of saying, “Well, now how do I transmit this to my children?” But the more important thing, build your own robust life of faith. Work on that first and then you could try to invite your children into that.

Dave (00:00:25):

Alright, so I’ve got a funny way to remember your name, Chris. Okay. It just came to me when I was walking in the studio. Maddie, who you met, Maddie brings you in and she’s coordinating with you. She hums a song that makes me remember your name. So we got Chris Pappalardo. You know that song? You guys are too young.

Chris:

Do it again. Do it again. We’ll get it.

Ann:

What are we opening?

Dave:

This is the opening right here, and our producer’s just looking in here like “This is not going to make it onto the air.”

Chris:

Well, you got to have something.

Dave:

There was a song way back in my generation called I like Pina Coladas.

Chris:

Oh, I know that way.

Ann:

Wait, that did not sound like—

I like Chris Pappalardo and Clayton Greene. There we go, we got—

Ann:

That’s pretty good.

Dave:

That’s your intro to FamilyLife Today. Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Aren’t you glad you’re here?

Ann:

Pina Colada and Chris Pappalardo.

Clayton:

Let me tell you, you’re never going to forget his name now. You are in a song.

Chris (00:01:25):

You have to sing it though.

Dave (00:01:26):

And the song, you don’t know what the song’s about, but it is about married couples.

Chris (00:01:31):

It’s a weird song.

Dave (00:01:32):

That’s what it is.

Chris (00:01:32):

It’s a weird song.

Dave (00:01:33):

Yeah.

Chris (00:01:34):

I have had so many people play with my name over the years and this was a first. That has never happened.

Dave (00:01:41):

That’s what I’m going for.

Ann (00:01:41):

Leave it to Dave.

Dave (00:01:43):

So somehow, well no, leave it to Maddie. Maddie put the song in my head.

Chris (00:01:48):

She was humming this?

Dave (00:01:49):

And I’m never going to be able to say his name without thinking of it.

Ann (00:01:52):

We’ve had a lot of fun just talking to you guys before we even started the interview. So I’m going to drop this deep because I feel like you guys are super knowledgeable.

Dave (00:02:01):

You just said you’re going to drop something deep.

Ann (00:02:03):

I know, I am.

Dave (00:02:03):

That means you’ve decided it’s deep.

Ann (00:02:05):

No, no, no. I’m saying—

Dave (00:02:05):

We’ll decide if it’s deep.

Clayton:

I think it’s shot at you Dave. She’s like Dave did his thing. I’m going to take us a different direction because that was—

Dave:

I’m the light guy. She’s the deep one. Go ahead, let’s hear your deep—

Ann (00:02:19):

But as a mom, as doing ministry for 45 years, I’m going to ask you guys—now, this isn’t like a number that you would know, but just off the top of your head—we feel like spiritual disciplines, discipleship, this is not something that generally takes place in a hundred percent of homes. So what would you guys say? What percentage of Christian homes are discipling their kids or building spiritual habits in their families? Just off the top of your head, what do you think that percentage would be?

Clayton (00:02:55):

My gut is a hundred percent.

Chris:

I was going to say the same thing.

Clayton (00:02:59):

Oh, great, great. I’m glad we’re together on that.

Ann (00:03:00):

What?! You think a hundred percent of parents are building disciples and building habits.

Dave (00:03:06):

I know what they’re doing.

Clayton:

Yeah, see. Maybe not all of them intentionally.

Chris (00:03:12):

Right

Clayton (00:03:12):

Or knowing what they’re doing. I think in the conversation that Kristen and I have had—Chris, Kristen is my wife. This is Chris, my co-author. It’s confusing. Kris and I talk all the time about kids being able to go inside Target and buy chewing gum. How many five-year-olds did you didactically teach? Did you plan, I will teach this kid how to walk inside Target with a card, buy the gum or the Sour patch kids that they want, go up to the self-checkout register, beep, scan it, put the card up and walk out with the receipt in their hand. None of us. Nobody actually planned to do that. How many five-year-olds can do it? A hundred percent right, because you naturally do it and we are all very naturally training up our children in something. We’re all discipling them in something and I think the question is, the day in and day out things that you regularly do, those are the things that they’re going to take with them whenever they leave your home. So I think you have to think more intentionally about it.

Chris (00:04:13):

I would say that the percentage of families who feel like they’re doing it well and would be able to say to somebody else, “Yeah, go ahead, look at my life, take cues from me,” that’s probably closer to like 10%.

Ann (00:04:24):

10%.

Chris (00:04:27):

I think so. Even if you’re really intentional about it, we are super intentional about this. There’s just a lot of insecurity about that, saying, “I don’t know. Am I doing this right?”

Ann (00:04:35):

I’m so glad you said that because I feel like we were asking those questions all the time. Are we failing? Are we doing it? Are we doing anything? Is this making a difference?

Chris (00:04:44):

Yeah, it’s simpler before you have kids, which you just can’t. We have a lot of friends with children, a lot of friends without, and it’s just you get to a point where you’re like, I can’t explain to you this seismic shift that happens here and I don’t want to make you feel less than because you don’t have kids, but you just don’t understand the simplicity that the amount of time you have.

Ann (00:05:06):

What did you guys think before you had kids?

Chris (00:05:08):

About parenting?

Ann (00:05:09):

About how you would disciple your kids spiritually?

Chris (00:05:15):

I didn’t, is the thing; that might sound bad. I wasn’t thinking, “Alright, here’s going to be my plan for what it is to disciple a 5-year-old or a 15-year-old.” It just, I don’t know, maybe in the back, way back in my head I thought, “I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there,” and that is kind of what I’ve been doing. But no, if you had asked me, I was confident and arrogant enough that I’m sure I would have had an answer. It just wouldn’t have been a good one. I hadn’t given any thought.

Clayton (00:05:43):

It might not be that we didn’t have a plan, but I would’ve had an opinion when I thought somebody else was doing a bad job.

Chris (00:05:49):

That’s closer to it.

Clayton (00:05:50):

“That’s not right. I can’t believe they let that happen.” I think a lot of people, I think the reason it’s probably 15 to 20% of people who actually have something that they would recommend to somebody else in terms of spiritual rhythms in their home is because we don’t really have a plan. Most people don’t have that type of plan, but everybody is doing something. I think the process of that Chris and I are on, that we want to invite other people into is being willing to have that conversation that you said you had a number of times. “Am I failing?”

Chris (00:06:20):

Yeah. Am I doing this right?

Clayton (00:06:21):

We actually think that that is very common and that should be okay, but it’s the consistency of starting again, trying something different, continuing to try to make sure that the spiritual things happening in your home are consistent. That’s a gift to your kids. And so you have to be able to say, “Hey, we dropped the ball. Let’s start again.” Everybody’s going to drop the ball at some point.

Ann (00:06:42):

Oh, that’s good. It kind of gives you hope as a parent like, “I’m failing and I’ll always fail.” You’re saying no, we all probably feel like that, but you can always start over again.

Clayton (00:06:51):

Yeah, it’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

(00:06:54):

It’s a feature of the process is being—because there’s so many—we try to say that creating a habit is easy or we try to give a plan for it and here’s six steps you can do in order to create a new spiritual habit in your home. But it’s actually way more complicated than just six steps. It’s actually six things that you can do in order to try to be more consistent, and you have to try and then it messes up and then you try again and then it messes up and then you try again.

Ann (00:07:21):

But you guys, it’s really good because as I was reading, I’m like, this is doable. This is simple enough. It’s really practical.

Dave (00:07:28):

I thought it’s not doable at all.

Clayton:

Thank you, Dave.

Dave:

It’s a really hard, hard— No, I’m kidding. But in some ways building a habit is hard because you’ve got to, like you said, you’re going to fail, and you got to start over and it’s hard to start over sometimes. Sometimes you just sort of quit.

Chris (00:07:45):

Well, there are different ways that things are hard. Some things are hard implicitly, and you can make them as easy as possible, but it’s still just a very difficult thing. And I think spiritual habits are like that. And then there are some things that are hard that shouldn’t be because they’re easy and we make them more complicated.

(00:08:03):

And so what we’re trying to do in the book is saying, “Okay, let’s just be honest. This is very difficult. It’s going to be very difficult no matter what. We’re going to try to get it as easy as possible because it already is that hard.” So there’s not a key here where you read the book and you’re like, “Oh, great. I knew it was incredibly simple, and I was an idiot for not getting it.” Now there’s a patent. No it’s still very, very difficult. But we don’t have to make it harder than it needs to be. This can be actually slightly easier.

Dave (00:08:33):

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Ann (00:08:37):

And that’s why we want to acknowledge today’s sponsor Weekend to Remember, a three-day marriage getaway hosted by FamilyLife.

Dave (00:08:45):

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Ann (00:08:52):

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Dave (00:08:57):

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I mean, in some ways I’ve even heard you say you guys are atomic habits meets Jesus. So which one of you is Jesus?

Clayton (00:09:15):

Chris is.

Dave:

And which one of you is habits?

Chris:

Dave, you took my joke.

Clayton:

I love that. Whereas the atomic habits meets Jesus and I’m habits and he’s Jesus. He hates it when I say that because the comparison. I’ve read a ton of habits science books; absolutely love them. Chris has read a lot of the Bible, and it’s not to say that the opposite person hasn’t done some of the other

Ann (00:09:39):

You’re more spiritual. That’s all he’s saying.

Chris (00:09:41):

Yeah. How do you measure up when someone says, “Oh, he’s basically Jesus.” Like you have to say, “That’s not—no.”

Clayton (00:09:47):

But this is how our relationship naturally functions.

Chris:

This is true.

Clayton:

So prayer, prayer is really, really hard because—and just this random idea about prayer, “Chris, where’s that in the Bible?” Literally that’s how half of our conversations start. And so goes a beautiful friendship and hopefully it’s helpful to us and to other people at some point. So when I used to read habit science books, social psychology books, whatever it would be, Atomic Habits is one. The Power of Habit is another. Chip and Dan Heath wrote a book called Switch. I mean all these are really, really—the reason they write these books, and they get so popular is because doing the things that you want to do in life is a lot harder—

Chris (00:10:28):

Changes just thinking.

Clayton (00:10:29):

—than just thinking about doing something, right? Actually making it happen in your life. But every time I would read one of these books, I would be reading it and applying it to reading the Bible. I would be reading it, and I would apply it to exercise or dieting. I would also apply it to my prayer life. How do I get more consistent at this? This thing says if you put your tennis shoes by the door, that you’re more likely to take more steps in a day. That’s good for your physical health. That’s a small little tip of just by placing your shoes there, you’re more likely to do it and that’s a good thing for you. And the same thing is true of where you place your Bible.

So every time I was reading one of these books, I was actually applying it to my spiritual life and hopefully what we’ve done here—Atomic Habits meets Jesus—is we’ve taken some of those things that the habit scientists have discovered and we’ve actually shown that that does exist. These ideas and these tips, they’re incredibly consistent with scripture and what God calls us to do. And so we’re just taking those things, putting them together and saying, Hey, let’s be more consistent. That’ll be good for us. That’ll be good for our kids as well.

Dave (00:11:28):

Have you heard the one where you put your shoes under the bed?

Chris (00:11:33):

That’s a different one.

Clayton:

No, tell us.

Dave (00:11:34):

Come on. You’ve heard that one, right?

Ann (00:11:35):

No, I haven’t either.

Dave (00:11:36):

I don’t know who I heard say this and I’ve never done it, but I should do it. They said when you go to bed at night, put your shoes under the bed and then when you wake up in the morning, you’ll be on your knees looking for your shoes and just stay there and pray.

Clayton (00:11:45):

Pray.

Dave (00:11:46):

I’m like—

Clayton (00:11:47):

Dude, that is—

Dave (00:11:48):

That’s probably not a bad idea.

Ann:

That’s genius.

Clayton (00:11:50):

We should have put that in this book.

Chris:

You think the editors will let us come and we can write a sequel.

Ann (00:11:54):

And the book is called Building Spiritual Habits in the Home: Small Steps You Can Take Today.

Dave (00:12:00):

It’s got little building blocks—

Ann (00:12:01):

Oh, do your block.

Dave (00:12:02):

Oh yeah. We got the GratiKude, GratiKude.

Clayton:

Cube, GratiKube.

Dave:

It’s a k. GratiKube. Explain the GratiKube to us. I’m a five-year-old kid. I don’t know what it is.

Ann (00:12:17):

Or I’m a parent listening. I want to get that. What is that thing?

Chris (00:12:20):

Yeah, I think the funny thing about this—

Dave (00:12:21):

Actually, I’m a grandpa and I don’t know what it is, so explain it to me.

Chris (00:12:22):

The funny thing is a five-year-old would be the most intuitive to know what to do with this because we have GratiKubes on the table. They pick it up, roll it, and immediately know how it operates.

Clayton (00:12:34):

You don’t have to explain it. So the GratiKube is a 12-sided die. It’s actually a dodecahedron is what it’s called. On each side—

Dave (00:12:41):

I knew that –dodecahedron.

Clayton (00:12:42):

It has a prompt.

Dave (00:12:44):

I can’t even say it.

Chris (00:12:45):

That was flawless, Dave.

Dave (00:12:46):

Do heck a what?

Chris (00:12:48):

No, do deca hedron .

Ann:

Just let him explain it.

Clayton:

It’s got 12 sides.

Clayton (00:12:53):

The dodecahedron has 12 sides, and on each side, it has a conversational prompt that you’re supposed to—when you roll it, it says food and you start with “God, thank you for pizza,” which is what almost every kid would say or mac & cheese or whatever it is. And so it just adds variety and gratitude to your everyday table conversation.

Dave (00:13:15):

It’s playful. Does it ever go powerful, like get pretty tender?

Clayton (00:13:20):

Absolutely. So there’s one of the sides is, God thanks for being where you get to hear your child actually talk about what they know about God, which is really beautiful. There’s one on here, which is a difficult time. You can be grateful for God being with you in a difficult time. And so that one almost always kind of points towards something that is a little bit more meaningful.

Ann (00:13:45):

You don’t need to have kids to do this. I’m thinking of married couples. We don’t even talk. We just are on our phones while we eat. Our kids are gone or we don’t have kids. It could work for a married couple.

Clayton (00:13:54):

Small group icebreaker.

Ann (00:13:55):

Yeah.

Clayton (00:13:57):

Bosses will have it sitting on their desk. I mean it adds variety and gratitude into normal conversations. It really helps with kind of getting closer to somebody and you can find us at goodkind.shop. But GoodKind is a business that we started really from, I came and interviewed. We’ve talked before; were talking about Advent Blocks, which was the beginning of all of this. When Chris and I really started working together, what we found out with Advent Blocks, we kind of reverse engineered what was so successful because so many different families came and were like, I’ve always tried to do an advent calendar or some kind of advent reading. But this one I actually finished. My kids were begging me to do it.

Ann (00:14:34):

We’re going to put this link in our show notes because everybody needs to get Advent Blocks.

Chris (00:14:38):

Oh man. We would love it. It’s been transformative for us and for so many families.

Clayton (00:14:43):

So GratiKube, we suggest that you put it on your dinner table and then you never have to think ever again about having an intentional conversation with your kids. So the idea is you roll it.

Dave (00:14:51):

Let’s do it.

Chris:

Go ahead. Roll it.

Clayton:

Dave rolled something about God.

Dave:

So I get this top one?

Clayton:

Yep.

Dave (00:14:58):

God, thanks for being—

Chris (00:15:01):

You just finish it.

Dave (00:15:02):

—all powerful.

Chris (00:15:03):

There you go.

Ann (00:15:04):

So that was yours. Thanks for being—

Chris (00:15:05):

All powerful.

Clayton (00:15:08):

It can be as short as that where the kid rolls it and it lands on food and they’re like, “I love mac and cheese.” And we’re like, “That’s great. Thank God for mac and cheese.” Then goes to the next person.

Ann (00:15:19):

Accomplished.

Chris (00:15:20):

Something accomplished. So what’s something you did recently you’re proud of?

Ann (00:15:23):

What is something I did? Wrote a book.

Chris (00:15:27):

Hey, there you go. Thank God for that. See, and it pivots that from, “I can pat myself on the back for this thing I did” to “You know what? That’s something to thank God for” because He’s the one that did that through you and hopefully, He’s going to do beautiful things for other people in that.

Ann (00:15:41):

You guys have done this. Do you do this with your kids?

Chris (00:15:43):

Oh yeah.

Ann (00:15:43):

How old are your kids?

Chris (00:15:45):

My kids are 11 and 7.

Clayton (00:15:48):

Yeah, mine are 11 and 13 in two weeks.

Ann (00:15:52):

Will the 13-year-old still do this?

Clayton (00:15:53):

Yeah, absolutely. The 11-year-old will start it. I think there are some things that when you start them earlier, if you can start them earlier, you can continue to get a little bit more movement as the kids get older as well. But our girls still love advent blocks as well. They interact with it differently. But yeah, we’re still doing it

Ann (00:16:14):

And it’s a great habit. Talk about fun habits at the dinner table. Do you just keep the cubes on the table?

Chris (00:16:20):

Yeah, and I mean it’s small enough, it’s elegant and pretty that it doesn’t feel that all the stuff we make is the goal is to cultivate a spiritual practice or a spiritual habit. But what we realized is if it’s not beautiful in its own right and something that families want to look at, then it doesn’t matter how spiritual they are, they’re going to tuck it away. And so it’s got to be appealing to the eye to say yes, that can live on my table.

Ann:

Look how cute this is.

Chris:

Right. It’s perfect. It’s perfect in the setting.

Clayton (00:16:52):

We have small groups.

Ann:

Did you see my arms?

Clayton:

Yes. There are small groups that use it. There are bosses that keep it on their desk and people come in and they’ll just roll it. It really helps open up the conversation to something more than just kind of the normal.

Dave (00:17:07):

We can keep it right here at FamilyLife Today table.

Chris (00:17:09):

Yeah, just tell them to roll it.

Dave (00:17:09):

Well here as I think about spiritual habits—you guys are dads; we’re parents and grandparents—every Christian parent I know wants to do this: build spiritual habits into their home. Great title. Where do we start? I mean they’re listening going, Okay, I’ve been trying this, and it hasn’t been working. How do I start over? Or do I”—maybe it’s a young parent just had a baby. Where would you help them start?

Chris (00:17:37):

I mean, it might be a cop out to say our book would be an excellent place for them to start.

Dave:

That’d be a good one.

Ann:

I think so too because it’s cool.

Dave:

Go to FamilyLifeToday.com; click on the link in the show notes. We have it there. You can buy it.

Chris:

But one of the things we say in the book is there are basically six features of what makes a habit stick. And the first and most important one we mentioned there is to make it easy. All the habit science books say this too. This is my experience.

Ann (00:18:06):

Are you allowed to say this because you’re Jesus. Shouldn’t the habits guy be—

Chris (00:18:10):

Oh my gosh, yeah. I have also read some habit books. This gets lost. Clayton was a pastor, is a pastor.

Ann (00:18:17):

Okay, so you both did.

Chris (00:18:19):

He read the Bible. He overstates for emphasis. In the habit science books are always saying—I’ll take it out of habit science—my own personal experience with spiritual habits. If you resonate with us at all, I get to a spot where I’m like, “You know what? I really ought to read the Bible more.”

Clayton (00:18:38):

Every Christian at some point.

Ann:

For sure.

Chris (00:18:39):

So I come up with a plan and this year I’m going to read the Bible in a year, and I print out the plan, I do it, whatever, but every time I make the target, it feels like I could do that. Maybe it’s a little ambitious, but it’s totally doable. And after two weeks in, something has happened, it’s harder to read on the weekends. My kid has gotten up earlier than I expected, so I didn’t have that time in the morning and now I’m behind on the reading plan and after a month I feel like a total failure. And for a long time I felt like, well, I guess I just need to gut it out and do a little better because other people don’t seem to be having this problem. They’re consistently doing this. And what we’re recommending instead is saying, Hey, it would be wonderful for you to read the Bible in a year.

(00:19:20):

That’s a great thing to do. But if you set that as a target and you fall off after a couple of weeks, you beat yourself up, you think you’re a failure and then you stop. That’s not good for anybody. If you set the goal tremendously lower, you’ll hit that mark for a few days and then you’ll experience momentum. You’ll be encouraged because you actually did it and it will keep going.

So I would rather somebody spend five minutes a day reading the Bible for an entire year if they actually carried it through the whole year than to knuckle down and be like an hour a day every day, but they burn out after a week what I’ve always done. And so that’s what we would say, make it easy. If you think the goal you’ve set is easy, reduce it by half. It should sound so easy that you’re almost embarrassed to share the goal with other people. I don’t know. That doesn’t sound ambitious at all. It’s that level of easiness that we want to aim for and that’ll actually get you started. So that would be my first piece of advice.

Clayton (00:20:11):

And the piece I would add to that is we have in every chapter we do something where we celebrate what’s working. There are a lot of things that people are doing, like your question in the very beginning, like a hundred percent of people are discipling their kids in some way. And so if you look at what already is existing and see how you can take those things and either one be thankful and give yourself credit for it or add something onto it, you’re much more likely in order to continue to do more. So you have to make it easy, but you also can celebrate what’s working. The habit scientists would call that habit stacking.

(00:20:43):

So if you put scripture memory verses right beside your toothbrush, you’re more likely to read that scripture memory verse and get into a habit of reading it over and over again so you commit it to memory. As opposed to if you put it on your nightstand, which might be a good idea, but by the time you get to your nightstand, what are you doing? You’re trying to lay down, but you’re much more likely to spend the time while you’re standing there brushing your teeth. Of course, if you have a rhythm of brushing your teeth. I don’t know if that’s—

Chris:

You just called him out.

Dave (00:21:09):

What do you think?

Clayton (00:21:10):

Look’s good to me.

Dave (00:21:11):

You tell me.

Clayton (00:21:12):

Yeah, so the habit stacking and the celebrating what is working—attending worship is a spiritual habit. So in some ways you have to give yourself credit for that, maybe be a little bit more consistent in it. But once you start saying, I am doing this, and you’re building confidence, you’re building momentum, that’s when you actually can begin to add more things in.

Chris (00:21:32):

I was reading I think a book by Justin Whitmel Early on—he’s written some fantastic stuff on spiritual disciplines, but in one of his books, he had a moment like this where he paused and said, “Hey, it’s possible you’re already doing some of this stuff and you don’t need to find problems to solve, but just recognize things that are already working.” And we were writing this book, and I thought, “Oh my God, we need to call that out.” We read so many books like this, and I struggled for a long time and didn’t understand it, but now I found the key, and you’re probably stuck and broken too, but I can fix it. And it’s like maybe people actually needed just a little bit of encouragement to say, “Hey, you know what? I know you feel like a failure and great, there’s some things to fix, but something is already working. Build on that.” Don’t start from the posture of complete failure because that’s just not an honest place to be.

Clayton (00:22:19):

Yeah, very practical example of that would be the number of families that we were speaking of earlier, families of faith that would have a normal Sabbath practice is going to be pretty small. I don’t know, we’d have to do a poll in order to see how if they were thinking they’re accomplishing it. The number of families of faith that have a regular weekend meal that is in some ways celebratory in order to kick off not being the work week is much, much higher. It doesn’t mean that just because we have pizza on Friday nights that I’m doing Sabbath. That’s not what I’m suggesting, but I’m saying when you have pizza on Friday nights or if you have it on Saturday night, that then becomes a launching pad for something that does then teach your kids something spiritual and train that up in them.

Ann (00:23:04):

I like that because it’s simple. You’re already probably having a meal together one day a week. So just add on top to that, just a little spiritual component.

Dave (00:23:12):

We meet a ton of couples who say FamilyLife helped them when they needed it the most. And that’s what being a FamilyLife Partner is all about, helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here.

Ann (00:23:27):

And we’d love for you to join us so click the donate button at FamilyLifeToday.com and become a Partner today.

Dave (00:23:34):

Do it. I don’t know—

Ann (00:23:36):

You did a really good one.

Dave:

That might’ve been a one taker.

Ann:

I really like even your five roots for your spiritual habits. I’m like, man, that is good to know.

Dave (00:23:47):

They’re so simple.

Ann (00:23:48):

Simple. Talk about those. Do you want me to read them to you?

Dave (00:23:50):

You guys are deep, but you’re simple. You can wade into where your deepness is. Does that make sense? That was deep right there.

Chris (00:23:58):

Yeah, I like that a lot.

Dave (00:23:59):

But I mean just your first one, God starts.

Chris (00:24:02):

Yeah.

Dave (00:24:03):

Walk us through those. Those are really good.

Ann (00:24:05):

And I feel like it’s catechism in a way.

Chris (00:24:07):

It is. And it was the last piece that we came to because we started with all the practical, okay, what do you change? What are the things that people need to do differently? And along the way, Clayton, you suggested to me “Should we tell people where this is coming from, a biblical foundation for it?”

Clayton (00:24:24):

Yeah, we have some assumptions about God that inform how we think about spiritual habits.

Chris (00:24:29):

But they were in the background and so we just brought them to the foreground. And it’s funny because I’ve been to seminary twice. I’ve done a lot of the seminary stuff.

Dave (00:24:38):

Of course you’re Jesus

Chris (00:24:39):

Thank you. I grow more and more uncomfortable with this comparison as the interview progresses.

Dave:

We’re done. We’re done.

Chris:

No, you can keep laying on; give you something to repent for later. And so I’ve been to seminary, but I never had somebody attach theological truths to spiritual disciplines in a helpful way.

(00:25:00):

So we wanted to do that for people to say, “Look, you could say that God is all powerful and omniscient and whatever, list out the attributes, but what does that actually do for me when I’m struggling to pray consistently?” It felt like a disconnect. So we came up with five and we call them roots because they’re where all of this comes from. If you want to grow a spiritual life, this is how you need to root yourself in scripture. You mentioned one day, God starts. I’ll list all five and then we can meander in all of them as you want. God starts. Number two, God wants to be with you. This is the goal of any spiritual habit is intimacy. Number three, God is real, but we can’t see Him. It’s very important. Number four, God prefers to work slowly. He can go quickly, but His usual mode is slowly and then God is gracious. Every Christian is going to hear those and say, “Well, yeah, that’s true. I already know that.”

(00:25:56):

But I don’t think we generally take those and apply them, actually apply them to spiritual practice. Like God starts for instance. Because our spiritual habits generally start from a place of, I’m not praying enough. I need to pray more. In our heads we think I’m initiating something. But that’s not the case because God has already said something. Eugene Peterson said this in his fantastic book Answering God. It’s a book on prayer. All prayer is just a response to the God who’s spoken first. He’s given us His Word. It’s our responsibility to respond to Him. And it takes away so much pressure for prayer because I don’t have to drum this up, I don’t have to initiate anything. I’m responding to a God who’s spoken first. And then the more you look into it, you see, “Oh, this isn’t just prayer. Anything we’re doing for God and with God begins with Him.” Suddenly I can breathe. I’m like that’s possible in a way that me initiating is absolutely not.

Clayton (00:26:54):

And Chris in the book talks about goes through scripture and many of us could do the same where you see all these different characters and the things that they did for God is what we remember. And you go back, and you read the story and God started, God called. Jesus called His disciples. They didn’t come up to Him knocking on the door saying, “Hey, can you tell me?” Right? He’s inviting them and the consistency of that God’s character that he starts things in us is beautiful and it’s freeing. And the analogy that I like to give is we’ve all had the experience of hosting a party and then coming to a party. And when you host a party, there’s a little bit of tension at the beginning. You’re there by yourself. Is anyone going to come? Is it going to be fun? Are they going to have a good time?

(00:27:34):

And then they’re showing up to the party fashionably late where you show up and everything’s already happening and it’s free. It’s exciting because you come in and you join people and the excitement and the music and the foods are already there. That’s the shift that we need to make in our spiritual habits and these five roots help us make, especially that first one God starts, is when we’re approaching a new spiritual habit, we don’t need to come in with a pressure field situation, which I bet most of us feel like many times. We come in knowing that God has already started and invited us. And actually if you think about the last route, like God is gracious, is also that God’s going to finish the work in us as well. And so we’re entering into a system where it’s just game for us to win. What we just have to do is just make sure we’re consistently engaged.

Ann (00:28:18):

Just this week though, talked to this person because just this week we had a lady reach out and she said, “Everybody says God’s with me, God’s near me, God’s here. I feel nothing. I hear nothing. I see nothing. I don’t feel like He even loves me.”

Chris (00:28:32):

Wow.

Ann (00:28:34):

“I love Him, but I feel nothing.” So what would you say to those people or your kids that are like “You guys all talk about Jesus is with me, God’s with me. I feel nothing.”

Chris (00:28:46):

Yeah. And that third route I think gets closest to that idea that God is real, but we can’t see him. And I don’t think we give enough credence to people that it is super odd in prayer, for instance, to talk to somebody who’s not in the room, who you’re not going to get an audible response back from. We just take it for granted that people will do this and roll with it. And it’s strange. God is invisible. And so to talk to an invisible person who doesn’t talk back strikes most people as crazy. And even for those of us who believe it, it’s just tremendously awkward.

I was at the very least, you’ve got to give yourself a lot of grace. And remember that most believers throughout history have had moments where they felt like that they continue believing these things, but the sense, “I don’t feel God’s presence and His daily movement in my life. I’m unsure if this is real.” That doesn’t mean, “Oh, well, I guess this stuff’s not real.” And you’re not really believing hard enough. Every believer is there at some point.

Clayton (00:29:48):

Yeah, so absolutely you got to give yourself grace and remember that root. And then also in one of the steps it’s find your friends. Discipleship is not meant to be an individual game. And so I would encourage that person to attach themselves to a church and to some people who have been experiencing walking with God for a longer period of time. Because then that can actually follow them in that. And that will help coach them, help them, show them where God is actually moving and speaking and participating, leading in that person’s life.

Dave (00:30:23):

How important do you think it is to find friends? And this would be true for a family as well, that do what Chris just did, that are that honest to say “I feel that”—what Ann just said—”I feel the same thing. I feel like”—

Clayton:

I’ve been there.

Dave:

—”I’m alone. God’s not here. I know He is but”— Because so often in church nobody ever says that. It’s two-thirds of the Psalms are lament and they’re saying, “Where are you and how long?” and nobody in church will ever say anything like that, even though they feel it all week. And again, you don’t live there, but to be able to say, “This person’s felt what I feel right now.” How did you walk through that? How important are those friends, people that you can be that honest with.

Chris (00:31:04):

You really can’t overstate how important that is because there’s the experience of doubt or suffering or pain or whatever. And then there’s the loneliness on top of that. And I think most of us could weather the doubts and the suffering if it wasn’t for the loneliness that jumped on board that says, “And you know what? No one else gets it and you’re by yourself in this.”

(00:31:29):

And so just vocalizing it with somebody else just takes so much of the sting out of those doubts and out of that suffering. Sometimes other people will say, “I’ve been there.” Other times, they’ll say, offer a word of correction, “I actually don’t think you’re seeing this situation clearly enough.” But that’s the beautiful thing about the friendship. You don’t know what the other person’s going to bring.

But Clayton, you’ve said to me, or I said to you—it happened in the course of our friendship anyway—

Dave:

One of us said to one of us.

Chris:

When I’m trying—have you ever heard the phrase of preaching the gospel to yourself? Which I think is a beautiful and important thing. I can talk myself out of the spirit of God in my own life if I’m just, if it’s self-talk because I talk to myself all the time and I can convince myself one way or another. But the times in my life where I’ve really felt like, “You know what, the spirit of God has spoken to me” have been through the voice of other people. Because it’s harder for me to say, “Oh, that person is just deceived.” And something about it, when God uses somebody else to speak into your life, I more naturally hear the spirit of God in the voice of another than I do in my own head. So friendship is tremendously valuable for that.

Dave (00:32:39):

Well what about, I mean the other one, God prefers to work slowly. We don’t like that.

Clayton:

No.

Ann:

And not everybody says that.

Dave:

A lot of our struggle is it is slow and it’s not moving. I’m even thinking of couples listening right now and their marriage is not where they want it to be and God’s working, but it’s really slow and maybe years slow and they’re like, “I’m not hanging in. I’m out.” Because he’s not, she’s not, you know what I’m saying? It’s like God is working slowly. So help us understand that concept of God working slowly.

Clayton (00:33:12):

I really like to pair the root four and root five together. So God prefers to work slowly, and God is gracious. God starts a work in us, but he’s also going to finish it. So if you think about God’s gracious, His graciousness means that even when we fail, He’s still going to love us. It’s the only religion that I know of, that we know of, that when you fail, God still accepts you. And that’s actually the entry fee is being able to receive that forgiveness. So my grandmother’s favorite verse was Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion”—when?—”on the day of Christ Jesus.”

(00:33:53):

So the slowly piece means you might experience a burst here and there, a breakthrough, but we know that you’re not going to be done until then. And so if you just kind of lay the math of that out, that means that it is going to take time and you’ll experience seasons where it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot changing in your life and you’ll experience seasons where a lot is changing in your life, but the consistency of engaging with the God who has promised to do that work in you is actually what we—that’s our responsibility is engaging with the God who is going to, while those sometimes it feels slowly is going to graciously actually finish the work in us. I think you have to think about those together.

Ann (00:34:34):

I just saw on social media last week—I took a picture of it because it says David waited 12 years. Abraham waited 25 years. Joseph waited 13 years. Noah waited 120 years. These are pillars of the faith and yet we’re thinking, we read the Bible, and it seems to have appeared like, “Oh, that happened fast.”

Chris (00:34:58):

The next thing and the next, yeah.

Ann (00:34:59):

No, it took a long time. I don’t like that. I don’t like waiting. It’s hard. And yet God shapes us if we tuck in under him. But man, I think these conversations are conversations to have with our kids, all of that, God is invisible. And even to say, “Isn’t that frustrating? Isn’t it hard sometimes?” But I love the gracious part too, which reminds me of your cube of talking about the things that are good and reminders of that. Oh, you’re going to do it again.

Chris (00:35:31):

He can’t stop.

Dave (00:35:32):

It’s your turn.

Ann:

I did mine.

Dave:

You did?

Chris (00:35:36):

She did one. She did something accomplished.

Dave:

What made you smile?

Ann (00:35:37):

These guys.

Dave:

Besides me.

Chris (00:35:39):

Besides me.

Dave (00:35:39):

These guys. You’re supposed to say your husband.

Ann:

Yes! You always make me smile. But I think Chris and Clayton, you guys came in with so much joy. We laughed so hard before that, before we even started our podcast.

Dave (00:35:53):

We got Chris Pappalardo.

Ann (00:35:55):

That did make me smile.

Dave (00:35:57):

Here’s what I want to know. You guys are dads. Forget the riffraff. You guys are dads.

Chris:

Forget the riffraff.

Dave:

How does this—

Ann:

Am I the riffraff?

Clayton:

I think that he was.

Dave:

He didn’t mean it.

Chris:

That’s what you get for not saying he made you smile.

Ann:

I know. You make me smile.

Dave:

No, I’m the riffraff.

Ann:

Too late.

Dave:

My stupid song. Anyway—

Chris:

That was great.

Dave:

Let’s do another GratiKube.

Clayton:

Yeah, just roll the dice. Forget what I said.

Dave (00:36:20):

What’s this one?

Chris (00:36:21):

Something you own, I think.

Dave (00:36:21):

Something special to you.

Clayton (00:36:23):

Yeah. What’s a thing you have?

Chris:

Okay, here we go.

Clayton:

Here we go. We did it.

Dave (00:36:27):

You are so special. I also like guitar.

Clayton:

Oh gosh.

Dave:

You’re up there. No, I mean this is, I think a lot of our listeners and viewers would be saying, “Okay, I’m a Christian home. I’ve got kids. You are a Christian home of kids. How are you guys living this out?” Give us some—what’s it look like in your home to have spiritual habits with your kids? How old are they?

Chris (00:36:55):

Yeah, so they range—Clayton’s oldest is 13; he’s got 13, 11—mine are 11 and 7. And we’ve been trying to tinker with this since they were born. One of the funny things—Ann, you mentioned feeling like you’re always a failure. I think part of that is because parenting shifts so rapidly that as soon as you get your feet under you, the kids are in a new stage and you’re like, “I don’t know how to do this. I knew that stage, but I don’t know this stage.”

Ann (00:37:20):

You’re right.

Chris (00:37:22):

And so every stage brings a different idea of, okay, here’s what it’s going to look like for us to do—

Dave (00:37:28):

Here’s a thought; ask your parents. They probably know. You know why I’m saying that? Our kids never ask us. We’ve wrote a book on parenting, and they don’t think we know anything. They just figure it out. But anyway, keep going.

Clayton:

I’ll ask my mom this week.

Dave:

That was for you guys. Anyway, who never probably listen to our show either.

Ann:

Probably true.

Chris (00:37:48):

I mean, one thing we do often—we talk about this in the book—is being really open-handed about the habit that you’ve got, trying it out. And if it fails to just say, “Well that didn’t work,” and move on to another one.

Ann (00:38:02):

I like that.

Chris (00:38:02):

Don’t over moralize it. Just say, “Well that didn’t work. Let’s try again.”

Dave (00:38:05):

Now wait, are you guys wired that way? I know some parents would be like, “I’m going to make this, have it work. It didn’t work. It’s going to work.”

Chris (00:38:12):

I’m not wired that way. This is something I need to remind myself all the time to be a little bit more that way.

Clayton (00:38:16):

I don’t think that’s the things that you force your kids to do. I don’t think that they take with them. I think they often walk away for those things.

Ann (00:38:23):

I usually blame Dave for it because if you would’ve done it better, they would’ve liked it.

Dave:

She’s not kidding.

Clayton (00:38:29):

So there are some things that you do want to hardcode in, and I think that you can put some spiritual things that are hard coded in.

Chris (00:38:38):

Attending worship every weekend.

Clayton (00:38:39):

Praying before you eat.

Chris (00:38:40):

This happens whether or not they want to.

Clayton (00:38:41):

I mean you can do some things like that but when you’re giving it to them, it’s almost like they need to make it their own in order to actually be able to take it with them after you’re there to continually make them want to do it. Which is why we talk about it being a habit, is because a habit is something that you take with you and you continue to do. And so I think that by thinking about it that way and making sure that you are actually, you’re trying to graft it in, you’re not trying to add it to the side as something that they can take away. You want to actually make it a part of what they’re doing.

Dave:

So are you saying—

Chris (00:39:16):

They want to know the actual habits. We’re being cagey right now, but they’re like, “What are you actually doing?” Right.

Dave (00:39:22):

I mean, are you saying you don’t take your kid to church?

Ann:

Yeah, what are the non-negotiables.

Dave:

You don’t say “You’re going to the youth group. I don’t care what you think. Friday nights, you’re going, I’m taking you, I’m dropping you off. You’re going.”

Chris (00:39:33):

Yeah, right now, my daughter loves youth group, so we haven’t—I don’t know. I haven’t crossed the impasse of her saying, “I don’t want to do this.”

Dave (00:39:41):

Let’s pretend

Chris (00:39:43):

Weekend worship is something we do as a family.

(00:39:45):

And it’s like many of the other things we do in our lives that it’s not a question of how much you enjoy it or not. This is something that matters to all of us. This is why we do this. We use a similar language for loving each other and forgiving each other in the home. Like, “No, you need to apologize to your brother because when you hurt one another, this is what needs to happen.” So weekend worship, I think would go in that category. I mean we miss, we’ll travel or something comes up, but my kids frequently say, “Oh, I just don’t want to go.” And I’ll empathize with that: “I get it. It’s nice to sleep in and it’s a lot to drive out there, but it matters for these reasons.” And I tell them that we’re worshiping in the community of other people and we’re hearing the word of God taught and all these are the reasons it matters. But it generally comes back to this is a rhythm for us. This is valuable to all of us; therefore we are doing it. Sometimes it’s not our favorite thing, but it’s just still an important thing.

Clayton (00:40:45):

A lot of pastors will say the most important thing that I can give to my congregation is a personal walk with God or my personal holiness, depending on whichever way they wanted to phrase that. I think that the parent walking with God is the most important habit for the kid, even though I agree, there’s the assumption in what I’m saying is that there is some consistency of spiritual things that are happening in the home, most notably being Sunday worship and some regular aspect of Bible intake and prayer in the home. But kids seeing the Bible in a place that is either actively being read or has been read, kids seeing the books, that other additional books that you are reading, praying with them at scheduled times and not scheduled times. I think the parent leading out in that ends up being the most important. And not to completely circle it back around to only obey about advent blocks, but when you think about your childhood, when I think about my childhood, the things that I remember the most are the things that I did the most often.

Ann (00:41:57):

It’s true.

Clayton (00:41:58):

And when I look back at my childhood, there are a lot of things I’m sure I did every single day, but it’s actually the seasonal rhythms that we had, that I—are actually most, whether it’s because of the joy of the experience, the uniqueness of the experience, it’s the consistent things that we did tied to major holidays that actually I have the most fond memories of. And I’m actually trying to recreate some of those memories in my home.

(00:42:25):

So I think that though there is a daily walk with God that is important. I mean, my response to that, that would be the lowest hanging fruit of somebody is like go to weekly to worship, but then also do something around Easter, do something around Christmas that is actually instilling that these are not secular holidays.

Chris:

That’s good.

Clayton:

These are Christian holidays. We are celebrating our faith in this time. And I think by anchoring that you know then that your children are going to experience Christmas and Easter for the rest of their life. And so what you gave them tied to those things is going to have an impact as well.

Ann (00:43:02):

It’s true. I watched one of our sons go through the resurrection eggs at Easter, on Easter morning, and he went through all of them. He had talked about them. His kids were little, and they were locked in. And they do it every single year, and they’ll remember it and they’ll want to do it too.

Chris (00:43:21):

Here’s one on the daily side. Dave, I feel a sense that you want just to tell us what to do, right?

Dave (00:43:29):

Well, I’m thinking a lot of parents are thinking that.

Chris (00:43:32):

I mean that’s what I want.

Dave (00:43:33):

I do a weekly family devotion outside of going to church together.

Chris (00:43:37):

So when my kids were little and we would do bedtime stories, we would do a story bible every night as part of the bedtime routine. And I think that’s a really, it’s relatively easy way for families with young kids to start. Get the Jesus Storybook Bible or we like the Big Picture Story Bible. I mean there’s a lot of good ones. Get one of those you like, sit with your kid in the bed and then read one story each night and they’ll get a big picture understanding for how the Bible works. I think that’s good. Our kids have aged out of that, so we’re not in that phase anymore. One thing we’ve done recently is we came up with a seven-question catechism. I call it the car-techism because we do it on the way to drop-off for school. We’re in the car for Catechism.

Ann (00:44:22):

Good idea.

Chris (00:44:23):

And it’s just me thinking, “What do I want my kids to know in their bones about their identity and about how God is sending them out into the world?” It’s not comprehensive like a real catechism, but it’s just like, what do I want them reflexively to know? So it’s just seven questions and answers. So who are you? And they say, “I’m Lottie, God’s creation and God’s child.” Who loves you? “My mom and dad but most of all God.” Can anyone take that love away from you? “No, God’s love is forever.” The fourth question is, what will you do today? “Walk with God and serve others.” Number five is can you do that on your own? And the answer is “No, I need others and they need me.” Number six is how will you do your work today? “I’ll do my best. I’ll do what’s right and I’ll be kind to others.”

(00:45:10):

And then number seven, what will you do at the end of the day? “I will rest and trust in God.” Remarkably simple. It took a little time in my family to figure out, well, how do I want to phrase each of these specifically? But we do this so often that the kids very quickly memorized it because I want them to know that their identity is being a beloved child of God. That if they love others and do their best, then that’s a success no matter what else happened during the day. And at the end of the day that they can leave it all with God and lay down and trust him because he’s taking care of things. It’s simple but if they could actually have this as their operating system in the world, I think they would just be so freeing.

Ann (00:45:52):

Guys, you need to do this for the cars.

Chris (00:45:55):

We’re trying to figure out how to make a tangible thing.

Ann (00:45:57):

Clayton, come on man. You Need to have that something on your visor that as a parent—

Dave (00:46:00):

You need a Cartikube.

Clayton:

CartiKube. Yeah. Just throw the cube around in the car.

Chris:

Trust me. We’ve tried to come up with some tangible way to get it in the car. We haven’t gotten it yet.

Ann:

I would have done that.

Dave (00:46:12):

I’m guessing people are pausing the podcast, rewinding, and going back through those six questions—seven?

Chris (00:46:19):

Seven questions, yeah.

Dave (00:46:21):

Seven questions. Seriously, you need that on something.

Chris (00:46:24):

Yeah, we’re working on it. Help us get there, Dave.

Dave (00:46:27):

Let’s go to a Shark Tank and get this baby funded.

Chris (00:46:30):

Here’s what I love about it. We do it every morning and they’re like—we know the questions. They blast through it really quickly, but because the questions are so ingrained for them now, we’ve been doing that probably two years, me with my kids, I will bring them up at other times when something happens and I want to reinforce something that’s gone on.

(00:46:49):

And so my daughter will have a tough day at school. She didn’t do as well on an assignment, or she went to her running practice, and it was discouraging. And I’ll say, “Well, how did you do your work today?” And she says, “Well, I did my best. I did what’s right and I was kind to others.” And I’ll say, “That’s what matters. This other stuff doesn’t matter. That’s what I want to see in you. That’s what God wants to see in you. And if you can do that, then you can hold your chin up because you did a good thing.” And it’s not always like she gives me a great hug. She’s like, “Oh Dad, your discipleship is beautiful.” But I’m glad to have kind of little hooks to anchor these moments on rather than just kind of making it up as I go.

Ann (00:47:31):

It’s really good.

Dave (00:47:32):

Alright, Clayton, what do you got? I mean, Chris got that. Jesus over here.

Clayton (00:47:36):

Chris took that from me.

(00:47:38):

I have my own seven questions. He made his better. I think making it your own is really important with that so that you can actually reflexively bring it back up. The same thing will happen with our family. We have our questions that we ask on the way to school. I even let the girls, whenever they’ll sometimes try to add something to their answer and we’ll talk about whether or not that’s true. And you have to be able to truly engage with them.

The thing that I would add would be, so my girls are a little bit older than Chris’s, and I wonder as your kids became teenagers, if some of this ended up being true as well. They definitely are developing more and more of their own personality. So they definitely fit in our family. And they do some things because they’re in our family, and I know it’s whether because we require them to do it or because they naturally learned it from us. There’re some things that are very consistent in what we have given them. But as they get older and their personalities become a little bit more clear, they become a little bit different from each other. We actually have begun to encourage them in their spiritual, their own personal spiritual rhythms in different ways. So my daughter Kara, is a reader. She will read. She’ll wake up on Saturday at seven. The rest of us are still trying to sleep a little bit more. She’ll read for 45 minutes to an hour and a half without getting out of her bed.

(00:48:56):

So when I give her books to read, that is me. That’s me feeding her, right? So if I am like, “Hey, you should read this book,” then that’s all I had to do. And she’s just going to read it because it’s a habit that is very natural to her. My daughter, Susan, she does a good job of reading as well, but she just doesn’t read in exactly the same way.

Chris:

That’s not her favorite.

Clayton:

She reads as an experience and she’ll go in verse, but what she does love is singing and dancing and so if I can find worship music—as close as I can, I try to find worship music that is mirroring scripture. I mean, there’s a lot of worship music that doesn’t precisely mirror scripture but is telling the story still. But that is how I am getting to her heart is anytime we’re in the car, “Hey, do you want to play a song? Here you go.” Boom. And so that’s a little bit of, as they’re getting older, I’m trying to learn who they are and actually feed it. But we still ask the seven questions every morning.

Ann (00:49:54):

But I love that. I love because that was really—

Dave (00:49:58):

You got to be a student of your kids.

Ann (00:49:59):

It was important to—

Clayton (00:49:59):

Is that true for y’all?

Ann (00:50:00):

Yeah. It’s, raise up a child in the way should go, and when he’s old, he won’t depart from it, but it’s according to their bent, according to who God wired them to be, and our kids were so different in how they related to God. I think to be parents and to be watching that, of what really fills them and feeds them, I think that’s really important because what we can do is whatever works for us, we try to shove down our kids’ throat.

(00:50:26):

And you’re right, it may not be the thing that they just connect with. It’s not how God has wired them necessarily.

Dave (00:50:31):

I mean, what have you found as a parent of teenagers? Has there been a difference?

Chris (00:50:37):

Yeah.

Dave (00:50:37):

Have you sensed it? I mean, you’ve got a 13-year-old.

Chris (00:50:39):

She’s almost 13, right, in about a week.

Clayton (00:50:42):

She’s almost 13 years now. By the time of airing, she’ll be 13 so it’s fair to her. So I have a little bit of a unique situation. My 11-year-old sometimes presents a little older than my 13-year-old. My daughter Kara has a rare genetic disorder where she has poor vision and poor hearing. So my response to that question is I actually have a unique opportunity to watch somebody who is being influenced by peer pressure and someone who is not. So my daughter has poor vision and poor hearing. She does not bring home from school the way that people are behaving. And so we’ve actually been able to avoid some of the eye rolling and know-it-all-ness because she has never observed anybody else doing that.

Ann (00:51:26):

Wait, what’s eye rolling and know it all—

Clayton (00:51:31):

Susan brings home these behaviors from peers, how she’s interacting with peers, how she sees some teachers interacting. So understanding, I am very aware of how much the external influences get into your kids even when you’re not paying attention to it. And I wouldn’t have noticed that without Kara’s differences. So you tell us about teenagers, right? What do I need to be prepared for?

Dave:

Well, I mean, we only had boys so it’s unique.

Ann (00:52:04):

I think the thing that we’ve realized, and I think—I mean this isn’t necessarily a part of your book, but I think we realized—that you guys have probably heard too—that really the first 12 years you’re their main influence. But as teenagers, the outer world and their peers become more of an influence. So we kind of started asking a lot of questions.

Chris (00:52:25):

Oh, interesting.

Ann (00:52:25):

So instead of just question—they already know your seven principles, the catechism. Now that’s in their mind, now you’re asking questions what they think about it. Do you know what I mean? You’re getting to their heart of really, what do you think about that? And not freaking out if it’s not the same as yours because you’re seeing them evolve in who God’s making them to be and what their thoughts are. I think it’s the most fun part of discovering.

Clayton (00:52:50):

Yeah, but Ann, it very much is exactly what our—because exactly what our book is trying to do. So the six steps you got to make—

Ann (00:52:56):

Yeah, let’s get those.

Clayton (00:52:57):

You got to make it easy.

Ann (00:52:58):

Yeah.

Clayton (00:52:58):

You got to make it tangible. You got to pick a place. You got to find your friends. You got to choose your timing. So you think about all these different things.

Dave (00:53:06):

Hey, you forgot one I love.

Chris:

Five.

Clayton (00:53:07):

Did I name five?

Dave (00:53:09):

Make it playful.

Chris (00:53:09):

Make it playful. Come on, Clayton.

Dave (00:53:11):

You got to talk about that in a minute.

Clayton (00:53:13):

The example would for this would be choose your timing. There is a time when your child is much more willing to have a longer conversation with you than, and there are sometimes when they’re not right. So for the better or worse, and then sometimes it feels like worse. My girls at bedtime—

Ann (00:53:34):

Yes!

Clayton (00:53:34):

—want to ask the deepest questions.

Ann (00:53:35):

Yes. The older they get, the later it gets.

Chris (00:53:38):

Oh my gosh, you’re so right.

Dave:

Get ready.

Clayton:

Then I need to do something to prepare for that. But so choose your timing would say, “Okay, I’m shifting into a season”—when you become aware of it, where you heard a sermon, you read a book, you are listening to a podcast and you’re like, “Okay, I need to shift more into questions.” The first thing you need to do is not just go start asking questions. You need to go see, can I remind myself to do this with something tangible? When do I want to remind myself to do that? Right. And then you put cues into your environment in order to make yourself do something that you have not naturally been doing for 12 years now, is actually start asking questions rather than teaching. So I think that you can—and then make it easy would be don’t go in every single night. Oh gosh, this has to be true. Please nod your head whenever I say this. Don’t go in every night expecting that you’re going to have a conversation to the depth that you want to, right?

Ann (00:54:31):

Yes.

Clayton (00:54:32):

You go in every night being like, “Hey, what’s up? What happened today?” “Nothing.” “Okay, great. Cool.” I mean sometimes you want to push in, but the consistency of asking questions will then once a week, once a month, whatever cadence you end up getting, depending on how talkative your child is, you’ll actually then get into the deeper conversation that you’re available to. What the book is trying to say is create a very small expectation for yourself. I’m going to ask some kind of question today at bedtime, and that’s it. And then if you get the response, then it’s beautiful and you kind of take it wherever it’s going to go. But by picking the timing, by making it easy, you want to add the friends one into it. If you have another friend that has teenagers as well say, “I’m going to do this as well, will you do it with me?”

Ann (00:55:13):

Oh, that’s a good idea.

Clayton (00:55:14):

If the second person is doing it as well, it greatly increases the likelihood that you’re actually going to be consistent. So that’s what each one of the small steps is trying to do. Environment would be—I’m going to cover all of them now. The environment would be, is the bedroom the place or is the dinner table the place?

Chris (00:55:30):

Or the car?

Clayton (00:55:32):

Or is the car the place? So you take all of those things, and you put them together and you can kind of say—and then it’s not going to work, and you have to change something. Okay, it’s all worked except the environment was not exactly right. Or this all worked but I needed to tweak the timing to before they go in the room rather than after they go in the room. And so hopefully it’s a playbook for how you can identify something needs to change in our spiritual rhythms. How am I going to go do that? Here’s a playbook for how you can script something for yourself.

Dave (00:56:01):

I mean, you know this, but everything you just said applies to marriage as well.

Clayton (00:56:05):

Oh yeah.

Ann (00:56:05):

Yeah, you’re right.

Dave (00:56:06):

Think about it.

Chris:

That’s really good.

Dave:

Because this girl right here, every day wants to go deep and talk about intimate things about our life.

Ann (00:56:15):

I don’t think I’m like that anymore.

Dave:

No, I mean she would love that.

Ann:

Because I’m tired.

Clayton:

I already figured it out.

Dave (00:56:20):

Yeah, that is true. But she would like to go a lot deeper than I would at times. And there are times, I’m ready to go there. And there are other times, it’s just not the right environment, the right time or whatever, and I’m not, and for years it would really frustrate her. She’d be like, “Come on. Let’s go.” And I’m like, “Can we do it tomorrow?”

Ann (00:56:39):

It’s because our kids were little and we didn’t have time to talk. And I’m like, “Talk to me.” And I should have realized that you’re not going to do that every time.

Dave (00:56:48):

As you just said that and even looking at your six small steps, I’m thinking married couples could take the exact same strategy.

Clayton (00:56:56):

It’ll work for any habit. And we’re directing towards spiritual ones. But my wife and I are in a season where, gosh, again, just want to learn everything that you guys experienced as your kids got to the point that they wanted to stay up later than you do. Our girls, it’s like nine o’clock and I’m like, “Can y’all go to your bedroom please? I’m trying to hang out with your mom. Can y’all leave us alone?”

Ann:

Don’t you miss that time?

Clayton:

I do. So what we’re having to do is actually, so my wife works from home. I get home; she works a little bit later because her job is in central. And so she works a little bit later and she comes out and she’s like, “Does anybody want to go on a walk?” And I’m like, “Me! This is the only opportunity we’re going to have to talk.”

Chris (00:57:34):

Alone time, yeah.

Clayton (00:57:36):

But you’re exactly right. So our timing of those intentional conversations has ended up shifting. And so that’s why you answer the six steps, but you have to always be willing to make small tweaks. You don’t throw everything out if it’s worked before. Sometimes you just have to make one small little adjustment, and you can continue to be consistent with whatever habit you’re trying to develop.

Ann (00:57:55):

And I think what you said earlier, Chris, you said seasons are always shifting and so the habits are always shifting.

Chris (00:58:01):

Exactly.

Ann (00:58:02):

And I think that’s really important because as parents, especially as a mom, I can grieve seasons because I just got really good at that season of them being elementary school kids. “I have this. I’m so good at it.” And then they’re in middle school, “I don’t even know who you are. Who are you right now?” And so you have to learn and create different rhythms, different habits, or tweak your habits in a way that relates to them. I think that’s really wise.

Chris (00:58:28):

And if we don’t do that, then we go one of two ways. You keep plowing ahead with the habit you had before when it’s no longer age appropriate and everyone’s frustrated, or you just bail on it all together.

(00:58:40):

So what you’re not saying, Ann, is well, when the kids are young, reading the Bible to them matters. And when they’re older, they don’t need the Bible anymore. No, the Bible still matters, but you got to be really creative to say, “Alright, the story Bible worked when he was five, now he’s 15. It’s clearly not that. What is it now?” And asking the question is easier than coming up with the answer, but always asking, what does it look like to have a Bible rhythm, a prayer rhythm, a Sabbath rhythm with our kids at this stage, knowing the answer’s going to be different year to year and just deal with the dynamism.

Ann (00:59:16):

And don’t be discouraged if your kids are like, “No, this is so boring,” or “This is so dumb.”

Dave (00:59:23):

Our kids never said that. We’re talking about others, hypothetically.

Chris:

I’ve heard in counseling—

Ann (00:59:28):

But as a parent, you don’t necessarily need to get your feelings hurt. You’re thinking, oh, I need to shift what we’re doing and listen to them. I think it’s good to listen to them.

Dave (00:59:37):

You guys said it earlier, but I think it’s so important that they’re seeing it modeled—

Ann (00:59:43):

Yes, absolutely.

Dave (00:59:44):

—in you and your wife. And again, they sniff out if it’s not authentic.

Chris (00:59:51):

Oh my gosh, yes.

Dave (00:59:52):

It’s just like “You’re doing this because you’re supposed to.” If dad isn’t walking with God, they know. If it’s not an overflow, you’re just doing a habit. It’s got to come out of your personal walk with God.

Chris (01:00:04):

Advent blocks started with Clayton’s older daughter, Kara, identifying this lack of congruence between what they were saying they believed and what was actually going on.

Clayton (01:00:15):

So Kara, Kara was five years old and she said, “Mommy and Daddy, you say that Christmas is all about Jesus, but it feels like Christmas is all about presents.”

Dave (01:00:23):

I’ve said that to my wife.

Clayton (01:00:23):

They definitely know.

Dave:

I’ve said that to Ann. “How many presents do we have under the stinking tree?”

Ann (01:00:28):

I’m probably guilty of that, but when I read that, I thought, “Oh my gosh, Clayton, I think every kid would say that almost.”

Dave:

Totally.

Ann:

So when she said that what did you think?

Clayton (01:00:38):

Oh, that we were doing something wrong. And so we had to change something. And so the next year we ended up creating something. But the same thing with you say that the weekends are all about rest, but you still check your email. You say that weekends are all about rest, but I get more tired on Saturdays than I do any other. So our kids could point out that lack of congruence in a ton of different ways.

Chris (01:01:02):

You say that social media is bad and I can’t get a phone. And yet you’re the one glued to the phone all the time, Dad.

Clayton (01:01:09):

Wow.

Chris (01:01:11):

You’re right Dave. They will sniff out the lack of consistency there.

Dave:

They’ll call you on it.

Chris:

They’ll call you on it, and it’s—

Ann (01:01:18):

It’s terrible you guys. It’s terrible.

Chris (01:01:20):

It’s hard.

Ann (01:01:20):

They’re driving now. I thought we were supposed to obey the lawn. You’re going like 30 miles over the speed limit. What are you doing?

Dave (01:01:27):

30? I don’t go 30, maybe 5.

Ann (01:01:31):

I was talking about myself.

Dave (01:01:32):

Oh, okay, you do go 30.

Clayton:

Wow.

Dave:

She has a blind spot there, guys. She thinks she’s just probably driving along “You’re going 82 right now, and you think I drive fast.” Okay, that’s a whole nother conversation. But even our five and six-year-old grandkids are watching that.

Chris (01:01:48):

They’re always watching.

Dave (01:01:48):

So what do you say to the parent that’s like, right now they’re listening and they’re going, “I’m not living it.”

Chris (01:01:56):

Well, I mean that would be the place to start. It’s a good thing when you have kids, a lot of people do this, they have kids and they’re like, “I should probably go back to church. I should be serious about this again.” And if that’s where you are, then alright, follow that trend. But more important than figuring out how to do this for your kids is to answer that question for yourself.

Ann (01:02:16):

Yes.

Chris (01:02:16):

If your kid has identified that you don’t actually live in a way that seems to be the life of following Jesus, first of all, accept the fact that they hurt your feelings. Cry about a little if you need to, spend your moment, but then say, “Alright, do I actually believe this? If I did, what would I want to be different about my life?” And start with that. Take it one step at a time. You get to the spot of saying, “Well now how do I transmit this to my children?” But the more important thing, like Clayton has mentioned, is build your own robust life of faith and then you could try to invite your children into that. You can’t invite your children into something if it’s not there. So work on that first. You look like you had a thought.

Dave:

He’s thinking something.

Clayton:

It was a deep breath and then nothing happened.

Dave (01:03:03):

I hope it’s deep what comes out. Let’s see.

Clayton (01:03:07):

Now I’ve completely lost what I was going to say.

Dave (01:03:12):

If you like Chris Pappalardo. Look at that. He’s got a stick.

Chris:

Somebody roll the GratiKube.

Dave:

It’s not a great song, by the way, guys.

:

I thought that was the plan. We talked about that on Friday. Any lulls, you roll the GratiKube.

Ann:

We did.

:

But then we said but you never have lulls.

Ann (01:03:28):

We did.

Chris (01:03:29):

We never have lulls.

Dave (01:03:30):

We don’t have lulls.

Ann (01:03:32):

Roll it. Clayton has to answer it.

:

I thought Clayton needed to sneeze. You could have totally just like—

Dave (01:03:36):

Yeah, that looked like you were going to.

Chris:

You going to roll it. You want me to roll it, or did you remember your thing?

Clayton:

I don’t even remember what the question was.

Chris:

There wasn’t a question. What did you say?

Clayton:

I don’t like that one. Someone helped. So I helped somebody or somebody help me. This is always one of the harder ones. Let’s see.

Ann (01:03:58):

Is that because you haven’t helped anybody?

Chris (01:04:00):

I need to help more people.

Dave:

Wow.

Chris:

Yesterday. Okay, this is small and ridiculous. Yesterday on the flight, the woman in front of us was struggling to turn off the call sign for the call button for the flight attendant and was pressing all these buttons. And I just looked forward, I said, “It’s this one right here.” And she pressed it and the button went off. It was about the smallest thing in the world I could have done to help another human being, but it happened.

Ann (01:04:26):

That makes me so happy because I’m so short I can never reach it when I’m sitting in my chair.

Clayton (01:04:30):

It was a confusing system.

Chris (01:04:31):

It was but we got there.

Dave:

You remembered?

Ann (01:04:35):

Oh, Clayton, there it is.

Dave (01:04:38):

I don’t know.

Clayton (01:04:39):

Start small is what Chris was saying.

Chris (01:04:42):

Yes.

Clayton (01:04:43):

But I also just for the person who is listening, that feels that pressure, our faith is not about being perfect.

Chris (01:04:50):

Oh, that’s good.

Clayton (01:04:51):

It’s not. And as much as it is about striving to follow, it is about pursuing joy in a relationship with God and living the way that He’s designed us to live. It is completely about that, but it is not about doing that perfectly. One person did that perfectly.

Chris (01:05:09):

That’s good.

Clayton (01:05:09):

For the person who is thinking, “I am off; my kids are watching me. I’m so incongruent for what I need to be doing for them,” that’s an incredibly great place to be, because you’re just demonstrating grace in front of them. You just have to be willing to accept the grace that God has given you in front of them. And there’s no better thing for your kid than seeing you give them grace, receive grace from God. That’s what we’re trying to know more is we’re trying to know the God that wants to know us and who is gracious. And so by, if you’re in a spot, which we all have been, where you’re not doing what you need to do in order to show your kids the way, in some ways you’re doing precisely what you need to do as long as you don’t stop there. You have to then actually show them how to receive that grace.

Dave (01:05:53):

How do you own that with your kids? Do you admit it to them?

Clayton (01:05:56):

Absolutely.

Chris:

Oh yeah.

Dave (01:05:56):

Apologize.

Clayton (01:05:58):

Yeah. Generationally, I think that we probably do that more. I’m speaking of myself and Kristen. We probably do that more than our parents did. Or maybe we just don’t remember it.

Dave (01:06:13):

So you’re saying you do that more than we do.

Clayton (01:06:15):

I was going to ask.

Chris (01:06:16):

Probably more than you did when your kids were younger unless you were exceptional.

Clayton (01:06:19):

You grew into. Yeah, I mean we definitely talk about it on a regular basis and there’s a dance between being a vulnerable, imperfect human and kind of retaining the leadership that you have in your home. Andy Crouch wrote an amazing book called Strong and Weak, where he talks about leadership vulnerability and how we’re strong and weak in front of the people that we’re leading. You could take that leadership vulnerability chapter and just apply it to parenting, just carte blanche.

Ann (01:06:49):

I do think there’s something about a parent or parents sitting down with kids at dinner or whatever, say, “Guys, my walk with God matters so much to me, but I feel like I’m not consistent all the time. And I would love—I think the greatest gift”—I could see myself saying this—”I think the greatest gift I could give to you guys is knowing who Jesus is and how much He loves you and who He is and who you are in Him.” Kind of like what you’re saying. And I would love to start doing this in a way that’s not weird or condemning, but we just bring this into our family and build some habits.

And I also think to pick up your book, if you’re married, to go through it as a couple and to highlight it and say, this could work for us. These things are things we could try. But to start, as you said, small, really small, maybe something you’re adding once a week. But I also really like too, I think this is kind of our personalities, your chapter seven, make it playful. I think joy makes everything better as a family. Don’t be the parents, “Here’s—let me get out my big Bible.” But just to have fun, to be yourself and for us, that was really important just to create memories, even in habits around these things. That’s why I feel like what you guys have created with your cube, with your advent blocks, they’re really fun memories and it’s fun to do. They’ll remember it with good feelings.

Dave:

Do you guys make it playful?

Chris (01:08:24):

Yeah. I mean, we try. The writing and all the stuff that I do is intentionally playful because I’m thinking, “Well, how am I going to keep a five-year-old’s attention for three minutes?” Which is a very hard thing to do. But even as we’re doing other things when it comes to spiritual habits, I think kids sometimes they’ll say, “It’s boring,” and they just need to buckle up and pay attention a little longer. But other times it’s like, you know what? We are making this more boring than it has to be. And they’ll have crazy questions about the Bible that I’m like, “Let’s go there; let’s go there.” My son asked me what color God was.

Ann (01:08:59):

What a good question.

Chris (01:09:00):

And I was like, “What do you mean?” And he was like, “Is He green?” I was like, “Well, I don’t think he’s green, but this is a new question for me.” But I rolled with it because is the sort of thing, if I’m not taking him seriously with the questions he’s asking, then he’ll eventually be like, “Oh, my dad doesn’t want to engage with me on these things.” But the Bible is, it’s very important. At times it’s very serious, but it is full of surprising and sometimes silly and playful moments. I just finished reading the book of Judges. There’s a story in there.

Clayton:

What’s the playful moment in Judges?

Ann:

I was going to say, “Wait, what?”

Chris:

It’s dark. It’s a dark book.

Dave:

It is dark. Everybody did was right in their own eyes.

Chris:

Ehud, the left-handed judge goes and kills the evil king Eglon, but the king is so fat that he stabs him, and the poop comes out, and his men come to check on him, and they find the door locked and they smell what’s going on and they say, oh, we better not go in there. He’s doing his business, and they wait for so long until they’re embarrassed. And then they break the door down. And all of this is in the story. And I’m like, that’s really silly.

Dave (01:10:04):

You can’t make this stuff up.

Ann:

You should be teaching this to middle schoolers.

Chris (01:10:08):

Yeah, it’s a very middle school kind of story. The poop is involved; it’s in the text. But I mean, not every story is like that, but just saying, this is a fantastic story written by a God of creativity. If we’re making it sound boring, I think we’re doing it wrong. It is a fascinating story.

Dave (01:10:27):

I remember a long time ago when we started our church, one of the things we decided mattered was art. God is a God, He’s an artist. And I was on a team that designed the actual whole hour, hour 15, whatever it was. And so we had this principle, every service we’re going to try to create some moment of, there’s so much joy in the moment that people are laughing—

Ann:

There’s so much beauty.

Dave:

—just spontaneously.

Clayton:

That’s so cool.

Dave:

Or smiling at someone and, probably both, a moment of power where they might be in tears because they’re so moved by something that happens whether it’s a video—it could be back then we had actual drama actors from Broadway that were coming to our church and they’d write some things and sometimes they were so funny you’re just laughing your head off. You’re like, “God laughs.” And people start coming out. “I’ve never been to a church where you appreciate the arts.” And when we did music, it was well done. People from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra were in our—we just thought, “This is who God is so why would it be boring?” I think that whole same principle should be the same thing in a family.

Clayton (01:11:42):

Life is so much more dynamic.

Dave (01:11:43):

Playful and joyful and tender and powerful. There are moments where you’re crying as a family because you’re so moved. And there’s other times where you’re hitting each other, you’re laughing so hard. That’s the heart of God. It’s like that would be—a kid would want to come to that devo time. You know what I mean? It’s real.

Ann:

No pressure parents.

Clayton (01:11:59):

And that playfulness really helps us play the long game as well because playfulness—there’s tons of books on play, which we read a number as we were researching for the book. And there’s this cycle that seems like discipleship where you have to have a certain amount of vulnerability and connection with someone in order to be able to play something with them, to be playful.

Ann (01:12:22):

Interesting.

Clayton (01:12:22):

But when you are playful, you think less about yourself, you think more about them, and that actually increases the connection that you have to them when it actually deepens the vulnerability that you’re willing to have the next time. And so the playfulness actually helps with connection of whoever is at the table. And that actually helps you with your kids in particular. But with your spouse and with your small group or with your employees or whatever, it allows you to play the long game in terms of we’re going to remain connected to these kids and they’re going to want to continue to engage with us. Tell us what it’s like to engage with adult kids, right.

Ann:

That’s so good.

Clayton:

So I mean, we’re playing the long game in that, but then also with playfulness, if you ask me to tell you what the fruit of the Spirit are, I have to sing a song in my head in order to be able to tell you what it is, right. And everybody has different songs for it. But I think that’s probably the epicenter of when you think about playfulness in spiritual habits, as you think about how you feel when you sing a song—if you grew up in the church—that you learned at VBS, right? And how you feel, “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do for you.” So that’s playful, right?

(01:13:36):

But that is still the memory of that, and the truth of that is still being embedded. Even it’s coming in that dynamic kind of way.

Chris (01:13:44):

And it looks different when you’re an adult, but I think it’s more like you’re saying play has this element of joy in beauty. It’s not always silliness. I’m not as a grownup saying, “Well, I guess a better only read children’s literature,” but it sparks the imagination. I think of CS Lewis, he said that he first experienced a baptism of the imagination before a baptism of the mind. And people will have this feeling with his stuff all the time. You read the Chronicles of Narnia. People who aren’t Christians are like, “Man, I don’t quite understand what’s going on there, but I am compelled by this. I want whatever’s going on here.” So if we can do that with our art that’s just so beautiful and moving and joyful and playful or whatever, and then that transitions people into the actual doctrines, why not?

Ann:

Why not?

Dave (01:14:39):

Yeah. I am sitting beside the queen of playfulness.

Ann (01:14:43):

I’d say you’re pretty good too.

Dave (01:14:45):

No, you are the great. I mean, she created a character at our church called Ms. Crabby

Clayton:

Awesome.

Dave:

And just a mean old crabby lady and how about it became this thing. The kids just ran up to her.

Ann (01:14:58):

She was converted. Ms. Crabby was converted.

Dave (01:14:59):

Yeah, she got converted. Let me ask you this just for some final thoughts. Do you have any parenting fails? Have you guys failed in any area?

Clayton (01:15:08):

Well, I told you this Kara story, right? Where Christmas was all about presents and not about Jesus.

Dave (01:15:12):

Yeah, I think every parent can relate to that one, but anything that comes to your mind that your kids would say, or you think that, “Yeah, I blew it on this one.”

Chris (01:15:20):

Yeah. I think we’ll have a clear picture of that in 10 years when they let us know like, “Hey, this is a”—

Dave:

They will let you know. Yeah. They will let you know.

Chris:

Something that comes to mind for me is—this is going to sound weird—I was too insistent on trying to get my daughter, particularly, to read the Bible with me as she was becoming an early reader. And so I would have this time every night where my goal was to transition out of the kid Bible into actual Bible. And so I decided what we will do is I’ll have some time. I’ll read my Bible. You’ll sit next to me, and you’ll read yours for 20 minutes and we’ll do this every night. And we tried it. And in my head, it worked great. She loved to read. But after two or three nights, she wasn’t enjoying it.

(01:16:14):

It wasn’t working. And I insisted for another two weeks, “No, we have to do this.” I’m not sure she remembers it, but it’s just this sense of no, this is what’s right. We’re going to do this. And just continuing to drive it when it wasn’t working with where she was and not being responsive.

Dave:

What should you have done?

Chris:

I think just saying like, “Hey, this is not working out. We’ll figure out some other way.” Well probably look at the six steps. Is the timing wrong? Should we use some other resource? Is this too boring? Do I need to make it more playful? But I wasn’t asking those questions. I was thinking if I care about discipling her in the Bible, we will read the Bible every day. It will happen like this. And I have a tendency to be like that. I have an idea. This is going to be good for our family. We will make it happen. And I don’t care if everybody hates it. And I just need to recognize that I could be really pushy as a parent. Leadership is fine, but being pushy and overbearing is not. And so just always keeping an eye on am I leaving space for everybody who lives with me to have their own life and not feel like they’re on tiptoes because “I guess we all have to do all the things Dad says.” So that would be a big one for me.

Ann (01:17:30):

That’s a good word.

Clayton:

Do you want an answer that is solvable or one that’s terrifying and not solvable?

Chris (01:17:37):

Oh my gosh. It has to be terrifying.

Ann (01:17:38):

Well, now I want the terrifying one.

Dave:

I want both.

Chris (01:17:40):

Yeah, I do want both.

Clayton (01:17:40):

The solvable one is we let prayer at night lapse from our regular routines. We still have a good connection and conversation. It’s been more difficult to put that back in as opposed to if I should have had it be continuous. Our efforts have been somewhat beneficial at this point, but we continue to try to add that back into bedtime. So that’s the solvable one.

The terrifying one since we’ve been given permission now, is I’m terrified—my wife and I are both pretty driven, efficient, productive, career kind of types and I’m terrified that we’re going to give that to our girls. What I know about the world is the world is about relationships. It’s not about money and achievement. The world is about knowing and walking with God.

Chris:

God’s world.

Clayton:

Yes, God’s world as He created it to be. It’s about knowing Him and walking with Him and with others. And just the operating system of my heart because of where I grew up and the opportunities that have been in front of me. The operating system of my heart every single day I wake up is what am I going to do to achieve more? What I’m terrified about is I’m going to give that to them.

(01:18:58):

They may accredit that to me. They may credit that to just school, society, or something like that. But we are actively, probably more so even than working on the prayer at night, but we are actively trying to change our schedules and our vacation, how I relate to work, how I relate to my days.

Ann (01:19:16):

Sabbath.

Clayton (01:19:17):

Yes, I know I have to fix the sin that’s in my heart that’s making me operate in a certain way. If I don’t fix that, I’m going to pass that on. So maybe I’ve been a failure, maybe I still have a little bit of time.

Chris:

But it’s good that you see it.

Clayton:

It kind of goes back to our walk with God. And even if you use six small steps in order to be able to help myself be more consistent in that walk, my walk with God is probably the most important thing that I can do in a demonstration in front of them.

Ann:

So good.

Dave (01:19:49):

And I would say the fact that your oldest is 13, right? You’re catching this at a great time. This is the ages they’re really going to follow that. I mean, not that there aren’t at eight or nine or 10, but at 13, 14, 15, 17, that’s in the DNA of the home. They’re catching and you’re catching it already in yourself. Is he actually doing it? You see that?

Chris (01:20:12):

Yeah. No, we talk about it a lot. The treadmill comes up often. He’s like, I feel like that a lot of my life is encouraging me to just be on this treadmill and keep going, going, going, faster and faster, faster. And God tells me that I need to step off the treadmill. I have this image. I resonate with that too, this image a lot. So we’ll talk about it. And he’s mentioning, “I feel like I’m doing too much.” And I’ll say, “Well, are you trusting God enough to step off the treadmill here?”

Clayton (01:20:43):

Well, I have flexibility in my job, more flexibility than a lot of people would. But this past summer, I took off a little bit more time when my girls—they have year-round school so they only have five weeks off in the summer—I took off a little bit more time than is normal, probably a little bit more time than I should if work is the thing that I’m primarily need to accomplish. And a couple weeks ago, maybe two weeks ago, we were having dinner with somebody that lives in Spain, and they were talking about the PTO that you get in Europe and how it’s so much more than the United States. And my girls are at the table, and my daughter, Kara, the same one who convicted us at Christmas, actually says—I haven’t told Chris this, so he is really interested.

Chris (01:21:30):

I’m on the edge of my seat.

Clayton (01:21:32):

Kara says, she says, “Well, I feel like mommy and daddy have 40 days of vacation”—

Chris:

Oh, that’s beautiful.

Clayton:

—”every year.” And we were like, “What?”

Chris (01:21:40):

That’s awesome.

Clayton (01:21:40):

And our friend asked, “”So what do you mean?” “I mean, I feel like whenever I’m out of school, they’re not working.” And I was like, “Oh,” but we have to be making those intentional steps in order to be able to do that. And I had to say no to one thing in order to be able to say yes to that.

Chris (01:21:58):

But how beautiful is that.

Ann (01:21:59):

That’s a victory.

Chris (01:22:00):

Yeah.

Clayton:

Yeah, it was great.

Dave (01:22:01):

That was great. Well, let me say thanks guys.

Clayton:

Thanks you guys.

Dave:

And Building Spiritual Habits in the Home is available today, FamilyLifeToday.com. Go to the show notes, click on the link and buy a copy or 10 for yourself and your friends.

Ann (01:22:17):

Thanks you guys. That was awesome.

Chris (01:22:18):

Yeah, thank you.

Clayton:

That was a blast.

Ann (01:22:20):

What a great, last few stories. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing that.

Hey, thanks for watching and if you liked this episode—

Dave (01:22:30):

You better like it.

Ann (01:22:30):

—just hit that like button.

Dave (01:22:32):

And we’d like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the subscribe—I can’t say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don’t think I can say this word.

Ann:

Like and subscribe.

Dave:

Look at that. You say it so easy. Subscribe. There it goes.

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