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Podcast: Family Discipleship 101 (Adam Griffin)

How to Do Family Discipleship

In this episode, Adam Griffin, co-author of Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home through Time, Moments, and Milestones, discusses what it looks like for parents to prioritize the important but mostly ordinary spiritual leadership of their family. He debunks common misconceptions about what family discipleship has to look like, highlights the importance of cultivating a culture of joy and fun in the home, and offers parents a simple framework for intentionally training their kids to view their lives through the lens of the gospel.

Family Discipleship

Family Discipleship

Matt Chandler, Adam Griffin

Here is a book written for parents that focuses not on their inability, but on God’s ability to help raise their children in the faith through a guided framework focusing on time, moments, and milestones.

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1:25 - What Is Family Discipleship?

Matt Tully
Adam, thank you so much for joining me on The Crossway Podcast today.

Adam Griffin
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Matt Tully
How would you define family discipleship?

Adam Griffin
That's a great question. I think personally I define family discipleship as the important—but mostly ordinary—spiritual leadership of your home. I can unpack that a lot with you and for you as well, but family discipleship is really the role that parents have as the primary instrument and environment for raising kids to know Jesus Christ and to follow him.

1:59 - Discipling through the Ordinary

Matt Tully
That's such a helpful, concise definition. I think most of us would probably have an idea of why you're saying important, and we'll get into some of that more a little bit later, but the phrase that sticks out to me immediately is mostly ordinary. I wonder if you could unpack that a little bit?

Adam Griffin
Hopefully it demystifies family discipleship a little bit. Because it is so important, it can be intimidating to say, Man, this is a child, a human being—their soul is on their line! Their eternity is what we're considering here! But mostly ordinary communicates that when you're discipling your kid, this is not that we're expecting to have some kind of superlative, levitating in the Holy Spirit moment every moment of the day that you guys are interacting, but rather you're leveraging opportunities throughout every normal rhythm that you have in your life in order to teach your kids about Christ and what it means to follow him. What's ordinary for your family? Is it mealtimes? Is it watching TV together? Is it playing games? Is it playing sports outside? Family discipleship is looking at the ordinary rhythms of your family and thinking about how are we raising kids to know and follow Jesus Christ in the midst of what's normal for our family, and that is really important and mostly ordinary. At the same time, I don't want to deprive people of the knowledge that there are some superlatively amazing moments that you can have with your family in leading them in the Lord. Whether it's your kid confessing Christ or coming to a conclusion on their own that was revealed to them by the father or whether it's just a really fun time to have as a family. Even this week we were sitting outside in my front yard—I live in a very diverse neighborhood where there are a lot of Muslim families, and you may know it's Ramadan right now—and while we're talking, they're out having Ramadan in the park across the street, and we're in our front yard doing family discipleship time where we're reading the Bible and singing together. A storm came rolling in at the same time, and I just felt like there were all the perfect ingredients for an above average—or beyond ordinary—moment of talking about what the Lord is doing in the world and how there are people who are not following him and what it means for us to follow him. But most of the time it's not like that. Most of our family discipleship time is reading a story, talking about what we want to pray about, singing a song, or maybe leveraging a question they have to talk about something with the Lord. That's what I really mean by mostly ordinary—it's part of the normal rhythm for the family.

4:31 - What Family Discipleship Is Not

Matt Tully
I think that is so true that oftentimes when it comes to this topic—and probably many other topics—we have a preconceived idea that can maybe discourage us from doing it. But sometimes that preconceived idea isn't actually correct. If we can reframe how we think about it, it might actually make it easier for us to dig in and to be more consistent. So I guess I wonder, along those lines, something I like to do occasionally with guests on the show is ask you to complete this sentence in as many ways as you want to: Family discipleship is not . . . .

Adam Griffin
I think one of my favorite things to talk about when it comes to this is family discipleship is not a means by which we raise popular kids. And by that—and I think we may talk more about this in a minute if we get the chance because there's a lot to unpack there—but we are raising kids in an environment that is increasingly secularized, anti-Christian, post-Christian—however you want to say it. It's not widely accepted to be devoted to Christ with one hundred percent of your being—heart, mind, and soul—and believe all the things that the Bible teaches and still be super accepted in American society. In fact, the Bible has told us that we will be hated for following Christ. So translating that into family discipleship, it is not a way of raising kids who will be broadly admired by everyone. In fact, what we need to do in family discipleship is prepare kids to be potentially vilified, but certainly rejected, because of what they believe. And to be able to be discerning in the midst of that—what is true and what is not true in a world that's going to teach them there's a lot of truths. Family discipleship is not—and this is another one—family discipleship is not free-form spiritual exploration where you're just letting kids decide for themselves what is true. A word that I think has become kind of a bad word in our culture is indoctrination. Family discipleship is indoctrination. It's teaching kids doctrine. It's teaching them what is true. It is not Hey kids, just let me know if you want to know what Daddy and Mommy believe, and we'll teach you what other cultures believe. If we believe this is true, and we know this to be true—what the Scripture says—then what a disservice we would do to our kids to not teach them the truth and say, We'll let you figure out for yourself what is true. That is unloving in every sense of the word. So family discipleship is not free-form spiritual exploration. It's also—I could go all day, but I'll just give you one more: Family discipleship is not a means by which parents should hope to manipulate their kids to become the kids they wish they were; or, in other words, to use the Bible to threaten kids into behaviors that we find more appealing. Like God doesn't love it when you do this. God doesn't love you, or God is not happy, when you lie to Mommy and Daddy or when you steal things. We use the Bible so easily to create a pharisaical—even hypocritical—child whose heart can be far from the Lord, but whose behavior is expected to be perfect. Behavior is important, obedience is important; but in the Scriptures it's never driven out of intimidation or If you don't want to face this consequence, you should do these right things. And so what we do in family discipleship is yes, behavior and obedience is going to be addressed; but it comes from a gracious, loving parent because we have a gracious, loving Heavenly Father who's called us to be obedient out of joy.

Matt Tully
It seems like another way to say what you're getting at is that our ultimate goal with our kids is not just that they would do the right things, but that they would have a heart transformed by God, that loves God, and loves what he said to do, and then obey out of that.

Adam Griffin
Absolutely right. If family discipleship becomes something where it's This is how I'm going to design the kids that I wish I had, then you're rejecting the kids that God has given you. I don't want to make any assumptions that this is some kind of formula to create some perfect family. Kids will resist. Kids are persistently rebellious. Family discipleship is difficult. And yet at the same time, we cannot twist the words of God in order to get our way. We want the Lord's will done.

8:44 - Indoctrinating Our Kids

Matt Tully
I want to jump back to something you said about indoctrination, how that has kind of become a bad word in our culture today, but actually that is what we're called to do as parents. How do you distinguish between good indoctrination—where we are not slow to tell our kids what we believe is true from God's word—how do you distinguish that from maybe “bad indoctrination” where, because our kids' spiritual lives exist through ours, we don't allow them the space to, in some sense, make those truths their own; they are just good at parroting back to us what we tell them. How do we distinguish between those two things?

Adam Griffin
The Scriptural example might be when Christ asked the disciples Who do you say that I am? He could easily tell them the answer of who he says that he is, but he's asking them questions. When Peter gives the correct answer that he's the Messiah, the Son of God, he's so excited. You see this kind of excited moment of Yes! Blessed are you, Peter, because a man did not tell you this. In other words, you're not just regurgitating an answer; but God the Father revealed this to you. And that's the moment we're all hoping for as parents is not just that they would be regurgitating and memorizing and therefore spouting off what we've told them. Although memorization is good and teaching them tenets of the faith with catechism or reading the Scripture together—all that is good; but what we want is a genuine expression of faith that has been given to them as a gift from the Holy Spirit. And so good indoctrination is always leading in questions to see what is the Lord doing in the heart of my child, and not assuring my child that they are going to be better or manage sin better or their life better just because they've memorized a certain amount of tenets. You and I as adults know this to be true, that there are truths of the Scripture that we know are true, and yet sometimes we fail to experience or trust in those truths. The same can be true for our kids. Indoctrination that gives them kind of pithy, cliche, proverbial answers from the Scripture, as if just memorizing them will resolve our heart, as opposed to pointing them to a relationship with God. Because we would desire that relationship with God, we tell them things that we know that they can believe and we know that they can even behave and express before there's a real heart fidelity, a real heart commitment. We can talk about kindling that you stack up. Then one day the Holy Spirit would light it on fire. Or the Biblical principle might be more like we're planting seeds and watering them, but we're praying that God gives them growth because we can't grow them. There is work to do as parents, but always understanding that indoctrination is counting on the Lord to do the work of salvation in our kids heart. And anytime we're teaching our kids one way of thinking of things being true without exposing them to what we would also say is not true, then we're just setting ourselves up for disaster when they do meet a world that is full of other truths, and we've failed to teach them to discern and we seem maybe sheltered from what the world might believe. We want our kids to know what's true and what's not true.

12:04 - Family Discipleship with Time

Matt Tully
In your book you put forward a framework, I think is what you call it, for family discipleship built around three key things: time, moments, and milestones. Could you just briefly summarize each one, and let's just start with the first one: time. What do you mean by that word?

Adam Griffin
When we say family discipleship time, what we're talking about is set aside, appointed times for your family to be talking about and living out the tenets of the gospel. And so that can be something like Tonight at dinner we're going to do this together. There's a plan in place. We talk about implementing consistency and planning and commitment to those times. Or it could be something like We're going to go serve together at this soup kitchen this weekend. It's a time appointed that we're going to do it. We see the Lord do that in Scripture, and so we want to see that in our families as well. For my family—and maybe the same is true for you, Matt, because you have young kids—bedtime is our family discipleship time. Every day before our kids go to bed, we read the Scripture together, we pray together, we sing together, and we talk about the things of the Lord together. We bless our kids, and our kids know that's coming. It's appointed. For Matt Chandler, with whom I wrote this book, his family is a little bit older, so he has set appointments. He and his son will go out and get breakfast together once a week and read the Scripture together. His wife and his daughters will go out once a week. Different stages, different families—it's going to fit differently, but time is basically those appointments that we're making with our family to talk about and act out the things of the gospel.

Matt Tully
That seems to be one of the main things that you emphasize when you talk about that is that this part of family discipleship will often look different for different families, different kids, different stages of your family's life together. I know for me with young kids just like you, sometimes it can feel difficult because the kids are having a hard time paying attention and they're running around and one kid is talking, one kid is crying. What word of encouragement would you offer to parents who maybe feel like I've tried to implement some kind of consistent time, intentional time together, but it just feels like there's always something that makes it not go so smoothly?

Adam Griffin
Matt, that is a great question. Hopefully, what comes across in the book over and over again is the encouragement that that is very, very normal. It is not abnormal to have kids that are either resistant or it's difficult. It certainly is going to be harder at first. If you're introducing a new rhythm, it's always harder. The older your kids are and the newer it is, it can be very difficult. You're going to face extra resistance. But knowing kids are like that, and lowering your expectations for yourself—that it's not going to be your kids sitting around in a circle waiting for every drop of wisdom that's going to fall from your lips, and they're going to just know it. Although the Lord can do things like that and he can certainly use moments like that in the life of a family to save a child or do something profound, most of the time it might be accommodating to whoever your kids are. If your kids have special needs or if they're adopted or they're varying in ages or they're just hyperactive or very tired or mopey or happy—understanding the Lord has created us as a great variety for a reason. The Lord loves the variety in the body of Christ and loves children. And so looking at your own family and deciding what's going to work. What I don't want is for family discipleship time to devolve into yelling and spanking every night. What I'd love to see is that there's a consistent and a commitment to trying. Let it never be said of us that we gave up before we gave it all, before we tried our best and let the Lord do with it as he wills. I think your question is such an encouragement to a family of realism to say it's not easy. No one is saying this is going to be easy; but it can be fun, it can be beautiful. What we are saying is that it's worth it, that it's important. And so we're going to do our best.

16:14 - Family Discipleship with Moments

Matt Tully
So the next kind of pillar of the framework that you mention is moments. How is moments different than time?

Adam Griffin
If time is kind of planned and appointed, moments are more like leveraging the spontaneous opportunities you have throughout the day, or throughout the week, to point towards Christ, to talk about the gospel. There's a million examples. In our book we give some helpful tips on how to leverage time by having prepared language—things you might say in certain circumstances. An example of that in my family might be when one of my kids gets scared at night—I have younger kids—we point them to particular scriptures that we have prepared, that are consistent, and that they know. I have three sons, and I might say to them Hey buddy, if God's got you, who can get you? And they'll say Nobody, Dad. I'll say That's right! And if God's for you, who can be against you? They'll say Nobody, Dad. Then I'll say Well, who can separate you from the love of God? And they say Nobody. And so they know these phrases, we repeat them back. I don't know when that time is coming, but I'm prepared for it with scriptures that I use to encourage my kids during that time. But moments* can also be more spontaneous than that. We took a walk as a family a couple of nights ago. We were walking through a creek just looking at toads and looking at spiders and seeing birds and their nests. In those moments we're talking about the variety of the creation, how the creation demonstrates to us a loving Father who takes care of even the birds. I didn't prepare a Bible study. I didn't have an outline that I was going to go through with my kids. It's just a family discipleship moment. It's a chance to remind my kids about what's true about the universe, true about them, true about their loving Father, and I want to leverage those opportunities. In the book we talk about ways to be prepared for that and to be looking for that, but it's much more spontaneous than a family discipleship time.

Matt Tully
It strikes me that a key to that idea is maybe a mindset shift for parents. It's less to do with preparation—although, as you say, there there can be elements of that—but it's more of keeping an eye out, watching for moments and opportunities to make a connection to something that we know to be true about God or about ourselves or about the gospel.

Adam Griffin
Absolutely. Yes.

18:35 - Family Discipleship with Milestones

Matt Tully
The next big tenant that you guys put out is milestones. What do you mean by milestones?

Adam Griffin
Milestones are kind of like a more significant version of both time and moments because some of them are going to be more spontaneous. We talk about making and marking milestones, but milestones are making a big deal out of what God is doing in the life of the family and child. It can be a way of intentionally creating a milestone, or making one. For example, if you know they're going to graduate from high school or graduate from kindergarten or maybe your church practices confirmation or it's at their baptism, these are things that you know are going to be milestones for your family; it's adding pomp and circumstance, adding the handing off an heirloom, it's adding a level of intentionality to really make a memorable milestone out of what God has done in your family. We also talk about marking milestones because there are some things that are less predictable that are still spiritually significant. Milestones aren't always these positive, celebratory things. We talk about commemorating, not just celebrating, because it might be the loss of a loved one, it might be the loss of a brother or sister, it might be the loss of a parent, the loss of a grandfather or cousin. Those are significant moments to talk about who God is, and it's a milestone in the life of the family and the child. Anything that we celebrate, or commemorate—an anniversary of is a version of a milestone. That might be the death of a loved one, it might be a birthday, it might be a baptism birthday. One of the ways that I think it's really easy to leverage milestones is to leverage the way that we currently celebrate holidays in the life of a child to point to the gospel. So if it's a birthday for a kid, then let's think about how we're going to make this birthday a milestone of all God has done. We're going to verbalize it or write it down or do some form of memorializing what's happened. But it's also in the way our family celebrates Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving. These are milestones of our year. They're landmark events, so how will we leverage those for the gospel of Jesus Christ? There are a hundred ways to do that and we've listed some in the book to try to give some ideas, but when you already have on your calendar these milestones, it's thinking about how will we use that in what we're trying to accomplish, which is to make disciples everywhere, including in our home. Inviting our neighbors into it as well is another opportunity to foster this. Milestones are kind of . . . if you think of your life as a line graph—it's the highest points and the lowest points—and it's how is God at work in the hardest suffering we're going to face, and how is God at work in the biggest celebrations we're going to have? Sometimes it's how can we create, or foster, those moments? We take our kids on a trip, take our kids on a pilgrimage, take them camping. How can we make these into milestones that remind them of what the Lord has done?

21:45 - Family Mission Statements

Matt Tully
One of the other things that you suggest as a helpful exercise for families to consider is creating a family mission statement. That just really stood out to me and it struck me as a cool idea. Give us an example of your family's mission statement, and then explain why you think that's been helpful for your family?

Adam Griffin
Our mission statement is posted on the hallway in our home. And again, this is similar to the moments idea of fostering a shared language and creating a family discipleship culture within your home. Our mission statement is To know God, to make him known, and to honor him in all that we do. That also serves as a litmus test for what we're going to do. Often, with kids the same age as mine, there's always Can we watch this? Can we read this? The mission statement helps guide those things for us. There are a lot of shows that don't honor God, so should we watch this or not? Is this part of knowing God more? Is it part of making him known? Is it part of honoring him in all that we do? So if there's a book that we believe dishonors our God, we are not going to read it. If there's a movie that we believe dishonors God, we're not going to watch it. It helps operate both as a guiding post for us but also as just a unifying idea for our kids to know and yes, regurgitate. They're not wearing T-shirts or getting tattoos of this mission statement; but for us, it defines what the Griffin household is going to be as opposed to other families. So again, if a family wants to do something or go see something or experience something and they have a different view than we do, we go But the Griffin family tries to honor God in all that we do, and that's why we're not going to participate in [fill in the blank]. So it guides us like that.

Matt Tully
What practical advice would you offer to the person—the parent maybe listening right now—who likes this idea, who would love to do that for their family, but they're not creative and they don't feel like they're good with words and they think I don't even know how to start. I guess I could just copy yours, Adam, but I want to make my own.

Adam Griffin
Matt, you're killin' me because I almost included an appendix on how to make a family mission statement, and then we did not do it. But it was right on the tip of the plan. Although we didn't do that in the book, I do give some examples and I kind of try to push towards the inspiration for it. I think what I always go back to is what are the main things in the Scripture? What is the Scripture calling you to be as a family? And so yes, we're called to love one God, we're called to love all people, we're called to make disciples everywhere, we're called to an evangelistic mission, we're called to being obedient and godly. Having led a church, or been part of a church, maybe you guys have seen mission statements for those organizationally. I would just say keep it simple, but also keep it useful. If it just serves the purpose of here are some pretty words we put on the wall, or here's a project we did one day, you want it to be something that's actually going to guide your family a little bit. But it doesn't have to be a mile-long treatise on everything we're called to. We tried to just make it really simple and memorable—Know God, make him known, and honor him in all that we do.—because again, we felt like in the Griffin household that would be helpful to remind our kids on why we're making the decisions we're making. But it could be just as simply some scriptures that you pull and make it almost like a family life verse. One that comes immediately to mind is from Joshua that says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). The context of that verse is in the midst of a culture that has a lot of idols and other gods—As for us, we're going to serve the Lord.—and right there, you throw that out. You could buy that on one hundred coffee mugs right now! If you go to Hobby Lobby it's on half the stuff there!

Matt Tully
You could get that T-shirt!

Adam Griffin
You could get that T-shirt! But yes, leaning on the truths of Scripture and keeping it simple and useful.

25:42 - The Greatest Privilege Imaginable

Matt Tully
One of the other things I love about the book is that throughout it you include quotes from Scripture, but also quotes from prominent Christians—from today and from history—related to parenting and children. One of those quotes is from Billy Graham, and I wonder if you could read that quote for us right now, and then I want to talk about it a little bit.

Adam Griffin
Absolutely. This is a great quote. Billy Graham said this, “God has given you one of the greatest privileges imaginable: the privilege of helping shape the future of another human being. Someday your children will no longer live with you—but what will their memories be? Will they only be of bickering or conflict—or will they also be of love and joy and happiness? Don’t let your frustrations or weariness crowd out your love.”

Matt Tully
So what was it about that quote that made you want to include it in the book?

Adam Griffin
Well, a couple of things. Anytime somebody has described what we're writing about in Family Discipleship in very simple terms like Billy Graham does where he calls it “the greatest privilege imaginable”, to me that helps, again, bolster the definition that we use of important and mostly ordinary. But if you think of this as the greatest privilege imaginable, it puts it in the theological context of it's not on you to accomplish the salvation of your kid's soul, but it is incredible that you've been invited into this. I love that word: It's a privilege. It hasn't been guaranteed to you, it's not a right, everybody's not guaranteed to be a parent, and parents can be disqualified from the position of disciple-maker in their family through all sorts of various reasons. Billy Graham is pointing out to keep in mind, in the midst of what can be very frustrating and what can be very worrisome and what am I fostering not just in the picture of what my kids have of me but what is the culture of my family—to remember that this is a great privilege, and it's not given to me because I deserved it. It's not given to me because I was the best at it. It is given me because my Lord has given it to me to do alongside me and with me. And so Billy Graham, being just this incredibly gifted pastor, I felt like would lend some credence to that same idea of what we're writing about. There is a future day where our kids are not with us, so let's take every advantage of every moment while they are with us. Understand that that's a great privilege.

28:13 - Joy In the Family

Matt Tully
I think that's something that resonated with me as well is just the idea that Graham seems to acknowledge and be aware, as all parents are, of the challenges that come with parenting and that it can be a very stressful and tiring and frustrating thing at times. And yet, I love that he stresses that we want our children to remember our homes as places of love and joy and happiness. So I guess I wonder, can you comment on that—how important is love and joy and happiness—maybe even laughter, fun—to these broader tasks of family discipleship?

Adam Griffin
That's a great question because in the midst of family discipleship in any family, we're talking about people who make mistakes. We're talking about imperfect people. Nobody's house is full of constant bliss and never a regret over a decision. But all of us have families, whether it's a step family or blended family or again, whatever version of family your kids are being raised in. Maybe they're being raised by grandparents or uncles or guardians or adopted with horrible pasts—we don't know. But what is our privilege, what is our opportunity here? To point to what Christ points to. If his will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven, what does his will look like in heaven? Is it not constant celebration about the fact that our greatest desire is realized in Jesus Christ, that the solution to every problem we can come up with has already been given us in our Savior, that the answer to every question we're going to face has already been answered in Jesus Christ? Where our joy is going to be based is not just getting to celebrate satisfaction in our preferences or getting what we want. But seeking first his kingdom in our family means that even if our family is suffering, even if mom and dad are having to repent because they made a mistake or they lost their temper or for whatever reason they are repenting to demonstrate to their kids what it looks like to be a broken human being who's trying to follow Christ, then it's an opportunity to find joy there. Happiness maybe more rarely, but certainly joy because our victory is already found in Christ because we have union with our Savior. Jesus Christ lives in me and I live in him; therefore, I can constantly celebrate. Even in the valley of the shadow of death he's not left me, he's with me. And so what I want my kids to remember for my household is not a house of parents who yelled and screamed until they got what they wanted. I want it to be a house that yes, we hold obedience very highly, but it's because of love that drives us, and we are gracious with our mistakes. And demonstrating to our kids what it looks like to be imperfect in trying to follow a perfect God.

Matt Tully
It makes me think of this quote that I heard Ray Ortlund say once. He said that oftentimes our—I'm going to butcher it now—oftentimes, love takes the form of enjoyment and how one of the best things we can give our kids one of the best ways to show them our love for them is by enjoying them and having fun with them. That strikes me as reflective of our Heavenly Father and the way that he loves us.

Adam Griffin
That is so good. And remembering that every one of our kids is not the same. So what you just said is so good, Matt, because there are things to enjoy in each one of our individual kids without questioning Why aren't you more sporty like this kid or more academic like that kid or more like your father or your mother in this way? But what do my kids enjoy that I can celebrate with them and encourage them in without being insulting or embarrassing?

31:45 - Family Discipleship with a Non-Believing Spouse

Matt Tully
Speak to the parent who is maybe married to someone who isn't a Christian. There's going to obviously be all kinds of challenges that come along with that, but especially if that non-Christian spouse is maybe even antagonistic to the gospel and resistant to that being taught in the home—what would you say to that person?

Adam Griffin
That is a really good question. We talk about that a couple of different places in the book, just about what it means to have this important role of discipling your family and having a partner in your marriage who is just not on the same page or doesn't feel the same way. And while I would never say anything towards the way of Just give up or Resign yourself to it, I think all the more family discipleship is your opportunity to invite an unbelieving spouse into what you know to be true about your Savior. To be gracious, understanding that this is not something where the Lord has grabbed a hold of their heart yet. So being gentle in the way Peter tells us to be gentle, giving a reason for the hope that we have. But also, similar to a single parent, if you're in some ways a spiritual single parent where you're doing this on your own, to invite your pastor and your church into this with you so that you would not feel like every burden is on your shoulders in this moment, or that you're the only one praying for this. Share your hope for the salvation of your spouse as well, whether this is somebody that has wandered from the faith or rejected the faith or has never followed Christ or whatever version it is in your marriage, and every marriage is different, understand that the Lord remains the same. And that's who we want to point them to, as much as we want to point your kids to them. And this is similar to what we'd say to anybody who has a prodigal child, who's older and has rebelled and wants nothing to do with the Lord. It doesn't mean Okay well, we just give up on them. I think we have the same response that the Father has in the parable of the prodigal son—we are anxiously waiting to see them return to the Lord, to walk repentantly. And when they do, no part of us will be ready to say We told you so or How dare you or You owe me this for all the years of pain. It's going to be nothing but delight and celebration to say Praise God! You've finally seen the light! And that's what we're hoping for.

Matt Tully
Well Adam, thank you so much for taking some time today to talk through this with us and give parents and families a framework for thinking about this topic that can often seem so overwhelming and distant and hard to reach. I think you really helped to boil it down for us today.

Adam Griffin
Thanks, Matt. I really appreciate you having me on. I love to talk about this. It was fun for me.

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