May 5, 2025 • 56 mins
What if discipleship isn’t something we outsource, but something we embody, right where we are? In this episode, I sit down with David Sunde for a grounded and hopeful conversation about raising homegrown disciples. We talk about parenting, presence, and the slow, incarnational work of forming our families in the way of Jesus. David invites us to move beyond programs and into apprenticeship, learning not by content alone, but by imitation, by presence, by love. We explore how ordinary moments, mealtimes, bedtimes, commutes, can become sacred spaces. And how the Spirit forms us not through performance, but through vulnerability, reconciliation, and belonging. The Spirit of God is already moving in our homes and formation begins not with perfection, but with presence.
David Sunde has been involved in professional non-profit and pastoral leadership for 25 years. As a native of San Francisco, California, he grew up amid a melting pot of culture, class, religion, and thoughts that shaped an unassuming if not disarming approach to people and conversation. Leveraging that experience alongside doctoral training in semiotics and culture, David is a catalyst for church renewal and developmental relationships. He's the author of Small-Batch Disciplemaking and the new release, Homegrown Disciples: Parenting Rhythms for Drawing Your Kids into Life With God. David and his wife, Laurel, have two kids, Bjorn and Annika, and live in Austin, TX.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Sunde (00:00):
Joy is the thought of we're together. I can't fix
(00:03):
it or solve it. Neither one ofus are alone, and that is the
incarnational presence of God.
Even I don't even like to usethe term following Jesus,
because following implies adistance. Incarnation implies
embodiment. He is with us, past,present and future.
Joshua Johnson (00:35):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, what if
discipleship isn't something weoutsource, but something we live
into right where we are in thisepisode, I'm joined by David
Sunday for a deeply honest,practical and theologically rich
(00:58):
conversation about forminghomegrown disciples, starting
with their own families. Daviddoesn't just talk about
parenting strategies or churchprograms. He invites us to
reconsider the very framework weuse to talk about spiritual
formation. What if the goalisn't producing Polish behavior,
but cultivating a shared life ofpresence, vulnerability and
(01:19):
love? What if the family tableis the first sanctuary of the
kingdom? What if, as David says,God's strength is made perfect
in our weakness, and thatbecomes the starting point for
leading our children not withperfection, but with
incarnation. We talk aboutapprenticeship over information,
(01:40):
the sacredness of the mundaneand how to recover a sense of
rooted identity in a culturethat constantly shifts. David
shares stories of walking withhis kids through suffering, of
modeling reconciliation, ofnaming what matters most in a
distracted world, we explore thepower of attachment and presence
and how even something as simpleas bedtime or a car ride can
(02:03):
become a moment of formation. Ifyou've ever felt inadequate as a
parent or unsure how to leadyour family spiritually, this
episode offers more than justencouragement. It offers
language, imagination and a wayforward. So join us, because the
Spirit of God isn't waiting forus at church. It's already in
our homes, around our tables andin our everyday lives. Here's my
(02:27):
conversation with David, Sunday.
David, welcome to shiftingculture. Excited to have you on
thanks for joining me. Oh,thanks,
Unknown (02:36):
Joshua. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to
this. I'm excited
Joshua Johnson (02:40):
to really dive into homegrown disciples. Like,
what does it look like todisciple our family, our
children as they grow up, sothat they could really follow
Jesus, not just know aboutJesus, but follow Jesus in a way
that they could look like him,embody him, and the world could
be a better place, because we'regonna be talking about family,
(03:01):
disciples, discipleship. I'dlove to see, how are you
discipled as a child? What wasyour story growing up? And how
did you say, oh, Jesus is theway. Because my family is the
one that showed me Jesus is theWay. Fun.
Unknown (03:18):
Great question. Little on the unique side. I live in
Austin, Texas. We've been herefor about 19 years. My kids are
Bjorn and Annika, and my son isso Texan. He's got like, three
pairs of cowboy boots, and healways has a knife on his belt,
and he smokes meats, you know.
But that being said, I was bornand raised in San Francisco, and
I was the son of immigrantparents, and I grew up in this
(03:42):
inner city church where it waslike first and second generation
immigrants, and everyone wassort of blue collar. So the the
model for discipleship, itwasn't spoken of, but the idea
was, if you come here and raiseyour family here, you're gonna
get the goods. You're gonnalearn the Christ like life.
(04:03):
You're gonna learn abouthumility and sacrifice. I mean,
these were salt of the earthpeople who began a new life,
like when my mom got here, shecouldn't speak a word of English
in middle school, and so, oddlyenough, even though San
Francisco is this majormetropolitan area and highly
transient. I had family, auntsand uncles on both sides of my
(04:26):
family in the church, so everySunday was an extended family,
and it was only later that Irealized there was this
beautiful picture out of theGalilean countryside of the
insula. Have you? Are youfamiliar with Hebrew tradition?
So you had this insula? I liketo think of the word insulation.
(04:47):
It was a compound, likestructure. So when Jesus says,
In my Father's house, there aremany rooms, the idea was, when
you would get married, you wouldadd on, like an upper room to
the Father's house. But thepicture of apprenticing was you
learn the family trade. You'velearned the family ethos. You
learned the family beliefs. Andwhen there was someone there was
(05:10):
always going to be someone whowas further along in parenting,
in marriage, when you maybe werekind of feeling like my kids
aren't listening to me. Therewas an older cousin, there was
an uncle or an aunt. That's kindof how I grew up in this
extended family of faith. Nownot all of them were
biologically related, but it wasabout three or 400 people. But
(05:33):
man, those people really rootedme in Christian life, and my
dad, oddly, was a journeymancarpenter who became a dentist,
who retired at 50, sold hispractice at 57 and spent the
next 19 years doing medicalmissionary work for two months a
year. That's
Joshua Johnson (05:54):
pretty amazing that you were able to see that.
I think you said one word that'sreally key, and you said
apprenticeship give us a commonidea of what Americans think
disciple maker and discipleshipis, and then contrast that with
what apprenticeship is, whatJesus did as he apprenticed His
(06:15):
disciples
Unknown (06:16):
well. And I'm not the first to say this Joshua, but
you know, we have startedfollowing in discipleship around
the church. We've startedfollowing people sitting more at
the feet of instead of in theshadow of so if you look at the
Hebraic model and what Jesusdid, he said, Come follow me.
And that invitation reallytranslates to you already have
(06:38):
what it takes to be like me. Andthen we built out, and we
started scaling these programs,kind of a one size fits all. The
problem with programs, whilethey're helpful, we can mostly
measure results. How many peoplesigned up? How many chapters did
we get through? How many leadersdid we get? How many home
(06:59):
openers? You know, all thethings. But God never called us
to results. He called us tofruit and and so only in a
relational disciple makingcapacity can we measure fruit.
And so I like to think ofapprenticing as on the job
training. You're You'reshadowing and, and it's like,
(07:19):
hey, get ready. We're not justgoing to take a break for summer
and try and sign up again in thefall for another 16 weeks. When
we're done here, there's goingto be a launching. And I'm going
to assume you could do this. Youcould train someone else when
we're done, like
Joshua Johnson (07:33):
it or not, this is what it is when we're
discipling our family and ourchildren that they're going to
be apprenticed into something.
It doesn't matter what it is,they're going to be apprentice
into something, right? Sothey're going to start to mimic
us as parents. The children arethey're going to mimic our
desires, right? You look talkingabout Renee Sure, our medic,
desire, whatever we get into ourdesires, our children going to
(07:56):
mimic those. So why did you say,hey, let's actually look at the
family structure and how wedisciple our family into the
ways of Jesus through really alens of apprenticeship. Why go
into the family? I know it'simportant, but why are you
passionate about it?
Unknown (08:18):
Here's the thing, I've been a youth pastor, I've been a
family pastor, I've been asenior pastor, I've done all the
things. I've taken I've been acollege pastor, where all the
kids come away and, you know,move away from home and come to
most parents do not feelequipped or confident to be a
spiritual leader of their home.
In fact, I think most churcheswould say we are, we are
faithfully answering the call tomake disciples. The problem is
(08:41):
is a lot of people raised in thechurch and have done all of the
things in church for yearsactually don't feel like they've
ever been discipled. Well, Ithink family is the
quintessential picture of this.
In fact, I use a line in theearly part of the book that
says, You know what a mirrorworks even if your eyes are
closed. And my point is this,parents, we are reproducing not
(09:06):
only the beauty of our lives,but also the sort of shadow side
of our lives. So we teach whatwe know, but we reproduce who we
are. And so we are reproducingour priorities or lack thereof.
We're reproducing maybe ourcynicism, our biases, but we're
also reproducing our hope, ourtrust. We're reproducing our
(09:29):
compassion and generosity. Kidssee all of it even without being
stated. So rather than thinkingabout spiritual leadership as
this idea that, Oh, I need tolike be about content
generation, I'm simplysuggesting, I think, by faith,
you're closer than you realize,and by nature of your
(09:52):
influential relationship andyour proximity, you can be more
transformational than a churchever could you. And so parents
go, oh, their kind of largestgesture of spiritual leadership
is too often reduced to, I gottafind somewhere with a good,
really good children's programor youth ministry and almost
(10:12):
abdicate. And so what I'm tryingto do is say, You know what,
there's a way to incarnateChrist. And what if we thought
about it this way, not as sortof a degreed person like for our
pastor, we want him to beknowledgeable or her to be a
learned person. But what if theincarnation was greater than the
(10:34):
information? Well, that'sparent. We don't have to have a
Bible degree. So I wrote thisbook to try and give parents
away, maybe some fresh language,as well as a chance to say we
can animate this together, andin animating this, we might all
have a growing awareness ofGod's presence in the everyday,
(10:55):
in the ordinary windows of Life.
Joshua Johnson (10:58):
That's pretty key, because you're looking at
being aware of God's presence inthe ordinary things of life.
It's not being beingknowledgeable about who God is,
but saying God is present withus, and we're going to figure
out how our relationship withhim and with one another works
(11:20):
out in relation to each otherand to God, a lot of parents, as
you said, say, Oh, I don't havethe right information. I want to
make sure that they know theright things. Free us up a
little bit. Give us a way tosay, Oh, it's okay. You don't
need all the right information,but you do need a living,
breathing relationship with aliving God? Yeah.
Unknown (11:42):
Well, two things I wrote the book with seven kind
of incarnational rhythms when weunderstand that the family is
the place that we learn andexperience belonging.
Psychology, in the last 30 yearshas developed what we've
commonly known as attachmenttheory. There's been some
neurotheology in that space thatis really fascinating, but I
(12:02):
would simply use the language ofbelonging. You walk into a room
and you don't have to earnanything. You're one of us. And
from belonging, we learnidentity, who we are and whose
we are, super formative. Buthere's the real kicker, is that
we don't grow by obedience, likewe don't form character through
just disciplines. I thinkdisciplines are great. I think
(12:25):
the word of God is great. Wegrow through desire, through
imitation. So with all of thisthing that's happening within
this relational dynamic at home,I'm going to say it this way.
Before they get to 12 years old,adolescence takes on a whole
mind of its own. But in thoseformative years, parents are the
most influential. And I'm sayingyou've got a captive audience to
(12:50):
shape the reality of Christ inyou. Now what I do is I take the
Deuteronomy six picture of whatit means to just find four
ordinary windows, if we're justa little bit intentional. So you
know, meal times, bed times,morning times and drive times.
And I try and give as muchhandles to hold on to, maybe
(13:15):
conversations to host like andwhen my kids were I used to just
say, put your phones away.
Otherwise I'm going to chargeyou like an Uber driver. I want
talk time, you know, and youknow. But I tried to be really
intentional. And then when Iwalked in the door in the
evening, I tried to be off myphone and just go, okay, here
I'm present now. And so there'sjust some disciplines like that.
(13:37):
But those four windows happen,whether we want them or not, but
those four windows each becaptured as these sort of divine
appointments each and every day,and that's where I tried to
build some of the embodimentaround it. So last thing I'll
say is I think there's threekind of, what I call an ortho
(13:57):
Trinity. We have orthodoxythat's right belief, super
important. We want to teachthat, but we want to live that.
And that's orthopraxy, thisright practice. But then there's
this other area of orthopathy,which we think is right, desire
and and this is where, I think,where our identity in Christ
(14:21):
gets most formed is in thisdesire. And so when we're trying
to instill in our kids, they seeour affections, they see our
fear. They see all the things.
And so I'm trying to encouragepeople to just live ordinarily
but intentionally in light ofwho Christ is. I think
Joshua Johnson (14:45):
it's really important for us as parents to
get our own desires right. If wedon't get our desires correct,
the incarnational way thatyou're talking about, our kids
are going to mimic somethingoff. That's why. Why they go,
Hey, really, my desire iscomfort and my desire is safety,
(15:06):
right? And that's a prettytypical American desire, right?
It's comfort and safety. And sowhat I want to do is, then I
want to ship them off to Sundayschool to get the knowledge
about God, and hopefully they'regoing to be okay as they grow
up. So what's the importance asa parent to do your own work, to
figure out your own desires, toget it aligned to Jesus Himself?
(15:29):
Well,
Unknown (15:30):
you're asking the right question, because, let's just be
honest, like our lives are ondisplay, and that's not always a
great thing. We're all prone tosort of these weak moments and
but we have this idea that God'sstrength is is actually made
perfect in our weakness, so wedon't have to be a students
(15:51):
before our kids. I was sittingat a small group a couple few
weeks ago and a dad of four boysunder the age of 10, in a very
humble gesture. It was it wasall men. There's probably about
10 of us, 12 of us. And he said,you know, my boys are really
pushing me over the edge. Wouldyou guys pray for patience for
me? And I didn't. I didn't knowhim well, but what I wanted to
(16:14):
do is say, I don't want you tocome at them with perfect
patience. What if you lead withvulnerability? What if you make
yourself known? What if you cameto the the boys and just said,
This is who I think Christ is,and this is what I think he's
inviting me into. I think we canlead more vulnerably and tell on
(16:36):
ourselves. So there's aconversation I've been having
for years, over 20 years, withevery engaged couple I ever meet
with. And the first question is,hey, tell me, and I record some
of this in the book, but it'slike, how was conflict handled
in your home? Now, like, Well,what do you mean? I was like,
well, we all throwers. Were youdoor Slammers? Was it silent
treatment? Was it, you know,punching walls, whatever. And
(16:59):
they're like, Oh, okay. Andeveryone has a model for
conflict. And my point is,listen, God never intended us to
see eye to eye on everything.
Conflict is the most naturalthing in the world. However,
there is a way to disagree and,quote, unquote, stay in bounds.
You know, when it gets reduceddown to veiled threats and name
calling and we're just hurting.
(17:22):
The small question isfascinating is, I say, How did
you see it resolved? And I'vefor, like, over 20 years, I've
gotten a puzzled look. What doyou mean? I was like, What did
reconciliation look like? Andthey're like, What I and so I'll
just offer, was it whateverhappened that night got resolved
behind closed doors of mom anddad's bedroom, and it was
(17:43):
business as usual. Next day,they're like, yeah. And my point
is this, we have a wholegeneration who has a model for
conflict, and it's usually notthat healthy, and we have a
whole generation or society thathas no model for reconciliation.
And my my point is this, this isChristian identity. Christ came
(18:04):
and made us ministers ofreconciliation. I said the best
legacy y'all could ever leave inyour kids is how to forgive. And
so in our family, we didn't justoffer apologies, we started
rehearsing. Will you forgive me?
Because we thought consentmattered, yeah,
Joshua Johnson (18:21):
as you talked earlier, a little bit of the
neuroscience of attachmenttheory, that's what, how we get
secure attachment is that werepair ruptures right away, and
people who see it, it'sreconciliation, it's right
there. And so this is what youryour children get. They get
belonging in that moment. Theyget like, I am safe in this
(18:42):
family, and we're orientedtowards God. It is a it's a
beautiful thing. But if there isrupture, there's no repair,
there's no reconciliation, wedon't see it, then that's when
attachment gets skewed, right?
There's or avoidant
Unknown (18:58):
or scattered. What do you want to say that all the non
stable things, and this isexactly what happens with our
Heavenly Father. So I like tothink of when Jesus first went
out. And this is good for ourkids to know, but this is great
for parents to know when Jesusgoes out to see John, the
Baptist and the voice fromabove, I call that the divine
affirmation, before Jesus hasdone anything Messiah worthy or
(19:23):
build his resume. One personhasn't been saved, fed, healed,
delivered. He gets this divineYou are my child in whom I love,
and with you I am well pleased,and I wish parents could walk in
that truth, because if theycould reproduce that
hopefulness. There's anotherword that comes out of the
(19:43):
Catholic tradition calledanamnesis. Have you heard of
this? So it's the opposite ofamnesia. Amnesia is forgetting
who we are. So when we come tothe Lord's table and it says, Do
this in remembrance. Of me, theword is anamnesis, which is,
don't forget who you are.
Typically, we sit there and kindof recount, sort of our weak
(20:07):
moments, our shameful moments,our regrettable moments, and
he's like, no, no, that's notwho I want to remember. You're
not a sinner saved by grace. YouYou are the righteousness of God
in Christ, Jesus. That's how Godsees us. I'm like, Oh my gosh.
So I don't have to get it rightwith my kids. I just, again, I
(20:28):
talk about I want to leadvulnerably and just the older I
get, I just want to be able tobe more secure in my
insecurities.
Joshua Johnson (20:39):
That's so good.
Give me an example of what doesit look like to help our
children remember who they areand whose they are.
Unknown (20:47):
Family is not immune from hardship, right? So we all
go through particularly a darkseason. I mean, when, when our
daughter was in middle school,she suffered a traumatic brain
injury, and it introduced allsorts of doctors appointments,
and it all all sorts ofbehaviors that were
unrecognizable. And so for acouple years, we had an older
(21:11):
son that we're kind of parentingthe same way. And then we had a
younger daughter who was playingby her own set of rules. It was
one of the hardest, darkest,traumatic times for all of us.
And what I'm trying to do istrying to instill in us that the
(21:31):
path of least resistance is notand never will be the center of
God's will. So when we invitethe kingdom of God, we
understand that being aChristian doesn't mean we're
just saved so we can go toheaven when we die. We
understand that there's thereality of attention and even
the darkness that we live in inhere and now and oh, by the way,
(21:54):
God's got a middle name. He'sEmmanuel. He is with us when we
get down to identity. Identitythen becomes as animated it as
as it is believed. So we stayedtogether. We walked together. In
fact, I started using thisphrase with my son, Barron,
(22:14):
who's got it better than us.
Nobody had, and it was such ahard season, I could get a
little choked up just revisitingit. But my point was, there is a
ministry of presence, and sowhen we think of attachment,
going back to attachment theoryand joyful attachment, joy isn't
some emotion that I need tofeel. Joy is the thought of
(22:36):
we're together. I can't fix itor solve it, but neither one of
us are alone, and that is theincarnational presence of God.
Even I don't even like to usethe term following Jesus,
because following implies adistance. Incarnation implies
embodiment. He is with us, past,present and future, yesterday,
(22:58):
tomorrow, you know, today andforever.
Joshua Johnson (23:02):
Up until 12, when, when children are small,
we have identity and belongingare really key foundational
attributes for our our kids.
This is what we want. We want toform identity and belonging
through incarnational livingapprenticeship in the everyday
and reminding our kids who theyare and whose they are. What
else in those formative yearsare we looking for as we
(23:26):
disciple our children?
Unknown (23:30):
So there's a major shift that's happening, both
chemically, but also in terms ofpositionally. So as as parents,
and a lot of parents are reallylaid on this. And the shift is,
there's this apoptosis, thisthis changing of the chemical
makeup, and as children, kind ofaround middle school start to go
through puberty, they're not asfriendly to cuddle. They'll do
(23:52):
the pullback on that hand holderor whatever. All the things that
parents go no, not that. But oneof the things that parents miss
is you have to shift from fromleading through authority to
leading through influence. Nowwe can flex our muscles and say,
as long as you're under myhouse, under my rules and my
pantry and my cars or whateverweek. Yes, but guess what? It's
(24:16):
like following obeying a lawthat you didn't vote for, and so
when they're young and they'rethrowing a tantrum in the store,
you can just pick them up andstrap them in the car seat and
say, Fine, we'll try this againanother time. But you can't do
that at 14 when they're act, youknow. So that's why I like to
say that shift needs to happen.
Now what helps that ship, andthis is why, for for as much,
(24:37):
uh, as church is is kind ofthis. It's a mixed bag. We have
this beauty that is the churchand a struggle that is the
church. A standing appointmentwith faith and community can
make all the difference, becausethe question that kids are
starting to ask when they enterinto middle school is, it's a
group identity. It's. Not justindividual identity, who I am in
(25:00):
Christ or who I am in thisfamily. It's how would my
people, however they identify mypeople, respond to this right
now? Well, you want to talkabout a shift in culture. There
has been such a huge shift in inthe digital revolution, and so
all autonomy, like we've shiftedthe locus of power from
(25:22):
institutions, government,church, family, marriage,
education, media, into theindividual, and now truth is
relative. So if I feel it, it'sreal, it's it's accurate. And
I'm like, Well, yeah, sure, itis, but it's also limited. Now
they're trying to define life byhow would all the identity
(25:45):
politics, all the things thatsay, Well, I feel this way, so
therefore that is my truth. Andthey're trying to define
themselves by, how do my people,my group, respond? And that's
where, if we have a faithcommunity that we stand in
solidarity to one another assalt and light, but in support
and encouragement. That's whereI think parents can have the
(26:10):
most traction is when they haveother voices to echo the same
truth of God's unconditionallove and grace and truth. So
Joshua Johnson (26:21):
it's important to find that that community, the
real faith community, that couldthen speak into your kids lives
as well. And the great thing is,is you're not doing it alone. So
if we're now individuals tryingto seek meaning and identity and
a lot of different things. We wesaid, Okay, I'm 14. Now my
(26:45):
identity is found in, you know,the basketball like I am a
basketball player. This is myidentity. This is who I am. That
ends I I'm no longer abasketball player. I'm not on a
team anymore. Now, now where'smy identity? It's a shifting
identity. It doesn't matter whatit is in but it's consistently
shifting. And so what that does,I think, in adolescence and
(27:12):
really in adulthood, is it thengives us a sense of anxiety
depression, because we're notrooted. How does the family help
root children in a true identityand not in an identity that
shifts over time, all the time,in every direction? Oh, man,
Unknown (27:34):
I Joshua, you're asking all the right hard questions.
These are delicate, and I mightsay something that some of the
parents might not agree with,and that's okay, because it's
not a right or wrong. One of thethings I tried to be very
careful of, I mean, because mykids did all the activities,
daughter was a competitivedancer, and son played multiple
(27:55):
sports, and they were also verygood students, but we did not
reward them for A's. We didn'tcreate some kind of financial
incentive around A's because Ididn't want to build a sense of
validation and worth aroundtheir performance, as if we
loved them more or now we weremore proud of them because they
(28:19):
were smarter than someone else,or they beat someone else, or
they I didn't want to send thatmessage, because that's a
message, frankly, that I've hadto unlearn, not necessarily from
my parents, but I was just anaturally driven kid with a
competitive spirit. So what wetried to speak to was their
(28:40):
character. We tried to affirmtheir strength. We tried to
speak into their lives abouttheir potential and how we saw
Christ in them. We wanted totalk about the character and the
nature of who God is. Because,guess what? God is unchanging.
He is immutable. So if we canunderstand the attributes of
(29:01):
God, His specifically, Hisnames, and then we have an
encounter with that. We'rerooting them in something that's
absolute, not unchanging. Sothere's this narrative that
says, well, everything'srelative, or perception is
reality. I'm like, Well, no,it's just limited. But when we
encounter a living God ashealer, as provider, as
(29:23):
comforter, as protector. Itdoesn't mean the problem went
away. It meant that God showedup in the most personal way, and
he will always be that. And I'mtrying to encourage parents to
do the hard work of buildingtheir thesaurus. When we talk
about worship, we're talkingabout intimacy with God. What's
intimacy with God? Knowing thenames of God, and so then, as we
(29:47):
grow the names of God, whatwe're doing is this inventory of
where are the times and theplaces and the seasons and the
episodes where God met me likehe met Hagar. I am the God who
sees. Well, guess what? Hedidn't deliver her. He said, Go
back to that abusiverelationship with Abraham and
Sarah. But he said, I see, andI'm like, if I can be just an
(30:10):
ounce of that kind of parent tosay, I see the struggle, but I
also see this. I think we aresetting our kids up for not just
who they are as a member of thisfamily, but who they are in
Christ that can weather, whetherthe group identity, the maybe
the the exclusion, or I didn'tget invited to the party I want.
(30:33):
I'm not getting the date that Iwant. Or, you know, those kinds
of things.
Joshua Johnson (30:37):
You know what we do see you mentioned Jesus
receiving his identity from theFather, the beloved son, so he
knows who he is. He's receivinghis identity from the father, so
he knows who's he is. And thenhe was sent out into the desert
with a with a purpose and amission. How important is it for
families as as we disciple ourchildren to have purpose and
(31:02):
mission that is greater thanourselves and greater than an
insular look just and justholding up in the the safety and
comfort of our own family.
Unknown (31:12):
Yeah, like you're talking about the thing we like
maybe today, the thing wecherish most is our time and
busy parents feel like apersonal affront, if someone
like slows them down or don't,you know how many balls I'm
juggling right now? Don't youknow how many emails the school
sends me, whatever, and I thinkthat there's a way to allow for
(31:36):
the divine interruption. I'mgonna say this as simple as
this, if you have a toddler, ifyou have a child with shorter
legs than you would you pleaserehearse their gait and let God
minister to you because theirpace, their curiosity, their
wonder, is part of God'srevelation to parents who feel
(32:00):
like they're all serious and allbusiness and all responsibility,
and I'm saying, let, let thegrace of God just wash over you
because your kid can't walk pastanother puppy. That's some
childlike wonder. Now I will saythis, we tried to be really
thoughtful. We were in anaffluent community, and when
Jesus said, Love your neighbor.
I'm convinced that was not aproxy, just a proximity
(32:23):
statement. And here's why, thepeople on my block have roughly
my level of education, myearning potential. We all have
about the same kind of nicecars. Or, you know, there's,
there's a homogeneity about it.
And I'm saying, when the peopleof God understand that God wants
(32:46):
to seek the peace and theprosperity of the city in which
we live, because if it prosperswe there's people in our city,
my neighbors, that their pantry,there's some food insecurity, or
there's some illiteracy, or theyneed some advocacy. And so we
just made, I kind of created, afew statements, like, let's just
(33:08):
go ahead and make offer awkwardlook effortless, like, we'll
make it look awesome and andit's uncomfortable, but I would
rather be uncomfortable incommunity than by myself. We
wanted to be very intentionalwith crossing social divides.
And so one of the mantras wehave about their school is this
is not normal, the level ofwealth, or, you know, what kind
(33:30):
of spring breaks that kids couldafford or were taking. And so we
wanted them to develop a healthysense. And so we did, and I put
this in the book we might take aweek, especially when they're in
elementary school, and say,let's, let's practice a new
normal. So we got together withsome of the other families in
our faith community, and wesaid, you know, we came up with
(33:54):
easy statistics to find aboutworld poverty. And Hey, kids, do
you know that a lot of theworld, like maybe 60% lives on
$2 a day. And why don't, forthis week, we, the four of us,
live on $8 per dinner. And wewent shopping and and, you know,
it's rice and beans or it'spasta, but no meat, and you can
(34:15):
get a little sauce and maybe amushroom or, you know, something
like that. And then it becamesort of an adventure, and we
wanted to and I share verseswith them, and then I'd share
statistics with them at dinner,but I just wanted them to have
this growing awareness that man,this is not normal, our
abundance. And that was one ofthe ways I I defined first
(34:38):
compassion, passion is seeingothers needs is merely different
than our own. And thengenerosity is learning to not
give, to save anyone, but tosave ourselves from deserving.
We somehow believe God'sabundance, and that required
some rehearsing, some somepractice, and that's something
we all had to learn.
Joshua Johnson (34:57):
So how do we get into a place? Of going, Hey, I'm
living in this affluentneighborhood. I know that
there's, there's a pain point inmy community that I'm not
proximate to. I'm not inincarnationally living there.
How do you go in, into a placewhere and receive some
(35:18):
hospitality and not just say I'mI am here to in our family is
here to save this neighborhood,but we're here to actually then
receive hospitality and to bewith you in whatever you're
going through. I'm
Unknown (35:36):
going to say something that might get me a drill with
some pastors, but I thinkservice projects are a wonderful
on ramp. I don't think that theyare really impactful and gain
enough traction. So I am a hugeadvocate for developing
cultivating a reoccurringrelationship, and part of how
(35:57):
that happens is you have todignify the give and the take.
We'd like to be on the givingend, especially when we know
that we have more means than theother person. But no one wants
to be felt like, perceived ascharity. And so we were very
intentional with some Burmeserefugees. We were very
(36:17):
thoughtful with how wecultivated relationship with a
transitional emergency fostershelter home that wasn't state
run. And our kids were a part ofthat. And I would just say, and
we did do the homeless things aswell. And, you know, waking them
up with a cup of coffee andsome, you know, socks and ramen
(36:38):
noodles on, you know, whatever,we did that too, and it was very
impactful for our kids. But toSaint, sustain something that
becomes actually reorienting, ifyou will, recentering in a good
way, like God wants our heartsto be broken. My gravity,
natural gravitational pull, isto callous up my heart, but God
(36:58):
is trying to sensitize ourhearts, and so I need to be in a
place where I can experiencesomeone whose needs are
different than my own. And thatjust became a standing
appointment for us, like atleast monthly. And so I would
find those outlets that tug atyour heart, a title, one school,
foster care, maybe after schoolreading program, or, you know,
(37:23):
we have safe families here inAustin that a friend is running,
and there's all different levelsof involvement. But I needed it.
I didn't want it just for mykids. I needed it to be reminded
of and fill my heart withgratitude. So
Joshua Johnson (37:36):
then, what does hospitality look like as you're
opening up your own home toothers as we're discipling our
family and our kids, bringingothers in through this rhythm of
hospitality.
Unknown (37:50):
Yeah, this is my code language for how we have
traditionally talked aboutevangelism. So here's how I
would define it. Hospitality, insome cases is, yes, making room
for others. In other cases, it'slearning to receive from others.
But in both cases, we asChristians are trying to discern
(38:11):
who God has prepared in ourlives. I'm guessing we all have
people that God has prepared inadvance for us, that just showed
us unmerited favor, kindness,Grace, hospitality, whatever.
And yet we're probably thatperson. For someone else, it's
like that you meet someone,you're like, why is there such
an initial connection and you'relike, it's not my winsome
(38:34):
spirit, it's not my charm, it'snot my jokes. Maybe it's Christ
in me. And so where do I getthat? That's just simple.
Matthew 10. Luke, nine and 10,the people of peace, I'm sending
you out among wolves. Takenothing with you for the
journey, but find the homes orthe people of peace. Those are
the ones that showed them a kindof a grace, a kindness,
(38:56):
employment or and here's whereit gets real, personal, if we
are not thinking about people ofpeace, those who don't know
Christ but have given usinfluence, our kids won't
develop a heart to see peoplecome to faith. So the more
parents begin to talk aboutpeople they're praying for to
(39:17):
know Jesus, or people thatthey're inviting or including in
some activity, for a meal orwhatever, kids start to see, the
thing that parents are prayingfor matters. It's a priority. So
salvation matters, restorationmatters, healing matters, and
that's where I think it becomesthe most contagious. You know,
(39:42):
what's not contagious isprobably how you and I learned
evangelism. Let's go on ourcollege campus and take some
fake surveys saying we're justasking if people die today,
where they'd go to heaven. Youknow, where I went
Joshua Johnson (39:54):
to college to become a pastor, because I knew
I was I was called in to do somesort of ministry i knew i. I
knew it. And then I really dothink it was my evangelism
class, my my first semester, myfreshman year in college, says I
cannot do this. This is not whatI'm called to. I and then it
took me about 10 years to figureout what I really was called to,
(40:15):
and it just set me off on thewrong direction. Was the way
that we were called to doevangelism, and it was just
like, this isn't life, likethere's no life in it. It
Unknown (40:27):
was draining. It wasn't like giving. But if you put me
in a dinner party and you allowme to maybe turn the topic to
Christ or talk about somethingtranscendent. So in our faith
community, we used to talkabout, no, we need to throw
parties for the sake of others.
In this world today, everyone isspiritually hungry. Most people,
especially in the West, areinstitutionally skeptical. So
(40:48):
their first step isn't going tobe into your church service or
your living room Bible study,necessarily. The church is in
such decline that if a church isgrowing. It's probably because
they're getting some chance forgrowth. That's the demographic
statistics in the United States.
But we started throwing theseunusual events, I'll say it that
(41:12):
way, where we just a wanted tomake faith and community
accessible, and then B, wewanted a way to disciple our
families. And so we would attachto the rhythms to a specific lab
event. We call it churches laband and we wanted to have these
outward faces, and so I'd sendout an email. Here's how to pray
(41:33):
about this. Here's how to invitefor this. Here's how to explain
why we do what we do to yourkids. So it was, let's let's
have a lab, not just a Sundayschool class or a small group.
You know that I like
Joshua Johnson (41:45):
that lab language a lot. I like throwing
parties. And I think one of thethings that we've been been
kicking around at our church iswe're just wondering, Where are
the stage posts for seekers,like, where are these places
where people who are spirituallyhungry and curious, where are we
(42:07):
making faith accessible to them?
And it's, it's not the easiestthing to have a reorientation of
what programmatic church haslooked like, and now you know
we're in a totally new era Yeah,that that's doesn't work
anymore. Joshua,
Unknown (42:23):
what do you think about this idea? I've just it's kind
of been some I've been playingwith. I'd love for you to
interact with it. It's the ideathat, you know, when we talk
about pluralism or, and I knowthere's a lot of fear that
people would have like, oh, theworld is or the West has become,
we're getting so secular. AndI'm wondering is, do you feel
like we're we're actually, it'sjust that everything's getting
(42:46):
so sacred. Do you understandeverything is the most important
thing? We're dying on everyhill, and so young adult brunch
on Sundays is like a liturgy,and it's sacred to some people
because or friends, giving ismore sacred than actual
Thanksgiving with familymembers. I mean, we have this
(43:07):
thing where everything'sbecoming more it feels like I'm
just kind of riffing off of whatyou said and thinking about the
shifting culture. I
Joshua Johnson (43:15):
think one because we're meaning making
people like we have to makemeaning out of the world and the
space that we live in. So whenthings have shifted from this
this group identity, we makemeaning together through this
institution, which is church.
Now it's through everythingelse. Yes, we're trying to make
(43:35):
meaning out of everyday rituals,of what that looks like, because
we're trying to find identityand rootedness and something.
It's kind of, it's a lot easierthan to talk to people about
Jesus through identity,language, through rootedness,
through I like
Unknown (43:55):
meaning, because that's i belonging looking for that who
are my people? Yes, exactly. Solet me ask you this If, if I
think that we're in a crisis ofmeaning. There's lots of
statistics and studies going allthe way back to 1972 from an MIT
study, but we're in this metacrisis of meaning. How do we
(44:16):
make meaning? Because for me, Ihad a good church experience
growing up, I rather liked itbecause my closest friends were
there. How does the church makemeaning today, when someone who
is institutionally opposed,that's not meaningful, the
Joshua Johnson (44:33):
church is not but it is. Relationships are
meaningful. Relationships withpeople are very meaningful, and
I think revolving aroundsomething that that brings about
some greater purpose ismeaningful that is not just a
staged program. That I don'tthink is going to create a lot
(44:54):
of meaning for people, but I dothink that when you have a
smaller group of people that areliving. Authentically together,
that genuinely love one anotherand wants to see some
restoration in this world, andthey do that together. That's
where meaning actually takesplace. And I think that's what
the church is supposed to beabout. And I think there's a lot
(45:17):
of people that are actuallyliving that these days, and
that's where people are findingmeaning. You,
Unknown (45:23):
there is this ubiquitous, universal metaphor
of a meal. We have itscripturally in the Eucharist,
but you so I have this friend.
He's a serial church planterwith new breed church planting,
and he's just dear friend. I wasout in San Diego, and he said,
Hey, you were hangingout with Peyton and San Diego.
You know Peyton Jones, yeah,he's like, we've done some
Joshua Johnson (45:43):
training together. I know Peyton, oh,
Unknown (45:44):
he's fantastic. And he can't not plant a church, but
he's got this core group that'sbeen together a little longer
there. He says, Come, come visitwith us and do some discipleship
training. And so last twoSundays ago, I was there, and it
was, it was the picture was,what if churches and however you
expressed, you know, churchlike, whether you're small
(46:07):
group, I think is meaningfulwhen we start trading out stages
for tables and and all of asudden, I'm seen, I'm known, I'm
heard, I'm called by Name,belonging. And now you have this
picture. And again, I'm notsaying kill the Sunday event,
but there is somethingaccessible about that
(46:29):
environment in all times for allpeople, in all cultures. And so
like, I'll tell you this, wewould do these regular lab
events, and I'd meet with we didthis one with the they're going
to bring about about 12 kidsthat were between the ages of
seven and 17, that were fosterkids. And I met with them
beforehand, our families and ourchildren, and I just said, I
(46:52):
explained the situation, and Isaid, You know what? Today,
here's your assignment. You needto learn someone's name. Don't
wait for them to host you. Thesepeople don't have a family, but
you learn their name, you usetheir name because everyone
loves to hear their name outloud. And then, thirdly, you
pray for that name this week asa family. And then we played
(47:13):
laser tag in the park, and thenwe all had popsicles afterward.
And I broke us all up intofamily groups where we could all
actually have. And I had fivequestions, you know, and it was
so meaningful because it was sorelational, and everyone got to
hear their names spoken,
Joshua Johnson (47:30):
that's beautiful. Well, David, we're
coming close to the end here, soI'd love to have a few questions
for you at the end. One, what?
What is your hope for peoplethat would pick up homegrown
disciples, what's your hope forfamilies that pick up your book?
Well,
Unknown (47:46):
here's the thing, like I started out saying, I think
that most parents are juststruggling with the idea of
maybe feeling a littleinadequate or maybe even a
little hypocritical, but theylack the confidence to
spiritually lead. And I'm sayingyou're you're probably closer
than you realize, and maybe ifyou just adjusted, you could see
(48:06):
your life in Christ as thesyllabus, and your life together
as a family as your curriculum,and trust that the Spirit is
going to bring those teachablemoments. I wrote this so that
parents could feel like theyhave a little imagination, but
maybe even find some languageand and even some ways to
(48:26):
animate Christ in their hometogether. And so there's a lot
of creative conversations aswell as activities. So I just I
loved raising my kids, and nowthey're 25 and 23 and they are
adulting, and I'm the one thatfeels like I need them more than
(48:47):
they
Joshua Johnson (48:48):
need. Oh, that's fantastic. There's so many 3540
year olds that don't know how toadult yet. So that's great. Your
kids are adulting. You shouldteach Bjorn, or somebody should
taught Bjorn how to smoke fishinstead of meat. He's lost it.
He's lost the Norwegian in him.
He's totally Texan. He is a very
Unknown (49:10):
good snow skier. We're just on a snow ski trip, and
he's an amazing golfer withlike, a three handicap, so he's
got that going for him. But heworks in renewable energy, and
he sees his life as a mission.
My my daughter's working as aNICU nurse, and she sees it as
if we define what does it meanto be a minister is to put the
divine on display. She she worksthe night shift. She came home
(49:34):
at eight o'clock this morning,and she lost a baby last night,
and we just got to grieve overit. And she talked about how the
intercession that went on andthe comfort for families, and
she can't imagine doing anythingelse. I'm so proud of her. And
thought, Annika, this is like ananointing for like, not everyone
(49:54):
can do this. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (49:58):
so amazing. So.
Treadwell, I just I hope andpray that that all the families,
the parents that are listeningto this, that they could see
their kids grow up like that,following Jesus and then walking
with him throughout their days,and that whatever they're doing,
the Divine is on display. Sothat's beautiful. David, if you
could go back to your 21 yearold self, what advice would you
give? Oh, oh,
Unknown (50:21):
pretty quick. Here's the thing in my home, godliness
was next to pragmatism, and sowe're, you know, that blue
collar sensibility, if I wish, Iwould have invested more in
levity and and frivolity, likeit was all business, all the
and. And I wish I would haveinvested more in hobbies and
(50:42):
leisure and just I mean, I havemy things that I enjoy, but the
further I went into pastoralministry, I struggled to have a
mechanism for renewal, and Ifelt like God was calling me
into more play. I'm hyperrelational, but I was always
sort of the Rainmaker. So if Icould go back to my 20 orders, I
(51:03):
would say, get good at a fewhobbies that bring you life.
What hobby brings you life rightnow, my happy place as a
Norwegian is on the ski slopes,but that doesn't get to happen
in any kind of predictable way.
But the thing that I do, I runabout 20 to 25 miles a week, and
I can tell when I'm not running,there's some endorphin release
(51:24):
that doesn't happen. And that'sa very prayerful time for me. I
listen to podcasts like yours,and then I just I spend time in
prayer, because I think prayeris not only asking God for
things, it's asking God aboutthings, and I just try and leave
room to wrestle with that, outloud with the Lord.
Joshua Johnson (51:47):
Well, David, anything you've been reading or
watching lately you'd recommend,I'll
Unknown (51:50):
be serious first.
There's a wonderful movie rightnow on Netflix called number 24
it's about the Nazi occupation,of which my mom was there. My
mom's first cousin was one ofthe 10 Most Wanted. He was a
saboteur by the Nazis, but itwas the way they told the story
was so powerful, and it reallycaptures what's happening today
(52:11):
in a very kind of either orequation. And this man who was
so heroic, and he did, he foughtfor something greater than
himself. It was so powerful andinspiring, and almost we just
lost those models. So that waspowerful. And I just watched
that a couple weeks ago, and Ijust been talking about it, and
(52:32):
it stuck with me. But then Ihave some just I like some dumb
humor if you have not watcheddairy girls. Imagine George
Costanza meets Napoleon Dynamiteand comes up as four Irish
teenage girls in the 90s. It is,it's, it's just, it's funny. But
in terms of what I'm reading,I'm reading Leonard sweet
(52:55):
decoding the divine. Len is justa mentor of mine. I'm doing my
doctoral work through, or justfinishing up my doctorate with
him. I've become friends withTish Harrison Warren, who's a
genius writer prayers in thenight, liturgy of the ordinary.
But her book on Advent that shewrote with her husband, they
knocked it. It refrained.
(53:16):
Christmas for me and I just, Iprobably gave out six copies of
Advent.
Joshua Johnson (53:21):
David, how could people go get homegrown
disciples? Anywhere else you'dlike to point people to there is
Unknown (53:27):
on my website.
Davidsundi.com, you can go tothe link and it'll take you to
NAV press, but they've, I'm sothankful for nav press, but they
they've allowed me to create a30% discount on a pre order
right now on my website. And soif people go to davidsondy.com
but it's on all the platforms,and it would mean the world to
me if there's something thatresonates and people want to
(53:48):
leave a review, but I post onsocial media, like with I have
small batch disciple making onInstagram, and then also my own
family life, where you get tosee like me skin, you know, I'm
doing family stuff with David.
Sunday,
Joshua Johnson (54:05):
Well, David, thank you for this conversation.
It was a pleasure and a joy totalk to you. Thank you for
helping us raise our children insuch a way that they are
disciples of Jesus as we walkour families through this place
of being apprentices. Yeah, thatour kids can be apprenticed
towards Jesus that we actuallylive incarnationally with them.
(54:25):
Fantastic conversation. Lovedit. Thank you so much. So
Unknown (54:29):
much. You're a gift, Joshua, I appreciate it. You
Joy is the thought of we're together. I can't fix
(00:03):
it or solve it. Neither one ofus are alone, and that is the
incarnational presence of God.
Even I don't even like to usethe term following Jesus,
because following implies adistance. Incarnation implies
embodiment. He is with us, past,present and future.
Joshua Johnson (00:35):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, what if
discipleship isn't something weoutsource, but something we live
into right where we are in thisepisode, I'm joined by David
Sunday for a deeply honest,practical and theologically rich
(00:58):
conversation about forminghomegrown disciples, starting
with their own families. Daviddoesn't just talk about
parenting strategies or churchprograms. He invites us to
reconsider the very framework weuse to talk about spiritual
formation. What if the goalisn't producing Polish behavior,
but cultivating a shared life ofpresence, vulnerability and
(01:19):
love? What if the family tableis the first sanctuary of the
kingdom? What if, as David says,God's strength is made perfect
in our weakness, and thatbecomes the starting point for
leading our children not withperfection, but with
incarnation. We talk aboutapprenticeship over information,
(01:40):
the sacredness of the mundaneand how to recover a sense of
rooted identity in a culturethat constantly shifts. David
shares stories of walking withhis kids through suffering, of
modeling reconciliation, ofnaming what matters most in a
distracted world, we explore thepower of attachment and presence
and how even something as simpleas bedtime or a car ride can
(02:03):
become a moment of formation. Ifyou've ever felt inadequate as a
parent or unsure how to leadyour family spiritually, this
episode offers more than justencouragement. It offers
language, imagination and a wayforward. So join us, because the
Spirit of God isn't waiting forus at church. It's already in
our homes, around our tables andin our everyday lives. Here's my
(02:27):
conversation with David, Sunday.
David, welcome to shiftingculture. Excited to have you on
thanks for joining me. Oh,thanks,
Unknown (02:36):
Joshua. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to
this. I'm excited
Joshua Johnson (02:40):
to really dive into homegrown disciples. Like,
what does it look like todisciple our family, our
children as they grow up, sothat they could really follow
Jesus, not just know aboutJesus, but follow Jesus in a way
that they could look like him,embody him, and the world could
be a better place, because we'regonna be talking about family,
(03:01):
disciples, discipleship. I'dlove to see, how are you
discipled as a child? What wasyour story growing up? And how
did you say, oh, Jesus is theway. Because my family is the
one that showed me Jesus is theWay. Fun.
Unknown (03:18):
Great question. Little on the unique side. I live in
Austin, Texas. We've been herefor about 19 years. My kids are
Bjorn and Annika, and my son isso Texan. He's got like, three
pairs of cowboy boots, and healways has a knife on his belt,
and he smokes meats, you know.
But that being said, I was bornand raised in San Francisco, and
I was the son of immigrantparents, and I grew up in this
(03:42):
inner city church where it waslike first and second generation
immigrants, and everyone wassort of blue collar. So the the
model for discipleship, itwasn't spoken of, but the idea
was, if you come here and raiseyour family here, you're gonna
get the goods. You're gonnalearn the Christ like life.
(04:03):
You're gonna learn abouthumility and sacrifice. I mean,
these were salt of the earthpeople who began a new life,
like when my mom got here, shecouldn't speak a word of English
in middle school, and so, oddlyenough, even though San
Francisco is this majormetropolitan area and highly
transient. I had family, auntsand uncles on both sides of my
(04:26):
family in the church, so everySunday was an extended family,
and it was only later that Irealized there was this
beautiful picture out of theGalilean countryside of the
insula. Have you? Are youfamiliar with Hebrew tradition?
So you had this insula? I liketo think of the word insulation.
(04:47):
It was a compound, likestructure. So when Jesus says,
In my Father's house, there aremany rooms, the idea was, when
you would get married, you wouldadd on, like an upper room to
the Father's house. But thepicture of apprenticing was you
learn the family trade. You'velearned the family ethos. You
learned the family beliefs. Andwhen there was someone there was
(05:10):
always going to be someone whowas further along in parenting,
in marriage, when you maybe werekind of feeling like my kids
aren't listening to me. Therewas an older cousin, there was
an uncle or an aunt. That's kindof how I grew up in this
extended family of faith. Nownot all of them were
biologically related, but it wasabout three or 400 people. But
(05:33):
man, those people really rootedme in Christian life, and my
dad, oddly, was a journeymancarpenter who became a dentist,
who retired at 50, sold hispractice at 57 and spent the
next 19 years doing medicalmissionary work for two months a
year. That's
Joshua Johnson (05:54):
pretty amazing that you were able to see that.
I think you said one word that'sreally key, and you said
apprenticeship give us a commonidea of what Americans think
disciple maker and discipleshipis, and then contrast that with
what apprenticeship is, whatJesus did as he apprenticed His
(06:15):
disciples
Unknown (06:16):
well. And I'm not the first to say this Joshua, but
you know, we have startedfollowing in discipleship around
the church. We've startedfollowing people sitting more at
the feet of instead of in theshadow of so if you look at the
Hebraic model and what Jesusdid, he said, Come follow me.
And that invitation reallytranslates to you already have
(06:38):
what it takes to be like me. Andthen we built out, and we
started scaling these programs,kind of a one size fits all. The
problem with programs, whilethey're helpful, we can mostly
measure results. How many peoplesigned up? How many chapters did
we get through? How many leadersdid we get? How many home
(06:59):
openers? You know, all thethings. But God never called us
to results. He called us tofruit and and so only in a
relational disciple makingcapacity can we measure fruit.
And so I like to think ofapprenticing as on the job
training. You're You'reshadowing and, and it's like,
(07:19):
hey, get ready. We're not justgoing to take a break for summer
and try and sign up again in thefall for another 16 weeks. When
we're done here, there's goingto be a launching. And I'm going
to assume you could do this. Youcould train someone else when
we're done, like
Joshua Johnson (07:33):
it or not, this is what it is when we're
discipling our family and ourchildren that they're going to
be apprenticed into something.
It doesn't matter what it is,they're going to be apprentice
into something, right? Sothey're going to start to mimic
us as parents. The children arethey're going to mimic our
desires, right? You look talkingabout Renee Sure, our medic,
desire, whatever we get into ourdesires, our children going to
(07:56):
mimic those. So why did you say,hey, let's actually look at the
family structure and how wedisciple our family into the
ways of Jesus through really alens of apprenticeship. Why go
into the family? I know it'simportant, but why are you
passionate about it?
Unknown (08:18):
Here's the thing, I've been a youth pastor, I've been a
family pastor, I've been asenior pastor, I've done all the
things. I've taken I've been acollege pastor, where all the
kids come away and, you know,move away from home and come to
most parents do not feelequipped or confident to be a
spiritual leader of their home.
In fact, I think most churcheswould say we are, we are
faithfully answering the call tomake disciples. The problem is
(08:41):
is a lot of people raised in thechurch and have done all of the
things in church for yearsactually don't feel like they've
ever been discipled. Well, Ithink family is the
quintessential picture of this.
In fact, I use a line in theearly part of the book that
says, You know what a mirrorworks even if your eyes are
closed. And my point is this,parents, we are reproducing not
(09:06):
only the beauty of our lives,but also the sort of shadow side
of our lives. So we teach whatwe know, but we reproduce who we
are. And so we are reproducingour priorities or lack thereof.
We're reproducing maybe ourcynicism, our biases, but we're
also reproducing our hope, ourtrust. We're reproducing our
(09:29):
compassion and generosity. Kidssee all of it even without being
stated. So rather than thinkingabout spiritual leadership as
this idea that, Oh, I need tolike be about content
generation, I'm simplysuggesting, I think, by faith,
you're closer than you realize,and by nature of your
(09:52):
influential relationship andyour proximity, you can be more
transformational than a churchever could you. And so parents
go, oh, their kind of largestgesture of spiritual leadership
is too often reduced to, I gottafind somewhere with a good,
really good children's programor youth ministry and almost
(10:12):
abdicate. And so what I'm tryingto do is say, You know what,
there's a way to incarnateChrist. And what if we thought
about it this way, not as sortof a degreed person like for our
pastor, we want him to beknowledgeable or her to be a
learned person. But what if theincarnation was greater than the
(10:34):
information? Well, that'sparent. We don't have to have a
Bible degree. So I wrote thisbook to try and give parents
away, maybe some fresh language,as well as a chance to say we
can animate this together, andin animating this, we might all
have a growing awareness ofGod's presence in the everyday,
(10:55):
in the ordinary windows of Life.
Joshua Johnson (10:58):
That's pretty key, because you're looking at
being aware of God's presence inthe ordinary things of life.
It's not being beingknowledgeable about who God is,
but saying God is present withus, and we're going to figure
out how our relationship withhim and with one another works
(11:20):
out in relation to each otherand to God, a lot of parents, as
you said, say, Oh, I don't havethe right information. I want to
make sure that they know theright things. Free us up a
little bit. Give us a way tosay, Oh, it's okay. You don't
need all the right information,but you do need a living,
breathing relationship with aliving God? Yeah.
Unknown (11:42):
Well, two things I wrote the book with seven kind
of incarnational rhythms when weunderstand that the family is
the place that we learn andexperience belonging.
Psychology, in the last 30 yearshas developed what we've
commonly known as attachmenttheory. There's been some
neurotheology in that space thatis really fascinating, but I
(12:02):
would simply use the language ofbelonging. You walk into a room
and you don't have to earnanything. You're one of us. And
from belonging, we learnidentity, who we are and whose
we are, super formative. Buthere's the real kicker, is that
we don't grow by obedience, likewe don't form character through
just disciplines. I thinkdisciplines are great. I think
(12:25):
the word of God is great. Wegrow through desire, through
imitation. So with all of thisthing that's happening within
this relational dynamic at home,I'm going to say it this way.
Before they get to 12 years old,adolescence takes on a whole
mind of its own. But in thoseformative years, parents are the
most influential. And I'm sayingyou've got a captive audience to
(12:50):
shape the reality of Christ inyou. Now what I do is I take the
Deuteronomy six picture of whatit means to just find four
ordinary windows, if we're justa little bit intentional. So you
know, meal times, bed times,morning times and drive times.
And I try and give as muchhandles to hold on to, maybe
(13:15):
conversations to host like andwhen my kids were I used to just
say, put your phones away.
Otherwise I'm going to chargeyou like an Uber driver. I want
talk time, you know, and youknow. But I tried to be really
intentional. And then when Iwalked in the door in the
evening, I tried to be off myphone and just go, okay, here
I'm present now. And so there'sjust some disciplines like that.
(13:37):
But those four windows happen,whether we want them or not, but
those four windows each becaptured as these sort of divine
appointments each and every day,and that's where I tried to
build some of the embodimentaround it. So last thing I'll
say is I think there's threekind of, what I call an ortho
(13:57):
Trinity. We have orthodoxythat's right belief, super
important. We want to teachthat, but we want to live that.
And that's orthopraxy, thisright practice. But then there's
this other area of orthopathy,which we think is right, desire
and and this is where, I think,where our identity in Christ
(14:21):
gets most formed is in thisdesire. And so when we're trying
to instill in our kids, they seeour affections, they see our
fear. They see all the things.
And so I'm trying to encouragepeople to just live ordinarily
but intentionally in light ofwho Christ is. I think
Joshua Johnson (14:45):
it's really important for us as parents to
get our own desires right. If wedon't get our desires correct,
the incarnational way thatyou're talking about, our kids
are going to mimic somethingoff. That's why. Why they go,
Hey, really, my desire iscomfort and my desire is safety,
(15:06):
right? And that's a prettytypical American desire, right?
It's comfort and safety. And sowhat I want to do is, then I
want to ship them off to Sundayschool to get the knowledge
about God, and hopefully they'regoing to be okay as they grow
up. So what's the importance asa parent to do your own work, to
figure out your own desires, toget it aligned to Jesus Himself?
(15:29):
Well,
Unknown (15:30):
you're asking the right question, because, let's just be
honest, like our lives are ondisplay, and that's not always a
great thing. We're all prone tosort of these weak moments and
but we have this idea that God'sstrength is is actually made
perfect in our weakness, so wedon't have to be a students
(15:51):
before our kids. I was sittingat a small group a couple few
weeks ago and a dad of four boysunder the age of 10, in a very
humble gesture. It was it wasall men. There's probably about
10 of us, 12 of us. And he said,you know, my boys are really
pushing me over the edge. Wouldyou guys pray for patience for
me? And I didn't. I didn't knowhim well, but what I wanted to
(16:14):
do is say, I don't want you tocome at them with perfect
patience. What if you lead withvulnerability? What if you make
yourself known? What if you cameto the the boys and just said,
This is who I think Christ is,and this is what I think he's
inviting me into. I think we canlead more vulnerably and tell on
(16:36):
ourselves. So there's aconversation I've been having
for years, over 20 years, withevery engaged couple I ever meet
with. And the first question is,hey, tell me, and I record some
of this in the book, but it'slike, how was conflict handled
in your home? Now, like, Well,what do you mean? I was like,
well, we all throwers. Were youdoor Slammers? Was it silent
treatment? Was it, you know,punching walls, whatever. And
(16:59):
they're like, Oh, okay. Andeveryone has a model for
conflict. And my point is,listen, God never intended us to
see eye to eye on everything.
Conflict is the most naturalthing in the world. However,
there is a way to disagree and,quote, unquote, stay in bounds.
You know, when it gets reduceddown to veiled threats and name
calling and we're just hurting.
(17:22):
The small question isfascinating is, I say, How did
you see it resolved? And I'vefor, like, over 20 years, I've
gotten a puzzled look. What doyou mean? I was like, What did
reconciliation look like? Andthey're like, What I and so I'll
just offer, was it whateverhappened that night got resolved
behind closed doors of mom anddad's bedroom, and it was
(17:43):
business as usual. Next day,they're like, yeah. And my point
is this, we have a wholegeneration who has a model for
conflict, and it's usually notthat healthy, and we have a
whole generation or society thathas no model for reconciliation.
And my my point is this, this isChristian identity. Christ came
(18:04):
and made us ministers ofreconciliation. I said the best
legacy y'all could ever leave inyour kids is how to forgive. And
so in our family, we didn't justoffer apologies, we started
rehearsing. Will you forgive me?
Because we thought consentmattered, yeah,
Joshua Johnson (18:21):
as you talked earlier, a little bit of the
neuroscience of attachmenttheory, that's what, how we get
secure attachment is that werepair ruptures right away, and
people who see it, it'sreconciliation, it's right
there. And so this is what youryour children get. They get
belonging in that moment. Theyget like, I am safe in this
(18:42):
family, and we're orientedtowards God. It is a it's a
beautiful thing. But if there isrupture, there's no repair,
there's no reconciliation, wedon't see it, then that's when
attachment gets skewed, right?
There's or avoidant
Unknown (18:58):
or scattered. What do you want to say that all the non
stable things, and this isexactly what happens with our
Heavenly Father. So I like tothink of when Jesus first went
out. And this is good for ourkids to know, but this is great
for parents to know when Jesusgoes out to see John, the
Baptist and the voice fromabove, I call that the divine
affirmation, before Jesus hasdone anything Messiah worthy or
(19:23):
build his resume. One personhasn't been saved, fed, healed,
delivered. He gets this divineYou are my child in whom I love,
and with you I am well pleased,and I wish parents could walk in
that truth, because if theycould reproduce that
hopefulness. There's anotherword that comes out of the
(19:43):
Catholic tradition calledanamnesis. Have you heard of
this? So it's the opposite ofamnesia. Amnesia is forgetting
who we are. So when we come tothe Lord's table and it says, Do
this in remembrance. Of me, theword is anamnesis, which is,
don't forget who you are.
Typically, we sit there and kindof recount, sort of our weak
(20:07):
moments, our shameful moments,our regrettable moments, and
he's like, no, no, that's notwho I want to remember. You're
not a sinner saved by grace. YouYou are the righteousness of God
in Christ, Jesus. That's how Godsees us. I'm like, Oh my gosh.
So I don't have to get it rightwith my kids. I just, again, I
(20:28):
talk about I want to leadvulnerably and just the older I
get, I just want to be able tobe more secure in my
insecurities.
Joshua Johnson (20:39):
That's so good.
Give me an example of what doesit look like to help our
children remember who they areand whose they are.
Unknown (20:47):
Family is not immune from hardship, right? So we all
go through particularly a darkseason. I mean, when, when our
daughter was in middle school,she suffered a traumatic brain
injury, and it introduced allsorts of doctors appointments,
and it all all sorts ofbehaviors that were
unrecognizable. And so for acouple years, we had an older
(21:11):
son that we're kind of parentingthe same way. And then we had a
younger daughter who was playingby her own set of rules. It was
one of the hardest, darkest,traumatic times for all of us.
And what I'm trying to do istrying to instill in us that the
(21:31):
path of least resistance is notand never will be the center of
God's will. So when we invitethe kingdom of God, we
understand that being aChristian doesn't mean we're
just saved so we can go toheaven when we die. We
understand that there's thereality of attention and even
the darkness that we live in inhere and now and oh, by the way,
(21:54):
God's got a middle name. He'sEmmanuel. He is with us when we
get down to identity. Identitythen becomes as animated it as
as it is believed. So we stayedtogether. We walked together. In
fact, I started using thisphrase with my son, Barron,
(22:14):
who's got it better than us.
Nobody had, and it was such ahard season, I could get a
little choked up just revisitingit. But my point was, there is a
ministry of presence, and sowhen we think of attachment,
going back to attachment theoryand joyful attachment, joy isn't
some emotion that I need tofeel. Joy is the thought of
(22:36):
we're together. I can't fix itor solve it, but neither one of
us are alone, and that is theincarnational presence of God.
Even I don't even like to usethe term following Jesus,
because following implies adistance. Incarnation implies
embodiment. He is with us, past,present and future, yesterday,
(22:58):
tomorrow, you know, today andforever.
Joshua Johnson (23:02):
Up until 12, when, when children are small,
we have identity and belongingare really key foundational
attributes for our our kids.
This is what we want. We want toform identity and belonging
through incarnational livingapprenticeship in the everyday
and reminding our kids who theyare and whose they are. What
else in those formative yearsare we looking for as we
(23:26):
disciple our children?
Unknown (23:30):
So there's a major shift that's happening, both
chemically, but also in terms ofpositionally. So as as parents,
and a lot of parents are reallylaid on this. And the shift is,
there's this apoptosis, thisthis changing of the chemical
makeup, and as children, kind ofaround middle school start to go
through puberty, they're not asfriendly to cuddle. They'll do
(23:52):
the pullback on that hand holderor whatever. All the things that
parents go no, not that. But oneof the things that parents miss
is you have to shift from fromleading through authority to
leading through influence. Nowwe can flex our muscles and say,
as long as you're under myhouse, under my rules and my
pantry and my cars or whateverweek. Yes, but guess what? It's
(24:16):
like following obeying a lawthat you didn't vote for, and so
when they're young and they'rethrowing a tantrum in the store,
you can just pick them up andstrap them in the car seat and
say, Fine, we'll try this againanother time. But you can't do
that at 14 when they're act, youknow. So that's why I like to
say that shift needs to happen.
Now what helps that ship, andthis is why, for for as much,
(24:37):
uh, as church is is kind ofthis. It's a mixed bag. We have
this beauty that is the churchand a struggle that is the
church. A standing appointmentwith faith and community can
make all the difference, becausethe question that kids are
starting to ask when they enterinto middle school is, it's a
group identity. It's. Not justindividual identity, who I am in
(25:00):
Christ or who I am in thisfamily. It's how would my
people, however they identify mypeople, respond to this right
now? Well, you want to talkabout a shift in culture. There
has been such a huge shift in inthe digital revolution, and so
all autonomy, like we've shiftedthe locus of power from
(25:22):
institutions, government,church, family, marriage,
education, media, into theindividual, and now truth is
relative. So if I feel it, it'sreal, it's it's accurate. And
I'm like, Well, yeah, sure, itis, but it's also limited. Now
they're trying to define life byhow would all the identity
(25:45):
politics, all the things thatsay, Well, I feel this way, so
therefore that is my truth. Andthey're trying to define
themselves by, how do my people,my group, respond? And that's
where, if we have a faithcommunity that we stand in
solidarity to one another assalt and light, but in support
and encouragement. That's whereI think parents can have the
(26:10):
most traction is when they haveother voices to echo the same
truth of God's unconditionallove and grace and truth. So
Joshua Johnson (26:21):
it's important to find that that community, the
real faith community, that couldthen speak into your kids lives
as well. And the great thing is,is you're not doing it alone. So
if we're now individuals tryingto seek meaning and identity and
a lot of different things. We wesaid, Okay, I'm 14. Now my
(26:45):
identity is found in, you know,the basketball like I am a
basketball player. This is myidentity. This is who I am. That
ends I I'm no longer abasketball player. I'm not on a
team anymore. Now, now where'smy identity? It's a shifting
identity. It doesn't matter whatit is in but it's consistently
shifting. And so what that does,I think, in adolescence and
(27:12):
really in adulthood, is it thengives us a sense of anxiety
depression, because we're notrooted. How does the family help
root children in a true identityand not in an identity that
shifts over time, all the time,in every direction? Oh, man,
Unknown (27:34):
I Joshua, you're asking all the right hard questions.
These are delicate, and I mightsay something that some of the
parents might not agree with,and that's okay, because it's
not a right or wrong. One of thethings I tried to be very
careful of, I mean, because mykids did all the activities,
daughter was a competitivedancer, and son played multiple
(27:55):
sports, and they were also verygood students, but we did not
reward them for A's. We didn'tcreate some kind of financial
incentive around A's because Ididn't want to build a sense of
validation and worth aroundtheir performance, as if we
loved them more or now we weremore proud of them because they
(28:19):
were smarter than someone else,or they beat someone else, or
they I didn't want to send thatmessage, because that's a
message, frankly, that I've hadto unlearn, not necessarily from
my parents, but I was just anaturally driven kid with a
competitive spirit. So what wetried to speak to was their
(28:40):
character. We tried to affirmtheir strength. We tried to
speak into their lives abouttheir potential and how we saw
Christ in them. We wanted totalk about the character and the
nature of who God is. Because,guess what? God is unchanging.
He is immutable. So if we canunderstand the attributes of
(29:01):
God, His specifically, Hisnames, and then we have an
encounter with that. We'rerooting them in something that's
absolute, not unchanging. Sothere's this narrative that
says, well, everything'srelative, or perception is
reality. I'm like, Well, no,it's just limited. But when we
encounter a living God ashealer, as provider, as
(29:23):
comforter, as protector. Itdoesn't mean the problem went
away. It meant that God showedup in the most personal way, and
he will always be that. And I'mtrying to encourage parents to
do the hard work of buildingtheir thesaurus. When we talk
about worship, we're talkingabout intimacy with God. What's
intimacy with God? Knowing thenames of God, and so then, as we
(29:47):
grow the names of God, whatwe're doing is this inventory of
where are the times and theplaces and the seasons and the
episodes where God met me likehe met Hagar. I am the God who
sees. Well, guess what? Hedidn't deliver her. He said, Go
back to that abusiverelationship with Abraham and
Sarah. But he said, I see, andI'm like, if I can be just an
(30:10):
ounce of that kind of parent tosay, I see the struggle, but I
also see this. I think we aresetting our kids up for not just
who they are as a member of thisfamily, but who they are in
Christ that can weather, whetherthe group identity, the maybe
the the exclusion, or I didn'tget invited to the party I want.
(30:33):
I'm not getting the date that Iwant. Or, you know, those kinds
of things.
Joshua Johnson (30:37):
You know what we do see you mentioned Jesus
receiving his identity from theFather, the beloved son, so he
knows who he is. He's receivinghis identity from the father, so
he knows who's he is. And thenhe was sent out into the desert
with a with a purpose and amission. How important is it for
families as as we disciple ourchildren to have purpose and
(31:02):
mission that is greater thanourselves and greater than an
insular look just and justholding up in the the safety and
comfort of our own family.
Unknown (31:12):
Yeah, like you're talking about the thing we like
maybe today, the thing wecherish most is our time and
busy parents feel like apersonal affront, if someone
like slows them down or don't,you know how many balls I'm
juggling right now? Don't youknow how many emails the school
sends me, whatever, and I thinkthat there's a way to allow for
(31:36):
the divine interruption. I'mgonna say this as simple as
this, if you have a toddler, ifyou have a child with shorter
legs than you would you pleaserehearse their gait and let God
minister to you because theirpace, their curiosity, their
wonder, is part of God'srevelation to parents who feel
(32:00):
like they're all serious and allbusiness and all responsibility,
and I'm saying, let, let thegrace of God just wash over you
because your kid can't walk pastanother puppy. That's some
childlike wonder. Now I will saythis, we tried to be really
thoughtful. We were in anaffluent community, and when
Jesus said, Love your neighbor.
I'm convinced that was not aproxy, just a proximity
(32:23):
statement. And here's why, thepeople on my block have roughly
my level of education, myearning potential. We all have
about the same kind of nicecars. Or, you know, there's,
there's a homogeneity about it.
And I'm saying, when the peopleof God understand that God wants
(32:46):
to seek the peace and theprosperity of the city in which
we live, because if it prosperswe there's people in our city,
my neighbors, that their pantry,there's some food insecurity, or
there's some illiteracy, or theyneed some advocacy. And so we
just made, I kind of created, afew statements, like, let's just
(33:08):
go ahead and make offer awkwardlook effortless, like, we'll
make it look awesome and andit's uncomfortable, but I would
rather be uncomfortable incommunity than by myself. We
wanted to be very intentionalwith crossing social divides.
And so one of the mantras wehave about their school is this
is not normal, the level ofwealth, or, you know, what kind
(33:30):
of spring breaks that kids couldafford or were taking. And so we
wanted them to develop a healthysense. And so we did, and I put
this in the book we might take aweek, especially when they're in
elementary school, and say,let's, let's practice a new
normal. So we got together withsome of the other families in
our faith community, and wesaid, you know, we came up with
(33:54):
easy statistics to find aboutworld poverty. And Hey, kids, do
you know that a lot of theworld, like maybe 60% lives on
$2 a day. And why don't, forthis week, we, the four of us,
live on $8 per dinner. And wewent shopping and and, you know,
it's rice and beans or it'spasta, but no meat, and you can
(34:15):
get a little sauce and maybe amushroom or, you know, something
like that. And then it becamesort of an adventure, and we
wanted to and I share verseswith them, and then I'd share
statistics with them at dinner,but I just wanted them to have
this growing awareness that man,this is not normal, our
abundance. And that was one ofthe ways I I defined first
(34:38):
compassion, passion is seeingothers needs is merely different
than our own. And thengenerosity is learning to not
give, to save anyone, but tosave ourselves from deserving.
We somehow believe God'sabundance, and that required
some rehearsing, some somepractice, and that's something
we all had to learn.
Joshua Johnson (34:57):
So how do we get into a place? Of going, Hey, I'm
living in this affluentneighborhood. I know that
there's, there's a pain point inmy community that I'm not
proximate to. I'm not inincarnationally living there.
How do you go in, into a placewhere and receive some
(35:18):
hospitality and not just say I'mI am here to in our family is
here to save this neighborhood,but we're here to actually then
receive hospitality and to bewith you in whatever you're
going through. I'm
Unknown (35:36):
going to say something that might get me a drill with
some pastors, but I thinkservice projects are a wonderful
on ramp. I don't think that theyare really impactful and gain
enough traction. So I am a hugeadvocate for developing
cultivating a reoccurringrelationship, and part of how
(35:57):
that happens is you have todignify the give and the take.
We'd like to be on the givingend, especially when we know
that we have more means than theother person. But no one wants
to be felt like, perceived ascharity. And so we were very
intentional with some Burmeserefugees. We were very
(36:17):
thoughtful with how wecultivated relationship with a
transitional emergency fostershelter home that wasn't state
run. And our kids were a part ofthat. And I would just say, and
we did do the homeless things aswell. And, you know, waking them
up with a cup of coffee andsome, you know, socks and ramen
(36:38):
noodles on, you know, whatever,we did that too, and it was very
impactful for our kids. But toSaint, sustain something that
becomes actually reorienting, ifyou will, recentering in a good
way, like God wants our heartsto be broken. My gravity,
natural gravitational pull, isto callous up my heart, but God
(36:58):
is trying to sensitize ourhearts, and so I need to be in a
place where I can experiencesomeone whose needs are
different than my own. And thatjust became a standing
appointment for us, like atleast monthly. And so I would
find those outlets that tug atyour heart, a title, one school,
foster care, maybe after schoolreading program, or, you know,
(37:23):
we have safe families here inAustin that a friend is running,
and there's all different levelsof involvement. But I needed it.
I didn't want it just for mykids. I needed it to be reminded
of and fill my heart withgratitude. So
Joshua Johnson (37:36):
then, what does hospitality look like as you're
opening up your own home toothers as we're discipling our
family and our kids, bringingothers in through this rhythm of
hospitality.
Unknown (37:50):
Yeah, this is my code language for how we have
traditionally talked aboutevangelism. So here's how I
would define it. Hospitality, insome cases is, yes, making room
for others. In other cases, it'slearning to receive from others.
But in both cases, we asChristians are trying to discern
(38:11):
who God has prepared in ourlives. I'm guessing we all have
people that God has prepared inadvance for us, that just showed
us unmerited favor, kindness,Grace, hospitality, whatever.
And yet we're probably thatperson. For someone else, it's
like that you meet someone,you're like, why is there such
an initial connection and you'relike, it's not my winsome
(38:34):
spirit, it's not my charm, it'snot my jokes. Maybe it's Christ
in me. And so where do I getthat? That's just simple.
Matthew 10. Luke, nine and 10,the people of peace, I'm sending
you out among wolves. Takenothing with you for the
journey, but find the homes orthe people of peace. Those are
the ones that showed them a kindof a grace, a kindness,
(38:56):
employment or and here's whereit gets real, personal, if we
are not thinking about people ofpeace, those who don't know
Christ but have given usinfluence, our kids won't
develop a heart to see peoplecome to faith. So the more
parents begin to talk aboutpeople they're praying for to
(39:17):
know Jesus, or people thatthey're inviting or including in
some activity, for a meal orwhatever, kids start to see, the
thing that parents are prayingfor matters. It's a priority. So
salvation matters, restorationmatters, healing matters, and
that's where I think it becomesthe most contagious. You know,
(39:42):
what's not contagious isprobably how you and I learned
evangelism. Let's go on ourcollege campus and take some
fake surveys saying we're justasking if people die today,
where they'd go to heaven. Youknow, where I went
Joshua Johnson (39:54):
to college to become a pastor, because I knew
I was I was called in to do somesort of ministry i knew i. I
knew it. And then I really dothink it was my evangelism
class, my my first semester, myfreshman year in college, says I
cannot do this. This is not whatI'm called to. I and then it
took me about 10 years to figureout what I really was called to,
(40:15):
and it just set me off on thewrong direction. Was the way
that we were called to doevangelism, and it was just
like, this isn't life, likethere's no life in it. It
Unknown (40:27):
was draining. It wasn't like giving. But if you put me
in a dinner party and you allowme to maybe turn the topic to
Christ or talk about somethingtranscendent. So in our faith
community, we used to talkabout, no, we need to throw
parties for the sake of others.
In this world today, everyone isspiritually hungry. Most people,
especially in the West, areinstitutionally skeptical. So
(40:48):
their first step isn't going tobe into your church service or
your living room Bible study,necessarily. The church is in
such decline that if a church isgrowing. It's probably because
they're getting some chance forgrowth. That's the demographic
statistics in the United States.
But we started throwing theseunusual events, I'll say it that
(41:12):
way, where we just a wanted tomake faith and community
accessible, and then B, wewanted a way to disciple our
families. And so we would attachto the rhythms to a specific lab
event. We call it churches laband and we wanted to have these
outward faces, and so I'd sendout an email. Here's how to pray
(41:33):
about this. Here's how to invitefor this. Here's how to explain
why we do what we do to yourkids. So it was, let's let's
have a lab, not just a Sundayschool class or a small group.
You know that I like
Joshua Johnson (41:45):
that lab language a lot. I like throwing
parties. And I think one of thethings that we've been been
kicking around at our church iswe're just wondering, Where are
the stage posts for seekers,like, where are these places
where people who are spirituallyhungry and curious, where are we
(42:07):
making faith accessible to them?
And it's, it's not the easiestthing to have a reorientation of
what programmatic church haslooked like, and now you know
we're in a totally new era Yeah,that that's doesn't work
anymore. Joshua,
Unknown (42:23):
what do you think about this idea? I've just it's kind
of been some I've been playingwith. I'd love for you to
interact with it. It's the ideathat, you know, when we talk
about pluralism or, and I knowthere's a lot of fear that
people would have like, oh, theworld is or the West has become,
we're getting so secular. AndI'm wondering is, do you feel
like we're we're actually, it'sjust that everything's getting
(42:46):
so sacred. Do you understandeverything is the most important
thing? We're dying on everyhill, and so young adult brunch
on Sundays is like a liturgy,and it's sacred to some people
because or friends, giving ismore sacred than actual
Thanksgiving with familymembers. I mean, we have this
(43:07):
thing where everything'sbecoming more it feels like I'm
just kind of riffing off of whatyou said and thinking about the
shifting culture. I
Joshua Johnson (43:15):
think one because we're meaning making
people like we have to makemeaning out of the world and the
space that we live in. So whenthings have shifted from this
this group identity, we makemeaning together through this
institution, which is church.
Now it's through everythingelse. Yes, we're trying to make
(43:35):
meaning out of everyday rituals,of what that looks like, because
we're trying to find identityand rootedness and something.
It's kind of, it's a lot easierthan to talk to people about
Jesus through identity,language, through rootedness,
through I like
Unknown (43:55):
meaning, because that's i belonging looking for that who
are my people? Yes, exactly. Solet me ask you this If, if I
think that we're in a crisis ofmeaning. There's lots of
statistics and studies going allthe way back to 1972 from an MIT
study, but we're in this metacrisis of meaning. How do we
(44:16):
make meaning? Because for me, Ihad a good church experience
growing up, I rather liked itbecause my closest friends were
there. How does the church makemeaning today, when someone who
is institutionally opposed,that's not meaningful, the
Joshua Johnson (44:33):
church is not but it is. Relationships are
meaningful. Relationships withpeople are very meaningful, and
I think revolving aroundsomething that that brings about
some greater purpose ismeaningful that is not just a
staged program. That I don'tthink is going to create a lot
(44:54):
of meaning for people, but I dothink that when you have a
smaller group of people that areliving. Authentically together,
that genuinely love one anotherand wants to see some
restoration in this world, andthey do that together. That's
where meaning actually takesplace. And I think that's what
the church is supposed to beabout. And I think there's a lot
(45:17):
of people that are actuallyliving that these days, and
that's where people are findingmeaning. You,
Unknown (45:23):
there is this ubiquitous, universal metaphor
of a meal. We have itscripturally in the Eucharist,
but you so I have this friend.
He's a serial church planterwith new breed church planting,
and he's just dear friend. I wasout in San Diego, and he said,
Hey, you were hangingout with Peyton and San Diego.
You know Peyton Jones, yeah,he's like, we've done some
Joshua Johnson (45:43):
training together. I know Peyton, oh,
Unknown (45:44):
he's fantastic. And he can't not plant a church, but
he's got this core group that'sbeen together a little longer
there. He says, Come, come visitwith us and do some discipleship
training. And so last twoSundays ago, I was there, and it
was, it was the picture was,what if churches and however you
expressed, you know, churchlike, whether you're small
(46:07):
group, I think is meaningfulwhen we start trading out stages
for tables and and all of asudden, I'm seen, I'm known, I'm
heard, I'm called by Name,belonging. And now you have this
picture. And again, I'm notsaying kill the Sunday event,
but there is somethingaccessible about that
(46:29):
environment in all times for allpeople, in all cultures. And so
like, I'll tell you this, wewould do these regular lab
events, and I'd meet with we didthis one with the they're going
to bring about about 12 kidsthat were between the ages of
seven and 17, that were fosterkids. And I met with them
beforehand, our families and ourchildren, and I just said, I
(46:52):
explained the situation, and Isaid, You know what? Today,
here's your assignment. You needto learn someone's name. Don't
wait for them to host you. Thesepeople don't have a family, but
you learn their name, you usetheir name because everyone
loves to hear their name outloud. And then, thirdly, you
pray for that name this week asa family. And then we played
(47:13):
laser tag in the park, and thenwe all had popsicles afterward.
And I broke us all up intofamily groups where we could all
actually have. And I had fivequestions, you know, and it was
so meaningful because it was sorelational, and everyone got to
hear their names spoken,
Joshua Johnson (47:30):
that's beautiful. Well, David, we're
coming close to the end here, soI'd love to have a few questions
for you at the end. One, what?
What is your hope for peoplethat would pick up homegrown
disciples, what's your hope forfamilies that pick up your book?
Well,
Unknown (47:46):
here's the thing, like I started out saying, I think
that most parents are juststruggling with the idea of
maybe feeling a littleinadequate or maybe even a
little hypocritical, but theylack the confidence to
spiritually lead. And I'm sayingyou're you're probably closer
than you realize, and maybe ifyou just adjusted, you could see
(48:06):
your life in Christ as thesyllabus, and your life together
as a family as your curriculum,and trust that the Spirit is
going to bring those teachablemoments. I wrote this so that
parents could feel like theyhave a little imagination, but
maybe even find some languageand and even some ways to
(48:26):
animate Christ in their hometogether. And so there's a lot
of creative conversations aswell as activities. So I just I
loved raising my kids, and nowthey're 25 and 23 and they are
adulting, and I'm the one thatfeels like I need them more than
(48:47):
they
Joshua Johnson (48:48):
need. Oh, that's fantastic. There's so many 3540
year olds that don't know how toadult yet. So that's great. Your
kids are adulting. You shouldteach Bjorn, or somebody should
taught Bjorn how to smoke fishinstead of meat. He's lost it.
He's lost the Norwegian in him.
He's totally Texan. He is a very
Unknown (49:10):
good snow skier. We're just on a snow ski trip, and
he's an amazing golfer withlike, a three handicap, so he's
got that going for him. But heworks in renewable energy, and
he sees his life as a mission.
My my daughter's working as aNICU nurse, and she sees it as
if we define what does it meanto be a minister is to put the
divine on display. She she worksthe night shift. She came home
(49:34):
at eight o'clock this morning,and she lost a baby last night,
and we just got to grieve overit. And she talked about how the
intercession that went on andthe comfort for families, and
she can't imagine doing anythingelse. I'm so proud of her. And
thought, Annika, this is like ananointing for like, not everyone
(49:54):
can do this. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (49:58):
so amazing. So.
Treadwell, I just I hope andpray that that all the families,
the parents that are listeningto this, that they could see
their kids grow up like that,following Jesus and then walking
with him throughout their days,and that whatever they're doing,
the Divine is on display. Sothat's beautiful. David, if you
could go back to your 21 yearold self, what advice would you
give? Oh, oh,
Unknown (50:21):
pretty quick. Here's the thing in my home, godliness
was next to pragmatism, and sowe're, you know, that blue
collar sensibility, if I wish, Iwould have invested more in
levity and and frivolity, likeit was all business, all the
and. And I wish I would haveinvested more in hobbies and
(50:42):
leisure and just I mean, I havemy things that I enjoy, but the
further I went into pastoralministry, I struggled to have a
mechanism for renewal, and Ifelt like God was calling me
into more play. I'm hyperrelational, but I was always
sort of the Rainmaker. So if Icould go back to my 20 orders, I
(51:03):
would say, get good at a fewhobbies that bring you life.
What hobby brings you life rightnow, my happy place as a
Norwegian is on the ski slopes,but that doesn't get to happen
in any kind of predictable way.
But the thing that I do, I runabout 20 to 25 miles a week, and
I can tell when I'm not running,there's some endorphin release
(51:24):
that doesn't happen. And that'sa very prayerful time for me. I
listen to podcasts like yours,and then I just I spend time in
prayer, because I think prayeris not only asking God for
things, it's asking God aboutthings, and I just try and leave
room to wrestle with that, outloud with the Lord.
Joshua Johnson (51:47):
Well, David, anything you've been reading or
watching lately you'd recommend,I'll
Unknown (51:50):
be serious first.
There's a wonderful movie rightnow on Netflix called number 24
it's about the Nazi occupation,of which my mom was there. My
mom's first cousin was one ofthe 10 Most Wanted. He was a
saboteur by the Nazis, but itwas the way they told the story
was so powerful, and it reallycaptures what's happening today
(52:11):
in a very kind of either orequation. And this man who was
so heroic, and he did, he foughtfor something greater than
himself. It was so powerful andinspiring, and almost we just
lost those models. So that waspowerful. And I just watched
that a couple weeks ago, and Ijust been talking about it, and
(52:32):
it stuck with me. But then Ihave some just I like some dumb
humor if you have not watcheddairy girls. Imagine George
Costanza meets Napoleon Dynamiteand comes up as four Irish
teenage girls in the 90s. It is,it's, it's just, it's funny. But
in terms of what I'm reading,I'm reading Leonard sweet
(52:55):
decoding the divine. Len is justa mentor of mine. I'm doing my
doctoral work through, or justfinishing up my doctorate with
him. I've become friends withTish Harrison Warren, who's a
genius writer prayers in thenight, liturgy of the ordinary.
But her book on Advent that shewrote with her husband, they
knocked it. It refrained.
(53:16):
Christmas for me and I just, Iprobably gave out six copies of
Advent.
Joshua Johnson (53:21):
David, how could people go get homegrown
disciples? Anywhere else you'dlike to point people to there is
Unknown (53:27):
on my website.
Davidsundi.com, you can go tothe link and it'll take you to
NAV press, but they've, I'm sothankful for nav press, but they
they've allowed me to create a30% discount on a pre order
right now on my website. And soif people go to davidsondy.com
but it's on all the platforms,and it would mean the world to
me if there's something thatresonates and people want to
(53:48):
leave a review, but I post onsocial media, like with I have
small batch disciple making onInstagram, and then also my own
family life, where you get tosee like me skin, you know, I'm
doing family stuff with David.
Sunday,
Joshua Johnson (54:05):
Well, David, thank you for this conversation.
It was a pleasure and a joy totalk to you. Thank you for
helping us raise our children insuch a way that they are
disciples of Jesus as we walkour families through this place
of being apprentices. Yeah, thatour kids can be apprenticed
towards Jesus that we actuallylive incarnationally with them.
(54:25):
Fantastic conversation. Lovedit. Thank you so much. So
Unknown (54:29):
much. You're a gift, Joshua, I appreciate it. You
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