On the twenty sixth episode of the Family Discipleship Podcast the hosts (Adam Griffin and Cassie Bryant) talk about Father’s Day and fatherhood with Bryan Loritts. 

Questions we asked Bryan about in this episode: 

• As it pertains to your book on fatherhood, The Dad Difference, can you tell us why you wrote it? What was the heart behind this project?
• One of things you say very early on in the book is that “For better or for worse, right or wrong, by his absence or presence, Dad’s shadow looms large over our lives.” Can you unpack that for us some?
• Why do dads make such a difference?
• What kind of cultural shift will it take for men to think rightly about work outside the home and about the labor of love to lead their family?
• Your book is built around four things to give our kids; relationship, integrity, teaching, and experiences. Can you sum those up for us briefly to catch the drift of the vision you’re casting?
• You write about how “coddling moms and passive dads” over value their child’s happiness. How do you advise parents to love and lead their children well without making their kids feel like they are the center of the universe?
• What is the difference in the home of a parent struggling with pride that will not admit fault and what does that do to a family and then what does humility foster in a family?
• You do such a great job equipping parents with the things you write in this book. Could you take a second to encourage the discouraged parent? What do you say to the mom or dad who read what you wrote and they feel like they fall so desperately short of the picture you’re painting?
• How do we invest now in raising men to lead well one day?
• Are there any passages of scripture about fatherhood that stick out to you? Where do you root your parenting in the word?

Some of our favorite quotes from Bryan in this episode:

• “Every man is either going to be a tailwind or a headwind in the lives of their children. Either by my presence or absence. By my activity or my passivity.”
• “Dads make such a difference because that’s the way God intended. I think the most profound word in the English language is “dad.” I am handing to my kids their paradigm of what the Heavenly Father looks like.”
• “Men, typically we are wired towards significance and we typically battle trying to find significance in other things. For a lot of us it’s success on the job, it’s money, so we are providing a certain kind of lifestyle, in a certain neighborhood with a certain house, and we vacation a certain way. What that inevitably does is run counter to the greatest means of provision that your child needs. That’s not just your resources, it’s your actual presence.”
• “We can be so busy buying things for our kids that those things serve as surrogates for our presence in their lives.”
• “The idolatry of the family is horrible. Our kids aren’t made to bear the crushing weight of deity.”
• “I’m following Jesus Christ today because I saw authenticity in my dad’s walk with the Lord and how that bled out into his relationship with others.”
• “Before we’d get disciplined, my dad would read us a proverb. He constantly wanted to thread things back to the word of God and that helped me to see that my sin didn’t just break a rule, it broke the heart of God.”
• “Looking at the typical American. If you were to reduce the parental aspiration for our kids down to one word it would be “happy.” That is not going to cut it as a biblical view of what we should pursue for our children.”
• “When I am constantly trying to orchestrate and micromanage my kids’ lives so that there is always comfort, there’s always enjoyment, there’s always happiness. At the same time what I am depleting them of is strength and resiliency.”

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Dad Difference
• “Christ calls us to care for those living in poverty—including parents working hard for their children’s future. Download your free copy of Created to Flourish: How Employment-Based Solutions Help Eradicate Poverty, to learn how. HOPE International fights physical and spiritual poverty in 16 countries through Christ-centered microenterprise development.”

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To read more about family discipleship, check out the book Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home Through Time, Moments, and Milestones by Adam Griffin and Matt Chandler. 

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