Relatively Functional Dads

It's 2 a.m., the baby won't stop crying, and you're wondering if you'll ever sleep again. Then one day you realize the contact naps are gone too, and nobody told you the last one was the last one. Sound familiar? This episode is for you.

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, Buddy and Reese are joined by Noah on a Friday night with the wives away, the kids (hopefully) asleep, and the baby monitors on the table. They talk about a truth that cuts both ways: nothing in fatherhood lasts forever. The sleepless nights, the tantrums, and the blowouts with no wipes in the bag will end. So will the contact naps, the "Daddy, watch this," and the bedtime stories. The guys get honest about the seasons that felt endless, why perseverance isn't pretending things are easy, and how to be present in a good season before it's gone.

In this episode:

• Would you rather know when every "last time" with your child is happening, or never know?
• The parenting seasons that felt endless while we were in them, from newborn gas pain to round two of the threenager stage
• Why perseverance isn't pretending, and why you need grace for today, not strength for the next five years
• Stewarding the season you're in instead of escaping into the life you wish you had
• What our kids are doing right now that we know we'll miss someday
• Why we need to stop living in "once": once they sleep, once work slows down, once things get easier

Challenge for the week: In something hard, ask, "What would faithfulness look like today if I knew this wasn't forever?" In something good, ask, "What am I experiencing right now that I don't want to take for granted?" The hard moments deserve endurance. The beautiful moments deserve attention.

Subscribe for more conversations on: Christian fatherhood, perseverance and presence in every season of parenting, raising babies, toddlers and young kids, and a good bit of dad humor.

Episode Mentions:

• The Jesus Storybook Bible - Sally Lloyd-Jones
• The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy Spotify

Your kid asks a big question about God. You start answering... and halfway through, you realize you're not sure you believe it yourself. Sound familiar? This episode is for you.

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, Buddy sits down with pastor and author Meredith Miller, who's spent over 20 years walking alongside kids, families, and faith communities. Meredith wrote Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn't Have to Heal From — a book that's become a go-to resource for parents who feel the pressure to lead their kids somewhere spiritually they've never fully landed themselves. Buddy and Meredith dig into why faith isn't something you build brick by brick, but something you weave — flexible enough to bend without breaking when life happens. They talk trust before obedience, what to do when your kid asks a question that stumps you, and why "I don't know" might be one of the most faith-building things a dad can say.

In this episode:

• Why the "wall" metaphor for faith sets kids up to crumble, and what weaving a "web" of faith looks like instead
• Why trust has to come before obedience and what goes wrong when we skip straight to behavior
• What a faith someone "needs to heal from" actually looks like, and how common it is
• What to say when your kid asks a hard question you don't have the answer to
• The research-backed power of family warmth in nurturing a kid's faith
• Encouragement for dads who feel like they don't have their own faith figured out yet

Challenge for the week: Pick one thing you and your kid already do for fun (play catch, ice eat cream, walk at the park)  and connect it to God in a single sentence. No lesson, no lecture, just one line.

Subscribe for more conversations on: Christian fatherhood, faith-based parenting, raising kids who trust God, discipleship at home, and a good bit of dad humor. 

Episode Mentions:

• Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn't Have to Heal From - Meredith Miller
• Wonder: 52 Conversations to Help Kids Fall in Love With Scripture - Meredith Miller
• Follow Meredith on Instagram
• Read Meredith's newsletter on Substack

We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy Spotify

Why do you know exactly which of your desires is loud and which one is quiet and still let the loud one win anyway?

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, we pick up right where Part 1 left off. Knowing your strong desires from your deep ones is only half the battle — you can know exactly which one is talking and still let the strong one win. One more quarter of football instead of time with the kids. One more beer instead of water. Staying late at work instead of hurrying home. The goal was never to kill your desires… it's to rule over them so the loud ones stop taxing the quiet ones, and today we get practical about how.

We talk through how to actually tell a God-given desire from one that's about to wreck your life standards, prayer, honest community, and enough silence and solitude to hear the quiet stuff. Then we get specific about our own structures: what we keep out of the house, when we stop working, when we go to bed, our weekly Sabbath, and why one of us has basically no privacy left on purpose. And we don't dodge the hard question. What's at stake ten years from now if the loud desires keep winning, and what's possible if they don't.

In this episode:

• Dad Decisions: your kid thanking you today for how you're parenting them vs. thanking you at thirty
• Should Have Known Better: a "low-commitment" fantasy football league that turned into an unpaid second job
• Should Have Known Better: two toddlers, a deer blind, and zero bug spray
• How to actually tell a God-given desire from one about to run wild on you
• The real habits and structures we've built to give our deep desires a fighting chance
• What's at stake ten years from now if the loud desires keep winning — and what's different if they don't

Challenge for the week: Plan a 15-minute phone-free window this week to ask, "What do I actually want in my life, and why?" Then bring one thing you noticed back to your spouse or friends.

Mentions in the episode:

• Your Baby's First Word Will Be DADA - Jimmy Fallon
• Live No Lies - John Mark Comer
• Fat Fruit Friends - Nate Bargatze

Subscribe for more conversations on:

• Christian fatherhood and dads podcast encouragement
• Desire, discipline, and spiritual formation for men
• Parenting young kids, marriage, and family life
• Discovering God's design for your life
• Real, honest dad life moments

We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy Spotify

Why do you want to be home more AND get ahead at work? Why do you finally get the kids to bed... and immediately miss them?

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, we're digging into something every dad feels but rarely names: the constant tug-of-war between competing desires. Advancing your career vs. being home more. Craving quiet vs. craving community. Wanting peace at the end of the day vs. missing the chaos the second it's gone. We name the desires actually competing inside the average dad on a Monday night — and talk about why the tension isn't a malfunction, it's just being human.

Then we get into the heart of it: John Mark Comer's line that "our strongest desires are not actually our deepest desires." A strong desire is loud and wants to be satisfied right now — the mindless scroll, the extra drink, the cheap laugh. A deep desire is quiet and long-term — the marriage that lasts, the kids who actually love God, the work that means something. Strong desires shout. Deep desires whisper. And most of us have gotten really good at listening to the wrong one.

This is Part 1 of a 2-part series. Next episode, we go further — how your deepest desires can actually work like a compass, pointing you toward how God specifically made you.

In this episode:

• Dad Decisions: 3 hours alone every Saturday vs. your whole family telling you how much they appreciate you
• Dad Decisions: being an incredible dad who everyone outside your family thinks is the worst vs. a decent dad everyone thinks is the best
• Should Have Known Better
• Naming the desires actually competing inside the average dad on a Monday night
• Why so many dads feel guilty for wanting things at all — rest, hobbies, adventure, success
• The difference between a strong desire and a deep desire (and why one satisfies for an hour and the other for a lifetime)
• A real example: a strong desire shouting over a deeper one, straight from our own week
• How to actually tell, in the moment, which kind of desire you're dealing with

Challenge for the week: The next time you catch yourself chasing something right now — a scroll, a snack, an escape — pause and ask, "What am I actually wanting underneath this?" Write down the deep desire you think it's covering for.

Mentioned books:

• The Lord and His Prayer - N.T. Wright

Subscribe for more conversations on:

• Christian fatherhood and dads podcast encouragement
• Desire, temptation, and spiritual formation for men
• Parenting young kids, marriage, and family life
• Discovering God's design for your life
• Real, honest dad life moments

We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy Spotify

Comparison is sneaky. It steals your joy and changes the way you see your kids, your wife, and yourself as a dad.

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, we get honest about comparison in fatherhood: comparing our kids to other kids, ourselves to other dads, and our families to ones that don't even exist. We talk about what happens when hopes become expectations, and how trading comparison for curiosity changes the way you love and lead your family. We wrap up in John 21, where Jesus answers Peter's "what about that guy?" with a simple "What is it to you? Follow me."

In this episode:

• Big Dad Energy: a solo birthday party survival story and a last-minute birthday bike mission
• Dad Decisions: beat your kid in any competition but tweak a muscle every time, or lose to them forever?
• The expectations we carried into fatherhood and the ones our kids shattered
• Comparison vs. curiosity: asking "Who has God made this child to become?"
• What Jesus says when you catch yourself asking “what about that dad?”

Challenge for the week: Replace one comparison with one moment of curiosity. Instead of "Why aren't they more like ___?", ask "What is God uniquely developing in this child?"

Episode Mentions:

• Woven by Meredith Anne Miller

Subscribe for more conversations on fatherhood, faith, marriage, and intentional parenting.

We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy Spotify

Who's a dangerous man? A dad with no one keeping him accountable, no one speaking into his life, and no brothers in the trenches with him.

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, we get real about male friendship, brotherhood, and why building community as a dad only gets harder — and matters more — once you have kids. Between marriage, work, and parenting young kids, it's easy to let deep friendships slide into isolation and loneliness. We share our own stories of losing community, moving to new cities, starting over, and slowly building the kind of Christian brotherhood where you can show up at 6 AM, half-articulate, and still be understood.

We also answer a listener question every dad faces: how to survive solo parenting when mom is sick or away for the weekend without losing your patience or your mind.

In this episode:

• Why isolation lies to us and why men need community and accountability
• How to make friends as an adult man: weekly coffee, rec leagues, church community, and reaching out first
• What makes a friendship impactful: humility, honesty, shared experience, and guys who push you
• Mentors, brothers, and rookies: why every dad needs men ahead of him, beside him, and behind him
• Reese opens up about addiction, shame, and the mentors who helped him walk in freedom
• Why proximity matters and how to mourn old seasons of friendship without missing the one you're in

Challenge for the week: Text one dad and put something specific on the calendar — breakfast, the gym, garage night. A real day and time, not "we should hang out soon." And if they can't make it, follow up with the next date. Bonus: if you've got a potential mentor in mind, ask him. Worst case, you buy an older guy a coffee.

Relatively Functional Dads is a Christian fatherhood podcast for dads who want encouragement in parenting, marriage, faith, and friendship… becoming the fathers God calls us to be.

Subscribe for more conversations on:

• Christian fatherhood and dads podcast encouragement
• Male friendship, brotherhood, and community for men
• Parenting young kids, marriage, and family life
• Mentorship, accountability, and men's spiritual growth
• Overcoming loneliness and isolation as a dad

We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected]

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy Spotify

Where did my wife go? If you've become a dad and felt like your marriage changed overnight… you're not imagining it.

In this episode of the Relatively Functional Dads podcast, we're getting honest about what no one tells you…becoming parents doesn't just change your sleep schedule, it changes your marriage. The connection that once came easily now takes effort. The fun that used to be spontaneous now has to be planned. And the woman you married is carrying a load you may not even see.

But here's the good news: it's also an invitation.

We share what we've learned to deeply appreciate about our wives as they've stepped into motherhood, the tenacity, the sacrifice, the capacity that keeps growing. And we get practical about how to support her through the identity shift, the mental load, and the pressures moms carry that dads often miss.

Because being reactive in fatherhood keeps you from being proactive in your marriage.

In this episode:

• Listener question: What fears do you have as a parent and how has God helped you through them?
• NEW SEGMENT: Dad Decisions
• What we've learned to love about our wives as mothers
• How to support your wife through the identity shift of motherhood
• The invisible pressures moms carry (mom brain is real)
• Why couples lose connection after kids and how to fight for it
• Practical habits that keep us connected: weekly calendars, morning coffee check-ins, and planned alone time

Challenge for the week: Ask your spouse one simple question: "What is one thing I can do this week that would help you feel more supported?" Then actually do it.

Subscribe for more conversations on:

• Christian fatherhood
• Marriage after kids
• Faith-based parenting
• Supporting your wife through motherhood
• Biblical leadership in the home
• Real, honest dad life moments

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy

We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected] 

Instagram: @relativelyfunctionaldads

It's 2AM. You've tried everything. Baby's still crying. You let out one final prayer  and hear nothing.

If you've been there, this episode is for you.

Buddy and producer Noah sit down with their good friend Zach to talk about what happens to your faith when sleep training pushes you to the edge. Zach opens up about months of sleepless nights, prayers that seemed to go unanswered, and the moment he started to wonder if God was cruel  and what brought him back.

But this episode isn't really about sleep training. It's about what happens when you're physically, emotionally, and spiritually depleted  and God still seems quiet.

We unpack one of the most powerful parenting metaphors we've come across: spiritual tummy time. Just like a baby strains on their stomach to build strength they didn't know they needed, God's silence in your hardest seasons might be doing something you can't see yet.

In this episode:

• What sleepless nights reveal about your relationship with God
• Why unanswered prayer isn't the same as ignored prayer
• How to protect your marriage when you're both running on empty
• The danger of letting shame keep you from showing up
• Why community with other dads is non-negotiable

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy

We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected] 

Instagram: @relativelyfunctionaldads

Are you an all-in or all-out kind of dad? You're not alone and it might be costing you more than you think.

In Episode 8 of Relatively Functional Dads, we get honest about the all-or-nothing trap that so many dads fall into the mindset that says if you can't crush it completely, why even show up?

We talk about:

• Why all-or-nothing thinking feels productive but creates burnout, shame spirals, and inconsistency
• How the trap shows up in fitness, marriage, parenting, career, and spiritual life
• Why dads are especially prone to extreme thinking and how fatherhood forces a reckoning
• The difference between outcome-oriented thinking and becoming the type of person who shows up daily
• Why "long obedience in the same direction" matters more than intensity
• Practical mindset shifts for when you miss a day, lose your patience, or feel like you've blown it

Reese also shares practical ways to replace all-or-nothing thinking with small, repeatable habits that actually stick:

• Never miss two days in a row
• Hard moments don't have to become hard days
• Count the cost before you go all in — make sure the ladder's on the right wall

If you're a dad who swings between hyper-engaged and checked out, sets impossible expectations, or quits when things aren't perfect, this episode will encourage you and give you a more sustainable path forward.

Relatively Functional Dads is a podcast about Christian fatherhood, parenting, marriage, emotional health, and becoming the dads God calls us to be.

Weekly Reflection:

• Where does all-or-nothing thinking show up most in your life as a dad?
• What's one small, consistent habit that would matter more than dramatic intensity?

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy

We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected] 

Instagram: @relativelyfunctionaldads

What do you do when the person you'd call for advice is the one you're grieving?

Two dads. Two losses. One raw, honest conversation about what it really means to grieve your father while becoming one.

In this episode of Relatively Functional Dads, Buddy sits down with his close friend Derek McClarty. Derek lost his dad to pancreatic cancer just weeks after his daughter was born. Buddy lost his dad to suicide six weeks before his second child arrived. Together they go deep on what it actually looks like to carry grief as a new dad and how faith, community, and some unexpected practices helped them find healing on the other side.

If you've lost a parent, are watching one decline, or are quietly carrying grief while trying to show up for your family, this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

We talk about:

• Losing a father while becoming a dad, and the guilt, confusion, and grief that comes with it
• Why new dads stuff grief instead of processing it and what it costs your family
• Active vs. passive grief: what the difference is and why both need space
• Practical grief practices for men that actually work storytelling, music, counseling, silent retreats, community
• Why you can't wait until tragedy strikes to build a community of men around you
• How Christian faith changes the way we grieve, and why hope makes all the difference
• Holding sorrow and hope at the same time: the "half frown, half smile" of grieving with faith
• How to keep a father's legacy alive for kids who never got to know him

Mentioned Books:

• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - John Mark Comer
• Practicing The Way - John Mark Comer
• Grieving a Suicide - Albert Hsu

Key Scriptures:

• Matthew 5:4 — "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
• 1 Thessalonians 4:13 — "Do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope."

Weekly Reflection:

• What grief are you carrying quietly right now that needs space?
• Who in your life do you need to call before it's too late?
• What would it look like to grieve well this week — not alone, but with God and with someone you trust?

Music Provided By: Derek McClardy

We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send questions and feedback to [email protected] 

Instagram: @relativelyfunctionaldads