You mentioned played in the NFL for seven years? What are some of the lessons that you learned in football that have carried through? And I'm thinking in your ministry life, your work life, but especially in your spiritual life, where there's some things that God really used football

to teach you.

You can understand it right away, is the aspect of teamwork.

I loved sports, yes, football, because of the team atmosphere.

I needed that guy on the right of me and on the left of me.

We were a team.

I relied on him.

How hard was it to live your faith out in a really open and bold way?

So let's talk a little recap of your own personal story and how that's informed this book that you're writing, because I'm sure that it has.

Yeah.

I, my short story is felt the call to adopt, fought it for years, and now, you know, many years later, I have three adopted sons who are now 26, 23, and 17 as a single dad.

And, um, there was a lot that drove that, uh, looking at statistics and, you know, kids that age out of the foster care system, uh, have like a 50% chance of winding up being incarcerated, homeless, sex trafficked, or dead.

And I'm like, "Well, I've gotta do something about that.

I can't just use excuses." So they got me on a path to, and then realizing after 30 years exclusively in youth ministry and discipling other people's children, I realized I didn't know how to disciple my own kids.

We have professionalized ministry.

What are you seeing as these significant cultural shifts in defining family? Why is this important?

[laughs]

And what we realized is that there was n- how we were defining family ministry through age and stage and particularly nuclear family, which is all good, there's a need for that.

What we were not doing was defining family theologically, and this is where my story comes in because, you know, there's a part in the scripture where Jesus is teaching and the people say, "Jesus, your mother and brother is out there waiting for you.

They want to talk to you." And he says, "Well, who are my mother and brothers?" And he looks around, and he says, "You're my mother and bro- those who are willing, those who are doing the will of God," right?

Yeah.

We've not been feeding into them.

But I would say this, too.

For our grandparents who are retiring, uh, whether they have grandkids or not to raise, here, here's how we do systemic abandonment in the church.

That might be true, but generally speaking, What coaching advice do you give a parent when they today are going, wow, I'm still acting like a cop? What can they do differently? What's the next phase, I guess, is the question.

Yeah, I think to step back and seek other counsel outside of yourself.

And I'm amazed, and I don't know if you guys have ever had this happen.

And I'm amazed, and I don't know why, but I'm amazed sometimes when my kids, I'm picking up from school and a teacher comes up to me and says, let me just tell you, Jamie or Dylan, they're such a joy to have in my classroom.

And we in the classroom, you're talking about my kid? I never heard that.

Well, because we can get stuck in this cop role, and I think it's a natural inclination.

Why? Because we feel responsible for our children.

Right.

But we've got eight years of ramp up on that.

Right.

But the sleep deprivation, the changing diapers.

You mentioned this too, John, about one of the basic tasks.

But those are...

Even changing a diaper, how you interact with that child, how you serve that child, how you nurture that child.

That is that trust versus mistrust.

Speak to the older beyond toddler age and stage, and what do we need to be mindful of as parents