Stopping the Cycle of Dysfunctional Fatherhood (Sozo: Ecclesia)

So let me tell you a story first before we hop in here.

Um, I have a friend who has been in church leadership for a very long time.

He's never been a senior leader, but one of the things that he told me before exiting his last position was, um, the only way to get a seat at the big people's table is for somebody at the big people's table to die.

Ooh.

That was his way of illustrating what he was encountering at every local church that he had been on staff.

He's a very gifted guy.

And what he started to realize, as I'm sure you have also, is that when you go to a family Thanksgiving, there's a big people's table and a little people's table- Yeah ... and the little people's table has a maximum age range.

It just happens to go up a year every year.

[laughs] Right? Yeah.

And then all of a sudden there's a consensus that, well, the maximum age range has now dropped to the second oldest cousin, because Uncle John Doe is no longer with us.

So now the age changes.

What we realized is that is a lack of a succession plan, and if you have a lack of a succession plan, and I'm not talking about dying and moving on, I'm saying that in an ever-increasing kingdom, we have to understand God's nuclear family.

Yeah.

If we don't understand God's nuclear family, then we won't understand, oh, shoot, what he intended to be present in leadership, right? How many of you have ever heard God refer to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Yeah.

Do you know why he did that? He needed to identify himself against other gods, but do you know why he didn't say the God of Abraham and Isaac? Or the God of Isaac and Jacob? It's because the Hebrew nuclear family is a three-generation nuclear family.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

It's a three-generation nuclear family for a very good reason, because without a three-generation nuclear family, you start experiencing what you and I are experiencing, where you become an overcorrected version of what you hate, and then you become dysfunctional, and then your sons become an overcorrected version of what they hate, and they become dysfunctional, and then their sons become an overcorrected version of what they hate, and they become dysfunctional, right? Right.

You always hear these stories like, "I saw my dad work his fingers to the bone, so I wanted to make sure to get an education and have a white-collar job." And then you have kids that say, "I saw my dad work his life away.

He was a physician, and he was on call all the time, so I just wanted to make sure that I had a simple clock-in, clock-out job every time." And you realize that you just don't wanna be like what raised you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Realistically, and sometimes no matter what it was.

God's answer to that was three-generation nuclear family.

So let me tell you a story first before we hop in here.

Um, I have a friend who has been in church leadership for a very long time.

He's never been a senior leader, but one of the things that he told me before exiting his last position was, um, the only way to get a seat at the big people's table is for somebody at the big people's table to die.

Ooh.

That was his way of illustrating what he was encountering at every local church that he had been on staff.

He's a very gifted guy.

And what he started to realize, as I'm sure you have also, is that when you go to a family Thanksgiving, there's a big people's table and a little people's table- Yeah ... and the little people's table has a maximum age range.

It just happens to go up a year every year.

[laughs] Right? Yeah.

And then all of a sudden there's a consensus that, well, the maximum age range has now dropped to the second oldest cousin, because Uncle John Doe is no longer with us.

So now the age changes.

What we realized is that is a lack of a succession plan, and if you have a lack of a succession plan, and I'm not talking about dying and moving on, I'm saying that in an ever-increasing kingdom, we have to understand God's nuclear family.

Yeah.

If we don't understand God's nuclear family, then we won't understand, oh, shoot, what he intended to be present in leadership, right? How many of you have ever heard God refer to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Yeah.

Do you know why he did that? He needed to identify himself against other gods, but do you know why he didn't say the God of Abraham and Isaac? Or the God of Isaac and Jacob? It's because the Hebrew nuclear family is a three-generation nuclear family.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

It's a three-generation nuclear family for a very good reason, because without a three-generation nuclear family, you start experiencing what you and I are experiencing, where you become an overcorrected version of what you hate, and then you become dysfunctional, and then your sons become an overcorrected version of what they hate, and they become dysfunctional, and then their sons become an overcorrected version of what they hate, and they become dysfunctional, right? Right.

You always hear these stories like, "I saw my dad work his fingers to the bone, so I wanted to make sure to get an education and have a white-collar job." And then you have kids that say, "I saw my dad work his life away.

He was a physician, and he was on call all the time, so I just wanted to make sure that I had a simple clock-in, clock-out job every time." And you realize that you just don't wanna be like what raised you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Realistically, and sometimes no matter what it was.

God's answer to that was three-generation nuclear family.