Equipped for Impact

Creating a Family Discipleship Plan with Dr. Larry Taylor

• Luis Miranda and Nathan Deck • Season 2 • Episode 21

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We explore how Christian parents can intentionally disciple their children and prepare them to stand firm in their faith when they leave home. Dr. Larry Taylor, president of the Association of Christian Schools International, shares wisdom from his book "Running with the Horses" and his experience raising five sons.

• Parents have approximately 6,570 days from birth to high school graduation to influence their children's spiritual formation
• Two key predictors of lifelong faith: regular conversations about religion and emotional closeness between parents and children
• Even parents who feel spiritually immature can be the most influential person in their child's faith development
• Creating a family discipleship plan with personal, marriage, and child discipleship components
• Focusing special attention on children between ages 10-12 before puberty begins
• Simple weekly traditions like Saturday morning pancakes can create meaningful connection points with older children
• It's never too late to begin intentional discipleship, regardless of your children's ages

"Focus on that family plan and let the family plan be kind of the rudder through the busyness of life. It'll help make decisions in the busyness of life—what's the most important for our family. This week, a family plan will be elevated above all the other things that are pulling for the time and attention that we all face as parents."


Send any questions you want answered to podcast@waynechristian.org

This podcast is presented by Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ. You can learn more at waynechristian.org

Nate:

Welcome to Equipped for Impact, the podcast designed to assist Christian parents, leaders and educators to raise up the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world. For Christ, we're your hosts. I'm Nate and I'm Lewis, so let's get started. And today we have a special guest with us joining us remotely, so things might sound a little bit different to our listeners. This is our first remote guest that I'm excited to introduce. This is Larry Taylor. Dr Taylor is the president of the Association of Christian Schools International. Acsi works with more than 25,000 schools in 108 countries and helps more than 5.5 million students worldwide receive a Christian education, and that includes Louis, the students here at our school, so I'm excited to have Dr Taylor on with us.

Nate:

Prior to accepting the position at ACSI, dr Taylor served 20 years as the head of school at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, texas. Before that, he served in various roles in public and Christian schools and launched several initiatives to help schools and students thrive. The most relevant for our listeners here of this podcast is that he developed a training program for parents titled Becoming a Kingdom Family. Dr Taylor also published a book Running with the Horses, and our listeners know Lewis and I love books. So anytime I get my hands on a good book like this, it is great. So this book Running with the Horses helps parents, raise children to be servant leaders for Christ and helps build a family plan. Most importantly, dr Taylor has been married to Delinda Rose for 39 years. He has five sons, six grandsons and two granddaughters. So, dr Taylor, thank you, thank you for joining us here on Equipped for Impact.

Larry:

Yeah, nathan Lowe, thank you so much. Honored to be with you. I have one update to that introduction. Two days ago, belinda and I celebrated our 40th year. Okay so 40.

Nate:

Well, congratulations, that is awesome, glad to have you on, and I was just reading through that and thinking about it. You've got five sons, six grandsons and two granddaughters. So how do those two granddaughters feel being the only girls in the?

Larry:

bunch. I don't know yet because they're just, they're little itty bitties, but I will tell you they have me wrapped around the finger, I think, this. You know, we haven't had any girls in our family, so this is, I'm just blessed, blessed, blessed to have Pearl, grace and Zuri, two little girls.

Nate:

Ooh, okay, that's awesome, that's great to hear, that's awesome.

Luis:

That's great to hear. Dr Taylor, are you like me? Anytime you hear somebody read your introduction and you're like it's kind of a surreal feeling and you're like who is this?

Larry:

person that they're talking to. It's like wait a minute, just hurry up and move on. It's kind of embarrassing, but I appreciate being with you guys and just an honor uh, such an honor to be with you today.

Luis:

Yeah Well, thank you so much for doing this. I know, uh, nate and I are looking forward to the conversation today and, and, uh, you know, just thank you for making time out of out of your schedule, cause we know, we know that you're busy and we know that, as you oversee, uh, the work that God is calling you to do, it's important work, and so we are very thankful that you are here with us today, thank you.

Larry:

Thank you Absolutely.

Nate:

So kind of jumping into this, we mentioned your book Running With the Horses, and Lewis and I did an episode. This was back before the summer. We had a summer reading list and I had not read your book by then so it did not make our summer reading list. So our listeners are going to have to add this retroactively back to that list. Kind of reading through that. Just that metaphor that you start off with, this whole idea of running with the horses. It's the analogy from Jeremiah 12, 5. Like, could you unpack that metaphor for us and how you know that would really apply to parents as they seek to disciple their own children?

Larry:

Absolutely, you know. I mean Jeremiah 12, 5 says if you've run with footmen and they've wearied you out, if they've tired you out, then how can you contend with horses? Then how can you contend with horses? And if you've lived in the land, if in the land of peace, where you're, you're trusted some version say safe country if they've wearied you there, then how will you do in the thickets by the jordan and um, you know from a personal testimony and then from a parent, and then from just an educator all three. And it really started with my personal testimony when I became a Christian.

Larry:

I didn't grow up in a Christian family, so when I became a Christian in high school, I mean I was on fire for the Lord. I became a leader in our Sunday school youth group, college ministry, and I was a biology major. I went off to the University of Central Florida. I was a biology major and I had an encounter and I mentioned this in the book and I wasn't. I had been trained and I'm very grateful for my youth pastor and the people that poured into me, but I hadn't been trained to really enter a world that just totally opposed my belief system.

Larry:

I didn't realize what I was getting myself into and I just got run over. And I didn't get run over by some of the things that the world typically the vices of the world. I didn't get run over by drugs or run over by some of the vices that trip us up. I got run over by ideas and I couldn't support intellectually, spiritually, I couldn't support God's Word. I didn't know how to explain that. I was very shallow. And from that personal experience and there's a lot more to that story, from that personal experience and there's a lot more to that story but from that personal experience it just totally changed how, when I became a dad and then an educator, I just always had that in the background, like I don't want my children, I don't want my students to go to the university or any other place and to just get run over.

Nate:

So the level of training, the depth of training just took on a profound meaning to me from that personal experience, gotcha, and so it just kind of set you on this journey to think about. You know how can you set up your own children, and then you know the ministry that God's given you many other families to run with the horses Like. What are some of those maybe muscles, spiritually or otherwise, that you think are really important, that parents need to focus in on to help their children grow and develop before they're sent out?

Larry:

Yeah, that's a great question and I think it's. I mean, we have, from the time a baby's born until, typically here in the United States, a high school principal gives them a diploma, we have about 6,570 days and that's a finite number. And when I take a step back and I think about what happens typically in the United States, when they get that diploma, they're either going to go to college, they're going to enter the workforce, maybe the military. Regardless of where they go, from that point on they will never spend. Our children will never spend as much time, concentrated time, with their parents. And so the thought is okay during that time, what can I do, as you just mentioned? What can we do? What can we focus on? What kind of spiritual muscles can we develop? What should be the priority? And I think there's during that time when we have now I've learned that parenting never ends. All right, with my boys and now my grandkids and everything, which I praise God for. But, in all seriousness, as a coach and I used to coach as a coach I learned the hard way that the mark of, typically one of the marks of great coaches is how they use the time, the limited practice time they have to prepare for the competition. Because we know that coaches aren't measured based on how their practices are, they're measured from how they get into the game. So in the training and in the development of those spiritual muscles, I would say and I have a saying that if I had $1 and one hour to invest into another person, what would I do? How would I invest that time if I only had one hour and one dollar? And I think for parents, life gets busy and we have limited time. Even in those days we have limited time and I would say the spiritual muscle of elevating God's work would say the, the spiritual muscle of elevating god's work, uh, the frequency and the consistency of how we treat and I'm talking about from you know, from a time when the kids will never even remember, when they're two and three years old, and then and then going through the different stages of their maturation cycle, their developmental cycle, how we adjust and elevate God's Word. The second spiritual muscle and there's a reason why I picked these two but prayer, those two areas of our spiritual life, those two disciplines of how parents treat God's Word and how parents treat that very special covenant that we have with a holy God the frequency and the reverence and the importance of how we elevate those two things develop to.

Larry:

If I could just go deep a little bit on the two predictors, the research says and this is secular research God's Word does not need secular research. But the two predictors that a child would live out their faith for their entire life boils down to two things. One, conversations about their religion. So think about from, let's say, from the time a baby is. Two, all the way to 18, again, life changes during that time.

Larry:

But think about, as you're focusing on God's Word, the opportunities for conversations with your children, the opportunities to ask them questions, and and, and and.

Larry:

So that's a predictor, a predictor that you're actually having a two-way conversation, uh, which that really challenges some parents. I mean, uh, depending on their parenting style, um, and then a second thing and and you guys know this, we've heard this forever how the relationship? Now, in the literature it says the emotional closeness. Those two things, if I am really connecting at the heart level, in other words, my children, through the ebb and flow of life, they know that I love them unconditionally and that our living room, our dining room table, our home is a safe place, and what I mean by safe is they're allowed to be them.

Larry:

They can mess up, they can succeed, they can whatever. They can succeed, they can whatever. They know that there's a love, unconditional love, and that we've frequently had conversations, I think, through God's Word and through prayer. Those two spiritual disciplines, I think, invite they, naturally invite a, those spiritual muscles that I'm talking about, compared to you know, once a week, you, you bring your, you bring your kids in and you say, okay, guys, we're going to have a spiritual conversation on. I would recommend against that and instead of that, a when your kids look back someday, when they're 13, 15, 30, they just go. You know what? It was just kind of natural in my home. We read God's Word and we talked about it a lot.

Nate:

And.

Larry:

I was able to ask my parents questions. I felt okay, I trusted my parents, parents' questions. I felt okay, I trusted my parents. So, you know, I wish I could say that the Taylor house, that it was perfect, and that every time that we opened up God's Word, I wish I could say that the boys just came and kneeled and said teach me, father. You know, it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that. I mean, we were constantly. Our kids were on any given night when we were trying to read God's Word and pray and we did a bunch of other things too that led to their spiritual formation. But on any given night I had at least one Taylor boy that was ready to be ejected from the family prayer time. Anyway, I think those are the two things, and I encourage parents because you don't have to be, you don't have to add a bunch of things. Keep it simple, focus on those two things. There's other things, but those two things, I think, help develop over time that spiritual muscle that you want them to do for life.

Luis:

Yeah, that's really good stuff. Dr Taylor, I know I've had the chance of listening to you speak at a few ACSI events and at some of those events I've heard you mention a family discipleship plan, and so for our parents, who may not be familiar with that, what is that and how would you recommend that parents go about creating a discipleship plan for their family?

Larry:

Yeah, thank you.

Larry:

That is, I would say, the class Becoming a Kingdom Family and just the core of the book Running with the Horses and the Flourishing Families program that we're launching at ACSI teach parents how to own their children, how to mentor, how to disciple. So the family plan is based on three parts a personal spiritual development plan, a marriage plan and a child discipleship plan. And if you think about those three, they're very interdependent. In other words, I could have a great personal spiritual development plan and I could have a great child discipleship plan, but if I neglect my marriage, then all three of those are impacted and you can pick any one of those. So they're all happening at the same time and so the importance of developing all three of them. Of course, the most important part of those three is the personal spiritual development plan. That is, training myself, but training parents, regardless of where they are today. I mean, they could be a babe in Christ, they could be a spiritually mature dad or a spiritually mature mom, regardless of where they are and I think there's some important differences, especially for schools, on how to minister to those different levels of spiritual maturity within their parent body but regardless of where they are, one of the most important things that I've learned, and this is all over the world, this is not just in the United States.

Larry:

Every parent loves their baby, all parents love their babies and that is a universal. I mean, that's what an opportunity we have as Christian educators. Parents are bringing their babies to us and I think it's an opportunity to, regardless of the enrollment model, the admissions philosophy of your school. You can be a covenant-based school where the parents, one or both of the parents, already have a spiritual root so they understand typically what God wants them to do with their children. Or many of our schools are open enrollment where a lot of the parents aren't Christians, and I would say what an opportunity to start a family ministry, beginning with I know those parents love their baby. Let's use that. Let's bring them in.

Larry:

They might not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord, which means they probably don't know God's Word, which means they probably don't know what Deuteronomy 6 says or Psalm 78 says about their responsibility as parents. I would say embrace that. If you're a Christian educator, all of the above, embrace that one common denominator parents love their babies and bring them in wherever they are and begin training them on those three parts, them on those three parts. And I've told thousands of parents, on a Likert scale of zero to 10, 10 being Jesus and zero being not Jesus, where are you on the spiritual maturity cycle? If you're a one, if you're a one, that's okay. You, as a one, you could still be the most influential person in your daughter or son's spiritual development.

Larry:

But let's set a goal for next year, 12 months from now. Let's be a 1.5. Let's be a 2. And so I've seen this happen over the 20 years at Prestwood Christian Academy. It was just awesome to see parents going through the training, gaining confidence. A lot of parents just do not have the confidence to mentor and disciple their children. But encouraging them, watching them set up those three parts of their plan, their family plan, and then they begin owning, I mean, the Christian school. Not only do families get better, the Christian school gets better.

Luis:

Yeah, because parents again.

Larry:

They stop just dropping their kids off and saying, hey, you raised my kid right, they understand God. This is my number one homework assignment to disciple my kids, and I think we give them tools, we give them encouragement and confidence and it's really a neat thing to see that happen.

Luis:

Yeah, and I really like the analogy that you made about being a one or growing to be a 1.5. Nate and I just had a podcast that we recorded and in that recording we talked about that. If you can only commit to one Sunday a month, then go right. If you can only commit to one Wednesday a month, then go. Don't throw the towel in because you can't commit to being there all four Sundays or all four Wednesdays or whatever that may look like in the context of your home. If you can only do one night a week for family devotions, then do one night a week. Night a week for family devotions, then do one night a week. Don't throw in the towel and say, well, because I can't do seven nights, or because I can't go four Sundays, or because I can't be there every time the door opens, then I'm not going to do anything. So that was a great analogy, I think, to remind parents that if you're a one, then be a one, but strive to be a 1.5 next year.

Larry:

You know, I really appreciate you saying that, and I think Barna has some research that's very relevant for this topic. The good news and bad news. Good news is that right around 93% of American parents that are Christians, they understand fundamentally that God's Word says you're in charge of your kids' spiritual formation. That's the good news. The bad news is 88% 9 out of 10 of those same parents do not feel confident in doing it. And if we were out to eat right now and a topic came up and we were sitting around the table and let's say I didn't feel comfortable on what you guys were talking about, I didn't know or I wasn't experienced I would probably do one of two things I probably would remain quiet and let you guys talk about it, or I would try to talk about it and I would expose that I didn't know anything about it. Right?

Larry:

You know, I think we have a lot of parents, if the Barna stats are true and I think they are I think we have a lot of parents that remain passive. That remain passive. So they're not the parents that want to engage their kids at the dinner table or at church. They just don't feel confident. What an opportunity to bring them in and say you are, even if you're a one, you could be the spiritual hero, even as a one, as long as your kids know that you're a sincere one. Right around the age of 13, the experts say right around that age. That's when children begin to discern or know who's for real. You know, like right around 13 my kids could see either my dad's for real or my dad.

Larry:

you know is kind of a fake in their in their spiritual life, and so it's giant as much as when my kids see me wards and all they know that I am I'm. I want to be more like christ. I'm not there yet, but I want to be more like christ. Yeah, that that. That's why I think the number one part of the family plan will always be 12 months over the next 12 months. What am I going to do to become more like Jesus?

Luis:

Yeah.

Nate:

And I'm glad you brought that up the age of 13, right, which is why I love you know I'm the middle school principal here at our school and I love that age because of how you know developmentally significant it is for students and children and even when I was a youth pastor I would try and make a special emphasis for kind of that age and you bring that out in your book of you know how in your plan with your boys you wanted to spend extra time with them between the ages of like 10 and 12, which Lewis and I both have kids in that age right now and you would spend extra time before you know, before puberty hits and all the hormones kind of flood the system. So, just really personal interest, what kind of things would you do as you spent that extra time? What would that look like and how would you really help them see both you genuinely and themselves in their own growth in that vital kind of development stage?

Larry:

Yeah, that's a great question. It really was a major part of our. You know, the third part of the family plan is your child discipleship plan. And yeah, you're right, when that pituitary gland starts secreting the hormones, life changes with those kids. And so our goal was right around age 10 to 12, and if I had one kid, or if I had five kids, same thing right around that time, we would begin pulling one at a time out, and what it looked like was probably about two Sundays a month, two Sunday afternoons a month, I would pull, let's say, bryce, I would pull Bryce out, we would stay right there at the house and we would go through. Now, one of the things I'll get, one thing that we did we dissected 1 Timothy 4.12.

Larry:

I mean we, you know 1 Timothy 4.12 is a great passage on five key areas where Paul told Timothy here are five areas you really need to focus on and what's amazing with a 10 to 12-year-old, paul told Timothy one of them was speech, but set an example in your speech. So during those two to four, two times a month I'm not exaggerating I probably spent about six months just going through 1 Timothy 4.12. Because you know, most times you're talking to kids and you talk about speech, they'll say, well, we're not supposed to cuss, or something like that. And I wouldn't let that be the only answer. I would say, well, what about how you talk to your mom? What about how you talk to your brothers? What about your coach? What about your teacher? And so in all five of those areas we would just dissect it and we would talk about it and pray about it and we did some other things like that over that two-year period. But the highlight of those two years was we went.

Larry:

I took them on two trips with me and you know, as an educator, you know we were pretty limited on where we would go as far as the funds. You know it was usually and this is. You know, I think even if I would have had some money to do it differently, I think I still would do it the same way. I would take them on one of the trips. Um, I would take them on a trip that I was already going on, you know, like a like a business trip or something like that, and we would just hide out, we would do go-karts at nighttime and we would back at the hotel we would do a deeper dive into. You know, you're getting ready to become a teenager.

Larry:

The second trip was a little bit that was more, I don't know a little bit more exciting. Now I will tell you you. My oldest son, who was the guinea pig he's the first one we did this, you know these two. To this day he's mad at me because our youngest son chas. So with and I'm sorry, with zeke our second, the youngest son, his second trip. He was a big Florida State University football fan. What?

Luis:

Yes, that's what I'm talking about, Dr Ted. Let's go. There you go. We didn't pay you to say that. We didn't even pay you to say that. You just said it. That's right.

Nate:

If Luz were in his office right now, he'd be flagging the flags. They pull off the show. Yes, yes, yes.

Larry:

Well, we flew into Tallahassee, went to a football game. Yeah, my oldest son says, dad, we didn't do anything like that. But you know, in all seriousness, one of the boys, you know, I mean when, especially if you have more than one kid, that one-on-one time is just really really extra special. And so, before those hormones started pumping, we just wanted to have a more concentrated time instead of having all four or five of the kids at once, one at a time. Now, when I started pulling Bryce aside he was the guinea pig.

Larry:

Did all the other kids get jealous? Absolutely, they were like, well, dad, what about us? And especially when we went on those two trips. So, but that's okay, I mean, that's part of the training. I would look at the younger siblings and say, hey, your time's coming, and so we did that with all. Our fifth son is actually adopted and we didn't bring him into our life until he was in 12th grade, so we didn't have the opportunity to do this. But I would just tell parents during those two years, just fit it into life, you know, two Sundays a month, that kind of fit. It was easy to do, not easy, but it was doable. And those two trips, we didn't have a lot of money so we kind of fit it into our budget. I think it made it even more special to the boys later in life when they understood that money didn't grow on trees yeah.

Nate:

Yeah, that's awesome.

Luis:

Well, Dr Taylor, just to kind of close out, I've got one more question here and actually I want to kind of take your answer that you just answered and kind of combine it with what we just talked about about parents being a 1 or a 1.5. You probably have some parents that are listening to this podcast who are thinking, well, you know, my child, they're 15 already, they're 16. Or I miss that 10 to 12 window. What would you say to that parent who's listening, who's thinking you know, I missed my chance to do it, so I'm just going to throw my hands up and not do it. Or maybe they're even thinking, hey, I love what you're saying, I agree with it, but my child's 16. They're getting ready to become a junior, or maybe this is the last year I have with them and they're getting ready to graduate. What would you say to that parent?

Larry:

this is the last year I have with them and they're getting ready to graduate. What would you say to that parent? That's a great question and over the 20 years of having the Kingdom Family class every year, we had that and that was as I had to learn the hard way. Early on, when I taught the Kingdom family class, I had single parents and so I had to learn how to. I had to learn the mindset of a single parent. I also had to learn the mindset of parents who had 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds and there was a level of guilt that they had and 16-year-olds and there was a level of guilt that they had, and I didn't know it at first until I started. A few of them would schedule a meeting with me afterwards and they would just say, hey, I failed, and I would say no, no, no time out. It's never too late.

Larry:

One of my favorite all-time stories a dad had a 11th. I mean, the mom and dad had an 11th grader and a ninth grader, so like 15 to 17. And they went through that same feeling. They went through man. What can I do? In the family plan, in all three of those parts, we encourage you to set up daily goals, weekly goals and annual goals. So let's say that I'm in my child discipleship part of the plan. What am I going to do daily? What am I going to do weekly? One of the weekly examples? I mean, it's not just an example, it's what we actually did.

Larry:

I would take my boys to Dunkin' Donuts on Saturday mornings. So this dad I didn't know he was doing this, but about six weeks into the class he came up to me. He said hey, I started making blueberry pancakes with his 11th grade and ninth grade and at first on Saturday mornings. And at first my kids, you know, at that age they thought man, what's gotten into dad? And he stuck with it. He said, larry, I've stuck with it.

Larry:

He said we are now experiencing we're only about six weeks into this, but we're now experiencing some of that. You know some of that fun, some of that, but we're now experiencing some of that fun, some of that camaraderie. I would just say it is a whole lot easier when you start earlier, but it's never too late and I think parents know their kids better than anyone and if they can just pray and think about what can I do with my son or daughter, or all of them if they are older, I think they would be encouraged that it's not too late and that dad came back to me even a couple of years later and said that that's one of the greatest things that he and his kids remember and still talk about that weekly tradition. It's never too late. That's good, really good.

Nate:

That's awesome. Well, thank you, dr Taylor, for taking the time to talk with us and talk through this idea of the family plan and just where we are and how we can continue pouring into our kids. I wanted to give you a second, the last words of encouragement to any of our listeners, or, you know, to Lewis and I, as dads with kids still in the house. Just of you know the you are on that scale from 0 to 10, however old your children are.

Larry:

I don't think it's never too late to launch that three-part family plan and start easy. I mean, you know there are things you know. You don't have to throw everything in on the first week or the first month. Start easy. It's amazing the frequency of doing those daily or weekly things, the frequency of that. It's amazing when you look back years from now. Some of those things that you didn't even know your kids noticed, they noticed and those conversations and the intentionality.

Larry:

You don't have to be a perfect parent, you just jump in and you can influence the spiritual trajectory of your kids for multiple generations. And I just want to encourage you focus on that family plan and let the family plan be kind of the rudder through the busyness of life. It'll help make decisions in the busyness of life what's the most important for our family. This week, a family plan will be elevated above all the other things that are pulling for the time and attention that we all face as parents. So God bless you guys. Thank you for what you're doing at your school and in your own home and I'm encouraged that you guys are focused on this. God bless you Awesome.

Nate:

Thank you, dr Taylor, and thanks for everybody listening and joining us today. I hope you all gleaned a lot of wisdom from this conversation. I know I did myself as a dad, and if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with another parent who might find it helpful, so that they can be encouraged to just take that small step, whatever it is, and invest in their children, because it's never too late with that, if you're listening, you've got any questions, comments? You want to reach out to us? Send us emails. We love to hear from our listeners. Podcast at waynechristianorg. You can send us your emails, questions there, ideas for other topics or things that you might, thoughts you had that were spawned from this conversation. So thanks for joining us today and until next time, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence their world for Christ.

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Luis Miranda

Host
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Nathan Deck

Host