Discipling in the Home | Allen & Stacy Jo

In this episode of Faithfully Invested, we dive into the importance of discipling those closest to us—our spouses and children. Discover how to create a home where faith is woven into everyday life, not just reserved for special moments.

Key takeaways:

* Home is where the real us shows up, and discipleship starts there.
* It's about modeling faith through our actions, especially during tough times.
* Discipling in marriage means lifting each other up spiritually.
* Consistency in everyday moments is key to effective discipleship.
* Engage in honest conversations about faith with your family.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:29 The importance of home discipleship
01:27 Showing the real you
02:40 Modeling faith in tough times
03:59 The role of marriage in discipleship
07:25 Practical steps for discipling at home
23:11 Prayer and faith in everyday life
27:23 One Jesus conversation challenge

What's your biggest challenge with discipling at home? Drop it in the comments!

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Transcript

Allen 0:49

Are you ready to build a life, business, and legacy that truly lasts? Welcome to Faithfully Invested with Alan and Stacey Joe Thorn, where faith meets real talk, biblical wisdom meets everyday life, and leadership meets laughter.

Stacy Jo 1:03

Together we will uncover God's blueprint for leadership, marriage, and mission, helping faith-driven leaders invest in what matters most.

Allen 1:11

Each episode we explore biblical wisdom, have real conversations, and of course, have some fun along the way. Because let's be real, walking in faith is an adventure.

Stacy Jo 1:22

It sure is to pull up a seat, grab your coffee or your sweet tea, and join us as we steward our callings with intention. Because when we invest in his kingdom, he brings the increase. And I'm Stacy Joe. And friends, we are discussing discipling and multiplying. And this episode hits close to home because today we're not talking about discipling someone out there. We're discussing discipling the people living under our roofs. You know, our spouses, our children, the ones who experience us before the morning coffee and after the long days. And you know the people we're talking about. They're the people who know the real you.

Allen 2:18

Yeah. The under-the-roof influence sphere matters a lot. You can have incredible influence in your workplace or in your ministry or out and about in the community. But if your home's not a place where faith and discipleship's being passed on, then you're missing the most important assignment God gave you. Ready or not, here we go.

Stacy Jo 2:42

And folks, we're not just talking to you today. We're we're talking to ourselves too. So we want to start with something that most parents and spouses know but don't always say out loud. Home is where the real us shows up. Not the polished version, not the leader who somewhat has it together, but the version that is tired at the end of the hard day. The one that's, you know, you know, Alan, that's stretched and stressed and sometimes doesn't handle things well. You know? That's the us our family sees daily.

Allen 3:21

And I would say, yikes! Quick, put that tiger back in the cage.

Stacy Jo 3:27

There's no going back now. It's out.

Allen 3:29

The tiger back in the cage. That is out. That's a mean cat. The fact is that this can be uh quite the fact that it's quite challenging, that's the whole point, because discipleship in a home isn't about being a perfect spiritual leader with a devotional ready for every morning. Uh Ned Flanders is not who we're aiming at.

Stacy Jo 3:56

Uh who is Ned Flanders?

Allen 3:58

If you're Simpson's people, you know who Ned Flanders, Oakley Doakley, good neighbor fella.

Stacy Jo 4:04

Oh, okay. I know who you mean. Yeah. All right.

Allen 4:07

That guy. You know.

Stacy Jo 4:10

Yeah.

Allen 4:10

It's about uh, so yeah, that's that's not it.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

No.

Allen 4:14

Uh the the perfection's not it.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

No.

Allen 4:20

Alright. It's about letting people who are closest to you see how a life surrender to God can look and how it looks messy sometimes. Letting them see the gained growth through the moments where you heinously dropped the ball, you came back to God, and you made right. These moments cannot be underestimated.

Stacy Jo 4:39

That's for sure. I mean, because what your kids and your spouse absorb more than anything you say is how you handle things.

Allen 4:49

Yeah. What they see. They they yeah. What they see experience.

Stacy Jo 4:54

That's right. So does your face show up on a rough and tumble Monday the same way it does on a solid Praise the Lord Sunday? Do you pray when things are hard or only when the sun is shining on you? Because remember, there's always more caught than taught, and we said it last week too. But we all f I mean we all fall short of that. But how are we getting back up? How are we learning and moving forward from there? And that's what defines our walk and our faith maturity. You know, some people fall and stay down, and that is not that is not how it's done. If we fall three times, we gotta get back up four and we gotta dig deep to see what we're learning through the fall. You know, what is God trying to show us? Our families see the fall, but do they see the teachable moment as we work past the fall? As you're learning along the way, do they see that? And what is it teaching them about us? What is God teaching them through us?

Allen 7:17

That is viciousness. That is the face of viciousness.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

Right.

Stacy Jo 7:29

Do you pray when things are hard or only when the sun is shining on you? Sun is shining on me. Because remember, there's always more cotton than taut, and we said that last week as well. But we all fall short. But how are we getting back up? Are we learning and moving forward? Because that's what defines our walk and our faith maturity. Some people fall and they stay down, and that is not that is not how it's done. If we fall three times, we gotta get back up four and we gotta dig deep to see what we're learning through the fall. You know, what is God trying to show us? Our families see the fall, but do they see our teachable moment as we work past it?

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yeah.

Stacy Jo 8:13

And as we're learning along the way, do they see that? And what is that teaching them about us? What is God teaching them through our falls?

Allen 8:24

Yeah, it's important to see the whole the the entirety of the picture, not just one side of the picture. Um and for couples, uh discipling each other is one of the most under-talked about dimensions of marriage. We talk a lot about being a team, building together, supporting each other, but the the deeper work is that we're we are each other's primary spiritual investment. Are you all calling out what God has uh put in you?

Stacy Jo 8:58

That's a good question.

Allen 9:00

Are you calling out what God has put in each one of you? Are you sharpening each other? Are you are you praying together, not just over meals, but over the inevitable tough stuff, even more so? When y'all are living that kind of marriage, when y'all are in it to win it with Christ Jesus our Lord, it it becomes one of the most powerful discipleship environments that your kids could ever witness.

Stacy Jo 9:28

It really does. You know, Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7 says, These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. This is what we love about this. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. Folks, this isn't a program. It's an all-day, everyday lifestyle. God wasn't describing a scheduled family devotional. He was describing a household where faith is woven into the fabric of every ordinary day.

Allen 10:05

That's it. That's a and this uh different picture. It might be a different picture than what most families are doing. Most of us try to carve out that specific time for this spiritual stuff. Right. That's not it.

Stacy Jo 10:24

We're missing the mark there.

Allen 10:25

Yeah, it's uh of course there's the Sunday routine and hey, maybe a little bedtime prayer. And these things are good, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. This is not what Deuteronomy 6 is talking about. Deuteronomy 6 is describing where God is not compartmentalized.

unknown 10:44

Right.

Allen 10:44

But He is the way, the capital W way. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. But you know He's the way. And and we live uh He's the way we live every part of our lives. And he's the the real deal, walk in the talk kind of faith is the lens from which we cast our vision. Are we those people?

Stacy Jo 12:30

Right. That is the lens from which we cast our vision. And and in other news, my dear, um you d did you know that Proverbs 22, 6 instructs us to train up a child in the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not depart from it. And the key word there is train, not tell or lecture, but train, which means it's repeated, it's practiced, it's modeled over time. You don't train a child in a single conversation.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Right.

Stacy Jo 13:00

You train them across thousands of ordinary moments through the years. That truth is both the challenge and the beauty of discipling in the home.

Allen 13:11

Yeah. What about the married folks? For y'all enjoying that wedded bliss, the Lord gave us the wise instructions of Ephesians 5. Uh, and today we're we're going to the the greatest of Ephesians 5, 25, and 26. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. And he gave him so Christ gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her. No, not sacrifice or sanctify her.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Oh geez.

Allen 13:50

Sanctify her. Sanctify means to help uh help someone become more fully who God created them to be. Uh washing, uh, what Paul describes here in Ephesians is washing in the water of the word. You know. Uh and that's this that kind of discipleship language is is directly aimed at marriage. Uh your love for your spouse is meant to call them higher. It's meant to lift them up. Uh it's uh and that goes both ways. Uh you are each other's uh spiritual sanctifier right here on earth.

Stacy Jo 14:33

That's good. Yeah. Blamo, babe. I'm giving you a blamo on that one. You know, I think a lot of couples see marriage as a partnership and a companionship, but miss the discipleship dimension altogether.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Sorry.

Stacy Jo 14:48

But you're not just building a life together, you're you're building each other.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Yeah.

Stacy Jo 14:53

And that should change how we handle conflict, how we handle the hard seasons and and through individual as well as marital struggles. That should change how we handle those. And the question becomes not just how do I support them, but how do I help them become more fully who God made them to be. And sometimes it's not easy to accept who God made the other person to be.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

It's not.

Stacy Jo 15:22

And you know, I think you know, you've talked to me in the past about how me being a businesswoman, you know, who is God who is who God created me to be is not always easy for you.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

It's not.

Stacy Jo 15:38

And being the wife of a a pastor is not always easy for me.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Yeah.

Stacy Jo 15:46

And I but it's up to us to support one another. It's up to us to help each other become more fully who God created us to be.

Allen 15:58

Right. Sometimes we get caught up in in our in the individuality of that. America's all about individualism. And uh there's a whole nother season conversation. But uh we we get caught up in our own stuff and we we lose track of how we're called to lift each other up as husband and wife.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Right.

Allen 16:18

And uh yeah, I drop the ball there often.

Stacy Jo 16:21

Uh well, I'm not totally blameless there either. So we're working on it just like you are.

Allen 16:30

Yeah, we're yeah, there's certainly no perfection over here, and we are practicing what we're preaching. That's right. That's for certain.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Yeah.

Allen 16:37

Uh so let's dig into the real struggles here because discipling in the home is where the rubber meets the road, and it's not easy, like Honeybunny was saying.

Stacy Jo 16:45

That's right. If the first struggle is consistency, it is one thing to have a powerful spiritual moment with your kids or your spouse, and it's something else to entirely show up faithfully on an ordinary Tuesday night when nothing special is happening and everybody's tired. Because I don't know about you, but Tuesday nights, I'm tired.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Yeah.

Stacy Jo 17:05

But that Tuesday night is actually where discipleship lives. It lives in the mundane, the unglamorous, in the nobody's watching moments of just doing life, but knowing that the Holy Spirit's in the room.

Allen 17:19

The Holy Spirit's in the room. That's uh, yeah. Yeah. And recognizing his presence with us because he never leaves us.

Stacy Jo 17:25

That's right.

Allen 17:26

He never leaves us. He's with us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes that gets lost in the minutia as well.

Stacy Jo 17:34

Exactly.

Allen 17:34

You know, and we just need we all need reminded. Uh I think a lot of people put pressures on on themselves to to make every spiritual moment intentional and meaningful. Uh but some of the most enlightening uh things ever passed on between between a couple, between a uh between parents and the kids can be a five-minute conversation in the car.

unknown 18:01

Right.

Allen 18:02

Uh, not a planned teaching time. Uh uh not reading to the family from a Billy Graham book.

Stacy Jo 18:10

Uh, we've done that.

Allen 18:14

In the beginning of our blended family, I for some reason I thought that would be a good idea. Right. That was not it. We'd have our Sunday night devotionals and and yeah, yeah, it was uh at last I think we only did that once.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Maybe.

Allen 18:32

Yeah, maybe twice because I'm stubborn. Why are they falling asleep? This guy's the greatest evangelist of all time. Listen up. Right? Anyway.

Stacy Jo 18:46

Yeah. Anyway, uh we should have the kids on this episode.

Allen 18:51

Yeah. They probably blocked that. Anyway. Uh so no, it's not it doesn't always it doesn't have to be a planned teaching time, just sharing experience and the margins of life. That's what Deuteronomy 6 is talking about.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Yeah.

Allen 19:11

Faith in the ordinary, not a curriculum, but a lifestyle shared with each other.

Stacy Jo 19:18

Yeah. That's great. And the second struggle is the gap between what you preach and what you practice. You know, again, the people in your home see everything. They see whether you actually trust God when the bank account is low, or whether you just say you do. They see how you talk about people when you're frustrated. They see whether you forgive quickly or whether you hold on to things. And when there's a gap between what you say and believe and how you actually live, they notice it.

Allen 19:50

Yeah.

Stacy Jo 19:51

Kids especially notice it.

Allen 19:54

They notice it, that's for certain. But the gap is not the good news is that the gap's not the end of your discipleship influence. So how do we handle the gap? Simple.

Stacy Jo 20:05

Will you tell us?

Allen 20:07

Yeah, I I got a lot of experience in this. I so I seemingly sometimes live in the gap. Uh so so when you I mean it's it it's simple. Uh first pride's got to go by the wayside because it with all for all intents and purposes, pride was a problem in the first place. So you gotta recognize that. And when you face plant, you gotta own it. Uh when we when you face plant, you gotta own it. When you drop the ball, you gotta own it, man. Uh when you confess, you repent, and you apologize, and you and you share God's revealed teachable moment through the struggle, that's some of the best discipleship that you could possibly ever do. You're showing them what it looks like to be a real person who follows a real God, not a perfect person, but a repentant person. And I I love and this I don't know how I was in the church since 2009, but I didn't and I didn't hear it until 2020 that that it is God's kindness that draws us to repentance. It's in the word, you know. I didn't find it myself, but it wasn't uh I was we were in church for I was in church for 11 years and I I was deathly afraid of repentance because I didn't really understand it, but it's God's kindness that draws us to repentance, which is just a changing of our mind. Say, I've gone this way, uh, and Lord, I thank you for showing me that I'm way off, and now you know I'm gonna confess, repent, and go the other way. I'm gonna follow you. You know, so repentance is it's a big deal, but you know, it's it's it's not it's nothing to be afraid of. You know, and I and I was and I was strongly influenced, and I'm slightly in the weeds here. Uh I remember I was strongly influenced by that crazy heavy metal music back in the day, most of my life. And and I remember uh an old Rob Zombie song where he just simply just said, I will not repent. And and and he still hasn't, you know. He's still, you know, out there doing all that stuff. And you know, and uh not repenting.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

And that's a vow.

Allen 22:32

And that's a vow. And and uh so I had to I had to disavow that vow. I had to let the let all that junk go. And uh um anyway, moving on. We it repentance is essential for relationship, you know. Absolutely. And uh confession and repentance go hand in hand and and uh leads to better lives.

Stacy Jo 22:55

It does. The third struggle is specifically for couples, discipling each other when you are both in the middle of your own challenging struggles. You know, it's easy to encourage your spouse when you're lifted up where you belong. Because love lifts us there, right?

Allen 23:16

Love lifts us up where we belong. Sing it, babe. Officer and a gentleman. Good stuff.

Stacy Jo 23:23

But but it's a lot harder when you're both running on empty. But that that's when it matters the most.

Allen 23:32

That's when it really matters that's when it does matter the most, absolutely. So and what we've what we've discovered uh through those seasons is that discipleship and marriage, it stops looking like theological conversations and it starts looking like let's pray about this together right now. Or I see what you're carrying, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm with you. And sometimes the most spiritually formative thing that we can do uh for a spouse with each other is it's Is just remain present in uh when the tough stuff hits. And that that's that's Christ like love and action. And like my mama used to say, often actions speak louder than words.

Stacy Jo 24:24

Right. And praying for them when they're going through that tough stuff, whether you're praying with them or just for them.

Allen 24:32

Right.

Stacy Jo 24:33

But praying with them and for them is so important.

Allen 24:37

It is. It is.

Stacy Jo 24:38

So as we begin to wind down here, I mean we got three practical things y'all can start doing in your home right away. You can start doing them today, as a matter of fact.

Allen 24:48

Today. Today the simplicity here cannot be overstated. First, we got to include God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as part of our regular conversations, not just the special moments. When uh when something hard happens, we got to talk about what God might be trying to show us through it. When something good happens, we we name it as the favor of God. The fog. The fog. The favor of God. Uh and we name it out loud. We declare it out loud. If something's jumping off the page during your devotional, that's what the Lord wants you to see. That's what the Holy Spirit's trying to show you. So when that happens, share it in your regular conversations. That's Deuteronomy 6 in practice. That's allowing the truth of the word to come off the page and land on the tablets of our heart. That's that's it. That's where it's at. Uh faith woven into ordinary fabric of our day.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Yeah.

Allen 25:53

Go do that. Be that guy. And uh you start or that girl. Or or that gal, yeah. You want to be that person.

Stacy Jo 26:02

Right. Um second, you know, for our couples, pray together over all things. Sit down and actually pray about what is keeping you up at night. Pray over your kids by name. Pray over the finances, the decisions you're making, and and those everyday challenges that you're dealing with. You know, there's something that happens when a husband and wife kneel before God together that moves as He intends to move with us. Living life together in the name of Jesus is one of the most bonding and spiritually formative things that you can do for your marriage. And it feels awkward at first. I think it felt awkward for us at first. It felt awkward for me at first, anyhow. I'll speak in first person. But we did it anyway. Because it it's worth every bit of awkward.

Allen 26:54

It is worth every bit of awkward. Third, this is for the parents. Give your kids a faith framework for real life. Not just Sunday life, not yeah, real life. When they're facing something hard, like a a friendship's falling apart, uh, they're experiencing a a disappointment or or a fear. And there's all kinds of that out there. Uh they're fa your kids are facing fears. Uh bring that bring God into the conversation. Bring faith into the conversation because faith is the antithesis of fear. It's the polar opposite of fear. Uh respond with authentic faith. You know, tell them. Tell him you know why you I don't know why this is happening, but I know God is a good God and we trust him. And ask him, do you trust him? And let him see you wrestle with faith in real time. Let him see you decide for the truth, even when it's hard. That's what Proverbs 22, 6 is talking about. That is training that stays with them long after they fly the nest.

Stacy Jo 28:12

Right. Because the goal of discipling in the home is not having, as we've said, you know, it's not about being perfect. It's not about having perfectly behaved kids or a marriage that looks great from the outside. The goal is a household where Jesus is genuinely known.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Yeah.

Stacy Jo 28:30

Where faith is real and not just performed. Where the people under your roof are being formed into who God created them to be because they live with someone who's committed to becoming that themselves. And that is the most powerful legacy you can leave. And it starts inside your own four walls.

Allen 28:50

It does. It starts right here, right now.

Stacy Jo 28:52

Yeah.

Allen 28:54

So this week, y'all got one thing, one thing this week. Have one Jesus conversation in your home that you would not normally have. Have it with your spouse, with your kids, with with whoever's there. Not a formal devotional, not someone else's perspective, but your perspective with your family. Just an honest God is in this conversation about something real that's happening in your lives right now. See what God does with that.

Stacy Jo 29:27

Right. Because discipleship in the home does not require a program or a perfect plan. And we're not saying, you know, that you shouldn't have a devotional, you know, a pre-made devotional. Do that too. That's great. But it requires intentional presence and a willingness to let God be part of the everyday.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Right.

Stacy Jo 29:48

Your home is a kingdom environment. So make sure you treat it like one.

Allen 29:54

Right.

Stacy Jo 29:55

So, babe, will you pray us out?

Allen 29:57

I will, but it's not always about someone else's perspective. You know, I think, you know, like uh we mentioned in the last episode, just ask a question.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Yeah.

Allen 30:05

Ask a question and and bring and bring uh our triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit into that conversation. I think that's a a better way to do it. So yeah, I will absolutely pray us out. And we just, Father, we just thank you. Uh we thank you for guiding us uh to lead our homes and discipleship moments that that you designed. We thank you for consistency in the ordinary moments. We we thank you for giving us humility to own it when we get it wrong. Uh we thank you for giving us the courage to bring you into all conversations, into the hard conversations, into the honest conversations, into the into the conversations that form the people that we love the most. We thank you for being present in those conversations. We thank you for letting our homes be the place where where faith's not just talked about, but it's genuinely lived out on a daily basis. Thank you for letting that life, the the genuine in-house discipleship life, shape our children, shape our spouses, shape ourselves and and anyone who walks through our door. And we we thank you and and we and we trust you, and we love you, Father. We love you, Jesus, we love you, Holy Spirit, and we pray all this as we yield to you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Stacy Jo 31:41

Amen. So, friends, episode four is coming right around the corner, and we are talking about multiplying leaders, not just followers, because there's a difference between building a following and raising up people who can go do it themselves.

Allen 31:55

So yeah.

Stacy Jo 31:57

So don't miss it.

Allen 31:58

Don't miss that one. Until then, y'all stay faithfully invested because when you do, God brings the increase. He does. God bless you. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining us on Faithfully Invested with Alan and Stacy Joe. If today's conversation encouraged you, challenged you, or helped you see your calling more clearly, don't keep it to yourself.

Stacy Jo 32:21

That's right. Share it with a friend, leave a five-star review, and keep leaning into God's blueprint for your life, your leadership, and your legacy. So until next time, remember when you invest in his kingdom, he brings the increase.