How To Effectively Lead Your Family Team with Jeremy Pryor

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug Smith interviews Jeremy Pryor, Founder of Family Teams and several other businesses and non-profit organizations. Jeremy shares timely insight on how to lead your family team effectively. 

7 Key Take-Aways from Episode 266

1. Family Teams is an organization that seeks to restore the Biblical blue print of family.
Culture redefined family and the church went along. Now the family unit is suffering. Family Teams wants to change that and restore the Biblical model of family.

2. Jeremy shares their sabbath.
The family meal (Shabbat) is a kick-off to our sabbath. Jeremy shares, in-depth, their sabbath meal, and how it’s created a lasting and impactful family tradition.

3. What does Sabbath look like for you? 

• “The goal is to find your off button” - Jeremy Pryor

It’s not easy to rest. It takes work and intentionality to take a full day off and not do things that feel like work. The important thing is to know that it takes time to find your “off-button”.

4. Jeremy talks about the 7 Day Rhythm. 

Families in America are burnt-out. We need a restrain & framework for our family unit that helps them sustain effectiveness. God gave us the “Week” as that framework.

Learning how to manage your week, one day at a time, is God’s model for your family. 

It happens through week by week planning and coordination. Each week is set up by a weekly family Team Meeting.

“Many family problems are the accumulation of broken systems.” - Jeremy Pryor

5. Family is defined as a multigenerational team on mission.

There has to be clarity around the mission of your family, so that there is a sense of purpose in your family. It’s not family as the mission… It’s family on mission. In the end, we have to realize that it’s not about us and that we live for something greater.

6. Reward. Correction. Discipline. 

This is the way the adult works. Our adult lives are ordered by this process. Why, then, do we try to raise our kids without these three important elements. There’s a skill to training and raising children. We should be devoted to sharpening that skill. 

7. Lead Your Family.

My hope is that fathers and mothers would see themselves as the heads of their families. You don’t leave your family when you go to work. You represent your family and you lead your family in your actions away from your family. 

Links mentioned:

• FamilyTeams.com 
• Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family by Jeremy Pryor & Jeff Bethke
• 31 Creative Ways to Build Your Family Team: Practical Everyday Tools That Will Make an Immediate Difference By Jeremy Pryor
• Father's Compass: 21 Insights to Guide Dads Through the Journey of Fatherhood by Jeremy Pryor
• Family Teams Weekend Online Conference

About Jeremy Pryor:
Jeremy met his wife April in Jerusalem in 1997 when they were students. They’ve spent the last 20 years building Team Pryor together. The have five kids: Kelsey, Jackson, Sydney, Elisa and Kaira. They live in a multigenerational house with Jeremy parents and April’s mom in Fort Thomas, KY just a few mile

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 0:08

What's up podcast family. And welcome to another episode of the[inaudible] leadership podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host. And today's episode is brought to you by my good friends at Henny jewelers. They are my jeweler of choice. And if you are in need of a good jewelers, check them out@hennyjewelers.com and today's episode, you were in for a real treat. You're going to hear my interview with Jeremy Pryor, cofounder of family teams. This is a ministry that I just discovered earlier this year, actually, as a result of another interview that I did with Brad Cooper and this ministry, family teams has changed my life, my wife's life and our family's life. And listen, this episode is all about leading your family and leaders. We need to lead our families well, and I believe family teams can give you the tools to do that. So get ready for that. And if you're new to the podcast, welcome, we're so glad you're here. And if you've been listening to us for a while and this episode, or our podcast has made an impact on your life, it would mean the world to me. If you would share it with others and leave us a rating and review on iTunes, that really does help us grow our audience and add value to more leaders. So thank you in advance for that. And I wanted to let you know that currently at L three leadership, we are looking for and recruiting mastermind facilitators. One of the five things we do is we have mastermind groups that meet, and these are intentional groups of leaders that meet together for an entire year, every two weeks. And the whole purpose of the group is to go through life together and to challenge each other and hold each other accountable for going after our goals, I've been in mastermind groups for over six years. It's changed my life. I've been leading mastermind groups for over six years. That's changed my life. And so if you're listening to this and you want to be a leader of leaders, if you want to make an impact in leaders' lives and also grow yourself, I want to encourage you and challenge you to become an L three mastermind facilitator. It's super easy. We will train you. We will give you everything you need to lead your group. And in fact, we will also compensate you. You actually make commission off of your group. So if you're interested in leading an L three mastermind group, go to L three leadership.org forward slash lead. Again, that's all three leadership.org forward slash lead. And with that being said, let me just tell you a little more bit more about Jeremy. Before we dive into this interview. I mentioned this earlier, but I was interviewing Brad Cooper at an earlier episode of the podcast. And he had mentioned, he said, Hey, me and my family had been following family teams to a T and it's changed our family. And so I looked up family teams and, uh, saw Jeremy. And he had a book called family revision, and I bought it in my wife and I read it and it transformed the way that we view family and, and lead our family and it's changed everything. And so when Jeremy agreed to doing an interview, I could not be more excited cause I had so many questions I wanted to ask them. And so you're going to learn a ton about leading your family and leader. I am telling you if you lead your family, you need to listen to this episode. So listen to it, listen to it with your spouse. And, uh, and after you listened to it, make sure you connect with family teams. Cause I believe it can transform the trajectory of your family's life. So with that being said, let's dive right into the interview, enjoy my interview with Jeremy Pryor. And I'll be back at the end with a few announcements. Well, Hey Jeremy, thank you so much for being willing to do this interview. I've been looking forward to this for a while and I'm just excited to learn from you. And for those of you may not know who Jeremy is. Jeremy, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Speaker 3: 3:25

Yeah. Hey Doug. So good to be here. Yeah. Um, so my name is Jeremy. I live in Northern Kentucky, grew up in the Seattle area, have five kids. Um, me and my wife met in Jerusalem. And uh, ever since we've been trying to figure out what is God's blueprint for family. So a big part of what we do is a thing called family teams. Um, and we're pretty entrepreneurial family. We start a bunch of companies and uh, so between kind of our ministry here locally, our, uh, family teams, organization, and some of the other companies, that's a, that takes up a lot of our time.

Speaker 2: 3:55

Yeah. Can you, can you just give a bigger overview for family teams? I was just telling you, you know, prior to jumping into the interview, uh, I was interviewing Brad Cooper. Who's a mutual friend and he had mentioned family teams. I had never heard of it. He said their family follows it, what you guys do to a T. And so I looked it up and my wife and I bought your book, bought the family planning calendar, basically bought everything that you guys produce and I've been hooked line and sinker since then, it's really been transformational for our family. So I can't wait to dive into this book. Can you just talk a little bit more about what you guys do with family teams?

Speaker 3: 4:26

Yeah. So family team is an interesting organization. It's really a attempting to restore the biblical blueprint of family. And one of the observations we've made is that, um, as the culture has redefined family, um, the church has sort of gone along with the culture's redefinition so that the current, uh, sort of cultural definition of a good family is a springboard for individual success. And so, you know, that you've had, you're really built a great family when your kids are launched out and they're doing healthy and well, and they're off on their own and they hit the reset button every generation. So that's kind of our idea of a good family kind of in a Western culture. Um, and that idea of family, you won't find that anywhere in scripture. Um, in fact, it's a very, very new idea, um, and throughout the world and classical cultures and certainly throughout the pages of the scriptures, um, a way of thinking about how the Bible defines family is a multigenerational team on mission. So its primary goal isn't necessarily to launch out individuals and hit the reset button every generation, but to build a multigenerational family line, uh, and it's to work together as a team across generations, uh, for the mission, of course, the mission now is to make disciples and spread the gospel. Um, but I think that, uh, the idea that, that, uh, family is really just there for the individual success of each of its members has been incredibly toxic. And it's been a experiment that is terribly backfired and all it's just statistics on family, um, that you want to look into where this idea of family is being, um, is being followed really demonstrate that, that it really isn't, it's not compatible with the original design of family. And so family teams is really number one, trying to get the word out about that. Hey, there's a choice. How do you want to build a family? What do you think a family is? But if you want to build a multigenerational team on a mission, then you need to be re-equipped. And so all of family teams is really trying to give all the tools that multigenerational family teams need to make the transition.

Speaker 2: 6:22

Yeah. And like I said, when I read family revision and your book totally blew my mind, because again, that is our culture and it's so normal that it's just all about the individual and my wife and I would say are still, you know, we're just getting into your content. We're about six months in to transforming our family. Um, but yeah, like you said, we have to be totally re-equipped and change everything we thought about family before. And so if this is a podcast for leaders and so, you know, what advice do you have for parents who this may be a totally revolutionary idea? Where can they start to actually start leading their family team?

Speaker 3: 6:56

Yeah. Well, I think, I think really you have to figure out what you believe about family ideas matter ideas have consequences. And if you have a bad idea of family, it's sort of like a bad software program running your mind, um, then everything you're going to build is going to be designed around that blueprint. So I really think the first step is to kind of unlearn or relearn. That's the reason why I called it, the book, family revision. It's like you have to revise and create a new vision for what you think family is. And so that requires a little bit of, you know, thought research. That's why he wrote the book. I'll um, we have, you know, some introductory podcast as well. If you prefer to get that an odd kind of an audio form. Um, we have a button on our website of filming teams, our comm calls start here, which kind of walk people through kind of the paradigm transition. Um, but it's really important that very quickly into this transition is if you decide to build a multigenerational team on mission, that's the kind of family, um, the, you decide that you want. Then I really think you have to bring online tools very quickly because every tool in our culture is designed to build our family as a collection of individuals. Uh, and so if you're gonna try to do this, you've got to find new tools. And so we all, we also have like a conference. We do, um, a different plate parts of the country cause of COVID, it's going online and we got to come in in December. Um, but it's where we really give you what we think of as the three most sort of foundational tools for family teams, um, and their team time table is kind of what we think about it. So team, you, you write a family mission statement and some family values, um, you know, time, you really rethink the way you, you designed family life around, uh, family rhythms and then table, um, probably the easiest, the quickest, and one of the most, um, accessible tools you can implement is crafting a weekly family meal. That's designed to, uh, ex help every member of the family experience, their family ness, you know, their, what it means to be a son or a daughter or a father or mother grandfather multigenerational meal that, that, you know, as your kids grow up and you have grandkids, this is the weekly sort of gathering point for the family team. Um, that is a really awesome tool that a lot of people dive into first. So those are, that's kind of the way we talk about making the transition.

Speaker 2: 9:10

Yeah. And specifically I want to dive into the table first, cause this has been huge. Like, you know, we, as a family have always had dinner together pretty much every night, but the intentionality that you put into your weekly dinner and the weekly Sabbath, like I just want to dive into and have you share what you guys actually do partially. Cause I, you know, I've been trying to copy everything you do. I listened to, I think your daughter did a podcast or two of your daughters and listening to their experiences, kids on how they experienced those nights with your family. You know, I D I have a four year old and a two year old girl and you know, I'm like, man, if this is the way that my girls, you know, 20 years from now talk about their experience, like, I mean, it just brings me to tears. So can you just talk about what that looks like in your family with like over the years?

Speaker 3: 9:54

Yeah. Well, it's true. You know, so you mentioned, uh, the way we do our family meal is really a kickoff to our Sabbath. Um, and that's an option. A lot of people choose to do that as well. That definitely can do like the Sunday lunch. Um, if that's kinda much more convenient and fits your family culture better, I don't lose any rules around this. Um, but our family has spent a lot of time in Israel. And so we got very excited about the idea of a Sabbath dinner. So in, in, in, uh, in Jewish culture, the Sabbath begins at sundown the night before the Sabbath. And so for some Christians, they keep a Sabbath on Sunday. And so that would mean their meal or the Sabbath kickoff Saturday night, if they keep it in that kind of evening, the evening way, um, for our family that we did that for about seven years and in the beginning stages, it was really, really simple. I mean, when you're starting new rhythms, you don't want to get overwhelmed. Sustainability is important. So when we had little kids, we were just like, what kind of meal would we be so easy and so fun. And so life-giving that, that we just would do it over and over again. Um, and so, so I started out with paper plates, you know, real basic stuff. Um, we, we really a candle, we would light, we'd say a couple of blessings, we'd eat this meal together. Um, and then we'd kept upgrading it, you know, then we added like, um, you know, sparkling, grape juice, you know, like, uh, the kids were like, of course then when you start to like lose the rhythm, your kids are like, wait, what's that thing we'd do with sparkling grape, you know, it's are holding accountable. Um, and then after, you know, you know, a number of months, uh, we, we decided we wanted this to be, you know, a little more, a little more formal. So I went out and bought a special, you know, a special candle, special scent. I also bought some special dishes that were on sale for almost nothing at some store somewhere, but they, they made them different, you know, so we've got those out. And, uh, and so it started just kind of slowly evolving about seven years into it. We switched from, uh, to Friday night, um, and, uh, and doing to our Sabbath day or day that's done on, on, on Saturday. And so, and then we started involving, um, one side of the family every month. Then we started, you know, involving, you know, as we got better and better at hosting these meals and they got more and more life-giving we just kept on growing them now, uh, today it looks quite a bit different. So we've got five kids, you know, some adults in the house. Now my, my daughter, Kelsey, she's 21 all the way down to 12. Um, both sides of our parents started coming every week. I, uh, my aunt, my kids' great aunt, um, and other family members, extended family. My nephew comes every week. Um, my sister comes a lot of times with, uh, with, with her partner and bloods or people will, uh, so we have a large fan and we invite other guests. So we have 15 to 20, it's kinda more of a formal meal. So the way we kick it off, I have a Google Sabbath reflection that I say at the beginning. Then we have some, we sing a song, a lot of candle, my wife, you know, there's a blessing of the Lord over the candle. Then we are the oldest members of the family will bless the sons, you know, oldest, oldest, um, sort of patriarchs. And my dad typically. Um, and then, and then also the oldest, a woman in the family will, will bless the, all the daughters. Uh, then we have this meal it's really fun, relaxed. The, you know, the kids help us. We do like this crazy dance party at the end where they clean up. Um, then we, we, uh, we have like,

Speaker 2: 13:04

There is it that I think there was a link in one of the courses I took with you. There's like a five minutes song on YouTube. I think it just called Shabbat Shalom. Is that, is that the song you guys danced to

Speaker 3: 13:15

It's changes, you know, cause of course he gets sick of songs, but yeah, I loved that one. That guy drops a really, really good beat in that song. And so it's really, uh, it's really fun to clean and clean the dishes to that one.

Speaker 2: 13:24

Yeah. My daughters go wild. We play that every week and we just love it. And actually my two year old, can't say Shabbat Shalom. So she says Shabaka bum, ah, it's just so much fun. So we have a blast, sorry to interrupt, but I'm just curious. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:39

Yeah. And then we just hang out and, you know, we usually build a fire outside or inside, depending on what's going on. Um, have a dessert, you know, and, uh, it's, it's just really, it's really fun, really relaxing. There's a lot of, we do a lot of, um, reflecting on, on our family story on our Shabbat. So, um, so like tonight is a Shabbat and my, uh, my youngest daughter, Kira was turning 12. And so it's her big, you know, Shabbat night. And so, um, when we have a birthday Shabbat, which is probably about 20% of them at this point, um, when, uh, we didn't, are you kind of in the, during the meal, you didn't your glass. And then somebody says something about whoever and we all toast, whatever that thing is, you know? So, um, so whatever Kira is into or whatever kind of character traits are coming out of her. Um, so we do that. Another thing that happened a lot of times is the, the elder generation tells family stories. Um, so like last Shabbat, my mom, um, you know, it was around the time of my grandmother's birthday. She died, you know, over 20 years ago. Um, but of course my mom is still grieving the loss of her mother, um, and wants to share stories. And so she did a whole slideshow presentation for our family after our dinner, um, where we talked about, uh, about what this is woman meant to our family, which she was extremely devout believer and had a huge impact on me, um, and in our family line. And so we want to, we want to remember her, we want our kids to see pictures. We want our kids to really understand the story where they came from, that they have deep roots in the faith, um, and deep roots in his family. So, um, so that, that kinda stuff happens all the time on our Sabbaths.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Yeah. I'm just curious for, for the blessings. Uh, cause I think you guys just Google, if I, maybe your daughter said, you guys just Google with the blessing and it's pretty similar, I guess I don't have enough context, but is it a different blessing every time? Is it the same blessing that the matriarch and patriarch, uh, but, uh, how they bless the children? I'm just curious.

Speaker 3: 15:28

Yeah, we definitely leave it open ended, but they tend to like the one I wrote and I took, you know, part of it from a traditional Jewish blessing and just kind of added an end to it. So, so like over the songs that we say, may the Lord make you like Ephraim and Manasseh, which is a traditional blessing, um, that comes from Genesis 48. And then we say, may give you the faith of Abraham, the heart of David and the righteousness of Christ as you build our family from generation to generation. Um, so we really want them to feel you're a part of something that has been going on for thousands of years. Uh, this family line has gotten, you know, all of our family lines go all the way back. Right. Um, and that what you're in, see the sense that you're getting is, is that you're a part of this, this, this long line, uh, that Christ has redeemed. Um, so similarly over the daughters, we say, may the Lord make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. And may he give you the heart of Ruth, the faith of Mary and the righteousness of Christ as you build our family from generation to generation. So those are the two blessings we wrote. Um, people are free to steal those. Um, we stole half of those blessings as well. Um, and also just, you know, we also say about every blessing and anything we do, anyone can feel free to, uh, to riff, you know, um, there's no legalism about Shabbat for us, um, where it's all an enjoyment and a gift. And so whatever you want to do feel free, we'd love to, for you to put your stamp on it. Right.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Yeah. And you mentioned Sabbath too, that this often is the precursor to your Sabbath. What does Sabbath look like for your family? I mean, Sabbath, something our family did not implement until this year and it's been life changing, but I'm just curious, you know, as far as your family team, what, what do your Sabots look like?

Speaker 3: 17:04

Yeah, so the goal is to try to, I call it finding your off button. And one of the biggest misconceptions about having a South day is that, um, that it's easy to rest, but it actually takes work to rest. It's, it's a, it's not, you know, some people just think all you do is just stop working, you know, but after about an hour, you like started looking around and saying, okay, what do I do now? Like, like you actually were weird kind of creatures and we need, you know, do we need to focus our attention in productive ways? And a lot of us don't know how to, I don't know how to fully recover if given an, you know, full 24 hours of rest. So, so that's a journey. And for us, it's been a journey for each of our kids, for our family as a whole, what is going to cause us to really rest. Um, and so the way that I've approached crafting a day of rest is I break out the day of rest into four or five chunks. So, um, obviously there's the Friday night chunk, which I spend just hanging out with the family and, you know, having that chill time with them and, you know, usually that leads right into going to sleep. Um, then there's a Saturday morning chunk and the, for me, you know, that looks very much like, um, you know, a cup of coffee going for a long walks spending a lot of time with the Lord, you know, journaling, prayer, you know, um, and usually around 10 or 11 o'clock, I want to hang out with one of my family. I'm very introverted. So that, that really charges me up. And then I, I usually take one of my kids or April, I will go out to breakfast, you know, to kind of a brunch. Um, when our kids were little, sometimes we do this, you know, with the whole family, all the kids, we go out to a, to a brunch of it, a couple of restaurants that were really kid friendly, um, that we'd like to do that too. And then we get home around one and then just kind of relax for another couple of hours. Um, when our kids were little again, we would take, we'd usually do some kind of outdoor activity. Um, after that, now that our kids are older and they all have their own rhythms that are really restful to them. And, and, uh, we, I tend to, uh, to spend that time, you know, again, reading, um, kind of doing something that's more recharging for me. And then usually I grabbed one of my kids and do a one-on-one around two or three. I take him out to like ice cream or something. I go to a park. Um, and then, and then, uh, around five or six o'clock, I usually take a nap after that. And five or six o'clock me and April go out for our date night. Uh, our kids all have game night with Papa. My dad loves board games. So he's crafted this whole Saturday night, you know, with crazy snacks and, uh, you know, um, and so they all play this Epic board games, uh, while April and I are out for a date night. That's what it looks like now, again, when we, when our kids were a little, it looked very different. Um, you know, we had, you know, as soon as we could, we would have, you know, whatever cereal stuff out so that we didn't have to be constantly. Sometimes we, we had seasons where we do with the big pancake breakfast, you know, we tried lots of things. And as our kids, uh, went through stages, we just kept, kept asking these questions, you know, what worked, what was life giving? What felt like work, you know, and how can we tweak it? Um, and so that's what ours looked like now. Um, you know, when our kids were really little, April would always leave for about three or four hours, every Sabbath. And I would take over the kids and I found ways to like, keep them somewhat occupied while I could rest, but I wanted her to have like a really big break. Um, but yeah, network is take care of themselves. There's no diapers and so not easier. Um, but breaking it up into those segments and then constantly having the expectation. That's going to take time to find your off button and, and really having consistent conversations about what's working, what to try again, what to like change. That's how I think most people can, you know, over the course of several months, find a Sabbath rhythm that really is life giving for their family at the stage that they're in. But don't think it's easy because it is difficult to figure out how to really, um, take a family through a whole day of rest where everyone's like really rested and had a good time.

Speaker 2: 20:51

This is so good. And I can't speak enough about how life giving this whole practice has been in my family. So again, just thank you so much for your ministry. Um, you've mentioned several times the importance of rhythm, and I know you guys were really big on a seven day rhythm. Can you just talk to us about rhythms and why it's important and more families can do about it?

Speaker 3: 21:09

Yeah, well, you guys know that, that in our culture, families are very burnt out. There's a huge problem that families have with, you know, just feeling completely overwhelmed. Um, and, and so it, a lot of times when people even find out about the family teams concept is it feels almost like a whole another project, you know, and they're always like, Oh my gosh, I'm already underwater. We're already trying to figure out how to survive. Um, you know, now it feels like there's more things we want to add to our routine. You know, how do we, how do we do this in a, in a way that doesn't totally overwhelm our family? So one of the things that, that, that we need to begin to have is, is a constraint on, uh, the framework for how to design and how to order our lives. Like what's the best framework for creating that because what we tend to do, especially in Christian culture, just heap more obligations on people. Why aren't you serving the poor? Why aren't you doing evangelism? Are you discipling? Why aren't you showing up to church at least three times a week? You know, why aren't you, blah, blah, blah, like fill in the blank, spend more time with your kids, go on date nights. I mean, how does anyone keep up with all these expectations? And that's what we don't tend to give people a framework or a way to actually succeed at balancing all of the demands of their life in a way that is actually sustainable. Um, and so the framework, I believe that is been divinely given to us, and it's been told to us multiple times in the scriptures is the week. Uh, we don't design our, our rhythms around a day or a month or a year, or just endless activities, or going after some giant goal. We craft a week, God has given us seven days to live a good life. And so if you can figure out how to maturely steward a seven day cycle, you can live a great life. You can, you can accomplish whatever the things that God's given. You can steward the things he's given you. Um, we all have the same amount of time. And so learning how to manage a week and living into a seven day rhythm, um, I think really does help families figure out and make those hard trade off decisions. Cause you can't do everything in a week. And so you have to let some things go, you have to really double down and make something succeed. Um, and so part of what we try, we try to train people to do. And we have a course called the seven day family is to how do you, how do you begin to do that? You know, how do you begin to live in his seven days? And that's, that's, uh, for us as well, it's been just really life giving and it's allowed us to push into so many things together as a team, without burning out.

Speaker 2: 23:30

Yeah. And, uh, I know that you guys, uh, have also produced a family planner that's in a weekly rhythm, which has been so helpful. My wife and I now have weekly team meetings, which is awesome. We used to call them staff meetings. So team meetings, that language alone was very helpful. Um, but I'm just curious, what do your family meetings look like as a family? Yeah, so

Speaker 3: 23:50

You have family meeting every week at 9:30 AM on Sunday. Um, and we start with highs and lows and so everyone goes around and one of the things I want to train my kids to do during that time is really listen. Like when somebody says something that surprises you like, Oh, I didn't know you liked that that much or so what was your biggest high this last week? What was your biggest, you know, low? Um, let's really talk about what's going on. And so we listen to each other that takes about, you know, uh, 15 minutes at least, or just kind of reviewing last week. Um, and then, uh, and then we go into this thing. I just, I have an acronym cab Cav, so the C stands for the calendar. So we just like, what's coming up the next two or three, three weeks, you know, what do we have on the calendar? Um, that sort of like elicits announcements. So it's like, what, what didn't you guys know about? Let me tell you, this is what's going on. And our one of our businesses, or this is what's going on in our schedule and these people coming into town, this is what we want to host. Uh, always naturally leads into conversation about vision. Um, so there's, a lot of times we will do something on the calendar and it's like, one of the things that we don't want to do is just, um, kind of be tyrants over our kids. Like we want our kids to be excited and understand the why behind everything we're doing as a family. But a lot of times we don't take the time to really cast a vision. And so what happens inevitably every week is that there'll be something on that calendar and you look around the room and they'll, you'll see some confusion. You might even hear somebody like, maybe like, really, why are we doing that? You know, maybe like not excitement or energy around it. And so we'll always look over me and say, okay, I think, I think you need to cast a vision about this. I'm like, okay guys, let me tell you why we're doing this. And you know, and they can put, you can push back if you don't think this is a good reason or this isn't a good trade off we're making, but I really, I can see. I haven't, you don't really understand that the bigger story behind us. So this is just opportunity for me to do a lot of vision casting. This is why this is really consistent with where we're headed as a family. This is why it fits into some of our, you know, our pillars, our values as a family. So, so we have highs and lows. Then we do calf calendar announcement, vision. And the last thing we do in our family meeting is what's one big improvement. What's one area of improvement that we can try to make this week as a family what's not. And what I was, the way that conversation always starts, it's really simple. I just turn to April and say, what's not working like what broke this week? Um, you know, it was a kitchen, a mess, or with peop kids living things out or was an attitude issues, or whatever's going on, like what, what is, what is breaking our family right now? Um, and so then we present. So we try to really tease out the problem as well as we can identify it together. Like this is, this is the problem. Then we go from that to brainstorming solutions. We would really want the kids to have ownership over, you know, what, what those solutions could look like. We have older kids. And so this, you know, they're much more involved in this process now than they were when their little, um, and so oftentimes we'll even create rewards or ways of kind of keeping track of this improvement. Um, but we'll try to define the solution and really lean into it for a, and then we'll check on it again next week and see if that worked, did that fix the problem? Is, are we making progress? Was that a disaster? Do we need to start over? Um, you know, and so we've, we've become this process, which I think actually comes from, um, the agile world of, of software development, I guess, is where I first heard this idea of like, of really the one improvement in a meeting a week. Uh, this has been, you know, you can imagine what happens over, you know, you two or 300 of those cycles, you know, over several years, um, you know, uh, youth solve in, you know, so many of these pesky problems, um, that you, your family just starts to thrive. Uh, cause a lot of times we don't understand, you know, that family has these problems, many family problems or just the accumulation of broken systems or things that have not really been thought about. Um, and you get 20 or 30 of those going and you just feel like your family's a mess, which is understandable, but, and you can't solve all those things at once. But man, I've over a year of solving one, one, one a week or one every two or three weeks even, um, you will make such incredible track action against those things that you, that you will start to see the ship just riding itself. Um, so those are the three things we do during our family.

Speaker 2: 27:59

That's huge that I have not asked that last question. So, uh, that'll be a fun family meeting this week and hopefully will be, we'll get two or 300 of those under our belt and be fully functional. So thank you for sharing that. And, and the last thing that you mentioned was vision and the importance of getting away and crafting a family vision, the culture you want to create. And so can you just talk about that process and how you can create that culture that you want in your family?

Speaker 3: 28:23

Yeah. So if you're seeing family as a multigenerational team on mission, you have to articulate the mission. Um, a lot of times people look at this and they're a little bit worried that we're talking about family as mission. In other words, sometimes when people get excited about family, they become very inward. It's all about them. It's not about the gospel. It's not about reaching the world. It's not about serving others. It's about what's going on inside of our family. That's called family as mission. But what we believe is family on mission that your kids need it. They, their energies need to be pushed out of the family, but you need to do that together as a team. So in order to do that, you have to say, well, what are the big goals of the family? What are the big assignments? The Lord is giving our family and can we articulate some of those things? And sometimes those are things that, you know, a husband or wife may have that the Lord has given them that they're working on and that they want to, this is a team thing, let's it God's called all of us to this. Um, it could also be, as your kids are getting older, there could be, it'd be clear that their assignments or things that they're there on. And so I'm calling those things out when we do a lot of that conversation through an annual summit that we do as a family. So we go away for two, three days or after the first of the year, and just talk in detail about how are we doing, you know, with our different assignments with our family mission, with our values are, is the Lord bringing other things into our family? How are you guys doing? Are you excited and passionate about these things? Has God given you other assignments that we should be helping you or working together as a team to accomplish. Um, and so we're, we're really, we want to, we want the Lord to give us more and more opportunities to seek the kingdom together as a family. And, um, in, you know, you see this of course process always being done in corporate settings at businesses and churches and nonprofits, they all have missions, but few people think about families as having mission, uh, which is ironic because in Genesis one, when God had the first mission, which was, you know, to, to be fruitful, multiply, fulfill the earth and subdue it into rule, he gave that to a family, didn't create a nonprofit, didn't create a, a business. He created a family to accomplish that mission. Um, and so we, we need to understand that that families, as well as organizations need missions. Um, and so it takes some time and thought and reflection and, you know, maybe some time to an offsite kind of what you do in a, even in a organizational setting to figure that out as a family.

Speaker 2: 30:40

Yeah. And I imagine when your kids were younger, was it just you and your wife getting away or did you include them even when they were little?

Speaker 3: 30:46

Yeah, we, when they were really little, it was just me and my wife. Um, and we definitely wanted to talk to them about introduce them to what we felt like the Lord was calling us. And then as I got older, you know, eight, nine, 10, they started becoming more and more a part of those conversations. Um, and then, you know, at this point it's just, you know, we're all together as a team talking about this stuff. And our goal to you guys is man, when, when things are, we're so excited about, you know, the transition of having, you know, um, in-laws new family members where we get to, they're bringing their ideas, their missions, their callings into the family team that we're able to help and propel those things. They're able to help propel. Like this is the way I think it's supposed to work. And so, um, so a lot of times when we look at the little kid stage, you know, you're, you're, you're really stewarding what you and your wife or you and your husband can really handle or figure out together as a team, um, in terms of those conversations. But, but that's a very short season, right? Most of your life is going to be spent your team just going to keep multiplying, growing, um, as, as your kids get married and have kids and you know, this thing that becomes multigenerational.

Speaker 2: 31:47

Yeah. I have to ask you about, you have five kids. Um, I, so I think me and my wife were pretty committed to three kids, uh, prior to like connecting with your ministry. But after reading your book, I'm like, we've gotta have like a hundred kids. I mean, how exaggerated, but I think we're at least committed to for now, you know, when you had this paradigm shift of what family looks like, did that increase the amount of kids you wanted to have them, maybe two persons?

Speaker 3: 32:09

No, not at all. It totally. I I'm me and my wife. We're both not kid people. So if we were a typical modern Western, maybe we would have two kids now for me, especially like I'm, neither of us are wired that way. Neither of us like serve in children's ministry or elementary education or any of that stuff. Like, like we are both like kind of entrepreneurial business leaders. Um, we we're, we're much more into that kind of stuff. So our family size is completely, um, a result of our, our belief about family. Like we think kids are incredible. Um, we see the little kid stage is not the end of parenting, but the beginning of the building of the family team. Um, and so we couldn't think of a more strategic investment than having lots of kids. Um, you know, because we had all C-sections, we had to stop at five, but we probably would have kept going if we could have. Um, so yeah, that's what I mean by ideas matter. People think that they're making these decisions sort of purely based on, you know, their own ideas, but they're really, like you just described Doug, like they're really based on your ideas about family and you change your ideas about family, then it has a cascade effect on everything else.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Well, if God blesses us with four, I'll make sure the fourth hour calls you at some point. And thanks to you that they're here because of, of your ministry. So it's interesting, you said you weren't, you weren't showing to people, but I am curious, you know, once you set that vision, you know, you have to train your kids and, you know, my kids are two and four. I w we have our number three on the way. Um, can you talk about training and discipline? I'm just curious, specific, or I'd be curious in all ages, but I'm specifically interested right now, you know, in the toddler age, how did you train and discipline your kids and your family?

Speaker 3: 33:46

Yeah, yeah, I did. I didn't really learn to love that stage. Um, cause I think that kids between the age of about 18 months and to about 12 years old, there's a beautiful stage in there where kids respond so well to two well-designed, um, systems of training. And, and so that's, I, I really poured myself into that. Um, try to really learn all the ways of doing that. And, um, you know, Jeff, Becky and I have a course called the skill of fatherhood where I break it down in lots and lots of detail, exactly how, but the basic, the basic idea. Um, the first thing to understand is that this, this, uh, responsibility of training is the primary thing that is told and given to the father of the family. It says, and you know, when Paul had one thing to say to fathers and Ephesians where he's going through the whole family, this is what he want to say to husbands, to wives, you know, to children, but he got to fathers and he said, fathers, train your children and the instruction of the Lord and do not exasperate them. Um, which is the most important thing you could say to a father. Who's raising children at that stage from 18 months to 12 years. Um, and so in that stage we created training systems. Um, and so the way that I think about training system, it has to have three components. It's got to have a, um, a discipline, a correction, and a reward, and then it, then you, so you have, you have, those are your tools for getting your kid's attention on whatever you're training them to do. And then you go ahead and train them and you have to w why don't, you should expect as a, sort of almost a Christian cultural thing of, you know, you, you just tell your kids what to do and you discipline them if they don't do it, um, that's not training, right? Uh, it starts with like, okay, you've got, are you got to clearly articulate what you want your child to do. You do want me to come when you call you on you to stop? When I say, no, do you need to be able to sit here, you know, in this blanket for up to 10 minutes, like that takes time and training. Like you gotta invest time. And especially as the father, you got to sit down each of your kids and do drills and work them through the process of learning, how to write, to do all the things you want them to do. And this is super fun. Like this should not be like this annoying process. This is like, great. We're going to stand up, right. When I get home, I wanna spend about 10 minutes training you in a new skill that I want you to learn, and there's going to be huge reward, or, you know, which, you know, huge to them could be just something as simple as a treat, or even when they're really little, just like, you know, loud praise. Yeah, yeah. You know how you did it. Um, and so when our kids go a little bit older past the age, about four, we had a system called the marble system. Um, and it both, it helps us create, um, it really helps us with that, that really Passkey category of training, which is a correction. Uh, he, if you guys are wondering what, like, so when you think about reward correction and discipline, every job that we expect an adult to do always has all three. So if you go get a job, your reward is you get a paycheck, your correction at any time, somebody sort of pulls you aside, says, Hey, this is how I want you to do. Not that way this way. And we all know there's discipline. You can get fired, you get written up, there's some serious. And so we don't expect that adult at any stage of maturity to do any job without having all three of those in tackle, we expect a two year old to be able to perfectly, you know, perform whatever kind of thing that we expect them to do without anything but a discipline. Um, and so I just, I that's, the first thing is just like, we don't understand that we don't, we, we, our expectations are really out of whack when it comes to how we're, how we're bringing up children. So you have to have a system that has all three. So, so for us, what we did was we had a Mar marble system for our kids, again about four or five is when it starts to work really well. Um, and so, and so there, there's something we're training them in. Um, you know, we don't want you to leave your, you and your shoes. Yeah. When you walk in the door, we want you to, you know, help every time we leave with your, you know, your baby sibling or whatever, the things that you're, you're worried about your thinking and about things that you want to praise them for every time they do it, just really awesome. We can put a marble in your bowl or thank you for, you know, you're answering. Yes. What can I, you know, what can I do to help put them on to, you're constantly rewarding them to get the 10 marbles. You take them out for ice cream, or you give them a book, or, you know, some kind of toy you have that's currency. And so you really want to protect that currency if they don't do what you've trained them to do again, the assumption is you've already articulated. You've already kind of taken them through, you know, 10 to 15 minutes worth of drills over the course of maybe a week. Um, you know, they know what it's, how to tie their shoes or where to put their shoes, or, you know, how to clear their plate or whatever it is. Um, then you say, okay, yeah, you didn't do it. Take a marble out of your bowl. You know, simple correction, not a big deal, not a big discipline. It's just like, Hey, that's, you know, you know how to do that. Right. And, and, you know, you know, we trained to do that and you could have earned a marble how you done that, but you didn't do it. So, you know, so we had a system like that. Um, and then discipline was about the marble system. You know, whatever we do for discipline would be, um, would be something, uh, something else. Cause we want to really protect that as like all, almost all positive. The correction was a little bit negative, but it was, uh, it wasn't very serious and our kids took that really well. So that's the system. Um, if you use corrections lot, you're doing a lot of good training. Discipline is fairly rare. Um, you know, and that was very much what we experienced. It wasn't, it wasn't a huge part of our development because we took a lot responsible for training our kids for rewarding them and for correcting them. Um, but certainly I think there does need to be a backstop of discipline, um, when your child is just will not pay attention to the training you're doing or, you know, so they understand that there is a step below, even the correction. Um, and so there's lots of sort of age appropriate ways to think about discipline. And so, um, in our course we have tons of different examples of each stage and lots of, lots of those. And obviously that's something that parents need to figure out what they feel comfortable with, you know, for us, there was, you know, whether it's like a little hand, hand smack when they're really little, um, you know, there's, we would certainly do like different kinds of timeouts, um, and, you know, take, take things away or, you know, things that they, they really, they really wanted, um, the lot, lots of different ones like that when they're really little, I, I did, my favorite discipline was sort of just grabbing their, their little cheeks and just like really getting their attention and saying no, you know, really loudly and clearly. Um, and so they're just like, you know, kind of startled at first. Uh, and then, you know, they might be a little upset and then, but that's, that's the kind of thing it's really about attention. You want, it needs to be very immediate. The younger, the kids are the more, the discipline has to be very much tied to whatever behavior you're, you're really, uh, trying to, um, try to help them come out of. Um, and so that's a, and I really think of this, this process of training as a skill, not as something, again, like we should all expect that we're really good at just because we're people, um, there's a skill to training children and it's something that we need to learn. There's lots and lots of tools don't get hung up. If there's a tool you've heard of that, you're like, I don't want to use that. That's fine. There's a thousand other ones. Um, but, but the fact is, especially for fathers, we need to be training our kids. We need to be having tools that are effective and it makes a huge difference in the life of a family to have trained children.

Speaker 2: 40:36

Jeremy, this has been so good. And if you're listening to this, I just want to encourage you again, you may be hearing all this and say, wow, that, that sounds overwhelming. Um, I really encourage you. Like you said, you go to family teams.com. There's a link that says start here. Uh, literally, that's all I did when I heard Brad talk about family teams, my wife and I bought the book, family revision. We read it together and we just started implementing some of the things Jeremy and his ministry, uh, have done, or Jeremy's talked about in this podcast. And, uh, I just can't encourage you enough, get this book connect with family teams. And, um, Jeremy, before we dive into the lightning round, which is more leadership questions, just for fun. Anything else you want to leave leaders with when it comes to leading their family teams today?

Speaker 3: 41:15

Well, I think, I think that probably the biggest concern I have for leaders is that they would, um, see themselves primarily as the head of their organization in a way that, that they don't see themselves as a head of their family. So one of the things I really talked to fathers and mothers, but especially, you know, dads that tend to do this a lot more, um, is that when you go to work, when you lead your organization, see yourself as the head of a family, uh, never take your father hat off, ever. Um, see, see that as sort of an umbrella, a hat in which you wear. So if you're going out to change the world, say I'm doing it as a representative of my family. I'm a, I am right now, the leader of the prior family, you know, and I am leading this organization on behalf of my family. Um, and so when you start to think that way you don't think about work as being something separated from your family, you see it as an expression of your family. And then what you really start to wonder is, well then how can I integrate my family into this? Because I'm saying I'm doing this as a representative of my family and they never, my kids never see my work. My kids never, my wife has never a part of what I do at work. Uh, everything's totally disintegrated. Everything is separated, um, that doesn't feel consistent. And so it starts with, I'm a father everywhere I go. Um, every time I'm leading, I'm leading as the father of my family. Um, I'm constantly trying to integrate my family into whatever assignments or activities I'm doing, but that's especially important for leaders. Cause you can set that tone for whatever organization you're a part of. And that begins to allow, uh, your, uh, those who were following you, other staff members, um, to, to likewise, begin to see their work in that organization as a, not just a representative of your organization. Um, but as a representative, your family, this is to me, one of the greatest, uh, tragedies of the industrial revolution was the decision to completely separate work from family. Up until that point throughout human history work was a fully integrated part of family ministry was a fully integrated part of family that really happened because, you know, we began to create places, you know, people left farms, they left trades, they left sort of their small parishes or whatever. And they began to become a part of much larger industrial sized systems. And when they did that, we discovered that it was actually is useful for those larger organizations sort of separate you from your family and use you as sort of a small part of this larger machine. Um, and by doing that, we've really created this unfortunate divide between family and work. And I think we've got to heal that divide. That's really been bad for families and it's really been bad for moms and dads when they go to work. Because oftentimes what they're essentially actually doing over time is they're switching teams. They don't see themselves primarily as the leader of their team or their life is primarily an expression of their leadership of their family, but they see their life is really an expression of an and through this organization. And that is one of the things that terrorist families apart. Um, so reintegrating that I think is really important, especially for leaders.

Speaker 2: 44:07

Amazing. Well, Jeremy, with the time we have left, uh, when did Devin do the lightning round? Just a bunch of fun questions. I love asking leaders at the end of every interview. And the first one is what is the best advice you've ever received and who gave it to you

Speaker 3: 44:19

The best man? Well, I think probably the one that changed my life the most was, um, when I was in 10th grade, a man who discipled me named ed Kelly, um, taught me that Jesus is Lord is a, is a lifelong decision that I had to make in a confession I had as a kid growing up in Christian family. I didn't realize I had to do so. Just work through the process. Do you believe Jesus is Lord when I, when I worked through that process and made that confession, even as somebody who saw himself as a Christian, I really think that was a completely different moment for me. That's when I, I really, my faith came alive. Um, and this phrase, Jesus is Lord and understanding the Lordship of Christ, um, is something that I think that, that was so clearly central to the way the early church thought. Um, and I think that, that if you haven't gone through that process of really considering the cost of making a confession and then making a confession, um, I would encourage you to do that even as somebody who might be in Christian ministry. A lot of us just haven't been, haven't really thought through that in that way. Um, but it completely changed my life. So I would probably the most important advice I ever heard.

Speaker 2: 45:31

If you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read, what would it say?

Speaker 3: 45:36

I quote on a billboard, um, man, it's hard to, uh, it's hard to, to say something that, uh, that pithy on the spot. Um, so I, probably something related to family, um, you know, I, I, I, uh, I'm trying to think of the best way to, to phrase, you know, the, the way that I talk about, um, that, that ancient wisdom heals, the modern family. Um, you know, I think that there's a, there's a verse in Jeremiah, um, that, uh, for me, it was heard of like a billboard billboard verse. That's really impacted me where he said, stand at the crossroads and look, um, asked for the ancient paths, um, and, and walk in them so that you can find rest for your souls. And so I would say, you know, sometimes the best thing to do when you're found you're on the wrong road is to look back not always to, just to innovate. And we live in an innovation, saturated culture. So I'd probably put that verse on it, stand, look, you know, ask for the ancient paths and walk in those and you'll find rest for your souls.

Speaker 2: 46:47

What's the best purchase you've made in the last year for a hundred dollars or less,

Speaker 3: 46:51

Oh, man, best purchase. Um, I mean, I, I can't think of anything more valuable that I purchased for a hundred dollars or less than, than audible credits. There we go. Um, so I I'm obsessed. Dively on there and I take, you know, I don't know if you guys have heard of it, like there's a thing on there called the great courses and they just keep getting better and better. Um, I took a course on U S history. That's 42 hours long that costs like$10, I guess, or one audible credit. And, you know, it was, I just, I was sort of like mouth on the floor of the whole 42 hours. This, you know, there's so many like that, but I just, it was so many times better than the any college course had ever taken on. And I took a bunch of history courses in college, nothing anywhere close to the quality of what I was listening to for$10. I'm on, you know, while I was working out or driving the car. And, uh, yeah, I just was, I just, I am. So I'm so grateful, honestly, as somebody who just consumes a ridiculous amount of content to be alive right now, because there's so much good content. Um, and, uh, and I've, I've just thoroughly, thoroughly, but in terms of value, I can't imagine what did I pay for that college course? I think the average history course in a state university costs, I think it was, I heard one estimate that it's about, you know, if you have about 500 people in the course of almost$10 million that they have to spend on that one course, um, uh, in terms of everyone's college tuition and, you know, we can get these things for$10. So that's a pretty big ROI.

Speaker 2: 48:18

I mean, that probably rolls right into my next question, but just, you know, what are one or two of the books that have impacted you the most in your life,

Speaker 3: 48:25

Man? Um, so I I've been impacted lately by Francis Chan's book letters to the church, really summarized a lot of, a lot of things that, uh, definitely have been thinking about a lot lately that him is, has been impacting me. Um, I'm just looking at my, uh, my audible thinking about 700 books in here. My favorite book of all time is the Silmarillion. Um, the T Tolkien's mythology. One of the things I think a lot of people don't understand is, um, is that, um, so many things are articulated mythology before we can really, uh, talk about them and sort of normal language. And if you can learn to learn from mythology, it's, there's nothing better than getting down to first principles, uh, in terms of thinking. And so I'm, I'm a huge idol. That's probably some of my favorite books are basically books that are I just, and I listened to over and over and over again, or just, I want to inhabit some of those great mythological stories and really understand what they're saying about the human condition. Um, but talking to mythology is unique in that it definitely saturated in a Christian worldview. You can see it everywhere. Um, but it's, it's much pure form into Silmarillion. I feel like the Lord of the rings. So, uh, so I I've read that book probably 20 times.

Speaker 2: 49:44

I see, well, shaking his head. He must be excited about that. I'd never heard of it, but I'll check it out.

Speaker 3: 49:48

Oh man. Yeah. A lot of people don't like it to warn you, you have to like mythology, it's sort of like reading the old Testament, the Lord of the rings, but, um, but I love the old Testament and, uh, I love that book. Um,

Speaker 2: 50:00

If you could spend time with a great leader or someone that you admired, you have a favorite GoTo question that you always ask.

Speaker 3: 50:07

Well, I it's, I certainly want to understand how, how their family works and that's, that's, that's always been like, it's difficult for me to, to really be excited about learning from a leader. If I don't have a lot of respect for, you know, the kind of their family. And, but if I do, I imagine what you know, that's always what I want to know. Like I want to see because one of the problems you guys, every one of us has is we've only most of us only grown up in one family. We've only seen one model of father, one model of a mother, and that's a very constraining problem. Um, so a big, big thing our family has done is we've let other families, young families come and live with us for three or six months at a time. And, um, you know, and it's a huge invasion of privacy and all of that, you know, but it's, um, but I just, I really feel like we need lots and lots of models and I don't want to be the only one for anyone either, but, um, but I really want to know, like, I, there are some, you know, some mentors who've just let me get close to, to their family, to how they treat their wife, how they treat their kids, how they handle their finances, how they order their house. Um, and I am so indebted to those few leaders who have opened up, you know, those, those windows to me, and that's real discipleship at a, at a very practical level.

Speaker 2: 51:23

This is huge. And I mean, I'm just gonna throw the lightning round out. Uh, I am curious on this, cause I heard your daughters talk about this too, how they would actually have friends over for Shabbat or for your, you know, weekly family dinner. I didn't know that you allowed families to come into your house for three to six months. Let me know if I can apply for that, uh, as a side note, but, um, but on a serious note, you know, when you, when you think about friendships that you connect in your community, I mean, do you as a married couple, is that how, I guess I'm just curious how you invest in, in other couples. Like, do you have them over for your family dinner or is that something you do separate? How do you let people see that? Because what you just said was absolutely huge. Cause my life, I mean, I would not be where I am if I didn't have other families bring me in and show me another way and I want to do that. I want to do for others, what was done for me. So I just wanna hear you talk about that.

Speaker 3: 52:10

Yeah, yeah. It is a, it is a big challenge and you definitely don't want to do it if your family is in like hyper survival mode or anything like that. Um, and so when our kids were really little, it was not easy, but, um, and we did a little bit mostly with singles at that stage and the singles, you know, one, one of the first ways to practice this, that encouraged a lot of young families consider, especially like you're saying Doug, if you start to wanting you start actually having more children, um, you know, there's a, there's a stage of childbearing, which really hard, you know, physically. And so what we did is if you have a three bedroom house, you have a boys room, a girl's room and a guest room, and then a guest room. You want to have a single, that your family is investing in discipling. And you make very clear that as a, as an exchange for living in that room, you need 20 hours of their time, you know, to help the family team. So help us with laundry, with diapers, watching the kids, let us go on date nights. And we actually, we actually bought houses always with that sort of third room in mind so that there could be some privacy there. Um, so we, we practice this a lot as, as our kids were little and it made having five kids way easier than, than, uh, you know, our hardest moment was when we had our third child and didn't have that personal and went with the six months in, we had a, you know, a young single guy living with us and ever since then we, we did. So it was, that was much easier to handle. It was, you know, that's work to manage that. But, um, but then when our kids got a little older, we then we bought a duplex. Um, and we sort of broke the walls down between the two sides with this vision in mind. And again, it just, it comes down to our definition of what discipleship is. We, we see a critical element of discipleship is really immersion. You have to see the lifestyle. It's not just going to Starbucks and going through Bible sets. So, um, so we have a couple of guests bedrooms over there in a duplex. And so we just invited families to live with us. You know, we did this another time. We, we, we did a finished basement once, you know, and had the little kitchenette down there and, and we just would challenge people. Um, Hey, if you're really wanting to grow or understand how these rhythms work, um, you know, come, come stay with us for a season, maybe three weeks, maybe three months. Um, and so we, we learned a ton of rules around that, that make that, you know, um, really, uh, sustainable for us as a family. You know, it's, you know, we, we have a rule that says one kitchen, one vision, which means that if you only have one kitchen in the house and you have another family living with you, um, you have to basically integrate almost everything, um, in terms of like rhythms family meetings. So we, we actually didn't want to do that over time. We thought that was too invasive on both families. So, so we, you know, we made sure there was another kitchen, um, next door. So there's a lot of access, but it's not as much as, as would force us to really, you know, constantly in mesh our families. Um, so, so that, that made a lot more sustainable for us. Um, you know, uh, another thing we've learned is that at three months is about the limit, um, in which things with birth order start to get weird for the kids, that's a really big deal to us. Like it's really important that our kids experience their, their familiness in the birth order that they are. I think there's, there's deep reasons for why that's important.

Speaker 2: 55:08

Do you, do you recommend that, but I haven't read that book, the birth order book, like, do you recommend that?

Speaker 3: 55:12

Yeah. I just think that's a reality that especially the larger family with one or two kids that may be like, well, what does this matter? But when you start having four or five, six kids, you really need to understand birth order. Um, and, uh, and I think when you, when you're trying to create a team dynamic, it's really important as well. Like w like the first born, there's always going to be a, um, a certain responsibilities and certain realities that, that child is gonna face that other children are not, that you need to really understand. Um, so, uh, but that's that being said, if you have another family living with you, that can go, that can kind of weird, um, even if they're younger. Um, and so most of the families that come live with us, they have young kids and our youngest is 12. Um, so yeah, so that's kind of the way that we've, we've approached it and, you know, trying to have a weekly time with that family, integrate them into lots of different rhythms. Like you said, having them over for a Shabbat. Um, and we have a much more robust rhythm than just Shabbat. We have, you know, we have various things that we have during the day and the evening. I know Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday all means something unique to our family. So we wanted them to see the different rhythms and how that's been constructed over the years. And, you know, they can pick and choose, um, what might work for their family, what might not. Um, and, um, again, it's just because I just I'm concerned about the fact that so many of us are locked into a template, especially those who grew up in not with non-believing parents. It's like, it's really important that they, their, their family has given as much opportunity as possible, um, to thrive. And so wanting to give them, you know, more, and there's lots of families in our community that do similar to us where, you know, this is just part of the cost of believing that the primary mission of the new covenant is discipleship. And you can see how Jesus made disciples, right. He lived in an immersive lifestyle with, with 12 other men. And so as a family, like, how are you gonna pull that off? You know, I can't go and, and leave my family and just wander around the countryside with a bunch of my buddies. Um, as much as I think that would be amazing. Um, but I can, I can sort of craft a, you know, sort of an environment in our house that would allow for that kind of immersive discipleship.

Speaker 2: 57:17

Well, Jeremy, this has been unbelievable. I could go for another two or three hours, so maybe we could do this again in the future, but, uh, thank you for investing in and willing either today and everyone that listen to this. And again, I've said it probably five times already, but thank you just for your ministry. Uh, it was a divine appointment for our, our family, and hopefully we'll be able to take that and multiply it a hundred fold for you. So, um, thank you. And, and again, anything you want to leave leaders with. I know you mentioned there's an online conference coming up in December, people connect with, we'd love to promote that. Anything else you want to leave us with today?

Speaker 3: 57:47

I think there's a, there's a big, I think the one other thing that we do that probably my favorite thing we do at family teams is for entrepreneurs who are starting, you know, who are trying to figure out how to integrate faith, family, and business. I have a lot of, uh, concern or interest for leaders who are leading large organizations or are, um, who are trying to figure out the integration game, you know, with, with no models. And so we started a mastermind group, Jeff Jefferson, Becky, and I call it integrated. It's a very, it's a smaller group for guys. It's at family teams are comp slash integrated, but particularly for business owners or leaders who are really trying to figure this out, um, how to integrate faith, family, and business, um, um, check that out because we get together twice a year for two and a half days, we do deep dives, introduce people to, you know, many of my mentors people in our community. Um, and we have these deep conversations with one another, including monthly calls where we try to hash out how to do this practically. And I just want to walk with, um, certain guys who are struggling with that. Um, cause I that's where I'm at. That's what I'm really wrestling with, you know, with, with our family. So that we're doing that together. Cause there's not a great template for that in our culture. So that's probably the last thing I would throw out. There is something people might be trusted

Speaker 2: 58:57

And we'll promote that as well. But thanks again. And uh, hopefully we get to connect again. I also think you guys so much for having me well, Hey leader, thank you so much for listening to my interview with Jeremy Pryor. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes@ltleadership.org four slash two six, six. This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by my friends at bear tongue advisors, the advisors at bear tongue advisors, help educate and empower their clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how bare tongue advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future@baretongueadvisors.com. That's B E R a T U N G advisors.com, securities and investment products and services offered through Waddell and Reed, inc member FINRA, and SIPC bare tongue advisors, Waddell and Reed, and L three leadership are separate entities. And as always, I like to end every episode with a quote and being that this was a family leadership podcast. I'll quote, Andy Stanley. It's my favorite family quote. He said leaders, the most important thing you may ever do for the kingdom of God may not be something you do, but someone you raised that is so good. Keep that in mind as you lead your family team. Thanks for listening to this episode and we will be back with you next time. See ya.

Speaker 1: 1:00:33

[inaudible].