Don Everts: The Spiritually Vibrant Home

You don't have to pray well you just have to pray to be when it doesn't just initiate budget about going because you all get in the minivan just a thing someone pray before we go. You have to do it is like initiate or the Bible, you have to know a lot. You just need to be in the Bible with each other and that activity is just like being in the game hitting the ball back at all the research tells us is a game changer.

Welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most and will think that I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us in family life today.com or on our family life, family life today.

I will you say all these years being a ministry writing, marriage and family books. Her last book on parenting.

What would you say most parents in the church would say is most important thing they can do to raise kids that love Jesus say get a minute. Good church youth program or a good Christian school. I think most people would say that and think that you are getting good youth group.

Yeah, no question.

I think I would say that but I think that's what most people it's all I'm asking what you would say all know I asked you what, actually, I just sit no doubt Everts is with us today and he wrote a book about this right and I mean the title is the spiritually vibrant home so Don your pastor, your dad, your husband and you research this, but we can't wait to hear your expertise gives a matter what we think, what other Christian parent thinks about is what you think.

Welcome to family life today great to be with both of you. Things are happening so you sit over there and you listen to that question, yes you know you and working to get his research to see as I went through this book. There's charts every year and I'm a visual guy so I kept telling him hey look at this chart that you are so everything you're going to share with us is really based on research as you think about that same question. Okay so your pastor how many books you've written 20 books something like that. But the really small computer.

We are impressed and involved with inter-varsity you have nearly been in all circles of this Christian life and ministry. Yet 30 years of either campus ministry or being a pastor yeah yeah you got three kids, three kids and so you not only just research this and written about it. You've got to live this, that's right. So I'm asking the same question you what you think most parents, you probably know how to answer that question like, I'm guessing most Christian parents like I want my kids to love Jesus. I want them to go into adults. Yes, that love Jesus, so there thinking here's how I do it, what, what's the common answer. And here I will have a cellular I think the default for a lot of people in the circles that I've been in is similar to what I do if I want my kid to have good tooth. I take it to the professionals. I take my job, I bring them to someone who can help them I think is the same. I think the default answer in a lot of churches is I'm going above and beyond if I get my kids to church. That's more than a lot of people do. I feel heroic to do it and exhausted after and that's it right and so I deliver them to the experts, the youth minister with a pastor himself or you know someone who's going to disciple them and that sort of thing. I think that's the temptation that people have in your pastor so you're like you're good with that.

Just drop them, those are good goals to have made the best and is that what grows our kids spiritually exactly and that's what you know, looking both at research and that what the Scriptures say about God's plan work. What really works. So as you started to look at this research will tousle about how the research go so we work with the Barna group. So I work with Luther in our ministries, and so is just 100-year-old evangelism ministry with a weird name and we partnered with the Barna group who are these like social science, total nerves write me I love them there so smart and we want to find out about this area where the curiosity right and so one year. It was were curious about in spiritually vibrant homes. So in homes where people say they strongly agree that their Christian faith is really important to them. So we kind of looked at some really strong households and we just wanted to find out what they have in common with each other so the research was sort of like big blanket finding out what people do not households but in looking at this group of exemplars and just asking them what tons of questions which of course are like scientifically calibrated. I don't have to do that part we find out all the stuff and then we have. Do they have anything in common.

Do the numbers tell us that in the spiritually vibrant homes. There are certain things that correlate with people growing in their faith within the household including the kids. The youth others who are in the household as well so nationwide. I could bore you with all that science departs and I would only half understand what I say but basically they oversample you know to make sure that what they're finding is true for everywhere in the country for every region for every type of household right so whether it's like nuclear household, multigenerational, etc. you know they do all that careful research to find out that what were landing on really is something real that's really happening. Always start with and you start and work with households. Yes, you know why that is the center why that's important even to Jesus even scripturally yet so help us seal start there.

Yeah, you know, it turns out that households are mentioned by name in the Bible over 2100 times. I am shocked by that.

You have no idea we were used to thinking of like God relates with me as an individual. That's like beautiful and that's true, and there are passages that remind us of that right and we know that God relates with his people so like the nation in the Old Testament the church in the New Testament God relates with us as a congregation, so it's like those of the categories we have, but when you put on your household lenses and you start flipping through the Bible, you realize there's this other category kind of in between those two that is everywhere in the Bible you know you can just read right over it you not uses. Thinking about it, but it turns out that the household God sees it as the real like redemptive laboratory like the discipleship laboratory that God promotes throughout the old and New Testament is the household and so that's why our research centered on that and why the research kind of made us return back to the Bible.

What was God's idea with the household and what parents and kids and grandparents and extended households power we designed to be people of faith and passed on from one generation to another in the house is pretty central to our GSI question when you study the Bible and in a course is what we do. A family what some Scripture to. It's all about the household is THE family is you try to answer the question okay well is God's yes intent mission for the family. How would you answer that. I mean, I feel like Deuteronomy 6 is huge and so you are there on the plains of Moab and you know Moses is like reiterating here's what God says and that's where we get the Shema hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one hears everything he sets right and it's like the handing over of the words of God and right at that moment is when the words from God are now everything I just given you, and you talk about it when you lie down at night when you're walking on the way talk about with your children. Write it on the door posts put it on the gate of your home like it was meant to be like talked about and lived out within the context of their household and that's from the very beginning right and then you can kind of trace.

From there you think of Joshua going into the promised land. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord, does that mean wise that there and you start realizing all these folks who are like being used by God and doing things for God in the Scriptures usually says and their household. We can read right over that have never thought of that. So, much like those first of all of us know those are busy, don't think that that's attached to our homes, our households are people, yes, and I think for from the research I've done like the reading that I've done I think there's something particular about our culture in the West because there's such an emphasis on the individual and and it is true that God relates with us as individuals but we tend to kind of keep going back to that and I think it makes us miss was like on most pages of the Bible which is you. Operating households like that's how God intends it to be. So I would say it starts there right and then you see it all throughout the Old Testament all throughout the New Testament we have households that God sees households households rise and fall together. That's a huge emphasis in the wisdom literature.

In the Old Testament, not just you know live a certain way because good for you. It's live a certain way because it's good for your household and if you do other things is not just that you're guilty.

It's bad for your household that's emphasized in the wisdom literature was all throughout their this that we live in households were intended to live in households and they matter to God so that very thought for where we start a lot of Christian parents think the church is central to try to get them to the church. Yet in the youth group yes which obviously is that's right but you're saying really scripturally probably more important than a church.

I mean I'm I know I don't know that's right out there but as I household your family is critical. That's right. Ultimately, it is this partnership and it takes both. But there is a way I think that it's tempting for us to kind of abrogate our responsibility on the church take care of it and some of that is because it's not the people up to don't want to do it or lazy or whatever.

In my experience, a lot of it is because people are parenting and grandparenting how they were parented and grandparent me when we started really wrestling with this at the church.

I was in at the time arrives pastoring at the time there was a lot of insecurity and people and even a lot of shame as people began to talk about his dad saying to me because one of the findings. You know this is not shocking is that if you like. Craig is a household like that helps your faith group rights. It's not rocket science, but this one dad saying to me and me aside after class and he said I don't know how to pray out loud and I've never prayed out loud and he just kinda said that with his heaviness like you how intense parents are about wanting research if you don't want to turn out well and he's realizing it depends on me like I don't how to do this so it's not necessarily that he's like I let someone else teach my kid how to pray it was someone who in his transparency was saying, how to do the think that's typical of parents that I feel like I don't know what to do in my church it was told not appear in church. They just don't know what to do and so it's not that they're just saying let the church do it there saying I'm not equipped, and same of the Bible the same dad he said to me the only Bible reading I've done is my children storybook Bible that I read to my kids is the only time I spend Bible SOI for some like that like the good news of the research is like you don't have to be really good at this. That's a really good news right side is like shared with Ike as a brother. Here's the thing is the thing you don't have to pray well you just have to pray and I said and frankly the research shows us getting back to me when he does it just initiated by just say like they were about to go on vacation were all get in the minivan and just say hey I think someone should pray before we go I usually have to do it like initiated over the Bible like you don't have to know a lot. You don't have to like preach sermons. You just need to be in the Bible with each other and that activity is just like being in the game hitting the ball back at all the research tells us is the game changer makes the difference in and we start to grow so I found when I started to invite people to think about their household and the spiritual health of their household. It was really scary for people to do that and it brought up all sorts of feels all sorts of feels early on in this one class we did in this this one mom just with tears you know I was learning how to talk about this website on a scale of 0 to 10 in these three different categories. How do you score and it brought her to tears and she said my household is not spiritually vibrant at all were spiritually dormant and she started crying and so I ditched having people score like I was a lesson for me, but it's so tender and again. Grandparents are involved single people mean everyone is involved in the biblical view of households. We talk about that but I think especially for parents with kids in the home.

It is so tender.

Research confirms what Scripture tells us, which is just started the ball back just getting a little bit is starting to some of these activities. There are three that were highlighted in the research that came out but is not destroying the great try to be great just get in the game, and even that is a real game changer and so that's not heavy that's actually empowering and inspiring. Yeah, that is. I mean, I know because I'm a parent you know and we feel we want our kids to grow up to be men and women of faith and we feel that were not doing a good job. I think every parent feels that way. Yeah. And so when you say there's just three things he had to do and I had no idea so I read it.

What's a messy prayer, loud tables and open doors. So I think parents are leaning in right now soon okay I'm that mom I'm in tears were dormant when I vibrant you tell me that we can be vibrant and it's not a big leap. Okay so what I had this to.

I think when we have our kids are growing up in their teenage years. I remember feeling like they don't want me to task about it here so it's about anything that I do remember because as they were little. I was talking about a lot and then there came this phase where they're all in different places. Late and I felt like I'm bugging them. Kiki stopped hiking about it we already know, and so in his pants. He had a tendency like SI things happen that are yes where we start because it was very interesting research to find out that made it all came down today. I know it's not just the three yeah yeah yeah so it ended there. You're listening to David and Wilson with Don Everts on family life. Today we hear what three activities correspond to a vibrant faith in the home in just a minute, including one that might shock you, but first you hear us talk often about marriages and how the foundation affects everything else in our lives. One thing we think we would all agree on is that great marriages don't just happen there built with intentionality were either drifting in marriage or intentionally moving toward each other and together toward God. So here's the great news for your relationship. Family life's weekend to remember marriage getaway is back with a full schedule of events throughout the country this fall. And even better right now through Monday, September 19.

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Now through september19@familylifetoday.com right now, back to Don Everts with what three activities have been found to correspond with the more vibrant the research showed us that there are three activities that tend to correspond with more vibrant faith in the home, and none of these are what one of them struck into the march, so they are to apply spiritual disciplines is what I call messy prayers. So you have some kind of Bible life in some kind of prayer life together. The second one is engaging in spiritual conversations.

So I call it loud tables. Research tells us that the families altogether and there talking.

Usually there eating fruit best with resources and so just talking about spiritual things. So that's the second one.

So those aren't hugely surprising and the third one did surprise us and that is what we call open doors or extending hospitality, the more hospitable a householders the more vibrant the faith of those who are in the home and we talk about why that didn't expect to find that yeah because you tend to think well. If I close my family off protection from the world outside, and it turns out like having an insular household is actually risk factor for their faith, but having open doors and it doesn't matter who people are master Christians are not having people in and out of your household actually increases spiritual vibrancy. So if we get into that of those other three messy prayers, loud tables and open doors that those three just activities and being active in those areas tends to correspond with more spiritual okay so suck messy errors. You know, I know it's not just praying. I know it sounds like it but if you are to discipline what's that look like Idaho. I like that you named messy prayers. Yeah, that's that you can enter messy and they are missing because everyone has this like I need to be perfect as a parent do all this and so I will think of that, dad. Yeah, you know his like to pray pray like the pastor actually you know so messy prayers like you just have to like interact with God together in some way and so some of that is prayer. So some of that is like hey before the meal, you know, we have one of us pray. I like liturgies so that's like I'm dirty like that when I started getting the research like it was really convicting me because work.

Our household was strong and some of these and other strong assemblies and eyes apparently strongly me you wrote the book you get you or your call messy, didn't you know my youngest when it when I would document he's now 15 he does let me talk many more. But when I would tuck him in and I would say prayers with him in and out on say a man and he would say it for a while. He started say that's it like yet is what it is that you not having anything else to pray. Mom prays what he long as you said that in the book that he commented moms a better prayer than you know. I was always a link that yet but is just being in the game so like when I was in the research. It was like okay applying spiritual disciplines I want to be in prayer more with my household is one of things I did I render this book: every moment holy by Douglas McKelvey which is this like it's just like new liturgies, so there's like a liturgy for your morning coffee. There's like a liturgies unit, changing diapers, yell at them on its plating for you. I'm the guy. When I first picked it up on like seriously energy for folding the laundry. I read the booklet and I was like blown away yet. It's really beautiful so you do that so I yet will in working on this research, I was convicted like I need to be in prayer more and and so I started light all the time. I had a book with me, so much so that my family now teases me this I mean in my first week of like doing this are really all there's a liturgy for that. So now you know what it is you know were watching March madness is there a liturgy for the but here's the thing I'm in the game you know and I'm leaning in like I want a little more than I did last year to be as a household interact in regards to some of his prayer, and are so many things people can try and then some of its being Bible right and so that's everything from shirt you could lead a family devotion, but it could also be hey this my favorite universe to you. I've known family so they'll just en route hearing the research they started writing Scripture verses on the walls and just kind of put it says in there, you know, put dates hit you like just putting up or I started taking with a dry erase marker. You can write on windows and mirrors and I started like putting Scripture verses up on our like front window and on the front doors went on the front door as we came in and out is that silly.

I don't care.

It was like helping my household relate with God to gather and that's one of things. Research says that one of the things that I loved about your book is you know under messy prayers you have arrange the kindling at another logs you stoke the coals and then you have all these ideas which she just said there several of them, but I mean under arrange the kindling. You know, started getting the fire going and that spend more time together playing eating and simply have fun. You're like well annoyed that I had a guardrail the timer like that are just that with being together and have some fun prayers, that right they do the research showed us that these spiritually vibrant households so they're doing these three activities together are doing everything together there doing chores together. Their singing together there.

I'm not the pain. I put a picture later arguing together it out there to do homework together they go to movies that eat you want to household that has an atmosphere of like you do stuff together even fun stuff and so if someone sitting there like yet we don't even talk to each other were all in our own rooms on our own devices like how can I go from that to like leaving a family devotion that is not happening and that's why use the image of like don't go from no embers to a bonfire to do that start interacting more together like that's actually a catalyst eat more go out to eat together.

Those are catalysts for altering the atmosphere of your household where you are doing more things together even that is creating an environment that is more conducive to even when our kids were little.

I remember thinking I have no time with Jesus nice to have this great little slow it down devotion of time and then I had babies and I thought I can even do this anymore like my kids were up early I had three boys so there really rambunctious and household is crazy and so when I realized is that I just have to bring it's really Deuteronomy 6 your entire family like I'm just can pray all the time if I'm thinking, and she does is actually beautiful and broken and I'm seeing this into literary and high-rise parking spot. She's break yeah I'm is just going to school in the morning and saying Jesus.

It's cloudy again. I love art and just talking to and steering when I was reviewing thinking and have the boys thinking out even as little elementary kindergartners, guys. Is there anything you need prayer for anyone to pray for that pay for each other. Yes, and I also realized if I wasn't thinking about that because it wasn't on my heart and mind, which then was convicting like I haven't thought about anything spiritually all day, but that was a little bit of a clue love you get in the word or listen to the word so many great tools. Now we can just put it behind you know our audio on our audible on and listen to the where lawyers thing.

We've only got about one of the three and I think you've given us some great direction on how to do that so I would say the listener just pray visit or initiate.

Here's what you do this or have your son forever. You don't even have to start if you just initiate a messy prayer and I used to think because you know when the kids were little you be praying and cancer, your head there throwing things into the fire. Failure like this doesn't work, especially this nice tight little fit know that's normal. If that is really good and it's good and it's right and it's a get of people.

It's too much like work in a folder hands because you don't do that, you know, I encourage like this one, dad at my church who wanted premorbid like how initiated I support pray blessings like when just extend your hand walking out the door and drop off at school. May you just say, may you and then say things you want for them and that's prayer in them. That's a thing like for me as a dad like that empowered me, and it was convicting because like what I want for you made me think what what is it that I speak it out. How do I speak it out so like vocalizing those things force me to like even pray bigger for my kids and then I involved them so anyone who is at our house who would like would be open to it when they're leaving aside tickets, to pray blessing over them. Okay everyone like you. May you what you get off of what he does not so so the kind of like, that's prayer that's like relating with God together, we fancy that to be long.

This zoo is to start simply players they fear. Like one of the other two way guy listen to Joe come on that tomorrow you been listening to David and Wilson with John Everts on family life is book is called the spiritually vibrant home, the power of messy prayers, loud tables and open doors you can get a copy@familylifetoa.com. Dave and Ian are back with Don Everts tomorrow to show how sharing your faith with your children can be fairly effortless. Don't miss it sounds hard to believe, on behalf of Damien Wilson. I'm Shelby Abbott see that next time for another edition of family life today family like today's a production of family accrued ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most