Latest / Relatively Functional Dads / Episode 015 - Raising Kids Who Trust God, Not Just Obey Him w/ Meredith Miller
Transcript
- Buddy Gosey: up and ⁓ if it's okay what we'll do is we'll we'll probably release it a week from Thursday and then ⁓ I'll chop up stuff every couple days. We'll tag you to collaborate on IG. If you want to collaborate, great. If not, that's great too. My feelings won't be hurt. I don't want to flood your ⁓ channel too much. Meredith Miller: ⁓ the amount of time I have my phone bricked nowadays is real high. So don't take it personal. It's just me trying to be a little bit less sucked in. Buddy Gosey: It's zero. And I and I support that. I we got this thing off the ground and then we had our four our third kid and then I've I've kind of done the same. So ⁓ this is just a passion project. ⁓ my two brother in laws have two really young kids. We all love Jesus. We like to have a lot of fun. So our very small but growing audience is a lot of young dads. ⁓ a lot of ⁓ who may have ⁓ A new relationship with Jesus or a moderately growing relationship with Jesus. So we have some very specific faith focus episodes and then we do some that are the first half is storytelling of should have known betters, ways we've screwed up, things like that, with are we evaluating our fatherhood scripts? How are we being fathered by God? We did ⁓ our last two episodes on deep desires versus strong desires. So just some content that men probably should be thinking through and ⁓ Yeah, we do kind of long form stuff. So this will be good. We'll keep this one to around thirty minutes or so. And ⁓ what you need to know about me is I'm I'm a a former burnt out church planner who my wife and I walked away about twenty twenty one because the church planning network I was a part of just seemed very ⁓ hypocritical with everything post COVID and seeking ⁓ you know, what it looks like to be intentional about ⁓ equity in the church and that whole conversation and their lack of willingness to engage in that. So People like Sarah Bessie and Out of Sorts was like just gave us a ton of different language. So when I read the subtitle of your book and then her endorsement, that's why I picked it up, honestly. So ⁓ yeah, thanks just like my wife said, putting putting some language as we're trying to raise our own kids of ⁓ I don't I don't really know if I believe everything that I was taught. So how do we how do we navigate that space too? So Meredith Miller: ⁓ yeah, sh she's been yeah. Yeah, yeah, I get that. Were you were you with Acts twenty nine or something else? What I know. Buddy Gosey: You know, eight A two nine really got me started in the journey. It was a a separate it was in Johnson City, Tennessee. So I was the fourth campus. They let me plant a church mered at twenty two. I was the lead pastor of a church plant. We were about thirty folks. We grew to about up a hundred and twenty, just small. It was fun. It's the best five years of my life. But yeah, it was just appropriate to step away. I was about five years ago and we did some house church, micro church stuff. And ⁓ yeah, we're just Meredith Miller: Okay. ⁓ okay. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Yep. It's kind of what we do. Buddy Gosey: Seeking to make disciples. ⁓ we love the Underground Network. We've learned a lot from them, Casey Underground, Tampa Underground, stuff like that. But yeah, we just want to be disciples Jesus. We're trying to figure out the whole church part of it as well. Cool. ⁓ I did not, no. Meredith Miller: Yeah, understandable. Yeah. We church planted too. Did you know that? My husband and I. Yeah. So that's a whole other my my husband and I moved back to California from Chicago and with a group of friends started a church in September of twenty nineteen because we're in we're in anniversary season. Out to California, home. Ca like I wanted to come home. I love LA. I love Southern California. and when we were ready to be done at Willow Buddy Gosey: Okay. So is that what led you out there originally? ⁓ back out to California? Yeah. Meredith Miller: I just like didn't want to go searching to get hired on by another mega church and hoping that the culture would be more in balance with things that matter to us. Like we every church job we ever took, we we had openness to it being a forever job. That's just kind of how we're wired. and we did a few rounds in different places, who for different reasons. It was like, never mind, can't stay. And I was just kind of tired of uprooting and Buddy Gosey: I get it. Sure. Yeah. Meredith Miller: And starting again. And so that was a big part of it originally. Was like, I just want to go home. And then we did a whole church planting kind of cycle. It was three years, I think, to just decide if we'd do the darn thing and got a formally assessed by the covenant, even though we're not covenant and some of that kind of stuff. But ultimately I was like, I wanna go home. We have some good friends here who just want to follow Jesus. ⁓ so like we're in the tiny church thing. We and it's sustainable and good. ⁓ Buddy Gosey: Sure. Sure. Sure. Are y'all doing well? How are y'all doing now? Meredith Miller: Yeah, and it's been great. We're a dinner church every first Sunday and we're a church on Zoom the rest of the time because COVID put us on Zoom and it it works and yeah, but it's like it's stable, it's sustainable, it's good. Yeah. But not what would have thought. Buddy Gosey: Cool. Cool. Sure. Good. Yeah, that's where we found the some of the fragility of it. ⁓ we a lot of our friends will dab they'll dip their toes in it and then ⁓ next thing you know, they kind of go back to the prevailing model where we're like, no, baby, this is the church. Church's identity, this is ⁓ so we've we've struggled. ⁓ I don't want to be the leader of it, ⁓ especially not vocationally right now. But ⁓ yeah, so we're just kind of we're we're looking to find church's identity and then as that kind of Meredith Miller: we're done. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Buddy Gosey: structures around it, that part's kinda complicated. So I'm I'm glad y'all have some of that stability because I I feel like that's the hardest thing to find. Meredith Miller: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ for sure. Especially when you're not particularly worried about getting bigger as far as attendance goes, right? ⁓ like once you sort of let that go, it's like, well, then what's what's this look like to be Yeah, sort of going along. But it's been good. Buddy Gosey: Yeah, yeah. Good. Well hey, I'm gonna what's gonna happen is I will ⁓ I'll cold open. So I'll just riff for about ninety seconds, two minutes, I got something written out, and then ⁓ I'll kinda toss it over for the first question. I'm not sure if you had too much time to dive into those. If we get into all ten, great. If we go a certain direction, great. The other fun thing, Meredith, is I was at a prayer retreat this weekend and I got a pretty big concussion. So I'm like, this is my first day back to work. Meredith Miller: no. On a screen, ⁓ no. Okay. Buddy Gosey: And ⁓ no, it's okay. It's a lot better than my kids screaming at me, honestly. And ⁓ I work from home most days anyways, so ⁓ yeah, so a lot of this I'm s I'ma stick close to my script where usually I was like, I can riff off so much, but ⁓ I'll probably purposefully just really let you talk a lot. One, 'cause I'm concussed. And two, I want you to reshare all these things. I'm a former pastor, I know how to talk, but this is not gonna be my time where I'm gonna be talking. I want you to talk. ⁓ and two, I don't wanna say dumb it down, but keep it pretty basic. Because we do have a lot of listeners that ⁓ you know, they this may not be their felt experience with some, you know, whether it's deconstructing their faith or whatever, but there will be other parts, especially when we get into what it looks like to not just be obedience based discipleship, like what does it look like to actually build trust and things like that. So I think there will be some things that'll be new for our listeners. We'll keep it fairly basic. And if we want to go deeper on a certain topic, I will I'll wrap this up in about a a half hour from when we start recording and ⁓ yeah, I got a copy of of Wonder Two. We've been going through that with with our five year old. It's it's ⁓ it's gonna be a really good resource, especially as she gets older. So ⁓ I'll make sure we get everything tagged and stuff like that. Yeah, well thank you for being here. All right. ⁓ producer know when you're watching this later, this is your end point. We will get started. Meredith Miller: Thanks. That's great. Whatever. All good. Buddy Gosey: Dads, have you ever tried to answer one of your kids' big questions about God and halfway through it, ⁓ you're in the middle of your own sentence and you're thinking, wait, ⁓ I don't even believe maybe what I'm saying right now, because if that's your felt experience, that has been mine too. Because talking to kids about God, it's really, it's amazing, but it can be hard. ⁓ so a little while back, somebody actually recommended to me a book, a really helpful resource called Woven. If you're listening on YouTube, you can see it right here. And the subtitle of it, Nurturing a Faith Your Kids Don't Have to Heal From, honestly, that's the thing that grabbed my attention right away. ⁓ I picked up a copy, I handed it to my wife. Madeline devoured it before I even cracked it open. She couldn't stop talking about it. And ⁓ whenever I started to dig into it and sat down and read it, I began to understand why my wife found this so helpful. It's because this book put into language something that I think a lot of us as dads, we feel. But we never really maybe even have the courage to say out loud. And that's that there's this pressure to lead our kids to a place spiritually that maybe we've never been or we're not currently at ourselves right now. ⁓ the author of this book is a pastor named Meredith Miller. ⁓ she's spent over 20 years walking alongside of kids and families and faith communities. ⁓ and here's the thing, I did not know Meredith at all. ⁓ I posted a quote from this book, ⁓ tagged her in it, she reposted it. I sent her a message on Instagram and told her just how much the books meant to our family. ⁓ And the cool thing is, is sometimes you shoot your shot and you say, hey, would you be willing to actually join us on the podcast? Because I know our dads would benefit from hearing from you. And she said yes. So shout out to Meredith. Welcome, Meredith. Thank you for being willing to jump into a conversation with a guy that you've never met because you believe in what God is doing through dads as they're trying to disciple. Their children and lead their families. So it's just an absolute joy. ⁓ thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation even before we hit record. So, dads, ⁓ buckle up. We got a really good about half hour ahead of us. ⁓ before you do, if you've not liked or subscribed, please do so as we're growing this channel. You don't miss any of the content. Most importantly, leave us a question. Send us a DM on Instagram. How can we pray for you? What questions come to mind? ⁓ make sure you drop a comment on YouTube. Meredith Miller: ⁓ I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Buddy Gosey: Myself, Meredith might be able to engage with some of that as well if you're on Instagram as we'll tag her and make sure that you guys can follow along with all the other great content. So Meredith, welcome to the Relatively Functional Dads Podcast. Such an honor to have you today. So Meredith Miller: Thank you. I'm so excited for this conversation. Buddy Gosey: It's gonna be wonderful. You know, in your book Woven, you make the case that you've been thinking about you know, maybe we've been thinking about this this whole faith thing and this journey with kids all wrong, that faith isn't something you just stack brick by brick and hope that it doesn't come crashing down when kids get older or get a little smarter or live a little bit more life. ⁓ but instead it's something that you weave a little bit over time ⁓ so that it can it can bend without breaking when when life happens or when new insights happen. ⁓ and that's what we're gonna be digging into today. So, dads, that's that's the direction we're going. ⁓ is what does it look like to actually ⁓ build a life, ⁓ a house ⁓ that that's that's woven, not just on a foundation of a few truths that you have to teach your kids, but that's something that's sustainable. So but before we get there together, one thing we like to do, Meredith, as as we have our guests share about their lives and their families instead of just saying, Tell me about your kids, tell me about your husband, we do this thing we call big dad energy. Which is just a time for myself or Reese or Noah to brag about something we've done fun ⁓ over the last week with our kids, something that we're really proud of. Cause we share a lot of screw ups on the podcast. So every once in a while we share a few things we're proud of. So let's do a little big mom energy before we jump into all the Jesus talk. Through the lens of of Big Mom energy, what is something you're proud of in your parenting or what God's doing in your family right now? Meredith Miller: ⁓ man, okay. I'm I'm real good at Disneyland. This is this is like so we live close to Disneyland. this is like our one of our kind of family traditions, but like I am the captain of the Disneyland day and I am really good at making that day amazing. So if you have ever tried to do a theme park with your family and you're like hitting that meltdown place where you're like, This was not worth it one bit, like that is the thing I am great at avoiding and like creating the version where you're like, This was Buddy Gosey: Okay. Yeah. Meredith Miller: an amazing day. And so our family goes to Disneyland on the last day of summer vacation and we just headed back to school a couple weeks back. And it was like a hundred and twenty, I don't know, real. And and we have like built this tradition that marks the end of summer and like makes it so that we're not nervous about the first day of school because we're together and we're out and we're having fun and sort of like all those feelings that are good and they're gonna have their place. But like we don't need to spend the last day of summer break all like tied up in knots about tomorrow. Buddy Gosey: Sure. Meredith Miller: And so we hit Disneyland even in a hundred and twenty degree weather. And I am like this is my hidden talent. Like if I wasn't doing what I do, I I'm like Ken in the Barbie movie, like where his job is beach. My I could do Disneyland. Yeah. Buddy Gosey: That's Disneyland. I love that. I'm terrified to go to Disney World. I'm on the more of the East Coast. ⁓ you know, it's the whole until my kids can remember and I'm not taking it, they're spending the money, spending the time. But would would you argue just go ahead and go for it? Meredith Miller: Fair enough. Actually, I don't know that I would. I am also terrified of Disney World. It seems like a whole other deal. It's much larger, it's much more daunting. And I do think part of it is this idea of like it's close to our home. It's like part of the fabric of of what's nearby. And once you're doing like it's a trip and it's special, I don't know. S I I think there's a lot of magic in a thirty minute radius of our homes. So I'm kind of with ya. I'm on your team. Buddy Gosey: Okay. Absolutely. I love that. And the transition from summer to fall can be brutal on kids. How how old are your kids? Tell tell us about your family a little bit. Meredith Miller: So ⁓ Peyton is 11, he is a sixth grader, and then Riley is 13, and he just started high school freshman year. Yep. So, yep. And so my sixth grader is actually at the end of his elementary school run for our district. That is his final year. They do a lot of great things to mark that year. and he's in a program that's a dual Spanish-English immersion program that our district is piloting. He's the he's the guinea pig class that's getting that launched for us again. And yeah, and then the other one's off doing high school for the first time. So here we are. There was a lot to feel. Buddy Gosey: Yeah, it's a big transition. Cool. Meredith Miller: nervous about these were big years for us. Buddy Gosey: Yeah. Well way to yeah, capstone the end of summer, launch into the fall. I love that. Taking on that challenge. So well, hey, let's jump into just a little bit again, ⁓ not just the b the book, but just overall, what does it look like for us as as dads, as parents to step into this 'cause we have a lot of moms that follow along too. ⁓ when you're thinking about woven, it's been out a few years now, what was like the moment or the season or the thing that happened in your life? Could be a conversation, an event that you said, I I gotta write this book. Meredith Miller: Yeah. So when we needed to be in closure season for the pandemic, churches sent a lot of stuff home to families and promptly overwhelmed them and terrified them. And so it was not people in a general sense, it was like my friends who knew that I had spent my time in kids and family ministry, who all of a sudden got this stuff and they were like, we cannot do this. Either because it was just too much or it was too many words, or like sometimes the lessons weren't that good. And that created the panic of like, is this what was happening? Buddy Gosey: Yeah. Yeah, a and they've been teaching their kids for school five days a week too. Like it's just overwhelming. Meredith Miller: exhausted so much. And there was that point where I was like, ⁓ I can help with this. This is this is the thing I can help with. And in the middle of that was also for me this question of like, but help help with what to do what? Because what I don't want to help with and what I don't care about is help you try to fit more in when you're already carrying all the other pieces of life. And even when that season has ended, we live very full lives. And I Just kept noticing as it rippled from beyond my friends into being something I did more online with new folks you meet through the wonders of the internet, everyone thought that their faith life as a family was gonna have to be so heavy. Like there was so much they thought they had to do every day. And so they're asking, like, well, how do we do family devotionals each night? My kids don't even sit at the table. And it's like, but but you don't have to. And like, how how do I get my kid to pray out loud? He doesn't want to. But Buddy Gosey: Mm. Meredith Miller: But you don't have to. And this weight that families carried to try to get it right, so to speak, based on whatever things they had in their head, was keeping them from actually doing the stuff that would most nurture faith as a family and really creating space for their kids to get to know Jesus. It was with the very best of intentions, but it was just too heavy and too hard. And ⁓ part of my background includes having gotten linked up with some research teams that were looking at young people in faith formation, like back in my grad school days. And so the part of me that feels really equipped to be like, there's a lot of stuff you hear you're supposed to do for your kids and you don't have to do it. Not because of preference, but because of research. And so that was really the beginning of like, wouldn't it be nice to feel like I could advocate for something I think is not just good for kids and their faith, but has freedom for families because I think that's what actually holds up at both a Buddy Gosey: Yeah. Meredith Miller: theological formational level, but also at just a practical research based level. So out of that came woven. Buddy Gosey: I love it. And and you do, you give so much early in the book, kind of the the reason behind it, research backed. A lot of us are just kind of ⁓ repurposing what's already been given to us. We don't even question why we do what we do. We just have these unspoken expectations. So, dads, if you hear anything, you probably don't need to do more, you need to do different. Different might actually be less. And that's what I really appreciate towards like the last chapter of the book is ⁓ it's practice based, ⁓ but it's not, it's not none of it is. descriptive or excuse me prescriptive. You give descriptive ideas of what it could be and how does it fit your season of life with your kids. And ⁓ yeah, I love that. So it may not be more, it's it's definitely different though. Okay, before we get into some of some of those practicals, ⁓ again, the the subtitle of the book Nurturing a faith your kid doesn't have to heal from. ⁓ Beautiful cover of a book by the way. That's what grasped me. And there and there are some listeners, some parents that are going, yep Absolutely no. I've had the spiritual trauma. I've or I've had, you know, a poor experience here that marked my life. And then there's some that might say, I don't really know if I need to heal from anything, but I am kind of hesitant to pass on anything that might screw my kids up because I love them. ⁓ w a little talk a little bit. What does a faith that someone has to heal from actually look like? And how common is that for for dads or or parents that might be listening? Meredith Miller: Yeah, it's a great question because it's not one singular experience that we've all had the same thing. Like you said, some folks have had some really wounding things because whoever had power, you know, was a jerk about it and did that in God's name. And some folks, it's I think subtle. It's the kind of ongoing sense that your questions don't matter. Just shush and and believe what you're told. And eventually you become an adult thinking, how come no one cared about what I thought? Buddy Gosey: Mm. Meredith Miller: And there's something painful in that. Why didn't the adults care about my questions? And that's not a big wound like our church went off the deep end. But it still hurts when you really look back and realize you were a sharp kid who wasn't so sure about all of this and no grown-up took those questions seriously. Buddy Gosey: And now you feel like you want to ask these questions about the Bible or God Himself and and you still don't feel free to do that. Meredith Miller: Right, because it wasn't nurtured earlier on when your natural curiosity was probably at its strongest. Or I think of folks who just knew they were really supposed to be good. And so maybe if faith came into your life when you were younger, teen or or below, like you might have heard a lot about how you're supposed to act and how you're supposed to kind of like show up just right. And now you've become grown up. And you're looking more clear eyed at some of the places where you've bungled, make mistakes, and you've got a kid in front of you, which is always like, ⁓ any any given day the list is long. And somehow through all of that, the way adults told you you had to be good made you think God really only likes you when you're good. And so when you screw it up, there's a part of you wondering if God's even nearby with you, right? Like my worst parent days, there's that sense of like, I think God might also be mad at me too. Buddy Gosey: Mm, mm, mm. ⁓ Yeah. Meredith Miller: I might have like ruined it at every level, not just at the kid level, but at a like spiritual level. And again, to not know God's deep desire to be on your team, that's painful. That's painful in a way. And so this needing to heal thing, I think, is a recognition that that could look like lots of things. It could be small things, things you even dismissed in your story. And yet there it is where you kind of look and go, ⁓ I wish it didn't have to feel that way. ⁓ And I also then think there is the the reality that faith changes. Our faith changes. And if it should, it's part of the process and it's normal and necessary. And if ⁓ any of us had the point where we thought that changing our mind was going to lose us something, I think that's its own kind of wound. Of if I were to even ask about this, if I decide I don't know that I think that anymore, I'm not so sure it works this way after all. And if I say that out loud, I'm gonna lose. Buddy Gosey: Yeah. It should, right? Meredith Miller: People, relationship, community, stat like the fear of loss, keeping your faith locked in a box and never fear of able to change, like that is its own kind of pain. So that's kind of stuff that's on my radar. Buddy Gosey: Yeah, and it's so good. And it's a call back, ⁓ for those who haven't listened to our second episode where we evaluated our our fatherhood script. So there's things you keep, and I stole this from Sarah Bessie. There's things you keep, there's things you get rid of, and there's things you repurpose. Before we can really pass that along to our kids, we need to evaluate our own spiritual story. Things that were like, nah, that's just we need to dismiss that. That was wrong, or yep, this is beautiful. I want prioritize this tradition, way of thinking about God, whatever it is. ⁓ and then there's some things that were ⁓ majority right but need to be repurposed. And so the first thing it it might entail is, hey, what does that look like to do some of that deep work yourself? ⁓ because that's how you prepare for a a a lifelong journey alongside of your kids. Because right now my fear is when my five year old looks at me and says, How did God make the world in seven days? I'm like, Bro, I don't I don't know how to I don't know if he did. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how to answer that. So that's where a lot of dads are at with like kind of the practical hard questions. And we might kind of tease out some of that. I know you talk about like spiral learning and coming coming back and we'll we'll touch on that here later in the episode. But more than just like the gotcha questions your kids have, it's it's probably just some of the deep work of even just evaluating ⁓ what your spiritual inheritance was to start with. So ⁓ the metaphor obviously for woven, ⁓ even if you haven't Meredith Miller: Ha ha. Buddy Gosey: read the book makes sense, like it's has something to do with a web or weaving. And for the listeners who don't know, you use weaving instead of building as the metaphor for how faith grows in a kid's life. Can you walk us through that image? Like what does building a wall and the wall approach of faith look like versus ⁓ weaving a a web instead? Meredith Miller: Yeah. The wall based approach, a construction kind of metaphor, starts from a blueprint that has been given to you from the outside in order for you to construct what somebody has already determined you need. And then we have a sense of rigid, strong things. So there's a foundation and then you're gonna go brick by brick. And often for young people, this is a certain amount of Bible verses they might memorize or a certain number of Sundays they're supposed to be in church. And some of you are like, A hundred, a hundred Sundays is how many I'm supposed to be in church each year. And Buddy Gosey: Yeah, try twice a day. Meredith Miller: camps or vacation bible schools they're supposed to attend. It can also include decisions they're supposed to make by certain times, whether they're supposed to decide to follow Jesus or make certain professions or participate in baptism. And so the practices of faith, they function sort of brick-like. We think we stack them up and we have kids do those things and that that's what makes faith strong. The limit of a construction metaphor is twofold, I think Buddy Gosey: Sure. Meredith Miller: in particular. One is that the blueprint idea means all of our faith is supposed to look the same way. And especially with young people, I think that's pretty dominant. This idea that all kids are supposed to be on the same track, kind of looking the same way and hitting the same marks. And so every family is supposed to do faith the same way. We're all supposed to be. Buddy Gosey: And then we start comparing, we think we're behind I mean, man, that puts a lot of pressure on parents. Meredith Miller: Lot of pressure. And the other part is what it does with change. You take bricks out of walls because I was told the Bible is only reliable, trustworthy, and true if the world was made in seven literal twenty-four hour days. And then someone comes in saying, Let's talk about some genres and some metaphors and you know, maybe not. I gotta pull some bricks out. And if you do that too much, everything crumbles. And then you're left sort of standing in the rubble of your faith. Buddy Gosey: Mm. Mm Yeah. Mm-hmm. Meredith Miller: And not knowing what to do. And one thing I two the two sides that the spider's web sort of helps with, one is that they are incredibly unique. Like actually at an individual level, every single web is different from every other one, like a snowflake. Even while they're accomplishing the same purpose of being a spider's home and protection and nourishment. The cover of the book, it's an orb web, it's all perfectly symmetrical and cute. Buddy Gosey: Right. Meredith Miller: Only 10% of spiders are even orb weavers at all. The other 90% of spiders couldn't even make that shape if they wanted to. It's not in them. Yeah, it's just fascinating. This idea that it could be shared between us across our faith tradition, but unique your family to mine and to any dad listening, that it can be unique to your family. And that is actually doing it better, not wrong. Buddy Gosey: I've looked at so many spider webs since reading this book, by the way. It's I like I didn't realize that. It's been really fun, like a snowflake, right? Meredith Miller: And the other thing is that webs are flexible. And so MIT did this study on why spider webs are strong. That was their driving question. Why are they strong? Because then what could we learn in other areas of life because of it? Architecture actually draws on the research that MIT found on the strength of spider webs, because they are. And part of that is like pound for pound, silk is stronger than steel, like fun, nerdy things. The actual core finding was it's the ability to flex when stressed rather than break. And so then you say, well, if our faith is like a web, what if what makes it strong is not all the stuff that's bricks, but it's anchored to who God is. And what if what helps it hold us is that the that the God we are trying to live with holds on to us when there might be things that break because the Bible isn't how we thought it was, or that thing we thought was an important faith practice, suddenly is it maybe working for us? And so now what? And and so the metaphor accounts for change because not only does a web flex under stress, you can watch this on YouTube. It's really fun. ⁓ to grab your kid, they'll do like one silk and they'll weigh it down with paper clips and they'll compare it to a single line of steel and the web will hold longer and the than the steel, ⁓ just getting weighed down bit by bit. It's fascinating. And as you you watch that kind of thing happen and you think, okay, what about a faith that can Buddy Gosey: Insane. Meredith Miller: actually hold me when life is hard. As opposed to a faith where Yep. Buddy Gosey: W when your when your dad dies or your pastor treats you in a way that's not right or God seems silent in prayer it's going to happen. Like it it it's happened in our lives. We cannot spare our kids from it. It's gonna happen. Meredith Miller: It's going to happen. Right, right. And so what if instead of my faith has failed me, God has failed me, I have failed God, I am now in the rubble. What if it's like, okay, there's some breakage there? But spiders don't re-weave their webs from scratch when things do actually break. They lean into the parts that are still there. And then they just tend to the piece that needs to be tended to. And I think about anyone who's had a a big shift or rift in faith. Buddy Gosey: Mm. Mm. Mm. Meredith Miller: Can you still hold on to some part of God's love for you, God's kindness to you, God's grace being strong? While you maybe have to revisit, how do I relate to scripture? Or what should prayer look like now that I don't think God's a genie? Or whatever it may be. So I found the metaphor just really helpful in some ways, it felt like it reflected the process. Buddy Gosey: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Right. And and it's my ⁓ experience because in a lot of ways when I stepped away from vocational ministry, I I hesitate to use this word, but ⁓ 'cause it's got a lot of different connotations, but deconstructing my faith. My wife and I, we said the cornerstone, the thing we will not quit on is the person of Jesus. The compellingness, the love, the closeness. But we we did have to unpack and unbuild a lot. I think what's compelling about this is as we help people learn or our kids trust the character of God in a variety of different ways, the hope is there's nothing to deconstruct. There might be repair. Any relationship needs good repair. ⁓ and if if we can just nurture ⁓ a growing trusting relationship with God, we know that God can repair that when when needed. ⁓ whether it's because of what we've done in our sin or the sin of the world or whatever that's tried to separate us from our father. ⁓ you share in the book, here's a quote if healthy obedience ever happens, it's because it's being animated by trust. I think this is actually maybe what I shared on Instagram to get this whole conversation started. So shifting gears about the importance of obedience and trust. If healthy obedience ever happens, it's because it's being animated by trust. Childhood is for getting to know God so kids can discover if God can be trusted. Why does trust have to come before obedience? You you spend a big portion of the book arguing and really you're resourcing. Guy guys, she's got great resourcing, especially on Instagram, about this. But why does trust have to come before obedience? And what goes wrong when we try to just get our kids to obey and be godly and do the Christian things before they've ever had a chance for them themselves to discover if God is trustworthy? Meredith Miller: It has to go first because if you put them out of order, if you start from obedience, you'll have a couple of things happen. You will have kids who become absolute masters of the lists of things that good Christians do and the things that good Christians don't do. And they understand completely how keeping those lists going makes all the adults around them so happy. They get praised for being such good kids. They are so polite. They are so well-mannered. They are so nice. And internally, they are growing a faith that works like ⁓ Santa Claus. They think God is watching. Buddy Gosey: Mm. Meredith Miller: And knows if they've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake. And managing the lists becomes the essence of what they think it means to follow God. So that that obedience training process displaces them having the chance to get to know God. And then they're waiting on God to sort of reward them for being so good. And so often what you'll end up Buddy Gosey: Mm. Meredith Miller: hearing from young people raised in a this is kind of a moralistic faith system. Be good. That's the point. And it might have lots of Bible verses attached to it. And it might have lots of church practices attached to it. But the message they've heard is be good. Do the things that good Christians do and Buddy Gosey: And to be honest, some parents just want their kids to behave more than they want them to follow Jesus. Right before bedtime, I'm not worried about their spiritual formation. I just want you to brush your freaking teeth, right? I mean, that's honest. Meredith Miller: That's a real thing, right? Like that's a that's a real thing. Yes, right? A hundred percent. And if I can slap a children obey your parents in the Lord verse on top of why you need to brush your teeth, then like cool, because we just really need you to get to bed because you're acting but banana pants. And so it makes sense in the moment. Like even the bigger question of like, but yeah, but I want to raise a good kid, nice kid, honest kid, all those things. But when you realize under the surface what's being formed in them is not I am getting to know a God who can be trusted, but rather I better perform or God's gonna be unhappy with me. Buddy Gosey: Right. Meredith Miller: And that's really where that research piece kicks back in is that they've been looking at what do young people believe, and this was a big piece of it. They just really think they should manage the lists. And if you then can reverse it, one is I think you're paralleling what God does with us. I think God goes first to say, I can be trusted. Creation. Here is an awesomely good world. I'm giving it to you. Here's how I'd love for you to care for it. But like the goodness of the creation is part of the I can be trusted. Freeing them from enslavement in Egypt. Like God goes first. I have heard your suffering. I have heard your cries. I am coming to rescue you. And God fights for them and then comes around with the literal list in the Ten Commandments. It comes out. Buddy Gosey: Right. After he has shown himself and shown his name and this I am Yahweh, like Meredith Miller: Who brought you out of Egypt? I can be trusted. So maybe we don't kill each other and covet each other's stuff. And like it flows from there. That becomes a source that is going to help nurture why any particular obedient behavior matters. It's gonna help inform what goodness you hope flows from that obedient behavior. It gives it a sense of purpose as opposed to simply to make God happy. Kids will perform obedience, but underneath it, they are afraid of displeasing. They're trusted adults or God. But kids who know God can be trusted will begin to discern obedience because they believe it actually leads to life. Buddy Gosey: So good. And the danger is as you become an adult. If you've just been told the whole time of your relationship with God second to the obedience to God, you prop up this false self where you can present yourself as a good Christian when really you're living in secret sin or distrust and your true self is just it's shriveled up. God wants that that true self. ⁓ so obedience matters is what I'm hearing, but the order and the focus of of teaching them that God is trustworthy. And I I think as fathers, we get to model that. I say to my my five year old and three year old all the time, Hey, you can trust daddy. I want you to obey me because cause I want you to stay safe and I want you to have a good time. Like those are literally the two things they care about is having fun and being and I care about them being safe. But I think God's the same way. Like I I want you to have life and life to the full, but I need you to trust me that my commandments are good. Meredith Miller: Yeah, yeah. But I think God also says, like, and I'm not asking you to trust on nothing. Right? Like I have demonstrated my own faithfulness and goodness and kindness towards you. And so there's something to realizing that there if you give your kid a rule, you should give them a reason. Maybe not an actual moment that we're teaching, but like at a big picture level, our family's rules have reasons. There are whys to them. We're not always gonna talk about them every time. Sometimes I just need you to get out the street. We'll talk about why after. But Buddy Gosey: Good. That's good. Sure. Yep. You debrief later. Meredith Miller: But when our family has a rule with no reason, that's actually a point where we as parents are like, ⁓ maybe my reason is just you not getting to bed on time annoys me. And I actually need to grow my patience. And that's on me. I think that it is similar. I think that where God has given rules, there are reasons, and more than just it's good reasons, it's a good God that we can trust with with what's going on there. Buddy Gosey: Yeah. Yeah, that's Don B. So good. I I think when in doubt, Dads, what I'm hearing, I'm taking away from this conversation is if you don't know what to do, help your kids learn that God is good. Because if they see his goodness, they'll learn to trust him. And whenever they learn to trust him, then they're gonna want to obey him. That's deep long work. There's a lot of surrender there. There's a lot of dependence on the Holy Spirit to be the one that that ⁓ disciple your kids. But ⁓ we're not in control. We can just lead lead them to God who is. Let's shift gears a little. There's a lot I want to talk about, not a lot of time. What should a dad do in the moment when his kid's just asking a hard question? We joked about how did God make the world in seven days? Or, gosh, we could go on and on about different situations if if your kids are a little older and actually reading in the Bible, whether it's the Levitical Covenant or I know you argue a lot of like things actually in the Bible are probably not things your eight-year-old need to learn about or read anyways, but ⁓ yeah, if there is a a question they have about the Bible, about God, about life in general or suffering. Meredith Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Buddy Gosey: What do you do when your kids kind of stumble you, ⁓ trip you up a little? And do you have an example maybe of a time when one of your boys stopped you in your tracks with a question? Meredith Miller: They have all kinds of questions. They're great question askers. Most kids are, right? And ⁓ so if you don't know, you say you don't know. And underneath that, here's my encouragement. Kids who grow up where questions and even doubts are normal and not scary. They fare better overall when it comes to their faith journeys than kids who come from cultures where every question that grown up's got an answer at the ready and you better just accept it. That actually doesn't serve them as well. And so when you don't know and you say you don't know, you are actually doing like a sneaky little faith supporting thing to say the certainty of Jesus is trustworthy is not contingent on me knowing the answer to every single piece of information. And those are that's different. And that's actually really great. Buddy Gosey: Mm-hmm. Meredith Miller: So own your I don't know. And then maybe you actually are in a kind of question where you can guess together and that can become playful and fun. How was the world created in seven twenty days? I I don't know. And you know, I don't even totally know if that is exactly how it happened. Maybe God can do it. Or maybe this is kind of more like a poem, maybe, and they're talking about something like I don't know. But if God did, what do you think happened? And then you start playing imagination. And there are a lot of questions where let's guess together actually opens up the more fruitful faith conversation than you worrying about having an answer. They do. Buddy Gosey: And your kids actually really enjoy it. So a another resource you recently put out, wonder if you're ⁓ watching on YouTube, you saw it just then. If not, we'll make sure this gets linked in the show notes. But ⁓ it's fifty-two different conversation starters. One of them ⁓ and at the end you just have three different wonder questions. And w I was talking with Naomi, my five year old, and it's talking about walking through the Red Sea as they're ⁓ you know, escaping ⁓ slavery from the Egyptians. And one of the questions like I wonder what they saw and they smelled as you they're they're walking through. And my five year old just had a blast. you know, thinking about stinky fish and this, that, and the other. And it it really allows them to learn at a young age to use their imagination when they read God's word. And there's just so many people that almost are fearful of that because a a variety of reasons I don't I don't have time to really divulge into with some of the fundamentalism and stuff behind it. But yeah, I think at a young age, I've just been inspired to ⁓ give a question back with a question or to wonder with them. It's actually really grown my faith as I've had some of these conversations with my five year old. Meredith Miller: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The ⁓ a question with a question is so great, right? They ask the stumper and you start with like, ⁓ that's an amazing question. Tell me, tell me why you asked that. What brought that to mind? That's a peek into their world of just like why did they hear something that makes them confused? It just popped up. And that also helps you know what kind of response you need to meet the moment. It might be that they're really troubled. It might be that they just no. And so being able to respond, Yeah, totally. Buddy Gosey: And they forget five minutes later. And you can circle back, right. Meredith Miller: Yes, yes. My kids are getting old enough now where they are really tripped up by some current events where they see people with power not wanting to see that power benefit people who need it. They need the powerful people to be wise in their use of power. So we're hanging out in like the prophets territory of the Bible, which is just ⁓ so fun. And but they're they're confused. Like, why if you have The ability to be helpful. Why would anyone choose not? And so we're sitting in like stuff that doesn't answer and stuff where the answer is sin at the simplest level, but also, but why wouldn't we choose moving towards life and away from and you know, just having to tell stories from the Bible usually about people who are really a mess and how does God meet people in mess? And I think that that's often where our own family conversations go is my kids ask something, and if it reminds me of a story from the Bible, I kind of paraphrase that story. Buddy Gosey: Mm. Meredith Miller: And then we talk about sort of what the thoughts and feelings of the people would have been, but we actually also really go looking for and what was God like in that story? How did God respond to that? Was God patient? Was God compassionate? Was God like giving them another shot when they totally didn't deserve it? Was God mad? And what is God really mad about? Because we get that one wrong a lot of the time, right? And so that exploration of not just was the person like, how can we learn a lesson from the person in the story so we can address your question? But where was God when someone Buddy Gosey: That's so good. Sure. Sure. Meredith Miller: was in a situation that feels like your question. And Buddy Gosey: And and I know a lot of your passion is to help parents focus more on the Lord and how they present Bible stories to young kids. It's less about King David or the prophet Elijah or Saul or whoever it may be, w good or bad, and how they respond. It's about the Lord. Yeah. Meredith Miller: ⁓ for sure. Good or bad. Because people need to just be people who wondered all the same stuff we wondered and f and they're asking, can God be trusted? And so we have this connect with them as they don't have to be perfect heroes for us to learn from. We get to be with them asking that same question. Like, will God show up? Will God come through? What it what's gonna happen with that? To your point of activating imagination with the Bible and why don't people do it? Well A lot of us were told that what we're supposed to do with the Bible is read it in order to learn what good Christians do and what good Christians do not do. And then we pass that on to our kids. We teach them that that's what the Bible does for us is help put stuff on the list. And instead to Be a a dad who can tell your kid a Bible story, read your kid a Bible story from a kid's book they like at bedtime, and just go, I noticed that God was really kind in this story. I think that's very cool, God's kindness. They didn't deserve that. What did you notice about God this time? There's no right or wrong answer to that. It's just what your kid noticed. And then the blessing of the end of that story is like God will always be that for you, kiddo. And you get to be the messenger of God's always kind, always gracious, always forgiving, always just, you know, as you go through the Bible, instead of the one who's teaching the Bible to just tell ⁓ here's the next thing you gotta go do. Make sure you remember that one. Don't screw that one up. Buddy Gosey: It pulls them into the exercise so much. So they get to be such an active participant. Even my daughter can't even read yet, but she can be an active participant reading the Bible. ⁓ so dads it's less about David's character and it's more about God's faithfulness. Like as you're just walking through these things, make sure, yeah, we absolutely these were real human beings who lived, but the focus needs to be on on the God who is faithful, ⁓ despite or in spite of all that going on. Meredith, I got two more questions before we let you get out of here. This has been really helpful. What do you say to a dad who feels like he doesn't have enough of his own faith figured out to be leading his kids through theirs? So he's like trying to figure this out on the fly, whether it's he's been stagnant for a couple of decades or maybe he's really new in his faith, what does it look like for him? Meredith Miller: Yeah. ⁓ okay, couple things. One, it is so okay to be learning alongside your kid. This is not like a I I gotta get it down in order to teach you, right? I think about right now, my husband, he played baseball through college, so he's coaching the little league fallball team. And every assistant coach he's ever had has never played ball, except for maybe when they were eight. And they can be great coaches because you just practice together. Buddy Gosey: Absolutely. Meredith Miller: And you give a couple tips and you just keep it simple and you just keep encouraging them, right? And there is, you can you can coach a kid on this faith journey while you're still learning. as you coach them on, well, what we're mainly doing here, kiddo, you and me both, is continuing to get to know God and continue to just ⁓ uncover more and more what God's like. Also, bear in mind how vital your role is. kids need a Buddy Gosey: So okay. Meredith Miller: crew of adults around them who are echoing core messages. So if you want a your kid raised with I am love no matter what, which is like, man, dads are so good at just championing the no matter whatness. Because because of all kinds of reasons, I think. I think because a a lot of us look at our own screw ups, right? And it's like, so I'm gonna show up to be like, yeah, no matter what. ⁓ or maybe a dad who had someone come down too hard on them in a moment that they actually needed someone to to see what was under. And so now they're they're breaking something. Buddy Gosey: Hm. Meredith Miller: that was, you know, done before to be like, no, I'm gonna I'm coming at my kid gentle. Kids just they need more adults. More is more. And so don't don't pause b when you can be such an integral, you know, role for them ⁓ in all of that. And I think, I think probably last, I just would love to remind dads that it doesn't have to be hard, even though it's important. Buddy Gosey: Absolutely. Meredith Miller: It actually can be really fun. And so it matters a ton. That doesn't have to turn it into something, I don't know, like you're studying all the time to get answers or you're right. Like it just the thing you and your kid find the most joy in doing, you can repurpose into a faith practice. And that can be a tradition you weave into your family that serves their faith for forever. And so if you don't even know where to start, start with the thing you already do for. Buddy Gosey: Yeah. Yeah, take the pressure off yourself, man. Yeah. Wow. Meredith Miller: fun with your kid. And see if just once you can say in a single sentence something about how that fun, that joy, that connection reminds you of God. Right? Like I love playing catch with you, kiddo. I just, and I'm so glad God gave us bodies that move like to do this today. It's one sentence. It does not have to be a Bible study, a whole lesson, a whole anything, right? ⁓ my gosh, getting ice cream with you is my favorite tradition every Friday. Can you imagine what life would be like if God didn't give us taste buds? Buddy Gosey: So good. Wow. Mm-hmm. Meredith Miller: one sentence connect. Cause something and why you love it, God put in you. So just try that with something you already do that's already fun. That actually really does count. There is this concept. I'll get a little researchy for just a sec, if you don't mind. There's a concept that came from a guy named Vern Bankston in his looking at all of this kind of thing, and it was how much family warmth contributed to the nurturing of faith. In other words, Buddy Gosey: Please, please. Meredith Miller: The stuff that just makes you jazzed to be hanging out, you finish up that time and you're like, I just like my kid. That was fun. That actually has a role in supporting their faith journey. Because when we have family warmth, when we just have sort of a fuzzies together, and then it's time to turn to a serious conversation or you asked me a big question. It's like we've deposited something in the bank. Buddy Gosey: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Meredith Miller: And it doesn't even have to be about content or how faith is practiced or Bible stuff. It's just that when a kid likes their dad, they're more opening to listen to what their dad has to say about something important like, is this God worth following? And so all of those investments in warmth are also investments in faith. And if you don't know what to do with the faith content, cool. Lean into the warmth because you are also doing something for your kid in that. Buddy Gosey: Yeah. I love that. I talk a lot with my friends that are young dads about upstream and downstream practices. You know, the the downstream is the stuff that comes natural and that's what I'm hearing. So like just start with that, repurpose it, be a little intentional, but repurpose it with a little intentionality in a way that you're like, Man, I this is sustainable. My kids would crave this. I would look forward to this. ⁓ Meredith Miller: Yeah. Buddy Gosey: We love doing the upstream. Like I I'm gonna just pull up my bootstraps and I'm gonna be an intentional fatherhood and and there's resources for that. And for some of these dads, that's a stretch goal and there are times for upstream practices. But ⁓ before you pray and fast for two days for your kids and ⁓ take them on a overnight camping trip, like maybe go for a walk in the woods and and point out some of the different spider webs, right? So ⁓ yeah, thank you for that. Meredith Miller: Ha Buddy Gosey: That that's that's so good. Meredith, thank you for your time. ⁓ again, a couple of really great resources woven in the other book, ⁓ Wonder, we will we will link in the show notes. If our our dads, our parents wanna just kind of follow along, what what's a good way just to keep up with some of the content? Or are there any other projects you're working on that you're excited about? Meredith Miller: I'm very excited about the next project, which is a illustrated preschool Bible. So any of you with kids under five, we're doing it's tentatively titled Our Very Good God. And it's just a collection of stories where a young kid could see God's goodness overtly in the plot so that they get invited into the story. ⁓ and that'll come out in probably fall of 28. So it's a bit a bit on the horizon. And in the meantime, I try to be pretty active on Instagram. And then I also write a free newsletter on the Substack platform that allows for a little more nuance ⁓ for some of this kind of stuff because it is deeply personal and it's gonna be unique. Buddy Gosey: Yeah. Meredith Miller: to y'all and so we try to write in that spirit. But those are the main two places where folks can find me and I'd be so so glad to connect. Buddy Gosey: Love it. Love Substack. We'll link that because ⁓ yeah, if you guys are just looking for resources, ⁓ Mare the s she's full of ones that are very practical, and that's what I appreciate. So let's finish with this. You close in your last paragraph, just a blessing ⁓ over readers, and I'd love just to pray this over our dads as we finish our times together. Dear reader, may the Holy Spirit lead you toward the children in your life with tenderness, compassion, and gentleness. May you know that by God's grace you can focus not on just right behavior or even just right beliefs, but rather on the living God and God's grand story of redeeming this whole world. Amen. Meredith, thanks for having us. Dads, thanks for joining. Let's go and lead our families well. God bless. Very cool. Meredith Miller: Thank you. That was fun. Buddy Gosey: That was good. I'ma stop this recording. Boop. Meredith Miller: Yes.