1. Preface

2. Outsourced Parents

3. Your Little Church

4. Teacher

5. Friend

6. Counselor

7. Coach

8. Where to start?

9. Author Biography

10. Footnotes

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Preface

“Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.” - Jonathan Edwards

This small book began as one of my first sermons preached in 2013.  At the time of writing this, I was the father of Elijah who was about one and a half and we had a little girl coming in the next year.  I’m just a rookie in this whole parenting thing and there’s a ton that I don’t know yet.  But this book is just some thoughts that I’ve learned - mostly from people much smarter than myself - and I’ve found it to be a helpful framework for thinking about how I might fulfill my roles and responsibilities as a parent.

My hope for my kids is that they will have incredibly boring testimonies, love Jesus all their loves, and raise Jesus-loving families of their own.  My hope is that the things that I share in this book will be lived out in my own life as my kids get older and older.  As my kids grow up I hope that I can be a teacher, a friend, a counselor, and a coach as we do life together.

Outsourced Parents

Chapter 1

Our world loves to outsource.  And this is probably not surprising to you - menial jobs or large, massive scale productions can all be handed over to somebody else for a small fee.  It may not even be surprising to you to imagine a world in which key roles in parenting could be outsourced.[1]

Anything that is essential to what you do as a parent; anything that you feel is integral to what it means for you to raise and parent your child - any of those things could be outsourced.  If you were to want to give up the first year of your kid’s life – because we all know how exhausting the infant years can be – if you were to give up the thousands of diapers, the sleepless nights figuring out if your kid’s sick or if they’re teething, figure out why they’re crying, the burping, the cuddling, the swaddling – if you wanted to, you could outsource that.  For $170,000.00, you could find a professional to come in and handle it all for you.  You’d never have to change a diaper during that first year.

Now, maybe that’s a bit extreme.  So, maybe we’d tame it down a notch.  Let’s say child-proofing overwhelms you.  The idea of crawling around your house, going into every nook and cranny, and trying to figure out which areas of your house are the most unsafe.  You could hire a child-proofing consultant to come in and let you know which electrical outlets really need to be covered up, to let you know that the Drano should be locked up in the medicine cabinet and out of reach.  For $1,000.00, somebody would come in and be happy to share with you what should be done to keep your child safe.

If you had a child who struggled with thumb sucking – for a while, it was cute, but now they’ve gone beyond the cute stage of thumb sucking – you could hire a thumb sucking guru from the city of Chicago to fly in and provide their consulting services.  For $40,000.00, they would be happy to let you know how to correct this problem, and even throw in two phone consultations for no extra charge.  Bootie camp, seriously… Bootie camp boasts a 97 percent success rate for a potty-training boot camp.

And now the young years are hard, and the young years cause a lot of sleeplessness, but as you’re kids get older, you start to lose sleep for all kinds of other reasons.

If you wanted, you could outsource discipline, teaching your kids to respect your authority, teaching them manners.  In fact, there is such a thing as etiquette experts.  In The New York Times, a journalist said this, “Etiquette experts say that new approaches are needed because parents no longer have the stomach, time, or know-how to play bad cop and teach manners.  Parents no longer have the stomach, the time, or the know-how.”[2]

We can outsource class projects.

Birthday parties.

Shopping for gifts.

Picking our kids up from school.

Anything that is the job of the parent could be outsourced to somebody else who claims to be an expert or a professional.

And while we talk about these things, and while we list these things, many of them may be disturbing to think about the idea of that being handed over to somebody else, many of us do this very same thing when it comes to the spiritual influence in the lives of our children.  Many of us have relied on an hour-and-a-half on a weekend to be the complete sum of the spiritual development of our kids.

Now don’t misunderstand me.  I believe what we do when we gather is important.  But it is nothing compared to the lifetime that you spend with your kids, teaching and shepherding and influencing them.  There is no greater spiritual influence in the lives of your kids than you are as parents.

Are you outsourcing the spiritual development of your kids to youth pastors?  Teachers?  Friends?  God has called you as a Christian parent to not only make disciples of all nations, but also of your children.  Don’t outsource the precious job of discipling your own children because nobody will do it better than you can.

Your Little Church

Chapter 2

When my son Elijah was born I will never forget the feeling of driving home from the hospital.  I drove home white-knuckled with a death grip on the steering wheel.  It’s kind of like the feeling of driving a new car out of the parking lot, multiplied by at least a thousand.

And it’s not scary because I don’t have driving experience; it was scary because I was now responsible for the life of a tiny little human.  And everything he needs, we have to figure out how to provide.  If he’s crying, we have to figure out why.  Is he hungry?  Is he tired?  Is he sick?

And you can only rely on Google so many times before you start to wonder, “Is this what everybody does - they just figure it out as they go along?”[3]

As relatively new in this whole dad role, there’s a lot that I do not know yet.  And there are a ton of lessons that I’ll be begging other people to share me their insights along the way.  But in the midst of all I don’t know, what I do know is that the job that God has given me as a parent and as a husband is the most important responsibility I have.

My calling to my church, to students, to our community… these are important, but they are nothing in comparison to the calling I have to my family.  No matter how noble my job between nine-to-five is, the responsibility to open the Scriptures in my home with my family is the most important responsibility I have.

Moses is teaching the nation of Israel and as he’s preaching to them he says:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” - Deuteronomy 6:4-7

When you sit down.  When you walk along the road.  When you lie down.  When you get up.  What Moses realizes as he is preaching to the nation of Israel is that this is not a once-a-week thing, it is an all-of-life thing.  It’s not a once-you-have-time-for-it after soccer or if-we-can-fit-it-into-our-busy-schedules; it’s an all-of-life thing.  It’s about all of our life be centered about growing our kids relationship with Jesus.

And so Moses doesn’t then list out things that the Israelites need to start squeezing into their life.  He doesn’t say, “Here are 7 things you need to fit into your schedule.”  Instead, he lists their schedule.  He says, “When you sit, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up.”  He doesn’t list new things for them to start doing.  He lists things that they’re already doing, and he says just think differently about the things that you’re doing and use those to impress the love of God on the lives of your kids.

As Christians, we are called to have lives that are all about Jesus.  In our work places, we live for Jesus.  In our homes, we live for Jesus.  As we go to school, we live for Jesus.  In all areas of our life, it’s all about Jesus.  Even in the areas, when it seems to have very little to do with Jesus, we still live in a way that is deeply influenced by Jesus.

When school seems to have nothing to do with God, being a good student is deeply connected to our faith, because God wants us to be good students.  And when you’re at work, you work hard because God wants you to work God.  And as Christian families, whether we are reading the Word or driving home from the baseball game, our lives should be all about honoring Jesus.

It’s very easy to have opinions about what being a Christian should look like on a Sunday morning.  But what about what does it look like to be a Christian family at dinnertime?  And what does it look like to be a Christian family on Tuesday, on the way home from baseball?  Or on Wednesday, when your daughter tells you about the boy who broke her heart?  Or on Thursday, when you’re packing up your son or daughter to go off to college?

The preacher, Jonathan Edwards, said, “Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.”  In your homes, in your little churches, what would it look like if everything we did was shaped by what was actually most important?  As Christians, we believe that Jesus lived the perfect life that none of us could ever live; by His death, He paid a price that none of us could pay.  And by His resurrection, He conquered sin, death, and the devil.

And if we believe that truth changed our lives, shouldn’t it actually change the way we live?  If we believe that we were slaves to sin, but now we’ve been made sons and daughters of God, shouldn’t that change the way we relate to our sons and daughters.

And Moses says, “Talk about this.  Talk about this when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.”  Are you doing this?  How’s your little church?  Not, how are you doing at making sure your children attend church, but how are you doing at pastoring your family?

Teacher

Chapter 3

When you sit at home.  When you walk along the road.  When you lie down.  And when you get up.  How might this translate into your daily life with your own family?

Reggie Joiner, in the incredible book Think Orange, said, “Children learn best through routine, and when families create the right rhythm it helps to accentuate learning and development.  Although every family should look for the patterns that work best for them in light of their schedules, four specific times are listed in this passage that any family can leverage to build the faith of their children.”[4]

In these four specific times, we can look at some of the vital roles that we must play as parents.  The roles will be primary, the times will be secondary.  In different seasons, certain roles may be emphasized more than others.  In other seasons, we may be dabbling in each of these roles.  And these aren’t simply roles that are exclusive to parents - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, and mentors all play these roles.

The times while not being primary are incredibly helpful.  Because if you are even a tad bit like me, sometimes you just need a place to start.  You don’t need to be convinced that the spiritual development of your family is important.  Of course you believe that.  But motivation isn’t always the issue, you just need a place to start.  And so looking at the times as a framework is helpful because it allows us to play these roles of parenting in the midst of the normal rhythms of your life.

Growing up, my dad would call family meetings occasionally.  And as a kid – I hated family meeting time.  Because what that meant for us is after dinner we couldn’t immediately be excused and go run back downstairs to continue the video game that we had paused, or go back outside to continue our basketball game on the driveway.

No, instead, we had to sit around the table and listen to what my dad had to say.  And so, my dad would share with us.  And I don’t remember the content of most, if not anything, that we talked about in those family meetings.  But what I do remember is that in the times of family meetings, something was important to my dad, and he wanted it to be important to us as kids.

“Talk about these things when you sit at home.”

Moses realizes that you are going to sit down, that your kids have to eat; you have to eat.  And so, when you do, how do you use the time that you have?

Dinnertime.

Dinnertime is an opportunity for you to play the role of teacher.  This opportunity, this role, will helps you establish values.  As you sit at dinner with your kids, you can teach them.  You can teach them the things that are important to you, and that you want to be important to them.  You can teach them the things that you read in the Scriptures and you want them to cling to in their lives.

For some of you, this might mean that dinner should look different.  It might mean you have to actually have dinner with your family.  It might mean the TV needs to be turned off at dinnertime, or the phones get put away.

Regardless of what this means for what you do next, dinnertime is an opportunity for you to play the role of teacher.  And you can teach as you open up Scripture together.  Maybe over the course of a month, you’re reading a book of the Bible.  Or maybe it’s not even opening the Bible, but maybe it’s talking about your life.  And so, you share from your experience at work, and you ask about their experiences in school, and you ask, “All right, what should this look like for us as Christians?  How do we deal with the things that we’re dealing with?”  Because at dinnertime, you can use that time to help your kids establish values.  Values that line up with the values of Scripture.

When Jesus is teaching the disciples and they’re about to go out and start the Christian church, he gives them a command.  And he says, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.”  The job of the disciples, as followers of Jesus, is also to be disciple makers.  The job for us as followers of Jesus is to make followers of Jesus.

In our homes, it is one of the best environments to help our kids grow as disciples of Jesus.  And so, when Jesus gives the disciples this command, he says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  And the way he instructs them to do this is by, “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded them.”  If you want to help your kids grow to follow Jesus, you have to play the role of teacher.  It doesn’t have to be at dinnertime, but you have to play the role of teacher.

And teaching may look different in different seasons.  Because teaching happens not only through talking, it also happens through modeling.  When your kids are little especially, it’s going to happen primarily through talking.  They will copy you, and you will model things, but you are going to be teaching your kids a lot of truths.  You’re going to teach ‘em, “We believe the Bible.  The Bible is true.  This is how you pray.  Jesus loves you.”

But as your kids get older and older and older, more and more of the lessons that they will learn from you are going to be the things that they see you do.  The things you say are still important, but more and more is going to be taught through the things you do.  They will be taught lessons about marriage by how you interact with your spouse.  They will be taught about grace and forgiveness by how you respond to them when they sin.  They will be learning about conflict based on how you respond to conflict in your family.

This is why my wife and I, as adults, are still learning incredible lessons from our parents.  Even though neither one of our parents has sat down and told us the principles to having a healthy, happy marriage, we can both look to our parents and say, “That’s the type of marriage I would like to have when we are their age.”  We can look at our parents and say, “When my son has kids, I would like to be those type of grandparents.”  They have never told us or taught us their philosophy on being a parent or a grandparent, but we can see that.

The Apostle Paul says, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.”  As he’s teaching his church, he says, “Follow me as I follow Jesus.”

In your homes, can you say that?

Can you, as a dad, say, “If you want to copy Jesus, if you want to know how to live like Jesus, just copy dad, ‘cause I’m copying Jesus”?

As a mom, can you say, “If you want to live like Jesus, if you want to show the grace and the mercy like Jesus shows, just copy mom, ‘cause mom is copying Jesus”?

Friend

Chapter 4

“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” - Proverbs 3:11

When talking about parenting, it could be easy to focus on the idea of discipline, but I want to focus on the latter half of that verse, “The Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Do you enjoy your kids?  Do you delight in them?

Moses says, “Talk about this not only when you sit at home, but when you walk along the road.”  Because you are going to travel.  So, when you do travel, how are you going to use the time that you’re traveling?  When you are driving in the car, how are you using that time?  Our kids need to have a relationship, a friendship with you as their parent.  And driving in the car is an opportunity for friendship.  It’s an opportunity for you, as a friend, to make memories together, to laugh together, to play together, to talk together, to let your kids lead the conversations and talk about the things that that they want to talk about.

There are absolutely times where you don’t play the role of friend, where you need to put that aside, and you need to deal with consequences and rebuke and discipline.  Absolutely.  But we also need to have a friendship with our kids.

Do you enjoy them?  Are you friends with them?  There’s something about being in the car that encourages this.  You can even probably think to your own life of experiences that you had in the car, the people you were with, the songs that you sang, the places you were going.  There’s something about being in the car that provides an incredible opportunity for friendship.  What opportunities are you providing so you can build a friendship with your children?

It’s easy to glance over this, to say, “Well, friendship, that’s not that significant.  That’s nowhere near the role of teacher.”  But if you want to play the role of teacher, you have to play the role of friend.  Because teaching without a relationship is just a lecture.  It doesn’t matter how life-changing the content of the things you have to say to your kids is, if the context of that is not in a loving relationship with their parents.

Your kids do not care how much you know.  They don’t care about the influence you have in your organizations.  They don’t care about all the wisdom that you’ve learned.  They don’t even care if the same experience that they are going through is the exact same thing you went through when you were their age.  They don’t care.  But you better believe your kids know how much you care.  They know when you’re there for them.  They know when you’re listening to them.  They know when you’re present physically but not present emotionally.  Your kids know how much you care.  Make sure you show how much you care.

Laugh together.

Play together.[5]

Wrestle on the living room floor.

Have tea parties and play dress up.

Go to the movies.

Dance together.

Our children need to know that their parents love them, and this begins with the simple idea of friendship.

Enjoy your kids.  And if you don’t enjoy them; repent.  And figure out what you need to do so you can start enjoying them.

Counselor

Chapter 5

When your kids get mad at you, what do they do?  Let’s say you’re at home, and you told your son or daughter they couldn’t go to the party they wanted to go to, or they couldn’t stay out as late as they wanted to.  And so, when they get upset at you, where do they go?

Likely what happens is they do what most do – they stomp down the hallways and slam their bedroom door behind them.  Now, why do they do that?  Why go to their bedroom?  Because they slam the door behind them as if to say, “I’m keeping you out.”

As parents we know this is clearly ineffective.  I mean, sure, they’re in their bedroom, but really, it’s not their house, therefore it’s not actually their bedroom anyway.  And if you wanted to get rid of the door, you could.  Even if they lock the door, you could take the door off the hinges and remove their privacy completely.  Even the belongings in their room that makes it their personal space, you are the one that allowed them to have those things and they probably even spent your money to have them.

But there’s something about a child’s bedroom that is significant. By shutting the door, they say, “I’m keeping you out.”  By opening the door, they’re saying, “I’m letting you in.”  They’re saying that not only physically about their space, but it’s also something that happens emotionally.  This is why if you, as a parent, start going through your teenager’s bedroom and start looking through their stuff , they will get upset.

Because this is their “personal space.”

How are you getting into their “personal space”?  If the only time you are in your kid’s room is to rummage through their stuff, then you are missing an incredible opportunity.  One of the most important needs that your kids have from you as a parent is the need for intimacy.  The need to have a relationship with you as their parent that is deep.  You see them for who they really are and love them the same.  You see them and the hurts that they’ve experienced, the questions that they’re facing, the things that they’re ashamed of, and the things that they want no one else in the world to know.  You see them and all that there is to them, and they know that you love them just the same, even though they let you down, even though they’ve disappointed you, even though they’re scared.  Your kids need an intimate relationship with you as their parent.

In 1 Timothy Chapter 5 it says, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  If one of the most important needs for us to provide our kids is intimacy, and we do not provide that need for our kids, can you actually even call yourself a Christian?

That should sting.

As a dad, for me to read that passage, there’s a pressure there.  Like, “Oh crap! This is a huge job.”  But that’s a good pressure.  Because if this is actually the most important responsibility in the world, there should be pressure to give our kids the things that they need.

Bedtime provides the time for you to enter your kids space.  It is a chance for you to develop intimacy as you play the role of counselor.  Even once you’re long past the phase where you tuck your kids in, you can sit at the foot of their beds and listen and talk.  You can let your kids talk, talk about what they experienced in school, talk about the teachers who don’t understand them, about the bullies who have picked on them.

As a counselor, sit and listen.  Especially when our kids get older.  Because your kids will pass the phase where previously you had to carry them back to their room every ten minutes because they came out for another drink of water.  This still is important when your kids are teenagers.  Because it’s very easy, once your kids can put themselves to bed, to not enter into that space anymore.  But there’s something incredible about being in your child’s room.  Sit and talk and listen.  Tell your daughters and sons you love them.  Spend time just you and your kids, one on one.  Tell your kids you love them.  Dads, date your daughters.  Sit at the foot of their bed and just be together.

Coach

Chapter 6

In ninth grade, I played on the football team.  It was my first time ever playing football. I was a scrawny, little freshman on JV, trying to figure out how to tackle, learn plays, and how to hit a receiver in stride running a fade.  At the end of every sports season, we would celebrate with an awards banquet.  The awards banquet meant all the fall sports would gather together with friends and family and celebrate the past season, give awards to the Varsity athletes, and honor the seniors.

During the awards banquet, the varsity football coach got up and began giving his speech that would eventually lead into all the different awards.  And he began to talk about me.  Scrawny, freshmen, just learned to play football, me.  And keep in mind, this is in front of my friends and my family and my teammates.  And he began to talk about the beginning of football season and how I worked.  I showed up.  I showed up in early summer at a football camp, having never played a down of football in my life besides at recess.  I’d never lifted a weight in my life, never learned a football play in my life.  And I showed up and wanted to work and learn to play football.  And he talked, in front of all these people, about how hard I worked.

Now when tenth grade football season came around, how do you think I responded when it was time to start putting in that work again?  Do you think I just blew it off and said, “Oh, it’s really hard”?  Do you think I sloughed it off and said, “You know what, guys, this is not this important; we’ll get to it in August when mandatory practice is starting”?

No, in tenth grade, I worked even harder than ninth grade because my coach saw something in me, and he pointed something out in me.  In tenth grade, I wanted to work even harder at football.  I wanted to live up to my coach’s expectations because my coach saw something, and he brought out the best in me.  That’s what a good coach does.  A coach brings out the best in his players.

“When you wake up”

The beginning of the day is a time when you get an opportunity to play the role of coach and bring out the best in your kids.

As a coach, you can look forward into the day with your kids.  On the sideline of the day, with your arms around your kids, you can look at all the things your kids are about to face.  You can point out the trials that they’re gonna face because you will probably know your kids schedule.  You will have listened to them, and you know the troubles that they’re facing, and you can look forward into the day and say, “Here’s what you’re going to be up against today.”

As you prepare your kids for college, you can look forward into all that they’re going to go through, all that they’re going to face,  and all the questions that they’re going to have.  As your kids prepare to have families of their own, as a coach, you can stand alongside them and look forward to all the things that they’re going to face and not only do you look forward, but you can also point out the best in them.  You remind them, “This is who you are.  This is who God’s created you to be.  And here’s what you’re going to face, but here’s what I know about you.”

Because as a coach, our job is to bring out the best in our kids.  And the way we bring out the best in our kids is by loving them.  Loving them for who they are and not what they do.

In our world, it’s so easy for our identity, especially our children’s identity, to get wrapped up in performance and in other people’s descriptions.  And our kids’ identity gets wrapped up in their academic achievement, their athletic abilities, what their teacher thinks of them, what their peers think of them, whether they’re popular, or whether they’re picked on.  As we become adults, and we start to figure out our career, our identity gets wrapped up in how well we do at our job, how well we climb the corporate ladder, how much money we make.  It gets wrapped up in what other people think of us, what our spouse thinks of us, what our friends think of us, whether people like us or don’t like us.

And what we can do for our kids is we can affirm them not based on their academic achievement or their athletic ability, but on who they are.  Because we love our kids because they’re our children.  We love our kids not because of what they do, but because of who they are.

And as parents, you know your kids better than anybody else in the world.  And so you, as a parent, can look at them and see the way that they’ve been uniquely wired.  The passions, the talents, the gifts that God has given them, the way he’s knit them together in their mother’s womb.   You can look at them and say, “You are God’s workmanship, and he’s created you exactly the way he wants you to be.”

As a coach, we can bring out the best.  We get to stand on the sidelines of life and cheer our kids on, point out the schemes of the defense, and tell them we are proud of them.

Where to start?

God has given us the roles of teacher, friend, counselor, and coach.  No one will have more spiritual influence in the lives of your kids than you will.  No one will shape your kids’ identity more than you will as their parent.  There is no greater responsibility in the world than you have to your family.  What are you going to do with the responsibility you’ve been given?  What are you going to do with the roles that God has given you to play in your home?

As we talk about parenting, it’s very easy to feel convicted for a few different reasons.  We might be convicted because we see what God expects of us, and we see what we’re doing and find that they don’t match up.  Or we are convicted because we see what we should be doing, and we get fired up because we want this for our families, and so we’re convicted because we need to do this in our homes.  Or we are convicted because we look at the things that we’re doing, and we’re affirmed that we need more than ever to continue doing the things that we’ve been doing as parents.

Maybe you are convicted because you look at the roles that that God has given you: teacher, friend, counselor, coach, and you’ve ignored them.  Maybe God has given you a great responsibility, and you haven’t seen that as a great responsibility.  Maybe you’ve been called to be an imitator of Christ so your kids can imitate you and you’re lousy at it, and so you need to repent.  Repent to God.  Repent to your family.

It has to start there.

Because just as much as you want your kids to know that they are loved because of who they are and not the things they do, the same is true of you.  You are loved by your Creator not because of your ability to parent.  You are loved by your Savior not because of how well you taught your kids the Scriptures.  Not because of how much your kids like you.  Not because of your ability to listen and counsel them in their problems.  Not because of your ability to influence them.  The love that God has for you even has nothing to do with whether or not your kids love Jesus.

You are loved by your Creator because you are God’s child.  And you are God’s child because you  have been bought by the blood of Jesus.  And it’s that love - it’s that unconditional love that God has for us, as his children, that we want to share with our children.  It’s that love which is both the content and the motivation for everything that we do as parents.  It’s that love that we want our kids to cling to and to cherish and to hold onto.  It’s that love that we want our kids to hope in and trust in all the days of their life.

When Jesus says, “Go and makes disciples of all nations,” it starts in your  living room.  It starts around the dinner table.  When you’re driving in the car.  When you’re tucking your kids into bed at night, and when you get up in the morning.

I’ve heard it said that as a parent, “The days feel long, but the years feel short.”

May you as a parent make a big deal of Jesus in your home.  May you be a teacher when you don’t feel heard.  May you be a friend when you don’t feel loved.  May you be a counselor when you feel like you have nothing left to give.  And may you be a coach when you feel like your influence is fading.

May you follow Jesus as a family in the midst of the long, tiring, difficult days so that your kids might love Jesus for years and years to come.

Author Biography

I’m RJ Grunewald and I love getting to do what God has called me to do.  I’m a husband to my wonderful wife, Jessica, and a dad to our son Elijah (and a daughter coming soon).  I also have the privilege to serve at the church my wife and I have grown up at, Faith Lutheran Church in Troy, Michigan.  I am currently attending Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri through their Specific Ministry Pastor program.

If you want to check out more of my writing, you can find me at www.rjgrune.com.

[1] NYMag wrote an article describing this in detail. http://nymag.com/family/features/21362/

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/garden/eat-drink-be-nice-teaching-children-manners.html

[3] I seriously do this like every week.

[4] The framework of the next four chapters: teacher, friend, counselor, coach directly comes from Reggie Joiner’s Think Orange. It’s brilliant and you should read it several times.

[5] This means the phone needs to get put away too.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Outsourced Parents

Your Little Church

Teacher

Friend

Counselor

Coach

Where to start?

Author Biography

Footnotes

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Outsourced Parents

Your Little Church

Teacher

Friend

Counselor

Coach

Where to start?

Author Biography

Footnotes