Dad's

Last summer I learned once again the power in certain words.

It was on Wednesday which is traditionally when we address our core value of community. But as we looked at 1 Peter it became apparent that community was kind a tired word and not exactly what the text was saying. So we landed on the word family.

It took me only a week or two to realize that there are certain words in the English language that when you hear them, immediately evoke some sort of response. Family is one of those words.

Dad is another.

In the few milliseconds it took you to move from that sentence to this one, I'm sure your brain fired of a few immediate reactions, most of them completely subjective based on your own father.

This morning I finished reading a pretty incredible book. It's called Fatherless Generation by John Sowers who leads a pretty incredible mentoring ministry in my old hometown. In my opinion, if you work with students you should read this book. I think if you are a parent its a pretty valuable resource as well.

The thing is, though we all know this on some level, dads make a pretty profound impact on their children. This is not to denigrate what mom's do by any means. However the stats play out that kids growing up without dads don't exactly have the world at their fingertips. Fathers are a big deal. I knew this, but I realized once again that its one of the places where I make an assumption often. Whenever I stand on stage at Know Sweat I don't intentionally think about those kids that might not have an active father. I talk about God as father and might even share a story about my kids without a second thought. The fact is, I'm not respecting my audience like I should.

Just think about the stories of people like President Obama, President Bush, Michael Jordan, Tony Dungy or yourself. It doesn't take too long in any of those stories for the impact or legacy of their fathers, good or bad, to come out.

I even think of the great folks I get to work with each day. For those that I know well, I've heard at least a few stories about their dads and the things they either caught or were taught by them.

I think of my street where a chunk of the kids running around my yard playing with my kids come from homes without a dad. Or I think of those that do have a dad who's abusive in some way or in and out. The truth is my street isn't much different than yours.

I think of Carter's basketball practices and the handful of boys each night who show up with grandpa because daddy is not around. Or perhaps the dads who do show up at practice and spend the entire time threatening their kids about their performance.

So what about you? What's your story with your dad? If you are a dad, what do you think your kids think of you? For the past month it seems, Mark Driscoll has been tweeting about dad and Christmas and I'm grateful for his reminders. These quick thoughts have reminded us that Christmas is a special time of year because of the amount of time we have the opportunity to be around each other. That can be good or bad. If we are banking on that one present under the tree being the way we communicate love, we might be missing the point. I'm sure Carter and Brynn will remember something they get for Christmas, then again they might not. But I'm certain we could spend some time together creating a lasting memory worth keeping.

Its not really my place to say much except for the fact that you are reading my blog. So here's to thanking our dads if we still have the chance for the impact they've had. Here's to finding a way to redeem our thoughts if they didn't offer us all that much. Here's to being the best dad's we can this year. And here's to reading a powerful book and then doing something with the information. Thanks John for an insightful and moving book and thanks for what you guys are doing with The Mentoring Project.

Now I'm going to go hang out with my kids.....

For more information I'd recommend:
www.thementoringproject.org
www.allprodad.com