How to Build Faith at Home (Without Doing More): Don Everts

Don Everts: You don't have to pray well. You just have to pray. You don't even have to be the one who does it, just initiate it. Like, hey, we're about to go on vacation, we're all getting in the minivan, and just say, hey, I think someone should pray before we go. You don't even have to do it. Just initiate it. Or with the Bible, you don't have to know a lot. You just need to be in the Bible with each other. And that activity, it's just like being in the game, hitting the ball back at all. The research tells us it is the game changer.
Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.
Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today. All right, what would you say, all these years being in ministry, writing marriage and family books, and our last book on parenting, what would you say most parents in the church would say is the most important thing they can do to raise kids that love Jesus?
Ann Wilson: Most would say, get them in a good church, good youth program, or a good Christian school. I think most people would say that and think that.
Dave Wilson: Yeah, or get a good youth group. No question.
Ann Wilson: I don't think I would say that, but I think that's what most people think.
Dave Wilson: Well, I'm asking what you would say. Actually, I'm just setting up Don Everts who is with us today. He wrote a book about this. The title is The Spiritually Vibrant Home. Don, you're a pastor, you're a dad, you're a husband, you've researched this, but we can't wait to hear your expertise because it doesn't matter what we think or what other Christian parents think. It matters what you think. So welcome to FamilyLife Today. As you sit over there and you listen to that question, you and we're going to get into the research, because as I went through this book, there's charts everywhere and I'm a visual guy. So I kept telling Ann, hey, look at this chart, look at that chart. So everything you're going to share with us is really based on research. So I'm going to ask you the same question. What do you think most parents—you probably know—how do they answer that question? I'm guessing most Christian parents are like, I want my kids to love Jesus. I want them to grow into adults that love Jesus. So they're thinking, here's how I do it. What's the common answer?
Don Everts: I think the default for a lot of people in the circles that I've been in is similar to what do I do if I want my kid to have good teeth? I take them to the professionals. I take them to the dentist. That's my job. I bring them to someone who can help them. And I think it's the same. I think the default answer in a lot of churches is I'm going above and beyond if I get my kids to church. And that's more than a lot of people do. I feel heroic to do it and exhausted after doing it on some Sundays. And that's it, right? So I deliver them to the experts, the youth minister or the pastor himself or someone who's going to disciple them and that sort of thing. I think that's the temptation that people have.
Ann Wilson: Those are good goals to have, but are they the best and is that what grows our kids spiritually?
Don Everts: Exactly. And that's what looking both at research and at what the Scriptures say about God's plan or what really works.
Dave Wilson: So as you started to look at this research—tell us a little bit how the research went.
Don Everts: Yes, so we work with the Barna Group. I work with Lutheran Hour Ministries, which is a hundred-year-old evangelism ministry. And we partner with the Barna Group who are these social science total nerds. I love them. They're so smart. And we want to find out about this area. We have a curiosity. Then we find out all this stuff and then we ask, do they have anything in common? They do all that careful research to find out that what we're landing on really is something real that's really happening.
Dave Wilson: Well, let's start with, and you start in the book with, households. Why that is the center, why that's important even to Jesus, even scripturally. So help us start there.
Don Everts: It turns out that households are mentioned by name in the Bible over 2100 times.
Ann Wilson: I am shocked by this. When I read that, I had no idea.
Don Everts: We're used to thinking of God relates with me as an individual. And that's beautiful and that's true and there are passages that remind us of that. And we know that God relates with his people, so the nation in the Old Testament, the church in the New Testament. God relates with us as a congregation. Those are the categories we have. But when you put on your household lenses and you start flipping through the Bible, you realize, oh, there's this other category kind of in between those two that is everywhere in the Bible. You can just read right over it, you're not used to thinking about it. But it turns out that the household, God sees it as the real redemptive laboratory, the discipleship laboratory that God promotes throughout the Old and New Testament is the household. And so that's why our research centered on that, and why the research made us return back to the Bible. What was God's idea with the household? And what parents and kids and grandparents and extended households—how are we designed to be people of faith and to pass that on from one generation to another? And the household's pretty central to that.
Dave Wilson: How would you answer that question when you study the Bible? Of course, this is what we do at FamilyLife. It's all about the household, it's all about the family. As you try to answer that question, what is God's intent or mission for the family?
Don Everts: I feel like Deuteronomy 6 is huge. And so you're there on the plains of Moab and Moses is reiterating, here's what God says. That's where we get the Shema. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And here's everything he says. It's the handing over of the words of God. And right at that moment is when the words from God are, now, everything I've just given you, I want you to talk about it when you lie down at night, when you're walking on the way, talk about it with your children, write it on the doorposts, put it on the gate of your home. It was meant to be talked about and lived out within the context of their household. And that's from the very beginning. And then you can trace from there. You think of Joshua going into the promised land: as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. What does that mean and why is that there? And you start realizing all these folks who are being used by God and doing things for God in the Scriptures, it usually says "and their household." But we can read right over that.
Ann Wilson: It's so funny, I've never thought of that so much. Those verses, all of us know those verses. We hear them, but we don't think of that's attached to our homes, our households, our people.
Don Everts: And I think from the research I've done, the reading that I've done, I think there's something particular about our culture in the West because there's such an emphasis on the individual. And it is true that God relates with us as individuals, but we tend to kind of keep going back to that. And I think it makes us miss what's on most pages of the Bible, which is you operate in households and that's how God intends it to be. So I would say it starts there, and then you see it all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the New Testament, where you have households that God sees households, households rise and fall together. That's a huge emphasis in the wisdom literature in the Old Testament. Not just live a certain way because it's good for you; it's live a certain way because it's good for your household. And if you do other things, it's not just that you're guilty, it's bad for your household. Like that's emphasized in the wisdom literature. So it's all throughout there, that we live in households, we're intended to live in households, and they matter to God.
Dave Wilson: So that very thought for where we started, a lot of Christian parents think the church is central. Get them to the church, get them in the youth group, which obviously it is. But you're saying really scripturally, probably more important than the church. I mean, I know I'm throwing both way up there, but the household, your family, is critical.
Don Everts: Ultimately, it is this partnership and it takes both. But there is a way I think that it's tempting for us to abrogate our responsibility, oh, let the church take care of it. And some of that is because it's not that people don't want to do it or are lazy. In my experience, a lot of it is because people are parenting and grandparenting how they were parented and grandparented. When we started really wrestling with this at the church I was in at the time, there was a lot of insecurity in people and even a lot of shame. As people began to talk about—I remember this dad saying to me, because one of the findings, this is not shocking, is that if you pray as a household, that helps your faith grow. It's not rocket science. But this one dad saying to me, he pulled me aside after class and he said, "I don't know how to pray out loud. And I've never prayed out loud." And he just said that with this heaviness because you know how intense parents are about wanting to raise their kids, wanting their kids to turn out well. And he's realizing it depends on me—I don't know how to do this. So it's not necessarily that he's, "Let someone else teach my kid how to pray." It was someone who in his transparency was saying, "I don't know how to do it."
Ann Wilson: Do you think that's typical of parents that feel like, I don't know what to do?
Don Everts: In my church it was.
Ann Wilson: I think in ours too. And I've talked to a lot of parents. They just don't know what to do and so it's not that they're just saying let the church do it. They're saying I'm not as equipped.
Don Everts: And same with the Bible. This same dad, he said to me, "The only Bible reading I've done is my children's storybook Bible that I read to my kids. That's the only time I spend in the Bible." And so for someone like that, the good news of the research is you don't have to be really good at this. That's the really good news. So I just shared with that guy, I said, brother, here's the thing. You don't have to pray well. You just have to pray. And frankly, the research shows us you don't even have to be the one who does it, just initiate it. Like just say, hey, we're about to go on vacation, we're all getting in the minivan, and just say, hey, I think someone should pray before we go. You don't even have to do it. Just initiate it. Or with the Bible, you don't have to know a lot. You don't have to preach sermons. You just need to be in the Bible with each other. And that activity is just like being in the game, hitting the ball back at all. The research tells us it is the game changer and makes the difference and we start to grow. So I found when I started to invite people to think about their household and the spiritual health of their household, it was really scary for people to do that and it brought up all sorts of feels. Early on in this one class that we did, this one mom just with tears—I was learning how to talk about this, so I was like, on a scale of zero to ten in these three different categories, how do you score? And it brought her to tears. And she said, "My household is not spiritually vibrant at all. We're spiritually dormant." And she just started crying. And so I ditched having people score their household. That was a lesson for me. But it's so tender. And again, grandparents are involved, single people—everyone is involved in the biblical view of households. But I think especially for parents who have kids in the home, it is so tender. Research confirms what Scripture tells us, which is just start hitting the ball back. Just get in the game a little bit and starting into some of these activities. There are three that were highlighted in the research that came out, but it's like just don't be great. Don't try to be great. Just get in the game. And even that is a real game changer. And so that's not heavy. That's actually empowering and inspiring.
Dave Wilson: Yeah, that is. I mean, I know because I'm a parent, we want our kids to grow up to be men and women of faith and we feel that we're not doing a good job. I think every parent feels that way. And so when you say there's just three things you gotta do—and I had no idea until I read it—what's a messy prayer, loud tables and open doors. So I think parents are leaning in right now saying, okay, I'm that mom, I'm in tears, we're dormant, we're not vibrant. You're telling me that we can be vibrant and it's not a big leap? Okay, so what do I do?
Ann Wilson: And Dave, let me add this too. I think when we have our kids are growing up and they're teenagers, I remember feeling like they don't want me to talk about it. They're like, Mom, you're so—
Don Everts: They don't want you to talk about anything.
Ann Wilson: Maybe that's it. But I do remember because as they were little I was talking about it a lot. And then there came this phase where they're all in different places spiritually. And so I felt like I'm bugging them. "Mom, could you stop talking about it? We already know." And so then as parents, we have a tendency, like, am I doing it wrong? Should I pull back? I pulled back.
Dave Wilson: Yeah, so where do we start? Because it was pretty interesting research to find out that it all came down to these three things.
Ann Wilson: I tell you what, after all these years, I think I know absolutely everything about you.
Dave Wilson: Really? Well, Spousology might prove otherwise.
Ann Wilson: Uh-oh. See how well you know your spouse and have a lot of fun finding out. Get Spousology at shop.familylife.com.
Don Everts: The research showed us that there are three activities that tend to correspond with more vibrant faith in the home. And one of them's shocking. Two of them aren't shocking, one of them's shocking. So they are to apply spiritual disciplines. That's what I call messy prayers. Like you have some kind of Bible life and some kind of prayer life together. The second one is engaging in spiritual conversations. So I call that loud tables. Research tells us if a family's all together and they're talking, usually they're eating food. That's what the research says. And so just talking about spiritual things. So that's the second one. So those aren't hugely surprising. And then the third one did surprise us. And that is what we call open doors or extending hospitality. The more hospitable a household is, the more vibrant the faith of those who are in the home. And we can talk about why that is, but that shocked us. We didn't expect to find that because you tend to think, well, if I close my family off, protect them from the world outside. And it turns out having an insular household is actually a risk factor for their faith. But having open doors—and it doesn't even matter who the people are, it doesn't matter if they're Christians or not—having people in and out of your house actually increases spiritual vibrancy. So we can get into that. But those are the three: messy prayers, loud tables, and open doors. Those three activities and being active in those areas tends to correspond with more spiritual vibrancy.
Dave Wilson: Okay, so let's talk messy prayers. I know it's not just praying, although it sounds like it, but it's spiritual discipline. What's that look like in a home?
Ann Wilson: I like that you named it messy prayer.
Don Everts: And they're messy. And they are messy because everyone has this, "I need to be perfect as a parent and do all this." And I'm thinking of that dad, who's like, "I don't know how to pray. I can't pray like the pastor. I can't be like a pastor's pretty prayer." So messy prayers: you just have to interact with God together in some way. And so some of that is prayer. So some of that is like, hey, before the meal, could we have one of us pray? I like liturgies, so I'm nerdy like that. And when I started getting in the research, it was really convicting me because our household was strong in some of these and not as strong in some of these. And I as a parent was strong—
Dave Wilson: What do you mean? You wrote the book.
Don Everts: I did, but I did call it messy, didn't I? My youngest, when I would tuck him in—he's now fifteen, he doesn't let me tuck him in anymore—but when I would tuck him in and I would say prayers with him and I would say "Amen," and he for a while started to say, "That's it?" I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He's like, "You don't have anything else to pray? Mom prays way longer than you do."
Ann Wilson: Yeah, you said that in the book, that he commented Mom's a better prayer than you. My kids would totally say the same thing.
Don Everts: But it's just being in the game. So when I was in the research, it was like, okay, applying spiritual disciplines. I want to be in prayer more with my household. And so one of the things I did, I ran into this book called Every Moment Holy by Douglas McKelvey, which is this like—it's just like new liturgy. So there's like a liturgy for your morning coffee. There's like a liturgy for changing diapers, all this stuff.
Dave Wilson: We've had him on. It's pretty incredible. I'm the guy that when I first picked it up, I'm like, seriously, a liturgy for folding the laundry? And then I started to read them and I was like, blown away. It's really beautiful. So you do that?
Don Everts: Well, in working on this research, I was convicted. I need to be in prayer more. And so I started like all the time. I had that book with me. So much so that my family now teases me. I mean, in my first week of doing this, oh, there's a liturgy for that. So now, it doesn't matter what it is. We're watching March Madness. Is there a liturgy for that, Dad? They're teasing me about it. But here's the thing: I'm in the game. And I'm leaning in, like, I want a little more than I did last year to be as a household interacting with God. So some of it's prayer and there are so many different things people can try. And then some of it's being in the Bible. And so that's everything from sure, you could lead a family devotion, but it could also be, hey, this is my favorite verse to—I've known families who hear the research, they just started writing scripture verses on their walls. And it says in there, put it on the gates. Just putting up or—I started taking a dry-erase marker. You can write on windows and mirrors. And I started putting scripture verses up on our front window and on the front door, the window on the front door as we came in and out. Is that silly? I don't care. It was helping my household relate with God together. And that's one of the things the research says.
Dave Wilson: Yeah, one of the things that I loved about your book is under messy prayers you have "arrange the kindling, add another log, stoke the coals." And then you give all these ideas which you just shared several of them. But I mean, under arrange the kindling, "spend more time together playing, eating, and simply having fun." You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, I thought I had to pray all the time." You're like, "No, just start with being together and having some fun." Prayers come out of that, right?
Don Everts: They do. The research showed us that these spiritually vibrant households are doing everything together. They're doing chores together, they're singing together, they're—not to paint like a perfect picture, but they're arguing together. They do homework together, they go to the movies, they eat. You want a household that has an atmosphere of like you do stuff together. Even fun stuff. And so if someone's sitting there like, "Yeah, we don't even talk to each other, we're all in our own rooms on our own devices," how can I go from that to leading a family devotion? That's not happening. And that's why I use the image of well, don't go from no embers to a bonfire. You don't have to do that. Start interacting more together. Like that's actually a catalyst. Eat more together. Go out to eat together. Those are catalysts for altering the atmosphere of your household where you are doing more things together. Even that is creating an environment that is more conducive to these things.
Ann Wilson: Even when our kids were little, I remember thinking, I have no time with Jesus now. I used to have this great little sit-down devotion, quiet time. And then I had babies and I thought I can't even do this anymore. My kids were up early, I had three boys so they're really rambunctious and our household is crazy. And so what I realized is that I just have to bring—it's really Deuteronomy 6—into our family. I'm just going to pray all the time. If I'm thinking it and I'm desperate—and she does. She does, it's actually beautiful. I was so desperate and broken and I'm seeing the sinfulness of my life. She's praying for a parking spot. She's praying—it would be like going to school in the morning and I'm saying, "Jesus, it's cloudy again. Like, Lord," just talking to him, sharing what I'm feeling, thinking. I'd have the boys, and you know, even as little elementary, like kindergartners, "Guys, is there anything you need prayer for? Do you want to pray for that? Pray for each other." But I also realized if I wasn't thinking about that, it's because it wasn't on my heart and mind, which then was convicting like I haven't thought about anything spiritual all day. But that was a little bit of a clue of I need to get in the word or listen to the word. We have so many great tools now that we can just put on our audio, our audible on and listen to the word.
Dave Wilson: Well, here's the thing: we've only talked about one of the three. And I think you—