435 | Speaking Life, Unhurried Presence, and a Biblical Definition of Leadership (Mac Lake)
Episode Description
The words you speak to your kids today become the voice inside their head for the rest of their lives — for better or worse. In this episode, Mac Lake (yes, that Mac — Brandon Lake's dad) shares the leadership wisdom he's spent a lifetime giving away: how to speak life over your kids, why "I'm not much of a leader" is insecurity in disguise, and how a biblical definition of leader — disciple, servant, apostle — changes how you show up at home. Plus Pops TV, dinosaur eggs, and why discipline is discipleship.
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Mac Lake is a pastor, leadership coach, and the founder of The Multiplication Center, where he trains church leaders to identify and develop multiplying leaders. He's the author of The Multiplication Effect and has spent decades coaching pastors and executives in leadership pipeline development. He and his wife Cindy ("CeCe") have three grown kids — including worship artist Brandon Lake — and six grandkids who know him as "Pops." They live in South Carolina.
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Leadership in your home requires both spirit and skill. David shepherded with integrity of heart and skillful hands — don't lean only on business-style competence, and don't go passive at home either.
Your words become your child's inner voice — so speak life. Get on your knee, look them in the eye, tell them you're proud of them and why. Be their biggest cheerleader, not their biggest critic.
Build a faith legacy by telling the works of God in your family. Like Asaph in Psalm 78, your kids should know specific stories of how God has shown up for your family, not just for Israel.
Unhurried presence is the gift most dads underestimate. Put the phone away, leave the adult conversation, throw the football for 60 minutes if they want 60 minutes — they need you fully there, not just nearby.
Discipline is discipleship — not ego protection. When kids misbehave, it's not a verdict on your identity. Shape them into the image of Christ instead of reacting from your wounded ego.
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Jeff [01:19]: Welcome back to DadAwesome, guys. Today, episode 435, I have Mack Lake joining me. Some of you have maybe heard of his son, Brandon Lake. He's also got two other kids and six grandkids, and he goes by Pops. Mack has so much wisdom to share with us today.
Jeff: I have some good news. I wanted to start out today with some good news. Many of you have been asking for the past couple of months since the launch of the DadAwesome book, "Hey, why is it not on Amazon? Why can I not get the hardcover book on Amazon?" Well, we hit hiccup after hiccup. We had so many issues with Amazon on the back end of getting approved to sell this book. Usually where there's resistance, either a leader had a hard time getting something processed, or there's resistance because of the opportunity to encourage dads and serve the larger book audience of the world on Amazon. We hit a lot of resistance — 30, 40 hours of trying to wade through, "Why will Amazon not let us launch this book?"
Jeff: Well, the book is now on Amazon. Don't go buy it today — buy it June 1st. To kick off Father's Day month, the month of all things DadAwesome, we're going to kick off the month of June with DadAwesome Day. We're going to celebrate the launch of the DadAwesome book on Amazon by encouraging all of us to go buy a copy on June 1st. I am praying for hundreds of people to buy this book on June 1st, because it causes the Amazon algorithm to recommend this to other dads. It does make a difference to buy the book — it's about $22 on Amazon. Buy the book on June 1st.
Jeff: The second bit of news: we are kicking off the summer cohort of the DadAwesome Accelerator — the six-week coaching cohort, about 10 dads at a time. It's kicking off Wednesday, June 10th. Now is the time to jump over to dadawesome.org/coaching to prayerfully apply. This one will sandwich Father's Day — a few weeks before, a few weeks after. You need to make five of the six weeks, and we meet at noon Central on Wednesdays. This is our 12th cohort. We'd love to have you be a part of it.
Jeff: And then the last bit of good news — did I mention Brandon Lake's dad, Mack Lake? Mack is all things leadership development, all things creating, multiplying. We want to invest in areas that multiply. Leadership is exactly that — invest in a leader and you multiply yourself. As a dad, invest in dads who are multipliers. Invest in fatherhood. We are called to be multipliers of God's love, multipliers of God's wonder, multipliers of God's care and gentleness. We get to bring a multiplication forward into our families, and all those deposits multiply as our kids grow and carry that vision forward. Mack's got a ton of great insight. This is episode 435 with Mack Lake.
Warm-up Round: Quick Hits on Fatherhood
Jeff [05:03]: This week on DadAwesome I have Mack Lake joining me. His grandpa name — he just told me — is Pops. Mack, do you have six grandkids right now, or what's the grandkid count?
Mac [05:13]: Yeah, six grandkids. Pops and Cindy is CeCe.
Jeff [05:17]: Pops and CeCe. I thought it'd be fun to start today's conversation with a warm-up round — just fun, anything that stirs on your heart around these topics. I'll hit you with them a little fast, short version, from a framework of helping dads like me. I'm in this chapter with four daughters; oldest is 12, youngest is 5. But we serve dads in lots of different seasons. So here's the first one. Psalm 78 says David shepherded with integrity of heart and skillful hands. What's stirred up around fatherhood with that verse?
Mac [05:56]: That's one of my life verses. What it tells me is that David was such a phenomenal leader because he had leadership spirit and leadership skill. He shepherded with a pure heart and guided with skillful hands. It requires both. It requires leadership spirit and leadership skill to actually lead your family. So many times guys default to their leadership skill. They lead in the home like they would lead a business, but they don't have that leadership spirit — that patience, gentleness, all those traits of the fruit of the Spirit. Other times guys have leadership character and leadership spirit, but they don't apply leadership skills and competencies at home. You need to lead at home. I see a lot of men being passive at home instead of going, "No, I need to be a leader." They default to their wife and let her lead.
Jeff [06:56]: Yes, that was helpful. The next phrase is, for dads: speak life. My heart jumps to Deuteronomy 30:19 — "I've set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your children may live." What stirred up around speaking life?
Mac [07:16]: I think it's one of the most important things a father can do — speak life into their children. I was coaching an executive at a hospital system. He had two young kids. He's a workaholic, never home. I started quizzing him, not just about his leadership at work but his leadership at home. He loves his kids, he really does. I said, "All right, I'm going to give you an assignment. Go home, get on your knee, look them in the eye, and tell them you're proud of them. Tell them why you're proud of them. Then tell them you love them and speak life into them." I asked him, "Do you ever do that?" He said, "No, I never do. I never tell them those things." Man, you want to change the trajectory of somebody's life — start speaking life-giving words into them. Not only does it change their life, it changes their loyalty to you, because now you're a life-giving person.
Jeff [08:26]: Whoa. So this is on my coffee mug here — Tom Petty, "I won't back down." What stirred up for fatherhood with that phrase?
Mac [08:38]: Man, "I won't back down." I'm studying right now when Jesus went into the temple and cleansed it. He walked into the temple at the very beginning of His public ministry, and He saw that the Court of the Gentiles — which was reserved as a place of prayer for Gentiles, where Gentiles could travel from miles around during Passover and experience the presence of God and worship the God of Israel — was littered with animals and money changers, and they were taking advantage of people. There was no way you could pray in there. It was too loud and smelly.
Mac: Jesus didn't back down. He started flipping tables. He started cleaning the place out. That was a bold move, because it upset the religious leaders and could have upset the Roman leaders too — they didn't want to see any overthrow or turmoil in the temple. But He didn't back down. He did what was right. And we have to do the same thing. We have to parent from a place of values and conviction and not back down from those convictions, regardless of what the world around us is saying.
Mac: The world at that point was saying, "That's okay." In fact, it was one of the former high priests who set up that whole system — it was called the Booths of Annas. It was an economic system he set up to pad his own pockets and his family's. And Jesus was like, "No, not having this. I'm not going to back down." He started flipping tables. What's fascinating is, on the heels of that, Nicodemus — one of the Sanhedrin, known as the teacher of teachers in all of Israel — went to Jesus and said, "All right, who are you? Because what you did, I have not had the guts to do."
Fatherhood Multiplication: The Word and the Works of God
Jeff [10:42]: Basically — fatherhood multiplication. Fatherhood multiplication. Let's start there.
Mac [10:53]: Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned Psalm 78. Asaph is the worship leader for David, about a thousand BC. Asaph, man, I love him. He's passionate. In Psalm 78, he said, listen, there are two things you've got to focus on: teach your family the Word of God and the works of God. And he says, "I want you to teach these things to your children so that they can teach them to their children, so that they can teach them to the children who aren't even born yet." That's four generations of multiplication. He's saying, "I'm so sick and tired of the spiritual drift we're experiencing as a nation. Let's get back to the works of God and the Word of God, so we're building this into the fabric, the DNA, the soul of our children, so that it continues to pass down."
Mac: And Jeff, here's the thing that hit me. As I studied that passage — he says, not just to know the Word of God, but to know the works of God. Then he lists about 20 episodes of things God had done, stories, in the family of Israel. It hit me one day as I was reading that: "Oh my gosh, that's the works of God he's recounting for the people of Israel. I need to do the same thing." I need to trust God in such a way that God shows up, God does miracles, so I can build a list of stories in our legacy — in our family — so the works of God aren't just those recorded for the people of Israel, but are recorded because the Lake family trusted God and we saw God show up. We have our own faith-legacy stories that we pass down from one generation to the next.
Mac: My son Brandon recently did something incredible — an act of faith, an act of generosity. I was standing there when it all happened, and I took his 11-year-old son by the shoulders, looked at him and said, "Lace, I want you to know that you were born, God placed you with this mom and dad on purpose, so you could have a front-row seat to watch and witness the faith of your mother and your father, because God is building that type of faith into you. You are so blessed, son, to be able to experience what you just experienced, because many kids don't."
Mac: It's the same thing I would tell all my kids when they were young. We didn't have any money — I was a pastor, a church planter. We didn't have any money. My kids would go, "Dad, how come we can't have all these boats and four-wheelers?" I said, "Listen, we may not be rich in money, but I'm telling you, Mom and Dad are giving you something many of those parents aren't giving their kids. You're going to be rich in faith, because you're getting to watch God show up in ways that perhaps they're not."
Jeff [14:00]: Yes, Mack. I'm thinking about — we call them remembrance lists. Take time, pause, remember, write them down. Then we celebrate. We use our photos, often we'll cast them to the screen — "Look what God did here, or here." Even look back on the same date years earlier — what was happening that day? Often we're reminded.
Jeff: I was curious — as Pops today, you're able to lean into this grandpa role with insight you didn't have as a young dad. What are you good at today that you wish you'd been good at back then — something transferable to younger dads even though you're doing it as Pops?
A Posture of Unhurried Presence
Mac [14:51]: Absolutely. A posture of unhurried presence. A posture of unhurried presence. In your 30s and 40s, your primary priority is your career. You're trying to prove something to the world. You're drive, drive, drive, trying to succeed. I wasn't always good at having a posture of unhurried presence.
Mac: But when my grandkids are at my house or I'm at their house, they are number one priority for me. There are times when all the adults are gathered around the dinner table having fun conversations and laughing, but my grandkids will say, "Hey, Pops, can you go throw football with me?" Absolutely. I will leave that conversation to go spend unhurried presence with you. I do carry my phone with me when I'm with them because I capture little videos of them, but I don't check my phone when I'm with them. I try not to take phone calls. I want them to experience me as totally present, not distracted.
Mac: So often we are present with our kids, but we're not present with our kids. Putting everything aside and saying, "You are the thing that matters most to me in this moment, and I'm going to be present with you. If you want to throw a football for 10 minutes, I will throw it for 10 minutes. If you want to throw it for 60 minutes, I will throw it for 60 minutes."
Jeff [16:33]: I think of the phrase, "I enjoy you" — just this savoring, like I hope it even goes longer, versus the natural pull toward, "Let's get to the next thing." That's the hurry you're talking about. This is one of the categories that, if a couple times a week one of my friends was like, "How's that going?" — that would be such a gift to me. Because I drift back into missing moments all the time. Do you have anything else that stirred up — something you're good at as Pops that maybe you weren't so good at as a young dad?
Pops TV: Adventures, Storytelling, and Memory-Making
Mac [17:14]: Gosh, I did have fun with my kids and was creative with them. We would do American Idol night at home — everybody had to stand up and do their talent. We'd do cooking contests. But as a granddad, I'm taking it to a different level. I create these adventures. They come over saying, "What adventure are we doing today, Pops?" So I create adventures.
Mac: One time, there's an island just off the river where we live. I got in the kayak, rode over there, and hid about 20 little green army men all over the island. Then I came back, took two of the boys, and I showed them a little video from YouTube I'd created — it was a U-boat pulling up on shore and soldiers jumping off. I told them the story that our soldiers went to this island but were captured, and they called us and we had to go rescue them. So we dressed in camouflage, put the black stuff all over our faces, jumped in the kayak, rode over there and scouted the island, and we found the soldiers one at a time and rescued them. Cindy videoed the whole thing. Then I pieced it together in a YouTube video, and I've got something called Pops TV. I uploaded it on Pops TV.
Mac Jeff, it's so funny — the grandkids come over to the house and say, "Can we watch Pops TV?" Their parents tell me, "Gosh, all they want to do is watch Pops TV." Recording those stories burns it deeper into their brain, builds a deeper connection with us, and strengthens the memories. We didn't take pictures, didn't video, any of that. But I go all out on the adventures, and it's a lot of fun.
Jeff [19:38]: Well, it wasn't expensive — that wasn't expensive. I can copy that. I can think of a spot — an island I could do the voyage with, and I can fit all four of my girls in the kayak with me, which is past the weight rating. The kayak's like 170 pounds and we're at 600 pounds with all of us. It's hilarious — I'm exaggerating.
Mac [19:56]: When I do my walks, I find lacrosse balls. We live near a stadium. I got an idea one day — every day I'd walk and I'd get a lacrosse ball. It took about a year, and I gathered 20 lacrosse balls. We have another island over here that you actually walk to — a really cool island. I took the lacrosse balls and hid them all across the island. Then I showed the kids a video. I went over and videoed the island, then green-screened dinosaurs into the island. I said, "You guys, there have been dinosaurs on the island, and they laid eggs. There are dinosaur eggs all over the island." We gave them bags and went over to hunt for dinosaur eggs. The little ones went nuts. They loved it. Then we brought them all back and put them in a cooler filled with water. I told them to go play. While they were out playing, I took all the balls out and replaced them with plastic dinosaurs. They came back later and I said, "Hey, let's jump on those eggs." We opened up the lid. They went crazy.
Jeff [21:09]: Adding the adventure, plus Pops TV — that's another level if you can capture it. We know that repeated storytelling, repeated photos, video, memories — the feeling of being loved by an intentional Pops — it's cementing.
Jeff: Just to call back for a moment to you pulling aside your grandson and pointing out what his parents were doing — some of us have that, a dad or grandpa doing that for us. Some of us can do that right now: call out what Mom is doing. We can do that to our kids — whisper, "Look at what she is doing." It's a way of just honoring and elevating, not centering ourselves as the hero.
Jeff: I've heard you talk about this — maybe it was in your book — the concept of, "Am I telling stories with me as the hero and my values as the driving values of the story?" Or do you center it with their values? Can you explain how that plays out?
Mack [22:11]: When they spend the night, we all get in bed — sometimes three of them, sometimes all six. They'll say, "Pops, tell us a story." I say, "Okay." So I make up a story. A lot of times it's about basketball, because four of them are boys — but I'll weave in something for the girls. There's a hero in the story, and I'll name characters after the kids. The hero or heroes always end up making the right decision, but they always face a villain and have to overcome something.
Mack: So "Trick Shot Charlie" became the coach of a basketball team of animals that were just terrible. They were like the Bad News Bears. They were playing against a team that was all monkeys — highly skilled, they could jump and swing and dunk. The poor other team had a giraffe, a hippo, different animals — each one had one of my grandkids' names. When Trick Shot Charlie came in and started coaching them, he showed them how to use their strengths. The giraffe had a long neck. The hippo could stand under, and somebody could jump on and dunk. Each of them had a role. All of a sudden, they started beating the monkeys, became the top team, and won the championship. I've always tried to establish values in the story and see how the kids relate themselves to the characters, so they learn those values.
Jeff [24:00]: Yeah — and the story is never easy. There's always opposition, always a villain. Storytelling and making up stories is part of our family culture, and I love it. Year over year — I've been telling pirate-dog stories for seven, eight years — I find myself bringing less energy in this chapter. So your ideas are helping me reignite some passion for creative storytelling. Thank you.
Mack [24:27]: One thing I'll say is, "Okay, we're going to tell a story. Once upon a time there was a monkey, and he lived in the jungle, and he told his mom, 'I'm going to go for a walk.' And so he walked out the door, and he went to — all right, Bo, where'd he go?" And Bo has to tell it, then he passes it, and it passes around. So all of us are making up the story at the same time. That's pretty cool too.
A Biblical Definition of Leadership: Disciple, Servant, Apostle
Jeff [24:50]: I love it. Over these eight years of DadAwesome, we've been making discoveries — picking them up from every conversation. You're one of them. There's a framework, and the last of the six core discoveries is leadership. That's what I really want to turn the conversation toward.
Jeff: With my little girls, we have three core "We are" statements that make the Zog family. "We are loved" is the first L. "We are learners" is the second — the humility, teachability, learner, curiosity. And "We are leaders" is the third — God's mission for us. I noticed that overlaps with your definition of leadership. You've talked about Jesus' definition of leadership: disciple, servant, apostle. Could you walk us through those three? We also say, "Lead yourself, dads — lead yourself, lead your family, lead other dads." You're called to multiplication beyond your own house. With that as a backdrop, take us into this definition of leadership.
Mack [26:09]: I was speaking at a conference one time. Before I got up to speak, they asked three people to come on stage and give a testimony about leadership. Three leaders. All three said something very similar: "I'm not much of a leader. I don't consider myself a leader." I was just shocked. When I walked on stage, I thought, "I have to address this." I said, "Hey, I appreciate the testimony, appreciate your leadership. I know you said it from a place of humility, but this is something I hear a lot of Christian leaders say — 'Well, I'm not much of a leader.' I want to challenge our thinking around this. A lot of times we're not saying that out of humility, we're saying it out of insecurity. And you can't lead like Jesus and lead from a place of insecurity at the same time."
Mack: I began to ask the question, "Why do so many believers say, 'Well, I'm not much of a leader'?" It hit me — they're defining leader culturally, not biblically. So I started looking through Scripture: "How would Jesus have defined leader?" Well, He gave us three words. The first is disciple, which means a learner. A leader is somebody who's always learning, never stops learning. If you stop learning, you stop leading — or at least stop leading well. As a dad, here's how I apply that: I want to keep learning about being a parent. I want to keep learning about being a better husband. I always want to be a student of my kids, my wife, of parenting and marriage. Last night, I was Google-searching for a new book on marriage in your 60s, so we can continue to learn.
Mack: The second word is servant. A servant prefers others above himself. You put others in front of yourself. I'm here to serve, and that means serving my wife. There's nothing better you can model, men, than serving your wife. For your kids to watch that — that is a massive lesson. "Wow, that honors mom, serves mom, elevates mom." That's what a servant does.
Mack: And the third word He used is apostle. We all know it means a representative. But if you look 400 years before the time of Christ, that word was used of someone — a general — who would go into a territory on behalf of a king and establish a colony reflective of the king's culture, so that if the king ever came there, he would feel comfortable in that culture. I call that a culture shaper. That's my biblical definition of a leader — those three things put together. You begin to teach your children: "Hey, we are lifelong learners. We are going to serve people and love people. And we are also going to be leaders who shape the culture around us."
Jeff [29:26]: And we don't have to be uber-creative. The apostle concept — someone who is sent. We have a God in heaven who has sent us, gifted us the role of being dads. He sent us. If we stay a learner — stay in God's Word, stay learning from other mentor dads who are following Christ — we are bringing a culture of more of heaven, less of what the world says should be in our homes. It simplifies leadership versus, "Man, as a leader I have to craft a multi-generational plan for my family. I have to develop in a super unique way." No — God has gifted us the ability. Go back to learner, the disciple — they followed closely. They just followed and spent time in proximity to Jesus. So this definition would mean when I tell my girls, "You are leaders" — everyone is called to be a leader. Would you agree with that?
Mack [30:30]: Yeah, yeah. And I like what you're saying because it reminds me of when Jesus cleansed the temple. He stepped into the temple, and leadership at that moment was doing what's right in the moment. He looked around and went, "This isn't right. They're contaminating the place where Gentiles should be worshiping." So He cleansed the temple and changed the environment. When you read Matthew 21, after He cleansed the temple — just a week before He died — it said the lame and the blind met Him in the temple and He started healing them. Then it said children started singing Hosanna to Him in the temple. He stepped into an environment that wasn't right. He acted in a way that was right, and it changed the environment around Him. That's leadership.
Calling Out What God Sees
Jeff [31:27]: Step in, see, act. There's also a calling out — you mentioned this earlier. "I see this in you." Calling out, "This is what's true of you." I learned this from one of your good friends, going back three decades — he said your ability to say, "I see this in you," and then keep reminding your kids, was formative. How would you coach me around calling out, seeing, and then continuing to bring that back in front of my little girls — "This is what's true"?
Mack [32:11]: The very first time Jesus ever met Simon — fall of 26 AD — He looked at Simon and said, "You are Simon, but you will be Peter," which means rock. Jesus was a rabbi. Whenever a rabbi or prophet would change somebody's name, it wasn't giving them a cute nickname — it was a way of prophetically speaking something into them that was true, but that they perhaps couldn't see themselves. Jesus saw it in Simon, He spoke it into Simon, and then He began to shape it into him. He walked with him. Three years later, fall of 29 AD, He takes Peter and the other apostles to Caesarea Philippi. He stands there in front of the temple worship and says, "Who do you say I am?" Peter spoke up: "You are the Messiah" — he'd figured that part out — "but you're also the Son of God." His deity — Peter didn't understand that until that moment. Jesus looked at him and said, "Now you are Peter." Three years earlier it was future tense: "You will be Peter." Three years later: "You are now rock."
Mack: What I tell people is: you've got to see what's in them — see what God sees in them — speak that into them, and begin to shape it into them over time. Repeatedly bring it back. Be their biggest cheerleader. Point out their strengths. My son Jordan, when he was five years old, I said, "I'm going to call you Smiley because you're always smiling. People love you." I was with him the other day, having been with his boss the day before, and I said, "Jordan, your superpower is your people skills. I tell you this all the time. You've got a superpower — it's your people skills. I don't know if you even believe it as much as I believe it, but your people skills are your superpower. This is why people love you so much. That's why people trust you. That's why people want to be around you. You may not have some of these other skills, but man, you've got people skills." I've been speaking that into him for years. Now I'm just solidifying it, nailing it down. "Hey, don't forget that." He's 32, I think. I'm going to keep drilling this into you.
Mack: Same with all three of my kids — just speaking certain things. To this day, 30, 32, and 35 years old, I'm still speaking truth into them. What we do, Jeff, especially with our grown kids, is we look at them and see what we don't like about them, and we become their biggest critic instead of their biggest cheerleader. "You should clean this place up. You should dress different. You shouldn't wear your hair like that. You should be more patient. You should parent better." We nag them. I want my kids to be around me. I want them to like me. So I'm their biggest cheerleader. Other people can criticize them. Other people can coach them. I'm just going to cheerlead them. I'm going to elevate them. I'm going to show them what's great about them, not what's bad about them. There are enough people out there showing everybody what's bad about them.
Mack: If they want Sandra and me to coach them, we'll answer their question. But we've tried to raise them to be independent of us and not need us. Too many parents send their kids off but still need to be needed by their kids. They can't let go. They keep trying to shape them when — no, they're 18 years old, they're gone. You had your 18 years.
From Intent to Action: One Next Step
Jeff [36:24]: Yeah, I love that. You get this opportunity to keep cheering, keep cheering. For me in my phase, the same is applicable. Cheer more, criticize less, call out what God has planted in them and watch it.
Jeff: There's intent, and there's desire from dads. We want this week, this month, this year to be different in fatherhood. But there's moving from information, from intent, down that 18 inches to our hearts, and then into our actions. As a leadership coach, how would you coach me around refusing to settle at intent and actually taking action?
Mack [37:08]: I love what David did in Psalm 139:23-24. He said, "Search me and know me, and see if there's anything in me — and then show me Your way." The Hebrew word he used was a military term — "search me" — used of sending out spies. So in essence, what David was saying is, "Holy Spirit, God, would You look inside my heart, spy out this territory, and then bring me the critical data, the strategic information I need to be aware of, so I can follow Your way?"
Mack: So I think, Jeff, it begins with spending time with God and just saying, "Hey, teach me" — being that disciple. "God, where do You want me to grow?" Then write it down. "Okay, here's what I feel like You're asking me to do. Here's one area I feel like You want me to grow in." For some dads, it might be, "I need to become a better encourager." For others, "I need to be more present." For others, "I need to discipline with intentionality and patience." Whatever it is — when God shines a light on, "Hey, here's an area you need to grow as a dad" — then write down one next step. This is what discipleship is: helping someone take their next step spiritually. Not totally transform overnight. It's just, what's your next step? For some dads, it's praying, "Okay, God, You want me to be a better encourager, speak life-giving words. What's the one thing I'm going to tell my daughter this week? I'm going to speak life into her this week, and then Jeff is going to check on me to make sure I did that." That's it. Just making that easy.
Run the Experiment: Apprentice, Then Lead
Jeff [39:07]: I love it. I've been running experiments — even fatherhood experiments. Run some experiments, take the pressure down. A leadership experiment is, if I'm leading other dads in any way — like Campfire, four dads coming over once a month — it could be very simple. But taking leadership in the sphere of fatherhood is really vulnerable. Who am I to lead something in the fatherhood space? Because if you saw what happened two days ago with my seven-year-old…
Jeff: Most dads have disqualified themselves from running leadership experiments in the sphere of fatherhood. That's why most churches, if you look up their small-group directory, have very few fatherhood groups — we don't think we've arrived enough to lead other dads. What I want to bring to you is this: I firmly believe that by leading in that sphere, I've created a mechanism for me to keep growing, to stay humble, keep growing. Leading in areas where I'm still struggling, I actually grow even more, because I'm bringing more of my heart and I want to step into this. Most dads, though, aren't willing to run that experiment. How would you encourage a dad to just give it a try — lead some other dads in some capacity?
Mack [40:28]: Yeah, I love that, because leaders who develop leaders become better leaders. Teachers who teach others become better at whatever they're teaching. It's such a great principle. What I would challenge a dad to do is find somebody who is leading a group of dads, and go to them and say, "Hey, I want to apprentice under you. Can I watch you do this? Can I learn from you?" Apprentice under that individual for a season, and then step out — even when you don't feel ready — and start leading. Realize that the group is not expecting you to be an expert. They're not expecting you to be perfect.
Mack: I'll never forget when I read Wild at Heart and John Eldredge says, "You will wound your children." There's no such thing as a perfect dad. You will wound your children in one way or another. I was like, "No, I don't want to. I want to be the perfect dad." But there's no such thing — because they're going to learn and grow from the wounds, from our weaknesses, as much as from our strengths.
Mack: Cindy and I started leading marriage groups when we were three years into marriage. We didn't know what we were doing. We'd lead these six-week studies, have 10, 12 couples come to our house. We'd sit there, lead them through the study, and after they'd leave, Cindy and I would look at each other and go, "Whew, man, we don't want to do what they're doing." We learned so much about marriage. That was one of the secrets, I believe, early on, that gave us such a strong marriage — we were leading groups. We were learning more than anybody else. So I would encourage dads: step out.
Mack: Here's the thing — we define small-group leadership success as having 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 men, 30 men in our group. You know how many are in my group, Jeff? Three. Four counting me. We were at Starbucks one day doing one of our sessions, and an old buddy of mine came up and said, "What are you all doing?" One of the guys said, "This is our discipleship group." He said, "Well, I didn't know about this. How can I join?" One of the guys in the group said, "You can't." He said, "What are you talking about? Anybody should be able to." "No, I'm committed to these three. I'm pouring into these three for a season, and then I'm expecting them to turn around and reproduce themselves." Multiply. So I looked at the guy and said, "No, it's closed. You cannot get in. Maybe you're a candidate for next round, but this is a closed group. I'm pouring into and discipling these guys. We're learning and growing together." From day one, I told them, "My expectation of you is to lead and turn around and multiply."
Final Deposit: Discipline Is Discipleship
Jeff [43:31]: Mack, I'm so thankful for this conversation. There are so many other directions we could have gone to help dads. Is there 60 seconds — any last thing you were hoping we'd chat about, any other deposit you'd want to make to the dads listening today?
Mack [43:45]: Gosh. One thing I would say is: be careful when you look at your children's behavior, how you judge it. A lot of times we look at our kids' behavior as a reflection of our own identity and security. When they're acting really well and you're proud of them, you feel pretty good about your identity. But when they're making bad choices or being a jerk or falling down and throwing a fit in the middle of Walmart, all of a sudden it's a reflection on my identity, and it hurts my ego, and now I'm disciplining out of impatience and out of my wounded identity and ego — instead of looking at their behavior and saying, "God, how do You want me to deal with this in a way that honors them, understands them, but at the same time shapes them?"
Mack: Instead, we end up yelling at them because their behavior is hurting my ego. We don't say this or think it, but: "Your behavior right now is making me not feel good about myself as a dad." And we end up punishing and disciplining in ways that are not discipleship. Discipline is discipleship. It's shaping them into the image of Christ. If you're yelling and screaming, that doesn't shape somebody into the image of Christ. It's actually the opposite.
Jeff [45:20]: Yeah, thank you. Great final encouragement. Could you say a short prayer over all of us dads?
Mack [45:26]: Yeah, I sure will. God, thank You so much for this time with Jeff. Thanks for this conversation. Thank You for all these men and women that are listening. God, I know this can be a difficult job, raising kids. We never feel equipped. Once you feel like you've got one figured out, they move into a different season, and then you try to get that figured out and they move into another season. It's always changing, and we have to be flexible and always have to be learning. So, Father, I just pray for the encouragement of all the moms and dads listening today, that something in here — Holy Spirit, You would just deposit one thing that will help them take one step that will make a big difference in the way they parent and the way they relate to their kids. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Jeff [46:19]: Thank you so much for joining us for episode 435 with Mack Lake. The conversation notes, the links, the key discoveries, and the transcripts are all going to be found at dadawesome.org/podcast. I want to remind you guys — June 1st, put it on your calendar. If you can support this mission by buying the book on Amazon — the DadAwesome book on Amazon on June 1st — that would be a huge support to see this mission multiply. And the coaching cohort: you are invited to prayerfully join the next round of the DadAwesome Accelerator, kicking off June 10th. We'd love to invite you to prayerfully apply to join this next round. Guys, thanks for listening. Thanks for being dads of action. Praying for you guys, celebrating you guys, and cheering for you guys today.
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"If you stop learning, you stop leading. I want to be a student of my kids, my wife, and parenting."
"You want to change the trajectory of somebody's life? Start speaking life-giving words into them and watch what happens."
"So often we are present with our kids, but we're not present with our kids. Put everything aside and be there."
"See what God sees in them. Speak that into them. Then shape it into them over time — repeatedly."
"Discipline is discipleship. It's shaping them into the image of Christ. Yelling and screaming does the exact opposite."
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