439 | The Dad Year in Review: Strength in Weakness, Order Out of Chaos & Being Tight with Jesus (Part 1)

Rhythms & HabitsRaising Jesus Followers
Written By Jeff Zaugg

Episode Description

In this Father's Day special, Jeff Zaugg revisits five of the most impactful conversations from the past "dad year"... Featuring voices like Pastor Dave Brickey, Dr. Jake Smith, and Craig Allen Cooper. The clips explore the transformative power of fatherly weakness and repentance, the damage of performance-based parenting, the importance of emotional self-awareness, the biblical call to create order in family life, and the ripple effect of quiet, Jesus-fueled generosity. It's a looking-back episode that's really about looking up — because the best thing a dad can do for his kids is stay close to the One who can do what we can't.

  • Dave Brickey is a lead pastor in the northwest suburbs of Minnesota and father of four who describes his family life as a beautiful mess. He is passionate about helping families shift from mechanical thinking to an agricultural approach in parenting and faith, championing ancient practices like prayer retreats and sacred family meals as essential rhythms for thriving homes.

    Lance Welch is a legacy navigator, leadership coach, and author of Legacy Navigator: Creating Intentional Multi-Generational Impact, who spent decades in corporate leadership at a Fortune 100 company before coaching business leaders and families on building lasting legacy. He and his wife have been married 37 years, have three adult sons who are all entrepreneurs, and are proud grandparents of two living in the Nashville area.

    Dr. Jake Smith is the founder of Plumb Line, a ministry dedicated to helping men and women live with their whole hearts through healing, wholeness, and purpose, and spent 21 years as a pastor before devoting himself fully to that work. He and his wife have three kids and he is passionate about helping fathers move beyond survival mode to become integrated, whole-hearted leaders in their homes.

    Chris Cirullo is a former Army Ranger with four combat tours in Afghanistan turned fatherhood coach who now leads men through Mission Fit and serves on the team at Forming Men. He and his wife Justine homeschool their five sons in Eugene, Oregon, and he brings the same precision and discipline from the battlefield to the practical systems he builds for leading his family well.

    Craig Allen Cooper is the co-author of Glad You're Here alongside country music artist Walker Hayes and the real-life subject of Walker's hit song Craig, which tells the story of their unlikely friendship and Craig's influence in Walker's journey to faith. He is a speaker, podcaster, and devoted father of four near Nashville who is passionate about discipleship, authentic friendship, and helping men feast on God's Word daily.

    • Your weakness as a dad is not a liability — it's a bridge. When you humbly repent and admit you need Jesus, your kids see who their real Savior is.

    • Raising kids in "the gap" (measuring what they fell short of) creates a performance identity that damages their sense of worth. Celebrate the gain — the progress they've made.

    • Defensiveness and dismissiveness toward your kids often starts with dismissing your own feelings. Learning to name what's going on inside you is the first step to staying steady.

    • God designed dads to be bringers of order — not complainers of disorder. Reverse engineer a family vision, create systems, and name the chaos so your kids can learn to do the same.

    • You don't have to do the miracles. You just have to be tight with the man who did. Small, unseen acts of generosity done close to Jesus can change the trajectory of another family forever.

  • Dave Brickey — https://www.dadawesome.org/blog/391

    Lance Welch — https://www.dadawesome.org/blog/394

    Dr. Jake Smith — https://www.dadawesome.org/blog/398

    Chris Cirullo — https://www.dadawesome.org/blog/410

    Craig Allen Cooper — https://www.dadawesome.org/blog/418

  • This is episode 439 of Dad Awesome. Guys, welcome back and happy Father’s Day. My name is Jeff Zaugg, and we’re gonna have some fun this week and next week. We’re going to sandwich Father’s Day with a two-part series surrounding Father’s Day 2026. You’re gonna get five lookbacks this week at the previous year, the dad year. From Father’s Day to Father’s Day is the dad year. We’re gonna look back at the last 52 episodes of Dad Awesome.


    What are some of the conversations that stirred deeper levels of whoa, God is speaking through this conversation. There’s something here. We need to point back to it one more time. They’re not my top 10. They’re simply, as I prayerfully looked at these conversations, these are 10 I have to point you guys back to. So we’re gonna do that and just have some fun with just five two-minute clips this week. And then each of them, I’ll mention the episode numbers. You can jump back and listen to the whole episode.


    One thing we want to shout out and give thanks for is just a few months ago we launched the Dad Awesome book. Thank you for the support, the encouragement. We launched it on Amazon about two weeks ago with Dad Awesome Day, and we now have seventy Amazon reviews. What happens is when you buy the book on Amazon and then do a review, it’s a verified review, and you purchase it first, that’s gonna help potentially every review could help 10 to 100 more dads learn about this book, this resource, and be impacted. So we’re rallying our community to try to push over the 100 review mark around Father’s Day. Hop over to Amazon, search for Dad Awesome, no space, just search dad awesome, and you can leave a review.


    Okay, the first of five. You’re gonna get five of these lookbacks this week of episodes that shifted, changed, encouraged, and moved us as a community. Let’s jump to our first conversation with Pastor Dave Brickey.


    [CLIP 1 — Dave Brickey]


    The beauty of parenting is, and this has been so framed for me, is marked more by weakness than strength. No one has a bird’s eye view into the messiness of someone’s life or the pretension and pretending of a parent’s life than a child. Other than a spouse. They see it all. And looking back, my strength points my kids to me as their savior, but my weakness points them to who my savior is.


    I remember my daughter Ava, who’s now eighteen, and she was a little girl. I want to say she was six years old, and I had a mentor of mine encourage me to not just be a leader in different ways in my home, but to be a leader in repentance, to actually own my flaws. And so as a father, when I come home, I realize that I can bring a cloud into the home just from being grumpy. And I remember repenting to my daughter Ava. She said, Daddies need Jesus too? And yeah, we do. You lead with your strengths, but you connect through your weaknesses.


    [Jeff Zaugg]


    Daddies need Jesus too. Wow. Our weaknesses, guys, our weaknesses point our kids to our Savior. Hearts of dads toward heaven and toward home. The more our kids see us humbly apologize, come to them saying daddy needs Jesus too. Powerful. Let’s jump to our next conversation with Lance Welch.


    [CLIP 2 — Lance Welch]


    Have you ever read the book The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan? It is a business book, but I’ve recommended it to more dads than business leaders. The short version: I forced my boys into what’s called the gap. The gap is what measures how short you fell from hitting your target. Think of a particular race my youngest boy was in. He came in third as a sophomore and was ecstatic. He should have been living in what’s called the gain, from all the progress that he made. But what did dad do? I harped on you didn’t hit the hill hard enough. I put him in the gap instead of letting him celebrate the gain.


    Many dads, I was that way. Basketball was my thing. My dad would get as many newspapers as he could to find somebody in a three-state area that would either have more points, more rebounds, or better shooting percentages than me. I was constantly in a gap of falling short, a performance identity. And because I was raised that way, I thought that was normal. I know I did that to all three of my boys. If they were sitting down now, I think they would say: I wish we could have lived more in the gain.


    [Jeff Zaugg]


    This story and this insight from Lance is deeply impactful for me. My dad used to bring a clipboard to all my basketball games to keep stats. Not as part of the coaching staff. He wanted to give specific encouragement. But the clipboard meant I could earn more love from my dad if I put more points on the scoreboard. When I didn’t play well, he would go silent on the drive home. Years later, God revealed this truth: my heavenly Father has set the scoreboard to infinity. He does not have a performance-based love. He has unconditional love. You are a loved, adopted, righteous son of God. You are mine. I love you no matter what.


    Let’s go into our next clip with Dr. Jake Smith.


    [CLIP 3 — Dr. Jake Smith]


    Dads being defensive. Dads being dismissive. We are talking about the heart, the feelings part of our spiritual anatomy. Our hearts are where feelings live. And in our culture, we are taught to suppress and dismiss feelings. Many of us, when we were having big feelings as kids, were probably sent to our room, not allowed to come out until we stopped crying or could have a calm conversation. The subtle, unintended message we all got as little boys was: feelings will disqualify you from relationship.


    So we learn to dismiss ourselves and our feelings very, very young. And we do to others what we do to ourselves. If I’m dismissing my own feelings, I’m going to dismiss yours and tell you to suck it up. The fix is I have to start tuning a curious ear to myself. When something is stirring in me, when I’m frustrated, when I’m irritated, I have to turn that curious attention inward and ask: where am I at? I don’t get to choose what feelings I have. I only choose what I do with them.


    Fear, when it’s dishonored in me, when I’ve dismissed or suppressed it, it doesn’t go away. It devolves into anxiety and control. I start trying to control my kid’s life and motivate him externally, which is one of the most damaging things we can do. They have to find their internal motivation.


    [Jeff Zaugg]


    Dr. Jake Smith, this one hit deep. I have a feelings wheel printed in my closet. I’m trying to figure out what is causing the level of response right now. Courageous dads will go see a Christian counselor. We’ll spend the time, the money, the vulnerability, because figuring out what in our story upstream is causing the suppression, that is real work, real emotional strength, real worth it.


    Let’s get practical now. Our next conversation is with Chris Cirullo.


    [CLIP 4 — Chris Cirullo]


    When you look at Genesis 1 and 2, God could have done anything, infinite wisdom, creativity, knowledge, capacity, and he chose to create man. He gave him a wife. And then he commanded them: be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and rule. We have a missional command as part of the family dynamic.


    The very first thing God told Adam to do was to bring order and strategy. He gave him the job of naming the animals. God said: you go and name them. Whatever you name them, they’re named. He wanted to partner with Adam to bring order into the world. He stopped short of producing complete order so that man, as a father and husband, could do some of that work. So even on a hard day, even when you’re exhausted, you have this innate responsibility as a father to bring order.


    In our home, God’s word comes first. Every morning at breakfast I’m reading the Word and asking the kids to tell me what jumps out. At 7 a.m. we wrestle. I have them do push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and each one gets one-on-one wrestling time with dad. We’ve created systems. We train our kids, show them how to do it, tell them what’s expected. And we ask them: does this feel like order or does this feel like chaos?


    [Jeff Zaugg]


    This is my calling. I bring order. I’m a bringer of order versus a complainer of disorder. Part of our mandate at Dad Awesome, eight and a half years into this adventure, is to help dads turn their hearts toward heaven and their hearts toward home. In the United States we lead 130 developed nations in fatherlessness. About one in four kids is growing up without a dad. There is an epidemic of fatherlessness and an epidemic of pain.


    The Malachi mandate, Malachi 4:6, the turning of hearts. Fathers to their kids. Kids to their fathers. Hearts of fathers toward heaven first. We’re praying that our hearts would burn, would be moved toward more of heaven, and then bring that heaven to our families. With the source being Jesus. And that’s why I love rounding out the lookback with Craig Allen Cooper.


    [CLIP 5 — Craig Allen Cooper]


    I started praying: Lord, would you please provide for us so that we can replace our primary vehicle and give the Hayes family our van? And in secret, that’s exactly what happened. We met them at a baseball field late after a game. Walker sees us and realizes, there are two cars. What’s happening? I had the title to the van, a pen, and the keys, and I just said: hey bro, all you gotta do is sign and this is yours.


    He pushed back. I’m not taking your car. And I told him: somebody did this for me once. Just let me do this for you. He reluctantly took it. Far from being offended, it softened him. He was an unbeliever, an atheist, didn’t want anything to do with Jesus or the church. But slowly over time he kept trying to thank me. And the best way he knew how was to write a song. That song is all about Jesus. He says in it: he can’t walk on water, talk about me, but he just might be tight with the man that did.


    [Jeff Zaugg]


    You can’t do the miracles, but you’re tight with the man who can. Sometimes what could be a small thing, something you intended to be unseen and unnoticed forever, God will use to change the trajectory of another family. That’s our prayer as we look back on this dad year.


    We have 40 families that help fuel Dad Awesome with monthly generosity. Some giving $7 a month, a few giving $1,000 a month. We’re praying that 10 more families, businesses, or churches join us as monthly partners. Head to dadawesome.org/give. We’re a nonprofit and we’d love to share more about the mission. Guys, thank you for celebrating Father’s Day with us. This is the first of a two-part series sandwiching Father’s Day. All the conversation notes, all the quotes and links to those past episodes are all gonna be at dadawesome.org/podcast. Love you guys, praying for you guys. Happy Father’s Day.

    1. "My strength points my kids to me as their savior, but my weakness points them to who my savior is." — Pastor Dave Brickey, Ep. 391

    2. "You lead with your strengths, but you connect through your weaknesses." — Pastor Dave Brickey, Ep. 391

    3. "My heavenly Father has set the scoreboard to infinity." — Jeff Zaugg, reflecting on Ep. 394 with Lance Welch

    4. "I don't get to choose what feelings I have. I only choose what I do with them." — Dr. Jake Smith, Ep. 398

    5. "He can't walk on water — but he just might be tight with the man that did." — Walker Hayes (via Craig Allen Cooper, Ep. 418)

 

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Jeff Zaugg
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438 | No Scoreboard at Home, Becoming the Man God Designed (Gabe Biedenbaugh) PART 2