Fight Club Session 3

I love starting my Tuesday morning with Fight Club. This morning proved to be an injection of energy that I desperately needed. JB gave 25 practical ways to be a servant leader. Before I get to a few of those, though, I will recap the theme of the series: A man is not passive. A man takes initiative in all things, especially his family.

I could offer thoughts to all 25 ideas he gave, but I'm going to pick three for now.

A servant-leader takes the time to give his children practical instructions about life, which in turn gives them confidence with their peers.

One of the wounds that many men have is that they were not equipped for life by their fathers. I wouldn't necessarily say that I have wounds when it comes to this, but there have definitely been some areas where I've been ill-equipped in dealing with the world. There were some pretty significant life skills that I had to learn on my own. So my desire is to begin brainstorming now what life skills I want to teach my boys. Then comes reverse engineering: How do I teach them these skills? When do I teach them these skills? Finally there comes the reality that I will fail them in some ways, but I rest in the grace of God to fill in the gaps.

A servant-leader joins a small group of men who are dedicated to improving their skills as a man, husband and father.

This statement will quite possibly be my biggest take-away from these five weeks of Fight Club. This is what I've been wanting for the guys that I know, and for myself. I have friends who don't necessarily believe the same things as I believe about God, but all of them want to be better husbands, better dads. What would it look like to have some friends who agree to pursue this together, with great intentionality and encouragement.

A servant-leader takes the lead in establishing with his wife sound, biblically-supportable family values.

Here's a huge "AHA" moment: I've taken a lot of time thinking about and writing out values for Neighborhood Church. I've done the same things with businesses I've started. Yet Mandy and I have never written out our values for marriage or for raising children. Of course we've had conversations about this, and of course we have unspoken values, but there's been nothing strategic about it. I'm thinking a lot about this word "strategy." Most men I know do a lot of strategizing during the 8-5 hours. Why don't we do this with our family, during the most crucial hours of our day? Why don't I put the same strategy into being a husband and father as I do in being a pastor/entrepreneur?