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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
I started ministry 18 years ago, and I remember early on I would not ask people to make a decision to follow Jesus while I was teaching in the middle of the service, and I don't remember ever consciously like making that decision or having some hard stance against it. I remember later reflecting on those early years and thinking like, how come I'm not.
How come I'm not asking or inviting people to make a decision to follow Jesus? And I think it was because I had grown up in a church culture and a Christian culture where there was some, sometimes it could feel like emotionally manipulative where people would like kinda get you all riled up and you'd be in a room and everyone else is doing it.
And so I guess I'll just raise my hand and repeat this prayer. Pastor, the leader is asking me to pray and I didn't wanna do that. I didn't want people just to like. Raise their hand so that we could count numbers, and then they would go on with the rest of their life. And they didn't actually ever grow in discipleship.
They never learned what it means to really follow Jesus. They never counted the cost of following Jesus. They just kind of repeated a prayer in an emotional service and went on with their life, and I didn't want them to think that's what following Jesus looked like, because we see in the scriptures that following Jesus is this.
Crazy. Deep hard call to give up your life, to die to yourself, to serve a God and and to say, I'm not God, and I'm gonna give up all the things that I want to do in my own life, and instead, follow the weights of King Jesus. Anyway, I say all that I. To tell you that recently I've just been feeling convicted, mainly because I've been hearing more and more and more stories of guys who said, listen, I just came to church.
Some guy was teaching, he presented the gospel. I felt like I was using that to tug my heart, and I made a decision that day to follow Jesus. And ever since then, I've been growing in my discipleship journey with him and I thought, dude. It would be terrible of me to present the gospel and then somebody to feel like the spirit is moving in them and like, dang, that makes sense to me.
I want to follow Jesus. And then never give them a conscious or a moment to actually make that conscious decision. And so over the last. Two years, I've just said, every time I'm standing on a stage and somebody says, will you share with us whether it's a marriage conference, a parenting conference, a men's conference, whatever it is, whenever I'm standing on a stage and I'm, I have the opportunity to present the gospel, I'm not gonna leave out the chance to invite people to make a conscious decision to surrender their life to Jesus.
And I will say, in the last couple years, I have seen. Dozens and dozens and dozens of men decide that they no longer want to be the God of their own life and instead want to follow the God of the Bible. And then the goal is how do we get them plugged into local church? How do we get them plugged into a community?
We have dad tired communities all over the country and world where they can start to learn and grow what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. But I don't want them to miss that, that chance to say. You know what? This is resonating with me. God is drawing my heart to his and I'm ready to surrender my life to him.
I tell you all that. Because you may or may not know this, but dad's hired, the dad's hired ministry is supported by a very small group of people who say they believe in the dad's tired ministry. They believe what God is doing through this ministry, and they want to see it grow like crazy. And because of those few people who are making their generous donations, dozens and dozens and dozens of guys are surrendering their life to Jesus.
And then. Thousands, tens of thousands of guys every year, hundreds of thousands of guys every year are hearing the gospel weekly. They're growing in their discipleship journey. So many guys are saying that their faith has radically been transformed. Their families are radically transformed because of being part of the dad tired community and ministry.
I just had this guy send me a message on Instagram earlier this week. He said, I'm getting married on Friday, writing my vows. I found that a lot of what I had to say came from what I've learned from dad. Tired. I can't express how much your ministry has helped shape my life and relationship with Jesus.
That was a dude who was not even married. He's not even a dad, and yet he's saying I'm going into marriage different because of what I've learned through dad tired and the dad tired ministry. So all that to say, we're looking for 10 guys who believe in this ministry and will just help supercharge it will help.
Pour gasoline on the fire that God is already doing in this ministry. And so if that's you, if you hear all that, maybe you've been a part of Dad Tire for a long time. Maybe you just stumbled upon the podcast today, but if you feel the prompting to say, I, you know what? I wanna be part of something big where our God is shaping this and using this for his glory all around the world.
If you wanna be part of that, I just, I'm looking for 10 guys. I'm praying for 10 guys. Who will say, I want to be part of something really big like that. And, uh, I'd love to get to know you, like for the, the people who partner with us in ministry. I don't consider this just like, you know, open your wallet and throw some money at it.
Like, I really see us as partners together for the glory of God. And so I'm looking for 10 guys that I can get to know that will help shape this ministry and pour gas onto this fire. And so if that's you. First, reach out to me. You can go to dad tire.com, shoot me an email. There's also a donate page right on the dad tire front page there that you can give to the ministry.
But anyway, wanted to share that with you. I know a lot of you guys listen every week and you may not know that we are supported by a very small group of people, and so we'd love for 10 more guys to be part of that. Alright, all that said, I'm really excited for today's. Interview. Let's jump right in.
Jake, super excited to be hanging out with you today, man. Uh, I heard just a piece of your story and I was like, dude, I need to have this guy on our show. And I've been looking forward to this conversation for a really long time. But before we get into. Everything that you're doing these days, maybe just tell us who you are for sure.
Uh, well, I grew up in a ministry family my entire life. My dad is a pastor of a large church here in Las Vegas. I was. Kind of a rebel kid growing up. Uh, didn't really wanna have too much to do with church. Played sports. That was my focus. The majority of my young adult life ended up going and playing college football down in Southern California.
That's where God really grabbed a hold of my heart and I felt like I. I wanted to have a greater purpose with my life, uh, than just sports or business or any of those things. Not to say that they're bad. In fact, I'm still passionate about those things to this very day, but I just wanted my life meaning to be more at the end of the day, I.
And early on, my wife and I, uh, we had found out that she's pregnant. During that time that I was playing college football, we were engaged to be married, but we were not married at the time, and so I kind of hung up my hat. It forced me to move back to Las Vegas and began just focusing on her. Focusing on what?
The future of that new baby was gonna be, and then ultimately what God's desire was of, of me for my life. And so I struggled with that for a short amount of time, but eventually I felt a calling on my life to do what I'm doing today through just jumping in and serving. I. Blindly to say the least. During that period of time, I know that I just wanted to be around people.
I wanted to be around men of faith. I wanted to be around the church, the local church specifically. Just be a part of whatever I could be a part of in serving at that capacity. And during that time, God birthed this vision in my heart to take the gospel to the deepest, darkest places of the world. And it has grown out to be something that has just completely blown my expectations of what I would be capable of ever doing, let alone just getting to see God show off and show who he is capable of being.
Man. Well that's the stuff I want to talk about, but it's part of what you said at the beginning there intrigued me, so I wanna like stay here for a second. Yeah. One. You said your dad's pastor of a church grew up in a family, obviously loves Jesus, and yet you found yourself being rebellious. A lot of dudes who are listening to this are like, all right, I'm trying to fall in love with Jesus myself, and I so desperately want my kids to fall in love with Jesus.
So it probably perks up all of our ears to hear like that. There was a child who grew up in a home that really loved Jesus, and yet he still went rebellious. That's kind of all of our fears, really, but we know that that's all reality. 'cause we we're partnering with God to. To try our best here, but ultimately they're sinful little humans that will decide what they're gonna decide and they have their own journey.
But I'm curious, like was there anything in your experience growing up in church and around a Christian family that was like, I don't want to be that in your rebellious. I. Time. Yeah, I think that, uh, I think number one, as as men, I think God has given us a spirit of rebellion At some level. I think that the enemy can use it to steer us away from God, but if we ultimately are raised up or plus that foundation, especially in our kids early on, believe it's Proverbs 22, 6 that says, raise up a child in the way he should go, and he will not stray from it when he gets older.
It doesn't mean that he'll never stray from it. Along the way, but I believe it's that foundation that's laid as he or she is in their young adult years or their youth, and they're trying to figure out who they are, that they might come off and veer off the path a little bit. But it's that foundation ultimately that they're gonna walk back into as a young adult or mid age adult.
And knowing that foundation of what their parents set before them at an early age, that gets them back on the right track and ultimately that rebellion. Being rebellious for the things that God wants us to be rebellious towards. And that's the things of this world. So I would say that it was probably one my parents' foundation that they laid, but my parents were also very strategic, knowing that the harder that they pressed in towards that rebellion, probably the more rebellious I would be.
And so as a parent, probably one of the hardest things that we can do. Is to let go and let God, and just really give our kids at the altar and say, okay, God, these are yours. You promise that every soul belongs to you, no matter what a father does or what a son does. We're all accountable for our own sin and our own choices at the end of the day.
And no matter what, our kids are going to have to choose. M. On their own at some point in their life. And so getting that early on of being the one that says, Hey, I'm going to set the expectation. I'm gonna live out the expectation, but understanding fully that they are their own individual, that they are their own person, that God is in control of their destiny and they are in control of their destiny.
And they're going to have to make that free will choice of following him on their own. And all we can do is really set the runway, the groundwork, and the foundation to that. And I think that that's ultimately what my parents did was just completely hand me over to God, say, I know he is yours, Lord. We're gonna continue to pour in him at the level that we can do.
But ultimately, Jake is gonna have to make the choice. And I think that that is ultimately what caused me to come back, is to see that in my struggle, what my parents had and their peace and their joy and their security, and the things that I was de desiring during that struggle is ultimately what I wanted to have.
And that caused me to press forward towards God versus be more rebellious away from him. So I think it's really interesting the, the verbiage you used there about being rebellious towards the things of the world. I hadn't thought of it like that. It's really interesting even framing that through like the lens of a dad and teaching your kids like, 'cause they do have naturally sinful that you're born sinful and born rebellious.
And so to kind of take that same language and say like, God. Desires you to be rebellious, but just not towards the things of him, but towards the things of this world. That's really interesting perspective. I want to hear too, before, I know I'm like super interested in hear about all the stuff you're doing right now, but I'm always curious, like especially for people who make decisions to follow Christ later in life.
So you were in college playing football. What is it that drew you back to Jesus during that season? Yeah, I think mine was more of my loneliness, I think for the first time in my life that. I had grown up in the church, obviously a large church with my father being who he was, well known, pretty much anything that I needed throughout my childhood, my parents had provided, and now I'm in Southern California playing college football.
Uh, don't know anybody. I'm completely outta my element. For the first time, it caused me to be vulnerable. I think through that loneliness, I was searching for more. I think for the first time in my life I was realizing. That maybe I didn't know who I truly was. And that everything that had been built or sheltered around me was my identity up until that point.
And so I began searching for who that identity or what that identity was. And then over a period of time I realized that that identity was based in Christ. And then that's ultimately kind of what grew me up into just even realizing the plans that he had for me. And ultimately all of the things up until this point, the people that.
I had connected with the friends that I had chosen and how he was shaping me for this greater vision for the future of what he wanted to do through my life is what I realized during that time of isolation. So, yeah. Yeah. Was there like a moment, like you said it was loneliness, which is, I just can't help but think about God's goodness, even in that loneliness, right?
Like. Almost him. Think about the um, the prodigal son, right? Yeah. I'm gonna allow you to eat with the pigs, just so you know that you have a seat at the table and you can remember what it was like to be back at the table. You know, like, I think God will allow us to eat some mud, to really say like, how was that?
Like, it didn't satisfy your soul like you thought it would. The mud didn't taste as good as you thought it was going to, and so come back to the table. So I think it's God's goodness there, but was there a moment? Like, do you have a, a time where you remember just, I don't know, sitting in a dorm or like being somewhere where it's just like, dude, what am I doing?
Like I need to turn back here. Yeah, no, for sure. I, it was one of my roommates who's actually one of my best friends to this day. He was going back home to Texas to visit family before the season kicked off. My other roommate was from Canada. He flew home to Canada to see his family before the season kicked off.
And I was in this apartment all by myself. In fact, Rick Warren was getting ready to interview President Obama and Senator McCain on their faith during their presidential election. Uh, it was the first time in history that this was taking place, and I got invited to go be a part of that and see that live.
And it was during that night that God really opened my eyes to. What I thought was the church being so conventional and almost irrelevant to the world, God showed me how relevant he could be to the world during that moment, and that's the night that I went home. I begin praying, okay, God, what is it that you want me to do with my life?
I wanna have that kind of impact. I wanna have that kind of destiny. At the end of the day, I want to be able to. Showcase you to the world, whether it be in a big way or a small way, whatever it is. I just wanna be used like that. And it was during that time when I was completely by myself, not only in outta my element away from home, but I.
The only two guys that I know in California, they've all gone home to their families to see them before the season kicks off. And I'm by myself, and I'm interested in this complete place of self-reflection. And honestly, I am having a bit of an identity crisis. And do I even want to be in this game?
Obviously the love of my life is back home. We're looking to have a family. Is this my future? Is this what I want? For the rest of my life. And it just began to have me self-reflect all of the different things that he had led me to up until that point, and then begin to really process what that could look like for the future and how ultimately I was gonna be used in that moment.
Hmm. Yeah. That's interesting, man. I've been, I've been in the church world for a long time, but I don't, I don't have any seminary degrees. I'm not that smart. I don't have like any big theological degrees or, but I've spent a lot of time hearing people's stories. It just seems like God chases people down relentlessly.
Like, you know, just thinking about all the circumstances that led you back to that church and whatever the Holy Spirit was doing in your moment or in that moment and in your heart. It's just like, I don't know, dude, it seemed like I was just, he was gonna do with you what he wanted to do with you for his glory, which kinda leads to where you are now.
So like right there as a college student, he's recapturing your heart. Wooing you back to him and now he's using you in really big ways. You're running a prison ministry that is like all over the country. So I, I imagine people hear that and they've probably got all kinds of mixed feelings, then mixed emotions about it.
Probably some sense of like, this is what God told us to do. You can't read the scriptures and not see that we are supposed to be. Visiting the prisoners and caring for and loving the prisoners, and yet there's still some side of us that I think is also God-given. It's just like justice. We're like, Ugh, are we supposed to, I mean, am I, are those the people I'm supposed to serve or want to be around?
How did God like put the prisoner on your heart? Mm-hmm. One is, I think football had a lot to do that with that in Vegas. Especially you don't have these highly affluent areas and then these highly impoverished areas, everything's like a big melting pot. So I went to school with kids who drove Ferraris to school all the way to school with kids that didn't know where their next meal was coming from.
And then a lot of the athletes that I was involved with were from more of those impoverished families. And so some of them, my closest friends. Or my closest friends were those who had a whole lot less than I did growing up, and it opened my eyes to a culture and to a population that I probably wouldn't have had any understanding of if I hadn't been as close to them as I was.
And if sports wasn't our common ground. And so I became close friends with these guys. I got to be with their families. I got to see the way that they think. All of that. And then when I was playing college football, two of my closest friends were looking at facing prison time. In fact, when I had moved back to Las Vegas, one of my friends, Ryan's, his mom had called me, and at this point in time, I'm serving at our local church.
I was responsible for setting up and tearing down. I. Uh, high school into a church campus every single weekend. And she had called me on a Saturday when I was there setting up, and she had told me everything that Ryan was facing and he had a grand theft auto charge and all this kind of stuff. And I just began processing what that was going to look like for Ryan's life.
Like, what is prison like? Is he gonna die in there? Like, everything I had up until this point was a Hollywood perspective and view of prison, and I just began researching what ultimately. The situation Ryan was going to face looked like, and then how do we reach those people? And it was in that moment, I was there on a Saturday setting up a church campus inside of a high school and schools in the Clark County School district, they're built a lot like prisons.
And I'm like, so if we could do this in a high school, we should be able to do this in a prison. And that's where God began to birth the vision. God behind bars in my heart where we could partner with the local church all across the country in launching campuses inside of prisons, giving these guys quality weekend experiences every single week, giving them the hope of Jesus behind bars, giving them a hope that they can cling to for a future, and ultimately helping them start their new beginning as they begin their fresh start in the community one day.
In fact, I think a lot of people don't understand that 94%. The entire prison population is going to be released and reenter our society one day. Wow. And so we have this stop process of kind of like lock 'em up, throw away the key, but then ultimately we don't give them any hope. We don't give them any guidance, we don't give them any direction.
And then they're released back into our communities and they end up doing the exact same things that got them there in the first place, if not worse. So my entire. Thinking has come from really, I know this is a dad's podcast, so I might get ridiculed for this, but it's through the musical. I don't know how many of the listeners have actually seen that musical, but Hugh Jackman, it's a very manly musical, by the way, Hugh Jackman is the main character in that musical, and there's a moment to where he goes and he stays at a clergy men's house.
And him and his wife take him in. He's homeless during this time. They feed him, they give him a bed to sleep in, and in the middle of the night he gets up and he robs him and he leaves. And he found a few days later by the roaming guards and the Roman guards know that he's a homeless man. They know that he has all of this silver, and they know exactly where it came from.
So they drag it back to the clergy men's house. They knock on the door and they ask the clergyman and they said, Hey, did he steal these things from you? And the clergyman looks down at Hugh Jackman. He goes, why did you leave so soon? And he runs to his house and he grabs all of his best silver. And he comes out and says, you forgot all of this.
And he gives it to Hugh Jackman. And it was that moment of undeserving grace that ultimately changes Hugh Jackman's heart and changes the trajectory of his life to be a positive contributing citizen. He goes on to be a wealthy businessman, uh, that gives back to the community in this musical, but it was that undeserving.
Moment of grace that changes the trajectory of his life. And we have those same lenses as we go into prisons every single week. I'm sure. Are a lot of these guys deserving of the sentences that they have received? Yes, they are. We don't discount any of their actions or the responsibility thereof that they carry, but.
We do wanna show the hope of Jesus. We do want to point them to the cross, and we ultimately want to give them this undeserving grace. So we go in and we set up the same technology that you would receive in the community, is what we give these guys behind bars. We don't skip at all. It's over a hundred thousand dollars worth of technology that we install in every single prison.
Any event we do, we go to the nines. And it's ultimately to show these guys what their worth is at the end of the day. And so again, we've seen hearts change, which ultimately change minds, which ultimately lead into different futures. And so that's our goal at the end of the day, is change their heart, change their mind, and we can give them a brand new future.
That's incredible, man. How old were you when you were setting up that church in that high school? I would've been 19 years old. 'cause you got, after that it took about six to nine months and then got behind bars launched when I was about 20 years old. So that's insane, man. That's insane. How many churches are now participating?
Partnering with God behind bars and how many prisons? Yeah. We've all, we have 65 physical locations across the us. Wow. Uh, getting ready to grow out to Singapore and Australia. We launched an app, almost like a Netflix based app of faith-based content that has weakened services and messages to worship music, small group content, prayer, guided prayers, anything and everything somebody may need in their spiritual walk.
It's called the Pando app. We launched the first ever third party app inside of prisons during COVID. We have over 700,000 daily users that use that app on a daily basis. I believe we're up close to 20 plus million hours. Watch. On that app, over 180,000 salvations. And that all came through a crisis. And so it was absolutely amazing what we thought was gonna be the end of our ministry because prisons were the first thing to close during COVID, and we knew they would be the last thing to reopen.
Got it. Kind of birth this vision in our heart a couple years back and we had never really pressed fast or play on the idea until COVID happened. And then we pressed fast forward and in a matter of six months. We launched the very first ever third party app in prisons, and it's a faith-based app that gives these guys the access to the gospel 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to where they can get introduced to Jesus and to the local church and grow in their faith, in every spiritual aspect that they could possibly imagine on a daily basis.
And it's been absolutely remarkable to see what God has done through that technology. So that's insane, dude. How do they get access to an app in prison? Yeah, so currently, or before COVID, there was probably about 800,000 tablets in circulation. This was a new idea that was starting to become adopted in Department of Corrections across the us And then obviously COVID just opened up the eyes of a lot of the DOC officials to see the importance of technology, to see the importance of these guys having access to tablets.
And so I believe in the next two to five years that every inmate in the United States will have access to a tablet, but it's a tablet similar. To any sort of Android tablet that you could receive in the free world. These guys have access to it. They can do their FaceTimes on it, email back and forth with their loved ones, which is a lot safer than sending letters.
Uh, in fact, the majority of contraband insider prisons comes through. Yeah. Uh, the mail. And so the technology is, is a way to create a safe environment as well as we've utilized it to provide a spiritual environment. That's amazing, man. That was when you were 20, so. You've been doing this a while. Yes. I believe I'm, you do the math, but yeah.
13, 14 years. Yeah. So. You have any, uh, stories, man, that are just like, stick out to you when you think about guys that have been touched by the gospel and are now changed a lot actually. But one of the, the craziest stories that I think that we had ever received was at Hutchins State Correctional Facility in Dallas, Texas.
We're partnered with Fellowship Church, with Ed Young's Church out there, and we had Ed Young come speak live inside of a prison. And one of the guys that basically runs all of the white supremacists for not just that prison or the state of Texas, but for the entire country, gave his life to Christ, which ultimately came up and told us the story afterwards that he was gonna give up his patch, which he knew was ultimately gonna be a death sentence for him, which in the gang world they call what is green-lighted.
So there's basically, they believe two ways out of that world and. It's either by death or by someone else, or death by your own brothers. And so he was gonna be green-lighted by that game and he knew what the consequences were gonna be, but he wanted to lay into Canada life along with the altar that night.
And, uh, he gave his life to Christ. He has been greenlighted in this. No one has touched him. Stents and serves in that prison on a weekly basis with our faith-based ministry. The same thing in Florida. We go into a prison called Hardy Correctional Institution, which is the most dangerous prison in the state.
At that time, they were averaging a murder on their yard, uh, probably once every week. And we went in there and we launched a campus over a six, seven week period of time. It was a lot of racial tension or first night. Everything was segregated by race. I come back four or five weeks later, everybody's sitting mixed in throughout the room.
And then since then, we've launched a seminary in there about four years ago. We've had close to 150 guys go through that seminary. Our goal is that they leave their with, uh, pastoral degrees. Most of these guys are gonna do life. And so they go through a four year seminary, they get a pastoral degree, and then we send them out in twos to other prisons across the us or not across the us in the state of Florida to be inmate pastors too.
Their peers. And so we've began doing that. Jimmy Love, who's been a part of our ministry, he is an inmate pastor for close to eight years now, is now running our campus for another site at Pul Correctional Institution, alongside of our church partner that is in there. He is the inmate pastor of those guys on a daily basis, and he will never walk out of prison.
And he has done some things that have ultimately caused him to spend the rest of his life in prison. But God has completely transformed his heart, his mind, and renewed his purpose by ministering to those guys in that community that he will ultimately live in for the rest of his life. So it's absolutely phenomenal to see what God's doing.
We get stories every day. In fact, our team comes in on a Monday. We probably have a hundred to 200 letters, specifically from the Pando app of people sharing their stories with us and ultimately their testimony of what God has done in their life. And so that's really remarkable just to be a part of and have a front row seat ad all of it, man.
How you think? You know, there's like, you hear these stories in by missionaries in these other countries, especially countries where. The gospel is where Christians are being persecuted. So yeah, places in the Middle East and China and you're like, you get a glimpse of like what God's doing in these places that you'll never really hear about.
You don't get to read a lot of books about it and stuff and or see it. I have a feeling there's probably this huge underground like movement of God that you're getting, like you just said, I get a front row seat of it. Like you get to see the gospel radically changing lives in ways that. Majority of us will just never hear about.
That's incredible. That's incredible. Guys, can you bap, are you allowed to baptize these guys in, in the prisons too? Yeah, and most of the institutions we are allowed to baptize and so we do that where we can, some of the institutions don't allow the tank of water or uh, full water submission for safety and security reasons.
But yeah, in a lot of prisons we get to do that and, and that is a goal of ours. That is something that we. Whether we can do it physically while they're there, or just encourage to have done once they're out, that is a part of their spiritual pathway that we ultimately lead them towards. And since we're on a podcast about dads, I'll just say the importance and the vitality of a dad's role.
In their life that I think a staggering statistic came out that 75% of the inmate population, male inmate population, it could be both, but specifically male inmate population is there due to the absence of their father in their life. And so us as dads. Understanding the role that we play, even when everything is stacked against us and it doesn't look like life's going our way, even if we don't have the support from our wife or our ex-wife, and we think it's easier just to do an arms length distance and let her raise the kids and.
I'll just do my job and be the provider. I can tell you right now that the role that you play in your child's life is ultimately what sets up the trajectory of the rest of their lives. And so your presence in their life is ultimately going to help shape who they are and who they become. And we see it in prisons every single day.
In fact, one of the most important parts of our ministry is family reunification. And it's turning the hearts of the fathers back towards their children. Wow. And we do that by obviously focusing on dad's or mom's spiritual walk. And then we host different events throughout the year to where we bring the kids into the prison.
We put on an amazing event where they have the opportunity to spend the day with mom or dad, whether it be around Christmas or another time of year. I'll, I'll speak to specifically Christmas. We set up a shopping mall to where mom and dad. Get to go in shop for their kids, get pick out gifts, wrap them.
Uh, we put on an amazing Christmas dinner. Our team decorates, we call it washing the prison off. We decorate a room inside of the prison to be almost like a ballroom type feel to where they don't feel like they're in a prison. They get to spend the entire evening with their dad. Santa Claus is their inflatables, bounce houses, being able to play ball or cornhole with their dad, and they get to spend the entire evening.
Dad gets to ultimately bless them with Christmas gifts and then begin a relationship with them to where he could begin having that influence in that child's life while still. Incarcerated, and that's all due to the importance of his role or mom's role in that child's life, and specifically dad being the spiritual leader.
Of that home, even if he's absent, being on the phone with them on a daily basis or minimum a weekly basis, asking them how their day's been or how their week's been, getting to fully understand and hear how they feel and what they're facing and what they're going through, and they get to begin to mentor them and shape them with a godly perspective is our goal at the end of the day.
And that's due to the fact that 85% of these kids. Are most likely to go to prison themselves. Wow. And due to the absence of their dad and their life. And so if we can ultimately raise up Dad to be a strong follower of God and then to have that same influence back in their child's life, we believe that we could shift that trajectory of where that child is gonna end up.
And so I just say that as a dad of five, I. I know what it's like to put your head down and to go to work and to be so focused on what you believe is showing them love, by providing for them and missing out on a lot of the things that ultimately they are gonna experience and face and their youth. And I had to learn this the hard way over the last 10 to 15 years, and I am just want you to know that like I am now so focused on giving my family.
My first and then everything else, my second, and that includes my ministry that isn't God. I give God first, right? Then my family. But my ministry is second to my family. My ministry is second to my wife, to my kids, and I'm going to give them my first, and then everything that is left over of me I will give to the ministry and ultimately to provide for them.
But I just say that because it is such a vital role that we play as dad specifically to. The spiritual aspect of things, and so even if you feel uncomfortable, even if you don't know how to do it, I tell you, open up the YouVersion Bible app, the child version. That's what I do. It's fun, it's engaging. I sit with my kids every night before we go to bed, and we go through one of the stories in that YouVersion Children's Bible app, and they get to play all the little games.
We spend about 20, 30 minutes talking and praying. I let my kids pray. Before I pray, and then I close out the evening and just teaching them to seek God. And when they come to me with spiritual questions that I don't know, doing my best to answer them, and then ultimately saying, Hey, it's not about what I believe, or even what your mom believes.
It's about what you believe baby, and you seek God. You ask God to show your truths and teaching them to go to Him instead of us is, is ultimately the answer. And so. Wow. I would say we need to do more of that. And I know that being in my life and how absent that was in my life throughout the last 10 to 15 years of me thinking that I was being the spiritual leader of my home by modeling a Christ follower, by modeling, being a man that's in ministering and who's gonna serve others and who's gonna serve God.
But taking very little time in, pouring in that same effort towards my children and all in the last couple of years, has that shifted and I've seen my babies flourish in a way that I've never even been able to imagine. Uh, dude, I'm convicted by that as you share that, just as a, as personally. I, I know we've got thousands of guys who will be encouraged or convicted by that word, but I am too just hearing that, just like it's not just.
Out there modeling it, but it's actually just being with them and being fully present with them before it's just like, oh, hopefully they'll see what I'm doing in ministry or around or whatever. But it's like, no, they, they just need to see that. Like they need to actually see that and be with that. That was really, really encouraging and convicting at the same time, man, I had forgot about the Bible app for kids that use YouVersion does.
I just looked it up on my phone as you were sharing that. That's a really good resource. 'cause we got a lot of young dads too. With kids still at home. My encouragement, just from my personal learning is make it fun. Us being strong, bold leaders, we often wanna come in and we wanna create this serious moment.
And loving God and who God is is very serious. However, the way that our kids learn and interact right now is, is through fun. They're otters, man. They're, they're experiencing life and. I made the mistake of trying to come in and read the story of David and cutting the head off of Goliath and almost doing this very serious Bible teaching early on, and I shifted and I adapted to just making it fun and getting to still share the same stories but do it in a, in a fun and a easy way that they can understand and, mm-hmm.
Ask questions. In fact, my wife and I do this thing to where basically during that time they can ask us any question and no matter what it is, if it's a bad word, if it's this or that, that they would not be in trouble. And they can ask us, 'cause one, we wanna be the one to answer it, not leave it up to the world to answer it.
But two is that we would be the loudest voice in their life and nobody else would be the loudest voice in their life. And so if we create these boundaries where we take spirituality and make things bad, like conversations around sex or whatever it may be, then ultimately they're gonna seek their friendships for answers.
They're gonna seek their boyfriend or girlfriend for answers and. It's gonna be ultimately the world that shapes their perspective and view on those things, versus us shaping their perspective and view on those things. And so I think it's important to create a safe place to where they have questions that they can come to us and without any sort of repercussion or consequence, be able to speak what's on their mind or ask what's on their mind and be able to answer those for them in through a godly perspective in lens versus leaving it up.
To go figure it out in the world some way, somehow. So, dude, I love the intentionality that you're taking with your family. You know, we could have talked the whole time just about the ministry that you're doing, but the fact that you said, I want to really end this with the most important thing, and that's just being a dad to my own kids and, uh, the leader of my own family, I think is really, really cool.
Man. I did wanna say too, with the actual, the ministry that you're doing, the prison ministry, I love that you're, you're so focused on making disciples. You're just not going in there and doing like these one day events, you know? But it's just like, I wanna really get to know these guys. I want the local church to get to know these guys and like Par partner with the local church so that we're actually building disciples.
That's such a cool, cool model, bro. I think you're doing a really good job. Yeah, no, thank you. That is an intentional goal of ours too, is we didn't want to be a hit and run ministry. We believe revival's important, but we also believe that more than hands raised, life transformed is the biggest importance.
And so yeah, we do take intentionality and not just being a weak ministry, but giving these guys the opportunity to truly change who they are in their life holistically versus just point 'em to the cross and leave them there, so, mm-hmm. Man, if there was guys who are listening who either want to get involved at a local church that's already partnering with you guys, or if they're maybe trying to figure out a way that their church can get partnered with you guys, how would they do that?
They could go to God behind bars.com or any of our social media handles on any social media platform is just at God behind bars. And you can find us there. Either DM us or if you do go to god behind bars.com, there's a way to get plugged in and involved. Just says it at the top, uh, across the home screen.
And whether you're an individual, a church, or even a DOC official, there's a different way to sign up and our team will get you connected with the right people. Dude, I'm really grateful to hear your story, to get pointed back closer to Jesus, just through your own leadership as a dad and your own family, and then also to hear about all the crazy and amazing things God's doing through the ministry.
So really appreciate your time, bro. This was really fun. Thanks for having me. It was an honor. Thanks man.
Hey guys. Hope you enjoyed today's conversation. It pointed you closer to Jesus. Wanna remind you that we do have a Dad's hired annual retreat coming up. We do this once a year where guys from all over the country and world get together and figure out what it looks like to be men who fall in love with Jesus and help our families do the same.
We. Almost a third of the spots are already filled up for that, and we just opened up tickets so we know for sure it's gonna fill up and we don't want you to miss it if you want to be there. So go to dad tire.com. You can click the annual retreat page and get signed up for that. Again, we talked about at the beginning of this episode that the ministry is supported by a very small group of people.
One of the things that it gives to is this, so we can keep the cost as low as possible. Like we're not trying to make money on these events. We don't make money. Last year we lost money on these events or this event specifically. So we're not trying to like make money on it, we're just trying. To keep cost as low as possible, to get as many guys there as possible to hear the gospel.
A lot of guys are gonna get baptized. A lot of guys will surrender their life to Jesus for the first time. Confess sin, find healing, like it's gonna be powerful, but part of your donation goes to things like this. So anyway, try just trying to help you tie those dots there, but. Regardless of all of that, we want you to get signed up.
Go to dads hire.com and then uh, click the retreat page. I love you guys. We'll see you next week.