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A podcast for visionaries who lead with purpose and live on mission. Rob Hoskins, President of OneHope, has spent decades equipping leaders around the world to impact the next generation for Christ.
Each episode will dive into conversations that challenge, inspire, and empower you to lead with clarity, conviction, and Kingdom impact.
A lot of parents say to their kids, put down your phones. I think some kids are saying to their parents, mom or dad, will you put down your phone? Oh, boy. I think that one of the best parenting tools is distancing yourself from overuse of technology, which hinders true conversations and intimacy and relationship and discussion.
ROB HOSKINS:Welcome to the missional leader, a podcast for kingdom minded leaders who are looking for mission forward insight, practical strategies, and spirit led solutions. In each episode, we'll have conversation designed to fuel your calling, strengthen your leadership, and empower you to advance the gospel with clarity, courage, and conviction. Let's get started. Hey, friends. Rob here.
ROB HOSKINS:I'm excited for you to listen to this conversation today. And I recently had it with Craig Groeschel. He's the founder and senior pastor of Life Church, and he also leads one of the most popular leadership podcast in the whole world. He's a tremendous leader, and I am so sharpened by his leadership whenever I'm around him. In this particular conversation, we talk about a niche topic, parent and family ministry.
ROB HOSKINS:Craig opens up about how he has led his own family as a husband and as a father. He also talks about how he has created a family friendly culture at Life Church. There's so many leadership principles I've learned from Craig, but for him to get this transparent about his own personal journey as a father and as a husband just really was amazing. You're gonna love this transparent conversation with Craig. Let's listen in.
ROB HOSKINS:I'm on with Craig Groeschel, one of my favorite people in the world. Thank you again Craig for being on.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Hey, man. You're one of my favorite people in the world.
ROB HOSKINS:And I I wanna get really focused on a passion of both of ours. Yes. Alright. We're both grandpas.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Yes. Right? Yeah.
ROB HOSKINS:You have seven, I have three. I'm pops. Yeah. And you were more prolific than I was. Your quiver was more full than I was.
ROB HOSKINS:Six kids?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Six kids. Yes, sir. Six married children.
ROB HOSKINS:I know how super intentional you and Amy have been about parenting. Mhmm. People think of you a great pastor, a great leader. I think probably the designation that you probably would be most thrilled with is great father.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Thank you. And
ROB HOSKINS:so how have you and Amy just been so intentional about your your parenting? Well,
CRAIG GROESCHEL:first of all, have to say I'm like humbled and grateful to God and then give a ton of credit to our faith community for our kids. We have six grown kids that are in strong Christian marriages, serving Jesus faithfully in the church. All six of them are either on staff with us or their spouses on staff with us or both of them on staff with us Wow. In the And so they're all their life is Jesus through the local church. And so I'm ridiculously thankful for that.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:As far as intentionality, what's interesting, yes, that is, you know, we home educated our kids and we had I'd say we had extreme views. And for years and years and years, we kind of thought that our views or our approach to parenting is what would help create the disciples that we wanted. And now, after more experience and looking around at different families, there are other families that had our same views and approaches and their kids didn't turn out the same way. And so, I honestly don't think that there's a best method of parenting as much as what I would say is there's intentional consistent grace filled spirit empowered, biblically grounded parenting in.
ROB HOSKINS:Woah. There's a parenting seminar in that loaded sentence you
CRAIG GROESCHEL:just Yeah. Can't say it again because I just made it up. But I don't think there's a, you know, you can do home education or public school or private school. I don't think there's an education system that's best as much as an involved parent discipling their children in that education And it's
ROB HOSKINS:part of that, when you talk about intentionality and sort of having a parent playbook, right? Mhmm. And you gave me some of those values. But I think what I've discovered and I kind of seen in the conversations we've had together, you've had six kids.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:Have you had to build six different playbooks based on
CRAIG GROESCHEL:100 who they percent. And we discipline them differently. We reward them differently. We disciple them differently. You could put one in time out and it would be a nightmare.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:The other one would go and enjoy introverted time. You you could yeah. And so, yes, entirely different.
ROB HOSKINS:Sometimes Parenting is complex and hard? Is that
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Not at all.
ROB HOSKINS:Yes. And just when you have it figured out, they change it up on you.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:They change it up. And yes, I mean, when they talk back about their childhood, you know, I've got one that thinks we were the strictest people, others and the other five argue back going strict. They weren't strict at So their viewpoints were all different of how we were and what worked and why it worked. Ultimately, think it was consistency. I think it's grace and truth.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Most Christians, we focus a lot on truth, but there has to be grace in the truth. And then the community part is just unbelievable.
ROB HOSKINS:What's the greatest mistake you've ever made as a parent?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Oh, I see.
ROB HOSKINS:When you look back and you just think,
CRAIG GROESCHEL:oh, man,
ROB HOSKINS:I wish I could do that over. Give a give me a do over.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Well, I think a couple things. One would be that we trusted our system of parenting at times, our formula. This is what we do. These are the shows we don't watch. This is what we don't do and this is what we do as a Christian family.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And thinking that was what created the success and that just wasn't. Literally, if they'd watched the show or not watched the show or whatever, I think that we were too strict early on. Had too much leniency at the time. But there's a million mistakes. I think the better thing, what we did right, if anything, was we kept our marriage strong and we put our marriage first.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And so they saw that they grew up with a Christ filled centered marriage. And then we kept them in a really great community the whole time. It was a really deep spiritual community that was led by parents that we'd want them to be like. So we outside voices saying consistent messages
ROB HOSKINS:into Have you ever had to ask one of your kids for forgiveness for something you did?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Many times, yes.
ROB HOSKINS:Give me an example if you don't mind, not personal.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I would yell over something. I'd overreact and I have to ask for forgiveness. One time told a lie to keep them out of something. And they said, dad, you're lying about that. And I said, you're right.
ROB HOSKINS:They called you out on it.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:They called me out on it, 100%. So I had to go back and confess not only to them but to the person I told the lie to. And if I didn't do that, I would have lost all credibility with them. And so it's not that it wasn't that I lied that cost me the credibility, it's what I did with it that would have cost me the credibility or didn't do with it. And so, yeah, no.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Parenting is a lot of apologies. If it's if there's some, there then we aren't we aren't parenting well.
ROB HOSKINS:It's not a very transparent relationship. No. Not at all. And so you're a high capacity person, high visibility person, incredibly disciplined person. I like to say you're probably the most disciplined leader I've ever met, structure in your life, all those sorts of things.
ROB HOSKINS:If kids if kids are anything, they're disruptors of of structure Mhmm. And like discipline. How did you have to learn sort of balancing the A type disciplined life you live that gets disrupted by the life of a child?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Well, for the first part of our lives, we kind of designed it to be disciplined around our children. Meaning I was I think I was 39 years of age before I ever spoke anywhere.
ROB HOSKINS:Really?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I think so. Yeah, maybe 38, 38, 39 before I ever spoke anywhere. So I just didn't, one, I didn't have a lot of opportunities, but I didn't take them. So I was at home and really with my kids.
ROB HOSKINS:And that was a decision that you and Amy came up with together?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:It was. I mean, we just felt we just we weren't controlling parents, but we were involved parents. And there's a difference. Can be there are those that are controlling and those that are involved. We were available.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And we tried to kind of match their interest and each kid was different. But I was disciplined around them. And then at some point, there are some disciplines that we just don't break for the kids. Meaning, you know, like Amy and time and God's Word is that's first thing in the morning. And so what we noticed, oddly enough, is we never told our kids, You should spend time in God's Word.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:But Amy did, I did, they saw it. And so my oldest daughter started doing it and then my second daughter saw it and started doing it. So it wasn't that we had a rule, was a culture. And so we created a culture in our home that was doable, achievable, admirable. It's something they wanted to be a part of.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:It was so we didn't create a lot of rules, at least later on. We were more relationship based. Someone else said this, rules without relationship leads to rebellion. And I really believe that. That in Christians homes, we have rules but without context of real relationship.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And that's when they rebel against everything.
ROB HOSKINS:Spanking or no spanking?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I hate to say it out loud because people would say child abuse, but we did spank.
ROB HOSKINS:Would you spank again?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I think that the way that we spanked, I would spank again. And the way that we spanked was almost always very loving, intentional, discussion first, hugs afterwards, yes I would.
ROB HOSKINS:I loved what my father-in-law said to my wife when she was 12 years old. So this is generations ago now where it was common, right? It was practice. And he did something that was I thought pretty cool. He like spanked her when she was 12 years old.
ROB HOSKINS:And then he handed her the belt. And he said, now I want you to hit me. And she says, no way, dad. There's no way I could He goes, that's how I feel about doing this when you don't listen to me. So, we spanked.
ROB HOSKINS:My my kids don't. I don't know if it's just a generational thing or not.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:It might it might be but I think that consistency, I think disciplining and love matters. And you don't expect to hurt someone. It's the conversation before and after with some sort of withdrawal of a blessing or some sort of punishment that's But consistency and conversation matters a lot. We pray with them and talk to them.
ROB HOSKINS:So you and Amy obviously had talked a lot about your philosophy of parenting,
CRAIG GROESCHEL:it sounds like.
ROB HOSKINS:And and you'd kinda worked out the rhythms of the demands on you as a as a pastor of a growing enterprise and church and what Life. Church is and Hubert and all those things that you do. And had you sorta had to figure out like your role in the parent based on your time and her role especially with homeschool? Like that seems like it was a pretty big part of her being called both of you were called to be parents, but both of you were called to sort of have different roles She in
CRAIG GROESCHEL:had much more hands on time. And so I give her tons of credit. She doesn't like to take it, but I'd just say, you know, you, for the most part, discipled our children with God's Word open and educated them. And she said, well, you discipled with your example. Whether that's true or not, I don't know.
ROB HOSKINS:I think it But is
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I do think that I helped set a tone in the house and then she spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. And interestingly enough, is a lot of my kids didn't they resented it growing up like, oh, mom, you're too this, you're too that. You know, and now that they are all young adults and many of them parents They've realized. They realize they love it. They're grateful for it.
ROB HOSKINS:And she's getting the fruit of all that investment? Yes. So much of her identity had to have been, like my wife's was, tied up in concentrating, as you said, as both of us are saying as leaders with our wives just doing being amazing moms, right? Yes. Now, a lot of their identity was tied up in in that motherhood.
ROB HOSKINS:How did you guys handle the transition of when you started going through the emptiness time because I know Kim and I had to walk through this, like now a lot of her identity of how she did things, your identity continues. You're still a pastor, you're still leading an organization, but her entire identity in some ways is shifting. Did you guys talk about that? Were you intentional about that season of life and change?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Yes. So I got one thing right accidentally. And when my last child graduated, I thought I need to get Amy a present to celebrate her, which is kind of a random thought. And I went and got her a watch and she was like, oh, you got this for my retirement from homeschooling. That was super emotional for twenty some odd years to homeschool our kids.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And so I accidentally did something that meant way more to her than I realized it would. Here's what's a little bit different, why it wasn't super difficult for us is because she homeschooled our kids but her identity wasn't as much in me being a mom to our children as much as it was her playing a role in our Christian family. And so what happened is loving her kids was as much about being together with me in ministry. And so we always nurtured that relationship. And so when the kids were out, then it became more about, well, My Identity is now in helping raise kids who are raising kids.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And so it's almost like they never left. They moved to a different place, but were still ridiculously involved. And thankfully, less involved, meaning like we're kind of glad like the
ROB HOSKINS:sixth Like, grandparents are the best.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:It is. But it's kind of like going, you you guys are grown now and kind of good luck. And now we're gonna have this evening to ourselves. So it wasn't a loss. It was to some degree, so we're sad they're not there.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:We miss them when they're little. They climb into bed, all that kind of stuff. So, there is that. But it's more of a celebration of, look at them now. Is what
ROB HOSKINS:we were
CRAIG GROESCHEL:They're working Christ honoring homes. They've got God honoring marriages. And so, it was more it was enough of a celebration to make the sadness bearable. So I love how,
ROB HOSKINS:you know, One Hope and Life Church and YouVersion, we've got this incredible collaboration and partnership together. We built Bible app. We love it too. We built kids Bible experience together. Now we're doing a parenting initiative together.
ROB HOSKINS:It's just I I just love you guys are really our our greatest collaborative partner that we have in the world.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:You help me. We learn from you. You're you're doing the study, the hard work, and so we would and yeah, we wouldn't be doing any of those things without you. And it's a it's a mutually God honoring partnership that we love.
ROB HOSKINS:Well, you're probably responsible for me sort of understanding particularly in the American church. We mainly were working around the world when I first met you, and then we sort of said, well, America's a crowded market. Like, the American church is rich. Like, I got so many resources. They don't they don't need us as much.
ROB HOSKINS:But you made a simple statement. Don't even know if you remember it. One of the first times I ever I ever met you when I was talking about children's ministry for you, and, man, Life Church just has this amazing kids experience. Right? You've got an incredible children's ministry.
ROB HOSKINS:You have some of the best kids pastors in America. So you've got like premium children's ministry in your church. But almost the first time I met you, you said it's not the church's responsibility to spiritually raise these kids. Right. It's their parents.
ROB HOSKINS:Mhmm. And we're here to support our parents. Your number one children's ministry strategy is parenting.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:100%. It has to be. You know, anytime a parent thinks I'm gonna drop my kid off at youth group or kids ministry for an hour a week when there's, you know, there's this is insane to think that that's gonna make the difference. It's gotta be the parents. And I'm very aware that we're talking into a million non traditional parenting homes, meaning there's a divorce, there's a single mom, there's a single dad.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And so the church comes along and is a massive support. But if it's not happening in the parents' home, the odds of a child becoming a strong disciple
ROB HOSKINS:So one of greatest spiritual disciplines that any leader has is their role as a parent.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:How do you make sure that in a team as big as you have at Life Church Mhmm. That they are good parents? Mhmm. Like the people that work for you are modeling what good parenting looks like.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:How do you do that intentionally among your staff?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I would say it's not easy and and especially even with our schedules, meaning like, you know, many of our churches have church on Saturday and Sunday. So that's when kids are typically home from school. So it's it never ever ever ever happens accidentally. It's gotta be incredibly intentional. You can be a stay at home parent and not be a great parent.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:You can be two working parents and not be a great parent or vice versa. You can be good at both. And so it's going to have to be hands on
ROB HOSKINS:Have you ever had to lose someone from a position because you just saw it in clear evidence that they're not good parents.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I would say that there are a lot of times people self select to remove themselves from a position because they recognize it. So the culture isn't so much that we should recognize it first. If we're doing our job, they're gonna recognize it.
ROB HOSKINS:And you've said that happen.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Many times. They're gonna say, it's not that I'm not a good parent as much as they might say I'm not available. I don't
ROB HOSKINS:have time to invest in my kids and I want to. So you prioritize parenting as more important than their position here at Life Church or anything else. And so you've created this culture which they sort of raise their hand and go, I'm I'm really not doing a good job at what Craig and the church have taught me is the most important thing.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I would say there are that we want to one of the things we say when you join the staff, we're gonna make five we make five promises. And one of the five promises is that your family will be closer to Jesus than ever before. We want your marriage stronger. We want your children plugged into the church, being discipled. And so that is one of the top five promises that we make to a new staff member when they come in the door.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:So, what does that mean? That means if we've got two people that are dating, we're going give them premarital counseling because we want to help strengthen their marriage. That means if a marriage is in trouble or a child is in trouble, we're going to give free counseling, meaning we're to pay for the counseling. That means we're going to say not just you can take time off, but you can take off as much time as you need to be with your family, meaning we don't count vacation days. You've got total flexibility.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:So, what we're trying to do, and we're gonna give you resources. We've got the parenting classes. We've got all these kind of things, and we're gonna give you mentors. What we're going to do is we're going to create not a rule book, but a culture that is meant to help support your marriage, your family, your parenting, and come alongside you and become successful. Does everybody live up to it?
CRAIG GROESCHEL:No, they don't. But what we want to do is we want to create the environment that is ripe for creating great disciples within our homes.
ROB HOSKINS:I'm so hopeful, Craig, about this next generation. One Hope's just done a really deep dive on alphas, on this emerging generation. I was just here with your team at Life Church and the YouVersion team as we're building out some of these parent resources. We just saw this amazing statistic that said that actually the most important voice in the life of an alpha, in the life of this generation of children, we would think with social media and like connectivity and all those things that we would see actual reversal. And it was super high in Gen Z, higher than millennials.
ROB HOSKINS:Like, the most important voice in my life is my parents. Mhmm. And we were like shocked. We were like, man, we thought for sure it would be social media or their friends. Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:But actually what Gen Z said is, no, actually I know what my persona is on social media and I know it's a false identity. Mhmm. So I know that those aren't true authentic relationships and I really need to hear from my parents They wanted to hear more from their parents. So we just came out with our Alpha research, which just came out, and actually it's higher. I think it was like I think it was like 62% of kids said that parents, and this is all parents, Christian parents, all parents.
ROB HOSKINS:Mhmm. The kids just saying parent is the most important voice in my life. Mhmm. Alphas was at 73%. Wow.
ROB HOSKINS:So, for me, that's just a prophetic call to Christian families. Mhmm. Like, your kids are listening to you.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Yes, they are.
ROB HOSKINS:Your kids are watching you and that 13 year old boy that seems like he's not hearing one thing you're saying, he actually is. Does that give you hope when you when you think
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Well, it does and and it also inspires me to say, you know, like a lot of parents say to their kids, put down your phones. I think some kids are saying to their parents, mom or dad, will you put down your phone? Oh, boy. I mean, am dead serious. Think that there are maybe as many parents that are addicted and unengaged, disengaged in the relationships with their kids as there are kids that are being distracted by whatever, their games and such.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:So I think that one of the best parenting tools is distancing yourself from overuse of technology, which hinders true conversations and intimacy and relationship and discussion.
ROB HOSKINS:You're really convicting to me. I think my kids called me out on it like just recently my daughter because I love grandparenting. It's the most it's funnest role I have in my life right now. Like, there's nothing that stirs my heart like being with my grandbabies. It's so great.
ROB HOSKINS:And so I'll bug my kids don't live near me like you have other prisoners doing. So I'm like always bugging my poor daughter. Like, when are the grandkids coming down again? You know, when are we gonna meet with them? And just recently, she was there with my with with my granddaughter.
ROB HOSKINS:And she said, hey, dad. Can I talk to you? Pull me aside. She goes, you've been begging for for Zoe to be here.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:And you're looking at your phone and you're not looking
CRAIG GROESCHEL:at her face. Mhmm.
ROB HOSKINS:Man, Craig, it was like and it was like a knife in my heart. Right. So I'm just so grateful for that call out. I think it's a prophetic message you've got for us. Like, let's be intentional about our parent.
ROB HOSKINS:And that's what it sounds like. You know what Amy? Where you were super intentional, but even a little intentionality around.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And we tried to talk about everything from early on. And it got really special to me when like when my boys were getting married and we sat down and we had deep discussions about sex. And not these for years we talked about purity and then we got into like giving them like really detailed advice that no one's gonna give them about how to serve and love each other.
ROB HOSKINS:Boy, it's so interesting you say that. In our research, we found that that was the one area that Gen Z'ers were not saying that their parents were their greatest voice was in these areas of sexuality.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Well, they're not. I mean, everything else is gonna try to be that. And so we tried to, from early on, just talk super openly and show affection openly. And so it wasn't some kind of big secret. It was just that we wanted to talk about it like a normal conversation.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:And it's crazy. My daughter got married, my last daughter, and she was telling me about she was a little nervous about her honeymoon. So I was asking questions. And after she came back, she told me, Dad, it really special. And I'm like, really almost more detailed than I was comfortable with.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:But we had built a culture saying that what's honorable to God is something that we're willing to talk about here. And it's just it's really fun when you can engage with them at every level whatever they're facing from a three year old conversation to a 15 year old entering puberty to a 21 year old getting married or whatever the age is. If you make those subjects normal early, then you can talk about them for longer.
ROB HOSKINS:So so appreciate. Tell me about some resources. You and Amy have been so intentional. I know you've got some resources out there for parents. Tell us what you and I
CRAIG GROESCHEL:may have done. Where can people get more of your parenting material resources? Well, you can follow us both on Amy or Craig Groeschel on social media. I would go to Life. Church and Life.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Church creates fantastic parenting material. We are beneficiaries of the content that our church creates. So we don't Written a book on parenting. We don't have a book on parenting. Oh, come on.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Do. Call out. Don't.
ROB HOSKINS:Yeah. It's time.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Yeah. I feel like it's parenting is almost too nuanced to even try to try to put in a book form. It's just fluid. And it's you have to be sensitive to the needs and opportunities of every child.
ROB HOSKINS:Well, we're building this parent resource together. Mhmm. So we're gonna get some fluid Yes. Craig and Amy Grochel wisdom poured out on this new platform.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Well, if get her, you'll get better wisdom from Amy for sure. I promise you that.
ROB HOSKINS:Well, Craig, I love you as pastor.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:I love you as well.
ROB HOSKINS:I love the title you have as leader, but I love that what you value most is your title as husband.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Yeah. Thank you.
ROB HOSKINS:Dad and grandfather.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Yeah. That that's the one that that I'm most proud of as well. So thanks for having me on. Always. Love you.
CRAIG GROESCHEL:Love you.
ROB HOSKINS:Thanks for joining me today. This episode was brought to you by One Hope, the organization where I have the privilege to serve and lead. At One Hope, we are passionate about affecting destiny by providing God's eternal word to all of the children and youth of the world. For more information about One Hope, visit 1hope.net.