Jonathan Williams on Strengthening Homes with Faith

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Casey Cease: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Casey Cease show today. I have a special treat for you as I have a longtime friend of mine, Jonathan Williams back here with us. Jonathan is the executive director and founder of the Gospel Family Ministry. And I’ll let him explain more of who he is and all that, but we’ve had the joy of working together in various capacities.

My publishing company, Lucid Books had the joy of publishing his book almost 10 years ago the Gospel Family And, he just has a great insight pastorally and also as a parent, into, a husband and a parent into, [00:01:00] seeing the gospel really take a look in your home. And so Jonathan, I want to thank you for joining me today on the podcast.

I would love for you to take a minute to introduce yourself to those listening in or watching online.

Jonathan Williams: Yeah, Casey, thanks so much for having me, brother. I’ve been looking forward to this. Good seeing you. Good catching up. yeah, I grew up in North Texas and you and I met, after growing up in North Texas, God called me to Pastor a Church in Houston, and I served as a Senior Pastor there for 10 years, a multi ethnic Church, 50 different nations.

And I was working with those families from 50 different nations. And that’s when God really started to burden my heart for family ministry, ended up going back to school to do my doctorate in family studies and started writing about it. That’s when you and I connected. And of course you had that connection to Houston as well.

And I think just about everybody I met in Houston knew you, every Pastor, every Minister, everybody. I, they just, I kept hearing your name. You’re kind of famous down there. And so at some

Casey Cease: I pay real [00:02:00] well to pay for people to say nice things about me, so it works out. out

Jonathan Williams: It was all good. It was all your reputation preceded you at some point you and I finally got to connect.

And then you were so gracious to work with me on the book Family, which really was just a Pastor’s heart kind of sharing that. And then since then, like you said, almost 10 years, God’s kind of called me to go all in on family ministry. So now I’m an adjunct professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, teaching classes for master’s and doctorate students in family studies, family generational studies, family ministry, discipleship, intergenerational discipleship.

I even Get to serve as the managing editor of the Southwestern D6 family ministry journal, an academic journal. Again, just kind of casting that vision and publishing articles about family ministry. And then of course, what I do full time is get to lead Gospel Family Ministries M inistries a nonprofit, [00:03:00] which allows us to partner with, you know, 30 different churches every year.

really So exciting. And you, you’ve been a big part of that journey, not just helping with the book, but even helping coaching and giving us wisdom to know how to start this ministry, how to partner with churches. I keep learning from you brothers. So it’s good to see you, man.

Casey Cease: No, it’s great to have you here. And I love what you’re doing. I, and what’s always a joy for me is when people want to pick my brain as it were, when they actually take my advice and at least do something, try something, you know, and you and your board were super gracious to let me come in and throw some ideas.

And the book was a no brainer for us to partner with because it’s something that I’m passionate about. And if the gospels of Jesus Christ is not taking root in a home, it’s difficult for a Pastor in a Church for a few hours a week to have much impact.

And that doesn’t mean it’s beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean that it can’t do something [00:04:00] but, really for the families that are able to and willing to having that ministry available in the home is great. And the number one thing that I found in my years in various capacities in ministry as a Pastor now serving as a lay elder of my Church is the ignorance in not in a negative way, but just lacking the practical implication and application of what it means to you know, to lead in the home and to disciple your family and to love them well.

And your resource was extremely helpful to me. And I know your ministry, I know many people have been impacted by your ministry and your book has done very well. So if you can help us see, I mean, you know, as a time of this recording, we’re in April of 2024 is recording the podcast may come out in a month.

You know, next month or two, but what are you all seeing? I mean, over the last 10 plus years of doing this ministry specifically, what have you noticed both in some ground gainedbut also in some ground that’s been lost?

Jonathan Williams: Yeah, you know,

Families are struggling and that that’s the first thing I saw is I [00:05:00] was a 30 year old pastor of this church and I was meeting with sometimes 15 families a week. And I just started to see what was going on in their marriages, with their children in their home. And you know, they’re struggling.

They’re struggling with hurt. They’re struggling with sin, they’re struggling with the cultural attacks that’s coming up against them. And parents are asking, you know, how do we respond to these things? You know, biblically, the heart was always to bring the gospel into the home. You know, from Genesis 18 on, Deuteronomy 6, 11, 32, Ephesians 6, I mean, woven throughout the scriptures, the heart was, bring the word of God into the home.

Hey, parents, disciple your kids, you know, that great commission has to start in the home, and we’ve just, we’ve drifted from that. I think it was back in 1909, there was a Pastor in America who wrote, Family worship is an extinct custom, 1909. We’re now nearly a hundred and, you know, we’re 115 years since then, and [00:06:00] so most of the Christian adults in our churches, they never grew up with that.

Even if they grew up in the Church, they never saw this intentional family worship, family discipleship, Bring the gospel into the rhythms of your home kind of thing. it was reserved for Sunday morning. We’ll talk about the Lord Sunday morning at the Church house, but not Monday evening in our house.

And so I think that as we drifted from that, the culture has made some inroads into the homes. And right now, one of the you know, tragedies we’re seeing, I get a chance to work with a lot of PhD students doing a lot of great research. Every piece of research we see tells us we are losing the next generation.

There’s really no positive research. Everything tells us we are on a trajectory toward what I call the Judges 2 10 generation. Because in Judges 2:10, after, you know, maybe 50 years after Joshua has died, It says there arose another generation who didn’t [00:07:00] know the Lord, and that’s where we’re headed, you know, 40 years from now, that’s what we’ll be saying about Generation Alpha and Beta is they don’t know the Lord.

They don’t set their hope in God. They set their hope in the things of the world. So that shouldn’t bring fear, that shouldn’t paralyze us in fear, but it should bring a sense of urgency to say, okay, something’s got to change. Now, I do believe that we’re God can turn the tide. I believe God can change all of that, the battle is going to be fought in the home, in the living room, on Tuesday evenings, on Saturday mornings.

You know, Dennis Rainey said, no community, church, or nation will rise higher than the spiritual condition of its families. And so I see where we’re headed. I see what the scripture calls us to do. And there’s this great disparity between the two. And so our heart, our ministry’s heart is to respond to that disparity, not through fear or shame or feeling bad about what we haven’t done, but through some urgency, some [00:08:00] biblical response and say, let’s, fight start fight in the home for the family, because families right now, they’re under spiritual attack.

Casey Cease: Well, I mean, some listening may not be familiar with uh, family worship or the fact that, you know, I mean, cause our culture is so segmented now, like the school is for education, you know, the churches for religion, you know, business is for business and we very segmented out, but as a, and so someone listening in that may be maybe on the periphery of the Christian faith or outside the faith may not be aware.

But so I mean, I’m guessing since it’s so gone, there’s not many people interested in what you’re offering. So tell me, are you only doing like one or two conferences a year? Jonathan?

Jonathan Williams: What’s amazing about it is when Barna research sits with Christian parents, they get a lot of mixed signals. And with Pastors too. So, one survey, 99% of Pastors, Senior Pastors, told Barna parents should be discipling their kids. 99%, I don’t know who the [00:09:00] 1 percent was, who said no, I know it wasn’t you, it wasn’t me, but 99% said parents should disciple their kids, but only 20% Had a plan to equip them to disciple their kids only 10% ever resourced them and you see the same disparity with parents, you know almost 90% of parents say they should be the primary disciple makers of their kids lives but then the majority of them when asked what’s your greatest desire, your number one goal your number one prayer for your kids? Christian parents respond by saying not a relationship with Jesus Christ, is But they respond by saying a good education.

And so there’s this disparity where Pastors and parents are saying, yes, let’s bring the gospel into the home and yet there’s not a great plan to do that, it doesn’t seem to be their greatest desire, their greatest prayer. However, the encouraging thing is we’ve seen a great response for our ministry. We’ve connected with so many Churches and [00:10:00] Pastors where this is their heart .You And they just sometimes are asking for help to cast that vision.

And so right now we have about 30 different conferences every year. so almost every weekend we’re able to travel.

Casey Cease: Wait. 30 conferences?

Jonathan Williams: 30 conferences a year. And that’s with some incredible healthy churches all over the place. North Texas, Austin, Houston, Oklahoma, lots of churches in Florida, Georgia, Washington State. Kansas, Georgia, Louisiana, like God is just opening more doors than I could imagine.

And I think we’re at a point where parents are seeing what’s going on in our nation, and they’re asking their Pastors and their churches help us impact our kids, help us reach them. And Pastors are saying, okay, the response is family discipleship.

And that’s where we get to come in and hopefully be a part of that journey with them.

Casey Cease: So talk to me a little bit about these conferences you’re putting on. Like what goes on? What’s a [00:11:00] typical conference look like for some like this? You know I like

Jonathan Williams: starting with just

Casey Cease: a basic

Jonathan Williams: 30,000 foot view vision of what I call God’s heart for your home. I think a lot of times, and I’m a parent, I’ve been married for almost 18 years. We got three kids, they’re 10, 12 and 14. Man, we’re busy. My kids play football, basketball, baseball, volleyball.

They got school, we got work, I get it. Families are busy, and so I think a lot of times families, we’re just, we’re surviving, you know, we’re going day to day, week to week. We got a calendar. We’re just trying to make it through everything, get the bills paid. I get it. And so to me, when we do a gospel family conference, it’s a, it allows us space to kind of push pause on all that noise, all that business.

Take a step back, catch our breath, and ask the question, What is God’s heart for my home, for my marriage, for my parenting? So we do everything from marriage retreats, men’s retreats. We do mainly [00:12:00] parenting equipping conferences where we pour into parents, grandparents, Empty nesters, and we look at God’s heart for the home, and we look at passages like Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, the Shema.

Where God tells parents to love God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind, hide the Word of God in their own heart, and then impress that same Word of God on the hearts of their kids, chisel it into stone, like, the hearts of our kids are wet cement, and we get this chance to impress something into their hearts so when they grow up, could be there forever, and that something is supposed to be the Word of God.

And the Deuteronomy 6 model, It includes things like dinner time devotions. Yes, I think there needs to be times where Monday nights we sit down at the table. We open up the Bible. We have a family devotion absolutely. But what I love about Deuteronomy 6, it also just includes those car ride conversations, taking your kid to school, bringing them home from football practice on the way to the dance thing on Saturday afternoon [00:13:00] and just finding those little moments you’re out fishing with your boys.

And you turn their heart to Christ. Your, your daughter’s going through a hard time and you’re able to minister to her and pray over her, it’s bringing these gospel moments into the normal rhythms of our days. And so here’s one thing, Casey, I share a lot of times in the first session of our conference.

I bring out this little cup about this big, I bring up three volunteers and I give the first one, this little bag of M& Ms they poured into the cup. And it’s about 120 M&Ms. And we, tell the parents, if you can get your kid to church, every time the doors are open, every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, D now fall retreat, BBS, kids camp, youth camp.

They never get sick. They never miss. They never go out of town. Best case scenario. We get maybe 120 hours a year to disciple those kids. Now, we need every one of those. You and I, we’ve both been Pastors. We know we need families to prioritize [00:14:00] the church gathering, that community. We need that. but it’s limited, the amount of time we get, 120 hours a year.

Then I bring up the second volunteer. We have a big bucket, this big, Casey. They pour in 3,000 M&M’s. It costs a lot of money to buy these M&M’s, by the way. So, man, I believe in this illustration. I put my money where my mouth is 3,000 M&M’s. That’s the average number of hours that kids today spend every year on YouTube, video games, and social media.

So we measure those next to each other. 120 hours of discipleship at the church house, 3,000 hours on screens. And my question is, what do you think is gonna win their heart? What do you think is gonna shape their worldview? And that right there tells us, why are we losing the next generation? But the encouraging thing, maybe the challenging thing, I bring up the third volunteer, give them another giant bucket, they pour [00:15:00] 3,000 same number, 3,000 M&M’s into that third bucket.

That’s the average number of hours that parents get at home with their kids every year. Not at school, not at work, not asleep. Parents get 3,000 hours a year with their kids every year. Now, some research tells us that by eighth grade parents in America only spend 15 minutes a week and meaningful conversation with their kid.

So they’re getting a little bit of discipleship of the church house, a tiny bit of meaningful conversation with their parents, tons of what I would call worldly discipleship and make no mistake about it, whether parents disciple their kids or not, the world’s going to disciple their kids. And so really the call to family discipleship is not about adding new things to our schedule.

We have 3,000 hours a year with our kids. It’s just really about adding intentionality to what’s already there. I was in Abilene a year ago, Abilene, Texas. [00:16:00] And did a Gospel Family Conference. Great, beautiful church. Wiley Baptist Church. Love this church. Love the pastors there. I came back this last year.

So, one year later, I come back, do another Gospel Family Conference. Different sessions, different topics. And this man comes up to me in one of our breaks and he said, Hey, I was here a year ago at your conference and I was challenged. You said to add intentionality to the 3,000 hours we had. You said to bring these gospel rhythms into the normal routine of our days.

He said, I’m a teacher, I’m a dad, I got six kids, and every day I take them to school, and every day I bring them home. He said, after your conference last year, I made one change. He said, on the way to school every day, I ask my six kids to share a prayer request, and then we pray together. And on the way home from school every day, I asked him to share praises, and then we’d pray together.

He says, we’ve been doing it for a year, we’ve never missed, and it’s transformed my relationship with them, and their [00:17:00] relationship with the Lord. He didn’t add any new thing to his schedule, it didn’t make him any bit busier, all he had to do was add a little bit of intentionality to the time he already had, and it transformed his family, that’s the rhythms. So that, that’s kind of a quick picture of like that first session of a conference. This is God’s heart for your home. Come

Casey Cease: That’s beautiful. I know for us, we started doing a family meeting and part of it is a celebration. Part of his struggles, part of his prayer, part of its coordination, but a regular time of coming together, reflecting on the goodness of the Lord, talking through it, through prayer requests, talking through struggles and things going on.

You know, we were butter turning homeschoolers as like, my two daughters get a lot of time with their mother as well. And in learning, you know, theology and Bible and, and we get to have a lot of fun conversations.

My eldest daughter is now 17. And we used to always joke that she would stonewall me at seven, you know, at night at bedtime, because she knew she could hook me into a theological discussion [00:18:00] you know, like, Hey dad, so what’s the deal with this predestination stuff?

I was reading Ephesians one and I’m like, You know, and like, well, actually daughter you know, sit down and, we finally caught on and she’s like, I wasn’t doing that on purpose. I’m like, well, then come to me instead of like watching a TV show and let’s have a theological conversation. It’s weird.

Our theological conversations didn’t. Go away completely. But the timing was curious, a little suspicious

Jonathan Williams: Always

right at bedtime.

Yeah.

Casey Cease: I would absolutely take to have that, but you know, beggars can’t be choosers and I’m OCD enough to latch onto something and get after it. So, uh, it worked out, but yeah, I mean, I, really have really appreciated, you’re so gracious in that.

 

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Casey Cease: I think there’s a lot of, guilt or denial with families or parents. I’ve also found too, that parents may not be pursuing the Lord maybe as much as would be helpful. And so they might feel a bit like hypocrites coming home and saying, Hey, we’re going to start doing family worship together. How do you recommend a family that maybe mom and dad or mom or dad needs to repent and get back in line?

Because I think that discouragement could prevent us from actually taking positive steps forward. So how do you advise? If let’s say someone’s listening, they are a follower of Jesus, but you know, haven’t been intentional in their home lately. What advice would you give them? Transcripts

Jonathan Williams: Yeah, I have

Said just a [00:20:00] few things. You know, first, like you said, the goal is not to shame parents into doing this or guilt them into doing this. The goal is not even to make us feel bad, I mean, there’s lots of weeks where I finished a week and I look back and I’m thinking, man, I missed some opportunities.

Absolutely. You know, and so the goal is not to make us feel bad about what we haven’t done in the past. The hope is for us to get excited about what could begin if we start implementing these rhythms now. So that’s my first encouragement, you know, get excited even if your kids 18 years old, you got one more year before they graduate.

Man, let’s make the most of that year, let’s be intentional for that year. God can use that in a mighty way. I gave my life to Christ at 18. Who knows what God might do in that senior year of high school. And so let’s get excited about it. I do agree with the heart of what you’re sharing. You know, at the end of the day, parents, we can’t give our kids something we don’t have.

And so I do believe a lot of times the reason we struggle leading [00:21:00] our kids is because we have a are very lukewarm relationship with the Lord. And so a lot of times the 1st step is for us to look at our own walk with Christ and to say, you know, how can I better pursue him? That Deuteronomy 6 passage before, you know, there’s two things that it tells parents to do before it tells parents to teach the Word of God to their kids.

The first thing is it tells parents to love God with everything they’ve got, their heart, their soul, their mind. And then the second thing, the Lord says to parents, these words that I command you shall be on your heart. So to parents, I would encourage you to love Jesus. Seek after Jesus, chase after the Lord, and then put the Word of God on your heart.

Now, what I don’t mean, is I don’t mean you need to wait until you’re some perfect Christian before you can lead your kids, by any means. We’re all on this journey together. But as you’re leading your kids, make sure you’re pursuing Jesus, so that you can look at your kids and say, I’m chasing after [00:22:00] Jesus, I don’t get it right all the time, but I am chasing Him, so follow me as I follow Him.

I do have e a session that I do at some of our conferences where, I, call it three starting points for leading your family. And so this is for the family who, right now they don’t have any gospel rhythms in the home outside of maybe they bring their kids to church, which by the way is not nothing, you know, if you’re getting your kids to church, that’s a big deal. there’s a lot of families who call themselves Christians who aren’t doing that, and so I just wanna encourage you, if you’re watching this. And with all your work and with all your busy schedule, you make gathering with the church a priority. Praise God! He’s using that. I just want to encourage you in that.

Jonathan Williams: If you’re wanting to go beyond that and you’re saying, what’s my first starting point? How do I get my feet in the water? The three things I share is three starting points for leading your family, your devotion, your example and your testimony. And I’ll just say one thing about each of those.

So Your devotion, I mean that in [00:23:00] an encouraging way and in a challenging way. The challenging way is again, If we want to give the word of God to our kids, then we have to hide the word of God in our hearts. So I would encourage you start by just having your own personal devotional time. Have a time in the day where you open up the Bible, you spend time with the Lord, you’re in prayer, you’re in the word.

The encouraging part of that, the practical part of that, is if you have that devotional time, you’re now ready to give something to your kids. So imagine a Tuesday morning, you get up just a few minutes earlier than usual to have a devotion time with the Lord before work. Maybe you read Psalm 121. You know, I look to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

And then you pray, you go to work, throughout the day you’re thinking about that passage. And then you get home, and that night y’all have dinner, you sit at the table. How easy is it for you to open your Bible and say, Hey kids, I want to share with you what I read in my devotion this morning.[00:24:00]

And you open to Psalm 121, you read that same passage, you share with them what you’ve been thinking about throughout the day about that passage, you ask them some questions, ask some prayer requests, you pray together. The whole time might just take the length of the meal itself. but what a rich family devotion you just led only because you had your devotion. So that’s the first starting point, your own devotion.

The second is your example. And again, there’s an encouraging word and a challenging word. The encouraging word is, again, If you’re a Christian parent and you’re chasing after Christ, even if you don’t have these intentional rhythms, I just want to encourage you.

The Lord uses your example. When I think about the example of parents being a starting point, you know, I think about my parents, they’ve been in ministry 40 years. My dad was a Pastor, my mom’s a minister of music. And even though we didn’t have a lot of rhythms of, you know, family worship, I have these countless memories of coming down the stairs, seeing my dad in this [00:25:00] 1970 blue velvet armchair, reading his Bible, praying for his family, drinking his coffee, you know, your example, God is using that.

So even if it’s just the way you treat your neighbors, the way you serve other people, the way you serve in the church, the way you love on your kids, you know, so the encouraging word there is God uses your example. The challenging word is our kids are watching our example. And so there’s this old adage that parents used to say to their kids.

They would say, do what I say, not what I do. And that’s just never happens. Like kids will always give more attention to our actions and our deeds than to our words. And so I always tell parents, start with your own devotion, start with your own example. And then the third starting point I give parents is your testimony.

And a big question I love to ask parents, grandparents, I always ask them, Do your kids, do your grandkids know your testimony? Have you ever shared that with them? And I always look at Joshua 4, [00:26:00] where Joshua and Israel got parts of the Jordan River, they walk across on dry ground on their way to the promised land, and then God has this idea. God tells Joshua, get 12 men, one from each of the 12 tribes, get 12 stones from the dry ground where you cross and take them to where you’re going to lodge, set these memorial stones up so that one day when your kids see the stones and ask, what do they mean? You’ll tell your children what God did for you on that day.

So when, you know, when I do gospel family conferences, Casey, I bring this big Home Depot bucket with me and I got all these black smooth rocks in there. And as we talk about leading your family with your testimony, I invite these parents to come up and grab a rock. And then they think about one testimony they want to share with their kids.

Maybe it is how the Lord saved them or how God provided that job or how God healed or restored or brought them together with their spouse or gave them their children, whatever that story is. [00:27:00] And then they put that rock on their kitchen table and they wait for one of their kids to say. Why is there a rock on the table?

Just like Joshua four. And then the parent says, Oh, that’s a reminder for me to tell you this testimony here, sit down. I want to tell you a story of something God did in my life. And so those are some starting points. Parents that right now don’t have a lot of rhythms of family worship in their home, I would encourage you.

Think about your own devotion, think about your own example, and then find a way to start sharing these testimonies, these God stories, so to speak with your kids.

Casey Cease: And I’ll get back to you, Jonathan. No, that’s,

That’s super helpful, Jonathan. And I appreciate you being willing to share. Some of the ways to get started with that in the home. So what’s next for your gospel family? What’s interesting is I have a lot of people over the years that I’ve worked with at various stages of starting their nonprofits.

And what I always tell them is just because you have a passion or just because you have an idea, doesn’t mean you need to create a brand new nonprofit for it. It may be something you partner with a current nonprofit or with your [00:28:00] church, or you just do out of the goodness of your heart. But there comes a point in time where the formal nonprofit structure is advantageous for an organization.

As you shared, you’re now doing 30 conferences a year. You’ve published a resource and are working on other resources. So what’s coming next now? And the reason I asked, began that question was because a podcast are also interested in starting something, whether it’s a business or it’s a nonprofit or a ministry. Any words of wisdom, you know, for getting something started. And then also what’s coming next for the, gospel family?

Jonathan Williams: Yeah. you know, The, you know, encouragement for those who are thinking about getting started. I do think, and this sounds cliche, but for me, a huge part of my journey was prayer. This is not something I did lightly. This is not something I rushed into, so I spent a lot of time in prayer myself with my wife about it.

And then the second thing is I surrounded myself with people who had some experience, some wisdom. [00:29:00] I asked a lot of questions. I met with you, Casey, you have so much wisdom, so much experience in this space. And I learned a lot from people like you just asking questions. And I think it was really through that prayer, through those conversations that the Lord then solidified the next step.

And from then, you know, that was back in 2014. So it’s been 10 years now we’ve just tried to be faithful every step of the way. And so early on, it was very slow. It was help a few churches, create a few resources, write a blog, you know, but now where we’re at 10 years later, you know, we’re hiring people, we’re growing our team, we’re doing, you know, 30, workshops, conferences, retreats with churches every year.

We’re partnering with hundreds of churches every year. so where we’re at now is, you know, we’re creating two small group studies every year so that even if we don’t do a conference with us, you can have your life group, your home group, your Sunday school class, dive into these small group [00:30:00] studies.

One of them is equipping parents to cultivate a biblical worldview and the hearts of their kids. the other thing we’re doing this year is we’re hopefully very soon launching a men’s division of Gospel Family Ministries and bringing some really gifted people in to lead that. You know, one thing we see in America right now is that 41 of America is fatherless.

41 has no father in the home. That doesn’t even mention the families where the father is, You know physically present, but he’s spiritually absent or emotionally distant, right? And so there’s just a big need for men in the home and men in the church to lead what we want to be able to say to those families We want to be able to say like paul said in 1 corinthians 4 in first corinthians four paul said You didn’t have spiritual fathers, but I became a spiritual father for you So we want to be able to tell all these families Hey Come and be a part of our churches and you will [00:31:00] find men who will disciple you and mentor you and lead you and encourage you and all those things.

But in our churches right now, the reality is 61 of our churches are female. Only 39 are male. 25 of married women go to church every Sunday without their husbands. One out of four. And so there’s just a need right now, I think, to encourage men to lead. We live in a culture where we don’t even know how to define what it is to be a man anymore.

And so we need a biblical definition of manhood. We need a generation of men who lead in the home, lead in the church. So we’re starting a men’s division. We’re also working with you with Lucid Books. That’s been one of our best experiences over these last 10 years is partnering with Lucid Publishing, Lucid Books, and not just with our Gospel Family Book, but you’ve connected us with pastors, with churches, with conferences.

We’ve learned a lot from you. And so we have a whole, [00:32:00] you know, we have many resources coming over the next 12 months. And the hope is to partner with Lucid every step of the way to get those out there, to encourage churches, families. You know, we always say that our vision is to strengthen family ministry in the church and cultivate family worship in the home.

And so we’ll be partnering with Lucid to do that. Uh, we also launched this year, a research institute for gospel family ministries. We’ve put out two research projects this year. One, Was a very small, sample size qualitative study we did called a family worship assessment where we got to hear from a few hundred families.

Here’s what’s going on in our home. And we put out a resource on our website, GospelFamily.Org And it’s called family worship assessment. The other one we partnered with better man ministries, which is I think the Leading men’s ministry in america right now and we put out what we call the state of manhood It’s actually sitting here on my desk [00:33:00] state of manhood where we just it’s a small report robert lewis wrote a forward for dr Tony evans wrote an endorsement for it and we’re just trying to capture a glimpse of the state of manhood in America today.

Here’s what’s going on with their own lives, with their families, with their work. Even most men are spending 50 plus hours a week at work, and so we try to get in to see what’s going on there. So we put that out there in hopes that it would encourage men to it would give a biblical response to what they’re struggling with, what they’re working with.

It also gives us insight when we’re sitting with pastors to say, what, what sort of sessions do we need for these conferences? We’re able to say, well, here’s what we’re hearing from men. Here’s what we’re hearing from families. let’s respond to that.

Casey Cease: that’s so good, man. In working with you all it’s been such a joy just helping do some advertising early on when you guys are getting started as well as publishing side in its great content that’s what’s with, [00:34:00] with, uh, as a publisher, it is amazing to work with great content, great teams, great people, because, you know, there’s a risk involved for everyone putting that out there. And you were mentioning us doing the joint venture with your publishing line contact is line. And we’re increasingly more and more wanting to partner with great organizations to help them put out their work. So you can focus on doing what you’re great at doing, and we can focus doing what we’re great at doing.

And so I’m very excited for the future of what you’re bringing on and for the families and communities that will be impacted. So, uh, as we’re wrapping up, is there any question I should have asked you, uh, during this interview? And I’m sure I’ll have you on the show again, but for this initial interview, is there anything else that would have been helpful for the listeners, for me to ask you?

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there’s so many great Churches we partnered with. You know, our ministry never takes the posture that we’re trying to come in and do something churches aren’t doing. The pastors I know, this is their heart as well. The pastors I work with, they are doing everything they can to bring this in front of [00:35:00] families.

Jonathan Williams: We just get a chance. I get to serve as a pastor for a long time. And so it’s a joy for me to come and encourage pastors and what they’re doing, maybe provide some resources for that. Be a small part of that. the thing that we always say for with our team is we never want to be a burden to churches.

We always want to be a blessing. And so every church that has us come in, we just spend that weekend trying to bless them. We always tailor our conferences. to fit the very specific and unique context of each individual church. We understand that each church has their own unique needs, their own kind of demographics of families represented in that church.

So I always try to learn from the pastors what’s going on in their church, in their homes, and then we create a conference and resources to fit that specifically. And so there’s any churches we could partner with. I just wanted to share that part of our heart that we want to. do everything we can to meet you and your families where you’re at.

And then to the [00:36:00] families who are watching, my encourage, I think a lot of times families, it’s like looking at your GPS on your phone. You type in where you are, you type in where you want to be, and you see that long line. And if there’s traffic, then that line is red. And when I lived in Houston, that line was always dark red.

Like every line, every which way you could go, every route. And I think a lot of families, that’s t what we see. We see where we are. We look at the scriptures. We see God’s heart for our home. We see where the Lord wants us to be. And the line between those two dots just seems dark red. Like it’s going to be the longest journey and the enemy starts to discourage us.

And I’ve had families tell me that will just never be us. We’re never going to be that kind of biblical family. We’re never going to have those rhythms in our home. And my encouragement to those families is to remember that God is able, and that he’s able to, to move any family from where they are to, to where he’s leading them, to be, where he wants them to be.

And the encouragement is just [00:37:00] to take that first step of the journey, whether that’s praying with your spouse, praying with your kids, your own devotion time, sharing your testimony, looking for those little moments to add some intentionality to, to your family time. God uses every little thing we do. None of it’s wasted.

We just got to start the journey.

Casey Cease: That’s that’s very well said. And so, uh, where can people find you online as we’re wrapping up today?

Jonathan Williams: Yeah, the main thing is GospelFamily.org We’re on Facebook. We’re on X, Twitter, whatever it’s called. We’re on Instagram, all always under Gospel Family, but through GospelFamily.org you can reach out to us about workshops, conferences, events. you can get free resources for your family, for your church family, and you can also contact me anytime you need.

Casey Cease: Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today on the Casey Cease show. And for those. Those of you listening have made it this far. Thanks so much for listening and make sure you like, leave a review if you had a positive experience and, share it with friends and we’ll see you on the next [00:38:00] episode.

That wraps up this episode of the KCC Show. Make sure to visit our website, thekccshow. com, where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or via RSS, so you’ll never miss a show. While you’re at it, if you found value in this show, we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes, or if you’d simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too.

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