336 | DA+3 Group Guide: John Eldredge
Episode Description
In this DA+3 Group Guide, you'll find key points and discussion questions to spark meaningful conversations with other dads. Explore insights on unplugging from technology, checking in with Jesus, expressing emotions physically, sharing Jesus stories, and more.
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John Eldredge is an author, counselor, teacher, and the president of Wild at Heart. He and his wife, Stasi, have three sons and are proud grandparents. John loves all things beauty, nature, adventure, and more.
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· Check-in with Jesus: Pray about decisions, journal the voice of God, and pay attention to frustration flare-ups.
· Get Outside: Take a break from technology and spend time in nature.
· Read Ephesians 3:14-19: Pray that God would bring a word or phrase to you as you read these verses.
· Get a Baseball Bat and a Plastic Trash Can: Physically get out the heavy stuff.
· Share Jesus Stories: Tell others when God has shown up for you.
DA+3 Group Guide Discussion Questions:
Before making major decisions, do you check in with God through prayer, journaling, etc.?
How do you feel about your current rhythms of technology/screens/phone use?
How often do you intentionally disconnect from technology?
When you think about spending time outside with your family, what memories stick out to you?
What outdoor activities bring you joy?
When you Read Ephesians 3:14-19, what word or phrase stands out to you?
What does it look like to press into your intense emotions like frustrations instead of running away from them?
Have you brought your full emotions to God by doing hard things physically, such as sprinting, doing pull-ups, or beating a trash can?
When was the last time you shared your faith stories with others, especially your kids?
What’s one action you want to take after discussing this episode?
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· 299 | Escaping Sedation, Meeting Jesus in Your Pain, and Sharing Fresh Jesus Stories (John Eldredge)
· A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss by Jerry L. Sittser
· 304 | Pursuing Visions, Journaling Daily, and Hearing God’s Prophetic Voice (Ken Helser)
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:39] Welcome back to DadAwesome. My name is Jeff Zaugg and today, episode 336, we have a new series kicking off for just seven weeks. So this new series I'm calling DadAwesome +3. It's the DadAwesome +3 group guides. And basically each week, each week for the next seven weeks, I'm going to re-feature a conversation from the last few years at DadAwesome with my five top takeaways. So my, these are my top five. This is what I took away from the conversation. And then we're going to give you discussion questions to talk about these five kind of action steps, point, top kind of like this was impactful for me. So, some of you I know your wife listens to DadAwesome and then encourages you and says you should listen to this episode. Hey, you should listen to this episode. I know about this. I've heard about this, that your, some of you guys, you don't listen that often to DadAwesome unless your wife recommends an episode. That's awesome. No problem. But basically, I'm gonna do that for you. I'm gonna say these are seven conversations that I would recommend you listen to that you don't even have to listen to it. You can just take my five top takeaways, listen to the shortened version, and then get some other guys together. So as you heard last week, episode 335, I emphasize that being DadAwesome means that you have other dads that you're running this race with. Other dads who are in your corner, that know your name and know your kids names, that are for you. They're praying for you, that you can call when you're having that day that you never thought you'd have, and you need somebody to be there for you. So being in brotherhood, being, developing friendships, as dads, is essential to being DadAwesome. So this is basically this next seven weeks is a tool for you, each week, an excuse to get some guys together. You can meet for a cup of coffee. You can meet at the beach. You can meet on a boat. You can meet at a brewery. You can meet at a campfire. You can meet in a garage. You can meet wherever. You can meet on zoom. And this is going to tee up a short conversation, short podcast episodes will prepare you to have a great conversation, and guys can even come without listening to even this. They can come with one of you saying, I've got some questions, some themes, let's talk through these things. So, here we go. This is it. Episode 336 is going to feature my conversation from nine months ago with John Eldredge. And John Eldredge, at the beginning of every summer is just like a great source of wisdom. His podcast, the Wild at Heart podcast, and just his, his resources, which I'll feature today. He just like when you're headed into summer, he's a great voice of wisdom to listen to. So I'm going to feature some of his top takeaways. So here we go, DadAwesome +3. And it's called DadAwesome +3 because it's you finding three other dads. This is going to be so much more powerful in brotherhood. DadAwesome +3, this is your group guide episode for John Eldredge. So, my top five is, the first one is, check in with Jesus. An expression, John used is check in with Jesus before you make your summer plans. Check in with Jesus, before you head on that vacation. Check in with Jesus before you pursue a new job, or buy a house, or commit to a soccer league. Check in with Jesus. So what this looks like, looks different for different people. But for me, checking in with Jesus looks like journaling, writing down some big decisions before I make those big decisions. I take a rhythm of once a month, a prayer day, check in with Jesus about the last 30 days, about the next 30 days. Coming to my wife with here, here's some decisions. Can we pray through these? I've done this with my girls. Let's stack hands and pray through this decision coming up. So check in with Jesus. There's so many approaches to this, but I just want to encourage you guys. How's that going? Are you checking in with Jesus before making big decisions? Are you bringing to prayer? Are you bringing to your spouse, to a friend? Hey, this is something big. I'm going to check in with Jesus in community. I'm not going to just charge forward under my own strength. One tool for this is journaling the voice of God. So, Ken Helser, we featured this episode. I'll make sure it's in the show notes. He talked about using two colors pen. He journals his voice in black ink. So I did this this morning, I wrote in black ink a little bit about some of the things that are are pressures or tensions or big decisions. And then in blue ink, I write, this is maybe the voice of God, maybe what God would say about that. And it's just flow of consciousness. What might God say about that? So journaling the voice of God, two colored pens, just journaling. Maybe God would say this and I just start writing. See what He says. It's been a phenomenal exercise journaling the voice of God. Another thing is just pay attention to frustration flare ups. This is not John Eldredge using that term. I'm using that term, frustration flare ups. Instead of just flowing with like, I'm frustrated, I'm just gonna let that go on and on, but say, Jesus, where are You? Where were You in that moment? That was frustrating. Why? Why are my emotions going a little bit crazy right now? What's causing me to be way more frustrated that I should, in this moment? Let's pay attention to those and invite Jesus into those. So check in with Jesus is the big takeaway. One last little resource here is there's a book called A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser and I, I've spoken about this book before around grief, but he has a metaphor of when there's something that flares up, a frustration flare up, or like a heaviness or like, where is this coming from? He would say press into it further versus run away from it. So instead of chasing the sunset, the sun is setting to the west. Instead of trying to stay in the sun, press into the darkness, is what his metaphor, the kind of meta metaphor is, is press into the darkness, the areas of hurt, of heaviness, of frustration. Let's actually explore those a little bit with Jesus. So that's a big conversation point. But you guys can have discussions around, man, what does that look like to press into the heaviness versus run away from it? Instead of saying, I'm just going to leave that, sweep it under the rug, let's press into it and say what's going on with my heart, and check in with Jesus about those things that are frustration flare ups. So the first one is check in with Jesus. The next top takeaway from this conversation with John Eldredge is get outside. Take a break from technology, just simply, this summer. How's that going? Taking a break from your phone, putting it on the charger, saying I don't need it this evening. Saying let's do less screen time. Let's just do less screens, less tablets, less phone, glowing phone in front of our face. Let's, let's do a detox. That's what John Eldredge, his encouragement was like, get away from your screens, technology, Wi-Fi and get outside. There's something about the human heart were designed to be in nature. Get outside, even a slow walk around your block. Get outside. Take a break from technology is the next one. One resource there is Aro, some partners of ours at DadAwesome. The Aro box is a tool that gamifies the experience of getting off your technology. I have an Aro box, a charging unit that kind of tells you how much time your phone's been in the box. It's a tool again, to get away from our phones being a distraction from the hearts and eyes of our little kids. That's the second one, outside, a break from technology. The third one is John Eldredge encouraged us to read Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14-19. Read it slowly. Pray this verse. Let me just take us through slowly this verse. And this could be your entire campfire conversation. Your DadAwesome +3 conversation could be around these verses. This is Ephesians 3 verse 13 through 19. I'm sorry, I'm going to start in 14, 14 through 19. And as I read this, I pray that God would bring a word or a phrase, something that's a promise for you. That's His nudge, His encouragement, His affirmation, His reminder for you that He would just shine the spotlight of His Holy Spirit and a word or a phrase. So here we go, Ephesians 3:14. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God. Man, it's good to slow read scripture. It's good to say, God, what do you have for me in these verses? I think this is a pause, as just a pause and read through these verses is so good for us as dads. Man, I want to be rooted in established in love. I want to, I want that to be what roots me and steadies me. I want, palm trees down here in Florida. Palm trees, their, their roots intertangle with other palm trees roots to keep them from, from blowing over in a storm. They'll bend all the way over to the ground or in a storm, but they won't actually snap off or die because their roots are entangled with each other. Maybe that's a promise for you guys, is as we grow brotherhood and grow friendships with other men, as we become DadAwesome by creating a community of men who are together, being that dad for their families but for each other, encouraging each other, praying for each other, holding each other accountable, man, that we could be rooted and established in God's love, rooted in community and in God's love. There may be so many takeaways from these verses for you guys, but I'm gonna move to the fourth. So only my top five, that's three, here's the fourth one. Get a baseball bat and get a plastic trash can. So, John actually talks about our emotions, bringing our full emotions to God. And for me, training physically, the Friday morning group that I lead here in Northeast Florida, on the beach, like doing hard things physically is a way to bring my emotions to God. I feel like I'm a better dad, a better husband, when I do hard things physically. But John actually said, get a baseball bat and a plastic trash can and make sure the garage door is closed or you have a high fence and just beat that trash can. Just beat it. Like he said, you actually need to physically sometimes get out the frustration and anger and hurt the heavy stuff in life. We all have it. We all have heavy stuff. My question for you guys with with your small group, with your with your DadAwesome group is how's that going? Have you brought your full emotions to God? Have you actually beat on something safely, like a trash can that's plastic? Have you actually let go of some of that emotion, some of the physical expression of your emotions? Do you have a way to do that? Do you have a healthy way? Is it sprinting? Is it running fast? Is it burpees? Is it pull ups? Is it beating a trash can? We can connect deeper with God if we bring our full emotions to God. David did this all through the Psalms. So that was an action kind of thought, challenge thought, number four from John Eldredge. The fifth one is share Jesus stories. He encourages us to share Jesus stories with our kids, with our friends. When was the last time you sat down and you just shared a Jesus story? I saw God show up in this. I needed breakthrough and He showed up. Jesus stories are huge. I have a Jesus story for you guys right now. My rental house that we rented, we just moved to a different rental house down here. They held our deposit and said, because I checked a box that said shrubbery and lawn. I checked a box in the rental contract that I'll take care of, the renter will take care of shrubbery and lawn. Well, the lawn was very, very small, never needed to be cut. It actually just kind of held its shape and size. And the shrubbery, we picked weeds, but overall we didn't hire a professional landscaping team, and we did not professionally sculpt back some of the flowers and some of the bushes. Well, they were going to charge us like over $2,000 for professional landscaping team to come in and take care of this. I was so mad. I was so frustrated because I felt like we left the house in great shape and I felt like, and we actually had sent them a message asking about a specific part of how do we take care of the palm trees? Well, through a God story, a Jesus story, a gentleman in our church down here offered to do the landscaping for much less than that, that quoted amount. And I went yesterday and I joined him to do the landscaping work of this house. And he told me yesterday, he's like, I'm not going to charge you anything. I want to do this as a gift to your family. So we went from thinking we were going to be charged over $2,000 to, I'm working a couple nights in a row doing landscaping with this, this, professional landscaper from our church, and it's cost us nothing. So that's swing of emotion, I was so mad to God providing, that was a Jesus story. There's no reason that this gentleman should have offered his services for free. Still a new friendship of mine. So that's a Jesus story. Deep frustration to deep gratitude. Look what God did. Okay, we need to share these stories. Here's a clip from from the episode with John Eldredge about Jesus stories.
John Eldredge: [00:14:04] How do we impart our faith to our children? You have stories to tell. Fresh, current, Jesus stories. Okay. They're infectious, right. If you just say, oh my gosh, here's the coolest thing. So ask. Ask and then you have Jesus stories to tell. So when you're driven friends and stuff, say, hey man, Jeff, what's new? What's new? And you go, I got a cool story to tell you. And it's winsome and it's inviting, and it's not kind of in their face, right. Oh my gosh.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:39] They join you in joy.
John Eldredge: [00:14:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you do it with your kids. They go, daddy, what? Jesus spoke to you? Yeah, I want to tell you about that. You have fresh Jesus stories.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:49] Would you say a short prayer over all of us?
John Eldredge: [00:14:51] Yes. Yeah. So, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, take this, take this podcast, take this conversation now and for each and every man. Where are we going, Lord? Take me forward with this. What is it that You want me to invite You into, so that we can walk it out together. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:16] Now I want to leave you guys this week, this DadAwesome +3, DA+3 discussion guide. Guys, I want to lead you with two resources. The first is the Pause app from Wild at Heart from John Eldredge. The Pause app is a free download, it's linked in the show notes, and this has one minute pause prayer. Three minute, five minute, ten minute. It also has a few series. There's a, there's a 30 day to Resilience guide that has two videos each day. Scripture being prayed over you. I highly encourage the Pause app. The second resource is within the Pause app, the 30 Days to Resilience. This could be a game changer for you guys this summer to go through 30 Days to Resilience by Wild at Heart, it's in the Pause app. Those are both going to be linked. I want to encourage you guys, use this week's podcast, invite a few guys to sit around a campfire, sit in a garage, sit around a cup of coffee, sit wherever on a front porch, whatever. Get together with other dads and talk about these five takeaways. These are my five takeaways. Of course, you can go in and listen to the whole conversation from John Eldeidge. If you missed it, that was about nine months ago. It'll be linked in the show notes. You can certainly go back and listen. Some of you have been, have noticed because I don't, I don't think I've ever recorded a podcast in a tank top before. So, DadAwesome has tank tops in the DadAwesome Store. I'm wearing it right now. Sun's out, guns out, right. So if you're watching on YouTube, DadAwesome, I am featuring the DadAwesome tank top. I wear this basically every other day down here in Florida. I own two of the DadAwesome tank tops. I want to encourage you guys, everything in the DadAwesome Store is 20% off, if you use the code tanktop, tanktop is the code. This will be active for like 2 or 3 weeks, not long. So the code is tanktop, little summer sale for you guys, all the DadAwesome gear. And you wear this because it's awesome. You also wear this to say it's a conversation starter with other dad, to remind them to check out the resources that we have, the ministry of DadAwesome. So guys, thanks for being a part of this week's episode, episode 336. This DA+3 episode featuring John Eldredge. Let's get those conversations going. Let's rally the guys. Let's start a group. Dad life is better, the DadAwesome way is with brothers, with friends. We're not doing this thing solo. You are not DadAwesome if you're just pursuing the hearts of your kids alone. Being DadAwesome requires the journey of having other friends, other dads alongside you, growing together, learning together, holding each other accountable, spurring each other on. That is the Jesus way. That's the DadAwesome way. So, praying for you guys this week. Have a good time with the other guys. Have a great conversation this week.
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· 5:45 - "Another resource, is a book, A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. I've spoken about this book before around grief, but he has a metaphor of when there's something that flares up, a frustration flare up, or a heaviness, where is this coming from? He would say press into it further versus run away from it. So, instead of chasing the sunset, the sun is setting to the west. Instead of trying to stay in the sun, press into the darkness, is what his metaphor is. Press into the darkness, the areas of hurt, of heaviness, of frustration. Let's actually explore those a little bit with Jesus."
· 9:45 - "Palm trees roots intertangle with other palm trees roots to keep them from blowing over in a storm. They'll bend all the way over to the ground in a storm, but they won't actually snap off or die because their roots are entangled with each other. Maybe that's a promise for you guys, is as we grow brotherhood and grow friendships with other men, as we become DadAwesome by creating a community of men who are together, being that dad for their families but for each other, encouraging each other, praying for each other, holding each other accountable, that we could be rooted and established in God's love, rooted in community and in God's love."
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