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Show Transcripts:

Intro:
Welcome to the Father On Purpose Podcast featuring author and ministry leader, Kent Evans, and business executive and military veteran Lawson Brown. This is a show for you dad. You want to be a godly and intentional father, unfortunately, you’ve turned to these two knuckleheads for help. Let us know how it works out for you. Before we begin remember this, you are not a father on accident so go be a father on purpose, please. Welcome your hosts Kent and Lawson.

Kent Evans:
Hey dad, welcome to the Father On Purpose Podcast, and Lawson and I have a treat for you today. And that is, we get to start a new series, we’re going to do 10 or 11 in a row, and it’s going to be on a specific topic. I’ll let Lawson introduce the topic here in just a minute. And then Lawson we have a special guest with us today. The topic of the book Lawson, you can cover that and then we’ll introduce our special guest.

Lawson Brown:
I’m excited as anybody for this because it’s going to be pretty new to me as well. So, thank you for my advanced copy of Bring Your Hammer, and Eric it’s great to meet you in person. I was thinking earlier today that I get to meet you, but we’re recording this obviously, audio-only, but I see you in the video and I thought this morning, it’s kind of weird we’ve all gotten pretty used to saying good to meet you when we see somebody on a computer screen video-wise versus … I was like what did we used to do?

Lawson Brown:
Well, it was on the phone, you didn’t see somebody and you go, I can’t wait to meet you, when that day comes, when we actually see somebody in person but we’re … I don’t like it. We’re so used to seeing people on video now, I don’t like it, but-

Eric Ballard:
Deep thoughts. Deep.

Lawson Brown:
So, right.

Kent Evans:
That’s not even actually Eric, that’s just his avatar. Not even the actual Eric.

Lawson Brown:
But I’m super glad to see your face, man, great job on the book, Bring Your Hammer about Nehemiah. So today will be a prequel, I guess, to a 10 part series that we’re going to do breaking down some of the chapters. There are a lot of chapters, which I like, short, punchy chapters, one after the next, you feel like you’re getting somewhere when you go through a book like this. So, we picked out some particular ones that I thought would resonate with our audience the things that we’ve been talking through over the last few months. And so, we’ve kind of cherry-picked some of those chapters. But starting with chapter one next episode. So today is overview, how did you guys come up with this? What are some of the grounding principles that led you to doing what you did specifically with Nehemiah? Why the name Bring Your Hammer? Talk about the whole thing get us going. Kent take it from there and-

Kent Evans:
Yeah I’ll do a quick kind of-

Lawson Brown:
… explain you and Eric.

Kent Evans:
… kickoff. I’ll do a quick kind of kickoff and then I’ll turn it over to Eric for some comments real quick. About, I don’t know, three or four years ago I read the book of Nehemiah again, I’ve probably read it, I don’t know, three or four times in my adult life through some read the Bible in a year plan or something like that. So I read it and I guess because I’m living in this fatherhood space every day, every month I’m doing something fatherhood related, it just felt like ideas for dads were jumping off the page at me. So as I read through it I remember taking a bunch of notes like, that’s an interesting thing and that’s an interesting thing. And so I ended up with this list of about 30 or 35 fairly unique ideas, I don’t mean the ideas were unique they were discreet. So separate lessons that I got out of the book in Nehemiah. And so one night at dinner with our board chairman and my wife and his wife we’re sitting around talking about next things and I said, man, I really want to crank out this book on Nehemiah, lessons for dads from the book of Nehemiah. And so I wrote all of them down and then it went like a year, a year and a half and I just could not get enough discipline to write, I’d already written two books so it’s not like the book writing process was totally foreign to me, I just couldn’t crank it out. And then one day I thought, man you know what I should do? I should call Eric Ballard. He’s written for Manhood Journey, he’s written his own books, this guy’s written a lot of ministry curriculum. He’s been around the block, he knows his way around the writing problems and the challenges. And I called him up and said, “Hey man, you want to collaborate with me on a book?” And foolishly he says, “Yes.” And has lived to regret it. Eric tell us a little bit about just you in general. I know you pretty well, we’ve spent some time together, our audience may not know you just yet. So tell them a little bit about you, your family, your kids, where you live, that kind of thing.

Eric Ballard:
All right so since this is just audio-only, I need to make sure everyone knows exactly how good-looking I am, and compared to models, part-time model, like JCPenney catalog kind of stuff. So good-looking, but not amazing actor like. Anyway, so I grew up in Mississippi, went to Mississippi State University. As we talked to before the show, you guys tried to get in, couldn’t quite get there, luxurious school. I met my wife while … she went to Mississippi State as well, her name is Candace and we have two beautiful daughters. This past weekend actually my youngest one turned eight and we went ice skating. First time I’ve done that since high school and I’m not great. I stayed upright, was able to do that, keep that going but … We live in Texas, small town north of Houston, moved here about 10 years ago and man, love it. Love being a Texan. I get why everyone from here is so arrogant. [inaudible 00:05:37].

Kent Evans:
No offense to our listeners in Texas.

Eric Ballard:
Oh yeah, right. You guys are great, I was talking about the [crosstalk 00:05:44] .

Kent Evans:
It’s the other people. So how did you go ice skating in north of Houston? I know they can manufacture ice, I guess, wherever but, is ice skating a big deal near Houston? No, but there’s a couple malls that have ice skating rinks. And so it was me and a bunch of like 10 year old girls and ladies. I fit right in.

Kent Evans:
Talk a little bit Eric, about things you’ve written, some of your prior publications.

Eric Ballard:
All right. So I was a youth and college pastor for about 20 years, close to that, and so a lot of off I write is focused towards teenagers, devotions, curriculum, Bible studies, things like that. And then, as I was growing older and started having kids of my own and fatherhood and manhood, and brotherhood, all that stuff really started to matter to me. And so that became a big focus of what I write, a big thing. Like when me and other dads are together that’s what we talk about. Hey, how are you handling this type of situation? How are you dealing with this? And just the common struggles we have. And so that became a passion to kind of just dig into that material and write about it, learn about it, study it.

Lawson Brown:
What was the early on like what happened that you had some realization or just some desire like, you know what, I’m going to start it. Because you talk to a lot of people that, I’m one of them, that wants to have written a book or something like that. How did you finally come to roll your sleeves up, get out the laptop and go at it?

Eric Ballard:
So I was working at a church in Auburn, Alabama, I was the junior high youth minister there and it was a big church. When we would take a retreat we’d take 500 people with us. And so the senior high guy who was my boss said, “Hey, this year I want you to write the curriculum for the weekend.” I was like, what do I know about … I don’t want to do this.” And so dug into it and just loved it. Loved the research that went into it, loved the writing part. And so during the weekend, I’m checking in with all the different small group leaders, hey, how are things going? What can I do to help you? And they were very encouraging of the material. I said, hey, where did you guys buy this? I really like it. And I got that comment a few times and I thought, well, if you thought we bought it, maybe other people would be willing-

Lawson Brown:
Hey, that’s cool. Yeah right on.

Eric Ballard:
So I just started writing some stuff and submitting it off and-

Lawson Brown:
Very cool.

Eric Ballard:
… people interested in it and-

Lawson Brown:
And so for a novice like me that doesn’t know anything about how to write a book, and your book now with Kent, Bring Your Hammer about Nehemiah, how much of that is, like time-wise on a pie chart, how much of your time is spent on research? How much is spent actually typing and then how much is kicking it around in conversation? Because thinking of our guys out there in the audience that are anxious to go on Amazon and look for this book, and use it in their own life as a father, out of curiosity sake, how do you create a book?

Eric Ballard:
Well, I think it’s different for all writers, different processes they have. For me in this book specifically, it was a little easier because Kent, as you mentioned earlier, he had kind of scoped out all the chapters, had ideas and a little bit of a framework for how he wanted it to look. And so once he passed those on to me, a good chunk of that’s research, and after that is done. After I like, okay, this is how I want to talk about this, the writing part of it comes really quickly. After the idea is there and the topic of each chapter is there, you have a direction you’re going it’s pretty easy to write after that.

Kent Evans:
I think Lawson one of the things about Eric, that’s really unique, I’ve worked with, I don’t know, 30 or 40 writers because I used to work in the advertising business. And so I’ve worked with a lot of folks who can put pen to paper, eric is one of the fastest writers at being able to go from, hey man, here’s an idea. Take a rock in a balloon and a airplane, and give me a chapter. And three hours later the dude’s got a chapter. And it’s got humor in it, it’s got some Bible verses in it, he is really, really efficient. Eric I thought you probably went through the content faster even than I thought you would. Did you feel like it went fast? Or did you feel like it was kind of a slog?

Eric Ballard:
No, no it felt fast. I think Lawson mentioned this earlier like, I had a general idea and concept of Nehemiah. I think I was in a church musical in like fifth grade about Nehemiah, with some of that knowledge rattling around. But getting to dig into it with your insight, so you were like outside commentary as I’m studying the chapters. And so, those two things coming together, it went pretty quick. I felt.

Kent Evans:
And Lawson by outside commentary what Eric means is hypercritical. Hypercritical. It’s just kind of like doing a podcast with me.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah what a shock.

Kent Evans:
You just got to like, it’s like swallowing [crosstalk 00:10:32] cough syrup.

Lawson Brown:
The other thing I noticed is, it looks like you guys explain this, it looks like you didn’t … the whole book isn’t written with your voices interwoven in every chapter. There’s a chapter that Kent wrote, there’s a chapter that Eric wrote. Chapter that Kent wrote, although I will notice I think the first six or by Kent because he’s just always got to be first.

Kent Evans:
That’s basically how far I got before I just gave up and said, [crosstalk 00:10:58].

Lawson Brown:
Right. I can’t do anymore. There’s going to be about 30, but I’ve gone as far as I can. How did you guys land on the chapters and how did you come up with the name?

Kent Evans:
Man, I think for the chapters it was definitely collaborative. We started out with closer to, I think Eric, if I remember right, about 35, and then we were kind of like, these two are really similar let’s just reduce it down to one. And so we probably brushed aside seven or eight of them as we went. We weren’t shooting for any magic number other than to get all the ideas on paper. We ended up with 28 they were more just topical it’s like Nehemiah was, he was a prayer warrior, he planned well or he mobilized people or resources. So I think as we went down the number just floated to what the number became, at least that’s my memory. It’s been a little while since we actually did the writing, we’ve waited a bit to publish it for reasons of more just timing in our ministry. Is that how you remember it, Eric? Is that fairly accurate?

Eric Ballard:
Yeah. Like I said, you did a lot of the pre-work, the planning. And so, there were a couple, but not many there’s only a handful that were like, these seem so similar let’s try and push them together and were able to do that. And like you said, you had a great idea of keeping the chapters very short. And so we weren’t … some books like this can have the tendency to repeat itself over and over and over again but because of how Kent said, “Let’s just keep it short, the chapter short, say what we need to say and then move on.”

Lawson Brown:
I like that.

Eric Ballard:
It’s, all the content in my opinion is solid and not fluff to fill pages.

Kent Evans:
Yeah.

Eric Ballard:
Because anytime I tried to do that Kent said, “Let’s cut that out, this is dark.” Yeah.

Lawson Brown:
Right. Yeah I’m sure there’s a process you go through to cut fluff out. So go into a little more detail. Why Nehemiah in particular? Who is he? Why write a book about him? And specifically, why him for a book for fathers?

Kent Evans:
Yeah. For me it’s a little bit, I don’t know, counterintuitive to some degree in the sense that, as far as we can tell biblically, Nehemiah was not a dad. There’s no mention of him having a family, there’s no mention of him being married at any point. He had kind of a singular job before we hear about him going to Jerusalem he’s working as a cut bearer in the King’s court and so he’s a wine taster and a, and a food protector. Usually that person, you can look at that person as one of two ways, you can either see him as a slave or you could see him as trusted advisor where that person can’t be bought or bribed because they’re carrying food and wine to the king. And then the fact that they’re alive signifies they’ve tasted it and tried it, and that the king can safely drink it or eat it. And so-

Lawson Brown:
Kind of like an old-time version of the secret service.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I mean-

Lawson Brown:
Very trusted.

Kent Evans:
Absolutely, absolutely. And so they kind of have, indirectly they have the ear of the king, indirectly. Not that they can go running in any day and just get whatever they want, but they do have at least access to the king. And so as I read through it I thought, man, there’s a lot of lessons here because the parallel we would draw is that Nehemiah, he saw Jerusalem and the people of Israel like most dads should see families. Nehemiah felt responsible, he felt connected, he felt deeply cared for these people, that’s who he came from, his heritage was there. And so we see that kind of like as a dad, the parallel we draw on the book is, that’s how dad should feel about their families. Is if something’s going wrong in their family like it was in the time of Nehemiah and Jerusalem, dad should want to leap into action. And then it just was this like a domino effect. Eric, you can comment on maybe some things you saw, some fatherhood characteristics about Nehemiah but it’s like a domino effect of him being hundreds of miles away and needing to go and fix something, and then deciding, man, I’m going to have a plan and then he rides off. And then he gets in the middle of it and realizes man, there’s a lot going on here. I don’t know if a dad listening to this podcast has ever stepped into a situation in your family where once you stepped into it, that’s when you realize, this situation’s more complicated than I may have originally thought. Because when Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem, he’s like, “Oh my goodness, we got a lot of work to do.”

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Kent Evans: Eric what are your thoughts on Nehemiah as a role model for dads and that kind of thing?

Eric Ballard:
So in ministry pastors have always looked at the book of Nehemiah as a leadership book, and as a dad you’re a God-appointed leader of your family. And so, those two things certainly hand in hand but like Kent was saying all the different traits, Nehemiah was strategic and decisive. I know personally for me, I haven’t been a dad as long as you guys have but I can struggle like okay, what’s the right decision here? And Nehemiah was just like, this is what we’re doing. And was able to make the right decision and do it quickly. He didn’t hesitate and … man, just very decisive, very strategic. The way he was able to get the materials for the wall, just brilliant, the way he is able to provide. And that was one of the things I think that stood out the most as I was going through this was his ability to anticipate trouble that was like on the horizon. Man if I could be a dad that recognizes trouble before it gets at my front door, man, I want to be a part of that. I want to know what’s coming so I can be ready. And he was, he was just so good at that. Could see around corners almost.

Kent Evans:
Eric, I have a friend named Kevin and one time I heard Kevin praying at one of our events, he was a speaker at a fatherhood event we were doing. And he was praying and I don’t know why, but for whatever reason his prayer just went really deep into my mind and my heart as he prayed it. And his prayer was basically this. He said, “Would you God give us dads the wisdom to see trouble while it is still far off.” And I just remember that prayer, it’s been years since he did that, and I remember him, and he and his wife, and I asked him about it later, and he and his wife would pray that often like, “God, will you show us the trouble while we can still do something about it?” Because I think often as dads we feel like, man, we’re in the middle of something with our 15 year old or whatever, and it’s all up on top of us. And [crosstalk 00:18:35] for sure. Lawson you’ve probably had that happen. Lawson has two older daughters, Eric so Lawson is the voice of wisdom on this podcast, I’m the voice of ridiculous comments. And so Lawson’s the one who brings the actual perspective on raising adult children because his kids are both grown and they’re basically perfect.

Lawson Brown:
You’ve got one that’s married, dude what are you talking about?

Kent Evans:
I do. This is true. Well, hey, we’ve all got our strengths. I think Lawson, what are some things where, if you look back you think man, we saw some problems coming early. Or, did you not see a problem at one point early with one of your daughter that kind of got up on top of you? I would say for us, just to let you guys kind of brew on that, stew on that for just a minute while you think about maybe sharing some ideas with the dads listening, whoever’s listening to this podcast if you’re in the middle of a problem that you did not see coming, God’s sovereign, He’s got you taken care of, but you might also still be looking at head. I can remember, even as my oldest son was hitting his early teen years, so this would’ve been about 10 years ago, almost nine or 10 years ago. For whatever reason I knew and my wife knew that the kinds of friends that he had around him were going to be super important. And I know that sounds really basic like, no, duh man. But I do know that instead of going down the path of just saying, hey, stay away from the bad kid, or buddy up to the good kid. One of the things we try to do is pull our kids’ friends as close to us as we could possibly pull them. Not in a controlling or fact-checking kind of way, but just in a what’s going on in their life kind of way. And so I remember there are a couple of my oldest sons friends, well one came to our New Year’s Eve party just about a month ago and it was like catching up with an old friend for me. I remember walking through this guy’s teenage years because I wanted my kids and their friends to be in my orbit, and Eric that was part of my reaction to trying to get ahead of some of these problems. I just wanted to know who was really close to my boys and who had their ear? And who would they listen to? That seemed important to me when they were younger.

Lawson Brown:
Are you asking Eric or me?

Kent Evans:
Both of you all. Just how did you get ahead of this? Did you all see any of these problems ahead or did you ever find yourself with one that was already on top of you where you’re like, shoot man if I had seen this earlier I maybe could have done something about this. Have you had that direct experience as a dad?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. More often than not something would sneak up on us. It resonated when you said that Eric about Nehemiah being able to see around corners. And from a perspective of dads, being in tune and being alert, on another episode we talked about the analogy of building a wall around your family and keeping an eye on that wall so that when things are coming, you can kind of help protect your family. But there’s also a bit of reconnaissance of mentally going out and doing a patrol and checking around, outside the perimeter for what may be coming that I’m looking forward to getting in this book. I’ve only gone through chapter one, I mean Kent just got me the advanced copy, I’m super excited. And at some point, Eric, I’m going to need a autograph from you because you’re going to be pretty famous I’m sure with this thing.

Eric Ballard:
Got the money.

Lawson Brown:
Here’s what I found, Audrey, my wife began working at the school where both girls went to high school. And so while there doing a lot of substitute work, or working in the office, she got to know a lot of the kids, and could kind of help in conversation with our daughters back home. They compared notes basically. And from that you can suss out some things that are maybe brewing, or maybe they don’t know about, something else that’s going on in someone’s life. Or with our girls, with their own perception of what’s happening at school, how they are being seen by other people. And so to answer your question, Kent, I’m going to tie it to chapter one which we’ll get into in the next episode, you guys talked about Proverbs 20:5, not 25, but 20:5 that says, “Purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” And the question is, do you have insight? Are you asking questions? You guys talked about Nehemiah was a good listener and asked, and asked, and asked because he cared so much about his, in that case., his city and in his people, he loved people. But the question is, do you draw the purposes out of a person’s heart by asking? And so I guess I would land on that, Kent, as part of the answer of, to help us discern what may be coming in our children’s lives, asking a lot of questions, getting their thoughts, drawing out of them, being a person that has insights enough to draw out of them things that they feel and believe, and want, and are looking for down the road, I think is something I got out of the first chapter.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I love the process of trying to draw them out. And I’m not always very elegant, or delicate in how I do it, and maybe I don’t know if it’s boy, girl thing, I have all sons and so in some ways it’s like the way to draw it out is to kind of like rattle their cage occasionally and go, hey man, what’s going on? Where that may not work as well with daughters, you guys with daughters can tell me. Eric what are your thoughts on this idea of either getting ahead of issues, but you also brought up a moment ago that Nehemiah, as a book, is often used as a leadership kind of text. What are some thoughts you’d share with a dad listening who’s thinking, maybe I am or am not going to listen to these next 10 episodes of the podcast. What would you say to that guy?

Eric Ballard:
First on the proactive thing, my wife did something similar to yours, she got a new job a little over a year ago where she works from home now. And so one of the first things she wanted to do, she wanted to join the PTO. She wanted to be at the school, she wanted to know what was going on, she wanted to be in the know, is what she said. “I want to know what’s …” And she got to meet other parents which is big for us. When you said, Kent, that you want to get to know your kids, we also want to get to know the parents. We want to know, hey what’s home life for this kid? What are they being fed at home? So we know, are we in agreement here? Or is that something we need to be aware of? And so that was one. And then something I started that just came to mind where you’re talking Kent about these questions, being able to ask the right questions. Something I started when my oldest daughter was a year old. This was a two twofold reason. So every Saturday morning I would get her up ready and I would take her to a restaurant so that we could have breakfast. And part of that was so my wife could have like the morning off and just do whatever she wanted to do. But the other part was, we would go have breakfast and I would just, even then before she could even talk, I would ask her, hey, how was, I felt dumb doing this, hey, how was your day at school? I’m audibly talking to her with other people around and she’s just like, blah, blah, blah, cooing and making noises. But what I was trying to, even from before she could talk, hey, you can talk to your dad. I’m here to ask you questions, I’m here to hear whatever you have to say so let’s just talk. And so we did that, we did that every Saturday morning for like eight or nine years. And so when her sister was born, she started coming with us and it was just the two of us, or the three of us, and then my wife felt left out and it became a family thing. She’s always trying to mooch on my ideas like that. So that was one of my, when I look back, that’s one of the best things of being proactive because now me and my oldest daughter we can talk about anything. And I think that stems from a conscious effort long ago, okay hey I’m going to start, intentionally we had time set aside for just you and me when we would talk.

Kent Evans:
Was that something Eric, that was modeled for you somehow as a kid, or as an uncle or whatever? Or did you just kind of discover it as you became a dad? How did that idea of building the conversational building blocks? How’d that come about?

Eric Ballard:
So I was reading a book, I think about another pastor, and it was an idea he had had to give his wife a break and also to have time away because he’s being called all the time. He was a senior pastor so he’s on call all the time. But he would set this special time alone. And even as church members would see him out at the restaurant, he’d be like, “I’m with my daughter so,” in a nice way, “You need to get out of here buddy.”

Kent Evans:
Leave me alone.

Eric Ballard:
As I read, I was like, God, that is brilliant, I need to do … And so I locked away that for when I had kids and I was like, I’m going to do that.

Kent Evans:
That’s really brilliant, man. I love that. What a great idea. Of course talking to your one year old at your local restaurant-

Eric Ballard:
Like I said, I felt silly at times like, yeah, daycare was cool? All right. Learn any colors this week? It was weird stuff like that but, I was trying.

Kent Evans:
Oh man-

Lawson Brown:
That’s good though.

Kent Evans:
Well you did burn that neural pathway in her mind that like, time with dad is conversation time and so you start to build those bridges when their brain is really malleable and elastic. And so man, what a cool … and that daughter now is how old again?

Eric Ballard:
She’ll be 12 this summer.

Kent Evans:
Okay. Awesome.

Lawson Brown:
Right on that’s a sweet spot.

Kent Evans:
Going to come in real handy the next five or six years, isn’t it?

Lawson Brown:
Oh gosh.

Eric Ballard:
Well …

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Eric Ballard:
Yes and no. Now we’ll stop talking about things that I’m like, can we go back to colors and shapes?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, so true.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, exactly. What are some other thoughts, Eric, you had as we went through the book of Nehemiah and we were pulling out lessons and looking at just different aspects of Nehemiah’s leadership, whether it was his strategy, you mentioned a moment ago, his decisiveness, he was prayerful, he was both considerate, but also kind of kick-butt and took names when he needed to. He was an interesting portrait for me in both the harder side of leadership where you’ve got to be really firm and very specific even in the building of the wall. Because only a portion of the book’s about the wall building then he’s the governor for years and there’s all kinds of stuff going on. What are some things that you maybe drew out, for you as a dad, that we could share with the guys as maybe even a little bit of a sneak preview, some things we might cover in the next 10 episodes that Lawson and I are going to spend going through some cherry-picked content out of the book? What’s one or two things that Nehemiah did that you think. Man as a dad, I want to be that way?

Eric Ballard:
I would start with after the wall is built. So like I said, there’s a small part of it’s actually building the wall. But once that is built he goes to great lengths to get the book of the law, the scripture that they had read to the people. And not only read to the people, but he had the experts in the law walking around the crowd making sure, “Hey, do you understand what they’re being said?” And so they’re not just hearing it, but they’re understanding. And so-

Lawson Brown:
I didn’t know that.

Eric Ballard:
… what speaks out to me about that is, from a dad’s point of view, what Nehemiah does at first, he takes care of their physical needs, but then he emphasizes their spiritual needs. And I think that is something that dads kind of struggle with where we think, my job is to make sure there’s food on the table, clothes on their back, I’ll take them to church so they’ll learn about God. And Nehemiah is like, “No, we’ll take care of the physical needs but then we are going to spend some time on the spiritual needs.” And so Nehemiah is great at that. And another thing that stands out is as they’re building the wall, every person has a role to play. Whether they were within the camp of Jerusalem, whether they were lowly or highly, they all were working on the wall. They’re all slinging that mud, they’re all putting in the rock. And so as dads we can tend to go, “I’m the leader and so you guys are going to take care of the hard stuff and I’m going to sit back and dictate.” But that’s not how it was. Everyone played their part, everyone had a role, didn’t matter who you thought you were, for this to get done right we’re all in this together. And so those are two, those are the first two that come to mind when you ask about the leadership lessons and how they can tie into a dad.

Lawson Brown:
To follow up on that. So here are just a handful of things I’m going through the table of content. So to give guys a sense for what they could expect. This is going to be on Amazon probably by the time you’re listening to this episode, go check it out, download it off Amazon. It’s going to be worth it. Here’s some chapters to give you guys a sense and then Kent, I’ll throw it over to you. Any of this that jumps out to you that you want to latch onto and close this with. 28 chapters, here’s just a taste of some of them. Things that you guys gleaned from Nehemiah’s life that he did, that would be applicable to us as dads. He asks influential people for help. He provides life giving resources. He discerns true needs of the others around him. Mobilizes people to use their gifts like you just kind of talked about there Eric. Protects loved ones from danger, defers to the needs of others. Not putting himself first. Relies only on God’s strength. Kent we talk a lot about, we can do our best, we’re not going to be perfect dads, we’ve got to have the Holy Spirit and God is our father, heavenly father as our example. He tithes from his first fruits. He praises God through worship. And then one of the last ones I see is, he sacrifices for God’s purpose. What of those, as I just kind of rattled through some of the chapters that you guys built, is something that you’d want to leave the audience with? So we’re going to get into a 10 part series, not all of them are going to be covered, but what of those kind of jumps off to you as we wrap this up.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I’d probably take a couple and put them together and double down on what Eric said a moment ago and that is, I think his dad’s we often think our job is primarily physical or even just like putting food on the table as Eric mentioned. And I’ll tell it just by way of a story, I don’t want to pinpoint which of my sons this was just out of respect for him. But at one point I was sitting on the deck with one of my boys and there was a conversation happening between him and his mom. And I just noticed that my wife was trying to get him to believe thing A and he was resistant to believing thing A and so there was this kind of like tug of war happening. And I’m watching it happening and I just said, hey, time out, time out. I’m more concerned about not that you believe thing a I’m more concerned about the fact that you are resistant to the feedback of your mom. Just pause for a second, let’s just stop talking about, I want you to do the things she’s asking you to do. The fact that you’re not even listening. It’s like when her comment comes over the net, I just see it go flying back, like a tennis match. Hang on we’re going to try this one more time, she’s going to say it and you’re going to receive it. You don’t even have to agree, I’m not even trying to get you to agree. I’m working on a whole different angle here. And what I was trying to do, Eric, in that moment, was I was just trying to teach him the idea that we see in Nehemiah, we see in Proverbs, you see all throughout scripture that like the wise person listens to counsel. That doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with everything you say, but what it does mean is that I’m going to listen. It’s a hallmark of wisdom to listen. And so the reason I mention that is because you mentioned it a moment ago, Eric, that, we often think our job as a dad may be primarily physical or economic, or take him to soccer, or whatever we think our job is, and I think my job as a dad is to train them in godly wisdom. That doesn’t mean I have all the answers, or they just seat my feet and I just wax philosophic every night about all the great things the Lord has shown me. But what it does mean for me is that, I’m trying to keep my antenna up for what is the need and what’s the spiritual need under the physical need at the moment? And that’s one thing I think that Nehemiah, even if you look back to when he first hears about the wall, his cousin or brother, I forget, I think his brother comes capital and he’s like, “How’s it going?” And he’s like, “Horrible, man, the wall’s down. Everybody don’t know what they’re doing.” And Nehemiah’s knee-jerk reactions were like prayer and repentance, and sadness. They were just these, he felt deeply. And I think he was spiritually really, really sensitive, really attuned to what’s going on with the people. And I would think for dads, one of the things that you’re going to get out of the next 10 episodes of the podcast is this perspective of Nehemiah who could both kick butt and take names. He could do the physical provision. He could govern, he could say trash needs to go here, the articles for the temple need to go here. He could govern in a way that was mechanical and strategic. But he also cared very deeply. And he cared at a level that was very spiritual and very God-focused. And I hope that what dad’s it out of the next 10 weeks is a Godward look at fatherhood through this person of Nehemiah. And what I’d like to do is, eric, let me give you the last word because you’re not on the podcast every week, but we probably need to get you back here more often than we have in the past. I think this is a good impetus, because you have a lot to share with dads, both from your time as a youth pastor, your time as a writer, your time as a dad yourself. Let me come at it this way. Close us out with, what would be one thing that you would hope a dad would get out of this book? Maybe it’s the 10 episodes, maybe he never buys the book. Maybe it’s just from the podcast episode review of the content, what’s one thing you want dads to get out of it or maybe what’s, said another way, same question but said another way, how would you like for a dad to be different? He comes into this podcast series and he gets out the other end of this podcast series, how’s this dad different? Or what’s one thing he got out of it or learned through the process?

Eric Ballard:
I say one thing would probably be the sacrifices Nehemiah made. As you read through those chapters, every decision he made starting when he just goes to the king he’s like, “Hey, I know I’m kind of the cup bearer here, is it cool if I take a sabbatical for like, I don’t even know how long? That’s risky. He could be sacrificing his life. And then when the King is like, “Yes, I’ll grant it.” He’s like, “Okay and while I’ve got you, I’m going to need some materials.” Everything Nehemiah did can come back to some sort of sacrifice at his expense. Whether it was comfort time. There’s imagery of them building the wall where they have their tools in one hand and a sword in the other and so there’s danger, everything was a sacrifice. And so I hope that a dad comes out of this going, man, I’m going to lead my family sacrificially. As God has called me to love my bride, my family, the way that Christ loved His, I’m going to lay down my life every day so that they are better off. That would be, I guess, the one thing I’d want them to walk away with.

Kent Evans:
Man what a great word. Thanks for wrapping us up there Eric. We hope the next 10 episodes are a blessing to you dad, we hope that you lead sacrificially. Can’t think of a better way to end. Lawson thanks for hanging out with us today and Eric thanks for jumping into this-

Eric Ballard:
Yeah man.

Kent Evans:
… particular episode of the podcast/ maybe along the Nehemiah journey we’ll have you back.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I’d love that. Good to meet you Eric.

Eric Ballard:
Nice meeting you Lawson.

Kent Evans:
All right dad. See you next week.

Kent Evans:

Voiceover:
Welcome to the Father On Purpose Podcast featuring author and ministry leader, Kent Evans, and business executive and military veteran Lawson Brown. This is a show for you dad. You want to be a godly and intentional father, unfortunately, you’ve turned to these two knuckleheads for help. Let us know how it works out for you. Before we begin remember this, you are not a father on accident so go be a father on purpose, please. Welcome your hosts Kent and Lawson.

Kent Evans:
Hey dad, welcome to the Father On Purpose Podcast, and Lawson and I have a treat for you today. And that is, we get to start a new series, we’re going to do 10 or 11 in a row, and it’s going to be on a specific topic. I’ll let Lawson introduce the topic here in just a minute. And then Lawson we have a special guest with us today. The topic of the book Lawson, you can cover that and then we’ll introduce our special guest.

Lawson Brown:
I’m excited as anybody for this because it’s going to be pretty new to me as well. So, thank you for my advanced copy of Bring Your Hammer, and Eric it’s great to meet you in person. I was thinking earlier today that I get to meet you, but we’re recording this obviously, audio-only, but I see you in the video and I thought this morning, it’s kind of weird we’ve all gotten pretty used to saying good to meet you when we see somebody on a computer screen video-wise versus … I was like what did we used to do?

Lawson Brown:
Well, it was on the phone, you didn’t see somebody and you go, I can’t wait to meet you, when that day comes, when we actually see somebody in person but we’re … I don’t like it. We’re so used to seeing people on video now, I don’t like it, but-

Eric Ballard:
Deep thoughts. Deep.

Lawson Brown:
So, right.

Kent Evans:
That’s not even actually Eric, that’s just his avatar. Not even the actual Eric.

Lawson Brown:
But I’m super glad to see your face, man, great job on the book, Bring Your Hammer about Nehemiah. So today will be a prequel, I guess, to a 10 part series that we’re going to do breaking down some of the chapters. There are a lot of chapters, which I like, short, punchy chapters, one after the next, you feel like you’re getting somewhere when you go through a book like this. So, we picked out some particular ones that I thought would resonate with our audience the things that we’ve been talking through over the last few months. And so, we’ve kind of cherry-picked some of those chapters. But starting with chapter one next episode. So today is overview, how did you guys come up with this? What are some of the grounding principles that led you to doing what you did specifically with Nehemiah? Why the name Bring Your Hammer? Talk about the whole thing get us going. Kent take it from there and-

Kent Evans:
Yeah I’ll do a quick kind of-

Lawson Brown:
… explain you and Eric.

Kent Evans:
… kickoff. I’ll do a quick kind of kickoff and then I’ll turn it over to Eric for some comments real quick. About, I don’t know, three or four years ago I read the book of Nehemiah again, I’ve probably read it, I don’t know, three or four times in my adult life through some read the Bible in a year plan or something like that. So I read it and I guess because I’m living in this fatherhood space every day, every month I’m doing something fatherhood related, it just felt like ideas for dads were jumping off the page at me. So as I read through it I remember taking a bunch of notes like, that’s an interesting thing and that’s an interesting thing. And so I ended up with this list of about 30 or 35 fairly unique ideas, I don’t mean the ideas were unique they were discreet. So separate lessons that I got out of the book in Nehemiah. And so one night at dinner with our board chairman and my wife and his wife we’re sitting around talking about next things and I said, man, I really want to crank out this book on Nehemiah, lessons for dads from the book of Nehemiah. And so I wrote all of them down and then it went like a year, a year and a half and I just could not get enough discipline to write, I’d already written two books so it’s not like the book writing process was totally foreign to me, I just couldn’t crank it out. And then one day I thought, man you know what I should do? I should call Eric Ballard. He’s written for Manhood Journey, he’s written his own books, this guy’s written a lot of ministry curriculum. He’s been around the block, he knows his way around the writing problems and the challenges. And I called him up and said, “Hey man, you want to collaborate with me on a book?” And foolishly he says, “Yes.” And has lived to regret it. Eric tell us a little bit about just you in general. I know you pretty well, we’ve spent some time together, our audience may not know you just yet. So tell them a little bit about you, your family, your kids, where you live, that kind of thing.

Eric Ballard:
All right so since this is just audio-only, I need to make sure everyone knows exactly how good-looking I am, and compared to models, part-time model, like JCPenney catalog kind of stuff. So good-looking, but not amazing actor like. Anyway, so I grew up in Mississippi, went to Mississippi State University. As we talked to before the show, you guys tried to get in, couldn’t quite get there, luxurious school. I met my wife while … she went to Mississippi State as well, her name is Candace and we have two beautiful daughters. This past weekend actually my youngest one turned eight and we went ice skating. First time I’ve done that since high school and I’m not great. I stayed upright, was able to do that, keep that going but … We live in Texas, small town north of Houston, moved here about 10 years ago and man, love it. Love being a Texan. I get why everyone from here is so arrogant. [inaudible 00:05:37].

Kent Evans:
No offense to our listeners in Texas.

Eric Ballard:
Oh yeah, right. You guys are great, I was talking about the [crosstalk 00:05:44] .

Kent Evans:
It’s the other people. So how did you go ice skating in north of Houston? I know they can manufacture ice, I guess, wherever but, is ice skating a big deal near Houston? No, but there’s a couple malls that have ice skating rinks. And so it was me and a bunch of like 10 year old girls and ladies. I fit right in.

Kent Evans:
Talk a little bit Eric, about things you’ve written, some of your prior publications.

Eric Ballard:
All right. So I was a youth and college pastor for about 20 years, close to that, and so a lot of off I write is focused towards teenagers, devotions, curriculum, Bible studies, things like that. And then, as I was growing older and started having kids of my own and fatherhood and manhood, and brotherhood, all that stuff really started to matter to me. And so that became a big focus of what I write, a big thing. Like when me and other dads are together that’s what we talk about. Hey, how are you handling this type of situation? How are you dealing with this? And just the common struggles we have. And so that became a passion to kind of just dig into that material and write about it, learn about it, study it.

Lawson Brown:
What was the early on like what happened that you had some realization or just some desire like, you know what, I’m going to start it. Because you talk to a lot of people that, I’m one of them, that wants to have written a book or something like that. How did you finally come to roll your sleeves up, get out the laptop and go at it?

Eric Ballard:
So I was working at a church in Auburn, Alabama, I was the junior high youth minister there and it was a big church. When we would take a retreat we’d take 500 people with us. And so the senior high guy who was my boss said, “Hey, this year I want you to write the curriculum for the weekend.” I was like, what do I know about … I don’t want to do this.” And so dug into it and just loved it. Loved the research that went into it, loved the writing part. And so during the weekend, I’m checking in with all the different small group leaders, hey, how are things going? What can I do to help you? And they were very encouraging of the material. I said, hey, where did you guys buy this? I really like it. And I got that comment a few times and I thought, well, if you thought we bought it, maybe other people would be willing-

Lawson Brown:
Hey, that’s cool. Yeah right on.

Eric Ballard:
So I just started writing some stuff and submitting it off and-

Lawson Brown:
Very cool.

Eric Ballard:
… people interested in it and-

Lawson Brown:
And so for a novice like me that doesn’t know anything about how to write a book, and your book now with Kent, Bring Your Hammer about Nehemiah, how much of that is, like time-wise on a pie chart, how much of your time is spent on research? How much is spent actually typing and then how much is kicking it around in conversation? Because thinking of our guys out there in the audience that are anxious to go on Amazon and look for this book, and use it in their own life as a father, out of curiosity sake, how do you create a book?

Eric Ballard:
Well, I think it’s different for all writers, different processes they have. For me in this book specifically, it was a little easier because Kent, as you mentioned earlier, he had kind of scoped out all the chapters, had ideas and a little bit of a framework for how he wanted it to look. And so once he passed those on to me, a good chunk of that’s research, and after that is done. After I like, okay, this is how I want to talk about this, the writing part of it comes really quickly. After the idea is there and the topic of each chapter is there, you have a direction you’re going it’s pretty easy to write after that.

Kent Evans:
I think Lawson one of the things about Eric, that’s really unique, I’ve worked with, I don’t know, 30 or 40 writers because I used to work in the advertising business. And so I’ve worked with a lot of folks who can put pen to paper, eric is one of the fastest writers at being able to go from, hey man, here’s an idea. Take a rock in a balloon and a airplane, and give me a chapter. And three hours later the dude’s got a chapter. And it’s got humor in it, it’s got some Bible verses in it, he is really, really efficient. Eric I thought you probably went through the content faster even than I thought you would. Did you feel like it went fast? Or did you feel like it was kind of a slog?

Eric Ballard:
No, no it felt fast. I think Lawson mentioned this earlier like, I had a general idea and concept of Nehemiah. I think I was in a church musical in like fifth grade about Nehemiah, with some of that knowledge rattling around. But getting to dig into it with your insight, so you were like outside commentary as I’m studying the chapters. And so, those two things coming together, it went pretty quick. I felt.

Kent Evans:
And Lawson by outside commentary what Eric means is hypercritical. Hypercritical. It’s just kind of like doing a podcast with me.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah what a shock.

Kent Evans:
You just got to like, it’s like swallowing [crosstalk 00:10:32] cough syrup.

Lawson Brown:
The other thing I noticed is, it looks like you guys explain this, it looks like you didn’t … the whole book isn’t written with your voices interwoven in every chapter. There’s a chapter that Kent wrote, there’s a chapter that Eric wrote. Chapter that Kent wrote, although I will notice I think the first six or by Kent because he’s just always got to be first.

Kent Evans:
That’s basically how far I got before I just gave up and said, [crosstalk 00:10:58].

Lawson Brown:
Right. I can’t do anymore. There’s going to be about 30, but I’ve gone as far as I can. How did you guys land on the chapters and how did you come up with the name?

Kent Evans:
Man, I think for the chapters it was definitely collaborative. We started out with closer to, I think Eric, if I remember right, about 35, and then we were kind of like, these two are really similar let’s just reduce it down to one. And so we probably brushed aside seven or eight of them as we went. We weren’t shooting for any magic number other than to get all the ideas on paper. We ended up with 28 they were more just topical it’s like Nehemiah was, he was a prayer warrior, he planned well or he mobilized people or resources. So I think as we went down the number just floated to what the number became, at least that’s my memory. It’s been a little while since we actually did the writing, we’ve waited a bit to publish it for reasons of more just timing in our ministry. Is that how you remember it, Eric? Is that fairly accurate?

Eric Ballard:
Yeah. Like I said, you did a lot of the pre-work, the planning. And so, there were a couple, but not many there’s only a handful that were like, these seem so similar let’s try and push them together and were able to do that. And like you said, you had a great idea of keeping the chapters very short. And so we weren’t … some books like this can have the tendency to repeat itself over and over and over again but because of how Kent said, “Let’s just keep it short, the chapter short, say what we need to say and then move on.”

Lawson Brown:
I like that.

Eric Ballard:
It’s, all the content in my opinion is solid and not fluff to fill pages.

Kent Evans:
Yeah.

Eric Ballard:
Because anytime I tried to do that Kent said, “Let’s cut that out, this is dark.” Yeah.

Lawson Brown:
Right. Yeah I’m sure there’s a process you go through to cut fluff out. So go into a little more detail. Why Nehemiah in particular? Who is he? Why write a book about him? And specifically, why him for a book for fathers?

Kent Evans:
Yeah. For me it’s a little bit, I don’t know, counterintuitive to some degree in the sense that, as far as we can tell biblically, Nehemiah was not a dad. There’s no mention of him having a family, there’s no mention of him being married at any point. He had kind of a singular job before we hear about him going to Jerusalem he’s working as a cut bearer in the King’s court and so he’s a wine taster and a, and a food protector. Usually that person, you can look at that person as one of two ways, you can either see him as a slave or you could see him as trusted advisor where that person can’t be bought or bribed because they’re carrying food and wine to the king. And then the fact that they’re alive signifies they’ve tasted it and tried it, and that the king can safely drink it or eat it. And so-

Lawson Brown:
Kind of like an old-time version of the secret service.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I mean-

Lawson Brown:
Very trusted.

Kent Evans:
Absolutely, absolutely. And so they kind of have, indirectly they have the ear of the king, indirectly. Not that they can go running in any day and just get whatever they want, but they do have at least access to the king. And so as I read through it I thought, man, there’s a lot of lessons here because the parallel we would draw is that Nehemiah, he saw Jerusalem and the people of Israel like most dads should see families. Nehemiah felt responsible, he felt connected, he felt deeply cared for these people, that’s who he came from, his heritage was there. And so we see that kind of like as a dad, the parallel we draw on the book is, that’s how dad should feel about their families. Is if something’s going wrong in their family like it was in the time of Nehemiah and Jerusalem, dad should want to leap into action. And then it just was this like a domino effect. Eric, you can comment on maybe some things you saw, some fatherhood characteristics about Nehemiah but it’s like a domino effect of him being hundreds of miles away and needing to go and fix something, and then deciding, man, I’m going to have a plan and then he rides off. And then he gets in the middle of it and realizes man, there’s a lot going on here. I don’t know if a dad listening to this podcast has ever stepped into a situation in your family where once you stepped into it, that’s when you realize, this situation’s more complicated than I may have originally thought. Because when Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem, he’s like, “Oh my goodness, we got a lot of work to do.”

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Kent Evans: Eric what are your thoughts on Nehemiah as a role model for dads and that kind of thing?

Eric Ballard:
So in ministry pastors have always looked at the book of Nehemiah as a leadership book, and as a dad you’re a God-appointed leader of your family. And so, those two things certainly hand in hand but like Kent was saying all the different traits, Nehemiah was strategic and decisive. I know personally for me, I haven’t been a dad as long as you guys have but I can struggle like okay, what’s the right decision here? And Nehemiah was just like, this is what we’re doing. And was able to make the right decision and do it quickly. He didn’t hesitate and … man, just very decisive, very strategic. The way he was able to get the materials for the wall, just brilliant, the way he is able to provide. And that was one of the things I think that stood out the most as I was going through this was his ability to anticipate trouble that was like on the horizon. Man if I could be a dad that recognizes trouble before it gets at my front door, man, I want to be a part of that. I want to know what’s coming so I can be ready. And he was, he was just so good at that. Could see around corners almost.

Kent Evans:
Eric, I have a friend named Kevin and one time I heard Kevin praying at one of our events, he was a speaker at a fatherhood event we were doing. And he was praying and I don’t know why, but for whatever reason his prayer just went really deep into my mind and my heart as he prayed it. And his prayer was basically this. He said, “Would you God give us dads the wisdom to see trouble while it is still far off.” And I just remember that prayer, it’s been years since he did that, and I remember him, and he and his wife, and I asked him about it later, and he and his wife would pray that often like, “God, will you show us the trouble while we can still do something about it?” Because I think often as dads we feel like, man, we’re in the middle of something with our 15 year old or whatever, and it’s all up on top of us. And [crosstalk 00:18:35] for sure. Lawson you’ve probably had that happen. Lawson has two older daughters, Eric so Lawson is the voice of wisdom on this podcast, I’m the voice of ridiculous comments. And so Lawson’s the one who brings the actual perspective on raising adult children because his kids are both grown and they’re basically perfect.

Lawson Brown:
You’ve got one that’s married, dude what are you talking about?

Kent Evans:
I do. This is true. Well, hey, we’ve all got our strengths. I think Lawson, what are some things where, if you look back you think man, we saw some problems coming early. Or, did you not see a problem at one point early with one of your daughter that kind of got up on top of you? I would say for us, just to let you guys kind of brew on that, stew on that for just a minute while you think about maybe sharing some ideas with the dads listening, whoever’s listening to this podcast if you’re in the middle of a problem that you did not see coming, God’s sovereign, He’s got you taken care of, but you might also still be looking at head. I can remember, even as my oldest son was hitting his early teen years, so this would’ve been about 10 years ago, almost nine or 10 years ago. For whatever reason I knew and my wife knew that the kinds of friends that he had around him were going to be super important. And I know that sounds really basic like, no, duh man. But I do know that instead of going down the path of just saying, hey, stay away from the bad kid, or buddy up to the good kid. One of the things we try to do is pull our kids’ friends as close to us as we could possibly pull them. Not in a controlling or fact-checking kind of way, but just in a what’s going on in their life kind of way. And so I remember there are a couple of my oldest sons friends, well one came to our New Year’s Eve party just about a month ago and it was like catching up with an old friend for me. I remember walking through this guy’s teenage years because I wanted my kids and their friends to be in my orbit, and Eric that was part of my reaction to trying to get ahead of some of these problems. I just wanted to know who was really close to my boys and who had their ear? And who would they listen to? That seemed important to me when they were younger.

Lawson Brown:
Are you asking Eric or me?

Kent Evans:
Both of you all. Just how did you get ahead of this? Did you all see any of these problems ahead or did you ever find yourself with one that was already on top of you where you’re like, shoot man if I had seen this earlier I maybe could have done something about this. Have you had that direct experience as a dad?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. More often than not something would sneak up on us. It resonated when you said that Eric about Nehemiah being able to see around corners. And from a perspective of dads, being in tune and being alert, on another episode we talked about the analogy of building a wall around your family and keeping an eye on that wall so that when things are coming, you can kind of help protect your family. But there’s also a bit of reconnaissance of mentally going out and doing a patrol and checking around, outside the perimeter for what may be coming that I’m looking forward to getting in this book. I’ve only gone through chapter one, I mean Kent just got me the advanced copy, I’m super excited. And at some point, Eric, I’m going to need a autograph from you because you’re going to be pretty famous I’m sure with this thing.

Eric Ballard:
Got the money.

Lawson Brown:
Here’s what I found, Audrey, my wife began working at the school where both girls went to high school. And so while there doing a lot of substitute work, or working in the office, she got to know a lot of the kids, and could kind of help in conversation with our daughters back home. They compared notes basically. And from that you can suss out some things that are maybe brewing, or maybe they don’t know about, something else that’s going on in someone’s life. Or with our girls, with their own perception of what’s happening at school, how they are being seen by other people. And so to answer your question, Kent, I’m going to tie it to chapter one which we’ll get into in the next episode, you guys talked about Proverbs 20:5, not 25, but 20:5 that says, “Purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” And the question is, do you have insight? Are you asking questions? You guys talked about Nehemiah was a good listener and asked, and asked, and asked because he cared so much about his, in that case., his city and in his people, he loved people. But the question is, do you draw the purposes out of a person’s heart by asking? And so I guess I would land on that, Kent, as part of the answer of, to help us discern what may be coming in our children’s lives, asking a lot of questions, getting their thoughts, drawing out of them, being a person that has insights enough to draw out of them things that they feel and believe, and want, and are looking for down the road, I think is something I got out of the first chapter.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I love the process of trying to draw them out. And I’m not always very elegant, or delicate in how I do it, and maybe I don’t know if it’s boy, girl thing, I have all sons and so in some ways it’s like the way to draw it out is to kind of like rattle their cage occasionally and go, hey man, what’s going on? Where that may not work as well with daughters, you guys with daughters can tell me. Eric what are your thoughts on this idea of either getting ahead of issues, but you also brought up a moment ago that Nehemiah, as a book, is often used as a leadership kind of text. What are some thoughts you’d share with a dad listening who’s thinking, maybe I am or am not going to listen to these next 10 episodes of the podcast. What would you say to that guy?

Eric Ballard:
First on the proactive thing, my wife did something similar to yours, she got a new job a little over a year ago where she works from home now. And so one of the first things she wanted to do, she wanted to join the PTO. She wanted to be at the school, she wanted to know what was going on, she wanted to be in the know, is what she said. “I want to know what’s …” And she got to meet other parents which is big for us. When you said, Kent, that you want to get to know your kids, we also want to get to know the parents. We want to know, hey what’s home life for this kid? What are they being fed at home? So we know, are we in agreement here? Or is that something we need to be aware of? And so that was one. And then something I started that just came to mind where you’re talking Kent about these questions, being able to ask the right questions. Something I started when my oldest daughter was a year old. This was a two twofold reason. So every Saturday morning I would get her up ready and I would take her to a restaurant so that we could have breakfast. And part of that was so my wife could have like the morning off and just do whatever she wanted to do. But the other part was, we would go have breakfast and I would just, even then before she could even talk, I would ask her, hey, how was, I felt dumb doing this, hey, how was your day at school? I’m audibly talking to her with other people around and she’s just like, blah, blah, blah, cooing and making noises. But what I was trying to, even from before she could talk, hey, you can talk to your dad. I’m here to ask you questions, I’m here to hear whatever you have to say so let’s just talk. And so we did that, we did that every Saturday morning for like eight or nine years. And so when her sister was born, she started coming with us and it was just the two of us, or the three of us, and then my wife felt left out and it became a family thing. She’s always trying to mooch on my ideas like that. So that was one of my, when I look back, that’s one of the best things of being proactive because now me and my oldest daughter we can talk about anything. And I think that stems from a conscious effort long ago, okay hey I’m going to start, intentionally we had time set aside for just you and me when we would talk.

Kent Evans:
Was that something Eric, that was modeled for you somehow as a kid, or as an uncle or whatever? Or did you just kind of discover it as you became a dad? How did that idea of building the conversational building blocks? How’d that come about?

Eric Ballard:
So I was reading a book, I think about another pastor, and it was an idea he had had to give his wife a break and also to have time away because he’s being called all the time. He was a senior pastor so he’s on call all the time. But he would set this special time alone. And even as church members would see him out at the restaurant, he’d be like, “I’m with my daughter so,” in a nice way, “You need to get out of here buddy.”

Kent Evans:
Leave me alone.

Eric Ballard:
As I read, I was like, God, that is brilliant, I need to do … And so I locked away that for when I had kids and I was like, I’m going to do that.

Kent Evans:
That’s really brilliant, man. I love that. What a great idea. Of course talking to your one year old at your local restaurant-

Eric Ballard:
Like I said, I felt silly at times like, yeah, daycare was cool? All right. Learn any colors this week? It was weird stuff like that but, I was trying.

Kent Evans:
Oh man-

Lawson Brown:
That’s good though.

Kent Evans:
Well you did burn that neural pathway in her mind that like, time with dad is conversation time and so you start to build those bridges when their brain is really malleable and elastic. And so man, what a cool … and that daughter now is how old again?

Eric Ballard:
She’ll be 12 this summer.

Kent Evans:
Okay. Awesome.

Lawson Brown:
Right on that’s a sweet spot.

Kent Evans:
Going to come in real handy the next five or six years, isn’t it?

Lawson Brown:
Oh gosh.

Eric Ballard:
Well …

Lawson Brown:
Yeah.

Eric Ballard:
Yes and no. Now we’ll stop talking about things that I’m like, can we go back to colors and shapes?

Lawson Brown:
Yeah, so true.

Kent Evans:
Yeah, exactly. What are some other thoughts, Eric, you had as we went through the book of Nehemiah and we were pulling out lessons and looking at just different aspects of Nehemiah’s leadership, whether it was his strategy, you mentioned a moment ago, his decisiveness, he was prayerful, he was both considerate, but also kind of kick-butt and took names when he needed to. He was an interesting portrait for me in both the harder side of leadership where you’ve got to be really firm and very specific even in the building of the wall. Because only a portion of the book’s about the wall building then he’s the governor for years and there’s all kinds of stuff going on. What are some things that you maybe drew out, for you as a dad, that we could share with the guys as maybe even a little bit of a sneak preview, some things we might cover in the next 10 episodes that Lawson and I are going to spend going through some cherry-picked content out of the book? What’s one or two things that Nehemiah did that you think. Man as a dad, I want to be that way?

Eric Ballard:
I would start with after the wall is built. So like I said, there’s a small part of it’s actually building the wall. But once that is built he goes to great lengths to get the book of the law, the scripture that they had read to the people. And not only read to the people, but he had the experts in the law walking around the crowd making sure, “Hey, do you understand what they’re being said?” And so they’re not just hearing it, but they’re understanding. And so-

Lawson Brown:
I didn’t know that.

Eric Ballard:
… what speaks out to me about that is, from a dad’s point of view, what Nehemiah does at first, he takes care of their physical needs, but then he emphasizes their spiritual needs. And I think that is something that dads kind of struggle with where we think, my job is to make sure there’s food on the table, clothes on their back, I’ll take them to church so they’ll learn about God. And Nehemiah is like, “No, we’ll take care of the physical needs but then we are going to spend some time on the spiritual needs.” And so Nehemiah is great at that. And another thing that stands out is as they’re building the wall, every person has a role to play. Whether they were within the camp of Jerusalem, whether they were lowly or highly, they all were working on the wall. They’re all slinging that mud, they’re all putting in the rock. And so as dads we can tend to go, “I’m the leader and so you guys are going to take care of the hard stuff and I’m going to sit back and dictate.” But that’s not how it was. Everyone played their part, everyone had a role, didn’t matter who you thought you were, for this to get done right we’re all in this together. And so those are two, those are the first two that come to mind when you ask about the leadership lessons and how they can tie into a dad.

Lawson Brown:
To follow up on that. So here are just a handful of things I’m going through the table of content. So to give guys a sense for what they could expect. This is going to be on Amazon probably by the time you’re listening to this episode, go check it out, download it off Amazon. It’s going to be worth it. Here’s some chapters to give you guys a sense and then Kent, I’ll throw it over to you. Any of this that jumps out to you that you want to latch onto and close this with. 28 chapters, here’s just a taste of some of them. Things that you guys gleaned from Nehemiah’s life that he did, that would be applicable to us as dads. He asks influential people for help. He provides life giving resources. He discerns true needs of the others around him. Mobilizes people to use their gifts like you just kind of talked about there Eric. Protects loved ones from danger, defers to the needs of others. Not putting himself first. Relies only on God’s strength. Kent we talk a lot about, we can do our best, we’re not going to be perfect dads, we’ve got to have the Holy Spirit and God is our father, heavenly father as our example. He tithes from his first fruits. He praises God through worship. And then one of the last ones I see is, he sacrifices for God’s purpose. What of those, as I just kind of rattled through some of the chapters that you guys built, is something that you’d want to leave the audience with? So we’re going to get into a 10 part series, not all of them are going to be covered, but what of those kind of jumps off to you as we wrap this up.

Kent Evans:
Yeah. I’d probably take a couple and put them together and double down on what Eric said a moment ago and that is, I think his dad’s we often think our job is primarily physical or even just like putting food on the table as Eric mentioned. And I’ll tell it just by way of a story, I don’t want to pinpoint which of my sons this was just out of respect for him. But at one point I was sitting on the deck with one of my boys and there was a conversation happening between him and his mom. And I just noticed that my wife was trying to get him to believe thing A and he was resistant to believing thing A and so there was this kind of like tug of war happening. And I’m watching it happening and I just said, hey, time out, time out. I’m more concerned about not that you believe thing a I’m more concerned about the fact that you are resistant to the feedback of your mom. Just pause for a second, let’s just stop talking about, I want you to do the things she’s asking you to do. The fact that you’re not even listening. It’s like when her comment comes over the net, I just see it go flying back, like a tennis match. Hang on we’re going to try this one more time, she’s going to say it and you’re going to receive it. You don’t even have to agree, I’m not even trying to get you to agree. I’m working on a whole different angle here. And what I was trying to do, Eric, in that moment, was I was just trying to teach him the idea that we see in Nehemiah, we see in Proverbs, you see all throughout scripture that like the wise person listens to counsel. That doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with everything you say, but what it does mean is that I’m going to listen. It’s a hallmark of wisdom to listen. And so the reason I mention that is because you mentioned it a moment ago, Eric, that, we often think our job as a dad may be primarily physical or economic, or take him to soccer, or whatever we think our job is, and I think my job as a dad is to train them in godly wisdom. That doesn’t mean I have all the answers, or they just seat my feet and I just wax philosophic every night about all the great things the Lord has shown me. But what it does mean for me is that, I’m trying to keep my antenna up for what is the need and what’s the spiritual need under the physical need at the moment? And that’s one thing I think that Nehemiah, even if you look back to when he first hears about the wall, his cousin or brother, I forget, I think his brother comes capital and he’s like, “How’s it going?” And he’s like, “Horrible, man, the wall’s down. Everybody don’t know what they’re doing.” And Nehemiah’s knee-jerk reactions were like prayer and repentance, and sadness. They were just these, he felt deeply. And I think he was spiritually really, really sensitive, really attuned to what’s going on with the people. And I would think for dads, one of the things that you’re going to get out of the next 10 episodes of the podcast is this perspective of Nehemiah who could both kick butt and take names. He could do the physical provision. He could govern, he could say trash needs to go here, the articles for the temple need to go here. He could govern in a way that was mechanical and strategic. But he also cared very deeply. And he cared at a level that was very spiritual and very God-focused. And I hope that what dad’s it out of the next 10 weeks is a Godward look at fatherhood through this person of Nehemiah. And what I’d like to do is, eric, let me give you the last word because you’re not on the podcast every week, but we probably need to get you back here more often than we have in the past. I think this is a good impetus, because you have a lot to share with dads, both from your time as a youth pastor, your time as a writer, your time as a dad yourself. Let me come at it this way. Close us out with, what would be one thing that you would hope a dad would get out of this book? Maybe it’s the 10 episodes, maybe he never buys the book. Maybe it’s just from the podcast episode review of the content, what’s one thing you want dads to get out of it or maybe what’s, said another way, same question but said another way, how would you like for a dad to be different? He comes into this podcast series and he gets out the other end of this podcast series, how’s this dad different? Or what’s one thing he got out of it or learned through the process?

Eric Ballard:
I say one thing would probably be the sacrifices Nehemiah made. As you read through those chapters, every decision he made starting when he just goes to the king he’s like, “Hey, I know I’m kind of the cup bearer here, is it cool if I take a sabbatical for like, I don’t even know how long? That’s risky. He could be sacrificing his life. And then when the King is like, “Yes, I’ll grant it.” He’s like, “Okay and while I’ve got you, I’m going to need some materials.” Everything Nehemiah did can come back to some sort of sacrifice at his expense. Whether it was comfort time. There’s imagery of them building the wall where they have their tools in one hand and a sword in the other and so there’s danger, everything was a sacrifice. And so I hope that a dad comes out of this going, man, I’m going to lead my family sacrificially. As God has called me to love my bride, my family, the way that Christ loved His, I’m going to lay down my life every day so that they are better off. That would be, I guess, the one thing I’d want them to walk away with.

Kent Evans:
Man what a great word. Thanks for wrapping us up there Eric. We hope the next 10 episodes are a blessing to you dad, we hope that you lead sacrificially. Can’t think of a better way to end. Lawson thanks for hanging out with us today and Eric thanks for jumping into this-

Eric Ballard:
Yeah man.

Kent Evans:
… particular episode of the podcast/ maybe along the Nehemiah journey we’ll have you back.

Lawson Brown:
Yeah. I’d love that. Good to meet you Eric.

Eric Ballard:
Nice meeting you Lawson.

Kent Evans:
All right dad. See you next week.

Kent Evans:
Hey, dad thank you for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode helpful, remember you can get all the content and show notes at manhoodjourney.org/podcast. And if you really liked it, please consider doing three things. Number one, share this podcast with someone. You can hit the share button in your app, wherever you listen to podcasts, or just call a person up and tell them to listen in. Number two, subscribe to this podcast so you get episodes automatically, that helps us as well to help dads find the show. You can do that through your favorite listening app, whatever that is. And finally, review this podcast. Leave us a review, good or bad, wherever you listen. Those reviews also help other dads find the show. You can always learn more about what we’re up to at manhoodjourney.org or fatheronpurpose.org. We will see you next week.

Voiceover:
You’ve been dozing off to the Father On Purpose Podcast featuring Kent Evans and Lawson Brown. Now, wake up. Head over to fatheronpurpose.org for more tools that can help you be a godly, intentional, and not completely horrible dad. Remember, you are not a father on accident so go be a father on purpose.

Hey, dad thank you for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode helpful, remember you can get all the content and show notes at manhoodjourney.org/podcast. And if you really liked it, please consider doing three things. Number one, share this podcast with someone. You can hit the share button in your app, wherever you listen to podcasts, or just call a person up and tell them to listen in. Number two, subscribe to this podcast so you get episodes automatically, that helps us as well to help dads find the show. You can do that through your favorite listening app, whatever that is. And finally, review this podcast. Leave us a review, good or bad, wherever you listen. Those reviews also help other dads find the show. You can always learn more about what we’re up to at manhoodjourney.org or fatheronpurpose.org. We will see you next week.

Outro:
You’ve been dozing off to the Father On Purpose Podcast featuring Kent Evans and Lawson Brown. Now, wake up. Head over to fatheronpurpose.org for more tools that can help you be a godly, intentional, and not completely horrible dad. Remember, you are not a father on accident so go be a father on purpose.