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Episode Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Rance: Your family has a culture. You didn't choose whether to have one. You only chose whether to build it or inherit it.

Kevin: This culture starts with us. The priority is our relationship because the best thing you can give your kids is a strong foundation and a safe place to be.

Rance: Values, we all know, are caught more than taught. Kids aren't just becoming who we tell them to be. They're also heavily influenced by what they actually see us do.

Kevin: The road map's in the word. So if you want to dive in, you want to get the answers, they're there.

Rance: Welcome back to The Family Outpost, the podcast for families who are opting out of the default American family model and reclaiming God's good design for the family. I'm Rance Bland, and every episode, we sit down with real families to talk about what it means to live with purpose. And we leave you with one Outpost challenge you can take home this week. Today, we're on pillar three of the Kingdom Outpost framework culture. And Kevin's not just cohosting today. He and his wife, Kelly, are our guests, and we'll get to that in just a minute. But first, we need to report back from the last episode. Alright. So last episode, Yuri gave us the challenge as we were talking about priesthood of the family to take a Bible verse and just make it visible to our family, stick it on the fridge, write it on a whiteboard, wherever. And and then there was a second part. Level two was find some time during the day to just talk about it, discuss it a little bit. So did you do this, both parts or one part, or how did this go for you?

Kevin: Yeah. So this was a great reminder for me that, success is not the outcome. It's the obedience. And so the beautiful thing about these these outpost challenges, it's just a step to take without any defined outcome or anything like that. And so if somebody was to be grading, I would probably get a poor grade in terms of the outcome. And so it was just simple obedience. And so we had been reading through 1 John one through three. So I took different verses through 1 John and put them different places. And I was trying to be intentional about not saying anything because I think Yuri said, like, don't be the one that drives it. Just see where the conversation goes. Or maybe

Rance: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: I had that idea in my own head. I don't know. And so I did it. But so far, the only response that I have gotten in terms of them is hearing my son gazing in the other room when I put the one on the... I had put one on the fridge, I put one on the door. And then after the one went up on the door, I just hear from, who is putting these verses all over the house? So, so far, that's the only response I've gotten. Fair. Alright.

Rance: Well Yeah. You know, exactly. Obedience, check. Desired outcome, maybe not so much, but that's okay. That's that's part of it.

Kevin: Right? Seeds are still planted. They're still going to sit there. And so

Rance: That's right.

Kevin: You know, we don't... You know, part of this is we get not a lot of time to get through some of these outpost challenges, which is good because it pushes me forward to do something. And, you know, some people can say, and I've had thoughts about, is it good to just do something even when you're you're not, you know, all in or can't give everything you have into it and make it this grandiose thing. And sometimes just... It's just about showing up. It's just about continuing to take steps forward. And so for me, this was a good reminder. Just take... Keep taking a step forward.

Rance: I've had so many moments like that trying to lead my family spiritually where just doesn't have quite the desired effect, but you just keep showing up. So I put the verse Matthew 9:37-38 up. I actually found a... I actually searched, you know, Google search. It had, like, a little picture behind it. I hit print, and I stuck that thing in our kitchen. And, I did it before anybody woke up. So then I was in my office and my, by the way, the verse, just because probably not everyone has that memorized, is, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest field. And so just a great, you know, praying for more workers in in the harvest field. So my daughter comes in, and she goes, daddy, what was... Why'd you put that, you know, thing up in in the kitchen? I said, well, I just thought it'd be good to put some scripture up. And, and she goes, why does God want to send out Labradors? I was like, what? Oh, labor. Laborers. Okay. So we had a great, conversation about what's the laborers, what's the harvest field. I'm sure God loves Labradors, but he was actually talking to people there.

Kevin: That's fantastic.

Rance: Yeah. It was fun.

Kevin: I love that.

Rance: Then my son came in. He asked me about it. So... Yeah. I mean, it was an instant kind of conversation starter. So loved it.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. So we just know that the Bland family is just more spiritual than us. That's just what we've been able to take from this. Thanks, Jerry. That was good.

Rance: It's a

Kevin: good gut check there. So that's beautiful. I mean,

Rance: we're not keeping score or anything, but, you know.

Kevin: But we are. Got it. Now that was clear. Alright. So if you had a Labrador moment, a very real Morrison family, what the heck's going on with all this writing everywhere? Whatever yours look like, share it. Challenge us. Challenge one another. Encourage all that. Put it in the show notes. That'd be great.

Rance: Now back to the episode. Your family has a culture. You didn't choose whether to have one. You only chose whether to build it or inherit it. So today, we're talking about how to build one on purpose and what it costs when you don't. I think the rhythm, if if I was being really honest, that we've struggled with the most in our home is the weekly meeting. Numerous times, Stacy and I have said, we need to set aside a specific day, time of the week. We've tried Sunday afternoons. We tried Monday at lunchtime. And the purpose is just for her and I to touch base on things like the schedule for the week, the meal plan. Is there anything going on with the kids that we should be more intentional about? It's always a a good time to plan a date night to pray together. And we'll do it for a week or two, and then something always comes up that gets us off track, and we have a hard time sustaining that. So the downside or or the cost of not doing this is that it hurts our communication. And without that meeting, we're kind of scrambling in real time on the day of, you know, trying to remember the things that we need to tell each other, and and it's just more difficult to get on the same page. What about you, Kevin? Is there a a rhythm in the Morrison home that has slipped from time to time?

Kevin: Actually, if there's a specific rhythm that gets out of whack with our... Within our home with five kids, it's it's Kelly and I's time together. And not just in a meeting because when we do have our coaches meeting, when we're doing that well, that's still within the house. But Kelly and I talk about this quite often, how important it is specifically for her to get out of the house. When we're going to do something intimate, romantic, connection based, it's out of our house. And so Yeah. We could talk without... About that for a while. But with five kids and not having, you know, grandparents to just drop them off on a regular rhythm, and this is something that's certainly my responsibility as the man. But that's the one rhythm out of whack that we keep coming back to.

Rance: Okay. Well, I just wanted people to know right off the bat, we don't have this all figured out. But before we go any further, want to talk about, this special episode that we have today. Kevin, obviously, you're my cohost, so, people have heard from you now for a few episodes. But we're changing it up today, because we've got your wife, Kelly, here. Kelly, you are mother of five. Believe the ages, if I have this right, are 10, seven, five, two, and an infant a few months old. Yes. And, of course, the coculture maker, with Kevin in the Morrison household. So welcome to The Outpost, Kelly.

Kelly: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Rance: How many months old is your infant?

Kelly: She is just over three months old.

Rance: And I'm sure our listeners are wondering how... Where are they now? How are you even actually able to both be on this podcast right now?

Kelly: We're hiding.

Kevin: Yeah. That's the trick. Like, just don't know. We're hiding. Just don't know, and it feels better.

Rance: Awesome. Awesome. Ignorance is bliss.

Kevin: Yeah. So Two of two

Kelly: of them are hopefully sleeping. The other three are the oldest three, and they are hopefully, you know, being civil Yeah. In the house. And, you know, we bribed one with an orange. Go take your orange. Go play with your kitchen.

Rance: Yeah. It's a nice thing about older siblings.

Kelly: Yes. That's right.

Rance: Well, Kelly, before we get into the substance of the episode today, just give us a picture of your home with all five kids. You guys homeschool. What does a normal week in the Morrison household look like?

Kelly: We aim for daily rhythms. And like most people, we're we're definitely imperfect in where all those rhythms land, but we're together a lot. So Monday through Friday is our... Basically, our focus on some lessons in the morning. Mondays and Fridays, we have more time with dad because he has more flexible time on those days. You know, he's in office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but Monday and Fridays are more allotted toward our family business, which we could dive into more a little bit later, Maine. But... Yeah. So his his hours are flexible those days. And then at home, it... You know, it's a bit of a juggling act with a toddler and an infant and just trying to set some steady rhythms of when people nap and when people eat. Those are actually, like, more important than they sound. Those little those little consistencies help with with the chaos of the day. They're like anchors. So everybody kind of trickles out sometime in the morning after 07:15. We've early risers. We've always had very early risers, but... So we've had to say, listen. You know, the sun has to kind of be up before you come out and make us start our day. So they come out around that time, and then we all do... They have to jump into some household help, chores, contributions. So they jump into that and then they they have breakfast together, clean up, have a little free time. And then on our typical, like, lesson day... Because I have the kids. I have all of the kids Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but two of my my two oldest have gone to like a a hybrid on Tuesday, Thursday. So those days look a little different. But on our days at home, yeah, we start around ten or so, and the big kids jump into the things that they can do a little bit more independently. And and that's sort of when I am able to pour more into my littlest three. So more time with infant, toddler, and and my budding kindergartner. Yeah. I mean, it kind of flows through that. They they do that, and then we go about sort of more normal things in the afternoon, maybe an outing in the afternoon. Yeah.

Rance: Okay. So there is a lot to manage. And, you know, this... The pillar of culture, a lot of this has to do with how do we transform a lot of the chaos in our home into order and peace. And so we're going to unpack how you guys are doing that with a family of five. And, you know, Kevin has multiple jobs, and there's a lot going on. First, I just want to... I want to remind our listeners of what we're talking about when we are talking about culture. One of our core convictions of the Kingdom Outpost framework is that every family already has a culture. The the question is whether or not it's the one you chose to have or if you just inherited it by default. So, culture is... We're really talking about the lived atmosphere of your home, the routines, the emotional climate, what you say yes and no to, what you model when you think maybe no one's watching. It's that that is culture. That's what's shaping our kids, whether we name it or not. And research backs this up in a way that, I think is certainly kind of sobering and and motivating at the same time, But values, we all know are caught more than taught. Now that doesn't mean we don't teach them. It's very important. But we also know that if we teach a bunch of things that we never do and put into practice, our teaching's not going to be very effective. So kids aren't just becoming who we tell them to be. They're also heavily influenced by what they actually see us do. So for example, in our family, one of our, core values is generosity. And we could talk about generosity all the time, and we can encourage our kids to be generous. But if they never see us actually be generous and give, it's not going to really be a value that gets passed on. It's not it's not actually going to be something that comes to fruition. And so it's so important to be aware of what it is that we're modeling. So the question is, not do I have a culture in my family. It is, is it the one that I want my kids to carry into their own homes, someday? Kelly, I'd love to hear a little bit of your background. As you grew up, were you part of an intentional family culture, or was that something you and Kevin have had to build from scratch?

Kelly: Yes. I think I I think what I said to Kevin was that I think any parent that is, like, trying to be a good parent is usually intentional, and and they would believe they're being intentional. So I I think my parents, they really valued setting an environment for my sister and I that was that was safe and where we would grow up without too many hardships, kind of a life that was of ease because they had different things that they grew up that were not that. And I think they set out to to steer away from those things that were hard for them for good or for bad. Those those things have kind of shaped how my parents raised us and the way that they were intentional. And then so to to the question, would just say that Kevin and I are are very intentional, probably in really different ways than my parents were. And Kevin mentioned too, of course, like, by God's grace, there there have been things that have come into the fibers of our parenting and our family that he has just been good to us to, like, bring them to our attention and make them important on our hearts so that it's becoming part of our culture.

Rance: Would you say then that there are certain things you grew up with that you would hold on to and keep and kind of make part of your culture, but then either other things that weren't there that you've sort of got to fill the gaps or maybe even things you would change, you know, and intentionally do in a different way.

Kelly: Yes. To all of that.

Kevin: Yeah. Celebrations.

Kelly: Yes. That was a... Yeah. So my my family, we loved traditions and celebrations. So we try to carry that on and, like, make birthdays fun and special, like like many people do. But do we just carry that on that they're... A day that is focused on that child and why they're special and that God brought them into our family and our team on purpose for a purpose and just the little things that you do. You know, they have a special seat at the end of the table with a balloon on it and different things that that just make their day special.

Rance: Kinda going back a little bit in your marriage and family development, when did you get really intentional about building family culture and realize this was there... Like, when was that awareness that you had to be intentional and not just kind of put things on autopilot?

Kevin: I don't know that there was one key moment that it happened. And if there was, it was probably out at Spring Hill. But early on, Kelly and I had a lot of intentional conversations Mm-hmm. About how we want to operate, how we wanted to porn to our kids, what we found were important, and it changed a lot. But the one thing that was consistent is we were intentional about it. Okay? We may have done things, and it may have been terrible, and we changed our mind. And with every single kid, we're like, no. We were definitely doing it wrong. Let's let's change it this time. It would kind of just slowly morph where when we were in Spring Hill with All4One and, you know, the priors came out and there was language to a lot of the things that we were doing already, we were able to look back and and recognize, you know what? We've actually done a lot well, and we've done a lot right in a... In time where we're like, are we doing anything right? We're to look back and say, gosh. By God's grace, he put a lot of these things in front of us, and it wasn't necessarily that there was this long list of all these rhythms that we put together that our kids would have said, well, this is what makes our family our family. It was more of our language. And so we're... You know, I'm big on communication. I have this conversation everywhere and anywhere that the words you use build everything. And so we've been very intentional about the words we use and what we speak into our kids and all that. And so those things were happening. But when we started having more framework was with you guys and putting it together in in other things that other people built because, you know, wisdom is taking what other people did well and trying to replicate it.

Rance: Okay. So I want to get more practical. I'd I'd like to just go inside the Morrison home, let people, actually picture, you know, what it looks like for a real family. Because sometimes we might hear at a general level, build a strong family culture, and it's like, yes. I want to do that, but how do I do it? You know, what does it look like on a Tuesday afternoon with five kids and when one of them is sick and you didn't sleep well? And take us inside. And is there one specific rhythm, that has helped to bring peace where there was chaos, something that's been really helpful for you guys?

Kelly: I just really love something that something that Kev implemented, I guess, years ago now, where... You know, a parenting moment where kids are calling each other names can kind of be an annoying moment. You're like, just don't... And he found a way to use that in such a... It's just... So he taught the kids to tell them their identity in those moments. So if somebody calls a name, we immediately prompt them and encourage them to tell them who they really are. So instead of a poo poo head, they are a son of the most high god, a vital member of the Morrison team, and a dangerous warrior for the king's army. So our kids know that forward and backward now because there's a lot of name calling in our house. And so they have lots of opportunities to practice that. But then what they're doing without even like knowing the weight of it, they're speaking their identity into each other every day, multiple times They're a getting to say it to each other, and they're getting to hear it from the people that are part of their team. And so I just... I love that. And those are... That's like a moment where it's a peacemaker because they they know that. They know that... They know it's coming probably when they when they call a name, and it kind of changes the whole atmosphere at the room.

Rance: Right. What a beautiful way to take something that would otherwise just kind of take everybody down and turn it into a positive moment. Kevin, what comes to my mind is that in a sense, rather than going, alright. How do we discipline these guys better after they call each other names and sort of find a better punishment that will make them not want to do that. You flip that and thought, okay. How can I train them to actually speak well of each other and understand the importance of their words? And I think about the verse Proverbs 22:6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he won't depart it... Apart from it. It actually doesn't say discipline a child. It says train a child, which is a little bit more proactive, whereas discipline is usually reactive after they've done something wrong. I I love that example. Was that in your mind thinking, alright. This is an area causing chaos in our home. I need to step in here and actually show them what I want to see, and I'm envisioning them speaking well of each other.

Kevin: Well, first, you can't give me too much credit because anything that we have done well in our house has certainly not come from me. I can actually picture Kelly bringing us... Signing us up for a Paul Tripp kid, like, speaking event where he comes and he speaks and does all... And I remember thinking the whole time he's identifying a problem. He's identifying a problem. Like, give me the solution before I just leave. And I remember being frustrated, and the reality was the whole problem was we we raise our kids for behavior outcomes rather than train them up. And so it's this it's this shift of mindset into becoming a coach. He could have given answers because I'm sure he did a lot of these things well, but instead, he identified the problem. And without saying it, he said, go pray about it. Like, go figure it out. Go seek the Lord on it. And so the things that have come up like that have always come from the Lord because they've truly... Like, that in and of itself happened in, like, five seconds. It was happening in the middle of something, and I said, woah. Slow down here. And those specific words, though... That identity of who they actually are and how to handle the moment, like, that all just came at once. But a big part of that, like I said, is is that shift to where we are coaches on this team. And so the the verbiage, the whatever vocabulary of using team vocabulary is big. And when you train somebody up, you don't just fix them. Right? That's not their... That's not the point. You don't just fix them because you can't actually go out there and say... You grab their stick and say, this is how you shoot the puck. Alright? Because you can't be on the ice with them. Like Right. Let me walk you through this, and let me help you remember this. Because when you shoot the puck well, the team wins. And it's really important for you to shoot the puck well. And so that that mindset mindset shift to coach and the dependence on God for actually guiding things is a solid one two punch.

Rance: Let me build on that for a moment, Kevin. And then I do want to come back to another rhythm in your household. But you you were... We were talking about training, and you mentioned a couple of times, this coach kind of mindset. When it comes to the pillar of culture, I wonder if if men sometimes have a hard time engaging with this one because maybe the assumption is, you know, the the home is sort of my wife's domain, and she can, you know, take care of that and make choices there. And and... But I'm, you know, I'm the protector. I'm the provider. I'm doing these other things, maybe external from the home. How would you maybe challenge and encourage dads to engage? Like, why should they be partnering with their wife to build culture in the home?

Kevin: Is it too easy to say God said so? I mean, if you're a man that follows the Bible and wants to know what truth is, it doesn't take long to read exactly how a man is to operate, a father or husband supposed to operate in in their home, but actually most men probably don't know what that looks like if we're being honest. They haven't seen it done well. We don't talk about it enough, and the reason we make identity and purpose so important in our home is that most people and men included or maybe especially because there's a battle against this, don't know identity and purpose, and so if you don't know it, kind of like inheriting culture versus building culture, if you inherit what your identity and purpose is and you don't know it from the truth of the Bible, well then it's probably in work, so it's outside the home. It's probably maybe even in a sport you play earlier in life, so then it becomes about performance, and so it never becomes the home. They think, alright, the home is where my wife operates and that's her identity and her purpose, but, mine is built in how I provide or what I'm able to do and all that. And that's that's pride in the end, but, we see the negative impact on the family that that's led to. Why do so many men struggle once the kids move out of their house? Well, they've completed their job because they they've said, well, I've I've done what I've had to do. I provided. I got them to 18, and they're gone. A coach is never done with his team. He just has a different role and responsibility as his team gets older, and they're building their own team. And so

Rance: That's right.

Kevin: Sadly, most men haven't had that example for them, and I would say same for us. But the road map's in the word. And so if you if you want to dive in, you want to get the answers, they're there.

Rance: Yeah. I love that because once I got a vision for my family, this started to click for me, and I had now a reason to care. And I saw how important culture was. I could have told you all day long, you know, in the work environment how important culture was, and I cared about that. But, I didn't have a vision yet for why it mattered in the family. But what helped me was, understanding that role of a coach. And I have a sports background like you, and so that's a that's a language I can understand. And I think, unfortunately, many men actually see themselves maybe sometimes as babysitters of their own kids. It's like, I'm just trying to keep them safe and don't don't fight with each other, and here's your food. But there's there's so much more. And when you put on that coach hat and you think about how can I develop my players because we have a game to play? We have we have something important to do. It just begins to change how we look at that and change everything. So, just wanted to touch on that for a moment. Kelly, I want to go back to the the rhythms in your in your home. I want to ask you about your, weekly, Shabbat meal. I'm not sure if you guys use the word Shabbat, but sort of this special family meal that sort of anchors your family each week. That... That's something that we will probably do an episode about and do a deep dive into, but I'd love to just hear briefly, what does that look like for you guys, and how has that been a blessing to your family?

Kelly: Well, that's like a, that's definitely a newer rhythm as in the last couple years. Years? Yeah. So a couple years now, but just something that, again, we brought in after that, the Family Summit or the... So it's been a it's been a major blessing because it's fun. It's... And it it just speaks to... I think we just... We naturally... God built us to thrive with rhythms, like not monotony where it's the same thing every day all the time, but like these predictable, comfortable rhythms that become traditions. So something just really speaks to our hearts and our souls with traditions, and that is one that we've really enjoyed to build. It is by no means perfect or pretty. Actually, one of the traditions that has come out of that tradition is that we all yell, oh, what do we say? Shabbat Shalom when Callan inevitably spills her special drink. It happens every single time. So now we just like... We like, oh, hoopla. And everybody kind of makes... I don't know that she's a big fan of this. She's like, spill my drink again. But... Yeah. So we have, like, a a drink that the kids don't normally have. It's something sweet and bubbly, and we get out plates that we don't use any other day and glasses and things like that. So the table is set in a pretty way. It's not it's not difficult. It happens fast because we know what we're using. And so I just say that because I think when I hear things like that people do, sometimes I can be like, how do you have time for that? Or how do you how do you make that happen? That sounds like a lot. But if you just have, like, any old table cloth that you never use tossed on on the table, the kids aren't going to know the difference. It's just something different that isn't always there. And we use specific matchsticks to light a specific candle. And so all those things are just like, we know what goes out, but to them, it's like, oh, it's it's a special dinner tonight. It's our Shabbat night. And Yeah. And then, of course, there are there are other biblical rhythms within that that we've implemented, like praying over the kids. I will pray over our girls, a special blessing, and Kev will do the same for our boys. He prays over me, which has been really sweet and nice and honoring. So we kind of use that. We use the dinner as an opportunity too to like, for a lot of different things to show our children how to treat women. Like, the boys are shown what it looks like to be a gentleman. They actually stand and wait for me to come and sit down until I come to the table, And they're encouraged to treat their their sister like a lady in different ways and to serve her. Yeah. So it's just a really great night. We also use it as a... As an opportunity for hospitality. We invite a lot of different families into that meal. So that's fun, and we get to kind of explain what the whole... Why why it looks like it does, why the evening looks like it does, why we do what we do. We pray the... We say the body and the blood, like they less a cup and we lift it up and... You know? Yeah. You speak into that a little bit more maybe.

Kevin: Well, actually, I was going to shift it, not to go away from communion, but the... I was just thinking because I know we will probably hit on this more in another episode in terms of the Shabbat, but one of my favorite memories of Shabbat was actually when I was away serving somewhere with four ms and came off the mountain and getting messages in, and I get these number of videos from Shabbat with Kelly and the kids, and one, was, like, we got five kids, and the fact that Kelly pulled her all together and did Shabbat without me was awesome. I was proud of her. But then I have these videos of my kids doing all the blessings that they heard over and over and over again. Colton's just was really touching. Did he did he did it over?

Kelly: Well, he did the boys one, like, boys. He remembered the

Kevin: boys one.

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: My number two, so our seven year old boy did the blessing over the boys. We had to yell at him later because he wasn't the oldest, and that's not how it's done, and we have to be perfect with it. And so we'd yell at him. But, no, it was beautiful that he had it in his heart, and that was awesome.

Kelly: We had... We probably had, like, cereal or eggs that night.

Kevin: Doesn't Yeah.

Rance: No. But I I love that. First of all, I love that... You know, thank you for being real about it. So we know it's not perfect. We know it's... You know, just take the pressure off of it. But what a powerful culture shaping, identity shaping, tool. I know there's more we could unpack there, but I also want to ask you about, homeschooling because that's a decision you guys have made. And it sounds to me like more than an educational decision. It's a it's a culture, decision. So, what have you seen that makes it possible? What has homeschooling made possible in your home and in your family that maybe wouldn't be possible otherwise?

Kelly: I think I think because of the sheer amount of time that we are able to have with our children because of the debt... Because of the dynamics of homeschooling, character building. So I know that like... You know? And that happens in every family, but the amount of opportunities we have... Are faced with each day because all of our children are together many days and for a lot of different activities throughout the week, they just have lots of opportunities to... For us to encourage them in their relationships together and kind of encourage and build them up toward who God called them to be. Like the... So who who he has for them to become. We try to speak that into them as much as possible in moments of correction or in moments where, you know, we're falling apart as a as a team. And and and my kids have actually it... It's been really beautiful to see them step into that as like my oldest has stopped me and said, mom, I think you think you should stop and pray. He was right. I should I should stop and pray. It was a moment where I needed to take a breath, and my example and what I was living out isn't what I would call them to. So it's so it's good. But... Yeah. So homeschooling has allowed us that time. And and again, just to paint a a picture because when I say that we're building character into our kids, they're in process like everybody else. So it's... You know, they're both a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time, and it's definitely not perfect. And they fight. So they they love big, and they and they and they squabble big. But but, yeah, I think that's probably what that allows for us most is those opportunities and to take take advantage of those and to build their... To build the kind of the fibers of their relationships, make those strong. Yeah.

Rance: I love that.

Kevin: What Kelly said earlier, when we were actually talking about this is the fact... And just so you know, from a decision making of homeschooling, my answer was very clear when she brought this up, and that was just no. No. We're not doing that. And sometimes leadership looks like trusting your wife on things, and so through prayer and listening to her and her reasons why, it became a yes. But she said earlier that that we... We've kind of had this nobody will have a greater influence on our kids than us mentality. And if our kids are going to school every day, five days a week, you know, and sometimes that's not an option for people to do anything other than than public school, and they can still have the greatest influence even when they are going to school five days a week. But for us, we're like, hey, listen. This is a this is a blessing that God has allowed us to have you home with them, and with that, there can be a greater emphasis on the formation and all those things. And it ain't easy, but it's a year to year thing as well. And so a couple years ago, as we're getting to the end of the year, we weren't sure if our kids should go back. And so we went and we talked about it as a family, and we went into separate rooms, and we prayed over it, and then we came back together. And our boys really wanted to stay where they were, and our 10 year old, when we got back together, said, I think it would be right for us to no longer go to this school even though he really wanted to because I think it's the best thing for the team. Now he did go back, and we didn't agree with him. We actually felt like he needed to go another year, but he recognized in that moment that homeschool is a year to year decision. It is a blessing, and sometimes it's not the best thing for the team. And so that was really cool. And Kelly's done an amazing job of holding it together.

Rance: I want to draw that out a little bit because, you know, the point of this is not to be prescriptive and say everybody needs to do it this way or that way. And I know there's a lot of reasons to to do, you know, different... There's various, approaches you could take here. But what I would hope people can take away from this is that we have we have agency in our kids' education. It's... Like, there are options. Like, even you said, you know, do... We might homeschool one year. They might go to school another year. It doesn't even have to be one answer for, you know, their entire, school years. And so I think just to be able to to say, you know what? We care about every area of our family life, and so we're going to bring education into that. And in some seasons, it might look like partnering with a school. And in other seasons, it might look like us, you know, more intensively spending that time with our kids and handling the education. So, I I love that. I think for a Kingdom Outpost, that's important to to to to feel that sense of responsibility in every area, not just sort of outsource it and and not think about it anymore, but to really step in and and engage in it. And you can also do that, I mean, in the school. My kids are in public school right now. And, obviously, there's ways you can engage that and be intentional there as well. Just for the sake of time, I want to I want to keep moving because, we had a really special experience together, our family, your family, a few other families. Last summer in Guatemala. We did a SportQuest Vision Trip. SportQuest is the sport ministry arm of All4One. Kelly, I just... I'd love to hear your reflections on that trip from a culture standpoint. How did that trip what did it do for your your family's culture? Did it maybe just confirm something? Did it reveal something? What did it stir up for you?

Kelly: It confirmed that as a family, serving needs to take a a bigger priority. It's a fill up a bigger priority in our lives as a team. So that's been on our hearts since then and just in different ways. So we know that that's a calling that we're, like, seeking to fulfill in different ways. And then also, I think it just just going... Just truly physically going someplace so different really just opened up our our kids' world. And they're little, and they have been homeschooled. So as much as we go and do, you're still... There's still a level of more sheltered by by design. You know, we have it that way on purpose of them, but that really allowed them to, like, step into something really outside of their own their own culture, their own home, their own comfort zones, and experience and see how other people live in the world. And I think that... When Kevin and I were talking about this, he mentioned too that just... There are things that we trust with God that he did with that trip that we don't even know and that he did in their hearts. It was like, we experienced it one way, but they experienced it completely different as children. And so with... What... Whatever they took away from that, we just sort of trust that in his hands to... You know, maybe that maybe that springs forward something in them that they want to do missions more in their life later or whatever. We... We're not sure what that'll develop into.

Rance: But Seeds are being planted there. Trees you may never sit under, but there'll be there'll be fruit from that. Yeah. Kevin, anything you'd add there?

Kevin: I don't think so. I think it... It's just a matter of... You can do a mission trip where there's a a week long mission where the mission is clear. And then when it's a week long, there's a start and an end, and everybody's on board because there's a... It's a week. But then to have a missional mindset is very is very different.

Rance: And especially when your kids are... Your kids' ages, you know, it's sometimes hard to create that environment altogether as a team. So doing it with other families also sort of helps create that capacity and and ability to to step into that. Kevin and Kelly, what is a value that your family holds that the culture pushes back on? Like, could you just describe a little bit of where do you get the most resistance or friction sometimes with your family values?

Kelly: Worldly culture is sort of at, like, a breakneck pace, and my insides don't even... Don't don't... I just I just function at a slower pace, which is sometimes not ideal. But as far as our family culture, I think that, like, what I've brought with that has been just something that allows them to soak in and be present in things.

Rance: Mm-hmm.

Kelly: So, yeah, I think that that is that is probably something that I just naturally push against is the the speed of culture, like just how fast information is coming at us or how fast communication is sort of sometimes demanded. And I think my my feeling about that is this. It doesn't... It's not really how God designed us to communicate. We weren't we weren't really designed with the capacity to take on all the things that are going on around the world when even your own environment, your own home, there's so much happening. And so kind

Rance: of Yeah.

Kelly: As much as you don't want to be... Like, live under a rock, you also want to be aware that you're not prioritizing so much of outside culture at that pace that you're not able to be there and and be present for your family because sometimes that's like anxiety inducing and fear inducing or maybe it's just distracting and kind of numbing out to turn to those things. So I think those are probably values that we hold is like to move slower, but for a reason, not not to just be late to things, but but Which also happens. Live.

Rance: Yeah. Okay. Well, let... Let's start to land this plane here. And I I want to... I'm just thinking about families that are listening to this, and maybe they feel, like the culture of their home is just happening to them, which is place that we've all been where just that pace that you're talking about, screens, schedule, just the chaos is just... You're in that grind. What's one thing that you would encourage a family listening to do this week that would help them start taking back their their family culture?

Kevin: Certainly, like any business, if there's anything that can bring a business together and then get a culture right, it's it's communication. It's conversations, but that happens through very intentional meetings. And so depending on what age your kids are, for us, it's our coaches meeting. It's our time for Kelly and I to sit down and talk about, hey. What are our values? Not just our schedule, not the things that are happening, but, like, what is important to us, and then have time to be able to communicate it to them. And so when things are going well, we have a coaches meeting and a family meeting. We've got Sunday, Mondays, every Monday that we get together for family. But if you can get a rhythm of meeting regularly, you don't have to fix everything all at once because it's impossible, but you can do two things. You can, one, identify that you want to make a shift, begin having conversations with your family no matter what age you are that, hey, We want to make some changes. It may be repenting and maybe prayer together. It may look like a lot of different things, but then you can change things one thing at a time rather than having it all at once. As long as you've got that weekly meeting where you're identifying things and keep moving forward and stay intentional and recognize, you know what? We tried to be intentional in this direction and that didn't work. Well, you got next meeting to fix it and move in a different direction.

Rance: Okay. Well, this... So this is the exact thing that we struggle with to sustain in our homes.

Kevin: We're really just here to talk to you and Stacy, but, Thanks you know

Rance: for this free therapy moment. But help help us. How how should we... What's something we could do to make this a little more attainable and sustainable? Like, how long are your meetings? You've got five kids. If you can figure it out, we can figure it out. So do you have a tip for us?

Kelly: Well, I want to clarify something too. So we we recently tried to implement the rhythm of... Like, we currently have a thirty minute drive to church. So Kevin said, let's utilize that time well. You know? Let... While we're up front and the kids are chatting, hopefully, things are going well in the back of the van because 's not always true, but then we will chat through that time. And that would be our coaches meeting. So then when we... When Evan's referencing a coaches meeting, that means he and I on our own where we kind of get things ironed out and like the nitty gritty where it's not... Doesn't involve the kids. But then what he said Sunday, Monday, that's like a ice cream sundae that we have on on Monday evening. So the kids are always looking forward to that. So making your meeting something that your kids want to be at, I think, is is really crucial because then they're excited to come. You know, they have they have buy in already from the get go. So my kids... Our kids know that they're going to have ice cream at that meeting. Like, they're they're... They don't want to miss that meeting. And then also things that we can do better but that we believe is really important are making sure that your kids have a voice at that meeting, having it have some structure so that it doesn't like... It can it can get too long and we can talk too much. And then the kids are probably just hearing like, you know, they tune out after a while. They don't... They only have so much attention span. So depending on your kids' ages and what their abilities are to be part of the meeting is important to consider. So like a meeting should maybe be ten to fifteen minutes long. That would be our Monday meeting. And sometimes if it's going well and we want to expand it, then you can. But if you just... Like, if you capture those minutes, then that's really good. We've also tried to follow a calve calendar activities and vision so so that we'd have, like, points to touch on. We want to touch on the calendar with the kids. Here's what our week looks like coming up. Here are the activities that you specifically have, you know, child one, two, and three, then and then kind of bring it all back to are we matter? Why does it matter? Are we living out our vision? Are all of these things in alignment with our vision as a family, or are we, like, kind of going in the wrong direction with something and we need to Yeah. Eliminate it or reel it back?

Kevin: But, Rance, going back to your question, are you... Is this a you struggle with coaches meeting or you struggle with family meeting?

Rance: Well, both because... I feel like because we haven't been able to sustain the coaches meeting, we haven't really even tried to do the, the family meeting. So... But what I'm hearing is I could be a little more flexible and just look for moments to reclaim, like, ride to to church. You know? So I I love that. Are you going to add something else, Kevin?

Kevin: I just do better, rants. That's all I

Rance: gotta do. Yeah. Well, I think part of this... Actually, though, you you gave me more of a why. Like, so... Because at the end of the day, if we really want to do something, we'll do it. And I'm convinced now. Like, this... Thank you. So

Kelly: I think something else too that I would keep in mind, especially for listeners that are... That have really little kids or they're like, I want to start this, and I commend... Like, I think it's really good to start something when they're young but have... But, like, hold it really loosely and try not to get too tied up in, like, whether or not it was super successful right away because you're just building something that is is going to... It's just going to become something that you want it to down the road, and it's going to take time, and attention spans are a little. It's helped for our kids to have, like, when they're really little, when they're two, three, four, five, to have something to occupy their hands while they're listening. So if they are, like, doing something quietly, Legos might not be ideal because they can get... But you know what I mean? Like, a coloring book or some other quiet building activity because they are just... They are more engaged that way. They seem like they don't want to bounce off the couch as much when they have a little something to do while they're listening. Because if they just sit and listen, it can get they get antsy.

Rance: You guys have given us so many good things to think about to put into practice. I I just want to ask you, Kevin, one more question here. What is something you're working on? Like, when it comes to your family culture, what's still in process? What would you like to be more intentional with?

Kevin: Honestly, circling back to the very first question we talked about at the beginning is my time with Kelly. It's the... This, we talked about it in episode three with Hannes and Alma. This culture starts with us. It's not about my kids at all. It's about a greater mission. And if there's a priority, the priority is our relationship because the best thing you can give your kids is a strong foundation and a safe place to be, and the closer we are, the more we're laughing together, the the stronger our bond is, the better environment and culture they're going to just naturally pick up on. Whether we're having our meetings perfectly or not and things are humming along, if Kelly and I are good, it's just a better place to be.

Rance: Well, we're at that point in the episode where we do our outpost challenge, and, this one's going to be fun because even though, Kevin, you've been a guest, on this episode, Kelly is going to give us the Outpost Challenge. You don't know what it is. Right?

Kevin: I don't think so.

Rance: Okay. So this is a secret. So, Kelly, what what do you have for us today? Something we can, put into practice for our family culture.

Kelly: Alright. So then I will challenge you to think of a rhythm in your family that has either slips and something you started but kind of has fallen in the cracks or something you have yet to implement or one that you're doing but you need to add to. Like, you've been meaning to add to a rhythm. Maybe take the opportunity this week to just try that once and see how that goes.

Rance: That's right up what we've been talking about. Again, not to make this another free therapy moment, but that family meeting, that's going to be ours. So we're we're going to get that thing back on track just because of the peace that it brings into your weekly schedule and communication and just your your home. So that's my takeaway from today. And, I hope for those of you who are listening, maybe there's another rhythm in your family that, you could just take one step this week to be a little more intentional with, to get on the same page with your spouse and, to experience a little more peace in your family culture. So, well, I look forward to hearing, next week. Kevin and I will share how that, went for us, and we'd love to hear from you as well. If you'll email us at FamilyOutpost@AllFor1.org, it's in the show notes. Tell us what you restarted, what rhythm you're working on this week, and we'd love to hear what happened. If this conversation has stirred something in you about your family's culture, we also have a resource that would help you take the next step. It's called how to develop your family mission statement and values. You can download that link in the show notes. It's practical, short, and it gives you a process for actually naming what your family stands for, which is really the starting place of then being able to build rhythms around that and boundaries to protect that. And so I encourage you to check that out. Kelly, thank you so much for being here with us. This has been awesome. And by the way, thank you for supporting Kevin as he's been taking a lot of time away to help me with this podcast. Really are encouraged by you guys and your family, and I know our listeners have been today too.

Kelly: Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's fun.

Kevin: This is the part where you have to tell him to hit the like button and the subscribe and the bell icon and all those things.

Kelly: Oh, yeah. What he said.

Rance: Yeah. What he said. Awesome. Well, our next episode is going to be a good one. It's pillar four. We're on adventure. And this is going to be, talking about what it means for your family to take risks, to get out of your comfort zone, and to live on mission together. Pete and Adrian Reich will be sharing the story of how they literally gave up everything to follow the adventure God has for their family, and I don't want you to miss that one. So as Kelly said, follow us if you haven't so that you don't miss that next episode. Leave us a rating and review. It's one of the best ways to help other families find us, and it'll just take you about thirty seconds. If this episode has helped you, share it with another family. Forward the link, tell them why they'll want to listen, and that's how this thing grows. Thank you, and we'll see you next time on The Family Outpost.

The Family Outpost, Episode 7 | Eleven Kids and Zero Apologies: The Blessing of Big Families (feat. Mandrae & Karissa Collins)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:45:00 GMT

Our culture has trained us to ask one question about children: what will they cost? Mandrae and Karissa Collins, parents of eleven in the DFW area, have spent seventeen years asking a different one entirely: what is a family for? In this conversation, they share the sermon that changed everything, the four-year journey to get Mandrae fully on board, what a Tuesday actually looks like with eleven kids, and why simple trust and obedience produced the life they never planned but would not trade for anything. Whether you have one kid or eleven, this one will reframe how you see your family.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro and Theme Music

00:29 Welcome to The Family Outpost

00:47 Framing the Conversation

03:10 Outpost Challenge Field Report

06:45 Meet Mandrae and Karissa Collins

08:48 The Sermon That Changed Everything

12:23 Responding to Pushback

17:03 Trusting God With Provision

19:05 Family as a Team

23:51 Rhythms at Home

27:25 Presence Over Perfection

30:29 Making Time for Each Child

36:38 Trusting God With Family Size

43:06 Surrender and Obedience

46:18 Hope in Loss and Waiting

50:43 Outpost Challenge

55:29 Closing and Thank You

Outpost Challenge

Karissa challenged families to sit down together, ideally every Sunday, and read the Word out loud as a family. Start with 1 John chapters 1–3. Have each person who can read take a turn reading a few verses, then pause and discuss. Ask the kids what they are getting out of it. Pray together. Worship together. The goal is not a perfect Bible study. The goal is creating a safe, recurring space where every family member has a voice and hears that the Word is for them too.

Email us at familyoutpost@all4one.org to share your experience with this challenge.

Resources Mentioned

Be Fruitful and Multiply — book referenced by Karissa on trusting God with family size. The author was not named on air.

1 John 1–3 — the Scripture passage assigned in the Outpost Challenge.

Kingdom Hoops Basketball Club: https://kingdomhoopsllc.com

Mandrae and Karissa Collins on Instagram: @thecollinskidsfamily

Mandrae and Karissa Collins on TikTok: @thecollinskids

Links

The Family Outpost Podcast: https://www.all4one.org/the-family-outpost-podcast

SportQuest: https://www.sportquest.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/all4one_ministries/

Episode Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Karissa: For our children, when they walk out, they are a blessing not only to us in this house, but they’re gonna be a blessing to everybody on the outside of it.

Mandrae: You go one kid at a time, and now with 11, I’m like, I want 11 more.

Karissa: I wouldn't have it any other way. I’m a say that again for the record because people need to hear this. We have 11 children, and I absolutely wouldn't have it any other way.

Kevin: Welcome back to The Family Outpost, a show that’s all about being done drifting. And today, we've got some exciting guests. I think you’re gonna be inspired. You’re gonna be challenged, and you’re gonna certainly see, how a big family does life together. So before we jump in...

Kevin: Jump into having our guests, Rance, you and I were just talking about how this hit you, even the conversation around having 11 kids. You showed a little... Shared a little personal thing. Can you, share with everybody else what we just talked about?

Rance: Yeah. Absolutely. I’m I'm just thinking about those of you who are listening. I don’t I don’t know where you’re at in your family journey. Maybe you've got a big family.

Rance: Maybe you've got a small family. Maybe you wish your family was bigger. Maybe you actually wish it was smaller. But wherever this show is going to find you today, I just wanted to share a little personal reflection. You know, I’ve I've got two kids.

Rance: They are amazing, wonderful children. I would love to have a dozen of them. But if you remember back in episode one, we shared some of our family background, and there were, you know, some some factors that led to us really not arriving at this whole vision and and value for family until much later. And, you know, when you start late, you can’t have 11 kids. That’s just not in the cards for you.

Rance: But I am so grateful for the two kids that I have, and I see the role that I still have to play in casting a great vision for them of family so that when they get to the age of getting married and and having kids, they can fulfill the vision that God has for for them and for their family. And we’re gonna fully support that. And so what I want you to hear today is maybe two things. Number one, children are a blessing. It doesn’t matter if you have one kid or 11 kids.

Rance: Children are such a gift from God. And and I hope that really comes through loud and clear. And then I think the second thing is no matter where you are in your journey and your story, there may be feelings that are stirred up today as you as you listen to this. And I would encourage you to take that to the Lord, whatever it is. Don’t give in to the lies of, you know, it's...

Rance: I'm not enough or I did it wrong or whatever it is, just take it to the Lord and let him speak to you about his story because the story he's writing for each of our families is good. He is a good author. And so I just wanna encourage you with that today. And we are so excited to get into this conversation with our guests. I know you’re gonna love it.

Rance: But first, Kevin, we've got something else to share, don’t we?

Kevin: Yes. We gotta get into our Outpost Challenge from last week. So the last episode, we were challenged by Pete and Adrienne Reich, who are on a family adventure across America to do a little adventure with our family, create your own adventure with your kids. And so I leveraged AI, created a little adventure with decision makers. We got into character and deemed...

Kevin: We were the council. Kelly and I were the council. They were the keepers of of the adventure. And I got full character mode and had different roles for my kids within that led to decisions for them to make. I had my nephew in town with us, and he's 15, so he was the oldest.

Kevin: He was into it, he even eventually got into character with it, which was a lot of fun. It ended up being the entire day that we got through that, which, you know, wasn't necessarily planned. We took up most of the day, and and the best part was it didn’t go exactly as I thought it was gonna go in my head. But we’re driving home, and I hear my daughter, five year old in the back, just saying, this is the best day ever. So we were grateful for that challenge.

Karissa: We were grateful for

Rance: that challenge. Were there costumes involved in in getting into character?

Kevin: Not this time, but I will tell you, we will probably do this again and fully invest in the setup for it.

Rance: That's awesome. Awesome. Okay. Well, for for our adventure, we actually already had an adventure planned. We were gonna go camping.

Rance: So I just asked the kids, during this camping trip, what is it that you wanna do? Like, what kind of adventurous stuff? And my son wanted to go fishing, and my daughter wanted to swing in a hammock in the mountains. And so I said, done. You know, we're...

Rance: We can do that. Lo and behold, the day before we leave to go camping, we had preserved our spot at the campground. There was a fire literally at our campground that spread throughout the forest. And, you know, there's smoke in the air all in that area, so it’s all shut down. So we did not go camping.

Rance: We had to pivot, and we ended up just doing a day trip. We went to a different, you know, part of the forest. It’s called the Pecos Wilderness. And we found us a nice little spot where we kind of set up shop right along the Pecos River. We did some fishing.

Rance: Both my son and my daughter, you know, threw a threw a line out into the water. There was no fish caught this day, but that was sort of inconsequential. They had a blast, and my daughter got to swing in the hammock. And my wife was there. She also mostly was in the hammock and just a relaxing, fun, adventurous day.

Rance: We had to cross the river by taking off our shoes. Just, you know, made it feel a little more... It wasn't like it was deep, but it... You know, adventure is good. Getting out of your element, it just brings you together as a family.

Kevin: That's good. That’s good. And so if you jumped into character and did something fun with your family, please still let us know. Drop us a comment. We wanna hear from you guys.

Kevin: And so at this point, without further ado, I think we go hang out with our guests a little bit.

Rance: Let's do it. Our guests today are Mandrae and Karissa Collins. And, yes, they have 11 children. 11. And I wanna name that reaction that you just had because that’s exactly what today's episode is about.

Rance: So here's what I know about Mandrae and Karissa. I don’t think either of them came from a big family. I think they entered into marriage pretty much like a lot of us do, kind of the five year plan. But then there was a moment that changed everything, and they’re gonna share that on today's episode. And now they have 11 children.

Rance: They live on three acres in Texas. They’re homeschooling, home church, basketball ministry. Shout out to Mandrae who's played with the Harlem Globetrotters and is now running a Kingdom Hoops organization in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And I know that probably millions of people are following them on social media and are are able to tune in and see what a family fully surrendered to God actually looks like. They've got a great platform.

Rance: Mandrae served with us in the extreme character challenge, and I’ve gotten to see his giftings up close with connecting with men and just speaking what God puts on his heart. And so excited to have him and excited to meet Karissa today on this episode and just to learn more about their journey with their big, beautiful family. So Mandrae Karissa, welcome to The Family Outpost.

Karissa: Thank you, Dave. Glad to be here.

Rance: Well, I just wanna say right up front that as we talk about big families, we’re not here to make anyone feel guilty about the size of their family. There's not a certain, you know, threshold that have number of children everybody must have, but they’re here today because they've lived what actually a lot of people in our culture today are saying might be irresponsible or it’s too expensive or just plain crazy. Mandrae and Karissa, you guys can speak to both the theology behind the family as well as just give us what a normal Tuesday afternoon looks like in a house with 11 kids. And so we’re excited to to learn from both perspectives.

Karissa: Absolutely.

Kevin: We're gonna jump back to the origin of this because when Rant and I were talking about this, this is what I was most curious about because Kelly and I, we've got five, but I tell everybody she had... I had a plan for two. She had an idea of three, and then we had God's plan. And so we’re at five, and who knows where we’ll end up. But it certainly was not the plan from the beginning nor was it ever a discussion to have a big family prior to getting married.

Kevin: So what was the genesis of that for you guys? Rance just mentioned a sermon. How did that all kinda happen or just happen?

Mandrae: We got married with a, like you said, five year plan. I actually didn’t really want children when we got married. I never liked children. That sounds so terrible. I was one of those people that sat at a restaurant and heard a baby cry and was like, make them stop, you know?

Mandrae: It it sounds awful. Okay? I didn’t want to be a mother. Motherhood didn’t look appealing to me. I was sold out for God, but we just said we were gonna...

Mandrae: Like I was taught, in church and youth group, we’re gonna wait five years, enjoy each other, travel, do all those things. I went on birth control when we got engaged just so that it kicked in by the time we got married, you know, whatever they say. We were living our life married on birth control and we went to a church service and the service was just about trusting God. Just trusting God in general. And the pastor said, is there anything in your life you’re not trusting God in?

Mandrae: And I left. I sat there in the whole church church thinking, what do we not trust God in? Like, we tithes, we go to church, we trust with our finances, our jobs. Like, I went through all the things and the Lord, like, threw it in my face. How...

Mandrae: When we have kids and how many kids we have, we have decided that on our own. We’re doing it on our own strength. We don’t trust him in that area. Like, we’re just doing what we think is what we think is wise. And so when we left, he got the same thing.

Mandrae: And so we decided that we were going to stop birth control. We were just going to give it to God.

Karissa: Everything she just said, I mean, we’re we're totally aligned when she when she talks about this story. We told it so many times. Right? But at the same time, she was... She's right.

Karissa: We left the church thinking, man. How is it that you trust God in every area of your life, but you wanna control this one? The actual one where he actually says that there's a... They’re they’re blessings. Right?

Karissa: Mhmm. But we wanna control that in one way, shape, or form. And so we walked away just saying, you know what? That... That’s it for birth control.

Karissa: And we just decided to trust god with everything starting there. Now it did come with some tribulations and stuff later on the road, which we’re gonna talk about.

Mandrae: Right.

Karissa: I don’t know if that leads to one of your questions later, so I’m just gonna hold off for now. But Yeah. But but to your point, Kevin, this is really the genesis for us because we all came in with our plans, but this was really the sermon, right, almost the sermon of the mouth for us, right, that really was the turning point in terms of how we've we've having more children.

Rance: God spoke and you listened. It was it was that simple, and now here you are. You know, when... Now with 11 kids, when people hear that, you know, I’m sure there's a whole range of reactions from that’s amazing to, are you kidding me? To probably...

Rance: I mean, you guys could tell us all the other reactions. But, you know, in our culture today, there's sort of this... These undertones that say, you know, the responsible thing to do is is have fewer, maybe focus more on your career, make sure that, you know, you don’t have too many so that you can give them all plenty of attention. And, you know, there's all this kind of pushback on on that. So as this conviction has developed for you since that moment, share with us what it is that has made you see things differently.

Karissa: I mean, I would say for me, man, I think that through my relationship with Jesus Christ, man, we perform... I got... I’m in an audience of one. I can care 2¢ about what anybody else has to say. And so for me, it’s all about pleasing him.

Karissa: And while a lot of people will be like, man, you know what? The responsible thing is the responsible thing is to trust the Lord. Yeah. Like, let's start there. Like, that’s the most responsible thing that we can do as human beings.

Karissa: Right? And so, yeah, you get a lot of that thrown on you. And and over the years, we have learned to just welcome it. Right? I...

Karissa: Like, I I actually... It allows us a opportunity to literally have a conversation. Wow. You guys have 11? How do you do that?

Karissa: Well, I’m glad you asked. Right? So now it just starts a whole new conversation, and and they get to see something. Because to Karissa’s point, she used to be that same person. Right?

Karissa: Like, can you get the kid to just shut up already? Right? But you can see the work that God's already done in her life and flipped it completely to where she's a complete advocate, right, for just trusting the Lord and having as many kids as you want versus telling the lady who has one to shut it up. And so I think that’s just a beautiful thing, man, in terms of... It...

Karissa: It's clear that it’s God who has really changed us and transformed us. And it hasn't been man or women... Or another woman's opinion. So I think that’s a beautiful thing. But go ahead.

Mandrae: So I will say conviction wise, initially, you start and you’re like, it it’s really simple. Just trust God. But then you get, like, family backlash. I had a parent disown me. We had churches completely offended by us.

Mandrae: Like, just so much persecution. And all... And even online, of course, especially online. And so we have... I have all those questions.

Mandrae: I've had people ask me, like, you know, the extremes and I would go I would go into my quiet place with the Lord and I would fast and be like, am I wrong? For the last eighteen, nineteen years, I’ve asked, like, am I wrong? Is this... Are we not supposed to trust you with this? Like, does the Bible tell us to be wise?

Mandrae: Is birth control from you? Like, I’ve asked all those questions. And because, like, I fully believe that the Lord has given me this ministry because in the last eighteen, nineteen years, he has literally shown me, like, question after question I have asked him, I have sought him, I have been willing to be wrong, I’ve been willing to prevent. I mean, once you know the truth and once you seek real wisdom, because wisdom only comes from the Lord, once you've sought real wisdom, the other stuff just sounds like trash. Like, I can’t even explain it.

Mandrae: Like, even the word prevent makes me, like like, I wanna vomit.

Karissa: It's almost like, what are you preventing? Right. Right. Like like, when you start... When you really grow in the Lord, you start hearing a lot of the things that people say and how they go about things.

Karissa: It's like, man, like, what do you block at blessings? Yeah.

Mandrae: Right? What are we preventing? What are we stopping? What are we tying our tubes for? And then, like, people will say, well, what if you can’t provide?

Mandrae: Well, I’ve asked that because every single child we've had, we technically can’t provide. You know, we don’t have a car big enough. We don’t have enough rooms. We don’t have we don’t have a savings account. We’re paycheck to paycheck.

Mandrae: We had a time when we lost our jobs and we had just moved and we had no income. And, like, if you can’t trust God with your finances... Like, if you’re trusting him with your... With how many children you have, you have to trust him with everything. And so the thing is, if we say, well, what about your provision?

Mandrae: Well, that means you’re not technically trusting him with your provision. So, like, every single question that you have for, like, continuing to trust him with your family's eyes is that you don’t trust him. So if I... If people say you... What about enough time?

Mandrae: Who is the author of time? What about enough money? Who is... Who has all their resources? And then people always say, well, if?

Mandrae: Well, a what if can happen anytime in your life. We cannot we cannot take our faith and only have it in circumstantial time. So when it's... When I have enough, then I can do this. It has to be...

Mandrae: There was a time when the Lord told me to quit my job because he wanted me to stand with my kids. And I was like, okay. That’s fine. Make a way and I’ll quit my job. Like, give us enough money.

Mandrae: Give my husband a raise. Make a way where we can provide for our family and I’ll quit my job. And I didn’t listen to God for three years, and I just kept saying make a way. Well, after three years of God telling me to quit my job, he said, that’s not faith. It’s not faith for me to just...

Mandrae: For you to just have what you need and then you obey me. That isn't what faith looks like. And I think that’s what a lot of believers are missing is that God wants you to just obey and then he does the other thing. He's not gonna give you all of the resources until he sees the obedience. And I think that’s the, like, this in the Christian faith with how many children we have is we’re not willing to just surrender and obey without seeing it first.

Mandrae: And faith is without seeing.

Rance: Well, let me just build on that because so so much of this conversation gets stuck on money and cost. And I think the figure that gets thrown out there is, you know, every child's gonna cost $300,000 and, you know, so multiply that by 11. But... So the question is, you know, can you afford another one? But I don't...

Rance: I think another way to put it is not that children became expensive in our culture as much as they actually became to feel unnecessary. There was a time in which you couldn't survive unless you had a big family. I mean, you needed, you know, help on the farm and and raising the crops. And and so in our modern culture, we've we've sort of created a world in which we’re very... We’re a lot less dependent on on anyone, including our own family and kids.

Rance: So what is it about your family that makes all 11 children absolutely necessary and and helps you see each one as a blessing who's adding value to the family instead of draining resources?

Karissa: Wow. Man, that... Do I... When you asked that question, I had so many things run through my mind because we see it firsthand. Like, we see...

Karissa: The saying that many hands make light work is so true. And in our house, right, I mean, we... We’ve got a large home here on a lot of on a lot of land to your point. But to see chores get done, right, in a matter of minutes, You know what I mean? To see the helping hands of one that will help another kid with their homework.

Karissa: Right? Without us... So they they can leverage one another. Like, leadership is literally being born every single day in our household. Right?

Karissa: Every child is willing to step up and be a big brother or big sister in their own right, in any capacity. Right? Whether that's, hey. Help her fold her fold her clothes. Right?

Karissa: Help him do his dishes. Help him with his chores. You’re done for the day. Right? But those are the things that I really love, and I think they’re absolutely necessary.

Karissa: Not just necessary for us running our household, but they’re necessary for what they’re gonna do in their lives.

Rance: That's right.

Karissa: Yeah. They’re learning such great principles that are even unspoken and not even told to them. But they’re just willing to do it because now they have many... They have a lot of other bodies that they can actually mix and mingle, and they can put those things into exercise. So

Rance: Yeah.

Karissa: I think it’s incredible. And just having a lot... I wouldn't have it any other way. I’m a say that again for the record because people need to hear this. We have 11 children, and I absolutely wouldn't have it any other way.

Karissa: I couldn't imagine my life being the way that it is today. I can’t imagine what God's gonna do with it even in the future. If there's more, great. If there's not, great. I can stand before God one day saying, man, I trusted you, and I did it your way.

Karissa: I think that too, when you say necessary, I see it in so many different ways and so many different forms. What about you, Riz?

Mandrae: So I think there's a huge misconception with big families. I... The thing I hear all the time is the older kids raise the little kids. And that bothers me so bad because that is so far from the truth. People just really don’t understand.

Mandrae: Like, you can’t understand something you never experienced. I didn’t understand it before I experienced it. I didn’t want it before I experienced it. I remember running into a lady with... I think she had seven kids and I had three and my jaw was on the floor.

Mandrae: Like, how in the world you go one kid at a time? And when I had two children, I remember, like, drowning, feeling like there's no way. There's no way I can do this. There's no way I can have another child. And now with 11, I’m like, I want 11 more, you know?

Mandrae: Like, it is so life giving. Mhmm. But the thing is, when I was growing up, I have one... I grew up with one sister. And on chore day, we had to clean the house and it took us ten hours to clean our house, our little house.

Mandrae: And I felt like a slave. You know, that sounds terrible. But I remember I remember the thought in my head. My mom had me just to clean her house. And now, we have 11 children and the thing that took me ten hours takes my kids one hour.

Mandrae: Like, they have... You have less to do. Your kids have less to do. The other thing that I’ve noticed in American culture is a lot of families with two kids, they the mom takes on all the responsibility. The mom does all the cleaning and all the chores.

Mandrae: The kids go play video games. And when you have 11 kids, the mom can’t take on all the chores. And so, all the kids help. So what I noticed is my mom, when she has my kids, like, she'll take my kids for a week sometimes in the summer, and she'll tell me, your children can do significantly more than a normal child. Like, your children are just self sufficient.

Mandrae: Like, they can a normal a normal teenager, a normal eight year old cannot do the things your kids can do. And it’s not because they’re forced to do those things. It’s because, like, the joy that they have in helping with their siblings. Now, here's the thing that people really probably don’t believe me on. I beg my kids to stop helping.

Mandrae: Okay? I tell my kids, please stop picking up the baby like you’re spoiling him. Stop trying to change your diaper. Stop... Like, I’m not gonna say stop doing laundry or dishes, but, you know, I...

Mandrae: Sometimes, I’m just like, you’re helping too much. You’re doing too much. Like, they’re obsessed with their siblings.

Karissa: Oh, yeah.

Mandrae: Just people just assume that they’re not... The teenagers want their alone time because that’s the normal teenager today. But the coolest thing is raising children that love their family, that love their siblings, and that want to help around the house. And when you have little bits to do, you’re more willing to help. But if I had two kids and I’m like, clean the whole house, they’re like, no.

Karissa: I've been an idiot. There you go. It’s true.

Kevin: And that’s that's interesting. My wife is... Has always been really good about the language we use and and not in terms of, like, cuss words or anything like that, but how we talk about our kids, around our kids, not around our kids, but to always be mindful that we talk about them as they are a blessing because they are a blessing. Because we could live in a world where they’re oftentimes an inconvenience of, like, I can’t wait to get them just sitting in the corner, putting in front of a TV screen, whatever. And, she's been so intentional about that, and it’s been so good because all my kids, it’s not just their environment where they’re around other siblings, it’s that they hear it.

Kevin: Even when we’re not thinking about it, they’re hearing that they are a blessing. And so they see themselves as a blessing, and they see their siblings as a blessing. So, of course, they want to be with them. They wanna be around them. They wanna help even to a fault.

Kevin: But, we’re talking a lot about what happens inside the home because a lot happens inside the home. But, from talking earlier, it sounds like there's a lot that happens outside the home, and a lot of people would think 11 kids that you can’t do anything outside the home. You got 11 kids. Kelly and I often talk about the fact that we want to spend as little time as possible having the house pulled together, all these things, conversations about decisions. We want to systematize as much as we can so we can focus on the relationships and the mission that we’re on.

Kevin: So a day in the life, a Tuesday in the life in your house, are there systems? Are there rhythms? Are there things that are just natural parts so that you can focus on what's actually important?

Mandrae: Yes. I mean, absolutely. Like, so a normal school day is different than a normal summer day. Because right now, we’re in the summer, but I can run through a normal school day. We...

Mandrae: They they have their routine. Like, because we homeschool, they can sleep in. So the kids usually get good rest, which is amazing. They wake up happy because they’re well rested. They'll wake up.

Mandrae: They know that they’re supposed to get ready for the day. They do their chores, clean their rooms, make their beds, clean the bathroom, whatever they have to do. And then we meet at the dining room table. We do our school together. It takes sometimes two to four hours depending on which child's do...

Mandrae: Which child I’m helping. I make lunch in the middle of all of that. We eat together. One of the things that we always do... So we have very specific rhythms.

Mandrae: So before we do school, the whole the whole house is picked up. Before we do lunch, we pick up. After lunch, we pick up. After school, we pick up. Before we go outside, we pick up.

Mandrae: Before we go to the grocery store, we pick up. Before we go to basketball. And so when we have that, they know, okay, it’s time to leave. Let's pick up. Then we never really have like these two hour cleaning sessions because we spend ten minutes picking everything up before we move on to any next thing.

Mandrae: So that has been, like, the greatest blessing for us is being able to know, like, this is what we’re gonna do before we move on to anything else.

Karissa: And if you think about that too, like, just in terms of what is teaching them in life. Right? If our kids go to a restaurant, they'll look significantly different than any other family. They will pick up that table and clean it off, and the workers are like, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Karissa: Like, that’s my job. But what they don’t realize is that our children are already conditioned at home to pick up behind themselves before they leave or before they move on. Right? And so it gives us an opportunity to be able to speak that even back into employees that come out, and they’re like, man, y'all's family's a blessing. Right?

Karissa: Kinda ties back into what Kevin was talking about is that, man, like, the mission on the outside of the house needs to be louder than the mission on the inside. Right? Because what you pour into the children inside the walls of your home should manifest in reality when they walk out of it. And so I... And, I mean, you think about the words of the Lord.

Karissa: He says, man, they will know you by the way that you love. Right? And the only way for them to know is to be able to see an outward expression of it. So for our children, when they walk out, they are a blessing not only to us in this house, but they’re gonna be a blessing to everybody on the outside of it that’s not used to living inside of it with them. And so this is just another aspect of it in terms of, hey, picking up behind yourself by just doing that in the open space, you just bless an employee with less work.

Rance: I love that. Just the piece that those rhythms and habits are creating in your family. Mandra, I wanna I wanna get a dad's perspective on this because, you know, there's a lot of men in our culture that would be like, 11 kids? I would want nothing to do with that. Like, that’s that's women's work.

Rance: You know? Like... But when you got 11 kids, you've gotta be involved. And so I... I’m wondering because I know you’re a coach.

Rance: Does that mindset of sort of, like, seeing your kids, your family as a team, you’re the coach, does that energize you? What what makes this so valuable for you to wanna engage as a dad in in a large family?

Karissa: Man, I love that question. And and honestly, I’ve sat in the presence of many men that have been vocal kind of just like what you talked about, Ray. There's no way I could ever. Right? All those things.

Karissa: But, honestly, as a dad and a coach in in quite literally, I get to be their coach because a lot of my kids play. Right? And so... But that mindset for me is I strive to be present versus being perfect. Right?

Karissa: There's only one perfect father. Right? I’m going to fall short. Like, I’ve literally sat down with my kids, and I’ve told them that my only goal in this life is to be a sign that points you to the father. And this was a one on one conversation I had.

Karissa: Not one on one. It’s it’s one on, like, 11, if you will, where I’m sitting them down across, and I’m having this conversation. And as I’m talking to them, I’m literally in tears because I know that there's gonna be a day where I won’t be here. Right? But at the end of the day, I want them to know that as long as I take their little hands and I can connect them to a father that’s eternal, that they'll have everything that they need in this lifetime.

Karissa: My stance, man, is to may... Strive to be present in every aspect of your children's life, regardless if you got one or you got 11. This whole thing about I don’t have time, like, that... That's... That excuse is gonna run itself ragged.

Karissa: Right? But it’s not about if you have enough time. The question is do you make enough time? And that’s something that I will always do regardless of how many that we have. You know, we do one on one dates.

Karissa: We go out. I go out with my daughters. I go out with my sons. Right? We spend time.

Karissa: We go on... She does, like, a girls trip with the girls, or she does, a date with the boys. Like, we make sure that we do that, for one another. So those children can have those one on one times, they can talk openly about anything that they may be going through, struggling through, or just successes. Right?

Karissa: Whatever that looks like. And so from a coaching standpoint, it’s it's... I gotta be able to take a dad hat off, put a coach hat on, and then vice versa. Right? But I think that at the end of the day, my ability to be able to steward them well, right, with whatever they’re going through and help them navigate through this life by either taking time apart and separating them or just keeping them together because what message that I have is for all of them.

Karissa: Right? We will do that. Every single week, we do our own church where we’re meeting together even as a family. We’re sitting on the couch and everybody's reading that can read, and and we allow them to have a voice in it. we ask questions like, man, what are you guys getting out of this?

Mandrae: The bible.

Karissa: Yeah. The bible. Yeah. He knows. But

Mandrae: I... We have other people listening.

Karissa: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. What are you getting out of this? Right?

Karissa: And so it’s an opportunity for all of us to to pray, and we challenge even some of our younger ones to, hey, to to just pray openly because if there's gonna be a safe place for them right here, is it? Right?

Mandrae: The challenge that they beg.

Karissa: Yeah. Now they... Yeah. Yeah. They do.

Karissa: They they beg pray. Like, I wanna go. Wanna go. Right?

Mandrae: We have to be like, oh, hey.

Karissa: Even at the dinner table. Right? So it’s just it’s just... Man, create the atmosphere that... In your house that you want your children to be able to thrive in.

Karissa: So that... That’s my take.

Kevin: I'm just thinking about what... Mandrae, sometimes you gotta slow down because there's just so much gold, and I think people miss it because you go from one thing to the next. And I wanna interrupt you, like, six times. Like, no. You gotta sit on that because this is really hard for men.

Kevin: And it’s so... It’s been so natural. Right? You know, audience of one, I don’t care what other people say. My kids are a blessing.

Kevin: Like, you almost come off in this way of this was only... As soon as it became natural to me, it became natural to me, there was no struggle. That’s wonderful. I was not the same way. And so I know that there's guys listening that are like, I don’t know.

Kevin: And what what I found to be true and what I had this internal struggle even when I knew that God was calling me to a bigger family or we were living it out was that I was still finding identity and purpose in my best time in my nine to five because that’s what the world had always told me. And the framework and the vision that I had for family was at home, and the vision and the framework for me was outside the home. And so that’s where it’s so easy for a man to say or see their kids, not as a blessing, but as an inconvenience and a cost and getting outside of the lifestyle that I’ve chosen, because they’re getting in the way of this identity and purpose. But when you use the framework of coach and have this vision of, like, I’m the coach, like, that is my purpose. That is that is where God has me.

Kevin: That is my identity. Then it does shift things. And all of a sudden, it’s like my greatest time spent, my greatest invest... Investment is in the home. And then all the giftings that you have outside the home, when you re repurpose them inside the home, it’s like, oh, okay.

Kevin: Wait a second. All these things that I actually like doing and seeing this progress made day by day, I get to see it in my own home. It’s like, oh, no. That is easy. That is natural.

Kevin: But it’s so hard because that’s what... I mean, that’s the framework that the world tells us. And so if it was easy for you, man, kudos to you. Yeah. And let

Karissa: me touch

Kevin: I look up to you.

Mandrae: But Yeah. Let's clarify.

Karissa: And and I wanna touch that because, Kevin, that was great. I like how you just framed that, man. I absolutely love it. And you’re right. There's no way possible that Mandrae arrived here on his own.

Karissa: Let me... I mean, if I bounce back, man, let me just tell you the struggle, right, and how I got to where I am today. And you know what? Four kids in? Three.

Karissa: Three kids in. Right? So three kids in, we were on... We're... Now now now mind you, we’re on this...

Karissa: We're trusting god with our family size, all of that on this journey. Right? But they were coming so fast, Kevin. Right? I’m like, hold on.

Karissa: Pump the brakes a little bit. Right? And the wifey got sick. So I’m like, man, they coming fast. My wife is sick.

Karissa: And so this was really where my fork in the road started to come in, where I’m like, man, I don’t I don’t know so... I don’t I don't... I’m not so sure really about this trusting god with the family size thing. Right? And I went to Karissa, and I remember having a conversation with her about, man, I know that she was already sold out about no more birth control, not going back on it.

Karissa: So it was like, man, it’s not gonna be her, so it’s gonna have to be me. Right? So my main objective at that point was, man, Mandrae’s gonna have to go get it for second.

Mandrae: Well, let's be clear. I was diagnosed with MS.

Karissa: Yes.

Mandrae: So it wasn't just, like, a little bit sick.

Karissa: Yeah. So she was diagnosed with m... MS, the hole in the heart.

Mandrae: I had a hole in the heart. So they To have heart surgery.

Karissa: I think they did a EKG.

Mandrae: During the day. So we had all of that on him as well.

Karissa: So she had all of this going on

Mandrae: It's three and under.

Karissa: And three kids. Right? And so the cause of it, we kinda went went back and forth in terms of what was causing it, which we believe was what?

Mandrae: Causing what?

Karissa: the...

Mandrae: No. I had... The birth control.

Karissa: The birth control.

Mandrae: The doctors solidified. I came to the conclusion that the birth control that I was on when we got married, which I hadn't been on for three years, had caused many strokes in my brain. Like, they're... The birth control I was on, they had all these lawsuits out at the time. Mhmm.

Mandrae: And so I believe that’s what caused the MS, the hole in the heart I had since birth.

Karissa: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So so so with all of that going on, Mandrae’s thinking, alright, man, I need to get a vasectomy. Right?

Karissa: And really at that point, it was almost like a threat to her, right, that I’m going to get a vasectomy. She was reading a book at that time that was called Be Fruitful and Multiply. I mean, so she had read the entire book. She's on fire about this whole trusting God, no intervention, none of that, no prevention. And she said, hey, before you make that decision, read this book.

Karissa: Right?

Mandrae: No. The book is what the bible says about it. Okay? It’s not just...

Karissa: Rance. That’s not Rance. Don’t agree with that. that is that is her interpretation. What it says.

Karissa: And it’s a good book. Good lady who wrote it. I get it. But here's the thing. At the end of the day, I picked it up, read the foreword.

Mandrae: Yeah. He didn't

Karissa: read it. And I did... I didn’t read the book because I... You read what it’s about before you dive into it. Right?

Karissa: And so when I read about what it was about, I was like, man, you know what? This is a woman's opinion who wrote this book. Right? It’s man made. Man, yes, she used bible verses and all the other stuff.

Karissa: But if if we’re honest about it, man, people can take any bible verse and tailor it to what they want to. Right? Yes. Alright. Yes.

Karissa: Okay. I’m clear. Alright. So with that being said, I refused to read the book. Right?

Karissa: I told her, I said, you know what? I’m a go to God. I’m a pray about it, and I just wanna hear from God on this topic. And a lot of people say that, but I literally did that. Right?

Karissa: So I went to God and I brought him every single obstacle, every single thing that I can possibly think of, like, man, God, like, what if my wife don’t make it? I’m left holding a bag with three kids. I got a job and many other businesses, and I gotta find a way to get a nanny. Like, I gotta figure this out. Right?

Karissa: What if it... What if they cost too much money? What if I can’t find enough time to spend with them? They’re feel like I neglected them. Right?

Karissa: So, like, all these things that you can even possibly think of. But as I continue to sit in that fast of seeking God on this topic, he came back with one answer, and it's... I’m bigger than all those things. And that changed everything for me in terms of how I view more children, trusting God. We were out in public.

Karissa: Now mind you

Mandrae: To be clear, this was a four year journey.

Karissa: This is

Mandrae: So what he's saying right now, it took four years for him to really hear God on it to, like, make that decision. So when I was... When... After I gave birth to the third, I ended up going on birth control because he said he was gonna give vasectomy. And I said, well, I don’t wanna do anything permanent, so I went on birth control for two days.

Mandrae: The holy spirit wouldn't let me swallow the pill for another day. Like, the holy spirit in me was like, you cannot do this. And so that’s when I told him, you have to get a vasectomy because I’m not doing it. Like, I want no part of it. And I looked him in the eyes, and I said, you will have to answer to God for this.

Karissa: And so after, like I said, after this time with God and really getting clear... Hearing the clarification from him in terms of his viewpoint on it. We were out in public with our children, and the lady goes, man, those children are so beautiful. How many more are you gonna have?

Mandrae: Which everyone says every time, and I always answer.

Karissa: And so so she intentionally didn’t answer this time. So she looked at me. Right?

Mandrae: Yeah. Because we fought we fought the police.

Karissa: She looked at me, and I think that this was something that really kinda blew her away was when I looked back at the lady and I said, man, we’re gonna have as many as God's gonna give us.

Mandrae: And I had no idea.

Karissa: Because she didn’t know... She didn’t have any idea that God changed my heart on this topic. The last conversation she heard was that I’m gonna have to get a pheractomy.

Mandrae: And so I always thought maybe he got it and I didn’t know. I kept getting pregnant. Like, this was by the time we had baby seven that he... I think it was right before he got pregnant with baby seven that God changed his heart. Mhmm.

Mandrae: So it took a good four years Yeah. For the change. So it isn't like... It’s just a super simple... But his thing now, the thing that he gets a lot of men...

Mandrae: Because we have families come over and spend ten minutes with him, and you’re gonna be like, oh, yeah. Of course. It’s a obvious decision. He's just like... It’s just faith.

Mandrae: Like, you just... You try to spot or you don't. It’s like literally that easy but that hard.

Karissa: But... Yeah. I mean, it’s it's... But to your point, though. Right?

Karissa: Like, that should be the core of our conversations. Like, while we’re sitting here on Outpost right now, we’re talking about, man, family size. Like, if if if I can’t attack the root, then the tree don’t matter.

Rance: Yeah.

Karissa: You get what I’m saying? So, like, for for us to... Back to you, Cameron, like, this was my journey of struggle, and this was my journey of saying, you know what? I’ll just cut it off. Right?

Karissa: Because I got so much going on. I wanna make sure the wife is good. Let me tell you, my wife is in the best health she's ever been.

Kevin: Yeah. Uh-huh. Right?

Mandrae: She had good heels.

Karissa: Now now now watch this, All this stuff about MS holding her heart, we went back to the doctor. She has no signs of MS, which people will say, oh, it’s an incurable disease.

Mandrae: Yeah.

Karissa: Then somebody's gonna have to tell me why this miracle lady here has absolutely nothing. Right? Somebody's gotta tell me why this hole in remark... Hole in the heart is not even visible. Right?

Karissa: Like, that to me showed that when you can clearly operate in obedience, god meets you on the other side. He always meets you on the other side. It’s never a before thing because to to your point, it ain't faith. Like, I’m not gonna give the crying baby candy before they act right. Right?

Karissa: We need you to act right to get the reward. So it’s no different in this life. But, man, that was the journey that I took. It was a lot of struggle, and I challenge other men because a lot of them come to me. I don’t know if there's anything that any man has ever said to me that I didn’t think of or think through or go through, right, or struggle through to be able to get to where I am now.

Mandrae: The thing with the book that I gave him to read, he could have read that book. That book, the Lord actually told me to read. But he could have read that book and he could have just been like, fine, God told you, I’m gonna do it. But then he wouldn't live it. It wouldn't be his life.

Mandrae: The thing is, as men and as women of our homes, as mothers and fathers, we need to not seek what our our spouse thinks is the thing do. We need to not do what the pastor says is the right thing to do. We need to seek the Lord. You have to fast and pray. You have to have relationship for yourself, and you have to ask anything.

Mandrae: Anything you do, you should be seeking God first. Don’t seek... Like, seek his word, but you don’t have to... You shouldn't be listening to what other people think is right or wrong. You just ask God, and you don’t relent until you get an answer.

Karissa: Man, I love that. And I think even for the viewers, man, know this is... I know you guys are in charge of this, but I feel really called right now to be able to say, man, to anybody viewing this, Mhmm. It is so important that you don’t become a nagger to your partner if you were fell... If you were feeling in a certain way to really trust God in this area, that you don’t nag.

Karissa: Right? Because I think that pushes you further apart than it ever than it ever will pulling you back together. And so the best thing that you can do is pray for them and challenge them to seek god on the matter. And I’m so glad I didn’t read this lady's book. Right?

Karissa: Like, as much as they say it’s a great book, I get it. But let me tell you, the end... The word that I got from God is better than any word that I could have read in a Yeah. And so for me, it solidified in me now. Like, I...

Karissa: This ain't up for negotiation. Trusting God is not up for negotiation for me. Right? Because he solidified it himself. Therefore, my answer has never changed.

Karissa: People ask me today with 11 kids. How many kids you gonna have as me as god will give me?

Mandrae: Yeah. We don’t know. And the thing is trusting god, people think means 25 children. But there's... I’ve met so

Karissa: many people.

Mandrae: I've met so many people that trusted God and had zero, trusted God and had one, trust... Like, it doesn't... You just trust God. And ultimately, he knows your your situation. He knows your circumstance.

Mandrae: He knew I had a mess. And the thing is a lot of people are like, I’m not going to have another child because I’m sick. Well, if you just give it... God knows you’re sick. He knows what you’re going through.

Mandrae: He knows that you might be ten pounds overweight. He knows all of those things and I’m telling you his timing can be trusted. I have put him to the test many times. I have been like, okay, if you just are intimate, you’re just gonna get pregnant. It’s not true.

Mandrae: If you fully surrendered your family size to the Lord, he will take control of it. And it isn't just whenever you’re intimate. It isn't just when you’re ovulating. You don’t have to think about that. The coolest thing about trusting God is it’s freedom.

Mandrae: It's pure freedom.

Karissa: Yeah.

Mandrae: You don’t have to worry ever if I am gonna get pregnant or I’m not gonna get pregnant. I don’t have to worry about any of those things because I know he has the his best intentions for our family. He knows our circumstances. He knows our situations. And he...

Mandrae: His way is better. So, I always tell people, I am more afraid to prevent. I am more afraid to not trust him because I do believe that you can have children outside of his timing, and it can be a complete mess. We just don’t know what's best. Only he does.

Mandrae: Yeah. And we have to trust that.

Rance: Yeah. Karissa, thank you. You know, I wanna touch on something kind of vulnerable. I mean, this whole conversation has been vulnerable, but, you know, you've got parents out there who would love to have a house full of children and who can't, you know, for a variety of reasons. I understand that you guys have experienced miscarriage in in your own story.

Rance: You know, what would you say to to those that or maybe they'd love to be married, but they haven't been able to find, you know, that their their spouse. What what would you say to someone who longs for children but but can’t have them?

Mandrae: So the exact same thing. You just surrender it to the Lord and trust God. So in the Bible in the Bible, all the infertile women that they speak of, all he blessed them all with children. And so, I a 100% believe that you just give it to him and trust him. And they cried out for children.

Mandrae: Like, they longed for them. It’s okay to have those feelings, to long for children. I believe baby fever is a gift from the Lord. I believe he gave that to us, and a lot of women want to quench it and pretend like it’s not there or deny it or justify it. But I believe that the Lord’s given women that feeling.

Mandrae: And so, I believe that if you have that, that you just give it to the Lord. You can cry out for children. Yeah. You can adopt. You can foster.

Mandrae: There's so many other things and I know so many women that have given that to the Lord, then they go on to foster and then they have their own children. But ultimately, it’s just you trust God to give and you trust God to take. So we have had four miscarriages and they have been so hard, my last one, I think, being my hardest. And I ultimately, like, full on believe that it is so much bigger than just trusting God to give you all these children. You have to trust him when you have one almost dying in the hospital.

Mandrae: Like, we have crazy testimony about that. You have to trust him when you have a miscarriage. And I have so many friends having miscarriages right now. And what I always say is you gave that baby eternity. So I believe that the children in our womb have eternity.

Mandrae: And so no matter what... Some women have had nine miscarriages in a row. Well, you've given nine children eternity. Like, there... It’s not a lost pregnancy.

Mandrae: It's not a lost child. It’s still a blessing, and you've still given it life.

Kevin: Amen. That’s beautiful. It’s funny, Mandra, you said earlier that, you know, we’re in charge of this podcast, which it’s very clear that we are not in charge of this podcast. We had a very different direction for where this was gonna go, and that’s why... Kinda like having kids, it’s his plan.

Kevin: And so, what I hope everybody heard and everybody took away, because the reality is, and I’m sure you guys have this in your life, that people that you know, that you love, that you believe are theologically sound still disagree with you. And and you've... Yep. I hope you found that this is... You know, we all believe in Christ, who are in the family and the kingdom, and this is not necessarily a hill to die on, and we can disagree and still move forward in the kingdom.

Kevin: But I hope what everybody heard, whether they agreed with everything you said or not, is two things. One, that children are a blessing, and that they are only, good, and they only have value, and, they are always of God. And two, which was very clear, this really does come down to a trust thing with God, which was hit home for me and was already a challenge for me because you can apply that in so many areas of life and one that we probably don’t think of enough when it comes to, children. So whether you got a big family, small family, we’re all been challenged to see our kids differently and to trust in the Lord for all provisions, financial, everything, whatever it is. And so outside of that big step to take, we always do a small step to take.

Kevin: It's called our Outpost Challenge. This is where in the show you guys get an opportunity to challenge Rance and I in something, a small step that we can take with our families this week. And then listeners, whoever's tuning in, they can take it as well just so we can make sure that these are not just... That we’re not just consuming something, that we’re actually taking this information, and we’re taking small steps this week. So I’m excited, nervous, all the above.

Kevin: I think you guys are probably pretty creative. So give it to us. What do got for us?

Karissa: So, man, I would chat... This week was a good little time with our family. And one of the challenges that I will have for you guys is, man, take time to sit down with your family collectively. 1 John three is one of 1 John one through 1 John one through three, is is one of our favorite passages. So really take time and read that through, with them.

Karissa: It sets the tone for what it looks like to live in Christ with a sinless life. And so... And that’s all also about that because I think that when you sit down and you have a conversation with it, a lot of eyes are opened. In terms of that, yeah, I’ll just keep...

Mandrae: I'm gonna clarify what that looks like. So when we decided to home church, we... Well, this is mostly him, but the Lord told him that the main mission for home churching was to raise up the men to be present, spiritually present, and leaders of their homes. Because ultimately, in America, the husbands are going to church, sending their kids off, and never talking about anything spiritual in their homes, expecting the churches to raise up their children. Right.

Mandrae: And so, in starting the home church, every Sunday, we sit down as a family, we pray, worship, and then read physically the word because, unfortunately, in the church, children think the Bible is for the adults and that they can’t they can’t understand it. So what we have is a generation of adults that think the Bible is too hard for them to read. Every time I challenge people to read the Bible, they’re like, I don’t understand that. I’ll never understand that. I can't.

Mandrae: That's too... It’s too complicated. That’s why we invite our children in because the holy spirit is not... It is universal for children and for adults. And so we invite our children in to read the same things we’re reading and to hear it.

Mandrae: I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care if you’re six months old. You’re hearing the word of God, and it’s doing something to you. So our children say... And we read two chapters every week, but the challenge is for you to sit down with your kids and just as a family read like six verses at a time.

Mandrae: Each person reads and then discuss and then read and discuss. Worship and pray. And I will tell you

Karissa: Yeah.

Mandrae: Our children, we've seen the most transformation in their life by doing this. And at first, I thought it’s so hard to get like, you know, a toddler to listen or even an eight year old to sit and listen. And after doing it for six years now, it is their favorite thing to do. And it blew my mind because one day, I took my daughter to her birthday dinner and I asked her, what's your, like, favorite thing of your whole life? And she was turning 12, 11 or I think 11, maybe 11.

Mandrae: And I said, what was your favorite thing in your whole life, like, best day of your life? And she said, every Sunday when I sit down with you guys. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. Like, what's your favorite day, like, going to Emma's house or 6 Flags or

Rance: Mhmm.

Mandrae: And she's, like, sitting down with you... I’m gonna cry. She's, like, sitting down with you guys every Sunday. Like, I didn’t realize the impact it made. I thought that it was like annoying to them that they had to sit down with their parents and read the bible, but they...

Mandrae: It has changed their faith. It’s changed Yeah. Everything about them. So...

Karissa: And so that... Like, part of that challenge when you guys are reading with them, I think it’s so important to ask them what their thoughts are.

Rance: Yeah.

Karissa: I think a lot of children are not used to having their opinions heard. Right? Most of the time when they do speak, it’s coming from a childlike position to where adults kind of put it off. They don’t listen to it as much, or they don’t they don’t they don’t put a lot of value on it. Right?

Karissa: But in this setting, we’re talking about the word now. Right? To where we’re all children. We’re all children. So in those settings, yeah, you’re you're called to be a leader.

Karissa: You're called to be a priest. You’re called to, you know, to to to to to manage that peace as a man. But for for a couple minutes, let us all just be children of the Lord to where we are just listening and we’re learning together. And I think that... I wanna see...

Karissa: I wanna hear from you guys in terms of how that really does transform your your family, and just kinda hear back from you guys on that.

Kevin: We asked for a challenge for a step to take, and you just said, hey. Just create a family rhythm of every Sunday for the next Yeah.

Rance: Forever. No. Challenge accepted, Mandrae and Karissa.

Karissa: This has

Rance: been awesome. I mean, as as Kevin said, there's there's so many other paths we could go down in this conversation. So more to come. We'll have to have you guys back. Thank you just for modeling surrender and, you know, a walk with God where you're...

Rance: It's just simple trust and obedience, and then we've gotten to see the blessing that has resulted in your family. Thank you for sharing that with us today. It was really powerful. And for those of you who are listening, I hope you'll take that challenge too that they shared and and do that with with your family. I hope you'll share this episode with others who need to hear this.

Rance: Help us spread the word, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks, everybody.

The Family Outpost, Episode 4 | Pillar 2: The Priesthood of the Family (feat. Yuri Jean-Baptiste)

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:00:33 GMT

Every dad asks it eventually: do I have what it takes? In Episode 4, Rance and Kevin open Pillar 2 of the Kingdom Outpost framework, the Priesthood of the Family, with a report back from their first Outpost Challenge, writing down the vision God has for each of their children.

Their guest, Yuri Jean-Baptiste, an athletic trainer, author, and father of two outside Raleigh, North Carolina, shares an honest story of growing up in a strict, rules-based home after his mother's early death, coming to real faith with his wife Jennifer right before marriage, and learning to lead his home rather than just privately believe.

From a gut-punch comment from his wife to a turning-point experience on an Xtreme Character Challenge, Yuri walks through what spiritual leadership looks like in practice: daily devotionals, praying with toddlers, casting vision instead of demanding compliance, and leaning on faith over credentials. The episode closes with a practical Outpost Challenge built around putting God's Word somewhere your family cannot help but see it.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro and Theme Music

00:25 Do I Have What It Takes?

00:58 Pillar 2: The Priesthood of the Family

01:37 Outpost Challenge Field Report

13:08 Meet Yuri Jean-Baptiste

14:11 Yuri's Story

20:08 Private Belief and Spiritual Leadership

23:11 Leading at Home in Daily Life

27:38 Casting Vision at Home

36:26 No Seminary Degree Required

39:16 Simple Enough for Home

41:16 Knowledge and Relationship

43:12 Entering Fatherhood

44:10 Outpost Challenge

46:04 Reading the Bible With Your Family

47:12 Closing and Next Episode Preview

Outpost Challenge

Find a Bible verse and put it somewhere your whole family will pass by, such as the fridge, the front door, or the stairway. Let it spark conversation organically. If you want to go deeper, bring that same verse to the dinner table and ask how it resonates with everyone's life today.

It is literally Deuteronomy 6: writing God's Word on the doorposts of your home. Rance and Kevin are taking the challenge themselves and want to hear how it goes for your family too.

Email us at familyoutpost@all4one.org to share how the challenge goes for your family. We read every response.

Downloadable Resource

Reading the Bible With Your Family, A Simple Starting Guide: https://irp.cdn-website.com/3068abde/files/uploaded/How+to+Read+the+Bible+with+Your+Family.pdf

Links

The Family Outpost Podcast: https://www.all4one.org/the-family-outpost-podcast

SportQuest: https://www.sportquest.org/

Discerning Your Family Vision Worksheet

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/all4one_ministries/

Episode Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Kevin: My conviction is this is too important to quit. It's showing them Christ's love in their life day by day. Do they feel loved by you? Do they experience the Father's love when they're with you?

Yuri: Am I ready for this? Do I have, you know, the credentials in order to lead my family? We need to get out of our own ways and allow him to do the work.

Rance: Every dad I know carries some version of this question. Do I have what it takes? Especially when it comes to leading our family. Am I qualified? Am I falling short? And for most of us, Kevin and I included, the honest answer sometimes sounds like, I don't know. I probably should be doing more. Maybe I'm not sure where to start. If that's where you are, you're in the right place today. Welcome to The Family Outpost, a show for families who want to be intentional about building with God's design. I'm Rance.

Kevin: And I'm Kevin. And today, we're talking about pillar two, the priesthood of the family. This is the idea that you don't need a seminary degree to lead your family spiritually. You just need a willingness, a willing heart, to be an open vessel. And our guest today, who, we're going to dive into his story, going to give us a real glimpse into his experience with this pillar. And so, if you're a dad, awesome. And if you're a wife, a woman here that's tuned in and you're already thinking, is this even for me? Should I tune out? Do I go listen to something else? I encourage you, hang out for a little while. You may find that you learn a little bit more than you thought.

Rance: That's right. Well, first, before we get into the meat of today's episode, we owe our listeners a report from last week's Outpost challenge. This was our first challenge given by our guest, Hannes and Alma. Are you ready for this, Kevin?

Kevin: Yeah. Let's do

Rance: it. Alright. So here's what Hannes and Alma gave us in the last episode. Their challenge was this, write down God's vision and purpose for each one of your children. And Alma used the framing of Psalm one twenty seven that our children are like arrows, but we can only shoot an arrow when we know where it needs to go. We've got to have a target. So that image has stuck with me. Kevin, why don't you share what what you've written, what you've created for your vision for your kids?

Kevin: Yeah. So this is one that God already had done a work. And in the first episode, we talked about these these big moments in our lives, that kind of pointed us on this path of God's design. And I shared about the time in my neighborhood in front of our Pond Lake, whatever you want to call it, and and what God spoke to me there and what I was asking for and what he gave me. And one of the things that he gave me was very clear vision for my kids. And at the time, I had three. And, I didn't ask him for this, but he gave me a word over each of them, which, gosh, my daughter was a newborn at the time, I believe. And so it wasn't like I had this clarity about their character or anything that I was like, oh, well, this fits for them. Like, didn't even know one of them at all. And he put this word, and the crazy thing is I've watched over the last, gosh, six, seven years, no, five years that that's happened, how that has come up over and over. And at different times, I've had clarity and have actually seen into the future. And if I'm being real, sometimes it's been scary because we don't need to dive into this, but sometimes it requires great sacrifice on their, behalf and putting them in positions that are difficult and because of what I've seen within that vision. And so I was already there partially, but, I did commit to this challenge. I went out and got the tattoos of the arrows for the three that I've already had these words for. But I do need to get a couple more tattoos, apparently, and, pray over my my two youngers because I don't have that for them. I believe I have some guidance on Cobe, our two-year-old, but I haven't pray I haven't haven't gotten there yet for Canyon. And so this is a challenge that I don't want to rush, and I want it to come, when God brings it to fruition. So I'm just encouraged to continue on that path.

Rance: I think that brings up an important point that for some people, this is really hard, and and they may even be hesitant to do this because it sort of feels like we're just sort of predicting the future. We're trying to write out what we think is going to happen in our kids' lives. And, you know, if you happen to have a sort of controlling dominant personality, it can be really hard to, like, let go of the outcomes. It's like, no. I that was my vision. I thought that was going to happen. So the question is, is it our vision or is it God's vision? And, obviously, that that takes time. Like, that takes revelation, and the Lord has to speak to us. But I also think that, you know, the other option is that we just don't do this at all. We don't seek the Lord for vision. We sort of, just wake up in ten years and find out what's going to happen. And and there is a sense in which, yes, we all are going to do that because we have to trust the Lord. But I think vision is more about trajectory. It's it is about where we're shooting that arrow, and there are decisions and choices that we're making today that we can be really intentional about. So I think this is a really great exercise. Full disclosure, kinda like you, I had already done some work on this with my kids. I only have two as opposed to having to do this five times, so I have a little leg up there. But as I was praying about this this week, the Lord reminded me of something too, kind of similar to what you said. When my kids were born, just prior to them being born, the Lord gave us a scripture for both of them. And we've actually taken the these scripture passages, put them on a canvas on a wall that's hanging in their room. So I went into their room this week and started reading through these scriptures and just asking the Lord, what what does that scripture say about the vision that you have, for their lives? And so started with Cortlynn, my daughter. Her verse is Psalm 84. And if you're familiar with that one, it says, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. So what I wrote was, I envision Cortlynn as a woman who serves the Lord, who dwells in his presence, and who blesses her environment. In the in that passage, it says, they pass through the Valley Of Baca, and they make it a place of spring. So I picture her everywhere she goes just leaving a blessing behind. I also I always envision this for her that she's going to be an amazing wife and mother who builds our family from generation to generation. It's part of the blessing that I say over her, every Shabbat. That's sort of the big picture. And then part of my exercise with this was to even make this a little more concrete and think about where are my kids going to be in ten years and what who do I hope they are becoming? And I I've found this to be really illuminating to ask the Lord this and to write this out. So I won't read through everything, every detail, but I put in there things like, ten years from now, Cortlynn will be 17. She's going to be a teenager, but I see her as a secure, confident young woman prepared for a lifetime of kingdom impact. There's certain skills, you know, that I want her to have. There are she's very creative, so there's all kinds of things that are associated with that. I want her to be emotionally and relationally intelligent and to be grounded in her faith and identity, and in in the vision that I see for her that I believe the Lord's given me even to the point of others in our church and our community going, you know, man, that Cortlynn, like, we need to seek her out to be around our daughters. You know, we want her to be a good influence to them. So that gives me a target. That gives me something to aim at. And you know what? The outcomes are in God's hands. For my son, just quickly, his verse is Proverbs two one through 11. It's a wisdom passage. And so I see him I envision for him that he'll be a man of wisdom and integrity, trustworthy and responsible, and an amazing husband and father who builds our family from generation to generation. And then I did the same little practical thing with him. So ten years from now, he'll be 20, and I envision him becoming a young man of faith, competence, vision. Again, there are certain skills and and experiences that I I have in my mind for him that even as he's a teenager that will start building. I see him having some spiritual maturity, being able to lead others, mentoring younger guys, and then also just practically, like, knowing how to work with his hands, having some of those skills. And then, you know, at age 20, I don't know where he's going to be in life with, you know, finding that special someone and maybe starting his own family, but he's going to know that team Bland is fully behind behind him as he prepares to start that. So those are just some of the things that I've written down and and reflected on.

Kevin: Sounds like you haven't done much thinking about this at all. So

Rance: I love this stuff. You know, obviously, it's it's right up our alley with the Kingdom Outpost. But, you know, writing this down is I'll just say this, reminds me of the power of words and and and intention. It's, kinda like speaking blessing. Vision is very much like that. I mean, God spoke the world into existence, and our words have the power to shape identity and destiny. So I think if you approach it that way, it's very different from trying to control the outcomes and sort of predict the future. That that's not what we're talking about here. But we we can shape things with our words, and I'd much rather aim toward that vision than, you know, just sort of coasting for the next ten years and hoping it

Kevin: all works out. So Sounds like we need to do a whole episode on just the power of our words.

Rance: Man, that's a great idea. We should do that. Alright.

Kevin: Alright. We got to get into today's episode.

Rance: That's right.

Kevin: But I'm still hopeful that we get to hear from somebody else that gets to tell a little story of how they, spent the time diving in, hearing from the Lord, and putting a vision together for their family. So if you if you've thought about that, if you've done that, if you sought the Lord, please let us know. We want to be encouraged through that as well.

Rance: Link's in the show notes, so we'd love to hear from you. Before we bring our guest in, just one more thing. I think it's important for us just to start with this. I've been leading my family spiritually for ten years. I've been in ministry. I've been a youth pastor. You know, you could say there's there's a pretty significant, like, spiritual background. And even with that, I just want to say that I still have many moments where I'm like, am I doing this right? You know, I still feel ill equipped at times that lots of times I don't know what to say. No handbook was ever given to me that it's like, do these four things, you know, and and you'll always get it right. And so there is a lot of sort of learning as we go and doubts and questions, but my conviction is this is too important to quit. And so even the moments that feel awkward or I don't know. It may be it's landing flat. I don't know if I'm seeing the right things. I just know that I got to keep going and that the Lord is growing me in this process and that it's more about faithfulness than getting it right all the time. So can you relate to that, Kevin? What you know, do you have some of those feelings as well?

Kevin: I always like to joke, but this is one of those things that it does hit home because it's it's our calling. It's one of our biggest callings, and we talk about being parents a lot, but, this is goes beyond just parents. This goes to your home. And for a lot of people that don't have kids, like, this is your wives. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard this statistic, like, those who pray with their wives every day have a zero percent divorce rate. And every time I hear that, I'm like, why don't I do that more? And every statistic or encouragement that I have, it's just another opportunity for, like, why don't I make that more important? Why do I fall short here? And it's easy to feel condemned, but because I know what Jesus did, it is just a gentle nudge back on track. And so we get a nice gentle nudge from our guests today.

Rance: That's right. That's right. So it's a good reminder. It's never too late to start. We all have those those feelings and questions, but excited to hear from our guests because I think there's going to be a lot of encouragement in this area today. So let's bring them in.

Kevin: Alright. Today, we have Yuri Jean-Baptiste joining us. Yuri is an athletic trainer. He is a author, and he's an entrepreneur. Him and his wife, Jennifer, live outside of Raleigh, North Carolina with their two beautiful girls, and he's someone who's taken it seriously to be a spiritual leader of their home, not from a position of having all the answers and memorizing the bible, but from a position of just showing up, being present over and over. So, Yuri, thanks for joining us. Glad you're here.

Yuri: Happy to be here. Thank you.

Rance: Yeah. Excited for this conversation, Yuri. Let's just start with could you share a little of your story? How'd you come to faith? When did this, topic of leading your family spiritually really become real to you? And if I could just tack on one more thing that'll probably be part of your story. Did you ever see this model? Like, did your dad set an example in this area or not? Did you have to learn it on your own? So just give us a little bit of your your background.

Yuri: I would say that we grew up in a fairly religious household. We essentially went to church every Sunday or so. However, when my mother passed away, things changed. My dad went into a bit of a depression and we struggled to get to church. And when we did start going back, there wasn't really that relationship aspect. Right?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Yuri: We grew up in a with a religion where I would say there was a lot of rules. There was a distant God that was presented to us. And so to be honest with you, I grew up with the idea of this old guy up in the sky that was essentially keeping score and I was just trying to stay out of the red. So that was my relationship with God, you know, throughout middle school, high school, and even the college. So I considered myself religious in a sense that I identified with a denomination, but I never really took it seriously. I never really engaged with this God that they they had taught me and now I like to think of it as a almost borrowed religion. You know, it wasn't a religion that I had accepted as my own, it was something that was drilled into me and so I just kind of followed whatever rules that they gave me. Now, after I met my now wife, Jennifer, we had talked a bit about attending church and every now and then we would we would go. But it wasn't until one of our bowl games actually when I had invited her to come with us around the Christmas time And while we were there, it was one of those things, hey, we're we're Christian, right? We should go to a church for for Christmas. And so we attended a service, it was a nondenominational church and I couldn't tell you what it was about the sermon, but that sermon saved my life absolutely. Wow. And the next thing I know, Jen's crying, I'm crying and we're looking at each other and we're saying, okay, there's some changes we might want to start making in our And so after that, yeah, we really started dedicating ourselves to to Christ as actual followers and believers. And so ever since then, it's just been an incredible journey that we've both taken together.

Rance: Was that moment prior to children?

Yuri: Yes. Okay. Yes. That was before we we had gotten married. We were engaged at the time. So this was really an an eye opener toward what the vision of our eventual family was going to be. Now as far as, you know, you had brought up, was this something that was modeled to us? Again, my my dad was a believer in God, but he did have struggles after my mother's passing and, you know, raising three kids on his own initially was a difficult thing for him. And so there was a part of him, I believe, that really did struggle to model out maybe something he wasn't necessarily feeling to be true. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't until he met my bonus mother, Jocelyn, that she really helped ignite that fire in him again. And ever since then, again, his life has changed and the trajectory of our family changed after that.

Kevin: How old were you when your mom passed? I was five. Okay. And then how old were you when you and Jennifer were at this church service and your heart was awakened to what God wanted to do with you?

Yuri: I believe I was 25 at the time. When when

Kevin: did Jocelyn when did your bonus mom come into the picture?

Yuri: Jocelyn came into the picture when I was in sixth grade.

Kevin: Okay. So you went from young age to sixth grade with dad battling depression and following that fatherhood, and then things changed for middle school and okay. And then good. Thank you.

Yuri: Yeah. We we didn't have the ideal setting in terms of growing up. You know, parents loved us obviously, but it was one of those things where we were in a very strict household, very rules based, and a lot of that wound up getting applied to the way I view God. But, yeah, that's that was how I was saved and how I started to follow Christ. Now, again, this is something that I was starting to figure out on my own, so it definitely was not perfect. And when it came to leading the household, even at the time I was saved, I didn't really start thinking about what that meant.

Kevin: So when was that moment, whether was it before you had kids? Was it somewhere after you got married where you took the bull by the horns in terms of leadership within the home? Was it natural within your dynamics of your home for you to take the lead on things? Or when did that that change?

Yuri: It wasn't exactly natural. I don't have the kind of personality where I like to impose my will on things or try to force things upon people. I was of the belief that my faith is my faith, my spirituality is my spirituality and everybody should have the opportunity to figure it out for themselves. And so I was passive in that sense that, yes, there were things that I was looking to do to grow in my journey, but I wasn't necessarily looking to help others on theirs. I was trying to figure out stuff on my own, wasn't really thinking about how I could help Jen get to that level or anything like that. You know, if she got there, she got there, but at least she knows Jesus kind of deal. And I think a lot of men have that mentality as well where we're okay taking this journey for ourselves, but we're uncomfortable or even a little bit scared trying to guide others along that way.

Rance: Yeah. I would say, you know, most men, myself included, often don't feel qualified, especially when it comes to the spiritual stuff. And especially if that hadn't been modeled for you and you're kind of figuring out as you go, did you experience some of those feelings, especially when kids came along and now you've got your wife and, you know, some little little children looking up at you going, you know, dad, are you going to show me the way? And you're like, I'm I'm figuring out still for myself.

Yuri: Yes. So I would say a light bulb clicked for me in two instances. So one, after, you know, I had this this awakening, this this spiritual revival you could say, I had joined we started going to a church around the area and I joined a men's group and that men's group started to to really click and eventually we wound up creating another group that was a little bit more in-depth and it was built off of the Xtreme Character Challenge which the four m organization runs. And so this extreme character challenge was a really big part of the group which was called unparalleled. Within that group, they really spoke about accountability and how we could become better men not just for ourselves, but for our family. And I remember the first couple weeks of being in this group, this men's group, one of the questions we had to ask our wives was, okay, do you notice anything different about the way that I'm leaving the house, the way that I am, you know, things like that. And I asked my wife and she was like, yeah, you seem to know the Bible a little bit more. And it was like a gut punch to me because I was expecting some, oh, yeah, like you've been so such a godly husband and you've really changed your attitude and all this stuff. And that really started me thinking, okay, so I get this knowledge, but what am I actually doing with it? You know, if it's just thing inside of my head and I'm not actually trying to do anything with it, if I'm not leading with it, then it's essentially not going to do much. And so that really started me thinking outside of myself and how could I demonstrate what it is that Christ is doing in my life to others, especially my family. And then once I actually went on the XCC, the extreme character challenge hike, that completely changed my heart in terms of, okay, I really need to step up and become a servant leader for my family. At the time, I had just had my first daughter. She was a couple weeks old when I went on the hike. And so when I came back, I was all in and ready to to show them what it looks like to be a godly husband and father.

Rance: We've been talking at a pretty conceptual level about spiritual leadership, but could you give us some examples? What does it actually look like on a day to day basis? You know, whether it's between you and your wife or you with your children, are there some examples you could share?

Yuri: So when I first started trying to to take the reins of this, it was fairly small stuff that was simple, that didn't require a lot of planning or heavy interpretation on my part. So he would do daily devotionals, for example. So the Bible app has fantastic daily devotionals that you could do. You can sample them ahead of time so you could see how in-depth they are. And so I would just start doing them with my wife. We would do them together, we would respond together and we would really interact on those things. And so that started us getting more into those spiritual discussions. We would also seek books that we could read together as a couple that would really help improve how our marriage was functioning. Things like the five love languages for instance was a great book for us to read together, so that we can understand where each of us was coming from and how to better communicate with one another. And so those were small things that we were doing to start getting the wheels moving. Now when it came to our children, it's a little bit more difficult, right, because they're they're toddlers, there's only so much that they're they're able to grasp.

Rance: Yeah. Give us their ages at this moment.

Yuri: Yeah. So right now at the moment, my oldest Mariela is four and my youngest Nevea is three. Again, I'm going back to childhood the way I was taught. You know, Haitian households were pretty strict about prayer. So it was one of those things that it's like, alright, let's get together. Let's get down on our knees, put your hands together. We're going to pray and all this stuff. And she's, like, eight months old. Like, she doesn't care. So she's wandering all over the place. I'm getting frustrated. I'm like, no. This isn't how it's supposed to look. Like, you're supposed to be obedient. Sit down. Pray to God. Show some respect. But as I've gotten a little bit wiser, I've come to realize there's there's beauty and there's joy in the way that these kids interact with God

Rance: Yes.

Yuri: That I wish I had. Yeah. There's a I don't want to say casualness, but there's a carefree way in which they approach God that I think we need to as well Yeah. While still holding reverence. Right?

Kevin: Right.

Yuri: When we sit down and pray, you know, I don't expect them to be on their knees kneeling, you know, they kind of stand up and wander around, but I always tell them, you know, put your hands together, let Lord know that you're you're focused on him. And it's beautiful to see how they've grasped the things that we've said. Every night we try and do worship song and then we will do a Bible reading, you know, from the kids Bible and we let them pick the worship song, we let them pick the bible reading and they love it. They sit there, they're attentive and even when we're not having those nightly rituals, they bring it up randomly. You know, they'll bring up random bible stories or songs and it's those things that you don't think they're paying attention to or really grasping Yeah. That's actually sinking in because of you're you're normalizing it. You're making it a daily routine. Yeah.

Kevin: So how about with Jennifer? Because you guys had a relationship well before you were really following the Lord and then, you know, relationship well before having kids. And there's a shift in the way you operate as as leader within your home from a spiritual standpoint. Was there any butting heads? Were is there any roadblocks? Or was it smooth sailing? She's just like, oh, perfect. You want to lead? Okay. Let me step back.

Yuri: So my wife, Jennifer, is from New Jersey.

Kevin: So no

Rance: more. We

Kevin: can move on Very to

Yuri: yeah. She has a very strong personality. Leadership is something that she's actually good at, like she's she's a has a dominant personality. She's very much an outspoken extrovert, strong willed woman and all those are amazing blessing. I will say we especially at the beginning of our marriage, we definitely would butt heads from time to time. However, when it came to spiritual leadership, she has been fantastic. There are times where she may not always understand the reasoning why I choose or I desire to do certain things, but as we go along and we do them, she appreciates it and she appreciates the fact that I'm taking that leadership. You know, this isn't something where I suggest it and she's like, no, that's silly. You know, I don't feel comfortable doing that. It's one of those things where she'll she'll hear what I'm saying and it's important again that you convey the heart behind it that, you know, I'm not just doing things just to do them or for the purpose of rituals or things like that. It's there's a significance behind it. There's a spiritual reward that we can get if we approach things this way. And she'll look at me and she'll say, okay, I'm on board. Let's try this out. And then usually 99% of the time, it's, you know, this was a good idea and I appreciate the fact that you you brought this to the family.

Kevin: We got to sit there for just a minute because that's that's big and we'll start with first, what you said in terms of what you did, and that was, it was casting a vision. I would always cast a vision for why, I believe. I would explain. I would walk through, either through prayer and how the decision was made, but give it a background, give it a vision. And then for any women that have hung out for the episode, you have no idea what you do for a man when you're willing to be led. Because it is so hard to get to a point where you say, alright, I want to take this step of leadership, and you know you don't have it all together, and you know you're fumbling, but you just want to be obedient and take a step. And you go to take a step, and somebody sticks their foot out and says, you weren't going the right way anyway, so I knocked you down so I could lead the way. And so I say that tongue in cheek a little bit, but it's so common. And don't want to take, put the blame on women. The reality is men have stepped back from leadership, and women have been forced to step up into leadership. So it had to happen just to keep things going forward for for so long. But that's happened for so long that it's hard for women to step back and say, I'm going to let my husband lead, even imperfectly. And so if you're listening and you hear anything that you're saying, men cast a vision, women be willing to be led even if it's imperfectly and be willing to have the conversation around it. So Yeah. Yuri, that was great.

Rance: Yuri, I got to jump in because I'm right there with you, man. My my wife, very strong personality. And I'm like you. I don't like to be dominant, you know, rock the boat. And I had to learn that, typically, when I was going to suggest something or or say, hey. I feel like the Lord's leading us this direction, and I'm going to put it out there. I had to be prepared that to to allow her to have a reaction. And often, it might be negative. It might be you know, I don't see it that way. I I see it differently. And earlier in our marriage, if she would do that, I'd I'd just back down. Like, oh, I guess we're not supposed to you know, because I just didn't want to have conflict. What I realized later was she needs to feel her emotions in that moment, but then she's going to take it back and talk to the Lord. And we've had so many times now where she'll come back in 180 and be like, you know what? I feel I feel peace about it. I think I think you're right. Let's let's try this. Or or she might even say, I don't exactly see what you see, but I'm I'm willing to trust the Lord in this and and follow. And just like you said, Kevin, it is that's the best thing in the world. It's like, god, you you got my back in this? And, he has a way of bringing us together and getting us on the same page, but we have to be willing to sometimes have some conflict and disagreement and see things differently and not be passive as men about those moments. We have to step into those moments and and then trust that, you know, the Lord will bring unity, eventually in the decision.

Kevin: I'm going to take us down a path that may not seem like it makes sense, but I can see why it applies. And they say more is caught than taught. And so we could talk about conceptually, and we could talk about specific details, and we could talk about the way we kinda systematically bring priesthood into the family. But one thing that's interesting for your story, Yuri, because I know you well, for those who don't know, Yuri is one of my closest friends. And so Yuri went on his first XCC extreme character challenge, and they came back to serve. And the funny thing is I knew Yuri's story really well going into this XCC, and it was my responsibility on this XCC to give people different things to talk about. And the fun thing about it is you just get really prayerful about that thing, and then you assign based on prayer, not based on your knowledge. And so I go to Yuri. I'm like, hey, man. Like, I don't know why, but you're supposed to give this talk about this. And he just looks at me. He's like, there's, like, like, six other things that I could be talking about, but not that one thing. And the crazy thing is it was the most, to me, the most impactful talk of the weekend because of of how much deep dive he went into his own heart and what was happening in his life at that point in time. And so I can give you all the details. But, Yuri, do you know what I'm talking about, Evan?

Yuri: I absolutely know what you're talking

Kevin: Then unpack that for us a little bit.

Yuri: There was a message that we were delivering about radical logic. It was a message in which we talked about how Peter was told to cast his net to the other side of his boat after he had spent all night fishing. And so he's completely baffled with Jesus because he's a fisherman, of course, he knows what he's doing, but he trusts God. And so against his better judgment, he casts his net and he winds up with more fish than he can hold. And that was a message I struggled with initially, especially because I didn't understand one, why I'm being given that message. But two, I was like, I don't have anything in my life where I'm struggling like that. But the more I actually thought about it, you know, as Kevin mentioned, I'm an author and I'll be the first one to tell you being an author is not what you think it is when you were younger. It is a lot of hard work, and it's very little recognition and little to no money. And so I was struggling mightily with why am I writing all these books and for for what, for who, like what am I going to get out of this and God really put it on my heart that, hey, it's it's not about all of that. Do you trust what I'm doing in your life? Do you trust that even if one person is affected that it was worth all of it? And do you believe that against your better judgment events against your logic, that I'm going to make something incredible happen here. And so I had to lean into that and say, yeah, I'm I'm going to toss my logic out the window and I'm going to go with yours. And, you know, I think this can relate, Kevin, in terms of what we're talking about because a lot of men struggle with this aspect of leading their family because they overthink, to be honest with you. You know, they tend to overanalyze, you know, am I ready for this? Do I have a seminary degree? Do I have, you know, the credentials in order to lead my family? And at the end of the day, we need to stop doing things for Christ and we need to start doing things in Christ. He's asking us to have faith in him and his ability to speak in and through us and we need to get out of our own ways and allow him to do the work.

Kevin: Amen. And amen. And I think the beautiful thing in that is that you get to tell the story for your kids one day and we we I brought it up as this caught and taught, but you get to one day tell them, like, I wrote all these books. Dad, why? Well, I didn't make any money, but God said I need to keep casting my nets. So your dad kept casting. And it's going to look different for them, and they may not be writing. Who knows what it'll be? But they had this example of, I'm just going to cast my nets because that's what my dad did. And I think that's beautiful. And we we label we Rance prepared this episode, and he prepared it with this title that you don't need a seminary degree to lead your home. And I asked him when he put that out there, I'm like, why did you why did you name it that? Did you have that conversation with Yuri? He's like, no. I'm like, that's funny because Yuri's been a writer for a long time. And he got to this point where he decided that he wanted to write devotionals. But he got to this question, like, who am I? Right? So this guy that's now on the podcast talking about being a spiritual leader, asking the question, do I have what it takes? Do I need to be a pastor? Do I need a seminary degree in order to write a devotional? So can you answer that for us, Yuri?

Yuri: Resounding no. And I have asked many a pastor that as well. This was something I was definitely self conscious about and not so much that I didn't think, you know, I was capable of it, but it was one of those things like I don't want to mislead people, what if I say the wrong thing, what if, you know, I'm mixing things up and there was almost a huge consensus of them saying, no, like don't worry about that, you don't need a Bible degree, you don't need a seminary degree. And a lot of them were like, to be honest with you, I don't hold mine very highly. You know, it it's great in order to to help you understand history, a lot of the translations, all that. There's so much that you can learn through these, degrees and to be honest with you, the more knowledge you get, the richer the Bible is. But if you are waiting until you are quote unquote ready or you are qualified enough, you need no look no further than the disciples. You know, not one of them were scholars, not one of them were Pharisees or Sadducee. They were fishermen, they were tax collectors, they were all the kids that dropped out or flunked out of their their schooling. And at that point, Christ looked at them and that he said, no. You're you're perfect for this.

Rance: Yeah. You know, Yuri, spiritual leadership in the home looks different in different seasons, but you've got young children. And I feel like having young children and trying to step into spiritual leadership, it's a type of seminary in and of itself. Like, it's a type of training to have to take these really deep spiritual things and figure out how how do I make this so a three or four year old can understand this. And in that process, we learn and grow so much as as dads or as parents just trying to learn how to break it down for a child, which means we have to really understand it well ourselves. So there's a type of built in, you know, training there. Have how have you grown spiritually yourself as you've tried to lead your your children?

Yuri: I think it's a matter of, as you said, Rance, it's like you you have to learn how to simplify things. We over complicate so much of this stuff. And at the end of the day, Jesus taught us love God, love one another. And so if it can be that simple, if you can boil the Bible down into those two rules, I think we can find ways to help young children understand the heart of God. And in doing so, it helps us understand it too. Right? Like when I have to really break things down to the bare bones of what it is Christ was looking to teach us Mm-hmm. It's incredible how simple the Bible can become and how, yes, though there's a lot of depth in his teachings and there's so much, beauty and wisdom that can be found throughout the entire Bible. A lot of it comes down to just the simple basics that we really need to learn how to instill that in our hearts.

Kevin: Man, what I what I pulled out of what you just said is, is actually pretty profound because, there's a great line that says, preach gospel and when necessary, use words. And so you said, love God, love people. And so whether you've got really young kids and, you know, you've got to, make things simple, you've got adult children or you've got grandchildren, what I hear is it's relational. It starts with loving them. It's showing them Christ's love in their life day by day. Like, are you calling your kids? Are you checking in? Do they feel loved by you? Do they experience the Father's love when they're with you? Because if you never teach them a verse, if they never memorize a verse, but they experience the love of Christ when they're with you, then that's everything right there. And it doesn't matter what age they are, that that the language of love, if you want to say that that that experiencing that love is universal no matter what age.

Rance: And Yuri, just to circle back to, your your story and your childhood, it seems like that was exactly what was lacking with your dad. Like, there was there was biblical knowledge there, but there was a lack of relationship with you, which made your dad feel distant, but also God feel distant. So, how would you like unpack that principle for us as dads that we've got to have more than just the biblical knowledge actually?

Yuri: Like I said, it it went back to that conversation I had with my wife. Right? Like it's great you have all this knowledge, it's great that you know all these things. It doesn't change the fact that you're still walking around the same way. When we are seeking to help our kids develop that relationship with God, we have to understand that we're probably the closest thing that they're going to be able to understand to a heavenly father. So if that's the case, what am I demonstrating? What's the product I'm putting out? Because if I'm constantly angry, if I'm just seeking to just throw knowledge at them and have them memorize verses with no context or no heart, if I'm trying to be the disciplinarian, like I said, having my kids on their knees, praying all this stuff, but I have no grace, it doesn't connect to them. And quite frankly, it doesn't connect to me either even as an adult. That's good. If I don't know that you care, then why should I care? Yeah. When we're we're teaching these things for our kids, even like as we read Bible stories to them and things like that, it's nice to be able to close the book and then say, okay, well, what do you think about that? How does that relate to to what you're going through, you know, connecting with them on that level so that these stories don't feel so distant, They feel like this is something that they're experiencing on their level here and now.

Rance: That's so good. Yuri, can you leave us with one thing that you wish you would have known as you were entering into fatherhood about leading your family spiritually? Is there something that would have helping you help helped you get off to a better start?

Yuri: One, embrace imperfection because you're not going to be perfect and God's not looking for perfect and stop procrastinating because that is one of the biggest things I hear, you know, across men's groups, all that stuff is, yeah, I just got to wait until I want to pray a little bit more, get get into the field of things, I don't want to look weird, all this stuff and they just procrastinate, procrastinate to a point where finally they either lose interest or their connection to their kids just continues to separate. Yeah. So stop procrastinating.

Rance: That's good. It's never too late, but also don't wait.

Kevin: There you go. Alright, guys. We've unpacked a lot in this episode, but we've we've got to close it out. And so we close out every episode with an Outpost challenge where you, our guests, get to challenge Rance and I, which is actually challenging everybody that's listening. So, Yuri, I already know you've got one for us, so let us have it.

Yuri: Yeah. So this is one I like to do at work, but is very applicable to to doing within the family. There's kind of two levels to this. So the first level would be finding a Bible verse, you know, in the mornings, take a look through the Bible where you can use the Bible app for for a verse, but take that verse, write it down and put it somewhere where everyone in the family is going to pass by it, whether it is the refrigerator, the front door, the stairway, whatever it is, just a place where everybody's going to be able to pass by and see it. Yeah. This way it allows for conversations to happen organically, you know, people can pass by and say, wow, you know, that I really needed to to read that today. I mean, you can start going to deeper conversations that way. The second level to this is if you want to make it more intentional, you could do this around the dinner table, you can do this as a separate family time, but bring that verse up and ask people, you know, what do you feel about this verse? How does it resonate with your your life today and and what do you think? And again, these are ways that we can take these baby steps toward, having these active conversations with our families and really leading them into these spiritual conversations.

Rance: Excellent. You know, it's, like literally Deuteronomy six, you know, right the right on the doorpost of your home. You know, put God's Word and make it visible for your family. So I'm in. Let's do it, Kevin.

Kevin: Alright. I like it.

Rance: If you're listening out there, we encourage you to take that step as well. And, you know, this outpost challenge is how we put things into practice. And so we would encourage you to do that with us and let us know how it goes with your family. Right along with that, we've actually got a link in the show notes to a really simple resource for you just to help you read the Bible with your family. Maybe you've tried it before and you got a bunch of eye rolls and, you know or or you just felt like you didn't know how to do it, where to start. Download this resource, and it's going to just walk you through very simply how to get started with your family, and we encourage you to give that a try. So, Yuri, thanks again for being our guest here today at The Family Outpost. I really believe this in this conversation is going to encourage, a lot of parents out there who are wrestling with these same things.

Yuri: Well, thank you guys for having me.

Kevin: You gave us permission to be imperfect. But like you said, give them the Nike. Just do it. Just show up.

Yuri: Yes, sir.

Rance: That's right. Well, next week, we're on pillar three. So we're going to be talking about culture, how you build a home worth belonging to, and our guest is someone Kevin knows very well. That's that's all I'm going to say. So, you'll have to tune in to see who that is. Subscribe so you don't miss it. And if this, episode has encouraged you, share it with one dad or one mom. And, that's it. Alright. We'll see you guys next time on The Family Outpos

Soccer Ministry Continues in Ukraine

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:53:30 GMT

530 Children Joined 13 Day Camps

This summer, Andrii Petrenko and his team continued serving children and families through soccer camps across Ukraine. Approximately 530 children took part in 13 day camps.

Most camps welcomed children at no cost. With war, inflation, and rising prices continuing to affect daily life, many families cannot take on additional expenses. Offering the camps at no cost gave more children the opportunity to participate.

Limited funds required the team to focus this year’s summer support on long-standing ministry partners and camps where the need was greatest. About $8,000 supported the summer camps.

Those funds covered camp expenses, coaches’ participation, and equipment teams can continue using throughout the season. The support did more than fund a few days of camp. It gave coaches resources they can continue using as they invest in children and families in their communities.

That ongoing investment carries particular weight in Ukraine. Air raid sirens, missile attacks, inflation, and the uncertainty of war continue to affect families across the country. In the middle of those realities, coaches and ministry leaders continue showing up for children, building relationships, and creating opportunities to play, grow, and experience the joy of sport.

The summer camps represent one part of that work. Andrii and his team continue supporting three ministries each month and encouraging the leaders who serve there. For Andriy, the spiritual work remains central as these ministries also respond to the practical needs around them.

Every donation to this ministry goes directly to Ukraine to support ministry needs and the people serving there.

This summer, that support reached approximately 530 children through 13 day camps. The numbers give a picture of the summer, but the work continues through the Ukrainian coaches and ministry leaders who keep investing in children, families, and their communities throughout the year.

The Family Outpost, Episode 3 | Pillar 1: Multigenerational Vision (feat. Hannes & Alma du Preez)

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:07:24 GMT

What does it actually look like to build a family that lasts beyond one generation? In Episode 3, Rance Bland and Kevin Morrison open Pillar 1 of the Kingdom Outpost framework, Multigenerational Vision, with guests Hannes and Alma du Preez. Originally from South Africa, Hannes and Alma now live the very thing they have built for decades.

Hannes and Alma both grew up in deeply dysfunctional homes, married young, and had no manual, only God’s Word and a conviction that they would not repeat what they had lived. What followed was decades of intentionality: saying no to hobbies and social calendars so they could stay fully present at home, hosting Thursday night dinners where debate and disagreement were expected, and staying relationally invested long after their kids left home.

Now retired and traveling the country in a converted van, Hannes and Alma offer the vantage point Rance and Kevin are still running toward: six grandchildren, adult kids who still want to talk, and a family culture strong enough to survive the test of in-laws, distance, and time. The episode closes with a challenge that stops both hosts cold: write down God’s vision and Scripture for each of your children.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro and Theme Music

00:31 Pillar 1: Multigenerational Vision

03:24 Outpost Challenge Field Report

07:28 Meet Hannes and Alma du Preez

09:42 A Different Family Story

16:37 Models Worth Repeating

21:18 Multigenerational Vision in Practice

23:34 What They Said No To

27:39 Family Culture at the Table

29:32 Faith From Deep Conviction

34:05 Staying Relationally Invested

35:23 The In-Law Test

39:53 Letting Go as Parents

42:15 Outpost Challenge

44:44 Downloadable Resource

45:41 Closing and Next Episode Preview

Outpost Challenge

Challenged by Hannes & Alma du Preez:

Write down God’s vision and God’s purpose for each one of your children.

Ask God for a Scripture for each child. Write it down. Psalm 127:4 frames it: “Sons are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.” But you can only shoot an arrow when you know where it needs to go, and that requires sitting with God and seeking His direction for each specific child. Rance and Kevin are doing this same challenge with their families and will report back in Episode 4.

Email us at familyoutpost@all4one.org to share what God spoke to you about your children. We read every response.

Episode Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Rance: Is the character and the habits and the values that we're forming in this child today strong enough to be passed down tomorrow?

Kevin: You've got grandkids, maybe even great grandkids. You can have them teach their kids that then creates the investment early.

Alma: Your multigenerational family doesn't end with your kids. They get spouses. Be very intentional on how do you bring that person into your family.

Rance: Well, welcome to the Family Outpost Podcast. This is a show, about families built for more. I'm Rance here with Kevin Morrison. Kevin, good to be back.

Kevin: Yeah, man. Good to be here with our first guest of the season.

Rance: I am really excited to get into this. You know, in the last episode, we were explaining this Kingdom Outpost framework and the Four Pillars. And today, we're opening up the first of our Four Pillars, which is multigenerational vision. And before we bring in our guest, I just want to reframe something and just go back to what we mean by multigenerational vision. Because I think most of us are operating with the wrong target as as parents. You know, we've been conditioned. I've I've been conditioned to think of childhood as the job. My job as a parent is just to raise good kids, get them to 18, launch them out of the nest, and check. You know, it's done. My responsibility ends there. But the multigenerational mindset says something different that I'm actually part of an ongoing family story, and I'm building something that's meant to outlast me. And that shift just changes everything because the moment that you start thinking that way, you can't just ask, is my kid happy right now in this moment? That's not your only filter for making decisions. You start to ask, is the character and the habits and the values that we're forming in this child today strong enough to be passed down tomorrow? And that's a totally different question and a much harder one, but it changes how you measure success. Because if the finish line is just independence, kid moves out, can support himself, check, then you'll optimize for that. But multigenerational families measure something else entirely. Are my kids becoming the kind of adults who can build and sustain healthy families of their own? That's what we're aiming at. And so what we're going to be sharing today and what our guests are are going to show us is that 18 isn't the finish line. It it may, in many cases, be the starting line. and so that's what we're going to get in today into today. Families who think generationally, not just when kids are young, but even in their twenties, their thirties, their forties, they stay in during those years relationally, practically. They don't just disappear at graduation. So pillar one, multigenerational vision.

Kevin: This is one that you and I obviously can have a vision for and start living out with our young families, but not one that we have seen come to fruition. And so it didn't take us very long to figure out who we wanted to ask, come to give some of that insight for us. So we've got some pretty awesome guests that provide their vantage point and share the ups and downs of the whole journey all all along.

Rance: That's right. But first, we've got to get to our field report from the Outpost Challenge in episode one. So let's share that. So in the last episode, our Outpost Challenge was to go through the Four Pillars that we described and have a conversation with your spouse about them and pick one that was the weakest and, just to discuss that weak point or or weak pillar. So Kevin and I did that, over the last several days. Kevin, how did it go? Tell us what was the pillar that you chose.

Kevin: Yeah. So we did ours during our regular weekly Sunday, Monday meeting with our family. And so we had everybody there. I actually made it twofold. I didn't want to just be like, what is our weakest. It was a what's our strongest and what is our weakest.

Rance: Nice.

Kevin: Kelly and I zoomed in on what is our weakest, because right out of the gate when I asked it, our oldest son said, our strongest is adventure, which was encouraging. It was great for him. Like, I mean, he he spoke up first. It was great. But Kelly and I both agreed that our weakest is adventure. And so we took time going through each pillar and talking about each pillar.

Rance: And

Kevin: for us, adventure in the way that we want adventure to be in our family. Because we do a lot together. We have many adventures. My son probably answered that way because, like, the day before, me and all the kids went on an adventure through our, you know, our 11 acres where we were acting like we were cavemen and shenanigans and doing all kinds of stuff. And Yeah. That felt like adventure to them. But, Kelly and I understand adventure is us serving the king in big and little ways. And so ours was adventure, and so we're looking ways to reshape that.

Rance: Right there with you. Actually, if you remember the first Outpost Challenge that we did, it was about what do we need more of and less of. And Stacy said we need more adventure. And so as we as we talked about this, you know, we drill down into that again. And we do have, in in some ways, a lot of adventure in our life in in terms of we've done a lot. We you know, we'll go on hikes and we, you know, do things like that. But I think what she was really talking about and what we're lacking is sort of sort of like you. Yes. We need more of those really high quality times together where we get out of the grind and we try new things and we're out of our comfort zone. But I think the part that is, the higher area of improvement for us is sort of the more spiritual component of mission when it comes to adventure. Not that we don't do that, but I think, you know, especially when you have young children in the home, I'm thinking more even of you guys than than us with a seven and 10 year old. But there are just some some capacity challenges to getting outside of yourself. It does get a little more complicated. I definitely feel like that's an area. One of the things that even has come up over the last few months was, we a family, my son in particular wanted to he was like, could we have, like, a big gathering just like we invite a bunch of people, have, a cookout and you know, which is great. And we're like, yes. We want to foster that and be hospitable. But then when when it's come down to, like, all right. Well, when are we going to do that? It's like, well, we can't do it that week, and we're going on this trip. and so I feel like just capacity wise, it's been a struggle. and so it's an area that we need to prioritize more as well. Grateful for the challenge. Yeah. Exactly. to be able to talk through that and go, okay. Well, this is an area that now we can, tweak some things and we can try to grow in.

Kevin: So if you still haven't had that conversation in your family, there's no bad time for it. We will have another Outpost Challenge at the end of this episode. But write that one down. Put it somewhere. Put it in your phone calendar, whatever it takes. Have that conversation. It's worthwhile.

Rance: Our guests are Hannes and Alma du Preez. They are originally from South Africa. They now live in in the U. S.. And between the two of them, they've built careers that most people would consider a full life on their own. Hannes has been a successful business owner. Alma has spent her career in senior leadership at Apple. Between the two of them, they've operated at a high level for a long time. But what I really admire about them is they've both been building a multigenerational vision for decades. And now they're in the grandparent seat, which as Kevin said, we don't know what that vantage point is like yet. And so we're going to get to hear from them today. Also, Hannes has been a a very significant voice in the 4MUS movement, and heavily involved in a lot of our events from the Xtreme Character Challenge to the fatherhood challenge to, several of the others. And, that means he hasn't just thought about this for himself, but he spent years sharing this with other men. He's passionate about raising up other fathers. And so I'm excited to have him share some of that with us today. and then the last thing, and I'll I'll let Hannes and Alma share more about this, but they are now retired, and they have been on this amazing sabbatical trip traveling around the world and around the country in a converted van. We'd love to see pictures of that, Spending time with their kids, their grandkids, living the exact thing that we're talking about today. So, this is not just theory for them. They're, they're in the midst of this. And so Hannes and Alma, welcome to The Family Outpost.

Hannes: Thank you. it's a real honor to be here, Rance, and, you know, to sit with you guys. I mean, we've been traveling a while now, but just to see you guys again is incredibly it's very refreshing. Thank you.

Alma: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We see it as a privilege.

Rance: Well, wonderful. we are really grateful for your time here, and we'd love to just dive in to hearing a little bit of your story. Tell us about your family and how did you get to where you are today surrounded by kids and grandkids?

Alma: I'll start by saying, you know, Hannes and I grew up in very dysfunctional homes, extremely dysfunctional. And it's interesting, Hannes and I met, I was 16, and I actually had the honor to lead him to Christ. So he became radically converted, and we were just, you know, these incredible friends. I mean, we couldn't stop talking about God and the word. You know, this relationship just evolved and time goes by and we got married. But it was interesting. We both came from these dysfunctional families. And one thing that we both knew, that wasn't right. That wasn't what family should look like. We didn't know what it should look like, but we knew it wasn't that. And so we really used our experience to say, we don't want that. We want to change the direction of our family. We want to change the direction where we're going to take our family and the way we're going to do life and the way we're going to live for Christ and the way that we're going to make an impact on the world. And we had no manual. There was no manual. The only manual we had was God's Word. And we really used it as a plumb line. So that's where we started. And so through the years, we were very intentional. I mean, we were extremely intentional at what we do. We didn't know what to do, but we knew we had God's Word, and we spent a lot of time there reading, understanding how God sees marriage, how God sees family.

Hannes: The structure.

Alma: The structure. And the first thing and this for me is kind of a foundational thing, is the first thing, and it was very hard for me because I was in a very dysfunctional family, but I knew that God had a structure for the family, had a structure for a married couple. And the first thing that I learned was my husband is the head of the home as Christ is the head of the home. And that's the foundation in a marriage. It starts there. I took his name. I became one with him. There has to be that structure. And then from there, we started building. And we made I want to I want to put this in as a disclaimer. We made a lot of mistakes.

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

Alma: I think if we had the opportunity today to redo it, we would do a lot different. But in our ignorance and with the desire to change the direction of where our family is going, you know, we did what we could. But but that was the foundation. The starting point was getting structure in the house right.

Hannes: The structure from the word of God. And then the second thing was the roles. Because God put two individuals together, each with their own giftings and each with their own personalities. And God put the husband in this role, and he put the wife in that role. We embraced it. We studied it. we really made that our own because we know going forward having children that will come through, That will rub off. Because this is all about impartation. It's what you live, what they see and hear. That is what they're going to pick up. And so to us, I had to come to a place, and that's where I missed it a lot, to understand Olma's role. You know? Because I'm a little bit dictatorial. How do you say that in English?

Alma: Dictator.

Hannes: Yeah. Something like that. But I had to really embrace and understand because she's way better with so many things. She's a very good leader, strong personality, work with money incredibly well, stuff like that. All that sort of thing, I like all over the place, impulsive, and that sort of thing. So the two together, we made we we really found from the word of God in the beginning how to get those things down. So Wow.

Alma: So yeah. And then we and then we just built from there. Right? Mhmm. And our vision was, I want to say that our vision was, we never thought You said it early on, Rance, that, you know, is our mission just to get our kids to 18 years old and then, you know, we can check the box? You know, I'm going to make a confession. I never knew that was a thing until I moved to North America. And this is just being honest. I never knew that. When we moved to North America, I was like, why do people, like, aim for 18 if their kids can just be 18? And we're like, that's so weird. Why do people do that? But it was never in our mind. Our mind was always around, we are we are here to support each other. We are we have each other's backs. We are here to take each other from this point to that point, and then from that point to that point. It's for us, it's like a continuation where it never stops. Right? So so that was the vision.

Kevin: Oh, we got to slow down here because we're ten minutes into this, and we might be done. This might be enough because you guys just you guys gave us so much so much that's encouraging too because you started with the fact that you both came from dysfunctional homes, which means, okay. It's okay if I come from a place that doesn't have it altogether. You both stepped into this without a clear vision, just only understanding that you wanted to do it differently. I think one of the keywords was you were intentional. And sometimes that didn't work out so well, I bet, but it didn't stop you from being intentional. But that component of understanding the foundational roles of husband and wife because, you know, that's not necessarily anywhere within the framework to say that's what it takes to have a multigenerational vision. But if you don't understand your roles in the marriage as the foundation, the core, even if you have a vision, if you don't understand where you work together, how you work together, how you're called to lead, Hannes, not as a dictator, but just as a leader, it makes it even harder. And so the fact that you guys somehow stumbled upon that by the grace of God is is huge. And so how old were you guys when you got married?

Alma: I was 19, and Hannes was 22.

Kevin: Did you guys start having these conversations around this vision before you got married, like, afterward?

Alma: Yeah. We always said we don't want to repeat what we've lived.

Hannes: So where where it started yeah. So, Kevin, that's a good question. You know, do we have conversation around this multigenerational concept? We didn't coin it as that.

Alma: No. We didn't

Hannes: know. Use those words. But where it started for for me is and I'm I'm going to tell a little story here, but I had a very godly grandfather. And he was a farmer. He had vineyards up in the Northwestern Part of South Africa, a rural area, desert area. And so I visited him often. And I was about 13, 14 years old. and one morning, it was winter, one morning we walked down to the vineyard. And I noticed previously that he doesn't smoke his pipe anymore. We always used to smoke a pipe. and as we were walking, I asked him, Grandpa, why don't you smoke anymore? What is that? He said, No, he's a very tough old man. So I had a lot of respect for him. And he looked at me and he said, not good for me. It's an addiction. And I had to stop it. I said, but how do you I mean, that's addiction. How do you stop it? He said, I asked God. I prayed about it. And I dared to ask the silly question, Can God really help you with stuff like that? And he stopped. He looked at me, very disappointed, looked down to, you know, to me, and he and he and without condemnation, he just asked me, aren't you believing? And he turned and he walked on. And I felt extremely embarrassed. I caught up to him, and as we were walking he took my hand and he walked with me. I can tell you that acceptance by that action made me desire to be like Him, to be a godly man, to be a godly grandfather one day. First of all, a godly father, and then a godly grandfather. I wanted to be like him, and I wanted to pray, and I wanted to serve God. So, you know, that is where the multigenerational concept, without coining it as, you know, like that, that's where it started. And Alma had much the same sort of experience with grandma.

Alma: Yeah. With my mom's mom. So I had to live with her for a period of time. Like I said, I had my family was very dysfunctional, way more than Hannes', but I lived with her for a year. And she made such an impression on my life. She was such a godly woman. I always say there was no lazy hair on her head. She can do anything. She could, Doesn't matter what you put in front of her, she would figure it out and she would do it. She was a hard worker. She was resourceful. She was creative. She was innovative. And then on top of all, she was a godly woman. And in the year that I lived with her, she made such an impression on my life. And I was only four years old. And I will I carried I still carry it. I'm 60 years old, and I still carry it with me today. I refer back to my grandmother. With my grandkids and with my children. I want to say on a weekly basis. Like that's the legacy that she left. And it did the same to me. I always looked at my family, my parents, my household, and looked at it and thought, this is not what I want. If there's something that I wanted, something there. And I think that's where the seed was planted, the same as with Hannes. And when we got together, we both knew there was something different, but we never coined it as a Multigener. We didn't know what it was, but we just figured out we're going to figure out what this is.

Hannes: We could just see down the line. Yeah. We could just see down the line, and that's where we're going.

Rance: Yeah. I just want to underline, you both had a grandparent who modeled something for you. Yeah. and then, Hannes, you mentioned that a moment ago that you knew that your vision had to be more than something written on the wall. You had to model it. It had to be an impartation to your children. Before we go any further, could you just tell us how many children do you have? How many grandchildren do you have?

Alma: So we have two children, a son and a daughter. And then my son our son has four sons, and our daughter has two girls. So we have six grandchildren and four adult kids with their spouses.

Rance: Okay. Beautiful. So you guys were both, you know, very successful in in your work, in your careers. How how did you navigate that with raising kids and then eventually, of course, grandkids as well and stay focused on this multigenerational vision that you had?

Hannes: I'm going to start with that answer. We're creative, or try to be creative, and never apologize for hardworking, for working hard. Never. Not one day. We try to make them proud of that we are hardworking people. And if you want to say you work hard, it comes with long hours. And basically suck it up, buttercup. And then we made it up by cutting other activities out of our lives. We were home cell leaders in our church for thirty years or whatever, but that had its limits. That's the time we spent into, you know, for church activities, and this is family time.

Alma: Yeah.

Hannes: But we we didn't we didn't give our children the right to say, Oh, I should feel sorry for myself. We never did that. Now, by that, I know it sounds terrible because you can be a workaholic and you can just work all the time. But I don't think that's what we should

Alma: But I think it's prioritized.

Hannes: There was repercussions.

Alma: There were repercussions and we'll talk about that. And going back to being a working mom and that kind of stuff. But it's prioritization. We were confronted multiple times by our leadership at church because we didn't do more in the church. We only had a home sale and we went to church on Sunday. But we weren't involved in anything else. And we were confronted on that multiple times. We were also confronted at a time where we didn't socialize a lot. We didn't have a lot of friends at that time. And we just felt that we chose to have our kids. And we, sitting in a business, that's sucking up a lot of time off us. We don't have time for hobbies. We didn't have time for hobbies. We didn't have time for a massive social life. No hobbies. We had no hobbies. We went to work, but then when we got home, we were home. We were completely engaged. We were present. We were I mean, there was a lot of fun in the house. I mean, that's one thing Hannes is really good at, is creating an atmosphere of fun and making it fun to be home during all ages. Being relevant parents at the different ages. Like what is important to the kid at five? What's important to the kid at nine, 10, 12, 15? So we focus on those things. But yes, did we do it perfect? No, we didn't. I mean, I heard from my daughter ten years ago that they were key latch kids. And I was like, what is a key latch kid? I don't know what that is. Can you explain that to me? Please. And, you know, she explained it to me, and I'm like, oh, is that what you were? You know, I'm so sorry. She's like, mom, I'm better off than many kids that moms were home the whole time. You know? So but it's the

Kevin: end the I don't know what a key latch kit is. I

Rance: think you mean latch key, but

Alma: it we'll forgive you because you know? You see you see you see, that's not much I know about it, Rod. I couldn't you know, I put

Hannes: What is the latchkey?

Alma: Latchkey is they get home and the the gate go close behind them. There's nobody home. But but what I'm saying is

Hannes: Luca, that's very

Alma: in that situation, you know, we didn't take our time that we had available and spent on all other stuff. We were very selfless. I want to say we were selfless in that time because we had a vision and we knew it was going to take an extraordinary amount of intentionality and that kind of stuff. So we tried to do as much as we can of that. And I think it did pay off today. Was it perfect? No. Did it pay off perfect? I don't think so. I think there's more that can be done, but we stuck to our vision.

Kevin: There's probably a lot of people that want to raise a multigenerational vision. And whether they come from little and feel like they've got to work to make up for it, or they just fall into this workaholism that they get stuck into the grind. And especially as men, it's easy to justify our decision. So if you were if you were talking to somebody that's in the grind, that's putting their time in at work and maybe not being as intentional at home and want to find themselves justifying their decisions right now, from somebody that's been in the middle of it and done it successfully and also failed at it. If you could either go back and talk to yourself at that time or talk to that person, how would you try to shift the framework of the thinking for them or give them advice how to balance that?

Alma: If I can redo it okay. And this is not a regret. This is just if for your question, Kevin. If I had to redo it, I would have stayed at home the first ten, twelve years of my children's life. I would have been an at home mom.

Hannes: As a mom. Yeah.

Alma: As a mom. Circumstance didn't allow that. We could have changed circumstance as well. You can you can always control it. Right? You can always do things differently. But I would have changed that because you can never get that time back. You never get it back. And yes, we spent a lot of time with the kids in the situation that we were in. And we made very intentional decisions to go away and do things and be there at night and all that kind of stuff. But I think I missed out a lot in that first twelve years. And I think they missed out a lot in that first twelve years.

Rance: It sounds like there were definitely things you had to say no to in order to pursue this vision that you're talking about. What what were you mentioned, you know, there were things like fun that were important. you were prioritizing. What were the things you were saying yes to? What were some of the values you were you were prioritizing while saying no to the hobbies and some of the other things?

Alma: Creating an atmosphere of fun, giving them identity in the house. Right? Something that we also believe

Hannes: Freedom to discuss.

Alma: Freedom. We were all about discussions. We were all about debates. We created an environment that they can freely disagree with us. And then dinners, food, sitting around the table is a big part of our culture.

Hannes: Yeah. Every Thursday night, it was a tradition from I don't know. From Many

Alma: years. Where where we had dinner together, but we opened up our house. And they could bring their friends in. They could bring whoever they want on a Thursday night and on a Sunday afternoon We after made the food. I would get home and I would cook and do all these things. And they are all welcome to bring their friends. And we would end up for five hours around a dinner table having hard conversations, having fun, listening to music, being silly, and then other nights being very serious, talking about religion, talking about politics, talking about philosophy, talking about the ideas at the different ages that they have. And there were many times where there was a lot of disagreements where I sometimes said to Hannes afterwards, I was like, wow, I don't know if this is a good thing. We are creating problems for ourselves down the road with these kids disagreeing so much with us. But it created a space where they had freedom to talk. And I think that is a very important thing. It's so easy for us as parents to manipulate them into the way we think and what we believe is right and what we believe is true. But when you leave them to tell you what their opinion is and challenge the status quo, challenge your thinking, you create an environment where they start acting out of conviction. The day that they believe the truth, they believe it from a very deep conviction. And that was one of the things that we wanted to do was to get our kids I mean, the number one priority for both of us was to get our kids to serve God 150. For us, that was like the 18 year old thing. If there was a checkbox, it was to serve God. Right? But we wanted them to serve God from a very deep conviction because we knew it would stick. And I think those evenings and days when we had these conversations, a lot of the conversation was around this type of stuff.

Hannes: Yeah. The thing is that we saw lots around us is you as a parent can manipulate circumstance and situations where the kids got no he's like he's like outsmarted and outsmarted to such a point where he has to agree with you.

Kevin: It's I love that you guys started with the fun because what I hear in that is this relationship equity that you built up with them. And so when there was hard conversations, the relationship was strong enough to handle the hard conversations, create an environment where, having those conversations was open, and I would venture to guess probably normal. And Andy Stanley and his right wife wrote a book called Getting It Right. And the point of the book was everybody has their it, whatever it is. As they raise kids, they want to get it right. For them, it was being parents that my kids want to talk to even when they don't have to. And so there is a multigenerational vision to that because so many people, to the point of raising them to 18, I did my job. They're on their own now. They don't need to talk to me because they've kind of leave Cleve, did their thing. But for them, it was I still want to have that relational equity. I still want them to come to me when things are hard. And so you guys built that with your family at young ages. Are you seeing that now fruit years later where they're still able to come to you as grandparents?

Hannes: Brother, you want to

Alma: Thousand times.

Hannes: You want to talk about opinionated? Because we really

Alma: You don't want to see the de Preez around the table.

Hannes: we we were very intentional, and and we trained them from a young age to always challenge the dogma. What's the doctrine here? You know, if this girl this guy says that or that, then then the kid needs to say, says who? Because I've got my belief. But here's the deal. That's how you catch a a child. It's what is your belief?

Alma: Yeah. You can't challenge it without a point of Exactly.

Hannes: Yes. So you want to call this guy this or call that. What's your belief? Yeah. How true are you to the truth? Yeah. You know, so And that's always we challenge Bible stories, the whole story of Noah's Ark and whatever. Birds flying into the Ark and walking two by two up the ramp. Is that a bit ridiculous? Or then it's a discussion around a fire, you know?

Alma: But a lot of fun, you know? It wasn't always like a serious thing, it was a lot of fun as well.

Hannes: We had rock bands in our house.

Alma: Kevin, your question is do we see that now? I will say a thousand times. I think that's the biggest reward for us is to see the relationship now. And it's all about relationship. It's all about trust. It's all about being confident in each other, feeling that you have one another's back, that you're there for each other. And you can only build that through relationship, through conversation, through understanding each other, know how each other think. And to do that takes time, right? That doesn't come over one conversation. It is hours and hours and hours of investment that you do. And so from our kids' perspective today, I would say we see it a thousand times, and now the job is to do the same for the grandkids.

Rance: Could you guys speak for a moment? You mentioned Thursday night, dinners. Was it sounds like maybe that was something that started when the kids were young. How did some of your rhythms evolve as they became adults and then maybe as they started having kids? I don't know if they were always living near you or if they moved away. What were some of the things that you did to continue to have the that relationship and trust and openness that you're talking about?

Alma: So the oldest is our son, and so he got married first, and he literally bought a place right around the corner from us. Like, literally, like, we were on this corner and he was on the next corner.

Kevin: Mom's dream.

Alma: So, actually, they my son and his wife, which we say is our daughter, they never moved away. We, like, just followed each other wherever we go. And today, we actually live in the same house, right? We've got a section of their house and they've got a section of ours. So they were always there. And it just grew. The relationships just grew. And I mean, there can be a whole another conversation, which I don't know if we have time for this, but your multigenerational family doesn't end with your kids. They get spouses.

Hannes: That's the thing.

Alma: They marry into families and they bring someone new in the family, and that's a whole different dynamic. And you have to, again, be very intentional on how do you bring that person into your family. Because I'll tell you, we've got a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law. And our situation, the way we did things, were weird to them. They were like I mean, the son-in-law is from North America, and it's very different, right? And so we are weird. We were very weird, you know? I think today we're less weird. But but but, you know, there's a lot of work and sacrifice that comes from us as the parents to bring that spouse into our family and to make room for that spouse.

Hannes: And to respect him or her Yeah. For who he is, for who they are, and build a relationship from there, you know, to get

Alma: The same dynamic.

Hannes: Yeah. On on our daughter's side, Raj, to your question, we because she married when she was also young, and we and she got married

Alma: And immigrated.

Hannes: And immigrated to the U. S., and we moved to Canada. Okay? So we were always separated. But so to your question there is constant communication

Alma: and

Hannes: to make an impact on the grandkids and prayer, you know, and just knowing that the investment that you made in her and in my son-in-law, you know, that investment and the investment that we are busy making now on the granddaughters, it's a constant thing that never stops. You know, sometimes you'll be far away. But it takes innovation, creativity

Alma: Time.

Hannes: And time to make it happen.

Rance: Yeah. Thank thank you. I love that. Just for me, you know, my experiences with young young children, but I love listening to you guys thinking about the day that they have their own spouses and how that changes the whole dynamic. and I've seen that relationship with in laws go well, and I've seen it not go well. But you talked about really making room and bringing them in, you know, to the family, and also, know, they have their own they they also bring things into the family.

Alma: So Absolutely. Can I add one thing there, which I feel is very important? So, you know, we raise You guys have got young kids. You invest all this time and values and faith and everything in your children, and you're putting all these building blocks in to eventually push them out into the world or see them fly, right? But here's the thing, when they come to an age and they start dating and they start looking for a life partner, and it might be someone that you look at and you're like, I can't believe he chose this girl. Like, what does he see in her? That's not the girl that I would have chosen for him. That's where the test comes for us as parents. Because if you really believe that you've done everything possible with the help of God to build your child into the future child that you want him to be as an adult, you got to trust his judgment. And we experience that where I so many times say to Hannes, we got to trust their judgment. We've invested in their lives and now it's our test. Now let's see if they can make the right decision, right? There's ways and means to do that. But the one thing that we did very intentionally is we befriended. When we saw that this is a serious relationship and this is not going to go away, we befriended those girlfriends and boyfriends or whatever because we knew, you know, we want to open our house to this person. We want to make that person part of our lives. So there comes a very big test during these things, is when you are tested in your education and in your upbringing in your children.

Hannes: I just want to quickly say something to that point. I know we're just labeling the point here big time. But fathers,

Alma: I

Hannes: made that mistake as a dad, especially with your little girl. You hold on too long. I held on too long. And caused a lot of hurt in my daughter and with my son-in-law. And I tried to befriend and all that stuff, but I couldn't let go of my daughter. That's my little girl, man. And I would die for her. So if I could have that time back, I would've I'll do it now. But, I mean, it's I mean, the relationship is there, it's all good, and it's wonderful.

Alma: Took a

Hannes: long time to fix that.

Kevin: This has been awesome. One thing that I think is interesting in this kind of the last thing that you guys went back and forth with is how you both use the word investment. Because for those that are listening, there's really maybe there's more than these three groups of people, but I think of the premarried or pre kids where they're in the position you guys were at the beginning where they're starting to have conversations around framework, how we want to do it, how we don't want to do it, who now can say, okay. I have this clear vision of what we want without things getting muddied. We can start from this place, which is awesome. It's a gift. It's an early investment. And then those who are in the middle of it, Rance and I in the middle of it where whether it's diapers, kids games, whatever it is, like, it starts to get hazy and that vision starts to go. But then to hear you guys encouraged, like, no. Keep investing. Keep investing. Keep in those those distractions, they can wait. They'll be there. Keep investing because it pays dividends. And then there's the grandparents that are maybe do have regrets. Maybe they do look back and say, man, if I knew this earlier, if I'd done this differently. But what I hear is and what I know to be true is it's never too late to invest. Right? Never too late to invest in the relationships because that's what you kept going back to. It's the relationships with your kids. It's the relationships with your grandkids. And so that's the beauty of this multigenerational vision. Even if you're starting from premarried to, you know, you've got grandkids, maybe even great grandkids, you can still teach a vision that you can have them teach their kids that then creates the investment early. And so we could go on for a while, and we could ask you all kinds of things about the adventure you're on. So we'll probably plan on doing that again. But at the end of every show, we get to get challenged. And so for the first two episodes, Rance and I were able to challenge each other on a couple things. We asked you guys as our first guest to prepare a challenge for us, something that's within a framework that we can handle that doesn't require going to Zimbabwe with a fan unless you're planning on providing it for us. So something that we can work with.

Alma: So we gave it a lot of thought and we didn't really talk about it today, but the challenge that we have for you is so I'll just quickly frame it and then I'll give you the challenge. So one of the things that we were also very diligent in doing is hearing from God, what is God's vision and plan for each one of our children?

Kevin: Oh, it's so

Alma: important. And we wrote it down. we asked God for a scripture, and we wrote it down. And it was based on the scripture that says, sons are like arrows in the hand of a father. But you can only shoot an arrow when you know where it needs to go. And you can only know where it needs to go when you sit with God and you spend time on that to get the direction. And so our challenge to you and Ranj, Kevin, is write down the vision, God's vision, and God's purpose for each one of your children.

Rance: Wow. I got chills. Yeah. That is so good. Thank you. Yeah. We'll we'll do it, won't we, Kevin? That sounds good. Well, thank you again, Hannes and Alma. There's so much more I wish we could ask you, but we'll have to have you back on another episode. You know, I also hope for those of you who are listening that you'll take that challenge as well and consider this week what what has God made your children for? What's his vision for them? What are the gifts that he's put in them? And if you would like to share that with us, that would be amazing. There's a link in the show notes, and we'd love to hear from you. And next episode, we'll share what the Lord spoke to us about our our children.

Alma: That's awesome.

Rance: Well, Kevin, how should we wrap up today? Anything else?

Kevin: Man, that was powerful. I know that there's probably a lot more questions that people have, but I think just a simple step of asking God is a great way to handle it. That's what Hannes and Alma did years ago, so why not start there?

Rance: That's right. I do want to just mention we have a tool that you can download. Link will be in the show notes, and it's called the discerning your family vision worksheet. And so if something stirred in your heart today as you heard Hannes and Alma talking about their vision for their family and their experiences, and you need a a guide just to help get you started to seek the Lord for your vision, for your family, this will be a great tool for you. So, take a look at that. Hannes Alma, thank you again, genuinely, for sharing your time and your story and your your wisdom with us. we're really grateful, and it was a great reminder there at the end that it's never too late. Yeah. We can always start now, and God can continue to fulfill his purposes in in our family. So well, thanks again, guys, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

Alma: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Kevin: Thank you so much.

Hannes: Appreciate it.

Kevin: Thank you guys for listening. Don't forget to tune in to the next episode where we got Yuri Jean-Baptiste joining us to talk about pillar number two, the priesthood of the family, and the wonderful reminder that you don't need a seminary degree to lead your family spiritually. So don't miss it.

Downloadable Resource

Links

The Family Outpost Podcast: https://www.all4one.org/the-family-outpost-podcast

SportQuest: https://www.sportquest.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/all4one_ministries/

The Family Outpost, Episode 2 | The Kingdom Outpost: A Framework for the Purposeful Family

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:07:23 GMT

Most families do not drift because they do not care. They drift because they have never been given a map. In Episode 2, Rance and Kevin introduce the Kingdom Outpost framework, a four-pillar approach to building a family that knows what it is for. This foundation episode shapes the rest of the season.

Rance and Kevin open with their Field Report from Episode 1's Outpost Challenge, honest conversations with their wives that surfaced real longings and real gaps. Then they walk through the Four Pillars: Multigenerational Vision, Priesthood of the Family, Culture, and Adventure. They define each pillar, share examples from their own homes, and connect the framework to Scripture. By the end, listeners know the shape of the framework and can identify which pillar their family most needs right now.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro and Theme Music

00:29 What Is The Family Outpost?

01:37 Outpost Challenge Field Report

06:57 What Is a Kingdom Outpost?

10:21 Family Outpost vs. Kingdom Outpost

12:13 Where the Outpost Language Came From

22:29 The Default Family Program

26:01 The Four Pillars

26:56 Pillar 1: Multigenerational Vision

30:22 Pillar 2: Priesthood of the Family

33:14 Pillar 3: Culture

37:16 Pillar 4: Adventure

41:36 Outpost Challenge

43:51 Final Encouragement

44:36 Closing and Next Episode Preview

Outpost Challenge

Sit down with your spouse, or reflect on your own if you are single, and walk through the Four Pillars together. Talk about each one briefly. Then pick one, just one, that feels weakest in your family right now. Name it. That is your starting point. Rance and Kevin are doing the same challenge with their own families and will report back in Episode 3.

If your spouse has not listened to this episode, invite them to listen first so they have the context, or bring the framework to them and walk through it together.

Email us at familyoutpost@all4one.org to share what happened when you named your weakest pillar. We read every response and want to hear from you.

Episode Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Rance: It's an alternative to this default program that I think even a lot of Christian families are running where actually the culture is shaping us much more than our conviction.

Kevin: When you accept the mission and the design that God has for the family that is laid out in Scripture and you make that the framework for your Family Outpost, it instantly becomes a Kingdom Outpost.

Rance: We may stumble. We may get off course, but we've got something to come back to. You know, the reason families feel stuck isn't because they don't care. They're drifting because most of us have never been given a framework, a roadmap. We don't even know what another alternative is. And so that's what this episode is going to be about today. We're handing you the roadmap and the alternative for your family. So, Kevin, just remind us what is the Family Outpost Podcast, and who is this for?

Kevin: The Family Outpost is for families who are just done drifting. They're just done moving along without purpose. And here we bring you real stories, a real framework, and one thing you can do each week through our Outpost Challenge, so that families can know and live differently.

Rance: That's right. And we're basically doing two things today. First, Kevin and I are going to report back on our Outpost Challenge from last week, from the last episode, and we're going to be laying out this framework of the Kingdom Outpost and the Four Pillars that will completely reorient how your family thinks about what it's for. So well, let's get into this, Kevin. Let's talk about our Outpost Challenge from the last episode.

Kevin: Yeah. I think we both were kind of excited about this. We both had dates set up on the calendar, ready to dive right into it. And so going into it, did you have any apprehension? Did you know what Stacy was going to say, or did it become totally out of left field?

Rance: A couple of things. Number one, I didn't tell her this was for the podcast because I wanted to get, like, a really raw reaction. And I honestly had no idea what she's going to say. It could have gone any direction. And I think in the past, I've learned that timing is everything because I wanted to ask her several times, but I waited for this date night where we were already having good conversation, and it was awesome. Now actually, the first response was actually kind of funny. When I first asked her, the question was, for our family to feel more alive, what do we need more of, and what do we need less of? And so when I said we need more blank, she said puppies. That was the first response. And the second response, what we need less of was fighting. And by that, she was talking about miscommunication, stress, and chaos in the home.

Kevin: I'm glad she didn't say children because some people want to trade the puppies for children.

Rance: We would've had to unpack that. No. Fighting, like miscommunication, stress, kind of chaos in the home between us with the kids. But then I took it a layer deeper because I knew that was just kind of the surface level response. And so we circled back to it. And the second time she said, what I really think we need more of is more adventure, which was interesting because I feel like we have quite a bit of adventure in our life. But she's like, you can never have too much. We need more. And I think sometimes, you know, when you're in the daily grind, you're longing for more of those moments of adventure and, like, shared adventure where we're able to do it together. And then she said and this was this was deep.

Rance: She said less sickness. And that was sort of a personal reflection because she's got a chronic illness, autoimmune disease. And it's been a real struggle, you know, throughout our marriage. And even at times where it seems like she's doing everything right with her health, you know, she'll have a bad stretch and doesn't have energy and feels like she's not able to engage in the family like she would want to. And so that's kind of a constant prayer, you know, something that we have to navigate together. So, yeah.

Kevin: I'm glad you got to express that then.

Rance: Yeah. I thought it was very illuminating. We got to talk a lot more about it. It was a great prompt. How about you? You guys were on a date night as well, I think. Did the conversation go as you expected?

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, so we got to go out. We got to drive about thirty minutes south to go to a cute little town and walk around for a little bit. We had our three month old with us, and she was wonderful. And so we got to hang out at this restaurant for a little bit, and we were in great conversation. Likewise, I did not say, hey, I've got a podcast question for you.

Rance: Wise.

Kevin: But I asked I naturally ask a lot of questions, and so it wasn't unusual to ask a unique question. She answered in a way that felt like she was waiting for me to ask this question because she was so sure of the answer, and she did not say puppies. And so when I asked her to feel more alive, we would have more actually, I when I asked it, I did ask more of this and less of this. And where her mind went was she first answered less stuff and more skills. And I was like, oh, okay. This was a Holy Spirit moment for me because I've been preaching the, like, let's get rid of everything. I'm tired of seeing all the stuff everywhere. And so for her to say that, I actually had tears in my eyes. But we're going into the summer, and it's been fun because we talked about that for a while.

Kevin: Like, hey. It would be cool to just continue to grow into these skills. And so it's led to conversations with the kids about getting rid of stuff, not holding on to stuff, not putting our value in stuff, and then building skills, and even led to a conversation around formation. And, like, we don't want skills just to have skills. We want skills To help us be formed into, what we want. That also led to Colton wanting to be formed into a ninja, which was why he wanted some gymnastic skills to help him be formed into a ninja. So I don't know that he fully caught that.

Rance: Hey. I love that. I mean, that was a powerful conversation.

Kevin: It was. It was good.

Rance: Just, you know, simple question. And I think for both of us, pretty deep insight there. You know, for our listeners, if you tried the challenge this week, whether it was easy, awkward, however it went, we'd love to hear your experience, what came up. So there's a link in the show notes. You can email us, and we hope to hear from you. So now we're going to get into the episode and talk about why this question of how we can feel more alive. You know, what does our family need more or less of? Why does that matter? So before we get into this framework, we need to talk about what we're actually building toward. What is this all about?

Rance: And so the phrase that we like to use is Kingdom Outpost. Alright? And so to explain what that is, let me give you a metaphor, and then we'll give you a clear definition. So for those of you who have maybe read Tolkien, maybe you've seen the Lord of the Rings movies, you may remember there's a household, a place in the story called Rivendell, and this is this is the household of Elrond. Tolkien describes it as the last homely home east of the sea. And when the Fellowship of the Ring arrives there, they're, you know, battle weary. They're unsure about, you know, what's going to happen next. But here's what they find at Rivendell, feasting, rest, storytelling, safety. Tolkien makes an effort to say no evil is allowed, there in that place. Warriors would come there for restoration before heading back to the margins of enemy territory.

Rance: So that's a great metaphor, for a Kingdom Outpost. That's a home that knows what it's for. And, of course, Rivendell is fictional, but Tolkien is intentionally telling us something. He's teaching us something about the nature of the home. Now let me give you a little more clear definition.

Rance: A Kingdom Outpost is a home with a multigenerational vision, one that takes responsibility for its own spiritual development. It cultivates a culture that's so compelling that just being there is a discipleship experience, and it extends God's kingdom into new territory. Everything about it, the food, the music, the conversation, the rhythms, it creates a root structure deep enough to resist the most alluring pull of the culture around us. There is another culture, right, that's trying to tell us its story, and it's trying to draw us in. But this home, it's so compelling in its experience that the family genuinely represents the kingdom of God to the people in its orbit.

Rance: Now, of course, not perfectly. We'll get into that later, but they are unified around a God-given mission. There is relational capacity to take people in at their most vulnerable and give generously. So that's the vision of this Kingdom Outpost. And I just want to say clearly right up front, this is not for perfect families. It's not just for families who have it all together. It's for families who want to build toward something, and that includes whether you might be a blended family, divorced family, single parent. Maybe you're a young adult. You've not gotten married yet, but you want to. Maybe you're a grandparent, and you're sort of looking back, and you're wanting to leave a good legacy for your grandchildren, well, it's never too late to start building your outpost.

Rance: Kevin, let me just ask you real quick. We named this podcast the Family Outpost, not the Kingdom Outpost. What's that about? What's the difference?

Kevin: Real quick before we jump into that, I would say for anybody that was listening and didn't feel like they caught all of that, it's worth hitting that rewind and listening to that all again. Maybe not the Rivendell stuff if you're not a Tolkien fan, whatever, but at least understanding what a Kingdom Outpost is because Yeah. Really having that vision as the framework in your mind, it changes everything. So it all starts with a Kingdom Outpost, and we lead with The Family Outpost because reality is there are some people that aren't kingdom-focused. I hope there are people that are listening right now that don't know God and have stumbled upon this and say, this is interesting.

Kevin: I love my family. I want to do something purposeful for my family. I want to be that place of peace and rest and celebration and positive rhythms and all those things. But I don't know about the discipleship. I don't know about the mission focus. And you would be a Family Outpost. You have purpose in your family because reality is we all have purpose in our family. We all have a culture. We all have these rhythms. Sometimes they're not as intentional as we want them to be.

Kevin: But what changes a family from a Family Outpost into a Kingdom Outpost is the mission. When you accept the mission and the design that God has for the family that is laid out in Scripture and very clear, and you make that the framework for your Family Outpost, it instantly becomes a Kingdom Outpost because then you are in the kingdom. You are in enemy territory, and you are working through a greater purpose than just building a great family. Because some people's purpose is just, I want an awesome family and everyone to look at and say they've got a great family, and that's not bad. Right? That's good. It's just not godly. And so we want that Family Outpost ultimately to become a Kingdom Outpost.

Rance: Well said, Kevin. So let me give a little background on where this language came from. Why do we use the word outpost? Little history. This was several years ago. It was about the time my daughter was born in 2018, and she was my second child. I was feeling a lot of stirrings in my spirit about family. What is family for? Looking around at sort of the cultural landscape, and even Christian families just seeing so much brokenness and havoc and thinking, why are we getting this outcome? It's almost predictable over and over again. Is there another way? And then I stumbled I mean, literally just stumbled on a website called Family Teams. I don't even know how I got there. And as I started reading through the website, I'm like, yes, this is putting language to everything that had already been stirring in my spirit. And then from the website, I got a book.

Rance: It's called Family Revision by Jeremy Pryor. And I mean, I must have devoured that thing in a couple of days because it just hit me at the right time. It was putting the language to what God had already put on my heart, and it began to bring clarity to this vision. About that same time, Kent Susud and I, with Kent as the CEO and founder of All4One, we were doing, you know, kind of our typical strategic planning and vision casting for the future. And at that time, All4One didn't exist. We were stewarding two different ministries: SportQuest, a sports ministry, and 4MUS, an outdoor adventure ministry. But God began speaking to both of us about this shift in focus to the whole family, not just how can we...

Kevin: Tie that up real quick. Just because I want to make sure we're following the timeline. Your daughter was born in 2018.

Rance: 2018.

Kevin: Okay. And then that's when you start stumbling upon family teams, building language, start churning like, hey, we're doing these ministry-based things, but, you know, where does the family, you and Kent in 2019, start having a conversation Yes. About Okay. Okay. Interesting.

Rance: Our mission and vision really begins to evolve and shift toward the whole family, not just individuals, men, youth, women, but a really integrated vision around the family. Then 2020 hits and COVID. And I think depending on what state you lived in, you had a very different experience of that time. Some people didn't really realize anything was happening. Others were their whole life was turned upside down.

Rance: While I live in New Mexico, it was a bit more strict here with some of the laws and the expectations. And I can remember the governor saying, you know, even in your own household, you can't have more than five people gathering together. And I'm like, I mean, first of all, for large families, what message is that sending? I mean, Kevin, in your household, you've got, like, seven people, you know, just within your family, and that's assuming, you know, extended family aren't over. So that's sort of another tangent.

Rance: But I remember I had a men's group at that time, and we kept meeting. And it actually felt a little rebellious, like we're breaking the law to, you know, have our men's group in my backyard. I think that sort of context began to shape a little bit of how I felt about family too, because it was like, if we're going to be intentional about God's design, it's going to feel almost a little rebellious. Like, it's countercultural. It's not the default mode that is sort of the air we breathe around us.

Rance: It's you're going to have to swim upstream. There was another book, Benedict Option, that really informed a lot of my thinking around this too that, you know, basically says, as Christians, we're no longer the majority. We're living in a world that, you know, doesn't really get us and understand us. And so some people, their reaction is to take to social media or just double down on politics or, you know, try to change things at this macro level that they actually have no influence and no control over. So the thesis of the book is where do you have influence? Well, it's your home. It's your household. It's your family. I just saw that the family is so critical to God's mission and what he wants to do in and through our family actually is going to make the biggest impact on our culture. And so I think those are just some of the main moments that led to the Kingdom Outpost, taking shape.

Kevin: It's interesting because it was I believe it was then 2020 where that language and even the shift and the conversation around All4One started coming out. And, I went on the first XCC, my first XCC, which is Xtreme Character Challenge in 2017. And then I got involved in the ministry in 2019. And, I may have told you this before, but I remember thinking, okay. And I don't think we talked about it on the first episode, but I remember thinking, okay, I will serve here because I feel God asking me to even though I didn't enjoy my experience, but I encountered him on the mountain.

Kevin: I'll serve here, but I don't want to meet anybody in leadership. I don't want to have any conversation with anybody. I just want to go, and I want to serve, and I want to leave, and I want to come back next year. Because I'll be disappointed if I meet the people that are behind this and find out this great thing that I have seen impact the men around me is built on nothing. And so 2019, I go, end up hiking for a while with this guy, having a great conversation, talking about how we met our wives, different books, all these things. It's great. And I enjoyed our conversation. And then we get to the last day, somebody's like, hey. I think it's cool that the founder of this ministry in the U.S. was here this weekend. I'm like, oh, really? That's cool. It's like, who's that? And he points over to this guy, I'm like, dang it. I didn't want to meet that guy. And then we had a great conversation.

Kevin: And that was Kent. That was Kent. And so that's 2019. You guys are having these conversations in the background. I step in. I'm starting to lead this men's group in 2019 at the same time. But if you remember from the last episode, we were talking about how God started stirring something in my heart, and he told me it's not about you, it's about the family. And so in 2020, I get invited to go to the first leadership summit for, 4MUS, and I almost didn't go and almost told Kent and everybody else, hey, I'm stepping away from the ministry because from what I have seen, this ministry is largely about men. Although I have a heart for men, I think God's actually pointing me in a different direction. I think it's more about family. It's more about making sure marriages are strong and all those things. And I almost did. And then I was like, you know what?

Kevin: I'm going to go. I'm going to listen. And it was at that leadership summit that they announced, hey, we're shifting. We're shifting from this battle for men to the front lines because the front line is the battle for the family. And so, the timing of everything stirring in our home, as it's stirring in your home and within the organization, I don't think it's a coincidence. So worth mentioning.

Rance: Well, I want to give a little more context to the word, outpost. Yeah, please. I kind of gave the background, but I think one of the reasons we chose Outpost is because it's an outpost is a small strategic team usually positioned at the edge of enemy territory. It provides sanctuary for the people around it. I love reading books about the American frontier, and they would set up these outposts, like all over the frontier, and people would go there for safety, for food, for protection. So that's kind of the idea that the outpost is both a threat to the enemy as well as a target, you know, for the enemy. So it's offense and defense simultaneously. So we just like that word. I think it speaks a lot to the kind of family that we're wanting to build. And, you know, there's been a few just really neat examples throughout history that I'll just point to quickly.

Rance: Francis Schaeffer, who's known for the ministry of L'Abri, he and his wife, Edith, opened their home in the Swiss Alps, to, people who would just come in and ask hard questions, about God and life. Their kids would sometimes be bringing friends home from college, and they would have these great debates. And many of them became Christians, but it wasn't because of a program. It was because of a household. And the word L'Abri actually means shelter. And so their household was a shelter. It was an outpost to many, and that model's now been replicated around the world and outlived its founder. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another hero of mine. I don't know about you, Kevin, but I think a lot of us know his story. But maybe what we don't realize is the kind of family that he was really formed in.

Rance: I mean, imagine the gumption and the courage and the conviction it takes to stand up to the Nazis. Yeah. That didn't come from nowhere. Yeah. It came from the kind of home that he was raised in. So they would hold these open evenings where, you know, people were invited. There was food. There was music, and they loved to debate ideas. And just being in the orbit of that family was so formative that I believe that's what gave Bonhoeffer and his community the resilience to stand up against the Nazis. And so I just think those are cool examples. Yeah. As we share those examples of Schaeffer and Bonhoeffer, obviously, those are ideals, and we realize we're talking to ordinary families. And the expectation here is not that we're going to do any of this perfectly. It's more about trajectory.

Rance: Having a framework, having a vision that we can always sort of be reorienting ourselves and saying, are we pointing in that direction? We may stumble. We may get off course, but we've got something to come back to. And it's an alternative to this default program that I think even a lot of Christian families are running where actually the culture is shaping us much more than our conviction. And that typical default program is something to the effect of spending eighteen years trying to just balance the chaotic busyness of pursuing success in your career, trying to keep your marriage together, raising good kids.

Rance: Then you launch your kids when they turn 18 into their own individual success and ambition. You watch them leave, and then they repeat the program. Over the years, that fruit has not been good. That is what we're sort of seeing and reevaluating in our culture. And so the Kingdom Outpost is the alternative. It's a family team with a shared mission. It's outward-facing. It's multigenerational. It's built on something that's going to outlast you. That's what we're talking about here today. Kevin, when you think about your own family growing up, what was the default program that you were running maybe without even realizing it?

Kevin: We experienced several default programs. The start of our family was actually pretty messy, pretty chaotic. And so there was a shift somewhere around elementary school within our family, and we could talk about the background of this at another time, but there was a shift where, my mom actually came to know Jesus and she made this intentional decision to pursue a different framework, but the reality is she had no idea. She didn't have that Kingdom Outpost language. She didn't have anybody speaking into her and telling her how families should run, but she began to be surrounded by people, and we started to see this shift.

Kevin: But the reality was she had the greatest heart and my dad was on board for the direction she wanted to take the family, but she didn't have all the language, she didn't have all the intentionality, she just didn't have the resources. And so by default, church was there, and it was visibly important to her, and she was intentional about getting us there. But the default program really looked not a whole lot different than everybody else. It was still a lot of focus around sports and education, things that we were doing and the focus on grades and college. And it was never from a heart of, you better do this right.

Kevin: But it was just like, hey. We'll just jump almost on this, you know, track that everybody else is in, but we'll do it with Christian values but on the same track as everybody else. And so, unfortunately, through that, I would say Kelly and I started the same way. We Yes. We started our relationship with Christian values, but unintentionally, we just jumped on the track like everybody else did.

Rance: Right. Yeah. Very much my story as well. And I think that's where most of us find ourselves. It's not because we don't care. It's not because we're bad people. It's just the pull of this sort of default program is really strong. So how do we build a Kingdom Outpost? It's going to have to be very intentional, to sort of get out of this pool of the culture. And so this is what we've been discovering over the last several years.

Rance: And what we've found is that every family that has successfully exited that default program and is bearing good fruit has been intentionally operating in four areas, and we call them the Four Pillars, multigenerational vision, priesthood of the family, culture, and adventure. And these aren't programs. These are based on Scripture, and it's God's actual blueprint. It's our best attempt to try to understand his design, for the family. We're not claiming by any means that this is a formula. And if you follow this, you will always get this outcome, and you can guarantee your kids will love Jesus and have lots of grandkids. Can't control all of that. Right? But we know that when we're faithful to God's design, we can trust him with the outcome. And so let's let's begin to take these one pillar at a time.

Rance: So starting with the first one, multigenerational vision. This is about thinking beyond one lifetime and shaping a family legacy of faith that extends across generations. Kingdom Outpost household doesn't just raise children. It's planting seeds for grandchildren, great-grandchildren. This is a long vision. You're passing on faith values and purpose that become a lasting inheritance. So with a multigenerational vision, you don't see parenting as an eighteen year job. Seasons change, roles change, but parenting is a lifetime appointment. And what we do today is going to leave a blessing or a curse for future generations. So the family is not this launching pad for individuals.

Rance: It's a team with a story that spans generations. It's a long vision that you're actually building toward, and it's something that will outlast you. So, Kevin, give us a moment from your own family where maybe you experienced this or maybe the absence of this.

Kevin: Yeah. We've experienced it all, and we live in North Carolina, and my family is in Pennsylvania. Her family is spread between Boston and Florida. So we're raising five kids, with no grandparents around, no multigenerational, and we felt that for different reasons. We haven't chosen to move back to anything, and we've had the conversations about kind of being this Abraham and Sarah part of the generation that's trying to create this shift.

Kevin: But I would say the moment where we really felt it and knew something needed to be different was actually when we came out to this family weekend through All4One where Jeremy and his family and April and the whole team came out there and spoke, and it wasn't that it was these original ideas. It was so interesting because Kelly and I were having conversations around family rhythms, about Sabbath, about the potential of creating a family business. We had all these things, and then we heard it in language. And Kelly and I went out on the water, and we just sat in a canoe, we talked about it for a while. And we're like, we have to stop talking about this.

Kevin: And the analogy that comes to mind, you talked about earlier the swimming upstream. It just felt like in that moment I didn't think about this till right now. It felt like in this moment, we've gotten used to swimming with the fishes. And we're like, we know there's another track, but we're, like, we're surrounded by all these other fish and we just keep going. And so in that moment, we're like, oh my gosh. Let's get off. Let's go in a different direction because we're watching somebody else swim upstream. And it looks hard and it's probably going to be messy, but we need that because we recognize that the enemy is not going to create a battle plan against me or against Kelly. He's going to create a multigenerational battle plan. So if he's got a multigenerational battle plan, we better have one too.

Kevin: Yeah. So we left that weekend saying, uh-uh. We're not going back to that flowing river anymore.

Rance: Yeah. Well, and I'll just give our listeners a little preview. In our next episode, we're going to be talking to a couple that have 30-plus years of lived multigenerational experience, and they're going to be adding a lot to this conversation. So stay tuned for that. We're going to have to hit these next three kind of briefly, Kevin. So pillar two, priesthood of the family. This means embracing the spiritual responsibility to lead, guide, and intercede for those in our household. We know that the Bible teaches in Christ, every believer is a priest. So we're not using that. And if you have a Roman Catholic background, we're not referring to that sort of a priest.

Rance: We're talking about the New Testament priesthood of every believer with direct access to God and his Word and the responsibility to minister to those entrusted to them, starting at home, starting with your kids. So there's no requirement here for a seminary degree. The primary place for spiritual development is the home, not an institution. Now the institutions are great, and they're supportive of what happens in the home, but they're not the primary place for spiritual development. So the false belief is that a family spiritual formation is best handled by the professionals, by the paid specialists, or by a program, but it isn't.

Rance: No one and nothing can replace a parent's role in the spiritual development of their children. So this pillar is about creating an environment where your household meets with God, where you're carrying his presence into the rhythms of daily life, where you're calling out identity in your children with words of blessing. So that's priesthood of the family.

Kevin: Can you think of maybe even going back before this language became clear, or since it became clear, something you've done, tried, failed, stumbled through that really has become a framework for this priesthood within your home?

Rance: Yeah. I love to read Scripture with my kids, and I'd say I definitely stumbled through this a lot as they were younger, trying to find ways to communicate to them on their level. But especially once they started to learn to read, a game changer was handing them the Bible and letting them just read God's Word. Not a story about the Bible or someone else's words about God's Word, but, like, just going to the source. Our rhythm has been that every morning before school, we pull out we have a little devotional book, and it just kind of prompts us. Here's a passage we're going to read. Here's some questions to discuss it. And the beautiful thing that I've seen is my kids really love God's Word, and that was never a guarantee. I didn't know if that was going to happen. There were a lot of eye rolls, you know, at times when it's like, oh, dad, again.

Rance: But, man, I'm seeing the fruit of it now. And we haven't done it perfectly. We don't do it every day. We miss some. That's not really been the point. The point has been the trajectory: they are learning God's Word and learning to love God's Word.

Kevin: That's good. That's good.

Rance: Yeah. Pillar three is culture. Culture means cultivating the values, rhythms, and boundaries. We're going to be unpacking those three things in future episodes. But values, rhythms, and boundaries that create a family environment that reflects heaven on earth. Not perfectly, but we want to we want to experience a taste of heaven, a glimpse of heaven in our homes. But most families' lifestyles are so fast and furious that we primarily get dictated by cultural norms rather than our values or our convictions. So we first have to take control of our family's time and be intentional about the culture we're building. Because if we are not the ones designing it, the world would love to step in and do that for us. And there is going to be a culture in our home, whether it's accidental or intentional.

Rance: We need to teach our values, but we also know that values are caught. And they're more than just our words. What we say is important. It's the lived atmosphere of our home that shapes who our children become and how they're going to raise their own children one day. So rhythms make the values visible, and then boundaries protect them from being crowded out. Some ingredients of this would be family language, like the way we talk in our family, traditions, how you handle conflict, what you celebrate, mealtimes, all of those things produce culture in your home. So, Kevin, what has been one specific thing, a rhythm or phrase or tradition that's become part of your family's culture.

Kevin: Yeah. You mentioned two things. You did mention language as one, which has definitely been important to us, and a couple things that God put on our hearts is to speak the identity statements into our kids and we have this very clear identity statement for our kids, and it's shared. But anytime they call each other another name, you dumb-dumb, whatever it is, they actually have to speak their identity over. They say, hey. You are not a dumb. You are a son of the Most High God, a dangerous warrior in the Lord's army, and a vital member of the Morrison team. Love it. We speak their identity into them, and then they have to speak that identity over each other, and they've enjoyed that. So language matters.

Kevin: We also have, our Monday family meetings. And for a while, we did 23 family ways that kind of our family does this, our team does it this way. And the framework of that is God's path versus our path. And in that, I have young kids, and so they don't just want to sit down and read a book. They want to be on their feet. They want to move, and we don't always do this well. But at one point, going through this 23 family ways, we just talked about, hey, there are two paths that you get to choose. There is the wide gate and the narrow path. So I put my arms out really wide on this way, and then I put my arm real close to my body this way. And I said, which way do you guys want to go?

Kevin: And they all kind of smiled, they pointed to my arm by my side. And then I told Cason, prove it to me. And so then he had to fight his way through my arm, and then they all did it. And then they just want to keep doing it. And it was just this moment where they recognize, hey. Hey. This is a narrow path. It's going to be hard, but our family does hard things. And so now that's part of our language. Right? Which path do you want to take right now? Which path are you on? And so they know within discipline, within boundaries, within those things, it's because we want them on the narrow path, and they chose. They made that decision to be on the narrow path. They didn't take the wide gate.

Kevin: And so that language, the coming back to it, all that, and we stumble through that plenty and we ask ourselves all the time, are we doing this right? And then, I mean, this morning, you know, my kid's sick, Colton's sick. And at one point, I turned to Cason and I said, will you pray over Colton? And he said, Callan and I just finished praying over him. And I got to tell Kelly about that, and she's like, we're doing something right.

Rance: So, yes. It's building culture. I love it.

Kevin: Building culture. Building culture.

Rance: Alright. Well, let's let's do the last pillar. It's adventure. And this is a unique pillar because it's really the outward-facing pillar. The other three pillars are strengthening us internally so that we can move into this fourth pillar. So adventure means being ready to go, serve, and sacrifice for a purpose greater than ourselves. Most families are maybe even without realizing it, we're inviting children into a story that goes something like this. Make good grades, stay out of trouble, get a good job, and be kind. And that's kind of it. We were made for so much more than that. God already has invited us into his story, and that story involves the unknown. There's risk. There's challenge. Adventure, though camping trips are a great part of that, we're talking about more than, taking our family camping. This is about a life surrendered to following Jesus and living on mission together.

Rance: And a Kingdom Outpost integrates mission into daily life. So your family isn't in the way of the mission. They are essential to the mission. And when risk and courage unite a family around something greater than themselves, it forges something in them that comfort never could. And that's why this is so critical. So, you know, I will also say adventure could easily be misunderstood as just sort of a personality type. Like, you know, some people may be listening and thinking, I'm not an outdoorsy, you know, type of family. I just want to clarify. This is not about hiking, though being on outdoor adventures, they certainly create some of the conditions that help us embrace this kind of lifestyle more. But this is about being willing to say yes to giving and serving beyond yourselves.

Rance: And it will cost you something, but this is the outward-facing pillar that keeps us from just kind of being this holy huddle that's inward focused and maybe inadvertently becoming starting to feel entitled to God's blessings. Adventure helps us be a conduit of God's blessing to the world around us.

Kevin: That's good. It's funny because I think there are some people that think, well, adventure's for some Christians, but I this may be blasphemous. I don't know. Somebody can yell at me, but I believe that God said, come follow me, and he totally could have said, hey, let's go on an adventure.

Rance: That's right.

Kevin: And in a lot of ways, it would have been synonymous. Right? Because, yeah. This was just one big adventure. And so it could be grandiose, like following Jesus. It could be grandiose in all kinds of different ways, and it could be small things. But can you think of a time, something big where you went outside of yourself, whether it cost you, your family, your comfort, or your finances?

Rance: Yeah. Early on, just a big step toward adventure in our family was when my son was five and my daughter was eight months old. And we joined a we helped lead a vision trip, a mission trip to Panama. And going into it, we thought, are we crazy for taking our eight-month-old, you know, on this trip? And I know Kevin knows what I'm talking about because you've experienced that too. But, man, it was so powerful. And I think one of the reasons was because in our daily life, especially with an infant, you're constantly trying to control their environment. You're trying to keep them clean. You're trying to keep them fed. You're trying to make sure they have nap times.

Rance: When you go to another country and you're on a mission trip, all that's out the window. And I can remember seeing my wife and my eight-month-old daughter sitting in the dirt, you know, eating, like, rice and beans, and my daughter has it just all over her. But with so much joy, you know, and it enabled us to be able to get out of ourselves a little bit and go and serve and make a difference in the lives of others. And it made a big difference in our lives. I remember seeing my son in the rain, playing soccer in the mud with all these kids. It was just a beautiful experience, and I think it's really set the tone for the next decade of our life that we were going to be a family that said yes to God's adventure even when it wasn't comfortable.

Kevin: That's huge. That's huge. That's where the mission is. Awesome.

Rance: Well, speaking of challenges, this is now the time for our Outpost Challenge in this episode. And it's just a reminder, we're going to be doing this Outpost Challenge in every episode. Starting in the next episode, we're going to have guests who give us the challenge. But because today, it's just me and Kevin, we've got a challenge for each other, and we'd love for the listener to be part of this and do this right along with us. So, Kevin, what's our Outpost Challenge today?

Kevin: First, if you're listening to this and you're single, you can kind of internalize this and think through it and think about how you would want to move this forward. If you're married, and you're the only one that listened to this episode, it's a great opportunity for you to invite your spouse to say, hey, will you listen to this? Because I got a question that I want to dive into because you can either bring the context to this question or you can invite them to listen so they have the context of the question. But it's basically go through the Four Pillars that we talked about today. Lay out the Four Pillars, have a conversation about each of them, and then pick one.

Kevin: Pick one that you think might be the weakest for your family, whether it's because you haven't seen it, because you haven't lived it intentionally, and just talk about that. That's your starting point. Talk about that weak point that you have.

Rance: And we're going to do the same, right, with our spouses, and we'll come back and report how that went in the next episode. So we encourage you to do that right along with us. And, again, we've got the link in the show notes if you want to share with us how that goes. So here's what we want you to walk away with today in just one sentence. A family that knows what it's for is different. They're not perfect, but they are different. And there is an alternative to the default way families operate. So the Kingdom Outpost framework is what keeps you pointed in that direction. It gives you that trajectory when life gets loud, when the drift sets in. So if you're feeling behind, if this feels overwhelming, again, we just want to encourage you.

Rance: You don't have to have all four of these pillars perfectly at the start. Just start with one. What's one area that you can be intentional in and just take that step today? So, Kevin, anything you want to leave us with before we go?

Kevin: Thank you guys for joining us. Genuinely, thank you for walking in obedience. Thank you for wanting something different, wanting to return to God's design for your family. It's going to get uncomfortable, but it's beautiful. Rance, I want to thank you for, you know, working on some of this language. I just want to challenge you to walk out what that weak point is for your family, but, I'm excited that there is even a framework, so I thank you for that. But I'd also encourage you guys, for you, Rance, and for listeners, even as you talk about where you may have fallen short and where you need to work, also celebrate where God has been gracious to your family and which pillar might be strongest, intentional or not. And because we want to celebrate those victories together as well.

Rance: Yeah. That's good. So, yeah, from Kevin and I both, thank you for being here. This show exists because families like yours are willing to be intentional. So one thing before we go, if what you heard today was meaningful, share this episode with another family who needs to hear it, and hit the buttons that show up on your device. Subscribe, follow. That helps more families find us as we're getting this launched and out there. And next time on the Family Outpost, we've got Hannes & Alma du Preez, and you're going to want to hear from these guys. They've been building an intentional multigenerational family for decades, and so we're going to take a deep dive into pillar one, Multigenerational Vision, through their story and experience. So you do not want to miss it. We'll see you next time.

Links

The Family Outpost Podcast: https://www.all4one.org/the-family-outpost-podcast

SportQuest: https://www.sportquest.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/all4one_ministries/

The Family Outpost, Episode 1 | Welcome to the Outpost

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:53:11 GMT

Most families want to live with purpose, but everyday life can pull them back into survival mode.

In Episode 1 of The Family Outpost, Rance Bland and Kevin Morrison introduce the heart behind the show. Through their own stories, they name the tension many families feel: the desire to build something meaningful while schedules, pressure, conflict, and old patterns keep pulling them back into drift.

Rance shares how early marriage, family brokenness, ministry, Belgium, and the birth of his son helped him rethink what family is for. Kevin shares how God exposed cracks beneath a life that looked strong from the outside and began moving his family toward a bigger vision.

Together, they introduce the question that will shape the season: What would it look like for families to become Kingdom Outposts in everyday life?

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro and Theme Music

00:36 Meet Rance and Kevin

03:43 Families Done Drifting

04:39 Rance’s Family Story

08:35 The Moment Everything Changed

13:05 Two Visions of Family

14:47 Kevin’s Family Story

21:28 The Kingdom Outpost Framework

22:36 The Outpost Challenge

23:34 Episode 1 Challenge

24:54 Different on Purpose

Outpost Challenge

Sit down with your spouse and finish this sentence out loud:

“Our family would feel more alive if we had more _______ and less _______.”

Do not overthink it. Talk honestly. There is no right answer, only an honest one.

If you are single, reflect on your family of origin.

Rance and Kevin will take this same challenge with their own families and report back in Episode 2.

Share what happened with us at familyoutpost@all4one.org . We read every response.

Episode Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Rance: Most families want to live with purpose, but everyday life just has a way of pulling us back into survival mode.

Kevin: You said the framework of family has to look different. Where'd where did that come from?

Rance: It's not that people don't have good intentions. There's gotta be something more foundational. So many people are experiencing brokenness and fragmentation in family, and I just began to realize that there there has to be something wrong beneath the surface at the level of what we believe family is actually for. Alright.

Rance: Well, I'm Rance Bland, and I'm part of Team Bland. We live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My wife, Stacy, we've been married twenty years. We have two kids. I have a son, Jaxton, who's 10 and a daughter, Cortlynn, who's seven. And we love sports, the outdoors. Yes. Tacos and green chile because we do live in New Mexico. And I would say we are kind of known as the e-bike family in our neighborhood, Kevin. I I don't know if you've ridden an e-bike, but we've actually got a a bike with two seats on the back. So either me or Stacy drive, and then the kids are in the back in tow. And that's how we take them to school and pick them up. So we're that family, you know, in our neighborhood.

Kevin: I heard somebody say those who can't ride bikes ride e-bikes. Is that

Rance: You know, there might be truth to that because there are some hills in this neighborhood that I would not wanna climb without the the little motor.

Kevin: That's fair.

Rance: Anyway, my my wife is a part-time nurse in the ER. I work for a ministry called All4One, and our mission is to strengthen families through sports and adventure, which is kind of a unique thing that those the tools of sports and adventure, those have been a big part of my life, and I believe they're great tools to strengthen families. And we believe families are a critical part of God's mission. So that's a little bit about our family. Kevin, tell us about Team Morrison.

Kevin: Yeah. So Kevin Morrison of Team Morrison. I've got a beautiful wife, Kelly, who's, the rock of the family. Five kids that usually gets an eyebrow raise from most people. Cason is 10. Colton is seven. Callan is five. Cobe is two. And we have an eight-week-old, Canyon. And, yes, you heard correctly, we are the family that has all C names, which at first, I didn't I wasn't necessarily on board with, but then I got Kelly a really nice necklace with the letter C on it. Apparently, I don't have to get her another necklace. And so I'm a, by day, a PA in orthopedics, and our family has a deck building or outdoor living construction company over the last two and a half years. And so we moved out to the country a couple years ago, which got more eyebrow raises because we are both from right outside of Philadelphia and have no business with 11 acres. That's for sure.

Rance: Awesome, Kevin. And, you know, you you took time today in the midst of your schedule. I think you you've just come come from setting a fractured arm, and here you are making time for this podcast. So that's awesome. Thank you, brother.

Kevin: Of course. Well, I didn't really have a choice because you called me about a month ago, so shortly, maybe six weeks ago, right after Canyon was born. And you said this has to happen, and this has to happen right now even to the point of having to bring all this stuff with me to the office. So why the Family Outpost? Why right now? What's so important that right now in time this has to happen?

Rance: Yeah. Most families want to live with purpose, but everyday life just has a way of pulling us back into survival mode, managing schedules, there's conflict, trying to just get through the week. So this show is for families who are done drifting, families who wanna live on mission in real life, not just, you know, in theory. If you've ever felt like your family was built for something more than you're currently living, this show is for you. Every episode, we're gonna bring you a real story, real family, a framework, and one thing you can actually do with your family this week. So let's get into it, Kevin.

Kevin: Rance, I gotta know because this is this framework, this way of thinking, this approach to the family, this is different in the world we live in today. But when did you or when did, the Bland family start thinking differently about family itself?

Rance: Yeah. So my wife and I got married twenty years ago. It's actually our twentieth anniversary this year. And, honestly, we had no real vision or framework for marriage or family. I mean, we we obviously loved each other. We wanted to honor God and and our relationship and everything we did. But for the most part, if we're really honest, marriage was about us. It was about getting our needs met, having that special person to come home to at the end of a long day. But it was basically a self-centered vision with no real awareness or understanding of building something bigger than us or something that might outlast us. And I think that's probably pretty typical for most newlyweds. But if then if you add to that that my parents got divorced or they finalized their divorce one week before our wedding, you know, the first year or two was really just damage control.

There was a lot of additional drama in our lives. And I've also got three younger siblings, much younger. You know, I was out of the house, graduated from college at that time, but I have a sister who was in high school and I have two brothers who were in middle school. The youngest brother and I, there's a fourteen year age gap. So because of the age difference and everything that our family was going through, Stacy and I were really parenting my siblings or helping to parent my siblings in many ways. And at the same time, I was a youth pastor. And so Stacy and I were also kind of parenting 50 other kids, you know, in the youth group. And many of of them came from pretty broken or traumatized backgrounds. So, you know, we were basically in survival mode for the first six years of of our marriage.

Kevin: I'm trying to, like, actually put myself back in that moment and think of when I got married and all the things. And there are some similarities within our story, but you are starting a a family without great framework, but you're also trying to lead your own siblings. How did how was that?

Rance: It's kinda like the blind leading the blind. We had no idea what we were doing. You know, just trying to help create a safe place for them, as they kind of finished high school. But I think because we were basically surrogate parents for them and for so many others, you know, the impact that that had on us was we really had no desire to have kids of our own. I mean, why would we want kids? It feels like we've already got so many. And and we didn't really have any bandwidth to think about more than that. And there was just zero vision for for for family. But then six years into marriage, God called us to to Belgium. Now I know for those of you who are listening that just came out of left field, but even when Stacy and I got married, that was something God had already put on my heart and I had mentioned to her.

So this calling had been building over the years and the clarity and conviction around it really started to get strong. And we knew God was calling us to leave everything behind and to go. And so, I mean, it truly was a purpose-driven calling. It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to all the the mess going on in our lives. But in in retrospect, I can see God's timing that he was kind of getting us out of that so that we had the time and space to actually really heal. We we had a lot of hurt and pain and brokenness in ourselves, in our own lives that needed a time of healing and renewal. And so Belgium kind of ended up becoming that that time. And and that's actually when everything changed. Because as we started to heal and and to grow in our marriage, that desire for children really came in strong. And so my son was born in Belgium.

That was the moment when really this realization began to hit me. I've got to tell you, it was a really powerful moment, Kevin. We were at the hospital, and it was a C-section. So the doctor delivered the baby. You know, the nurses take him and and weigh him and clean him up, and they do their thing. Then they hand him to me. And Stacy's still getting sewn up. You know, she just finished the operation. And so here I I have my son, just quality time one-on-one for, like, fifteen minutes. And the thing that that hit me was his eyes were wide open. Now I don't know if that was supposed to be a normal thing that dads know, but, you know, I had seen puppies when they're born. Sometimes they don't have their eyes open. So I wasn't expecting him to just be staring back at me and like, hey, dad. You know? Like, aren't you gonna say something?

And there's just this immediate connection and just this flood of emotion, you know, that that came over me. You know, I know that can be a big moment for for any dad, but it hit me really hard. And I I think some of that was because for so many years, we had been raising other people's kids, and I think that was good and godly. I I hope it made a difference in their lives. But at the end of the day, those kids went home to their own parents or or whatever their home situation was. Maybe it was a grandparent or whoever was raising them. And and now I'm holding my son and realizing he's my responsibility. And, you know, by the grace of God, he's gonna outlive me, and he's gonna have a family of his own one day.

And I just realized I'm I'm gonna have to do some things differently because I don't want him to experience the same pain and brokenness that that we went through and that so many people experience in family. And so as I stood there holding him, I just spoke life and and blessing over him as I stood there in the hospital, and I literally shared the gospel with him. Just told him there's a God who created you, who loves you, who even died for you. And I I told him who he is, tried to speak into his identity, what what his names mean. And it was just this powerful moment that really set me on a journey of trying to make sure I was equipped as a dad and to understand God's design for the family.

Kevin: I mean, I can certainly identify with being in the hospital room and seeing my child for the first time, and we've gone through it quite a few times. My first was very different than that experience, but you're just talking about your your son eyes wide open staring at you, like, now what, dad? Like, tell me everything I need to know about life right in this moment. That's powerful. But for many men, there is this level of responsibility that hits them, this life is gonna look different from here on out. But for you, it was, I've gotta rethink family. Like, I'm not it's not, I've gotta rethink how I'm gonna raise a child because I've never thought about how to raise a son before. You said the framework of family has to look different. Where, like, where did that come from?

Rance: Yeah. Well, I think it's because, it's not that people don't have good intentions. You know? So many families I mean, they they love their family. They wanna see their family succeed. So it's not that the secret is, like, just try harder. You know? Do better. Communicate more. I think there's there's gotta be something more foundational, and and that's what I was seeing. I was I just I didn't know what it was yet, but it's like there has to be more than just trying to do better. There has to be a different way of looking at and thinking about family because the outcomes that many families are getting, and not just my own, but in our culture, are not good. And, you know, the the statistics don't lie. I mean, The U.S. has has some of the highest divorce rates in the world. You know, now a lot of people just aren't even bothering to get married. So marriage rates are down.

Birth rates are down. And the U.S. leads the world in single-parent households. So definitely, despite good intentions, so many people are experiencing brokenness and fragmentation in family. And I just began to realize that there there has to be something wrong beneath the surface at the level of what we believe family is actually for. We can tweak all the little things all all we want, but if we're running on the wrong operating system, we're gonna keep getting the wrong results. As I kind of set out on this journey, I began to realize that there were two pretty distinct visions of a family. And the first one is the one that we're all most familiar with. Maybe we haven't really named it, but it's kind of this springboard vision where the family's a springboard for individual success. And so in this in this vision, you know, you raise your kids, you protect your kids.

And then at age 18, you're launching your kids out into the world, and you're basically saying, alright, buddy, you're flying the nest. I hope you do well. I hope everything I taught you, you know, is gonna stick with you, but you're kind of on your own now. And and as a parent, you're you're kind of like, alright. Job well done. The other vision that maybe is is less common, spoiler alert, I think this is more of the biblical vision, is multigenerational team on mission. Something that has a purpose bigger than any one member of of the team. It's it's about building something that's gonna outlast you. Most of us have inherited that springboard model, and we didn't even realize it. We didn't decide that. It's it's just kind of the default. But this show is is exists to show there is another way. Yeah.

There there is something different, and and that's what we wanna try to uncover in the next few episodes. But without going further in that, Kevin, I'd I'd love to hear more of your story. Let the listeners kinda hear some of your background. When did you realize that there was something missing in your family?

Kevin: Yeah. So that's interesting. And it's probably not this single moment where it all came crashing down on me, kinda like you experienced just holding Jaxton for the first time. I come from a family where kinda origin, both of my parents were married before they ended up leaving their spouses for one another. And the start of our family was a little bit chaotic, a little bit hectic, certainly not walking with the Lord to, in the way that things started. And now by the grace of God, there is so much redemption within that story, but not necessarily the perfect biblical upbringing of how things were supposed to go. And then I meet my wife or my wife to be. I step into their family, and it's like, it's awesome. It just feels like it's perfect. It's, you know, some of the things that I wanted.

And then we're married just over a year, and it feels like out of the blue, the word divorce was brought up. And before you know it, her parents are are split up. And then we moved to North Carolina. And on the outside, everything looked good. And if you would've asked those around us, they would've said, no. They're a good, strong family. At this point where God starts doing this work, we already had three kids. Callan's just a baby. My wife would probably tell you that I'm a good husband, all these things. But as I was reflecting on it, we talk about framework, we talk about foundation, this analogy of seeing cracks in a wall and then taking some spackle and spackling it over and painting it. And then all of a sudden, it looks good, and actually, it even feels good because everything looks better, and it's kinda satisfying the work that you did.

But then all a sudden, cracks show up again, and then you you spackle again, you paint again, things look better. And the realization, the reality is there's something wrong with the foundation. But I had no idea how to fix that and what that even looked like to fix that. And what I found is I was probably chasing my identity and my purpose in the wrong thing. And so I'm I've got a career. I've got a strong patient following, and I start chasing after these other things. Not not things that look bad on the outside. It's real estate. Right? It's another way to generate some income for my family, but I'm I'm I'm chasing things, and they are selfish ambition selfish ambition and vain conceit in in the very end. And I end up going on an XCC in 2017. God opened my heart, my eyes to to see things differently just as a man.

And I start going down this path, and I go on another retreat that was very different. It was just a lot of quiet time with the Lord, and he spoke to me in a radical way and pointed out things and the things that I was chasing in life. And shortly after this, I decided to do this sixty days of discipline. It was more of a spiritual 75 Hard, where it's not like this physical thing. There are some physical components, but it was really a a spiritual thing, a lot of fasting, a lot of prayer. But the purpose and the hope behind it was I was asking God for what is your vision for my life? Over these sixty days, like, I I'm asking what is the vision? Please bring clarity to this vision. If I'm gonna kind of give this one moment where this started happening, it was on day 60.

Because I'm on day 60 of anything like I'm I'm sixty days into this process that was hard, and I am no further along understanding my vision than on day one. Okay. And so I walked downstairs. It's a Sunday. I walked downstairs, and I grabbed my notebook, and I I actually went and found this notebook. I grabbed this notebook, and I grabbed my Bible, I told Kelly, I'm gonna go wrestle with God. And I smiled, but, like, if I'm if I'm being honest, I was frustrated. Mhmm. I was frustrated. Is this the wrong process? Like, I knew God is good, but I was frustrated with not having an answer. I was frustrated, so I told her I'm gonna go wrestle with God. We'll see what happens. And so I go out there, and, he didn't give me an answer. He didn't give me an answer of what his vision is for my life.

He gave me immense clarity that it is not about me, and that I was that I was so focused on my identity and my purpose and me. And I was doing it for the right reasons. I I felt like I was doing it for the right reasons. I wanted to honor God with his vision for my life, but he's made it very clear, like, it's not about you. Like, yeah, I can I can use you, but it's it's something bigger and there's something greater? And there's so many steps after that. I walked away there from there with a destination, but I had no idea how to get there. And I can walk you through so many other moments along the way that brought us here, but what was cool is he set me out on this path, and in the same time, he is setting you and other people around me on the same road. And while I'm trying to figure it out, he's giving you framework. He's giving you language.

He's giving you these these things that he is showing me abstractly in small ways that Kelly and I are picking and choosing. And, I mean, I'm sure we will unpack this as we go through this process. But if there was it started with this destination in front of the pond in my neighborhood, it kinda came together for the Morrison family on an All4One family retreat that I got to be on with Kelly where the language started to come out. The clarity on some of the things that Kelly and I were hearing in prayer and through confirmation started to come together. And that just became a real launching point point for our team in our understanding and actually moving forward, and it's continued to to develop.

Rance: It sounds like, Kevin, you thought you knew the question that needed to be answered. But it's like, God was not interested in answering that question. He he knew the question that needed to be answered and and gave you the answer you you really needed. Would that be a a good way of saying that?

Kevin: Yeah. I would I would absolutely agree and would say it's very much in line with Jacob's interaction with God and the wrestling. And having one question and getting a different answer. And every in the end, everybody walked away a little bit different than when they started. And so I could say the same for not only me, but for the family.

Rance: Yeah. Well, as people are listening to us, you know, share our stories, they're they're hearing us say things about this realization that we had or doing family different or different frameworks. They're probably wondering what what is it? You know, just tell me. Well, that's what this podcast is about. And so the whole operating system question, the springboard versus the team, there is a framework that that we've built around it. And when I say we, not just even you and I, there's a whole team of people that have been a part of that process, but we call it the Kingdom Outpost. Alright? And so in the next several episodes, we're gonna be describing what that is and really drilling down into the details of that. Now I know the name of this podcast is The Family Outpost, so that wasn't a mistake. We'll we'll explain all of that, so just stick with us.

But there's so much more that we could get into. But today was really just about how did we get here? So we'll lay out the framework and and all the details in the next episode, but the framework doesn't really mean anything if you don't understand why why we need it. Right? So but before we go, before we wrap up this episode, I'm really excited about this, Kevin, and this is gonna be a lot of fun. But I wanna introduce our listeners to something that's gonna be part of every episode of this show, and we're calling it the Outpost Challenge. Alright. So here's how it works. Each episode, our guests are going to give Kevin and me a challenge, something that it's going to be really hands on, tangible, something that we can actually do with our families that relates to whatever we've been talking about with with our guests that day.

And then we're gonna ask you, the listener, to do that with us. And then the next episode, Kevin and I will report back, share what happened, what did we experience, what maybe surprised us, what did it surface?

Kevin: This whole show is not meant to be more content. This is this is meant to be lived out together in small action steps and language that builds our family from that Family Outpost into the Kingdom Outpost.

Rance: That's right. And now this is just episode one, so we don't have any guests yet, obviously, which means Kevin and I, for this episode, are giving each other, a challenge, and we'll we'll report back in the next episode about how it went. So here's the challenge. Sit down with your spouse. Or if you're listening and you're single, just be honest with yourself. You could think about your own family of origin experience. But for those of you who are married, sit down with your spouse and finish this sentence out loud. Our family would feel more alive if we had more blank and less blank. Our family would feel more alive if we had more blank and less blank. So don't overthink it. Just just talk about it. Share honestly. You don't have to try to get it right, and we'll do that as well. Right, Kevin?

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, I would say that this part this is the part that I'm both most excited about and most nervous to step into because we have a little bit of control, asking each other some of these questions, but these challenges are gonna come from guests we have later on. We have no idea what we're gonna get ourselves into, but that's the adventure, and that's the exciting part of it. That's right. And so Kelly and I, we have a date night scheduled, tomorrow, and so we will be diving into this. And whatever comes up, comes up.

Rance: Awesome. Yeah. Stacy and I are doing the same, and we'll be sharing exactly what happened. But, you know, as as we close, I think we're at a moment in history where the family is under more pressure than it's ever been. And I think the answer isn't just a program or a conference or read this book. It's a family that decides to be different on purpose. And, you know, part of that is being willing to have some some of these conversations that we're going to be having on this podcast and or or as part of that Outpost challenge. And so I encourage you, have that conversation this week and start this journey with us.

Kevin: Yeah. I think that there's probably gonna be some uncomfortable conversations and things that feel more clunky as you start changing framework, language, foundation, but I would say it's worth it. It's a it's a journey. It's an adventure, and I'm hoping you stick with us. And I also hope that you share some of the responses you get from this challenge and challenges in the future. And we'll make sure we have a link in the show notes so that you can get in touch with us. You can share some of the responses, whether it's funny, whether it was something that you had no idea was on your spouse's significant other's heart. Just whatever it is, we wanna hear as we share with you what's going on in our lives.

Rance: That's right. So in the next episode, Kevin and I will report back on our Outpost Challenge and and what happened as we ask that question with our wives. And then we're gonna lay out this framework that we've been building for a while, this Kingdom Outpost framework. There's four pillars that we believe can completely reorient how a family thinks about what they're for. So it's the foundation for everything the show's gonna do, and, we're looking forward to it. So you're gonna wanna be there for that one.

Kevin: Don't miss it or else.

Rance: Guys, if this conversation meant something to you, please share it. Maybe send it to a couple you know who's asking the same questions. That's how this show grows, and that's how more families will find it. So you can find The Family Outpost on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and wherever you listen. Just search The Family Outpost. And if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe, hit the bell. You know what to do.

Kevin: Alright. See you next time.

Rance: It's been fun, Kevin. Thanks, man.

Kevin: I enjoyed it. Knew it had to happen.

Rance: We're glad you guys are here. See you next time.

Links

The Family Outpost Podcast: https://www.all4one.org/the-family-outpost-podcast

SportQuest: https://www.sportquest.org/