[00:00:00] Michael Mattes: we started out with about 40 dads when we launched and now we are up to about 300 dads involved in about 25 schools, churches, and workplaces, both here in central Ohio.
[00:00:14] But we're also now launching some in Pennsylvania and in Jersey. so It's growing. everybody, welcome to the podcast. I'm here joined by Michael Mattis. Michael, hails from Columbus, Ohio, and he is leading a ministry called Kingdom Dads, and this is all about discipleship. And so, as I was telling Michael, before we jumped in here, um, I am super interested to really understand, uh, the ins and outs of different disciple making blueprints.
[00:01:24] Jeremy Pryor: I think one of the greatest challenges that we have in this generation is to figure out disciple making methods that actually multiply and actually transform people's lives. one of the things I've seen a lot recently is just a lot of disciple making efforts really zeroing in on men, and then zeroing even further on fathers.
[00:01:41] So I'm very interested in that. And obviously Michael, what you guys are doing is, is, has zeroed in, in that way. So I'm excited to kind of dive in where we have a mutual friend, Derek Brown. Some of you guys might know Derek, and Katie, they live in Columbus as well and have gotten close to kingdom dad.
[00:01:54] So yeah. Welcome to the podcast, Michael. Thanks for jumping in here today.
[00:01:58] Michael Mattes: Thank you. Thank you for your time.
[00:02:00] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah. So I just like to start big picture. I'd love to hear the story. So you've got a, you have a disciple making ministry. Gear towards fathers. Tell me how, how that got started.
[00:02:10] Michael Mattes: Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian family, a strong Christian family, thankful for that, fourth generation actually.
[00:02:17] Wow. Which is amazing. To celebrate generations
[00:02:20] Jeremy Pryor: Yes. Of
[00:02:21] Michael Mattes: following Jesus and, uh, in, well, I grew up in the church. disciple making was something my dad took seriously and did his best. it was in college that. The real meat of my faith started, the muscle of my faith started to take form, and I got involved with a college ministry organization called Coalition for Christian Outreach, CCO, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that talked about all areas of life coming under the Lordship of Christ, and, that really grew my faith in a lot of tremendous ways, such that I decided that I wanted to do that for more college students and went into college ministry for 21 years over those 21 years in college ministry, several things happened, not the least of which is these things getting introduced to the world.
[00:03:11] And what they brought to, discipleship and how to disciple the next generation and, current generations and what's actually discipling them is, is a scary thought sometimes. and it was in the midst of that, that I met my wife, Beth, and, we started a family of our own. We have three kids now, Lucy, Peter and Joseph, whose middle name is Edmund.
[00:03:35] So Lucy, Peter, Edmund, give away our, yes, there we go. Yeah. If that doesn't give away our Narnian connection, it's usually our dog Tumnus that does the trick, just steals it with a nice bow right there. so a huge fan of C. S. Lewis work, my wife and I have been wanting to be very intentional in helping our kids understand what it means to be sons and daughters of Narnia, in the current world, and engaging that.
[00:03:58] with college students, we followed the Libre model of Francis Anita Schafer of having conversations of consequence and showing students hospitality. But I was noticing a real need to deconstruct, reconstruct faith in a world Christian worldview. And recognizing as it was getting on, students started comparing me to their favorite influencers online.
[00:04:20] Like, I'm like, wait a minute. Don't you trust the authority that God is? You need to speak into things, and they trust the authority of someone with lots more likes on social media, at times. And they were coming from very broken families or, just not strong families of any sort. And it broke my heart and saw a desire to be more intentional with our family.
[00:04:43] And we invited college students into a very intentional home, and space to live life with us. for various seasons and, after 21 years recognizing a lot of dads needing help and so started working with a small group of dads and there was another ministry here in Columbus at the time that was getting started up for working with dads and the leader of that is just a side project of his.
[00:05:11] He recognized this was something much bigger. And asked me if I would be willing to take his small movement and make it into something that was its own of sorts. And that brought Kingdom Dads, to now almost two years in. I guess a year and a half into Kingdom Dads. And, helping encourage dads to love and lead their families, giving them the confidence and competence to do so with some very clear practices, in small group cohorts, be it in their school or in their church or workplace.
[00:05:44] So they have a shared context, they're developing a shared language. We're discipleship, and building deep friendships with other dads to do life on life together.
[00:05:55] Jeremy Pryor: Excellent. Are you guys still doing the college ministry as well?
[00:06:00] Michael Mattes: No. So left college ministry, and doing kingdom dads now full time, as executive director.
[00:06:06] Jeremy Pryor: Okay. Yeah. Wow. What a transition. So yeah, that's, yeah. I would love to kind of break down the format that you're finding works really well. And then the content, like what are some of the elements of somebody who's like, Hey, You know, Michael, I'd love to learn more about Kingdom Dads, maybe jump into the ministry.
[00:06:24] What does it entail? What's kind of the commitment look like?
[00:06:27] Michael Mattes: Sure. So there is no shortage of really good resources out there, books, podcasts, articles, what have you. so thankfully I'm not having to. Rebuild the wheel on the resource front much.
[00:06:43] There's some that we've developed in house as Kingdom Dads work, but a lot of it is pulling from other resources. The bread and butter of what we do is the small group cohort model in a shared context. So this is six to nine dads in a Christian school coming together or in a workplace or in a church coming together to, in a small group context, work through one of our, courses.
[00:07:12] So one of our courses is called, Foundation Course, which is just six sessions and a group might, we may weekly, bi weekly, once a month, whatever works well for the dads. Usually it's very early in the morning. and talk through the material together. And then encourage and, exhort one another and offer accountability through the in between times with one another.
[00:07:38] and it just grows their confidence and competence in their, this foundation course is communication with God, communication with their wives, and communication with their kids. And developing some very intentional practices around those.
[00:07:52] Jeremy Pryor: Oh, that's amazing. So, and how long does typically a foundation course take?
[00:07:58] Michael Mattes: So, anywhere from six weeks to six months, somewhere in between there is what a foundation course takes. it's really just to get the ball rolling. it's like turning over an engine We're giving you the rooted process of it.
[00:08:11] And then that community is coming around you to really take hold. once, you've lived into the structures, lived into the practices, started making it your own and owning it for yourself, then you're ready for the next course, which is called vision. And developing a mission statement and core values or core commitments for your family so it can be on mission together.
[00:08:32] so you're not just like walking together But what are the marching orders for our family and how are how are we to engage God's world? and then finally habits understanding that Discipleship is not just what we teach and say but it is what we do on a daily basis And so making sure our orthodoxy and orthopraxy to use some You Bigger words out there.
[00:08:54] make sure those things are in alignment with one another. Okay, excellent. So yeah, those are our three courses right now, but then we offer workshops again just to build the community on a bigger way with one another. But our bread and butter is really the cohort model of small group of dads together.
[00:09:13] Jeremy Pryor: And tell me a little bit about that. why do you feel like that's working and how did you guys settle on cohorts versus, I mean there's one on one discipleship, there's one to like a group, there's small groups, yeah, tell me a little bit about the cohort model.
[00:09:25] Michael Mattes: Yeah, there's a statistic out there.
[00:09:27] I have yet to find out where it comes from, but I quote it all the time. That, dads of young kids have an average of 0. 7 friends. they don't have someone that they can call on when they have a flat tire. They, they just don't know who to call for help. and so, That's one of the reasons we settled on the cohort model, is to buck that statistic a bit.
[00:09:49] We want to see dads have close friendships with other dads, and develop meaningful, deep relationships with other dads. that they can turn to when they're help, when they're having trouble on the home front, or when they just have a question about different things in life that come up. And it doesn't help.
[00:10:07] We live in a very individualistic society where we're told you can do it yourself. you can just watch a few YouTube videos and you'll be the king of the mountain. but we need each other. We need community, in a deep way. I also believe that, I don't want to replace the church. I believe it's the purpose of non profits to make the local bride of Christ more beautiful.
[00:10:27] And so that's what I want to see Kingdom Dads do as well, is make the church more beautiful in its way of equipping dads. And if we can give dads confidence and competence in their home, they're just going to be that much more in the church, in their workplace, in the world. Andy Crouch, I'm a huge fan of Andy Crouch's work, and he, he's quoting another theologian that says that the family is the smallest unit of culture, yet the most powerful.
[00:10:55] And I truly believe that.
[00:10:57] Jeremy Pryor: Absolutely. I'd love to drill in a little bit to the, the church partnership, but before we go there, like we'd love to get a little bit more into the weeds. So somebody signs up for a cohort. It sounds like, so first of all. there's usually a particular person like from a church or workplace or neighborhood or something say, okay, I want to do this and I'll kind of do some work about gathering a cohort.
[00:11:20] Or do you guys actually also kind of try to cohort people together that are kind of one, individuals?
[00:11:28] Michael Mattes: Both and, but yes, it mostly ends up being a dad. He was like, man, I could really use this in my community. I desire to be more intentional. I know I can grab a few guys from my church, from my school, from my workplace that also want that.
[00:11:42] and so we, we train them up, to be facilitate a group and usually invite them to go through the material first to make sure and start living into it themselves and then set them free to then lead a cohort.
[00:11:58] Jeremy Pryor: Okay. So this dad, he's going to jump in, be a participant. There'll be a leader of his group.
[00:12:04] And then after he's been through it, now he can go recruit some dads. And lead his own group. Um, and then
[00:12:12] Michael Mattes: what's, what's sort of when we try to have each, cohort lead facilitator while they're going through the material, be able to identify one or two other dads in the cohort that might be able to facilitate in another context, and that's how it grows.
[00:12:27] Jeremy Pryor: That's the multiplication model. Looking at the facilitator is not just leading a group. He's also. So trying to pinpoint if there's a couple of facilitators in the cohort he's in that he can start releasing and this thing can start to multiply. I love that, by the way, that's a great multiplication model.
[00:12:41] okay, so an actual like week in the life of somebody in a cohort. Michael flashed the book. There's like a booklet, like you guys have, that's the one that says foundation course on it. so did people, does everybody in the group get one of those books and then, and then does the book kind of, does it have like a reading, like a weekly thing?
[00:13:00] What's sort of like the weekly commitment for somebody?
[00:13:03] Michael Mattes: Yeah. so there is not much homework for the foundation course. There's more homework as you get into the material further and further. but it starts out with some opening questions in each section and it's very conversational driven Each session in it, there's six sessions in each course and each session has a bunch of conversational questions.
[00:13:24] It's not meant to be just fill in the blank. you can tailor the questions to work well for your group, but each time you read some key scripture, the key scripture that we read every session is Deuteronomy 6, 4, 3, 9, the Shema and talking about what that means to live into it. And then how we see that.
[00:13:44] Shema kind of grow throughout scripture, as we link it to other scriptures throughout the, the word. And then there's usually articles, be it from, Lifeway or from Barna research on family development, even focus on the family, some of their material, and discussion there, and looking at what's going on.
[00:14:04] And then, after the first session is called Why Intentional? Why Intentional Now? And it looks at some Barna data about how dads are not stepping up and talking with their kids about forgiveness or engaging with their kids. And kids are more often, more likely to engage with a peer about, faith than they are with their dads.
[00:14:23] And then discussing why that might be problematic, at times. And then, then always, it talks about taking it home to discuss this with your wife. And there's usually a text stream. Hey, did you talk about this stuff with your wife? Did you talk about it with your kids at all? What did that look like to engage the material in the in between?
[00:14:46] and then, In the second one, we start with communication with God, understanding that the root of all our communication needs to be in our communication with God, His communication with us and our communication with Him, and encouraging dads, if they haven't, to read through the whole Bible. and I know that can sound daunting to a bunch of people, and so, Building a Bible plan and developing an accountability in reading it.
[00:15:13] There's just something that happens in the life of a believer when they can say they've read the whole Bible. They might not comprehend it all. I haven't comprehended it all. I'm still reading it regularly. but to be able to have that confidence, it's just, it's huge in the life of a believer. And that then builds habits and context for other communication patterns, communication with their wife, which is what we've discussed next.
[00:15:36] And we have this thing called a weekly meetup with our wives, where we have seven categories because us guys, we like checkboxes. So we have seven areas that we want to check in with our wives on a weekly basis, or at least in a month, to make sure we're covering life together, all of our life together.
[00:15:53] And the guys are sharing pictures of like, I had my meetup with my wife, here's how it went, with each other just to encourage and exhort one another on. And we have the same thing with our kids then. Checking in with our kids on various things and helping to develop a biblical character for them.
[00:16:08] Jeremy Pryor: I see.
[00:16:09] Michael Mattes: And then, That's good. We ground it in a worldview study of why we're about this. What, what does the Bible have to say about a biblical worldview and a framework for family and, and Christ's lordship over every area of life. And then developing a strong wife statement at the very end to keep it at it.
[00:16:27] Jeremy Pryor: Excellent. So you found that, so the, yeah, the two areas I really excited to understand. So the format sounds like, the leader is reading from the booklet. It's, it's giving content in a course of the cohort meeting. Then that is, followed by discussion questions. We're going deeper into this all rooted in these key, a key passage.
[00:16:49] Okay. And then there's a specific kind of assignments that we want to, that we're giving to the guys to go home and, and in this foundations course, they're primarily developing these patterns of communication with your wife and kids and God and the Bible reading plan going and okay, awesome. And so it sounds like the pace of.
[00:17:11] The group is sort of determined by just how long the group wants to keep focusing on the foundation. If they need more time, then you give them more time. Is that how you guys think about it?
[00:17:22] Michael Mattes: Yeah, exactly. It's about like an hour and a half meetup that happens weekly, bi weekly, or monthly. And then if they need to expand lessons, which sometimes happens, you get into a really good dialogue about, Ephesians five and what it means to, to love our wives as Christ loved the church.
[00:17:40] Jeremy Pryor: We're like, okay, well we need to spend a bit more time on this passage, and thought process. Or, Hey guys, no one actually practiced the weekly meetup with their wives. We're not moving on until you do the weekly meetup with your wife. How, what's the breakdown of people, of guys that are doing the weekly, biweekly or monthly?
[00:17:58] what are you noticing?
[00:18:00] Michael Mattes: Most of the groups meet biweekly. Biweekly. and I would say about half the groups meet biweekly. Uh, half the groups meet, uh, once a week or, or once a month. It depends. So, for instance, we have a dad who leads a cohort of dads during Awana. Their kids get dropped off at Awana.
[00:18:21] The dads stick around, they do the kingdom dads material, and then they're right there to pick up their kids at the end of a one. Well, that's a weekly kind of rhythm that they already had built in to their schedule. And so they just build it in that way.
[00:18:34] Jeremy Pryor: Right.
[00:18:34] Michael Mattes: some of the guys who are more business oriented, they might meet for lunch every other week.
[00:18:39] Jeremy Pryor: Okay. Yeah. I find that for whatever reason, every other week does seem like the sweet spot. there are times where like if you have that preexisting, you know, one hour or something a weekly thing might make more sense. But yeah, if you get a design. It gives guys a couple of weeks to practice the thing, but also isn't kind of overwhelming.
[00:18:55] It also sounds like, so I'm kind of picturing somebody going through it for the first time. Now they've gone through the foundations, group, they're going to start a foundations group. and then I guess if they want to move on to the second module, which is, what did you call it? That was the one on vision.
[00:19:11] Yeah. Yeah. Vision. Yes. does it happen often where you'll have a guy leading a foundations group and then a participant in a visions group, vision group? Yes. Okay.
[00:19:22] Michael Mattes: Yeah, that'll happen. Or they might do like foundation in the fall semester and then they're taking a semester off from leading a group.
[00:19:29] So they're doing vision then in the spring semester, which is a bunch of guys right now. And then with a plan to do foundation or vision in the summer slash fall next year. here, but we want to have a period of time between the courses. So you're not just jumping straight from one into the other, that you can actually start to put these in the, like, live into the practices for a while.
[00:19:52] Know that you have the confidence, competence, and you have the habit form there. Rather than moving too quickly through the material. And it just ends up being like, yeah, another great resource on the bookshelf.
[00:20:04] Jeremy Pryor: that's a very good insight, I think. So you want to make sure that guys aren't just consuming content and chewing through it.
[00:20:10] it's about practicing these things. So they go through vision. Then you said the habits is the last one. So vision is where they learn how to write a family mission. And you mentioned, This is to me one of the most interesting parts of understanding biblical fatherhood versus popular fatherhood.
[00:20:25] I would, I see popular fatherhood really defined almost entirely around like provision and presence and which are very important. But vision is like, that's something that for a lot of people are like, well, you're like, that's what, what have you found? in terms of how guys in this culture react to that, that part of the training.
[00:20:47] Michael Mattes: Yeah, They want that clarity for their family, and direction. The hardest part is honestly just taking it slowly, and not just jumping into writing a really cool mission statement for your family. I joke around all the time. I got a, probably a better idea. 20 fantastic mission statements that just fit on my hard drive of my computer that never see the light of day.
[00:21:09] primarily that's because I hadn't developed a habit of communication with God, how to develop the habit of communicating with my wife regularly or with my kids to understand the gift sets that they're bringing to the table for this mission and vision for our Yeah. and then when we get into the actual vision course, it's Understanding tyranny of the urgent and those things that are going to swallow up your time.
[00:21:34] And what are the gifts again of my own gifts, spiritual gifts? What are my wife's spiritual gifts? What are my kids spiritual gifts? doing some good reflection on the things God has already got at work in our family. I don't have to start from square one. There's some things that he's probably already churning around.
[00:21:51] And we don't take the time to reflect well on those. so there's a lot of, that's where the homework comes into play to do that before you actually commit to writing with your wife a mission statement. it wasn't until my wife, Beth and I had regular communication, figured out on that stuff that now we have this beautiful painting in our dining room of our core commitments of our family that she put together.
[00:22:14] Jeremy Pryor: And then we're talking about it with our kids at the dining room table. That's awesome. Yeah, it's really interesting to get to start with communication and one of the things I really like about the progression you're describing is I think for men in particular, you know, it's starting with tools instead of maybe just abstract ideas.
[00:22:31] a lot of times people tend to want to say, well, we got to spend all this time on identity or theology. Which is important, but one of the things that I've noticed and sounds like you guys have seen is that oftentimes comes through the application of a tool like a man will become the kind of father or even understand what fatherhood is because he's actually implementing some tools and so starting with those communication tools, you're going to really be dealing with a different kind of dad by the time you get to vision.
[00:22:57] Yes. Yeah. Man, I love that. Okay. The vision. And the last one you said was habits. is there like a series of habits that you recommend or you talked about the Bible reading and prayer. Tell me a little bit about what someone's going to encounter with that one.
[00:23:11] Michael Mattes: Yeah. So this will be, developing, a liturgy for your family, through a day, through a week, through a year of things that you do that just kind of.
[00:23:21] End up being, Ebeneezers of sort of remembering God's goodness and what he has called you to as a family so that you can always Relift that mission statement and we lift up his glory and our enjoyment of him on a regular basis like learning the habits that you might already have or some that you want to frame and form.
[00:23:42] We do a lot around Advent practices and Holy Week practices and looking at even just the old church calendar a little bit, pulling that resource out as well as You know, what does devotional time and prayer life look like? How are we praying for our neighbors and our friends, as well? on a regular basis.
[00:24:02] Awesome. And, and then, encouraging dads to take, doing the marriage summit of sorts, like every year with their wives of kind of goal setting and developing benchmarks for their kids, how they want to see their kids develop in their own spiritual walk every year. That's awesome.
[00:24:19] Jeremy Pryor: That's really cool. I love that language.
[00:24:20] I think Andy Crouch talks about that a lot too, that liturgy, in, in the home. And that's like your job as a father is to set that up. And I think that's this tool, the annual calendar is so powerful. you slowly start to craft what this, you know, these, these seasons look like and how you go, you're discipling your family deeper into their, their identities in Christ, but it's through, practicing, you know, these traditions, that are homebound and home based and, father led.
[00:24:48] Okay. So yeah, super helpful. I love it. So, anything else? So, so I'm picturing now this, you know, this man, it sounds like he's probably taken two to three years to go through all of the things. And he's probably started a couple of groups gotten, you know, how is this? Has this been multiplying? Like tell me the impact you're seeing this have on Columbus and has it gotten past Columbus's pretty much?
[00:25:09] Is it rooted? Yeah, it's
[00:25:10] Michael Mattes: it's so now it's gone beyond Columbus, which is exciting. It is multiplying in a beautiful way. It's trying to make sure it stays faithful, to what God has called us to in each step. But as a guy leads multiple groups even of the foundation, it just ingrains it even more in their own life to be about it and be excited for it and seeing the ways it is.
[00:25:33] Is is helping out their managers. We've seen dads be baptized. We've now seen Dads give up alcohol and saying like you know what I was an alcoholic before I need to be intentional dad I can't be doing that. we started out with about 40 dads when we launched and in one in two schools and now we are up to about 300 dads involved in about 25 schools, churches, and workplaces, both here in central Ohio.
[00:26:03] Most of them are obviously here in central Ohio around Columbus, but we're also now down in Cincinnati and up in the Akron Canton area as well as launching some in Pennsylvania and in Jersey. so It's growing. Part of that is thankfully, by the network God has given over the years. when I was in collegiate ministry, I was involved in regional leadership for a dozen years, which allowed me to form relationships with a bunch of pastors.
[00:26:31] And when they heard that I was up to something new, they're like, Mike, when you're ready, just let us know. We want to get on board. and because they know that my love for the local church is that deep, churches are excited to come on board with it.
[00:26:45] Jeremy Pryor: That's awesome. Yeah. So I wanted to, I wanted to hear more about that.
[00:26:49] so every time I've seen these kinds of, approaches to disciple making, that are kind of beyond the church, para church is always a little bit, I never quite know how to think about that label, but they're not necessarily bound to a particular expression of the church or particular denomination.
[00:27:09] It sounds like you guys are, yeah. Um, yeah, talking about, so I, I know that sometimes these can be like very much hit or miss. Some churches probably are like really excited. others might be, more concerned about like, is it homegrown? We already have a small group strategy. Is this going to take away from some stuff we're doing?
[00:27:28] So what are you finding has been helpful in partnering with churches? is that the primary kind of growth strategy or is that just like one of the pipelines? It sounds like you guys are in schools as well. Talk to me a little bit about, what you're finding is really how does this thing kind of grow and expand?
[00:27:47] Michael Mattes: Yeah, I think the church is going to become more and more primary for us in the growth and expansion. I think we will continue with schools and workplaces and even other communities. but I truly believe that If the parachurch is not making the local bride of Christ more beautiful, it is being unfaithful to its mission.
[00:28:05] God has ordained the church for its role in cultural transformation. He has ordained the family. And those are the two things that we got to be about, in our work here.
[00:28:15] Jeremy Pryor: Why, what would you say to a pastor, given what you just said, that this, the church and the family, that, this, Like how, how do you describe why it's important then for a parachurch ministry to jump in?
[00:28:30] Is there something that church is struggling with that you've noticed? Like is this an area where, having some, someone, someone with more focused expertise with, with dads in particular? Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about why you think that that is like a why, why that's occurred, why that has been effective.
[00:28:48] Michael Mattes: Yeah, I think a lot of churches, healthy churches have great men's ministries, but they don't have anything focused on dads, and they have maybe a fantastic moms group happening, because moms, it's easier to get them together and do things together. It's hard. work to gather dads together. they don't have the ability to, to carve out the time or figure that out.
[00:29:13] And so the fact that our material is time bound, in that it's six sessions of sorts, allows it to not take the place of other ministry efforts that are ongoing. And that's, that's the in between stuff that can sometimes happen, is if you're just meeting once a month, You have other opportunities, be it in a worship or in other gatherings of the church, to check in with each other on how you're doing because we're giving you a similar language to share with other dads and grow with other dads.
[00:29:44] I have yet to meet a pastor that's like, no, I don't want to develop my dads in the church. And again, if the dad can have confidence in discipling on the home front and shepherding on the home front, That is going to give them such better confidence in doing it in the church.
[00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Jeremy Pryor: I'm trying to remember if Derek was mentioning that, is there some of these like monthly groups where you have a larger group of guys to get together and you break down into some, Is that one of the ways you guys do this?
[00:30:09] Michael Mattes: some of the group, one of the groups is like 20 dads, and so they gather together, they kind of do an organization, they talk through and check in with each other and even pray over each other, and then they'll break up into small groups together, but most of the groups are six to nine dads. If a church is like, well, we've got 18 dads interested.
[00:30:28] Fantastic. Let's have two groups going. I like the six to nine level because that allows for intimacy of relationship with one another. the two to three, the reason why we don't do that. smaller model, though it has its place, for sure for discipleship is if a dad says, Hey, I can't make it.
[00:30:46] You feel like, ah, we can't really meet this week. We got to try to reschedule. And then you're always doing the reschedule game. we asked dads in the beginning of the book, we have a commitment, of pursuing faithfulness together that they sign that says one, they're going to make this a priority.
[00:31:02] Like when we set up times, We're going to be there, this does not replace any of what they're doing in their local church. So if they're not a member of their church or regular attender at their church, they can't be involved in the cohort yet. They need to be first regular in their church family, before they can be plugged into a cohort.
[00:31:20] Jeremy Pryor: Okay. So this isn't really an evangelism strategy. if somebody was not a believer,
[00:31:25] Michael Mattes: that is a great question. The intent wasn't for it to just be discipleship, just, be a discipleship work, even with dads that are kind of like, wanting to be intentional, but they're loose on their faith.
[00:31:36] They might not, they, I mean, a lot of these dads, They're reading books of the Bible they didn't know existed, which is exciting to see. Though we now have some groups, I just led a group yesterday that has a dad who is not a Christian that's coming. We don't water down our material at all. We're still talking about Christ at the center and where this falls in the authority of our calling and everything.
[00:32:00] and he is coming up to the plate with some great questions and engaging it well and wants to stay involved even though it's like It's very clear. We're unapologetically Christian.
[00:32:11] Jeremy Pryor: Yeah, excellent. I was just listening to a conversation online, of a leader who said basically their men's group has suddenly become their primary evangelistic, most fruitful evangelistic ministry.
[00:32:23] I think something's actually happening. The Holy Spirit's doing something. And so, yeah, I think it's worthwhile. So if you're willing to do that, like, Hey, we're staying very true to this. We're being discipled into exactly the kind of dads that the scriptures describe that God wants us to be.
[00:32:37] But if you want to come along and see what that looks like and consider whether or not this faith is for you, then I think, yeah, you guys, with an approach like this, you're likely to see people come to faith, which is awesome. Cool. Anything else that would be helpful, Michael, for somebody who's listening to this, who might be really interested in.
[00:32:51] starting a group, anything you'd want to tell them, if somebody is like in San Diego do you guys ever do these online or is there any way to get trained up or does it need to be kind of like locally, seated first?
[00:33:04] Michael Mattes: great question.
[00:33:05] the facilitator training can happen online on Zoom calls like this
[00:33:10] Jeremy Pryor: with
[00:33:10] Michael Mattes: I talked with our facilitator in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, like they're, they haven't actually been through a cohort, but they are going through the material one on one with me in advance of their leading cohort, wherever they're at, so they can, truly live into the practices.
[00:33:27] And it is, it's very practical. It's practical theology, to develop and, confidence and competence with faith.
[00:33:34] Jeremy Pryor: Awesome. Super helpful. And if somebody wants to learn more, where can they find you guys?
[00:33:40] Michael Mattes: At kingdomdads. org, find out more information on the website that way. Also, feel free to send me an email at mvmattes, m a t t e s, at kingdomdads.
[00:33:51] org. You can text me, 614 264 2682. No problem with my number being out there on the web.
[00:33:59] Jeremy Pryor: Very cool. Excellent. Well, yeah. Mike, thank you so much for this. Derek could not speak more highly of what he's seeing happen in Columbus through this ministry. And it got me very excited to meet you and hear about what you guys are doing.
[00:34:12] I'm very much like right now, heads down trying to understand what's the best way for us to. See a multiplying movement amongst fathers. I think that, you know, we've been exploring lots of different approaches to this and what you guys have done there is really next level, remarkable and really encouraging.
[00:34:27] So thank you so much for sharing with us today. And I'm excited to learn more and try to understand, what this could look like, in our city. So appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.
[00:34:37] Michael Mattes: Very good. Thank you. Thank you for your time.
