Featured Archives - Fathering Leadership

What Are the Primary Benefits of the Father’s Love?

February 16, 2016 by Robert Hartzell

The primary benefits of the Father’s Love are:

Experiencing a Place in His Heart.
Receiving the Building Blocks for all Christian Growth.

Struggles with sin, fear, and stuckness all are rooted in living without love. The Christian life was never meant to be lived without the benefits of the Father’s love.

Being At Home in Love

Being “at home” in love should be the first and primary experience of the Christian life. This is a feeling that you are part of a loving family with a loving Father whose heart is open to you. A place where you feel loved, special, accepted, and included. You are special to the Father to the point He rejoices over you with joy and singing because you bring such pleasure to His heart. You are the apple of His eye. (Zech. 2:8)

This living loved experience has practical expression.

SLED

There are 4 ways the Father’s love works out practically in your life. I like to use the acronym “SLED” to explain them.

S – Secured. Your heart is secured in love. You no longer live guarded or fearful of making a mistake. You become free from battling fears, condemnation, and feelings of failure. You learn at a heart level that God loves you unconditionally. You learn and live out experientially that your works, good or bad, cannot add or take away a single thing from the finished work of Christ on the cross. (Eph.2:8, 9)

L – Loved. You experience God’s loving affection for you. You feel the value of your identity as a loved child of God, created in His image. You become ever freer of seeking counterfeit affections as your heart grows into the true affection of the Father’s love.

E – Esteemed. You receive your need for esteem and affirmation from the Father’s love and not from how well you perform. Your motives for why you do what you do become purified and that produces a deep rest inside of you.

D – Destiny. You grow into your destiny, the things in life you were created to do. Your heart is in a growth environment and you develop naturally without having to strive for it.

Growing Your Capacity to Live Loved and Love Others

Are you ready to grow in your Father’s love? We have many resources to help.

My book, The Sonship Empowered Life, covers these topics in depth with many stories of how people worked through their stuck places and found love.
Teaching resources – we have teaching MP3’s and videos in our shop for easy download.
There are many free resources in the training area of our website.

Our heart is to see people living and growing in Father’s love in every area of their lives. If there’s anything we can do to help you in your journey, please feel free to contact us.

How to Live at Home in the Father’s Love

February 13, 2016 by Robert Hartzell

What Does it Mean to Live At Home in the Father’s Love? Why is That Important?

To live at home in the Father’s love is what it really means to be a Christian. It is what truly sets you free from the self life and causes you to blossom forth into what you were created for.

Stuck Struggling with Strongholds

Have you ever felt that powerless “stuck” feeling? I sure have. In a difficult season of my life I had a job delivering newspapers. It was dreadful waking up at 2am 365 days a year! One morning in particular it was raining and miserable as I tried to stay warm in my old, beat up baby blue Ford Fairmont. Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I turned onto one of the a dirt roads on my route, and then it happened. My car tires hit a mud patch and got stuck. As I tried to get out, the tires spun obstinately which only served to dig me deeper into stuckness. With cold rain pounding down on me and having many newspapers still to deliver, it was an awful circumstance. I felt stuck and powerless.

Maybe you have places in your life like this:

Are battling marital issues that never seem to get any better?
Are their certain life habits you never seem to get free of?
Does your future feel like a dead end with no hope of improving?

Many Christians are living with stuckness because of a wrong view of how to relate with God. We haven’t understood that it has to begin with love.

Living at Home in the Father’s Love

All creation started with the Father desiring children. This present age will conclude with Jesus delivering creation back to His Father. (1 Cor.15:24)

Living at home in the Father’s love means:

You feel valued by Him.
You feel like you have a place in His heart.
You feel welcomed by God, accepted, included.
You feel recieved into a warm place of love, not a cold place of judgment where you think you have to walk on eggshells.
You feel free to make mistakes, knowing God will not close His heart but will work with you lovingly to overcome your challenges.

A Picture of this Warm Environment

When I was dating my future wife, Cyndi, the time came to meet her parents. Her dad was a successful civil engineer, good looking in his blue blazer and neatly cut grey hair. I was intimidated! Cyndi’s parents took us to dinner and afterwards we rode home in the backseat of their car. Sitting there I felt something strange. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but something “in the air” felt odd — different from anything I’d ever experienced. Finally it dawned on me. “Nobody’s afraid,” I thought. There’s no tension between any of us you could cut with a knife. I could clearly see that Cyndi was not afraid of her dad. Everyone simply talked and laughed and was comfortable in each other’s presence. I had never been around a father figure where everyone was not afraid. I had lived my whole life up to that point in guardedness and defenses. It was a new experience for me — so extreme that it actually felt strange, almost too good to be true.

This is what salvation and joining the church should be about. Picture a young plant in warm sunlight, rich soil, and just the right amount of water each day. It quickly grows strong and blossoms into fruitfulness. Now imagine a new believer as that young plant. Only love can mature the heart to live openly and experience growth.

Father has a place like that in His heart for you. This is what being a Christian, one of His sons or daughters, means. You are “at home” with Him.

The Primary Fathering Leadership Life Skill

January 29, 2016 by Robert Hartzell

There is a Fathering Leadership life skill that brings success in every area of life.

In parenting it raises children into mature, responsible, confident adults.
In marriage it fosters respect and cooperation – the foundation of romance.
In church leadership and discipleship it brings healing and growth to the broken.
In business it produces productive and creative employees.
In friendship, too, it is key to the depth of relationship for fulfillment, accountability, and growth.

What is this Fathering Leadership life skill?

In a nutshell the skill is speaking the truth in love. At one level this is very easy to understand. Yet unpacking and applying its meaning, where you actually live and in the various relationships of your life, is not so easy.

Two Parenting Scenarios – one where the skill is not applied and one where it is.

A 14-year boy comes home from school with a failing grade in math. The father reprimands him, “I told you to study more. What’s wrong with you? No more playing your stupid computer games for a month.”

In this example the child is corrected with shame rather than dignity. His personal identity is attacked. Something is “wrong” with him. This approach will shut down learning and emotional growth.

A 14-year boy comes home from school with a failing grade in math. The father dialogues to reach the boy’s heart, “Why do you think you’re struggling in math so much?” He asks this in a tone of voice that is not demeaning but neither does it communicate the child is off the hook in terms of his responsibility to the class. The child explains that despite the teacher’s instruction and examples, he cannot seem to understand the material. The father then asks why the child didn’t bring this up sooner. The boy says he was embarrassed. Subsequently the father gives reassurance that there is nothing wrong with needing and asking for help. So they agree to get a tutor and proceed with closer monitoring of the boy’s progress (healthy accountability).

From this example we see the child’s identity is valued. He learns more deeply that even when he fails it does not mean he is shameful, deficient, or lacking value. He learns that there are steps that can be discerned and taken to move forward when you find yourself stuck in life. The lack of having this positive experience in childhood is why most Christian adults are stuck with habits and relationship problems they never get past. They never learned the skills and emotional strength necessary.

In Marriage

The same principle applies in marriage. There was a 20-year study done examining the commonality of traits seen in successful marriages. The number one skill found in these marriages was a spouse that can stand up for himself/herself without putting the other down (speaking the truth, but in love). This type of spouse will get consistent respect and cooperation in the marriage; and the foundation of respect is the only foundation where romance can consistently blossom.

Ministry

Picture a new Christian in his late 20’s. He is so excited to have discovered a spiritual life and to be in church. However, he grew up in a fatherless home with a mother who had numerous boyfriends, many of which treated him with degradation. As a result of this he battles many rejection and abandonment issues. Often he says inappropriate things, can be judgmental, and gives up too easily on things.

A Fathering Leader has the ability to disciple this new believer in a valuing way. The leader has matured past needing to put up a wall toward the immature behaviors of this young man. This leader can consistently express covering love, patience and care when the disciple gets his feelings hurt over little things, withdrawals when his unreasonable expectations aren’t met, or even acts out publicly. Over time the disciple experiences love drawing out his heart again and again, instead of emotional abandonment. This consistent and unconditional love brings a very healing and maturing effect upon this young Christian.

Business

The business leader who creates a culture of dialogue and space for creativity is a Fathering Leader. In his realm mistakes are not criticized. He creates an environment where people are not guarded and protectionistic, and where everyone helps each other. It’s a place where teamwork is encouraged, people are not put down or gossiped about, and there’s no backstabbing. Devaluing behaviors are not tolerated. This type of company will be on the cutting edge.

Friendship

Many people, especially leaders, have no one they would call a close friend. Yet, we are wired by God to need relationship. When a relationship is trusted and even accountable, the two parties feel a sense of fulfillment and grow as a result. There is a confidence and security in knowing the other is truly there for them and can be willing to embrace weaknesses and failure without being exposed.

A Great Example of this Fathering Leadership Life Skill

Mr. Miyagi from the movie, The Karate Kid, had this primary Fathering Leadership life skill.

Think of how he related to Daniel in the movie. Miyagi instructed (discipled) Daniel. There were times they had fun and times when Miyagi was firm. There were times Daniel acted in inappropriate ways but Miyagi was never demeaning to him. Even in correction. I would encourage you to watch this movie again to get a fresh picture in your mind and heart of what this skill looks like.

Now Extrapolate

You see the skill applied in terms of Mr. Miyagi teaching karate and mentoring a fatherless youth. What would this skill look like in your life? In your family, ministry, work, and friendships?

Father God

Understanding this skill even helps in how you relate to God. The more you grasp at a heart level that Father God uses this skill as He relates to you, the more you will grow — even in the midst of your failures.

Reaching the World

I believe a hurting world is waiting for Christians to mature and walk in this advanced skill of loving others well. The fatherless are looking for true Fathering Leaders to love, accept, and disciple them through their lives.