Mike Mattes: Kingdom Dads is a ministry that equips dads to love and lead their family toward God’s kingdom, and we do that through small group cohorts of dads walking through some intentional practices together. The family is the smallest unit of culture and yet the most powerful. I’ve heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child, it takes the church to raise a Christian. What is the role of Dad?
Eden: Today on the podcast, I’m excited to introduce to you Mike Mattes. Mike serves as the Executive Director of Kingdom Dads. Kingdom Dads is designed to help you become the intentional father that your family needs. It’s a ministry designed to disciple fathers to be loving leaders in their homes.
Prior to serving at Kingdom Dads, Mike and his wife served for over 20 years in campus ministry, helping college students and young adults know and love Jesus. Mike shared the heart behind Kingdom Dads at a conference and his vision for what life looks like in the home. And as I listened, I was so edified that I wanted you to get to meet Mike too. So I hope you enjoy our episode today.
Mike, I’m really thrilled to talk to you today about your work at Kingdom Dads. And, before we launch into what you do and getting to know the ministry that you’re a part of, I’d love to get to know you a little bit. So what are some things that bring you joy?
Mike Mattes: There’s a lot of things that bring me joy, which is great—family first and foremost. I love my wife and my three kids. They are in fun ages. My daughter is 16, and she just got her driver’s license the other day, so a little joy and trepidation there with that one. And I enjoy taking my dog, Tumnus, for early morning walks and long bike rides.
Eden: Nice. Nice. Oh, I love that your dog’s name is Tumnus. That’s from The Chronicles of Narnia.
Mike Mattes: That’s correct. Yes, yes. Usually, it’s our kids’ names that’ll do the trick. Our kids are Lucy, Peter, and the youngest, his middle name is Edmund.
Eden: Oh, cute. Okay. Kings and queens.
Mike Mattes: Exactly, exactly.
Eden: Lovely. Oh, okay. And as we look to God’s Word, what are a couple of passages that are really especially precious to you? Is there a part of God’s Word that really is treasured by you?
Mike Mattes: Yes, so Deuteronomy 6:4–9, which is the Sh’ma, and then how that gives gets lived out, certainly frames a lot of the way that I live life and think through life, as well as Romans 8, which might be the best chapter in the whole Bible, if you’re allowed to have favorites. The idea that God works for the good of those who have loved him, who’ve been called according to his purposes (vs. 28). And finally, Colossians 1 [and] the understanding [of] the preeminence of Christ over all things in all areas of life. That passage has hit me upside the head so many times to think about every aspect of life under the Lordship of Christ, which links back then to the Sh’ma as well.
Eden: Yeah, yeah, I love your reflection on that verse. Would you be willing to share a part of your life where God really used that verse to show you that he needed to exercise lordship in that area?
Mike Mattes: Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian family and thankful for that. It gave me the skeletal structure of my faith. And then it was in college, in a collegiate ministry, that gave me the flesh and muscle of my faith. And a large part of that is because of that Colossians passage. I remember sitting in a freshman Bible study and hearing all things belonging to Christ seven times in that passage: ta panta is the term in Greek. And I was like, wait a minute, you mean not just souls? He’s not just about soul-saving? He’s about saving every part of the created order that he died—not just for my soul but for every part of the created order to be brought back to him and brought rightly back? And so, the sense of oughtness that that brings and the holy imagination that brings to every part of life is so fun to explore.
Eden: Awesome. And so you said that you grew up in a Christian home and then understood your faith better in college. Could you give us a little more detail as to how you would explain you came to know Jesus?
Mike Mattes: Yeah. So my parents did a really good job bringing me up in the church and through Bible study in the home and introducing me to God’s Word throughout the day, prayers before meals and that kind of thing as well. And I knew that Christ was my Lord and Savior from a very young age, committing my life to that in high school through going to a Bible camp. And then in college, [I was] seeing not just that he was savior of my life, but his lordship over everything, as mentioned there with the Colossians passage. And developing [during college] a Christian worldview that answers those basic questions of life: Who am I? Where am I? What’s wrong with the world? How’s it made right? And then how that encompasses all of life and the redemption of Christ [is all part of my conversion].
Eden: I love that explanation, because a lot of times we hear about people who didn’t know Jesus, and they come to know Jesus, and so they start a relationship with him. But I think of, in Matthew, when Jesus is explaining how he wants us to share him with others, he doesn’t just say, introduce them to me and then leave. He says, go into all the world and make disciples (Matthew 28:19). And a disciple is a learner, and it’s someone that’s like an apprentice, and they keep learning for the rest of their lives. And then he says, teaching them all the things that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20). And so, there’s this wonderful reality that when we come to know Jesus, he transforms every area of our life, of how we think, of our hearts and how we process our emotions, and we learn to, as you said, bring all of our life under the Lordship of Jesus. So, I love that explanation from you and that reminder.
Mike Mattes: Yeah, I see evangelism is just pre discipleship work.
Eden: Yes.
Mike Mattes: Yeah. It’s all on discipleship continuum. We’re all on it somewhere on that continuum.
Eden: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I like how you put that. And so I would love to hear about what you do at Kingdom Dads. So tell us what Kingdom Dads is. And then I’d love to hear the story of how you got involved in that work?
Mike Mattes: Sure. So Kingdom Dads is a ministry that equips dads to love and lead their family toward God’s kingdom. And we do that through small group cohorts of dads, walking through some intentional practices together, giving them shared language around intentionality and the Lordship of Christ over their family and the stewardship of their calling as sons of God, as husbands, and as dads. And it’s fun to see the community of dads grow here, mainly in Ohio right now, but also growing outside of Ohio now, to movement.
The thing that gets me out of bed every morning is understanding that the family is the smallest unit of culture, and yet the most powerful. And so I see a subversive change of culture happening first and foremost in the family life together.
So the way I got involved was I was in collegiate ministry for 21 years, and my wife and I framed our ministry very much after La Brea Fellowship, in the work of Francis and Edith Schaeffer, of having conversations of consequence, inviting students into Christian hospitality and Christian life together. And as students, over those 21 years growing with them, saw that their cell phones were probably the biggest discipler of their life—over their family, over the church, over even a ministry. They were coming with answers that needed to be wrestled with and worked through in a deeper way in the collegiate years. And my wife and I, seeing that develop, just recognized the desire to be more intentional from a younger age, both in our marriage and with our kids, helping them grow up in a Christian worldview and be the chief discipler of our kids prior to the phone or anything else becoming that. And so, walking alongside our kids, giving them an affirmation of faith, stability of faith and resilience of faith, was key.
And I met another dad here in Columbus that was leading a small ministry at the time, as a side project of his, with dads at a Christian school. And he saw that that work was something that needed to grow into something bigger and beyond what he was capable of doing. And so, he invited me to become the first Executive Director of this little ministry that didn’t even have its own nonprofit status yet. So he helped connect me with the right people to build a board and develop a nonprofit status. And in the midst of that, we branded the ministry Kingdom Dads.
Eden: That is so awesome. Okay, so, let’s say I am a young dad, and I’ve just had this newborn baby. He or she is six weeks old, and I feel out of my depth. And I’d like to know how to shepherd my family into faith in Jesus, but where do I begin? What would you do with that dad?
Mike Mattes: Yeah, that is a common feeling. There’s an existential crisis when you’re holding a newborn and just trying not to break its neck and just hold it steady and be like, wow, I am now in charge of another life. And a lot of dads feel lonely in that, and they feel like they are building a plane while they’re flying at the same time, flying by the seat of their pants. There’s very little discipleship that they’ve received that is specific to this work of fatherhood. They got some general, large understandings about it, but what does it look like in this moment? And so that can be overwhelming and lonely.
And so, the biggest thing I would recommend is, first and foremost, get plugged into your local church, and meet some other dads. And immediately go out with other dads and start learning. What did they do? Living life upon life, faithfulness is pursued together. I’ve heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child. It takes the church to raise the Christian. And I truly believe that. And so that’s part of why Kingdom Dads has developed this cohort model and in the context of local churches, to help local churches understand how to truly come around young dads, helping them grow in their calling and as sons of God, as husbands and fathers, and getting them that community to pursue faithfulness together, and giving them a shared language of how to do that in some very practical ways. [He should be] continuing to be in the Word of God first and foremost, setting up regular times of conversation with your wife over areas of life together, and then just loving on your child, your newborn, especially in those early years, just lavishing them with God’s love. And then you get to start teaching them about Christ’s grace and the Spirit’s reconciling work to bring us into his joy.
Eden: Awesome. And so if I were a dad in Ohio, I could contact you, and I could become part of a Kingdom Dads cohort. Is that right?
Mike Mattes: Right. And yeah, even if you’re a dad outside of Ohio, I would highly recommend reaching out to us. We have a Kingdom Dads app that dads can download and get connected with a large community of kingdom-minded dads. And then, I would love to talk with them about how to even start a cohort where they’re at in their church community or in their school.
Eden: Cool! And we expect that a lot of our audience didn’t grow up in the church, didn’t grow up in a Christian home. And so you’re talking to dads about spiritual leadership in their family and in their home. Can you give me a little bit of background as to where that perspective comes from in Scripture and why it is that you’re looking to dads to take up this banner, so to speak, maybe instead of moms?
Mike Mattes: Yeah, well, definitely not instead of moms. We need to be doing it together. Barna research shows that moms are knocking it out of the park with respect to helping the spiritual development of the kids. Dads? Not so much. We are good at maybe talking about finances, definitely talking about sports. But beyond that, what is the role of dad? And the research shows that moms are fantastic at helping their kids develop a stability of faith, but it takes a dad or dad figure in their life to help them develop a resilience of faith. And so, there is a teamwork certainly involved between the mom and the dad to raise the kids.
That said, God makes very clear in his Word, in First and Second Timothy and Titus, that dads are the family shepherd, that they are called to be that. So while my wife and I certainly lead our family together, it is me that will jump in front of the first bullet that gets thrown at our family. And, and if you look at Genesis, at the beginning of when family was formed, the idea of marriage was first ordained prior to the fall even and the roles we get to play in that and then how marriage and family plays out into the redemptive work of Christ right away, right after the fall, we see that start to play out. And as mentioned earlier, the Sh’ma then, in Deuteronomy 6, tells dads that they need to be diligently teaching their kids: when they wake up, when they go to sleep, when they walk by the way, when they invite others into their house and in their work. And so, those are some of the guiding lights.
Eden: Okay, cool. So if I’m wondering what kind of things I’m going to learn, if I were to participate in Kingdom Dads [and] how this might transform my home, could you give me a couple examples, maybe testimonies from your kids, or how would this shape a home? Like how has this shaped your own home?
Mike Mattes: Yeah. Great. So we have, three courses that we offer in Kingdom Dads, and they’ve certainly shaped the way in which I live as a dad. The first one we call Foundation, which is just developing core communication practices with God, with your wife, and with your kids. And so, the first thing that we encourage dads to do, if they haven’t read the whole Bible, read the whole Bible. Start Genesis to Revelation; just read the whole word of God. You might not comprehend it all, but you need to read it all. And there is an amazing confidence and courageousness that happens in the life of a believer when they can say they’ve read every word of the Bible. And that will then translate into their family life.
My kids, when they are doing their homework, I’m usually sitting in the living room reading the Bible, and I let them know, “Hey, I’m reading the Bible. And if you need help with homework, feel free to interrupt me, and I will help you out with your homework. And I’ll just be over here reading the Word of God.” So they see me regularly in the Word of God, so much so that now each of my kids are working through reading through the whole Bible, not because I said, “Hey, you need to read the whole Bible.” But they say, “I saw my dad read the whole Bible. I want to read the whole Bible now.”
And then it’s fun getting text from dads being like, I just read the book of Hosea. I didn’t even know that was a book in the Bible! [They have] a new excitement for the Word of God when they see the interaction, especially the interplay between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and that that passage of Timothy, where it says, the whole of Scripture is useful for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16), comes to life in a new way for them.
And then, yeah, just the regular communication with my wife and my kids: We have regular dates with our kids to have open conversation. And my teenage daughter, who is 16, we have great communication with one another. The communication has not stopped, and we can talk about hard things together. And we can overcome some of those cultural slavery ideas, of “Awe, teenagers don’t want to have anything to do with you,” or the idea that you should wait until the teenage years before you start having conversations of consequence and deep conversations with your kids.
Eden: This is really encouraging. I think this is something that’s going to be really, really helpful to a lot of young men. And I imagine that it already has been. And as you said, as the family unit is the smallest in culture but has a massive impact, I can see a whole home flourishing because of a man’s investment in his own walk with the Lord, through this ministry. So we’re just really grateful to know about this and to get to share it with our audience.
I usually like to ask, in conclusion, about resources that have been transformative in your own walk with Jesus. So, we’re trying to just add to our listeners’ bookshelves, things that we found really helpful. So are there any books or resources that have been just transformational in your own walk with Jesus?
Mike Mattes: Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, the Bible. Read the Bible. Make sure you’re in that regularly. There’s a book by Andy Crouch called Culture Making, which has been incredibly informative, especially around the idea of being transformative in culture. It’s where we got the idea for the mustard seed on our logo. The Kingdom of God is the smallest seed, and yet when it is planted in a garden, it becomes the biggest tree, and the birds of the air want to make their home in the branches. And we want to see our families be that, those strong branches where others want to make their home. And similarly, right now we are in a time of screens and technology. And so even [The] Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch talks a lot about family and family rhythms, as well as keeping technology in its right place in family life. Lots of other good resources, but I’d probably start there.
Eden: Okay. Okay. That’s so helpful! And I would encourage anyone who listens to this podcast to go check out your website, and that would be.
Mike Mattes: kingdomdads.org.
Eden: Okay, great. And [I encourage them] to explore that and get involved, if they’re in that Ohio area or outside of it. And if they wanted to contact someone to talk about opportunities to get involved, who would they contact?
Mike Mattes: Yeah. So, hello@kingdomdads.org. I see those emails, as do one of my board members.
Eden: Awesome, awesome. Well, so grateful to hear about your work there and to share that work with others and to hear about the Lord’s work in your life. So thank you for being willing to share with us.
Mike Mattes: Thank you. I appreciate it very much.
Eden: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would encourage you to like or subscribe to our podcast so that you can hear the next conversation. And if something that you heard today spoke to your heart or got you thinking, I would encourage you to not let the day go by without talking to God about what’s on your mind. We believe that he loves you and that he’s pursuing you today out of that love.