Jeremy:
We’d like to take a step back and think about what are we trying to build from a big picture? So, one of the big picture ideas that we like to talk a lot about is building our families into kingdom outposts, and that can be a little bit hard to relate to, because a lot of us don’t live in a kingdom anymore. A friend of mine, Steven Mowry, he uses this analogy sometimes. It really helped me think about this in a little bit different way. That is in a kingdom, what happened oftentimes was there would be obviously the King, and they’d have their castle and their capital city, but all out in the outposts, kind of out far away in the far reaches of their kingdom, they would put different people. Oftentimes it have different Royal titles, but one of them was a Duke.

What the heck is a Duke? A Duke was sort of like a minor royal person that had an outpost of the kingdom sort of in a place that was kind of a little bit tough for the King to extend their rule to. So, they would have an Alliance with this Duke, oftentimes this other family that would be another powerful family, but if there was a war, there was always these oaths. Right? There was this understanding between the King and all of their dukes that they would grab all of the different people from their area and they would join the King to defend the kingdom. Also, their castle or the duke’s actual a house would be sort of like either a forward operating base of the kingdom, where they would be pushing into maybe a new area, or it would be a defensive sort of castle for that kingdom to make sure that other people didn’t invade the kingdom from that area.

It was an interesting idea to think about, okay, what are we building? A lot of us, when you think about your house, think about your family, what you’re building, you’re building a kingdom outpost and that you are a part of this giant, amazing, royal family. God, as King, he wants you to build one of these outposts. You’re kind of like a duke and playing that role that if the King ever were to call all the different families from your city that are a part of the household of God to war, you would all be now a part of that, and you would bring your families, you would bring those you’re discipling, and you would defend the kingdom or you’d expand the kingdom. Your day to day life is just making sure that you’re expanding or defending the kingdom from the outpost that God’s already given you or your family. So, I think that’s a helpful analogy. It gives me kind of a little bit of an idea of sort of what are we trying to build from a big picture perspective, but what do you think about that, Jeff?

Jeff:
Yeah. I love that. I think one last thing I’ll add that’s a totally right with what you’re saying is, well, first of all, yeah, I think that is the … You need to realize that this is the game. This is the game. This is the picture that scripture usually is using, cities building the garden mandate of be fruitful and multiply, create, expand, rain, reign. This is the language of scriptures. Because we’re not in this era or world, we sometimes can not get hit with the impact of what is actually being said. I think, yeah, this is huge for a father to understand. This is the game we’re playing.

One other helpful thing about kind of this royal language or more like Imperial language, specifically during colonialism, that’s helpful for me is when I’m talking to my friends or I’ve seen it was helpful for me even personally, is this is a really helpful conversation about how to have that tension of living multi-generationally, where you’re not fully, fully, fully under the authority of the last generation, but you are on the same team, but you are under the authority, but you’re also expanding the mission. There’s like a tension there. Right? The leave and cleave episode I think we did a couple of weeks ago. This I think is really helpful for that, because, like you said, you are an autonomous kind of reigning and ruling person over your outposts. Right? And you have been sent out once you’re an adult. You’ve been trained usually. You usually grew up in the royal household. Then you got sent out. Then you were trained and you got sent out.

Now, you’re an adult, and so now it’s a different kind of way of living. That is now you are kind of sovereign over your own outpost, but yet there are still kind of the royal stamp or the royal creed and all of that different things. Then when you go to war, you’re on the same team. I just think that’s a really helpful … Everything we’ve been saying I think is another really helpful way to think about the tension and the balance that needs to be figured out that some people usually fall one way too far this way or one way too far this way, in regards to living multi-generationally, that you do have autonomy, you do have authority, but we’re just expanding, and reigning, and ruling in different parts of kind of other people’s authority that’s been given to us from 100 years ago or 50 years ago and stuff of that nature. So, that’s just one encouragement I would leave with you guys today is this is how you’re thinking about it, because it really changes things when you …