Last night we packed out the meeting space room with fathers and soon to be fathers who wanted to talk about what it looks like to be fearless fathers the kind who embrace their failure and aggressively pursue Jesus. There were three objectives of the night:

1. Own up to our failures.

2. Step up to our responsibilities.

3. Begin a conversation about how to step up to our responsibilities as fathers.

We started the night with a time of repentance and prayer followed by a very brief challenge by me to our men from Ephesians 6:4 which reads: Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

We then began our conversation about how to do this by introducing a panel of fathers who while not perfect have aggressively pursued Jesus and pointed their children to Christ. Our panel consisted of: Mike Michaels, Graham Self, Danny Lotz and Jim Young. We were led through this time by Allin Foulkrod. I want to thank these men for their willingness to share with all of us there that evening. Thanks guys.

Allin fielded questions that our men had written out for him and the questions consisted of everything from, “How do you discipline a 2 year old?” to topics like confessing sexual sin and regret. It was a great step for our men to begin to have this conversation about how to be fearless fathers. I believe we established a place where we can have some real conversations about how to be men who are not afraid to lead our families not only physically, but spiritually.

Fearless fathers have an overwhelming responsibility that cannot be delegated to the church, to mom, or to the anyone else because fathers are responsible to lead their families. We desire to equip our fathers the best we possibly can to lead their families. I believe last night was a step in the right direction.

For next steps our Dads were given a couple books Raising a Modern Day Knight (for Dads with sons) and She Calls Me Daddy (for fathers with daughters). Some men signed up for this Falls Men’s Fraternity ministry that we will be hosting. Some men even pursued potential mentor figures who were there last night (fathers who were further along in their journey of fathering and pursuing Christ). I thought last night was a win.

Many of our fathers made a public statement about their desire to be the fathers God has called them to be today. I was encouraged by the amount of men who stepped out of their seat and came forward at the end of both of our services this week to say they wanted to be fearless fathers. We saw from the Father in Mark 9:14-26 that fearless fathers: actively embrace their failure, and aggressively pursue Jesus. Men at Southbirdge were saying that they are not perfect, but they desire to aggressively pursue Jesus. Praise the Lord! Men stepping up to be the men God has called them to be!

As a follow up to today’s message the Fathers of Southbridge have been invited to a Fearless Fathers Forum at the Southbridge church office on Monday June 29th at 7:00pm. I am going to lead this time starting with a challenge to our men. Then we are going to have an open forum time of question and answer where our fathers and future fathers can ask any question they want to a forum of men who are leaders at Southbridge, and who have sons and daughters at various stages of life. I think this is going to be a great time for our fathers to sharpen each other and hold each other accountable to be real men to our families.

If you are a father and want more information about attending the fearless fathers forum email us at: southbridge@southbridgefellowship.com.