FamilyLife Today®

Crawford Lorrits: The role of a grandparent is to be a hope giver, to benchmark future generations to go back to, that my Papa and Mimi or Grandpa, whatever you want to call it, by the grace of God and His sustaining power, they represent in their lives what I need to be.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today. Well, we've got two distinguished gentlemen in the studio today, besides me, of course.

Ann Wilson: Yeah, you're distinguished too.

Dave Wilson: Dr. Crawford Lorrits is in the house. Dr. Larry, you're not a doctor, are you, Larry?

Larry Fowler: I'm not a doctor.

Dave Wilson: Larry Fowler, you and I, we're not doctors. We can go a lot of places, but I think we're going legacy and grandparenting, marriage, parenting, all that area.

Ann Wilson: Larry, this is perfect because share with our listeners, who have probably heard you before, what do you do?

Larry Fowler: I'm the founder of a ministry called Legacy Coalition and we work to equip and inspire Christian grandparents to be intentional about passing on their faith. I say often, probably 99% of pastors think about equipping parents. They'll have a sermon series or a class or something on parenting. You did it.

But I also think 99% of pastors never think about equipping grandparents. But grandparents have an incredible potential for influence and it's worthy of some attention. That's one of the things we want to do is give grandparents their just recognition.

Ann Wilson: And I would say too, if you're a listener and you're not a grandparent yet, tune in because these gentlemen are some great fathers and grandfathers, so you're going to hear tips for both of those. Crawford, you've been a grandparent how many kids?

Crawford Lorrits: Well, we have four adult children, they have families, and we've got 11 grandchildren. This whole idea of legacy, everybody's going to leave a legacy, and I think we make it more difficult than it really is. But one of the things I love about Larry and the Legacy Coalition is he prods us toward being intentional about it and not being passive.

If you're going to leave one, you better have the right harbor in mind and where you want to head things and how you can leverage what God's given to you.

Dave Wilson: Let's talk about that. How do you get intentional about your legacy? Because everybody's leaving one. I don't think most people literally think, "What am I doing, how am I leaving this, how do I want to hit the right harbor?" Talk to us, how do we do this?

Larry Fowler: Let's first contrast what is intentional contrasted with. Probably for Christian grandparents, it's contrasted with hopeful. Christian grandparents are hopeful that their children and their grandchildren will be in heaven with them someday, right? They're hopeful, but intentional is the opposite.

Hopeful means you don't really act on it. Intentional means that you're going to do some things. You're going to think through what am I going to do, how am I going to act, how am I going to relate in such a way that the Holy Spirit can use my influence to impact them for eternity.

Ann Wilson: Larry, how many kids do you have and grandkids?

Larry Fowler: I have two kids, I have seven grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and one bonus great-grandchild. So my clan, depending on how you count, I have 12 that are that third generation.

Dave Wilson: Is this something you guys been thinking about from young when you were first married or where does this start?

Crawford Lorrits: I don't mean to sound abstract here, but I think one of the missing ingredients when we think about grandparenting and that kind of thing is that we need to have a right theology about life, about meaning and purpose. Why are we created? What is our role?

I think theologically and biblically, our role is to pass on the image of God, God's purposes and plan from one generation to the next. The way to become intentional is to become informed. What is it, why are we here? What makes us pound the table and weep? What's the stewardship of our love? What do we hope for? I think those are the banks of the river in terms of creating an intentional relationship and steps to make that happen.

Dave Wilson: So when you say we're here to pass on the image, where do you get that from?

Crawford Lorrits: I get that from Genesis chapter one. God created mankind in His image and three times He says in that one brief paragraph. What is image? It's like Him. We're to represent who He is and His plan and His purpose for generations to come right during the context of human history. That's what it's really all about.

Then you fast forward to Psalm 78 verses five through seven. Admittedly, the context there, Asaph is talking about the nation of Israel representing a family. However, the two things that will give impetus to the future is the character of God and the content of Scripture. He says that He's established the testimony and appointed a law, and that's what He places in our hands. So you don't have to be a scholar, but you do have to love God's word and love God himself, and that's what we want to place in the hands of succeeding generations.

Ann Wilson: Do you guys feel like you were intentional as fathers with your children? How was that passed down to you? Because Crawford, you've been preaching this for a long time. And Larry, I'm guessing you have some of that too.

Larry Fowler: I was intentional as a father, but it didn't click for me that I had a specific role and responsibility as a grandfather.

Ann Wilson: So you felt like, "Okay, I'm done, my kids are grown."

Larry Fowler: Back to the Psalm 78 passage, we use a different word to describe that and it's not pass on faith, it's perpetuate faith. Perpetuate's a better word to describe there because there are four generations mentioned in those verses. I always thought, "Okay, I needed to pass on faith to my kids and then it was their job to pass it on to their kids and so forth." Kind of like a relay baton handoff in track and field, right?

But we've learned that it's different than that. There's an overlap and the overlap is a generational overlap. I not only have a responsibility according to Deuteronomy 4:9 as a father, I also have a responsibility as a grandfather. That's that overlap that I think we've been missing for so long.

Dave Wilson: In other words, we can't stop running. It's never over. Because there's a part of me that is like I give the baton and I'm like, "I'm done." I think we have a generation of grandparents that have done that. They're done. Even Christian grandparents, they stop and become spectators, raised the kids the way they hoped to raise them in the faith and now it's their job to pass it on and I'm sort of going to watch. No, that's not what we're supposed to do.

Crawford Lorrits: Right, but we are also to be the portraits of the desired destination at which future generations should arrive. Everything that God does is incarnational. It's not just about the right plans. It's about being the destination.

The role of a grandparent is to be a hope giver, to benchmark future generations to go back to, that my Papa and Mimi or Grandpa, whatever you want to call it, by the grace of God and His sustaining power, they represent in their lives what I need to be. So you have to, it's more than just articulating a strategy or plan. These things are important. It's being this. It's benchmarking them. That's the key I think to all of this. It's not just transactional, it's transformational.

Ann Wilson: What's interesting, I had one of our grandkids, one of seven, in the car with me a couple days ago. I told him the story and kids love stories. Grandkids love stories, don't they? And this grandson loves his Poppy. So I said, "Hey, have you ever heard how Poppy and I really kind of met?"

I told him this story of how I had prayed to meet Dave Wilson because I knew he could help me to grow spiritually. The same night, it's kind of a miraculous story, the same night Poppy had realized his girlfriend of four years liked another guy. So Poppy went home, got on his knees, said, "Jesus, I'm going to follow You the rest of my life. I'll do anything You want me to."

The same night, I was working in a factory shooting screws into dishwasher doors on an assembly line, praying that same prayer, "Jesus, I give You everything. I'll do anything You want." At the end of my prayer, I prayed to meet Poppy. At the end of his prayer, he said, "If You could run me into Ann Barron, maybe she could help me find somebody who could disciple me."

He says, "What happened next?" I said, "We met the next day." That's the picture of here's where it started for us generationally. For Dave and I, we didn't grow up in homes that really followed Jesus. But we started this and we want those stories. These kids eat up that stuff at certain ages. They get a little older maybe not so much, but at that age.

Then I told him, "And I remember the day your dad called me from college and he said, 'Mom, I just met this girl and I think I'm going to marry her.'" And he said, "Was that mommy?" I'm like, "Yes!" So that's what to be intentional means. We just aren't making them happy and buying them fun things, but we're giving that legacy and part of what we've experienced with Jesus to them.

Crawford Lorrits: You talk about stories, so does the Bible. The first command to grandparents, it doesn't have the word grandparent in it, but it's in Exodus chapter 10 verse 2. Right in the middle of the plagues of Egypt, God says, "You tell your children and your grandchildren about what I have done here." That theme is repeated over and over again, telling stories.

In fact, Psalm 78 is a whole story, a long story that doesn't pull any punches about the bad stuff in the nation of Israel. But we're to be storytellers, and grandfathers in particular I think are often storytellers, but they forget the faith component. That's where the intentionality comes in, is to make sure that when you're sharing your story, you're thinking how did God fit into this event in my life, this experience in my life, and make sure that you include that in your story.

Dave Wilson: How important do you guys think it is for our grandkids and obviously our kids too, to know our spiritual journey? Like that story, some parents never tell their kids or their grandkids. How important is it that they know the foundational story? Crawford, you came from this godly legacy. We didn't, but I've heard your story from the stage when we were young, first four or five years of our marriage. In one sense, we are a legacy of you.

Crawford Lorrits: Oh, wow.

Dave Wilson: You have your own family legacy, but as you spoke and preached the word of God, I'm like, "This man is changing my life." I never had a father figure.

Ann Wilson: I remember it was staff training and you were teaching a class. Dave and I went to our dorm and I remember us saying, "We want that. That's what we want."

Crawford Lorrits: The power of stories, what makes it compelling, especially that story about your grandson, that deeply moves me. But it moves him because the statement that's being made is that this is who we are. It's a statement of identity. When you tell the story, this becomes normative, not abnormal. It's normal for us to love the Lord Jesus. It's normal for us to love God's word.

This is who we are. I think the more you can tell those stories, and not only that, it's a commissioning too. It really is. I mean, I can't tell you, my dad, stories about my great-grandfather Peter. Peter was a slave. We don't know anything about his parents. We can't figure that out.

But somewhere along the line, he gave his heart to Jesus. He couldn't read, couldn't write, but the family lore is he had memorized huge portions of Scripture because he would make his children and grandchildren read to him favorite passages over and over and over and over and over again. My dad remembers him. My father was born in 1914 and Peter lived to be an old man. He would rock and sing back and forth, his love for the Lord Jesus.

And his model just launched generations. Despite Jim Crow and all the stuff that was going on there in the South during that time, there was a sense of rootedness. Why was that so? Because there was a sense of stability because of the hope of the gospel. That hope of the gospel was not just verbalized, it was seen, seen in a man who was a former slave that loved Jesus and it launched generations.

As I tell the story so often, I took Bryan, I'll never forget this, back to the old cemetery where Peter's buried. This was several years ago and I pointed out all of his great-uncles and aunts and my grandparents, and I said, "These people paid your tuition." In the sense of this is who these ordinary people are.

The stories of what God can do creates hope in future generations. It benchmarks that. And to be able to look at my dad and him say to me when I was screwing up as a young boy, say, "Look buddy, you came from some place and you need to go some place." And seeing his model and the model of my grandparents and all the way back.

So it should be normal for us. That's where the intentionality comes. It's not a strategy, although strategies are important and this guy right here is doing some incredible things and materials that are being produced and the tools that are there and all of that stuff. That's terribly important, but it comes out of you shape the future generations on your knees. That's where you shape future generations and you become worth emulating and the rest is just icing on the cake.

Dave Wilson: Is your life worth emulating? What does that look like for you guys in terms of on your knees? Is that just something you talk about or is that something you do?

Larry Fowler: Well, I don't get down on my knees as much as I used to. It's too hard to get back up. I get it. Let me be transparent. When I was young in ministry, I was a doer and I didn't pray near as much as I should have, as much as I knew that I should have.

As I've gotten older, I've become far more persuaded of the necessity to pray and of the power of prayer. I've become much more bold in my prayer especially for my kids and for my grandkids. More passionate in my prayer because I want them in heaven with me. I've learned a lot through the years about the value of prayer.

For us in terms of our family, I guess one of the things that's changed for me is that we've learned to be so much more regular in our prayer for them. Some of our family members that we are concerned about the most, we pray for every single time. I mean, if we're praying before a meal starts, we have family members that every single time we mention them in our prayers. We want to be real consistent for that.

Ron Deal (Guest): Hey friends, Ron Deal here, Director of FamilyLife Blended. Did you know Blended & Blessed, the only worldwide livestream designed for couples in blended families, is free this year? Saturday, April 18th. We're going to be live in Oklahoma City. If you show up there, we're going to charge you for lunch, but other than that, it is free.

Free to livestream. Churches can bring a group of couples together and enjoy the day absolutely free. Gayla Grace is going to be with us, Davey and Christie Blackburn, Cheryl Shumake's going to be with us, Cathy Lipp and Brian Goins, our MC. It's going to be a wonderful day. Hope you can join us. Learn more and get the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave Wilson: Larry, I don't know as much about your legacy handed to you. I know Crawford's a little bit. Is yours a godly legacy that you're continuing?

Larry Fowler: Yes. My parents and my grandparents were all believers, strong believers. My mom was the most godly woman that I've ever been involved with. My dad died when he was 68 and I was 26. So I didn't have my dad around a lot. But my mom was so spiritually minded she wasn't much fun.

Ann Wilson: Wait, you can't do both?

Larry Fowler: Well, she could. I think I know these people. She would come to visit us and the kids would have on like a comedy TV show and she's like, "I don't want to spend my time watching this." She'd go in her bedroom and study her Bible. But she missed opportunities to leverage her deep devotion for the Lord because she didn't think about how to relate to grandkids. But yes, I have a wonderful godly legacy.

Ann Wilson: Let me add this. I think one of the greatest moves you made is I can't remember how old our oldest was when Dave started fasting every Friday for our kids. And he was young. How old was he?

Dave Wilson: CJ was one year old. He was just born. I thought I'd do it for a year or two. It's been 40 years. He just turned 40 this month. All day long as I get a hunger pang, I'm praying for CJ, then Austin, then Cody, and now their wives, now their grandkids. I'm still doing it, praying for our legacy. Now it isn't just our kids, but our grandkids and even our great-grandkids someday. The power of God working.

Ann Wilson: But I love that he did that. There's something for me that's like, look at my man battling on his knees for our family, for our kids and our grandkids. And I know that he married in each of our kids. He stood before them as the pastor and as the dad as they shared their vows. And I remember each one he said, "I've been praying for you," looking at our daughters-in-law, "I've been praying for you before you were born." That is like talk about intentional. It just became a habit for you and still is. And women can do it too, it doesn't have to just be men.

Dave Wilson: But I think there was a sense in my legacy that generationally was handed to me was so different than both of you guys. Divorce, adultery, abuse, alcohol was all in my dad and it was ugly. It was not pretty. He was not a happy drunk, he was a mean drunk. And so that's what I grew up in.

And then when I was seven, they divorced, it ended. But now I'm with a single mom and then my brother dies. So it's this tragic, traumatic thing. I remember as Ann and I got married and I came to Christ, it's like, I am stopping. I'm changing the Wilson legacy. We have to stop this.

And guess what? God's given us the ability to do that. Interesting thing is my sons will now say, "When Dad gave his life to Christ, my whole life was changed." I don't know if you guys know the song "The Blessing". Remember that song? And I remember hearing that line, "May His favor be upon you for a thousand generations, to your children and their children," and I just started weeping.

Crawford Lorrits: But see, this is so incredibly hope-giving. My mother never knew who her father was. Karen grew up in a single-parent household and yet the gospel came crashing into their lives. Your past may explain you, but it doesn't excuse you. It doesn't define you. Legacy began when we surrendered.

My kids and my grandkids would tell you the influence of their Mimi, my wife, is extraordinary in terms of the hope of the gospel and what that has meant in her heart and life. Same thing with my mother. My mother prayed every night on her knees out loud. You know what that would do to a 13, 14, 15-year-old boy walking past his parent's room?

Dave Wilson: So you heard her.

Crawford Lorrits: Yes, I heard her call my name out. It just does something. Both Karen and I have told our grandkids from the moment they were born that there will never be a day in their lives while we're alive that we will not pray for them. We will call their names out to God every single day.

None of us are smart enough to create a legacy that's enduring. It's not the product of some big strategy. It is calling on the God of heaven to come in, in mercy and grace to help us with our sinfulness and keep us pointed in the right direction. It is repenting in front of your children and your grandchildren and making things right and being a model of what the hope of the grace of God and the gospel can do in succeeding generations. That's where the benchmarking comes.

And it's not about legalism either. Legalistic parents and grandparents don't typically raise godly children or grandchildren, they raise frustrated kids. Because they're too protective. But it's the people who are surrendered to the love of the Lord Jesus, the grace of God. God has met them in their journey, that can come alongside of the next generation and offer that hope to them. And that's where the transforming power resides.

Dave Wilson: Well, what a special day having Crawford and Larry in the studio. Wasn't it fun? We got them back tomorrow so don't go away. But we got to speak at the Legacy Coalition Grandparenting Conference, which was epic. And you can watch the whole conference. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com, click on the link in the show notes and that'll send you to be able to watch. It's a life-changing, legacy-changing conference that you don't want to miss.

Ann Wilson: And this isn't a topic that's not really addressed. I can't even think of a place that it's addressed.

Dave Wilson: Right. So we're looking forward to having you back on FamilyLife Today tomorrow. We meet a ton of couples who say FamilyLife helped them when they needed it the most. And that's what being a FamilyLife partner is all about, helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here.

Ann Wilson: And we'd love for you to join us. So click the donate button at FamilyLifeToday.com and become a partner today. FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry, celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.