Rethinking Family as a Team on Mission
For many in Western civilization, our idea of “family” seems like a failed experiment. We’ve been sold the line that the family exists primarily as a springboard for the individual. But what if our families functioned more like a team–a team on a mission?
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, Caesar talks with Jeremy Pryor, who has created a multi-generational household that lives together on mission making disciples of Jesus. Their story is powerful!
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why so many families fail to live as a team and do life and mission together.
- The simple, yet powerful rhythms that Jeremy’s family live in.
- The role that “intentionality” plays in establishing new family rhythms.
- Ideas to help you start to create a family team right where you’re at.
From this episode:
“There’s this other bigger story about what God’s doing with his bride and the church, which is nested inside an even bigger story. Which is how God desires to recapture all of humanity. It goes from Genesis 1 all the way to the end of Revelation. And so you can fixate on smaller stories, and sometimes, we live our lives kind of from the center out, but man, you need to be careful that you [and your family] don’t become part of a smaller story. You have to see the bigger picture.”
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Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Coaching with Caesar and Tina in discipleship and missional living.
Free Discipleship and Missional Resources
Transcript
The opposite of the rhythm often is just keeping obligations.
Jeremy Pryor:And so people like you need to do evangelism, you need to do service projects, you need to be, have a date night.
Jeremy Pryor:You need to have more time with your kids.
Jeremy Pryor:Like you start to get you, you get kind of these "shoulds", right.
Jeremy Pryor:That should should piled on you.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:And you don't like nobody has helping you, like Jesus said about the Pharisees.
Jeremy Pryor:You know, you heap obligations on people, but you don't live a lift, a finger to help.
Jeremy Pryor:And what that means is you have to have a framework that actually balances because there's, these are real trade-offs.
Jeremy Pryor:I mean, it's hard to decide how to spend your time.
Jeremy Pryor:So that's where I really like to train people in frameworks, that balance, and that honor the fact, these are hard trade offs, but you can do, you can design your ideal week and that doesn't just include.
Jeremy Pryor:Having to do things that are challenging, but it also includes all the stuff that is life given.
Jeremy Pryor:It needs to be both, you know, full of all of the things that God has for us and incredibly life-giving.
Jeremy Pryor:So at the beginning of the next week, you have more energy than you did the week before.
Heath Hollensbe:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast where you learn how to live with.
Heath Hollensbe:Greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Heath Hollensbe:In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle, this is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary.
Heath Hollensbe:Professors probably forgot to tell you.
Heath Hollensbe:And now here's your host.
Heath Hollensbe:Caesar Kalinowski
Caesar Kalinowski:Hey, here we go again.
Caesar Kalinowski:Are you ready?
Caesar Kalinowski:Are you ready for another episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we're going to, we're going to dive deep into some cool Missional stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:I got a crazy, amazing guest with you today.
Caesar Kalinowski:I was a little fluttery.
Caesar Kalinowski:Couldn't even wait to have him on tell you more about that in a minute.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, you know what dawned on me this week, we had our four year anniversary of the Podcast, like a couple months ago, at least.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I forgot to even tell you that I can't even believe it's been four years of doing the Podcast.
Caesar Kalinowski:With no breaks every Monday for over four years.
Caesar Kalinowski:And you know, we started with the Podcast, used to be called the life school Podcast.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I did it with my friend and brother Heath Hollensbee.
Caesar Kalinowski:You still hear him at the beginning and the end and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we're still pals and all that, but, but here we are four years into it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And now we're called the Everyday Disciple Podcast and onward and upward.
Caesar Kalinowski:We go mazing.
Caesar Kalinowski:And what makes us so great is you that we know that you're listening and that you're hopefully sharing the podcast out to other people when you hear something meaningful.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hope you do.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hope that's like a natural response.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're like, Oh, that was so good.
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Caesar Kalinowski:Take the two seconds.
Caesar Kalinowski:It takes to share that episode out.
Caesar Kalinowski:Either a link to that episode, to our page or the Facebook group, or just.
Caesar Kalinowski:text somebody, Hey, this episode of this was great.
Caesar Kalinowski:I think you're going to love it or whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:We really appreciate it.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's how we grow.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's how we all pay it forward.
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Caesar Kalinowski:You'll do that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Love to hear from you.
Caesar Kalinowski:Love to talk about the episodes.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay, let me tell you about today's guest.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm stoked.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is my friend.
Caesar Kalinowski:I think I can call him that now.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've we're actually becoming friends.
Caesar Kalinowski:His name's Jeremy Pryor and Jeremy and his wife April, along with their five kids.
Caesar Kalinowski:They live in a multi-generational household.
Caesar Kalinowski:On mission together, along with Jeremy's parents, April's mom has lived with them and they live in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, which is just a few miles outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jeremy, and his wife like Tina and I are serial entrepreneurs and have been involved in ministry from like, you know, early, early days.
Caesar Kalinowski:But it's morphed into really their family on mission and moving towards that, they have founded and led several businesses and nonprofits together.
Caesar Kalinowski:Including a family quilt shop that the whole family runs in a bunch of tech companies that are huge.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I can't even barely understand what they do.
Caesar Kalinowski:Really cool.
Caesar Kalinowski:They've started a network of Cincinnati disciple-making households with the goal of seeing a thousand households.
Caesar Kalinowski:In and around Cincinnati live as kingdom outposts, it's called one K H.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's amazing for fun.
Caesar Kalinowski:The priors, they study Hebrew like they're nerds.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm kidding.
Caesar Kalinowski:And they actually take groups to Israel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, you're going to find out that's where actually they met as a couple, uh, and they love Tolken, but you've heard me talk about our family as team K for years now, and the lifestyle that Tina and I have intentionally built around being.
Caesar Kalinowski:A family team and a family on mission.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, Jeremy and April have been doing the same thing as well for 15 years or more.
Caesar Kalinowski:And even though I originally knew of Jeremy through some very similar work on teaching the Bible through story and narrative, it wasn't until they recently joined Tina and I.
Caesar Kalinowski:And one of our coaching cohorts along with seven other couples in there.
Caesar Kalinowski:1KH Cincinnati city network there that we really got to know them.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I had no idea the depth of their journey and a lot more amazing similarities in how we have been led to form our families and why, you know, we call ourselves team K in there.
Caesar Kalinowski:Team prior and all this anyway, and the results that we've experienced.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I'm really excited for you to hear a little bit of their story.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's just Jeremy on today.
Caesar Kalinowski:April is not on with us, but, to hear a little bit of their story and how their family has really been come a team and give you some advice on how you might also be able to get started more intentionally towards living that life as well.
Caesar Kalinowski:Give this a listen, I'll come back at the end and I'll wrap things up.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, I am excited to have this conversation with you, man.
Caesar Kalinowski:It has been too long that we've had these parallel paths yet different, but we're finding out we have more and more commonalities in our sort of family life and ministry trajectories.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I'm just going to start having you on the show every other week or something.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, I know.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're like, ah, I don't have time for that anyway.
Caesar Kalinowski:Let's start with the basics about you and April.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like just a little bit, how long you've been married and like what your marriage and family life looked like as you started.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm guessing the stuff we're about to talk about in, in this richness of family life is probably not, uh, exactly how it started off.
Caesar Kalinowski:So like, what are some of the basics you guys and what your marriage and early child rearing life look like?
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:So this is exciting Caesar.
Jeremy Pryor:Thanks for having me on.
Jeremy Pryor:So I, yeah, we've, we've been married for about 22 years and have five kids.
Jeremy Pryor:Uh, and we met actually in Jerusalem, uh, which was a big part of our story and trying to how God led us into thinking about family differently.
Jeremy Pryor:And ever since then, yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:We've been trying to figure out what it looks like.
Jeremy Pryor:Is that
Caesar Kalinowski:like
Jeremy Pryor:class you were at a
Caesar Kalinowski:class or
Jeremy Pryor:something?
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:We were both doing a semester abroad.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, graduate school and we're there to study Hebrew and try to figure out some things.
Jeremy Pryor:I was like kind of obsessed at the time with the old Testament, trying to understand that stuff.
Jeremy Pryor:And yeah, we met and yeah, it was awesome.
Jeremy Pryor:God kind of used that in our life
Caesar Kalinowski:22 years.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:So then, uh, get married.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm guessing within X amount of time, you start having babies and what's, what's original.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's.
Caesar Kalinowski:Wow.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's the original.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's the original family life look like for you guys.
Caesar Kalinowski:Cause I know you're also, here's another parallel in our life.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're a serial entrepreneur as am I and Tina.
Caesar Kalinowski:So, you know, we're always in startup mode of some form of something, you know, trying an idea out or scaling something or whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:What did that early life look like for you and the kids?
Caesar Kalinowski:Cause you have five now, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:He said, yeah, we do.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:Early marriage and little kids look like.
Jeremy Pryor:I was a youth pastor when we first got married.
Jeremy Pryor:And then, uh, about two years into that decided to do graduate school, moved out to Boston.
Jeremy Pryor:We had just Kelsey and then we had Jackson, so we had two little kids and I really began, I was kinda thinking I was sort of fleeing from traditional church.
Jeremy Pryor:And, uh, didn't think that I was going to really figure out how to fit in that, in that form, but love the church and just like wanting to figure out there was some, there's a lot of tension for me in that.
Jeremy Pryor:and I started to.
Jeremy Pryor:Want to really experiment with, you know, things that were just a lot more relational kind of models of church, but it was like, who's going to pay you for that.
Jeremy Pryor:So God really rescued us and gave us an idea for a business.
Jeremy Pryor:We started to, uh, the world's largest Lord of the rings collectibles online store back in 2001 before the movies and kind of rode that wave.
Jeremy Pryor:And it was such a blessing because we made so many mistakes trying to figure out going from.
Jeremy Pryor:You know, full-time ministry to full-time entrepreneur life, uh, and, uh, with two kids.
Jeremy Pryor:And then we had three more.
Jeremy Pryor:And then we started multiple businesses after that.
Jeremy Pryor:So we've been primarily entrepreneurs, starting companies, but every time we had success in a business, we would sort of parlay that extra time into ministry.
Jeremy Pryor:That was kind of our, you know, what we felt like was kind of the right fit for us.
Jeremy Pryor:So I probably been, you know, spending 10, 20, 30 hours a week.
Jeremy Pryor:Doing ministry for most of the last 20 years, but not really paid ministry, just trying to figure stuff
Caesar Kalinowski:out.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that's exactly how it's been for Tina and I, as we had businesses grow and become more and more successful instead of just trying to chase every possible drop of profit out of whatever we would buy margin back.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah,
Caesar Kalinowski:for ministry, for additional family stuff for overseas, I did it quite a bit of overseas, you know, ministry and stuff that changed our lives forever.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I was able to take my family on, on some of that stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:Some of it was like war zones and things didn't take them there, but yeah, same way, same way.
Caesar Kalinowski:what was the, uh, sort of the thrust of your early ministry when the kids were younger, but you weren't being vocationally paid for it anymore?
Jeremy Pryor:Just trying to figure out like what, like I had a really profound experience in a small group that felt like family, like, it felt like so relationally rich.
Jeremy Pryor:And it was so the opposite of what I had experienced in a lot of larger church environments.
Jeremy Pryor:And I kind of had this you know, desire that if this is the church, if we're supposed to be.
Jeremy Pryor:Really connected at a heart level, then I'm all in if you know.
Jeremy Pryor:And so that, that became the one another's really getting to be on mission , with like a small group of, of believers, uh, that really resonated deeply with me.
Jeremy Pryor:And so I wanted to understand how.
Jeremy Pryor:That would play out.
Jeremy Pryor:Is that, is that okay?
Jeremy Pryor:Is that in balance?, can you call that church or is that something else?
Jeremy Pryor:And so that was, that's kinda like the first five or 10 years.
Jeremy Pryor:We're just trying to figure out, like, how do you make disciples?
Jeremy Pryor:How do you be on a mission and how do you do this in a, in a very tight sort of life-on-life kind of way.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we talk about all the time and this isn't my original quote, but we talk about a lot of people involved in like professional ministry or vocational ministry.
Caesar Kalinowski:They sort of have their family.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then over here they have their ministry, right?
Caesar Kalinowski:And then some people kind of have a family that has a ministry and it's like family plus a mission.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:But then you get some people that have a family on mission.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like this is sort of our family and how we roll good, bad or indifferent.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're doing this together, you know, and sure everybody has their own life and their own people in their lives and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:But the nucleus, the core of this whole thing is us.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that's what people are actually wanting to join and get involved in.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's been a very similar journey for you guys.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, for sure.
Jeremy Pryor:I think for us, and it was like when I was, when I was growing up and when I, even, when I was in my early twenties, when I first met April, I didn't really understand why people wanted to even have kids.
Jeremy Pryor:Like that was kind of a little bit of a mystery to me.
Jeremy Pryor:I grew up in the Seattle area, so there was just not a lot of good modeling in a culture.
Jeremy Pryor:We saw some in the church and in my family was, you know, was together.
Jeremy Pryor:But for the most part, uh, just saw divorce was, you know, Was was the norm with all my friends.
Jeremy Pryor:And, and so it just felt like I'd experiment that had gone bad.
Jeremy Pryor:And when we were in Israel, we had encountered so many Jewish families that had these multi-generational roots.
Jeremy Pryor:And I was like, where did they get this idea?
Jeremy Pryor:Like, I'd never even seen this, really this, this idea.
Jeremy Pryor:And when I asked them, they said, well, came from the Bible.
Jeremy Pryor:And I'm like, well, where, what part of the Bible?
Jeremy Pryor:They say Abraham and I have really so, cause I'd studied Abraham, but I'd never thought about.
Jeremy Pryor:The fact that all of that stuff he said about his descendants was something that is true about family and how God sees me.
Jeremy Pryor:I mean, I just thought that was a primitive part of their culture.
Jeremy Pryor:And when I began to think about family as something that we could build multi-generationally together as a team, it, every, like it was a massive paradigm shift.
Jeremy Pryor:And then yeah, two from there, it became, it went from being, you know, a pretty low priority in my life to what do you just described?
Jeremy Pryor:Like, Oh, this is not.
Jeremy Pryor:One of many things I have to manage.
Jeremy Pryor:This is the vehicle through which I do everything through, which I do mission through, which I do business through, which, you know, that that was a huge realization.
Jeremy Pryor:And there are families all over the world who think that way, but they don't tend to be Western families, especially you know, in the cultures that I grew up in.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I want to suggest, I think I'm going to guess you're going to probably agree with me here.
Caesar Kalinowski:I think it was God's original design for the family.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yes.
Caesar Kalinowski:I really do.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we take that all the way back to like, that's a Gospel issue that you think about.
Caesar Kalinowski:We, we, we are creating the image of a God that exists in Community, and you've got this somehow mysterious three in one submission for God's glory and you know, all togetherness and then God gives us.
Caesar Kalinowski:A oneness of flesh with our spouse.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then these image bears that ultimately bear his image and how we live together in a family.
Caesar Kalinowski:And our marriages to me are the strongest image of who God is and what he's like.
Caesar Kalinowski:And ultimately the Gospel, like laying your life down for others, preferring others, shouldering the weight of.
Caesar Kalinowski:People sin and bad choices for each other.
Caesar Kalinowski:Why?
Caesar Kalinowski:Because I love them to the point of death.
Caesar Kalinowski:I would give my life for my kids.
Caesar Kalinowski:I know you would too, like no hesitation.
Caesar Kalinowski:It wouldn't be like, I, you know, I got a lot going on, you know, it would snap.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so I think this has God's biblical design and the, and the breaking of it and the fracturing of it.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's, it's not even like a, uh, like an East versus West cultural thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's a losing of that true understanding of who God's created us to be in his image for his glory and why we even have a spouse and kids, those kids aren't, they're not created in my image.
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, they look a little like me on the outside.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:But they're created in his image ultimately, as we were.
Caesar Kalinowski:For his glory, not mine, not to make me look like super dad or look how smart they are.
Caesar Kalinowski:Look at, man.
Caesar Kalinowski:My son's making way more money than your, you know, it's like, no, that's not the point.
Caesar Kalinowski:And once that dime dropped for us, I know it changed a lot.
Jeremy Pryor:Well, you know, I know that, that what I didn't realize was that, and , you believe like, like me, that story matters and that even when people hear this, they don't realize that there's actually a more powerful story that they're probably believing.
Jeremy Pryor:And that is the typical Western family.
Jeremy Pryor:If you're a Christian or not, you think that family is a springboard for individual success, that's what you think it is.
Jeremy Pryor:That's the story you believe.
Jeremy Pryor:And when you think about the life of your family, that's the story that you're telling yourself.
Jeremy Pryor:That's what story that's, we're immersed in.
Jeremy Pryor:And that's a very different story than a, than a team springboard, individual success and a multi-generational team on mission.
Jeremy Pryor:Those are two totally different stories.
Jeremy Pryor:And like you said, Genesis one.
Jeremy Pryor:Uh, when God created the first family, you see exactly how he defined it.
Jeremy Pryor:He told them be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and rule.
Jeremy Pryor:So he's basically saying that you are, you are a team.
Jeremy Pryor:You can only do this together.
Jeremy Pryor:It's multi-generational you can't do.
Jeremy Pryor:You can't do this mission in one generation , and you're to rule, which means it's the family.
Jeremy Pryor:That th this, that group that does the work.
Jeremy Pryor:It's not, this is not the non-profit of the corporation.
Jeremy Pryor:It's not the government.
Jeremy Pryor:It's, there's a, there's a, not that those things aren't important, but that the basic, uh, unit, the basic team through which you live life and everyone gets to live life is through the family.
Jeremy Pryor:And so , that was God's original design.
Jeremy Pryor:And then that gets of course translated into.
Jeremy Pryor:our life today as the church.
Jeremy Pryor:and we're getting to extend that to, to all of God's children, it starts with having that belief that the God actually designed this to be a team.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that's a key thing there, and we're getting to extend that outward to others, to get the lost children back home.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, we get a lot of pushback, Jeremy, and we've even had some of these conversations in coaching, you know, where it's like, I want to, I want to really treat everyone like family.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it's like, then we proof texts a couple of verses say, yeah, but there's.
Caesar Kalinowski:Only those people, you know, who've said the magic prayer, children of God or something.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I was like, well, no, that's not actually the whole picture.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's a bigger story arc here.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so we've kind of adopted the languages is like, They're all God's offspring.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're all his image bearers out there.
Caesar Kalinowski:And some kids are far from God.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're far from dad.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't know him.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't understand his heart.
Caesar Kalinowski:They don't know the love that he has and the sacrifice that our brother Jesus made and all those things.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I want to treat them like family and invite them to a place.
Caesar Kalinowski:It.
Caesar Kalinowski:Ultimately dad's table and hopefully redeeming that relationship.
Caesar Kalinowski:I think that's how God does it.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's not some mystical.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like I was walking down the road hate and everybody in all of a sudden, one day I picked up a quarter off the floor and boom, I was a senior pastor at a, you know, churches.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's like it's through others, inviting them to walk in the ways and taste and see, no, no, this is God's designed for humans, for family.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it can be this way, even if you've never experienced it, which is sad, but true.
Caesar Kalinowski:W
Jeremy Pryor:well, a lot of people don't understand is that we kind of.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, , we are living inside of a nested story, kind of like those Russian nesting dolls, there's our family, but our family is nested inside this, you know, this, this other bigger story about what God's doing with his bride and the church, which is nested inside this bigger story, which is how God desires to really recapture all of.
Jeremy Pryor:Humanity goes from Genesis one all the way to the end of revelation.
Jeremy Pryor:And so you can fixate on smaller stories and sometimes, you know, we live our lives kind of from the center out, but man, you need to be careful that you don't become only that smaller story that you have to see the bigger picture.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, and that that's, that's the context that we actually live in.
Caesar Kalinowski:And some, some people call that awareness.
Caesar Kalinowski:Some people call that higher consciousness, you know, and it starts sounding Weegee and all this, but that's the reality if you live so myopically focused, just reactively dealing with this issue, this problem, this thing, this little small little goal, and now you never understand the larger.
Caesar Kalinowski:Picture the larger story, the larger aspect of the nesting doll.
Caesar Kalinowski:Wow.
Caesar Kalinowski:What a small little life you'll live when you were created for so much more.
Caesar Kalinowski:Tell me a little bit about your life now.
Caesar Kalinowski:Your kids give us their ages again, real fast.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:So Kelsey is 21.
Jeremy Pryor:Jackson's 20.
Jeremy Pryor:Sidney is 16.
Jeremy Pryor:Alyssa is 14 and the Cairo is
Caesar Kalinowski:12.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:So they're kind of all along the, a little bit older kids, some of them starting to move out or go to college age and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's the rhythms of team prior right now.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's, what's the rhythms of your family life.
Caesar Kalinowski:You guys live pretty uniquely in a sense of, you know, because of your businesses and, and stewardship of things.
Caesar Kalinowski:You've been able to create a bit of an alternative thing, you know, like, but tell us a little bit of how you live, where you live.
Caesar Kalinowski:You don't have to give us our address or anything like that, but you know, the way you live is multi-generational and quite, uh, an oikos existence.
Caesar Kalinowski:So don't be shy.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're boasting what the Lord has done and called us and created us to do.
Caesar Kalinowski:But it's a beautiful thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:So tell us a little bit about that.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:So, yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:Can you just use the word oikos?
Jeremy Pryor:That just means household.
Jeremy Pryor:And so when I described a multi-generational team on mission, that's not just a nuclear family.
Jeremy Pryor:That's, that's a larger family unit, especially as your kids get older.
Jeremy Pryor:And so like we live multi-generationally, my parents live with us.
Jeremy Pryor:My mother-in-law was living with us.
Jeremy Pryor:And our kids, are getting older now becoming adults kind of moving in and out of the home.
Jeremy Pryor:And so our typical week, it's a big, like the way that we try to figure how to do ministry, because there's so much to, to manage if you're going to try to be a household.
Jeremy Pryor:And when I say that, I mean that the household becomes the.
Jeremy Pryor:Hub through which you do economic activity through which you do spiritual life.
Jeremy Pryor:So much of our life happens in and through the household.
Jeremy Pryor:And in order to really manage that you need a framework for that.
Jeremy Pryor:And our favorite framework is the seven day rhythm.
Jeremy Pryor:we kind of craft a seven day rhythm.
Jeremy Pryor:we work from rest and so our week begins, you know, we just, we have a Sabbath day on, uh, on Saturday.
Jeremy Pryor:We have in, we, we get to enjoy, uh, on Friday night we do a big Sabbath dinner, and then Saturday we do our, uh, our day of rest.
Jeremy Pryor:And then April, I get our date night on Saturday night.
Jeremy Pryor:Our, my dad comes in and does game night with the kids.
Jeremy Pryor:And so Sunday we call our soft launch into the work week.
Jeremy Pryor:That's where we do our family meeting.
Jeremy Pryor:And so like from 11 to 12, we talk about what's going on this week.
Jeremy Pryor:What kind of business stuff we're going to do?
Jeremy Pryor:What kind of spiritual stuff we're going to do?
Jeremy Pryor:Uh, what's everybody up to, what's your highs and lows.
Jeremy Pryor:And then Sunday, we, we do our, our church gatherings, uh, in the evening.
Jeremy Pryor:We do one-on-ones with the, with the kids and they do with each other as well.
Jeremy Pryor:And then we launch into the week pretty hard on Monday.
Jeremy Pryor:We got like multiple businesses.
Jeremy Pryor:Uh, my son does real estate with us, my daughter, and then April, my wife and then her mom, my mother-in-law I'll run a sewing studio at the top of our street.
Jeremy Pryor:And so that's kind of like 50%.
Jeremy Pryor:Like brick and mortar store, 50% e-commerce business.
Jeremy Pryor:And so they've got a big live show that they're prepped for every Wednesday.
Jeremy Pryor:So Monday we do, every Wednesday
Caesar Kalinowski:they do a live show, like at the
Jeremy Pryor:shop.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:That's and that's a huge, it's been really, really helpful.
Jeremy Pryor:There are businesses tripled because of that.
Jeremy Pryor:Which was shocking because brick and mortar retail doesn't do super well.
Jeremy Pryor:When everything is, are they also
Caesar Kalinowski:streaming that live show that you guys
Jeremy Pryor:it's streamed live on Facebook?
Jeremy Pryor:Listen, like I
Caesar Kalinowski:like, I'm not shy.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's the name of that people are going to go, like, I want to see this.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, it's called just so it's in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
Jeremy Pryor:So if you're into quilting or sewing or fabric or whatever, you'll see.
Jeremy Pryor:My wife and my daughter.
Jeremy Pryor:Well, let me tell you a little
Caesar Kalinowski:something about me that you probably don't know.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm super, super into
Caesar Kalinowski:. Jeremy Pryor: I was getting excited.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah,
Caesar Kalinowski:no.
Caesar Kalinowski:Oh, I saw some, my mom would of been all over it.
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, she's, she has sewn, quilted crafted, crocheted, you know, everything for, we have like, my mom has since gone to heaven, you know, but we, our house is full of stuff she made and I know it's not just us.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's like.
Caesar Kalinowski:All kinds of like extended family.
Jeremy Pryor:Yes.
Jeremy Pryor:Well, that's a big reason why April did it was to be a bridge for generations.
Jeremy Pryor:You know, she, her mom was super into it.
Jeremy Pryor:Kelsey was getting really into it.
Jeremy Pryor:And so to create that continuity for them, and then also it's happening for other families that, that felt like a really resonate with our families calling to do a, do a little endeavor like that.
Jeremy Pryor:So that's, that's a big part of what we do.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, we do a, like a little, we do a Bible study with, with the family on Monday, went with our Community.
Jeremy Pryor:That's kind of a, we all read the same passages.
Jeremy Pryor:Define that when you say,
Caesar Kalinowski:and with our community, what's that mean?
Jeremy Pryor:So, yeah, so our community is those who we gather with on a regular basis and we kind of really try to function as a body, those one another's uh, with each other.
Jeremy Pryor:And so they come to our.
Jeremy Pryor:to that mid act, we call it.
Jeremy Pryor:So it's like, uh, about an hour and a half where we just kind of look at the passages we've been reading together and just having discussions about what this means for our lives.
Jeremy Pryor:And Tuesday, what some people
Caesar Kalinowski:call, I'm sorry to interrupt you there, brother, with some people call that a Missional Community or is it for sure?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, yeah,
Jeremy Pryor:yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:Okay.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, it, it goes in and through our household and and so.
Jeremy Pryor:So some of the aspects that are Missional will be, will come out of the different households that are a part of our, and a lot of stuff we do together.
Jeremy Pryor:So we try to do an open table on Thursday night.
Jeremy Pryor:And so that's where people can bring their non-believing friends and then we can get to know each other.
Jeremy Pryor:Also, you know, we, we try to pull off like, you know, little events.
Jeremy Pryor:I was telling you about my, my whiskey and wisdom.
Jeremy Pryor:My favorite thing, we talked philosophy and.
Jeremy Pryor:Version of cigars
Caesar Kalinowski:theology.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's right now it's like different smarter guys, whiskey and wisdom.
Caesar Kalinowski:We
Jeremy Pryor:just watch YouTube videos about philosophy, and then we get, you know, we think we know we're talking about, but it's a good, good way to have a conversation.
Jeremy Pryor:Is that what you do?
Jeremy Pryor:You watch a
Caesar Kalinowski:video and then tear it apart?
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, we just, well, I just send out like, Hey guys, watch a bunch of videos on this philosopher.
Jeremy Pryor:Now, if you haven't read their stuff, a lot of times we just can't understand half the stuff they're a writ they wrote, but there's incredible video.
Jeremy Pryor:So it makes it real easy to, for anybody to engage in that conversation.
Caesar Kalinowski:What else is super creatively like great about that is most people would hear that and go, Oh, I should start doing something like that.
Caesar Kalinowski:How would I ever have the time to prepare it?
Caesar Kalinowski:You're like, just send out YouTube videos, watch this stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:We'll talk about it, you know?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'm like, that's brilliant.
Caesar Kalinowski:The only prep is I got to just pick a few videos and that's something you like.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so it's not like, Oh my gosh, I don't know any, like, I couldn't pick those, but there's other things I could, you know, like I know like I've done similar things where you get together and you discuss a movie and you try to see like the movements creation, fall redemption restoration through it, or something like that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Or like where's the light or you just look through the hero's journey and see, can we map that out?
Caesar Kalinowski:And then.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're just kind of discussing life connected to that movie and the thing behind thing, that'd be nice.
Caesar Kalinowski:I love movies.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And a lot of people do.
Caesar Kalinowski:I love, I have to just point that out.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's such a cool creative way.
Caesar Kalinowski:I didn't know you were doing that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I thought you were like, you're prepping up all this brainiac stuff around this philosopher and all right, man.
Caesar Kalinowski:Cool.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right.
Caesar Kalinowski:So, so I hope folks are hearing this, that there's, there's this nucleus sort of gravitational center of the family and it's extended and it's a little uh multi-generational and then there's also aspects of it though, that then have sort of the believing ring of relationships that are a part of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Oikos that extension of the family, but then you've also made room and intentionalized this open table.
Caesar Kalinowski:So that those, all those folks can say, you know, we've got a friend of ours, keeps hearing about all of this, and this is a place that we would say is high invitation and low challenge.
Caesar Kalinowski:They can come and we're not trying to talk them into signing up for anything or joining some deep Bible study thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:They're not ready for.
Caesar Kalinowski:They, we want him to see and taste that this family that lives in the kingdom, this is a beautiful, wonderful place.
Caesar Kalinowski:And people to be with more people, more than a place.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, it's awesome.
Caesar Kalinowski:I love it now.
Caesar Kalinowski:Intentionality is a big thing then obviously for you in April, and I know it just from getting to know you guys through our coaching and all, but, uh, intentionality is one of those things that we all long for, but it's like the, you know, the we'll get round to it thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:Mary used to be able to go like, right.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, uh, vacation places.
Caesar Kalinowski:They always had the little round to it, slug, you know, whatever.
Caesar Kalinowski:and I know the people you train and help also start to create family life.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's similar to what you're describing here.
Caesar Kalinowski:Intentionality, it's not going to accidentally happen.
Caesar Kalinowski:Let's talk about intentionality when it comes to leading our families toward health and wholeness.
Jeremy Pryor:Yes.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:It's huge.
Jeremy Pryor:Well, that's where I feel like it's important to, first of all, have a vision of family that makes sense of why you'd be intentional.
Jeremy Pryor:I think for a lot of us.
Jeremy Pryor:Mothers and fathers, they just, if your vision for the family is a nest, that's going to self-destruct.
Jeremy Pryor:As soon as the kids get older, that's maybe a little bit harder to build something.
Jeremy Pryor:That that to really pour a lot of intentionality on it.
Jeremy Pryor:But if you're see your family as a family line, in other words, you, you have, you're stewarding from generations previous.
Jeremy Pryor:You're stewarding it for a short period and they're going to pass that on.
Jeremy Pryor:Now it makes a lot of sense that you would invest a lot in his family.
Jeremy Pryor:And, and that, for me, that, that was really.
Jeremy Pryor:The gut, what God gave me the energy to get excited about, man, I, I get to steward this family for a short period of time and I want to, you know, I want to, I want to really make sure that, you know, my ceiling is their floor.
Jeremy Pryor:And that was a vision that I could get excited about.
Jeremy Pryor:And so I, that, that was one element.
Jeremy Pryor:And then from there, it becomes about for us really practical rhythms, that that was that's been the most.
Jeremy Pryor:And figure out how do you balance all of the activities of a household?
Jeremy Pryor:And that's, that's a, it is a puzzle, but it's not an unsolvable puzzle, but you need a framework that will that'll make it accessible so that you don't get overwhelmed.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah,
Jeremy Pryor:exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's another one of our overlaps.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like, even though we didn't know it, but like, cause we're big on rhythms, you know, I don't want to have to recreate this.
Caesar Kalinowski:I want, I want, I want a simple, reproducible framework that we kind of all seed into and we're all kind of living into already, but we're just going to bring a little intentionality now jointly to this , and, and the thing is, is this stuff can be hard at first or seem a little bit weird at first, but the thing of the point of a rhythm, and then the beauty of rhythms is they just become easier.
Caesar Kalinowski:And easier.
Caesar Kalinowski:And pretty soon you realize it's lifestyle, I'm not, yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:We're not that consciously having to think about family dinner night.
Caesar Kalinowski:We had, we had a family dinner night last night.
Caesar Kalinowski:Not that many people made it this week.
Caesar Kalinowski:It was just stuff was going on or some people out of town.
Caesar Kalinowski:My son-in-law is, he's a firefighter.
Caesar Kalinowski:He was working in extra shifts.
Caesar Kalinowski:So not everybody made it, but we have a little bit.
Caesar Kalinowski:Pickup game tonight and we're doing or doing a team K pizza night, you know, over at my daughter's place.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's like, all right, great.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, it's just the way it happened.
Caesar Kalinowski:Not because, Oh my gosh, we had to clear the decks and compare 16 calendars.
Caesar Kalinowski:And all this was like, because the rhythm of our family is to make sure we see each other and have that meaningful family dinner time since it was a little fractured.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, we just fixed it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I already know there's going to be some not.
Caesar Kalinowski:team K folks at it.
Caesar Kalinowski:I already know that cause we were talking about it and cause, cause our kids live like we do.
Caesar Kalinowski:So guess what?
Caesar Kalinowski:They got a broken family live on the right now some folks that need a little help.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm sure you guys have had that throughout your whole thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, marriage life is as well.
Jeremy Pryor:We tend to have.
Jeremy Pryor:The opposite , of the rhythm often is just heaping obligations.
Jeremy Pryor:And so people like you need to do evangelism, you need to do service projects, you need to be, have a date night.
Jeremy Pryor:You didn't have more time with your kids.
Jeremy Pryor:You like, you start to get you, you get kind of these shoulds, right.
Jeremy Pryor:That piled on you.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:And you don't like nobody has helping you, like Jesus said about the Pharisees, you know, you heap obligations on people, but you don't live a lift, a finger to help.
Jeremy Pryor:And what that means is you have to have a framework that actually balances because there's, these are real trade-offs.
Jeremy Pryor:I mean, it's hard to decide.
Jeremy Pryor:How to spend your time.
Jeremy Pryor:And we, so, so that's where I really like to train people in frameworks that balance, and that honor the fact, these are hard trade-offs, but you can do, you can design your ideal week and that doesn't just include having to do things that are challenging, but it also includes all the stuff that is life giving and that kind of balance can bring until you love your week.
Jeremy Pryor:You need to keep kind of tweaking and working on it.
Jeremy Pryor:It needs to be both, you know, full of all of the things that God has for us.
Jeremy Pryor:And some of those things can require some work and some challenge and incredibly life-giving so that at the end of every week, You have at the beginning of the next week, you have more energy than you did the week before.
Jeremy Pryor:And I know there are seasons where we're young families, where man, that sounds like a impossible dream, but you know, that's what, when you said part of this is that your rhythms allow you to focus on the things that repeat.
Jeremy Pryor:And when you focus on things that repeat you, they do get easier.
Jeremy Pryor:You start cracking codes and you start holding onto lessons.
Jeremy Pryor:And so instead of having to reinvent the wheel constantly, you actually start to feel the incredible traction that your family can get.
Jeremy Pryor:And I would say for us, living into a rhythmic life now for over 15 years, you know, we're just at a different place.
Jeremy Pryor:Like there's a level of productivity and peace that we could never have seen 10 years ago.
Jeremy Pryor:Uh, but you have to start from wherever you're at and begin to like.
Jeremy Pryor:Add elements to your rhythm, one at a time, and be willing to upgrade those things until they work really well for your family.
Jeremy Pryor:And, and when you start to discover there's something you're missing, you know, its kind of simple what to do.
Jeremy Pryor:Okay.
Jeremy Pryor:Where's this going to fit in our week is that, you know, as a sustainable and then you can and you start tweaking it.
Jeremy Pryor:And until that starts to work in fit.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I, I can't really underscore that enough, that like, what you're saying here is these rhythms produce a week that you love and brings you energy, which then gives you the energy to include more people.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And be outward, have that outward focus like, well, who else might God have for this?
Caesar Kalinowski:And when people first hear this, and like you just mentioned with little kids, perhaps it sounds like, Oh, that just sounds like work to me.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'm like, but here's the thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:And this is like lately, God's really been tapping my heart about this living reactively, you know, or you just react, react, react, react, everything's a problem to solve.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then you go to bed tired, and then you do that all week and then all month.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then pretty soon your kids are grown.
Caesar Kalinowski:What you've done instead of proactively, you know, intentionally living your life like these, this is what these are the rhythms we're going to have.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we're going to protect some of this and we're going to build in.
Caesar Kalinowski:Others instead of accidentally, never get to that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And that is freedom.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's freedom because when we only live reactively, like, Oh, the boss said this, and then this happened here and then up this broke and then this person was upset.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so all we're doing is reacting.
Caesar Kalinowski:What we're doing is we're kind of giving control of our lives to a zillion, other people.
Caesar Kalinowski:Hmm.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then, yeah, that's why I feel out of control.
Caesar Kalinowski:And as soon as you start to intentionalize within that larger framework of understanding who God has created us to be in, who we get to be and how we get to live, then you start to intentionalize that knowing God's given us that authority, that privilege that freedom, not only does it get easier and richer, but we actually, now we take back the choice that God's give us, right.
Caesar Kalinowski:God's given us choice instead of just reacting like that, and then being upset and blaming everybody else for everything.
Caesar Kalinowski:Oh, my gosh, we're talking a whole different way of understanding of life here.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's so big.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you think this is possible for most families?
Caesar Kalinowski:I, I think if people are listening to this going, man, that's pretty alternative.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we've been listening to you and Tina talk about team K for years.
Caesar Kalinowski:But I think it's one of those things where they would love to have it and enjoy it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Do you think it's possible for others to achieve.
Jeremy Pryor:Yes.
Jeremy Pryor:Well, I think, I think that you have to be aware that everything in Western civilization that is designed for, you know, is designed around individuals.
Jeremy Pryor:And this is what makes it hard.
Jeremy Pryor:It's not that that having a family be a team is hard.
Jeremy Pryor:It's that church and school and sports and, you know, even shopping and everything, and even social media now.
Jeremy Pryor:Is separated by age group.
Jeremy Pryor:And so everything is designed to pull your family into its individual parts.
Jeremy Pryor:And so now why not just have a look at apartments in your house called bedrooms and just like, you know, everyone's got their own TV, everyone's crushing their own Netflix or Amazon, whatever there is.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, that's right.
Jeremy Pryor:It's like, and so it's, that's, what's hard about it.
Jeremy Pryor:It's not, it's not in of itself hard.
Jeremy Pryor:It's I think that in a lot of ways, once you begin to function like a team, a lot of things get easier.
Jeremy Pryor:Like it's, it's hard to live life without your team.
Jeremy Pryor:but it requires some leadership and some coaching you know, to, to be coaching your team.
Jeremy Pryor:But for sure, the hardness oftentimes comes because, the culture will try to pull your family into its individual parts.
Jeremy Pryor:And, uh, and so that can be where a lot of these in the scheme of the enemy
Caesar Kalinowski:since forever.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Because back to the Gospel, if, if our families are given to us as this beautiful picture of God, what he's like the kingdom come, then what's the enemy going to attack the image of God in us that, that bond, that connection.
Caesar Kalinowski:So if I can keep isolating and get a selfishness and, or self preference as my.
Caesar Kalinowski:Primary motivating factor.
Caesar Kalinowski:It, it breaks it down.
Caesar Kalinowski:I have to ask a couple of questions cause I, I know, uh, people will ask this, they're going to write in and ask this.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'll tell you in both upfront and then you can answer them.
Caesar Kalinowski:So I don't forget.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:First one's going to be, I would love this, but my spouse is just, they don't have anything to do with it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Or they would have no intention to here or they're too busy or something.
Caesar Kalinowski:So it's going to just be, it's going to have to be me.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:W and then the second one B I would love this, but I think we've waited so long.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's probably too long.
Caesar Kalinowski:Cause my, my teenage kids, I can't even get him to come sit and have a meal with me.
Caesar Kalinowski:How am I ever going to have a life as a family that has joint rhythms and a joint mission and friendships that overlap like crazy.
Caesar Kalinowski:So those are two different questions, but there's some routes that might be the same.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'm sure you face these questions as you've helped, guide people as well.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:I have a lot of empathy for anyone who feels like, man, I mean, for that spouse, who's resisting.
Jeremy Pryor:I'm a totally different story of how to do family.
Jeremy Pryor:That is a very challenging thing to consider.
Jeremy Pryor:And I think that for a lot of them, it's, it's important that we be really gentle.
Jeremy Pryor:And sort of bringing this up and in having these conversations.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:One of the things that we've used that has been most helpful, we do these weekends where we try to just give, , couples space to talk about it because, you know, shifting.
Jeremy Pryor:The vision of your family, of the paradigm, through which you see family is, is really, is really intense.
Jeremy Pryor:And so you really do need to that that requires a sort of season of learning and considering.
Jeremy Pryor:And so I would, I would say that, that that's usually when they, when two of you come together around an idea like that, it requires that space and you want to not make it.
Jeremy Pryor:Feel like an attack, like, you know, an ultimatum, this is, this is a really exciting possibility that, you know, essentially we should consider what are the, what are the, the, the benefits of this?
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Embrace this.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, because you have to embrace it before you ever engage it.
Jeremy Pryor:For sure.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, for sure.
Jeremy Pryor:And then, and then for anyone who's got older kids, man, there, there is a, there is no time that's too late for this.
Jeremy Pryor:You can start from wherever you're at.
Jeremy Pryor:I love talking to grandparents who are.
Jeremy Pryor:Who have this epiphany and start to think about how grandparenting looks different.
Jeremy Pryor:When you start to think about your family, like a team this there's not one size fits all.
Jeremy Pryor:Every family is very different.
Jeremy Pryor:How every team functions is very different.
Jeremy Pryor:Your stories are different.
Jeremy Pryor:These are really about values.
Jeremy Pryor:and so when you start to prop up the, if you value individualism, For the last 30 years as a family, you see, it's not to say you can't start valuing team.
Jeremy Pryor:You can.
Jeremy Pryor:It's just that you have to understand that, that when you bring that value up, it'll probably be like cranking up a dial, like, okay, we're going to, okay, what's something we can do, you know, this year, like, could we do an a, like, you know, could we vacation together?
Jeremy Pryor:Is there some kind of mission that we can do together?
Jeremy Pryor:You, you have to start to, woeyour family, as individuals back into the team you oftentimes start by.
Jeremy Pryor:Doing things like, you know, just repenting to you.
Jeremy Pryor:Hey guys, I've been really chill, championing the value of individualism.
Jeremy Pryor:And there's some positive things about the value of individuals, but it's been to the detriment of team.
Jeremy Pryor:And so like right now, I want to like express to you guys.
Jeremy Pryor:Like, I really think God God's made us to be a team.
Jeremy Pryor:I don't know what that's supposed to look like.
Jeremy Pryor:We can explore that together.
Jeremy Pryor:And then baby steps from there.
Jeremy Pryor:And see, see how people function, but if you start to use team language, that's very attractive and exciting too, to your kids.
Jeremy Pryor:If you don't, if it's not heavy handed or.
Jeremy Pryor:Guilt trippy or whatever, if, if it's, if it's an invitation into belonging to something bigger and that they're a part of it.
Jeremy Pryor:Uh, that's exciting.
Jeremy Pryor:So if you have that spinner, you guys have seen
Caesar Kalinowski:that.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's been our story.
Caesar Kalinowski:Exactly.
Caesar Kalinowski:Go ahead.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm sorry.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, People are all looking for a team like they're there at work and they get excited about their workplace.
Jeremy Pryor:Why?
Jeremy Pryor:Because it's starting to feel like a team, you know, that they're in their church and they're in a ministry team.
Jeremy Pryor:They're why they're excited because it's like, it's starting to function like a team, you know?
Jeremy Pryor:So it's, This is not a value that people need to be convinced of in general.
Jeremy Pryor:What they don't necessarily understand is that family can be a team.
Jeremy Pryor:And if they start to see that that's so exciting because all those other things, businesses and ministries, they're much more transitory than family.
Jeremy Pryor:So why not invest in the team
Jeremy Pryor:first of all, that God designed to be a team from the beginning.
Jeremy Pryor:And secondly, you know, those relationships are going to last the longest.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I think people will hear some of these things and go, well, we're going to try a couple of things, but the one thing they'll try one thing and it'll fail.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then they're like, I'm done.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it's like, well, wait a minute.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's, who's that loving?
Caesar Kalinowski:That's loving you.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we tell people You're not pouring cement.
Caesar Kalinowski:Don't get all hung up here.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're not pouring cement, try something, try something new, try, you know, different things.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like we tried to get the kids to do this.
Caesar Kalinowski:They want to do it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we always start at the table, like start having a meal together.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then, and then guess what start getting where everybody gets to pick the meal like this week, you know, this kid does, and this week dad gets to, and it's like, and you learn to bear with one another and you all going to help him prep.
Caesar Kalinowski:And it's like, well, my kids aren't try it, try it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You'll see it's going to be different than you might think.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, maybe he likes when they.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah, like
Jeremy Pryor:make it, yeah, like you said, like we, if you, even, if you think about what they want or you, you give them some ownership in the process, what do you guys like to eat?
Jeremy Pryor:How, what kind of vibe would you like to have at this family meal?
Jeremy Pryor:would you like to invite people and not invite?
Jeremy Pryor:Like, how do you want to do this?
Jeremy Pryor:Let's try different things in the word you can always use if you really want to get buy in.
Jeremy Pryor:And you think there's a lot of resistance is the word experiment.
Jeremy Pryor:Hey, would you guys mind if we try this for four weeks or for four times let's do a family meal and then we'll, we'll talk about it.
Jeremy Pryor:You know,
Caesar Kalinowski:see what we're learning,
Jeremy Pryor:what
Caesar Kalinowski:we like, what we don't like.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:It'll work.
Jeremy Pryor:It'll they'll be excited.
Jeremy Pryor:They'll usually be willing to, especially again, if, if you think about like, what would make it exciting for them?
Caesar Kalinowski:And what we found is the natural outgrowth of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:We didn't have to promote all that much when, once our team K family dinner nights were that way where they got to choose and pick and have fun.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we had music cranked and, you know, it was, it was, it was a fun time.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we also got to heart level stuff and all that, but once they started loving that, you were like, so I got to get so-and-so over here.
Caesar Kalinowski:Or like, you know, my friend at school and mom and dad are fighting a lot and she's been, you know, telling me and crying.
Caesar Kalinowski:Can we just have her over and like, dad tell her she's beautiful.
Caesar Kalinowski:Like you tell us Everyday.
Caesar Kalinowski:And like, she just needs to hear it.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, it's like, it wasn't like we had to go like, okay, now let's see.
Caesar Kalinowski:Which of your friends do you think it was like natural.
Caesar Kalinowski:We never, and I would be willing to do that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I would, you know, but we've never had to.
Caesar Kalinowski:And even now with our kids being grown and out of the house and having families guess what, the number one place to bring their friends to still is.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, family.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah, that family, we had a similar, yeah, we had a similar experience where about 15 years ago when we really started trying to do a weekly family meal, pretty consistently you know, it was pretty chaotic.
Jeremy Pryor:We were trying to figure things out.
Jeremy Pryor:We had little kids at the time and we, we went off on a retreat with, you know, people in our community.
Jeremy Pryor:And there's about, five or six families.
Jeremy Pryor:And one of the exercises we said is give us your three biggest milestones spiritually of your whole life.
Jeremy Pryor:kind of like, let's go deep.
Jeremy Pryor:And we went around in all five families that were there, said one of their top three milestones was the first time they came to a family meal to prior house.
Jeremy Pryor:And me and April were shocked.
Jeremy Pryor:We were like, what?
Jeremy Pryor:that thing we're trying to figure out, like that was one of your three, top three, a messy,
Caesar Kalinowski:crazy topic
Jeremy Pryor:to your point.
Jeremy Pryor:It's like just, I see a family have a rich meaning filled meal where they felt like they belonged, did something to their spirit.
Jeremy Pryor:And that's one of the times for me when the penny dropped that, Oh my gosh, is this, this is discipleship and evangelism wrapped up in one through the family.
Jeremy Pryor:this family meal is absolutely critical.
Jeremy Pryor:You
Caesar Kalinowski:know what weeks I just experienced that like an hour and a half ago.
Caesar Kalinowski:My daughter and my grandson, and grandaughter, they spent the night, last night, they came over for family dinner and not everybody was here.
Caesar Kalinowski:Daniel was on shifts.
Caesar Kalinowski:So we're just gonna spend the night, you know, the dogs are here and the whole thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then we've got this pizza night planned tonight kind of pick up the missing pieces of the team.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, uh, she said, but I'm man, I'm super, super kind of feeling fried, not the best.
Caesar Kalinowski:I mean, W maybe I, I don't know, maybe I'll cancel.
Caesar Kalinowski:I said, well, honey, do you, you do you, you know, but it's okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then um, she was talking to her husband about that and he said, well, you know, we've got this family staying with us and it wouldn't be so much better if like your folks were over and, you know, sissy over and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:So like, they're going to be there for dinner anyway, tonight.
Caesar Kalinowski:So better to have more of a family, more of the team at that.
Caesar Kalinowski:That'll be, that'll be a blessing for them.
Caesar Kalinowski:It'll be easier for us the whole thing.
Caesar Kalinowski:So that's their thought line now is they see the family as their greatest asset resource and thing to share.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and we've, we know these two people, but like kind of arms length, you know what I mean?
Caesar Kalinowski:They're like someone whose kind of, part of the, uh, extended family, part of the oikos, it's his family members that are kind of in a bad spot.
Caesar Kalinowski:So my, my daughter, her husband are helping them out and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:So, yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:But yeah, this, this is a must.
Caesar Kalinowski:What do you think would be step one for someone who says, okay, I want to, I want to dip into this, like with my family.
Caesar Kalinowski:What do you think would be the first step?
Caesar Kalinowski:A couple could take toward bringing a greater sense of team and unity and purpose to their family life.
Caesar Kalinowski:Maybe starting,
Jeremy Pryor:I would say that that creatingcreating that weekly family meal and making it very special to you and just, just whatever sustainable to begin with.
Jeremy Pryor:So yeah, pizza night, if you have to do like paper plates or whatever you know, maybe a special drink, something that will, if you have little kids and you like add some special drink, they'll ask you every week.
Jeremy Pryor:Like, are we doing that thing again?
Jeremy Pryor:You know, so make it sustainable, make it fun.
Jeremy Pryor:And then, then just iterate on it and improve it over time.
Jeremy Pryor:So that it becomes more and more of a reflection of the values of your family.
Jeremy Pryor:And, you know, we do this on, you know, usually in our culture twice a year, Christmas and Thanksgiving, it's a tragedy we're so out of practice that when we get to those meals, they, they're not great because we don't even know each other, but yeah, I hate it.
Jeremy Pryor:That's right.
Caesar Kalinowski:Come on.
Caesar Kalinowski:What,
Jeremy Pryor:but, and this is what I learned in, in, uh, in.
Jeremy Pryor:In the Jewish culture in Israel, it was crazy to watch, you know, 30, 40 year olds, all of them getting on buses or driving to their parent's house, every single Shabbat.
Jeremy Pryor:And I was like, when I asked, like, how did they stay together?
Jeremy Pryor:Multi-generationally is because of, they had the Sabbath dinner every single week.
Jeremy Pryor:And if you start a weekly family meal, you will not be able to stop your family from becoming a multi-generational.
Jeremy Pryor:And from there.
Jeremy Pryor:You can begin to insert the team elements because now you start to feel like you belong to something there's a, there's a place in which you experienced your family ness and that's where it starts,
Caesar Kalinowski:starts to ground you in the understanding of the importance of identity.
Jeremy Pryor:That's right.
Caesar Kalinowski:And as we make disciples, we talk a lot about identity, obviously.
Caesar Kalinowski:Right?
Caesar Kalinowski:And I I've been thinking about why has it not been a big problem for our kids and team K and some of our.
Caesar Kalinowski:Now, you know, we're grown up people we've Disciple and their families.
Caesar Kalinowski:Why is there understanding of their Gospel identity?
Caesar Kalinowski:Not been a hard thing to really believe in grasp it's because they were grounded in a family identity.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's like, it's a big deal to be a part of team.
Caesar Kalinowski:K.
Caesar Kalinowski:It really is.
Caesar Kalinowski:People love it.
Caesar Kalinowski:And they get to be called part of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And as our daughters have gotten married, they were like, I'm not going to be a Kalinowski anymore.
Caesar Kalinowski:Maybe my husband will just take our name, you know, it's like that, but I don't bring that up.
Caesar Kalinowski:They bring it up.
Caesar Kalinowski:But the goal is as great as it is to be team K.
Caesar Kalinowski:What's bigger and better is that you believe your Gospel identity, who God's made us to be a why team K is this way.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's right.
Caesar Kalinowski:So that others can, you can live out of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, and I think when you ground your kids in identity and they, they realize there is a team there's people who are for me regardless, I don't have to choose perfectly, make every right life decisions.
Caesar Kalinowski:Sometimes I'm going to screw up.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm going to make bad choices, all that, but I know there's this core, there's this People, my, my team, my family that are going to love and accept me regardless, and even helped me shoulder.
Caesar Kalinowski:You know, some of the consequence going forward when people come and experience that, that's why they're saying that a prior family dinner night was like one of their big markers in their life.
Caesar Kalinowski:Cause they go, Whoa, we just tasted a little bit of what the kingdom of God is like.
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's not less than that, man.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm not kidding you.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's where the story to the
Jeremy Pryor:table.
Jeremy Pryor:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:We're going to be sitting around a table.
Jeremy Pryor:That's where we're headed.
Jeremy Pryor:And that's that's, that's the full expression of the kingdom.
Jeremy Pryor:So it's like, why, why wait?
Jeremy Pryor:Let's uh, let's just, we think about every single family meal is rehearsal dinner or rehearsal dinner for that, that banquet of the lamb that we're all looking forward.
Jeremy Pryor:That's awesome.
Caesar Kalinowski:When you think about the false starts with it, you know what we're eating and then Jesus, when he gives us, you know, the whole new covenant, it said a meal.
Caesar Kalinowski:We can do episodes then that's right.
Caesar Kalinowski:Okay.
Caesar Kalinowski:We got it.
Caesar Kalinowski:This is so great, man.
Caesar Kalinowski:We got to wrap this up.
Caesar Kalinowski:Uh, unfortunately we always end with giving people the big three takeaways for, you know, for this talk for this topic.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we, we make it it's like, you don't want to miss these three things that we just said, if nothing else, here's a summary.
Caesar Kalinowski:And we always give those to people in a printable download.
Caesar Kalinowski:If they're interested in it, they can just go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash.
Caesar Kalinowski:Big 3 big three and boom, we'll send it to you.
Caesar Kalinowski:what do you think, would be the big three from this?
Caesar Kalinowski:What do you think people need to just know about this topic to get started?
Caesar Kalinowski:Yeah.
Jeremy Pryor:So the number one thing I would say in terms of know, is that to know that God designed the family to be a team.
Jeremy Pryor:That and that if you're anywhere in Western culture, then chances are your family is the design of your families to be a springboard for individual success.
Jeremy Pryor:But God wants you to have a team.
Jeremy Pryor:And so that that's going to take a transition.
Jeremy Pryor:The set, the thing I want you to to believe is that you can start from anywhere like there.
Jeremy Pryor:It's never too late.
Jeremy Pryor:You can start from here.
Jeremy Pryor:It's not, there's so much that God can and wants to do through your family and every generation.
Jeremy Pryor:Is a step forward.
Jeremy Pryor:You can't do all of it in one generation.
Jeremy Pryor:So do what you're called to do in your generation and continue in your family line will continue.
Jeremy Pryor:And then, and then what to do like we just described, I would say the first thing is to craft that weekly family meal, That's uniquely your family meal, let your kids really put their stamp on it.
Jeremy Pryor:Make it a, an expression of your family culture, make it a place where you celebrate the goodness of God.
Jeremy Pryor:And as you do that, that identity will go deeper and deeper.
Jeremy Pryor:And from there you can launch into all kinds of things.
Jeremy Pryor:That are kingdom activities for the sake of, the Gospel.
Caesar Kalinowski:Oh man.
Caesar Kalinowski:Really good.
Caesar Kalinowski:Wow.
Caesar Kalinowski:Super concise.
Caesar Kalinowski:I want to also tell our listeners if they've heard this episode, or maybe they're newer to the podcast.
Caesar Kalinowski:We did a, an episode number 273, a little while back, but you can scroll through and find it how to have amazing family dinner nights.
Caesar Kalinowski:Hmm.
Caesar Kalinowski:And, uh, we, we, we go through that whole thing and just give you some basics and practicalities and encouragement and tips.
Caesar Kalinowski:And then I, if I'm remembering correctly, I think there's even like a link to a free download in that episode and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:So you could just Google that or go into your Podcast world and just look how to have amazing family dinner nights.
Caesar Kalinowski:It was episode two 73, so you can kind of.
Caesar Kalinowski:Scroll back and figure that out.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for being here.
Caesar Kalinowski:This has been amazing.
Caesar Kalinowski:This has been amazing.
Caesar Kalinowski:I knew it would be super fun and I, I wish it was like super longer.
Caesar Kalinowski:Cause there's a lot of stuff I want to ask you about, but like, I kind of tip my hand at the beginning.
Caesar Kalinowski:I plan to have you back.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's just too many, too much overlap and too much wisdom that I want to mine for gold.
Caesar Kalinowski:an act like I thought I don't myself.
Caesar Kalinowski:No, just kidding.
Jeremy Pryor:Well, thanks Caesar.
Jeremy Pryor:We so appreciate you and Tina and how much you guys have invested in us.
Jeremy Pryor:Oh, man, it's a
Caesar Kalinowski:blessing.
Caesar Kalinowski:I think this has all been God's design, All right, man, I'll talk to you soon.
Caesar Kalinowski:Thank you.
Caesar Kalinowski:Thank you.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did getting to talk with Jeremy about all of that.
Caesar Kalinowski:I could have gone for hours and hours with him.
Caesar Kalinowski:He is seriously a brother from another mother, for sure.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'm excited for the journey to continue where our families are getting to know each other through the coaching and what we're learning from each other.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's so much more.
Caesar Kalinowski:I will definitely be having him back on the show again.
Caesar Kalinowski:I am certain that you are encouraged and excited and probably upping your longing to live the life that we're hearing about and having our kids as part of things.
Caesar Kalinowski:And even as they're growing up and they've taken it even further than us, where they actually do their economic aspect of their family team together, I've always kind of long for it that my kids might be involved in business with us.
Caesar Kalinowski:Two of my.
Caesar Kalinowski:Kids were they, they worked at a restaurant.
Caesar Kalinowski:We owned for years, but now as adults they've gone off into different careers, I still have a little secret longing that we might get a little team K business going together at some point.
Caesar Kalinowski:But right now, they're all happy.
Caesar Kalinowski:And so are we, but we get to do with the rest of the life together, just not our jobs or whatever, if you're interested in learning more about how to do this and get your own family live in more on mission and wherever you're starting from, wherever you're starting from is yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Good.
Caesar Kalinowski:And you want to move more towards discipleship and mission as a family and how you can start living more in the ways that Jeremy and I talked about today.
Caesar Kalinowski:I love to tell you more about the coaching that Tina and I offer.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's a big part of what we do because that's the basis.
Caesar Kalinowski:That's where we have to start as living as a family on mission and outward to include more and more people and build out communities and then multiply leaders and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:And I'd love to set up a short zoom call to get to know you better and get to hear your story and answer any questions you have and tell you all about our coaching.
Caesar Kalinowski:If you're interested, go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash coaching.
Caesar Kalinowski:Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash coaching.
Caesar Kalinowski:There's a lot more information there and a little form you can fill out so I can know a little bit about you and then we'll get in a zoom call put together and yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski:Get in touch.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right, join us next week.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'm going to be digging into something pretty sensitive.
Caesar Kalinowski:In my own life's journey.
Caesar Kalinowski:As we talk about living with a scarcity mentality, I've always felt that I inherited that from parents that were born into the great depression and the grandparents that lived through it and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:But we're going to go pretty deep into that's really all about the thing behind the thing and how the Gospel and bleeding our true identity can lead us out of a material of living with a scarcity mentality that color so much of life in our work and all that.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's pretty heavy stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's important stuff.
Caesar Kalinowski:Maybe you can relate.
Caesar Kalinowski:Well,
Heath Hollensbe:I can't wait.
Heath Hollensbe:i'll talk to you soon.
Heath Hollensbe:Thanks for joining us today.
Heath Hollensbe:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit Everyday Disciple dot com.
Heath Hollensbe:And remember you really can live with the spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.