Father / Son Challenge

As a challenge to dads, Joshua 24:15 describes how Joshua intentionally gathered men together and gave them a challenge stating:

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Joshua called out other men to boldly proclaim that they and their families were willing to serve the Lord.

Knowing this truth, I wanted to find a way for my son to be encouraged spiritually by other men who will assist me in this process. This inspired the What IF Dad Father-Son group challenge.

My son has a daily “Spiritual Dad” who communicates with him on a specific day each week. In return, I have a specific day of the week to send a spiritual message to the sons of the fathers reaching out to my son.

This has been an incredible method of encouragement for my son. It has also been a great way for me to become more aware of my other “Spiritual Sons” and seek ways to speak with them when I see them and ask how they are pursuing their purpose.

When asking some of them about how they thought the challenge was going I they stated, “I like it because they (Spiritual Dads) are awesome!” and “It makes me feel better about myself.”

I hope you will seek out ways to make this work for you or modify it to meet your needs. Please contact me for any assistance about the process. We have included a formula below to assist.

Our Goal:

Find 7 Father/Son(s) teams to work together to encourage their sons, and each other’s sons.

Our desire is to encourage others, hence, the IF SEVEN Father-Son Challenge has been established to involve dads in a process that will offer their sons daily encouragement in their faith from other fathers in addition to their own.

Proverbs 27:17 proclaims, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Joshua reminds us how we, as men who desire to follow God, need to challenge and encourage one another, (especially our sons).

To participate in the challenge:

• Gather a team of 7 men and their sons.
• Include yourself and your son and find six other father/son teams.
• Each day, fathers will intentionally send an encouraging spiritual message to the son(s) of one other father who is part of the group. Including a day to spiritually encourage your own child assures each son to hear from six other men each week who will encourage him with a spiritual message for the day. I have found this to be helpful to my son and to me as a father.
• To begin, we listed the seven men who would be participating with contact information. Father1 would also be Family1.

Step 1. What IF Dad List:

1.   Family 1  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone
2.   Family 2  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone
3.   Family 3  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone
4.   Family 4  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone
5.   Family 5  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone
6.   Family 6  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone
7.   Family 7  Dad’s Name          Son(s) Name              Email                Phone

Step 2. List the Participating Sons and their Father / Family # they belong to.

Following this, we list the sons who will be participating since some men in the group have more than one son participating.

Fathers, remember, Sunday is the day for us to encourage our own child(ren). On Monday-Saturday you will have a specific son to contact. Please make your daily contact with a spiritual message, encouragement, edification or exhortation. Remember, please pray and send what God places on your heart for your “son” for the day.

This is not a contest to see who can send the most be the most prolific (thank goodness). We understand we are not seeking perfection, but please, do your best to make your daily contacts. If you miss, please make it up as as soon as possible.

Here is a contact Grid. Hopefully, this makes it less confusing when trying to figure out who you are to contact each day. Click on the picture to see the larger version.

Again, don’t forget, Sunday is reserved for focusing on our own kids so there is no one else to contact. It is probably a good idea to send out a daily reminder by text to all the fathers until everyone gets in the groove and it becomes a habit. I am excited to see how God will work in our lives as well as the life of each of our kids.

In an effort to make this less confusing, here is the What IF Dad father/son Combinations in our group.

My “Monday Son” Alec Tarr and his father Brent.
MY “Tuesday Sons” Drew and Austin Webber and their father Scott
My “Wednesday Sons” AJ, Cruz, and Christian Whatley and their father Robert
My “Thursday Son” Cody Byler and his Father Danny
My “Friday Son” Cooper Harris and his Father Cris
My “Saturday Son” Zach Stearns and his Father David
My “Sunday Son” I focus on my own son, Brock.

I hope you will consider investing in your own IF Seven Group! Please contact me if I may be any assistance.

Regards,
Mark Neese
Mark@Whatifdad.com