Better Dads Better Kids

WORDview Culture     Jim Minton 2/23/2026

What do you think our kids are going to be doing for the next 200 years? Will they get another 80 or 90 years on earth? In some way, shape, or form, they will have to make a decision about where and how they want to spend the last 70 or 80 years.

​I am but a stranger here. Heaven is my home.

​When kids graduate from here, do they graduate from Christianity and this way of thinking? Or do they have a faith that will never go away, no matter how hard the world gets—one that guides them for the next 200 years? That’s the question I want to put on the table before we do our jobs as board members, because it clarifies what success actually is for a Lutheran school.

​God prompted me to write this book in 2017. I had always wanted to share my story and what I had learned over my lifetime at St. Paul’s, but I didn’t know it would be a fit for a board meeting on 2/23/2026. Tonight, I think it is a fit, because the book isn’t really about parenting tips or sports stories—it’s about culture, worldview, and the “game plan” that forms kids for life.

​Brian recently shared in a newsletter about culture. He said that culture is how you ACT, Interact, and React. So we are tasked with making decisions that impact the culture here at the school.

​In my book, I state that to do that we must “have a WORDview.” In other words, when our kids face life’s decisions, they must act, interact, and react based upon the truth of God’s Word. We need to get the L out of them so they are not doing this from a world interpretation, but a WORD one.

​If our school is going to be unique and valuable, we must help kids put on the “glasses” of God’s Word—so students learn to interpret identity, morality, suffering, and purpose through Scripture, not through the latest cultural mood. Romans 8:5–8 is the lead Bible verse in Just Call Me Dad, and it warns us that if we live life by the flesh, it leads to death, but the mindset set on the Spirit is life and peace. That determines where and how you are going to spend those last 60 or 70 years.

​I am a big fan of Natasha Crain and her ministry. She says our culture and its schools are training kids (and adults) to treat the self as the final authority rather than God’s revealed Word. And when the self becomes the authority, Christianity becomes infinitely adjustable: hard teachings get replaced by “what feels loving,” and obedience starts to look like oppression instead of discipleship. In that system, Christianity becomes foggy, and kids focus on the next 200 hours as opposed to the next 200 years. Happiness becomes more important than holiness.

​Proverbs 14:12 says there is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death.

​Our big problem is that we only have one resale shop. If God would bless us with another gem like that, we could solve a few problems.

​But I think our biggest problem is too many lukewarm Christians. C.S. Lewis said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

Lewis is making the point that Christianity’s central claims (e.g., about Jesus and the resurrection) are the kind of claims that can’t sensibly be treated as “sort of true” or merely “somewhat important”—either they’re false and it really doesn’t matter whether we have a Unity Christian school, or they’re true and we are tasked with the most important job ever.

​If this school is infinitely important, we must find a way to fund it.

​And here is the warning that should sober any board: Christ’s words about lukewarmness. “Because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16). Lukewarm Christianity is what happens if we have a name on a school but Christ is not “in the building” and not the center of everything we do.

​A big part of our job as a school board is to help our leader and make sure he is cultivating the right culture: a culture of Word and prayer, of truth spoken in love, of repentance and forgiveness, of excellence without idolatry, and courage without fear of man—a place where our kids know how to act, interact, and react.

​In the book, I talk about how we can lay out all the game plans we want, but what matters most are the leaders we put in place, because most of what happens here is going to be caught, not taught. No written word.

​We should also remember our role in the “five loaves and two fish” principle: we pray like everything depends on God, but we work like everything depends on us—God provides the miracle, but we must bring faithful effort and real accountability. We must have the hard conversations, develop clear expectations, better alignment, and be willing to make changes if that’s what faithfulness requires.

​I wanted to name my book after St. Paul’s motto of “Build the Home, Change the World.” A school is never a substitute for parents—it is a partner that strengthens homes by reinforcing a shared WORDview and forming habits of discipleship. Our question tonight is not, “What’s easiest?” Not what is going to solve the problem for the next year. We have been doing that for too long. But “What course over the next 65 years best helps families raise kids who don’t ‘graduate from Christianity,’ but grow into lifelong followers of Jesus and are ready for the next 200 years.”

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