This is a guidebook.

This is a guidebook. It will help you plan and execute your journey as a family. But it’s much more than that.

A guidebook highlights points of interest. It gives you local knowledge. It draws from experience. Helps you get the most out of your investment with recommendations like this: you will need plenty of water and sunscreen.

Where this guidebook differs from others is – it is not intended to help you prepare and plan for a one or two-week vacation. It is intended to lead you from where your family currently lives, deeper into the goodness of God’s wild exotic Kingdom.

We are confident – as you and your family explore God’s Kingdom with this guide you will want to continue exploring its natural wonders. At some point along the journey you will look at each other and say: “Couldn’t we stay? Buy a small piece of land and become locals here?”

We believe the answer to that question should be a resounding “YES!” In fact, it is what God always intended for you and your family.

We believe when you follow this guide – when your children get a real taste of what life is like there – it is they who will want to stay. And as they continue this journey into God’s Kingdom, their children (your grandchildren) will grow up more naturally resistant to the deceptive allure of harmful cultures around them.

Sarah and I lived in a coastal region of South America for four months. Four months is much longer than a vacation. It is long enough to let the culture get inside you. That culture – even the physical atmosphere – was palpably different than anything we’d previously known. Ever since then, in every place we’ve lived, we try to introduce the best of what we experienced there – aspects of the culture which breathed life into us.

This is how the culture of God’s Kingdom is. It is a culture of living life well – of relishing and creating goodness. Once you experience true Kingdom culture, you don’t forget it. This is why the Bible talks about God’s Kingdom being savory, like salt, and illuminating, like a lamp. Life in God’s Kingdom is simply more tasty and its colors more vibrant. It is breathtaking to taste, see, and experience.

But getting there – especially as a family – is an adventure.

This is why we want to walk alongside you – bringing you to experience God’s Kingdom with your family in new ways. You are going to love it there! You will love equating it with “home”.

And God’s Kingdom should be considered home. Even if you feel it is beyond your reach. If we are God’s People, His Kingdom is our rightful home. We may come from many tribes, nations, and various histories of living in slavery and shame. But if we are His adopted children we each have lawful claim to be natives in His land.

His Kingdom is the backdrop of every story in the Bible. It is where we were intended to live and thrive. It is where we are headed in the resurrection and the new creation.

Where is that Kingdom?

God’s Kingdom is wherever He is living and active in the midst of His People.

The Bible helps us understand where God’s Kingdom is when we read about the Garden, Eden, where God daily walked and talked with humans. And the Temple, where God dwelt in the midst of His People. The Promised Land, in which God would live with His People and bless them. And His coming Kingdom in the book of Revelation – a garden city, with His throne in the center, a river running out from it, watering fruit-bearing verdure and facilitating the healing of the nations.

Each of these vignettes from the Bible is picturing God’s Kingdom.

Each of these is pictured as an exotic garden. Even the architecture of the temple was meant to show a place bursting with life, health, flowers, fruit, diverse peoples, and a real feast – with God fully present to us in the middle of it all.

We find God located at the pulsing center of each of these vignettes.

Each of these places uses prophetic imagery to illustrate a reality, giving us every reason to believe they point to a physical place – like Eden. They are trying to describe the indescribable reality of how exotic and good God’s Kingdom really is, right now, and will eventually be when we have fully arrived.

When you lead your family to experience that Kingdom – helping them become native to its culture in this life right now – you will be participating in a distinct and beautiful ancient culture, rooted in God Himself.

The origin of God’s Kingdom is found in legends of “the beginning.”

In the pages of Scripture we read the God of all things – the One God – created the material world.

This God was three persons but, having a single nature, He was One God: The Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Before the material world existed these three persons had been having one continuous party. Ancient texts refer to this party as “the dance of the Trinity” – indicating all three were entwined in their activity, each of them equally full of joy and playing off each other’s moves. Ancient theologians called this divine dance party: the Perichoresis.

Because God’s dance party was such a good time, He wanted to invite more people to get involved. For this reason He created humans.

God intended this dance to be the dance of life for us – our every day life. God created the universe and its limits to be an environment where the “dance of life” with God could be ongoing, day in and day out. The legends likened our created environment to a wild garden. Scriptures say God was there with the people He made. And the party, the people in it, and its wild, untamed environment, was good. VERY good.

You and your family were always intended to live with God in His Kingdom.

From Exile to Promised Land

You and your family were always intended to live with God in His Kingdom. That exotic Kingdom is your rightful home. And the discipleship of your children was always intended to be a natural byproduct of them living the dance of life with you in that Kingdom, with God.

Our homes and family life are meant to be places of unity and beauty – a little slice of God’s Kingdom which drowns out and re-orders the world’s chaos.

But increasingly this is not our reality. Some of us can hardly recognize that our family life bears the marks of being God’s People. The world’s chaos is smothering our family’s true identity.

As parents, our hearts cry out to discover, preserve, and grow our tribe’s unique Kingdom identity. But we don’t know where to start.

Too often we feel ill-equipped to lead our families to real and lasting beauty. And we feel defeated. We know God brought His People out of exile. It shouldn’t be so hard to enjoy a life lived in His Kingdom with our families!

If this is your heart’s cry, it is right. Fan the flame of that desire.

“Out of exile” is where we are headed with this guide. Out from invasive and enslaving cultures to an exotic paradise where your tribe is present with God. But the journey is not easy.

The only way Sarah and I know how to get there is: as we’ve made the journey ourselves we have discovered good paths – “ancient paths”. Now, we want to guide you along those same paths.

Along the way we took some wrong turns. But we found some right ones, too. For parts of the journey we had little-to-no nourishment. At times we’d even given up until Jesus came back to encourage us and point us in the right direction. We’ve been bruised and bleeding in our journey – and have scars to prove it.

But we’ve also had our guides. Dependable guides. People who went before us and gave us a heading. This is who we want to be for you through this guidebook.

going forward

Begin setting your journey in motion.

Each chapter will have a few steps for you to begin setting your journey in motion. By the end, you will not only be equipped to make your home an outpost of God’s Kingdom, you will already be on your way! Your home will be becoming a savory slice of goodness where redemption is lived and experienced.

And week after week you will discover new delights with your family as you become local natives in God’s exotic Kingdom – each of you increasingly bearing the marks of being His Tribal People, living in His Kingdom.

Words for your journey:

Moses was Israel’s leader as they made their journey. As their guide, he gave them wise principles for sustaining life with God in the promised land.

Sarah and I have learned the words Moses offered are timeless. They apply to us, and they apply to you, any time we set our face toward God’s Kingdom.

Before we embark on this journey together, internalize these words of wisdom from Moses. These words are ageless. After you read them we will tell you how you can make use of them right away, today.

• Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God – giving in to the enticements offered by the gods of other cultures.

• Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.

• And be on your guard! When you hear God’s incredible promise of blessing for His People – you might prematurely bless yourself in your mind, thinking, “I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.” This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land where you live. The LORD’s anger and jealousy will burn against that person. The LORD will single them out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

– Deuteronomy 29:18-21 (paraphrased)

To look back on. To remember. To pass on to your children.

Whether they are the words of Moses, King David, Solomon – or us, your guides – there will be times you need to lean on the words of others who have gone before you on this journey.

For that reason you might want to start a “travel journal”. In that journal you could write down principles or ideas that resonate for you in each chapter. You could write down important practices and verses we offer you – adding your own thoughts. You could sketch out images God may give you that affirm or bless you in your journey. To look back on. To remember. To pass on to your children when they become parents.

At the very least, I highly recommend copying down the prayers and verses from the last two sections in this chapter. Take ten minutes each morning to meditate on what they mean for each new day as you make this journey – truly leading your family.

Lastly, the second spiritual goal I made for myself: During that difficult season I began to take two minutes each night to pray protection over my family, my spouse, and myself.

If you want to make progress in any area of your life you will face opposition. It is a known fact. However, the Bible promises the People of God – we and you – will certainly meet with opposition of every kind. We, and many others we know, could tell you story after story about the variety of opposition which set in immediately after we started to take our journey seriously.

With this in mind, here is a second daily ritual to set down in your travel journal and make a part of your day. Write your own version of this simple prayer. This is the prayer Sarah or I pray each night together before we go to sleep:

Lord, we pray you would watch over our family. Protect each of our children – physically, spiritually, and mentally. Help them to grow healthy and whole, toward You and Your Kingdom. Teach them to know who You made them to be when You first thought of making them.

We pray You would watch over us as a couple, individually, and over our household, too. Put Your angels around us and our home. Make this a protected, sacred space – a sanctuary for Your Kingdom to thrive. Protected from all evil influences. Amen.

Note: You don’t need to have your act together to pray this prayer. In fact, if you are living with brokenness or in sin, let this prayer be your heart’s cry each evening. 

Lastly, know that we love you. God loves you. We are rooting for you. And I am praying for each of you as I write these words. You are our kind of people. You are God’s People.

(The bolded type in the last three sections are three initial exercises for your journey as parents.)