Josh Walters

Josh and his wife Katie have six children, AnnaJaye, Abigail, Abel, Asher, Ari, and Anthem (The A-Team). They’ve been married for 17 years and Josh has been a pastor at Seacoast Church for 10 years. This is the first half of our dadAWESOME conversation where we explore intentional connection before bedtime, creating celebration moments of becoming teenagers and reflections about the generosity of his dad.

Conversation Notes:

• 3:08 – Josh introduces his family
• 6:13 – Some family highlights for shiny eyed fun moments
• 8:15 – Josh explains the joy of being a “church family” and their kids loving their local church
• 9:15 – Parenting Hacks sermon from Josh https://youtu.be/ymx7y1jzOeE
• 10:22 – One of Josh’s biggest dad struggles = “Will you lay down with me?” being asked of him by his kids… Quality connection with each child.
• 12:15 – That connection question; “Will you lay down with me?” will stopped being asked at around 11 or 12 years old
• 14:20 – “Do your best to make yourself lay down and connect with your kids at bedtime even when you mind is saying that you need to do dishes and sweep the floor”
• 15:20 – Connecting with his daughters and giving them more freedom as they turned 13 years old
• 17:25 – Intentional celebration moment of stepping into a new season from a girl into being a young woman
• 21:15 – Stories about Josh’s dad
• 23:40 – “My greatest challenge is the giving of my time. Managing it all. The house, the family, life and prioritizing my time”
• 25:15 – Josh processes the journey of losing his father and processing the loss with his kids
• 28:15 – “It was very hard and very beautiful having a closer proximity to the final year of his dads life for the grandkids”
• 28:50 – Having a specific day to remember and celebrate Josh’ father
• 29:20 – Josh’ dad was a father and grandfather to a lot more kids and grandkids than just his own family
• 30:40 – “Death became very close, so the idea of Heaven and eternal life and even just the pain of grief… I think they (my kids) got to experience loss in a way and see parents grieving and pain and stuff that I think the enemy would want to use as a weapon against us later in life… and that’s a natural normal part of life that they got to walk through with us and that was just such a special season.”

Episode Links:

• Parenting Hacks Sermon
• Instagram

DA Idea:

• Create a unique version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
• Recently my 5 yr-old daughter and I made up a version including our baby, our Golden doodle dog and a kitty cat. We call it Boomer, Kitty, Raya and it was a simple fun creation that involved my daughter helping me create the characters and the order of victory.
• Boomer is bigger and stronger then Kitty.
• Kitty scares Raya with it’s claws.
• Raya wins Boomers heart.
• So Boomers beats Kitty, Kitty beats Raya and Raya beats Boomer.
• Our hand gestures are; all 5 fingers up like a high-5 for Boomer (he has long curly hair that sticks up)
• Pointer finger and middle finger up like a peace sign for Kitty (like a cats pointy ears)
• Just the thumb up for Raya (like a baby sucking it’s thumb).
• Boomer, Kitty, Raya, shoot…