This Way Network: Nina & Jefferson Drexler

Nina:
Good morning, everyone. So glad you’re with us this morning. It’s a beautiful spring day and you are watching Sweet Home, on the This Way Network. And I’m Nina, your host.

Nina:
We’ve got a great show for you today, and I bet you’ve been watching a lot of the news lately, I know I have been. There is so much going on and we have a lot to discuss, but the biggest thing I want to mention here is that recently we celebrated Resurrection Sunday, and y’all, there is no better news than that. That Jesus died for our sins, rose again on the third day, and is now sitting at the right hand at the Father in Heaven, interceding for us. Great news. So we have a guest today that I’ve never met before. His name is Jefferson, and I’d like to welcome him onto the show now.

Jefferson:
Good morning, Nina. How are you?

Nina:
Good morning, Jefferson. I’m doing great. How are you doing?

Jefferson:
Doing really, really well. And couldn’t agree with you more. And especially in light of today’s news stream, can’t get any better than that.

Nina:
Isn’t that the truth? Yeah, I totally agree. So Jefferson, I’ve never met you before and I’m willing to guess a lot of the audience has never met you before either. So tell me something about yourself that you would give maybe as an introduction to someone else who has never met you.

Jefferson:
Yeah. I guess the first and foremost thing is, I’m a lover of my kids, lover of my wife, lover of God, in opposite order of what I just mentioned. I happen to have some skills in regards to podcast production, video production. And I’ve been working in television for close to 30 years, but those are just skills that God’s given me to help further his kingdom in everything that I do. And I just have a whole lot of fun. Whether it’s as a follower of Christ, as a husband, or as a dad.

Nina:
And that’s the key right there, having a lot of fun.

Jefferson:
Right. Right.

Nina:
Because life is meant to be enjoyed. Our king, Jesus, is meant to be enjoyed. That’s what he wants is an enjoyable relationship with us. So if we’re not enjoying, we’re missing out somewhere and something’s not right.

Jefferson:
I was telling one of my sons, not too long ago, he was actually playing on this piano right here. And just really getting frustrated with the piece that he was working on. I’m like, “Son, what are you doing?” He’s like, “Trying to get this down.” I said, “No, no, no, what is the big picture? What are you doing?” He’s like, “I’m playing piano.” I go, “Yeah, you’re playing. Playing is supposed to be fun. If you’re not having fun while playing you’re doing it wrong.”

Nina:
Right.

Jefferson:
So let’s get things reset. And not to say everything in life needs to be fun obviously. Personally, we’re going through some stuff right now where our best friends are moving out of state. And so my wife and I and my kids have spent the last several days packing up, moving vans for them and helping them. And that’s not fun. Right? But it is honoring and it’s joyful, even though it’s not happy. And so there’s those types of moments in life. I found this over and over and over again, whether it’s through work or ministry or parenting or marriage. Where you’re not having fun, but it’s still honoring and joyful and you’re still able to see the big picture of it all.

Nina:
Yes. Yes. I think there’s always something there to be enjoyed even when hard things are happening. And it doesn’t usually take very much to look for it. Sometimes it is simply, “I can breathe.” There’s a lot of people who struggle to breathe. Maybe I’m not in pain. There’s a lot of people who are in pain, but even for the people who are in pain, usually they can say, “But I can see, or I can talk to God.” There’s always something that God has given us that can be enjoyed, I think.

Jefferson:
And I found too, and I think this only comes with as living as many years as I have, and getting as many gray hairs as I have. Is I’ve come to realize that even in those moments, in my past where maybe I was more self-centered or I just, I looked at what life was. I remember a Thanksgiving in particular where all my friends say, “I’m so thankful for this. And I’m so thankful for that.” And they were just the little things in life. And I remember just in that woe is me mode and just going, “I have nothing to be thankful for. I don’t have anything going for me right now.” And I realize now that it’s in those really, really bad moments that I’m able to even look at that and say, “Someday, I’m going to be able to use this circumstance to minister or advise or counsel somebody else who’s going through that.”

Jefferson:
And if I’m not going through this garbage right now, and sometimes it’s pure garbage, if I’m not going through that right now, then I’m not equipped to help out a friend, a brother, somebody else down the line.

Nina:
Yes.

Jefferson:
I have twin 14-year-olds and I make it a habit. Now, every time that I see a dad at the mall at the store, or anywhere pushing a double stroller and just weary eyed with bags down to here, and I say, “Hey buddy, I’ve been where you’re at. I promise you, it gets better. They’re actually a lot of fun now.” And it’s just one of those little things that when you’re in the middle of it, it’s not as easy to see the joy. It’s not as easy to see other side of the coin moments.

Nina:
That’s true.

Jefferson:
But you know what I think that with age and maturity, you are able to recognize that moment.

Nina:
Yeah and I’ve got a little bit on you with the gray hair part. So I’m sure I’m along [crosstalk 00:06:37]

Jefferson:
I just have a whole lot of product.

Nina:
The thing is though, I think you’re right. As you go through life, hopefully, eventually if you’re still learning, you’re still growing, you’re still changing. You start realizing how much you’ve missed out on because you were focused in the wrong place. You know?

Jefferson:
Yeah. You know, that goes [crosstalk 00:07:05] sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.

Nina:
Oh, that’s all right.

Jefferson:
Oh, I was just going to say that goes hand in hand with a podcast that I’ve been doing for the last few years. It’s called Parent Like You Mean It, and it drives down to exactly what you just described. That if we’re not intentional, if we’re not doing things on purpose and really wide eyed and looking around us, we miss so much.

Nina:
Yes.

Jefferson:
And yet, on the other hand, if we are intentional, we’re much more prepared for both the joy, sorrow, strategy, whatever it may be and life’s going to hit us upside the head sometimes. But we can be better prepared if we’re intentional.

Nina:
Yes.

Jefferson:
Like I said, whether that’s with parenting, whether that’s with marriage, whether that’s with career or even just your friends and your peers or whatever stage of life you’re in.

Nina:
I think as a mom to seven, two of which are in Heaven. There’s a lot of what you’re saying that is registering with me right now. And I would love to get more into the podcast you mentioned. So how did you even start a podcast like that? Were you already doing other podcasts? Were you a producer? Are you in front of… Sounds like you’re in front of the camera as much as you are behind the camera.

Jefferson:
Yeah, so my career started in broadcast journalism. So I had to learn how to be in front of the camera, how to write, how to edit, how to tell stories, how to do everything from end to end. Graphics and sound and all the lighting, all the little things. And then my career took a cool shift where I was much more behind the scenes. And then several years ago, maybe 10 years ago, 9, 10 years ago, there’s a studio that I manage, and our studio owner had the idea of creating some podcasts. And I said, “Oh, I can help you produce that. Yeah, that’s right in my wheelhouse.” And he says, “No, no, I want you to do it.” And so I had an idea at the time to… It’s an older podcast that my dad and I did, we did, I want to say around 150 episodes or so.

Jefferson:
And it was called Real Stuff My Dad Says, and it was basically me interviewing my dad. Because growing up, my dad’s a talker. So my brother and I would rather get a spanking from mom than a lecture from dad. And dad would come up with all these dadisms. And he would just talk and talk and most of the time we just blew them off. But then as I grew older, as I grew wiser, as I had kids of my own, I realized that these dadisms had real value. So I started making a list and I said, “Dad, let’s sit down and you and I we’ll just discuss these.” And the coolest thing was when he said… We are in our final pre-production meeting, he says, “Son, you have to realize the truth is your mom’s going to listen to this, your wife’s going to listen to this and that’s it.” And I said, “Well, dad, if that’s the case, then if nothing else, I have things digitized that maybe my kids might someday listen to this.”

Jefferson:
And the truth was, I printed him up some business cards he used to sell medical supplies and pharmaceuticals and he’d be at a doctor’s office and talking to the office manager or their staff and just out of conversation, they would say, “Oh, I can’t believe my teenager’s keeping me up at late at night, he’s doing this, he’s doing that.” And he said, “My son and I were just reflecting on a time when we were going through that.” And he handed him the card and after doing a few times, our listenership just spiked. And it wasn’t because we had Elon Musk as a guest or that we had any of these fantastic things. We were simply two dads reflecting on life and talking about life lessons that we learned and about the real stuff that my dad says. And then after we stopped that, then I still had some more thoughts and real realized that we need better parenting advice from guys who are in the trenches. And that’s where the Parenting Like You Mean It idea came out. So periodically, I have a thought, turn on the camera and see what comes out.

Nina:
So where’d you get the title? What does that mean exactly? Parent Like You Mean It?

Jefferson:
It actually extends from a podcast that my dad and I did on The Real Stuff My Dad Says, there was an episode or a dadism, if you will called, Do you really mean it? And it was talking about in my dad’s dadism is it was talking about conviction. So we may say, we want to do something, or we may say that something is a priority, but do our lives really reflect that? So it could be, I say that I’m a Christ follower. I say that Jesus has metaphorically the steering wheel of my life, but does your life really prove it out? Or just at the time we were talking, this is was post September 11th, obviously. And he was saying, there’s Muslims that we could say radical Muslims. That we know they mean it.

Jefferson:
We vehemently disagree with what they are doing and saying and believing, but they mean it. With the things that you’re convicted about, you have that same level of conviction. You know, we see that in a lot of different people who are willing to go that extra mile around us. And so whether that’s for your kids, for your God, for your country. Whatever it may be, do you really mean it? And that really resonated with me. And then I started thinking about parenting and that parenting with intentionality idea was rattling through my head. And I thought that’s a stupid title though, nobody’s going to click on that. And then I saw a picture of one of my, it was actually my brother when he was little of him flexing his arms. And he had these tiny little six year old arms. So the artwork, for Parent Like You Mean It has a little guy with his arms flexing and then his dad’s shadow behind him flexing right behind him with big guns.

Nina:
Love it. Love it.

Jefferson:
And so it’s that whole totality of really meaning it really being intentional and looking at the world around you and just saying, “We got to help guide our kids through this,” because some days sooner than we believe they’re going to be on their own feet. And it’s up to us to prepare them for that moment. You know better than anybody.

Nina:
I think there’s something you’re saying there that is so true and really registers with a lot of people. And that is so easy to look around and see a lot of people who say they believe. And then we see them living in such a way that says to us, “Ah, they don’t really believe it.” And I believe we all know a lot of people who, if they really thought that the people who say they believe these things, really showed that they believed it, they would be following them, but they don’t. Even though they may believe those things themselves, they just are looking for someone to show them how someone to show them what it looks like to live it out to walk it out. But they are looking around and they don’t see very many people that they’re willing to follow in doing that because everyone seems so milk toast or insincere about their beliefs. So they’re looking for someone who is genuine and until they find that they’re not going to want to follow themselves.

Jefferson:
Well that kind of sincerity, it takes a lot of work. Conviction is difficult and for most of us, our natural inclination is to not start on the hard work. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dave Ramsey’s whole financial freedom thing, but he has some really great steps. Just as an analogy of taking those little incremental baby steps to then see these greater results down the road. Once upon a time where, I should say just growing up, I always thought it would be the greatest thing to have a big lawn that me and my kids could like catch on or run around and play and put all these other… Having a big lawn is a lot of work. But if you take it and go week after week and you mow the lawn and you tend the lawn and you weed the lawn on one week, and then you got to go back and weed it again a few weeks later. Well then you end up with this great lawn. If you wait until… Just put it off and put it off and you’re not intentional with it.

Jefferson:
It’s going to be weeds up to here and it’s out of control. It’s similar with raising kids, if from an early stage, if you’re talking about current events. If you’re not just having a sit down for dinner and pray, thank God for this food, amen. But actually spending time in prayer with your kids, if you show your kids how to worship, if you actually demonstrate to them your own struggles and your own faith. Then it’s like mowing the lawn every week. When those tough times come, it’s going to be a whole lot easier to hack down those weeds.

Nina:
So what do you suggest as the first intentional step for parents to take when they want to start changing that? Maybe they realize they haven’t been very intentional. They haven’t been parenting on purpose. And so they recognize that something needs to change, but they don’t know where to begin.

Jefferson:
Yeah. You got to be willing to get weird. Because you got to be willing to kind of step outside of what’s become your norm and establish new habits. Here’s a little thing that we do. And we started doing… This is really strange this for the origin story. The origin story is a movie that I saw forever ago with Bruce Willis. And I think it was Michelle Pfeiffer. It was about their divorce and it’s a tragic, sad movie, but they talk about the high point of their day and the low point of their day. And even back when I was single, before I even thought about being a dad, I thought that’s a cool thing to do at the end of the day. And so in our house, now we have, “Hey, everybody come in for bedtime.”

Jefferson:
Even if like we know my oldest has a test the next day, so he has to go to bed early. All right, cool. Everybody come in. We’re going to do bedtime. Even though you’re not really going to go to bed for another hour and we’re going to do high, lows. And we go down the line and each person says they’re high point of the day and their low point of the day. And sometimes it’s like, “I didn’t have a low point of the day.” Sometimes it’s, “Today stinked, I didn’t have a high today.” And most of the time it’s, “My high was this. My low…” There are sometimes and especially as I mentioned, we were moving our best friends. I’m about to get teary eyed. My 10 year old said, “My high today was moving our friend and my low today was moving our friends.”

Jefferson:
And it’s like, that came out of my 10 year old. Why? Because we’ve been doing this as a habit all the time and even so much so that when my 18 year old has his friends over, when my boys have their cousins over, when my 18 year old has his girlfriend over. And my wife works night shift, so her sleep schedule’s kind of off there’s times when we’re like, “Hey guys, come on, we’re going to do high, low.” And his 18 year old girlfriend participates in the high, low. Like I said, it’s weird. And you got to be willing to get weird, but what does that do? It establishes a set routine where you acknowledge, what is God doing in your life? What lessons are you learning? What’s good, what’s bad, what’s ugly. And it just takes that time and reflection.

Jefferson:
And then this is the best part we follow that up with okay. Sometimes it’s each person. “Now you pray. Now you pray.” You do in those little [inaudible 00:19:13]. Sometimes it’s just like, we’re short on time. “You pray for us all pray, pray us out.” And it adds prayer requests for that evening. And inevitably, after a day or two of this, you’re going to see people going, “Hey, you mentioned this and this and this going on at college or this and this going on with your friends, on your football team. Where are we at with that?” Because they’re made more aware of the people around them. Which that’s what we’re all aiming for is for them to be aware of more people than themselves. Right?

Nina:
Right, right.

Nina:
And I love that it gives you the opportunity to find out what’s important to your kids.

Jefferson:
Oh yeah. Yeah. And you know what like I said, you got to be willing to get weird and start it. But once the ball’s rolling, I just sit back and listen, they’re doing it. Every now and then I got to control traffic, but it’s like, all right, now your turn, all right. Now your turn. Now, if you only have one or two kids it can be a short little time or more time for discussion. But when you have… Like me, I’ve got four boys and then every now and then they’ll have their friends over and stuff at bedtime and they’re friends and their friends even will go home they’ll go, “The Drexlers they do this weird thing before bed.” Then I kid you not nearly every single parent go, “What’s this weird thing you could do.” And I tell them and they go, “That’s so awesome. I wish I could do that.” And like, “You can! It’s really easy. You just got to be weird and ask that first question.”

Nina:
Yeah. Why not? And I bet their kids came home saying, “Can we do that too?”

Jefferson:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s hard though. When they’re going through stuff that’s difficult. You hit those teenage years and everything thereafter. It’s very difficult. Sometimes you don’t want to hear the lows that these kids are living through. But I will say too, especially through the whole COVID season and here I live in Southern California. It’s been very, very valuable so that they know too, that they have this home that they know they’re loved but that’s a moment at the end of the day where they’re not just loved, but validated and heard. We tease each other. Sarcasm is a love language in my house. So, somebody will say something and I’m like, “Are you kidding me? Da, da, da.” But they know that’s all done in love and that they’re supported here without a doubt.

Jefferson:
And it’s fun hearing the feedback, especially from my 18 year old and his friends as they’ve grown older, they’re starting to realize those little intentional things that we do around our house. I know growing up, my parents, they weren’t your typical Bible bumping Christians. Although we went to church and youth group and all that multiple times. But as I went to my 10, 20, 30 year reunions, what was often repeated was, ‘We loved going over to Jefferson’s house because his parents were just so generous or there was just a feeling of family that loved each other.”

Jefferson:
And that was just done through our day to day conversation. They like we’re having dinner. So “Hey, everybody, who’s here. Sit down around the table. There’s enough for everybody.” Family dinners are imperative. That’s another intentional thing to answer your question too, make sure as often as possible, you have a family dinner. Now what we do when my wife, she works night shifts, so once or twice a week, we have boy time and we still eat together. But we eat on table trays in front of the TV, in front of a movie instead of around the dinner table. But it’s still us together. And from the 10 year old down to the 18 year old, they know, “Hey, it’s dinner time. We are eating pizza or wings or whatever, but we’re still doing it together.”

Nina:
Love that, love that. So you’ve given people a place to start, which I think is a great place to start. And I love the being around the table or at least being together at meal times. Would you say either one of those, or is there something different that you would say has probably been the most impactful practice that you’ve had at home?

Jefferson:
Yeah. Yeah. This sounds corny. I hadn’t thought about it until you really started… It’s so imperative that we’d just be willing to be weird, but early on, we used to joke or maybe even tease about the verse in Thessalonians it talks about pray without ceasing. And it went from maybe a, “Hey, look, look what the Bible says. Yeah. It really says this. How does that done? Does that even make sense? Does he mean it? Does Bible mean it? How does this really play out?” To then a lifestyle of life happens, pray about it. You don’t have to just sit at the table. It doesn’t have to be this big formal… I’m a fan of formality. I appreciate it. But I was raised non-denominational and I’m raised in Southern California.

Jefferson:
So I have that counterculture, even counter-Christianity vibe to me. That being said as a guy who says straight up and I’ve trained my boys to be straight up, “Look, I’m a warrior for Christ. That means you’re praying without ceasing. That means that when you are going through your day, you’re in constant communication with God.” If my wife was right beside me, I’m not going to say, or do certain things with the fellow whomever. I’m going to there. Same thing if little kids are next to me, I’m not going to be swearing and saying things that are inappropriate because there’s little kids… We always say there’s playschool toys around. So imagine how much more than if Jesus Christ is right there next to you, then you’re going to behave differently.

Jefferson:
And if you instill that in your kids, by showing them through your example. I’ve seen pastors kids start cursing or even pseudo cursing that Christians do, pastors kids are and you look at them like, “Ah, I know where they got that word from.” Because I’ve heard their mom say it a thousand times when something dropped on her toe or whatever. So through those kinds of behaviors of we’ve seen that’s the greatest payoff because that plants the seeds for my boys wanting to do things like meal time and wanting to do things like high lows, because we’ve made it a lifestyle of putting God [inaudible 00:25:49].

Nina:
Yeah. I love that. What I’m hearing in here, and I’m curious to know if you have read, Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, have you read that?

Jefferson:
I have read it. Yeah. Yeah. Sadly, I don’t get to read as much at all anymore. I’m more of a book on tape and podcast guy, but yeah, I do remember reading that.

Nina:
Yeah. That was something that had a big impact on me. I read it when I was a teenager and I’d love to go back and read it again. I know one lady who told me she reads it every year because she needs the reminder that God really is present, ever present all the time. But that had a big impact on me. And I remember that was when I started having a running conversation with God in my head. So that everything that happened to me, I would be like, “Oh God, did you see that accident over there on that? Wow, that was… Father, please if there’s any injuries over there, please help those people.”

Nina:
It was just that sort of thing. And there was nothing pretentious about it because the conversation is coming the other way too. He was giving me lots of thoughts. A lot of times through scripture that would pop into my mind. Scripture I didn’t even know I knew. And I guess maybe I didn’t know, but the Bible says, “The Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance everything he said.” So that’s what I’m hearing from you right there. I love that.

Jefferson:
Yeah. And I found that the more open you are with your kids about the good, bad, and ugly of life. The more they see you being transparent and how you are approaching it and this means that you’ve got to approach it well means that you’ve got to have that constant communication with God.

Jefferson:
You’ve got to blow the dust off your Bible and actually show it to them. It means that you’ve got to be talking and communicating with fellow believers so that you can get that wise counsel. It’s all of these things that… And it’s exhausting as I said earlier, this is a whole lot of work to do it this way. And I know, but oh, the payoff. The payoff, when they’re 14, 15 years old and saying you’re a Christian is the most embarrassing thing anybody could do or taking a moral stand for something it goes against everything that they’re surrounded with. And yet they’re willing to do it because from knee high up, they’ve seen you do it. And they’ve seen how God’s provided and walking with your whole family. It’s a big deal. And it’s a whole lot of work, but oh man, is it worth it.

Nina:
So I love what I’m hearing from. You makes me want to go find your podcast. So where can I find it?

Jefferson:
Sure. We are at christianpodcastcentral.com. christianpodcastcentral.com. We have a YouTube channel and a website, Christian Podcast Central and YouTube. Also christianpodcastcentral.com or you can just Google Parent Like You Mean It and you’ll see our stuff. My old, Real Stuff My Dad Says, that’s on christianpodcastcentral.com as well. And there’s a whole lot of other amazing shows. I’m shooting a Christian political and news comedian today. He puts out a weekly show talking about Christian worldview and comedy and news headlines. We’re doing that today. So there’s a lot of fun stuff there. I really encourage everybody to check out christianpodcastccentral.com

Nina:
I love that. So it’s not just about parenting. There’s a lot of other information and encouragement to be had there?

Jefferson:
Encouragement, entertainment, extortion. It’s all there. And it’s really, really cool fun stuff. Yeah. Highly recommended.

Nina:
Oh, I’m so glad I have so many more questions. I would love to ask you and things I’d like to talk about. Will you come back another time?

Jefferson:
My pleasure, Nina, this has been so much fun. Thank you.

Nina:
Thank you so much for being on our show today. Y’all we’ve run out of time as usual. There’s still so much more we could say and would love to say, but the last thing I want to leave you with is, be of good courage because God is with us we are not alone.