Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Dads and daughters

What better investment?

By Martin Peck

Published February 1, 2010 in Witness

Late last summer, I called Tim Tinsley for lunch to catch up. We touched on the four usual bases that guys catch up on—work, family, faith, and football. After about 20 minutes (I know—typical guys getting really deep), Tim said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea to run by you. Maybe you can help me with it.”

OK—now for true confessions. I was already thinking “Oh brother, where is he going to suggest I go on a mission trip? Cuba? Africa? China? Here I was at Good Eats having chicken-fried chicken with my pastor and he was going to try to get me to go to some far-off place where I would be eating boiled who knows what. So while I wanted to look him straight in the eye and say, ”Gosh, Tim, I’d love to, but I am really busy”; instead I looked him in the eye and said, “I’m in. Tell me about it.”

Tim began to tell me that for some time the Lord had been impressing him with the need to bring dads and daughters together to discuss not only father-daughter relationships but real life issues dealing with appearance, dating, and friends, as well as biblical examples of women in God’s Word. Tim went on to say that he had even developed an eight-week study on it.

Our shallow catch-up lunch began to head down a completely different path. Tim and I have daughters, and as we talked we verified how necessary a study like this really is. We framed up a few guidelines. Given the nature and frankness of our topics, our study would be for high-school-aged girls and their dads only. It would need to combat Bible-study-fizzle-out syndrome by having fixed start and end dates. It would be open to all dads and daughters regardless of church affiliation or lack thereof. We’d make it a date night so dads and daughters could spend an evening together. We’d meet in a non-church setting—whoa, what? A non-church setting?

“OK Tim, I am all over this, but where will we meet?” I asked.

To that Tim replied, “I have a friend.”

Boy, did he ever have a friend—Tom Landis, who happens to own Texadelphia, who happens to be a believer, and who happens to have shared with Tim in the past his desire to use Texadelphia as a platform for Kingdom work. So in my fear of Tim asking me to eat boiled who knows what in some faraway place, he was asking me to eat Philly cheesesteaks on Greenville Avenue. Send me, Lord!

With our plan in place, we picked the last Wednesday in September 2009 for our first session. We were up against study groups, church groups, dance groups, sports groups, grumpy dads, and, oh yeah, Game Two of the World Series. Yet Texadelphia filled up to the brim. As I sat there with my high school daughter, I thought back on my high school days and how that time so heavily influenced who I am today, in good and, frankly, not so good ways. Then I thought about my daughter, realizing that she is at that stage right now! And then I thought about the privilege that I have to influence her during this fast-paced, changing period of her life.

Over the next seven weeks Tim, as only Tim can do, by combining humor and heartfelt experiences, shared some wonderful insight into the heart of a woman, the heart of a man, and God’s desire for these young women. Tim would share a message and then give us three or four points to discuss with our daughters as we enjoyed Texadelphia’s finest cuisine. Each week Tim would share God’s amazing grace and blessed message of forgiveness. The topic for our final session was ”Unpacking your past so you can embrace the future!”

I can’t tell you what these eight weeks meant to me. To be with my daughter, to have fun, to share in meaningful conversations with her, and to have further connected with my daughter’s heart truly was remarkable. I thank my good friend Tim, and I thank my Heavenly Father.