On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast, we sit down with Nate Akin to hear his powerful testimony and parenting insights. We explore Nate’s journey from growing up in a Christian home to his college basketball career at Murray State, including his participation in the NCAA tournament against Georgia and Illinois.
Nate openly shares about his season of rebellion during college years and the pivotal moment of repentance that redirected his life toward ministry. We discuss Nate’s leadership with the Pillar Network, a Baptist association focused on church planting that now has nearly 600 churches in almost 50 countries. The heart of our conversation centers on the parenting principles Nate learned from his father and mother that he’s now implementing with his own young children.
Nate reveals his parents’ simple yet profound approach: “teach them to love Jesus and have fun with them.” We unpack how this philosophy manifested through consistent discipleship, creating space for questions, prioritizing church community, and maintaining a balance of clear boundaries with abundant grace.
Resources From This Podcast
The Pillar Network
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
03:59 Nate Aiken’s story and testimony
10:31 The Pillar Network
12:57 Things Nate’s parents did especially well
22:06 Things Nate may do differently from his parents
24:57 Concerning current trends
Episode Transcript
Chap Bettis: I am Chap Betis and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. What if you could eavesdrop on a mature but imperfect family whose children are all walking with the Lord today? Would you enjoy that? I know I would. Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and as much as I love thinking about biblical principles and applying them to our lives, sometimes it’s helpful to read or listen to the biographies of others. In other words, I can have biblical principles in my head, but how have people lived those out?
Well related to that, I love asking young men and women who are following the Lord to tell me both about their own story, but also what are the things that they think that their parents did well. Hearing those narratives often illustrates universal principles, and in addition, many times I’ve learned something new.
Well, that’s true today. In this podcast, we’re going to have the privilege of listening to the story of a young man who has grown up in a Christian home and has now taken his place as a Christian leader. I recently had the privilege of interviewing Nate Aiken. Nate is the executive director of the Pillar Network, which is a community of Southern Baptist and international Baptist churches that are committed to equipping, planting, and revitalizing churches together. It currently consists of 570 churches in 47 countries. Nate has a Master’s of Divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Murray State University, where he twice played in the NCAA basketball tournament, and we’re going to hear about that.
In the past, he served as the discipleship pastor of Imago Dei Church that he helped plant, and he is married to Kelsey and father to Ada and Ryland. What you’ll also learn is that Nate is the son of Danny Aiken. Danny currently serves as the president of Southeastern Theological Seminary, and it’s fun to hear about both Nate’s own journey growing up and then the principles his dad sought to live out.
By the way, I know I tend to have leaders with Baptist roots on the podcast. Well, listen. I’d love to talk with more of my Presbyterian brothers or sisters. So if you know someone that I should interview, just shoot me an email. I’d love to interact with you on that.
Well, before we start, I want remind you of two resources that may be of interest to you. The first is our newest book. It’s entitled Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You For Church Leadership. In It, I do a deep dive into thinking about how current church leaders and future church leaders are called to develop and display relational wisdom in their homes. It’s been endorsed by Tim Challis, Barnabas Piper, and Alexander Strauch, just to name a few. So pick it up where Christian books are sold, and don’t forget to check out the online bonuses.
And of course, the second resource that we always highlight is that we give away the audiobook for The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. Just visit our website, thedisciplemakingparent.com, and sign up for our weekly newsletter and we’ll give you the whole audiobook for The Disciple-Making Parent for free. We’re on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to raise children who not only love the Lord and are not only disciples, but disciple-makers, taking the gospel to the world and standing salt and light for our country. So head on over to thedisciplemakingparent.com for your free audiobook. But for now, let’s listen in on as we think about real life discipleship.
Well, it’s a joy to have Nate Aiken on The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast.
Nate Aiken: Yeah, it’s a joy. Thanks Chap. Thanks for letting me be on.
Chap: Why don’t we just start. You can weave in there about the NCAA tournament, but tell us the Nate Aiken story- How you came to Christ and got involved in ministry.
Nate: Yeah. I grew up in a believing family. My dad has been in ministry my entire life. He and my mom moved to Dallas in the late seventies. We were born, me and my twin brother were born in 1981, so I’m one of four boys. By that point, Dad was already in Bible college and serving as an associate pastor. Mom was a stay-at-home mom raising four boys. I think about this all the time now that I have little ones. But we had this framed picture that said, “There’s a special place in heaven for the mom of four boys.” And that’s true. I’m just imagining, How did my mom take the four of us to the grocery store and get groceries? To me, even that seems like a feat of strength.
So yeah. Born into a family where my parents were believers. We heard the gospel from an early age. We were always involved in church, and not just involved on Sunday mornings, but involved Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and other things that happen during the week. I’ve said this before on other podcasts, and it is just a testimony to my parents, just our belief and how they instilled this in us. I’ve had times when I doubted my salvation. I can talk some about that. I’ve never had a time where I doubted that the Bible was the Word of God. So I’ve always thought even at an early age that this was breathed out by God that’s never changed and never been shaken. It was just a really healthy upbringing, and I think I became a Christian around nine.
So I remember going to my dad’s study, essentially trying to wrestle with sin, saying, like, What do I do with this? Dad’s sharing the gospel with us again and the time of praying, repentance. And I think that’s when I was saved. We were baptized about a year later. And so for the most part, from 10 till about 18, 19, I walked with the Lord and grew in my faith. I was committed to reading the Bible regularly, learning, growing, involved in church, and then I went to Murray State to play basketball. And I would just say I did not walk with the Lord.
I remember having a conscious thought. It’s one of the reasons I’m so involved with church planting and church in general, and just so committed to it. But I had this kind of conscious thought, like I can be a Christian in isolation from other Christians, and it just led to years of heartache. So I would’ve say I lived in rebellion to the point that- I have said this before- I think if I had died in college, I should have had no confidence that I was a Christian. And, and again, probably one of the other reasons I’m so convinced of the importance of the local church and the life of Christians is that I don’t blame my sin on anybody else. I was completely responsible for my sin. I hid much of it from my family. But had I had a church that would’ve actually taken the road of church discipline with me, I wonder and I do think maybe I would’ve turned and been spared years of heartache.
And so there was a time of just, rebellion is the only way I could put it. During that time I was playing basketball, which again, had some really awesome things that connected to it and then had some things that were not so good connected to it as it pertains to sin. I was a guard for Murray State and I didn’t really play at all until my senior year. I sat the bench. We played against Georgia my sophomore year in the tournament and got beat. We were a 14 seed, they were a three seed. We went up like 29 to 11, we were on fire, and then they slowly wore us down.
And then my senior year we played Illinois. We were pretty good my senior year. Mick Cronin had gotten there from Louisville. He coaches at UCLA now, and he pressed 40 minutes. I probably played seven or eight minutes a game, something like that, and we made the tournament as a 12 seed against Illinois.
We lost our best player. He had gotten arrested on selection Sunday and gotten kicked off the team. I don’t know what we’d’ve been like if we’d have had him, but there were so many formative things to that experience. Reasons why, I think, maybe you do this work in parenting. I think sports, just like many other activities, but for a family that loves sports, it teaches us so many things. It was so good in so many ways. Obviously there was negative that came with it, but there was a serious season of repentance towards the end of college where I confessed some sin to my family, things to people I’d hidden my sin from. And that was a pivotal moment.
If you asked me, I think I was a Christian at nine, given what my life looked like from like 12 to 18 or 19. But that’s when I knew I was a Christian. I think about it like in Hebrews 13- the Lord disciplines the son that he loves. That was a really harsh discipline season. But we talk about the harsh providences of the Lord, and there was a harsh kindness. So that started a trend and a trajectory of me asking some really serious questions about my faith and whether I was a Christian, and whether I was a Baptist, and all the things that went along with that, which led me to go to the Scriptures and think: this whole upbringing that I’ve been a part of, do I actually believe it? And going to the Bible convinced me all the more.
Because of some of the things I’ve said about the local church and my own experience, I just decided it would be a good thing to give my life to serving. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but into ministry. That’s what led me to start taking some seminary classes. And from there I really became hungry to learn and then to teach. And so that’s my story of how I got into ministry.
Chap: Man. That’s really good. And you actually used the word “convinced.” Part of the principle underneath The Disciple-Making Parent, besides Matthew 28, is 2 Timothy 3: 14-15 , where Paul says to Timothy, “Continue what you’ve learned and become convinced of.” And I think that is often a second-generation Christian experience. You learned it early and then you became convinced later. And it’s interesting that you actually use that word.
Nate: Yeah. And if you know me, I’m a very convictional person. So when I become convinced of something because I’ve actually dug into it, I’m usually pretty resolute. And there’s not to say that I can’t learn and there aren’t things that can sharpen me, but the “convinced of” is something that I take very seriously. Like, I do my work to make sure I believe the things that I believe.
Chap: That’s great. Well, speaking of believing what I believe, tell us about The Pillar Network. The majority of our conversation’s going to be about your upbringing and things your parents did. But tell us just a little bit about The Pillar Network, why you’re involved in that, and how that might be able to help somebody who hears about it on this podcast.
Nate: Well, that gets into some of the things I was saying. So The Pillar Network exists to be a Baptist association built off of theological affinity rather than geographical proximity. Now we obviously have geographical proximity in some formal things we do. But we’re really just trying to be combined around theological core, which would be reformed Baptist, committed to things like gospel proclamation, live expository preaching, elder-led congregational, confessionally Baptist, and then doing this work together. Primarily for us, that means starting and strengthening churches.
We believe that the local church is God’s plan, and that the way we accomplish the Great Commission, the way disciples are made is through the church. And so the starting and strengthening of churches is central to that work. And so the best thing we can be about and give our lives to is the starting and strengthening of churches that can make disciples in all the world. And so we combine our resources, combine our efforts around a like-minded doctrine in order to start and strengthen churches.
And maybe just one more level to that. We get asked a lot how we compare to other church planting networks, and there are so many good ones out there. We’re not the only one. But one of the things that’s important to us is to have an agreed-upon idea of what the church is. And so if we have an agreed-upon idea of what the church is and does, it’s easier to start and strengthen churches together and to be about that central part of the Great Commission. And so that’s really what we’re trying to do.
And by God’s grace, he’s blessed the work. There’s obviously a need for that. We’re now closing in on 600 churches in almost 50 countries, and so it’s been really sweet. Again, as I’ve created really strong convictions about being a Baptist and about the church, and I get to now lead a network that has really strong convictions about being Baptist and what the church is and how the church fits in the Great Commission. And so it’s one of those things where it doesn’t even feel like a job to me. It just feels like, man, the Lord wired me for this and it’s really enjoyable. I feel very grateful for it. And that’s a little bit about who Pillar is.
Chap: Okay. And if people want to find out more, if those are convictions that jazz you, it’s The Pillar Network.
Nate: Yeah. ThePillarNetwork.com. Check us out.
Chap: Okay. That’s great. The reason I wanted to talk with you, we just got off a podcast where you were talking to the B 21 Network, and I appreciate that. But I have admired, as I’m coming to know, although I still don’t know well, your dad, your, and the influence he’s had. And I just thought it would be very interesting to hear, now that you’ve got your own five-year-old and 1-year-old. But as you start to evaluate what stands out about what your parents did well that you want to imitate that sometimes you see other parents, your peers, right now, you’re like, I don’t think they get that. And you’d say, These are things that if I had you do a breakout, a workshop, five or ten things my parents did well that I would commend to other parents. . . What are some things that you might say?
Nate: Yeah, it’s so interesting being a preacher’s kid. I’ve heard him talk about parenting, but I’ve also heard him just talk informally about it. And he has always said he had a guy, a seminary student, come and bring out a yellow legal pad and say, “Tell me everything you know about parenting.” And my dad’s like, “Put that away.” Like, “It’s not going to be groundbreaking. What we tried to do with our kids, we literally just tried two rules: teach them to love Jesus and have fun with them.”
As a leader of a network and other things you can sometimes say things sometimes that you don’t actually do in practice. And the truth is, my parents did that in practice. The things that they did that were really good were, we never were unclear about what we believed. My parents were clear about the things that we were about, and we were a house that loved the Lord Jesus. And there were reasons behind that gospel, reasons behind that that always played themselves out in a high reverence, as I’ve mentioned, for the Bible. Placing a high importance on the life of the church, and I’ll share a story about that in just a minute. And even just the importance of the mission that the Lord’s given. So there was not even just the internal.
I think sometimes this is important in our own disciple-making: we can get so focused on thinking about our own holiness. And all those things are important, but we look inwards and don’t look outwards. Part of the best way we can grow as disciples is there’s something larger than ourselves that we’re called to be a part of. And so looking outside of ourselves and outside of even our own church and even our own locale is so important. So my parents just did a really good job of that from an early age, instilling those things in us, and just they had fun.
There are horror stories about the kind of legalistic, fundamentalist parents who had all these rules that their kids had to follow. And my parents, they had rules. My parents disciplined us and they were very big about a wide playing field, but consistent in their discipline and consistent in instruction and that was for the most part what we experienced. And so we had fun. We didn’t have family worship every single night together. We didn’t have a specific thing that we followed. It was some very general things that we followed. Like they prayed with us in bed before we’d go to sleep. They would read the Bible to us, read stories to us. They were Christian stories. My dad took us to school about 30 minutes from where we lived in Dallas, and so we had 30 minutes every day to ask our dad questions. Mundane things to really serious things.
And one of the things we even love to this day- we’re all big college football fans, and part of that was because on Saturdays we would watch college football and his dad would point out it would be a lot of watching football and us going out and throwing the football, but it would also be us asking serious questions along with that, and he would just kind of take in that Deuteronomy 6 way. He would sort of just take those opportunities to teach us when those questions would come up. And so I think that’s what they did well, kind of responding in the moment. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so she helped disciple us, create some consistency for what life would look like.
My dad was having to travel, and so I would just say to boil it down, clear commitments, consistency in those commitments. And they were the right commitments. And then with that, a lot of joy and fun and just not taking ourselves seriously in that. I think my dad went through some rough ministry experiences early on. He protected us from some of those things.
But I still remember- thinking about the importance of local church, the story I wanted to share. I still remember when we were members, and my dad was associate pastor at Odelia Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas. And every single Sunday night after Sunday night service, I mean every single Sunday night, four or five families, the same families every week would come over to our house afterwards. We’d get Little Caesar’s, we’d eat pizza, we’d play and they’d hang out. And it was the first real picture of biblical community I saw, and I never forgot it. In fact, one of the ladies in that group died at 32 from breast cancer. And it was the first time I saw my dad cry, and it left a mark about the importance of the church that was never taught to us. It was just shown to us. And I think those are some pivotal things that I think my parents did well when we were growing up.
Chap: Oh man, there’s so much there. There’s so much good stuff. Teach ‘em to love Jesus and have fun. I’ve talked with another child of a well-known pastor and he says, I don’t remember all the family devotions, but I remember when I went fishing with my dad. And so just that emphasis is really, really good.
Can you drill down and get into some specifics? Thinking about teaching Bible habits, obviously he’s a pastor. Before we go on, let me also just point out, you were talking about how there was downtime, so you weren’t always rushing from event to event to event, so that’s really good.
Nate: Well, my parents, they’re not as structured in that sense. And so there was a lot of openness to what was happening in life. And with that, they always taught us, there’s nothing that you can do to make us not love you. It’s going to seem like that to you at times, but there’s nothing you can do. They lived that out.
We were so encouraged to bring questions, even serious questions to them. We never felt like we couldn’t be open with them about things we were struggling with. And I think that was a big deal. And I think they showed it in times when I talked about my sin. I mean, they were welcoming with open arms when I confessed a lot of awful things to them. And so they backed up the things they were telling us as far as how open they were to the things that we were struggling with. And I think that was a big deal, with the kind of informal nature of how life looked. It allowed for some space to ask those kind of questions and to have those kind of conversations.
Chap: That’s good. What were some ways, obviously you’re talking about service and everything, but I’m thinking about, were there bible habits that they’ve tried to inculcate in you?
Nate: The primary one was always built on the confession that this is the Word of God. And so in the way that was treated and our family was clear, and that even played itself out in attendance at church, where we would hear the Word of God preached. Because, and I know this is a big deal now, and my kids are of age where I’m having to deal with this, but just the travel ball and all that stuff, dad never let us prioritize sports over church. Now, that wasn’t as big a deal then as it is now, because most sports leagues did not put games on Wednesday nights, and they certainly didn’t put games on Sunday. And so that’s changed over time. But there were still times when those conflicts could run up against them. And they just never. . . I failed band my fifth grade year because 50% of the grade was the final orchestra performance. And we had a baseball game that night and dad let us skip to go play in the baseball game. So we got fifties for the year on our band grade. So he would let us skip other things, but he would not let us skip church. And so that was a big deal.
And then with reading, there was not like a specific thing other than they taught us some inductive Bible study type stuff and just encouraged us to read. I know we would read in our rooms before we’d go to bed and just kind of dive into the Scriptures. And then we were involved in Sunday school, youth group and, and those kinds of things too. And those conversations would come up. We would be driving somewhere and asking, you know, what you’re reading and what you’re learning in the Bible.
Part of what I want to say is it was just part of the furniture in our house was just the Bible is the Word of God. And if that’s true, then it has demands on us for everyday life. And that just played itself out in that way.
Chap: That’s good. I know you don’t want to predict because you’ve got a five and a 1-year-old, but are there things that you see based on that upbringing as you look around where you’re just like, Oh man, I’m concerned. You’re off track. And you of course are withholding judgment because you’re not a parent of a 10-, 12-, 15-year-old, But I don’t think I’ll make those choices, as far as the kind of comparing with your parents and thinking things that you might do differently.
Nate: I think I will have a little more intentionality with a couple of things. With dinner, we try to do catechism or a verse or we always pray, but that’s a given. And they’re still young, so, I’m talking like five minutes or less at this point. What I think they can get attention span wise. And we pray with them at bed. But I think I’m going to build in. . . I want to keep the loose kind of fun structure. I don’t want to feel like we failed if we didn’t do this thing at this time every day. I just know too many horror stories of families, like A.T. Robertson, having his kids come home on Sunday afternoons for three hours and write down the Greek, and they all apostatized. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to enjoy time with my kids.
We still want to be around our parents. We still have a group text, us three brothers with my dad. We text about sports and Bible all the time. I want them to love being in our household, but I think I will build in a little bit more intentionality of a specific catechism or a specific reading plan in ways that weren’t necessarily how my parents structured things. Even that kind of family worship- we’re not a singing family. I kind of joke, we can talk sports and Bible, we can’t do anything else. But I think I’m going to build in some singing too, because even though it might sound bad, I think there’s something to the portable theology of music that sticks with kids. And so we try to put a little bit more music involved in the way we work. Me and Kelsey are ordering in our household. So that might be the main differences we would have than what I think my own upbringing was.
Chap: Thanks for answering that. I want to circle back to the question I was asking, but I did want to get to that- things you might do a little bit different than them.
You know, more and more I’ve been thinking, and this goes into the joy, but I didn’t know that about A.T. Robertson. But more and more I’m thinking that if you can parent and imagine your kids at 25 and then parent backwards. . . and so it’s hard to rebel against joy. It’s hard to rebel against love. And if you love your parents, you’re joyful.
Well, let me circle back. The question I was asking was, parents who perhaps are in the weeds right now, in the midst of it. Those are the ones where you’re thinking, I don’t have a 15-year-old right now; I don’t have a teen. Are there things where you’re just like, I’m worried about that?
Nate: Man, the big things that are on my radar right now are the social media thing, which I asked you about in the podcast when I interviewed you. It’s the social media piece and the technology piece. So not just the social media, but just the access to that. So that’s something that I’m already, my wife and I are having conversations about well in advance of when we’d even consider giving something like that to Ada.
And then the other thing is, because I do love sports. I think sports teaches you hard work, it teaches you teamwork, it teaches you a lot of things that are help formulate, and form somebody who, again, as a 25-year-old, hopefully is a person standing on their own two feet and being a productive member of society and a faithful member in the local church. And that’s what we’re trying to do as parents, is to make them the kind of kids who can grow up to be adults that are like that. But it’s the dominant sports culture of the travel ball. I think there are people who push back against it too much and I think we need to understand there’s good things that happen with sports and I think there are people who are just all in and that’s what’s most important. And it’s not shocking when their kids walk away from the church because it’s shown that the church is secondary to what’s more important. And so I think that can be a metaphor for a lot of different things, of saying, Are there other things we could make as a priority over the church and gathering with the saints of God and sitting under the teaching of the Word? But I know in my own heart sports is probably going be that kind of thing. And so those are the two big things on my radar right now that I’m like, Okay, we have to have a plan for this. And we’re asking other people questions about, and trying to get counsel as we kind of navigate that.
Chap: Well, and I think to your credit, just the very fact that you are trying to ask that question, and you’re asking it early. You’re not just going into those activities with no thought. We did some extracurricular activities and I was always asking, How does this work together with their character? And there were some things that we did not follow through with as much as we could have, but again, you know, they’re not going pro. You’re not a pro basketball player. You had a great experience and learned character lessons, but the point is you’re developing them. So yeah, that’s really good.
Nate: 5’11, moderately athletic guys weren’t making the NBA when I when I was around.
Chap: Well, man, I appreciate your ministry and I love The Pillar Network and I appreciate you and your contribution, and it’s great. There are a lot of lessons that you just quickly told about that I think people will go back and re-listen to over and over again, so thanks for telling your story.
Nate: Yeah. Appreciate you, Chap.
Chap: Thank you for listening to The Disciple-Making Parent podcast. We love creating free content for you, but we can only do that because of our financial partners. Would you join us? We have so many opportunities in front of us, but we need your help. We’re a small ministry that makes your kingdom dollars go further. So to invest those Kingdom dollars with us, just go to thedisciplemakingparent.com/partner. Thanks for listening.
