Menu
In 2015, after researching the foundations of effective families and reviewing the national Christian literature on father-formation (essential to thriving communities) Chip Weiant, a Christian leader in Central Ohio fused his findings with his own joy of family discipleship and began a career-capstone journey called DadLab. DadLab’s purpose built a Heartland Bible-centered peer-discipleship movement to mentor dads within Christian schools. Together, these dads built out father-focused, parent stregnthening, home discipleship practices to equip and encourage dads to embrace the call of Husband & Dad more intentionally.
In 2023, Chip Weiant invited Mike Mattes into the Dad Lab to take the movement and establish it as its own 501c3 non-profit and serve as the first Executive Director. Upon a board being established, the name was changed to Kingdom Dads and the movement took on a God sized vision to reach dads beyond in contexts beyond Christian schools and central Ohio. In just the past year, Kingdom Dads has influenced the lives of over 100 dads engaging in small group cohorts. These dads meet regularly to encourage and exhort one another in the time tested Gospel-centered practices while engaging with other leading Christian voices and resources that encourage dads to be intentional and faithful in their calling as husband and dad.
God would have been perfectly just to leave matters there, with all human beings under His holy judgment, but He didn’t. God instead set in motion His plan to save His people from sin and judgment and set free the entire creation from its subjugation to sin and the curse. How? By sending His Son as a true man who would bear the penalty for our sin and die in our place: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3).
The best-known verse in the Bible summarizes the required response to this good news: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
To “believe in” Jesus includes both a wholehearted trust in Him for forgiveness of sins and a decision to forsake one’s sin or to “repent”: All who truly “repent [or turn from their sins] and believe [in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins]” will be redeemed (Mark 1:15) and restored to a right relationship with God. To “believe in” Jesus also requires relating to, and putting trust in, Jesus as He truly is—not just a man in ancient history but also a living Savior today who knows our hearts and hears our prayers.