Timeline

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 is to build a Heartland Bible-centered peer-discipleship movement within Christian schools to mentor GEN Y Dad’s to embrace the call of Dad & Mom more intentionally as Chief-Disciplers of their GEN Z children.

Chip and his wife, Annie, continue to speak life into their family and God’s work both in Columbus and around the world.

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 take the movement beyond 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 from the DadLab Movement while engaging with other leading Christian voices and resources that encourage dads to be intentional and faithful in their calling as husband and dad.