In case you’ve not heard (which means you’ve probably not visited Plugged In lately), Irreplaceable, Focus on the Family’s first foray into film, is coming to a theater near you (one night only, May 6 in the U.S., May 7 in Canada). While it doesn’t have the explosion quotient of, say, The Avengers, it is a nice exploration of what Focus—well, focuses on: the family.
Early on, the documentary deals with a lot of societal issues—marriage, parenting, the special roles that men and women play, etc. But as Irreplaceable moves along, the conversation turns into a far more personal, introspective rumination on the sorts of parents we’ve had and we may be to our own kids. Parenthood, particularly fatherhood, isn’t just an issue that impacts people out there. It’s something in here—our own Christian communities, our homes, our families. It stresses how flawed we all are, whether we’re dads or not. And yet how we can move past our own failings and closer to what Christ had in mind for us all along.
Near the end of Irreplaceable, Tim Sisarich—the father we’ve been following throughout the film—says this:
“It’s better to be a redeemed family than a perfect one.”
That’s kinda nifty, yes? I think that there are those who sometimes look at Focus from the outside and think that it’s all about catering to perfect, Christian families—pushing them to be ever more perfect—and if you don’t fit the mold, well, be ready for some finger wagging. Even Plugged In can feed into that perception, given our emphasis on trying to keep kids away from problematic content and keeping your own entertainment choices pure. Lots of you would probably feel uncomfortable if I had access to your TiVo and could check up on all the stuff you watch. You might be embarrassed. You might feel judged.
But in truth, no one’s on a pedestal here. We’re all navigating this messy world together. And while I believe that God wants us to always strive for His highest standards, He knows we can’t be perfect even as He asks us to be. We all fall short. We all fail sometimes. And yet we can be redeemed even in the midst of it all. It’s a beautiful thought.
Those lines from Irreplaceable struck me in a special way, perhaps. See, I recently helped Jim Daly write a book called The Good Dad. It deals with lots of the same issues that Irreplaceable does: How important fathers are, how we all make mistakes, and how even in the midst of our own imperfections, we can be the dads that our families need us to be.
And here’s the thing that struck me in my work with Jim: He knows, better than most, the difference between being perfect and being redeemed.
Jim doesn’t come at the issue as some might expect the leader of a Christian organization would—with lots of bullet points and reams of rules. He didn’t come from a perfect family. In fact, all his father figures—his father, stepfather, foster father—failed him in one way or another, and they all were out of Jim’s life before he turned 13. He’s deeply, sometimes painfully open about his familial experiences in the book, and he tries to be the dad that he never had. The trick, Jim believes, is to be the best dad we can be every day. And if we don’t do so hot today, we can wake up and give it another shot tomorrow.
It’s better to be a redeemed family than a perfect one.
I won’t pretend to be objective about the book: I’m obviously not. Every day we worked on it, I found myself thinking about my own tendencies as a father—how I could correct my mistakes, how I could create more memories with my kids, how I could be the dad that they both need and deserve. And even though my own children are in college now, it’s never too late to be a great dad to your kids.
Helping Jim write The Good Dad changed me, and I don’t say that lightly. I’ll never think about fatherhood in quite the same way again. And I’m hoping that, if Jim and I did our jobs well in The Good Dad, readers will read the final page and be changed—maybe even inspired—too.
If you want to learn more about Irreplaceable and get tickets for the May 6 (in the U.S.) or May 7 (in Canada) event, just click here. You can read a little more about what Jim has to say about The Good Dad here. And you can buy your own copy of the book here.
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