An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Greetings, I’m Fred Zaspel, and welcome to another Author Interview here at Books At a Glance.
Our new granddaughter’s name is Grace, and so the arrival of this new book – Grandparenting with Grace – seemed especially timely. The author, Dr. Larry McCall, is a friend, a long-time pastor and parent, and a grandparent several times over, and his new book makes a wonderful contribution and resource for us older believers. He’s here to talk to us today about his excellent and somewhat unique book.
Larry, welcome, and congratulations on a really good little book.
McCall:
Well thanks, Fred.
Zaspel:
Just in brief, tell us what your book is about and what you aim to accomplish.
McCall:
Thanks for asking. The book is called Grandparenting with Grace and the subtitle is Living the Gospel with the Next Generation. My wife and I love being grandparents. But one thing we’ve noticed is how few books are out there, how few resources are out there on grandparenting from a biblical perspective. So, our goal, my goal, in writing this is to help grandparents to see the grandparenting is actually a calling from God, a ministry to the coming generations.
Zaspel:
Christians have always been a bookish people, and at this point in history it seems we have produced books on everything. How is it we have overlooked this important topic for so long?
McCall:
Well, Fred about five years ago there were a number of people, independently of one another, not a lot, but three or four who simultaneously, hopefully by the Spirit’s prompting, began to raise the question, “What is God’s calling on grandparents?” For Gladine and me, my wife and me, it was more of a local issue. We were asked to teach a class at our church on biblical grandparenting, and we had never heard of such a thing. No one ever taught us anything, never heard of a class. But we love being grandparents, we love our church, so we said yes.
I began digging into the Bible. Since I didn’t have a whole lot else to work with an obvious answer is going there to start anyways, and I didn’t find it many hits on the word grandparent. But you know what, there’s a whole lot out there about one generation so tell another generation or teach this to your sons and your son’s sons; so there’s a lot of intergenerational teaching in the Bible, but when I was teaching that class, I started exploring what other books are out there on biblical grandparenting and Fred, we only came up with a handful. You go to Amazon and you look for Christian books, and you look for books on parenting, and you get a pile. You look for Christian grandparenting, and you get a handful.
While I was teaching this class at our church, I had about three different people come to me independently of one another and say “Larry, you really need to write on this.” And so, in the process, we actually met a few of those people who had written on it and found out that there is this shared passion to equip churches to equip grandparents in the ministry of grandparenting. This is all within the last for five years, Fred.
Zaspel:
Recently in an email you mentioned to me something about a Christian grandparenting “movement” – what’s that all about?
McCall:
The larger group is called Legacy Coalition. Just last week, my wife and I were in California for three or four days with about 15 to 20 other Christian evangelical leaders to pray and to plan, how would God use us to spread the Word, that grandparenting is to be biblical and it is to be intentional. So, I would say there’s a few people to precede that last five years, but very very few, but it’s growing, it’s still nascent, but it’s growing and were thankful to be part of it.
Zaspel:
You said several in the class encouraged you to write. I take it then the class went well, and the grandparents in the class benefitted from it?
McCall:
Yes. You know, normally when we do a class like this at our church, and we get in all 20 or 30% of the church, adult church members to come to class—that’s a pretty good class. When we offered this grandparenting class, I think about 80% of the grandparents came to that class. I’m not joking, 80%. And it showed Gladine and me that there is a hunger; there are grandparents out there that want to know what they are supposed to do with these grandkids, and so that was a real impetus to move forward as well.
Zaspel:
Okay, just in broad strokes, give us an overview of your book. You have seven chapters – what are they, and what are they about? Then next I’ll ask for some specific samples.
McCall:
Thanks. The book is not long at the editor/publisher’s request. You know, it’s concise, but we tried to give people a concept of what we mean by grandparenting with grace and obviously we can’t give our grandkids grace—that’s the work of a sovereign God. But as grandparents, the gospel the grace of God should shape who we are as older Christians. The gospel should have such an effectiveness, such a fruitfulness in our lives, that the coming generations look at us and say, “Oh, that’s what the gospel is supposed to do in everyday life.”
I look at my grandfather, I look at my grandmother, and I see the fruitfulness of the gospel in his or her life. So, part of it’s who we are as individual Christians, older Christians, but then part of it to us to do that we talk about. Are we talking to our grandkids about Christ, about the gospel, about God’s glory, about his grace, and are we being intentional to pass on the gospel baton? That is what I think, Fred, is 1/3 dynamic of all this is how does the gospel shape our relationships.
So, take for instance, that grandparent who has a daughter or daughter-in-law or a son-in-law who are not following the Lord, you know, what are gospel implications for building a relationship with that unsaved or even wayward child, adult child? Or maybe it’s a teenage grandchild who is wayward, how does the gospel shape our relationship and those painful situations? We are trying to show people through the book, the practical difference, so first of all, what the gospel is in a grandparenting life and ministry. But then what difference it makes in this context.
Zaspel:
This is a broad question, but just to help us sharpen our focus, just what is a distinctly Christian perspective on grandparenting? How ought we to understand our role?
McCall:
Most grandparents in North America look at grandparenting as primarily building fun memories with grandkids and being a support team. I want to be my grandkid’s cheerleader, and that’s fine, but if you look in the Bible, there’s a whole lot about one generation telling the next generation about the Lord: Psalm 71, Psalm 78, Psalm 145, and so on. And so, I would pick the word intentional. Are we intentionally passing on the story of God and his grace to the coming generations?
Zaspel:
Give us some specific applications, some ways we can be more intentional and focused.
MeCall:
Yeah, I think if you know you going to be talking to grandkids, a lot of us get to our grandkids fairly often. Three of our seven grandkids live with a mile of us, and the other ones live a little further away, but we still do video calls with them every week. It’s being intentional and what we going to talk to the grandkids about this time. How can we build a culture in our family that it’s natural for us to ask questions, heart questions, responding to issues that they’re facing in their young lives? So, it’s that intentional conversation about the Lord, bringing the Lord and his gospel to bear on their young lives. I think that intentional involvement is what we’re aiming at. But then, too, it is responding to problems. We often ask our grandkids tell us one blessing and one challenge you faced today, or you faced this week, and then how the gospel come to bear on the blessing, or how does the gospel come to bear on the challenge you are facing, and teaching them to look to the Lord, look to his Word, and look to his grace.
Zaspel:
Okay, you have one shot, one sermon to preach to grandparents – what will you emphasize?
McCall:
One shot. Actually, I get to do that once in a while. What I wanted to challenge grandparents with is that we want to call our grandchildren to see Christ as not only more valuable than anything this world has to offer, but Christ as more valuable than everything this world has to offer, and so to live and speak and challenge grandparents to live in front of their grandkids, to communicate with the grandkids in a way that shows the beauty the glory of Christ.
Fred:
Very good. Tell us about some of the ways this book might be used. I notice you have study questions and things like then tell us.
McCall:
I think a lot of grandparents are going to sit down and read this book on his or her own, and it can be done that way in fact. If you are a good reader, you could read this whole book in probably less than two or three hours. My heart is being a pastor for almost 40 years; I want to see churches own this ministry. We want to see churches equipping grandparents for the ministry of grandparenting, and so those discussion questions and action steps at the end of every chapter are there to encourage grandparents to look at the Bible on this issue together. And so, if you get a small group together or a Sunday school class together, or even just a band of friends that want to get together over coffee once a week or once or twice a month and talk about grandparenting, this book is laid out so that it is ready to use in groups of grandparents helping each other in the process of growing in their grandparenting
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Larry McCall about his wonderful new book, Grandparenting with Grace: Living the Gospel with the Next Generation. It’s really a great little book. It’s not fluff but solid, biblically-grounded, gospel-centered, eminently useful counsel for every Christian grandparent. For those of us who have entered this stage of life it’s a needed and genuinely helpful guide. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I wish every grandparent in our churches would read it. You’ll find it warm and enjoyable as well as challenging.
Larry, thanks so much for your helpful ministry and for talking to us today.
McCall:
Thank you, Fred.
