I remember the first time the subject was broached. My oldest child, Christi, asked the question.

"Dad, can we get a bunny?"

"I'm sorry, honey, but we don't have any place to keep it." Now while that was technically true, I was really glad to have an excuse. My kids accumulate animals the way Imelda Marcos collected shoes. The problem was that they wanted this bunny not just for a pet, but for a 4-H project.

"We could buy a bunny hutch."

"Bunny hutches are expensive, honey."

"Then we could make a bunny hutch."

"Daddy doesn't know how to make a bunny hutch."

"But you could learn."

Having been tool-impaired my entire life, the very thought of building anything other than equity in my home was out of the question. I knew nothing about bunnies, building bunny hutches or 4-H. These things were definitely out of my comfort zone.

Furthermore, since she wanted two bunnies and space for another, I needed to build a three-bunny hutch! But she was adamant that I could learn if I tried.

My son, Andrew, who is actually good at building things, promised he would help. So I got a book on building bunny hutches. Then I bought the wood, screws and wire and dusted off my power saw and drill, and my son and I began to build a bunny hutch. I didn't really know what I was doing, so progress was slow, but my girls continually came out to encourage us. Eventually we finished a three-bunny hutch.

Christi was ecstatic and Andrew was proud. I was surprised. I lost a lot of couch time in the evenings, and there were times I wished I had never begun it. But in retrospect, I'm so glad I did.

More importantly, I spent time with my kids on something they were interested in. That's important because I'm terribly interested in them. In order to speak to them about God and His will for their lives I need to be spending time with them.

Unfortunately, the things I am interested in and the things they are interested in have changed. As they grew older I began to sense we were traveling down different roads. Either I needed to make an adjustment, or I was going to be missing a big part of their lives, and a big opportunity to have an effect on them for Christ.

Most parents are comfortable with familiarity. We want our kids to have fun, to be sure, but with the things we think are fun. Sometimes this works, but often it doesn't. I loved to read when I was a little boy — my son sees reading as punishment. I used to be a pretty decent roller skater when I was a kid. My son wouldn't be caught dead on roller skates. No, he had to have roller blades! They go just a little bit faster than roller skates! I tried them once and quickly took them off. Our HMO just wasn't that good, and I didn't want to press my luck.

When his interest turned to skateboarding, I reluctantly agreed to help him build a skateboard ramp. I had never built a skateboard ramp in my life. I didn't know how — I still don't. But together my son and I fussed, fidgeted, sawed, screwed and bent together a skateboard ramp that soon became the envy of the neighborhood. It must be understood, however, that I did not want to build a skateboard ramp. But I did want to spend time and make memories with my son. I had to either move slowly out of my comfort zone or leave my son and daughters to experience a world without me. If I show no interest in what interests them, will they show interest in my spiritual discussions?

Eventually my daughter wanted to ride horses (which were extremely scarce in our suburban neighborhood). She managed, against all odds, to find a family who had a champion Paint Horse at a nearby stable, and wanted a little girl just her age to ride it in competition! While I didn't know one end of a horse from the other, I soon found myself mucking stalls and negotiating the business end of the beast like a pro.

Within a few short months I found myself on a plane flying to Fort Worth, TX, to allow our little girl to compete in the World Paint Horse Show. How did a suburbanite, wearing Costco-brand bargain tennis shoes, end up walking around a horse show with cowboy-booted folks in 115 degree heat? Because, while horses were not my world — or even on the horizon of my comfort zone — they were a big part of her world. And I wanted to be a big part of her world also.

When we recently moved to the country my daughters got re-involved with 4-H. The home we moved to had a pigpen ready-built behind the garage, and — you guessed it — we became hog farmers.

I soon learned that you can't just feed pigs — you have to weigh them, exercise them and put sunscreen on them lest they sunburn. They need a cool mud hole in the hot summer months. They have to have a certain amount of food and no more, because they grow large quickly! One moment they are 50 pounds each and the next, I am sitting on my back porch watching 250 pounds of hog on the hoof running across our lawn with an 85-pound daughter scrambling to keep up. Did I mention we have no fence around our property?

I helped my children care for, feed and walk the pigs, take them to the fair and sell them at auction. Please believe me when I say that had it not been for my daughters, my relationship with pigs would have been strictly culinary.

But now they aren't the only ones with memories of 4-H pigs, all of us have memories. I am a part of those memories. Sometimes the most fun we parents will ever have is entering into the fun our kids are having. So many times I have been dragged kicking and screaming into something, only to realize afterward that I have just created a memory and shared an experience with my child that I wouldn't exchange for anything.

A few years ago my son discovered surfing. He has gone absolutely crazy over the sport. Time and again he asked me to take him surfing. The beach isn't my favorite place in the world, so I reluctantly took him surfing, sitting in my chair on the beach. At first that was OK with Andrew. But soon he began to say, "Hey, Dad, why don't you learn to surf?" I answered, "Because I'm 42 years old and want to reach 43."
I used to laugh it all off until one day my son turned to me seriously and said, "Dad, I don't want you just to take me to the beach and watch me surf. I want you to go surfing with me."

With him — that is what this is all about. At that point I decided I needed to learn to surf. We went on a vacation to Hawaii last year and the entire family took a surfing lesson. Guess what? It was a blast! I had no idea what I was missing. My son did, and he had tried to tell me. How glad I am that I finally listened.

My children, I have learned, pay far more attention to what I think and feel and care about when I show them the same courtesy. When I get involved in their lives, their interests and their activities — even when they are out of my comfort zone — I am doing something important.

We are taught the importance as Christians of respecting and entering other cultures to share Christ. But we forget that same principle holds true with our children. As they grow older they create their own cultures of interests and activities that are foreign to us. We can either ignore them, hope they will pass or dare to enter them. I suggest the last option.

It isn't easy — understanding and appreciating foreign cultures rarely is. Having been a pastor for more than 20 years, I understand that discipleship happens best when you enter into your disciple's world. Since my children are the most important disciples I will ever have, the choice seems obvious.

While I may be straying outside of my comfort zone, I have been surprised to find out that I'm definitely having fun. I am doing things I never thought I would, and enjoying it. And I've noticed that I have much more of my kids' attention when I enter into their world. They act differently toward me now, I think. When I speak about spiritual things, they don't begin to zone out. All in all, I think it's definitely worth the cost of being uncomfortable for a while.

There's only one problem. Recently my son has begun to talk about skydiving. ...