Andrew Peterson: Fueling Your Kids’ Imagination

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Fueling Your Kid’s Imagination

Guest:Andrew Peterson

From the series:Fueling Your Kid’s Imagination (Day 1 of 1)

Air date:October 16, 2024

Andrew: The church has produced the best and most beautiful works of art that the world has ever known. I think that that’s actually still happening now; it’s just not always what people know about in America. It’s like there’s this undercurrent of amazing novelists and writers that don’t broadcast the fact that they’re Christians, necessarily; but they are, and they’re sowing really good and beautiful seeds.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave:Well, we have Andrew Peterson in the Family Life studio with us today. Welcome to Family Life, Andrew.

Andrew: Thanks for having me.

Dave:Hey, I don’t even know this: “How many times have you been on Family Life?”

Andrew: Oh, I don’t know either. It’s been a long time. Yeah, it’s been a while. I feel like we did the cruise, a few years back; and before that—man, I’ve been doing music for 20-some odd years—and so I’m sure I’ve popped in quite a bit over the years.

Ann: Well, we’re excited to have you.

Andrew: Thank you.

Dave:Yeah, so I mean, a lot of our listeners know you as an artist, a writer, a songwriter, a singer. We’ve been listening to your music all day.

Andrew: Oh, thanks.

Dave: It’s been filling our house, which has been—

Ann: —phenomenal.

Dave: —awesome. [You’re also] an author; but most importantly, you’re a husband and a dad. How many years you been married and how many kids?

Andrew: [Married] 26 years now; about to be 27. We have 3 kids, who are 23, almost 22, and 19—two boys and a girl—both boys got married within a month of each other this past summer. So we have two new daughters-in-law, [whom] we love dearly.

Ann: That’s fun.

Andrew: And kind of just hit empty-nester phase in about the last year or so, which is weird—they keep coming home—so I don’t know.

Ann: It’s because they love you guys!

Andrew: Yes; we figured out that, if we offer them free food, then they show up. I’ve told people: “Empty-nester Jamie is my favorite Jamie. So yeah, we’re really loving this season.

Ann: I didn’t know that you guys got married so young; you were 19 and Jamie was 21?

Andrew: Well, we got engaged when I was 19; she was 21. We got married when I was 20; she was 22, so we were still in college. She was a senior; I was a sophomore. We just kind of liked each other a whole lot—loved each other—and we’re like, “Why would we wait?” It was weird—I remember I’ve told this story before—but her dad, who’s this great guy, for some reason, wasn’t crazy about his 22-year-old daughter getting engaged to a 19-year-old singer/songwriter guy.

Dave:Yeah, I mean, what’s the problem with that?!

Ann: Did he say, “How are you going to live?”

Andrew: Yeah; I mean, I was like, “Larry, I’ve got a job at Baskin-Robbins right now. I’m a part-time youth pastor. It’s going to be fine: I’ve got these songs.” So anyway, now that I am a dad of a 19-year-old girl, I completely get it. I don’t think it was a bad thing for us at all; we loved it and [have] no regrets. It’s really fun because we had kids fairly young, too; and to be 47, and to have the potential of grandchildren coming down the line is pretty awesome.

Ann: We want to talk today about just imagination.

Dave:Obviously, what you do, as a songwriter and author, comes from this past and this journey, which is something I resonated with as you were influenced early in your life by The Dark Side of the Moon.

Andrew: Oh, man!

Dave:Some people don’t even know what I’m talking about—but Pink Floyd, and Skynyrd, and Journey—and I found that fascinating, because I’m a guitar player; I played in bands; I played all those songs, growing up. I also had this tension, as I was listening to that—my mom was telling me I shouldn’t be listening to that—talk about that! Because you’ve also got this Rich Mullins influence. You talk about an interesting combination;—

Andrew: Well, yeah.

Dave: —walk us through that.

Ann: Let’s go back to that; because you even talked about, Andrew, in college—you went to Bible college, thinking that you needed to learn how to argue to be a good Christian—but you had this artistic side that took you into the arts. You had that dilemma that Dave was talking about.

Andrew: Yeah, I think a lot of it for me was—growing up—I’m a pastor’s kid, growing up in a small community in north Florida—a typical pretty-healthy southern Christian upbringing—but it was also a very cultural Christianity. I somehow managed to not really know Jesus terribly well—or understand some of the basic things about the gospel; namely, the fact that God loved me—I understood that in an academic sense: “Yes, God loves us”; but I didn’t really believe it. I was mainly scared of Him. Church, to me, and Scripture—Christianity in general—was something that I kind of just accepted; it made a kind of sense to me, and God made sense to me. But then, the idea that there was this actual person, named Jesus, [who] was pursuing me, and loved me dearly, and knew me—knew the mess that I was and loved me anyway—that was something that hadn’t hit me yet.

And so part of the disconnect for me was that the thing that was waking my heart up was all this music—it was Pink Floyd and Skynyrd; and sometimes, it was classical music—or good movies, or fantasy novels I was reading. I felt this kind of butterflies in my stomach when I read a certain kind of story. And it wasn’t until I was older that I read C.S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy, his memoir about how he came to faith, really. He talks about that same thing—that feeling that some works of art—they kind of open a door in us. Sometimes, we can hear Jesus calling to us through those works of art. That’s not to say that they supplant Scripture by any stretch, but all of creation belongs to Him.

And so, for me, to grow up in this situation—where, according to our paradigm, it was like, “Well, rock and roll”—that music—“it’s probably dangerous. We’re going to regard it with suspicion.” There are some dangerous things about it—to be fair—but also: “That doesn’t matter nearly as much as Sunday school.” I felt, as a young man, very confused; because I was being told that I ought to feel a certain way about church, but I didn’t feel it; and that I ought not feel a certain way about certain kinds of music or art, but I did feel it. That journey—of reconciling those two things has been—Rich Mullins was the connecting tissue for me.

Dave:What I heard you say was a friend wanted you to learn a Rich Mullins’ song so he could sing it. And something happened.

Andrew: I think that the Holy Spirit used that song to help me/draw me to Himself. It was this song called If I Stand. I had never really listened to Rich Mullins before. I was very—it’s funny—in the way that my parents were suspicious of the music I liked, I was suspicious of Christian music; it’s like, “This sounds dangerous. It could be really bad and cheesy.”

I took the tape into the church, late one night, and learned this song—heard Rich’s scratchy imperfect voice, and I heard his wonderful use of language in poetry—and I heard that the way he talked about Jesus helped me believe that Jesus was really there. And so there was something about his music that kind of just—it was like I was in the forest; and his music kind of showed me a path through, and Jesus was at the end of that trail—does that make sense?

Ann: Yes.

Andrew: I remember, not long after that, kind of saying to God, “If there’s any way that I could make somebody else feel that way, then if You’ll let me, I’d love to do it.” And then, the same thing happened later, with C.S. Lewis; I just said, “Oh, Lord; I love the way these stories help us to know You a little bit better. And if there’s a way that I could tell a story that could do that for some kid, I’d love to do it.”

Dave:So how did you tap into your imagination? I mean, obviously hearing that journey, that was part of how God made Andrew Peterson.

Even as I was listening to you, Andrew, I was thinking, “Boy, the day I came to Christ, in the middle of my college days, was at a concert.” It was a long story; but I sort of thought Christian music was sort of not very good, sort of cheesy. It wasn’t done well because what I’d experienced at church. I was invited to hear this Christian band, and I can remember it right now, like it was yesterday. I’m sitting in this gymnasium at a college; and I remember thinking, “They’re really good! They’re skilled; they’re excellent players. The songs they’re singing are very creative and very profound.” I walked forward and gave my life to Christ.

And until you just said that, I never connected: “Probably, the fact that music was part of that salvation message, for me, connected the dots that I wanted to give my life to Christ.” I heard a little bit of that in your story. So what did that bring alive in you; because now, you’re doing that? It’s pretty cool.

Andrew: Well, yeah; I mean, the biggest thing was that, once I realized how good the good news was—and that it’s an ongoing thing; the more we know Christ, the better He is—and so I just was like, “Man, if I grew up in the church, and I missed this thing, then surely other people are in the same boat. I can’t wait to tell them about it.” C.S. Lewis talked also about how the Narnia books, they were a way of smuggling the truth past people’s watchful dragons. I love that idea that we, especially now, I think a lot of people think they know what Christianity is; and so they’ve written it off. It makes our job, as artists, harder; and also, more crucial, because a really good movie, or a really good story, has a way of surprising people with the truth. And I don’t mean smuggling it in as if—it won’t work if we’re going, “Oh, well; we’re just going to write a story in order to sneak past the walls,”—that’s not how it works. You got to write the great story, and trust that a good story can do this thing that the Holy Spirit is in charge of, not me.

As a Christian, if we’re making art, and we’re surrendered to the mystery of what it means to make something—which it’s all thanks to the Lord that we get to do this—then you also have to come to terms with the fact that what He intends to do with your work is none of your business. You kind of go, “I have some things that I hope He does, but it’s not up to me. The only thing I’m in charge of is being obedient with the gifting.” I can work really hard, and I can dig in and do the thing; but after that, it’s on Him.

Ann: I know, as a mom, and even as a young girl, I was consumed with books—because the same thing, just like a movie/books—it’s all a story, and it just pierces your heart.

Dave:You know what she loves to do, Andrew? She loves to read books out loud to me.

Ann: And now that our kids are gone, I want to do it to Dave.

Dave:I’ll be driving the car, and she goes, “Let me read you this chapter.” I’m like, “No, you don’t need to read it out loud.” But she just loves reading it out loud.

Andrew: I love it, too.

Ann: Like you, I read all the Narnia books to our kids. As an adult, reading them—well, let me say this: I had never read them—I didn’t grow up in a Christian home—I had never heard about them. So I’m reading them, sobbing at times, with the kids; and they’re like, “What is happening right now?”

Andrew: I had the exact same experience.

Ann: Really?

Andrew: I think the Narnia books are best experienced, as a parent, reading them to the kid. There’s something about—you are hearing it through their ears—and hearing all these wonderful truths in that way. And so I bet there are a lot of kids, who are confused about why mom and dad are crying; but I just tell them, “Wait; wait until you got kids, and you’ll understand it.” It’s really tremendous what he did with those stories, and that was a reminder to me of how much I love those kinds of books.

We were at that age with our kids, where we were reading aloud a lot. Some of my best memories are of our family sitting around, me doing voices; and the kids asking for one more chapter. I think, when I read them the Narnia books, I was like, “I’ve got to know what it’s like to do this.” I had tried many times to write a novel; and once I had an audience—a captive audience in my kids—I was like/I told my wife, “I’m going to try to do this thing.” She fully supported me, and it took me about ten years. But we shared the whole story with the kids, as I wrote them; and it’s a dream come true.

Ann: And that series is a four-book series called The Wingfeather Saga. So talk about that: “How old were your kids when you started writing these?”

Andrew: They were probably between five and eight, around that age—the perfect age—kids are better listeners than grownups are because they inhabit the story in a way that it’s taken for granted [with adults]. When you’re a kid, that’s what stories do, and they dive in. Parents, we have to try a little harder to remember what it’s like to receive a story in that way. They noticed all the inconsistencies—and if I got one accent wrong, they would tell me I’d already used that voice for another guy—that stuff.

But yeah, it was crazy. We put the books out—the first one came out in ’08, I think—and it took about six more years to finish the whole series. And then, we released the short film as a pilot so we could shop it—to go out to LA and talk to Netflix and all those people—and then, Penguin Random House, amazingly, republished all four books in beautiful hardbacks. And so now, when I’m on tour, I sneak into Barnes and Noble and sign them and post where I am.

But then, that led to the series; we’re making a TV show—Angel Studios, the people that did The Chosen; and we’re partnering with them—and we got the funding in

20 days. We’re deep into it.

Dave: Really?!

Andrew: Yeah.

Dave: You got the funding in 20 days.

Andrew: Yeah, 5 million bucks of investors. And for this thing to be at this point—ten or so years old, and people are just now discovering it—it’s just a dream. I spend a lot of time, nowadays—I have these Zoom calls—several Zoom calls a week, because I’m one of the executive producers. I get to okay whether or not the swords are cool enough. There are all these designers making characters. And we get to make notes on the town, and like, Oh, no; it’s supposed to look more like this”; and shaping the story and the scripts and everything. So it’s really/it’s a huge, huge gift to get to do this.

Ann: Talk about, how that’s not only shaped you, has it shaped your kids? What has that done for your kids?

Andrew: The three main characters in The Wingfeather Saga are loosely based on my kids. And all of our kids, in a weird way, grew into what the characters were kind of like. And so I wish that I had written them to be doctors, and lawyers, and lottery winners—but no—it’s interesting: I don’t know what it’s like for my kids, to be in their 20s and have the characters in this book, who were loosely based on them; but I think that they think it’s cool.

I will say this: that all three of our kids are deeply involved in the arts and in the ministry; and it’s one of the coolest things. Christmas tour with my daughter—she’s out singing—she’s releasing EPs of songs she’s writing. She has a real heart for the gospel. My son, Asher’s, a record producer, is making all these wonderful albums that are going out in the world. My son, Aeden—the oldest, is an illustrator—just illustrated a book called The Story of God with Us. And so it’s so cool to see that they didn’t have that weird separation of imagination and the gospel; the two can live in the same space for them. They grew up in this community, where it was taken for granted that, as Christians, we were meant to steward our gifting for the kingdom of God. They grew up with that as the norm; and so, they’re like: “Well, why would we not paint pictures that help proclaim the truth?” “Why would we not make music that can surprise people with the beauty of the gospel?”

Dave:Well, talk about that; because, typically, the church hasn’t embraced—maybe I’m wrong—but I know that, when we started our church 30 years ago, one of our core values was we wanted to do the arts with excellence. Our arts director even said: “If we do the arts with excellence, we will attract excellent artists. They’ll want to come to a church that says, ‘This matters,’” and “You don’t do it mediocre; you do it with the highest skill, because we’re doing it unto God.” That hasn’t often been embraced by the church; it’s sort of like: “Yeah, the artistic part is just not that important. It’s only the Word,”—”the Word,”—”the Word.” But obviously, you have embraced that—and your whole family and your kids—so talk about that a little bit.

Andrew: Well, it’s tricky to talk about that; because it’s like I can’t toot my own horn; you know what I mean? As soon as I think that I’m really good at what I do, I just read Tolkien; or listen to Paul Simon or James Taylor; and I’m like, “Oh, yeah; yeah, that’s right; I have no idea what I’m doing.” So that’s part of it.

But I don’t know, man. I think that there’s this tendency to try to control the ends. And I think that, a lot of times, in church—where people are trying to figure out: “How do we get from A to B?”—and really, like I said earlier, that’s not our business really. Our business is to care for the poor, love our neighbor, love our enemies; pray for those who persecute us.

Meanwhile, of course, you try to do good work, whatever you’re doing. But it would be easy, in my mind, to almost make an idol out of the excellence of our work as if that’s the main thing we’re meant to be doing. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all; but if you’re doing that at the expense of the very basic, simple—“This is what it means to walk in the way of Jesus: to delight in His will, and to walk in His way to the glory of His name,”—that’s the thing we’re in charge of. So that can include, of course, caring about beauty, and excellence, and craft.

I think it’s only in this last hundred years or so that I think the American church, in particular—or maybe, I could say the Western Church—we tend to think of the art we produce as being hokey, or cheesy, or shallow, or whatever. But I mean, Bach—my goodness, he was a Christian musician—so the church has produced the best and most beautiful works of art that the world has ever known. I think that that’s actually still happening now; it’s just not always what people know about in America. It’s like there’s this undercurrent of amazing novelists and writers, that don’t broadcast the fact that they’re Christians necessarily, but they are; and they’re sowing really good and beautiful seeds.

One of the ways that I like to think of it is that—somebody just was talking about The Wingfeather books; and they were like, “Well, they’re not overtly Christian; they’re deeply Christian.” I love that idea that the work that we’re called to do is meant to be deeply Christian—its foundation is that—and then, there’s all this wiggle room for expression and beauty. The overtness of it kind of takes a backseat to what the Holy Spirit intends to do with this thing.

Ann: As you talk—you’re an artist; you’re an author; you’re a dad and a husband—but go back to that dad piece. As you reflect back, now that your kids are getting a little older, tell us: a couple things that you did right; and a couple things that you think, “Oh, I wish I’d have tweaked that or changed that.”

Andrew: Oh, man; well, I’m sure that I traveled too much. It’s funny; I heard Eugene Peterson—he was kind of a hero of mine—and heard him talk one time about his life in the ministry. Somebody asked him if he had any regrets; and he said, “I wish I’d had more vacation.”

I grew up a pastor’s kid; and my kids are actually amazing: they work really hard. But I look back, and I’m like, “I know that there were times that I could have said, ‘No,’ to some things and stayed home; but I was driven by some weird combination of fear, that I wouldn’t be able to provide, or ambition, this drive to make a name for myself. I think that, if I could go back, I would’ve said ‘No,’ to more things and been more present.”

Ann: That’s good.

Andrew: One of my friends, who’s a pastor, said that; he reminds me, “You’ve only ever had one Provider.” And so, if you’re a self-employed singer/songwriter, that’s a good thing to remember; so that’s that.

As far as the things that I did right, I think we just—one of our mentors, when we first got married, said—he was talking about the fact—he was a pastor—he was talking about the fact that his family wasn’t super good at having family devotions. He was like, “My kids are at church eight times a week; it doesn’t work for us. We just don’t do that. We’d rather just sit around and watch Magnum PI,” or whatever. And so instead of having these formal devotional experiences, as a family, he said that, “We just made it so that our Christianity was a matter of course in the home. It was just taken for granted that: ‘This is who we are, and this is how we think and how we see the world.’” And the quote was: “Christianity ought to be as ordinary in your home as dirty laundry and cornflakes.”

I love that because it was like, I think that our kids, it’s never been weird for us to stop what we’re doing to pray for somebody; or the conversations about movies that we’re watching; or shows that we’re into are integrated seamlessly with, “Okay, what does that mean about: ‘How is Jesus speaking through this thing?’” I think that’s one of the things we did right: was that we treated the gospel as if it mattered in the little things as well as the big things.

And to raise our kids with this real sense of the kingdom, the presence of the kingdom. Jesus has begun His reign, and we get to be these priests in this new creation now. It’s like I grew up in a church tradition that didn’t talk much about the end of the world; it was like, “Well, we’ll figure it out when we get there. All we know is that this is all going to burn,” or whatever. And actually, that’s not the story the Bible tells—I mean, Peter says some things like that—but the real picture we have is that God loves this creation. In some way, I believe that the work we’re doing now, in His name, carries over into that new creation. And that there is this new earth—a new heaven and a new earth—that we’re living into. Our kids: we tried to help them see that the good work that they’re doing now is a part of that. There’s not this/as hard of a dividing line between the two as I think that I grew up assuming. It kind of ennobles and sanctifies the small ways that we love in Christ’s name now, because they are a part of the story that He’s telling.

Shelby: I’m Shelby Abbott; and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson, with Andrew Peterson, on FamilyLife Today. Andrew has a book series for kids called The Wingfeather Saga. You can learn more about his books, and his music, and the upcoming animated version of The Wingfeather Saga by getting the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

We’ve been talking about imagination and creativity, and there’s an opportunity coming up at the end of this month to express that creativity. It’s really when, maybe, you and all of your neighbors start carving pumpkins for the season. Well, we wanted to hop in on that, here at Family Life, and not only give you some ideas for creative ways to carve a pumpkin, but a guided script to help your kids learn about what matters most when you carve your pumpkin; and that is, of course, the gospel. You can find this free resource at FamilyLife.com/Pumpkin. It’ll give you a free opportunity to download a script, activities, and pumpkin face stencil sheets for your upcoming Jack-O-Lantern. Again, you could get that free resource at FamilyLife.com/Pumpkin; or look for it in the show notes.

Ann: Hey guys, we just wanted to take a quick minute to jump in, and say, “Whatever you’re going through today, I think this is important to remember: ‘You aren’t alone.’” Did you know that Dave and I have a team at FamilyLife Today ready to pray for you? It’s this incredible honor and a privilege to lift your name up to God. So if you need prayer, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us; I really mean that. Head on over to FamilyLife.com/PrayForMe.

Dave:So go to FamilyLife.com/PrayForMe and submit your request. And I mean, “Do it right now; we would love to pray for you today.”

Shelby: Now, tomorrow, Preston Perry is going to be here with Dave and Ann Wilson to talk about evangelism and the importance of empathy in your faith conversations. That’s tomorrow; we hope you’ll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We’ll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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