Roland Warren | President, National Fatherhood Initiative
Roland leads National Fatherhood Initiative in its mission to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers. Under his direction, NFI works to accomplish its mission through a variety of activities, ranging from its award-winning public education campaign to its cutting-edge resources and programming for fathers. Roland, an alumnus of Princeton University, brings to NFI almost two decades of experience in the business world and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is married to Dr. Yvette Lopez-Warren and has two sons, Jamin and Justin.
- Why should we care about fatherhood?
- Shouldn’t our focus be the Great Commission?
- The way we relate or don’t relate to one another has a lot to do with how we respond to fatherlessness.
- The idea of God as father is a core Christian concept.
- Most people don’t know what a loving father is.
- The notion of a heavenly father could be terrible for someone who had a distant or removed father.
- You could be adding to insult when you talk about God being father.
Kids have a hole in their soul the shape of their dad.
- Jesus views the fatherhood theme as a way to build a relationship with a community.
- The epidemic of father absence is not a coincidence, it’s part of the enemy’s plan.
- One of the most powerful things that someone needs to hear to be saved is that God is a good father and has a plan for your life… a plan to bring them back to himself.
- Fatherhood embodies common grace and saving grace.
- God affirmed Jesus at His baptism.
- Jesus experienced affirmation before temptation.
- God knew the power of a father’s affirmation.
- “This is my son in who I’m well pleased.”
- Jesus wasn’t tempted by these things because He knew who he was and whose He was.
- No imitation will do when you know the real thing.
- Gangs are fatherhood replacement vehicles.
- Christians should be leading the way and responding to this crisis.
- By and large, churches are not.
- There are three populations the church need to be concerned about: the poor, the widows, the orphans.
- Do we know who the orphans in our church are?
- How are we connecting the men’s ministry to the children’s ministry?
- Will a kid have an involved father at graduation?
- It’s an issue everywhere, even in the church.
- Good Christians and good fathers are not the same thing.
- There’s something that triggers in the head of a man when he becomes a father.
- It’s a worldwide issue that requires a worldwide response.
- This work of connecting fathers to children isn’t something you do in addition to the Gospel, it’s central to the Gospel.
- It’s a mechanism that gives us the ability to sow into the hearts of children so they can say, “God my father…”
