# Fatherhood Beyond Being Home: Two Pastors on Presence and Repair Pastors Adam Mesa and Will Chung talk about a backyard punching bag, a son's choice at Disneyland, and how fathers can stay present with their kids. Source: Pray.com — https://www.pray.com/articles/fatherhood-beyond-being-home-two-pastors-on-presence-and-repair Author: Adam Mesa Category: Faith & Wisdom Published: 2026-10-22 Last revised: 2026-10-22 --- ## Key takeaways - **Presence takes effort.** Both pastors say a working father has to choose time with his kids, because being home with a laptop open can still leave a child waiting. - **Small invitations matter.** Adam's eight-year-old chose him over his mom at Disneyland, and Adam took it as a reason to guard that trust. - **Old hurts shape new habits.** A punching bag Adam's dad set up in the backyard still comes to his mind when his sons ask him to play. - **Intentional fathering looks like leaning in.** Will describes watching, speaking and discipling, and he keeps a monthly day with each of his children. - **Repair counts.** Both men describe fathers who owned what they missed, and both say that honesty brought them closer. ## Busy or limited Adam Mesa and Will Chung, both pastors in their late thirties, came to the subject of family by way of the calendar. Adam explained that people in his church often want to meet at night because they work during the day. His own work hours match theirs, so a night meeting would come out of his family hour. He tells them to take a lunch break or a day off, unless it is an emergency. Adam admitted he hates letting people down and apologizes when he misses a text. Will suggested a different frame: Adam could describe himself as limited rather than busy. Will said another pastor used that word to give himself and his congregation permission to accept his limits. Nancy, a member of the team, then praised how Adam's kids run straight to his door. Adam was grateful, but he did not claim the result was settled. He said he is curious what his kids will say as they get older. ## What the kids say out loud Will has three children, and he said they want a father who is emotionally and physically present. His firstborn, Aspen, is vocal. She has told him she wishes he were not a pastor, and she did not say it maliciously. Will thought he was doing well and felt that sting. He took her on his first ministry trip to Chicago, three nights and four days, and said she called it the best time of her life. She gave her life to Christ on that trip, and she hugged him on stage while he preached. Adam's youngest, Thomas, who is five, is the honest one in his house. He tells Adam that all he does is work. Adam said that even when he is home, he may be on Slack and email, so his kids can see him and still not have him. He believes the verdict will come when they are in their twenties, and he hopes to have wisdom then about raising godly kids who are close to their parents. ## A son's choice at Disneyland A couple of weeks before the recording, Adam's family went to Disneyland on a Sunday night after he had preached that morning. His boys were tired by about seven thirty, and Thomas asked to go back to the hotel. His wife, Ashley, assumed Adam would take Thomas so he could rest. Adam felt good enough to stay out, so he let his eight-year-old, Matthias, decide whether mom or dad would stay with him. Matthias asked if he could really choose dad, then ran and jumped on him. They held hands for another hour and a half and did whatever he wanted. Adam said the moment mattered to him because he remembers a shift around age eight, nine and ten, when he felt his own dad did not want to be around him. That was his perception, he said, and he and his dad have since reconciled over it. His dad says he worked too much, calling himself a great pastor and a poor father. Seeing Matthias run to him, Adam thought, "he's still choosing me." He wants to make sure that is still true when Matthias is twelve and thirteen. ## The punching bag in the backyard Adam traced his sense of urgency to a memory from when he was about twelve. His dad boxed when he was younger and kept telling Adam to take it up. Adam hoped it would mean time together, but the local gym cost fifty dollars a month, which his dad would not pay. Instead his dad found a used bag and hung it in the backyard. He showed Adam a one, two, punch, told him to keep doing it, and went back inside. Adam kept asking if they would do it together. The bag sat in the yard for about five years, until his parents moved. When Adam now sits at his laptop and sees his boys playing soccer outside, the memory returns: he wishes his dad had come out. So he goes out. The night before the recording, his youngest had gone to urgent care for a head injury and got two staples. Later his oldest, still shaken, asked Adam to watch a Spider-Man movie. Adam's instinct was to scroll Instagram, but he reminded himself: "As much as it's your first go around as a dad, Adam, it's your son's first go around as a son." ## Present, absent or intentional Will brought in a distinction he credited to John Tyson, that a father can be absent, present or intentional. People assume a good father is simply present, Will said, but an intentional father observes, leans in, speaks and mentors. Will said, "My dad wasn't a present father, but he was for sure an intentional father." Will is aiming for that. Once a month he picks each of his three children up after lunch and spends the day on whatever they want, a practice he borrowed from Pastor Bayless and began when his firstborn was five. He said those are their favorite days of the month. He also passed on advice from his dad, who spoke as a recovering workaholic. His dad told him, "I always try to leave twenty percent of my battery for home before I come home to your mom." He had once believed a good Christian worker gave everything at work and came home to be cared for. He told Will not to make the same mistake. ## When a father misses it Adam's dad had stage four cancer during Adam's teen years, and Adam said his dad was still preaching through it. Weeks before the recording, his dad cried in a church hallway. He told Ashley that he was so focused on surviving that he had lost nearly every memory of his son's teenage years. He did not remember Adam being arrested at thirteen, and he could not recall a race Adam ran at sixteen. Adam said that for him, his dad's recognition was enough. He does not need his dad to pretend to remember. He said his dad was right to focus on staying alive, and he can also say it hurts that his dad did not visit him in college. Will described his own dad as a military man who moved often and who stepped in when Will was a troubled teenager. Years later his dad watched an older pastor pray over his grown son and daughter and felt guilt that he had not done that. Will told him that those two children are now estranged from their father. His dad went quiet and said, "You don't really know you're a good father until you're my age now in your seventies." Will pointed to what therapists say about parenting: a break in a relationship is expected, and what shapes a child is whether it gets repaired. He called his dad's repair the gospel at work, a father who owns his failures and a child who receives him. ## What this means for you If you are a parent, the stories here invite a few questions of your own. When your child asks you to come outside or watch a movie, what is your first instinct? What would it take for your time at home to be time with your kids rather than time near them? If you grew up with a parent who was busy or sick, Adam's story offers a way through. You can name the hurt honestly and still extend grace, and the memory can teach you what to do for your own children. If you feel you have already missed it, both pastors say it is not too late. Own it plainly, ask for a conversation, and keep showing up. Adam and Will both say their kids' real verdict will come years from now, which leaves time to start today.