Christopher Prieto believes his business has a primary purpose - the spiritual profit in communicating the Gospel. His restaurant, Prime Barbecue, is renowned for serving the region's best BBQ. It's the place we go for special occasions; the food is simply delicious! Church and Family Life recently had a staff meeting there.  And when I looked up, an 8-year-old girl was standing at the table asking us if everything was ok;did  we have everything we needed; and could she could get us anything else? I said, "Do you work here?" "Yes!" I asked, "Does your daddy own this place?" "Yes!" Then a few minutes later, an older girl around 12 came up and said the same thing. I asked, "Do you work here?" "Yes!" Then I asked, "Does your daddy own this place?" Yes! Then I met their daddy, Christopher Prieto. We had a wonderful conversation about how fathers teach their children, hands-on, every day, "when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up" (Deut. 6:7). His story so inspired me and so we scheduled an interview. Here it is.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And today we have with us Christopher Prieto Prieto. Did I get that right? You got that perfectly well.

Okay. Nice Puerto Rican name. Yes sir. So I got to tell you this story. I'm in your restaurant, Prime Barbecue.

This is the best barbecue place ever. Whenever there's something special going on, we take our people there. In Knightdale, in Carolina, just a few minutes from us. And so I was down there with my staff at Church and Family Life and we were planning right at one of your tables there eating the best barbecue. It was so good.

You got to go. It's really, really good. And so we're sitting there enjoying this barbecue And I look over and there's this little girl standing there. And she says, is there anything that I can do for you? Can I help you?

Is everything okay? And I looked over at her and I said, do you work here? And she said, yes, I do work here. I said, do you enjoy it? Yes, I do.

And I said, does your daddy own this place? Yes. And then, and then another one of your daughters, a few minutes later came over, same old routine. Is there anything I can do to help you? Or she, what was she 12 years old or something like this?

And, I said, do you work here? Yes, I work here. Does your daddy own this place? So then we talked and I was so inspired by your daughters And I was so inspired by your daughters and I was so inspired by what you're doing in your restaurant. And I couldn't get out of my mind Deuteronomy 6.

You know, fathers teach your children when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. So I bumped into a guy who was doing that like almost in my hometown, and I was so excited. Because the heart of our ministry really is to help fathers return to the Scripture, which is sufficient. Scripture is sufficient for being a father. And you know, fatherhood is kind of, biblical fatherhood has kind of been lost in our culture, But it can be won back by people who really love the Gospel.

And God sets up fathers to be primary communicators of the Gospel when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. That's the Hebrew model of education. That's right. The Greek model is pour facts into the head. The Hebrew model is walk with your children.

It's walk along, talk along. That's what you were doing. And I was just so encouraged by that. So what's up? How did that happen?

Well, you know, I've been cooking barbecue my entire life. That's something I've always felt like I love to do. It initially was because my father loved barbecue when he moved from Puerto Rico to Texas, it became his favorite cuisine. So it became my favorite cuisine because what son doesn't want to please his father. And honestly, as we started eating barbecue together, I started cooking barbecue and it was just something I've always wanted to do and become.

Over time, I've had a lot of successes with barbecue. But the most important part about falling in love with the passion of barbecue, really developing that gift over time, I really didn't know its purpose for the longest time. I just knew I loved it, and it was going to bring me joy, it was going to make me look good, I was going to win awards with it. But it wasn't until I met a busser who worked alongside of me at a restaurant here in Raleigh, and through our relationship over time, he led me to know the Lord. And it wasn't until I started to develop a relationship with Jesus that I truly understand the purpose of my gift.

And ironically, it had nothing to do with fire and meat and trying to be the best. It all had to do with this is a platform to connect with somebody and to live beyond the tray of food we serve. I came to the realization over time that I could cook the perfect meal, the perfect barbecue, right? Everyone wants to be the best barbecue, or no one has the worst rib recipe you've ever had. Everyone has the best.

But when you truly do have the best, it's never going to be enough. It has to be something more. And that's where eternity comes into play. And my eternity with my father was everything. And I realized that he gave me this gift to show others what eternity looks like when you have that peace with Jesus.

And, you know, over time I started teaching barbecue classes, started creating a different platform to speak into people's lives. And it always started off as I'm going to teach you barbecue, but then it ended with a sermon of, but this is just a tool to develop a relationship with others. I started rehabilitating veterans, most importantly with the Wounded Warrior Project. That was a really deep connection. The Lord led me into this group of people.

And through that, those classes, I started developing relationships with soldiers who started joining my team. And that's how we started Prime Barbecue. I have some wounded veterans that work alongside of me. We designed Prime barbecue to be a destination barbecue restaurant, right? Cooking the best meat possible, the simplest way possible with seasoning and the hardest way possible.

That's a hundred percent wood, a hundred percent of the time. And that's what draws people in. But the most important part of our business is the fruit of what we're trying to create. We're trying to be on the plate of barbecue. So deep connections with people, deep hospitality, just running a business differently because we have a different bottom line.

See, most businesses are looking at the bottom line always. How do we keep labor right? How do we keep food costs right? Because we wanna net the highest profit possible. Well, I've always felt since I came to know the Lord, and I went to business school and I would learn all these things of the world.

You want to make profit and drive profit so you can live a better life. That when I come to meet the Lord, He's not going to ask me how successful my business was. He actually doesn't need that. He's not going to ask me how good I did every quarter with the business. He gave me he's gonna ask me one question He's like with the gifts.

I gave you how many souls did you bring me and I know That's the profit he's after with me, And I feel that in my heart. Now, over time, I met my wife 16 years ago, and since then we've had five children. They're wonderful. You know, we love big families. They arranged, we had twins to start off with, so the Lord knew I was going to be a very patient person, I think.

Twin 12-year-olds, I have an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 4-year-old. And I've come to realize that sharpening them and just learning more, being mentored by the right fathers around me that I admired, being in Scripture daily, understanding every single day what it means to be a father. I always think about what my Father in heaven, how he thinks about me, what he's teaching me, how he's crafting my heart to be more like him. I want my children to think the same of me. I want them, I wanna craft them to be more like me, which I'm just a reflection of Jesus' grace upon my life.

Was there a particular scripture that led you to start thinking like that? Well, when Joshua first gave me a Bible, I just started reading the Bible. I did not know what it was saying. And then he started discipling the Bible with me, meaning breaking Scripture down. Our mission statement at prime, and one thing that swung to my heart was Psalm 1 of 7, 9, is, for He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

It really... That was the first time scripture pierced me, and I just started just letting all this air out, all the air of what the world's been filling me with. I saw that word, satisfies, and that really... The enemy really made me love that word because that was my main focus every day. The world wants me to think, how can I satisfy myself?

How can I yolo best? How much money do I need to make? What do I need to achieve in my day, in my life, in my month, in my quarter? But then my favorite word in the Bible, which I love to use with people who don't know the Lord, because we all reflect on this word deeply, is the word longing. Longing is something we don't share.

We actually hide it behind our hearts because we can never share our longing, the things we yearn for beyond the, oh yeah, I'm trying to have a good day, But just the deep, deep wants until we have a coveted, transparent relationship. And for me, that didn't happen until I came to know Christ. Because it's not that I could share my longing with Him, I just couldn't hide it from Him. I can hide it from you and the people of this world. I don't have to share that part of myself.

But you see, when you develop a relationship with Jesus, He sees that longing, and that's what he nails to a cross for me. I tell people all the time in my pit room when I evangelize to them, coming into Jesus was the worst day of my life. You know, it wasn't this beautiful time where this angel came down playing a harp and I felt at peace. I was being crushed by my sin and I was laying on the floor and I had nowhere else to go. And at that same moment, a father came down and picked me up and said, this is exactly where I wanted you to be, and now I'm gonna take this from you, and I'm gonna put this on a cross.

My favorite part about coming into Jesus was the next day when I woke up, and I no longer held the weight of the sin on me anymore, that I was enough to him just by existing. And all he asked me to do was follow him and make disciples. And I really feel that starts with my family and my children. It forces me to be an example within the four walls. That's when you feel the most comfortable.

And a lot of fathers are different behind four walls than they are outside to the world. And I know every word I speak, every action I take, every tone I go in, my children are watching. They absorb what the father looks like through me to them. And that's a very important responsibility. So are you saying you're instructing your children to understand that there's a longing soul coming into your restaurant and everybody comes in to a restaurant with a whole bunch of baggage and background and troubles everybody has troubles so how are you how are you communicating that to your kids?

Well, I- Because that's what you think. You think you're receiving longing souls into your restaurant, But how do you communicate that to them? Well, I tell them, at first, you know, I have a lot of practice. I've been in the hospitality industry for a long time, and the girls have seen me live through it. But when I started the restaurant, I knew that was our new mission field.

And as a family, we needed to do this together, because this is what the Lord's called us to, and this is how we can interact. I'm teaching my children, most importantly, about evangelism. That's the number one priority. Our number one priority is to speak to people and to pierce their hearts and to talk to them about Jesus. That's our number one goal.

But people come into the restaurant because they're hungry, right? They're yearning for something. And specifically in a restaurant, spending their money because they want to be served. They want to be loved. They want to be valued.

In addition, they want good food. In your restaurant, a lot of people come because they heard that something is really good there. That's, yeah. And that's great. But That allows the guard to go down for us to connect with them.

So I teach the girls that the deepest thing we can do is just approach people, love and value them. And through those conversations, we can truly connect with them. And through that connection, I use the analogy of a bridge. We can't share Jesus with them until we establish a bridge. And each conversation we have, all we're doing is shaping a brick.

And brick by brick, we're establishing that bridge. And through that foundation of relationship, we can have a transparent conversation. But luckily, my girls, they're children. They speak from their hearts. Sometimes they just start speaking about Jesus to these people plainly.

There's no bridge or boundary. They know Christ lives within them. That's exciting to them. They want to share that. It teaches me a lot that I need to be more bold in my evangelism.

Like, it's here and now. Their eternity is a long time. And getting their souls very important. But I'm very strategic on how I plant those seeds from a business standpoint because I'm in the long game. Like, I want the net of every quarter to be as many souls as possible.

And speaking about Jesus is offensive, but with my children, it's really easy for them to speak about it because they're not gonna yell at a kid for saying the word Jesus. They're just speaking from their hearts. So it's almost refreshing to see that they have that option and that opportunity to speak about Jesus so clearly. That's why I think it's really important that fathers truly establish evangelism with their children, truly help them understand the gospel and scripture and how much Christ loves them, and give them an opportunity to work alongside of them in any type of environment. If you work in an office, do an activity outside where you and your children can strategically create a plan to talk to people about Jesus.

It's a beautiful thing to see because working with children teaches you a lot about yourself. As an adult, you hide a lot of yourself away Because you have to grow up. Children don't hide. They think everything's in clear sight. If they feel some way, they're gonna tell you how it is.

And it's great to work alongside a children because it teaches you more than you try to teach them. But with the girls, specifically, you know, sit with them before every shift. We pray or we talk about a principle and value we're going to focus on today, and I want to see that. I want to see them be bold in approach. Two of my daughters are very introverted.

And the one who spoke with you for a long time, she's my extrovert. But it teaches them it's okay to connect. It's just like teaching an evangelist, someone in your church who's afraid to evangelize. Everyone has the Holy Spirit within them. So you are fully equipped to evangelize.

You just have to have the practice and the want to share the gospel with people. Because in small groups, I'll be talking about Jesus with people when we do the small groups outside of church, like we'll hang out at a restaurant, they'll say, wow, you can really talk to those people. And I'm like, I'm not a good evangelist. I know how much Christ loves me, I'm very good at hospitality and I want to connect with these people." And then you always kind of sway the conversation in that direction. And Christopher, you were telling me that you have some intentionality, you have a room where you'll take people and the, what was it, the equipment there and everything kind of breathes some element of the gospel.

Yeah, that's right. So you know, I, I, I used people within my church and my mentors to help me create this evangelistic ministry at prime. I wanted to use a platform in a room where I could tell the story of who I am and what I went through. And then I always end on Psalm 107, 9, which is hidden in the inside of the wall. So while I'm showing them my first pit I ever cooked on, I show them all my trophies I've won, I show them the cookbooks I've written, the TV shows on Food Network I've been on.

I teach them about the fire. I always start with the fire. When we get to the fire part of our tour, that's when I start talking about the gospel, about how the fire has to burn a specific way or I can't yield anything great. I can have the best meats from the world shipped in, right? Cover them in diamonds and gold.

But unless I can sustain that fire little by little, I can't yield anything great. And then I start asking them, what do you put on your life's fire day by day? And what does that yield to you? And I just wanna see how their eyes shift. And my daughters stand beside me on these tours.

On Saturday, I want them to see how evangelism can be executed. And then ending with scripture, I can feel my daughter's always clenching my hand. Because I tell them, this is the point where we're gonna offend them. My heart was offended when I met someone at my restaurant. He offended me with his joy.

He offended me with his questions that put the weight of my sin on my shoulders. Very offensive. I did not like having conversations with him because he would reveal to me the longing and the thoughts of my heart, and it conflicted me, gave me conviction. But if he didn't do that, I wouldn't understand the relationship I could have with Jesus. So.

And your daughters are squeezing your hand. I can, one of my daughters get anxiety because they. Isn't that something? She knows it's coming. And she can see, she can feel.

When you're in that presence of that pit room, it's always in that pit room, and I have employees come in, they feel that presence. When I'm having that conversation, there's a lot of pressure because we're building up to, that's when Christ enters the room. That's when the Holy Spirit fills the room. That's when everything starts to pour out and I can see their eyes water or them turn away and need to take a deep breath because I'm talking about the King himself and how he's changed me. And you can't ignore that.

When he's around, you can't ignore that. It's a lot of built-up anxiety. Even my daughter can feel it, and she's heard the sermon over and over again, but it still pierces her heart, pierces my heart. But children need to see that no matter what you do, and I tell them every day, if you don't take over this business, that's okay. But you do what God calls you to do, and you give it souls for.

That's the end game. For me, it's barbecue. But who knows, you know, what the future holds for me. But the outcome is always the same. That's really, that's really beautiful.

I love The way that you're teaching your daughters side by side, you're walking with them, you're talking, you're holding their hands. This is how God designed fathers to operate. That's right. But it's not just so that fathers can be close to their daughters. It's so that the beauty of the gospel is transmitted from one generation to the next.

That's right. And you don't get that by outsourcing your children. We live in a world where kids are outsourced for all kinds of instruction. The best instruction is from fathers and mothers. That's what the Bible says.

Yes. You know, you are the primary instructor of your children. And I was just so blessed to be in your restaurant and to watch it, watch a man when he's sitting in his house, when he's walking, by the way, when he's lying down or rising up and his kids are with him. I just loved it. It was such a delightful picture.

And I just had to see If you could come on and talk about it. I really appreciate it. I'm so honored to be here. You know, doing due diligence of what you all do, I really feel there needs to be more of that, more of scripture and gospel in the family. It needs to be strengthened, for sure.

The generation now sees so many things of this world so quickly, and that just gives me pause to say we need to get the unit of a family stronger. And I don't want to go to church and that's the only time I worship. I want to worship at home with my family. I want to pray before every meal deeply. I want to pray with my children when they're having a bad day.

I want them to know that at any point you can go to the Lord and he can strengthen you. And it's an awesome ministry that you've created here. I appreciate that. The greatest evangelistic opportunity that the modern church is missing is fathers. That's right.

Every day, the gospel, not just on Sunday, not just out of Sunday school class, not out of youth group, every day saturation line upon line, just giving the whole context of the gospel. We encourage people, families, to read through the Bible every year. Just do it year after year after year, and when your kids leave, they won't just have a little gospel message. They'll see the multi-colored, beautiful tapestry of how God works. And so that's what we want to do, encourage men to do that.

I saw you do it, I was so delighted. So anyway, thanks for coming. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for having me. Amen.

Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope to See you next week. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us.

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